WEBVTT 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:06.679 "Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #1070. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Clinical Psychology, Archetypal Systems Analysis, and the Psychology of Meaning." Four, three, two, one. Boom, and we're live. 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:10.419 12 rules for life. So without reading this, so 00:00:10.419 --> 00:00:14.500 what you're saying is... There's only 12 things 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:16.739 you need to know in life, right? That's it? Yeah. 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:20.859 This interview that you just did with this woman, 00:00:21.019 --> 00:00:23.640 Kathy Newman, was that in the UK? It was, Channel 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:28.199 4, UK. I just went... I felt bad, but I was also 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:30.960 laughing. I went to her Twitter page to read 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.700 like and with each one of her tweets, no matter 00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:36.740 what she says, someone writes underneath it. 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:39.299 So what you're saying is and then some ridiculous. 00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:45.259 But by the way, the your fans were mocking her, 00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:49.619 but. Politely, non -aggressively. I didn't read 00:00:49.619 --> 00:00:54.100 any rude things. There was no insults. Well, 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:56.859 maybe a few insults, but there's no swears. It 00:00:56.859 --> 00:01:00.439 was just playful mocking of the interview that 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:02.979 she did with you because the interview was ridiculous. 00:01:03.320 --> 00:01:05.400 It was a ridiculous interview. I listened to 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:07.420 it or watched it several times. I was like, this 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:11.439 is so strange. Her determination to turn it into 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:14.400 a conflict. It's one of the issues that I have 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.099 with television shows. Yeah. Because they have 00:01:17.099 --> 00:01:19.079 a very limited amount of time and they're trying 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:21.120 to make things as salacious as possible. They 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.680 want to have these sound bites, these clickbait 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:27.379 sound bites. And she just went into it incredibly 00:01:27.379 --> 00:01:29.900 confrontational, not trying to find your actual 00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:32.640 perspective, but trying to force you to defend 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:36.159 a non -realistic perspective. Yes. Well, I was 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:38.700 there. I was the hypothetical villain of her 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:41.099 imagination, essentially. Well, what happened 00:01:41.099 --> 00:01:43.939 was interesting, too, the way it played itself 00:01:43.939 --> 00:01:46.680 out. Because I met her in the green room beforehand. 00:01:47.060 --> 00:01:48.599 You know, she was being made up. And then they 00:01:48.599 --> 00:01:50.439 put a little bit of powder on me. And we had 00:01:50.439 --> 00:01:52.019 a friendly kind of interchange. And then we went 00:01:52.019 --> 00:01:53.799 and sat in front of the cameras for a couple 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:56.079 of minutes, you know, before the show got rolling. 00:01:56.219 --> 00:01:58.019 And we had a pretty pleasant back and forth. 00:01:58.120 --> 00:01:59.640 And then as soon as the cameras went on, she 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:01.939 was a completely different person. And I thought, 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:06.329 oh, I see. I see what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, 00:02:06.329 --> 00:02:10.110 well, so that kind of alerted me to, well, the 00:02:10.110 --> 00:02:12.050 fact that there was something rotten in the state 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:14.729 of Denmark, let's say. Yeah, but, you know, this 00:02:14.729 --> 00:02:18.050 is also why YouTube is going to kill TV. Because 00:02:18.050 --> 00:02:21.189 television, by its nature, all of these narrow 00:02:21.189 --> 00:02:26.569 broadcast technologies, they rely on forcing 00:02:26.569 --> 00:02:29.509 the story, right? Because it has to happen now. 00:02:29.590 --> 00:02:31.650 It has to happen, like, often in five minutes, 00:02:31.710 --> 00:02:34.009 because they only broadcast five minutes of that. 00:02:34.699 --> 00:02:37.460 They did put the whole thing up on YouTube. To 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:42.180 their credit. It hasn't ceased to amaze me yet. 00:02:42.259 --> 00:02:45.259 I think that they thought that the interview 00:02:45.259 --> 00:02:47.979 went fine. That's the scuttlebutt I've got from 00:02:47.979 --> 00:02:50.539 sort of behind the scenes, because I know some 00:02:50.539 --> 00:02:53.099 people who know what's going on at Channel 4, 00:02:53.259 --> 00:02:56.919 and they're shell -shocked by the response. And 00:02:56.919 --> 00:02:59.360 then, of course, there is the counter -response. 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:03.060 The Guardian the next day published an article 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:05.960 saying that, You know, the head of Channel 4 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:08.780 had to call in police security because of threats. 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:11.500 You know, well, first of all, you can call the 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:14.020 police in about anything. And they never did 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:17.240 detail out exactly what the threats were. You 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:19.319 know, but then about 20 newspapers picked that 00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:22.020 up and went for the, well, Kathy Newman is now 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.460 being harassed by an army of online trolls for 00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:28.159 doing nothing but doing her job, which, well, 00:03:28.319 --> 00:03:30.900 and then there was a backlash against that in 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:35.479 the press. So it's been a... Well, someone took 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:39.860 an audit of the actual interchanges between fans 00:03:39.860 --> 00:03:42.139 and her, and there was way more negative ones 00:03:42.139 --> 00:03:45.099 coming your way. Yes, that were seriously negative. 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.259 Yeah, that's right. Seriously negative, violent, 00:03:47.539 --> 00:03:51.180 harassing, just rude. There were way more, and 00:03:51.180 --> 00:03:53.780 no one picked up on that at all. It was all the 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:57.219 narrative was, she's a victim, even though she 00:03:57.219 --> 00:04:01.560 was highly aggressive. Well, she's a funny victim. 00:04:01.659 --> 00:04:04.020 It's not like she's not successful. Yeah. You 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:05.759 know, it's like at some point you think you should 00:04:05.759 --> 00:04:08.139 have to hand in your victim card. I think like 00:04:08.139 --> 00:04:10.340 when you go to an Ivy League university, it's 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:11.979 like right then and there. You get to hand it 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:13.960 in. Yeah, because you don't get to be oppressor 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.240 and oppressed at the same time. That's just too 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.050 much. Well, one of the things that you pointed 00:04:18.050 --> 00:04:20.410 out was when you were talking about competition 00:04:20.410 --> 00:04:23.569 for very lucrative jobs, and you were saying, 00:04:23.610 --> 00:04:26.569 look what you've done. You must have had to work 00:04:26.569 --> 00:04:29.470 here. And she proudly was saying how hard she 00:04:29.470 --> 00:04:31.550 had to work to get there. I'm like, well, yes, 00:04:31.709 --> 00:04:33.329 of course. No one's going to hand this to you. 00:04:33.449 --> 00:04:35.550 No, definitely not. And this is why you were 00:04:35.550 --> 00:04:38.589 saying you are opposed to equality of outcome. 00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:41.829 Equality of outcome. I can't imagine. Anything 00:04:41.829 --> 00:04:44.670 we could possibly strive for in our society that 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:46.769 would make it into hell faster than equality 00:04:46.769 --> 00:04:51.290 of outcome. Like, the historical evidence for 00:04:51.290 --> 00:04:54.449 the pathology of that root is so strong. It's 00:04:54.449 --> 00:04:59.029 like, you have to be... historically ignorant 00:04:59.029 --> 00:05:02.329 beyond belief or malevolent or resentful beyond 00:05:02.329 --> 00:05:04.649 comprehension in order to think that that's a 00:05:04.649 --> 00:05:07.170 good idea to argue for that. I agree with you, 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.129 but I think that even if you came into this with 00:05:09.129 --> 00:05:11.750 no knowledge of history, but a complete understanding 00:05:11.750 --> 00:05:14.009 of human beings. you would say, well, that doesn't 00:05:14.009 --> 00:05:15.610 make any sense. And one of the best quotes that 00:05:15.610 --> 00:05:17.769 I've ever read about it is that if you have real 00:05:17.769 --> 00:05:19.750 true freedom, you're never going to have equality 00:05:19.750 --> 00:05:22.649 of outcome. Because with real true freedom, you 00:05:22.649 --> 00:05:25.610 have the freedom to not engage. Well, look, if 00:05:25.610 --> 00:05:28.129 you look at a guy like Jeff Bezos, for instance, 00:05:28.250 --> 00:05:30.290 that Amazon guy is worth more money than anybody 00:05:30.290 --> 00:05:34.259 ever, right? That guy works all day. I mean, 00:05:34.259 --> 00:05:36.680 he's a maniac. He's acquiring all these different 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:40.579 companies, and everything he's doing is designed 00:05:40.579 --> 00:05:43.160 to succeed. I mean, he's just fanatical about 00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:44.540 it. Well, that's what Gates just said, too, in 00:05:44.540 --> 00:05:46.459 a recent interview. And I know some guys that 00:05:46.459 --> 00:05:48.980 are, you know, they're in approximately the same 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:52.319 universe as those two, and they just work. All 00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:53.959 the time. That's all they do. All the time. And 00:05:53.959 --> 00:05:56.379 they don't just work. They work so efficiently 00:05:56.379 --> 00:05:59.759 and so effectively and make use of every second 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:01.680 in ways you can't even imagine unless you're 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:04.480 in that sort of position. So, you know, doing 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:06.699 that doesn't mean that you will succeed, but 00:06:06.699 --> 00:06:08.980 not doing it certainly means that you will fail. 00:06:09.139 --> 00:06:12.540 Well, not doing it certainly means you will never 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:14.860 achieve that level of success. And that's what 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:16.439 we're talking about. We're talking about a quality 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:19.519 of outcome. I don't want that. I don't want to 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:21.399 be that guy. I don't want to work like that. 00:06:21.579 --> 00:06:23.360 I don't want to do what he's doing. And I should 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:25.819 have the freedom to not do that as he should 00:06:25.819 --> 00:06:27.639 have the freedom to do that. If we're going to 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.360 play this game called capitalism, which we're 00:06:30.360 --> 00:06:33.420 all agreeing is probably at least in as far as 00:06:33.420 --> 00:06:35.019 the models that we have right now is the best 00:06:35.019 --> 00:06:36.500 one that we have. If we're all going to play 00:06:36.500 --> 00:06:38.720 this game, if someone decides to be the Michael 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:41.360 Jordan of capitalism, you can't stop them. You 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:42.800 can't say, no, no, no, no. You're playing this 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:45.100 game too well. You're playing this game too hard. 00:06:45.220 --> 00:06:47.310 You're too obsessed with this game. You're going 00:06:47.310 --> 00:06:49.750 to have that. Yeah, you can stop them. You can 00:06:49.750 --> 00:06:52.350 try to stop people from winning crookedly, which 00:06:52.350 --> 00:06:54.129 is what you should do. And, you know, there's 00:06:54.129 --> 00:06:55.790 a couple of things that are really worth delving 00:06:55.790 --> 00:06:58.230 into with regards to that, too, because there's 00:06:58.230 --> 00:07:00.529 this sort of Marxist notion that all this inequality 00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:02.610 is generated as a consequence of capitalism. 00:07:02.889 --> 00:07:05.689 And that's actually technically false. Because 00:07:05.689 --> 00:07:08.029 if you look at, there seems to be something like 00:07:08.029 --> 00:07:11.850 a law of nature that's described by this statistical... 00:07:12.089 --> 00:07:15.029 model called the Pareto distribution. And it 00:07:15.029 --> 00:07:17.629 basically suggests that in any creative domain, 00:07:18.029 --> 00:07:20.269 there's going to be a small number of people 00:07:20.269 --> 00:07:23.529 will do almost all of the output. But it doesn't 00:07:23.529 --> 00:07:26.670 just apply to human beings. It applies to the 00:07:26.670 --> 00:07:29.930 heights of trees in the Amazon rainforest. It 00:07:29.930 --> 00:07:31.790 applies to the size of cities, and it applies 00:07:31.790 --> 00:07:34.850 to the mass of stars, which is something like, 00:07:34.930 --> 00:07:37.910 the more you have, the more you get. You can 00:07:37.910 --> 00:07:39.730 imagine how that would work with a star. As it 00:07:39.730 --> 00:07:41.149 gets bigger and bigger and its gravitational 00:07:41.149 --> 00:07:43.589 mass increases, it's going to attract more and 00:07:43.589 --> 00:07:45.769 more matter. And then as a city grows, well, 00:07:45.829 --> 00:07:47.410 more and more people are excited to move there 00:07:47.410 --> 00:07:49.490 because of all the opportunities. And so some 00:07:49.490 --> 00:07:51.290 cities start to grow tremendously and others 00:07:51.290 --> 00:07:58.810 don't. But this... where a small number of people 00:07:58.810 --> 00:08:01.370 end up controlling a tremendous proportion of 00:08:01.370 --> 00:08:03.930 the resource is not only limited to money, and 00:08:03.930 --> 00:08:05.829 it doesn't only occur in capitalist societies. 00:08:06.149 --> 00:08:08.110 It occurs everywhere. It's like a natural law. 00:08:08.329 --> 00:08:10.949 So you see the same thing with number of points 00:08:10.949 --> 00:08:13.360 scored by a... you know, a spectacular sports 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:15.980 figure, there's always a tiny proportion of people 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:19.620 who are way ahead on the curve, or people who 00:08:19.620 --> 00:08:21.779 make records, or people who sell paintings, or 00:08:21.779 --> 00:08:23.920 people who compose music, or people who sell 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:27.399 music online. It's all the same. It's the 1 % 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:31.500 gets 80%. And so, well, first, we can't blame 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:34.500 that on capitalism. And second, we should note 00:08:34.500 --> 00:08:36.440 that it actually does constitute a problem, which 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:37.759 is what the left -wingers are always jumping 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:39.600 up and down about, right? Like, too much inequality 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.519 starts to destabilize your society. And it isn't 00:08:42.519 --> 00:08:46.120 obvious how to shovel... from the top end, maybe 00:08:46.120 --> 00:08:48.240 the one -tenth of one percent who have almost 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.519 all the money, down to the people who have almost 00:08:50.519 --> 00:08:53.419 nothing, in a way that's effective, so that they 00:08:53.419 --> 00:08:54.820 don't get thrown out of the game completely, 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.279 and so that the whole society doesn't destabilize. 00:08:57.360 --> 00:08:59.659 We don't exactly know how to do that. It is a 00:08:59.659 --> 00:09:01.940 problem, because inequality does exist, and it 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:04.820 does tend to magnify across time. And then there's 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:06.740 another problem too, which we haven't figured 00:09:06.740 --> 00:09:09.700 out, is imagine that in order to make everyone 00:09:09.700 --> 00:09:12.960 rich, you have to tolerate a certain amount of 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:15.990 inequality. It seems obvious. We don't know how 00:09:15.990 --> 00:09:18.470 many units of inequality you need to tolerate 00:09:18.470 --> 00:09:21.250 per unit of wealth generated. But the answer 00:09:21.250 --> 00:09:23.730 is definitely not zero. It's definitely not zero. 00:09:24.769 --> 00:09:27.789 Yeah, so it goes back to this equality of outcome 00:09:27.789 --> 00:09:32.889 idea. And this thing has perplexed me since I've 00:09:32.889 --> 00:09:37.750 met you and since you were involved in this original 00:09:37.750 --> 00:09:41.700 debate over gender pronouns. And there was an 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:43.779 article that was written recently. I forget the 00:09:43.779 --> 00:09:45.620 exact title of it. I think it was something along 00:09:45.620 --> 00:09:47.419 the lines of why can't people hear what Jordan 00:09:47.419 --> 00:09:51.620 Peterson is saying. You are misrepresented more 00:09:51.620 --> 00:09:55.720 than anyone I know in a weird way. You are villainized 00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:59.320 in a weird way where I can't believe that these 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:02.440 people are honestly looking at your opinions. 00:10:03.230 --> 00:10:06.730 And coming up with these conclusions, I can't 00:10:06.730 --> 00:10:09.429 help but feel like what is happening is people 00:10:09.429 --> 00:10:14.169 are consciously deciding to ignore reality and 00:10:14.169 --> 00:10:18.450 paint you as this archetypal figure of oppressive 00:10:18.450 --> 00:10:23.990 white male patriarchy, ignorance, fill in the 00:10:23.990 --> 00:10:26.549 blank with all the rest of the descriptives that 00:10:26.549 --> 00:10:29.429 you'd like to use. But they've decided to paint 00:10:29.429 --> 00:10:34.159 you in this way, like as. As a target, because 00:10:34.159 --> 00:10:36.740 they need a target to sort of reinforce this 00:10:36.740 --> 00:10:40.320 idea that transgender people are being victimized 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:44.700 and women are being victimized. Well, even deeper 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.059 that the right narrative is the way that we should 00:10:47.059 --> 00:10:50.320 view the world is victim versus oppressor, because 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.840 that's the basic postmodern neo -Marxist template. 00:10:53.019 --> 00:10:54.580 It's the right way to view the world is that 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:59.379 it's a power ground. It's a battleground of power. 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.779 competing constantly. The ones that win are oppressors. 00:11:03.799 --> 00:11:05.580 The ones that lose are oppressed. That's the 00:11:05.580 --> 00:11:07.620 way you look at the world. And I think that that's 00:11:07.620 --> 00:11:09.899 wrong. That's a bad way of looking at the world 00:11:09.899 --> 00:11:12.340 psychologically, sociologically, politically, 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:15.879 economically, ideologically, you name it. It 00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:18.500 ends in nothing but catastrophe. I mean, first 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:20.379 of all, because it puts your group identity as 00:11:20.379 --> 00:11:22.419 something that's paramount. And I mean, that's 00:11:22.419 --> 00:11:25.159 just not, well, that isn't what we do in the 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:27.779 West, let's say. We put your individual identity 00:11:27.779 --> 00:11:33.059 paramount. And then, well, that's just for starters, 00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:35.700 fundamentally. And then I guess the other reason 00:11:35.700 --> 00:11:38.559 that people are on my case to some degree is 00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:41.399 because I have made a strong case, which I think 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:43.480 is fully documented by the scientific literature, 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:45.720 that there are intrinsic differences, say, between 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:47.820 men and women. And I think the evidence in that, 00:11:47.860 --> 00:11:49.860 this is the thing that staggered me, is that 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:54.460 no serious scientists have debated that for like 00:11:54.460 --> 00:11:58.779 four decades. That argument was done. By the 00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:00.659 time I went to graduate school, everyone knew 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:03.620 that human beings were not a blank slate, that 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:08.200 biological forces parameterized the way that 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.799 we thought and felt and acted and valued. Everyone 00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:15.080 knew that. The fact that this has become somehow 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:17.740 debatable again is just... especially because 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:19.759 it's being done by legislative fiat. They're 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:22.399 forcing it. To me, as a scientist, it's just, 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:25.500 well, in the States, too, with Title IX, for 00:12:25.500 --> 00:12:27.820 example, because Title IX is sort of predicated 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:30.480 on that viewpoint. What is Title IX? Oh, Title 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:32.460 IX was originally just a piece of legislation 00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:36.330 that... mandated that female sports teams were 00:12:36.330 --> 00:12:38.389 funded to the same degree that male sports teams 00:12:38.389 --> 00:12:40.549 were funded in the American universities. But 00:12:40.549 --> 00:12:42.710 it's been expanded out so that if there's any 00:12:42.710 --> 00:12:45.590 differences in any areas whatsoever between the 00:12:45.590 --> 00:12:47.710 genders, then the universities are being taken 00:12:47.710 --> 00:12:50.710 to court. And like 200 of them, I mean, last 00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:53.789 I looked, about 200 of them were up. And they 00:12:53.789 --> 00:12:55.690 can have their funding revoked if they violate 00:12:55.690 --> 00:12:57.769 the Title IX provisions. So it's become like 00:12:57.769 --> 00:13:00.970 a vicious weapon for social justice warrior equality 00:13:00.970 --> 00:13:05.379 of outcome types. So it's not just about sports. 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:08.840 No, it's got way, way beyond that. Yeah, it's 00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:12.120 become an equality of outcome issue fundamentally. 00:13:13.340 --> 00:13:15.820 There was an article that I sent you. One of 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:20.820 them was from, I think, I got it off of dig .com, 00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:23.820 but it was Jordan Peterson is having his moment 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:25.960 and we should ignore him. I sent this to you 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:28.779 and there was one part of it. The last part of 00:13:28.779 --> 00:13:33.070 that might be true. But one of the things in 00:13:33.070 --> 00:13:36.769 the article was citing this study that showed 00:13:36.769 --> 00:13:38.450 very little difference between men and women. 00:13:38.450 --> 00:13:40.549 Oh, yeah. I read that damn study. Oh, God. It's 00:13:40.549 --> 00:13:43.549 a pathetic study. Yeah. I sent it to you because 00:13:43.549 --> 00:13:46.250 I was like, this is not right. Well, the thing 00:13:46.250 --> 00:13:49.129 is, like most things, it's complicated. Yes. 00:13:49.330 --> 00:13:52.889 You know, so are men and women more similar or 00:13:52.889 --> 00:13:55.070 more different? Well, it depends on how you define 00:13:55.070 --> 00:13:58.730 the terms first. But they're more similar. Well, 00:13:58.769 --> 00:14:01.250 why? Well, they're the same species. So we could 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:05.190 start with that. But the question is, what are 00:14:05.190 --> 00:14:07.230 the differences, and how do they manifest themselves, 00:14:07.470 --> 00:14:09.850 and are those manifestations important? So here's 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:13.950 an example. If you took a random woman out of 00:14:13.950 --> 00:14:16.190 the population and a random man, and you had 00:14:16.190 --> 00:14:18.710 to bet on who was more temperamentally aggressive, 00:14:19.070 --> 00:14:22.169 if you bet on the man, you'd be right 60 % of 00:14:22.169 --> 00:14:24.980 the time. But you'd be wrong 40 % of the time. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:26.879 And that's not a walloping difference, right? 00:14:26.940 --> 00:14:30.899 60 -40. It's not 90 -10. So there's a lot of 00:14:30.899 --> 00:14:32.799 overlap between men and women in terms of their 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:34.799 levels of aggression. And you think, well, they're 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:39.919 more the same. Yeah, except. So then let's say, 00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:41.500 no, no, let's play a slightly different game. 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:45.240 Let's pick the 1 in 100 most aggressive person 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:48.559 from the random population. Well, they're all 00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:51.500 men. And that's why all the people in prison 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:55.389 are men. So even though on average, men and women, 00:14:55.490 --> 00:15:00.169 well, yeah, it's 90 to 95%, right? And often 00:15:00.169 --> 00:15:01.509 if the women are in prison, it's because they 00:15:01.509 --> 00:15:05.370 got tangled up with a really bad guy. So one 00:15:05.370 --> 00:15:09.830 of the problems is that differences at the extreme 00:15:09.830 --> 00:15:12.289 are where the differences really start to manifest 00:15:12.289 --> 00:15:14.950 themselves. And so you can have a small difference 00:15:14.950 --> 00:15:18.769 at the level of the average, but out at the extremes, 00:15:18.929 --> 00:15:22.629 it starts to make a massive difference. Google 00:15:22.629 --> 00:15:25.809 engineer, which is hard, right? Because not only 00:15:25.809 --> 00:15:27.070 do you have to be an engineer, but you have to 00:15:27.070 --> 00:15:29.769 be a very good engineer. Say, well, you have 00:15:29.769 --> 00:15:32.149 to be interested in things rather than people. 00:15:32.509 --> 00:15:34.789 That's a huge difference in interest. Like, men 00:15:34.789 --> 00:15:37.490 are more interested in things, generally speaking, 00:15:37.669 --> 00:15:39.830 and women are more interested in people, generally 00:15:39.830 --> 00:15:41.690 speaking. Now, there's still a lot of overlap 00:15:41.690 --> 00:15:44.070 between them, but that's one of the biggest differences 00:15:44.070 --> 00:15:45.710 between men and women. It's been demonstrated 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:47.730 cross -culturally. It's also a very big difference 00:15:47.730 --> 00:15:51.879 in the Scandinavian countries. On average, the 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:53.679 difference isn't that great, even though it's 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:55.659 a relatively large difference. But at the extremes, 00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.179 it's the same thing. Almost all the people who 00:15:58.179 --> 00:16:01.720 are hyper, what would you call, hyper -focused 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.840 on things, they're almost all men. And all the 00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:07.240 people who are hyper -focused on people are almost 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:09.080 all women. And so how does that play out in the 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:11.080 world? Well, in the Scandinavian countries, it 00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:15.200 plays out this way. About 85 % of nurses in Scandinavia 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:18.299 are female. And about 85 % to 90 % of engineers 00:16:18.299 --> 00:16:21.539 are male. It doesn't mean women can't be engineers. 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:24.000 It doesn't mean men can't be nurses. It also 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:25.580 doesn't have anything to do with intelligence, 00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:28.360 but it does have to do with interest, and the 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:32.159 differences in interest are big. Now, at the 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:34.419 extremes in particular. So when you read a review 00:16:34.419 --> 00:16:36.179 like that, the one that was pointed out, the 00:16:36.179 --> 00:16:38.559 first question is, well, what do you mean by 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.700 big and little? There's more overlap. There's 00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:43.299 more overlap between men and women than there 00:16:43.299 --> 00:16:45.919 is difference on virtually every parameter. Okay, 00:16:45.940 --> 00:16:48.669 fine. Are the remaining differences significant 00:16:48.669 --> 00:16:50.570 in how they play out in the world? And the answer 00:16:50.570 --> 00:16:52.970 to that is overwhelmingly significant, because 00:16:52.970 --> 00:16:56.929 you select for extremes. So here's another example. 00:16:57.929 --> 00:17:01.750 Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ of 115. So 00:17:01.750 --> 00:17:03.950 in the typical population overall has an average 00:17:03.950 --> 00:17:06.769 IQ of 100. 