WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.359 stand up when we dive into the evidence. Today, 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:07.219 we'll discuss why many facts used to support 00:00:07.219 --> 00:00:10.599 progressive views are radically misleading. Why 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:14.419 these myths have become so popular. The dangers 00:00:14.419 --> 00:00:18.339 of these myths in media and academia. How we 00:00:18.339 --> 00:00:22.079 can spot and avoid these myths. Why academia 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:25.739 operates as a dogmatic religion. The psychological 00:00:25.739 --> 00:00:30.039 mechanisms that give rise to false beliefs, and 00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:33.240 much more. If you like this show and you want 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:36.520 to support it, the easy way to do that is to 00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:39.799 go ahead and subscribe and share it with someone 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:42.780 that you think may enjoy it as well. It could 00:00:42.780 --> 00:00:46.280 be a friend, family member, or even on your feed. 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:49.539 Every share makes a difference. Thank you so 00:00:49.539 --> 00:00:52.359 much for your support and enjoy the episode. 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:05.939 Well, thanks for coming on, Humor. We're here 00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:08.900 to talk about your new book, Progressive Myths. 00:01:08.900 --> 00:01:11.659 We got two copies of it flying around. It's very 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:14.359 salient right now, given the recent election 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:18.500 results. I first just want to ask you, what is 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:20.560 a progressive myth? How do you define it? Where 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:22.540 does the basis of the book start? Yeah, well, 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:26.590 so it's a... It's an empirical factual claim 00:01:26.590 --> 00:01:29.969 which appears to strongly support progressive 00:01:29.969 --> 00:01:34.310 ideology, but which is objectively false or highly 00:01:34.310 --> 00:01:37.329 misleading. There's a bunch of these things. 00:01:38.769 --> 00:01:41.709 The gender pay gap, that women are paid less 00:01:41.709 --> 00:01:44.090 than men for the same work, or something like 00:01:44.090 --> 00:01:47.969 that. Sometimes people include for the same work, 00:01:48.010 --> 00:01:51.469 and sometimes they don't mention that. The claim 00:01:51.469 --> 00:01:53.250 that they get paid less for the same work is 00:01:53.250 --> 00:01:55.329 just factually false. The claim that they get 00:01:55.329 --> 00:01:57.930 paid less than men is true, but it's for different 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:00.609 work, so that's just highly misleading. Is there 00:02:00.609 --> 00:02:03.569 some incentive behind these progressive myths? 00:02:05.150 --> 00:02:08.729 I mean, you might say, well, there's the incentive 00:02:08.729 --> 00:02:10.449 that people generally have to convert people 00:02:10.449 --> 00:02:14.349 to their ideology. People are just animated by 00:02:14.349 --> 00:02:15.909 an ideology and they want to convince other people. 00:02:16.229 --> 00:02:19.550 Do you find that the progressive ideology is 00:02:19.550 --> 00:02:22.780 somewhat like... consistent coherent or are there 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:25.340 different kind of factions and and who i guess 00:02:25.340 --> 00:02:28.099 i'm also curious on who you think the progressives 00:02:28.099 --> 00:02:30.300 are because are they the administrators at these 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:32.280 college campuses are they the professors are 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:36.740 they activists online posting on instagram yeah 00:02:36.740 --> 00:02:41.759 i mean so it's been mostly professors who were 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:43.680 like you know historically have been driving 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:47.099 this sort of like whatever extreme leftward turn 00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:51.110 of the academy but it appears that recently like 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:55.289 the most insane woke voices are students right 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:57.349 okay but now you know with the qualification 00:02:57.349 --> 00:03:02.889 like most students are not extremists but it's 00:03:02.889 --> 00:03:05.289 just that there's this particular minority who 00:03:05.289 --> 00:03:07.909 are particularly loud and annoying right okay 00:03:07.909 --> 00:03:10.430 so then you know okay and then like there are 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:11.990 these administrators who just will not stand 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:15.069 up to them and the administrators will are either 00:03:15.069 --> 00:03:17.610 woke or will just pretend to be woke because 00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:19.389 they just don't want any trouble and so then 00:03:19.389 --> 00:03:23.250 they'll just give in So why are these administrators 00:03:23.250 --> 00:03:26.750 not wanting to stand up? What's going on there? 00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:33.930 Yeah, it's puzzling, right? It's puzzling to 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.530 me because these people don't have any power. 00:03:37.030 --> 00:03:39.610 The woke people have no power except through 00:03:39.610 --> 00:03:41.990 people thinking that they have power. So you 00:03:41.990 --> 00:03:45.169 get these protesters or whatever and they tweet 00:03:45.169 --> 00:03:48.599 at you on Twitter. and all you have to do is 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:52.759 ignore them you know they exit you out on x and 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:56.300 all you have to do is ignore them and then they'll 00:03:56.300 --> 00:03:59.000 go away because they don't have any like you 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:01.360 know they're not writing the paychecks to the 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:03.659 administrators or whatever i don't know but i 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:05.539 think like there's a bunch of people who are 00:04:05.539 --> 00:04:09.919 just um cowardly or whatever like they're just 00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:13.199 like they they're just like afraid of social 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.870 pressure or something they haven't they haven't 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:17.750 understood that twitter isn't the real world 00:04:17.750 --> 00:04:20.829 and like if if 10 000 people tweet at you on 00:04:20.829 --> 00:04:23.910 twitter that doesn't matter And it makes you 00:04:23.910 --> 00:04:26.310 feel like there's this huge groundswell of opposition. 00:04:26.670 --> 00:04:28.569 Because, oh my God, 10 ,000 people. Because if 00:04:28.569 --> 00:04:31.009 10 ,000 people in real life were bothering you, 00:04:31.069 --> 00:04:33.329 then that would mean that you had done something. 00:04:33.509 --> 00:04:35.269 Yeah, you're being attacked by a mob, right? 00:04:35.310 --> 00:04:37.709 Yeah. I mean, do you find there also could be 00:04:37.709 --> 00:04:40.149 a financial motivation for some of these colleges 00:04:40.149 --> 00:04:42.290 and universities, maybe for the president? You 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:46.089 don't want a Twitter lynch mob coming after you 00:04:46.089 --> 00:04:49.670 or a professor who's maybe researching a connection 00:04:49.670 --> 00:04:52.899 between race and... intelligence. You might lose 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:55.000 your job, you might lose your tenure. It just 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.439 brings controversy, and controversy might lose 00:04:57.439 --> 00:04:58.839 you money. It might get you money, but it might 00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:01.600 lose you money too. If you're a professor, it's 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:03.620 true that you have a self -interested motive 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:05.980 to avoid controversial topics. If you're an administrator, 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:09.860 then what? What's the problem? You're going to 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:12.839 get fewer students? That seems pretty unlikely. 00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:15.300 It kind of seems more unlikely that you would 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:18.199 get fewer students if there's stories about how 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:22.350 you silence dissent at your school. Will you 00:05:22.350 --> 00:05:24.089 get fewer donations? I don't know. It kind of 00:05:24.089 --> 00:05:26.810 seems the other way. Donors are often rich people 00:05:26.810 --> 00:05:30.310 who are often conservative. The donor class is 00:05:30.310 --> 00:05:34.129 usually older, wealthier people, and they're 00:05:34.129 --> 00:05:37.230 a lot less likely to be woke. I think there's 00:05:37.230 --> 00:05:42.509 this kind of selection process. The way you get 00:05:42.509 --> 00:05:44.649 to be an administrator and to stay in that position 00:05:44.649 --> 00:05:47.050 for a long time is not by taking courageous stands 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:52.180 on things. It might be that when the woke mob 00:05:52.180 --> 00:05:54.939 shows up, taking a stand against them wouldn't 00:05:54.939 --> 00:05:57.040 in fact cost you anything, but it's just like 00:05:57.040 --> 00:05:59.319 the sort of person you have to be to become an 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:01.959 administrator is the person who does not stir 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:05.500 up controversy, whatever the context. You're 00:06:05.500 --> 00:06:08.639 a person who mostly has just gone with the flow 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:10.980 to move up the ladder, pleasing whoever you need 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:14.860 to, and not taking any controversy that would... 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:17.939 damage your move up to another position yeah 00:06:17.939 --> 00:06:19.500 you know like administrators talk a lot like 00:06:19.500 --> 00:06:21.939 politicians you know if you if you ever like 00:06:21.939 --> 00:06:25.240 whatever read memos or emails from administrators 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:30.839 this is like this sort of like um vague platitudinous 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:34.420 verbiage that's similar to how politicians talk 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:37.000 right except with a more more of a left -wing 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:41.540 slant you know we need we need to Develop a strategic 00:06:41.540 --> 00:06:48.319 plan to promote inclusive excellence. That's 00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:51.040 true. I guess I'm wondering, just to read, just 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.519 to circle back real quick, if you could put in 00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:55.839 like a sentence or two, what is like the progressive 00:06:55.839 --> 00:07:01.160 ideology that's occupying the movement? I mean, 00:07:01.259 --> 00:07:04.279 you know, like the position of the left has changed 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:07.079 over time a lot, right? And so I don't know what 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:09.819 was progressive in the last centuries. Not necessarily 00:07:09.819 --> 00:07:13.560 because it's they. And it's a vague term. So 00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:16.680 I'm including like the woke ideology and all 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:19.279 the stuff about how America is filled with racism 00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:22.100 and sexism. But, you know, I didn't call it woke 00:07:22.100 --> 00:07:24.360 myth because I also want to include stuff about 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:27.620 economics, like the ideology about how society 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:30.759 is unfair to the poor and, you know. there's 00:07:30.759 --> 00:07:32.920 not enough upward mobility and whatever capitalism 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:34.980 is unjust and stuff and then i want to include 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:37.319 stuff about global warming like you know it's 00:07:37.319 --> 00:07:39.600 a threat to humanity or whatever which is not 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:43.100 exactly woke but is is progressive okay so like 00:07:43.100 --> 00:07:47.360 most concepts the the the real explanation of 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:50.939 what progressivism refers to is just to give 00:07:50.939 --> 00:07:54.560 examples of it like usually if somebody like 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:56.399 somebody wants you to define something usually 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:58.750 you can't define it precisely Precisely. Usually 00:07:58.750 --> 00:08:00.910 the best explanation is just like you give examples. 00:08:01.110 --> 00:08:04.670 What do you think about the idea of where we're 00:08:04.670 --> 00:08:08.389 taking progressivism as this a little bit of 00:08:08.389 --> 00:08:11.029 a boogeyman? It's like the scary woke mob who's 00:08:11.029 --> 00:08:13.170 sitting there and they're trying to take our 00:08:13.170 --> 00:08:15.610 jobs and take away our free speech. Yeah. And 00:08:15.610 --> 00:08:19.430 then that further just entrenching further right 00:08:19.430 --> 00:08:22.399 people into. just believing more and more irrational 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:25.519 beliefs because clearly everything on that side 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:27.579 is wrong. So I'm going to believe that the election 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:30.240 is fake. I'm going to believe that the COVID 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:32.860 -19 was fake. I'm going to believe that everything 00:08:32.860 --> 00:08:35.279 that anyone tells me on that side is fake and 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:37.940 they're becoming more and more irrational. Like, 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:39.279 what do you think of that? Am I worried about 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:44.820 that? So that's a possible dynamic. That's a 00:08:44.820 --> 00:08:46.639 thing that can happen. Hopefully that wouldn't 00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:48.519 happen. That wouldn't happen when you were reading 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:51.070 my book because. Like I don't do that. Right. 00:08:51.129 --> 00:08:53.970 So like I talk about global warming, for example, 00:08:54.049 --> 00:08:56.909 but I don't take either extreme position. So 00:08:56.909 --> 00:08:58.990 like if you're a right wing person, then right 00:08:58.990 --> 00:09:00.750 wing people would be likely to pick up this book. 00:09:00.850 --> 00:09:03.250 OK, so the right wing person is reading and they're 00:09:03.250 --> 00:09:04.529 like reading about the global warming and then 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:07.909 they will hear what is bullshit. But like they 00:09:07.909 --> 00:09:10.070 won't they won't see me saying that the whole 00:09:10.070 --> 00:09:12.990 thing is a hoax. Right. Because it's not. Or, 00:09:13.129 --> 00:09:16.720 you know, the stuff about COVID -19 like. They 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:18.620 won't hear me saying that vaccines are a plot 00:09:18.620 --> 00:09:26.200 to put chips inside all of us. I wish we had 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:31.259 that kind of technology. Anyway, I do say that 00:09:31.259 --> 00:09:36.360 the mask mandates were ineffective at best, possibly 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:38.980 harmful, but I don't think that about the vaccines. 00:09:39.659 --> 00:09:43.559 No, the vaccines actually greatly reduce your 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.929 risk. The masks don't, though. And you also give 00:09:46.929 --> 00:09:50.210 a somewhat, I would say, progressive view of 00:09:50.210 --> 00:09:53.450 the transgender question or that kind of gender 00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:55.149 philosophy thing, at least compared to what a 00:09:55.149 --> 00:09:56.730 conservative might be thinking about that topic. 00:09:57.289 --> 00:10:01.029 Yeah, very commonly the correct rational view 00:10:01.029 --> 00:10:05.610 is not either of the extremes. One extreme view 00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:08.110 about transgenderism is the whole thing is just 00:10:08.110 --> 00:10:11.649 a fake. It's just like all... They're just dudes 00:10:11.649 --> 00:10:14.370 pretending to be girls. And then the other extreme 00:10:14.370 --> 00:10:17.970 view is... Anybody is whatever they say they 00:10:17.970 --> 00:10:23.669 are. It could be this very masculine dude with 00:10:23.669 --> 00:10:26.289 a beard and all you have to do is say, I'm a 00:10:26.289 --> 00:10:28.929 woman, then boom, you're a woman. Neither of 00:10:28.929 --> 00:10:34.809 those is correct. So how do you think about progressive 00:10:34.809 --> 00:10:38.190 myths and how they were influencing this most 00:10:38.190 --> 00:10:42.250 recent election where we saw the Democrats just 00:10:42.250 --> 00:10:45.259 take a massive hit? that was unexpected some 00:10:45.259 --> 00:10:48.220 would say given the the other candidate was a 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:53.139 whole lot of issues yeah i mean like yeah if 00:10:53.139 --> 00:10:54.840 you're a democrat you should be feeling pretty 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:57.759 bad like you're not not just unhappy but you 00:10:57.759 --> 00:10:59.980 should be feeling inadequate and like wondering 00:10:59.980 --> 00:11:01.419 what the hell you did wrong because like how 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:05.720 could you lose to one of the most unpopular candidates 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:09.240 in history right in a way he's popular but he's 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:11.220 also unpopular right yeah like one of the most 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:14.000 hated people like i don't know like First candidate 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:16.700 to have felony convictions while he was running 00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:20.399 and to be found liable for sexual assault during 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:24.720 the campaign. Also kind of tried to overthrow 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:27.340 the government. All these things. How are you 00:11:27.340 --> 00:11:33.879 losing to that guy? I guess part of the story 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:36.279 is that people were sick of the bullshit coming 00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:40.340 from the left. And it's not most of the people 00:11:40.340 --> 00:11:42.620 on the left, but it's extremists on the left, 00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:45.059 and the moderates are unwilling to stand up to 00:11:45.059 --> 00:11:47.519 them. So like, oh, there are these people like 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:52.159 the whatever, transgender extremists, who are 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:55.059 just saying, yeah, self -ID, you're whatever 00:11:55.059 --> 00:11:57.679 you say you are. And like, you know, dudes can 00:11:57.679 --> 00:11:59.460 go into women's locker rooms if they just say 00:11:59.460 --> 00:12:04.019 that they're girls. Okay. So, yeah, and like 00:12:04.019 --> 00:12:07.580 just mainstream Democrats were not. taking a 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:09.840 stand against them they were not reigning in 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:11.820 their own extremists so that could be part of 00:12:11.820 --> 00:12:14.340 why they lost i like to think that that's like 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:17.980 why they lost it seems like at least on in my 00:12:17.980 --> 00:12:21.039 view that the democrats seem to take this stance 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:23.419 of if you don't agree with the whole thing then 00:12:23.419 --> 00:12:26.620 you're banned from the the group versus the right 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.220 seems to be like oh you kind of agree with us 00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:31.620 welcome on in Like, what do you think's going 00:12:31.620 --> 00:12:34.019 on there? Why are they not as entrenched in this 00:12:34.019 --> 00:12:36.480 tribalism where if you disagree with a single 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:39.139 portion of the extremist view, you're gone? Yeah, 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:41.500 although, I mean, sort of like in recent times 00:12:41.500 --> 00:12:44.379 in the Republican Party, well, if you don't support 00:12:44.379 --> 00:12:46.779 Trump specifically, that specific individual, 00:12:47.100 --> 00:12:50.080 then you could be kicked out and whatever. But 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:52.659 it's not so ideological. It's not like if you 00:12:52.659 --> 00:12:54.440 disagree about a particular ideological point, 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:55.860 you get kicked out. Yeah, why is that happening? 00:12:57.220 --> 00:13:01.059 I don't know. I mean, it could be that the people 00:13:01.059 --> 00:13:06.259 on the left have more cultural power, or they 00:13:06.259 --> 00:13:07.919 feel like they have more power. When you feel 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:09.299 like you have more power, then you feel like 00:13:09.299 --> 00:13:13.440 you can afford to start kicking people out. And 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:15.960 then people on the right feel like they're underdogs. 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:19.539 You could question whether they are correct to 00:13:19.539 --> 00:13:21.460 feel that, but anyway, if you feel like you're 00:13:21.460 --> 00:13:23.000 an underdog, then you feel like you have to accept 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:26.789 people. we can also move on to a very interesting 00:13:26.789 --> 00:13:29.049 part of the book was, I think it was part one 00:13:29.049 --> 00:13:30.870 is where you just talk about a couple of individuals 00:13:30.870 --> 00:13:34.289 who kind of, you know, borderline the mainstream 00:13:34.289 --> 00:13:36.870 media kind of lied about what took place with 00:13:36.870 --> 00:13:38.789 these individuals. And I guess, why would you 00:13:38.789 --> 00:13:40.309 start with these cases? And maybe we can talk 00:13:40.309 --> 00:13:41.909 about, I don't know, someone like Kyle Rittenhouse 00:13:41.909 --> 00:13:44.929 or Trayvon Martin, those cases. I guess, what, 00:13:45.029 --> 00:13:47.250 what drove you to start with individual cases 00:13:47.250 --> 00:13:49.370 where these people are kind of being, I don't 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:54.139 know. Yeah. They were swept up in a media narrative 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:59.460 or something. In the beginning, there's the Trayvon 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:01.120 Martin story, there's the Michael Brown story, 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:07.419 and a few others. I kind of thought, well, it's 00:14:07.419 --> 00:14:12.179 easiest to see the distortions. It's really pretty 00:14:12.179 --> 00:14:17.039 clear -cut. In these cases, you can just... You 00:14:17.039 --> 00:14:19.679 can just get the evidence like, OK, so like in 00:14:19.679 --> 00:14:21.700 the Michael Brown case. Well, there's a report 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:24.039 made by the Justice Department and like it reviews 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.899 the forensic evidence. And it's just like really 00:14:26.899 --> 00:14:30.200 pretty well established what happened. And OK, 00:14:30.299 --> 00:14:33.059 so then and then you can see how the media just 00:14:33.059 --> 00:14:36.120 like totally distorted. Right. And like people 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:38.440 are just saying total bullshit about these cases. 