Joe Rogan Experience #1470 - Elon Musk
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (2)
Transcript
0:00Joe RoganWelcome back.
0:02Elon MuskHere we go.
0:02Joe RoganGabe, great to see you. And congratulations.
0:04Elon MuskThank you.
0:05Joe RoganYou 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.
0:13Joe RoganYou were born during a weird time.
0:16Elon MuskThat's for sure.
0:17Joe RoganThat is for sure. The. Probably the weirdest that I can remember.
0:22Elon MuskYeah. Yeah. And he was born on May 4th,
0:25Joe Roganand that's hilarious, too.
0:27Elon MuskYeah.
0:27Joe RoganMade a fourth be with him.
0:28Elon MuskYeah, exactly.
0:29Joe RoganHas to be.
0:30Elon MuskI sure hope so.
0:31Joe RoganPerfect.
0:31Elon MuskYes.
0:32Joe RoganI mean, that was the perfect day for you. And how do you say the name? Well, is it a placeholder?
0:41Elon MuskFirst of all, my partner is the one that actually mostly came up with the name.
0:44Joe RoganCongratulations to her.
0:46Elon MuskYeah, yeah, she's great at names. So, I mean, it's just X letter X. And then the AE is like pronounced ash. Yeah. And then a 12 is my contribution.
1:04Joe RoganOh, why a 12?
1:05Elon MuskArchangel 12, the precursor to the SR71. Coolest plane ever. True.
1:13Joe RoganI agree with you. I don't know. I'm not familiar with it. I know what SR71 is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what that is.
1:18Elon MuskSo the SR71 came from a CIA program called Archangel. It's the Archangel Project. And then Archangel 12.
1:26Joe RoganOh, wow. What a dope looking plane.
1:27Elon MuskYeah.
1:28Joe RoganOh, okay.
1:28Elon MuskI got it. Yeah, yeah.
1:29Joe RoganWell, as a person who's very much into aerial travel, as you are, that's perfect.
1:36Elon MuskThat's pretty great.
1:37Joe RoganYeah. Pretty great. So is it. Does it feel strange to have a child while this craziness is going? Does it feel like you've had children before? Is this any weirder?
1:49Elon MuskIt's actually, I think it's better being older and having a kid. I appreciate it more. Yeah. Babies are awesome.
1:59Joe RoganThey are pretty awesome.
1:59Elon MuskThey're awesome. Yeah.
2:01Joe RoganWhen I didn't have any of my own, I would see other people's kids and I didn't not like them.
2:06Elon MuskSure.
2:06Joe RoganBut I wasn't drawn to them.
2:08Elon MuskSure.
2:08Joe RoganBut now when I see little people's kids, I'm like, ah. I think of them like these little love packages.
2:12Elon MuskYeah. Little love bugs.
2:14Joe RoganYeah. It's just you. 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.
2:22Elon MuskYeah.
2:23Joe RoganSo now as you, you know, get older and get to appreciate it as a mature, fully formed adult, it must be really pretty wonderful.
2:32Elon MuskYeah, wonderful. It's great. But babies are awesome. Yeah, that's. 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 the brain develop, which is an AI neural net is trying to simulate what a brain does basically.
2:55Elon MuskAnd you can sort of see the it learning very quickly. You know, it's just, wow, see things.
3:04Joe RoganSo you're talking about the neural net, you're not talking about an actual baby?
3:08Elon MuskActual baby, but both of them, yes. But the word neural net comes from the brain. It's like a net of neurons. So, you know, it's like the. Yeah, humans are the, you know, original gangster neural net.
3:26Joe RoganThat's a great way to put it.
3:27Elon MuskYeah.
3:28Joe RoganSo when you're programming artificial intelligence or you're working with artificial intelligence art, are they specifically trying to mimic the developmental process of a human brain?
3:40Elon MuskIn a lot of ways, there's some ways that are different. An analogy that's often used is like we don't make a submarine swim like a fish, but we take the principles of how, of hydrodynamics and apply them to a submarine.
3:58Joe RoganI've always wondered as a layperson, do you try to achieve the same results and as a human brain but through different methods, or do you try to copy the way a human brain achieves results?
4:10Elon MuskI mean, the essential elements of an AI neural net are really very similar to a human brain neural net having the multiple layers of neurons and back propagation. All these things are what your brain does.
4:29Elon MuskIt's sort of. Yeah, 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.
4:47Elon MuskIt's interesting. Very interesting.
4:50Joe RoganYeah. I would imagine, 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?
5:01Joe RoganLike when artificial intelligence becomes sentient, they're like, oh, you tried to mimic yourself like this. So much better process. Cut out all this nonsense.
5:11Elon MuskLike I said, there are elements that are the same, but just like an aircraft does not fly like a bird.
5:17Joe RoganRight.
5:17Elon MuskIt doesn't flap its wings. But the wings, the way the wings work and generate lift is the same as bird.
5:27Joe RoganNow 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 because it's an interesting thing to come from a guy like yourself, like why are you doing that?
5:44Elon MuskI'm slightly sad about it, actually.
5:46Joe RoganBut if you're sad about it, why are you doing it?
5:54Elon MuskI think possessions kind of weigh you down, then they're kind of an attack vector. You know, people say, hey, billionaire, you got all this stuff. Like, well, now I don't have stuff.
6:05Elon MuskNow what are you going to do?
6:08Joe RoganAttack vector. Meaning, like people target it.
6:10Elon MuskYeah.
6:11Joe RoganInteresting.
6:12Elon MuskYeah.
6:13Joe RoganBut you're obviously going to. So you're going to rent a place.
6:16Elon MuskYeah.
6:17Joe RoganOkay. And get rid of everything except close.
6:21Elon MuskNo, I said like almost everything. So it's like keep a couple Teslas, Tash. Obviously kind of have to test product and stuff. Yeah. There's things that have sentimental value for sure are keeping those here.
6:37Elon MuskYeah.
6:37Joe RoganSo do you feel like what's worse
6:40Elon Muskthan going to happen, it'd be fine.
6:42Joe RoganYeah. You could always buy more stuff if you don't like it.
6:45Elon MuskSuppose so, yeah.
6:46Joe RoganI 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. You're wealthy and that they define you in a pejorative way?
6:59Elon MuskFor sure. I mean, not. Not everyone, but.
7:01Joe RoganRight.
7:01Elon MuskYou know, there's for sure. In recent, like years, billionaire has become a. Like it's a pejorative. It's like that's a bad thing. Which I think doesn't make a lot of sense in most cases.
7:16Elon MuskIf you basically organized a company. So how does this wealth arise? If you organize people in a better way 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.
7:42Elon MuskSo there's a conflation of consumption and capital allocation. So we take Warren Buffett, for example, and to be totally frank, I'm not his biggest fan, but he does like capital allocation and he reads a lot of sort of annual reports of companies and.
8:04Elon MuskAnd it's pretty boring, really. And he's trying to figure out, does Coke or Pepsi deserve more capital? I mean, that's. I mean, it's kind of a boring job if you ask me.
8:16Elon MuskBut, you know, 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 better than others or worse?
8:29Elon MuskAnd, you know, 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.
8:40Joe RoganWell, there's a big difference, too, between someone who's making an incredible amount of money designing and engineering fantastic products 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.
8:59Joe RoganAnd to put them all in the same category seems it's very simple. And as you pointed out, it's an attack vector.
9:06Elon MuskYeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's really. I do think there in the United States especially, there's an overallocation of talent in finance and law. Basically, too many smart people go into finance and law.
9:23Elon MuskSo, you know, 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.
9:38Joe RoganYeah, yeah. Well, that would certainly be better for all involved if they made better stuff.
9:43Elon MuskYeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, manufacturing used to be highly valued in the United States, and these days it's not. It's often looked down upon, which I think is wrong.
9:54Joe RoganYeah. 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.
10:08Joe RoganInto making things here.
10:10Elon MuskYes. Somebody's got to do the real work.
10:12Joe RoganYeah.
10:13Elon MuskYou know, and, you know, like making a car. It's an honest day's living, that's for sure. You know, or making anything, really, or providing valuable service, like providing, you know, good entertainment, good information.
10:28Elon MuskThese are all valuable things to do, you know, so, yeah, there should be more of it.
10:36Joe RoganDid 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 where you realized that.
10:47Elon MuskYeah, 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.
11:00Elon MuskAnd 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.
11:09Joe RoganDon't you have Gene Wilder's house?
11:11Elon MuskI do.
11:12Joe RoganThat's amazing.
11:12Elon MuskIt's awesome.
11:13Joe RoganWow.
11:15Elon MuskIt's exactly what you expect.
11:16Joe RoganDid you request that the buyer not fuck it up?
11:19Elon MuskYeah, that's a requirement.
11:20Joe RoganOh, a requirement. That's a good requirement.
11:23Elon MuskYeah.
11:23Joe RoganNot in that case. In that house.
11:25Elon MuskYeah, it'll probably sell for less, but still, I don't care.
11:27Joe RoganHe's a legend. You want his Soul. He'd want his essence.
11:32Elon MuskYeah.
11:32Joe RoganIn the building.
11:33Elon MuskIt's. And it's there. That's a real quirky. Quirky house, yeah.
11:37Joe RoganWhat. What makes you say it's there? Like, what do you get out of it?
11:44Elon MuskI mean, all the. All the cabinets are like handmade and they're like odd shapes and there's like doors to nowhere and strange like corridors and tunnels and really odd, odd paintings on the wall and.
12:00Elon MuskYeah.
12:01Joe RoganDid you ever live in it?
12:02Elon MuskIt's very quirky. I did live in it briefly. Yeah.
12:06Joe RoganBut 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?
12:13Elon MuskWell, I had one house and then the Gene Wilder house right across the road from me from my main house, and it was going to get sold and then torn down and turned into be a big construction zone for three years.
12:29Elon MuskAnd I was like, whoa, I think I'll buy it and preserve the spurge of Gene Wilder and not have a giant construction zone. And then I started having some privacy issues where people would.
12:46Elon MuskLess people just come to my house and start climbing over the walls and stuff. So like, man, so then I started bought a house, some of the houses around my house.
13:01Elon MuskAnd then I thought at one point, well, it'd be cool to build a house. So I acquired some properties at the top of Samara Road, which has got a great view.
13:15Elon MuskAnd I was like, okay, well, a bunch of sort of small older houses, they're going to get torn down anyway. I was like, well, if I collect these like little, little houses, then I can build something, you know, I don't know, artistic, like a, you know, dream house type of thing.
13:33Joe RoganWhat's a dream house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type shit?
13:36Elon MuskYeah, definitely. Yeah. You gotta have the dome that opens up with the stealth helicopter and that kind of thing, you know?
