YouSaid · the spoken record

Ryan Hall

lines on the record: 201
first: 2020-09-20
most recent: 2020-09-20
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

“As you mentioned, I couldn't agree with you more. It's a discovery process, and no one can cheat that process, which is at the same time, it's almost like imagine I want to start writing books in second grade unless maybe I'm like staggeringly brilliant, which I can only conceptualize someone being able to do that, but maybe a Mozart of the English language where you're out there doing it. But for most of us, we don't have enough knowledge, enough information, enough experience to be able to express ourselves so we have to basically input repeat, which is important, but it's the process, as you say, of going through that, of getting your ass k to just like, well, that didn't work. Well, that didn't work. That felt right, but I don't know. Nobody else does that. I guess I don't believe in that versus eventually going, I don't know, I'll just try going my own way and see what happens. And now I'll get yelled at and people won't like me. And if it works, they'll say, I got lucky. And if it doesn't work, they'll say I was dumb. Which maybe all is right. But basically, you know, going through that iterative process that allows you to eventually find yourself.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ariana to an arm lock, arm lock to a triangle. But the problem with that is oftentimes we get stuck in that phase. And people eventually become move collectors or sequence collectors. And I noticed this when I'm trying to do DVDs or I guess like an instructional series now or even teaching in class. I don't believe in that form of learning anymore. Not that it's not valuable, but I don't believe I don't understand jujitsu on that level anymore. So what I'm trying to do is get across the basic ideas to people and say, hey, you need to fill in the gaps with going to class all the time. You need to go, hey, learn this move, learn that technique, learn that technique. Because otherwise, I'm basically just throwing at you like 75 different words that you could use, but that hasn't really taught you how to speak a language. Whereas if you give me the language structure, you can fill in these pieces on your own and then eventually speak organically in Lex form, which will be ultimately unique to you because otherwise you just end up being like a weird facsimile of whatever it is that I'm doing.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thing that you may be able to say the same thing, but in a more, I guess, in a different way, in a more artistic way that may not translate on a one-for-one kind of fidelity. But the more that we're able to understand about how the body works, the more examples of the body work in this way, the body work in that way, the body working that way, the more that I'm able to eventually become an artist, but it has to be studied as a science first. And it does start with technique collection, vocabulary collection, the same way we learn in school where you remember how to say quickly 17 different ways. And let's say I speak Spanish, I only know three. So you might use quickly, you might use an adjective like quickly in Spanish, but use one of the many, many options to describe that that I don't understand. Now I sit there and go like, wait, what? I can't be artistic. I can't be as organic with the languages I'd like. So I believe that jiu-jitsu a lot of times starts with the acquisition of a lot of, hey, do this, this, this drill, this technique. Here's an Americana.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%, but I'm limited by my experience. I'm limited by my understanding of techniques. I'm limited by my understanding almost like, let's say techniques are like these are like vocabulary. So even if I kind of sort of grasp the sentence structure and the thought process and the thought patterns of Spanish, which it's interesting because just even though the orientation and the organization of a language, and I've thought about this a great deal, you know, the way that I perceive the world is affected deeply by the language that I learned. Again, if I learn, I have no idea that Chinese language structures, but I can only imagine that it would affect, it's like a different lens. We're all looking at the same thing, but I have a different set of sunglasses on than you do. And that's very, very interesting. I'll use the Quran as an example. Apparently, it's unbelievably poetic in Arabic, still neat and was interesting reading in English, but I'm told by people that I trust that it just one doesn't bear a resemblance to the other. And I think that's a very interesting.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Jiu-Jitsu, the more that it's given me a look into how we learn language where rather than learning five bazillion adjectives, I go, I understand what an adjective is. And of course, we are all read into some degree of vocabulary. I understand what an adverb does, and I understand what an adverb is. I understand what a noun is. I know what the component parts of a sentence are. I know, I guess, a clause, a contraction, any of these things. And it allows you to be interesting and artistic with your language to the extent that you can but I can't speak a degree of Spanish, but I'm not even slightly artistic in Spanish. I would be, I speak like a child with a head injury. And anyway.