Eric Weinstein 與 Balaji：制度失靈時，還有哪些選擇？

0:00開場

0:00博士？博士。你知道，我們嚴格來說都是 PhD，對吧？我們不太能拿這個來炫耀，但算是一點小本錢。首先，謝謝你大老遠飛過來。很好玩。我覺得……請說。我本來想說，我喜歡這個地方的一點是：代表僵化建制派的那位……Doctor? Doctor. You know, we are technically PhDs, right? We don't get to flex that, but it's a little thing. First of all, thanks for flying all the way out. It's fun. I think—go, go, go. You say. Well, I was just going to say, what I love about this place is that the person representing the hidebound establishment . .

0:21來自 Thiel Capital。對，沒錯，沒錯。好讓大家知道這個房間有多瘋。請繼續。順便說，我不記得我們倆有過只限三十分鐘的對談。這倒是真的。所以我們得走精簡版。但我們這些年斷斷續續聊過：西方制度，尤其是學界，你我都有個人利害；我們也涉足創投，不只一腳，可能好幾腳都在創投裡。is from Thiel Capital. Yes, that's right, that's right, that's right. To get an idea of how crazy this room is. But go ahead. And by the way, I don't think you and I have ever had a conversation limited to 30 minutes. Well, that's true. So we're going to have the abbreviated version. But so we've basically had a long-running discussion on and off over the years about— the state of Western institutions, especially academia, which you and I both have a personal interest in, and we also have a foot in venture capital, more than a foot, maybe a couple of feet in venture capital.

0:52Eric 你現在站在哪裡？幾年前我們在 The Portal 之類的節目聊過，你當時說：Balaji，你對西方制度太悲觀了，它們需要修。你今天怎麼看？我可以幫你的觀眾翻譯嗎？好，請。我懂 Balaji 語。好。你是想逼我說「我說對了，對吧？」我沒那樣說。我是在鋪墊讓你說。你電話裡確實那樣說過。And, you know, where is Eric currently at? Because a few years ago, I think we had a thing on The Portal, something like that, and you were like, Oh, Balaji, you're such a doomer on Western institutions. They need to be fixed. Where are you at on that today? May I translate for your audience? Yeah, go, go. I speak Balaji. Okay, okay. You're trying to get me to say, 'I was right, wasn't I?' Right? I didn't say that. I was teeing it up for you to say that. You did say it while we were on the phone call.

1:17好，好，請說。好，我哪裡錯了？告訴我我哪裡錯。請說。首先，為什麼創立新制度這麼難，本身就很值得問。那些曾極強大、有充分理由強大的舊制度，已經跌很遠。Yeah, yeah, go, go, go. Okay, how am I wrong? Tell me how I'm wrong. Go, go. Well, first of all, I think that it's an interesting question as to— why it's so difficult to found new institutions, because the old ones, which were extremely powerful and had reasons for being powerful, have been falling a great distance.

1:35總有個時刻，正在往上、還不太強的那一方，會碰上曾經很強、正在往下走的那一方。關鍵當然是：在什麼時間點，有人能創立一個制度，卻不會反過來限制那些該扛球的人說話、行為與創新？So at some point, the thing that is not very powerful and on its way up meets the thing that was very powerful and is on its way down. The key question, of course, is at what point can someone found an institution that doesn't end up trying to restrict the speech and the behavior and the innovation of those who should be carrying the ball.

1:56真的，我不是言論自由絕對主義者。很多方面你還是需要「不可為」的概念，那通常是文化層的事，讓你能自由、讓法律可以極度寬鬆。So there are all these people who really—I'm not a free speech absolutist. There are all sorts of ways in which you do need to have a concept of mustn't, and that's usually a cultural thing, which allows you to be free and to have laws that are extremely permissive.

2:12但你不能既沒有「不可為」的概念，又完全放任。所以現在我們沒辦法讓一個在 COVID 上判斷大致正確的人來領導大學。原因不明。那種人制度就是不信任，儘管在真相上他們值得信任。But you can't both have no concept of mustn't and have completely free rein. So at the moment, we can't have anyone who, let's say, got COVID more right than wrong leading a university. We don't know why. That person just—they're not trusted by the institutions, even though they're trustworthy on the truth.

2:32新組織的地點難題

2:32所以我們處在一個很怪的位置：你把心血和資源押在「我們要創造世界從未見過的新東西」這個想法上。我完全 applaud，也是我來的原因之一。另一方面，你也在發現，那套邏輯結構很難安放在物理空間裡，因為你得操心邏輯結構和它所附著的物理地點是否契合。So we're in some very strange position in which you are putting your heart, soul, and resources behind this idea of we're going to create something new that the world has never seen. So I totally applaud that, one of the reasons I'm here. On the other hand, as you are finding out, that logical structure is very hard to situate in a physical one because you have to worry about what is the fit between the logical structure and the place that it physically attaches.

3:01這是你們這群人關鍵挑戰之一。有個詞，我稍早跟某人提過：我知道在舊金山、其實在整個西方對話裡，我們常說 institution（制度）。問題是 institution 幾乎帶有「老」的聯想，對吧？institutional 並不表示……所以「創立一個 institution」有點像……你知道，我明天就要 IPO。有點像預設結果、預設成功。但若改成「一個組織，做過去 institution 做得好、現在已做不好的事」，就感覺比較可行。That's one of the key challenges for your group. So, you know, there's one word, and I mentioned this to someone earlier, which is, I know in San Francisco we do, and actually in the Western conversation, we talk about the word institution. The problem is institution almost connotes old, right? Like, institutional doesn't mean—so to found an institution is sort of like... You know, I'm going to IPO tomorrow. It's kind of like presuming the consequent. It's presuming success, in a sense. But if you say an organization that does what that institution used to do well and no longer does, that feels more feasible.

