Eric Weinstein Quotes

This article is actively maintained as a subproject of The Portal Wiki. You can help us by contributing to this page.

We are collecting Quotes from Eric so we may use them for anything we want in the future.

Please:

• Add any quote you like
• Help adding sources so we know all of these are really quotes. Make sure to include a link if possible. If you're quoting from a long piece (e.g a podcast) give a timestamp, or another useful pointer in the case of long texts.
• Keep the format consistent between quotes.

See also: Eric Weinstein Glossary of Terms, and Episode Highlights”Good science is indistinguishable from magic.” Eric Weinstein-The Portal Podcast 2020

Quotes

• On Holding Trump Accountable: "I’ve studied Trump’s style and it is based around deliberate ambiguities that Left and Right can be counted upon to hear as meaning different things. If Trump makes N nested ambiguous statements in a minute, he will create a minimum of 2 to the N legs of the decision tree that must be considered, given your strategy. He will force you and the rest of the United States public intellectuals to waste much of your intellectual life, for four to eight years, picking up after him. He just needs to knock over the intellectual vases faster than you can glue their shards back together. No matter how good you are, you aren’t going to make it through like that." (source: My absence, the tech platforms, the 2020 election, Jean Seberg, and Article 58)

• On The Peter Principle: "The Peter principle has to do with systems of selective pressures, so that in a previous world where corporate ladders actually functioned (which many of our younger viewers won’t know anything about because the corporate latter hasn’t worked for a great deal of time) people would advance by merit to the point at which they would find that they were first incompetent and then they would stop there, and effectively you would go one step beyond where your competency lay. I think that the Peter principle really doesn’t function because what you now have is an insane situation in which you have people like myself: about 55 years old (54, technically) who have never even started our careers because of the holding pattern that we find having to do with tremendous numbers of people in the silent and boomer generations holding the important chairs" (source: The Verdict With Ted Cruz Ep. 39, 1:45)"

• On Meritocracy: "So in terms of progressivism, one of the things that’s very important to understand is that in many ways the market is not actually functioning to promote talent. There’s a great deal of skepticism about whether meritocracy can continue to be a part of the American story. And then what we’re finding is that in the absence of a functioning meritocracy we see Maoism as being incredibly important and being embraced by one of our two major parties, and I see Maoism is very distinct from progressivism." (source: The Verdict With Ted Cruz Ep. 39, 2:40)"

• On Credentialism: "Credentialism has given us a culture of silos. Therefore, because everyone is afraid of violating the Dunning-Kruger principle, effectively we don’t have people roaming around the cabin or with “all-access” passes." (source: The Verdict With Ted Cruz Ep. 39, 1:00)"

• On the NYTimes: "They’re not hard-left; they’re nuts. ... Stupid and crazy shouldn’t be part of a political--spectrum that should be a mental condition." (source: The Verdict With Ted Cruz Ep. 39, 24:00)

• "The unthinkable is misnamed." (source: Twitter)

• "We are now gods, but for the wisdom." (source: Joe Rogan Experience #1320, 2:46:34)

• Full Quote:

"these things, which while complicated, succumb to our intellects - they're much simpler than we ever imagined. to be able to create something that normally happens in the Sun - on an island in the Pacific. or to be able to rewrite a cell the way craig Venter did - synthetic biology. we are now gods, but for the wisdom"

• "When it's time to leave, don't wait for the bread to rise" (source)

• "the invisible world is first discovered by the visible world's failure to close." (source: [])

• “Don’t be afraid to fool yourself into thinking that life is meaningful and that, against all odds, you have an important part to play in the world. If it’s all meaningless you‘ll have done no harm lying to yourself. And if by some chance this matters, you will waste less time.” (source: Twitter)

• "What I think theoretical physics has failed to do it hasn't build a portal for most people to even understand what the issues are what are the objects what is the game." (source: Joe Rogan Show #1203)

• "The fear that happens when you start swimming away from the shore that you’re not going to find a next island before your strength gives out. I think it’s very rational to be afraid of thinking for yourself because you may very easily find yourself at odds with the community on which you depend. And I think for some of us, it’s just a compulsive behavior. It’s not even necessarily the smartest evolutionary strategy. It’s just hard to do it any other way." (source: The Tim Ferriss Show Episode 131)

• Double Island rules “I) if an intelligent person is making a point that sounds stupid, begin by assuming it is counterintuitive. II) if an intelligent person is making a point that sounds obvious, begin by assuming they are saying something subtle.“ (source: twitter)

• “Every subject is much easier than the people who wish to make money teaching it would have you know" (Partial, source:)

• “My four things I care about are truth, meaning, fitness and grace" (partial, source:)

• Lex Friedman: "What do you hope your legacy is?" Eric: "i hope my legacy is accurate" (source: AI Podcast #88, 2:43:15)

• "Everybody with a very different experience is more important to me than everyone with the standard experience." (source: Joe Rogan Experience #1320, 2:04:22)

• "In a world in which no one will cover the goddamn story, you're looking for the outlet that will." (source: ep. 26 with James O’Keefe)

• "Once you understand that there's sort of this weird rule, which is if all of us pretend that thing isn't happening, then the idea is, no one has to cover it. No one has to discuss what it is." (source: ep. 26 with James O’Keefe)

• "My contention is anytime you move private life into the public sector, it appears bizarre and is incredibly damaging." (source: ep. 26 with James O’Keefe)

• "The most important ideas are likely to be the ideas that are most disruptive." (source: ep. 18)

• "What makes an aspect of the DISC, what shows you a particular proponent, is that it protects institutions from individuals who are making valid and reasonable points" (source: ep. 18)

• "Nice is dead, good has a future. Nice doesn't have a future because nice ends up with Gulags" EW https://youtu.be/2wq9x2QcZN0?t=4401

Tweets

• https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/1071207012493549568

As I struggle to see it, the meaning of my life is the progressing struggle to impart meaning to meaning.

If you think you know the meaning, you aren't struggling: FAIL

If you decide it's meaningless, you aren't struggling: FAIL

If you stall out: FAIL

But advance even one bit...

Other Collections

These are some other places online that have a collection of Eric quotes. Note: this doesn't ensure they're real, and these don't qualify as a source. We still need to find where he said the the quote and add it as a source to know he did.

• GoodReads
• brainyquote
• famouspeopletoday

you can also go through the transcripts of episodes to look for good quotes.

YouTube Linking

On PC

if you're on PC, you can get the URL for a specific time by simply right clicking the video, and clicking "copy video URL at current time"

Not on PC

If you're not on a PC it might be a bit more complicated, and you'll need to copy the URL and edit it yourself, like so:

Depending on the URL, there are two ways to add a timestamp to the video:

&t=1m30s or ?t=1m30s

Use the ampersand one if the URL includes a question mark, like if it ends in

watch?v=Sf5FfA1j590. Short URLs that are listed as youtu.be don't have a question mark, so those needs to use the second one above.

Here are two examples that jump to the same point in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf5FfA1j590&t=1h10s

https://youtu.be/Sf5FfA1j590?t=1h10s