The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - August 18, 2025


572. Navigating Education, Ideology, and Children ｜ Answer the Call


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

161.79695

Word Count

9,028

Sentence Count

685

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary

In this episode of Answer the Call, we take live questions from you, the listeners, on a topic that should matter to everyone: How do we navigate the modern education system? In this episode, we talk to a dad who homeschools his own son, and a mom who wants to send her own kid to a traditional school.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Is it education or is it child warehousing?
00:00:03.520 The answer is mostly it's child warehousing.
00:00:06.080 I think that the K-12 education system has become...
00:00:09.680 Is it irredeemably corrupt?
00:00:12.940 Likely.
00:00:16.440 How do I raise my children with strong critical thinking and moral clarity
00:00:22.040 in a cultural environment where wokeness pretty much became cultural hegemony?
00:00:27.360 Most of the time, people who are educating have no idea.
00:00:31.560 They have no idea what literature is for.
00:00:33.360 You're not going to be able to motivate and teach people if that's how shallow your knowledge is.
00:00:37.420 What you're doing as a teacher often is setting the motivational frame and dramatizing.
00:00:42.500 This grips me. This is important. It's vital. Here's why.
00:00:45.820 That's the world manifesting itself in accordance with your interest.
00:00:57.360 Hey, it's Michaela, and I'm back with my dad for Answer the Call,
00:01:03.480 where we take live questions from you guys.
00:01:05.700 And dad mainly answers them, but I'll pipe in from time to time.
00:01:09.380 Today, we're talking about a topic that should matter to everyone.
00:01:13.080 How do we navigate the modern education system?
00:01:16.600 So this should be spicy.
00:01:19.180 Up first, we have Joshua in Florida.
00:01:21.420 Hey, Joshua.
00:01:23.600 Hi. Good to talk to you guys, both of you.
00:01:25.680 We have been homeschooling our older son since 2020.
00:01:29.180 He's almost 10 now.
00:01:30.260 I'm super happy with the results, but I'm kind of biased and very close to it.
00:01:36.820 And I was wondering if you could perhaps steal man the case of sending him to a traditional style school,
00:01:43.780 maybe now, maybe when he's older, just so I can be more honestly doing the cost-benefit analysis.
00:01:51.820 It's not about me. It's about him.
00:01:53.960 Well, you are already, at least to some degree, considering him in the equation,
00:01:59.240 because you said that he's an avid—you implied that he was an avid and satisfied participant in what is happening.
00:02:08.240 And so that's a certain amount of objective evidence, let's say, assuming that you have other observers who agree,
00:02:15.940 and that might be your wife.
00:02:17.420 What I would wonder immediately is, does he have peers and friends,
00:02:24.600 and is he participating in anything that's part of the broader social contract outside the family?
00:02:31.700 The extracurriculars.
00:02:32.700 Well, exactly, exactly.
00:02:33.820 And, like, the only potential benefit to him going into the dismal school system is that he meets people his own age,
00:02:43.680 he starts to socialize with his peers, and you can assess whether he can conduct himself in the broader social world.
00:02:51.680 Like, your role as a parent, right from the beginning, is to help your child, encourage your child to become maximally socially desirable.
00:03:04.080 And I don't mean obsessed with popularity.
00:03:07.360 I mean the sort of person that other people rely on and open doors to.
00:03:12.220 And your concern, which is valid, is that because you're so close to the situation, and you're his father, and you enjoy what you're doing,
00:03:20.880 which I think would be a good thing, is that you might be biased in your evaluation of his progress.
00:03:28.100 Well, the way to test that is to see how he does in the broader world with his peers, with other adults,
00:03:34.640 with social organizations that you have no part of.
00:03:38.000 He could get that with sports, he could get that with clubs, he could get that with a friendship group.
00:03:43.260 Like, there's lots of social organizations that aren't the school.
00:03:47.980 He could get that with church.
00:03:49.660 So, the first question I'd have for you is, how do you think he's doing socially?
00:03:55.380 He's doing well, but the only problem with that is it means that it's like a full-time job for me
00:04:01.780 to make sure that he's got access to a co-op and to Temple and to the chess club and different camps over the summer.
00:04:10.200 But that's fine.
00:04:11.020 It's my job.
00:04:12.880 I do want to get out of the business of being in the middle of setting up everything and encouraging him too much
00:04:19.900 because, you know, he's almost 10.
00:04:21.800 At some point, you have to figure it out for yourself.
00:04:23.980 He has a phone number without internet access, and he's got to be pushed out of the nest.
00:04:28.820 And like, look, you call these kids, you go over to their house, I'll show you how to get there, that sort of thing.
00:04:34.460 Hey, I've got nothing to say about that except, yeah, do that.
00:04:38.780 But, you know, you're, okay, so basically what you're reporting is that he seems to be interested in
00:04:46.460 and in principle thriving in these other social communities, but that that's an additional demand on your time,
00:04:54.360 an organizational demand, and you'd like to turn that over to him over the next few years.
00:04:59.640 Well, that is what you should do.
00:05:01.120 So that seems just fine to me.
00:05:03.800 Well, there isn't anything about what you've said so far that raises red flags for me, you know.
00:05:09.080 I don't think we're the people to argue on the other side of things either.
00:05:13.720 That sounds like a way better idea than public school.
00:05:16.420 Yeah, I guess the last thing I would ask you is what makes you think that he is progressing educationally
00:05:24.240 at at least the rate he would in an ordinary school, which is a pretty damn low bar, let's say.
00:05:31.320 But, you know, how are you informing yourself with regards to his academic progress?
00:05:36.700 Because I know exactly what he's able to do with the subjects that I do have time to spend with him.
00:05:42.520 And I see what a lot of things he likes to do with his own time, which is watch YouTube science videos
00:05:49.140 and read biology books and that sort of thing.
00:05:51.360 Right.
00:05:51.640 And that's not being prompted at all.
00:05:54.140 Of course, he doesn't have internet access, so he's asking me to, can I see this video?
00:05:57.720 Can I see that video?
00:05:59.920 Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.
00:06:01.900 It really is just the social aspect to it.
00:06:04.360 He's the type of kid who probably needs a lot of time with kids to figure out how to deal with other people who are different.
00:06:13.200 Yep.
00:06:13.640 Yeah.
00:06:13.940 Well, that's so, so look, it sounds to me like you're focusing on the appropriate concerns
00:06:18.480 and that you're happy, your son is happy, you want to turn more responsibility over to him.
