Eric Weinstein

Mostly Mathematics, Markets, Physics, Finance, Risk, Immigration, Policy, Music, Economics, Society, Kayfabe, Technology and Tropical Fruit.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

What really happened on @PiersUncensored?

You’d *never* believe it if I told you.

Here:

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

“Eric: just answer the question.”

“Eric, if I’m wrong, just tell me.”

“Eric: why not speak simply?”

“Eric: Everyone knows X. Do you deny it?”

“Eric, so yes then.”

“Eric, we get it. You love Y.”

“Eric, so what you’re saying is Z.”

-My perma-swarm. https://t.co/3oCucYXM7C

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

London has developed thunder so loud, that I was awakened wondering if we were under attack right now in the UK. I don’t recall ever hearing something like this on a previous visit. Wild.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

If you are serious, stop pretending you can avoid scientists and the actual researchers by talking to CEOs, VCs, Loyalists, companies and NatSec types alone.

You can’t run “Quantum Supremecy” in an advanced free society by the financial equivalent of daily anal rape of your PhD class.

I’m sorry. Enough. You are going to have to talk to someone other than your Billionaire friends in the private sector.

The PhDs who made the U.S. dominant weren’t rich guys. They were free to do science. That ended in the late 1960s with the Mansfield Ammendment and other self-inflicted legislative abominations.

You are going to have to learn that those who captured the STEM value that they could never have created are terrified of the existence of those who created the value that they were directly prevented from capturing.

Sooner or later you will wake up to the fact that the value being captured by a tiny few was created by totally different people: STEM Researchers.

Word to the wise: look at your first 13 appointments to PCAST. Carefully. T try to detect any hint of a COMPLETELY OBVIOUS TOTALLY CATASTROPHIC SYSTEMATIC IMBALANCE.

Just a thought. One American PhD’s opinion anyway. Trying to be helpful.

And: nevermind. I’ll show myself out.

Just don’t say I didn’t tell you straight.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

Name the top 10 physicists regularly summoned to Mar-a-Lago.

Name the top 10 physics and math PhDs appointed by this administration.

Who are the top 10 people in government with whom I can discuss a technical subject like Strings or the Geometric Quantization Revolution?

Nah.

[Department of War CTO @DoWCTO]

Are you enjoying the show? Refill your popcorn... you’ll love this next part. 🍿

AMERICAN (Q)UANTUM DOMINANCE

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@grok @ScottWBennett Hence: “Elite Circles”. Duh.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

Fair point. I worry about this too.

First: our model of “The Elite” is just wrong. There are totally different circles that barely touch each other. So no one I know knows what “The Elite” are doing.

Seattle has Tech Billionaires that Barely know of the NYC financial Billionaires, let alone know them personally. Even Seattle Tech Billionaires don’t know Silicon Valley Billionaires all that well. They are mostly minding their own shops.

The Scientific Elite in Cambridge Massachusetts don’t know the Science Policy Elite representing them in Washington DC/N. Virginia AT ALL and are always shocked when I tell them what is being done in their name.

The Scientific Elite in Biology don’t know the Scientific Elite in Physics.

The retail elite don’t hang out with the pharma elite or big food elite except by accident or some bottleneck like fundraising, vacationing, schools, collecting, etc.

So there is no “The Elite”.

—————-

Next once you understand that there is no “The Elite”, the next thing you learn is that Elite Circles worry about each other a lot. I know a lot of wealthy/powerful people terrified of Bill Gates. “What is he doing with global health and vaccines?? Why is he buying farmland?? What is he plotting??” So that’s definitely a thing. The Elite circles fear each other because they compete mostly with each other. Not you or me.

—————

Next: Are the elite circles preparing for doomsday?

Some are. Some aren’t. Most that I know, aren’t prepping.

Most who are have very silly plans. 6 months of canned goods, a few deisel generators and 2 Ex-special forces guys in a luxury bunker on 7500 acres in Wyoming that you brag about, are not going to get you far in a post apocalyptic world. Call it a hunch.

A small number have rather more serious plans. But it cuts into their usable wealth and time. So it’s not a slam dunk that it is a good idea to try to outlive a major pandemic or nuclear war.

——

Last: the Elite don’t always know they are the Elite. I have been at tables with several Billionaires where they complain about the Rich and Powerful.

No one feels all that powerful at the moment. Everyone I know is subject to being sued, blindsided, betrayed, ignored, sidelined, outplayed, divorced, humiliated, smeared in the press or made the target of an online lynch mob.

——-

So, to sum it up. There is no widespread doomsday event known generally to “The Elite” but not the public of which I am aware. Believe me. You’d know. Many of them would have told you…and they are worried just as you are.

I didn’t know all that many powerful people for most of my life.

