Neil deGrasse Tyson | Club Random Classics with Bill Maher

And this month's Club Random Classics, we rewind to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the professor, one of my favorites from, "Are we alone to Carl Sagan's influence on his life?" That's "Are we alone in the universe?" If you weren't following, he's a natural physicist. You know, things like a surprisingly heated debate about college kids. Nothing's ever off limits here. You know that we laugh a lot and it's pure club random. So grab something cold or green or both and hit play. "There he is." "The man himself." "Do I genuinely reflect? What do I do?" "Dr. Dunn, great to meet you." "Absolutely." "How you doing, ma'am?" "Professor of personality." "How are you?" "Look at you. I got you in my lab." "Oh, I'm missing you in your, in your" "and looking at you." "You're already a man-key." "No, that's for a married guy. This is a disco tech." "So, well, you can't tell without the music. And you've already leaned on your prop. I love authors who aren't shy." "Well, we will get to this. I've been reading this." "Do you have?" "Yeah." "It's much more pop culture." "Yes, very pop culture." "Very pop culture." "So, you dumbed it down for me personally?" "No." "Like provided scenery along the way while you're learning your science." "Right." "You can capture some pop culture moments." "So, what are the scientists talking about? The one's new and outer space, doc." "No, I feel like" "The half of me is is tending to scientific diversions in the public." "You know, aliens or UFO sightings." "Right now, we'll get to that." "But I want to know actually like when you're in the coffee clutch with your other egghead." "Yeah?" "What would we talk about?" "What's the gossip about there? What's putting a tingle in your anus?" "Okay." "It's not where I get my tingles, but fine." "You know, I was going to work that." "Yeah, I don't know about your anus, but. " "Okay, so my anus." "What is going on with your anus?" "You must know." "Like, the planet's like that change." "Yeah, yeah, they have what?" "What?" "No, not from Uranus." "That would be Uranus." "Obviously." "Okay." "Oh, really? Is that the way you're supposed to?" "If you're older than age eight." "Yes, you say Uranus." "Do you have a drink?" "Yeah." "Do you want a drink?" "I'm doing a gram on yeh." "What do you do?" "A gram on yeh?" "Yeah, I'm a wine guy, but when I have wines with food, and generally it not otherwise, but if I'm just chilling like I am with you." "Excuse me, a wine guy." "Yeah, yeah, and I can hang with the snobbiest among them." "Really? I mean, you mean like you know about wine?" "Oh, yeah. You know?" "Academically, yeah. I mean, I know." "So that's like a hobby?" "Yes." "That's a right way to say that." "So if you had like an Australian Siraz at California, Cabernet, a California's infantile, a French board though, a French burgundy, a Spanish Rielha, I would just go right on down to tell you which one they are." "The brain, the human brain, barely works." "But not about Matt." "Yeah, come on everybody." "It barely works. You know, two people viewing the same thing, give a different account." "Right." "We've known that psychology, since psychologists have known this forever." "And we have books of optical illusions where oh, is the line one line right?" "Bigger or small? I don't know. I can't tell. Is it in the page? That simple line drawings can confuse the mind." "That one is very confusing. It just is. All of these are. Or else they wouldn't put them in a book." "This is my point. So, so. " "Don't look down on it." "It's the brain, barely works." "Right." "Can I convince me that stirring in other chemicals will make objective reality more apparent to you?" "Oh, but it does and has." "No, of course it has." "No, here's the difference." "Here's the difference." "More artistic." "That's different." "Fine." "I know." "Fine." "But I am sure." "Is it the unlocks creativity? Fine." "Right. Well, there's no creativity in your field." "There is however, in my field, nature is the judge, jury, and executioner of my creativity." "Right." "Whereas to an artist?" "Correct." "There's room there." "You're right." "That's the difference." If Van Gogh did not paint the starry night, or Beethoven didn't compose the night siphony, no one ever born after them is going to do that. Whereas if Einstein wasn't born, somebody or some combination of people would have eventually found relativity. No doubt about it. So, our creativity is on a landscape where there's only going to be one answer there, not for the artist. So, yeah, stirring the chemicals for the artist, and you'll see the world in whole new ways for art, music, and with the microdosing? That's a whole frontier right there, right? "This is not a hill I'm going to die on with you, because I'm basically of the same mind, because I know, especially through relationships, you know, being in show business. I always say I'm in show business, I'm not of it. So, I'm not over there with the, I know what you mean, but I've known people who were artists, you know, in a relationship level. And they just come at a truth in a different way. You know, it's not linear, it's not rational. We call these people women. No. No, not just women, but there is an artistic way of perceiving reality, and it can be very frustrating, like if you are, I'm much more of the logical type, you know. And do other people think that about you? Yes, they do. Okay, just checking. I know the fact that you and I disagree on a number of things makes me sometimes question like, well, maybe he's wrong about the outer space shit, because normally what I do, it's someone who disagrees with you means they're wrong and you're right? No, it just makes what you just said imply that. Well, it does question. If you disagree with someone on like A, B, C, D, and E, and then F, see, F for us would be like, your field, which I know nothing about, and I know you're a genius in. I know that. So like when questions about, you know, astrophysics come up, I always just go, whatever, Neal Degress Tyson says, I'm down with that. If he says the big bang theory happened, and the whole universe fit into a marble, it sounded a little weird. Well, the universe is under no obligation to make sense. No, I understand that. And I understand that what I have faith in, and of course, everything is faith, even though we're both atheists, what I have faith in is that even though I can't understand that, how that happened, you do. You really do. How you put it put in the 10,000 hours, you have the big brain, you figured this out, and I trust you on that subject. I don't trust you on everything else, but you don't have to. I know. Of course, but if I have a view of something that is factual, it's because the evidence I've seen supports that view. I don't have beliefs in things that are not otherwise supported by evidence. And I would ask you, what does it take to change your mind? Because I know exactly what it takes to change my mind. It's the weight of evidence brought to bear on a question or a bribe. And my belief in it, if we use that word, is proportionate to that evidence. Right. So, but people look at the same evidence. I mean, we're really talking about medicine now, even though we're not saying it for some reason. And people look at the same evidence. That's why they say about doctors. Get a second opinion. Because in medicine, it is still an opinion. And the experts disagree. Thousands and thousands of doctors and medical experts have disagreed about how we handled COVID. There was just a very big court case called Missouri versus Biden, which decided in the favor of these doctors, because they said they weren't allowed to get their point of view across, because the government colluded with the tech companies, so we only heard one point of view. So, you know, the science, there's a thought in science for things like a new virus that we're still studying and don't know a lot about. And that's why there is dissenting opinion, lots of it. You don't even hear all of it because they're so intimidated. So, like something like that. I'd like to address that. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So, with the Monday morning quarterback, you know, as we all are, after the facts, we could go back and restructure how the rollout would have been should have been done. There's no question about it. Okay. About, you know, the discovery of the virus, the development of the vaccines, the rollout of the vaccines, the progress of the virus, the mutations of the virus, the lethality of the virus, the comorbidities of the virus, all of that could have come out better. And I'd like to think somebody made a book of recommendations from this. So, the next time we have another pandemic, which is not, we don't have the way to century for that, they were prepared in a way that people are properly informed. That's my first one. We're making that book as we go because lots of stuff, we know now that we didn't know. And a lot of it is like, oh, yeah, no, that wasn't a good idea. Or, oh, yeah, the virus actually. Correct, correct. But people were not honest enough about the uncertainties at the time they made their declarations. And part of it needs other half of this is, when you learn about science in school, what do you think science is? And most people think it's what's in a book with both face words. No, no, no. and take the test, and you don't realize it's a process. - A process of varying nature. - Yes. - And understand coming to an understanding. So now here's my point. More relevant to what got you into this. Science is not the word of any individual. Science, the objective truths of science are established only when there's multiple tests, multiple tests. On a level where the individual no longer matters. Because it's the collective body of evidence. - Totally agree. - What we have in this world is, and you've seen this in all manner of categories. You're channel surfing on YouTube, and somebody says, the establishment thinks this, but I have the real answer, and they're trying to suppress it. This is irresistible to go listen to that one person who's opposite the establishment. And here's the thing, just because the establishment doesn't agree with you, it doesn't mean you're correct. So you can say this, but I'm not here. - But you're sending up a dynamic between the established when she was to say Dr. Fauci, and a crazy person who thinks there are chips in the vaccine. - Yes. - I'm talking about Fauci versus Dr. Martin Colddorf. - But what I'm saying, Fauci versus J. Bhattacharya. These are, hold on, okay. - Fauci, Fauci. - So don't pretend, I'm on it. - Fauci. (laughing) Fauci. - Fauci, in principle, should, at most of the time, does represent the mainstream understanding of the drugs, the disease, the reactions, and the like. - The mainstream, which has been wrong about so many of it. - Well, this above then, that's a separate conversation. - But it is a true conversation. - But hold on. - So then, he represents a mainstream. It's not because he's an expert. It's because he, not only is he an expert, but that's not the issue here. It's that ideally, he is conveying a community understanding of what's going on. Now, you want to put him against another person who has pedigree, Harvard, Cornell, whatever, and you're gonna say, there's one expert against another. That's not how science works. - So, why didn't you go to Cornell? Oh, you know, I never really came out in my biography. I mean, that never really came out. - It seems like, I tell you, I have this. - I mean, we both have a connection. I took his course, Carl Sagan. - What, he was a capital H, he was there like for one class. - Yeah, I've told he was, he was, he was-- - Well, he was a star. I mean, only took it 'cause I told him on the tonight show. Well, I could take a course with this guy. - Yeah, Carl Sagan for anyone who's not knowing who he's talking about. - Yes, and he's your, you know, your hero, your mentor. - Yeah, he was, he's, by the way, he's a mentor not one-on-one, just by example. I mean, I saw what he did, how he said things, how he interacted with people. The patients that he had for people whose brains were just somewhere completely off the rails. And so, I've learned a lot from that, but not because he was a direct mentor, but because he said an example that I found valuable to follow. So, he, just to catch people up, in case they didn't know, I was in high school, applied to a bunch of colleges. Cornell was one of the ones I was accepted to. And, unknown to me, the admissions office, must have sent my application to him, saying, "Here's someone we want to attract. Can you do anything about it?" He sent me a letter, a letter. I'm a 17-year-old high school kid in the Bronx. Said, "Dear Neil, I understand you're considering colleges. "You're considering Cornell. "If you want to come visit, come by. "I'll give you a tour of the labs. "You can find out what day you make a decision." - But how did he know that you were this prodigy? My application to college was dripping with the universe. - Okay, right. - And it wasn't because of him. I was not even native to him. - So, he wasn't just like, shot in the dark. He was like, "I see that this kid is the one." - I had telescopes since I was-- - What, you put it in the application? - Oh, yeah! - Okay, so he read something. - Oh, yeah! - And went, "Whoa, who is this?" - Oh, yeah. - I was an astronomy queen. - Oh, yeah. - I was on an expedition to study stoning. - I understand, right. - I had all of this stuff in my, it was, it was, my engagement with the universe was so thorough that it was a separate identity outside of whatever I was doing in a classroom. And so this, I had energy for it. And so he'd saw that and sent me this letter. Right, so the letter was not completely out of the blue. There was, there was justification there from within the application. It was dripping with the universe. So, I showed it to my mother, she said, "Yeah, this is like legit, all right, let's do it." So, got on a bus in December. Okay, went up to Cornell, five hour bus ride, that is. And he met me outside the lab. We went in, wait, we'll talk to him in his office. And when I remember, forget this, he did a no-look reach. He went back like this and was one of his books. And I said, "Wow, that's badass." - Oh, yes! - He, he learned that, here it is, ladies and gentlemen. To infinity, NBL. - He did a no-look reach. - And was one of his books and he signed it to me. Of course, I still have it. He says, "To Neil, future astronomer." Okay, then the day ran long and we, he drove me back to the bus station. It started to snow, not uncommon in Ithaca, New York. And he was wondering, he said, "If the bus doesn't come through, here's my home phone number." - Could he touch you in appropriate? - Where is this-- - Oh, where is this, where is this, where is that? - Yeah, come spend the night, right? - No. - So-- - A tent. - A tent that got in the winter. - So, yeah, I got on the bus, it still came through. I've had people tell me afterwards that I should have just said the bus didn't come through and then spend the night. - Right. - But anyhow, so I didn't end up going to Cornell because, here's what I did. I have the time, this is like inside baseball here, but I had subscribed to Scientific American. And my favorite part was about the authors. And people write for Scientific Remembrance scientists, they're not journalists. So about the authors, it tells them where they went to college, where they got their masters, where they got the PhD, and where they were on the faculty. This is total information. I got all the articles on astronomy and physics that I loved. And I made a grid for which of the schools I was admitted to had checkmarks from these authors, where they'd gone to college, where they were, and Harvard, one hands down. And I didn't know at the time that the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which is a government installation, was co-located with the Harvard Observatory. And so the numbers I was looking at was the sum of those two. But that's fine, 'cause if you're looking for summer jobs and stuff, it's all one complex of buildings. So I said, if I go to Cornell and he leaves, I knew enough to know that professors move around, then I went to Cornell for a reason that evaporates. Whereas at Harvard, the sheer number of people doing astrophysics, I thought was a stable, stable community to walk into. And so I went to Harvard. - Is it a community idea, you're mostly your friend? - We all know each other, they're not many of us. - Not many astrophysicists? - No, there's so many. - In the world, 8,000, 8 billion people, so you divide those two numbers, we're literally one in a million human beings on earth. - But if you have an astrophysic in the room with you, you better ask all your questions, 'cause you might not