Latest / Drawn of History / Joe Rogan Experience _1070 - Jordan Peterson(M4A_128K)

Transcript

Joe Rogan Experience _1070 - Jordan Peterson(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Four, three, two, one. Boom, and we're live. 12 rules
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: for life. So without reading this, so what you're saying is....
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: There's only 12 things you need to know in life, right?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: That's it?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This interview that you just did with this woman,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Kathy Newman, was that in the UK?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: It was, Channel 4, UK.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I just went... I felt bad, but I was also laughing.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I went to her Twitter page and... to read like,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and with each one of her tweets, no matter what
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: she says, someone writes underneath it. So what you're saying is,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and then some ridiculous, but by the way, So your
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: fans were mocking her, but politely, non-aggressively. I didn't read
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: any rude things. There was no insults or, well, maybe
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a few insults, but there's no swears. It was just
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: playful mocking of the interview that she did with you
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: because the interview was ridiculous. It was a ridiculous interview.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I listened to it or watched it several times.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is so strange. It's like her
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: determination to turn it into a conflict. It's one of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the issues that I have with television shows.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Because they have a very limited amount of time and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: they're trying to make things as salacious as possible. They
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: want to have these sound bites, these clickbait sound bites.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And she just... went into it incredibly confrontational, not trying
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to find your actual perspective, but trying to force you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to defend a non-realistic perspective.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. Well, I was the hypothetical villain of her imagination, essentially. Well,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: what happened was interesting too, the way it played itself out,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: because I met her in the green room beforehand, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: she was being made up and then they put a
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: little bit of powder on me. And We had a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: friendly kind of interchange. And then we went and sat
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: in front of the cameras for a couple of minutes,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: you know, before the show got rolling. And we had
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a pretty pleasant back and forth. And then as soon
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: as the cameras went on, she was a completely different person.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And I thought, oh, I see. It's a trick. I
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: see what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that kind
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: of alerted me to, well, the fact that there was
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: something rotten in the state of Denmark, let's say. Yeah. But,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: you know, this is also why YouTube is going to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: kill TV. Because television, by its nature... all of these
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: narrow broadcast technologies, they re they rely on forcing the story, right?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Because it has to happen now. It has to happen
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: in like often in five minutes, because they only broadcast
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: five minutes of that interview. They did put the whole
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: thing up on YouTube.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: To their credit.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It, it, It hasn't ceased to amaze me yet.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I think that they thought that the interview went fine.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: That's the scuttlebutt I've got from sort of behind the scenes,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: because I know some people who know what's going on
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: at Channel 4, and they're shell-shocked by the response. And then,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: of course, there is the counter-response. The Guardian the next
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: day published an article saying that You know, the head
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: of Channel 4 had to call in police security because
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of threats. You know, well, first of all, you can
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: call the police in about anything. And they never did
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: detail out exactly what the threats were. You know, but
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: then about 20 newspapers picked that up and went for the... Well,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Kathy Newman is now being harassed by an army of
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: online trolls for doing nothing but doing her job.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Which.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I... And then there was a backlash against that
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: in the press. So, it's been a... Well, I.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Well, someone took an audit of the actual interchanges between
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fans and her. And there was way more negative ones
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: coming your way. Yes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: That were seriously negative. Yeah, that's right.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Seriously negative, violent, harassing, just rude. There were way more.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And no one picked up on that at all. It
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: was all the narrative was she's a victim. Even though
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: she was highly aggressive in this.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: She's a funny victim. It's not like she's not successful.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: At some point you think you should have to hand
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: in your victim card. I think like when you go
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: to an Ivy League university, it's like right then and there.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Because you don't get to be oppressor and oppressed at
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: the same time. That's just too much.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that you pointed out was
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: when you were talking about competition for very lucrative jobs
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and you were saying, look what you've done. You must
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: have had to work here. And she proudly was saying
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: how hard she had to work to get there. I'm like, well, yes,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of course. No one's going to hand this to you. No,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: definitely not. And this is why you were saying you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: are opposed to equality of outcome.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Equality of outcome. I can't imagine anything we could possibly
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: strive for in our society that would make it into
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: hell faster than equality of outcome. Like the historical evidence
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: for the pathology of that root is so strong. It's
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: like you have to be historically ignorant beyond belief or
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: malevolent or resentful beyond comprehension in order to think that
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: that's a good idea. to argue for that.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. But I think that even if
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you came into this with no knowledge of history, but
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a complete understanding of human beings, you would say, well,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense. And one of the best
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: quotes that I've ever read about it is that if
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you have real true freedom, you're never going to have
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: equality of outcome. Because with real true freedom, you have
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the freedom to not to engage. Well, look, if you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: look at a guy like Jeff Bezos, for instance, that
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Amazon guy is worth more money than anybody ever, right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: That guy works all day. I mean, he's a maniac.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He's acquiring all these different companies and everything he's doing
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: is designed to succeed. I mean, he's just.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Fanatical about it. Well, that's what Gates just said, too,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: in a recent interview. And I know some guys that are,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: you know, they're in approximately the same universe as those two.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And they just work.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: All the time. That's all they do. All the time.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And they don't just work. They work so efficiently and
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: so effectively. and make use of every second in ways
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: you can't even imagine unless you're in that sort of position. And,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: you know, doing that doesn't mean that you will succeed,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: but not doing it certainly means that you will fail.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Well, not doing it certainly means you will never achieve
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that level of success, and that's what we're talking about.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: We're talking about equality of outcome. I don't want that.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be that guy. I don't want
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: to work like that. I don't want to do what
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: he's doing, and I should have the freedom to not
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: do that, as he should have the freedom to do that.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: If we're going to play this game called capitalism, which
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: we're all agreeing is probably at least in– As far
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: as the models that we have right now is the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: best one that we have. If we're all going to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: play this game, if someone decides to be the Michael
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Jordan of capitalism, you can't stop them. You can't say, no, no, no, no.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: You're playing this game too well. You're playing this game
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: too hard. You're too obsessed with this game. You're going
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to have that.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can stop them. You can try to stop
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: people from winning crookedly, which is what you should do. And,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a couple of things that are really
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: worth delving into with regards to that too, because there's
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: this sort of Marxist notion that all this inequality is
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: generated as a consequence of capitalism. And that's actually technically false.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Because if you look at, there seems to be something
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: like a law of nature that's described by this statistical
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: model called the Pareto distribution. And it basically suggests that
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: in any creative domain, there's going to be a small
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: number of people will do almost all of the output.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't just apply to human beings. It applies
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to the heights of trees in the Amazon rainforest. It
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: applies to the size of cities. And it applies to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the mass of stars, which is something like... The more
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: you have, the more you get. It's something like... You
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: can imagine how that would work with a star as
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: it gets bigger and bigger and its gravitational mass increases.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: It's going to attract more and more matter. And then
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: as a city grows, well, more and more people are
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: excited to move there because of all the opportunities. And
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: so some cities start to grow tremendously and others don't.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: But this....
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: This phenomena where a small number of people end up
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: controlling a tremendous proportion of the resource is not only
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: limited to money, and it doesn't only occur in capitalist societies,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: it occurs everywhere. It's like a natural law. So you
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: see the same thing with number of points scored by a,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: you know, a spectacular sports figure. There's always a tiny
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: proportion of people who are way ahead on the curve,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: or people who make records, or people who sell paintings,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: or people who compose music, or people who sell music online.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: It's all the same. It's the 1% gets 80%. And so, well, first,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: we can't blame that on capitalism. And second, we should
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: note that it actually does constitute a problem, which is
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: what the left-wingers are always jumping up and down about, right?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Like too much inequality starts to destabilize your society. And
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: it isn't obvious how to shovel money from the top end,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: maybe the one-tenth of 1% who have almost all the money,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: down to the people who have almost nothing in a
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: way that's effective. So that they don't get thrown out
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: of the game completely and so that the whole society
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't destabilize. We don't exactly know how to do that.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: It is a problem because inequality does exist and it
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: does tend to magnify across time. And then there's another
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: problem too, which we haven't figured out is imagine that
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: in order to make everyone rich, you have to tolerate
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: a certain amount of inequality. It seems obvious. We don't
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: know how many units of inequality you need to tolerate
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: per unit of wealth generated. But the answer is definitely
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: not zero. It's definitely not zero.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it goes back to this equality of outcome idea.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: And this thing has perplexed me since I've met you
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and since you were involved in this original debate over
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: gender pronouns. And there was an article that was written recently.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I forget the exact title of it. I think it
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: was something along the lines of why can't people hear
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: what Jordan Peterson is saying.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: You are misrepresented more than anyone I know in a
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: weird way. You are villainized in a weird way where
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that these people are on looking at
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: your opinions and coming up with these conclusions. I can't
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: help but feel like what is happening is people are
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: consciously deciding to ignore reality and paint you as this
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: archetypal figure of oppressive people. White male patriarchy, ignorance, fill
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in the blank with all the rest of the descriptives
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that you'd like to use. But they've decided to paint
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you in this way like as a target because they
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: need a target to sort of reinforce this idea that,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: transgender people are being victimized and women are being victimized.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Well, even deeper that the right narrative is the way
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: that we should view the world is victim versus oppressor
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: because that's the basic postmodern neo-Marxist template. It's the right
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: way to view the world is that it's a power ground.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: It's a battleground of power interests competing constantly. The ones
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: that win are oppressors. The ones that lose are oppressed.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: That's the way you look at the world. And I
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: think that that's wrong. That's a bad way of looking
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: at the world psychologically, sociologically, politically, economically, ideologically, you name it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: It ends in nothing but catastrophe. I mean, first of all,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: because it puts your group identity as something that's paramount.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: And I mean, that's just not, well, that isn't what
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: we do in the West, let's say. We put your
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: individual identity paramount. And then, well, that's just for starters, fundamentally.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And then I guess the other reason that people are,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: on my case to some degree is because I have
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: made a strong case, which I think is fully documented
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: by the scientific literature, that there are intrinsic differences, say,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: between men and women. And I think the evidence in that,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: this is the thing that staggered me, is that no
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: serious scientists have debated that for like four decades. That
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: argument was done by the time I went to graduate school.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Everyone knew that human beings were not a blank slate,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: that biological forces... parameterized the way that we thought and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: felt and acted and valued. Everyone knew that. The fact
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that this has become somehow debatable again is just especially
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: because it's being done by legislative fiat. They're forcing it.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: To me, as a scientist, it's just, well, in the States, too,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: with Title IX, for example, because Title IX is sort
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: of predicated on that viewpoint.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: What is Title IX?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, Title IX was originally just a piece of legislation
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: that mandated that female sports teams were funded to the
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: same degree that male sports teams were funded in American universities.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: But it's been expanded out so that if there's any
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: differences in any areas whatsoever between the genders... then the
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: universities are being taken to court. And like 200 of them,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, last I looked, about 200 of them were up.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And they can have their funding revoked if they violate
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the Title IX provisions. So it's become like a vicious
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: weapon for social justice warrior equality of outcome types.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So it's not just about sports.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: No, it's got way, way beyond that. Yeah, it's become
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: an equality of outcome issue fundamentally.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: There was an article that I sent you. One of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: them was from, I think, I got it off of dig.com,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: but it was Jordan Peterson is having his moment and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we should ignore him. I sent this to you and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: there was one part.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: The last part of that might be true.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But one of the things in the article was citing
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: this study that showed very little difference between men and women.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I read that damn study. Oh, God, it's
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: a pathetic study.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I said it to you because I was like,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: this is not right.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing is, like most things, it's complicated.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: You know, so are men and women more similar or
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: more different? Well, it depends on how you define the
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: terms first. But they're more similar. Well, why? Well, they're
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: the same species. So we could start with that. But
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the question is, what are the differences and how do
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: they manifest themselves and are those manifestations important? So here's
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: an example. If you took a random woman out of
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the population and a random man, and you had to
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: bet on who was more temperamentally aggressive. If you bet
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: on the man, you'd be right 60% of the time.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: But you'd be wrong 40% of the time. And that's
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: not a walloping difference, right? 60-40. It's not 90-10. So
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of overlap between men and women in
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: terms of their levels of aggression. And you think, well,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: they're more the same. Yeah, except.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So then let's say, no, no, let's play a slightly
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: different game. Let's pick the one in a hundred most
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: aggressive person from the random population. Well, they're all men.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: And that's why all the people in prison are men.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So even though on average, men and women, well, yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: it's 90, 90, 90 to 95%. Right. So, and often
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: if the women are in prison, it's because they got
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: tangled up with a really bad guy, you know? So,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: so one of the problems is, is that, Differences at
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: the extreme are where the differences really start to manifest
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: themselves and so you can have a small difference at
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the level of the average but Out at the extremes
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: it starts to make a massive difference So let's say
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: to be a Google engineer Which is hard right because
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: you not only have to be an engineer, but you
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: have to be a very good engineer say well You
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: have to be interested in things rather than people that's
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: that's a huge difference in interest like men are more
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: interested in things and generally speaking, and women are more
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: interested in people, generally speaking. Now, there's still a lot
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: of overlap between them, but that's one of the biggest
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: differences between men and women. It's been demonstrated cross-culturally. It's
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: also a very big difference in the Scandinavian countries. On average,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: the difference isn't that great, even though it's a relatively
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: large difference. But at the extremes, it's the same thing.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Almost all the people who are hyper, what would you call,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: hyper-focused on things, they're almost all men. And all the
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: people who are hyper-focused on people are almost all women.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And so how does that play out in the world? Well,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: in the Scandinavian countries, it plays out this way. About
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: 85% of nurses in Scandinavia are female. And about 85%
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: to 90% of engineers are males. It doesn't mean women
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: can't be engineers. It doesn't mean men can't be nurses.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: It also doesn't have anything to do with intelligence. But
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: it does have to do with interest, and the differences
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: in interest are big. Now, at the extremes in particular. So,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: when you read a review like that, the one that
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: was pointed out, the first question is, well, what do
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: you mean by big and little? There's more overlap. There's
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: more overlap between men and women than there is difference
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: on virtually every parameter. Okay, fine. Are the remaining differences
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: significant in how they play out in the world? And
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: the answer to that is overwhelmingly significant because you select
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: for extremes. So here's another example. Ashkenazi Jews have an
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: average IQ of 115. So in the typical population overall
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: has an average IQ of 100. 15 points is about
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the difference between the typical college student and the typical
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: high school student. Okay, so it's not a massive difference,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: but if you go to the extreme, say, well, let's
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: go look at people who only have an IQ of 145,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: which is kind of where you hit the beginnings of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: genius level. It's like the Jews are overwhelmingly overrepresented. So
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: relatively small differences in the average can produce walloping differences
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: at the extremes. People don't understand that. It's not surprising,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: because it actually requires a fairly sophisticated grasp of statistics.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: But when we're talking about things like differential outcome in
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the workplace, then you have to take a sophisticated statistical
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: approach to it, or you don't know what the hell
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: you're talking about. And unfortunately, many of the people who
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: are talking about things like gender differences, they have no
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: idea what they're talking about. They don't know the literature.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: They don't know there is a literature. They don't understand biology.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Like the social constructionist types, the women's studies types, the neo-Marxists,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: they don't give a damn about biology. It's like they
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: inhabit some disembodied universe. So the review was poorly written
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: at best and showed a very poor grasp of the
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: relationship between group differences and economic and practical outcomes.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: It's not just that. It's deceptive. And there's a need
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in some way on that side, this side of the debate,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the anti-Jordan Peterson side, to label men and women as
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: being virtually identical. When there's so much evidence that that's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: not the case. And what you're saying, what you've never said,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: one is superior, one is inferior. What you are is
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a guy who's pointing out the reality of the difference
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: between the various types of human beings. And you've been
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: very open about. the extremes. Look, I'm well aware of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the extremes. I deal with MMA fighters. I know a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: lot of female MMA fighters are as aggressive and as
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: tough as any man you're ever going to meet in
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: your life. And I know a lot of men from
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: comedy that are meek little guys who they're not nearly
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: as aggressive as some of these female fighters. I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: one of the beautiful things about freedom is that people
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: get an opportunity to express themselves in a way that's
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: genuinely them.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: And whether that is like our friend Alex Honnold, who's
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a free climber, who is like climbing up these fantastic
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: mountains with no ropes, or whether it's a female MMA
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: fighter like Raquel Pennington, who's just a tank and– beating
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the shit out of people. And that's what she loves
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to do. All of these extremes are available to people
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: because of freedom. This is not a suppressive thing. No
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: one's stopping people. from choosing these paths. I don't know
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: if you saw the most recent slip up by the
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: CEO of YouTube. I retweeted it today. They were talking
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: about why there's not as many women in tech. And
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: She basically said, they both, her and the CEO of Google,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: said exactly what James Damore was saying in his memo.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: They completely fucked up. They tried to, did you find this?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Look at this. This is goddamn hilarious. And James Damore
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: had this on his page. They respond, women, a lack
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: of tech. No, go to James Damore's tweet. Just go
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to what I retweeted and what he said.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: So there was a study published a while ago about– No, Jamie,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: scroll back up.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's right there. It's right there. Just make his tweet larger.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: There you go. Look, see, he's saying, did I read
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: this right? I don't know how to say her name.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Susan Wojcik– I'm sorry. I don't know how to say
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: her name. W-O-J-I-C-I-C-K-I said that women find geeky male industries
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: as opposed to social industries– not very interesting. And Sundar
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: cites research on gender differences.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: That's exactly the difference in interest that I just pointed out.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right. This is what James Damore wrote in
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: his memo that got him fired. And this, in my mind,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: if I was the lawyer for James Damore, I'd be like, oh, well,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: look who we have here. This is checkmate. You dummies.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: You just said what he said. The Damore story is
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: really interesting, you know, because I think it's such a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: classic story of an engineer getting tangled up in politics. So,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Demore went to this diversity seminar and he wasn't very
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: happy about it because he knew the literature. And so
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: at the end of the seminar, they asked for feedback. Well,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: James Demore is an engineer. So when you tell an
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: engineer that you want feedback, the engineer thinks, oh, you
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: want feedback and you, and you want like facts and stuff, right?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Cause that's what feedback would be like. So Demore went
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: and wrote this like thorough memo and gave it to them.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: He said, well, you know, this is what I think.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Here's some feedback. And then it, traveled around, he got
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: no real response from the diversity people, and then he
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: posted it on one of these internal boards at Google
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: where people can discuss things, which people at Google do
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: all the time. So it was perfectly reasonable for him
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: to post it because he didn't get a response from
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the diversity people. He thought, well, let's see what other
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: people think. And then it was there for a long
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: time until it was leaked into the outside world. It
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: wasn't like DeMora was trying to expose Google for what
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: it is. He was just doing what an engineer type
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: would do when someone asked him to provide feedback because
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: he's not thinking politically. He's not thinking, oh, they just
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: want to hear what they already said. He thought they
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: actually wanted some facts. Anyways, I think they picked on
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: the wrong guy. Because DeMond turns out to be pretty
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: damn tough. Well, he's very smart and a very kind guy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: When you sit down and talk to him, he's not
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: a sexist. He's a guy that's talking about facts. In fact,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: he wrote more than a page and a half, I believe,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: on strategies for getting more women interested in tech.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: He's not a sexist. This is just a guy that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: was talking about the differences in the choices that people
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: make that's based on Just the variations that you were
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: just discussing.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Well, there's a good study done a while ago, and
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: unfortunately I don't remember the author, but they were looking
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: at junior high math prodigies. And they're pretty equally distributed
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: between boys and girls. But by the time university came along,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the math prodigy boys, they tend to go into the
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: STEM fields, but the girls wouldn't. And it isn't because
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: they lacked ability, because they had stellar ability. It's because
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: they weren't interested. And it turns out, like the interest
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: thing turns out to be a big one, so... With
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: personality alone, if you measure men and women's personalities, and
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: then you add up all the differences in personalities, you
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: could tell with about 75% to 80% certainty by looking
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: at a full personality readout whether a person's male or female.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: So you'd be wrong 25% of the time, something like that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But if you add interest to that, you can get
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: it up to about 90%. And so, you know, you say, well,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: are these differences large? Well, individually, they're not that big.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: They make more difference at the extremes. But if you
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: add them up, then you can almost completely differentiate men
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: from women. So by that token, they're very large. And
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the interest thing actually turns out to matter a lot.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Like it's probably the most important individual difference that has
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: been discovered between men and women at the psychological level.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: It has real decent explanatory power because you might say, well,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: men have a slight edge in spatial intelligence and that's
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: why they're overrepresented in STEM fields. And women have a
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: slight edge in verbal intelligence. This is debatable, but literature
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: kind of indicates that. And that's why they're overwhelmingly the
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: majority of fiction readers, for example. Is that the reason
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: that there's differential representation in the STEM fields? It's like, no,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem to be. It doesn't look like it's
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: an intellectual issue, which is also what Damore pointed out,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: by the way. He never said once that this was
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: a cognitive issue. But it's a matter of choice, matter
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: of interest. And women tend to be more.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: people-oriented.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Now, the thing is, this has also been discovered in
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: chimpanzees and other primates. Like, if you offer baby or
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: child chimpanzees, juvenile chimpanzees, the choice between thing-like toys, like cars,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: or people-like toys, like dolls, the males will go for
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: the thing-like toys and the females will go for the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: people-like toys. So you see that in primates. And you think, well,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: is that surprising? It's like, well, no, it's not that surprising, really.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, Women have to take care of infants, tiny infants.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: And you have to be really people-oriented to do that
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: because a tiny infant is an unbelievably demanding social relationship.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And it's a primary relationship for about two years. And
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: so women are tilted towards the kind of temperament that
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: makes that possible. It's like, well, is that such a shock?
