The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #837 - Gad Saad

00:00:05.000 And we're back.

00:00:06.000 What's up, buddy?

00:00:07.000 Good to see you.

00:00:07.000 How are you?

00:00:08.000 Great to see you.

00:00:08.000 You look tan.

00:00:10.000 We've been enjoying the Southern California weather, sir.

00:00:13.000 My biggest problem every day is to decide which beach between LA and San Diego to hit.

00:00:19.000 What are you, bragging?

00:00:21.000 Bragging about your lax problems?

00:00:22.000 It's my privileged life. 0.96

00:00:25.000 Your brown privilege?

00:00:26.000 My brown privilege.

00:00:28.000 It's like a bronze.

00:00:29.000 It's a very bronzish, shiny...

00:00:31.000 In a few days, it'll settle in, and that's when the true glory of God comes out.

00:00:35.000 Ah, I bet your vitamin D levels are at an all-time high.

00:00:39.000 I need to take them in for the Montreal winters, right?

00:00:42.000 Do you supplement when you're in the winter in Montreal?

00:00:44.000 I don't.

00:00:45.000 You don't?

00:00:46.000 Yeah, 100%.

00:00:47.000 Yeah, vitamin D is a critical factor.

00:00:49.000 Or I just come back to do your show in winter, and then that's how I get my supplement.

00:00:53.000 I don't think that's enough.

00:00:54.000 You need that vitamin D. That's a big thing apparently with people that live in Seattle in the winter, is taking vitamin D and even suntanning beds.

00:01:02.000 People don't realize that suntanning beds, although it's kind of counterintuitive, you think they're really bad for you, it's actually not that bad for you.

00:01:09.000 As long as you don't burn yourself, it's actually good.

00:01:11.000 I did a study, well a paper I wrote, it was a theoretical paper with a dermatologist a few years ago, where we looked at some evolutionary explanations for the epidemiology of suntanning.

00:01:23.000 So if I were to ask you now, without you knowing anything about it, or not much about evolutionary theory, what's the typical demographic of the sort of obsessive suntaner?

00:01:33.000 White girls. 0.96

00:01:35.000 Women, young, single, and they usually tend to discount the future consequences for the immediate benefits, right? 1.00

00:01:44.000 Right.

00:01:44.000 Smoking cigarettes.

00:01:45.000 They probably smoke.

00:01:46.000 Exactly.

00:01:47.000 So it doesn't matter whether I'll get melanoma when I'm 73. I'm going tonight to the party and Tony might be there and I'd like to have that go.

00:01:54.000 And so this dermatologist friend of mine had written to me.

00:01:58.000 He was doing his fellowship.

00:01:59.000 And he said, look, as part of my research requirements, I have to write a paper.

00:02:03.000 You're the big researcher.

00:02:04.000 Can I do a paper with you?

00:02:05.000 I said, but you're a dermatologist.

00:02:06.000 What can we talk about?

00:02:07.000 And then I thought, well, let's do the evolutionary roots of suntanning.

00:02:10.000 And that's how that paper came to be.

00:02:12.000 How is that evolutionary, though?

00:02:15.000 What's evolutionary about white girls that don't think about the future? 1.00

00:02:18.000 Well, no.

00:02:19.000 Are there particular ways that we can predict the demographics of people who do certain behaviors?

00:02:25.000 For example, pathological gambling.

00:02:27.000 Who do you think is likely to succumb to that affliction?

00:02:31.000 Pathological gambling, I would say.

00:02:34.000 Men or women, start with that. 1.00

00:02:36.000 Adult men in their 30s.

00:02:39.000 Low status.

00:02:40.000 Low status.

00:02:41.000 Yeah.

00:02:41.000 On average, okay?

00:02:43.000 And the reason is because it's one of a multitude of strategies.

00:02:47.000 To acquire resources, right?

00:02:49.000 It's the same reason that men rob banks, not women. 1.00

00:02:53.000 Okay, let's do another one.

00:02:54.000 Eating disorders.

00:02:55.000 Who do you think succumbs to eating disorders more?

00:02:59.000 Anorexia nervosa in particular.

00:03:00.000 Okay, women. 1.00

00:03:01.000 Women. 0.81

00:03:02.000 Now, typically the social science explanation is, oh, it's due to exposure to media images.

00:03:08.000 Right.

00:03:08.000 Now that turns out to be a laughably false premise.

00:03:10.000 Why is it laughable?

00:03:11.000 So here we go.

00:03:12.000 Here's the evolutionary angle.

00:03:13.000 Okay.

00:03:15.000 Hippocrates, founder of modern medicine 2,000 plus years ago, had documented the exact same epidemiology of eating disorders in women.

00:03:24.000 So it certainly can't be because of media, right?

00:03:26.000 So there must be something biological that explains the sex specificity of these different dark side consumption.

00:03:35.000 Okay.

00:03:37.000 The evolutionary perspective is to then look at, to the extent that these human universals manifest themselves in exactly the same way across time and place, what might be some of these biological drivers.

00:03:48.000 Compulsive buying, almost exclusively women, 90% women. 1.00

00:03:54.000 Pornographic addictions, almost exclusively male.

00:03:57.000 Right, but let's just stick with this one.

00:03:58.000 Let's just stick with this one, the anorexia nervosa.

00:04:02.000 First of all, when you're talking about Hippocrates, you're talking about one lone individual, so a completely anecdotal piece of evidence, and he said that women were throwing up.

00:04:11.000 Wasn't it a status symbol back then for women to be overweight? 1.00

00:04:14.000 So actually, it's a good question.

00:04:17.000 Eating disorders are much more likely to occur in cultures of plenty.

00:04:22.000 Precisely because the argument is that you can shut off your reproductive window today. 1.00

00:04:29.000 So here's the evolutionary angle.

00:04:31.000 When you suffer from eating disorder, the first thing that happens physiologically is you get what's called amenorrhea.

00:04:36.000 The primary amenorrhea is where you haven't had your menses yet, and now they don't come up.

00:04:41.000 There's no onset.

00:04:42.000 Your menstrual cycle, yeah.

00:04:42.000 Your menstrual cycle?

00:04:44.000 Did you say menses?

00:04:45.000 Your menses, yeah.

00:04:46.000 Is that like the technical term for it?

00:04:48.000 It's the fancy term for it, yeah.

00:04:49.000 Menses?

00:04:50.000 It sounds like something a little kid would call it.

00:04:52.000 Mommy, I didn't get my menses.

00:04:55.000 Now, secondary amenorrhea is where you already had your menstrual cycle, and then it's shut off once you have anorexia nervosa.

00:05:03.000 But what happens when you have amenorrhea is that your reproductive potential is shut off.

00:05:10.000 And so what evolutionary scientists have found is that it turns out that when women suffer from anorexia nervosa, there is some environmental trigger that they're being exposed to, rightly so or wrongly so, that they think they should shut off their menses, their reproductive potential,

00:05:10.000 Right.

00:05:27.000 for a better future.

00:05:28.000 Do you understand what I'm saying?

00:05:29.000 And let me give you the background to this.

00:05:29.000 Whoa!

00:05:31.000 There's a model called the Reproductive Suppression Model found in other mammalian species.

00:05:36.000 Let's say a cow.

00:05:37.000 So if you take a cow, what would be the biggest environmental threat that it faces other than predators?

00:05:43.000 What would you think it might be?

00:05:44.000 Tainted water or food?

00:05:45.000 Or just how much food she can have, right?

00:05:48.000 Does she have access to enough calories to sustain her gestational period, right? 1.00

00:05:52.000 Well, it turns out that in mammalian species, a wide range of mammalian species, Somehow there is a mechanism, an evolutionary mechanism, that either causes the females of the species to either shut off their reproductive window, or if they're already pregnant, and then there's an environmental input that says,

00:06:10.000 hey, this is not looking good.

00:06:11.000 What do you think happens to their body?

00:06:12.000 What do they do with the baby? 0.97

00:06:13.000 They abort the fetus.

00:06:14.000 They abort the fetus.

00:06:15.000 Right.

00:06:18.000 You have infanticide.

00:06:19.000 So in this case, you have the child, but you realize for whatever environmental reason that it's not going to be fruitful to raise that child.

00:06:27.000 And by the way, you see it in human cultures where typically the one who is killed is the last born, as you would expect because the other children, now you've invested quite a bit in them.

00:06:36.000 And so if you're going to get rid of some of your genetic package, you get rid of the one that you've invested the least in.

00:06:42.000 So all of these mechanisms that are part of something called the reproductive suppression model, the idea is that eating disorders is a special instantiation of that.

00:06:51.000 Because what the eating disorder is doing, it's shutting off your reproductive potential because you're getting amenorrhea. 0.76

00:06:58.000 Right, but is that absolutely connected to why women get anorexic?

00:07:02.000 Because it could easily be just a side effect of them wanting to be ridiculously skinny.

00:07:09.000 I would understand with a cow, with something that's living in a very wild life, a wild world, this animal out there just eating grass, and when resources are depleted, nature kicks in, but there's no conscious decision-making process.

00:07:23.000 When a woman is deciding to be anorexic, At least there's some form of decision-making process that wants her to lean towards a slimmer physique. 1.00

00:07:33.000 So that speaks to a very interesting distinction.

00:07:38.000 And so bear with me as I set it up.

00:07:40.000 There's something in evolutionary theory known as proximate versus ultimate explanations.

00:07:40.000 Okay.

00:07:45.000 And actually that speaks to the article that I had sent you.

00:07:48.000 That's one of the points that I discussed in that article.

00:07:50.000 Proximate explanations in science explain the how and the what of something.

00:07:54.000 Much of science operates at the proximate level.

00:07:57.000 If you want to explain what diabetes is exactly, physiologically speaking, you explain it at the proximate level.

00:08:03.000 The ultimate explanation is the Darwinian why.

00:08:06.000 Why would something have evolved to be of that form?

00:08:10.000 So let's discuss it in relation to something related to eating disorders, pregnancy sickness, right?

00:08:15.000 So pregnancy sickness is a phenomenon that women experience around the world. 0.87

00:08:19.000 It's a universal phenomenon found in all cultures.

00:08:22.000 Approximate explanation might be, or approximate exploration might be, how do shifts in a woman's estrogen levels affect the severity of her symptoms?

00:08:33.000 That's a proximate question.

00:08:34.000 The ultimate question is, why have women evolved that physiological response? 1.00

00:08:40.000 Before I give the answer, can you guess what that might be?

00:08:43.000 Why do they develop that ultimate response?

00:08:46.000 So why is it that women experience... 1.00

00:08:49.000 By the way, I call it pregnancy sickness, but the typical colloquial term is morning sickness, but some women don't experience it in the morning. 0.90

00:08:57.000 I have no idea why.

00:08:58.000 Tell me why.

00:08:58.000 You ready?

00:08:59.000 Yeah.

00:09:00.000 So pregnancy sickness happens during the first trimester of gestation, during a period called organogenesis.

00:09:08.000 This is when the fetus is developing its main organs.

00:09:11.000 During that particular period, it's particularly important that the women not be exposed to food pathogens, teratogens, that might harm the developmental pathway of gestation.

00:09:24.000 The fetus's organs.

00:09:25.000 Therefore, all of the mechanisms that she experiences, attraction to certain foods, pickles, a propulsion from other foods, The feeling of being nauseous, the throwing up, all of those built-in mechanisms are evolved mechanisms that are meant to protect possibly the fetus from being exposed to teratogens.

00:09:47.000 And it's perfectly timed so that once organogenesis ends, that's when the pregnancy symptoms end.

00:09:55.000 So the difference between proximate and ultimate, it's not that one is a better explanation than the other, it's that you need both levels of explanations To perfectly understand something.

00:10:05.000 Well, that makes total sense, but it doesn't necessarily apply to why women become anorexic because the desire to be slim, to look very thin in public is very strong because of social media or media, rather, depictions of women.

00:10:22.000 They're always almost impossibly slim.

00:10:24.000 And then on top of that, they also add Photoshop to it.

00:10:27.000 Right.

00:10:27.000 So the evolutionary explanation to the eating disorder story is there is something in the environment that the woman in question is thinking is a threat to her.

00:10:40.000 Can you think the same thing as the cow felt for the lack of calories?

00:10:43.000 Can you think in the human context what might be such a threat?

00:10:48.000 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:10:49.000 Well, I don't know.

00:10:50.000 What would be such a threat?

00:10:51.000 So, for example, if you feel, rightly or wrongly, right?

00:10:53.000 It doesn't matter whether objectively it's true or not.

00:10:55.000 Whatever she feels is what the reality is, right?

00:10:57.000 If she feels that there isn't going to be sufficient either kin support, extended kin support, when she raises a child, or the most likely thing is partner support.

00:11:08.000 If she feels that there isn't likely to be a good partner who's going to support her since we're a bi-parental species, then she engages...

00:11:17.000 And shutting down her reproductive window. 1.00

00:11:20.000 Hence, what you said is true at the proximate level, right?

00:11:24.000 Her thinking can become disordered so that she actually looks at herself in the mirror, even though she's only 70 pounds, and she still thinks that she's fat.

00:11:33.000 But that's a proximate explanation.

00:11:35.000 But the explanation that I've given you is the ultimate Darwinian why.

00:11:38.000 Together, they make a full, complete explanation of the phenomenon.

00:11:42.000 So it doesn't occur in people that have very healthy relationships with a spouse or it occurs much more rarely?

00:11:51.000 Much more rare, exactly.

00:11:52.000 So the research shows, the evolutionary research shows that the environmental threats equivalent to lacking of grazing area for the cow is lack of extended kin support or mate support to the woman.

00:12:05.000 That makes sense.

00:12:07.000 That makes sense because it is primarily single women, right? 1.00

00:12:10.000 They have anorexia.

00:12:12.000 And that's why, by the way, you see it in cultures of plenty rather than in Ethiopia.

00:12:17.000 Because you would expect that the woman who shuts off her reproductive potential today, it's because she's hoping that in some future state, things will be better for her to get back on the reproductive train. 1.00

00:12:29.000 When you're in Ethiopia, I don't have a chance to shut off my reproductive potential.

00:12:34.000 I need to get the food tomorrow or I'm going to die.

00:12:36.000 Right.

00:12:37.000 Wow.

00:12:38.000 Interesting.

00:12:38.000 But what that still doesn't cover is Hippocrates.

00:12:42.000 So Hippocrates is just one guy who had a sufficient database at the time to describe the findings in very similar forms to the current ones.

00:12:54.000 What I'm saying basically is that if it were that it's due to media images, then Well, he didn't have media images at that time, right?

00:13:03.000 I mean, so how would it be that in ancient Greece, it is also the case that it is only women who experienced anorexia nervosa?

00:13:10.000 Well, what did he describe?

00:13:11.000 What was he talking about?

00:13:13.000 I mean, the specifics, I don't know.

00:13:14.000 So I haven't read the original manuscript.

00:13:16.000 It's kind of important, no?

00:13:17.000 I mean, there aren't ancient depictions of women.

00:13:21.000 It's desirable for them to be overweight, right?

00:13:24.000 It depends on the culture.

00:13:25.000 I mean, the usual universal that we typically talk of in terms of body types is that it be an hourglass figure, which actually is going to speak to the second point of a paper that I send you.

00:13:35.000 So in evolutionary theory, what we do typically is we build what are called...

00:13:40.000 We're good to go.

00:14:02.000 I think we're good to go.

00:14:18.000 Of the adaptive argument, the evolutionary argument as to why men might prefer the hourglass figure.

00:14:24.000 Well, it would be so that they should have bigger hips, it would make it easier for her to breed, larger fat deposits in the breasts and the ass, it makes it healthier, she has fat storing, she'll have healthy offspring. 1.00

00:14:36.000 Okay, so let me jump in.

00:14:38.000 So if you had medical and reproductive data that shows that women who have that particular body type Are more likely to conceive, then that would be one check. 0.92

00:14:47.000 And we have it.

00:14:48.000 Then we might look for human universals of that preference.

00:14:52.000 In other words, we don't simply use data from UCLA undergrads to tell us what types of body types we prefer.

00:14:58.000 We go to the Anomomo tribe in the Amazon and ask them what type of body types they prefer and so on.

00:15:03.000 So if you then demonstrate the universality of that preference, that's another check.

00:15:08.000 Now we could look at art data.

00:15:10.000 You pointed to some of the depictions.

00:15:12.000 So we can look at data from ancient Greece, from ancient Egypt, the pharaohs and so on, from Africa, from India, and we could take the statues from those cultures spanning several thousand years and do a content analysis of the statues and show that they come very close to that hourglass figure.

00:15:29.000 We could take, if that's not enough data, this one's going to clinch it for you, but there's many others that I could give you.

00:15:36.000 You could take congenitally blind men.

00:15:39.000 These are men who have never had the gift of sight.

00:15:42.000 And you could show haptically through touch that they prefer women that have the hourglass figure, which immediately negates the possibility that it's due to the fact that they were taught those preferences through the media.

00:15:58.000 And so you systematically collect data from multiple converging lines of evidence where that data becomes overwhelming.

00:16:06.000 It becomes unassailable.

00:16:08.000 And that's how you built an adaptive argument.

00:16:10.000 So contrary to all the guys who say, oh, evolution has just come up with these cute post hoc stories, we're actually profoundly more meticulous and assiduous in the data that we collect.

00:16:21.000 Well, has that really been established that so many men prefer soft, mushy, hourglass-type figures as opposed to hard-bodied women?

00:16:32.000 How many women are you letting these blind guys grope? 1.00

00:16:35.000 Are they getting a real study sample to choose from?

00:16:38.000 Or are you just like, how's that?

00:16:40.000 I like it.

00:16:41.000 Good.

00:16:41.000 We got it.

00:16:42.000 Well, the particular data with the congenital blind men, I think they only had maybe two or three mannequins.

00:16:48.000 Oh, mannequins?

00:16:50.000 Wait a minute.

00:16:51.000 You're letting them fill up mannequins? 0.99

00:16:53.000 So all the data that I gave you is not enough?

00:16:55.000 Now you're going to attack the mannequin story?

00:16:57.000 Why can't you bring up strippers? 1.00

00:16:59.000 Why do you have to have mannequins? 0.99

00:17:02.000 Well, because probably it might be difficult to have the ethics approval board of universities Have young blind men, or maybe they're not young, feel off a bunch of women. 0.98

00:17:14.000 Well, I guess the ethics board doesn't like science.

00:17:16.000 Because you can't just judge what a guy likes in women by letting him touch a doll. 0.98

00:17:20.000 That's ridiculous. 1.00

00:17:22.000 That's shit science. 1.00

00:17:24.000 Isn't it? 1.00

00:17:26.000 Look, every study has some methodological constraints, right?

00:17:30.000 But that one's easy to fix.

00:17:33.000 By having real women being touched? 1.00

00:17:34.000 Yes!

00:17:35.000 I'm sure a lot of women would sign up for that. 1.00

00:17:37.000 Okay, well, maybe...

00:17:38.000 Why didn't they try that?

00:17:40.000 That seems so...

00:17:40.000 You can't...

00:17:41.000 I hope, by the way, that I'm not misspeaking.

00:17:42.000 I hope that they did use mannequins.

00:17:44.000 Well, let's find out.

00:17:44.000 What's the name of the study?

00:17:45.000 Jamie, look it up.

00:17:46.000 It's 2010. Just do congenital blind men and waist-to-hip ratios, and it'll come up.

00:17:52.000 It'll come up on the Jamie Board of Truth.

00:17:54.000 The Jamie Board of Truth, a.k.a.

00:17:56.000 the Internet.

00:17:56.000 By the way, you could take...

00:17:59.000 FMRI, right, brain imaging studies of men that are exposed to women of different waist-to-hip ratios and their pleasure centers in their brain light up more when exposed to women that have that hourglass figure.

00:18:13.000 So again, the data is unassailable because it comes from multitude of countries, multitude of time periods using different methodologies.

00:18:21.000 Well, I'm not denying that men enjoy that.

00:18:22.000 What I'm saying is that study...

00:18:24.000 That particular study?

00:18:25.000 Yeah, but... 0.88

00:18:25.000 Using hourglass figures on mannequins is kind of ridiculous. 0.88

00:18:29.000 So let me build on that. 0.93

00:18:31.000 In one of my papers, I looked at sex dolls, right?

00:18:35.000 How convenient.

00:18:37.000 Honey, I have to look at sex dolls for a paper. 1.00

00:18:40.000 Right.

00:18:42.000 So anyways, in that paper, I just went to, I can't remember the company's name.

00:18:46.000 Real doll, probably, one of those?

00:18:48.000 Was it like a realistic one?

00:18:50.000 Yeah.

00:18:50.000 I mean, I didn't get them at home and measure them.

00:18:53.000 But I mean, one that looks like a person?

00:18:55.000 I think it looks like a person.

00:18:56.000 And they advertise their measurements.

00:18:59.000 Okay.

00:18:59.000 And as you would expect, their hair color changes and their skin color changes, but the average Waist to hip ratio was close to that 0.7.

00:19:09.000 And so here what you're demonstrating is that marketers, right, these guys that are producing these products, are producing products that are in line with our evolved preferences.

00:19:17.000 If they didn't do that, if they produced sex dolls that look like East German female slash male swimmers, it's not going to work well. 0.66

00:19:25.000 First of all, how dare you?

00:19:27.000 Those are women, I think. 1.00

00:19:29.000 Are we going to get into the intersex debate from the Olympics?

00:19:32.000 Is that what we're doing?

00:19:33.000 Well, the Olympics is a fascinating place to jump off at that, but no.

00:19:38.000 So, I think, okay, the anatomy of desire.

00:19:42.000 The two mannequins stood side by side, blah, blah, blah.

00:19:46.000 Cargo van, mobile vans.

00:19:48.000 Yeah, okay.

00:19:48.000 Mannequins.

00:19:49.000 Yeah, it's just two mannequins. 1.00

00:19:51.000 It's a shit study. 1.00

00:19:51.000 They could have easily gotten strippers. 1.00

00:19:53.000 Published in one of the top science journals, but okay.

00:19:56.000 Mm-hmm.

00:19:57.000 Well, still.

00:19:58.000 Publish it all day. 1.00

00:19:59.000 It's some fucking mannequin. 1.00

00:20:00.000 You can get real women. 1.00

00:20:02.000 All right.

00:20:03.000 I'll speak to them.

00:20:03.000 Well, even the woman who's not chosen, well, you don't know.

00:20:09.000 I mean, some guys might be into petite, slender model type. 0.99

00:20:14.000 That's what's interesting to me, is that men aren't really attracted to that model shape.

00:20:20.000 No.

00:20:21.000 Yeah, it's weird because women oftentimes think that men are because they see these models in these magazines.

00:20:27.000 And I think that does lean towards the desire for some women to get into that anorexic state because you sort of get this body dysmorphia thing going on by looking at these almost completely unrealistic depictions.

00:20:39.000 I mean, I know people who are actually built like that, but they're extremely rare.

00:20:43.000 It's like knowing someone who's built like a professional basketball player.