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I couldn't harm you with any of these things. Would I still use these positions? The answer is yes. They create leverage. They create control. They create shapes that I can affect and that can affect me and that can be affected through other forces and other objects or structures like the ground or the wall. I really enjoy mixed martial arts because there's another component rather than just me and you and the floor. There's me, you, the floor, and the wall. And it's another player in the game that doesn't exist in a grappling context with a non-enclosed, I guess, area of combat. But you can strangle me or choke me. What do you call it without my arms being involved? Or you can use one of my shoulders to pin one side of one carotid artery off and you can enclose the other. You can turn my knee in the exact same ways that you can turn my arm straight this way and that way. You can add a rotation to that or it can be directly linear against the joint. So I guess what I would say is the more that I've been able to understand.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. I mean, I would just say that you have your arms bend in various ways. You have Keelock Americana, straight arm locks, Kimor Amaplata, Amaplata is a Kimora Kimura's Amaplata. It's just executed.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the other person found them, and it's just beautiful to watch, it's artistic. And I think that that great expression of anything physical is ultimately studied as a science, but expressed as an art. And I think that that's something that gets lost in jiu-jitsu a lot of times when it gets a little bit a little nerdy. Like do this hand here, hand here, like the more details I have, the better when in reality that's just not in my experience how it's done.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both in the fight and also in practice. But as you mentioned, it's almost like it looks like judo. It looks like wrestling. It looks like jiu-jitsu. It's almost like, I guess that reminds me all of the martial arts is, again, deeply tribal as well. I want to learn Lex Fridmann martial arts. And then I want to learn another, you know, I guess, transcendent person's martial arts. And it just happened to be the set of movements that you tended to do most of the time thanks to your body type and your opposition and whatnot. But then I try to codify that and force those to work as opposed to going, I want to understand how the body works in concert and in Congress with something else and other forces and move appropriately. And that's why it's like it always struck me that the Saiti brothers are great examples of just moving like water. But again, he's brilliant. It's like water can flow or water can crash. And they would crash when they needed to crash and they would flow when they needed to flow, but they would flow for the purpose of dissipating and then crash when they would win. And at the right moment then go back to flowing the second.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not funky for funky's sake, and I'm not poking and asking to imply that that's what he's doing, but it's like it's funny. It's like a lot of times it's almost like a mushashi talked a lot about that, you know, that the only goal of combat is to win, is the outcome. It's outcome driven versus flourishing, you know, cool looking movements. It's like unless that had a utilitarian purpose, like, what are you wasting your time with that?”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I guess maybe that's a better way to. I'd like to marry the two ideas because I think you flow until the point at which you are the greater force, at which point in time you can apply. But if you look at the best wrestlers, and when I say best, I don't necessarily mean most successful, although of course most successful are always very, very good throughout the course of history in boxing, in wrestling, in judo, they're magical. They disappear and reappear. It's like fighting a ghost that is like incorporeal when you want to find it. But then when you don't want it to find it, when you don't want to find it, it finds you. And I think that we see that in the Buvisar sights of wrestling. And, you know, I guess you could look at Floyd Mayweather or Willie Pep or, you know, Prenell Whittaker in boxing as brilliant examples of disappearing and reappearing. And when you're strong, it's almost like guerrilla warfare, when you're strong, I'm nowhere to be found.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Away with this, but I don't think that's, and that's fantastic because ultimately it's a results driven thing, but I think that the essence of the martial arts is learning how to make more out of less and how to move with and be yielding, almost like real life Aikido.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that jujitsu is a philosophy that's expressed physically and that it's the kind of development of the mental capacity and physical capacity working in unison to move efficiently and Almost flowingly, unresistingly with a given situation, with their physically resisting opponent, learning how to generate force on your own and how to steal force from the floor, how to steal force from the other person, and move in concert with it as opposed to clash against, which if you watch two untrained people fight, it's almost entirely a clash. It's a runaway in clash, a runaway in clash. If you watch Jiu-Jitsu done well, it looks like water moving around a solid structure. And I think that that is expressed physically. And I think that all of the things that any one have really been able to do very, very well in jiu-jitsu end up kind of exemplifying that. But I think that that's true of martial arts in general. I think that a lot of times like the clashing that we see going on and working well is just the fact that you get very, very physically powerful people every now and then. They're able to get.