Fan Favorite: Ending Cancel Culture, Avoiding Civil War and How We Can Unify | Bret Weinstein

Summary

Impact Theory Podcast — "Ending Cancel Culture, Avoiding Civil War and How We Can Unify" with Bret Weinstein (Fan Favorite Episode) Release Date: December 30, 2024 | Host: Tom Bilyeu | Guest: Bret Weinstein

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Episode Overview

This fan-favorite episode of Impact Theory features evolutionary biologist and author Bret Weinstein in a wide-ranging, urgent discussion on the polarization of culture, the risk of civil conflict, the pitfalls of cancel culture, and actionable routes toward social unity and institutional renewal. Host Tom Bilyeu brings his signature focus on practical frameworks, personal responsibility, and narrative-driven change, while Weinstein offers unique insights grounded in evolutionary theory, history, and current events. The conversation explores both granular and systemic contributors to the crisis, and delves deeply into solutions ranging from collective mindset shifts to radical political reform.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Simulated Realities & The Matrix as Metaphor

• [01:07] Tom Bilyeu relates his fascination with The Matrix and likens it to the human brain's simulation of reality:

  “Your brain is creating a simulation for you through which you interact with the world...It’s not necessarily focused on just representing reality.”

• [02:39] Bret expands:

  “You are living in your own simulation, no matter what else might be true...That package of heuristics is both your greatest asset and your greatest liability.”

2. The Looming Threat of Civil War & Societal Tipping Points

• [04:10] Tom expresses concern over the growing possibility of civil conflict and the lack of dialogue on large-scale solutions.
• [06:34] Bret draws an analogy to arguments between close partners, noting societal neurochemical 'tipping points':

  “There’s a recognition that a lot goes on...that isn’t really about the content...If you can recognize what processes this looks like from the past, you’ll know you don’t want to go this direction, it doesn’t end well.”

• [08:18] Tom references Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning—framing agency as the freedom “between stimulus and response.”

3. Personal Responsibility vs. Collective Obligation

• [12:07] Bret diagnoses the gridlock:

  “Those who see the hazard clearly don’t understand where the energy is coming from...what has to be the negotiated solution has to come in the form of a recognition that the system is rigged and that it is rigged in a way that misfortune is not evenly distributed.”

4. Rent-Seeking, Zip Codes, and Unequal Opportunity

• [13:54] Bret identifies “zip code” as the best proxy for predicting misfortune due to systemic rigging.
• [15:32] Discussion of ‘rent seeking elites’—those extracting value from the system without creating it. Both acknowledge unintended participation in this phenomenon via investment structures.

  “Trying to live your principles in an economic context doesn’t make sense. You will hobble yourself...So the question is, what is the best use of the power and leverage you have?” —Bret Weinstein [18:03]

5. Growth Mindset and Fulfillment as the Ultimate Game

• [20:27] Tom:

  “The meaning of life is to see how much of your potential you can translate into usable skill set…and it helps not only yourself but other people.”

• [23:01] Bret frames the interplay between personal effort and collective obligation as “a yin-yang phenomenon.”

  “Liberating as many generations as can be, as possible, seems to me our collective obligation.” [26:24]

6. Frame of Reference, Learned Helplessness, and The Problem with “Oppression Olympics”

• [24:19–26:24] Shared skepticism about victimhood-based competition and an emphasis on cultivating personal agency.
• [26:24] Bret:

  “You’re just going to create a helpless, needy population…that structure isn’t capable of producing anything.”

7. Narratives, Social Division, and The Unity 2020 Plan

• [30:28–35:05] Tom and Bret discuss the need for dynamic tension between empathy/compassion and personal responsibility in both politics and business, likening it to the interplay of visionaries and executors.
• [35:05] Introduction of Unity 2020:

  “You need somebody who understands the values on both sides, the tension that exists that makes the system so dynamic and functional.” —Bret [45:43]

8. Overcoming the ‘Lesser Evil’ Trap and Systemic Corruption

• [45:42]

  “The villain...is actually the Democrats who offered such a poor candidate…The problem is they're involved in an objective that is inconsistent with serving the American public.”
  Bret argues the duopoly reinforces itself by fear-mongering (“lesser evil”) and that only nonpartisan patriotic leaders can break the cycle.

9. Ballot Access, Sex Appeal, and Practical Challenges for Reform

• [57:31] The necessity for a movement “groundswell” before announcing candidates; discussion of the difficulty in generating mass excitement without strong personalities or a clear, inspiring narrative.

  “You don’t have sex appeal yet…you lack a hook that’s sexy enough to get people excited.” —Tom [62:02]

• [68:29] Bret: “What drives this is patriotism in the best sense of the term...somebody has to take the reputational risk of saying, actually, you know what? Long shot as this may be, we're in dire straits, and I'm stepping up.”

10. The Dangers of Anti-Science and Cancel Culture (Shutdown STEM)

• [79:26] Tom and Bret discuss Shutdown STEM—a movement that, to both, represents a willingness among activists to undermine the foundations of scientific inquiry.

  “It is absolutely the most terrifying piece…It speaks to a willingness to uninvent insight in order to make progress.” —Bret
  “If you just take what you know to be factual and extrapolate from it, you can see where we're headed. And it couldn't be more frightening.” —Bret [91:49]

11. Skills & Agency as Keys to Liberation

• [92:01] Tom argues:

  “Skills have utility…Your mind is not a library. Your mind is a laboratory.”

• They assert the importance of retaining the tools of analysis, logic, and measurable progress regardless of ideology, warning against groupthink and cancel culture.

12. Evolutionary Biology & The Human Experience (A Tangent: The Clitoris!)

• [97:54]–[107:41] In a lighter segment, Tom asks about the evolutionary purpose and placement of the clitoris, leading to a scientific discussion on sexual selection, human pair bonding, and the evolutionary logic behind anatomy and sexual pleasure.

13. Public Education & Meritocracy

• [115:29–124:28]
  • Bret explains that public schools underperform, in part, due to a structural sabotage involving means-based opt-outs, teacher unions, and misaligned incentives—rather than simple incompetence or lack of will.

  “The purpose of education should be to upgrade the mind so it's maximally capable…the way the system is structured, we don’t attract very many people who have a passion.”
  Suggests exploring radical restructuring over mere incremental fixes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On cancel culture and learning from “bad people”

  “If [someone] knows how to perform an in-field tracheotomy and can save your daughter, do you hang up because they’re despicable?…That argument is the ultimate extrapolation of 'I’m trying to shut that person down.'” —Tom [92:01]

• On polarization:

  “You have each side. Both sides are necessary…If it’s just you, it slides towards tyranny…the friction between the two, you said it perfectly. Yin yang.” —Tom [30:28]

• On taking risks for reform:

  “Courage is precisely what we need…There is nothing more exciting for me than somebody who says, ‘This is dangerous for my career, but I actually believe it—and I’m willing to die on that hill.’” —Tom [74:11]

• On rent-seeking and personal responsibility:

  “Trying to live your principles in an economic context doesn’t make sense…The world becomes more ruthless as you try to make sure that you’re not doing anything that you don’t see as positive.” —Bret [18:03]

• On “Oppression Olympics” and agency:

  “You’re reducing the black population to…we’re pointed in whatever direction the wind of the white man blows us in. Fuck that. Don’t put me in that box. I have agency.” —Tom quoting Coleman Hughes [20:27]

• On systemic educational challenges:

  “There is a reason our public schools suck…a large number of people do not want other people’s children equipped to compete with their own.” —Bret [116:06]

• On U.S. uniqueness (and the danger of regressing):

  “The U.S. aims to step aside from the normal evolutionary dynamic…to foster a cooperation based on something else…For us to reinvigorate the population-against-population conflict…all there will be in the end is power.” —Bret [82:16]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:07] Simulation & Reality Metaphor
• [04:10] Civil War Concerns & Tipping Point Analogy
• [12:07] Diagnosing Social Division
• [20:27] Meaning of Life, Agency, and Growth Mindset
• [23:01] Personal Responsibility vs. Collective Responsibility
• [30:28] Yin-Yang of Societal Poles
• [35:05] Unity 2020 Plan Introduction
• [45:42] The Problematic “Lesser Evil” Paradigm
• [57:31] Ballot Access, Sex Appeal, and Movement Strategy
• [68:29] Why Narrative Power and Charismatic Leaders Matter
• [79:26] Shutdown STEM and Why Undermining Science is Dangerous
• [97:54] Evolutionary Biology Q&A (including The Clitoris!)
• [115:29] On How Opportunity is Hoarded and Public Schools Fail

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Takeaways & Tone

The conversation is earnest, candid, and at times deeply personal. Both Bilyeu and Weinstein blend philosophical rigor with accessible language and practical frameworks. There is urgency—both men regard the dangers of polarization, anti-intellectualism, and runaway activism as existential threats—but also a drive to empower, clarify, and propose paths forward grounded in both theory and lived experience. Weinstein’s diagnosis is frequently sobering, but the tone between host and guest remains constructive and hope-seeking.

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For more, follow Bret Weinstein on Twitter, listen to his Dark Horse Podcast, and visit Unity 2020 at @articlesofunity.

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Recommended Next Listening:

• "The War on Sensemaking" (previous Bret Weinstein appearance)
• "Building a Growth Mindset in a Polarized World"
• "What Happens After Cancel Culture?"

Transcript

[Bret Weinstein]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Brett Weinstein, thank you for joining me on the show, man.

[Bret Weinstein]

Thanks for having me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I am very excited to have you. So when I'm bringing you on now in a context that probably would have been different. So I've wanted you on the show for a long time because what I'm always telling people is that a lot of my success, success is predicated on an early realization that I had, which is that I'm having a biological experience. And what I mean by that is I became obsessed with the movie the Matrix as what I'll say is the dominant metaphor for my life because it so accurately captures the nature of what the brain does to you. So I don't think that we're actually in a simulation, but your brain is creating a simulation for you through which you interact with the world. And I just thought, okay, well if it's sort of focused on keeping me alive, and it's not necessarily focused on just representing reality like there are this many photons bouncing off of this object and figure the rest out from there and it's sort of packaging it in a way. Are there ways that I can reinterpret that package that would be more advantageous for me? And so that was initially why I got drawn to you and the things that you talk about. And then over the last few months, for the first time in my life, Civil War as a possibility seems real. And I always thought I saw myself as existing outside of history. And so to now suddenly feel like, hey, this is deeply uncomfortable, where this is headed, that pushed me doubly down into your world. Do you find Are you surprised that you and your wife became the epicenter of all of this?