00:20:46.000 They absolutely exist, but boy, good luck finding one on a random day.

00:20:51.000 Finding some seven foot tall super athlete.

00:20:53.000 Right.

00:20:54.000 Yeah, I agree.

00:20:56.000 There's all sorts of differences between what images that you see sometimes and what people truly prefer.

00:21:01.000 I think it's really strange how women always want to paint it as women being victimized by these unrealistic body images, but you never hear the same from men when it comes to bodybuilders.

00:21:13.000 Right.

00:21:13.000 When men see a guy who's just giant muscles and a big six-pack and just looks like a stud, men never feel like they're being victimized by these unrealistic body depressions.

00:21:24.000 How about height, right?

00:21:25.000 I mean, most of the guys that you see as leading men, on average, tend to be taller than the norm, right?

00:21:31.000 So I'm being victimized because I'm a shorter guy, if you forgive me for saying, as you are, right?

00:21:36.000 So how come we don't complain about short guys need love as well?

00:21:39.000 Or how about social status, right?

00:21:41.000 Typically, you see the depiction, say, in romance novels.

00:21:44.000 I've given this example on previous occasions.

00:21:46.000 I'm not sure if I did on your show.

00:21:47.000 But if you study the archetype of masculinity in a romance novel...

00:21:51.000 They'll look Fabio, have long hair.

00:21:54.000 It's the exact same guy, right?

00:21:55.000 He's tall, he's a count, and he's a neurosurgeon.

00:21:58.000 He's reckless in terms of his risk-taking.

00:22:01.000 He can only be tamed by the love of this one woman.

00:22:03.000 He wrestles alligators on his chest.

00:22:05.000 On a six-pack, right?

00:22:07.000 He's usually not a pear-shaped...

00:22:08.000 How many of these books are you reading, man?

00:22:10.000 I'm reading them every single day.

00:22:11.000 I just read one before I came here.

00:22:13.000 Books on tape.

00:22:15.000 But the reality is that the product works because there is a commonality to what women fantasize about. 1.00

00:22:23.000 And whether she's Romanian or Nigerian or Japanese, she likely prefers a high-status tall alpha male to a nasal pear-shaped wimp. 0.85

00:22:34.000 Is that how you describe yourself? 0.94

00:22:36.000 How rude.

00:22:37.000 I am the walking alpha male son.

00:22:42.000 I could call your son because you're a bit younger than me, right?

00:22:44.000 Slightly.

00:22:45.000 Plus, I've got gray hair, so maybe I can get away with that appellation.

00:22:48.000 But no, look, products that work well are typically those that are congruent with our human nature, right?

00:22:54.000 And those that are not will typically fail.

00:22:56.000 I've always wondered why women claim victim status. 1.00

00:23:00.000 When they're being compared to unrealistic body images, but men don't.

00:23:04.000 Because I think, and that just kind of relates to social justice warriors, I've proposed the theory of Munchausen syndrome.

00:23:11.000 Have you heard me talk about this?

00:23:13.000 Well, I know what it is, yeah.

00:23:14.000 So Munchausen syndrome, for the viewers who don't know, is this, you know, you get sympathy and attention by being victim.

00:23:21.000 And so you feign an illness to get attention.

00:23:24.000 Munchausen syndrome by proxy is when you...

00:23:27.000 We're good to go.

00:23:50.000 Have been liberated from all of the typical problems that we see in other parts of the world.

00:23:55.000 I've got to look for a new victim narrative, and boom, that's a good one.

00:23:58.000 Well, isn't it also, though, that it is an unrealistic body shape and that they do feel it's like a completely impossible task for a lot of women who are built like normal people. 0.61

00:24:10.000 Have you seen the body shapes of male superheroes in toys?

00:24:14.000 Yeah, they look like me, son.

00:24:16.000 That's right.

00:24:16.000 They look like you.

00:24:17.000 They look like you.

00:24:18.000 So what about the rest of us who don't look like you?

00:24:21.000 How come we don't go into a fetal position?

00:24:22.000 Well, that's what I'm asking.

00:24:24.000 Why is Munchausen syndrome more apparent in women than it is in men?

00:24:28.000 Incidentally, in the true form of Murchausen, in terms of harming the child, it's usually always the biological mother who does it. 0.57

00:24:35.000 So you're exactly right.

00:24:36.000 So it's just a manifestation of that phenomenon in a new context.

00:24:40.000 So you're exactly right.

00:24:41.000 That's interesting.

00:24:42.000 But I wouldn't have phrased it that way.

00:24:44.000 I would phrase it in more of a term of frustration than some sort of a psychological disorder.

00:24:48.000 I would think that women are just frustrated with this. 1.00

00:24:51.000 One of the differences being that if a woman is large-boned or she has a wide waist or something like that, there's very little she can do to try to achieve that model shape. 1.00

00:25:01.000 Whereas if a man is slight, he can lift weights and eat a lot of food and get a personal trainer, do a lot of squats and deadlifts and build his body up.

00:25:12.000 A man can make his body look more masculine. 0.57

00:25:15.000 It's very difficult outside of surgery for a woman to change the shape of her body.

00:25:20.000 She can get in shape. 0.99

00:25:21.000 If she's overweight, she can diminish that. 1.00

00:25:24.000 She can lose some fat. 1.00

00:25:25.000 She can put some meat on her butt and her legs. 1.00

00:25:28.000 But she can't grow breasts. 1.00

00:25:30.000 She can't do anything that would make her appear more outwardly feminine. 0.95

00:25:36.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:25:37.000 Yeah.

00:25:37.000 By the way, that exactly speaks to some of the antipathy that people feel towards evolutionary psychology.

00:25:43.000 I mean, you hit the nail on the head, yeah.

00:25:47.000 Because there is, wrongly so, there's this idea that evolutionary theory is sort of biological determinism, right?

00:25:54.000 If people prefer facially symmetric faces, and if my face is not facially symmetric, I'm doomed to a life of twiddling my thumbs and a life of celibacy, right?

00:26:05.000 And that's why there's this narrative that became famous with Naomi Wolf.

00:26:09.000 I don't know.

00:26:10.000 She wrote a book that sold I don't know how many millions copies called The Beauty Myth, which I actually critique in my first book. 0.59

00:26:10.000 Do you know who that is? 0.59

00:26:17.000 I talked about the myth about the beauty myth.

00:26:20.000 In The Beauty Myth, basically, she provides this liberatory argument against these beauty standards. 0.93

00:26:26.000 And here's her argument, which I will sort of summarize very quickly.

00:26:29.000 She basically says, look, women are now winning in every facet of life. 1.00

00:26:33.000 And the only place...

00:26:35.000 That men can still cause harm to women, that they can still dominate women, and this is going to speak to one of the points that you raised, is by creating this false narrative about the types of women that men prefer.

00:26:48.000 And by pushing this narrative, it makes women feel insecure about themselves. 0.99

00:26:53.000 Whoa, hold on.

00:26:54.000 So her proposal is that the only reason that this exists is because men are trying to harm women?

00:26:59.000 It's a conspiratorial theory.

00:27:01.000 That's hilarious.

00:27:02.000 She must be a lot of fun to hang out with. 1.00

00:27:04.000 She's still alive?

00:27:06.000 She's alive, yeah.

00:27:07.000 She's reasonably young and still very productive.

00:27:11.000 But, you know, again, it's a message that sells.

00:27:14.000 Because if I am unattractive, if genetically speaking, I don't score well on some of these universal metrics of beauty, I would much rather hear a story that basically says, oh, it's all due to arbitrary construction of beauty standards.

00:27:28.000 There's nothing innate about these, right? 0.73

00:27:31.000 I think there's a lot of women that are very intelligent that run into asshole men so many times that they develop this distorted perception of what a man is and so they can formulate this theory and feel justified in doing so. 0.99

00:27:45.000 They just run into so many weak bitches out there that they start thinking that all men are trying to harm them and all men are trying to hurt their feelings. 1.00

00:27:45.000 Right. 1.00

00:27:52.000 And that this theory is valid in her eyes because it's based on the anecdotal evidence that she's acquired through her whole life of running it.

00:27:52.000 Right.

00:27:59.000 I mean, obviously, she's very intelligent.

00:28:01.000 She's writing books.

00:28:02.000 She's probably far more intelligent than most of the men she's coming in contact with.

00:28:05.000 And so she's formulated this theory based on her own personal evidence.

00:28:10.000 To protect her own ego, what you're saying.

00:28:11.000 But there's a direct connection.

00:28:11.000 Yeah.

00:28:15.000 As a man, there is a huge difference in how you react, how your body feels when you're around a classically attractive woman.

00:28:26.000 Classically attractive like Sophie Loren in her Prime.

00:28:31.000 When you're around it, you'd just go, Jesus.

00:28:33.000 Your hands would get sweaty, your heart would start beating, you'd start freaking out.

00:28:37.000 It is 100% natural. 0.99

00:28:39.000 And there's no, like, oh, I want to enforce this because it'll make other women feel like shit. 1.00

00:28:46.000 That is not it. 0.98

00:28:47.000 There is a real genetic propensity.

00:28:50.000 And doesn't it seem as though that should be so trivially banal to accept?

00:28:55.000 But it's not for someone who's an empowered woman who doesn't see any way of achieving that.

00:29:01.000 So it's like a man could do steroids and lift weights and become a giant bodybuilder type dude if that's what he was really into.

00:29:08.000 And you could achieve that through time and effort.

00:29:11.000 But for a woman to look like one of those women, it's impossibility. 0.70

00:29:11.000 It could be done. 0.70

00:29:16.000 If you are not built like that, you are not built like that.

00:29:19.000 And that's how it goes.

00:29:20.000 So I'll tell you a quick story that I discussed in one of my other books.

00:29:23.000 It was a documentary that I had watched on speed dating, I think it was, where there was a profoundly overweight woman, I don't know how many, 500 pounds, who was basically arguing that it's unfair that all these men at this speed dating event are not paying closer attention to her.

00:29:43.000 Unfair.

00:29:44.000 It's unfair because they've been taught to internalize all these arbitrary sexist standards of beauty.

00:29:51.000 That's what she was really saying?

00:29:53.000 Now, but listen to this.

00:29:53.000 Yeah.

00:29:55.000 So on the one hand, if you're unattracted to an overtly overweight woman, then you are a fattest. 0.90

00:30:02.000 But on the other hand, listen to the other side of the coin.

00:30:06.000 If you prefer very overweight women, then there's the narrative that you are fetishizing our excess meat. 1.00

00:30:16.000 So if you prefer an overweight woman, you're a bad guy. 0.97

00:30:20.000 And if you dislike overweight women, you're a fatter. 1.00

00:30:23.000 So there's no state of the world where someone won't accuse you of being an asshole. 1.00

00:30:28.000 That's the world we live in. 0.99

00:30:30.000 Well, isn't that just the world of just so many different people with varied opinions that are trying to justify their own physical condition?

00:30:37.000 Sure.

00:30:37.000 I mean, that's really what it is.

00:30:38.000 Humans have fragile egos.

00:30:40.000 Well, there's a new study that they put out recently about the myth of healthy obesity.

00:30:46.000 Because I've seen that read many times.

00:30:49.000 I've read that, rather.

00:30:50.000 Many times where people are trying to justify their own obesity by saying that there's this distorted perception of whether or not people are healthy because they are thin, and that in fact there are some diseases, and this is kind of true, it's sort of a weird contradiction, there's some sort of diseases where people actually do better And recover because they're overweight.

00:31:10.000 But the reason for that is not because being overweight is healthy.

00:31:13.000 The reason for that is there's a lot of diseases where you don't take in any nutrients while you're sick, and so your body goes into a state of ketosis where it starts burning fat, and you're better off using that fat for fuel if you are overweight than if you're a very lean person who has no fat to burn.

00:31:29.000 Then your body starts burning off tissue, muscle tissue, which is much less healthy for you and much more dangerous.

00:31:35.000 Incidentally, what you said, there's, I think, now a movement to start fattest studies at universities.

00:31:42.000 You know how you have women's studies and peace studies? 0.98

00:31:45.000 So fattest studies, the narrative is exactly what you led off with, which is the idea that there's this kind of medical conspiracy that's pushing a false narrative that basically says being overweight is a bad thing, when in reality there is no such evidence.

00:31:59.000 No, there's evidence.

00:32:00.000 Sorry, folks.

00:32:01.000 I know.

00:32:01.000 Sorry, folks.

00:32:02.000 Pull up that study.

00:32:03.000 It's really kind of interesting because it's so black and white.

00:32:07.000 There's really no arguing about it.

00:32:09.000 It's not good to overeat.

00:32:11.000 It's not good to tax your body.

00:32:11.000 It's just not.

00:32:14.000 You know, having a little bit of fat is not that bad.

00:32:16.000 Studies suggest healthy obesity might just be a myth.

00:32:20.000 Suggest that vigorous health interventions may be necessary for all obese individuals.

00:32:25.000 That's a fact.

00:32:25.000 Yeah.

00:32:26.000 There you go.

00:32:27.000 But everybody knows that.

00:32:28.000 You know that.

00:32:29.000 That's why you see that fat woman and people get repulsed. 1.00

00:32:32.000 It's not because they're mean.

00:32:33.000 It's not because they're taught to think that that's not an objective standard of beauty.

00:32:38.000 It's just you see someone fat and you go, oh, this is a mess.

00:32:41.000 This is a mess.

00:32:42.000 This is someone who must be emotionally fragile because they're throwing food down their face.

00:32:47.000 They clearly have an addiction to sugar or to simple carbs.

00:32:51.000 I mean, they're definitely trying to make up for something.

00:32:55.000 You know, there's this idea that people are just naturally more fat.

00:32:59.000 Well, that's not true, because if you look at their diet, it's almost always in support of maintaining a giant body.

00:33:07.000 Right.

00:33:08.000 I mean, this idea that some people can...

00:33:10.000 Well, there are people that have hummingbird-type metabolisms, and they can eat Ding Dongs all day and still weigh 90 pounds.

00:33:16.000 Yeah, that's a freak.

00:33:18.000 These are rare, you know?

00:33:19.000 My sister was like that. 1.00

00:33:21.000 My sister's tiny.

00:33:22.000 Her nickname's Pee Wee, that's what I call her. 1.00

00:33:24.000 But when we were kids, she always weighed like 100 pounds. 0.99

00:33:28.000 She could fucking eat anything. 0.99

00:33:29.000 She could drink, she could have a steak, she could eat ice cream. 1.00

00:33:32.000 90 pounds.

00:33:33.000 I mean, that's just what she weighed.

00:33:35.000 Or, you know, maybe I'm exaggerating.

00:33:36.000 She might weigh 105, but you know what I'm saying?

00:33:39.000 Like, she just had that crazy metabolism. 0.95

00:33:41.000 It's just the way it is.

00:33:43.000 But that's super unusual for most people when you overeat.

00:33:46.000 I've posted a few photos on social media.

00:33:49.000 Of yourself?

00:33:50.000 Of myself in 1985. Actually, that was the first time that I'd come to California to visit my brother.

00:33:54.000 When you were a soccer player, you were a stud.

00:33:55.000 When I was a soccer player.

00:33:57.000 4-5% body fat.

00:33:59.000 Did you really get it checked?

00:34:01.000 I did get it checked.

00:34:02.000 Yeah, but calipers, right?

00:34:04.000 Calipers and the electric conductivity test. 0.99

00:34:06.000 Yeah, that electric thing sucks.

00:34:08.000 I've done that electric thing before. 0.98

00:34:09.000 It's way off.

00:34:10.000 The real way is submerging.

00:34:12.000 Right, that's the third way, yeah.

00:34:13.000 The electric thing, apparently, if you're dehydrated, it can be off.

00:34:18.000 I might be using a bad one, but the one I've been using was in a doctor's office.

00:34:24.000 But he was even explaining to me that it can easily be off if you're dehydrated, and there's various factors.

00:34:33.000 Whatever the number was, it was very low.

00:34:35.000 And this was 85, so this is almost 30, well, more than 30 years ago.

00:34:39.000 And until about my early 20s, 22, 23, 24, I was always grossly underweight.

00:34:45.000 The day that I stopped being a serious athlete, it just snuck up on me.

00:34:50.000 That's a coincidence.

00:34:51.000 That's all that is.

00:34:52.000 No.

00:34:52.000 You think so?

00:34:53.000 Okay.

00:34:53.000 Of course not.

00:34:54.000 I didn't pick up on the sarcasm.

00:34:57.000 But you know, it's very insidious.

00:34:59.000 This is society's standards that they're enforcing on you, Gad.

00:35:03.000 Exactly, very true, very true. 1.00

00:35:05.000 These assholes. 1.00

00:35:06.000 What it is, is a bunch of men who want you to feel bad. 1.00

00:35:10.000 Right, right.

00:35:11.000 Yeah, so they let you eat.

00:35:13.000 There you go. 1.00

00:35:14.000 Yeah, man, just fucking run every day. 1.00

00:35:16.000 You lose a ton of weight. 0.99

00:35:18.000 Well, that's not enough because I actually, believe it or not, I train a lot.

00:35:22.000 The only way I lose weight is if I'm very, very careful about what I eat.

00:35:26.000 Without that, I never lose weight.

00:35:28.000 But you're a smart guy.

00:35:28.000 Right.

00:35:29.000 Why do you allow yourself to get overweight?

00:35:32.000 Oh boy, we're going to get into this now.

00:35:33.000 Yeah.

00:35:35.000 I mean, this is a subject, right?

00:35:36.000 Yeah, okay.

00:35:37.000 I mean, I don't think it's related to your intelligence because...

00:35:40.000 Well, it must be, right?

00:35:40.000 It's an issue.

00:35:41.000 No.

00:35:42.000 Well, no?

00:35:43.000 Well, you're so quick to dismiss, but it is an issue, right?

00:35:45.000 I walked into a physician's office when I had severe bronchitis.

00:35:50.000 He was, I think, a pulmonologist.

00:35:53.000 He was chain-smoking in his office. 1.00

00:35:55.000 Now, is that because he was an idiot who didn't understand the... 1.00

00:35:58.000 Yes. 1.00

00:35:59.000 Yeah, he's an idiot. 1.00

00:36:00.000 If he's chain-smoking, he's an idiot. 1.00

00:36:01.000 It's not correlated to his IQ, right? 1.00

00:36:04.000 Well, it's correlated to his objective assessment of what is intelligent to do with your meat vehicle. 1.00

00:36:10.000 This guy is stupid if he's smoking cigarettes. 1.00

00:36:13.000 That is a stupid thing to do. 1.00

00:36:14.000 It doesn't mean that he can't be intelligent in other areas of his life, but he's most certainly shutting down or ignoring some really clear information that we have been given over the past 50-plus years. 0.99

00:36:26.000 Well, I think actually what you're talking about speaks to a point that I raised in some of my writings, the idea of whether we make choices simply because we don't have the right information to make better choices.

00:36:37.000 That's usually the typical argument that public policy makers use.

00:36:41.000 So they basically say, oh, if you're engaging in risky sexual behavior or if you're engaging in a sedentary lifestyle, it's because you don't know any better.

00:36:51.000 So let's set up public service announcements that teach you better And then hopefully people will act better.

00:36:56.000 And that doesn't actually work.

00:36:58.000 So the issue is not so much that people, you know, it's not as though I don't know that being overweight is a bad thing.

00:37:06.000 And now that you've taught me better, I will now change my behavior.

00:37:10.000 The problem stems from the fact that there are these Darwinian pulls that make it difficult for us to extricate ourselves.

00:37:16.000 Whether it be whether you're addicted to drugs because it tickles your pleasure center in your brain or whether it be because you're addicted to sex or whether you're addicted to a bit more food than you should be eating.

00:37:26.000 Those are the Darwinian pulls that make it difficult for us to do the optimal decision.

00:37:32.000 It's not because we're too dumb to know better or we don't have the right information.

00:37:35.000 Yeah, but you're talking about food now, not the cigarettes that this doctor was smoking that you were using as an example. 0.89

00:37:42.000 That's not the best.

00:37:43.000 One, because there's no Darwinian pool towards smoking cigarettes.

00:37:47.000 No, no, no.

00:37:47.000 Forget the nicotine example for what I just said.

00:37:50.000 In general, when we make poor decisions that lead to deleterious health outcomes, it's not because we don't know any better.

00:37:57.000 So let's go back to the suntanning example. 0.98

00:38:00.000 I think we're good to go.

00:38:18.000 I mean, we've got the seven deadly sins since, you know, for thousands of years, precisely because very smart people understood that these are some traps that we all succumb to, whether it be greed or lust or gluttony, in my case.

00:38:32.000 I've never smoked.

00:38:34.000 Well, I've drank, but very minimally.

00:38:36.000 My problem is, I guess, gluttony.

00:38:38.000 I'm a gluttonous freak.

00:38:39.000 But when you say, have the control, what steps have you ever taken to acquire the control?

00:38:46.000 Do you practice mindfulness?

00:38:48.000 Do you meditate?

00:38:48.000 Do you write down your goals?

00:38:50.000 Do you write down what you eat?

00:38:53.000 Have you ever gone to a doctor and found out what you're...

00:38:55.000 Yes.

00:38:55.000 Calorie consumption should be.

00:38:57.000 Have you ever tried to alter your diet and maybe go on a fat-burning diet instead of on a carbohydrate-burning diet?

00:39:03.000 Yes.

00:39:03.000 Not the mindfulness, but all the other stuff that you said.

00:39:05.000 You've gone on a fat-burning diet instead of carbohydrates?

00:39:08.000 Absolutely.

00:39:09.000 So what have you done for that?

00:39:10.000 And when I do it, you'll see me in three months.

00:39:14.000 I'll be 35 pounds lighter, and you won't believe it.

00:39:17.000 What have you done?

00:39:17.000 What kind of diet?

00:39:19.000 So I just do a heavy protein diet, minimal carbs with a lot of vegetables.

00:39:24.000 So a six ounce steak with broccoli and whatever, something like that, with the tomato juice.

00:39:31.000 And I'll lose kind of like the, well not the Atkins in the sense that you eat as much fat as you want, but it's really a lot of protein and a lot of vegetables.

00:39:40.000 Well, honestly, the Atkins is, when you're saying eat as much fat as you want, that is actually the trend.

00:39:46.000 The trend is towards a ketogenic diet.

00:39:49.000 When you're talking about getting your body to burn fat, a lot of athletes are getting involved in getting on fat-burning diets, and I actually switched my own diet to that.

00:39:59.000 I didn't really have a problem being overweight, but I was definitely heavier and I had more body fat than I have now.

00:40:05.000 And what I did was I switched over to this, there's a guy named Mark Sisson who was on my podcast before, and he wrote this book called The Primal Blueprint.

00:40:13.000 And the idea behind it is that when you're eating a lot of simple carbs and a lot of pastas and breads, you're getting insulin spikes, your body's processing all that sugar, and your body stores it, and then your body starts burning sugar.

00:40:27.000 Whereas if you can get your body to a ketogenic state, meaning your body burns fats and uses that for fuel rather than carbohydrates, you don't really want high protein.