15 points is about the difference 00:17:06.769 --> 00:17:08.890 between the typical college student and the typical 00:17:08.890 --> 00:17:12.230 high school student. Okay, so it's not a massive 00:17:12.230 --> 00:17:14.690 difference, but if you go to the extreme, say, 00:17:14.869 --> 00:17:16.769 well, let's go look at people who only have an 00:17:16.769 --> 00:17:19.789 IQ of 145, which is kind of where you hit the 00:17:19.789 --> 00:17:21.730 beginnings of genius level. It's like the Jews 00:17:21.730 --> 00:17:26.789 are overwhelmingly overrepresented. So, relatively 00:17:26.789 --> 00:17:29.380 small differences in the average can... produce 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:31.740 walloping differences at the extremes. People 00:17:31.740 --> 00:17:33.660 don't understand that. It's not surprising, because 00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:36.220 it actually requires a fairly sophisticated grasp 00:17:36.220 --> 00:17:39.519 of statistics. But when we're talking about things 00:17:39.519 --> 00:17:42.220 like differential outcome in the workplace... 00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:45.279 then you have to take a sophisticated statistical 00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:47.220 approach to it or you don't know what the hell 00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.599 you're talking about. And unfortunately, many 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:51.319 of the people who are talking about things like 00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:53.299 gender differences, they have no idea what they're 00:17:53.299 --> 00:17:54.500 talking about. They don't know the literature. 00:17:54.700 --> 00:17:56.500 They don't know there is a literature. They don't 00:17:56.500 --> 00:17:59.619 understand biology. Like the social constructionist 00:17:59.619 --> 00:18:02.740 types, the women's studies types, the neo -Marxists, 00:18:02.740 --> 00:18:04.579 they don't give a damn about biology. It's like 00:18:04.579 --> 00:18:08.660 they inhabit some disembodied universe. So the 00:18:08.660 --> 00:18:12.400 review was poorly written at best and did not... 00:18:12.859 --> 00:18:16.940 showed a very poor grasp of the relationship 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.779 between group differences and economic and practical 00:18:19.779 --> 00:18:22.599 outcomes. It's not just that. It's deceptive. 00:18:22.660 --> 00:18:28.099 And there's a need in some way on that side, 00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:30.839 this side of the debate, the anti -Jordan Peterson 00:18:30.839 --> 00:18:36.200 side, to label men and women as being virtually 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:39.700 identical. There's so much evidence that that's 00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:42.420 not the case. And what you're saying, what you've 00:18:42.420 --> 00:18:46.019 never said, one is superior, one is inferior. 00:18:46.220 --> 00:18:48.920 What you are is a guy who's pointing out the 00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:51.640 reality of the difference between the various 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:53.740 types of human beings. And you've been very open 00:18:53.740 --> 00:18:56.869 about. The extremes about you. Look, I'm well 00:18:56.869 --> 00:18:59.630 aware of the extremes. I deal with MMA fighters. 00:18:59.890 --> 00:19:03.690 I know a lot of female MMA fighters are as aggressive 00:19:03.690 --> 00:19:05.789 and as tough as any man you're ever going to 00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:08.470 meet in your life. And I know a lot of men from 00:19:08.470 --> 00:19:11.609 comedy that are meek little guys who they're 00:19:11.609 --> 00:19:13.769 not nearly as aggressive as some of these female 00:19:13.769 --> 00:19:17.250 fighters. I think one of the beautiful things 00:19:17.250 --> 00:19:20.619 about freedom is that people get. an opportunity 00:19:20.619 --> 00:19:23.200 to express themselves in a way that's genuinely 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:26.660 them. And whether that is like our friend Alex 00:19:26.660 --> 00:19:30.400 Honnold, who's a free climber, who is like climbing 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:34.059 up these fantastic mountains with no ropes, or 00:19:34.059 --> 00:19:36.779 whether it's a female MMA fighter like Raquel 00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:40.079 Pennington, who's just a tank and beating the 00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:41.519 shit out of people. And that's what she loves 00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:44.759 to do. All of these extremes are available to 00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:48.089 people because of freedom. This is not a suppressive 00:19:48.089 --> 00:19:50.490 thing. No one's stopping people from choosing 00:19:50.490 --> 00:19:52.670 these paths. I don't know if you saw the most 00:19:52.670 --> 00:19:57.410 recent slip -up by the CEO of YouTube. I retweeted 00:19:57.410 --> 00:20:01.589 it today. They were talking about why there's 00:20:01.589 --> 00:20:05.349 not as many women in tech. And she basically 00:20:05.349 --> 00:20:09.009 said they both, her and the CEO of Google, said 00:20:09.009 --> 00:20:11.829 exactly what James Damore was saying in his memo. 00:20:12.549 --> 00:20:15.990 They completely fucked up. They tried to... Did 00:20:15.990 --> 00:20:18.990 you find this? Look at this. This is goddamn 00:20:18.990 --> 00:20:21.309 hilarious. And James Damore had this on his page. 00:20:22.289 --> 00:20:25.049 They respond, women, a lack of tech... No, go 00:20:25.049 --> 00:20:30.109 to James Damore's tweet. Just go to what I retweeted 00:20:30.109 --> 00:20:33.049 and what he said. So there was a study published 00:20:33.049 --> 00:20:35.890 a while ago about... No, Jamie, scroll back up. 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:38.089 It was right there. It's right there. Just make 00:20:38.089 --> 00:20:40.799 his tweet larger. There you go. Look, see, he's 00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:42.880 saying, did I read this right? I don't know how 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:46.259 to say her name is Susan. I'm sorry. I don't 00:20:46.259 --> 00:20:49.789 know how to say her name. W -O -J -I -C -I -C 00:20:49.789 --> 00:20:54.109 -K -I said that women find geeky male industries 00:20:54.109 --> 00:20:57.529 as opposed to social industries not very interesting. 00:20:57.589 --> 00:21:00.269 And Sundar cites research on gender differences. 00:21:00.630 --> 00:21:02.630 That's exactly the difference in interest that 00:21:02.630 --> 00:21:04.630 I just pointed out. That's exactly right. This 00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:07.410 is what James Damore wrote in his memo that got 00:21:07.410 --> 00:21:10.410 him fired. And this, in my mind, if I was the 00:21:10.410 --> 00:21:12.789 lawyer for James Damore, I'd be like, oh, well, 00:21:12.869 --> 00:21:15.740 look who we have here. This is checkmate, you 00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:18.420 dummies. You just said what he said. The DeMora 00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:20.160 story is really interesting, you know, because 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:23.380 I think it's such a classic story of an engineer 00:21:23.380 --> 00:21:26.460 getting tangled up in politics. So DeMora went 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:28.799 to this diversity seminar, and he wasn't very 00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:30.180 happy about it because he knew the literature. 00:21:30.460 --> 00:21:32.759 And so at the end of the seminar, they asked 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:35.559 for feedback. Well, James DeMora is an engineer. 00:21:35.980 --> 00:21:39.380 So when you tell an engineer that you want feedback, 00:21:39.740 --> 00:21:44.400 the engineer thinks, oh, you want feedback. facts 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:46.380 and stuff, right? Because that's what feedback 00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:48.359 would be like. So Damore went and wrote this 00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:50.160 like thorough memo and gave it to them. He said, 00:21:50.220 --> 00:21:52.319 well, you know, this is what I think. Here's 00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:55.920 some feedback. And then it traveled around. He 00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:57.799 got no real response from the diversity people. 00:21:57.920 --> 00:21:59.839 And then he posted it on one of these internal 00:21:59.839 --> 00:22:02.240 boards at Google where people can discuss things, 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:04.539 which people at Google do all the time. So it 00:22:04.539 --> 00:22:06.420 was perfectly reasonable for him to post it because 00:22:06.420 --> 00:22:08.480 he didn't get a response from the diversity people. 00:22:08.539 --> 00:22:09.940 He thought, well, let's see what other people 00:22:09.940 --> 00:22:12.059 think. And then it was there for a long time 00:22:12.059 --> 00:22:14.910 until it was leaked. into the outside world. 00:22:15.109 --> 00:22:17.710 It wasn't like DeMora was trying to expose Google 00:22:17.710 --> 00:22:21.109 for what it is. He was just doing what an engineer 00:22:21.109 --> 00:22:24.049 type would do when someone asked him to provide 00:22:24.049 --> 00:22:26.549 feedback because he's not thinking politically. 00:22:26.950 --> 00:22:28.849 He's not thinking, oh, they just want to hear 00:22:28.849 --> 00:22:31.450 what they already said. He thought they actually 00:22:31.450 --> 00:22:34.130 wanted some facts. Anyways, I think they picked 00:22:34.130 --> 00:22:36.569 on the wrong guy because DeMora turns out to 00:22:36.569 --> 00:22:39.039 be pretty damn tough. Well, he's very smart and 00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:41.660 a very kind guy. When you sit down and talk to 00:22:41.660 --> 00:22:44.859 him, he's not a sexist. He's a guy that's talking 00:22:44.859 --> 00:22:47.640 about facts. In fact, he wrote more than a page 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:51.539 and a half, I believe, on strategies for getting 00:22:51.539 --> 00:22:54.319 more women interested in tech. He's not a sexist. 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:56.420 This is just a guy that was talking about the 00:22:56.420 --> 00:22:58.319 differences in the choices that people make that's 00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.279 based on just the variations that you were just 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:03.140 discussing. Well, there's a good study done a 00:23:03.140 --> 00:23:04.480 while ago, and unfortunately I don't remember 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:07.119 the author, but they were looking at... junior 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:10.279 high math prodigies. And they're pretty equally 00:23:10.279 --> 00:23:12.940 distributed between boys and girls. But by the 00:23:12.940 --> 00:23:15.839 time university came along, the math prodigy 00:23:15.839 --> 00:23:17.819 boys, they tend to go into the STEM fields, but 00:23:17.819 --> 00:23:19.619 the girls wouldn't. And it isn't because they 00:23:19.619 --> 00:23:21.299 lacked ability, because they had stellar ability. 00:23:21.599 --> 00:23:23.890 It's because they weren't interested. And it 00:23:23.890 --> 00:23:25.589 turns out, like the interest thing turns out 00:23:25.589 --> 00:23:28.609 to be a big one. So with personality alone, if 00:23:28.609 --> 00:23:30.470 you measure men and women's personalities, and 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:32.710 then you add up all the differences in personalities, 00:23:32.930 --> 00:23:35.990 you could tell with about 75 % to 80 % certainty 00:23:35.990 --> 00:23:39.109 by looking at a full personality readout whether 00:23:39.109 --> 00:23:41.089 a person's male or female. So you'd be wrong 00:23:41.089 --> 00:23:43.950 25 % of the time, something like that. But if 00:23:43.950 --> 00:23:45.490 you add interest to that, you can get it up to 00:23:45.490 --> 00:23:48.910 about 90%. And so, you know, you say, well, are 00:23:48.910 --> 00:23:52.390 these differences large? Well... Individually, 00:23:52.390 --> 00:23:55.309 they're not that big. They make more difference 00:23:55.309 --> 00:23:59.109 at the extremes. But if you add them up, then 00:23:59.109 --> 00:24:01.509 you can almost completely differentiate men from 00:24:01.509 --> 00:24:04.410 women. So by that token, they're very large. 00:24:04.490 --> 00:24:06.109 And the interest thing actually turns out to 00:24:06.109 --> 00:24:08.190 matter a lot. Like, it's probably the most important 00:24:08.190 --> 00:24:09.930 individual difference that has been discovered 00:24:09.930 --> 00:24:11.849 between men and women at the psychological level. 00:24:11.950 --> 00:24:14.569 It has real decent explanatory power, because 00:24:14.569 --> 00:24:17.640 you might say... Well, men have a slight edge 00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:19.460 in spatial intelligence, and that's why they're 00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:22.119 overrepresented in STEM fields. And women have 00:24:22.119 --> 00:24:24.039 a slight edge in verbal intelligence. This is 00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:26.279 debatable, but literature kind of indicates that. 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.000 And that's why they're overwhelmingly the majority 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:32.259 of fiction readers, for example. Is that the 00:24:32.259 --> 00:24:33.859 reason that there's differential representation 00:24:33.859 --> 00:24:36.119 in the STEM fields? It's like, no, it doesn't 00:24:36.119 --> 00:24:37.700 seem to be. It doesn't look like it's an intellectual 00:24:37.700 --> 00:24:39.940 issue, which is also what Damore pointed out, 00:24:39.960 --> 00:24:42.220 by the way. He never said once that this was 00:24:42.220 --> 00:24:45.019 a cognitive issue. But it's a matter of choice. 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:48.099 Matter of interest. And women tend to be more 00:24:48.099 --> 00:24:52.240 people -oriented. Now, the thing is, this is 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:54.240 also being discovered in chimpanzees and other 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:59.720 primates. Like, if you offer baby or child chimpanzees, 00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:03.460 juvenile chimpanzees, the choice between thing 00:25:03.460 --> 00:25:06.420 -like toys, like cars, or people -like toys, 00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:09.180 like dolls, the males will go for the thing -like 00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:11.019 toys and the females will go for the people -like 00:25:11.019 --> 00:25:13.720 toys. So you see that in primates. And you think, 00:25:13.720 --> 00:25:15.279 well, is that surprising? It's like, well, no, 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.720 it's not that surprising, really. I mean, women 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:21.799 have to take care of infants, tiny infants. And 00:25:21.799 --> 00:25:23.859 you have to be really people -oriented to do 00:25:23.859 --> 00:25:26.339 that, because a tiny infant is an unbelievably 00:25:26.339 --> 00:25:30.539 demanding social relationship. And it's a primary 00:25:30.539 --> 00:25:34.279 relationship for about two years. And so women 00:25:34.279 --> 00:25:37.039 are tilted towards the kind of temperament that 00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:39.339 makes that possible. It's like, well, is that 00:25:39.339 --> 00:25:41.660 such a shock? Really? That's such a surprise? 00:25:43.129 --> 00:25:46.890 No, it's not a surprise. And what's confusing 00:25:46.890 --> 00:25:51.450 to me is the narrative that anybody that points 00:25:51.450 --> 00:25:54.849 out these differences is somehow a sexist or 00:25:54.849 --> 00:25:57.970 discriminatory. Yeah, worse. Yeah, yeah. Well, 00:25:58.109 --> 00:26:00.150 whatever epithet they can... Well, I think the 00:26:00.150 --> 00:26:03.029 other reason that the radical lefties have been 00:26:03.029 --> 00:26:05.250 going after me constantly is... Well, there's... 00:26:05.250 --> 00:26:08.029 One reason is if you stand up against the radical 00:26:08.029 --> 00:26:11.690 left, you're in a group that also has Nazis in 00:26:11.690 --> 00:26:14.319 it. Because the Nazis also stand up against the 00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:17.599 radical left. So it's perfectly reasonable from 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:20.000 a strategic perspective for the radical leftists 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:22.380 to say, well, you're against us. How do we know 00:26:22.380 --> 00:26:24.619 you're not a Nazi? It's like, well, statistically, 00:26:24.920 --> 00:26:27.680 statistically, I'm probably not. You know, so 00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:29.920 there's that. But you could say at least the 00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:33.440 question is open. But then the next part of it 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:37.680 comes is that it's motivated epithet slinging. 00:26:37.740 --> 00:26:41.480 Because if I'm reasonable... and I'm standing 00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:44.299 up against the radical left, and they admit that 00:26:44.299 --> 00:26:46.839 I'm reasonable, then there has to be an admission 00:26:46.839 --> 00:26:49.720 that reasonable people could stand up against 00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:52.039 the radical left, which kind of implies that 00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:54.440 the radical left isn't that reasonable. And so 00:26:54.440 --> 00:26:55.980 while they're not going to go there, of course, 00:26:55.980 --> 00:26:58.140 they're not that reasonable. They're unreasonable 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:00.819 beyond belief, as we saw in the situation with 00:27:00.819 --> 00:27:03.960 Lindsay Shepard in Canada. So at Wilfrid Laurier 00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:05.480 University... Yeah, let's talk about that real 00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:07.480 quick, because that was a fascinating thing, 00:27:07.539 --> 00:27:10.569 too, and that also had to do with you. So she 00:27:10.569 --> 00:27:14.410 was discussing you in class, and could you fill 00:27:14.410 --> 00:27:16.910 in everybody? Yeah, she's in the communications 00:27:16.910 --> 00:27:20.849 department at Wilfrid Laurier, and they were 00:27:20.849 --> 00:27:25.170 talking about the role of language in communication, 00:27:25.470 --> 00:27:27.230 which is kind of what you would do in a communication 00:27:27.230 --> 00:27:30.049 class, and she decided to show a five -minute 00:27:30.049 --> 00:27:33.650 clip from a program I had done for TV Ontario, 00:27:33.970 --> 00:27:36.089 which is a public television station, mainstream, 00:27:36.349 --> 00:27:40.190 left -leaning, liberal television. station news 00:27:40.190 --> 00:27:43.190 program and a good one a good one and i had been 00:27:43.190 --> 00:27:45.710 on there with a number of other people including 00:27:45.710 --> 00:27:48.130 a professor nicholas matt from the university 00:27:48.130 --> 00:27:49.890 of toronto who claimed essentially that there 00:27:49.890 --> 00:27:51.769 were no biological differences between men and 00:27:51.769 --> 00:27:53.609 women and that had been the scientific consensus 00:27:53.609 --> 00:27:56.230 for the last four decades so anyways she showed 00:27:56.230 --> 00:28:01.049 a clip from this and well she got hauled in front 00:28:01.049 --> 00:28:04.819 of two professors and an administrator, Adria 00:28:04.819 --> 00:28:07.039 Joel, who was basically hired for that purpose, 00:28:07.099 --> 00:28:10.539 and raked over the coals for daring to show this 00:28:10.539 --> 00:28:14.819 video. And she had the wherewithal to tape it. 00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:17.460 And then she made the tape public. And in that 00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:20.500 tape, they compared me, it was really blackly 00:28:20.500 --> 00:28:23.059 comical, you know. They compared me to Hitler. 00:28:23.559 --> 00:28:26.099 But then said, well, it's Hitler or Milo Yiannopoulos. 00:28:26.259 --> 00:28:28.140 I thought, you guys, you're so damn clueless, 00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:30.400 you can't even get your insults right. It's like, 00:28:30.440 --> 00:28:32.980 you can't say... That's like playing a video 00:28:32.980 --> 00:28:36.140 of Hitler or Milo Yiannopoulos. It's like, first 00:28:36.140 --> 00:28:38.839 of all, Hitler and Milo Yiannopoulos, they're 00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:41.599 actually not in the same category, right? Except 00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:44.759 that they're both human. That's about the narrowness 00:28:44.759 --> 00:28:49.279 of the category. And then Milo's like a comic 00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:51.619 provocateur. And you can hate him or love him 00:28:51.619 --> 00:28:55.200 or be indifferent. But to put him in the same 00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:57.519 category as Hitler just shows how muddle -headed 00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:00.319 you are. And then to assimilate me to that category 00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:04.230 so carelessly. Like, you don't mess about with 00:29:04.230 --> 00:29:06.869 epithets like that. You know, Hitler was one 00:29:06.869 --> 00:29:09.170 of the great supervillains of the 20th century, 00:29:09.309 --> 00:29:12.089 right? I mean, he's up there with Stalin and 00:29:12.089 --> 00:29:15.829 Mao in the panoply of satanically possessed leaders. 00:29:16.130 --> 00:29:19.069 You don't just toss that around, especially not 00:29:19.069 --> 00:29:21.630 when you're torturing your teaching assistant 00:29:21.630 --> 00:29:26.799 for daring to show a video. about language in 00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:29.720 a communication class. And so that was a massive 00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:32.700 scandal in Canada. I think it was the biggest 00:29:32.700 --> 00:29:35.019 scandal that ever hit a university in Canada. 00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:36.799 And it got a lot of international attention, 00:29:37.019 --> 00:29:39.500 and rightly so. And she also turns out to be 00:29:39.500 --> 00:29:41.960 a tough cookie. I mean, the last I heard, she'd 00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:45.579 started a club at Wilfrid Laurier, and I think 00:29:45.579 --> 00:29:47.259 it was last night or the night before, maybe 00:29:47.259 --> 00:29:49.160 it's coming up, they're going to show the whole 00:29:49.160 --> 00:29:53.269 video from Television Ontario. at a club meeting 00:29:53.269 --> 00:29:55.549 and invite people to come and discuss it. It's 00:29:55.549 --> 00:29:57.750 like they picked on the wrong girl there, too. 00:29:57.930 --> 00:29:59.750 Well, they certainly did. She's obviously very 00:29:59.750 --> 00:30:02.130 smart. You can hear that in her discussion with 00:30:02.130 --> 00:30:04.210 them and how flabbergasted she was by their take 00:30:04.210 --> 00:30:07.769 on things. But this was essentially proof to 00:30:07.769 --> 00:30:10.009 a lot of people that were on the outside of how 00:30:10.009 --> 00:30:13.509 preposterous some of the dialogue was inside 00:30:13.509 --> 00:30:15.170 these universities. Yeah, well, they couldn't 00:30:15.170 --> 00:30:16.930 have done me a bigger favor than having that 00:30:16.930 --> 00:30:19.390 scandal because when I made videos about Bill 00:30:19.390 --> 00:30:22.890 C -16, 15 months ago, I said, look, here's what's 00:30:22.890 --> 00:30:25.789 going to happen because this legislation is written 00:30:25.789 --> 00:30:28.130 in an appalling manner and the surrounding policies 00:30:28.130 --> 00:30:30.230 are pathological. I said, here's what's going 00:30:30.230 --> 00:30:32.890 to happen. And so I laid it out. And then people 00:30:32.890 --> 00:30:35.009 came out and said, no, you're being paranoid. 00:30:35.230 --> 00:30:37.529 It's like, that's possible. No, the bill, the 00:30:37.529 --> 00:30:39.250 legislation isn't going to have that effect. 00:30:39.490 --> 00:30:41.369 No, you're not a legal expert. What the hell 00:30:41.369 --> 00:30:43.490 do you know? Et cetera, et cetera. You're crazy. 00:30:43.549 --> 00:30:45.470 You're a bigot. You're a transphobe. You know, 00:30:45.490 --> 00:30:47.990 they threw everything but the kitchen sink at 00:30:47.990 --> 00:30:50.460 me. Like, fair enough, you know, because there's 00:30:50.460 --> 00:30:52.660 always a possibility that I was wrong. But the 00:30:52.660 --> 00:30:55.299 problem was, is I read the policies and I understood 00:30:55.299 --> 00:30:57.160 them and I knew where they were leading, but 00:30:57.160 --> 00:31:00.130 I never imagined. that one of the consequences 00:31:00.130 --> 00:31:02.930 of Bill C -16 and its sister legislation was 00:31:02.930 --> 00:31:05.490 that a teaching assistant at a Canadian university 00:31:05.490 --> 00:31:07.750 would be pilloried and accused of breaking the 00:31:07.750 --> 00:31:09.990 law, and then accused of all sorts of reprehensible 00:31:09.990 --> 00:31:13.230 political beliefs by two professors and an administrator 00:31:13.230 --> 00:31:16.750 hired for that purpose, merely because she showed 00:31:16.750 --> 00:31:20.130 a video about two people talking about the law. 00:31:20.730 --> 00:31:24.450 It's like that, paranoid as I am, let's say, 00:31:24.589 --> 00:31:27.980 that... That exceeded the grasp or the reach 00:31:27.980 --> 00:31:30.220 of my imagination. And then, of course, it was 00:31:30.220 --> 00:31:31.839 made public and people just couldn't believe 00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:33.740 it. And then you think, okay, well, what's the 00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:37.119 defense? Well, they misinterpreted Bill C -16. 00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:41.779 It's like, no, I don't think so. They aren't 00:31:41.779 --> 00:31:44.240 representative of the university professor at 00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:48.079 administration. Well... All of Pimlott and Rambucana's 00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:50.640 colleagues rose to their defense, the whole department. 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:53.160 The university, when they apologized, did it 00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:55.700 in a very mealy -mouthed way. Like, there's no 00:31:55.700 --> 00:31:57.960 evidence that it was an anomalous occurrence. 00:31:58.380 --> 00:32:02.500 So what had happened is they overextended the 00:32:02.500 --> 00:32:05.019 reach of Bill C -16 in exactly the way that I 00:32:05.019 --> 00:32:08.180 said would happen. It was inevitable. And it 00:32:08.180 --> 00:32:10.900 wasn't an anomaly. It was actually, that's actually 00:32:10.900 --> 00:32:12.980 the way that the universities are. And it is 00:32:12.980 --> 00:32:15.180 the way that they are. It wasn't a one -off. 00:32:15.690 --> 00:32:18.430 It was exactly diagnostic. And it's appalling. 00:32:18.789 --> 00:32:21.190 It's appalling. The universities have so much 00:32:21.190 --> 00:32:24.210 to be ashamed of. Well, there was an article 00:32:24.210 --> 00:32:25.950 in the Boston Globe this week saying the same 00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:29.809 thing, that all of this crazy postmodern identity 00:32:29.809 --> 00:32:33.490 politics, equality of outcome nonsense, has not 00:32:33.490 --> 00:32:36.210 only disrupted the university in a way that might 00:32:36.210 --> 00:32:39.529 be irreparable, as far as I can tell, but it's 00:32:39.529 --> 00:32:43.619 rapidly spreading outside into the... normal, 00:32:43.619 --> 00:32:45.859 say, business world, which is exactly what you 00:32:45.859 --> 00:32:48.539 see, for example, at Google. Well, the tech industry 00:32:48.539 --> 00:32:52.259 in particular seems to be more left -leaning 00:32:52.259 --> 00:32:54.559 than pretty much any industry there is. And I 00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:55.960 guess it's because there's so many intelligent 00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:58.240 people there, so many people that have spent 00:32:58.240 --> 00:32:59.799 a tremendous amount of time in universities, 00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:01.859 and they get indoctrinated into this mindset. 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:07.089 And you're seeing that in this. The CEO of YouTube's 00:33:07.089 --> 00:33:08.990 response to the James Damore memo completely 00:33:08.990 --> 00:33:11.789 misrepresented it. They're talking about harmful 00:33:11.789 --> 00:33:14.089 gender stereotypes. That's not what he talked 00:33:14.089 --> 00:33:17.609 about at all. What's fascinating to me about 00:33:17.609 --> 00:33:21.950 all of this is it it just reeks of tribalism 00:33:21.950 --> 00:33:26.329 that these people on the left have decided. I 00:33:26.329 --> 00:33:29.470 mean, and I'm. mostly on the left, which is really 00:33:29.470 --> 00:33:32.670 crazy. I mean, when it comes to most policies 00:33:32.670 --> 00:33:36.769 and most thoughts of equality and the idea of 00:33:36.769 --> 00:33:39.750 just letting people be who they are, I mean, 00:33:39.769 --> 00:33:41.970 that's what the left used to stand for. It used 00:33:41.970 --> 00:33:44.089 to stand for being open -minded. It used to stand 00:33:44.089 --> 00:33:48.369 for being a reasonable person. Now it seems to 00:33:48.369 --> 00:33:52.789 be all about this very toxic tribal ideology 00:33:52.789 --> 00:33:56.019 and... This is one of the reasons why so many 00:33:56.019 --> 00:33:58.200 of these attacks on you are so baffling to me. 00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:01.079 It's because there's a willful ignorance or a 00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:04.819 deceptive narrative. There's a deceptive description 00:34:04.819 --> 00:34:07.160 of who you are and what you're saying and what 00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:11.429 you represent. conveniently categorized, not 00:34:11.429 --> 00:34:15.889 even convenient, willfully deceptively categorized 00:34:15.889 --> 00:34:20.250 into these categories of homophobia, transphobia, 00:34:20.250 --> 00:34:23.949 sexism. These are reprehensible categories that 00:34:23.949 --> 00:34:26.210 if they can just shove something that you're 00:34:26.210 --> 00:34:28.530 saying, figure out a way to push you into this 00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:31.710 little narrow confined, then everyone has to 00:34:31.710 --> 00:34:34.829 disagree with you. Everyone has to insult you. 00:34:35.449 --> 00:34:39.349 And everyone has to take that girl into their 00:34:39.349 --> 00:34:43.829 office and chastise you for not even speaking 00:34:43.829 --> 00:34:47.590 up for you. Right. And she said she wasn't. Yes. 00:34:47.690 --> 00:34:49.510 That's what was more fascinating about it than 00:34:49.510 --> 00:34:51.650 anything. Yeah, and then they gave her hell for 00:34:51.650 --> 00:34:53.469 that. It's like, well, you can't present something 00:34:53.469 --> 00:34:55.730 like that neutrally. That's like presenting something 00:34:55.730 --> 00:34:58.489 Hitler said neutrally. Or maybe Milo Yiannopoulos. 