Making Sense - Sam Harris - #109— Biology and Culture

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

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00:00:46.760 So today we have my first live podcast, officially, in Seattle with Brett Weinstein.

00:00:53.520 I introduce Brett on stage, but Brett is the biologist who is at the center of the Evergreen

00:00:58.340 scandal, which you may have heard about.

00:01:01.920 We don't go into as much detail as we might have, because Evergreen is just an hour outside

00:01:07.340 of Seattle, and many people in the audience were well aware of what happened there.

00:01:12.620 It did make national news, and it was the most visible, apart from what happened to Nicholas

00:01:19.680 Christakis at Yale, of these recent moral panics on college campuses.

00:01:24.060 But briefly what happened there is they traditionally had what they called a day of absence, where

00:01:30.880 people of color would stay away from campus for a day to make their absence felt.

00:01:37.180 And Brett, as an extremely liberal and progressive member of the biology department, was always

00:01:42.480 in support of that.

00:01:43.820 But last year they decided to flip the logic of this event.

00:01:47.180 And rather than people of color deciding to stay away, they decided to tell white people

00:01:53.680 that they were not welcome on campus on that day.

00:01:58.440 Absence wasn't compulsory, but it was highly recommended.

00:02:03.840 Now Brett noticed immediately that this was not quite the same ethical and political message,

00:02:11.020 and said as much in an email to administrators and his colleagues.

00:02:16.200 And then the witch hunt began.

00:02:18.920 So there's much more about that online, and you can see Brett's other interviews on other

00:02:24.140 podcasts, like the Joe Rogan podcast.

00:02:26.980 But suffice it to say, this was an extremely bizarre and unproductive self-immolation of a

00:02:33.660 liberal student body.

00:02:36.040 And Brett and his wife, also a professor there at Evergreen, have since been forced out.

00:02:42.000 There was some settlement.

00:02:43.720 We talk about it a little, but that's the necessary backstory to today's conversation.

00:02:50.620 And now I bring you audio of the Seattle event with Brett Weinstein.

00:02:54.500 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sam Harris.

00:03:14.140 Thank you.

00:03:20.960 Well, thank you all for coming out.

00:03:22.680 I can't see you all, but I can hear you.

00:03:25.140 And it really is an honor, I must say.

00:03:28.500 I will never take this for granted.

00:03:29.940 The fact that I can put a date on the calendar and you all show up, it's just insane to me.

00:03:34.600 So thank you for doing that.

00:03:42.100 And another thing I won't take for granted is that people like this actually want to talk

00:03:46.200 to me.

00:03:47.180 My guest tonight is an evolutionary biologist.

00:03:50.640 He is not that one.

00:03:52.680 Though I've released some audio from those events with Richard Dawkins, you should know

00:03:58.140 this is actually my first official live podcast.

00:04:01.020 So you guys made it to the start of the tour.

00:04:02.600 But my guest tonight is a biologist who focuses on big questions.

00:04:12.940 He really, he's done narrow research on things like the evolution of cancer and senescence and

00:04:19.940 moral self-sacrifice.

00:04:22.060 But he also focuses on how an understanding of evolution can actually inform our lives and

00:04:28.140 improve society.

00:04:29.060 And we'll get into all of that.

00:04:31.480 He's also become, in the aftermath of what is now known as the Evergreen Scandal, a truly

00:04:38.440 wise and articulate defender of human rationality and free speech.

00:04:43.960 So please welcome Brett Weinstein.

00:04:45.840 Brett, good to see you.

00:04:51.300 Good to see you.

00:04:51.960 Good to see you.

00:04:51.980 Good to see you.

00:04:59.540 So Brett, I've been wanting to talk to you for some time.

00:05:02.300 As some people here must know, I'm friends with your brother who did my podcast about a

00:05:06.880 year ago, and your brother is this polymathic, very articulate, very interesting man.

00:05:15.100 And then I saw a bit of you on YouTube, and you are also this polymathic, very articulate,

00:05:20.880 interesting man.

00:05:21.500 So your parents did something right.

00:05:23.080 I want to know what happened there.

00:05:25.340 But welcome.

00:05:25.980 Thank you for doing this.

00:05:26.580 Thanks for having me.

00:05:27.580 So I think, since we're in Seattle, the Evergreen Scandal is probably a noun phrase that people

00:05:35.060 recognize.

00:05:35.820 But I think we should talk about what happened there, because it's a point of entry into

00:05:40.300 many of the issues we're going to consider.

00:05:42.560 I have actually seen it described by another name, the Brett Weinstein debacle.

00:05:47.160 Ah, wow.

00:05:49.180 Yes, so let me give you the very brief version.

00:05:52.420 And I should say, it's a story that's very easy to get wrong.

00:05:54.840 And the press, even when they are well-intentioned, often get the story wrong, I'm not going to

00:06:00.640 bore you with the details of what actually happened.

00:06:02.780 But I will say, the general narrative is this.

00:06:07.340 We hired a new president at the college.

00:06:09.600 He set in motion a committee to study the question of equity on our campus and to propose some

00:06:20.000 solutions to problems.

00:06:21.520 And that committee advanced an elaborate proposal, sweeping changes to the college that was, in

00:06:31.700 my opinion, a threat to the ability of the college to continue to function, certainly as

00:06:36.420 an educational institution and maybe at all.

00:06:39.700 It was a threat to our fiscal solvency.

00:06:42.200 And I objected to it, which was more or less part of my job as a faculty member.

00:06:47.160 And I said, we really have to talk about this proposal.

00:06:50.040 And there was steadfast refusal to have that discussion.

00:06:53.580 And as I continued to insist that we have that discussion, it raised the hackles of some

00:07:01.380 other faculty members who became more and more aggressive in challenging me in faculty meetings,

00:07:07.500 accusing me of being anti-equity itself.

00:07:09.920 And then the next part is hearsay.

00:07:14.480 But I'm led to believe that one faculty member in particular set a bunch of students in motion,

00:07:20.700 students that I had never met, who arrived at my classroom and erupted into protest, which

00:07:27.940 disrupted the entire building.

00:07:29.580 They demanded my resignation.

00:07:30.580 And instead of backing down or running away, I tried to reason with them.

00:07:36.140 And when those videos were placed online by the protesters, the reaction was not what

00:07:42.360 the protesters had expected the reaction was.

00:07:45.340 Many people were, I guess, impressed that I had tried to talk to them rationally about the

00:07:52.520 questions that were at the heart of the equity issue on our campus.

00:07:56.760 And so it backfired.

00:07:58.720 And that set in motion a debate about what the rights of people to protest are in the

00:08:05.520 context of a college campus and what equity means and how we might pursue it.

00:08:11.220 And what was the reaction of your fellow faculty?

00:08:14.340 How much support or lack of support did you get?

00:08:18.280 That's a very interesting question.

00:08:21.320 It looks very different on the inside of the college than the outside.

00:08:24.600 On the inside, I got tremendous support from many people, but it was almost silent.

00:08:31.160 And many of the people who were telling me that they were supportive were telling me that

00:08:36.020 they wouldn't speak publicly about their position because they were afraid of what would happen.

00:08:40.960 And in fact, they watched what happened to me.

00:08:42.580 And I can't say that they were wrong.

00:08:45.300 Yeah, although the word cowardice does come to mind.

00:08:47.360 It's a word that I refused to use at first because I don't think their fears were unjustified.

00:08:55.360 And it's, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to judge other people in that way.

00:09:00.000 But I will say...

00:09:01.500 Although their fears were not unjustified if they came out one at a time or only one came

00:09:07.760 out.

00:09:07.980 But there really is safety in numbers here.

00:09:10.220 It's the fact that you were out there all alone that led to this.

00:09:14.220 This is exactly right.

00:09:17.320 And I don't, I mean, maybe I do not...

00:09:18.980 How do we solve this problem?

00:09:20.200 I mean, I'm thinking it's something that I've often said of the Salman Rushdie affair.

00:09:26.420 The reason why he had to go into hiding for 10 years, obviously, is a different circumstance.

00:09:30.460 But the whole problem was that there weren't 10,000 Salman Rushdies the next day.

00:09:35.740 And there should have been.

00:09:36.800 How do we get that collective response tuned up?

00:09:40.580 So the answer is not an easy one.

00:09:44.560 But people need to level up with respect to game theory.

00:09:48.880 And so the colleagues who were opposed to these false and dangerous equity proposals

00:09:56.720 were responding to their narrow short-term interests.

00:10:02.560 In other words, they were correctly perceiving that they would be stigmatized and demonized

00:10:06.160 and maybe driven out if they stood up.

00:10:07.720 What they were not realizing was that that will come for them in the end anyway.

00:10:12.420 And so it really isn't a question of whether or not to expose yourself to that danger.

00:10:16.560 It's whether or not to group together and face that danger and maybe survive it

00:10:21.360 or to expose yourself to being picked off one by one over time.

00:10:25.100 And so there's a problem that I call the activist dilemma, which is really a version of a tragedy of the commons

00:10:34.160 or a free rider problem in which everybody wants a problem solved.

00:10:40.360 But the best deal is to stand on the sidelines and let somebody else take the risk or the cost of solving it

00:10:46.880 and to get the benefit of that solution anyway.

00:10:49.160 And in the end, that's the undoing of the coalitions that you're imagining should form to prevent these things.

00:10:55.980 Seems like we could solve this with an app.

00:10:58.060 The right app would just get everyone to go at the same moment.

00:11:02.100 So what were the ideas at the core of this problem?

00:11:07.300 What gave us the evergreen moral panic?

00:11:10.880 Well, I think it has to do with a couple of different problems.

00:11:17.700 I mean, I've come to view the folks who protested at Evergreen as an insurgency,

00:11:26.000 which to me means that you don't take them literally, that they are actually engaged in a tactical action.

00:11:32.520 And what they say they are up to is not necessarily what even they believe that they are up to.

00:11:36.880 They are trying to accomplish something, and they're actually quite powerful in doing what they're doing.

00:11:43.180 So it's a little bit hard to know how you deal with a movement that says it is about certain objectives.

00:11:54.420 For example, equity itself.

00:11:56.820 Equity is something that most people, I'm sure most people in this auditorium,

00:12:00.980 would imagine themselves to be in favor of equity.

00:12:03.560 The problem is, if you build a rule into your personality where you say anything that is positive from the perspective of equity

00:12:11.900 is therefore something that I am in favor of, then you can be easily manipulated,

00:12:16.580 because all that has to happen is somebody needs to wrap that label around something noxious,

00:12:21.460 and you may not detect until too late that it isn't what you signed up for.

00:12:27.180 What's more, this sets the stage for your cognitive dissonance to be weaponized against you,

00:12:33.480 because once you've signed up, once you've protested in favor of something called equity,

00:12:38.400 and then it turns out that it isn't what it was advertised as,

00:12:41.740 you have a predicament, which is,

00:12:44.260 do you admit that you were wrong to favor this thing in the first place,

00:12:48.680 or do you double down on protesting even further?

00:12:51.820 And I've seen a lot of people who simply got involved in this movement

00:12:57.680 because it was labeled in a way that sounded good to them

00:13:00.420 continue to move in the wrong direction,

00:13:03.440 because at the point they begin to detect that it isn't what it's supposed to be,

00:13:07.240 it's too late for them to figure out how to back out.

00:13:11.100 And what's the connection to biology here?

