[0:00:00] Welcome back. Here we go again. Great to see you and congratulations. Thank you. You will never forget what is going on in the world when you think about when your child is born. You will know for the rest of this child's life, you were born during a weird time. That's for sure. That is for sure. Probably the weirdest that I can remember. Yeah, yeah. And he was born on May the 4th.
[0:00:25] And that's hilarious, too. Yeah. May the fourth be with him. Yeah, exactly. It has to be. I sure hope so. Perfect. Yes. I mean, that was the perfect day for you. And how do you say the name? Well. Is it a placeholder? First of all, my partner is the one that actually mostly came up with the name. Congratulations to her. Yeah, yeah. She's great at names. So, I mean, it's just X, the letter X. And then the A-E is like.
[0:00:55] Pronounced Ash. Yeah. And then A12 is my contribution. Oh, why A12? Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71. Coolest plane ever. It's true. I agree with you. I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. I know what the SR-71 is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know what that is. So the SR-71 came from a CIA program called Archangel. Oh. It's the Archangel project.
[0:01:24] Oh. And then Archangel 12. Oh, wow. What a dope-looking plane. Yeah. Oh, okay. I get it. Yeah, yeah. Well, as a person who's very much into aerial travel, as you are, that's perfect. It's pretty great. Yeah, pretty great. So does it feel strange to have a child while this craziness is going? You've had children before. Is this any weirder? Actually, I think it's better being older and having a kid.
[0:01:54] I appreciate it more. Yeah. Babies are awesome. They are pretty awesome. They are awesome. Yeah. When I didn't have any of my own, I would see other people's kids and I didn't not like them. Sure. But I wasn't drawn to them. Sure. But now when I see little people's kids, I'm like, oh, I think of them like these little love packages. Yeah, the little love bugs. Yeah. It's just you think of them differently when you see them come out and then grow and then eventually start talking to you. Like your whole idea what a baby is is very different. Yeah.
[0:02:23] So now as you get older and get to appreciate it as a mature, fully formed adult, it must be really pretty wonderful. Yeah, wonderful. It's great. Babies are awesome. They are. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I mean, also, I've spent a lot of time on AI and neural nets. And so you can sort of see the kind of...
[0:02:48] An AI neural net is trying to simulate what a brain does, basically. And you can sort of see it learning very quickly. It's just, wow. So you're talking about the neural net. You're not talking about an actual baby. I'm talking about an actual baby. But both of them. Yes, but the word neural net comes from the brain. It's like a net of neurons.
[0:03:17] It's like the humans are the original gangsta. That's a great way to put it. So when you're programming artificial intelligence or you're working with artificial intelligence, are they specifically trying to mimic the developmental process of a human brain? In a lot of ways. There are some ways that are different.
[0:03:48] A submarine swims like a fish. But we take the principles of hydrodynamics and apply them to a submarine. I've always wondered, as a layperson, do you try to achieve the same results as a human brain but through different methods, or do you try to copy the way a human brain achieves results? I mean, the essential elements of an AI neural net are really very similar to a human brain.
[0:04:19] Neuronet, yeah. It's having the multiple layers of neurons and back propagation. All these things are what your brain does. You have a layer of neurons that goes through a series of intermediate steps to ultimately cognition, and then it'll reverse those steps and go back and forth and go all over the place. It's interesting, very interesting. Yeah, I would imagine.
[0:04:52] Like the thought of programming something that is eventually going to be smarter than us, that one day it's going to be like, why did you do it that way? Like when artificial intelligence becomes sentient, they're like, oh, you tried to mimic yourself. Like this is so much better process. Cut out all this nonsense.
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[0:07:57] Work and generate lift is the same as Bird. Now, you're in the middle of this strange time where you're selling your houses. You say you don't want any material possessions. And I've been seeing all that, and I've been really excited to talk to you about this. Yeah. Because it's an interesting thing to come from a guy like yourself. Like, why are you doing that? I'm slightly sad about it, actually. If you're sad about it, why are you doing it? I think possessions kind of weigh you down.
[0:08:33] Then they're kind of an attack vector. You know, he'll say, hey, billionaire, you got all this stuff. Like, well, now I don't have stuff. Now what are you going to do? Attack vector meaning like people target it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. But you're obviously going to – so you're going to rent a place? Yeah. Okay. And get rid of everything except clothes? No, I said like almost everything. So it's like – Keep a couple Teslas. Yeah, I should obviously have a Tesla. I kind of have to.
[0:09:02] Yeah. Test product and stuff. You know, those things that have sentimental value for sure are keeping those, you know. Yeah. So do you feel like there's – What's the worst thing that could happen? I mean, you're fine. Yeah. You could always buy more stuff if you don't like it. I suppose so. Yeah. I mean, from the money that you sell all your stuff, you could buy new stuff. But do you feel like people define you by the fact that you're wealthy and that they define you in a pejorative way?
[0:09:34] For sure. I mean, not everyone, but for sure in recent years, billionaire has become a pejorative. It's like that's a bad thing, which I think doesn't make a lot of sense in most cases. If you basically organized a company, how does this wealth arise? It's if you organize people in a better way.
[0:10:03] To produce products and services that are better than what existed before and you have some ownership in that company, then that essentially gives you the right to allocate more capital. So there's a conflation of consumption and capital allocation. So let me say Warren Buffett, for example, and to be totally frank, I'm not his biggest fan, but he does a lot of capital allocation.
[0:10:34] And he reads a lot of sort of annual reports of companies and all the accounting, and it's pretty boring, really. And he's trying to figure out, does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital? I mean, it's kind of a boring job, if you ask me. But it's still a thing that's important to figure out, like which is a company deserving of more or less capital? Should that company grow or expand? Is it making products and services that are...
[0:11:03] If a company is making compelling products and services, it should get more capital, and if it's not, it should get less. We'll go out of business. Well, there's a big difference, too, between someone who's making an incredible amount of money designing and engineering fantastic products.
[0:11:24] Versus someone who's making an incredible amount of money by investing in companies or moving money around in the stock market or doing things along those lines. It's a different thing. And to put them all in the same category seems, it's very simple. And as you pointed out, it's an attack vector. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's really, I do think there, in the United States especially, there's an over-allocation of talent in finance and law.
[0:11:53] Basically, too many smart people go into finance and law. So this is both a compliment and a criticism. We should have, I think, fewer people doing law and fewer people doing finance and more people making stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would certainly be better for all involved if they made better stuff. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And manufacturing used to be...
[0:12:22] Highly valued in the United States. And these days, it's often looked down upon, which I think is wrong. Yeah. Well, I think that people are kind of learning that, particularly because of this whole pandemic and this relationship that we have with China, that there's a lot of value into making things here. Yes. Somebody's got to do the real work. Yeah.
[0:12:51] Making a car, it's an honest day's living, that's for sure. Or making anything, really. Or providing a valuable service, like providing good entertainment, good information. These are all valuable things to do. So, yeah, there should be more of it. Did you have a moment where, is this something that this idea of getting rid of your material possessions, is this something that built up over time? Or did you have a moment of realization?
[0:13:21] Where do you realize it? Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a while. You know, part of it is like I have a bunch of houses, but I don't spend a lot of time in most of them. And that doesn't seem like a good use of assets. Like somebody could probably be enjoying those houses and get better use of them than me. Don't you have Gene Wilder's house? I do. That's amazing. It's awesome. Wow. It's exactly what you'd expect. Did you request that the buyer not?
[0:13:53] Fuck it up? Yeah, that's a requirement. Oh, a requirement. That's a good requirement. Yeah. In that case, in that house. Yeah, it'll probably sell for less, but still I don't care. He's a legend. He'd want his soul. He'd want his essence in the building. And it's there. That's a real quirky house. What makes you say it's there? What do you get out of it? I mean, all the cabinets are handmade, and they're odd shapes.
[0:14:24] And there's like doors to nowhere and strange corridors and tunnels and odd paintings on the wall. Did you ever live in it? It's very quirky. I did live in it briefly, yeah. But why do you buy houses? Like if you own all these houses, do you just get bored and go, I think I'd like to have that? Well, I had one house and then the...
[0:14:53] Gene Wilder has right across the road from me, from my main house, and it was going to get sold and then torn down and turn into, you know, be a big construction zone for three years. And I was like, well, I think I'll buy it and preserve the spirit of Gene Wilder and not have a giant construction zone. And then, you know, I started having, like, some privacy issues where, like, people would, like, lots of people would just, like, come to my house.
[0:15:23] And, you know, start climbing over the walls and stuff. I'm like, man. So then I bought a house, some of the houses around my house. And then I thought at one point, well, you know, it would be cool to build a house. So then I acquired some properties at the top of Samara Road, which has got a great view. And I was like, okay, well, these...
[0:15:52] A bunch of sort of small older houses. They're going to get torn down anyway. I was like, well, if I collect these little houses, then I can build something, I don't know, artistic, like a dream house type of thing. What's a dream house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type shit? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you've got to have the dome that opens up with the stealth helicopter and that kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. Fuck yeah. Yeah, fuck yeah.
[0:16:22] But then I was like, man, does it really make sense for me to spend time designing and building a house and I'd be real, you know, get OCD on the little details and the design? Or should I be allocating that time to getting us to Mars? I should probably do the latter. So, you know, like what's more important, Mars or a house? I like Mars. Okay. Is that really how you think? Like that it'd be better off?
[0:16:52] Planning on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can only do so many things. Right. I don't know how you do what you do anyway. I don't understand how you can run the Boring Company, Tesla, SpaceX, all these different things you're doing constantly. I don't understand. I mean, you explained last time you were here how you sort of allocate your time and how hectic it is and insane. I still don't. The productivity.
[0:17:22] Is baffling. It just doesn't make sense how you can get so much done. Well, I think I do have high productivity, but even with that, there's still some opportunity cost of time. And allocating time to building a house, even if it was a really great house, still is not a good use of time relative to developing the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and helping solve sustainable energy.
