← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Andrew Huberman: OnlyFans Is Hijacking Your Brain - Fake Intimacy, Real Consequences PT 1
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- [00:00]
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- [01:01]
Tom Bilyeu
From the year 2000 to today, the average male's testosterone levels have dropped by more than 25%. And modern life is only making the problem worse. Algorithms are now so effective at hijacking the male brain's dopamine system that millions of men are stuck in loops of porn over onlyfans and endless scrolling, feeling like they're making progress. But in reality, they're stuck. According to my guest today, Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, modern life is uniquely disrupting the male brain. In this interview, he details the trap that men are falling into, as well as exactly what they need to do to climb out and optimize for success. If you're a man or you love one, you're not going to want to miss this episode. So without further ado, I bring you Andrew Huberman. Modern life seems to be hijacking men's brains. So whether it's porn onlyfans, social media, you've got men that are depressed, demotivated, unable to form relationships. What do you think is the actual breakdown?
- [02:03]
Andrew Huberman
I think what's happening is that the technology, AKA the algorithms, have gotten so good at tapping into the circuits for motivation that they've basically pulled many males, focus and efforts into this very narrow groove of pursuit. And you would ask any of those guys, like, what are you actually pursuing? Is the thing that you're chasing? Is there a payoff? And they'd probably say, no, I realize there's not, but I can't stop.
- [02:33]
Tom Bilyeu
That's wild.
- [02:34]
Andrew Huberman
And we've talked before about dopamine and I think nowadays most people appreciate that. Dopamine is about motivation and pursuit at least as much as it's about pleasure. Or at least the things that we're motivated to do at first bring us pleasure, the drug, the gambling, the pornography, et cetera. But that very quickly, over time, it keeps us in the groove of pursuit. And that groove is getting tighter and tighter, but the pleasure value starts dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping.
- [03:00]
Tom Bilyeu
Now, do you think that male acquisition of goals, like the obsession with that is disproportionately affected by the modern dopamine hijacking things like social media? Or is this universal to men and women?
- [03:16]
Andrew Huberman
I think at the extremes of sort of male female stereotypes, I think yes. I think that if you think about video games, porn, maybe not so much social media. I mean, social media is social, right? It's about who's saying what about who. And, you know, sure, there's this pursuit of followers and pursuit of likes that, you know, I think all people are susceptible to in good or bad ways. But when I look at Instagram, for instance, a platform I love and teach on and learn from, and I look at X, I would say X tends to be sort of male dominated in kind of, and its essence is kind of more masculine. People are the things that people are saying, how they're saying it. They're trying to convince you, they're trying to convince you. And it. And it tends to be less about who's talking about who. They might show something bad that somebody said. But Instagram is far more relational, the way that comments are structured, comments on comments, there's discussions down there that you can see. Then the way videos are pulled and reposted. X feels more linear and it feels more kind of direct to one statement. It's like, okay, here's somebody being bad, here's someone beating somebody up, here's someone being an idiot, here's them being, you know, morons about the economy or morons about the election or, you know, whereas Instagram, if you, if you look at the stuff that gets really high, high salience, it tends to be more relational. And I think that I could be wrong about this. I don't know the behind the scenes numbers, but that's, that's the way they feel. To me, I think that the Y chromosome, you know, which basically is deterministic for maleness, you know, I basically. Well, there's a gene, I would have thought the Y chromosome, but it turns out there's a gene on the Y chromosome called sry and all the, you know, genes, you know, eventually DNA, RNA and then proteins so proteins are the kind of action end of the business. But all of the proteins that are downstream of, of the SRY gene. SRY is a transcription factor, turns on and off a bunch of different genes. So it's kind of sets up a menu. That SRY gene and the things on it suppress the mullerian ducts, the fallopian tubes, the ovaries, and creates the male genitalia. And it also organizes the brain to be male. And I'll explain how it does that in a moment if you want. But what's so interesting is if that SRY gene is translocated to the X chromosome, and this has happened in humans, you get two X chromosomes, you have an SRY gene, and you get a true biological male penis, whole thing. And fertile, right? And fertile. Because there are cases, for instance, where you have xy, for instance, an SRY gene, you get testosterone, you get all the different testosterone, you know, things like dihydrotestosterone, et cetera. But there's a deficient androgen receptor, so that testosterone has no action end. It can't really work. You know, it can't engage in the receptor, the parking slot, and have an effect. What you end up with is a biological male who looks female. Testes that don't descend and then they're infertile, basically. So you've got a bio chromosomally male, but it looks female. It's fairly rare. Okay, but what we can say is that the SRY gene is deterministic for creating a male. And so then you say, well, what genes are downstream of sry? And the one that's really interesting is dihydrotestosterone. Dht. Not to get too deep into the biochemistry, but testosterone, which we're all familiar with, made by the testes, gets converted into dihydrotestosterone by an enzyme called 5 alpha reductase during embryonic development. When you and I were in the embryo downstream of sry, we made dht, we made testosterone, Some of it was converted to dht. That set up the brain, your brain and my brain, to be male later when it was exposed to testosterone. So when you come into the world, provided you had the SRY gene and it's functional, your brain is organized male, and your genitalia are organized male. And then when, when you get a testosterone surge during puberty, the penis grows, the brain and the brain areas that are larger or smaller in males become that way, and then those circuits basically make you male. This is what we call deterministic because for Instance, there's a genetic mutation where, believe it or not, males, XY males with the SRY gene are born. They don't actually convert testosterone into dht and they appear as biological females across development. They look, they, it doesn't look like they have a penis. It looks like they have a vagina. They. And it turns out actually they have testes that haven't descended yet. And then during puberty, testosterone is secreted from the testes and they literally sprout a penis. It's called penis. It's called huevidosis. It's penis at 12. It's a genetic, genetic, genetic related mutation. And it's well known about in these communities where it exists because there's enough of, you know, enough of these have occurred that what we can say from these kind of wild, you know, these are kind of unusual circumstances is that there's an SRY gene. You get male, you get a male brain and you get a male body. If there isn't an SRY gene, even if you have XY chromosomes, you get a female body. So, you know, the biologists have really boiled it down to that now, you
- [08:34]
Tom Bilyeu
know, sorry, really fast.
- [08:36]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:37]
Tom Bilyeu
So we'll wrap this up and then I definitely want to get back to the way that I think modern life is breaking male brains, I think, uniquely. So it'll be interesting to see your take on that since you'll have the data to back it up. But I am stuck on. A kid is 12, he has a clitoris, and then it literally becomes. Is it a micro penis at the end of this?
- [08:55]
Andrew Huberman
Pretty much.
- [08:56]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so this is bad news Bears. Like, if you've got that, you're really bumming out.
- [09:00]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. And they, they often don't know. They sort of don't know that they're male or female. It's sort of like.
- [09:05]
Tom Bilyeu
So they end up being surprised. Is this what people mean when they say intersex or is that a totally different.
- [09:09]
Andrew Huberman
That's different. That's different.
- [09:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay.
- [09:10]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, that's all right.
- [09:11]
Tom Bilyeu
Not to derail on that.
- [09:12]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, not to derail. But, but, and we, you know, but then let's think about what's. When we talk about the brain being organized male. What, like, what is that? Right. So everyone's familiar with testosterone. Best way to describe testosterone is a molecule that addition to being important for sperm function and libido and things like that. Testosterone makes effort feel good. Hmm. Testosterone and dopamine. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.
- [09:37]
Tom Bilyeu
I've never heard that before.
- [09:38]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. And. And in fact, there have been studies where testosterone has been administered to adult males. And what you find is that whatever psychological traits and behavioral traits, they tend to already have just get amplified. In fact, there's a really nice study that my colleague Robert Sapolsky, the great Robert Sapolsky, taught me about.
- [09:53]
Tom Bilyeu
Amazing.
- [09:54]
Andrew Huberman
Which was if you, for instance, go to an auction and you give some males testosterone, they'll try and outbid other. Other men. Which sounds like, oh, they want to own all the stuff. Now if I tell you that the. Because this is actually the case, that the auction was actually an altruistic auction, that all the benefits went to charity, these guys with more testosterone are basically fighting and giving up resources to give more resources away. So it's not that testosterone makes people jerks. However, if somebody's a jerk and they have and they're given testosterone, they'll become more of a jerk. It tends to just amplify whatever behavioral traits somebody has.
- [10:31]
Tom Bilyeu
I remember what Sapolsky was saying, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it was whatever. Like, testosterone is going to make the man want to win at the thing that gives him status. So if you get status by winning the give away your money auction, then cool, you're going to do that. It almost doesn't matter what the thing is.
- [10:48]
Andrew Huberman
Right.
- [10:48]
Tom Bilyeu
It's not like it's necessarily making them more altruistic. It's just making them want to win at the status game.
- [10:54]
Andrew Huberman
That's right. Yeah. So you, you put finer point on it. And. And you're correct.
