The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - You have an Endless Potential

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00:00:16.200 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and

00:00:20.660 important. Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those

00:00:25.680 battling depression and anxiety. We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions

00:00:30.560 can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.

00:00:35.180 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you

00:00:40.620 might be feeling this way in his new series. He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that

00:00:45.500 while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you're

00:00:50.800 suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.

00:00:56.900 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.

00:01:02.560 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.

00:01:13.960 Welcome to Season 2, Episode 29 of the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. I'm Mikayla Peterson,

00:01:19.840 Dad's daughter and collaborator. This is a podcast done in Dublin, Ireland, recorded on October 21st,

00:01:27.020 2018. The lecture this week is fun. Dad goes into a bit of his background at the beginning of it.

00:01:34.220 An update on ThinkSpot. ThinkSpot, the social media platform Dad is involved with, was launched last

00:01:40.920 Monday. Be sure to sign up on the website at ThinkSpot.com to wait for an invite. They're inviting 10,000

00:01:47.740 people in each week. 250,000 people have already signed up. You can annotate books, videos, podcasts,

00:01:55.720 support your favorite content providers, and join an intellectual community that doesn't exist

00:02:00.800 elsewhere. I have a page. Jocko Willink is on there. Dad is, of course. An author that is amazing,

00:02:09.480 writes really great kind of murder mystery books. That's a terrible way of describing it.

00:02:15.860 Thriller is more like. Kind of like the Bourne series. Greg Hurwitz is on there. Sign up and use

00:02:22.880 the code LIONDIET, one word, to get invited in faster. Yes, I stuck my promo code in there, but it's

00:02:31.180 just so listeners can get invited in faster than everybody else who's trying to get into ThinkSpot.

00:02:37.780 I've named this podcast, You Have an Endless Potential.

00:02:45.560 You Have an Endless Potential, a 12 Rules for Life lecture by Jordan B. Peterson.

00:02:50.060 Thank you. Well, thank you. You sound like people who need to get out more. Although wandering

00:03:08.360 around Dublin, that's the last thing you'd ever think that Dubliners need to do.

00:03:12.160 So I'm going to talk to you tonight about my book, 12 Rules for Life, and also about my

00:03:20.360 first book because they're tangled together in hopefully something approximating a coherent

00:03:26.100 way. But I was thinking backstage about whether or not I had a good Irish story. And I actually

00:03:33.320 do. I have a really good Irish story. It's really a weird story. So I thought I'd tell it

00:03:38.300 to you. So my full name is Jordan Berendt Peterson. And that's a pretty good Scandinavian

00:03:46.940 name, except for the Jordan part. But Berendt is a Scandinavian name, and so is Peterson. And

00:03:52.100 my father is Norwegian, and my mother is German and English. And my dad grew up in a log cabin

00:04:02.740 in the prairies in Canada. His parents moved into Saskatchewan, part of the prairie, very northern

00:04:11.060 prairie in North America. They moved there in, I believe, 1905, and set up a homestead and

00:04:17.180 built a log cabin. And he grew up there. And his first language was actually Norwegian. And

00:04:23.160 so my father is kind of happy about his Norwegian heritage. And he visited Norway, and my sister

00:04:30.800 worked there. And so that's part of our family lore, I suppose. So now, about... My dad is

00:04:41.760 still alive, by the way. He's about... He's 82 now, I think, and doing quite well. So is

00:04:46.960 my mother. And anyways, about 10 years ago, something like that, he went to visit my sister

00:04:53.800 in California. And she lives down there in Silicon Valley, near San Francisco. And he

00:05:02.760 got quite ill. He developed pancreatitis. And that can be quite nasty. And he was in the

00:05:09.400 hospital, in the Stanford Hospital, where my sister also worked as a nurse. And he was really

00:05:16.600 not in good shape. And he was delirious for about a week, and on high doses of medication.

00:05:22.460 And the strangest thing happened. And this is a strange thing. So the first thing you have

00:05:28.060 to know to make sense of this story, apart from the fact that my father is Norwegian, is

00:05:33.580 that he doesn't sing. So now I can remember him singing the odd song in the car when we drove

00:05:40.040 around when I was a kid. Rare occasions, he would sing the lucky old son. It's an old

00:05:45.900 folk song. But other than that, no. He doesn't sing. And he's a very classically masculine person,

00:05:55.640 I would say. So... But what happened in the hospital was that he started singing Irish folk

00:06:01.500 songs. Like, not in Gaelic. Thank God. But Irish folk songs. And quite a few of them. And my mother

00:06:11.320 was absolutely shocked. And in tune, as well. And my mother was very shocked by this. Because,

00:06:17.880 well, he didn't sing. And if he was going to sing, like, Irish folk songs weren't part of his

00:06:23.620 background. So that was damn strange. So... But he recovered and stopped being delirious.

00:06:31.500 And stopped singing Irish folk songs. So... So that was all well and good. We filed that

00:06:38.020 under incomprehensible phenomena. Not to be thought about again. Until my daughter

00:06:46.140 got interested in her genetic heritage. And so she ordered a kit online. My daughter, as you may know,

00:06:56.780 if you read 12 Rules for Life, has been quite ill. And she was trying to track down what my

00:07:01.480 might be wrong with her. And so she ordered this kit called 23andMe. Which does a genetic

00:07:06.940 analysis. And she had my grandparents, and me, and my wife, and so on, also get tested.

00:07:15.920 Get our DNA tested. Now, there's one other part of this story that you need to know.

00:07:21.000 So, so my grandfather, so my dad's father, was adopted. So we don't know anything about his

00:07:28.860 heritage going back. But he lived in a Norwegian community. And so we assumed that his parents

00:07:36.480 were Norwegian. So anyways, my dad got his DNA tested, and he was 30% Irish.

00:07:43.160 So, you know, there was a sneaky Irishman lurking in the background a couple of generations back. But

00:07:59.980 we thought that, in keeping with the whole Irish folk song episode, was something surreal, to say the

00:08:07.940 least. So, anyways, it turns out that I'm not Norwegian, English, German. I'm Norwegian, Irish, English, and German.

00:08:16.580 So, yeah. So, which I suppose accounts for my immense love of beer in my youth. Which I've had to,

00:08:28.780 unfortunately, give up. Which is a very painful thing to come to Dublin, and to go by the Guinness

00:08:33.640 brewery, and not to be able to, you know, enjoy some of that. But that's life. So, anyways, I'm very

00:08:41.440 happy to be here. Ridiculously happy to be here, as a matter of fact. And it's been fun to wander

00:08:46.860 around the city. And this is the second time I've been here in this year, right? Because I came here

00:08:50.980 and had the first discussion with Sam Harris. And as far as I know, that was the largest

00:08:56.220 philosophical gathering, let's say, a public philosophical gathering ever. Apparently,

00:09:03.460 the promoter is trying to get that entered into the Guinness Book of World Records. Which is a

00:09:08.780 strange, you know, it's the largest philosophical gathering. It's like, that's a strange category. But

00:09:14.020 lots of strange things have happened. So, that's just one more of them. And, anyways, I'm very happy to

00:09:20.020 be here. And so, now I'll spend the rest of the time, I suppose, talking about things that are

00:09:24.140 perhaps a little bit more serious. But that's my, that's my Irish story. And I really don't know

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00:12:26.540 So as Dave pointed out, this is the 86th city that my wife and I have been. Dave's been along for

00:12:33.580 about 60 of the events, I think. So I've spoken to about 270,000 people live, I guess, since February.

00:12:43.180 So that's really something. And all of this is really something, right? To see people come out to

00:12:47.880 engage in, well, something approximating a serious psychological or philosophical discussion. It

00:12:53.920 was no, by no means obvious to anyone, I suppose, likely, including all of you, that there would be a

00:13:00.100 public, that there would be public demand for such a thing. But it turns out that we might actually be

00:13:05.140 smarter than we gave ourselves credit for. And, well, it's possible. Like, one of the things that I've

00:13:09.620 really thought through, because I've been trying to understand why this is, like, how it is that

00:13:13.780 this is happening. And, you know, it would be, I suppose, beneficial to my ego in the very short

00:13:20.660 term to assume that it could be credited to me. But I think it's mostly a consequence of a

00:13:26.860 technological, of the technological revolution that's characteristic of online video and podcasts,

00:13:33.640 essentially. Because one of the things that's happened is the bandwidth cost for the dissemination

00:13:39.120 of information in large scale has fallen basically to zero, right? And so for the longest period of

00:13:46.040 time, you still see this if you go do TV. And I still do network TV and that sort of thing now and

00:13:50.660 then. Although I tell you, it feels like stepping back into 1975 doing that. It really does. It's

00:13:56.080 really starting to feel like an archaic technology because it's so scripted and so stilted because of

00:14:03.720 that and so difficult to have a genuine interaction with the person that you're talking to, partly because

00:14:08.780 they don't actually get to have a genuine interaction. Because the medium that they're

00:14:14.660 dealing with, broadcast television, is so expensive that they're not allowed to take any chances.

00:14:21.400 And every second counts, right? Because every second is expensive. And so everything has to be

00:14:26.300 scripted and ready. And so, whereas with YouTube, it's like, no, bandwidth is basically free.

00:14:34.580 So you can talk about things for a long time. And then it turns out that people actually want to

00:14:40.360 listen to discussions that take a long time, right? And not an hour, which is a long time by TV

00:14:48.240 standards, but like three hours. So you have people like Joe Rogan, whose podcast gets an amazing 1.5

00:14:56.800 billion downloads a year, right? Which makes Rogan, as far as I can tell, the most powerful interviewer

00:15:03.760 who's ever lived, likely by an order of magnitude. And so, and you know, you see this also happening in

00:15:10.260 other technological domains. For a long time, it was sort of a rule of thumb on television that

00:15:17.040 you were really pushing your audience's capacity for sustained attention if you showed them a 90-minute

00:15:23.380 movie, right? That was about that. That's what people could tolerate. It's like, well, that turned

00:15:27.960 out just to be just unbelievably wrong. Like, I don't know how many of you have watched Game of

00:15:32.840 Thrones, but like, how long is that? It's, what is it, up to 90 hours? It's got to be at least that. And

00:15:39.320 it has an incredibly complex set of plot lines. And it's just one of many shows like that. People

00:15:45.480 will binge watch these things, perhaps not all 90 hours in a row. But it's not like, well, you're watching

00:15:51.100 it for 10 minutes and, you know, then your attention span is gone and you have to rest

00:15:56.080 for a day. People are much more sophisticated consumers of auditory and visual material than

00:16:06.740 we ever thought. And so that's pretty cool. And I think it's a genuinely compelling revolution

00:16:14.140 in some sense. I've thought a lot about, I started thinking a lot about YouTube. I would say, I guess

00:16:20.120 it's almost two and a half years ago, I put up my YouTube channel in the year 2013.

00:16:25.580 And I did that because I had done some videos for a television station in Canada called TV

00:16:30.640 Ontario. And they had, I worked for a show there called The Agenda, which was a public

00:16:35.420 news show and a pretty good one. But I also did lectures for this series called Big Ideas.

00:16:40.380 And the guy who produced that, Roderick Schemberg, really should have been working on YouTube,

00:16:44.900 but it was a little early for that. And what he did was have public intellectuals, about 200

00:16:49.860 of them, just deliver a lecture and filmed it and put it on TV. And he tried to get TVO

00:16:55.620 to be interested in building that into something online, you know. But I'm afraid, like I said,

00:17:01.460 I'm afraid he was about five years ahead of the curve. In any case, they didn't.

00:17:06.360 And Big Ideas went along. Anyways, it is posted on YouTube. But what happened to me was I did five

00:17:17.820 Big Ideas lectures. And they were in, all five of them stayed in the top 20 most popular of all

00:17:24.280 the lectures. And so I thought that was kind of interesting. You know, it's a data point. And then

00:17:29.480 I did a TV, 13-part TV program with TVO on my book, Maps of Meaning, which was, so I taught this

00:17:37.820 course, Maps of Meaning, since 1993. I taught it at McGill first, when I was there as a graduate

00:17:43.980 student, to other graduate students, not as a credit course, but just as a seminar that people

00:17:48.100 were interested in. And then I taught it at Harvard for six years. It was a very popular course there.

00:17:53.640 And then I offered the course for almost 20 years at the University of Toronto. And it was also a very

00:17:58.820 popular course. The most common comment from students was that the course had completely

00:18:04.220 changed their lives. It completely changed the way they looked at the world. And that didn't

00:18:08.260 surprise me that much, in some ways, because figuring out, reading and thinking about what

00:18:15.380 I was teaching in that course completely changed my life. So it seemed that if I was propagating

00:18:22.820 the information properly, it would have the same effect. And it's also not that surprising that if

00:18:28.380 you're capable of presenting people with hypothetically profound philosophical and

00:18:35.120 psychological material, especially material that's clinically relevant, that would have

00:18:39.940 some effect on their lives, because that was the point. That's why people came up with the

00:18:45.780 material to begin with. So, but in any case, it is what happened. And so, viewing that, I got a bit

00:18:52.360 of a reputation in Ontario and a bit, you know, a smaller reputation in Canada. But people became

00:18:58.200 somewhat familiar with what I was doing. And they seemed pleased with it, which was very surprising

00:19:01.900 to me, partly because of its complexity and partly because when I was working as a panelist, I'm,

00:19:08.880 I'm, you know, I have rather pronounced opinions. Let's put it that way. And it isn't obvious that when you

00:19:16.120 have pronounced opinions that people are going to respond positively to them. And, but people did. And so that

00:19:21.700 was quite a shock to me. And it still is quite a shock. So then I thought, well, YouTube came along and I

00:19:29.500 thought, well, what is this medium? It's like, you can put video online. What does that mean? Well, no one knew, you

00:19:37.400 know, YouTube looked like a cute cat video repository for about a decade. And maybe that's okay, because

00:19:44.480 it's harmless to watch animals do entertaining and amusing things. But it's not something that you

00:19:49.980 would necessarily take seriously. But so I started just recording my lectures with an iPad and a lavalier

00:19:56.560 mic, really low tech stuff. But, but the content was there. One of the things that's really interesting

00:20:03.780 about YouTube, I find, and maybe this is characteristic of modern consumers of, of online

00:20:11.220 media is YouTube viewers actually don't like high production quality. They don't trust it. Like

00:20:17.340 they like good audio that, and, and, and of course, because it's just annoying. And sometimes I don't

00:20:21.940 have good audio for a variety of reasons, but it's just annoying to listen to something if it's hard to

00:20:26.020 listen to, but they don't really like complex edits and they don't, they don't like high production

00:20:32.500 values. Partly because I think most of them know how to do that themselves or many of them do. So

00:20:37.120 they're not impressed by it technically. And they also don't really trust it. What they trust is here's

00:20:41.880 the whole story, make up your own mind. And that's good. That's, and that's, I think one of the reasons

00:20:47.720 Rogan is so popular. It's just, he talks to people, whatever happens, he puts online and then you get to

00:20:53.180 make up your own mind as opposed to say NBC news, who've interviewed me a year ago for 90 minutes and then

00:21:01.120 made a seven minute version where they did virtually everything right up to cutting single words and

00:21:08.040 putting them in sentences that they wanted me to say, you know, and, and really got pilloried for it

00:21:14.160 because the people on YouTube who were watching were savvy enough to see exactly what had happened

00:21:19.760 and then actually compared the edits to the actual interview, you know, one-on-one when, when NBC

00:21:25.640 released some more of it. In any case, um, I put up these videos of my classes, uncut, on, um, YouTube. And by

00:21:37.800 March of 2016, I had had a million views. And I thought, and the mean viewing time was 20 minutes.

00:21:48.160 It's not a great statistic, mean viewing time, because that isn't what you want to know, because most people

00:21:53.700 will click on a video and then just go to the next one. So the typical person is probably watching

00:21:57.860 for like five seconds, but obviously a lot of people were watching for a lot longer than that

00:22:02.600 because the average wouldn't have got up to 20 minutes. And so I thought, well, look, not only are

00:22:06.540 people watching this, like clicking on it, they're actually watching. And I thought, well, what is this?

