YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Weinstein

lines on the record: 195
first: 2020-10-30
most recent: 2020-10-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Some giant number of planets, a lot of the things that were discovered from the 1800s through the end of the 20th century are discovered in a period of time because a lot of that just has to do with once you crack the puzzle of getting better instruments, you can see more. And the more you can see, the more you can make use of what you can see. And it turns out there was lots of stuff to do with germs or electron orbitals or spectrum electromagnetic spectrum. And so we got to do all of those things. And the US roughly corresponded for a good chunk of its history with this bonanza. And so of course we look like an amazing genius country. We have no plan. Imagine that you could sell a car. You don't have to put in seatbelts. You don't have to put in airbags. You don't have to put in rear view mirrors or sensors.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The central core of the answer is that the US seemed to be the greatest thing in the world, in large measure because we hadn't noticed. We were getting a benefit from having no plan, not having to make a plan for low growth As long as we had growth, we were in great shape. Let's imagine that. Run an experiment, you have a billion copies of Earth, and you start the initial conditions slightly different.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Want the Russian Big scoop of ice cream with tons of depression. I do think that we're in a really terrifying and depressing time. And I think that part of it is we don't know if something huge is about to get started. And we don't even know what this is. I mean, we just sit here in this weird world that is falling into some new state. And we're not even super curious. It's like, what the hell just happened? Everybody's got an answer, and I'm positive that all of those answers are wrong.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have some sadness that I really do think that part of what We call podcasting is actually just getting to know a soul over and over again. Maybe the idea is that this is talking about depression and sadness and heavy feelings is not an American specialty. Seeing that in context with the beauty of life is a Russian specialty. It is very much.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That one couldn't have been any other way. Because his mind, the thing about seeing him in a comedy club. Was that he would react to random stimulus in the environment. It could be a heckler. Sometimes you almost got the feeling that he wanted a heckler because it gave him something to play against, right? He was infinitely, instantly inventive.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that a lot of my reaction is to the real story of Matt Damon having this vision and being the young guy to pull it off. And I also think about Robin Williams trying to explore heart through This lens of acting. And as you and I, you've hung out with comedians. They know that they are screwed up bunch of people. They do. They're proud about it. They really are. Idea that Robin Williams, who I saw many years ago when I was in LA in the comedy clubs around here, He was a straight up, crazy dysregulated genius in tremendous pain. His desire to do it earnestly through acting rather than constantly by just sniping, you know, or being a clown or showing us how fast his mind worked relative to ours. I was really moved by that. I thought that he brought some authenticity and took a huge risk for a comedian to be that real.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I guess when I think of that film, I think about Matt Damon as a young guy. Risking everything. Giving up Harvard. I think probably the most accomplished group of people in the world are people who choose to give up Harvard voluntarily. Right, that's true. Bigger than Harvard Ives was one of these people. Bill Gates, of course And then oddly, you know. Zuckerberg, but then Steve Jobs gave up a read. And Reed is like the weirdest, craziest college in the world. People should pay much more attention to Reed. And I'm sorry it's going through a hard time at the moment. But what it was before the current craziness is really an interesting story. Regardless, as we say in the 617 area code.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And immediately as the phone rings, he figures out what key the phone ring is, and which is not the key that Liszt composed the variations on Caprice 24. And he starts going into theme and variations on Caprice 24 at some level I've never heard before, just jaw dropping it. And like the phone stops ringing and we have this awkward silence. I said, I didn't know you were such a great piano player. And then he says one of these things in Russian accented English hurts in a way you can't imagine. No, you are the piano player. I am merely the piano tuner. And it's just like, oh man, through the heart.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With the world's shittiest, it wasn't even an upright, it was a spin-it piano. A friend had given it to me. The piano fell out of tune, and I would have to. And the only tuner I knew was this Russian guy, and I hated dealing with him. There was something about his attitude that just really rode me the wrong way. So anyway, my wife says, tune that thing. So we get the piano tuner to come, and he's tuning this. He's like, are you sure you want to tune this piece of shit? You know, okay, fine. So he's like, okay, it's your money. Phone rings, and I have the phone ringer set on a landline to Peganini Caprice 24.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Different Russian archetypes, right? So the completely idiosyncratic Russian is very different in a weird way from the, you know, I can do this backwards in any key in my sleep and in any time signature that you just snap your fingers. We've discussed my piano tuner in previous episodes.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How does that affect you? I mean, let's have the Jimi Hendrix conversation. I don't know that we can do anything to it that hasn't already been done to it. That's not true. Maybe the idea is that every generation has to have its Hendrix conversation, and this is a long form podcast.