00:06:24.340 Great.
00:06:24.640 The amount of responsibility you want to turn over to your kids is all that they can handle, but no more than that.
00:06:33.040 And that's the best compliment you can give them because basically what you're saying is, look, kid, you can do this.
00:06:40.200 And because you can, you should, I'm not going to take it from you.
00:06:44.380 And that'll also free you up to do the things with him that only you can do.
00:06:50.060 You know, again, it isn't obvious that you should be serving as his scheduling guide, you know, for the next five years
00:06:55.200 when it appears that you have better things to do with your time that would be more efficient for him too.
00:07:01.040 Anyways, there wasn't anything in what you said that raises any red flags for me.
00:07:05.180 The issue is, can he make the transition from the homeschooled environment to the broader world?
00:07:10.560 And you seem to be facilitating that.
00:07:12.900 And that's the issue to concentrate on over the next, you have years to do it.
00:07:17.520 He's only 10.
00:07:18.360 Also, school doesn't necessarily help you transition to the real world either.
00:07:22.060 No, no.
00:07:22.420 It might make it a lot harder.
00:07:23.060 Well, right, right, right.
00:07:24.380 Definitely, definitely.
00:07:25.720 I would have killed for homeschooling.
00:07:27.180 I can remember in grade four getting in trouble for reading at my desk because the quality of reading from that teacher was so poor that I was reading at my desk.
00:07:38.600 Or counting the dots in the ceiling tiles to figure out how many dots there were on the ceiling.
00:07:43.520 Yes, I'm fully conversant with that degree of staggering boredom.
00:07:51.520 Did you ever make a pile of eraser shavings just to see how high the pile could go?
00:08:01.700 Anyway.
00:08:02.260 No, but I got in trouble a lot for reading behind.
00:08:05.800 That just used to piss me off.
00:08:07.460 You get in trouble for reading, yeah.
00:08:08.120 Yeah, I know.
00:08:08.820 It's like I'm reading faster than you.
00:08:10.480 Yeah, any.
00:08:11.660 Read it again!
00:08:12.980 Oh my gosh.
00:08:14.160 Yeah, I know.
00:08:15.080 There's the voice of a teacher who hates children and learning.
00:08:18.540 What about the spelling books where you have to do the exercises?
00:08:22.800 We had the spelling, but you had to do the exercises.
00:08:24.920 So there were like 15 pages of exercises, which were brutal for somebody who already knew how to read.
00:08:29.120 But I got really fast at it because you had to do it.
00:08:32.940 Yeah.
00:08:33.660 Yeah.
00:08:34.160 Thank goodness that's only, you think that's life when you're little.
00:08:37.160 It's a long time.
00:08:38.320 It's a long time.
00:08:39.600 And it takes, what, two hours a day to, in theory, I doubt it even takes two hours to homeschool kids to teach them.
00:08:47.120 It's mostly, if you think about school as childcare, then you can wrap your head around it more.
00:08:53.560 That it's childcare set up under an education facade.
00:08:57.820 Then you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
00:08:59.900 But if you're like, no, this is education, then it doesn't really make sense.
00:09:03.120 Yeah.
00:09:03.580 Yeah, definitely.
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00:10:34.960 Next caller.
00:10:36.380 We have Jake in Wisconsin.
00:10:39.060 Hey, Jake.
00:10:40.920 Hello, Dr. Peterson.
00:10:42.140 I was wondering, between the homeschooling movement speaking to the system of schooling not really being the best for children,
00:10:50.600 and I don't know what to do in compared to a previous statement that you've made that the Institute should not be abandoned.
00:10:59.560 So that's the conservative conundrum, I suppose, is that it's a mistake to destroy all intermediary institutions.
00:11:12.140 Right?
00:11:12.680 That's generally the radicals' dream.
00:11:15.020 Having said that, you're left with the issue of what you do when institutions have become corrupt.
00:11:21.820 And I think that the education system, the K-12 education system has become, is it irredeemably corrupt?
00:11:32.700 Likely.
00:11:33.660 Maybe not Acton.
00:11:35.480 Right, right.
00:11:36.180 He talked about Matt Boudreau.
00:11:37.580 Yeah.
00:11:37.780 I did my TED Talk, actually, with Matt Boudreau, which is funny.
00:11:42.060 But Acton might be an option.
00:11:44.120 Yeah, well, there are developing institutions that are producing education systems that seem to be intelligent variants.
00:11:53.080 Right.
00:11:53.600 So I guess what you hope is that, and this is something the United States is particularly good at.
00:12:00.220 America is remarkable in its ability to revitalize its institutions through relatively radical conceptual and entrepreneurial transformation.
00:12:11.360 And I think that is happening on the educational landscape.
00:12:13.720 I mean, we're obviously trying to do that with Peterson Academy at the higher end of the education system.
00:12:20.020 I think there are institutions, Acton Academy is a good example, that are models for how education could proceed.
00:12:29.240 I've watched Catherine Berbalsingh in the UK.
00:12:33.220 Her school, which is very different from the Acton schools, is an absolute bloody miracle.
00:12:39.000 The children there are thriving.
00:12:40.720 Thriving, it's a very authority-based, structured learning environment that makes tremendous challenging demands on the kids.
00:12:53.180 And they're learning at a rate that I've just never seen anywhere, including high-level graduate seminars.
00:12:58.960 So I guess my attitude towards the institutions is that as they become corrupt, increasing discernment is necessary.
00:13:08.080 You know, when I went to school, I can't say that I was particularly thrilled with the course of my education, K through 12,
00:13:17.020 but I could at least say of my teachers that they weren't actively trying to dement me.
00:13:21.800 And now we're in a situation where the incompetence, which has risen substantially over the last 30 years in the education environment,
00:13:31.680 is magnified by this insane ideological corruption that's truly pathological.
00:13:38.800 So what do we need?
00:13:39.740 Well, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, do we?
00:13:42.120 We want to be discerning in our analysis of institutional structure and do ever more to separate the wheat from the chaff.
00:13:50.660 That's a lot to ask of parents because it's very difficult to do something like assess the quality of an entire education system.
00:13:57.560 But when institutional trust has been damaged, there's no other alternative but to take the responsibility on for yourself
00:14:10.520 and be more perspicacious in your assessment of your children's educational opportunities.
