Clips take from The Bulwark Podcast w Sam Harris - ua-cam.com/video/ULVYHwRMSjA/v-deo.html Vlad's main channel ua-cam.com/users/VladVexlervideos Support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
Please Vlad... you are a MAJOR public intellectual... ... and a Philosopher connecting to people unlike any philosopher in History... ... You are a big deal...
Vlad about Musk is not what Yuo feel. You probably have lavk of info what Musk knows and what he does to cover those problems. Have you ever thinked maybe Musk sees that Us hegemony is over US must go MAGA to regain it. He views that everybody outside US is at their own. At Musk mind socialist way of thinking that you must recieve something that other have is wrong. People misunderstand Musk when they don't think why Musk wants make life multiplanetary and why He woks hard to get means to do it. Then think he needs time to do it before WMDs start killing us. Everybody can be wrong every pathway and expressed way of thinking brings us cliser to that we are please to recive. Average and median are two very different things when you have median thinking vs average thinking then Musk likes progress whatever it is. When you see that spiral then in every cycle things improve. When you see it as lineer path then tree structure starts develop. So when you look moral standpoibts like what is killing, abotion and another hand low birth rate and queues for adoption maybe those non parents forever child mentality must start thinking not only express needs
@@VladVexlerChat I recently discovered you, glad I did :) However, the point I do not agree here is that when people think, Musk believes what he is saying. I am not sure about that. He might, and probably simply says what is in his interest, whatever that is. Disregarding any morals, or negative effects he has on the world.
The day Musk attacked the English cave diver who was giving his life to rescue the boys in the cave was the day a big red light went on regarding Musk, for me at least.
@@A.US.ter1 He escaped because the man he called that also behaved very rude to Musk, calling him names, i believe, when Musk offered his dive robot to help them in the research. I understand Musk very well, being angry at the diver, but like many socially awkward people, he shot over the mark by magnitudes.
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne I think he said that the submarine wouldn't work. How is that rude? It was also irrelevant as the Musk's "robot" didn't even exist. Musk might as well have recommended using the transporter from Star Trek.
those are not mutually exclusive categories. Besides, evil geniuses are a staple of fiction, and when oligarchs do good, we call them "philanthropists"
Mask is not an oligarch. They’ve existed in Russia since the Tsars times and they are effectively Granted special rights to exploit an area by the corrupt state or tsars himself and often transcend the law. In musks case what broke the camels back for him was the California state not granting him any further launch rights for his booster. this was clearly done to him and his business Most of the Democrat run is against him. That’s why he he sided with Trump. His son Xavier was one of those children that was tricked into being given puberty blockers by woke transgender ideology infested therapists and subsequently passed away. Another reason.
I am an engineer. Musk is not an engineer. He is a hirer of engineeers, at best. And i think he judges engineers mostly by their loyalty, just as Trump does. Maybe that is where they click.
I don't understand why people keep hedging on how brilliant of an engineer Musk supposedly is... Engineers who've worked for him seem to have a very different opinion on that
You just had to take a look at the brilliance of the work to decide the quality of Engineering. And therefore the first class Engineers are willing to sacrifice themselves
He doesn’t have to be a brilliant engineer, just have the ability to get the best out of brilliant engineers who work for him. It’s fair game to point out Musk’s character defects… but pretending his business accomplishments are anything other than extraordinary is childish.
What he's good at is supply chains. Which I assume he learned by translating his work on social media algorithms to engineering. He's okay as an engineer. He throws around some silly ideas, but the big thing is he has a high volume of them. Anyway, the point is that he's really not good at abstracting a final work. He's good at optimizing what's already there.
My son went to a Jordan Petersen talk. He paid a lot of extra dollars for a meet and greet at the end of the talk. But the organisers decided to sell many more tickets for the meet and greet and my son joined a long queue of people each of whom spent 2 seconds saying hello. It was not a meet and greet. It was pure money-making exercise. If Petersen had any integrity, he would have done something about it, but maybe these days, he is just another rock star. And it's all about the money.
@@VladVexlerChat When we do a meet and greet with YOU, we, your fans, expect a proper one, and not just 2 seconds! I know that may be a long time off, but better to make some things abundantly clear. First you need to get better. THEN we need you to organize you a talk on the stage...
@VladVexlerChat The press and the public fawn over people like Musk and Petersen. That is half the problem. It makes people like them think they are extra special. In Musks case, he is also surrounded by yes men. It is not character building to get one's own way continuously. Musk can buy anything and anyone without having to budget or worry like most people do. That is the disadvantage of his position. Like Musk, I also have asbergers. I put it to good use working as a software engineer. Unlike Musk, I am a real engineer. Not a businessman with a load of whacky ideas. Like the Boring company which takes cars into city centres on underground trains, thus causing extra traffic problems in the heart of the already congested city.
@@706easy Myalgic encephalomyelitis. He's got a channel dedicated to it. My girlfriend has M.E. too and it's an utter debilitating disease I can tell you.
Well, I watched Musk once in Germany, then he was going to open new Tesla factory close to Berlin. He was arrogantly laughing about German laws saying that it would be insane to care that much about water consumption here, because we weren't in California etc. So I realized, he was problematic and dangerous.
He was praising the Chinese people because they "work" hard, specially through the pandemic while saying American workers were lazy. What he omitted is that China has lax worker rights and they allowed Tesla to keep his plan open during the pandemic. Workers were sleeping inside the plant. Of course he thinks Chinese workers are hard workers.
Unfortunately, he's one of those people who takes the advantage of speed reading the potential consequences, in the interest of getting things done quickly. He's not as bad as China... but the fact that he's being put in charge of dismantling America's corporate regulatory and consumer protection apparati (is that the plural?) is alarming. RFK Jr, the anti-vax Kennedy, is going to be in charge of healthcare. So, in 4 years, Americans will be wondering why the liberals made us all sick, and enshittified the food and other products. If the world isn't in total disarray by then, with the USA ruled by King Barron Trump. But I'm an optimist, so I'll go with the first scenario.
@@dianeandrews7873 That's a little over the line in my opinion. What's happening to the Uighars is probably genocide (the case for it has been strong for the better part of a decade), and if Musk scoffed - that's nasty and unfortunately a bit typical. However, the Uighar's probably don't work in Musk's factories because they live in Western China where the infrastructure is poor, and so are the skills available. The Uighars aren't being forced to make electric cars - they're making gloves and socks.
One thing i've always been amazed about in America is how they seem to gormlessly worship and admire wealthy people. In Australia we highly suspect them and certainly dont trust them..
They aspire to be part of that elite - it's why they consistently oppose taxing the rich. They have been well conditioned to protect the interests of the wealthy.
Personally I think it's down to the character of the historical immigrant coming to the US. Usually they wanted to leave oppressive leadership and valued freedom of enterprise.
Correct. Musk's ability to understand everything anyone ever shows him about his rockets, or to direct the progress of their development does not make him an engineer. He simply doesn't have the discipline, characteristics, or training to make these things happen out of whole cloth. Put simply, if there were 10,000 Musks working 10,000 typewriters he would never produce a manual on how to build a raptor engine...
@@13thbiosphere my friend, youtube 'debunking elon musk' and listen to the real story, this guy is nothing but a rich, cutthroat businessman that is just amazing at bullshitting and motivating people, that is a skill yes - but hes no genius and his code was shit fyi.
Mister Vlad , tell the world about Holodomor. Yesterday was the day we remember all those genocided in Ukraine by hunger. The world constantly speaks on 1947 and Palestinians and what not but never mentions 9 million killed by hunger. I don’t understand why Ukraine that never asked for pitty party but just for weapons has to prove every day how old this thirst of russia to destroy Ukrainian identity. You have a great platform and you do nt shy from responsibility- tell them about the history. Gulags, psychiatric wards, ethnic cleansing , slavery ,… I feel like the west again wants to be the best at something- these days at being the worst thing that ever happened to the world. Tell them how wrong they are .
remember stalin sinister roots under putin are alive in russia , we snitching on family members its rewarded , we bar of human decency is setup so low , that they tripping with every step , . we free speach human rights are in prison
Its scary that Musk and Trump both had difficult fathers.....were warped by them...and are now in such positions of power. These are sick men, not whole beings.
i think this is both generous, fair, and important. Whole beings - we're failing at that in US at the moment, based on the youth, young men, mentees I've worked with over the past five years, versus the 15 years before that. So vulnerable, so lost. So, so many. I imagined, in my youth / hubris / perhaps toxic positivity, that the troubled were avoidable, 1 in 10. But I don't find that today. Those who cannot or only barely meet the baseline of ethics, a communicative ethic, or discipline (the ability to do the right thing at the right time), who opt for expediency and the "lowest common denominator" as a form of "tolerance" are probably closer to 8 out of 10 in business, tech, sales, health and wellness, and even among "social entrepreneurs" - we are completely overrun.
As someone who is autodedact in several musical instruments, the danger of being autodedact is that you engrain your mistakes. Now, in music a mistake is not always a mistake, but when you participate in the running of a large country, mistakes become huge.
Had similar thoughts as someone who is an intense autodidactic across numerous fields or hobbies. If I make some errors in math or Chinese history due to gaps in my knowledge that I'm not even aware of, not much harm done. In fact, hopefully it's pointed out and I learn from it. Very different from when the autodidact impulse is combined with extravagant arrogance and an enormous position of power and influence.
To be fair, there is no curriculum where you can learn to run a large country. That is also the reason why our politicians make so many mistakes. They are ALL autodidacs. Musk's and Trump's mistakes lie somewhere else.
I think the ethical responsibility these people like Musk, who use the resources of the earth ( drilling), space and planets should have a restriction with all living people and creatures. This is our planet. I can't think of any other way of saying this. All big brains ( not Musk) should be morally responsible to planet and people.
scope of practice, ethics, depth of understanding, honesty, they are out of their depth, but wildly successful in the accelerated post-truth world, image over substance
@dociekania I met Bill Gates in 1989. He sold me on Excel, while on a road trip pushing Windows. His real skill is selling. He does great demo. 1990 was when Bill was about to take over data centers all over the place, wiping out "big iron" and first gen Unix as a back end.
“You could walk through Ronald Reagan’s deepest thoughts,” a California legislator said, “and not get your ankles wet.” I bet Sam Harris would say that of Elon Musk. That guy is a force for No Good in our world
who, musk or harris? or both? as for reagan, inspect reagan's performace at 1984 election. mind blowing! to continue in this tone, can same be said of arnold and governance of california? i mean he's an actor too, right? was he ok as a governor? was reagan in better mental health than biden? would biden's brain produce any wetness? let me put it bluntly: who are you to judge how anybody votes?
In Jordan Petersons case, you don’t have to observe him chasing the algorithm and falling into its grasp over time. He has become so entrenched in this methodology that you can witness him dancing with the algorithm when answering a single question or making a single point.
I think his initial top priority was financial because of his numerous problems in the family, and that (weirdly) kept him somewhat grounded, away from algorithmic capture. Now that this problem iis solved, he is left purely chasing ever larger levels of recognition (or fame if you want), in a totally unhinged way and driven solely by vanity coated with messianic tones. I don't know who are his most trusted people that he listens to, but, damn, they really boosted his raw ambition capabilities and deflated his most sane and noble impulses. It's a very sad transformation.