3:37你不必全接，接一部分就好。有趣的問題：YouTube 是 institution 嗎？現在二十歲了，對吧？Google 是嗎？也許 Google 是，但只有二十五歲。五角大廈是公部門 institution。對，沒錯。And then you don't have to take on all of it, but some of it. And then, you know, so an interesting question: is YouTube an institution? It's now 20 years old, right? Is Google an institution? Maybe Google's an institution, but it's only 25 years old. Like, you know, what would be, you know, the Pentagon is a public-sector institution. Yeah, exactly, right.

3:58所以當人們說 institution，我覺得通常指特定組織，像 Harvard；或指社會慣例。你心裡想的是哪一種？其實還有第三種：在加密圈，人們說 institutions are coming in，指的是 State Street、Fidelity 那類較老的華爾街機構。So when people say institution, I think they typically mean either an organization, like a specific one, like Harvard or something. Or like a societal convention. What do you have in mind, you know, when you say that? Because different people have, you know, actually there's a third definition, by the way, which is in crypto, people say the institutions are coming in.

4:19但 institutional 總帶有老、或較老的意味。所以若我們預設用這個詞或這樣想，中國 institution 在年歲上有優勢，而且你在研究等方面也看到它們現在做得很好。By that they meant like State Street, Fidelity, right, the older kind of Wall Street things, right? But institutional always connotes old. Or older. So therefore, what kind of happens by default, if we use that word or think in that way, is that the Chinese institutions have the edge in age, and they're actually doing very well now in research and so on, as I'm sure you're seeing.

4:43所以預設而言，若西方 institution 失敗、又無法創立能取代它們的組織，中國 institution 同時有規模和某種「資歷」的優勢，至少不是昨天才出生。它們有幾年、幾十年證明自己。Tsinghua 等等。我只是在想我們不能說的話。好。這是新加坡，別太瘋，但除此之外請說。So by default, if— If Western institutions are failing and one can't found organizations that replace them, the Chinese institutions have the advantage of both scale and a degree of antiquity, at least. I mean, antiquity is not the right word. I mean, let's say they weren't born yesterday, right? You know, they have years, decades of proving themselves. You have, like, Tsinghua and so on and so forth. Well, I'm just, like, trying to think of all the things that we can't say. Sure, fine. Okay. It's Singapore, so it's, I mean, don't go too crazy.

5:13制度記憶與大停滯

5:13我不知道那是什麼意思。別製造外交事件，除此之外請說。得在半小時內講完。但你看，若你還記得，我可以引用 Kamala Harris。她愛說：你若抹去過去，未來會發生什麼誰也說不准。這在 Marx 那裡是很強的觀念：你得基本上把 slate 清乾淨，隱含地。I don't know what that means. Don't cause a diplomatic incident, but other than that, go ahead. Trying to get through half an hour. But look, you know, one of the problems, if you remember, I can quote Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris was fond of saying that if you erase the past, no telling what can happen in the future. And, you know, this is a very strong idea in Marx, which is that you have to basically wipe the slate clean, implicitly.

5:42有些地方甚至有 Year Zero 那種事。對。所以部分問題是 institutional memory：怎麼阻止舊制度那些問題？我不太確定怎麼想中國。就停在這裡。好。In fact, in some places, the Year Zero kind of thing. Yeah. And so, you know, in part, there's this question about institutional memory. And how do you stop the problems that were associated with the old? So I'm not really sure how to think about China. Let's just leave it at that. Okay.

6:03有趣的是，在長久停滯之後，一切變化如此劇烈，我們才剛從那個 incredible 的停滯期醒來，我們都在那個 bubble 裡長大，對吧？我們已不在 bubble 裡，但至少到 2025 年 1 月、或 COVID 之前都還在。You know, what's interesting, of course, is that everything is changing so radically after being so stagnant for so long that— We're just waking up out of this incredible period of stagnation that all of us grew up in, a bubble, right? And we're no longer in that bubble, but we were up until January of 2025, or at least COVID.

6:26我要替 Great Stagnation 做 devil's advocate：Great Stagnation 雖然讓我們挫折， retrospect 可能被視為 Great Stability。也許正是它讓地球沒因核戰炸開，但真的很無聊。You know, I'm going to make, you know, like a devil's advocate case for the Great Stagnation even, okay, which is— The Great Stagnation, though it was frustrating for us, will probably be seen in retrospect as the Great Stability. Oh, it's probably what kept planet Earth from exploding through thermonuclear war, but it was really boring.

6:45對。所以問題在於，我們做的創新、顛覆，你在顛覆端會覺得很棒，在被顛覆端就不那麼棒，對吧？很多人……請說。等等。我聰明地選了數學 PhD。對，昨天數學也被顛覆了。這週真夠嗆。沒錯。Yeah. Well, so that's the thing. It's basically what, you know, all the innovation we're doing, the disruption, is awesome if you're on the disrupting end and not so awesome if you're on the disrupted end, right? And so a lot of folks—go ahead. Well, hang on. I mean, I cleverly chose to get my PhD in mathematics. Yeah, yeah, that got disrupted yesterday. This is a hell of a week. Yeah, that's right.