00:34:59.650 --> 00:35:02.369 It's so strange. But what they don't understand, 00:35:02.570 --> 00:35:04.190 and this is what's really crazy, is that the 00:35:04.190 --> 00:35:09.170 world, is watching and that most people, maybe 00:35:09.170 --> 00:35:11.190 it's a 60 -40 like we were talking about before 00:35:11.190 --> 00:35:14.289 when it comes to aggressive women versus aggressive 00:35:14.289 --> 00:35:16.530 men. I don't know what the number is. I think 00:35:16.530 --> 00:35:20.269 it's about 50 to 1 actually. Like I've been watching 00:35:20.269 --> 00:35:22.530 the comments on YouTube and so forth trying to 00:35:22.530 --> 00:35:25.829 track this. It's like I think that like I think 00:35:25.829 --> 00:35:29.670 that what the radical leftists are doing is overwhelmingly 00:35:31.809 --> 00:35:34.369 unrepresentative of the general population overwhelmingly 00:35:34.369 --> 00:35:38.429 but they're they're a very well organized and 00:35:38.429 --> 00:35:43.570 and verbal and prepared minority and they've 00:35:43.570 --> 00:35:46.849 occupied powerful positions in many many institutions 00:35:46.849 --> 00:35:49.409 hr and one of the things i really can't figure 00:35:49.409 --> 00:35:52.900 out right now and for anybody who's Running a 00:35:52.900 --> 00:35:54.800 company that's listening, they should think this 00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:57.800 through. Like, to let these postmodern neo -Marxists 00:35:57.800 --> 00:35:59.719 into your company through the guise of human 00:35:59.719 --> 00:36:02.039 resources is an absolute catastrophe. You're 00:36:02.039 --> 00:36:05.119 going to pay for that. The ideology that drives 00:36:05.119 --> 00:36:07.699 postmodern neo -Marxism, this identity politics 00:36:07.699 --> 00:36:14.800 movement, and its insistence on equality of outcome 00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:18.420 is powerfully anti -capitalistic. It's powerfully 00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:20.500 anti -Western. Why you would let that into your 00:36:20.500 --> 00:36:23.750 company? so that you can look good socially, 00:36:23.929 --> 00:36:25.989 let's say, is beyond me. It's a big mistake. 00:36:26.230 --> 00:36:27.869 I agree with you, but I don't think people are 00:36:27.869 --> 00:36:30.190 aware of it. I think part of the problem is this 00:36:30.190 --> 00:36:33.329 battleground is largely ignored by the general 00:36:33.329 --> 00:36:35.250 population. I don't think most people are aware 00:36:35.250 --> 00:36:37.309 of what's going on. You are, because obviously 00:36:37.309 --> 00:36:40.989 you're deeply embedded in the university system 00:36:40.989 --> 00:36:45.019 in Canada, and you're obviously... Now branching 00:36:45.019 --> 00:36:47.940 out into YouTube and podcasts and all these different 00:36:47.940 --> 00:36:50.539 ways to get this information out. But the average 00:36:50.539 --> 00:36:53.320 person that is a CEO of a company or they're 00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:55.400 concerned with their own company. They're concerned 00:36:55.400 --> 00:36:57.719 with their own individual needs. They're concerned 00:36:57.719 --> 00:37:00.239 with organizing things and keeping their bottom 00:37:00.239 --> 00:37:02.460 line. Yeah, well, they're also concerned with 00:37:02.460 --> 00:37:04.780 looking fair and making sure that they're not 00:37:04.780 --> 00:37:07.139 prejudiced and all of that, which is laudable. 00:37:07.579 --> 00:37:09.980 I just don't think they see the wave coming. 00:37:10.119 --> 00:37:11.739 No, they don't. They don't see it coming. They 00:37:11.739 --> 00:37:14.039 don't understand it. and they're incautious about 00:37:14.039 --> 00:37:15.760 it, but they're going to pay for it. Well, Google 00:37:15.760 --> 00:37:17.880 is a good example, because now Google is in court 00:37:17.880 --> 00:37:21.659 on the feminist end for being prejudiced against 00:37:21.659 --> 00:37:23.760 females, and also on the conservative end for 00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:26.079 being prejudiced against conservatives. It's 00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:28.579 like, well, so both camps are after them, and 00:37:28.579 --> 00:37:29.840 I think, well, why is that? It's like, well, 00:37:29.860 --> 00:37:31.440 that's what happens when you play identity politics, 00:37:31.699 --> 00:37:34.519 this tribalism. This is really what I can't stand 00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:36.659 about identity politics, and I've been warning 00:37:36.659 --> 00:37:39.059 about the consequences on the right wing, too, 00:37:39.179 --> 00:37:41.630 because what I see happening is that... As the 00:37:41.630 --> 00:37:44.050 left, like, let's say the left gets to define 00:37:44.050 --> 00:37:46.469 the linguistic territory, which was what I was 00:37:46.469 --> 00:37:48.590 objecting to in Bill C -16. When it came out, 00:37:48.610 --> 00:37:52.480 I said, look, I'm not going to use these. Neologism, 00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:55.619 Z and Zer, etc. Because as far as I'm concerned, 00:37:55.880 --> 00:37:57.179 they have nothing... People who don't know what 00:37:57.179 --> 00:37:59.659 you're talking about. A bunch of different made 00:37:59.659 --> 00:38:04.159 -up gender pronouns to describe people in a non 00:38:04.159 --> 00:38:05.739 -male or female way. That's right. So there's 00:38:05.739 --> 00:38:09.019 like 70 different categories of non -binary gender, 00:38:09.239 --> 00:38:11.039 something like that, generated now. And there's 00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:13.719 lists of pronouns that hypothetically the people 00:38:13.719 --> 00:38:16.840 who are in those categories can choose to be 00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:20.159 addressed by. And now that has the force of law. 00:38:21.670 --> 00:38:23.550 And I don't care if they choose to be addressed 00:38:23.550 --> 00:38:27.889 by those pronouns. Whatever. That's up to them 00:38:27.889 --> 00:38:30.550 and whoever else they can convince or ask or 00:38:30.550 --> 00:38:33.369 entreat or negotiate with. Fine. As soon as it's 00:38:33.369 --> 00:38:35.989 law, that's a whole different story. Okay, so 00:38:35.989 --> 00:38:38.690 now I have to use a certain terminology. So then 00:38:38.690 --> 00:38:40.309 I look at the derivation of the terminology. 00:38:40.309 --> 00:38:43.239 I say, oh. That's terminology generated by the 00:38:43.239 --> 00:38:45.940 postmodern neo -Marxists. Oh, well, I think those 00:38:45.940 --> 00:38:48.480 people are reprehensibly murderous. So guess 00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:50.880 what? I'm not going to say their words, period, 00:38:51.099 --> 00:38:53.019 because I know what they're like. I know where 00:38:53.019 --> 00:38:56.440 that leads. Okay, so... But most people think 00:38:56.440 --> 00:39:00.360 that that's a gigantic step to go from saying 00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:02.760 you don't want to say Z or Zer or any of these 00:39:02.760 --> 00:39:05.679 made -up gender pronouns to these are murderous 00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:08.519 people. The ideology is murderous. The ideology 00:39:08.519 --> 00:39:10.900 being Marxism. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jesus, 00:39:11.019 --> 00:39:12.639 how much proof of that do you need? Right. But 00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:16.679 most people don't understand Marxism. Like when 00:39:16.679 --> 00:39:19.199 you're saying this, like when you were so adamant 00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:21.420 about it, I had to start reading about it myself 00:39:21.420 --> 00:39:23.480 and I had to start doing a lot of research about 00:39:23.480 --> 00:39:26.760 it myself. And I think most people hear Marxism 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:30.300 and they think socialism. Yeah. They think pooling 00:39:30.300 --> 00:39:33.079 all your money together, you know, making things 00:39:33.079 --> 00:39:35.000 more even for people. Yeah, like they are in 00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:37.679 Venezuela. Everybody has an equal chance to starve 00:39:37.679 --> 00:39:40.260 to death. So you know how the Venezuelan government 00:39:40.260 --> 00:39:43.940 solved the problem of kids starving to death 00:39:43.940 --> 00:39:47.280 in hospitals? How? They made it illegal for the 00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:49.719 doctors to report starvation as the cause of 00:39:49.719 --> 00:39:55.980 death. Right. Wow. That's Venezuela in a nutshell. 00:39:57.259 --> 00:40:00.659 Yeah, everyone's equal there. They all have the 00:40:00.659 --> 00:40:04.059 same number of bones to gnaw on. Yeah, that's 00:40:04.059 --> 00:40:06.280 a horrible thing. Yeah, it's a horrible thing. 00:40:06.880 --> 00:40:09.639 Undeniably. But there's no, like, the connection 00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:14.239 between gender pronouns and murder. It's a big 00:40:14.239 --> 00:40:16.579 leap. Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. 00:40:16.599 --> 00:40:18.239 Well, that's why you have to look at the underlying 00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:20.039 ideology, you know. And you think, well, what 00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:22.900 is the level at which these things should be 00:40:22.900 --> 00:40:25.480 addressed? Well, is it economic? Is it political? 00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:28.800 Or is it the beginnings of this ideology, and 00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:31.579 you understand where the roadmap leads? You understand 00:40:31.579 --> 00:40:34.000 the X at the end of the road. Yeah, right, absolutely. 00:40:34.300 --> 00:40:35.940 Well, and I think that's why I recommend it to 00:40:35.940 --> 00:40:38.099 people continually to read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag 00:40:38.099 --> 00:40:40.579 Archipelago. So, actually, there's a set of books 00:40:40.579 --> 00:40:43.860 that lay this out perfectly. You read, Dostoevsky 00:40:43.860 --> 00:40:45.920 wrote a book called The Possessed, or The Devils, 00:40:45.920 --> 00:40:49.219 and it's a description of the initial breakdown 00:40:49.219 --> 00:40:53.159 of the... Orthodox Christian society in Russia 00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:56.159 in the late 1800s, and the rise of radical socialist 00:40:56.159 --> 00:40:58.980 ideas. So it's sort of like the prodroma to the 00:40:58.980 --> 00:41:00.860 Russian Revolution. It's a brilliant, brilliant 00:41:00.860 --> 00:41:03.679 book, brilliant book. And it concentrates on 00:41:03.679 --> 00:41:06.820 the personalities that are involved. And then 00:41:06.820 --> 00:41:08.940 if you read after that, Solzhenitsyn's Gulag 00:41:08.940 --> 00:41:11.360 Archipelago, where he details what he does in 00:41:11.360 --> 00:41:14.159 that book is quite remarkable. So he says, look, 00:41:14.239 --> 00:41:15.619 there were tens of millions of people killed 00:41:15.619 --> 00:41:20.320 from 1919 to 1959 in the Soviet Union. And as 00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:22.860 a consequence of internal repression. And it's 00:41:22.860 --> 00:41:25.559 so dreadful that words can't do it justice. I 00:41:25.559 --> 00:41:27.199 mean, it's absolutely dreadful what happened 00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:29.619 in the Soviet Union. I mean, just for starters, 00:41:29.820 --> 00:41:32.119 6 million Ukrainians died in the 1930s because 00:41:32.119 --> 00:41:35.840 of enforced starvation. In fact, in the 1930s, 00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:39.489 here's how terrible it was. All the food that 00:41:39.489 --> 00:41:41.469 the collective farmers, newly collectivized farmers, 00:41:41.690 --> 00:41:43.469 had produced, which wasn't very much, by the 00:41:43.469 --> 00:41:45.469 way, was taken from them and brought to the cities. 00:41:45.610 --> 00:41:47.750 So all the farmers starved to death. Now here's 00:41:47.750 --> 00:41:50.590 how draconian it got. So let's say you were the 00:41:50.590 --> 00:41:53.769 mother of some children, and all your grain had 00:41:53.769 --> 00:41:55.309 been shipped off to the cities, and you thought, 00:41:55.389 --> 00:41:56.710 well, I'm not going to have my children starve 00:41:56.710 --> 00:41:58.469 to death. I'm going to go out in the field, and 00:41:58.469 --> 00:42:00.769 I'm going to, on my hands and knees, and I'm 00:42:00.769 --> 00:42:03.570 going to pick up the grains that are left over 00:42:03.570 --> 00:42:07.190 that the harvesters didn't. get, and I'm going 00:42:07.190 --> 00:42:08.929 to feed those to my kids. That was punishable 00:42:08.929 --> 00:42:12.309 by death. You were supposed to hand in those 00:42:12.309 --> 00:42:15.170 extra bits of grain so that they could be shipped 00:42:15.170 --> 00:42:17.510 to the city as well. So that was just the beginning 00:42:17.510 --> 00:42:20.190 of the fun in the Soviet Union. And what Solzhenitsyn 00:42:20.190 --> 00:42:24.690 did was say, look, this wasn't a consequence 00:42:24.690 --> 00:42:28.909 of the Marxist system gone wrong. This was a 00:42:28.909 --> 00:42:31.650 consequence of the Marxist system. It was an 00:42:31.650 --> 00:42:34.900 inevitable consequence of the... of the Marxist 00:42:34.900 --> 00:42:37.340 system. And then he lays that out. And it's, 00:42:37.340 --> 00:42:40.400 I think he got it right. Which is why he won 00:42:40.400 --> 00:42:42.119 the Nobel Prize. But what is the connection? 00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:47.340 How much tyranny you have to impose in order 00:42:47.340 --> 00:42:49.320 to produce something like equality of outcome. 00:42:50.099 --> 00:42:52.420 And Thomas Sowell's talked about this a little 00:42:52.420 --> 00:42:56.219 bit too. He said... What the people who are agitating 00:42:56.219 --> 00:42:58.320 for equality of outcome don't understand is that 00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:01.039 you have to cede so much power to the authorities, 00:43:01.139 --> 00:43:03.400 to the government, in order to ensure equality 00:43:03.400 --> 00:43:05.760 of outcome that a tyranny is inevitable. And 00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.539 that's right. And another problem with equality 00:43:08.539 --> 00:43:11.300 of outcome, this is also a big technical problem, 00:43:11.380 --> 00:43:15.599 is like, well, what measure of outcome? You know, 00:43:15.619 --> 00:43:17.980 there's lots of outcomes, like how happy are 00:43:17.980 --> 00:43:20.659 you? How much pain are you in? How healthy are 00:43:20.659 --> 00:43:23.309 you? How much money do you have? How much opportunity 00:43:23.309 --> 00:43:25.849 for movement forward do you have? What's the 00:43:25.849 --> 00:43:28.550 width of your social connections? What's the 00:43:28.550 --> 00:43:30.949 quality of your friendships? Do you have exposure 00:43:30.949 --> 00:43:33.730 to art and literature? You can multiply the number 00:43:33.730 --> 00:43:38.030 of dimensions of evaluation between people innumerably, 00:43:38.070 --> 00:43:40.889 right? Because there's all sorts of ways to classify 00:43:40.889 --> 00:43:43.030 people. You're going to get equality of outcome 00:43:43.030 --> 00:43:47.090 on every one of those measures? Is everyone going 00:43:47.090 --> 00:43:48.969 to have to be equally happy in their relationship? 00:43:49.869 --> 00:43:52.989 And if not, why not? Why stop with economic, 00:43:53.250 --> 00:43:57.030 why stop with pay? There's no place to stop. 00:43:57.969 --> 00:44:00.750 So, and that's a huge technical problem. Because 00:44:00.750 --> 00:44:03.449 there is no place to stop, there will be no stopping. 00:44:03.670 --> 00:44:06.190 It's like nobody can have anything else, nobody 00:44:06.190 --> 00:44:07.849 can have anything that everyone else doesn't 00:44:07.849 --> 00:44:10.050 have at the same time. That's the ultimate outcome 00:44:10.050 --> 00:44:12.170 of equality of outcome. Well, you think about 00:44:12.170 --> 00:44:15.559 what that would mean. It's terrible. Well, instantly 00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:18.079 you think, oh, well, there's nothing but a tyrannical 00:44:18.079 --> 00:44:20.519 system could impose that. Have you ever debated 00:44:20.519 --> 00:44:22.360 a Marxist supporter? Have you ever debated someone 00:44:22.360 --> 00:44:26.219 who is pro -equality of outcome? No, they don't 00:44:26.219 --> 00:44:29.119 debate me. Well, the closest thing, I think, 00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:31.139 to that was the debate I did at the University 00:44:31.139 --> 00:44:34.440 of Toronto about the Bill C -16 issues. But they 00:44:34.440 --> 00:44:36.139 didn't actually have a debate. They had a forum, 00:44:36.260 --> 00:44:38.360 which is the postmodern equivalent of a debate. 00:44:38.460 --> 00:44:41.320 It's supposed to be friendlier, I suppose. But 00:44:41.320 --> 00:44:44.460 no. I haven't because people don't do it. They 00:44:44.460 --> 00:44:48.079 don't ask me to do it. But what is it about that 00:44:48.079 --> 00:44:51.760 idea or that ideology about Marxism that's so 00:44:51.760 --> 00:44:56.480 attractive to young students and to university 00:44:56.480 --> 00:44:58.039 professors? Oh, that's a good question. I think 00:44:58.039 --> 00:44:59.980 it goes back to the issue of inequality. And 00:44:59.980 --> 00:45:02.139 this is something that has to be dead seriously 00:45:02.139 --> 00:45:04.500 addressed. It's like you might say, well, why 00:45:04.500 --> 00:45:07.480 is the left wing necessary? Let's put it that 00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:09.940 way. And then a subset of that would be, well, 00:45:09.980 --> 00:45:11.900 why is the left wing attractive? Well, the left 00:45:11.900 --> 00:45:14.860 wing is necessary because inequality does spiral 00:45:14.860 --> 00:45:17.780 out of control. And so there has to be a political 00:45:17.780 --> 00:45:20.380 voice for the dispossessed. And you don't want 00:45:20.380 --> 00:45:23.219 people to stack up at zero, you know, where they 00:45:23.219 --> 00:45:25.019 can't play the game at all. It's a bad idea. 00:45:25.179 --> 00:45:28.559 Not only do you not... If people stack up at 00:45:28.559 --> 00:45:30.400 zero, they're too poor to get ahead at all, let's 00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:32.019 say. They're too poor to open a bank account. 00:45:32.179 --> 00:45:34.300 They're too poor to buy enough food. Like they're 00:45:34.300 --> 00:45:36.320 stuck at zero and they can't get out of it. It's 00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:38.800 a really bad scene because, first of all, that's 00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:42.360 a lot of suffering. And that's not so good. Second 00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:44.980 of all, well, at least in principle, a lot of 00:45:44.980 --> 00:45:48.980 those people might have something to offer the 00:45:48.980 --> 00:45:50.980 world. Or their children might. And you want 00:45:50.980 --> 00:45:54.000 to open up avenues of opportunity. to them so 00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:55.820 that they can succeed, but so that everyone else 00:45:55.820 --> 00:45:58.920 can benefit from their success. So, and then 00:45:58.920 --> 00:46:00.739 the next thing is, well, if the inequality gets 00:46:00.739 --> 00:46:02.719 out of hand too much, then the whole society 00:46:02.719 --> 00:46:04.820 starts to destabilize, because if you get enough 00:46:04.820 --> 00:46:07.340 people stacked up at zero, especially young men, 00:46:07.480 --> 00:46:09.780 you get enough young men stacked up at zero, 00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:11.699 they think, oh, to hell with it, we'll just flip 00:46:11.699 --> 00:46:15.119 the whole board over. it'll settle in a new configuration, 00:46:15.159 --> 00:46:17.420 and maybe we won't be stuck at zero in the new 00:46:17.420 --> 00:46:20.119 configuration. So it foments revolutionary thinking. 00:46:20.420 --> 00:46:22.679 So there's lots of reasons to be concerned about 00:46:22.679 --> 00:46:24.900 inequality. And so you need a voice on the left 00:46:24.900 --> 00:46:28.119 to say, look, we've got to parameterize the tendency 00:46:28.119 --> 00:46:30.480 towards inequality so that it doesn't destabilize 00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:32.719 the entire society, so that everybody has an 00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:35.880 opportunity to advance. Like, yes, right, you 00:46:35.880 --> 00:46:38.760 need that. Okay, so that's the technical reason 00:46:38.760 --> 00:46:41.719 for the necessity of the left. And then I think 00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:43.760 it's attractive because... Well, because young 00:46:43.760 --> 00:46:45.639 people can be resentful, partly because they're 00:46:45.639 --> 00:46:47.539 at the bottom of the heap, so to speak. They're 00:46:47.539 --> 00:46:50.519 not because they're young. Like, look, you want 00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:54.239 to be poor in 18? You want to be rich in 80? 00:46:55.539 --> 00:46:57.719 Which are you going to choose? Most people are 00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:00.079 going to take poor at 18. Well, yeah. Especially 00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:01.880 if you've been rich at 80 and you understand 00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:04.079 you can get back there. Yeah, well, that's the 00:47:04.079 --> 00:47:07.099 thing, you know, is that most of the people who 00:47:07.099 --> 00:47:09.480 have a million dollars or more in the United 00:47:09.480 --> 00:47:13.289 States are old. Well, why is that? Really, do 00:47:13.289 --> 00:47:15.610 we need an explanation for that? It's like, you've 00:47:15.610 --> 00:47:17.449 had a lot more time to make money. How would 00:47:17.449 --> 00:47:19.389 that be? That's the explanation. So that's one 00:47:19.389 --> 00:47:21.550 of the big drivers of inequality is just simply 00:47:21.550 --> 00:47:24.570 age. But it's not obvious that the old rich people 00:47:24.570 --> 00:47:27.650 have an advantage over the young starting out 00:47:27.650 --> 00:47:31.969 people. So, anyways, but anyhow, maybe you're 00:47:31.969 --> 00:47:33.670 resentful and irritated because you're young 00:47:33.670 --> 00:47:35.289 and you're still at the bottom of the heap and, 00:47:35.309 --> 00:47:37.250 you know, you've got other problems too. It's 00:47:37.250 --> 00:47:39.409 more difficult for people of your race or ethnicity 00:47:39.409 --> 00:47:42.860 or gender, at least you think it is. So you say, 00:47:42.960 --> 00:47:45.619 well, I want to make things fair. And then that's 00:47:45.619 --> 00:47:47.659 also driven by some real compassion, because 00:47:47.659 --> 00:47:50.480 nobody really likes that, the consequences of 00:47:50.480 --> 00:47:52.960 radical inequality. Like, nobody likes the fact 00:47:52.960 --> 00:47:55.719 that homeless people exist and have to go to 00:47:55.719 --> 00:47:58.159 the emergency ward, you know, to get treated, 00:47:58.239 --> 00:47:59.780 and they don't have medical coverage, and they 00:47:59.780 --> 00:48:02.119 have to live in tents on the street. And so if 00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:04.860 you have some compassion, then you think, well, 00:48:04.940 --> 00:48:07.219 we've got to do more for the poor and dispossessed. 00:48:07.380 --> 00:48:09.940 It's like, okay, that's... That's an understandable 00:48:09.940 --> 00:48:17.900 sentiment, but the problem is that that desire 00:48:17.900 --> 00:48:20.900 to help is contaminated by resentment and ideological 00:48:20.900 --> 00:48:23.320 certainty, and then also by something that George 00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:25.880 Orwell pointed out so nicely in his book Road 00:48:25.880 --> 00:48:29.320 to Wigan Pier. It's like the typical middle -class 00:48:29.320 --> 00:48:31.460 socialist, this was his diagnosis, and he was 00:48:31.460 --> 00:48:34.000 a socialist, by the way, his diagnosis was the 00:48:34.000 --> 00:48:36.440 typical middle -class intellectual socialist 00:48:36.440 --> 00:48:38.960 doesn't like the poor. In fact, They don't want 00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:40.639 to have anything to do with the poor. They're 00:48:40.639 --> 00:48:43.440 contemptuous of the poor. But they hate the rich. 00:48:43.960 --> 00:48:47.019 And I think it's even more devious than that, 00:48:47.059 --> 00:48:49.199 because I think who they hate are the successful. 00:48:50.280 --> 00:48:52.280 Some of the successful are rich, but really who 00:48:52.280 --> 00:48:54.940 they hate is the successful. It's like Cain and 00:48:54.940 --> 00:48:57.539 Abel. It's the retelling of Cain and Abel. And 00:48:57.539 --> 00:48:59.340 so there's some positive motivations for being 00:48:59.340 --> 00:49:01.420 engaged on the left, and there's a lot of negative 00:49:01.420 --> 00:49:03.780 motivations as well. And the people who are really 00:49:03.780 --> 00:49:06.039 driven by the radical left ideology, the real 00:49:06.039 --> 00:49:08.989 radicals, they're almost all driven by... by 00:49:08.989 --> 00:49:10.909 resentment and hatred, as far as I'm concerned. 00:49:11.250 --> 00:49:17.269 Now, let's look at both extremes. So, back to 00:49:17.269 --> 00:49:20.989 the idea of the ideological and verbal territory. 00:49:21.210 --> 00:49:23.409 I said with Bill C -16 that I wouldn't speak 00:49:23.409 --> 00:49:25.190 the language of the radical leftists, because 00:49:25.190 --> 00:49:26.949 I don't think that that language should define 00:49:26.949 --> 00:49:29.750 the game. But let's say it does. So here's the 00:49:29.750 --> 00:49:32.769 game. The world is a battleground of groups, 00:49:32.989 --> 00:49:36.829 and they're battling for power. That's it. That's 00:49:36.829 --> 00:49:39.460 the game. And some of them win, and they oppress 00:49:39.460 --> 00:49:41.539 those who don't win. So that's how we're going 00:49:41.539 --> 00:49:44.500 to view the world. Okay, now the leftists say, 00:49:44.659 --> 00:49:46.719 okay, well, here's the oppressed people. The 00:49:46.719 --> 00:49:50.300 oppressors, the patriarchal types, they should 00:49:50.300 --> 00:49:52.659 be ashamed of themselves and give up some power. 00:49:53.199 --> 00:49:55.119 The right -wingers, the radical right -wingers 00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:57.320 look at that and they say, oh, I see, so the 00:49:57.320 --> 00:50:00.280 game is ethnic identity, is it? It's identity 00:50:00.280 --> 00:50:04.460 politics. Okay, we're white males. We're not 00:50:04.460 --> 00:50:06.960 going to lose. That's the right -wing version 00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:10.019 of identity politics. It's like, screw you. If 00:50:10.019 --> 00:50:11.900 we're going to divide into groups, if we're going 00:50:11.900 --> 00:50:16.119 to divide into tribes, and I'm in my tribe, I'm 00:50:16.119 --> 00:50:18.719 not going to get all guilty and lose. I'm going 00:50:18.719 --> 00:50:22.599 to get all cruel and win. And that's like, then 00:50:22.599 --> 00:50:24.300 you think, well, there's people in the middle. 00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:26.059 They're kind of looking back and forth. Which 00:50:26.059 --> 00:50:28.199 side of the identity politics spectrum am I going 00:50:28.199 --> 00:50:30.920 to fall in? Do I want to go with the... Do I 00:50:30.920 --> 00:50:34.150 want to go... Do I want to be driven primarily 00:50:34.150 --> 00:50:36.949 by compassion? And am I going to accept guilt 00:50:36.949 --> 00:50:39.670 for my historical privilege? So that's one possibility. 00:50:39.929 --> 00:50:42.250 And then I'm the oppressor. I'm the member of 00:50:42.250 --> 00:50:44.010 the oppressor group. Or am I going to say, oh, 00:50:44.030 --> 00:50:45.329 no, to hell with that. I'm just going to play 00:50:45.329 --> 00:50:47.250 to win. Well, then I'm going to go to the right. 00:50:47.829 --> 00:50:49.869 It's like, well, my sense is, how about we don't 00:50:49.869 --> 00:50:51.849 play either of those games? And the reason we 00:50:51.849 --> 00:50:53.989 shouldn't play them is, well, the Soviets played 00:50:53.989 --> 00:50:57.039 the left -wing game and, like, killed. Who knows 00:50:57.039 --> 00:50:59.139 how many tens of millions of people? You can't 00:50:59.139 --> 00:51:01.400 even count it accurately. The estimates range 00:51:01.400 --> 00:51:03.940 from 20 to 100 million. Those are pretty big 00:51:03.940 --> 00:51:07.340 error bars. And the Maoists, maybe 100 million, 00:51:07.500 --> 00:51:11.099 certainly 60 million. So, okay, that didn't work 00:51:11.099 --> 00:51:13.239 out so well. And then there's the Nazis. Like, 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:16.300 they played ethnic identity politics and racial 00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:18.940 superiority. It's like, we want to play that 00:51:18.940 --> 00:51:22.239 game? See, what I've been trying to do, really, 00:51:22.340 --> 00:51:24.179 what I've been trying to do for the last 30 years 00:51:24.179 --> 00:51:27.559 is say, look, There's heavy temptations to play 00:51:27.559 --> 00:51:30.440 those sorts of games. But that's not the only 00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:32.619 game in town. It's a much better game to play 00:51:32.619 --> 00:51:35.079 individual. It's like, get your act together. 00:51:35.760 --> 00:51:38.280 Stand up in the world. Make something of yourself. 00:51:38.539 --> 00:51:41.320 Stay away from the ideological oversimplifications. 00:51:41.880 --> 00:51:44.599 Set your house in order. That's rule six in this 00:51:44.599 --> 00:51:47.400 book. So I have a book rule in there that says, 00:51:47.480 --> 00:51:49.360 set your house in perfect order before you criticize 00:51:49.360 --> 00:51:52.440 the world. And it's a very dark chapter about... 00:51:52.840 --> 00:51:54.639 the motivations of the Columbine High School 00:51:54.639 --> 00:51:56.659 killers, and this other guy named Carl Panzram, 00:51:56.800 --> 00:51:59.380 who was a serial rapist and arsonist and murderer. 00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:02.360 And he wrote an autobiography, and the Columbine 00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:04.119 kids also wrote about why they did what they 00:52:04.119 --> 00:52:07.099 did. They're resentful to the core, bitter, bitter, 00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:12.599 resentful, terrible. And, well, I'm suggesting 00:52:12.599 --> 00:52:14.719 that people stay away from that resentfulness 00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:17.559 and bitterness, even though life is hard, and 00:52:17.559 --> 00:52:20.019 there's malevolence in the world. It's like, 00:52:20.019 --> 00:52:22.679 yeah. You can tell a story where everyone's a 00:52:22.679 --> 00:52:25.480 victim. Because we all die. We all get sick. 00:52:26.440 --> 00:52:31.219 And things happen to us that are bitter and terrible. 00:52:31.679 --> 00:52:34.320 Betrayal, deceit, lies. Like people hurt us on 00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:36.960 purpose. So it's not just the tragedy of life. 00:52:37.519 --> 00:52:39.800 It's malevolence as well. Everyone's a victim. 00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:42.619 You can tell that story. The problem is if you 00:52:42.619 --> 00:52:44.059 tell that story and you start to act it out, 00:52:44.099 --> 00:52:46.260 you make all of that worse. That's the problem. 00:52:46.809 --> 00:52:49.349 And so this is why partly I got attracted to 00:52:49.349 --> 00:52:52.710 Christian imagery, at least in part, because 00:52:52.710 --> 00:52:54.670 there's an idea in Christianity that you should 00:52:54.670 --> 00:52:57.010 pick up your goddamn cross and, like, walk up 00:52:57.010 --> 00:53:02.130 the hill. And that's, dramatically, that's correct. 00:53:03.250 --> 00:53:05.909 That's the right answer. It's like, you've got 00:53:05.909 --> 00:53:08.530 a heavy load of suffering to bear, and a fair 00:53:08.530 --> 00:53:10.909 bit of it's going to be unjust. So what are you 00:53:10.909 --> 00:53:12.650 going to do about it? Accept it voluntarily, 00:53:12.909 --> 00:53:16.269 and try to transform as a consequence. That's 00:53:16.269 --> 00:53:18.489 the right answer. It's the right answer. Because 00:53:18.489 --> 00:53:22.170 the rest of it is tribalism. And we're too technologically 00:53:22.170 --> 00:53:24.929 powerful to get all tribal again. What's exciting 00:53:24.929 --> 00:53:27.610 to me is that I think this is the first time 00:53:27.610 --> 00:53:31.650 in my life that I've ever seen so much communication 00:53:31.650 --> 00:53:34.969 on these subjects. And I think so much recognition 00:53:34.969 --> 00:53:38.880 about the consequences of tribal. Toxic tribalism. 00:53:38.900 --> 00:53:41.699 This tribal thinking that everyone seems to be 00:53:41.699 --> 00:53:44.400 engaged in on the right and on the left. I mean, 00:53:44.420 --> 00:53:46.699 in America, you need to go no further than going 00:53:46.699 --> 00:53:50.420 back and forth from CNN to Fox News to say something's 00:53:50.420 --> 00:53:53.019 wrong here. These are supposed to be news outlets. 