Yeah Jordan Peterson is haunted by the bogey man called Cultural Marxism, it frightened him so that he escapes into more sophistry to wrap himself in a blanket of words!😭😭😂😂
jordan danced and he danced. like jordan, alot - minus religion shit. but f*ck me if anyone can make a better world than sam harris (rockets dont count) been following him since i was 14, 3 minute meditations max... dude has done well for himself - not many pieces of advice i wouldnt take from him... death and the present moment is still my favorite of his. .... also i watched JP and Harris in vancouver.. but its good to see they became friends esssentially, which means JB changed even more.... also i have no idea why i wrote this i just love sam, like JB, and havent even watched the video yet
Edison once said: "If I want to do mathematics, I will hire a mathematician". It is no surprise that Musk stated that his hero is Edison, and NOT Nikola Tesla. Edison - the businessman vs Tesla - the inventor. The fact that he named his products after Tesla (who was effectively swindled and paupered by Edison), just demonstrates his moral ambiguity.
Tesla wasn´t paupered by Edison. What happened was that Tesla did get much money and interest from other companies and capitalists, who wanted to get results. Even in his most unproductive years, Tesla lived in a luxurious hotel. But he could not deliver on products and inventions, that he promised would be his to invent or discover. Tesla´s story is complex and not at all describable by a "genius swindled by lesser men". Sometimes people, even geniuses, fail. And then they get poor. It happens a lot, actually...
Sam Harris is my favorite public intellectual, and I remember when he first spoke out at length about Trump, it mirrored my own feelings but was so eloquent and pointed, I was relieved to not feel alone. Elon has some unique intellectual gifts, and I read the Isaacson bio of him to better understand his whole life, but he has always been awkward in how he relates to other people, lacking in empathy, something which Vlad and Sam have in abundance.
What drew me to Peterson was that he had profound, often polemical things to say which seemed to run contrary to the cultural narrative, I never got anything like that from Harris who was more content being a critic. It's much easier being a critic and revealing the flaws of others instead of taking intellectual risks but I don't know Harris well, that's more my impression of him. Completely agree though that JP has fallen victim to impulse and fame, all of the qualities that made people admire him have been tarnished, he's let himself become a puppet of disruptive and potentially dark political forces, along with Musk.
Harris also took intellectual risks when he tried to offer alternatives to Religion, for example, when Morality was concerned, which he operationalized by the term "human flourishing". He was attacked by philosophers and theologians both for it. His stark rejection of the "intellectual dark web" he was once part of, was also a risk, albeit more commercially, not intellectually, since it threatened the more right-wing part of his audience, which probably cost him quite much money. But he retained his intellectual honesty and quality by doing that. I believe JP has fallen since his sickness/bout with drugs a few years ago. That - i think - drove him off the cliff, somehow. Also, his age may also play a role in that. And yes, his financial dependence on right wing fans, who make up much of his audience.
I'm fascinated by how you talk about algorithmic drift. This is the second or third video I watch in which you explore these concepts. We often forget that powerful and public people are also consuming junk from the internet - aside from being encouraged by their fans/followers and yes-men, which has always been the case even before the internet. Totally agree with your notion that if one disavows the big philosophers/authors, it usually means they are reciting a simplified version of one of these philophers' theories, but, because they don't know the source, they feel free in the sense that they perceive themselves to be non-influenced by anyone. This happens naturally, because culture seeps into everyone. We can either know where our ideas come from and question them, or not know and not question because you think they are your own and you are protective of them.
@michaeldautel7568 They have republican backgrounds for sure but there are different types of never Trumpers. Some, like Tim Miller, the main host, has drifted away from the economic right and now is sympathetic to a more leftist attitude on soaking the rich. It's interesting to hear them question some of their previous beliefs as Trump realigns our politics. Though others just yearn to go back to a Romney style republican, and they're stuck now knowing that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon if ever.
@@michaeldautel7568It’s not a crime to be right-leaning. Sometimes the best commentary comes from someone formerly aligned with one side who has used reflection , honesty and objectivity to criticize that side. It’s called thinking and I agree with those who say the Bulwark does an excellent job
Have you read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life? It was written a long time ago, but it deals with the whole history of why this appeals to American culture.
how Americans hate expertise, and a number of idioculture (small group phrases and terms used to signal in-group hegemony) groups police this, shut it down, even punish expertise of any kind. In seminary ("cemetery" is the inevitable 1st year Freudian slip) there was a discussion of original languages, variant texts, and Hebrew vs. Aramaic (Teachings), and especially the pointed and subversive use of syncretic language and images (flood stories, the garden, mad kings, intrigues, etc.). Whole teaching stories, sometimes direct quotes or foreign terms, and narratives were lifted, rebranded, subverted in telling and meaningful ways. Delightful and creative if we understand that this is what's happening. A retelling. After a particularly insightful conversation, and important reading of actual source texts in original language, the translation clearly in contradiction to vernacular and dogma pushed into the pipeline in English (a little more sinister than "mistakes were made"), there was a hilarious and telling exchange. One true believer exclaimed in exasperation: "Well, if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" Yeah.
For those who want more, here is a playlist including a 1968 speech by Hofstadter. Sadly the book doesn't seem to have made it here on yt, yet. "ua-cam.com/play/PLC5J0XZhljABu7jbK5k8srpedI6fk-mcV.html&si=-m4CtUAnx0U2HZAi"
This is like watching two of my favorite childhood heroes being in the same movie or video game. I really love Sam for his calmness and ability for a great ratio between the amount of words spoken and the amount of information transmitted. Sam is a true intellectual and critical thinker, a real humanist. I like him for his cosmic perspective about the future of humanity, and I like you Vlad for your ultra-realistic present day evaluation of what means being a human today.
Vlad I admire your strength to battle through each day despite your health challenges. We are grateful to have you. Weaker people would have opted out of life asap.
Being wrong is the key here.. steps are backwards. Fail, be wrong as fuck, be an idiot.. First hand experience is king.. also thats a weak ass NDT quote.
“… you pander to the algorithm and then you beging to increasingly sincerely recite what the algorithm wants you to say and do that with accelerating intensity” the algorithm is training our models.
I found your comment about autodidacts reciting cheap filtered copies of philosophical history very moving on a personal level. I am worried I suffer from that, as I myself am an autodidactic engineer who consumes pop philosophy on UA-cam. It's something I am keenly aware of about myself, to the point that I find myself sometimes trapped in existential and epistemological chaos. And sure, I could go out and read Aristotle and Shakespeare and Kant myself. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, classics are things everyone wants to have read but not actually read.
Actually, rather unlucky. If he would not have been bailed out multiple times, he wouldn´t be super rich. The american government literally saved his ass.
Elon is relatively smart (compared to the average person), but very far from being competent, intellectual, or a scientist, or an engineer. He's just a Chad who got rich through his superficial qualities, smokes and mirrors, and his father's money.
@@jkepic25 1) 'ad hominem' argument is not an argument, it's a logical mistake and a cognitive bias; 2) Elon is a fraud, if you can't see it, it's you who are incompetent.
I have no idea what this guy is rambling about for 12 minutes ("algorithmically lost"?). The only proof I need of Musk being "off" is the fact that he can't give his children normal names like the rest of us.
maybe because he is in an interview where the host asks him about Musk and he knows him personally? no offense but your insight is worth exactly zero compared to his.
@@tamasvarga9862 who is in an interview? vlad is just playing back harris' interview....and regurgitating harris' stance on musk. ie leftist "intelectual" view. which, apparently, also says you need a diploma to have an opinion on anything...huh...."scars of auto-didacts"...."algorithmically lost", in that sense probably means that people think what the yt algo (or twitter, or whatever) serves them....hehe....that is also quite ridiculos.... when harris is mentioned, i must remember simple fact that jewish diaspora intelectuals will alyways lean left, after hitler....which is understandable, but also kinda sad....it's also silly, given modern left stance on palestine vs. israel.... overall, harris is just angry because his preffred candidate lost election....
@@tamasvarga9862 you mean you thought scottrc5391 (the original poster) was talking about harris? well, yeah, that would explain it.... sam harris knows musk and he's talking about him in this way? mmmmmhmmm.....seems to me he called him halfwit. and all autodidacts along the way. (while harris being autodidact himself in numerous fields) usually harris was the man of reason....in this case he's half reasonable. for example first half of his podcast named "The Reckoning (Episode #391)" is reasonable.
@@ivok9846 no he didn't call them halfwit and he's completely reasonable. he said he is smart in his field, but he doesn't have standards of intellectual integrity, he is addicted to social media, and he hasn't revised his takes based on learnings. and he called out egotistical people on social media who show the "scars of being an autodidact". probably talking about these right wing influencers who think they know everything better than experts. Harris doesn't belong to that group at all as he doesn't pretend to know stuff better than experts.
I would love to see a discussion between you and Sam Harris. You and he are my favorite public intellectuals. You’re both very grounded and not subject to the algorithm.
Sam Harris is not an intelectual. He is a fraudster, a liar, best known for attacking Trump on strawmen arguments. In the older days he was one of 4 horses of atheism, which itself isn't very productive belief system.
I’ve got to watch this again, but at 77 I have long known that a true autodidact is an impossibility in our time. At best occasional reinventions of the wheel. As a child, I was an omnivorous reader, partly growing up on a farm in the Ozarks. Boredom, isolation eventually even led me to read the Encyclopedia (though not Britannica at 11). I literally read my way through tiny, small town libraries-one was in the same space, with partitions, as the town jail (just bars) and the town fire engine (prewar). Luck had it that the county library in the next town was larger. But I never regarded myself in my life as an autodidact if I knew the word. I knew better. I knew that I need trails, needed guides, starting with my parents but later others. The one area I was arrogant enough to think I could pick up myself was history, I had a reasonably accurate image of a timeline in my mind learned from romantic fiction and historians like Winston S Churchill. I would even encounter a once popular novelist, Winston Churchill, at farm sales (people giving up and selling off their belongings), but I thought these books were ridiculous, even at 11. Only later did I learn why old Winston insisted on using the S. It wasn’t only the tie to the Spencers. Why do I go on. As I grew older it became clear, much as I took too many college courses outside the straight and narrow path to professional success, that I knew even less and less than I thought I knew. This was underlined as I drifted accidentally (there is no better description) to a minor in philosophy. And there…well there were some people I just didNOT understand. The Republic, yes, Aristotle, reasonably so, but I didn’t always agree, Kant on morals, a challenge but I agreed, perhaps too easily, Pure Reason? Well sort of I really think I did get the drift, but I just ran out of time. The American Idealists? I couldn’t even finish a chapter. I doubt that they were so profound, I just didn’t understand what …. I realized I didn’t understand them well enough to even disagree or dismiss. (Unlike the Oxford ordinary language folks discussing the ontological relevance of “the current King of France.”). My point. The advantage of ADD is that if you are curious and have the opportunity to run amok among books, you learn a lot. You may develop points of view. But if you dash forward without structure, guides, you may misunderstand most everything. This I realized when I was about 25. I don’t think Elon ever ran headlong into that wall. Or if he did, it never knocked any sense into him.