- [10:57]
Tom Bilyeu
So I think that's interesting. And this is part of what I'm getting at when I say that I think modern life is uniquely breaking the male brain is it's giving these proxies for status seeking and it's giving you a different set of games to play that are not translating well into real life.
- [11:17]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah.
- [11:17]
Tom Bilyeu
And so you're. Maybe you're winning at social media, but you're not actually translating that into a job or maybe you're winning at. And one of the things I most want to talk about is only fans. Like, you're getting the signal that you've accomplished something, acquired something. You've got relational access to a woman, and it's somehow like giving you the signal that you did the thing you came to do. But it's such a bizarre proxy like onlyfans. I did not understand it when I first heard that it was real. I was like, there's no way that people pay money for that. I actually, I'm like, they do know that porn Is free, right? I could not fathom it. So am I off base here? Like what? Like as you think about only fans as a specific phenomena, what do you think is happening there? Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned.
- [12:12]
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- [12:42]
Andrew Huberman
Foreign.
- [12:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.
- [12:49]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, well, I think when I think about testosterone, the one other point that I want to make is that it tends to suppress activity, the amygdala, which is why it can make effort feel good. It tends to suppress fear, it tends to make effort feel good as opposed to effort feel scary.
- [13:04]
Tom Bilyeu
And you do that by dulling or dimming down the fear response.
- [13:08]
Andrew Huberman
That's right. It brings. So things that are challenging bring about less anxiety. So you're able to apply more effort with less anxiety, generally speaking, okay. The dopamine system and the testosterone system are intimately related, especially in the male brain. Okay. So dopamine, the molecule of motivation and so forth, as we know, is associated with, you know, the, the pleasure of pursuit as opposed to the pursuit of pleasure. Another beautiful Robert Sapolskyism. So I didn't say that he did, but I'm borrowing it. Let's think about a kid sitting down to play like video game. You love video games. Video games can be very healthy, right? You get a score, you're motivated. It's sort of updating with what, with novelty, right. As you progress, you get to access more in different worlds and more in different experiences. This is also true in the non virtual world. Right. In the, in the so called real world. This is also true in OnlyFans to the extent I've never gone on OnlyFans full at foot admittance. But I think I know what it's generally about. You pay money, you can see things that are stimulating. Right. Arousing. Right. That's the idea, as one does, that there's the tendency for people to seek more and more intense experiences. Why? Because the same amount of dopamine isn't being deployed as you go into it for the first time, as you go into it, the 10th time and the hundredth time and so forth. So people are willing to invest more effort or, and, or money in order to go further and further into this terrain. I think that the most important.
- [14:39]
Tom Bilyeu
What do you consider the terrain there?
- [14:41]
Andrew Huberman
Ah, right. So are you familiar with Michael Easter, the Comfort Crisis? He wrote the book Comfort Crisis.
- [14:46]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I've had him on the show.
- [14:47]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. Yeah. So he shared with me that there's this very interesting study or set of studies being done at a experimental casino in Las Vegas. He lives out in Las Vegas. A few years back, somebody who worked for the casinos saw his kid playing video games and the light bulb went off for him. I'll fast forward 85%. 85% of the revenue from casinos comes from slot machines. That didn't used to be the case. I know, I know. I didn't believe it. I was like, there's no way. Here's. Here's what the. The bit, the massive shift from slot machines being a small percentage to the vast majority of the income for casinos was he saw his kid playing video games, and he saw that in video games there's a near infinite number of experiences a kid can encounter with playing the game. Now, there's some constraints, right? You're the player this and that. But in theory, you could introduce any number of different worlds or experiences and dynamics. So what he did is he brought that to the casino world and instead of having slot machines where just would roll numbers or fruit or, you know, crowns or whatever, they created electronic versions of this where, yes, you could update more quickly. Instead of pulling a lever, you could press a button. But more importantly, it could create an infinite number of electronic combinations so that as the person was starting to kind of grow tired and the algorithm could tell, would grow tired of, you know, trying to line up muffins with ice cream cones, they would start switching out cake for ice cream cones and like little anime girls for. For the other, you know, for whatever else the other thing was. And over time, what they found is people would just keep playing and playing for even the smallest and actually increasingly smaller changes in novelty. So the newness of OnlyFans at the beginning is not what you need to recreate in order to keep the brain paying the same amount or even more to keep going. What you need is novelty. And the brain, because of the way dopamine is deployed in smaller and smaller amounts and is giving smaller and smaller amounts of pleasure, especially if you ping it with an occasional big burst of pleasure every once in a while or more. Bit more. Dopamine all you need to do to keep somebody paying in a landscape is give them new experiences intermittently. Good old fashioned intermittent reinforcement. But now the reinforcement isn't necessarily a bigger monetary win or, you know, seeing, you know, here I'm, I'm hypothesizing, you know, I mean, you can only introduce so many different players in a, in a pornographic scene, right? So many different things. So they start in changing the novelty in subtle ways and it keeps people going and going and going. And I'm not going to say that the male brain is uniquely susceptible to this, but because of the relationship between testosterone and dopamine and the tendency for the male brain in its most stereotypical form. But let's just stick with that being really in pursuit of things that are sort of forward, linear motion, like looking for the next thing. I was just talking about this in the discussion I had with your wife, which was, you know, men like to concentrate on what's happening now and forward movement. Generally speaking, we're not really like defaulting to. Let's talk about the past for a while. Let's think about the past, let's rehash the past. That's not, not a, a typical male phenotype. It exists, but it's, and, and it has its importance, but that's not where what we default to. And that has a lot to do with the fact that I do think a lot of the circuits for testosterone are about how can I have action out there, right? Stereotypically, the female brain is more oriented towards relational things. And with men it's like, how can I have an impact out there? I mean, impact theory, literally. Or let's think about Elon wanting to send things to Mars. Or let's think about the first time. Like, you know, cavemen probably picked up a rock, probably after they hit themselves in the head with it. They probably hit the person next to them and everything that hurts, that hurts. And like, let's throw it against that wall and see if it breaks. And then let's see if we can hunt something, get a better meal. It's about action at a distance. And I'll tell you, I mean, I love watching the rockets launch. It's just, it's the, one of the ultimate expressions of seeing like human engineering at a distance. Like you're having this huge impact, whereas most of the things in life you can't really control. They're out there and you can observe them. Watch the sunset. Beautiful. Watch the sunrise. I'm all about that. But ultimately our careers, our lives, our Feelings of what we've accomplished are about creating action at a distance. And it doesn't mean that the further the distance, the more impactful it is. But human evolution has largely ridden this wave of this desire to, like, let's see what happens if. And that's not like, oh, let's see what happens if we, like, you know, etch a small, you know, you know, note in the sand. It's like, no, let's see what happens if we draw a mural, like, as big as that wall, and then, I don't know, let's see if we can, like, throw someone over that wall. Like, this is, like. This is the. This is the SRY gene in action. Right.
- [19:36]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm only leaving you alone for, like, an hour to come up with all the things.
- [19:40]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. I mean, think about it, like, you know, o. There's relational stuff, but, you know, I had a sister. I have a sister. I mean, they would play in her room. I'm like, okay, you play this and you do this. And it was, like, very relational. They weren't like, let's see if we can, I don't know, go, like, build a giant, you know, ramp in the backyard and, like, jump over the neighbor's fence like a bunch of idiots and get impaled on it, you know, so you can sort of make it out to where the outcome is, you know, Kind of sounds like male stupidity. But if we really step back, this is beautiful. This is essential to human evolution. This is why we have the fields that we do, which now, of course, include men and women. Right. This isn't uniquely male, but this notion of, like, testosterone and dopamine, about novelty and how are we creating novelty action at a distance. Now, let's think about only fans or a kid that's, like, addicted to social media, watching YouTube all day long. I have examples of this from friends, kids that are, like, addicted to it. There's no action at a distance. These algorithms have, you know, as wonderful as they are. Right. We exist on them as well. But they are. They're designed, in your case, in my case, to teach people things to take into the world. But they are their own, what we call closed loop. They can create these loops where you think you're making progress, and then you look up and it's like another day went by. You did nothing. You were on the consumer end of this whole business. And it really is a hijack of the dopamine. And I do think the dopamine and testosterone system is. When we're talking about males, it is
- [21:03]
Tom Bilyeu
very possible that I'm just not thinking about the right things. So obviously I'm hyper aware of the way that social media gives women anxiety and that's obviously going to be deeply problematic. But when I think about the modern world, I think that we really have swung from the moment you freed women from sex equals conception. Like their game has been more and more possibilities opening up to them. So I think the modern world for females has really been an expansion of opportunities. Not necessarily positively in terms of like actual emotional satisfaction outcome, not necessarily negatively. I'm just saying it, it is, I
- [21:35]
Andrew Huberman
think it's objectively more. There are more opportunities. Yeah. I mean, academia and research science, you know, used to be heavily skewed male. Now, depending on the subfield. Right. Because biology is a big field. It's still not quite 50 50, you know, but there are many more women in the field than there were even when I started. But I agree that in general, like there's been a. There's been a trend toward more openings. A trend toward it, yeah, for sure.