00:53:53.119 --> 00:53:54.699 You have two completely different narratives. 00:53:54.800 --> 00:53:56.619 And that has nothing to do with what we're talking 00:53:56.619 --> 00:53:59.900 about with gender politics and radical left socialism 00:53:59.900 --> 00:54:08.570 and Marxism. A radical departure from what I 00:54:08.570 --> 00:54:12.130 always considered universities great for. What 00:54:12.130 --> 00:54:14.889 I always considered universities great for is 00:54:14.889 --> 00:54:18.369 separating from your parents, challenging belief 00:54:18.369 --> 00:54:23.329 systems and being engaged in the works of brilliant 00:54:23.329 --> 00:54:26.969 people who you can compare all of their findings 00:54:26.969 --> 00:54:29.550 and their discoveries and sit down and debate 00:54:29.550 --> 00:54:32.429 them in class. And when I was a kid, when I was 00:54:32.429 --> 00:54:34.920 in high school. Went to a very good high school, 00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:37.079 Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts. 00:54:37.579 --> 00:54:40.300 And one of the things that they did is they put 00:54:40.300 --> 00:54:43.599 on a debate between a guy from the moral majority, 00:54:43.760 --> 00:54:48.539 which was this right wing Christian group that 00:54:48.539 --> 00:54:49.760 I don't even know if they're around anymore. 00:54:49.880 --> 00:54:55.599 But this was 19. I was 14. So 81. And Barney 00:54:55.599 --> 00:54:58.460 Frank, who was that congressman, is now one of 00:54:58.460 --> 00:55:03.320 the first openly gay guys in Congress. And you 00:55:03.320 --> 00:55:06.960 got to watch these two people in this auditorium 00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:09.340 debate their points. And this moral majority 00:55:09.340 --> 00:55:13.659 guy had this right -wing Ronald Reagan sort of 00:55:13.659 --> 00:55:17.340 point of view. And Barney Frank was kind of crazy. 00:55:17.519 --> 00:55:20.500 He got busted in some male prostitute scandal. 00:55:21.099 --> 00:55:23.619 But the gay community, that's not that big of 00:55:23.619 --> 00:55:27.679 a deal. And just Barney Frank took them apart. 00:55:28.329 --> 00:55:30.750 It was brilliant to watch, but it was a real 00:55:30.750 --> 00:55:33.190 debate. It was fascinating. And you got to see 00:55:33.190 --> 00:55:37.989 a mediocre mind versus a great mind. And you 00:55:37.989 --> 00:55:39.610 got to see this little thing. And I was like, 00:55:39.670 --> 00:55:42.230 wow. And it's one of the things that's always 00:55:42.230 --> 00:55:46.949 attracted me about the idea that two people. 00:55:47.550 --> 00:55:49.929 with differing viewpoints can get together in 00:55:49.929 --> 00:55:51.769 front of a neutral audience, and these people 00:55:51.769 --> 00:55:55.510 can sort of decipher which way these people are 00:55:55.510 --> 00:55:56.949 thinking and why they're thinking. Yeah, well, 00:55:57.030 --> 00:56:00.170 bad as that is, and rife with conflict as that 00:56:00.170 --> 00:56:03.570 is, the alternative is to separate, as you pointed 00:56:03.570 --> 00:56:05.909 out, into two camps that don't talk. Yes. And 00:56:05.909 --> 00:56:09.210 the thing is, the consequence of not talking 00:56:09.210 --> 00:56:12.010 is that you fight. That's the end game. Because 00:56:12.010 --> 00:56:14.829 the only way you can stop from fighting with 00:56:14.829 --> 00:56:17.070 other people... is by negotiating with them. 00:56:17.289 --> 00:56:19.550 And, you know, one of the things that's also 00:56:19.550 --> 00:56:22.050 interesting, and this is partly why Silicon Valley 00:56:22.050 --> 00:56:24.769 leans to the left, is that a fair bit of your 00:56:24.769 --> 00:56:28.530 political preference is determined by your biological 00:56:28.530 --> 00:56:31.170 temperament. It's strongly influenced. So if 00:56:31.170 --> 00:56:34.989 you're a creative type who's kind of disorderly, 00:56:34.989 --> 00:56:38.110 then you're likely to be on the liberal left 00:56:38.110 --> 00:56:40.989 end of the distribution. And if you're a non 00:56:40.989 --> 00:56:44.510 -creative type who's orderly and... And especially 00:56:44.510 --> 00:56:46.110 if you're orderly, then you tend to be on the 00:56:46.110 --> 00:56:49.769 right wing end of things. And so, and, well, 00:56:49.769 --> 00:56:52.809 why is that? Why do those variations exist? Well, 00:56:52.889 --> 00:56:55.530 they exist because some of the time your best 00:56:55.530 --> 00:56:57.449 strategy is to do what other people have done 00:56:57.449 --> 00:56:59.550 and shut the hell up and just do it. Run the 00:56:59.550 --> 00:57:02.010 algorithm, right? The pathway's already laid 00:57:02.010 --> 00:57:05.070 clear. It works. Stay in the damn rut and move 00:57:05.070 --> 00:57:07.449 forward. Okay, so that's the conservative approach. 00:57:07.710 --> 00:57:10.550 And when things are going right, it's the right 00:57:10.550 --> 00:57:13.199 approach. The problem is that sometimes it's 00:57:13.199 --> 00:57:14.760 not the right approach because something has 00:57:14.760 --> 00:57:16.840 shifted. And so something new has to emerge. 00:57:17.239 --> 00:57:18.860 And so then there's a bunch of people who are 00:57:18.860 --> 00:57:21.579 adapted to the new. And those are the entrepreneurial 00:57:21.579 --> 00:57:23.460 and creative types. And, of course, they dominate 00:57:23.460 --> 00:57:25.300 Silicon Valley because it's a very entrepreneurial, 00:57:25.460 --> 00:57:28.619 it's a very entrepreneurial, what would you call 00:57:28.619 --> 00:57:32.519 it, geography. And so they're going to lean to 00:57:32.519 --> 00:57:34.679 the left. But they have to understand, people 00:57:34.679 --> 00:57:36.679 have to understand that the left and the right 00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:38.179 need each other. The liberals and the conservatives 00:57:38.179 --> 00:57:41.949 need each other. Liberals start companies. Conservatives 00:57:41.949 --> 00:57:44.530 run them. And the problem with the conservatives 00:57:44.530 --> 00:57:46.570 is, well, they can only run a company in one 00:57:46.570 --> 00:57:48.789 direction. Because they're conservative. They 00:57:48.789 --> 00:57:51.730 don't think outside the box. So if the company 00:57:51.730 --> 00:57:53.949 is working and the product line is good and everything 00:57:53.949 --> 00:57:56.170 is stable, like, hire some conservatives because 00:57:56.170 --> 00:57:58.010 they'll maximize efficiency and they'll move 00:57:58.010 --> 00:58:01.309 down that track. But if the track is no longer 00:58:01.309 --> 00:58:03.429 going in a good direction because something's 00:58:03.429 --> 00:58:04.889 changed, the environment's changed, well, then 00:58:04.889 --> 00:58:06.989 you've got to bring in the creative people. And 00:58:06.989 --> 00:58:10.480 so we need each other. The only way that we can 00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:12.960 survive the fact that we're different and the 00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:14.599 fact that we need each other is by continually 00:58:14.599 --> 00:58:16.780 talking. We have to talk constantly. It's like, 00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:19.179 well, how much of what we're doing should we 00:58:19.179 --> 00:58:21.559 preserve versus how much of what we're doing 00:58:21.559 --> 00:58:24.320 should we transform? And the answer is, we don't 00:58:24.320 --> 00:58:25.900 know, because the environment keeps changing. 00:58:26.099 --> 00:58:29.880 So what do we do about that? We talk. I was on 00:58:29.880 --> 00:58:32.519 a CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, interview 00:58:32.519 --> 00:58:34.559 a couple of days ago, and they took me to task. 00:58:34.699 --> 00:58:38.250 I tweeted out this... this invitation to the 00:58:38.250 --> 00:58:41.289 Keck boys to fill out this program that I developed 00:58:41.289 --> 00:58:43.550 called Future Authoring, and it helps people 00:58:43.550 --> 00:58:44.750 make a plan for their life. Explain the Keck 00:58:44.750 --> 00:58:47.889 boys. Yeah, well, they're an online group. I 00:58:47.889 --> 00:58:50.750 know what it is. They run Keckistan. It's this 00:58:50.750 --> 00:58:54.650 fictional polity. It's a satire of identity politics, 00:58:54.949 --> 00:58:58.480 essentially. We're going to be our ethnicity. 00:58:58.900 --> 00:59:01.960 Highly demonized satire. Highly demonized satire, 00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:05.380 right. And with good reason, with some individual 00:59:05.380 --> 00:59:09.880 examples of racism and Nazism. Yeah, there's 00:59:09.880 --> 00:59:12.340 lots of misbehavior. Yeah, yeah. It's like graffiti. 00:59:12.440 --> 00:59:14.199 It's like online graffiti, something like that. 00:59:14.380 --> 00:59:19.579 So, and the Keck boys are the ones who are often 00:59:19.579 --> 00:59:22.170 using the peppy memes, for example. You know, 00:59:22.170 --> 00:59:24.530 the left regards Pepe as a hate symbol. Pepe 00:59:24.530 --> 00:59:26.510 the frog. Pepe the frog. The feels -good frog. 00:59:26.550 --> 00:59:28.369 That's right. That's right. Kind of reprehensible 00:59:28.369 --> 00:59:32.989 frog. And so I tweeted out to them. I said, Keck 00:59:32.989 --> 00:59:37.750 boys, seek your 4chan. Rescue yourself from the 00:59:37.750 --> 00:59:41.280 underworld. Use code Pepe. For future authoring. 00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:44.820 So it's free for one week. So they had to figure 00:59:44.820 --> 00:59:46.699 out what it meant. And then I showed this picture 00:59:46.699 --> 00:59:48.679 of Michigan J. Frog, which is the frog from an 00:59:48.679 --> 00:59:50.739 old Warner Brothers cartoon, Dancing Frog, that 00:59:50.739 --> 00:59:52.239 wouldn't perform when anyone was watching it. 00:59:52.579 --> 00:59:55.159 So CBC hauled that out and said, well, look, 00:59:55.199 --> 00:59:59.400 aren't you like... appealing to the radical right. 00:59:59.539 --> 01:00:01.300 And I said, well, no, what I'm doing, I said, 01:00:01.320 --> 01:00:03.400 look, these people are attracted by the radical 01:00:03.400 --> 01:00:05.840 right, although they're satirists and juvenile 01:00:05.840 --> 01:00:08.159 satirists and graffiti types and, you know, they're 01:00:08.159 --> 01:00:09.500 playing a weird satirical game. They're having 01:00:09.500 --> 01:00:11.460 fun, being naughty. Yes, that's exactly what 01:00:11.460 --> 01:00:14.059 they're doing. They're provoking. And my sense 01:00:14.059 --> 01:00:16.239 was... Well, why don't you develop yourself as 01:00:16.239 --> 01:00:17.840 an individual and get the hell out of the ideological 01:00:17.840 --> 01:00:20.820 trap? So here's my program, which helps you write 01:00:20.820 --> 01:00:23.639 about your future, and that'll help you decide 01:00:23.639 --> 01:00:26.000 who you are as an individual, because that's 01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:28.760 the way out of the ideological trap. Obviously, 01:00:29.639 --> 01:00:33.199 what's the way out of tribalism? First, the way 01:00:33.199 --> 01:00:35.679 out of tribalism is not to never join a tribe. 01:00:36.380 --> 01:00:38.800 You actually have to join a tribe as you mature, 01:00:38.980 --> 01:00:40.880 right? Because what happens is, first of all, 01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:43.619 you're an infant, and then you have... your parents 01:00:43.619 --> 01:00:45.980 to make a relationship with, but then when you 01:00:45.980 --> 01:00:48.199 move from your parents, you have your tribe, 01:00:48.400 --> 01:00:50.300 you have your group. Maybe it's the music you 01:00:50.300 --> 01:00:52.019 listen to, it's the gang you hang around with, 01:00:52.079 --> 01:00:54.659 whatever. You have to be socialized into the 01:00:54.659 --> 01:00:57.400 tribe. You have to. Because otherwise you stay 01:00:57.400 --> 01:01:00.579 a dependent infant. Okay, but now you're socialized 01:01:00.579 --> 01:01:02.719 into the tribe. Well, is that where it ends? 01:01:02.900 --> 01:01:06.010 It's like, no. The next thing to do is differentiate 01:01:06.010 --> 01:01:08.949 yourself from the tribe while still knowing how 01:01:08.949 --> 01:01:11.190 to behave within the tribe. Well, that's the 01:01:11.190 --> 01:01:13.050 call to individualism. And that's, I think, what 01:01:13.050 --> 01:01:15.230 the West got right. We figured that out. It's 01:01:15.230 --> 01:01:18.670 like, you have to be a member of a group because 01:01:18.670 --> 01:01:20.690 otherwise you're not socialized. You're not good 01:01:20.690 --> 01:01:23.170 for anyone. You have to be able to play on a 01:01:23.170 --> 01:01:25.989 team, man. You have to have team loyalty. Okay, 01:01:26.090 --> 01:01:28.070 but that isn't where you should stop. You should 01:01:28.070 --> 01:01:30.730 take the next step and become a fully developed 01:01:30.730 --> 01:01:33.960 individual. See, the problem with being just 01:01:33.960 --> 01:01:36.980 a group member is that the group, it's the problem 01:01:36.980 --> 01:01:40.019 with conservatism. The group is a fixed entity. 01:01:40.260 --> 01:01:42.900 It has its rules and its regulations. And if 01:01:42.900 --> 01:01:45.000 you're a member, that's all you are. But the 01:01:45.000 --> 01:01:47.079 group can go badly wrong. So the group needs 01:01:47.079 --> 01:01:49.539 individuals to keep the group alive and revivified. 01:01:50.119 --> 01:01:52.019 So you have to become an individual so you can 01:01:52.019 --> 01:01:55.679 revivify the group. That's the call in the West 01:01:55.679 --> 01:01:58.739 to heroism, essentially, to noble way of living 01:01:58.739 --> 01:02:01.320 is to... Develop yourself past your group identity 01:02:01.320 --> 01:02:04.300 so that you can reconfigure the game when that 01:02:04.300 --> 01:02:07.280 becomes necessary. And I think that there's a 01:02:07.280 --> 01:02:10.519 very influential line of developmental psychology 01:02:10.519 --> 01:02:13.920 pioneered by Jean Piaget that laid that out as 01:02:13.920 --> 01:02:21.000 a developmental progression. First you're a child, 01:02:21.079 --> 01:02:22.480 then you're a member of a group, then you're 01:02:22.480 --> 01:02:24.420 an individual. It's like, get to the individual 01:02:24.420 --> 01:02:26.940 level. That's the solution. It's the solution 01:02:26.940 --> 01:02:29.389 to tribalism. But you have to accept responsibility 01:02:29.389 --> 01:02:32.710 to do that. And this is what your future authoring 01:02:32.710 --> 01:02:34.630 program is basically all about. I mean, it's 01:02:34.630 --> 01:02:37.530 a wonderful program. And along with this book, 01:02:37.670 --> 01:02:40.010 Rules and Guidelines for Life, I think that's 01:02:40.010 --> 01:02:41.590 one of the things that a lot of young people 01:02:41.590 --> 01:02:44.949 are lacking is a structure to how to go about 01:02:44.949 --> 01:02:48.409 establishing who they are in the world. Well, 01:02:48.550 --> 01:02:51.349 that's, you know, what's really cool, and it's 01:02:51.349 --> 01:02:54.210 been really quite remarkable, I would say, is 01:02:54.210 --> 01:02:56.210 that... What I've noticed when I've been speaking 01:02:56.210 --> 01:02:58.250 publicly, say, over the last year and a half, 01:02:58.349 --> 01:03:01.989 because there's a hole in our culture where there 01:03:01.989 --> 01:03:04.750 should be a discussion about maturity, truth, 01:03:05.030 --> 01:03:07.670 and responsibility. No one's talking about that. 01:03:07.969 --> 01:03:10.250 Okay, so now I'll come up and I'll start talking 01:03:10.250 --> 01:03:12.849 about that. I'll say, look, like, what should 01:03:12.849 --> 01:03:16.170 you do with your life? Well, take care of yourself, 01:03:16.389 --> 01:03:19.389 but take care of yourself in a way that... Also 01:03:19.389 --> 01:03:21.230 means that simultaneously you're taking care 01:03:21.230 --> 01:03:24.070 of your family. And also means that simultaneously 01:03:24.070 --> 01:03:25.630 you're taking care of the broader community. 01:03:25.949 --> 01:03:27.610 So that's kind of your goal. So orient yourself 01:03:27.610 --> 01:03:30.429 towards that. Personal success, but in a way 01:03:30.429 --> 01:03:33.489 that your success breeds success. Because if 01:03:33.489 --> 01:03:35.070 you're going to establish an aim, why not establish 01:03:35.070 --> 01:03:36.869 like a really good aim? That's a good one. It's 01:03:36.869 --> 01:03:38.889 good for you. It's good for everyone else. Yes. 01:03:39.349 --> 01:03:41.690 Okay. That'll give your life some meaning. Now 01:03:41.690 --> 01:03:44.409 adopt, make a plan, generate a vision. That's 01:03:44.409 --> 01:03:45.969 what the Future Authoring Program helps people 01:03:45.969 --> 01:03:48.090 with. Make a... Develop a vision of what your 01:03:48.090 --> 01:03:50.929 life could be like if it was worth living, despite 01:03:50.929 --> 01:03:52.949 all its suffering. It's like, what would you 01:03:52.949 --> 01:03:54.829 need so that you would be happy to be alive? 01:03:55.489 --> 01:03:57.289 You'd find your life meaningful, so you don't 01:03:57.289 --> 01:03:59.449 get all bitter and resentful and cruel and hostile 01:03:59.449 --> 01:04:03.329 and ideologically addled and murderous and genocidal. 01:04:03.409 --> 01:04:05.989 It's like, none of that. You think real hard. 01:04:06.190 --> 01:04:08.010 How would you have to configure your life so 01:04:08.010 --> 01:04:10.510 that despite its suffering and the malevolence 01:04:10.510 --> 01:04:12.269 that's part of it, that you would regard it as 01:04:12.269 --> 01:04:14.639 worthwhile? So that's up to you to develop a 01:04:14.639 --> 01:04:17.380 vision. Then put a plan into practice. And so 01:04:17.380 --> 01:04:19.539 when I talk to people about this, and most of 01:04:19.539 --> 01:04:21.159 my audiences are young men, it's probably about 01:04:21.159 --> 01:04:23.780 65, 35, more and more women are showing up, but 01:04:23.780 --> 01:04:25.920 that's about what it is right now. The halls 01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:29.460 are dead silent. You can hear a pin drop. Because 01:04:29.460 --> 01:04:32.820 nobody's said so clearly for like 50 years that 01:04:32.820 --> 01:04:35.480 almost all the meaning that you will need to 01:04:35.480 --> 01:04:38.039 get you through the hard times of your life is 01:04:38.039 --> 01:04:40.059 going to be a consequence of adopting responsibility. 01:04:40.519 --> 01:04:43.590 Not of rights and impulsive action. Impulsive 01:04:43.590 --> 01:04:48.610 freedom. Like, fine, rights, yeah, got it. Freedom, 01:04:48.750 --> 01:04:51.030 no problem. Even freedom to do impulsive things, 01:04:51.210 --> 01:04:53.510 fine. But that isn't where you're going to find 01:04:53.510 --> 01:04:56.449 the meaning that keeps you sustained through 01:04:56.449 --> 01:05:00.269 the storms of life. That's going to be, you take 01:05:00.269 --> 01:05:01.849 care of yourself, you take care of your intimate 01:05:01.849 --> 01:05:04.590 partner, you take care of your damn family. You 01:05:04.590 --> 01:05:06.769 don't run off. You take care of your community. 01:05:07.190 --> 01:05:09.849 You rescue the wisdom from the past. You stand 01:05:09.849 --> 01:05:11.889 up straight and you be courageous despite the 01:05:11.889 --> 01:05:14.389 fact that life is tragic and tainted by malevolence. 01:05:14.570 --> 01:05:17.690 It's like that's ancient wisdom. That's what 01:05:17.690 --> 01:05:19.670 that is. And understanding that there's structure 01:05:19.670 --> 01:05:23.030 and discipline. And that, you know, I am in a 01:05:23.030 --> 01:05:25.489 lot of ways both of those things you described 01:05:25.489 --> 01:05:29.929 earlier. I'm in a lot of ways my mind is creative 01:05:29.929 --> 01:05:34.239 and I'm always sort of half. paying attention 01:05:34.239 --> 01:05:36.400 to things, but I'm also disciplined. Yeah, right. 01:05:36.539 --> 01:05:39.860 And it's one of the reasons why I think I so 01:05:39.860 --> 01:05:43.059 relate to both sides of this issue. It's also 01:05:43.059 --> 01:05:45.199 one of the reasons you're successful. I could 01:05:45.199 --> 01:05:48.480 have easily been some hardcore right -wing asshole. 01:05:48.599 --> 01:05:51.300 I'm a competition -oriented person. I've been 01:05:51.300 --> 01:05:55.059 since I was a child. I grew up competing in martial 01:05:55.059 --> 01:05:59.159 arts tournaments. And you have to be a hard person 01:05:59.159 --> 01:06:01.579 to do that. You have to understand what discipline 01:06:01.579 --> 01:06:04.159 is. But before that, I was an artist. I wanted 01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:06.619 to be a cartoonist. I wanted to do comic books. 01:06:06.860 --> 01:06:08.480 That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an 01:06:08.480 --> 01:06:11.309 illustrator. If it wasn't for one... bad teacher 01:06:11.309 --> 01:06:13.530 in high school that totally shied me away from 01:06:13.530 --> 01:06:16.210 art i probably would have went into that as a 01:06:16.210 --> 01:06:20.369 as a living when i look at both sides i see myself 01:06:20.369 --> 01:06:23.349 in both sides yep yep well the other thing i've 01:06:23.349 --> 01:06:25.869 been telling young men is that and and this is 01:06:25.869 --> 01:06:27.789 something i think that you could relate to tremendously 01:06:27.789 --> 01:06:31.630 is i read this new testament line well decades 01:06:31.630 --> 01:06:33.750 ago, and I could never understand it. The line 01:06:33.750 --> 01:06:36.190 is, the meek shall inherit the earth. And I thought, 01:06:36.289 --> 01:06:37.909 there's something wrong with that, that line. 01:06:37.989 --> 01:06:39.949 It just doesn't make sense to me. Meek just doesn't 01:06:39.949 --> 01:06:42.989 seem to me to be a moral virtue. And so I did 01:06:42.989 --> 01:06:45.050 a series of biblical lectures this year, like 01:06:45.050 --> 01:06:47.090 15 of them, and that was also a weird little 01:06:47.090 --> 01:06:49.530 experience that we can talk about. But I was 01:06:49.530 --> 01:06:52.909 looking through these sayings, these maxims, 01:06:52.909 --> 01:06:54.530 and that was one of them, the meek shall inherit 01:06:54.530 --> 01:06:57.349 the earth. I've been using this site called Bible 01:06:57.349 --> 01:06:59.429 Hub, and it's very interesting. It's organized 01:06:59.429 --> 01:07:01.610 very interestingly. So you have a biblical line, 01:07:01.809 --> 01:07:05.309 and then they have like three pages of commentary 01:07:05.309 --> 01:07:08.030 on each line. And so, because people have commented 01:07:08.030 --> 01:07:10.650 on every verse in the Bible, like to the degree 01:07:10.650 --> 01:07:12.710 that's almost unimaginable. So you can look and 01:07:12.710 --> 01:07:15.050 see all the interpretations and all the translations, 01:07:15.070 --> 01:07:17.989 and get some sense of what the genuine meaning 01:07:17.989 --> 01:07:21.570 might be. And the line, the meek shall inherit 01:07:21.570 --> 01:07:25.719 the earth, meek is not a good translation. or 01:07:25.719 --> 01:07:28.400 the word has moved in the 300 years or so, 300 01:07:28.400 --> 01:07:30.739 years or so since it was translated, what it 01:07:30.739 --> 01:07:34.219 means is this. Those who have swords and know 01:07:34.219 --> 01:07:36.880 how to use them, but keep them sheathed, will 01:07:36.880 --> 01:07:39.760 inherit the world. And that's another thing I've 01:07:39.760 --> 01:07:41.219 been telling, yeah, no kidding, that's a lot 01:07:41.219 --> 01:07:42.599 different. That's a big difference. That's a 01:07:42.599 --> 01:07:44.519 big difference. It's so great. And so like one 01:07:44.519 --> 01:07:46.400 of the things I tell young men, well, and young 01:07:46.400 --> 01:07:48.599 women as well, but the young men really need 01:07:48.599 --> 01:07:50.679 to hear this more, I think, is that you should 01:07:50.679 --> 01:07:53.300 be a monster. You know, because everyone says, 01:07:53.400 --> 01:07:56.460 well, you should be harmless, virtuous. You shouldn't 01:07:56.460 --> 01:07:58.440 do anyone any harm. You should sheath your competitive 01:07:58.440 --> 01:08:00.780 instinct. You shouldn't try to win. You know, 01:08:00.800 --> 01:08:02.440 you don't want to be too aggressive. You don't 01:08:02.440 --> 01:08:03.780 want to be too assertive. You want to take a 01:08:03.780 --> 01:08:07.300 back seat and all of that. It's like, no, wrong. 01:08:08.019 --> 01:08:10.519 You should be a monster, an absolute monster. 01:08:10.639 --> 01:08:12.380 And then you should learn how to control it. 01:08:12.760 --> 01:08:14.519 Do you know the expression, it's better to be 01:08:14.519 --> 01:08:17.020 a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war? 01:08:17.079 --> 01:08:19.180 Right, right, exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. 01:08:19.279 --> 01:08:21.079 And that's exactly right. And so when I tell 01:08:21.079 --> 01:08:22.979 young men that, they think, well, lots of them 01:08:22.979 --> 01:08:24.520 are competitive. They're low in agreeableness, 01:08:24.739 --> 01:08:26.079 you know, because that's part of being competitive 01:08:26.079 --> 01:08:27.880 temperamentally. It's like, is there something 01:08:27.880 --> 01:08:29.920 wrong with being competitive? There's nothing 01:08:29.920 --> 01:08:32.119 wrong with it. There's something wrong with cheating. 01:08:32.779 --> 01:08:34.460 There's something wrong with being a tyrant. 01:08:34.600 --> 01:08:36.659 There's something wrong with winning unfairly. 01:08:37.119 --> 01:08:39.460 All of those things are bad, but you don't want 01:08:39.460 --> 01:08:41.060 people to win? What's the difference between 01:08:41.060 --> 01:08:44.039 trying to win and striving? You want to eradicate 01:08:44.039 --> 01:08:46.020 striving? Well, it's the uncomfortable feeling 01:08:46.020 --> 01:08:48.880 that people associate with losing. When they've 01:08:48.880 --> 01:08:51.520 personally experienced it, they look at losing 01:08:51.520 --> 01:08:54.140 as they've been oppressed or they've been hurt. 01:08:54.220 --> 01:08:56.199 But what they don't understand is that is the 01:08:56.199 --> 01:08:59.560 motivation for growth. And one of the most beautiful 01:08:59.560 --> 01:09:02.100 things that I think a young person can get involved 01:09:02.100 --> 01:09:04.760 in is martial arts because martial arts teach 01:09:04.760 --> 01:09:07.340 you that in a way that very few things do. They 01:09:07.340 --> 01:09:10.239 teach you it in especially jujitsu because jujitsu 01:09:10.239 --> 01:09:13.319 is so complex and there's so many possibilities 01:09:13.319 --> 01:09:15.500 to it that it attracts a lot of really smart 01:09:15.500 --> 01:09:18.300 people. If you think of jujitsu, you would think 01:09:18.300 --> 01:09:20.979 of like brutish individuals engaging in this 01:09:20.979 --> 01:09:23.500 hard martial art. If you go to a real good jujitsu 01:09:23.500 --> 01:09:26.640 school, you see. nerds. You see a bunch of really 01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:29.560 smart kids that really get obsessed with the 01:09:29.560 --> 01:09:32.439 possibilities of this physical language. This 01:09:32.439 --> 01:09:34.960 physical language also teaches you the consequences 01:09:34.960 --> 01:09:39.239 of not working hard, of not being prepared, of 01:09:39.239 --> 01:09:41.760 not understanding positions, of not doing due 01:09:41.760 --> 01:09:44.899 diligence and doing the work. And it's an amazing 01:09:44.899 --> 01:09:49.899 scaffolding for developing your life. But it 01:09:49.899 --> 01:09:52.659 also teaches you how to lose. Yes. That's very 01:09:52.659 --> 01:09:55.039 important. One definition of a winner is someone 01:09:55.039 --> 01:09:58.060 who never let losing stop them. Yes. And the 01:09:58.060 --> 01:10:00.949 idea that... A single loss in a competition is 01:10:00.949 --> 01:10:03.090 somehow a defeat. It's completely insane. First 01:10:03.090 --> 01:10:05.409 of all, well, let's say you're a hockey player 01:10:05.409 --> 01:10:07.390 and you're a good player and you lose the tournament. 01:10:07.550 --> 01:10:09.590 It's like, well, so what? You played the game. 01:10:09.750 --> 01:10:11.989 You're increasing your skills. It's like there's 01:10:11.989 --> 01:10:14.329 always next time. And one of the things that 01:10:14.329 --> 01:10:18.739 I've also been telling people... informing people 01:10:18.739 --> 01:10:21.180 about is the idea that life isn't a game. It's 01:10:21.180 --> 01:10:24.479 a series of games. And the right ethic is to 01:10:24.479 --> 01:10:27.239 be the winner of the series of games. And part 01:10:27.239 --> 01:10:28.979 of that means you have to learn how to be a good 01:10:28.979 --> 01:10:30.619 loser because you're not going to win every single 01:10:30.619 --> 01:10:32.960 game. But you also have to embrace those losses 01:10:32.960 --> 01:10:35.079 as learning experiences. And the people that 01:10:35.079 --> 01:10:37.420 have never lost are afraid of losing. They're 01:10:37.420 --> 01:10:39.619 afraid of learning. You're afraid of that feeling, 01:10:39.640 --> 01:10:41.659 that terrible feeling that you get from losing 01:10:41.659 --> 01:10:44.979 is so beneficial. It's aided me in so many ways. 01:10:45.060 --> 01:10:46.979 It's one of the reasons, also one of the reasons 01:10:46.979 --> 01:10:50.100 why talk so openly about bombing on stage. And 01:10:50.100 --> 01:10:52.800 I do it with other comedians. I always want to 01:10:52.800 --> 01:10:54.920 tell people, yeah, I'm an established comedian. 01:10:55.020 --> 01:10:56.319 I've been a comedian for a long time. Let me 01:10:56.319 --> 01:10:58.500 tell you about when I was two years in or five 01:10:58.500 --> 01:11:01.779 years in or four years ago. Let me tell you about 01:11:01.779 --> 01:11:04.460 some horrible moments on stage where it went 01:11:04.460 --> 01:11:07.180 wrong. Just so you understand, those things took 01:11:07.180 --> 01:11:09.300 me to another place because I realized I don't 01:11:09.300 --> 01:11:11.579 want to ever feel that feeling again. And so 01:11:11.579 --> 01:11:13.760 I ramped everything up. And then I went back 01:11:13.760 --> 01:11:15.659 to work and I went over my notebooks and I went 01:11:15.659 --> 01:11:18.220 over my... recordings, and I figured out what 01:11:18.220 --> 01:11:20.600 I was doing wrong, and I tried to improve upon 01:11:20.600 --> 01:11:22.840 it. But if it wasn't for that horrible, sick 01:11:22.840 --> 01:11:24.859 feeling, that's the same feeling you get when 01:11:24.859 --> 01:11:27.560 you get tapped out in jujitsu class. Same feeling 01:11:27.560 --> 01:11:29.380 you get when you lose a martial arts tournament 01:11:29.380 --> 01:11:31.979 or anything else. Losing is important. Well, 01:11:32.020 --> 01:11:34.239 you might also say, like, let's say that you 01:11:34.239 --> 01:11:37.340 can pick your level of competition in life to 01:11:37.340 --> 01:11:40.020 some degree. Okay, so let's say you pick a level 01:11:40.020 --> 01:11:42.270 of competition where you're always winning. It's 01:11:42.270 --> 01:11:43.750 like, well, all that means is you've picked the 01:11:43.750 --> 01:11:45.829 wrong level of competition. Yes. Because, you 01:11:45.829 --> 01:11:48.569 know, like, let's say you're a grandmaster chess 01:11:48.569 --> 01:11:51.189 player and all you do is play amateurs. And every 01:11:51.189 --> 01:11:53.010 night you go home and congratulate yourself on 01:11:53.010 --> 01:11:54.710 what a genius you are because you just stomp 01:11:54.710 --> 01:11:56.430 these people left, right, and center. It's like, 01:11:56.449 --> 01:11:58.989 you're not a genius. You're dimwit. Right. What 01:11:58.989 --> 01:12:00.670 you should be doing is playing people who are 01:12:00.670 --> 01:12:02.810 beating you like, well, as much as you can tolerate. 01:12:03.050 --> 01:12:05.310 Right. So maybe that's 40 % of the time. Maybe 01:12:05.310 --> 01:12:07.970 it's 60 % of the time. But that way, because 01:12:07.970 --> 01:12:10.359 to be a winner. You want to be disciplined. You 01:12:10.359 --> 01:12:11.720 want to know what you're doing. And then you 01:12:11.720 --> 01:12:14.140 want to be on the edge where your skills are 01:12:14.140 --> 01:12:15.800 being developed. And if you're going to be on 01:12:15.800 --> 01:12:17.439 the edge where your skills are going to be developed, 01:12:17.579 --> 01:12:21.380 you're at a place where loss, where losing is 01:12:21.380 --> 01:12:24.359 always a possibility. Because otherwise you're 01:12:24.359 --> 01:12:26.659 not pushing yourself beyond your current capacity. 