00:14:38.460 --> 00:14:41.279 And then, you know, you should take that and 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:45.129 let that inform how. how you receive media reports 00:14:45.129 --> 00:14:47.490 from more difficult things, right? Cause like, 00:14:47.549 --> 00:14:49.570 you know, whatever generalizations about society 00:14:49.570 --> 00:14:53.450 are harder to conclusively verify. Oh, so yeah. 00:14:53.490 --> 00:14:55.350 So you're saying it was like, these cases are 00:14:55.350 --> 00:14:58.129 so obvious, the distortion or like the dishonesty. 00:14:58.350 --> 00:15:00.889 And there are simple cases that it calls into 00:15:00.889 --> 00:15:02.370 question when they're reporting on anything more 00:15:02.370 --> 00:15:04.549 complex than like whether or not Kyle Rittenhouse 00:15:04.549 --> 00:15:06.549 shot someone in self -defense. Right. The other 00:15:06.549 --> 00:15:07.809 thing was, I kind of thought it would be more 00:15:07.809 --> 00:15:10.120 entertaining, you know, so you get. you get a 00:15:10.120 --> 00:15:12.039 story about something that happened to a person. 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:13.940 So you can imagine this happening and it's dramatic. 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:16.519 What do you think, like, what is, what are the 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:19.019 motivations here? Are they financial? Are they 00:15:19.019 --> 00:15:21.940 attention based where they're playing into? Cause 00:15:21.940 --> 00:15:23.200 yeah, I guess you have like a Trayvon Martin 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:25.360 or a Michael Brown case where it's, it's clear 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:26.539 they're trying to push a narrative of like an 00:15:26.539 --> 00:15:28.860 unjust shooting of like a black person. Right. 00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:32.100 And so, yeah, what's, yeah. Is it, is it financial? 00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.299 Is it for the attention? I guess. Yeah. What 00:15:34.299 --> 00:15:36.740 do you, well, I mean, I don't, I don't generally 00:15:36.740 --> 00:15:39.879 believe these financial motivation stories. or 00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:42.100 you know whatever the conspiracy by somebody 00:15:42.100 --> 00:15:44.399 to make money i think it's more ideological now 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:48.159 um i mean what happened in the trayvon martin 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:52.460 case was it was sort of like the i i think nothing 00:15:52.460 --> 00:15:54.480 was going to happen but the family of trayvon 00:15:54.480 --> 00:15:58.580 martin started this right like they couldn't 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:01.759 accept that their son so they presumably they 00:16:01.759 --> 00:16:03.419 loved their son so they were distraught at his 00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:05.139 death and they did not want to accept that it 00:16:05.139 --> 00:16:07.759 was in any way his fault and so then they started 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.950 up this narrative And like, it wasn't that they 00:16:10.950 --> 00:16:12.590 had something to gain. It was that they were 00:16:12.590 --> 00:16:15.549 upset that their son was dead. And so, and they 00:16:15.549 --> 00:16:18.190 won and they wanted to blame the person and they 00:16:18.190 --> 00:16:21.190 wanted to bring down retribution for the person 00:16:21.190 --> 00:16:23.049 who killed him. And so they started this media 00:16:23.049 --> 00:16:25.610 narrative that, you know, he was killed due to 00:16:25.610 --> 00:16:28.629 racism and they hired this lawyer. I don't know 00:16:28.629 --> 00:16:30.009 if they hired him or if he volunteered, but anyway, 00:16:30.090 --> 00:16:31.669 they got this lawyer, Benjamin Crump, to help 00:16:31.669 --> 00:16:33.450 them before the story. And then like, you know, 00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:36.409 they get the, they would just like pressure the 00:16:36.409 --> 00:16:41.139 city. to arrest this guy, Zimmerman. Okay, so 00:16:41.139 --> 00:16:42.539 then you could wonder, okay, but why did the 00:16:42.539 --> 00:16:44.600 media go along with this? Well, you know, the 00:16:44.600 --> 00:16:46.519 media's business model is based upon attracting 00:16:46.519 --> 00:16:50.259 attention. So, like, their business model isn't 00:16:50.259 --> 00:16:53.379 based upon being informative and making sure 00:16:53.379 --> 00:16:55.759 that people have correct beliefs or, like, making 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:59.100 sure that democracy runs well and society runs 00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:01.970 well or whatever. It's based upon just... Whatever 00:17:01.970 --> 00:17:04.990 attracts attention. And then we can divert the 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:07.450 attention to advertisers and we make money. Which 00:17:07.450 --> 00:17:10.049 is true for mainstream media and equally true 00:17:10.049 --> 00:17:12.549 for alternative media, I would say. And I feel 00:17:12.549 --> 00:17:14.730 like people don't really acknowledge the same 00:17:14.730 --> 00:17:17.130 incentives exist for alternative media. And you 00:17:17.130 --> 00:17:18.349 saw that with the Kyle Rittenhouse stuff where 00:17:18.349 --> 00:17:20.869 if you look at any like left -wing pundit on 00:17:20.869 --> 00:17:22.490 like YouTube and they were just saying crazy 00:17:22.490 --> 00:17:24.670 stuff about like Kyle Rittenhouse went there 00:17:24.670 --> 00:17:26.589 to like he shot people just to defend property 00:17:26.589 --> 00:17:28.859 or something like that. And some people even 00:17:28.859 --> 00:17:30.960 thought that, like, the BLM protesters were black, 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:33.019 but I think they were all white, right? The people 00:17:33.019 --> 00:17:35.519 who were shot were all white. Yeah. Yep, they 00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:37.859 were all white. There was one black guy that 00:17:37.859 --> 00:17:41.480 Rittenhouse shot at but missed. Okay. But it 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:43.740 would be very strange to say, oh, it was only 00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.740 because of his race. Sure. You know, rather than 00:17:47.740 --> 00:17:51.319 because the guy was attacking him. So when we 00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:55.579 take a look at one of these cases. I mean, it 00:17:55.579 --> 00:17:58.119 seems like for you it was pretty easy to find 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:01.839 the evidence that it wasn't the way the media 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:05.099 portrayed it. So then why is it not common knowledge 00:18:05.099 --> 00:18:08.940 to a lot of people that it's not the case, that 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:11.140 this is the story? Well, you know, it requires 00:18:11.140 --> 00:18:14.700 some effort. And there's no incentive, right? 00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:17.180 There's no self -interested incentive to put 00:18:17.180 --> 00:18:18.859 in even a small amount of effort to find out 00:18:18.859 --> 00:18:22.299 what happened. Yeah, so a lot of these things, 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:25.160 a lot of the myths, like... It's really not that 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:29.019 hard to find out that they're false. Okay, there's 00:18:29.019 --> 00:18:32.000 a Kyle Rittenhouse case. So there was a trial, 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:35.900 and you could watch video clips from the trial. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:38.940 You could see some of the evidence that was presented. 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:41.740 Like the Michael Brown case, there's this government 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:43.599 report from the Justice Department. You could 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:46.559 read the report. But that would require effort 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:49.299 and time, and what's your incentive? What are 00:18:49.299 --> 00:18:51.930 you going to get from it? They might argue that 00:18:51.930 --> 00:18:54.630 clearly the institution is biased. If you watch 00:18:54.630 --> 00:18:57.890 the court case, like they're only going to bring 00:18:57.890 --> 00:19:01.049 evidence that supports that he's not racist and 00:19:01.049 --> 00:19:03.990 all the other evidence they're hiding. I mean, 00:19:04.029 --> 00:19:07.430 there's two sides in a trial, right? So yes, 00:19:07.490 --> 00:19:11.710 each side is biased. But, you know, so the prosecution 00:19:11.710 --> 00:19:14.509 did their best to get this guy convicted and 00:19:14.509 --> 00:19:18.089 they couldn't. And like there's this jury. who 00:19:18.089 --> 00:19:20.809 had to sit there for many hours listening to 00:19:20.809 --> 00:19:22.609 all the evidence that both sides could come up 00:19:22.609 --> 00:19:24.750 with. And if you didn't listen to the evidence, 00:19:25.009 --> 00:19:27.490 you should probably defer to the people who did. 00:19:28.150 --> 00:19:31.809 You know, like the Michael Brown case, you know, 00:19:31.809 --> 00:19:36.670 like this. OK, so this report is produced under 00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:38.650 Eric Holder, who was the first black attorney 00:19:38.650 --> 00:19:41.910 general, I think. And so, you know, Eric Holder 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:44.539 and Obama both stood by it. Okay. So the first 00:19:44.539 --> 00:19:45.980 black president, the first black attorney general 00:19:45.980 --> 00:19:48.019 posted by this report. So it's probably not racist. 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:52.980 Yeah. I guess the, the hard part with sometimes 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:56.420 the progressive ideology says something like, 00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:59.460 even if all the agents or actors in the system 00:19:59.460 --> 00:20:02.299 are like acting innocently, it's somehow the 00:20:02.299 --> 00:20:06.099 system itself is systemically racist or institutionally 00:20:06.099 --> 00:20:08.140 racist or something like that. I'm not sure usually 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:09.859 how to take that, but I guess it, I don't know. 00:20:10.190 --> 00:20:12.029 but that's usually what they say. And it's, and 00:20:12.029 --> 00:20:14.150 that's such a broad myth. It's, it's hard to 00:20:14.150 --> 00:20:17.509 combat, but. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, you know, 00:20:17.509 --> 00:20:20.049 hard to falsify that, right? How do you test 00:20:20.049 --> 00:20:23.470 the vague claim that the system is racist? There 00:20:23.470 --> 00:20:27.009 have to be some specific details about how, you 00:20:27.009 --> 00:20:29.230 know, what do you mean by the system? What about 00:20:29.230 --> 00:20:31.890 the system? How is it racist or whatever? Sometimes 00:20:31.890 --> 00:20:34.349 you get, okay. So like the, I think the most 00:20:34.349 --> 00:20:36.910 common example I've heard of how of systemic 00:20:36.910 --> 00:20:40.349 racism is, oh, the drug laws are racist. And 00:20:40.349 --> 00:20:43.470 the most common example of that is, oh, well, 00:20:43.670 --> 00:20:46.509 crack cocaine is punished more harshly than powder 00:20:46.509 --> 00:20:48.670 cocaine. And then sometimes you hear people quote, 00:20:48.910 --> 00:20:51.349 oh, actually, it's like punished 100 times harder, 00:20:51.509 --> 00:20:57.049 which is obviously false. So I think it's punished 00:20:57.049 --> 00:21:00.450 about 1 .3 times harsher. But anyway, they say, 00:21:00.529 --> 00:21:02.230 oh, it's due to racism because black people, 00:21:02.369 --> 00:21:05.410 like crack is more popular with black drug addicts 00:21:05.410 --> 00:21:06.970 and powder cocaine is more popular with the white 00:21:06.970 --> 00:21:10.940 drug addicts. Is that the reason? uh that's part 00:21:10.940 --> 00:21:14.940 of the reason but it's actually not racism in 00:21:14.940 --> 00:21:17.880 the traditional sense right because they're well 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:20.339 the reason why they introduced harsher sentencing 00:21:20.339 --> 00:21:22.700 for crack cocaine was that crack cocaine was 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:25.140 devastating black communities and so people who 00:21:25.140 --> 00:21:28.019 were trying to help black communities proposed 00:21:28.019 --> 00:21:31.960 a crackdown right and so you know like and you 00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:33.559 could see because like most black legislators 00:21:33.559 --> 00:21:37.019 voted for ramping up the drug war and um most 00:21:37.019 --> 00:21:40.980 democrats voted for it and actually i think maybe 00:21:40.980 --> 00:21:42.940 it might have had stronger support among democrats 00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:44.920 than republicans so like the people who were 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:48.740 concerned about helping the minorities were more 00:21:48.740 --> 00:21:52.200 like they were in favor of the drug war because 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:55.880 like oddly enough the drug war was supposed to 00:21:55.880 --> 00:21:58.799 help things it wasn't supposed to just cause 00:21:58.799 --> 00:22:02.059 harm it was supposed to stop drug use yeah so 00:22:02.059 --> 00:22:06.240 it's like this post uh like after it happens 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.680 you look at it retroactively and you create the 00:22:08.680 --> 00:22:10.920 narrative because clearly it caused damage to 00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:12.640 the black communities that must have been the 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:16.660 intent yeah but you know like well actually it's 00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:19.559 not uncommon for government policies to produce 00:22:19.559 --> 00:22:22.420 the opposite of their intended effect or to just 00:22:22.420 --> 00:22:24.420 fail to do what they're supposed to do and to 00:22:24.420 --> 00:22:26.759 have some other negative consequences that's 00:22:26.759 --> 00:22:30.240 actually really common so actually if the government 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:32.779 is hurting the black community it's actually 00:22:32.779 --> 00:22:36.279 quite likely that they're trying to help. Very 00:22:36.279 --> 00:22:40.460 often their help is more harmful. Yeah, and if 00:22:40.460 --> 00:22:42.200 they were trying to hurt them, they might inadvertently 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:45.180 help them. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, maybe we 00:22:45.180 --> 00:22:50.380 should elect more racists. You know, incompetent 00:22:50.380 --> 00:22:55.259 racists. So I guess, yeah, this comes to a larger 00:22:55.259 --> 00:22:56.920 point that you talk about in the book, which 00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:00.559 is all around the systemic racism. And you talk 00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.920 about, the racist police shootings, the drugs, 00:23:04.140 --> 00:23:06.099 the implicit bias, and the stereotype threat. 00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:09.980 And the racist police shootings, you bring up 00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:13.259 a bunch of data about how cops maybe aren't actually 00:23:13.259 --> 00:23:16.279 as racist as we think. What is that about? Yeah. 00:23:16.380 --> 00:23:20.420 Well, okay, so what people say is black people 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:23.720 are only about an eighth of the population of 00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:26.140 America, and they're about a quarter of the police 00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:28.359 shooting victims or just police killing victims. 00:23:29.460 --> 00:23:31.890 Okay, so... they're disproportionately likely 00:23:31.890 --> 00:23:33.869 to be killed by police. Oh, it must be racism. 00:23:34.069 --> 00:23:37.410 Okay. Here's another really even more shocking 00:23:37.410 --> 00:23:40.809 disproportion, which is that men are about half 00:23:40.809 --> 00:23:45.029 of the population, but they're about 95 .5 % 00:23:45.029 --> 00:23:48.089 of the police homicide victims. So, oh my God, 00:23:48.250 --> 00:23:51.410 the police are like incredibly sexist. So, you 00:23:51.410 --> 00:23:53.509 know, like you heard that, well, if you're black, 00:23:53.569 --> 00:23:56.450 you're like twice as likely to be shot as a member 00:23:56.450 --> 00:23:58.630 of the general population. But if you're a male, 00:23:58.710 --> 00:24:01.609 you're like, 21 times more likely to be shot 00:24:01.609 --> 00:24:03.150 or something like that as a member of the general 00:24:03.150 --> 00:24:06.509 population so it's just an insane level of sexism 00:24:06.509 --> 00:24:12.250 or it could be that more males engage in aggressive 00:24:12.250 --> 00:24:16.930 behavior towards the police and like they're 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:19.529 more likely to attack the police or something 00:24:19.529 --> 00:24:22.369 like that how could we verify this well okay 00:24:22.369 --> 00:24:24.549 it turns out that something like 90 percent of 00:24:24.549 --> 00:24:28.880 murders are committed by men So like that's some 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:30.539 evidence that men are more aggressive than like 00:24:30.539 --> 00:24:34.240 almost all cop killers are men. Okay. So now, 00:24:34.359 --> 00:24:36.900 so if you buy that, so that shows that it's, 00:24:36.900 --> 00:24:39.240 I don't know, it's probably not, or it's not 00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:41.259 necessarily sexism. I can't prove that there 00:24:41.259 --> 00:24:42.940 isn't sexism, but there's no reason to say that. 00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:46.220 Okay. So then by the same token, well, what if 00:24:46.220 --> 00:24:49.839 we look at the homicides, it's a six by race. 00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:51.980 Okay. Well, Black people commit something like 00:24:51.980 --> 00:24:54.619 40 % of the homicides and 43 % of the homicides 00:24:54.619 --> 00:24:57.400 of police officers. It's like 43 % of the cop 00:24:57.400 --> 00:25:01.539 killers are black. So it could be that there's 00:25:01.539 --> 00:25:03.720 more aggressive behavior. That's why there's 00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:05.980 a higher rate of police shootings. I know the, 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:08.259 I can imagine the progressive sitting here being 00:25:08.259 --> 00:25:10.940 like, hearing you give the comparison of the 00:25:10.940 --> 00:25:14.730 male. crime rate or whatever um and saying something 00:25:14.730 --> 00:25:17.849 like let's do the patriarchy humor it's the patriarchy 00:25:17.849 --> 00:25:21.950 um you know it's somehow it's the way the males 00:25:21.950 --> 00:25:24.309 have set up society has actually hurt men and 00:25:24.309 --> 00:25:26.430 makes them more violent or something like this 00:25:26.430 --> 00:25:28.690 and yeah the way that the social norms and all 00:25:28.690 --> 00:25:30.470 this affects everything that yeah they're going 00:25:30.470 --> 00:25:33.150 to end up being disproportionately affected male 00:25:33.150 --> 00:25:34.809 are going to they suffer under the patriarchy 00:25:34.809 --> 00:25:36.490 and in the same way because of systemic racism 00:25:36.490 --> 00:25:39.200 yeah and all the races in the past, black people 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:40.359 are going to suffer. I guess you're going to 00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:42.900 hear something like that in response. Yeah. I 00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:46.539 mean, you know, notice how, okay, so if women 00:25:46.539 --> 00:25:48.680 are disadvantaged relative to men, that's obviously 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:50.980 the patriarchy. But then when men are disadvantaged, 00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:54.859 that's still the patriarchy. Okay. But anyway, 00:25:55.079 --> 00:25:57.980 okay, well, is it that society has taught men 00:25:57.980 --> 00:26:00.240 to be aggressive? I don't know. I mean, like 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:02.279 the original question was just like whether the 00:26:02.279 --> 00:26:04.559 police are biased, okay? So whatever the reason 00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:07.680 is for the greater male aggression, It's not 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:10.000 that the police are biased. It's not their fault. 00:26:10.220 --> 00:26:13.680 But anyway, okay. But is it that society is teaching 00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:15.680 men to be aggressive? Is there any evidence of 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:18.500 that? Like, you know, so, okay, if you had kids, 00:26:18.579 --> 00:26:20.839 like sometimes the kids fight with each other. 00:26:21.799 --> 00:26:25.640 Does any parent say, like, good job, Billy? You 00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.660 know, punch your brother more. More aggression. 00:26:30.599 --> 00:26:32.960 So, you know, you have to say, oh, well, it's 00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:35.160 just like some subtle thing. Like, you know, 00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:37.680 like they see. war movies or something they see 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:39.259 people fighting and that makes it violent video 00:26:39.259 --> 00:26:41.519 games and that has more effect than the parents 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:44.480 telling them not to fight or something okay but 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:49.240 anyway um what's the evidence for it being that 00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:53.119 rather than biology like i'll tell you the evidence 00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:56.319 that is biological number one it's cross -cultural 00:26:56.319 --> 00:27:01.259 number two it's cross species right so like among 00:27:01.259 --> 00:27:04.920 other animal species like sometimes the animals 00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:07.589 will fight with con specifics, and it's almost 00:27:07.589 --> 00:27:10.910 always males fighting other males. And then, 00:27:10.970 --> 00:27:13.529 you know, and in America and worldwide, it's 00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:15.670 something like 80 % of murder victims are men 00:27:15.670 --> 00:27:18.329 and 90 % of the killers are men. So it's murder 00:27:18.329 --> 00:27:20.990 is mostly men killing other men. If there's a 00:27:20.990 --> 00:27:23.450 pattern among humans that looks like what's happening 00:27:23.450 --> 00:27:28.210 among other animal species, it's just crazy to 00:27:28.210 --> 00:27:30.009 say that it's a completely different explanation 00:27:30.009 --> 00:27:33.230 for us, right? You know, except that like, oh, 00:27:33.269 --> 00:27:34.690 we just don't want to admit that we're animals. 00:27:35.210 --> 00:27:37.650 And we have some of the same instincts that our 00:27:37.650 --> 00:27:41.190 evolutionary ancestors had. The next one you 00:27:41.190 --> 00:27:43.329 talked about was implicit bias, which I didn't 00:27:43.329 --> 00:27:46.210 know anything about the IAT test. Can you talk 00:27:46.210 --> 00:27:48.309 to me about the IAT test that was developed? 00:27:49.029 --> 00:27:51.210 Yeah, it's this thing that I guess psychologists 00:27:51.210 --> 00:27:54.210 love called the implicit association test. It's 00:27:54.210 --> 00:28:00.509 supposed to detect implicit attitudes by detecting 00:28:00.509 --> 00:28:03.160 how difficult... it is for you to form certain 00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:06.200 associations so it's like um you're going to 00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:08.759 be shown something on a screen and then you're 00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:10.759 going to have to press you know one of two buttons 00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:13.279 okay and like you're supposed to press a button 00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:16.319 for example you're going to be shown something 00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:17.960 and you're supposed to press a particular button 00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:20.519 if the thing relates to either white people or 00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:23.220 goodness and then a different button if it relates 00:28:23.220 --> 00:28:25.690 to either black people or badness And then they 00:28:25.690 --> 00:28:28.549 time your reactions to see how quickly you can 00:28:28.549 --> 00:28:30.849 do this, which tests how easy it is for you to 00:28:30.849 --> 00:28:32.609 form the association between white people and 00:28:32.609 --> 00:28:34.650 goodness. And then there's another condition 00:28:34.650 --> 00:28:36.730 where you're supposed to associate white people 00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:39.809 with badness. So press the button for white people 00:28:39.809 --> 00:28:43.930 related or bad related. And then it turns out 00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:46.970 that most people find it easier to form the white 00:28:46.970 --> 00:28:48.769 good association than the white bad association. 