7:08我興奮到不行。對，但其他人都一臉長相。我的感覺是：終於。所以「覺得自己被顛覆」某種程度上是心態。你我相對少見，都有點年紀了，但二十幾歲……有句話說，若不到三十，新發展是你能拿來謀生的；I couldn't be more excited. Yeah, well, so—but everybody else is going around with these long faces. My feeling is, finally. Yeah, so that's, you know, that's the thing, is to, quote, feel that one is being disrupted is partly a state of mind. I think you and I are relatively unusual in that, you know, I guess we're both kind of a little bit getting up there in age, but, like, you know, twenty-somethings—you know that saying, like, if somebody is under 30, then a new development is something that they can make a living in.

7:38年齡門檻與沉默世代

7:38三十到五十：這是什麼新東西？五十以上：這違反自然秩序。你聽過這概念嗎？沒有。要看情況，量子革命那代人活下來，問題是他們老了還想用革命方式做一切，對吧？And it's like 30 to 50, oh, what is this new thing? And then 50-plus, it's an offense against the natural order. Have you heard that concept? No. You know, it depends, because, like, the quantum guys who lived through the quantum revolution, their problem was that they wanted to do everything through a revolution, even when they got old, right?

7:56你若跟 Sex Pistols 聊，我敢說他們還是……Well，Metallica 和 Dr. Dre 年紀大一點也打版權官司。他們是 rebel，不笨。總之好。順便，就我們年齡，能不能……不，當然。就頭髮看來你比較老。對，很好。我只是在說，其實你是較老的 X 世代。So, like, if you talk to the Sex Pistols, I'm pretty sure that— They would be. Well, you know, though, Metallica and Dr. Dre were doing copyright lawsuits as they got a little older. Look, they're rebels. They're not stupid. Yeah, well. But anyway, fine. By the way, in terms of our age, can we just— No, no, sure, sure. You're older... based on our hair. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I know, I know. Well, all I was going to say is basically, with respect to— actually, you're the older— what is it? You're the older Gen X.

8:23我是較老的千禧世代之類，對吧？有種這樣想的方式。你說過你懂、你會講 Boomer，帶口音那種。對，帶口音。這件事有趣的是，人們……我也討厭自己事後這樣做。我也想 steelman、稍微替 Boomer 辯護。為什麼？因為我其實是在追 Silent Generation，他們才真正搞出問題。對，我正要說。And I'm the older Millennial or whatever, right? Like, I think it's a way of thinking about it. There's something you said, like, you understand, you speak Boomer. Or something like that, with an accent. Yeah, with an accent. That's right. So, the funny thing about this is, people— I also hate myself for doing it after it happens. You know, I also want to steelman and actually defend the Boomers a little bit. Why? Because I'm really actually going after the Silent Generation, who really caused the problem. Yeah, okay, that's what I was going to say.

8:51他們有造成嗎……從他們角度看，他們剛見過兩場毀滅性世界大戰。頭號優先是把任何可能再引發那種大戰的意識形態關進盒子，因為殺戮太多。Well, did they even cause— See, the thing is, from their standpoint, they had just seen— two totally destructive world wars. And the number one priority was to stuff any ideology in the box that would cause another world war like that, because there's so much killing.

9:06所以他們不在乎還得犧牲什麼。整個戰後……這是一種看法，對吧？哇。請說。不，我從沒……這是我們意見不合的地方。不，我覺得他們只是想要游泳池，需要比父母更多，否則覺得自己是失敗者。So they didn't care what other sacrifices they had to make. And so the entire postwar—I mean, that's one way of thinking about it, right? Wow. Go ahead. No, I've never— this is something we do disagree on. No, I think they really just wanted swimming pools, that they needed more than their parents had had, because otherwise they felt like failures.

9:28Silent Generation 是第一代發現可以把家族生意一片片賣掉、卻不再重啟的人。你原本要往哪說？這是 steelman：我讀那個時代的東西，有相當一批人、至少 critical mass，覺得民族主義、對國家與部落的過度信念，導致那些瘋狂毀滅的戰爭，所有人的精力都……And the Silent Generation were the first people that realized that you could sell off the family business piece by piece and not restart it. But where were you headed? Here's the steelman. The steelman is, when I read stuff from around that time. There are a good chunk of people, a critical mass at least, that felt nationalism and too much faith in one's country and tribe and so on led to these insanely destructive wars, where everybody's energies.

9:54第二場之後他們說：好，來吧，deracinate 人們，把所有能量灌進消費主義。那安全，不會炸掉世界。人們怎麼抱怨都無所謂，總比動物本能被現代機槍、炸彈、核武挑起來好。他們大量吞 blue pill， overdose 到本身也變危險，我們今天就在這裡。And after the second one of those, they said, you know what, let's— deracinate people. Let's just put all the energy into consumerism. That's safe. That's not going to blow up the world. And it really doesn't matter how much people complain about it, because it's way better than having their animal spirits get— ramped up with modern machine guns and bombs and nuclear weapons. And they just had massive doses of blue pills, and then they overdosed on it to the point that that itself became dangerous, and that's where we are today.