00:40:37.000 You want a minimal protein.

00:40:39.000 You want what you're supposed to have, which is like, you know, a six-ounce steak is fine, but what you really want is a bunch of healthy fats like coconut oil, avocados.

00:40:46.000 I eat a lot of avocados.

00:40:48.000 Salmon.

00:40:49.000 Salmon is excellent.

00:40:50.000 Excellent, but also because it's excellent because it supplies you with omega-6s and 3s, the essential fatty acids, which are really important for brain function. 0.97

00:40:58.000 But people, this idea, this is also a big fucking problem that people have.

00:41:02.000 We've been lied to about fats, about the danger of saturated fats and the danger of cholesterol. 0.94

00:41:09.000 Dietary cholesterol barely moves the needle on blood lipids.

00:41:13.000 It's not dietary cholesterol that's a problem.

00:41:15.000 It's sedentary lifestyle.

00:41:16.000 It's overeating.

00:41:17.000 It's a consumption of excess carbs.

00:41:21.000 There's a bunch of factors that cause people to be fat, and it's not necessarily saturated fats or cholesterol.

00:41:29.000 In fact, saturated fats and cholesterol, that's the substrate for building testosterone.

00:41:36.000 Diet of having my body burn fat, and not just me, but a ton of my friends.

00:41:41.000 My friend Denny, who's an elite athlete, is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion.

00:41:47.000 My friend John Rollo, who's an MMA fighter, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt.

00:41:52.000 These guys have all reported, and me included, gigantic spikes in their testosterone production.

00:41:57.000 And it's because that is the building blocks for testosterone.

00:42:00.000 So when you're eating these low-fat diets and these minimalistic diets to try to get your body to be more healthy, you're dropping your body's sex hormone production.

00:42:12.000 Well, we'll have to ask my wife if she has any complaints in that department. 0.99

00:42:16.000 Oh, God.

00:42:18.000 But honestly, the only problem I have is when I walk away from those types of diets is where the problem arises.

00:42:27.000 Of course, yeah.

00:42:28.000 But I bet that if you walked away from...

00:42:32.000 Whenever you're on that diet, when you get off it, do things disintegrate very quickly for you?

00:42:38.000 They don't disintegrate.

00:42:39.000 Well, I'm...

00:42:41.000 Because for me, they do.

00:42:42.000 I mean, I could put on seven pounds in two weeks by simply eating normally once I'm away from that weight.

00:42:48.000 What is normal then?

00:42:49.000 If you're putting that much weight, seven pounds in two weeks is 14 pounds in a month.

00:42:54.000 That means 28 pounds in two months.

00:42:56.000 I'm speaking with some liberty.

00:42:57.000 That's not normal.

00:42:58.000 That's a crazy amount of weight to put on. 0.99

00:43:00.000 If I saw you two months later and you put on 28 pounds, I'd be like, what the fuck are you doing? 0.99

00:43:05.000 I'd have to grab you by the hand and sit down with you and go, come on, man, I don't want you to die. 0.99

00:43:08.000 I'm already thinking about all the comments that are going to be at the bottom of your, oh boy.

00:43:13.000 Well, I mean, I'm just saying this because I'm your friend.

00:43:15.000 I want to get you a copy of this book.

00:43:16.000 I would love you to try to, you know, do it.

00:43:19.000 But it's not hard to just eat till you're satisfied and not eat till you're full.

00:43:24.000 That's a big factor.

00:43:25.000 That alone is probably 20% of everyone's meal.

00:43:28.000 A lot of people eat and then they keep going.

00:43:30.000 I love to do that. 0.96

00:43:32.000 It's fucking awesome. 0.98

00:43:33.000 I love to eat a giant bowl of pasta and eat a big steak. 0.99

00:43:36.000 But I also work out like a terrorist.

00:43:38.000 I work out almost every day.

00:43:40.000 And I work out hard.

00:43:41.000 So I keep my body fat down because of that. 0.99

00:43:44.000 So even if my diet is shit, I still keep my body fat down because of tremendous working out. 0.93

00:43:50.000 But then, when I adjust my diet as well, I saw a big difference in my energy levels, in my cognitive function, and a big difference in just overall wellness. 0.98

00:44:00.000 You know, I just don't...

00:44:02.000 I mean, I'm an extremist when it comes to physical performance because obviously I've been around it my whole life and I'm in the martial arts world and I'm trying to get my body to do certain things that are very unusual, but I just think that People are not designed to eat big plates of pasta or bread or all these sugars that everybody downs in the form of corn syrup drinks It's just not good for you.

00:44:28.000 Have you seen the Documentary, sugar, I can't remember.

00:44:32.000 Yeah, that sugar movie.

00:44:34.000 Yeah, it was crazy.

00:44:35.000 I watched it with my kids, and then we went to the supermarket.

00:44:35.000 Incredible, isn't it?

00:44:37.000 It was hilarious, because they're grabbing things going, look at all that sugar!

00:44:41.000 There's sugar in this.

00:44:42.000 They were grabbing things off the shelf, finding how many grams of sugar per serving are in everything.

00:44:48.000 So maybe I'll say this.

00:44:49.000 If you say something publicly, then you have to kind of go up to it.

00:44:52.000 Yes, say it.

00:44:54.000 Wait, should I look at the camera here?

00:44:54.000 Here's...

00:44:56.000 Next time I'm on your show, I should hopefully be visibly thinner.

00:45:01.000 Yeah, what you're going to do is you're going to wait until two weeks before the show, and then you're going to stop your period, and you're going to...

00:45:06.000 I'm going to go anorexia.

00:45:08.000 You're going to go anorexia. 0.98

00:45:09.000 And stop your reproductive system. 1.00

00:45:11.000 I mean, it's just people should be more healthy.

00:45:14.000 And the body is designed.

00:45:16.000 I mean, this whole trend for paleo diets and paleolithic diets, that's not an accurate term.

00:45:23.000 It's a good way to eat, but it's not an accurate evolutionary term.

00:45:28.000 Because in the paleolithic era, people ate a lot of grains. 0.93

00:45:31.000 They ate whatever the fuck they could. 0.96

00:45:32.000 They ate bugs. 0.99

00:45:33.000 They were hungry.

00:45:34.000 They did whatever they could.

00:45:35.000 And they worked hard to acquire that.

00:45:37.000 Yes, exactly.

00:45:38.000 That's a big point.

00:45:39.000 When they needed those calories and grains, like, look, if you're out hiking every day, you talk to people that are mountain climbers and hikers, they are eating massive amounts of calories.

00:45:48.000 I have friends that go on these gigantic mountain trips, and they literally cannot consume enough food because they pack all their food.

00:45:57.000 My friend Jason just got back from this big trip that he was taking to the Yukon.

00:46:03.000 Got it.

00:46:22.000 And they were eating two pounds of food a day.

00:46:24.000 That's all you could take.

00:46:25.000 So you have to eat the most calorie-dense two pounds of food that you could carry because, you know, for this trip, you know, you're only carrying a certain amount of food because you have to have your sleeping bag on your back, your tent, all that jazz.

00:46:37.000 And you come out of there, you're 15 pounds lighter.

00:46:39.000 And, you know, you just had this incredible...

00:46:42.000 I mean, it's like running a marathon every day almost.

00:46:45.000 Are you familiar with the field of evolutionary medicine?

00:46:49.000 Does that ring a bell?

00:46:50.000 In what way?

00:46:50.000 So evolutionary medicine is basically...

00:46:52.000 Actually, I had one of the pioneers of the field on my show.

00:46:55.000 His name is Randy Nesse.

00:46:56.000 He's a physician by training.

00:46:58.000 So evolutionary medicine is basically trying to infuse within medicine evolutionary ideas.

00:47:04.000 Typically, most physicians are trained in the proximate world, right?

00:47:07.000 We were talking about proximate and ultimate, about how to deal with the how and what of a disease without ever asking the ultimate why, Darwinian why.

00:47:15.000 So as relating to something that we're talking about now, if you look at the top killers around the world, colon cancer and diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure, they're all related, as evolutionary medicine folks argue, to what's called the mismatch hypothesis.

00:47:32.000 The idea being that those things that were adaptive to us in an environment of scarcity become grossly maladaptive in an environment of plenty like we have today, right?

00:47:45.000 And so basically what you're having, I mean, my gustatory preferences don't change.

00:47:45.000 That makes sense.

00:47:49.000 So my desire to eat the fatty food remains.

00:47:52.000 But what has changed is the fact that I had to do 20,000 calories of expenditure to hunt it down then, and now I could go to the grocery store and get it.

00:48:01.000 There's no caloric uncertainty, no caloric scarcity.

00:48:04.000 And so if you look at hunter-gatherer societies that most closely mimic our evolutionary past, Thank you.

00:48:30.000 That totally makes sense that people would have to expend massive amounts of calories to track down food because that was, at one point in time, what we did all day with our day.

00:48:39.000 Whether it's hunting or gathering or farming, we were constantly working to try to acquire food.

00:48:46.000 Now that food is so easy, we still have the same genes, right?

00:48:46.000 That was it.

00:48:50.000 Yeah.

00:48:50.000 Exactly right.

00:48:51.000 So, look, natural selection, right, the mechanism of how species evolve traits that they have, I mean, when I'm teaching my students, I start off by colloquially saying, look, most animals, including humans, throughout their history have faced, you know, either you don't want to become somebody else's dinner,

00:49:08.000 and you want to get enough for dinner for yourself.

00:49:11.000 Those are the sort of two big adaptive problems.

00:49:14.000 And then you just add to that sexual selection, which is, it's not enough to simply survive, then you have to mate.

00:49:20.000 You want to get the right mannequin.

00:49:22.000 There you go.

00:49:24.000 So that's basically natural and sexual selection in one sentence, right?

00:49:28.000 Don't become somebody's dinner.

00:49:29.000 Get enough dinner and then get a mate and there's your evolutionary... 1.00

00:49:33.000 How much, if at all, do you pay attention to your gut health?

00:49:36.000 Do you eat probiotics?

00:49:37.000 No.

00:49:38.000 See, that's crazy.

00:49:39.000 Is that right?

00:49:40.000 Oh my god.

00:49:41.000 Probiotics are one of the most important aspects of healthy bodies.

00:49:45.000 Like your gut health can affect your mood, it can affect cognitive function, it can affect your personality.

00:49:53.000 There's all these studies being done now on probiotics and of gut health and bacteria content and gut.

00:49:59.000 Candida, if you have a high level of candida, which a lot of people do, we eat a lot of sugar.

00:50:16.000 I like kombucha.

00:50:20.000 I like kimchi.

00:50:21.000 I like fermented cabbage and sauerkrauts and natural sauerkrauts and things along those lines.

00:50:25.000 I drink a bunch of different kinds of them and take a bunch of different kinds of them every day, along with this thing called the Onnit Total Gut Health, which is a packet that I take with every meal.

00:50:35.000 It's a massive factor because what's in your gut, like your gut flora, is incredibly important for your overall health and for supporting your immune system.

00:50:45.000 So has that become...

00:50:46.000 Sort of part of the daily, not daily, the yearly health checkup that people do.

00:50:52.000 Depends on what doctor you're talking to.

00:50:54.000 See, because most doctors spend very little time studying nutrition.

00:50:57.000 When you go to medical school and you get a degree, I mean, the amount of hours that you spend studying nutrition are so small.

00:51:05.000 And by the time you're out there practicing, this is a field that's constantly evolving and changing and growing.

00:51:13.000 This leaning towards probiotics as a health supplement is fairly recent in terms of mainstream exposure, but incredibly important.

00:51:23.000 First of all, I hardly ever get sick, and it's a big factor because I travel constantly.

00:51:29.000 You're shaking hands.

00:51:30.000 I'm constantly shaking hands.

00:51:31.000 I'm constantly flying on planes.

00:51:33.000 And I hardly ever get sick.

00:51:34.000 And if I do, I can point to some pretty obvious factors.

00:51:36.000 Like, I didn't get any sleep.

00:51:38.000 My kids are going to school again.

00:51:39.000 They're around other people that are sick.

00:51:40.000 They're sitting in my lap, coughing in my face.

00:51:43.000 It's normal stuff.

00:51:45.000 And even then, I bounce back very quickly.

00:51:47.000 And I attribute that to probiotics.

00:51:49.000 I think it's really important to take in healthy cultures.

00:51:52.000 Here's another example from evolutionary medicine that relates to children, since you mentioned children.

00:51:57.000 You probably have heard of the studies that show that if you grow up in an environment that doesn't have any natural allergens, you're at an increased risk of developing respiratory illnesses like asthma.

00:52:11.000 That makes sense.

00:52:15.000 To have the types of responses that you typically would have encountered.

00:52:19.000 So if you have a mother or a father or both parents who are incredibly OCD about having a perfectly sterile and spotless home, prepare for the onset of asthma.

00:52:29.000 That's another example of a That's asthma, but not necessarily allergies.

00:52:33.000 One of my daughters is allergic to cats, and we've had cats her whole life.

00:52:37.000 We've also had dogs her whole life.

00:52:39.000 She's been around these animals her whole life, but she's allergic to them.

00:52:42.000 What are the manifestations?

00:52:44.000 She starts sneezing.

00:52:45.000 Her eyes get puffy.

00:52:46.000 The cat can't sleep in the bed with her.

00:52:47.000 If the cat does, she'll start sneezing, and she can't help it.

00:52:50.000 It's because my wife's allergic. 1.00

00:52:52.000 It's just genetic.

00:52:53.000 Okay.

00:52:53.000 She's also so allergic to horses that we were in Italy and we were riding on one of those horse carriages and she wasn't even on the horse or touching the horse, just being behind the horse on a horse carriage.

00:53:04.000 She started sneezing and coughing and we had to get off the carriage.

00:53:08.000 Do you know if it's the saliva of the horse or the dander?

00:53:11.000 It's the dander.

00:53:11.000 I'm sure she's allergic to saliva too, but she's not swapping spit with horses, bro.

00:53:16.000 Settle down.

00:53:16.000 Gotcha.

00:53:17.000 Alright, what's next on the docket?

00:53:19.000 Now that you've convinced me that I need to lose weight, as if I didn't know better.

00:53:22.000 Well, I'm not saying that you need to lose weight, but I'm saying you're a healthy guy, you're a smart guy, you think about your life, you're very handsome, you're bronze, you're shiny.

00:53:31.000 You're thinking in these terms of like looking at the big picture, but yet you've got this blind spot.

00:53:37.000 And this blind spot is because you have this indulgence for food and you look forward to it, it becomes your reward.

00:53:43.000 At the end of the day and you sit down and you indulge and then you say, hey, I've worked hard for this and I can enjoy it and I'm married, I've got kids, I don't need to look beautiful.

00:53:52.000 And you want to hear something?

00:53:53.000 Since we're getting personal?

00:53:55.000 In California, when we lived in California, I actually naturally lost a lot of weight without having to worry about anything.

00:54:01.000 I was a lot more active.

00:54:03.000 I ate less.

00:54:04.000 And we talked about reward.

00:54:06.000 When you're in the dark, cold winters of Montreal, and the only reward delivery system is for us to be foodies, then that's the problem, right?

00:54:17.000 Right.

00:54:17.000 And we often talk about that, my wife and I. Do you ever eat a Joe Beef in Montreal?

00:54:21.000 No.

00:54:21.000 He's your friend, right?

00:54:22.000 Have you eaten there?

00:54:22.000 Yeah.

00:54:23.000 I have not.

00:54:24.000 Good Lord.

00:54:25.000 You are in the same town as the greatest restaurant on the planet Earth.

00:54:28.000 We were supposed to go there together, I think, when you came to town.

00:54:30.000 Yeah, but I didn't go back.

00:54:32.000 Yeah, something happened.

00:54:33.000 Well, next time I'm there, I'll take you.

00:54:33.000 Yeah.

00:54:36.000 Well, hopefully I'll be in California.

00:54:38.000 Well, you're going to have to.

00:54:39.000 Yeah, hopefully.

00:54:40.000 But if you are there, you're going to have to indulge.

00:54:42.000 Yeah.

00:54:43.000 That's one of those places where you gotta get off the diet.

00:54:45.000 Well, it's okay to have a cheat day.

00:54:47.000 Yeah, you're right.

00:54:48.000 But, you know, I think a lot of people have those blind spots and even intelligent people.

00:54:54.000 What's yours?

00:54:56.000 Booze. 1.00

00:54:58.000 Yesterday we got fucked up. 0.99

00:54:59.000 Me and Hannibal Burris did a podcast. 0.99

00:55:01.000 We got a little too hammered.

00:55:02.000 That's one of those things where I enjoy it while it's happening, but like I worked out today and my head was kind of throbbing. 1.00

00:55:07.000 I was like, this is so stupid. 0.98

00:55:08.000 And I don't do it every day, but I do it maybe once a week or once every two weeks or something like that. 1.00

00:55:15.000 It's just, I know objectively that it's not healthy.

00:55:18.000 Is it that you enjoy the taste or you enjoy the effects after you drink? 0.99

00:55:22.000 I just enjoy having drinks with friends and getting stupid and laughing. 0.98

00:55:26.000 I just know it's not healthy. 0.99

00:55:29.000 There's nothing healthy about booze.

00:55:31.000 There's nothing wrong, and actually there is some studies that suggest that it's actually pretty healthy to have a glass of wine or two with a meal, and you're getting resveratrol, and also there's some studies or some Indications that point to people developed for a long time drinking wine because they couldn't drink still water because they would get traveler's disease.

00:55:58.000 If they found water, it would have pathogens in it and they would wind up getting sick.

00:56:02.000 So they drank wine for that purpose because you can carry it around with you and it's not going to go bad.

00:56:07.000 But getting drunk, like we were drinking whiskey.

00:56:10.000 We were drinking Jameson or something like that on the rocks.

00:56:12.000 It felt great.

00:56:13.000 We're hammered and laughing. 0.94

00:56:15.000 But goddammit, it's so bad for your body. 0.99

00:56:17.000 So if there's an indulgence that I take part in that's not good, it's the occasional getting fucked up. 0.99

00:56:23.000 Gotcha. 0.98

00:56:24.000 Yeah, it's not good.

00:56:25.000 But I don't have a lot of those.

00:56:26.000 I'm pretty good at not having a lot of those things in my life.

00:56:30.000 But it's easy to do that.

00:56:31.000 It's easy to trip yourself up.

00:56:33.000 Because there's a natural tendency towards distraction.

00:56:36.000 You know, the pressure of attempting to be successful at something, the pressure of whether it's competition or whether it's just this yearning for achievement.

00:56:47.000 You look for a release, you know, from that pressure.

00:56:49.000 And that's what a lot of people do.

00:56:50.000 They go to cigarettes or they go to booze or they go to food or whatever it is.

00:56:54.000 Yeah, I've never smoked a single cigarette in my entire life.

00:56:57.000 Good for you.

00:56:57.000 Not one puff.

00:56:58.000 I did when I was like 15. I smoked a cigarette with my sister.

00:57:02.000 She kept going. 1.00

00:57:03.000 I was like, fuck, this is so stupid. 1.00

00:57:03.000 I quit. 1.00

00:57:05.000 Incidentally, I think that if you hit 19 and you haven't started, you almost have zero chance of starting.

00:57:11.000 Oh, I know people who started in their 30s. 0.90

00:57:13.000 I know a dude who started, he was fucking 40 years old, he started smoking cigarettes. 0.94

00:57:17.000 I'm like, what are you doing, man? 0.98

00:57:19.000 It's so weird. 1.00

00:57:20.000 But again, I think it's a sabotage thing where people just go, fuck it, I don't care. 0.99

00:57:24.000 I don't care. 1.00

00:57:25.000 And by doing that, it's almost like they can, by saying, fuck it, I don't care about my health, they could say, fuck it, I don't care about my student loans. 1.00

00:57:33.000 Fuck it, I don't care about my wife leaving me. 1.00

00:57:35.000 Fuck it, I don't care about my mortgage. 1.00

00:57:37.000 Fuck it, I don't care about losing my job. 1.00

00:57:39.000 It's like this sort of denial of reality by indulging in something that's not healthy. 1.00

00:57:46.000 It reminded me of an irrational position that one of my former students took to justify him smoking.

00:57:53.000 I don't know if you do this in the United States, but in Canada, Health Canada has this program where they put very vivid images on cigarette packets.

00:58:03.000 You have the same thing here?

00:58:04.000 They used to.

00:58:05.000 Well, they don't have images, but they have the sayings.

00:58:08.000 Okay, but in Canada there are these images.

00:58:11.000 I shouldn't even say they used to, they still do.

00:58:13.000 So you know what he would do?

00:58:14.000 What?

00:58:15.000 To show you how irrational human beings are.

00:58:18.000 So he would, let's say, ask for whatever the brand was, Marlboro.

00:58:22.000 Now he would receive one and look at it.

00:58:25.000 If the warning message was one that would be relevant to him, he'd ask for another one until he received one.

00:58:32.000 Until he got low birth weight?

00:58:33.000 Until he got low, or you know, don't drink while pregnant, don't smoke while pregnant. 1.00

00:58:37.000 Oh, doesn't apply to me.

00:58:39.000 He was serious?

00:58:41.000 That's a Bill Hicks bit, by the way.

00:58:43.000 What is that?

00:58:44.000 Bill Hicks?

00:58:45.000 One of the greatest comics ever.

00:58:46.000 That was a bit that he had.

00:58:48.000 On exactly that point?

00:58:49.000 Yeah, he said, just pick one that doesn't apply.

00:58:51.000 Low birth weight.

00:58:52.000 Good.

00:58:52.000 Oh, there you go.

00:58:54.000 So maybe he got it from him.

00:58:55.000 But it shows you how, even though we often are fully cognizant objectively about some truth, our ability to engage in self-deception is limitless, right?

00:59:07.000 Well, it is for some folks, and I think, again, that goes back to mindfulness.

00:59:12.000 It goes back to meditation.

00:59:13.000 It goes back to reflection.

00:59:15.000 Most people live their lives in a constant state of momentum.

00:59:18.000 The momentum of the past constantly propelling themselves forward, and they're always adjusting and trying to make up for all the mistakes that their past has made.

00:59:26.000 They don't live their life in a state of in the now. 0.99

00:59:28.000 They live their life in a state of, fuck, why did I do that? 1.00

00:59:30.000 Now I gotta do this. 1.00

00:59:32.000 You know what I succumb to?

00:59:35.000 Let me know if you feel it too because you have young children.

00:59:39.000 I'm obsessed about first, for example, this is the first time that my daughter did this and there'll never be another first.

00:59:47.000 I'm always panicking about them growing up.

00:59:50.000 Really?

00:59:50.000 Yeah.

00:59:51.000 Wow, that's weird.

00:59:53.000 There's a purity.

00:59:55.000 Look, we live in a world where we're exposed, because in the public eye, we're exposed to a lot of negativity, even though we're exposed to a hundred-fold more positivity.

01:00:03.000 It's a rough ride out there.

01:00:06.000 And then my solace is coming home to the purity and innocence of my children.

