Wrestling legend Ben Askren on how Fossil Future impacted his thinking
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Hour, because what you don't know about energy can kill you. Here's Alex Epstein. Welcome to Power Hour. I'm Alex Epstein. I'm doing another episode to celebrate the launch of my new book in case that giant sign in back of me is not enough, Fossil Future. You can see it's this massive monster of a book. I promise every word is there for a reason, and there's a lot that I cut out.

So we've had some really cool guests. We've had Vivek Ramaswamy. We had Michael Schellenberger. And today is a really fun guest, totally unprecedented for this show because it's somebody from the world of combat sports, which some of you might know is a hobby of mine. I've done Brazilian jiu-jitsu for about 19 years now, I guess almost 19 and a half years. I'm a black belt. Technically, I'm a hobbyist. So that's a lot different than being a professional who's a black belt at jiu-jitsu. And

And one of the people I most admire in the world of martial arts, including mixed martial arts, is a former wrestling champion named Ben Askren. Ben won the national championships multiple times in wrestling. He was in the Olympics. He was considered one of the leading candidates to medal at the Olympics. I believe it was in 2008.

And what I had one of the things I admired most about him was he's known almost universally as a huge innovator in wrestling. He is, he's not a non athletic guy but compared to a lot of wrestlers. He's not the most athletic guy, and yet he came up with different innovations and wrestling, where he was able to

you know, take down people effectively in a way that the existing approaches wouldn't. Now, why? There's a lot more I can say about what I like about him, but why are we talking about this? Well,

because Ben is now a huge fan of Fossil Future. He's written some smart things over the year on Twitter. I'd occasionally interact with him and I forget what came up, but I offered him a copy of the book. He said yes. And then he actually read the whole thing and he was very effusive in his praise about it. He talked about how it really, like he really thought about, oh, wow, I wasn't thinking about the benefits of fossil fuels. He really liked the concept of arguing to 100 that I talk about in chapter 11. So I thought it would be really fascinating

to have somebody on who was not at all into these issues or into this position and found Fossil Future very persuasive. And maybe we'll learn something about just how to persuade people in general. And maybe it'll motivate you to give Fossil Future to some other people, which I would love you to do. So as a reminder, you should buy Fossil Future anytime, but if you buy it this week, so by Saturday, which I think is the 28th,

then you'll get a whole bunch of bonuses. If you email fossil future at alexepstein.com, this is really crucial email fossil future at alexepstein.com. So there are discussions with me and Peter Thiel, me and Palmer Lucky. There's a how to talk to anyone about climate change event. There's the Alex notes of my book. These are all going to be coming out, you know, over the next weeks and couple months. And so, and then you'll also get a six month subscription to my energy podcast.

energy talking points premium sub stack. So it's just tons and tons of value.

And all you need to do is buy the book for yourself or buy it for someone else and send the receipt to fossil future at alexepstein.com. So want to make sure you do that. Now that you've been reminded also I should say, I think since I last recorded. I forget if I said this when I recorded before, but we are now I got the fossil future this week got in the top 100.

on Amazon. I don't look at it too compulsively because that can make you crazy, but the highest it's gotten so far that I've seen is 91, which is pretty damn cool for a book about energy. And a lot of people had pre-ordered it and so that doesn't show up as much on the ranking. So it's exciting. I think we're definitely a New York Times bestseller territory. So help yourself, help

and help us as a movement, as a pro-energy, pro-human movement by buying the book this week and then get all those resources. Send your receipt to FossilFuture at alexepstein.com. So I've already interviewed Ben, so I can tell you it's a lot of fun. We do talk

a bit about wrestling and jujitsu and mixed martial arts at the beginning, but I try to talk about it in a way where there's some universal lessons and some of the things Ben talks about that have helped him innovate, I think have helped me innovate as well and can help anyone innovate and in general innovate.

improve. So hopefully listen to that and don't get bored by that because I think that'll be interesting, but then make sure you stay tuned for the part where we talk about Fossil Future because it's really interesting to hear how Ben's mind has been affected by this book that I think a lot of you are enthusiastic about and that I spent three years creating and I'm very enthusiastic about as well. All right, so enjoy me and MMA and wrestling superstar Ben Askren.

I am joined now, I never thought this would happen on Power Hour, by wrestling legend and former MMA superstar, Ben Askren. Ben, welcome to Power Hour. Yeah, how you doing? It's exciting to be here.

It's great to have you. So before we get into the book, I want to just introduce the listeners to you and the viewers to you a little bit. And in particular, I want to just jump into, I'd like you to tell us about sort of the innovation that you were able to do in wrestling. Because this is something you became very well known for. And you're not somebody if people, I don't know if they can tell now, but if they see you, you're not the most physically imposing guy. You know, you see some of these wrestlers and they're just absolute specimens.

And if you were able to become a totally dominant college wrestler who was in the Olympics and a favored person in the Olympics,

and it involved a lot of innovations. I'd love you to talk about that. Sure. Yeah, so I love wrestling. Actually, the wrestling kept me now because I told you I actually double booked myself at three o'clock. Yeah, so obviously I started wrestling. I did all sports when I was a kid. I liked wrestling more than anything. I started having some success in high school. I got pretty good. And I went to college. And I think that's probably where the innovation started.