see another one for the rest of your life. - But isn't that things that you would-- - Unless you're Bill Martin, you could just sum them up out of the ether. - Well, that's not the thing is ether. - Okay, so I'm being artistic poetic. - I know. - Is that allowed? - Well, you're both in the other category. But we're both more combinations. You're a very creative guy in your field. I try to be-- - In fact, just a few days ago, I went back and saw your 2003 standout in Hudson Theater in New York. It was very 9/11 focused. - Yeah, but just to remind myself of you, when you were young, take 20 years ago. (laughing) - Man, what do you know, 60s? - Oh, tomorrow? - Yeah. - I turned 65. - Oh, tomorrow? - That's my big day. - Oh, I wish I knew. - No, that's not-- - I broke it. - No, I said it now. But no, I would have baked your cake. - No, no. - And that's a big moment. - That's a big moment. - From male, from Medicare, and, you know, and old ARP. - Yeah, ARP. - But, you know, it doesn't matter because look at you. You're robust, you look healthy, you look generically middle-aged. That's as good as you can do for 60s. - Oh, just keep that for a long time. - Yeah, I see. - For 65. That is as good as you can do. - You look in old movies, all the old people are 65 in the old movies. - Yeah. - Reminding that people didn't live long back then. - Well, I'm not gonna lie. It is all, you know, it's the thing, among old people, we're the younger. - That's what we got. - Okay, you tell yourself that, all right. - No, but I don't feel like my behavior is not old. Like, in important meetings, I still tell jokes, and I spin in the board chair, you know, 'cause they're very low friction, and they're fun to spin in. And I, you know, I'd drink a lemonade when everyone else is having a beer. - Well, you're a drink. - It's not shake when everyone else is having. So, I just, I do mean, the reason why you're such a great communicator is because, like, most people who know what you know, they're deadly dull, communicating it. You, it's like James Brown, (laughing) went to Harvard. (laughing) That's got his degree. You know, you're just, you know, - How do you do? - No. (laughing) - Well, the audience feels good when you, - Well, thank you. - No, it's true. - It's 'cause I'm feeling, - I mean, you feel the content. - I mean, you became a brand, you know, you got - Yeah, not a purpose, but it just is huge. I mean, Cosmos was, - Remained, one of the, my favorite television shows of all time, and this is going back to McEl's Navy. - Oh, McEl's Navy. - But McEl's Navy. - McEl's Navy. - Yeah, do you remember that when you were, (laughing) - I was on the, - They always show leaning over the edge. But I said, but if it's flat, that's not the front of the boat. Wouldn't you be looking to the front of the boat? The boat would be pointing. I was had issues with that. - What is this obsession you have? - No, I've issues with. - Like, this is your mind. Like, you're not the creative mind. I mean, you are, but you're not the, - Like, in, in, in. - What's the one? Lost in space? - In Lost in space. - They're in a flying saucer. - I know. - And this flush is spinning? - No, but when you're looking straight out of window, I have one thing inside of them. Why aren't they spinning around? - Because we don't care. Because we need the people. We the people, not the genius. We don't care. We don't see. - And they come here in spinning flying saucers and they'll walk off dizzy. - I know. And Captain Kirk, you know, when he kissed the green chick. (laughing) - Of course, we know that if they're green on another planet, they're probably not gonna be hot also. You know, the odds are he didn't get male on kissing the green woman. But they got male kissing. - Oh. - Kissing her. - He kissed, but not like on the cheek. - Yeah, no, it was a lip kiss. - It was? - Yes. It was the first white black interracial kiss on television. You didn't know this? Star Trek. - I guess I did, but. - Yeah. - I think he got made. Oh, here's the, here's one, from the South, ready? It's, I totally object to this, you know, this miscegenation there. But if I had to kiss a black woman, you'd be the one. (laughing) Who said that? That's just some random guy. - Yeah. - Who's complaining about the interracial kiss? - Oh, yeah. - I mean, trust me, there are still-- - So it was a compliment mixed in with the insult. - There are still plenty of idiot men today who say things like that. Like, I'm not really, you're the attraction to black girl, but you're different, you know, like, they think that's a compliment, or that it's going to get you. I mean, that kind of ignorance will take longer to eradicate. But the other one I remember from that era was Petula Clark. Do you remember who that was? - Yeah, sure. - But what about it? (laughing) - Nothing, I just want to know if you're a veteran. - No, no. - She kissed, or Harry Belafondi kissed her on the cheek. - Just on the cheek. - Like in a 1967, something like that, special. And the affiliates in the South, like, they dropped the network, you know, that like, it was just like, you know, and we're talking about a peck on the cheek. And it was, I mean-- - Real human beings. - The changes you must have seen in your life. - Yes. - In my lifetime. - That one, I'm a 65 year old man. - Yeah. - Can you describe that? I would love to, 'cause I heard you on a podcast once talk about getting pulled over with a bunch of, I don't think you were talking about other African-American. - Yeah, no, what it was was, I was at a conference where, you know, a conference is, there's the banquet night, which is the night before the last day. And usually there's a bottle of wine, you grab it off the table, go to a, go to a common room or something. You just chill and chew the fat. And I'm there and we're going around the circle and somehow we got talked about police and police stops, right? So we went around the circle and every person is sharing their story. But we're all Ph.D. physicists, okay? And sharing stories about police stops. And we just went around multiple times. And the only thing we have in common, other than being Ph.D. physicist, is that we're all black. How many? - Well, there were eight of us in the circle. - Eight of us in the room. - Just in that one circle. And the stories had a very similar tone to it. We were stopped and not given a ticket. So the stop was on some suspicion that was not then fulfilled. - Where is it? - This is 1992, 1993. - Okay. - So now it's 2023. - So that's 30 years ago, I'm happy to say. - On a scale of how much that has changed. - Oh, very, you know, it's an excellent question bill because it's what I'm always asking. - Bill, Bill. - Are we now? - Bill. - Bill. - People don't want to admit how much better things are today. - I'm always making. - Then at point. - Anytime in the past. - I'm trying to tell the kids this. - I am always. - I'm trying to. - Here's what you do. - Here it is, you set up a time machine. - Okay. - A time machine. - Watch. - And then if you are female on the gender spectrum or a person of color, you put them in the time machine and say, "Pick a time in the past where you were treated better than you are today." - And if you really think that through? - I don't think there's a single time you can pick. - But the kids. - At all. - See, the problem is. - But because it's what they know. Here's the problem. - Well, the problem is education. If you don't teach kids history, if they don't know what happened, they think everything is just the present. - With the present. And everything bad in the present is the worst that ever happened. - There really is. - I try to tell them, I don't even need history books to know something like this. I don't know why. - You lived it. - You lived it, right? - I saw America like you did. - Yes. - But not like you did. That's why I'm asking you, 'cause I can't know what you knew. - Here's what I'm telling you. So, for me, yeah, I'm choosing the future. 'Cause that's, that art looks better to me than any time in the past. But the reason why there's value to this exercise is, rather than, rather than, in addition to complaining that things aren't what they should be progressively, if you look at the past and realize how much it has changed, what you can ask is, what did we do right to get to where we are today? Let's do more of that. And rather than only look at what's bad today, and then try to eradicate that, that there are lessons that we learned. And my father was among them. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement, worked under Mayor Lindsay in New York. - Mayor Lindsay is a commissioner, right? - Mayor Lindsay. - Manpower and career. You know what? New's article was not written in the 1960s about New York. New York had no major riots. Largest ghetto in the country up in Harlem had no, the skirmishes here that nothing like walks, nothing like-- - New York. - New York? - Nothing. - Right across the river. And so, no one writes articles about that. My father was there at the time, and what is a riot if not the last desperate act when you know there is no other path of hope. - Right. - And so, he was a commissioner of manpower in career development, agency, agency in New York, where youth in the inner city would realize they might have a job, there's a career for them, there's an opportunity in arms reach. So, it was never a powder cake. - So, yeah. - Our father's may have crossed paths. Well, my father was in radio news. We lived in Jersey, but he commuted every day into Manhattan. - Oh, okay. - And maybe your father was interviewed every now and then. - That's what I'm saying. - Well, they died a few years ago. - I checked my mother and my mother still alive. - But this would be in the '60s, '70s. - Yes, of course. - I can't ask him, I'm saying. - Yeah, would be '60s, early '70s, yes. Isn't that funny? So, you've been in the business, your parents? - Well, I would hardly call that the business, but radio news. Yes, hey, I mean, that was what put the thing. - That was an important thing back then. - It was the era when radio, every radio station had news at the top of the hour. And you would have five minutes of news. And even us kids listening to W-A-B-C, cousin Bruce Lee, we had to sit through five minutes of news. I feel like we don't ask kids. - Cousin Bruce Lee, you didn't say it right, 'cause of me. - Oh, you remember W-A-B-C? - Of course. - Dan Ingram, Dan Ingram, something like Ron Lundy. - I mean, but I would listen to W-B-L-S. - Yes. - The total experience in South, 107.5. - Wow. - In stereo. - You could have been a voice guy. - You're saying, I really? - I'm a face for radio. Is this what you're saying? (laughs) - No, really, you could do that. - No, you know what happened was this, nobody knows this. I was on the roof showing the night sky to like 40 people. And it's a tall building that had these big air conditioning ducts. And I was just speaking over the volume of that. And at one point, my voice cracked, and I tasted blood in the back. It was like, what the fuck? - What? - What happened? And so I went to the doctor, the ENT and all these people. And they wanted me to learn how to send my voice out from my chest more than from my throat. I think opera singers know this, right? They know how to do that. But I didn't know anything about it. So I did all these voice exercises. And as I did this, my voice got more and more chest resonant. - Yes. - And so it was, it's a way to protect my throat. Do you really what's going on? - Do you remember the record "Rainy Night in Georgia"? (laughs) - Do you? - Yes, I do, of course. - Who's saying? - 'Cause he's in the sound of rain. - Who's saying yes? - Yes, yeah. - Who's saying it? - Oh no, that wasn't Billy Preston. - Rick Brook Benton. - Oh no, I would never remember that. I don't know. - Yeah. I feel like you could. I covered that song, "Rean Night in Georgia." - Yes, so now, so I was being interviewed on CNN. And I miss our boy's voice doing the, this is CNN, Darth Vader, did that for years. - Yes, he did. - Yeah, and then he stopped doing that. It's like, hell, I could do that. - Right, this, CNN. - I got that. - So I laid a few tracks for them. I don't know what they'll do with it. - You know. There's a lot of plays that's not too scientific, though. - So, yo, how come nothing makes you happy? - Nothing, man. What are you trying to do? - You're the grumpyest, you know what I'm saying? - Why do I feel like I'm going to turn 65? I feel like we're on, on your porch in the rocking chair. (laughing) - Get off my lawn, you, you, I'm not the grumpy one. - Let me ask, can I ask, I know it's your pockets, but I've been carrying questions within me for you. - Me, yeah, I'm playing. - I'm carrying, okay. - Wow. So you don't, as I heard you say, maybe you dotted here and there, but you've abandoned college campuses in your standup, every committee in there. - Okay, so, literally everyone. Let me ask you, if you came up today, would you just read the landscape and develop a whole other comedic repertoire that does not end up having people pick it outside your thing? - I would. - Are you just transposed and you're not adjusting to the shifting terrain? So, is, why is it their fault and not your fault? - You're being so broad about the whole thing. - Yeah, I am. - Well, but that doesn't work because that doesn't ever explain anything. If you want to talk about specific issues, it's funny, you know, this subject comes up a lot of times with like people who are, you know, my friend who are around my age 40. - No, and they have like kids who are like super woke and drive them fucking now. (laughing) I got woke kids, I will never be as woke as my kids would want me to be ever. - Yeah, but you're a little too. Still, and you know, woke does not automatically mean better, newer does not automatically mean better. So, that's why I say, to talk broadly is bullshit. You have to like talk about what specific, you know, issue are we talking about, you know, the ones that get people's attention or gender issues. - Yeah, I know, but what? - Things like that that were, okay, this is very different. - You cut your teeth. - But 70s. - What I'm saying, and you read the, you read the room. - Okay, but I'll answer you. - You read the politics. - I didn't read the politics. - Yes, you did. - How the fuck do you know what I did? - 'Cause you, I know your jokes of the hour, they were great. - Well, a lot of people think they're great now. - Okay, this took, (laughing) I don't, I don't know if you don't anymore. - No, no, what I meant was. - Am I not, what? - They were enough for you? - Just, that would work on a college campus, okay? - Surely there is a portfolio of jokes that would still work on a college campus. - Surely. - I would hope not, from what, maybe some college campuses, the ones you read about are fucking insane. - And give it up on the entire generation, and give it up on any place that doesn't even remotely attempt to believe in free speech. And things that, anything that they hear that they don't like that they don't agree with is violence. These people are fucking nuts, and you should be calling them out. Somebody like you, who has standing with kids, should be, not, you're doing what parents do. - You aren't taking, you're doing what parents do. You're taking the path of least resistance. And therefore hurting the kids, and yourself. Parents ruin both their lives. They ruin their fucking spoiled kids lives, and they ruin their own lives, 'cause the kids rule the roost. So that's what you're doing on a national level. - I'm feeling more like on the ports. - You're not flying long. - Really? - I feel like we're in the barbershop. - Barbers, that works too. Barbers, in the inner city is the barbershop. We don't have porches in me. Well, there's the stoop. There's the stoop. So I just, so here's my point. - That's my point. - I'm trying to get through to people, on my social media, and the like. And I see what pisses people off, what they react to. And I say, all right, these are the landmines. I'm gonna navigate that. - I'm gonna navigate it. - So I navigate it so that I can sit, because my father's greatest bit of wisdom to me, several nuggets. One of them was, it's not good enough to be right. You also have to be effective. And if you reject the college campus, then you have no influence on them. They're not gonna say, "Oh, we're not gonna get Bill, "maybe we should change." Then you have no influence on them. - Sweetheart, I can wait till they grow up a little. - Okay, I can wait. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about with comedians. - The whole age drank on me? - No, you don't know what I'm talking about. You know the, you know outer space. - Well, what I'm telling you. - I know fucking doing comedy shows. - I'm a huge consumer of your trade. - Thank you. - Yes. - Well, I mean, thank you on behalf of all the comedians. - Oh, no, I'm a huge consumer. I'm just letting you know that. - You're mean of all comedians. - Yes, of all comedians. - Yes, well, on behalf of all of us. - And I have a fast J. Lennel joke. - No joke, you know, observation when you have a minute. - I would, please, let's not let the moment pass. I wanna hear this. - Are you wanna hear it now? - Absolutely. - Okay, I know. - Okay, yeah, okay, so I watch Lennel every night. His model, I didn't care about the guest. Watch the monologue every night. He was the longest monologue of all the guys at night, okay? - Genius comedians. - Okay. - And so I knew his timing. I knew his rhythms. I knew on the possibility that I would ever end up on his show, I would be in lockstep with him. - Then the call came. - Yeah. - Okay. - Now he doesn't typically do scientists, so this was, I think, new as an unusual for him, and he's a literate guy, science literate guy, but it wasn't like Johnny Carson with scientists on all of that. - But that's a credit to you. You rose to the level of pop culture translator of science, which is a great place to be. And only a few people get to do that. - Thank you, but there's a lot of work. So learning what the hell's going on out there, pop culture, so fucking hell. - So here's what happened. So what show was it? It had Jimmy Fallon on it. Why? Because two weeks later, he's taken over for, so this is like the last week of "Jabeline of Tenure" and I'm on the show. - Okay. - But then I realized, I know why I'm on the show, because that night was the night, that day Obama was inaugurated. 2008, that 2009 January 20th. So that evening, all Hollywood is not available, but Neil is available. Okay, so I fly out to California, okay? So no watch. And he had a great joke about the inauguration in a minute, but watch what happens. He says, "Oh, it's a Neil. What's the latest in the universe?" I said, "Oh, that's a terrible Lenovo." I'm sorry, I can't do it. - So at Neil, what's the, what's the latest in the animals? - And so I set him up for a joke, okay? This is like dangling fruit. I said, "On Mars, we just discovered that there's gaseous effluences coming from the ravine." Wait a minute. Wait. And so then I wait like three quarters of a second to see if he picks that up. He doesn't, I keep going and he didn't pick it up. So I said, "And we analyze the gaseous and it's mostly methane." So there was a pause. No, he's still in pieces. No. He's like listening and learning rather than being active in his defense. I don't know what the joke is about methane either. - Oh, well, maybe this is how you. - Astrophysic. - It's just methane. - Such as what you'd find in the lower intestines of farm animals. - Yeah, cowfarts. - Still he doesn't say that. You know, Jimmy Fallon says, "I can see it now on Mars." They've cow dead saying, "Pull my hoof." - So Jimmy picked it up. - Wow. - And that's good. - And he deep. And so I was like, "What am I gonna do here?" - Well, I don't know at the point in that story. - No, no, no, no. I was saying, I follow the comedic thing. So the next day, do you remember, Aretha Franklin sang at the inauguration and she had this big hat. - Very glad if you remember that. - Yeah. - But she was a huge hat. So the next day, he says, "Last night in his monologue." Last night, Astrophysic, Leo the guest. Okay, I won't imitate it. It's fine. Last night, I'd be able to guess Tyson on. And he told me there's only two things visible from space. The Great Wall of China and Aretha Franklin's hat. It was just good. So I made it into two nights there. That's all. - Oh, really? - And I would keep safe from that day. My cup, which is from the today show. I mean, from the tonight show. Okay, this is tonight. On my side, it says guest number two. - Yeah, that's my. - I was on the tonight show that week too. It's last week. - Seriously? - Yeah, Seth McFarlane and I sang in Tuxedos. - What? - I missed that. - Yeah, YouTube it. And we sang, I re-wrote with the help on my writers, I recall, thanks for the memories. - Oh, nice. Very nice. - Nice. - And we fucking rehearsed it and memorized it and sang it together, like two crew members. I spoke on that. - I thought Jade should work there. - Should get a send-off like that. - That meddler, serenaded Carson, when he left. - Winning my wings. - Yeah. - Something like that. - That's was it. - But she didn't return my calls when I tried to get hurt. - No kidding. - No, I wanted to rewrite the song and do it that. - Yeah, it was really funny. But I've been on his car show. - Yeah. - He had a car with a jet engine. And so he wanted me on there to comment on aerodynamics of jet engines. So obviously, I respect what you guys do deeply. - I know, I appreciate that. (laughing) - Okay, look, and so it's I'm wondering. How do you never, you know, I have on, you know, this serious XM, you got comedy from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, they decade them. - Yeah. - And I listened to comedy from the 2000s, but half the jokes you can't tell today. - But just exactly, and just to put this in perspective, we did a piece on this, like, and this is going back seven or eight years, this has been going on, it's only gotten worse. But Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry the Cable Guy, all at the same period of time announced they are not doing college's anymore. And, you know, we did jokes like, a Jew, a black guy, and a redneck work into a college, and they all go, "Fuck you, I'm getting at it." - Right, right, right. - And now, if Jerry Seinfeld's act, which can whiten teeth, it sounds pretty, - That's if he's a pretty clean humorist. - Brilliant. - Yes. - But like, if you're upset at Jerry Seinfeld's act, I'm sorry, the problem is you, and how you were raised, spoiler alert, wrong. You were raised wrong. That's the key to everything, is the kids were raised wrong. And it doesn't make me the bad guy, because I notice this. I don't know why you want to join this. - I want to navigate it so I can still be effective in community. - Yeah, me too. - But how do you give up? - You're on the rocking chair. - No, I am not giving up. - You're not my long-- - But you have a, but you have a, no, that's, that's stupid. - That's real. - That's stupid. - It's so fucking, it's demeaning an insult thing. - No. - Quite frankly. - Because it's reducing what I do, which is really subtle. - Yeah, I know. - And a lot of people like it. - It's about insults. - That's what they would say on Fox News. Oh, you know, he's just saying, he's just old, get off my lawn. It's a prejudice. It's not accurate. It's not cool. - You're not allowing my free speech. I'm just calling you out on your bullshit. - You're not calling you out on your bullshit. - Just because it doesn't agree with you, it doesn't make it bullshit. - Exactly. - It's just a different point of view. - I'm just saying. - Get off my lawn is not a point of view. - But it's a fun reference. - It's reference, come on. - Yeah, but it's pretending, it's not accurate. And it's not honest. Because it's pretending that all I am is a primal scream against the future coming. I'm not a primal scream. I love the future when it's good. - Do you want to-- - It's full of that generation. - Do you want to bring that fuck? If you want to bring back communism, which like a third of them do, no, I'm not gonna go, oh, that's new. Isn't it great? You know, I could say, hey, let's shit in the kitchen and eat in the bathroom. It's no, but is it smarter? No, this is what I always tell my friends when they're like, I can't talk to my kids because whatever I think they go, that's all thinking. - Yeah, yeah. - And it's like, yeah, but is it better thinking? Is it better thinking? I know you think that, like you got to think with Martina Navaritolova. - What do you mean I have a-- I have nothing, what do you mean? - A beef, she has beef with you. - Why does she have a beef with me? Because you think like guys with dicks should get in the women's swimming pool, basically. - Oh, no, no, I, oh, no, I, well, whatever got clipped and reposted, I don't know. But what I said was that the, in this emergent space where you have people expressing themselves on a gender spectrum and you want to now compete in sports, we, that's still a frontier to be solved. And I don't have the answer, but I can suggest one, whether or not it'll work. Maybe we don't compete by gender anymore. We compete on hormone ratios, okay? Is a test stop. There was a woman who had