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: That's such a surprise?
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: No, it's not a surprise. And what's confusing to me
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: is the narrative that anybody that points out these differences
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: is somehow a sexist or discriminatory. Yeah, worse.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Well, whatever epithet they can... Well, I think
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the other reason that the radical lefties have been going
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: after me constantly is... Well, there's... One reason is if
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: you stand up against the radical left, you're in a
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: group that also has Nazis in it. Because the Nazis
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: also stand up against the radical left. So it's perfectly
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: reasonable from a strategic perspective for the radical leftists to say, well,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: you're against us. How do we know you're not a Nazi?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, statistically, statistically, I'm probably not. You know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: so there's that. But you could say at least the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: question is open. But then the next part of it
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: comes is that it's motivated epithet slinging because... if I'm
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: reasonable and I'm standing up against the radical left, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: they admit that I'm reasonable, then there has to be
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: an admission that reasonable people could stand up against the
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: radical left, which kind of implies that the radical left
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: isn't that reasonable. And so while they're not going to
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: go there, of course, they're not that reasonable. They're unreasonable
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: beyond belief, as we saw in the situation with Lindsay
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Shepard in Canada. So at Wilfrid Laurier University.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that real quick, because that was a
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: fascinating thing too. And that also had to do with you.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So she was discussing you in class and you could
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: fill up, fill in everybody.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's in the communications, in the communications department at
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Wilfrid Laurier. And they were talking about the role of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: language in communication, which is kind of what you would
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: do in a communication class. And she decided to show
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: a five minute clip from a program I had done
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: for TV Ontario, which is a public television station, mainstream, left-leaning,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: liberal television station, news program, and a good one, a
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: good one. And I had been on there with a
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: number of other people, including a professor, Nicholas Matt, from
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the University of Toronto, who claimed, essentially, that there were
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: no biological differences between men and women, and that had
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: been the scientific consensus for the last four decades. So anyways,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: she showed a clip from this, and, well, she got
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: hauled in front of two professors, and an administrator, Adria Joel,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: who was basically hired for that purpose, and raked over
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: the coals for daring to show this video. And she
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: had the wherewithal to tape it. And then she made
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the tape public. And in that tape, they compared me...
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: It was really blackly comical, you know. They compared me
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: to Hitler. But then said, well, it's Hitler or Milo Yiannopoulos.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: I thought, you guys, you're so damn clueless, you can't
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: even get your insults right. It's like, you can't say...
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: That's like playing a video of Hitler or Milo Yiannopoulos.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: It's like, first of all, Hitler and Milo Yiannopoulos, they're
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: actually not in the same category, right? Except that they're
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: both human. That's about the narrowness of the category. And
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: then Milo's like a comic provocateur, and you can hate
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: him or love him or be indifferent, but To put
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: him in the same category as Hitler just shows how
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: muddle-headed you are. And then to assimilate me to that
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: category so carelessly. Like, you don't mess about with epithets
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: like that. You know, Hitler was one of the great
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: supervillains of the 20th century, right? I mean, he's up
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: there with Stalin and Mao in the panoply of satanically
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: possessed leaders. You don't just toss that around, especially not
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: when you're torturing your teaching assistant for daring to show
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: a video about language in a communication class. And so
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: that was a massive scandal in Canada. I think it
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: was the biggest scandal that ever hit a university in Canada.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And it got a lot of international attention, and rightly so.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And she also turns out to be a tough girl.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, the last I heard, she'd started a club
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: at Wilfrid Laurier, and I think it was last night
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: or the night before, maybe it's coming up, they're going
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: to show the whole video from Television Ontario at a
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: club meeting and invite people to come and discuss it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It's like they picked on the wrong girl there too.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So they certainly did. She's obviously very smart. You can
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: hear that in her discussion with them and how flabbergasted
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: she was by their take on things. But this was
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: essentially proof to a lot of people that were on
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the outside of how preposterous some of the dialogue was
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: inside these universities.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they couldn't have done me a bigger favor
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: than having that scandal. Because when I made videos about
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Bill C-16... 15 months ago, I said, look, here's what's
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: going to happen because this legislation is written in an
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: appalling manner and the surrounding policies are pathological. I said,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: here's what's going to happen. And so I laid it out.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And then people came out and said, No, you're being paranoid.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It's like, that's possible. No, the bill, the legislation isn't
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: going to have that effect. No, you're not a legal expert.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: What the hell do you know? Et cetera, et cetera.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: You're crazy.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You're a bigot.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: You're a transphobe. You know, they threw everything but the
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: kitchen sink at me. And like, fair enough, you know,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: because there's always a possibility that I was wrong. But
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the problem was, is I read the policies and I
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: understood them and I knew where they were leading. But
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I never imagined that one of the consequences of Bill
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: C-16 and its sister legislation was that teaching assistant at
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: a Canadian university would be pilloried and accused of breaking
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the law and then accused of all sorts of Reprehensible
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: political beliefs by two professors and an administrator hired for
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: that purpose Merely because she showed a video about two
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: people talking about the law it's like that that paranoid
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: as I am let's say and that exceeded the grasp
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: or the reach of my imagination. And then, of course,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: it was made public and people just couldn't believe it.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And then you think, okay, well, what's the defense? Well,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: they misinterpreted Bill C-16. It's like, no, I don't think so.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: They aren't representative of the university professor at administration. Well,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: all of Pimlott and Rambucana's colleagues rose to their defense,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: the whole department rose, The university, when they apologized, did
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: it in a very mealy-mouthed way. Like, there's no evidence
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: that it was an anomalous occurrence. So what had happened
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: is they overextended the reach of Bill C-16 in exactly
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: the way that I said would happen. It was inevitable.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't an anomaly. It was actually, that's actually
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the way that the universities are. And it is the
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: way that they are. It wasn't a one-off. It was
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: exactly diagnostic. And it's appalling. It's appalling. The universities have
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: so much to be ashamed of. Well, there was an
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: article in the Boston Globe this week saying the same thing,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: that all of this crazy postmodern identity politics, equality of
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: outcome nonsense, is not only disrupted the university in a
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: way that might be irreparable, as far as I can tell,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: but it's rapidly spreading outside into the normal, say, business world,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: which is exactly what you see, for example, at Google.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Well, the tech industry in particular seems to be more
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: left-leaning than pretty much any industry there is. And I
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: guess it's because there's so many intelligent people there, so
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: many people that have spent a tremendous amount of time
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: in universities, and they get indoctrinated into this mindset. And
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you're seeing that in the CEO of YouTube's response to
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the James Damore memo, completely misrepresented it. They're talking about
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: harmful gender stereotypes. That's not what he talked about at all.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: What what's fascinating to me about all of this is
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: it it just reeks of tribalism that these people on
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the left have decided. I mean, and I'm mostly on
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the left, which is really crazy. I mean, when it
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: comes to most policies and most thoughts of equality and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and the idea of just letting people be who they are.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's what the left used to stand for.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: It used to stand for being open minded. It used
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: to stand for. being a reasonable person. Now it seems
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: to be all about this very toxic tribal ideology. And
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why so many of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: these attacks on you are so baffling to me, is
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: because there's a willful ignorance or a deceptive narrative. There's
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a deceptive description of who you are and what you're
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: saying and what you represent. And it's this conveniently categorized,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: not even convenient, willfully deceptively categorized into these categories of homophobia, transphobia, sexism.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: These are reprehensible categories that if they can just shove
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: something that you're saying, figure out a way to push
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you into this little narrow confined, then everyone has to
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: disagree with you. Everyone has to insult you And everyone
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: has to take that girl into their office and chastise
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: you for not even speaking up for you.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Right. And she said she wasn't.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Yes. That's what was more fascinating about it than anything.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they gave her hell for that. It's like, well,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you can't present something like that neutrally. That's like presenting
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: something Hitler said neutrally or maybe Milo Yiannopoulos.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: It's so strange. But what they don't understand, and this
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: is what's really crazy, is that the world– is watching
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and that most people, maybe it's a 60-40 like we
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: were talking about before when it comes to aggressive women
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: versus aggressive men. I don't know what the number is.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's about 50 to 1 actually. Like I've
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: been watching the comments on YouTube and so forth trying
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: to track this. It's like I think that like I
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: think that what the radical leftists are doing is overwhelmingly
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Unrepresentative of the general population overwhelmingly, but they're they're a
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: very well organized and and verbal and Prepared minority and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: they've occupied powerful positions in many many institutions HR and
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: one of the things I really can't figure out right
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: now and for anybody who's running a company that's listening
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: they should think this through and Like, to let these
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: postmodern neo-Marxists into your company through the guise of human
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: resources is an absolute catastrophe. You're going to pay for that. This,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the ideology that drives postmodern neo-Marxism, this identity politics, what,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: the identity politics movement and its insistence on equality of
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: outcome is a powerfully anti-capitalistic. It's powerfully anti-Western. Why you
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: would let that into your company? so that you can
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: look good socially, let's say, is beyond me. It's a
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: big mistake.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, but I don't think people are
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: aware of it. I think part of the problem is
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: this battleground is largely ignored by the general population. I
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: don't think most people are aware of what's going on.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: You are, because obviously you're deeply embedded in the university
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: system in Canada, and you're obviously now branching out into
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: YouTube and podcasts and all these different ways to get
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: this information out, but The average person that is a
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: CEO of a company, they're concerned with their own company.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: They're concerned with their own individual needs. They're concerned with
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: organizing things and keeping their bottom line.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, they're also concerned with looking fair and making
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: sure that they're not prejudiced and all of that, which
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: is laudable.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: I just don't think they see the wave coming.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: No, they don't. They don't see it coming. They don't
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: understand it. And they're incautious about it. But they're going
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: to pay for it. Well, Google is a good example
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: because now Google is in court. on the feminist end
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: for like being prejudiced against females and also on the
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: conservative end for being prejudiced against conservatives. It's like, well,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: so both camps are after them. And I think, well,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: why is that? It's like, well, that's what happens when
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: you play identity politics, this tribalism, but this is really
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: what I can't stand about identity politics. And I've been
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: warning about the consequences of on the right wing too.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Cause what I see happening is that as the left, Like,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: let's say the left gets to define the linguistic territory,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: which was what I was objecting to in Bill C-16.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: When it came out, I said, look, I'm not going
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: to use these neologisms, Z and Zer, etc. Because as
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned, they have nothing to do with it.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: People who don't know what you're talking about. A bunch
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: of different made-up gender pronouns to describe people in a
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: non-male or female way.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: That's right. So there's like 70 different categories of non-binary
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: gender or something like that generated now. And there's lists
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: of pronouns that hypothetically the people who are in those
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: categories can choose to be addressed by. And now that
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: has the force of law. And so, and I don't
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: care if they choose to be addressed by those pronouns, whatever,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: that's up to them and whoever else they can convince
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: or ask or entreat or negotiate with, fine. As soon
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: as it's law, that's a whole different story. Okay, so
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: now I have to use a certain terminology. So then
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I look at the derivation of the terminology. I say, oh.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: That's terminology generated by the postmodern neo-Marxists. Oh, well, I
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: think those people are reprehensibly murderous. So guess what? I'm
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: not going to say their words, period, because I know
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: what they're like. I know where that leads. Okay, so.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: But most people think that that's a gigantic step to
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: go from... saying you don't want to say Z or
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Zer or any of these made up gender pronouns to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: these are murderous people.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: The ideology is murderous.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: The ideology being Marxism.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Well, Jesus, how much proof of that do you need?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: But most people don't understand Marxism. Like when you're saying this,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: like when you were so adamant about it, I had
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: to start reading about it myself and I had to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: start doing a lot of research about it myself. And
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I think most people hear Marxism and they think socialism.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: They think populism. all your money together, you know, making
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: things more even for people.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like they are in Venezuela. Everybody has an equal
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: chance to starve to death. So you know how the
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Venezuelan government solved the problem of kids starving to death
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: in hospitals?