10:23西方巔峰到底何時

10:23但至少我們能理解那個世界為何被建起來。不是 Boomer 建的，Boomer 生在其中。至少這是 steel man。也許你全不同意。有一點。從我角度，三〇年代出生的人從沒當過總統。然後是打二戰、以為美國贏了二戰的那代（不算蘇聯損失）。But at least we can understand why that world was set up. It wasn't really set up by the boomers. The boomers were born into it. And at least that's the steel man of the thing, you know? I don't know, maybe you disagree with all of that. A little bit. I mean, I guess from my perspective, nobody born in the '30s ever became president. Then you had the people who were fighting World War II, who thought that they won World War II from the American side, not counting Soviet losses.

10:50對，處境非常 interesting、very weird。然後 Silent Generation 在七〇年代初撞上那個 weird discontinuity，Bitcoin 圈試圖壟斷成「1971 到底怎麼了？」那也不對。Yeah, I think it's a very, very interesting, weird situation to be in. Then it was the Silent Generation who, you know, hit the weird discontinuity in the early '70s that the Bitcoiners tried to monopolize as "What the fuck happened in 1971?" which is not right.

11:11但不管。Boomer 人數上來，疊加 Silent Generation 的想法：賣東西換繼續變富。對孩子不好，對 lineage 福祉完全沒興趣，我覺得是新的。可能跟毒品有關。問你：不同人答案不同。很多人同意近來走下坡。美國巔峰何時？西方巔峰何時？But never mind. Then you had the boomers in numbers, piling on to the Silent Generation's idea, which is we'll just sell stuff off so that we can keep getting richer. It's just bad for our kids, and just a complete lack of interest in the welfare of one's lineage, which I think was something new. It may have had something to do with drugs. So, question for you, and you know, it's funny, different people have a different answer to this. Lots of people agree things have gone downhill recently. When was peak America?

11:41因為是多變量。不同東西在不同時間達峰。舞台上有兩個 contrarian 就有問題，就是，對。不同東西在不同地方達峰，我覺得 remembered peak 在某個沒人想回去的時間，大概避孕藥或 Sputnik 那附近。我問這問題，答案真的差很多。When was peak West? Oh, that's because it was multivariate. Different things peaked at— You have a problem when you have two contrarians on the stage at the same time, and it's like, yes. Different things peaked in different places, and I think that the peak was at some time—it's like the remembered peak—is at some time that no one would want to go back to, probably like around the time of— ... the pill or Sputnik or something like that. You know, it's funny, I ask this question to people and I really do get a lot of different answers.

12:16有人說九〇年代，有人說 2001 年 9 月 10 日，有人說八〇年代，很多人說五〇年代，也有人說十八……我祖父說大蕭條是美國史上最好時光。You know, like some people will say the '90s, some people will say September 10th, 2001. You know, some people actually place it, you know, in the '80s. Or, of course, a lot of people say the '50s. Other people will say the eighteen—you know, my grandfather said the Great Depression was the best time in American history.

12:33真的？怎麼得出來？他說：酷的是你可以跟任何人談問題，因為 scales 從大家 eyes 上掉下來了。所以那是美國史上最 real 的時光，我說。從沒聽過。有趣。大蕭條，二十世紀一種重讀是：大家都走向共產，美國只是 least communist，因為邊際稅率 90% 不是 100%。Really? How do you come up with that one? He said, "Well, the cool thing was you could talk to anybody about the problems because the scales had fallen from everybody's eyes." And so it was the realest time in American history, I said. I've never heard that before. Interesting. Well, you know, the thing is, you know, the Great Depression, one reinterpretation of the whole 20th century is everybody went communist, but America just went the least communist because it had 90% marginal tax rates, not 100%.

13:01發聲還是退出

13:01對。所以其實一切都 centralized。一切……請說。這很 ingeniously 回到你原問題：voice 對 exit。美國贏，是因為變爛的速度比別處慢？Yeah. And so, like, everything was actually centralized, you know. Everything was, you know—go ahead. Well, this is an ingenious way to bring it back to your original question, which is about, like, voice versus exit. Yeah. Which is, is America winning because it's getting less—it's getting bad less quickly than everywhere else?

13:21比別處瘋得少。你要做的只是跑贏對手，不是跑贏熊。你這樣說很有趣，我對過去大概一百年有個簡單量化理論。進入 1950 前，科技是 centralizing 的：大眾媒體、大量生產，還有各種統一戰爭，德國統一、義大利統一、明治維新。It's lost its mind less than other places. Like, all you're trying to do is outrun the other guy, not outrun the bear. It's funny you say that, because I have a very simple quantitative theory of the last, whatever, hundred years. Okay, so going into 1950, you can think of technology as centralizing, because it was mass media, mass production. You had all of these wars of unification, from German unification, Italian unification, you know, the Meiji Restoration.

13:48這些統一戰爭大致進入 1950，那時世界上政治實體數量史上最少。所以 Orwell 以為會縮到三個：Oceania、Eurasia、Eastasia。So all of these wars of unification going into roughly 1950, at which point you also had the fewest number of political entities ever in world history. That's why Orwell thought it was going to go just down to three entities, you know: Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia. So.

14:02所以進入那時，西方自由主義、言論自由與個人權利，是對抗科技 centralization 有用的文化 offset。相對地，俄國沙皇專制、中國 collectivism 像 plus one 加在 plus one 上得 plus two，所以有 Stalin、Mao，centralized fist。So basically, going into that time, Western liberalism, you know, free speech and the rights of the individual, was a useful cultural offset to technological centralization. By contrast, Russian Tsarism, Chinese collectivism was like a plus one on top of a plus one that gives you a plus two, so you get Stalin and Mao, you get the centralized fist.

