Neil deGrasse Tyson | Club Random Classics with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher: Neil deGrasse Tyson | Club Random Classics

Release Date: February 19, 2026
Theme: Bill Maher hosts astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson for a candid, humor-filled conversation on science, culture, personal stories, social change, artificial intelligence, and the big mysteries of the universe—all in the unfiltered, freewheeling style of Club Random.

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Episode Overview

In this fan-favorite Club Random Classic, Bill Maher and Neil deGrasse Tyson dive deep into the cosmos and human nature—exploring science’s process, how we interpret reality, the evolution of societal attitudes, challenges in communication, hot-button topics like gender and AI, and why Maher won’t play college campuses. Marked by mutual respect, friendly ribbing, and philosophical tangents, it’s a blend of laughter, insight, and the occasional clash of worldviews.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Science Communication & Pop Culture Integration

• Pop Culture + Science: Tyson explains his approach to making science engaging by weaving pop culture and humor into complex topics, as reflected in his book "To Infinity and Beyond."
  Notable Quote:
  “I provided scenery along the way. While you’re learning your science, you can capture some pop culture moments.” – Tyson (02:37)
• Maher's Praise for Tyson:
  “The reason why you’re such a great communicator is because like, most people who know what you know, they’re deadly dull... It’s like James Brown went to Harvard and got his degree.” (21:10)

2. Trust in Science and Process (The COVID-19 Debate)

• Science as a Process: Tyson emphasizes science isn’t static “truth” but an ever-evolving process, reliant on collective evidence, not individual authority:
  “Science is not the word of any individual... The objective truths of science are established only when there’s multiple tests, on a level where the individual no longer matters because it’s the collective body of evidence.” (11:20)
• COVID-19 Reflection:
  Maher questions the dominant COVID-19 narrative, referencing dissent and scientific uncertainty; Tyson agrees transparency about not knowing is critical and that lessons must be learned to improve future responses.
  Notable Quote:
  “People were not honest enough about the uncertainties at the time they made their declarations.” – Tyson (10:58)

3. Personal Stories: Carl Sagan's Influence

• Mentorship by Example: Tyson recounts his formative encounter with Carl Sagan, who personally invited him to Cornell and demonstrated the importance of openness and mentorship:
  “He set an example that I found valuable to follow.” (14:04)
  Tyson’s college decision came down to a clever analysis of Scientific American author bios—opting for Harvard’s sheer number of astrophysicists. (17:14)

4. Social Change and Perspective on Progress

• Progress in Race Relations: Tyson describes how things have improved for Black Americans, recounting police stops shared by a circle of Black PhD physicists, and emphasizing historical perspective:
  Notable Quote:
  “People don’t want to admit how much better things are today than at any time in the past... If you are female on the gender spectrum or a person of color, pick a time in the past where you were treated better than you are today. I don’t think there’s a single time you can pick.” – Tyson (26:02)

5. Comedy, College Campuses, and Free Speech

• The Generational Divide: Maher explains why comedians have largely stopped performing on college campuses, citing intolerance to free speech and “woke” censorship:
  “I’ve given up on any place that doesn’t... believe in free speech and thinks anything they hear that they don’t like... is violence. These people are fucking nuts and you should be calling them out.” (34:22)
• Tyson’s Alternative Approach: Tyson prefers adapting to new landscapes to maintain influence:
  “It’s not good enough to be right. You also have to be effective... If you reject the college campus, then you have no influence on them.” (35:18)

6. Sports, Gender, and Social Complexity

• Transgender Athletes Debate: They trade arguments about fairness in sports, societal structure, respecting minorities, and how to categorize competition—by gender, hormones, or otherwise.
  • Maher: “We protect and respect people who do not fit in [male/female], but... can we organize society around that basic point?” (47:14)
  • Tyson: “Maybe we don’t compete by gender anymore. We compete on hormone ratios.” (46:35)
• Nuanced Perspectives: Both acknowledge the challenge of balancing respect for minorities with maintaining meaningful competition and social cohesion.

7. Aliens, UFOs, and Evidence

• Eyewitness Testimony Skepticism: Maher presses Tyson about the growing number of credible UFO sightings and stories from public figures like Aaron Rodgers.
  • Tyson’s response: “If they are aliens, I would like better evidence than simple eyewitness sworn testimony. In science, what you swear on is not the measure of what is true, it’s just the measure of what you think is true in your mind.” (58:46)
• Tech Advances and Vanishing Evidence: Tyson points out, humorously, that the arrival of smartphones hasn’t brought the concrete UFO evidence promised in earlier decades.
• Classic Maher Joke:
  “200 simultaneous sore assholes is something.” (63:18)

8. AI, Technology, and Societal Fear

• AI Hype vs. Reality:
  Tyson argues “AI has been all around us for decades,” but Maher marks the quantum leap when tools like ChatGPT hit the public.
  • Tyson: “AI started making headlines because it started touching the lives of liberal arts people.” (64:00)
• Dystopian Movie Parallels: Both agree that much of the public’s fear of AI (and nuclear war) comes from decades of Hollywood imagining robot overlords or post-apocalyptic ruination.
  • Tyson paraphrases Ray Bradbury: “I write about those futures so you know to avoid them.” (69:10)
  • Maher: “Everything that happens in movies eventually happens in life... because it’s true.” (67:02)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Description | |-----------|---------|-------------------| | 02:37 | Tyson | “I provided scenery along the way. While you’re learning your science, you can capture some pop culture moments.” | | 07:58 | Tyson | “The universe is under no obligation to make sense.” | | 11:20 | Tyson | “Science is not the word of any individual... established only when there’s multiple tests.” | | 14:59 | Tyson | Recounts Carl Sagan’s personal letter: “He sent me a letter... Dear Neil, I understand you’re considering colleges...”| | 26:08 | Tyson | “People don’t want to admit how much better things are today than at any time in the past.” | | 29:58 | Maher/Tyson | Nostalgia for radio “Cousin Brucie” and Dan Ingram; Maher: “We don’t ask kids to listen.” | | 34:22 | Maher | “I’ve given up on any place that doesn’t... believe in free speech...” | | 35:18 | Tyson | “It’s not good enough to be right. You also have to be effective.” | | 46:35 | Tyson | “Maybe we don’t compete by gender anymore. We compete on hormone ratios.” | | 58:46 | Tyson | “If they are aliens, I would like better evidence than simple eyewitness sworn testimony.” | | 63:18 | Maher | “200 simultaneous sore assholes is something.” (uproarious laughter) | | 67:02 | Maher | “Everything that happens in movies eventually happens in life... because it’s true.” | | 69:10 | Tyson | Paraphrasing Bradbury: “I write about those futures so you know to avoid them.” | | 71:22 | Tyson | “I fear that we are not wise enough to be the shepherds we need to be for the future of civilization.” |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:53] Arrival, drinks, pop culture, science communication
• [06:23] Creativity: arts vs. science, brain limitations
• [09:00] Trust in science, COVID-19 and expertise
• [13:37] Carl Sagan, Tyson’s academic path
• [19:09] Astrophysics as a rare profession
• [24:34] Racial progress, personal histories, civil rights
• [32:08] Comedy, college campuses, generational culture clash
• [46:35] Gender, sports, categorization debate
• [56:54] UFO stories, skepticism, the demand for evidence
• [63:41] AI, technology, Hollywood dystopias
• [69:10] Avoiding dystopia, wisdom for future generations

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Tone & Atmosphere

Maher and Tyson spar amicably but never personally, mixing playful banter, introspection, and deep dives into culture and science. The vibe is simultaneously irreverent and respectful, full of laughter, curveballs, and moments of hard truth. Both men poke fun at themselves and each other, but end on a note of mutual admiration and philosophical hope.

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Final Thoughts

Whether discussing the mysteries of the cosmos, the rise of AI, or generational rifts, Maher and Tyson showcase the art of disagreement without enmity. Tyson’s faith in collective progress and evidence balances Maher’s skepticism and cultural wariness, making this a lively, engaging primer on how to debate, laugh, and learn—Club Random style.

Transcript

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[A]

In this month's Club Random Classics, we rewind to Neil Degrasse Tyson, the Professor, one of my favorites from Are We Alone? To Carl Sagan's influence on his life. That's Are We Alone in the Universe? If you weren't following. He's an astrophysicist. You know things like a surprisingly heated debate about college kids. Nothing's ever off limits here. You know that. We laugh a lot and it's pure Club Random. So grab something cold or green or both and hit play. Club random. There he is.