uncommonly high testosterone levels and they wanted to disqualify her because of how manly she was when she was born and woman and competing as a woman. So if we're, that's how we're gonna do it. - You know, this, again, this is-- - Could you really want, right, Bill? - No, I thought this through more than you might think I have. So what you really want is an interesting contest between people who are similarly, a talented, the least interesting super bowl you could ever watch is a blowout by, by halftime. - See, what we agree on is that there are anomalies in human nature where it's just, you know, the vast majority of people, I'm sorry, are still male or female. And certainly every cell in our body is dictating one of those other sexes. I mean, obviously-- - Well, hormones are. - Obviously, that's, well, also I make sperm and other people make eggs. - That's what hormones do. - You can't deny that, okay. So this, but as liberals, I think agree that, you know, there are anomalies in nature and they should be respected and protected. But this attempt to reorganize all of society around what a very tiny percentage, who again, we can protect and respect, without pretending that every baby is a jump ball, like penis. What the fuck, I don't know, that doesn't mean anything. Well, we have no idea what this child is. I mean, that seems to be where you wanna go. I mean, like, how many people fit this description that we should reorganize sports around? Sports is, we have men's sports and women's sports. And if the best team in the WNBA played the worst team in the NBA, the score would be a million to zero. Can we organize society around that basic point with that with this, of course, proviso that we protect and respect people who do not fit into it? - Let's segregate society. - That's not segregation people and wasting people. - It's not. - Because that nature made it that way and that's how it is. - Well, nature didn't make it that way. - And it's not segregating. - Well, it was a fine. - It was a segregating anything. - That attitude, it's 150 years ago. - Was it? - I did two years ago. You act like this was, yes, right, Lincoln, this was a big issue in the Lincoln Douglas debates, trans people. That's what I'm talking about right now. - Remember that? - I'm talking about one thing. - 1861, yes, I remember those debates. - That was 1860, yeah. - Lincoln was all about getting trans. Oh, for fuck's sake. - You're ridiculous. - No, no, so here it is. Just all I'm saying is that, how about this? - I'm looking at schools in Manhattan. And it's a school there and there's a old from, like built in the 20s and 30s. And there's a doorway that says boys and a separate doorway on the other side of school that says girls are thinking, "Oh, God, why are we doing this?" - Because people are mostly boys and girls. - But why split them entering a school building? - Because they pay differently. (laughing) - Jesus Christ, I have to explain this. - No, you know what I thought, when I saw that? It's colored fountain over here. - White fountain over here. - That's what I thought. - Well, I saw that. - Well, that's not the same thing. - Well, that's not exactly the same thing. - And that's what I thought. - I agree, I agree. - But this is what I always say about these kind of issues. There's two ways that you can be benigned about something. One, you can be too far from it. Like, I would be too far from certain issues, racial issues, of course. How could I ever know? - Right. - You can also be lost sort of thinking wise, as I am, because I'm too far from it, if you're too close to it. - Yes. - That could fly-- - You miss the elephant. - Well, you miss the elephant. It's the fly on the Mona Lisa. - Mm-hmm. - Why the fly wants to be on the Mona Lisa? I don't know, and I can't even appreciate art. But, okay, you get my point. And so, like, I think when you see that, I totally understand why a man of your age does, but I don't think it's accurate. - So, I used to wrestle high school and college. Okay, it's relevant to this conversation. Believe it or not. So, I was capped into my high school team, undefeated. Although-- - Wow. - But it was in New York. The real wrestlers are in, like, Iowa, you know, in Oklahoma. - Oh, I'm sure there's some wrestlers in there. - There's some, but if you really bounce that, it's not-- - There's no tough guys? - We got tough guys, but they'll shoot you or punch you in the face. They're not wrestling with wrestling moves. But anyhow, what you want is a match that's interesting to observe, not where one person dominates the other. In wrestling, they know this. They're 10 weight categories. In high school, I was 190 pounds, that was 50 pounds ago, or more. I was 190 pounds, very good incentive to stay there, because if I had one pound over it, the next category was unlimited. So, I was there at 190 pounds. I'm not wrestling someone 127. No, they find somebody else 127 and a wrestler 127. That makes the match more interesting for the viewer. So, if we can split wrestling into 10 categories, and that becomes the wrestling match. - But all men against each other. - Correct, so now I guess I have a key point. - Okay, okay, so all I'm saying is, what is it that makes the man the man? Is it the hormones? - Okay, is it, if it's the hormones, and you decide to give yourself a different cocktail of hormones, I'm making this up by the way. I'm not saying it should happen this way. It's a way to start thinking about it. - Okay, it would be maybe the track meets have hormone categories. - And maybe giving yourself the wrong hormones is deleterious to your health. Would you not admit that? Do you think we can just safely do things like this? - So, you feel the swakers you're concerned about, you're so deeply concerned about the health of the people who are trying to find their place on the gender spectrum? You care about the health so much that you don't want them to go through that? - It's not something that keeps me up at night, but when the subject comes up, I care about them like I care about all people. So if there is something, by the way, do you think about all people? - Of course, I'll give you that. - Oh, okay, you're being serious. - Think about all people? No, I'm being serious. - I do, yes, yeah, old school liberal. - Yeah. - Okay, so, I want all people to have, you know, make this very challenging world that we live in better. So that's why there's honest debate about this issue. And why don't we cut it off now, because like, we're not going to solve this. We set our pieces. We get it. I want to plug your book, because I know you have to run to your film. What do you think? Oh, yeah, I got it. Yeah, but don't leave me before I have my full time with you. But to infinity and beyond, I do want to see, often I'm too stoned to remember to do the plug. And tonight I'm so proud of myself, because I was like, I'm off on a pro, but I think it's because I was reading it myself and I was really enjoying it. Oh, okay. And it's got pictures, which I really like, published with I now almost on every other page. It only needs it to make a beautiful book. Psychologically, it's like a lot easier to get through scientific material, which it also has a lot of. Yes. I was looking at it as a pretty one of that big ball of space at the moment, the ring around it. How is that one? It's Uranus right there, right? That's what Uranus looks like. Really? I just picked the right page. And you have a ring on your ring. I got a real challenge for this. Okay. Anyway. So it's written by a co-author who's my, who's my, um, senior producer. I love it. Lucy Walker. Okay. Okay. This is a collaboration between my podcast, start talk. Right. Which has been around for like 14 years. Before I aspire to be at your level. Oh really? No. Your podcast is one of the huges. Okay. And what we do is we've got three DNA strands, science, pop culture, and humor. Well, did you see the big thing they have now with that bono? Oh, the sphere. I got a call from the guy. I was thinking of something in the, you know, the animated exterior of the sphere. But you couldn't use that sphere to look like the greatest Ted Jock ever. Yeah. Probably. Right. That's tremendous. Well, you're probably, no, no, I mean, I mean, I could probably, I, I, I wasn't saying probably to give the greatest ever, probably there, there are talks that be fitting that space. I think I was in there. He runs the Mass and Square Garden. We should do a talk, a