The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Discussing The Parasitic Mind on PragerU's Real Talk with Marissa Streit (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.000 Some of the supposedly brightest people can come up with some of the dumbest and most insane ideas.

00:00:05.420 I felt like it's very important that we bring in an evolutionary psychologist

00:00:09.980 to explain what the bleep is happening in the West.

00:00:13.960 Communism has been tried, and the answer is always the same.

00:00:17.340 Great idea, wrong species.

00:00:19.380 Many medical schools are removing grading.

00:00:21.740 Don't get married, hook up culture, don't have children.

00:00:24.940 I'm going to show this one to you.

00:00:26.260 Doja Cat, look at what she's done to herself.

00:00:28.320 Oh my.

00:00:29.140 I am allergic to BS.

00:00:31.340 What is this parasitic mind that we have developed here in the West?

00:00:36.680 Professor Godsaad, I am so glad that you're here because times are just so crazy

00:00:41.740 that we needed to speak to an evolutionary psychologist to figure out

00:00:46.560 what on earth is happening to our society.

00:00:49.000 Are we devolving into complete craziness?

00:00:51.960 And so to just get started, will you explain what is evolutionary psychology?

00:00:59.140 Yes, perfect.

00:01:00.720 Well, so good to be with you.

00:01:03.120 Evolutionary psychology is simply applying the principles of evolution to study why our minds

00:01:09.480 are the way that they are.

00:01:10.800 So in the same way that I can explain why we have opposable thumbs through an evolutionary lens,

00:01:17.380 why our respiratory system is the way that it is, there's no reason why we can't apply

00:01:22.540 the tools of evolution to explain our most important organ that defines our personhood,

00:01:27.680 which is our mind.

00:01:28.520 And so, for example, if I want to understand why are men sexually territorial?

00:01:34.400 Not that women are not, but men more so.

00:01:36.560 Men will go to homicidal rages if they either have suspected or realized infidelity.

00:01:42.340 So an evolutionary psychologist would say, why would men have evolved that particular response?

00:01:47.900 And the answer from an evolutionary perspective would be because of paternity uncertainty.

00:01:52.460 We are a bi-parental species.

00:01:54.640 Human males do invest a lot in their children, not as much as women,

00:01:58.120 but a lot more than other dads in the animal kingdom.

00:02:01.620 Therefore, it doesn't make sense that your male ancestors and mine would have evolved a

00:02:06.720 laissez-faire attitude to their women going around the bushes with every second guy coming through town,

00:02:12.900 because then I would spend all of my time and energy raising someone else's child.

00:02:17.360 Therefore, my emotional system, my cognitive system, my behavioral system is designed to ensure

00:02:23.860 that I thwart the threats of paternity uncertainty.

00:02:26.880 So that's what an evolutionary psychologist does.

00:02:28.980 He or she looks for the evolutionary reasons why our minds operate the way they do.

00:02:34.060 Good. So maybe you can explain to me, why do we have a woke mind virus going through our society?

00:02:43.400 I mean, so much of it is in your parasitic mind book.

00:02:45.860 And so what is this parasitic mind that we have developed here in the West?

00:02:51.240 So I've been now a professor, I'm going into my 31st year.

00:02:54.540 There are many wonderful things in the university setting,

00:02:57.300 but I very quickly noticed that some of the supposedly brightest people on earth,

00:03:02.120 they're called professors, can come up with some of the dumbest and most insane ideas,

00:03:06.860 because all of those parasitic ideas, postmodernism, cultural relativism, radical feminism,

00:03:12.460 social constructivism, were all spawned on university campuses.

00:03:16.140 So why? What's so alluring about these ideas?

00:03:19.040 So I use the parasitic framework for one important reason.

00:03:23.540 So let me give you a specific example.

00:03:25.620 The wood cricket is a cricket that abhors water.

00:03:29.080 When it is parasitized by a hair worm, the hair worm needs the wood cricket to jump in water

00:03:36.080 for it to complete its reproductive cycle.

00:03:38.780 So it will alter the circuitry of the wood cricket, which historically would abhor going into water.

00:03:45.960 It will now merrily jump into the water to its death in the service of the parasite.

00:03:52.240 And so I had my eureka moment.