[0:17:53] The most amount of brain cycles. Boring Company does not take less than 1% of brain cycles. And then there's Neuralink, which is, I don't know, maybe it's like 5%. 5%? That's a good chunk. It's a good chunk, yeah. We were talking about that last time, and you were trying to figure out when it was actually going to go live, when it's actually going to be available. Are you testing on people right now?
[0:18:25] No, we're not testing people yet, but I think it won't be too long. I think we may be able to implant a Neuralink in less than a year in a person, I think. And when you do this, is there any test that you have to do before you do something like this to see what percentage of people's bodies are going to reject these things? Is there a potential for rejection?
[0:18:55] It's a very low potential for rejection. You can think of it like people put in heart monitors and things for epileptic seizures and deep brain stimulation, obviously like artificial hips and knees and that kind of thing. So it's well known what will cause rejection and what will not. It's definitely harder when you've got something that is...
[0:19:25] Reading and writing neurons, that's generating a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's a little harder than, say, a passive device. But it's still very doable. There are people who have primitive devices in their brains right now. What kind of devices? Deep brain stimulation, I think, for Parkinson's.
[0:19:56] That has really changed people's lives in a big way, which is kind of remarkable because it kind of like zaps your brain. It's like kicking the TV type of thing. And you think like, man, kicking the TV shouldn't work. It does sometimes. Yeah, yeah. The old TVs. It did. My grandpa used to slap the top. For sure. Yeah. It would work sometimes. Yeah.
[0:20:27] Let's talk about what you can talk about to what Neuralink is, because the last time you were here, I really couldn't discuss it. And then there was, I guess, a press release, something that sort of outlined. Yeah, that happened quite a bit after the last time you were here. So what exactly is it? How do you do, what happens? If someone ultimately does get a Neuralink installed, what will take place? Well, for version one of the device, it would be,
[0:20:57] It's basically implanted in your skull. But it would be flush with your skull. So you basically take out a chunk of skull, put the Neuralink device in there. You'd insert the electrode threads very carefully into the brain. And then you stitch it up.
[0:21:26] And you wouldn't even know that somebody has it. And so then it can interface basically anywhere in your brain. So it could be something that helps cure, say, eyesight, like returns your eyesight, even if you've lost your optic nerve type of thing. Really? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hearing, obviously. I mean, pretty much anything that we're – it could, in principle, fix almost anything that is wrong with the brain.
[0:21:56] And it could restore limb functionality. So if you've got an interface into the motor cortex and then an implant that's, say, that's like a microcontroller near muscle groups, you could then create sort of a neural shunt that restores somebody who is a quadriplegic to full functionality. Like they can walk around and be normal. Whoa.
[0:22:26] Maybe slightly better. Slightly better? Over time, yes. You mean with future iterations? Like the $6 million man, although these days that doesn't seem like much. $6 billion man. So the hole would be small. How big would the hole be that you have to drill and then replace with this piece? It's only one hole? Well, yeah, the device we're working on right now is about...
[0:22:56] It's about an inch in diameter. And your skull's pretty thick, by the way. Mine is, for sure. It might actually literally be. I mean, if you're a big guy, your skull is actually fairly thick. Skull is like 7 to 14 millimeters. That's probably a couple of inches. A half inch. Half inch thick skull-ish. So, yeah, yeah. So that's a fair bit of...
[0:23:23] We've got quite a coconut going on here. It's not like some eggshell. Oh, yeah, I believe you. So, yeah, you basically implant the device. And so it would be like a one-inch square or a one-inch in diameter? Yeah, like a— So an inch circle, like a circular? Yeah, I think like a smartwatch or something like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, so you take this one-inch diameter, like ice fishing, right? You ever go ice fishing?
[0:23:51] No, but I'd like to. It's great. It's really fun. So you basically take an auger and you drill through the surface of the ice and you create a small hole and you can dunk your line in there. So this is like that. You're ice fishing on the top of your skull and then you cork it. Yeah, and you replace that, say, one-inch diameter piece of skull with this.
[0:24:15] Neuralink device. And that has a battery and a Bluetooth and an inductive charger. And then you also get to insert the electrodes. So the electrodes are very carefully inserted with our robot that we developed. It's very carefully putting in the electrodes and avoiding any veins or arteries. So it doesn't create trauma. So through this one-inch diameter? Yeah.
[0:24:44] How long will these wires be? I mean, they usually go in like, you know, depending on where it is, like two or three millimeters. So they just find the spots? Yeah. Wow. And then...
[0:25:16] Yeah, and then you put the device in and that replaces the little piece of skull that was taken out. And then you stitch up the hole and you just have like a little scar and that's it. Well, this would be replaceable or reversible? Yes. Like if someone can't take it anymore? I'm too smart. I can't take it. Yeah, you can totally take it out.
[0:25:40] And what is the, besides restoring limb function and eyesight and hearing, which are all amazing, is there any cognitive benefits that you anticipate from something like this? Yeah, I mean, you could for sure. I mean, basically, it's a generalized sort of.
[0:26:06] I think for fixing any kind of brain injury, in principle, or if you've got severe epilepsy or something like that, it could just sort of stop the epilepsy from occurring. It could detect it in real time and then fire a counter pulse and stop the epilepsy. I mean, there's a whole range of brain injuries. If somebody gets a stroke, they could lose the ability to speak. That could also be...
[0:26:34] If you get like stroke damage or you lose, say, muscle control over part of your face or something like that. And then when you get old, you tend to, if you get like Alzheimer's or something like that, then you lose memory and this could help you with restoring your memory, that kind of thing.
[0:26:54] Restoring memory. And what is happening that's allowing it to do that? Like the wires, these small wires, they're stimulating these areas of the brain. And then is it that the areas of the brain, they're losing some sort of electrical force? Like what is happening? Yeah. Yeah? It's like a bunch of circuits, and there's some circuits that are broken.
[0:27:19] Fix those circuits. Substitute for those circuits. And so a specific frequency will go through this? Yeah. Specific in that is the process figuring out how much or how little has to be, how much these areas of the brain have to be juiced up? Yeah. I mean, there's still a lot of work to do. So when I say, you know, we've got a shot at probably putting in a person in.
[0:27:47] Within a year, I think that's exactly what I mean. I think we have a chance of putting input into one and having them be healthy and restoring some functionality that they've lost. The fear is that eventually you're going to have to cut the whole top of someone's head off and put a new top with a whole bunch of wires if you want to get the real turbocharged version, the P100D.
[0:28:17] Brain stimulation? I mean, ultimately, if you want to go with full AI symbiosis, you'll probably want to do something like that. Symbiosis is a scary word when it comes to AI. It's optional. I would hope so. It's just, I mean, once you enjoy the Dr. Manhattan lifestyle, once you become a god, it seems very...
[0:28:46] Very unlikely. You're going to want to go back to being stupid again. I mean, you literally could fundamentally change the way human beings interface with each other. Yes. Yes. You wouldn't need to talk. I'm so scared of that but so excited about it at the same time. Is that weird? Yeah. I mean, I think this is one of the paths to, you know, like AI is getting better and better.
[0:29:19] So now let's assume it's sort of like a benign AI scenario. Even in a benign scenario, we're kind of left behind. We're not along for the ride. We're just too dumb. So how do you go along for the ride? So you can't beat them, join them. And we're already a cyborg to some degree, right? Because you've got your phone, you've got your laptop. Glasses. Yeah, yeah, good job.
[0:29:49] Electronic devices. Today, if you don't bring your phone along, it's like you have missing limb syndrome. It feels like something's really, really missing. We're already partly a cyborg or an AI symbiote, essentially. It's just that the data rate to the electronics is slow.
[0:30:20] Especially output. Like you're just going with your thumbs. What's your data rate? Optimistically, 100 bits per second. That's being generous. And now the computer can communicate at like 100 terabits. So certainly gigabits are trivial at this point. So this is like...
[0:30:47] Basically, your computer can do things a million times faster. At a certain point, the AI is like talking to a tree. Okay, this is boring. You can talk to a tree. It's not very entertaining. So if you can solve the data rate issue, especially input 2, then you can...
[0:31:18] Improve the symbiosis that is already occurring between man and machine. So you can improve it. When you said you won't have to talk to each other anymore, we used to joke around about that. I've joked around about that a million times on this podcast, that one day in the future there's going to come a time where you can read each other's minds. You'll be able to interface with each other in some sort of a non-verbal, non-physical way where you will transfer data back and forth to each other.
[0:31:47] Without having to actually use your mouth and make noises. Exactly. So when you, like what happens when you, let's say you've got some complex idea that you're trying to convey to somebody else. And how do you do that? Well, your brain spends a lot of effort compressing a complex concept into words. And there's a lot of loss, information loss that occurs when compressing a complex.
[0:32:15] And then you say those words. Those words are then interpreted. Then they're decompressed by the person who is listening. And they will at best get a very incomplete understanding of what you're trying to convey. It's very difficult to convey a complex concept with precision because you've got compression, decompression. You may not even have heard all the words correctly. And so communication is difficult. What we have here is a failure to communicate.
[0:32:45] It's a cool ad, Luke. Yes, and it's a great movie. Yeah, great movie. There's an interpretation factor, too. Like you can choose to interpret certain series of words in different ways, and they're dependent upon tone, dependent upon social cues, even facial expressions, sarcasm. There's a lot of variables. Sarcasm is difficult. Yes. Yeah. And so one of the things that I've said is like,
[0:33:15] There could be potentially a universal language that's created through computers that particularly young kids would pick up very quickly. My kids do TikTok and all this jazz, and I don't know what they're doing. They just know how to do it, and they know how to do it really quickly. They learn really quickly, and they show me how to edit things. If you taught a child from first grade on how to use some new universal language, essentially like a Rosetta Stone and something that's done.