public talk together. I bet you we could sell a lot of tickets. Oh, man. Right. In that sphere. You like money? It's the right. I like, I like money. You like money. Right. We all like money. Yeah. I'm telling you. I think we can do. I could do some business. Knock out that theater. We can do that. All right. People call you people. I, when I, but I, I was in Vegas last weekend and I drove by it. And it's, I don't know, either love it or it's creepy. It looks like AI has landed and taken over. Yeah. That's the first thing I thought was like, oh, these people are, the movie, the remake of the day the Earth stood still with Keanu Reeves. The aliens land in Central Park, not in Washington, D.C. Right. It's a big sphere in the middle of Central Park. It's always a big sphere in those movies. And as long as we're on that subject, I know we've argued about this before. I don't have a dog in this fight. I hope we're not taken over by the aliens, but I'm not going to make, I'm not going to make a big fight about it if they come. But I feel like, and I don't know for sure anything for sure nobody does, it just feels like more and more, it's getting harder to make the other case that there are not people who are watching us. And again, I don't know if there's anything unscientific about the idea that there would be other life in the universe. I don't know if you saw, if you watched the Hard Knocks show on HBO where they go to the training camp with the football teams. But Aaron Rodgers, who's a super smart guy, he's sat in that chair, love him. He told a story about, I don't know where he was somewhere in the South and his friend walked out in the ports that together they were not drunk, they were not asleep, two people. And they saw a giant, what could only be described as a flying saw, just a giant big thing that then left, like at the speed of light and then a couple of minutes later, two US jets flew over. I believe him, I can't, am I 100% that this was a flying saws or aliens? No, but it just seems like this 20 years ago, this was, no, I don't think so. Then the dude had a smartphone, it could have had a smartphone that can take high resolution video and stills. NASA. Maybe it was 20 years ago. Well, it's my point. So. No, they were gobsmacked. They were like. Okay. So in the day, you only had cameras when you're on vacation. So everything was, I win this test one. I got abducted. I got this. I saw that. Now everybody's got a camera. NASA's setting up a clearing house. You take your smartphone, take a picture of your UFO and your metadata has your location, the angle of the phone, the direction, you send it in, they can call it this. I just want to ask the Sun a more philosophical well, just why wouldn't they, and I think we should just be happy that they're monitoring and not attacking. But what, it makes sense to me that, first of all, there could be other people in the universe, other beings. Sure. And there's no problem there. No problem there. No problem there. No problem there. Off of a lot of people who have similar stories about similar sort of looking creatures, you know, that book communion, I don't know. Yeah, that started it, that set the standard for what an alien should look like. Okay. But the trying, trying to face big harmonized, yeah. People seem to have the same story. Now we have military people, Navy, fighter jets, testify in Congress. We've seen things we cannot explain. It could be China has a technology we don't, we don't, obviously we don't know. But it just seems like it's not unscientific to think that the aliens would be like, you know, these assholes are very self-destructive. And we just need to keep an eye on them. And yes, we might have to send Keanu Reeves down there to say, look, we, I was so sorry about this. Remember the movie? We tried not to wipe you out, but you assholes, we may need this planet and you're fucking it up. Glad you remembered that. So we're going in a different direction. So my reaction is I, I want to meet the aliens. I just need better evidence than what has been presented. So if they are aliens, I would like better evidence than simple eyewitness sworn testimony. In science, what you swear on is not the measure of what is true. It's just the measure of what you think is true in your mind. But I need better data than that. What do you think Aaron Rodgers saw? What do you think happened that night? The universe brims with mysteries and I don't know. I bet this one seemed kind of obvious. So that must be why I met him at a Rangers game in the garden. I just feel I met him in a race and he's new to the city. He's the big small town guy boy did he take that time. So I said, look, this might, I felt very, very, this is my town, you know, director of the planetarium. Yeah. Come by. I told him this and why should anyone ever act on that? But he did. Of course he did. So in the two week gap between the last, the last exhibition game and the first game, I got a call from his agent said, he wants to come by and visit the planetarium. Cool. I said, bring him by. And then they said, oh, but can he bring 25 of these? Right. He does that. He goes to Broadway shows like with his whole crew with like 25 jets. Yeah. Yeah. And so then they canceled at the last minute and then he tears up his Achilles heel. So I think I could have given him some physics advice so that wouldn't add. I know. But what a bad ass. A guy who goes, gets the job in New York and goes, you know what, I'm so macho. I'm going to take a bunch of fucking football players out to every show on Broadway and Taylor Swift show. It was brilliant because you know, New York is fun with them. They didn't come by. New York is Broadway too. Yeah. It is Broadway too. You know, it's a special Broadway. You know, you want to embrace the city. Yeah. I mean, he's more popular around crutches than any athlete. It's been walking in 20 years. I'm louder date friends with his ex girlfriend, the race car driver. Yeah. Yeah. He dated, not to get old gossipy, but who did, oh, oh, I think I know her, Danica Patrick. Yeah. Really? Yeah. She's got a home podcast. I'm in a podcast twice. And we talked about Aaron Rodgers in the last interview and I told her that he said he's a very fun, loving guy. And he would would have, because I was going to tweet, had he come by, I would have given him some physics advice. So he wouldn't tear his ankle. But I thought that was insensitive. She said no. He would have totally dug it. It's totally on my page with the medical stuff. So. But let's not go back to there. So let me just say, yeah, I mean, I witness testimony without independence, data obtained by something that is not your brain, okay? Right. The human sensory system is right. As we said earlier, in this conversation about optical illusions and you don't know what you're looking at. But two guys was on giant spaceship, offering above them at the same time. Maybe it was aliens. I just, now what happened to all the people who were abducted as they told their psychiatrists their assholes were sore. They, no, no, they were, they testified to that. Does that make it objectively true? No, it just means that they believe they're telling the truth. What I'm saying is all of the abduction stories, so they were filling this in the 1970s. You're old enough to remember all this. Back, when in my day, so all these abduction stories, they all went away in the era of the smartphone because we can record that and we don't. There are no, well, maybe the aliens know that, okay? So that was the excuse for when someone claimed to have taken regular cameras and the film was blank. So now, because of the ACLU and cops beating up black people, you can stream whatever is in your phone to the internet, to their servers, while it's happening. and we don't have any shots inside the, so here's what you do. Next time you're abducting, steal an ash tray off the shelf. And then when you're dead, if you don't get a picture, then you have an artifact of alien manufacture, and then we can analyze it and say, hey, we had a real encounter. - I, again, I am not dying on this hill because I don't know. I'm just saying, that's what I'm saying. We don't know. I find-- - Correct. We don't know, and we don't-- - And we don't-- - We don't-- - I just, the weight of that evidence is not magnified by someone swearing to tell the truth. - I know, but 200 simultaneous store assholes. (laughing) - And some things. (laughing) - Okay, that's