01:00:12.000 And then the reality is that you can't bottle up that innocence And that purity forever.

01:00:17.000 And so speaking of the here and now, rather than oftentimes just enjoying the moment, I'm always worried that, you know, in five years she's going to be a prepubescent girl and then there's going to be a bunch of piggish young boys that are going to come around. 1.00

01:00:30.000 So that's something that truly bothers me.

01:00:33.000 Does it affect you?

01:00:34.000 You never thought about that?

01:00:35.000 Well, I mean, I don't dwell on it, honestly.

01:00:38.000 I mean, I just try to enjoy every moment I can with them.

01:00:41.000 I try to enjoy all the different stages of their life.

01:00:43.000 But, you know, I remember what they were like when they were babies, when they could barely talk.

01:00:50.000 And I was thinking I could never love something as much as I love them.

01:00:55.000 But now, I think when I talk to them, I love them even more.

01:00:58.000 Because now I get to have little conversations with them.

01:01:00.000 They're persons, they're real people, yeah.

01:01:01.000 When you have a deep conversation with an eight-year-old, it's pretty intense.

01:01:04.000 When it's your child and your daughter, it's pretty intense.

01:01:08.000 Isn't it humbling when they ask you things that clearly demonstrates how you know little about so many things?

01:01:15.000 Because they often will ask you questions that are profound and deep.

01:01:19.000 Why is lightning in that particular formula?

01:01:22.000 And you try to concoct some story while being truthful, and then oftentimes they stump you, right?

01:01:28.000 I just go to Google, man.

01:01:30.000 Well, it's kind of hard to go to Google while you're driving and having a conversation about some observation they just made.

01:01:35.000 But it just shows you, again, the purity of the child and sort of looking at the world and hitting you with questions that you frankly can't answer.

01:01:44.000 Well, I always like to say that I can't answer it.

01:01:46.000 I think it's important to let kids know that you don't know everything.

01:01:50.000 Right.

01:01:50.000 You know, because I think children automatically look towards adults as being some sort of superior form of a child.

01:01:57.000 You know, like, well, I don't know anything, but I'm a little kid, but my dad will know.

01:02:00.000 And then, you know, if you let them know, like, hey, there's just way too much information for everyone to know.

01:02:05.000 But what's important is you're honest about what you do know.

01:02:08.000 Yes.

01:02:08.000 And we're very fortunate that we have this thing called the Internet so we can find out what it is that we're trying to get the answer for.

01:02:16.000 And incidentally, I do that with my students.

01:02:19.000 When they ask a question, and let's say I don't know the answer, I'm very open.

01:02:23.000 I say, you know what, I think you got me with this one.

01:02:25.000 Why don't you send me an email, remind me, and I look into it.

01:02:28.000 And I do it just naturally, but oftentimes they'll write back to me and say, you know, wow, that was so refreshing.

01:02:34.000 You know, you were humble enough to not pretend that you know everything about every single thing, you know?

01:02:39.000 Yeah, I love that.

01:02:40.000 And it's so frustrating when you're talking to someone who's really smart who doesn't want to admit that they don't know something or wants to deny something's true when they haven't researched it.

01:02:49.000 It's very frustrating.

01:02:50.000 I have a friend who's a brilliant guy who does that.

01:02:53.000 You bring something up, he's like, that's not true. 0.99

01:02:55.000 And you're like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ. 0.99

01:02:56.000 We just Google it. 1.00

01:02:57.000 And I've done it with him over and over and over again.

01:03:00.000 I had to have a conversation with him.

01:03:01.000 I said, listen, man, if I tell you something is true, I'm not making it up.

01:03:05.000 And if I'm wrong, it's an honest mistake.

01:03:08.000 But if you just Google it, then you'll know.

01:03:10.000 But you're saying it's not true, and you've never even looked at it.

01:03:14.000 But here we are in 2016. You have a device in your pocket where you can get the answer to virtually anything at any time.

01:03:22.000 Bullshitting's out the window now.

01:03:23.000 So what's the psychological trait?

01:03:25.000 Ego.

01:03:25.000 He's a very smart guy, and he wants to be the smartest guy in the room all the time.

01:03:30.000 And so it just gets really frustrating, especially if we're somewhere where there's no internet service. 0.98

01:03:35.000 You're like, we're going to get to internet service, motherfucker, and then you're going to apologize. 0.92

01:03:38.000 It's this thing that people do where when you're having a conversation with someone, they're not just talking to you, they're engaged in a contest. 0.98

01:03:47.000 Yes.

01:03:48.000 Men do that all the time, right?

01:03:48.000 Oh yeah.

01:03:49.000 I have several of those in my own, not nuclear family, but my family of procreation.

01:03:54.000 So my...

01:03:55.000 Brutal.

01:03:56.000 I won't say who, but...

01:03:57.000 Brutal, right?

01:03:58.000 And here's another thing, that you never admit that you're wrong.

01:04:02.000 Yeah.

01:04:02.000 Right?

01:04:03.000 Because admitting that you're wrong makes you lose face.

01:04:06.000 And that's such a detrimental dynamic to have, right?

01:04:10.000 I mean, you know, I might come home at night and I've had a tough day and I might respond curtly to my dog and I actually will go back and then hug my dog because I have enough self-awareness to realize that I didn't give her enough attention, right?

01:04:24.000 So I have enough humility to never mind another human.

01:04:28.000 My dog is just as important to me.

01:04:29.000 And if I responded curtly, I will sort of apologize to her.

01:04:32.000 Yet I've got family members.

01:04:34.000 Again, this is not my family of...

01:04:36.000 My wife or kids, but the family that I was born into, that have never apologized about anything because they come from a cultural landscape where to apologize to your child, to somebody younger, is to lose face.

01:04:51.000 A parent is always right.

01:04:52.000 And I mean, that might work when you're two, but when you're both now adults, I think you sort of have to get out of that and realize that we all make mistakes and we all have to own up to them.

01:05:01.000 We all have to apologize honestly when we make a mistake.

01:05:04.000 And yet some people...

01:05:05.000 It's super unhealthy and it's unhealthy for the person who doesn't admit they make the mistake too because then it puts you in this position of being in denial of what you know to be the truth.

01:05:14.000 You're going to run around pretending that you were right all along when you know in your head that you were wrong.

01:05:19.000 So it diminishes your own personal opinions about yourself.

01:05:22.000 Right.

01:05:23.000 I'm going to tell you a great story.

01:05:24.000 On this exact point.

01:05:24.000 Ready?

01:05:26.000 So I'm having a chat with a family member, an older family member from my family.

01:05:26.000 Okay.

01:05:31.000 This is the problem person?

01:05:33.000 This is one of the key problem people in my family.

01:05:37.000 And he says something to the effect of, oh, you know, those ancient Greeks, those Christians were really anti-Semitic, or I can't remember the exact details.

01:05:47.000 I said, oh, well, you know, I'm sorry, I don't mean to correct you, but those ancient Greeks were not Christian.

01:05:53.000 As a matter of fact, the way we mark that era, as we say BCE before Common Era or BCE before Christ.

01:05:59.000 So by definition, those guys were marked as not being Christian.

01:06:04.000 So when he's now faced with sort of historical evidence that suggests that he was wrong, what do you think he does?

01:06:10.000 It's so grotesque that I'm not even sure you can guess what he did.

01:06:14.000 I don't want to guess.

01:06:16.000 So he basically says, no, that's right, that's what I said.

01:06:18.000 I said that they weren't Christian, you said that they were Christian. 0.99

01:06:21.000 So he looks at you in the face, that's called, if you don't mind me saying, on air, that's mind-fucking, right? 0.98

01:06:27.000 He looks at you in the face, he knows that you know, But he has enough. 0.98

01:06:31.000 In Arabic, you say, it's this kind of pathological pride, right? 1.00

01:06:37.000 Fuck you, right? 1.00

01:06:38.000 I'm going to look at you. 1.00

01:06:39.000 So rather than saying, oh, gee, I didn't know that.

01:06:42.000 Thanks for correcting me.

01:06:43.000 He flips what our original points of disagreement was.

01:06:49.000 You can't talk to that dude. 0.63

01:06:50.000 You got to cut that guy loose. 0.61

01:06:52.000 Well, maybe I have.

01:06:53.000 Oh, maybe you have.

01:06:54.000 I like how you said that.

01:06:56.000 Yeah, that's an unfortunate characteristic in men.

01:07:00.000 I guess it probably exists in women, too, but I see it more in men, that they always want to be right.

01:07:06.000 But it doesn't make you better to have information that someone doesn't have.

01:07:10.000 Like, I like when someone can tell me something that I don't know.

01:07:13.000 Sure.

01:07:13.000 It's interesting.

01:07:14.000 Well, I suspect that one of the reasons why your podcast is so successful is because you exhibit that generosity.

01:07:21.000 If you came to every discussion thinking that there is nothing that the other person can bring to the table, you're not going to have a show that's going to last long, no?

01:07:29.000 Well, it's also, it's impossible.

01:07:31.000 We're not talking about like the 1950s when people have this narrow view of the world that was defined by their own environment.

01:07:38.000 We're talking about this broad place now where you can just access all sorts of data.

01:07:43.000 And one of the beautiful things about the podcast is by sitting down with people like you or all the other awesome guests I get to sit down with, I get to experience the wisdom and the information of someone who's lived a completely different life than me.

01:07:57.000 And I just find that really fascinating.

01:08:00.000 And I just think that that arrogance that someone would display by doing what that guy did to you and switching around your points, that's just a child.

01:08:10.000 That's like a developmental dead end that this person went down.

01:08:14.000 So true.

01:08:15.000 So unhealthy.

01:08:16.000 I hear you.

01:08:17.000 But so common, right?

01:08:18.000 So common.

01:08:19.000 Yeah.

01:08:20.000 What's next?

01:08:21.000 What do you want to talk about?

01:08:22.000 I want to talk about your paper that you brought up.

01:08:24.000 Oh yeah, sure.

01:08:25.000 So this is a paper that I was invited to write in one of the leading journals in the field, Journal of Marketing Research, where I was asked to talk about the methods of evolutionary psychology.

01:08:38.000 How do evolutionary psychologists conduct research?

01:08:41.000 And it was specifically to address some of the common Canards that we hear from the tractors of evolutionary psychology.

01:08:48.000 Oh, it's all a bunch of post-hoc storytelling and so on.

01:08:51.000 And so the paper basically looks at three points, two of which we've already sort of covered.

01:08:54.000 One is the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations.

01:08:58.000 And again, that's a very important point to make because it basically argues that Mm-hmm.

01:09:16.000 The second method of evolutionary psychology is the building of these networks of cumulative evidence, like the one I gave you with the waist-to-hip ratio.

01:09:25.000 Maybe I'll give you another one as an example of this mechanism.

01:09:30.000 So, for example, if I want to argue that toy preferences have sex specificity that is innate, right?

01:09:38.000 So it's not that...

01:09:39.000 Because typically in the social sciences, we hear that what makes little boys little boys and little girls little goys Yeah, but that's dismissed.

01:09:53.000 I mean, you hear that, but it's very fringe.

01:09:56.000 In the social sciences?

01:09:57.000 Isn't it?

01:09:58.000 It's still up there.

01:09:59.000 Well, it's only because of liberal colleges.

01:10:03.000 It's not people that are objectively intelligent that are recognizing this.

01:10:08.000 But certainly in terms of the university landscape, that is the dominant narrative.

01:10:13.000 What do they use as evidence to point that men are taught to that?

01:10:16.000 Because they've proven that children absolutely gravitate, based on gender, gravitate towards certain types of tasks and toys.

01:10:25.000 So that's what I'm going to do next, is I'm going to demonstrate how.

01:10:28.000 Mm-hmm.

01:10:37.000 Mm-hmm.

01:10:48.000 They're too young to have been socialized.

01:10:51.000 And we could do studies on them to see what is it that they approach first or what is it that they gaze at longer.

01:10:58.000 And we see that there is a sex specificity in such young children.

01:11:02.000 So already it demonstrates that it's probably not due to socialization.

01:11:06.000 So that's evidence line number one.

01:11:07.000 We could take other species.

01:11:10.000 Vervet monkeys and rhesus monkeys and now there's some research with chimps showing that they exhibit the same sex specificity with these types of toys as human infants do.

01:11:22.000 Data number two.

01:11:24.000 We could take data from...

01:11:26.000 Clinical population, so there's a disorder known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is an endocrinological problem that masculinizes little girls, that masculinizes little girls both in their morphology but also in their behaviors.

01:11:39.000 So if you take little girls who suffer from this disorder, what do you think happens in their toy preferences?

01:11:44.000 They become more like those of little boys.

01:11:46.000 We could take depictions on funerary monuments, you know, these big mausoleums of dead people, From ancient Greece, and you look at depictions of little boys and little girls, and you see that the little boys are depicted with the typical toys, with a ball,

01:12:02.000 with something, with a wheel thing.

01:12:04.000 Little girls are depicted with dolls.

01:12:05.000 You could do the studies across a wide range of cultures that are very different from Western cultures.

01:12:10.000 The phenomenon manifests itself again.

01:12:13.000 And so what you do, again, in evolutionary theory is you build this nomological network of cumulative evidence coming from completely different data sets that then makes it unassailable to argue against it.

01:12:25.000 So that's the second method of evolutionary psychology.

01:12:28.000 The third one I argue is...

01:12:31.000 Evolutionary psychology operates on what are called consilient trees of knowledge.

01:12:36.000 Consilience is a term that had sort of lost its way.

01:12:40.000 It basically refers to unity of knowledge.

01:12:42.000 So if you say, for example, physics is more consilient than sociology, it's because physics has these organized knowledge elements.

01:12:52.000 So what is a typical tree of knowledge in evolutionary theory?

01:12:56.000 So you could start with something like sexual selection.

01:12:58.000 Sexual selection is basically the idea that how does a peacock evolve its big tail?

01:13:03.000 So how do animals evolve their traits to give them reproductive advantage?

01:13:08.000 That's been established from the time of Darwin through a million different species.

01:13:12.000 So now that leads to down the tree to another theory.

01:13:16.000 It's called the mid-level theory called parental investment theory.

01:13:19.000 Parental investment theory basically says that if you want to know about sex differences within a species, look at the minimal obligatory parental investment that each sex has to have in that species.

01:13:29.000 So in most species...

01:13:31.000 It's the female that has more parental investment, so typically they're smaller. 0.98

01:13:35.000 It's the males who fight for access to females.

01:13:38.000 Females are more careful about the main choices they make. 1.00

01:13:41.000 But you also have sex role reversal species, where it's the males who have greater parental investment.

01:13:46.000 What do you think happened to the sex differences?

01:13:48.000 They're exactly reversed, right? 0.55

01:13:50.000 So that has been also established.

01:13:52.000 So now we go down.

01:13:53.000 Parental investment theory leads to another theory that basically says that In the human context, females will make more judicious mate choices than men.

01:14:03.000 In other words, women are more careful in the types of mate choices that they must make precisely because they have greater costs if they make a wrong mating choice. 1.00

01:14:13.000 Which leads to a study that I did looking at how much information do men and women look at before they either reject mates or choose mates.

01:14:22.000 And what do you think the result shows?

01:14:24.000 When it comes to rejecting mates, women need less convincing. 1.00

01:14:28.000 In other words, they acquire less information before they decide all these mates are losers. 0.99

01:14:33.000 On the other hand, when it comes to choosing a mate, women look at more information prior to choosing. 1.00

01:14:39.000 So what I've shown you here is how you start with a general principle and work down a tree to a specific hypothesis.

01:14:46.000 That's called a tree of knowledge of evolutionary theory.

01:14:49.000 That's what the method of evolutionary psychology is.

01:14:53.000 So contrary to what typical detractors, there'll be some buffoon, some castrato at the bottom of your comments section that says, but evolutionary science says, that's not a real science.

01:15:02.000 We call them a castrato?

01:15:04.000 That's right.

01:15:05.000 Okay, so...

01:15:05.000 That's hilarious.

01:15:06.000 Yeah, you like that, huh?

01:15:07.000 That's a term...

01:15:08.000 I know what that is.

01:15:09.000 Good. 1.00

01:15:10.000 Those singers that had their balls chopped off. 0.99

01:15:12.000 I usually call them the Castrati Brigade. 0.99

01:15:15.000 And of course, in the singular form, it's Castrato, right?

01:15:18.000 So it's a guy who walks around without testes, but a very inflated ego, who then tells you, you know, despite the fact that you've spent 20 plus years studying something, he knows more than you.

01:15:27.000 All of you evolutionary scientists are, you know...

01:15:30.000 It's interesting to me that there would be people that would be involved in universities that would debate this sort of very objective research.

01:15:42.000 Right.

01:15:43.000 Right?

01:15:43.000 I mean, especially when it comes to gender, and obviously there's variables, but when it comes to the gravitating towards certain types of toys and tasks, and then it also pertains to career choices as well.

01:15:55.000 Like, there's this big push to get women involved in STEM, and women involved in technology, and there's discrimination, women in tech. 0.98

01:16:02.000 Well, no.

01:16:03.000 Women don't gravitate towards those particular jobs. 1.00

01:16:05.000 They don't want to do them.

01:16:06.000 Some do, and the ones that do, they cry sexism.

01:16:10.000 Because there's so few of them.

01:16:11.000 Well, it's just not something that they naturally gravitate towards overwhelmingly.

01:16:17.000 I don't know if you remember the whole debacle with Larry Summers, who was the president of Harvard University, who then became...

01:16:25.000 I don't know if he was in the Obama administration, but here's this guy who was president of Harvard University.

01:16:30.000 He was giving a speech.

01:16:31.000 Probably Jamie can pull it up if he has time.

01:16:35.000 And he was basically giving a talk where he hinted to exactly what you said.

01:16:40.000 He didn't say, oh, you know, women don't have the capacity to go into these fields. 1.00

01:16:45.000 I think he hinted to exactly what you said.

01:16:47.000 They may not like it as much, despite these very aggressive programs that we've instituted to try to attract women. 1.00

01:16:47.000 Propensity. 1.00

01:16:53.000 Maybe they're not drawn.

01:16:54.000 Just hinting at that led him to eventually stepping down as president of Harvard.

01:17:01.000 Well, there's a real problem in colleges and universities today with this denial of reality to help other people's feelings or to placate other people's feelings.

01:17:10.000 And it's also this repeating that even Obama's been involved in, repeating this myth that women working the same job make 77 cents for every dollar their man makes.

01:17:20.000 That's not true.

01:17:22.000 I don't know if you've ever researched that or gone into that.

01:17:24.000 Yeah, so I know from two sources.

01:17:25.000 The only two sources that I've sort of paid attention to that have addressed this, I think, is Milo.

01:17:30.000 Yiannopoulos, who's sort of been one of the big champions to try to dismantle that narrative.

01:17:34.000 Well, it's been dismantled by sociologists.

01:17:37.000 Christina Huff Summers did it. 0.73

01:17:39.000 So, yeah, I think you're exactly right.

01:17:41.000 Well, the data is wrong.

01:17:43.000 I mean, it's totally misinterpreted.

01:17:45.000 The real data is...

01:18:05.000 That is not true.

01:18:10.000 And that's the problem with this thing.

01:18:10.000 Exactly right.

01:18:12.000 And even fucking Obama, he parroted that. 0.99

01:18:15.000 And Sarah Silverman did it recently. 0.99

01:18:16.000 One of those Hillary Clinton speeches talking about how women make less than men.

01:18:20.000 It's not true.

01:18:21.000 But it's one of those things that if you tell people, they don't believe you.

01:18:25.000 You have to send them studies and then they read it.

01:18:29.000 This myth has been perpetrated so pervasively.

01:18:33.000 It's so common that people parrot it and no one questions it. 1.00

01:18:37.000 The fucking president parrots it on television. 1.00

01:18:41.000 Like, intellectually, that is so incredibly dishonest for him to do. 1.00

01:18:45.000 That if he is aware of the actual stats, and he says that just because he knows that's what people want to hear, like, oh, Obama does care. 0.79

01:18:53.000 He's caring and sympathetic, and he's not a pig.

01:18:57.000 I mean, similar narrative has been proposed, and you probably can fill in the details, regarding the, I don't know what the number is, you know, one in five women on university campuses will experience a sexual assault. 0.97

01:19:10.000 That is a ridiculous stat. 0.84

01:19:12.000 But is that? 0.98

01:19:13.000 I don't know that that's not...

01:19:15.000 Define sexual assault.

01:19:18.000 If it's a guy making an unwanted grope, you know, that a guy moves in for a kiss when he doesn't... 1.00

01:19:25.000 I mean, I think you're dealing with a lot of awkward kids that are drunk and they do stupid shit. 1.00

01:19:30.000 And some of it easily could be sexual assault or sexual... 1.00

01:19:34.000 You know, impropriety.

01:19:36.000 I don't necessarily think that that number's off.

01:19:39.000 I think rape is much more complicated. 0.74

01:19:43.000 I think you're talking about something way less common, but way more disturbing.

01:19:52.000 I think the real statistics about how many women get raped are way different than what is being proposed. 0.99

01:20:00.000 The problem is you start talking about things like an unwanted grope or someone slapping someone in the ass. 0.99

01:20:05.000 That all gets factored in. 1.00

01:20:07.000 Then they start factoring in things like having sex while intoxicated, and that becomes sexual assault.

01:20:13.000 But, conveniently, only for the man to be the one who's the sexual assaulter.

01:20:19.000 Like, if a woman is sober and the man is drunk, no one is ever accusing the woman of being a rapist by having sex with a drunk man. 0.93

01:20:27.000 Right.

01:20:28.000 Have we talked, speaking of rape, I'm not sure if we've discussed it on the show, did we discuss the rape by fraud story on this show?

01:20:35.000 Yes, we have.

01:20:37.000 Well, there's also the new laws that are being passed, rape by fraud, which is fascinating.

01:20:42.000 Like, if a guy says he's a prince and, you know, I'm going to take you to my castle, you will live in luxury forever.

01:20:48.000 But he's really not a prince.

01:20:49.000 That guy can get charged with rape.

01:20:51.000 What are your thoughts on this? 1.00

01:20:53.000 Well, the guy's a piece of shit, so I'm all in favor of... 1.00

01:20:56.000 But he shouldn't be arrested as a rapist. 1.00

01:20:58.000 Well, no, but he is definitely a liar. 0.99

01:21:00.000 It's really tricky. 0.98

01:21:01.000 It's like, what is he doing exactly? 0.90

01:21:04.000 He's being a liar. 1.00

01:21:05.000 He's telling a story that's not true, and because of that, a girl's having sex with him. 1.00

01:21:10.000 He's immoral. 1.00

01:21:11.000 He's unethical. 0.85

01:21:12.000 It's reprehensible behavior.

01:21:13.000 He's not rapist.

01:21:15.000 He's not criminal.

01:21:16.000 Because if that were criminal, as I think I might have mentioned on your show before, 95% of people who are engaged in online dating are rapists.

01:21:24.000 Well, yeah, that's true.