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: How?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: They made it illegal for the doctors to report starvation
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: as the cause of death. Right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: That's Venezuela in a nutshell. Yeah. Everyone's equal there. That's horrible.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: They all have the same number of bones to gnaw on.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a horrible thing.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a horrible thing.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Undeniably. But there's no, like, the connection between gender pronouns
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and murder.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: It's a big leap. Yeah, that's for sure. That's for sure.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Well, that's why you have to look at the underlying ideology.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And you think, well, what is the level at which
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: these things should be addressed? Well, is it economic? Is
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it political?
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Or is it personal? Or is it the beginnings of
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: this ideology? And you understand where the roadmap leads. You
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: understand the X at the end of the road. Yeah, right.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, and I think that's why I recommend it
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: to people continually to read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. So, actually,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: there's a set of books that lay this out perfectly.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: You read... Dostoevsky wrote a book called The Possessed, or
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: The Devils. And it's a description of the initial breakdown
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: of Orthodox Christian society in Russia in the late 1800s,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: and the rise of radical socialist ideas. So it's sort
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: of like the prodroma to the Russian Revolution. It's a brilliant,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: brilliant book. Brilliant book. And it concentrates on the personalities
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: that are involved. And then if you read after that,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, where he details what he does in
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: that book, is quite remarkable. So, He says, look, there
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: were tens of millions of people killed from 1919 to
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: 1959 in the Soviet Union. And as a consequence of
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: internal repression. And it's so dreadful that words can't do
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: it justice. I mean, it's absolutely dreadful what happened in
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. I mean, just for starters, 6 million
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Ukrainians died in the 1930s because of enforced starvation. In fact,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: in the 1930s, here's how terrible it was. So, all
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: the food that the collective farmers, newly collectivized farmers had produced,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: which wasn't very much, by the way, was taken from
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: them and brought to the cities. So, all the farmers
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: starved to death. Now, here's how draconian it got. So,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: let's say you were the mother of some children and
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: all your grain had been shipped off to the cities,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: and you thought, well, I'm not going to have my
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: children starve to death. I'm going to go out in
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: the field, and I'm going to, on my hands and knees,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to pick up the grains that are
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: left over that the harvesters didn't get, and I'm going
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: to feed those to my kids. That was punishable by death.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: You were supposed to hand in those extra bits of
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: grain so that they could be shipped to the city
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: as well. So that was just the beginning of the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: fun in the Soviet Union. And what Solzhenitsyn did was say, look,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: This wasn't a consequence of the Marxist system gone wrong.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: This was a consequence of the Marxist system. It was
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: inevitable consequence of the axioms of the Marxist system. And
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: then he lays that out. And it's, I think he
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: got it right.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: And what is that connection?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: That's why he won the Nobel Prize.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: But what is the connection?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: How much tyranny you have to impose in order to
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: produce something like equality of outcome. And Thomas Sowell's talked
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: about this a little bit too. He said, what the
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: people who are agitating for equality of outcome don't understand
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: is that you have to cede so much power to
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: the authorities, to the government, in order to ensure equality
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: of outcome that a tyranny is inevitable. And that's right.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: And another problem with equality of outcome, this is also
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: a big technical problem, is like, well, what measure of outcome?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: You know, there's lots of outcomes. Like, how happy are you?
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: How much pain are you in? How healthy are you?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: How much money do you have? How much opportunity for
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: movement forward do you have? What's the width of your
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: social connections? Like, what's the quality of your friendships? Do
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: you have exposure to art and literature? Like, you know,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: you can multiply the number of dimensions of evaluation between
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: people innumerably, right? Because there's all sorts of ways to
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: classify people. You're going to get equality of outcome on
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: every one of those measures? It's like everyone going to
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: have to be equally happy in their relationship. And if not,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: why not? Why stop with economic? Why stop with pay?
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: There's no place to stop. So, and that's a huge
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: technical problem. Because there is no place to stop, there
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: will be no stopping. It's like nobody can have anything else.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Nobody can have anything that everyone else doesn't have at
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: the same time. That's the ultimate outcome of equality of outcome. Well,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: you think about what that would mean.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: It's terrible.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Well, instantly you think, oh, well, there's nothing but a
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: tyrannical system could impose that.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Have you ever debated a Marxist supporter? Have you ever
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: debated someone who is pro equality of outcome?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: No, they don't debate me. Well, the only, the closest
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: thing I think was to that was the debate I
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: did at the University of Toronto about the Bill C-16 issues.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: But they didn't actually have a debate. They had a forum,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: which is the postmodern equivalent of a debate. It's supposed
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: to be friendlier, I suppose. Um, but no, uh, I
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: haven't because people don't do it. They don't ask me
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: But what is it about that idea or that ideology
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: about Marxism that's so attractive to young students and to
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: university professors?
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. I think it goes back
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: to the issue of inequality. And this is something that
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: has to be dead seriously addressed. It's like you might say, well,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: why is the left wing necessary? Let's put it that way.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: And then a subset of that would be, well, why
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: is the left wing attractive? Well, the left wing is
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: necessary because inequality does spiral out of control. And so
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: there has to be a political voice for the dispossessed.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: And you don't want people to stack up at zero,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: you know, where they can't play the game at all.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: It's a bad idea. Not only do you not... If
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: people stack up at zero, they're too poor to get
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: ahead at all, let's say. They're too poor to open
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: a bank account. They're too poor to buy enough food. Like,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: they're stuck at zero and they can't get out of it.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: It's a really bad scene because, first of all, that's
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: a lot of suffering. And that's not so good. Second
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: of all, well, at least in principle, a lot of
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: those people might be... might have something to offer the world,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: or their children might, and you want to open up
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: avenues of opportunity to them so that they can succeed,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: but so that everyone else can benefit from their success. So,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: and then the next thing is, well, if the inequality
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: gets out of hand too much, then the whole society
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: starts to destabilize, because if you get enough people stacked
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: up at zero, especially young men, you get enough young
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: men stacked up at zero, they think, oh, to hell
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: with it, we'll just flip the whole board over, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: It'll settle in a new configuration, and maybe we won't
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: be stuck at zero in the new configuration. So it
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: foments revolutionary thinking. So there's lots of reasons to be
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: concerned about inequality. And so you need a voice on
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: the left to say, look, we've got to parameterize the
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: tendency towards inequality so that it doesn't destabilize the entire society,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: so that everybody has an opportunity to advance. Like, yes, right,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: you need that. Okay, so that's the technical reason for
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the necessity of the left. And then I think it's
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: attractive because, well, because young people can be resentful, partly
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: because they're at the bottom of the heap, so to speak.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: They're not because they're young.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Like, look, you.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Want to be poor in 18? You want to be
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: rich in 80? Which are you going to choose?
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Most people are going to take poor at 18. Well, yeah.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Especially if you've been rich at 80 and you understand
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: you can get back there.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's the thing, you know, is that... Most
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: of the people who have a million dollars or more
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: in the United States are old. Well, why is that? Well, really,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: do we need an explanation for that? It's like you've
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: had a lot more time to make money. How would
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: that be? That's the explanation. So that's one of the
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: big drivers of inequality is just simply age. But it's
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: not obvious that the old rich people have an advantage
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: over the young starting out people. So anyways, but anyhow...
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're resentful and irritated because you're young and you're
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: still at the bottom of the heap. And, you know,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: you've got other problems, too. It's more difficult for people
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: of your race or ethnicity or gender, at least you
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: think it is. And so you say, well, I want
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: to make things fair. And then that's also driven by
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: some real compassion because nobody really likes that. The consequences
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: of radical inequality, like nobody likes the fact that homeless
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: people exist and have to go to the emergency ward,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: you know, to get treated and they don't have medical
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: coverage and they have to live in tents on the street.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: And so if you have some compassion, then you think, well,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: we got to do more for the poor and dispossessed.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, that's, that's an understandable sentiment. But the
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: problem is, is that the people, but the problem is,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: is that it's that, that, that desire to help is
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: contaminated by resentment and ideological certainty. And then also by
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: something that George Orwell pointed out so nicely in his book,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: Road to Wigan Pier. It's like the typical middle-class socialist,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: this was his diagnosis. And he was a socialist, by
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: the way. His diagnosis was the typical middle-class intellectual socialist
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: doesn't like the poor. In fact, they don't have anything
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: to do with the poor. They're contemptuous of the poor,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: but they hate the rich. And I think it's even
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: more devious than that, because I think who they hate
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: are the successful. Some of the successful are rich, but
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: really who they hate is the successful. It's like Cain
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: and Abel. It's the retelling of Cain and Abel. And
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: so there's some positive motivations for being engaged on the left,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of negative motivations as well. And
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: the people who are really driven by the radical left ideology,
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: the real radicals, they're almost all driven by... by resentment
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: and hatred, as far as I'm concerned. Now, let's look
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: at both extremes. So, back to the idea of the
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: ideological and verbal territory. I said with Bill C-16 that
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't speak the language of the radical leftists because
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think that that language should define the game.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: But let's say it does. So here's the game. The
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: world is a battleground of groups and they're battling for power.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: That's the game. And some of them win, and they
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: oppress those who don't win. So that's how we're going
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: to view the world. Okay, now the leftists say, okay, well,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: here's the oppressed people. The oppressors, the patriarchal types, they
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: should be ashamed of themselves and give up some power.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: The right-wingers, the radical right-wingers look at that and they say, oh,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I see, so the game is ethnic identity, is it?
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: It's identity politics. Okay, we're white males. We're not going
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: to lose. That's the right-wing version of identity politics. It's like,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: screw you. If we're going to divide into groups, if
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: we're going to divide into tribes, and I'm in my tribe,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to get all guilty and lose. I'm
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: going to get all cruel and win. And that's like,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: then you think, well, there's people in the middle. They're
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: kind of looking back and forth. Which side of the
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: identity politics spectrum am I going to fall in? Do
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I want to go with... Do I want to go?
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Do I want to be driven primarily by compassion? And
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: am I going to accept guilt for my historical privilege?
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: So that's one possibility. And then I'm the oppressor. I'm
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the member of the oppressor group. Or am I going
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: to say, oh, no, to hell with that. I'm just
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: going to play to win. Well, then I'm going to
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: go to the right. It's like, well, my sense is,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: how about we don't play either of those games? And
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: the reason we shouldn't play them is, well, the Soviets
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: played the left-wing game and like killed, Who knows how
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: many tens of millions of people. You can't even count
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: it accurately. The estimates range from 20 to 100 million.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Those are pretty big error bars. And the Maoists, maybe
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: 100 million. Certainly 60 million. So, okay, that didn't work
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: out so well. And then there's the Nazis. Like, they
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: played ethnic identity politics and racial superiority. It's like, we
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: want to play that game? See, what I've been trying
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: to do, really, what I've been trying to do for
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: the last 30 years is say, look, There's heavy temptations
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to play those sorts of games. But that's not the
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: only game in town. It's a much better game to
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: play individual. It's like, get your act together. Stand up
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: in the world. Make something of yourself. Stay away from
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the ideological oversimplifications. Set your house in order. That's rule
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: six in this book. So I have a book rule
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: in there says, set your house in perfect order before
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: you criticize the world. And it's a very dark chapter
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: about the motivations of the Columbine high school killers and
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: this other guy named Carl Panzram who was a serial
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: rapist and arsonist and murderer. And these, he wrote an
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: autobiography and the Columbine kids also wrote about why they
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: did what they did. They're resentful to the core, bitter, bitter, resentful, terrible. And, well,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: I'm suggesting that people stay away from that resentment, resentfulness
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: and bitterness, even though life is hard and there's malevolence
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: in the world. It's like, yeah, You can tell a
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: story where everyone's a victim because we all die. We
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: all get sick, you know, and things happen to us
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: that are bitter and terrible. Betrayal, deceit, lies, like people
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: hurt us on purpose, you know, so it's not just
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: the tragedy of life. It's malevolence as well. Everyone's a victim.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: You can tell that story. The problem is if you
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: tell that story and you start to act it out,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: you make all of that worse. That's the problem. And
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: so this is why partly I got attracted to Christian imagery,
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: at least in part. Because there's an idea in Christianity
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: that you should pick up your goddamn cross and like
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: walk up the hill. And that's dramatically, that's correct. That's
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: the right answer. It's like you've got a heavy load
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: of suffering to bear and a fair bit of it's
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: going to be unjust. So what are you going to
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: do about it? Accept it voluntarily and try to transform
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: as a consequence. That's the right answer. It's the right
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: answer because the rest of it is tribalism. And we're
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: too technologically powerful to get all tribal again.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: What's exciting to me is that I think this is
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the first time in my life that I've ever seen
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: so much communication on these subjects. And I think so
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: much recognition about the consequences of tribal, toxic tribalism, this
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: tribal thinking that everyone seems to be engaged in on
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the right and on the left. I mean, in America,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: you need to go no further than going back and
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: forth from CNN to Fox News to say something's wrong here.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: These are supposed to be news outlets. You have two
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: completely different narratives. And that has nothing to do with
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about with gender politics and radical left
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: socialism and Marxism. What you're seeing in universities, though, is
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: a radical departure from from what I always considered universities
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: great for. What I always considered universities great for is
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: separating from your parents, challenging belief systems, and being engaged
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: in the works of brilliant people who you can compare
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: all of their findings and their discoveries and sit down
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and debate them in class. And when I was a kid,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I went to a
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: very good high school, Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that they did is they
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: put on a debate between a guy from the moral majority,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: which was this right wing Christian group that I don't
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: even know if they're around anymore. But this was 19.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: I was 14. So 81. And Barney Frank, who was
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that congressman, is now one of the first openly gay
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: guys in Congress. And you got to watch these two
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: people in this auditorium. debate their points. And this moral
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: majority guy had this, you know, right wing Ronald Reagan
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: sort of puke point of view. And Barney Frank, who's
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: kind of crazy. I mean, he's got busted in some
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: male prostitute scandal and, but the gay community, that's not
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that big of a deal. And, uh, Just– Barney Frank
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: took them apart. It was brilliant to watch, but it
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: was a real debate. It was fascinating. And you got
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: to see a mediocre mind versus a great mind. And
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: you got to see this little thing. And I was like, wow.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: This is– and it's one of the things that's always
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: attracted me about the idea that two people– with differing viewpoints,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: can get together in front of a neutral audience and
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: these people can sort of decipher which way these people
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: are thinking and why they're thinking.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, bad as that is and rife with conflict
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: as that is, the alternative is to separate, as you
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: pointed out, into two camps that don't talk. Yes. And
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: the thing is, the consequence of not talking is that
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: you fight. That's the end game. Because the only way
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: you can stop from fighting with other people is by
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: negotiating with them. And, you know, one of the things
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: that's also interesting, and this is partly why Silicon Valley
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: leans to the left, is that a fair bit of
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: your political preference is determined by your biological temperament. It's
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: strongly influenced. So if you're a creative type who's kind
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: of disorderly, then you're likely to be on the liberal
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: left end of the distribution. And if you're a non-creative
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: type who's orderly and and especially if you're orderly, then
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: you tend to be on the right wing end of things.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: And so, and well, why is that? Why do those
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: variations exist? Well, they exist because some of the time
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: your best strategy is to do what other people have
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: done and shut the hell up and just do it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Run the algorithm, right? The pathway's already laid clear. It works.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Stay in the damn rut and move forward. Okay, so
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: that's the conservative approach. And when things are going right,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: it's the right approach. The problem is, is that sometimes
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: it's not the right approach because something is shifted. And
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: so something new has to emerge. And so then there's
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are adapted to the new.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: And those are the.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Entrepreneurial and creative types. And of course they dominate Silicon
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Valley because it's a very entrepreneurial, it's a very entrepreneurial,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: what would you call it? Geography. And so they're going
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: to lean.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: To the left.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: But they have to understand, people have to understand that
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: the left and the right need each other. The liberals
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: and the conservatives need each other. Liberals start companies. Conservatives
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: run them. And the problem with the conservatives is, well,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: they can only run a company in one direction because
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: they're conservative. They don't think outside the box. But so
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: if the company is working and the product line is
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: good and everything is stable, like hire some conservatives because
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: they'll maximize efficiency and they'll move down that track. But
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: if the track is no longer going in a good
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: direction because something's changed, the environment's changed, well, then you
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: got to bring in the creative people. And so we
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: need each other. And the only way that we can
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: survive The fact that we're different and the fact that
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: we need each other is by continually talking. We have
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to talk constantly. It's like, well, how much of what
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: we're doing should we preserve versus how much of what
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: we're doing should we transform? And the answer is, we
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: don't know because the environment keeps changing. So what do
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: we do about that? We talk. I was on a CBC,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview a couple of days ago and
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: they took me to task. I tweeted out this invitation
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: to the Keck Boys. to fill out this program that
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I developed called Future Authoring, and it helps people make
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: a plan for their life. Yeah, well, they're an online group.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: They run Kekistan. It's this fictional polity. It's a satire
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: of identity politics, essentially. We're going to be our ethnicity.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: Highly demonized satire. Highly demonized satire, right. And with good reason,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: with some individual examples of racism and Nazism. Oh, yeah.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. There's lots of misbehavior. Yeah, yeah. It's like graffiti.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: It's like online graffiti. Right. Something like that. So, and
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: the Keck boys are the ones who are often using
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: the peppy memes, for example. And, you know, the left
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: regards peppy as a hate symbol.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Peppy the frog.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Peppy the frog.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: The feels good frog.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. Kind of reprehensible frog. And so
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I tweeted out to them. I said, Keck boys, seek
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: your 4chan, rescue yourself from the underworld, use code Peppy.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: for future authoring. So it's free for one week. So
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: they had to figure out what it meant. And then
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: I showed this picture of Michigan J. Frog, which is
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: the frog from old Warner Brothers cartoon, Dancing Frog, that
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: wouldn't perform when anyone was watching it. So CBC hauled
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: that out and said, well, look, aren't you appealing to
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: the radical right? And I said, well, no, what I'm doing,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: I said, look, these people are attracted by the radical right,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: although they're satirists and juvenile satirists and graffiti types and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: you know, they're they're playing a weird satirical game. They're
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: having fun being naughty. Yes, that's exactly what they're doing.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: They're they're provoking and I my sense was well, why
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: don't you develop yourself as an individual and get the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: hell out of the ideological trap? So here's my program
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: which helps you write about your future and that'll help
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: you decide who you are as an individual because that's
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: the way out of the ideological trap. It's like and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: that's the way obviously what's the way out of tribalism? First,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: The way out of tribalism is not to never join
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: a tribe. You actually have to join a tribe as
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: you mature, right? Because what happens is, first of all,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: you're an infant. And then you have your parents to
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: make a relationship with. But then when you move from