[B]

The man himself. Do I genuflect? What do I do?

[A]

Dr. Dunn. Come here.

[B]

Give me a hug.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

How you doing?

[A]

Profess of personality? How are you? Look at you? I got you in my lair.

[B]

Oh, in your.

[A]

And look, you're already man caged. No, that's for a married guy. This is a discotheque. So. Well, you can't tell without the music, but. And you've already leaned on your prop. I love authors who aren't shy. Well, we will get to this. I've been reading this, you know what?

[B]

You have? Yeah.

[A]

Okay. It's much more pop culture. Yeah.

[B]

Very pop culture. Very pop culture.

[A]

So you dumbed it down.

[B]

For me personally, I provided scenery along the Way. While you're learning your science, you can capture some pop culture moments.

[A]

What are the scientists talking about? These. What's new in outer space, Doc?

[B]

No, I feel like half of me is tending to scientific diversions in the public, you know, aliens or UFO sightings.

[A]

I know. We'll get to that. But I want to know, actually, like, when you're in the coffee clotch with your other egg, what do we talk about? What? Gossip out there. What's putting a tingle in your anus?

[B]

Okay, that's not where I get my tingles, but fine.

[A]

You knew I was gonna work that out.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know about your anus, but okay. My anus?

[A]

What is going on with your anus? You must know planets like that change.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, they have some gossip we could get. No, not from Uranus. That would be Uranus, obviously. Okay.

[A]

Oh, really? Is that the way you're supposed to.

[B]

If you're older than age 8, yes, you say Uranus.

[A]

Do you have a drink?

[B]

Yeah. Do you want to drink? I'm doing a Grand Marnier here.

[A]

What do you drink? A grandma.

[B]

Yeah. I'm a wine guy, but when I have wine, it's with food and generally not otherwise. But if I'm just chilling, as I am with you.

[A]

Excuse me, a wine guy.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And I can hang with the snobbiest among them. So just.

[A]

Really, I mean. You mean, like, you know about wine?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You do?

[B]

Academically? Yeah, I mean, I know. Yeah.

[A]

So that's like a hobby.

[B]

Yes, that's a right way to say that. So if you had, like an Australian Siraz, a California Cabernet, a California Zinfandel, a French Bordeaux, French Burgundy, a Spanish Rioja, I would just go right on down and tell you which one they are. The brain, the human brain, barely works.

[A]

But enough about Matt Gage. Good night, everybody.

[B]

It barely works, you know, two people viewing the same thing give a different account. Right. We've known that psychology. Psychologists have known this forever. And we have books of optical illusions.

[A]

Where.

[B]

Oh, is the line, one line bigger or smaller? I don't know. I can't tell. Is it in the page? Simple line drawings can confuse the mind.

[A]

That one is very confusing. It just is. All of these are. Or else they wouldn't put them in a book.

[B]

This is my point. So. So don't look down on it. If the brain barely works.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Cannot convince me that stirring in other chemicals will make objective reality more apparent to you.

[A]

Oh, but it does. And has.

[B]

No. Of course it has no here's the difference. Here's the difference.

[A]

More artistic, you know, that's different.

[B]

Fine. I know. Fine. But I am sure unlocks creativity. Fine. Right.

[A]

Well, there's no creativity in your field.

[B]

There is. However. However, in my field, nature is the judge, jury and executioner of my creativity.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Whereas to an artist.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

There's room there.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

That's the differ. If Van Gogh did not paint the starry night, or if Beethoven didn't compose the ninth Symphony, no one ever born after them is going to do that. Whereas if Einstein wasn't born, somebody or some combination of people would have eventually found relativity, no doubt about it. So our creativity is on a landscape where there's only going to be one answer there, not for the artist. So, yeah, stir in the chemicals for the artist and you'll see the world in whole new ways. For art, music, you know what? And with the microdosing, that's a whole frontier right there. Right.

[A]

This is not a hill I'm gonna die on with you. Because I'm basically of the same mind. Because I know, especially through relationships, you know, being in show business, I always say I'm in show business. I'm not of it. So I'm not over there with the. I know what you mean, but I've known people who were artists, you know, in a relationship level, and they just come at a truth a different way. You know, it's not linear and it's not rational. We call these people women. No, no, not just women, but. But there is an artistic way of perceiving reality and it can be very frustrating. Like if you are. I'm much more of the logical type, you know?

[B]

And do other people think that about you?

[A]

Yes, they do.

[B]

Okay, just checking.

[A]

I know the fact that you and I disagree on a number of things makes me sometimes question like, well, maybe he's wrong about the outer space shit. Because normally what I do.

[B]

Wait. Someone who disagrees with you means they're wrong and you're right?

[A]

No, it just makes sense.

[B]

That's what you just said implied that.

[A]

Well, it does question if you disagree with someone on like A, B, C, D and E, and then F. See, F for us would be like your field, which I know nothing about. And I know you're a genius in. I know that. So, like, when questions about, you know, astrophysics come up, I always just go, whatever Neil DeGrasse Tyson says. I'm down with that. If he says the Big Bang theory happened and the whole universe fit into a marble. It sounded A little fucking weird.

[B]

Well, the universe is under no obligation to make sense.

[A]

No, I understand that. And I understand that what I have faith in. And of course everything is faith. Even though we're both atheists. What I have faith in is that even though I can't understand how that happened. You do. You really do.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

However, put in the 10,000 hours, okay? You have the big brain. You figured this out, and I trust you on that subject. I don't trust you on everything else.

[B]

But you don't have to. I don't, of course. But if I have a view of something that is factual, it's because the evidence I've seen supports that view. I don't have beliefs in things that are not otherwise supported by evidence. And I would ask you, what does it take to change your mind? Because I know exactly what it takes to change my mind. It's the weight of evidence brought to bear on a question, or my belief in it, if we use that word, is proportionate to that evidence.

[A]

Right. So. But people look at the same evidence. I mean, we're really talking about medicine now, even though we're not saying it for some reason. And people look at the same evidence. That's why they say about doctors get a second opinion, because in medicine, it is still an opinion, and the experts disagree. Thousands and thousands of doctors and medical experts have disagreed about how we handled Covid. There was just a very big court case called Missouri vs Biden, which decided in the favor of these doctors because they said they weren't allowed to get their point of view across because the government colluded with the tech companies. So we only heard one point of view. So, you know, the science. There's no the in science for things like a new virus that we're still studying and still don't know a lot about. And that's why there is dissenting opinion, lots of it. You don't even hear all of it because they're so intimidated. So, like, something like that.

[B]

I'd like to address that.

[A]

Yeah, go ahead.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So with the Monday morning quarterback, you know, as we all are after the facts, we could go back and restructure how the rollout would have and should have been done. There's no question about it. Okay. About, you know, the discovery of the virus, the development of the vaccines, the rollout of the vaccines, the progress of the virus, the mutations of the virus, the lethality of the virus, the comorbidities of the virus. All of that could have come out better. And I'd like to Think somebody made a book of recommendations from this. So the next time we have another pandemic, which is not. We don't have to wait a century for that, that we're prepared in a way that people are properly informed. That's my first point.

[A]

Well, we're making that book as we go because lots of stuff we know now that we didn't know and a lot of it is like, oh, yeah, no, that wasn't a good idea, or oh yeah, the virus actually.

[B]

Correct, correct. But people were not honest enough about the uncertainties at the time they made their declarations. And part of it, the other half of this is when you learn about science in school, what do you think science is? And most people think it's what's in a book with bold faced words that you memorize and take the test and you don't realize it's a process. A process of querying nature.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And understand. Coming to an understanding. So now here's my point, more relevant to what got you into this. Science is not the word of any individual science. The objective truths of science are established only when there's multiple tests. Multiple tests on a level where the individual no longer matters because it's the collective body of evidence.

[A]

Totally agree.

[B]

What we have in this world is, and you've seen this in all manner of categories, you're channel surfing on YouTube and somebody says, the establishment thinks this, but I have the real answer and they're trying to suppress it. This is irresistible to go listen to that one person who's opposite the establishment. And here's the thing, just because the establishment doesn't agree with you, it doesn't mean you're correct. So you can say this expert and this.

[A]

I don't care about this, but you're setting up a dynamic between the establishment, which is to say Dr. Fauci, and a crazy person who thinks there are chips in the vaccine. Yes, I'm talking about Fauci versus Dr. Martin Calder.

[B]

No, but I'm saying Fauci.

[A]

Fauci versus Jay Bhattachary. These are.