00:13:13.700 Is it an accident that you happen to be a biologist,

00:13:15.780 or is there something about biology that presents an especially good target for this kind of confusion?

00:13:22.740 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:13:24.160 It's no accident, I think.

00:13:25.780 I've been teaching and thinking very deeply about questions,

00:13:29.720 about how groups compete with each other,

00:13:32.240 and what role those game theoretic parameters and predicaments have played in human history.

00:13:39.840 And so, really, this particular instance was a variation on a theme,

00:13:44.940 and it was quite plain to me what was going on.

00:13:48.440 And the question is, could I make it plain to enough people

00:13:51.160 who hadn't yet chosen sides to avert a disaster?

00:13:56.160 And the answer, with respect to Evergreen, is no.

00:13:58.860 On the other hand, with respect to the outside world,

00:14:01.680 it does appear that we have a much healthier conversation on that topic now

00:14:06.420 than we did six months ago.

00:14:07.700 I mean, there's topics here that I think we should touch

00:14:11.560 because they're of such critical importance to our national conversation

00:14:16.740 or our global conversation,

00:14:18.020 and there are topics that it seems like we should be able to talk about rationally

00:14:23.120 and in a truly open-ended and open-minded way

00:14:27.640 without becoming hysterical.

00:14:30.960 But these topics so reliably produce hysteria

00:14:35.200 that it's just like everything's covered with plutonium.

00:14:39.540 Let's talk about, first, the concept of race, right,

00:14:42.180 which was at the center of this disruption on campus.

00:14:46.320 As a biological concept, is it a valid concept?

00:14:51.060 Okay, we're about to get into serious danger here.

00:14:53.980 Yes, you're about to get on Twitter.

00:14:55.060 Yes.

00:14:55.480 Well, I have actually, yeah, I have changed my tune on this question.

00:15:07.080 I have not changed my understanding,

00:15:09.180 but the term race is actually close to indefensible.

00:15:14.000 And the reason that it's close to indefensible

00:15:15.700 is not the one that we are told biology has unearthed.

00:15:19.180 We are told that there is more variation within races than between races,

00:15:23.240 and therefore races don't exist.

00:15:25.200 That's nonsense.

00:15:26.460 That actually, mathematically, essentially has to be true.

00:15:29.200 It says nothing one way or the other about the reality of races.

00:15:32.380 What does invalidate the concept of race

00:15:35.360 is the way that concept has been used.

00:15:37.840 So, for example, one-drop rules

00:15:40.480 say something about what category you're in

00:15:43.280 that is not in any way mathematical, right?

00:15:46.180 If one drop of black blood makes you black,

00:15:49.620 then this is not a biological concept we're talking about.

00:15:52.080 It's a social concept.

00:15:54.340 So what I would say...

00:15:55.320 You're not in favor of the Nuremberg laws?

00:15:56.960 Is that what I'm hearing?

00:15:57.880 Well, I would say let's...

00:16:00.900 I mean, I use the term race

00:16:02.160 because it's the term people expect

00:16:03.720 when you're having these conversations.

00:16:05.300 And then when the conversations get technical,

00:16:07.120 it causes a problem.

00:16:08.680 The real term that we should be using is population.

00:16:13.940 Population is a biologically viable term,

00:16:16.040 and we don't get into one-drop rule kind of shenanigans surrounding it.

00:16:20.340 So I would say if you're having a technical conversation,

00:16:22.980 recognize that race isn't the right concept,

00:16:25.020 and move to population,

00:16:26.140 and then we can talk about what the meaning of population is.

00:16:29.660 I would say there's a higher-level version of that term, too,

00:16:32.980 which is even more useful thinking evolutionarily,

00:16:37.440 but has to be used with care.

00:16:39.940 And that term is lineage.

00:16:41.340 So a lineage is more useful because it is a fractal,

00:16:47.880 meaning that it exists independent of scale,

00:16:51.060 at least over a certain range.

00:16:53.060 And so you and all of your descendants are a lineage.

00:16:57.180 Your mother and all of her descendants,

00:16:59.460 which includes the lineage we just talked about,

00:17:01.200 is also a lineage,

00:17:02.240 and we can step all the way back

00:17:03.760 up the evolutionary tree of ancestry,

00:17:06.460 and we can generate larger and larger,

00:17:09.140 more inclusive lineages.

00:17:10.560 And so what we call races are typically populations,

00:17:15.160 and those populations are one level in that hierarchy

00:17:19.320 that is important in human history.

00:17:22.560 That said, not every one of these

00:17:25.300 is actually a lineage or a population.

00:17:28.720 So what happened in Rwanda with Hutus and Tutsis

00:17:32.360 was in large measure artificial.

00:17:34.420 Those were not actual lineages

00:17:37.320 in any biologically meaningful sense.

00:17:39.360 They were arbitrary based on phenotypic characteristics

00:17:41.840 that may or may not have tracked lineage.

00:17:45.380 So is a family a similar concept to race or lineage here?

00:17:51.020 There is actually no clear boundary

00:17:53.740 between a family and the rest of the species.

00:17:57.080 Well, family is not technically a lineage.

00:18:00.000 So you and your wife and all of your descendants

00:18:01.940 are not a lineage

00:18:02.860 because the common ancestor

00:18:04.280 between you and your wife is not included.

00:18:06.200 But that's not...

00:18:06.900 Yeah, I guess biologically related.

00:18:08.800 Yes, essentially the theme of what you're saying is right.

00:18:12.720 That as we step up to larger and larger collections

00:18:15.520 of related individuals,

00:18:17.180 what we have are larger and larger lineages

00:18:19.800 which function like families.

00:18:21.420 They evolve in the same way that families are capable of

00:18:24.280 because they're related to each other

00:18:26.020 in a genetically precise way.

00:18:28.480 But the borders aren't necessarily easily defined.

00:18:32.480 And there's no easily defined borders of a species either.

00:18:36.080 There was no first human.

00:18:38.000 Well, there is a most recent common ancestor of all humans.

00:18:41.680 Yeah.

00:18:42.120 There logically has to be.

00:18:43.520 Right.

00:18:43.960 That does not mean that that was the first human

00:18:46.860 in any sense that if you were standing there

00:18:49.240 to observe this person that you could recognize them as such.

00:18:52.140 But the important thing to realize is for some reason we have a bias.

00:18:58.700 We tend to think that evolutionary dynamics ought to function

00:19:01.940 in ways that make them easily tractable,

00:19:04.380 that make them comprehensible to us.

00:19:06.080 And there's no reason that that has to be true.

00:19:08.620 And you picked the perfect example.

00:19:10.620 We cannot define species in a way that recovers all of the things

00:19:15.580 that we think we mean when we use that term.

00:19:17.980 And it actually becomes particularly broken when we get near human beings.

00:19:22.420 But the fact that we can't define species

00:19:25.520 is of no consequence one way or the other to evolutionary dynamics.

00:19:29.200 They are evolving and lineages are diverging into sublineages

00:19:34.380 that ultimately can't interbreed.

00:19:36.320 And there's some point at which we say,

00:19:37.660 well, they're definitely two different species.

00:19:39.940 But on the road to being definitely two different species,

00:19:43.040 you're kind of two different species

00:19:44.520 and you're not really two different species.

00:19:46.520 So we shouldn't expect evolution necessarily to make our life easy.

00:19:53.040 What we should understand is that it is a process that does not think.

00:19:58.100 And what it simply does is present us with representatives

00:20:02.600 that did a better job of getting here than competitors that did a worse job.

00:20:07.860 And to the extent that you are a member of many lineages at once,

00:20:11.620 that's not a problem for this process.

00:20:13.700 The process doesn't need to be able to say you are one of these

00:20:17.240 and you aren't one of those.

00:20:18.480 It just needs to simply continually select that subset of lineages

00:20:22.940 that are playing the game well.

00:20:25.520 So now why is this so inflammatory?

00:20:28.200 Is it that the one fact that seems to keep coming up

00:20:32.020 or its existence or possible existence

00:20:36.580 is the thing that is avoided in all of this

00:20:39.280 is that populations or races

00:20:42.440 or any geographically isolated group of people

00:20:46.840 at any point in history,

00:20:48.280 if you take two groups,

00:20:49.940 they will vary with respect to certain traits.

00:20:55.620 So we can even add culture here.

00:20:57.080 They'll vary with respect to culture,

00:20:58.480 but they'll also vary with respect to genes.

00:21:00.200 And these genes govern many of the things we care about.

00:21:04.960 You know, anything you can name about a human mind

00:21:06.820 or a human temperament

00:21:07.840 or a human physical characteristics,

00:21:10.860 these vary and they vary in very predictable ways.

00:21:13.460 The fact that you can look at someone

00:21:15.160 and make an educated guess

00:21:16.880 about where their ancestors came from

00:21:19.740 tells you that there's some pattern here

00:21:22.960 that is conserved

00:21:24.560 and it's just, it doesn't stop at the skin.

00:21:26.640 And it would be a miracle, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:21:30.220 if everything we cared about

00:21:32.340 that wasn't superficial like the skin,

00:21:35.540 things like intelligence, things like empathy,

00:21:38.640 things like aggression,

00:21:39.860 all of these things that to some degree

00:21:41.760 are governed by genes,

00:21:43.880 it would be a miracle if the average values

00:21:47.180 in every population were the same.

00:21:52.440 What you've said, I think, is right,

00:21:55.140 but I think it actually leads to a fear

00:21:57.460 that I personally, having thought about it a great deal,

00:22:00.620 having traveled in all different parts of the world,

00:22:03.320 lived in different populations,

00:22:04.520 I don't fear it.

00:22:06.140 And I think...

00:22:06.820 You don't fear that that's true

00:22:08.540 or you don't think this thing,

00:22:10.040 if true, should be feared?

00:22:12.940 I think the fear is born of the following observation.

00:22:16.500 If we look at different sports,

00:22:18.040 they select for different populations, right?

00:22:20.960 It happens that marathon running

00:22:23.320 is dominated by Ethiopians and Kenyans.

00:22:26.420 You are unlikely to find Inuits

00:22:29.120 being highly successful in marathon running.

00:22:31.580 And there's a good reason for this

00:22:32.600 because people from Ethiopia and Kenya are...

00:22:36.280 The fact that that's even funny to picture

00:22:38.140 is worth flagging.

00:22:42.460 It is.

00:22:43.520 Don't get on Twitter with that.

00:22:44.760 Yeah, this just stays between us.

00:22:49.320 So, here's the thing.

00:22:51.320 If you think about what it is,

00:22:52.780 what it means to be an Inuit,

00:22:54.940 one of the things it means

00:22:56.120 is that you have been selected

00:22:58.040 to conserve heat

00:23:00.140 because the difference between

00:23:01.640 conserving a bit of heat

00:23:02.980 and failing to conserve it

00:23:04.160 is a life and death difference

00:23:05.340 in many circumstances

00:23:06.460 if you live in the Arctic.

00:23:08.220 If you're an Ethiopian,

00:23:10.020 you have exactly the opposite problem.

00:23:12.080 Radiating heat is the key to survival.

00:23:14.600 in a habitat that's that hot.

00:23:17.600 So, my point would simply be

00:23:20.000 Inuits are shaped so as to conserve heat.

00:23:24.580 They are rounder.

00:23:25.660 And that round shape

00:23:27.840 does not lend itself to marathon running

00:23:29.560 and it should not trouble us

00:23:31.000 or surprise us that we see this bias.