[0:33:44] That interprets your thoughts and you can convey your thoughts with no room for interpretation, with clear, very clear, where you know what a person's saying and you can tell them what you're saying and there's no need for noises, no need for mouth noises, no need for these sort of accepted ways that we've sort of evolved to make sounds that we all agree.
[0:34:12] Through our cultural dictionary, we agree. We could bypass all that. Yeah, we could still do it for sentimental reasons. Right. Like campfires. Yeah, exactly. I don't need campfires. I don't need to roast marshmallows. It's kind of fun. Right. So, yeah, I think you would be able to communicate very quickly and with far more precision.
[0:34:43] And language would... I'm not sure what would happen to language. But you could probably... In a situation like this, you would be able to just... It would be kind of like the Matrix. You want to speak a different language in a problem. Right. That's why it was downloaded the program. Right. So at least for the first iterations, first few iterations, we'll just be able to use... I know that Google has their...
[0:35:10] Some of their pixel buds have the ability to interpret languages in real time. Sure. Yeah, you can hear it and it'll play things back to you in whatever language you choose. So it'll be something along those lines. Yeah. For the first few iterations. Well, the first few iterations are, what I'm talking about is like in the limit over time, you know, with a lot of development. The first few iterations, really in the first few versions, all we're going to be trying to do is solve brain injuries.
[0:35:40] Don't worry. It's not going to sneak up on you. This will take a while. How many years before you don't have to talk?
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[0:38:19] Maybe like five years, five to ten years. That's quick. That's really quick. That's the best case scenario. No talking anymore in five years. Best case scenario. But ten years is more like it. I've always speculated that aliens could potentially be us in the future.
[0:38:38] Because if you look at, like, the size of their heads and the fact that they have very little muscle and they don't use their mouth anymore. I mean, the archetypal alien that you see in, like, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They're like, if you went from, like, Australopithecus or Ancient Hominid to us, what's the difference? Less hair, less muscle, bigger head. And then you just keep going. A thousand, a million, whatever.
[0:39:06] Five years, whatever happens when Neuralink goes on online, and then we slowly start to adapt to this new way of being where we don't use our muscles anymore. We have this gigantic head. We can talk without words. You could also save state. Save state? Save state, like save your brain state, like a saved game in a video game. Whoa.
[0:39:35] Like if you want to swap from Windows 95. Well, I feel a little better than that, but yeah. I think we are Windows 95 right now. From a future perspective, probably. But yeah, I mean you could save state.
[0:39:53] And restore that state into a biological being if you wanted to in the future. There's nothing from a physics standpoint that prevents this. You'd be a little different. But then you're also a little different when you wake up in the morning from yesterday. And you're a little different. In fact, if you say you five years ago versus you today, it's quite a big difference. So you'd be substantially you. I mean, you'd certainly think you're you. But the idea of saving yourself.
[0:40:19] And then transforming that into some sort of a biological state. Like you could hang out with 30-year-old you. I mean the possibilities are endless. That's so weird. I mean just think like how your phone can – you can record videos on your phone. Like there's no way you could remember a video as accurately as your phone or a camera could. So if you've got like some –
[0:40:49] Version 10, Neuralink, whatever, far in the future. You could recall everything just like it's a movie. Clistically. Including the entire sensory experience. Emotions. Everything. Everything. Everything. And play it back. Do you think you'll be able to share? Edit it. Edit it. Yeah. So you can change your past? You could change what do you think was your past, yeah. So if you had like a traumatic experience. This whole thing right now.
[0:41:17] Could be a replayed memory. It could be. Yeah. It may be. What's the odds of this being a replayed memory? If you had to guess. It's more than 50%. There's no way to assign a probability with accuracy here. Right, but roughly. If you just had a gut instinct. Well, I don't have a neural link in my brain, so I'd say right now 0%. But at the point at which you do have a neural link, then it rises above 0%.
[0:41:55] The idea that we're experiencing some sort of a preserved memory is, even though it's still the same, it's not comforting, right? For some reason, when people talk about simulation theory, they talk about the potential for this currently being a simulation. Even though your life might be wonderful, you might be in love, you might love your career, you might have great friends, but it's not comforting.
[0:42:23] To know that this experience somehow or another doesn't exist in a material form that you can knock on. Feels real, doesn't it? Feels real. But the idea that it's not is, for some strange reason, disconcerting. Yeah, I'm sure it should be disconcerting. Because if this is not real, what is? But there's that old sort of thought experiment of like, how do you know you're not a brain in a vat?
[0:42:53] Now, here's the thing. You are a brain in a vat. Then that vat is your skull. Yes. And everything you see, feel, hear, everything, all your senses are electrical signals. Everything, everything is an electrical signal to a brain in a vat where the vat is your skull. And all your hormones, all your neurotransmitters, all these things are drugs. Adrenaline is a drug. Dopamine is a drug. You're a drug factory.
[0:43:22] You're constantly changing your state with love and oxytocin and beauty. Sure. Changes your state. Great music changes your state. Absolutely. And here's another sort of interesting idea, which is because you say like where did consciousness arise? Well, assuming you believe in physics, which appears to be true, then the universe started off as.
[0:43:52] Basically quarks and leptons quickly became hydrogen and helium, lithium, like basically elements of the periodic table. But it was mostly hydrogen, basically. And then over a long period of time, 13.8 billion years later, that hydrogen became sentient. So where along the way...
[0:44:19] What's the line of consciousness and not consciousness between hydrogen and here? When do we call it? When do we call it consciousness? I was watching a video today that we played on a podcast earlier of a monkey riding a motorcycle down the street, jumps off the motorcycle and tries to steal a baby. Yeah, I saw that one. Is that monkey conscious? It seems like it is. It seems like it had a plan. It was riding a fucking motorcycle and then jumped off the motorcycle to try to steal a baby.
[0:44:49] Seems pretty— The one that just dragged the baby down the street pretty far. Yeah. Yeah. Seems pretty conscious, right? There's definitely some degree of consciousness there. Yeah, it's not like—it's not a worm. It seems to be on another level. Yeah. And it's going to keep going. And that's the real concern.
[0:45:11] When people think about the potential future versions of human beings, especially when you consider symbiotic relationship to artificial intelligence, it will be unrecognizable. That one day we'll be so far removed from what this is, we'll look back on this the way we look back now on simple organisms that we evolved from. And that it won't be that far in the future that we do have this view back.
[0:45:39] Well, I hope consciousness propagates into the future and gets more sophisticated and complex and that it understands the questions to ask about the universe. Do you think that's the case? As a human being, as yourself, you're clearly trying to make conscious decisions to be a better version of you. This is the idea of getting rid of your possessions and realizing that you're trying to, like, I don't like this. I will try to improve this.
[0:46:07] I would try to do a better version of the way I interface with reality. That this is always the way things are. If you're moving in some sort of a direction where you're trying to improve things, you're always going to move into this new place where you look back in the old place and go, I was doing it wrong back then. So this is an accelerated version of that. A super accelerated version of that. I mean, you don't always improve, but you can aspire to improve. You can aspire to be less wrong. Yeah.
[0:46:40] I think the tools of physics are very powerful. Just assume you're wrong and your goal is to be less wrong. I don't think you're going to succeed every day in being less wrong, but if you're going to succeed in being less wrong most of the time, you're doing great. That's a great way of putting it. Aspire to be less wrong. But then when people look back on nostalgia about simpler times, there's that too. It's very romantic and exciting to look back on campfires.
[0:47:10] But you can still have a campfire. Yes. But will you appreciate it when you're a super nerd, when you're connected to the grid, and you have some skullcap in place of the top of your head, and it's interfacing with the international language that the rest of the universe now enjoys communication with people? Yeah, sure, I think so. Yeah, I like campfires. I'm just worried.
[0:47:37] Everyone's always scared of change, but I'm scared of this monumental change where we won't talk anymore. We'll communicate. Yes, but there's something about the beauty of the crudeness of language where when it's done eloquently, it's satisfying and it hits us in some sort of a visceral way, like, ah, that person nailed it. I love that they nailed it, like that it's so hard to capture.
[0:48:06] A real thought and convey it in a way, in this articulate way, that makes someone excited. Like you read a quote, a great quote by a wise person. It makes you excited that their mind figured something out. Put the words together in a right way that makes your brain pop. Like, oh, yes. Yeah. Yes. Clever compression of a concept. Yeah. And a feeling. But the fact that a human did it, too. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
[0:48:32] Do you think that it'll be like electronic music? Like people won't appreciate it like they appreciate a slide guitar? I like electronic music. I do too. Yeah. Well, you make it. I know you like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope the future is more fun and interesting and we should try to make it that way. I hope it's more fun and interesting too. Yeah. I just, you know, I just hope we don't lose anything along the way. We might lose a little.
[0:49:02] But hopefully we gain more than we lose. Yeah, that's the thing, right? Gaining more than we lose. Something that makes us interesting is that we're so flawed. That's not for sure. Right. I mean, you look at civilizations through the ages. Most of them, you know, they rose and fell. Yeah. And I do think, like, the globalization that we have at the sort of, like, the meme sphere is there's not enough.
[0:49:33] Isolation between countries or regions. It's like if there's a mind virus, that mind virus can infect too much of the world. I actually sort of sympathize with the anti-globalization people because it's like, man, we don't ever want everywhere to be the same for sure. And then we need some kind of mind viral immunity.
[0:50:01] That's what's concerning. Mind viral immunity, meaning that once something like Neuralink gets established, the real concern is something that, I mean, you said it's Bluetooth, right? Or some future version of that. The idea is that something could possibly get into it and fuck it up. No, I'm talking about like somebody, there's some concept that happens right now.
