Opinion
Weinstein: Susskind, Gross, and Witten halted theoretical physics progress after 1983
“In 1983, physics made sense, in 1984, it did not. It was very stark, and it was like overnight, more or less three people, Leonard Susskind, David Grose, and Edward Whitten, drove the field in a totally different direction, and now the achievement of this has …”
Opinion
Weinstein: Renaissance Technologies is the leading candidate for a secret physics program
“If it's happening, I've said that the leading candidate would be Renaissance Technologies on Long Island.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: Theoretical physics lost free speech protections to Restricted Data laws
“Theoretical physics is the only profession to have lost free speech because of something called restricted data, where I am not allowed to put pen to paper to write down a physics equation if in any way it affects nuclear weapons.”
Assertion Supported
Weinstein: Peer review is a modern concept retconned into science history
“Peer review is a fake story that was retconned into science. It is no, you can look it up on Google Ngrams, put quote, space peer review space, close quote. And you'll notice that there's really no mention of it before.”
Insight
Weinstein: Fund Researchers Whom Established Leaders Block But Won't Short
“Tell me who the established leaders of a field will block, but will not short. Fund that guy for now”
Insight
Weinstein: Theoretical physics stagnation may have prevented catastrophic weapons and saved humanity
“For 53 years, you've been denied new boom, vroom, and zoom, and potentially
The stagnation in physics may have led to the survival of the human species because the boom is so terrifying.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: Government special access programs definitely exist for UAPs
“There are definitely special access programs. That are all about this.”
Assertion Supported
Weinstein: 1971 Australian Intelligence Document Discloses 1960s Gravity Shielding Research
“There's a 1971 Australian intelligence document where Australia, which was the Testing ground for nukes that of the United Kingdom. Started seeing all these UAPs near their nuclear tests just the way we see them near ours. And the Australians revealed that all…”
Opinion
Weinstein: Extraterrestrials Can Visit Earth and Treat Humans as Uncontacted People
“I believe that there are other life forms in the universe and that they can come and they can visit. And I don't think that that's preposterous. I think that we are an uncontacted people.”
Insight
Weinstein: Frontier science requires departments to tolerate politically extreme scientific thinkers
“If you don't have communists and fascists in the same department having tea together, something has gone wrong because scientists are very extreme.”
Disclosure
Weinstein: I sought White House science role but refused Trump loyalty pledge
“I just met with Michael Kratzios. Great. I wanted that role. I put my hat into the ring for that for that role. I didn't think I would get it because I wasn't willing to pledge sufficient loyalty to Donald Trump.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: Epstein falsely claimed he ran an FX fund on a 727
“He told me that he ran a multi-strategy FX hedge fund, and then he needed a seven, 27. Because it had a trading for, and he filled it with yeshiva students because they were the only ones you could trust. He was extremely specific about using trend following, …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: US failure with Iran will trigger global nuclear proliferation
“And by the way, if the US fails with Iran, you're going to see a proliferation of countries acquiring nukes because we trusted the US.”
Assertion Supported
Weinstein: American and Russian scientists are relocating to China
“American scientists, Russian scientists, all sorts of scientists are going to China for some prestige, some money, and some freedom.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: Chinese science will excel until political taboos interfere
“And we are going to train them up and they are going to be frighteningly good up until the point that that freedom involves Tibet, Tiananmen Square, and Taiwan.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Weinstein: AI models will soon train on rejected 'trashcan' scientific papers
“The AIs are going to change soon. Right now, the AIs are trained on a corpus that privileges things like cell nature and science as the prestige journals of biology or in mathematics, it would be the Invenciones and the Al's and the Journal of the American Mat…”
Insight
Weinstein: Scientific consensus is usually artificial agreement enforced through institutional pressure
“When I hear the word consensus, I get very, very nervous because the consensus is usually an artificial agreement achieved through pressure.”
Insight
Weinstein: Scientists are excluded from the modern wealth their research generates
“You're dealing with a level of prosperity in a world in which the Gini coefficients are blowing out. It's almost entirely due to the technology that is derivative of science, and the scientists are not participating.”
Assertion Supported
Weinstein: Nature journal did not adopt peer review until the 1970s
“And by the way, not peer reviewed until the seventies.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2031
Weinstein: Pati-Salam model will be proven correct first-order grand unification
“I believe that the Patti Salam model will be found to be the correct first order grand unification above where we are.”
Insight
Weinstein: The petrodollar system relies fundamentally on US military violence
“Petrodollars aren't petrodollars.
They're violence dollars.
The U.S. Was supposed to have the violence needed to secure the oil and the oil backs the money.”
Disclosure
Weinstein: Working for Peter Thiel closed 30% of academic doors to me
“When I took a job with Peter Thiel, let's imagine that there are only about a 125 people I can speak to about my work. I would say 30% of the doors closed to me, just by virtue of the fact that I worked with Peter Thiel, and I don't think he's the devil, and h…”
Disclosure
Weinstein meets with OSTP and NIH officials on science policy reform
“Been talking to director Kratzios over at OSTP and
The White House Science Advisor.
Fantastic meeting.
Been talking to Jay Bhattacharya, who's an old friend over at NIH.
About to talk to Jim O'Neill, who's hopefully coming into NSF.
And really just taking a lo…”
Assertion Supported
Weinstein: Mansfield Amendment Banned Military Funding for Blue-Sky University Research
“The Mansfield amendment in six, nine, 71 named after Mike Mansfield of Montana said, okay, the military can no longer fund blue sky research inside of our university system, unless it has a direct military express military purpose.”
Eric Weinstein