what fraction of the economic activity that surrounds us is profitable only by virtue of the fact that those who make the money are externalizing the cost to somebody else. If we were to eliminate such behaviors, we would... reduce the amount of activity by a lot... but we would reduce it by exactly the fraction of activities that shouldn't have existed in the first place." - Meaning and context.">
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We have to ask ourselves, what fraction of the economic activity that surrounds us is profitable only by virtue of the fact that those who make the money are externalizing the cost to somebody else. If we were to eliminate such behaviors, we would... reduce the amount of activity by a lot... but we would reduce it by exactly the fraction of activities that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

— Bret Weinstein

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "We have to ask ourselves, what fraction of the economic activity that surrounds us is profitable only by virtue of the fact that those who make the money are externalizing the cost to somebody else. If we were to eliminate such behaviors, we would... reduce the amount of activity by a lot... but we would reduce it by exactly the fraction of activities that shouldn't have existed in the first place." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Bret Weinstein

About Bret Weinstein

Bret Samuel Weinstein (born 21 February 1969) is an American evolutionary biologist and podcaster who came to national attention during the 2017 Evergreen State College protests. He is among the people referred to collectively as the "intellectual dark web," a term coined by Weinstein's brother Eric Weinstein.