00:23:33.720 I think, though,

00:23:34.980 that people are very concerned

00:23:37.440 that what we see playing out

00:23:40.380 in different sports,

00:23:41.440 the fact that different populations

00:23:42.700 dominate different sports,

00:23:44.100 is going to be a mirror

00:23:45.600 for what we find inside the mind.

00:23:48.360 And I don't fear this.

00:23:49.520 I think there's a very good reason

00:23:50.740 to see these things

00:23:51.600 as unfolding very differently

00:23:53.120 in evolutionary terms,

00:23:55.160 which is,

00:23:56.380 in the example I just gave you,

00:23:58.440 you can see a very good reason

00:23:59.640 that two habitats select

00:24:00.840 in very different ways

00:24:02.560 for one's phenotype.

00:24:04.840 every habitat selects for intelligence,

00:24:08.280 which doesn't mean

00:24:09.140 that differences in intelligence

00:24:10.480 didn't accumulate somewhere first.

00:24:13.100 But the real question is,

00:24:14.660 given that human populations

00:24:15.720 are interconnected,

00:24:17.520 to the extent that there are

00:24:18.640 heritable differences in intelligence,

00:24:20.720 what we should expect them to do

00:24:21.980 is spread,

00:24:23.100 because they provide advantage

00:24:25.460 to anybody who gets a hold of them.

00:24:27.020 And so I realize at the moment

00:24:29.760 there seems to be...

00:24:30.680 Except they might not provide

00:24:32.360 fecundity in anyone

00:24:33.720 who gets a hold of them.

00:24:35.140 What if intelligent people

00:24:36.640 are having fewer kids

00:24:38.280 at this moment in history?

00:24:39.680 Is that...

00:24:40.760 We have to put modernity aside.

00:24:43.160 Right.

00:24:43.420 As soon as you've got...

00:24:44.000 But the process is still happening,

00:24:45.440 so modernity could just be

00:24:46.580 the last thousand years, right?

00:24:50.140 I would say modernity, you know...

00:24:52.360 Let me flip that around.

00:24:54.360 There are genetic changes in us

00:24:56.980 that have been selected

00:24:58.200 for very recently.

00:24:59.160 Maybe not a thousand years,

00:25:00.000 but like 5,000 years.

00:25:01.080 Things like lactose tolerance.

00:25:03.080 Just to ask you,

00:25:04.220 how quickly can that happen,

00:25:06.300 leaving aside deliberate

00:25:08.020 manipulations to the genome?

00:25:09.320 How quickly would you expect

00:25:10.500 a culture to determine

00:25:12.600 genetically relevant change?

00:25:15.600 Well, I'm going to have to get

00:25:16.740 pretty politically incorrect here.

00:25:19.020 Is that all right by you?

00:25:19.820 So I'm leading you

00:25:20.560 into dangerous territory.

00:25:21.720 And none of this

00:25:22.840 is on this piece of paper.

00:25:23.800 paper.

00:25:26.920 So those changes can happen

00:25:29.940 much more quickly than we think.

00:25:31.640 But human beings are

00:25:33.020 very evolutionarily odd.

00:25:36.880 So everybody is well aware

00:25:39.120 that both nature and nurture

00:25:41.300 play a role in what human beings are.

00:25:43.560 And at some level,

00:25:44.540 the sophisticated consensus

00:25:46.220 around that is that

00:25:47.280 it's a fool's errand

00:25:48.320 to try to separate out

00:25:49.480 the influences of nature

00:25:50.880 from nurture because,

00:25:51.880 of course,

00:25:52.100 they're both playing a role.

00:25:52.980 What we don't say

00:25:54.980 is that human beings

00:25:56.480 are by far

00:25:58.480 the most nurture-based creature

00:26:00.780 that has ever existed

00:26:02.300 on planet Earth.

00:26:03.200 That we have been pushed

00:26:04.580 in the last phase

00:26:05.560 of our evolution

00:26:06.280 very far in the direction

00:26:08.000 of nurture

00:26:08.440 and very far away

00:26:09.660 from the direction

00:26:10.920 of nature.

00:26:11.760 and that is not an accident.

00:26:13.760 That occurred

00:26:14.760 because it provided

00:26:16.080 a distinct evolutionary advantage.

00:26:19.160 But in practice,

00:26:20.440 what it means

00:26:21.080 is that

00:26:23.220 if you think of

00:26:24.060 a human being

00:26:24.680 as a physiological creature,

00:26:27.500 that's the robot.

00:26:28.300 and then it's got a brain,

00:26:30.980 that's the computer,

00:26:32.360 and then it's got a mind,

00:26:33.720 and that's the software.

00:26:35.180 The answer is

00:26:35.860 that human beings

00:26:36.660 are effective

00:26:38.080 at doing what we do

00:26:39.340 because so much

00:26:40.700 of what we are

00:26:41.400 has been offloaded

00:26:42.540 to the software layer.

00:26:44.500 And that is really the key

00:26:45.860 to why human beings

00:26:47.500 are capable of dominating

00:26:50.080 every terrestrial habitat

00:26:51.940 on the planet,

00:26:52.900 why we can go into space,

00:26:54.300 why you all can exist

00:26:56.420 in this room

00:26:57.060 in a way

00:26:58.060 that your ancestors

00:26:59.480 even 500 years ago

00:27:00.760 probably wouldn't

00:27:01.460 have understood.

00:27:02.580 So the fact

00:27:03.540 that all of these things

00:27:04.380 have been shifted over

00:27:05.500 into a software layer

00:27:07.420 that can be written

00:27:08.380 and rewritten

00:27:09.260 as circumstances change

00:27:10.960 says that the analysis

00:27:12.980 that we might do

00:27:13.880 for some other creature

00:27:15.040 is less likely

00:27:16.620 to be applicable to us.

00:27:18.680 And the software layer

00:27:19.860 is culture?

00:27:21.060 The software layer

00:27:22.180 is culture,

00:27:23.460 but culture has to be

00:27:25.340 defined a bit carefully.

00:27:27.660 So culture are units

00:27:31.120 of information

00:27:31.880 that are transmitted

00:27:33.320 generally from one member

00:27:34.820 of a species to another.

00:27:36.880 Now this does provide culture

00:27:39.000 with a special attribute

00:27:40.000 which is that it can move

00:27:40.880 horizontally.

00:27:41.640 You and I can exchange

00:27:42.560 cultural tidbits.

00:27:44.940 But most culture

00:27:45.800 is likely to be

00:27:46.980 transmitted vertically.

00:27:48.540 So we learn an awful lot

00:27:49.660 in our natal homes

00:27:50.640 before we go out

00:27:52.020 into the world

00:27:52.480 and pick up

00:27:53.640 more nuanced stuff.

00:27:55.220 So yes,

00:27:55.720 that cultural layer

00:27:56.720 I would argue

00:27:57.800 is every bit

00:27:59.880 as biological

00:28:00.840 and every bit

00:28:02.100 as evolutionary

00:28:02.880 as the genetic layer.

00:28:04.780 And in fact,

00:28:05.660 it is a special trick

00:28:07.340 that has been deployed

00:28:08.480 by the genetic layer

00:28:09.560 in order to solve problems

00:28:11.080 that the genetic layer

00:28:11.960 is not capable

00:28:12.880 of solving on its own.

00:28:14.000 Well, I want to get

00:28:15.600 deeper into this

00:28:16.700 and the link

00:28:17.320 between biology

00:28:18.560 and culture

00:28:19.120 and whether understanding

00:28:20.060 evolution helps us

00:28:21.580 produce more

00:28:22.460 normative culture

00:28:23.740 and society

00:28:24.680 is more worth living in.

00:28:26.380 But before we go there,

00:28:28.000 I want to just ask

00:28:28.940 a question or two

00:28:29.540 about Evergreen.

00:28:31.540 And this is just,

00:28:32.160 this is a moment

00:28:34.060 where we can,

00:28:34.760 we have an opportunity

00:28:35.440 to say how we should

00:28:37.020 rewrite our culture

00:28:38.220 or modify it.

00:28:39.800 what would,

00:28:41.700 so you take

00:28:42.180 these topics

00:28:43.540 that can be raised

00:28:46.320 in the context

00:28:46.840 of a biology classroom

00:28:48.080 and on their face

00:28:50.680 they seem dangerous

00:28:52.600 to talk about.

00:28:53.960 And there's obviously,

00:28:55.380 there are many memes

00:28:56.340 that have been spread

00:28:57.080 about how

00:28:57.880 even having a conversation

00:28:59.040 like this

00:28:59.760 that skirts these issues

00:29:01.640 is a symptom

00:29:02.540 of intolerance

00:29:03.840 or some kind

00:29:04.780 of perverse fixation

00:29:06.400 on human difference

00:29:07.300 that has a,

00:29:08.140 an ulterior motive

00:29:09.440 that we should

00:29:10.520 be suspect of.

00:29:12.380 What should students do

00:29:15.220 whether or not

00:29:15.660 their understanding

00:29:16.440 of the issues

00:29:17.080 is correct.

00:29:17.840 I mean,

00:29:18.040 in many cases

00:29:18.700 it won't be.

00:29:19.260 But students

00:29:19.700 who are outraged

00:29:21.780 by something

00:29:23.120 that's happening

00:29:23.880 on a campus

00:29:24.520 in the class

00:29:25.820 or an invited speaker,

00:29:27.900 what is the appropriate

00:29:29.960 means of protest

00:29:31.180 that doesn't lead

00:29:32.200 to this absolute collapse

00:29:33.640 of an institution?

00:29:36.120 Yeah.

00:29:36.960 What indeed.

00:29:37.880 I would say

00:29:39.280 the first problem

00:29:40.800 is that something

00:29:42.440 about modern protest

00:29:44.340 is absolutely

00:29:46.440 deaf

00:29:47.680 to realities

00:29:49.780 that ought to be

00:29:50.540 important to it.

00:29:51.820 And were this

00:29:52.560 not the case

00:29:53.300 there would be

00:29:53.700 lots of room

00:29:54.560 to navigate

00:29:55.540 based on concerns.

00:29:57.340 Some of which

00:29:57.920 may be legitimate

00:29:58.600 many of which

00:29:59.300 I can tell you

00:29:59.900 are not legitimate.

00:30:00.980 but the key

00:30:02.640 to dealing

00:30:03.520 with these tensions

00:30:05.300 is to air them

00:30:07.440 and to discuss them.

00:30:09.440 And the hallmark

00:30:11.480 of what I saw

00:30:12.440 at Evergreen

00:30:13.200 and what we have seen

00:30:15.240 elsewhere

00:30:15.880 is that

00:30:16.940 the movement

00:30:18.120 is utterly

00:30:19.600 ineducable

00:30:21.040 on the topics

00:30:22.480 that it's focused on

00:30:23.580 which is just

00:30:24.460 the oddest thing.

00:30:25.740 and it's

00:30:26.560 very unnatural.

00:30:28.180 I should say

00:30:28.840 I lost

00:30:32.140 very few

00:30:33.460 friends

00:30:34.340 in this

00:30:35.200 circumstance.

00:30:36.500 I did lose

00:30:37.020 a few

00:30:37.440 on the faculty

00:30:38.160 side.

00:30:39.180 But students

00:30:39.900 have overwhelmingly

00:30:40.900 been loyal

00:30:42.220 to my wife

00:30:42.900 and me

00:30:43.280 and very

00:30:43.840 sympathetic

00:30:44.700 and generous

00:30:45.560 and understanding.