- [22:01]
Tom Bilyeu
Now for guys, on the other hand, I think that things are getting more and more narrow in terms of their ability to navigate the world well. And when I look at what are the things that are trapping them. Not to get too economical, but part of it is just America since the 90s has been outsourcing things, manufacturing, very specifically overseas, as rapidly as possible. It's caused the loss of millions of jobs for just a certain type of guy that, that is evolutionarily wired to use his body as this form of intelligence. And so you start getting that, you're going to have problems. And so anyway, not to derail us on that, but when I look at what's going on with pornography, for sure, and I think maybe even more extremely with onlyfans, as I started looking at, okay, what is onlyfans? What is this hijacking? Why is this working so well? So if you put men into the context of women are hypergamous, so they're going to date over or up. And as they enter the workforce, that means that that pool is getting smaller and smaller because they're making more and more money. And. And then men also in another context are. It's a very high risk situation of being accused of something. And so there's a standoffishness. There's also the whole idea of toxic masculinity. So for decades and decades, we're like making men more and more paranoid about sort of natural impulses, which is making them less likely to pursue females then you create something like OnlyFans. And I'm so curious to know if they. If the people that created it thought through it like this. But when you really think about it, to your point, about action at a distance, so you can influence this person, whether it's just getting them to engage with you. So I pay them money, they engage with me. They either aren't aware or don't think about the fact. It's probably not that person engaging with them, it's their team writing them back. But they feel like, okay, now I'm able to have this relationship with this person. I'm able to have. I'm able to gain at least visual, sexual access to them. Things that I would not historically able to see. I forget the. The exact quote, but it's something like a thousand years ago compared to today. A man today can see more naked females in a single day than that person a thousand years ago would have seen in their entire lifetime. And when you think about that nested inside of the social context of things have changed for men, and then the technological context of the dopamine loops and how easy it is to put on the phone female nudity and then to make the person feel like they have a relationship with them. Once I understood OnlyFans as relational pornography, where now it's not sure, like, pornography is free, but I can't interact with that person or have a proxy of it. And so then I was like, oh, my God, this is like pornography, like cubed, quintupled. Like, this is really for somebody who would otherwise be isolated by choice or otherwise. You now give them this thing that they don't have to be afraid of. There's no fear of rejection. They get access to something that is legitimately exciting to the male brain, which is the. I get. I'll call it inappropriate, but I get inappropriate or elevated levels of access to their body visually. And it's like, ooh, I get how now people end up. If that's the context that they're in. I get how that drags them down fast.
- [25:28]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, I do too. I hadn't realized there was this relational aspect where the people that pay can. Can influence what they see. I mean, that's. So they've captured the relational aspect which is missing from traditional pornography. That's huge. The novelty aspect is somewhat under their control in this case. Yeah.
- [25:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Women make the most money the first month on OnlyFans.
- [25:53]
Andrew Huberman
The.
- [25:53]
Tom Bilyeu
It's. I don't know what the exact stat is, but the vast, vast, vast majority. First month, they come in that's going to be it. Because all the guys that are paying have never seen that person before. It's the newness and novelty of it. And then that starts to decline fast
- [26:07]
Andrew Huberman
and it shifts standards. So one thing that's interesting is if you talk to the evolutionary biologist, they'll tell you, you know, what is this notion of women talking badly about other women who sleep with a lot of people? What's that about? I mean, men will do that too. That's a different phenomenon. But what's that about? And the evolutionary biology argument is, well, they need to do that because if there are women who are giving up sex, sexual access without the need for very much in return, then the cost is basically going down. It's sort of a market, market system.
- [26:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Women act as a cartel.
- [26:43]
Andrew Huberman
Right? Right.
- [26:43]
Tom Bilyeu
They price collude, basically.
- [26:46]
Andrew Huberman
Right. So if that's happening, then also men's expectations of what women will or won't do starts to shift. And so this is why there's, there's intense relational sort of community control over how female promiscuity is, is viewed by other women and by other men. Right. Men oftentimes on X, if, if even if you're not looking for it, will shame women for, for being promiscuous. Right. There's this woman who's like slept with all these men and continues more and more men. Right.
- [27:17]
Tom Bilyeu
Wild.
- [27:17]
Andrew Huberman
Why is she such a phenomenon? Was she such a phenomenon, a cultural phenomenon or whatever you want to call it? I'm not applauding what she's doing. That's, you know, her. Right. And I'm not, I'm not the guy
- [27:27]
Tom Bilyeu
to talk about the evolution is going to slap her about the head, neck and chest. I hate that. It's true. She's not going to get out unscathed emotionally. Not, not even just from other people. Just evolution does not want that.
- [27:39]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. I mean, she's, she's expanding the upper threshold. Right. I mean, that's kind of her. Her thing, her shtick is to expand the upper threshold. And as a consequence, you know, it's clear men are paying for that. They're intrigued by that. Right. That they want to see that. And yet I don't think that I'm speculating here, but I don't think that our men are running out in huge numbers to try and put a ring on her finger and make her their own.
- [28:01]
Tom Bilyeu
And someone will.
- [28:02]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, some probably, who have their own kind of distorted sense of themselves in the world. So the idea here is that, you know, even just the realization that there's an extreme, like, that creates this upper ceiling on the kind of, like, dopamine novelty thing. Like, that's not something I, like, ever conceived of. Right. Like, I never thought about that. And then you're. You just see it out there. So it shifts, you know, our standards of decency. It share. It shifts our standards of sort of expectation. And we might say, well, okay, well, she's a real extreme in the same way that, like, okay, you see those people with, like, tons of piercings and, like, covered in tattoos, every inch of their body. And then. Well, I remember growing up, like, we didn't. We didn't see many people with face tattoos. Mike Tyson, I think, was the first. And you're like, whoa, now people wouldn't even bat an eye, you know? And so these.
- [28:50]
Tom Bilyeu
The.
- [28:50]
Andrew Huberman
These sort of standards, what we call, you know, kind of cultural standards. Risky to call them standards of decency, because that's getting. For a scientist. I'm not trying to get into the moral judgment game, but what it does is it expands what we. What is possible in people's minds, and therefore what they consider novel is over a bigger scale. Right? So if the upper limit is. Let's just call it like, arbitrary units, 10 was something like the pornography that, like, you might have seen in the 90s on a videotape or something. And now what, you know, what Bonnie Blue or someone else is doing is that represents the 10. Well, then everything up to a 1 has now been compressed. Okay, not to get to, like, overly technical here, but this. This is. It's a. It's very interesting because you're. You're. The guy thinks about markets and finances a lot. It's a market system, right? And when we think about dopamine, I think about dopamine as the currency of motivation. I think about is a young male or I or anyone investing your dopamine. What's dopamine? It's your motivation and energy. Are you investing it or are you just spending it? Now you can get things that are surely for pleasure, right? I eat food. You could say, well, the food gives you energy to do other things. Okay? You get a nice painting that gives you more energy and pleasure because you. You enjoy it. It's a. It's some visual feedback on kind of that You've gotten to the point where you could buy that. That's an investment of your dopamine resources into money, money into. Into some thing, a painting. There's also just sheer spending of dopamine, your time and your life energy. You're not going to reproduce as a consequence of being on OnlyFans. It's probably lowering your reproductive potential, either directly or figuratively. And so, and same thing with social media. You can glean incredible valuable content. I do, you do. We, we teach on social media, we learn on social media that then you can take into the real world. But years ago, I think it's an investor by the name of Chris Sacca. Yeah. He talked about you're either a consumer or creator. You're either consumer or creator. And I sort of in my own mind expanded on that and decided, well, when I go to a platform where I'm a consumer like social media, I'm trying to glean things that allow me to be a better creator off platform and then bring those back to platform. Now think about all these people who are just consuming on social media, but it's not enriching their lives in any way or they're consuming on OnlyFans. And it's actually, it's a, it's a, it's a double whammy because it's taking. I mean, time is the ultimate resource and it's depleting their, their motivational drive. And you know, we used to hear about this more that, you know, the sexual drive is one aspect of motivation. But if somebody is completely sated with food, with what they think is sex because of an only fans interaction, their motivation to go do things in the world and to create real relationship, real business, real life is just, it's going to rapidly diminish. And as always, the house takes it all. Yeah.
- [31:29]
Tom Bilyeu
So I'm legitimately worried about that. I don't know, like, what the. Like. Okay, so if I'm, let's say I'm an 8 on the. I think we have a real problem right now, not just what we've been talking about. I've got a whole host of things that I think are problematic, but when I think about where we were in the 80s and the prospects that a young person growing up in the 80s were going to have in the future look great. Now I look at that and I think, ooh, we're, we're at an 80%, this is a problem status. Where would you put us in terms of the severity of the modern world? We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.