14:22而 minus one 去中心化加 plus one centralization，文化去中心化、科技 centralization，在西方形成 balance，對吧？但 transistor 發明後，完全 unwind。過去八十年：transistor、個人電腦、智慧型手機、加密貨幣。And whereas the minus one of decentralization and plus one of centralization, cultural decentralization, technological centralization, give you a balance in the West, right? Okay, but then with the invention of the transistor, that unwound completely. And in the last 80 years, we've gone transistor, personal computer, smartphone, cryptocurrency.

14:42我們經歷去中心化，現在世界的 default 是 anarchic internet。東方文化如中國 collectivism，還有 Indian dharma 等，有文化公式 moderating internet、 smoothedown chaos。西方尤其美國，1A、2A，第一與第二修正案，完全神聖，甚至在十誡之上，十誡已失落。So we've had decentralization, and now the default of the world is the anarchic internet. And Eastern cultures like Chinese collectivism and so on have, but also Indian dharma and others, have some cultural formula to moderate the internet, to kind of smooth down chaos. Whereas in the West, especially if you go to the U.S., it's the 1A and 2A, First Amendment and Second Amendment, are completely sacred, even above the Ten Commandments, which have been lost.

15:10現在你只有文化去中心化疊在科技去中心化上，得到 American anarchy。我覺得這是美國本世紀的問題，不是共產與法西斯，而是 anarcho-communism 與 anarcho-fascism，去中心化、chaotic 的品種，anarcho-communism 甚至比共產更糟因為做不出 Sputnik，anarcho-fascism 比法西斯更糟因為做不出 Volkswagen。So now you just have cultural decentralization on top of technological decentralization, so you get American anarchy. And I think that's the problem of this century in America, which is not communism and fascism, but anarcho-communism and anarcho-fascism, like the decentralized, chaotic variety that's even—like anarcho-communism is even worse than communism because it can't do Sputnik, and anarcho-fascism even worse than fascism because it could never do the Volkswagen.

15:39雙重去中心化

15:39對吧？就是人在網路上 radicalized 然後互射，但無法 organize。我覺得這才是我們真正看到的，相對二十世紀的問題。我先停這裡，聽你的想法。不，我很享受那段 riff，但好。對，這回到我從沒成功賣給任何人的舊概念 USAN，United States of Absolutely Nothing。Right? It's just people getting radicalized online and shooting each other and other people, but it can't organize. And I think that's what we're actually seeing, as opposed to the problems of the 20th century. Let me pause there and get your thoughts on that. No, I was really enjoying that riff, but okay. Yeah, I think that this gets back to an old concept that I never was successful in selling to anyone called the USAN, or the United States of Absolutely Nothing.

16:02想法是：贏了冷戰後，你只需要法院、貨幣、軍隊等 institution，不必代表任何價值。你可以說：這國家像 Seinfeld，是關於 nothing 的國家。It was the idea that, having won the Cold War, all you needed were institutions like the courts, and a currency, and the Army, and you didn't have to stand for anything. You could just say, "This country is like Seinfeld. It's a country about nothing."

16:21那行不通。老實說，美國很多事是因為我們有 brilliant administrator class，聽起來很怪。但 WWII 的 Vannevar Bush 那型人有角色，然後把 brilliance 用來創造二戰後最 bizarre 的 empire，沒人懂因為整個結構被藏起來。And that doesn't work. And in part, you know, I'll be honest. I think that a lot of what happened in the U.S. is that we had a brilliant administrator class, and that sounds really weird. But, like, Vannevar Bush-type guys in World War II had a role, and then they took that brilliance and they created the most bizarre empire after World War II that nobody understood because they hid the whole structure.

16:46然後發生 interesting 的事：他們沒告訴 successor 怎麼運作。對。所以你有 genius 建的 zombie empire，由 idiot 值守。對。你可以試著叫醒 idiot 說：不是那樣運作的。你看大學 grant overhead，不是管理 grant 的成本。And then there was this really interesting thing that happened, which was they didn't tell their successors how it worked. Yes. Right. So you have this zombie empire constructed by geniuses that's manned by idiots. Yes. And you can try to wake the idiots up and say, "That's not how it works. Like—" If you look at overhead on university grants, it's not the cost of administering the grant.

17:16是政府對 elite institution 的 payoff，政治上無法容忍，卻偽裝成管理 grant。突然比 moron 高一級的人說：嘿，我找到可以砍的 line item。這就是問題。你沒法解釋那從來不是真 democracy。It's a payoff to elite institutions from the government that is not politically tolerable, hidden as if you're administering the grant. Duh. Okay, but— All of a sudden, people one level above morons say, "Hey, look, I found a line item to strike." So, you know, this is the problem. You can't explain that it wasn't a real democracy.

17:41兩黨本來要篩掉能 overturn NATO、NAFTA 等長期協議的 populist……那就是他們的工作。阻止 populist 掌權。然後一黨失敗，共和黨，我們得到 Donald Trump。The two political parties were supposed to screen out populists who could reverse long-running agreements like NATO and NAFTA, and— Okay, that was their job. Their job was to stop populists from gaining power. And then one party failed, and that party was the Republican Party, and we got Donald Trump.