01:12:27.199 --> 01:12:29.920 And so one of the things that I've outlined in 01:12:29.920 --> 01:12:33.869 12 Rules for Life is a theory of meaning. Because 01:12:33.869 --> 01:12:36.029 meaning, as far as I'm concerned, the sense of 01:12:36.029 --> 01:12:38.789 meaningful engagement is the antidote to malevolence 01:12:38.789 --> 01:12:40.789 and suffering, essentially. Because you want 01:12:40.789 --> 01:12:42.750 to have a life that's so engaging that you think, 01:12:42.850 --> 01:12:45.569 despite the fact that I'm limited and that we're 01:12:45.569 --> 01:12:48.090 mortal and that life is tragedy and there's evil 01:12:48.090 --> 01:12:50.409 in the world, despite all that, this is worth 01:12:50.409 --> 01:12:56.369 doing. And I think that there's a technical meaning 01:12:56.369 --> 01:13:00.670 that genuinely exists. And that's the meaning 01:13:00.670 --> 01:13:03.090 that you get when you're... in a domain where 01:13:03.090 --> 01:13:05.250 you have some discipline and some skill. So you're 01:13:05.250 --> 01:13:07.869 laying out your competence and your ability. 01:13:08.289 --> 01:13:11.609 But you're simultaneously pushing yourself to 01:13:11.609 --> 01:13:14.970 develop past where you are. That's really engrossing. 01:13:15.170 --> 01:13:18.609 And what that is doing is expanding your competence. 01:13:18.829 --> 01:13:23.310 And so life is suffering and betrayal in many 01:13:23.310 --> 01:13:26.710 senses of the word. But you can adopt a way of 01:13:26.710 --> 01:13:30.399 traversing through life that... is more powerful 01:13:30.399 --> 01:13:32.699 than the tragedy and the malevolence. I agree, 01:13:32.840 --> 01:13:36.520 and I say to many people that what is going on 01:13:36.520 --> 01:13:39.140 in your life is you have a series of human reward 01:13:39.140 --> 01:13:42.359 systems that are in your body, encoded in your 01:13:42.359 --> 01:13:45.039 body, in your genetics, and it's the reason why 01:13:45.039 --> 01:13:48.520 human beings survived to 2018. And in order to 01:13:48.520 --> 01:13:50.920 be happy, you have to feed those things. You 01:13:50.920 --> 01:13:52.500 have to feed all of them. You have to feed the 01:13:52.500 --> 01:13:56.779 one that wants to overcome difficult tasks. You 01:13:56.779 --> 01:13:58.920 have to feed the one that wants to solve problems. 01:13:59.020 --> 01:14:01.260 You have to feed the one that wants to be with 01:14:01.260 --> 01:14:03.880 a loving tribe of people that you care about. 01:14:04.000 --> 01:14:06.159 You have to feed the one that wants to procreate. 01:14:06.220 --> 01:14:08.199 You have to feed all of these things. You have 01:14:08.199 --> 01:14:10.479 to feed the love. You have to feed the competition. 01:14:10.859 --> 01:14:13.739 You have to feed the discipline. And that, to 01:14:13.739 --> 01:14:15.779 me, is the only way to stay balanced. Or with 01:14:15.779 --> 01:14:18.399 me, with my body and my mind, that's the only 01:14:18.399 --> 01:14:20.550 way I've been able to stay balanced. And when 01:14:20.550 --> 01:14:23.310 any of those things get out of whack, I get out 01:14:23.310 --> 01:14:25.210 of whack. Yeah, well, so part of that is, so 01:14:25.210 --> 01:14:27.729 imagine this. So imagine that you're this loose 01:14:27.729 --> 01:14:29.670 collection of all these things that need to be 01:14:29.670 --> 01:14:31.590 gratified, that need to be fed. It's a perfectly 01:14:31.590 --> 01:14:33.489 reasonable way of looking at it biologically. 01:14:33.850 --> 01:14:36.689 Okay, so now you have to conjure up a mode of 01:14:36.689 --> 01:14:40.109 being that satisfies all those necessities simultaneously. 01:14:40.850 --> 01:14:44.109 But then, and this is a technical explanation 01:14:44.109 --> 01:14:47.710 of why the postmodernist insistence that there's 01:14:47.710 --> 01:14:50.310 an infinite number of explanations, turns out 01:14:50.310 --> 01:14:52.989 to be wrong. An infinite number of interpretations. 01:14:53.409 --> 01:14:56.510 There's a very finite number of viable interpretations. 01:14:56.949 --> 01:14:59.829 So the first constraint is exactly what you just 01:14:59.829 --> 01:15:02.750 said. You have these inner demons, let's say, 01:15:02.789 --> 01:15:05.750 all of which need to be satisfied. But they need 01:15:05.750 --> 01:15:08.149 to be satisfied in a very particular way. Not 01:15:08.149 --> 01:15:11.310 only do they need to be satisfied today, but 01:15:11.310 --> 01:15:13.250 they need to be satisfied today in a way that 01:15:13.250 --> 01:15:15.449 doesn't interfere with satisfying them next week, 01:15:15.489 --> 01:15:18.050 next month, next year, and in a decade. So because 01:15:18.050 --> 01:15:21.039 there's no point in you You're betraying your 01:15:21.039 --> 01:15:24.579 future self to gratify your present self. It's 01:15:24.579 --> 01:15:27.119 a stupid game. Okay, so you're constrained by 01:15:27.119 --> 01:15:29.859 the necessity of satisfying yourself, but of 01:15:29.859 --> 01:15:32.600 maintaining that satisfaction across time. But 01:15:32.600 --> 01:15:34.100 then it gets even worse. That's hard enough. 01:15:34.420 --> 01:15:37.279 But it's like there's an infinite number of yous 01:15:37.279 --> 01:15:40.359 extending indefinitely into the future, and all 01:15:40.359 --> 01:15:41.800 of them have to be satisfied simultaneously. 01:15:42.199 --> 01:15:44.439 But then it's worse, because it isn't just you. 01:15:44.989 --> 01:15:47.170 You have to figure out how to gratify all those 01:15:47.170 --> 01:15:49.970 internal demons in a sustainable way, in a way 01:15:49.970 --> 01:15:53.069 that other people not only don't object to, but 01:15:53.069 --> 01:15:56.310 probably help you with, and that benefits them 01:15:56.310 --> 01:15:59.050 at the same time. Well, then you think, well, 01:15:59.270 --> 01:16:01.210 there just aren't that many ways of solving that 01:16:01.210 --> 01:16:03.029 problem. And we know some of them. One of them 01:16:03.029 --> 01:16:06.829 is reciprocity. You know, like, if you go out 01:16:06.829 --> 01:16:09.770 of your way for me, it's incumbent on me to notice 01:16:09.770 --> 01:16:14.029 that and to attempt in some manner to repay you. 01:16:14.470 --> 01:16:17.029 And, like, if we're good friends, that's what 01:16:17.029 --> 01:16:19.350 we'll do. If we're good brothers, that's what 01:16:19.350 --> 01:16:20.970 we'll do. That's what you do with your wife. 01:16:21.109 --> 01:16:23.409 It's a reciprocal arrangement. And that keeps 01:16:23.409 --> 01:16:27.149 things flowing properly across time. So there 01:16:27.149 --> 01:16:30.869 is an ethic. This is the answer to the postmodern 01:16:30.869 --> 01:16:32.609 conundrum. It's like, well, is life meaningless? 01:16:32.890 --> 01:16:36.130 Is everything just nihilist? Is nihilism the 01:16:36.130 --> 01:16:39.010 right answer? Or maybe, you know, the, what would 01:16:39.010 --> 01:16:41.689 you call... identification with an ideology as 01:16:41.689 --> 01:16:44.170 a counter position to nihilism. So nihilism is 01:16:44.170 --> 01:16:47.689 wrong. Life is meaningful. And that's what 12 01:16:47.689 --> 01:16:49.550 Rules for Life is about. The first meaning of 01:16:49.550 --> 01:16:53.250 life is suffering and malevolence. There's indisputable 01:16:53.250 --> 01:16:56.710 realities. Okay, well, what's after that? Well, 01:16:56.770 --> 01:16:58.810 there's a noble way of being that allows you 01:16:58.810 --> 01:17:03.409 to exist properly despite that, and also not 01:17:03.409 --> 01:17:06.229 to make it worse. So can your life be meaningful 01:17:06.229 --> 01:17:09.880 enough so that you, what is it? Confront chaos 01:17:09.880 --> 01:17:17.359 voluntarily. Establish and revivify order. Constrain 01:17:17.359 --> 01:17:21.500 malevolence. That's a good three -part doctrine 01:17:21.500 --> 01:17:23.680 for life. There's things to do. And so that's 01:17:23.680 --> 01:17:25.960 what I've been talking to the audiences that 01:17:25.960 --> 01:17:28.220 I've been seeing over the last year. It's like, 01:17:28.239 --> 01:17:30.579 get your act together. Stand up forthrightly. 01:17:30.579 --> 01:17:32.239 That's rule one. Stand up straight with your 01:17:32.239 --> 01:17:34.640 shoulders back. There's a vulnerable position, 01:17:34.800 --> 01:17:37.020 right? Because you're open. But it's a powerful 01:17:37.020 --> 01:17:38.979 position because it means that you're brave enough 01:17:38.979 --> 01:17:42.439 to take what's coming. And it isn't like what's 01:17:42.439 --> 01:17:46.960 coming isn't dangerous. It's dangerous. But your 01:17:46.960 --> 01:17:50.119 best bet is to be dancing on your feet and ready 01:17:50.119 --> 01:17:52.600 for it. Pay attention and be awake. And to treat 01:17:52.600 --> 01:17:54.500 yourself properly. That's rule two. Figure out 01:17:54.500 --> 01:17:56.600 how to treat yourself as if you're someone worth 01:17:56.600 --> 01:17:59.739 coming to the aid of. To detach yourself in a 01:17:59.739 --> 01:18:01.239 bit and say, okay, I'm going to set up my life 01:18:01.239 --> 01:18:04.529 so that it... It's good for me and good for other 01:18:04.529 --> 01:18:07.130 people as well. That's a corollary to that. So 01:18:07.130 --> 01:18:12.329 the book is all about the meanings of life, the 01:18:12.329 --> 01:18:15.090 negative meanings, suffering, malevolence. Those 01:18:15.090 --> 01:18:17.609 are indisputable realities. And then a mode of 01:18:17.609 --> 01:18:19.710 being that integrates the sorts of things that 01:18:19.710 --> 01:18:21.310 you were talking about, these underlying needs 01:18:21.310 --> 01:18:24.409 with everyone else's and like doing that voluntarily. 01:18:24.670 --> 01:18:27.189 It's a call to responsibility and meaning. And 01:18:27.189 --> 01:18:30.350 I actually think it's not the thing that's been 01:18:30.350 --> 01:18:33.000 so exciting for me. for the last three decades, 01:18:33.119 --> 01:18:36.300 looking into these things, is that I believe 01:18:36.300 --> 01:18:40.539 that there is a genuine human ethic. It's not 01:18:40.539 --> 01:18:42.939 arbitrary. It has to do with reciprocity, for 01:18:42.939 --> 01:18:44.619 example. It has to do with honesty. That's another 01:18:44.619 --> 01:18:47.340 thing, is that you should speak the truth. Because 01:18:47.340 --> 01:18:49.020 your life turns out better if you speak the truth. 01:18:49.159 --> 01:18:52.439 And so does everyone else's. So, in this biblical 01:18:52.439 --> 01:18:55.479 lecture series I did, I looked at the first chapter 01:18:55.479 --> 01:18:57.640 in Genesis, and there's a theory in there. It's 01:18:57.640 --> 01:18:59.779 a really interesting theory. And the theory is 01:18:59.779 --> 01:19:02.420 that there's three parts to being. There's chaos 01:19:02.420 --> 01:19:04.859 and potential. And that would be like the potential 01:19:04.859 --> 01:19:06.600 you should live up to. Because everyone says, 01:19:06.720 --> 01:19:08.779 well, you should live up to your potential. It's 01:19:08.779 --> 01:19:10.380 like, what the hell is that? You can't measure 01:19:10.380 --> 01:19:13.420 it, or touch it, or taste it, feel it. It's this 01:19:13.420 --> 01:19:15.899 hypothetical thing that everyone regards as real. 01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:20.079 It's like the future. What's the future? Well, 01:19:20.100 --> 01:19:22.060 it's not here yet. You can't measure it. What 01:19:22.060 --> 01:19:26.680 makes you think it's real? Well, we act as if 01:19:26.680 --> 01:19:29.880 it's real, and that seems to work. So there's 01:19:29.880 --> 01:19:32.979 potential, that's chaos, chaotic potential. Then 01:19:32.979 --> 01:19:35.560 there's order, and that's the structure that 01:19:35.560 --> 01:19:38.819 you need in order to confront the chaos. And 01:19:38.819 --> 01:19:41.060 you'd be born with that, biologically. And then 01:19:41.060 --> 01:19:45.020 there's your ability to call forth from the potential 01:19:45.020 --> 01:19:48.359 new order. That's what you do with your speech, 01:19:48.460 --> 01:19:50.319 and that's what happens in the first chapter 01:19:50.319 --> 01:19:54.380 of Genesis, is that God uses, God order, let's 01:19:54.380 --> 01:19:57.930 say, uses... the power of truthful speech, that's 01:19:57.930 --> 01:20:00.449 the logos, to transform potential into order. 01:20:00.609 --> 01:20:03.149 And that's what people are made in the image 01:20:03.149 --> 01:20:05.170 of. So there's this theory, it's a lovely theory 01:20:05.170 --> 01:20:06.789 that's laid out right at the beginning of the 01:20:06.789 --> 01:20:10.529 Bible that says that if you tell the truth, you 01:20:10.529 --> 01:20:15.149 transform the potential of being into a habitable 01:20:15.149 --> 01:20:17.489 actuality. That's how it works. So we say, well, 01:20:17.550 --> 01:20:19.989 how do you make the world better? Tell the truth. 01:20:20.569 --> 01:20:22.810 Because the world you bring into being, as a 01:20:22.810 --> 01:20:25.050 consequence of telling the truth, will be a good 01:20:25.050 --> 01:20:27.930 world. And I believe that's true. I think it's 01:20:27.930 --> 01:20:30.630 true metaphorically. I think it's true theologically. 01:20:30.949 --> 01:20:35.149 And I think it's true at the practical and scientific 01:20:35.149 --> 01:20:36.909 level as well. I think it's true in all those 01:20:36.909 --> 01:20:39.270 levels simultaneously. So that's been ridiculously 01:20:39.270 --> 01:20:44.130 exciting to sort through. I think this notion, 01:20:44.329 --> 01:20:45.770 and one of the things that you said that I think 01:20:45.770 --> 01:20:48.529 really resonates, is that there's not a voice 01:20:48.529 --> 01:20:53.520 out there. that is advocating for responsibility. 01:20:54.510 --> 01:20:56.750 And that is talking about how important this 01:20:56.750 --> 01:20:58.789 is. And I think this is an inherent principle 01:20:58.789 --> 01:21:01.210 that most people are kind of aware of. And it 01:21:01.210 --> 01:21:03.829 feels good to them to hear. Like, it resonates. 01:21:03.989 --> 01:21:06.649 You feel it. When you're saying this, clean your 01:21:06.649 --> 01:21:08.670 room. You know, put your house in order. People 01:21:08.670 --> 01:21:10.810 are like, yeah, yeah. How come I'm not hearing 01:21:10.810 --> 01:21:12.430 this? Right, right. How come I'm not hearing 01:21:12.430 --> 01:21:14.090 this? Well, it's so funny because one of the 01:21:14.090 --> 01:21:15.949 things psychologists have done for the last 20 01:21:15.949 --> 01:21:18.470 years, especially the social psychologists, is 01:21:18.470 --> 01:21:20.930 push this idea of self -esteem. You should feel 01:21:20.930 --> 01:21:23.739 good about yourself. And I think... Why would 01:21:23.739 --> 01:21:26.239 you tell someone 20 that? It's like, you should 01:21:26.239 --> 01:21:27.720 feel good about who you are. It's like, no, you 01:21:27.720 --> 01:21:29.779 shouldn't. Why should you feel good about who 01:21:29.779 --> 01:21:31.859 you are? It's like, you should feel good about 01:21:31.859 --> 01:21:34.100 who you could be. That's way better, because 01:21:34.100 --> 01:21:36.439 you've got 60 years to turn into who you could 01:21:36.439 --> 01:21:38.840 be. But wait a minute, are you what your accomplishments 01:21:38.840 --> 01:21:41.359 are, or are you this individual going through 01:21:41.359 --> 01:21:43.239 this journey? I mean, I don't think there's anything 01:21:43.239 --> 01:21:45.279 wrong with feeling good about who you are as 01:21:45.279 --> 01:21:47.819 long as it's tempered by an understanding of 01:21:47.819 --> 01:21:50.380 potential and what you have accomplished versus 01:21:50.380 --> 01:21:53.000 what you can accomplish. But having confidence 01:21:53.000 --> 01:21:55.600 is a big part of it. It is. It is. And I'm not 01:21:55.600 --> 01:21:57.000 saying that people shouldn't have confidence. 01:21:57.119 --> 01:21:59.779 But, like, often you take young people, say they're 01:21:59.779 --> 01:22:02.119 16 to 22, and they're not really feeling that 01:22:02.119 --> 01:22:03.720 good about who they are. Right. Because their 01:22:03.720 --> 01:22:05.979 life is chaotic and in disorder and they don't 01:22:05.979 --> 01:22:07.319 know where they're going and they don't know 01:22:07.319 --> 01:22:09.539 which way is up. Also, there could be bad parenting. 01:22:09.859 --> 01:22:11.770 Oh, God, yes. Bullying. Oh, yes. be a lot of 01:22:11.770 --> 01:22:13.930 abuse going on and i think that's one of the 01:22:13.930 --> 01:22:16.029 reasons why that resonates with people this idea 01:22:16.029 --> 01:22:18.989 of be happy for you about who you are right feel 01:22:18.989 --> 01:22:20.689 good about who you are right but but the thing 01:22:20.689 --> 01:22:23.689 is it has to be stated with precision it's like 01:22:23.689 --> 01:22:26.869 yes it's like you should you should treat yourself 01:22:26.869 --> 01:22:30.029 as if you're valuable especially in potential 01:22:30.029 --> 01:22:32.689 but you should concentrate on who you should 01:22:32.689 --> 01:22:35.029 become especially if you're young and so let's 01:22:35.029 --> 01:22:36.890 say you're miserable and nihilistic and chaotic 01:22:36.890 --> 01:22:38.710 and depressed and all of that now and you have 01:22:38.710 --> 01:22:40.960 your reasons you know terrible parenting, abuse, 01:22:41.140 --> 01:22:43.920 all of those things. It's like, well, you should 01:22:43.920 --> 01:22:45.500 feel good about yourself. It's like, no, no, 01:22:45.560 --> 01:22:50.239 it's not the right message. It's more like you 01:22:50.239 --> 01:22:52.819 should understand how much potential there is 01:22:52.819 --> 01:22:55.689 within you to set that straight. And then you 01:22:55.689 --> 01:22:57.750 should do everything you can to manifest that 01:22:57.750 --> 01:22:59.970 in the world, and it will set it straight. And 01:22:59.970 --> 01:23:02.229 that's better than self -esteem. It's like, you're 01:23:02.229 --> 01:23:04.630 in a crooked, horrible position. Okay, fine. 01:23:04.789 --> 01:23:06.310 There's a lot of suffering and pain associated 01:23:06.310 --> 01:23:08.750 with that. Yeah. You can't just feel good about 01:23:08.750 --> 01:23:11.090 that, because it's not good. But you can do something 01:23:11.090 --> 01:23:13.189 about it. You can genuinely do something about 01:23:13.189 --> 01:23:15.390 it. And I think all the evidence suggests that 01:23:15.390 --> 01:23:18.350 that's the case. Yes. So I'm telling young people, 01:23:18.430 --> 01:23:21.590 look, no matter how bad your situation is, I'm 01:23:21.590 --> 01:23:23.489 not going to pretend it's okay. It's not okay. 01:23:24.000 --> 01:23:27.100 It's tragic, tainted with malevolence. And some 01:23:27.100 --> 01:23:28.800 people really get hurt by malevolent people. 01:23:28.960 --> 01:23:31.220 Like, you know, terribly hurt. Sometimes they 01:23:31.220 --> 01:23:34.060 never recover. It's really awful. But there's 01:23:34.060 --> 01:23:36.100 more to you than you think. And if you stand 01:23:36.100 --> 01:23:41.319 up and face it with a noble vision, with discipline 01:23:41.319 --> 01:23:45.800 and intent, you can go far farther to overcoming 01:23:45.800 --> 01:23:49.010 it than you can imagine. And that's... the principle 01:23:49.010 --> 01:23:50.949 upon which you should predicate your behavior. 01:23:51.189 --> 01:23:53.210 And I think that one of the things that's really 01:23:53.210 --> 01:23:55.270 nice about being a clinical psychologist is that 01:23:55.270 --> 01:23:58.210 this isn't just guesswork. Like one of the things, 01:23:58.270 --> 01:24:00.310 we know two things in clinical psychology. One 01:24:00.310 --> 01:24:04.810 is truthful conversations redeem people. Because 01:24:04.810 --> 01:24:07.369 if you come to a clinical psychologist whose 01:24:07.369 --> 01:24:10.210 worth is salt, you have a truthful conversation. 01:24:10.609 --> 01:24:13.189 The conversation is, well, here's what's wrong 01:24:13.189 --> 01:24:16.479 with my life. and here's what caused it. You 01:24:16.479 --> 01:24:18.300 know, maybe it takes a year to have that conversation, 01:24:18.359 --> 01:24:21.060 and both of the participants are doing everything 01:24:21.060 --> 01:24:23.979 they can to lay it out properly. Here's how it 01:24:23.979 --> 01:24:26.359 might be fixed. Here's what a beneficial future 01:24:26.359 --> 01:24:28.720 might look like. And so it's a completely honest 01:24:28.720 --> 01:24:31.520 conversation if it's working well. And all that's 01:24:31.520 --> 01:24:33.359 happening in the conversation is that the two 01:24:33.359 --> 01:24:36.119 people involved are trying to make things better. 01:24:36.239 --> 01:24:38.520 That's the goal. Let's see if we can have a conversation 01:24:38.520 --> 01:24:41.220 that will make things better. Okay, so we know 01:24:41.220 --> 01:24:43.399 that works. It does make things better. And then 01:24:43.399 --> 01:24:45.500 another thing we know is that, Well, let's say 01:24:45.500 --> 01:24:46.840 there's a bunch of things that you're afraid 01:24:46.840 --> 01:24:49.819 of that are in your way. So you have some vision 01:24:49.819 --> 01:24:51.380 about who you want to be. Maybe you have to, 01:24:51.439 --> 01:24:53.579 you know, you want to be successful in your career. 01:24:53.760 --> 01:24:55.539 So you have to learn to talk in front of a group. 01:24:56.100 --> 01:24:58.020 It's like, okay, well, you're afraid of that. 01:24:58.119 --> 01:25:00.039 It's like, no wonder you don't want to be humiliated. 01:25:00.079 --> 01:25:02.420 So, okay, so what do we do about that? Well, 01:25:02.520 --> 01:25:04.739 maybe we first get you to speak in front of one 01:25:04.739 --> 01:25:06.920 person and then three people, you know, for five 01:25:06.920 --> 01:25:09.420 minutes and then for 10 minutes, like graduated 01:25:09.420 --> 01:25:12.409 exposure to what you're afraid of. Voluntary 01:25:12.409 --> 01:25:14.430 graduated exposure to what you're afraid of is 01:25:14.430 --> 01:25:18.029 curative. And that's true. It works. The documentation 01:25:18.029 --> 01:25:23.609 is in. It's how people learn. So to tell people 01:25:23.609 --> 01:25:26.069 that if you confront the world forthrightly... 01:25:26.350 --> 01:25:28.770 If you speak the truth, and you expose yourself 01:25:28.770 --> 01:25:30.909 courageously to those things that you're afraid 01:25:30.909 --> 01:25:32.949 of, that your life will improve, and so will 01:25:32.949 --> 01:25:35.229 the life of people around you. Like, as far as 01:25:35.229 --> 01:25:36.869 I'm concerned, that's as close to undeniable 01:25:36.869 --> 01:25:39.789 fact as we've got. And it also dovetails nicely 01:25:39.789 --> 01:25:41.930 with the underlying archetypal stories, the heroic 01:25:41.930 --> 01:25:44.350 stories. It's like, go out there, find the dragon, 01:25:44.470 --> 01:25:47.050 confront it. It's a dragon, it might eat you, 01:25:47.069 --> 01:25:50.149 it's dangerous. But it's worse to cower at home 01:25:50.149 --> 01:25:52.489 and wait for it to come and devour you. Go out 01:25:52.489 --> 01:25:55.399 there, confront it, get the gold. Share it with 01:25:55.399 --> 01:25:57.399 the community. It's like, yeah, it's the oldest 01:25:57.399 --> 01:26:00.979 story of mankind. I think one of the factors 01:26:00.979 --> 01:26:03.220 in the resistance to these ideas of discipline 01:26:03.220 --> 01:26:06.000 and of taking responsibility for yourself and 01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:07.800 of a lot of the things that you've been saying 01:26:07.800 --> 01:26:10.500 in regards to all the things that we discussed 01:26:10.500 --> 01:26:13.359 earlier is people recognizing that they're not 01:26:13.359 --> 01:26:15.800 doing that in their own lives and they get upset. 01:26:15.859 --> 01:26:18.880 And instead of looking internally, they try to 01:26:18.880 --> 01:26:21.560 attack the thing that's upsetting them. They 01:26:21.560 --> 01:26:25.010 attack your message. They attack. the philosophy 01:26:25.010 --> 01:26:28.430 behind it rather than look internally and objectively 01:26:28.430 --> 01:26:31.329 and having some sort of introspective point of 01:26:31.329 --> 01:26:34.069 view where you go okay am i uh reacting to this 01:26:34.069 --> 01:26:36.789 because this resonates like i'm missing this 01:26:36.789 --> 01:26:40.250 aspect of my life is this guy does does this 01:26:40.250 --> 01:26:43.390 diminish me Or is this guy pointing something 01:26:43.390 --> 01:26:45.630 out that I can benefit from? Very few people 01:26:45.630 --> 01:26:48.289 are willing to do that. Very few people are willing 01:26:48.289 --> 01:26:51.510 to take that critical moment to look at their 01:26:51.510 --> 01:26:53.649 own behavior and look at their own thought process 01:26:53.649 --> 01:26:56.529 and wonder if the actual adverse reaction they 01:26:56.529 --> 01:26:59.029 have to this person's message is because they 01:26:59.029 --> 01:27:02.949 know that they're wrong. There's a couple of 01:27:02.949 --> 01:27:06.520 reasons for that. One is, well... what makes 01:27:06.520 --> 01:27:08.800 you think that you're someone we should listen 01:27:08.800 --> 01:27:10.659 to? It's like, hey, fair enough, you know, so 01:27:10.659 --> 01:27:12.500 you've got to be poked a bunch to see if that's 01:27:12.500 --> 01:27:16.920 true. And then the next thing is, well, it's 01:27:16.920 --> 01:27:22.100 painful to understand how much of what you're 01:27:22.100 --> 01:27:24.760 doing isn't productive. So I'll give you an example. 01:27:24.899 --> 01:27:27.119 So I've done this a couple of times with classrooms 01:27:27.119 --> 01:27:29.060 full of students, usually when I'm lecturing 01:27:29.060 --> 01:27:32.680 about career development, say, okay. How much 01:27:32.680 --> 01:27:34.779 time do you waste? So then I get the class to 01:27:34.779 --> 01:27:37.880 vote. How many of you waste 10 hours a day? It's 01:27:37.880 --> 01:27:39.720 like 10 % of the kids will put up their hands. 01:27:39.819 --> 01:27:42.159 And it's interesting because I don't define what 01:27:42.159 --> 01:27:45.340 constitutes waste. I just ask the question. So 01:27:45.340 --> 01:27:47.539 they're diagnosing themselves, right? I'm not 01:27:47.539 --> 01:27:50.239 saying you're wasting 10 hours a day. I'm just 01:27:50.239 --> 01:27:53.680 asking. It's like, given your own attitude, how 01:27:53.680 --> 01:27:55.699 much time are you wasting? 10 hours a day. It's 01:27:55.699 --> 01:27:58.340 like 10 % of the people put up their hands. Well, 01:27:58.399 --> 01:28:00.939 when you get to like six hours a day, 80 % of 01:28:00.939 --> 01:28:03.039 the people put up their hands. So then we do 01:28:03.039 --> 01:28:04.760 the arithmetic. It's like, because I like doing 01:28:04.760 --> 01:28:06.640 arithmetic with people. People hate arithmetic, 01:28:06.819 --> 01:28:09.460 but I like doing it. It's like, okay, six hours 01:28:09.460 --> 01:28:12.180 a day. It's 42 hours a week. So let's call that 01:28:12.180 --> 01:28:16.020 a work week, 40 hours a week. So that's a work 01:28:16.020 --> 01:28:18.180 week. Let's say, what's your time worth? You're 01:28:18.180 --> 01:28:20.180 a university student. Well, it's certainly worth 01:28:20.180 --> 01:28:22.760 minimum wage, because obviously, but it's worth 01:28:22.760 --> 01:28:25.500 way more than that, because if you spend a productive 01:28:25.500 --> 01:28:28.550 hour when you're 20, then you gain the benefits 01:28:28.550 --> 01:28:30.550 of that hour for the rest of your life. So there's 01:28:30.550 --> 01:28:33.210 the compounding effect of time spent when you're 01:28:33.210 --> 01:28:35.170 young. So I say, well, let's assume your time's 01:28:35.170 --> 01:28:37.609 worth 50 bucks an hour, which I think is an underestimate, 01:28:37.829 --> 01:28:40.029 but whatever. Let's call it 50. We call it 25, 01:28:40.210 --> 01:28:42.949 but we'll call it 50. That's $2 ,000 a week you're 01:28:42.949 --> 01:28:46.850 wasting. It's $100 ,000 a year. It's like, how 01:28:46.850 --> 01:28:48.909 much better would your life be if you weren't 01:28:48.909 --> 01:28:52.550 wasting $100 ,000 a year? It's like, what is 01:28:52.550 --> 01:28:56.029 that over 40 years? $4 million. It's like, you're 01:28:56.029 --> 01:28:59.220 rich. You don't even know it. Quit wasting time. 01:28:59.899 --> 01:29:02.640 By your own definition. It's like people shake 01:29:02.640 --> 01:29:03.939 their heads. Like, well, I never thought about 01:29:03.939 --> 01:29:06.180 it that way. It's like, yeah, think about it 01:29:06.180 --> 01:29:08.920 that way. Don't waste your damn life. And then 01:29:08.920 --> 01:29:10.539 you think, well, why would people be resistant 01:29:10.539 --> 01:29:12.640 to that message? It's like, well, you really 01:29:12.640 --> 01:29:15.000 want to wake up and figure out that you're wasting 01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:17.659 half your life? And, you know, when people do 01:29:17.659 --> 01:29:19.899 that kind of wasting, they actually hate it. 01:29:20.100 --> 01:29:22.340 You know, and I've had lots of people come to 01:29:22.340 --> 01:29:24.619 my clinical practice who were chronic procrastinators. 01:29:24.819 --> 01:29:27.899 You know, and so they're... watching YouTube 01:29:27.899 --> 01:29:30.800 videos, say, but not ones that are good for them, 01:29:30.840 --> 01:29:32.460 although sometimes they will do that, but just 01:29:32.460 --> 01:29:35.359 browsing in that kind of mindless way that you 01:29:35.359 --> 01:29:37.159 do when you're not paying attention and you're 01:29:37.159 --> 01:29:40.199 trying to kill time. People doing that, they 01:29:40.199 --> 01:29:42.840 feel bad. They get depressed. They feel anxious. 01:29:42.960 --> 01:29:44.600 They can't get away from it. They feel kind of 01:29:44.600 --> 01:29:46.560 quasi -addicted. That's what they're saying about 01:29:46.560 --> 01:29:48.479 social media now. It's a huge issue with young 01:29:48.479 --> 01:29:51.199 kids. Absolutely. But there's this feeling of 01:29:51.199 --> 01:29:53.579 kind of internal rot and corruption that goes 01:29:53.579 --> 01:29:55.100 along with it. It's like, yeah, well, you're 01:29:55.100 --> 01:29:58.380 wasting your life. So it's painful. It's painful 01:29:58.380 --> 01:30:00.920 to recognize that. Then it's painful to think, 01:30:01.020 --> 01:30:04.699 oh, my God, look how undisciplined I am. I don't 01:30:04.699 --> 01:30:07.520 know anything. I can't use a schedule. I can't 01:30:07.520 --> 01:30:10.739 stick to a calendar. I don't have any aims. I 01:30:10.739 --> 01:30:12.979 don't know anything about the world, right? And 01:30:12.979 --> 01:30:14.739 maybe there's a part of me that's bitter because 01:30:14.739 --> 01:30:16.880 I haven't got everything already, and I'd just 01:30:16.880 --> 01:30:18.960 like to say to hell with it. That's the recognition 01:30:18.960 --> 01:30:21.220 of the Jungian shadow. It's like that's what 01:30:21.220 --> 01:30:25.239 makes you vicious and untrustworthy, all of that. 01:30:25.340 --> 01:30:27.819 No one wants to look at that, and no bloody wonder. 01:30:28.699 --> 01:30:33.140 But, hey, the alternative is worse. The problem 01:30:33.140 --> 01:30:36.350 is you say, like... Just saying you stop wasting 01:30:36.350 --> 01:30:39.970 your life. Like, I think that that's not enough. 01:30:40.130 --> 01:30:42.789 I think this is one of the reasons why a book 01:30:42.789 --> 01:30:45.710 like this is so important. Like the idea of discipline 01:30:45.710 --> 01:30:48.689 in most people's eyes is like if you're not a 01:30:48.689 --> 01:30:51.949 disciplined person, it's uncomfortable. It's 01:30:51.949 --> 01:30:56.229 going to be painful. It's frustrating. You have 01:30:56.229 --> 01:30:58.880 to force yourself into these things. It's a muscle, 01:30:59.039 --> 01:31:01.000 and it's a muscle that has to be developed, and 01:31:01.000 --> 01:31:03.319 these patterns have to be developed in your own 01:31:03.319 --> 01:31:07.479 mindset. Incrementally. Yes. Yeah, well, so you're 01:31:07.479 --> 01:31:09.180 right. Just telling people not to waste their 01:31:09.180 --> 01:31:10.960 lives is not enough, and this is another reason 01:31:10.960 --> 01:31:13.359 why I've so much enjoyed being a clinical psychologist, 01:31:13.399 --> 01:31:16.920 because clinical psychologists don't stick with 01:31:16.920 --> 01:31:19.680 high -level abstractions, especially the behaviors. 01:31:19.779 --> 01:31:21.279 They're really practical. It's like, okay, you 01:31:21.279 --> 01:31:22.520 want to get your act together. It's like, well, 01:31:22.619 --> 01:31:24.939 how about if, let's say you're not studying. 01:31:26.100 --> 01:31:28.239 Well, and so we do a real analysis of how much 01:31:28.239 --> 01:31:29.640 you're studying. You say, well, I go to the library 01:31:29.640 --> 01:31:31.340 four hours a day. It's like, yeah, yeah, okay. 01:31:31.640 --> 01:31:33.899 How much time do you actually study in the library? 