00:22:12.760 12 million, 1 million views. What do you think when you get a million of something? Well, if you sell a million

00:22:18.740 books, that's a home run, right? That's just, that never happens. And you never get, a million people

00:22:24.960 never read a scientific paper. I mean, that, that never happens. A million is a lot. And so it, it made

00:22:32.540 me think because there was also no metric for appreciating what that might meant, what that might

00:22:38.640 mean. And, but it struck me as significant. And then I thought about it. I thought, oh, I see what's

00:22:43.460 going on here. Maybe. This is a Gutenberg revolution. This is as important as the printing

00:22:50.000 press. Why? Because the spoken word now has the same reach and longevity as the written

00:22:57.140 word. And that's never happened before in human history. It's like, so what does that

00:23:02.840 mean? Well, the answer is, we don't know what it means. It means something like whatever the

00:23:08.680 printing press meant. And that turned out to be quite a lot. But it might be extraordinarily

00:23:14.040 significant. Think, well, first of all, if you want to write a book, that's like three

00:23:18.260 years work minimum, like flat out bloody work just to write it. And perhaps a lot more than

00:23:23.460 that. And then it's two years of trouble editing and publishing. And then like, so it's, it's

00:23:29.840 a five-year enterprise minimum. And then the probability that it's going to succeed is like

00:23:36.560 zero. It's, you, you, you just can't believe how many books are published every year. And

00:23:41.640 the vast majority of them sell virtually no copies. And some of that's associated with

00:23:46.840 quality, but there's an arbitrary element to it too. So, but if you want to make a YouTube

00:23:52.000 video that's 20,000 words long, so that would be, you know, maybe two hours, you can do that

00:23:59.720 in one day and publish it. I mean, that's a whole staggering difference in terms of, of,

00:24:06.300 of effort and complexity. Now it kind of means that we're flooded by YouTube videos, but we're

00:24:12.440 flooded by books anyway. So it, it, it, that, that doesn't really make that much difference.

00:24:17.000 But, but another issue with regards to video and, and podcasts as well, because, you know,

00:24:24.580 the podcast market is actually much bigger than the YouTube market. I think it's about

00:24:27.740 10 times as big. People don't pay much attention to podcasts yet as a cultural phenomenon, but

00:24:33.480 they really are something. I mean, lots of young people now listen to podcasts instead

00:24:37.560 of music. And that's really saying something because music has been the dominant, I would

00:24:41.760 say the dominant cultural form for young people since probably the 1950s. So that's

00:24:47.240 a big shift. And then you can also watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts sped up. And so

00:24:54.040 one of the advantages to books, if you can really read is you can read faster than, than you

00:24:58.380 can listen. But if you can listen at three or four times the normal rate, and I have students

00:25:02.640 who do that twice is kind of my top end, but they've got really practiced at it. Then you're

00:25:07.820 starting to hit the same efficiency as reading. And then you can listen to a podcast when you're

00:25:13.860 doing the dishes or when you're mowing the lawn or when you're driving to work or when you're

00:25:17.760 driving. I have lots of people who come to my lectures and afterwards say, well, I'm a long

00:25:23.080 haul trucker. I'm a machine operator. And all I do is listen to podcasts all day. It's like,

00:25:28.260 well, you're not going to read a book while you're driving a long haul truck, but you can

00:25:32.680 listen. And so it's found time as well. So that's another technological revolution. All of a

00:25:37.560 sudden everybody has an hour a day, an hour and a half a day. Some people far more than

00:25:41.860 that commuters who have, and they can just use that time now to engage in intellectually

00:25:47.940 compelling material. And they are doing that. So that's absolutely, well, who knows what

00:25:56.460 that means? But one of the things it means is that, well, here's one of the things it might

00:26:01.900 mean. Here's another thing to consider. You know, like I have a good relationship with books.

00:26:06.000 I love books. But I've loved books ever since I was like three years old. And it was partly

00:26:11.060 because my father spent a lot of time teaching me to read. And I made friends with books when

00:26:15.080 I was very, very young. And I'm a very, what would you call it? I'm a very practiced reader.

00:26:20.520 So they're part of what's familiar to me. I always read before I go to bed at night,

00:26:27.620 for example. And I feel that if I'm sitting down reading, I'm doing something productive.

00:26:31.380 Not everyone feels that way, even though it is productive to sit down and read. It's a minority

00:26:36.700 of people who are really comfortable with books. Like hardly anybody buys books. Not that many

00:26:43.340 people read. And even of the people who read, a small minority buy books. So it's a minority taste.

00:26:49.520 And it's an elite taste in some sense. And part of that's because so many people don't become

00:26:54.900 familiar with books. My friends, when I grew up, I grew up in a working class community. And I had

00:26:59.460 lots of friends who had, their families had zero books in the house. And one of my friends in

00:27:04.680 particular, who is by no means an unintelligent person. He's a very smart person, a very good

00:27:08.840 storyteller. And he's done a lot of interesting things with his life. He was functionally illiterate

00:27:13.160 when, by the, even by the time he hit grade 10, he'd never read a whole book in his life. And

00:27:17.180 it wasn't that rare. And it's not that rare. But so, you know, it's a minority of people who can read,

00:27:23.920 who do read. And it's a minority of people who can read really fluently and who are comfortable with books.

00:27:28.720 But God only knows how many people can watch and listen. Like, everybody can listen. You know,

00:27:34.560 I mean, every kid can listen to a story. Everybody can watch a drama or a movie. So maybe 10 times as

00:27:42.500 many people will watch or listen as would read. And so maybe that opens up a huge market for

00:27:48.600 intellectual discourse that was never there before. And maybe that's a really good thing. I mean,

00:27:53.600 it's possible. So anyways, I think that that's part of what's accounting for all this. And

00:28:00.240 the content is also important, obviously, because you need to be able to use the medium in something

00:28:06.600 approximating a compelling manner and to deliver to people information they find necessary and useful.

00:28:12.620 But we don't want to underestimate the significance and importance of the technological revolution that

00:28:18.920 underlies this. And I also think that, and I'll close this part of the discussion with this,

00:28:24.560 I've also been thinking a lot about political polarization because I've not really been convinced

00:28:30.260 that, especially looking at the U.S., that things are as polarized as they look. You know,

00:28:34.960 I mean, Trump obviously got elected and that's odd because Trump is an anomalous and strange

00:28:42.000 political figure. But I don't think he's, he's not, it's not like Satan himself has landed on the

00:28:47.940 earth. You know, it's not a, it's not the apocalypse. I don't see that the Americans are more polarized than

00:28:54.240 they were under Nixon, let's say, or perhaps even under Reagan. And 50% of Americans voted Republican and 50%

00:29:01.560 voted Democrat in the last election, just like they have for every election since the, for the last

00:29:05.980 20 years. Now, the candidate choice was a little on the undesirable side. You could make that case,

00:29:17.080 although the American economy is booming like it hasn't been since the, I would say, the mid-1960s.

00:29:22.960 So that's quite an interesting phenomenon. But I don't really see that the, that, that there's any

00:29:27.840 evidence that the Americans have polarized to that greater degree. And so what's happening? Well,

00:29:34.720 I think what might be, and, and, and there was an article in the Atlantic Monthly, which I'm going

00:29:39.040 to talk to you about a little bit in the Q&A period, indicating quite clearly that the vast majority of

00:29:44.940 Americans, and I'm considering them proxies for, for, for Western people in general, you know, the vast

00:29:52.200 majority of them are moderate. So there's about 8% radical leftists and about 6% radical right-wingers,

00:29:59.520 and everyone else is in the middle wondering what the hell's going on with the radical leftists and

00:30:04.240 the radical right-wingers. And, and, and so there isn't any evidence for tremendous increases in number

00:30:11.820 of people's, people at the polarized edges of the political distribution. As well, I think what might be

00:30:17.980 happening, and this is something to keep in mind, although I'm not sure about this. So YouTube and

00:30:24.340 podcasts, and obviously online written media are presenting, and, and Google as well, are presenting

00:30:31.220 a huge challenge to mainstream media outlets. So I know that in the UK, the London Times announced this

00:30:39.260 month and a half ago, more people get their video news online now from, from online sources, not from

00:30:47.260 networks, then, then rely on the classic networks. So that's shifted in the last two months. And of

00:30:53.000 course, podcasts produce, are terribly competitive with radio because it's on demand, and everyone can

00:31:00.820 write a blog. And so it's very difficult to be a journalist, like a credible mainstream journalist,

00:31:07.060 when you have a hundred thousand competitors, right? And then there's also the problem that

00:31:12.380 companies like Google have figured out how to pull all the revenue that used to go for

00:31:16.780 advertisements for supporting newspapers. So the mainstream media is having a terrible time of it.

00:31:23.140 I'm actually not sure that anyone watches TV anymore. I think that people have their TVs,

00:31:28.640 I think older people who are alone have their televisions on. And that's not the same as watching

00:31:36.020 it. It's just, I really believe that. I have reason to believe that. I'm not going to go into why,

00:31:40.920 but I have reason to believe that. I mean, first of all, I know some people like that,

00:31:44.660 and that's just anecdotal, but I've had some recent experiences with network television

00:31:48.800 that indicated to me that it doesn't have near the power that is even claimed for the remnants of it.

00:31:56.460 Well, so what happens as the mainstream media deteriorates, let's say, or loses its grip on the

00:32:02.760 attention of all of us? I think the answer is, well, first of all, they start losing their budgets,

00:32:09.360 and they lose their ability to fact check, and they lose their ability to pay their journalists.

00:32:13.960 You know, Time magazine no longer pays its journalists. That's not good, right? That's not

00:32:19.840 a good business model. And then they're losing their grip on public attention because they don't

00:32:27.500 have a monopoly. So what do you do when you lose your grip on attention? And the answer is,

00:32:32.200 well, you go for the easy stories, first of all, because you don't have the resources to chase the

00:32:36.780 difficult ones. And the second thing you do is chase clickbait. And so anything contentious

00:32:43.440 attracts attention. And so I think what's happening is that a disproportionate amount of attention,

00:32:51.540 even in the mainstream media, is being devoted to the radicals on the far right and the radicals on

00:32:56.960 the far left. And the only reason for that is it's the only way that the mainstream media sources can

00:33:02.360 keep their attention quota up. But it's a bad long-term game, right? Because all that happens

00:33:09.400 over time is that people cease to trust the sources, even less, they start trusting them even less than

00:33:16.980 they do now. And so basically what's happening is these companies are exhausting the credibility of

00:33:22.920 their brands in a last-ditch attempt to remain somewhat relevant. And the way that looks to everyone

00:33:29.000 else is that everything's polarized. But it isn't obvious to me that everything is polarized. So we'll

00:33:36.240 see about that. Okay, so that's, well, that's a bit of a discussion about why we might be here and

00:33:43.460 how that came about. And so the positive side of it seems to be that if you present people with

00:33:50.740 relatively sophisticated, long-form information, that they have a very deep hunger for it, that's much

00:34:00.040 more independent even of educational background than anyone would have guessed. And so that's super

00:34:06.400 cool as far as I'm concerned. It's been really something to go all over and see how profound

00:34:15.200 that desire for engagement is. I mean, Sam Harris discussions were a really good example of that

00:34:21.500 because I talked to Sam four times, twice in Vancouver, 3,000 people each time, 8,500 people

00:34:29.640 in Dublin, and then about 6,500 in London. And, you know, the audiences were on board for the entire

00:34:37.240 discussion, two and a half hours long each session, even though the discussions were cumulative across

00:34:42.440 time, you know. And I don't know how many people have watched them online now. It's, it's certainly

00:34:47.400 in the millions if you, if you add it up cumulatively across the platforms. And those were, you know,

00:34:53.720 those were fairly tough discussions and, and, and not on topics that you would think would be

00:34:59.480 particularly gripping. I mean, on religion versus science, that's one way of conceptualizing our

00:35:05.580 discussion. But it was also on the relationship between facts and values. It doesn't sound like

00:35:10.480 something that would bring down the house, you know. People are partying in the street because

00:35:14.860 they get to go see a long discussion on the philosophical relationship between facts and

00:35:20.580 values. It's like, we've really been waiting, we've been gnawing at the bit, waiting for this for a very

00:35:25.480 long time. Turns out that you were, but who, who knew? Who knew? So, so I think that's very optimistic.

00:35:34.740 And, all right. So let's talk, let's talk about, let's go to the book. Let's go to 12 rules. And

00:35:41.680 I'll start with rule 12. I'm going to work backwards, I think. The rule 12 is pet a cat when you encounter

00:35:51.320 one on the street. And often what I do with my lectures is I try to extend what I've been thinking

00:35:57.340 about beyond what I've been able to think so far. So I can use them as an opportunity to test new ideas and

00:36:04.740 to clarify what I'm already thinking. And to do that in real time. And then to sort of watch people

00:36:10.340 and see if I'm on track. Because you can tell if you're talking to an audience if you're on track.

00:36:15.480 Because if you are, then people aren't wrestling around making noise. And so you can listen for

00:36:20.940 silence. And then you can watch people one at a time and see if they're following. And you can tell

00:36:25.760 if they are just like you do if you're having a conversation. People are nodding or they're shaking

00:36:30.100 their head. Or, you know, or they're looking away and bored. Or they're checking their iPhones.

00:36:35.760 That's bad. You don't want that to happen. But silence is a really good marker. And I often have

00:36:43.920 a question that I'm trying to address that sort of serves as a focal point for the discussion.

00:36:49.640 And I thought tonight that the focal point would be vulnerability. And because vulnerability is a

00:36:55.540 major, the major problem, perhaps, right? The fact that people are, that people can be hurt and that

00:37:04.980 we all will be hurt, you know? And that things end for us. That's the fundamental hallmark of

00:37:12.620 vulnerability. We're finite, right? That's a big deal. It's one of the defining characteristics

00:37:19.460 of life. It's certainly one of the only certainties of life. And so vulnerability is a very,

00:37:28.420 it's a primary existential problem. And it's a uniquely human problem because, of course,

00:37:34.860 animals are vulnerable in the same way that we are, except they don't know it. And that's

00:37:40.100 actually a big difference. It's a huge difference to have the shadow of death over you during your

00:37:46.660 entire existence. And it makes us peculiar creatures. One of the things, I'm actually

00:37:51.720 amazed at human beings. You know, when I worked as a clinical psychologist, which was for a long

00:37:59.220 time, I was never surprised that my clients were out of kilter psychologically. That they had anxiety

00:38:08.260 disorders or that they were depressed or, you know, that they had something seriously wrong with them.