01:21:25.000 And also, a lot of guys lie to themselves. 0.99

01:21:28.000 They're raping themselves. 0.97

01:21:29.000 You know, pretending they really love someone when they don't. 0.99

01:21:31.000 Is that what you guys call it now? 1.00

01:21:32.000 Masturbation is raping yourself? 1.00

01:21:33.000 I don't even mean masturbation. 1.00

01:21:34.000 I mean, having sex with someone you're not really attracted to. 1.00

01:21:36.000 You're just horny as fuck and you convince yourself this is the right girl. 1.00

01:21:40.000 And as soon as you're orgasm, you're like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. 1.00

01:21:42.000 I just raped myself. 1.00

01:21:44.000 I think there's something immoral about it. 1.00

01:21:48.000 There's something unethical about it.

01:21:49.000 But it becomes very tricky when you try to decide whether or not that's a crime.

01:21:54.000 Right.

01:21:54.000 Or you want to prosecute someone for rape for doing something like that.

01:21:57.000 Also, it's weird because presumably the woman had sex with that man voluntarily and enjoyed it. 0.99

01:22:07.000 And then decided she didn't enjoy it when she realized that guy was crazy. 1.00

01:22:10.000 Or a liar. 0.99

01:22:11.000 Isn't that just like a lesson? 0.66

01:22:13.000 Isn't that just a life lesson?

01:22:14.000 And now you're going to go and be way more picky with who you decide to have sex with?

01:22:18.000 Well, I mean, think of it this way.

01:22:19.000 I mean, again, let's link it back to evolutionary theory.

01:22:22.000 Not just in the human context, but across the animal kingdom.

01:22:25.000 There's endless manifestations of deceptive signaling, right?

01:22:29.000 Sure.

01:22:30.000 Animals, including humans, engage in deceptive signaling.

01:22:34.000 Here is an example that doesn't relate to mating.

01:22:39.000 Yeah.

01:22:59.000 But yet, because it has usurped this signal, now nobody will attack it.

01:23:04.000 Right?

01:23:04.000 Right.

01:23:05.000 Oh boy, what a fraud.

01:23:07.000 And again, I don't want to receive comments now that I support lying.

01:23:11.000 It is reprehensible.

01:23:13.000 Too late.

01:23:13.000 It is unethical.

01:23:14.000 It is immoral.

01:23:15.000 I don't do the behavior.

01:23:16.000 Of course.

01:23:18.000 It's part of life.

01:23:19.000 People lie to one another.

01:23:20.000 People lie to themselves.

01:23:38.000 That the reason why I have to first believe in a lie before selling it to you is because when I lie, I actually have these micro-expressions that serve as telltale signs of my lying.

01:23:49.000 If I could suppress these so that when you're trying to look at my face to see if there are any signatures of lies, Deception on my face.

01:24:16.000 That's interesting. 0.74

01:24:17.000 Now, deception also has to be defined, like lying and raped by deception.

01:24:23.000 At what level are we still calling it raped by deception?

01:24:26.000 Like if a guy has a fake Rolex on, and he's advertising that he's wealthy when in fact he's not.

01:24:33.000 Yeah, I mean, when a guy pretends he's making $100,000 a year, but it really makes $45,000.

01:24:38.000 Let's make it less fuzzy.

01:24:39.000 Let's make it more fuzzy.

01:24:40.000 Okay.

01:24:40.000 How about if I'm actually a very apathetic guy who can't get out of bed till 11 o'clock in the morning, but yet I convince whomever I'm going out with that I have this infinite bottled up ambition.

01:24:55.000 So I'm not even faking the Rolex watch.

01:24:57.000 This is not a tangible thing.

01:24:59.000 I'm just sending her cues that I'm going places.

01:25:02.000 I've got all great ideas.

01:25:03.000 I've got a lot of entrepreneurial spunk in me.

01:25:06.000 I work out every day.

01:25:07.000 I drink wheatgrass juice.

01:25:08.000 I'm super healthy.

01:25:09.000 I meditate.

01:25:10.000 So am I a rapist?

01:25:11.000 Yeah, that's a good question. 0.67

01:25:13.000 Who are you?

01:25:15.000 I always tell guys, you should aspire to be the man you pretend to be when you're trying to get laid.

01:25:19.000 If you could just be that guy all the time, really, it's the best way to go.

01:25:25.000 But yeah, that's interesting.

01:25:27.000 That is deceptive, right?

01:25:28.000 If he's pretending to have all this really admirable behavior. 0.99

01:25:32.000 When a woman fakes orgasm and makes you think that you're a great lover and you have sex with her again. 1.00

01:25:38.000 That liar. 1.00

01:25:39.000 She's a liar. 1.00

01:25:39.000 She raped me. 1.00

01:25:40.000 So the next time I had sex with her, it was under the misconception that I was a great lover the first time when she faked the orgasm. 1.00

01:25:47.000 So she's raping me that second time. 1.00

01:25:48.000 Now, when you were talking about evolutionary psychology receiving a lot of criticism, you sort of glossed over it real quickly to make your point. 0.81

01:25:58.000 Where's the vast majority of this coming from?

01:26:01.000 Yeah, that's a great question.

01:26:02.000 So it comes from different camps for different reasons.

01:26:06.000 So let's kind of break them up.

01:26:08.000 So we can go to the religious folks.

01:26:12.000 That's obvious though, isn't it?

01:26:14.000 Obvious that they would be detractors.

01:26:16.000 Yeah, but obviously they're not going to look at things realistically because they have this blind spot.

01:26:21.000 Let's talk about professors.

01:26:21.000 Of course.

01:26:23.000 Right.

01:26:24.000 So then the professors typically will be one of, again, several types.

01:26:28.000 They'll be the social constructivists.

01:26:30.000 Those are the guys who believe that everything is due to social construction.

01:26:34.000 That what makes us human is that we transcend our biology, right?

01:26:38.000 There's an argument for that though, isn't there?

01:26:40.000 Well, we don't transcend our biology.

01:26:42.000 We're not strictly biological animals.

01:26:43.000 We're biological and cultural, but we certainly can't negate our biology.

01:26:48.000 What they're basically arguing is that what differentiates us from all other life forms is that we transcend our biology, right?

01:26:55.000 So they're perfectly fine if you use an evolutionary explanation to explain the behavior of the mating Behavior of the salamander.

01:27:05.000 But don't apply that exact same phenomenon when it applies to humans, right?

01:27:05.000 Right.

01:27:09.000 Because somehow we have consciousness and we have higher order thinking and that's what makes us human, right?

01:27:18.000 There are guys who, for example, Professors who believe that evolution stops at the neck.

01:27:24.000 So they're perfectly happy with you offering an evolutionary explanation for why...

01:27:30.000 Where we evolved opposable thumbs, that's fine.

01:27:30.000 Fingernails.

01:27:33.000 Why we've evolved the particular pancreas that we have, but don't apply it to anything above the neck to the brain.

01:27:41.000 Don't apply behavior patterns or cultural...

01:27:44.000 Your personhood, who you are as a human being, right?

01:27:46.000 There are some guys who...

01:27:49.000 They don't have any ideological reasons for hating evolutionary psychology, but because they don't know much about evolutionary psychology, they typically will argue, oh, evolutionists come up with all these fanciful post-hoc stories.

01:27:59.000 And in a sense, the article that I wrote, that I discussed on your show today, seeks to address that.

01:28:04.000 That contrary to what people think, the standard of evidence that evolutionary scientists typically seek to meet prior to Accepting an explanation is actually much, much higher than other sciences by the very nature of the epistemology of the field,

01:28:22.000 by the very nature of how knowledge is created and generated in evolutionary theory.

01:28:25.000 So for all sorts of reasons, none of which is valid, there's a long queue of, frankly, buffoons who despise evolutionary theory.

01:28:36.000 Now, the reality is that they're going to lose this battle, right?

01:28:40.000 There will be a day when it will become banal to argue that humans are driven by evolutionary imperatives.

01:28:47.000 And I already see it from my own scientific career.

01:28:50.000 If I look at the antipathy that I faced 15 years ago versus today, it's very, very different, right?

01:28:57.000 The antipathy that I felt from sometimes the same person. 0.98

01:29:00.000 I could still have emails from somebody who wrote me 10 years ago thinking that my work was full of shit, who's now inviting me to his university with all sorts of deference. 0.97

01:29:10.000 And so that's the nature of science, right? 0.98

01:29:11.000 It's autocorrective.

01:29:13.000 And the reality is the cat's out of the bag.

01:29:16.000 Everything is evolutionary, right?

01:29:17.000 By the way, we could talk about the range of fields where evolution has made its way and fields where you wouldn't typically think so.

01:29:24.000 Is that something that interests you that we could talk about?

01:29:26.000 Yeah, but I want to keep going down this road for a little bit.

01:29:28.000 I find it very fascinating when people oppose things that seem pretty obvious.

01:29:33.000 Right.

01:29:34.000 And not only that, are unwilling to take into account that it might not be a case of either or, but it might be a case of there's a bunch of combining factors.

01:29:44.000 And that evolution must certainly continue to play.

01:29:48.000 It's the idea that we've completely transcended evolution with culture and thinking and logic and language.

01:29:53.000 It's insane.

01:29:54.000 It doesn't make any sense.

01:29:55.000 And I don't know, forgive me if I've mentioned this on this show before, but again, if I have, it's worth repeating.

01:30:01.000 I always talk about the interactionist framework.

01:30:04.000 Interaction basically means everything is interaction.

01:30:07.000 Most things are interaction between our genes and our environment, right?

01:30:10.000 As a matter of fact, genes get turned on or off as a function of environmental input.

01:30:15.000 Which is fascinating.

01:30:16.000 Exactly.

01:30:16.000 Evolution happens within an environment.

01:30:18.000 So by its very nature, evolution itself recognizes the importance of the environment, right?

01:30:25.000 So anybody who exhibits hatred or rejection of biology using those types of arguments is simply...

01:30:34.000 Advertising they know very little about biology.

01:30:36.000 The reality is it's an interaction.

01:30:39.000 And the example I like to give, the metaphor I give is the cake metaphor.

01:30:42.000 If you take the separate ingredients of a cake, here's the sugar, here's the eggs, here's the baking soda, whatever the parts are, the butter, they're separate at first.

01:30:51.000 Now you bake the cake.

01:30:53.000 If I then ask you when you have the final cake in front of you, point to the sugar or point to the eggs, you can't.

01:30:59.000 It's an inextricable mix of both.

01:31:01.000 That's a very good point.

01:31:02.000 That's what we are.

01:31:03.000 We are an inextricable mix of our genes and our unique environments and our unique talents and our unique personhoods.

01:31:10.000 The problem with much of the social sciences has been, and they're losing now by the day, has been that they've completely rejected biology as in any way relevant in explaining anything.

01:31:23.000 Anything.

01:31:23.000 Mating, criminality, political choice.

01:31:27.000 For example, there's a field called evolutionary politics or biopolitics, which tries to infuse evolutionary theory within political science.

01:31:35.000 Well, no kidding.

01:31:36.000 I mean, what happens when we're making political choices?

01:31:39.000 Suddenly our biology ceases to matter.

01:31:41.000 So evolutionary theory is relevant anywhere in That you're studying biological agents.

01:31:48.000 So what is the argument against this? 0.98

01:31:51.000 And how has someone gotten to a university level teaching this kind of bullshit? 0.99

01:31:57.000 Right. 1.00

01:31:58.000 So it comes from several sources.

01:32:00.000 So maybe we could sort of point to a few.

01:32:02.000 Have you ever debated anyone about this?

01:32:04.000 I mean, I have in various forums, not necessarily in a public one-on-one like this.

01:32:09.000 But I would love to see that.

01:32:10.000 Hook it up.

01:32:10.000 Make it happen.

01:32:11.000 I would like to find somebody who opposes you on this.

01:32:14.000 I read their stuff online and it's infuriating because it's unopposed. 0.98

01:32:17.000 Like someone who writes a ridiculous blog. 0.97

01:32:20.000 And you know right away what the motivation is. 0.99

01:32:23.000 This is someone who's distorting reality to fit their own ridiculous view of the world.

01:32:29.000 Yeah, so I've debated them in typically one of two ways.

01:32:32.000 Either through the review process.

01:32:35.000 Where usually they're anonymous, and oftentimes I'm anonymous.

01:32:38.000 So in a double-blind review process, I don't know who they are, they don't know who I am, and then we're engaging in a debate.

01:32:45.000 And oftentimes the paper gets rejected because they're the reviewer, they're the editor, and then they have the final say.

01:32:50.000 So in that context I've debated, or I've debated publicly typically when I go after somebody on Twitter who's espousing these kinds of stupidities, but I've never done it publicly in this way.

01:32:58.000 Have you had a paper rejected that was logical and objective and made a lot of sense?

01:33:03.000 Tons of times.

01:33:04.000 Really?

01:33:05.000 Give me an example.

01:33:06.000 So the paper, when I was talking to you about the tree of knowledge going down the tree of sexual selection.

01:33:11.000 So I had a paper where I had looked at how much information do men and women look at before they either reject a mate or choose a mate, which I mentioned earlier.

01:33:22.000 That paper, originally I had sent it to a top journal in consumer psychology.

01:33:27.000 And to kind of just summarize the position, it was, well, this is all biology.

01:33:33.000 What does this have to do with psychology?

01:33:35.000 So these very esteemed psychologists somehow thought that biology existed in a separate realm to psychology.

01:33:46.000 In a vacuum.

01:33:47.000 Your brain exists in this other parallel universe.

01:33:50.000 It has no influence.

01:33:51.000 The body has no influence on the brain at all.

01:33:53.000 Exactly.

01:33:53.000 The other thing that they were upset about As they were talking about, well, why is this person who's an otherwise, very patronizing, who's an otherwise clearly a bright behavioral scientist, talking about sex differences when we should be looking at things that make us similar to one another?

01:34:09.000 Well, when you're talking about sex differences in mating behavior, you study sex differences, right?

01:34:14.000 I mean, it's a fundamental difference.

01:34:17.000 Yeah.

01:34:33.000 Now, if I speak to neuroscientists, if I speak to biopsychologists, they would listen to my stuff and say, oh yeah, no kidding.

01:34:40.000 So in a sense, I've existed in a fractured life in my academic life.

01:34:46.000 If I am navigating amongst my natural science colleagues, then they're all like, oh yeah, I love your stuff.

01:34:53.000 I love you.

01:34:54.000 If I navigate amongst my social science friends, well, they're less loving and less receptive, but they're coming around.

01:35:01.000 So I think the problem stems from the empty slate premise, the idea that we are born with empty minds that are only subsequently filled by a wide range, by a cascading...

01:35:13.000 That's a nonsensical theory.

01:35:15.000 Isn't it?

01:35:16.000 It is, but also I have a problem with someone saying, why are you looking at this instead of looking at that?

01:35:22.000 Well, looking at this, just because you're looking at something, it doesn't make it so that you can't understand why we are all similar in many ways.

01:35:30.000 But the denial of these preferences, of these genetic preferences, of these evolutionary tendencies, that's not scientific at all.

01:35:40.000 Like, that's really preposterous.

01:35:43.000 And the fact that that's being taught to kids, and that they go leave these institutions with these thoughts in their head that are based on a bunch of people that have never even existed in the outside world.

01:35:53.000 That's what's fucked up about schools in a lot of ways.

01:35:56.000 Sure. 0.80

01:35:56.000 Is they're going from learning by these people to becoming one of these people, teaching in these schools, and never existing, a gigantic percentage, never existing outside of academia. 0.80

01:36:08.000 Absolutely.

01:36:09.000 So to speak to your point about have I ever faced this type of antipathy and so on, I gave two talks when my first book came out at a university in the psychology department and in the business school.

01:36:20.000 They were back-to-back on two separate days.

01:36:23.000 So this was a talk on my book, How Do You Darwinize the Field of Consumer Behavior?

01:36:28.000 I gave it in the psychology department first, which is made up of a lot of people who have background in neurosciences and biology.

01:36:34.000 And they all listened and said, yeah, beautiful.

01:36:36.000 No kidding.

01:36:37.000 I mean, of course, to study our consumatory nature, we have to understand the biological impulses that drive us.

01:36:42.000 Great.

01:36:43.000 Exact same talk the next day in the business school.

01:36:46.000 This is one of the top universities in the world.

01:36:49.000 I couldn't get through a single sentence.

01:36:51.000 Why?

01:36:52.000 Because of the amount of hostility that I faced.

01:36:54.000 In the business school?

01:36:55.000 In the business school.

01:36:56.000 Why business school?

01:36:57.000 So this is a very interesting question.

01:36:59.000 So I think business practitioners, in other words, business people, not business academics, Actually love my work or historically love my work because they're not vested in a particular paradigm.

01:37:10.000 They care about results.

01:37:13.000 What works, right?

01:37:14.000 What earns them money?

01:37:15.000 Exactly.

01:37:16.000 You're going to tell me what are the evolutionary triggers for me to develop a more effective advertising campaign?

01:37:23.000 I'm in.

01:37:24.000 I'm in.

01:37:24.000 Talk to me, Professor Tsai.

01:37:25.000 I don't give a shit about your paradigmatic fights in academia. 0.96

01:37:29.000 Yes, but the academics who've been vested in social constructivism or in cultural relativism, every culture is relative, there are no human universals, there is no shared human nature, there is no shared biological heritage, then I come in on my biology train. 0.98

01:37:47.000 I'm dangerous.

01:37:48.000 We've got to shut this guy down.

01:37:50.000 Now, the reality is, if you're sufficiently confident about what you're doing, you ride out that storm.

01:37:55.000 And luckily for me, now 20 years into the game, more people are coming to seeing things in the way that I'm saying them.

01:38:03.000 But it's taken a lot of dogged fighting to convince people of the veracity of what I'm saying.

01:38:11.000 So when you were giving these speeches and you were being interrupted, what are they saying?

01:38:15.000 So example.

01:38:16.000 I'll give the first one.

01:38:18.000 How do you explain homosexuality? 0.99

01:38:20.000 Right?

01:38:21.000 Because their first instinct, no pun intended, instinct is an evolutionary term.

01:38:28.000 They want to show that if everything is evolutionary, if everything is adaptive, then how could you explain something like homosexuality, which by definition is Darwinian, at that end, right? 0.87

01:38:38.000 Well, then I say, well, there are some evolutionary theories that try to explain homosexuality, but that's not really the focus of my talk.

01:38:44.000 Can I just go on?

01:38:46.000 How do you explain suicide?

01:38:48.000 Here's the other...

01:38:49.000 Now, if we are these adaptive creatures that have this survival instinct, how do you explain the fact that there's an epidemiology of suicide?

01:38:56.000 Why would somebody take their own life?

01:38:58.000 So if I start...

01:38:59.000 That's pretty easy to describe.

01:39:01.000 I don't think I'd have a problem with...

01:39:03.000 No, but then imagine if this goes on for every syllable that I utter, right?

01:39:08.000 So these are students that are interrupting you?

01:39:10.000 No, no, these are professors.

01:39:11.000 Professors.

01:39:12.000 As a matter of fact...

01:39:13.000 That's so rude.

01:39:14.000 So two points I'll make.

01:39:17.000 The more senior the person in the room, the more hostile they were.

01:39:23.000 Really?

01:39:24.000 So the doctoral students, who took me out to lunch after, were all like, oh man, I love your stuff, professor.

01:39:30.000 Now why?

01:39:31.000 Again, anecdotally, we can understand why.

01:39:33.000 Because the more senior professors are vested in their paradigms.

01:39:38.000 Therefore, their brains are closed to any ideas that might challenge the status quo.

01:39:43.000 The doctoral student who's still surfing, who's surfing at the buffet of ideas, is open to the idea.

01:39:49.000 Oh yeah, biology seems to make sense.

01:39:51.000 The second thing that I'll point, when you said it's very rude, I actually got upset.

01:39:56.000 I tried to stay with decorum and politeness, but as we were leaving, I took a couple of those senior folks and I said, you know, what is the point of inviting me here?

01:40:05.000 And wasting your money and our respective time by not giving me a chance to get through my talk.

01:40:11.000 Wouldn't it make more sense to give me the forum?

01:40:13.000 And then at the end of the day, if you decide that it's not worthwhile, you throw it in the garbage, but at least you've given me the opportunity to share my ideas with you.

01:40:21.000 Oh, no, no, Professor Saad, you mistook our interruptions.

01:40:24.000 It's because we were so engaged.

01:40:25.000 I said, well, it can't be really engaged when you're not allowing me to finish the syllable.

01:40:29.000 Well, not only that, it's really simple to take notes and then at the end of it, ask you questions.

01:40:33.000 I mean, why do they feel like they have the right to interrupt your speech?

01:40:37.000 That's a great question.

01:40:37.000 I usually ask people to hold off their questions till the Q&A period, but I don't know why, but especially in business schools, and certainly in some of the top business schools, there is this culture A very sort of alpha maleness where you hammer at the person.

01:40:57.000 Because you're trying to one-up them.

01:40:59.000 There's a great story on Richard.

01:41:02.000 Do you know who Richard Feynman is?

01:41:03.000 Yes.

01:41:04.000 The great Nobel Prize winning physicist.

01:41:06.000 I think I read it in his book, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman.

01:41:11.000 So I hope I don't botch the story, but the story goes something like this.

01:41:14.000 He's giving his sort of pre-final dissertation talk, his sort of departmental talk.

01:41:19.000 He's still a doctoral student at Princeton in front of the who's who of leading physicists throughout.

01:41:26.000 I mean, Einstein is there and everybody's there.

01:41:28.000 And as he's giving his talk...

01:41:30.000 As a young doctoral student, there is this one professor who's interrupting him in the way that those folks were interrupting me at that school.

01:41:38.000 And from the corner somewhere, apparently, Albert Einstein says, don't you think we owe the young man the respect to let him finish speaking?

01:41:46.000 And then I'm sure at the end of his talk, he'll have plenty of opportunities to answer us.

01:41:50.000 And then after that, nobody said anything.

01:41:52.000 So I think it's part of that baboon sort of guerrilla thing. 1.00

01:41:55.000 I'm going to show you that I'm the smartest guy in the room.

01:41:57.000 So you typically see it from not the truly elite.

01:42:00.000 The truly elite don't have to do this.

01:42:02.000 But the guys just below want to show that they're the toughest guys in the prison yard, and therefore they interrupt you, they harass you, they heckle you, and so on.

01:42:11.000 The same type of people that would go after you with like a hate blog.

01:42:14.000 Exactly.

01:42:15.000 Professors that are just fringe intellectuals that just really aren't that smart, but they've achieved this notoriety and a status because of the fact they're teaching at some school.

01:42:26.000 Can I mention one such guy?

01:42:27.000 Sure. 0.99

01:42:29.000 A grand buffoon, P.Z. Myers. 0.99

01:42:32.000 Do you know who that is?

01:42:34.000 Yeah, I know who that guy is.

01:42:35.000 One of the most execrable creatures that has ever walked academia.

01:42:39.000 I don't know him personally well, but he's the exact type of guy who exhibits those types of behaviors.