- [32:08]
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- [32:43]
Tom Bilyeu
Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.
- [32:46]
Andrew Huberman
Well, I think it's easier than ever to get caught in the current that we're talking about. Just get carried along. I think it was David Goggins, the David Goggins, that said, you know, nowadays it's easier than ever to be exceptional, I think.
- [32:59]
Tom Bilyeu
But that's because so many people are getting caught up. That's the problem. Like, I agree with them.
- [33:03]
Andrew Huberman
So. So for those that can get out, that can literally, and I think here, if somebody feels like they have to get on YouTube, they have to. I don't want to ding YouTube. Okay. I feel like, you know, if somebody feels like it's controlling them, like it's got them instead of they've got it or only fans. Certainly with OnlyFans, the only answer is abstinence now. And I'm not saying this from a moral perspective. The only answer is you're never looking at it again, which is going to send some people into oblivion. They're like, wait, why can't it just be a little bit the same way that they're now called? Now it's called having alcohol use disorder. What used to be called somebody with alcoholism or an alcoholic, you'd say, how many drink? You know, how many drinks can they have? Zero.
- [33:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Right?
- [33:42]
Andrew Huberman
How many drinks? How do you do that? You have to replace that behavior with something useful, like 12 step, like, like a rehab program, like some sort of group where you can really take that energy and put it elsewhere and be rewarded for those other new behaviors. This is the hard part about OnlyFans versus real world relationship is it's, you know, stopping is just one part of it. But we know based on all the signs of behavioral change and the dopamine system, et cetera, you need to give that person a replacement behavior. And the reason 12 step is so effective at treating, you know, alcoholism, it's so that people get sober and stay sober from drugs, from alcohol, from other gambling addiction. It's hard, but they have a community in which the reward system is now rooted around the sobriety they're trying to achieve. You know, and I may have told this story before, but I have a good friend, his kid was absolutely addicted to just watching YouTube videos all day. His friends had gone off to college. Smart kid. He wasn't really holding a job. Well, he had a bunch of other issues. I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist. I do think it exists. But he had been diagnosed with adhd. He's on all the classic meds. And the picture was kind of bleak. In year one, after high school, year two, year three, year four, fast forward to now. He's now a junior in college on a hard major. How did he do that? It started with him understanding dopamine, him understanding that it had him and going full cold turkey.
- [35:04]
Tom Bilyeu
Did you talk to him?
- [35:05]
Andrew Huberman
I did, yeah, I did. And it was actually the conversation with Anna Lemke from Stanford, who really deserves, deserves the credit, you know, author of Dopamine Nation.
- [35:11]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, what's the magic sequence of words? Like, what was it?
- [35:14]
Andrew Huberman
It was, look, it makes every bit of sense why you feel like you have to do this, but it's controlling you. And the only way to regain control, like to get the control panel back, is to take a week off. And he was just like, there's no way it was like a week off. And so he self imposed a day. It was a classic one day at a time kind of thing where he could call me, he could call. You know, this has now happened in several instances with cannabis. Another discussion. I'm not anti cannabis for everybody, but I know some people that have really succumbed to like using cannabis, dropping out of college, losing their relationship, being online all day, boom. Losing their job. Also, this is a real world scenario. Not I'm not making this up. And then by going full abstinence and then focusing on a 12 step program in the case of the cannabis situation, or in the other case, just doing a one day at a time, you're
- [36:04]
Tom Bilyeu
calling stick with homeboy that, yeah, watching too much.
- [36:06]
Andrew Huberman
He's texting me at the end of the day. I managed to get to the end of the day.
- [36:08]
Tom Bilyeu
What was he doing during the day? He's not just staring at a wall?
- [36:11]
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- [36:12]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, I told him to get outside and take a bike ride, take a walk, do anything, but at first it's just anything but behavior.
- [36:18]
Tom Bilyeu
And when did that become drive? Because so I've always, I can't remember when, but I had a parent ask me like, hey, my kid is really in trouble and I don't know what to do. We've tried everything. And I was like, okay, if I had one shot and I've, I've got to guarant results, I Was like, oh, this is easy. It like you're never going to do it, but I'll give you the answer and it will work. Not 80% of the time or 90%, this will work 100% of the time. Get five people that he respects, kidnap him, take him out onto a deserted island, and those guys are going to do things that he has to join them in doing to earn their respect. And if he respects them before they kidnap him and take him out, he will conform to the group. And it's like all of this stuff to me and I get it, I, this is one of the thing that drives people crazy about me. But this like really seems. If you understand how the brain works, if you accept men and women are different, if you accept we are not blank slates, if you go, ah, men are goal oriented, men want to be a part of the pack, men want to do the things that are going to earn their respect, the respect of the group. Doing hard things is, I mean, I wouldn't have had the words to say that. Testosterone makes effort feel good, but it's like effort feels good.
- [37:28]
Andrew Huberman
And there's feedback. I'm sorry to interrupt. And there's feedback. When you accomplish something, you know, wake up in the morning, control something. You can control if it's getting sunlight, but then do, you know, get your sunlight, but then hydrate, get exercise, but do something that's under your control and where you can have an outcome that you know is a positive investment of your energy, of your dopamine that has a positive feedback on the testosterone and dopamine system. And lo and behold, you have more energy as opposed to spending it out. No, I absolutely agree with your kidnap and take to, to a desert island, you know, because it captures all the elements of, of how the, the male brain works and wants to participate and wants to achieve things. I absolutely agree. I think that, you know, we are a social species and even though men, okay, maybe we're not relational in the case like you leave, you know, five average males in a, in a room, they're not going to play, you know, they can play a house and like, you know, they're going to play, they're going to play like kick you in the face. Yeah, they're going to be each other up or like, you know, like wrestling, someone's gonna be jumping off the top and like, you know, like suplexing people. Like that's males, right? You know, and sure there are exceptions to that. There are less physical males, et cetera. But at some point there has to be that effort dopamine reward action loop. And the thing is that effort dopamine reward action loop is in the OnlyFans interaction. It's in all sorts of interactions. The problem is when you're deep in that, you know, in that trench, it's impossible to see that you're not going anywhere. You're treadmilling, you're not going anywhere. In most cases, you're spiraling down. And it's just very hard to see because that dopamine and the state of arousal that it creates puts you into a warped world where your time binning starts getting very fine. You're just focused on the next increment, the next increment, the next increment. And it's like we talk about getting out and getting perspective. Very hard to do. Very hard to do. And I do think you're right. I think we need to yank ourselves out or have someone yank us out of that scenario. In this case, we set something up where he had to call me every single day or text me every single day. Although I realized calling was more important because texting people are much more willing to kind of like, oh, yeah, I did it, but they actually didn't. Now it took some time. I'm not going to say there weren't some relapses, but over time he got to see the difference between how he felt when he relapsed versus how he'd felt right before. Sure, he went through the same shame cycle, like, oh, I'm weak. And then back on the horse and kept going. You know, it's, it's an incredible thing. Now I have to say he's not my kid, but it's incredible. I've known since he was a little one to see him like in, you know, in his junior year of college, he's in a relationship, like he takes care of himself. He exit like he's going to be, if he stays on track, a fully functional male in society. But it was looking super bleak. And the parents have all the makings of like a reasonably educated, reasonably happy home, you know, no major trauma, none of that. It was just, it was his SRY gene susceptibility to things that were happening at that time. And he almost became one of the failure to launches.
- [40:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, this is, this is one of those things. Just trying to get people to understand that we are not blank slates is like part of my mission. So for people that join me on the lives, they'll have heard this like a gazillion times. But I really Feel like I'm in a battle for the soul of America right now. And really getting people to understand that one. Just, you're having a biological experience. So you have got to come to understand your biology. Stop judging it, stop trying to like cram everybody into an overly modern body box. The fascinating thing is I'm probably the most optimistic about what's on the other side of this weird space that we're in where we metabolize. The technological revolution, much like the industrial revolution, literally changed the world in ways we never could have predicted. And going through that, I'm sure was extremely tumultuous. And it was just, whenever you're going through that kind of upheaval of structure, there are going to be people that fall down, that get crushed by the rubble, you know, obviously metaphorically, but then you get to the other side. But you're, you don't get to the other side by accident. You either just burn through the transitionary people and they have a hard time of it, life sucks, whatever, but they die. You have some big war and then you're on the other side of it, and then we're just forced to adapt. Or if you can orient yourself to what's actually going on, then you can avoid the problems. But you have to understand your biology. You have to know what the potential dangers are. And so when I look at Onlyfans going from just complete confusion to okay, I get what this is now, and now I see it as something that's even more dangerous than I thought it was before in terms of its ability to suck you in when you, you have to take it in the grander context of we've been telling boys that males are toxic. Men don't necessarily understand hypergamy and like sexual market value. And you have to understand that. And then making it such that men are being like, you're always in danger of being put on blast on social media for a bad text or DM or whatever. And so now you've got like the, the fear centers going crazy and up right there comes this real easy serve up. And so the things that we have to talk about, the things we have to draw circles around and say, okay, this is why this is a problem. You've got to watch out for that. You're going to need a substitute for that. So like, what is that thing that you're going to be doing but to create the new thing for them to be doing, you. You cannot demonize the things that they're naturally drawn towards. And I think that's where we run into trouble.