[Bret Weinstein]

You know, one has to be surprised because, for one thing, the events are so bizarre that for anybody to be the center of it would be weird. And, you know, to be there is doubly so. But, yeah, it's a very odd moment. I have to say I'm quite excited by the two things you used to introduce the conversation here, because both of them are perspectives that very few people have. And you're right, you are living in your own simulation, no matter what else might be true. And that simulation is not quite matrix like, because it's not designed to fool you. In fact, it's designed to do the opposite. But it doesn't mean that those heuristics don't have lots of places where they create room for ambiguity. And that ambiguity is an increasingly large factor in modern life because so much of what we're encountering doesn't match what our ancestors were built for. So, anyway, it is very important to recognize that. That that package of heuristics is both your greatest asset and your greatest liability. And your second point about Civil war, I can't tell you how many conversations a week I'm having with people who seem to calculate that because civil war is not common, it must not be headed our way. And I just don't understand how they're ending up there. So it's good to talk to somebody who spotted it as a real possibility, because I'm quite sure it is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. The other interesting part is very few people are talking about solutions. So even somebody like myself who's like, okay, well, I'll always default to the individual. What can the individual do? And I identified that pretty early on in my life as the path that I was going to, or maybe the lens through which I was going to choose to see the world. And I think that there are very much limitations to that. But it has served me so well that I see it as definitely a part of the solution. But hearing people talk about the solution, that's at a higher level, systems level, something like that, was a true breath of fresh air to hear that somebody had ideas there. To set the stage, though, I want to talk about. There's this feeling that I have that we're in right now in terms of what the brakes are. What are the things that could take us off the path to civil war? Because right now I feel like we're already going at such tremendous pace and there's so much momentum. I'm always telling people in Business momentum matters. And there's so much momentum behind an idea that I think is fundamentally designed to disintegrate and to disunify everybody that then the next question is, okay, well, what, what could counteract that force? And there's this thing where my wife and I will be in the middle of an argument and I will actually call it out when it happens, where I'm like, we have reached that point now where, where it is impossible to avoid a fight. And I will say it out loud, Brett, in the middle of the argument, I will say, we have now reached that point because you get so much momentum behind your positions that until the neurochemistry of that situation changes, you can't re see commonality. You can't feel the desire to connect anymore. And if you don't feel the desire to connect, then you don't behave in a way that will draw you back together. And it is so surreal to how you can feel that sort of click over moment where there is some sort of tipping point where now aggression and anger feeling is trumping the desire to hear new information, to sort of relax and remember that you love this person. Do you think that we've hit that tipping point? And if we have, is there something other than a fight that can back us off?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I love your model and I must say, it mirrors the way Heather and I deal with things too, which is there's a recognition. I think for us it's seated in our training as animal behaviorists. But there's a lot that goes on in human space that isn't really about the content. Right. You think it's about the content because you're human and you're wired to process language because there's so much conveyed in it. But very frequently you'll understand an argument between people best if you turn down the sound so you can't hear what's being said and you just look at what's going on. And the same thing is, I think, true in the larger context where we are watching a battle that is over very standard stuff, but it's full of very modern, particular content descriptions. The people who are engaged in it think that they're reacting to something much more specific rather than just the general frustration. So the way out, if there is one, does involve a recognition that you are being carried along by something, that you may have an objective and a focus, but that you are being carried along with a historical process. And if you can recognize what processes this looks like from the past, you'll know you don't Want to go this direction, it doesn't end well. If enough of us can figure that out and manage to convey it, then maybe we can overcome the momentum, as you say. On the other hand, I think the odds are against us.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I think that's terrifying, and I hate it when you speak so clearly and terrifyingly because it is hard to argue, and on the streets it feels. It's unnerving. That is the word that I'll use. So when I have. From the perspective of trying to achieve things in my life, I have asked one question over and over and over, which is, all right, if Viktor Frankl is right and I can't control the stimulus, but I can control the response even in the middle of a concentration camp. And that book was just absolutely transformational for me in terms of, like, here is somebody who has lived through the worst atrocity that I can imagine and. And said you can predict with, like, accuracy of 72 hours when somebody's going to die because you see them give up on why they are suffering. And he was like, if you understand there's that gap between stimulus and response, and you hold on to that, that you can make radical change in your perspective or the way that you interpret things, which is going to then influence your behavior, which can, in his example, literally keep you alive or allow you to die. So I was like, okay, cool, I'm all for the deck. It may be stacked against anybody. Could be. Maybe it's stacked against me, maybe it's stacked against somebody else. Maybe that shifts and changes depending on the consequence or the context. But if I can, you know, retain some of this control, then I can really get somewhere. And so looking at the world through that lens and coming to this sort of evolutionary understanding of things, as you begin to look at the movement that's happening now and what seems to be an innate feature, and I don't know if you'd call it a feature or a bug, but the madness of crowds and that. Oh, God, I forget the exact quote. I'm sure you'll get really, really close, but madness is very uncommon in the individual and basically the default in crowds. And so what we have now is a crowd that is gaining momentum and it's moving in a direction and getting other people to sort of step out of the stream and get the perspective on that of, okay, between stimulus and response, I have a responsibility and I can do something. And so, partly because of you and, like, the things you were just saying, I had this moment when this all first kicked off and I was Like I just want to put my head down and dude, you can't imagine for the last, I mean now it's been 20 years. For the last 20 years all I've wanted to do is be the next Disney. I just want to make rad movies and TV shows and like inspire people and you know, like really bring something beautiful to the world. And I only want to tell one kind of story. You're not going to get a bunch of anti hero stuff from me. Like I want to. My literally, my stated mission is no one should ever get to the age of 15 without encountering a growth mindset and encountering it through story. Because saying it like we're saying it now, it hits people logically, but it doesn't hit them emotionally. We need narrative to drive down to the limbic level and really make change. Do it at the age of imprinting. Like I've got this whole plan and I feel good about it and then I'm like, okay. The thought of putting my head down in the hopes that the mob passes me by makes me feel like a coward. And since I know the punchline of life is exactly the following. How you feel about yourself when you're by yourself. It's all that matters. And I have run the experiment of does wealth solve all of your problems? And wealth is awesome, but it does not solve all your problems. So I didn't want to feel like a coward. It made me step into that. Okay, well what can I do at my own individual level to begin to tease this out so as you. Because you're not somebody who's giving up. So even though you have a somewhat pessimistic view, can you walk us through the things that would have to be true whether or not you think people are willing to do it? What are the things that would have to be true for this to stop shy of just outright conflict?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I see a primary obstacle which is that those who see the hazard clearly don't understand where the energy is coming from. And in some sense we have to negotiate a settlement in a, in a middle ground where the ability to navigate is being systematically disrupted by both sides. So you have, let's call it conservative for the moment. You've got conservatives who are dubious that the objections that the frustration is real and is based on something that actually requires a remedy. And then you have the liberals, or I don't even want to call them liberals because this is so illiberal the way they're delivering it. But you have the self defined leftists delivering a set of prescriptions that, as I've said many times before, doesn't seek to end oppression. It seeks to turn the tables of oppression. And worse, it seeks to turn the tables of imagined depression oppression so that it's not even being careful about its targeting. And what has to be the negotiated solution has to come in the form of a recognition that the system is rigged and that it is rigged in a way that the. The misfortune is not evenly distributed. You can predict with a relatively high degree of certainty where the misfortune is going to be concentrated based on historical patterns of oppression.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So can you, can you give me the very specific predictive mechanism you use? Is it zip code? Is it ethnicity?

[Bret Weinstein]

What.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What is it?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I would say zip code is by far the best because it does capture the fraction of it that tracks with ethnicity, but it doesn't limit it to that. And of course, it isn't limited to that. So what you really have is a kind of opportunity hoarding by what I call rent seeking elites. Oftentimes these rent. Go ahead.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I've heard you talk about that before. And one of the questions I want to ask you had said, because I have generated tremendous wealth in my life. And you said, you know, a lot of people, they'll, they'll. So rent seeking being people that are sort of inserting themselves as money managers or finance people or whatever. They're not actually creating something. They're not adding value to the system, but they're extracting a ton of value just as a quick thumbnail. But you said there are people. So I've always felt very good, right, Because I built a business from the ground up. We didn't raise outside capital and we turned it into something. And from that I created wealth. And then you said, there are some people who create something with good intentions, and then they turn into unknowingly rent seeking elites. And I was like, shit, am I rent seeking? So now I'm like, what is that next step? Because I have literally dedicated my entire adult life and I'm sort of gambling with my fortune that I can create this narrative vehicle that will help some percentage of people encounter a growth mindset and improve their life. And my mission is to make it so your zip code is not predictive of your future success. But now I'm so paranoid so that I'm doing some rent seeking that I don't even realize. So what does that look like? Is it just investing my money makes me rent seeking? What does that look like?

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah, you're definitely doing some rent Seeking. But the good news is you're not doing it because of a defective character. You're doing it because of the way the market is structured and what rational behavior looks like. So, yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So walk me through what that is.

[Bret Weinstein]

Your investment portfolio is no doubt invested in things that, if you looked at the details of how they function, are just simply rent seeking. So, you know, you probably don't even know. You probably are invested in some funds and those funds you know are picking and choosing equities and whatever it is. And those, those things are having an effect on, you know, they're. Maybe you're invested in a company that makes clothing and the company that was chosen for your portfolio is profitable. And why is it profitable? Because it's figured out some way to artificially depress the wages of the people who make the clothes so that when they get to the shop, they're cheaper and people buy them. So anyway, there's lots of places where you can be involved in rent seeking just by virtue of automatic processes in which you're not. You couldn't possibly be aware of all of the things that your money is doing while you're not paying attention. So there's that. And then there's also the issue, probably not for you, because I've heard very clearly what you've said here. Your objective is not only laudable, but it's also, I would say, maybe the important leverage point. You're talking about reaching young people. You're talking about reaching them with developmentally relevant, helpful stories that actually empower them. So my guess is, net, you're in surplus. But does that mean that everything that you're doing is positive rather than negative in this calculation? It can't. Right for none of us, I'm sure. I'm rent seeking too. I don't have a lot of investments, but enough that there's definitely going to be stuff hidden there. But the good news is you can't really be. If you were to try to figure out what effect you're having on the world in every detail and you were to try to eliminate all of the negative stuff, it would take all your time and more. You wouldn't finish the job. So you'd be left ineffective in the stuff that you're doing that's positive without eliminating the negative stuff. So in some sense, I don't know if you're familiar with my personal responsibility vortex talk.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, give it to me.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, the short answer is that game, theoretically speaking, trying to live your principles in an economic context doesn't make sense. You will hobble yourself, you will end up in a cabin in the woods, you know, trying to eke out a living without having negative impact. And what that does is it reduces your influence on how society functions. So the world becomes more ruthless. As you try to make sure that you're not doing anything that you, you don't see as positive relative to your values, you actually limit your influence over the system and the system moves away from your values rather than towards them. So the question is, what is the best use of the power and leverage you have? And for you to be delivering narratives that empower individuals so that they know who they are, they are better equipped to function, and making sure that that happens in a way that your zip code doesn't predict your success in life. That seems not only incredibly noble, but it also seems like the leverage point. And I fully agree with you. Conversations like this are all well and good. They don't move civilization, right? They can inform something that moves civilization. But the stuff that moves civilization is narrative. And so anyway, more power to you. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters, but when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Bret Weinstein]

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[Tom Bilyeu]

It begins to pull at one thread of what feels like a very tightly wound ball of yarn. But I think this is, you know, ultimately how it begins. So now getting into the thing that I always try to hold myself to is I only care about what has application in the real world. And so I'm trying to learn things, chase fascinations, whatever the case may be, that's actually going to make me more capable. So I'll give you a background or a Base assumption. This is maybe a better way to say it. So if somebody asks me, what's the meaning of life? I have a very quick, aggressive, ready answer. I don't expect other people to agree with more. I think the biggest thing I want people to take away is it is possible to define that and then to act in accordance. So my definition is very simple. The meaning of life is to see how much of your potential you can translate into usable skill set. And that. That to me. And then you can, you know, even take it one step further and say, and that skill set should be something that's unique to you, that you care deeply about, that you worked your ass off to acquire. And it helps not only yourself, but other people. Now, why do I think that's the meaning of life? Because that is, as far as I can tell, given that you are having a biological experience and your brain will kick up neurochemistry that either feels good or bad based on millions of years of evolution. So you're stuck in that there. Yes, you can transcend your biology, but you are in that biology, man. And so fulfillment to me is the name of the game, right? So fulfillment is often born out of really hard shit. It's doing hard things, right? It is not getting things just given to you. This is why I think the Oppression Olympics is just destined to fail. Because you're creating a frame of reference, of victimhood, of I don't have agency. I don't know if Coleman Hughes came up with this, but he's certainly the person I heard say it. He was like, you're turning people into weather vanes and you're reducing the black population to. Well, we're pointed in whatever direction the wind of the white man blows us in. And he was like, basically, fuck that. Don't put me in that box. I have agency. Like, I can do things in my own life. And so that, to me, is really where you should be focused, which is how you're going to feel about yourself when you're by yourself, which is a neurochemical experience which is based on all the heuristics that the brain has worked into us. And in my interpretation of that, it's translating potential into skillset and then putting those skills to use. Beautiful.