I am, likewise, an autodidact, in anything but engineering (I am a retired engineer and engineering manager). I too read an encyclopedia through, age 10-11 (Colliers). But somehow, crippled (as you say, an autodidact), I managed to be professionally successful and lead hundreds of people in successful projects.
As an autodidac you made just one big mistake, and that was it. It was reading books without a summary of the discipline of the whole field first. That is a common mistake autodidacs make, especially in philosophy. I am an autodidac too, in philosophy. The first thing i did was to read a six part introduction in theoretical philosophy. THEN i read the Vienna Circle and Popper and the rest. I read multiple introductions into philosophy from University Profs in Europe and in the USA. I never sat in a seminar or reading in philosophy in college, but i easily could make my supervisor, who was a full Prof in Philosophy AND Theology, be anxious in a setting, because i could correct him multiple times, when he talked bullshit. That is also why i know Vlad Vexler is the real deal, and Peterson is not.
@PandaPanda-ud4ne But if you were not also competent in engineering, don't you consider yourself incompetent to opine on public affairs? In a highly technological society no less. What do philosophers bring to the table that engineers do not?
@@buwaya4223 I think philosophers argue and learn better, because that is what they learn at school. Do not get me wrong, i value engineers. They are by no means idiots or worthless or whatever. They matter. I like them. Because if they are wrong, then i am dead, because that bridge over there or that car here explodes or crashes or tumbles down and i am dead... But philosophers are trained to actually be critical to themselves and dive into new territories. At least, that is how the ideal state should be. There are lot of philosophers who do not do this, i know, i know.
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne But these philosophers have no (or few do) have any experience at making things, systems or organizations work. Engineers do all these things. What profession matters, then? Who should have input? Sam Harris or Elon Musk? As an ex-engineer, Project Manager, and manager of Project Managers, thats why I know what Musk is, a manager of project managers, in several huge, complex organizations (I have been to his rocket factory at Hawthorn a couple of times. You know a man by his works). And Sam Harris presumes to judge Elon Musk? In my professional judgement Harris et al are absurd.
Hi Vlad! Nice to see you feeling better! I agree in particular on the "ignorance feeling like freedom" point. The more you learn and the more you read, the more apparent the feeling becomes that you didn't know anything, and continue to know so little, you become more aware of your limitations. But despite that, the knowledge you attain is so enriching. It gives you perspective you didn't even know existed. And you can't help but feel grateful for that.
I just love and completely agree with your analysis of everything you talk about, Vlad! I have never heard anyone else's podcast who hit on all the things I feel and believe! Thank you for sharing with us! ❤
Somehow the algorithms in UA-cam allowed me to find you a few weeks ago so for that I am grateful. Vlad, I love listening to you and learning from you. Thank you for your work.
@@jkepic25 Yes, he is, bro. Why don't you go back to school and learn how to do proper research and discriminate between good sources and biased sources. It will change your life.
Being very autodidact myself i often feel trapped in the confines of my own ignorance, a couple of days ago i joined a discord server full of people passionate and often academically knowledgeable about things very close to what i’m working on, and i spent 3 hours asking all the interrogations i had accumulated for months and it felt like deliverance very honestly. Sometimes i regret to not have done academic studies but everything interests me so i think i’m doomed to never be good at anything but average in everything… but somehow i see that like a certain perk too un a way, but i’m biased solved it’s one of the pillars without which my world would start to crumble somewhat.
The inoculation against algorithmic manipulation is knowledge, skepticism bordering on cynicism, and contrarianism. They are effective individually and when used together. Knowledge empowers individuals to understand and critically evaluate the information they encounter. Skepticism encourages questioning the validity and motives behind the information, while contrarianism challenges prevailing narratives and promotes independent thinking. These tools form a robust defense against manipulation, fostering a more resilient society.
Yeah, that's why I don't believe in climate change. All the algorithms are pushing me into believing it happens and it's human-caused, but I'm skeptical to the point of cynicism and a contrarian and I say NO! NO to conformism, NO to "common knowledge", NO to herd mentality! Do your own research! Knowledge is king! There is no climate change! Also, I'm a conspiracy theorist in a BIG way, because, obviously, skepticism, questioning the motives behind the information, and challenging prevailing narratives. And, obviously, my very independent thinking. Don't forget the independent thinking.
Elon Musk got his money by creating simple algorithms such as the PayPal accounting algorithm that already existed for credit cards, or for Maps. Nothing original. Then he used that money to buy Tesla from two engineers from Palo Alto. He never designed or improve the car, but he ran the company into bankruptcy . Then press Obama gave him $500 million to bail him out and gave him a SpaceX contracts , SpaceX is made by engineers that he hired. He’s a businessman. He’s not an Enginering genius. He hates Obama, the hand that fed him when he was down. I am sure that he got money from Putin in order to buy Twitter and destroy this country. That’s another disaster. The company loss 90% of his value. Thank God that we know have blue sky.
Paypal dosen't have an "algorithm", in the way the public refer to it, it's not a social media website suggesting content to users, it's just a business logic website, it has external discovery, Ebay. Saying it's "unoriginal" is missing the point, paypal, google maps, etc are just products that filled gaps in the market, even most social media websites like Facebook, aren't original concepts. Elon has a decent IQ, and has the ability to identify talent, maybe would have been a good Engineer if he actually went down a more humble path, I can't say that Trump would be better at running SpaceX because he wouldn't know how to identify talented engineers, and companies that would deliver, he's also very good at bullshitting VCs and shareholders, and even the SEC, I'm still surprised that SEC hasn't punished him for lying about Self-driving cars for a decade with no delivered product, Elizabeth Holmes wasn't nearly as lucky as him. Elon bought Twitter with Tesla Shares, it's all public knowledge. I don't think he needed Kremlin money, he's just loves interfering with everything, being the main character, look at the him trying to "help" those boys trapped in a cave, ended up calling one of the experts a pedo.
The ability to command an audience is intoxicating. It's easy to mesmerize oneself. Many years ago I was speaking in front of a small group. Everyone listened with rapt attention but then, it dawned on me that I didn't know what I was talking about. I stopped with my 'spiel' and apologized, telling the listeners I had no idea if what I'd been saying was true. Oddly, this confession didn't seem to bother them! I still tend to 'hold forth' but haven't forgotten that the capacity to command an audience doesn't mean I have a bead on truth; and, I must be careful not to indoctrinate others with falsehoods.
If people can't respect a man who made Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and other stuff possible, then this is clear indication that people generally are not very bright.
Sam Harris and I align on almost everything, so I'm glad that you recognise him as an ethical brother of sorts, despite your differences on certain issues. I'm pleased, but not surprised, that you see this clearly. :0)
Algorithms here, algorithms there, a dollop of "algorithmic drift" for toppings. Dear Vlad, I have no idea what you're talking about. Please explain sometime!
Some of the dumbest people I know have PhD's. In my view a holder of a PhD possesses a brilliant, ground breaking understanding of things in their often very narrow chosen field, but it is like a very long walk on a very skinny pier out into the vast ocean of man's knowledge. The depth of their ignorance either side being betrayed every time they misstep.
STEM PhD holder here. In my experience it is as much a test of character as raw intelligence. Yes, you need minimum academic standards to be accepted for an advanced degree which are not trivial and suggests intelligence, but whenever you engage in novel work you find yourself going down some dead ends and you have to have a personality that can absorb the frustration and disappointment and persist nevertheless. I'm not sure this is very compatible with or bears relation to "ignorance." Quite a few give up. Having a decent amount of general intelligence definitely doesn't hurt either lol
Musk is obviously brilliant. Him being rich is not important. Whatever his methodology is to start companies and to ensure its success is important, and if it can be replicated in some way within the public sector, then that would be great. Inflation will not decrease if government spending is not reduced.
Great observations Vlad❤ Peterson started off intelligent and normal...nowadays he reminds me of Dr Mabuse in one of Fritz Langs films😂 Why people become crazier via algoritms seems strange to me. But some do...
Long time listener, first time (I think) commenter. I agree that Sam's stability has resulted in him not being algorithmically captured, but you also implied that his ethics were not a part of this stability. I disagree. While I (or you) may not agree with all of his principles, I do think it's clear that his own commitment to these principles has been a stabilizing force for him. Furthermore, his stability is at least partly due to the fact that he has built his own platform, complete with monitization and content distribution. He's not as dependent on the algorithm as many other public figures, and he's not at all dependent on outside organizations or political movements for financial support. This isn't an accident. One of the reasons he built his own platform is precisely because freedom from outside coersion aligns with his principles. In summary, I think we should give his principles more credit for the stability of his views.
@@PeterLindstrom-x4w and he has a stable audience that both agrees and disagrees at times but is still engaged. Anyone can email him also and get the whole “making sense” series for free if they aren’t subscribed (I’m not) but I appreciate this and lends to his outreach outside the algo.
I'm curious how you distinguish algorithmically-induced beliefs and the kind of belief propagation that happened via pre-internet media (television, movies, radio). Is this the same phenomenon only accelerated by new technology, or is it fundamentally different?
Thank you, V, for being responsible. And for the respect I feel from you when showing that responsibility. I hope you know I, too, respect you, your time here, and the words you choose to share with us. ❤
This was a very helpful one for me, I hadn't quite grasped what you've said about the problems of Jordan Peterson previously but it clicked for me here and is very recognisably true now I see what you're saying. Speaking as someone who's very self taught in general, I really recognise the countless times I have found myself "operating with cheap fragments" of things too, a quote I like on this is - “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back” ~ John Maynard Keynes. One thing I don't quite understand though and would love to hear explained some time is the way you use the word aesthetic. To me it's essentially "how it looks" literally or figuratively but it seems there is a meaning I'm missing.
Everyone is affected by their own prejudices and bias. What matters is to what extent a person is affected, how aware and acknowledging they are of the problem, how much they strive to self-correct, and how well they handle and respond to criticism for it. Based upon your comment, I suspect that your own prejudices and bias (largely, your intuitions, preferences, personality, and life experiences) may account for your disagreements with many of Sam's takes, and may even explain why you see fit to label an obviously intelligent person (even when restricted to the measure of his facility for speech alone)-a cretin, as opposed to simply expressing that you don't agree with much of what Sam says and that you just don't like him. If you were being honest, you would admit something along the lines of, "Sam's views, personality and other related factors upset and antagonise me. It also rubs me the wrong way that he receives such attention and adulation from many people, undeserved in my opinion." Why else would you feel the need to skirt all that and settle for calling him a cretin? Are we to believe that you are so unbiased and objective that when you label him a cretin, you're just making a factual statement, free from any polluting negative emotion and prejudice? I think not.
Elon Musk, I believe, is safe if you put him alone in a room with children's wooden blocks. Indeed you may find when you enter the room an interesting structure he has build with the wooden blocks. However, Elon Musk alone in a room full of Ken and Barbie dolls -- MY GOD! Oh, you cannot unsee the horrors of that room. Oh, Elon will not be allowed out of the rubber suit nor to leave the rubber room until he stops that awefull chattering of his teeth. Oh God, that room, that room ... My point is that Musk is useful with intimate objects but dangerous with the fate of human beings and has no business being in public life.