00:38:12.080 The people that I was always amazed at were the people who didn't. And it's partly because of my

00:38:19.020 affinity, I would say, for existential psychotherapy. You know, Freud believed that if you had psychological

00:38:26.720 problems as an adult, it was because something untoward, in some sense, had happened to you

00:38:31.360 developmentally. You know, there was various things that might happen, poor parenting or traumatic

00:38:36.380 experiences, that kind of thing. And there's, that's fine, as far as it goes. But the existential

00:38:41.120 psychotherapist in the 1950s, who were admirers of Freud, but also critics of his perspective,

00:38:47.280 pointed out that, look, there's enough trouble in life, just in terms of how life is constituted,

00:38:55.220 to pose a serious challenge to the integrity of people's mental health. Not least the fact that we're

00:39:01.400 vulnerable to physical and mental illness, and that we're also finite. That's, life itself presents

00:39:09.360 a sufficient existential challenge to destabilize you. And that's, that's on the roughest end, the

00:39:17.740 problem of insanity and physical illness and death. But there's also the problem of having to put up with

00:39:22.440 yourself, which is a very difficult problem, and also having to put up with other people. And, and,

00:39:27.520 and the malevolence that's part of that, and the betrayal. And I, I mean, I know that's not the

00:39:32.200 whole story, obviously. There's, there's, that's only the negative part of the story. But none of that

00:39:37.920 is trivial. Lots of people are rejected constantly throughout their lives. I've had plenty of clients

00:39:43.560 who never had anyone to talk to. Like, never, you know? And they were just, they're just dying,

00:39:50.480 sometimes literally, dying to have the 35 years of conversation they needed to have to straighten out

00:39:58.720 their psyches. You know, and so people can be very lonesome and very isolated, rejected by other people,

00:40:05.560 completely independent of all the other problems that, that make up life. And so vulnerability is a very big

00:40:11.000 problem. And you really confront that, I would say, when you have children. That's, that's because, like,

00:40:18.840 adults are vulnerable. But they're at least somewhat competent. They can take care of themselves in the

00:40:24.080 world, to some degree. But children, well, they're more vulnerable than adults, and they can't take

00:40:31.100 care of themselves. And, and they have this kind of innocence, too. You know, you see this, maybe part

00:40:36.240 of this is cynicism. With adults, you see them get into trouble, and part of you thinks, well, you know,

00:40:41.380 if you would have just comported yourself with a bit more nobility and intelligence, then you wouldn't have

00:40:46.020 fallen into that particular hole. And so it's kind of not good that you're in the hole, but, you know,

00:40:52.180 you could have been a little smarter. Man, and sometimes that's fair, and sometimes it's not.

00:40:57.660 You know, it's, it's easy to make that judgment, because I think it's less painful to ascribe blame

00:41:04.440 than it is to notice that sometimes a hole emerges underneath people that has nothing to do with their

00:41:11.320 own doing. You know, and that, that's frightening, because it's so arbitrary, but it's also frightening,

00:41:15.300 because it sort of implies that it might happen to you, and you'd rather think that it isn't going

00:41:20.300 to. So, but with kids, it's like, well, when bad things happen to children, when they become ill,

00:41:28.100 for example, there's no rationale for that that seems to really fit, you know. I spent a lot of time in

00:41:36.240 sick kids' hospital in Toronto, because my daughter was very ill, and my daughter was very ill, but

00:41:42.340 compared to some of the kids that were in the sick kids' hospital, she was like a shining beacon of

00:41:47.380 health, you know, because, well, because no matter how bad it is, no matter how bad it is, you can

00:41:55.360 bloody well be sure there's someone out there that's got it substantially worse, and if you want to see

00:41:59.700 that, then you can go to a hospital for sick children, and you can see the children, and you can see their

00:42:04.620 parents, and it's bloody brutal, you know, because we spent time near multiple organ transplant wards,

00:42:12.020 for example, you know, that's a rough place to be. So, you know, one of the most fundamental

00:42:19.800 existential problems that confronts people is the vulnerability of children, because it's

00:42:26.320 conjoined with their innocence. That's the multiplier, right? It's not just the suffering,

00:42:32.180 it's the suffering and the innocence. It just seems unfair. In The Brothers Karamazov, there's a

00:42:38.580 character, it's Dostoevsky's famous book, which I would highly recommend. It's an absolutely brilliant

00:42:43.900 book. It's an unbelievably compelling read. It's a great audiobook. You can really see Dostoevsky's

00:42:49.780 sense of humor in an audiobook, and it doesn't come across so much when you read it. But Ivan is a

00:42:56.940 charismatic character, very admirable person, and a devout. He's not exactly an atheist. He's someone

00:43:04.380 that just doesn't like God, and which is, and the reason he doesn't like God, although he comes

00:43:10.240 across as an atheist as well, is because, as he says, because of the complete inexcusability of the

00:43:15.580 suffering of children. And he recounts a number of events that actually occurred in Russia about the

00:43:21.620 time that Dostoevsky was writing The Brothers Karamazov. He recounts one story about this young

00:43:26.860 girl who had very cruel parents, and they locked her overnight in an outhouse when it was very, very

00:43:33.180 cold, and she froze to death while she was praying, essentially, and asking out loud, the neighborhood

00:43:40.880 heard, apparently, for forgiveness, you know. And so he said, well, that's just, it's unacceptable that

00:43:48.980 things can be that way, whatever the rationale. And so that was his argument, not so much that there wasn't a God,

00:43:54.600 but sort of against God. And that's, that's a very compelling argument, either against God or, or against the

00:44:02.040 existence of God, is why can things be constituted so that the innocent have to suffer? And that's, I don't know if

00:44:09.260 there's a harder question than that, really. And especially when it faces you personally. And, you know, it'll face all of

00:44:17.120 you to some degree, personally, because I doubt if there's a single person among you who hasn't been

00:44:21.360 faced by, faced with the illness of a child in one form or another. Sometimes it's more brutal than

00:44:27.520 others, but everyone has a taste of that. And even if you don't have it with regards to children, you see your

00:44:31.720 parents get old, and that seems to be pretty damn rough. It really seems unfair that the hardest things

00:44:37.740 that you have to do in your life, when you're 85 and older, let's say, also come when you're the least

00:44:43.780 able to cope with them, in some sense, right? It's, it's, it's, it's hard to reconcile yourself to

00:44:50.660 that. And, and to think of being as such as a justifiable enterprise in the face of such suffering.

00:44:57.420 And I really thought about that a lot when I was, well, when I had kids. First of all, I think I

00:45:02.900 started thinking about it, actually more with my son than with my daughter, for, for one reason or

00:45:07.980 another. Maybe because he was getting into a few more scrapes when he was little than she did.

00:45:12.220 Um, hard to say why, but it doesn't really matter. I remember thinking about my son when he was about

00:45:18.720 three, and he was a very cute kid, and I really liked him a lot. I still like him, thank God. Um,

00:45:25.260 and, you know, and, and I think it was after, maybe he had had some kind of altercation with another kid.

00:45:32.240 I, I think that might have been what, what got me thinking about this, and, um, or maybe I was

00:45:38.660 thinking about the dangers that he might encounter, like running out into a parking lot if we went

00:45:44.340 shopping or something like that. Or, or, um, you know, a little three-year-old kid is pretty mobile

00:45:48.660 and very, very cute and attractive, especially if they're reasonably well-behaved. And, but they could

00:45:54.520 get into terrible trouble very rapidly, and, and there's something that's, like, painful about that.

00:45:59.200 So I thought, well, I was also thinking about my father at the same time, paradoxically.

00:46:06.420 I was thinking, well, okay, let's, we're going to reconstruct the world so that the vulnerability

00:46:12.540 that characterizes the people that you love no longer exists. Because you're not happy with it,

00:46:18.540 obviously, because it produces pain and suffering, and arbitrary pain and suffering. Let's just get rid

00:46:23.200 of it, hypothetically. So I thought, well, I, I thought, well, okay, so we take my son, what's

00:46:30.560 the problem? Well, he's small, that's a problem. So, we make him not small. Now he's 20 feet tall,

00:46:38.680 instead of three feet tall. And, uh, he's breakable, and so that's not good, so we just replace the

00:46:46.660 breakable parts. So now he's 20 feet tall, and he's made out of titanium, something impermeable, you know,

00:46:52.420 something robotic, let's say. And, you know, one of the things I should point out is, it's, it's not easy

00:46:57.660 to exactly understand what sort of fantasies drive us, right? I mean, we are diligently pursuing

00:47:04.960 the, the augmentation of human intelligence by robotic intelligence. But it's not, it's also not clear

00:47:13.640 exactly that we're not diligently pursuing the replacement of human beings by intelligent machines.

00:47:21.180 And it's not so clear that part of the reason that we're doing that is because we're not very

00:47:24.980 happy with the flesh and blood vessels that we are with all their inadequacies. I had a friend who

00:47:30.660 eventually committed suicide, you know, and he had these dreams. He used to tell me about them. They

00:47:35.080 weren't good dreams, and he would dream that he was the only person on these massive ships that were

00:47:40.140 traversing their way across space that were all entirely automated, you know. It was very mechanistic

00:47:45.340 dreams. And underneath that, there was sort of a vision of, of, of, of being without the messiness

00:47:51.580 of humanity, right? That that could all be eradicated. And, you know, we've tried to eradicate ourselves

00:47:57.140 several times, and with a fair bit of success. And we came very close, say, during the period of the

00:48:02.420 Cold War. And so, the idea that we might be motivated by, by the desire to, to reduce or even eliminate our

00:48:14.300 intrinsic vulnerability by whatever means possible, that is not a far-fetched notion. So, so in any case,

00:48:22.200 so I thought about, well, my son, now he's 20 feet tall, and, you know, he's made out of titanium, and

00:48:27.860 replaceable parts would be a good thing. So, we might as well throw that in it. And he's not as smart

00:48:32.860 as he could be, or as wise. So, if we could replace his limited intelligence with something approximating

00:48:37.820 on, on a robotic intelligence, an artificial intelligence that, that, that, that knew as much

00:48:44.720 as an artificial intelligence might, then problem solved, right? Except, no. No, the problem isn't solved.

00:48:53.380 Because, and this is the thing that's so strange, is that every time you take away a vulnerability,

00:49:01.080 you take away part of what it is that you actually love. You know, and I, I was thinking

00:49:07.460 about my parents, because they're getting older, and I've done these thought exercises a number

00:49:11.540 of times in my life. I like to play with arithmetic. People hate arithmetic. And so, I love using it

00:49:17.500 in my clinical practice. So, I'll give you an example. Well, because it's, arithmetic is horrible.

00:49:22.360 It's, it's horrible, because it tells you what your life is like. And so, so, for example, here's,

00:49:27.640 here's a quick example. So, imagine that you, that every time you come home from work,

00:49:34.240 it's unpleasant. You know, you come home, and no one greets you, and, and the house is kind of in disarray,

00:49:42.660 and your, your, your, your kids are crying, and, and miserable, and your wife, or your husband,

00:49:48.480 whoever's taking care of the kids, is unhappy, and sort of dumps the load on you. And that's like

00:49:53.260 20 minutes every day. That's what happens when you come home. You think, okay, well, let's do the

00:49:57.600 arithmetic. Okay, so, that's 140 minutes a week. So, let's call that two hours. So, that's,

00:50:05.140 call it 10 hours a month, for ease of mathematical calculation. So, it's 10 hours a month. So,

00:50:11.040 times 12, that's 120 hours, forgot that right? That's 120 hours a year. That's three work weeks

00:50:18.440 of time. And, uh, there's only 48 work weeks of time, period. So, that's like 1 15th of your working

00:50:26.440 life. Okay, fine. Now, you spend 8% of your life having an absolutely bloody, brutally miserable time

00:50:32.500 every time you come home. And maybe that goes on for, like, 5 years. It's like, that's not good

00:50:39.880 at all. And one of the things I learned from doing this kind of arithmetic, it kind of, it, it, it, there's

00:50:46.800 an echo in, in, in, in, uh, in, in the, in the Sermon on the Mount about attending to the evils of the

00:50:54.960 day, right? Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof. What does that mean? It means that the things

00:51:00.620 that repeat every day are your life. And if one thing that repeats is that you have a miserable

00:51:06.180 experience every day, then that's like 10% of your life. And it's only a little bit of the day,

00:51:13.400 but that's the wrong way to think about it because it repeats. So, I had a client who was spending like

00:51:17.600 40 minutes a night fighting with his kid to get him to go to bed. And since the average parent only

00:51:23.660 spends 20 minutes of one-on-one time a day with their young children, that's the statistic, he was spending

00:51:29.420 twice as much time as the average parent spends with a child fighting with him. And the probability

00:51:35.920 that they were going to like each other at the end of that was zero because you can't fight with

00:51:43.400 someone two months of work weeks a year and like them. So, we did the arithmetic and said, okay, well,

00:51:50.520 look, you got to fix this. It's going to require some conflict to fix it. It's not going to be very

00:51:54.620 fun for a week. You're going to have a war about bedtime, you know, a conflict about it. But maybe

00:52:00.160 you could solve it and then you won't have to have two months of misery with your son every year for

00:52:06.560 the next five years. And God only knows where that will lead to. So, in any case, back to the

00:52:16.300 vulnerability. So, I was thinking about my son and I was thinking about my father and I was thinking

00:52:25.080 about the arbitrary things about people that we love. And, you know, we love their foibles and their

00:52:31.720 limitations as much as we love their potential and their capacity. And it's that weird admixture of

00:52:39.040 potential and limitation that makes the person. The limitation, of course, produces all the suffering,

00:52:44.560 so that is not so good. But if you get rid of the limitation, then you get rid of the person.

00:52:51.020 And that seems to be a very bad idea. You know, if I was thinking this was the arithmetic element. So,

00:53:00.520 one of the things that I've done in my life with regards to my parents is, because I don't see them

00:53:05.920 that often. They live 2,500 miles away from me, which is far even by Canadian standards. And so,

00:53:13.100 maybe I see them twice a year, something like that, maybe three times. And so, and they're 80, and so I'm

00:53:20.000 going to see them, well, let's say they live 15 more years. That's longer than the typical lifespan. But we

00:53:28.260 could say that, 15 more years, twice a year, 30 times. So, you bloody well better pay attention, because you've got

00:53:36.760 30 times to get it right. And that's it. That's arithmetic. That's the utility of arithmetic. To know

00:53:43.740 where the finite boundaries of your life is. My wife and I figured, a couple of years ago, we should have

00:53:51.820 never done this. This is why you don't do. We figured, well, we're 56, I guess. So, maybe that's 25 more years,

00:54:01.040 reasonable years. 20, maybe. Who God only knows. It's not that many. Say it takes you three to five

00:54:07.400 years to have a real adventure. You know, like a really sort of profound adventure. Well, that means

00:54:12.440 you've got four left. That's not very many. Or maybe you're optimistic. You've got six. It's like, that's six.

00:54:18.860 That's not very many. It's good to do the math. It's good to know the, what constraints the limitation

00:54:26.260 places on you. Well, so, so, back to limitation. Well, it doesn't look like, it looks like limitation.

00:54:34.580 That's a bad thing, man, because it produces all this suffering, all this unnecessary suffering. But

00:54:39.020 then, even if you had your wish, you're not, you can't magically wave a wand and make it go away.

00:54:45.880 Because if you made it go away, you would destroy exactly what it is that you value. And, you know, you see,

00:54:50.800 I see this with my parents, too, because they're sort of set in their ways, to some degree. By the time you're

00:54:55.260 80, you're sort of who you are. And some of that's really lovely, and some of it's somewhat tragic,

00:55:00.740 I think, as is the case with all of us. But, to, but, you know, if one of my parents,

00:55:07.580 if one of my parents ceased to exist, I would be very upset at the funeral. I think, you know,

00:55:13.800 altogether, I miss that person. Foibles and all. I miss the totality of them. I miss the combination

00:55:20.580 of their limitations and their potential. Even though I might have hoped, and perhaps do hope,

00:55:26.600 with everyone that I love, that they can transcend their limitations with their potential.

00:55:32.160 That's not the same. That transcending the limitation doesn't seem to be the same as eradicating it.

00:55:37.180 And so I thought, well, so then I thought, and I tried to outline this in the 12th rule,

00:55:42.540 well, what does that mean that we actually think about limitation? You know, because we certainly

00:55:46.620 can become cynical by observing it. Because I think observing unfair suffering is, on the part

00:55:55.460 of ourselves or others, is one of the things that makes us bitter and then makes us cynical,

00:55:59.520 and then sometimes makes us cruel and destructive as well. And you can understand why that would

00:56:03.840 happen to people. I mean, people have brutal lives, man. And so, you know, lots of times in my

00:56:08.780 clinical practice, people have done or had things done to them that were untoward. And then they explain

00:56:14.360 why. And I think, oh, yeah, well, you know, you had your reasons. Even if maybe that wasn't the best

00:56:20.660 set of choices you could have made, it was, it wasn't some whim. You had your reasons.

