Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…It already does in some sense. But also if it elevates them too much, then you get this phenomenon on clubhouse where you always get dragged on stage. And I found this very stressful, because it was too intense. I don’t like to be dragged on stage all the time. I think once a week is enough. And also when I met Lee the first time, I found that a lot of people seemed to be shocked by the fact that he was being very aggressive with their results, that he didn’t seem to show a lot of sensibility in the way in which he was criticizing what they were doing and being dismissive of the work of others. And that was not, I think, in any way a shortcoming of him, because I noticed that he was much, much more dismissive with respect to his own work. It was his general stance. And I felt that this general stance is creating a lot of liability for him, because really a lot of people take offense at him being not like their Carnegie character who is always smooth and make sure that everybody likes him. So I really respect that he is willing to take that risk and to be wrong in public and to offend people. And he doesn’t do this in any bad way. It’s just most people feel or not all people recognize this. And so I can be much more aggressive with him than it can be with many other people who don’t play the same game, because he understands the way and the spirit in which I respond to him. I think that’s a fun and that’s a beautiful game. It’s ultimately a productive one. Speaking of taking that risk, you tweeted, when you have the choice between being a creator, consumer, or redistributor, always go for creation. Not only does it lead to a more beautiful world, but also to a much more satisfying life for yourself. And don’t get stuck preparing yourself for the journey. The time is always now. So let me ask for advice. What advice would you give on how to become such a creator on Twitter in your own life? I was very lucky to be alive at the time of the collapse of Eastern Germany and the transition into Western Germany and me and my friends and most of the people I knew and were East Germans and we were very poor, because we didn’t have money and all the capital was western in Germany and they bought our factories and shut them down, because they were mostly only interest in the market rather than creating new production capacity. And so cities were poor and then this repair and we could not afford things and I could not afford to go into a restaurant and order a meal there. I would have to cook at home. But I also thought, why not just have a restaurant with my friends? So we would open up a cafe with friends and a restaurant and we would cook for each other in these restaurants and also invite the general public and they could donate. And eventually this became so big that we could turn this into some incorporated form and it became regular restaurant at some point. Or we did the same thing with the music movie theater. We would not be able to afford to pay 12 marks to watch a movie, but why not just create our own movie theater and then invite people to pay and we would rent the movies for in a way in which a movie theater does, but it would be a community movie theater that which everybody you wants to help can watch for free and build this thing and renovates the building. And so we ended up creating lots and lots of infrastructure. And I think when you’re young and you don’t have money, move to a place where this is still happening. Move to one of those places that are undeveloped and where you get a critical mass of other people who are starting to build infrastructure to live in. And that’s super satisfying, because you’re not just creating infrastructure, but we are creating a small society that is building culture and ways to interact with each other. And that’s much, much more satisfying than going into some kind of chain and get your needs met by ordering food from this chain and so on.…

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