00:14:16.180 It's also complicated, isn't it, by the fact that there are all these new technologies that we just don't know what to do with.
00:14:22.600 I mean, I've been using the large language models as research tools for about, well, since they came out, and I use them a lot.
00:14:30.060 And they're insanely informative.
00:14:33.500 And it's the case, for example, that you can ask an LLM like ChatGPT to set you up with a training program for a foreign language,
00:14:42.240 and it will communicate with you at your level.
00:14:45.040 Well, we have no idea what the possibilities there are.
00:14:48.240 I suspect it's not going to be long before children have an educational tutor that's privatized, that's an AI that knows exactly what they know,
00:14:57.760 and then teaches them at the edge of their zone of proximal development.
00:15:04.000 It exists.
00:15:04.620 Yeah.
00:15:04.920 There's schools opening up in Texas, here.
00:15:08.960 I don't know.
00:15:09.420 Those are the places I'm paying attention to.
00:15:11.200 But they're kind of based on what Elon Musk was suggesting for children, but it's not run by Elon Musk.
00:15:18.440 I can't remember the name of the school, but one just opened here.
00:15:20.600 And it's two hours of AI learning, and it's an AI teacher that teaches kids at their skill level.
00:15:27.180 Yeah.
00:15:27.360 And then the rest of the day is more entrepreneurial ventures and then public speaking and things,
00:15:34.340 which is exactly what people should probably be doing.
00:15:37.360 That and some play.
00:15:38.440 Yeah.
00:15:38.560 Well, Bjorn Lomberg has pointed out that the introduction of relatively low-cost computational devices, iPads, let's say,
00:15:50.700 that are, I believe his analysis was in third world countries, an hour a day, very, very inexpensive,
00:15:57.840 produces a three-year improvement in learning over the course of one year.
00:16:01.340 So we have no idea how challenged children are going to be to learn by teaching systems that will be optimized at their level of skill.
00:16:13.320 I think practically, too, if you're looking for a school because you, I don't know, don't have time to homeschool or don't want to homeschool,
00:16:21.320 you can take tours of these schools and you can pick up pretty easily if they're completely overrun with ideological teachers.
00:16:28.180 Because you take a tour and you look at the posters, look at the art the kids are doing.
00:16:32.960 If there's equity anywhere, then you know that the school's a problem.
00:16:35.800 You can go to their website, you can look up, like, what are their policies on equity and things.
00:16:39.840 If it's, it'll be plastered everywhere because they don't keep it a secret because they're proud of it.
00:16:44.000 So if you find a school and you don't see it anywhere, chances are that's a more conservative school or just not as ideological a school.
00:16:52.720 So you can go and tour places and it pops out, really.
00:16:57.700 But I think everyone's going to be learning by AI.
00:17:00.900 Yeah.
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00:18:14.400 Okay, on the line now is Oaxana in California.
00:18:19.380 Hi.
00:18:19.860 Hi.
00:18:20.340 Thank you so much for having me.
00:18:23.220 So I immigrated to Bay Area 12 years ago and I have two sons that are 10 and 12 and I homeschool them.
00:18:31.700 And my question is, how do I raise my children with strong critical thinking and moral clarity in the cultural environment like Bay Area where wokeness pretty much became cultural hegemony?
00:18:46.760 Because I'm worried that they will rebel against our family beliefs eventually during teenage years.
00:18:54.940 And I really don't want them to do that, of course.
00:18:59.020 And I want them to become like intellectually open and morally grounded as adults.
00:19:04.220 How old are they?
00:19:05.580 10 and 12.
00:19:06.340 What sort of conversations do you have around the dinner table?
00:19:12.000 Well, first of all, we always reflect back on the day and we talk a lot about the positive things that happen to us.
00:19:19.120 That's our tradition.
00:19:20.480 And we do go into downs of the day and I pretty much do Socratic method of like asking them more questions and hearing how they think out loud.
00:19:32.660 That's one of the things we do is conversations with questions.
00:19:36.800 Do you introduce, I mean, I can imagine since you've already set up that structure, do you introduce an analysis or discussion of current affairs?
00:19:48.020 Like if you ask them, find something that appears to be a hot, like I don't know how much internet access they have or access to newspapers, you know, pick an issue that appears relevant and let's, and tell me what you think about it.
00:20:02.340 Let's discuss it.
00:20:03.520 I mean, you're concerned about the woke ideology and fair enough.
00:20:07.940 So then you could imagine that what you need to do is to provide them with an understanding of the woke ideology.
00:20:13.860 And so maybe that would be like 30 points.
00:20:17.140 Obviously a system like Grok could help with that initial analysis.
00:20:21.320 And then you could use those as topics of conversation and contrast points.
00:20:27.080 I mean, really what you're trying to do is to teach them the axioms of political thought and to assess them critically.
00:20:35.520 And I think your best bet with that would be to introduce them to the entire range of political thought from, you know, libertarian to Marxist.
00:20:46.960 And then they, like, then they know the whole landscape.
00:20:50.840 They're not going to run across anything that comes as a shock.
00:20:53.580 You know, when I was relatively young, 13, I had a librarian in my hometown who was the wife of the local member of the legislature who happened to be a socialist.
00:21:06.920 He was the only one in Alberta out of like 200.
00:21:10.620 And people voted for him because he was actually a good man.
00:21:13.580 And this woman, Sandy Notley was her name, she introduced me to a lot of classic literature, Orwell, Huxley.
00:21:23.600 She really, Solzhenitsyn, she really showed me the literary world.
00:21:27.320 But she also had me read Anne Rand and Atlas Shrugged, which is much, obviously, much more conservative and libertarian.
00:21:35.640 You know, and when I asked her why she did that, she said she thought I would be intelligent enough to see through it.
00:21:40.100 And, but, but the point was she, despite her commitment to what was really a working class socialism at the time, rather than a progressive socialism, let's say, she wanted to expose me to the whole range of political thought.
00:21:54.600 Well, that's an inoculation.
00:21:56.180 Well, you seem like a sophisticated person.
00:21:59.260 Where are you from?
00:22:01.140 I'm from Russia, originally.
00:22:03.460 I was born in Soviet Union, 1987.
00:22:06.820 So I didn't really catch much of the Soviet times.
00:22:10.100 Right.
00:22:10.840 Well, my experience with Eastern Europeans, broadly speaking, is that they've been, they or their families were bit pretty hard by the socialist worldview and have a certain amount of skepticism about it that's well warranted.