01:31:34.380 --> 01:31:37.279 Well, you know, I waste time. I have to travel 01:31:37.279 --> 01:31:39.619 there. I look at my phone. It's like, okay, well, 01:31:39.720 --> 01:31:42.439 how much? 15 minutes? Half an hour? How much 01:31:42.439 --> 01:31:44.840 is real studying? Well, maybe we figure out it's 01:31:44.840 --> 01:31:46.760 15 minutes. Say, okay, so what you're going to 01:31:46.760 --> 01:31:49.039 do for one week is you're going to study for 01:31:49.039 --> 01:31:51.600 half an hour. That's all. You don't get to go 01:31:51.600 --> 01:31:53.739 to the library for four hours. You have to sit 01:31:53.739 --> 01:31:55.500 down. We'll figure out a time, 10 o 'clock in 01:31:55.500 --> 01:31:57.100 the morning, whatever. We'll put it in your schedule. 01:31:57.739 --> 01:32:00.739 Try to study for half an hour, no more. And then 01:32:00.739 --> 01:32:02.180 just come back and let's have a conversation 01:32:02.180 --> 01:32:04.659 about how well that worked. And people come back 01:32:04.659 --> 01:32:06.140 and they say, well, you know, I managed it four 01:32:06.140 --> 01:32:09.060 days. And one day I went over and one day I couldn't 01:32:09.060 --> 01:32:10.619 do it at all. It's like, okay, that's better. 01:32:11.119 --> 01:32:14.529 Instead of 75 minutes of studying. you know, 01:32:14.569 --> 01:32:16.869 15 minutes a day for seven days. What is that? 01:32:16.909 --> 01:32:20.949 15, 70, 105 minutes. You've managed about 210 01:32:20.949 --> 01:32:23.010 minutes. So you've already produced an improvement 01:32:23.010 --> 01:32:26.090 of 50 % and you're bumbling horrible way. You've 01:32:26.090 --> 01:32:28.270 got a 50 % improvement in one week. It's like, 01:32:28.270 --> 01:32:32.029 that's deadly. It's like, so in the future authoring 01:32:32.029 --> 01:32:35.010 program, what we ask people to do is, well, think 01:32:35.010 --> 01:32:38.170 about your life along six dimensions. What do 01:32:38.170 --> 01:32:40.149 you want for your, so the goal is this, you're 01:32:40.149 --> 01:32:42.340 going to take care of yourself. You're going 01:32:42.340 --> 01:32:44.100 to have a life in three years that justifies 01:32:44.100 --> 01:32:46.479 its suffering. That's the goal. So you can invent 01:32:46.479 --> 01:32:48.319 the damn life, but you have to think what you 01:32:48.319 --> 01:32:49.920 would be satisfied with so you wouldn't be all 01:32:49.920 --> 01:32:52.380 bitter and resentful. It's like, okay, what do 01:32:52.380 --> 01:32:54.680 you want from your family? What do you want from 01:32:54.680 --> 01:32:57.500 your friends? How are you going to educate yourself? 01:32:57.819 --> 01:32:59.380 What do you want for your career? How are you 01:32:59.380 --> 01:33:00.859 going to use your time outside of work? How are 01:33:00.859 --> 01:33:02.279 you going to handle drugs and alcohol and other 01:33:02.279 --> 01:33:03.920 temptations like that? How are you going to keep 01:33:03.920 --> 01:33:06.180 yourself mentally and physically healthy? These 01:33:06.180 --> 01:33:09.359 are open questions. You get to answer them. The 01:33:09.359 --> 01:33:12.359 idea is, you can have whatever you want, but 01:33:12.359 --> 01:33:13.859 you have to figure out what it is. It has to 01:33:13.859 --> 01:33:15.239 be realistic, and you have to figure out what 01:33:15.239 --> 01:33:17.579 it is. It's okay, so now develop a vision. What's 01:33:17.579 --> 01:33:19.079 your life going to be like in three to five years? 01:33:19.279 --> 01:33:21.579 So you write it down. Then we do something else, 01:33:21.600 --> 01:33:25.300 which is, okay, your bad habits and your resentment 01:33:25.300 --> 01:33:27.500 and your bitterness and all of that, your procrastination 01:33:27.500 --> 01:33:29.939 gets completely out of hand, and you auger down, 01:33:30.159 --> 01:33:32.100 and you're in your own personal version of hell 01:33:32.100 --> 01:33:34.619 in three to five years. What does that look like? 01:33:35.039 --> 01:33:36.979 Well, everyone knows that. It's like everyone 01:33:36.979 --> 01:33:39.220 can look into the future and think, well, if 01:33:39.220 --> 01:33:41.739 I keep going on this dark path, this is where 01:33:41.739 --> 01:33:44.300 I'll end up. Well, then you've got little hell 01:33:44.300 --> 01:33:47.039 outlined for yourself to run away from, and you've 01:33:47.039 --> 01:33:48.840 got a little heaven outlined for yourself to 01:33:48.840 --> 01:33:51.880 run towards, and then you're motivated. Because 01:33:51.880 --> 01:33:54.380 sometimes, you know, you're just hopeful. I would 01:33:54.380 --> 01:33:56.300 like a good thing to happen. It's like, yeah, 01:33:56.380 --> 01:33:57.840 but, you know, I'd like to drink half a bottle 01:33:57.840 --> 01:34:00.100 of whiskey tonight, too. It's like, so which 01:34:00.100 --> 01:34:03.479 is it going to be? Well, just being hopeful about 01:34:03.479 --> 01:34:05.100 the future might not be enough, but then you 01:34:05.100 --> 01:34:07.529 think, oh, I see, like... There's that little 01:34:07.529 --> 01:34:09.409 hell thing that I outlined that's waiting for 01:34:09.409 --> 01:34:12.130 me. And maybe I'm afraid of taking the next step 01:34:12.130 --> 01:34:13.810 forward because it's demanding and challenging. 01:34:14.029 --> 01:34:15.869 It's like, yeah, I'm afraid of that, but I'm 01:34:15.869 --> 01:34:18.130 way more afraid of where I might end up if I 01:34:18.130 --> 01:34:20.369 don't get my act together. And people should 01:34:20.369 --> 01:34:22.390 be. That's why there are conceptions of hell 01:34:22.390 --> 01:34:25.090 in so many religions. It's like, hell is a real 01:34:25.090 --> 01:34:28.050 place. Whether it's eternal, that's a whole different 01:34:28.050 --> 01:34:30.170 question. Whether it's waiting for you in the 01:34:30.170 --> 01:34:31.789 afterlife, that's a whole different question. 01:34:31.970 --> 01:34:34.569 But if you've never met anyone in hell, you haven't 01:34:34.569 --> 01:34:36.699 lived very long. You haven't had your eyes open. 01:34:36.819 --> 01:34:40.159 Yeah, it's undeniable. That feeling of total, 01:34:40.260 --> 01:34:42.420 complete misery is undeniable. Yeah, especially 01:34:42.420 --> 01:34:45.239 when it's compounded by the fact that you know 01:34:45.239 --> 01:34:47.520 you did it to yourself. That's the real fun. 01:34:47.619 --> 01:34:49.899 That's the real fun part. It's like I'm having 01:34:49.899 --> 01:34:52.939 a bitch of a time and I richly deserve it. Jesus, 01:34:53.039 --> 01:34:55.739 that's rough, man. This is another concept that 01:34:55.739 --> 01:34:58.800 doesn't have a voice right now. This is another, 01:34:59.340 --> 01:35:02.159 I mean, this is a giant part of being a human 01:35:02.159 --> 01:35:04.880 being. And instead of identity politics and right 01:35:04.880 --> 01:35:08.180 versus left, I think these right versus left 01:35:08.180 --> 01:35:10.899 battles, oftentimes what they are is simply the 01:35:10.899 --> 01:35:13.619 battleground for the conflicts in your own mind. 01:35:14.520 --> 01:35:17.199 Better to have the conflict in yourself. That's 01:35:17.199 --> 01:35:19.260 another thing I really learned, well, not only 01:35:19.260 --> 01:35:21.359 from the New Testament, but a fair bit from that. 01:35:21.579 --> 01:35:25.500 The idea is that, well, there's evil in the world 01:35:25.500 --> 01:35:28.289 of all sorts. And some of it's the evil in other 01:35:28.289 --> 01:35:31.829 people. And some of it's the evil in your brother's 01:35:31.829 --> 01:35:34.789 heart. But the part of it that you can really 01:35:34.789 --> 01:35:36.489 do something about, that's the malevolence in 01:35:36.489 --> 01:35:38.449 your own heart. You can actually do something 01:35:38.449 --> 01:35:40.729 about that. And that's actually way more useful 01:35:40.729 --> 01:35:44.829 than you think. Because if you can face it in 01:35:44.829 --> 01:35:47.329 you, then you start to understand it. And that 01:35:47.329 --> 01:35:49.529 also makes you strong enough to identify it and 01:35:49.529 --> 01:35:51.310 to fight it when you see it in the external world. 01:35:51.449 --> 01:35:54.069 Plus, you don't do any harm. It's like there's 01:35:54.069 --> 01:35:55.710 lots of people all over the world going out and 01:35:55.710 --> 01:35:57.270 doing reprehensible things. And you might say, 01:35:57.289 --> 01:35:58.909 well, you should go out and protest against them. 01:35:58.989 --> 01:36:02.029 And sometimes you should. But most of the time 01:36:02.029 --> 01:36:04.850 you should think, where am I falling short of 01:36:04.850 --> 01:36:07.149 the ideal? My own ideal. It doesn't have to be 01:36:07.149 --> 01:36:09.609 one that someone puts on you. Where am I less 01:36:09.609 --> 01:36:11.829 than I should be? Where am I bitter? Where am 01:36:11.829 --> 01:36:13.550 I making the world a worse place than it has 01:36:13.550 --> 01:36:16.329 to be? If you ask yourself those questions, you'll 01:36:16.329 --> 01:36:18.289 be in for a big shock. Say, well, what would 01:36:18.289 --> 01:36:20.460 happen if you stopped doing that? That's what 01:36:20.460 --> 01:36:22.720 12 Rules for Life is about. It's like, stop saying 01:36:22.720 --> 01:36:25.720 things that make you weak. Stop telling lies 01:36:25.720 --> 01:36:28.279 that you know to be lies. Stop doing things you 01:36:28.279 --> 01:36:30.960 know to be useless and counterproductive. Aim 01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:33.880 high. Adopt some responsibility. And then see 01:36:33.880 --> 01:36:36.199 what the hell happens. It's like, it'll work. 01:36:36.420 --> 01:36:39.010 And that's what I'm hoping people will do. Yeah, 01:36:39.050 --> 01:36:41.229 I'm hoping people do that too. And I think if 01:36:41.229 --> 01:36:45.050 more people live their life in this sort of a 01:36:45.050 --> 01:36:47.149 manner, I think we're going to have less differences 01:36:47.149 --> 01:36:50.170 in terms of our ideologies and more of an understanding 01:36:50.170 --> 01:36:51.770 that people have different ways of looking at 01:36:51.770 --> 01:36:54.409 things and different ways of living. And this 01:36:54.409 --> 01:36:59.390 combat between people, this internal strife that 01:36:59.390 --> 01:37:02.850 manifests itself in this combat between ideologies, 01:37:02.949 --> 01:37:06.659 I think. You are much more inclined to let other 01:37:06.659 --> 01:37:08.600 people live their lives if you're living your 01:37:08.600 --> 01:37:10.800 life in a satisfactory manner. That's exactly 01:37:10.800 --> 01:37:14.039 it. I have a chapter in there on raising kids. 01:37:14.140 --> 01:37:17.000 It says, don't let your kids do anything that 01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:19.359 makes you dislike them. It's like, well, that's 01:37:19.359 --> 01:37:21.359 first predicated on the observation that you're 01:37:21.359 --> 01:37:22.960 quite a monster and it would be better for your 01:37:22.960 --> 01:37:25.439 kids if they didn't get on your bad side. And 01:37:25.439 --> 01:37:27.239 like, again, because I'm a clinical psychologist. 01:37:27.239 --> 01:37:29.380 You keep saying monster. Why do you use that 01:37:29.380 --> 01:37:32.640 term? Because I've watched families, like I've 01:37:32.640 --> 01:37:35.409 seen families where, It's as if every single 01:37:35.409 --> 01:37:38.069 person in the family has their hands around the 01:37:38.069 --> 01:37:40.050 neck of the family member that's close to them, 01:37:40.090 --> 01:37:42.229 and they're squeezing, but only tight enough 01:37:42.229 --> 01:37:44.210 to strangle them in 20 years. But you're not 01:37:44.210 --> 01:37:46.670 always using it as a pejorative. You've also 01:37:46.670 --> 01:37:48.909 used it, you should become a monster, you should 01:37:48.909 --> 01:37:53.250 be a monster. Yeah, but that's, you shouldn't 01:37:53.250 --> 01:37:56.529 be, it shouldn't be accidental. That's the thing. 01:37:56.810 --> 01:37:58.970 So what do you mean by monster then, in a positive 01:37:58.970 --> 01:38:01.710 sense? Oh, I'm a monster. Oh, that's easy. A 01:38:01.710 --> 01:38:03.970 positive monster is somebody who says no and 01:38:03.970 --> 01:38:06.810 means it. Because when you say no, what you mean 01:38:06.810 --> 01:38:08.710 is, there isn't anything you can do to me that 01:38:08.710 --> 01:38:10.430 will make me agree to do this. Why is that a 01:38:10.430 --> 01:38:12.729 monster? Because you have to be, because no one 01:38:12.729 --> 01:38:15.329 will take you seriously otherwise. No one will 01:38:15.329 --> 01:38:18.689 take you seriously. Like, no means, if you keep 01:38:18.689 --> 01:38:21.390 pushing this, something that you do not like 01:38:21.390 --> 01:38:23.909 will happen to you. That's what no means. You 01:38:23.909 --> 01:38:25.550 don't have any strength of character unless you 01:38:25.550 --> 01:38:28.430 can put up a fight. And to be able to say no 01:38:28.430 --> 01:38:30.109 to something is to be able to put up a fight. 01:38:30.810 --> 01:38:33.430 And you can't do that if you can be pushed around. 01:38:33.789 --> 01:38:36.489 You'll just get argued into submission, or you'll 01:38:36.489 --> 01:38:38.270 feel guilty because you're causing conflict or 01:38:38.270 --> 01:38:39.750 something like that. But isn't there confusion 01:38:39.750 --> 01:38:42.250 using those terms as a positive and a negative? 01:38:42.310 --> 01:38:44.090 Maybe there's another word instead of monster. 01:38:44.149 --> 01:38:47.609 Well, there is the potential. There is the potential 01:38:47.609 --> 01:38:49.350 for confusion. You say, well, is that something 01:38:49.350 --> 01:38:51.819 that can be... Because I think a monster is a 01:38:51.819 --> 01:38:53.600 horrible thing. I don't think of it as being 01:38:53.600 --> 01:38:58.340 like a wall, like someone who is just rocks out 01:38:58.340 --> 01:39:01.699 in their belief system and rocks out in their 01:39:01.699 --> 01:39:03.079 understanding of themselves. Well, when you fight 01:39:03.079 --> 01:39:05.939 someone who's formidable, say, what do you think 01:39:05.939 --> 01:39:07.460 of the person that you're fighting? Like, how 01:39:07.460 --> 01:39:09.520 would you characterize them? I mean, they have 01:39:09.520 --> 01:39:14.699 a monstrous side because they can bring physical, 01:39:14.859 --> 01:39:19.060 substantial physical force to bear on the situation. 01:39:19.600 --> 01:39:23.119 And be willing to do it. So they're not naive 01:39:23.119 --> 01:39:26.060 and harmless by any stretch of the imagination, 01:39:26.460 --> 01:39:28.239 right? They have a well -developed capacity for 01:39:28.239 --> 01:39:31.760 mayhem. You think, well, is that monstrous? It's 01:39:31.760 --> 01:39:36.159 like, well, I would say yes. I would say fierce. 01:39:37.039 --> 01:39:39.239 Fierce, fine. Let's go with that. Yeah, because 01:39:39.239 --> 01:39:43.039 someone who's fierce and formidable is not necessarily 01:39:43.039 --> 01:39:46.189 a monster. You know, I think of a monster as 01:39:46.189 --> 01:39:48.670 being just an awful person who's done awful things 01:39:48.670 --> 01:39:51.810 and just, you know. Okay, well, so fair enough. 01:39:51.970 --> 01:39:54.810 Well, so back to the situation with your kids. 01:39:54.949 --> 01:39:56.770 Well, you definitely don't want to have your 01:39:56.770 --> 01:39:59.289 kids act in a way that awakens your inner monster. 01:39:59.590 --> 01:40:01.810 Right. Let's put it that way. And so you need 01:40:01.810 --> 01:40:05.869 to organize your family with a certain amount 01:40:05.869 --> 01:40:07.550 of discipline and a certain amount of structure 01:40:07.550 --> 01:40:09.609 so that you get to do what you want, which is 01:40:09.609 --> 01:40:13.079 back to the point that you made earlier. You're 01:40:13.079 --> 01:40:15.199 happy to have your kids around so that you won't 01:40:15.199 --> 01:40:18.239 take revenge on them. And so you want to lay 01:40:18.239 --> 01:40:23.319 your life out so that, well, so that it's providing 01:40:23.319 --> 01:40:27.000 you what you need to not be bitter and to work 01:40:27.000 --> 01:40:28.979 for your best interests and for the interests 01:40:28.979 --> 01:40:31.359 of everyone else. That would be lovely. And I 01:40:31.359 --> 01:40:34.020 think it's attainable. You know, because the 01:40:34.020 --> 01:40:36.439 book is very dark, and I'm a very dark guy in 01:40:36.439 --> 01:40:38.380 some ways, because I've looked at... the terrible 01:40:38.380 --> 01:40:40.319 things that people do to one another. That's 01:40:40.319 --> 01:40:41.979 a fascinating way of looking at it. You think 01:40:41.979 --> 01:40:44.199 of yourself as dark? Because I don't. Oh, that's 01:40:44.199 --> 01:40:45.539 good. I don't think of you as dark. Oh, that's 01:40:45.539 --> 01:40:48.600 good. You're a very friendly guy. I think you're 01:40:48.600 --> 01:40:50.960 very serious, and especially about these very 01:40:50.960 --> 01:40:53.800 complicated issues. And I think that's one of 01:40:53.800 --> 01:40:59.119 the reasons why you have made this gigantic wave. 01:41:00.250 --> 01:41:03.710 in online discourse and people discussing these 01:41:03.710 --> 01:41:07.010 very tumultuous times we live in is because you're 01:41:07.010 --> 01:41:09.369 a guy that did extrapolate. You're a guy that 01:41:09.369 --> 01:41:12.989 did look at that C -16 bill and look at Marxism 01:41:12.989 --> 01:41:15.090 and go, do you know where this is heading? And 01:41:15.090 --> 01:41:17.189 you were the guy that had the courage to say, 01:41:17.350 --> 01:41:20.470 murderous. And people are like, what the fuck 01:41:20.470 --> 01:41:22.210 is he talking about? That doesn't make any sense. 01:41:22.649 --> 01:41:25.069 And you had to spell it out and explain it. And 01:41:25.069 --> 01:41:29.550 when you do, you realize why. This is so significant 01:41:29.550 --> 01:41:32.409 to you. Yeah, well, the tribalism issue that 01:41:32.409 --> 01:41:34.329 you were discussing earlier doesn't seem to be 01:41:34.329 --> 01:41:38.869 all that, what would you say, debatable. If we 01:41:38.869 --> 01:41:41.689 degenerate into tribalism, the probability of 01:41:41.689 --> 01:41:44.170 bloodshed becomes vastly enhanced. It's like, 01:41:44.189 --> 01:41:45.789 well, that always happens when people devolve 01:41:45.789 --> 01:41:48.229 into tribalism. So, and I'm pointing to a particular 01:41:48.229 --> 01:41:51.170 kind of tribalism. I guess the darkness is that, 01:41:51.189 --> 01:41:53.729 you know, I'm very aware of the terrible things 01:41:53.729 --> 01:41:56.529 that people not only are likely to do to each 01:41:56.529 --> 01:41:58.489 other, but do do to each other all the time. 01:41:58.649 --> 01:42:01.369 I mean, what, it's about 40 % for divorce rate, 01:42:01.470 --> 01:42:05.430 right? You have to go through a fair bit of ugliness 01:42:05.430 --> 01:42:07.789 to get to divorce. Canadians are nicer, though. 01:42:07.850 --> 01:42:10.909 americans maybe you guys are 40 maybe maybe i 01:42:10.909 --> 01:42:14.250 think we're like 80 yeah i mean i think i i think 01:42:14.250 --> 01:42:16.850 actually it's 50 here somewhere around that line 01:42:16.850 --> 01:42:18.850 but yeah yeah you have to go through a lot that's 01:42:18.850 --> 01:42:22.649 really ugly too you know and chris rock had a 01:42:22.649 --> 01:42:25.590 joke about that he's like 50 of people uh get 01:42:25.590 --> 01:42:27.569 divorced he goes and he goes but that's just 01:42:27.569 --> 01:42:29.350 the people who had the courage to leave he goes 01:42:29.350 --> 01:42:33.640 how many cowards just stay and suffer And meanwhile, 01:42:33.899 --> 01:42:36.380 he wound up getting divorced a few years later. 01:42:36.399 --> 01:42:40.840 Right. Horrible divorce. So. Yeah. True story. 01:42:41.060 --> 01:42:44.279 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a good point. 01:42:44.420 --> 01:42:51.960 Yeah. I think we need more people who are actualized 01:42:51.960 --> 01:42:54.720 human beings, more people who understand themselves, 01:42:54.899 --> 01:42:57.840 more people who have gone through adversity, 01:42:58.159 --> 01:43:02.439 both. in real life and personal in terms of their 01:43:02.439 --> 01:43:04.119 understanding of their own growth of their own 01:43:04.119 --> 01:43:07.460 potential and their own uh understanding of how 01:43:07.460 --> 01:43:10.220 they've managed their their life their mind their 01:43:10.220 --> 01:43:14.560 their actions and the the more we have people 01:43:14.560 --> 01:43:17.579 that have personal sovereignty the better we'll 01:43:17.579 --> 01:43:20.220 be able to have these these conversations well 01:43:20.220 --> 01:43:22.140 that that'd be the hope you know one of the things 01:43:22.140 --> 01:43:25.720 i've been suggesting to people is that they pick 01:43:25.720 --> 01:43:29.020 something difficult to do i read this This funny 01:43:29.020 --> 01:43:30.699 little paragraph by Kierkegaard, it was written 01:43:30.699 --> 01:43:33.260 about 1840, and he was thinking about his role 01:43:33.260 --> 01:43:34.939 as a student and writer, and he was a student 01:43:34.939 --> 01:43:36.819 and writer forever, you know, he never really 01:43:36.819 --> 01:43:40.340 had a career apart from that. And he said that 01:43:40.340 --> 01:43:42.239 he wasn't one of these people who was capable 01:43:42.239 --> 01:43:44.920 of inventing something wonderful to make life 01:43:44.920 --> 01:43:47.039 easier for everyone, like so many people were 01:43:47.039 --> 01:43:49.180 doing, you know, during the Industrial Revolution. 01:43:49.180 --> 01:43:51.140 He said, well, maybe I'm one of these people 01:43:51.140 --> 01:43:54.020 who's... benefit to society will be that I will 01:43:54.020 --> 01:43:56.100 make things more difficult for everyone because 01:43:56.100 --> 01:43:58.340 there will come a time when what people want 01:43:58.340 --> 01:44:01.159 not they don't want ease they want difficulty 01:44:01.159 --> 01:44:03.340 instead and I think well that is what people 01:44:03.340 --> 01:44:06.119 want that is what they want you think well I 01:44:06.119 --> 01:44:08.100 want an easy happy life it's like no actually 01:44:08.100 --> 01:44:10.359 that isn't what you want I think what people 01:44:10.359 --> 01:44:12.340 want is things that are difficult that they can 01:44:12.340 --> 01:44:14.479 overcome yeah right that's right they want an 01:44:14.479 --> 01:44:16.960 optimal challenge that's a whole different thing 01:44:17.369 --> 01:44:19.189 When you overcome something, when you do something 01:44:19.189 --> 01:44:21.109 difficult, whether it's, I mean, I've never written 01:44:21.109 --> 01:44:22.789 a book, but I assume when you write a book, when 01:44:22.789 --> 01:44:24.350 you're done writing that book, there's a great 01:44:24.350 --> 01:44:26.350 feeling of accomplishment because it's very difficult 01:44:26.350 --> 01:44:29.590 to do. That feeling of accomplishment. For me, 01:44:29.630 --> 01:44:31.409 it's like when I put together a comedy special 01:44:31.409 --> 01:44:34.130 or when I, you know, just anything that's difficult. 01:44:34.250 --> 01:44:37.630 There's a feeling like I did it. Yeah. Yeah. 01:44:37.750 --> 01:44:39.829 Well, one of the mysteries is why that feeling 01:44:39.829 --> 01:44:42.369 exists. You know, it's a genuine, it's not a 01:44:42.369 --> 01:44:45.800 trivial thing that it's to say. I did something 01:44:45.800 --> 01:44:48.060 difficult, and that was worthwhile. Basically, 01:44:48.060 --> 01:44:49.640 what you're saying to yourself is, well, there 01:44:49.640 --> 01:44:51.859 was a lot of suffering attendant on that, along 01:44:51.859 --> 01:44:53.939 with the just general suffering of life, but 01:44:53.939 --> 01:44:55.859 it turned out that was worth it. That's what 01:44:55.859 --> 01:44:58.579 you want. It's like you want that sense that 01:44:58.579 --> 01:45:00.779 you're engaged in something that's worth it. 01:45:00.880 --> 01:45:05.500 And I say, well, like, I try to, I'm not a, like 01:45:05.500 --> 01:45:07.640 a casual optimist about these sorts of things. 01:45:07.899 --> 01:45:10.239 I mean, One of the things I do in 12 Rules for 01:45:10.239 --> 01:45:13.039 Life is lay out the rationale that drives people 01:45:13.039 --> 01:45:15.180 like the Columbine High School killers. Because 01:45:15.180 --> 01:45:17.479 I understand that rationale. I've studied it 01:45:17.479 --> 01:45:19.340 for a long time. I know why they did what they 01:45:19.340 --> 01:45:22.239 did. And they have a powerful argument. But it's 01:45:22.239 --> 01:45:25.319 wrong. But you don't... There's no sense in showing 01:45:25.319 --> 01:45:27.539 how it's wrong before showing that it's a powerful 01:45:27.539 --> 01:45:30.300 argument. Like, life is suffering. There is lots 01:45:30.300 --> 01:45:32.039 of malevolence. It's no wonder that people want 01:45:32.039 --> 01:45:34.800 to bring being itself to a halt. They want to 01:45:34.800 --> 01:45:37.579 take revenge on it. It's not surprising. It's 01:45:37.579 --> 01:45:39.600 the wrong way of going about it. The right way 01:45:39.600 --> 01:45:41.859 is, it's akin to the sorts of things that you 01:45:41.859 --> 01:45:44.000 were just observing. You take on a difficult 01:45:44.000 --> 01:45:46.659 task that pushes you past where you are already. 01:45:46.960 --> 01:45:49.300 And you succeed in it, and you get this sense 01:45:49.300 --> 01:45:52.359 that, yes, that was worthwhile. It's like, that's 01:45:52.359 --> 01:45:54.319 what you want. You want to live in that place 01:45:54.319 --> 01:45:56.460 where things are worthwhile. That's paradise 01:45:56.460 --> 01:45:59.399 on earth. That's what that is. And it isn't some 01:45:59.399 --> 01:46:01.279 happy little place where, you know, someone's 01:46:01.279 --> 01:46:03.420 feeding you peeled grapes. That isn't what it 01:46:03.420 --> 01:46:06.590 is. It's more like... It's more like victory 01:46:06.590 --> 01:46:08.829 on the honorable battlefield or something like 01:46:08.829 --> 01:46:11.590 that. Yeah, the perception that people have of 01:46:11.590 --> 01:46:14.390 ultimate success and ultimate happiness is it 01:46:14.390 --> 01:46:17.630 seems motivated by what they don't have rather 01:46:17.630 --> 01:46:20.229 than an understanding of what success and happiness 01:46:20.229 --> 01:46:23.189 really is. Their idea is that one day I'm going 01:46:23.189 --> 01:46:25.829 to go and I'm going to be in my golden years 01:46:25.829 --> 01:46:27.470 and I'm just going to be able to sit around and 01:46:27.470 --> 01:46:30.159 do nothing and tell everybody to fuck off. You 01:46:30.159 --> 01:46:32.579 won't be happy at all. Yeah, I talked to one 01:46:32.579 --> 01:46:34.720 of the people that I was working with who had 01:46:34.720 --> 01:46:36.899 like a vision for retirement. I said, well, what's 01:46:36.899 --> 01:46:38.859 your vision for retirement? Well, I see myself 01:46:38.859 --> 01:46:41.180 in a beach, you know, some tropical country drinking 01:46:41.180 --> 01:46:43.760 margaritas. And I thought, first, that's not 01:46:43.760 --> 01:46:46.260 a plan. That's a travel poster. It's like, okay, 01:46:46.300 --> 01:46:48.960 let's walk through this. All right, so you go 01:46:48.960 --> 01:46:51.420 down to this tropical country and you go sit 01:46:51.420 --> 01:46:53.840 on the beach and you have a margarita. It's like, 01:46:53.899 --> 01:46:57.060 okay, well, how many margaritas? Like 10? Okay, 01:46:57.079 --> 01:46:59.380 so you're going to do that for six months? You'll 01:46:59.380 --> 01:47:01.359 be dead. Yeah, well, you'll be this, like, pathetic, 01:47:01.500 --> 01:47:05.359 sunburned, like... Fat. Yeah, unhappy, hungover, 01:47:05.460 --> 01:47:07.720 cirrhotic. In pain. Yeah, yeah, it's like that's 01:47:07.720 --> 01:47:09.739 your vision. Dehydrated. So how long can you 01:47:09.739 --> 01:47:11.939 have a margarita on a beach? Like, maybe you 01:47:11.939 --> 01:47:13.899 can do that once every six months for, like, 01:47:13.939 --> 01:47:15.779 ten minutes, something like that. It's not a 01:47:15.779 --> 01:47:20.100 vision. It's true, but when you are working and 01:47:20.100 --> 01:47:22.539 slaving away, you think about that beach with 01:47:22.539 --> 01:47:25.039 your feet up and the waiter comes over, would 01:47:25.039 --> 01:47:27.039 you like another margarita, Mr. Peterson? Yes, 01:47:27.239 --> 01:47:29.619 I would. Yeah, absolutely. You're like, all right, 01:47:29.779 --> 01:47:33.060 baby. Exactly. But it's like this 16 -year -old 01:47:33.060 --> 01:47:35.840 fantasy of paradise. It's like, well, and it 01:47:35.840 --> 01:47:40.279 just doesn't work out. And the thing is that 01:47:40.279 --> 01:47:43.380 the thing that sustains people through life really 01:47:43.380 --> 01:47:46.689 is... the lifting of a worthwhile burden. It's 01:47:46.689 --> 01:47:48.369 something like that. And it's partly because 01:47:48.369 --> 01:47:50.130 we're social animals, right? It's like we're 01:47:50.130 --> 01:47:53.149 evolved to be useful to the people around us 01:47:53.149 --> 01:47:55.850 because they're much more likely to let us live 01:47:55.850 --> 01:48:00.409 if we're like that. And it's been very fun talking 01:48:00.409 --> 01:48:02.430 to, especially talking to young men about this. 01:48:02.510 --> 01:48:04.789 It's like, well, and that's the other thing too, 01:48:04.850 --> 01:48:07.949 is I think the world is full of darkness, let's 01:48:07.949 --> 01:48:11.090 say. And we could say each of us have a little 01:48:11.090 --> 01:48:14.430 bit of light. We release that light if we let 01:48:14.430 --> 01:48:17.210 it shine properly. Christ, it's too cliched to 01:48:17.210 --> 01:48:20.729 go on with in some sense. But the world is a 01:48:20.729 --> 01:48:24.729 lesser place if you do not reveal from within 01:48:24.729 --> 01:48:27.470 yourself what you have to reveal. And the fact 01:48:27.470 --> 01:48:29.270 that the world is a lesser place actually turns 01:48:29.270 --> 01:48:31.649 out not to be trivial. Like if you aren't everything 01:48:31.649 --> 01:48:34.829 you could be, more people will die. More people 01:48:34.829 --> 01:48:37.510 will suffer. More evil will be unconstrained. 01:48:37.630 --> 01:48:40.810 More tyranny will reign. More chaos will remain. 01:48:41.579 --> 01:48:43.500 chaotic and dangerous, all of that. Do you mean 01:48:43.500 --> 01:48:46.000 this in the sense of like the old proverb of 01:48:46.000 --> 01:48:48.039 the wings of a butterfly fluttering become a 01:48:48.039 --> 01:48:50.859 hurricane? It's something similar to that, but 01:48:50.859 --> 01:48:53.560 it can even be more local. It's like your family 01:48:53.560 --> 01:48:56.319 is more messed up than it could be if you were 01:48:56.319 --> 01:48:58.819 less messed up than you are. Right. So if you 01:48:58.819 --> 01:49:01.579 just got your act together, like 10 % more, your 01:49:01.579 --> 01:49:04.100 family would be 1 % better. Right. It's like, 01:49:04.100 --> 01:49:06.970 well... Do it. And that would ripple off into 01:49:06.970 --> 01:49:09.489 the people that they interact with. Yes, and 01:49:09.489 --> 01:49:12.369 it ripples fast. That's the other thing that's 01:49:12.369 --> 01:49:15.449 so cool is that people think, well, there's 7 01:49:15.449 --> 01:49:18.609 billion of us, and each of us is just this separate 01:49:18.609 --> 01:49:21.010 dust moat floating in the cosmos, and what the 01:49:21.010 --> 01:49:22.670 hell difference does it make what you do anyways? 01:49:22.930 --> 01:49:25.489 It's like that is not how we're connected. It's 01:49:25.489 --> 01:49:28.829 like you're the center of a network, and you 01:49:28.829 --> 01:49:31.029 know, well, you know way more people than this, 01:49:31.050 --> 01:49:33.750 but let's say typically. you're going to know 01:49:33.750 --> 01:49:35.909 a thousand people in your life, well enough to 01:49:35.909 --> 01:49:38.689 have an impact on them. And each of those thousand 01:49:38.689 --> 01:49:40.289 people is going to know a thousand people. So 01:49:40.289 --> 01:49:42.569 you're one step from a million, and two steps 01:49:42.569 --> 01:49:45.569 from a billion. And we are networked, technically. 01:49:45.909 --> 01:49:48.649 That's how human interactions work. And so when 01:49:48.649 --> 01:49:51.010 you do something that you shouldn't do, it's 01:49:51.010 --> 01:49:53.670 worse than you think. And when you do something 01:49:53.670 --> 01:49:55.590 that you should do, it's better than you think. 