What I have learned in the last 20 years of having met a few:

Wealth and Success changes a lot, but much much much less than you’d think. No one feels all that powerful. We are still all just slobs with family issues trying to get from A to B and have a few laughs with our loved ones before it’s all over.

Sorry. Maybe there is a level above this, but I sure haven’t seen it.

[Ambsie @Amblig89]

@ericweinstein Can you please settle the following for me here and now? Have you been informed of a cataclysmic event that threatens civilization, that elites have been preparing for? This keeps coming up and I’d like to cross it off the list of worries if I can. I trust you.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@refriedbuttsect Sound thinking.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@RationalGenXr Welcome home.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@whatepsteinsaw So elite.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@fractal_verse Yep. The NatSec elite are a different bunch.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@on_godot You are kind. Thank you for that.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@PeterDjerf @whatepsteinsaw Damn. Caught again.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@whatepsteinsaw I shared a suite with Dirk Ziff. I’ve seen him once for 3 minutes in the last 40
Years. What does that tell you?

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

BREAKING: Business jets found ro exist.

BREAKING: Men attracted to women with fewer lovers.

BREAKING: Wealthy families use financial strategies.

BREAKING: Non prostitute heterosexual females prefer men with money.

I would be such a great editor. The stories just write themselves.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

This is pathetic & weak.

I’ve been to Dialog. Multiple times. Peter Thiel invites me. He remains a close friend.

I enjoyed Dialog just as I have enjoyed many other private gatherings. What I saw at Dialog was not immoral, illegal and is no one’s business.

I’d go again.

Clear?

[Ezra Klein @ezraklein]

Enough people have asked me about the Peter Thiel-Dialog story that I think it's worth saying what it is, or at least what I saw it to be. So:

–Dialog is a conference. I went once in 2018 and once in 2022. No one ever asked me to keep it or my presence a secret.

–My understanding was Thiel was one of its founders but no longer involved by the time I went. I never saw or talked to him in connection with Dialog.

–Nor did I see the other names I’ve heard mentioned, like Ted Cruz or Elon Musk or Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Jared Kushner. Dialog was not sold to me as a bunch of big names, which is part of why I went. I don’t need to go to a conference to hear what Ted Cruz thinks.

–You could be a Dialog member, but I wasn’t. I don’t think joining got you much except guaranteed invitations to future Dialogs. There were occasional dinners and webinars, but I never went to one. I would not have described it as a secret or a society.

–The panels were largely self-organized, so people would propose panels and hold them. I went to one on being a working parent and another on whether crypto had any real use cases and another on how to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. You’d usually have 8 or 10 people in a room. It was all very TED-talk adjacent.

–In 2018, I found it very optimistic, with an idealistic hacker-ish vibe. In 2022, I found the conversations and vibe more curdled and resentful. I didn’t enjoy it, and I didn’t go back. (That did prove a pretty good signal of where tech’s politics were going though, maybe I should’ve paid more attention.)

–That said, Dialog was a pretty ideologically diverse crowd. I met some people there who were *extremely* far left and far right. I met some real eccentrics and weirdos. I appreciated that about it.

– I’m a journalist, I go to lots of things in the hopes of getting to know people, hearing new ideas, finding podcast guests, etc.

–Being at something does not mean I endorse it, or everyone at it, or everyone who organized or founded it. I try to go to things where I don’t share the politics and perspectives of the crowd, for obvious reasons.

–I am surprised how credulous some people have been on this story. You have to believe some weird things about the world to believe Julián Castro and Peter Thiel are somehow engaged in a common project. Secret societies, I imagine, need a lot of trust to function, but the people being named here do not trust each other and do not have aligned agendas.

So that’s what I saw at Dialog. I’ll just end by saying it’s a weird experience to have a conference you haven’t thought about for years become the center of a new conspiracy theory.

https://t.co/bG2fPmE3ke

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@Ziya_Meral Bunu anlayamıyorum, efendim.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@tfd1317 @Jason @auren You have no idea. I saw one woman with a PhD being mildly coquettish with two men. At the same time.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@ETColor @Jason @auren No, of course we drank blood out of a rams horn. But the ram kept wandering around so it was super messy.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

Jason,

It’s much worse than that. There were both men and women. I knowingly engaged in networking. I met people who were very rich. Others had advanced degrees. I involuntarily laughed at the jokes of people I later found out were registered republicans. I myself was, at times, *deliberately* intellectually provocative. Not everyone was vegan. Four letter words were occasionally heard.

It’s as bad as you can imagine. You should go.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@Pushkin_Street @ezraklein You didn’t read my posts. Clearly.

[Eric Weinstein @ericweinstein]

@KaijuSurprise The need to answer is the issue. See my other responses on this thread.