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: your parents, you have your tribe. You have your group.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's the music you listen to. It's the gang
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: you hang around with. Whatever. You have to be socialized
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: into the tribe. You have to. Because otherwise you stay
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: a dependent infant. Okay, but now you're socialized into the tribe. Well,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: is that where it ends? It's like, no. The next
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: thing to do is differentiate yourself from the tribe while
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: still knowing how to behave within the tribe. Well, that's
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: the call to individualism. And that's, I think, what the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: West got right. We figured that out. It's like, you're
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: more than you're... You have to be a member of
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: a group because otherwise you're not socialized. You're not good
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: for anyone. You have to be able to play on
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: a team, man. You have to have team loyalty.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: But that isn't where you should stop. You should take
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: the next step and become a fully developed individual. And See,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: the problem with being just a group member is that
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: the group, it's the problem with conservatism. The group is
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: a fixed entity. It has its rules and its regulations.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: And if you're a member, that's all you are. But
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: the group can go badly wrong. So the group needs
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: individuals to keep the group alive and revivified. So you
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: have to become an individual so you can revivify the group.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: That's the call in the West to heroism, essentially, to
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: noble way of living is to develop yourself past your
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: group identity so that you can reconfigure the game when
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: that becomes necessary. And I think that there's a very
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: influential line of developmental psychology pioneered by Jean Piaget that
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: laid that out as a developmental.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Progression.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: First, you're a child, then you're a member of a group,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: then you're an individual. It's like get to the individual level.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: That's the solution. It's a solution to tribalism. But you
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: have to accept responsibility to do that.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: And this is what your future authoring program is basically
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: all about. I mean, it's a wonderful program. And along
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: with this book, Rules and Guidelines for Life, I think
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: that's one of the things that a lot of young
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: people are lacking is a structure to how to go
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: about establishing who they are in the world.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Well, that's, you know, what's really cool, and it's been
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: really quite, Remarkable I would say is that what I've
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: noticed when I've been speaking publicly say over the last
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: year and a half Because there's a hole in our
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: culture where there should be a discussion about maturity truth
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: and responsibility No one's talking about that. Okay. So now
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: I'll come up and I'll start talking about that. I'll
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: say look like What should you do with your life? Well,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: take care of yourself but take care of yourself in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: a way that also means that simultaneously you're taking care
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: of your family and And that, and also means that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: simultaneously you're taking care of the broader community. So that's
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: kind of your goal. So orient your self towards that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: personal success, but in a way that your success breeds success.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Because if you're going to establish an aim, why not
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: establish like a really good aim? That's a good one.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: It's good for you. It's good for everyone else.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Yes. Okay.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: That'll give your life some meaning. Now adopt, make a plan,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: generate a vision. That's what the future authoring program helps
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: people with. Make a, develop a vision of what your
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: life could be like if, if it was worth living,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: despite all its suffering. It's like, what would you need
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: so that you would be happy to be alive? You'd
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: find your life meaningful. So you don't get all bitter
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: and resentful and cruel and hostile and ideologically addled and
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: like murderous and genocidal. It's like none of that. You
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: think real hard. How would you have to configure your
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: life so that despite its suffering and the malevolence that's
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: part of it, that you would regard it as worthwhile?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: So that's up to you to develop a vision. Then
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: put a plan into practice. And so when I talk
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: to people about this, and most of my audiences are
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: young men, it's probably about 65, 35. More and more
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: women are showing up, but that's about what it is
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: right now. The halls are dead silent. You can hear
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: a pin drop. Because nobody's said so clearly for like
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: 50 years that almost all the meaning that you will
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: need to get you through the hard times of your
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: life is going to be a consequence of adopting responsibility.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Not of rights and impulsive action. Impulsive freedom. Like, fine, rights, yeah,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: got it. Freedom.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: No problem.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: Even freedom to do impulsive things. Fine. But that isn't
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: where you're going to find the meaning that keeps you
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: sustained through the storms of life. That's going to be...
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: You take care of yourself. You take care of your
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: intimate partner. You take care of your damn family. You
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: don't run off. You take care of your community. You
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: rescue the wisdom from the past. You stand up straight
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: and you be courageous despite the fact that life is
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: tragic and tainted by malevolence. It's like that's the... Ancient wisdom.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: That's what that is.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And understanding that there's structure and discipline and that, you know,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I am in a lot of ways, both of those
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: things you described earlier. I'm in a lot of ways.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: My mind is creative and I'm always sort of half.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: paying attention to things, but I'm also disciplined. And it's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I think I so relate
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to both sides of this issue.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: It's also one of the reasons you're successful.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: I could have easily been some hardcore right-wing asshole. I'm
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: a competition-oriented person. I've been since I was a child.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: I grew up competing in martial arts tournaments. And you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: have to be a hard person to do that. You
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: have to understand what discipline is. But before that, I
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: was an artist. I wanted to be a cartoonist. I
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to do comic books. That's what I wanted to do.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be an illustrator. If it wasn't for
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: one bad teacher in high school that totally shied me
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: away from art, I probably would have went into that
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: as a living. When I look at both sides, I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: see myself in both sides.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the other thing I've been telling young men
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: is that, and this is something I think that you
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: could relate to tremendously, is I read this New Testament line, well,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: it decades ago, and I could never understand it. The
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: line is, the meek shall inherit the earth. And I thought,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: there's something wrong with that, that line. It just doesn't
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: make sense to me. Meek just doesn't seem to me
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: to be a moral virtue. And so... I did a
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: series of biblical lectures this year, like 15 of them,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: and that was also a weird little experience that we
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: can talk about. But I was looking through these sayings,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: these maxims, and that was one of them. The meek
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: shall inherit the earth. But I've been using this site
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: called Bible Hub, and it's very interesting. It's organized very interestingly.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: So you have a biblical line, and then they have
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: like three pages of commentary on each line. And so
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: because people have commented on every verse in the Bible.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Like to the degree that's almost unimaginable. So you can
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: look and see all the interpretations. And all the translations.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: And get some sense of what the genuine meaning might be.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: And the line. The meek shall inherit the earth. Meek
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: is not a good translation. Or the word has moved
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: in the 300 years or so. 300 years or so
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: since it was translated. What it means is this. Those
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: who have swords and know how to use them. but
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: keep them sheathed will inherit the world. And that's another
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: thing I've been telling, yeah, no kidding.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: That's a lot different.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: That's a big difference. It's so great. And so like
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: one of the things I tell young men, well, and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: young women as well, but the young men really need
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: to hear this more, I think, is that you should
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: be a monster. Because everyone says, well, you should be harmless, virtuous.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: You shouldn't do anyone any harm. You should sheath your
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: competitive instinct. You shouldn't try to win. You don't want
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: to be too aggressive. You don't want to be too assertive.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: You want to take a back seat and all of that.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, wrong. You should be a monster, an
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: absolute monster. And then you should learn how to control it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Do you know the expression, it's better to be a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly. That's exactly it.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly right. And so when I tell young
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: men that, they think, well, lots of them are competitive.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: They're low in agreeableness, you know, because that's part of
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: being competitive temperamentally. It's like, is there something wrong with
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: being competitive? There's nothing wrong with it. There's something wrong
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: with cheating. There's something wrong with being a tyrant. There's
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: something wrong with winning unfairly. All of those things are bad,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: but you don't want people to win. What's the difference
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: between trying to win and striving? You want to eradicate striving?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Well, it's the uncomfortable feeling that people associate with losing.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: When they've personally experienced it, they look at losing as
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: they've been oppressed or they've been hurt. But what they
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: don't understand is that is the motivation for growth. And
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful things... that I think a
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: young person can get involved in is martial arts, because
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: martial arts teach you that in a way that very
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: few things do. They teach you it in especially jujitsu,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: because jujitsu is so complex and And there's so many
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: possibilities to it that it attracts a lot of really
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: smart people. If you think of jujitsu, you would think
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: of like brutish individuals engaging in this hard martial art.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: If you go to a real good jujitsu school, you
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: see nerds. You see a bunch of like really smart
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: kids that really get obsessed with the possibilities of this
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: physical language. This physical language also teaches you the consequences
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: of not working hard, of not being prepared, of not
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: understanding positions, of not doing due diligence and doing the work.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: And it's an amazing... but amazing scaffolding for developing your life.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: It also teaches you how to lose.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: You know, and that's very important. One definition of a
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: winner is someone who never let losing stop them. Yes.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: You know, and the idea that a single loss in
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: a competition is somehow a defeat is completely insane. First
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: of all, well, let's say you're a hockey player and
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: you're a good player and you lose the tournament. It's like, well,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: so what? You played the game. You're increasing your skills.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: It's like, there's always next time. And one of the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: things that I've also been telling people, informing people about
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: is the idea that life isn't a game. It's a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: series of games. And the right ethic is to be
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: the winner of the series of games. And part of
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: that means you all you have to learn how to
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: be a good loser because you're not going to win
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: every single game.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: But you also have to embrace those losses as learning experiences.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: And the people that have never lost are afraid of losing.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: They're afraid of learning. You're afraid of that feeling, that
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: terrible feeling that you get from losing is so beneficial.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: It's aided me in so many ways. Like it's one
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: of the reasons, also one of the reasons why I
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: talk so openly about bombing on stage and I do
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: it with other comedians. I always want to tell people, yeah,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: I'm an established comedian. I've been a comedian for a
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: long time. Let me tell you about like when I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: was two years in or five years in or, Or
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: four years ago. Let me tell you about some horrible
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: moments on stage where it went wrong. Just so you understand,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: like those things took me to another place because I
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: realized I don't want to ever feel that feeling again.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: And so I ramped everything up and then I went
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: back to work and I went over my notebooks and
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: I went over my recordings and I figured out what
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I was doing wrong and I tried to improve upon it.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: But if it wasn't for that horrible, sick feeling, that's
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: the same feeling you get when you get tapped out
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: in jujitsu class. Same feeling you get When you lose
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: a martial arts tournament or anything else, losing is important.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you might also say, like, let's say that you
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: can pick your level of competition in life to some degree. Okay,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: so let's say you pick a level of competition where
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: you're always winning. It's like, well, all that means is
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: you've picked the wrong level of competition.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Because, you know, like... let's say you're a grandmaster chess
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: player and all you do is play amateurs and every
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: night you go home and congratulate yourself on what a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: genius you are because you just stomp these people left,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: right and center. It's like, you're not a genius, you're dimwit.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: What you should be doing is playing people who are
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: beating you like, well, as much as you can tolerate.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: So maybe that's 40% of the time, maybe it's 60%
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: of the time. But that way, because to be a winner,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: you want to be disciplined, you want to know what
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: you're doing and then you want to be on the edge.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: where your skills are being developed. And if you're going
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: to be on the edge where your skills are going
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: to be developed, you're at a place where loss, where
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: losing is always a possibility. Because otherwise you're not pushing
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: yourself beyond your current capacity. And so one of the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: things that I've outlined in 12 Rules for Life is
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: a theory of meaning. Because meaning, as far as I'm concerned,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: that sense of meaningful engagement is the antidote to malevolence
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: and suffering, essentially. Because you want to have a life
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: that's so engaging that you think, despite the fact that
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: I'm limited and that we're mortal and that life is
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: tragedy and there's evil in the world, despite all that,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: this is worth doing. And I think that there's a
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: technical meaning that genuinely exists. And that's the meaning that
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: you get when you're in a domain where you have
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: some discipline and some skill. So you're laying out your
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: competence and your ability. But you're simultaneously pushing yourself to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: develop past where you are. That's really engrossing. And what
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: that is doing is expanding your competence. And so life
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: is suffering and betrayal in many senses of the word.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: But you can adopt a way of traversing through life that...
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: is more powerful than the tragedy and the malevolence.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: I agree, and I say to many people that what
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: is going on in your life is you have a
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: series of human reward systems that are in your body,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: encoded in your body, in your genetics, and it's the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: reason why human beings survived to 2018. In order to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: be happy, you have to feed those things. You have
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: to feed all of them. You have to feed the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: one that wants to overcome difficult tasks. You have to
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: feed the one that wants to solve problems. You have
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: to feed the one that wants to be with a
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: loving tribe of people that you care about. You have
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: to feed the one that wants to procreate. You have
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: to feed all of these things. You have to feed
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the love. You have to feed the competition. You have
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: to feed the discipline. And that, to me, is the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: only way to stay balanced. Or with me, with my
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: body and my mind, that's the only way I've been
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: able to stay balanced. And when any of those things
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: get out of whack, I get out of whack.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so part of that is, so imagine this.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: So imagine that you're this loose collection of all these
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: things that need to be gratified, that need to be fed.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: It's a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it biologically. Okay,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: so now you have to conjure up a mode of
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: being that satisfies all those necessities simultaneously. But then, and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: this is a technical explanation of why the postmodernist insistence
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: that there's an infinite number of explanations turns out to
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: be wrong. An infinite number of interpretations. There's a very
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: finite number of viable interpretations. So the first constraint is
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: exactly what you just said. You have these inner demons,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: let's say, all of which need to be satisfied. But
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: they need to be satisfied in a very particular way.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: Not only do they need to be satisfied today, but
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: they need to be satisfied today in a way that
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: doesn't interfere with satisfying them next week, next month, next year,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: and in a decade. So because there's no point in
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: you saying, Betraying your your future self to gratify your
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: present self. It's a stupid game. Okay, so you're constrained
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: by the necessity of Satisfying yourself, but of maintaining that
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: satisfaction across time, but then it gets even worse. That's
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: hard enough But it's like there's an infinite number of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: use Extending indefinitely into the future and all of them
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: have to be satisfied simultaneously, but then it's worse because
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: it isn't just you You have to figure out how
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: to gratify all those internal demons in a sustainable way,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: in a way that other people not only don't object to,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: but probably help you with, and that benefits them at
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: the same time. Well, then you think, well, there just
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: aren't that many ways of solving that problem. And we
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: know some of them. One of them is reciprocity. You know, like,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: if you go out of your way for me, it's
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: incumbent on me to notice that and to attempt in
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: some manner to repay you. And, like, if we're good friends,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: that's what we'll do. If we're good brothers, that's what
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: we'll do. That's what you do with your wife. It's
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: a reciprocal arrangement. And that keeps things flowing properly across time. So,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: there is an ethic. This is the answer to the
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: postmodern conundrum. It's like, well, is life meaningless? Is everything
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: just nihilist? Is nihilism the right answer? Or maybe, you know, the,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: what would you call, identification with an ideology as a
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: counter position to nihilism. So, nihilism is wrong. Life is meaningful.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: And that's what 12 rules for life is about. The
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: first meaning of life is suffering and malevolence. There's indisputable realities. Okay. Well,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: what's after that? Well, there's a noble way of being
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: that allows you to exist properly despite that. And also
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: not to make it worse. So, can your life be
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: meaningful enough so that you... What is it? Confront chaos voluntarily.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Establish and revivify order. Constrain malevolence. That's a good three-part
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: doctrine for life. There's things to do. And so that's
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: what I've been talking to the audiences that I've been
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: seeing over the last year. It's like, get your act together.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: Stand up forthrightly. That's rule one. Stand up straight with
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: your shoulders back. There's a vulnerable position, right? Because you're open.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: But it's a powerful position because it means that you're
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: brave enough to take what's coming. And it isn't like
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: what's coming isn't dangerous. It's dangerous. So, but... your best
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: bet is to be dancing on your feet and ready
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: for it. Pay attention and be awake. And to treat
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: yourself properly, that's rule two, is figure out how to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: treat yourself as if you're someone worth coming to the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: aid of. To detach yourself in a bit and say, okay,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to set up my life so that it's
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: good for me and good for other people as well.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: That's a corollary to that. So the book is all about,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: all about The meanings of life. The negative meanings. Suffering. Malevolence.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Those are indisputable realities. And then a mode of being
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: that integrates the sorts of things that you were talking about.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: These underlying needs. With everyone else's. And like doing that voluntarily.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: It's a call to responsibility and meaning. And I actually
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: think it's not. The thing that's been so exciting for me.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: For the last three decades. Looking into these things. Is that.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: I believe that. There is a genuine human ethic. It's
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: not arbitrary. It has to do with reciprocity. For example,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: it has to do with honesty. That's another thing is
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: that you should speak the truth because your life turns
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: out better if you speak the truth and so does
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: everyone else. else's. So, in this biblical lecture series I did,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: I looked at the first chapter in Genesis. And there's
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: a theory in there. It's a really interesting theory. And
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: the theory is that there's three parts to being. There's
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: chaos and potential. And that would be like the potential
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: you should live up to. Because everyone says, well, you
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: should live up to your potential. It's like, what the
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: hell is that? You can't measure it, or touch it,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: or taste it, or feel it. It's this hypothetical thing
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: that everyone regards as real. It's like the future. What's
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: the future? Well, it's not here yet. You can't measure it.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: What makes you think it's real? Well, we act as
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: if it's real, and that seems to work. So there's potential.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: That's chaos, chaotic potential. Then there's order. And that's the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: structure that you need in order to To confront the chaos.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: And you'd be born with that.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: Biologically.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: And then there's. Your ability to. To call forth from
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: the potential.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: New order.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: That's what you do with your speech. And that's what.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: That's what happens in the first chapter of Genesis. Is that.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: God uses. God order. Let's say. Uses. The power of
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: truthful speech. That's the logos. To transform potential into order.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: And that's what. people are made in the image of.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: So there's this theory, it's a lovely theory that's laid
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: out right at the beginning of the Bible that says
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: that if you tell the truth, you transform the potential
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: of being into a habitable actuality. That's how it works.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: So we say, well, how do you want to, how
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: do you make the world better? Tell the truth. Because
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: the world you bring into being as a consequence of
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: telling the truth will be a good world. And I
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: believe that's true. I think it's true metaphorically. I think
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: it's true theologically. And I think it's true at the
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: practical and scientific level as well. I think it's true
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: in all those levels simultaneously. So that's been ridiculously exciting
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: to sort through.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: I think this notion and one of the things that
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: you said that I think really resonates is that there's
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: not a voice out there that is advocating for responsibility
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: and that is talking about how important this is. And
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: I think this is an inherent principle that most people
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: are kind of aware of. and it feels good to
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: them to hear. It resonates, you feel it. When you're
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: saying this, clean your room, put your house in order.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: People are like, yeah, yeah. How come I'm not hearing this?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: How come I'm not hearing this?