What you said at the start about your differences being minor compared to the larger picture is exactly how I feel about the EU. Our differences, say between Germany and France, Poland and Sweden, Spain and Ukraine etc. are so minor relative to the larger world. The exception in my mind are people who believe in the ideology of islam. Their worldview is so utterly contrary to the worldview of Christian or irreligious Europeans that conflict becomes inevitable.
Some years ago, Sam Harris said, and I'm paraphrasing, "government should be abolished and replaced by business, because business is more efficient". On the other hand, a statesman said this, which is not paraphrased: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in it's essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." ----- Franklin D Roosevelt
I've never heard Sam say this. And if he did some time ago, it doesn't reflect a view he currently holds as a phrase he often repeats is "the solution to bad government isn't no government, but better government" (paraphrased), coupled with his sentiments surrounding the value of institutions. I've not once heard him say nations should be run by private business.
What I often noticed in tech & business as an analyst and PM in sales & marketing operations for global online, is that efficiency for the sake of efficiency is not the same as value, quality, or stability. Cancer - also efficient.
@ from what I can tell, Sam is not well informed. I want to be clear: Hamas definitely committed a terrorist attack on Oct 7, and Israel would be justified in conducting a PROPORTIONAL retaliation in which Hamas leaders and militants are brought into custody or killed if that’s what it comes to. However, Sam disregarded any source which begins to discuss the absolutely insane civilian toll as Hamas’ propaganda: the fact that children are being found dead from HEADSHOTS; children are being targeted in drone bombings, and when others come to help the kid, they drop another bomb on them. Sam disregards all of this as propaganda (as far as I can tell, perhaps I haven’t seen the podcast episode where he addresses this stuff). He’s acting as if Israel isn’t committing genocide and this is just any other conflict; if that were true, there wouldn’t be an international arrest warrants out for Israeli PM Netanyahu. In conclusion, I think it’s unfortunate because Sam is someone I respect but he does not seem well informed on this topic. He seems heavily biased against Muslims, for Israel, or both.
'Epistemological calamity ' was a thing of beauty, Vlad. Sums up so much of my alarm at the way things are increasingly heading in the public space. You also taught me the term 'algorithm capture' ' or 'Audience capture which I see more and more of.Only the other day I noticed this slightly puffed up but essentially benign old sort who has a channel on here has started posting more 'Conspiracy vibe' content in recent weeks.
There was a movie called Network that was released about 40 years ago It was quite precient in that it shows a struggling TV news station use outrage and sensationalism to capture a bigger audience and then doubles down on its strategy once it sees that its attracts a bigger audience It all ends rather calamitously
Your intro about how you feel more in alignment with Sam now, I feel the same. He seems like someone who is still logical. There are so many out there now who seemed to have drank whacky Kool-aid.
I am so glad you also noticed how Jordan Peterson was remade by the algorithm. He was never as grounded as Sam, but Peterson is closer now to Alex Jones than Harris.
VLAD youtube is fucking with you again. Past 2 or 3 days havent recieved notifications for new videos from this channel, have depended on Twitter to keep up with new uploads. Idk whats going on
*I WAS VERY DISSAPOINTED WHIT SAM HARRIS* and his take on the US election - 1st comment "Everyone is looking to blame their pet subject for the loss and thats wrong" 2nd comment "But lets be real - its TRANS PEOPLE" he then spent the next 20 minutes ranting how accepting trans people lost the Dems the election. He may have spent more - I stopped listening. In not involved in the Trans issue but his rant was utterly ridiculous. It was veery clearly his person hobby horse issue.
When that is the main talking point pushed not only by the Maga grifters but also seems to be brought up in each and every vox populi interview then maybe it should be addressed heads on, yes. And that means disavowing obvious obscurantist and morale grandstanding nonsense. Let the other side "run with it" seems not to have had the desired effect. That said, I was also surprised that he spent that much time on the topic.
Didnt watch it. But he may be on to something here, as gernwind below wrote. When you concentrate on marginalized groups, you lose the majority, and the majority is white, and hetero. It is silly to go for trans rights, when you should be more interested in rights and duties of white hetero males. Maybe he is so much into it, because he has two daughters. For Sam it is not so appealing that a biological male could be showering naked with his two daughters soon in the shower cabin of a High School. Fathers tend to react rather visceral to such things.
@@gernwind9262 My issue was him saying that every group believed the reason was their pet issue, and then him blaming it on HIS pet issue. His lack of self awareness. Was it an issue YES, but so was G4Z4, so was inflation, so was X, so was Y, so was Z... As far as I can see it was EVERYTHING - people did not want "more of the same with a few tweaks"
@@piccalillipit9211 Surely his pet issue is djihadism, not enbyism? I went back to the video and his reason for focusing on our topic is: Dems couldn't do much about inflation, at least not short-term, what they could have done however is NOT play their expected part in the culture war, instead of constantly fuelling the enemy propaganda with kernels of truth (tons of kernels). As an example of culture war capture of the Dems he brought up: Biden administration immediately came out with toilet rules, but took its sweet 2½ years to set gears in motion re the border.
@@piccalillipit9211 Comment vanished. Once more: His pet issue is dj1had1sm not enbyism I would have thought. I went back to the video. His reason for focusing on our topic: Dems couldn't do much about inflation, at least not in the short run, they however could have chosen to NOT play their designated part in the culture war, by not fuelling the opfor propaganda by tons of kernels of truth. As an example he gave for culture war capture of Dems: Toilet rules came out immediately, for the border problem it took the Biden Admininistration 2½ years to set the gears in motion.
Thank you, Vlad, for being a man of such great moral, intellectual and spiritual integrity. So happy to see you sitting. Pray-god, it may be proof you’re feeling better. Love and Peace to you, as always….💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙
I just came across your channel. I was listening to you with interest until you called yourself an intellectual. Intellectual is not a label you give yourself, it is a label others give you if you deserve it. Otherwise, it is a pretentious move.
Remarkable, and telling, to see Vlad walk down Stupid Street. And the commenters, too. We're in the midst of a world-historic positive moment and Sam Harris is adrift, about as lost as Vlad. The academics have failed us and it will be quite some time before they recover.
Clips take from The Bulwark Podcast w Sam Harris -
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Please Vlad... you are a MAJOR public intellectual...
... and a Philosopher connecting to people unlike any philosopher in History...
... You are a big deal...
@ 🌻
Thank you Vlad. While I watched Sam Harris on Bulwark yesterday I kept thinking of you. Wonderful hearing you speak on this.
Vlad about Musk is not what Yuo feel. You probably have lavk of info what Musk knows and what he does to cover those problems. Have you ever thinked maybe Musk sees that Us hegemony is over US must go MAGA to regain it. He views that everybody outside US is at their own. At Musk mind socialist way of thinking that you must recieve something that other have is wrong. People misunderstand Musk when they don't think why Musk wants make life multiplanetary and why He woks hard to get means to do it. Then think he needs time to do it before WMDs start killing us. Everybody can be wrong every pathway and expressed way of thinking brings us cliser to that we are please to recive. Average and median are two very different things when you have median thinking vs average thinking then Musk likes progress whatever it is. When you see that spiral then in every cycle things improve. When you see it as lineer path then tree structure starts develop. So when you look moral standpoibts like what is killing, abotion and another hand low birth rate and queues for adoption maybe those non parents forever child mentality must start thinking not only express needs
@@VladVexlerChat I recently discovered you, glad I did :)
However, the point I do not agree here is that when people think, Musk believes what he is saying.
I am not sure about that. He might, and probably simply says what is in his interest, whatever that is. Disregarding any morals, or negative effects he has on the world.
The day Musk attacked the English cave diver who was giving his life to rescue the boys in the cave was the day a big red light went on regarding Musk, for me at least.
I used to hero worship him, until I found out that he silenced the true founders of Tesla.
Indeed. How he escaped being sued for calling that man a ‘peadop**le’, too is beyond me.
@@A.US.ter1 He escaped because the man he called that also behaved very rude to Musk, calling him names, i believe, when Musk offered his dive robot to help them in the research.
I understand Musk very well, being angry at the diver, but like many socially awkward people, he shot over the mark by magnitudes.
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne I think he said that the submarine wouldn't work. How is that rude? It was also irrelevant as the Musk's "robot" didn't even exist. Musk might as well have recommended using the transporter from Star Trek.
@@A.US.ter1 He escaped being sued because he is rich.
Musk is an oligarch, not a genius.
those are not mutually exclusive categories. Besides, evil geniuses are a staple of fiction, and when oligarchs do good, we call them "philanthropists"
Mask is not an oligarch. They’ve existed in Russia since the Tsars times and they are effectively Granted special rights to exploit an area by the corrupt state or tsars himself and often transcend the law. In musks case what broke the camels back for him was the California state not granting him any further launch rights for his booster. this was clearly done to him and his business Most of the Democrat run is against him. That’s why he he sided with Trump. His son Xavier was one of those children that was tricked into being given puberty blockers by woke transgender ideology infested therapists and subsequently passed away. Another reason.
He is a genius, he barely is an oligarch, he's not in control of the government, he just wants to make space ships but the government is in the way.
Oligarchs can be very genius-like. Or they will seem that way to all their defeated rivals. And Musk has defeated many, many rivals.
@@golagiswatchingyou2966he's not a genius... not even remotely and he's certainly has more influence on the government than anyone should
I am an engineer. Musk is not an engineer. He is a hirer of engineeers, at best. And i think he judges engineers mostly by their loyalty, just as Trump does. Maybe that is where they click.
This probably explains how the Cybertruck came to be
@@YBM2007 🤣
I'm also an engineer, and Musk has proven to be a very capable technical leader at SpaceX in particular, but also at Tesla.
@@dirkscheidemann3127 Musk is good at using government policies and government contracts to get rich.
There are many very capable engineers at Tesla and SpaceX. Musk is not one of them.
I don't understand why people keep hedging on how brilliant of an engineer Musk supposedly is... Engineers who've worked for him seem to have a very different opinion on that
Like who? Just wondering...
You just had to take a look at the brilliance of the work to decide the quality of Engineering. And therefore the first class Engineers are willing to sacrifice themselves
for starters he is not an engineer by education or trade, merely a self-taught coder. full-time corporate raider.
He doesn’t have to be a brilliant engineer, just have the ability to get the best out of brilliant engineers who work for him.
It’s fair game to point out Musk’s character defects… but pretending his business accomplishments are anything other than extraordinary is childish.
What he's good at is supply chains. Which I assume he learned by translating his work on social media algorithms to engineering. He's okay as an engineer. He throws around some silly ideas, but the big thing is he has a high volume of them.
Anyway, the point is that he's really not good at abstracting a final work. He's good at optimizing what's already there.
My son went to a Jordan Petersen talk. He paid a lot of extra dollars for a meet and greet at the end of the talk. But the organisers decided to sell many more tickets for the meet and greet and my son joined a long queue of people each of whom spent 2 seconds saying hello. It was not a meet and greet. It was pure money-making exercise. If Petersen had any integrity, he would have done something about it, but maybe these days, he is just another rock star. And it's all about the money.
So sorry your son had such a crappy experience
Peterson is a charlatan pseudo-intellectual.