Really started I mean maybe there's some inklings of it before that just I enjoyed the puzzle that is wrestling and kind of how the human body works. But in college I realized that the more basic wrestling style for me wasn't going to allow me to have the success that I wanted to just because, like you said.

alluded to, I'm not quite the athlete that a lot of people are, right? I do have certain things that are really beneficial to me in wrestling. I've got great cardio. I've got good grip strength. I've got a good isometric strength. So I have some real positives, but from the speed explosion perspective, I really lacked where other people had it. And so wrestling- Can you just say what the basic approach is? You mentioned the basic approach or something. So what does that mean in the context of wrestling?

Yeah, to get to not too nuanced, but just good positioning, basic attacks, basic defense, you know, more in my opinion, kind of low level techniques. And so I wasn't able to have the success I wanted to. And so to me, it was like, okay, how am I going to do this? How am I going to figure this? There's got to be a way to figure this out, right? And I just started kind of really thinking deeply about wrestling. And I was able to kind of,

I pulled from a lot of people. So I said, Oh, this person is doing that. And this person's doing that. And that person's doing that. I think those are, I think those are useful pieces of the puzzle. But then additionally I was able to find holes where there was holes, right? We're like, Oh, nothing connects this and this, you know? And, and I, so I was putting all these pieces into this puzzle together. And I think, you know, I think it's fair to say, and it's not like bragging, but like I,

I created more innovation in the sport than anyone in the last 20 years, maybe longer than that, but that's my kind of area of expertise. So probably in that time period for sure. And to me, it was just really due to my diligence and my ingenuity and just looking at wrestling as a puzzle and what pieces go where.

How much of it do you think is that what you mentioned is just being willing to draw from the best practices from a wide variety of people versus just having like whatever style you were brought up in. Oh, that's huge. I always think I always think of these, these kids and I say kids but I mean any high school college, whatever right.

When they don't have the answers, right? Because a lot of these problems now have been solved. There's more, there are more problems, right? Innovation will always continue to happen in wrestling. But when there's certain very simple problems that weren't even solved by people and there's good answers, like, why aren't you doing them? Like, are you really so freaking lazy that you haven't watched a little film and realize, oh, that's a better, that's a better option than this.

And since that's a better option, that's the option I'm going to use because when I use that, I'm way more likely to win. You know, so I think it's just kind of, and it's funny when I say lazy because they're intellectually lazy, but obviously wrestling is one of the hardest sports ever. So it's funny to me because a lot of guys are way more likely to like do the daily grind, like run hard, lift hard, wrestle hard.

And they're intellectually lazy and they won't go say like, why am I not finishing my single leg? Why am I not finishing my high crotch? What's that guy that's a national champ over there? What's he doing that I'm not doing? You know, and it's intellectually lazy to me.

That's interesting. I know you're very familiar with Gordon Ryan, whom I'm a huge fan of. He's, you know, by far the most like sort of shockingly dominant person in the modern no-gi jiu-jitsu world. And he talks about this, how people are just, at least in that sport, are just totally unwilling to just do like the mental work, just to go through the work of watching tape, thinking about it, et cetera. And they're willing to do-

Oh, in that sense, because I would imagine it's kind of obviously worse in the sense of not willing to do the grind. But you think it's worse in terms of not thinking about stuff? Correct. Because in jiu-jitsu, there's so many people that are... I don't want to say it's a lot more respect-oriented because there's respect in wrestling, but it's like... I'll just give you an example. I was at a jiu-jitsu school. And obviously, wrestling and jiu-jitsu, they're semi-intertwined, right? There's a lot of positions that are...

that can be in both sports, you know? And the, the one day we were doing this and this guy says, Oh, here's a move from this position. And I, you know, I said, Hey, you know, and I'm high level jujitsu, right? I'm a black belt. And so I said, Hey, you know, wrestling has a better answer to this. Here's what you should do here. And they're like, no, this is what, this is what we do.

And it's like they were unwilling to look at it from a new angle. And I think there's a lot of positions like that in Jiu Jitsu and they're so stuck to like classical, like this is what we're supposed to do. This is what we have to do as opposed to like, what are all the possible options? And then I think the really way I could define that more clearly is like,

I know if you know, jujitsu, you know, people like they have their game, right? This is my game. That's his game. And they think about like doing their little things like in wrestling. Nobody thinks like that. Like if you're at a high level and you're too stuck to your game, like you're going to get beat because you're not doing it all. I got a high at a really high level wrestling. And I would assume jujitsu is eventually going to get there, but you got to do it all. And if you can't do it all, you're going to get exposed.

You know, if you can't do all the parts right, you're going to get exposed. And that's, you know, so it's like you can't be too stubborn and stuck to your own ideals. Yeah, that's hard. That's really interesting. I never thought about that. I always resist the idea of having a game, but you've made it explicit. Maybe there's a good- You should reject it. Yeah, because you see often it's people who are not very effective or at least not very effective in a lot of ways. And they're like, oh, this is my game. And often they don't do a lot of things that are important. By the way, I'm not claiming to be so amazing. I'm just a hobbyist black belt.