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do I believe that Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix and Paganini and Hyphitz jacked into the true essence of the world? Yeah, they did. I don't think it's as good as differential geometry. I'm sorry. I do think it's amazing for other reasons. And thank God because it's very difficult to communicate differential geometry at scale. But the thing about eruption, for example, what level do you want to come into eruption? Do you want just the sheer majesty in pageantry? Do you want the theatrics? Like you could put them on wires and set his pants on fire or whatever. And, you know, it'd be totally in keeping with it. On the other hand, you want to talk something completely precise. That shows off the virtuosity of what's possible with a stratocaster. Everything works. Multi-axis.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's completely disinterested. He'd be with the guitar. He'd be with the guitar, right? Because honestly, at some level, in one case, maybe you're conquesting, maybe you're pursuing love and romance. In the other case, you're talking about a relationship to the order, the Creator, the Almighty, whatever it is you want to call that substrate that is reality. And”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's who he was. I really do. I mean, believe me, I get it. He was a rockstar, he was a rock guy, got it, got it, got it, got it. I'm almost positive that you can't get to where he got to without being a complete introvert.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a linkage between this highly generative. And in some cases, Dark depression, in other cases not. So you can't say that it's tied, that genius and madness are always co-traveling or the beauty and pain are one and the same. What you can say is that there's a cluster of people that tell you that for that cluster there is a relationship between the darkness and the beauty. And I do think that in part it's squaring circles that can't be squared. We were just talking before about the Inability to serve two perfect systems, the perfect system of the wave equation and the perfect system of even temperament, they're both perfect, they're not compatible. And once you realize that there is perfection and an inability to make contact with perfection I think you recognize that There is no solution to this world.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think of Odetta. I used to go to Odetta concerts. I don't know if you know who she is. Okay, this is going to be one of the better days of your life. Check out Odetta when we're done with the interview. She was a civil rights figure, but also just had a profound voice and great musicianship. These people were in the struggle, right? And they saw lots of bad things happen and they kept their humor about them. And, you know, the thing is that you can take on the Welchmerts, you know, the pain of the planet, or you can try to do something else, which is to be a happy warrior, even if The odds are terrible and the cost of failure is catastrophic.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really, I think suicide is a big place, and suicidal litiation and self-harm. And we don't talk a lot about it. It's a similar problem to trying to talk about trans. These are umbrella categories. And if the commonality is that somebody harms themselves, but we don't know whether that's coming because of a problem in brain chemistry, because of an event in their life Whether evolutionary programming for suicide is weirdly normal, whether or not it might have a religious motivation, there's too many different forms of self-harm. It's something like the 10th largest killer thereabouts. And I think that you can look at it from different angles. I'm old enough to have had Pete Seeger come to my college when I was at And to watch his good humor in the face of all adversity.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know how little I can do in one life. I know how many things I've screwed up. I know many things I've got wrong. And on the other hand, I know that, if not, it's like Hillel's questions, you know, if I'm not for myself, who will be for me, if I'm only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? At some level, there's a question about. If I don't decide that someone is capable and that somebody is me. And if I apply that to everyone else on the planet, then nobody's going to do anything. And so I do think that one of the things that people like you and I get is who are you to say that? That man Sign me up for some Dunning Kruger.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, the person who that describes is Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel thinks more different. People always say, like, what does Peter think about X, Y, and ZP and Q? It's like, well, do you want communist Peter? Do you want hypercapitalist Peter? Oh my God, right? On everything. That's why he's successful that he's got all these minds fighting each other. And so when people say, Peter, is this or Peter is that? I just laugh because nobody who knows him would describe him as having thoughts at the level that people are claiming. And I do think that in my case, There's also pathological epistemic humility. Like, just I know how little.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The way I would say it is that almost everybody who becomes a Supreme Court justice believes at a very early age they're going to become a Supreme Court justice. Many people believe at an early age that they can do it don't get there. But of those who get there, almost all of them had this sort of I call it pathological self confidence. Do think you have pathological self confidence, and you also have humility. And most people would hear those as a contradiction. I think that you would not be able to get away with what you do if you didn't have the humility. And so I think the great danger is that your equation becomes unbalanced, that you either lose the humility or you lose the humility overwhelms the ego and the drive because right now you've got a Mexican standoff in your mind and the rest of us are just benefits.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I also have sort of struggled with the question should I do those things better? Because what if it's, you know, I always use the same example of the fitted sheet when you're trying to put a queen size fitted sheet on a king size mattress. He's like, okay, I got that corner squared away. And then you get another corner that pops off and they have to go back around. Wonder whether I can improve my style in the ways in which I think it's just a recognition of a difference. You do a better job of getting to the soul of a really top intellectual guest and making them accessible and presenting them as themselves for a huge number of people. And I'd give my iTooth to be able to do that.