00:28:49.509 --> 00:28:51.509 So then that's supposed to show that most people 00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:56.519 are racist. So that is an explanation. That's 00:28:56.519 --> 00:28:58.460 like an intuitively plausible explanation for 00:28:58.460 --> 00:29:02.160 the reaction time differences. The reaction time 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:04.039 differences are on the order of 200 milliseconds, 00:29:04.259 --> 00:29:10.339 0 .2 seconds. So that's like, I think, so that's 00:29:10.339 --> 00:29:12.059 too small of a difference for it to be conscious. 00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:17.859 So it's an unconscious difference. So that suggests 00:29:17.859 --> 00:29:20.579 you just have this unconscious bias. It also 00:29:20.579 --> 00:29:23.769 happens even among a lot of people who... have 00:29:23.769 --> 00:29:27.049 explicitly egalitarian beliefs. So the people 00:29:27.049 --> 00:29:28.869 will tell you explicitly they think whites and 00:29:28.869 --> 00:29:30.569 blacks are equal, but they still show a reaction 00:29:30.569 --> 00:29:32.789 time difference. So that's why they think it's 00:29:32.789 --> 00:29:37.150 implicit or unconscious. You can do this test 00:29:37.150 --> 00:29:39.490 for different things. You can just detect different 00:29:39.490 --> 00:29:41.390 associations. And so it turns out that people 00:29:41.390 --> 00:29:45.150 associate women with home and the family and 00:29:45.150 --> 00:29:48.400 men more with work. stuff like that so just like 00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:50.920 stereotypes will be will get confirmed by that 00:29:50.920 --> 00:29:53.079 you know i mean confirming that we have the stereotypes 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:56.539 so then do we all have implicit bias are we all 00:29:56.539 --> 00:29:59.700 secretly racist and sexist yeah well you know 00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:04.839 it's hard to say maybe um but um i mean they've 00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:07.619 had a hard time finding tangible consequences 00:30:07.619 --> 00:30:12.220 of this right so like okay well does it does 00:30:12.220 --> 00:30:16.720 it actually predict Well, it's really hard to 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:19.059 detect discriminatory behavior correlated with 00:30:19.059 --> 00:30:22.980 your IAT scores. You know, one of the interesting 00:30:22.980 --> 00:30:26.319 things is, okay, so, you know, you hear that 00:30:26.319 --> 00:30:28.259 people have generally positive associations with 00:30:28.259 --> 00:30:30.039 white and generally negative associations with 00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:36.019 black or more negative. Okay. The same test shows 00:30:36.019 --> 00:30:37.900 that people have more positive associations with 00:30:37.900 --> 00:30:41.059 women and negative associations with men. So, 00:30:41.119 --> 00:30:43.509 in other words, They have longer reaction times 00:30:43.509 --> 00:30:46.369 when you're supposed to click for male or good 00:30:46.369 --> 00:30:48.990 than when you're supposed to do female or good. 00:30:49.890 --> 00:30:54.309 But you don't hear that reported. It is plausible. 00:30:54.809 --> 00:30:57.009 I know the explanation is intuitively plausible 00:30:57.009 --> 00:31:00.869 that it's because we have unconscious attitudes, 00:31:01.029 --> 00:31:03.250 positive or negative associations. But whether 00:31:03.250 --> 00:31:05.130 that causes any tangible effects, we don't know. 00:31:05.930 --> 00:31:10.390 You can change your IAT score. So as a matter 00:31:10.390 --> 00:31:13.640 of fact, If you give somebody the test and then 00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:16.099 you give the same person the test again, there's 00:31:16.099 --> 00:31:18.319 not that strong of a correlation between their 00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:20.779 scores. So there's something like a 0 .5 correlation, 00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:26.519 which is extremely low considering that it's 00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:31.940 the same test. Usually you give somebody a test 00:31:31.940 --> 00:31:34.539 and you give them the same test, the same person, 00:31:34.579 --> 00:31:36.619 the same test. Usually there's a really strong 00:31:36.619 --> 00:31:38.579 correlation, like 0 .9 or something like that, 00:31:38.599 --> 00:31:41.769 if it's a good test. So, okay, so it suggests 00:31:41.769 --> 00:31:44.150 that it doesn't measure a stable psychological 00:31:44.150 --> 00:31:47.690 trait. But also, like, you can train people to 00:31:47.690 --> 00:31:51.210 change their scores. So, like, you could do things 00:31:51.210 --> 00:31:54.450 like show people, prime people with examples 00:31:54.450 --> 00:31:57.490 of, like, admired black people, right? And then, 00:31:57.509 --> 00:31:59.289 like, that will improve their IET scores and, 00:31:59.329 --> 00:32:00.930 like, make it easier for them to form the association 00:32:00.930 --> 00:32:04.930 between black people and goodness. But so what? 00:32:05.069 --> 00:32:07.430 There's no evidence that that causes any tangible 00:32:07.430 --> 00:32:09.910 benefit. You just change your reaction times 00:32:09.910 --> 00:32:13.990 by 200 milliseconds, but there's no evidence 00:32:13.990 --> 00:32:15.509 that there's a change in actual discriminatory 00:32:15.509 --> 00:32:20.809 behavior. We have the gender pay gap, which you 00:32:20.809 --> 00:32:24.750 kind of covered. What is that about? Why is it 00:32:24.750 --> 00:32:30.069 not how people think it is? It used to be said, 00:32:30.190 --> 00:32:32.910 this was decades ago, it was said that women 00:32:32.910 --> 00:32:35.289 earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned. 00:32:35.390 --> 00:32:37.289 This was, I think, in the 1960s or something. 00:32:37.960 --> 00:32:40.079 And then the number has gone up from there, you 00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:44.500 know, like 70 cents or 74 cents. The latest is 00:32:44.500 --> 00:32:47.319 it's gone up to 82 cents. And then you're supposed 00:32:47.319 --> 00:32:50.559 to think, I take it, that this is because male 00:32:50.559 --> 00:32:53.119 employers are just like assholes who don't like 00:32:53.119 --> 00:32:56.279 women. You just underpay the women. And now if 00:32:56.279 --> 00:32:58.160 you know any economics, you should be at least 00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.920 a little bit suspicious because if there were 00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:03.940 some employers who were doing that and then there 00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:07.720 are other employers who pay people fairly, The 00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:09.460 second group would out -compete the first in 00:33:09.460 --> 00:33:12.359 the marketplace. Or they don't have to pay people 00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:15.460 fairly. There's this employer who's paying 82 00:33:15.460 --> 00:33:17.799 cents for work that's actually worth a dollar. 00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:20.319 Another employer could come in and pay 92 cents. 00:33:21.099 --> 00:33:23.539 And then they could hire away the female employees. 00:33:23.779 --> 00:33:27.779 They would have lower costs. Leaving the sexist 00:33:27.779 --> 00:33:29.559 employers, they wind up just employing a bunch 00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:34.019 of men for a dollar. And then the less sexist 00:33:34.019 --> 00:33:35.660 employers wind up employing a bunch of women 00:33:35.660 --> 00:33:37.900 for 92 cents and getting the same. work for less 00:33:37.900 --> 00:33:40.539 money so like if you think in economic terms 00:33:40.539 --> 00:33:42.039 it doesn't make sense that this would be happening 00:33:42.039 --> 00:33:44.799 on the systematically but anyway like the evidence 00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:48.200 is just like well if you control for a bunch 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:50.339 of pay relevant characteristics then the pay 00:33:50.339 --> 00:33:53.500 gap goes away right so like the reason for the 00:33:53.500 --> 00:33:56.420 gap like the 18 cent gap is that when men and 00:33:56.420 --> 00:33:57.900 women are doing different work with different 00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:01.279 conditions so if you control for um experience 00:34:01.279 --> 00:34:05.349 hours worked occupation and you know obviously 00:34:05.349 --> 00:34:08.090 relevant characteristics then the gap um virtually 00:34:08.090 --> 00:34:11.750 disappears then it goes to 99 cents on the dollar 00:34:11.750 --> 00:34:14.070 or something like that yeah so and like different 00:34:14.070 --> 00:34:16.809 sources give what whatever 97 cents 99 cents 00:34:16.809 --> 00:34:19.170 or something like that yeah and at that point 00:34:19.170 --> 00:34:21.929 the difference is small enough where it's like 00:34:21.929 --> 00:34:25.570 is is this really racism yeah or sexism yeah 00:34:25.570 --> 00:34:28.469 i mean you know if you're if you're at a one 00:34:28.469 --> 00:34:31.690 cent difference that could just be random um 00:34:31.690 --> 00:34:33.969 the other thing is it could be other pay -relevant 00:34:33.969 --> 00:34:35.949 characteristics that you didn't control for. 00:34:36.010 --> 00:34:38.230 Because who's to say how many things there are? 00:34:38.289 --> 00:34:39.530 There are many things that could be relevant 00:34:39.530 --> 00:34:42.650 to your pay. And then you brought up just a few 00:34:42.650 --> 00:34:44.989 more factors. I think you also brought up in 00:34:44.989 --> 00:34:47.570 the book things like being able to work overtime, 00:34:47.789 --> 00:34:51.210 moving for your job. I guess things like that, 00:34:51.250 --> 00:34:53.250 things that men are just more likely to do more 00:34:53.250 --> 00:34:54.929 often than not. Because women don't necessarily 00:34:54.929 --> 00:34:56.050 want to do it. They might want to start a family 00:34:56.050 --> 00:34:58.989 or they may not be interested necessarily in 00:34:58.989 --> 00:35:01.809 grinding a 60 -hour work week necessarily. They 00:35:01.809 --> 00:35:03.389 might want a better work -life balance, right? 00:35:03.510 --> 00:35:07.210 Yeah. So the main reason for the pay gap is probably 00:35:07.210 --> 00:35:10.010 that men prioritize monetary income more than 00:35:10.010 --> 00:35:14.309 women do. And I phrase it that way intentionally 00:35:14.309 --> 00:35:19.289 because there are different values in life. then 00:35:19.289 --> 00:35:21.250 money is not the only thing that matters and 00:35:21.250 --> 00:35:23.710 maximizing your money income is not necessarily 00:35:23.710 --> 00:35:26.670 the way to maximize your well -being all right 00:35:26.670 --> 00:35:28.949 so like men have a higher priority for money 00:35:28.949 --> 00:35:33.010 as compared with other values so like um where 00:35:33.010 --> 00:35:35.690 you want to live right so like a man is more 00:35:35.690 --> 00:35:37.849 likely to move for the company company wants 00:35:37.849 --> 00:35:39.650 you to move somewhere he's okay and it's a less 00:35:39.650 --> 00:35:41.409 desirable place to live but they'd be like okay 00:35:41.409 --> 00:35:43.849 because they're going to pay me more all right 00:35:43.849 --> 00:35:45.750 and now uh and that does not mean that men are 00:35:45.750 --> 00:35:48.630 overall better off Like they're better off with 00:35:48.630 --> 00:35:50.170 respect to money, but that means they're worse 00:35:50.170 --> 00:35:52.110 off with respect to these other things. Yep. 00:35:52.210 --> 00:35:55.289 And even if taken like an evolutionary psychology 00:35:55.289 --> 00:35:58.429 lens on why are men doing this, it's like historically 00:35:58.429 --> 00:36:02.170 in dating for men, having more resources has 00:36:02.170 --> 00:36:04.349 always been more beneficial. So they're willing 00:36:04.349 --> 00:36:06.110 to make more sacrifice so that they have a more 00:36:06.110 --> 00:36:10.190 successful life of relationships. Yeah. So, you 00:36:10.190 --> 00:36:12.349 know, part of it might be they're trying to impress 00:36:12.349 --> 00:36:14.710 women, basically. Yeah. They might be explicitly. 00:36:15.690 --> 00:36:18.949 thinking that actually or they might just not 00:36:18.949 --> 00:36:20.630 really be thinking that explicitly but that might 00:36:20.630 --> 00:36:22.590 be part of the explanation of why they feel like 00:36:22.590 --> 00:36:25.090 they like money so much yeah they don't know 00:36:25.090 --> 00:36:26.969 why they like it but they just feel like they 00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:29.190 want more money yeah like i get more money and 00:36:29.190 --> 00:36:32.630 it seems that some stuff goes better yeah you 00:36:32.630 --> 00:36:35.809 know these evolutionary explanations i feel like 00:36:35.809 --> 00:36:38.409 we have to tell this for people who don't think 00:36:38.409 --> 00:36:40.469 about evolutionary psychology like the evolutionary 00:36:40.469 --> 00:36:44.179 explanations are Like they don't presuppose that 00:36:44.179 --> 00:36:46.559 people are thinking about what will maximize 00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:49.179 their reproductive success. Usually it's that 00:36:49.179 --> 00:36:51.280 you have certain feelings and you don't know 00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:53.360 why you have those feelings, but you act on them 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:57.500 anyway. That happens to all of us. And the reason 00:36:57.500 --> 00:37:00.019 you have those feelings is that in the past, 00:37:00.099 --> 00:37:02.420 people who had feelings like that tended to reproduce 00:37:02.420 --> 00:37:06.340 more. So people who are like really... um really 00:37:06.340 --> 00:37:08.719 like climbing the social status hierarchy tended 00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:10.960 to reproduce more in our evolutionary past and 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:12.800 so now you just feel like doing the things that 00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:14.239 are going to increase your social status and 00:37:14.239 --> 00:37:16.739 you don't know why but yeah and there seems to 00:37:16.739 --> 00:37:20.500 be this sense of admitting the the game behind 00:37:20.500 --> 00:37:23.280 the game actually detracts from you winning the 00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:25.139 game like if there's if you're trying to gain 00:37:25.139 --> 00:37:26.679 status and you tell everyone you're trying to 00:37:26.679 --> 00:37:29.960 gain status you're not going to gain any status 00:37:29.960 --> 00:37:32.059 you're actually going to go down yeah same thing 00:37:32.059 --> 00:37:35.000 with like uh the with reproductive success right 00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:37.679 it's like oh i'm doing this so i can get more 00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:40.599 dates like that's essentially going to lower 00:37:40.599 --> 00:37:43.480 you in the hierarchy yeah if you tell right yeah 00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:45.320 you put on your dating profile i'm trying to 00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:52.380 maximize my reproductive yeah it's like there's 00:37:52.380 --> 00:37:54.860 a an incentive for the human brain to put these 00:37:54.860 --> 00:37:57.619 away and ignore the fact that we have these motivations 00:37:57.619 --> 00:38:00.940 because they would in fact be detrimental to 00:38:00.940 --> 00:38:03.750 our success and therefore You're going to hide 00:38:03.750 --> 00:38:05.969 them away, abstract them away behind more pure 00:38:05.969 --> 00:38:09.309 motivations. And by the way, just in case people 00:38:09.309 --> 00:38:11.710 are wondering, oh, well, why would this be for 00:38:11.710 --> 00:38:15.230 men more than for women? Don't women want to 00:38:15.230 --> 00:38:17.889 claim the status hierarchy also? Well, okay, 00:38:18.030 --> 00:38:21.070 so this is just like an empirical fact. We have 00:38:21.070 --> 00:38:23.329 more female ancestors than male ancestors, like 00:38:23.329 --> 00:38:29.070 a lot more, which means in our evolutionary past, 00:38:29.190 --> 00:38:31.590 most women reproduced and most men did not reproduce 00:38:31.590 --> 00:38:35.780 at all. They were genetic dead ends, which means 00:38:35.780 --> 00:38:37.500 there's more competition. Like the way this is 00:38:37.500 --> 00:38:39.800 possible is that most societies have practiced 00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:42.420 polygyny. So like a man could have multiple wives. 00:38:42.820 --> 00:38:45.679 And that means that there had to be a bunch of 00:38:45.679 --> 00:38:48.219 men who got no wives at all. And so that means 00:38:48.219 --> 00:38:50.880 that you have to climb the status hierarchy because 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:54.019 it's the high status people who get to have the 00:38:54.019 --> 00:38:55.579 multiple wives and the low status people who 00:38:55.579 --> 00:38:58.880 get to have zero. But the same logic doesn't 00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:00.559 apply to women. Women would get to reproduce 00:39:00.559 --> 00:39:04.440 regardless. right because like whatever you know 00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:06.139 the high status men would be happy to reproduce 00:39:06.139 --> 00:39:08.840 with a low status woman it's just like yeah yeah 00:39:08.840 --> 00:39:12.659 one of my favorite things in regards to this 00:39:12.659 --> 00:39:15.980 is there's a lot of maybe younger men online 00:39:15.980 --> 00:39:19.579 who have this idea that oh the past was way better 00:39:19.579 --> 00:39:22.639 i should just go back to when men were men and 00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:25.340 then it's like if you were actually existed back 00:39:25.340 --> 00:39:28.340 then In the state that you exist now, you'd be 00:39:28.340 --> 00:39:30.280 at the bottom of the status hierarchy. You would 00:39:30.280 --> 00:39:33.480 have a way worse time than if you existed right 00:39:33.480 --> 00:39:36.039 now as you do right now. Yeah, I mean, in fact, 00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:39.019 like, well, you'd have a much better chance of 00:39:39.019 --> 00:39:42.139 being dead because, you know, it was very common 00:39:42.139 --> 00:39:44.139 for primitive tribes to fight with each other. 00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:46.880 And, you know, like the men of one tribe would 00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:48.460 get together and go and attack another tribe 00:39:48.460 --> 00:39:51.659 just because it's another tribe. And they would 00:39:51.659 --> 00:39:54.940 go and attempt to kill the men. in that tribe 00:39:54.940 --> 00:39:56.739 so then they could kidnap the women and take 00:39:56.739 --> 00:40:00.440 them back to their tribe which is horrible but 00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:02.679 you know don't get mad at me for saying that 00:40:02.679 --> 00:40:05.599 i'm not doing it i'm not advocating it i'm just 00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:08.699 like reporting the facts anyway that's what happened 00:40:08.699 --> 00:40:11.820 and so that's why the past was horrible right 00:40:11.820 --> 00:40:14.059 and you know this was not fun for the women because 00:40:14.059 --> 00:40:17.579 the women would be like coerced brides but it's 00:40:17.579 --> 00:40:24.579 less fun for the men because like the you know 00:40:24.579 --> 00:40:26.659 going back many years like i didn't understand 00:40:26.659 --> 00:40:29.000 why war was so common in human history because 00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:31.420 it seems irrational because like you go to war 00:40:31.420 --> 00:40:33.659 you have a high chance of dying you know okay 00:40:33.659 --> 00:40:35.579 maybe you can capture some territory but like 00:40:35.579 --> 00:40:37.079 so many of your people die and so many of the 00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:39.300 other people die like why are they fighting um 00:40:39.300 --> 00:40:41.900 and uh this is the explanation right in evolutionary 00:40:41.900 --> 00:40:45.539 terms right so say so first of all most men would 00:40:45.539 --> 00:40:48.159 have uh zero offspring in the ordinary course 00:40:48.159 --> 00:40:50.400 of events which means in evolutionary terms you 00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:53.219 have nothing to lose so and if you go and attack 00:40:53.949 --> 00:40:56.769 a neighboring tribe if you get killed say there's 00:40:56.769 --> 00:40:58.929 a 50 chance you get killed your reproductive 00:40:58.929 --> 00:41:02.150 success is zero but it was already zero and if 00:41:02.150 --> 00:41:03.889 there's a 50 chance that you go and you capture 00:41:03.889 --> 00:41:07.690 two wives then your reproductive success um goes 00:41:07.690 --> 00:41:10.610 up yeah yeah so it's worth it yeah or even if 00:41:10.610 --> 00:41:13.630 you come back as a war hero yeah reproductive 00:41:13.630 --> 00:41:16.070 success probably goes up as well yeah yeah yeah 00:41:16.070 --> 00:41:19.989 and so you know like uh it's the the ugly truth 00:41:19.989 --> 00:41:25.449 about uh human society and nature. Moving on 00:41:25.449 --> 00:41:27.610 to more possibly ugly things. You also talked 00:41:27.610 --> 00:41:31.269 about another shocking myth about the, like the 00:41:31.269 --> 00:41:33.889 sexual assault rates on college campuses and 00:41:33.889 --> 00:41:37.190 how they're kind of misleading and like vastly 00:41:37.190 --> 00:41:39.010 kind of maybe over -reported. Can you talk to 00:41:39.010 --> 00:41:40.469 us more about that one? Because I found it kind 00:41:40.469 --> 00:41:43.469 of shocking just because when you go to a college 00:41:43.469 --> 00:41:44.849 campus, like the first thing you do is you go 00:41:44.849 --> 00:41:47.150 through like a, like a sexual assault training 00:41:47.150 --> 00:41:49.670 course or whatever, like an alcohol. being safe 00:41:49.670 --> 00:41:51.409 with alcohol kind of thing. And you're often 00:41:51.409 --> 00:41:56.630 told these sort of statistics. Yeah, well, it's 00:41:56.630 --> 00:42:00.710 common to hear that a quarter of women get raped 00:42:00.710 --> 00:42:02.530 in college. If you go to college, you have a 00:42:02.530 --> 00:42:05.369 quarter probability of being raped. And if you 00:42:05.369 --> 00:42:07.690 believe that, you should not send your kids to 00:42:07.690 --> 00:42:10.349 college. And if you are sending your daughter 00:42:10.349 --> 00:42:13.949 to college, you either don't believe that... 00:42:14.190 --> 00:42:18.750 or you're a terrible parent. Because this implies 00:42:18.750 --> 00:42:23.190 that American college campuses are 10 times more 00:42:23.190 --> 00:42:26.630 dangerous than Detroit, which is the most crime 00:42:26.630 --> 00:42:31.809 -ridden city in America. Okay, but also, that's 00:42:31.809 --> 00:42:35.610 pretty unbelievable. You should at least be on 00:42:35.610 --> 00:42:38.519 its face suspicious of that statistic. Yeah, 00:42:38.559 --> 00:42:40.420 so what happened? You know, there are a bunch 00:42:40.420 --> 00:42:42.079 of things that they did that just sort of like 00:42:42.079 --> 00:42:45.420 to get the statistics up. And they're like, okay, 00:42:45.619 --> 00:42:49.699 there's a slight calculation error where they 00:42:49.699 --> 00:42:52.920 calculate 24 % and it should have been 22%. And 00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:55.559 then there's a thing where like, okay, so they 00:42:55.559 --> 00:42:58.059 surveyed people on like how many of them had 00:42:58.059 --> 00:42:59.559 been sexually assaulted in some time period. 00:42:59.960 --> 00:43:02.860 And then it was like 6 .9 months. And then they 00:43:02.860 --> 00:43:06.320 multiplied it to try to get how many would be 00:43:06.320 --> 00:43:09.679 assaulted within. a complete college career. 