01:49:56.229 --> 01:49:58.310 And so you think, well, this is why I've been 01:49:58.310 --> 01:50:00.189 telling people, clean up your room. It's like, 01:50:00.250 --> 01:50:02.180 well, your room is actually networked too. It's 01:50:02.180 --> 01:50:04.260 not that easy to clean up your room, to set it. 01:50:04.579 --> 01:50:06.600 So you want your room to be set up so that when 01:50:06.600 --> 01:50:09.520 you walk in there, it tells you to be better 01:50:09.520 --> 01:50:12.979 than you generally are. It's organized. It's 01:50:12.979 --> 01:50:15.840 got direction. Everything's in its place. You 01:50:15.840 --> 01:50:18.359 try to do that in a chaotic household. You know, 01:50:18.380 --> 01:50:20.260 I've watched people do this because I had students 01:50:20.260 --> 01:50:22.000 do these sorts of things as assignments. I'd 01:50:22.000 --> 01:50:25.439 say, look, pick a small moral goal, clean up 01:50:25.439 --> 01:50:28.359 your room, and just write down what happens as 01:50:28.359 --> 01:50:30.500 a consequence. So maybe these are students in 01:50:30.500 --> 01:50:32.680 a... chaotic household. The whole place is a 01:50:32.680 --> 01:50:34.159 bloody mess. No one's taking any responsibility 01:50:34.159 --> 01:50:36.279 for anything. And so they decide they're going 01:50:36.279 --> 01:50:38.359 to start to clean up their room. And then the 01:50:38.359 --> 01:50:40.500 people in the household notice. Well, the first 01:50:40.500 --> 01:50:42.399 thing they do is get pissed off. It's like, who 01:50:42.399 --> 01:50:44.300 do you think you are? Like, you think you're 01:50:44.300 --> 01:50:47.039 better than us? Like, why do you think this is 01:50:47.039 --> 01:50:50.619 worthwhile? Who died and made you God? All of 01:50:50.619 --> 01:50:53.380 that. So just by trying to organize this little 01:50:53.380 --> 01:50:55.279 part of their life, they immediately run into 01:50:55.279 --> 01:50:58.960 the people whose... actions they're casting in 01:50:58.960 --> 01:51:01.159 a dim light by trying to improve themselves to 01:51:01.159 --> 01:51:03.640 some degree, they might have to have like a thorough 01:51:03.640 --> 01:51:06.960 war in their household to be allowed to do something 01:51:06.960 --> 01:51:09.239 as simple as keep the room orderly. They find 01:51:09.239 --> 01:51:11.720 out very rapidly that A, that's way more difficult 01:51:11.720 --> 01:51:13.659 than it sounds, and B, that the consequences 01:51:13.659 --> 01:51:15.699 of it are far more far -reaching than people 01:51:15.699 --> 01:51:18.619 think. So that's quite fun. You know, because 01:51:18.619 --> 01:51:22.279 maybe part of it is that everything around you 01:51:22.279 --> 01:51:25.189 is full of potential. Everything. Maybe more 01:51:25.189 --> 01:51:27.109 potential than you could ever possibly utilize. 01:51:27.430 --> 01:51:29.489 And so maybe all you have is this little rat 01:51:29.489 --> 01:51:31.550 hole of a room in some run -down place in the 01:51:31.550 --> 01:51:35.010 world. It's like, fix it up. There's more there 01:51:35.010 --> 01:51:37.210 than you think. See what happens if you fix it 01:51:37.210 --> 01:51:39.210 up. And you'll fix yourself up simultaneously, 01:51:39.529 --> 01:51:41.229 because you'll have to get disciplined in order 01:51:41.229 --> 01:51:43.789 to fix up the room. Then you'll have a fixed 01:51:43.789 --> 01:51:45.789 -up room, and you'll be a more fixed -up person. 01:51:45.890 --> 01:51:47.649 It's like, you think that nothing will happen 01:51:47.649 --> 01:51:49.750 as a consequence of that? It's like all hell 01:51:49.750 --> 01:51:52.460 will break loose as a consequence of that. It's 01:51:52.460 --> 01:51:54.279 really worth trying. It is worth trying. And 01:51:54.279 --> 01:51:57.039 it's a concept that seems alien to people. But 01:51:57.039 --> 01:51:59.819 if you think about it, it makes sense. Well, 01:51:59.859 --> 01:52:01.720 people don't take what they have right in front 01:52:01.720 --> 01:52:03.600 of them seriously enough. It's like the wasting 01:52:03.600 --> 01:52:06.180 time thing. They don't do the arithmetic. And 01:52:06.180 --> 01:52:09.300 they also don't understand. They devalue what 01:52:09.300 --> 01:52:10.920 they have right in front of them. Like another 01:52:10.920 --> 01:52:13.880 client I worked with was having a hard time putting 01:52:13.880 --> 01:52:17.000 his kid to bed at night. And so we did the arithmetic. 01:52:17.100 --> 01:52:19.659 It's like, well, I'm fighting with my kid. for 01:52:19.659 --> 01:52:21.520 45 minutes a night trying to get him to go to 01:52:21.520 --> 01:52:23.939 bed. Okay, so let's analyze that. All right, 01:52:23.979 --> 01:52:26.500 so what does that mean? Well, it means that both 01:52:26.500 --> 01:52:29.479 of you end the day upset. That's not so good, 01:52:29.560 --> 01:52:31.600 because why would you want that? It means that 01:52:31.600 --> 01:52:33.720 you're spending 45 minutes fighting when you 01:52:33.720 --> 01:52:35.880 could spend 20 minutes doing something positive, 01:52:35.920 --> 01:52:38.859 like reading to him, say. It means that... You 01:52:38.859 --> 01:52:40.380 don't get to spend that time with your wife, 01:52:40.439 --> 01:52:42.220 so she's not very happy with you. Plus, you're 01:52:42.220 --> 01:52:44.020 annoyed because you don't see her. Plus, you 01:52:44.020 --> 01:52:45.800 blame it on the kid because he's the proximal 01:52:45.800 --> 01:52:48.460 cause. It's like, that's pretty damn ugly. And 01:52:48.460 --> 01:52:50.920 then let's do the arithmetic. It's like seven 01:52:50.920 --> 01:52:53.600 days a week, 45 minutes a day. Let's call that 01:52:53.600 --> 01:52:58.060 five hours. 20 hours a week. 240 hours in a year. 01:52:58.119 --> 01:53:00.140 It's six. You're spending a month and a half 01:53:00.140 --> 01:53:02.260 of work weeks fighting with your four -year -old 01:53:02.260 --> 01:53:04.880 son. Think you're going to like him? You don't 01:53:04.880 --> 01:53:07.079 like anyone you spend a month and a half a year 01:53:07.079 --> 01:53:11.020 fighting with. It's a bad idea. Fix it. It's 01:53:11.020 --> 01:53:13.760 important. Get him to bed. Make it peaceful. 01:53:14.000 --> 01:53:16.359 You do it like these things that repeat every 01:53:16.359 --> 01:53:18.239 single day. That's a motif in this book, too. 01:53:18.579 --> 01:53:21.800 Your life isn't margaritas on a beach in Jamaica. 01:53:22.560 --> 01:53:24.880 That happens now and then. Those are exceptions. 01:53:25.260 --> 01:53:28.279 Your life is how your wife greets you at the 01:53:28.279 --> 01:53:32.319 door when you come home every day. Because that's 01:53:32.319 --> 01:53:34.939 like 10 minutes a day. Your life is how you treat 01:53:34.939 --> 01:53:37.000 each other over the breakfast table. Because 01:53:37.000 --> 01:53:39.500 that's an hour and a half or an hour every single 01:53:39.500 --> 01:53:42.939 day. You get those mundane things right, those 01:53:42.939 --> 01:53:45.260 things you do every day. You concentrate on them 01:53:45.260 --> 01:53:47.560 and you make them pristine. It's like you've 01:53:47.560 --> 01:53:50.399 got 80 % of your life put together. These little 01:53:50.399 --> 01:53:52.560 things that are right in front of us, they're 01:53:52.560 --> 01:53:54.119 not little. That's the first thing. They are 01:53:54.119 --> 01:53:55.939 not little. And they're hard to set right. And 01:53:55.939 --> 01:53:57.500 if you set them right, it has a rippling effect. 01:53:57.619 --> 01:54:00.460 And fast, too. Way faster than people think. 01:54:01.069 --> 01:54:03.369 I want to talk about the rippling effect, because 01:54:03.369 --> 01:54:04.630 I know you've got to get out of here at one. 01:54:04.729 --> 01:54:06.430 But I want to talk about the rippling effect 01:54:06.430 --> 01:54:11.810 that you have had on people and how that makes 01:54:11.810 --> 01:54:14.029 you feel. I mean, you were relatively unknown 01:54:14.029 --> 01:54:17.250 just a year and a half, two years ago. And now 01:54:17.250 --> 01:54:21.770 you have become, I mean, for lack of a better 01:54:21.770 --> 01:54:26.279 term, you're an online celebrity. Your reach 01:54:26.279 --> 01:54:28.680 is fantastic now. This thing that you were talking 01:54:28.680 --> 01:54:32.600 about, about how your impact can affect the people 01:54:32.600 --> 01:54:36.279 around you in a not insignificant way, a very 01:54:36.279 --> 01:54:38.539 significant way. What has that been like for 01:54:38.539 --> 01:54:40.220 you? I mean, what has that adjustment been like? 01:54:40.300 --> 01:54:43.399 Oh, I haven't adjusted to it. How old are you? 01:54:43.640 --> 01:54:48.739 55. So for 53 years, you're relatively anonymous 01:54:48.739 --> 01:54:51.359 outside of university. Yeah, yeah. I had a little 01:54:51.359 --> 01:54:54.810 bit of exposure. I did some work with a... public 01:54:54.810 --> 01:54:56.789 television station in Canada. And, you know, 01:54:56.810 --> 01:55:00.489 I had my little flashes of public appearances, 01:55:00.590 --> 01:55:02.010 that sort of thing. But compared to... Oh, yeah, 01:55:02.050 --> 01:55:04.329 this is crazy. What you've done on this show 01:55:04.329 --> 01:55:08.029 means millions. Yeah, millions. Millions of people 01:55:08.029 --> 01:55:11.630 have listened and watched each individual episode. 01:55:12.149 --> 01:55:14.390 Yeah, there are about 2 million views each. And 01:55:14.390 --> 01:55:17.250 that's nothing compared to YouTube. YouTube is 01:55:17.250 --> 01:55:19.770 nothing compared to the audio. Yeah, so the audio 01:55:19.770 --> 01:55:22.180 is like five times that or something. Yeah, so 01:55:22.180 --> 01:55:24.979 that's, yeah, it's completely crazy. No, I haven't 01:55:24.979 --> 01:55:27.199 adjusted to it. It's like, I don't know. I mean, 01:55:27.220 --> 01:55:31.180 have you adjusted to your status? I'm numb. Yeah, 01:55:31.220 --> 01:55:34.100 so what's it like when you think about it? You 01:55:34.100 --> 01:55:35.720 wake up in the morning and you think, okay, I'm 01:55:35.720 --> 01:55:37.579 going to get a billion downloads this year. I 01:55:37.579 --> 01:55:39.659 don't think that. I think I'm going to talk to 01:55:39.659 --> 01:55:41.220 Jordan Peterson. What do I want to talk to him 01:55:41.220 --> 01:55:43.619 about? Okay, that's how I handle it. It's exactly 01:55:43.619 --> 01:55:46.119 the same thing. For the last 15 months, this 01:55:46.119 --> 01:55:47.619 is what I've done. I've got up in the morning. 01:55:48.420 --> 01:55:51.579 I've looked at the, like. 25 things I have to 01:55:51.579 --> 01:55:54.239 do in a mad rush before 7 o 'clock at night. 01:55:54.520 --> 01:55:56.119 I think I'm going to go through them and I'm 01:55:56.119 --> 01:55:58.479 going to concentrate on them, do the best job 01:55:58.479 --> 01:56:00.659 I can. Then at 7 o 'clock tonight I'm going to 01:56:00.659 --> 01:56:02.420 have a rest. I'm going to take a look at what 01:56:02.420 --> 01:56:03.960 I have to do tomorrow and I'm going to do the 01:56:03.960 --> 01:56:06.739 same thing. That's what I've been doing. And 01:56:06.739 --> 01:56:08.399 then when I stand back a little bit, like when 01:56:08.399 --> 01:56:13.220 it sort of dawns on me, you know, then it's disconcerting. 01:56:13.220 --> 01:56:16.800 Like it's surreal. I can't figure it out. I can't 01:56:16.800 --> 01:56:19.720 understand it. But then I... But there's no sense 01:56:19.720 --> 01:56:23.460 dwelling on that because, first of all, I don't 01:56:23.460 --> 01:56:25.039 know how to conceptualize it. I don't know why 01:56:25.039 --> 01:56:26.939 it's happening exactly. Like, I think what's 01:56:26.939 --> 01:56:31.079 happened is that two things. One is that I said 01:56:31.079 --> 01:56:33.199 there was something I wouldn't do with regards 01:56:33.199 --> 01:56:36.939 to this legislation. And I meant it. I actually 01:56:36.939 --> 01:56:39.640 meant it. I wasn't going to use those words under 01:56:39.640 --> 01:56:42.439 legal compulsion, period, no matter what. And 01:56:42.439 --> 01:56:44.300 I actually meant that. So there was that. But 01:56:44.300 --> 01:56:47.899 then I think the more relevant thing is that 01:56:48.489 --> 01:56:50.810 I've been studying these old stories, these archetypal 01:56:50.810 --> 01:56:53.029 stories, for a very long period of time. And 01:56:53.029 --> 01:56:56.409 they have power. They really have power. And 01:56:56.409 --> 01:56:58.229 they manifest themselves everywhere. They manifest 01:56:58.229 --> 01:57:00.630 themselves in movies and in books. I mean, Harry 01:57:00.630 --> 01:57:03.430 Potter's a mythological story, and it made Roland 01:57:03.430 --> 01:57:05.930 richer than the Queen of England. You know, these 01:57:05.930 --> 01:57:09.270 stories have power. And I was fortunate enough 01:57:09.270 --> 01:57:11.810 to study a large number of people, a large number 01:57:11.810 --> 01:57:14.369 of scholars, who knew what that power was, Carl 01:57:14.369 --> 01:57:17.789 Jung in particular. I could make it more accessible 01:57:17.789 --> 01:57:20.949 to people. And so that's a big part of it. But 01:57:20.949 --> 01:57:24.810 what the overall significance of that is, well, 01:57:24.930 --> 01:57:30.430 I just, it just leaves me speechless. I mean, 01:57:30.449 --> 01:57:32.850 this Kathy Newman thing is a good example. And 01:57:32.850 --> 01:57:34.529 I mean, so many things have happened. I've got 01:57:34.529 --> 01:57:36.850 involved. I've been in a scandal of some sort, 01:57:36.989 --> 01:57:40.949 a serious scandal of some sort, probably every 01:57:40.949 --> 01:57:44.119 three weeks for a year and a half. You know, 01:57:44.119 --> 01:57:46.279 and there are things that are just... Well, the 01:57:46.279 --> 01:57:48.300 James Damore thing is a good example of that. 01:57:48.319 --> 01:57:51.579 Like, that's a big deal, you know? That explosion 01:57:51.579 --> 01:57:54.920 that emerged around him and the court case that's 01:57:54.920 --> 01:57:56.819 coming out of it, it's a big deal. And this thing 01:57:56.819 --> 01:57:58.380 with Lindsay Shepard, that was the worst scandal 01:57:58.380 --> 01:58:01.220 that ever hit a Canadian university. And then 01:58:01.220 --> 01:58:03.560 there was all the protests, and then there was 01:58:03.560 --> 01:58:06.640 what happened with Channel 4 in the UK, and it's 01:58:06.640 --> 01:58:08.859 like, I don't know what to make of it. I don't... 01:58:08.859 --> 01:58:14.350 What I'm trying to do is... Have a good conversation 01:58:14.350 --> 01:58:16.550 when I come and talk to somebody like you where 01:58:16.550 --> 01:58:18.890 we can have a good conversation. Try not to say 01:58:18.890 --> 01:58:21.170 anything stupid. That's really what I'm trying 01:58:21.170 --> 01:58:26.170 to do is to not say anything stupid. That's hard. 01:58:26.289 --> 01:58:28.350 Or too stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's been 01:58:28.350 --> 01:58:31.050 high stakes poker. Yeah. You know, it's not quite 01:58:31.050 --> 01:58:35.289 so bad now because especially after what happened 01:58:35.289 --> 01:58:37.529 with Channel 4 and some journalists, like people 01:58:37.529 --> 01:58:39.050 have been trying to take me out for quite a long 01:58:39.050 --> 01:58:43.590 time and it's not, it isn't working. So far, 01:58:43.609 --> 01:58:45.569 it's not working. You actually believe what you're 01:58:45.569 --> 01:58:48.069 saying, and it actually makes sense. Well, you 01:58:48.069 --> 01:58:50.470 know, that's not a bad start. It's not a bad 01:58:50.470 --> 01:58:52.130 start, but it's rare in this world, especially 01:58:52.130 --> 01:58:56.649 in these ideologically charged times. This toxic 01:58:56.649 --> 01:58:59.630 tribalism that we keep bringing up. Well, and 01:58:59.630 --> 01:59:02.729 I also decided, like a long time ago, and I think 01:59:02.729 --> 01:59:05.689 this runs through 12 Rules for Life, is, well, 01:59:05.810 --> 01:59:08.090 I believe that people's decisions tilt the world 01:59:08.090 --> 01:59:11.000 towards heaven or hell. I think there's no more 01:59:11.000 --> 01:59:14.140 accurate way of describing the consequences of 01:59:14.140 --> 01:59:16.600 each of your decisions than that. You face potential. 01:59:17.460 --> 01:59:19.840 That's what you face. That's what you face in 01:59:19.840 --> 01:59:22.340 the world, is potential. It's not material reality. 01:59:22.619 --> 01:59:26.100 It's potential. And every decision you make, 01:59:26.239 --> 01:59:27.680 you're deciding whether you want to make the 01:59:27.680 --> 01:59:30.520 world better or worse. And if you, like, the 01:59:30.520 --> 01:59:32.659 ultimate better is heaven, and the ultimate worse 01:59:32.659 --> 01:59:34.720 is hell. We know how to make the world into hell. 01:59:35.260 --> 01:59:38.520 We've done that multiple times. Much of the 20th 01:59:38.520 --> 01:59:40.739 century was that. It's like I looked at all that 01:59:40.739 --> 01:59:42.680 and I thought, okay, I would rather that the 01:59:42.680 --> 01:59:45.359 world didn't degenerate into hell. And I understand 01:59:45.359 --> 01:59:47.920 why people wanted to degenerate into hell. They're 01:59:47.920 --> 01:59:51.340 angry. They're angry because they suffer. They 01:59:51.340 --> 01:59:54.180 suffer unfairly. And they suffer because people 01:59:54.180 --> 01:59:57.020 hurt them. And so they think this is a bad game. 01:59:57.119 --> 02:00:00.079 I'm not going to help make it better. I'm angry. 02:00:00.199 --> 02:00:02.260 I'm going to make it worse even. That's what 02:00:02.260 --> 02:00:04.859 the Columbine kids did. You know, that's what 02:00:04.859 --> 02:00:06.579 all the mass shooters do. They say, to hell with 02:00:06.579 --> 02:00:09.560 this. I hate it. They're so far behind the game, 02:00:09.640 --> 02:00:11.199 they just want to flip the table over. Yeah, 02:00:11.199 --> 02:00:13.600 worse than that. They want to obliterate the 02:00:13.600 --> 02:00:16.180 game. Yes. And they want to do it with as much 02:00:16.180 --> 02:00:19.060 malice as possible just to obtain revenge. And 02:00:19.060 --> 02:00:21.460 I understand that. But I decided a long time 02:00:21.460 --> 02:00:24.000 ago that I would rather not play that game. I 02:00:24.000 --> 02:00:26.939 think that it's possible that we could make the 02:00:26.939 --> 02:00:28.779 world better. I really believe that. I believe 02:00:28.779 --> 02:00:31.819 that too. So I think, well, so I'm trying to 02:00:31.819 --> 02:00:34.710 tell people, look. There's more to you than you 02:00:34.710 --> 02:00:36.970 think. There's more potential. There's more than 02:00:36.970 --> 02:00:39.310 enough potential to go around. There's definite 02:00:39.310 --> 02:00:41.369 suffering and malevolence in the world. We could 02:00:41.369 --> 02:00:43.310 fix it. You haven't got anything better to do. 02:00:43.409 --> 02:00:45.130 That's a very big point, that there's more potential 02:00:45.130 --> 02:00:48.010 to go around. More than people understand. We're 02:00:48.010 --> 02:00:49.270 not going to run out of potential. No, we're 02:00:49.270 --> 02:00:53.270 not. And this idea, the famine thinking, is one 02:00:53.270 --> 02:00:55.010 of the reasons why people get upset at other 02:00:55.010 --> 02:00:56.670 people's success. They think somehow or another 02:00:56.670 --> 02:00:59.289 that this other person's success takes something 02:00:59.289 --> 02:01:03.170 away from them. Yep. Yeah, well, the other thing 02:01:03.170 --> 02:01:05.170 too is that I've realized that people actually 02:01:05.170 --> 02:01:07.609 act like what they confront in the world is potential. 02:01:08.390 --> 02:01:10.449 It's so funny because whatever potential is, 02:01:10.569 --> 02:01:13.489 it's not materially measurable. But if you tell 02:01:13.489 --> 02:01:15.369 someone, you're not living up to your potential, 02:01:15.550 --> 02:01:17.630 they go, yeah, well, I know that. It's like, 02:01:17.670 --> 02:01:19.449 well, what is that potential that you're not 02:01:19.449 --> 02:01:21.829 living up to? And then when you say, well, there's 02:01:21.829 --> 02:01:23.609 potential in front of you, you know that. You 02:01:23.609 --> 02:01:25.609 can walk out on the street and you go right or 02:01:25.609 --> 02:01:29.479 left or straight ahead. You're facing this thing 02:01:29.479 --> 02:01:32.300 that isn't fully formed, and you get to decide 02:01:32.300 --> 02:01:36.779 how it's going to form. And you can make it better. 02:01:36.920 --> 02:01:39.060 And so my question is, like, the world's a rough 02:01:39.060 --> 02:01:41.300 place. There's no doubt about it. It's a harsh 02:01:41.300 --> 02:01:44.619 place. But my question is, what would happen 02:01:44.619 --> 02:01:47.020 if we stopped making it worse? How good could 02:01:47.020 --> 02:01:50.899 it be if we stopped making it worse? And I don't 02:01:50.899 --> 02:01:52.920 know if there's an upper limit to that. Like, 02:01:52.939 --> 02:01:55.659 it might be, maybe we could make it really, really, 02:01:55.699 --> 02:01:58.680 really good. Why not? And we don't have anything 02:01:58.680 --> 02:02:01.079 better to do than that. It's like, aim at heaven. 02:02:02.140 --> 02:02:05.939 Start at home. Aim at heaven. Tell the truth. 02:02:06.220 --> 02:02:08.800 Let's see what the hell happens. You know, like, 02:02:08.880 --> 02:02:12.079 it is the case, clearly on the facts of the matter. 02:02:12.760 --> 02:02:14.479 In 20 years, there wouldn't have to be a single 02:02:14.479 --> 02:02:17.180 person in the world that was hungry. In 20 years, 02:02:17.199 --> 02:02:19.079 we could get rid of the five biggest diseases 02:02:19.079 --> 02:02:22.279 that currently plague the planet. We could straighten 02:02:22.279 --> 02:02:24.569 things up. And God only knows what things could 02:02:24.569 --> 02:02:26.250 be like then. Or we could let the whole thing 02:02:26.250 --> 02:02:29.970 degenerate into hell. So when each of us is making 02:02:29.970 --> 02:02:32.350 that decision, with each decision, that's the 02:02:32.350 --> 02:02:37.590 other thing that I've understood. So, take a 02:02:37.590 --> 02:02:41.010 choice. You want hell or you want heaven? If 02:02:41.010 --> 02:02:46.310 you pick hell, just remember, you knew what you 02:02:46.310 --> 02:02:48.350 were doing when you picked it. But nobody picks 02:02:48.350 --> 02:02:51.340 hell. Yeah. They just sort of let it slide. Yeah, 02:02:51.399 --> 02:02:52.760 but they do it because they blind themselves. 02:02:53.659 --> 02:02:56.680 You know. You know when you do it. You say, ah, 02:02:56.699 --> 02:02:59.020 well, you know, I let that slide. And then you 02:02:59.020 --> 02:03:01.180 don't think about it. It's like you could think 02:03:01.180 --> 02:03:02.960 about it. You could think about it. You could 02:03:02.960 --> 02:03:07.020 know. But you don't let yourself know. Is any 02:03:07.020 --> 02:03:10.460 of this, all the pressure and the scandal every 02:03:10.460 --> 02:03:15.859 three weeks, is it a way on you? Is it difficult? 02:03:16.810 --> 02:03:19.689 How are you feeling? Well, I'm feeling stretched. 02:03:21.130 --> 02:03:24.609 Yeah, it's like simultaneously the worst possible 02:03:24.609 --> 02:03:26.430 thing and the best possible thing that could 02:03:26.430 --> 02:03:29.989 happen. Well, financially, it's been a boom, 02:03:30.010 --> 02:03:34.069 right? Yes. Which is hilarious. Oh, well, yes. 02:03:34.289 --> 02:03:36.449 I mean, the thing that I've... I shouldn't say 02:03:36.449 --> 02:03:37.989 this, but I'm going to, because it's just so 02:03:37.989 --> 02:03:40.149 goddamn funny, I can't help but say it. I've 02:03:40.149 --> 02:03:42.210 figured out how to monetize social justice warriors. 02:03:45.449 --> 02:03:47.670 That is what it is. I know. It's so funny. I 02:03:47.670 --> 02:03:50.890 just can't believe it. The other way. Every time 02:03:50.890 --> 02:03:52.770 I think that, well, it's just one of the surreal 02:03:52.770 --> 02:03:55.390 circumstances that characterize my life. It's 02:03:55.390 --> 02:03:57.109 like I'm driving the social justice activists 02:03:57.109 --> 02:04:01.210 in Canada mad because if they let me speak, then 02:04:01.210 --> 02:04:02.829 I get to speak, and then more people support 02:04:02.829 --> 02:04:04.970 me on Patreon. It's like, hmm, that's annoying. 02:04:05.149 --> 02:04:06.869 It's like, goddamn capitalist. He's making more 02:04:06.869 --> 02:04:08.949 money off this ideological warfare. It's like, 02:04:09.010 --> 02:04:11.569 okay, fine. Let's go protest. So they go protest 02:04:11.569 --> 02:04:13.789 me, and then that goes up on YouTube, and then 02:04:13.789 --> 02:04:18.199 my patron. account goes way up so it's like they 02:04:18.199 --> 02:04:19.779 don't know what to do and so one of the things 02:04:19.779 --> 02:04:22.140 they keep accusing me of yeah they keep accusing 02:04:22.140 --> 02:04:24.960 me of uh like hauling in the loot and i think 02:04:24.960 --> 02:04:27.739 well look here's the situation guys i give away 02:04:27.739 --> 02:04:33.890 everything i do online for free it's free And 02:04:33.890 --> 02:04:35.670 people are giving me money. They're just sending 02:04:35.670 --> 02:04:37.569 it to me. I'm not twisting their arm. I'm not 02:04:37.569 --> 02:04:39.729 even asking them for it. Well, I guess that's 02:04:39.729 --> 02:04:41.350 not exactly right because I set up the Patreon 02:04:41.350 --> 02:04:43.010 account, but that's more complicated than it 02:04:43.010 --> 02:04:45.569 looks. A lot of that was curiosity. And I thought, 02:04:45.590 --> 02:04:48.109 well, I could increase the production quality 02:04:48.109 --> 02:04:50.449 of my online videos. Well, it was also the potential 02:04:50.449 --> 02:04:52.210 of you being removed from the university. Well, 02:04:52.210 --> 02:04:55.449 yes. And that was real potential. Oh, yeah. And 02:04:55.449 --> 02:04:59.029 people wanted that. Yeah, they haven't stopped 02:04:59.029 --> 02:05:03.189 wanting that. In October, when the Lindsay Shepard 02:05:03.189 --> 02:05:05.569 scandal broke, and it looked so bad for the left 02:05:05.569 --> 02:05:08.890 -wing ideologues, like 200 University of Toronto 02:05:08.890 --> 02:05:12.329 community members signed a petition to get me 02:05:12.329 --> 02:05:15.090 fired again. And I was kind of upset about that. 02:05:15.189 --> 02:05:18.619 This is what my life has been like. My son came 02:05:18.619 --> 02:05:20.659 over that day, and I said, Jesus, Julian, you 02:05:20.659 --> 02:05:24.720 know, like 200 people at the University of Toronto 02:05:24.720 --> 02:05:27.539 petitioned the Faculty Association, and then 02:05:27.539 --> 02:05:28.979 they sent in a petition to the administration 02:05:28.979 --> 02:05:30.920 to get me fired. It was the Faculty Association. 02:05:31.079 --> 02:05:33.399 That's my union. They didn't even contact me. 02:05:33.479 --> 02:05:36.119 And Julian said, don't worry about it, Dad. It 02:05:36.119 --> 02:05:38.600 was only 200 people. And I thought, that's what 02:05:38.600 --> 02:05:42.220 my life is like. It's like a day where 200 people 02:05:42.220 --> 02:05:44.500 sign a petition to get me fired as a professor. 02:05:45.390 --> 02:05:47.069 My son can come in and say, well, that's not 02:05:47.069 --> 02:05:48.989 so bad. It's like it's only 200 people. That's 02:05:48.989 --> 02:05:50.609 how weird the scale's gotten. Yeah, that's right. 02:05:50.770 --> 02:05:55.689 It's so surreal. Because you could say that online 02:05:55.689 --> 02:05:58.670 and look what's happening. And then the support 02:05:58.670 --> 02:06:01.590 would be overwhelming from who knows how many 02:06:01.590 --> 02:06:03.670 people. But it would be multiple times of that. 02:06:03.850 --> 02:06:05.409 Yeah, absolutely. Well, in the administration 02:06:05.409 --> 02:06:07.930 at the University of Toronto. They didn't take 02:06:07.930 --> 02:06:10.329 it seriously at all, the call to have me removed. 02:06:10.510 --> 02:06:13.609 It didn't even cause a ripple. Now, who are these 02:06:13.609 --> 02:06:16.329 200 people, and what was their motivation? Oh, 02:06:16.350 --> 02:06:19.029 well, they're hard to say what their motivation 02:06:19.029 --> 02:06:20.670 is. They're not very happy about me. If they 02:06:20.670 --> 02:06:22.430 read the transcript or listened to those recordings, 02:06:22.689 --> 02:06:27.189 how could they possibly be against you based 02:06:27.189 --> 02:06:29.909 on that? Oh, because they think that the people 02:06:29.909 --> 02:06:34.850 who conducted the Inquisition were right. Well, 02:06:34.869 --> 02:06:38.850 that's madness. Oh, yes. But look, I mean this 02:06:38.850 --> 02:06:42.789 formally. Like 20 members of Pimlott's and Rambucana's 02:06:42.789 --> 02:06:45.350 faculty, that was communications at Wilfrid Laurier, 02:06:45.409 --> 02:06:49.449 wrote a letter supporting them. So that's why 02:06:49.449 --> 02:06:51.430 it's not an isolated incident. It's like, no, 02:06:51.510 --> 02:06:52.789 no, they thought that what they were doing was 02:06:52.789 --> 02:06:55.630 right. It's mass hysteria. Well, there is an 02:06:55.630 --> 02:06:57.529 element of that. That's for sure. And there's 02:06:57.529 --> 02:06:59.729 certainly, again, I hate to bring this term up 02:06:59.729 --> 02:07:01.949 again, but this toxic tribalism thing. It's like 02:07:01.949 --> 02:07:04.810 they're supporting their own. And they understand 02:07:04.810 --> 02:07:06.810 that their own ideologies have been completely 02:07:06.810 --> 02:07:09.869 connected to the same type of groupthink that's... 02:07:10.329 --> 02:07:12.449 going against Lindsay Shepard in that meeting. 02:07:12.649 --> 02:07:14.689 Oh, yeah, when they tried to paint her as a radical 02:07:14.689 --> 02:07:17.569 right -winger, which she certainly isn't. Of 02:07:17.569 --> 02:07:19.489 course not. Neither are you. I mean, the whole 02:07:19.489 --> 02:07:21.770 thing is ridiculous. You're not alt -right. You're 02:07:21.770 --> 02:07:24.670 not a neo -Nazi. I've read a lot of crazy things 02:07:24.670 --> 02:07:27.670 about you. And knowing you personally, seeing 02:07:27.670 --> 02:07:30.689 this stuff, I'm like, this is a fascinating time. 02:07:30.729 --> 02:07:32.789 Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah, 02:07:32.829 --> 02:07:36.369 and it's been, well, it's been crazily, well, 02:07:36.470 --> 02:07:41.420 what would I say? Crazily stressful. The best 02:07:41.420 --> 02:07:45.060 way to describe it is surreal. It's like I stepped 02:07:45.060 --> 02:07:50.319 outside myself. I can't put this in a box. I 02:07:50.319 --> 02:07:52.779 don't know what to make of it. I don't know what 02:07:52.779 --> 02:07:55.699 to make of the Channel 4 interview. It's like, 02:07:55.720 --> 02:08:02.699 what the hell? Really? It's crazy. These conversations 02:08:02.699 --> 02:08:05.159 are so limited by what you were saying before 02:08:05.159 --> 02:08:06.699 that they're trying to get this five -minute 02:08:06.699 --> 02:08:08.600 soundbite in, and that's what television has 02:08:08.600 --> 02:08:11.859 become. It's a dying medium. It doesn't make 02:08:11.859 --> 02:08:13.939 any sense. It doesn't make any sense to sandwich 02:08:13.939 --> 02:08:16.060 these commercials in every 15 minutes or whatever 02:08:16.060 --> 02:08:18.159 they do. None of it makes any sense. It's an 02:08:18.159 --> 02:08:21.399 archaic way of communicating ideas. Yeah, well, 02:08:21.500 --> 02:08:23.619 and I think that is part of it, too, is that, 02:08:23.640 --> 02:08:26.979 like, I happened to catch a technological wave. 02:08:27.039 --> 02:08:29.539 Well, like you did, you know? Yeah. I mean, they're... 02:08:30.270 --> 02:08:34.109 Television offers nothing over YouTube. Nothing. 02:08:35.010 --> 02:08:36.970 Because YouTube offers everything. I get YouTube 02:08:36.970 --> 02:08:39.949 on my TV. Yeah, well, exactly. And there's no 02:08:39.949 --> 02:08:42.949 space requirements on YouTube. So you don't have 02:08:42.949 --> 02:08:47.050 to do this, twist the complex event into a short 02:08:47.050 --> 02:08:49.710 soundbite and entertain everyone. And it turns 02:08:49.710 --> 02:08:51.550 out, too, that there's this huge audience online 02:08:51.550 --> 02:08:55.850 for actual content. just genuine conversation. 02:08:56.250 --> 02:08:57.829 Because like one of the things that's happened 02:08:57.829 --> 02:08:59.670 between you and I, when I've come down here, 02:08:59.750 --> 02:09:01.750 is we've actually had a conversation, right? 