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, actually, I like Mandalorian. That was actually pretty cool, yeah. Waving this off. Yeah, canceled. Yeah, if I could cancel one thing, I would cancel Disney Star. I'm going to edit it.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, I played as a kid. Again, I've always liked playing sports and liked reading, and I always enjoy video games. But my favorite video game I think I've ever played was Knights of the All Republic. It was a Star Wars game. I'm a huge Star Wars fan until... Become less so recently, Disney.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's entirely accurate. Better funded 12 year old. But somewhat better funded 12 year old. Not as well funded as I wish.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Not well read enough in the sci-fi world. I haven't read in a lot of Isaac Asimov or anything like that, but I just, I'll recommend Dune. I'll be an obnoxious evangelist for Dune to anyone who will listen. So I would strongly recommend it.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The majority, how many times are people walking around? And, you know, they can be like, hey, what do you see right now? I'm like, oh, well, I see this picture. I see a wall. Hey, there's legs. But really, what I was paying attention to was what was going on inside of my head for a moment and almost the rest of the world tuned out and kind of dimmed. And I guess that I think that's going to be a struggle to anytime you want to bring that type of a written story to a visual medium. I think it's going to be more difficult. It'll be interesting. It's definitely one of my favorite stories and it's been it's honestly helped me become better at life in my opinion, better at the martial arts. And I think the writer, I think Frank Herbert was absolutely brilliant, whether those were all his ideas, which in reality none of us or all of our good ideas aren't ours. We're a combination maybe came up with something you're a curator of other good ideas and some things you borrowed from somewhere without even realizing it. But I think the way the messages and the themes and the ideas that were conveyed, particularly in the...”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am not enough of an authority to have any sort of decent opinion, but I guess what I would say is so much of it goes on in the character's mind. Like, how much of any of our day is any lived experience, as it were, is internal.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of came together and created certain things. And a lot of times, like we say, I'm like, oh, how the heck is what's going on right now or 100 years from now or 100 years in the past happened? And you can look back far enough if we had accurate knowledge, if we had that hypothetical, perfect pool shot at the beginning of time, we would see an unbroken chain of events that led us to where we are and where we are will potentially lead us to where we're going, which is again why hindsight's helpful. But I think it's neat. I guess I really enjoy, for instance, a book like Dune and they're actually making a movie out of it, which I'm skeptical of to be honest because it's going to be difficult to bring that to the screen for a variety of reasons.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, every now there's more and less believable things. And I think Dune would be an unbelievably well written, in my opinion, for what do I know? But I really like Dune. I'll say that well-written example of human beings interacting with one another, the political component to that, the emotional, the intellectual, the relationship components to all of that. I think that Dune is neat because it's a sci-fi novel, but only in the loosest sense. It's really a story about religion, about group dynamics, about human potential, about belief, learning, politics, governance, ecology. It's the best stories remind me of history the same way history hopefully is not just a list of facts that I try to be able to recall or factoids that I try to recall, but a story that I can understand and see how the threads of time.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that's a neat thing because I have heard other people whom I respect and very sharp people actually every now and then dig their heels and going, I don't like fiction. I only like nonfiction. It's more instructive. And I would go, I completely disagree with that. I think we have a hard enough time figuring out what happened at 7-Eleven, three hours ago that, let me tell you what happened 600 years BC. I'm like, hey, I'm interested, but don't tell me this in a story too. There's factual components, I have no doubt, but we struggle sometimes to, like, I guess what I like about fiction is that you can tell me a story. It's all about people.