00:22:25.260 You're in a good position to educate your sons.
00:22:28.720 You just start doing that.
00:22:30.720 Educate them politically.
00:22:32.300 Make them sophisticated thinkers.
00:22:33.600 And then, then they'll be ready when the shallow, woke nonsense comes their way.
00:22:40.180 I don't see that you, you, there's, there's no way of dealing with that except to prepare them.
00:22:47.160 And they're old enough and your family seems sophisticated enough so you could do an excellent job of that.
00:22:51.920 Then they're ready, you know, and they can recognize it too.
00:22:55.840 So, Mick?
00:22:57.020 Yeah.
00:22:57.700 What I started, so my kids are a bit younger.
00:23:00.680 I have a seven-year-old and then two tiny beings.
00:23:04.880 I just bought, I don't know if you've heard of the Tuttle Twins.
00:23:08.240 The Tuttle Twins are so good.
00:23:10.760 I love their books.
00:23:12.320 They have graphic novels and then they have some shorter books for, I think, I feel like graphic novels you could start around like six or something.
00:23:19.560 But then they have education for kids and it's pretty much libertarian education.
00:23:24.900 I think it's hilarious.
00:23:26.440 I think it's a really easy, fun way to teach kids about political perspective.
00:23:32.000 Now, it's kind of biased in the way that I'm already biased.
00:23:35.060 So, I'm totally fine with giving it to my kid because I think it's true, but just as a practical tool to use, Tuttle Twins is great.
00:23:44.180 And what age do you think they're optimized for?
00:23:47.180 Well, Scarlett, she's seven, so she's reading the graphic novels, but I think you could read them older too.
00:23:51.580 And then they have actual history books and things, and so that could be 10 and 12.
00:23:55.880 I would have loved those.
00:23:56.860 And they teach a lot.
00:23:58.240 They teach about American historical figures, history, political ideologies, economy.
00:24:06.320 Right.
00:24:06.440 Yeah.
00:24:06.760 Well, that touches on the broader issue too.
00:24:09.120 Like a political education is a cultural education and that's a historical education.
00:24:14.080 And so to really, the way you fortify your children against ideology is to educate them.
00:24:19.840 Yeah.
00:24:20.100 And you educate them by providing them with the tradition and by teaching them to think critically.
00:24:26.440 And there's absolutely no reason for you not to push that hard and make them ready fighters, you know.
00:24:33.760 And to do that even, you want to steel man the arguments that you're concerned about too.
00:24:39.540 You know, I mean, to the degree that the progressive ethos has anything to say, it does have a grounding in compassion and hypothetically a concern for those that occupy the lower strata of the socioeconomic distribution.
00:24:52.840 And there are things to be said in favor of the truly oppressed and marginalized, so to speak.
00:24:59.400 So that's worth walking through because your kids also have to understand why those arguments are put forward and how compassion can be weaponized and corrupted while masquerading as virtue.
00:25:13.180 These are very hard things to manage properly, but there's no reason to assume they can't do it.
00:25:19.700 One of the things you did well, because I went to an alternative middle school, an art, public art high school, and then an art university.
00:25:29.480 And it was super progressive before progressivism was everywhere.
00:25:36.460 And when I went to university, I think because of how I grew up, because you didn't really push things on us, I read everything that I was skeptical about.
00:25:46.280 So I was like, okay, feminism, what exactly is feminism?
00:25:48.840 And I read a whole bunch of pro-feminist books and a whole bunch of anti-feminist books, and then I just decided what felt more true.
00:25:55.900 So I think as long as your kids can, well, critically think, look at all the information and then figure out what's true, they'll be prepared for hearing lies.
00:26:07.460 Well, and part of the way that you teach people to think critically is to have them argue both sides of a position.
00:26:13.900 And monitor who their friends are, too. That's like, probably.
00:26:17.940 You've got this weird family that's interceding, don't you think? Maybe then your kids shouldn't be best friends with that family's kid.
00:26:25.040 Well, you have to keep an eye on your kids' friends, but I think the best thing to do is to fortify them, you know, because you can't be watching what your kids are doing all the time, especially as they become older teenagers.
00:26:38.060 You have to prepare them to contend with the world, and if they're able to think and to think critically, then they can defend themselves, and then you don't have to worry too much about what snake pits they wander into.
00:26:50.520 I don't know, I had some pretty stupid friends. I wandered into a bunch of snake pits for a long time.
00:26:58.200 Well, I think that's a universal human experience when you're a teenager.
00:27:01.220 It's like, whoa, what was happening back then? This is what happens before your prefrontal cortex grows in. It's wild times.
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00:28:11.440 Okay, our next caller is Amy in Connecticut.
00:28:15.740 Good evening, Jordan.
00:28:17.960 Hi, Amy.
00:28:18.480 How are you?
00:28:18.800 My question has to do with art education.
00:28:22.860 I'm an art educator, and I've noticed a lot of the students that are in the school are very disengaged, unmotivated, don't want to be in school.
00:28:34.080 And in the art room, it's a different story because there's a lot more creativity.
00:28:38.440 How can we transform education?
00:28:42.360 There's been a lot in the past from Sir Ken Robinson and some of your own comments that art is the bedrock of culture itself that I believe was from your Beyond Order book.
00:28:55.780 How can we transform education and address this critical problem of disengagement in education?
00:29:02.780 Well, my experience in school was, and this included university, was that it was often the case that the teachers who were attempting to impart information actually had no idea whatsoever why what they were teaching was good for anything.
00:29:24.420 I especially remember that in mathematics because I would ask the educator why I needed to know this, and they didn't know.
00:29:34.200 Well, my natural response to that was, well, if you don't know what it's good for, why should I be interested in it?
00:29:41.460 Now, there's some arrogance in that, obviously, because you could say, well, you know, when you're 12 or 13, you should listen to adults because they might know something more than you do, and sometimes that's true.
00:29:53.140 But it's also incumbent on educators to set the motivational frame.
00:29:58.900 And so many people who teach art think about it as decoration.
00:30:04.060 They have no idea what they're doing, and they can't tell the students why it's important.
00:30:09.060 Well, it's the realm of the imagination.
00:30:11.220 It's where creative ideas come from.
00:30:12.960 It's where you develop skill and taste.
00:30:15.960 It's how you make your environment beautiful.
00:30:18.700 It's how you indicate to others that you're sophisticated.
