Lex Fridman

And actually the way you frame it very clearly is a crime against the earth.

Somehow that's more actionable.

And it's less controversial and divisive because climate change is a topic that's become like a political issue.

Or it's like, is it really happening?

Is it like, what's the right policies?

It's nice to look at actual obvious criminals.

So what can you say about how people end up doing bad stuff at a company when there's a lot of them?

Are they bad people?

How do you get to that place where you, in a large collective, are doing something really bad?

Yeah, I mean, you explained so many forces there, but even the simple force of social pressure, like very slight social pressure.

I was just watching this documentary.

It's based on a book, Ordinary Men, talking about the Germans in Nazi Germany.

They were taking part in the execution squads in Eastern Europe, and that they were given the option not to do it,

And ultimately they, most people decided to keep being part of the execution squad, even though they had no hatred in their heart seemingly whatsoever.

It's just slight social pressure.

You don't want to be the guy that kind of chickens out.

Just a little bit of social pressure and you are able to very quickly dehumanize a large number of people and to murder them without any hate in your heart, without anything that could trivially directly be identified as quote unquote evil.

Just normal people doing very bad things.

Do you have empathy for those criminals?

Has that ever been in your life challenged?