02:09:01.829 --> 02:09:04.069 We're trying to figure things out. You know, 02:09:04.069 --> 02:09:05.609 we've got our viewpoints and everything, but 02:09:05.609 --> 02:09:08.350 we're basically, and I outline this, and there's 02:09:08.350 --> 02:09:11.170 a chapter in 12 Rules for Life called, assume 02:09:11.170 --> 02:09:13.189 that the person you're talking to might know 02:09:13.189 --> 02:09:15.590 something you don't, which is like the formula 02:09:15.590 --> 02:09:17.920 for a good conversation. It's like, There's a 02:09:17.920 --> 02:09:19.680 bunch of things I don't understand about the 02:09:19.680 --> 02:09:22.159 world. I mean, that's a big book. Things I don't 02:09:22.159 --> 02:09:23.840 understand about the world, right? That's a very 02:09:23.840 --> 02:09:26.000 thick book. And I can come in here and talk to 02:09:26.000 --> 02:09:28.100 you about what's going on, and hopefully we both 02:09:28.100 --> 02:09:30.199 emerge with better understanding. We're not the 02:09:30.199 --> 02:09:32.920 same people that we were when we walked in. And 02:09:32.920 --> 02:09:35.180 that's a good thing. And then we have those conversations 02:09:35.180 --> 02:09:38.140 online, and people can participate in that. And 02:09:38.140 --> 02:09:39.840 I'm trying to do that in my lectures, too. Like, 02:09:39.840 --> 02:09:42.420 when I did this biblical series, because that 02:09:42.420 --> 02:09:44.340 was another thing that was so strange, Joe. It's 02:09:44.340 --> 02:09:47.420 like, imagine I walked into a... like a venture 02:09:47.420 --> 02:09:50.920 capitalist organization. I said, look, I want 02:09:50.920 --> 02:09:53.500 you guys to bankroll me. I'm going to do 15 lectures 02:09:53.500 --> 02:09:55.159 on the Old Testament, and I'm going to try to 02:09:55.159 --> 02:09:57.199 attract young men. I'm going to rent a theater. 02:09:57.640 --> 02:09:59.460 Like, they just laughed me out of there. Could 02:09:59.460 --> 02:10:02.460 you imagine anything less saleable than that? 02:10:04.700 --> 02:10:07.220 But I did that. I went ahead with it. I rented 02:10:07.220 --> 02:10:08.539 the theater, and then I walked through these 02:10:08.539 --> 02:10:10.840 stories. And I was learning a lot because, like, 02:10:10.880 --> 02:10:13.399 I knew the first stories in Genesis up to the 02:10:13.399 --> 02:10:15.359 flood. I knew them pretty well. I kind of understood 02:10:15.359 --> 02:10:17.439 what they meant. But then all the stories from 02:10:17.439 --> 02:10:20.640 Abraham onward, I had read them, but I hadn't 02:10:20.640 --> 02:10:23.359 done a detailed, in -depth analysis. And so I 02:10:23.359 --> 02:10:25.319 was learning a tremendous amount walking through 02:10:25.319 --> 02:10:30.359 those stories. And they had a big impact, man. 02:10:31.869 --> 02:10:34.369 I'm going to do Exodus soon because I want to 02:10:34.369 --> 02:10:37.090 do that. But it's just another example of how 02:10:37.090 --> 02:10:39.770 surreal things have become. But also the utility 02:10:39.770 --> 02:10:42.449 of a good conversation. Because when I'm up on 02:10:42.449 --> 02:10:46.930 the podium, say, lecturing, I'm not exactly lecturing. 02:10:47.109 --> 02:10:49.869 I'm trying to figure something out and sharing 02:10:49.869 --> 02:10:52.670 that process with the audience. Which is so different 02:10:52.670 --> 02:10:55.630 than what is going on in universities that is 02:10:55.630 --> 02:10:58.789 freaking everybody out. What's going on is this 02:10:58.789 --> 02:11:01.630 indoctrination. Into this group thing. Yeah. 02:11:01.689 --> 02:11:04.510 It's like, here's what's right. Memorize it. 02:11:04.550 --> 02:11:06.949 Right. It's like my lectures are more like, well, 02:11:07.029 --> 02:11:08.350 I don't know what's right. Like, here's some 02:11:08.350 --> 02:11:10.609 things I know and they seem to be working. And 02:11:10.609 --> 02:11:13.289 here's how I use those tools to dig at this story. 02:11:13.350 --> 02:11:15.069 And here's what it might mean. And this is what 02:11:15.069 --> 02:11:17.090 I got from it. And here's some universal truths 02:11:17.090 --> 02:11:19.939 about human beings. That seem to be. And then 02:11:19.939 --> 02:11:21.600 I try to explore that. It's like, well, should 02:11:21.600 --> 02:11:24.399 we believe this? Should we, like when Abraham, 02:11:24.560 --> 02:11:26.420 in the Abrahamic story, for example, I mean, 02:11:26.420 --> 02:11:28.399 Abraham's an old guy and he's basically lived 02:11:28.399 --> 02:11:30.739 in his mom's basement. That's really the beginning 02:11:30.739 --> 02:11:32.600 of the story. And he gets a call to adventure. 02:11:32.859 --> 02:11:35.359 You know, God says, well, get away from your 02:11:35.359 --> 02:11:37.079 family and your kin, get out there in the world. 02:11:37.159 --> 02:11:39.460 It's the call to adventure. Think, okay, fine, 02:11:39.600 --> 02:11:41.699 that's a heroic motif. But then Abraham goes 02:11:41.699 --> 02:11:43.500 out and the first thing he encounters is like 02:11:43.500 --> 02:11:45.640 tyranny and starvation and then a bunch of guys 02:11:45.640 --> 02:11:50.310 who want to steal his wife. So it's... It's been 02:11:50.310 --> 02:11:52.250 entertaining to take those stories apart and 02:11:52.250 --> 02:11:54.289 to see why they're foundational. Because they 02:11:54.289 --> 02:11:59.189 are foundational. And they're not mere ignorance. 02:12:00.329 --> 02:12:04.670 Whatever they are, ignorant superstition is not 02:12:04.670 --> 02:12:07.229 the right category. How has this changed your 02:12:07.229 --> 02:12:11.369 classrooms? Well, I haven't gone back teaching 02:12:11.369 --> 02:12:14.689 since all of this hit. When did you stop teaching? 02:12:15.149 --> 02:12:18.380 Well... Oh, no, I guess that's not true. That's 02:12:18.380 --> 02:12:21.859 not true. I taught from January to May of 2016. 02:12:22.699 --> 02:12:25.600 Well, the first way it changed was that I was 02:12:25.600 --> 02:12:30.359 so shell -shocked when I went to teach last January, 02:12:30.420 --> 02:12:33.180 and I was really sick. I've been really sick 02:12:33.180 --> 02:12:37.340 this year. Last January, Jesus, it was just dismal. 02:12:37.359 --> 02:12:39.520 I wouldn't have wished that on my worst enemy. 02:12:39.619 --> 02:12:41.340 I had three weeks where I didn't sleep a wink. 02:12:42.090 --> 02:12:44.710 Try that. That's really entertaining. One long 02:12:44.710 --> 02:12:47.229 day of misery that's three weeks long. What kind 02:12:47.229 --> 02:12:50.109 of an illness? It looks like an autoimmune disorder. 02:12:50.470 --> 02:12:52.210 Do you think this is because of stress? No, I 02:12:52.210 --> 02:12:53.630 don't. You don't think it's connected at all? 02:12:53.710 --> 02:12:56.149 Well, yeah. I think it probably made it worse. 02:12:56.189 --> 02:12:58.149 But no. It's something that I've battled with 02:12:58.149 --> 02:13:00.649 for a long time. And it's something that really... 02:13:00.649 --> 02:13:03.170 Both my wife and I have autoimmune illness. And 02:13:03.170 --> 02:13:05.369 my daughter got... What autoimmune illness? Don't 02:13:05.369 --> 02:13:07.689 know exactly what it is. I don't know what it 02:13:07.689 --> 02:13:08.750 is. Have you adjusted your diet? In my daughter, 02:13:08.789 --> 02:13:11.659 it manifests... Yes. That's what's fixed it. 02:13:11.699 --> 02:13:14.100 What fixed it? All I eat is meat and greens. 02:13:15.020 --> 02:13:18.239 That's it. No juice, no vegetables, no carbohydrates. 02:13:18.779 --> 02:13:22.800 Meat, greens. That's it. And that fixed it. That 02:13:22.800 --> 02:13:25.420 seems to have fixed it. That fixes so many people. 02:13:25.439 --> 02:13:26.359 Well, I can tell you. I don't know if you've 02:13:26.359 --> 02:13:28.659 listened to any of the podcasts I've done. Yeah, 02:13:28.659 --> 02:13:30.199 yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've been following them 02:13:30.199 --> 02:13:32.199 because my daughter has a blog, too, called Don't 02:13:32.199 --> 02:13:35.079 Eat That. And my daughter had a terrible autoimmune 02:13:35.079 --> 02:13:37.460 disorder. It was awful. I detailed that out in 02:13:37.460 --> 02:13:41.020 Chapter 12. She had 38 affected joints, and she 02:13:41.020 --> 02:13:42.779 had her hip and her ankle replaced when she was 02:13:42.779 --> 02:13:45.340 16. Jesus. So she walked around on two broken 02:13:45.340 --> 02:13:48.520 legs for a year in excruciating pain. She was 02:13:48.520 --> 02:13:51.479 on extremely high doses of opiates. And so she 02:13:51.479 --> 02:13:55.800 was addicted to opiates. Once she had her surgery, 02:13:55.880 --> 02:13:58.039 she just went off them cold turkey and suffered 02:13:58.039 --> 02:14:00.060 through the withdrawal for two months. Compared 02:14:00.060 --> 02:14:01.680 to what she had been through, that was nothing. 02:14:02.039 --> 02:14:04.619 What she went through, man, it was dreadful. 02:14:04.899 --> 02:14:06.979 And that was just the surface of it. That was 02:14:06.979 --> 02:14:08.680 only the beginning of her illness. She had all 02:14:08.680 --> 02:14:10.779 sorts of other things that were worse than that. 02:14:11.180 --> 02:14:14.460 And we figured she was probably going to die 02:14:14.460 --> 02:14:16.600 by the time she was 30 because my cousins... 02:14:16.909 --> 02:14:19.069 daughter had a similar autoimmune problem and 02:14:19.069 --> 02:14:21.529 she died when she was 30 so it was bloody dreadful 02:14:21.529 --> 02:14:24.729 but she figured out at one point that it was 02:14:24.729 --> 02:14:27.409 associated with diet and then she went on a radically 02:14:27.409 --> 02:14:31.369 restrictive diet and she christ she she was on 02:14:31.369 --> 02:14:33.970 antidepressants she's not she had to take ritalin 02:14:33.970 --> 02:14:35.590 to stay awake she could only stay awake about 02:14:35.590 --> 02:14:37.289 six hours a day and she had to take high doses 02:14:37.289 --> 02:14:40.489 of ritalin to stay awake she what is this autoimmune 02:14:40.489 --> 02:14:43.970 disease well she had her diagnosis was rheumatoid 02:14:43.970 --> 02:14:46.720 arthritis right But she didn't have the blood 02:14:46.720 --> 02:14:49.479 markers for it, but she had all the other symptoms. 02:14:49.920 --> 02:14:52.439 Anyway, she figured out this restrictive diet. 02:14:52.479 --> 02:14:54.319 She only ate chicken and broccoli for about two 02:14:54.319 --> 02:14:58.140 months, and almost all her symptoms went away. 02:14:58.579 --> 02:15:01.060 And she's pretty much symptom -free now, which 02:15:01.060 --> 02:15:03.899 is a complete miracle. And she convinced me to 02:15:03.899 --> 02:15:07.340 try this diet about a year and a half ago. And 02:15:07.340 --> 02:15:10.520 so I lost seven pounds a month for seven months. 02:15:10.560 --> 02:15:12.680 That was the first thing, which was just bloody 02:15:12.680 --> 02:15:15.800 amazing. Yeah, it was unbelievable. I couldn't 02:15:15.800 --> 02:15:18.739 believe it. Was your diet rich in refined carbohydrates 02:15:18.739 --> 02:15:21.880 before that? Rich enough. Yeah. Rich enough, 02:15:22.079 --> 02:15:25.619 you know. Pastas and bread and things along those 02:15:25.619 --> 02:15:27.779 lines. Yeah, bread in particular. I ate a lot 02:15:27.779 --> 02:15:30.800 of bread. So the first thing that happened was 02:15:30.800 --> 02:15:33.159 I quit snoring. That happened immediately. It 02:15:33.159 --> 02:15:35.220 took one week, and I was snoring quite badly. 02:15:35.539 --> 02:15:38.279 So that disappeared in a week. And that was amazing. 02:15:38.399 --> 02:15:39.880 I thought, oh, that's interesting. And then I 02:15:39.880 --> 02:15:41.699 had gastric reflux disorder. That went away. 02:15:42.279 --> 02:15:44.359 And then I lost seven pounds the first month. 02:15:44.439 --> 02:15:47.880 I thought, oh, that's a lot, seven pounds. I 02:15:47.880 --> 02:15:49.960 had psoriasis. That went away. I had floaters 02:15:49.960 --> 02:15:51.859 in my right eye, which is also an autoimmune 02:15:51.859 --> 02:15:55.760 problem. That went away. I have had gum disease 02:15:55.760 --> 02:16:00.060 for 30 years. That went away. That went away. 02:16:00.159 --> 02:16:02.199 That's amazing. I'm 55. Like, my gum disease 02:16:02.199 --> 02:16:07.430 went away. It's ridiculous. I figured all that 02:16:07.430 --> 02:16:10.649 out. My life in the last year was so strange 02:16:10.649 --> 02:16:13.090 because I'd get up in the morning and I'd think, 02:16:13.189 --> 02:16:16.909 God, all these bloody scandalous things are happening 02:16:16.909 --> 02:16:19.670 around me and I have to deal with that. And then 02:16:19.670 --> 02:16:21.989 I'd think, I need a break, but I can't eat anything. 02:16:23.319 --> 02:16:25.460 I can't eat anything because if I ate the wrong 02:16:25.460 --> 02:16:26.979 thing, it would, like, knock me out for a month. 02:16:27.220 --> 02:16:28.720 So I was trying to figure out what the hell was 02:16:28.720 --> 02:16:30.960 wrong with my diet, and I was feeling wretched. 02:16:31.039 --> 02:16:34.440 And so it was like wolves at the back door and 02:16:34.440 --> 02:16:36.100 crocodiles at the front door, something like 02:16:36.100 --> 02:16:42.200 that. But whatever, like, I'm down to the same 02:16:42.200 --> 02:16:45.459 weight I was when I was 25. Wow. Yeah, no kidding. 02:16:45.559 --> 02:16:47.260 And I've got lots of energy. I wake up in the 02:16:47.260 --> 02:16:49.360 morning. And I wake up, that's never happened 02:16:49.360 --> 02:16:51.159 to me my whole life. I've always had to have 02:16:51.159 --> 02:16:53.079 a shower. It took me an hour to wake up my whole 02:16:53.079 --> 02:16:56.780 life. That's gone. I'm not hungry. I don't have 02:16:56.780 --> 02:17:01.620 hypoglycemia. I have lots of energy. I can't 02:17:01.620 --> 02:17:03.780 eat anything, so I can't go out for dinner. But 02:17:03.780 --> 02:17:06.020 you can't eat nonsense. You can eat. I'm on the 02:17:06.020 --> 02:17:08.139 same diet. I can eat meat and greens, man. I 02:17:08.139 --> 02:17:11.579 don't have a disorder like you did in the same 02:17:11.579 --> 02:17:15.020 regard, but I take a day. Well, I have a cheat 02:17:15.020 --> 02:17:17.280 day. No, I don't even do it every week. Well, 02:17:17.379 --> 02:17:18.700 I'll have a cheeseburger or something like that. 02:17:18.819 --> 02:17:20.479 Yeah. But for the most part, that's the diet 02:17:20.479 --> 02:17:23.139 that I follow as well. Yeah. Well, for some people, 02:17:23.180 --> 02:17:26.879 it seems like, well... For a massive amount of 02:17:26.879 --> 02:17:28.819 people. Well, I think for far more people than 02:17:28.819 --> 02:17:31.040 we know, I think people are carbohydrate poisoning 02:17:31.040 --> 02:17:33.399 themselves like they can't believe. Yes. And 02:17:33.399 --> 02:17:35.540 along with all the other things that go along 02:17:35.540 --> 02:17:38.819 with it, insulin. Yeah. High blood sugar is not 02:17:38.819 --> 02:17:43.569 good. This idea that cholesterol and saturated 02:17:43.569 --> 02:17:46.110 fat are the problems that people are experiencing, 02:17:46.370 --> 02:17:48.329 it's not true. No. The real problem is sugar, 02:17:48.329 --> 02:17:51.190 and cholesterol has been demonized. I'm sure 02:17:51.190 --> 02:17:52.750 you read the article from the New York Times 02:17:52.750 --> 02:17:55.010 about the sugar industry. Yep. Paid off scientists 02:17:55.010 --> 02:17:57.969 to lie about the results. Yep, yep. Well, I know, 02:17:58.010 --> 02:18:00.510 too, that two food scientists in the UK resigned 02:18:00.510 --> 02:18:03.569 about three years ago. They were part and parcel 02:18:03.569 --> 02:18:05.389 of the organization that had produced the food 02:18:05.389 --> 02:18:07.049 pyramid. They said it was the worst public health 02:18:07.049 --> 02:18:09.329 disaster in the last 40 years. They pretty much 02:18:09.329 --> 02:18:11.829 got it backwards. And you look around. You drive 02:18:11.829 --> 02:18:14.110 through the U .S. It's really obvious in the 02:18:14.110 --> 02:18:16.409 U .S. is people are overweight like mad. Like 02:18:16.409 --> 02:18:19.110 mad. Yeah, like crazy. It's ridiculous. Go to 02:18:19.110 --> 02:18:21.409 Disneyland. Yeah, exactly. It's insane. It is. 02:18:21.450 --> 02:18:24.790 But the reason is, as far as I can tell, the 02:18:24.790 --> 02:18:27.469 reason is that they're poisoning themselves with 02:18:27.469 --> 02:18:29.590 carbohydrates. That's what it looks like. And 02:18:29.590 --> 02:18:33.389 the thought process is so out of whack. I retweeted 02:18:33.389 --> 02:18:36.610 an article today from Nina Teicholz. She tweeted 02:18:36.610 --> 02:18:41.149 it. about this trend of eating only egg whites 02:18:41.149 --> 02:18:43.170 and how terrible it is for you. It's a health 02:18:43.170 --> 02:18:46.270 disaster. And this idea that cholesterol from 02:18:46.270 --> 02:18:47.950 the egg yolk is bad for you. It's one of the 02:18:47.950 --> 02:18:50.809 most important things you can eat. And then Weight 02:18:50.809 --> 02:18:53.510 Watchers has adjusted. Yeah, see, it goes, Weight 02:18:53.510 --> 02:18:57.290 Watchers diet program now adjusts their protocol, 02:18:57.290 --> 02:18:59.989 and they say that eat all the eggs you want. 02:19:00.010 --> 02:19:02.909 It is now a zero -point food, which is fucking 02:19:02.909 --> 02:19:06.870 incredible. So the way I don't get hungry is 02:19:06.870 --> 02:19:08.670 I eat a lot of oil, like a lot of olive oil. 02:19:08.770 --> 02:19:11.950 Yes. And that keeps... Fats. So you're basically 02:19:11.950 --> 02:19:14.149 burning fat. You're on like a ketogenic diet. 02:19:14.530 --> 02:19:17.909 Yeah. So and it seems to be... Well, and that 02:19:17.909 --> 02:19:20.190 would have been complicated enough to keep me 02:19:20.190 --> 02:19:22.250 occupied for the last two years, especially sorting 02:19:22.250 --> 02:19:24.250 it out with my daughter because she... Well, 02:19:24.350 --> 02:19:26.389 that was quite the bloody nightmare, I can tell 02:19:26.389 --> 02:19:29.110 you. It was really something. But I can't believe 02:19:29.110 --> 02:19:31.370 she figured it out. It's amazing. It is amazing. 02:19:31.389 --> 02:19:34.209 And like she's really... She's in pretty damn 02:19:34.209 --> 02:19:36.329 good shape. She just had a baby like five months 02:19:36.329 --> 02:19:39.709 ago. That's amazing. Yeah, we're stunned, man. 02:19:40.459 --> 02:19:43.379 We're stunned because like it was rough. Well, 02:19:43.440 --> 02:19:44.840 she sounds like an incredibly extreme example. 02:19:44.840 --> 02:19:47.280 She is quite the tough cookie, that girl. Sounds 02:19:47.280 --> 02:19:49.959 like it. Yeah. Many people are experiencing the 02:19:49.959 --> 02:19:52.600 same revelation that their diet is killing. Look, 02:19:52.700 --> 02:19:56.059 I was tired all the time. I would hit a nap. 02:19:56.120 --> 02:19:58.059 I mean, I was always very, very active. So I 02:19:58.059 --> 02:20:00.860 stayed lean because of my physical activity. 02:20:01.020 --> 02:20:04.100 But by the end of the day, I need a nap. I would 02:20:04.100 --> 02:20:06.159 always take a nap before I'd go to jujitsu. I 02:20:06.159 --> 02:20:07.920 was like, I have to take a nap or I can't train. 02:20:08.120 --> 02:20:09.930 And it was because of carbohydrates. Yeah, I 02:20:09.930 --> 02:20:12.870 nap about two hours a day. And now I don't nap 02:20:12.870 --> 02:20:14.649 at all. Me too, same thing. Well, that's not 02:20:14.649 --> 02:20:16.270 exactly true. When I've been Zooming around, 02:20:16.430 --> 02:20:18.190 I take like two -minute naps when I'm in the 02:20:18.190 --> 02:20:19.870 airport or whatever. Well, that's also you're 02:20:19.870 --> 02:20:21.450 probably not getting enough sleep. Yeah, right, 02:20:21.569 --> 02:20:23.350 exactly. Big difference, yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, 02:20:23.469 --> 02:20:28.030 it's been remarkable. So why did you stop teaching? 02:20:28.729 --> 02:20:31.750 Oh, well, I took a sabbatical. Because of all 02:20:31.750 --> 02:20:34.530 this? Yeah, well, I told my department chair, 02:20:34.649 --> 02:20:36.829 I said, look, I had a sabbatical coming up next 02:20:36.829 --> 02:20:39.469 year. I said, look, you know, I... There's too 02:20:39.469 --> 02:20:41.690 much going on. It'll be better if I take the 02:20:41.690 --> 02:20:43.270 sabbatical this year, then I can concentrate 02:20:43.270 --> 02:20:45.090 on my teaching next year. So you take the entire 02:20:45.090 --> 02:20:46.989 year off? Yeah. So you're about eight months 02:20:46.989 --> 02:20:48.809 in? Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. Well, and I 02:20:48.809 --> 02:20:50.530 always teach from, I put all my courses from 02:20:50.530 --> 02:20:52.590 January to March. I teach all of them in the 02:20:52.590 --> 02:20:55.030 same semester, and that enabled me to concentrate 02:20:55.030 --> 02:20:57.770 on my research for the rest of the time. And 02:20:57.770 --> 02:20:59.889 so, technically, I'll be going back teaching 02:20:59.889 --> 02:21:02.909 in January of 2019. Technically? Technically. 02:21:03.149 --> 02:21:07.180 You're not convinced? Well... I can't think a 02:21:07.180 --> 02:21:09.260 year ahead at the moment. I don't know what the 02:21:09.260 --> 02:21:11.059 hell's going on. I'm not going to go back and 02:21:11.059 --> 02:21:15.819 teach the same way. Because, see, at some point, 02:21:15.819 --> 02:21:18.040 the technological transformation means you have 02:21:18.040 --> 02:21:21.180 to approach things differently. And so now, if 02:21:21.180 --> 02:21:23.540 I do a lecture online, whatever the lecture happens 02:21:23.540 --> 02:21:26.620 to be, I can get 150 ,000 people to watch it. 02:21:26.680 --> 02:21:29.739 That's minimum. So the first question would be, 02:21:29.860 --> 02:21:32.299 well, why would I teach 300 people when I could 02:21:32.299 --> 02:21:35.360 teach 150 ,000? That's just stupid. Who would 02:21:35.360 --> 02:21:37.780 do that? Those same 300 people will also have 02:21:37.780 --> 02:21:40.139 access to the 150 ,000. Well, exactly. That's 02:21:40.139 --> 02:21:42.059 right. That's exactly it. And the next thing 02:21:42.059 --> 02:21:45.340 is, well, I taped my Maps of Meaning class and 02:21:45.340 --> 02:21:47.200 my personality class for three years running. 02:21:47.399 --> 02:21:50.180 It's like, it's there. Well, I could do it again, 02:21:50.260 --> 02:21:54.600 but why? It's taped. I would rather lecture about 02:21:54.600 --> 02:21:56.680 new things. So that's what I did this year. I 02:21:56.680 --> 02:21:58.340 did this biblical series, which I hadn't done 02:21:58.340 --> 02:22:00.899 before. But now if I'm going to lecture again, 02:22:01.079 --> 02:22:03.899 I'm going to lecture about different things because... 02:22:04.430 --> 02:22:07.049 Because the technology has transformed the landscape. 02:22:07.129 --> 02:22:10.370 We're not in 1990 anymore. Not even a little 02:22:10.370 --> 02:22:14.270 bit. This is something I brought up to Brett 02:22:14.270 --> 02:22:16.250 Weinstein, and I'm hoping he follows along the 02:22:16.250 --> 02:22:20.690 same line. Brett Weinstein, not Steen. I make 02:22:20.690 --> 02:22:23.409 that mistake often. Sorry, Brett. But same thing. 02:22:23.450 --> 02:22:26.409 Brilliant guy, restricted by his university, 02:22:26.750 --> 02:22:31.120 big scandal, leaves. I'm hoping he follows the 02:22:31.120 --> 02:22:33.219 same path because he has so much to offer. And 02:22:33.219 --> 02:22:35.299 he has so much to offer for anybody who can get 02:22:35.299 --> 02:22:37.299 online. Well, and one of the things that's really 02:22:37.299 --> 02:22:41.020 fun about YouTube and having my lectures on YouTube 02:22:41.020 --> 02:22:43.799 is that the only reason people watch them is 02:22:43.799 --> 02:22:45.559 one reason. It's because they want to learn. 02:22:45.739 --> 02:22:49.020 That's it. Right. And so you might think, well, 02:22:49.139 --> 02:22:51.920 where is the university? Well, the university 02:22:51.920 --> 02:22:53.979 is where people want to learn. Right. It's like, 02:22:54.059 --> 02:22:57.040 okay, well, YouTube is the university because 02:22:57.040 --> 02:22:59.409 there's... Hundreds of thousands of people on 02:22:59.409 --> 02:23:03.129 YouTube, maybe millions, who just want to learn. 02:23:03.290 --> 02:23:06.229 It's like, fine, I'm an educator. I'll talk to 02:23:06.229 --> 02:23:08.329 people who want to learn. Because if you're an 02:23:08.329 --> 02:23:11.670 educator, that's what you do. Is that most effectively 02:23:11.670 --> 02:23:15.069 done in the universities? Not self -evidently. 02:23:15.370 --> 02:23:17.469 And so now I'm trying to figure this out. You 02:23:17.469 --> 02:23:19.510 know, like, I like my job at the university. 02:23:20.909 --> 02:23:23.209 U of T has treated me well, apart from this scandal 02:23:23.209 --> 02:23:25.209 thing, but they were kind of taken aback by it. 02:23:25.290 --> 02:23:26.649 They didn't know what to do about that. You know, 02:23:26.670 --> 02:23:29.469 it was a new law. And when I made the video criticizing 02:23:29.469 --> 02:23:32.549 Bill C -16, I said, I think that making this 02:23:32.549 --> 02:23:35.770 video is probably illegal in and of itself. Was 02:23:35.770 --> 02:23:38.510 there controversial moments in your career before 02:23:38.510 --> 02:23:43.610 that? No. Wow. No. I mean, it surprised me because 02:23:43.610 --> 02:23:47.229 I've always, I would say that the content of 02:23:47.229 --> 02:23:51.290 my lectures has been atypical. But it's been 02:23:51.290 --> 02:23:53.530 atypical in a good way. Like, the student response 02:23:53.530 --> 02:23:56.229 to my lectures has always been, well, extremely 02:23:56.229 --> 02:23:59.350 good. Extremely good. I'm always surprised that 02:23:59.350 --> 02:24:01.649 I was able to teach what I'm teaching because 02:24:01.649 --> 02:24:04.250 I always thought that it was, like, insanely 02:24:04.250 --> 02:24:07.649 revolutionary. But it was revolutionary in a 02:24:07.649 --> 02:24:10.350 really, like, in a scholarly way. You know, like, 02:24:10.409 --> 02:24:12.590 I'm a careful scientist. I'm a careful thinker. 02:24:12.629 --> 02:24:14.469 I think things all the way through to the bottom. 02:24:14.610 --> 02:24:17.549 And I'm really self -critical. Like, when I wrote 02:24:17.549 --> 02:24:20.659 Maps of Meaning, which was my first book, I suspect 02:24:20.659 --> 02:24:24.920 I rewrote every sentence at least 15 times. It's 02:24:24.920 --> 02:24:26.739 probably more than that. And I really literally 02:24:26.739 --> 02:24:28.940 mean rewrite it. So I take the sentence out of 02:24:28.940 --> 02:24:31.920 the paragraph, put it in another document, write 02:24:31.920 --> 02:24:35.100 like 10 variants of the sentence, and then pick 02:24:35.100 --> 02:24:37.680 the one that was best. And I did that. Like it 02:24:37.680 --> 02:24:39.920 took me 15 years to write. I did that over and 02:24:39.920 --> 02:24:41.860 over and over. And so what I was, I'd write a 02:24:41.860 --> 02:24:44.659 sentence and then I'd think, okay, have I got 02:24:44.659 --> 02:24:47.030 all the words right? Every single word. Is that 02:24:47.030 --> 02:24:49.469 the proper words? The proper phrase? Is the proper 02:24:49.469 --> 02:24:52.129 sentence? Do I believe that this sentence is 02:24:52.129 --> 02:24:54.770 true? Then I'd think like of 10 ways I could 02:24:54.770 --> 02:24:57.250 attack it and see if I could break it apart and 02:24:57.250 --> 02:24:59.649 find out what it was wrong. And I only kept the 02:24:59.649 --> 02:25:02.270 ones that I couldn't destroy. And like I was 02:25:02.270 --> 02:25:05.690 going out full force to destroy them because 02:25:05.690 --> 02:25:09.590 I wanted to come up with a, you know, I wanted 02:25:09.590 --> 02:25:12.569 to produce a book that I could not break no matter 02:25:12.569 --> 02:25:15.930 what I did. And so I spent 15 years on that. 02:25:16.030 --> 02:25:17.850 And then that was the basis. Well, it's the basis 02:25:17.850 --> 02:25:19.829 for 12 Rules for Life. It's been the basis for 02:25:19.829 --> 02:25:21.690 all the lectures I've done and so forth. Like 02:25:21.690 --> 02:25:25.270 I can't see where it's wrong. And mostly what 02:25:25.270 --> 02:25:27.329 I was trying to do was to see where it was wrong. 02:25:27.469 --> 02:25:29.569 And I can't get underneath it. I can't break 02:25:29.569 --> 02:25:32.270 it. That's what's so fascinating to me about 02:25:32.270 --> 02:25:38.409 all this stuff. And not to overly exaggerate 02:25:38.409 --> 02:25:40.329 the significance of this, but just to be completely 02:25:40.329 --> 02:25:42.750 honest about it. You're the right guy for the 02:25:42.750 --> 02:25:45.649 job, and it's sort of found you. It's real weird 02:25:45.649 --> 02:25:46.989 because there's not a lot of people that are 02:25:46.989 --> 02:25:50.389 that meticulous about their thoughts and about 02:25:50.389 --> 02:25:52.170 their work and about their writing and about 02:25:52.170 --> 02:25:55.510 their criticizing their own ideas to the point 02:25:55.510 --> 02:25:57.329 where they break them down, try to break them, 02:25:57.370 --> 02:25:59.270 try to tear them apart. I had a big problem. 02:26:00.049 --> 02:26:02.510 So when I started to write Maps of Meaning, I 02:26:02.510 --> 02:26:04.610 thought, okay, what's the situation? This is 02:26:04.610 --> 02:26:07.409 the Cold War. We've divided into two armed tribal 02:26:07.409 --> 02:26:12.579 camps, and we've decided that. settling the difference 02:26:12.579 --> 02:26:16.559 between us is worth risking being itself. We 02:26:16.559 --> 02:26:19.260 could drive everything into extinction. We're 02:26:19.260 --> 02:26:21.159 willing to take that chance. It's like, what 02:26:21.159 --> 02:26:24.139 the hell is going on? So I wanted to know two 02:26:24.139 --> 02:26:27.559 things. What was truly driving the tribalism 02:26:27.559 --> 02:26:31.680 of the Cold War, including the generation of 02:26:31.680 --> 02:26:34.120 that vast nuclear arsenal? Because that just 02:26:34.120 --> 02:26:37.139 seemed to me to be insanity taken to the final 02:26:37.139 --> 02:26:41.610 pinnacle. So I wanted to know that. And I wanted 02:26:41.610 --> 02:26:44.350 to know, okay, having figured out why that's 02:26:44.350 --> 02:26:46.770 happening, what could be done about it so it 02:26:46.770 --> 02:26:49.750 would stop? And at the same time, I was also 02:26:49.750 --> 02:26:52.370 studying what had happened in Auschwitz with 02:26:52.370 --> 02:26:55.670 the Nazis and all of that. And so it was a very 02:26:55.670 --> 02:26:58.190 serious problem. And I actually wanted to have 02:26:58.190 --> 02:27:00.729 the answer. I actually wanted the answer. I didn't 02:27:00.729 --> 02:27:03.170 want to write an interesting book about it. It 02:27:03.170 --> 02:27:04.930 wasn't even that I wanted to write a book exactly. 02:27:05.680 --> 02:27:07.479 It was just that writing a book was the best 02:27:07.479 --> 02:27:09.739 way to figure out the problem, because writing 02:27:09.739 --> 02:27:12.459 a book is so rigorous, you know, because you 02:27:12.459 --> 02:27:15.100 think, but you can only remember so much. You 02:27:15.100 --> 02:27:17.159 have to write it down, because then you can remember 02:27:17.159 --> 02:27:18.739 way more, and you can write, and then the next 02:27:18.739 --> 02:27:20.620 day you can go back and think, okay, I'm going 02:27:20.620 --> 02:27:23.139 to take that goddamn argument apart. I'm going 02:27:23.139 --> 02:27:24.940 to see if there's anything about it that's weak. 02:27:25.700 --> 02:27:28.620 And so, and I think I did figure it out. I think 02:27:28.620 --> 02:27:32.379 I did figure it out. So, and then when I... Well, 02:27:32.459 --> 02:27:34.200 and then I started lecturing about it. And the 02:27:34.200 --> 02:27:36.760 lectures were always unbelievably well regarded. 02:27:36.860 --> 02:27:39.040 Like people, the kids in the classes would always 02:27:39.040 --> 02:27:41.079 write for the evaluations at the end of the year. 02:27:41.180 --> 02:27:43.899 80 % of them would say, and this happened for 02:27:43.899 --> 02:27:46.260 20 years, they'd say, this class changed everything 02:27:46.260 --> 02:27:48.180 about the way I look at the world. It's like, 02:27:48.239 --> 02:27:50.079 yeah, that's what happened to me too when I wrote 02:27:50.079 --> 02:27:52.120 that book. It's like, I didn't think the same 02:27:52.120 --> 02:27:54.760 way at all when I was done. I started to understand 02:27:54.760 --> 02:27:56.780 what these ancient stories meant. It was like 02:27:56.780 --> 02:28:01.479 shocking. Never recovered from it. Wow. Listen, 02:28:01.540 --> 02:28:05.239 you're out of time. Thank you. Always. 12 Rules 02:28:05.239 --> 02:28:08.860 for Life, An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson. 02:28:09.100 --> 02:28:12.700 I made a discount for your viewers again for 02:28:12.700 --> 02:28:14.940 the future authoring program. Okay, so what do 02:28:14.940 --> 02:28:17.680 they have to do? Rogan. Just use Rogan, and how 02:28:17.680 --> 02:28:20.219 do they get to the website? Selfauthoring .com. 02:28:20.420 --> 02:28:22.920 Okay. Yeah, and I'll send you a link for that. 02:28:23.040 --> 02:28:24.940 Thanks a lot. Thank you. And also, thanks for 02:28:24.940 --> 02:28:28.299 everything. Really, you are the portal into this 02:28:28.299 --> 02:28:31.290 weird world that I'm in. And people say that 02:28:31.290 --> 02:28:32.850 all the time. They come up and say, look, I heard 02:28:32.850 --> 02:28:35.469 about you on Joe Rogan. It's like thousands of 02:28:35.469 --> 02:28:37.309 people have told me that. Well, it's been an 02:28:37.309 --> 02:28:39.750 honour. It's been an honour. I appreciate it, 02:28:39.770 --> 02:28:40.809 sir. Thank you. You bet.