So I'm not claiming that I'm like so superior, but you just observe that. Yeah. It's like, they'll do these often weird things that aren't even very effective and then they won't do other things. And it's just like, Oh, this is a way of me expressing myself. And it's to me, who actually said this, I don't know if you're going to be on this podcast eventually. And, um,

He said it on a different podcast. And then I brought it up when I was on his podcast and I argued with him about it. But Lex Fridman said something to the effect of, I like doing this because I like this move, you know? Are you talking about the Danaher one where he talks about the headquarters position?

Oh, yeah. He was talking about down her, but he was almost specific judo throws and, and Dan or a center said, well, that's not the most effective. This other thing is more effective. And he said, well, that's what I like to do. Or I think it's more beautiful or artistic. I don't remember the exact terminology he used, but he made it explicit that he was choosing to use something that was less effective when there was a more effective option. And so to me, I freaking,

can't stand it when kids in my academy do that because it's like we're not going to get our identity or our ego tied up to specific thought processes we're going to be open and we're going to accept

the best option, right? There's, there's, and that's the thing with wrestling is like, there's so many wrestling matches you can watch. If you watch enough, you're going to see the best option play out. Like it's going to play itself out. If you watch a wrestling and you know what you're watching, you're always going to kind of know what the best option is. And that can be different for different people based on body style or whatever, but there will be a best option. So don't be stuck with the option you like be stuck with the option. That is the best one for you.

And it's sort of a related aspect that came out in that because I listened to all the Dan interviews that are available and that was a particularly good one. I mean, one thing he's really good at is taking concepts from other fields and applying them to jujitsu. So he's very big on opportunity costs and just thinking when he's thinking about training, you just have to think about what is the cost in terms of time.

of developing this skill, including developing it further versus something else. And so if you're spending too much time on not the most important skill, let alone a skill that is sort of an anti-skill, right? It's actually not the most effective thing, but even within the most effective things, there's this question of where do you focus your time? Where are you optimizing something you're already really good at versus doing something new? And

I don't think most people think that way, but thinking in terms of opportunity cost is crucial to optimization. Yes, 100%. And that's, you know, I, so we do every year, my brother and I do, we call it funky, fresh scrambling camp. We've doing this, like it predates our academy. So I'll say 2009, somewhere around there, like it's been a really long time. Yeah.

And one of the things we see all too often is a kid will come in and he'll say, I'm a scrambler, right? And they have their identity tied to that, which means they're probably trying to do that way too often as opposed to just doing the thing that's most effective or the thing that's more likely to get them wins, you know? And so for me, what scrambling was, was it was the option when all my other options were existed, right? And so just from a simple numerical standpoint,

standpoint, if I could do something basic eight out of 10 times and two out of 10 times it didn't work, right? That means 20% of the time I'm being scored on. Of that 20% of the time,

If now I develop highly effective scrambling techniques and the 20%, my basic thing fails 80% of the time I can beat them in a scramble, right? Now my full percentage goes from not freaking 80% and losing 20% of the time, but it goes like 96%.

Right. So that's kind of the way you think about it. And then you could even, you can kind of continue to break it down further through the positions. But that's the way I think about it. It's not what I do. It's something, it's an effective tool to use when that tool becomes necessary.

So one reason I wanted to bring up the innovation is I thought that I would identify with it some, and I do. So two things you've brought up I identify with and how I have approached things. So one, I have a concept I call the pie of ability, which is when I'm thinking about-- when I was thinking 20 years ago about what I wanted to do and what I wanted to achieve, I really thought about what are the different things that would make a truly amazing explainer of things? And there were things like public speaking ability.

and certain writing ability and clarity about a subject. And for example, I had no public speaking ability. I was terrified to be put in front of audiences, but I knew that I had to have this as part of my pie. So I just forced myself up in front of audiences. And now I'm sort of an abnormally non-nervous speaker.

It's a little uncanny how non-nervous I am speaking most of the time. But so there's that aspect of just looking, like really being objective about what you need to do. But then the other thing, and I'm shocked at how people do this, is really looking at who are the best people and what are they doing? So like, I'm an energy guy.

but I don't look at energy speakers, right? I look at the best speakers. I don't just look at energy writers. I look at the best writers because if you're limiting yourself to some narrow niche of people, you're not going to get the best practices. Yeah. And I did. So I saw that, I guess that idea when I, for example, you know, Max and I run a wrestling academy and, and,

You said Max? Who's that? Max is my brother. Oh, your brother. Okay, you're the Aspen brothers. Yeah, I just know about you. Yep. He won a national title at Missouri also three years after myself. And so, you know, being in the MMA world, you got to see how did the MMA schools do it? How did the jiu-jitsu schools do it? And you got to see all the things. And we were able to steal a whole bunch of ideas because they were –

In other fields, they were doing it much better than any wrestling club was doing. So we got to steal a lot of their ideas and, you know, put it in ours. I think, you know, who talks about that a lot is I'm going to blank on the author's name. The book's name is range. You know what? He's got the same last name as you. He has the same name as my dad. No, he's not my brother, but he has the same. My dad is David Epstein. He's David Epstein. Okay. Yes. David Epstein. The book range talks about pulling knowledge from different fields. And I think that's so important.

Yeah, Scott Adams talks about that from a different perspective of the talent stack. Yeah, which I think is useful.