18:01殭屍帝國與網路

18:01所以好壞不論，你突然看見 democracy 長什麼樣。然後那些口口聲聲 democracy 的人 spectacle 是：你不能投他，因為他們不懂自己系統怎麼運作。So, for better or worse, suddenly you see what democracy looks like. And then you have the spectacle of all of these people who were just all about democracy saying, "Well, you can't vote for him," because they didn't understand how their own system works.

18:15整件事 comic-tragic。我有兩個想法。第一，Trump 上游是 Twitter，Twitter 上游是 internet。Internet 帶來 Brexit、drones、AI、crypto。So the whole thing is comic-tragic. Well, so I have two thoughts on that. The first is that upstream of Trump is Twitter, and upstream of Twitter is the internet, right? And the internet led to Brexit, and the internet led to drones, and the internet led to AI, and the internet led to crypto.

18:33Internet 像電磁學，幾乎所有世界事件的 invisible driving force，在八〇、九〇年代幾乎不存在。一個 thesis：西方 institution 為 pre-internet order 最佳化，若沒有 internet disruption 會 indefinitely stable。And so the internet is the, like, electromagnetism, the invisible driving force on basically all world events that was almost completely absent in the '80s and '90s. And one thesis is that Western institutions were optimized for the pre-internet order and would have remained stable indefinitely in the absence of that internet disruption.

18:55這是 thesis 一。你的想法？Well，我說過：Jeffrey Epstein 是 pre-internet 建的 deep-state construct，活到 internet 時代。或 public health。人們以為有門叫 public health 的科學。That's thesis number one. Let me know your thoughts on that. Well, so, I've said this: that— Jeffrey Epstein was a deep-state construct that was constructed pre-internet that lived into the internet age, right? Or public health. People thought that there was a science called public health.

19:16你認識這領域的人嗎？Well，它曾經是真的，對吧？Salk 脊髓灰質炎疫苗、公共衛生、下水道、污水處理，都是 public health 的一部分。對，但老實說，你若認識這領域今天的人，就像說：不敢相信 foot fetishist 會在鞋店工作。Pedophile 在兒童營當 counselor。Public-health 的人被什麼吸引來告訴別人該做什麼？Like, do you know any people in this science? Well, so, it used to be real, though, right? Like the Salk polio vaccine, right? You know, like public sanitation, sewers, sewage treatment. There were real things that were part of public health. Yeah, but also, let's be honest: if you know anybody in this field today, it's like saying, "I can't believe that a foot fetishist would have a job in a shoe store." Okay? So, and the pedophiles are counselors at kids' camps. Okay, what do you think public-health people are that are attracted to telling other people what to do?

19:52今天是的。我們需要一個詞，描述 label gradually corrupted。想像一盒食物，標 tomatoes，二十年前是 tomatoes，在冰箱二十年，不再是 tomatoes，是別的，仍標 tomatoes。它曾是 tomato，曾 healthy，曾是 public health。我有一個給你。請說。Veritas。Today, yes. But this is one of the things that is, you know, we need a word for when a label gets gradually corrupted. It's like, you know, imagine... some box of food, okay? And it was tomatoes, and it was labeled tomatoes. And 20 years ago it was tomatoes, but it's been in the fridge for 20 years. It's no longer tomatoes. It's something else, right? But it's still labeled tomatoes. In the same way, it was a tomato once, you know, and, like, it was healthy, right? So it was public health at some point. I've got one for you. Go ahead. Veritas.

20:26網路顛覆與公共衛生

20:26Veritas，對。我作為住過 02138 的人……所以我的意思是，很多這些東西曾 world-leading，曾是最好的……若你問 internet 怎麼 disrupt 它們，那幾乎是幾乎每件事的 root cause，internet 或中國，通常是這兩者之一 disrupt。我的 model，我同意你，是你有 North Star，那是你貼上的 label，像要給你 tomatoes。Veritas, yeah, right. No, I mean, as a person who has lived in the 02138 area. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so the reason I say this is a lot of these things were—I mean, they were world-leading at some point, right? They were the best, and... you know, my view is, if you ask that question, how did the internet disrupt them, that's almost like the root cause of just about every—I mean, the internet or China. Usually it's one of those two that's the disruptor. My model of this, by the way, I agree with you, is that you have a North Star, and that's the label that you put on, like trying to give you tomatoes.

21:02在赤道，magnetic 與 true north 差很小，誰知道那角度叫什麼？磁偏角（angle of declination）。不大，有 compass 的人大致知道北在哪。And at the equator, the difference between magnetic and true north is this tiny thing that nobody—who knows what the name of this thing is? The angle of declination. Now, it's not that big, so anybody with a compass can tell where north is approximately.

21:19在加拿大 Ellesmere Island 那種緯度，magnetic north 和 true north 可能相反。關鍵問題是：任何 institution 關於它宣稱在做什麼，與它實際必須做的事，磁偏角多大？我們要 stop hate，對比：我們得製造夠多 hate 才能養活大家、讓捐款進來。When you're on, like, Ellesmere Island in Canada, magnetic north... And true north can point in opposite directions. And so the key question is, what is the angle of declination of any institution about what it says it's trying to do? We're trying to stop hate versus what it actually has to do. We need to manufacture enough hate so that we can keep everybody employed and have the donations come in.

