#448 – Jordan Peterson: Nietzsche, Hitler, God, Psychopathy, Suffering & Meaning

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Jordan Peterson, his second time on this, the Lex Friedman Podcast. And now, a quick few second mention of his sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got A Sleep For Naps, Ground News for a non-biased news aggregator, Better Health for Mental Health, and Element for Delicious Delicious electrolytes. She's wiser than my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, go to lexfridman.com/contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by A Sleep. The thing that makes me feel like home. The thing I miss when I'm traveling. That's a good definition of home. The place you miss the most when you're away from it. I think I've read a quote from like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer. One of those like hardcore, maybe a bit cynical philosophers. Who was it? Anyway, the quote was something like, home is the place you have tried to escape the most, but failed.
Oh, boy, it's kind of like from the whole school of thought that life is suffering. And so happiness is the moments where you escape the suffering briefly. That kind of perspective on life. So probably Schopenhauer, probably one of those guys. Anywho, in that same vein, I could say that, you know, taking a nap on an asleep bed, cold bed surface, warm blanket, is a kind of escape from the suffering. It is, no matter what, an escape from the world. It's the kind of escape that once you return, you feel so refreshed with new eyes. Everything is brighter. Everything is more hopeful. Everything radiates the possibility of something good happening. So I'm a big fan of naps. Go to asleep.com/lex and use code Lex to get $350 off the pod for Ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Ground News, a nonpartisan news aggregator I use to compare media coverage from across the political spectrum. The point is, you see every side of every story and you come to your own conclusion. Everything that I think is criticized almost to a cliche degree about the mainstream media or what do we call it? The heterodox media? I don't know. All the people that are kind of talking through the anti-establishment, almost conspiratorial kind of quote unquote news. All of that is not present in Ground News. I do think, for me at least personally, consuming news is so much more about protecting my brain from the assault of sort of talking points. And trivialized narratives as a first step, just to protect my mind from all the people who are yelling. Like they have this dogmatic certainty about what is true. So just protecting my head from that. And then calmly just understanding what happened, and what are the different perspectives, and what do I think about it? After I've put up the shields of defending myself from the assaults, at least for me, it helps put into full context all the different kind of outrage that's going on on the internet. Go to groundnews.com/lex to get 40% off the Ground News Vantage Plan, giving you access to all of their features. That's ground, g-r-o-u-n-d, news.com/lex.
This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help. The mind is super complex, both fragile and resilient engine, both, I truly believe it is both. It is both a thing that can knock itself off the cliff and a thing that can find a way to fly before it hits the ground. What a life this is. My mind has been on a roller coaster lately. It's been a rough one. It's been a rough one. So if you're going through difficult things or just trying to solve little puzzles in your life or because they also do couples therapy in your relationships, you should try out BetterHelp. It's easy, discreet, affordable, available worldwide. Talking is one of the ways to shine a light on the Jungian shadow. Trying to understand. Try to understand what's going on in there. What are the roots of your particular malady, particular kind of psychological distress? What a fascinating little puzzle this whole thing is. Check them out at betterhelp.com/lex and save in your first month. That's betterhelp.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte drink that I'm currently drinking. Let me take a sip. Delicious. Watermelon salt always has been, always will be, but there's a bunch of other flavors if you like them. There's like a chocolatey one, which I've tried a bunch of times and it's actually amazing. But for me personally, it's almost a little too amazing. It almost feels like dessert versus like a refreshing, energizing kind of flavor, which is watermelon salt. But to each their own, I'm actually learning that people have fundamentally different tastes in foods, in ice cream, whatever, and I think that's beautiful. For most of my life, I get stuck on certain foods I like and I just keep eating that thing. So I'm a creature of habit in a sense. Because I find a thing that makes me happy and I just keep doing the thing that makes me happy. It's kind of logical. I don't get bored. I guess I don't get bored easily because everything is so full of life. Everything is so full of awesomeness. And I just don't need to go to an using that's full of awesomeness. But I also realize that there is a joy inherent to the exploration in itself. So I guess that's an argument for me to try different flavors of element. I have. I gave them a chance. I still like watermelon salt the most. What you gonna do? Get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinklmnt.com/lex.