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it's so funny because one of the things psychologists
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: have done for the last 20 years, especially the social psychologists,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: is push this idea of self-esteem. You should feel good
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: about yourself. And I think, why would you tell someone
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: 20 that? It's like, you should feel good about who
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: you are. It's like, no, you shouldn't. Why should you
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: feel good about who you are? It's like you should
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: feel good about who you could be. That's way better
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: because you've got 60 years to turn into who you
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: could be.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: But wait a minute. Are you what your accomplishments are
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: or are you this individual going through this journey? I mean,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling good about
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: who you are as long as it's tempered by an
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: understanding of potential and what you are. have accomplished versus
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: what you can accomplish. But having confidence is a big
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: part of it. It is. It is.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that people shouldn't have confidence, but
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: like often you take young people, say they're 16 to 22,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: and they're not really feeling that good about who they
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: are because their life is chaotic and in disorder and
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: they don't know where they're going and they don't know
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: which way is up.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: Also, there could be bad parenting, bullying, there could be
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of abuse going on. And I think that's
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why that resonates with people, this
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: idea of be happy about who you are. Right. Feel
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: good about who you are.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, it has to be stated with precision.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: It's like you should treat yourself as if you're valuable,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: especially in potential. But you should concentrate on who you
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: should become, especially if you're young. And so let's say
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: you're miserable and nihilistic and chaotic and depressed and all
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: of that now. And you have your reasons, you know,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: terrible parenting, abuse, all of those things. It's like, well,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: you should feel good about yourself. It's like, no, no,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: it's not the right message. It's more like you should
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: understand how much potential there is within you to set
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: that straight. And then you should do everything you can
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: to manifest that in the world. And it will set
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: it straight. And that's better than self-esteem. It's like you're
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: in a crooked, horrible position. Okay, fine. There's a lot
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: of suffering and pain associated with that. Yeah. You can't
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: just feel good about that because it's not good. But
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: you can do something about it. You can genuinely do
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: something about it. And I think all the evidence suggests
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: that that's the case.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: So I'm telling young people, look, no matter how bad
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: your situation is, I'm not going to pretend it's okay.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: It's not okay. It's tragic. tainted with malevolence. And some
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: people really get hurt by malevolent people, like, you know,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: terribly hurt. Sometimes they never recover. It's really awful. But
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: there's more to you than you think. And if you
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: stand up and face it with a positive, with a
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: noble vision, with discipline and intent, you can go far
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: farther to overcoming it than you can imagine. And that's
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: the principle upon which you should predicate your behavior. And
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: I think that One of the things that's really nice
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: about being a clinical psychologist is that this isn't just guesswork.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: Like one of the things, we know two things in
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: clinical psychology. One is truthful conversations redeem people. Because if
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: you come to a clinical psychologist whose worth is salt,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: you have a truthful conversation. The conversation is, well, here's
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: what's wrong with my life. And here's what caused it.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe it takes a year to have that
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: conversation and Both of the participants are doing everything they
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: can to lay it out properly. Here's how it might
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: be fixed. Here's what a beneficial future might look like.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: And so it's a completely honest conversation if it's working well.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: And all that's happening in the conversation is that the
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: two people involved are trying to make things better. That's
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: the goal. Let's see if we can have a conversation
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: that will make things better. Okay, so we know that works.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: It does make things better. And then another thing we
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: know is that, well, let's say there's a bunch of
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: things that you're afraid of that are in your way.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: So you have some vision about who you want to be.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe you have to, you know, you want to be
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: successful in your career. So you have to learn to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: talk in front of a group. It's like, okay, well,
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: you're afraid of that. It's like, no wonder you don't
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: want to be humiliated. So, okay, so what do we
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: do about that? Well, maybe we first get you to
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: speak in front of one person and then three people,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: you know, for five minutes and then for 10 minutes.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: graduated exposure to what you're afraid of, voluntary graduated exposure
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: to what you're afraid of, is curative. And that's true.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: It works.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: The documentation is in. It's how people learn. So to
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: tell people that if you confront the world forthrightly, if
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: you speak the truth, and you expose yourself courageously to
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: those things that you're afraid of, that your life will improve,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: and so will the life of people around you. Like,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned, that's as close to undeniable
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: fact as we've got. And it also dovetails nicely with
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: the underlying archetypal stories, the heroic stories. It's like, go
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: out there. Find the dragon. Confront it.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: It's a dragon.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: It might eat you. It's dangerous. But it's worse to
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: cower at home and wait for it to come and
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: devour you. Go out there. Confront it.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: Get the gold.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: Share it with the community. It's like, yeah, it's the
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: oldest story of mankind.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: I think one of the factors in the resistance to
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: these ideas of discipline and of taking responsibility for yourself
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: and of a lot of the things that you've been
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: saying in regards to all the things that we discussed
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: earlier is people recognizing that they're not doing that in
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: their own lives and they get upset. And instead of
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: looking internally, they try to attack the thing that's upsetting them.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: They attack your message. They attack the philosophy behind it
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: rather than look internally and objectively. And having some sort
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: of introspective point of view where you go, okay, am
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I reacting to this because this resonates? Like I'm missing
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: this aspect of my life. Does this diminish me? Or
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: is this guy pointing something out that I can benefit from?
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: Very few people are willing to do that. Very few
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: people are willing to take that critical moment to look
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: at their own behavior and look at their own thought
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: process and wonder if the actual adverse reaction they have
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: to this person's message is because they know that they're wrong.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: There's a couple of reasons for that. One is, well...
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: what makes you think that you're someone we should listen to?
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: It's like, Hey, fair enough, you know? So you've got
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: to be poked a bunch to see if that's true.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: And then the next thing is, um, well, it's, it's
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: painful to understand how much of what you're doing isn't productive.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: So I'll give you an example. So I've done this
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: a couple of times with classrooms full of students. Usually
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: when I'm lecturing about career development, say, okay, um, How
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: much time do you waste? So then I get the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: class to vote. How many of you waste 10 hours
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: a day? It's like 10% of the kids will put
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: up their hands. And it's interesting because I don't define
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: what constitutes waste. I just ask the question. So they're
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: diagnosing themselves, right? I'm not saying you're wasting 10 hours
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: a day. I'm just asking. It's like, given your own attitude,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: how much time are you wasting? 10 hours a day.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: It's like 10% of the people put up their hands. Well,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: when you get to like six hours a day, 80%
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: of the people put up their hands. So then we
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: do the arithmetic. It's like, because I like doing arithmetic
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: with people. People hate arithmetic, but I like doing it.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, six hours a day. It's 42 hours
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: a week. So let's call that a work week, 40
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: hours a week. So that's a work week. Let's say,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: what's your time worth? You're a university student. Well, it's
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: certainly worth minimum wage because obviously, but it's worth way
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: more than that because if you spend a productive hour
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: when you're 20, then you gain the benefits of that
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: hour for the rest of your life. So there's the
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: compounding effect of time spent when you're young. So I say, well,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: let's assume your time's worth 50 bucks an hour, which
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: I think is an underestimate, but whatever. Let's call it 50.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: We call it 20. but we'll call it 50. That's $ 2, 000
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: a week you're wasting. It's $ 100, 000 a year. It's like,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: how much better would your life be if you weren't
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: wasting $ 100, 000 a year? It's like, what is that over
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: 40 years? $ 4 million. It's like, you're rich. You don't
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: even know it. Quit wasting time. by your own definition.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: It's like people shake their heads. Like, well, I never
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: thought about it that way. It's like, yeah, think about
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: it that way. Don't waste your damn life. And then
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 2: you think, well, why would people be resistant to that message?
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, you really want to wake up and
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: figure out that you're wasting half your life. And, you know,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: when people do that kind of wasting, they actually hate it.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: You know, and I've had lots of people come to
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: my clinical practice who were chronic procrastinators, you know, and
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: so they're watching YouTube videos, say, but not ones that
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: are good for them, although sometimes they will do that,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: but just browsing in that kind of mindless way that
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: you do when you're not paying attention and you're trying
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: to kill time. And people doing that, they feel bad.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: They get depressed. They feel anxious. They can't get away
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: from it. They feel kind of quasi-addicted.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: That's what they're saying about social media now. It's a
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: huge issue with young kids. Absolutely.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: But there's this feeling of kind of internal rot and
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: corruption that goes along with it. It's like, yeah, well,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: you're wasting your life. It's like, so it's painful. It's
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: painful to recognize that. Then it's painful to think, oh
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: my God, look how undisciplined I am. I don't know anything.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: I can't use a schedule. I can't, I can't stick
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: to a calendar. I don't have any aims. I don't
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: know anything about the world.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: And maybe there's a part of me that's bitter because
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: I haven't got everything already. And I'd like, just like
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: to say to hell with it. That's the recognition of
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: the union shadow. It's like, that's what makes you vicious and, and, and,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: and untrustworthy, all of that. No one wants to look
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: at that and no bloody wonder. But hey, the alternative
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: is worse.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: So the problem is you say, like, just saying you
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: stop wasting your life. Like, I think that that's not enough.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: I think this is one of the reasons why a
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: book like this is so important. Like the idea of
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: discipline in most people's eyes is like, if you're not
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: a disciplined person, It's uncomfortable. It's going to be painful.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: It's frustrating. You have to force yourself into these things.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: It's a muscle. And it's a muscle that has to
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: be developed. And these patterns have to be developed in
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: your own mindset.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: Incrementally.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so you're right. Just telling people not to
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: waste their lives is not enough. And this is another
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: reason why I've so much enjoyed being a clinical psychologist.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: Because clinical psychologists don't stick with high-level abstractions. Especially the behaviors,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: they're really practical. It's like, okay, you want to get
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: your act together. It's like, well, how about if, let's
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: say you're not studying well. And so we do a
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: real analysis of how much you're studying. You say, well,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: I go to the library four hours a day. It's like, yeah, yeah, okay.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: How much time do you actually study in the library? Well,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: you know, I waste time. I have to travel there.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: I look at my phone. It's like, okay, well, how much?
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: 15 minutes? Half an hour? How much is real studying? Well,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: maybe we figure out it's 15 minutes. Say, okay, so
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: what you're going to do for one week is, is
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: you're going to study for half an hour. That's all.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: You don't get to go to the library for four hours.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: You have to sit down. We'll figure out a time,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: 10 o'clock in the morning, whatever. We'll put it in
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: your schedule. Try to study for half an hour, no more.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: And then just come back and let's have a conversation
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 2: about how well that worked. And people come back and
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: they say, well, you know, I managed it four days.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: And one day I went over and one day I
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: couldn't do it at all. It's like, okay, that's better.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: Instead of 75 minutes of studying, you know, 15 minutes
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: a day for seven days. What is that? 15, 70.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: 105 minutes you've managed about 210 minutes so that you've
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: already produced an improvement of 50% and you're bumbling horrible
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: way You've got a 50% improvement in one week. It's
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: like that's deadly. It's like So in the future authoring
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: program What we ask people to do is well think
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: about your life along six dimensions What do you want
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: for your so that the goal is this you're gonna
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: take care of yourself and You're going to have a
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: life in three years that justifies its suffering. That's the goal.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: So you can invent the damn life, but you have
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: to think what you would be satisfied with, so you
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be all bitter and resentful. It's like, okay, what
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: do you want from your family? What do you want
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: from your friends? How are you going to educate yourself?
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: What do you want for your career? How are you
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: going to use your time outside of work? How are
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: you going to handle drugs and alcohol and other temptations
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: like that? How are you going to keep yourself mentally
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: and physically healthy? These are open questions, like you get
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: to answer them. The idea is, you can have whatever
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: you want. But you have to figure out what it is.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: It has to be realistic, and you have to figure
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: out what it is.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: It's okay.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: So now develop a vision. What's your life going to
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: be like in three to five years? So you write
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: it down. Then we do something else, which is, okay,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: your bad habits and your resentment and your bitterness and
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: all of that, your procrastination gets completely out of hand,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: and you auger down, and you're in your own personal
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: version of hell in three to five years. What does
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: that look like? Well, everyone knows that. It's like everyone
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: can look into the future and think, well, If I
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: keep going on this dark path, this is where I'll
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: end up. Well, then you've got little hell outlined for
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: yourself to run away from. And you've got a little
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: heaven outlined for yourself to run towards. And then you're motivated.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes, you know, you're just hopeful. I would like
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: a good thing to happen. It's like, yeah, but, you know,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: I'd like to drink half a bottle of whiskey tonight, too.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: It's like, so which is it going to be? Well,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: just being hopeful about the future might not be enough,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: but then you think, oh, I see. Like there's that
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: little hell thing that I outlined that's waiting for me.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: And maybe I'm afraid of taking the next step forward
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: because it's demanding and challenging. It's like, yeah, I'm afraid
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: of that, but I'm way more afraid of where I
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: might end up if I don't get my act together.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: And people should be. That's why there are conceptions of
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: hell in so many religions. It's like hell is a
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: real place. Whether it's eternal, that's a whole different question.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: Whether it's waiting for you in the afterlife, that's a
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: whole different question. But if you've never met anyone in hell,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: you haven't lived very long. You haven't had your eyes open.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's undeniable. That feeling of total, complete misery is undeniable.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when it's... compounded by the fact that you
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: know you did it to yourself that's the real fun
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: that's the real fun part it's like i'm having a
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: bitch of a time and i richly deserve it jesus
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: that's rough man this.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: Is another concept that is doesn't have a voice right
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: now this is another i mean this is a giant
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: part of being a human being and instead of identity
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: politics and right versus left i think These right versus
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: left battles, oftentimes what they are is simply the battleground
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: for the conflicts in your own mind.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: Better to have the conflict in yourself. That's another thing
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: I really learned, well, not only from the New Testament,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: but a fair bit from that. You know, the idea
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: is that, well, there's evil in the world of all sorts,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: and some of it's the evil in other people, and
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: some of it's the evil in your brother's heart, but
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: the the part of it that you can really do
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 2: something about, that's the malevolence in your own heart. You
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: can actually do something about that. And that's actually way
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: more useful than you think. So, because if you can
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: face it in you, then you start to understand it.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: And that also makes you strong enough to identify it
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: and to fight it when you see it in the
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: external world. Plus, you don't do any harm. It's like
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: there's lots of people all over the world going out
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: and doing reprehensible things. And you might say, well, you
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: should go out and protest against them. Like, then sometimes
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: you should. But most of the time you should think,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: Where am I falling short of the ideal? My own ideal.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: Doesn't have to be one that someone puts on you.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: Where am I less than I should be? Where am
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: I bitter? Where am I making the world a worse
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: place than it has to be? Like, you ask yourself
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: those questions, you'll be in for a big shock. Say, well,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: what would happen if you stopped doing that? That's what
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: 12 Rules for Life is about. It's like, stop saying
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: things that make you weak. Stop telling lies that you
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: know to be lies. Stop doing things you know to
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: be useless and counterproductive.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: Aim high.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: Adopt some responsibility. And then see what the hell happens.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: It's like it'll work. And that's what I'm hoping people
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: will do.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm hoping people will do that too. And I
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: think if more people live their life in this sort
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: of a manner, I think we're going to have less
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: differences in terms of our ideologies and more of an
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: understanding that people have different ways of looking at things
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: and different ways of living. And this combat between people,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: this internal... strife that manifests itself in this combat between ideologies.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: I think you are much more inclined to let other
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: people live their lives if you're living your life in
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: a satisfactory manner.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it. I have a chapter in there on
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: raising kids. It says, don't let your kids do anything
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: that makes you dislike them. It's like, well, that's first
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: predicated on the observation that you're quite a monster and
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: it would be better for your kids if they didn't
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: get on your bad side. And like, again, because I'm
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: a clinical psychologist.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: You keep saying monster. Why do you use that term?
