Lex Fridman and Elon Musk rate internet memes and veer into tangents about nuclear power, the British Museum, space history, and whether $6.6 billion could solve world hunger. Musk assigns comic numeric ratings to each one.
Chapters
And now for something completely different. Do you mind doing a bit of a meme review in the spirit of the great, the powerful PewDiePie? Let's say 1 to 11. Just go over a few documents, print it out.
We can try.
Let's try this. I present to you document numero uno.
I don't know. Okay.
Vlad the Impaler discovers marshmallows.
That's not bad.
So you get it because he's like.
I don't know, three, Whatever.
Oh, that's not very good. This is ground in some engineering, some history.
Yeah. Give us an 8 out of 10.
What do you think about nuclear power?
I'm in favor of nuclear power. I think it's in a place that is not subject to extreme natural disasters. I think nuclear power is a great way to generate electricity. I don't think we should be shutting down nuclear power stations.
Yeah, but what about Chernobyl?
Exactly. So I think people. There's like, a lot of fear of radiation and stuff. And I guess the problem is, like, a lot of people just don't. They didn't study engineering or physics. Just the word radiation just sounds scary. So they can't calibrate what radiation means. But radiation is much less dangerous than you'd think. So, like, for example, Fukushima. You know, when the Fukushima problem happened due to the tsunami, I got people in California asking me if they should worry about radiation from Fukushima. And I'm like, definitely not. Not even slightly. Not at all. That is crazy. And just to show, like, look, this is how, like, the danger is so much overplayed compared to what. What it really is that I actually flew to Fukushima, and actually I donated a solar power system for water treatment plant, and I made a point of eating locally grown vegetables on TV in Fukushima. Like, I'm still alive. Okay?
So it's not even that the risk of these events is low, but the impact of them is.
The impact is greatly exaggerated.
It's human nature.
People don't know what radiation is. I've had people ask me, what about radiation from cell phones causing brain cancer? I'm like, when you say radiation, do you mean photons or particles? I don't know. What do you mean, photons? Particles. Do you mean. Let's say photons? What frequency or wavelength? And they're like, no, I have no idea. Do you know that everything's radiating all the time? Like, what do you mean? Yeah, everything's radiating all the time. Photons are being emitted by all objects all the time, basically. And if you want to know what it means to stand in front of nuclear fire, go outside. The sun is a gigantic thermonuclear reactor that you're staring right at it. Are you still alive? Yes. Okay. Amazing.
Yeah, I guess radiation is one of the words that can be used as a tool to fear monger by certain people. That's it.
I think people just don't understand.
I mean, that's the way to fight that fear, I suppose, is to understand, is to learn.
Yeah. Just say, like, okay, how many people have actually died from nuclear accidents? It's like practically nothing. And say, how many people have died from coal plants? And it's a very big number. So obviously we should not be starting up coal plants and shutting down nuclear plants. Just doesn't make any sense at all. Coal plants, like, I don't know, 100 to 1000 times worse for health than nuclear power plants.
You want to go to the next one? It's really bad. 90, 180 and 360 degrees. Everybody loves the math. Nobody gives a shit about 270.
It's not super funny. I don't know, like two or three. Yeah, this is not. LOL situation.
Yeah.
That's pretty good.
The United States oscillating between establishing and destroying dictatorships. It's like a metro. Is that a metronome?
Yeah. What is metronome? Yeah, yeah. It's on a 7 out of 10. It's kind of true.
Oh, yeah. This is. This is kind of personal for me. Next one.
Oh, man. This is Laika.
Yeah, well, no, this is.
Or it's like referring to Laika or.
Something as Leica's like, husband.
Husband. Yeah.
Yeah. Hello? Yes, this is Dog. Your wife was launched into space. And then the last one is him with his eyes closed and a bottle of vodka.
Yeah. Laika didn't come back. No.
They don't tell you the full story of, you know, what the impact they had on the loved ones.
True.
That one gets an 11 for me from the Soviet shutout. Yeah. This keeps going on the Russian theme. First man in space. Nobody cares. First man in the moon.
Well, I think people do care.
No, I know, but.
Yuriga Gardens names will be forever in history.
I think there is something special about placing, like stepping foot onto another totally foreign land. It's not the journey like people that explore the oceans. It's not as important to explore the oceans as to land on a whole new continent. Yeah, this is about you. Oh, yeah. I'd love to get your comment on this. Elon Musk after sending $6.6 billion to the UN to end world hunger, he. You have three hours.
Yeah, I mean, obviously $6 billion is not going to end world hunger. The reality is at this point the world is producing far more food than it can really consume. We don't have a caloric constraint at this point. So where there is hunger, it is almost always due to like civil war or strife or some like. It's not a thing that is extremely rare for it to be just a matter of lack of money. It's like there's a civil war in some country and one part of the country's literally trying to starve the other part of the country.