00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:12.219 And they assume the college career was five years, 00:43:12.480 --> 00:43:15.280 which makes the number go up. Actually, on average, 00:43:15.380 --> 00:43:17.639 a college career is 4 .33 years. So if you use 00:43:17.639 --> 00:43:20.079 4 .33, then the number goes down. And then there's, 00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:22.320 oh, well, they counted the summer months, but 00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:23.659 you're generally not in class then. It doesn't 00:43:23.659 --> 00:43:25.099 seem like you should count that. So if you subtract 00:43:25.099 --> 00:43:29.340 the summer months, it goes down again. Frequently, 00:43:29.579 --> 00:43:33.840 so they kind of lumped together attempted rape 00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:36.510 with actual rape. And if you distinguish those, 00:43:36.570 --> 00:43:39.250 like the actual rape is a lot lower, or, you 00:43:39.250 --> 00:43:41.170 know, something like half. Okay. And then there's 00:43:41.170 --> 00:43:43.070 this thing where like, you know, they do these 00:43:43.070 --> 00:43:47.750 surveys and they ask you, they ask questions 00:43:47.750 --> 00:43:49.510 about things that could have happened to you. 00:43:50.050 --> 00:43:52.630 And then like the questioner decides whether 00:43:52.630 --> 00:43:55.369 you were raped. But also they ask, would you 00:43:55.369 --> 00:43:57.489 say that you were raped? And like half of the 00:43:57.489 --> 00:44:01.449 people that the survey authors said were raped. 00:44:02.099 --> 00:44:04.780 said that they were not right. Half the time 00:44:04.780 --> 00:44:06.199 the survey respondent thinks you were right, 00:44:06.260 --> 00:44:09.119 but you think you weren't. Okay, so like, okay, 00:44:09.179 --> 00:44:11.119 we take that out, then the number goes down again. 00:44:11.420 --> 00:44:13.079 And so it turns out that when you make a bunch 00:44:13.079 --> 00:44:15.739 of corrections, you know, it's probably like 00:44:15.739 --> 00:44:19.639 5 % or something like that, rather than 25%. 00:44:19.639 --> 00:44:22.579 Which I don't know, is that, would that be out 00:44:22.579 --> 00:44:24.900 of the ordinary, or would that be kind of expected? 00:44:26.699 --> 00:44:28.840 You know, like that, well, out of the ordinary 00:44:28.840 --> 00:44:31.920 compared to what, like, is it? Anywhere else 00:44:31.920 --> 00:44:34.079 other than a college campus. Yeah, I guess a 00:44:34.079 --> 00:44:38.519 normal city. Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay, so, yeah, 00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:41.119 I don't know what the overall rape rates are. 00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:46.000 So that's probably, yeah, it sounds like that's 00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:48.800 high, like compared to not being a college student. 00:44:49.340 --> 00:44:52.099 Now, you know, you might think, well, so that's 00:44:52.099 --> 00:44:54.179 weird. Maybe that's not even true. Oh, another 00:44:54.179 --> 00:44:57.619 thing is, like, different surveys get different 00:44:57.619 --> 00:45:00.659 results so like the people who did the study 00:45:00.659 --> 00:45:03.579 that gave the you know that that the 25 statistic 00:45:03.579 --> 00:45:07.480 is based on they also did a survey with a different 00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:10.340 methodology that got estimates in order of magnitude 00:45:10.340 --> 00:45:14.420 lower and so um okay okay so it's not really 00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:18.440 clear what's going on um but okay but so could 00:45:18.440 --> 00:45:20.199 it be that college campuses are more dangerous 00:45:20.199 --> 00:45:24.840 uh it could be because like maybe there's like 00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:28.340 more drinking And there's more like maybe there's 00:45:28.340 --> 00:45:30.800 more horny guys because they're sort of young 00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:34.179 and they've just gotten they've just gotten freedom 00:45:34.179 --> 00:45:36.820 and whatever. Yeah, I guess I was curious while 00:45:36.820 --> 00:45:38.659 you were researching this topic or kind of looking 00:45:38.659 --> 00:45:42.260 over if there was any information on like where 00:45:42.260 --> 00:45:44.440 the assaults took place, if it was more likely 00:45:44.440 --> 00:45:46.119 than not, like a fraternity household or like 00:45:46.119 --> 00:45:47.860 a social gathering of some kind with alcohol. 00:45:48.159 --> 00:45:51.260 And I would imagine that. I mean, yeah, we were 00:45:51.260 --> 00:45:52.539 kind of in Greek life a little bit, but I would 00:45:52.539 --> 00:45:54.920 imagine the. grief it'd like it'd be pretty bad 00:45:54.920 --> 00:45:58.039 at greek life maybe yeah you know so i don't 00:45:58.039 --> 00:46:02.099 know um see i'm not sure whether that is reported 00:46:02.099 --> 00:46:05.579 or not but if it was i i don't know yeah yeah 00:46:05.579 --> 00:46:09.940 sure but even regardless of whether it's the 00:46:09.940 --> 00:46:12.619 statistics are correct i think a lot of people 00:46:12.619 --> 00:46:15.179 ascribe oh if it's one in four women that are 00:46:15.179 --> 00:46:16.980 raped then it must be one in four men that are 00:46:16.980 --> 00:46:20.900 rapists right and at least what we've seen from 00:46:20.900 --> 00:46:23.860 david bust and his research with why men behave 00:46:23.860 --> 00:46:27.739 badly. It's like the offenders are the ones that 00:46:27.739 --> 00:46:30.000 are very likely to be repeat offenders. Yes. 00:46:30.059 --> 00:46:34.000 And there's very few minority that actually commit 00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.380 most of the rapes versus it being just one man 00:46:37.380 --> 00:46:39.619 for every woman. Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah. 00:46:39.659 --> 00:46:42.340 So in fact, this is why they recognize even by, 00:46:42.380 --> 00:46:44.860 you know, progressive people or like, you know, 00:46:44.860 --> 00:46:46.179 the progressive people who are giving education 00:46:46.179 --> 00:46:49.039 about sexual assault. I think they widely know 00:46:49.039 --> 00:46:51.920 this. It's mostly that there's a small number 00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:54.000 of repeat offenders rather than a large number 00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:56.400 of offenders. Sometimes you hear people say, 00:46:56.559 --> 00:46:59.699 or I've heard people say, oh, there's all these 00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:03.280 women who've been sexually harassed or sexually 00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:04.880 assaulted, but there's all these men who say 00:47:04.880 --> 00:47:07.719 that they don't know any harassers or assaulters. 00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:11.239 Actually, that's not that strange because there 00:47:11.239 --> 00:47:14.079 aren't that many. It's just that they're repeat 00:47:14.079 --> 00:47:16.460 offending. Plus, of course, the ones who are 00:47:16.460 --> 00:47:18.699 doing it are not telling other people about it. 00:47:20.579 --> 00:47:23.559 Is it also true that you're more likely to be 00:47:23.559 --> 00:47:26.159 assaulted by someone you know, or is that not 00:47:26.159 --> 00:47:30.780 actually something that had been told? I'm not 00:47:30.780 --> 00:47:34.420 sure, but that does sound plausible. Okay, because 00:47:34.420 --> 00:47:36.400 now I'm trying to imagine putting that together 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:38.019 with what you guys were talking about. It's also 00:47:38.019 --> 00:47:42.260 usually a repeat offender. Yeah, and I think 00:47:42.260 --> 00:47:44.579 with this whole narrative, there also goes an 00:47:44.579 --> 00:47:48.900 idea that that you have like this incel movement 00:47:48.900 --> 00:47:52.039 you have all these people who are very antisocial 00:47:52.039 --> 00:47:54.039 or or just don't really talk to people interact 00:47:54.039 --> 00:47:56.119 with people and they're the rapists but we also 00:47:56.119 --> 00:47:58.340 see that the people most likely to be rapists 00:47:58.340 --> 00:48:00.539 are people who are generally very charismatic 00:48:00.539 --> 00:48:03.099 around a lot of people are probably attractive 00:48:03.099 --> 00:48:05.480 and actually generally have a lot of success 00:48:05.480 --> 00:48:08.599 in dating and then they also go ahead and take 00:48:08.599 --> 00:48:12.940 more than is consented to and so yeah so yeah 00:48:12.940 --> 00:48:16.050 like just as a side point like the People who 00:48:16.050 --> 00:48:18.369 are socially awkward are not the people you should 00:48:18.369 --> 00:48:23.250 be most worried about. The incels are usually 00:48:23.250 --> 00:48:25.429 awkward people who don't know how to interact 00:48:25.429 --> 00:48:28.409 with women or people in general. And the people 00:48:28.409 --> 00:48:30.469 you should be worried about are psychopaths and 00:48:30.469 --> 00:48:33.030 people with antisocial personality traits in 00:48:33.030 --> 00:48:35.449 general. And those people are usually actually 00:48:35.449 --> 00:48:39.329 charming. They appear charming at first before 00:48:39.329 --> 00:48:43.650 you know what they're actually like. Ted Bundy 00:48:43.650 --> 00:48:48.889 is a very charming man. It's disturbing how he's 00:48:48.889 --> 00:48:50.889 very good looking and he just comes across very 00:48:50.889 --> 00:48:55.170 well if you watch an interview with him. Part 00:48:55.170 --> 00:48:58.969 of the effect of this is you have a lot of shy 00:48:58.969 --> 00:49:02.969 men who are getting more and more scared of getting 00:49:02.969 --> 00:49:05.610 sexual assault accusations so they're unwilling 00:49:05.610 --> 00:49:09.320 to go outside and go talk to a woman. You all 00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:11.500 have on the other side women being like, oh, 00:49:11.539 --> 00:49:13.179 why does nobody talk to me anymore? Why am I 00:49:13.179 --> 00:49:17.699 not getting approached? And the people who need 00:49:17.699 --> 00:49:21.800 the message of don't assault women are the ones 00:49:21.800 --> 00:49:24.400 who are least likely to take that message and 00:49:24.400 --> 00:49:26.019 run with it. And the people who are least likely 00:49:26.019 --> 00:49:28.219 to assault women are the ones who are like, okay, 00:49:28.260 --> 00:49:30.940 I'm going to back away all the way and not do 00:49:30.940 --> 00:49:33.000 anything that would ever offend a woman. No, 00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:35.400 that's probably right. I suspect it's partly 00:49:35.400 --> 00:49:39.219 rationalization. The people who are having a 00:49:39.219 --> 00:49:41.300 hard time talking to women in the first place, 00:49:41.579 --> 00:49:45.139 then they hear bad things that could happen and 00:49:45.139 --> 00:49:46.480 they just sort of blow it out of proportion. 00:49:46.880 --> 00:49:49.780 Because it's really not likely that you're going 00:49:49.780 --> 00:49:51.619 to be accused of sexual harassment if you're 00:49:51.619 --> 00:49:55.280 just a normal person. If you're talking in a 00:49:55.280 --> 00:49:58.679 normal way or even in an awkward way. That's 00:49:58.679 --> 00:50:02.820 not what they call harassment. But it's probably 00:50:02.820 --> 00:50:05.199 like, well, these guys are over -perceiving the 00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:08.460 risk. because that's just like a psychological 00:50:08.460 --> 00:50:11.179 trait that people have. Yeah, they pay a lot 00:50:11.179 --> 00:50:12.820 of attention to what everyone thinks about them, 00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:14.860 and that might be why they're all so awkward. 00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:18.480 Yeah, they over -perceive, right? Just for the 00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:22.619 awkward people out there. If you're worried about 00:50:22.619 --> 00:50:24.880 what other people are thinking about you, they're 00:50:24.880 --> 00:50:27.679 probably not. They're not thinking about you. 00:50:28.179 --> 00:50:31.059 If you said something embarrassing and you're 00:50:31.059 --> 00:50:33.460 thinking about it, probably nobody else is thinking 00:50:33.460 --> 00:50:35.800 about it. They might have slightly noticed it 00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:37.599 and then they forgot about it in five minutes. 00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:41.199 Okay. So anyway, that's just as a side point, 00:50:41.300 --> 00:50:46.260 side beneficial point for Bruce. The next point 00:50:46.260 --> 00:50:48.219 that you talked about was that women don't lie, 00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:50.659 which you had a lot of quotes in there at the 00:50:50.659 --> 00:50:52.579 beginning. I found one of them quite humorous, 00:50:52.579 --> 00:50:55.199 which was Joe Biden at the Kavanaugh hearing. 00:50:55.480 --> 00:50:58.289 And he's saying, oh, yeah. I've been saying, 00:50:58.309 --> 00:51:00.530 believe all women if they come up and have a 00:51:00.530 --> 00:51:03.210 claim. And then it's him at his own accusation. 00:51:03.230 --> 00:51:05.829 He's like, I've always said that you should take 00:51:05.829 --> 00:51:07.730 it seriously, but you should verify it. You should 00:51:07.730 --> 00:51:09.849 look into it. And he's like switching his stance 00:51:09.849 --> 00:51:12.170 around, which I thought was funny. Yeah, yeah. 00:51:12.289 --> 00:51:15.530 Yeah, it was a, you know, so the left -wing people 00:51:15.530 --> 00:51:17.969 faced a dilemma when Joe Biden was running for 00:51:17.969 --> 00:51:21.150 office because... was this Tara Reid, I think, 00:51:21.150 --> 00:51:24.590 came forward with a sexual assault accusation 00:51:24.590 --> 00:51:27.869 against him. And, okay, and like the Democrats 00:51:27.869 --> 00:51:29.329 have been saying, you should believe women, you 00:51:29.329 --> 00:51:31.070 should believe all women, whatever. But now they're 00:51:31.070 --> 00:51:33.429 favorite candidates. So now what are they going 00:51:33.429 --> 00:51:35.929 to do? And like, and some of them were just like, 00:51:36.030 --> 00:51:39.409 yeah, no, believe all women. Joe Biden is an 00:51:39.409 --> 00:51:41.670 asshole. But then some of them were like, well. 00:51:42.349 --> 00:51:46.090 We didn't mean literally believe all. We just 00:51:46.090 --> 00:51:48.230 meant take it seriously. Don't automatically 00:51:48.230 --> 00:51:52.869 disbelieve them. Okay. So, okay. But anyway, 00:51:52.949 --> 00:51:54.989 I don't know what happened. I don't know what 00:51:54.989 --> 00:51:56.269 happened with Joe Biden. I don't know what happened 00:51:56.269 --> 00:52:00.250 with Brett Kavanaugh. Never. But you can't decide 00:52:00.250 --> 00:52:03.769 whom to believe. Like there's a disagreement 00:52:03.769 --> 00:52:06.070 or like, you know, one person says X happened, 00:52:06.150 --> 00:52:08.719 another person denies it. you can't figure out 00:52:08.719 --> 00:52:10.679 what happened just by looking at the genders 00:52:10.679 --> 00:52:14.199 of the two people. There is not a gender that 00:52:14.199 --> 00:52:17.380 always tells the truth or that always lies. And 00:52:17.380 --> 00:52:22.159 the possibility of somebody lying about rape 00:52:22.159 --> 00:52:26.280 or sexual assault or something like that, it's 00:52:26.280 --> 00:52:29.119 not that outlandish. It's not obviously more 00:52:29.119 --> 00:52:31.159 outlandish than the possibility of somebody committing 00:52:31.159 --> 00:52:35.190 those crimes. Both of those are deviant behavior. 00:52:35.429 --> 00:52:37.690 It's highly deviant behavior to attack a woman, 00:52:37.730 --> 00:52:39.389 but it's also highly deviant behavior to report 00:52:39.389 --> 00:52:41.050 that you were attacked when you weren't. It's 00:52:41.050 --> 00:52:43.409 not obvious that one of those is more deviant 00:52:43.409 --> 00:52:47.190 and therefore would be less likely to happen. 00:52:47.650 --> 00:52:51.389 Yeah, and if there were a progressive right here, 00:52:51.429 --> 00:52:54.070 I would imagine they would say that, well, why 00:52:54.070 --> 00:52:55.969 would a woman put themselves through all the 00:52:55.969 --> 00:52:59.929 pain and toil of having to... deal with telling 00:52:59.929 --> 00:53:01.710 their story and getting all this media attention 00:53:01.710 --> 00:53:05.530 and just, like, the perceptions of the people 00:53:05.530 --> 00:53:07.329 around them? Why would they even go through that 00:53:07.329 --> 00:53:11.369 and lie about it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, so, 00:53:11.510 --> 00:53:14.329 well, it happens that we know some things about 00:53:14.329 --> 00:53:17.409 this because we know of some cases of false rape 00:53:17.409 --> 00:53:19.909 accusations, okay? So there's a study by Eugene 00:53:19.909 --> 00:53:22.210 Kanin, which the progressives don't like, but 00:53:22.210 --> 00:53:24.710 he found, like, a rate of something like 40 % 00:53:24.710 --> 00:53:30.030 false rape accusations. Right, so... Most of 00:53:30.030 --> 00:53:32.670 the studies find lower numbers than that. But 00:53:32.670 --> 00:53:36.489 anyway, and that paper includes descriptions 00:53:36.489 --> 00:53:42.769 of some of the cases. So here is a fairly typical 00:53:42.769 --> 00:53:45.989 example. There was a woman who was cheating on 00:53:45.989 --> 00:53:48.449 her husband while her husband was away overseas. 00:53:49.469 --> 00:53:51.789 She became concerned that she had become pregnant 00:53:51.789 --> 00:53:55.309 from her lover, and therefore she made up a story 00:53:55.309 --> 00:53:57.460 that she had been raped. in order to cover up 00:53:57.460 --> 00:53:58.739 the infidelity because what are you going to 00:53:58.739 --> 00:54:02.420 say right and so if and if you're surprised that 00:54:02.420 --> 00:54:03.980 that would happen then you haven't met that many 00:54:03.980 --> 00:54:08.239 human beings that's how human beings are and 00:54:08.239 --> 00:54:10.980 so okay uh you know there's another story so 00:54:10.980 --> 00:54:13.519 you know there's like covering up infidelity 00:54:13.519 --> 00:54:15.500 that's that's one explanation just like getting 00:54:15.500 --> 00:54:17.179 out of trouble with other people another explanation 00:54:17.179 --> 00:54:20.679 is revenge right so there is a there was a young 00:54:20.679 --> 00:54:23.210 woman who was living in her mother's house and 00:54:23.210 --> 00:54:25.190 there was a boarder who was renting a room in 00:54:25.190 --> 00:54:27.070 the house and then she was having an affair with 00:54:27.070 --> 00:54:28.769 a boarder when the mother found out about this 00:54:28.769 --> 00:54:31.150 the mother kicked the boarder out okay and while 00:54:31.150 --> 00:54:33.650 he was packing the young woman goes to him and 00:54:33.650 --> 00:54:35.530 says okay just wait for me for an hour and i'll 00:54:35.530 --> 00:54:38.170 join you and then he says something like who 00:54:38.170 --> 00:54:41.670 the hell wants you and so then so he's an asshole 00:54:41.670 --> 00:54:44.349 and so then she gets revenge on him by accusing 00:54:44.349 --> 00:54:46.769 him of rape okay and then you know okay and then 00:54:46.769 --> 00:54:48.989 like you know there's a third story of um so 00:54:48.989 --> 00:54:53.000 a third type of case is trying to get sympathy. 00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:55.480 There's a case of a woman who made up a story 00:54:55.480 --> 00:54:57.139 about being raped by a stranger in a park or 00:54:57.139 --> 00:55:00.559 something in order to just like to tell her friends. 00:55:01.079 --> 00:55:03.400 She wasn't trying to report this to the police, 00:55:03.480 --> 00:55:05.079 okay? She was just like trying to get sympathy 00:55:05.079 --> 00:55:06.960 or something from her friends. But then they 00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:08.539 decided they had to report it to the police. 00:55:08.719 --> 00:55:11.199 And so now what is she going to say? No, I was 00:55:11.199 --> 00:55:14.619 just lying. No, just wanted to say that. So she 00:55:14.619 --> 00:55:18.940 has to like give the police report, right? Yeah, 00:55:18.980 --> 00:55:21.500 and there might even be this idea behind what 00:55:21.500 --> 00:55:24.159 you're talking about gaining sympathy is if all 00:55:24.159 --> 00:55:26.239 the people you know are coming out about a rape 00:55:26.239 --> 00:55:28.960 case, you might just add your own as a way to 00:55:28.960 --> 00:55:32.980 fit into the in -group. It reminds me of, I don't 00:55:32.980 --> 00:55:34.860 know if you've ever read The Status Game by Will 00:55:34.860 --> 00:55:38.800 Storr, but he talks about... this woman who was 00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:41.679 about to give birth to a child and she's kind 00:55:41.679 --> 00:55:43.360 of lost about how to be a mother and she finds 00:55:43.360 --> 00:55:46.500 this online facebook group which is anti -vaccines 00:55:46.500 --> 00:55:49.960 and part of the the status game in that group 00:55:49.960 --> 00:55:52.300 was you would just make more and more radical 00:55:52.300 --> 00:55:54.860 claims that weren't necessarily true to gain 00:55:54.860 --> 00:55:57.639 either sympathy or to gain status points within 00:55:57.639 --> 00:56:00.039 the group and so they would sometimes there'd 00:56:00.039 --> 00:56:02.800 be lies about They're kids having problems because 00:56:02.800 --> 00:56:04.760 of vaccines or, oh, my cousin, this happened 00:56:04.760 --> 00:56:07.039 to him because of the vaccine. And it was just 00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:09.800 this continuous cycle of adding to the fire in 00:56:09.800 --> 00:56:13.000 order to gain standing within the group. Yeah. 00:56:13.099 --> 00:56:15.559 You know, this is a this is a flaw in the human 00:56:15.559 --> 00:56:18.940 psyche, the desire to fit in with the group and 00:56:18.940 --> 00:56:21.519 just like whatever, whatever people in the group 00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:23.000 are talking about, you'd like to try to join 00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:26.280 in. Could you also speak to I think you mentioned 00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:28.579 in the book how not only the idea we might have 00:56:28.579 --> 00:56:30.900 a lot more. false reports, but also there's a 00:56:30.900 --> 00:56:33.280 lot of cases where women who are assaulted do 00:56:33.280 --> 00:56:35.880 not go forward. Is that also somewhat, is that 00:56:35.880 --> 00:56:40.199 true? No, yeah, that's definitely true. So there's, 00:56:40.199 --> 00:56:45.260 like the Justice Department does a survey, the 00:56:45.260 --> 00:56:48.280 National Crime Victimization Survey. Okay, and 00:56:48.280 --> 00:56:51.219 so like they have estimates of the frequency 00:56:51.219 --> 00:56:54.840 of rape. And then most of the people in the survey 00:56:54.840 --> 00:56:57.590 who report having been raped. also say that they 00:56:57.590 --> 00:57:02.809 did not report it to the police. And so, like, 00:57:02.849 --> 00:57:04.429 it's both over -reported and under -reported. 00:57:04.510 --> 00:57:06.369 Over -reported in the sense that people sometimes 00:57:06.369 --> 00:57:07.889 report being raped when they weren't, and it's 00:57:07.889 --> 00:57:09.369 under -reported in the sense that usually if 00:57:09.369 --> 00:57:12.090 you were raped, you don't report it. And so, 00:57:12.130 --> 00:57:14.510 like, that makes, well, that unfortunately makes 00:57:14.510 --> 00:57:17.510 the frequency of true reports lower. And then, 00:57:17.590 --> 00:57:19.349 okay, well, why would that be? Why would you 00:57:19.349 --> 00:57:21.170 not report it? Usually people report crimes, 00:57:21.349 --> 00:57:24.760 I guess. and well you can kind of understand 00:57:24.760 --> 00:57:26.800 because like if you report it then you have to 00:57:26.800 --> 00:57:30.500 relive this incident in front of strangers repeatedly 00:57:30.500 --> 00:57:33.099 so you have to tell the police but the police 00:57:33.099 --> 00:57:35.460 are going to interview you more than once to 00:57:35.460 --> 00:57:37.099 make sure that your story is the same both times 00:57:37.099 --> 00:57:38.840 and then you're going to be interviewed by the 00:57:38.840 --> 00:57:41.420 defendant's lawyer who is going to try to impugn 00:57:41.420 --> 00:57:43.659 your credibility and then you're going so you're 00:57:43.659 --> 00:57:45.480 going to have to do depositions but then you're 00:57:45.480 --> 00:57:47.400 going to have to repeat it in open court and 00:57:47.400 --> 00:57:49.760 like and this is like the most unpleasant thing 00:57:49.760 --> 00:57:53.980 in your life so It's like it's really not in 00:57:53.980 --> 00:57:59.199 your interest. So we talked about the racism 00:57:59.199 --> 00:58:02.280 issue, the sexism issue. Then you talked a little 00:58:02.280 --> 00:58:06.539 bit about the gender issue, which honestly, when 00:58:06.539 --> 00:58:08.440 I read this portion of your book, I didn't find 00:58:08.440 --> 00:58:12.260 it super controversial or non -progressive. Could 00:58:12.260 --> 00:58:14.820 you go over the thoughts in those two chapters? 00:58:14.940 --> 00:58:16.679 Yeah, what's going on with gender? What is gender? 