← BackMay 7, 2020The Joe Rogan ExperienceWithElon MuskJoe Rogan0:00 / 0:00CC1×YouTubeThe Joe Rogan ExperienceMay 7, 2020Elon Musk's second appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast: Neuralink, AI, SpaceX and more.Elon Musk's second appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast: Neuralink, AI, SpaceX and more.TranscriptJoe RoganWelcome back.Elon MuskHere we go.Joe RoganGabe, great to see you. And congratulations.Elon MuskThank you.Joe 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. You were born during a weird time.Elon MuskThat's for sure.Joe RoganThat is for sure. The. Probably the weirdest that I can remember.Elon MuskYeah. Yeah. And he was born on May 4th,Joe Roganand that's hilarious, too.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganMade a fourth be with him.Elon MuskYeah, exactly.Joe RoganHas to be.Elon MuskI sure hope so.Joe RoganPerfect.Elon MuskYes.Joe RoganI mean, that was the perfect day for you. And how do you say the name?Well, is it a placeholder?Elon MuskFirst of all, my partner is the one that actually mostly came up with the name.Joe RoganCongratulations to her.Elon 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.Joe RoganOh, why a 12?Elon MuskArchangel 12, the precursor to the SR71. Coolest plane ever.True.Joe 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.Elon MuskSo the SR71 came from a CIA program called Archangel. It's the Archangel Project. And then Archangel 12.Joe RoganOh, wow. What a dope looking plane.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganOh, okay.Elon MuskI got it. Yeah, yeah.Joe RoganWell, as a person who's very much into aerial travel, as you are, that's perfect.Elon MuskThat's pretty great.Joe 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?Elon MuskIt's actually, I think it's better being older and having a kid. I appreciate it more. Yeah. Babies are awesome.Joe RoganThey are pretty awesome.Elon MuskThey're awesome. Yeah.Joe RoganWhen I didn't have any of my own, I would see other people's kids and I didn't not like them.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganBut I wasn't drawn to them.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganBut now when I see little people's kids, I'm like, ah. I think of them like these little love packages.Elon MuskYeah. Little love bugs.Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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.Elon 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. And you can sort of see the it learning very quickly. You know, it's just, wow, see things.Joe RoganSo you're talking about the neural net, you're not talking about an actual baby?Elon 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.Joe RoganThat's a great way to put it.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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?Elon 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.Joe 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?Elon 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. It'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.It's interesting. Very interesting.Joe 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? Like 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.Elon MuskLike I said, there are elements that are the same, but just like an aircraft does not fly like a bird.Joe RoganRight.Elon MuskIt doesn't flap its wings. But the wings, the way the wings work and generate lift is the same as bird.Joe 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?Elon MuskI'm slightly sad about it, actually.Joe RoganBut if you're sad about it, why are you doing it?Elon 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. Now what are you going to do?Joe RoganAttack vector. Meaning, like people target it.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganInteresting.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganBut you're obviously going to. So you're going to rent a place.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganOkay. And get rid of everything except close.Elon 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.Yeah.Joe RoganSo do you feel like what's worseElon Muskthan going to happen, it'd be fine.Joe RoganYeah. You could always buy more stuff if you don't like it.Elon MuskSuppose so, yeah.Joe 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?Elon MuskFor sure. I mean, not. Not everyone, but.Joe RoganRight.Elon 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. If 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.So 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. And 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. But, 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? And, 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.Joe 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.And to put them all in the same category seems it's very simple. And as you pointed out, it's an attack vector.Elon 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.So, 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.Joe RoganYeah, yeah. Well, that would certainly be better for all involved if they made better stuff.Elon 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.Joe 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. Into making things here.Elon MuskYes. Somebody's got to do the real work.Joe RoganYeah.Elon 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. These are all valuable things to do, you know, so, yeah, there should be more of it.Joe 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.Elon 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. And that doesn't seem like a good use of assets. Like, somebody could probably be enjoying those houses and get better use of them than me.Joe RoganDon't you have Gene Wilder's house?Elon MuskI do.Joe RoganThat's amazing.Elon MuskIt's awesome.Joe RoganWow.Elon MuskIt's exactly what you expect.Joe RoganDid you request that the buyer not fuck it up?Elon MuskYeah, that's a requirement.Joe RoganOh, a requirement. That's a good requirement.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganNot in that case. In that house.Elon MuskYeah, it'll probably sell for less, but still, I don't care.Joe RoganHe's a legend. You want his Soul. He'd want his essence.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganIn the building.Elon MuskIt's. And it's there. That's a real quirky. Quirky house, yeah.Joe RoganWhat. What makes you say it's there? Like, what do you get out of it?Elon 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. Yeah.Joe RoganDid you ever live in it?Elon MuskIt's very quirky. I did live in it briefly. Yeah.Joe 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?Elon 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. And 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. Less 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. And 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.And 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.Joe RoganWhat's a dream house for Elon Musk? Like some Tony Stark type shit?Elon MuskYeah, definitely. Yeah. You gotta have the dome that opens up with the stealth helicopter and that kind of thing, you know?Joe RoganYeah, for sure. Fuck yeah.Elon 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? I should probably do the latter. So what's more important, Mars or a house?I like Mars. Okay.Joe RoganIs that really how you think that it'd be better off, planning on a trip to Mars or getting people to Mars?Elon MuskYeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can only do so many things.Joe RoganRight, right.Elon MuskSo how you.Joe 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. I 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. The productivity is baffling. Just doesn't make sense how you can get so much done.Elon 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. Relative 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. And then this neuralink, which is, I don't know, maybe it's like 5%. 