[Bret Weinstein]

That's lovely. And actually, to me, it seems like a key. It's half of a puzzle that I'm focused on. I'm focused on the other half, typically. But there's this interesting dynamic between conservatives and liberals where conservatives see very clearly the personal responsibility part of the equation. And they oftentimes don't see the collective responsibility part. And liberals are exactly the inverse. And so I've spent a lot of time thinking about actually the way these two pieces of the puzzle fit together. And it's, it's a, you know, a yin yang phenomenon. Before I get to it exactly though, let me say the weathervaning. I have not heard Coleman say that, but I love it. It's a, it's a beautiful way of thinking about it. The way I think about it is learned helplessness that in effect this is just training people to be helpless because it results in rewards being delivered. And the end point of that is fairly clear. You're just going to create a helpless, needy population. And I mean anybody who's raised kids or you know, even if you have nieces and nephews, you know how bad an idea this is, right? There's no way it's going to work at a civilization level.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And let me push on that and see if you agree why it's going to be bad. So the reason, as I hear you say that, that it seems self evident to me that that will become a problem is when you are a self perceived. I don't think this is true. But when you've created a frame of reference which we can get into why I'm so obsessed about frame of reference. But when you create a frame of reference that you are helpless and needy, think back to in human, in any one human's evolution, not as a population. The point at which you are most needy and weak is when you're a child. And what is the mechanism that every child very quickly learns gets them what they want, a tantrum. You create so much like external pain and suffering that people want to calm you down by giving you the thing that you want. It's a strategy every one of us has tried and reaped tremendous benefits. And then we go out into the world and the world slaps us around and says stop, you're obnoxious, I don't want to be around you. Right. Jordan Peterson saying don't let your kids do anything that makes you dislike them. I think that's a pretty good steering mechanism. But now when you talk about this horizontal movement, which is one of the more terrifying things that you say, meaning that this is already permeated everywhere. And so now you called it a sleeper cell recently and I thought that was super apt and just way terrifying. So you have all these people that have learned hey, tantrums are very effective and my entire identity is around how effectively I can use a tantrum to get what I want. My placement in the Oppression Olympics, which I say with derision. Right. Anybody listening can see that. I don't. I think that that's ineffective. And I should state, I judge everything by whether or not what you're doing moves you towards your goal. And I judge your goal based on whether it will bring you fulfillment. Right. So it's very easy to sort of guess how I will interpret something. So if you create that scenario where the only way to win is to throw a tantrum, we're doomed. And so is that or something like that what you meant when you say this just won't work?

[Bret Weinstein]

Oh, exactly. And not only does it not work for the individuals, but ultimately they're going to tear down the entire structure. Because a structure of people that gets what they need through effectively the kind of terrorism that children engage in against their parents, that structure isn't capable of producing anything. So exactly how is it going to survive in the world? And this actually brings me to the other half of the very eloquent personal responsibility portrayal that you delivered a couple minutes ago, which is. So you see the imperative as basically taking what assets you have and making sure you convert them at the maximum rate into capacity that's meaningful relative to your. Your values, which I agree, absolutely. But the other thing is, I think we collectively have a responsibility to recognize that being a human being is an incredible experience. Right. It's such a gift. And you could, you know, if you were any other creature, the degree of that gift that you would have would be much less in the case of the next nearest creature, or none in the case of most creatures. And so we have this amazing opportunity, and it seems to me that we have a moral imperative to deliver that opportunity to as many people as possible. And what that means is that actually we have an obligation to preserve this. This really isn't about our generation and whether we're satisfied or anything like that. This is about how long can we keep this running so the maximum number of human beings has that experience. And what's more, if you are hobbled by a cruddy educational system, if you are constrained by the requirement that you spend your time in a stupid job that has no meaning to you because it's the only way that you can afford a roof over your head and get your health care paid for and all of that, if that's what you're obligated to do, then we're squandering your human potential and we should be seeking to liberate people as much as is humanly possible. So as many generations as can be as liberated as possible. That seems to me our collective obligation. And how do you do that? Well, you have to enable people individually to take advantage of opportunities to spot them. And it just so happens that these two things fit together rather perfectly. They describe what the objective of the whole exercise ought to be. So anyway, we're a long way from there. You know, we have a system that just does not do this very effectively, but we can see it from here. And then this goes to the last part. We were talking about momentum and we were talking about the danger of despair, effectively recognizing that the likelihood of us fixing the problem is pretty small. But I always think of it in terms of being on a, I don't know, a canoe or something headed for a waterfall. At what point is the chance that you can paddle out of the path of the waterfall and get to shore before you go over so low that it's not worth your time? And the answer is there is no point at which it's so low. Right. If there's any chance at all that you can get to shore, a fraction of a percent is enough. Giving up would be stupid if the result of giving up is that you go over the falls. So to me, this is where we are. I don't know how likely it is that we'll succeed, but I think the thing is it just makes sense to take the best shot you've got. And sometimes you're surprised. You take the best shot you got and it's good enough. So what the hell else are we doing right? Why would we invest in anything other than trying to right our course and avoid another tremendous calamity of history?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's very well said. And one of the things that I think will help us, in fact, one of the things I think that must happen if we're going to get enough people rowing in the right direction is something that Heather, your wife, Dr. Heather Heying, brought up in one of your episodes. She read directly from the book tribe. I have a rule, when you encounter something powerful, you should immediately go into it. So I literally, after hearing that quote, got the book, read it that day. And the punchline is, hey, boys and girls, you have a two party system which is exactly as you just laid out, Brett. You've got people that err on the side of like this, compassion, empathy, collective moral obligation to lift up as much of humanity as humanly possible. And then on the other side, you've got people who are about Individual responsibility, not wanting to be taken advantage of. And I see a very. Not. They don't. It doesn't break on the same lines, but an equally important dichotomy in business, which is the visionary and the executor, often known as the coo, the operations person. And there is friction between the two in both cases. So you have friction between the compassionate people who want to help everybody and the people who are like, come on. Personal responsibility. I don't want to be taken advantage of. And then in a business, you need somebody who's a visionary and is not worried about the consequences and just new ideas, crazy ideas, big ideas. And you need somebody who's like, hey, motherfucker, you have to ground this in reality. And if we just spin off on all these crazy ideas, nothing will ever get done. And it's like, it was a huge breakthrough for me in business when I realized I'm a visionary because I live in it. I see it from that perspective. So again, my obsession with frame of reference. So as a visionary, my frame of reference is big ideas are how you end up building a big business and creating all the wealth for all the people, Being able to pay people salaries and be generous and give them vacations and all that. I remember once looking out my window and There was like 20 cars in the parking lot. And I thought, fuck, I've created something that has allowed everyone to pay for these. Like, that's crazy. Like, you're really helping people do rad shit in their lives. But until I had respect for the need for this other person to help me, right? And there's a great quote. I think it's John Ford who said. Or Henry Ford who said, airplanes take off against the wind, not with it. And the example I hear in business a lot is you need both the kite and the string. The kite without the string just flies off into the ether. The string without the kite just lays on the ground. So once I said, okay, wait a second. This is exactly what's going on in our political discourse is you have each side. Both sides are necessary. So if you're conservative and you have any temptation to alienate or hate the other side, like you're missing the fundamental point. You are one half the equation. If it's just you, it slides towards tyranny. The other side. If you don't recognize that you need the other side, that it is the friction between the two, you said it perfectly. Yin yang, right? If you don't understand the need for that balance, you slide off into madness. And until Both sides go, hey, it's cool for me to really stand for my part of this. If I show respect and have this really insane desire to have the other side, if we did that, then, okay, like, people can say, look, I'm just. I'm wired for. I can't have people stealing from me, right? The taxes is theft. And then the other side, like, we can't let these people, like, starve in the streets. If they both value each other and recognize, okay, this is an interplay between the two, I think we get somewhere. But we're so being forced into these factions. Factions, factions. And because I'm a personal responsibility guy, even though I do not consider myself conservative at all, because I'm freakishly compassionate, but when I. I think it. Jordan Peterson said it the best when he was like, when you fractionate and fractionate and fractionate, you ultimately realize that you end up with the ultimate fraction, and that's the individual, and that's sort of where action can be taken. So I approach it from that standpoint. But when I boil it down to that, the only thing I could see action that I could take to sort of bring that harmony, that balance together, was to not bury my head in the sand, not try to put up the don't hurt me wall of platitudes and saying all the things that I'm supposed to say, but to step out and say, okay, there has to be a way forward, and we have to speak up for that. And that brings me to my keen interest in the Unity 2020 plan. What is it? Why do you think it's realistic? And was it born of that need for balance?

[Bret Weinstein]

Oh, man. So, first of all, I don't want to leap right to it because you said so many important things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Hey, we can come back to it later if there's something else you want to jump on.

[Bret Weinstein]

Last little riff. Well, I just wanted to say that the number of different realms and different examples that we could come up with that reflect the exact thing you just said. I mean, we could go all day. Just to give you one example that has been a focus for Heather and me is that there has been a kind of coup inside academia, where the empiricists have driven out the theorists, and they didn't know that that's what they were doing. But the way the university system is funded from grant overhead prioritizes expensive empirical work. And what this has resulted in is basically a science of the coos, right? There's no visionary stuff because effectively, what theory still exists, at least in a Place like biology is theory practiced by empiricists in their spare time. Right. It's not high quality, and this has resulted in a huge amount of waste because you need visionaries who are, who are good at the art of seeing what is there that is hidden, rather than people who are just very focused on data, data, data. Now, as a theorist, I would never, I wouldn't dream of trying to get rid of the experimentalists because they're so. They are, you know, there is no science without them. But in many places, what we have, where we see dysfunction is that one side has forgotten the necessity of the other side. The tension is where the magic comes from. And in our political context, I am very definitely a. Not only a liberal, I would say I'm a radical because I believe only radical change will save us. But I'm not a radical because I like radical change. Radical change sucks. It's very dangerous. Right. I want to live in a world that works so well that I get to be a conservative. That's the objective of the exercise. And if you're a progressive that isn't looking to create a world in which you become a conservative, then you don't understand what you're doing. Right. Then this is. It's a fashion statement. Then it's not an objective. Right. So anyway, I think there's something tremendously deep in what you've said and personal responsibility, man, that is the place. If you're trying to improve things, that's the best bang for your buck. Right? That's why conservatives see it so clearly. And believe me, in my, you know, the last three and a half years, I've spent so much time talking to conservatives and wow, have I come to understand what it looks like through their eyes. Yes. This just. It pays back, you know, Whereas if you take the same investment and you pointed at fixing civilization in general, nothing happens. Or you create change and it has. It has unintended consequences that may even be negative. The whole thing may be net negative. So, yeah, personal responsibility, it's a place. It's easy to understand how people end up focused on it because it works quite well. But I don't want to lose sight of the other thing because, you know, that's the part that allows the personal responsibility to work is the context in which there's a place to deploy it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Booking a VRBO vacation rental means you get Verbo Care and 247 life support, verified reviews from real guests and top rated homes with the Love by Guest filter. I just booked my VRBO because there

[Bret Weinstein]