13:44Joe RoganYeah, for sure. Fuck yeah.
13:45Elon MuskYeah. Fuck yeah. 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 ghetto, like OCD on the little details and the design, or should I be allocating that time to getting us to Mars?
14:05Elon MuskI should probably do the latter. So what's more important, Mars or a house? I like Mars. Okay.
14:13Joe RoganIs that really how you think that it'd be better off, planning on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars?
14:21Elon MuskYeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can only do so many things.
14:25Joe RoganRight, right.
14:26Elon MuskSo how you.
14:26Joe RoganWell, I don't know how you do what you do anyway, I don't, I don't understand how you can run the boring company, Tesla, SpaceX, all these different things you're doing constantly.
14:36Joe RoganI just, 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.
14:45Joe RoganThe productivity is baffling. Just doesn't make sense how you can get so much done.
14:52Elon MuskWell, 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.
15:06Elon MuskRelative to developing the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and helping solve sustainable energy. SpaceX and Tesla are by far the most amount of brain cycles boring company does not take less than 1% of brain cycles.
15:29Elon MuskAnd then this neuralink, which is, I don't know, maybe it's like 5%. 5%.
15:37Joe RoganThat's a good chunk.
15:38Elon MuskIt's a good chunk.
15:39Joe RoganYeah, 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.
15:47Joe RoganAre you testing on people right now?
15:50Elon MuskNo, we're not testing on 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.
16:06Joe RoganAnd 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?
16:17Joe RoganIs there a potential for rejection?
16:20Elon MuskIt's a very low potential for rejection. I mean, 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.
16:40Elon MuskSo the probability of, I mean, so it's well known what will course rejection, what will not. It's definitely harder when you've got something that is.
16:53Elon MuskSort of reading and writing neurons that's generating a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's a little harder.
17:05Elon MuskThan say passive device, but it's still very doable. And yeah, there are people who have primitive devices in their brains right now.
17:15Joe RoganWhat kind of devices?
17:17Elon MuskWell, like deep brain stimulation, I think, for Parkinson's, has really changed people's lives in a big way, which is kind of remarkable because it kind of like zaps your brain.
17:32Elon MuskIt's like kicking the TV type of thing. And you think like, man, kicking the TV shouldn't work.
17:38Joe RoganIt does sometimes.
17:39Elon MuskYeah, yeah, the old TVs. It did.
17:41Joe RoganMy grandpa used to slap the top for sure.
17:44Elon MuskYeah.
17:44Joe RoganIt would work sometimes.
17:45Elon MuskYeah. So this deep brain stimulation, implanted devices in the brain that have changed people's lives for the better, like fundamentally.
17:53Joe RoganWell, let's talk about what you can talk about to what neuralink is, because the last time you were here, we really couldn't discuss it. And then there was, I guess, a press release, something that sort of outlined.
18:03Joe RoganYeah, that happened quite a bit after the last time you were here. So what exactly is it? How do you do what. What happens if someone ultimately does get a neuralink installed?
18:15Joe RoganWhat will take place?
18:18Elon MuskWell, for version one of the device, it would be basically implanted in your skull. So. But it would be flush with your skull. So you basically take out a chunk of skull, replace, put the neuralink device in there, you put the electrode.
18:41Elon MuskYou'd insert the electrode threads very carefully into the brain and then you stitch it up and. And you wouldn't even know that somebody has it. And so then it can interface basically anywhere in your brain.
19:00Elon MuskSo it could be something that helps cure, say, eyesight, like give you returns your eyesight, even if you've lost your optic nerve type of thing, really. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
19:11Elon MuskHearing, obviously. I mean, pretty much anything that. Where it could in principle fix almost anything that is wrong with the brain and it could restore limb functionality. So if you've got 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's a quadriplegic to full functionality.
19:48Elon MuskLike they can walk around, be normal.
19:51Joe RoganWhoa.
19:51Elon MuskYeah. Maybe slightly better. Slightly better over time, yes.
19:56Joe RoganYou mean with future iterations like the,
19:58Elon Muskyou know, Six Million Dollar Man. Although these days that would. That doesn't seem much.
20:04Joe RoganSix Billion Dollar Man. So the hole would be small. How big would the hole be that you have to drill and then replace with this piece? There's only one hole?
20:14Elon MuskWell, yeah, the device we're working on right now is about an inch in diameter. And your skull's pretty thick, by the way. So skulls are mine is for sure.
20:27Elon MuskIt 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.
20:39Joe RoganThat's probably a couple inches, a half
20:40Elon Muskinch, you know, half inch thick skull. Ish. So, yeah, so that's a fair bit of like we Got quite a coconut going on there. It's not like some eggshell.
20:51Joe RoganOh, yeah, I believe you.
20:53Elon MuskSo yeah, you basically implant the device
20:58Joe Roganand so it would be like a 1 inch square or 1 inch in diameter.
21:02Elon MuskYeah, like a.
21:03Joe RoganSo an inch circle, like a circular.
21:05Elon MuskYeah, think like a. Like a smart watch or something better.
21:09Joe RoganOkay.
21:09Elon MuskYeah.
21:11Joe RoganOkay. So you take this one inch diameter. Like ice fishing. Right. You ever go ice fishing?
21:16Elon MuskNo, but I'd like to.
21:17Joe RoganIt's great. Yeah, it's really fun. So you basically take an auger and you drill through the surface of the ice.
21:25Elon MuskYeah.
21:26Joe RoganAnd 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.
21:33Joe RoganYeah.
21:34Elon MuskAnd you replace that, say 1 inch diameter piece of skull with this neuralink device. And that has a battery and a Bluetooth and an inductive charger. And then you.
21:48Elon MuskAnd then you also get to insert the electrodes. So the electrodes are very carefully inserted with our robot that we developed. That's very carefully putting in the electrodes and avoiding any veins or arteries so it doesn't create trauma.
22:07Joe RoganSo through this 1 inch diameter device, electrodes be inserted and they will find their way.
22:13Elon MuskLike tiny wires, basically.
22:14Joe RoganTiny wires.
22:15Elon MuskTiny wires.
22:15Joe RoganAnd they'll find their way to specific areas of the brain to stimulate.
22:19Elon MuskNo, you literally put them where they're supposed to go.
22:22Joe RoganOh, okay.
22:23Elon MuskYeah. You.
22:24Joe RoganHow long will these wires be?
22:27Elon MuskI mean, they usually go in like, you know, depending on where it is, like, you know, 2 or 3 millimeters.
22:35Joe RoganSo they just find the spots.
22:37Elon MuskYeah.
22:38Joe RoganWow.
22:40Elon MuskAnd then. Yeah, then you put the device in and that, that gets that, that replaces the little piece of skull that was taken out. And then you stitch up the hole and you have like a little scar and that's it.
22:58Joe RoganWell, this would be replaceable or reversible. Like if someone can't take it anymore, I'm too smart. I can't take it.
23:03Elon MuskYeah, you can totally take it out.
23:05Joe RoganAnd what is the. Besides restoring limb function and eyesight and hearing, which are all amazing. Are there any cognitive benefits that you anticipate from something like this?
23:16Elon MuskYeah, I mean, you could for sure. I mean, basically it's a generalized sort of thing 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.
23:41Elon MuskIt could detect it in real time and then fire a counter pulse and stop the epilepsy.
23:50Elon MuskThere's a whole range of brain injuries. If somebody gets a stroke, they could lose the ability to speak. That could also be fixed. So if you've got 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.
24:10Elon MuskIf 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.
24:19Joe RoganRestoring memory. And what is happening that's allowing it to do that? Like the wires, these small wires stimulating these areas of the brain. And then is it that the areas of the brain, they're losing some sort of electrical force, what is happening?
24:35Elon MuskYeah, it's like the thing of a bunch of circuits. And there's some circuits that are broken and we can fix those circuits, substitute for those circuits.
24:48Joe RoganAnd so a specific frequency will go through this.
24:51Elon MuskYeah, just specific
24:55Joe Roganis 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.
25:04Elon MuskI mean, there's still a lot of work to do. So when I say, you know, we got a shot at probably putting it in a person in, you know, within a year, I think that's exactly what I mean.
25:16Elon MuskI think we have a chance of putting in someone and having them. Having them be healthy and restoring some functionality that they've lost.
25:25Joe RoganThe 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, you know, the real turbocharged version, the P100D of brain stimulation.
25:45Elon MuskI mean, ultimately, if you. If you want to go with full AI symbiosis, you'll probably want to do something like that.
25:53Joe RoganSymbiosis is a scary word when it comes to AI.
25:57Elon MuskIt's optional.
26:01Joe RoganI would hope so.
26:02Elon MuskYeah.
26:02Joe RoganIt's just, I mean, once you enjoy the Dr. Manhattan lifestyle, once you become a God, seems very, very unlikely you're going to want to go back to being stupid again.
26:15Joe RoganI mean, you literally could fundamentally change the way human beings interface with each other.
26:20Elon MuskYes.
26:21Joe RoganYes.
26:22Elon MuskYou wouldn't need to talk.
26:27Joe RoganI'm so scared of that, but so excited about it at the same time. Is that weird?
26:32Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I think this is one of the paths to, You know, think like, what are like, AI is getting better and better. So now let's assume it's sort of like a benign AI scenario.
26:50Elon MuskEven 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.
27:06Elon MuskAnd we're already a cyborg to some degree. Right? Because you've got your phone, you've got your laptop, glasses. Yeah, yeah. Electronic devices. And I mean today, if your phone, if you don't bring your phone along, it's like you have missing limb syndrome.
27:24Elon MuskThat's like, feels like something's really, really missing. So we're already partly, partly a cyborg or an AI symbiote, essentially. It's just that the data rate to the electronics is slow, so especially output.
27:46Elon MuskLike you're just going with your thumbs. I mean, like, what's your data rate? Maybe optimistically, 100 bits per second. That's being generous. And now the computer can communicate at like, you know, 100 terabytes.
28:04Elon MuskSo certainly, you know, gigabits are a trivial at this point. So this is like basically your computer could do things a million times faster at a certain point. The AI is like talking to a tree.
28:25Elon MuskOkay, this is boring. You talk to a tree. It's not very entertaining. So. So if you can solve the data rate issue and especially output input 2, then you can improve the symbiosis that is already occurring between man and machine.
28:49Joe RoganSo you can improve it in what? 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.
29:03Joe RoganYou'll be able to interface with each other in some sort of a nonverbal, non physical way where you will transfer data back and forth to each other without having to actually use your mouth and make noises.
29:17Elon MuskExactly. 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?