So let's go into so this thing that I you I sent to you which I'm glad I sent to you fossil future so this for me was, you know, for me the greatest thing I could create in this field that sort of took everything. And it was really cool to hear your reaction but before we get into that I want to know, sort of, talk, talk about your background on this issue you mentioned you studied geography and like how you thought about this issue over the years, coming into this book.

Yeah, so I was a geography major. I did that because I enjoyed it a little bit. And it was easy enough, you know, I was fairly intelligent. So it was easy to get good grades. I thought I was going to be the head wrestling coach at Missouri.

and then I ended up fighting and now I coach wrestling here. So there's that, right? And obviously they're kind of indoctrinated you with the global warming thing. I was- I don't even think most people know what a geography major is actually. I say mostly like, if I were to have actually had to get a job, it probably would have been something in GIS, geographic information systems. I didn't have to, so I never used it again except-

I said, I can get around anywhere I want on a map. And that's kind of where I leave it. But they indoctrinate you a little bit. I was an avid National Geographic reader. What do they indoctrinate you with? The global warming thing. And so I find it funny because back then they...

I think almost exclusively use the term global warming and now it's climate change. And I think that's a kind of thing that's funny because if we look at a long enough time window on earth, the climate is constantly changing. The climate is never stable. So the idea that the climate wouldn't change is, is kind of ridiculous actually. So they know. So I always joke with my wife that they call it climate change because it's impossible that they're wrong because the climate is going to freaking change. It's going to change period. Yeah.

Right? It always happens. That is part of it. I think also it's a very, I think, deliberately ambiguous term because it's not clear who caused the change. It's also easy to equate with the internal variability of climate. Like climate itself is constant change. It's just an average. And then the other thing, I think the most devious part of it is it conflates catastrophic change with modest change. And so when you say climate change, what they want you to think is catastrophic man-made change.

but they don't want to have to prove that. -Catastrophic is new. They haven't used that only like the last couple years. -Well, that's been the implication. So what's interesting is I think climate change is such a devious term, but they're not satisfied with how much it scares people. So now they, in many publications, they now mandate climate crisis

or climate emergency, which I think is incredibly devious, because then you're not even discussing it. You're just assuming, oh yeah, there's obviously just a wasteland of people suffering and dying, and we're not even, it's just an obvious fact in their minds. Yeah.

So yeah, I had the geography major. I read National Geographic. I visited all national parks in the lower 48. I bought a Prius in 2007. So I was like highly aware of this thing and I kind of wanted to do my part. And I guess the one thing I saw out of college though, and you allude to this point a little bit, is that...

you're not getting funding unless you do the things that they want you to do, right? If you're an academic, your research has to get funded. If you don't get funded, you're probably not doing the research and they're going to fund the research that they want. So ipso facto, you can kind of, I don't want to say create the results you want, but to a certain extent, you can point in that direction.

Yeah, I mean there's there's definitely that I think people should always be aware of what is driving different things and it's definitely true the government controls most of research and politicians have agendas and those agendas affect funding and one point I make in.

I think in chapter eight is that even if everyone is totally honest, even if the practitioners are totally honest, the fact that there's a bias created by politicians often who want more control and who want therefore to be more severe problems with warming, that will skew who's in the field. Right. And so that distorts it just by who's in the field. And then of course, if you get more funding for more catastrophic stuff, then it even distorts those distorted views.

And then that starts to drive people in, you know, you get so it's really, we really need to think about scientists as human beings and really think about what sort of incentives are driving who is selected as a scientist. And then what the scientists say not just treated as, oh, it's the science gods. So whatever they say, must be just, they just must be Galileo giving us the truth. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, you know, I, so I think the thing that more say prior to me reading your book, I would, I don't want to say skeptical. I mean, no one trusts government at this point really anymore. But I was highly skeptical because the point you make of like, these people haven't been like a little bit wrong. They weren't like most of the way. Right. And they just got it. You know, they didn't say six and it was seven.

right they said like it's gonna be nine and it was one right so these people who are making these predictions i told you i was paying a lot of attention i was paying a lot of attention when i was you know uh say age 16 through age 22 of these predictions these catastrophic predictions that they're making like i mean a very clear one and i i'm not gonna remember the exact year but it's

Not all farmers. We are going to run out of oil. They were certain of it. It was a fact. We are going to run out of oil. I think it was by 2030 or 2040, right? And now we know that prediction is absolutely ridiculous because the known reserves, the curve goes like this. It's not even going down, right? It's continually moving up. And so, you know, these predictions that these experts have made,

have continually been not only a little bit wrong, but a lot, a lot, a lot wrong. - Yeah, and I needed to come up with a term to capture how wrong they were, 'cause you said you can think of it as one in nine, but it's really like they said it would be negative 10 and it was 10, right? 'Cause they say we're gonna run out of resources and then we have more resources. So the best term I've come up with so far is just 180 degrees wrong, 'cause it just shows you're in the exact opposite direction.

Yeah. And that's one of the things like in wrestling, this is what I say in wrestling. One of the things I love about it, it's like in academia, you don't have this, but, and this is kind of a jujitsu where like the game thing, right? If I say, this is the most effective way to do something. And you say, no, this is the most effective way to do something.