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: Because I've watched families, like I've seen families where it's
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: as if every single person in the family has their
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: hands around the neck of the family member that's close
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: to them and they're squeezing, but only tight enough to
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: strangle them in 20 years.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: But you're not always using it as a pejorative. You've
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: also used it, you should become a monster. You should
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: be a monster.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's, you shouldn't be, it shouldn't be accidental.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: That's the thing.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: So what do you mean by monster then in a
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: positive sense? Like you should be a monster.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's easy. A positive monster is somebody who says
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: no and means it. Because when you say no, what
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: you mean is there isn't anything you can do to
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: me that will make me agree to do this.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: Why is that a monster?
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: Because you have to be, because no one will take
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: you seriously otherwise. No one will take you seriously. Like,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: no means if you keep pushing this, something that you
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: do not like will happen to you. That's what no means.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: You don't have any strength of character unless you can
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: put up a fight. You know, and to be able
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: to say no to something is to be able to
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: put up a fight. So when you can't do that,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: if you're if you can be pushed around, you'll just
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: get argued into submission or you'll feel guilty because you're
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: causing conflict or something like that.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: But isn't there confusion using those terms as a positive
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: and a negative? Maybe there's another word instead of monster.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: Well, there is there is the potential. There is the
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: potential for confusion. You say, well, is that something that
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: can be?
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: Because I think a monster is a horrible thing. I
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: don't think of it as being like a wall. Like
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: someone who is just rocks out in their belief system
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: and rocks out in their understanding of themselves?
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: Well, when you fight someone who's formidable, say, what do
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: you think of the person that you're fighting? Like, how
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: would you characterize them? I mean, they have a monstrous
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: side because they can bring physical, substantial physical force to
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: bear on the situation and be willing to do it.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: So they're not naive and And harmless by any stretch
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: of the imagination, right? They have a well-developed capacity for mayhem.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: You think, well, is that monstrous? It's like, well, I
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: would say yes.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: I would say fierce.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: Fierce, fine. Let's go with that.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because someone who's fierce and formidable is not necessarily
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: a monster. You know, I think of a monster as
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: being just an awful person who's done awful things and just,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, so fair enough. Well, so back to the
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: situation with your kids. Well, you definitely don't want to
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: have your kids act in a way that awakens your
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: inner monster. Right. Let's put it that way. And so
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: you need to organize your family with a certain amount
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: of discipline and a certain amount of structure so that
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: you get to do what you want, which is back
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: to the point that you made earlier, so that you're
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: happy to have your kids around, so that you won't
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: take revenge on them. And so you want to lay
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: your life out so that Well, so that it's providing
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: you what you need to not be bitter and to
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: work for your best interests and for the interests of
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: everyone else. That would be lovely. And I think it's attainable.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: You know, because the book is very dark. And I'm
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: a very dark guy in some ways because I've looked
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: at the terrible things that people do to one another.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: That's a fascinating way of looking at it. You think
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: of yourself as dark? Because I don't. Oh, that's good.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think of you as dark.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's good.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: You're a very friendly guy. I think you're very serious
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: and especially about these very complicated issues. And I think
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why you have made this
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: gigantic wave in online discourse and people discussing these very
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: tumultuous times we live in is because you're a guy
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: that did extrapolate. You're a guy that did look at
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: that C-16 bill. look at Marxism and go, do you
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: know where this is heading? And you were the guy
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: that had the courage to say, murderous. And people are like,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: what the fuck is he talking about? That doesn't make
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: any sense. And you had to spell it out and
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: explain it. And when you do, you realize why this
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: is so significant to you.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the tribalism issue that you were discussing earlier
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be all that what would you say, debatable,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: that if we degenerate into tribalism, the probability of bloodshed
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: becomes vastly enhanced. It's like, well, that always happens when
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: people devolve into tribalism. So, and I'm pointing to a
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: particular kind of tribalism. I guess the darkness is that,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm very aware of the terrible things that
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: people not only are likely to do to each other,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: but do do to each other all the time. I mean, what,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: it's about 40% for divorce rate, right? You have to
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: go through a fair bit of ugliness to get to divorce.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: Canadians are nicer than Americans. Maybe you guys are 40%.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe, maybe. I think it's pretty similar.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: I think we're like 80%. Yeah. I mean, I think
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: actually it's 50% here, somewhere around that line. But yeah, yeah,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: you have to go through a lot.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: Chris Rock had a joke about that. Yeah, and a
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: lot of a lot that's really ugly too, you know.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: Chris Rock had a joke about that. He's like 50%
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: of people get divorced. He goes, but that's just the
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: people who had the courage to leave. He goes, how
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: many cowards just stay and suffer? And meanwhile, he wound
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: up getting divorced a few years later. Right. Horrible divorce. So.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: True story. Yeah.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's a good point. Yeah. I think we
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: need more people who are actualized human beings, more people
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: who understand themselves, more people who have gone through. adversity,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: both in real life and personal, in terms of their
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: understanding of their own growth, of their own potential, and
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: their own understanding of how they've managed their life, their mind,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: their actions. And the more we have people that have
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: personal sovereignty, the better we'll be able to have these conversations.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: Well, that'd be the hope. You know, one of the
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: things I've been suggesting to people is that they pick
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: something difficult to do. I read this funny little paragraph
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: by Kierkegaard. It was written about 1840, and he was
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: thinking about his role as a student and writer, and
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 2: he was a student and writer forever. He never really
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: had a career apart from that. And he said that
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: he wasn't one of these people who was capable of
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: inventing something wonderful to make life easier for everyone, like
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: so many people were doing during the Industrial Revolution. He said, well,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: maybe I'm one of these people who's benefit to society
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: will be that I will make things more difficult for
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: everyone because there will come a time when what people
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: want not they don't want ease they want difficulty instead
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: and I think well that is what people want That
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: is what they want. You think, well, I want an easy,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: happy life. It's like, no, actually, that isn't what you want.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: I think what people want is things that are difficult
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: that they can overcome.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. That's right. They want an optimal challenge. That's
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: a whole different thing.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: When you overcome something, when you do something difficult, whether it's,
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've never written a book, but I assume
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: when you write a book, when you're done writing that book,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: there's a great feeling of accomplishment because it's very difficult
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: to do. That feeling of accomplishment. For me, it's like
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: when I put together a comedy special or when I,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: you know, just anything that's difficult. There's a feeling like
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: I did it. Yeah.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, one of the mysteries is why that feeling exists.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a genuine, it's not a trivial thing
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: that it's to say I did something difficult and that
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: was worthwhile. Basically what you're saying to yourself is, well,
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of suffering attendant on that along
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: with the just general suffering of life, but it turned
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: out that was worth it. That's what you want. It's
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: like you want that sense that you're engaged in something
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 2: that's worth it. And I say, well, like I, I
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: try to, I'm not a, Like a casual optimist about
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: these sorts of things. I mean, one of the things
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: I do in 12 Rules for Life is lay out
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: the rationale that drives people like the Columbine High School killers.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: Because I understand that rationale. I've studied it for a
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: long time. I know why they did what they did.
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: And they have a powerful argument. But it's wrong. But
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: you don't... There's no sense in showing how it's wrong
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: before showing that it's a powerful argument. Like, life is suffering.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: There is lots of malevolence. It's no wonder that people
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: want to bring being itself to a halt. They want
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: to take revenge on it. It's not surprising. It's the
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: wrong way of going about it. The right way is...
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: It's akin to the sorts of things that you were
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: just observing. You take on a difficult task that pushes
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: you past where you are already. And you succeed in it.
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: And you get this sense that, yes, that was worthwhile.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: It's like, that's what you want. You want to live
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: in that place where things are worthwhile. That's paradise on earth.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: That's what that is. And it isn't some happy little
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: place where, you know, someone's feeding you peeled grapes. That
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: isn't what it is. It's more like victory on the
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: honorable battlefield or something like that.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the perception that people have of ultimate success and
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: ultimate happiness is it seems motivated by what they don't
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: have rather than an understanding of what success and happiness
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: really is. Their idea is that one day I'm going
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: to go and I'm going to be in my golden
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: years and I'm just going to be able to sit
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: around and do nothing and tell everybody to fuck off.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: You won't be happy at all.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I talked to one of the people that I
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: was working with who had like a vision for retirement.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: I said, well, what's your vision for retirement? Well, I
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: see myself in a beach, you know, some tropical country
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: drinking margaritas. And I thought, first, that's not a plan.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: That's a travel poster. It's like, okay, let's walk through this.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: All right, so you go down to this tropical country
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: and you go sit on the beach and you have
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: a margarita. It's like, okay, well, how many margaritas? Like 10? Okay.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: So you're going to do that. We're going to do
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: that for six months.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: You'll be dead. Yeah.
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: Well, you'll be this like pathetic sunburned, like fat.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: Unhappy, hungover, cirrhotic. In pain.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: It's like, that's your vision. Dehydrated. So how long can
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: you have a margarita on a beach? Like maybe you
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: can do that once every six months for like 10 minutes,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: something like that. It's not a vision.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: It's true, but when you are working and slaving away,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: you think about that beach with your feet up and
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: the waiter comes over, would you like another margarita, Mr. Peterson? Yes,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: I would.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: You're like, all right, baby. Exactly.
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: But it's like this 16-year-old fantasy of paradise. It's like, well,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: and it just doesn't work out. And the thing is
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: that the thing that sustains people through life really is
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: the lifting of a worthwhile burden. It's something like that.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: And it's partly because we're social animals, right? It's like
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: we're evolved to be useful to the people around us
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: because they're much more likely to let us live if
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: we're like that. And it's been very fun talking to,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: especially talking to young men about this. It's like, well,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: and that's the other thing too, is I think the
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: world is full of darkness, let's say. And we could
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: say each of us have a little bit of light.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: And if we release that light, if we let it
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: shine properly, Christ it's too cliched to go on with
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: in some sense, but The world is a lesser place
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: if you do not reveal From within yourself what you
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: have to reveal and the fact that the world is
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: a lesser place actually turns out not to be trivial
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: like if you aren't everything you could be and More
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: people will die. More people will suffer. More evil will
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 2: be unconstrained. More tyranny will reign. More chaos will remain
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: chaotic and dangerous. All of that.
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: Do you mean this in the sense of like the
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: old proverb of the wings of a butterfly fluttering become
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: a hurricane?
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: It's something similar to that, but it can even be
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: more local. It's like your family is more messed up
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: than it could be if you were less messed up
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: than you are.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: So if you just got your act together, like 10% more,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: your family would be 1% better.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, do it.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: And that would ripple off into the people that they
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: interact with.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, and it ripples fast.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing that's so cool is that people think, well,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: there's 7 billion of us. And each of us is
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: just this separate dust moat, like floating in the cosmos.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: And what the hell difference does it make what you
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: do anyways? It's like, that is not how we're connected.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 2: It's like, you're the center of a network. And you know, well,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: you know way more people than this. But let's say, typically,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: you're going to know a thousand people in your life.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: Well enough to have an impact on them.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: And each of those thousand people is going to know
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: a thousand people. So you're one step from a million.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: And two steps from a billion.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: And we are networked, technically. That's how human interactions work.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: And so when you do something that you shouldn't do,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: it's worse than you think. And when you do something
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: that you should do, it's better than you think. And
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: so you think, well, this is why I've been telling people,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: clean up your room. It's like, well, your room is
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: actually networked too. It's not that easy to clean up
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: your room, to set it. So you want your room
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: to be set up so that when you walk in there,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: it tells you to be better than you generally are.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: It's organized. It's got direction. Everything's in its place. You
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: try to do that in a chaotic household. You know,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: I've watched people do this because I had students do
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: these sorts of things as assignments. I'd say, look, pick
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: a small moral goal, clean up your room and just
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: write down what happens as a consequence. So maybe these
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: are students in a chaotic household. The whole place is
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: a bloody mess. No one's taking any responsibility for anything.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: And so they decide they're going to start to clean
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: up their room. And then the people in the household notice. Well,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: the first thing they do is get pissed off. It's like,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: who do you think you are? Like, you think you're
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 2: better than us? Like, why do you think this is worthwhile?
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: Who died and made you God?
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: All of that.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: So just by trying to organize this little part of
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: their life, they immediately run into... the people whose actions
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: they're casting in a dim light by trying to improve
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: themselves to some degree, they might have to have like
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: a thorough war in their household to be allowed to
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: do something as simple as keep the room orderly. They
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: find out very rapidly that A, that's way more difficult
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: than it sounds and B, that the consequences of it
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: are far more far reaching than people think. So that's
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: quite fun. You know, because maybe part of it is,
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: is that like everything around you is full of potential. Everything.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: maybe more potential than you could ever possibly utilize. And
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: so maybe all you have is this little rat hole
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: of a room in some rundown place in the world.
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: It's like, fix it up.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: There's more there than you think. See what happens if
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: you fix it up. And you'll fix yourself up simultaneously
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: because you have to get disciplined in order to fix
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: up the room. Then you have a fixed up room
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: and you'll be a more fixed up person. It's like,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: you think that nothing will happen as a consequence of that?
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: It's like all hell will break loose as a consequence
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: of that. It's really worth trying.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: It is worth trying. And it's a concept that seems
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: alien to people. But if you think about it, it
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: makes sense.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: Well, people don't take what they have right in front
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: of them seriously enough. It's like the wasting time thing.
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 2: They don't do the arithmetic. You know, and they also
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: don't understand. They devalue what they have right in front
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: of them. Like another client I worked with was having
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: a hard time putting his kid to bed at night.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: And so we did the arithmetic. It's like, well, I'm
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: fighting with my kid for 45 minutes a night trying
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: to get him to go to bed. Okay, so let's
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: analyze that. All right, so what does that mean? Well,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: it means that both of you end the day upset.
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: That's not so good, because why would you want that?
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: It means that you're spending 45 minutes fighting when you
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: could spend 20 minutes doing something positive, like reading to him, say.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: It means that you don't get to spend that time
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: with your wife, so she's not very happy with you. Plus,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: you're annoyed because you don't see her. Plus, you blame
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: it on the kid because he's the proximal cause. It's like,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: that's pretty damn ugly. And then let's do the arithmetic.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: It's like 72. days a week, 45 minutes a day.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: Let's call that five hours, 20 hours a week, 240
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 2: hours in a year. You're spending a month and a
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: half of work weeks fighting with your four-year-old son. You
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: think you're going to like him? You don't like anyone
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: you spend a month and a half a year fighting with.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: It's a bad idea. Fix it. It's important. Get him
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: to bed. Make it peaceful. You do it like these
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: things that repeat every single day. That's a motif in
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: this book too. Your life isn't margaritas on a beach
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: and in Jamaica. That happens now and then. Those are exceptions.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: Your life is how your wife greets you at the
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: door when you come home every day. Because that's like
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: 10 minutes a day. Your life is how you treat
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: each other over the breakfast table. Because that's an hour
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: and a half or an hour every single day. You
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: get those mundane things right. Those things you do every day.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: You concentrate on them and you make them pristine. It's
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: like you got 80% of your life put together. These
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: little things that are right in front of us, they're
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: not little. That's the first thing. They are not little.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: And they're hard to set right. And if you set
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: them right, it has a rippling effect. And fast, too.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: Way faster than people think.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the rippling effect, because I
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: know you've got to get out of here at one.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: But I want to talk about the rippling effect that
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: you have had on people and how that makes you feel.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, you were relatively unknown just a year and
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: a half, two years ago. And now you have become...