00:30:46.620 So the students

00:30:47.440 who actually

00:30:47.900 knew you

00:30:48.660 knew you

00:30:49.820 and the students

00:30:50.960 who didn't know

00:30:51.540 you

00:30:51.840 demonized you.

00:30:53.260 Right.

00:30:53.720 But here's the part

00:30:55.060 that I can't get past.

00:30:57.800 When I talk

00:30:58.640 to these students

00:30:59.520 and I talk

00:31:00.260 to other friends

00:31:01.000 who watch

00:31:01.520 this whole thing

00:31:02.160 unfold

00:31:02.620 I hear the same

00:31:04.440 thing over

00:31:05.000 and over again

00:31:05.720 which is

00:31:06.520 they're not

00:31:08.000 confused

00:31:08.600 about me

00:31:10.140 or Heather

00:31:10.840 or any

00:31:12.180 of what happened

00:31:13.060 but they cannot

00:31:14.340 reason with their

00:31:15.380 friends who don't

00:31:16.280 know us.

00:31:17.580 So Heather's

00:31:18.380 your wife

00:31:18.780 who is also

00:31:19.260 a professor.

00:31:20.120 I was also

00:31:20.500 a professor

00:31:20.920 at Evergreen

00:31:21.380 for 15 years.

00:31:22.700 In fact

00:31:23.000 Evergreen's

00:31:23.920 most highly

00:31:25.680 rated professor

00:31:26.600 based on

00:31:28.000 Rate My Professor

00:31:28.880 online.

00:31:29.700 You can go

00:31:30.220 see her reviews.

00:31:32.000 She's

00:31:32.480 marvelous.

00:31:34.540 But

00:31:34.700 I know

00:31:36.220 that if

00:31:36.600 I was

00:31:37.360 watching somebody

00:31:38.680 let's say

00:31:39.980 that I

00:31:40.280 thought

00:31:40.820 ill of somebody

00:31:41.780 I thought

00:31:42.140 they were

00:31:42.400 a horrible

00:31:42.800 person

00:31:43.280 and then

00:31:43.780 somebody

00:31:44.120 said to me

00:31:44.720 you know

00:31:44.980 what

00:31:45.140 I actually

00:31:45.520 know them

00:31:46.000 you've got

00:31:46.500 them wrong.

00:31:48.020 I would

00:31:48.300 immediately

00:31:48.800 become agnostic

00:31:49.760 about what

00:31:50.220 was going

00:31:50.640 on.

00:31:51.140 I mean

00:31:51.260 that would

00:31:51.520 just

00:31:51.660 be like

00:31:51.920 in an

00:31:52.280 instant

00:31:52.600 I would

00:31:52.920 say

00:31:53.060 well

00:31:53.240 either

00:31:54.460 the

00:31:54.660 person

00:31:54.940 I'm

00:31:55.140 talking

00:31:55.480 to

00:31:55.700 doesn't

00:31:56.000 understand

00:31:56.520 what's

00:31:57.560 going on

00:31:58.100 or I've

00:31:58.660 missed

00:31:58.880 something

00:31:59.260 but something

00:31:59.900 doesn't add

00:32:00.480 up here

00:32:00.880 so I'm

00:32:01.540 going to

00:32:01.720 have to go

00:32:02.280 slow

00:32:02.560 and figure

00:32:02.960 out what

00:32:03.360 I've

00:32:03.560 missed.