00:58:16.800 --> 00:58:19.900 I keep hearing that people have genders. What 00:58:19.900 --> 00:58:24.179 is a woman? Yeah, what is a woman? Nobody knows. 00:58:26.480 --> 00:58:31.719 Well, apparently, per Matt Walsh, progressives 00:58:31.719 --> 00:58:35.340 can't answer that question. It's super hard for 00:58:35.340 --> 00:58:38.320 trans activists to answer what is a woman. I 00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:40.320 don't think it's that hard. I hadn't thought 00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:43.000 about that much. Okay. But like, well, the progressive 00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:44.780 view is there's a distinction between sex and 00:58:44.780 --> 00:58:47.400 gender. There could be, maybe there are different 00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:50.480 uses of the word woman. So maybe in one of them 00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:54.619 you have to be an adult human being with the 00:58:54.619 --> 00:58:56.780 female biological sex. That could be one use, 00:58:56.840 --> 00:58:59.000 but it could also be, you just have to be an 00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:02.960 adult human being with the feminine gender. So 00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:04.900 that would be like what they would say was, was 00:59:04.900 --> 00:59:06.780 a woman. Okay. Sure. And you're like, okay, but 00:59:06.780 --> 00:59:10.340 yeah, but what is the feminine gender? And actually, 00:59:10.400 --> 00:59:13.659 well, like, most of the progressives don't have 00:59:13.659 --> 00:59:16.619 a very good answer to this because previously, 00:59:16.739 --> 00:59:21.480 before the fad of transgenderism, progressives 00:59:21.480 --> 00:59:25.019 were saying gender is a social construct. Unfortunately, 00:59:25.119 --> 00:59:28.800 that does not fit with the trans activist ideology 00:59:28.800 --> 00:59:31.760 because, like, if it's a social construct, that 00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:35.960 means your gender is determined by society. so 00:59:35.960 --> 00:59:38.139 that means if you say you're a woman but society 00:59:38.139 --> 00:59:42.239 says you're a man then you're a man okay but 00:59:42.239 --> 00:59:45.500 actually luckily for them they were wrong when 00:59:45.500 --> 00:59:47.099 they said that gender was a social construct 00:59:47.099 --> 00:59:49.059 right and like there's really strong evidence 00:59:49.059 --> 00:59:51.420 for this from well like the phenomenon of transgenderism 00:59:51.420 --> 00:59:54.400 okay so like there are these people in some cases 00:59:54.400 --> 00:59:56.619 there will be people like there'll be kids like 00:59:56.619 --> 00:59:59.559 four years old who start saying that they're 00:59:59.559 --> 01:00:02.469 the other gender like they're biologically male 01:00:02.469 --> 01:00:04.409 but they start saying they think that they're 01:00:04.409 --> 01:00:07.530 girls they try to wear dresses and like they 01:00:07.530 --> 01:00:11.610 just show more girl typical behavior from the 01:00:11.610 --> 01:00:14.829 very beginning of the time when there's sex differentiated 01:00:14.829 --> 01:00:17.590 behavior in children like at least in some cases 01:00:17.590 --> 01:00:22.610 okay so um and then you're like and like it wasn't 01:00:22.610 --> 01:00:25.670 like society didn't tell them to do that so it 01:00:25.670 --> 01:00:28.150 doesn't appear to be a social construct it appears 01:00:28.150 --> 01:00:30.880 that there's something inside of them So it appears 01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:35.280 to be biological. So here's the theory. Well, 01:00:35.480 --> 01:00:39.500 males and females differ for biological reasons 01:00:39.500 --> 01:00:44.659 in many ways, like all over the body. When you 01:00:44.659 --> 01:00:47.280 take out an organ of a body, a male body or a 01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:49.460 female body, there will be at least some slight 01:00:49.460 --> 01:00:53.039 differences in most organs, perhaps including 01:00:53.039 --> 01:00:56.110 the brain. It would be weird if the brain was 01:00:56.110 --> 01:00:57.829 the only thing where there were no male -female 01:00:57.829 --> 01:01:00.289 differences. And actually considering how important 01:01:00.289 --> 01:01:04.250 the brain is for human behavior and how important 01:01:04.250 --> 01:01:05.989 it is for your reproductive success and also 01:01:05.989 --> 01:01:07.789 how different the strategies are for male and 01:01:07.789 --> 01:01:09.730 female reproductive success, it would be totally 01:01:09.730 --> 01:01:12.510 bizarre if there weren't differences in the brain. 01:01:12.650 --> 01:01:14.190 And of course there are differences in the brain 01:01:14.190 --> 01:01:17.269 that are well known among brain scientists. So 01:01:17.269 --> 01:01:20.690 the thought is... Well, it could actually happen. 01:01:20.789 --> 01:01:23.329 Maybe sometimes it happens that you get a male 01:01:23.329 --> 01:01:27.050 -typical brain in a female body, like the rest 01:01:27.050 --> 01:01:29.030 of the body is female -typical, or vice versa. 01:01:29.090 --> 01:01:32.789 Maybe that happens. So some of the differences 01:01:32.789 --> 01:01:37.329 in the brain are going to be adaptations to produce 01:01:37.329 --> 01:01:40.380 psychological... characteristics that are adaptive 01:01:40.380 --> 01:01:42.800 for you know promoting reproductive reproductive 01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:45.960 success for a particular biological sex so those 01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:47.780 psychological traits are what constitute your 01:01:47.780 --> 01:01:51.159 gender okay so like periodically sometime and 01:01:51.159 --> 01:01:54.539 i don't know like physiologically why this happens 01:01:54.539 --> 01:01:56.840 but sometimes like maybe the rest of the body 01:01:56.840 --> 01:01:59.179 develops male but the brain develops in the female 01:01:59.179 --> 01:02:00.739 way and then that person is going to wind up 01:02:00.739 --> 01:02:02.960 having more female typical psychological characteristics 01:02:02.960 --> 01:02:05.360 so then they're going to feel like they're female 01:02:07.059 --> 01:02:10.860 Sure. Yeah. I, and then you have like a lot of 01:02:10.860 --> 01:02:14.320 conservatives are very, they find this very hairy 01:02:14.320 --> 01:02:15.599 and they're afraid. Cause I guess you gave the 01:02:15.599 --> 01:02:17.679 example of the four year old and I guess you've, 01:02:17.679 --> 01:02:19.539 we've seen a lot of like Republican States, they 01:02:19.539 --> 01:02:22.380 try to ban gender affirming care for, for minors 01:02:22.380 --> 01:02:23.940 and stuff like that. I guess I'm not sure what 01:02:23.940 --> 01:02:26.820 your view would be on that on. Yeah. Whether 01:02:26.820 --> 01:02:29.099 they'd like kids that would have access to that 01:02:29.099 --> 01:02:31.840 healthcare or like what, or what I guess, yeah. 01:02:31.860 --> 01:02:33.679 Your thoughts on that discourse in general. Well, 01:02:33.719 --> 01:02:36.809 yes, I don't. i don't know exactly what you should 01:02:36.809 --> 01:02:40.969 do but um let's just say you should be very careful 01:02:40.969 --> 01:02:44.670 about um you know giving cross -sex hormones 01:02:44.670 --> 01:02:47.150 or puberty blockers or any of these things or 01:02:47.150 --> 01:02:51.429 especially surgeries for minors right and the 01:02:51.429 --> 01:02:54.670 reason is well okay look at the dsm right which 01:02:54.670 --> 01:02:57.190 is the standard reference work for psychiatrists 01:02:57.190 --> 01:03:02.010 and so the last edition was in 2013 um i'm you 01:03:02.010 --> 01:03:03.570 know i'm I'm worried that if they were to do 01:03:03.570 --> 01:03:05.570 another edition today, it would be, like, you 01:03:05.570 --> 01:03:07.469 know, politically biased. A bunch of people would 01:03:07.469 --> 01:03:09.469 lobby them to change what it says about gender 01:03:09.469 --> 01:03:13.349 dysphoria. But anyway. Okay, and, you know, so 01:03:13.349 --> 01:03:14.909 it reports that stuff that I was saying, but 01:03:14.909 --> 01:03:17.190 also mentions that most cases of gender dysphoria 01:03:17.190 --> 01:03:20.130 will resolve on their own. So, like, the person 01:03:20.130 --> 01:03:24.090 will come to accept their birth gender. So knowing 01:03:24.090 --> 01:03:27.610 that that's the case, should you try to switch 01:03:27.610 --> 01:03:31.889 the kid? probably not this is like you could 01:03:31.889 --> 01:03:35.510 easily be ruining their life yeah i mean my my 01:03:35.510 --> 01:03:39.369 take on it was always that it doesn't really 01:03:39.369 --> 01:03:43.150 make sense to take a minor who is still going 01:03:43.150 --> 01:03:44.909 through a lot of changes psychologically physically 01:03:44.909 --> 01:03:47.289 mentally all these different kinds of ways and 01:03:47.289 --> 01:03:51.250 and do something so drastic that is pretty difficult 01:03:51.250 --> 01:03:54.989 to reverse which is if someone is of age they 01:03:54.989 --> 01:03:57.599 most likely have the mental capacity to To know 01:03:57.599 --> 01:03:59.260 what they're doing, but a minor doesn't really. 01:03:59.900 --> 01:04:03.659 Yeah, so for adults, well, I'm a libertarian, 01:04:03.760 --> 01:04:08.619 people own themselves, or at least mentally competent 01:04:08.619 --> 01:04:11.139 adults own themselves. They can do whatever they 01:04:11.139 --> 01:04:14.079 want with their body. So even if they're wrong, 01:04:14.280 --> 01:04:16.360 even if they're harming themselves, they can 01:04:16.360 --> 01:04:18.280 do what they want with their body, but minors 01:04:18.280 --> 01:04:20.900 have to be protected by the adults. Yeah, does 01:04:20.900 --> 01:04:22.800 the libertarian viewpoint suggest that it should 01:04:22.800 --> 01:04:24.679 be a conversation between parents, kids, and 01:04:24.679 --> 01:04:27.920 doctors, or should the government step in? Yeah, 01:04:27.920 --> 01:04:29.980 I'm not sure. At minimum, you should have to 01:04:29.980 --> 01:04:35.019 have consent from your parents. But, I mean, 01:04:35.019 --> 01:04:37.280 it might be that they shouldn't be allowed to 01:04:37.280 --> 01:04:41.239 do it even with that. Sort of like, well, the 01:04:41.239 --> 01:04:45.440 government has to kind of decide, like, well, 01:04:45.599 --> 01:04:48.599 do they think they're... It's like weigh the 01:04:48.599 --> 01:04:50.380 costs and benefits, right? Because if parents 01:04:50.380 --> 01:04:52.099 can consent, there could be a lot of cases where 01:04:52.099 --> 01:04:53.340 their parents are just doing the wrong thing. 01:04:53.440 --> 01:04:54.840 You're not allowed to do anything you want to 01:04:54.840 --> 01:04:56.760 your kids, right? And if the government knows 01:04:56.760 --> 01:04:59.300 that the thing that you want to do with your 01:04:59.300 --> 01:05:01.420 kids or consent to be done with your kids is 01:05:01.420 --> 01:05:04.059 harmful, they should stop you from doing it. 01:05:04.360 --> 01:05:07.119 Yeah, it would be as if the parent consented 01:05:07.119 --> 01:05:10.019 to the kid smoking cigarettes, and the kid wanted 01:05:10.019 --> 01:05:11.940 to, and the parents were okay with it, the doctor 01:05:11.940 --> 01:05:13.699 was okay with it. We should probably still step 01:05:13.699 --> 01:05:15.980 in and say this could have caused irreversible 01:05:15.980 --> 01:05:18.179 damage to their lives. We should probably wait 01:05:18.179 --> 01:05:20.360 until they're of consenting age for themselves. 01:05:21.359 --> 01:05:22.900 Or, you know, like, I don't know, to make it 01:05:22.900 --> 01:05:28.039 clearer, your kid wants to try crack. And the 01:05:28.039 --> 01:05:33.920 parent thinks that's great. You know, well, that 01:05:33.920 --> 01:05:35.519 will be considered child abuse. You can't do 01:05:35.519 --> 01:05:38.440 that. So, and the reason why I'm not totally 01:05:38.440 --> 01:05:40.679 sure is like, well, I'm, I don't really know. 01:05:40.780 --> 01:05:42.380 I'm not sure. Like, maybe there are some cases 01:05:42.380 --> 01:05:44.920 where it's just so clear that the person really 01:05:44.920 --> 01:05:47.139 is the other gender that you should switch them. 01:05:47.739 --> 01:05:50.000 And even when people transition, there is some 01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:53.519 rate of people who detransition. And I feel like 01:05:53.519 --> 01:05:55.639 I hear it misreported or I hear people having 01:05:55.639 --> 01:05:58.219 conversations about that and going back and forth. 01:05:58.260 --> 01:06:01.260 What did you find to be like the rate or how 01:06:01.260 --> 01:06:04.519 often people detransition? So I don't know the 01:06:04.519 --> 01:06:07.079 rate of detransition. OK, so, you know, there's 01:06:07.079 --> 01:06:09.059 desistance and detransitioning. So desistance 01:06:09.059 --> 01:06:10.800 is where you say you have gender dysphoria, but 01:06:10.800 --> 01:06:14.500 you later come to accept your gender, you know, 01:06:14.500 --> 01:06:16.300 apparent. You're a parent to the rest of the 01:06:16.300 --> 01:06:19.739 world. Okay. And then there's detransitioning 01:06:19.739 --> 01:06:21.739 is where not only did you say that you felt like 01:06:21.739 --> 01:06:23.880 you were the other gender, but also you actually 01:06:23.880 --> 01:06:26.219 transitioned to living as the other gender. And 01:06:26.219 --> 01:06:29.199 then you later transitioned back. Okay. So that 01:06:29.199 --> 01:06:32.019 is much rarer. I don't know how common, but the 01:06:32.019 --> 01:06:37.079 desistance is perhaps something like 80%. And 01:06:37.079 --> 01:06:40.539 I'm hesitant about that because there's a wide 01:06:40.539 --> 01:06:44.010 range. different estimates reported in the literature. 01:06:44.210 --> 01:06:47.969 But I think 80 % is around the most common. I 01:06:47.969 --> 01:06:49.570 think the reason that there's a wide range is 01:06:49.570 --> 01:06:51.750 that, well, it's a politically controversial 01:06:51.750 --> 01:06:56.250 issue. And so there's a bunch of, I think there's 01:06:56.250 --> 01:06:57.809 a bunch of left -wing people who want the number 01:06:57.809 --> 01:07:00.230 to be lower. And so that's why there's not a 01:07:00.230 --> 01:07:02.789 consensus on it. You talk about the economy. 01:07:03.389 --> 01:07:07.090 You talked about generational wealth, the tax 01:07:07.090 --> 01:07:10.500 burden, and regulation. yeah yeah what's going 01:07:10.500 --> 01:07:12.460 on with generational wealth is everyone who's 01:07:12.460 --> 01:07:15.780 rich just yeah someone who inherited it and it's 01:07:15.780 --> 01:07:18.920 yeah no the legacy yeah so like you know the 01:07:18.920 --> 01:07:24.219 explanation of um the explanation of rich people 01:07:24.219 --> 01:07:26.920 that is comfortable for progressives is oh they 01:07:26.920 --> 01:07:29.179 inherited it somebody a long time ago got lucky 01:07:29.179 --> 01:07:31.019 and got some money and then they just keep passing 01:07:31.019 --> 01:07:32.840 it on and like if your parents have money then 01:07:32.840 --> 01:07:35.599 you just get to be rich without having to do 01:07:35.599 --> 01:07:38.679 anything okay and then like the poor people are 01:07:38.679 --> 01:07:41.320 just unlucky they just didn't get to have a wealthy 01:07:41.320 --> 01:07:47.079 um yeah yeah uh and okay and so like i'm under 01:07:47.079 --> 01:07:49.539 the impression that many left -wing people believe 01:07:49.539 --> 01:07:52.219 that but they have no basis for it they're just 01:07:52.219 --> 01:07:54.239 assuming that that's the case and they've never 01:07:54.239 --> 01:07:57.360 looked at the empirical evidence and in the empirical 01:07:57.360 --> 01:08:01.179 evidence well like most millionaires have received 01:08:01.179 --> 01:08:05.400 no inheritance So it was something like 79 % 01:08:05.400 --> 01:08:07.699 of millionaires in the survey had received zero 01:08:07.699 --> 01:08:10.119 inheritance. And they reported that the way they 01:08:10.119 --> 01:08:14.519 became millionaires was by regular saving over 01:08:14.519 --> 01:08:18.539 many years. Just take something from your paycheck, 01:08:18.619 --> 01:08:20.260 put it into the retirement account every month, 01:08:20.319 --> 01:08:22.020 and do that over and over, and then eventually 01:08:22.020 --> 01:08:24.260 it grows to over a million. What about regulation? 01:08:24.539 --> 01:08:26.920 We need to regulate the economy more. All of 01:08:26.920 --> 01:08:29.920 these companies are taking... advantage of us 01:08:29.920 --> 01:08:33.399 and just maximizing profits and not caring about 01:08:33.399 --> 01:08:37.119 the consumer at all. Well, that's kind of true, 01:08:37.279 --> 01:08:40.260 right? Although, by the way, when people are 01:08:40.260 --> 01:08:41.579 complaining about how greedy these companies 01:08:41.579 --> 01:08:44.039 are, most of the people who are complaining are 01:08:44.039 --> 01:08:47.800 also very greedy. Do you ever turn down a raise? 01:08:49.699 --> 01:08:51.939 And you have two companies that you could work 01:08:51.939 --> 01:08:56.560 for and one of them is paying more money. Do 01:08:56.560 --> 01:08:58.920 you ever say, yeah, but this one is less ethical, 01:08:58.979 --> 01:09:00.920 so I'm not going to take the money? But anyway, 01:09:01.060 --> 01:09:04.859 okay. So true, you could have negative consequences 01:09:04.859 --> 01:09:07.859 for society if there's something that makes money, 01:09:07.939 --> 01:09:11.220 but it also imposes a cost on other people that 01:09:11.220 --> 01:09:13.720 they don't consent to. So the clearest example 01:09:13.720 --> 01:09:15.800 of that is pollution. Okay, you're making a product, 01:09:15.880 --> 01:09:18.220 you're selling it to consumers, and the consumers 01:09:18.220 --> 01:09:20.920 are like, they're enjoying the product. And then 01:09:20.920 --> 01:09:22.239 there's, like, pollution that's going out to 01:09:22.239 --> 01:09:23.699 other people regardless of whether they paid 01:09:23.699 --> 01:09:25.359 for your product, so they didn't choose whether 01:09:25.359 --> 01:09:27.680 to get the pollution or not. Okay. But so, like, 01:09:27.739 --> 01:09:30.960 that is an appropriate time for regulation. I 01:09:30.960 --> 01:09:32.539 mean, like, you know, I think in that case what 01:09:32.539 --> 01:09:34.899 you should really do is try to price it. That 01:09:34.899 --> 01:09:37.000 is, you should try to figure out how much harm 01:09:37.000 --> 01:09:39.140 the pollution is costing and then have a tax 01:09:39.140 --> 01:09:42.020 that's proportional to that. And rather than 01:09:42.020 --> 01:09:44.199 saying, oh, you just can't do it at all, right, 01:09:44.279 --> 01:09:46.000 or having the government decide how much you're 01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:48.689 allowed to do. The reason being that, well, that 01:09:48.689 --> 01:09:50.689 creates the incentive for the company to figure 01:09:50.689 --> 01:09:53.550 out what is the most efficient amount of pollution 01:09:53.550 --> 01:09:56.090 to make. The amount where it's worth it for the 01:09:56.090 --> 01:10:00.210 benefit that it's providing. But, okay, but the 01:10:00.210 --> 01:10:03.470 thing is, like, if you think that companies are 01:10:03.470 --> 01:10:08.149 greedy and selfish, like, well, why would you 01:10:08.149 --> 01:10:10.569 think that government employees are not selfish? 01:10:11.760 --> 01:10:13.699 Like okay, so there might be reason to think 01:10:13.699 --> 01:10:16.000 that businesses are more greedy or like people 01:10:16.000 --> 01:10:17.560 are running businesses are more greedy than the 01:10:17.560 --> 01:10:20.380 average person Because like the reason why they're 01:10:20.380 --> 01:10:21.880 running the business is that they want to make 01:10:21.880 --> 01:10:24.939 a lot of money Okay, right. So and then like 01:10:24.939 --> 01:10:26.640 the people who are in government agencies are 01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:29.500 maybe less greedy on average Because they're 01:10:29.500 --> 01:10:31.640 not in such a lucrative profession Okay, but 01:10:31.640 --> 01:10:33.359 also they're probably like more power hungry 01:10:33.359 --> 01:10:35.560 than average because like that's what the government 01:10:35.560 --> 01:10:39.000 does exerts power over people okay, but also 01:10:40.120 --> 01:10:43.119 Maybe a little known fact, I don't know, commonly 01:10:43.119 --> 01:10:46.720 known but not by leftists. They're a lot of the 01:10:46.720 --> 01:10:49.159 same people, actually. So like government regulatory 01:10:49.159 --> 01:10:51.920 agencies will frequently be staffed by people 01:10:51.920 --> 01:10:55.600 who used to work in the industry that the agency 01:10:55.600 --> 01:10:58.159 is regulating or are going to work in the industry 01:10:58.159 --> 01:11:00.539 after they get done with this stint in the government. 01:11:02.470 --> 01:11:04.489 If that's surprising, well, it shouldn't be too 01:11:04.489 --> 01:11:06.229 surprising because actually those people are 01:11:06.229 --> 01:11:08.430 the experts on the industry. So you have to get 01:11:08.430 --> 01:11:11.270 people who understand this industry. That's like 01:11:11.270 --> 01:11:15.229 the superficially public -spirited rationale, 01:11:15.390 --> 01:11:18.010 but also that can create a conflict of interest. 01:11:18.649 --> 01:11:22.470 So then you should think, given human selfishness 01:11:22.470 --> 01:11:24.710 and given the greed of the corporations, you 01:11:24.710 --> 01:11:26.149 should think that the corporations are going 01:11:26.149 --> 01:11:29.710 to try to turn the regulatory agencies to their 01:11:29.710 --> 01:11:32.930 own economic benefit. uh do you think they're 01:11:32.930 --> 01:11:36.010 doing that of course they are like of course 01:11:36.010 --> 01:11:39.170 they're doing that and who is stopping them well 01:11:39.170 --> 01:11:41.670 like okay and then now what is the plan like 01:11:41.670 --> 01:11:43.430 well we're going to have the consumers going 01:11:43.430 --> 01:11:45.649 in like individual consumers are going to go 01:11:45.649 --> 01:11:48.130 and lobby the agencies no why are they going 01:11:48.130 --> 01:11:49.789 to do that how many times have you done that 01:11:49.789 --> 01:11:52.229 how many times have you gone and like written 01:11:52.229 --> 01:11:54.130 to a government agency and like tried to lobby 01:11:54.130 --> 01:11:56.750 how many lobbyists have you hired in your life 01:11:56.750 --> 01:12:00.470 right and There's a reason why well, it's just 01:12:00.470 --> 01:12:02.409 not in your interest to do that. It's not worth 01:12:02.409 --> 01:12:05.930 it Because like okay, you know say there's a 01:12:05.930 --> 01:12:09.810 regulation that is costing one dollar You know 01:12:09.810 --> 01:12:12.449 for each of a million people and then it gives 01:12:12.449 --> 01:12:14.890 that dollar to one person Okay for the million 01:12:14.890 --> 01:12:17.270 people who are losing a dollar. It's not worth 01:12:17.270 --> 01:12:20.239 it to them to do anything Anything they can do 01:12:20.239 --> 01:12:23.079 to try to stop the regulation, it's not worth 01:12:23.079 --> 01:12:25.260 it. Because you write a letter to your congressman. 01:12:25.319 --> 01:12:26.819 Well, would I spend time writing a letter to 01:12:26.819 --> 01:12:29.960 a congressman for a dollar? No. But for the one 01:12:29.960 --> 01:12:31.520 person who's going to receive the million dollars, 01:12:31.560 --> 01:12:33.920 it is worth it to them to do something to try 01:12:33.920 --> 01:12:37.699 to make this law happen. So that's why there 01:12:37.699 --> 01:12:40.859 are a bunch of laws that are serving the interests 01:12:40.859 --> 01:12:43.579 of big players in the industry. And the main 01:12:43.579 --> 01:12:46.000 way that they do this is by disadvantaging their 01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:48.340 potential competitors. So if you're a big company, 01:12:48.909 --> 01:12:52.130 there will be certain regulations that will disadvantage 01:12:52.130 --> 01:12:55.489 small companies more than they disadvantage big 01:12:55.489 --> 01:12:58.109 companies. And if you're having a hard time competing 01:12:58.109 --> 01:13:00.310 with the small companies because maybe your company 01:13:00.310 --> 01:13:02.789 is less efficient, which might even be because 01:13:02.789 --> 01:13:05.649 it's so large, maybe the best way of competing 01:13:05.649 --> 01:13:07.329 is getting the government to pass some of these 01:13:07.329 --> 01:13:09.869 regulations that are going to be harder on the 01:13:09.869 --> 01:13:13.750 smaller competitors. So then how do we stop these 01:13:13.750 --> 01:13:17.369 businesses from... continuing to be greedy and 01:13:17.369 --> 01:13:20.449 do things that are most likely unethical, while 01:13:20.449 --> 01:13:23.069 also knowing that regulation is largely inefficient 01:13:23.069 --> 01:13:25.689 on these companies. I mean, we should probably 01:13:25.689 --> 01:13:28.470 have a lot less regulation, you know, and maybe 01:13:28.470 --> 01:13:32.069 the laws should be passed by the elected officials 01:13:32.069 --> 01:13:36.050 and not by bureaucrats. So, I mean, what happens 01:13:36.050 --> 01:13:39.189 is the elected officials will pass a law. that 01:13:39.189 --> 01:13:42.170 creates an agency and authorizes the agency to 01:13:42.170 --> 01:13:43.630 sort of, like, fill in the details. Like, it 01:13:43.630 --> 01:13:45.390 tells the agency what they're supposed to do, 01:13:45.470 --> 01:13:47.909 but the agency gets to fill in the details of 01:13:47.909 --> 01:13:50.329 how to do this. And, like, maybe we shouldn't 01:13:50.329 --> 01:13:52.550 have that. It wasn't part of the Constitution, 01:13:52.869 --> 01:13:55.229 right? That there would be regulators who were 01:13:55.229 --> 01:13:58.789 not elected. And so, you know, so, like, I'm 01:13:58.789 --> 01:14:00.850 leaving Rome for there being times when you have 01:14:00.850 --> 01:14:03.520 to have a law to stop some bad behavior. What 01:14:03.520 --> 01:14:08.899 do you think of this whole DOGE department, which 01:14:08.899 --> 01:14:11.600 supposedly is trying to regulate the government, 01:14:11.699 --> 01:14:14.880 and they're businessmen who can't be as easily 01:14:14.880 --> 01:14:16.619 bought, so a lot of people are seeing a lot of 01:14:16.619 --> 01:14:19.199 hope for cracking down on government spending. 