5%.Joe RoganThat's a good chunk.Elon MuskIt's a good chunk.Joe 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. Are you testing on people right now?Elon 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.Joe 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?Is there a potential for rejection?Elon 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. So 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.Sort of reading and writing neurons that's generating a current pulse and reading current pulses. That's a little harder.Than say passive device, but it's still very doable. And yeah, there are people who have primitive devices in their brains right now.Joe RoganWhat kind of devices?Elon 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. It's like kicking the TV type of thing. And you think like, man, kicking the TV shouldn't work.Joe RoganIt does sometimes.Elon MuskYeah, yeah, the old TVs. It did.Joe RoganMy grandpa used to slap the top for sure.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganIt would work sometimes.Elon MuskYeah. So this deep brain stimulation, implanted devices in the brain that have changed people's lives for the better, like fundamentally.Joe 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. Yeah, 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? What will take place?Elon 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. You'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. So 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. Hearing, 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.Like they can walk around, be normal.Joe RoganWhoa.Elon MuskYeah. Maybe slightly better. Slightly better over time, yes.Joe RoganYou mean with future iterations like the,Elon Muskyou know, Six Million Dollar Man. Although these days that would. That doesn't seem much.Joe 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?Elon 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. It might actually literally be. I mean, if you're a big guy, your skull is actually fairly thick. Skull is like 7 to 14 millimeters.Joe RoganThat's probably a couple inches, a halfElon 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.Joe RoganOh, yeah, I believe you.Elon MuskSo yeah, you basically implant the deviceJoe Roganand so it would be like a 1 inch square or 1 inch in diameter.Elon MuskYeah, like a.Joe RoganSo an inch circle, like a circular.Elon MuskYeah, think like a. Like a smart watch or something better.Joe RoganOkay.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganOkay. So you take this one inch diameter. Like ice fishing. Right. You ever go ice fishing?Elon MuskNo, but I'd like to.Joe RoganIt's great. Yeah, it's really fun. So you basically take an auger and you drill through the surface of the ice.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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. Yeah.Elon 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. And 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.Joe RoganSo through this 1 inch diameter device, electrodes be inserted and they will find their way.Elon MuskLike tiny wires, basically.Joe RoganTiny wires.Elon MuskTiny wires.Joe RoganAnd they'll find their way to specific areas of the brain to stimulate.Elon MuskNo, you literally put them where they're supposed to go.Joe RoganOh, okay.Elon MuskYeah. You.Joe RoganHow long will these wires be?Elon MuskI mean, they usually go in like, you know, depending on where it is, like, you know, 2 or 3 millimeters.Joe RoganSo they just find the spots.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganWow.Elon 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.Joe RoganWell, this would be replaceable or reversible. Like if someone can't take it anymore, I'm too smart. I can't take it.Elon MuskYeah, you can totally take it out.Joe 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?Elon 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. It could detect it in real time and then fire a counter pulse and stop the epilepsy.There'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. If you get like Alzheimer's or something like that, then you lose memory. And this could help you with restoring your memory, that kind of thing.Joe 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?Elon 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.Joe RoganAnd so a specific frequency will go through this.Elon MuskYeah, just specificJoe 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.Elon 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. I think we have a chance of putting in someone and having them. Having them be healthy and restoring some functionality that they've lost.Joe 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.Elon MuskI mean, ultimately, if you. If you want to go with full AI symbiosis, you'll probably want to do something like that.Joe RoganSymbiosis is a scary word when it comes to AI.Elon MuskIt's optional.Joe RoganI would hope so.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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. I mean, you literally could fundamentally change the way human beings interface with each other.Elon MuskYes.Joe RoganYes.Elon MuskYou wouldn't need to talk.Joe RoganI'm so scared of that, but so excited about it at the same time. Is that weird?Elon 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. Even in a benign scenario, we're kind of left behind.We're not along for the ride, we're just too dumb.So how do you go along for the ride?So you can't beat them, join them.And we're already a cyborg to some degree. Right? Because you've got your phone, you've got your laptop, glasses. Yeah, yeah. 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. That'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. Like 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.So 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. Okay, 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.Joe 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. You'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.Elon 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? Well, your brain spends a lot of effort compressing a complex concept into words and there's a lot of loss, information loss that occurs when compressing a complex concept into words.Then you say those words, those words are then interpreted, then they're decompressed by the person who is listening and they will at best get a very incomplete understanding of what you're trying to convey. It's very difficult to convey a complex concept with precision because you've got compression, decompression. You may not even have heard all the words correctly.And so communication is difficult. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Cool. And Luke.Joe RoganYes. And there's a great movie.Elon MuskYeah, great movie.Joe 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. Sarcasm. There's a lot of variables.Elon MuskSarcasm is difficult.Joe 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. Like 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.Like, 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.Very clear, where you know what a person's saying and you can tell them what you're saying. And there's no need for noises, no need for mouth noises, no need for these sort of accepted ways that we've sort of evolved to make sounds that we all agree. We. Through our cultural dictionary, and we agree. Or certainly we could bypass all that.Elon MuskYeah. You can still do it for sentimental reasons.Joe RoganRight? Like campfires.Elon 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. And 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. You want to speak a different language. No problem.Joe RoganRight.Elon MuskThat's why I just downloaded the program.Joe 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. Sure, yeah. You can hear it, and it'll play things back to you in whatever language you choose. So it'll be something along those lines.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganFor the first few iterations.Elon 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. So, 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.Joe RoganHow many years before you don't have to talk?Elon MuskIf the, if the development continues to accelerate, then maybe like five years, five to ten years.Joe RoganThat's quick. That's really quick.Elon MuskThat's the best case scenario.Joe RoganNo talking anymore in five years.Elon MuskBest case scenario, 10 years. Won't like it.Joe 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.They're like, if you went from like Australopithecus or ancient Hominid to us, what's the difference? Less hair, less muscle, bigger head. And then just keep going. One thousand, a million, whatever year or five years. Whatever, whatever happens when neuralink goes on online and then we slowly start to adapt to this new way of being where we don't use our muscles anymore.We have this gigantic head. We can talk without words.Elon MuskYou could also save state.Joe RoganSave state?Elon MuskSave state. Like save your brain state. Like a saved game in a video game.Joe RoganWhoa. Like if you want to swap from Windows 95,Elon Muskprobably a little better than that, but yeah, I think we areJoe RoganWindows 95 right now.Elon 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. You'd be a little different. But then you're also a little different when you wake up in the morning from yesterday and you're a little different.In fact, if you say like you five years ago versus you today is quite a big difference.Joe RoganYes.Elon MuskSo you'd be substantially you. I mean, you'd suddenly think you're you.Joe 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.Elon 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. So 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.Joe RoganEmotions, everything.Elon MuskEverything, Everything. And play it back.You should edit it.Joe RoganEdit it?Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganSo you can change your past.Elon MuskYou could change what you think was your past. Yeah.Joe RoganWell, so if you had like aElon Muskwhole thing right now, could be a replayed memory?Joe 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%.Elon MuskThere's no way to assign a probability with accuracy here.Joe RoganRight. But roughly, if you just had a. Just gut instinct.Elon 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%.Joe RoganThe idea that we're experiencing some sort of a preserved memory is.Even though it's still the same, it's not comforting.Elon MuskRight.Joe 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.Elon MuskFeels real, doesn't it?Joe RoganFeels real, but the idea that it's not is, for some strange reason, disconcerting.Elon 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?Now, here's the thing. You are a brain in a vat. Then that vat is your skull. Yes. And everything you see, feel, hear everything, all your senses are electrical signals. Everything, everything is an electrical signal to a brain in a vat. With a vat is your skull.Joe 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. Great. Music changes your state.Elon 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.But 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? What's the line of consciousness and not consciousness between hydrogen and here?Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah, I saw that one.Joe 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. Seems pretty.Elon MuskThe one that just dragged baby down the street pretty far.Joe RoganYeah, yeah. Seems pretty conscious, right?Elon MuskThere's definitely some degree of consciousness there.Joe 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. It will be unrecognizable that one day we'll be so far removed from what this is.We'll look back on this the way we look back now on, 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.Elon 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.Joe 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. I 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.So this is an accelerated version of that, a super accelerated version of that.Elon 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. Just 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.Joe 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. Campfires.Elon MuskBut you can still have a campfire.Joe RoganYes.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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? Communication with people?Elon MuskYeah, sure. I think so. Yeah. I like empires.Joe 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.Elon MuskI mean, that thing communicates.Joe 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. I 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.Like you read a quote, a great quote by a wise person, it makes you excited that their mind figured something out, put the words together in a right way that makes your brain pop, like. Oh, yes, yes.Elon MuskClever compression of a concept and a feeling.Joe RoganBut the fact that a human did it too.Elon MuskYeah, yeah, absolutely.Joe RoganDo you think that it'll be like electronic music? Like, people won't appreciate it? Like they appreciate a slide guitar.Elon MuskI like electronic music.Joe RoganI do too. While you make it, I know you like it.Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I hope the future is more fun and interesting and we should try to make it that way.Joe 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.Elon MuskWe might lose a little, but hopefully we gain more than we lose.Joe RoganYeah, that's the thing, right? Gaining more than we lose. Like something that makes us interesting isElon Muskthat we're so flawed, it's not for sure.Joe RoganRight.Elon MuskI mean, you look at civilizations through the ages, most of them, you know, they rose and fell.Joe RoganYeah.Elon 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.I actually sort of sympathize with the anti globalization people because it's like, man, we don't ever want everywhere to be the same for sure. And then we need some kind of mind viral immunity.So that's a bit concerning mind viralJoe 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.Elon MuskNo, I'm talking about like somebody. There's some cockeyed concept that, that happens right now.Joe RoganWell, I know there's viruses and embedded chips, right? Like people have embedded chips and then acquired viruses.Elon MuskWhen I'm talking about a mind virus, I'm talking about a concept that infects people's minds.Joe RoganOh, okay, okay. Like cult thinking or some sort of fundamentalism.Elon MuskYeah. Wrong handed idea that goes viral. In an idea senseJoe Roganthat is a problem too. Right. If someone can manipulate that technology to make something appear logical or rational.Elon MuskYeah, yeah.Joe RoganWould that be an issue too? This is a very have versus have not issue.Elon MuskRight.Joe 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.Elon 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. Super smart.Joe 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. Is that a concern?Elon 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. Like 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.Piecing it out to different people and using Computers and machines and stuff. We can make lots of rockets launch into orbit, dock with the space station, that kind of thing.So 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. Will.Joe RoganDecoupled from human. So this is the. If you can't beat them, join them.Elon MuskYeah, I mean, so you feel like it's inevitable.Joe RoganLike AI. Sentient AI is essentially inevitable.Elon MuskSuper sentient AI, yeah. Like beyond a level that's difficult to understand,Joe 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.Elon MuskWith AI, it's not a requirement, it's just.If you want to be along for the ride, then you need to do some kind of symbiosis. So the way your brain works right now, you've got kind of like the animal brain, reptile brain, for argument's sake. This 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.Now, 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. People are quite happy having both.So you can think of this as being like the computer. The AI is like a third layer, a tertiary layer.So that is. That could be symbiotic with the cortex. It would be much smarter than the cortex, but you essentially have three layers, and you actually have that. Right now your phone is capable of things and your computer is capable of things that your brain is definitely not. You know, storing terabytes of information perfectly, doing incredible calculations that we couldn't even come close to doing.You have that with your computer. It's just like I said, the data rate is slow, the connection is weak.Joe 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. Is that a bad way to look at it?Elon 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. You 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.If 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. Like I said, it's just a question of your data rate. The communication speed between your phone and your brain is slow.Joe RoganWhen do you think you're going to do it? How long will you wait?Like once it starts becoming available.Elon MuskYeah, if it works, I'll do it.Joe RoganSure, right away.Elon MuskI mean, let's make sure it works.Joe RoganHow do we make sure it works? We try it on prisoners. Like, what do you do?Elon MuskNo, no.Joe RoganTake rapists. Cut holes in their head.Elon 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. And then at a certain age we all are going to get Alzheimer's, we're all going to get senile and then moms forget the names of their kids and that kind of thing.And so it's like you 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. So 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.Joe 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?Elon 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.And 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.Joe 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.Where do you see it?What are we going to be like when 25 years from now, what are we going to be?Elon MuskWell, assuming civilization is still around,Joe Roganit'sElon Musklooking fragile right now.I think we could have a.In 25 years, probably something. I think there could be a whole brain interface.Joe RoganA whole brain interface?Elon MuskSomething pretty close to that. Yeah.Joe RoganHow does. How do you define. What do you mean by whole brain interface?Elon MuskLike, almost all the neurons are connected to.Your. These sort of AI extension of yourself, if you want.Joe RoganAI extension of yourself.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganWhat does that mean to you, like, when you say AI extension of yourself?Elon 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.Their online stuff is still alive.Joe RoganThat's a good way to put it. It is weird when you read someone's tweets after they're dead. Yeah, yeah.Elon MuskInstagram and their stories and stuff like that. Whatever. Facebook and stuff, you know, like.Joe RoganThat's a great way to put it. It's like an online ghost. That's very accurate.Elon 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.Joe RoganNow, when you say civilization's fragile, do you mean because of this COVID 19 shit that's going on right now?Elon MuskWhat's that? Never heard of it.Joe RoganIt's this thing.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganNo, it's like some people just get a car. Other people, it gets much worse.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganYeah.Well,Elon Muskyeah.I mean, this certainly has taken over the mind space of the world to a degree that is quite shocking. Yeah.Joe 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. So 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. And 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? It 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.Yeah,Elon 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.So, yeah, I 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.Joe RoganWell, it seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds of people. People with specific problems.Elon 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. It's not zero, but it's extremely low.Joe 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. Course.Elon MuskIt's almost like people really wanted a panic. Dialina quite crazy.Joe 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. It seems like when you see all these people on ventilators and so many of them are dying and you see these nurses are dying and doctors are getting sick, in some places that fear is justified, but then in other places, you're reading these stories about hospitals that are essentially half empty.They're having to furlough doctors and nurses because there's no work for them.Elon MuskMost of the hospitals in the United States right now are half empty. In some cases, they're at 30% capacity.Joe RoganAnd is this because they've decided to forego elective procedures and normal things that people would have to go to the hospital for?Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah, sure.Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah, elective is a weird word.Elon 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. I 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.So I think it's a problem. It's not good.Joe RoganIt seems like the state of public perception is shifting.Elon MuskIt is.Joe 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. Still dangerous, still worse than the flu, but not as bad as we thought or we feared it could be.Elon MuskObjectively, the mortality is much lower, like at least a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought.Joe 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?Elon 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. This 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.Washing your hands is also good.Joe RoganWell, that's the speculation. Why men get it more than women? Because men are disgusting.Elon MuskWe don't wash. Men are disgusting. It's true.Joe RoganIt's true. I admit it. All men in this room, we're all gross.Elon MuskYeah, let's go to the restroom. You can see us.Joe 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. Nine 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.Elon 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. And 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. Let's say if you had Ebola typeJoe Roganof mortality, Spanish flu, something taxing some healthy people.Elon 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. And I think there's, you know, given it's a matter of time that there will be eventually some such pandemic.Joe 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. I 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.This is a good dry run for us to appreciate that we need far more resources dedicated towards understanding these diseases, what to do in the case of pandemic, and much more money that goes to funding treatments and some preventative measures.Elon 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. And 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,Joe Roganpotentially, if we act correctly.Elon 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. And we kind of got to go through this without it being something that kills vast numbers of young, healthy people.Joe 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. That 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?Did anybody pull you aside? Who does that? Who gets to do that to you?Elon MuskWell, I mean, I certainly get that there's no shortage negative feedback on Twitter.Joe RoganOh, yeah, Twitter. But I don't read that. Do you read it?Elon MuskWarzone?Joe RoganYou do sometimes, though, right? You do read it?Elon MuskYeah, I mean, I scroll through the comments. Like I said, it's a meme. Warzone.Joe RoganYeah.Elon MuskI mean, people knife you good on Twitter.Joe 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. And 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.Elon MuskSure.Joe 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. Sure, you might want to get out of the way in anticipation of the shitstorm, but the fact that so many people have the ability to reach out, and I think it's.In a lot of ways, it's. I don't want to say a misused resource, but it's like giving monkeys guns. They just start. They start gunning down things that are in front of them without any realization of what they're doing. They have a rock. They see a window, they throw it. 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. I got this lady fired. Oh, the fucking business is going under because of Twitter wars. It seems like there's something about it that's this newfound thing that I don't want to say abuse, but just. I 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?Elon MuskSure.I mean, I've been in the Twitter war zone for a while here.Joe RoganTwitter war zone.Elon MuskYou know, it takes a lot to phase me at this point.Joe RoganYeah, that's good, too, right? Like, you develop a thick skin.Elon 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. It's not like they hate you. They don't even know you.Joe RoganRight?Elon 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.Joe 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. It'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.Versus tweets.Elon MuskWell, there'll always be some ambiguity, but tweets are. It's hard.Maybe there should be like a sarcasm flag or something.Joe RoganRight, right.Elon MuskOr I'm not just canning or whatever.Joe 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.Elon MuskWow, that's amazing.Joe RoganYou know what I mean? Where they don't realize what it is. There's something fun about that for everybody else.Elon MuskYeah, I know. It's pretty great. Might be the best news source.Joe 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.Elon MuskIs this like a female avatar or something like that?Joe 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. He sort of combined these faces to make this one perfect social justice warrior. But I recognized it early on, before I met him, that this was parody. This was just fun.And then I love reading the people that don't recognize that they get angry and that they really. There's a lot of people that just get really furious. There's some fun to that. There's some fun to the not picking up on the true nature of the signal.Elon MuskI find Twitter quite engaging.Joe RoganHow do you have the time?Elon MuskI mean, it's like five minutes every couple hours type thing. It's not like I'm Sitting on anJoe 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.Elon 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.It's not like they. Like I said, it's not like they know you. It's like, don't take it personally.Joe RoganDid you feel the same way when CNN had that stupid shit about ventilators with you? I found that both confusing and.Elon MuskYeah, that was annoying.Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah, I don't think CNN is that.Joe RoganI think used to be.Elon MuskUsed to be, yeah. What do you think's the best source of just, like, information out there?Joe RoganThat's a good question.Elon 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. It'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. You're just trying to figure out what's going on. It's like, I'm hard pressed. Where do you go?Joe 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.Elon MuskExactly.Joe 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? Do 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?Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganIt's so hard. Yeah.Elon 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.Joe RoganI go with whatever Matt Taibbi says.Elon MuskOkay.Joe RoganI trust him more than anybody.Elon MuskAll right.Joe 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. I just listen to him. Above most. Above most. He's my go to guy.Elon MuskAll right, I'll check it out.Joe 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. So 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.Elon MuskYep.Joe RoganAnd with. Also with a humorous flair now.Elon MuskThat's nice.Joe RoganYeah,Elon Muskyeah.Joe RoganThere's not that many of them. There's.Elon MuskIt's hard.Joe 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. This 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. There's a lot of stuff that is open to interpretation.This particular coronavirus issue that we're dealing with right now seems to be a great illuminator of that very fact, is that there's so much data and there's so much that's open to interpret. There's so many things because it's all happening in real time. Right. And like, particularly right now in California. We're in stage two tomorrow or Friday, two days from now, stage two, retail stores opening up.Things are changing. 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. It's a lot of speculation and guessing, but if you go to certain places, they'll tell you, we know why and we know this and we know it's hard.Yeah.Elon 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.Joe RoganYes.Elon 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. And, you know, we should treasure that and not. And not give up our liberties too easily. I think we probably did that actually.Joe 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. This 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.Elon MuskFundamentally a violation of the Constitution.Joe RoganYes.Elon MuskFreedom of assembly. And, you know, it's just. I mean, I don't think these things stand up in court. Really?Joe RoganThey're arresting people for protesting.Elon MuskYeah, yeah.Joe RoganBecause they're protesting and violating social distancing and these mandates that tell people that they have to stay home.Elon MuskYeah, these were definitely not stand up. You know, if the Supreme Court hear. I mean, it's obviously complete violation.Joe 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.Elon 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. If you're not at risk or if you are at risk and you wish to take a risk with your life, you should have the right to do that.Joe 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.Elon MuskYes. I mean, there's a strong downside to this.Joe RoganYeah.Elon 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.Joe 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. They 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. The other argument is stop placing money over human lives and let's shelter in place until we come up with some sort of a decision and let's figure out some way to develop some sort of a universal income, universal basic income plan or Something like that, to feed people during the.During this time when we make thisElon 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. That's my opinion. Do you think if somebody doesn't like that. Well, that's my opinion. So the. Now. Yeah. This notion, though, that you can just sort of send checks out everybody and things will be fine is not true.Obviously, 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. And 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.Now, 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, Medical 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.Obviously, we'll run out of the stores, run out of the. You know, the machine just grinds to a halt.Joe 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. Do you think that the initial thought was a good idea based on the perception that this was going to be far more deadly than it turned out to be?Elon 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. This 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.Joe 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. The propaganda machine is very strong.The World Health Organization appears to have been complicit with a lot of their propaganda.Elon 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. So 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. So, 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. Zero.Joe RoganOkay, so that's a real statistic that's coming from. Yeah, yeah. You know those people.Elon MuskYeah. Literally we run payroll.Joe RoganDo you think there's a danger of this?Same folks are there?Elon MuskYeah, still there.Joe 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. There'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?Elon MuskI think there has been some.This has been politicized, you know, in both directions really. So it's.Which is not great.Yeah. 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?Joe RoganYeah.Elon MuskAnd what can the government make you do, what can they make you not do and what's okay.Joe RoganRight.Elon MuskAnd yeah, I think we went too far.Joe 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. It's not what we feared. So let's back up and reconsider and let's do this publicly and say we were acting based on the information that we had initially, that information appears to be faulty 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.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganThat we respect and appreciate.Elon 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. Yes, because the list of symptoms that could be Covid at this point is like a mile long. So it's, like, hard to. If you're ill at all, it's like, it could be Covid.So just to give 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? I 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.Joe RoganIs that real? Basically not that bad. But heart attacks, strokes, get hit by a bus, cancer.Elon 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.Joe RoganWhy would they do that, though?Elon 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.And the stimulus bill that was intended to help with the hospitals that were being overrun with COVID patients created an incentive to record something as Covid that is difficult to say no to, especially if your hospital is going bankrupt for lack of other patients. So 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. So now you've got, like, you know, if I just check this box, I get $8,000, put them on a ventilator for five minutes, I get $39,000.Or. Or I got to fire some doctors. So 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.Joe 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? What do you think is the way out of this?Elon 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. Not 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?Joe RoganYeah, I've read all this stuff about that, about them diagnosing people as a COVID death despite other variables.Elon MuskThis is not a. This is not a question. This is what is occurring.Joe RoganAnd where are you reading this from? Where are you getting this from?Elon MuskThe public health officials have literally said this. This is not a question mark.Joe 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.Elon MuskYes.Joe 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.And financial incentives.Elon 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. So