00:32:03.740 this is

00:32:04.380 this is

00:32:04.400 not

00:32:04.760 functioning

00:32:05.300 in

00:32:05.640 this

00:32:05.820 circumstance

00:32:06.240 people

00:32:06.680 who

00:32:07.200 believe

00:32:07.720 that

00:32:08.080 they

00:32:08.220 know

00:32:08.500 what

00:32:08.720 took

00:32:08.940 place

00:32:09.260 are

00:32:09.440 so

00:32:09.840 convinced

00:32:10.340 of it

00:32:10.600 that

00:32:10.720 they

00:32:10.860 cannot

00:32:11.280 be

00:32:11.640 derailed

00:32:12.300 even

00:32:12.700 by

00:32:12.940 somebody

00:32:13.320 saying

00:32:13.620 hey

00:32:13.820 you know

00:32:14.100 what

00:32:14.240 I know

00:32:14.480 that

00:32:14.640 person

00:32:15.000 personally

00:32:15.940 and they're

00:32:16.380 not a

00:32:16.680 racist

00:32:17.040 that doesn't

00:32:18.180 apparently

00:32:18.620 count for

00:32:19.080 anything

00:32:19.280 so that

00:32:20.040 tells me

00:32:20.520 that this

00:32:20.860 is a

00:32:21.120 kind

00:32:21.360 of

00:32:21.560 religious

00:32:22.460 fervor

00:32:23.440 it's

00:32:24.180 not a

00:32:24.580 natural

00:32:25.040 it's

00:32:25.680 not an

00:32:26.160 analytical

00:32:26.640 conclusion

00:32:27.440 that might

00:32:28.040 be

00:32:28.400 amenable

00:32:29.100 to being

00:32:29.540 changed

00:32:30.040 if

00:32:30.240 evidence

00:32:30.760 arose

00:32:31.260 that

00:32:31.580 said

00:32:32.180 something

00:32:32.480 different

00:32:32.840 it's

00:32:33.580 very

00:32:33.820 yeah

00:32:34.080 it is

00:32:34.700 it does

00:32:35.040 have a

00:32:35.420 kind

00:32:35.720 of

00:32:35.840 cultic

00:32:36.460 shape

00:32:37.620 to it

00:32:37.960 and you

00:32:38.400 would

00:32:38.540 almost

00:32:38.800 have to

00:32:39.140 deprogram

00:32:39.800 someone

00:32:40.200 who's

00:32:40.560 got a

00:32:40.980 ton

00:32:41.200 of

00:32:41.400 invested

00:32:42.020 in

00:32:42.360 viewing

00:32:43.200 you

00:32:43.420 a certain

00:32:43.800 way

00:32:44.080 you know

00:32:44.820 you

00:32:45.040 when this

00:32:45.940 first thing

00:32:46.360 unfolded

00:32:46.800 I don't

00:32:47.060 know if

00:32:47.300 you remember

00:32:47.660 it

00:32:47.840 but you

00:32:48.120 tweeted

00:32:48.440 something

00:32:48.840 about

00:32:49.300 it

00:32:49.740 being

00:32:50.360 cult

00:32:50.700 like

00:32:50.980 and I

00:32:51.300 had not

00:32:51.740 thought

00:32:52.060 that

00:32:52.300 thought

00:32:52.600 before

00:32:53.000 I

00:32:53.220 saw

00:32:53.420 your

00:32:53.580 tweet

00:32:53.800 but it

00:32:54.220 instantly

00:32:54.700 resonated

00:32:56.400 and

00:32:57.120 everything

00:32:57.400 I've

00:32:57.700 seen

00:32:57.920 since

00:32:58.360 says

00:32:58.660 that

00:32:58.940 that's

00:32:59.960 the

00:33:00.680 correct

00:33:01.060 analogy

00:33:01.560 yeah

00:33:02.280 and also

00:33:03.300 social media

00:33:04.060 is obviously

00:33:04.540 not helping

00:33:05.140 in this

00:33:05.740 regard

00:33:06.060 it's

00:33:06.440 spreading

00:33:06.840 these

00:33:07.880 memes

00:33:08.260 and once

00:33:09.000 you

00:33:09.220 again

00:33:09.980 once you

00:33:10.600 have

00:33:11.080 enough

00:33:11.680 sunk

00:33:11.960 cost

00:33:12.500 seeing it

00:33:13.380 one way

00:33:13.860 and you've

00:33:14.360 been public

00:33:14.740 about it

00:33:15.200 then the

00:33:15.760 social cost

00:33:17.280 of changing

00:33:17.700 your mind

00:33:18.300 publicly

00:33:18.880 and apologizing

00:33:19.960 seems

00:33:20.440 insurmountable

00:33:21.820 to people

00:33:22.140 which again

00:33:22.660 this is an

00:33:23.080 intuition

00:33:23.340 that I don't

00:33:23.960 share

00:33:24.380 it's like

00:33:24.680 if I've

00:33:25.220 been wrong

00:33:27.540 publicly

00:33:28.740 about

00:33:29.380 something

00:33:29.900 particularly

00:33:30.540 in this

00:33:30.880 kind of

00:33:31.220 area

00:33:31.560 where I

00:33:32.020 thought

00:33:32.800 someone

00:33:33.120 was

00:33:33.480 Satan

00:33:34.420 and they

00:33:34.860 turned out

00:33:35.200 not to

00:33:35.520 be

00:33:35.700 I would

00:33:36.560 be so

00:33:36.920 uncomfortable

00:33:37.560 having

00:33:38.440 just

00:33:38.880 maintaining

00:33:39.640 that

00:33:40.220 by neglect

00:33:41.320 I just

00:33:42.520 feel like

00:33:42.820 I'm

00:33:43.380 wired

00:33:43.660 to

00:33:43.900 immediately

00:33:44.980 rectify

00:33:46.000 that

00:33:46.220 problem

00:33:46.560 but

00:33:46.800 it seems

00:33:47.880 people have

00:33:48.940 different

00:33:49.520 intuitions

00:33:49.920 here

00:33:50.120 yeah

00:33:50.800 I don't

00:33:51.300 quite get

00:33:51.760 it

00:33:51.900 because

00:33:52.420 intellectual

00:33:54.580 honest

00:33:55.200 brokers

00:33:55.640 I think

00:33:56.220 all reach

00:33:56.920 the conclusion

00:33:57.480 that you

00:33:58.180 just

00:33:58.540 suggested

00:33:59.280 which is

00:33:59.900 at the

00:34:00.380 point you

00:34:00.720 discover

00:34:01.100 that you've

00:34:01.500 got something

00:34:02.100 really wrong

00:34:03.040 it's very

00:34:03.640 painful to get

00:34:04.340 on the right

00:34:04.740 side of it

00:34:05.200 but it's

00:34:05.860 way cheaper

00:34:06.620 than not

00:34:07.380 getting on the

00:34:07.880 right side

00:34:08.260 of it

00:34:08.420 and continuing

00:34:09.040 to pay the

00:34:09.660 cost of

00:34:10.380 being dead

00:34:10.940 wrong

00:34:11.340 so there's

00:34:12.420 a way in

00:34:12.820 which no

00:34:13.440 matter how

00:34:13.800 bad it is

00:34:14.480 to backtrack

00:34:15.440 and get on

00:34:16.080 the right

00:34:16.340 side of

00:34:16.700 something

00:34:17.060 it's always

00:34:17.820 a bargain

00:34:18.200 relative to

00:34:18.780 waiting

00:34:19.000 and somehow

00:34:20.020 that logic

00:34:20.600 does not

00:34:21.000 seem to

00:34:21.420 register

00:34:21.740 with people

00:34:22.220 I guess

00:34:24.000 there's

00:34:24.320 another

00:34:24.540 topic

00:34:25.440 two other

00:34:26.340 topics

00:34:26.740 we should

00:34:27.180 mention

00:34:28.040 here

00:34:28.340 that

00:34:28.600 freak

00:34:29.640 people

00:34:29.920 out

00:34:30.220 well

00:34:30.580 there's

00:34:31.300 a name

00:34:32.720 for

00:34:33.220 what I

00:34:34.500 now

00:34:34.740 consider

00:34:35.340 the

00:34:36.640 most

00:34:37.660 vulnerable

00:34:38.260 attitude

00:34:39.840 that would

00:34:40.580 bias someone

00:34:41.240 toward

00:34:41.640 freaking out

00:34:42.380 on these

00:34:42.680 issues

00:34:42.940 and it

00:34:43.400 is

00:34:43.680 this term

00:34:44.460 that I

00:34:44.680 don't think

00:34:44.900 I've ever

00:34:45.260 uttered

00:34:45.780 on a

00:34:45.980 podcast

00:34:46.280 and I

00:34:47.220 I'm going

00:34:47.720 to have

00:34:47.920 you

00:34:48.140 define

00:34:49.200 for me

00:34:49.600 it's not

00:34:49.960 I haven't

00:34:50.260 thought a lot

00:34:50.640 about it

00:34:50.980 but this

00:34:51.280 notion of

00:34:51.740 intersectionality

00:34:52.740 what is

00:34:54.100 intersectionality

00:34:54.980 and when

00:34:56.360 will this

00:34:56.860 go away

00:34:57.620 yeah

00:35:00.120 well

00:35:00.760 actually

00:35:01.700 Eric and

00:35:02.220 I have

00:35:02.780 a long

00:35:04.100 running

00:35:04.440 private

00:35:05.040 discussion

00:35:05.520 on this

00:35:05.940 topic

00:35:06.300 and the

00:35:07.440 upshot

00:35:07.940 is that

00:35:08.440 intersectionality

00:35:09.440 like so

00:35:10.880 many of

00:35:11.760 these concepts

00:35:12.520 that we are

00:35:13.140 now being

00:35:13.960 backed against

00:35:14.600 the wall

00:35:15.000 with

00:35:15.320 actually has

00:35:16.220 a bit of

00:35:16.700 truth

00:35:16.960 at the

00:35:17.280 bottom

00:35:17.480 of it

00:35:17.860 you know

00:35:18.160 it's a

00:35:18.440 real thing

00:35:19.040 but it's

00:35:19.880 been weaponized

00:35:20.620 in a way

00:35:20.940 that just

00:35:21.280 makes it

00:35:21.600 very dangerous

00:35:22.180 so the

00:35:22.820 basic notion

00:35:23.540 is that

00:35:24.380 people

00:35:25.240 who are

00:35:26.580 from

00:35:27.020 historically

00:35:27.720 oppressed

00:35:28.460 populations

00:35:29.600 are not

00:35:30.820 you know

00:35:31.540 they're not

00:35:31.980 identifiable

00:35:33.240 with one

00:35:33.820 of these

00:35:34.180 things

00:35:34.500 that if

00:35:34.800 you were

00:35:35.200 if you're

00:35:36.140 trans

00:35:36.600 and you're

00:35:37.760 black

00:35:38.460 that that's

00:35:39.060 two different

00:35:39.780 kinds

00:35:40.380 of difficult

00:35:41.860 road that

00:35:42.420 you're on

00:35:42.860 simultaneously

00:35:43.520 and that

00:35:44.100 the interaction

00:35:44.780 of them

00:35:45.280 is unique

00:35:46.960 and emergent

00:35:47.680 I'm not sure

00:35:48.300 I've actually

00:35:48.620 heard it said

00:35:49.140 that way

00:35:49.520 before

00:35:49.780 but that

00:35:50.520 there's some

00:35:51.300 unique fact

00:35:52.220 of all of

00:35:53.560 the various

00:35:54.140 things that

00:35:54.900 you face

00:35:55.360 that are

00:35:55.980 obstacles

00:35:56.860 and the

00:35:57.800 problem is

00:35:58.320 that this

00:35:58.580 gets turned

00:35:59.180 into a

00:35:59.880 very simplistic

00:36:00.640 formula

00:36:01.360 that essentially

00:36:02.580 is like

00:36:04.020 well maybe

00:36:07.020 I should put

00:36:07.640 it this way

00:36:08.120 there are two

00:36:09.180 factions in

00:36:10.400 the equity

00:36:11.160 movement

00:36:11.740 equity being

00:36:12.360 something that

00:36:12.900 is never

00:36:13.460 defined for

00:36:14.260 a particular

00:36:15.860 reason

00:36:16.300 but the

00:36:17.780 two factions

00:36:18.520 are a

00:36:19.260 faction that

00:36:19.840 earnestly

00:36:20.460 wishes to

00:36:21.740 put an

00:36:22.440 end to

00:36:23.200 systematic

00:36:23.680 oppression

00:36:24.360 and the

00:36:25.780 other faction

00:36:26.440 wishes to

00:36:27.380 turn the

00:36:27.780 tables of

00:36:28.640 systematic

00:36:29.100 oppression

00:36:29.760 and in the

00:36:31.000 context of

00:36:31.720 turning the

00:36:32.080 tables of

00:36:32.520 systematic

00:36:32.860 oppression

00:36:33.460 one's

00:36:34.980 intersectionality

00:36:37.160 quotient

00:36:37.720 that is to

00:36:38.300 say the

00:36:38.600 number of

00:36:39.380 kinds of

00:36:39.900 oppression

00:36:40.240 that an

00:36:40.560 individual

00:36:40.880 can claim

00:36:41.560 basically says

00:36:42.580 where in the

00:36:43.200 new hierarchy

00:36:43.900 you're going

00:36:44.420 to be

00:36:44.820 now this

00:36:45.920 is folly

00:36:46.520 it's not

00:36:47.500 going to

00:36:48.260 work and

00:36:49.240 even if it

00:36:49.740 did work

00:36:50.380 the

00:36:51.000 intersectional

00:36:52.420 movement is

00:36:53.080 unstable

00:36:53.660 game theoretically

00:36:54.620 because it is

00:36:55.320 composed of all

00:36:56.180 of these

00:36:56.460 different entities

00:36:57.260 that are not

00:36:58.120 ultimately the

00:36:59.440 same

00:36:59.760 and you can

00:37:00.580 see the

00:37:01.100 friendly fire

00:37:02.120 happening in

00:37:02.900 that world