Was a sweet wine fridge.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We all have our reasons. If you know you verbo terms apply. Seeverbo.com trust for details. It's also the part that makes you feel good at the end. So I really want people to obsessively focus on one thing. At the end of the day, you have to feel good about yourself when you're by yourself, like, that's it. That is what you're marching towards. That is the name of the game. And as somebody. So I generated wealth in a way that I think is actually very, very typical. But people don't understand it. They don't understand the process of building equity in something only to then finally, in one sort of grand moment, you go from normal income to, whoa, my life is totally different. I can go buy a mansion. And it's literally in the snap of a fingers. So we had built this company and I had been working by the time we got to that company, I'd been working in business for. By the time I got my first taste of real money was probably 15 years in. So I'd been working in business for a very long time. And at first it started out sort of I wasn't paying paid very well. And then it was like, okay, I'm making, yeah, great middle class. And then it was upper middle class income. And then I was sort of stuck at upper middle class income for a while and then it dipped back down, doesn't matter. And then come back to this upper middle class income. And then in one fell swoop, we sell a piece of the company and I just have a tremendous amount of never have to work again can change my family's life, can, you know, go in any direction I want to go moment. And because it was so I'm literally hitting refresh, refresh, refresh in my banking app. Because you do this call and everybody goes, we ready to wire? We ready to wire. Yes, go. And then you wait the, you know, whatever, seven minutes for it to hit. And so just hitting refresh. And I had this amazing moment where I was like, the money hit and I was suddenly wealthy and I felt exactly the same. And I was like, oh, my God, every insecurity I've ever had is still here. And all the joy of having to get better and push myself and fucking suffer to get better and like, grow and adapt. And the excitement that comes along with getting better and seeing over a period of time, like, Whoa, looking back 10 years, like, I can do stuff now that I couldn't do before. This is amazing. And you go, that was actually the juice. The juice was I became a person capable of building a company. So I'm always telling people, don't try to win a championship, try to become capable of a championship performance. Right. I would rather be the guy that loses the game winning shot in a championship, but have been that guy than have been sitting on a bench of a championship winning team but not played and contributed in any way. Because I'm trying to feel some way about myself, right? So when you talk about putting it in that context of understanding, look, I want to be a badass. I want to be the hardest core motherfucker that ever lived. Partly so I can help other people, so that I can lift them up. Because I'm in this evolutionary context of I get rewarded neurochemically. I get the chills right now from just thinking about helping other people because I'm strong, right? Helping somebody because I got strong in some way, not necessarily physically, but I got good at some things. And that thing has now helped somebody, makes me feel good. And if people are trying to, you know, brandish their personal responsibility to become this badass motherfucker and then, you know, it's, it's fuck you to everybody else, it won't feel good. Like that is such a fragile place to live. So getting people to understand, even if you just want to be a selfish psychopath, helping other people actually plays out neurochemically from a selfishly rewarding place.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, you have now said the first thing that I disagree with you about.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, now push me forward.

[Bret Weinstein]

I don't think we actually disagree. But the selfish psychopath is such an unusual creature that I don't even. I think the one thing to know about them is that your intuitions about what it's like inside that mind are bound to be off because it's so different.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I will nod to that was pure hyperbole.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah. Good. All right, so then we're back on exactly the same page. And. And it's a page I, I really like. So when I was teaching, when I was teaching college, I was in a constant battle trying to convey to students what it was that I knew that they were doing but they didn't understand was the objective of the exercise. You know, they would very frequently either have a producer consumer model for what they were doing in college, you know, where the teacher is delivering a good that they consume from the seats, very destructive, or they sort of have the sense that this is like a proto job where they're producing useful stuff. Almost nobody produces anything useful in College. That's not the point. The point is you're building capacity into your mind and that capacity you're not being productive for, let's say four years in order that you can be very productive in a useful way when you get out. So upgrading the mind is the whole point of the exercise, which seems obvious once you say it out loud, but nonetheless it's obscure to people. And the point about how you will deploy those tools once you are liberated into the world is the key. You know, you want to be able to a. You need to be able to sleep, right? If you are doing something that makes it hard for you to get to sleep, probably you're not doing the right thing with those tools. And so anyway, glad, glad we're on the same page about, about personal responsibility, it's importance, about capacity. And anyway, I resonate with that. So should we get back to unity? I shouldn't have.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, no, please, absolutely.

[Bret Weinstein]

So the question you asked was, is it this understanding of yin yang perspectives that led to the Unity 2020 plan? Partly, I think so. I mean, the Unity 2020 plan is the result of decades of thinking about what has gone wrong and of course trying various things and seeing what happens. And in some sense the plan is ridiculously simple because the primary obstacle is not a complex one. The primary obstacle is that each and every time you attempt to propose something outside of the duopoly's control, you are told if you do that, you are going to empower the thing farther from your values and you're going to rob the thing closer to your values. Therefore, you're not allowed to even think those thoughts. And that is wrong. It's wrong for a number of reasons. I would give you one example. The, the lesser evil paradox has it that if you, if, let's say Ralph Nader got one vote, right, and the Democrats lost by one vote, they would blame Ralph Nader. Now, Ralph Nader is not the villain in a scenario where he gets one vote. He's perfectly entitled to get one vote. The villain in that story is actually the Democrats who offered such a

[Tom Bilyeu]

poor

[Bret Weinstein]

candidate that they couldn't acquire anything like 75% of the electorate. Democrats have a go to move. Frankly, all they need to do if they want to be wildly popular is serve the American public. But the problem is they're actually involved in an objective that is inconsistent with serving the American public. They're influence peddlers. And so you can blame Ralph Nader for the failure of the Democrats, but the Democrats are really responsible for the failure of The Democrats. Therefore, the lesser evil paradox that you are required to vote for that thing which is nominally closer to your values, so you don't empower the. The opposite is really. It's a trap. And in my opinion, it's actually a trap that has been constructed to limit our thinking about what might be possible. So the Unity plan basically says, look, what we need in order to fix the system is people who are above politics, who are patriotic, who are insightful, and who are capable. And we need them to understand the values on both sides, the tension that exists that makes the system so dynamic and functional. So you don't have to be afraid of electing a Unity ticket because you know that your values, whether you're left or right, your values will be in the room. Somebody who understands what it is that you see will be present in that discussion at the very top level and will have equal power in that discussion about what we are to do. And I truly believe that if you did that, if you simply took the influence peddling out of the White House and you had people who were honorable, who had the resources to solicit the best insight that they could source, and who made a proper judgment on what was likely to be best for the American people, I believe you would begin to see things get better rapidly. And what's more, I believe it would cascade through the system that there are many people in Congress, for example, who are trapped in a system that forces them into influence peddling. But if they had an option to do the job that they were actually elected to do, they'd prefer it. So it's, you know, the fact that we see rampant corruption doesn't mean everybody's happy in that state. And frankly, I don't see any reason that we wouldn't try it. Right. This is the best. Go ahead.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I want to start pushing on some of the issues. And I don't know if you're fully discussing things yet. I know for a while you were like, hey, look, we know the game that we're playing, and if we reveal too much, we're just giving a strategic give to the enemy that wishes to tear this down. So if I ask something you're still not ready to talk about it, just let me know.

[Bret Weinstein]

But.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I'm going to start asking questions as somebody who wants this to be true, and I'll walk you through what happened. So I've been apolitical my entire life. The system has worked well for me. So I've never had a problem. I've just always been like, I'M going to outwork everybody. I don't give a fuck what you try to do to slow me down. I'm going to keep going. And because it has worked well for me, I don't immediately find myself gravitating towards the problems. Now Andrew Yang comes onto the scene, and I'm looking at. I remember telling my employees the night before the Trump election, guys, he cannot get elected. Like, he is on tape. He said, I grabbed them in the pussy. It's done. I was literally laughing. I'm like, you guys are panicking. He is fundamentally unelectable. It can't happen. And so I was like, go to bed, rest. Everything's going to be fine. And so the next morning, when I say that, I was like, what? I was so caught off guard and taken by surprise. Anyway, a very surprising moment. So that was the first time where I thought, whoa, man, maybe votes really do count. Like, you know, that I should have voted. I didn't vote. Never even really thought. I'm like, I live in California. It's like, it's a default, you know, state. It's going to go blue. So never thought about the need to vote. Never even took inventory of, am I conservative or am I liberal? None of it. Just didn't think about it. As this all starts happening and the Trump thing is kicking off, and I start with just default assumptions that he's a psychopath and he is, like, literally ruining this country. And then Yang comes around because I'm like, who am I going to vote for in the next election? Because now I realize I really do need to vote. And Yang came along, and I'm like, yo, this dude. And I was really into him, and obviously he gets sort of railroaded off. But then I had him on my podcast, and I was way opposed to LBi, Ubi, Ubi. And when I had him on the podcast, I'm talking to him and I'm like, you know, man, I'm still not sure if I agree with UBI or not, but, like, I really believe in this dude. Like, and if this dude has looked at this problem that closely and is like, yo, we really have to take this into consideration, I'm just willing to say either I need to go figure it out for myself and do all the hardcore research, or I need to find a proxy that I can trust. And I felt so good about him. So when you came out with unity and off camera, I told him, dude, you better fucking run again next cycle, because, one, you look super prescient now, because this was Right after Covid hit. And I just really think people are going to get used to your way and there could be a real shot for you. And so when you started talking unity 2020 and the people that you were putting forth, that he happened to be one, I was like, oh, there's. He gave me the clearer sense of what you meant by a patriot. And, okay, so that's the framework with which I'm now stepping into the first time I hear about Unity 2020. And I think, ooh, this is interesting, but my first problem is, tick tock, man. We are running up against it. So how are you not worried about. And forget it. I know you're going to pull the plug if we can't, but I'm just saying I really want it to happen. So how do we get enough done in the really small amount of time that we have? Like, can you even get on the ballot everywhere?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, see, that's the thing. Everybody asks this question. You have to realize something. You probably hadn't heard a plan like Unity 2020 before. In other words, you've. You've probably heard the lesser evil thing a dozen times, right? You've heard why you can't engage in this. And then the answer is, oh, there's actually a very simple solution to that puzzle. Ballot access has this element. If you think, well, ballot access is a matter of collecting signatures, there's a date in every state, and that's it, then we're cooked. That's true. We are cooked. You can't do it that way. It's not the only way. So the question is, is there something that you are not seeing? And I can promise you there is. Can I promise you that we're going to get there? Oh, I absolutely can't. What we need is a groundswell in order to find out, right? Everything depends on people realizing what I think. Even in what you just said, I think is missing, which is I don't think there's any guarantee that something recognizable makes it to 2024 for Andrew Yang to run again. I think Andrew Yang is thinking that it does. In fact, I saw an interview in which he ominously said that he had signed something that said he was going to step out of the race this time and not do anything that might interfere with it. Who is asking him to sign what? This is a democracy. Who knows what the future holds? Why would any honorable person ask somebody who is clearly capable, qualified for the job, why would you take anybody off the map with their signature? Shouldn't a handshake do it and say, look, under foreseeable circumstances, I'm not planning to run. Shouldn't that be good enough for just about anybody? So anyway, something ominous is afoot in our system that wishes to take Andrew out of circulation. We saw it act during the primaries, right? We saw all sorts of shenanigans played in order to limit his influence. I think it's very clear why. You know, again, the Democratic Party does not want to represent the public because it has other priorities. Andrew Yang would clearly represent the public. So he's a non starter. Frankly, I think he'll be a non starter in 2024, 2028, you know, whatever it is, right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The problem is within the current system.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, let's put it this way. Why is he behaving like a good soldier in the current system if the current system cannot allow Andrew Yang to be Andrew Yang? I mean, there's something just seriously off. So in any case, the, the thing about Andrew Yang that I really like and the reason that I named him as member the, the left leaning member of the. The prototypical ticket is that he is very insightful. He's clearly motivated by the right things. To be honest with you, I'm not sure I believe in UBI as presented. But my sense is there. It's a problem that needs to be addressed. UBI is a proposal. It proves that Andrew is interested in the right things, he's focused in the right place. Personally, I would argue that something like participation income might be a better instantiation. But here's the thing. I know for sure. Let's say that Andrew Yang found himself in the White House. There's no problem saying, look, UBI was a cool idea. Here's why it doesn't work. Here's an idea that fixes the problem with UBI and addresses the same thing that it addresses. Andrew Yang would look at it and if he thought actually that does work better, there's no obstacle to it, right? He would accept it. Or if he understood something about participation income that wasn't as effective at ubi, he'd throw back that argument and we'd find out, right? There's no, there's nothing in the system. There's no reason he'd be committed to it. There's no constituency that is favoring UBI that is actually driving his claim to believe in it. So again, it's just a simple matter of let's let democracy work by taking people who can afford to listen to any idea, who don't have a dog in the fight personally, who can actually speak on our behalf. So, yeah, Andrew's perfect for that because he's smart, he's open minded, he's a patriot. I mean, hell yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So as we. There's some way that you guys see that we can get on the ballot in time. When do you plan to announce who the candidates are and what does that. Is that process of selecting those candidates something that you pass off? Or do you have to have the unity, the unity party that has their own sort of version of the DNC that does this? Like what? Because I will say I'm the guy that you probably are aiming at convincing, right? Like I'm ready, I'm ready to be convinced. But right now I feel like if I wasn't obsessed with you as a thinker, I just wouldn't pay attention because I don't have enough details. So it's like. And if I'm saying that, like there's just not enough details here. So I'm just not even gonna think about it because I go to a pessimistic place, if they're never even gonna be able to get on the ballot, it's just too fucking late. And that there is hopelessness in that. But I think that that level of sort of just unquestioned hopelessness, right, I've. I'm only processing through this because I'm sitting in front of you now, right? So otherwise I wouldn't, it just would be sort of background like, oh, that'd be cool. But you know, we're just, it's just not going to happen in time. Okay, how do, how do we give the, the, you know, the optimism and the sense of like, shit, this could really happen.