00:56:28.500 I think, well, what do we, what do we deeply believe when we think about limitation? I think, well,

00:56:36.020 do you love people? Are there people in your life that you love? And the answer is, hopefully,

00:56:44.280 the answer is yes. If the answer is no, I would say, well, you at least wish that you had people

00:56:50.280 in your life that you loved, like you'd want that. So if you haven't had it, well, that's really too

00:56:55.160 bad for you. It's a terrible thing. But generally, people have had that, at least in a couple of

00:56:59.820 instances. You know, and maybe you care somewhat for yourself in the same way, and in an analogous

00:57:07.480 way, you should. You think, well, then, because you love someone and because you're willing to grieve

00:57:13.480 when they're gone, then the judgment that you seem to be making, fundamentally, below your thoughts,

00:57:21.100 you know, at the level of emotion and engagement, is that that person's life, you're glad that person

00:57:27.420 existed despite everything. Because otherwise, you wouldn't grieve when they were gone. You'd think,

00:57:34.580 thank God. Well, even for them, you'd think, thank God. And I mean, sometimes when someone dies,

00:57:40.720 you do think that because they've had a very miserable time of it for, you know, the years

00:57:45.560 that it takes them to die. And you think, well, really, that's a relief. But it's a relief because

00:57:49.860 their suffering is over. It's not like you're overjoyed that they're gone because it would have

00:57:54.380 been better that they never existed at all. I mean, now and then you find someone like that. But

00:57:59.220 it's very rare. You know, it's very rare. I know that I spent a lot of time studying the behavior of

00:58:08.000 terrible people. And one subcategory of terrible people that I studied were serial killers. And

00:58:14.640 a lot of serial killers, when they were caught, asked for the death penalty. And so they were in the

00:58:20.360 category of people who even viewed themselves as creatures who should have never been. But that's

00:58:26.880 a pretty extreme situation. And so we won't consider that typical or diagnostic. So generally,

00:58:34.980 and so this has made me think a lot because there's a very strange characteristic of limitation.

00:58:44.420 And we might ask ourselves, I think we should ask ourselves,

00:58:47.020 is it useful to have limitations? Okay, so then you might say, well, we want to do more than think

00:58:54.920 about that. We want to look at how we act about the fact that we have limitations. Okay, so the first

00:59:00.780 way is that we actually like each other, despite and sometimes because of our limitations. Children

00:59:07.740 are more limited than adults, even though maybe they have more potential. And we really like children,

00:59:12.320 like they're a joy, you know, I mean, not always, obviously, and there are plenty of trouble and

00:59:16.920 they're difficult and all of that. But I still think that, especially if you can regulate their

00:59:24.340 behavior in some quasi-civilized manner to some minimal degree, that children are much more joy than

00:59:31.620 they are trouble. And my experience has been certainly as a parent and watching other parents that

00:59:36.080 children pay you back for the painstaking trouble that you have to take with them, with the spontaneous

00:59:43.920 miracle of their being. And so, and we keep having children, so we seem to think that, maybe fewer than we

00:59:52.560 used to, but we seem to think that that's the case. So, and we grieve when people are gone. And so, what that

01:00:00.400 seems to indicate is that we think the damn game is worthwhile, even though it's difficult. And so that,

01:00:07.280 okay, so that's worth thinking about. That's where, and then another thing that's sort of worth thinking

01:00:11.620 about is that we actually like limitations, because we play with them all the time. In fact,

01:00:16.680 generally, when we play, what we do is play with limitations. So, so one of the examples I like to

01:00:23.420 use, you can go look this up, because I think it's quite funny. You know what a haiku is, right? It's this

01:00:28.120 ridiculous poetic form that you get three lines, and I think in total it's 17 syllables, and each

01:00:34.500 line has to have a certain number of syllables. I don't remember what it is. And then there has to

01:00:40.200 be accents in the right places as well, because otherwise it's not a haiku. And you might think,

01:00:44.940 well, why in the world would you even bother doing something so ridiculous? Just write your damn three

01:00:49.340 lines down, and then go wash the dishes, or do something useful. But no, there's a challenge in the

01:00:55.980 constraint. It's right. Can you say something of poetic utility using this terrible constraint? It's

01:01:03.380 a challenge, and so it's a challenge that you can rise to meet, and so it's engaging. So it's engaging

01:01:08.260 to rise to meet a challenge. And so one of sites that I used to spend some time on, because it was so

01:01:14.640 absurd, was there's this archive online of haiku devoted to spam, the luncheon meat, right? And I

01:01:26.880 think it's quite funny, because there isn't anything that you can think of, I don't think, that is less

01:01:32.020 likely to inspire poetic excess than spam, right? It's like it's way down there on the list of romantic

01:01:40.420 substances. And yet, I think there's some 25,000 haiku in the online spam haiku archive. And it's

01:01:50.860 so people, you know, they take this crazy restriction, a haiku, and then they add this insane additional

01:01:56.880 restriction to it, and then what they produce is poetic humor. It's a very funny sight, as you might

01:02:03.200 imagine. So if you're looking to be stupidly amused one day, you might want to go check it out. It's

01:02:08.360 really comical, the flights of romantic fantasy that people engage in when they're contemplating

01:02:14.800 their favorite pork luncheon meat. And so, but we do this all the time, you know. We play chess,

01:02:22.380 and you might say, well, why don't we just change all the chess men into queens? It'd be a much

01:02:29.380 more fun game when every character could do everything that the most powerful character could do. It's like,

01:02:37.140 well, fine, except then you can't play chess. And the weird thing about, it's so strange, is you put

01:02:44.840 these crazy limitations on chess, what you can move. The knight moves in an L shape of all the ridiculous

01:02:50.340 things. And then all of a sudden, there's billions of chess games you can play, right? And so we make

01:02:56.580 these little artificial worlds. We do this on online video games, too, which I think is extremely

01:03:01.720 interesting, because they're not really games. They're really simulations. And they're very complex

01:03:05.800 simulations. And the creation of those simulations is now primarily what drives computational technology

01:03:12.900 forward, right? So we're putting a tremendous amount of effort into making these online simulations.

01:03:18.280 And what happens when you walk into an online game is that you adopt a new set of limitations.

01:03:24.260 And then that opens up a whole new universe of possibilities. And you'll do that just for

01:03:28.360 amusement. It's like you try on different sets of limitation to keep you in the game.

01:03:35.140 So that's interesting. And so then I read this wonderful commentary at one point about God.

01:03:42.440 And it's like a Zen koan, except it's Jewish. So it's a Jewish Zen koan, I suppose. And here's

01:03:49.460 how it goes. I think I wrote about this in 12 Rules for Life. I certainly wrote about it in Maps of

01:03:53.760 Meaning, because it really hit me when I first read it. Now and then you read something, and it just,

01:03:58.400 I don't know, it fills a hole. It connects things together that need to be connected. And this was

01:04:04.460 one of them. I said, okay, you take a being with the classical attributes of God, omniscience,

01:04:10.580 omnipresence, and omnipotence, right? Can do anything and be anything at any time. It's like...

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01:05:31.980 What does it lack? Well, nothing, obviously, by definition. It's like, no, it lacks limitation.

01:05:47.040 And that was the explanation is why was God interested in creating? Why would, why, why,

01:05:51.940 the idea was that there was something about that that defined the relationship between the,

01:05:57.680 the infinite transcendent and the human being, is that there's something advantageous to only being

01:06:04.820 what you are, that you couldn't get if you were more than that. So there's, there's, there's this

01:06:10.320 profound notion that the encapsulation of something, of potential within extreme limitation opens up

01:06:18.580 avenues of possibility that wouldn't exist without those limitations. And that's, well, that was, I would

01:06:27.580 say, say, that was one of the things that I read that really changed the way that I looked at the

01:06:31.180 world. I thought, oh, well, right, isn't that interesting, is that there's actual advantages,

01:06:37.920 profound advantages, in limitation. And, and they're, and they're, they're, they're built into the

01:06:44.780 structure of being itself. There'd be no being without limitation, because there's nothing to do

01:06:49.500 without limitation. There's nowhere to go. There's no story. So, so what, so what, what seems to be the case

01:06:57.560 is that limitation is necessary for being, and then a question emerges out of that, which is, well,

01:07:04.300 if limitation is necessary for being, and being is at least in principle a good, or could be, then is

01:07:11.580 there a mode of being that allows limitation to be good? Because then you can have your cake and eat

01:07:17.160 it too, right? You get to have the adventure, and you get to, at least, what would you say, resign

01:07:23.620 yourself. It isn't even that. It isn't, embrace, you can't say that. You can't say embrace the

01:07:30.220 suffering. It's, exist in a manner that justifies the suffering that's a necessary precondition for

01:07:37.420 limited being. You see, and I think that's the function of religious systems, is to try to find

01:07:43.300 out what that mode of being is. So you get to have your cake and eat it too. And so, and I do think,

01:07:51.340 I actually think we know about what this is. And again, in that way of knowing that's deeper than

01:07:56.480 what we think, because we act it out. And one of the things that I've been suggesting to audiences,

01:08:01.960 with a fair bit of success, is that, well, so you have the problem of limited being,

01:08:10.640 and the suffering that goes along with that. And then there's a worse problem that comes along with

01:08:14.840 that, which is that the suffering and failure and betrayal that goes along with limited being

01:08:21.000 also produces, I think it produces malevolence. Because you think, well, what twists people up and

01:08:26.680 bends them against being? It's like, well, what suffering they regard as unacceptable and cruel.

01:08:35.780 You know, if you take someone, and they torture themselves, or they're tortured by others, and

01:08:40.160 in an arbitrary manner, and they're too hurt, then it's very easy for them to become bitter,

01:08:47.380 and to become resentful, and then to become cruel, and then to become destructive. And so that's a

01:08:52.600 pathway to malevolence. So limitation handled improperly also produces, I think it produces evil.

01:08:59.440 And I'm not trying to justify evil by saying that you can lay it all at the feet of suffering,

01:09:04.200 because I don't think that's true. But that's a common pathway. And it's an understandable pathway.

01:09:08.860 You know, like if you were terribly abused when you were a child, you might come out of that with a

01:09:14.300 certain amount of resentment and hatred. Now, it's not helpful, and it's not good, but it's bloody well

01:09:19.200 understandable. So you have this problem of limitation. And out of that come the twin problems

01:09:25.660 of suffering and malevolence. And then you're tasked with the necessity of how to handle that.

01:09:31.560 And one of the themes that runs through 12 Rules for Life, and also through Maps of Meaning, is that

01:09:37.540 meaning is the antidote to limitation, let's say. And not happiness, because happiness doesn't work

01:09:46.900 when you're suffering. Obviously, happiness cannot be the antidote to suffering, because it doesn't

01:09:53.660 exist in those dire situations. What exists? Well, it's something like the sense of being engaged in a

01:10:02.120 fully worthwhile enterprise, as something that's worth making sacrifices for. And then you might say,

01:10:08.480 well, what might that be? And you could say, well, let's look at how we look at things and see if we

01:10:13.600 can figure it out. And I would say, well, one part of that, obviously, is you're looking for a pathway

01:10:20.320 through life. And one of the ways that you find that is by looking at who you admire and would want

01:10:26.900 to emulate. People are very imitative creatures. It's one of the things that really distinguishes us

01:10:32.240 from other animals. Language is one, certainly. Upright stance, prehensile thumbs, opposable thumbs,

01:10:40.840 not prehensile, opposable thumbs, large cognitive capacity, language. There's lots of things. But

01:10:47.800 one of the things that really distinguishes us is we imitate unbelievably well. It's the scaffold for

01:10:53.240 all our cognitive development. And the question is, well, who do you imitate? And the answer is, well,

01:10:58.320 do you imitate people that you admire? And then the question is, okay, that's a pathway to being.

01:11:03.740 That's how you learn to act. Children mimic their parents or other people that they admire.

01:11:08.840 Who do you admire? Spontaneously. And the easiest way to answer that question is to look at who you

01:11:15.320 don't admire first. And because it's often easier to see things against the negative than the positive.

01:11:22.040 I don't think that we spontaneously admire people who don't take responsibility for themselves.

01:11:28.880 I think we regard that as a minimum precondition for admirable being. At least you should do what

01:11:35.020 you can to account for your own being, right? You should be able to take care of yourself. You should

01:11:40.560 strive to take care of yourself. Maybe you can't because you're too hurt. But that's a separate

01:11:44.800 category. You're doing your best, but it's just, you're in an impossible situation. People can

01:11:49.500 understand that. I'm talking about people who abdicate responsibility for themselves and throw

01:11:54.700 that lot onto someone else. And I don't think anyone except someone who's determinedly psychopathic

01:12:02.780 and criminal finds that admirable. And so the next thing you might notice is that, well, it isn't just

01:12:08.380 people who take responsibility for themselves who are admirable. It's people who are so good at that

01:12:14.700 that they can also take responsibility for their family, let's say. And then maybe you could even go

01:12:19.820 beyond that and you could take responsibility for your community. You could do all those things at

01:12:23.980 the same time. Responsibility for you, responsibility for your family, to put your family straight if you

01:12:29.960 can do that and to help it function, and then to play the same role in the community. Think someone

01:12:35.360 who's managing all that's like, that's an admirable person. You think, well, that's interesting.

01:12:40.860 It's interesting. You admire that. You'd spontaneously imitate it. If you had the wherewithal, if you had

01:12:46.680 the discipline and were willing to do it, it would at least call to you as admirable. That's a

01:12:51.680 meaningful pathway through life. So the pathway through life is the meaning that's associated with

01:12:58.000 responsibility. And I think that that's accurate. That's the proper antidote to the travails

01:13:06.540 of existence. And then this has made me into an optimistic person, you know. And it's a strange

01:13:13.900 kind of optimism because it's the optimism of someone who's truly desperate. That might be one

01:13:19.280 way of thinking about it. There's this old idea. I really only figured out what this idea meant

01:13:23.880 as I was doing these lectures. There's this old idea that you need to go into the abyss to find the

01:13:30.360 monster and rescue your father from within its entrails, let's say. You see that in the movie

01:13:35.880 Pinocchio, for example. It's echoed in the idea that, in the hero myth, that you can confront the

01:13:44.620 dragon and free the gold. It's the same idea, that there's something of extraordinary value lurking in

01:13:50.420 the most dangerous thing that you could possibly contemplate or face. And I really like that idea,

01:13:56.480 partly because I'm a clinician. And one of the things you know as a psychologist, if you're a

01:14:01.580 psychologist who knows anything that a psychologist should know, is that what you do to help people

01:14:08.100 cope with their lives is to encourage them. And you do that by showing them that they're stronger and

01:14:14.920 braver than they think. And the way you do that is by finding out what they're afraid of and avoiding.

01:14:20.920 And they define that themselves. You know, if you're going in a certain direction and you want to get

01:14:24.860 there and you run into something that you're avoiding, then you're not going to get there.

01:14:29.080 So you need either to switch directions or stop being afraid. One of those two things. And so

01:14:34.180 they're self-defined fears. And what you do with people is that you help them break down what they're

01:14:39.860 afraid of and avoiding into manageable, digestible bits, let's say, and practice confronting them.

01:14:49.900 And what happens inevitably, even with people who are terrified beyond belief, and you can find people

01:14:56.900 who are so anxious. I've had clients who couldn't use the telephone, right? They were too terrified to

01:15:01.540 use a telephone. I had clients who couldn't have coffee with me in a restaurant, even though I was

01:15:06.880 their therapist, right? They were far too terrified. Guys I had in my clinical practice who'd never spoken

01:15:14.220 to a woman, apart from times when that was brute necessity, because they were far too terrified

01:15:21.500 to do that. It's amazing how frightened people can be. And it's also amazing how rapidly they can move

01:15:27.180 forward in the face of those fears once they start to practice doing that. And it's curative to confront

01:15:34.140 what to confront the limitations that terrify you. And the question is, well, what if you did that

01:15:41.760 completely? Because that might be the way out of it. It's like, well, you don't want to get rid of the

01:15:46.740 limitations, because we already said, well, they have some value. It's like, okay, well, but it's a high

01:15:51.520 price to pay. It's no joke. So you're still stuck with the problem. You can't hand wave and say, well,

01:15:57.240 these limitations, they allow for the wondrous nature of being, and so everything's okay. It's like, no,

01:16:02.140 it's not okay. There's still pain and suffering and malevolence, and those are not trivial things.

