Joe Rogan Experience #1309 - Naval Ravikant

Hedonic adaptation—the brain's tendency to return to baseline happiness after acquiring desired things—means that external acquisitions cannot produce lasting happiness, so working for material goals is ultimately futile unless the acquisition itself is intrinsically valuable.

“when you got it a year later you were back to zero your brain had hedonically adapted to it and you were looking for the next thing that's a great statement hedonically adapted”

Simple physical practices—spending time in sunlight, smiling, hugging, time in nature—are not just signals of happiness but genuine feedback loops that trigger physiological happiness responses.

“simple hacks get more sunlight right learn to smile more learn to hug more these things actually release serotonin in reverse they aren't just outward signals of being happy they're actually feedback loops to being happy”

Current AI research is solving narrow, deterministic problems using pattern matching and machine learning, but these advances are nowhere close to general artificial intelligence and we are at least 50-100+ years away from systems that could approach human-level cognition.

“the reason why i don't think ai is coming anytime soon is because a lot of the advances in so-called ai today are what we call narrow ai they're really pattern recognition machine learning to figure out like what is that object on the screen or how do you find this signal and all that noise there's nothing approaching what we call creative thinking”

The problem with capitalism is not the system but corrupt actors who privatize gains while socializing losses (bailouts), turning what should be a system of consequences into crony capitalism—and the solution is equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.

“they've essentially taken huge risks where they privatize the gains and they socialize the losses so when it fails they basically get billed out and bankrupt everybody else”

'Privilege' arguments that focus on people who are not victims (rather than on perpetrators of discrimination) are misdirected and counterproductive, essentially blaming people for harms they did not commit.

“the problem isn't the people who aren't treated poorly the problem is the people who treat the people poorly the problem is racism the problem is not people that didn't ask to be born white or whatever they are and they don't get harassed”

Happiness is fundamentally a choice, like fitness or nutrition or wealth creation, and people who claim it's impossible are avoiding responsibility for their own mental state.

“just like fitness can be a choice health can be a choice nutrition can be a choice working hard and making money can be a choice happiness is also a choice if you're so smart how come you aren't happy how come you haven't figured that out”

Automation has existed since electricity and the printing press; each time it eliminates jobs, new (usually better and more creative) jobs are created, so automation is not a threat but a solution enabling humans to focus on creative work.

“automation has been happening since the dawn of time electricity came along that put a lot of people out of work did it right a lot of people carrying buckets of water and you know lighting lamps and all those kinds of things and this was the concern with factories as well apps everything literally every single thing”

Adults can be rapidly re-educated through online bootcamps and coding schools into creative professions; the myth that education ends at college is false, and coding itself is thinking/structured thought, so any AI that could replace programmers would be superintelligence that has taken over the world.

“one of the myths that we have today is that adults can't be re-educated we view education as this thing where you go to school you come out when you're out of college and you're done no more education well that's wrong you have all these great online boot camps and coding schools coming up they're ones that will even pay you to go there now you can educate people and mass and you can educate them into creative professions people who are talking about ai automating programming have never really written serious code coding is thinking it's automatic structure thinking an ai that can program as well or better than humans is an ai that just took over the world”

Socialism has never worked without violence and requires someone to show up with a gun to enforce redistribution; if you create a system and hand it to your enemies to run, and they don't destroy it, then it's a good system, which is the test for censorship, immigration, and other contentious policies.

“it's interesting that there isn't there are no socialist working socialist examples that exist without violence you basically need someone to show up with a gun and say okay you're not allowed to do that you hand this over to that person”

Environmental movement correctly identifies the problem (finite Earth, don't ruin it) but proposes the wrong solution (no growth); the correct approach is green technology (making clean/biodegradable alternatives cost-competitive) so developing nations adopt them to improve health, not guilt-shaming.

“the struggle with the modern environmental movement is that they identify the correct problem which is finite earth spaceship earth this is all they got don't ruin it but they don't have the solution so what they say is no growth no growth no growth well the problem is you got three billion indian and chinese who aren't going to stay in poverty they're going to grow whether you like it or not so you can yell at them you can scream at them you can yell at us and scream at us but that's not going to happen so the only way out unfortunately is again through technology which is you have to build green technology”

Wealth and income inequality is inevitable and justifiable because it reflects different choices, effort, and thought levels—not injustice—and focusing on inequality rather than absolute living standards and opportunity is a distraction.