In wrestling, we get to see it. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of matches. And if you say your way is right, and you go, when I said scrambling was the way, when I said my way is highly effective, and then I go and smash everyone, and then people are like, wow, that was really good. And then they start doing it. It works for them. There's some obvious viability to that, right? It's like, wow, he nailed it. There's something here.

And then when someone comes along and they're a charlatan and they're saying, this works. And I kind of relate this to MMA too. And one of the outstanding things that MMA has done for us in the last 30 years is it's excommunicated so many charlatans. There's so many people before the 90s who were like, I could kill you with this touch or

You know, like I'll just do that and you'll die. And then it's like, wait, that doesn't even work. That doesn't work at all. Like we see it in MMA. You can put people in a cage and they fight and you see what techniques are actually effective in a fight. And so now all these things are not effective. These people are wrong. We know they're wrong. We don't think about them anymore. We don't give them any airtime. But these climate experts who are 180 degrees wrong, to your point, they're still the freaking experts somehow.

Yeah, I talk about that a lot in chapter three, like why is that? And I think it's ultimately, we have this assumption that the earth, including the climate, is this delicate nurturer that our impact will ruin. So we just think, oh, they just were early, right? They weren't wrong. They were just early. So we're going to run out of resources. Climate is going to kill us. It's just going to happen. And so I was still basically right, just my timetable. Right.

Scott M says he uses the term directionally correct. These dudes, they're not even directionally correct. They're 180 degrees wrong. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, the earth is becoming more, they keep saying the earth will become less livable as we impact it, including using fossil fuels. It keeps getting more livable. And then the other thing is they have a different definition of livable or good. That's the core of it, right? Is the view that

the view that the goal for the goal should be to eliminate human impact on earth. So from that perspective, earth is getting worse because humans are having more impact. We're having more success, but that's irrelevant to them. Whereas if it's advancing human flourishing on earth, then you see it as the earth is getting better. So they actually think of it as no, there was a catastrophe because it was never about the humans. It was about the catastrophe is just us having a lot of impact. Yeah, that is, I mean, that's, so when you, when you start thinking that direction and I don't know if we want to go there in this, but that, that,

gets to this like one world order really demonic type thinking you know like yeah and when you say it's like yeah i think some of them really do think this like they're really anti-human they really think there should only be a billion people on earth not seven right i mean they genuinely think that they're you put some really nasty quotes in there uh the one guy said um what the hell is he wants to come back as a plague or something to that effect

Yeah, there's the, I think Prince Andrew had that. And then there's the, you know, until we choose to rejoin nature, we can only hope for the right virus to come along. Yeah, that's really demonic. It's not good. Yeah. And it's rare though, that it's that explicit. And part of what I try to do in Fossil Future is just make it clear that, hey, if your goal is to eliminate human impact, that means eliminating human life. Just like if someone said, hey, Ben, my goal on earth is to eliminate bear impact.

You'd be like, okay, well, you're obviously gonna kill all the bears. Like that's what you wanna do. But they try to get around it. It's like, oh no, we just wanna lessen it a little bit. But it's really an anti-human idea. So, all right, so tell us about, so I forget exactly what caused me to send, you said something on Twitter and we interacted somehow and I offered you a copy of the book and you said you'd read it. So yeah, tell us about what happened.

Yeah, no, I loved it. Sorry, I can't make one point on that last topic we were talking about. Yeah, of course. Well, I think it's I think it's just a point that so I love that I got to go to Asia for I fought exclusively in Asia for four years. And, you know, they sent me all kinds of places over there. And, you know, when you talk about a lot in the book, but the the I think you call it less empowered or unempowered world.

Yeah. Unempowered world. But you see, you know, I went to Phnom Penh in Cambodia and I went to some places in Indonesia and I went to some places in Malaysia was pretty nice. It was Thailand had some not so great places, you know, and it was like, you see the conditions that these people live in. And, you know, the point you make is if they had

better access to resources and regular energy um that they would be living what you call human flourishing right they'd be having a lot more human flourishing essentially living much better lives um and so that's where it really kind of like hit me is like yeah yeah if we had if those people had more access to energy and better resources they'd be living uh i don't you know i don't say i don't know if happier is the right word but they would be living a much more um

successful life, you know, like they'd be able to do more opportunity. Right. Yeah. That's a great word. I couldn't think of the right word. Opportunity is a great word for that. And you know, where it really hit me when you said, I don't remember, you probably be able to quote the chapter or the page or whatever, but you said something about like,

When human beings were worried about just eating every day when we were hunting and gathering, we had no time to think and we didn't have time to do these things. And the reason that we've had so much efficiency and so much production in the last 200 years is because we've had the opportunity to give ourselves freedom to sit and think and innovate and develop. And like, that's what's made our world so much better. And that's what's increased human flourishing. And we can't have that without the energy needs that we have.

Yeah, I think a lot about that. What is it like to live in a manual labor world where 90% of the effort is going toward agriculture? And a key aspect of that is you just don't have time to think. And so I call it the vicious cycle of unempowerment. Because when you're not empowered by machines to produce all this value, then you're just doing it manually. And you don't have time to think about how to get out of your predicament. Whereas now, we have machines doing stuff. And we can just spend tons of time thinking about how the machines can do even more stuff for us.