[0:50:31] Well, I know there's viruses in embedded chips, right? Like people have embedded chips and then acquired viruses. When I'm talking about a mind virus, I'm talking about like a concept that infects people's minds. Oh, okay, okay. Like cult thinking or some sort of fundamentalism. Yeah, just a wrong-headed idea that goes viral in an idea sense.
[0:51:00] Well, that is a problem too, right? If someone can manipulate that technology to make something appear logical or rational. Yeah, yeah. Would that be an issue too? This is a very have versus have not issue, right? If this really does, I mean, initially it's going to help people with injuries, but you said ultimately it could lead to this spectacular cognitive change. Yes. But the people that first get it.
[0:51:30] Should have a massive advantage over people that don't have it yet. Well, I mean, it's the kind of thing where your productivity would improve, I don't know, dramatically, maybe by a factor of 10 with it. So you could definitely just, you know, I don't know, take out a loan and do it and earn the money back real fast. Yeah. Super smart. Well, in a capitalist society.
[0:51:58] It seems like you could really get so far ahead that before everybody else could afford this thing and link up and get connected as well, you'd be so far ahead they could never catch you. Is that a concern? Well, I think it's not a super huge concern. I mean there are huge differences in cognitive ability and resources already. You can think of a corporation as like a cybernetic collective.
[0:52:28] Far smarter than an individual. I couldn't personally build a whole rocket and the engines and launch it and everything. That's impossible. But we have 8,000 people at SpaceX, and by piecing it out to different people and using computers and machines and stuff, we can make lots of rockets launch into orbit, dock with the space station, that kind of thing.
[0:52:59] That already exists where corporations are vastly more capable than an individual. But we should be, I think, less concerned about relative capabilities between people and more having AI be vastly beyond us and decoupled from human will.
[0:53:31] Decoupled from human. So this is the, if you can't beat them, join them. Yeah. So you feel like it's inevitable, like AI, sentient AI is essentially inevitable. Super sentient AI, yeah. Like beyond a level that's difficult to understand. Impossible to understand, probably. And somehow or another, us. So it's almost like it's a requirement for survival.
[0:54:00] Achieve some sort of symbiotic existence with AI. It's not a requirement. It's just if you want to be along for the ride, then you need to do some kind of symbiosis. So the way your brain works right now, you've got kind of like the animal brain, reptile brain. It's like the limbic system, basically. And you've got the cortex.
[0:54:31] The brain purists will argue with this definition. But essentially, you've got the primitive brain and you've got the sort of smart brain or the brain that's capable of planning and understanding concepts and difficult things that a monkey can't understand. Now, your cortex is much, much smarter than your limbic system. Nonetheless, they work together well.
[0:54:59] So I haven't met anyone who wants to delete the limbic system or the cortex. People are quite happy having both. So you can think of this as being like the computer, the AI is like a third layer, a tertiary layer. So that could be symbiotic with the cortex. It would be much smarter than the cortex, but you essentially have three layers. And you actually have that right now.
[0:55:25] Your phone is capable of things and your computer is capable of things that your brain is definitely not. You know, storing terabytes of information perfectly, doing incredible calculations that we couldn't even come close to doing. You have that with your computer. It's just, like I said, the data rate is slow. The connection is weak. Why is it so disconcerting or why does it not give me comfort?
[0:55:56] When I think about a symbiotic connection to AI, I always think of this cold, emotionless sort of thing that we will become. Is that a bad way to look at it? I don't think that's not how it would be. Like I said, you already are symbiotic with AI or computers. Phones, computers, laptops. Yeah, and there's quite a bit of AI going on. So artificial neural nets.
[0:56:26] Increasingly, neural nets are sort of taking over from regular programming more and more. So you are connected. If you use Google Voice or Alexa or one of those things, it's using a neural net to decode your speech and try to understand what you're saying. If you're trying to do image recognition or improve the quality of your photograph, it's using the neural nets.
[0:56:56] Best way to do that. So you are already sort of a cybernetic symbiote. Like I said, it's just a question of your data rate. The communication speed between your phone and your brain is slow. When do you think you're going to do it? How long will you wait? Like once it starts becoming available? Yeah, if it works, I'll do it, sure.
[0:57:30] Right away. I mean, let's make sure it works. How do we make sure it works? We try it on prisoners? Like, what do you do? No, no. Take rapists? No. Cut holes in their head? No, like I said, if somebody's got a serious brain injury. Right. And, you know, people have, like, very severe brain injuries. And then you can fix those brain injuries. And, you know, then you prove out that it works and you envelope expand and make more.
[0:58:00] More and more brain injuries, it's all more and more. And then at a certain age, we all are going to get Alzheimer's. We're all going to get senile. And then moms forget the names of their kids and that kind of thing. And so it's like you said, okay, well, this would allow you to remember the names of your kids and have a much more normal life where you're able to function.
[0:58:27] So essentially, almost everyone would find a need at some point, if you get old enough, to use Neuralink. And then it's like, okay, so we can improve the functionality and improve the communication speed, so then you will not have to use your thumbs to communicate with the computer.
[0:58:54] Do you ever sit down and extrapolate? Do you ever sit down and think about all the different iterations of this and what this eventually leads to? Yeah, I think about it a lot. Like I said, this is not something that's going to sneak up on you. Getting FDA approval for this stuff is not overnight. We probably have to be on version 10 or something.
[0:59:27] Before it would realistically be a human AI symbiote situation. So you'll see it coming. You see it coming, but what do you think it's going to be? When you're alone, if you have free time, I don't know if you have free time, but if you just sit down and think about this iteration, the next, onward, keep going.
[0:59:59] And you drag it out with improvements along the way and leaps and bounds and technological innovations. Where do you see it? What are we going to be? Like when? 25 years from now. What are we going to be? Well, assuming civilization is still around. It's looking fragile right now. I think we could have in 25 years probably something. I think there could be a whole brain interface. A whole brain interface.
[1:00:43] Something pretty close to that, yeah. How do you define, what do you mean by whole brain interface? Like almost all the neurons are connected to the sort of AI extension of yourself, if you want. AI extension of yourself? Yeah. What does that mean to you? Like when you say AI extension of yourself? Well, like I said, you already have.
[1:01:20] A computer extension of yourself and your phone and computers and stuff. And now online, it's like somebody dies. There's like an online ghost. Their online stuff is still alive. That's a good way to put it. It is weird when you read someone's tweets after they're dead. Yeah. Yeah. Instagram and their stories and stuff. Yeah. Whatever, Facebook and stuff. That's a great way to put it. It's like an online ghost. That's very accurate. Yeah.
[1:01:50] So, yeah. It would just be that more of you would be in the cloud, I guess, than in your body. More of you. Whoa. Now, when you say civilization is fragile, do you mean because of this COVID-19 shit that's going on right now? What's that? I've never heard of it. It's this thing. It's like some people just get a cough. I have no idea what you're talking about. Other people, it gets much worse. Sure. Yeah. Well.
[1:02:28] Yeah. I mean, this certainly has taken over the mind space of the world to a degree that is quite shocking. Yeah. Well, out of nowhere. That's what's crazy. It's like you go back to November, nothing. Now here we are, December, January, February, March, April, May, six months, totally different world. So from nothing to everything's locked down.
[1:02:54] There's so much conflicting information and conflicting opinions about how to proceed, what has happened. You find things where there was a meatpacking plant, I believe, in Missouri where 300-plus people were asymptomatic, tested positive and were asymptomatic. And then in other places it just ravages entire communities and kills people. And it's so weird.
[1:03:20] It almost appears, if you didn't know any better, you'd be like, it seems like there's a bunch of different viruses. It doesn't seem like it's the same thing. Or it has a bunch of different reactions to the biological variety of people. Yeah. I mean, I kind of saw this whole thing play out in China before it played out in the U.S. So it's kind of like watching the same movie again, but in English.
[1:03:52] So, yeah. I think the mortality rate is much less than what, say, the World Health Organization said it was. It's much, much less. It's probably at least an order of magnitude less. Well, it seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds of people, people with specific problems. Yeah, I mean, if you're...
[1:04:27] You can look at the mortality statistics by age and whether they have comorbidities. Do they have basically existing conditions by age? And if you're below 60 and have no serious health issues, the probability of death is extremely low. It's not zero, but it's extremely low.
[1:04:54] I didn't think that this was the case, though, when they first started to lock down the country. Do you think that it's a situation where once they proceed in a certain way, it's very difficult to correct course? This episode is brought to you by Chime. And I know people don't usually get excited about banking, but...
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[1:07:28] But in some places a panic is deserved, right? Like if you're in the ICU in Manhattan and people are dying left and right and everyone's on intubators and it seems like when you see all these people on ventilators and so many of them are dying and you see these nurses are dying and doctors are getting sick, in some places that fear is justified. But then in other places you're reading these stories about hospitals that are essentially half empty.
[1:07:58] They're having to furlough doctors and nurses because there's no work for them. Most of the hospitals in the United States right now are half empty. In some cases, they're at 30% capacity. And is this because they've decided to forego elective procedures and normal things that people would have to go to the hospital for? Yes. I mean, and we're not talking about just some of these elective procedures are quite important. Yes. It's like you have a bad heart. Fall, bladder disease. Yeah, sure.
[1:08:29] You know, triple bypass. It's like sort of elective, but if you don't get it done in time, you're going to die. Yeah. Elective is a weird word. Yeah, elective. It's not like, hey, I want to – it's not like plastic surgery. Right, right, right. It's more like my hip is – I'm in extreme pain because my hip is blown out or my knee, and I don't want to go to the hospital. I can't go to the hospital to people in extreme pain.
[1:08:57] People that need a kidney, you know, like people that have quite serious issues that are choosing not to go out of fear. So I think it's a problem. It's not good. It seems like the state of public perception is shifting. It is. Like people are taking some deep breaths and relaxing. And because of the statistics of, I mean, and essentially across the board, it's being recognized that it's not as fatal as we thought it was. Still dangerous, still worse than the flu.