[B]

Hold on. Okay, Fauci. So don't pretend that I'm on it. Fauci.

[A]

I'm on Fauci.

[B]

Fauci in principle should and most of the time does represent the mainstream understanding of the drugs, the disease, the reactions and the like.

[A]

The mainstream, which has been wrong about so many of it.

[B]

Well, this. Well, then that's a separate conversation.

[A]

But it is a true conversation.

[B]

Hold on. So then he represents a mainstream. It's not cause he's an expert. It's because not only is he an expert, but that's not the issue here. It's that ideally, he is conveying a community understanding of what's going on. Now you want to put him against another person who has pedigree, Harvard, Cornell, whatever, and you're gonna say there's one expert against another. That's not how science works.

[A]

So why didn't you go to Cornell?

[B]

Oh, you know, it never really came out in my biography.

[A]

I mean.

[B]

Yeah, that never really came out, it seems like. I tell you, I have this.

[A]

I mean, we both have a connection. I took his course. Carl Sagan. What? He was. Capital H. He was there, like, for one class.

[B]

Yeah, I'm told he was. He was. He was.

[A]

Well, he was a star. I mean, I only took it because I saw him on the Tonight show and I was like, wow, I could take a course with this guy.

[B]

Yeah. Carl Sagan. For anyone who's not knowing who he's talking about.

[A]

Yes. And he's your, you know, your hero, your mentor.

[B]

Yeah, he was. He's. By the way, he's a mentor. Not one on one. Just by example. I mean, I saw what he did, how he said things, how he interacted with people, the patience that he had for people whose brains were just somewhere completely off the rails. And so I've learned a lot from that. But not because he was a direct mentor, but because he set an example that I found valuable to follow. So he. Just to catch people up in case they didn't know I was in high school, applied to a bunch of colleges. Cornell was one of the ones I was accepted to. And unknown to me, the admissions office must have sent my application to him saying, here's someone we want to attract. Can you do anything about it? He sent me a letter. A letter. I'm a 17 year old high school kid in the Bronx, said, dear Neil, I understand you're considering colleges. Are you considering Cornell? If you want to come visit, come by. I'll give you a tour of the labs. You can find out what you make a decision.

[A]

But how did he know that you were this prodigy?

[B]

My application to college was dripping with the universe, okay? Right. And it wasn't because of him. I was natively.

[A]

So he wasn't. It wasn't just like shot in the dark. He was like, I see that this kid is the one.

[B]

I had telescopes since I was. I walked to.

[A]

But you put it in the application.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Okay. So he read something of yours and went, whoa, who Is this.

[B]

I was in the astronomy club.

[A]

Phenom.

[B]

Yeah. I was on an expedition to study Stonehenge. I had all of this stuff in. My engagement with the universe was so thorough that it was a separate identity outside of whatever I was doing in a classroom. And so I had energy for it. And so he saw that and sent me this letter. Right. So the letter was not completely out of the blue. There was. There was justification there from within the application. It was dripping with the universe. So I showed it to my mother. She said, yeah, this is, like, legit. All right, let's do it. So got on a bus in December. Okay. Went up to Cornell. Five hour bus ride, that is. And he met me outside the lab. We went in, talked to him in his office, and I would never forget this. He did a no look reach. He went back like this, and it was one of his books. And I said, wow, that's badass.

[A]

You learned that? And here it is, ladies and gentlemen, to infinity and beyond.

[B]

He did a no look reach. And it was one of his books. And he signed it to me. Of course, I still have it. He says to Neil, future astronomer. Okay. Then the day ran long, and he drove me back to the bus station. It started to snow, not uncommon in Ithaca, New York. And he was wondering. He said, if the bus doesn't come through, here's my home phone number.

[A]

Did he touch you inappropriately? Where is this go. Where is this going?

[B]

Where does that. Yeah, come spend the night, Right? No.

[A]

So a tent. It's Ithaca in the winter.

[B]

So I. So, yeah, I got on the bus. It still came through. I've had people tell me afterwards that I should have just said the bus didn't come through, and then spend the night.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But anyhow, so I didn't end up going to Cornell, because here's what I did at the time. This is like Inside Baseball here. But I had subscribed to Scientific American, and my favorite part was about the authors. And people who write for Scientific American are scientists. They're not journalists. So about the authors. It tells them where they went to college, where they got their master's, where they got the PhD and where they were on the faculty. This is total information. I got all the articles on astronomy and physics that I loved, and I made a grid for which of the schools I was admitted to had check marks from these authors, where they'd gone to college, where they were, and Harvard one, hands down. And I didn't know at the time that the Smithsonian center for Astrophysics, which is A government installation was co located with the Harvard Observatory. And so the numbers I was looking at was the sum of those two. But that's fine, because if you're looking for summer jobs and stuff, you know, it's all one complex of buildings. So I said, if I go to Cornell and he leaves, I knew enough to know that professors move around. Then I went to Cornell for a reason that then evaporates. Whereas at Harvard, the sheer number of people doing astrophysics I thought was a stable, stable community to walk into. And so I went to Harvard.

[A]

Is it a community? Most of your friends.

[B]

We all know each other. There are not many of us.

[A]

Not many astrophysicists.

[B]

No. There's how many in the world? Eight, ten? Thousand?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there's eight billion people. So you divide those two numbers, we're literally one in a million human beings on Earth. So if you have an astrophysicist in the room with you, you better ask all your questions because you might not see another one for the rest of your life.

[A]

But isn't there things that you, unless.

[B]

You'Re Bill Martin, you could just summon them up out of the ether?

[A]

Well, there's no such thing as ether. Okay, so I'm being artistically poetic.

[B]

I know. Is that allowed?

[A]

Well, we're both in the other category, but. Well, we're both. We're combinations. You're a very creative guy in your field. I try to be, but in fact.

[B]

Just a few days ago, I went back and saw your 2003 standup.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

In Hudson Theater in New York. It was very 911 focused.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But just to remind myself of you when you were young. Tyke. Yeah. 20 years ago.

[A]

Man. What do you know, 60s.

[B]

Oh, tomorrow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I turn 65.

[A]

Oh, tomorrow.

[B]

That's my big day.

[A]

Oh, I wish. I know it.

[B]

No, I'm not broadcasting. No, I said it now, but no.

[A]

Would I baked your cake or something?

[B]

No, no.

[A]

And that's a big.

[B]

That's a milestone. I'm getting all the mail from Medicare and you know, and old, you know, arp, arp, aarp.

[A]

But you know, it doesn't matter because look at you. You're robust, you look healthy, you look generically middle aged. That's as. As you can do and keep that.

[B]

For a long time. Yeah.

[A]

I say for 65, that is as good as you can.

[B]

You look at old movies, all the old people are 65 in the old movies.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Reminder that people didn't live long back then.

[A]

Well, I'm not gonna lie. It. It is old you know, it's the thing among old people. We're the youngest. You know, that's what we got.

[B]

Okay, you tell yourself that.

[A]

All right?

[B]

No, but I. I don't feel like my behavior is not old. Like, at important meetings, I still tell jokes and I spin in the board chair, you know? Cause they're very low friction, and they're fun to spin in. And I. You know, I drink a lemonade when everyone else is having a beer. I'll drink a milkshake when everyone else is having some. I just. I do.

[A]

I mean, the reason why you're such a great communicator is because, like, most people who know what you know, they're deadly dull communicating it. You. It's like James Brown went to Harvard and got his degree. You know, you're just.

[B]

You know, I feel good.

[A]

Well, the audience feels good when you.

[B]

Well, thank you. Thank you. Oh, it's true. It's because I'm feeling. I feel the content.

[A]

I mean, you. You became a brand, you know, you got.

[B]

Yeah. Not on purpose.

[A]

Podcast. Podcast is huge. I mean, Cosmos was remained one of my favorite television shows of all time. And this is going back to McHale's navy, I'm telling you.

[B]

Oh, McHale's navy. But McHale's navy.

[A]

Yeah. Do you remember that when you were a kid?

[B]

I always saw him. They always show him leaning over the edge. But I said, but if it's flat, that's not the front of the boat. Wouldn't he be looking to the front of the boat? The boat would be pointy. I always had issues with that.

[A]

What is this obsession you have?

[B]

No, I have issues with.

[A]

This is your mind. Like, you're not the creator of my. I mean, you are, but you're not the.

[B]

Like in. What's the one? Lost in Space. In Lost in Space, they're in a flying saucer. I know, but this flosser's spinning. They're looking straight out a window at one thing in front of them. Why aren't they spinning around?