And then that frees up even more. And that's why you get this kind of positive exponential thing, which is totally unprecedented in history. And, you know, if with enough freedom, it can continue. Yes, I agree. Totally. And then I also really love the, I love that you do know, because this is kind of something I've really become passionate about. So I've become a Bitcoiner, but it's the personal property thing, right? A lot of people don't think about that, especially in America, because, you know,

Our personal property is our personal property and we don't have a lot of battles over that. But, you know, in a socialist economy, that's not the case, right? The state says they own that, the state owns that. And that's something Bitcoin talks a lot about because Bitcoin is the first personal property in the history of the world which is non-complacatable. So when you start thinking about it in those terms of people living under authoritarian or socialist regimes, right?

them having some type of personal property with Bitcoin, which the government can't confiscate, is hugely important. Yeah, so I talk a lot about that in Chapter 10, just about how freedom, but including the enforcement of property rights is so crucial. And particularly if we go back to the poorest parts of the world, it's definitely true they need more low-cost, reliable energy. But part of how you get that is having property rights. So in part, the most efficient way to empower people

is to have foreign investors want to invest in your country because you can just do it so rapidly. You don't have to build up yourself. You can have external people saying, hey, we're going to buy a lot of machines and infrastructure to make you more productive. And then you get some of that value and we get some of that value. And it's just so fast. But you're not going to do that where you can't get return on investment. And with so many of these corrupt dictatorships, it's just that way. So you really need the freedom to trade with property rights and contracts. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I agree. Totally. So, yeah, if you want, I guess.

you know, I've kind of brought up a lot of the points I really enjoy, but no, I love the book because I think prior to the book, I would describe myself as skeptical of the climate change narrative, meaning that, yeah, the climate's probably changing. We may be impacting it a little bit, but there's another, there's other significant factors that people aren't counting in.

And that, you know, over the long run, I didn't think we were going to have as large of an impact and mainly because of all the failed predictions, right, that we talked about. So many people have so many failed predictions from, you know, when I was really paying attention to like the late 90s and early 2000s, none of the things that they predicted came true. Whether sea level rise, total temperature change, all these things. So I would describe myself as skeptical, right?

And then the way you describe it with, you know, the human flourishing anti-human, I think I was even more pessimistic of the people in charge. But I do think that they are really running a tight agenda to push us in the wrong direction.

And we got, and we, and we, and then I guess the other thing would be, we got to fight back harder. Right. So we've got to argue harder, push our side harder. I don't want to say push our side. Right. Cause I talked about something about being open to the most ideal things, like the things that are going to create human flourishing. That is, that is what we value, right? We, we want the most human beings possible to have a great experience while they're here on earth. And that's what we should be pushing.

Definitely. So I just want to ask you about two things that I think you brought up when we were messaging and stuff. So one is this issue of looking at the benefits of fossil fuels and how we're just not taught to do that. It seemed like you had an experience with that as well. And that was a big deal in my thinking as well. Yeah, I don't think, you know, it's just like, I don't, when you started bringing up all the things that fossil fuels have allowed us to do and that

We don't think, I mean, one of the things that I always laughed at, because I drove a Tesla for, I'll probably get a new one. It's a great car. So I'll probably get a new one. But is they always say zero emissions. And to me, that was so effing stupid because it's like, I plug it into the fucking wall. Can I cuss on this podcast? Yeah. Okay. I plug it in the fucking wall. Listen, the electricity is coming from somewhere. It's most likely coming from a coal power plant.

So if I'm getting my car's power from a coal power plant, then there is emissions. But yet we call it zero emissions. That's just not truthful. So, yeah, I mean, I always just kind of like laughed at certain things like that.

Yeah, so that to me is an example of like with fossil fuels, we don't look at the benefits and just look at the side effects. And then with the alternatives, we just look at the benefits and don't look at the side effects. So this obvious kind of zero emission scam where, yeah, it's coming from coal or it's coming from natural gas, but they want to act like, oh, it just comes from the plug. Yeah, it's just magical. And then I think you made great points about, and I would say I probably would have like

I would have leaned this direction before your book, but obviously you gave a lot more ammunition. Solar and wind are really not viable. They really aren't. And then when you want to talk about the environmentalist scams like hydropower or nuclear, to me, those are such obvious good options to try to use, but they fight because you're going to kill the fish in a river, right? Or nuclear...

I honestly don't. I think it's just kind of a scare tactic. I don't get why people don't use that more. It seems like that honestly, that seems like the best option. If we want less emissions, nuclear seems like the best option. Yeah, definitely. And I think I attribute. How do you feel about that? I don't know. You're the expert here.

Well, I definitely, yeah, I think nuclear is kind of the most promising long term. I talk about in chapter five, what are the unique things about fossil fuels? And part of it is they have this material, it's like naturally stored. So it's like a natural battery and it's naturally concentrated and abundant. And nuclear has all of those even more so. So it's just this amazingly concentrated source of energy. It's more complex to harness, but the main thing is it's been criminalized by the government. And I'm a big fan of decriminalizing it.