00:37:03.840 where this

00:37:04.700 it's almost

00:37:05.460 like a

00:37:06.180 very unhappy

00:37:07.840 game of

00:37:08.420 Dungeons and

00:37:08.920 Dragons where

00:37:09.600 you have

00:37:10.000 various powers

00:37:11.320 that get

00:37:12.320 misapplied

00:37:13.120 against your

00:37:14.140 friends

00:37:14.480 it's

00:37:15.340 it's actually

00:37:17.100 it's tragic

00:37:18.360 at Evergreen

00:37:19.520 there were

00:37:22.480 two

00:37:23.160 so

00:37:24.260 Evergreen has

00:37:25.320 a very large

00:37:26.400 indigenous

00:37:26.820 population

00:37:27.580 and the

00:37:29.120 movement

00:37:29.480 used a lot

00:37:30.560 of indigenous

00:37:31.140 imagery to

00:37:32.440 begin with

00:37:33.060 most famously

00:37:34.340 it's something

00:37:34.760 called the

00:37:35.240 canoe meeting

00:37:35.820 which was

00:37:36.900 an absurd

00:37:37.980 exercise

00:37:38.500 but you

00:37:39.220 know the

00:37:39.540 canoe was

00:37:40.160 there not

00:37:41.260 by accident

00:37:41.880 it was

00:37:42.240 there as

00:37:42.580 a metaphor

00:37:43.120 for this

00:37:45.220 Indian mode

00:37:45.820 of transport

00:37:46.320 and you

00:37:47.780 could see

00:37:48.440 that there

00:37:48.960 was tension

00:37:49.640 between these

00:37:50.460 two factions

00:37:51.120 the indigenous

00:37:51.740 faction and

00:37:53.100 the black

00:37:53.840 faction and

00:37:54.800 to my way

00:37:55.460 of thinking

00:37:55.860 these two

00:37:56.600 populations

00:37:57.120 have the

00:37:57.580 greatest claim

00:37:58.600 on systemic

00:38:00.240 oppression

00:38:00.800 having resulted

00:38:01.940 in a permanent

00:38:03.480 underclass status

00:38:04.480 of any two

00:38:05.020 populations but

00:38:05.820 they were also

00:38:06.320 in tension

00:38:06.800 with each

00:38:07.280 other

00:38:07.560 and that

00:38:08.940 ultimately

00:38:09.440 I believe

00:38:10.000 is going

00:38:10.540 to tear

00:38:11.560 the movement

00:38:12.060 apart if

00:38:12.800 nothing else

00:38:13.400 does first

00:38:14.260 which is

00:38:15.180 very sad

00:38:16.220 because the

00:38:17.360 systemic

00:38:18.000 oppression

00:38:18.540 is real

00:38:19.500 it wasn't

00:38:20.600 real at

00:38:21.120 Evergreen

00:38:21.560 it was phony

00:38:22.480 at Evergreen

00:38:23.000 Evergreen

00:38:23.380 was challenged

00:38:23.960 because it

00:38:24.440 was a soft

00:38:25.340 target not

00:38:26.040 because it

00:38:26.440 was a bastion

00:38:27.100 of racism

00:38:28.100 but there

00:38:29.320 are legitimate

00:38:29.980 concerns to

00:38:30.820 be addressed

00:38:31.480 and unfortunately

00:38:32.540 by pursuing

00:38:33.380 them in this

00:38:34.320 false way

00:38:35.200 we leave

00:38:36.680 the impression

00:38:37.320 that maybe

00:38:37.980 the problem

00:38:38.860 isn't real

00:38:39.400 at all

00:38:39.840 I'm hesitant

00:38:42.180 to go here

00:38:42.960 to land on

00:38:43.860 yet another

00:38:44.260 dangerous noun

00:38:45.220 but I'm

00:38:46.120 encouraged by

00:38:46.800 how little

00:38:47.420 trouble we've

00:38:48.000 gotten ourselves

00:38:48.520 in thus far

00:38:49.280 cool

00:38:50.400 how do

00:38:52.600 biologists

00:38:53.120 think about

00:38:53.640 sex and

00:38:54.400 gender

00:38:54.780 and how

00:38:56.000 will this

00:38:56.860 survive

00:38:57.300 export to

00:38:58.220 the culture

00:38:59.060 at large

00:38:59.540 take it

00:39:02.080 away

00:39:02.400 Fred Weinstein

00:39:03.440 actually

00:39:05.220 this is

00:39:05.900 funny

00:39:07.000 because

00:39:07.460 to me

00:39:08.480 sex and

00:39:09.840 gender

00:39:10.060 is a walk

00:39:10.640 in the park

00:39:11.060 compared to

00:39:11.580 race

00:39:11.880 sex and

00:39:13.160 gender

00:39:13.460 there's the

00:39:14.680 embarrassing

00:39:15.480 aspect of

00:39:16.260 discussing it

00:39:17.040 but the

00:39:18.440 logic of it

00:39:19.360 is much more

00:39:20.060 straightforward

00:39:20.580 and I think

00:39:21.720 actually probably

00:39:22.560 easier for us

00:39:23.260 to deal with

00:39:24.060 sexes are

00:39:26.300 real and

00:39:27.180 they're different

00:39:27.780 from each other

00:39:28.540 for evolutionary

00:39:29.520 reasons

00:39:30.080 and some of

00:39:30.780 those differences

00:39:31.360 we can do

00:39:32.320 nothing about

00:39:32.920 and some of

00:39:33.420 those differences

00:39:34.040 though they

00:39:35.060 evolved and

00:39:36.200 they came to

00:39:37.060 the present as

00:39:37.920 a result of the

00:39:38.560 fact that they

00:39:39.000 made evolutionary

00:39:39.800 sense we are

00:39:40.420 not stuck with

00:39:41.100 them and we

00:39:41.740 can reorganize

00:39:43.020 the truth of

00:39:43.980 the way the

00:39:44.780 sexes interact

00:39:45.660 but we should

00:39:46.200 do so

00:39:46.700 deliberately and

00:39:48.380 intentionally and

00:39:49.320 not haphazardly

00:39:50.200 because we stand

00:39:51.020 to lose a

00:39:52.120 tremendous amount

00:39:53.060 if we just

00:39:54.120 simply say

00:39:54.780 men and women

00:39:55.500 are basically

00:39:55.900 the same

00:39:56.460 and anytime

00:39:58.000 men and

00:39:58.940 women don't

00:39:59.500 behave the

00:40:00.020 same way

00:40:00.460 that's because

00:40:01.040 the patriarchy

00:40:01.800 is oppressing

00:40:02.300 people

00:40:02.760 that's just

00:40:03.880 nonsense

00:40:04.260 and so

00:40:05.200 the message

00:40:06.420 I would

00:40:06.800 have is

00:40:08.120 we should

00:40:09.800 retool sex

00:40:10.900 and gender

00:40:11.380 for modern

00:40:12.120 realities

00:40:12.640 just the

00:40:13.220 simple fact

00:40:13.840 of birth

00:40:14.160 control

00:40:14.500 changes

00:40:14.920 everything

00:40:15.340 and if

00:40:16.540 nothing else

00:40:17.100 did that

00:40:17.540 would license

00:40:18.080 us to

00:40:18.700 reinvent these

00:40:19.680 concepts

00:40:20.060 but we

00:40:20.600 should do

00:40:20.940 so in

00:40:21.720 an

00:40:21.920 evolutionarily

00:40:22.820 aware

00:40:23.760 way

00:40:24.420 can you

00:40:24.900 say more

00:40:25.300 about that

00:40:25.620 so the

00:40:25.900 fact that

00:40:26.580 women have

00:40:27.140 control over

00:40:27.780 their reproduction

00:40:28.420 changes the

00:40:29.720 darwinian logic

00:40:30.480 of sex

00:40:31.520 difference

00:40:31.860 or where are

00:40:32.640 you going

00:40:32.940 with birth

00:40:33.480 control

00:40:33.680 it changes

00:40:34.460 everything

00:40:35.040 and you know

00:40:36.340 it also

00:40:37.040 results in

00:40:38.520 human beings

00:40:39.700 modern human

00:40:40.440 beings

00:40:40.820 being in

00:40:41.700 possession of

00:40:42.500 this marvelous

00:40:43.740 gift that they

00:40:44.700 are now

00:40:45.120 abusing

00:40:45.640 the fact that

00:40:47.060 human beings

00:40:47.780 can have

00:40:48.740 sex

00:40:49.300 and not

00:40:50.080 produce

00:40:50.480 babies

00:40:50.940 not play

00:40:51.420 the baby

00:40:51.860 lottery

00:40:52.280 that's a

00:40:53.440 gift

00:40:53.780 and it

00:40:55.640 should be

00:40:56.100 treated with

00:40:56.680 respect

00:40:57.260 it should not

00:40:58.600 be treated

00:40:59.080 as you know

00:40:59.940 well we're

00:41:00.500 therefore entitled

00:41:01.600 to treat

00:41:03.040 sex as if it

00:41:03.800 were nothing

00:41:04.260 it's actually

00:41:04.780 a very

00:41:05.100 important

00:41:05.680 it plays an

00:41:07.000 important role

00:41:07.700 in bonding

00:41:08.540 between people

00:41:09.440 and to the

00:41:10.080 extent that we

00:41:10.680 are going to

00:41:11.020 reinvent it in

00:41:11.740 some modern

00:41:12.280 way

00:41:12.540 we should

00:41:13.080 be careful

00:41:13.780 with it

00:41:14.260 but yeah

00:41:15.440 men and

00:41:16.060 women are

00:41:16.360 different

00:41:16.680 and that

00:41:17.120 those

00:41:17.380 differences

00:41:17.820 some of

00:41:20.080 them are

00:41:20.400 absolutely

00:41:20.960 profound

00:41:21.640 so

00:41:22.740 the one

00:41:24.180 I find

00:41:24.620 the most

00:41:25.200 interesting

00:41:25.680 is this

00:41:26.480 women

00:41:28.700 do not

00:41:30.380 have a

00:41:32.140 reproductive

00:41:32.820 strategy

00:41:33.580 that allows

00:41:34.180 them to

00:41:34.520 produce huge

00:41:35.240 numbers of

00:41:35.740 offspring

00:41:36.080 in a lifetime

00:41:37.080 there is

00:41:37.740 the world

00:41:38.460 record is

00:41:38.940 something like

00:41:39.500 60

00:41:40.040 which I

00:41:40.420 still don't

00:41:40.700 know how

00:41:40.920 you get

00:41:41.220 to 60

00:41:41.880 did you

00:41:42.520 say 60

00:41:43.360 or 16

00:41:44.180 no 60

00:41:45.180 so every

00:41:47.620 time I

00:41:48.060 say that

00:41:48.460 I think

00:41:48.780 I've got

00:41:49.240 to have

00:41:49.560 that wrong

00:41:49.940 and I

00:41:50.120 look it

00:41:50.380 up

00:41:50.500 but it

00:41:50.780 turns out

00:41:51.640 to be

00:41:51.900 right

00:41:52.080 somebody

00:41:52.360 get on

00:41:53.260 snopes

00:41:53.780 yeah

00:41:55.720 well I

00:41:57.080 think the

00:41:57.540 answer is

00:41:58.460 something like

00:41:59.080 what it would

00:41:59.420 have to be

00:42:00.000 where the

00:42:00.760 woman was

00:42:02.360 predisposed in

00:42:03.180 some way to

00:42:03.660 give birth to

00:42:04.220 twins and she

00:42:04.860 was constantly

00:42:05.420 handing them

00:42:06.000 off to wet

00:42:06.460 nurses so

00:42:07.000 that she was

00:42:07.380 immediately

00:42:07.700 becoming fertile

00:42:09.240 again but

00:42:09.700 anyway it

00:42:10.380 was a

00:42:10.860 it's an

00:42:11.560 interesting story

00:42:12.100 but it's

00:42:12.360 very much

00:42:12.660 an outlier

00:42:13.200 whereas there

00:42:13.820 certainly are

00:42:14.440 males that

00:42:15.100 produce huge

00:42:15.800 numbers of

00:42:16.200 offspring in

00:42:16.760 a lifetime

00:42:17.160 and the

00:42:18.380 way males

00:42:19.120 produce huge

00:42:19.800 numbers of

00:42:20.200 offspring in

00:42:20.620 a lifetime

00:42:20.940 is by

00:42:21.660 producing

00:42:22.120 offspring in

00:42:22.700 which they

00:42:22.980 invest nothing

00:42:23.660 which is

00:42:24.260 impossible for

00:42:25.160 a female

00:42:25.560 even a

00:42:26.160 female who

00:42:26.680 hands off

00:42:27.780 offspring immediately

00:42:28.940 to a wet

00:42:29.460 nurse is

00:42:29.860 investing all

00:42:30.700 of the effort

00:42:31.280 of pregnancy

00:42:32.120 which is very

00:42:32.840 substantial in

00:42:33.580 humans so

00:42:34.300 what this

00:42:34.920 means is

00:42:36.580 that a

00:42:37.840 it produces

00:42:38.460 evolutionarily the

00:42:39.560 phenomenon of

00:42:40.240 menopause

00:42:40.940 eventually where

00:42:41.780 women adaptively

00:42:43.360 shut down their

00:42:44.200 reproductive capacity

00:42:45.180 and invest in

00:42:46.160 the offspring they've

00:42:46.880 got rather than

00:42:47.680 producing new ones

00:42:48.580 but what this

00:42:50.700 means is that

00:42:51.560 effectively women

00:42:53.440 especially post

00:42:54.720 menopausal women

00:42:55.500 but women are