29:25Elon MuskWell, 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 concept into words.
29:41Elon MuskThen 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.
29:52Elon MuskIt'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.
30:08Elon MuskWhat we have here is a failure to communicate. Cool. And Luke.
30:12Joe RoganYes. And there's a great movie.
30:14Elon MuskYeah, great movie.
30:15Joe RoganThere'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.
30:30Joe RoganSarcasm. There's a lot of variables.
30:33Elon MuskSarcasm is difficult.
30:34Joe RoganYes. And so one of the things that I've said is, like, that there could be potentially a universal language that's created through computers that particularly young kids would pick up very quickly.
30:48Joe RoganLike 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.
30:55Joe RoganLike, they learn really quickly. And they show me how to edit things. And it's. If you taught a child from first grade on how to use some new universal language, I mean, essentially like a Rosetta Stone and something that's done that interprets your thoughts and you can convey your thoughts with no room for interpretation, with clear.
31:17Joe RoganVery 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.
31:37Joe RoganWe. Through our cultural dictionary, and we agree. Or certainly we could bypass all that.
31:42Elon MuskYeah. You can still do it for sentimental reasons.
31:45Joe RoganRight? Like campfires.
31:48Elon MuskYeah, exactly. You don't need campfires. You don't need to roast marshmallows, which is kind of fun. So, yeah, I think you would. In principle, you would be able to communicate very quickly and with far more precision ideas.
32:10Elon MuskAnd language would. I'm not sure what would happen to language, but you could probably, in a situation like this, that you would be able to just. It would be kind of like the matrix.
32:19Elon MuskYou want to speak a different language. No problem.
32:21Joe RoganRight.
32:21Elon MuskThat's why I just downloaded the program.
32:25Joe RoganRight. So at least for the first iterations, first few iterations, we'll just be able to use, like, I know that Google has their. Some of their Pixel buds have the ability to interpret languages in real time.
32:41Joe RoganSure, 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.
32:49Elon MuskYeah.
32:50Joe RoganFor the first few iterations.
32:52Elon MuskWell, the first few iterations are. What I'm talking about is like in the limit over time 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.
33:06Elon MuskSo, so it's like, don't, don't worry that it's not going to sneak up on you. This, this will take a while.
33:12Joe RoganHow many years before you don't have to talk?
33:19Elon MuskIf the, if the development continues to accelerate, then maybe like five years, five to ten years.
33:31Joe RoganThat's quick. That's really quick.
33:34Elon MuskThat's the best case scenario.
33:35Joe RoganNo talking anymore in five years.
33:37Elon MuskBest case scenario, 10 years. Won't like it.
33:41Joe RoganI've always speculated that aliens could potentially be us in the future. 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, they have this tiny little, I mean the archetypal alien that you see in like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
33:58Joe RoganThey'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 just keep going. One thousand, a million, whatever year or five years.
34:14Joe RoganWhatever, 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.
34:29Joe RoganWe can talk without words.
34:31Elon MuskYou could also save state.
34:36Joe RoganSave state?
34:37Elon MuskSave state. Like save your brain state. Like a saved game in a video game.
34:41Joe RoganWhoa. Like if you want to swap from Windows 95,
34:47Elon Muskprobably a little better than that, but yeah, I think we are
34:51Joe RoganWindows 95 right now.
34:53Elon MuskFrom a future perspective, probably. But yeah, I mean, you could save state and restore that state into a biological being if you wanted to in the future. In principle, there's like nothing from a physics standpoint that prevents this.
35:08Elon MuskYou'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 like you five years ago versus you today is quite a big difference.
35:18Joe RoganYes.
35:19Elon MuskSo you'd be substantially you. I mean, you'd suddenly think you're you.
35:23Joe RoganBut the idea of saving yourself and then transforming that into some sort of a biological state, like you could hang out with 30 year old you.
35:35Elon MuskI mean, the possibilities are endless. That's so weird. I mean, do you 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, you know, could.
35:51Elon MuskSo if you've got some version 10 Neuralink, whatever far in the future, you could recall everything just like it's a movie, including the entire sensory experience.
36:09Joe RoganEmotions, everything.
36:10Elon MuskEverything, Everything. And play it back. You should edit it.
36:16Joe RoganEdit it?
36:17Elon MuskYeah.
36:17Joe RoganSo you can change your past.
36:19Elon MuskYou could change what you think was your past. Yeah.
36:22Joe RoganWell, so if you had like a
36:23Elon Muskwhole thing right now, could be a replayed memory?
36:27Joe RoganIt could be, yeah, it may be. What's the odds of this being a replayed memory? If you had a guess, it's more than 50%.
36:37Elon MuskThere's no way to assign a probability with accuracy here.
36:40Joe RoganRight. But roughly, if you just had a. Just gut instinct.
36:49Elon MuskWell, I don't have a neuralink in my brain, so I'd say right now 0%. But at the point at which you do have a neuralink, then it rises above 0%.
37:02Joe RoganThe idea that we're experiencing some sort of a preserved memory is. Even though it's still the same, it's not comforting.
37:12Elon MuskRight.
37:13Joe RoganFor 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 to know that this experience somehow or another, doesn't exist in a material form that you can knock on.
37:36Elon MuskFeels real, doesn't it?
37:37Joe RoganFeels real, but the idea that it's not is, for some strange reason, disconcerting.
37:44Elon MuskYeah, I'm sure it should be disconcerting because then 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?
38:00Elon MuskNow, 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.
38:11Elon MuskEverything, everything is an electrical signal to a brain in a vat. With a vat is your skull.
38:20Joe RoganAnd all your hormones, all your neurotransmitters, all these things are drugs. Adrenaline's a drug, dopamine's a drug. You're a drug factory. You're constantly changing your state with love and oxytocin and beauty changes your state.
38:36Joe RoganGreat. Music changes your state.
38:38Elon MuskAbsolutely. And yet, here's another sort of interesting idea, which is because you say, where did consciousness arise? Well, assuming you believe the belief in physics, which appears to be true, then the universe started off as basically quarks and leptons and quickly became hydrogen and helium, lithium, like basically elements of the periodic table.
39:07Elon MuskBut it was like 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, where is consciousness?
39:29Elon MuskWhat's the line of consciousness and not consciousness between hydrogen and here?
39:34Joe RoganRight. 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.
39:45Elon MuskYeah, I saw that one.
39:47Joe RoganWhat 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.
39:57Joe RoganSeems pretty.
39:58Elon MuskThe one that just dragged baby down the street pretty far.
40:00Joe RoganYeah, yeah. Seems pretty conscious, right?
40:05Elon MuskThere's definitely some degree of consciousness there.
40:08Joe RoganYeah. 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 when people think about the potential future versions of human beings, especially when you consider symbiotic relationship to artificial intelligence.
40:27Joe RoganIt 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, you know, simple, simple organisms that we evolved from, and that it won't be that far in the future that we do have this view back.
40:47Elon MuskWell, I hope consciousness propagates into the future and gets more sophisticated and complex and that it understands the questions to ask about the universe.
40:58Joe RoganDo 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.
41:12Joe RoganI will try to improve this. I will 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.
41:35Joe RoganSo this is an accelerated version of that, a super accelerated version of that.
41:40Elon MuskI mean, you don't always improve, but you can aspire to improve. You can aspire to be less wrong. Yeah, this is like, I think a good. The tools of physics are very powerful.
41:52Elon MuskJust assume you're wrong and you ask your goals to be less wrong. I don't think you're going to succeed every day in being less wrong, but you know, if you're going to succeed in being less wrong, most of the time you're doing great.
42:04Joe RoganThat's a great way of putting it. Aspire to be less wrong. But then when, you know, people look back in nostalgia about simpler times, there's that too. It's very romantic and exciting to look back on.
42:16Joe RoganCampfires.
42:17Elon MuskBut you can still have a campfire.
42:19Joe RoganYes.
42:19Elon MuskYeah.
42:20Joe RoganBut will you appreciate it when you're a super nerd, when you connect it to the grid and you have some skull cap in place of the top of your head and it's interfacing with the international language that the rest of the universe now enjoys?
42:34Joe RoganCommunication with people?
42:37Elon MuskYeah, sure. I think so. Yeah. I like empires.
42:43Joe RoganI'm just worried. I mean, everyone's always scared of change, but I'm scared of this monumental change where we won't talk anymore.
42:52Elon MuskI mean, that thing communicates.
42:53Joe RoganYes, but that's. There's something about. 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.
43:10Joe RoganI love that they nailed it like that. It's so hard to capture a real thought and convey it in a way, in this articulate way that makes someone excited.
43:19Joe RoganLike 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.
43:29Joe RoganOh, yes, yes.
43:33Elon MuskClever compression of a concept and a feeling.
43:36Joe RoganBut the fact that a human did it too.
43:38Elon MuskYeah, yeah, absolutely.
43:39Joe RoganDo you think that it'll be like electronic music? Like, people won't appreciate it? Like they appreciate a slide guitar.
43:47Elon MuskI like electronic music.
43:48Joe RoganI do too. While you make it, I know you like it.
43:53Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I hope the future is more fun and interesting and we should try to make it that way.
44:00Joe RoganI hope it's more fun and interesting too. Yeah, I just, you know, I just hope we don't lose anything along the way.
44:07Elon MuskWe might lose a little, but hopefully we gain more than we lose.
44:11Joe RoganYeah, that's the thing, right? Gaining more than we lose. Like something that makes us interesting is
44:14Elon Muskthat we're so flawed, it's not for sure.
44:16Joe RoganRight.
44:20Elon MuskI mean, you look at civilizations through the ages, most of them, you know, they rose and fell.
44:25Joe RoganYeah.
44:26Elon MuskAnd I do think, like, the globalization that we have at these sort of like the meme sphere is there's not enough isolation between countries or regions. It's like if you get a, if there's a mind virus, that mind virus can infect too much of the world.
44:53Elon MuskI 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.
45:08Elon MuskSo that's a bit concerning mind viral
45:12Joe Roganimmunity, meaning that once something like neuralink gets established, the real concern is something that mean you said it's Bluetooth, right? Or some future version of that. The idea is that something could possibly get into it, fuck it up.
45:27Elon MuskNo, I'm talking about like somebody. There's some cockeyed concept that, that happens right now.
45:39Joe RoganWell, I know there's viruses and embedded chips, right? Like people have embedded chips and then acquired viruses.
45:46Elon MuskWhen I'm talking about a mind virus, I'm talking about a concept that infects people's minds.
45:51Joe RoganOh, okay, okay. Like cult thinking or some sort of fundamentalism.