- [42:58]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, I think amen to that. I mean, I think that explaining to men that what's been hijacked reflects the best part about their biology, their deepest, like, circuits of effectiveness. But they've been hijacked and they're being misused to someone else's gain. I think that's an important part of the messaging to get people out of that loop. I think it's the first step. Not just like, oh, you know, it got me, you know, but the idea that. Because I do think that another aspect of maleness is this idea like, nobody wants to be controlled. Right. That you're the agent of control. And, you know, it's James Hollis, the great psychoanalyst who, you know, he wrote. He has this incredible lecture online, online called Creating a Life. I invite him on my podcast. He's 84 years old. And I'm like, what's that? What's the key? You know, he's. He's so aware of what a really good life looks like for men and for women. And he's done it, written a lot on men's trauma. He wrote a book called Under Saturn Shadow, which is a really powerful book, specifically about men's trauma. This is years ago, before everything was therapized. Why Saturn?
- [44:03]
Tom Bilyeu
What's Saturn?
- [44:04]
Andrew Huberman
Oh, I forget the. The not of this has to do with some mythical text. He's a very. He's much more scholarly about those things than me. So for. Forgive me for not for not knowing, but he. He said, look, that the solution to this is actually quite simple but quite hard.
- [44:22]
Tom Bilyeu
This being modern life is like messing
- [44:24]
Andrew Huberman
up, like directing your life, being the agent of control in your life, especially if you're male, but also if you're female. But since we're talking about men, which is you have to, yes, develop a sense of. I think he calls it, you know, suit up, show up and you know, and work. Like, you just have to have that, like, okay, it's time to work. It's just like time like you did with. With your business and you continue to do. Or jocko. There's like 4:30. You just gotta show up, you know, suit up, show up and get to work. You have to develop that. You also have to have a place where you reflect and decide where you're gonna direct your energies. And that has to come first. And then you just keep looping the two. And he talks about it not as a form of meditation, but literally a stopp for even just a few minutes a day. And it sounds so simple. But it's hard to do where you literally just close your eyes and you think, like, is my energy being directed in the. In the areas and directions that make sense for me? Am I building my life? And you set some intentionality. Because we hear all the thing, you know, between stimulus and response is, you know, this. This buffer, very hard when you're in the moment. And, you know, these algorithms are so damn good at looping us in that we can either. Because really they do one of two things. They either allow us to numb out and pass time, or they give us just enough arousal, kind of rage, bait and engagement. Or like, intrigue, like sexual intrigue. Or like, maybe you're looking at, you know, like, cute pup. Maybe you like cute puppies. It's not sexual at all. Or maybe it's rage bait. Or maybe it's a fight where someone gets punched in the face. You know, open up X. You can see all of these things. It will find the hook. So the idea is that you. You set your. For lack of a better word, your intention about. And you understand that you have this energy that you were born with that's replenishable. It's, again, all hearkens back to dopamine. It's, you know, you can. You can deplete it, but it's replenishable. And you start thinking, how am I investing that? And then the key thing is to. At some point relatively early in the day, you have to invest in something that has a logical and real payoff for the. For the expansion and growth of your life. And even if you write a paragraph, even if you. As long as you are investing in your future in some way, it's the difference between a dollar spent and a dollar invested or a dollar wasted and a dollar invested. And I think that Hollis really nails it with that. It starts with this, like, recognition and then subtle, subtle things that control your behavior. And sometimes people have to divide their day into thirds, he tells me, in order to be able. These aren't even just addicts, but he'd be able to, like, okay, the first third of my day is going to be completely under my control. I think that in. And said differently, if you explain to men that they can control themselves as opposed to other things controlling them, they're going to start to look at it as a fight. And if you start winning that fight, I deal with this every day. I'm like, I'm going to just get on my phone and I'm like, I'll just look for a second. I'm like, I'm like, man, okay, I'm going to look. And then I see. I saw something the other day and I was like, I don't want to see that. So I scrolled to the next thing. It was the opposite. And I was like, damn it. And I, like, took the thing, I put it down on his face. I'm like, man, it almost got me. And I'll tell you, this feeling of satisfaction when you're like, nope. Like, and then you actually go do something useful. And you can bet I picked that thing up three more times before I actually dropped into, like, a good groove on something. The. The feeling that one gets is so empowering. And it's not just quote unquote empowering. It's literally a surge in your own sense of agency. And you've increased your. Your dopamine stores. Your arousal state continues to go up as opposed to just. Oh, two hours went by and you're just thinking, I should do this, I should do that.
- [47:42]
Tom Bilyeu
I think that only works, though, if you aim at something that is in line. I'll say with your biology. I think I always think of things through the lens of evolution. That's what I was saying about Bonnie Blue. She's just not. She's not in line with what evolution wants you to do. And so you're gonna have a profound sense of disease. Can't remember if it was her, but I think it was that after her first, like 100 guys in 24 hours or whatever, she was crying. She. And she was like, surprised that she's crying about like, whoa. Like, I didn't expect to feel like this. Like, yeah, like, that is not what evolution wants you to do. Like, you have so much wiring.
- [48:13]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah. Runs counter current to everything we know about wiring of the female brain. Everything. Which is not to say that I'm judging promiscuity, but hers represents an extreme of performative promiscuity that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it. I mean, we could think of another. A hundred other parallel examples of, of self abuse that.
- [48:31]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't even think of it as self abuse. It's just if you're out of alignment with what the deeply embedded in your brain algorithms want you to do. It only has two levers. Pleasure and pain from an evolutionary perspective. So it's going to make it feel bad. It's just trying to make it feel bad so you stop doing it now. I don' need anybody to think she's a bad person. I don't think she's a bad person. I Feel bad. Anytime I have to go through something where I'm like, whoops, I'm clearly out of alignment with what nature wants from me. Or if somebody else does something that's out of alignment with what nature wants from them, it's like, it. It's gonna suck. Like, you've gotta, like, find that thing. And I bring that up in this context. So guys are only gonna be able to get out of this rut if they figure out to aim at something with, I'll call it high utility, a thing that is in alignment with what men are hardwired to do. That culture is going to celebrate so that as they do it, they get some sort of positive feedback from the world around them. So what would you like? Obviously, it's not going to be neuroscience, but, like, what would you have men aim at as a category of thing so that then they can structure their lives in such a way that putting the phone down makes sense? Because I'm actually aiming at this thing.
- [49:42]
Andrew Huberman
I thought you were going to tell me that you're developing an online platform that is incredibly addictive that allows men to build their financial portfolio or creative portfolio.
- [49:52]
Tom Bilyeu
Interesting. We'll get into game development if we have time, where I'll explain why I still. Because I'm utterly fascinated by that stuff. But, no, I just want to know, like, what should guys aim at?
- [50:02]
Andrew Huberman
Well, I will. I'm borrowing a lot today, but I will borrow from Ryan Holiday and say that if you don't know what you want to do with your life, you should probably go to college.
- [50:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay.
- [50:13]
Andrew Huberman
Because his idea is, Even if you're 35, you should probably get involved in some education or vocation that you.
- [50:21]
Tom Bilyeu
Broad spectrum. Is that the idea?
- [50:23]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. I mean, if you can afford to do that. I mean, certainly work of any kind is of value. And I'm not saying that to be politically correct. I mean, Anna Lemke, author of Dopamine Nation, when I asked her a similar question, she said the key is, like, for young people who are, quote, unquote, looking for their passion. Like, she's. She thinks that's a crazy idea. It's never going to work. She thinks what you should do is look around you and find something. I know this sounds crazy, but it makes perfect sense in the context of the biology. Find something that needs fixing or doing. Maybe it's mow the lawn. Maybe it's assemble the fish tank that's been, you know, piled up in the corner. Do something that has a beginning, a middle and end, where you can feel like you accomplish something because it feeds back on the circuitry that you can accomplish things.
- [51:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Is Hannah the one that worked? Has she done work in video games?
- [51:06]
Andrew Huberman
On video games? She was in that movie that was about. I think it was called the Social. The Social. Was it Dilemma. Social Dilemma.
- [51:13]
Tom Bilyeu
I've had her on the show. But you also. I mean, I could be conflating things, but there's another woman that I've had on the show that worked in game development.
- [51:20]
Andrew Huberman
Okay. And that's somebody different.
- [51:22]
Tom Bilyeu
This sounds so familiar.
- [51:24]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah.