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Warren Zvon is one of the most important songwriters of our time, and he's been largely forgotten By this generation. But, you know, Bob Dylan would sing one of his songs in tribute. Very small number of songwriters really move him. Woody Gothri, Gordon Lightfoot, and Warren Zvon. By the way, Bob Dylan, if you're out there, appear on either one of our podcasts. We need to get your voice into a new medium for a new group. This is a time for Bob Dylan, my friend. Honestly, you've been doing an amazing job in this space. One of the reasons I'm super excited to do this podcast again is that. Learned some things about what I don't do well.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm the little Jew that wrote the Bible. So there is this way in which Leonard Cohen, I think, is constantly coming to the idea of being a biblical-like scribe. And I think this is one of the great things that, you know, you see Dylan doing this with all along the watchtower. You saw Warren Zivon, who we should talk much more about doing this with a song called I was in the house when the house burned down. Do you know this thing”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He leonard is baffled is my contention, but he knows enough to know that he's baffled. And so the idea is that he is composing, he has the audacity Compose as David. He's echoing David at a minimum. And then in a later song, which I really wish we would discuss, that's totally dystopic, and you will not like it at all, is the future. Contains this line that I think I used in my episode with Roger Penrose on the portal, the subtle plug, the portal, the portal, the portal.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That formula of the baffled king is a discovery. It's not, he's not really composing it. The reason he's baffled, imagine that you took like a little brush and you started brushing off a pyramid under the sands. You might think that you created the pyramid by your brushing. But in fact, somebody else did it. That's why you're baffled, right?”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did Paco Bell know why Paco Bell's cannon would work? It was a discovery. That's the whole thing. Like, some music. Is discovered and some music is invented. He's talking about a musical discovery. He's talking about the Pythagorean power of the wave equation and then superimposed like there's two genius intellectual concepts behind music, one of which is the wave equation. Usually we solve it for a one-dimensional medium because we're talking about strings or air columns. Occasionally you're talking about things like handpans or steel drums or metallophones or gamelons, whatever. Those have a wave equation too that's much more chaotic. The other equation is this crazy thing that 2 to the 19 twelfth is almost exactly equal to 3, which is what gave us even temperament. And so the tension between those two things is in fact one of these most beautiful stories inside of that system.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no. If you think about it, contrast it with Ray Charles, for example Do you know Lonely Avenue? Will my room has got two windows? But the sun shine never comes through it's really depressed. It's the same sort of vibe that Nina, but she's claiming that she's in great shape. So she's like a good case of the unreliable narrator. Leonard Cohen to me is talking about the unreliable audience that's too cool to be with the performer on stage. There are things that go with the music, like the Cole Porter stuff that go against, like the Ginny Cash. I think these are the games that musicians play that the rest of us only sort of notice subliminally. Fourth, the fifth. Then he should say something about the relative minor or the, he's giving you the secret, the baffled king. In other words, he doesn't know why it works.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But then what's the. Like heavy stripping music. You're not in a good place. You're probably in some strip club with some blast of your money.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My favorite examples of this are Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire I fell into a burning ring of fire then what does he do with the lyrics and the tune? I went down, down, down. Goes And so the idea is like, oh, okay, that was a head fake. And another one of these is Nina Simone's Feeling Good. Okay, so what do you get a birds flying high? You know how I feel sun up in the sky, you know how I feel.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then he does this weird thing. It goes like this is where he should put the description of where he is in the chord progression, which is the tonic, right? It goes like this. And then he hits the fourth and the fifth, which are the two other major elements, the subdominant and the dominant in functional harmony. So he's describing the chord progression in real time in the lyrics. There's two ways this can come about in other songs. Like we had this example of every time we say goodbye. Do you know the song? Every time we say goodbye, no, I think it was a coal porter, maybe, or Gershwin, maybe Porter. I don't know. I cry a little. There is no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor right like it's beautiful And then there's times when it's duplicitous. So, for example, you'll have.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The way I hear it again, you know, a great song allows for different interpretations. You happen to be asking me, so I'm going to impart some stuff that probably isn't in the song, but why it speaks to me? The way I hear it is he doesn't believe the audience. You don't really care for music, do you? Then, what are you doing listening to this stupid idiots? You know, of course you care for music. You're too cool to care. So I see through you and screw you. That's like the kind of, that's the energy I get.