01:16:07.120 So what do you do about that? Well, that's chapter one in 12 rules for life, right? Is that you stand

01:16:13.600 up straight and take it on voluntarily, and assume that dire as things are, and they're dire,

01:16:22.880 you're up to the damn game. And what's so interesting, and this is what made me optimistic,

01:16:28.700 is I actually think that's true. I think that we are these weird amalgams of limitation and potential,

01:16:36.100 and the potential has a transcendent element, and I mean that technically. I mean that there's more

01:16:41.280 to you than has yet been revealed, and God only knows how much more there is. You're not going to

01:16:46.680 exhaust it in your lifetime, no matter how hard you try. There's more potential that you have access to

01:16:51.980 than you can possibly realize. And you know that, because every time you put yourself in a situation

01:16:57.460 where you demand more of yourself than you are currently manifesting, if you do it humbly,

01:17:05.200 you can't set yourself an impossible task, but you can set yourself a task that moves you beyond where

01:17:11.420 you are, and you can inevitably accomplish it, especially if you make the task small enough.

01:17:16.700 So you have this endless potential. Now potential reveals itself in the reconstruction of your

01:17:22.960 being. That's the rescuing of your father from the belly of the beast, right? As you find out,

01:17:29.160 you make yourself into the full manifestation of your ancestral possibility. That's within your grasp,

01:17:36.160 and I think that that's true metaphysically. I think it's true psychologically. I think it's true

01:17:40.380 biologically. And the way that you do that is by voluntarily confronting the suffering and malevolence

01:17:46.220 that's a consequence of limited being. And that way you get to have your cake and eat it too.

01:17:50.900 You have all the possibilities that limitation, in combination with potential, opens up for you,

01:17:56.940 and you have the means of coping with it. And then you might think, well, is that just naive?

01:18:03.260 You know, but it's, but, and the answer to that is, well, no, actually, it's not naive. Because what you

01:18:08.640 see in the clinical literature is that people who turn around and confront the things that have

01:18:13.540 terrified them, even if they have post-traumatic stress disorder, even if they've been really hurt,

01:18:18.060 and they turn around and voluntarily face the things that have hurt them. And true malevolence

01:18:22.860 often, not just suffering, but true betrayal and evil. They get better. And that's a fact.

01:18:30.420 And it doesn't seem to be a limited fact. And so, well, there's a couple of things that are

01:18:34.440 interesting about that. The first is, if you turn around and confront what's terrifying you,

01:18:39.680 then it gets smaller, and you get bigger. And there doesn't seem to be a real limit to that.

01:18:44.660 And that's a psychological truth. So that's where you find meaning, and the meaning in your life that

01:18:50.040 sustains you through the pain of the limitation. But it's actually better than that, even,

01:18:54.660 surprisingly enough, because not only do you feel better, let's say, psychologically, because you're

01:19:00.160 more courageous, not because you're less afraid. When you go through this process, you don't get less

01:19:04.740 afraid. You get braver. And that's way better, because there's plenty of things to be afraid of.

01:19:09.680 So you're just not going to get rid of fear. You can be hurt. You shouldn't get rid of your fear.

01:19:16.720 It's foolish to not have the fear. But you could master it. That would be something. And then you

01:19:23.600 have the advantage of the fear without it being crippling. Well, you face it, and then that imbues

01:19:29.060 your life with significance and meaning. You face that by responsibly adopting the burden of

01:19:36.280 vulnerability and the attempt to transcend it and to deal with the malevolence that it generates.

01:19:41.880 And not only does that work psychologically, because it makes you more courageous and gives

01:19:47.800 you something profound to do, which is great to have something profound to do, but it also actually

01:19:53.940 works, too. Practically speaking, you know. It's not just that when people turn around and confront

01:20:00.100 the terrible things they need to confront, that they feel better psychologically. They make the

01:20:05.320 world better. You know, and we've made the world better in a lot of ways, I would say. Not every

01:20:10.820 way, because, well, what the hell do we know? We've got problems. We're ignorant. And we have problems

01:20:17.080 that confront us that are beyond our capacity to solve at the moment. But we live way longer than we

01:20:22.580 used to. That seems like a good thing. We're healthier while we're living those longer lifespans.

01:20:29.920 Most of us aren't starving. There are more middle-class people in the world than non-middle-class

01:20:35.900 people now across the entire world. That happened, you know, the measurement's not precise, but that

01:20:41.260 seemed to have happened this year. So, you know, between the year 2000 and 2012, we have the number of

01:20:50.920 people living in absolute poverty worldwide in 12 years. The UN projects that by the year 2030, at the

01:20:57.400 current rate of international economic development, there won't be anyone on the planet who lives in

01:21:03.460 what we would consider deprivation by today's standards. That will be gone 18 years from now. You know, we've

01:21:10.260 knocked mortality rates, child mortality rates, down in Africa. They're now down at the same level they were in

01:21:15.880 Europe in 1952. So that's something, that's something absolutely unbelievable. That's within

01:21:21.100 the span of a single life. And then there's much more good news on the horizon. We're knocking the

01:21:26.840 hell out of the five remaining infectious diseases. You know, we could conquer malaria, hopefully

01:21:31.600 tuberculosis. There's a number of polio with any luck. If we weren't politically foolish, polio would

01:21:38.440 already be gone. There's all sorts of things that we can do by turning around and confronting the

01:21:43.500 problems that face us that actually get rid of the problems as well as giving us a proper pathway

01:21:48.920 to follow throughout life. Well, and so that's, that's part of an extended discussion, I would say,

01:21:56.580 of rule 12, right? Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. Well, that's a meditation on,

01:22:02.720 it's a meditation on vulnerability and its utility, but also on the fact that you can find within that

01:22:09.480 vulnerability the strength to transcend it. And to me, I understand the vulnerability, at least to

01:22:18.480 some degree. I know that people suffer. And I know that malevolence exists. And I don't believe that I

01:22:24.820 underestimate the depth of suffering, although, you know, I should be very careful about saying that,

01:22:30.600 because no matter what suffering you've seen, you can be bloody sure that there's worse out there.

01:22:35.020 So it's something you never, in some sense, get to the bottom of. And it's the same with

01:22:38.860 malevolence. But terrible as those things are, and they're plenty terrible, it does occur to me,

01:22:45.400 it does seem to me. And I think the evidence for this is compelling. It might even be overwhelming,

01:22:53.020 that despite how terrible the limitations are, the potential that we have access to is sufficient

01:23:01.760 to deal with it. And so that's one of the ideas that I've been trying to develop in Maps of Meaning,

01:23:09.820 and also in Twelve Rules for Life, and one that I thought I would share with you tonight.

01:23:15.100 So, thank you very much.

01:23:33.000 We could have ended it in Dublin.

01:23:35.580 So I put that...

01:23:36.860 Yeah, we got it.

01:23:37.420 Yeah, we got it. We're good.

01:23:39.180 So, all right, there's a ton of questions here.

01:23:41.080 But basically, everyone wants to have a pint with you. That seems to be...

01:23:45.240 Believe me, believe me, if I had my impulsive way, that's precisely what I would do after this.

01:23:51.640 But it's not to be, unfortunately.

01:23:56.140 Could you comment...

01:23:58.360 Thank you, thank you. It's one of those limitations that I'm struggling with.

01:24:03.020 Could you comment on the recent poll discussed by the Atlantic Monthly on the unpopularity of political correctness?

01:24:11.960 You touched on this a little bit.

01:24:12.780 Oh, yes, yes. Well, this is a planted question, by the way, which I asked myself,

01:24:17.260 because I wanted to discuss this with you.

01:24:19.420 Let me take this.

01:24:21.180 Well, I've done...

01:24:21.820 Okay, and there goes the fourth wall.

01:24:23.120 And I've never done this.

01:24:24.500 I've never done this before.

01:24:26.600 So, in these Q&As, but this is something I did want to point out,

01:24:30.320 because I think it's so remarkable, it touches on this issue of polarization

01:24:33.860 that we sort of entered, opened this discussion with.

01:24:36.820 So, this was an article in the Atlantic Monthly that came out this week,

01:24:41.560 and it was a review of a large-scale survey that was done by political scientists.

01:24:46.840 I believe they were political scientists.

01:24:48.720 So, this is worth...

01:24:49.860 This is...

01:24:50.260 It's just...

01:24:50.740 It's so comical, I think.

01:24:52.180 It's...

01:24:52.620 The conclusion to this is so comical that...

01:24:56.660 Well, you just have to hear it to believe it.

01:24:58.520 Okay, so, the first question is,

01:25:01.820 what percentage of Americans are progressive activists?

01:25:06.260 And the answer to that appears to be something approximating 8%.

01:25:09.820 That's on the left.

01:25:11.300 And there's some equivalent number on the far right.

01:25:13.880 So, it's, you know, 1 in 15, say, something like that.

01:25:17.900 So, 8% are progressive activists,

01:25:22.600 and their views are even less typical.

01:25:24.660 By contrast, two-thirds of Americans don't belong to the extremes,

01:25:30.520 and they regard themselves, in some sense, as an exhausted majority.

01:25:35.280 These members, this majority group,

01:25:38.760 quote,

01:25:39.200 share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation,

01:25:43.640 a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints,

01:25:46.320 and a lack of voice in the national conversation.

01:25:51.460 So, that's positive, obviously, because it's a majority,

01:25:54.600 but it's not so positive because

01:25:56.060 the noisy radicals have got the dialogue.

01:26:02.420 So, now some statistics.

01:26:04.240 These are fun.

01:26:07.020 Well, as far as statistics go.

01:26:09.860 This is the sort of fun you have when you can't drink beer.

01:26:12.460 So, 80% believe that political correctness is a problem in the United States.

01:26:23.620 And that includes 79% of those who are under 24.

01:26:27.860 So, it's not young people that are driving this, particularly.

01:26:31.500 And then you can break it down by ethnicity and race,

01:26:35.220 which isn't something that I particularly enjoy doing.

01:26:38.640 But in this situation, it's necessary analytically.

01:26:41.880 Because you might say, well, you know,

01:26:44.780 most people regard political correctness as a problem,

01:26:47.560 but that's the oppressors that regard it as a problem.

01:26:51.320 What about the people who are hypothetically dispossessed?

01:26:54.600 Well, the most likely people to believe that

01:26:59.660 PC, political correctness, is a problem

01:27:02.280 are the minorities that are supposed to be its beneficiary.

01:27:07.620 So, that's pretty cool.

01:27:08.660 So, Asians, 82% believe it's a problem.

01:27:12.880 Hispanics, 87%.

01:27:15.340 American Indians, 88%.

01:27:17.920 And American Blacks, 75%.

01:27:21.380 So, now, and hypothetically,

01:27:24.140 they're the target of the largesse

01:27:26.280 that's part and parcel of political correctness.

01:27:28.480 But they don't want it.

01:27:30.120 So, who does want it?

01:27:31.260 Well, whites, rich white people with postgraduate degrees.

01:27:40.240 So, even 30% of progressive activists

01:27:43.680 think that political correctness is a problem.

01:27:46.360 So, that's pretty cool.

01:27:47.520 But the people that are most likely to support it

01:27:49.740 are precisely PC activists are rich,

01:27:53.480 highly educated, and white.

01:27:55.520 Twice as likely to make more than $100,000 a year.

01:27:58.540 Okay, so let's think about this for a minute.

01:28:01.880 Because it's so surreal.

01:28:04.060 So, one of the things I noticed about

01:28:05.680 activist types on Ivy League campuses,

01:28:09.340 they always have annoyed me.

01:28:12.260 Well, there's a reason for it.

01:28:13.900 It's like, if you're an undergraduate at Harvard,

01:28:17.320 or Stanford, or any of the Ivy Leagues,

01:28:19.940 you're already part of the ruling class.

01:28:24.160 Like, you might only be 18,

01:28:26.220 but that just means you're a baby member

01:28:28.000 of the ruling class.

01:28:29.400 Like, 40% of Harvard graduates

01:28:31.620 have a net worth of a million dollars

01:28:34.040 by the time they're 40.

01:28:35.220 And that's a stat from 1998.

01:28:38.180 Because that's the last time I knew about those stats.

01:28:40.480 So, it's like, you're in there already.

01:28:42.160 You've already been selected.

01:28:44.480 And so, what it means is,

01:28:46.880 if you're in that,

01:28:49.600 the upper echelons,

01:28:50.860 in that manner,

01:28:51.840 and you're an activist,

01:28:53.840 this is what you want,

01:28:55.380 as far as I can tell.

01:28:56.780 You want all of the privilege and power,

01:29:00.220 to use the terminology

01:29:02.420 that's part and parcel of this sort of dialogue.

01:29:04.620 You want all of the privilege and power,

01:29:07.340 and you want all the moral...

01:29:10.480 What would you say?

01:29:13.380 You want to accrue to yourself

01:29:15.100 all the moral justification

01:29:17.680 that also makes you

01:29:20.120 an outstanding advocate for the oppressed.

01:29:23.720 So, you want both.

01:29:25.100 You want to be at the top,

01:29:27.300 and you want to be the voice

01:29:29.080 of those at the bottom.

01:29:31.000 And to me, I think,

01:29:31.960 well, that's a bit much.

01:29:33.720 Like, you could have one of those.

01:29:35.360 Like, if you want to be an advocate

01:29:36.540 for the people at the bottom,

01:29:37.980 then go out there

01:29:38.960 and dispense with your long-term power and privilege,

01:29:43.700 and go do the work.

01:29:45.920 And if you want to be part of the elite,

01:29:48.000 then fine.

01:29:49.620 But don't be part of the elite

01:29:51.400 who's advocating for the downtrodden

01:29:54.520 while you're being part of the elite,

01:29:56.080 because that's too much to ask for.

01:29:58.040 And that's exactly what I see happening with this,

01:30:00.100 is that...

01:30:01.020 And so here's...

01:30:02.420 And so I think that's reprehensible.

01:30:04.760 I don't think you get to do both of those things.

01:30:07.700 So, but here's what's even more interesting,

01:30:10.500 and I think this is insanely comical.

01:30:12.580 So, part of the PC doctrine

01:30:15.320 is that it's useful to view the world

01:30:17.580 as oppressor and oppressed,

01:30:19.360 depending on the group dimension, right?

01:30:22.260 And that the oppressors

01:30:24.180 are part of a patriarchal tyranny,

01:30:26.140 and they're imposing their viewpoint

01:30:27.960 on the dispossessed.

01:30:29.720 Well, it turns out,

01:30:31.300 according to this poll,

01:30:33.180 that that's exactly what

01:30:34.780 the radical leftist political correct types are doing.

01:30:38.480 They're overwhelmingly white,

01:30:40.940 they're overwhelmingly rich,

01:30:43.280 they're overwhelmingly educated,

01:30:45.100 and they're pushing forward a doctrine

01:30:47.600 that the vast majority of the people

01:30:50.260 who they are pushing the doctrine for,

01:30:53.260 theoretically,

01:30:54.440 object to.

01:30:55.700 And so I think of it,

01:30:56.780 if I was a post-modern

01:30:58.900 neo-Marxist,

01:31:00.840 I would say,

01:31:01.460 well, that's the patriarchy in action.

01:31:03.380 It's another form of neo-colonialism.

01:31:06.820 It's,

01:31:07.280 it's,

01:31:07.820 what do you call that?

01:31:08.940 It's,

01:31:09.320 it's,

01:31:09.740 it's,

01:31:10.060 it's,

01:31:10.640 it's,

01:31:11.140 it's benevolent patriarchy,

01:31:14.020 it's the mask of benevolent patriarchy in action.

01:31:17.040 We've got the wealth,

01:31:18.060 we've got the education,

01:31:19.340 we've got the racial status,

01:31:21.260 and we know what's good for those people of color,

01:31:23.760 even though

01:31:24.460 they don't think so.