[A]

Because we don't care. Because we the people. We the people, not the geniuses. We don't care. We don't see.

[B]

They come here in spinning flying saucers. They'll walk off dizzying.

[A]

I know. And Captain Kirk, you know, when he kissed the green chick, I mean, of course we know that if they're green on another planet, they're probably not going to be hot. Also, you know, the odds.

[B]

He didn't get mail on kissing the green woman, but they got. He got mail Kissing. Kissing. Uhura.

[A]

He kissed. But not on the cheek.

[B]

Yeah, no, it was a lip kiss.

[A]

It was.

[B]

Yes, it was the first white, black, interracial kiss on television. You didn't know this Star Trek?

[A]

I guess I did, but.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, he got made. Oh, here, here's, here's the, here's one from the South. You ready? It's. I totally object to this, you know, this miscegenation there, but if I had to kiss a black woman, you'd be.

[A]

The one who said that.

[B]

That's just some random guy who's complaining about the interaction.

[A]

Oh, I mean, trust me, there are still.

[B]

So it was a compliment mixed in with the insult.

[A]

There are still plenty of idiot men today who say things like that. Like, I'm not really usually attracted to a black girl, but you're different. Like they think that's a compliment or that it's going to get you. I mean, that kind of ignorance will take longer to eradicate. But the other one I remember from that era was Petula Clark. Do you remember who that was?

[B]

Yeah, sure, but what about her?

[A]

Nothing. I just want to know if you remember. No, no, she kissed. Or Harry Belafonti kissed her on the cheek. Just on the cheek, like in a 1967. Something like that special. And the affiliates in the south, like, I think they dropped the network, you know, like it was just like, you know, and we're talking about a peck on the cheek and it was real human beings. The changes you must have seen in your life.

[B]

Yes, in my lifetime. Now that I'm a 65 year old man. Yeah.

[A]

Can you describe that? I would love to, because I heard you on a podcast once talk about getting pulled over with a bunch of. I think you were talking about other African American.

[B]

Yeah, no, what it was, was I was at a conference where, you know, in conferences there's the banquet night, which is the night before the last day. And usually there's a bottle of wine, you grab it off the table, go to a common room or something, you just chill and chew the fat. And I'm there and we're going around the circle and somehow we got talking about police and police stops. Right. So we went around the circle and every person is sharing their story. But we're all PhD physicists. Okay, right. And sharing stories about police stops and just went around multiple times. And the only thing we have in common other than being PhD physicists is that we're all black.

[A]

How many?

[B]

Well, there were eight of us in the circle.

[A]

Eight of us in the room.

[B]

Just in that one circle. And the stories had a very similar tone to it. We were stopped and not given a ticket. So the stop was on some suspicion that was not then fulfilled.

[A]

What year is this?

[B]

This is 1992. 93.

[A]

Okay, so now it's 20. 23.

[B]

So that's 30 years ago, I'm happy to say.

[A]

On a scale of how much that has changed.

[B]

Oh, very. You know, it's an excellent question, Bill.

[A]

Because it's what I'm always asking.

[B]

Bill. Bill, where are we now?

[A]

Bill?

[B]

Bill, Bill. People don't want to admit how much better things are today.

[A]

I'm always making this point than at.

[B]

Any time in the past.

[A]

I'm trying to tell. I am always. I'm trying to.

[B]

And here's what you do. Here it is. You set up a time machine, okay? A time machine watch. And then if you are female on the gender spectrum or a person of color, and you put them in the time machine and say, pick a time in the past where you were treated better than you are today. And if you really think that through, I don't think there's a single time you can pick.

[A]

But the kids at all see the problem with.

[B]

Well, because that's what they know. Here's the problem.

[A]

Well, the problem is education. If you don't teach kids history, if they don't know what happened, they think everything is just the present.

[B]

The present, and everything bad in the present is the worst that ever happened.

[A]

I try to tell them I don't even need history books to know something like this.

[B]

You lived it. You lived it.

[A]

I saw America like you did. Yes, but not like you did. That's why I'm asking you. Because I can't know what you know.

[B]

Here's what I'm telling you. So for me, yeah, I'm choosing the future because that ARC looks better to me than any time in the past. But the reason why there's value to this exercise is rather than not, rather than in addition to complaining that things aren't what they should be, progressively, if you look at the past and realize how much it has changed, what you can ask is, what did we do right, to get to where we are today, let's do more of that. Rather than only look at what's bad today and then try to eradicate that. There are lessons that we learned, and my father was among them. Was active in the civil rights movement, worked under Mayor Lindsay in New York.

[A]

Really?

[B]

He was a commissioner. Right. Mayor Lindsay, Manpower, career. You know what news article was not written in the 1960s, about New York. New York had no major riots. The largest ghetto in the country, up in Harlem, had no skirmishes here and there. Nothing like Watts. Nothing like Newark. Newark. Nothing.

[A]

Right across the river.

[B]

Right across the river. And so no one writes articles about that. My father was there at the time. And what is a riot if not the last desperate act when you know there is no other path of hope? Right. And so he was a commissioner of Manpower and Career Development Agency. That was an agency in New York where youth in the inner city would realize they might have a job. There's a career for them. There's opportunity in arm's reach. So it was never a powder keg. So, yeah.

[A]

Our fathers may have crossed paths. Well, my father was in radio news. We lived in Jersey, but he commuted every day into Manhattan. And maybe your father was.

[B]

He might. He was interviewed every now and then.

[A]

That's what I'm saying.

[B]

Died a few years ago. I checked my mother. My mother's still alive.

[A]

No, but this would be in the 60s, 70s.

[B]

Yes. Of course, I can't ask him. I'm saying. Yeah, it would be 60s, early 70s. Yes.

[A]

Isn't that funny?

[B]

So you've been in the business. Your parents.

[A]

Well, I would hardly call that the business. But radio news. Yes. I mean, that was what put.

[B]

That's the thing. That was an important thing back then.

[A]

It was the era when radio. Every radio station had news at the top of the hour.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you would have five minutes of news. And, you know, even us kids listening to wabc, Cousin Bruce, abc, we had to, like, sit through five minutes of news.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

We don't. I feel like we don't ask kids.

[B]

Cousin Brucey. You didn't say it right, Cousin.

[A]

Oh, you remember Wa.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Dan Ingram.

[B]

Dan Ingram.

[A]

Ron Lundy. I mean.

[B]

But I would listen to Dan. WBLS.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The total experience and sound. 107.5.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

In stereo.

[A]

You could have been a voice guy.

[B]

You say face for radio. Is this what you're saying?

[A]

No. Really? You have that? You could do that?

[B]

No, I. You know, what happened was this. Nobody knows this. I was on the roof showing the night sky to like, 40 people. And this a tall building that had these big air conditioning ducts. And I was just speaking over the volume of that. And then at one point, my voice cracked and I tasted blood in the back. It was like, what the fuck? What? And so I went to the doctor, the ENT and all these people, and they wanted me to learn how to send my voice out from my chest more than from my throat. I think opera singers know this, Right. They know how to do that, but I didn't know anything about it. So I did all these voice exercises, and as I did this, my voice got more and more chest resonant.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so it's a way to protect my throat. That's really what's going on.

[A]

Do you remember the record Rainy Night in Georgia? Do you?

[B]

Yes, I do. Of course. There's even the sound of rain.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Who sang it?

[B]

Oh, no, that wasn't Billy Preston. No.

[A]

Brooke Benton.

[B]

Oh, no. I wouldn't have remembered that.

[A]

I feel like you could cover that song, Rainy Night in Georgia.

[B]

Yeah. So now. So I was being interviewed on cnn, and I miss our boy's voice doing the. This is cnn. You know Darth Vader, right? Did that for years.

[A]

Yes, he did.

[B]

Yeah. And then he stopped doing it. It's like, hell, I could do that. Right? This is cnn. I got that. So I laid a few tracks for them. I don't know what they'll do with it.

[A]

You know, talk about a place that's not too scientific, though.

[B]

So, Bill, how come nothing makes you happy?

[A]

Nothing? What are you talking about?

[B]

You're the grumpiest. You know what?

[A]

I feel grumpy.

[B]

What? I feel like right now. I feel like now I'm going to turn 65. I feel like we're on. On your porch in the rocking chair. Get off my lawn, you Yuck. You.

[A]

I'm not the grumpy one.

[B]

Let me ask. Can I ask? I know it's your podcast, but I've been carrying questions within me for you.

[A]

Yes, I'm pleased. Carrying this. Wow.