@@VladVexlerChat When we do a meet and greet with YOU, we, your fans, expect a proper one, and not just 2 seconds! I know that may be a long time off, but better to make some things abundantly clear. First you need to get better. THEN we need you to organize you a talk on the stage...
@VladVexlerChat The press and the public fawn over people like Musk and Petersen. That is half the problem. It makes people like them think they are extra special. In Musks case, he is also surrounded by yes men. It is not character building to get one's own way continuously. Musk can buy anything and anyone without having to budget or worry like most people do. That is the disadvantage of his position. Like Musk, I also have asbergers. I put it to good use working as a software engineer. Unlike Musk, I am a real engineer. Not a businessman with a load of whacky ideas. Like the Boring company which takes cars into city centres on underground trains, thus causing extra traffic problems in the heart of the already congested city.
Well duh ! Of course it is.
I know that vlad's condition causes him to be exhausted, and sometimes bedridden, but I would just love to hear him go on, and on, and on.
Sooooo kind
@@philipboardman1357 Poor Vlad! Just keep talking and talking....!
What condition?
@@706easy Myalgic encephalomyelitis. He's got a channel dedicated to it. My girlfriend has M.E. too and it's an utter debilitating disease I can tell you.
He knows how shit works, and is trying to make a few more people get closer to that state. Not many people will do that, but it is worth doing.
Thank you Vlad for bringing together this beautiful ethical community ❤️
agree
Top cringe .
Well, I watched Musk once in Germany, then he was going to open new Tesla factory close to Berlin. He was arrogantly laughing about German laws saying that it would be insane to care that much about water consumption here, because we weren't in California etc. So I realized, he was problematic and dangerous.
He was praising the Chinese people because they "work" hard, specially through the pandemic while saying American workers were lazy. What he omitted is that China has lax worker rights and they allowed Tesla to keep his plan open during the pandemic. Workers were sleeping inside the plant. Of course he thinks Chinese workers are hard workers.
Unfortunately, he's one of those people who takes the advantage of speed reading the potential consequences, in the interest of getting things done quickly. He's not as bad as China... but the fact that he's being put in charge of dismantling America's corporate regulatory and consumer protection apparati (is that the plural?) is alarming. RFK Jr, the anti-vax Kennedy, is going to be in charge of healthcare.
So, in 4 years, Americans will be wondering why the liberals made us all sick, and enshittified the food and other products. If the world isn't in total disarray by then, with the USA ruled by King Barron Trump. But I'm an optimist, so I'll go with the first scenario.
No wonder, people are protesting.
Wow, are you always that stupid?
@@dianeandrews7873 That's a little over the line in my opinion.
What's happening to the Uighars is probably genocide (the case for it has been strong for the better part of a decade), and if Musk scoffed - that's nasty and unfortunately a bit typical.
However, the Uighar's probably don't work in Musk's factories because they live in Western China where the infrastructure is poor, and so are the skills available.
The Uighars aren't being forced to make electric cars - they're making gloves and socks.
One thing i've always been amazed about in America is how they seem to gormlessly worship and admire wealthy people. In Australia we highly suspect them and certainly dont trust them..
They aspire to be part of that elite - it's why they consistently oppose taxing the rich. They have been well conditioned to protect the interests of the wealthy.
It’s very frustrating. People here think uber wealthy people must be brilliant. Not that they could be crooks, liars, manipulators, and con-men.
Personally I think it's down to the character of the historical immigrant coming to the US. Usually they wanted to leave oppressive leadership and valued freedom of enterprise.
@@SyKnife In Australia, they're our first thoughts ... !
Same in Canada
Musk has never been an engineer. Just a business man. This is what people don’t understand.
Yes, but the only acceptable elites are in business and sports
Correct. Musk's ability to understand everything anyone ever shows him about his rockets, or to direct the progress of their development does not make him an engineer. He simply doesn't have the discipline, characteristics, or training to make these things happen out of whole cloth. Put simply, if there were 10,000 Musks working 10,000 typewriters he would never produce a manual on how to build a raptor engine...
When he was 10 years old he wrote computer code and got $500.... I guess you didn't bother reading the biography
@@SardonicALLY that's a politically motivated statement
@@13thbiosphere my friend, youtube 'debunking elon musk' and listen to the real story, this guy is nothing but a rich, cutthroat businessman that is just amazing at bullshitting and motivating people, that is a skill yes - but hes no genius and his code was shit fyi.
Mister Vlad , tell the world about Holodomor. Yesterday was the day we remember all those genocided in Ukraine by hunger. The world constantly speaks on 1947 and Palestinians and what not but never mentions 9 million killed by hunger. I don’t understand why Ukraine that never asked for pitty party but just for weapons has to prove every day how old this thirst of russia to destroy Ukrainian identity. You have a great platform and you do nt shy from responsibility- tell them about the history. Gulags, psychiatric wards, ethnic cleansing , slavery ,… I feel like the west again wants to be the best at something- these days at being the worst thing that ever happened to the world. Tell them how wrong they are .
remember stalin sinister roots under putin are alive in russia , we snitching on family members its rewarded , we bar of human decency is setup so low , that they tripping with every step , . we free speach human rights are in prison
Nice to see you up Vlad!
Thank you!
Its scary that Musk and Trump both had difficult fathers.....were warped by them...and are now in such positions of power. These are sick men, not whole beings.
Half the world had difficult fathers. Most do not do what these jokers do.
Millions had hard fathers.
They both did exceptionally well considering your claim they were handicapped by their father's.
i think this is both generous, fair, and important. Whole beings - we're failing at that in US at the moment, based on the youth, young men, mentees I've worked with over the past five years, versus the 15 years before that. So vulnerable, so lost. So, so many. I imagined, in my youth / hubris / perhaps toxic positivity, that the troubled were avoidable, 1 in 10. But I don't find that today. Those who cannot or only barely meet the baseline of ethics, a communicative ethic, or discipline (the ability to do the right thing at the right time), who opt for expediency and the "lowest common denominator" as a form of "tolerance" are probably closer to 8 out of 10 in business, tech, sales, health and wellness, and even among "social entrepreneurs" - we are completely overrun.
You are looking for narcissistic fathers
Sounds more like projection fron your part
As someone who is autodedact in several musical instruments, the danger of being autodedact is that you engrain your mistakes. Now, in music a mistake is not always a mistake, but when you participate in the running of a large country, mistakes become huge.
Had similar thoughts as someone who is an intense autodidactic across numerous fields or hobbies. If I make some errors in math or Chinese history due to gaps in my knowledge that I'm not even aware of, not much harm done. In fact, hopefully it's pointed out and I learn from it. Very different from when the autodidact impulse is combined with extravagant arrogance and an enormous position of power and influence.
autod*i*dact
To be fair, there is no curriculum where you can learn to run a large country. That is also the reason why our politicians make so many mistakes. They are ALL autodidacs. Musk's and Trump's mistakes lie somewhere else.
Autodidact.
Musk and Peterson go a long way out of their lane, know it, and don't apologise for it. Unfortunate for the public.
I think the ethical responsibility these people like Musk, who use the resources of the earth ( drilling), space and planets should have a restriction with all living people and creatures. This is our planet. I can't think of any other way of saying this. All big brains ( not Musk) should be morally responsible to planet and people.
scope of practice, ethics, depth of understanding, honesty, they are out of their depth, but wildly successful in the accelerated post-truth world, image over substance
Musk is currently launching 100 space rockets a year. What was that about substance?
@@buwaya4223 Do you remmember 90 and Bill Gates cult?
@dociekania I met Bill Gates in 1989. He sold me on Excel, while on a road trip pushing Windows. His real skill is selling. He does great demo. 1990 was when Bill was about to take over data centers all over the place, wiping out "big iron" and first gen Unix as a back end.
Thanks for the great video Vlad, great to see you looking well! ❤
+1
Elon Musk is Dr Evil impersonating Tony Stark.
New name: Leon Skum
“You could walk through Ronald Reagan’s deepest thoughts,” a California legislator said, “and not get your ankles wet.”
I bet Sam Harris would say that of Elon Musk.
That guy is a force for No Good in our world
who, musk or harris? or both? as for reagan, inspect reagan's performace at 1984 election. mind blowing! to continue in this tone, can same be said of arnold and governance of california? i mean he's an actor too, right? was he ok as a governor?
was reagan in better mental health than biden? would biden's brain produce any wetness?
let me put it bluntly: who are you to judge how anybody votes?
The thing is, Harris is not that bright .
In Jordan Petersons case, you don’t have to observe him chasing the algorithm and falling into its grasp over time. He has become so entrenched in this methodology that you can witness him dancing with the algorithm when answering a single question or making a single point.
I think his initial top priority was financial because of his numerous problems in the family, and that (weirdly) kept him somewhat grounded, away from algorithmic capture. Now that this problem iis solved, he is left purely chasing ever larger levels of recognition (or fame if you want), in a totally unhinged way and driven solely by vanity coated with messianic tones. I don't know who are his most trusted people that he listens to, but, damn, they really boosted his raw ambition capabilities and deflated his most sane and noble impulses. It's a very sad transformation.
I think the signs were there from the beginning. He has just got worse.
Yeah Jordan Peterson is haunted by the bogey man called Cultural Marxism, it frightened him so that he escapes into more sophistry to wrap himself in a blanket of words!😭😭😂😂
Xanax hero.
jordan danced and he danced. like jordan, alot - minus religion shit. but f*ck me if anyone can make a better world than sam harris (rockets dont count) been following him since i was 14, 3 minute meditations max... dude has done well for himself - not many pieces of advice i wouldnt take from him... death and the present moment is still my favorite of his. .... also i watched JP and Harris in vancouver.. but its good to see they became friends esssentially, which means JB changed even more.... also i have no idea why i wrote this i just love sam, like JB, and havent even watched the video yet
Much of this sounds like a longer and deeper version of Musk being on bad parts of the Dunning-Kruger curve in many areas 😂
Leftists sure love to project a lot, just look at you here.
Edison once said: "If I want to do mathematics, I will hire a mathematician". It is no surprise that Musk stated that his hero is Edison, and NOT Nikola Tesla. Edison - the businessman vs Tesla - the inventor. The fact that he named his products after Tesla (who was effectively swindled and paupered by Edison), just demonstrates his moral ambiguity.
The Tesla car company existed before Musk came along, he just forced the original creators out!
Tesla wasn´t paupered by Edison. What happened was that Tesla did get much money and interest from other companies and capitalists, who wanted to get results. Even in his most unproductive years, Tesla lived in a luxurious hotel. But he could not deliver on products and inventions, that he promised would be his to invent or discover. Tesla´s story is complex and not at all describable by a "genius swindled by lesser men". Sometimes people, even geniuses, fail. And then they get poor. It happens a lot, actually...
Sam Harris is my favorite public intellectual, and I remember when he first spoke out at length about Trump, it mirrored my own feelings but was so eloquent and pointed, I was relieved to not feel alone. Elon has some unique intellectual gifts, and I read the Isaacson bio of him to better understand his whole life, but he has always been awkward in how he relates to other people, lacking in empathy, something which Vlad and Sam have in abundance.