00:30:21.680 It's how you learn to see beauty in the world so that it can guide you upward.
00:30:25.960 Why would you want to be guided upward?
00:30:28.040 Well, you want to be guided downward and suffer madly and end up in something approximating hell?
00:30:33.400 Or do you want to see beauty beckon to you and learn to establish a relationship with it?
00:30:38.360 And you need to, like 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, new university students, they have a facade of cynicism, but it's pretty shallow.
00:30:48.620 They don't know enough to really be cynical.
00:30:51.320 It's a test in some ways.
00:30:53.460 Why should I care about this?
00:30:54.880 It takes effort.
00:30:55.940 Well, that's a reasonable question.
00:30:58.000 Like, if it takes effort, why shouldn't I just fritter away my time?
00:31:02.840 Now, if you have a serious discussion with your students, at least some of them might listen.
00:31:09.000 It's like, what are the things that make life worthwhile in the midst of suffering?
00:31:13.800 Well, beauty is one of those.
00:31:16.600 That's for sure.
00:31:17.700 You want everything to be hideous and ugly and chaotic?
00:31:21.220 How is that going to work out for you?
00:31:23.740 So, it's very important.
00:31:26.120 Look, human beings are inclined to work toward a goal when they see value in the goal.
00:31:34.520 That's how our nervous systems are set up.
00:31:36.760 And so, you have to frame the educational endeavor within the confines of a story that indicate
00:31:44.660 that the goal is worth the effort.
00:31:47.280 And you can't just take that for granted.
00:31:50.020 And that means you have to know yourself.
00:31:52.400 And most of the time, people who are educating have no idea.
00:31:56.520 They have no idea what literature is for.
00:31:58.480 They have no idea what poetry is for.
00:32:00.400 They have no idea why it would be useful to memorize it.
00:32:03.140 They don't know why you should write.
00:32:04.600 They don't know why they teach mathematical equations.
00:32:07.500 And they think art is for decoration.
00:32:09.920 Well, you're not going to be able to motivate and teach people if that's how shallow your
00:32:13.940 knowledge is.
00:32:15.120 So, why is art a burning concern?
00:32:19.380 Well, that's the first discussion that you need to have with the kids.
00:32:22.160 And that's true for every topic.
00:32:23.920 It's like, look, kid, you need to know this because if you don't know it, you're going
00:32:27.980 to suffer stupidly and end up in a bad place.
00:32:31.100 And if you do know it, pathways will open up to you that you can hardly imagine.
00:32:36.080 And so, are you going to be like a clueless, malformed, cynical, shallow lump who can't
00:32:45.060 communicate, knows nothing?
00:32:46.500 Or are you going to sharpen yourself the hell up and make your way through the world effectively?
00:32:51.600 Right.
00:32:51.860 It's like, if it's genuinely an educational issue, it's an intense spiritual and practical
00:33:00.860 concern.
00:33:01.840 And that has to be, God, you know, I went to Harvard and I did a talk in front of the students.
00:33:08.060 And this was at Harvard 10 years ago, probably.
00:33:10.680 And I told them, you know, that thousands of people had been working for like 600 years
00:33:17.980 to find them and offer them a stellar opportunity and that much was being invested in them and
00:33:25.560 much was being demanded in them and that they had an ethical responsibility to be appreciative
00:33:30.860 of the investment that had been made in them to sharpen themselves the hell up and to get
00:33:36.660 out there in the world and do something useful.
00:33:38.240 And like two dozen of them came up to me afterward and said, I wish they would have told us that
00:33:43.560 when we first came to university.
00:33:45.240 It's like, well, that should have been the first day.
00:33:49.720 You know, this sort of thing happens at places like Hillsdale because Larry Arnn, who runs
00:33:54.380 Hillsdale, he does tell the students that.
00:33:56.760 And they have a 1% dropout rate as opposed to the 40% dropout rate that characterizes most
00:34:03.580 institutions.
00:34:04.340 You got to get the motivational frame right.
00:34:06.480 And to do that, you have to know why you're doing, why are you pursuing this specialization
00:34:14.920 and why should people care?
00:34:17.120 And if you don't know, your students aren't going to care.
00:34:21.520 Yeah.
00:34:21.780 I think practically speaking too, we probably have to be pickier about teachers because most
00:34:28.660 teachers aren't good.
00:34:29.600 So how are you going to go into a private school or a public school and get a good quality
00:34:34.720 education if the teachers are no good?
00:34:36.820 Yeah.
00:34:37.100 Well, I don't even think that's a training problem.
00:34:39.120 It's also because the, like, as we pointed out earlier, is it education or is it child
00:34:45.360 warehousing?
00:34:46.340 Yeah.
00:34:46.640 And the answer is mostly it's child warehousing.
00:34:49.180 And then you might say, well, who are the students who are most likely to become teachers?
00:34:53.200 And it's not like they're picking the cream of the crop.
00:34:56.640 Why?
00:34:56.740 Unfortunately, yeah.
00:34:57.200 Because they actually don't care.
00:34:58.840 You do.
00:34:59.160 You come across some good teachers and then you remember them forever.
00:35:02.420 Yeah, that's for sure.
00:35:02.960 But I can remember, like, two.
00:35:06.580 Yep.
00:35:07.420 Two.
00:35:08.980 Which is better than zero, I guess.
00:35:10.540 None throughout my university days.
00:35:12.900 Which is pretty sad.
00:35:14.120 But that's part of the reason we made Peterson Academy.
00:35:16.240 Where they're all great.
00:35:17.500 Yeah.
00:35:17.800 But we went through, I mean, it's tricky to find good teachers.
00:35:20.440 We went through thousands and thousands seriously of professors and we're like, these are the
00:35:25.320 good guys.
00:35:26.140 Yeah.
00:35:26.200 And our math teacher, because in calculus, I had this problem.
00:35:28.900 I was like, why do I need to know these equations?
00:35:30.660 Yeah.
00:35:31.080 And he's like, it doesn't matter, memorize them.
00:35:32.840 Yeah.
00:35:33.000 He's like, okay, so you don't even know how they came up with these.
00:35:36.300 If I knew how they came up with the equation and understood it to the basic level, I could
00:35:40.280 remember it.
00:35:40.940 Otherwise, I'm just memorizing it and I'm going to forget it after the exam.
00:35:44.940 The people who teach that way are people who learned what they learned by memorizing it.
00:35:49.700 They think that's how you learn things.