21:43某刻磁偏角從 acute 變 obtuse。我們看到大量 institution 曾同步、一起 northward march。我們成長的 era，抱歉，像 IQ test：你看不出 institution 完全 off its rocker？數學家說：誰要這麼多 progress？我 field 的 leader，你見 Fields Medalist 該發抖，他們卻說：沒人請 OpenAI 做這麼多好工作。So at some point, the angle of declination goes from acute to obtuse. And what we're seeing is an enormous number of institutions that were synchronized at the same time that all made this march northward. And we are growing up in an era in which, I'm sorry, it's like an IQ test. Can you not tell that the institution is completely off its rocker? Literally, mathematicians are saying, "Who asked for all this progress?" I mean. I'm telling you, these are the leaders of my field, the people who you should be quaking in your boots if you meet a Fields Medalist, and they're sitting there saying, "Nobody asked OpenAI to do this much good work."

22:24Bananas。有趣，因為 conformity……一系列各自合理的步驟，最後導向 bad result，對吧？拿 science。Science 從 gentleman 做 science、寫信談實驗開始，最後變成 peer-reviewed journals 的 equivalent，但仍是你做 individual replications，然後 gradually peer review、prestige、citation 開始It's bananas. It's interesting because, you know, there is something where the conformity of— You know, here's, like, a series of things that each make sense, and then at the end you lead to a bad result, right? Okay, so let's take science. Science started with just gentlemen doing science and writing each other letters about their experiments and so on, and that eventually became, let's call it, the equivalent of peer-reviewed journals, but— It was still something where you're doing individual replications, and then gradually peer review and prestige and citation start to

23:00磁偏角與科學危機

23:00取代 independent replication。現在只要在 Science、Nature、Cell 發表就夠，人們以為是真的。然後 replication crisis：paper 發了，底下只有 prestige、什麼都沒有。take over for and substitute for independent replication. So now it was simply sufficient to get published in Science or Nature or Cell, and people thought it was true. And then you started to get the replication crisis where, you know, these papers were published, and it was just prestige with nothing underneath it whatsoever.

23:18那種事在 academia 也發生：一開始，如你所說，true north，確實指向某方向。若從一開始全造假，不會有 power 或 relevance。And the thing is that that kind of thing has happened within academia as well, where it started, as you say, let's call it true north, where it did point in a direction. It wouldn't have achieved any power or relevance if it was totally making things up from the beginning.

23:32然後 gradually 變成 true north 的 proxy，那些 proxy 越來越弱，直到開始指相反方向。你覺得這故事如何？類似 internet 上 metric 變 target？Goodhart's law。我覺得更 dark、更有趣。好。我覺得 Vince McMahon 真的是 central，kayfabe？對。And then gradually it went to— you know, proxies for true north, and then eventually those proxies became weaker and weaker and weaker until they started pointing in the opposite direction. And, you know, I don't know. What do you think about that as a story? It's similar to the, what do they call it on the internet, when a metric becomes a target? It's like someone's law. Goodhart's law. I think it's darker than that and more fun. Okay. Okay. So my feeling is that Vince McMahon is really the central—kayfabe-y? Yeah.

24:04他的想法是 New Jersey 要課稅，他不想付 Athletic Commission 給他的 plan 的稅。他走進會議說：你不能課我。職業摔角完全沒有 sport，全是假的。關鍵問題：你承認整個 sport 是假的，你還有什麼？Audience 裡的 smark。But his idea was he was going to be taxed in New Jersey, and he didn't want to pay taxes as a part of the Athletic Commission's plan for him. So he marched into a meeting and he said, "You can't tax me." There is absolutely no sport in professional wrestling. It's all made up. Now, the key question is, what do you have when you've admitted that your entire sport is fake? And what you have is a smark in the audience.

24:31Smart mark 是說：謝謝你騙我，演得 brilliant，但讓我給你幾個 pointer 怎麼騙得更好，對吧？像看魔術師把戲。有點，但他們還在 audience。我覺得 O.J. Simpson 聽說過，替心愛的人付假胸。你想，那要在另一層 fool 你嗎？The smart mark is the person who says, "Thank you for conning me." You did a brilliant job, although let me give you a couple of pointers on how you could con me a little bit better, right? So, you know, it's like they like to see the magician's trick. Sort of, but they're also still in the audience. I mean, my feeling is that I think it was O.J. Simpson, I learned, had paid for fake boobs for his beloved. You know, and you think, okay, is that supposed to fool you at some different level?

25:05我們都在 willingly 消費這 fake world，因為比 alternative 好。我們知道 fake，但仍 agree 像你我這種說它 fake 的人不能來。你多久上 CNN？Exactly。他們甚至不知道你存在。Well，我遠離那些。對，你這樣說，但以前他們 speed dial 我。我知道，但沒人跟我講話因為我跟 Peter Thiel 混之類。對，對。So what we are is, we're all consuming this fake world willingly. Because it's better than the alternative. We know it's fake, but we still agree that anyone like me or you who says that it's fake, they can't come. Like, how often are you interviewed on CNN? Exactly. They don't even know you exist. Well, I stay off of that stuff. Yeah, you say that, but like I used to, they used to have me on speed dial. Yeah, I know, but none of them will talk to me because I hang out with Peter Thiel or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

25:37摔角表演與假世界

25:37Well，這可能是我們一大差異：我完全 reject 跟 Western media 互動，pure、direct 上 internet。你在 radar 下。Well，我們直上网路。Western media 尤其被 internet disrupt 到 structurally hostile to us。Well, see, this is one big difference maybe on our—I just reject interacting with Western media completely and just go pure, go direct on the internet. Well, you are under the radar. Yeah, well, that's—well, we're going to the internet, just straight to. Because the thing is, Western media in particular was so disrupted by the internet that they're structurally hostile to us.