[B]

So you don't, as I heard you say, maybe you.it here and there, but you've abandoned college campuses in your standup.

[A]

Every comedian has.

[B]

Okay, so literally everyone, let me ask you, if you came up today, would you just read the landscape and develop a whole other comedic repertoire that does not end up having people pick it outside your thing? Are you just transposed and you're not adjusting to the shifting terrain, so why is it their fault and not your fault?

[A]

You're being so broad about the whole thing.

[B]

Yeah, I am.

[A]

I am. Well, but that doesn't work because that doesn't ever explain anything. If you want to talk about specific issues. It's funny, this subject comes up a lot of times with, like, people who are, you know, my friends who are around my age, 40. No. And they have, like, kids who are, like, super woke and Drive them fucking nuts.

[B]

I got woke kids. I will never be as woke as my kids would want me to be, ever.

[A]

Yeah, but you're a little too still. And you know, woke does not automatically mean better. Newer does not automatically mean.

[B]

Right, that's true.

[A]

So that's why I say to talk broadly is bullshit. You have to, like, talk about what specific issue are we talking about? The ones that get people's attention or gender issues. Yeah, I know, but things like that, that. Okay, this is very different.

[B]

You cut your teeth in the 70s.

[A]

What I'm saying is.

[B]

And you read the rumor.

[A]

Okay, but I'll answer.

[B]

You read the politics.

[A]

I didn't read the politics. Yes, you did. How the fuck do you know what I did?

[B]

Because I know your jokes of the era. They were great.

[A]

Well, a lot of people think they're great now.

[B]

Okay. They're still great.

[A]

I don't know if you don't any.

[B]

No, no. What I meant was, am I not well enough? Jokes that would work on a college campus. Okay, Surely there's a portfolio of jokes that would still work on a college campus. Surely.

[A]

I would hope not. From what? Maybe some college campuses, the ones you read about are fucking insane.

[B]

You've given up on an entire generation and you don't know how to make them last.

[A]

I've given up on any place that doesn't even remotely attempt to believe in free speech and thinks that anything that they hear that they don't like that they don't agree with is violence. These people are fucking nuts and you should be calling them out. Somebody like you who has standing with kids should be not joining them. When a society to it, you're doing what parents do. You're taking the path of least resistance and therefore hurting the kids and yourself. Parents ruin both their lives. They ruin their fucking sports and they ruin their own lives. Cause the kids rule the roost. So that's what you're doing on a national level.

[B]

I'm feeling more like on the porch. Get off my lawn.

[A]

Really? I feel like we're in the barbershop.

[B]

That works too. In the inner city, it's the barbershop. We don't have porches in the. Well, there's the stoop. There's the stoop. So I just. So here's my point.

[A]

That's my point.

[B]

I'm trying to get through to people on my social media and the like. And I see what people pisses people off, what they react to. And I say, all right, these are the landmines. I'm Gonna navigate. That I'm gonna navigate. Okay? So I navigate it so that I can say, because my father's greatest bit of wisdom to me, several nuggets. One of them was, it's not good enough to be right. You also have to be effective. And if you reject the college campus, then you have no influence on them. They're not gonna say, oh, we're not gonna get Bill. Maybe we should change. Then you have no influence on em.

[A]

Sweetheart, I can wait till they grow up a little. Okay? I can wait. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about. With comedians, people age.

[B]

Rank on me.

[A]

Comedian. No, you don't know what I'm talking about. You know, the. You know, outer space.

[B]

But what I will tell you, I.

[A]

Know fucking doing comedy shows.

[B]

I'm a huge consumer of your trade.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Well, I mean, thank you on behalf of all the comedians in my trade.

[B]

I'm a huge consumer. I'm just letting you know that.

[A]

You mean of all comedians.

[B]

Yes. Of all comedians.

[A]

Yes. Well, on behalf of all of us.

[B]

A fast Jay Leno joke. Not joke. Observation. When you have a.

[A]

Please, let's not let the moment pass. I want to hear this.

[B]

Oh, you want to hear it now?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Leno.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today, while I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get back my new contacts in time for this class, I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.

[A]

And breathe.

[B]

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[A]

This episode is brought to you by Redfin.

[B]

You're listening to a podcast, which means.

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[B]

A real shot at getting it. Get [e-mail] own the dream. I watch Leno every night. His model. I didn't care about the guest. Watch the monologue every night. And he has the longest monologue of all the guys at night. Okay, Genius comedian. Okay. And so I knew his timing, I knew his rhythms. I knew on the possibility that I would ever end up on his show, I would be in lockstep with him. Then the call came. Yeah, okay. Now, he doesn't typically do scientists, so this was. I think it was unusual for him. And he's a literate guy, science literate guy, but he wasn't like Johnny Carson with scientists on all the time.

[A]

But that's a credit to you. You rose to the level of pop culture translator of science, which is a great place to be. And only a few people get to do that.

[B]

Thank you. But it's a lot of work learning what the hell's going on out there in pop culture.

[A]

Boo fucking ho.

[B]

So here's what happened. So what show was it? It had Jimmy Fallon on it. Why? Because two weeks later, he's taken over for. So this is like the last week of Jay Leno's tenure and I'm on the show. Okay. But then I realized, I know why I'm on the show. Because that night was the night that day Obama was inaugurated. 2008, 2009, January 20th. So that evening, all of Hollywood is not available, but Neil is available. Okay, So I fly out to California. Okay, so now watch. And he had a great joke about the inauguration in a minute. But watch what happens. He says, ah, so, Neil, what do you. What's the latest in the universe?

[A]

I said, oh, that's a terrible Leno impress. Thank you. So what's Helenus in the Earth?

[B]

And so I set him up for a joke. Okay. This is like dangling fruit. I said, on Mars, we just discovered that there's gaseous effluences coming from the ravine. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. And so then I wait like three quarters of a second to see if he picks that up. If he doesn't, I keep going. And he didn't pick it up. So I said, and we analyze the gases, and it's mostly methane. There was a pause. No, he's still in pieces. Oh, he's, like, listening and learning rather than being active.

[A]

Well, in his defense, I don't know what the joke is about methane either. Maybe this is something you astrophysicists know.

[B]

Methane. Such as? Such as what you'd find in the lower intestines of farm animals.

[A]

Yeah, cow farts.

[B]

Still, he doesn't say anything. Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon says, I can see it now. On Mars, they have cow dad saying, pull my hoof. So Jimmy picked it up.

[A]

Wow, that's good.

[B]

And so I was like, what am I gonna. I can't do. What am I gonna do here?

[A]

Well, I don't know what the point of that story is.

[B]

I was saying I followed the comedic thing. So the. Do you remember Aretha Franklin sang at the inauguration and she had this big, like, hat? Vaguely. I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, but it was a huge hat. So the next day he says, last night in his monologue, last night I had astrophysicist Neil Degrasse. Okay, I won't imitate it. Fine. Last night I had Neil Degrasse Tyson on. And he told me there's only two things visible from space. The Great Wall of China and Aretha Franklin's hat. That was just good. So I made it into two nights there. That's all.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

And I have a keepsake from that day. My cup was from the Today show. I mean, from the Tonight Show. Okay, this is tonight. On my side, it says guest number two. Yeah, that's my.

[A]

I was on the Tonight show that week, too. This last week.

[B]

Seriously?

[A]

Yeah. Seth MacFarlane and I sang Got in tuxedos.

[B]

What? I missed that.

[A]

Yeah, YouTube it. And we sang. I rewrote with the help of my writers, I recall. Thanks for the memories.

[B]

Oh, nice. Very nice.

[A]

And we fucking rehearsed it and memorized it and sang it together like two crooners.

[B]

I thought, jay, good work there.

[A]

Should get a send off like that. Midler serenaded Carson when he left with.

[B]

Wind Beneath My Wings.

[A]

Something like that.

[B]

That was it.

[A]

But she didn't return my calls when I tried to get her. No, I wanted it. No, I wanted to rewrite the song.

[B]

And do it then.

[A]

Yeah, it was really funny.

[B]

But I've been on his car show.

[A]

Yeah, he had a jet.

[B]

A car with a jet engine. And so he wanted me on there to comment on aerodynamics of jet engines. So obviously, I respect what you guys do deeply.

[A]

I know. I appreciate that. Okay, look.

[B]

And so I'm wondering, how do you navigate? You know, I Have on, you know, the Sirius XM. You got comedy from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s. They decade them. Yeah, And I listened to comedy from the 2000s, but half the jokes you can't tell today.