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, for lack of a better term, you're an
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: online celebrity and your reach is fantastic now. This thing
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: that you were talking about, about how your impact can
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: affect the people around you in a not insignificant way,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: a very significant way. What has that been like for you?
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, what has that adjustment been like?
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't adjusted to it.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: How old are you?
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: 55.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: So for 53 years, you're relatively anonymous outside of university.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I had a little bit of, you know,
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit of exposure. I did some work with
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: a public television station in Canada. And, you know, I
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: had my little flashes of public appearances. But compared to... Oh, yeah,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: this is crazy.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: What you've done on this show means millions. Yeah, millions.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: Millions of people have listened and watched each individual episode.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're about 2 million views each.
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: And that's nothing compared to YouTube. YouTube is nothing compared
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: to the audio.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the audio is like five times that or something. Yeah,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: so that's, yeah, it's completely crazy. No, I haven't adjusted
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: to it. It's like, I don't know. I mean, have
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: you adjusted to your status?
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: I'm numb.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what's it like when you think about it?
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: You wake up in the morning and you think, okay,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get a billion downloads this year.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think that. I think I'm going to talk
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: to Jordan Peterson. What do I want to talk to
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: him about?
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: That's how I handle it. It's exactly the same thing.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: For the last 15 months, this is what I've done.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: I've got up in the morning. I've looked at the
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 2: like 25 things I have to do in a mad
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: rush before seven o'clock at night. I think I'm going
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: to go through them and I'm going to concentrate on them,
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: do the best job I can. Then at 7 o'clock
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: tonight I'm going to have a rest. I'm going to
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: take a look at what I have to do tomorrow.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to do the same thing. That's what
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: I've been doing. And then when I stand back a
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: little bit. Like when it sort of dawns on me.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: You know. Then it's disconcerting. Like it's surreal. I can't
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: figure it out. I can't understand it. But then I.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: But there's no sense dwelling on that. Because. First of
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: all I don't know how to conceptualize it. I don't
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: know why it's happening exactly. Like I think what's happened
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: is that. Two things. One is that I said there
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 2: was something I wouldn't do with regards to this legislation.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: And I meant it. I actually meant it. I wasn't
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: going to use those words under legal compulsion. Period. No
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: matter what. And I actually meant that. So there was that.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: But then I think the more relevant thing is that
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: I've been studying these old stories, these archetypal stories for
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 2: a very long period of time. And they have power.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: They really have power. And they manifest themselves everywhere. They
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: manifest themselves in movies and in books. I mean, Harry
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: Potter is a mythological story and it made Roland richer
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: than the Queen of England. You know, these stories have power.
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: And I was fortunate enough to study a large number
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: of people, large number of scholars who knew what that
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: power was, Carl Jung in particular. And I could make
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 2: it more accessible to people. And so that's a big
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 2: part of it. But what the overall significance of that is, well,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: I just, it just leaves me speechless. I mean, this
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: Kathy Newman thing is a good example. And I mean,
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 2: so many things have happened. I've got, I've got involved.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: I've been in a scandal of some sort, a serious
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 2: scandal of some sort, probably every three weeks for a
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: year and a half, you know, and there are things
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: that are just, well, the James Damore thing is a
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: good example of that. Like that's a big deal. You know, that, that,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: that explosion that, that, that emerged around him and the
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: court case that's coming out of it. It's a big deal.
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: And this thing with Lindsay Shepard, that was the worst
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: scandal that ever hit a Canadian university. And then there
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: was all the protests and, and then there was what
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 2: happened with, with channel four in the UK. And it's like,
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to make of it. I don't, what,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is have a good conversation when
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: I come and talk to somebody like you where we
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: can have a good conversation try not to say anything
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: stupid that's really what I'm trying to do is to
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: not say anything stupid that's hard or too stupid yeah
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: well and it's been high stakes poker yeah you know, for,
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: it's not quite so bad now because especially after what
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: happened with channel four and some journalists, like people have
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: been trying to take me out for quite a long
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: time and it's not, it isn't working so far.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: You actually, you actually believe what you're saying and it
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: actually makes sense.
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's, that's not a bad start.
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: It's not a bad start, but it's rare in this world.
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: This is a, especially in these ideologically charged times, this
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: toxic tribalism that we keep bringing up.
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: It's, Well, and I also decided, like a long time ago,
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: and I think this runs through 12 Rules for Life, is, well,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: I believe that people's decisions tilt the world towards heaven
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: or hell. I think there's no more accurate way of
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: describing the consequences of each of your decisions than that.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: You face potential. That's what you face. That's what you
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: face in the world, is potential. It's not material reality.
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: It's potential. And every decision you make, you're deciding whether
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: you want to make the world better or worse. And
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: if you, like the ultimate better is heaven and the
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: ultimate worse is hell. We know how to make the
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: world into hell. We've done that multiple times. Much of
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 2: the 20th century was that. It's like I looked at
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: all that and I thought, okay, I would rather that
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: the world didn't degenerate into hell. And I understand why
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: people want it to degenerate into hell. They're angry. They're
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: angry because they suffer. They suffer unfairly. And they suffer
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: because people hurt them. And so they think this is
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 2: a bad game. I'm not going to help make it better.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: I'm angry. I'm going to make it worse even. That's
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 2: what the Columbine kids did. You know, that's what all
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: the mass shooters do. They say to hell with this.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: I hate it.
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: They're so far behind the game. They just want to
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: flip the table over.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, worse than that. They want to obliterate the game.
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: And they want to do it with as much malice
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: as possible just to obtain revenge. And I understand that.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: But I decided a long time ago that I would
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 2: rather not play that game. I think that it's possible
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: that we could make the world better. I really believe that.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: I believe that too.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: So I think, well, so I'm trying to tell people, look,
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: there's more to you than you think. There's more potential.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: There's more than enough potential to go around. There's definite
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 2: suffering and malevolence in the world. We could fix it.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: You haven't got anything better to do.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: That's a very big point that there's more potential to
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: go around. More than people understand.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: We're not going to run out of potential.
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: No, we're not. And this idea of the famine thinking
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why people get upset at
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: other people's success. They think somehow or another that this
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: other person's success takes something away from them.
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah, well, there's... And it's... The other thing, too,
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: is that I've realized that people actually act like what
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: they confront in the world is potential. It's so funny,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: because whatever potential is, it's not materially measurable. But if
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: you tell someone, you're not living up to your potential,
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: they go, yeah, well, I know that. It's like, well,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: what is that potential that you're not living up to?
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 2: And then when you say, well, there's potential in front
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: of you, you know that. You can walk out on
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: the street, and you go right or left, or straight ahead, like...
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 2: You're facing this thing that isn't fully formed and you
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: get to decide how it's going to form and you
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: can make it better. And so my question is like
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: the world's a rough place. There's no doubt about it.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: It's a harsh place. But my question is what would
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: happen if we stop making it worse? How good could
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: it be if we stop making it worse? And I
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 2: don't know if there's an upper limit to that. I
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: get might be maybe we could make it really really
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: really good and Why not? And we don't have anything
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: better to do than that. It's like aim at heaven.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: Start at home.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 2: Aim at heaven. Tell the truth. Let's see what the
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 2: hell happens. You know, like it is the case, clearly
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: on the facts of the matter. In 20 years, there
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have to be a single person in the world
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: that was hungry. In 20 years, we could get rid
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 2: of the five biggest diseases that currently plague the planet.
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: We could straighten things up. And God only knows what
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: things could be like then. Or we could let the
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: whole thing degenerate into hell. So, and each of us
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 2: is making that decision with each decision. That's the other
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 2: thing that I've understood. So, take your choice. You want
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: hell or you want heaven? If you pick hell, just remember.
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: You knew what you were doing when you picked it.
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: But nobody picks hell.
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: They just sort of let it slide.
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they do it because they blind themselves. You know,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: you know, when you do it, you say, ah, well,
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I let that slide. And then you, and
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 2: then you don't think about it. It's like, you could
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: think about it. You could think about it. You could know,
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 2: but you don't let yourself know.
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: Is any of this, all, all, all the pressure and
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: the scandal every three weeks, is this, uh, does, is
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: it weigh on you? Is it, is it difficult to,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling? Well, I'm feeling stretched.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like simultaneously the worst possible thing and the
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: best possible thing that could happen.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: Well, financially, it's been a boom, right?
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: Yes. Which is hilarious. Oh, well, yes. I mean, the
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 2: thing that I've... I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to,
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: because it's just so goddamn funny, I can't help but
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: say it. I've figured out how to monetize social justice warriors.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: LAUGHTER That is what it is.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: I know, it's so funny. I just can't believe it.
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: The other way.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: It's just, every time I think that, well, it's just
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: one of the surreal circumstances that characterize my life. It's like,
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: I'm driving the social justice activists in Canada mad because
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: if they let me speak, then I get to speak
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: and then more people support me on Patreon. It's like, hmm,
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: that's annoying. It's like, goddamn capitalist, he's making more money
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: off this ideological warfare. It's like, okay, fine, let's go protest.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: So they go protest me and then that goes up
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 2: on YouTube and then my Patreon goes, Account goes way up.
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: So it's like, they don't know what to do. And
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: so one of the things they keep accusing me of, yeah,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 2: they keep accusing me of, uh, like hauling in the loot.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 2: And I think, well, look, here's the situation guys. I
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: give away everything I do online for free.
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: It's free.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: And people are giving me money. They're just sending it
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: to me. I'm not twisting their arm, not even asking
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: them for it. Well, I guess that's not exactly right.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: Cause I set up the patron account, but that's more
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: complicated than it looks that a lot of that was curiosity.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: And I thought, well, I could increase the production quality
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: of my online videos.
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: Well, it was also the potential of you being removed
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: from the university.
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: Well, yes. Well, that and that was real potential. Oh, yeah.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, and yeah. People wanted that. Oh, yeah.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: They haven't stopped wanting that.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: In October, when the Lindsay Shepard scandal broke and it
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: looked so bad for the left wing ideologues, like 200
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: University of Toronto students. community member signed a petition to
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: get me fired again. And I was kind of upset
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: about that. And this is what my life has been like.
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 2: And so my son came over that day and I said, Jesus, Julian,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: you know, like 200 people at the faculty at the
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 2: University of Toronto petitioned the Faculty Association and And then
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 2: they sent in a petition to the administration to get
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: me fired. It was the faculty association. That's my union.
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 2: They didn't even contact me. And Julian said, don't worry
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: about it, dad. It was only 200 people. And I thought,
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: that's what my life is like. It's like a day
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: where 200 people sign a petition to get me fired
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: as a professor. My son can come in and say, well,
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 2: that's not so bad. It's like, it's only 200 people.
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: That's how weird the scale's gotten.
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: It's so surreal. Because you could say that online. And
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: look what's happening. And then the support would be overwhelming
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: from who knows how many people. But it would be
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: multiple times of that.
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Well, in the administration at the University of Toronto,
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: they didn't take it seriously at all, the call to
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: have me removed. It didn't even cause a ripple.
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: Now, who are these 200 people and what was their motivation?
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, they're hard to say what their motivation is.
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: They're not very happy about it. If they read the
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: transcript or listened to those recordings, how could they possibly
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: be against you? Based on that.
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, because they think that the people who conducted the
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: Inquisition were right.
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that's madness.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes. But look, look, I mean, I mean this formally,
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: like 20 members of Pimlott's and Rambucana's faculty, that was
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: communications at Wilfrid Laurier, wrote a letter supporting them. So
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: that's why it's not an isolated incident. It's like, no, no,
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 2: they thought that what they were doing was right.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: It's mass hysteria. Yeah.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 2: Well, there is an element of that. That's for sure.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: And there's certainly, again, I hate to bring this term
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: up again, but this toxic tribalism thing, it's like they're
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: supporting their own and they understand that their own ideologies
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: have been completely connected to the same type of groupthink
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: that's going against Lindsay Shepard in that meeting.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. When they tried to paint her as a
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: radical right winger and, which she certainly isn't.
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: Of course not. Neither are you. I mean, the whole
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: thing is ridiculous. You're not alt-right. You're not a neo-Nazi.
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: You're not, I've read a lot of crazy things about
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: you and knowing you personally, seeing this stuff. I'm like,
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: this is, this is a fascinating time.
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's for sure. That's for sure. Yeah. And it's been, well,
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: it's been crazily, well, I'm, what would I say? Crazily stressful. It's,
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: It's the best way to describe it is surreal. Like I'm,
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 2: it's like I stepped outside myself. I can't, I can't
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 2: put this in a box. I don't know what to
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 2: make of it. I don't know what to make of
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: the channel 4 interview. You know, it's like, what the hell? Really?
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: Well, these conversations are so limited by what you were
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: saying before that they're trying to get this five-minute soundbite in,
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: and that's what television has become. It's a dying medium.
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: to sandwich these commercials in every 15 minutes or whatever
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: they do. None of it makes any sense. It's an
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: archaic way of communicating ideas.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I think that is part of it, too,
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: is that, like, I happen to catch a technological wave. Well,
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: like you did, you know? Yeah. I mean, television offers
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: nothing over YouTube. Nothing. Because YouTube offers everything.
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: I get YouTube on my TV.
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, exactly.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: And there's no space requirements on YouTube. So you don't
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 2: have to do this, twist the complex event into a
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 2: short soundbite and entertain everyone. Right. And it turns out, too,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: that there's this huge audience online for actual content. Right.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: just genuine conversation. Because like one of the things that's
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: happened between you and I, when I've come down here,
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 2: is we've actually had a conversation, right? We're trying to
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 2: figure things out. You know, we've got our viewpoints and everything,
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: but we're basically, and I outline this, and there's a
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: chapter in 12 Rules for Life called, assume that the
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: person you're talking to might know something you don't, which
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: is like the formula for a good conversation. It's like,
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 2: There's a bunch of things I don't understand about the world.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a big book. Things I don't understand
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 2: about the world, right? That's a very thick book. And
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: I can come in here and talk to you about
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 2: what's going on. And hopefully we both emerge with better understanding.
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 2: We're not the same people that we were when we
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: walked in. And that's a good thing. And then we
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 2: have those conversations online and people can participate in that.
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 2: And I'm trying to do that in my lectures too.
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: Like when I did this biblical series, because that was
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 2: another thing that was so strange, Joe. It's like, imagine
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: I walked into a, like a venture capitalist organization. I said, look,
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 2: I want you guys to bankroll me. I'm going to
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 2: do 15 lectures on the Old Testament and I'm going
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: to try to attract young men. I'm going to rent
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: a theater. Like they just laughed me out of there.
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 2: Could you imagine anything less saleable than that? So, but
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: I did that. I went ahead with it. I rented
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: the theater and then I walked through these stories and
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 2: I was learning a lot because like I knew the
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: first stories in Genesis up to the flood. I knew
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: them pretty well. I knew, kind of understood what they meant.
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 2: But then all the stories from Abraham onward, I had
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 2: read them, but I hadn't done a detailed in-depth analysis.
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: And so I was learning a tremendous amount walking through
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 2: those stories. And they had a big, they've had a
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: big impact, man. And so I'm going to do Exodus
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 2: soon because I want to do that. But it's just
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: another example of how surreal things have become. But also
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 2: the utility of a good conversation. Because like when I'm
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 2: up on the podium, say lecturing, I'm not exactly lecturing.
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure something out and sharing that process
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: with the audience.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 1: Which is so different than what is going on in
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: universities that is freaking everybody out. What's going on is
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: this indoctrination into this group thing.
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like, here's what's right. Memorize it. Right. It's like,
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: my lectures are more like, well, I don't know what's right. Like,
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 2: here's some things I know, and they seem to be working.
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 2: And here's how I use those tools to dig at
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: this story. And here's what it might mean. And this
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: is what I got from it.
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: And here's some universal truths about human beings.
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 2: That seem to be... And then I try to explore that.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, should we believe this? Should we... Like
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: when Abraham in the Abrahamic story, for example, I mean,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: Abraham's an old guy and he's basically lived in his
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: mom's basement. That's, that's really the beginning of the story.
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: And he gets a call to adventure. You know, God says, well, get, get,
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 2: get away from your family and your kin, get out
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: there in the world. It's the call to adventure. Think, okay, fine.
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 2: That's a heroic motif. But then Abraham goes out and
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: the first thing he encounters is like tyranny and starvation.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: And then a bunch of guys who want to steal
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 2: his wife. So it's, It's been entertaining to take those
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: stories apart and to see why they're foundational. Because they
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 2: are foundational. And they're not mere ignorance. Whatever they are,
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: ignorant superstition is not the right category.