01:31:26.640 Right.

01:31:27.120 Jesus.

01:31:36.180 Okay,

01:31:36.860 so,

01:31:37.180 and then I'm,

01:31:37.900 I'm going to close this with one more observation.

01:31:41.460 So this is from

01:31:42.380 the scientific magazine Science,

01:31:45.320 which is the preeminent scientific journal in the world.

01:31:48.760 It's impossible to get published in science.

01:31:50.860 So,

01:31:51.200 if you get published there,

01:31:52.300 that's like,

01:31:53.120 that's a home run if you're a scientist.

01:31:55.020 One publication in science,

01:31:56.620 and your career is made.

01:31:58.900 So it's very,

01:32:00.020 very difficult to publish in science,

01:32:01.920 especially if you're a psychologist,

01:32:03.960 because they tend to publish

01:32:05.300 harder science studies,

01:32:08.520 preferably.

01:32:10.700 So,

01:32:11.620 this week,

01:32:12.420 another publication came out.

01:32:13.960 So,

01:32:14.340 here's the question.

01:32:17.120 This has been answered many times already,

01:32:19.220 but people don't like the answer.

01:32:20.980 Some people don't.

01:32:22.780 So,

01:32:23.960 there are differences between men and women

01:32:25.780 that are psychological as well as physical.

01:32:28.680 Now,

01:32:28.980 the question is,

01:32:30.520 what,

01:32:31.680 what's the source of those differences?

01:32:34.180 Now,

01:32:34.400 there's only two possible sources.

01:32:36.540 One is biology,

01:32:37.640 and the other is culture.

01:32:39.340 Okay,

01:32:39.640 so,

01:32:40.540 so then,

01:32:41.940 the next question would be,

01:32:43.760 how much biology,

01:32:47.060 and how much culture?

01:32:47.920 And the politically correct types,

01:32:50.340 the people who I objected to,

01:32:51.840 for example,

01:32:52.500 when they were making law in Canada,

01:32:54.860 successfully,

01:32:55.840 insist

01:32:56.540 that the differences are cultural.

01:32:59.900 And not only do they insist that,

01:33:01.600 they insist that all the differences are cultural,

01:33:04.200 and that if you have any other explanation

01:33:06.680 than that they are cultural,

01:33:08.420 then you're a biological essentialist,

01:33:10.540 and that's tantamount to being a fascist.

01:33:13.340 Now,

01:33:13.540 the problem with that is that it's wrong.

01:33:16.560 And it's not just a little bit wrong.

01:33:18.780 It's unbelievably wrong.

01:33:21.440 And so,

01:33:22.280 here's the evidence for that,

01:33:24.580 at least in part.

01:33:26.420 So,

01:33:26.760 what you would expect is,

01:33:28.840 the differences between men and women

01:33:30.640 in personality,

01:33:31.800 and in interest,

01:33:33.020 in preference,

01:33:33.860 let's say,

01:33:34.500 those can be measured quite reliably,

01:33:36.220 by the way.

01:33:36.640 If you were right about your social constructionist hypothesis,

01:33:42.080 what would happen is that,

01:33:43.280 as countries got richer,

01:33:45.040 and more egalitarian,

01:33:47.580 and you can rank countries that way,

01:33:49.420 without too much problem,

01:33:50.380 there's some measurement error,

01:33:51.260 but you can get a pretty good approximation.

01:33:53.140 Hardly anyone disagrees with the proposition,

01:33:55.920 that countries,

01:33:57.680 the Scandinavian countries in particular,

01:33:59.600 are the most egalitarian,

01:34:01.380 in their sociological outlook,

01:34:03.340 and political outlook in the world.

01:34:04.580 Everyone agrees on that.

01:34:05.620 The right-wingers agree,

01:34:06.700 the centrists agree,

01:34:07.520 the left-wingers agree.

01:34:08.960 Okay,

01:34:09.280 so,

01:34:09.720 then the question arises.

01:34:11.560 Are men and women,

01:34:12.520 in the Scandinavian countries,

01:34:14.640 more the same,

01:34:16.900 as in less egalitarian countries,

01:34:18.620 or more different?

01:34:20.460 And the answer is,

01:34:22.520 they're more different.

01:34:25.320 Okay,

01:34:25.620 and that's not just a little answer.

01:34:27.500 Okay,

01:34:27.720 there are multiple studies,

01:34:29.140 demonstrating this,

01:34:29.900 with tens of thousands of people,

01:34:32.280 done by multiple researchers,

01:34:34.380 none of whom,

01:34:35.620 were hoping for that outcome,

01:34:37.720 and none of whom,

01:34:38.700 were ideologically predisposed,

01:34:40.480 to find it.

01:34:41.280 Quite the contrary.

01:34:42.780 They were all assuming,

01:34:43.940 and even hoping,

01:34:45.040 that as our societies,

01:34:46.460 became more egalitarian,

01:34:48.160 that the differences,

01:34:48.900 between men and women,

01:34:49.960 would decrease.

01:34:50.920 That's not what happened.

01:34:52.760 They increased,

01:34:53.920 and this,

01:34:54.520 there's actually been,

01:34:56.160 three studies of this sort,

01:34:57.380 come out in the last month.

01:34:59.300 The last two,

01:35:00.360 were of sufficient power,

01:35:01.640 so the London Times,

01:35:03.360 announced,

01:35:04.060 quite forthrightly,

01:35:05.640 that this is,

01:35:06.600 perhaps,

01:35:07.200 the most well-documented,

01:35:08.780 finding in all of the social sciences.

01:35:11.620 Okay,

01:35:11.920 and then the science,

01:35:12.960 came,

01:35:13.220 science magazine,

01:35:14.100 published,

01:35:14.920 an analysis of the,

01:35:16.440 so they made an index,

01:35:17.440 of wealth and egalitarianism.

01:35:19.920 That's index number one.

01:35:21.440 And then they made an index,

01:35:22.740 of preference difference,

01:35:24.360 between men and women.

01:35:25.860 And what they found,

01:35:26.880 was that the correlation,

01:35:28.360 between wealth and egalitarianism,

01:35:30.520 and preference difference,

01:35:31.540 was almost 0.7.

01:35:33.720 And so,

01:35:34.360 now I have to tell you,

01:35:35.340 what that means.

01:35:36.840 If you publish a,

01:35:38.320 paper in the social sciences,

01:35:40.020 and you get a correlation,

01:35:41.220 of 0.3,

01:35:42.820 that's,

01:35:43.280 that's an index,

01:35:44.220 of the relationship,

01:35:45.020 between two variables.

01:35:46.480 So it's approximately,

01:35:47.660 the relationship,

01:35:48.460 between trait conscientiousness.

01:35:50.400 It's a personality trait.

01:35:52.180 And long term economic success.

01:35:54.080 It's about 0.3.

01:35:55.060 Pretty powerful correlation.

01:35:56.520 That's,

01:35:57.060 that's larger,

01:35:58.060 than 95% of the correlations,

01:36:00.520 published in social sciences studies.

01:36:02.620 Correlation of 0.7,

01:36:04.240 it's like,

01:36:04.820 that never happens.

01:36:07.200 Never.

01:36:08.280 The most powerful correlation,

01:36:10.040 I know of,

01:36:10.900 is between IQ,

01:36:12.400 and learning rate.

01:36:14.220 And that's about 0.7.

01:36:16.260 And that's it.

01:36:17.000 That's the only one I,

01:36:17.920 oh,

01:36:18.060 there's a correlation,

01:36:19.080 between inequality,

01:36:19.860 and crime,

01:36:20.440 that's actually quite high too.

01:36:21.580 But,

01:36:21.900 apart from those two,

01:36:22.820 that's it.

01:36:23.720 So,

01:36:24.220 not only is the correlation,

01:36:25.840 between,

01:36:26.860 increasing differences,

01:36:28.320 between men and women,

01:36:29.280 and wealth,

01:36:29.760 and egalitarianism,

01:36:30.800 positive,

01:36:31.400 and not negative.

01:36:32.380 It's,

01:36:32.820 overwhelmingly massive.

01:36:35.340 And so,

01:36:35.660 what that means is,

01:36:36.780 this is what it means.

01:36:38.200 It means,

01:36:38.920 the social constructionists,

01:36:41.260 are wrong.

01:36:43.440 Despite the fact,

01:36:44.680 that,

01:36:45.080 we've instantiated,

01:36:46.400 their viewpoint,

01:36:47.140 particularly in Canada,

01:36:48.640 into law,

01:36:49.720 where we insist that,

01:36:52.240 biological sex,

01:36:53.720 gender identity,

01:36:54.720 gender expression,

01:36:55.660 and sexual proclivity,

01:36:57.140 vary independently,

01:36:58.820 which they do not,

01:37:01.440 and that they're socioculturally constructed,

01:37:04.660 which they are not.

01:37:07.260 So,

01:37:08.080 well,

01:37:08.600 so,

01:37:09.180 that's this week's news,

01:37:10.380 on the politically correct front.

01:37:21.660 All right,

01:37:22.360 you better have as good an answer,

01:37:23.740 for a question,

01:37:24.340 that we didn't pre-select.

01:37:28.160 What institution,

01:37:29.800 if any,

01:37:30.620 do you feel,

01:37:31.760 is beyond recovery?

01:37:33.180 I don't think,

01:37:43.440 the,

01:37:43.920 the,

01:37:44.120 the studies disciplines,

01:37:46.200 in the universities,

01:37:46.940 are recoverable.

01:37:49.420 I think,

01:37:50.300 they're beyond recovery.

01:37:51.660 I don't see,

01:37:52.500 anything about them,

01:37:53.620 that's,

01:37:54.720 credible,

01:37:58.740 or,

01:38:01.420 fixable.

01:38:03.180 So,

01:38:04.140 that would be one,

01:38:05.120 example.

01:38:08.260 Is Kanye West,

01:38:09.560 a genius?

01:38:12.000 Well,

01:38:13.220 I don't know,

01:38:14.460 enough about,

01:38:15.420 like,

01:38:15.840 I'm,

01:38:17.220 hip hop isn't part of my,

01:38:18.700 cultural background,

01:38:19.800 let's say,

01:38:20.880 and I was old enough,

01:38:22.420 so that when it emerged,

01:38:24.100 it,

01:38:24.460 it was a genre of music,

01:38:25.560 that I never,

01:38:26.660 really got,

01:38:27.600 familiar with.

01:38:28.760 I,

01:38:29.040 there's some rap songs,

01:38:30.360 I like,

01:38:30.700 I like Eminem.

01:38:32.520 He's,

01:38:33.180 some of what Eminem does,

01:38:34.840 I mean,

01:38:35.380 he's,

01:38:35.660 he's unbelievably skillful,

01:38:37.660 at what he does.

01:38:38.840 I don't know enough,

01:38:39.740 about Kanye's,

01:38:41.300 art form,

01:38:41.980 to comment on it.

01:38:43.400 People certainly think,

01:38:44.640 that he's a genius,

01:38:45.760 and lots of people think that,

01:38:47.300 and he's had a very long term career,

01:38:49.620 and you don't have,

01:38:50.560 a long term career,

01:38:51.520 as a creative artist,

01:38:52.480 that's financially successful,

01:38:53.840 and stable,

01:38:54.640 without being,

01:38:55.760 remarkable,

01:38:56.460 in,

01:38:57.060 at least two ways,

01:38:58.280 right?

01:38:58.880 You have to be,

01:38:59.620 that creative,

01:39:00.820 you have to be,

01:39:01.580 that good at sales,

01:39:02.360 and marketing,

01:39:03.480 and,

01:39:03.940 and able to deal,

01:39:04.720 with people.

01:39:05.300 You have to not,

01:39:06.300 collapse,

01:39:07.160 into yourself,

01:39:08.920 you know,

01:39:09.260 because of some,

01:39:10.760 lurking,

01:39:12.480 random problem,

01:39:13.660 or problem in character.

01:39:15.140 So,

01:39:15.540 I have no doubt,

01:39:16.240 that he's a remarkable person,

01:39:17.560 but,

01:39:17.960 I can't,

01:39:19.520 I just don't know enough,

01:39:20.500 about the genre,

01:39:21.280 to say anything,

01:39:21.800 other than that.

01:39:22.580 I really wanted to start,

01:39:25.880 the Kanye Peterson feud tonight.

01:39:31.640 How concerned are you,

01:39:33.120 that Google and YouTube,

01:39:34.420 will eventually,

01:39:35.340 kick you guys off?

01:39:37.300 Well,

01:39:37.580 we talk about this,

01:39:38.380 all the time.

01:39:39.800 I'm not so much concerned,

01:39:41.220 that they'll kick us off,

01:39:42.120 as I am concerned,

01:39:43.200 that they'll do,

01:39:43.860 underhanded,

01:39:44.840 gerrymandering,

01:39:46.040 which I think,

01:39:46.600 is even more pernicious.

01:39:47.840 It's like,

01:39:48.820 Google shut me down,

01:39:49.920 at one point,

01:39:50.600 hey,

01:39:51.240 they shut off,

01:39:52.140 it was really an awful day,

01:39:53.960 because I've been using Gmail,

01:39:55.700 for a very long time,

01:39:56.780 and I had like 40,

01:39:57.920 I don't know how many,

01:39:58.700 how many Gmail,

01:40:00.160 I don't know how many email messages,

01:40:01.280 I had in Gmail.

01:40:02.220 I think I had 25,000,

01:40:04.020 that were unanswered,

01:40:05.720 something like that.

01:40:07.440 And then,

01:40:08.000 and my calendar,

01:40:09.400 for years in the past,

01:40:10.740 which is a record,

01:40:11.700 and then for months,

01:40:12.800 into the future,

01:40:13.660 they just shut it off one day.

01:40:15.120 I couldn't get access,

01:40:15.920 to any of my email accounts,

01:40:16.960 I couldn't get access,

01:40:17.680 to my calendar,

01:40:18.340 and I couldn't get access,

01:40:19.320 to YouTube.

01:40:20.300 So that was very,

01:40:21.500 annoying.

01:40:22.760 And then,

01:40:23.560 they said,

01:40:24.100 well,

01:40:24.220 that I'd violated,

01:40:25.020 one of their guidelines.

01:40:26.400 A robot,

01:40:26.800 a robot had picked it up.

01:40:28.280 Oh good,

01:40:29.120 oh good,

01:40:29.700 you,

01:40:30.160 you bloody well programmed,

01:40:31.960 a censorship robot.

01:40:35.060 Brilliant.

01:40:36.360 And so,

01:40:37.540 and then they said,

01:40:38.760 so I contacted,

01:40:39.740 and they said,

01:40:40.100 well,

01:40:40.240 it's also been reviewed,

01:40:41.080 by human beings,

01:40:41.880 and it stands,

01:40:42.940 and there's no appeal.

01:40:45.260 Oh,

01:40:45.580 I thought,

01:40:46.020 that's good.

01:40:47.120 You won't tell me,

01:40:47.880 what I did wrong.

01:40:48.560 A robot figured it out,

01:40:49.620 a human reviewed it,

01:40:50.760 I don't know what happened,

01:40:52.040 and there's nothing I can do about it.

01:40:53.300 That's the whole story.

01:40:55.060 Right?

01:40:55.580 Well,

01:40:55.760 it turned out,

01:40:56.120 there were some things,

01:40:56.920 that I could do about it,

01:40:57.740 because I phoned 15,

01:40:59.160 20 journalists,

01:40:59.920 in about an hour,

01:41:01.140 and then it became,

01:41:01.960 a national story in Canada,

01:41:03.180 and then they decided,

01:41:04.520 that that was all a mistake,

01:41:05.640 and they turned it back on,

01:41:06.680 about three hours later.

01:41:08.000 So it turns out,

01:41:09.100 that if you're fortunate,

01:41:11.080 and annoying enough,

01:41:12.560 in that combination,

01:41:14.760 then there is an appeal.