then they're like, okay, well, the stimulus bill says if we get all this money, if we say if it's a COVID death, I'm like, okay, they coughed before they died.In fact, they're not even diagnosed as Covid. They simply. If you had weakness, a cough, shortness of breath. Frankly, I'm not sure how you die without those things.Yeah, right.Joe RoganThere's so many different things that you could attribute to Covid, too. There's so many symptoms. There's diarrhea, headaches, dehydration, cough.Elon 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. And it's Covid. So then it makes the death count look very high. And then we're then stuck in a bind because it looks like the death count's super high and not going down like it should be.And 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. We're stuck in a loop.Joe RoganYeah.Elon MuskAnd I think the way to break out of this loop is to have clarity of information.Joe 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. I 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.Elon MuskYes.Joe 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.Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah. It's not what we feared. We feared something much worse.Elon MuskThat's correct.Joe RoganSo the adjustment's difficult to make. So you said, first of all, we need real data.Elon 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. Did they get the test and the test came back positive, or do they just have some symptoms? Just parse those two out and then parse out.Just. If somebody died, did they die? Did they even have a COVID test, or did they just have one of many symptoms? Like, how do you die without weakness? I don't know. It's impossible, basically.Joe RoganYeah.Elon MuskIf you're going to die, you're going to have shortness of breath, weakness, and you might cough a little.Joe RoganSo was it quantified? Was it.Elon 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?Joe RoganRight. It's not as simple as just because you had Covid. Covid killed you.Elon 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.Joe RoganWell, that's what's so weird about this.Elon MuskAbsurd.Joe 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. Didn'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.No, the flu's still here, killing people.Elon MuskI mean, every year in the world, several hundred thousand people die directly of the flu.Joe RoganYeah.Elon MuskNot tangentially.Joe RoganRight. Not every 61,000 in this country last year.Elon MuskYeah. And we're only 5% of the world.Joe RoganAnd then there's cigarettes, so.Elon MuskOh, man, cigarettes. Cigarettes will really kill you.Joe 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. There's no one running for Congress that's trying to ban cigarettes. There's no one running for Senate that wants to put some education plan in place that's going to stop cigarettes in their tracks.Elon 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.Joe RoganOh, I saw that.Elon MuskYeah.Yeah,Joe RoganYeah.Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah. What is the number for Tylenol over here?Elon 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.Joe RoganWow.Elon 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. Tylenol. It's curtains. Wow. Yeah.Joe RoganCurtains is a funny word.Elon MuskYeah. But nobody's raging against Tylenol.Joe 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. Well, 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.So let's not swim anymore.Elon MuskWhat is the really dangerous.Joe RoganWe need to chop down all the coconut trees.Elon MuskStop water.Joe RoganCoconuts kill 150 people every year.Elon MuskYes.Joe RoganCut down all the coconut trees. We need those people.Elon MuskYes.Joe 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.Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah.Elon 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.Joe RoganYes.Elon MuskSo it's like how many life years were lost is probably the right metric to use.Joe 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. And then someone else said, not true. I'm sure it's not true.Elon MuskYeah, definitely.Joe 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.Elon MuskIt's very. Let's just say it's like it's about the same.Joe 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.Elon MuskYes.Joe RoganButElon 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. Basically, 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. Has 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. Yeah, 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.And so just be careful with your loved ones who are elderly.Joe 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. But 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.And 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.Elon 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. That's for sure.And so actually being overweight is a big deal. It's a fact.Joe RoganWell, yeah, the New York hospital said it was the number one factor for severe Covid symptoms was obesity. That was number one factor.Elon MuskIt is. That's. Yes, exactly.Joe 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. It's a judgment on.Elon MuskYour food's great. Yeah.Joe RoganI do love food.Elon 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.Joe 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.Elon MuskTasty food is great. It's one of the best things about life.Joe 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.Elon 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.Joe RoganYeah. And I think regulated feeding window isElon Muskreally the way to go.Joe 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. Well, 16 hours, yeah.Elon MuskSo like at night or.Joe 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. And so anything in between that is just water or coffee, actually, you know,Elon 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. And 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. It's like one of the worst things you could do.Joe 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. And I wake up in the middle of the night.Elon 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.So just try to avoid drinking and eating booze.Exactly.Small amounts of alcohol that evidence suggests it's not doesn't have a negative effect on it.Joe RoganI put it in the same category as delicious food. It kind of makes things a little more fun. Yeah, yeah, I like it.Elon 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. Small 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. And 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.Joe RoganDo you have time to exerciseElon Muska little bit?Joe RoganDo you have a trainer or anything?Elon 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. I 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.Like, I don't. Some people love running. I don't Love running.Joe RoganWhat do you like to do exercise wise?Elon 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.Joe RoganRight, right, right. Yeah, that's a good thing to do. Yeah. Watch a good movie or.Elon MuskYeah, yeah.Joe RoganEpisode of Black Mirror or something like that.Elon MuskIt's great, man. Don't watch Black Mirror before going to bed either.Joe RoganWell, don't watch Black Mirror today. It's too fucking accurate.Elon MuskYeah, exactly. It's like, wait, this already happened in real life?Joe RoganYeah, it's too close.Elon MuskIt's too close.Joe RoganWell, even didn't Jamie. Didn't you say that the guy who makes Black Mirror.Elon MuskMy mic's off. Yeah, he said it's not a good time to start season six.Joe 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.Elon MuskI did martial arts when I was a kid.Joe RoganDid you? What'd you do?Elon MuskI did taekwondo, I did karate Kai. Kushingai Karate.Joe RoganAll right, cool.Elon MuskAnd judo.Joe RoganOh, so you really branched out.Elon MuskYeah, so I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu briefly. Did you?Joe RoganWhere?Elon MuskIn Palo Alto.Joe RoganReally?Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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. But 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.Like 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. That's really also an accurate analogy of what Jiu Jitsu is.Elon 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. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, you know, winning against people way bigger and that kind of thing. It was just like, whoa, this is cool.Joe 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. Most of the time that's not real,Elon Muskespecially if they know martial arts, too. It's like, oh, no.Joe RoganYes. But in the ufc, when Hoist Gracie off of his back, was strangling Dan Severin with his legs, you're like, holy shit.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganAmazing.Elon MuskYeah, it was amazing. I mean, Hoist got beaten up pretty bad in some of those.Joe RoganWell, he definitely had some rough fights, but he won. He won.Elon MuskYeah.Joe 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. And I think it's also a great way to exercise, too, because it's almost like the exercise is secondary to the learning of the thing. The exercise is like, you want.And 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.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganThat's really what it's like.Elon MuskYeah, totally.Joe RoganYeah. When am I going to go?Elon MuskMy kids, I should say I sent my kids to Jiu Jitsu since they were, like, I don't know, six. Oh, really? Yeah.Joe RoganOh, that's awesome.It's a great thing to learn.Elon MuskIt really is like a good.Joe 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.When am I going to be able to buy one of them Roadsters? When's that happening?Elon 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.I 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. Getting 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.Joe RoganBut roadster comes before cybertruck.Elon MuskI mean, I think we should do cybertruck first before roadster.Joe RoganInteresting. I'm not mad at that.Elon 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.Joe 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.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganHow do you feel about that?Elon MuskDo you work with them?Joe RoganAre you cool with those people?Elon MuskYeah, I mean, go ahead.Joe 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?Elon MuskYeah, I got no problem.Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah. You could for sure, you know, lighten the car up and improve to tire traction.Joe RoganHave you seen that company stuff, what they do?Elon MuskI don't know them specifically, but it's pretty dope.Joe 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.Elon MuskLook. That looks pretty nice.Joe 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. I know you guys are testing at the Nurburgring. Can you not talk about that?Elon MuskWell, I think we got to leave that for, you know, proper sort of product unveil.Joe 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.Elon MuskOh, great. Glad you like it.Joe 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. I love dumb cars. Like, I love campfires. I love campfires. I have a 1993 Porsche that's air cooled.Elon MuskSure.Joe RoganIt's like, it's not that fast. It's really slow compared to Tesla.Elon MuskYeah. Really. It's really quite slow. But.Joe 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. It just. It like violates time.Elon MuskYeah, yeah, yeah. You've tried it, like, ludicrous plus and stuff like that.Joe RoganOh, yeah.Elon 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.Joe RoganOh, Jesus.Elon MuskYeah, just like a sprinter, basically.Joe RoganRight.Elon 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.Joe 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 gasElon Muskthat I've never felt anything like it.Joe RoganIt's confusing.Elon MuskYeah, it really is.Joe RoganThe instant torque. The instant torque and just the sheer acceleration is baffling.Elon MuskIt's baffling.Joe RoganIt's baffling.Elon MuskThey've never felt it.Joe RoganNo.Elon MuskIt's faster than falling.Joe 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? You want to feel it? Like, do it, do it, do it. My wife's like, don't do it.Elon MuskYeah.Joe RoganAnd even if I just do it on the highway for a couple of seconds.Elon MuskYeah, it's very fun.Joe RoganExciting.Elon MuskYeah, it's very fun. It's like having our own roller coaster on tap, you know, it really isJoe 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. A 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.Yeah, that's madness.Elon 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.Joe RoganOh, I read about that. Explain that. Like, what do you.Elon 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. It's. They won't be sorry.Joe RoganOh, sure. Well, anything that goes 0 to 60. Was it 1.9? Is that the 0 to 60?Elon MuskThat's the base model.Joe RoganThat's what's the top of the food chain model. Okay, okay. Faster than that.Elon MuskLet's just say faster than that.Joe 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?Elon MuskWell, yeah, I mean, I knowJoe RoganyouElon Muskknow that our demos are authentic, so I was not expecting that. And I, and then I think I muttered under my breath,Joe Roganyou didn't get mad though? You didn't Steve Jobs it?Elon 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. So 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.Seems 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. You 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.So then when you threw the bowl, that's what cracked the glass. It didn't go through, though.Joe RoganIt didn't go through.Elon MuskThat's true.Joe 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.Elon MuskYeah, yeah.Joe RoganYou live, you learn.Elon MuskYeah, exactly.Joe 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. I appreciate everything you do, man. I'm glad you're out there, and I really appreciate you coming down here and sharing your perspective.Elon MuskWell, I think you got a great show. Thanks for having me on.Joe RoganThank you. My pleasure. My pleasure. Elon Musk, ladies and gentlemen. Good night.Elon MuskAll right, that should get a little. That should get a little play.Joe RoganThat was great.