00:03:54.020 I would use a neuroparasitological framework to argue that human beings can not only be parasitized

00:04:00.240 by actual physical brain worms, they could be parasitized by ideological brain worms,

00:04:06.320 hence the idea in the parasitic mind.

00:04:08.140 So can you give me some examples of what you have noticed that are particularly parasitic?

00:04:15.500 I know I have my choice of them and I'm going to ask you about them,

00:04:18.200 but some of the ones that you've talked about in your books are so jarring and so obvious,

00:04:23.520 I think, to some of us.

00:04:24.560 But you came out with this book a while ago.

00:04:26.720 Right.

00:04:27.300 So the granddaddy of all parasitic ideas is postmodernism,

00:04:31.900 because it purports that there are no absolute truths other than the one absolute truth that

00:04:37.460 there are no absolute truths.

00:04:39.080 So imagine how anti-scientific that statement is, because a scientist wakes up in the morning

00:04:44.020 and says that, yes, there is a truth to be discovered.

00:04:47.080 Now, in science, truth can change.

00:04:49.400 It's always provisional truth.

00:04:51.100 What we thought was true in science 300 years ago, we've revised since.

00:04:55.360 But we do operate on the premise that there is an epistemologically findable truth.

00:05:01.000 Otherwise, there's no point in getting out of bed in the morning.

00:05:03.500 Well, postmodernism is the antithesis of that.

00:05:07.180 It says we are completely shackled by subjectivity.

00:05:10.760 We're completely shackled by biases, by relativism.

00:05:15.520 And so you can't speak of any absolute truth.

00:05:18.460 Well, that's the framework that then allows a lot of the other parasitic ideas to flourish.

00:05:24.220 If there is no truth with a capital T, then surely your genitalia doesn't define whether

00:05:31.520 you're male or female.

00:05:32.960 It's my feeling that defines whether I'm male or female.

00:05:36.060 Surely there is no such thing as innate sex differences between men and women.

00:05:40.080 That must be a social construction.

00:05:42.400 So it all originally flows from that framework that says up is down, left is right.

00:05:47.400 Who are you to say what is right or wrong?

00:05:49.700 And so that's why I think there is no greater parasitic ideology than postmodernism.

00:05:55.040 So you're a mathematician, you're a professor at one of the most well-known universities in

00:06:01.940 Canada, and you were asked to essentially augment your field to fit within what we're calling

00:06:10.300 this parasitic woke mind virus, right?

00:06:13.200 So the example you were sharing with me earlier about trying to take evolution and woke-ify

00:06:21.560 it was one of the, I think, my understanding of triggering moments for you where you said,

00:06:26.580 I just can't keep lying about things.

00:06:28.160 I just think it's such a mind-boggling example.

00:06:30.700 I'd love for you to just share that.

00:06:32.340 Well, I never lie, never, ever, to a detriment to my career.

00:06:37.360 Because had I been able to play the game, maybe if I didn't have a big mouth, I could

00:06:42.380 have had a position at UC Irvine or UCSD.

00:06:45.200 But I can't lie because professors are meant to be dispensers of truth.

00:06:49.320 So originally in my career, my goal was to incorporate evolutionary thinking and studying

00:06:55.400 human behavior in general and consumer behavior in particular.

00:06:59.000 So the idea is that you can't study consumer behavior if you don't understand the hormonal

00:07:03.880 influences that shape our food choices.

00:07:05.860 Or for example, this is from my own researcher, one of my former graduate students, women

00:07:10.380 dress a lot more sexually when they're in the maximally fertile phase of their menstrual

00:07:15.140 cycles.

00:07:15.740 Because when you are ovulating, this is when you, in a sense, are most likely to be assiduously

00:07:22.420 engaging in sexual signaling.

00:07:24.200 And you see that behavior across many mammalian species where females of that species are more

00:07:29.980 likely to engage in sexual signaling when maximally fertile.

00:07:32.960 In other species, you call it being an estrus.

00:07:35.380 Well, human females will do it through the product choices that they will use.

00:07:40.600 You're more likely to wear stilettos when you are ovulating.

00:07:43.700 You're more likely to be scantily clad when you're ovulating.

00:07:46.580 Well, that to me seemed like a very obvious proposition, a very obvious thing to test.