01:14:19.600 --> 01:14:20.880 What are your thoughts on that? The Department 01:14:20.880 --> 01:14:24.239 of Government Efficiency. I don't know what's 01:14:24.239 --> 01:14:27.239 going to happen. So we could hope that it's going 01:14:27.239 --> 01:14:29.800 to make the government more efficient. There 01:14:29.800 --> 01:14:32.869 are probably... They're probably wasting a lot 01:14:32.869 --> 01:14:34.229 of money. The government is wasting a lot of 01:14:34.229 --> 01:14:35.770 money. There's probably a bunch of people who 01:14:35.770 --> 01:14:38.369 are on a government salary who just don't need 01:14:38.369 --> 01:14:41.310 to be doing their jobs at all. Their position 01:14:41.310 --> 01:14:44.649 doesn't need to exist. But does that mean that 01:14:44.649 --> 01:14:48.850 Elon Musk will actually get rid of them? I mean, 01:14:48.930 --> 01:14:50.810 he was good at getting rid of people at Twitter, 01:14:50.909 --> 01:14:52.590 but I'm not sure it works the same in the government. 01:14:52.829 --> 01:14:55.470 I'm not sure it's going to be as easy. And also, 01:14:55.550 --> 01:14:59.050 I'm not sure that it's going to last. Because 01:14:59.050 --> 01:15:03.279 maybe... As soon as he leaves, as soon as Trump 01:15:03.279 --> 01:15:04.800 leaves office, maybe it'll just go back to the 01:15:04.800 --> 01:15:09.520 way it was, even if they do anything. So I guess 01:15:09.520 --> 01:15:11.479 that, you know, I mean, like, okay, well, I'm 01:15:11.479 --> 01:15:14.640 not that worried about, I guess like that, you 01:15:14.640 --> 01:15:17.020 know, the risk that you'd be worrying about if 01:15:17.020 --> 01:15:18.159 you're a progressive is, oh, they're going to 01:15:18.159 --> 01:15:20.579 get rid of too many regulations and they're going 01:15:20.579 --> 01:15:23.600 to get rid of government employees who are doing 01:15:23.600 --> 01:15:25.239 something good. I'm not too worried about that. 01:15:26.899 --> 01:15:29.819 Yeah. I mean, I've also heard from progressives. 01:15:30.319 --> 01:15:32.479 seem to be really afraid of lobbying in the context 01:15:32.479 --> 01:15:36.439 of like congress and just yeah i guess politicians 01:15:36.439 --> 01:15:38.579 being bought by corporations and passing legislature 01:15:38.579 --> 01:15:40.840 or having these agencies just do the bidding 01:15:40.840 --> 01:15:43.739 of a corporation is that like is that a legitimate 01:15:43.739 --> 01:15:47.279 opinion from these progressives yeah that's a 01:15:47.279 --> 01:15:50.000 thing to worry about but now i don't i don't 01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:52.680 think that what happens is like the stereotype 01:15:52.680 --> 01:15:55.520 or i don't think that what usually so i think 01:15:55.520 --> 01:15:57.819 there are a bunch of laws that support big corporations 01:15:57.819 --> 01:16:01.260 like serve their financial interests at the expense 01:16:01.260 --> 01:16:03.640 of consumers and smaller corporations, but I 01:16:03.640 --> 01:16:05.579 don't think that it's mainly because somebody 01:16:05.579 --> 01:16:08.760 bought the politicians. I think it's more like 01:16:08.760 --> 01:16:14.260 somebody donates, like if you own a large business, 01:16:14.340 --> 01:16:18.119 you could donate to the campaign of the person 01:16:18.119 --> 01:16:20.039 who you think will serve your interests more. 01:16:22.039 --> 01:16:24.880 If you actually have a quid pro quo where you 01:16:24.880 --> 01:16:26.989 beat with a person and say... you have to vote 01:16:26.989 --> 01:16:29.529 for this and I will give you money. That is illegal. 01:16:30.090 --> 01:16:32.789 And so that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, 01:16:32.970 --> 01:16:36.310 but it's kind of stupid to do that because you 01:16:36.310 --> 01:16:38.109 could go to jail for that when you could just 01:16:38.109 --> 01:16:40.149 donate to somebody and then you could leave it 01:16:40.149 --> 01:16:45.180 implicit. He can figure out. The politician is 01:16:45.180 --> 01:16:46.739 going to, he can figure out that he's going to 01:16:46.739 --> 01:16:49.239 stop getting donations if you don't like the 01:16:49.239 --> 01:16:52.979 way that he voted. Okay. But, you know, I think 01:16:52.979 --> 01:16:55.119 that what usually happens is, well, you just 01:16:55.119 --> 01:16:58.600 pick a politician who you think is already ideologically 01:16:58.600 --> 01:17:02.279 on your side. Like this person, this politician 01:17:02.279 --> 01:17:04.720 already thinks that the coal industry is really 01:17:04.720 --> 01:17:07.779 great. And they might sincerely think that, by 01:17:07.779 --> 01:17:09.939 the way. It is not out of the question that people 01:17:09.939 --> 01:17:14.579 sincerely have beliefs like that. I guess I'm 01:17:14.579 --> 01:17:18.539 also wondering, because when you hear this sort 01:17:18.539 --> 01:17:20.479 of money in politics take from progressives, 01:17:20.479 --> 01:17:22.199 it's usually accompanied with some idea that 01:17:22.199 --> 01:17:26.380 the will of the people is being overcome by the 01:17:26.380 --> 01:17:29.520 money in a negative way and there's harms being 01:17:29.520 --> 01:17:31.840 done. Because you talked about the inefficiencies 01:17:31.840 --> 01:17:34.100 of the corporations, that maybe regulations are 01:17:34.100 --> 01:17:37.260 letting them be too big and they can stomp out 01:17:37.260 --> 01:17:39.420 competition and stuff. Is there any harm to the 01:17:39.420 --> 01:17:41.979 people themselves? Is their will being accurately 01:17:41.979 --> 01:17:45.359 represented? I mean, there's the example of, 01:17:45.380 --> 01:17:48.119 I think it's 87 % of Americans agree with having 01:17:48.119 --> 01:17:50.659 more maternal leave and having paternal leave, 01:17:50.779 --> 01:17:54.220 but somehow we're not getting those outcomes 01:17:54.220 --> 01:17:56.840 from the politicians that are voting for the 01:17:56.840 --> 01:17:59.939 issues. So, yeah, I mean, there are times when... 01:18:00.590 --> 01:18:03.109 unpopular laws get passed, although it's relatively 01:18:03.109 --> 01:18:06.250 unusual. So if a big majority wants something, 01:18:06.310 --> 01:18:08.869 it usually happens. There are some exceptions, 01:18:08.989 --> 01:18:11.850 okay? So like I remember during the 2008 to 2009 01:18:11.850 --> 01:18:14.789 financial crisis, the bank bailout was super 01:18:14.789 --> 01:18:17.510 unpopular on both the left and the right. But 01:18:17.510 --> 01:18:19.649 actually it was particularly unpopular on the 01:18:19.649 --> 01:18:24.130 right, I think. So like Republicans were less 01:18:24.130 --> 01:18:26.550 likely to vote for it in Congress than the Democrats. 01:18:26.750 --> 01:18:29.270 But okay, but it passed even though it was unpopular 01:18:29.270 --> 01:18:34.119 with the public. Okay, where was I going with 01:18:34.119 --> 01:18:36.699 that? But usually the unpopular thing doesn't 01:18:36.699 --> 01:18:40.500 pass. But the thing is, my concern isn't really 01:18:40.500 --> 01:18:42.760 that unpopular things happen or popular things 01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:45.380 fail to happen, because I think the average voters 01:18:45.380 --> 01:18:48.409 do not know what they're talking about. They 01:18:48.409 --> 01:18:51.829 have no idea. So they don't know what the costs 01:18:51.829 --> 01:18:53.630 and benefits are of things because it's not in 01:18:53.630 --> 01:18:55.750 their interest to do any research to find out. 01:18:56.109 --> 01:18:58.189 So they just have an emotional reaction to some 01:18:58.189 --> 01:19:01.029 policy. So do we want things to match what the 01:19:01.029 --> 01:19:04.670 average voter wants more closely? Not especially. 01:19:06.329 --> 01:19:10.529 That's not really my concern. There are a lot 01:19:10.529 --> 01:19:13.770 of things that are against the interests of most 01:19:13.770 --> 01:19:16.970 voters that most voters still support. Okay, 01:19:17.010 --> 01:19:19.430 so like farm subsidies, why do those keep happening? 01:19:19.949 --> 01:19:21.930 It's basically just like taking a bunch of money 01:19:21.930 --> 01:19:24.010 from everyone and giving it to farm corporations. 01:19:24.310 --> 01:19:26.189 Which, by the way, most of the money goes to 01:19:26.189 --> 01:19:28.970 big farm corporations, not like small mom and 01:19:28.970 --> 01:19:30.850 pop farmers or whatever. Not that we should be 01:19:30.850 --> 01:19:33.909 giving money to anyone. Why don't they get money 01:19:33.909 --> 01:19:35.649 the same way everyone else does? They sell their 01:19:35.649 --> 01:19:37.689 product. Why don't they just get the amount that 01:19:37.689 --> 01:19:40.329 they get from their sales? There's no reason 01:19:40.329 --> 01:19:42.149 why this industry is different from every other's. 01:19:42.149 --> 01:19:44.909 It's true that food is important, but like... 01:19:45.149 --> 01:19:47.189 There's a lot of important things. That doesn't 01:19:47.189 --> 01:19:49.850 mean that you get even more money than what the 01:19:49.850 --> 01:19:53.550 consumers are willing to pay, right? But that's 01:19:53.550 --> 01:19:55.250 popular. The reason it keeps happening is that 01:19:55.250 --> 01:19:56.710 a bunch of people think, yeah, we should give 01:19:56.710 --> 01:19:59.229 money to farmers because I like farmers. Even 01:19:59.229 --> 01:20:01.590 though it's like costing money for all the taxpayers. 01:20:02.229 --> 01:20:04.569 Yeah, and it inherently causes more food waste 01:20:04.569 --> 01:20:09.000 as well. Yeah. Yeah, I guess because, David, 01:20:09.039 --> 01:20:11.039 you brought up the maternity thing, which I haven't 01:20:11.039 --> 01:20:12.880 heard about. But you also hear people bring up 01:20:12.880 --> 01:20:14.579 just health care generally about how apparently 01:20:14.579 --> 01:20:18.060 most Americans want some kind of government -provided 01:20:18.060 --> 01:20:20.720 health care on some level. Or you hear a lot 01:20:20.720 --> 01:20:22.960 of Americans are usually anti -war and they don't 01:20:22.960 --> 01:20:24.960 want to be giving money to Israel or Ukraine 01:20:24.960 --> 01:20:26.779 or something like this. But then the government 01:20:26.779 --> 01:20:28.359 seems to be doing that. I guess you see moments 01:20:28.359 --> 01:20:31.260 like that and I guess we also see a surge in 01:20:31.260 --> 01:20:33.680 populism and people don't feel like the government 01:20:33.680 --> 01:20:37.010 is. Representing the people in some fashion. 01:20:37.529 --> 01:20:40.590 What are the politicians doing? Sometimes when 01:20:40.590 --> 01:20:43.649 they're diverging from public opinion, it's because 01:20:43.649 --> 01:20:46.989 they're trying to do what's good for the country. 01:20:48.789 --> 01:20:52.430 Maybe they know what public opinion is, but they 01:20:52.430 --> 01:20:54.270 think the public is wrong. What should you do? 01:20:55.149 --> 01:20:57.109 What happened in the financial crisis, I think 01:20:57.109 --> 01:20:59.439 that what... genuinely legitimately happened 01:20:59.439 --> 01:21:02.359 was they knew that it was unpopular to bail out 01:21:02.359 --> 01:21:04.220 the banks but they also believed that if they 01:21:04.220 --> 01:21:06.439 didn't do it there would be like a depression 01:21:06.439 --> 01:21:09.020 and then the people would be really mad they 01:21:09.020 --> 01:21:10.619 would blame those politicians even though the 01:21:10.619 --> 01:21:13.159 politicians did what the people wanted yeah and 01:21:13.159 --> 01:21:15.619 so okay so and you're like support for ukraine 01:21:15.619 --> 01:21:17.680 i don't know what the level of support is for 01:21:17.680 --> 01:21:21.000 ukraine and israel among the public so i don't 01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:22.979 know how unpopular it is but but probably the 01:21:22.979 --> 01:21:25.729 most of the politicians are thinking Yeah, but 01:21:25.729 --> 01:21:28.310 it's just like really bad if Ukraine loses this 01:21:28.310 --> 01:21:31.289 war or if Israel loses this war. I don't know. 01:21:31.289 --> 01:21:32.789 There's not really a risk that Israel would lose 01:21:32.789 --> 01:21:35.810 the war. But yeah, they're just trying. They're 01:21:35.810 --> 01:21:37.890 actually trying to do the right thing, which 01:21:37.890 --> 01:21:39.930 they're going to be attacked for. Yeah, and therefore 01:21:39.930 --> 01:21:42.130 we should vote for better people if we disagree 01:21:42.130 --> 01:21:44.649 with their decision making. Yeah, well, yeah. 01:21:44.770 --> 01:21:46.949 I mean, maybe we should be better people, right? 01:21:47.970 --> 01:21:50.050 You know, like, OK, well, I'm not like a huge 01:21:50.050 --> 01:21:52.270 politician lover, but politicians are on average 01:21:52.270 --> 01:21:55.859 smarter and more educated than voters. which 01:21:55.859 --> 01:21:57.420 is part of the reason why we have representative 01:21:57.420 --> 01:22:00.239 democracy instead of direct democracy. And so 01:22:00.239 --> 01:22:02.260 like sometimes when there's a divergence between 01:22:02.260 --> 01:22:04.100 what the leaders want and what the public wants, 01:22:04.159 --> 01:22:05.739 it's because the public doesn't know what the 01:22:05.739 --> 01:22:10.220 hell is going on. And so like maybe rather than 01:22:10.220 --> 01:22:13.319 voting them out, we should like, you know, just 01:22:13.319 --> 01:22:17.279 be smarter ourselves. Yeah. One last question 01:22:17.279 --> 01:22:18.960 here, just because I'm curious, because you're 01:22:18.960 --> 01:22:24.180 a libertarian. And yeah, we've seen like, populism 01:22:24.180 --> 01:22:26.420 slash i would call it like an anti -establishment 01:22:26.420 --> 01:22:29.079 kind of bush in recent years like trump got re 01:22:29.079 --> 01:22:31.239 -elected trump's kind of a right -wing populist 01:22:31.239 --> 01:22:33.359 guy people love bernie sanders he's kind of a 01:22:33.359 --> 01:22:36.199 left -wing populist guy yeah um and like i think 01:22:36.199 --> 01:22:38.039 populism is kind of like this anti -establishment 01:22:38.039 --> 01:22:39.720 very skeptical of like what the government's 01:22:39.720 --> 01:22:42.380 going to do for you skeptical of um politicians 01:22:42.380 --> 01:22:44.520 generally i guess how do you how do you feel 01:22:44.520 --> 01:22:47.380 about that and and like that movement as a libertarian 01:22:47.380 --> 01:22:50.560 is it a good thing or is it is it hasn't been 01:22:50.560 --> 01:22:52.159 harmful because i also found that there's a lot 01:22:52.159 --> 01:22:54.880 of maybe irrationality in the populist beliefs 01:22:54.880 --> 01:23:00.359 it seems like yeah um i mean like there's a sense 01:23:00.359 --> 01:23:03.800 in which i'm anti -establishment like i like 01:23:03.800 --> 01:23:06.300 i've written this book talking about how anarchism 01:23:06.300 --> 01:23:10.880 is a good idea okay but but i i don't want like 01:23:10.880 --> 01:23:13.859 knee -jerk anti -establishmentarianism or whatever 01:23:13.859 --> 01:23:19.000 um but it's like you know it's not that we should 01:23:19.000 --> 01:23:21.970 just like destroy institutions That's not correct. 01:23:22.170 --> 01:23:26.050 Like, well, what we should do is change our institutions 01:23:26.050 --> 01:23:29.890 to make them better. Okay. But while doing so, 01:23:29.949 --> 01:23:32.689 and like I mentioned anarchism, like ultimately 01:23:32.689 --> 01:23:35.989 at some time in the future, I hope we will no 01:23:35.989 --> 01:23:38.189 longer need government. Okay. But that doesn't 01:23:38.189 --> 01:23:39.729 mean that we should just like blow it up right 01:23:39.729 --> 01:23:43.329 now. Okay. All right. So anyway, you know, while 01:23:43.329 --> 01:23:45.529 you're trying to, because, you know, there are 01:23:45.529 --> 01:23:48.170 flaws. whatever the current system the current 01:23:48.170 --> 01:23:49.989 leaders and the current institutions and while 01:23:49.989 --> 01:23:51.869 we're trying to fix them we should still attend 01:23:51.869 --> 01:23:55.590 to what's good about the system and you know 01:23:55.590 --> 01:23:58.729 this actually this society that we're living 01:23:58.729 --> 01:24:01.890 in is actually vastly better than most societies 01:24:01.890 --> 01:24:05.050 throughout human history and even today and so 01:24:05.050 --> 01:24:09.449 you know like if just like totally dumb and foolish 01:24:09.449 --> 01:24:12.869 to want to just blow stuff up randomly right 01:24:12.869 --> 01:24:15.250 like part of part of what you heard when Trump 01:24:15.250 --> 01:24:17.210 was elected, you know, the first time was like, 01:24:17.289 --> 01:24:20.970 yeah, just like, he's just going to cause a lot. 01:24:21.029 --> 01:24:23.310 He's just going to disrupt things. Let's send 01:24:23.310 --> 01:24:27.369 somebody to just like disrupt things. Like that's 01:24:27.369 --> 01:24:29.890 just like a total failure to appreciate what 01:24:29.890 --> 01:24:34.390 we have. Like this, this system actually is the 01:24:34.390 --> 01:24:37.390 best thing that human beings have created. And 01:24:37.390 --> 01:24:39.489 like what we have in America, like a system where, 01:24:39.590 --> 01:24:42.680 well, the institutions generally. kind of do 01:24:42.680 --> 01:24:45.779 what they're supposed to do like okay like when 01:24:45.779 --> 01:24:48.600 there's an election uh the person with the most 01:24:48.600 --> 01:24:52.479 votes kind of takes office like that's doesn't 01:24:52.479 --> 01:24:55.899 sound like that big of a uh big of an ask but 01:24:55.899 --> 01:24:57.739 actually that has not happened throughout most 01:24:57.739 --> 01:25:00.560 of human history and so okay and you know and 01:25:00.560 --> 01:25:03.760 just like you have a trial like generally the 01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:05.760 outcome is determined by what the evidence actually 01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:09.920 supports and like whatever you know you don't 01:25:09.920 --> 01:25:12.100 have to keep bribing people you don't have to 01:25:12.100 --> 01:25:14.680 like bribe the cops to take a police report or 01:25:14.680 --> 01:25:18.680 whatever all of this stuff okay it's a society 01:25:18.680 --> 01:25:22.640 that's generally working okay and just you know 01:25:22.640 --> 01:25:24.439 both on both the left and the right there's just 01:25:24.439 --> 01:25:26.100 like this idea of attacking our institutions 01:25:26.100 --> 01:25:29.000 which is just totally stupid Like, you know, 01:25:29.020 --> 01:25:30.479 not that our institutions are perfect, right? 01:25:30.560 --> 01:25:32.260 They're flawed. But just like a general attack 01:25:32.260 --> 01:25:34.659 on them is foolish. Right. Oh, no, go ahead. 01:25:34.760 --> 01:25:36.659 Yeah, well, there's this availability bias of 01:25:36.659 --> 01:25:38.579 we have access to more information than ever 01:25:38.579 --> 01:25:40.460 before. And that also means we have access to 01:25:40.460 --> 01:25:43.060 information about all the bad things more than 01:25:43.060 --> 01:25:45.300 ever before. And those are the things that get 01:25:45.300 --> 01:25:48.920 attention. So then when we ask someone. how bad 01:25:48.920 --> 01:25:50.619 is the state of our government right now? It's 01:25:50.619 --> 01:25:52.760 like, oh, well, I saw on the news that everyone 01:25:52.760 --> 01:25:55.399 is racist, everyone is sexist, the court systems 01:25:55.399 --> 01:25:58.479 don't work, companies are evil, millionaires 01:25:58.479 --> 01:26:02.319 are not paying any money. And so it's like, obviously, 01:26:02.479 --> 01:26:04.319 if this is the information you're receiving, 01:26:04.399 --> 01:26:05.640 you're going to say, well, we're in a worse time 01:26:05.640 --> 01:26:07.100 than ever before. I've never had this information 01:26:07.100 --> 01:26:10.300 before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, like 01:26:10.300 --> 01:26:14.319 when stuff is working, that's not news. You know, 01:26:14.319 --> 01:26:16.420 so somebody reports like, okay, so there was 01:26:16.420 --> 01:26:21.439 not a civil war today. Nobody deposed the president 01:26:21.439 --> 01:26:24.479 by force today. Okay, so that's not news. But 01:26:24.479 --> 01:26:26.340 there would be society in which that would happen. 01:26:27.579 --> 01:26:31.340 There was not a mass pogrom where millions of 01:26:31.340 --> 01:26:36.819 people were killed. Well, we could report how 01:26:36.819 --> 01:26:38.800 that does happen in other countries, but actually 01:26:38.800 --> 01:26:40.579 Americans don't care that much about other countries. 01:26:41.829 --> 01:26:43.890 So those news reports are not going to be popular, 01:26:44.010 --> 01:26:45.829 so that's not what the media will report. So, 01:26:45.850 --> 01:26:47.829 okay, well, they're just going to report when 01:26:47.829 --> 01:26:49.949 bad things happen in America. So then you have 01:26:49.949 --> 01:26:52.250 the feeling that America is doing badly, even 01:26:52.250 --> 01:26:54.489 though it's actually doing great. When something 01:26:54.489 --> 01:26:56.529 gets worse, like you can have a news report that 01:26:56.529 --> 01:26:59.390 says, oh, this statistic got worse, but when 01:26:59.390 --> 01:27:01.729 it gets better, they don't report that. So like 01:27:01.729 --> 01:27:04.210 the homicide rate has been going down for decades. 01:27:04.689 --> 01:27:07.789 You see any news reports on that? No. They might 01:27:07.789 --> 01:27:10.619 report particular cases of homicides. If some 01:27:10.619 --> 01:27:12.760 horrible crime occurs, that will be on the news, 01:27:12.880 --> 01:27:15.319 but they won't report that actually crime is 01:27:15.319 --> 01:27:18.319 way down. I guess one of my other questions would 01:27:18.319 --> 01:27:20.760 have been between the left and the right, because, 01:27:20.819 --> 01:27:22.500 yeah, we have these progressive myths that you 01:27:22.500 --> 01:27:25.079 talk about how they kind of strike at the heart 01:27:25.079 --> 01:27:27.680 of the American ethos and kind of undermine it 01:27:27.680 --> 01:27:30.680 in the same way the macro Republicans and Trump 01:27:30.680 --> 01:27:32.699 and January 6th and everything that happened 01:27:32.699 --> 01:27:35.819 there is a pretty big undermining of our democracy. 01:27:36.239 --> 01:27:39.779 And I guess my question to you is, Which one 01:27:39.779 --> 01:27:43.720 do you think is worse or is a greater threat 01:27:43.720 --> 01:27:46.579 that we should be considering? Yeah, I mean, 01:27:46.579 --> 01:27:50.340 so basically, like, well, Donald Trump specifically 01:27:50.340 --> 01:27:55.180 is a greater threat in the near term. Okay, and 01:27:55.180 --> 01:27:58.100 I put it that way because, like, well, after 01:27:58.100 --> 01:28:01.359 Trump leaves or if he dies, the threat is over. 01:28:01.800 --> 01:28:04.220 That is, I don't think that Republicans in general 01:28:04.220 --> 01:28:06.159 are going to do the same stuff. But I am worried 01:28:06.159 --> 01:28:08.659 about Trump himself personally undermining norms. 01:28:08.899 --> 01:28:11.079 And in the near term, that's a greater threat. 01:28:12.739 --> 01:28:15.300 But in the long term, the left is a greater threat 01:28:15.300 --> 01:28:16.899 because these are the people who have control 01:28:16.899 --> 01:28:18.819 of our institutions and our education system 01:28:18.819 --> 01:28:21.939 in particular. And they're raising all these 01:28:21.939 --> 01:28:23.380 generations of people through the high schools 01:28:23.380 --> 01:28:27.039 and through the colleges, teaching them to hate 01:28:27.039 --> 01:28:28.979 the country and to hate the system that they 01:28:28.979 --> 01:28:32.060 live in. I guess I would push back a little bit 01:28:32.060 --> 01:28:34.159 on the Trump thing just because if he is violating 01:28:34.159 --> 01:28:37.680 norms, isn't just the mere violation have like 01:28:37.680 --> 01:28:40.600 downstream consequences for someone who's more 01:28:40.600 --> 01:28:43.619 competent and smarter than Trump but is as charismatic 01:28:43.619 --> 01:28:47.520 to maybe be successful in 50 years maybe and 01:28:47.520 --> 01:28:51.119 see Trump as a model? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I 01:28:51.119 --> 01:28:54.000 mean like the concern is, well, maybe Trump's 01:28:54.000 --> 01:28:56.819 behavior will be a precedent. So, well, we have 01:28:56.819 --> 01:29:01.159 to wait to see who succeeds him. I don't think 01:29:01.159 --> 01:29:03.220 he's going to bring down the government. Okay, 01:29:03.279 --> 01:29:07.260 but what has happened is like, well, he basically 01:29:07.260 --> 01:29:11.880 attempted a coup. He attempted to literally not 01:29:11.880 --> 01:29:15.460 leave office. Like he actually had a plan to 01:29:15.460 --> 01:29:17.420 stay in office despite having been voted out. 01:29:17.720 --> 01:29:21.520 Okay, and then he was rewarded for that. He suffered 01:29:21.520 --> 01:29:24.039 no punishment and actually we reelected him after 01:29:24.039 --> 01:29:27.680 he did that. So the danger is that someone else 01:29:27.680 --> 01:29:32.770 who is like, is going to see that and go, oh, 01:29:32.930 --> 01:29:35.829 okay. So that's how it works. So you don't have 01:29:35.829 --> 01:29:40.010 to follow the democratic process. And then, okay, 01:29:40.069 --> 01:29:41.829 so we have to see where that happens. But if 01:29:41.829 --> 01:29:44.310 a few decades go by and that doesn't happen, 01:29:44.369 --> 01:29:46.510 then the norms will probably return to the way 01:29:46.510 --> 01:29:51.409 they were. What about science? Global warming 01:29:51.409 --> 01:29:56.090 crisis. Is the global warming crisis real? What's 01:29:56.090 --> 01:29:59.960 going on with that? It's highly plausible that 01:29:59.960 --> 01:30:03.880 there actually is warming. I mean, I say it's 01:30:03.880 --> 01:30:05.220 highly plausible because, well, like a bunch 01:30:05.220 --> 01:30:06.939 of scientists think that the Earth has warmed 01:30:06.939 --> 01:30:09.800 by about one degree or 1 .1 degrees since the 01:30:09.800 --> 01:30:11.920 start of the Industrial Revolution. And it's 01:30:11.920 --> 01:30:14.119 very plausible to me that scientists would be 01:30:14.119 --> 01:30:17.340 able to know that. Like, that doesn't seem like 01:30:17.340 --> 01:30:22.399 whatever inaccessible information. I mean, you 01:30:22.399 --> 01:30:24.079 know, it's more complicated than it sounds, but 01:30:24.079 --> 01:30:25.239 still, they could probably figure it out, so 01:30:25.239 --> 01:30:28.119 I believe them. And it's plausible that human 01:30:28.119 --> 01:30:31.300 beings have played some role in that. Like, okay, 01:30:31.359 --> 01:30:33.239 well, we dumped a whole bunch of CO2 into the 01:30:33.239 --> 01:30:36.100 atmosphere. The scientists say that that has 01:30:36.100 --> 01:30:40.159 a tendency to warm the atmosphere. It's plausible 01:30:40.159 --> 01:30:42.479 that they would know that. That's true. Like, 01:30:42.560 --> 01:30:45.260 how much of the warming is caused by human activity? 01:30:45.359 --> 01:30:48.060 I don't know. Okay, but also, like, okay, now, 01:30:48.220 --> 01:30:52.470 is this like a major crisis? Not really. I mean, 01:30:52.510 --> 01:30:54.949 it's gone up by one degree since the start of 01:30:54.949 --> 01:30:58.210 the Industrial Revolution. That is a potential 01:30:58.210 --> 01:30:59.550 problem. There will be negative consequences 01:30:59.550 --> 01:31:03.310 from that. It is not going to kill everyone. 01:31:03.550 --> 01:31:05.649 It is not going to end our civilization. It will 01:31:05.649 --> 01:31:07.470 not end life on Earth or any of those things, 01:31:07.729 --> 01:31:12.810 which hysterical activists are saying. And the 01:31:12.810 --> 01:31:15.250 hysterical activists are like, oh, listen to 01:31:15.250 --> 01:31:17.090 the science, listen to the science. But they 01:31:17.090 --> 01:31:19.470 have not listened to the science. Because, like, 01:31:19.489 --> 01:31:22.550 virtually no scientist says that. So why are 01:31:22.550 --> 01:31:26.029 they saying that that's the case? Like, where 01:31:26.029 --> 01:31:29.350 are they getting it from? So, I mean, okay, so, 01:31:29.390 --> 01:31:32.050 like, back in 2018, the IPCC published a report 01:31:32.050 --> 01:31:36.489 about what we would have to do to limit global 01:31:36.489 --> 01:31:40.329 warming to under 1 .5 degrees C relative to pre 01:31:40.329 --> 01:31:42.270 -industrial times, and bearing in mind that we 01:31:42.270 --> 01:31:44.090 were already at 1 degree. So they were talking 01:31:44.090 --> 01:31:45.689 about how we could stop another half degree of 01:31:45.689 --> 01:31:47.909 warming. And then they said, oh, we had to take 01:31:47.909 --> 01:31:52.069 drastic action by 2030. And then, I guess, some 01:31:52.069 --> 01:31:55.409 people took that to mean that if we don't take 01:31:55.409 --> 01:32:00.170 drastic action within 12 years, we're going to 01:32:00.170 --> 01:32:02.449 start the end of civilization. So Greta Thunberg 01:32:02.449 --> 01:32:04.729 said something like this. Within 12 years, we're 01:32:04.729 --> 01:32:06.369 going to set off a chain reaction that will likely 01:32:06.369 --> 01:32:09.189 lead to the end of our civilization. Why she 01:32:09.189 --> 01:32:12.510 thought that, I don't know. But like, well, she's 01:32:12.510 --> 01:32:14.569 not a scientist and she probably didn't read 01:32:14.569 --> 01:32:18.689 the report. And so, you know, like the real question 01:32:18.689 --> 01:32:20.510 is like, well, why did a bunch of people listen 01:32:20.510 --> 01:32:22.329 to her? Because like, well, a bunch of other 01:32:22.329 --> 01:32:23.949 people didn't want to read the report. And so 01:32:23.949 --> 01:32:27.310 because her book is a lot more entertaining than 01:32:27.310 --> 01:32:31.909 the IPCC report. OK. And then AOC says something 01:32:31.909 --> 01:32:33.829 like, you know, the world is going to end in 01:32:33.829 --> 01:32:36.369 12 years if we don't do something about climate 01:32:36.369 --> 01:32:38.050 change. And your biggest problem is how are we 01:32:38.050 --> 01:32:40.060 going to pay for it? Okay, and where did she 01:32:40.060 --> 01:32:41.560 get it? Well, she got it from Greta Thunberg 01:32:41.560 --> 01:32:45.100 or from other climate activists, and she didn't 01:32:45.100 --> 01:32:49.340 want to read the scientist's report either. Part 01:32:49.340 --> 01:32:52.079 of what happens is, well, it's just not really 01:32:52.079 --> 01:32:54.020 in your interest to spend time reading these 01:32:54.020 --> 01:32:57.579 boring things. It's more fun to just, like, whatever. 01:32:58.100 --> 01:33:01.199 Yeah, it's more fun to just, like, start stirring 01:33:01.199 --> 01:33:03.500 up, oh, my God, the sky's falling, whatever. 01:33:04.220 --> 01:33:08.760 And apparently... Most people haven't figured 01:33:08.760 --> 01:33:10.479 out that there's a lot of false information. 01:33:10.500 --> 01:33:12.819 They haven't figured out that if your side says 01:33:12.819 --> 01:33:16.340 something sensational, that does not mean that 01:33:16.340 --> 01:33:21.539 it's true. Yeah, I think talking about other 01:33:21.539 --> 01:33:24.659 sides, and maybe even my point will tie into 01:33:24.659 --> 01:33:26.880 the mask thing as well, but I guess I'm wondering, 01:33:26.960 --> 01:33:31.159 do you think that sometimes the discussion around 01:33:31.159 --> 01:33:34.319 climate change and mask science is... It feels 01:33:34.319 --> 01:33:36.819 like it's totally destroyed by what I would consider 01:33:36.819 --> 01:33:38.600 to be, like, really crazy right -wing beliefs. 01:33:38.739 --> 01:33:40.560 And they kind of enter the discourse and just, 01:33:40.619 --> 01:33:44.000 like, they stop any meaningful discussion from 01:33:44.000 --> 01:33:46.180 taking place. And it lets the radicals on the 01:33:46.180 --> 01:33:48.539 left just, like, run away from reality even further. 01:33:48.880 --> 01:33:50.319 Because, like, you'll have people on the right 01:33:50.319 --> 01:33:52.199 who will fully deny any sort of climate change. 01:33:52.199 --> 01:33:54.739 There's no climate change masks are fake. You'll 01:33:54.739 --> 01:33:56.390 have Jordan Peterson just saying... outrageous 01:33:56.390 --> 01:33:59.449 things yeah well while not admitting whether 01:33:59.449 --> 01:34:04.170 he's a theist or not yeah well so like probably 01:34:04.170 --> 01:34:06.470 the extremists from both the left and the right 01:34:06.470 --> 01:34:09.430 are feeding off each other yeah like the reason 01:34:09.430 --> 01:34:11.029 why you can get people to go along with right 01:34:11.029 --> 01:34:14.289 -wing extremist views is that they i guess they 01:34:14.289 --> 01:34:16.250 think the alternative is the extreme leftist 01:34:16.250 --> 01:34:20.909 and vice versa um yeah about yeah about global 01:34:20.909 --> 01:34:24.250 warming so the extreme views are um extreme left 01:34:24.250 --> 01:34:26.739 view It's the end of the world. We're all literally 01:34:26.739 --> 01:34:30.199 all going to die. And then the extreme right 01:34:30.199 --> 01:34:32.699 view is no, nothing whatsoever is happening. 01:34:32.819 --> 01:34:35.520 There's no warming. It's just all a hoax, right? 01:34:36.600 --> 01:34:38.720 Or, you know, a little bit less extreme. There's 01:34:38.720 --> 01:34:40.659 some warming, but we had nothing to do with it. 01:34:40.939 --> 01:34:44.300 And then, you know, like about, I don't know, 01:34:44.319 --> 01:34:46.960 about the COVID -19, there was like the extreme 01:34:46.960 --> 01:34:49.220 view. It was like everybody has to wear a mask 01:34:49.220 --> 01:34:51.560 all the time. Or two or three masks at once. 01:34:52.220 --> 01:34:56.939 One on the eyes, one on the mouth. And then obviously 01:34:56.939 --> 01:34:59.220 everyone has to get vaccinated and then they 01:34:59.220 --> 01:35:01.939 have to get the booster and the booster rooster 01:35:01.939 --> 01:35:03.859 or whatever. And then the extreme right -wing 01:35:03.859 --> 01:35:09.460 view is don't do anything. Don't do a mask, don't 01:35:09.460 --> 01:35:14.220 do a vaccine. COVID -19 doesn't happen. It's 01:35:14.220 --> 01:35:17.100 minor, it's just like the flu, whatever. Okay, 01:35:17.119 --> 01:35:19.609 now... You know, a moderate position, moderate 01:35:19.609 --> 01:35:22.050 position about global warming is, well, yeah, 01:35:22.130 --> 01:35:24.210 we are probably having something to do with it. 01:35:24.270 --> 01:35:26.609 And there are going to be costs. They're going 01:35:26.609 --> 01:35:29.949 to be like non -trivial costs. But it's not like 01:35:29.949 --> 01:35:31.909 a total disaster. And actually, there are many 01:35:31.909 --> 01:35:34.270 global problems that are equal or more serious. 01:35:35.689 --> 01:35:37.289 OK, and then, you know, about the COVID -19, 01:35:37.329 --> 01:35:39.170 like, well, actually, like not everything works, 01:35:39.229 --> 01:35:41.909 but it's not that nothing works. Like, I don't 01:35:41.909 --> 01:35:43.710 think masks work. I don't think they're effective. 01:35:44.630 --> 01:35:47.210 But I do think vaccines are effective. And I 01:35:47.210 --> 01:35:49.050 don't think vaccines have microchips in them. 01:35:49.369 --> 01:35:53.369 And they don't make you autistic. So, you know, 01:35:53.369 --> 01:35:56.550 like, can we have something, you know, in the 01:35:56.550 --> 01:35:59.189 middle? Something that sounds reasonable. How 01:35:59.189 --> 01:36:02.689 is it that it makes sense in all these other 01:36:02.689 --> 01:36:06.210 like societal viewpoints that myths come into 01:36:06.210 --> 01:36:08.810 play because it's harder to prove certain things. 01:36:08.850 --> 01:36:11.630 But with science, like we have global warming, 01:36:11.649 --> 01:36:14.010 we have mass, like it should be. pretty clear 01:36:14.010 --> 01:36:17.189 -cut whether something is true or not. Like, 01:36:17.189 --> 01:36:19.590 how are these myths even coming about in a scientific 01:36:19.590 --> 01:36:21.449 view where it's like, we should be able to look 01:36:21.449 --> 01:36:23.170 up the facts. Well, I mean, like, science is 01:36:23.170 --> 01:36:25.090 actually a lot more difficult and less straightforward 01:36:25.090 --> 01:36:28.550 than maybe the popular imagination has it, right? 01:36:28.949 --> 01:36:31.729 So, okay, well, are people causing global warming? 01:36:31.890 --> 01:36:35.609 It's not really that straightforward. Like, there's 01:36:35.609 --> 01:36:38.689 a whole bunch of things going on at once. And, 01:36:38.770 --> 01:36:40.850 you know, the climate is highly chaotic and whatever. 01:36:43.020 --> 01:36:47.960 In the book, I wanted to tackle myths that are 01:36:47.960 --> 01:36:51.560 kind of demonstrably false or something like 01:36:51.560 --> 01:36:53.460 that, or demonstrably misleading. So the myth 01:36:53.460 --> 01:36:55.899 isn't, it's not going to be something like human 01:36:55.899 --> 01:36:57.880 beings are contributing to climate change. It's 01:36:57.880 --> 01:37:01.520 going to be something like the scientific consensus 01:37:01.520 --> 01:37:04.239 says X. Because that's a definite matter of fact. 01:37:05.600 --> 01:37:08.020 And you're like, oh, okay, the scientists have 01:37:08.020 --> 01:37:09.720 agreed that global warming is an existential 01:37:09.720 --> 01:37:12.260 risk. Okay, as a matter of fact, that's false. 01:37:13.069 --> 01:37:18.310 I know that's false. Okay, but, you know, I mean, 01:37:18.329 --> 01:37:21.310 I mentioned that science is not so straightforward 01:37:21.310 --> 01:37:25.350 because, like, frequently there are published 01:37:25.350 --> 01:37:28.470 scientific studies which turn out, the results 01:37:28.470 --> 01:37:31.069 of them turn out to be false. Like, they say 01:37:31.069 --> 01:37:33.369 that there's a connection between two variables 01:37:33.369 --> 01:37:36.270 and then somebody redoes the study and they can't 01:37:36.270 --> 01:37:39.569 find the connection. Yeah. Right. And okay. And 01:37:39.569 --> 01:37:42.850 actually that, that is true of most studies in 01:37:42.850 --> 01:37:45.510 social science and medicine. Like it appears 01:37:45.510 --> 01:37:49.289 that most of the results are false. Coming into 01:37:49.289 --> 01:37:55.069 the, the end of the book, what is your, your 01:37:55.069 --> 01:37:57.970 main takeaway that we didn't talk about for young 01:37:57.970 --> 01:38:01.229 people reading this who are maybe attending university 01:38:01.229 --> 01:38:05.609 or growing up under this progressive myth landscape? 01:38:06.899 --> 01:38:10.859 What's that take away? I guess the lesson is 01:38:10.859 --> 01:38:18.220 be skeptical. If you hear some alleged fact that 01:38:18.220 --> 01:38:21.060 strongly supports a particular ideological viewpoint, 01:38:21.399 --> 01:38:26.279 that alleged fact is usually, maybe almost always, 01:38:26.399 --> 01:38:29.399 either false or misleading. So your initial assumption 01:38:29.399 --> 01:38:33.829 should be, I bet that's not true. Or I bet that's 01:38:33.829 --> 01:38:36.909 dropping some crucial context. And by highly 01:38:36.909 --> 01:38:39.689 misleading, I mean it's technically true, but 01:38:39.689 --> 01:38:41.149 if you knew the rest of the facts surrounding 01:38:41.149 --> 01:38:43.229 it, you would draw the opposite conclusion from 01:38:43.229 --> 01:38:44.569 the one the person is trying to make you draw. 01:38:45.949 --> 01:38:48.149 So you should just be aware that that's true 01:38:48.149 --> 01:38:50.189 in general, and so then you should not be so 01:38:50.189 --> 01:38:52.289 easily taken in. And the other thing that I want 01:38:52.289 --> 01:38:55.829 people to realize is actually this society is 01:38:55.829 --> 01:39:01.319 great. And there's a... part in one of these 01:39:01.319 --> 01:39:03.460 chapters where I talk about how the United States 01:39:03.460 --> 01:39:07.399 is successful. And, you know, like, for example, 01:39:07.500 --> 01:39:10.319 something around 400, there's, you know, 800 01:39:10.319 --> 01:39:12.199 and something Nobel Prizes that have ever been 01:39:12.199 --> 01:39:14.619 given, and something over 400 of them were won 01:39:14.619 --> 01:39:19.359 by Americans. And it's not just that. There are 01:39:19.359 --> 01:39:22.380 multiple things that you would want to look at. 01:39:22.460 --> 01:39:24.279 If you look at athletics, there's a whole bunch 01:39:24.279 --> 01:39:27.039 of great American athletes just totally disproportionate 01:39:27.039 --> 01:39:31.220 to our proportion of the world population. The 01:39:31.220 --> 01:39:33.880 influential companies, the influential authors, 01:39:34.119 --> 01:39:37.460 the influential musical artists. There's just 01:39:37.460 --> 01:39:41.840 this huge disproportion of Americans. And you 01:39:41.840 --> 01:39:44.880 should, like, appreciate that. Like, that shows 01:39:44.880 --> 01:39:49.539 how this country is just working better. It, 01:39:49.600 --> 01:39:52.079 like, lets people succeed, right? It doesn't 01:39:52.079 --> 01:39:54.659 give you success, but it lets you compete for 01:39:54.659 --> 01:39:58.060 success. And, you know, just like, okay, like, 01:39:58.100 --> 01:40:00.520 you know, we're rich, we're relatively happy, 01:40:00.680 --> 01:40:02.939 free, et cetera. Just like, if you look at the 01:40:02.939 --> 01:40:04.500 way the rest of the world has been throughout 01:40:04.500 --> 01:40:08.029 history, you should be very happy. to be here 01:40:08.029 --> 01:40:10.329 and and then appreciating that you should be 01:40:10.329 --> 01:40:13.130 like suspicious of people who are like attacking 01:40:13.130 --> 01:40:16.409 america or attacking our system right you know 01:40:16.409 --> 01:40:19.529 and like and so like i i don't want to be closed 01:40:19.529 --> 01:40:21.850 to criticisms of stuff that we're doing because 01:40:21.850 --> 01:40:23.529 we're doing some things that are bad and need 01:40:23.529 --> 01:40:27.250 to be improved but also you know like we should 01:40:27.250 --> 01:40:28.550 just have people appreciate what we're doing 01:40:28.550 --> 01:40:31.069 right one more question going along like the 01:40:31.069 --> 01:40:34.310 skepticism thing say we have a undergrad and 01:40:34.310 --> 01:40:36.510 he's He took your advice, he's now skeptical, 01:40:36.710 --> 01:40:38.149 but now he wants to maybe know something. He 01:40:38.149 --> 01:40:40.109 wants to learn what's actually going on in the 01:40:40.109 --> 01:40:43.130 world. What would be good, rational, critical 01:40:43.130 --> 01:40:45.270 thinking practices for him when he's trying to 01:40:45.270 --> 01:40:48.289 navigate the media. A lot of these things are 01:40:48.289 --> 01:40:50.210 not that hard to find out. You just have to try. 01:40:51.449 --> 01:40:55.149 You hear something that supports one side of 01:40:55.149 --> 01:40:57.649 a debate. Just try to find out what the other 01:40:57.649 --> 01:41:02.510 side says. You just do a search and look for... 01:41:03.390 --> 01:41:06.609 some some source that appears to be conservative 01:41:06.609 --> 01:41:09.510 if it was a liberal idea or vice versa right 01:41:09.510 --> 01:41:11.369 and and then like very frequently then you'll 01:41:11.369 --> 01:41:13.649 find out what was wrong with it with the original 01:41:13.649 --> 01:41:17.590 claim um another thing um you know what are reliable 01:41:17.590 --> 01:41:20.890 sources of information uh frequently like academic 01:41:20.890 --> 01:41:25.069 papers so there is a left -wing bias in the academy 01:41:25.069 --> 01:41:28.149 so like we have to acknowledge that but also 01:41:28.149 --> 01:41:31.840 like When we write academic papers, like we professors, 01:41:32.279 --> 01:41:35.260 we're usually more careful, like a lot more careful 01:41:35.260 --> 01:41:38.760 than when we just talk to the public. There's 01:41:38.760 --> 01:41:40.659 this process where it's going to go to these 01:41:40.659 --> 01:41:42.819 reviewers, and then the reviewers are going to 01:41:42.819 --> 01:41:45.100 try to tear it apart and whatever. Sometimes 01:41:45.100 --> 01:41:49.220 there's government statistics. You hear this 01:41:49.220 --> 01:41:51.140 stuff about how, oh, black people are disproportionately 01:41:51.140 --> 01:41:54.119 likely to be killed by police. You can look up 01:41:54.119 --> 01:42:00.079 the statistics on that. If there's a controversy 01:42:00.079 --> 01:42:03.380 about a specific case, like a specific event 01:42:03.380 --> 01:42:05.060 in the news, like the Trayvon Martin case or 01:42:05.060 --> 01:42:06.720 something, you can usually get court documents. 01:42:07.119 --> 01:42:08.979 And they're pretty good because what's going 01:42:08.979 --> 01:42:11.600 to happen is both sides in the trial are going 01:42:11.600 --> 01:42:13.800 to attempt to bring the best arguments that they 01:42:13.800 --> 01:42:16.960 can. And they're going to be professionals. So 01:42:16.960 --> 01:42:19.979 primary sources, court documents, try to get 01:42:19.979 --> 01:42:22.840 the closest information you can, be able to argue 01:42:22.840 --> 01:42:25.260 both sides. Yeah, probably most important is 01:42:25.260 --> 01:42:27.880 getting more than one perspective. I have a part 01:42:27.880 --> 01:42:32.220 where I talk about the differences between reliable 01:42:32.220 --> 01:42:34.279 and unreliable sources. Like you're reading something 01:42:34.279 --> 01:42:35.600 and you're trying to figure out if they're reliable. 01:42:37.239 --> 01:42:39.680 You're reading this web page or something. If 01:42:39.680 --> 01:42:42.520 it's really emotional, it's probably unreliable. 01:42:43.220 --> 01:42:46.479 And I say that even though it might be appropriate 01:42:46.479 --> 01:42:48.260 to be emotional, depending on what the issue 01:42:48.260 --> 01:42:51.180 is. It might be totally appropriate. But that 01:42:51.180 --> 01:42:55.930 still... the emotional reaction can still interfere 01:42:55.930 --> 01:42:57.989 with your objectivity, even though it's appropriate. 01:42:59.010 --> 01:43:01.829 A person makes a lot of absolute statements and 01:43:01.829 --> 01:43:04.630 doesn't use a lot of qualifications. So people 01:43:04.630 --> 01:43:07.829 who are reliable, they will just sort of feel 01:43:07.829 --> 01:43:13.510 cautious. So I think reliable people will be 01:43:13.510 --> 01:43:15.829 hesitant to say that something is always true. 01:43:15.890 --> 01:43:19.560 They'll just say, usually. Or probably or something 01:43:19.560 --> 01:43:23.020 like that. And then reliable people usually acknowledge 01:43:23.020 --> 01:43:29.039 reasons on both sides. So if you're reading something 01:43:29.039 --> 01:43:31.739 and it appears from this thing that you're reading 01:43:31.739 --> 01:43:34.960 that there's no arguments against policy X, all 01:43:34.960 --> 01:43:37.680 of the reasons are in favor of it. You can't 01:43:37.680 --> 01:43:39.699 find this guy's acknowledgement of any reason 01:43:39.699 --> 01:43:42.000 why you wouldn't want this policy. That person 01:43:42.000 --> 01:43:45.159 is probably unreliable. And you've been working 01:43:45.159 --> 01:43:48.569 at an institution that's progressive. What's 01:43:48.569 --> 01:43:50.729 been your experience working in a progressive 01:43:50.729 --> 01:43:52.750 institution? Why are you able to talk about these 01:43:52.750 --> 01:43:55.529 things? So I do have tenure, so officially they 01:43:55.529 --> 01:43:57.449 can't fire me for being politically incorrect. 01:43:58.170 --> 01:44:02.710 The philosophy, philosophy as a field in particular, 01:44:02.810 --> 01:44:07.189 is better than most of the humanities. So philosophers 01:44:07.189 --> 01:44:10.789 in particular like to hear arguments. It's like 01:44:10.789 --> 01:44:14.029 if you're giving logical arguments, then that's 01:44:14.029 --> 01:44:18.149 kind of okay. And if they don't agree with you, 01:44:18.270 --> 01:44:21.149 philosophers' response is usually, oh, I better 01:44:21.149 --> 01:44:23.350 come up with a counter -argument, which I think 01:44:23.350 --> 01:44:27.229 is unlike many of the woke people. Their response 01:44:27.229 --> 01:44:29.569 is, oh, I need to shut you down. I need to make 01:44:29.569 --> 01:44:31.729 sure that nobody can hear you talk. And there 01:44:31.729 --> 01:44:33.590 must be woke philosophers as well, too, right? 01:44:33.789 --> 01:44:36.529 Yeah, yeah. Have you interacted with them at 01:44:36.529 --> 01:44:42.310 all? No. I'm not sure why, although I do have 01:44:42.310 --> 01:44:45.100 a thing that, you know, Okay, so I'm not, I don't 01:44:45.100 --> 01:44:51.020 tweet. And I am on Facebook, and I have a blog, 01:44:51.199 --> 01:44:54.239 and people could interact with me. But if I see 01:44:54.239 --> 01:44:58.100 insulting comments, I delete them. And if I see 01:44:58.100 --> 01:45:00.380 multiple insulting comments or sufficiently insulting 01:45:00.380 --> 01:45:03.079 comments, then I block the person. So I will 01:45:03.079 --> 01:45:07.659 not, like, after your first totally unfair interaction 01:45:07.659 --> 01:45:10.079 with me, you may not get to talk to me again. 01:45:10.300 --> 01:45:12.760 And I just find that that makes life better. 01:45:15.800 --> 01:45:19.319 Talking about counter -arguments and rational 01:45:19.319 --> 01:45:22.420 thinking, everything you've just told us in your 01:45:22.420 --> 01:45:24.819 book about progressive myths, what do you think 01:45:24.819 --> 01:45:27.399 is the strongest counter -argument to everything, 01:45:27.680 --> 01:45:32.819 to your whole thesis? I don't know. Well, so, 01:45:32.979 --> 01:45:39.819 I mean, the myths that I list, like, I don't 01:45:39.819 --> 01:45:43.100 think there's really much doubt. Um, I think 01:45:43.100 --> 01:45:45.300 it's, it's the stuff that I'm saying is pretty 01:45:45.300 --> 01:45:47.399 much objective fact. I guess one way you could 01:45:47.399 --> 01:45:49.600 maybe rephrase it is like, cause we have the 01:45:49.600 --> 01:45:51.479 progressive project that you kind of trace back 01:45:51.479 --> 01:45:54.300 from the 70s or 60s. Yeah. And now it's been 01:45:54.300 --> 01:45:56.479 going on for, you know, I don't know, 40, 50 01:45:56.479 --> 01:46:00.539 years or whatever. Yeah. Is there any value to 01:46:00.539 --> 01:46:02.840 take from like the progressive project and like, 01:46:02.840 --> 01:46:05.159 yeah, that we could like, that person could be 01:46:05.159 --> 01:46:06.380 like, you know what, they, they got this right. 