00:42:56.560 much more likely

00:42:58.360 to view their

00:43:00.120 own well-being

00:43:01.420 and the well-being

00:43:02.220 of their brood

00:43:03.120 in a way that is

00:43:04.440 compatible with the

00:43:05.780 well-being of

00:43:07.020 their lineage at a

00:43:08.880 larger scale

00:43:09.800 because women

00:43:11.280 cannot produce

00:43:12.180 huge numbers of

00:43:12.840 offspring at the

00:43:13.480 cost of other

00:43:14.960 individuals they are

00:43:16.540 likely to be very

00:43:17.380 farsighted in their

00:43:18.460 wisdom about lineage

00:43:19.840 level phenomena

00:43:20.520 after they can no

00:43:21.720 longer produce

00:43:22.340 offspring of their

00:43:23.220 own their interests

00:43:24.360 become almost

00:43:25.160 synonymous with the

00:43:26.340 larger lineage

00:43:27.060 this isn't the way

00:43:28.700 males see the world

00:43:29.460 because even an old

00:43:30.220 male potentially could

00:43:31.360 produce more

00:43:32.280 offspring and his

00:43:33.120 fitness could go up

00:43:34.060 in that way

00:43:35.240 males on the other

00:43:36.760 hand precisely

00:43:37.660 because of the way

00:43:38.520 they reproduce

00:43:39.040 are much more

00:43:42.040 likely to be

00:43:43.440 to gamble in a

00:43:45.260 particular way

00:43:45.880 and to gamble

00:43:46.580 productively

00:43:47.520 so a lot of the

00:43:48.960 big wins in

00:43:50.280 human evolutionary

00:43:51.720 history have to do

00:43:52.820 with men taking

00:43:53.580 insane risks and

00:43:55.100 managing those risks

00:43:56.240 to a win

00:43:57.060 so there's a kind

00:43:58.340 of male wisdom

00:43:58.920 that has to do

00:43:59.460 with risk taking

00:44:00.240 and a kind of

00:44:01.780 female wisdom

00:44:02.360 that has to do

00:44:03.000 with long-term

00:44:03.720 thinking and they're

00:44:04.920 both wisdom

00:44:05.520 and frankly

00:44:07.100 what should we do

00:44:07.880 with these things

00:44:08.420 we should democratize

00:44:09.480 them both

00:44:09.960 right we should

00:44:10.900 hand them off

00:44:11.580 everybody should

00:44:12.360 begin to see

00:44:13.060 their own well-being

00:44:14.360 tied up in the

00:44:15.580 larger lineage level

00:44:16.500 questions we would

00:44:17.300 behave much more

00:44:18.160 reasonably on

00:44:19.240 environmental issues

00:44:20.140 if we did that

00:44:20.860 and we should also

00:44:21.840 figure out what the

00:44:23.100 message of male

00:44:24.240 wisdom is with

00:44:25.240 respect to risk

00:44:25.980 and there's no

00:44:26.500 reason going forward

00:44:27.620 that it has to be

00:44:28.440 deployed by males

00:44:29.960 more than females

00:44:30.760 anybody who wants

00:44:31.880 it should have it

00:44:33.740 available to them

00:44:34.540 but we shouldn't

00:44:35.380 expect it to

00:44:36.020 magically appear

00:44:36.840 equally in both

00:44:38.360 sexes we should

00:44:39.180 probably have to be

00:44:40.280 deliberate about

00:44:41.080 figuring out how

00:44:41.940 to pass it on

00:44:42.680 but now what do you

00:44:43.960 do with more

00:44:45.480 inflammatory issues

00:44:47.220 like possible

00:44:49.100 sex differences

00:44:49.980 in both

00:44:51.720 propensities

00:44:52.980 and interests

00:44:55.020 I mean I'm

00:44:56.200 thinking of like

00:44:56.780 the Google memo

00:44:58.060 you know the

00:44:58.600 James Damore

00:44:59.220 letter feel free

00:45:00.940 to weigh in on

00:45:01.520 that anyway

00:45:02.000 you want to

00:45:02.780 destroy your

00:45:03.440 reputation

00:45:03.860 I understand

00:45:05.580 that we can

00:45:06.880 step out of

00:45:08.420 the stream

00:45:09.160 of mere

00:45:09.900 evolutionary logic

00:45:10.900 and rewrite

00:45:11.960 the software

00:45:12.480 of culture

00:45:13.340 but if it is

00:45:14.760 just a fact

00:45:15.580 that men and

00:45:16.740 women are

00:45:17.440 different

00:45:18.080 not only

00:45:19.040 physically

00:45:19.420 but psychologically

00:45:20.280 in ways that

00:45:21.300 are relevant

00:45:21.700 toward the

00:45:22.180 kinds of

00:45:22.820 careers they

00:45:23.500 seek out

00:45:24.300 what do we

00:45:25.340 do when

00:45:26.240 the different

00:45:27.560 representation

00:45:28.200 of men and

00:45:29.060 women

00:45:29.320 is always

00:45:31.000 scored as

00:45:32.320 a sign of

00:45:33.160 bias

00:45:33.660 or some

00:45:34.860 sort of

00:45:35.200 systematic

00:45:35.580 injustice

00:45:36.120 unless they're

00:45:37.780 exactly the

00:45:38.640 same

00:45:38.940 there will

00:45:39.500 be a

00:45:39.740 different

00:45:39.960 representation

00:45:40.460 so

00:45:41.500 what's

00:45:42.520 descriptively

00:45:43.040 true

00:45:43.400 of our

00:45:43.940 current

00:45:44.340 situation

00:45:44.820 and what

00:45:45.200 do you

00:45:45.340 think

00:45:45.500 we should

00:45:45.760 be

00:45:45.920 normatively

00:45:46.420 sought

00:45:47.680 I think

00:45:49.580 the answer

00:45:50.860 here is

00:45:51.240 pretty clear

00:45:52.140 it is

00:45:53.620 simply not

00:45:54.300 true

00:45:54.680 that anytime

00:45:55.300 you have

00:45:56.220 different

00:45:57.140 numbers of

00:45:57.720 males and

00:45:58.140 females

00:45:58.500 in a

00:45:59.080 profession

00:45:59.460 for example

00:46:00.080 that it

00:46:00.620 is in

00:46:01.160 and of

00:46:01.340 itself

00:46:01.660 evidence

00:46:02.160 that there

00:46:02.700 must be

00:46:03.160 some

00:46:03.500 unequal

00:46:04.240 access

00:46:04.660 we know

00:46:05.260 that's

00:46:05.580 not

00:46:05.800 true

00:46:06.120 right

00:46:06.900 to take

00:46:08.260 an analogy

00:46:09.620 it happens

00:46:11.200 to be the

00:46:11.660 case

00:46:12.040 that

00:46:12.740 cycling

00:46:15.500 I'm a

00:46:16.800 cyclist

00:46:17.240 and I

00:46:17.460 follow

00:46:17.700 cycling

00:46:18.140 cycling

00:46:18.880 is

00:46:19.880 a sport

00:46:21.580 I'm not

00:46:21.940 talking about

00:46:22.580 competitive

00:46:23.180 cycling

00:46:23.620 but

00:46:23.860 casual

00:46:25.000 cycling

00:46:25.460 is something

00:46:26.200 that is

00:46:26.520 much less

00:46:27.020 frequently

00:46:27.560 done

00:46:28.000 by black

00:46:28.780 folks

00:46:29.080 than white

00:46:29.440 folks

00:46:29.800 I can tell

00:46:31.020 you that

00:46:31.300 the culture

00:46:32.020 at the

00:46:32.380 bike store

00:46:32.880 is not

00:46:33.820 uninterested

00:46:34.600 in selling

00:46:35.060 you a bicycle

00:46:35.680 if you're

00:46:36.200 black

00:46:36.480 in fact

00:46:36.980 maybe it

00:46:37.460 even

00:46:37.720 carries

00:46:38.400 some

00:46:38.720 special

00:46:39.140 cachet

00:46:39.880 but there

00:46:40.660 is something

00:46:41.200 in just

00:46:42.420 the experiences

00:46:43.300 of different

00:46:43.780 populations

00:46:44.300 that has

00:46:44.700 resulted

00:46:45.140 in

00:46:45.920 at the

00:46:46.940 present

00:46:47.280 moment

00:46:47.640 a

00:46:48.280 non-representative

00:46:49.640 distribution

00:46:50.020 of people

00:46:50.780 in the

00:46:51.980 hobby

00:46:53.280 of cycling

00:46:53.920 couldn't

00:46:54.460 that just

00:46:54.940 be an

00:46:55.240 economic

00:46:55.660 variable

00:46:56.480 could be

00:46:57.000 a lot

00:46:57.200 of things

00:46:57.480 could be

00:46:57.960 zip codes

00:46:59.280 are more

00:47:00.020 dangerous

00:47:00.380 to cycle

00:47:00.920 in

00:47:01.180 and so

00:47:01.500 if you

00:47:01.760 grew up

00:47:02.120 in one

00:47:02.480 you weren't

00:47:03.040 encouraged

00:47:03.500 to ride

00:47:04.680 a bike

00:47:05.120 or it

00:47:05.520 could be

00:47:06.020 a lot

00:47:07.920 of mundane

00:47:08.620 things

00:47:08.940 what we

00:47:09.280 know

00:47:09.660 it isn't

00:47:10.300 is any

00:47:10.900 obstacle

00:47:11.440 to cycling

00:47:12.140 to any

00:47:12.780 population

00:47:13.680 anybody

00:47:13.980 who wants

00:47:14.420 to can

00:47:14.700 get a

00:47:14.900 bike

00:47:15.080 and cycle

00:47:15.520 nobody's

00:47:16.000 gonna tell

00:47:16.660 you to

00:47:16.860 get off

00:47:17.160 the road

00:47:17.520 so we

00:47:18.360 know

00:47:18.780 that it

00:47:19.340 is something

00:47:19.880 else

00:47:20.260 it is not

00:47:20.900 oppression

00:47:21.520 it is some

00:47:22.580 other thing

00:47:23.040 which may be

00:47:23.660 the result

00:47:24.220 of the fact

00:47:24.760 that zip codes

00:47:25.600 are

00:47:25.860 differentially

00:47:27.020 desirable

00:47:28.540 from the point

00:47:29.120 of cycling

00:47:29.580 and that

00:47:30.020 zip codes

00:47:30.700 are not

00:47:31.180 distributed

00:47:31.820 in a fair

00:47:32.400 way

00:47:32.740 that's

00:47:33.240 possible

00:47:33.620 but it

00:47:34.220 is not

00:47:34.700 oppression

00:47:35.220 at the

00:47:35.520 bike store

00:47:35.940 and protesting

00:47:36.940 at the bike

00:47:37.400 store would

00:47:37.780 be pointless

00:47:38.380 right

00:47:39.160 it makes

00:47:40.180 no sense

00:47:40.620 that's

00:47:40.900 actually

00:47:41.220 fun

00:47:41.580 to

00:47:41.800 picture

00:47:42.280 I would

00:47:44.720 support a

00:47:45.140 bike store

00:47:45.520 protest

00:47:46.020 just for the

00:47:48.000 irony of it

00:47:48.700 but in any

00:47:50.380 case I think

00:47:50.800 the answer

00:47:51.360 is

00:47:52.060 fields

00:47:53.780 occupations

00:47:55.380 should be

00:47:56.000 open

00:47:56.460 assuming that

00:47:57.420 the particular

00:47:57.900 field doesn't

00:47:58.680 depend on

00:47:59.580 physical brawn

00:48:00.580 or something

00:48:01.100 else that would

00:48:01.680 explain why

00:48:02.400 certain people

00:48:03.020 need to be

00:48:03.440 hired more

00:48:03.860 than other

00:48:04.160 people

00:48:04.500 anything

00:48:05.240 engineering

00:48:05.860 it doesn't

00:48:06.620 matter

00:48:06.820 it should be

00:48:07.340 equally open

00:48:07.980 to everybody

00:48:08.600 and frankly

00:48:10.280 you know

00:48:11.740 I like seeing

00:48:14.400 women do

00:48:15.560 stuff that is

00:48:16.360 traditionally

00:48:16.940 masculine

00:48:17.700 I happen to be

00:48:18.380 married to a

00:48:19.180 woman who

00:48:20.160 though she looks

00:48:21.760 lovely

00:48:22.160 sort of sees the

00:48:23.520 world in masculine

00:48:24.480 terms and she's an

00:48:25.520 evolutionary biologist

00:48:26.500 who goes off to the

00:48:27.700 Amazon and is

00:48:28.500 comfortable carrying a

00:48:29.500 machete and you know

00:48:31.180 that's the way she is

00:48:32.100 and I think it's

00:48:33.860 great so I think we

00:48:34.880 should encourage

00:48:35.500 people to follow

00:48:36.560 their passions

00:48:37.700 and to the extent

00:48:38.580 that their passion

00:48:39.380 is not consistent

00:48:41.440 with historical

00:48:42.440 biases in the way

00:48:44.140 jobs or fields

00:48:45.960 were populated

00:48:47.660 all the better

00:48:49.000 but we don't get

00:48:50.740 to just jump

00:48:51.380 to the logic

00:48:52.020 that says

00:48:52.560 if the numbers

00:48:53.300 in the seats

00:48:53.920 aren't even

00:48:54.700 then something

00:48:55.400 has gone awry