- [51:25]
Tom Bilyeu
Finally, middle and ed sense of accomplishment. Because as a game dev, I will just tell you right now, and technically, I'm not a game dev. I always say that, but hopefully people know what I mean. That is, you're literally going, how's the brain wired? How do I leverage that to make this engaging, enjoyable? Like you're obsessing over. When do we get secrete. When do we get them to secrete dopamine so that they'll keep. They want to keep pushing? I mean, it's. It is. It's all very conscious stuff the game developers are doing. So how do we. Because you 100%.
- [51:58]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. Do something.
- [51:59]
Tom Bilyeu
If they could do that. Something that other people are going to look at and be like, that's what you're pointing yourself at. Like, that is lunacy. It'll still have the same sense of accomplishment. Is mowing the lawn better than running a 4K?
- [52:14]
Andrew Huberman
So it's all important. And they can all be done because we're talking about things that are sort of beginning, middle, end done. So, you know, this whole notion of wake up in the morning and make your bed. Right. Like Jordan Peterson. Right. And clean your room. Right. Or McChrystal, I think, was the first. Make your bed first thing in the morning.
- [52:29]
Tom Bilyeu
He's a general, right?
- [52:30]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, Yeah. A former Navy seal. I think this is at a commencement for University of Texas, Austin. The whole idea there, you know, he framed it as, you know, you get back at the end of the day, and even if your day went terribly, at least your bed is made. Okay. I think, with all due respect, I think the practice itself is far more valuable than that from the perspective of you were able to take something that was disorganized and organize it and then move forward. So it's not like you make your bed all day 50 times. It's that you have the ability to act on your environment and complete something. Then you pivot and you look for the next thing that needs to be done. Now, you could spend all day doing Chores. People do this when they're procrastinating, right. And they start doing all sorts of things they have intended to in the previous days and weeks. But the idea is that if you can organize your immediate physical environment, then there is that quote unquote sense of accomplishment, but it's more a sense of that you have an ability to accomplish things. Right. So it is hard to imagine someone who's, you know, homespace is slovenly, who's super effective in the outside world. Hard to imagine. I'm sure it exists, but they probably have maids, right? So taking control of your environment, keeping the things that you have in order, taking good care of the things that you have, however few, has a feedback on you. It's a self respect thing. It allows you to feel like you can control what's in your environment. And again, the circuitries that we're talking about relate to dopamine, motivation and pursuit. They are subject to plasticity. And what you're talking about when you're talking about OnlyFans, is plasticity in the direction of hijacked plasticity, where you're getting less and less dopamine, less and less pleasure, and you're investing more and more. It's literally you're. The circuit is being hijacked and it's atrophying in certain important ways and it's hypertrophy and it's growing in other ways that are beneficial to onlyfans and destructive to you. When you make your bed, it's probably neutral. Is it destructive to you? No. No. Is it super beneficial to you? No. I'm not delusional. I don't think that making your bed first thing in the morning or cleaning your room is going to completely transform your life. But it's also what you're not doing during that time, right. It's a pure behavioral replacement. So then you go out and you, you run, you get some sunlight, you hydrate. It's these things, they start to ratchet on top of one another. Now is that going to make somebody confident enough to go out and ask a girl out on a date? No, but probably more confident about her, you know, maybe eventually coming back to your apartment and seeing the place and it's not a total disaster. And as we know, she'll be looking to see how you maintain your, your stuff. So I think that, that people who learn how to take control of their immediate external environment, this is the essence of building confidence. I really believe that, you know, when we're little kids, we make something with our logo Our Legos or whatever it is. And we show our parents. They go, good job. And then pretty soon we realize they say a good job to anything, right. Unless it's, like, really exceptional. What. The pivotal moment, I believe, at least in my childhood, is when I did something I looked at and I was like, that's awesome. Like, I used to design fish tanks when I was a kid, and I was pretty bad at it. Now I'm really good at it. I have a couple. And I'll just say, like, I'll go toe to toe with anybody on aquarium. Yeah, man. Aquascape.
- [55:25]
Tom Bilyeu
Are we talking.
- [55:26]
Andrew Huberman
We're talking big fish tanks with coral and soon an octopus. And could I lay inside of it? What's that?
- [55:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Could I lay inside of it? Yeah, one of them big.
- [55:34]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. Some of our 300 gallons or more. And the idea is the balance between the. Between the fish and the aquarium. If you really want your mind blown, go and look at Takashi Amano. He does what's called aquascaping, which was these underwater. He had ones that were as big as this room. Unfortunately, he died in pneumonia at 60. But he has a whole museum dedicated to him. Like, you know, like, did you know him? No, I wanted to meet an apprentice with him, and he died before I was able to. But, you know, so, you know, am I going to become a fish tank designer? No. Like, I don't want to plan to you already.
- [56:06]
Tom Bilyeu
You just said, I'll go.
- [56:07]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, as a profession, as a professional. But, like, it's very important to me that I have a certain thing. Like, I get so much joy and. And positive stimulation and ideas from just sitting in front of that thing. And so for me, it's very important that those spaces in my house are not just like empty spaces. And for some people, it's painting, and for some people it's gardening. And these are more artistic things. Right now, we're not talking about going out and conquering markets or. Yes, I also go to the gym. And yes, I also run. I do those things that are more traditional, male, masculine things. But. But just the idea that you can touch into a feeling of like, I did that is this generative drive, as it's called. Like, touching into that where, you know, it was a job well done. Yeah. And you're. No one's looking.
- [56:54]
Tom Bilyeu
Right.
- [56:55]
Andrew Huberman
I don't care if anyone ever sees my fish tanks, frankly, like, no one's looking. They give me energy, and they give me energy because I love them and because they're. It's hard to do A tank, Right. And it's hard to keep the balance right in the ecosystem. Right. But it feels so damn good. Now, I'm not saying everyone should go out and get fish tanks, right? No, no, no.
- [57:10]
Tom Bilyeu
But you're. You're really ont. I want to pitch you an idea. I want to see if I'm thinking about this, right, Because I am really obsessed with this. So I think AI is going to terraform the world in ways that people do not understand. I think it is going to be devastating in a thousand ways, and I think it's going to be unbelievably cool in a billion ways. Going to be hard to get through the ways that it's going to be tough. But when I think about that, I start thinking about, okay, what's going to be the future? I start thinking from an evolutionary lens. What does evolution want from us? I'll assume for now that we're not altering the structure of the brains. And I'll say, we're going to keep working the way that we work. And when I hear you describe that, I hear the very thing that excites me about game development, because I'm like, oh, forget aquariums and needing to actually put glass in your house and all that. I'll give you the ability to design an entire ocean. I'll give you the ability to design an entire universe. And I think that people are going not only to design them, but explore them. And so then people start going, well, they're going to poo, poo that and say, okay, but that is just a video game game. It's like when I hear you say, I don't care if anybody ever sees my fish tank, I'm like, oh, this is a gamer. You just. There's a certain type of game that you like. It's like the. You design these farms and stuff like this. It's. It's an actual type of game. It's a whole genre. And I'm like, oh, I get it. But we. There does seem to be some bridge that society is not comfortable with us crossing, where it becomes virtual. So an esports athlete. They're unbelievable. They are so skilled that the window that they can be the best in the world is so narrow. By 24, you're, like, washed up because your reaction time is off by like one, like, thousandth. These are seconds. Yeah.
- [58:50]
Andrew Huberman
I went to a gaming tournament actually, with one of the kids I was describing earlier. It was his birthday years ago. And he said, well, I was like, what do you want? He wanted to go to a gaming tournament. It was here in la and it was wild. I mean, this is going to be familiar to, to you and everyone else. The kids had like hand warmers. And then the audience, instead of clapping, they were like banging together these like styrofoam things. And it was like a whole thing. And this, this, this girl walked in. I think she was like, she's probably like, you know, like mid-20s, like really attractive women. All the dudes were like, no way. And they were like fanning out on this chick and he's like, she's so hot. And I was like, okay, this is a totally different world.
- [59:21]
Tom Bilyeu
It's a different universe.
- [59:22]
Andrew Huberman
It. But here's the, the thing. The, the fish tanks or the video game or the, the virtual version of the fish tank farming or whatever it is, is the real key for me anyway, or at least my understanding of it is the energy and inspiration and kind of sense of capability that I get from that. It's not a closed loop. I don't sit in front of my fish tank all day just going like, man, I'm a good fish tank designer. Like, I'm the next Takashi Amano. No, none of that. I take the energy of it and I take it into my profession. I take it into my creative pursuits that relate to the podcast or to writing. And I've got a few other things that are brewing now. What's that? How it's purely energetic. It's like I can accomplish things. Like, I can build a really awesome home environment.
- [60:04]
Tom Bilyeu
See, okay.
- [60:05]
Andrew Huberman
And I used to do this. Like now I. Now I converted an art gallery into a living space. Like, that's kind of my obsession right now.
- [60:10]
Tom Bilyeu
I want to study your brain, but science.