00:07:50.660 Well, to my social scientist friends, I went from a reasonable guy to being Nazi because

00:07:57.040 applying biology to explain human behavior was simply grotesque.

00:08:02.120 It was biological determinism.

00:08:04.560 And to me, it seemed insane.

00:08:05.960 So you think that biology applies to every single species on Earth except one called humans?

00:08:12.100 Somehow humans operate outside of their biology.

00:08:14.860 So the original parasitic thinking that I was exposed to was in the pursuit of my academic

00:08:20.800 career.

00:08:21.240 And then the longer I stayed within the university ecosystem, I started seeing these departures

00:08:26.580 from reason, left, right, and center, eventually culminating in writing The Parasitic Mind.

00:08:31.940 One of the things I've picked up from you over the past few years is this concept of the maladaptive

00:08:38.240 behavior.

00:08:38.820 And, you know, one has to wonder and really talk to an evolutionist to understand why are

00:08:46.160 we evolving into taking on behaviors that actually hurt our species.

00:08:50.840 So I could think about the obvious example, which is don't get married, hook up culture,

00:08:57.500 don't have children, right?

00:08:58.760 Why would humans not want to have children?

00:09:00.620 I mean, that is really going to end our species, right?

00:09:04.400 And then you think about other examples where, I mean, look at this, I got to show this one

00:09:09.160 to you, this gorgeous woman, Doja Cat.

00:09:13.120 Yes.

00:09:13.540 Okay.

00:09:13.920 Look at her.

00:09:15.000 So pretty.

00:09:16.520 Okay.

00:09:17.120 So pretty.

00:09:17.920 I mean, it's just naturally beautiful.

00:09:20.660 Look at what she's done to herself.

00:09:22.960 I mean, just look at these pictures.

00:09:25.280 It's just, look at this.

00:09:26.420 Oh my.

00:09:27.260 Look at this.

00:09:27.720 I've never seen this one.

00:09:28.680 It's devastating.

00:09:30.080 It's, how is this, look at what she looked like.

00:09:33.300 So professor, how is this not maladaptive?

00:09:36.060 Why are young, beautiful women making themselves look horrible?

00:09:41.040 So I can't speak for Doja Cat, but I do in several of my earlier books talk about dark

00:09:48.460 side consumption.

00:09:49.680 So compulsive buying, eating disorders, pornographic addictions, pathological gambling, each of those

00:09:56.400 behaviors are maladaptive.

00:09:58.400 So why would, what would be the evolutionary reason why people are so easily succumbing

00:10:03.460 to these behavioral traps?

00:10:05.140 And so I argue that each of these behaviors started off being adaptive, but then they misfire.

00:10:12.560 So the maladaptive part is a misfiring of an otherwise adaptive process.

00:10:17.360 I know it sounds like a mouthful, so let me explain.

00:10:19.500 Take, for example, compulsive buying, which is a psychiatric condition.

00:10:23.160 But this is not, I own five pairs of stilettos or six ties.

00:10:28.600 It's when the behavior becomes so dysfunctional that I'm now eating away into our son's or daughter's

00:10:35.780 university funds.

00:10:37.640 I'm about to divorce because I'm spending all the money collecting products, right?

00:10:41.680 So it has to be a dysfunction for it to be maladaptive.

00:10:45.340 Well, it turns out that 90% of compulsive buyers are women.

00:10:48.760 Now, in my earlier book, even before I had read the literature, I could predict for you,

00:10:53.820 because I'm an evolutionist, what it was that they were hoarding.

00:10:57.440 I knew that the women who suffer from compulsive buying would unlikely be hoarding electronic

00:11:03.220 cameras or lawnmowers.

00:11:05.960 But what they hoard are beautification products, right?

00:11:10.000 Now, so what's happening there?

00:11:11.840 The beautification mechanism is perfectly adaptive.

00:11:15.500 So that is adaptive, right?

00:11:16.660 We use whatever the other sex is interested in to ameliorate our lot in the mating market.

00:11:22.620 So that's adaptive.

00:11:23.940 The maladaptive part is when it starts misfiring.

00:11:27.120 So in the context of a woman who wants to beautify herself, she buys 900 pairs of stiletto

00:11:32.480 shoes.

00:11:33.060 She buys 6,000 lipstick things.

