Editing The Long Nap (section)

== On YouTube ==

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''I think that the, let's call it '''The Big Nap'''—'''The Big Nap''' is itself the greatest threat to us, and this is bad, but it is also a shot across our bow. And you know, this is what was happening in my mind when I was on here talking about the [[Twin Nuclei Problem|Twin Nuclei Problem of Cell and Atom]]. We didn't stop history. It's not like we're past the atomic war, like we figured that out. We just hit the pause button for a little while. We hit snooze.''

- '''Eric Weinstein''' on JRE 1453
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'''Lex Fridman''': ''Do you see a connection between World War Two, and the crisis we're living through right now?''

''00:02:14''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Sure. The need for collective action, reminding ourselves of the fact that all of these abstractions like, everyone should just do exactly what he or she wants to do for himself and leave everyone else alone, none of these abstractions work in a global crisis. And this is just a reminder that we didn't somehow put all that behind us.''

''00:02:36''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''When I hear stories about my grandfather, who was in the army, and so the Soviet Union where most people die when you're in the army, there's a brotherhood that happens. There's a love that happens. Do you think that's something we're going to see here? Since—''

''00:02:50''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Well we're not there. I mean, what the Soviet Union went through, I mean, the enormity of the war on The Russian doorstep.''

''00:03:02''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''This is different. What we're going through now it's not—''

''00:03:04''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''We can't talk about Stalingrad and COVID in the same breath yet, we're not ready. And the, the sort of, you know, the sense of like the Great Patriotic War and the way in which I was very moved by the Soviet custom of newlyweds going and visiting war memorials on their wedding day, like the happiest day of your life, you have to say thank you to the people who made it possible. We're not there. We're just restarting history. We, you know, I've called this on the Rogan program, I called it '''The Great Nap'''. 75 years with very little by historical standards, in terms of really profound disruption.''

''00:03:46''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''And so when you call it The Great Nap, meaning lack of deep, global tragedy?''

''00:03:51''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Well, lack of realized global tragedy. So I think the development for example of the hydrogen bomb, you know, is something that happened during '''The Great Nap''', and that doesn't mean that people who lived during that time didn't feel fear, didn't know anxiety. But it was to say that most of the violent potential of the human species was not realized it was in the form of potential energy. And this is the thing that I've sort of taken issue with with the description of Steven Pinker's optimism is that if you look at the realized kinetic variables, things have been getting much better for a long time, which is The Great Nap. But it's not as if our fragility has not grown, our dependence on electronic systems, our vulnerability to disruption. And so all sorts of things have gotten much better. Other things have gotten much worse, and the destructive potential has skyrocketed.''

''00:04:47''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''It's tragedy the only way we wake up from The Big Nap?''

''00:04:51''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Well, no, you could also have you know jubilation about positive things, but it's harder to get people's attention.''

''00:04:59''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''Can you give an example of a big global positive thing?''

''00:05:02''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Well, I could happen. I think that when, for example, just historically speaking, HIV went from being a death sentence to something that people could live with for a very long period of time. It would be great if that had happened on a Wednesday, right? Like all at once, you knew that things have changed. And so the bleed-in somewhat kills the sort of the Wednesday effect where it all happens on a particular day, at a particular moment. I think if you look at the stock market here, you know, there's a very clear moment where you can see that the market absorbs the idea of the Coronavirus. I think that with respect to positives, the moon landing was the best example of a positive that happened at a particular time, or recapitulating the Soviet-American link up in terms of Skylab and Soyuz, right, like, that was a huge moment when you actually had these two nations connecting in orbit. And so yeah, there are great moments where something beautiful and wonderful and amazing happens, you know, but it's just there're fewer of them. That's why that's why, as much as I can't imagine proposing to somebody at a sporting event, when you have like 30,000 people waiting, and you know, like "she says, 'Yes'!", that's pretty exciting. So I think we shouldn't we shouldn't discount that.''

''00:06:29''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''So how bad do you think it's going to get in terms of the global suffering that we're going to experience with this with this crisis?''