45:59Elon MuskYeah. Wrong handed idea that goes viral. In an idea sense
46:08Joe Roganthat is a problem too. Right. If someone can manipulate that technology to make something appear logical or rational.
46:16Elon MuskYeah, yeah.
46:18Joe RoganWould that be an issue too? This is a very have versus have not issue.
46:23Elon MuskRight.
46:23Joe RoganOnce this thing, 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 should have a massive advantage over people that don't have it yet.
46:43Elon MuskWell, 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.
47:01Elon MuskSuper smart.
47:02Joe RoganWell, in a capitalist society, you know, 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.
47:17Joe RoganIs that a concern?
47:19Elon MuskWell, I think it's not a super huge concern. I mean there are huge differences in cognitive ability and resources already. Yeah, I mean you can think of a corporation as like a cybernetic collective that's far smarter than an individual.
47:37Elon MuskLike I couldn't personally build like a whole rocket and the engines and launch it and everything, that's impossible. But we have 8,000 people with SpaceX and.
47:52Elon MuskPiecing 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.
48:06Elon MuskSo that already exists where there's. Where there's. Corporations are vastly more capable than an individual. But we should be, I think, less concerned about relative capabilities between people and more like having AI be vastly beyond us and decoupled from human.
48:37Elon MuskWill.
48:38Joe RoganDecoupled from human. So this is the. If you can't beat them, join them.
48:43Elon MuskYeah, I mean, so you feel like it's inevitable.
48:45Joe RoganLike AI. Sentient AI is essentially inevitable.
48:49Elon MuskSuper sentient AI, yeah. Like beyond a level that's difficult to understand,
48:56Joe Roganimpossible to understand, probably, and somehow or another us. So it's almost like it's a requirement for survival to achieve some sort of symbiotic existence.
49:11Elon MuskWith AI, it's not a requirement, it's just.
49:18Elon MuskIf 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, for argument's sake.
49:34Elon MuskThis is like the limbic system, basically, and you've got the cortex. 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.
49:58Elon MuskNow, your cortex is much, much smarter than your limbic system. Nonetheless, they work together well. So I haven't met anyone who wants to delete their limbic system or the cortex.
50:11Elon MuskPeople 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 is.
50:24Elon MuskThat 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 your phone is capable of things and your computer is capable of things that your brain is definitely not.
50:38Elon MuskYou 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.
50:57Joe RoganWhy is it so disconcerting? Or why does it not give me comfort to think about? Like, when I think about a symbiotic connection to AI, I always think of this cold, emotionless sort of thing that we will become.
51:16Joe RoganIs that a bad way to look at it?
51:17Elon MuskI don't think. That's not. That's not correct. 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.
51:30Elon MuskYou know, artificial neural nets. Increasingly, neural nets are sort of taking over from regular programming more and more. So you are connected. You know, 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.
51:57Elon MuskIf you're trying to do image recognition or improve the quality of your photograph, it's using the neural net's the best way to do that. So you are already sort of a cybernetic symbiote.
52:15Elon MuskLike I said, it's just a question of your data rate. The communication speed between your phone and your brain is slow.
52:26Joe RoganWhen do you think you're going to do it? How long will you wait? Like once it starts becoming available.
52:34Elon MuskYeah, if it works, I'll do it.
52:36Joe RoganSure, right away.
52:39Elon MuskI mean, let's make sure it works.
52:41Joe RoganHow do we make sure it works? We try it on prisoners. Like, what do you do?
52:45Elon MuskNo, no.
52:45Joe RoganTake rapists. Cut holes in their head.
52:48Elon MuskNow, like I said, if somebody's got a serious brain injury and people have like very severe brain injuries and then you can fix those brain injuries and then you prove out that it works and you envelope expand and make more and more brain injuries, solve more and more.
53:11Elon MuskAnd 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.
53:20Elon MuskAnd so it's like you say, okay, well, you know, this would allow you to remember your names, your kids, and have a much more normal life where you're able to function much later in life.
53:36Elon MuskSo I think that. 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.
54:02Joe RoganDo you ever sit down, extrapolate? Do you ever sit down and think about all the different iterations of this and what this eventually leads to?
54:14Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I think, sure think about a lot. There's, like I said, this is not something that's going to sneak up on you. You know, there's like getting FDA approval for this stuff is not like overnight.
54:27Elon MuskAnd we probably have to be on like version 10 or something before it would realistically be, you know, a human AI symbiote situation. So you'll see it coming.
54:53Joe RoganYou see it coming. But what do you think it's going to be like when you sit, 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, and you drag it out with improvements along the way and leaps and bounds and technological innovations.
55:14Joe RoganWhere do you see it? What are we going to be like when 25 years from now, what are we going to be?
55:30Elon MuskWell, assuming civilization is still around,
55:34Joe Roganit's
55:34Elon Musklooking fragile right now. I think we could have a. In 25 years, probably something. I think there could be a whole brain interface.
55:49Joe RoganA whole brain interface?
55:51Elon MuskSomething pretty close to that. Yeah.
55:53Joe RoganHow does. How do you define. What do you mean by whole brain interface?
55:59Elon MuskLike, almost all the neurons are connected to.
56:09Elon MuskYour. These sort of AI extension of yourself, if you want.
56:16Joe RoganAI extension of yourself.
56:18Elon MuskYeah.
56:19Joe RoganWhat does that mean to you, like, when you say AI extension of yourself?
56:25Elon MuskWell, like I said, you already have a computer extension of yourself in your phone and computers and stuff. And now online, it's like somebody dies. There's like an online ghost.
56:38Elon MuskTheir online stuff is still alive.
56:41Joe RoganThat's a good way to put it. It is weird when you read someone's tweets after they're dead. Yeah, yeah.
56:47Elon MuskInstagram and their stories and stuff like that. Whatever. Facebook and stuff, you know, like.
56:51Joe RoganThat's a great way to put it. It's like an online ghost. That's very accurate.
56:56Elon MuskYeah. So, yeah. So it would just be that more of you would be in the cloud, I guess, than in your body. More of you. Wow.
57:16Joe RoganNow, when you say civilization's fragile, do you mean because of this COVID 19 shit that's going on right now?
57:21Elon MuskWhat's that? Never heard of it.
57:22Joe RoganIt's this thing.
57:22Elon MuskYeah.
57:23Joe RoganNo, it's like some people just get a car. Other people, it gets much worse.
57:29Elon MuskSure.
57:31Joe RoganYeah. Well,
57:35Elon Muskyeah. I mean, this certainly has taken over the mind space of the world to a degree that is quite shocking. Yeah.
57:46Joe RoganWow. 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.
57:58Joe RoganSo from nothing to everything's locked down. There's so much conflicting information and conflicting opinions about how to proceed. What. What has happened? You. You find things where. There was a meatpacking plant, I believe, In Missouri, where 300 plus, people were asymptomatic, tested positive or asymptomatic.
58:22Joe RoganAnd then in other places, it just ravages entire communities and kills people. And it's. It's so weird. It did. It almost appears on the. Like, if you didn't know anybody, you'd be like, what?
58:31Joe RoganIt seems like there's a bunch of different viruses. It doesn't seem like it's the same thing or has a bunch of different reactions to the biological variety of people.
58:45Joe RoganYeah,
58:47Elon MuskI mean, I kind of saw this whole thing play out in China before it played out in the US So it's kind of like watching the same movie again, but in English.
59:03Elon MuskSo, yeah,
59:12Elon MuskI think the mortality rate is much less than what is. Than what, say, the World Health Organization said it was. It's much, much less. It's like probably at least order of magnitude less.
59:24Joe RoganWell, it seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds of people. People with specific problems.
59:33Elon MuskYeah, I mean, if you're. You can look at the mortality statistics, you know, by age and whether they have comorbidities, like, do they have, like, basically existing conditions and by age and, you know, if you're below 60 and have no serious health issues, the probability of death is extremely low.
59:58Elon MuskIt's not zero, but it's extremely low.
1:00:00Joe RoganThey 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've proceeded in a certain way, it's very difficult to correct.
1:00:12Joe RoganCourse.
1:00:18Elon MuskIt's almost like people really wanted a panic. Dialina quite crazy.
1:00:25Joe RoganBut 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's.
1:00:35Joe RoganIt 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.
1:00:55Joe RoganThey're having to furlough doctors and nurses because there's no work for them.
1:01:01Elon MuskMost of the hospitals in the United States right now are half empty. In some cases, they're at 30% capacity.
1:01:06Joe RoganAnd is this because they've decided to forego elective procedures and normal things that people would have to go to the hospital for?
1:01:16Elon MuskYes. I mean, and we're not talking about just. Some of these elective procedures are quite important. Like, it's like you have a bad bladder disease.
1:01:24Joe RoganYeah, sure.
1:01:25Elon MuskAnd you need a triple bypass. It's like sort of elective, but if you don't get it done in time, you're going to die.
1:01:33Joe RoganYeah, elective is a weird word.
1:01:35Elon MuskYeah, elective. It's not like, hey, I want to. It's not like plastic surgery or something. It's like, it's more like my hip is. I'm in extreme pain because my hip's blown out or my knee and I don't want to go to the hospital.
1:01:49Elon MuskI can't go to the hospital. People in extreme pain, people that need a kidney, people that have quite serious issues that are choosing not to go out of fear.
1:02:00Elon MuskSo I think it's a problem. It's not good.
1:02:03Joe RoganIt seems like the state of public perception is shifting.
1:02:06Elon MuskIt is.
1:02:07Joe RoganPeople 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.
1:02:20Joe RoganStill dangerous, still worse than the flu, but not as bad as we thought or we feared it could be.
1:02:28Elon MuskObjectively, the mortality is much lower, like at least a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought.
1:02:41Joe RoganDo 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 move back to at least closer to where we used to be?
1:03:00Elon MuskWell, I think proper hygiene is a good thing, no matter what. You know, wash your hands and, you know, and if you're, if you're coughing, stay home or wear a mask.
1:03:09Elon MuskThis is not good. You know, like 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 that would be a great thing to adopt in general throughout the world.
1:03:25Elon MuskWashing your hands is also good.
1:03:27Joe RoganWell, that's the speculation. Why men get it more than women? Because men are disgusting.
1:03:31Elon MuskWe don't wash. Men are disgusting. It's true.
1:03:33Joe RoganIt's true. I admit it. All men in this room, we're all gross.
1:03:36Elon MuskYeah, let's go to the restroom. You can see us.
1:03:38Joe RoganYes, 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.
1:03:46Joe RoganNine years old. If I had a nine year old boy, do you think you would care? I wouldn't give a fuck if I washed my hands.
1:03:52Elon MuskTrue. So I think there's definitely some silver linings here in improved hygiene, an awareness of potential. Yes. And I think this has shaken up the system is somewhat maribond with a lot of layers of bureaucracy.