[Bret Weinstein]

Okay, so there are a couple answers to the question. One, I don't think there's any point in actually attempting to deliver a ticket if we don't have the groundswell. That makes it plausible because for one thing, what it does is it actually damages the people who we would name. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting.

[Bret Weinstein]

We want them empowered. In order to empower them to work on our behalf, they have to be drafted into this movement which requires the groundswell. If we don't get the groundswell, then it doesn't make sense to do it. However, here's the thing that I think you're looking for. Let's say that this plan fails and we're not on track by. Well, we can't actually say when because we don't know how the ballots are going to be delivered and therefore when voting is actually going to take place. But let's say we're not on track in time, but let's say that we have managed to accumulate a movement of people that understands that we are now rolling the dice with all of the most dangerous processes on earth. Right. The world superpower is now gambling with the possibility of civil war. Right. We haven't even begun to talk about what happens if we fragment. Not only is there no geographical solution that suggests itself in this case, but somehow we're talking about not only a nuclear arsenal, but we're talking about nuclear reactors that need to be carefully managed. How, you know, how is a transition to some other structure in which the United States ceases to exist going to work? So all I'm saying is the magnitude of the danger that we are putting the world in. Even before you get to the question of what happens next, if the United States fails because we tear ourselves apart, that empowers China. Is China the next, you know, poll of the. Of the world? Single poll, you know, is it going to be Russia? What happens in the absence of a powerful United States? We're putting the world in jeopardy here. So we're putting the world in jeopardy. The process seems to be moving incredibly rapidly, such that we can have a discussion about whether or not there's going to be something to salvage in 2024 or not. This is an amazing level of danger that we are putting ourselves and the world in. In light of that, it seems to me that it makes sense for every person with ears to hear that predicament to gather around. Well, what is the chance that we can row to shore? Why wouldn't you take a shot at something like Unity 2020? And here's the thing. If it fails to elect a ticket to the White House, it could still cause all of the projects that aim for a better world to. To collect into one. We've got the open source movement, we've got the cryptocurrency movement, we've got makers, we've got Game B, right? All of these things, we've got idw. All of these things aim to solve problems in the legacy world. Why wouldn't they join together and understand that, in effect, the entire game is can we bring the things that we've learned in all of these different contexts into a structure that has the power to implement them or to clear the obstacles? So, in essence, the answer to your question is whether we succeed or fail in 2020, we can succeed in creating the best hope for the future. Will it be enough? Nobody can guarantee that. I certainly won't. But is it the best Hope we've got. I haven't heard a better one. So, you know, what's holding us back from just simply getting behind this idea? It doesn't carry any ideological content that would cause anybody to look at it and say, oh, that's not. That's not me. Right? That's. It has deliberately been pruned of ideological content so that it can. It can cause these other things to gravitate to each other. And isn't that the movement that we're looking for, one that understands the. The value of crypto and open source and all of these other things?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think the real answer to the question of what's holding us back is you don't have sex appeal yet. So, like, what. What is going to be the hook? You know what I mean? So. And I have not thought through this well enough to know if what I'm about to say is actually true or not. I feel very confident about what I just said. You lack a hook that's sexy enough to get people excited. But there's so much noise right now. I can't tell you how much my YouTube viewing habits have changed in the last three months. It is so surreal to me even to think now I'm just sort of almost like I'm watching news. Right? I'm looking for things that came out right now that are super contextual to what's happening in this moment. There's. There's a cacophony of voices. And because I was apolitical and didn't watch news, I didn't even realize that that news had become kabuki theater. And it's so weird to see, like, if I see this same thing being covered on CNN versus Fox, it actually looks like different things happened. I mean, it's so fucking bizarre. And not having an allegiance in either direction. I'm just like, this is fundamentally problematic. Like, if you follow this out to its natural conclusion, you're just more and more and more polarized because there's this weird friction. In fact, I know I'm going a field of where I was originally headed, but this is actually interesting. So there's a weird friction as you adopt one narrative or the other of the same factual thing that happened. But one narrative feels right to you. It feels like you're now cheering for your team. Yes. They're covering it in a way that speaks to me. There's friction in the other one because neither are true. So the other one isn't. Oh, I'm getting to truth. It's. You're asking Me to actually adopt the opposing team's narrative, which already didn't resonate with me on a subconscious level anyway. So now that I'm consciously looking at it, it really feels anathema to who I am. This does not feel good. I don't like this. So it is far easier to go from one interpretation to another if both had a sincere effort to get to the facts and one just missed something or, you know, that wasn't said as well as it could be. And so you could gravitate to, oh, I see, this is actually what happened. Cool, I can make that leap. But when the sense making apparatus is intentionally now so deep into the world of narrative, I can't cross that divide. And so that's what scares me is there's already people seek things that confirm the confirmation bias, confirm what they already believe. But that's a lot less problematic when the disconfirming evidence doesn't trigger some weird destruction of your identity in the way that now it forces you to because you have polarized narratives. And how we get past that and have sex appeal is where like this starts to worry me. So my we. You cannot let me end this interview without us talking about shutdown stem which to me, when I look around and I go, okay, people with guns and riots and stuff, okay, that's all troubling, but the one that scares the shit out of me is shut down stem. And we can get into why. But the once people detach themselves from what works, what moves you towards your goal, then you can no longer in any effective way move forward. And that's what worries me. So when I think about what the effective way forward here is in this moment with Unity 2020, you have to capture the imagination of people and you're competing against a narrative that gets people feeling like there is a dragon to be slayed and they're willing to run out in the streets. It's intoxicating. And even if like, dude, I know you know, Mao's China, the revolution, the Red Guard that rose up and you had students actually killing teachers and dude, when I stop and think about what I was like in high school and this really bothered, this really bothers me. I remember when Jordan Peterson said, when you look back on World War II, don't imagine yourself hiding, you know, a Jewish person in your addict. Think of yourself as an SS guard. And I thought, oh God. But when I think about me being 16 during the uprising of the Red Guard, I had to put dunce caps on my teachers and, you know, hit Them with a stick. I would have, dude, because it just. It felt so. I felt so right about everything at that age.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I get that. I have to say, I think Jordan Peterson is right. Although personally, I. There's not. I feel a certain amount of security that I wouldn't have ended up an SS guard. No, no. Not because I'm Jewish. Let's put me in, you know, in an. I don't know, Aryan skin or something. Somehow there's something about me that is so incompatible with a certain kind of authority that I just. It's impossible to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Your movements with Evergreen make that hard to argue.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah. Well, anyway, let's go back to the question of sex appeal, for one. Here's the thing. There's a saying that I'm very fond of. It's a Hopi saying. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Right. And I think it's just impossibly deep, actually. And so here's the thing. You're. You're a guy who's trying to build a new Disney. Right? You're the sex appeal guy. Right. You know, we're in danger. That's part of why we're having this conversation. So the question is, what is the answer to that? I know full well that you're right, that at some level, what I have deployed reaches a certain number of people who were ready, but it doesn't reach a large enough group. Now, it's not that there's anything wrong with the idea. I'm sure of that, but you're right. The question is, can you deliver it narratively in a way that people get it instantly. They understand what it is, why they have to be part of it. And it seems to me that this is the same. The same question we were dealing with earlier. The dynamic tension. That really is where all magic comes from. Right. You need an idea that'll work, and you need somebody who understands narrative and sex appeal and all of that so that it can. It can live. And how do we do it? Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

As a sex appeal guy, I will tell you, you're never going to get it off the ground without real people, because you're asking me to get excited about a faceless idea. And we're seeing now, with some of the movements going on that are creating madness, you can do it. And I think over a long enough time period, you could get people behind this idea. But if you think about the current wave of madness, which I don't even know what name to assign it, but it started in the 60s, 70s. I mean, this has been going now for 40 or 50 years. And it was a long game strategy and it's worked really well. But you talk about, and this is so important and so powerful. So when I public speak, my message almost always revolves around humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. And the way that you say that is we've offloaded a lot of our abilities not to genetics, but to culture. And by putting it in the software layer, we're able to change very rapidly. So if I had a gun to my head and you said, dude, you know the mechanisms that are at work here, what do you do? I say, I need people and I need people with personality. I need people with charisma. When Barack Obama came along, ignore the effect of the policies. When he got elected, man, it was fucking electric. And I was over the moon. I loved the slogan, the whole notion of hope having a person, you know, I mean, we're still shouting distance from the civil rights movement. And in, what was it, 42 years later, you have a black president. I mean, I was like, fuck yes, man. Like, that was so thrilling to me. And when Coleman Hughes and I were talking not too long ago, I asked him, like, who do you think could have led us? What president would you want leading us through this moment? Now he's someone who's been very critical of Obama. And he said, Obama. And I was like, fuck, you might be right. Because in this weird world where moral authority is like, you almost just have to take that off the table. And he's such a powerful orator. So you need an orator who actually, you need a dual set of orators who I can see actually functioning together, that I don't think they're going to get into a stalemate that I believe have, like, they've got that tough nut hardcore motherfucker. But at the same time, like, we're gonna fight for people and lift them up. And I have to believe that they can coalesce and work well together. Which is another fear that if I have, I'm sure many other people have, which is like, dude, my wife and I run our company together now. When the lawyer set it up, I said, create the ultimate divorce nightmare. I do not want 51%. I want 50%. My wife's gonna have 50%. And yes, that means that we could hit loggerheads and this could all blow up. But because my highest value is my marriage, I want to send a very clear sign to my wife, I don't need authority over you. Because she was like, no, no, no, you take the 51%. I was like, I don't need that. I'm going to be able to convince you. You're going to be able to convince me because I want to listen to you. I want whatever best idea. And in the wedding sense, we are both patriots. We care about this business. We care about this marriage. We're both willing to do what is right. Now, finding that in two people is going to be crazy hard. But if you could find them and then we had somebody to rally around, somebody that could inspire us, give us chills, right when they're up there and they're like. Because there is a Martin Luther King's I Had a Dream speech put to music, dude, it's unbelievable. And if we had somebody that can rally like that, I will make the assumption. You've read Long Walk to Freedom?

[Bret Weinstein]

No.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, my God, you're gonna love it. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom fucking blew my mind. And it made me ache for the fact that I read that after he died. And I was just like, I need to know somebody like this. So if we had a leader. Look, you've talked about this. I'm literally seeing from your hymn book, look, we need this dual pair of leaders to be inspiring, to give us the chills, and it has to happen right the fuck now. Which is why I'm like, how? I don't see how you pull this off. I get why you're not naming them, but I don't see how you pull it off unless you do.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, in some sense, I think you're pointing to the right answer, which is what drives this is patriotism in the best sense of the term, which means that the people you're talking about have to be willing to take the risk. And I don't think it's a huge risk. I think people in general understand that we're in a very tough spot, and therefore anybody who takes a shot at doing something on our behalf is worth honoring, even if it doesn't work. But somebody has to take the reputational risk of saying, actually, you know what? Long shot as this may be, we're in dire straits, and I'm stepping up. So I guess the question is, if I accept your framework, and I think your framework is largely accurate, then maybe. Maybe it's time. I don't think it's so hard to find people who could inhabit the role. We have a list of people on both left and right who I think make for compelling pairs. The question is, is anybody ready to step up in. In a dangerous moment without. Without the guarantee that the groundswell will emerge. In other words, are they willing to proceed the groundswell rather than follow it?