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's really interesting because he's using this technique called bathos, right? So the alternation between the sublime and kind of the guttural or ridiculous or the mundane, right? So he's like, uh,”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh boy. Well, first of all, it's mystery. Like it starts off about mystery. So what are you doing? You're doing this alternation between the two chords, so three notes at the same time. One is called the tonic, or you have the major and the relative minor, and he's alternating between them. There's only one note of difference between those two chords. One of them would be feeling sad, one of them would be more joyous, typically described. And so by altering one note, it's the minimal amount to take you back and forth between joy and happiness as that's encoded in us. So he starts off with it. I heard there was a scene, David played the please a little bit. You don't really care for music, do you?”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can also get pretty dysregulated And so I don't know. I don't know whether it could be magic, it could be a shit show. I don't know what you thought of his appearance on Rogan. That was an interesting one.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably not because I think he's very, I get the feeling that he's very smart and very dysregulated. And I don't know that I could.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's fascinating to think. It is. And then as in many of the cases with these bands, you get these multiple talents in the same outfit. And I think that the original configuration with David Lee Roy, I mean, David Lee Roth is such a hot mess at all times.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you still think he was a genius. There are very few people like that in the world. And then loins, those leaps, that guy was Incredibly good looking skin tight pants, super athleticism. He completely owned the sexuality, the male sexuality of the stage, both being the completely dominant sort of mythical alpha male. I hate that expression, but there you are. But also this kind of little boy with this mischievous smirk. And the sense that it all came together. Could you not eat that”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really speaks to the idea that maybe rock is what somebody like Jimi Hendrix saw it as being an infinitely extensible medium in terms of heart. I always notice the smile on his face. It's painful to look at an Eddie Van Halen solo now. Sometimes you'll see the cigarette dripping off the side of his mouth and you're like, that's going to fucking kill you. And I'm not even worried about it for you. I'm worried about it for me. You're going to rob. I don't even need to hear you play another note. I just like knowing that you're in the world, that there is somebody that everyone looks to, that nobody, I've never heard a guitarist say, eh, I don't know. I think it was okay. I've just never heard it. You can hate him.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not even supposed to be there. And suddenly somebody starts playing a guitar and they're making you feel things. Or, you know, like in particular, particular instruments like the violin, it's so difficult. It's so unforgiving. And when it gives up its secrets, it just, you know, it wraps its fingers around your heart and won't let go. Sometimes I talk about head, heart, and loins. When something can grab your head, heart and your loins at the same moment and integrate them. There are very few opportunities to live like that. And if you think about Eddie Van Halen. As far as your head, the musical innovations and the fact that he was drawing directly from the classical canon.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Such a good song, but it's also individual verses of that song are insanely important. The baffled king is how we often make music. We don't really understand what did we just do that broke that person's heart sitting on the couch, right? And so it's a very strange thing that you should be able to have, think of it like you're a computer. You've got this weird open music port, you know, port 37.8, you know.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How often do you have the chance, for example, to hear mathematics performed as you do in Bach? Like something with that kind of precision and elegance that can't really be grasped where to go back to Leonard Cohen's famous line, the baffled king composing, right?”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My opinion is just dwarfed by his innovation and his musicianship. And that's why I chose Spanish fly because everyone, of course, will go to something like your eruption or running with the devil, which is the first things that they heard that let them know that there was a new force erupting out of Southern California that was Eddie Van Halen. I'm in love with the story of it.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is the thing, right? The arpeggios that he did on a single string are so fast and the attacks from the hammerons when they go at light speed as he did, particularly. And the reason I chose that was that I wanted to strip out the electronics because part of the claim will be is that he's a rock musician and a lot of the innovations had to do with things peculiar to sort of the electrified setup. His use of the whammy bar, for example, or the Frankenstrat that he built. Different pieces, right? All of those aspects.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I thought that that quote was very interesting because what it said was you have to be able to strip this thing down farther and farther back to get to something that is intrinsically musical. So we were having a conversation just now about virtuosity. We're talking about Eddie Van Halen in his recent passing. And that affected me emotionally. I don't know whether it affected you. I was never a Van Halen, the group fan, but I revered Eddie Van Halen's capacity for innovation. I saw him like Rodney Mullen the skateboarder. I had dreamed of having the two of them on the same podcast just to talk about what it's like to totally discontinuously innovate.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a weird question, so I'm going to give you a weird answer. It's not because Okay. Jonathan Richmond, the reason I'm picking on him is that he had a quote. He was the frontman of a group called The Modern Lovers. And his quote was something like, we have to be prepared to play music when our instruments are broken, the electricity is out, and it's raining, something like that.”
2020-10-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #134 – Eric Weinstein: On the Nature of Good and Evil, Genius and Madness · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source