''00:06:38''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''I can't figure this one out. I'm just not smart enough. Something is going weirdly wrong. They're almost like two separate storylines. In one storyline, we aren't taking things nearly seriously enough. We see people using food packaging lids as masks who are doctors or nurses. We hear horrible stories about people dying needlessly due to triage. And that's a very terrifying story. On the other hand, there's this other story which says, "There are tons of ventilators some place, we've got lots of masks, but they haven't been released. We've got hospital ships where none of the beds are being used." And it's very confusing to me that somehow these two stories give me the feeling that they both must be true simultaneously. And they can't both be true in any kind of standard way. I can't figure out whether it's just that I'm dumb, but I can't get one or the other story to quiet down. So I think weirdly, this is much more serious than we had understood it. And it's not nearly as serious as some people are making it out to be at the same time, and that we're not being given the tools to actually understand, "here's how to interpret the data" or "here's the issue with the personal protective equipment is actually a jurisdictional battle or question of who pays for it, rather than a question of whether it's present or absent." I don't understand the details of it. But something is wildly off in our ability to understand where we are.''

''00:08:13''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''So that's policy. That's institutions. What about—do you think about the quiet suffering of millions of people that have lost their job? Is this a temporary thing? I mean, what I'm my ears not to the suffering of those people who've lost their job or the 50% possibly of small businesses that are going to go bankrupt. Do you think about that quiet suffering?''

''00:08:42''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''It could be not quiet, too. I mean, It could be a depression. This could go from recession to depression, and depression could go to armed conflict and then to war. So it's not a very abstract causal chain that gets us to the point where we can begin with quiet so suffering and anxiety and all of these sorts of things and people losing their jobs and people dying from stress, and all sorts of things. But like anything powerful enough to put us all indoors in a—I mean, let's think about this as an incredible experiment. Imagine that you proposed, hey, I want to do a bunch of research. Let's figure out what what changes in our emissions, emissions profiles for our carbon footprints when we're all indoors or what happens to traffic patterns or what happens to the vulnerability of retail sales as Amazon gets stronger, you know, etc, etc. I believe that in many of those situations, we're running an incredible experiment. And am I worried for us all? Yes. There are some bright spots, one of which is that when you're ordered to stay indoors, people are going to feel entitled and the usual thing that people are going to hit when they hear that they've lost your job, you know, there's this kind of tough love attitude that you see, particularly in the United States. "Oh, you lost your job, poor baby. Well, go retrain, get another one." I think there's gonna be a lot less appetite for that. Because we've been asked to sacrifice, to risk, to act collectively. And that's the interesting thing. What does that reawaken in us? Maybe the idea that we actually are nations, and then, you know, your fellow countrymen may may start to mean something to more people. It certainly means something to people in the military. But I wonder how many people who aren't in the military start to think about this? It's like, Oh, yeah, we are kind of running separate experiments, and we are not China.''

''00:10:51''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''So you think this is kind of a period that might be studied for years to come? From my perspective, we are a part of the experiment, but I don't feel like we have access to the full data, the full data of the experiment. We're just like little mice—''

''00:11:06''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Yeah! Does this one make sense to you Lex?''

''00:11:11''

'''Lex Fridman''': ''I'm romanticizing it, and I keep connecting it to World War Two. So I keep connecting to historical events and making sense of them through that way, or reading The Plague by Camu. Like, almost kind of telling narratives and stories, but my, I'm not hearing the suffering that people are going through. Because I think that's quiet, everybody is numb, currently, they're not realizing what it means to have lost your job. And to have lost your business there's kind of a—I'm afraid how that fear will materialize itself once the numbness wears out. And especially if this last for many months. If it's connected to the incompetence of the CDC and W.H.O., and our government, and perhaps the election process, you know, my biggest fears that the, you know, elections get delayed or something like that. So the the basic mechanisms of our democracy get slowed or damaged in some way that then mixes with the fear that people have the turns to panic that turns to anger, that anger—''

''00:12:31''

'''Eric Weinstein''': ''Can I just play with that for a little bit? What if, in fact, all of that structure that you grew up thinking about—and again, you grew up in two places, right? So when you're inside the US, we tend to look at all of these things as museum pieces, like how often do we amend the constitution anymore? In some sense, if you think about the Jewish tradition, of simpler Torah, you've got this big beautiful scroll that has been lovingly hand drawn and calligraphy, that's very valuable, and it's very important that you not treat it as a relic to be revered. And so we one day a year, we dance with the Torah, and we hold this incredibly vulnerable document up. And we treat it as if, you know, it was Ginger Rogers being led by Fred Astaire. Well, that is how you become part of your country. In fact, maybe the election will be delayed, maybe extraordinary powers will be used. Maybe any one of a number of things will indicate that you're actually living through history. This isn't a museum piece that you were handed by your great-great-grandparents.''
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