Musk pays brilliant people, but he takes credit for all of their hard work.
Yeah he’s leading them. If they want credit go make a company. A lot of people make companies.
@@spol and successful companies thrive because of their employees' work, not just because of their CEO.
Do you know how capitalism works?
@@nicolasandre9886CEO's can make or break a company.
The other one is the HR lady but she can mostly only break companies.
@@golagiswatchingyou2966 >The other one is the HR lady but she can mostly only break companies.
It's funny coz it's true 😂😂😂
What drew me to Peterson was that he had profound, often polemical things to say which seemed to run contrary to the cultural narrative, I never got anything like that from Harris who was more content being a critic. It's much easier being a critic and revealing the flaws of others instead of taking intellectual risks but I don't know Harris well, that's more my impression of him.
Completely agree though that JP has fallen victim to impulse and fame, all of the qualities that made people admire him have been tarnished, he's let himself become a puppet of disruptive and potentially dark political forces, along with Musk.
Harris also took intellectual risks when he tried to offer alternatives to Religion, for example, when Morality was concerned, which he operationalized by the term "human flourishing". He was attacked by philosophers and theologians both for it. His stark rejection of the "intellectual dark web" he was once part of, was also a risk, albeit more commercially, not intellectually, since it threatened the more right-wing part of his audience, which probably cost him quite much money. But he retained his intellectual honesty and quality by doing that.
I believe JP has fallen since his sickness/bout with drugs a few years ago. That - i think - drove him off the cliff, somehow. Also, his age may also play a role in that. And yes, his financial dependence on right wing fans, who make up much of his audience.
I'm fascinated by how you talk about algorithmic drift. This is the second or third video I watch in which you explore these concepts. We often forget that powerful and public people are also consuming junk from the internet - aside from being encouraged by their fans/followers and yes-men, which has always been the case even before the internet. Totally agree with your notion that if one disavows the big philosophers/authors, it usually means they are reciting a simplified version of one of these philophers' theories, but, because they don't know the source, they feel free in the sense that they perceive themselves to be non-influenced by anyone. This happens naturally, because culture seeps into everyone. We can either know where our ideas come from and question them, or not know and not question because you think they are your own and you are protective of them.
That was well put.
YT algorithms especially is brutal, even as a casual viewer it wants to send you on a darker and darker path
It's total nonsense of course, in reality all big tech platforms heavily lean left, have been for decades.
@@YBM2007god I wish that were true, UA-cam always puts forth the corporate press, wokeness or other unwanted far left vommit, it's horrible.
@@golagiswatchingyou2966 Depends on what you're viewing, its been baiting me towards blackpilled mgtow alt right for years, I kind of came out of it
I love the Bulwark. They are my favourite source of commentary on American politics.
The Bulwark is a right wing group so that indicates you are right leaning. View the whole picture please.
@@michaeldautel7568 I never said they are my only source, just that they are my favourite.
@michaeldautel7568 They have republican backgrounds for sure but there are different types of never Trumpers. Some, like Tim Miller, the main host, has drifted away from the economic right and now is sympathetic to a more leftist attitude on soaking the rich. It's interesting to hear them question some of their previous beliefs as Trump realigns our politics. Though others just yearn to go back to a Romney style republican, and they're stuck now knowing that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon if ever.
I like them too, and I'm a progressive Democrat. Sometimes I roll my eyes, but I appreciate their thoughtfulness.
@@michaeldautel7568It’s not a crime to be right-leaning. Sometimes the best commentary comes from someone formerly aligned with one side who has used reflection , honesty and objectivity to criticize that side. It’s called thinking and I agree with those who say the Bulwark does an excellent job
Vlad, could you give us some thoughts about Peter Thiel?
I second that. I know very little about him, but from what I've heard, he holds some dangerous beliefs.
He`s an insufferable wanker.
Why don't you try thinking for yourself ?
Have you read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life? It was written a long time ago, but it deals with the whole history of why this appeals to American culture.
Thanks for the tip.
how Americans hate expertise, and a number of idioculture (small group phrases and terms used to signal in-group hegemony) groups police this, shut it down, even punish expertise of any kind.
In seminary ("cemetery" is the inevitable 1st year Freudian slip) there was a discussion of original languages, variant texts, and Hebrew vs. Aramaic (Teachings), and especially the pointed and subversive use of syncretic language and images (flood stories, the garden, mad kings, intrigues, etc.). Whole teaching stories, sometimes direct quotes or foreign terms, and narratives were lifted, rebranded, subverted in telling and meaningful ways. Delightful and creative if we understand that this is what's happening. A retelling.
After a particularly insightful conversation, and important reading of actual source texts in original language, the translation clearly in contradiction to vernacular and dogma pushed into the pipeline in English (a little more sinister than "mistakes were made"), there was a hilarious and telling exchange.
One true believer exclaimed in exasperation: "Well, if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" Yeah.
For those who want more, here is a playlist including a 1968 speech by Hofstadter. Sadly the book doesn't seem to have made it here on yt, yet.
"ua-cam.com/play/PLC5J0XZhljABu7jbK5k8srpedI6fk-mcV.html&si=-m4CtUAnx0U2HZAi"
@@randallcauley9484 deTocqueville's "Tyranny of the Majority."
Love hearing your thoughts on Sam’s thoughts. Love love love.
Elon is not an engineer
Sure.
Nothing minor about you Vlad.
Love ya!
Love back!
This is like watching two of my favorite childhood heroes being in the same movie or video game.
I really love Sam for his calmness and ability for a great ratio between the amount of words spoken and the amount of information transmitted.
Sam is a true intellectual and critical thinker, a real humanist.
I like him for his cosmic perspective about the future of humanity, and I like you Vlad for your ultra-realistic present day evaluation of what means being a human today.
Beautifully formulated. Both of these men are voices we need
Vlad I admire your strength to battle through each day despite your health challenges.
We are grateful to have you.
Weaker people would have opted out of life asap.
Often people know enough about a subject to think they're right, BUT, do not know enough about that subject to know they're WRONG.
Neil Degrass Tyson
Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.
Yeah, NDT has problem distinguishing men from women.
Being wrong is the key here.. steps are backwards. Fail, be wrong as fuck, be an idiot.. First hand experience is king.. also thats a weak ass NDT quote.
The best chefs make food that’s good for you taste better than food that’s bad for you. Keep cooking Vlad, your work is delicious.
Just don’t overboil the sprouts
taste better thats bad for you.
Another lesson from Vlad, another gift for the world: never disappoints, worth every moment.
This is very insightful, I am learning a lot, thank you.
“… you pander to the algorithm and then you beging to increasingly sincerely recite what the algorithm wants you to say and do that with accelerating intensity” the algorithm is training our models.
Musk is basically a Bond Villian
I await his, "Join me on Mars, you will be my slaves . . er I mean Citizens!"
... his fascists coming out moment... that nazi hitler youth looking "black maga" hat.
Only to evil people.
@@ByteSizedSociety he's only interested in mars for the lithium deposits
I found your comment about autodidacts reciting cheap filtered copies of philosophical history very moving on a personal level. I am worried I suffer from that, as I myself am an autodidactic engineer who consumes pop philosophy on UA-cam. It's something I am keenly aware of about myself, to the point that I find myself sometimes trapped in existential and epistemological chaos. And sure, I could go out and read Aristotle and Shakespeare and Kant myself. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, classics are things everyone wants to have read but not actually read.
It sounds like you don't want to do the hard work that deep learning requires.
Sam is wrong, Elmo is not smart, not a good Engineer. He is a lucky investor.
Actually, rather unlucky. If he would not have been bailed out multiple times, he wouldn´t be super rich. The american government literally saved his ass.
Elon is relatively smart (compared to the average person), but very far from being competent, intellectual, or a scientist, or an engineer. He's just a Chad who got rich through his superficial qualities, smokes and mirrors, and his father's money.
@@MetalGearyaTV lol yeah sure you are the right person to speak about his intelligence. Where is your spacex?
@@jkepic25 1) 'ad hominem' argument is not an argument, it's a logical mistake and a cognitive bias; 2) Elon is a fraud, if you can't see it, it's you who are incompetent.
I have no idea what this guy is rambling about for 12 minutes ("algorithmically lost"?). The only proof I need of Musk being "off" is the fact that he can't give his children normal names like the rest of us.
maybe because he is in an interview where the host asks him about Musk and he knows him personally? no offense but your insight is worth exactly zero compared to his.
@@tamasvarga9862 who is in an interview? vlad is just playing back harris' interview....and regurgitating harris' stance on musk. ie leftist "intelectual" view. which, apparently, also says you need a diploma to have an opinion on anything...huh...."scars of auto-didacts"...."algorithmically lost", in that sense probably means that people think what the yt algo (or twitter, or whatever) serves them....hehe....that is also quite ridiculos....
when harris is mentioned, i must remember simple fact that jewish diaspora intelectuals will alyways lean left, after hitler....which is understandable, but also kinda sad....it's also silly, given modern left stance on palestine vs. israel....
overall, harris is just angry because his preffred candidate lost election....
@@ivok9846 thought you were talking about the talk with Harris
@@tamasvarga9862 you mean you thought scottrc5391 (the original poster) was talking about harris? well, yeah, that would explain it....
sam harris knows musk and he's talking about him in this way? mmmmmhmmm.....seems to me he called him halfwit. and all autodidacts along the way. (while harris being autodidact himself in numerous fields)
usually harris was the man of reason....in this case he's half reasonable. for example first half of his podcast named "The Reckoning (Episode #391)" is reasonable.
@@ivok9846 no he didn't call them halfwit and he's completely reasonable. he said he is smart in his field, but he doesn't have standards of intellectual integrity, he is addicted to social media, and he hasn't revised his takes based on learnings. and he called out egotistical people on social media who show the "scars of being an autodidact". probably talking about these right wing influencers who think they know everything better than experts. Harris doesn't belong to that group at all as he doesn't pretend to know stuff better than experts.
07:17 - what an elegant explanation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
This whole thread is a pretty good example .
I would love to see a discussion between you and Sam Harris. You and he are my favorite public intellectuals. You’re both very grounded and not subject to the algorithm.
Sam Harris is not an intelectual. He is a fraudster, a liar, best known for attacking Trump on strawmen arguments. In the older days he was one of 4 horses of atheism, which itself isn't very productive belief system.
Harris is not an intellectual . Not even close .
I’ve got to watch this again, but at 77 I have long known that a true autodidact is an impossibility in our time. At best occasional reinventions of the wheel. As a child, I was an omnivorous reader, partly growing up on a farm in the Ozarks. Boredom, isolation eventually even led me to read the Encyclopedia (though not Britannica at 11). I literally read my way through tiny, small town libraries-one was in the same space, with partitions, as the town jail (just bars) and the town fire engine (prewar). Luck had it that the county library in the next town was larger. But I never regarded myself in my life as an autodidact if I knew the word.
I knew better. I knew that I need trails, needed guides, starting with my parents but later others. The one area I was arrogant enough to think I could pick up myself was history, I had a reasonably accurate image of a timeline in my mind learned from romantic fiction and historians like Winston S Churchill. I would even encounter a once popular novelist, Winston Churchill, at farm sales (people giving up and selling off their belongings), but I thought these books were ridiculous, even at 11. Only later did I learn why old Winston insisted on using the S. It wasn’t only the tie to the Spencers.