00:35:51.300 As soon as you remember something else, you forget the last thing.
00:35:53.480 Yeah.
00:35:53.760 Yeah.
00:35:53.980 Yeah.
00:35:54.180 Which is useless.
00:35:55.120 Yeah.
00:35:55.380 But our professor, the math guy, I'm so impressed with, he explains why, I was like, we need
00:35:59.700 someone to explain why you need trigonometry.
00:36:02.160 I mean, why do you need it?
00:36:03.220 I didn't really, I couldn't really do statistics till I understood why everything was structured
00:36:13.160 in the manner that it was structured.
00:36:15.200 I needed to know why.
00:36:16.360 And did you learn that on your own?
00:36:18.440 Oh yeah, completely.
00:36:18.900 Yeah.
00:36:19.280 So for my statistics, this was year one university, which was a health nightmare.
00:36:25.580 And I skipped everything.
00:36:27.960 And on the final exam, I was cramming.
00:36:30.420 And so I learned everything myself from the textbook.
00:36:32.600 I got an A.
00:36:33.280 I ended up with a D in the course.
00:36:34.580 And I was like, should have done that at the beginning of the course instead of at the
00:36:38.640 end of the course, because I aced the final.
00:36:41.260 That was my statistics experience.
00:36:42.800 But I had to Google everything.
00:36:44.680 I used like Khan Academy and things to really learn.
00:36:48.340 Yeah.
00:36:48.800 Yeah.
00:36:49.320 There's a great book called A History of Statistical Thought that I can't, unfortunately
00:36:53.320 can't remember the name of the author, but that was extremely useful.
00:36:55.780 But yeah, it's hard to find a good teacher and a good teacher has to, well, a really great
00:37:01.620 teacher.
00:37:02.140 Yeah, fair enough.
00:37:03.340 A great teacher acts out a moral commitment to the topic.
00:37:07.740 You know, a huge part of what you're doing as a teacher isn't imparting information.
00:37:12.880 Books do that more effectively.
00:37:14.260 What you're doing as a teacher often is setting the motivational frame and dramatizing the
00:37:20.320 process of being engaged with the material.
00:37:22.380 Oh yeah, that's so true.
00:37:23.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:24.780 Well, that's why it's a lecture theater, right?
00:37:27.360 You're acting out a commitment to the enterprise and you're dramatizing that.
00:37:32.720 You're saying, look, this grips me.
00:37:35.400 This is important.
00:37:36.340 It's vital.
00:37:36.980 Here's why.
00:37:37.680 This will change your life.
00:37:38.520 This will change your life.
00:37:39.660 Yeah, yeah.
00:37:40.060 This will change your life.
00:37:41.180 Yeah.
00:37:41.400 Cool.
00:37:41.760 Yeah, protect you from the pit and orient you upward.
00:37:45.520 Yeah.
00:37:45.780 And so, and you better get that right because the pit is deep, right?
00:37:50.760 So, so pay attention or else, right?
00:37:54.940 Well, and then people think, oh, maybe there's something here.
00:37:57.460 Yeah.
00:37:57.900 And that can be any topic if you get somebody passionate about it.
00:38:00.080 It is.
00:38:00.500 Well, every, every phenomenon, phenomenon means it's from famous thigh.
00:38:08.020 It means to shine forth.
00:38:09.680 So, every phenomenon is a worthy target of inquiry and some will grip you and some won't.
00:38:19.000 And what they're doing when they grip you is shining forth.
00:38:22.120 That's the world manifesting itself in accordance with your interest.
00:38:27.860 And so, something will grip you, right?
00:38:29.600 It'll shine forth.
00:38:30.580 That's what happens when you find someone attractive, for example, or something strikes you as beautiful
00:38:35.000 or interesting.
00:38:35.640 So, that's the shining forth.
00:38:37.320 So, what that shining forth is, is the deep reality underneath your surface perception,
00:38:44.540 making itself known, glimmering.
00:38:47.640 And then that's what the burning bush is in the Moses story.
00:38:50.460 And then if you pay attention to that phenomenon and you investigate it deeply,
00:38:56.960 you go down the rabbit hole to the bottom of all things and you see where everything's connected.
00:39:02.100 That's where the animating spirit of the world resides.
00:39:05.660 So, that's what happens when Moses steps off the beaten path to investigate the burning bush,
00:39:11.380 which is like the living phenomenon.
00:39:14.140 He concentrates intensely until he gets to the bottom of something.
00:39:19.980 And when he gets to the bottom of something, that transforms him into a leader.
00:39:24.460 Now he can speak truth to power.
00:39:26.700 Now he can free the slaves from their, what, complacency and irresponsibility.
00:39:33.440 And now he can specify the promised land.
00:39:36.140 That's what you're doing when you're gripped by a topic.
00:39:40.740 And the grip is the revelation of a deeper reality beyond the surface appearance.
00:39:46.200 And that's what you're trying to convey to your students.
00:39:48.080 It's like most of what you see in the world is the facade of your assumption and ignorance.
00:39:55.200 There's something deep there.
00:39:57.140 And if you could only see it, and if you made contact with it,
00:40:01.020 then it would change you and everything else.
00:40:04.180 That's right.
00:40:04.980 That's how the world is structured.
00:40:06.640 And you can see more of that at petersonacademy.com.
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00:41:07.860 And our final guest today is a pre-recorded message from Carl from Alberta.
00:41:17.140 Ah, Alberta!
00:41:18.080 To set up my question, I have four kids and spent years as a scout leader.
00:41:23.600 What engages me is sharing challenging experiences and seeing growth.
00:41:28.420 Following your podcast, you indicated IQ is most malleable before adulthood sets in.
00:41:34.820 Going forward, what would be the best experiences I could provide for the boys in our youth program?
00:41:40.700 Now, what's behind this?
00:41:42.600 I have a hard time thinking there isn't some path that can develop one's intelligence.
00:41:48.540 After all, we humans have added substantially.
00:41:51.320 And if you're on a spiritual plane, time isn't the issue.
00:41:55.560 Progression or rate of progression is what I'd like to tap into.
00:41:59.340 As a dad, the family and even those in the community should come along for the ride.
00:42:03.460 But how could I do that best?
00:42:05.780 Okay, so there's a number of questions there.
00:42:08.800 There's a question about IQ.
00:42:10.220 There's a question about motivation for mentorship.
00:42:13.880 And then there's a question about optimal development.