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, well, now. Now I'm going to be God is. It's possible that what I say I will ultimately think was not wise, but I'm going to say it anyway. Courage is precisely what we need. And.

[Bret Weinstein]

And

[Tom Bilyeu]

there is nothing more exciting for me than somebody who is like, look, yeah, this is very dangerous to my career, but I actually believe it. And because I believe it, I'm willing to die on that hill. Like, my thing is, I'm always when I really have conviction on something, and first of all, I have strong convictions loosely held. Right. Like the example you gave with UBI and Yang. I think that's very apt. And that was exactly what drew me to Yang, was it felt like if he saw something that was, oh, yeah, that's more effective, like, he just wouldn't miss a beat, he would be like, cool, let's get behind the more effective idea that to me, finding candidates that have the courage, despite any sort of huge safety net, to step up. And, dude, nobody knows that more than you, how scary it is. And I cannot tell you, I've looked at what happened at Evergreen and Brett, without you to show me the way, I don't know that I would have been the person to have the guts. It's not that I wouldn't have been able to think through it as clearly as you. And so without your guidance on a frame that I could, because intuitively I knew something was wrong, but I wouldn't be able to articulate it like you can. And so if we can get leaders that can articulate it and show us the courageous move and inspire us and give us chills and leave us in awe, then I think you'll get that groundswell. And I don't. This is a lot of words around one simple sentence. We have to demand of them the courage to step up right now or they're not. It will never work.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right and I accept the formulation. And I'm going to. I'm going to figure out how to apply it, because I agree, at some level, I think it is a demonstration of the exact characteristics that are necessary in the people who could do the job if elected. So in some sense, it's the test case.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that seems true. So we'll set that aside. I'm super excited about that. The thing that scares me, going back to shutdown stem. I'll tell you a story That I think will make you laugh because of both the. What I end up on is so universal that it does not need to be created, it only needs to be uncovered. And then the fact that I could be at this age in the year 2020 and not have been aware of it. So in business, business is fucking hard. People go broke all day long. And actually building something that works is unimaginably difficult. So when you get to a point where you're like, dude, this is all systems. I can teach these systems to people. I had a realization at one point, you're only as good as what you can write down. So I thought, cool, I'm going to give to my staff exactly how to make progress. And my whole thing is first principles thinking. So I call it the physics of progress. And the reason I call it the physics of progress is I'm saying there's nothing below this. You can't reduce it any further. But I had never articulated it in my own head. I knew how to do it. I just had never stopped to write it down. So I was like, okay, what is this? Everything starts with your goal.

[Bret Weinstein]

Cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Where are you trying to get to? Then you have to identify the problem that stands, the impediment that stands between where you are now and the goal that you're trying to achieve. The end state that you want to exist at. Okay, well, you have to create an informed hypothesis about how to overcome that goal. And that informed hypothesis, by its nature, has to include levers, basically, actions, binary things you either do or do not do so that you can run the experiment. And then there needs to be data that you look at, which 9 times out of 10, you can identify the data ahead of time that you're going to judge whether this was a success or not. And so then you run the experiment, and then you look at the data and you analyze it. And then that's almost never going to have gotten you all the way to where you wanted to go. But it gives you more information, you have a better informed hypothesis, and now you can run another test. And so you repeat, right? You analyze the data, you repeat. And so I call this the physics of progress. I give it to my team, and one of the guys on the team was like, oh, the scientific method. And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, he pulls something up on the Internet and he reads it off, dude, almost verbatim. It was like, the scientific method. And I was like, oh, my God, this is hilarious. But made me feel much better that you really have Reduced it down to as far down as it's going to go. Like, I mean, this just is the nature of the world and how it works. So now here I am railing in my company, I'm teaching it in the class, the physics of progress. I'm like, look, this is just a scientific method recontextualized for business. And then, you know, all of a sudden I see this. And when I'm doing it, by the way, what I'm trying to convey to people is this is just the way it works. Like, there's no, I'm not being fancy, I didn't invent something. I have, you know, brushed dirt off of something that is inherent. And then I saw shut down stem and I was like, oh, here we go. Why, you're the only person I've heard bring it up. A. And B, why are you worried about shutdown stem?

[Bret Weinstein]

I agree with you. It is absolutely the most terrifying piece of this. It's also the most absurd piece. But I think the reason that it is so terrifying is that it speaks to a willingness to uninvent insight in order to make progress, right? And that tells you what kind of progress they want to make. So to the extent that one is willing to take a tool as universal as the scientific method and to critique it, a, to declare it some sort of a European thing, right? To declare it white in order to nullify its power to speak is. I mean, I guess, I guess I know exactly what it is. It's Plato's cave. And you know, you started talking about the Matrix and Plato's cave is the Matrix. And the thing about the Matrix in Plato's cave is the desire of most people, many people, some important force not to be enlightened, right? That there's something that is served by the killing of the person who's seen what's outside the cave when they come back and try to report that's the most frightening process of all. And those of us who have tried to convey something about the danger that we are in know that there is this, this force of resistance that is very powerful that wants to kill the messenger in order to keep doing what it's doing. And to hear it spelled out, I mean, that we are fighting about so many things which are just simply unambiguous, that five years ago you would think there's no way we're ever going to have an analytical argument about whether or not men and women are effectively the same thing, right? Because everybody, everybody knows that they're not the same thing, right? And then to find yourself there and to find yourself trying to fend off arguments that make no sense tells you that there is some, that the momentum behind this is not driven by any sort of analysis. It is driven by just a naked desire for power. And I think the thing is we know how that ends. We don't necessarily know who the winners and losers are, but it ends with something of which we will all be terribly ashamed and spell out why that's true.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I agree aggressively, but I want. I want you to say why that's true.

[Bret Weinstein]

So I've been thinking a lot about this of late, and it occurred to me at one point that the United States is special. And it's special because it attempts to do something that I know is possible, but is very, very difficult, which is to step out of the normal evolutionary dynamic and do something better. So the normal evolutionary dynamic has us cooperating on the basis of our relatedness. The same reason that you know you will aid your kids before you'll aid somebody else's kids works at a population level, which means that a kind of racism is wired into us as the default mode of cooperation and conflict. The United States aims to set aside those population level differences to foster a cooperation based on something else. You know, it's. In some weird sense, it is the Christian insight of the story of the Good Samaritan, that relatedness is not the basis on which we should view each other favorably, that there is something to be gained by being inclusive, empathically inclusive, and collaborating, because it makes us stronger. The problem is, as great an idea as that obviously is, I mean, it's been incredibly contagious. The number of countries that have followed our example and, you know, modeled themselves on our pattern is stunning. For us to, instead of completing the project, instead of actually bringing ourselves to a place where opportunity is evenly distributed, to go in reverse and to reinvigorate the population against population conflict means that effectively all there will be in the end is power. And the limits of compassion will be genetically defined. And that is the recipe in which you find people genociding each other or cooking up reasons to go to war across the border, whatever. It is uninteresting, to be sure, it is shameful to return there after having discovered that something else is possible. And I just. I can't imagine why anybody is going to be surprised that the outgrowth of putting race first is going to be, you know, I mean, maybe Leonard Cohen got it. I've seen the future, brother. It's murder.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I really hope not. You said something not too long ago, that was both hilarious and it made me worry. It's exactly what people aren't doing. You said, I want to emphasize one word, people, extrapolate. And I was like, yes, yes, please, like, follow that logic to its natural conclusion. And that sums up why I am freaked out by them coming after stem. Because it was the one thing that I held onto, was, okay, if you just get people to follow their own logic, you realize how problematic it gets. And they would have to do away with logic altogether. And they're never going to wait, what? And it's like they're actually getting rid of logic. It's the moment in the argument where you're like, I'm not even going to say anything. I'm just going to ask questions. Because I know once I ask a certain number of questions, they will get to the point where they realize, oh, shit, I actually. Okay, cool. I see where this goes. Because it never occurs to you that they would actually throw out measuring progress, having a goal, seeing if you're actually getting towards that goal. Like, and so when they start going, yeah, like, the second most disturbing thing to come out of all of this was the Smithsonian. Like, these are all the things that are white and are therefore problematic. And it was like, hard work, progress, measuring results, striving to be the best. I was like, what the fuck is happening? You literally. I have. So I have to get into a little bit of my story, you know, a smidgen of it. So when you're working in manufacturing, which is where I was working, you're in the inner cities, so you're around only people of color. I mean, almost exclusively. And so I'm encountering all these people and I'm like, okay, Tom, are your ideas real? Because you always say it doesn't matter who you are today, it only matters who you want to become and the price you're willing to pay to get there. Well, if that's true, Tom, then you'd be willing to hire convicted felons, would you not? And I was like, yeah, actually I would. And so we put out on the street, as they call it, that we would hire people, we would consider people for employment, even if they had a felony record. And so we ended up getting all of these, like, way low income people that had really struggled, had trouble with the law, former drug dealers, gang bangers, like guys with the teardrop tattoos and all that. And I was not everybody, but I was very impressed with a number of people who were extraordinary people, incredibly capable, able to do stuff they Just had a weird ass frame of reference. And if I could give them an empowering frame of reference, then they could go on to do something and walking them down the line of like, hey, here's how you improve something. You have a goal, you set it, you have a metric that you're marching towards that just seemed. If you can get them on that path, then you've really got something that's going to take you somewhere impactful. But once you strip away that ability and you say, hey, that's white. And so you don't want to act white or be white. I'm like, the one thing you've given me that's allowing me to help these people. Like we had one guy, he went from, he took the job because he wanted a front for his drug money. Okay? Imagine that he comes in, he interviews because he hears this crazy guy is willing to hire people with felony convictions. He had been to prison, not for drugs, oddly enough, but he'd been to prison for something else and then was dealing again, but had to show his parole officer where he was getting the money. So. And he tells me all this to my face later. Once we'd been, we had gained trust with each other and he was like, dude, you've changed my life. You've changed the lives of my kids. Like, this is going to echo for generations. There was one guy that called me, I hadn't spoken in probably in six years. He called me is a few weeks ago. He's like, tom, I'm on my way to a job, getting paid almost $100,000. I would never have believed this was possible. And I just had to thank you. And I was like this, this is why instead of buying an island and retiring, like, I've doubled down in my life because I see the number of people that, oh, change my frame of reference. I didn't get smarter. I just look at things differently. I'm using metrics like I have a goal because that was my whole thing. To them, you have a goal. And my thing I always preach is do and believe about yourself, that which moves you towards your goals, right? So if, because a lot of people get stuck in these loops, if I'm stupid, I'm dumb, the world's against me, whatever. And so I'm like, does that belief help you achieve your goal? No. Cool, then don't, don't buy into it. Even if the world really is against you, even if the deck really is stacked against you, accepting defeat does not move you towards your goal. So don't do it. And so when I read that, and I was like, what are you doing? Like, you were stripping people of the most powerful possible tools by saying the tools themselves are somehow corrupt because of who quote, unquote created. I'm like, this is fucking madness. It either works or it doesn't.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah, it's. It's crazy. Heather and I have long wondered about this Audre Lorde quote about, you can't take apart the master's house with the master's tools. And it's just the most disempowering viewpoint. I'm not even entirely sure what she meant. But the way this is understood, it just takes the most powerful things at that human disposal and keeps them in the hands of those who have had them longest. I mean, it just. It inverts the process of. Of ending oppression. And it's hard to imagine why anybody who sees their objective as ending oppression would embrace this. You should. You should want to capture those tools and you should want to learn to wield them as effectively as you possibly can. Right. The tools don't know who's wielding them. They work because they work. And if you're going to rule out things that work because of who discovered them first, and I'm not even sure it is who discovered them first, but who, you know, our collective narrative says discovered them first, then you're just. You're never going to get anywhere. So, yes, it is incredibly frightening to hear people go up against logic and science. And, you know, the funny thing is, Evergreen did allow us to have these conversations up close and personal. And so I think a lot of people dismiss the idea that people are against Stem. People in this movement are against it because they haven't heard somebody say it while looking into their eyes. Oh, yes, science really is a white thing. It's like, what are you even. Did you just say that? I mean, that's almost all I need to know about your proposal for the world is that you just don't understand even the basics of, you know, where liberation would come from. Right. So. But, yeah, I wish I could convey that better. I'm glad somebody heard me say extrapolate and knew what I meant, because I really do think it's the missing parameter. If you just take what you know to be factual and extrapolate from it, you can see where we're headed. And it couldn't be more frightening.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It really couldn't be more frightening. And staying on the notion of. One thing that bothers me is people are always looking for a reason not to listen to somebody and so I have beliefs, and I wrote these beliefs a very long time ago. So they have nothing to do with the current moment. Like you said, they are the things that have worked in my life, and I wrote them down so I could give them to other people. Because I really am obsessed with equal opportunity. And that's been a passion of mine now for more than a decade. And look, I've made moves in my life that I will say, put me beyond reproach in terms of, like I said, hiring former felons or felons, but no longer in prison and just putting my money where my mouth is and seeing what happens. And it really. I find a disturbing trend that people jump to any reason they have not to learn from somebody. So, I mean, it obviously extrapolate. It becomes cancel culture. And I was giving an example yesterday and I thought this actually, really it is the trap that I would be curious to see how somebody who has this ideology would handle it. So let's say that you have a daughter. It's somehow worse if it's a little girl. For me, anyway, you have a daughter and she is in anaphylactic shock. Her throat has closed, and you call 911, and the most vile and despicable person in the world answers that call. But they know how to perform an infield tracheotomy and so they can save your daughter. Do you hang up the phone and try to find somebody else who you agree with and you'd be willing to take their advice, which in my opinion, makes you an even more despicable person, because you're now making your child suffer and the risk of death, you know, is now skyrocketing. Or do you say, I don't give a shit that you are the most despicable person on earth. You have a piece of information that actually gets me something that I need and that I want. And my thing is, dude, it is a litmus test from which I will say, I can't understand. I can't understand your worldview. Like, your value system is so divorced from mine. And I'll say mine is probably like, if you boiled my value system down to just its basic, basic, basic irreducible building block. It's do things that alleviate human suffering. It's going to be something like that. That's sort of the thing below that. Like, if somebody disagrees with that, then I'm at a loss Now I no longer how to communicate. I don't know how to communicate. So that argument to me is the sort of ultimate extrapolation of I'm trying to shut that person down because they're a bad person. I don't want to hear their ideas. My thing is, look, if there were two people in front of me and one was a despicable person and the other was somebody who inspired me and I thought they were amazing and they both have the same information, of course I'm going to gravitate towards as a person, even in subtle ways of rewarding them with my thanks and praise. And I have chosen them and of course that will feel good for them. I get why I would want to lavish people who I really believe in with that. So cool. All things being equal, I get it. We're all going to self select to celebrating things and people that we like. But shutting down, learning something. And now this brings you to if Unity 2020 is the concept that you're just one of the things you really want to get out there. One of the things I am most desperate to get people to understand, like to really understand at a visceral level. It's that skills have utility. They let you do things. And you don't read a book to check a mark off. You don't go to college to impress your parents. You take architecture classes so you can build a bridge that doesn't fall down. And once you understand that and that if you can do something other people can't do, like you've now just moved humanity forward or your small group forward, like that shit is real. And when I say that, I don't see like this recognition in people's eyes of like, hey, the point of learning something is to actually be able to do something. And so my new thing is to get people to understand. Your mind is not a library. Your mind is a laboratory. And once you realize, ah, the point of this knowledge is to run tests against it to see what actually allows me to influence the world. And my obsession is power. Let that echo and let lightning strike and sinister noise play. Because whenever I tell people that I come seeking power, people get freaked the fuck out. Until I say let me define power for you. Power is the ability to close your eyes, imagine a world, a world better than this one, and then open your eyes and be able to make that world come true. Because it's going to require you to do things. And if you don't have the skill set to do those things, you are disempowered. So yeah, getting people to understand that feels like an uphill battle sometimes.

