Dig Your Own Rabbit Hole August 21, 2022: Sam Harris, Vaccines, Lab Leak, Ethics and so much more

This Sunday, we had a fun, ad-hoc conversation on Twitter Spaces. We covered Sam Harris, vaccine safety, lab leak, Trump, bioweapons, mRNA technology, malthusianism, and all the way back to Sam Harris: ethics, institutional corruption, the problem of scale. We had a lot fun in this laid back conversation, I hope you enjoy it too!Outline: 0:00 @alexandrosm intro0:25 @proofofworkshow enters1:00 The Sam Harris dishing begins3:10 Alex: Eric Weinstein defended Sam Harris4:48 Sam on Hunter Biden’s laptop6:04 Alex: It’s Brave New World, really7:21 Jeff: Let’s make this clear, listeners: Trump is a scumbag8:07 Alex: Could never support anybody who’d let Fauci run the pandemic response12:00 Alex: Mike Nayna insight on institutional collapse14:54 Alex’s diner: “We don’t have creamer due to supply chain disruptions” 17:35 Alex: Sam said those things without any guns pointed at him17:40 @SmoothJohnny5 enters18:11 “It wasn’t a liberal conspiracy because Liz Cheney was involved” Sam19:10 President Gator is working on a Substack about Scott Adams—“emotionally true”20:30 “We’ll hold a democratic vote to stop the asteroid”22:28 @RokoMijic enters23:40 None of the elites believe in democracy—it’s too dangerous25:00 Sam Harris is quite good at digging to the bottom of a topic26:55 Trump is a lazy, quasi-mobster businessman type who found some resonance with redneck Americans—not fit to lead the entire human civilization27:55 A Trump wildcard is he’s the one who raised the China issue29:12 Knack for wheeling and dealing lets you see conflict29:54 Sam Harris disappointing because he’s always been an idol to Rocco30:31 Everything Sam’s said on the pandemic has been garbage31:05 Covid exposed Taleb as well32:36 What is the current state of affairs re: vaccine safety? 32:50 Look at massive Nordic study.33:10 Serious side effects—we don’t know why—our model is wrong34:15 Pervasive censorship, worldwide—have to throw out all the data35:00 Enough information to make us concerned35:55 Paper about mRNA found in lymph nodes up to 60 days37:45 Multiple countries reporting drop in births, life insurance companies reporting excess death in young people39:15 Silent horror. Wish some rationalists would dig into the data39:46 We need to get the bottom, but hard to keep up with the info—needs to be investigated41:41 Lab leak: market origin hypothesis failing43:17 China has backed off market origin story—they’re pointing at the US43:50 Origin matters because biggest event in people’s lives—if it really was a leak and was covered up, that should increase our prior to question everything else we’ve been told i.e. vaccines46:06 The people looking into it have moved on from the question “was it.” There’s so much evidence. The real debates in lab leak land are which lab? When? How? Why?48:00 @TomBeakbane enters48:08 Jeffrey Sachs interview with RFK jr lays it all out 49:41 The Normie narrative is there needs to be a war, like war on climate, war on extremists, or Putin, or the virus—that’s what’s driving the craziness we see online, including Sam Harris51:32 The politics of existential threats52:23 RFK jr podcast details54:20 @april_harding enters54:30 Research was for offensive bioweapon that could be deployed to inflict economic damage on the target—vaccine would protect your population55:18 Malone said same thing: build weapon and vaccine together56:08 My problem with this hypothesis is this would crash the world economy57:53 @dopaminergic13 enters58:05 Singapore/French perspective on the lab thing “There’s a French dimension not being talked about in the US'“1:01:15 September 2019, the French President was made aware of a hack at a French-built P4 biolab sometime in 2019 (they’re not sure when) Lab workers got sick1:03:10 Everyone should be looking at Fort Detrick and Ralph Baric 1:03:27 Baric also probably involved in developing the vaccines and Remdesivir1:04:09 Video clip of Ralph Baric getting vacinated cut before needle inserted1:05:10 @JoceylynnPearl enters1:05:31 She’s been working on mRNA therapies for a decade1:06:40 The promise was always that mRNA was transient—why boosters are essential1:07:45 Designing and manufacturing is a much shorter process than traditional vaccine1:08: Claim was that it was done in a weekend—can’t be true, right?1:10:53 Sequence was uploaded and field went to work around the clock1:12:44 What might be the mechanism in myocarditis damage?1:13:42 Two hypotheses Alex has heard1:16:17 Omicron boosters will be bivalent1:17:00 Discussion on LMPs1:19:08 Discussion of Shakey’s YouTube Channel , history of eugenics and population control1:20:16 Twitter user asks how Sanisdap’s going. It’s going!1:23:45 @everybodyshook enters1:24:25 Jeff wants Shakey’s take on birthrate numbers 1:25:11 Shakey talks about his primary area of research being resource development and science—describes Malthusianism, his main focus1:28:37 It’s hard to call population control a conspiracy theory when there are 3000 conferences with countries around the world1:29:08 @NawrasDiaa enters 1:29:54 Takes conversation back to Sam Harris justifying hiding the truth from the population1:32:36 Alex: The thing I was highlighting was Sam’s hypocrisy—not whether his position is reasonable or not1:40:19 The is/ought argument of Sam Harris1:41:10 Choosing the lesser of two evils—TV show 24 as an example “Everyone roots for Jack Bauer”1:42:26 What about the consequences of breaking the law? Of breaking down institutional trust?1:42:44 The old children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie—cascade of effects1:43:40 Once you allow lying in your agency, you lose the honest people1:44:38 Sam’s morality model1:45:19 Coherent extrapolated volition1:47:51 Does this mean that the concept is wrong? Emergency room triage—impossible decision within parameters we have 1:49:10 Sam is talking about triaging the Universe1:49:49 The problem with rationalism 1:51:08 What emerges is something like principalism1:51:53 Can lead to complete paralysis1:54:00 I should decide what I should do for myself. I should propose to others cooperative foundations1:55:30 We want cooperation. We want trust. Trust in institutions, organizations, etc. Sam is doing the opposite of generating trust in institutions.1:56:00 In the pandemic, they wasted the one resource they had, which was the public’s trust. Congratulations, you’ve saved masks, you’ve lost humanity.1:57:57 A Hitler quote: a great leader is never elected1:58:55 Average people don’t know what’s best for them, but the elites don’t know either2:01:10 Doesn’t matter who you put in office, country is run by vast bureaucracy that’s been there for decades. Anthony Fauci has been in his position for 38 years.2:02:56 We’re not electing Emperors, we’re electing a chief bureaucrat2:02:02 If the track record of these people is so bad, they have no right to lead. Just because somebody came out of Harvard or Yale is not an anointment by god to be the ruling class2:05:53 You don’t come out like Anthony Fauci holding the lives of billions in your hands and being glib about what is going on. They lied and killed a bunch of social media accounts of people who were correct to get what we wanted. Sam says it was warranted2:07:32 Joe Norman says the problem is scale—need tiny, tiny systems2:08:28 Morality always has a point of view2:09:15 We could have listened to Jay Bhattacharya instead of Rochelle Walensky. There were better people but the problem is the machine is broken2:10:12 Wrap up This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit doyourownresearch.substack.com