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, actually, we actually have a showy roll that made us a gi, a dune themed ghee one time, which I thought was kind of cool. I'll send you one. I'll give you one. We got extra stuff. But actually, to your point, actually, this is a Orson Scott card quote, actually. The writer of vendors game, fiction, because it's not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'd like to start by sharing something that I'm embarrassed about. That I haven't read anything other than Orson Scott Card, JR Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Tolkien. Yep. Yeah, I'm aware through Wikipedia and through surface reading of things that like a book called The Republic was written once. There were some other good ones”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're a judge for your crimes and a lawyer for theirs. And I heard that the other day. I thought that was great. And I think that's a dangerous thing. And hopefully it gives us all pause before rightly or wrongly, but always understandably wielding serious power.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And sometimes you can understand it on a societal level. I think it's fine. I mean, there's crime and punishment, and we can go for the benefits and the drawbacks of that. But I think what any of us want is mercy within reason. You know, grace, as you mentioned, because justice is a very, very, very dangerous thing and it's valuable and important thing. But who gets to decide what's just what justice is actually meted out? Maybe I get to mete out justice, but it's not, I don't get my comeuppance. Well, that sounds great. But what happens when it's pointed back at me? And I guess that comes back to the veil of ignorance, you know, the idea that one day I will have to live in the world in which I've envisioned and the world in which I've created. I think that a lot of times people love the idea of...”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. That's unbelievably powerful. It's interesting. I guess you have to wonder sometimes, and this isn't obviously in regards to the Holocaust, but why I'm holding on to various things? What is it doing for me and what is it doing to me? Is it facilitative? Is it not? And I guess that's something else that I really enjoy when I was on Ultimate Fighter. They don't let you have any music or any books in religious text. So I brought a Bible and I brought a Quran and I started to read them side by side. And it was really interesting reading. The Bible's a little drier. The Quran's more interesting than he's written. But I think something that was consistently brought up was the way most merciful. People want, I don't think any of us want justice. We think we want justice, but I don't think we want justice. Justice is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous game because maybe this person's wronged me deeply and I want justice. I want to balance it out because what is justice and not a balancing of the scales?”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If that's a sliding scale that we could all find ourselves looking at the uncomfortable end of a gun on, you know, particularly down the line, I mean, you hope for the best, but these definitions, I guess, like you said, are important and who's doing the canceling, who's being canceled. I'm not necessarily, as you said, saying that that's entirely unjustified or certainly understandable, and particularly you mentioned a monster like an Adolf Hitler. But it's also interesting. I couldn't help but notice you mentioned as a society us being able to apply forgiveness to someone who's done so much horror, but people who are personal, I mean, of course, many so many people have been personally affected, but directly personally affected survivor of the Holocaust, being able to let go on that. I'm nowhere near big enough a person for that sort of thing. But I guess that's an interesting thing. You know, being the person who was physically there potentially able to let go.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Done understandably, I'm simply just going to perpetuate the cycle that's gone on to this point. So you hope that even though we're seeing a lot of turmoil societally at the moment and globally at the moment that I guess our better angels can prevail at a certain point, but it's going to take a great deal of leadership. And I think that we're sorely missing like a Martin Luther King style character at the moment or a great leader. I'm hoping that one will show up.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which I think everyone in humanity and human history is vulnerable to. I mean, look at the course of human history. It's deeply tribal. And the tribes or the groups that have been on top at various points in time have done a lot of times bad things to the ones that have not. And you'd hope that we could learn lessons from the past. And rather than committing the crimes that were committed against us, recommitting them when we slide into the top position, say, I could do this now, but I'll not. I understand the urge to seek vengeance is strong of anyone that says differently. I wouldn't trust, you know. But at the same time, we go, we have enough experience and history, enough experience in life, enough hopefully wisdom, you know, time in to go, this isn't the right answer. This is only going to replay the things, the worst parts of our history, not the best. And I want to encourage positive behavior. And if I just, again, further lash out at people, although understandably.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hitler were to pop up and go, Oh my gosh, guys, I'm so sorry. I know what I've done, but I'd like to apologize and start to make it right. Well, I mean, you'd hope that if he popped up over here, you'd go like, well, I don't really like what you've done. And I don't like you, but at the same time, I'm glad to hear that you're attempting to make this right and push in a positive direction, even if you can't make it right, because otherwise, what am I doing? I'm disincentivizing change for the better. I'm looking to wield whatever power I have in a punitive fashion, which does not encourage people to do anything other than double down on the wrongs that they've made, knowing that at least they're going to have some support from the people that support that. And I guess I want to, you'd hopefully look at use of the internet as a tool that can educate, and I guess I don't like the word empower, but empower people to do various things, extend their reach, but educate and learn rather than to further solidify little tribal things that exist.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And basically, with the degree to which everything is recorded but recorded in tiny little bites, it's very, very easy for me to wave every less foolish, ignorant, incorrect, or correct thing that someone has ever said or done in their face to support whatever argument that I'm trying to make about them or a situation. And I think that you mentioned cancel culture, as it seems to exist. Obviously, this is poisonous on its face. This is poisonous. It's the sort of thing that doesn't incentivize proper behavior. I mean, you look at, let's say, one of the great monsters of history, Adolf Hitler, obviously, who's done awful, awful things, but also for anyone that's even a minor student of history did some positive things as well. I don't have to act as if there was nothing good a monster has ever done and nothing bad that a great person throughout history has ever done. But imagine the ghost of”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Human beings are corruptible and that power corrupts, and that we're all fallible. And we say and do things that either intentionally or unintentionally that we wish we'd not. Think that I have to allow for a space, I guess the word, it's almost a religious term, but I guess I would just say grace. And that's something that I see disappearing from discourse in the public, or maybe it wasn't there. I'm not sure, but it's interesting, you know, watching this occur on the internet because also now no longer are you and I just having a talk sitting on a bus stop. It's now in writing. Everything's in writing. The old saying, like, don't put that in writing. You're like, don't put anything in writing. That's how you get in trouble.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an interesting thing to see, I guess, as you mentioned. Anytime you're wielding power, whomever you are, doing so carefully is important. And it's very, very easy to look at the people that have power and that are using it poorly or have used it poorly and go, hey, you're the bad guy and then go, well, of course, if I had power, I'll use it properly. And I may intend to use it properly and maybe I will. But at the same time, we see a lot of times people are people are people. I think that A lot of the I think if you believe that human beings are all one, which I do, no matter whether you're here or there, you got two arms, two legs, a heart, a brain. We all live a similar experience. And obviously we have variations on a theme. But, you know, you're no less a human being. You're a person I've never met from China than some person in Virginia. We're all people. And I guess ultimately, if I believed this.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the big question for anyone that decides that's able to have reach and able to have power. I mean, obviously I can't speak to that, but imagine you did have national level, global level power. How would you use it? Would you try to change the world? You'd be glad that you did down the line. I don't know”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fruitless, and then also it is a little bit egotistical. A lion does what a lion does. We can try to box it in and we can try to guide this direction, that direction, but nature is as it is and as it always will be unless we want to start to constrain it significantly. But now I'm starting to get into individual rights who put me in charge. Who says that I should be the one to make the choices constraining because many of the most awful things that have happened throughout history, one group or one person has decided to constrain others. And we don't like Genghis Khan doing that? Well, I'll do that on a little level. Are there going to be benefits and beneficiaries? Absolutely, but there'll be losers in that too. So I guess it's a dangerous game. It's almost like putting on the one ring. Remember when Frodo offered the one ring to Gandalf and Gandalf said, no, no, I would take it away. I would put it on. I would use it out of the desire to do good. But through me, it would wield a power so terrible you can't imagine. I think that's.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Person over there is just going to leave me alone. And I have a Rolex on, but whatever, I'll be fine because that person's deciding to leave me alone because we've all agreed to live in this relatively sane and or constrained society because it benefits all of us and we're doing it because of a philosophical underpinning, not because nature dictates it be that way, because nature dictates it going a very, very different direction. And the only person, the only thing stopping that person from doing something to me is either me, that person or someone else that will stand in between us. And if I can't do it and there's no one there to stand in between us, then the only thing stopping that person is that person. And I have to hope that they're either disinterested or disinclined to do that sort of thing. And I think that it's keeping in mind that that is the fundamental nature of the world, whether we like it or not, is important. And I think the quest to fundamentally alter human nature is going to be altered.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couldn't agree with him more. In fact, I think actually Orson Scott Card was the writer of a great book called Enders Game. This was a statement that the main character made in the book, his brother was brilliant, his brother was like kind of sociopathic, brilliant kid that ended up kicked out of the school that they were all into for battle commander. Dealing with his brother taught him that ultimately strength, courage, the ability to do violence for all the good and the bad of that is one of the fundamental most important things to be able to do in life because if you can't cause destruction, if you can't cause pain, you will be forever subject to those who can. And I think that you mentioned egotism. I think that that's a disease that could obviously strike any of us, but it's something that we're looking at now. I think we should be unbelievably thankful as people that live in the world that we do, that we can walk down the street without having to worry that I'm like, well, don't worry, that six foot six, two hundred.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To rein us in, you know, I guess morally speaking, it's very difficult to say what's right or wrong. You'd say certain actions have a reaction, almost like a physics sense. If you kill everyone in your way for as long as you're able to, your life will be easier. I mean, you're setting the table for someone doing the same to you when you're no longer the tough guy, but it is what it is.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's difficult. I would just say people in the world are complicated and layered, and depending upon which side of the line you're standing on at various times, you may like or dislike someone, but I can't remember whose idea it was. This is killing me, but it's the veil of ignorance, I guess, the philosophical, you know, idea of the veil of ignorance where I go is sticking everyone in the cage the right thing to do or everyone but me. And I say, well, no, why? Well, it would make my life easier if I just went over and took all of your stuff as long as you couldn't stop me. I mean, of course, that's a great idea. That's what everyone does in every video game. But in Skyrim, you steal stuff when people aren't around. But ultimately, you go, well, this isn't the right thing to do because if I were on the other side of it, I would not appreciate it. It's inherently not a good thing to do. I'm only doing it because I think I'm going to win. And that's a fine way to be, but you don't have the white hat on. I guess I would say. So I think without those philosophical underpins,”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So then you get down to the ends justifying the means. It's a tough question. These aren't things with easy answers. At least if they are, I certainly don't have the smarts to figure out the answers to them.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prime drops, you know, all sorts. There are certain positives to that. And it's just things are as they are. It's difficult, but that is ultimately more the law of the jungle. And I think that we're able to supersede some of that now in modern times. And I think we're fortunate. But as you mentioned, we look back and say, oh, this is horrible. Say, no, that just is what it is. That's how life is at a base level. And, you know, again, if you're a lion and I'm a gazelle, I don't, I don't really like it very much, but we don't call the lion the bad guy. We don't sanctify the gazelle or the other way around. So it's interesting when you pull back some of the controls that we put on our behavior in modern life, which I think are generally speaking positive, you know, we get down to how things often are. And at the same time, we could, modern life was built by people like Genghis Khan.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You do. I respect you for it, but then we're going to have a conflict, and then we'll see what happens. And if you lose, you're going to be sorry that you did because I have to make it that way if I want to continue utilizing this kind of MO, because I need to discourage the next guy from doing what you're doing right now. And ultimately, though, I guess that's an interesting thing. Imagine you put every single person on planet Earth.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To look back at the people that we think of as great and entirely great. And I think that we're experiencing the problems with this, even right now socially and politically is we're trying to look back and decide the people we thought were good or not good or people we thought were bad or now good rather than going, hey, there's good and bad to all things and there are, as you mentioned, the Genghis Khan thing, you don't have to fight back.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's funny you mention it. I think that maybe it's a human nature thing that we want to, or maybe, or maybe a misunderstanding thing that we want to cast all of our characters and ourselves maybe as entirely good or as entirely negative when I guess the phrase or the saying of one man's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist is accurate. And a lot of times I think you can understand as long as you're able to look from various people's perspective. Like if you look at the TV show The Wire, which was obviously widely, everybody loves the wire, I thought that everyone, I mean, I'm not saying anything that's not been said before, compelling characters from all angles, whether you like the character, dislike the character, you're able to understand the motivations of people doing various things, even if they did wrongly, they did rightly. We want to cast all of the demons throughout history as completely inhuman when I think that makes it difficult for us to understand them.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Musashi loses, he loses. Hannibal loses. He loses. Alexander loses. He loses, and they lose, I guess the people around them lose. So that's almost like you could use even from a combat sports perspective, a Muhammad Ali. I mean, you consider also their quality of opposition. Musashi was fighting high quality opposition. Obviously, Hannibal and Alexander, particularly Hannibal, were fighting unbelievable opposition. Muhammad Ali fought phenomenal opposition, but he had skin in the game both in the ring and out. And that actually meshes with, as you mentioned, like a civil rights, you know, type of situation where you are under-resourced. You're pushing the stone uphill. And that was a neat thing I think about Muhammad Ali was how much personal conviction the man had to have in order to pull off what he was able to pull off both in and outside of the ring. And that reminds me of, again, some of the other great leaders of great fighters throughout history.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That I would say at least three that pop into my head and would be Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and then maybe Miyamota Musashi, you know, the two commanders and then one guy. But so it's interesting. And then again, you mentioned warriors being able to make a lot out of a little Musashi's famous for winning duels that were oftentimes one-on-one. Alexander and Hannibal were military commanders and one of them faced Rome. And that was an interesting thing. Oftentimes, coming up with novel tactics, different strategies, sometimes under-resourced, doing having to do novel and crazy things, there's skin in the game. That's an interesting thing too. I think a lot of times, you know, it's, if you're playing a video game, I don't think you can be a warrior because there's no skin in the game. You get hurt, you lose, and it's a bummer. It stings a little bit. Maybe makes you feel slightly disappointed. But, uh,”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's fair to say. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into, let's say, winning a soccer game. And, you know, obviously Barcelona, particularly for various points in time at a ridiculous all-star squad of world-class players. But, and let's say, for instance, maybe they didn't have the creative players in Argentina. They needed to get the ball up to Messi, you know. They didn't have like the NES to and again the backing there in the midfield. Because obviously Argentina's always had ridiculous attacking players, like even alongside Messi, but they're like the three killers up front and then a little less behind.”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The circumstances that they were involved in because I think a lot of times it's easy to look at the outcomes and obviously outcome we lived in an outcome driven world and outcomes do matter but at the same time like you know you look at let's say what Cuba has been able to pull off you know from a combat sports perspective it's staggering you know like the amount of successful Olympic level competitors they have in wrestling boxing judo I mean they're a tiny little island with no money and no people that's shocking you know when you think about the Olympics in the United States doing well of course we should do well I mean Russia should do well China should do well India should do better than they do honestly obviously it means like they're not into it as much or at least certain sports because they have the resources people wise so talent's not going to be an issue”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I agree with you. If they were a well known yet awesome band, let me say it's like Nickelback or something like that. But I feel that feels cheap because everyone makes fun of Nickelback. I guess it depends on how you want to define warrior, something that I think about when it comes to trying to evaluate various people or situations or things that I've read about or heard about”
2020-09-20 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #125 – Ryan Hall: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Violence, Power, and Grace · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source