[Bret Weinstein]

That's beautiful. And I resonate with it 100% and in some sense, I think what's happened is we've so badly botched the job of educating people that they register in some sense that it's too late. And so the mind numbing prescriptions that were being delivered, I think our surrender that basically, people who understand that they have been effectively cognitively maimed are not really interested in the idea that the right way to solve the problem is to increase the capacity of your mind to find new possibilities and bring them into the world. So instead, it's the temper tantrum that you started with, which, you know, I get it, we can't do that, but I get it. I understand that they're. They're angry and they have a right to be.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, I want to shift gears because I would be horrified if I had an evolutionary biologist, two hours with them and I did not ask a question that has been on my mind since I was like 15. Brett, as weird as this question is, it actually means something to me. And I ask it in all sincerity. Why is the clitoris on the outside?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, okay, this is a good question. Let's put it this way. I don't think the focus should be on the anatomical structure. Right. There's bound to be an answer to that. Let's put it this way. The fact that testicles are on the outside is also an interesting oddity. But let's say the interesting thing is that selection has altered the meaning of sex for humans. Right? It has delivered us an incredible gift which we are now treating so horrifyingly. But the gift is it has turned sex into a bonding mechanism. And what that means is that unlike almost all creatures, human beings have sex when the production of offspring is not a possibility. That is to say, people have sex after menopause. They have sex when it's not the fertile moment in a woman's cycle. And that, I think, people don't understand how unique a situation that is. And what it implies is that human bonding is a. A novel phenomenon that requires both parties to feel rewarded by the activity. So in some sense, the orgasm has been democratized by selection, and a mechanism for generating it has been provided by adaptation. And interestingly, the mechanism for generating it is not. It's not a simple button. Right? Right. It's just not a simple button. It actually requires an empathic connection in order to tune into your partner well enough to deliver the goods. And in some sense, that's the magic of the thing is, by creating a puzzle surrounding sexual gratification in women, the necessity of a close connection is introduced into pair bonding. Is that making sense?

[Tom Bilyeu]

It is. I have a loaded question waiting if that is the natural break point. So my question is, am I wrong in assuming that for literally thousands of years, and maybe far longer than that, that it was neglected and that generation after generation after generation of women failed to have a life where orgasm was a regular part of it due to that? Which if that's the case, it does not seem that evolution would land on that as a strategy. It may be a byproduct, maybe a total accident, but it seems that it probably isn't a strategy unless. And this was. I can't remember where I read this. And it was so interesting to me that I thought, could this really be true that it was put on the outside so that women. It wasn't like if you think of the penis as a very. It's external, it's easily touched by anybody who wants to bond. And certainly in other animals, you'll see it isn't just the person that they're having intercourse with that will reach out and touch them. What. But in a way that we would call sexual as a way to ease tension or whatever. And so I thought, is this a way of putting something on the outside so that women also have just a social bonding, a way to soothe or, you know, extend sort of an olive branch of kinds, you know, between two people. Could be male, female, could be female, female. And that it needed to be on the outside to be more easily accessible?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, that's a really interesting question. I don't know of any evidence to support it. I will say I'm doubtful that the orgasm in females was. It may be true that in European culture, for example, it was, it was turned taboo and therefore a kind of, you know, generating orgasm for females is kind of a lost art. But I think in many other cultures it's quite clear that there was an awareness of the subtleties of sexual pleasure for females. So in any case, if Europeans really did lose touch with female orgasm, I believe that's an anomaly. Probably has a meaning to it. In other words, there are. It is true that the structures that exist are adaptations. And it is true that religious prohibitions against their access are also evolutionary adaptations. And so there's a question about what. What is being managed by these, these tensions. But I love the idea that placing it on the outside means that it is not, strictly speaking, a, A an intercourse triggered phenomenon. That of course raises questions about the G spot and its location. But anyway, it's an interesting. It's an interesting line of questioning. I understand why you're obsessed with it. It's fascinating. And clearly selection had something in mind. I will say the fly in the ointment of this discussion might be one of anatomical constraint. In other words, because the clitoris is made of the same tissue that the penis is made of, it may be that its position is actually constrained by the amount of shared blueprint that male and female have in terms of where tissues end up. So I don't know.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That is super interesting. There is certainly some logic to that. But the. So in terms of the design of the clitoris, if I'm not mistaken, there are elements of the nerve that wraps around the vaginal canal, which. That always made more sense because then at least it seems like it's sort of in on the act and shows that you could put theoretically those tendrils anywhere and that one would assume that nature ran some sort of experiment where there was more involvement, you know, on. Because there are some women, at least as I understand it, there are some percentage of women that can have orgasm from traditional penetrative sex. So it becomes a question of why, if we think of that as sort of an experiment that nature ran, why did it not go all the way? Why did it hit some percentage of women, but not all, Especially if. And I am sort of making the base assumption that women are more likely to get pregnant if they also have an orgasm.

[Bret Weinstein]

There is actually data on this. I'm trying to remember what the conclusion is. You can't hold me to this. It's possible I have it wrong. But I think if I'm remembering it correctly, the result was that orgasm did increase the likelihood of fertilization if one controls for fertile period. Right for the place in a woman's cycle that sex is taking place. I hope that's correct.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's certainly what I encounter. I am by no means an expert on the subject, but that was the one that made me go, wow, this is so interesting. Then why are the two divorced? Like, it just seems so strange to me.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, but in some sense, I think that's reflective of the answer I gave you initially, which is there's a tremendous amount about courting and other associated rituals which now become things like marriage and engagement in humans that is built to ensure that males don't game females. In other words. So females have a tremendous investment in offspring automatically, just by virtue of carrying them internally and then feeding them by breast. Males can have a very high investment in offspring, and that's a very frequent way for males to reproduce. But they obviously can have an almost no investment version of the strategy, which, although it's less successful because raising offspring without a father is more difficult, it is such a bargain from the point of view of males that males find the prospect of it irresistible. Right. This is why males are obsessed with sex with women that they don't have any intention of seeing again. So in light of that, females are built. They are both wired and programmed to avoid men who are resistant to commitment. And so the point is, in some sense, the conception of a child with a man who is diligent about delivering sexual pleasure is liable to be. That's a more secure bond than sex with a man who's only interested in his own pleasure. So you could imagine the system would. When that makes sense.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That. That is super fucking interesting. Now that. That's 4D chess right there. Like, all right, let's. Let's see how far you're willing to go to make sure that I'm taking care of as well. Jesus, that is interesting, man. That is really interesting. Yeah, I.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, yeah, go ahead.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, no, no, please. I want to learn more here.