So I'm a huge fan, but it's not replacing fossil fuels given how the expanding energy needs of the world. It's not going to get rid of fossil fuels. It'll add to fossil fuels and then maybe in the distant future, it'll replace it. And that would be great. I'd be totally happy because I don't care about fossil fuels per se. I just care about cost-effective energy for as many people as possible. But why do they oppose it? I think

The average person might be scared about it, although that's changed. But the leaders who should know better, it's because they're on the anti-impact framework. So they see it as evil to manipulate nature in a new way, like by splitting the atom. And then they really hate the waste, even though the waste is pretty benign and it's very small, because they think, oh, we're creating something and it's going to last a long time. And we have no right to do that. Humans shouldn't do that.

And it's this deep anti-humanity saying, hey, we're not going to have this abundant clean source of energy because we don't want to have an effect on the Earth.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so your, uh, I guess under your ideals, um, what, what is the way we fight back? Is it just, is it just education and thinking about it more and, and creating the right framework to push back or what is, what's the proper way to do it? Because, you know, I, when you think of things like, um, uh,

what's the one climate, the Paris Accord? Is that the one? Yes. Yeah, like stuff like that, where they're trying to reduce where we're at now. Like, how do regular people or, you know, how do we push back on that? Well, let me ask you something and then I'll address that, which is, I know you, I think you like the idea of arguing to 100. So I'm curious your take on that, because that's going to be part of my answer is arguing to 100 in a certain strategic way.

Yeah, no, I agree totally. And that's what I kind of said earlier is like, I would have been a little bit skeptical. And now I'm like, F these people. We need to, you know, we need to really push back hard.

And part of it, I think of arguing to 100 is so part of saying, you know, I'm skeptical or like they might not be right is basically saying, OK, they're they're taking the world in a direction. They're eliminating fossil fuels. I'm kind of bringing them back, which I think of as arguing to zero. Yeah. Versus saying, no, we're going to change the direction. Their direction is wrong. We want a world of expanding human flourishing, which means expanding human empowerment, which means expanding fossil fuel use. And that's that's a good thing. So so the I'll get to the tactical stuff. But the fundamental is

is to have like a very enthusiastic pro-human movement where we're like very excitedly advocating for a better world and empowering more people. I was talking about this on the Bitcoin Magazine podcast yesterday because Bitcoin has actually given us an amazing model. Because think about what, think about like the fiat money thing. And I've been against fiat money for decades, but that was very rare. And I was-

Yeah, I was ahead of the game, but I wasn't my focus, but I wasn't effective, nor was anyone else, including many brilliant people. And now, it's a total difference from five years ago where everyone is aware of fiat money. People have all these issues of central banking, and they're very excited by the idea of freedom in currency, particularly in the form of

of Bitcoin. And I think why have they done that? Because Bitcoin is argued to 100. It hasn't just said, oh, I disagree with how the Fed is manipulating this. But of course, they're just saying, no, like 100 is basically a world where we are free to choose the best money for us. And then the evil is where the government has unlimited control of our money and can just devalue all of our achievements and interfere with our lives.

And then we have this con, so we have a 100 of like this ideal financial world. And then we have these concrete actions, including buy Bitcoin.

And I think that, so I think of it as fundamentally, I can learn a lot from that example. It's one of the most impressive acts of persuasion that I've ever seen in terms of changing an obscure view into the exciting and obscure and very, it was not just an obscure view. It was a view that was laughed at and condemned that you would be against fiat money. And it's similar to fossil fuels, right? That's a view. How can you look at these people attacking me

They don't even say anything. They don't have content. They just say like, you're against science. How could anyone possibly believe this? But if you frame it correctly and say, no, my goal is to advance human flourishing on earth, that requires expanding human empowerment. Fossil fuels are uniquely able to do that. Fossil fuels can cure their own side effects because they have so much of an ability to master climate. Nothing that we're doing to climate is going to be a big problem for us.

then it makes sense. So I think fundamentally it's this reframing and arguing to 100. And then tactically that means we need to, and then the second thing is we need concrete policies, including decriminalizing nuclear. So my next big project is what I call the energy freedom platform, which is actually giving the policies that politicians can fight for. And so if you have those two things, like the reframing, the general argument to 100, and then the policies, if you have all of those elements,

then it's about people sharing the resources that make that case efficiently. And so, for example, the reason I created this, which is a very weird thing, I already had a book on fossil fuels that was a big bestseller, was because I knew I could do something that was 10 times more effective. And I wanted to create a shareable resource that could really persuade people who expected to disagree and could really totally arm people

who already agreed or were generally supportive. Because I know what a viral book can do, like a Malcolm Gladwell book. I believed in that. And then I have the website, energytalkingpoints.com, where I'm just sharing all these little talking points.

And so what I'm always telling people, it sounds so cliche, but just share these super effective arguments that reframe the conversation, argument 100, like share them. I mean, look, I shared a book with you. It was like an MMA star I admired. And like now we're talking about it and you'll talk about it to other people. And so it's so effective if the resource is really effective.

you want to share. It's like Safe's book, you know, Bitcoin Standard has impacted so many people because it's effective. It's so good. I don't know how many times I've recommended Bitcoin Standard. If you listen to his podcast and read Bitcoin Standard, you need to read that because it's such a good book. Yeah, he and I have talked on it. Oh, yeah. He's been on this twice. And I think we've done four or five podcasts total. And he's one of the people who blurbed the book

He talks about it a little bit in his new book, The Fiat Standard, talks about fiat energy, I believe. Oh, yeah, he does. And I know he has a book planned on economics that has energy. And that he's explicitly said, and I'm grateful. I've influenced him a lot, including how energy is devalued in economics. And that was just a matter of somebody shared my book.

with him. So if you pick the right, the key is if you pick the right resources, sharing is unbelievably effective, but it's you have to understand we need to reframe our

If you pick the wrong resources, then you're just going to butt your head against the wall. Or if you just try to get in fights with people when you're not very good at conversation. So it's super effective to say, hey, I read this book. I found it persuasive. Or just send them an article that's free on the internet. I just gave it to my mom this morning. So we'll see what her pushback is.