01:41:17.080 But,

01:41:17.560 but,

01:41:18.000 having said that,

01:41:20.020 I'm actually less,

01:41:21.380 terrified,

01:41:22.240 by the prospect,

01:41:23.420 of a company,

01:41:24.120 that just says,

01:41:25.480 up yours,

01:41:26.240 you're done,

01:41:27.640 than one that,

01:41:28.960 plays games,

01:41:30.040 behind the scenes.

01:41:31.560 And so,

01:41:32.160 now that hasn't happened,

01:41:33.300 to me too much,

01:41:34.080 and the reason,

01:41:34.700 that I know of,

01:41:35.840 the reason for that,

01:41:36.840 is that I'm not,

01:41:37.700 advertising dependent.

01:41:39.180 So when I put up,

01:41:40.160 my YouTube channel,

01:41:41.440 I thought,

01:41:42.320 well I'm not going,

01:41:42.860 to use advertisements,

01:41:43.880 because they did,

01:41:44.500 they just didn't seem to me,

01:41:45.680 to be appropriate,

01:41:46.600 for the content.

01:41:47.700 You know?

01:41:48.100 So I thought,

01:41:48.840 I'm not doing that.

01:41:49.700 Now what I did instead,

01:41:50.900 and this was more of an experiment,

01:41:52.300 than anything else,

01:41:53.420 in March of 2016,

01:41:54.940 I set up a Patreon account.

01:41:56.780 And I did that,

01:41:57.460 mostly out of curiosity.

01:41:58.780 Patreon was a new thing,

01:42:00.040 and I've been very,

01:42:01.040 interested in how creative,

01:42:02.700 content producers,

01:42:03.740 can monetize,

01:42:04.640 because it's a very difficult problem,

01:42:06.160 if you're creative,

01:42:07.380 to ever generate any revenue.

01:42:09.220 Right?

01:42:09.420 Most creative people,

01:42:10.360 they just starve to death.

01:42:11.480 You know?

01:42:11.700 Like it's,

01:42:12.360 well some of them,

01:42:13.100 get spectacularly rich,

01:42:15.360 but most of them,

01:42:16.280 just get nothing.

01:42:17.640 And so it's a big problem.

01:42:19.360 So I was monetized,

01:42:20.700 through Patreon,

01:42:21.300 because that became successful,

01:42:22.560 and YouTube can't,

01:42:23.360 gerrymander that,

01:42:24.120 because they,

01:42:24.920 to you,

01:42:25.460 they demonetize you,

01:42:26.600 all the time.

01:42:27.720 Yeah,

01:42:28.060 and they demonetize,

01:42:29.440 prager you,

01:42:30.240 all the time.

01:42:30.960 And they,

01:42:31.480 oh this is not suitable,

01:42:32.480 for our advertisers.

01:42:33.860 It's like,

01:42:34.560 I really think it's so comical,

01:42:36.200 that the word demonize,

01:42:37.640 and the word demonetize,

01:42:38.920 are like the same word.

01:42:40.580 You know?

01:42:41.180 So I'm much more terrified,

01:42:43.600 of Google,

01:42:44.740 and YouTube,

01:42:46.280 altering,

01:42:47.600 what people are allowed,

01:42:49.300 to perceive,

01:42:50.140 using algorithms,

01:42:51.440 that no one can detect.

01:42:53.460 Because what they're building,

01:42:55.040 this is a terrifying thing,

01:42:56.600 and there are plenty,

01:42:57.580 of people in Silicon Valley,

01:42:58.840 who are plenty,

01:42:59.880 bloody terrified,

01:43:00.820 about this,

01:43:01.300 I can tell you.

01:43:02.020 Is that,

01:43:02.820 you see,

01:43:03.740 when you look at the world,

01:43:06.340 there's all sorts,

01:43:07.160 of unconscious things,

01:43:08.360 going on,

01:43:08.920 in your neural circuitry,

01:43:10.040 that allow that to happen.

01:43:11.180 Right?

01:43:11.380 I mean,

01:43:11.580 you look at something,

01:43:12.320 and there it is.

01:43:12.940 You think,

01:43:13.260 that's easy.

01:43:14.240 You just look at it,

01:43:15.040 and there it is.

01:43:15.580 It's like,

01:43:16.020 it's not easy.

01:43:17.440 You know,

01:43:17.740 your brain is so complicated.

01:43:19.140 There isn't anything,

01:43:20.940 anywhere,

01:43:21.860 that's close to as complicated,

01:43:23.820 as a single human brain,

01:43:25.580 except another human brain.

01:43:27.780 You're insanely complicated.

01:43:30.120 And all that complexity,

01:43:31.720 is necessary,

01:43:32.540 to turn the world,

01:43:34.440 which is a very complicated place,

01:43:35.980 into what you see.

01:43:37.740 And so lots of things,

01:43:38.720 are going behind the scenes.

01:43:40.380 Implicit perceptual biases,

01:43:42.600 for example.

01:43:43.100 A lot of what you see,

01:43:44.080 in the world,

01:43:44.440 is actually memory.

01:43:45.860 So your memory,

01:43:47.060 informs your vision.

01:43:48.540 And that's increasingly,

01:43:49.860 the case as you get older.

01:43:51.160 So,

01:43:52.040 unconscious biases,

01:43:54.640 produce your perception.

01:43:57.060 And hopefully,

01:43:57.940 you're not so biased,

01:43:58.980 that you see things,

01:44:01.780 erroneously enough,

01:44:02.900 so that when you act on them,

01:44:04.080 that you perish.

01:44:05.400 That's the limitation factor.

01:44:07.600 Now,

01:44:07.940 what we're producing,

01:44:09.180 online,

01:44:10.980 is,

01:44:11.980 an artificial unconscious.

01:44:14.100 That's what we're doing,

01:44:14.960 because it takes,

01:44:15.920 all the information,

01:44:16.840 that there is,

01:44:17.580 and screens it,

01:44:18.900 to present to you.

01:44:19.900 But you don't know,

01:44:20.740 what the algorithms are.

01:44:22.860 And that's very bad.

01:44:25.160 And so it's,

01:44:25.900 it's the,

01:44:26.840 it's the,

01:44:27.800 lack of clarity,

01:44:29.280 that's associated with that,

01:44:30.600 that's much more,

01:44:31.520 frightening to me,

01:44:32.320 than the arbitrariness,

01:44:33.660 of the decisions.

01:44:34.680 Like if you know,

01:44:35.420 if someone just says no,

01:44:37.140 it's like okay,

01:44:37.680 I know what you're up to.

01:44:38.720 You don't like me,

01:44:39.700 you don't like what I'm doing.

01:44:41.160 You're,

01:44:41.400 you're,

01:44:41.760 it's your right,

01:44:42.520 you're a private company.

01:44:44.480 It's technically your right,

01:44:45.620 just to say no.

01:44:46.760 It's like alright,

01:44:47.600 fine,

01:44:47.940 it's up front,

01:44:48.580 I see what you're doing.

01:44:49.800 But the demonetization game,

01:44:52.260 like that's a treacherous,

01:44:53.420 and,

01:44:53.660 and,

01:44:54.140 and nasty game.

01:44:55.920 You know,

01:44:56.260 and,

01:44:56.740 and it also breeds paranoia.

01:44:59.000 You know,

01:44:59.220 because well you have,

01:45:00.700 subscribers who,

01:45:02.320 write you consistently,

01:45:03.780 and tell you that,

01:45:05.000 they've been unsubscribed,

01:45:06.380 for example.

01:45:07.140 And,

01:45:07.440 well,

01:45:08.680 can you,

01:45:10.160 you can't verify that.

01:45:11.700 There's hundreds of people,

01:45:12.600 who've said that.

01:45:13.500 But it makes you suspicious.

01:45:15.620 Well that's not good either.

01:45:16.800 You don't want to generate suspicion.

01:45:18.840 And YouTube does weird things too.

01:45:20.480 Like when I launch a YouTube video,

01:45:21.800 I get more comments,

01:45:24.480 than viewers.

01:45:26.200 It's like,

01:45:26.920 okay.

01:45:28.680 That's not,

01:45:29.800 that's that pesky arithmetic again.

01:45:33.160 And I think,

01:45:34.060 well look,

01:45:34.740 we all know what a number means,

01:45:36.300 right?

01:45:36.640 Like a number means,

01:45:39.300 if,

01:45:39.600 if,

01:45:40.180 if 10,

01:45:41.200 if the number 10 comes up,

01:45:42.620 and it says viewers,

01:45:44.480 what that means is,

01:45:45.540 10 people viewed this.

01:45:47.780 So we all have this contract,

01:45:49.320 right?

01:45:49.460 We've decided what numbers mean.

01:45:51.240 One thing means,

01:45:52.400 one.

01:45:53.120 Two things means,

01:45:54.360 two.

01:45:55.300 A hundred doesn't mean,

01:45:56.740 well it's somewhere between,

01:45:57.900 a thousand and 10,000,

01:45:59.460 and when our algorithm's sorted out,

01:46:01.060 we'll update it.

01:46:02.340 It doesn't mean that,

01:46:03.220 because then what you're doing,

01:46:04.260 is you're playing games,

01:46:05.520 with the,

01:46:05.940 with the function of number itself.

01:46:09.000 That's a very bad thing to do.

01:46:12.260 You know,

01:46:12.560 and YouTube will say,

01:46:14.460 and perhaps with a certain amount of justification,

01:46:16.700 that,

01:46:17.100 well,

01:46:17.240 they don't want robots inflating the views,

01:46:19.680 like they're doing this to control fraud,

01:46:23.240 but,

01:46:24.700 they're fraudulently using,

01:46:26.960 numbers themselves.

01:46:29.200 Well,

01:46:29.800 that's not acceptable.

01:46:31.340 What happens if we can't trust numbers?

01:46:33.460 Like,

01:46:33.660 that would be bad.

01:46:35.100 We can actually trust numbers.

01:46:36.860 They're solid.

01:46:37.580 Like,

01:46:37.720 they might be more solid than anything else.

01:46:39.520 All of a sudden now,

01:46:40.600 well,

01:46:40.740 a number means,

01:46:42.120 well,

01:46:42.500 whatever the people who built in the algorithm,

01:46:45.260 want it to mean.

01:46:46.820 Well,

01:46:47.340 no,

01:46:48.100 not,

01:46:48.480 not a good idea.

01:46:49.400 So that's very,

01:46:51.320 that's one of the tremendous dangers of,

01:46:53.240 burgeoning artificial intelligence.

01:46:57.080 So.

01:46:57.900 Here's a segue for you.

01:46:59.320 Could you take Sam Harris in a fist fight?

01:47:06.540 Everyone put your phone away while he answers this,

01:47:09.240 please.

01:47:12.560 Hmm.

01:47:17.100 I'm thinking about it.

01:47:18.280 I'm thinking about it.

01:47:21.820 You have better reach.

01:47:23.240 Yeah.

01:47:23.900 That's true.

01:47:24.500 I've got better reach.

01:47:25.580 I think it's conceivable that I'm meaner.

01:47:29.300 It's possible.

01:47:30.620 Although I'm not,

01:47:31.280 I'm not absolutely convinced of that because Sam can be,

01:47:34.960 he's got his vicious streak.

01:47:36.480 It's one of the good,

01:47:37.080 good things about him.

01:47:38.900 Look,

01:47:39.460 we're,

01:47:39.940 what would probably happen?

01:47:41.360 Like,

01:47:41.640 we're,

01:47:41.840 we're both kind of old.

01:47:42.940 What would probably happen is we'd have like two rounds and we'd be so damn exhausted that

01:47:48.160 we could hardly stand up.

01:47:49.260 And then we'd look at each other and realize how stupid it was.

01:47:51.500 And then we'd put our arms around each other and like go retire.

01:47:54.200 And,

01:47:54.640 and,

01:47:55.680 oh,

01:47:55.760 I'd have a sparkling water and maybe he'd have a beer.

01:47:58.480 So.

01:47:59.740 He's got all his MMA moves.

01:48:01.300 You've got sort of Dr.

01:48:02.480 Strange hand motion.

01:48:03.720 Yeah.

01:48:03.960 You know?

01:48:04.260 And I have the power of prayer.

01:48:11.120 Ah,

01:48:11.600 they like that one.

01:48:18.160 All right,

01:48:18.620 we've got time for two more.

01:48:19.760 You once said that if a very old memory still makes you cry or emotional,

01:48:24.540 you still have work left to do to confront it.

01:48:27.780 What's the best,

01:48:28.480 best method to do so?

01:48:30.780 Yeah.

01:48:31.200 The best thing to do is to write it down.

01:48:33.300 And that's the best thing is to write down what happened in as much detail as you can,

01:48:40.300 regardless of how painful it is.

01:48:42.520 And like,

01:48:42.900 don't,

01:48:43.200 don't push yourself too hard.

01:48:44.560 You can always do it over three or four days.

01:48:46.880 And you don't worry about,

01:48:48.660 you know,

01:48:48.960 the quality of your writing to begin with,

01:48:50.900 although that becomes important as you proceed.

01:48:53.140 But you want to get down what happened,

01:48:54.980 everything you can remember.

01:48:56.440 And then what you'll find is that some of the things that you thought bothered you,

01:49:00.020 don't bother you as much.

01:49:01.040 And you get much sharper about what did bother you.

01:49:03.920 And that's helpful.

01:49:04.660 But then you also show yourself that you can confront it.

01:49:08.240 And this,

01:49:08.860 this works even with very,

01:49:10.140 very bad memories of very,

01:49:11.600 very bad things.

01:49:12.640 And the clinical data on that's quite clear.

01:49:15.200 Then the other thing you have to do is you have to figure out why it happened.

01:49:19.420 And that's a tough one,

01:49:20.480 man,

01:49:20.620 especially if you were like,

01:49:22.340 maybe you were abused by your sadistic uncle,

01:49:24.860 or maybe you were abused repeatedly,

01:49:26.960 and maybe your parents knew about it and didn't say anything.

01:49:29.680 That's pretty bad.

01:49:31.680 It's like,

01:49:32.040 so why did it happen?

01:49:34.220 Well,

01:49:35.940 that's,

01:49:36.460 that's,

01:49:36.960 that's a rough one,

01:49:37.920 man,

01:49:38.180 because you need to develop a philosophy of malevolence to account for that.

01:49:42.340 Right?

01:49:42.760 And so,

01:49:44.320 like writing out the memory and then making a causal account of it can be unbelievably difficult.

01:49:49.900 I mean,

01:49:50.180 if,

01:49:50.280 if you're haunted by past catastrophe,

01:49:53.900 you're haunted partly because you don't understand it.

01:49:56.320 It's like,

01:49:56.680 well,

01:49:56.820 how could,

01:49:57.280 how could this possibly happen?

01:49:59.420 Well,

01:50:00.500 yeah,

01:50:01.980 childhood sexual abuse,

01:50:03.520 especially repeated sort of sadistic childhood sexual abuse,

01:50:06.640 it's like,

01:50:07.140 that's not an easy thing to come to a causal account of.

01:50:10.260 Right?

01:50:10.460 You really do need a deep philosophy of good and evil to even start to approach that in any reasonable sense.

01:50:16.880 And,

01:50:17.820 but the thing is,

01:50:18.820 you do need that because your memory demands something,

01:50:21.540 you see.

01:50:22.440 You're,

01:50:22.980 you're,

01:50:23.280 the reason that you remember things is so that you don't repeat your mistakes in the future.

01:50:30.200 And so what's a mistake?

01:50:31.980 Well,

01:50:32.200 a mistake,

01:50:33.140 and I'm not saying you're personally responsible for this precisely.

01:50:36.100 It's not like it's your fault,

01:50:37.760 but you're stuck with it.

01:50:38.680 If something terrible happened to you in the past,

01:50:41.500 your mind will not let that go until you figured out why it happened and how to avoid it in the future.

01:50:50.740 Because that's how your mind is set up.

01:50:53.800 It's like,

01:50:54.660 one day you walk down the street and you fall into a hole.