Why do I go on. As I grew older it became clear, much as I took too many college courses outside the straight and narrow path to professional success, that I knew even less and less than I thought I knew. This was underlined as I drifted accidentally (there is no better description) to a minor in philosophy. And there…well there were some people I just didNOT understand. The Republic, yes, Aristotle, reasonably so, but I didn’t always agree, Kant on morals, a challenge but I agreed, perhaps too easily, Pure Reason? Well sort of I really think I did get the drift, but I just ran out of time. The American Idealists? I couldn’t even finish a chapter. I doubt that they were so profound, I just didn’t understand what …. I realized I didn’t understand them well enough to even disagree or dismiss. (Unlike the Oxford ordinary language folks discussing the ontological relevance of “the current King of France.”).
My point. The advantage of ADD is that if you are curious and have the opportunity to run amok among books, you learn a lot. You may develop points of view. But if you dash forward without structure, guides, you may misunderstand most everything. This I realized when I was about 25.
I don’t think Elon ever ran headlong into that wall. Or if he did, it never knocked any sense into him.
I am, likewise, an autodidact, in anything but engineering (I am a retired engineer and engineering manager). I too read an encyclopedia through, age 10-11 (Colliers). But somehow, crippled (as you say, an autodidact), I managed to be professionally successful and lead hundreds of people in successful projects.
As an autodidac you made just one big mistake, and that was it. It was reading books without a summary of the discipline of the whole field first. That is a common mistake autodidacs make, especially in philosophy.
I am an autodidac too, in philosophy. The first thing i did was to read a six part introduction in theoretical philosophy. THEN i read the Vienna Circle and Popper and the rest. I read multiple introductions into philosophy from University Profs in Europe and in the USA. I never sat in a seminar or reading in philosophy in college, but i easily could make my supervisor, who was a full Prof in Philosophy AND Theology, be anxious in a setting, because i could correct him multiple times, when he talked bullshit.
That is also why i know Vlad Vexler is the real deal, and Peterson is not.
@PandaPanda-ud4ne But if you were not also competent in engineering, don't you consider yourself incompetent to opine on public affairs? In a highly technological society no less. What do philosophers bring to the table that engineers do not?
@@buwaya4223 I think philosophers argue and learn better, because that is what they learn at school. Do not get me wrong, i value engineers. They are by no means idiots or worthless or whatever. They matter. I like them. Because if they are wrong, then i am dead, because that bridge over there or that car here explodes or crashes or tumbles down and i am dead...
But philosophers are trained to actually be critical to themselves and dive into new territories. At least, that is how the ideal state should be. There are lot of philosophers who do not do this, i know, i know.
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne But these philosophers have no (or few do) have any experience at making things, systems or organizations work. Engineers do all these things. What profession matters, then? Who should have input? Sam Harris or Elon Musk? As an ex-engineer, Project Manager, and manager of Project Managers, thats why I know what Musk is, a manager of project managers, in several huge, complex organizations (I have been to his rocket factory at Hawthorn a couple of times. You know a man by his works). And Sam Harris presumes to judge Elon Musk? In my professional judgement Harris et al are absurd.
Vlad and the Bulwark - two of my worlds colliding. Good to see.
Hi Vlad! Nice to see you feeling better!
I agree in particular on the "ignorance feeling like freedom" point. The more you learn and the more you read, the more apparent the feeling becomes that you didn't know anything, and continue to know so little, you become more aware of your limitations. But despite that, the knowledge you attain is so enriching. It gives you perspective you didn't even know existed. And you can't help but feel grateful for that.
You sound and look so much better today. Full of energy! Great to see you like that once again. Hope it’s gonna last as long as possible💪❤️
I just love and completely agree with your analysis of everything you talk about, Vlad! I have never heard anyone else's podcast who hit on all the things I feel and believe! Thank you for sharing with us! ❤
I’m 4 minutes in and this is word-perfect articulation. Thanks Vlad. Also great to see you looking in good health today
Somehow the algorithms in UA-cam allowed me to find you a few weeks ago so for that I am grateful. Vlad, I love listening to you and learning from you. Thank you for your work.
Love your perspective on this. Well reasoned.
Musk’s not a talented engineer; listen to the call of him being pilloried by the Twitter engineers when he tries to weigh in. It’s all marketing.
Sure.. Yeah sure bro. You are definitely right.
@@jkepic25 Yes, he is, bro. Why don't you go back to school and learn how to do proper research and discriminate between good sources and biased sources. It will change your life.
@@randolphpinkle4482 And here you are on this joke of a channel .. Give your head a wobble .
Glad to see you in alignment with SH!
Or rather in constructive contra-alignment.
Being very autodidact myself i often feel trapped in the confines of my own ignorance, a couple of days ago i joined a discord server full of people passionate and often academically knowledgeable about things very close to what i’m working on, and i spent 3 hours asking all the interrogations i had accumulated for months and it felt like deliverance very honestly. Sometimes i regret to not have done academic studies but everything interests me so i think i’m doomed to never be good at anything but average in everything… but somehow i see that like a certain perk too un a way, but i’m biased solved it’s one of the pillars without which my world would start to crumble somewhat.
In a way* biased since*
The inoculation against algorithmic manipulation is knowledge, skepticism bordering on cynicism, and contrarianism. They are effective individually and when used together. Knowledge empowers individuals to understand and critically evaluate the information they encounter. Skepticism encourages questioning the validity and motives behind the information, while contrarianism challenges prevailing narratives and promotes independent thinking. These tools form a robust defense against manipulation, fostering a more resilient society.
Yeah, that's why I don't believe in climate change. All the algorithms are pushing me into believing it happens and it's human-caused, but I'm skeptical to the point of cynicism and a contrarian and I say NO! NO to conformism, NO to "common knowledge", NO to herd mentality! Do your own research! Knowledge is king! There is no climate change!
Also, I'm a conspiracy theorist in a BIG way, because, obviously, skepticism, questioning the motives behind the information, and challenging prevailing narratives. And, obviously, my very independent thinking. Don't forget the independent thinking.
Brilliantly said!
Elon Musk got his money by creating simple algorithms such as the PayPal accounting algorithm that already existed for credit cards, or for Maps. Nothing original. Then he used that money to buy Tesla from two engineers from Palo Alto. He never designed or improve the car, but he ran the company into bankruptcy . Then press Obama gave him $500 million to bail him out and gave him a SpaceX contracts , SpaceX is made by engineers that he hired. He’s a businessman. He’s not an Enginering genius. He hates Obama, the hand that fed him when he was down. I am sure that he got money from Putin in order to buy Twitter and destroy this country. That’s another disaster. The company loss 90% of his value. Thank God that we know have blue sky.
Blue Sky 😂
@ ha ha 🤣 you trolls only use laughing emoji b/c you know I am right about Elon Muskovite being an intellectual fraud.
Paypal dosen't have an "algorithm", in the way the public refer to it, it's not a social media website suggesting content to users, it's just a business logic website, it has external discovery, Ebay. Saying it's "unoriginal" is missing the point, paypal, google maps, etc are just products that filled gaps in the market, even most social media websites like Facebook, aren't original concepts.
Elon has a decent IQ, and has the ability to identify talent, maybe would have been a good Engineer if he actually went down a more humble path, I can't say that Trump would be better at running SpaceX because he wouldn't know how to identify talented engineers, and companies that would deliver, he's also very good at bullshitting VCs and shareholders, and even the SEC, I'm still surprised that SEC hasn't punished him for lying about Self-driving cars for a decade with no delivered product, Elizabeth Holmes wasn't nearly as lucky as him.
Elon bought Twitter with Tesla Shares, it's all public knowledge. I don't think he needed Kremlin money, he's just loves interfering with everything, being the main character, look at the him trying to "help" those boys trapped in a cave, ended up calling one of the experts a pedo.
@ interesting opinion. But I don’t buy it.
You are mean to an autist, ahn, says much about your person
The ability to command an audience is intoxicating. It's easy to mesmerize oneself.
Many years ago I was speaking in front of a small group. Everyone listened with rapt attention but then, it dawned on me that I didn't know what I was talking about. I stopped with my 'spiel' and apologized, telling the listeners I had no idea if what I'd been saying was true. Oddly, this confession didn't seem to bother them!
I still tend to 'hold forth' but haven't forgotten that the capacity to command an audience doesn't mean I have a bead on truth; and, I must be careful not to indoctrinate others with falsehoods.
Fantastic insight to have had.
@@cncshrops Yes, I got lucky!
If people can't respect a man who made Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and other stuff possible, then this is clear indication that people generally are not very bright.
Sam Harris and I align on almost everything, so I'm glad that you recognise him as an ethical brother of sorts, despite your differences on certain issues. I'm pleased, but not surprised, that you see this clearly. :0)
Hello beautiful Vlad
Khello
Brilliant video. I am glad that algorithms suggested this channel for me.
All the best to you
Algorithms here, algorithms there, a dollop of "algorithmic drift" for toppings.
Dear Vlad, I have no idea what you're talking about. Please explain sometime!
Im so glad I found your channel, I always appreciate your thoughtful commentary, a diamond in the rough of algorithmic mayhem.
Some of the dumbest people I know have PhD's. In my view a holder of a PhD possesses a brilliant, ground breaking understanding of things in their often very narrow chosen field, but it is like a very long walk on a very skinny pier out into the vast ocean of man's knowledge. The depth of their ignorance either side being betrayed every time they misstep.
STEM PhD holder here. In my experience it is as much a test of character as raw intelligence. Yes, you need minimum academic standards to be accepted for an advanced degree which are not trivial and suggests intelligence, but whenever you engage in novel work you find yourself going down some dead ends and you have to have a personality that can absorb the frustration and disappointment and persist nevertheless. I'm not sure this is very compatible with or bears relation to "ignorance." Quite a few give up. Having a decent amount of general intelligence definitely doesn't hurt either lol
@@item6931 I have found to get a PhD is more a test of how far your masochism goes. The process is literally a torture chamber.
@@PandaPanda-ud4ne You have my support and best wishes - the pain will end eventually 🙂
Musk is obviously brilliant. Him being rich is not important. Whatever his methodology is to start companies and to ensure its success is important, and if it can be replicated in some way within the public sector, then that would be great. Inflation will not decrease if government spending is not reduced.
Great observations Vlad❤ Peterson started off intelligent and normal...nowadays he reminds me of Dr Mabuse in one of Fritz Langs films😂
Why people become crazier via algoritms seems strange to me. But some do...
He’s not called Phoney Stark for nothing
He’s no engineer.
>Phoney Stark
😂😂😂
Hadn't heard that one before, but I love it!
Long time listener, first time (I think) commenter. I agree that Sam's stability has resulted in him not being algorithmically captured, but you also implied that his ethics were not a part of this stability. I disagree. While I (or you) may not agree with all of his principles, I do think it's clear that his own commitment to these principles has been a stabilizing force for him. Furthermore, his stability is at least partly due to the fact that he has built his own platform, complete with monitization and content distribution. He's not as dependent on the algorithm as many other public figures, and he's not at all dependent on outside organizations or political movements for financial support. This isn't an accident. One of the reasons he built his own platform is precisely because freedom from outside coersion aligns with his principles. In summary, I think we should give his principles more credit for the stability of his views.