So it's much more complex than something that money could solve. It's geopolitics, it's, it's a lot of things. It's human nature, it's governments, it's money, monetary systems, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, food is extremely cheap these days. It's like, I mean, the US at this point, among low income families, obesity is actually another problem. Obesity, it's not hunger, it's like too many calories. So it's not that nobody's hungry anywhere. It's just this is not a simple matter of adding money and solving it.
What do you think that one gets?
2.
Just going after Empire's world, where did you get those artifacts? The British Museum. Shout out to Monty Python, we found them.
Yeah, the British British Museum. It's pretty great. I mean, admittedly Britain did take these historical artifacts from all around the world and put them in London, but it's not like people can't go see them. So it is a convenient place to see these ancient artifacts is London for a large segment of the world. So I think on balance, the British Museum is a net good. Although I'm sure a lot of countries would argue about that. Yeah, it's like you want to make these historical artifacts accessible to as many people as possible. And the British Museum, I think does a good job of that.
Even if there's a darker aspect to like the history of Empire in general, whatever the empire is, however things were done, it is the history that happened. You can't sort of erase that history, unfortunately, could just become better in the future. That's the point.
Yeah, I mean, it's like, well, how are we going to pass moral judgment on these things? It's like if one is going to judge, say the British Empire, you're going to judge what everyone was doing at the time and how were the British relative to everyone And I think British would actually get a relatively good grade. Relatively good grade? Not in absolute terms, but compared to what everyone else was doing, they were not the worst. Like I said, you got to look at these things in the context of the history at the time and say, what were the alternatives? And what are you comparing it against? And I do not think it would be the case that Britain would get a bad grade when looking at history at the time. Now, if you judge history from, you know, from what is morally acceptable today, you basically are going to give everyone a failing grade. I'm not clear. I don't think anyone would get a passing grade in their morality of, like, you go back 300 years ago. Like, who is getting a passing grade? Basically no one.
And we might not get a passing grade from generations that come after us. What does that one get?
Sure.
Six, seven for the Monty Python, maybe.
I always love Monty Python. They're great. Life of Brian and the Quest of the Holy Grail are incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah. Damn those serious eyebrows.
How important do you think is facial hair to great leadership? Well, you got a new haircut. Is that. Is that. How does that affect your leadership?
I don't know. Hopefully not. It doesn't.
Yeah. The second is no one.
There is no one competing with version.
I have no one to.
Those are, like, epic eyebrows. Sure.
That's ridiculous.
Give it a six or seven. I don't know.
I like this, like, Shakespearean analysis of memes.
He had a flair for drama as well, like, you know, showmanship. Yeah.
It must come from the eyebrows.
All right.
Invention. Great engineering. Look what I invented. That's the best thing since ripped up bread.
Yeah.
Because they invented. They're just sliced bread. Am I just explaining memes at this point? This is what my life has become, A meme. What it like a scribe that runs around with the kings and just, like, writes down memes.
I mean, when was the cheeseburger inventor? That's like an epic invention. Yeah, like. Like, wow. You know, versus just like a burger or burger. I guess a burger in general is.
Like, you know, then there's like, what is a burger? What's. What's a sandwich? And then you start getting a pizza sandwich. And what is the original? It's. It's. It gets into an ontology argument.
Yeah. But everybody knows, like, if you order like a burger or cheeseburger or whatever, and you, like, you get, like, you know, tomato and some lettuce and onions and whatever, and, you know, Marin, ketchup and mustard. It's like, epic. Yeah.
But I'm sure they've had bread and meat separately for a long time. And it was kind of a burger on the same plate, but somebody who actually combined them into the same thing, and to bite it and hold it makes it convenient. It's a materials problem. Like, your hands don't get dirty and whatever. Yeah, it's brilliant. Well, that is not what I would have guessed.
But everyone knows if you order a cheeseburger, you know what you're getting. It's not like some obtuse, like, I wonder what I'll get. You know, fries are. I mean, great. I mean, they're the devil, but fries are awesome. And, yeah, pizza is incredible.
Food innovation doesn't get enough love. Yeah, I guess, is what we're getting at.
Great.
What about the Matthew McConaughey Austinite here? President Kennedy, do you know how to put men on the moon yet? NASA. No, President Kennedy. Be a lot cooler if you did.
Pretty much, sure. Six. Six or seven, I suppose.
This is the last one.
That's funny.
Someone drew a bunch of dicks all over the walls. Sistine Chapel. Boys, Bathroom.
Sure. I'll give it nine. That's really true.
This is our highest ranking meme for today.
I mean, it's true. Like, how do they get away with that?
Lots of nakedness.
Dick pics are, I mean, just something throughout history. As long as people can draw things, there's been a dick pic.
It's a staple of human history.
It's a staple consistent throughout human history.