01:42:46.000 He has an incredibly successful science blog.

01:42:51.000 Hat tip to him for having that forum.

01:42:54.000 But all he does all day is attack fellow scientists in extraordinarily, you know, poisonous manners.

01:43:05.000 It's never respectful. 1.00

01:43:06.000 Certainly evolutionary psychologists, we're all lobotomized Idiots who are faking science. 1.00

01:43:12.000 He's the real scientist. 1.00

01:43:14.000 All of us are just idiots who are borderline illiterates. 0.99

01:43:18.000 And the reality is the last time that he ever published something was probably around the period of the Renaissance. 0.99

01:43:24.000 And yet he feels perfectly comfortable criticizing folks who are infinitely more productive than him.

01:43:30.000 And I only call him out now. 0.97

01:43:32.000 I don't know him, but I just despise this type of bully, this kind of arrogance.

01:43:36.000 When there are incredibly honest, hardworking scientists that in their best way are trying to understand the world.

01:43:43.000 But here's this guy who's got a huge soapbox.

01:43:46.000 I mean, I think over 100 million views and visitors on his site.

01:43:50.000 So he's got a big platform.

01:43:51.000 He's just denigrating everybody.

01:43:54.000 There's a lot of action in that.

01:43:59.000 There's a lot of eyes.

01:44:01.000 If you're one of those people that writes a hate blog, you can get a lot of attention doing that.

01:44:06.000 And some people become very addicted to attention.

01:44:07.000 And if you notice, they start repeating those patterns and blogging constantly over and over again.

01:44:13.000 And then also...

01:44:14.000 What he also does is anybody who opposes him, he deletes them from the comments, even if they're respectful. 1.00

01:44:20.000 If you're an idiot, you don't know what you're talking about. 1.00

01:44:23.000 I became aware of him because of that whole Michael Shermer debacle. 1.00

01:44:27.000 Yes, the rape thing, right?

01:44:29.000 Yeah. 0.77

01:44:30.000 Well, he accused Michael Shermer of rape because he had sex with a woman consensually while they were both intoxicated.

01:44:37.000 At a conference, I think.

01:44:38.000 Yes.

01:44:39.000 Oh, that's how you got to know him.

01:44:41.000 Yeah.

01:44:41.000 Well, that's how I heard of him.

01:44:42.000 Right.

01:44:43.000 And the way it was done was so reckless and so uninformed.

01:44:49.000 You don't know what happened unless you were there.

01:44:52.000 And also, there's photos of Michael Shermer and the girl smiling weeks after this incident.

01:44:58.000 It was all...

01:44:59.000 It's all very sordid.

01:45:00.000 Well, it's ugliness, right?

01:45:01.000 It's difficult to understand what he gets out of this sort of frivolous, diabolical ugliness.

01:45:09.000 It's attention.

01:45:10.000 Yeah, it gets attention. 0.98

01:45:11.000 And, you know, he's the grand poobah of the retarded social justice warriors. 1.00

01:45:16.000 Very true. 0.97

01:45:17.000 There's a lot of people like that out there.

01:45:19.000 And there's, again, there's a lot of attention in doing something like that.

01:45:24.000 You know, and if unfortunately it negates some really good points that they might have about a bunch of different issues because you have to look at it through the lens of this really poisonous person.

01:45:35.000 Exactly right.

01:45:36.000 You know, the first I had heard of him, There was an incident that happened on Psychology Today with a gentleman by the name of Satoshi Kanazawa.

01:45:45.000 Are you familiar with him?

01:45:46.000 No.

01:45:47.000 So Satoshi Kanazawa is a professor, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics.

01:45:52.000 It's a very, very prestigious school in London, England, who was a very popular blogger at Psychology Today.

01:45:59.000 But he had a very sort of bombastic style of writing that sort of drew a lot of attention because of the way he phrased things.

01:46:08.000 But I guess he thought that he was so popular that he was sort of untouchable.

01:46:12.000 And at one point he wrote a blog article summarizing somebody else's work looking at racial differences in attractiveness.

01:46:20.000 So for example, who's most attractive, white women or black women, white men or black men?

01:46:24.000 And one of the results from that data set, this wasn't his own study, he was summarizing somebody else's work, was that black women had been rated as less attractive And he gave some, I guess, speculative reasons as to why that might be.

01:46:39.000 So that caused a huge furor. 0.98

01:46:42.000 He's a racist. 0.99

01:46:43.000 He's Japanese, by the way. 1.00

01:46:45.000 He hates blacks. 1.00

01:46:45.000 He's a racist. 1.00

01:46:46.000 He hates this. 0.99

01:46:47.000 They tried to get him out of psychology today.

01:46:50.000 They eventually kicked him out.

01:46:53.000 They started a petition to try to revoke his tenure at London School of Economics.

01:46:58.000 But I'll mention two points.

01:46:59.000 Number one, P. Z. Myers takes this example and says, look, here's what evolutionary psychology is.

01:47:07.000 Here's this racist who happens to be an evolutionary psychologist. 0.96

01:47:11.000 All evolutionary psychologists are racist. 0.85

01:47:13.000 Well, I mean, that's what racism usually is, right? 0.76

01:47:16.000 I know a friend who is Jewish and who was caught cheating on his taxes.

01:47:22.000 That shows you Jews cheat when it comes to money because they're always looking to make the most money. 1.00

01:47:27.000 That's what happens with those Jews, right? 1.00

01:47:29.000 So he doesn't see the irony of that.

01:47:31.000 So then I wrote an article, which I frankly, if you don't mind me saying, took a lot of courage, where I, and you could probably pull it up, well, you could pull it up if you wanted, where I basically argued that to...

01:47:43.000 Purge a blogger would set a very dangerous precedent, right?

01:47:46.000 If you disagree with whatever Satoshi Kanazawa is saying, let his words come back to haunt him, right?

01:47:53.000 His words will be there.

01:47:55.000 If they are truly racist, if he is espousing racial theories that are pure quackery, that will be the biggest punishment he could suffer.

01:48:03.000 But to remove him from the discourse, the public arena of ideas sets a very dangerous precedent.

01:48:10.000 Now, guess what happened?

01:48:11.000 A lot of my academic colleagues wrote to me privately, said, my God, thank you for having the courage to write that article.

01:48:17.000 That's exactly what I thought, but I didn't want to write the article because then people might think that I'm supporting Satoshi.

01:48:23.000 So it shows you the cowardice of people.

01:48:26.000 To me, it seemed very natural to write that article. 0.99

01:48:29.000 I don't give a shit. 0.98

01:48:30.000 I mean, I know what's right, and I'm going to support that principle, which is you don't ban people based on ideas that they write. 0.98

01:48:37.000 Let their ideas come back to haunt them if they are bad ideas.

01:48:40.000 Not only that, why is it okay to say that there's...

01:48:46.000 There's an evolutionary desire for women to breed with an alpha male, like one of these romance novel guys. 0.97

01:48:54.000 Why is it okay to say that women are more inclined to favor taller men with broader shoulders and longer, or whatever the fuck it is, or... 0.96

01:49:05.000 Why is it okay to say that women are less attractive to obese, short men? 0.97

01:49:10.000 Why is it okay to say that men would be less attractive to obese women?

01:49:16.000 Which is a fact.

01:49:17.000 But as soon as you involve race, then you're not allowed to look at the actual statistics.

01:49:22.000 You're not allowed to look at the real numbers.

01:49:24.000 Have you noticed, by the way, that the 100 meters was very racist this year?

01:49:28.000 Was it racist?

01:49:29.000 Black people won? 0.66

01:49:29.000 How so? 0.66

01:49:30.000 There were no Lebanese Jews who were overweight that were in the final.

01:49:34.000 There was no proper representation of the rich tapestry of humanity.

01:49:39.000 Why were they all black? 1.00

01:49:40.000 That was clearly racist. 0.60

01:49:41.000 Well, we're talking about an athletic event.

01:49:43.000 We're not talking about sex.

01:49:44.000 Right.

01:49:46.000 It's all sorted because...

01:49:48.000 In many ways, you could make the argument that there are women that are far more beautiful than any... 0.99

01:49:54.000 that are black, that are far more beautiful than any white woman that you know.

01:49:57.000 I mean, there's a broad range of attractiveness in all sorts of different races and creeds in different parts of the world.

01:50:05.000 And there's also...

01:50:07.000 different people have different...

01:50:09.000 Sure.

01:50:28.000 Absolutely not.

01:50:29.000 As a matter of fact, I think in the same study, if I'm not mistaken, he pointed to the fact that black men had scored as more attractive.

01:50:37.000 So the result that demonstrates a finding that is racially acceptable is gleaned over.

01:50:44.000 The one that is unacceptable then makes him a KKK Nazi.

01:50:49.000 What is he supposed to do?

01:50:50.000 Is he supposed to ignore the statistics?

01:50:51.000 Exactly.

01:50:52.000 Incidentally, the king on this issue is a gentleman by the name of Philip Rushton, who has now passed away a few years ago, who was a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying racial differences.

01:51:04.000 Specifically, he studied differences in IQ. And I actually had a personal anecdote with him because early on in my career, I think two years into my original professorship, I think it was in 96, I was giving a talk at a conference.

01:51:22.000 This hall had maybe 1,500 people, and I hadn't looked at who were the other speakers in my session, but I noticed that people were very, seemed there was a lot of poison in the air.

01:51:32.000 And it turned out, I should have maybe checked before going into the hall, that the gentleman who was speaking immediately before me was this gentleman, Philip Rushton, and he was going to talk about cranial capacity, post-mortem cranial capacity, Of black men, black women, white men,

01:51:48.000 white women, and then he would show some racial differences which would get everybody riled up.

01:51:52.000 And this was probably the only time ever where I was about to give a talk where I was genuinely terrified because I thought that I would just get lynched by proxy because I'm the next guy in line and they're just gonna kill me just because I was next on the same stage as him.

01:52:05.000 The good news for me is that After he finished his talk, so the room, let's say, had 1,500 people.

01:52:10.000 He finishes his talk.

01:52:11.000 I'm getting ready to go up.

01:52:12.000 About 425 out of the 1,500 leave to follow him.

01:52:17.000 To yell at him? 1.00

01:52:18.000 To yell at him, to kill him. 1.00

01:52:19.000 Really? 1.00

01:52:19.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:52:20.000 And there's maybe like 75 people in a room.

01:52:23.000 And I was actually very happy that there were so few people that had stayed at my talk.

01:52:28.000 The undeniable physical differences in human beings to somehow or another say that bringing those up is racist is really strange.

01:52:36.000 Like, there's just some undeniable physical differences in bone structure, bone density.

01:52:42.000 There's just some thing.

01:52:44.000 Like, for instance, African American women tend to have higher bone density and similar bone density to Caucasian men. 0.92

01:52:53.000 Which is very rare.

01:52:54.000 Like in women, it's not the same. 1.00

01:52:55.000 Like African-American women have denser bones per capita, you know, normally rather. 1.00

01:52:59.000 You're not talking about athletes only, just in general?

01:53:01.000 No, just in general, yeah.

01:53:03.000 You know, and who knows what the origin of that is?

01:53:06.000 I mean, you could go into that from an evolutionary standpoint and try to figure out what part of the world they come from, what their ancestors did.

01:53:13.000 What would have been the selection pressures that would have resulted in this adaptation?

01:53:17.000 They're fascinating conversations.

01:53:19.000 Well, that's exactly what Philip Rushton used to argue.

01:53:22.000 He used to argue, look, I'm not a racist.

01:53:23.000 I don't have an agenda.

01:53:24.000 I follow an interesting line of questions.

01:53:28.000 And here's the data.

01:53:30.000 Now, I've asked people who were friends with him privately.

01:53:35.000 So what is the deal on the gentleman?

01:53:37.000 Is he racist?

01:53:37.000 Is he not?

01:53:38.000 And I've never been told by anybody that he was a racist.

01:53:42.000 But here's where I'm confused.

01:53:43.000 If you're showing actual skulls and you're actually measuring cranial capacity, are you not allowed to do that?

01:53:50.000 Are you not allowed to look at the differences between Asian people and Norwegian people?

01:53:57.000 Or people from Antarctica versus...

01:54:00.000 Are you not allowed to do that?

01:54:01.000 Because it seems kind of crazy if you're not allowed to.

01:54:04.000 So that's part...

01:54:05.000 There's a great paper that was published, I think, in 2005 or 2006, either in science or nature.

01:54:10.000 I love the title of the paper.

01:54:11.000 I think it's Forbidden Knowledge.

01:54:13.000 And it specifically sort of breaks down the types of research questions that if you want to have a viable career as a scientist, you should stay away from.

01:54:24.000 And I think pretty much on top of that list is studying racial differences, especially racial differences that might eventually point to a finding that is politically incorrect.

01:54:37.000 That's an excellent way for you to become the pariah of science.

01:54:45.000 I actually did a sad truth clip on my YouTube channel where I talked about, you know, facts are not racist, right?

01:54:53.000 I mean, in Boolean logic, in mathematical logic, you take a statement and it's either true or false.

01:54:58.000 It has a binary value, one or zero.

01:55:00.000 I mean, that's how we create circuitry, architectural circuitry of a computer, right?

01:55:04.000 It has a truth value.

01:55:05.000 Yes, no, right?

01:55:06.000 So the idea that a statement is racist scientifically, no, it's either false or not false or provisionally true.

01:55:15.000 But apparently the argument from the other camp is the mere fact that you ask these questions What is the value in asking that question?

01:55:30.000 So they sort of infer a nefarious motive to you going down that alley.

01:55:36.000 Yeah, but you can't do that because it's an appeal to ignorance.

01:55:40.000 You're saying that let's all feign ignorance and not look at the actual facts of just the physical bodies of human beings and that they vary based on climate, based on, you know, what area of the world,

01:55:55.000 what the people were up to that were living there for generation after generation that led to the genetics expressing themselves and the way they do in 2016. It's crazy.

01:56:07.000 But it's weird.

01:56:08.000 It's weird, and it's almost like in response to what they believe to be illogical criticism that's inevitable.

01:56:14.000 It's like this illogical criticism is inevitable, so hedge your bets early and say there's no difference between the sexes, there's no difference between the races, I don't want to get any arguments, I want tenure, I just want to keep promoting ignorance at an institution of learning.

01:56:30.000 Exactly.

01:56:31.000 Which is bananas.

01:56:32.000 And incidentally, that's how...

01:56:33.000 You remember earlier you were asking me, so who are some of these detractors of evolutionary psychology?

01:56:37.000 So what you just mentioned kind of can bring us back to that point.

01:56:41.000 Some of the early...

01:56:44.000 Proponents of sort of this anti-evolutionary position came from anthropologists who saw the potential for biology being misused or Darwinian theory to be misused, right?

01:56:57.000 So the Nazis can refer to, you know, Darwinian theory, there's a struggle between the races and we are the Aryans, the Jews lost, so what's wrong with getting rid of them? 0.56

01:57:08.000 That's Darwinian.

01:57:09.000 Of course, it has nothing to do with Darwinian theory, but I usurp the theory For my nefarious pursuits.

01:57:14.000 British class elitists said, hey, there's a struggle between the classes.

01:57:19.000 We are the upper class.

01:57:20.000 Who cares if the lower class are eliminated if we don't fund them, if we don't give them health care, if we don't educate them?

01:57:25.000 That's natural selection.

01:57:27.000 Eugenicists said the same thing. 0.98

01:57:29.000 You know, what's wrong if we sterilize people who are dull, you know, mentally deficient, people who are Maybe a bit too dark. 1.00

01:57:37.000 People who are homosexual. 1.00

01:57:38.000 Hey, that's cleaning out the gene pool. 1.00

01:57:40.000 Hey, that's Darwinian, right?

01:57:41.000 So some anthropologists thought, well, you know, there is going to be misuse of biology. 0.99

01:57:46.000 So let's now create a new worldview built on bullshit. 1.00

01:57:51.000 So the edifice is built on bullshit after bullshit. 1.00

01:57:54.000 But at least there won't be an opportunity for people to otherwise misuse biology. 0.99

01:57:59.000 And so how do they express that?

01:58:01.000 They created a narrative that basically says that Cultural relativism is what defines humanity.

01:58:08.000 Every culture is unique.

01:58:10.000 Every culture is different.

01:58:11.000 There is no such thing as human universals, because that would necessitate biological commonalities, which we don't accept. 0.97

01:58:19.000 And so therefore, for a hundred years, anthropology departments have been built on an edifice of pure bullshit. 0.85

01:58:26.000 At least the cultural anthropologists. 0.96

01:58:28.000 The bio-anthropologists recognize biology.

01:58:30.000 But the cultural anthropologists are driven by a premise of cultural relativism.

01:58:34.000 Which, incidentally, our common friend Sam Harris tells a great story about moral relativism.

01:58:40.000 And I hope I don't botch the story, but apparently he was at a conference somewhere where he had a chance to speak to the bioethicist who is sitting on the President's Commission on Bioethics.

01:58:49.000 And she apparently is a sort of moral relativist type. 0.78

01:58:53.000 And he asked her, I mean, are you sure that there are no universal moral truths?

01:58:57.000 I mean, are you not able to pronounce a position on whether if there were a culture where people were told that every fourth child has to have his eyes gouged so that he can walk towards the light without eyes, would you support?

01:59:11.000 Well, who am I to judge?

01:59:12.000 So this bioethicist was unable to pass a moral judgment as to whether If you had a religious narrative that says that every fourth child should have his eyes gouged out, she couldn't pronounce the position.

01:59:26.000 And the reason why she couldn't is because she is shackled. 0.92

01:59:29.000 She's intellectually shackled by the narrative of cultural relativism.

01:59:34.000 Who are we to judge other cultures?

01:59:35.000 Hence the lack of criticism for things like female genital mutilation in the Islamic communities.

01:59:40.000 And that's why the castrato-in-chief, Justin Trudeau, That's why, before he was prime minister, when he was a minister in parliament, he got very upset when somebody referred to child bride, honor killing, genital mutilation,

01:59:56.000 throwing acid in their faces when they refused marriage or whatever.

02:00:00.000 Somebody referred to these practices as barbaric and there is no place for them in Canadian society.

02:00:05.000 He didn't get upset by those practices.

02:00:08.000 He got upset by the other politician referring to them as barbaric.

02:00:13.000 Is that true?

02:00:13.000 That is true.

02:00:14.000 Look it up.

02:00:15.000 Then he later came out and hedged and so on.

02:00:17.000 Of course, after criticism.

02:00:18.000 Of course.

02:00:19.000 But he's responding to that standard social justice warrior sort of creed.

02:00:23.000 He is the king.

02:00:25.000 And we've talked about this, I think, last time on the show briefly.

02:00:27.000 He is the king of the social justice warriors.

02:00:30.000 He is taking down Canada to meet where Sweden and the rest of the European hellholes are now becoming as fast as he can. 0.96

02:00:39.000 Well, what is his motivation?

02:00:41.000 I don't think it's because he's an evil guy who has nefarious ulterior motives. 0.99

02:00:47.000 I think he is simply profoundly misguided because of all the bullshit that you and I have talked about through the years. 0.99

02:00:53.000 He comes from an environment of social justice warriors. 0.99

02:00:58.000 His dad was the architect.

02:01:00.000 Pierre Trudeau was the architect of multiculturalism in Canada.

02:01:05.000 Now, multiculturalism, as we may or may not have discussed on the show before, has two different meanings.

02:01:09.000 We could talk about multiculturalism as, you know, there are many cultures in Orange County.

02:01:14.000 That's multicultural.

02:01:15.000 But multiculturalism as a political philosophy is the idea that when people come to your land, you don't ask them to assimilate.

02:01:23.000 You rejoice in the fact that everybody has their unique, distinct identity.

02:01:29.000 Cultures where they can express themselves in any way that they can.

02:01:32.000 Well, of course, in some cases, that's fine when it comes to cuisine. 0.99

02:01:35.000 It's not fine when it comes to let's cut off some clitorises. 1.00

02:01:39.000 It's not fine when it comes to genocidal hatred of the Jews. 1.00

02:01:43.000 Honor killings. 0.99

02:01:44.000 But from his perspective, he is simply shackled by his inability to have a clear moral compass that says this is right, this is wrong, because all he sees is the parasites in his brain. 0.98

02:01:58.000 That says, who am I to judge? 1.00

02:02:00.000 Well, judge, asshole. 0.99

02:02:02.000 There are some things that are right and some things that are wrong. 0.99

02:02:04.000 And when we're talking about things like people objecting to the analysis of cranial capacity of different people...

02:02:14.000 I could see why some people would be uncomfortable with that, because I could see how some people would perceive that as being some sort of a justification for racism, and so they would stand there.

02:02:23.000 But as a person who's not racist, I'm not racist, and I don't think you are either, when we're discussing this, it becomes a matter of just being a very curious biological trait.

02:02:34.000 And it doesn't make someone superior or inferior.

02:02:37.000 It makes someone different.

02:02:38.000 And it's fascinating to me, because I'm looking at the human Evolution of the species as being this massive complex algorithm that's been going on since the beginning of single-celled organisms branching off into multi-celled organisms. 0.97

02:02:52.000 So there's been this process of change and what has made this process so that people that live in Iceland are so big You know, you look at those men that win those strongman competitions, how many of them are from fucking Iceland? 0.97

02:03:06.000 It's crazy. 0.98

02:03:07.000 Like, what is that?

02:03:08.000 Was it Viking genetics?

02:03:09.000 Okay, well, tell me what happened.

02:03:11.000 Why are their bones so big?

02:03:12.000 Why are they so tall?

02:03:13.000 Like, what is it?

02:03:14.000 What is it about certain people in Africa?

02:03:17.000 Marathon runners are always from East Africa.

02:03:21.000 Mm-hmm.

02:03:21.000 Yeah.

02:03:22.000 Or is it West Africa?

02:03:23.000 No, East Africa.

02:03:23.000 Which one?

02:03:24.000 Is West Africa the sprinters? 0.76

02:03:25.000 West Africa is the sprinters. 0.87

02:03:26.000 That's funny, isn't it?

02:03:27.000 Their muscle structures are very different, right?

02:03:29.000 Slow twitch versus the longer one.

02:03:31.000 So the East Africans, so Ethiopians and Eritreans and so on, Kenyans, have these elongated bodies that are just built for long distance. 0.86

02:03:41.000 The other guys are these packers.

02:03:45.000 That's why you get those differences.

02:03:47.000 Now that is not viewed as racist because ultimately you're talking about success. 0.97

02:03:53.000 On the other hand, if you talk about race A is somehow less good at something than race B and where race A scores high on the victimology Olympics, forgive the pun, then you're screwed. 1.00

02:04:04.000 You're dead. 0.98

02:04:04.000 There was a fantastic Radiolab podcast that dealt with people from one particular part of the world that were amazing at running. 0.98

02:04:11.000 And they were talking about their ability to endure pain because of the rituals that they had to endure, the rites of passage as men. 0.97

02:04:18.000 Their circumcision done with sharp sticks and having to crawl naked through thorn bushes and really dark, dark shit that they had to do. 0.57

02:04:28.000 And it was interesting because one guy who had gone through that and became this unbelievably successful runner and just had this unbelievable ability to shut off the pain signal, to ignore it.