- [60:12]
Andrew Huberman
But when I lived in a one bedroom studio, I did this. Yeah, I had a plant, I had my tv. I would think I'm not like an interior designer, but I was like, how can I make this place like the best study environment? This was in college. And I was like chairman, desk. That back then it was like tape and cd and I had like little posters and I kept really good care of everything I had. And that place is where I built my degree, which led to my master's, my PhD, running a lab, getting tenure, the podcast, sitting here with you. And so for me back then, I had no idea what a podcast was. It was in the mid-90s. Right. But that room was so important to me. Like, that's my whatever, dojo. That's my canvas. Like what I'm. And I just trusted and I Still trust that if something is closed loop, it's dangerous.
- [60:58]
Tom Bilyeu
When you say closed loop, what do you mean?
- [61:00]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, there's no. That whatever energy you get from it is just is discarded in the. In the thing I'm gonna get kind of.
- [61:06]
Tom Bilyeu
But why?
- [61:07]
Andrew Huberman
So, okay, let's talk about only fans.
- [61:08]
Tom Bilyeu
No, no, don't leave yet. Because I really want to understand this, and I want to understand if we're saying the same thing or just wildly different things. So I believe that all of human existence. There's nothing outside of what I'm about to say. All of human existence is us trying to manipulate our own brain chemistry. Period. No parentheticals, no new chapters. Everything that we do. I think that evolution has made that just obviously true, because evolution is trying to compel you to do a thing, and it only has pleasure and pain to propagate it.
- [61:43]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, evolution has an end game,
- [61:44]
Tom Bilyeu
right, for you to have kids that have kids.
- [61:46]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, right.
- [61:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Full stop.
- [61:48]
Andrew Huberman
Right? I mean, we agree. Species want to make more of themselves and protect their young.
- [61:52]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, but, like, period.
- [61:53]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah. Okay, so I. I agree with you.
- [61:55]
Tom Bilyeu
I work backwards from that. I'm like, evolution has a goal and I'm its vessel. Evolution wants to make sure that I have kids that survive long enough to have kids. Everything is just trying to get me to do that. The thing that it is using to get me to. To do that is all the neurochemistry stuff that you actually understand. And then me, whether I'm drinking alcohol, doing drugs, having sex, whatever. I have been given a set of circuitry, whatever your chemical processing plant, however you want to think about it. And I can do things to yank those levers that make me feel a certain way. And then all of us are just yanking those levers. Now, the thing that you and I are getting onto is you're saying, okay, there's a way that you can pull those levers where the energy goes inside and dies. And there's a way that you can pull those levers that that energy somehow does a new thing. And that new thing is what I want you to explain because you may be able to put your finger. Because I've, like, I. There are two things. I'm going to be attacked in the future. I'm not super attacked by it right now because not enough people know that I believe it. But over time, they're. They're really going to come after me for it while I'm. I. It won't happen to everybody. Transhumanism is going to be a thing, and I'M totally supportive of it.
- [63:09]
Andrew Huberman
It. How do you. How is that defined? I just. Because I. I'm not sure I know exactly.
- [63:12]
Tom Bilyeu
We'll merge with machines.
- [63:13]
Andrew Huberman
Got it. Okay. Okay.
- [63:15]
Tom Bilyeu
We'll alter our biology. It'll be one of those two things or both.
- [63:18]
Andrew Huberman
Gene editing.
- [63:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Yep.
- [63:19]
Andrew Huberman
Robots. Nano robots.
- [63:20]
Tom Bilyeu
Correct.
- [63:21]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, I think I'm an easy sell on this, but, yeah, 100% that's going to happen.
- [63:25]
Tom Bilyeu
For sure. I mean, it's happening, but I'm supportive of it. That's where I think I'm going to lose, certainly the religious crowd. And the second thing is that I really believe that going out into space is cool, and I'm glad some people are doing it. But the reason that aliens don't visit us is any sufficiently advanced tech society will develop technology where they collapse inside of virtual worlds. It's the only thing that makes sense because you don't have to worry about altering your physical body in terms of dealing with radiation and stuff like that. It's just so much. You don't have to bend space time. You can literally just create a virtual world. So I want to create virtual worlds. I am obsessed. It's not what I'm known for, but it's the thing that I'm obsessed with.
- [64:08]
Andrew Huberman
I can tell.
- [64:09]
Tom Bilyeu
But on this, I want to make sure that I'm not putting people in a box where their energy dissipates into nothing.
- [64:16]
Andrew Huberman
Got it.
- [64:17]
Tom Bilyeu
And I've done a thing now that I. That doesn't make me respect myself. I'm already rich. I am not doing this for the money. I'm doing it because I'm like, yo, this is where we're going. This thing is incredible, but only if done right. And so now tell me more about the fish tank and why the energy, like, rebounds into something else so I can make sure, one, that I continue to point my life towards things like that. And that as I'm building that, I'm. Because I feel what you're talking about, but I wouldn't be able to articulate it.
- [64:48]
Andrew Huberman
Well, first of all, you and I are completely aligned on this evolutionary argument that our brain circuitries and bodily chemistries are organized around evolution and that the innate, even if unconscious or conscious awareness of that we're trying to propagate our species and just go forward. There are a lot of traps, as I'll call them, these things that can hijack us. Like opium will hijack the pleasure center and ruin your life. You know, we've seen that. It's all about what it does. And what it no longer makes you want to do, okay. It makes people on opium, they just don't care to work. They don't care to do anything. Right. It's just. It's just a slippery slope, as they say. Here's. Here's why the fish tanks are more than a hobby and they're more than a fascination. And here's why it's different than only fans. Okay.
- [65:36]
Tom Bilyeu
Why fish tanks are different than only fans.
- [65:38]
Andrew Huberman
I mean, there are a lot of reasons why my. My aquariums are different than only fans, especially the way I'm interacting with them, just to be clear. But here's the difference, and I'm going to use an example that might seem a little bit crude, but I think it's the. It. It captures it best. Let's be honest. People aren't just watching onlyfans. They're masturbating while they watch only fans. I hope they're saying, Jesus, that presumably involves some pleasure or generates some pleasure for them. I certainly am not of the belief that all sex and masturbation is just about reproduction. That is about reproduction. Right. Obviously, masturbation is not the most efficient way to reproduce. Okay.
- [66:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Try a different method.
- [66:19]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah, exactly. So, but let's just imagine. And it's not pleasant to imagine, but I think we can all know the. The general contour of this. I don't have to say too much. Someone's watching only fans. A guy's watching only fans. He's paying. He's telling her what he wants. She's giving it to him. There's an exchange of money, there's an exchange of time. Okay. There's a. He's spending his dopamine, and he's literally spending it. And then masturbation. Right. And then what happens after that? Is he more. Is the. The net increase in dopamine, testosterone gonna cause him to go out and look for a real date? No, definitely not. No. Is he. Has he invested his biological resources in DNA, in his sperm, in reproduction and evolution of our species? No. Is he a contributing member of society? Well, to her bank account. Yeah. And to only gdp, Right. It's not. It's like taking an Uber where, like Uber takes a slice, but you actually go someplace in the car. He stayed right there. There. He actually spent out his evil, his, you know, God given, nature given, evolutionary given, whatever your. Your beliefs are gifts there. And guess where it went? Nowhere. It's a. It's a net negative. Okay. Now let's talk about my fish tanks. Okay.
- [67:30]
Tom Bilyeu
Now, do you think that evolution has some sort of backdoor punishment for that.