25:58我知道有些同事還會跟 legacy media 聊。我覺得那是 strategic mistake。回到原問題：Western institution 狀態如何？你心裡 Western institution 是什麼？有什麼還在運作，能修嗎？Well，merhaba，Kazakhstan。Hoş bulduk。請邀請我。好，我們會帶你上去。好， fantastic。Look。This is something I know that some of our colleagues have, you know, they sometimes talk to legacy media and so on. I just think that's a strategic mistake. But coming back, so, all right, coming to the original question. Where do you think the state of Western institutions is? You know, what do you think of as a Western institution? Is there anything that's working, and can it be fixed? Well, I do want to say merhaba, Kazakhstan. Hoş bulduk. Please invite me. Okay, we're going to bring you up there. All right, fantastic. Look.

26:33我不知道能不能修。我知道它比想像更 crazier、dumber，但也知道 sooner or later 它得跟 reality 競爭，它會輸，因為它不會去 gym。I don't know if it can be fixed. I know that it's crazier and dumber than we ever imagined, but I also know that sooner or later it has to compete with reality, and it's going to lose because it won't go to the gym.

26:48它不想看 doctor，只想 decay、decay、decay。我還在看美國民主黨問：我們哪找得到自己的 Joe Rogan？我想：你們有 Joe Rogan，他就是你們的 Joe Rogan。對 stupidity 的 pathological commitment，在加州很常見因為 extremely pleasant，但對政府代表，你看你能把事試多 crazy、多 dumb。It doesn't want to go to the doctor. It just wants to decay and decay and decay. I'm still watching the Democratic Party of the United States ask questions like, where will we ever find our own Joe Rogan? And I'm thinking, you had Joe Rogan. He was your Joe Rogan. There's something about a pathological commitment to stupidity, which, by the way, is very common in California because it's extremely pleasant, but for our government representatives, where— you see just how far you can test things. How crazy, how dumb can you get?

27:24那總是 left 的一部分。我仍覺得自己在 left，但 left 有 performative 部分：你無法展示你是好人，除非你同情錯的對象。誰都能同情暴力犯罪受害者，要同情加害者才是 next-level。And that's always a part of the left. I still think I'm on the left, but there's this performative part of the left where you can't show what a good person you are until you sympathize with the wrong thing. Anybody can sympathize with the victim of a violent crime, but to sympathize with the perpetrator, that's some next-level stuff.

27:49好。某刻你得 reference reality。有個關於與 unforgiving 關係的想法。我覺得 WWII 給西方 incredible endowment。我們看到的是 frittering away that endowment，摧毀一個在 WMD 尤其核武上 kept us from highly multipolar 的 system。All right. At some point, you actually have to get reference to reality. There is this idea about the relationship with the unforgiving, and I think what happened was that World War II gave the West an incredible endowment. And what we are looking at is the frittering away of that endowment, the destruction of a system that kept us from being highly multipolar when it came to weapons of mass destruction, in particular nukes.

28:13拒絕媒體與搶跑出口

28:13我們有一群人不知道那 system 怎麼運作，一群人不在乎，我們 interested in rolling the dice。所以我們迎向 human history 最 exciting 的時期之一，你可以 found new stuff。As they say，you can just do things，you can just say things。可能 tremendous innovation、death and destruction、rebirth、catastrophic collapse，We have a bunch of people who have no idea how that system ever worked, a bunch of people who don't care, and we're interested in rolling the dice. And so what we're coming up on is one of the most exciting periods of human history, where you can found new stuff. As they say, you can just do things. You can just say things. And there's probably going to be a tremendous amount of innovation, death and destruction, rebirth, catastrophic collapse.

28:37全同時發生，幾乎沒活著的人見過，除非他們剛好在 China 經歷 Great Leap Forward。對。我希望那樣說 okay。但我 belief 是：若你以為 1945 到現在是 normal life、只需回去，那是 bubble，one-time gift，可能 kept world together。It's all going to happen at once, and almost nobody living has seen anything like it, unless they happen to have been in China for the Great Leap Forward. Yeah. I hope that was an okay thing to say. But my belief is, is that, in general, if you think the period from 1945 until the present is normal life and we just need to get back to it, that was a bubble, and it was a one-time gift, and it probably kept the world together.

29:02Right now 是 race for the exits。不只是 voice 對 exit。你很多事對。我覺得 exit 要想更大。我們不能 afford 共享一個 atmosphere，那是唯一 global experiment。當然我們需要 Mars，需要一切。不，Forget Mars，interstellar or bust。希望 OpenAI 對 Claude 對 Grok 對 Gemini 對中國 mysterious AIs 會 heat up。And right now, it's a race for the exits. It's not just voice versus exit. You're right about a lot of things. I do think that you have to think bigger on exits. We can't afford to all share one atmosphere because that's the one global experiment. Of course, we need Mars. We need everything else. No, forget Mars. It's interstellar or bust. And hopefully, the OpenAI versus Claude versus Grok versus Gemini versus the Chinese mysterious AIs is going to heat up.

29:30我們會開始做 interstellar，那是 world 最重要、allocation 為零的問題。那是我 hope。Awesome。Great。謝謝。To the stars，sir。對。And we're going to start working on interstellar, which is the world's most important problem that has a zero allocation. So that's what my hope is. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you. To the stars, sir. Yeah.