01:50:57.080 And so then the part of your brain that's responsible for protecting you,

01:51:03.120 the systems that regulate negative emotion,

01:51:05.280 think,

01:51:05.800 okay,

01:51:07.020 it's time for you to redraw your damn map.

01:51:09.980 If you're going to walk down that street,

01:51:11.460 you better figure out how to walk around that hole.

01:51:13.900 Or you'll never forget the hole.

01:51:17.000 Well,

01:51:17.300 why?

01:51:17.860 Well,

01:51:18.020 because you don't want to fall in the hole again.

01:51:20.640 And sometimes the hole is very,

01:51:21.980 very deep and there are terrible things in it.

01:51:23.620 And maybe someone pushed you in.

01:51:25.680 It doesn't matter.

01:51:27.720 You have to figure out how to never have that happen again.

01:51:31.560 And now,

01:51:32.100 if that memory still has its hooks in you,

01:51:35.180 what that means is,

01:51:36.200 the part of you that is responsible for your protection and self-preservation

01:51:43.120 is not satisfied with your conceptual account of the occurrence.

01:51:50.200 And you might think,

01:51:51.040 well,

01:51:51.220 that's horribly unfair.

01:51:52.480 It's not only did this terrible thing happen to me,

01:51:54.480 but I have to like carry it for the rest of my life.

01:51:57.860 It's like,

01:51:58.540 right.

01:51:59.540 It's not,

01:52:00.800 of course,

01:52:01.920 it's not fair.

01:52:03.100 It's horrible.

01:52:03.620 It's part of the ongoing catastrophe of the trauma.

01:52:07.200 It doesn't matter.

01:52:08.620 It's irrelevant.

01:52:09.960 You don't have a choice.

01:52:11.620 Well,

01:52:11.820 you do.

01:52:12.480 You can either figure it out,

01:52:14.040 or you can suffer permanently with it.

01:52:17.220 Those are your options.

01:52:18.860 And so,

01:52:19.180 I have a program online called the Self-Authoring Suite.

01:52:22.340 And one of its modules is a past authoring.

01:52:24.960 And it invites people to write a biography,

01:52:27.700 a structured biography,

01:52:28.760 and ask you questions about your past.

01:52:30.480 And if you spend,

01:52:31.820 it's something to ask yourself.

01:52:33.100 Look,

01:52:34.260 lots of people live in the past,

01:52:36.780 nostalgically,

01:52:37.960 but also,

01:52:38.960 they can't get rid of the things that happen to them.

01:52:42.200 And that's not good.

01:52:43.740 It's hard on you physiologically.

01:52:45.720 It's hard on you psychologically.

01:52:47.000 It makes you old,

01:52:48.100 and it interferes with the future.

01:52:50.180 And if you're in that situation,

01:52:51.720 where you're paralyzed by reminiscences,

01:52:54.980 and that produces anxiety and uncertainty,

01:52:57.940 then it would be very useful to straighten that out.

01:53:01.340 And one of the best ways to do that is by writing.

01:53:03.880 It's like,

01:53:04.200 what happened exactly?

01:53:05.460 Write down everything that happened.

01:53:06.820 Okay,

01:53:07.100 why did it happen?

01:53:08.800 What made you vulnerable at that time?

01:53:11.040 Because one of the things you'll find,

01:53:12.340 especially if you were hurt when you were a kid,

01:53:14.540 is,

01:53:15.380 well,

01:53:15.560 you're not a kid anymore.

01:53:17.720 But,

01:53:18.100 you know,

01:53:18.260 if you were hurt as a kid,

01:53:19.740 I know a lot of people who were hurt very badly as children,

01:53:22.860 and the part of them that is still possessed by that,

01:53:28.540 has never figured out that they've grown up.

01:53:31.620 They've never figured out that that would not happen now,

01:53:35.360 or is not convinced of it.

01:53:37.000 And so,

01:53:37.380 part of it is that you have to update your self-conception.

01:53:41.160 You know,

01:53:41.340 so I had a client at one point who told me that she had been molested by her brother when she was a kid,

01:53:47.060 sexually molested.

01:53:48.540 And the way she told the story was,

01:53:50.120 I thought,

01:53:50.460 oh,

01:53:50.660 she was like four,

01:53:51.680 and he was like 17,

01:53:52.940 or something like that.

01:53:53.760 That's how it appeared to me.

01:53:55.260 And then she told me the whole story,

01:53:56.740 and I said,

01:53:57.220 well,

01:53:57.340 how old was your brother?

01:53:58.160 And she said,

01:53:58.680 well,

01:53:58.800 he was six.

01:54:00.620 And I thought,

01:54:02.300 and I talked to her about this.

01:54:03.600 I said,

01:54:03.840 okay,

01:54:04.040 look,

01:54:04.340 here's how you told me this story.

01:54:05.900 It sounded like,

01:54:06.740 you know,

01:54:06.940 you were very young,

01:54:07.740 and he was like a teenager at least,

01:54:09.680 but he wasn't.

01:54:10.840 He was a kid.

01:54:11.680 Like,

01:54:11.920 think about a six-year-old.

01:54:15.180 Like,

01:54:15.600 when you're four,

01:54:16.320 a six-year-old is way older,

01:54:17.980 way 50% older.

01:54:19.440 Like,

01:54:19.720 they might as well be adult,

01:54:20.840 and they're much bigger.

01:54:21.660 So,

01:54:22.040 you could see that how she might have viewed him as a very large and intimidating figure.

01:54:27.780 But she was in her 30s when she came to see me.

01:54:30.400 It's like,

01:54:30.720 no,

01:54:30.880 no,

01:54:30.940 you've got to retool this.

01:54:32.200 It's like,

01:54:33.680 here's a different story.

01:54:35.540 You were two very badly supervised children.

01:54:40.840 And so,

01:54:41.760 that was very useful to her,

01:54:43.100 because the part of her that had that memory was still four.

01:54:48.200 She never got past it.

01:54:49.820 And it's a different story.

01:54:51.360 It's so funny that your past can change that way.

01:54:55.300 My brother and I were terribly supervised.

01:54:59.640 It's a way different story than I was sexually molested by my much older brother when I was young.

01:55:05.200 Now,

01:55:06.000 I'm not saying that the first story didn't have its validity.

01:55:11.620 But so did the second story.

01:55:13.340 It makes a big difference.

01:55:14.500 And it's also a way of freeing her,

01:55:16.100 because she's not four anymore.

01:55:19.920 And so,

01:55:21.400 you have this existential obligation to come to terms with your past enough,

01:55:27.600 so that the negative emotion of old memories disappears.

01:55:30.960 Because if it's still there,

01:55:32.060 it means that another way of thinking about it is that some of your potential is stuck in the past.

01:55:36.860 Because you've been confronted by a terrible challenge,

01:55:40.020 a puzzle,

01:55:40.860 that you need to solve.

01:55:42.280 And if you solved it,

01:55:43.240 then you would be more than you are.

01:55:45.820 Tougher,

01:55:46.820 meaner,

01:55:47.860 more competent,

01:55:49.020 more awake,

01:55:50.240 more clear-headed,

01:55:51.860 less likely to be taken advantage of,

01:55:53.940 sharper,

01:55:55.100 wiser,

01:55:55.780 older,

01:55:56.300 more mature,

01:55:56.960 all those things.

01:55:57.940 If you could only cope with that,

01:56:00.240 if you could only parse your way through it.

01:56:02.700 And you know,

01:56:03.120 you might need help to do that,

01:56:04.380 because,

01:56:04.940 well,

01:56:05.160 sometimes if something particularly dreadful happened to you,

01:56:08.400 you might not be able to conjure up a philosophical or practical rationale for it.

01:56:13.100 It might be too deep.

01:56:14.580 You know,

01:56:14.840 because if you're an unfortunate person,

01:56:17.000 and someone truly malevolent got their mitts on you,

01:56:21.340 that's a hell of a thing to try to make sense of.

01:56:23.480 Because the only way you can make sense out of that is to come up with a comprehensive philosophy of evil.

01:56:28.940 And a philosophy of evil that's sufficiently comprehensive to account for such things borders on the theological.

01:56:35.420 It's very,

01:56:36.160 very deep.

01:56:37.080 And it's necessary.

01:56:38.600 You can't get out of those situations without doing that.

01:56:42.260 And so you might need help as well.

01:56:44.680 So.

01:56:44.860 All right.

01:56:57.180 One more.

01:56:57.980 We'll shift gears a little bit.

01:56:59.360 You get this one often.

01:57:00.580 How do you like all this travel and meeting all these new people?

01:57:03.460 Well,

01:57:05.680 when I left,

01:57:07.460 I was supposed to be in Toronto for a week last week.

01:57:10.480 And I wasn't because some things came up and I had to travel to New York,

01:57:14.100 for example,

01:57:14.720 for a couple of days.

01:57:15.880 But I was looking forward to being home for a week because my son just got married.

01:57:20.520 And him and his wife were there.

01:57:22.480 And they live up the street from us.

01:57:24.560 And so I was looking forward to spending some time with them.

01:57:26.580 And my daughter is in Toronto.

01:57:28.700 And she has this 14-year-old daughter who's my granddaughter, obviously.

01:57:35.060 And 14 months.

01:57:37.560 Sorry,

01:57:37.780 14 months.

01:57:38.420 14 months.

01:57:39.660 Yeah,

01:57:40.080 14 months.

01:57:43.120 14 months.

01:57:44.020 There's that arithmetic again.

01:57:47.320 And I was really looking forward to spending some time with them.

01:57:50.940 And so,

01:57:51.700 and I didn't spend much time with them.

01:57:53.560 So I was feeling quite lonesome when we had to leave again.

01:57:56.580 And somewhat upset about that.

01:57:59.700 And as was my wife.

01:58:00.880 But,

01:58:01.560 but,

01:58:03.660 but having said that,

01:58:05.460 I mean,

01:58:06.300 we're on this ridiculous adventure,

01:58:09.140 you know.

01:58:09.500 So we're in Europe.

01:58:11.220 We're in Dublin.

01:58:11.800 That's cool.

01:58:12.420 This is a cool place,

01:58:13.440 Dublin.

01:58:13.820 And look at all you people.

01:58:14.780 Here you are.

01:58:15.460 It's

01:58:15.620 amazing.

01:58:18.280 And then we're in,

01:58:19.560 we're in 15

01:58:20.860 or 16,

01:58:22.480 20,

01:58:23.380 20 cities,

01:58:24.320 I think,

01:58:24.640 in the next month in Europe.

01:58:25.960 Well,

01:58:26.800 what,

01:58:27.080 what an amazing opportunity.

01:58:29.620 And to,

01:58:30.140 and to have these sorts of discussions with so many people.

01:58:32.980 So,

01:58:34.920 if you have to,

01:58:35.880 you have to be a fool to not think that that's a miraculous opportunity.

01:58:40.500 A genuinely miraculous opportunity.

01:58:42.360 And so,

01:58:43.440 I miss my family.

01:58:48.240 But my wife travels with me.

01:58:50.000 She's in the audience.

01:58:50.760 I think she's in one of these boxes.

01:58:52.400 And so,

01:58:53.000 that's really good.

01:58:53.920 And she's very,

01:58:54.740 very helpful.

01:58:55.720 And so,

01:58:56.020 that keeps some of the isolation at bay.

01:58:58.860 And helps keep me on track.

01:59:02.760 But,

01:59:04.200 you know,

01:59:05.000 I wouldn't be doing this if I thought there was something better that I could be doing.

01:59:08.980 You know,

01:59:09.280 because I have a fair number of opportunities,

01:59:11.460 let's say.

01:59:12.280 And this is a ridiculously good opportunity.

01:59:14.640 And these are unbelievably positive events.

01:59:18.080 You know,

01:59:18.260 I get to think about things that I think are the most important things that I've ever thought about.

01:59:22.600 And I get to talk to people about them.

01:59:24.800 And everyone seems pleased that they're,

01:59:27.860 that we're having the conversation.

01:59:30.860 And the conversation seemed to be helpful to people.

01:59:34.880 At least that's what people tell me on a relatively regular basis.

01:59:39.040 And we get to see all these amazing theaters.

01:59:42.460 And like,

01:59:42.860 this is a good deal.

01:59:43.900 This is a really good deal.

01:59:45.540 So,

01:59:46.200 so I've,

01:59:47.040 I've got zero,

01:59:49.060 I've got no complaints about this.

01:59:51.280 At all.

01:59:52.060 It's,

01:59:52.360 I don't feel put upon.

01:59:54.320 I don't feel that it's a burden.

01:59:56.040 Quite the contrary.

01:59:57.180 I know,

01:59:57.460 like,

01:59:57.800 I do my best to notice when things aren't horrible.

02:00:02.120 And to be grateful for that.

02:00:04.200 And there's endless numbers of things to be grateful about in all of this.

02:00:08.020 And so,

02:00:09.200 that's it.

02:00:10.500 Great.

02:00:11.100 This is wonderful.

02:00:12.020 My book is selling ridiculously well.

02:00:16.400 Which is a real shock.

02:00:18.560 And,

02:00:19.240 and I really think these events are,

02:00:24.580 there's nothing about them that isn't great as far as I'm concerned.

02:00:28.320 And the fact that everybody comes.

02:00:29.640 That we're talking about things that are important and difficult.

02:00:32.700 That the vast majority of people who come like you all have.

02:00:36.620 I believe that you're here because you're trying to figure out how to put your life in order.

02:00:41.680 How to develop a vision that's ennobling.

02:00:44.380 And how to make things better.

02:00:47.160 It's like,

02:00:47.620 that's what we should all be doing.

02:00:49.220 We should be trying to figure out how to remediate suffering.

02:00:52.340 How to constrain malevolence.

02:00:53.800 How to make things better.

02:00:55.560 We can do that.

02:00:56.660 And there isn't anything that's better to do than that.

02:01:00.100 Period.

02:01:00.500 And so hopefully this is some small step in that direction.

02:01:05.060 And so,

02:01:05.720 yeah,

02:01:05.960 I'm thrilled about it.

02:01:06.980 Constantly.

02:01:07.700 That's why I'm doing it.

02:01:09.500 Applause.

02:01:09.940 If you found this conversation meaningful,

02:01:20.880 you might think about picking up dad's books,

02:01:22.860 Maps of Meaning,

02:01:23.600 The Architecture of Belief,

02:01:24.940 or his newer bestseller,

02:01:26.220 12 Rules for Life,

02:01:27.260 An Antidote to Chaos.

02:01:28.720 Both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

02:01:33.780 See jordanbpeterson.com for audio, ebook, and text links,

02:01:37.900 or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller.

02:01:40.360 I really hope you enjoyed this podcast.

02:01:42.500 Thanks for tuning in.

02:01:43.620 Thanks for the continuous support.

02:01:45.200 Have a wonderful week.

02:01:46.740 Next week's podcast delves into the so-called crisis of masculinity.

02:01:50.840 Talk to you next week.

02:01:52.140 Follow me on my YouTube channel,

02:01:54.240 Jordan B. Peterson.

02:01:55.660 On Twitter,

02:01:56.580 at Jordan B. Peterson.

02:01:57.800 On Facebook,

02:01:59.520 at Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

02:02:01.560 And at Instagram,

02:02:02.520 at jordan.b.peterson.

02:02:04.940 Details on this show,

02:02:06.800 access to my blog,

02:02:08.060 information about my tour dates and other events,

02:02:11.320 and my list of recommended books,

02:02:13.400 can be found on my website,

02:02:15.180 jordanbpeterson.com.

02:02:17.100 My online writing programs,

02:02:19.160 designed to help people straighten out their pasts,

02:02:22.000 understand themselves in the present,

02:02:23.880 and develop a sophisticated vision and strategy for the future,

02:02:27.280 can be found at selfauthoring.com.

02:02:29.820 That's selfauthoring.com

02:02:32.320 From the Westwood One Podcast Network.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - October 06, 2019

You have an Endless Potential

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