02:04:38.000 But he was also talking about he wouldn't want his son to go through that same process and that he believes that the benefits are not worth it.

02:04:46.000 Interesting.

02:04:46.000 Do you remember what culture that was?

02:04:48.000 I do not.

02:04:49.000 Jamie could probably pull that up.

02:04:51.000 He's probably looking it up right now. 0.90

02:04:53.000 Unfortunately, I listen to like five podcasts a day, so probably a fucking million podcasts ago.

02:04:58.000 What is it called? 0.96

02:04:59.000 They're Kenyan runners.

02:05:00.000 It was a Kenyan?

02:05:01.000 But it's a particular part of Kenya.

02:05:04.000 A very small population of people, by the way, that engage in this, like, really brutal ritual of manhood, rite of passage.

02:05:12.000 It's really, it is fascinating how the, is this right here?

02:05:17.000 Yeah, the calendar.

02:05:19.000 Yes, yes.

02:05:20.000 Collagen.

02:05:21.000 Collagen people produced an astonishing number of great long-distance runners.

02:05:27.000 So these are a sub-population of Kenyans?

02:05:28.000 Yes.

02:05:29.000 Only those that practice those rites of passage?

02:05:32.000 Yeah.

02:05:32.000 Interesting.

02:05:32.000 Yeah.

02:05:33.000 So it's not just biology with them, but it's also this unbelievable ability to die. 0.99

02:05:39.000 And the actual episode is called Cut and Run because it's about circumcision, about what they're forced to do while they have a stick poking through their dick. 0.99

02:05:48.000 It's really hardcore. 0.99

02:05:50.000 And that this ability to shut off pain and ability to endure is a key factor in their ability to succeed in running.

02:05:58.000 That it's a mental toughness thing as well.

02:06:00.000 Like they've maybe perhaps turned on this aspect of their brain.

02:06:05.000 Amazing.

02:06:05.000 Yeah.

02:06:06.000 Have you heard of this other rite of passage?

02:06:08.000 I talk about this in one of my books.

02:06:10.000 With the bullet ants?

02:06:11.000 Yes.

02:06:12.000 Isn't that unbelievable?

02:06:14.000 Yeah, I know a guy who's been bitten by one.

02:06:15.000 My friend Steve.

02:06:16.000 My friend Steve was in Bolivia.

02:06:18.000 He was there filming his show called Meat Eater.

02:06:21.000 And he went down there and he got a bullet ant bite in his foot.

02:06:25.000 And he said it was so unbelievably painful.

02:06:28.000 It actually scores the highest.

02:06:29.000 So there's a pain quotient, whatever.

02:06:32.000 I don't know the exact metric.

02:06:33.000 But apparently the bullet ant scores the highest on that.

02:06:36.000 And so this particular peoples, in their rite of passage, you could probably pull it up.

02:06:42.000 They take a glove.

02:06:43.000 They take gloves.

02:06:44.000 They sedate the ants.

02:06:47.000 When the ants wake up, They start stinging the hands that are in those gloves.

02:06:52.000 So there are multiple of these bites.

02:06:55.000 Dozens, all over the glove.

02:06:56.000 All over the glove.

02:06:57.000 And they have to do that ritual, I think, if I'm not mistaken, 20 times before they are accepted as man or warrior. 1.00

02:07:05.000 Yeah, that's someone who could take a fucking beating. 1.00

02:07:07.000 Oh, there you go. 1.00

02:07:08.000 There you go.

02:07:09.000 Jesus Christ.

02:07:10.000 The amount of pain that you would endure by doing that is just...

02:07:14.000 There was a guy from Australia that did it for some sort of a television special and wound up going to the hospital.

02:07:20.000 But you see the pain in his face while he's doing it.

02:07:25.000 Incredible.

02:07:25.000 They say it's like getting your hand slammed in a car door 24 hours a day.

02:07:29.000 Incredible.

02:07:30.000 Yeah, and then it lasts a long time.

02:07:32.000 It lasts for hours.

02:07:33.000 What's interesting is my friend Steve, he got stung by this bullet ant.

02:07:37.000 He said it's unbelievably painful for about an hour or two hours, like where you just like you can't believe how much pain you're enduring.

02:07:43.000 And then he said after that he couldn't remember which ankle got stung.

02:07:47.000 It completely goes away.

02:07:49.000 Just goes away.

02:07:50.000 And then he's just walking through the woods with these people.

02:07:54.000 I'm trying to remember the name of the people in Bolivia.

02:07:56.000 They're Amazonian, correct?

02:07:57.000 Yes.

02:07:57.000 I can't remember what they are.

02:07:58.000 I'm trying to remember the name of these people that he was...

02:08:01.000 I don't remember.

02:08:04.000 Anyways, speaking of bullets, can I tell you another story that happened on this vacation?

02:08:08.000 So I have a FBI special agent friend here in Southern California.

02:08:12.000 Frank!

02:08:13.000 No, Fred.

02:08:14.000 Fred.

02:08:15.000 Oh, you've met him.

02:08:15.000 That's true.

02:08:16.000 He came here.

02:08:16.000 That's right.

02:08:17.000 That's right.

02:08:18.000 So...

02:08:19.000 Don't say his last name.

02:08:20.000 No, I won't.

02:08:21.000 I won't.

02:08:22.000 Actually, we met, Fred and I met another gentleman who's a CIA operative.

02:08:28.000 And we went out.

02:08:29.000 That conversation should be on the podcast.

02:08:31.000 Oh boy.

02:08:32.000 Maybe I'll give a little few hints later.

02:08:35.000 But anyways, he took me out to a, because we're talking about bullets, I asked him if we could go to a shooting range.

02:08:43.000 And he said, sure, let's do it.

02:08:44.000 So he brought his whole arsenal of FBI stuff, and he had another friend with him who's a security type guy.

02:08:50.000 And so I went shooting for the first time ever.

02:08:52.000 You've never shot a gun before?

02:08:54.000 No.

02:08:54.000 Even though I've grown up in the Lebanese Civil War and I had held, I think it was a Kleshnikov, I'd never fired a gun.

02:09:02.000 Wow.

02:09:03.000 It was something.

02:09:04.000 That's interesting.

02:09:05.000 Yeah.

02:09:06.000 I guess you shoot, you hunt, correct?

02:09:09.000 Yeah.

02:09:09.000 But you hunt with a bow and arrow, correct?

02:09:11.000 I've hunted with a rifle too.

02:09:13.000 Yeah, all these animals you see around you, I shot with a rifle. 0.96

02:09:15.000 Shot that one with a rifle, that one with a rifle. 0.95

02:09:17.000 There's one outside with a big ant. 0.99

02:09:19.000 I shot that with a rifle too.

02:09:20.000 I've shot things with both, bow and arrow and rifle.

02:09:23.000 So when was the first time that you ever shot?

02:09:25.000 Well, guns?

02:09:25.000 Four years ago.

02:09:26.000 No, just guns.

02:09:27.000 Long time ago.

02:09:28.000 Oh, a long time ago.

02:09:29.000 It was unbelievable.

02:09:31.000 It was really...

02:09:31.000 I mean, it's a lot more...

02:09:33.000 He told me, actually.

02:09:34.000 He said, look, I'll book the range for two hours, and either you'll be the type of guy who'll go there and will use the two hours, or you'll shoot once, and you'll say, this is not for me.

02:09:46.000 I don't like it, and we'll leave.

02:09:47.000 Because I was asking him, when should my wife and kids come back to pick me up?

02:09:51.000 Yeah.

02:09:51.000 Well, it turned out that I stayed for the full two hours.

02:09:54.000 But I can understand sort of the response that people might have because it's a lot more powerful than you think.

02:10:02.000 You can speak to this probably better than I can.

02:10:04.000 I shot also the submachine gun, the FBI. I found that a lot easier because it's kind Right, recoil.

02:10:11.000 The recoil.

02:10:12.000 But the guns, and I think they were of different calibers,.22,.45, I don't remember the exact numbers.

02:10:17.000 Wow, they're incredible.

02:10:18.000 Well, I have some really powerful rifles that were even different, I'm sure, than anything you shot.

02:10:23.000 I have some hunting rifles, like a.300 Win Mag, that is like getting punched in the shoulder every time you shoot it, because it's designed to shoot moose and elk and big giant animals.

02:10:33.000 It's a heavy thing.

02:10:34.000 Really strong, powerful round.

02:10:37.000 And yeah, the vulnerability that you feel when that trigger goes off and you hear that boom!

02:10:41.000 I'm sure you're wearing headgears or ear guards, which you really have to.

02:10:45.000 That's so important.

02:10:46.000 There's so many people out there that hunt and shoot without ear protection and they wind up having tendonitis or tinnitus.

02:10:53.000 Yeah, all sorts of issues with their hearing.

02:10:53.000 Really?

02:10:55.000 It's so bad for you.

02:10:56.000 Well, what was interesting is before we went in, he gave me maybe a 10-15 minute safety mini-lecture.

02:11:04.000 And the main one that he gave...

02:11:06.000 I mean, this is, of course, live.

02:11:08.000 These are live bullets.

02:11:09.000 I mean, these are lethal.

02:11:10.000 And he said the number one thing you do is when the gun barrel always points to...

02:11:17.000 Because what happens is, he said, people pick it up and start doing this.

02:11:20.000 Yeah, gesture with it.

02:11:21.000 And so to sort of make sure that I wouldn't commit such an error, I said, here's what we're going to institute.

02:11:27.000 As I do every action, I am verbally going to describe it.

02:11:32.000 Ah, that's smart.

02:11:33.000 And that really sort of softened, assuaged the fear because then he's listening.

02:11:39.000 For example, he told me, after you shoot, take your finger out of the trigger.

02:11:45.000 Trigger discipline.

02:11:47.000 Exactly.

02:11:47.000 So then I would speak it.

02:11:49.000 And by speaking it, it sort of gave me the discipline to never make an error.

02:11:54.000 That's very smart.

02:11:55.000 They should actually teach people to do that.

02:11:57.000 I think that your method is probably something that people should adopt.

02:11:57.000 You think so, huh?

02:11:57.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:12:00.000 That's very intelligent.

02:12:01.000 You know where it comes from, actually?

02:12:03.000 It comes from some of my research.

02:12:04.000 There's a methodology called verbal protocols.

02:12:08.000 So when you're doing research, you could either ask people to fill out something.

02:12:13.000 So that's where you're only interested in the output, right?

02:12:16.000 Please watch the stimulus and tell me on a scale what you think.

02:12:19.000 Right.

02:12:20.000 Or sometimes I'm interested in the process that you're going through as you're doing something.

02:12:26.000 So in that case, I will have a recorder and I will ask for your verbal protocols.

02:12:31.000 Verbalize what you're doing as you're doing it.

02:12:34.000 What that does is it basically yields very rich data, but that is a real...

02:12:42.000 Because you're not analyzing numbers on a scale of 1 to 7. You're not analyzing spikes of testosterone.

02:12:48.000 You actually have to go through these huge transcripts of verbalizations.

02:12:53.000 You know what it also does?

02:12:54.000 It forces you to exist in the conscious mind versus the reactive mind.

02:12:58.000 You are consciously engaging in a process.

02:13:02.000 So, like, there's a thing called target panic that many archers face, and it's a huge issue because of nerves, especially people that aren't used to performing under nerves.

02:13:14.000 They go into this really almost like tunnel vision sort of a state, and they start panicking, and they just want to shoot the shot as quick as possible.

02:13:25.000 And so they make a lot of errors.

02:13:27.000 Because there's a lot of things involved in shooting a bow and arrow correctly.

02:13:31.000 Bow and arrows, it takes so much more discipline than it does to shoot a rifle.

02:13:36.000 Because with a rifle, essentially what you have to do is have your face in the proper position, put your finger on the trigger and squeeze so the shot goes off almost as a surprise.

02:13:44.000 And as long as you're looking through the scope correctly, you have your rifle centered in, or you have your rifle sighted in correctly, It should hit where you want to aim it if the rifle is accurate.

02:13:58.000 With a bow and arrow, there's so many different anchor points.

02:14:01.000 You have to have the string touching the tip of your nose.

02:14:03.000 You have to have your hand in the exact same place every time.

02:14:05.000 You have to have practice countless times.

02:14:07.000 You have to make sure that you're holding your shoulder, your front shoulder in the right position.

02:14:11.000 Your hand has to be holding the bow in a very specific position where you're not torquing the bow left and right.

02:14:16.000 And so when you go through your shot process, You go through this checkpoint in your mind.

02:14:25.000 When I do it by myself, I say it.

02:14:28.000 I say, okay, hand in the right position, front shoulder position.

02:14:32.000 You say it in your mind or you say it out loud?

02:14:34.000 I say it out loud.

02:14:35.000 And then when I go through it in a hunting scenario where obviously you have to keep your mouth shut, I go through that same checklist in my mind.

02:14:42.000 And that sort of in many ways prevents a lot of the panic because...

02:14:48.000 That sort of panic exists in the conscious mind.

02:14:51.000 You start thinking, oh my god, here we go.

02:14:53.000 Oh my god, I can't believe it's happening. 0.98

02:14:54.000 Don't fuck this up. 1.00

02:14:55.000 Don't fuck this up. 0.99

02:14:56.000 Ah! 1.00

02:14:56.000 You fuck it up. 1.00

02:14:57.000 And it's because of this reaction to the overwhelming, unusual stimulation of the event, of the panic sets in, and you succumb to that unusual pressure. 0.98

02:15:11.000 The protocols that I'm talking about, they come of two varieties.

02:15:14.000 There's what's called concurrent protocols or retrospective protocols.

02:15:19.000 Concurrent protocols is where you verbalize as you're doing the task.

02:15:23.000 The benefit of that is that it's live.

02:15:27.000 It's top of mind, right?

02:15:28.000 Right.

02:15:29.000 The downside is that sometimes by asking a participant to verbalize, it actually changes their cognitive process.

02:15:39.000 So then you might go to retrospective protocol, which is, now tell me in details how you did the thing.

02:15:47.000 Now, the benefit there is that you don't have that...

02:15:51.000 That interference.

02:15:52.000 But the downside, of course, is that you have memory loss.

02:15:56.000 You don't remember the specifics. 0.99

02:15:57.000 Or you also have people who fill in stuff that's bullshit, right? 0.92

02:16:01.000 Oh, now the guy wants me to justify how I went and did it. 0.95

02:16:05.000 Now let me just fill in stuff.

02:16:07.000 But that's not really what I did.

02:16:08.000 So as is true in most of these methodological choices when you're making these scientific decisions, there is no absolute optimal strategy.

02:16:16.000 There's always pros and cons to any methodology you use.

02:16:20.000 Yeah, and I think there's also something that happens to people when they do something so many times where it becomes this subconscious action and then when you ask them to verbalize what the steps are, oftentimes they don't know because they've programmed it into their mind.

02:16:33.000 It's automaticity.

02:16:34.000 If I asked you to describe in exact detail what is the process that you tie your shoes with?

02:16:40.000 Like, which hand goes first?

02:16:40.000 Right.

02:16:41.000 Which finger goes under where?

02:16:43.000 You'd be like, um, how do I do it?

02:16:45.000 Okay.

02:16:46.000 I take the...

02:16:48.000 But when you tie your shoes, you just go, whoops, caught it.

02:16:52.000 Right.

02:16:53.000 You know, you just go through this standard process.

02:16:56.000 And that happens with martial artists a lot.

02:16:57.000 There's a lot of martial artists that have certain techniques that they've gotten down to a science, but then when you ask them to teach it, you say, okay, what are you doing first?

02:17:05.000 Are you doing this first?

02:17:06.000 And they go, huh.

02:17:07.000 I'm not sure.

02:17:08.000 And they literally don't know.

02:17:10.000 I've talked to that with certain archers, too.

02:17:14.000 Certain archers, I've asked them, are you looking at the site first, or are you looking at the target first?

02:17:20.000 When you release the arrow, are you looking at the target or the site?

02:17:23.000 They don't know.

02:17:24.000 They don't know.

02:17:25.000 Where it falls into this sort of subconscious state where they've made repetition.

02:17:30.000 They've repeated the process so many times.

02:17:33.000 They've made this repetition cemented in their subconscious where they could just sort of go into this zombie state.

02:17:39.000 I felt that recently trying to play pickup soccer.

02:17:39.000 You know, it's funny.

02:17:45.000 And it's going to speak to that automaticity in exactly how you're saying.

02:17:49.000 So when I was a young guy, young player who can, you know, Accelerate past players as if it's nothing.

02:17:55.000 It's a natural thing.

02:17:56.000 I don't think about it.

02:17:57.000 My body reacts.

02:17:58.000 And if you ask me to tell you how I shifted left and right, I couldn't tell you.

02:18:02.000 Now, as I'm much older and much heavier, those moves that I tried to do, I no longer had the automatic ability.

02:18:10.000 So actually, my brain was trying to think, oh, I better turn right, but be careful because my knee is a bit weak.

02:18:17.000 And so I actually felt...

02:18:20.000 The difference in the automaticity response, if only by virtue of being much older and much heavier.

02:18:28.000 So there you go.

02:18:29.000 20 years ago, I could have probably not been able to tell you how I did this.

02:18:33.000 Today I could tell you how I did it because it was as slow as a turtle.

02:18:38.000 Well, that exists in fighting for sure.

02:18:38.000 That's funny.

02:18:41.000 You drill these moments over and over into your mind so that when you're fighting, they actually just come out subconsciously or they come out without conscious thought because you don't really have the time to say, okay, I'm going to slip this right hand and then throw the left to the body and the right high kick.

02:18:57.000 It has to sort of be an automatic response.

02:19:00.000 So you have to be able to go into this Zen state.

02:19:03.000 Which is fine in these big movements, these explosive movements like a martial arts thing.

02:19:09.000 But in terms of like an archery thing, you don't want fast, big, twitching, explosive movements to come out automatically.

02:19:16.000 What you want is a very controlled process where you maintain very strict form and you stay calm.

02:19:23.000 And so in that sort of a process, going over this conscious shot-making process is probably better for you.

02:19:30.000 Right.

02:19:30.000 Are you still fighting?

02:19:31.000 No, no.

02:19:33.000 That's really not good for you.

02:19:35.000 No, but even as a sparring thing...

02:19:37.000 Jiu-jitsu only.

02:19:39.000 And I haven't done that in over a year.

02:19:41.000 But it's just because of a back injury that I've been dealing with.

02:19:44.000 But it's pretty much gone now.

02:19:45.000 But sparring, as far as kickboxing sparring, I gave that up many, many years ago.

02:19:50.000 It's just...

02:19:51.000 Even sparring for fun, even just...

02:19:53.000 You have to really be sure of the person you're doing it with.

02:19:57.000 Because every single time you get tagged...

02:20:00.000 If you looked at your body, or your brain rather, as a punch card.

02:20:04.000 Like say you have a hundred holes to punch. 1.00

02:20:06.000 And once you punch through those hundred holes, you're fucked. 1.00

02:20:09.000 Right. 1.00

02:20:09.000 And you might get away with a couple of holes. 1.00

02:20:11.000 You might get away with three or four or five or ten or twenty.

02:20:15.000 This is the whole NFL head-butting thing.

02:20:17.000 100%.

02:20:18.000 But it pertains to a lot of things, and even soccer players.

02:20:21.000 Yeah, with the heading the ball.

02:20:23.000 Which is insane.

02:20:24.000 You would never imagine, like for years, for decades rather, we had no idea that heading a ball could have detrimental effects.

02:20:31.000 But now we're finding out that certain soccer players who consistently headed the ball over a long career develop all sorts of cognitive issues with memory, impulsiveness, all the same sort of symptoms that you find from fighters.

02:20:43.000 Right.

02:20:44.000 Incredible.

02:20:44.000 It's amazing because it's not a concussion thing.

02:20:46.000 It's a sub-concussive trauma thing where you're constantly engaging that connective tissue inside your brain to try to stabilize the brain as it swashes around inside your skull and it starts failing.

02:20:58.000 And then the damage of your brain moving around inside of there starts accumulating.

02:21:02.000 Speaking of soccer and your MMA stuff, I'm triggered by, and you're going to be impressed, Conan McGregor.

02:21:10.000 Connor.

02:21:11.000 Connor.

02:21:11.000 Conan.

02:21:11.000 Connor.

02:21:12.000 Whatever.

02:21:12.000 Connor.

02:21:13.000 Now I'm going to get a thousand hate mails.

02:21:15.000 Here I was trying to be impressive.

02:21:16.000 Wait for the memes.

02:21:17.000 They're coming.

02:21:18.000 Oh my god, I'm dead.

02:21:18.000 Conan McGregor.

02:21:19.000 Be nice to me.

02:21:20.000 They're not going to be nice, but it's going to be awesome.

02:21:22.000 Okay, whatever.

02:21:23.000 Conan.

02:21:23.000 Connor.

02:21:24.000 Connor.

02:21:24.000 Connor McGregor.

02:21:25.000 Connor McGregor.

02:21:25.000 I'm triggered by him.

02:21:27.000 Triggered?

02:21:27.000 Because...

02:21:29.000 He's a friend of the nemesis of my top man.

02:21:32.000 He's a friend of Ronaldo.

02:21:34.000 Oh, the soccer player?

02:21:35.000 Cristiano Ronaldo, apparently their buddy-buddy.

02:21:38.000 And Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have been...

02:21:42.000 And now I hope...

02:21:43.000 I trust that you now know who Lionel Messi is.

02:21:44.000 I now know who Messi is, and I also know that he's a tax cheat.

02:21:47.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:21:48.000 This motherfucker's going to jail, isn't he? 1.00

02:21:50.000 No, he's not. 1.00

02:21:51.000 I thought he was going to jail.

02:21:52.000 No, I think...

02:21:52.000 Jamie says he's going to the pokey.

02:21:54.000 He says he's going to get banged. 0.99

02:21:55.000 So dudes are going to bang him. 1.00

02:21:56.000 There he is. 0.86

02:21:57.000 There you go.

02:21:58.000 Wow.

02:21:58.000 By the way, I will...

02:22:00.000 Gentleman's in great shape.

02:22:01.000 I will ask you to look at...

02:22:03.000 Can you put it up again?

02:22:04.000 Mm-hmm.

02:22:06.000 I'm going to show you 1985 pictures of me with more defined stomach muscles.

02:22:10.000 Oh, stop.

02:22:11.000 I will show you photos.

02:22:12.000 This is not a big ego showcase.

02:22:13.000 How dare you, Godfather.

02:22:16.000 It doesn't matter, by the way.

02:22:17.000 You live in the present.

02:22:18.000 Right now, you got a one-pack.

02:22:20.000 I'm living in the past glory.

02:22:20.000 You got a barrel.

02:22:21.000 Let it go.

02:22:22.000 The six-pack is gone.

02:22:24.000 You can get it back, though.