- [67:34]
Andrew Huberman
It depends on the, the extent to which society will pick up the slack. Because we know that throughout societies there have been people who have been, you know, opiated, who've, who can't work that we support. Sometimes we support those people for good reason. They're not able to support, they're out on disability from a workplace injury. Like, you know, societies have, have mechanisms set up. But if you look at thriving societies, right, I mean, a certain threshold number of males and females getting out there and doing work and educating young and like, you know, and here it's real. It really does take a village, it takes, takes men and women and it really needs to be shift workers, which is terrible for your health. But we need those people, right? So we need contributing members of society. The more things that we offer for people to opt out and they don't even realize that they're opting out of the evolutionary game, but being under the illusion that they're somehow doing the right thing and they sort of know they're not, but they're receiving all the pleasure that evolution has installed into these circuits. But they're not doing anything. They're not actually contributing, forget quote unquote, contributing to society. That's really important. They're not even contributing to their own life in a meaningful way. Sooner or later they have to make the money that they're gonna, you know, contribute to OnlyFans. I doubt anyone wants to see that guy on OnlyFans. I mean, there presumably are people, but I don't think that's the end game. So what I mean when I say like the fish tanks are, are like the, the inverse of all that is, you know, I, I have the, the tank which helps me, you know, feel like I can do something. It's somewhat mindless. I might listen to a book or a podcast while I'm enjoy it for pleasure, but then, but I get energy from there that I take elsewhere. It's not like I'm like, oh, you know, I'm going to start like, you know, podcasting about fish. Although here I am. But it is not my goal. I'm not going to start like an aquascaping podcast. They're amazing aquascapers. That's not my goal. The idea is it gives me energy. And this is what, you know, my good friend, and I'm sure, you know, like I always seem to mention him and you know, forgive me for name dropping, Rick Rubin really understands about the creative process that he talked about in the creative act there's another book by a woman by the name of Twyla Tharp Sharp, who's in her 80s, who's an absolutely incredible choreographer. And she talks about how her process of going to the gym in the morning for two hours she was a ballerina every single morning. The process of going to museums, the process of having a regimen. All of that is designed to give her the kind of raw materials in her unconscious that then she can put into being. And she is one of the greatest choreographers of all time. Anyone that pays attention to the dance world, which is in my world, but they will know her name. And so the idea is what are the things that you are doing that you get energy from that you can transmute into useful work? Being a better husband, being a better son, being a contributing member of society. Maybe it is the old fashioned version of like you go check on the neighbor and you like give them some cookies or something like that and they like it and you feel like you've done something useful and you have. The problem is the things that, where you think you've done something useful and you haven't and you actually have moved back two steps. You didn't not just go anywhere, you're actually drifting down because you're. Some of your peers are moving forward. I want to just briefly mention that there is a parallel argument for against the evolutionary theory that is not the one that people typically think of. And this is the scariest one of all. I just want to share it with you because I think it's a fun one and it's scary as shit, which is you now know about the gut microbiome. We have trillions of little microbacteria living in our gut. Gut. They help us manufacture serotonin, they're talking to our brain, they're informing about our body chemistry, they're controlling our immune system. Super important system involved in everything from mental health to physical health, inflammation. There's an argument that's been made by the people that study the microbiome that we, in our infinite desire to think that we know everything, have come up with this thing that we call evolutionary theory. But actually we are just vehicles for microbiota. I came here today, I shook your hand, I sat in one of your chairs. Elon wants to go to Mars and guess what? What? The people that are proponents of this theory argue that, you know, it's kind of cool. Humans think that they're going to Mars to colonize Mars, which I believe that they do, but that the microbiota just really Wanted to get there. So there's this. So they like create changes in our neurochemistry which create changes in our thinking. Is a kind of fun theory that lead us to think that we're leading these meaningful lives and like propagating our species. But really we've already been hijacked from the inside.
- [71:49]
Tom Bilyeu
That's wild.
- [71:50]
Andrew Huberman
And there's no sense that there's intention around it like that they're sitting there going, oh, like let's get some guys to play video games and interact with only fans. And like, no, like, you know, like let's adjust the numbers of people by lowering reproductive rates. Like there isn't that idea that they have that kind of consciousness. But anyone who's studied evolutionary theory knows that evolution doesn't sit back in a chair and think about it. This is just these. It's the statistics of outcomes that drive this. That's exactly, exactly. So I offer that as. As kind of a fun and scary example. That's the one that keeps me up late at night where I go like, oh shit, what if I'm just a microbiota via. Because it all. And you can't really destroy this theory. There's like no hole that you can poke in it that dissolves it completely. It's scary as hell.
- [72:32]
Tom Bilyeu
They better stop the AI from coming on board because I don't think the AI is going to need a microbiome. So. So that might be the one catch is they. They done messed up.
- [72:40]
Andrew Huberman
Couldn't resist offering that one. It's not the theory I subscribe to.
- [72:43]
Tom Bilyeu
No. I love it. And look.
- [72:44]
Andrew Huberman
But it's counter creation. It's like the opposite of like, of a master plan. Right. It's this idea that we think that we're so collaborative, cleverer. And we're doing all this stuff and we're just like meat vehicles that think. We think in. In important ways for the microbiota. Super scary. I hope that's not true.
- [73:01]
Tom Bilyeu
But I mean there's certainly an element. Did you read Sapolsky's book Determined?
- [73:07]
Andrew Huberman
No.
- [73:07]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh my God.
- [73:08]
Andrew Huberman
I spoke to him about it because. But basically he. He told me to my face there's no free will. Basically.
- [73:15]
Tom Bilyeu
That's the.
- [73:16]
Andrew Huberman
That's the idea.
- [73:16]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh brother. If he literally leaves no stone unturned. Just when you think I gotcha. Nope. He's like, yeah, there's a chapter on that. Trust me, by the end of it you're going to be like, oh yeah, we. We are automata.
- [73:27]
Andrew Huberman
Yeah.
- [73:28]
Tom Bilyeu
He showed up as a razor. You literally Just have to let go of that. It matters. And I'm like, look, I believe we really are automata and that it just doesn't matter. And to. Dude, if you read the book, you're going to be like, there's no wiggle room. There's nothing left. There's. And to be honest, even before I read the book, I believe we were automatop. Because I can manipulate your brain so completely to make you. I mean, you know, the Phineas Gage story. Like, you alter the structures of the brain, the person will be forever different. I don't under. I don't even understand people that think that we could be anything other than a Thomas. We are limited by our biology.
- [74:01]
Andrew Huberman
Oh, yeah.
- [74:02]
Tom Bilyeu
And so it's like, if you don't think we are, then go to somebody who's profoundly retarded and tell them to, like, solve for physics. They're. They are not going to be able to. It is not physically possible for them. The structures of their brain are such.
- [74:15]
Andrew Huberman
Such.
- [74:16]
Tom Bilyeu
That's just not within the realm of possibility. And so it's like, okay, well, if I'm limited by my biology, then I am my biology. If I am my biology, where exactly is free will sitting? So, anyway, I'll never be able to do the job that he does in that book. It is so detailed, all the way down to anybody right now at home that's thinking, well, Tom's ignoring Quantum. Or he. No, he has a chapter on the ridiculousness of thinking that that's the same as free will. He'll walk you through it.
- [74:40]
Andrew Huberman
Are you familiar? They're the. These really interesting studies by a guy named Robert Heath, very controversial neurosurgeon back in the. I think it was the 70s and 80s. Basically, he ran studies in humans where he stimulated different brain areas during neurosurgery. And, you know, he had this one experiment. Very few subjects, but his human experiment is hard experiment. So there's still value in what he found, which was people get different brain areas stimulated and then different sensations come about and they get to sort of report what they liked the most or the least, which brain area and which sensation it was associated with. So you stimulate the brain area associated with sexual pleasure and they really like that with laughter, they really like that with drunkenness. Some like that, some don't, and on and on. The brain area that they like and will work to stimulate self. Stimulate more than any other brain area. This is going to blow your mind is an area of the thalamus called the medial midline. It's a midline thalamus, a little structure. It doesn't really matter what the structure is called. And the subjective experience was one of mild frustration and anger. Anger.
- [75:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Humans are hilarious.
- [75:43]
Andrew Huberman
Humans are hilarious. And you wonder why everyone gets on X and it's just like, good morning, let's fight.
- [75:49]
Tom Bilyeu
I've talked about this before because I have a very low anger response and my wife has a very, like, fast one. And so when I click over into it, I'm like, oh, this is. It feels really good. There's so much certainty in anger. I am right, they are wrong. And that sense of I know exactly how the world should be and I know exactly now how to move forward and how to react there's just like.
- [76:14]
Andrew Huberman
It clarifies.
- [76:15]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes.
- [76:15]
Andrew Huberman
Sorry, I didn't mean to speak over you. We said the same word at the same time. So we do in stereo that it seems like it clarifies so much of our understanding and maybe, maybe or our experience. Maybe that's what the whole thing about organizing your room, aka Jordan Peterson or make your bed McChrystal or these things of running. You know, the number of people that I know who were addicts who got sober by just running a lot lot is pretty spectacular. And stay sober.
- [76:39]
Tom Bilyeu
Are they just clicking over the obsessive nature and giving it something else?
- [76:43]
Andrew Huberman
Probably. It's linear, it's forward, it's quantifiable. You know, has a lot of the elements of. Of kind of great replacement behavior. I mean, it can be taken to the extreme, but I think, you know, like Rich Rolls example. Right. You know, I'm not saying I don't think Goggins is an addict, but I mean, the guy just keeps running, running. Cameron Haynes, right. Just, you know, beast, right. Just runs and runs and runs. You know, he's able to drop alcohol, never go back. You know, running for sake of hunting, for sake of family and providing, you know, these things tend to ratchet into one another in ways that we feel really functional. And people like to point fingers and say, well, that's all excessive. You know, what would you rather have people doing? Yeah, just there on only fans or like, you know, I. I think we're getting back to a place where some of the kind of core stereotypical circuitries and drives in. In males, I mean these exist in females too, but in males are really being celebrated again or encouraged again because we need functioning members of society.
- [77:34]
Tom Bilyeu
For sure. That's it for part one of my conversation with Andrew Huberman. We are only halfway through though, and what comes next? Is packed with the kind of insight that can truly change how you act in the world. This is not one you're going to want to miss, so make sure you are following the show wherever you're listening. You don't want to miss out. Until then, my friends. Be legendary when you manage procurement for
- [77:56]
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