[A]

But just exactly. And just to put this in perspective, we did a piece on this, and this is going back seven or eight years this has been going on. It's only gotten worse. But Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Larry the Cable Guy all at the same period of time, announced they are not doing colleges anymore. And, you know, we didn't.

[B]

Chris Rock, too.

[A]

We did jokes like a Jew, a black guy and a redneck walk into college, and they all go, fuck you. I'm getting out of here.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[A]

So it doesn't work anymore. If Jerry Seinfeld's act, which can whiten teeth, it's okay.

[B]

Yeah, that's a pretty. He's a pretty clean humorist.

[A]

Brilliant.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But, like, if you're upset at Jerry Seinfeld's act, I'm sorry, the problem is you and how you were raised. Spoiler alert. Wrong. You were raised wrong. That's the key to everything, is the kids were raised wrong. And it doesn't make me the bad guy because I noticed this. I don't know why you want to join this.

[B]

I want to navigate it so I can still be effective in communicating.

[A]

Yeah, me too.

[B]

But no, you've given up. You're on the rocking chair.

[A]

I have not given up.

[B]

Get off my lawn.

[A]

But you have a. No, that's stupid.

[B]

That's real.

[A]

It's so fucking. It's demeaning and insulting, quite frankly, because it's reducing what I do, which is really subtle and a lot of smart people like it. That's what they would say on Fox News. Oh, you know, he's just saying. He's just old. Get off my lawn. It's a prejudice. It's not accurate. It's not cool.

[B]

You're not allowing my free speech.

[A]

I'm allowing it. I'm just calling you out on your bullshit. I'm calling you out on your bullshit.

[B]

Just because it doesn't agree with you doesn't make it bullshit. It could be just a different point of view.

[A]

I'm just saying get off my lawn.

[B]

Is not a point of view. But that's a fun reference. Come on. You know it's fun.

[A]

Yeah, but it's pretending it's not accurate and it's not honest because it's pretending that all I am is a primal scream against the future. Coming. I'm not a primal scream. I love the future when it's good.

[B]

Do you want to influence that generation?

[A]

If you want to bring back, then you navigate it. If you want to bring back communism, which like a third of them do. No, I'm not going to go, oh, that's new. Isn't it great? You know, I could say, hey, let's shit in the kitchen and eat in the bathroom. It's new. But is it smarter? No. This is what I always tell my friends when they're like, I can't talk to my kids, because whatever I think, they go, that's old thinking.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And it's like, yeah, but is it better thinking? Is it better thinking? I know you think that like, you had a thing with Martina Navratilova.

[B]

What do you mean? I have nothing. What do you mean, a beef?

[A]

She has beef with you.

[B]

Why did she have a beef with me?

[A]

Because you think, like, guys with dicks should get in the women's swimming pool, basically.

[B]

No, no, I. Oh, no. Well, whatever got clipped and reposted. I don't know. But what I said was that the. In this emergent space where you have people expressing themselves on a gender spectrum and you want to now compete in sports, that's still a frontier to be solved. And I don't have the answer, but I can suggest one. Whether or not it'll work. Maybe we don't compete by gender anymore. We compete on hormone ratios. Okay. Is it testosterone? There was a woman who had uncommonly high testosterone levels, and they wanted to disqualify her because of how manly she was when she was born a woman and competing as a woman. So if we're. That's how we're gonna do it.

[A]

You know, again, this is.

[B]

Cause what you really want. Wait, Bill, no, I've thought this through more than you might think I have. So what you really want is an interesting contest between people who are similarly talented. The least interesting super bowl you could ever watch is a blowout by halftime.

[A]

See, what we agree on is that there are anomalies in human nature. Whereas, you know, the vast majority of people. I'm sorry, are still male or female. And certainly every cell in our body is dictating one of those other sexes. I mean, obviously, well, the hormones are. Obviously, that's. Well, also, I make sperm and other people make eggs.

[B]

That's what hormones do.

[A]

You can't deny that. Okay, so this. But as liberals, we, I think, agree that, you know, there are anomalies in nature and they should be Respected and protected. But this attempt to reorganize all of society around what a very tiny percentage who again we can protect and respect without pretending that every baby is a jump ball like penis. What the fuck? I don't know. That doesn't mean anything. We have no idea what this child is. I mean, that seems to be where you want to go. I mean like how many people fit this description that we should reorganize sports around sports is we have men's sports and women's sports. And if the best team in the WNBA played the worst team in the NBA, the score would be a million to zero. Can we organize society around that basic point with this? Of course. Proviso that we protect and respect people who do not fit into it.

[B]

Let's segregate society between dark skinned people and light skinned people. Because that nature made it that way. And that's how it is, is so.

[A]

Well, nature did make it that way and it's not segregating.

[B]

Well, there was a time getting anything that attitude 150 years ago.

[A]

Two years ago. You act like this was. Yes, right, Lincoln. This was a big issue in the Lincoln Douglas debates. Trans people. That's right, I remember that.

[B]

I'm talking about 1861.

[A]

Yes, I remember those debates.

[B]

And it was 1860.

[A]

Lincoln Douglas was all about getting trans. Oh for fuck's sake. You're ridiculous.

[B]

No, no. So here it is. Just all I'm saying is that. How about this? I'm looking at schools in Manhattan and there's a school there and there's a old from like built in the 20s and 30s. And there's a doorway that says boys and a separate doorway on the other side of school that says girls.

[A]

Oh God.

[B]

Why are we doing this?

[A]

Because people are mostly boys and girls.

[B]

But why split them entering a school building?

[A]

Because they pee differently. Jesus Christ. I have to have to explain this?

[B]

No, because you know what I thought when I saw that? It's colored fountain over here, white fountain over here. That's what I thought when I saw that.

[A]

Well, that's not the same thing.

[B]

Well, it's not exactly that, but that's what I thought. It's not exactly. I agree. Okay, I agree.

[A]

But this is what I always say about these kind of issues. Like there's two ways that you can be benighted about something. One, you can be too far from it. Like I would be too far from certain issues. Racial issues. Of course, how could I ever know? You can also be lost sort of thinking wise as I am. Because I'm too far from it. If you're too close to it, yes, that can be.

[B]

You miss the elephant.

[A]

Well, you miss the elephant. It's the fly on the Mona Lisa. Why the fly wants to be on the Mona Lisa, I don't know. And I can't even appreciate art. But okay, you get my point. And so, like, I think when you see that, I totally understand why a man of your age does, but I don't think it's accurate.

[B]

So I used to wrestle high school and college. Okay. It's relevant to this conversation, believe it or not. So I was captain of my high school team. Undefeated, although. Wow. But it was in New York. The real wrestlers are in, like, Iowa, you know, and Oklahoma.

[A]

Oh, I'm sure there's some wrestlers.

[B]

There's some. But if you really balance, New York.

[A]

Has no tough guys.

[B]

We got tough guys, but they'll shoot you or punch you in the face. They're not wrestling with wrestling moves. But anyhow, what you want is a match that's interesting to observe, not where one person dominates the other. In wrestling, they know this. There are 10 weight categories. In high school, I was 190 pounds. That was 50 pounds ago or more, I was 190 pounds. Very good incentive to stay there, because If I were £1 over it, the next category was unlimited. So I was there at 190 pounds. I'm not wrestling someone 127. No. They find somebody else at 127 to wrestle 127. That makes the match more interesting for the viewer. So if we can split wrestling into 10 categories and that becomes the wrestling.

[A]

Match, but all men against each other.

[B]

Correct. So, okay.

[A]

Sort of key point.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So all I'm saying is, what is it that makes the man the man? Is it the hormones? Okay, if it's the hormones and you decide to give yourself a different cocktail of hormones. I'm making this up, by the way. I'm not saying it should happen this way. It's a way to start thinking about it. Maybe the track meets have hormone categories.

[A]

And maybe giving yourself the wrong hormones is deleterious to your health. Would you not admit that? Do you think we can just safely do things like this?

[B]

So you feel this way because you're concerned about. You're so deeply concerned about the health of the people who are trying to find their place on the gender spectrum. You care about their health so much that you don't want them to go through that.

[A]

It's not something that keeps me up at night. But when the subject comes up. I care about them like I care about all people. So if there is something, by the.

[B]

Way, you think about all people.

[A]

Of course, yeah. Is that a disagree?

[B]

I give you that.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

You're being think about all people. No, I'm being successful.

[A]

I do.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Old school liberal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So I want all people to have, you know, make this very challenging world that we live in better. So that's why there's honest debate about this issue. And why don't we cut it off?