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I was just gonna say, you know, that this all raises this issue of how frivolously we are treating sex and how stupid it is, because in some sense, you know, we could have been given no greater gift than a weirdly yin yang, symmetrical sexual landscape that you spend a lifetime exploring with somebody. I mean, that's just. It'd be hard to make up something that wonderful. And we're treating it just so stupidly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Dude. This is where, you know, going back to the data becomes so interesting because one, like, the moment that I just had where you gave me something that I had a whole sort of belief around, like, why the Ketoris is on the outside, and I could tell it at cocktail parties and always gets a big reaction. And you came along, you gave me something that, like, totally knocks that off and is, like, even more interesting. And it's like, man, that's. I love those moments, right? But it's an empirical question. You know, ultimately you can look at the data and find out which one's real. And like, whoa, that's real. And then really beginning to understand it, like, begins to, you know, peel back the onion, as it were. And so even looking at sex and monogamy and the different types of pair bonding that we have and how they can change from one environment to the next, and why that, like, once you are able to look at the data and say, like, I never would have guessed. I've heard people say there's like three things you have to do to succeed in America. I may get these wrong. If you know them, please tell me that I'm wrong. But I think they are. Don't have a child out of wedlock. Get a high school diploma and get a job. It's something like that. Like these really basic three things all but guarantee you entrance into the middle class. And it's one of those, look at the data. And Thomas Sowell is somebody that blew my mind when and all of this kicked off. And it was like I had some weird unease that Black Lives Matter wasn't about actually helping black people. But I didn't know enough about it. So I was like, I didn't want to post Black Lives Matter, but I was like, I need to go research this and figure out what's going on. And so I went on like this binge where I was like, I'm only going to seek out black intellectuals and see where they fall. And it introduced me to some of the greatest mindsets. Thomas Sowell to me, in a subconscious way. When I look at him, I see he might as well be wearing a Superman outfit. Like, when you hear that guy talk, he's so smart in a way that I'm so covetous of, and he's so well researched, it is crazy. And whenever somebody debates him, he's always like, show me the data. Like, I will follow the data wherever it goes. I don't have some agenda that I'm trying to push. I'm just telling you you want this thing to win because it's feel so good. And he was like, but if you look at the data and it doesn't win, then don't you want to find the thing that wins? And that to me is just so powerful of like, data, data, data, man. Like, there is an answer. And if you have the discipline of not tying your identity up into an answer and you stay open to, you know, new truth, it's like. And you might know I misquote this person all the time. I think it was Matt Max Planck who said, science advances one funeral at a time.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah. Funeral by funeral.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And. And I just thought, oh, my God, why? Why? How do you not read that quote and go, oh, I have to change everything about myself because I refuse to fall for something so predictable.

[Bret Weinstein]

Yeah, I agree. And I think the point you were. You were headed toward a minute ago where the Black Lives Matter movement is explicitly anti nuclear family. That this is. This is again one of these issues of, look, if you're going to attack science and you're going to declare it white and you're going to say the nuclear family is white and that therefore we have to uninvent these things. You can't, you cannot have power. If you have power over us, you'll destroy us because you're taking things that are actually part of our birthright and you're declaring them null and void. Either you know that's insane and you have an ulterior motive, or you don't know it's insane and you need to figure out how to think more clearly because this is just nuts.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Absolutely nuts. Yeah, when people don't look at the data, I get super, super, super uneasy. That one really feels like a recipe for disaster. So really fast. Just I'm super curious, how do you think this plays out? Like your predictions on where we were going back when this was just Evergreen were spot on. Your testimony in front of Congress, spot on. What comes next? Where are we headed in very specific terms?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, I think it's very hard to be specific because you have a kind of fork that we can't tell which branch we're going to end up on. It's possible that events cause the election to go towards Trump, which I think is far more likely than people imagine based on current polling. One, we should have learned our lesson in 2016 about polls and Trump, but they don't tell the full story. And two, this is 2020 and events, even if you take the power of the presidency out of the question, events could turn things around inside of a week. So that could happen. But in light of the powers of the presidency, I don't see Trump allowing himself to go to a stunning defeat without dramatic moves on his part to reverse that. And I fear what he might do to avoid it. On the other hand, let's say Nothing happens in 2020 and the president resists the urge to, to do something dramatic, Biden somehow wins. Then we have an even more frightening prospect, potentially, which is not more of the same, but something brand new, which is the Democratic Party having partnered with the, the Black Lives Matter movement, where it actually takes some of the insanity that they've been saying and turns it into policy, which I think is quite plausible because the purpose of the Democratic Party has become the protection of those rent seeking elites that it represents. And this is the moment at which rent seeking elites are facing something like the French Revolution. And so directing the people at each other so that they ignore the folks who have hoarded the opportunity is a natural move. This is a new twist on it, but it's a familiar pattern of history. So anyway, I guess what I would say is there's a reason that I really think we have to be looking at something like Unity 2020, which is both prospects are absolutely dire. And the fact that we have a system that not only delivers you unacceptable possibilities, but delivers them in pairs in which there's no escape, that's completely unacceptable. And I think we have to take up arms against it, metaphorically speaking, as

[Tom Bilyeu]

somebody who doesn't want to hoard opportunity but has literally no idea. Like, I don't feel like I'm hoarding opportunity. I feel like I am desperately trying to get more people to. But when I hear you say that, I always feel like he knows something I don't. He's talking about something that I don't quite understand. How are people hoarding opportunity? And how can somebody like myself not hoard opportunity?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, first of all, you don't sound to me like you're hoarding opportunity to the extent that you might be. It's. It's buried in your portfolio somewhere, but I don't think you're actively doing it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But what does active hoarding look like?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, let's put it this way. There is a reason that our public schools suck. Right? It never gets stated, which is that a large number of people do not want other people's children equipped to compete with their own children. Right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Are people really that sort of weak minded? Is that, is that conscious? I think, oh God, this is terrible. But I do worry that there's a lot of well meaning people that just aren't. They don't, they don't cross a certain threshold of being able to think through the problem.

[Bret Weinstein]

I think the problem is that that's the real answer to why the schools are so bad, but it is not the answer to how it is recorded in the mind. In other words, we create a phony ideological difference about how to fix the schools that prevents them from being fixed, which results effectively in people with means opting out of public schools, which increases the problem because it means that sabotage of the public schools basically externalizes the problem of educational malpractice onto some populations and not others. And so anyway, a lot of things look like this where there's a solution to a problem. We could find it if we agreed that the problem was to be solved. But there's a kind of cryptic sabotage that takes hold because of the kind of competition we are in with each other. You know, we could make the same argument about why there's so much homelessness. Right. Why do we not solve the homelessness problem? Well, in part, the homelessness problem is the bottom of a ladder where depressing wages all the way along is a feature, not a bug. Right? You depress wages by having people below you. Whatever rung you're on, there are always people below you who would be more than happy to take your job, which reduces your bargaining power and trying to negotiate for more. And so, in essence, the homelessness problem is the symptom we can't avoid seeing. It's an outgrowth of a system that is designed to do something it never states. And there are a lot of these things. And as you know, my sense is, if you put good people in power and you give them the opportunity not to have to pander to corrupting influences, these problems aren't so difficult to solve. But if you leave the corrupting influences in a position to veto everything, you'll never get anywhere.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, so let's just take one thing and see if we agree on what the problem is. I'll state what I think the solution is, and you punch me in the throat if. If I. If I'm missing something. Because I. What I'm about to say, I mean very, very sincerely. But it is also possible that I am delusional in a way that I just don't see. So my mom works for a school, and she'll occasionally tell me stories about, like. And she's not even saying it, like, she doesn't have a problem with it, but I hear it, and I think this is madness. Like, the fact that there are teachers in some school districts that are. They're accused of some pretty insane shit, whether it's just, like, gross incompetence or potentially doing things with students that cross a potential sexual line and they're just shuttled off to a room somewhere where they continue to get paid and receive their benefits because the unions are so strong that you can't. It is so hard to get rid of even a horrendous teacher that you can't. It's just better to put them in a room and keep paying them and then slot somebody else into that. Now, as a business person, I can just tell you that is a recipe for disaster. You will have so much money being spent on the dumbest shit ever, and you don't have a way of encouraging, like, this is an area where you want there to be a hierarchy. You want people like, if I could. And some universities actually do this, if I could create a Hierarchy, a leaderboard, so people could see who are the teachers killing it. The teachers. I don't know what the criteria would be. Fair enough, that's going to be for somebody more invested. But, like student ratings, test scores, like outside audit. Something where it's like, yo, here are the people that are actually killing the game. And then here are the people that rank lower. For instance, Ray Dalio, largest hedge fund manager in the world, does these things where he has his employees do a force ranking of, say, managers, and the whole company will rate the managers, and they put it up for everyone to see, and you see who's at the top and who's at the bottom. Ouch. That shit hurts. But, like, it inspires you to get better because you don't want to be at the bottom rung. Or you say, I want to go work for a company that doesn't do this. But either way, you're getting rid of the people at the bottom and you bring fresh blood in. So my thing is, look, you cannot be in a situation where either. And I don't know if it's school vouchers or what it's going to be, but if a school is underperforming, either the people teaching administers whatever, they've got to go, or the union's got to go, something's got to give so that, like, real talent can rise. Why am I wrong?

[Bret Weinstein]

You're not wrong, except that you're trying to save a system that's probably beyond help. Right, Go on. So look, the incentives have to line up. That's the thing. If you're going to pay people to sit in a room because they've misbehaved or because they're terrible at their job, then obviously you're going to accumulate some, you know, just parasitic class of people in the system who are just going to draw a paycheck for nothing. That's not a viable plan. On the other hand, there's a reason that schools are terrible that has a lot to do with the fact that somehow we have allowed the market to set the wages of the teachers, when in fact we ought to be subsidizing this so that great people want to do it, and maybe not permanently. So if I was to try to fix the system, I would probably try to encourage people to spend a period of time teaching to discover a if they were really good at it, but also to attract people who were really good at something else. In other words, being really good as a teacher is partially about knowing something. If you've set your Sights on being a teacher rather than knowing something worth teaching, then you're probably off track. So we should want to attract people who are really good at, you know, math, physics, art, whatever it is, so that they have a passion coming in. And the problem is the way the system is structured, we don't attract very many people who have a passion. And frankly, those few who come in there do so doing themselves massive economic harm. Right? Their passion drives them to just effectively sideline themselves from the market in order to do this passion. And then what do we do is we hobble them with curriculum that's just absolutely authoritarian and draconian, which leaves them almost no freedom to engage this passion. So we drive out the good ones. This is not a stable system, and it misunderstands the purpose of education. Right. The purpose of education should be to upgrade the mind so it's maximally capable. And the way to do that is to figure out who knows something, has a passion for conveying it, and how do we bring them on board and give them the freedom to figure out how to convey it. One of the things that was true about Evergreen, which it's just killing Heather and me, that we can't manage to convey the importance of this to people, is that we had total freedom to teach however we wanted, teach whatever material we wanted. Now, lots of people abuse that freedom. You don't want those people. You want to figure out how to eliminate them quickly. But for anybody who actually has a passion to figure out what can be conveyed, having a blank canvas is matching. So you want the freedom to use it, and you want a system that gets rid of people who will abuse it. And if you can do those two things, then you'll end up having a marvelous educational system far better than what you would get if you just simply tried to rescue this one by getting rid of the worst teachers.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, one problem solved, man. And that is probably the place to wrap this up. Dude, the way that you're moving in the world, I am beyond grateful. I can only imagine how difficult Evergreen was. But the fact that it freed you up to do something like this and to reach the number of people that you're reaching, man, it is incredible. I can only imagine where you're going to be in five years as more and more people glom on to the way that you think. I even love your dad jokes, by the way. So keep them coming. My wife, in fact, this is something we didn't record, but my wife, when she heard you were coming on, had to come say hello. To you. She is so into you and your wife and just shares my feeling as well. Which you guys are really extraordinary. So thanks for coming on sharing with us, for doing what you do. I'm way, way, way grateful.

[Bret Weinstein]

Thanks Tom. I must say I feel like I've just spent two hours with a kindred spirit and glad to have met you, dude.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Definitely. Where can people find you and get a similar chance to hang out?

[Bret Weinstein]

Well, there's the Dark Horse podcast which is twice a week. There's Twitter. You can find me Bret Weinstein. Bret has one T Unity 2020. You can look us up at articlesofunity on Twitter. That's probably the best places for the moment.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Perfect. All right guys, dive into his world. You will be richly rewarded. And if you haven't, be sure to subscribe here. And until next time my friends, be legendary. Take care everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And if this content is delivering value to you, Please go to IQ, iTunes, go to Stitcher Rate and review us. That helps us build this community and that is what we are all about right now. Building this community as big as we can to help as many people as we can deliver as much value as possible. And you guys rating and reviewing really helps with that. Alright guys, thank you again so much. And until next time my friends, be legendary. Take care.