02:22:26.000 That's what we should do.

02:22:27.000 Really?

02:22:27.000 The Gadsad Six Pack Project.

02:22:29.000 Yeah.

02:22:29.000 And you sort of film me as I go through the transformation.

02:22:32.000 I'm not going to do it.

02:22:33.000 You're going to do it on your own.

02:22:33.000 I'm busy, bro.

02:22:34.000 How dare you?

02:22:35.000 I'm reaching out in friendship here.

02:22:37.000 This is how you treat me?

02:22:38.000 I'm going to get you a copy of the book.

02:22:40.000 I'm going to get you a copy of the Primal Blueprint.

02:22:42.000 Yeah, I can't hold your hand, man.

02:22:42.000 It's hands off after that.

02:22:44.000 You're grown, man.

02:22:45.000 You're older than me.

02:22:46.000 You called me son, remember?

02:22:47.000 You're not 50 yet, are you?

02:22:49.000 No, I'm 49. Just turned.

02:22:50.000 Oh, that's right.

02:22:51.000 Happy birthday.

02:22:53.000 The slide is real.

02:22:54.000 I'm 51, so I'm already on the downside.

02:22:57.000 So when it makes it even more difficult to lose weight, you're more set in your ways, your hormone system starts slowing down.

02:23:05.000 It does.

02:23:06.000 Your metabolism.

02:23:08.000 You've got to ramp it up, buddy.

02:23:08.000 Slowing down.

02:23:09.000 I do.

02:23:10.000 You've got to start off your day with exercise, too.

02:23:12.000 So are you currently at the same weight as you would have been 20 years ago?

02:23:16.000 No, I'm heavier, but more muscle.

02:23:18.000 It's because I've been lifting weights for the last...

02:23:20.000 When I got into jiu-jitsu, like, really heavily, which was about 2000, right around the year 2000, I started training in 96...

02:23:29.000 But I got really into it around 2000. So over the last 16 plus years, I've been lifting way more weights.

02:23:37.000 Like I really got into lifting weights because I realized how significant it is.

02:23:40.000 A factor.

02:23:41.000 And also to protect your joints.

02:23:43.000 It's a big factor too.

02:23:44.000 Just the ability to defend yourself better.

02:23:49.000 You know, I do a lot of long endurance, you know, an hour cardio.

02:23:53.000 But I've always been terrible.

02:23:53.000 Do you?

02:23:55.000 You do a lot of it?

02:23:56.000 How often do you do it?

02:23:57.000 I do at least, so say I've been here for a month in California, so 30 days.

02:24:01.000 I probably did it 24 days.

02:24:02.000 Wow.

02:24:03.000 Yeah.

02:24:03.000 That's amazing.

02:24:04.000 Yeah.

02:24:04.000 What do you do afterwards?

02:24:06.000 So I usually do an hour, either treadmill or bike or combination, sometimes elliptical.

02:24:12.000 So these three are usually...

02:24:13.000 What time do you do it?

02:24:14.000 Do you do it in the morning?

02:24:15.000 In the morning.

02:24:15.000 Oh, that's good.

02:24:16.000 In the morning, but not very early.

02:24:17.000 Maybe, say, 8. And you do an hour?

02:24:19.000 I do an hour.

02:24:19.000 That's a lot, man.

02:24:20.000 That's really good.

02:24:21.000 Today I did 40 minutes because I was coming on your show.

02:24:23.000 But I usually do about an hour.

02:24:25.000 And now here in California, I've tried to incorporate weight training.

02:24:29.000 Usually back home, I don't.

02:24:31.000 And as I understand it, I need to do it more.

02:24:33.000 Wow.

02:24:34.000 Well, I would say that weight training definitely makes your body burn more calories.

02:24:38.000 That's for sure.

02:24:39.000 For two reasons.

02:24:41.000 One, because when you put on more muscle, your body has more requirements for calories.

02:24:46.000 So it's easier for your body to burn more fuel if you have more muscle.

02:24:49.000 The act of lifting weights is very strenuous.

02:24:52.000 It burns a lot of calories.

02:24:55.000 And it's just really good for your endocrine system when you start lifting weights, especially if you do things like deadlifts or squats.

02:25:02.000 I can't do any of that stuff because I have three herniated discs in my back.

02:25:05.000 You do?

02:25:05.000 So that's out.

02:25:06.000 What's wrong with your back?

02:25:07.000 What happened?

02:25:09.000 So 2005, we were moving from one house to another.

02:25:12.000 I've got a huge library of books.

02:25:15.000 And the reason I'm going to say this will become evident in a second.

02:25:18.000 As you know...

02:25:21.000 Right.

02:25:37.000 And then I was basically immobilized.

02:25:39.000 What part of your back?

02:25:40.000 It's the left side.

02:25:41.000 Of your lower back?

02:25:42.000 Lower back.

02:25:43.000 There are three herniated discs.

02:25:44.000 So I went to see a physiatrist, and here's his advice.

02:25:47.000 Never bend again. 1.00

02:25:49.000 Well, those people are dipshits. 1.00

02:25:51.000 There's so many doctors that will tell you, don't do this and don't do that. 1.00

02:25:53.000 I went to a doctor in 2002 because I had a torn meniscus.

02:25:59.000 Just a torn meniscus.

02:26:00.000 Really simple injury for someone who's a martial artist.

02:26:02.000 And they told me to stop doing martial arts.

02:26:07.000 They literally told me, you're going to be a cripple if you don't stop doing martial arts.

02:26:10.000 I'm like, yeah, okay. 1.00

02:26:11.000 What the fuck kind of stupid advice is that? 1.00

02:26:14.000 I'm like, just scope this goddamn thing and let me get out of here. 1.00

02:26:16.000 I got back on chondroitin and glucosamine. 0.99

02:26:19.000 I ate a lot of fish oil.

02:26:21.000 And I've had no problem...

02:26:23.000 No problem with that knee since then.

02:26:25.000 Like, they scoped out a chunk of meniscus, which is really common with people that have extreme athletic pursuits, whether it's soccer.

02:26:32.000 Soccer, a lot of guys are cheering, you know, with martial arts.

02:26:35.000 It's a big, it's a normal thing that they do. 1.00

02:26:38.000 But to have this asshole tell me to stop doing martial arts, I'm going to be crippled. 1.00

02:26:42.000 I just wanted to just say, look, you're a fucking asshole. 1.00

02:26:45.000 Like, you really have no qualifications to be saying this. 1.00

02:26:48.000 That's foolish. 0.98

02:26:49.000 You fix injuries. 1.00

02:26:50.000 You can't tell me that if I don't listen to your stupid, lazy advice. 1.00

02:26:56.000 It's just such a dumb thing to say to people, especially when you're talking about a meniscus injury. 1.00

02:27:01.000 You're not talking about a severe spinal injury where someone could become paralyzed if they continue the same thing that they're doing. 0.98

02:27:07.000 Now you're talking about a meniscus tear.

02:27:09.000 It's really simple.

02:27:10.000 Not only that, they have artificial meniscus now.

02:27:12.000 Now they do stem cells that actually regenerate meniscus.

02:27:15.000 By the way, stem cell research is another one of those forbidden knowledge topics.

02:27:20.000 Well, it was.

02:27:22.000 It's way more now because they found so many different methods of acquiring stem cells.

02:27:26.000 But during the Bush administration, it was hugely problematic.

02:27:29.000 And that's one of the reasons why Europe got so far ahead of America.

02:27:32.000 And there's a lot of people that go to get certain treatments.

02:27:36.000 They had to go to other countries.

02:27:39.000 Fortunately now, there's a lot of stem cell doctors and specialists that are in the United States that are having incredible success with injuries and a lot of mixed martial artists do it.

02:27:50.000 Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson, who's the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, just had some stem cells shot into his knee.

02:27:55.000 So this is a really common thing, that you deal with some doctors who aren't athletes and don't work with athletes, and then they tell you things like, don't ever lift something again.

02:28:06.000 That is crazy.

02:28:07.000 That is a crazy piece of advice.

02:28:08.000 So you think it is conceivable?

02:28:10.000 100%.

02:28:11.000 I'm going to show you a machine when we get off today.

02:28:11.000 Yes.

02:28:13.000 I'll show you in a couple minutes because we're going to end soon.

02:28:15.000 There's a machine that I have in the back called Reverse Hyper.

02:28:18.000 And it was created by this guy.

02:28:19.000 I've talked about this so many times.

02:28:20.000 People are like, not again!

02:28:21.000 But it was created by this guy named Louie Simmons.

02:28:24.000 And Louie Simmons is this guy who runs this very famous powerlifting gym called Westside Barbell.

02:28:29.000 And he had a bulging disc himself.

02:28:32.000 And his doctors were telling him they're going to have to fuse your disc and you're going to have to have an operation.

02:28:36.000 He was like, what?

02:28:37.000 And he couldn't, as a person who is an expert in physiology and a person who's an expert in exercise and teaching people how to get strong, he couldn't understand why if an injury, a compression of the disc caused the disc to herniate, why couldn't a decompression of the disc cause it to reset or to heal?

02:28:56.000 So he developed this machine that does exactly that.

02:28:59.000 It's called the reverse hyper.

02:29:01.000 And I have one of these in the back.

02:29:02.000 So you see when he's lifting the weights up, it's strengthening the back.

02:29:06.000 When the weights go down, it's actually pulling the back apart.

02:29:10.000 It's slowly decompressing the back in an active form.

02:29:15.000 But have there been any studies that show that if you use this, you're herniated this setback?

02:29:21.000 Yeah, he himself has done it.

02:29:23.000 I mean, no peer-reviewed studies, but athletes have used this time and time again, along with decompression.

02:29:30.000 Spinal decompression is also really important.

02:29:32.000 Spinal decompression, meaning like hanging from your ankles, hanging from your waist.

02:29:36.000 I have a couple different devices in the back that I can show you that allow you to relax your back and relax.

02:29:41.000 Yoga is also critical.

02:29:43.000 Yoga is huge because there's a bunch of positions in yoga where you are actively decompressing your back.

02:29:49.000 There's one where you reach back, you grab yourself behind the heels, you straighten your legs out, and you literally are pulling with your arms and you feel your back go like pop, pop, pop.

02:29:59.000 You're releasing tension and pressure and you're actively stretching your back.

02:29:59.000 Wow.

02:30:03.000 So I'm walking out of here invigorated by our chat.

02:30:06.000 Yes.

02:30:06.000 And filled with hope and optimism.

02:30:08.000 About diet, about exercise.

02:30:09.000 How much do I owe you, doctor?

02:30:10.000 You know me nothing, my friend.

02:30:11.000 But it's really important for people to work on their core and their spine.

02:30:16.000 And there's so many people that don't.

02:30:17.000 I have a friend of mine who's this big, strong, powerful guy.

02:30:20.000 And he played football and he's done a bunch of different things, but he's never done any real...

02:30:26.000 Significant core work, and I started showing him some different exercises like windmills and things along those lines, and he was stunned at how weak his lower back is.

02:30:34.000 Right.

02:30:34.000 Because so many people don't work those muscles, and those muscles are critical for athletic performance, for your ability to move and to protect your spine from injury.

02:30:43.000 There's a lot of injuries that you can avoid by just being strong in your core, in your column, your spinal column, and developing strength around that whole Really super sensitive and delicate area of your back.

02:30:57.000 But decompression is real.

02:30:59.000 There's a bunch of machines that doctors have.

02:31:01.000 And when I hurt my neck, one of the things that I did is went to this doctor.

02:31:05.000 They would have this machine that kind of straps you in.

02:31:07.000 It just gives you these gentle pulls.

02:31:10.000 What about the upside down one?

02:31:11.000 I have one of those too.

02:31:12.000 Those are good.

02:31:13.000 Those are good, but you have to learn how to really relax your back.

02:31:16.000 A lot of people, when they hang by their ankles, they tense themselves up and it sort of defeats the purpose.

02:31:20.000 You have to learn how to You have to learn, and it feels weird.

02:31:25.000 You can feel yourself pulling apart, but you have to relax that.

02:31:29.000 You have to allow that to happen, and you have to do it really consistently.

02:31:32.000 It has to be something you do all the time.

02:31:34.000 It can't be something you do once every now and again, like, oh, I'm stretching my back out, because it's going to go right back.

02:31:40.000 Also, posture is significant.

02:31:42.000 It's a really important part of back health.

02:31:44.000 The way I'm sitting right now is not good.

02:31:46.000 Yeah, I mean, that's why these chairs that we're sitting in, we're sitting in these Ergo Depot chairs, and these chairs are designed to make you sit at a good posture.

02:31:55.000 So if you sit like this, you'll sit with your spine in a good position.

02:31:59.000 Normal chairs, a lot of times, your back gets rounded, and you sit into them, and you sink, and you develop this pain.

02:32:05.000 Like right around your mid-back or maybe perhaps your lower back, depending on whatever ailments you've got. 0.98

02:32:11.000 These chairs, I sit in these fucking things for hours. 0.99

02:32:13.000 I don't have any problem. 0.99

02:32:14.000 And I think they're actually in some way beneficial because they force a good posture.

02:32:18.000 It's actually like a static exercise.

02:32:20.000 What do you think about the standing working desk?

02:32:23.000 It's better than sitting sometimes, you know.

02:32:26.000 But I think these things are great.

02:32:29.000 Because these things force your spinal column to be in this correct position.

02:32:32.000 But I think the standing ones, a lot of people have a lot of success with that.

02:32:35.000 Also, a lot of people have success with those exercise balls.

02:32:38.000 You ever sit on one of those exercise balls?

02:32:39.000 Oh, right.

02:32:40.000 Because they force you to kind of exercise.

02:32:41.000 Right.

02:32:42.000 Like as you're sitting there, you have to kind of keep yourself in a posture.

02:32:46.000 There's also a lot of those standing desks.

02:32:48.000 They develop these standing surfaces that are a surface that's very varied.

02:32:54.000 So instead of standing on this absolute flat, static sort of a floor where you're in the same position all the time, instead it's this dynamic surface where it has all these humps to it and you move around on it.

02:33:08.000 So you'll lean on the left leg, you'll lean on the right leg.

02:33:11.000 Have you seen those things?

02:33:12.000 See if you can find one of those surfaces, standing surfaces for standing chairs.

02:33:18.000 It's really interesting.

02:33:19.000 I had a complete rupture of my Achilles tendon when I was a soccer player and one of the things that I had to do in 14 months of rehab is to stand on one of those boards with a ball.

02:33:30.000 Just to relearn how to move your ankle to adjust.

02:33:33.000 Did you have to have it repaired surgically?

02:33:35.000 Oh yeah, massive.

02:33:36.000 That's a big one, right?

02:33:38.000 I was finished after that.

02:33:40.000 I have one of those in my knee.

02:33:42.000 I have an Achilles tendon from a cadaver in my knee.

02:33:46.000 Yeah.

02:33:47.000 When you get ACL surgery, instead of replacing your ACL with a cadaver ACL, which is significantly weaker, they take the ACL tendon and replace it with Achilles, which is way bigger and way stronger.

02:33:59.000 It makes your ACL 150% stronger than a regular one.

02:34:06.000 I don't know if you're aware of how it works with cadavers, but...

02:34:09.000 When they replace a ligament, what it does is essentially acts as a scaffolding and your body re-proliferates this cadaver ligament around your own cells.

02:34:19.000 So instead of it being a normal size, it becomes this fat cord that really keeps your knee in place.

02:34:24.000 Because I've had both my knees blow out.

02:34:26.000 I've had two ACL reconstructions.

02:34:28.000 One in each knee.

02:34:29.000 No, that's not it.

02:34:30.000 There's other ones.

02:34:31.000 That's just a chair this guy's on.

02:34:32.000 It's a standing desk surface.

02:34:36.000 Standing surface.

02:34:38.000 Pull up standing surface for standing desk.

02:34:42.000 Or surface for standing desk.

02:34:45.000 Standing desk surface for standing on?

02:34:49.000 I don't know.

02:34:49.000 I bet Ergo Depot has it.

02:34:52.000 There's a bunch of those different kinds of standing desks, but moving surface for standing desk.

02:34:59.000 I don't know.

02:34:59.000 Just don't show me this while you're Googling.

02:35:01.000 I'll go fucking crazy. 0.94

02:35:03.000 But I don't even know if it's good. 0.97

02:35:05.000 I just saw that someone developed one of those.

02:35:07.000 So when I had my ruptured Achilles tendon, I'm not sure if you ever heard somebody describe what happens.

02:35:13.000 You actually feel as if somebody hit you with a sledgehammer on your Achilles tendon.

02:35:19.000 When it pops, it feels like you were hit.

02:35:21.000 I mean, you drop like somebody shot you.

02:35:24.000 After the fact, so I had the surgery.

02:35:27.000 I was a graduate student at the time at Cornell.

02:35:31.000 I went back to Montreal to have the surgery.

02:35:33.000 When I went back to Cornell, I asked my fellow soccer players, what happened?

02:35:37.000 Who was the guy who tackled me that had hit me?

02:35:41.000 And then somebody said, nobody hit you.

02:35:43.000 You just dropped by yourself.

02:35:44.000 And then I found out that that's what everybody feels.

02:35:48.000 Like an explosion.

02:35:49.000 It's an explosion, but the way your body feels it, it's as if there was an impact.

02:35:53.000 Somebody just clobbered the back of my leg.

02:35:57.000 Nobody was around.

02:35:58.000 I just dropped.

02:35:58.000 That totally makes sense.

02:36:00.000 It's amazing how fragile we are.

02:36:01.000 It's incredible.

02:36:02.000 People are so...

02:36:03.000 The human body...

02:36:04.000 That's similar.

02:36:05.000 That's one of them.

02:36:06.000 That's a standing board.

02:36:08.000 This one is a surface.

02:36:09.000 It's a surface you stand on.

02:36:11.000 And it's just an uneven surface that has many different layers to it.

02:36:14.000 Many different...

02:36:16.000 No, that's not it either.

02:36:19.000 Whatever.

02:36:20.000 There's a bunch of them.

02:36:21.000 I'm sure.

02:36:21.000 But, you know, there's all these different solutions that people try to come up with for the real problem, which is not sitting in the proper posture at a chair.

02:36:29.000 And I sit in this desk doing these podcasts for hours.

02:36:33.000 Yesterday I did nine hours.

02:36:34.000 Wow.

02:36:34.000 Yeah.

02:36:35.000 And when I'm doing that, I'm just sitting like this.

02:36:37.000 My back doesn't hurt at the end.

02:36:38.000 Do you feel that your mental acuity is as strong going into podcast number three as it was in number one?

02:36:44.000 Yeah.

02:36:45.000 Yeah.

02:36:46.000 Yeah, it's only nine hours.

02:36:47.000 It's not that big a deal, as long as you're eating food.

02:36:50.000 Well, the reason I ask this is because earlier in my teaching career, I could do back-to-back lectures, each one being three hours, and it was no problem.

02:36:59.000 Now I can't do it, not because of mental acuity problems, but because when I stand up, my back starts hurting by about hour four.

02:37:07.000 I can't do it.

02:37:08.000 Well, let's wrap this up, and I want to show you all this equipment, because you should really invest in this stuff.

02:37:12.000 Sounds good.

02:37:12.000 It'll make a big difference in the health of your back because it's one thing they just don't look into enough and the only time they look into it is when they're already injured.

02:37:22.000 And I really wish people would pay way more attention and I wish I had known this before I got injured.

02:37:29.000 I got injured from martial arts because just the nature of jujitsu and wrestling, there's a lot of people that I get in.

02:37:34.000 I know a lot of guys that have had disc replacements and all sorts of fusions and stuff.

02:37:39.000 And it's just the brutal nature of the sport.

02:37:42.000 But I think some of that, at least, can be prevented with proper maintenance and proper spine health, decompression, stretching.

02:37:50.000 I look forward to you.

02:37:51.000 Do you do yoga at all?

02:37:52.000 I don't.

02:37:53.000 You should do it.

02:37:53.000 I do stretching, but I do it in exactly the way that you said I shouldn't, which is very sporadic.

02:38:00.000 Yeah, don't do that.

02:38:02.000 It's got to be a daily thing, man.

02:38:04.000 It's got to be one of those things like brushing your teeth.

02:38:06.000 You write down, you do it, you get it out of the way.

02:38:09.000 Just force yourself.

02:38:11.000 To me, there's certain things that I just can't go through a week without doing.

02:38:15.000 And I don't allow myself because I know that there's just... 0.99

02:38:19.000 It's easy to just fuck off and not do it. 1.00

02:38:22.000 It's easy to just be lazy. 1.00

02:38:23.000 But when you do that, you do your body a disservice.

02:38:27.000 Quick final anecdote before we end.

02:38:29.000 I know we have to end.

02:38:30.000 Just to point to your incredible reach.

02:38:34.000 I'm recognized on the street reasonably often.

02:38:36.000 Usually it's because of visual cues.

02:38:37.000 It's beautiful.

02:38:37.000 It's beautiful, right?

02:38:39.000 This is what happened about two weeks ago.

02:38:40.000 I think I might have even tagged you on Twitter about it, but you probably didn't read it.

02:38:44.000 I'm being served by a waiter slash busboy at a place in Venice Beach.

02:38:50.000 And the gentleman comes up to me and says, excuse me, are you on?

02:38:56.000 I said, yes.

02:38:57.000 He goes, oh, I recognized you by your voice because I listened to Joe Rogan's voice.

02:39:04.000 Wow.

02:39:05.000 So this is the first time that I was recognized auditorily, not visually.

02:39:10.000 That's a pretty astute listener.

02:39:12.000 That's a guy who really listens to Joe Rogan.

02:39:15.000 But I mean, I say that story simply to point to apparently how infinite your reach is.

02:39:21.000 That's pretty crazy.

02:39:22.000 Or I have a very unique, very sexy and very deep voice.

02:39:24.000 You definitely have that.

02:39:25.000 You definitely have that.

02:39:26.000 But I also think that guy is probably pretty exceptional in his ability to pick out voices.

02:39:29.000 That's amazing.

02:39:30.000 Yeah, because your voice is distinctive, but not super unusual.

02:39:34.000 You wouldn't think so much, right?

02:39:35.000 Exactly.

02:39:36.000 Yeah.

02:39:36.000 Well, listen, man.

02:39:37.000 It's always a pleasure having you in.

02:39:38.000 Thank you so much, buddy.

02:39:39.000 You have an open invitation, of course, anytime you're in town.

02:39:41.000 And I really do hope you wind up moving here.

02:39:43.000 Thank you, buddy. 1.00

02:39:44.000 Fuck those winners up there, buddy. 1.00

02:39:45.000 Love you, man. 1.00

02:39:46.000 Thank you.

02:39:46.000 I love you too, brother.

02:39:47.000 Thank you.

02:39:47.000 All right, folks.

02:39:48.000 We'll be back at 5 o'clock in about 40 minutes with Josh Zeps.

02:39:52.000 See ya.

The Joe Rogan Experience - August 23, 2016

Joe Rogan Experience #837 - Gad Saad

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript