Why Can No One Agree On The Truth Anymore? - Eric Weinstein - #676

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Eric Weinstein. He's a mathematician, economist and a podcaster. The last three years have been a time of massive confusion. No one can agree on what is real or true or who is good faith or a grifter. No matter what you believe in, we can all agree that this epidemic of uncertainty probably can't continue. Expect to learn what you find out from being around the most rich and powerful people in the world, what it was like to meet Jeffrey Epstein face to face, what Eric thinks about the recent surge in UFO disclosures, his thoughts on Sam Harris' recent episode with me, whether the downfall of physics and academia is the nail in the coffin for humanity, the biggest issues of having easy access to porn, how women could take a bigger role in the crisis of masculinity and much more. I had so much fun recording this episode with Eric. Very, very wide-ranging, including a five-minute interlude for Eric to play a ukulele-sized guitar, which you might not have been expecting. But yeah, I love these wide-ranging conversations and Eric's been on the hit list for quite a while, so I'm very glad to have finally got him on and I think he will be back in the future. Also, the next five weeks, six weeks, maybe even more, have got a Modern Wisdom cinema episode coming out every single Monday and the only way that you don't miss that is by hitting the subscribe button. Plus, it supports the show and it makes me very happy indeed. So navigate to whatever app you're using and just hit subscribe for me, please.

**Eric Weinstein** (1:32)
A thank you.

**Chris Williamson** (1:33)
But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Eric Weinstein. You just came back from your first holiday in quite a while.

**Eric Weinstein** (2:01)
Well, my first holiday of, let's say, three weeks or more in quite a while.

**Chris Williamson** (2:06)
How was that?

**Eric Weinstein** (2:09)
Astounding. Really very good to see what's going on in the rest of the world at this particular moment. We had previously gone to India in the year to visit family. This was to go back to Turkey and to go to Portugal but also to the Azores Islands.
And I can't tell you how meaningful it was for me to be back traveling.

**Chris Williamson** (2:35)
Why?

**Eric Weinstein** (2:37)
Well, I mean, partially it's re-equipped. When you have children and children change your game for about two decades, you have to realize that that's a transient period. It felt like it was going to go on forever. And so this was sort of trying to figure out what is it like to go from traveling in your 20s and 30s without kids to traveling with your kids at the last moment that you still have them at home. And now you're going to have the rest of your life without them again, but you can't go back to backpacking and doing certain other things that were easy for you. So you have to figure out how to rejoin your previous life that has been in progress without you actually-

**Chris Williamson** (3:13)
Pending for a long time.

**Eric Weinstein** (3:14)
Exactly.

**Chris Williamson** (3:15)
A sabbatical from life almost.

**Eric Weinstein** (3:17)
The other thing is that you forget about parts of yourself. Like I forgot that I spoke Turkish. Not well, but I spoke rudimentary Tarzan Turkish 30 years ago. To be back in Istanbul and to suddenly have words and phrases and things come back and be talking to cab drivers and just people in the street, seeing the change. obviously, there's been an enormous amount of change in Turkey.
Portugal is fascinating, seeing certain things at the end of their life cycle. We were at a synagogue in Bursa, where the sort of the home of the Ottoman Empire, where they were down to like their last 50 people, which is a common enough thing when we visit diaspora Jewish communities, sort of at the tail end with the embers still glowing hot, but no chance for a rebirth. And then in the Azores, I was not prepared for the level of beauty that we encountered. There is a level of beauty that I've only experienced two, maybe three times in my life, that sort of leaves you physically sick, like ill. It's so beautiful that your body is the weak link. Like you might think that sugar is tasty, but if you were to eat a bag of sugar, you'd probably be sick to your stomach. And I would say this was like so much beauty that it was at an almost pathological level and more than I think my family could really take in. We're just so moved.