01:46:06.399 --> 01:46:08.079 Or they, this was valuable that what they did 01:46:08.079 --> 01:46:11.159 here was good. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah. So. I 01:46:11.159 --> 01:46:12.600 mean, in fact, like the way this whole thing 01:46:12.600 --> 01:46:15.640 started was that actually we had a lot of racism. 01:46:16.359 --> 01:46:18.420 We had a lot of prejudice and a lot of injustice. 01:46:19.260 --> 01:46:21.500 And so like in the 1960s, people were protesting. 01:46:21.659 --> 01:46:24.100 They were protesting real injustices and real 01:46:24.100 --> 01:46:28.800 prejudice. And actually they won. And like that's 01:46:28.800 --> 01:46:31.520 why we have a lot less. I mean, there's kind 01:46:31.520 --> 01:46:34.960 of an irony in that like, well, I would say like 01:46:34.960 --> 01:46:39.359 the civil rights protesters from 1960s did a 01:46:39.359 --> 01:46:42.500 great job. and like the irony is like apparently 01:46:42.500 --> 01:46:44.479 if you're woke today you have to say no they 01:46:44.479 --> 01:46:47.319 fail like so they didn't do such a good job because 01:46:47.319 --> 01:46:49.880 like we still have racism like it's still just 01:46:49.880 --> 01:46:53.779 as bad as it was apparently or something um but 01:46:53.779 --> 01:46:56.020 yeah okay so like am i against progressive ideas 01:46:56.020 --> 01:46:59.680 in general no i guess like uh believing in gay 01:46:59.680 --> 01:47:02.279 marriage is a progressive idea i guess i guess 01:47:02.279 --> 01:47:04.239 being against racism is progressive i don't know 01:47:04.239 --> 01:47:07.479 well that's kind of i mean that's mainstream 01:47:07.479 --> 01:47:10.619 by now I guess it was originally progressive. 01:47:11.119 --> 01:47:12.960 Well, you have to be anti -racist now, I think, 01:47:13.000 --> 01:47:15.239 is probably what they would say. You can't just 01:47:15.239 --> 01:47:17.979 be. Yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, what they call 01:47:17.979 --> 01:47:23.460 anti -racist is really racist. What people are 01:47:23.460 --> 01:47:26.699 calling the anti -racist position is really racism 01:47:26.699 --> 01:47:29.060 against white people, or at least that's how 01:47:29.060 --> 01:47:32.960 it looks to me. That's why I wouldn't like to 01:47:32.960 --> 01:47:34.819 call myself an anti -racist. But I'm against 01:47:34.819 --> 01:47:38.119 racism. Yeah, sure. There seems to be a large 01:47:38.119 --> 01:47:40.579 vein. and everything we've talked about, about 01:47:40.579 --> 01:47:44.439 emotional attachments to different political 01:47:44.439 --> 01:47:48.859 issues. And behind those is some idea of morality, 01:47:49.119 --> 01:47:54.220 moral facts. But it also seems that what people 01:47:54.220 --> 01:47:56.239 believe has to do a lot with the emotional framing 01:47:56.239 --> 01:48:01.359 of the issue. And so how much of what we believe 01:48:01.359 --> 01:48:04.159 is actually just our emotional reaction to the 01:48:04.159 --> 01:48:06.060 framing of an issue, as opposed to an actual 01:48:06.060 --> 01:48:12.319 belief in moral facts. Well, I guess, yeah, I 01:48:12.319 --> 01:48:14.960 mean, it seems like a lot of people's political 01:48:14.960 --> 01:48:17.199 beliefs, well, first of all, they're not that 01:48:17.199 --> 01:48:22.000 serious as beliefs. They don't believe it that 01:48:22.000 --> 01:48:25.680 much. To a large extent, people are just kind 01:48:25.680 --> 01:48:27.439 of, I don't know, saying what they think they're 01:48:27.439 --> 01:48:29.140 supposed to say, or they're saying what their 01:48:29.140 --> 01:48:31.159 side says, and they don't really know what's 01:48:31.159 --> 01:48:35.180 true. And I'm saying, well, it's not that much 01:48:35.180 --> 01:48:38.630 of a belief. The stuff that people will say about 01:48:38.630 --> 01:48:42.189 politics, it's not that much of a belief. It's 01:48:42.189 --> 01:48:44.050 not that they totally don't believe it. They're 01:48:44.050 --> 01:48:47.609 not totally lying, but they don't believe it 01:48:47.609 --> 01:48:49.569 that much because they don't care that much about 01:48:49.569 --> 01:48:51.430 whether it's true. They're not trying that hard 01:48:51.430 --> 01:48:52.689 to find out whether it's true before they say 01:48:52.689 --> 01:48:55.050 it, and they know they didn't try very hard. 01:48:59.729 --> 01:49:04.260 There's this problem that most people know. that 01:49:04.260 --> 01:49:06.260 they don't have a personal stake in whether their 01:49:06.260 --> 01:49:08.359 beliefs are correct, in the sense that nothing 01:49:08.359 --> 01:49:10.739 bad happens to them if they are mistaken about 01:49:10.739 --> 01:49:13.420 politics. Bad things do happen to you if you're 01:49:13.420 --> 01:49:15.140 mistaken about things in your personal life. 01:49:16.079 --> 01:49:19.199 So if I don't know where the supermarket is, 01:49:19.300 --> 01:49:22.159 I could wind up going to the wrong place when 01:49:22.159 --> 01:49:24.060 I'm trying to get food, so I suffer the cost. 01:49:24.460 --> 01:49:26.859 But if I'm wrong about the benefits of immigration, 01:49:27.159 --> 01:49:29.399 I do not suffer the cost of that false belief 01:49:29.399 --> 01:49:32.680 because there is almost zero probability that 01:49:32.680 --> 01:49:34.079 I'm going to actually change government policy 01:49:34.079 --> 01:49:37.579 about immigration. So then people don't try very 01:49:37.579 --> 01:49:40.039 hard to get the correct political beliefs. And 01:49:40.039 --> 01:49:42.819 so, okay, so then it's sort of like they know 01:49:42.819 --> 01:49:44.859 that they can afford to indulge their emotions. 01:49:45.399 --> 01:49:46.899 So if there's a particular belief that makes 01:49:46.899 --> 01:49:48.939 you feel good, then you could adopt that belief 01:49:48.939 --> 01:49:51.220 without bothering to look at the evidence. And 01:49:51.220 --> 01:49:55.739 yeah, I think that's very common. As a philosopher, 01:49:56.159 --> 01:50:00.020 do you find often that philosophy is a compelling 01:50:00.020 --> 01:50:02.880 reason to change your mind and then act out in 01:50:02.880 --> 01:50:04.939 the world in that way? Because it seems that 01:50:04.939 --> 01:50:08.739 this is a large philosophical analysis on progressivism. 01:50:08.819 --> 01:50:10.840 Do you find those reasons to usually be compelling 01:50:10.840 --> 01:50:14.180 for yourself? Well, like there's not that much 01:50:14.180 --> 01:50:16.819 for me to do because I don't have any political 01:50:16.819 --> 01:50:19.439 power. If I did, then I guess I would change 01:50:19.439 --> 01:50:22.039 government policies. The only thing for me to 01:50:22.039 --> 01:50:24.619 do is talk. So I change my beliefs and then I 01:50:24.619 --> 01:50:29.079 express them. And so that's true. That happens. 01:50:29.479 --> 01:50:32.779 What about in like a more general sense of philosophizing 01:50:32.779 --> 01:50:38.060 in general? Oh. Yeah. Yeah. See, does philosophy 01:50:38.060 --> 01:50:41.000 help me to live? I don't know. I try to be more 01:50:41.000 --> 01:50:45.420 rational. Let's see. So I became a vegetarian 01:50:45.420 --> 01:50:48.600 for philosophical reasons, you could say. I mean, 01:50:48.619 --> 01:50:49.880 it's like really straightforward philosophical 01:50:49.880 --> 01:50:52.659 reasons. But like, I think pain and suffering 01:50:52.659 --> 01:50:54.520 are bad. I think you shouldn't inflict enormous 01:50:54.520 --> 01:50:58.020 pain and suffering for trivial reasons. So I'm 01:50:58.020 --> 01:51:01.840 not going to do it. Yeah, there's that. You know, 01:51:01.840 --> 01:51:05.800 any other things? I'm not sure. Right. And, you 01:51:05.800 --> 01:51:07.340 know, like there's a there's a bunch of things 01:51:07.340 --> 01:51:08.939 that you could sort of describe as philosophical, 01:51:09.100 --> 01:51:10.600 but people wouldn't really think of it that way. 01:51:10.680 --> 01:51:12.260 Like, why do I not steal? Because stealing is 01:51:12.260 --> 01:51:14.300 wrong. So you could say that that's a philosophical 01:51:14.300 --> 01:51:19.199 belief of mine. But it's like such a common belief 01:51:19.199 --> 01:51:23.159 that it's like it's not that impressive. I guess 01:51:23.159 --> 01:51:25.840 no one's handing you some laurels for not stealing. 01:51:25.960 --> 01:51:28.319 Yeah. So like it's not that big of a selling 01:51:28.319 --> 01:51:30.479 point for philosophy. Right. Because like everybody 01:51:30.479 --> 01:51:32.680 believes that stealing is wrong or most people 01:51:32.680 --> 01:51:37.140 believe that. So what is the value of philosophy 01:51:37.140 --> 01:51:41.420 in this landscape that we're now in? I mean, 01:51:41.439 --> 01:51:43.760 to me, the main thing is that it helps you to 01:51:43.760 --> 01:51:48.039 think more clearly. So I like to use this analogy 01:51:48.039 --> 01:51:52.100 that you know how when you're asleep and you're 01:51:52.100 --> 01:51:54.460 dreaming, there's stuff that's happening that 01:51:54.460 --> 01:51:56.779 doesn't make any sense, and you don't notice 01:51:56.779 --> 01:51:59.239 that it doesn't make any sense? So you're in 01:51:59.239 --> 01:52:01.520 a confused state. It's only when you wake up 01:52:01.520 --> 01:52:03.260 that you realize that that stuff made no sense. 01:52:04.359 --> 01:52:06.779 Well, that's kind of like how it is when you 01:52:06.779 --> 01:52:09.020 get philosophical training. If you haven't studied 01:52:09.020 --> 01:52:12.520 philosophy, then you might have thoughts about 01:52:12.520 --> 01:52:14.720 philosophical questions, but they'll be totally 01:52:14.720 --> 01:52:17.359 confused, and you won't notice that they don't 01:52:17.359 --> 01:52:19.399 make any sense. And then after you've been studying 01:52:19.399 --> 01:52:21.140 philosophy for a few years, you'll notice that 01:52:21.140 --> 01:52:23.300 those things don't make any sense. So it's sort 01:52:23.300 --> 01:52:28.529 of like waking up. Is that good? Well, I just 01:52:28.529 --> 01:52:32.109 sort of think having a clearer state of mind 01:52:32.109 --> 01:52:35.250 is intrinsically better, like not being confused. 01:52:36.010 --> 01:52:38.010 Philosophy will not necessarily tell you the 01:52:38.010 --> 01:52:39.909 answers. You will not necessarily figure out 01:52:39.909 --> 01:52:42.210 the answers to philosophical questions, but you 01:52:42.210 --> 01:52:46.770 will probably not be confused. You may just not 01:52:46.770 --> 01:52:49.729 know. Maybe you will not know whether you have 01:52:49.729 --> 01:52:51.989 free will or not, but you won't have some confused, 01:52:52.090 --> 01:52:54.930 incoherent view about it. Yeah, you'll understand 01:52:54.930 --> 01:52:58.859 what... the possibilities are for pro for actually 01:52:58.859 --> 01:53:01.260 having free will what are the reasons for that 01:53:01.260 --> 01:53:03.039 not having free will what are the reasons for 01:53:03.039 --> 01:53:05.000 that what is free will you'll be able to define 01:53:05.000 --> 01:53:07.699 everything quite well and clearly yeah well you 01:53:07.699 --> 01:53:09.380 may not be able to define free will either yeah 01:53:09.380 --> 01:53:12.819 because that's a controversy but you'll know 01:53:12.819 --> 01:53:14.460 what the arguments are but you probably won't 01:53:14.460 --> 01:53:17.560 you probably won't endorse an indefensible definition 01:53:18.140 --> 01:53:21.960 That's the progress. You'll have a somewhat reasonable 01:53:21.960 --> 01:53:24.880 view of free will. Yeah, yeah. Right? Because, 01:53:24.899 --> 01:53:26.380 you know, like there's this thing in epistemology 01:53:26.380 --> 01:53:29.800 where we try to define knowledge, right? And 01:53:29.800 --> 01:53:32.680 like, okay, well, famously, like people define 01:53:32.680 --> 01:53:34.800 knowledge as justified true belief or something. 01:53:34.840 --> 01:53:37.600 And then like, okay, Edmund Gettier showed that 01:53:37.600 --> 01:53:39.420 that was not true. And then there's just like 01:53:39.420 --> 01:53:41.039 this huge explosion of people trying to find 01:53:41.039 --> 01:53:43.380 the correct definition. And they never agreed 01:53:43.380 --> 01:53:46.760 on the definition of knowledge. But we don't 01:53:46.760 --> 01:53:50.260 believe that false definition anymore. That's 01:53:50.260 --> 01:53:53.739 the problem. We've rejected some false definitions. 01:53:54.340 --> 01:53:56.460 I guess if someone was to start in philosophy, 01:53:56.819 --> 01:53:59.079 where should they start? Besides reading knowledge, 01:53:59.159 --> 01:54:01.159 reality, and value, of course. Yeah, of course. 01:54:01.180 --> 01:54:03.500 Obviously, read all of my books and my blog. 01:54:03.869 --> 01:54:07.489 They're endorsed by Karl Marx. Yeah, well, Karl 01:54:07.489 --> 01:54:10.289 Marx endorsed progressive myths because he said, 01:54:10.449 --> 01:54:12.369 if only I had listened to my humor, millions 01:54:12.369 --> 01:54:14.229 might not have had to die in the 20th century. 01:54:16.630 --> 01:54:18.930 Now, I can't prove that he said that. It wasn't 01:54:18.930 --> 01:54:22.010 in writing. I just heard him saying that in my 01:54:22.010 --> 01:54:26.529 mind, so he transcribed that. Yeah, I don't know. 01:54:26.590 --> 01:54:28.529 What are other good introductions to philosophy? 01:54:29.189 --> 01:54:31.550 Like Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy 01:54:31.550 --> 01:54:35.439 is really good. you know, sort of an introduction 01:54:35.439 --> 01:54:36.979 to what people were thinking about in the early 01:54:36.979 --> 01:54:39.899 20th century. But they're fairly universal questions. 01:54:41.539 --> 01:54:44.859 What else? I don't know. People usually say Plato's 01:54:44.859 --> 01:54:48.079 dialogues, but would you not? Yeah, well, are 01:54:48.079 --> 01:54:50.640 they a good introduction? I mean, yeah, they're 01:54:50.640 --> 01:54:53.039 sort of like a good, easy introduction because 01:54:53.039 --> 01:54:54.880 it's like fun to read the dialogues between two 01:54:54.880 --> 01:54:58.340 people. Now, my problem is that I don't think 01:54:58.340 --> 01:55:05.430 that the arguments are any good. I think Plato 01:55:05.430 --> 01:55:10.449 or Socrates, under the control of Plato as the 01:55:10.449 --> 01:55:13.869 writer, is just constantly not giving good arguments. 01:55:15.210 --> 01:55:17.270 People in the dialogue give you a good argument. 01:55:17.310 --> 01:55:18.789 Sometimes Socrates just doesn't know the answer, 01:55:18.909 --> 01:55:20.470 but sometimes he's giving arguments that are 01:55:20.470 --> 01:55:24.369 just bad. But it is good to get people to think 01:55:24.369 --> 01:55:26.609 about things. Sometimes they do succeed in pointing 01:55:26.609 --> 01:55:29.529 out bad arguments. That could be useful. And 01:55:29.529 --> 01:55:31.699 as a modelist. The Socratic method is probably 01:55:31.699 --> 01:55:33.560 a pretty good model for philosophy, just talking 01:55:33.560 --> 01:55:36.020 with someone maybe. Well, yeah, you know, like 01:55:36.020 --> 01:55:39.920 some things about this are good. So like what 01:55:39.920 --> 01:55:41.720 happens in the dialogues is that somebody tries 01:55:41.720 --> 01:55:45.739 to, Socrates, or at least... Plato would disguise 01:55:45.739 --> 01:55:48.640 to Socrates. Particularly later in the later 01:55:48.640 --> 01:55:50.899 dialogues, like Socrates is trying to put forward 01:55:50.899 --> 01:55:53.420 an argument and he does it by asking questions 01:55:53.420 --> 01:55:56.760 and then getting these answers. And then you 01:55:56.760 --> 01:55:59.239 can get his conclusion from these answers. But 01:55:59.239 --> 01:56:02.500 that does not work in real life. Because in real 01:56:02.500 --> 01:56:05.600 life, you don't have control of the answers that 01:56:05.600 --> 01:56:08.279 other people give in the way that Plato has control 01:56:08.279 --> 01:56:10.020 of the answers that people give in the dialogue. 01:56:10.159 --> 01:56:12.880 So in real life, they almost never answer your 01:56:12.880 --> 01:56:15.609 question in the way you intended. And even though 01:56:15.609 --> 01:56:17.710 you think that there's one answer to this question 01:56:17.710 --> 01:56:20.250 that is obvious, the person somehow manages to 01:56:20.250 --> 01:56:25.069 not say it. If they don't want to directly contradict 01:56:25.069 --> 01:56:27.989 the obvious answer, they'll just answer a different 01:56:27.989 --> 01:56:30.649 question. And you have to wrangle with them to 01:56:30.649 --> 01:56:34.529 get them. So it usually doesn't work. Usually, 01:56:34.590 --> 01:56:36.789 if you have an argument, you should just state 01:56:36.789 --> 01:56:40.090 the argument. But I guess if you're unsure if 01:56:40.090 --> 01:56:41.670 you have an argument, I guess just the exploration 01:56:41.670 --> 01:56:44.590 of a philosophical topic. between multiple people. 01:56:44.890 --> 01:56:48.050 Do you think Socratic method is decent enough 01:56:48.050 --> 01:56:50.590 for that job? Yeah, well, yeah, a good thing 01:56:50.590 --> 01:56:55.369 is, you know, just like trying to reach a mutual 01:56:55.369 --> 01:56:57.569 understanding. Like, you know, because the other 01:56:57.569 --> 01:56:59.250 thing that usually doesn't happen in real life 01:56:59.250 --> 01:57:01.130 is that you wind up with an agreement at the 01:57:01.130 --> 01:57:03.909 end. That doesn't happen. And then that doesn't 01:57:03.909 --> 01:57:05.289 really happen very often in Plato's dialogues 01:57:05.289 --> 01:57:08.770 either, right? Well, I think like later, later 01:57:08.770 --> 01:57:11.649 dialogues, like so in the Republic. Okay. Yep. 01:57:12.109 --> 01:57:16.409 Okay, we found the best society. We all agree. 01:57:16.569 --> 01:57:18.170 It's the rule by philosopher kings. That's the 01:57:18.170 --> 01:57:22.609 best kind of society. But okay, so in real life, 01:57:22.670 --> 01:57:24.489 you're probably not going to reach an agreement, 01:57:24.529 --> 01:57:28.329 but a realistic goal would be coming to understand 01:57:28.329 --> 01:57:31.430 each other's positions better and where you disagree. 01:57:32.829 --> 01:57:34.670 Just like, yeah, questioning the person on their 01:57:34.670 --> 01:57:37.130 views until you understand why they're disagreeing 01:57:37.130 --> 01:57:39.149 with you. And like, usually you can find some, 01:57:39.149 --> 01:57:41.810 there's some like philosophical issue that you're 01:57:41.810 --> 01:57:43.590 seeing in different ways and you can kind of 01:57:43.590 --> 01:57:46.430 see how they would see it that way, even though 01:57:46.430 --> 01:57:48.270 that's not the way you see it. And when you reach 01:57:48.270 --> 01:57:51.949 that point, it's like, okay, good. We understand 01:57:51.949 --> 01:57:54.229 each other. We accomplished what we could reasonably 01:57:54.229 --> 01:57:56.510 expect to accomplish. Yeah. Which is not agree, 01:57:56.670 --> 01:57:59.170 but have a clear understanding of each other. 01:57:59.289 --> 01:58:02.539 Yeah. Yeah. There seems to be a thread about, 01:58:02.659 --> 01:58:05.220 with the progressive myths or even in politics 01:58:05.220 --> 01:58:08.739 in general, where there's a lot of fear of tribalism 01:58:08.739 --> 01:58:12.000 and fear of saying the wrong thing or getting 01:58:12.000 --> 01:58:14.859 pushed out of the wrong group. And I think, yeah, 01:58:14.920 --> 01:58:18.159 the value of courage has just been dispelled 01:58:18.159 --> 01:58:20.619 a lot from young people and society in general. 01:58:21.159 --> 01:58:24.880 And so on this podcast, we always like to ask 01:58:24.880 --> 01:58:27.000 the guests to participate in a carrots and sticks 01:58:27.000 --> 01:58:31.989 challenge, which is a... A way of living courageously, 01:58:31.989 --> 01:58:34.289 it's usually a one to two week challenge where 01:58:34.289 --> 01:58:36.569 the guest challenges themselves in a way that 01:58:36.569 --> 01:58:38.989 they could live more courageously. And the stick 01:58:38.989 --> 01:58:42.670 is their self -chosen punishment if they fail 01:58:42.670 --> 01:58:46.409 to live more courageously. So I would pose you 01:58:46.409 --> 01:58:50.609 the question. Wait, what's the question? So the 01:58:50.609 --> 01:58:52.529 question is, well, first, do you want to participate? 01:58:54.570 --> 01:58:58.489 Probably not. That's fair. And you're like, what 01:58:58.489 --> 01:59:00.149 would I do to be more courageous? I mean, another 01:59:00.149 --> 01:59:02.369 way of putting that is, hey, Mike, take some 01:59:02.369 --> 01:59:08.109 more risks. Why should I do that? What if it 01:59:08.109 --> 01:59:10.670 goes badly? And I'm already taking the risks 01:59:10.670 --> 01:59:13.510 that I think are warranted. Should I take more 01:59:13.510 --> 01:59:15.989 that I don't initially think are warranted? Probably 01:59:15.989 --> 01:59:18.529 not. What about one that you think is warranted? 01:59:18.550 --> 01:59:20.489 Are you taking all the risks you think are warranted? 01:59:21.090 --> 01:59:24.420 I don't know. I'd have to think for a while. 01:59:24.920 --> 01:59:32.500 Generally, yeah. Risky behavior is usually not 01:59:32.500 --> 01:59:36.520 that wise. I guess people would say that publishing 01:59:36.520 --> 01:59:39.119 this book was risky. I don't think it's that 01:59:39.119 --> 01:59:42.060 risky, though. We're not living in the Middle 01:59:42.060 --> 01:59:45.420 Ages where you would get executed if the church 01:59:45.420 --> 01:59:49.560 disagrees with you. If we were, then I wouldn't 01:59:49.560 --> 01:59:51.909 publish it. Or maybe I would publish that, but 01:59:51.909 --> 01:59:53.930 I wouldn't publish criticisms of the church. 01:59:55.170 --> 01:59:58.250 I guess the proposal would be a small thing like 01:59:58.250 --> 02:00:01.750 what you did there. Because I guess there's some 02:00:01.750 --> 02:00:03.949 value in you. Because you talk about in the book 02:00:03.949 --> 02:00:06.949 about how so many academics are just cowardly 02:00:06.949 --> 02:00:09.609 and very agreeable and afraid maybe to rock the 02:00:09.609 --> 02:00:12.710 boat a little bit. I don't know. Maybe it would 02:00:12.710 --> 02:00:15.250 be cool if the philosopher professor Michael 02:00:15.250 --> 02:00:18.159 Humer could. demonstrate some more courage or 02:00:18.159 --> 02:00:20.439 encourage his professors in some way or something 02:00:20.439 --> 02:00:24.039 i don't know it's like well it's like okay yeah 02:00:24.039 --> 02:00:25.880 i talk about well you shouldn't take unwarranted 02:00:25.880 --> 02:00:29.359 risks but like other people disagreeing with 02:00:29.359 --> 02:00:33.199 you and like tweeting at you is not a danger 02:00:33.199 --> 02:00:39.399 so okay like i've said these uh i've said some 02:00:39.399 --> 02:00:41.239 things that are unpopular like progressives would 02:00:41.239 --> 02:00:44.619 hate They don't really think of that as risky 02:00:44.619 --> 02:00:48.699 per se. I bet there's a bunch of people on Twitter 02:00:48.699 --> 02:00:51.340 right now who hate me. For most people, there 02:00:51.340 --> 02:00:53.439 would be a perceived fear there, even if it's 02:00:53.439 --> 02:01:00.319 in itself not risky. If they were actually going 02:01:00.319 --> 02:01:02.460 to physically attack me, then that would be dangerous. 02:01:02.880 --> 02:01:14.359 Maybe I'll just block them. Sometimes the mob 02:01:14.359 --> 02:01:16.079 is effective and they get people dismissed from 02:01:16.079 --> 02:01:20.779 their positions. There's some possibility of 02:01:20.779 --> 02:01:22.720 that risk happening with the publishing of this 02:01:22.720 --> 02:01:25.880 book. But I guess you feel safe enough with tenure. 02:01:26.100 --> 02:01:30.979 I don't know. Tenure officially means that you 02:01:30.979 --> 02:01:34.819 couldn't be fired except for a fairly small list 02:01:34.819 --> 02:01:38.260 of serious things. It doesn't literally mean... 02:01:38.439 --> 02:01:40.739 that you can't be fired for your political views. 02:01:41.199 --> 02:01:43.140 It just makes it hard. It just means that if 02:01:43.140 --> 02:01:45.359 I am fired for my political views, I'm going 02:01:45.359 --> 02:01:49.020 to have a great lawsuit. Yeah, sure. And I'll 02:01:49.020 --> 02:01:50.500 probably win a bunch of money from the university. 02:01:51.060 --> 02:01:56.840 Yeah. So either way, you win. Yeah. Well, I don't 02:01:56.840 --> 02:01:58.319 know. The money would probably not be worth it. 02:01:58.520 --> 02:02:00.680 Because if you get fired for political reasons, 02:02:00.960 --> 02:02:03.699 it's really hard to get hired anywhere. Cool. 02:02:04.180 --> 02:02:06.149 Well, thanks for coming on, Mike. Thanks for 02:02:06.149 --> 02:02:09.210 having me. This has been great. I know. And where 02:02:09.210 --> 02:02:11.029 can people find you if they're looking for you? 02:02:11.550 --> 02:02:14.430 So I have a blog on Substack called Fake News. 02:02:14.750 --> 02:02:19.270 F -A -K -E -N -O -U -S. And I have a bunch of 02:02:19.270 --> 02:02:22.229 books on Amazon. Buy my books. Cool. Awesome. 02:02:22.529 --> 02:02:23.369 All right.