But she would be, I would say, very environmentally conscious. So I'm very curious to see. Maybe she'll come on the show. I bet she's going to be very skeptical of the book. That's my general feeling is to what her response is going to be. So I'm very curious. And then like my wife, actually, I'm trying to get her to read it. She's being stubborn. Now I'll get her on the audio book. And she is like...

because we've had these arguments like one of the things with the Paris Accord that I that I've always not liked was like it doesn't really hold India or China to very many standards compared to the Western world right and my argument is like well it's two and a half billion people and this is so this is this is before I read your books don't judge me here okay I was gonna say because it's a little bit arguing to zero yeah yeah well it is right but if if

if India and China aren't making any changes, that's two and a half billion people. And we know what are the little things we're going to do? What difference is that really going to make? Right. Or I always laugh at the things like the paper straw gimmick, you know, like this seems so ridiculous. And so she's always like, oh, you're being negative or you need to, you know, you need to care more, that type of stuff. So I'm really curious now, obviously,

then it's arguing to 100. - Yeah, yeah, that's perfect, right? 'Cause you're saying like, you're sort of, the direction is right. Like the direction of this stuff is right and you're sort of nitpicking and saying, oh, it won't work. Whereas my basic, what you say is about both of those things are true. My thing is the direction is wrong. You're trying to eliminate our impact on climate as your top goal, when billions of people are poor. No, that's the wrong goal. And that's part of why it's,

One interesting thing, I don't know if you've seen parallels and other things, but is that if you have a, like if you have an extreme view that you totally believe in, it's much more effective persuasively to just say that because it's interesting than to say something mild. So imagine moral case for fossil fuels had been titled fossil fuels aren't as bad as you think. No one would, no one would read it. Right. It would not be interesting.

it's just an obviously arguing to zero but saying moral case for us feels oh my gosh somebody thinks they're good and they're serious then that opens you up so like it's always very effective to have a new argument to 100 as long as you believe it if you don't believe it and you can't and it doesn't make sense then it's just a crackpot yeah yeah no so i'm gonna get my wife to listen to it too i'm gonna get i'm gonna get the pushback from them and we'll see what it's like

Yeah. I look forward to hearing it. Well, I really appreciate you coming on any, uh, anything you want to tell the listeners, including anything of yours you want to promote? No, not really. I mean, unless you live in Wisconsin, you want to learn how to wrestle. Otherwise you can just follow me on, uh, if they do live in Wisconsin and they want to wrestle, what should they do? Just think we have a wrestling Academy. Uh, and we only teach kids under 18. So bring your child to the wrestling Academy. Um,

on my Instagram and Twitter. I don't really use, I don't really love Instagram. I really like Twitter a lot. So I'm fairly active on Twitter. And that's it. Thanks again to Ben Askren for joining me. That was a, I don't think I said this on the show, but I think I said it to him before. This is a little bit surreal to watch somebody fighting and admire them and like listen to them on podcasts and then have them on my podcast. I mean, granted, I've gotten to meet a lot of people that it was a little surreal, but I'm a particular fan of

of the grappling world that includes wrestling and jujitsu and then the mixed martial arts world. So I've definitely never had anyone from that world on my podcast. And I can't remember anyone from that world who's really engaged with my work to this extent. So it's very exciting. And maybe the most exciting part is that I think it shows, or at least it suggests, and I think this will be borne out, that the approach of Fossil Future is going to reach a lot of new people.

And it'll reach them more quickly if we spread the book more quickly. So get your own copy, get a copy for others, and make sure that, again, you send the receipt to FossilFuture at alexepstein.com. Do all of this by May 28th, by Saturday. That way you can get the bonus resources, and that gives us the best chance of getting on bestseller lists and spreading the word even more quickly.

quickly. All right, I think that is going to be it for this week's special episodes of Power Hour, but who knows, I may have another spectacular guest who emerges and I just have to have them on. But if I don't, I really appreciate everyone watching. I really appreciate all the support for the book. It's super exciting that it's out. It's really fun to have it out. And it's getting some really cool reviews and just

you know, keep following, keep following it. Make sure to sign up for my newsletter. You can just do that at energytalkingpoints.com. That's that you can sign up for the newsletter there. And am I forgetting anything else? Well, as usual, if you have any questions, comments, love mail or hate mail, you can email me at

at alexepstein.com. Of course, follow me on Twitter at Alex Epstein. And I'm a little bit more active on Instagram these days, so add me there. I am Alex Epstein Energy. All right, that is it for this Power Hour. I'll be back at some point in the near future. Until then, I'm Alex Epstein. This has been Power Hour.

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