1:04:11Elon MuskAnd I think that we've cut through some of that bureaucracy and if we at some point there probably will be a pandemic with a high mortality rate. Debate about what's high, but I mean, something that's killing a lot of 20 year olds.
1:04:30Elon MuskLet's say if you had Ebola type
1:04:34Joe Roganof mortality, Spanish flu, something taxing some healthy people.
1:04:38Elon MuskYeah, but it's, yeah, like killing large numbers of young, healthy people. That's, you know, define that as like high mortality then. This is at least practice for something like that.
1:04:57Elon MuskAnd I think there's, you know, given it's a matter of time that there will be eventually some such pandemic.
1:05:05Joe RoganDo 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 the sense.
1:05:14Joe RoganI mean, people that didn't get lucky and died. Of course, I'm not disrespecting their death and their loss, but I'm saying overall, as a culture, as a human race, as a community, this is not as bad as it could have been.
1:05:26Joe RoganThis 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.
1:05:48Elon MuskYeah, 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.
1:06:09Elon MuskAnd our understanding of viruses of this nature has improved dramatically because of the attention that it's received. So there's definitely some, you know, a lot of silver linings here,
1:06:23Joe Roganpotentially, if we act correctly.
1:06:26Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. There's. I think there will be some amounts over lining here no matter what. Hopefully it can be more lining than less. So, yeah, this is kind of like a practice run for something that had a potentially that might in the future have a serious, like a really high mortality rate.
1:06:51Elon MuskAnd we kind of got to go through this without it being something that kills vast numbers of young, healthy people.
1:06:59Joe RoganYeah. When you made a series of tweets recently, you know, I don't remember the exact wording, but essentially you were saying free America now, Like, let's think that's it.
1:07:10Joe RoganThat Is it? Thank you. But the. You know, what was. How much do you pay attention to the response to that stuff? And what was the response? Like, did anybody go, hey, Elon, what the fuck are you doing?
1:07:21Joe RoganDid anybody pull you aside? Who does that? Who gets to do that to you?
1:07:28Elon MuskWell, I mean, I certainly get that there's no shortage negative feedback on Twitter.
1:07:33Joe RoganOh, yeah, Twitter. But I don't read that. Do you read it?
1:07:37Elon MuskWarzone?
1:07:38Joe RoganYou do sometimes, though, right? You do read it?
1:07:40Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I scroll through the comments. Like I said, it's a meme. Warzone.
1:07:45Joe RoganYeah.
1:07:45Elon MuskI mean, people knife you good on Twitter.
1:07:49Joe RoganSomething I enjoy about that. Just, 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.
1:08:08Joe RoganAnd it's like, there's something about these millions and millions of perspectives that you have to. You have to appreciate even if it comes your way, even if the shit storm hits you in the face.
1:08:23Elon MuskSure.
1:08:23Joe RoganYou 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.
1:08:32Joe RoganSure, 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.
1:08:39Joe RoganIn 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. They start gunning down things that are in front of them without any realization of what they're doing.
1:08:54Joe RoganThey have a rock. They see a window, they throw it. Whoa, look at that. I got Elon mad. Look at that. This guy got mad at me. I fucking took this person down on Twitter.
1:09:04Joe RoganI 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 just.
1:09:19Joe RoganI want to say that it's almost like, you know, you hit the button and things blow up. You're like, wow, what else can we blow up?
1:09:28Elon MuskSure. I mean, I've been in the Twitter war zone for a while here.
1:09:34Joe RoganTwitter war zone.
1:09:36Elon MuskYou know, it takes a lot to phase me at this point.
1:09:39Joe RoganYeah, that's good, too, right? Like, you develop a thick skin.
1:09:43Elon MuskYeah. You can't take it personally. These people don't actually know you. It's just like. It's like if you're Fighting a war and there's like some opposing soldier that shoots at you.
1:09:58Elon MuskIt's not like they hate you. They don't even know you.
1:10:00Joe RoganRight?
1:10:00Elon MuskYeah, yeah. So just think of it like that. Like they're firing bullets, whatever, but they don't know you. So don't take it personally.
1:10:08Joe RoganThere'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.
1:10:23Joe RoganIt's so crude. Especially when you're talking about something like Neuralink. He's 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.
1:10:41Joe RoganVersus tweets.
1:10:45Elon MuskWell, there'll always be some ambiguity, but tweets are. It's hard. Maybe there should be like a sarcasm flag or something.
1:10:54Joe RoganRight, right.
1:10:55Elon MuskOr I'm not just canning or whatever.
1:10:59Joe RoganSeems 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 was something about someone getting angry at an Onion article.
1:11:12Elon MuskWow, that's amazing.
1:11:13Joe RoganYou know what I mean? Where they don't realize what it is. There's something fun about that for everybody else.
1:11:18Elon MuskYeah, I know. It's pretty great. Might be the best news source.
1:11:23Joe RoganDo you know who Titania McGrath is? Hilarious. It's Andrew Boyle. He's a British fellow, brilliant guy who's been on the podcast before, and he has this fictional character, this pseudonym, Titania McGrath, who's like this, the ultimate social justice warrior.
1:11:42Elon MuskIs this like a female avatar or something like that?
1:11:45Joe RoganYes, 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.
1:11:54Joe RoganHe 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.
1:12:06Joe RoganAnd then I love reading the people that don't recognize that they get angry and that they really. There's a lot of people that just get really furious. There's some fun to that.
1:12:21Joe RoganThere's some fun to the not picking up on the true nature of the signal.
1:12:28Elon MuskI find Twitter quite engaging.
1:12:31Joe RoganHow do you have the time?
1:12:34Elon MuskI mean, it's like five minutes every couple hours type thing. It's not like I'm Sitting on an
1:12:40Joe Roganall day, but even five minutes every couple hours, if those are bad five minutes, they might be bouncing around your head for the next 30.
1:12:48Elon MuskYeah, you have to, you know, 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.
1:13:00Elon MuskIt's not like they. Like I said, it's not like they know you. It's like, don't take it personally.
1:13:05Joe RoganDid you feel the same way when CNN had that stupid shit about ventilators with you? I found that both confusing and.
1:13:15Elon MuskYeah, that was annoying.
1:13:16Joe RoganIt was annoying. 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.
1:13:28Elon MuskYeah, I don't think CNN is that.
1:13:31Joe RoganI think used to be.
1:13:32Elon MuskUsed to be, yeah. What do you think's the best source of just, like, information out there?
1:13:38Joe RoganThat's a good question.
1:13:40Elon MuskLet's say you're just like average citizen trying to just get the facts, you know, figure out what's going on, like how to live your life and just looking for what's going on in the world.
1:13:53Elon MuskIt's hard to find something that isn't, you know, that's good. Not trying to push some partisan angle. Not trying to. Not sort of doing sloppy reporting and just aiming for the most number of clicks and trying to maximize ad dollars and that kind of thing.
1:14:15Elon MuskYou're just trying to figure out what's going on. It's like, I'm hard pressed. Where do you go?
1:14:21Joe RoganI 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% because also there's individuals that are writing these stories.
1:14:36Elon MuskExactly.
1:14:36Joe RoganAnd that's seems to be the problems. 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 got to put everything through this filter of where is this person coming from?
1:14:53Joe RoganDo they have political biases? Do they have social biases? Do they. Are they. Are they upset because of their own shortcomings and are they projecting this into the story?
1:15:03Elon MuskSure.
1:15:04Joe RoganIt's so hard. Yeah.
1:15:06Elon MuskI think, like, maybe just trying to find individual reporters that you think are good and kind of following them as opposed to the publication.
1:15:13Joe RoganI go with whatever Matt Taibbi says.
1:15:15Elon MuskOkay.
1:15:16Joe RoganI trust him more than anybody.
1:15:17Elon MuskAll right.
1:15:17Joe RoganMatt Taibbi's onto something. I just. He's. As far as investigative reporters in particular, the way he reported the savings and loan crisis, the way he reports everything. I just.
1:15:28Joe RoganI just listen to him. Above most. Above most. He's my go to guy.
1:15:33Elon MuskAll right, I'll check it out.
1:15:34Joe RoganAs Rolling Stones articles are his stuff on the savings and loan crisis. Just like, what in the fuck? And you know, and he wasn't, you know, he's not an economist by any stretch of the imagination.
1:15:43Joe RoganSo he had a really sort of deeply embed himself in that world to try to understand it and to be able to report on it.
1:15:49Elon MuskYep.
1:15:50Joe RoganAnd with. Also with a humorous flair now.
1:15:52Elon MuskThat's nice.
1:15:53Joe RoganYeah,
1:15:56Elon Muskyeah.
1:15:57Joe RoganThere's not that many of them. There's.
1:16:00Elon MuskIt's hard.
1:16:00Joe RoganAnd not a location where like, we are no bullshit, you know, we are no bullshit dot com. Like the one place where you can say, this is what we know.
1:16:10Joe RoganThis is what we don't know. This is what we think. Not this person's wrong. And here's why. Like, oh, God damn it, you know, I can't. You don't know.
1:16:19Joe RoganThere'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 and there's so much that's open to interpret.
1:16:38Joe RoganThere's so many things because it's all happening in real time. Right. And like, particularly right now in California. We're in stage two tomorrow or Friday, two days from now, stage two, retail stores opening up.
1:16:49Joe RoganThings are changing. Like, 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.
1:17:05Joe RoganIt'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.
1:17:16Elon MuskI mean, in general, I think that's like, we should be concerned about anything. That's a massive infringement on our civil liberty. Civil liberties.
1:17:26Joe RoganYes.
1:17:26Elon MuskYou know, so it's like you got to put a lot of weight on that. A lot of people died to, you know, win independence for the country and fight for the democracy that we have.
1:17:38Elon MuskAnd, you know, we should treasure that and not. And not give up our liberties too easily. I think we probably did that actually.
1:17:48Joe RoganWell, I like what you said when you said that it should be a choice and that to require people to stay home, require people to not Go to work, require, and to arrest people for trying to make a living.
1:18:03Joe RoganThis all seems wrong, and I think it's a wrong approach. It's a. It's an infantilization of the society that Daddy's gonna tell you what to do.
1:18:14Elon MuskFundamentally a violation of the Constitution.
1:18:17Joe RoganYes.
1:18:17Elon MuskFreedom of assembly. And, you know, it's just. I mean, I don't think these things stand up in court. Really?
1:18:24Joe RoganThey're arresting people for protesting.
1:18:26Elon MuskYeah, yeah.
1:18:27Joe RoganBecause they're protesting and violating social distancing and these mandates that tell people that they have to stay home.