[1:09:26] But not as bad as we thought or we feared it could be. Objectively, the mortality is much lower, like at least a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought. Do you think that the current way we're handling this, the social distancing, the masks, the locking down, does this make sense? Is it adequate or do you think that we should?
[1:09:57] Move back to at least closer to where we used to be. Well, I think proper hygiene is a good thing no matter what. Wash your hands and if you're coughing, stay home or wear a mask. This is not good. In fact, they do that in Japan. That's like normal. If you're ill, you wear a face mask and you don't cough on people. I think that would be a great thing to adopt in general throughout the world.
[1:10:27] Washing your hands is also good. Well, that's the speculation why men get it more than women because men are disgusting. We don't wash our hands as much. It's true. It's true. I admit it. All men in this room, we're all gross. Yeah, let's go to the restroom. You can see us. Yes, we're gross. My daughter, my nine-year-old daughter yells at me. She goes, did you wash your hands? She makes me go back and wash my hands. She's right. Nine years old. If I had a nine-year-old boy, do you think he would care? He wouldn't give a fuck if I washed my hands. True.
[1:10:57] So I think there's definitely some silver linings here in improved hygiene. Yes, and awareness of potential. Yes, and I think this has shaken up the system. The system is somewhat moribund with a lot of layers of bureaucracy, and I think that we've cut through some of that bureaucracy. And at some point there probably will be a –
[1:11:24] Pandemic with a high mortality rate. There's a debate about what's high, but something that's killing a lot of 20-year-olds, let's say. If you had Ebola-type mortality. Spanish flu, something that attacks the immune systems of healthy people. Killing large numbers of young, healthy people, define that as
[1:11:54] Do you think that, in a sense, the one good thing that we might get out of this is the realization that this is a potential reality, that we got lucky in this sense? I mean, people that didn't get lucky and died, of course, I'm not disrespecting their death and their loss, but...
[1:12:23] I'm saying overall as a culture, as a human race, as a community, this is not as bad as it could have been. This is a good dry run for us to appreciate that we need far more resources dedicated towards understanding these diseases, what to do in the case of pandemic, and much more money that goes to funding, treatments, and some preventative measures.
[1:12:51] Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a good chance, it's highly likely, I think, coming out of this, that we will develop vaccines that we didn't have before for coronaviruses and other viruses and possibly cures for these. And our understanding of viruses of this nature has improved dramatically because of the attention that it's received.
[1:13:20] So there's definitely a lot of silver linings here. Potentially, if we act correctly. Yeah, yeah. I think there will be some amount of silver lining here no matter what. Hopefully more silver lining than less. So, yeah, this is kind of like a practice run for something that might in the future have a serious...
[1:13:51] Like a really high mortality rate. And we kind of got to go through this without it being something that kills vast numbers of young healthy people. Yeah. When you made a series of tweets recently, I don't remember the exact wording, but essentially you were saying free America now. That is the exact wording. That is it? Thank you.
[1:14:17] How much do you pay attention to the response to that stuff, and what was the response? Did anybody go, hey, Elon, what the fuck are you doing? Did anybody pull you aside? Of course. Who does that? Who gets to do that to you? Well, I mean, I certainly get that. There's no shortage of negative feedback on Twitter. Oh, yeah, Twitter. Yeah. But I don't read that. Do you read it? Warzone. You do sometimes, though, right? You do read it. Yeah, I mean, I scroll through the comments. It has a meme, Warzone.
[1:14:48] Yeah. I mean, people knife you good on Twitter. It's something I enjoy about. There's something about the freedom of expression that comes from all these people that do attack you. It's like, well, if there was no vulnerability whatsoever, they wouldn't attack you. And it's like there's something about these millions and millions of perspectives.
[1:15:18] You have to appreciate, even if it comes your way, even if the shit storm hits you in the face, you've got to appreciate, wow, how amazing is it that all these people do have the ability to express themselves? You don't necessarily want to be there when the shit hits you.
[1:15:36] You might want to get out of the way in anticipation of the shitstorm, but the fact that so many people have the ability to reach out. And I think it's, in a lot of ways, it's, I don't want to say a misused resource, but it's like giving monkeys guns. They just start gunning down things that are in front of them without any realization of what they're doing. They have a rock. They see a window. They throw it.
[1:16:00] Look at that. I got Elon mad. Look at that. This guy got mad at me. I fucking took this person down on Twitter. I got this lady fired. Oh, the fucking business is going under because of Twitter wars. It seems like there's something about it that's this newfound thing that I don't want to say abuse, but I want to say that it's almost like you hit the button and things blow up. You're like, wow. What else can we blow up?
[1:16:31] Sure. I mean, I've been in the Twitter war zone for a while here. The Twitter war zone? You know, it takes a lot to phase me at this point. Yeah. That's good too, right? Like you develop a thick skin. Yeah. You can't take it personally. A lot of these people don't actually know you. Yeah. It's just like if you're fighting a war and there's some opposing soldier that shoots at you, it's not like they hate you. They don't even know you.
[1:17:03] Right. Yeah. Yeah. So just think of it like that. Like they have fire and bullets or whatever. But they don't know you, so don't take it personally. There's something interesting about it too. It's like when you write something in 280 characters and they write something in 280. It's such a crude way. It's like someone sending opposing smoke signals that refute your smoke signals. It's like it's so crude, especially when you're talking about something like Neuralink.
[1:17:32] You're talking about some future potential where you're going to be able to express pure thoughts that get conveyed through some sort of a universal language with no ambiguity whatsoever versus, you know, tweets. Well, there will always be some ambiguity, but tweets are, it's hard.
[1:17:54] Maybe there should be like a sarcasm flag or something. Right, right. Or I'm not just kidding or whatever. It seems like it would take away some of the fun from people that know it's sarcasm. Like if everybody knew that the onion wasn't real, if you sent people articles, it's something about someone getting angry at an onion article. Wow, that's amazing. You know what I mean, where they don't realize what it is? There's something fun about that for everybody else. Yeah.
[1:18:22] I think it's pretty great. It might be the best news source. Do you know who Titania McGrath is? Hilarious. It's Andrew Boyle. He's a British fellow, a brilliant guy who's been on the podcast before, and he has this fictional character, this pseudonym, Titania McGrath, who's like the ultimate social justice warrior.
[1:18:45] Is this like a female avatar? Yes, yes, yes. A female avatar that's actually a computer conglomeration of a bunch of faces. It's not really one person, so one person can't be a victim and be angry. He sort of combined these faces to make this one perfect social justice warrior. But I recognized it early on before I met him that this was parody. This was just fun. And then I love reading the people that don't recognize that.
[1:19:14] They get angry. There's a lot of people that just get really furious. There's some fun to that. There's some fun to the not picking up on the true nature of the signal. I find Twitter quite engaging. How do you have the time?
[1:19:40] Five minutes every couple hours type thing. It's not like I'm sitting on an old day. But even five minutes every couple hours, if those are bad five minutes, they might be bouncing around in your head for the next 30. Yeah, you have to, like I said, take a certain amount of distance from. You read this and you're like, okay, it's bullets being fired by an opposing army. It's not like they know you. Don't take it personally.
[1:20:08] Did you feel the same way when CNN had that stupid shit about ventilators with you? I found that both confusing and... Yeah, that was annoying. It was annoying. It was wrong. But it's also annoying as a person who reads CNN and wants to think of them as a responsible conveyor of the facts. I would like to think that. Yeah. I don't think CNN is that. I think it used to be. It used to be, yeah.
[1:20:37] What do you think is the best source of information out there? That's a good question. Let's say you're just an average citizen trying to just get the facts, figure out what's going on, how to live your life, and just looking for what's going on in the world. It's hard to find something that's good.
[1:21:05] Not trying to push some partisan angle, not doing sloppy reporting and just aiming for the most number of clicks and trying to maximize ad dollars and that kind of thing. You're just trying to figure out what's going on. I'm hard-pressed. Where do you go? I don't know. I don't think there's any pure form. My favorite places are the New York Times and the LA Times, and I don't trust them 100%.
[1:21:34] Because also there's individuals that are writing these stories. Yeah, exactly. And that seems to be the problem is these individual biases and these individual – there's purposely distorted perceptions and then there's ignorantly reported facts. And there's so many variables and you've got to put everything through this filter of where is this person coming from. Do they have political biases? Do they have social biases? Do they – are they –
[1:22:02] Are they upset because of their own shortcomings? Are they projecting this into the story? It's so hard. Yeah, I think maybe just trying to find individual reporters that you think are good and kind of following them as opposed to the publication. I go with whatever Matt Taibbi says. Okay. I trust him more than anybody. All right. Matt Taibbi's on to something.
[1:22:23] As far as investigative reporters in particular, the way he reported the savings and loan crisis, the way he reports everything, I just listen to him above most. He's my go-to guy. All right, I'll check it out. His Rolling Stones articles, his stuff on the savings and loan crisis, you're just like, what in the fuck? And he's not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, so he had to really sort of deeply embed himself in that world to try to understand it and to be able to report on it.
[1:22:53] And also with a humorous flair. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not that many of them. It's hard. And not a location where, like, we are no bullshit. Sure. You know, wearenobullshit.com. Like, the one place where you can say, this is what we know, this is what we don't know, this is what we think. Not...
[1:23:16] This person's wrong, and here's why. Like, oh, God damn it. You know, I can't. You don't know. There's a lot of stuff that is open to interpretation. This particular coronavirus issue that we're dealing with right now seems to be a great illuminator of that very fact, is that there's so much data.
[1:23:39] And there's so much that's open to interpret. There's so many things, because it's all happening in real time, right? And particularly right now in California, we're in stage two tomorrow or Friday, two days from now. Stage two, retail stores opening up. Things are changing. No one knows the correct process that needs to take place to save the most amount of lives, but yet ensure that our culture and that our economy survives.
