Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman: Is Nerd An Insult?

I think he got an OAB for the Elon. About? About, I think he said that Tesla, he said something bad about Tesla not being. Oh no no no. He was actually defending, he was talking good about Taycans. About Porsche Taycans and Elon said he was very unimpressed with him. But, because he reminded me with memes, somebody replied with a meme of, not a meme, a real video of Bill Gates jumping over a chair. They said, I don't know, I find him impressive. And Elon said, yeah that's pretty impressive. I love when tech CEOs of major companies have the, that can be silly like that. Elon's very silly. I love it. He responds to people on Twitter, he gets silly, he's having fun. He's having a good time. This is Bill Gates jumping over a chair. That's a pretty good jump for a nerd. Not bad. What do you mean for a nerd? I hate that word by the way. I love nerd. It's a good word. No, but you don't use it. You don't mean. I don't mean it in a positive way. Yeah. Yes I do. Okay, let me. I do often. You do often. Yeah. I mean a guy who like is wearing glasses with a fucking sweater with a collared shirt underneath it. He looks like a nerd. Definitely in that, I mean, silly kind of way, but you don't think of a nerd as somebody, as an ideal of a man or an ideal. Oh there's nothing wrong with nerds. No I disagree. My perspective is never like that. Look I'm a nerd about a lot of things. I mean there's certain things that I'm a nerd about for sure. No I totally, I guess what I'm speaking to and that's relevant for our time is that science is not admired in ways, because I've seen the alternative, especially in the Soviet Union. The way people admire scientists is the way they admire great athletes, great creators of all kinds. And nerd sometimes diminishes that in ways that it seems like a peculiar quirk of a human being is just like, it connects it to like going to Comic Con conventions kind of nerd versus- That's different. That's a dork. The dork. Yeah. Comic Con dork. I think we've gone over this recently. Dork is rarely positive. Dorph is good if it's self-deprecating, call yourself a dork. God I'm such a fucking dork. But it's very rare that dork is positive whereas nerd is often positive. Nerd is like guy who's a science nerd, heavy, heavy science nerd. That's just a fun way of saying someone's really smart about a certain thing. I know what you're saying, but I don't think the way around that is to eliminate words or even stop using certain words. I think the way around that is just to appreciate people that are really great at science. That's the way around that. The words don't really matter. It's perceptions that matter. I don't think necessarily that science has a bad perception. It just doesn't have a glamorous enough perception. How many people can name Oscar winners that are just really good at lying? They're just really good pretenders and we can name them, but how many people can name Nobel Prize winners in science? There's very few, right? Exactly. I guess the thing I was also speaking to and definitely keep using the word and it doesn't- Oh, I'm gonna. Preventing words is- I don't let nerds tell me what to do. See there you go. No, the thing- So that's actually the point I was trying to make. Is nerd is synonymous with weak? That I always hated as a person who loves fighting. I like the fact that people are complimenting the pursuit of your scientific curiosity. That is great, but I just never liked- Because the thing I've experienced in this country is nerd as an image is seen as weakness. As a kid that gets picked on. And it always annoyed me because to me intelligence and nerds annoyed me. Nerds annoyed me because they lean into it. Most people I know are kind of like don't work out much or nerds. And they kind of lean into that idea. Do you think they lean into that because they were bullied by people who work out a lot so they think of those people who work out as like I don't want to get into their thing. Those people suck. They were always mean to me. Yeah, something like that. And you kind of create a narrative where like jujitsu or fighting is like a brute thing just like you talked about with Greek statues having small penises. You say all those barbarians with their big penises. Yeah, that's what he's telling me. The professor who was giving us a tour was telling me. I think you can be a noble person and have a big penis. Whoa, is that a humble brag? It's not a humble brag. It was an analogy. Yeah, let people know. It's all right. No, I agree with you, man. My mom listened to this. That's what people don't want, right? You don't want a guy with a bigger dick than you that's smart. That's like the same thing you don't want a guy who's a woman or a guy. You don't want a woman who's hot and smart. When people think of really beautiful women, they automatically assume that woman's dumb. And oftentimes that is not the case. Sometimes people just have awesome bone structure. And if they stimulated themselves mentally, if they pursued things, if they had an interest in certain scientific or esoteric ideas and you underestimated them, you'd feel really humiliated if a super smart but super hot girl put you in your place and let you know, not only am I hot, but I'm fucking smart and you stupid.