[B]

Keep the debate honest.

[A]

Why don't we cut it off now? Because, like, we're not gonna solve this. We set our pieces. We get it. I wanna plug your book. Cause I know you have to run to your film. What do you think?

[B]

Oh, yeah, I got a film coming.

[A]

Yeah. But don't leave me before I have my full time with you. But to infinity and beyond. I do wanna see. Often I'm too stoned to remember to do the plug. And tonight I'm so proud of myself because I'm like a. But I think it's because I was reading it myself and I was really enjoying it.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

And it's got pictures, which I really like.

[B]

Yeah, it's published with National Geographic books.

[A]

Almost on every other page.

[B]

They only know how to make a beautiful book.

[A]

Psychologically, it's like a lot easier to get through scientific material, which it also has a lot of. It looks like a picture.

[B]

Oh, look at that.

[A]

There's a pretty one in that big ball in space with the one with the ring around it. How's that?

[B]

That's Uranus right there. Right there. That's what your anus looks like.

[A]

Really? I just picked the right page. And you have a ring on your anus. I got a real challenge for this.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Anyway, so it's written.

[B]

I have a co author who's my senior producer, Lindsey Walker. This is a collaboration between my podcast, StarTalk, which has been around for like 14 years.

[A]

One of the biggest. I aspire to be at your level.

[B]

Really?

[A]

No, your podcast is one of the hugest.

[B]

Okay. And what we do is we got some three DNA strands, science, pop culture and humor.

[A]

Well, did you see the big thing they have now with that Bono?

[B]

Oh, the sphere. I got a call from the guy, he wanted to do something in the. You're the natural, the animated exterior of the sphere.

[A]

But couldn't you use that sphere to do like the greatest TED Talk ever?

[B]

Yeah, probably.

[A]

Mr. Manus. Well, you probably.

[B]

No, no, I mean. I mean, I could probably I wasn't saying probably to give the greatest ever. Probably. There are talks that befitting that space. The guy who's in there, he runs the Madison Square Garden.

[A]

We should do a talk, a public talk together. I bet you we could sell a lot of tickets.

[B]

Oh, man. Right in that sphere.

[A]

You like money, right? I like money. You like money, right? We all like money.

[B]

Yeah. Who doesn't like.

[A]

Yeah. I'm telling you, I think we could do. We could do some business, knock out that theater. We can do that. All right.

[B]

And my people call your people.

[A]

But I was in Vegas last weekend and I drove by it, and it's. I don't know. Either love it or it's creepy. It looks like AI has landed and taken over. That's the first thing I thought was, like, oh, these people.

[B]

Well, in the movie, in the remake of the Day the Earth Stood still with Keanu Reeves, the aliens land in Central park, not in Washington, D.C. as the original. And it's a big sphere in the middle of Central Park.

[A]

It's always a big sphere in those movies. And as long as we're on that subject, I know we've argued about this before. I don't have a dog in this fight. I hope we're not taken over by the aliens, but I'm not gonna make a big fight about it if they come. But I feel like. And I don't know anything for sure, nobody does. It just feels like more and more, it's getting harder to make the other case that there are not people who are watching us. And again, I don't know if there's anything unscientific about the idea that there would be other life in the universe. I don't know if you saw. If you watched the Hard Knocks show on HBO where they go to the training camp of the football teams. But Aaron Rodgers, who's a super smart guy, he sat in that chair, love him. He told a story about. I don't know where he was somewhere in the south. And his friend walked out in the porch together. They were not drunk. They were not asleep. Two people, and they saw a giant, what can only be described as a flying sauce. Just a giant big thing that then left, like at the speed of light. And then a couple of minutes later, two US jets flew over. I believe him. I can't. Am I 100% that this was a flying saucer or aliens? No, but it just seems likely.

[B]

Was this 20 years ago?

[A]

This was. No, I don't think so.

[B]

Then the dude has a smartphone. But he has a smartphone that can take high resolution video and stills. NASA maybe.

[A]

It was 20 years ago.

[B]

Well, that's my point.

[A]

So, no, they were gobsmacked.

[B]

They were like, okay, in the day, you only had cameras when you were on vacation. So everything was eyewitness testimony. I got abducted, I got this. I saw that. Now everybody's got a camera. NASA's setting up a clearinghouse. You take your smartphone, take a picture of your ufo and the metadata has your location, the angle of the phone, the direction you send it in. And they can collate this.

[A]

I just want to ask this on a more philosophical level, just why wouldn't they? And I think we should just be happy that they're monitoring and not attacking. But what. It makes sense to me that first of all there could be other people in the universe, other beings.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And there's an awful lot, awful lot of people who have similar stories about similar sort of looking creatures. You know that book, communion, I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, that started that. Set the standard for what an alien should look like.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

With the triune.

[A]

A lot of people, yes, people seem to have the same story now. We have military people, Navy fighter jets, testifying in Congress. We've seen things we cannot explain. It could be China has a technology. We don't. We don't. Obviously we don't know, but it just seems like it's not unscientific to think that the aliens would be like, you know, these assholes, very self destructive and we just need to keep an eye on them. And yes, we might have to send Keanu Reeves down there to say, look, I was so sorry about this.

[B]

Remember the movie?

[A]

We tried not to wipe you out, but you assholes are just, we may need this planet and you're fucking it up.

[B]

I'm glad you remembered that.

[A]

So we're going in a different direction.

[B]

So my reaction is I want to meet the aliens. I just need better evidence than what has been presented. Right. So if they are aliens, I would like better evidence than simple eyewitness sworn testimony. In science, what you swear on is not the measure of what is true, it's just the measure of what you think is true in your mind. I need better data than that.

[A]

But what do you think Aaron Rodgers saw? What do you think happened that night?

[B]

The universe brims with mysteries and I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, but this one seemed kind of obvious. A giant.

[B]

That must be why I met him at a Rangers game in the Garden. I just feel I met him at a Ranger and he's new to the city. He's a small town guy.

[A]

Did he take that?

[B]

I know. So I said, look, this is my. I felt very, very. This is my town, you know, Director of the planetarium.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Come by. I told him this, and now, why should anyone ever act on that? But he did so.

[A]

Of course he did.

[B]

So in the two week gap between the last exhibition game and the first game, I got a call from his agents and said, he wants to come by and visit the planetarium. Cool. I said, bring him by. And then they said, oh, but can he bring 25 of these?

[A]

Right? He does that. He goes to Broadway shows like that.

[B]

With his whole crew.

[A]

Yeah, with like 25 jets.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And so then they canceled at the last minute. And then he tears up his Achilles heel. So I think I could have given him some physics advice so that wouldn't have happened.

[A]

I know, but what a badass. A guy who goes. Gets the job in New York and goes, you know what? I'm so macho. I'm gonna take a bunch of fucking football players out to every show on Broadway. And Taylor Swift's show, it was brilliant. Because, you know, New York, I would.

[B]

Have had fun with them. They didn't come by.

[A]

New York is Broadway too.

[B]

Yeah, it is Broadway, totally. You know, it's especially Broadway, you know.

[A]

You want to embrace the city.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, he's more popular on crutches than any athlete that has been walking in 20 years.

[B]

I'm Saturday friends with his ex girlfriend, the race car driver.

[A]

Race car driver?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, he dated. Not to get all gossipy, but who did?

[A]

Oh, I think I know. Danica Patrick.

[B]

Danica Patrick? Yeah.

[A]

Really? Yeah.

[B]

She's got her own podcast. I've been on podcast twice. And we talked about Aaron Rodgers in the last interview, and I told her the story. He said he's a very fun loving guy and he would. Would have. Because I was gonna tweet, had he come by, I would have given him some physics advice so he wouldn't tear his ankle. But I thought that was insensitive. She said no, he would have totally dug it.

[A]

Totally on my page with the medical stuff. But let's not go back to there.

[B]

So let me just say I need eyewitness testimony without independent data obtained by something that is not your brain. Okay. The human sensory system is rife, as we said earlier in this conversation, about optical illusions, and you don't know what you're looking at, so.

[A]

But two guys saw a giant spaceship hovering above them at the Same time.

[B]

Maybe it was aliens. Now, what happened to all the people who were abducted as they told their.

[A]

Psychiatrists, their assholes were sore. No, no, they were. They testified to that.

[B]

Does that make it objectively true? No, it just means that they believe they're telling the truth. What I'm saying is all of the abduction stories, they were filling this in the 1970s. You're old enough to remember all this back when in my day. So all these abduction stories, they all went away in the era of the smartphone? Because we can record that and we don't. There are no.