00:48:56.400 here because

00:48:57.200 it's just

00:48:57.640 it's logically

00:48:58.440 not true

00:48:59.120 which is not to

00:48:59.920 say that

00:49:00.340 that's never true

00:49:01.360 it's just not

00:49:02.160 necessarily true

00:49:03.060 exactly

00:49:04.540 and in fact

00:49:05.080 I think we know

00:49:06.080 if you listen

00:49:07.500 into what women

00:49:08.780 in tech are saying

00:49:10.060 even people

00:49:11.100 who are supportive

00:49:12.660 of Damore

00:49:13.900 and his memo

00:49:14.720 acknowledge that

00:49:16.120 there's an awful

00:49:16.860 lot of not so nice

00:49:18.180 boys club kind of

00:49:19.900 stuff that goes on

00:49:20.700 in tech circles

00:49:21.420 so that's not good

00:49:22.940 and it probably

00:49:23.880 does have an effect

00:49:24.820 how much of an effect

00:49:26.840 that's a question

00:49:27.580 that we should

00:49:28.140 we should study

00:49:29.100 to the extent

00:49:29.580 it's driving people

00:49:30.440 out of tech

00:49:31.080 that's bad

00:49:31.980 and it should

00:49:32.400 be addressed

00:49:33.100 but that's a

00:49:34.900 that's a far cry

00:49:36.100 from the facile

00:49:36.880 notion that 50-50

00:49:38.240 is what we have

00:49:39.460 to have

00:49:39.960 in order to

00:49:41.580 demonstrate

00:49:41.940 that there's no

00:49:42.500 oppression

00:49:42.900 so how do you

00:49:43.760 think about gender

00:49:44.580 and its relationship

00:49:46.140 to biological sex

00:49:47.540 that's a good

00:49:49.200 question

00:49:49.720 I've never done

00:49:51.700 this before

00:49:52.080 I just I can't

00:49:52.980 get over the fact

00:49:54.160 that I'm just

00:49:54.600 leading you down

00:49:55.400 a burning hallway

00:49:57.520 filled with broken

00:49:58.580 glass

00:49:59.080 they haven't

00:50:01.300 rushed the stage

00:50:01.960 you're doing great

00:50:02.780 that's good

00:50:03.400 yeah

00:50:04.800 let's put it

00:50:07.320 this way

00:50:07.780 gender

00:50:09.640 and sex

00:50:11.100 are not

00:50:11.800 identical

00:50:12.580 I think it

00:50:13.460 would be fair

00:50:14.200 to say

00:50:14.840 that gender

00:50:15.520 is the software

00:50:16.860 of sex

00:50:17.580 which is not

00:50:18.800 the same thing

00:50:19.640 as saying

00:50:21.140 so

00:50:22.000 my wife

00:50:23.200 is fond

00:50:24.000 of the description

00:50:26.340 that these things

00:50:27.800 are not binary

00:50:28.900 but they're bimodal

00:50:30.500 right

00:50:30.780 so sexist

00:50:31.740 tend to be

00:50:33.220 two modes

00:50:34.200 and those two modes

00:50:35.160 tend to line up

00:50:35.960 with two genders

00:50:36.920 and then there's a lot

00:50:37.820 of stuff

00:50:38.280 that doesn't exactly

00:50:39.540 fit

00:50:39.960 some of that stuff

00:50:41.200 may be the result

00:50:42.080 of chromosomally

00:50:43.520 intersex people

00:50:45.260 being different

00:50:46.500 and some of it

00:50:47.140 may just simply be

00:50:48.180 at the software level

00:50:49.720 it would not be

00:50:51.600 surprising at all

00:50:52.700 in light of the fact

00:50:53.660 that we are

00:50:54.240 software based

00:50:56.000 creatures

00:50:56.480 more than any other

00:50:57.300 creature that has

00:50:58.000 ever been

00:50:58.480 we are living in

00:50:59.540 circumstances

00:51:00.100 that don't look

00:51:00.800 like our

00:51:01.320 ancestral circumstances

00:51:02.460 we are therefore

00:51:03.400 getting all kinds

00:51:04.400 of information

00:51:05.000 in our developmental

00:51:05.900 environments

00:51:06.520 that is abnormal

00:51:07.620 and untested

00:51:08.580 and what effect

00:51:09.500 it has

00:51:10.120 on your

00:51:11.780 understanding

00:51:12.720 of your own

00:51:13.620 gender

00:51:13.980 we can't say

00:51:15.500 it's too early

00:51:16.460 in the study

00:51:17.000 what I would say

00:51:18.360 is that morally

00:51:19.520 we are absolutely

00:51:21.580 compelled

00:51:22.520 to be compassionate

00:51:24.200 about the fact

00:51:25.380 that lots of people

00:51:26.180 are telling us

00:51:26.880 you know what

00:51:27.480 I have the sense

00:51:28.520 that I was born

00:51:29.080 in the wrong body

00:51:29.820 we don't know

00:51:31.280 why that is

00:51:31.900 it's probably

00:51:32.460 a mixture

00:51:33.580 of phenomena

00:51:34.460 but come on

00:51:36.340 these are human beings

00:51:37.340 and they're telling

00:51:38.020 you something

00:51:38.580 about an excruciating

00:51:40.180 condition

00:51:40.680 and they're

00:51:41.760 doing the best

00:51:42.680 they can

00:51:43.040 to figure out

00:51:43.500 how to navigate it

00:51:44.200 so at one level

00:51:45.900 I think it's a very

00:51:46.500 interesting biological

00:51:47.280 question

00:51:47.780 as a human being

00:51:48.820 though

00:51:49.080 I think it's a very

00:51:49.760 simple question

00:51:50.560 we have to be

00:51:51.540 compassionate

00:51:52.040 I don't want

00:51:53.680 to sign up

00:51:54.120 for any

00:51:54.480 fiction

00:51:55.280 yeah

00:51:58.500 well

00:51:59.480 and there's

00:52:01.000 so many cases

00:52:01.640 where the

00:52:02.440 the unclear

00:52:03.960 biological

00:52:05.200 or scientific

00:52:06.320 picture

00:52:06.900 is married

00:52:08.340 to a very

00:52:09.820 clear political

00:52:10.860 answer

00:52:11.580 like that

00:52:12.400 I mean

00:52:12.580 it's just

00:52:12.800 that the politics

00:52:13.540 are so simple

00:52:14.280 right

00:52:14.800 and the politics

00:52:15.280 are what

00:52:16.380 would compassion

00:52:17.160 dictate

00:52:18.100 in this circumstance

00:52:19.140 and once you

00:52:20.740 connect with

00:52:21.340 another person's

00:52:22.100 lived experience

00:52:22.940 you know

00:52:23.720 the idea

00:52:24.240 that the politics

00:52:25.820 are difficult

00:52:26.660 to resolve

00:52:27.120 just goes

00:52:27.740 completely out

00:52:28.260 the window

00:52:28.600 yeah

00:52:29.520 I think it's

00:52:30.500 quite analogous

00:52:31.620 to the question

00:52:32.180 of just

00:52:33.500 straightforward

00:52:34.180 male-female

00:52:36.000 differences

00:52:36.900 and how we

00:52:37.500 should address

00:52:37.980 them

00:52:38.260 the biological

00:52:39.940 facts are

00:52:40.800 interesting

00:52:41.260 and they need

00:52:42.160 to be navigated

00:52:42.980 carefully

00:52:43.760 we can't sign

00:52:45.080 up for fiction

00:52:45.740 to solve

00:52:46.320 the political

00:52:46.780 problem

00:52:47.280 but at some

00:52:48.380 level

00:52:48.600 the political

00:52:49.100 dimension

00:52:49.540 is up

00:52:50.140 for us

00:52:50.580 to navigate

00:52:51.100 without all

00:52:52.360 of the information

00:52:53.080 being available

00:52:54.220 to us

00:52:54.680 as to what

00:52:55.600 causes the thing

00:52:56.380 they really

00:52:57.180 are different

00:52:57.620 questions

00:52:58.040 and unfortunately

00:52:59.720 because people

00:53:01.260 have been

00:53:01.880 effectively led

00:53:02.900 to believe

00:53:03.240 that they have

00:53:03.620 a choice

00:53:04.200 that if they

00:53:04.620 want to sign

00:53:05.140 up for the

00:53:05.500 right political

00:53:06.080 answer

00:53:06.540 that they have

00:53:07.220 to sign up

00:53:07.700 for a fictional

00:53:08.480 biological answer

00:53:09.580 we're caught

00:53:10.320 in this conundrum

00:53:11.080 where people

00:53:11.660 like me

00:53:12.600 are in danger

00:53:13.740 because we

00:53:14.500 want to say

00:53:14.900 hey actually

00:53:15.400 the biology

00:53:16.060 doesn't support

00:53:17.560 the idea

00:53:18.480 that gender

00:53:19.680 is made up

00:53:20.380 and assigned

00:53:20.860 by somebody

00:53:21.460 when you're born

00:53:22.120 gender is in

00:53:23.400 general a good

00:53:24.500 match for sex

00:53:25.340 and it is not

00:53:27.100 something that is

00:53:28.140 simply arbitrary

00:53:29.020 it's real

00:53:29.920 it's biological

00:53:30.640 it has a meaning

00:53:31.400 but we can

00:53:34.560 we can do

00:53:35.100 the right thing

00:53:35.660 and that's

00:53:36.760 what we should do

00:53:37.580 I will also say

00:53:38.640 though there is a

00:53:39.440 just as it was

00:53:41.920 with evergreen

00:53:43.000 and the issue

00:53:44.020 of the equity

00:53:45.200 protests

00:53:45.780 the story

00:53:46.820 from the point

00:53:47.740 of view

00:53:47.920 of the outside

00:53:48.440 world

00:53:48.800 is not the real

00:53:49.680 story

00:53:50.200 inside the world

00:53:51.960 of trans people

00:53:53.140 there is a

00:53:54.460 diversity of opinion

00:53:55.460 which is now

00:53:56.000 beginning to emerge

00:53:57.420 and it is penalized

00:53:59.380 in order to keep

00:54:00.960 people on narrative

00:54:02.160 and that's something

00:54:03.140 we have to address

00:54:04.020 so for example

00:54:05.240 contrapoints

00:54:06.720 got in big trouble

00:54:08.580 people in the last

00:54:10.040 couple of weeks

00:54:10.940 based on her

00:54:12.060 willingness to talk

00:54:13.720 to people who

00:54:15.140 were outside of a

00:54:17.000 particular social

00:54:18.700 bubble

00:54:19.040 and she was

00:54:20.060 basically penalized

00:54:22.700 online by the

00:54:24.180 very people that

00:54:24.820 had been supporting

00:54:25.480 her

00:54:25.780 and this is a

00:54:26.840 very unfortunate

00:54:27.500 thing because what

00:54:28.220 she was really

00:54:28.720 trying to do was

00:54:29.440 bridge a gap that

00:54:30.860 we should all want

00:54:31.540 bridged

00:54:31.940 so anyway if we

00:54:33.840 support those people

00:54:34.820 this will work out

00:54:35.920 much better and we

00:54:36.660 will get to the

00:54:37.340 conversation that

00:54:38.140 doesn't insult our

00:54:39.080 intelligence about

00:54:39.960 sex and gender

00:54:41.140 yeah yeah

00:54:42.880 one thing that I've

00:54:44.760 been spending most

00:54:46.100 of my time doing

00:54:46.880 is is trying to

00:54:49.140 think about

00:54:50.580 questions of

00:54:51.220 meaning and value

00:54:52.320 in a rational

00:54:53.740 scientific picture

00:54:54.960 and it's the

00:54:55.880 marriage of

00:54:56.740 science and

00:54:59.040 moral philosophy

00:55:00.780 loosely speaking

00:55:02.560 and important

00:55:04.780 questions that

00:55:05.620 society is

00:55:06.740 is grappling

00:55:07.520 with or will

00:55:08.020 have to grapple

00:55:08.580 with and it's

00:55:09.360 not everything is

00:55:10.660 at the center of

00:55:11.180 that venn diagram

00:55:11.860 but many things

00:55:13.140 are that I focus

00:55:14.620 on and there are

00:55:17.780 many people who are

00:55:18.380 struggling to speak

00:55:20.020 about

00:55:20.360 if you'd like to

00:55:22.560 continue listening to

00:55:23.320 this conversation

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00:55:33.160 including bonus episodes

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00:55:36.620 conversations I've been

00:55:37.440 having on the waking

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - December 19, 2017

#109— Biology and Culture

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