@@PeterLindstrom-x4w and he has a stable audience that both agrees and disagrees at times but is still engaged. Anyone can email him also and get the whole “making sense” series for free if they aren’t subscribed (I’m not) but I appreciate this and lends to his outreach outside the algo.
A convo between Harris and Vlad is impractical, but would be incredibly interesting. Thanks Vlad, for making this!
I'm curious how you distinguish algorithmically-induced beliefs and the kind of belief propagation that happened via pre-internet media (television, movies, radio). Is this the same phenomenon only accelerated by new technology, or is it fundamentally different?
Thank you, V, for being responsible. And for the respect I feel from you when showing that responsibility. I hope you know I, too, respect you, your time here, and the words you choose to share with us. ❤
Who would have thought that it's a bad idea to let software engineers design our cultural discourse.
This is spot on.
This was a very helpful one for me, I hadn't quite grasped what you've said about the problems of Jordan Peterson previously but it clicked for me here and is very recognisably true now I see what you're saying. Speaking as someone who's very self taught in general, I really recognise the countless times I have found myself "operating with cheap fragments" of things too, a quote I like on this is - “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back” ~ John Maynard Keynes.
One thing I don't quite understand though and would love to hear explained some time is the way you use the word aesthetic. To me it's essentially "how it looks" literally or figuratively but it seems there is a meaning I'm missing.
While Sam has some obvious takes I agree with, he’s a limited thinker affected by his own prejudice and bias. I think he’s a cretin.
Everyone is affected by their own prejudices and bias. What matters is to what extent a person is affected, how aware and acknowledging they are of the problem, how much they strive to self-correct, and how well they handle and respond to criticism for it.
Based upon your comment, I suspect that your own prejudices and bias (largely, your intuitions, preferences, personality, and life experiences) may account for your disagreements with many of Sam's takes, and may even explain why you see fit to label an obviously intelligent person (even when restricted to the measure of his facility for speech alone)-a cretin, as opposed to simply expressing that you don't agree with much of what Sam says and that you just don't like him.
If you were being honest, you would admit something along the lines of, "Sam's views, personality and other related factors upset and antagonise me. It also rubs me the wrong way that he receives such attention and adulation from many people, undeserved in my opinion." Why else would you feel the need to skirt all that and settle for calling him a cretin? Are we to believe that you are so unbiased and objective that when you label him a cretin, you're just making a factual statement, free from any polluting negative emotion and prejudice? I think not.
@ Please listen to the interview. The man’ temper, intolerance and ego are apparent.
Folks don’t quit companies, they quit bad managers. No matter if said companies might be the best in the world.
Elon Musk, I believe, is safe if you put him alone in a room with children's wooden blocks. Indeed you may find when you enter the room an interesting structure he has build with the wooden blocks. However, Elon Musk alone in a room full of Ken and Barbie dolls -- MY GOD! Oh, you cannot unsee the horrors of that room. Oh, Elon will not be allowed out of the rubber suit nor to leave the rubber room until he stops that awefull chattering of his teeth. Oh God, that room, that room ...
My point is that Musk is useful with intimate objects but dangerous with the fate of human beings and has no business being in public life.
What you said at the start about your differences being minor compared to the larger picture is exactly how I feel about the EU.
Our differences, say between Germany and France, Poland and Sweden, Spain and Ukraine etc. are so minor relative to the larger world.
The exception in my mind are people who believe in the ideology of islam. Their worldview is so utterly contrary to the worldview of Christian or irreligious Europeans that conflict becomes inevitable.
Some years ago, Sam Harris said, and I'm paraphrasing, "government should be abolished and replaced by business, because business is more efficient". On the other hand, a statesman said this, which is not paraphrased: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.
That in it's essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
----- Franklin D Roosevelt
I've never heard Sam say this. And if he did some time ago, it doesn't reflect a view he currently holds as a phrase he often repeats is "the solution to bad government isn't no government, but better government" (paraphrased), coupled with his sentiments surrounding the value of institutions.
I've not once heard him say nations should be run by private business.
Could you please cite your source?
Thank you.
I have also never heard anything like this come out of Sam's mouth.
What I often noticed in tech & business as an analyst and PM in sales & marketing operations for global online, is that efficiency for the sake of efficiency is not the same as value, quality, or stability. Cancer - also efficient.
Ironic since he was basically a fascist.
a brilliant video i think
Sam Harris has very unfortunate views towards Gaza and Israel
Being well informed is unfortunate?
@ from what I can tell, Sam is not well informed. I want to be clear: Hamas definitely committed a terrorist attack on Oct 7, and Israel would be justified in conducting a PROPORTIONAL retaliation in which Hamas leaders and militants are brought into custody or killed if that’s what it comes to. However, Sam disregarded any source which begins to discuss the absolutely insane civilian toll as Hamas’ propaganda: the fact that children are being found dead from HEADSHOTS; children are being targeted in drone bombings, and when others come to help the kid, they drop another bomb on them. Sam disregards all of this as propaganda (as far as I can tell, perhaps I haven’t seen the podcast episode where he addresses this stuff). He’s acting as if Israel isn’t committing genocide and this is just any other conflict; if that were true, there wouldn’t be an international arrest warrants out for Israeli PM Netanyahu.
In conclusion, I think it’s unfortunate because Sam is someone I respect but he does not seem well informed on this topic. He seems heavily biased against Muslims, for Israel, or both.
Thank you for spending time Vlad. It is very much enjoyed.
Not changing views is not a badge of honour.
'Epistemological calamity ' was a thing of beauty, Vlad. Sums up so much of my alarm at the way things are increasingly heading in the public space. You also taught me the term 'algorithm capture' ' or 'Audience capture which I see more and more of.Only the other day I noticed this slightly puffed up but essentially benign old sort who has a channel on here has started posting more 'Conspiracy vibe' content in recent weeks.
Harris may be correct, but what he fails to say is that it’s this lack of “intellectual formatting” that makes Musk the phenomenon that he is.
There was a movie called Network that was released about 40 years ago
It was quite precient in that it shows a struggling TV news station use outrage and sensationalism to capture a bigger audience and then doubles down on its strategy once it sees that its attracts a bigger audience
It all ends rather calamitously
Your intro about how you feel more in alignment with Sam now, I feel the same. He seems like someone who is still logical. There are so many out there now who seemed to have drank whacky Kool-aid.
I am so glad you also noticed how Jordan Peterson was remade by the algorithm. He was never as grounded as Sam, but Peterson is closer now to Alex Jones than Harris.
VLAD youtube is fucking with you again. Past 2 or 3 days havent recieved notifications for new videos from this channel, have depended on Twitter to keep up with new uploads. Idk whats going on
Have you clicked the bell button on the channel? Thank you for letting me. Often it doesn’t guarantee a notification. Could be worth to re click.
@@VladVexlerChat yes I have bell notifications for all channels enabled. Usually works fine just past couple days noticed this
Shorthand version: Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson are notable and pernicious examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
All I know about Elon Musk is that he is on Government Welfare. Which makes him useless
That is a politically motivated statement
@13thbiosphere No! It's a fact.
I don't think you even believe that statement - which makes you an ethical abomination
When one begins a sentence with "all I know is" it shows you don't know it at all.
@StickAroundBennett I am a tax payer I know every company that takes from me
I have discovered Harris before I discovered Vexler. I now love and appreciate both.
Time to climb out of that hole . Good luck .
*I WAS VERY DISSAPOINTED WHIT SAM HARRIS* and his take on the US election - 1st comment "Everyone is looking to blame their pet subject for the loss and thats wrong"
2nd comment "But lets be real - its TRANS PEOPLE" he then spent the next 20 minutes ranting how accepting trans people lost the Dems the election. He may have spent more - I stopped listening. In not involved in the Trans issue but his rant was utterly ridiculous. It was veery clearly his person hobby horse issue.
When that is the main talking point pushed not only by the Maga grifters but also seems to be brought up in each and every vox populi interview then maybe it should be addressed heads on, yes. And that means disavowing obvious obscurantist and morale grandstanding nonsense. Let the other side "run with it" seems not to have had the desired effect.
That said, I was also surprised that he spent that much time on the topic.
Didnt watch it. But he may be on to something here, as gernwind below wrote. When you concentrate on marginalized groups, you lose the majority, and the majority is white, and hetero. It is silly to go for trans rights, when you should be more interested in rights and duties of white hetero males.
Maybe he is so much into it, because he has two daughters. For Sam it is not so appealing that a biological male could be showering naked with his two daughters soon in the shower cabin of a High School. Fathers tend to react rather visceral to such things.
@@gernwind9262 My issue was him saying that every group believed the reason was their pet issue, and then him blaming it on HIS pet issue. His lack of self awareness.
Was it an issue YES, but so was G4Z4, so was inflation, so was X, so was Y, so was Z... As far as I can see it was EVERYTHING - people did not want "more of the same with a few tweaks"
@@piccalillipit9211 Surely his pet issue is djihadism, not enbyism?
I went back to the video and his reason for focusing on our topic is: Dems couldn't do much about inflation, at least not short-term, what they could have done however is NOT play their expected part in the culture war, instead of constantly fuelling the enemy propaganda with kernels of truth (tons of kernels). As an example of culture war capture of the Dems he brought up: Biden administration immediately came out with toilet rules, but took its sweet 2½ years to set gears in motion re the border.
@@piccalillipit9211 Comment vanished. Once more:
His pet issue is dj1had1sm not enbyism I would have thought.
I went back to the video. His reason for focusing on our topic: Dems couldn't do much about inflation, at least not in the short run, they however could have chosen to NOT play their designated part in the culture war, by not fuelling the opfor propaganda by tons of kernels of truth. As an example he gave for culture war capture of Dems: Toilet rules came out immediately, for the border problem it took the Biden Admininistration 2½ years to set the gears in motion.
Great seeing you in the chair again Vlad! Thanks for sharing your thoughtful analysis.
Are you the best dude philosopher on the internet?
without the illness could be off it as well 😉
@@VladVexler 😢
Thank you, Vlad, for being a man of such great moral, intellectual and spiritual integrity. So happy to see you sitting. Pray-god, it may be proof you’re feeling better. Love and Peace to you, as always….💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙🌻💙
I just came across your channel. I was listening to you with interest until you called yourself an intellectual. Intellectual is not a label you give yourself, it is a label others give you if you deserve it. Otherwise, it is a pretentious move.
Thank you I appreciate this video
Sam Harris hasn’t been relevant for about 8 years since Trump broke his brain
Remarkable, and telling, to see Vlad walk down Stupid Street. And the commenters, too. We're in the midst of a world-historic positive moment and Sam Harris is adrift, about as lost as Vlad. The academics have failed us and it will be quite some time before they recover.
How so? I find Sam as relevant -- maybe more so -- than ever.
Power of stupid?
Wow! So glad this was highlighted on this subject. Brilliant! xx 🎉
Musk: "Can we make this part Carbon Fiber?"'
World: ENGINEER!