[A]

Well, maybe the aliens know that.

[B]

Okay, so that was the excuse for when someone claimed to have taken regular cameras and the film was blank. So now, because of the ACLU and cops beating up black people, you can stream whatever is in your phone to the Internet to their servers while it's happening. And we don't have any shots inside the. So here's what you do next time you're abducted, Steal an ashtray off the shelf. And then when you're. If you don't get a picture, then you have an artifact of alien manufacture, and then we can analyze it, say, hey, you had a real encounter.

[A]

Again, I am not dying on this hill because. I don't know. I'm just saying. That's what I'm saying. We don't know. I find.

[B]

Correct. We don't know. And the evidence put forth.

[A]

I'm just.

[B]

The weight of that evidence is not magnified by someone swearing to tell the truth.

[A]

I know, but 200 simultaneous sore assholes is something.

[B]

Okay, that's hard. That's good evidence right there.

[A]

I think I like better than making you laugh like that. Nothing.

[B]

The asshole defense.

[A]

So. AI.

[B]

AI. What?

[A]

AI AI.

[B]

Yeah? What do you want?

[A]

What do I want?

[B]

We've had AI for decades, and all of a sudden AI can now in science. And it's all around us at all times. What do you think Siri is. It's not a human being.

[A]

I know, but it's gotten to a new level.

[B]

I'm getting there. So I'm saying. So now AI can compose your term paper. And now you poop your pants.

[A]

Okay, what happened? What?

[B]

AI can compose your term paper.

[A]

Why did I poop my pants? Because.

[B]

Well, everyone thinks that AI is going to take over their lives and their jobs and their livelihood and all the rest of this. But AI has been with us for decades. Of course it's getting better at all times, right?

[A]

It's getting.

[B]

But what I'm saying is, I think it started Making headlines because it started touching the lives of liberal arts people.

[A]

Well, also because they made it mass for the masses. ChatGPT didn't exist a year. I remember it was almost a year ago, about a year ago that I first was at a restaurant with someone and they said, you have chatgpt? I said, no, I just read something. What is that again? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was only a year ago. And now it's a household word.

[B]

Household.

[A]

Everybody use it. Yeah, for everything. That's a quantum leap from where we were a year ago. So, you know, it's like. Yes. Was there TV in 1939 or something? Yes. No one had it, and then everyone had it changed. It's quantum leap and it changes things.

[B]

Okay, okay, I agree. So you want to watch out. You don't want it to become our overlords any more than you want nuclear weapons to destroy the world. So you put in some restrictions. But what happened is people started seeing AI and then they launched all of AI into this one concern. If they had any clue how much AI is influencing their lives at any given moment, they wouldn't possibly say that.

[A]

Well, I don't know. I don't know why those.

[B]

Who do you think's flying your airplane? You think a pilot is actually making important decisions up there?

[A]

No, he's landing it.

[B]

Yes. Well, yeah, they choose to, but they don't have.

[A]

Well, landing is so important to me.

[B]

Landing softly. They choose to. Keeps them.

[A]

Keeps the blood flowing. Yeah, I know. Okay. But I mean, you're setting up an opposition that I don't think is.

[B]

No, it's not an opposition.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

AI can be abused, especially if they have deep fakes that are videos and things. They can sample your voice and say, invent five jokes that Bill Maher has never told, but in the style of Bill Maher.

[A]

Yeah, they've tried that.

[B]

There it is.

[A]

They suck. They're not there yet.

[B]

I was interviewed by an AI chat program on a podcast, and I said they were perfunctory questions and I wasn't very interested. I said, can I ask. I asked the guy organized. I want to ask the thing back. A couple of questions. They said, sure.

[A]

Was it as fun as this? Come on.

[B]

It was very. It was very.

[A]

I don't want to live in that world. Do you?

[B]

Okay, no. So we'll put restrictions on it.

[A]

Well, okay. I mean, that's been. The big argument is like some people like Elon Musk have saying from the beginning, this is an existential threat. I think he's right. Because I think I've seen too many movies where this happens.

[B]

In all the movies. It happens in all the movies.

[A]

Everything that happens in movies eventually happens in life. That's the theory I go by. Because it's true.

[B]

I don't want to agree with that, but I kind of agree with it.

[A]

Does they imagine it first? I remember in Minority Report, the Spielberg movie with Tom Cruise, the future crimes.

[B]

And they have that facial recognition for everybody that goes.

[A]

Right. And the screens like he was moving. We had no screens at doing it. That was like science fiction. And then three years later, we were all doing it.

[B]

Then they had the eyeball.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The retinal scan. Yes. And then they needed a retinal scan of someone who had access, but they just killed him. So they carved out his eyeball in a plastic bag and put the eyeball in front of the thing.

[A]

And he walks into the mall and there's all those. The ads are all moving. Like, we didn't have that then, but now we have all that now. Yeah. So I feel like we could have Robot Overload.

[B]

Okay, so maybe.

[A]

I mean, it was 1968 when Kubrick made. I can't do that, Dave.

[B]

Sorry, Dave. I can't do it. Okay. 2001 in Space Island, 1968. You remembered it before we went to the moon.

[A]

Before we went to the moon. Yes.

[B]

It was okay.

[A]

Or as some of my audience would say, if you.

[B]

That's your audience. Okay. You're proud of that?

[A]

No, but.

[B]

You proud of that?

[A]

There are no, not many, but I've had people.

[B]

I'll work on them. We can double tag team them.

[A]

I don't know why that one. That's a strange conspiracy theory.

[B]

No, it's not strange. In the Flat Earthers.

[A]

Yeah. That's even sillier.

[B]

Yeah. I can watch a football game in the winter in New York City and the sun has set, yet it is still up in the Rose bowl in California. There's no way to explain that unless Earth is curved between New York. There's some very simple explanations here, but again, you're speaking the people. I want to end on a positive note. Yes. So Ray Bradbury, great science fiction. He was once approached by a fan and said, Mr. Bradbury, why do you write these stories with these apocalyptic futures? Is that the future you think we're going to occupy? He says, no, I write about those futures. So, you know, to avoid them. So maybe those movies have inculcated us.

[A]

No, I truly believe that with the.

[B]

Fear factor that needs to be there to make sure that doesn't happen.

[A]

Right. The other thing that has been depicted in a zillion movies is the apocalyptic, post nuclear war landscape. The Book of Eli and. Oh, there's so many of those kind of movies.

[B]

You know, the famous quote from Albert Einstein, I don't know how World War Three will be fought. Right. But World War four will be fought with sticks and stones.

[A]

Right? And it's always the same thing. There's gotta be 10 movies where, you know, before the war, and then the war comes where humans wipe out everybody because they're so stupid. This is why we need Keanu Reeves to come down. But then it's like the Council, you know, Always. Always headed by a pantsuited women. It's either Kate Winslet or pantsuit.

[B]

Notice what they're wearing.

[A]

Yeah, because we did a bit on it once. There's like eight movies where they're all.

[B]

Like, in the pants and they're the.

[A]

Head of the Council.

[B]

Does HBO put it on YouTube or I gotta, like, subscribe HBO Max.

[A]

My show is on HBO Max. Or HBO.

[B]

No, but the clips, do they make it to YouTube?

[A]

Yes, sometimes. Yes, absolutely. Always. Yeah. Whatever you do, don't watch the whole show. Anyway, great to see you too. Anyway. But it's always like, the world was ended because humans were stupid. And now we cannot allow humans to be human. We cannot allow emotions. Except for this band of hot teenagers. Or we're gonna take back the world by being hot. And they do, you know, that's always. There's a little band of resistance that fights, you know, because we can't allow humans to have emotions. But you started this conversation by saying, what scares you. Kind of. Maybe I'm paraphrasing, but what scares me is a very similar thing. Like, how can we survive when we see the way people think, the things that people do and what they believe and what you can convince them of is crazy.

[B]

My version of that.

[A]

That we're still here.

[B]

I fear that we are not wise enough to be the shepherds we need to be for the future of civilization.

[A]

Well said, grasshopper. All right. I know you gotta go.

[B]

Gotta go, dude.

[A]

Love you. Always. Even when we fight, right? Club Random.

[B]

It's very matrimonial when we fight, you.

[A]

Know, you realize this.

[B]

You've never been married, but it's right out of a marriage.

[A]

Well, I think right away you said, which one of us is smarter? I didn't mean that at all.

[B]

Wait, we're gonna.

[A]

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