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: How has this changed your classrooms?
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I haven't gone back teaching since all of this hit.
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: When did you stop teaching?
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 2: Well... Oh, no, I guess that's not true. That's not true.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 2: I taught from January to May of 2016. Well, the
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: first way it changed was that I was like so
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 2: shell-shocked when I went to teach last January. And I
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 2: was really sick. Like, I've been really sick this year. Like,
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: last January, Jesus, it was just dismal. I wouldn't have
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 2: wished that on my worst enemy. I had three weeks
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 2: where I didn't sleep a wink. Try that. That's really entertaining.
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: One long day of misery that's three weeks long.
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: What kind of an illness?
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 2: It looks like an autoimmune disorder.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is because of stress? No, I don't.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: You don't think it's connected at all?
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think it probably made it worse. But no,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: it's something that I've battled with for a long time.
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 2: And it's something that really, both my wife and I
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: have autoimmune illness. And my daughter got.
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: What autoimmune illness?
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 2: Don't know exactly what it is. I don't know what
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: it is. Have you adjusted your diet?
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: That's what's fixed it.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: What fixed it?
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 2: All I eat is meat and greens. That's it. No juice,
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 2: no vegetables, no carbohydrates. Meat, greens. That's it.
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: And that fixed it?
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 2: That seems to have fixed it.
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: That fixes so many people.
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you.
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've listened to any of the
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: podcasts I've done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I've been following them because my daughter has a
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: blog too called Don't Eat That. And my daughter had
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 2: a terrible autoimmune disorder.
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 1: It was awful.
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: I detailed that out in Chapter 12. She had 38
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 2: affected joints. And she had her hip and her ankle
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: replaced when she was 16. Jesus. So she walked around
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 2: on two broken legs for a year in excruciating pain.
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 2: She was on extremely high doses of opiates. And so
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: she was addicted to opiates. Once she had her surgery,
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 2: she just went off them cold turkey and suffered through
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 2: the withdrawal for two months. Compared to what she had
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: been through, that was nothing. Like what she went through, man, you,
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 2: it was dreadful. And that was just the surface of it.
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 2: Like that was only the beginning of her illness. She
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 2: had all sorts of other things that were worse than that.
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 2: And so, and we figured she was probably going to
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 2: die by the time she was 30. Because my cousin's
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: daughter had a similar autoimmune problem. And she died when
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 2: she was 30. So it was bloody dreadful. But she
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 2: figured out at one point that it was associated with diet.
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 2: And then she went on a radically restrictive diet.
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: And she.
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 2: Christ, she was on antidepressants. She's not. She had to
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 2: take Ritalin to stay awake. She could only stay awake
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: about six hours a day, and she had to take
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 2: high doses of Ritalin to stay awake.
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: What is this autoimmune disease?
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 2: Well, her diagnosis was rheumatoid arthritis.
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 2: But she didn't have the blood markers for it, but
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 2: she had all the other symptoms. Anyway, she figured out
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 2: this restrictive diet. She only ate chicken and broccoli for
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 2: about two months, and almost all her symptoms went away.
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: And she's pretty much symptom-free now, which is a complete miracle.
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 2: And she convinced me to try this diet about a
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 2: year and a half ago. And so I lost seven
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 2: pounds a month for seven months. That was the first thing,
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 2: which was just bloody amazing. Yeah, it was unbelievable. I
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 2: couldn't believe it.
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: Was your diet rich in refined carbohydrates before that?
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 2: Rich enough.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: Rich enough, you know.
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: Pastas and bread and things along those lines.
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, bread in particular. I eat a lot of bread. Um,
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: so the first thing that happened was I quit snoring.
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: That happened immediately. Took one week, and I was snoring
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: quite badly. So that disappeared in a week. And that
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: was amazing. I thought, oh, that's interesting. And then I
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 2: had gastric reflux disorder. That went away. And then I
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: lost seven pounds the first month. I thought, oh, that's
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 2: a lot. Seven pounds. I had psoriasis. That went away.
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 2: I had floaters in my right eye, which is also
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: an autoimmune problem. That went away. Um, I have had
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 2: gum disease for 30 years. That went away. That went away.
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. I'm 55. Like, my gum disease went away.
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. So, I figured all that out. My life
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: in the last year was so, so strange. Because I'd
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 2: get up in the morning and I'd think, God, all
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: these bloody scandalous things are happening around me. And I
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: have to deal with that. And then I'd think, I
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 2: need a break. But I can't eat anything. Yeah. I
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 2: can't eat anything because if I ate the wrong thing,
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: it would like knock me out for a month. So
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out what the hell was
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: wrong with my diet and I was feeling wretched. And
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: so it was like, if I, it was like wolves
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 2: at the back door and crocodiles at the front door
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 2: or something like that. So, but, but whatever, like I'm
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 2: down to the same weight I was when I was 25. Wow. Yeah.
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 2: No kidding. And I've got lots of energy. I wake
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: up in the morning. And I wake up, that's never
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 2: happened to me my whole life. I've always had to
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 2: have a shower. It took me an hour to wake
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 2: up my whole life. That's gone. I'm not hungry. I
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: don't have hypoglycemia. I have lots of energy. I can't
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 2: eat anything, so I can't go out for dinner.
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: But you can't eat nonsense. You can eat. I mean,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: I'm on the same diet.
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 2: I can eat meat and greens, man.
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: I don't have a disorder like you did in the
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: same regard, but I take a day. Or I have
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: a cheat day. No, I don't even do it every week. Well,
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: I'll have a cheeseburger or something like that. But for
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: the most part, that's the diet that I follow as well.
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, for some people, it seems like, like a, well.
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: For a massive amount of people.
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I think for far more people than we know,
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 2: I think people are carbohydrate poisoning themselves like they can't believe.
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: Yes. And along with all the other things that go
• 2:17:35
  Speaker 1: along with it, insulin.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, the high blood sugar is not good.
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: Cholesterol and this idea that cholesterol and saturated fat are
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: the problems that people are experiencing. It's not true.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: The real problem is sugar and cholesterol has been deemed.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you read the article from the New York
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: Times about the sugar industry.
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: Paid off scientists to lie about the results.
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Well, I know too that two food scientists
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 2: in the UK resigned about three years ago. They were
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 2: part and parcel of the organization that had produced the
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 2: food pyramid. They said it was the worst public health
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 2: disaster the last 40 years. Pretty much got it backwards. Yeah.
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 2: And you look around, you know, you drive through the U.S.
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: It's really obvious in the U.S. is people are overweight
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 2: like mad.
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: Like mad.
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like crazy.
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Go to Disneyland.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 2: It is. But, you know, and the reason is, as
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 2: far as I can tell, the reason is, is that
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: they're poisoning themselves with carbohydrates. That's what it looks like.
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: And the thought process is so out of whack. I
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: retweeted an article today from Nina Teicholz. She tweeted it.
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: about this trend of eating only egg whites and how
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: terrible it is for you. It's a health disaster. And
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: this idea that cholesterol from the egg yolk is bad
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: for you. It's one of the most important things you
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: can eat. And then Weight Watchers has adjusted. Yeah, see,
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: it goes, Weight Watchers diet program now adjusts their protocol,
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: and they say that eat all the eggs you want.
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: It is now a zero-point food, which is fucking incredible.
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So the way I don't get hungry is
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 2: I eat a lot of oil, like a lot of
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 2: olive oil.
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 2: So, and that, that keeps... Fats.
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 1: So you're basically burning fat. You're on like a ketogenic diet. Yeah.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 2: So, and it seems to be, well, and that was complicated.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 2: That would have been complicated enough to keep me occupied
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: for the last two years, especially sorting it out with
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 2: my daughter because she, well, that was quite the bloody nightmare.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 2: I can tell you it was really something, but I
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 2: can't believe she figured it out.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: It's amazing.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 2: It is amazing. And like, she's really... She's in pretty
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 2: damn good shape. She just had a baby like five
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 2: months ago. So that was good.
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're, we're stunned, man. We're stunned. Cause like it was,
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 2: it was rough.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: Well, she sounds like an incredibly extreme example.
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 2: She is quite the tough cookie, that girl.
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: Sounds like it.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: Many people are experiencing the same revelation that their diet
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: is killing. Look, I was tired all the time. I
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: would hit a net. I mean, I was always very,
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: very active. So I stayed lean because of my physical activity.
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: But by the end of the day, I need a nap.
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: I would always take a nap before I'd go to jujitsu.
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, I have to take a nap or
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: I can't train. And it was because of carbohydrates.
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to nap about two hours a day.
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 2: And now I don't nap at all.
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: Me too. Same thing.
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 2: That's not exactly true. When I've been zooming around, I
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 2: take like two minute naps when I'm in the airport
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: Well, that's also, you're probably not getting enough sleep.
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: Big difference.
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So yeah, it's been remarkable.
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: So why did you stop teaching?
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, I took a sabbatical.
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: Because of all this.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I told my department chair, I said, look,
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 2: I had a sabbatical coming up next year. I said, look,
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 2: you know, there's too much going on. It'll be better
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 2: if I take the sabbatical this year, then I can
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 2: concentrate on my teaching next year.
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: So you take the entire year off?
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: So you're about eight months in?
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 2: Is that correct?
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: Well, and I always teach from, I put all my
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: courses from January to March. I teach all them in
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 2: the same semester. And that enabled me to concentrate on
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: my research for the rest of the time. And so Technically,
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 2: I'll be going back teaching in January of 2019.
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: Technically.
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 2: Technically.
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: You're not convinced.
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't think a year ahead at the moment.
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell's going on. I'm not
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 2: going to go back and teach the same way. Right. Because, see,
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 2: at some point, the technological transformation means you have to
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 2: approach things differently. And so now, if I do a
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 2: lecture online, whatever the lecture happens to be, I can
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 2: get 150,000 people to watch it. That's minimum. So... The
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 2: first question would be, well, why would I teach 300
• 2:21:31
  Speaker 2: people when I could teach 150,000? That's just stupid. Who
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 2: would do that?
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: Those same 300 people also have access to the 150,000. Well, exactly.
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's exactly it. And the next thing is, well,
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 2: I taped my maps of meaning class and my personality
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 2: class for three years running. It's like it's there. Well,
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 2: I could do it again, but why? It's taped. I
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 2: would rather lecture about new things. So that's what I
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 2: did this year. I did this biblical series, which I
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 2: hadn't done before. But now if I'm going to lecture again,
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to lecture about different things because the technology
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 2: has transformed the landscape. We're not in 1990 anymore. Not
• 2:22:09
  Speaker 2: even a little bit.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: This is something I brought up to Brett Weinstein, and
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping he follows along the same line. Brett Weinstein.
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: Not Steen. I make that mistake often. Sorry, Brett. But
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: same thing. Brilliant guy, restricted by his university, big scandal, leaves.
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm hoping he follows the same path because he
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: has so much to offer. And he has so much
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: to offer for anybody who can get online. Well, and
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: one of the things that's really fun about YouTube is...
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: and having my lectures on YouTube, is that the only
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: reason people watch them, is one reason, is because they
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: want to learn.
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 2: And so, you might think, well, where is the university? Well,
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 2: the university is where people want to learn.
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well, YouTube is the university because there's
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube, maybe millions, who
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 2: just want to learn. It's like, fine, I'm an educator.
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to people who want to learn because... If
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 2: you're an educator, that's what you do. Is that most
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 2: effectively done in the universities? Not self-evidently. And so now
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure this out. I like my job
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 2: at the university. U of T has treated me well,
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 2: apart from this scandal thing. But they were kind of
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 2: taken aback by it. They didn't know what to do
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 2: about that. You know, it was a new law. And
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 2: when I made the video criticizing Bill C-16, I said,
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 2: I think that making this video is probably illegal in
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 2: and of itself.
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: Was there controversial moments in your career before that?
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: No.
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: Wow. No.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, it surprised me because I've always, I would
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: say that the content of my lectures has been atypical.
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 2: But it's been atypical in a good way. Like the
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 2: student response to my lectures has always been, well, extremely good.
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 2: Extremely good. I'm always surprised that I was able to
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 2: teach what I'm teaching because I always thought that it
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 2: was like insanely revolutionary. But it was revolutionary in a really,
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 2: like in a scholarly way. You know, like I'm a
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 2: careful scientist. I'm a careful thinker. I think things all
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 2: the way through to the bottom. And I'm really self-critical.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 2: Like when I wrote Maps of Meaning, which was my
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 2: first book, I suspect I rewrote every sentence at least
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 2: 15 times. It's probably more than that. And I really
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 2: literally mean rewrite it. So I take the sentence out
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 2: of the paragraph, put it in another document, write like
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 2: 10 variants of the sentence, and then pick the one
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 2: that was best. And I did that. Like it took
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 2: me 15 years to write. I did that over and
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 2: over and over. And so what I was, I'd write
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 2: a sentence and then I'd think, okay. Have I got
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 2: all the words right? Every single word. Is that the
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 2: proper words? The proper phrase? Is the proper sentence? Do
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 2: I believe that this sentence is true? Then I'd think
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 2: like of 10 ways I could attack it and see
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 2: if I could break it apart and find out what
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 2: it was wrong. And I only kept the ones that
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 2: I couldn't destroy. And like I was going out full
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 2: force to destroy them because I wanted to come up
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 2: with a, you know, I wanted to produce a book
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 2: that I could not break no matter what I did.
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 2: And so I spent 15 years on that. And then
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 2: that was the basis. Well, it's the basis for 12
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 2: Rules for Life. It's been the basis for all the
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 2: lectures I've done and so forth. And like, I can't
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 2: see where it's wrong. And mostly what I was trying
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 2: to do was to see where it was wrong. And
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 2: I can't get underneath it. I can't break it.
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: That's what's so fascinating to me about all this stuff.
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: And not to overly exaggerate the significance of this, but
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: just to be completely honest about it. you're the right
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: guy for the job and it sort of found you.
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: It's real weird because there's not a lot of people
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: that are that meticulous about their thoughts and about their
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: work and about their writing and about their criticizing their
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: own ideas to the point where they break them down,
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: try to break them, try to.
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 2: Tear them apart. I had a big problem. So when
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 2: I started to write Maps of Meaning, I thought, okay,
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 2: what's the situation? This is the Cold War. We've divided
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 2: into two armed tribal camps and we've decided that settling
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 2: the difference between us is worth risking being itself. We
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 2: could drive everything into extinction. We're willing to take that chance.
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 2: What the hell is going on? So I wanted to
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 2: know two things. What was truly driving the tribalism of
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 2: the Cold War, including the generation of that vast nuclear arsenal?
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: Because that just seemed to me to be insanity taken
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 2: to the final pinnacle. So I wanted to know that.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 2: And I wanted to know, okay, having figured out why
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 2: that's happening, what could be done about it so it
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 2: would stop? And at the same time, I was also
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 2: studying what had happened in Auschwitz with the Nazis and
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 2: all of that. And so it was a very serious problem.
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 2: And I actually wanted to have the answer. I actually
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 2: wanted the answer. I didn't want to write an interesting
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 2: book about it. It wasn't even that I wanted to
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 2: write a book exactly. It was just that writing a
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 2: book was the best way to figure out the problem
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 2: because it's, it's really writing a book is so rigorous,
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 2: you know, because you think, but you can only remember
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 2: so much. You have to write it down because then
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 2: you can remember way more and you can write. And
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 2: then the next day you can go back and think, okay,
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take that goddamn argument apart. I'm going
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 2: to see if there's anything about it that's weak. And so,
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 2: and I think I did figure it out. I think
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 2: I did figure it out. So, and then when I,
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 2: when I, Well, and then I started lecturing about it
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 2: and the lectures were always unbelievably well regarded. Like people,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 2: the kids in the classes would always write for the
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: evaluations at the end of the year. 80% of them
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 2: would say, and this happened for 20 years, they'd say,
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 2: this class changed everything about the way I look at
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 2: the world. It's like, yeah, that's what happened to me
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 2: too when I wrote that book. It's like, I didn't
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: think the same way at all when I was done.
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: I started to understand what these ancient stories meant. It
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 2: was like shocking. Never recovered from it.
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: Wow. Listen, you're out of time. Thank you. Always. 12
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos, Jordan Peterson.
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 2: I made a discount for your viewers again for the
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 2: future authoring program.
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what do they have to do? Rogan. Just
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: use Rogan, and how do they get to the website?
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 2: Selfauthoring.com.
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll send you a link for that. Thanks
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 2: And also, thanks for everything. Really, you are the portal
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 2: into this weird world that I'm in. And people say
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 2: that all the time. They come up and say, look,
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 2: I heard about you on Joe Rogan. It's like thousands
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 2: of people have told me that.
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: Well, it's been an honour. It's your fault. It's been
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: an honour. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you.
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 2: You bet.