[1:24:08] It's a lot of speculation and guessing. But if you go to certain places, they'll tell you we know why and we know this and we know – it's hard. Yeah. I mean in general I think that's like we should be concerned about anything that's a massive infringement on our civil liberties. Yes. So it's like you got to put a lot of weight on that. A lot of people died to –
[1:24:37] You know, win independence for the country and fight for the democracy that we have. And, you know, we should treasure that and not give up our liberties too easily. I think we probably did that, actually. Well, I like what you said when you said that it should be a choice and that to require people to stay home, require people.
[1:25:01] To not go to work. And to arrest people for trying to make a living. This all seems wrong. And I think it's a wrong approach. It's an infantilization of the society. That dad is going to tell you what to do. Fundamentally a violation of the Constitution. Freedom of assembly. I don't think these things stand up in court, really. They're arresting people for protesting. Yeah, yeah.
[1:25:30] Because they're protesting and violating social distancing and these mandates that tell people that they have to stay home. Yeah, these would definitely not stand up if the Supreme Court—I mean, it's obviously a complete violation of rights. Yeah. And again, this is not in any way disrespecting the people who have died from this disease. It's certainly a real thing to think of.
[1:25:53] Yeah, I mean, it just should be, if you're at risk, you should not be compelled to leave your house or leave a place of safety, but you should also not be, if you're not at risk, or if you are at risk and you wish to take a risk with your life, you should have the right to do that. And it seems like, at this point in time particularly, our resources would be best served protecting the people that are at risk versus penalizing the people that are not at high risk.
[1:26:23] for living their life the way they did, particularly having a career and making a living and feeding your family, paying your bills, keeping your store open, keeping your restaurant open. Yes. I mean, there's a strong downside to this. Yeah. So, yeah, I just believe if this is a free country, you should be allowed to do what you want as long as it does not endanger others.
[1:26:50] But that's the thing, right? People, this is the argument they will bring up. Like, you are endangering others. You should stay home for the people that, even if you're fine, even if you know you're going to be okay, there are certain people that will not be okay because of your actions. They might get exposed to this thing that we don't have a vaccine for. We don't have universally accepted treatment for.
[1:27:12] There's two arguments, right? One argument is we need to keep going, protect the weak, protect the sick, but let's open up the economy. The other argument is stop placing money over human lives and let's shelter in place until we come up with some sort of a decision and let's figure out some way to develop some sort of universal basic income plan or something like that to feed people during this time.
[1:27:41] What would make this transition? I think there's a – yeah. As I said, my opinion is if somebody wants to stay home, they should stay home. If somebody doesn't want to stay home, they should not be compelled to stay home. That's my opinion. Do you think – If somebody doesn't like that, well, that's my opinion. So the – now, yeah. This notion though that you can just sort of send checks out to everybody and things will be fine is not true.
[1:28:11] Obviously. Some people have this absurd view that the economy is like some magic horn of plenty. It just makes stuff. There's a magic horn of plenty. The goods and services, they just come from this magic horn of plenty. And then if somebody has more stuff than somebody else, it's because they took more from this magic horn of plenty. Now let me just break it to you.
[1:28:40] The fools out there. If you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Yeah. So if you don't make the food, if you don't process the food, you don't transport the food, medical treatment, getting your teeth fixed, there's no stuff. I've become detached from reality. You can't just legislate.
[1:29:15] If you don't make stuff, there is no stuff, obviously. We'll run out of the stores. We'll run out of the, you know, the machine just grinds to a halt. But the initial thought on this virus, the real fear, was that this was going to kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people instantaneously in this country. It was going to do it very quickly. If we didn't...
[1:29:46] If we didn't hunker down, if we didn't shelter in place, if we didn't quarantine ourselves or lock down, do you think that the initial thought was a good idea based on the perception that this was going to be far more deadly than it turned out to be? Maybe, I think briefly. Briefly. Briefly. But I think if, you know, any kind of like sensible examination of what happened in China would lead to a conclusion that that is obviously not going to occur.
[1:30:16] This virus originated in Wuhan. There was like 100,000 people a day leaving Wuhan. So it went everywhere very fast throughout China, throughout the rest of the world. And the fatality rate was low. Don't you think, though, it's difficult to appreciate? It's difficult to filter the information that's coming out of China to accurately.
[1:30:47] Really get a real true representation of what happened. The propaganda machine is very strong. Sure. The World Health Organization appears to have been complicit with a lot of their propaganda. The thing is that American companies have massive supply chains in China, like Tesla, for example. We have hundreds of suppliers, like tier 1, 2, 3, 4 suppliers throughout China. So we know if they are able to make stuff or not.
[1:31:17] We know if they have issues or not. China is back at full steam. And pretty much every U.S. company has some significant number of supplies in China. So you know if they're able to provide things or not or if there's high mortality rate. Tesla has 7,000 people in China. So zero people died.
[1:31:49] Okay, so that's a real statistic. That's coming from, yeah. Yeah, you know those people. Yeah, literally, we run payroll. Do you think there's a danger of this? Same folks are there. Do you think there's a danger of politicizing this, where it becomes like opening up the country's Donald Trump's, it's his goal.
[1:32:13] Anything he does is sort of – there's people that are going to oppose it and come up with some reasons why he's wrong, particularly in this climate as we're leading up to November and the 2020 elections. Do you think that this is a real danger in terms of public's perception that Trump wants to open it up so they knee-jerk oppose it because they oppose Trump? I think there has been some – this has been politicized.
[1:32:45] Both directions, really, which is not great. Yeah, but like I said, separate and apart from that, I think there's the question of where do civil liberties fit in this picture? Yeah. And what can the government make you do? What can they make you not do? And what's okay? Right. And, yeah, I think we went too far.
[1:33:18] Do you think it's one of those things where once we've gone in a certain direction, it's very difficult to make a correction, make an adjustment to realize like, okay, we thought it was one thing. It's not good, but it's not what we thought it was going to be. It's not what we feared. So let's back up and reconsider and let's do this publicly and say we were acting based on the information that we had initially. That information appears to be faulty.
[1:33:47] And here's how we move forward while protecting civil liberties, while protecting what essentially this country was founded on, which is a very agreed upon amount of freedom that we respect and appreciate. Absolutely. Well, I think we're rapidly moving towards opening up the country. It's going to happen extremely fast over the next few weeks. So, yeah.
[1:34:15] Something that would be helpful just to add from an informational level is when reporting sort of COVID cases to separate out diagnosed with COVID versus had COVID-like symptoms. Yes. Because the list of symptoms that could be COVID at this point is like a mile long. So it's like hard to, if you're ill at all, it's like it could be COVID. So just to give you better information.
[1:34:45] Definitely diagnosed with COVID or had COVID-like symptoms. We're conflating those two so that it looks bigger than it is. Then if somebody dies, was COVID a primary cause of the death or not? I mean, if somebody has COVID, gets eaten by a shark, we find their arm. Their arm has COVID. It's going to get recorded as a COVID death. Is that real?
[1:35:14] Not that bad, but heart attacks, strokes, cancer. If you get hit by a bus, go to the hospital and die, and they find that you have COVID, you will be recorded as a COVID death. Why would they do that, though? Well, right now, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I mean, it's mostly paved with bad intentions, but there is some good intentions paving stones in there, too.
[1:35:43] The stimulus bill that was intended to help with the hospitals that were being overrun with COVID patients created an incentive to record something as COVID that is difficult to say no to, especially if your hospital is going bankrupt for lack of other patients. So the hospitals are in a bind right now. A bunch of hospitals, they're furloughing doctors, as you were mentioning. If your hospital is half full, you're...
[1:36:14] It's hard to make ends meet. So now you've got like, you know, if I just check this box, I get $8,000. Put them on a ventilator for five minutes, I get $39,000. Or I've got to fire some doctors. So this is a tough moral quandary. What are you going to do? That's the situation we have. What's the way out of this? What do you think is like if you had the president's ear or if people wanted to just listen to you openly?
[1:36:47] What do you think is the way out of this? Let's clear up the data. Clear up the data. So, like I said, something should be recorded as COVID only if it is somebody that's been tested, has received a positive COVID test, not if they simply have symptoms, like 100 symptoms. And then if it is a COVID death, it must be...
[1:37:08] Was COVID a primary reason for death, or did they also have stage 3 cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and got hit by a bus and had COVID? Yeah, I've read all this stuff about that, about them diagnosing people as a COVID death despite other variables. This is not a question. This is what is occurring. And where are you reading this from? Where are you getting this from?
[1:37:37] The public health officials have literally said this. This is not a question mark. Right. But this is unprecedented, right? Like if someone had the flu but also had a heart attack, they would assume that that person died of a heart attack. Yes. Yeah. So this is unprecedented. Is this because this is such a popular – I don't want to use that word the wrong way, but that's what I mean, a popular subject.
[1:38:02] And financial incentives. Yes. And like I said, this is not some sort of moral indictment of sort of hospital administrators. It's just they're in a tough spot here. They actually don't have enough patients to pay everyone without furloughing doctors and firing staff and potentially going bankrupt.
[1:38:31] So then they're like, okay, well, the stimulus bill says if we get all this money if we say – if it's a COVID death. I'm like, okay. They coughed before they died. In fact, they're not even diagnosed as COVID. They simply – if you had weakness, a cough, shortness of breath. Frankly, I'm not sure how you die without those things. Yeah. Yeah. Right. There's so many different things that you could attribute to COVID too. There's so many symptoms.
[1:39:02] There's diarrhea, headaches, dehydration, cough. Yes, but to be clear, you don't even need to have gotten a COVID diagnosis. You simply need to have had one of many symptoms and then have died for some reason, and it's COVID. So then it makes the death count look very high, and then we're then stuck in a bind because it looks like the death count is super high and not going down like it should be.
[1:39:32] And now, so then we should keep whatever, you know, keep the shelter in place stuff there and keep people in their homes, you know, confine people to their homes. So we need to break out of this. We're stuck in a loop. Yeah. And I think the way to break out of this loop is to have clarity of information. Clarity of information will certainly help, but altering perceptions, public perception.
[1:40:01] From people that are basically in a panic. There's a lot of essentially, well, at least a month ago, we're clearly in a panic. I mean, when you look around April 5th, April 6th, people were really freaking out. But here we are May, and May people are relaxing a little bit. Yes. They're realizing like, hey, I actually know a couple of people that got it. It was just a cough. And I know some people that got it where nothing happened. I know a lot of people who got it. I know zero people who died.
[1:40:33] I mean, I know a lot of people have got it. Yeah, it's not what we feared. We feared something much worse. That's correct. So the adjustment's difficult to make. So you said, first of all, we need real data. Just parse out the data. Don't lump it all together. If you give people, just parse out the data better, clearer information about, like I said, was this...
[1:41:02] An actual COVID diagnosis or was it a – did they get the test and the test came back positive or do they just have some symptoms? Just parse those two out and then parse out just if somebody died, did they die – did they even have a COVID test or did they just have one of many symptoms? Like how do you die without weakness? I don't know. It's impossible basically. Yeah, that's a good point. If you're going to die, you're going to have shortness of breath weakness and you might cough a little.
[1:41:32] So was it quantified? Yeah. Did they actually have a COVID test and the test come back positive? And then if they died, did they die where COVID was? It doesn't have to be the main cause, but it was a significant contributor to their death. Or was it not a significant contributor to their death? Right. It's not as simple as just because you had COVID, COVID killed you. It's definitely not. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:42:01] I mean, people die all the time and they have like flu and other colds. And we don't say that they died of those flu and other colds. Well, that's what's so weird about this. It's so popular. And I use that word in a weird way, but it's so popular that we've kind of forgotten. People die of pneumonia every day. People die of the flu didn't take a break. Oh, COVID's got this. I'm going to sit this one out. I'm going to be on the bench. I'm going to wait until COVID's done before I jump back into the game of killing people.
[1:42:30] No, the flu's still here killing people. I mean, every year in the world, several hundred thousand people die directly of the flu. Yeah. Not tangentially. Right. 61,000 in this country last year. Yeah, and we're only 5% of the world. And then there's cigarettes. Oh, man, cigarettes will really kill you. That's a weird one, right? We're terrified of this disease that we're projected could potentially kill.
[1:42:56] 100, if not 200,000 Americans this year with cigarettes killed 500,000. And you don't hear a peep out of any politician. There's no one running for Congress that's trying to ban cigarettes. There's no one running for Senate that wants to put some education plan in place that's going to stop cigarettes in their tracks. Yeah, I mean, several years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I helped make a movie called Thank You for Smoking. Oh, I saw that. Yeah.
[1:43:27] Yeah, it's crazy. Barbecuing your lungs is just bad news. It's not good. Turning your lungs into smoked beef is not great. So, yeah. Tylenol, by the way, also kills a lot of people. Yeah, what is the number for Tylenol every year?
[1:43:54] I'm not sure the exact number, but I believe until the opioid crisis, I believe Tylenol was the number one killer of all drugs. Wow. Basically, if you get drunk and take a lot of Tylenol, acetaminophen, essentially it causes liver failure.
[1:44:14] So people would get wasted and then have a headache and then pop a ton of Tylenol. Just curtains. Whoa. Yeah. Curtains is a funny word. Yeah. But nobody's raging against Tylenol. Yeah. It's weird. Acceptable deaths are weird. And that's the real slippery slope about this people shaming people for wanting to go back to work. Other people are going to die. Well, if you drive.
[1:44:42] Do you drive? Oh, well, you should stop driving because people die from driving. So you definitely should fill up all the swimming pools because like 50 people die every day in this country from swimming. So let's not swim anymore. What is really dangerous? We need to chop down all the coconut trees. Stop water. Coconuts kill 150 people every year. Cut down all the coconut trees. We need those people. Yes. At a certain point in time, it's like, yeah, we're vulnerable. And we're also...
[1:45:12] We have a finite existence no matter what. We do. Nobody lives forever. Right. I mean, I think you want to look at, say, deaths as like the – but for this disease or whatever, they would have lived X number of years. Yeah. So if somebody dies when they're 20 and could have lived until 80, they last 60 years.
[1:45:35] But if somebody dies when they're 80 and they might live till 81, they lost one year. Yes. So it's like how many life years were lost is probably the right metric to use. I don't read my own comments, but I do read other people's comments. And I was reading this one little Twitter beef that was going on where someone was saying that COVID takes an average of 10 years off people's lives. And we should appreciate those 10 years. And then someone else said. That's not true.
[1:46:04] I'm sure it's not true. Yeah, definitely not. It's the Twitter. But someone else said the average age of people who die from COVID is older than the average age people die. Let's just say it's about the same. That's a beautiful way of looking at it. I mean, it's unfortunate. It sucks. But it sucks if grandpa dies of Alzheimer's or emphysema or leukemia. It sucks. It sucks when someone you love dies. Yes.
[1:46:34] But I mean actually if this – I think a lesson to be taken here that I think is quite important is that if you have grandparents and their age of grandparents, really be careful with any kind of flu or cold or something that is not dangerous to –
[1:47:00] Thank you.
[1:47:29] Little kid had a cold or flu. Give it to grandpa. Yeah, yeah, the family gathering. They don't know that this is a big deal, but it's just important to remember when you get old, your immune system is just not that strong. And so just be careful with your loved ones who are elderly. And I think there is some true objective.
[1:47:55] Understanding of the immune system and the ways to boost that immune system. And I really think that that information should be distributed in a way, a nonjudgmental way. But this is a scientifically proven way that we can boost our immune system and it might save your life. And it might save the life of your loved ones. And maybe we could teach this to our grandparents and our parents and people that are vulnerable.
[1:48:24] Vitamin C, heat shock proteins, all these different variables that we know contribute to a stronger immune system. Yeah. Actually, just a thing that is tough. As you get older, it's hard to – you tend to put on weight.
[1:48:48] You know, certainly that's happening with me. You know, as older I get, I'm like, damn, it's harder to stay lean. That's for sure. And so actually being overweight is a big deal. It's a fact. The New York Hospital said it was the number one factor for severe COVID symptoms was obesity. That was the number one factor. Yes, exactly. But it's also we live in a world where...
[1:49:17] People want to be sensitive to other people's feelings. Yeah, absolutely. We don't want to bring up the fact that being fat's bad for you. It's a judgment on your... Food's great. Yeah, I do love food. Yeah, and I mean, to be totally frank, I mean, speaking for myself, I'd rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life. Yeah, those moments of...
[1:49:42] Enjoying a great meal and then even talking about it. They're valuable. They're worth something. We don't want to eat Soylent Green and live to be 160. Tasty food is great. It's one of the best things about life. It really is. It's an art form as well. It's like fine food. It's a delicious sandcastle. It's temporary. It doesn't last very long, but there's something about it that's very pleasing.
[1:50:12] I don't know what advice to give. Maybe have tasty food with smaller amounts of it. I think regulated feeding window is really the way to go. Some sort of intermittent fasting approach. When I started doing that, I found myself to be quite a bit healthier. When I've deviated from that, I've gained weight. 16 hours.
[1:50:41] So like at night? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get to a certain point and then I count out. I usually hit the stopwatch on my phone and then I look at 15 hours and I'm like, okay, got an hour before I can eat. And so anything in between that is just water or coffee. Actually, you know, this may be a useful bit of advice for people, but eating before you go to bed is a real bad idea and actually negatively affects your sleep.
[1:51:10] And it can actually cause heartburn that you don't even know is happening. And that subtle heartburn affects your sleep because you're horizontal and your body is digesting. So if you want to improve the quality of your sleep and be healthier, it's do not eat right before going to sleep. It's like one of the worst things you could do.
[1:51:34] I've done some of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. I've done that particularly after comedy shows. I'm starving. I'll come home and I'll eat. And then I go to bed and I just feel like shit. And I wake up in the middle of the night. It's going to crush your sleep and it's going to damage your pyloric sphincter and your esophagus. In fact, drinking and then going to sleep, that's one of the worst things you could do.
[1:52:02] Try to avoid drinking and eating. Booze. Exactly. Small amounts of alcohol, evidence suggests it doesn't have a negative effect. I put it in the same category as delicious food. It kind of makes things a little more fun. I like it. Some of the people who have lived the longest was a woman in France.
[1:52:29] Maybe he has the record or close to it. She had a glass of wine every day. Small amounts is fine. I learned this quite late in life. It's like just avoid having alcohol and avoid eating at least two or three hours before going to sleep and your quality of sleep will improve and your general health will improve a lot. For sure. It's a big deal and I think not widely known.
[1:52:58] Do you have time to exercise? A little bit. Do you have a trainer or anything? I do, although I haven't seen him for a while. But, yeah, especially if I'm out like, you know, say working on a starship or something in South Texas and I'm just living in my little house there in Boca Chica Village. I don't have much to do, so.
[1:53:27] I'm working and I'll just lift some weights or something. Some people love running. I don't love running. What do you like to do exercise-wise? To be totally frank, I wouldn't exercise at all. I'd prefer not to exercise, but if I'm going to exercise, lift some weights and then kind of run on the treadmill and maybe watch.
[1:53:57] If there's a compelling show that pulls you in. Right, right, right. That's a good thing to do. Watch a good movie or episode of Black Mirror or something like that. It's great. Don't watch Black Mirror before going to bed either. Well, don't watch Black Mirror today. It's too fucking accurate. Yeah, exactly. It's like, wait, this already happened in real life. Yeah, it's too close. It's too close. Well, even, didn't, Jamie, didn't you say that the guy who makes Black Mirror? Yeah, he said it's not a good time to start season six.
[1:54:28] Yeah, he wants to hold off because reality is Black Mirror. Oh, man. It's like he's going to have to reassess and attack it from a different angle. Yeah. You should try something that's fun to do that's not just like learn a martial art or something like that. I did martial arts when I was a kid. Did you? What did you do? I did Taekwondo. I did karate, Kaikushinkai. Oh, all right. Cool.
[1:54:58] Judo. Oh, so you really branched out. Yeah. So I did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu briefly. Did you? Where? In Palo Alto. Really? Yeah. Oh, no shit. I was going to suggest that. That's a great thing for people. That's the thing about Jiu-Jitsu. If you look at it from the outside, you think, oh.
[1:55:23] A bunch of meatheads strangling each other. But they're some of the smartest people I know are jujitsu fiends because they get, first of all, they get introduced to it because usually either they want to exercise or learn some self-defense. But then they realize that it's essentially like a language with your body. Like you're having an argument with someone with some sort of a physical language.
[1:55:46] And it's really complex. And the more access to vocabulary and the sharper your words are, the more you'll succeed in these ventures. That's really also an accurate analogy of what jiu-jitsu is. Yeah. I mean, probably like a lot of people, for the way early day, the first MMA fights in Hoist Gracie. And it was, like, incredible. Yeah. It was, like, you know. Yeah, yeah. It was, like, you know.
[1:56:15] Winning against people way bigger and that kind of thing. It was just like, whoa, this is cool. It was what martial arts were supposed to be when we were kids. When you saw Bruce Lee fuck up all these big giant guys, like, wow, martial arts allow you to beat someone far bigger and stronger than you. Most of the time, that's not real. Especially if they know martial arts, too. It's like, oh, no. Yes, but in the UFC, when Hoist Gracie...
[1:56:40] Off of his back was strangling Dan Severin with his legs. You're like, holy shit. This guy's being pinned by this big, giant wrestler, and he wraps his legs around his neck and chokes him to the point the guy has to surrender. Amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, Hoyce got beaten up pretty bad in some of those. Well, he definitely had some rough fights. But he won. He won, yeah.
[1:57:02] He's a legend. But what it showed, and I mean I'm a huge lover of jiu-jitsu, what it showed is that there is a method for diffusing these situations with technique and knowledge. And I think it's also a great way to exercise too because it's almost like the exercise is secondary to the learning of the thing. The exercise is like you want...
[1:57:26] And you want to develop strength and conditioning just so that you can be better at doing the thing. And the analogy that I use is like imagine if you had a race car and you could actually give the race car better handling and more horsepower just from your own focus and effort. Sure. That's really what it's like. Yeah, totally. Yeah. When am I going to be able to – My kids – I should say I sent my kids to jujitsu since they were like, I don't know, six. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. It's been a while, yeah.
[1:57:56] It's a great thing to learn. It really is. Yeah. Maybe something like, I mean, even if you just have someone that holds the pads for you, you get a workout in and it would be fun. When am I going to be able to buy one of them Roadsters? When's that happening? Well, I can't say exactly when, but we've got to get it. This COVID thing is kind of throwing us for a loop. I'm sure.
[1:58:28] Not to blame everything on COVID, but it certainly set us back on progress for some number of months. The things we're going to get done ahead of Roadster are ramping up Model Y production. That'll be a great car. It is a great car. Getting the Berlin Gigafactory built.
[1:58:58] Also, BuildingY, expanding the Shanghai factory, which has gone great. And there's the Cybertruck, SemiTruck, Roadster. Roadster is kind of like dessert. So we've got to get the meat and potatoes and greens and stuff. But Roadster comes before Cybertruck. I mean.
[1:59:28] I think we should do Cybertruck first before Roadster. Interesting. I'm not mad at that. Some of the things for Roadster, the tri-motor Plaid powertrain, we're going to have that in Model S. So that's one of the ingredients that's needed for Roadster is the Plaid powertrain, the more advanced battery-backed kind of thing. I wanted to ask you about this before I forgot. There's a company called Apex that's taking your Teslas and they're –
[1:59:58] Giving it a wider base and wider tires and a little bit more advanced suspension. Sure. How do you feel about that? That sounds good to me, sure. Do you work with them? Are you cool with those people? Yeah, I mean, I'm all for it. Go ahead. They're jazzing stuff up with carbon fiber and doing a bunch of interior choices. You're cool with it? You can't fuck with that. You don't have time. So is it good that someone comes along and has this sort of specialty operation? Yeah, I got no problem. That's what it's called, right? It's like, J-Mac, is it called Apex?
[2:00:27] Yeah, I got an unplugged performance S-Apex. That's right, unplugged performance, yeah. Yeah, you could for sure lighten the car up and improve tire traction. Have you seen that company's stuff, what they do? I don't know specifically, but there's— It's pretty dope. Yeah. They make a pretty dope-looking—they take Model S and they widen it and give it a bunch of carbon fiber. That's it right there. Cool. Ooh, la-la, look at that. That looks pretty nice. Yeah, it does. Now, the Plaid—
[2:00:55] What version of the Model S are you going to widen the track and do a bunch of different things? I know you guys are testing at the Nürburgring. Can you not talk about that? Well, I think we've got to leave that for a proper sort of product unveil. I understand. I understand. Last time you were here, you convinced me to buy a Tesla. I bought it, and it's fucking insane. Oh, great. Glad you like it. Pretty fun. It's not just pretty fun. The way I've described it is it makes other cars seem stupid.
[2:01:24] They just seem dumb. I love dumb things. I love dumb cars. I love campfires. I love campfires. I have a 1993 Porsche that's air-cooled. It's not that fast. It's really slow compared to the Tesla. It's really quite slow. But there's something engaging about the mechanical.
[2:01:45] It's just like the gears and it's very analog. But it's so stupid in comparison to the Tesla. Like when I want to go somewhere in the Model S, I hit the gas and it just goes, whee! It just violates time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you've tried it like Ludicrous Plus and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Cool, cool. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We just did a software update where it'll do like a cheetah stance.
[2:02:11] So, yeah, because it's got a dynamic air suspension, so it lowers the back. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, just like a sprinter, basically. Right. Like, what do you do if you're a sprinter? You hunker down, and then, so I shaved like a tenth of a second off the 0-6. I mean, like, you know, it was pretty fun. I've taken so many people, and I take them for the holy shit moment. I'm like, are you ready? Like, hang on there, and then I stomp on the gas. I've never felt anything like it. It's confusing.
[2:02:40] It really is. The instant torque and just the sheer acceleration is baffling. It's baffling. It's baffling. They've never felt it. No. It's faster than falling. It's crazy. It's so fast. It's a roller coaster. And my family yells at me when I stomp the gas. I tell my kids, I'm like, you want to feel it? You want to feel it? Like, do it, do it, do it. My wife's like, don't do it. Boom.
[2:03:04] And even if I just do it on the highway for a couple of seconds, it's very exciting. It's very fun. It's like having a roller coaster on tap. It really is like a roller coaster on tap. Yeah, without the loop-de-loops. But the pinning to your seat, it seems like you're not supposed to be able to experience that from some sort of a consumer vehicle that a regular person could buy if you have the money. It seems too crazy. And then the idea that this Roadster is a half of a second faster than that.
[2:03:34] Yeah. That's madness. Well, with the Roadster, we're going to do some things that are kind of unfair. So we're going to take some things from kind of like Rocket World and put them on a car. Oh, I've read about that. Explain that. Well, like I said, we can't do the product unveil right here. But it's going to do some things that are unfair. Unfair. When we do the unveil of the Roadster, let me just –
[2:04:02] Say that anyone who's been waiting, they won't be sorry. They won't be sorry. Oh, sure. Well, anything that goes 0 to 60, what is it, 1.9? Is that the 0 to 60? That's the base model. What's the top of the food chain model? Okay, okay. Faster than that. Let's just say faster than that. That seems so crazy to me. Now, what was it like when the dude threw the steel balls at the window and they were supposed to not break and it broke?
[2:04:32] Well, yeah. I know. Extenuating circumstances. You know that our demos are authentic. So I was not expecting that. And then I think I muttered under my breath. You didn't get mad, though. No. You didn't Steve Jobs it. No, I definitely swore. But I didn't think the mic would pick it up, but it did.
[2:05:00] So we practice this behind the scenes. At Tesla, we don't do tons of practice for our demos because we're working on the cars. We're building new technologies and improving the fundamental products. So we're not doing hundreds of practice things or anything like that. We don't have time for that. But just hours before the demo,
[2:05:30] Both Franz, you know, is head of design, and I were in the studio throwing steel balls at the window. It was bouncing right off. I'm like, okay, this seems pretty good. Seems like we got it, okay. And then we think what happened was that when Franz hit the door with the sledgehammer, you know, so like this is like exoskeleton.
[2:05:58] You know, high-strength hardened steel. You can literally take, wind up with a sledgehammer, you know, full-on double-handed sledgehammer and hit the door and there's not even a dent. It's cool. But we think that that cracked the corner of the glass at the bottom. And then once you crack the corner of the glass, you're just game over. So then when you threw the bowl, that...
[2:06:26] That's what cracked the glass. It didn't go through, though. It didn't go through. That's true. It didn't go through. That's true. It didn't shatter the whole thing like a regular window would either, which would just dissolve, right? So in hindsight, the ball should have been first, sledgehammer second. Yeah. You live, you learn. Yeah, exactly.
[2:06:42] Listen, man, we've taken up a lot of your time. You had a child recently. It's amazing that you had the time to come down here, and I really appreciate that. I appreciate everything you do, man. I'm glad you're out there, and I really appreciate you coming down here and sharing your perspective. Well, I think you've got a great show. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. Elon Musk, ladies and gentlemen, good night. All right, that should get a little play.