00:42:18.500 Is IQ most malleable before adulthood?
00:42:21.920 Is that something you can even change?
00:42:24.200 Well, you can certainly suppress it.
00:42:27.000 Yeah, diet and etc.
00:42:28.820 Right, nutrition.
00:42:29.900 Well, diet and insufficient information.
00:42:32.500 The issue, the problem is, to some degree, is that there's enough information in the world that's accessible to everyone so that a limit on information isn't the issue with regard to IQ development.
00:42:45.860 Right?
00:42:46.120 There's more than enough information for everyone at every level of intelligence to have.
00:42:51.080 Was that an issue before?
00:42:52.980 Well...
00:42:53.400 I mean, there's still the world.
00:42:55.120 Yes, true.
00:42:56.000 But yes, it was an issue before, I would say.
00:42:58.360 Because you could be in an informationally impoverished environment.
00:43:02.860 I mean, it's complicated.
00:43:05.660 Because the problem is, is that when you're more intelligent, say, by nature, you investigate things and discover more complexity in them.
00:43:15.700 Right?
00:43:16.060 So, if you're curious enough, there's no limited environment.
00:43:20.480 You rely on your own imagination.
00:43:23.180 So, and we don't really know, we don't really know how to increase IQ.
00:43:32.260 We don't know.
00:43:33.960 There's been, there were all sorts of companies.
00:43:37.560 Ten years ago, there was a company that was advertising continually these cognitive exercises.
00:43:42.260 Oh yeah, I remember those.
00:43:42.880 Yeah, I don't remember the name of the company, but it's vanished.
00:43:46.500 And this happens repeatedly, that companies pop up and they say, we have this set of cognitive exercises that will keep your IQ intact and develop it.
00:43:54.880 And then they do the research and they find that if you practice the little exercise, you get way better at it, but it doesn't generalize.
00:44:03.040 And that's like, you just can't believe how solid a finding that is.
00:44:06.860 People have tried for a very long time.
00:44:09.080 And it's peculiar because what you might think, there is a general, there's a general cognitive ability that's corrected for age, that's IQ.
00:44:19.800 It's very easy to derive an IQ estimate.
00:44:22.320 One of the things you can do, for example, you could take a hundred multiple choice questions about random topics and you could administer them, let's say, to a hundred people.
00:44:32.980 And you could rank order them in terms of how many questions you get, right.
00:44:37.260 And you could correct that for age and that would be IQ.
00:44:39.740 That's how easy it is.
00:44:41.200 Yeah.
00:44:41.380 So, and so it's very robust phenomenon.
00:44:44.780 You might assume that because there's a general, if you're prone to get one question right, you're prone to get all of them right, right?
00:44:54.400 So there's that general tendency.
00:44:56.620 You might think that because there's a general tendency, you could practice a variety of different cognitive tasks and that practice would generalize and it would increase that general ability.
00:45:08.880 Nope.
00:45:09.400 Nope.
00:45:11.380 That isn't how it works.
00:45:12.760 Now you can decrease IQ by putting people in information, informationally poor environments and through malnutrition, through abuse, but there's no evidence that I know of that you can reliably increase IQ with time.
00:45:30.220 I'll give you an example of this.
00:45:31.340 So there was a huge program in the United States that started in the 1960s, which was supported by conservatives and liberals alike called Head Start.
00:45:40.820 And I think Head Start still operates.
00:45:43.200 The idea was that you could take kids in relatively deprived socioeconomic environments and you could put them in school earlier and in an enriched environment and that would give them a head start.
00:45:55.300 And the consequences of that cognitive head start would multiply as they progressed, right?
00:46:01.400 So you get in early, sort things out cognitively, like motivate reading development.
00:46:08.780 The benefits will accrue and multiply across time.
00:46:11.960 The kids will gain a head start.
00:46:13.560 No, that isn't what happened.
00:46:15.340 No, what happened was that the kids who went to Head Start did do better than their age-matched and socioeconomic-matched peers who didn't go to Head Start, but the differences disappeared by grade five or grade six.
00:46:31.280 So there was no improvement in cognitive function.
00:46:34.500 Now, there is a variety of reasons for that, which we won't go into.
00:46:37.420 There were some behavioral improvements.
00:46:39.620 It was likely because some of the kids were taken out of extremely pathological families.
00:46:45.880 Less abuse.
00:46:46.980 Yeah, yeah, right.
00:46:48.000 That's right.
00:46:48.520 That's right.
00:46:48.980 And girls were less likely to get pregnant who had gone to Head Start in adolescence.
00:46:53.280 And the kids in general were more likely to graduate, but there was no improvement in cognitive function.
00:47:00.380 And that was really saddening, right?
00:47:03.440 Because it was a good hypothesis.
00:47:04.680 Like the idea that you could get a leap ahead early seems so obvious that you'd think it was incontrovertible.
00:47:13.300 It just happens not to be true.
00:47:15.340 Yeah.
00:47:15.800 Not to get way off kilter here, but we know psychedelics improve openness to experience.
00:47:22.400 Yeah.
00:47:22.700 But they haven't seen any changes in cognitive ability due to that?
00:47:26.580 No, that's also odd.
00:47:28.280 Well, I think it's partly because you can make it...
00:47:31.260 Look, if you have a higher IQ, which means you're faster at processing and you can process more bits of information, so to speak,
00:47:39.740 you can hold more ideas and manipulate them simultaneously.
00:47:44.400 That's part of the element of general cognitive ability.
00:47:47.040 You're faster and you can juggle more.
00:47:50.660 Okay.
00:47:50.820 Creativity is positively associated with IQ, but it has an additional element, which is the improbability of the ideational connections you make.
00:48:01.700 So the more creative you are, the bigger the leaps between ideas.
00:48:05.920 Now, you can get so creative that you're manic and incoherent.
00:48:10.460 Right.
00:48:10.800 But, and that would be the...
00:48:14.280 You're connecting everything.
00:48:15.520 Yeah, exactly.
00:48:16.340 Everything is connecting.
00:48:17.420 Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
00:48:21.220 Psychedelics do appear to increase that trait openness, that ability to make more distal connections,
00:48:28.380 and also attraction to aesthetic experience, because that's part of openness.
00:48:34.720 But I see, I've seen no evidence whatsoever that they have an enhancing effect on intelligence.
00:48:40.920 It's proved very, very, very difficult to increase IQ.