hard, that's good evidence, right? - I think I like better than making you laugh like that. - Nothing. - The asshole defense. - So. (laughing) - So, AI. - AI, what? (laughing) - AI, AI. - Yeah, what do you want? - What AI, what? - We've had AI for decades. And all of a sudden, AI can now, in science, and it's all around us at all times, what do you think Siri is? It's not a human being. - I know, but it's gotten to a new level. - I'm getting there, so I'm saying. So now, AI can compose your term paper, and now you poop your pants, okay? - What happened? (laughing) - What? - AI can compose your term paper. - Why did I poop my pants? - Because, well, everyone thinks that AI's gonna take over their lives and their jobs and their livelihood and all the rest of them. - Right. - But AI's been with us for decades, and of course, it's getting better at all times. - Right, it's getting better. - What I'm saying is, I think it made started making headlines, 'cause it started touching the lives of liberal arts people. - Well, also, because they made it mass, for the masses, chat GPT. - Yeah. - And it exists, a year, a member is almost a year ago, about a year ago, that I first, was at a restaurant with someone, and they said, "You have chat GPT." I said, "No, I just read something." What is that again? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, that was only a year ago. And now it's a household word. - It's a household word. - Everybody use it, yeah, for everything. That's a quantum leap from where we were a year ago. So, you know, it's like, yes, was there TV in 1939 or something? Yes, no one had it, and then everyone had it. - That's a quantum leap. - And it changes things. - Okay, okay. - I agree. - So, you wanna watch out? You don't want it to become our overlords. Any more than you want nuclear weapons to destroy the world, so you put in some restrictions. But what happened is, people started seeing AI, and then they lumped all of AI into this one concern. If they had any clue, how much AI is influencing their lives in any given moment, they wouldn't possibly say that. - Well, I don't know. I don't know why those things-- - What do you think's flying your airplane? You think that pilots actually make an important decisions up there? - No. - But they're landing it, yes. - Well, yeah, they choose to, but they don't-- - Well, landing is so important to me. (laughing) - I don't know. - I don't know. (laughing) - Yeah. - They choose to keep some-- - Keep some-- - Yeah, I-- - The blood flowing. - Yeah, I know. Okay, but I mean, you're setting up an opposition that I don't think is really-- - No, it's not an opposition. - We get, I agree, AI can be abused, especially if they have deep fakes that are videos and things. They can listen to it, they can sample your voice and say, invent five jokes that Bill Mars never told, but in the style of Bill Mars-- - Yeah, they've tried that. - They've tried it. - They suck. (laughing) - They're not there yet. I was interviewed by an AI chat program on a podcast. And I said, they would perform three questions and I wasn't very interested. I said, can I ask the guy, we're gonna-- I wanna ask the thing back, a couple of questions. They said, "Sure, was it as fun as this?" I said-- (laughing) - Come on. - It was very-- - Yes, it was very-- - I don't wanna live in that world, you. - Okay, no, so we'll put restrictions on it. - Well, okay, I mean, that's been the big argument. It's like some people, like Ian Musk, come saying from the beginning, this is an existential threat. I think he's right, because I think I've seen too many movies where this happens in-- - All the movies, it happens in all the movies. - Everything that happens in movies eventually happens in life. That's the theory I go with it, because it's true. And-- - I don't wanna agree with that, but I kinda have to agree with that. - They imagine it first. I remember in minority report, the Spielberg movie with Tom Crowe, "The Future Comes," and they have that. - This facial recognition for everybody to go. - Right, and the screens. Like he was moving, we had no screens at doing it. That was like science fiction. And then three years later, we were all doing it. - Then they had the eyeball-- - Yes. - The retinol scan. - Yes. - And then they needed a retinol scan of someone who had access, but they just killed him. So they carved out his eyeball. - Right. - In a plastic bag, and put the eyeball in front of the thing. - And he walks into the mall, and there's all those, you know, the ads are all moving. Like we didn't have that then, but now we have all that now. - Yeah. - Okay. - So I feel like we could have robot overlords. - Okay, so made, I mean, it was 1968, when Crowe Brook made, I can't do that, Dave. - Sorry, Dave, I can't do that. Okay, 2001, it's based on 1968, you remembered it. Before we went to the moon. - Before we went to the moon. - It was, okay. - Before as some of my audience would say, - If. (laughing) - That's your audience? Okay, you proud of that, no, but you proud of that? - There are, no, not many, but I've had people. - I'll work on it. We can double the tag team them. - I didn't know why that one. That's a strange conspiracy theory. - It's not strange in the flat earthers. - We are, that's even sillier. - Yeah, I can watch a football game in the winter in New York City, and the sun has set, yet it is still up in the Rose Bowl in California. There's no way to explain that unless Earth is curved between New York. There's some very simple explanation again. You're speaking. - So, the people. - I want to end on a positive note. Yes, so Ray Bradbury, great science virtual. He was once approached by a fan. It said, Mr. Bradbury, why do you write these stories with these apocalyptic futures? Is that the future you think we're gonna occupy? He says, no. I write about those futures, so you know to avoid them. - Right, maybe those movies have calculated us. - No, I truly believe that. - With the fear factor that needs to be there to make sure that doesn't happen. - Right, the other thing that has been depicted in a zillion movies is the apocalyptic post nuclear war landscape, the book of Eli, and oh, there's so many of those kind of movies. We know the famous quote from Albert Einstein. I don't know how World War III will be for. - Right. - But World War IV will be fought with sticks and stuff. - Right. - And it's always the same thing. There's got to be 10 movies where, you know, before the war, and then the war comes where humans wipe out everybody because they're so stupid. This is why we need Keanu Reeves to come down. But then it's like the council. - Yes. - Always, always, headed by a pan-suited woman. It's either Kate Winslet or-- - Switches, you'll notice what they're wearing? - Yeah, 'cause we did a bid on it. - Oh, well, there's like eight movies where they're all like in the hands of-- - I'll do that. - And they're the head of the council. - Is HBO put it on YouTube or I gotta like subscribe. - HBO Max, my show, is on HBO Max or HBO. - No, but the clips, do they make it to YouTube? - Yes, sometimes, yes, absolutely. - Always, yeah. - Yeah, whatever you do, don't watch the whole show. Anyway, great to see you, too. Anyway, it's always like the world was ended because humans were stupid. And now we cannot allow humans to be human. We cannot allow emotions except for this bend of hot teenagers who are gonna take back the world by being hot and they do. So that's always, there's a little band of resistance at fights, because we can't allow humans to have emotions. But you started this conversation by saying, what scares you kind of, maybe I'm paraphrasing, but what scares me is a very similar thing. Like, how can we survive when we see the way people think? The things that people do and what they believe in-- - My version of that is-- - It convinced them of, it's crazy. - My version of that, we're still here. I fear that we are not wise enough to be the shepherds we need to be for the future of civilization. - Well, said crash hopper. (laughing) - All right, I know you gotta go. - Gotta go. - Dude. - Love you always. - Hey, wouldn't when we fight. - Right? (laughing) - Love. (upbeat music) - It's very matrimonial when we fight. - Yeah, I love this. - You realize this. - You've never been married. - It's right out of the marriage. - Well, I think right away, you said which one of us is smarter. (laughing) - I didn't mean that at all. - Wait, wait. (upbeat music)