“there's effort in equality and thought inequality there's just some people that are obsessed and if those people become successful it doesn't mean they stole from you it just means that they put in the amount of energy and effort that it's required to reach where they're at”

We do not understand how the brain works at the cellular level, have never successfully modeled even a paramecium or amoeba, and nature performs computation at subcellular scales—meaning current neural network approaches are drastically oversimplified.

“first we don't know how the brain works at all number two we've never even modeled a paramecium or an amiibo let alone a human brain number three there's this assumption that all of the computation is going at the cellular level at the neuron level whereas nature is very parsimonious it uses everything at its disposal there's a lot of machinery inside the cell that is doing calculations that is intelligent”

The best way to learn is to try to understand something deeply, write it down (forcing articulation), explain it to others, and if you can't rederive it on the spot, you don't actually know it—memorization is a sign of non-understanding.

“you should be able to rederive anything on the spot and if you can't you don't know it so do you apply that to things other than mathematics everything everything you don't even make attempt to memorize things just make an attempt to understand them”

Universal Basic Income is a non-solution to a non-problem because it does not address meaning, dignity, or status—it treats unemployment as a money problem when it's actually a meaning problem—and therefore education and retraining are superior to cash transfers.

“another issue at ubi is that people who are down in their luck they're not looking for handouts it's not just about money it's also about status it's about meaning and the moment i start giving money to you and put you on the dole i've lowered your status i've made you a second class citizen so i have to give you meaning and meaning comes through education and capability”

The information age is reversing the industrial age model by making external transactions easier, which allows firms to atomize and shrink to optimal size, reversing the 20th-century trend toward large hierarchical organizations.

“we're seeing an atomization of the firm we're seeing the optimal size of the firm shrinking it's most obvious in silicon valley tons and tons of startups constantly coming up and shaving off little pieces of businesses from large companies and turning them into huge markets”

The ancient Greek and Roman model of life—progressing from school to war to business to government service to philosophy—is superior to modern specialization, and everyone should attempt multiple vocations across a lifetime rather than committing to a single career.

“i like the model of life that the ancients had the greeks the romans right where you would start out and when you're young you're just like going to school then you're going to war then you're running a business then you're supposed to serve in the senate or the government then you become a philosopher there's sort of this arc to life where you try your hand at everything and as one of my friends says specialization is for insects right so everyone should just be able to do everything”

Universal Basic Income creates a political trap where voters can continuously vote themselves higher payments through democracy, eventually bankrupting the state and destroying capitalism as the engine of growth, so it inevitably slides toward socialism.

“you're creating a straight you're creating a slippery slide transfer straight into socialism right the moment people can start voting themselves money combined with a democracy right it's just a matter of time before the bottom 51 votes themselves everything in the top 49”

Free markets and free exchange are intrinsic to human nature and ancient in origin (evidenced by simple bartering of resources like cooked meat for access to fire), whereas all working socialist examples require violence to enforce, making capitalism the only stable system for free people.

“free exchange are intrinsic to humans from when the first person started a fire and somebody came along with a deer and said hey if i cook my deer on your fire i'll share some of it with you right so specialization labor we trade that's built into the human species”

Modern atomization—lack of tribal belonging, religious community, family proximity, and national identity—leaves individuals vulnerable to addiction and manipulation because they lack the social support structures that historically provided meaning and resilience.

“the modern struggle so the ancient struggle used to be the tribal struggle you had your tribe of friends and family you had your religion you had your country you had your loyalty you had your nationality at least you had meaning and support but now you would struggle against other tribes modern life we're so free everything's become atomized we stand alone”

Socialism comes from the heart (egalitarian, compassionate) while capitalism comes from the head (logical incentive structures); when young you're a socialist without understanding, when older you're a capitalist when you've thought it through, and the scalable version is: family=communist, friends=socialist, state=democratic, federal=republican, international=libertarian (smaller groups allow trust, larger groups need incentives).

“i think really socialism comes from the heart right you all we all want to be socialist capitalism comes from the head because they're always cheaters in any system yes and there's incentives in any system so when you're young if you're if you're not a socialist you have no heart when you're older if you're not a capitalist you have no head right you haven't thought it through so i understand where it comes from i always liked nassim taleb's framing on this where he said with my family i'm a communist with my close friends i'm a socialist uh you know at my state level politics i'm a democrat at you know higher levels i'm a republican and at the federal level i'm a libertarian right”

Happiness should be defined not as peak emotional states or pleasure but as peace—an internal calm that cannot be disrupted by external circumstances—whereas peace can be converted into happiness (action with peace).

“peace is what you want most of the time... peace is happiness at rest and happiness is kind of peace and motion you can convert peace to happiness anytime you want but peace is what you want most of the time”

You can train yourself to find positive interpretations of everything (a defensive technique learned early from poverty and status anxiety) and this becomes automatic over time, shifting from pessimism to habitual optimism.

“i used to be a pessimist yeah um i started doing things like i would start looking at the you know in every moment and everything that happens you can look on the bright side of something right and so i used to do that forcibly and then i trained it until it became second nature”

Great artists and creators maintain the ability to start over from scratch when changing direction, willing to be seen as incompetent beginners, whereas most people avoid this because the fear of loss after investment is too high.

“that's why when you look at the greatest artists uh and and creators they have this ability to start over that nobody else does like elon will you know be called an idiot and start over doing something brand new that he supposedly is not qualified for or when madonna or paul simon or you two come out with a new album their existing fans usually hate it because they've adopted a completely new style”

Modern society's compression of knowledge into increasingly abbreviated formats (books to blog posts to tweets) is both a symptom of and driver of shallow attention and reduced understanding, though it can also be leveraged as a tool for rapid research and connection-making.

“don't give me the lecture give me the book don't give me the book give me the blog post don't give me the blog post give me the tweet don't give me the tweet i just i already know”

Technology generally drives society toward the left (more individualistic, less family-oriented, more state-dependent) because it empowers individuals and breaks down traditional institutions like family and religion.

“technology is a force that also pushes left so if you look all throughout human history like the left essentially grows and grows and grows right why is that why is it inexorably that as some commentators have said leviathan slouch is left right leviathan is the government why does it slouch left and i think a lot of that has been because of technology uh technology has made it so that it makes more like industrial revolution technology we all band together we're wards of the state right contraception is a technology that kind of helps lean leftward it takes away from the family unit”

Universities have lost credibility in the social sciences and humanities by conflating them with hard sciences—they borrowed authority from physics and chemistry but applied it to ideological studies, creating fake sciences masquerading as objective knowledge.

“universities got this credibility from the hard sciences so they got this from uh you know physics and math and computer science and chemistry because these deliver real things the manhattan project the microprocessor the space vehicles and so on the electric car so they gain this mantle of authority and legitimacy from the hard sciences so then come the social sciences kind of sneak in”

In modern society, all diseases are diseases of abundance rather than scarcity—too much information, food, entertainment, news—and the solution is to become an ascetic who withdraws from society and its stimulations.

“all our diseases are diseases of abundance not diseases of scarcity right old times i may have starved you know old times if i got sugar that was a wonderful thing old times if i gotten a piece of news or gossip that was interesting data that would have helped my life and moved me forward if i'd gotten some brief amount of entertainment whether through video games or magazines or whatever that would have been good now it's all disease of abundance”

Meditation is essentially self-therapy where unresolved issues surface as thoughts and the meditator processes them, like email inbox zero, until eventually the mind becomes quiet and clear because past issues have been integrated.

“it's self therapy it's just that instead of paying a therapist to sit there and listen to you you're listening to yourself and you just have to sit there as those emails go through one by one you work through each of them until you get to the magical inbox zero”

Retirement is not a age-based concept but a state where you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow—when your present life is complete and satisfying in itself regardless of future payoff.

“retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for some imaginary tomorrow okay yes when today is complete in and of itself you're retired”

Output is non-linear based on the quality of work, not the quantity of hours; work should be like a lion (hunt, sprint, rest) rather than like a cow (graze all day), with cycles of training, sprinting, resting, and reassessing rather than linear output from constant daily cranking.

“we like to think that we we like to view the world as linear which is i'm going to put in eight hours of work i'm going to get back eight hours of output right it doesn't work that way guy running the corner grocery store is working just as hard or harder than you and me how much output is he getting what you do who you do with how you do it way more important than how hard you work right outputs are non-linear based on the quality of the work that you put in the right way to work is like a lion you don't you and i are not like cows we're not meant to graze all day right we're meant to hunt like lions we're closer to carnivores in our omnivorous development than we are to herbivores”

Young people suffer from a disease of wanting to sound smart rather than actually being smart; the test of real knowledge is: 'Would I still want to learn this if I could never tell anyone?'—if not, you're learning for status, not understanding.

“my disease that is a really interesting point that you want to sound smart that that many people do that and especially young people when you you see someone who is smart or someone who appears smart they say smart things oh god i want to sound smart i want people to think about me the same way i think about that person that that is my disease that is my feeling it is what clutters my mind i the the thing i have to ask myself now is if i can would i still be interested in learning this thing if i couldn't ever tell anybody about it that's how i know it's real that's how i know it's something i actually want to know”

Business travel is the worst time-suck with no return on investment; Naval resolved never to travel for business, only for enjoyment; applying this principle broadly: only do actions that are complete in themselves (intrinsically valuable), not actions with hoped-for future payoff.

“so about five years ago i resolved i am never going to travel for business wow and i haven't tried for business since i only travel if the travel experience will be so entertaining and joyous because i have friends or it's a place i want to see or whatever that it will be complete in and of itself because i know that whatever the business meeting i came from is never worth it”

All intelligence is contextual and requires an environment—you cannot evolve or develop intelligence in a void, which means dumping information into a computer without feedback from the real world cannot produce genuine intelligence.

“i would posit there's no such thing as general intelligence every intelligence is contextual within the context of the environment that it's in so you have to evolve an environment around it so i think a lot of people who are peddling general ai the burden of proof is on them”

Operating in an age of infinite leverage means your actions can be multiplied a thousand-fold through podcasting, capital investment, employees, or code; therefore a clear mind leads to better judgment leading to better outcomes, making taming your mind as important as taming your body for peak performance.

“we live in an age of infinite leverage what i mean by that is that your actions can be multiplied a thousand fold either by broadcasting at a podcast or by investing capital or by having people work for you or by writing code so because of that the impacts of good decision making are much higher than they used to be because now you can influence thousands or millions of people through your decisions or your code so a clear mind leads to better judgment leads to a better outcome so a happy calm peaceful person will make better decisions and have better outcomes so if you want to operate at peak performance you have to learn how to tame your mind just like you have to learn how to tame your body”

Everyone thinks they'll get peace by resolving external problems, but there are unlimited external problems; real peace comes from internal acceptance and giving up the idea of problem-solving; this is why politicians are never satisfied—they keep trying to solve endless external problems.

“in today's day and age the way we think you get peace is by resolving all your external problems but there's unlimited external problems so the only way to actually get pieces on the inside by giving up this idea of problems who thinks you can get peace by resolving external problems other than politicians everybody that's what everybody's struggling to do right”

Specific knowledge (knowledge unique to you, based on your interests and experiences) combined with accountability (putting your name on your work) and leverage (media, capital, people multiplying your impact) creates value that cannot be easily competed with.

“because of this unique what i call specific knowledge because of the accountability that you have with your name because the leverage that you have through your media you're a money-making machine you're i'm sure at this point i could make you start over tomorrow wipe out your bank account you'd be rich again in no time because you have all the skill sets”

Growing up poor and facing struggle is actually advantageous for developing wealth-building capability because you learn resilience, resourcefulness, and understand the stakes—whereas privilege can lead to complacency.

“i was born poor and miserable and uh i'm now pretty well off and i'm very happy and i don't and i worked at those and so i've learned a few things”

In the future (10-100 years out), high-quality work will be available entirely through gig models where workers wake up to multiple job offers from previous collaborators, choose what to do, complete it, get paid and rated, then take time off—similar to how Hollywood projects work now.

“whether it's 10 20 50 100 years from now high quality work will be available we're not talking about driving an uber we're talking about super high quality work will be available in a gig fashion where you'll wake up in the morning your phone will buzz and you'll have five different jobs from people who have worked with you in the past or have been referred to it”

The most powerful way to change the world is to change yourself and live the life you want others to live; shouting on social media is ineffective compared to demonstrating through example, and this is true for causes like environmentalism.

“it's all these people who are shouting on social media the best way is just to actually live the life that you want other people to live like i went down to new zealand and there's this guy that i met with and you know everyone's on social media shouting about environmentalism and conservative and sustain and i go to this guy's house and he was doing a very quietly very gently he was doing a two week long zero waste experiment”

Reading should be motivated by genuine intellectual curiosity rather than vanity metrics like book completion or number of books read, which are just social signaling.

“really when people are putting up photos on twitter instagram of look at my pile of books that i'm reading it's a show-off thing it's a signaling thing”

People find value in combining seemingly incompatible things—like Bruce Lee combining martial arts with philosophy, or a bear on a unicycle—because humans are fundamentally multivariate and we recognize when someone breaks the specialization trap.

“if it's like if you go to a circus and you see a bear right that's kind of interesting but not that much if you see a unicycle that's interesting but you see a bear on a unicycle that's really interesting right so when you combine things you're not supposed to combine right people get interested it's like bruce lee right striking thoughts philosophy plus martial arts”

You can achieve retirement through three mechanisms: (1) accumulating enough passive income from investments to cover your burn rate, (2) lowering your lifestyle/burn rate to zero, or (3) doing work you love so much it's not work.

“one is you can have so much money saved up that just your passive income off of that without you having to lift a finger covers your burn rate keep your burn rate low right a second is you just drive your burn rate down to zero you become a monk a third is you're doing something you love you enjoy it so much it's not about the money right”

The most exciting intellectual experience is making novel connections between previously separate ideas—'the aha moment'—which forms a steel framework of understanding that other ideas can then attach to.

“i live for the aha moment that moment when you connect two things together that you hadn't connected together before and it fits nicely and solidly and it kind of helps form a steel framework of understanding in your mind that you can then hang other ideas off of”

Most people's understanding is shallow—they have memorized answers rather than genuine comprehension, creating a facade of knowledge that collapses under scrutiny or application.

“half the times i realize actually i don't really understand why i just have a memorized answer for you but that's not really understanding”

Being wealthy and anonymous is superior to being famous and poor, as fame creates unusual problems that people are not trained for and do not understand until experienced.

“you want to be rich and anonymous not poor and famous there's benefits to it of course of course but we wouldn't do it it has unusual problems that you don't get trained for and you really will not understand unless you experience it”

The human brain is not designed to absorb breaking news and emergencies 24/7 through compulsive media consumption; sustained exposure to this information stream will drive even well-meaning people insane.

“the human brain is not designed to absorb all of the world's breaking news 24 7 emergencies injected straight into your skull with clickbait headline news if you pay attention to that stuff even if you're well-meaning even if your sound of mind and body it will eventually drive you insane”

Journalism has lost the ability to be objective; all major news outlets are now tribal cheerleaders and enforcement arms for political sides, competing with each other using shock and sensationalism rather than serving the public interest.

“there's no longer one guy like a walter cronkite that everyone's going to listen to it's now all just shock troops fighting wars with each other”

Acquiring an hourly rate for yourself (even if aspirational/above your current value) and jealously protecting your time—refusing tasks below that rate—is a powerful practice for ensuring wealth creation because it forces you to leverage other people or automate low-value work.

“i picked an hourly rate for myself that i was worth and i said i'm never going to squander my time for less than this so if originally there's 500 bucks an hour then i upgrade to 5000 bucks an hour and it's ludicrous but pick an aspirational hourly rate aspirational it has to be a little ludicrous and then what i would do is if i have to return something i'm standing in line to return something and it's below my hourly rate i'll throw it away”

Being authentic and doing what you love are the keys to competitive advantage because no one can compete with you if you genuinely love the work (you'll work harder and better for longer without burnout).

“the way to get out of that competition trap is actually to be authentic the way to retire is actually to find the thing that you know how to do better than anybody and you know how to do that better than anybody because you love to do it no one can compete with you if you love to do it”

There are three basic things everyone wants: wealth, happiness, and fitness, and these can actually be taught through understanding timeless principles rather than domain-specific expertise.

“my theory behind that is like there are three things everybody wants there's actually more than three but let's just start with three the three basics everybody wants to be wealthy everybody wants to be happy and everybody wants to be fit”

Social media fame and celebrity create vulnerability because building a strong self-image requires constant reinforcement from compliments, but a single insult or criticism can easily destroy it, making celebrities and public figures inherently miserable.

“they're this strong self-image that gets built up it gets built up by compliments every time somebody pays you or me a compliment and we're like oh well thank you right then that builds up an image of who we are and then one idiot comes along one out of ten one out of a hundred and they can easily tear it down because it doesn't take many insults to cancel out a lot of compliments”

Ignorance of your peers' spending—living below your means in comparison to people around you—is a critical skill for wealth building because it breaks the social comparison trap.

“you also have to get used to ignoring your peers or upgrading or changing the definition of your peers a lot of people here who are poor here but they would be rich if they were living in thailand and bali”

The most powerful people in the world today are not visible politicians or billionaires but the engineers writing algorithms for Twitter, Facebook, and Google because these algorithms control information distribution and therefore shape culture and voter behavior.

“the most powerful people in the world today and this is not well known but the most powerful people in the world today are the people who are writing the algorithms for twitter and facebook and instagram because they're controlling the spread of information they're literally rewriting people's brains they're programming the culture”

The most powerful thinkers (especially those with money or lives at stake) understand basics deeply rather than knowing advanced concepts superficially, creating a 'steel frame' of understanding rather than 'scaffolding' of memorized facts.

“it's much more important to know the basics really well then is to know the advanced knowing calculus wouldn't help you today it doesn't help you in business doesn't help you in most things but knowing arithmetic really will help you”

Social media and modern information technology have become weaponized to be addictive by design, deliberately engineered by scientists and researchers to capture attention and manipulate behavior, creating a modern form of psychological attack on atomized individuals.

“these are weaponized you have social statisticians and scientists and researchers and people in lab coats literally best minds of our generation figuring out how to addict you to the news”

His childhood practice of rehearsing how to sound smart (to compensate for poverty) became a hardwired habit that manifests as constant mental rehearsal in social situations, which he now recognizes as a 'disease' preventing presence and peace.

“what it is when i was a kid in queens and i had no money and i had nothing and i needed to save myself the way i got out was by sounding smart not being smart sounding smart that was the skill i perfected so i am hardwired to always rehearse things so i will sound smart it's a disease it keeps me from being happy”

Your beliefs and interpretation of reality shape both your actions and your direct experience of the world—reality is neutral and you choose how to interpret it, so shifting your belief frame shifts your actual experience.

“reality is neutral reality has no judgments to a tree there's no concept of right or wrong or good or bad right you're born you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations and lights and colors and sounds and then you die yeah and how you choose to interpret that is up to you you do have that choice”

Congress will eventually realize that social media platforms are determining elections and will move to control them, likely through pressure and coercion rather than through protecting free speech principles.

“the day is coming when the politicians realize that these social media platforms are picking the next president the next congressman they're literally picking and they have the power to pick so they will be controlled by the government”

Biology and evolutionary science are now under ideological attack from social sciences, with biologists facing pressure to state things they know are false to keep their jobs and funding, causing research to migrate to China.

“there's just the crossover line of what is acceptable and what's not is entering into biology and biology will probably suffer the most synthetic biology for example will you know a lot of this will end up in china because it won't be you you won't be able to map facts and reality and actions together”

Silicon Valley has a specific political ideology (progressive left) and conservatives or moderates in tech cannot speak openly without social and professional retaliation, making the industry a one-sided political force.

“try being a conservative an open conservative at google good luck now you get lynched”

Meetings are particularly costly because they involve multiple people's time multiplied together; a 1-hour meeting with 5 people costs 5 hours of productive capacity, and most meetings should be phone calls, phone calls should be emails, and emails should be text.

“meetings should really be phone calls phone calls should be emails and emails should just be text right many of them right with meetings i i mean i i despise meetings”

What motivates Naval now is art—creativity done for its own sake; he creates businesses for the fun of building and the learning, not for money; he only invests in companies with products he finds genuinely interesting and people he enjoys.

“what lights your fire now like what what gets you motivated to do things and to act art art this is art oh okay art is just creativity it's just anything that's done for its own sake so what are the things that are done for their own sake there's nothing beyond loving somebody uh creating something playing art to me creating business is play i create businesses early stage because it's fun because i i'm into the product”

If social media platforms had remained neutral carriers (like telephone companies) rather than taking sides in content moderation, they would have retained legal protections, but by curating content they've taken on publisher liability and lost their protection from both sides of politics.

“if google facebook and twitter had been smart about this they would not have picked sides they would have said we're publishers whatever goes through our pipes goes through our pipes if it's illegal we'll take it down give us a court order otherwise we don't touch it it's like the phone company if i call you up and i say something horrible to you on the phone the phone company doesn't get in trouble but the moment this started taking stuff down”