00:48:45.360 Very.
00:48:45.760 No one's done it.
00:48:46.760 No one's done it.
00:48:47.420 I bet if you got rid of brain fog associated with diet, of course, I'm going to say this, then you'd bump people to where they should be.
00:48:57.020 Breastfed babies have an IQ advantage.
00:48:59.680 There is evidence that...
00:49:00.420 Long term?
00:49:01.100 Yeah.
00:49:01.460 Oh my gosh, that's horrifying.
00:49:03.620 Yeah, yeah.
00:49:03.940 Are you serious?
00:49:04.940 Well, it's in keeping with it.
00:49:07.260 Your brain is a very demanding metabolic organ.
00:49:09.880 If you optimize its function, it's going to work better.
00:49:12.780 That seems to have accruing benefits from birth onward.
00:49:17.260 If you don't get enough to eat, and you're stunted in your development physically,
00:49:22.400 you saw this with populations all around the world who never got enough to eat, you know.
00:49:26.840 So the men would grow up and be 5'2", 5'3", instead of the full 6 feet they might be if they had enough to eat.
00:49:34.240 That's associated with intellectual stunting.
00:49:36.460 And the best way to protect your IQ as you age isn't to do cognitive exercises.
00:49:44.640 It's actually to optimize your nutrition and to do physical exercises.
00:49:49.000 You know, the brain is a very physical organ, and optimized health is the best adjunct to increased cognitive ability.
00:49:57.120 So, yeah.
00:49:58.040 And so I don't think I said, as the questioner indicated, I don't believe I said that IQ is most malleable when you're young.
00:50:03.800 It might be most malleable downward, but it's a very—IQ is very stable across time.
00:50:13.840 Very.
00:50:14.760 And it's a perverse phenomena.
00:50:16.740 So here's an example.
00:50:18.160 If you take twins, identical twins separated at birth, and you test them repeatedly for IQ as they age,
00:50:27.280 what you'd expect is that their IQs would get more different as their experiences diverge.
00:50:34.140 That isn't what happens.
00:50:35.460 What happens is that as they age, their IQs get more similar until, regardless of how they were raised,
00:50:43.320 by the time they're 60, if you test one twin and the other, they're so similar that it's like you test the same person twice.
00:50:51.600 What's the point of doing anything, then, just to play devil's advocate here?
00:50:57.400 Well, there's lots of things about development that aren't specifically associated with processing speed.
00:51:04.240 You know, no, that's a good question.
00:51:06.420 And to some degree, this questioner was asking that question, right?
00:51:09.860 He focused on intellectual development, which probably wasn't appropriate.
00:51:13.700 Probably, and I think he knows this, he said that he really found motivation in challenging young people to develop themselves.
00:51:23.320 Yeah, progress.
00:51:24.960 Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're getting smarter in the IQ sense.
00:51:28.840 It might easily mean that their character is developing and they're becoming wiser, right?
00:51:35.140 And that they're developing, you know, a body of practical, specific, useful information.
00:51:42.040 IQ is most correlated with how fast you learn something.
00:51:47.300 You can learn something slower and still learn it, right?
00:51:51.600 So what you're hoping for when you're educating people is more character development on the moral side.
00:51:59.180 Yeah, agreed, agreed.
00:51:59.840 Yeah, and so, and his pleasure in challenging kids and putting them on the edge and developing them is actually a reflection, should be more accurately a reflection of concern with character rather than with intelligence per se, right?
00:52:14.880 You can have high IQ and have poor moral character.
00:52:17.780 That's for sure.
00:52:18.280 Yes, absolutely.
00:52:18.980 We see that all over America.
00:52:20.380 We certainly do, and vice versa.
00:52:22.760 You can be a very good person who's, there's no correlation between morality and intelligence, like literally none.
00:52:33.020 If you think about conscientiousness and agreeableness as the moral categories, it's tricky.
00:52:40.400 Conscientiousness is associated with industriousness and orderliness.
00:52:44.100 Conscientiousness, conscientious people can keep long-term contracts.
00:52:48.200 They tend to abide by their word.
00:52:50.280 The correlation between conscientiousness and IQ is zero, zero, right?
00:52:55.300 Which is quite remarkable.
00:52:57.240 You know, it's not what you'd expect, but it happens to be the case.
00:53:00.460 There's no correlation.
00:53:01.900 Like, agreeableness is trickier because agreeable people are compassionate and polite, and it's easy to think about that as virtuous.
00:53:08.180 But disagreeable people who are competitive and critical, that's also a virtue.
00:53:16.140 So, but there's also no correlation between agreeableness and intelligence.
00:53:20.800 So, character and intelligence are not the same thing, and it's more appropriate to evaluate the quality of a person.
00:53:29.360 It's so tricky because intelligence is so helpful because you're faster, eh?
00:53:33.740 You're faster and broader.
00:53:35.000 And so, in a head-to-head competition between two people of equal character, the more intelligent person is going to move quicker.
00:53:43.880 And that's a rough fact, and it's, like, it's a brutal fact of nature.
00:53:50.680 But, like, also, who cares?
00:53:52.020 You can't do anything about it, so move on.
00:53:54.640 You maximize the, you maximize what you have at your disposal.
00:53:59.820 You know, there are other virtues.
00:54:01.600 There are virtues.
00:54:02.160 First of all, intelligence isn't a virtue.
00:54:05.000 And it's a responsibility.
00:54:07.860 It's a gift.
00:54:09.020 And it's a gift that, if misused, brings immense cost.
00:54:15.240 Like, Lucifer, mythologically, is the spirit of the intellect gone wrong.
00:54:20.620 Right?
00:54:20.920 So, like, high intelligence can be a very destructive force and a curse.
00:54:26.880 Right?
00:54:27.340 It's associated with pride, for example, in the mythological world.
00:54:32.860 So, lots of people who are smart are very proud of themselves for being smart.
00:54:37.200 That's a very bad idea.
00:54:38.580 First of all, they didn't earn it.
00:54:40.660 And they're probably not that smart.
00:54:42.120 Well...
00:54:42.560 You know, in the greater scheme of, like, God.
00:54:44.920 Yeah.
00:54:45.480 Yeah.
00:54:45.980 Yeah.
00:54:46.360 Yeah.
00:54:46.620 Well, there is that to consider.
00:54:47.920 Well, on that note, thank you all for watching and listening today.
00:54:52.800 We'll be back with more episodes.
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