1:18:33Elon MuskYeah, these were definitely not stand up. You know, if the Supreme Court hear. I mean, it's obviously complete violation.
1:18:41Joe RoganRight? 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. Yeah.
1:18:51Elon MuskI 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.
1:19:01Elon MuskIf 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.
1:19:07Joe RoganAnd 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 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.
1:19:30Elon MuskYes. I mean, there's a strong downside to this.
1:19:34Joe RoganYeah.
1:19:35Elon MuskSo, yeah, I just believe, like, if this is a free country, you should be allowed to do what you want as long as it does not endanger others.
1:19:46Joe RoganBut 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's certain people that will not be okay because of your actions.
1:20:01Joe RoganThey might get exposed to this thing that we don't have a vaccine for. We don't have universally accepted treatment for that. We need to. There's two arguments, Right. The one argument is we need to keep going, protect the weak, protect the sick, but let's open up the economy.
1:20:18Joe RoganThe 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 a universal income, universal basic income plan or Something like that, to feed people during the.
1:20:36Joe RoganDuring this time when we make this
1:20:38Elon Musktransition, 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.
1:20:52Elon MuskThat'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 everybody and things will be fine is not true.
1:21:08Elon MuskObviously, some people have this absurd, like, view that the economy is like some magic horn of plenty. Like, it just makes stuff. Stuff, you know, whatever. Just. There's a magic horn of plenty.
1:21:24Elon MuskAnd the goods and services, they just come from this magic horn of plenty. And then if, like, if somebody has more stuff than somebody else's because they took more from this magic horn o plenty.
1:21:33Elon MuskNow, let me just break it to 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,
1:21:56Elon MuskMedical treatment, getting your teeth fixed, there's no stuff. I become detached from reality. You can't just legislate money and solve these things. If you don't make stuff, there is no stuff.
1:22:18Elon MuskObviously, we'll run out of the stores, run out of the. You know, the machine just grinds to a halt.
1:22:28Joe RoganBut 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 hunker down, if we didn't shelter in place, if we didn't quarantine ourselves or lock down.
1:22:48Joe RoganDo 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?
1:23:00Elon MuskMaybe, 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.
1:23:13Elon MuskThis virus originated in Wuhan. There's like 100,000 people a day leaving Wuhan. So went everywhere very fast throughout China, throughout the rest of the world, and the fatality rate was low.
1:23:34Joe RoganDon't you think, though it's difficult to appreciate, it's difficult to filter the information that's coming out of China to accurately, really get a real, true representation of what happened.
1:23:48Joe RoganThe propaganda machine is very strong. The World Health Organization appears to have been complicit with a lot of their propaganda.
1:23:57Elon MuskThe 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.
1:24:10Elon MuskSo we know if they are able to make stuff or not, we know if they have issues or not. Then China is back at full steam. And many, pretty much every US company has some significant number of supplies in China.
1:24:28Elon MuskSo, you know, if they're able to, you know, provide things or not, or if there's, you know, high mortality rate. Tesla has 7,000 people in China, so zero people died.
1:24:45Elon MuskZero.
1:24:48Joe RoganOkay, so that's a real statistic that's coming from. Yeah, yeah. You know those people.
1:24:53Elon MuskYeah. Literally we run payroll.
1:24:55Joe RoganDo you think there's a danger of this? Same folks are there?
1:25:00Elon MuskYeah, still there.
1:25:01Joe RoganDo 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. It's his. And then anything he does is sort of.
1:25:12Joe RoganThere's people that are going to oppose it and come up with some reasons why he's wrong, particularly in this climate. Whereas as we're leading up to November and you know, 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?
1:25:34Elon MuskI think there has been some. This has been politicized, you know, in both directions really. So it's. Which is not great.
1:25:53Elon MuskYeah. But like I said, separate. Apart from that, I think there's the question of like, you know, where do civil liberties fit in this picture? You know?
1:26:00Joe RoganYeah.
1:26:01Elon MuskAnd what can the government make you do, what can they make you not do and what's okay.
1:26:07Joe RoganRight.
1:26:09Elon MuskAnd yeah, I think we went too far.
1:26:15Joe RoganDo 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.
1:26:31Joe RoganIt'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 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.
1:26:55Elon MuskYeah.
1:26:55Joe RoganThat we respect and appreciate.
1:26:58Elon MuskAbsolutely. 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, 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.
1:27:27Elon MuskYes, 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.
1:27:38Elon MuskSo just to give people better information, definitely diagnosed with COVID or had Covid like symptoms, we're conflating those two. So it looks bigger than it is. Then if somebody dies, was Covid a primary cause of the death or not?
1:27:59Elon MuskI mean, if somebody has Covid, gets eaten by a shark, we find their arm, their arm has Covid, it's gonna get recorded as a COVID death.
1:28:09Joe RoganIs that real? Basically not that bad. But heart attacks, strokes, get hit by a bus, cancer.
1:28:17Elon MuskIf you get hit by a bus, go to the. Go to the hospital and die, and they find that you have Covid, you will be recorded as a COVID death.
1:28:24Joe RoganWhy would they do that, though?
1:28:27Elon MuskWell, right now, so, you know, the road to hell is paid with good intentions. I mean, it's mostly paid with bad intentions, but there is, you know, some good intentions, paving stones in there, too.
1:28:39Elon MuskAnd 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.
1:29:00Elon MuskSo hospitals are in a bind right now. A bunch of hospitals, they're furloughing doctors, as you were mentioning. They're. If your hospital is half full, you're. It's hard. Hard to make ends meet.
1:29:12Elon MuskSo 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. Or I got to fire some doctors.
1:29:24Elon MuskSo what's the. What's. This is a tough moral quandary. It's like, what. What you can do? That's the situation. We have no.
1:29:36Joe RoganWhat. What's the way out of this? What do you think is like if. If you had the president's ear or if people wanted to just listen to you openly?
1:29:44Joe RoganWhat do you think is the way out of this?
1:29:46Elon MuskLet's clear up the data. Clear up the data. So like I said, something should be recorded as Covid Only if it is. Somebody has been tested, has received a positive, positive COVID test.
1:29:57Elon MuskNot if they simply have symptoms, one of the, like, 100 symptoms. And then if it is a COVID death, it must be separated. Was Covid a primary reason for death, or did they also have stage three cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and got hit by a bus and had Covid?
1:30:16Joe RoganYeah, I've read all this stuff about that, about them diagnosing people as a COVID death despite other variables.
1:30:25Elon MuskThis is not a. This is not a question. This is what is occurring.
1:30:30Joe RoganAnd where are you reading this from? Where are you getting this from?
1:30:34Elon MuskThe public health officials have literally said this. This is not a question mark.
1:30:39Joe RoganRight. But this is never. 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.
1:30:47Elon MuskYes.
1:30:48Joe RoganYeah. 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.
1:30:59Joe RoganAnd financial incentives.
1:31:02Elon MuskYes. 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 patience to pay everyone without furloughing doctors and firing staff, and they're potentially going bankrupt.
1:31:27Elon MuskSo 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.
1:31:41Elon MuskIn 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, right.
1:31:54Joe RoganThere's so many different things that you could attribute to Covid, too. There's so many symptoms. There's diarrhea, headaches, dehydration, cough.
1:32:03Elon MuskYes. But to be clear, you don't even need to have gotten a Covid diagnosis. You simply need to have had one of the many symptoms and then have died for some reason.
1:32:16Elon MuskAnd 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's super high and not going down like it should be.
1:32:28Elon MuskAnd now. So we should keep whatever, you know, keep the shelter in place, stuff there, and keep people in their home, you know, confine people in their homes. So we need to break out of this.
1:32:44Elon MuskWe're stuck in a loop.
1:32:46Joe RoganYeah.
1:32:47Elon MuskAnd I think the way to break out of this loop is to have clarity of information.
1:32:51Joe RoganClarity of information will certainly help. But altering perceptions, public perception 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.
1:33:05Joe RoganI mean, right where, you know, when you look around April 5, April 6, people were really freaking out. But here we are, May and May people are relaxing a little bit.
1:33:17Elon MuskYes.
1:33:17Joe RoganThey're realizing, like, hey, I actually know a couple people that got it. It was just a cough. And I know some people that got it where nothing happened.
1:33:24Elon MuskI know a lot of people who got it. I know zero people who died. I mean, if I know a lot of people who got it.
1:33:34Joe RoganYeah. It's not what we feared. We feared something much worse.
1:33:38Elon MuskThat's correct.
1:33:39Joe RoganSo the adjustment's difficult to make. So you said, first of all, we need real data.
1:33:43Elon MuskWe need. Just parse out the data. Don't lump it all together. And if you give people just parse out the data, better, clearer information about. Like I said, was this an actual Covid diagnosis or was it a.
1:34:01Elon MuskDid 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?
1:34:13Elon MuskDid 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.
1:34:22Joe RoganYeah.
1:34:23Elon MuskIf you're going to die, you're going to have shortness of breath, weakness, and you might cough a little.
1:34:29Joe RoganSo was it quantified? Was it.
1:34:31Elon MuskYeah, that person. Did they actually have a COVID test and did the test come back positive? And then if they died, did they die where Covid was? It didn't have to be the main cause, but it was a significant contributor to their death or was it not a significant contributor to the death?
1:34:49Joe RoganRight. It's not as simple as just because you had Covid. Covid killed you.
1:34:55Elon MuskDefinitely not. Right? Yeah, yeah. 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.
1:35:04Joe RoganWell, that's what's so weird about this.
1:35:05Elon MuskAbsurd.
1:35:06Joe RoganIt'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.
1:35:17Joe RoganDidn't take a break. Oh, Covid's got this. 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.
1:35:26Joe RoganNo, the flu's still here, killing people.
1:35:28Elon MuskI mean, every year in the world, several hundred thousand people die directly of the flu.
1:35:33Joe RoganYeah.
1:35:34Elon MuskNot tangentially.
1:35:36Joe RoganRight. Not every 61,000 in this country last year.
1:35:40Elon MuskYeah. And we're only 5% of the world.
1:35:42Joe RoganAnd then there's cigarettes, so.
1:35:44Elon MuskOh, man, cigarettes. Cigarettes will really kill you.
1:35:46Joe RoganThat's a weird one. Right. We're terrified of this disease that we're projected could potentially kill 100, if not 200,000Americans this year with cigarettes. Kill 500,000, and you don't hear a peep out of any politician.
1:36:01Joe RoganThere'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.
1:36:11Elon MuskYeah. I mean, long time. Like, several years ago, or Maybe longer than 10 years ago, I helped make a movie called thank youk for Smoking.
1:36:19Joe RoganOh, I saw that.
1:36:20Elon MuskYeah.
1:36:26Elon MuskYeah,
1:36:31Joe RoganYeah.
1:36:31Elon MuskIt's crazy. Smoking, barbecuing Atlantics is bad. Just bad news. It's not good. You know, turning your lungs into smoked beef and not great. So. Yeah. But Tylenol also, by the way, also kills a lot of people.
1:36:49Joe RoganYeah. What is the number for Tylenol over here?
1:36:52Elon MuskI'm not sure the exact number, but I believe until the opioid crisis, I believe Tylenol was the number one killer of all drugs. Because.
1:37:00Joe RoganWow.
1:37:01Elon MuskBasically, it's. If you have. If you get drunk and take a lot of Tylenol, Acetaminophen, essentially, it causes liver failure. So people would, like, get wasted and then have a headache and then pop a tonic.
1:37:16Elon MuskTylenol. It's curtains. Wow. Yeah.
1:37:19Joe RoganCurtains is a funny word.
1:37:20Elon MuskYeah. But nobody's raging against Tylenol.
1:37:26Joe RoganYeah, it's weird. Acceptable deaths are weird. And that's the real the slippery slope about this. People shaming people for wanting to go back to work. You know, other people are gonna die.
1:37:37Joe RoganWell, if you drive, do you drive? Well, you should stop driving because people die from driving. So, you know, you definitely should fill up all the swimming pools, because, like, 50 people die every day in this country from swimming.
1:37:50Joe RoganSo let's not swim anymore.
1:37:52Elon MuskWhat is the really dangerous.
1:37:54Joe RoganWe need to chop down all the coconut trees.
1:37:56Elon MuskStop water.
1:37:57Joe RoganCoconuts kill 150 people every year.
1:37:59Elon MuskYes.
1:37:59Joe RoganCut down all the coconut trees. We need those people.
1:38:02Elon MuskYes.
1:38:02Joe RoganIt's at a Certain point in time, it's like, yeah, we're vulnerable and we're also. We're also. We have a finite existence.
1:38:11Elon MuskNo matter what we do, nobody lives forever. Right. I mean, the, I mean, I think you want to look at say, deaths as like the. But for this disease, whatever, they would have lived X number of years.
1:38:25Joe RoganYeah.
1:38:25Elon MuskYou know, so if somebody dies when they're 20 and could have lived until 80, they lost 60 years. But if somebody dies when they're 80 and they might have lived till 81, they lost one year.
1:38:37Joe RoganYes.
1:38:37Elon MuskSo it's like how many life years were lost is probably the right metric to use.
1:38:45Joe RoganI 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 test takes an average of 10 years off people's lives and we should appreciate those 10 years.
1:38:58Joe RoganAnd then someone else said, not true. I'm sure it's not true.
1:39:01Elon MuskYeah, definitely.
1:39:02Joe RoganIt's the Twitter. But someone else said the average age of people who die from COVID is older than the average age people die.
1:39:12Elon MuskIt's very. Let's just say it's like it's about the same.
1:39:16Joe RoganThat'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.
1:39:29Elon MuskYes.
1:39:31Joe RoganBut
1:39:33Elon MuskI mean, actually if this. I think a lesson to be taken here that I think is quite important is that if you have great grandparents and their age of grandparents, really be careful with, with any kind of flu or cold or something that is not dangerous to kids or young adults, but is dangerous to the elderly.
1:40:01Elon MuskBasically, if your kid's got a runny nose, they should stay away from their grandparents no matter what it is. The things that are. Where a young immune system is.
1:40:14Elon MuskHas no problem and an older one has a problem. And in fact a lot of the deaths are just. Are literally. It's tragic, but they're intra family. It's the little kid had a cold or flu and give it to grandpa.
1:40:32Elon MuskYeah, yeah. They have the family gathering and they don't know that this is a big deal. But it's just important to remember when you get old, you're. Your immune system's just not that strong.
1:40:42Elon MuskAnd so just be careful with your loved ones who are elderly.
1:40:48Joe RoganAnd I think there is some true objective understanding of the immune system and the ways to boost that immune system. And I really think that information should be, that should be distributed in a way, a non judgmental way.
1:41:05Joe RoganBut like, look, this is, this is a way that we can all, like, 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.
1:41:15Joe RoganAnd maybe we could teach this to our grandparents and our parents and people that are vulnerable. You know, vitamin C, heat shock proteins, all these different variables that we know contribute to a stronger immune system.
1:41:30Elon MuskYeah. Actually just a thing that is tough. As you get older, it's hard to. You tend to put on weight. Suddenly that's happening with me, you know, as the older I get, I'm like damn sure it's harder to stay lean.
1:41:50Elon MuskThat's for sure. And so actually being overweight is a big deal. It's a fact.
1:41:59Joe RoganWell, yeah, the New York hospital said it was the number one factor for severe Covid symptoms was obesity. That was number one factor.
1:42:08Elon MuskIt is. That's. Yes, exactly.
1:42:12Joe RoganBut it's also. We live in a world where people want to be sensitive to other people's feelings. So we don't want to bring up the fact that being fat is bad for you.
1:42:23Joe RoganIt's a judgment on.
1:42:24Elon MuskYour food's great. Yeah.
1:42:26Joe RoganI do love food.
1:42:28Elon MuskYeah. And I mean, I mean, to be totally frank, I mean, speak for myself, I'd rather eat tasty food and live a shorter life.
1:42:37Joe RoganYeah. Those moments of enjoying a great meal and then even talking about it, they're valuable, they're worth something. Yeah. It's not. We don't want to eat Soylent Green and live to be 160.
1:42:50Elon MuskTasty food is great. It's one of the best things about life.
1:42:53Joe RoganIt really is. Yeah. 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.
1:43:08Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know what advice to give. Like maybe smaller. Have the tasty food with smaller amounts of it. Yes.
1:43:20Joe RoganYeah. And I think regulated feeding window is
1:43:24Elon Muskreally the way to go.
1:43:24Joe RoganSome sort of an 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.
1:43:36Joe RoganWell, 16 hours, yeah.
1:43:38Elon MuskSo like at night or.
1:43:40Joe RoganYeah, 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 in, I'm like, okay, got an hour before I can eat.
1:43:52Joe RoganAnd so anything in between that is just water or coffee, actually, you know,
1:43:58Elon Muskthis 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. And it can actually cause heartburn that you don't even know is happening.
1:44:11Elon MuskAnd that subtle heartburn affects your sleep because you're horizontal and your body's 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.
1:44:29Elon MuskIt's like one of the worst things you could do.
1:44:31Joe RoganSome of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, I've done that. Particularly after comedy shows. I'm starving. I come home and I'll eat, and then I go to bed and I just feel like shit.
1:44:41Joe RoganAnd I wake up in the middle of the night.
1:44:42Elon MuskIt's going to crush your sleep and it's going to damage your pyloric sphincter and your esophagus and it's. So, in fact, drinking and then going to sleep, that's one of the worst things you could do.
1:44:57Elon MuskSo just try to avoid drinking and eating booze. Exactly.
1:45:08Elon MuskSmall amounts of alcohol that evidence suggests it's not doesn't have a negative effect on it.
1:45:15Joe RoganI put it in the same category as delicious food. It kind of makes things a little more fun. Yeah, yeah, I like it.
1:45:20Elon MuskI mean, some of the people who've lived the longest. There's a woman in France who I think maybe has the record or close to it, and she had a glass of wine every day.
1:45:31Elon MuskSmall amounts is fine. But, yeah, this is like, I learned this, like, quite late in life. It's like, just avoid having alcohol and avoid eating at least two or three hours before going to sleep.
1:45:45Elon MuskAnd your quality of life will. Your quality of sleep will improve. Your general health will improve a lot for sure. It's a big deal and I think not widely known.
1:45:55Joe RoganDo you have time to exercise
1:45:59Elon Muska little bit?
1:46:00Joe RoganDo you have a trainer or anything?
1:46:03Elon MuskI do, although I haven't seen him for a while. But, yeah, especially if I'm out, like, you know, say, working on Starship or something in South Texas. And I'm just living in my.
1:46:17Elon MuskI got a little house there in Boca, Chica Village, and don't have much to do, so. Or like, I'm working and then I'll just lift some weights or something maybe.
1:46:31Elon MuskLike, I don't. Some people love running. I don't Love running.
1:46:35Joe RoganWhat do you like to do exercise wise?
1:46:39Elon MuskTo be totally frank, I wouldn't exercise at all if I could, but I prefer not to exercise. But if I'm going to exercise and lift some weights and. And then kind of run on the treadmill and maybe watch a show that, you know, if there's a compelling show that like pulls you in.
1:46:57Joe RoganRight, right, right. Yeah, that's a good thing to do. Yeah. Watch a good movie or.
1:47:01Elon MuskYeah, yeah.
1:47:02Joe RoganEpisode of Black Mirror or something like that.
1:47:03Elon MuskIt's great, man. Don't watch Black Mirror before going to bed either.
1:47:06Joe RoganWell, don't watch Black Mirror today. It's too fucking accurate.
1:47:10Elon MuskYeah, exactly. It's like, wait, this already happened in real life?
1:47:13Joe RoganYeah, it's too close.
1:47:15Elon MuskIt's too close.
1:47:16Joe RoganWell, even didn't Jamie. Didn't you say that the guy who makes Black Mirror.
1:47:20Elon MuskMy mic's off. Yeah, he said it's not a good time to start season six.
1:47:24Joe RoganYeah, he wants to hold off because reality is Black Mirror. It's like he's gonna have to like 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.
1:47:43Elon MuskI did martial arts when I was a kid.
1:47:44Joe RoganDid you? What'd you do?
1:47:48Elon MuskI did taekwondo, I did karate Kai. Kushingai Karate.
1:47:52Joe RoganAll right, cool.
1:47:53Elon MuskAnd judo.
1:47:56Joe RoganOh, so you really branched out.
1:47:59Elon MuskYeah, so I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu briefly. Did you?
1:48:08Joe RoganWhere?
1:48:08Elon MuskIn Palo Alto.
1:48:09Joe RoganReally?
1:48:10Elon MuskYeah.
1:48:10Joe RoganOh, no shit. I was gonna suggest that. That's a great thing for people. Like, that's the thing about Jiu Jitsu, if you look at it from the outside, you think, oh, a bunch of meatheads strangling each other.
1:48:22Joe RoganBut there's. Some of the smartest people I know are Jiu Jitsu fiends because they, they get, they. 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.
1:48:38Joe RoganLike you're having an argument with someone with some sort of a physical language. 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.
1:48:53Joe RoganThat's really also an accurate analogy of what Jiu Jitsu is.
1:48:57Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I kind of. I mean probably like a lot of people for the way early day, the first MMA fights and hoist Gracie and it's like incredible and it's like Technique.
1:49:09Elon MuskYeah. Yeah. It was like, you know, winning against people way bigger and that kind of thing. It was just like, whoa, this is cool.
1:49:15Joe RoganIt 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.
1:49:27Joe RoganMost of the time that's not real,
1:49:29Elon Muskespecially if they know martial arts, too. It's like, oh, no.
1:49:33Joe RoganYes. But in the ufc, when Hoist Gracie off of his back, was strangling Dan Severin with his legs, you're like, holy shit.
1:49:42Elon MuskYeah.
1:49:42Joe RoganThis 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.
1:49:49Elon MuskYeah.
1:49:50Joe RoganAmazing.
1:49:50Elon MuskYeah, it was amazing. I mean, Hoist got beaten up pretty bad in some of those.
1:49:55Joe RoganWell, he definitely had some rough fights, but he won. He won.
1:49:58Elon MuskYeah.
1:49:59Joe RoganHe's a legend. And. 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.
1:50:13Joe RoganAnd 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.
1:50:23Joe RoganAnd you want to develop strength and conditioning just so that you could 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.
1:50:37Elon MuskSure.
1:50:38Joe RoganThat's really what it's like.
1:50:39Elon MuskYeah, totally.
1:50:40Joe RoganYeah. When am I going to go?
1:50:43Elon MuskMy kids, I should say I sent my kids to Jiu Jitsu since they were, like, I don't know, six. Oh, really? Yeah.
1:50:51Joe RoganOh, that's awesome. It's a great thing to learn.
1:50:54Elon MuskIt really is like a good.
1:50:56Joe RoganYeah, maybe something like. I mean, even if you just have someone that hits the. Holds the pads for you, like, you get a workout in and it'll be fun.
1:51:05Joe RoganWhen am I going to be able to buy one of them Roadsters? When's that happening?
1:51:09Elon MuskWell, I can't, you know, say exactly when, but we got to get it. You know, this is Covid things kind of throwing us for a loop, I'm sure. So, not to blame everything under Covid, but, you know, certainly set us back on progress for some number of months.
1:51:37Elon MuskI mean, things we've got to get done ahead of Roadster are, you know, ramping up model Y production. That'll be a great, great car. It is a great car.
1:51:49Elon MuskGetting the Berlin gigafactory built and also building y getting expanding the Shanghai factory, which is going great. And the cybertruck semi truck Roadster. Roadster's kind of like dessert. So we got to get the, you know, meat and potatoes and greens and stuff, you know, like.
1:52:18Joe RoganBut roadster comes before cybertruck.
1:52:24Elon MuskI mean, I think we should do cybertruck first before roadster.
1:52:29Joe RoganInteresting. I'm not mad at that.
1:52:31Elon MuskSome of the things for Roadster, they're, you know, the tri motor, plaid powertrain. We're going to have that in Model S. So that's like one of the ingredients that's needed for a roadster is the plaid powertrain, the more advanced battery pack, that kind of thing.
1:52:48Joe RoganI wanted to ask you about this before. I forgot. There's a company that's called Apex, is taking your Teslas and they're giving it a wider base and wider tires and a little bit more advanced suspension.
1:53:01Elon MuskSure.
1:53:01Joe RoganHow do you feel about that?
1:53:03Elon MuskDo you work with them?
1:53:04Joe RoganAre you cool with those people?
1:53:05Elon MuskYeah, I mean, go ahead.
1:53:08Joe RoganThey're jazz and stuff up with carbon fiber and doing a bunch of interior choices. You're cool with it. You can't with that. You don't have time. So is it good that someone comes along and has a sort of special operation?
1:53:20Elon MuskYeah, I got no problem.
1:53:20Joe RoganThat's what it's called, right? It's like jma. Is it called Apex? Yeah, I got a unplugged performance S. Apex. That's right. Unplug performance. Yeah.
1:53:28Elon MuskYeah. You could for sure, you know, lighten the car up and improve to tire traction.
1:53:35Joe RoganHave you seen that company stuff, what they do?
1:53:37Elon MuskI don't know them specifically, but it's pretty dope.
1:53:40Joe RoganYeah, 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. Ooh la la.
1:53:47Elon MuskLook. That looks pretty nice.
1:53:48Joe RoganYeah, it does. Now the. The plaid version of the Model S, you. Are you going to widen the track and doing a bunch of. Do a bunch of different.
1:53:58Joe RoganI know you guys are testing at the Nurburgring. Can you not talk about that?
1:54:01Elon MuskWell, I think we got to leave that for, you know, proper sort of product unveil.
1:54:06Joe RoganI understand. Yeah, I understand. Last time you were here, you convinced me to buy a Tesla. I bought it and it's fucking insane.
1:54:13Elon MuskOh, great. Glad you like it.
1:54:15Joe RoganI don't. It's not just pretty fun. It's like I The way I've described it is it makes other cars seem stupid. They just seem dumb. Like, I love dumb things.
1:54:24Joe RoganI love dumb cars. Like, I love campfires. I love campfires. I have a 1993 Porsche that's air cooled.
1:54:31Elon MuskSure.
1:54:32Joe RoganIt's like, it's not that fast. It's really slow compared to Tesla.
1:54:35Elon MuskYeah. Really. It's really quite slow. But.
1:54:37Joe RoganYeah, but there's something engaging about the mechanical. This was like the. The gears and it's very. 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 just goes wee.
1:54:53Joe RoganIt just. It like violates time.
1:54:57Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. You've tried it, like, ludicrous plus and stuff like that.
1:55:01Joe RoganOh, yeah.
1:55:02Elon MuskCool. Cool. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We just did a software update where it'll do, like, a cheetah stance. So. Yeah. So it's because it's got a dynamic air suspension, so it lowers the back.
1:55:13Joe RoganOh, Jesus.
1:55:14Elon MuskYeah, just like a sprinter, basically.
1:55:16Joe RoganRight.
1:55:16Elon MuskLike, what do you do if you're a sprinter? You hunker down. And then. So I shaved like a tenth of a second off zero to 60. I mean, like, you know, it was pretty fun.
1:55:26Joe RoganIt's so. I've taken so many people and I'm like. 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
1:55:34Elon Muskthat I've never felt anything like it.
1:55:35Joe RoganIt's confusing.
1:55:37Elon MuskYeah, it really is.
1:55:39Joe RoganThe instant torque. The instant torque and just the sheer acceleration is baffling.
1:55:44Elon MuskIt's baffling.
1:55:45Joe RoganIt's baffling.
1:55:45Elon MuskThey've never felt it.
1:55:46Joe RoganNo.
1:55:46Elon MuskIt's faster than falling.
1:55:48Joe RoganIt's crazy. It's so fast. It's a roller coaster. And my family yells at me when I stomp the gas. Like, I tell my kids, I'm like, you want to feel it?
1:55:56Joe RoganYou want to feel it? Like, do it, do it, do it. My wife's like, don't do it.
1:56:01Elon MuskYeah.
1:56:01Joe RoganAnd even if I just do it on the highway for a couple of seconds.
1:56:03Elon MuskYeah, it's very fun.
1:56:04Joe RoganExciting.
1:56:04Elon MuskYeah, it's very fun. It's like having our own roller coaster on tap, you know, it really is
1:56:08Joe Roganlike a roller coaster on tap. Yeah. Without the loop de loops, but it's the pinning to your seat. It seems like you're not supposed to be able to experience that from some sort of a, you know, a consumer vehicle that you can just.
1:56:20Joe RoganA regular person could Buy if you have the money. It seems too, too crazy. And then the idea of this roadster is a half of a second faster than that.
1:56:30Joe RoganYeah, that's madness.
1:56:33Elon MuskWell, with that road, with the roadster, we're going to do some things that are kind of unfair. So we're going to take some things from like, you know, from kind of like Rocket World and put them on a car, so.
1:56:44Joe RoganOh, I read about that. Explain that. Like, what do you.
1:56:47Elon MuskWell, like I said, we can't do the product unveil right here, but, but it's gonna do some things that aren't fair. And the, when we do the unveil of the roadster, let me just say that anyone who's been waiting, they won't be sorry.
1:57:03Elon MuskIt's. They won't be sorry.
1:57:04Joe RoganOh, sure. Well, anything that goes 0 to 60. Was it 1.9? Is that the 0 to 60?
1:57:09Elon MuskThat's the base model.
1:57:10Joe RoganThat's what's the top of the food chain model. Okay, okay. Faster than that.
1:57:16Elon MuskLet's just say faster than that.
1:57:18Joe RoganYeah, 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?
1:57:29Elon MuskWell, yeah, I mean, I know
1:57:34Joe Roganyou
1:57:34Elon Muskknow that our demos are authentic, so I was not expecting that. And I, and then I think I muttered under my breath,
1:57:44Joe Roganyou didn't get mad though? You didn't Steve Jobs it?
1:57:49Elon MuskNo, I definitely swore, but I didn't think the mic would pick it up. But it did. So we practiced this behind the scenes at Tesla. We don't do tons of practice for our demos because we're working on the, like we're building new technologies and improving the fundamental product.
1:58:16Elon MuskSo we're not spending like doing like hundreds of practice things or anything like that. We don't have time for that. But just hours before the demo, both Franz is head of design and I were in the studio throwing steel balls at the window and just bouncing right off like, okay, this seems pretty good.
1:58:38Elon MuskSeems like we got it. Okay. And then we think what happened was that when Franz hit the door with the sledgehammer, you know, sort of like this is like exoskeleton high strength hardened steel.
1:58:56Elon MuskYou can literally take wind up with a sledgehammer, 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, it's game over.
1:59:18Elon MuskSo then when you threw the bowl, that's what cracked the glass. It didn't go through, though.
1:59:25Joe RoganIt didn't go through.
1:59:26Elon MuskThat's true.
1:59:26Joe RoganThat'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.
1:59:35Elon MuskYeah, yeah.
1:59:36Joe RoganYou live, you learn.
1:59:37Elon MuskYeah, exactly.
1:59:39Joe RoganListen, 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.
1:59:46Joe RoganI appreciate everything you do, man. I'm glad you're out there, and I really appreciate you coming down here and sharing your perspective.
1:59:54Elon MuskWell, I think you got a great show. Thanks for having me on.
1:59:56Joe RoganThank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. Elon Musk, ladies and gentlemen. Good night.
2:00:02Elon MuskAll right, that should get a little. That should get a little play.
2:00:06Joe RoganThat was great.