00:11:36.300 And so the mechanism goes on hyperdrive.

00:11:39.500 And let me just pull back a second.

00:11:40.960 OCD, which is a psychiatric condition, obsessive compulsive disorder, can be explained using

00:11:48.480 a similar mechanism.

00:11:49.580 The idea of scanning the environment for threats makes perfect sense.

00:11:53.080 Checking that the back door is locked.

00:11:55.000 Somebody sneezed, and I saw them, and then they shook my hands.

00:11:57.440 I go and wash my hands.

00:11:58.540 The problem is when that environmental scanning for threats misfires so that now instead of

00:12:05.860 washing my hands once for three seconds, I spend eight hours washing it obsessively and

00:12:11.560 scalding hot water.

00:12:12.780 So many of these maladaptive behaviors are nothing but misfirings of otherwise adaptive processes.

00:12:19.060 So I get that.

00:12:21.020 And you would think that the misfires would be something that is more rare, but now it's

00:12:27.020 becoming less of a rare trait.

00:12:29.060 Now it's becoming a cultural trend.

00:12:31.340 And so how is this new cultural trend of misfiring, of exaggerating, I guess, what you would say

00:12:38.300 was originally supposed to be adaptive, becoming something so commonplace?

00:12:42.620 Can you give me a specific example of a behavior?

00:12:45.060 Because I think the explanation would be different for each behavior.

00:12:47.480 Let's say what Doja's doing.

00:12:49.800 Yeah, what Doja's doing, right?

00:12:51.120 So she's so beautiful.

00:12:52.240 And it started with these beautiful pictures of her, right?

00:12:54.740 In the beginning, these beautiful pictures, and suddenly it just becomes maladaptive.

00:13:00.260 Suddenly it's like, well, wait a second.

00:13:01.700 Does anybody even want to look at these pictures?

00:13:04.300 So I can't speak for her case, but I could speak of a related example.

00:13:08.320 So eating disorders where women end up being quite phenotypic, physically unattractive, right?

00:13:15.360 They're emaciated.

00:13:16.300 They weigh 60 pounds.

00:13:17.820 Why would a woman ever think that that's the right thing to do?

00:13:21.260 They look at themselves in the mirror.

00:13:22.600 They're 70 pounds.

00:13:23.560 They're bones.

00:13:24.380 And yet they still think they should lose weight.

00:13:26.440 Well, the usual social science explanation is that it's the thin image ideal that you

00:13:33.960 see in media that causes women to do that.

00:13:36.640 But that can't be right.

00:13:38.020 Because number one, out of 100 women that see the exact same images, only one to three

00:13:42.120 of them will become anorexic.

00:13:43.660 So that can't be the explanation.

00:13:45.200 We also know from ancient Greece, Hippocrates had identified eating disorders in the exact

00:13:50.760 same form as we have today.

00:13:52.560 They didn't have the same media images.

00:13:54.400 So that can't be it.

00:13:55.440 So what's the evolutionary explanation?

00:13:57.680 Well, it turns out that when you are anorexic, one of the first things that happen is you get

00:14:03.280 amenorrhea, which is the shutting off of your menstrual cycle.

00:14:06.760 Now, there's primary amenorrhea, that's when you haven't had your menstrual cycle yet, and

00:14:11.360 it's delayed because you don't have enough fat reserves.

00:14:13.780 But usually most women will get anorexic at 18, 19, where they already had their menstrual

00:14:19.460 cycles, but now it's shut off.

00:14:21.580 Now, why is this relevant to the story?

00:14:23.540 It turns out that women who are anorexic, whether rightly so or wrongly so, believe that

00:14:30.200 they shouldn't be entering the reproductive window now.

00:14:33.580 And therefore, by becoming anorexic, by uglifying themselves, they are shutting off their reproductive

00:14:40.580 potential.

00:14:41.480 That's called the reproductive suppression model.

00:14:44.100 So I don't know if, for whatever reason, Doja Cat, who is a gorgeous, beautiful, successful

00:14:49.240 woman, has decided that she needs to make herself ugly to delay her reproductive potential,

00:14:55.320 but that's the usual argument used for anorexia, which might be related to what she's doing.

00:14:59.700 You bring up the issue of anorexia, and I think many moms like me are witnessing that actually

00:15:05.340 there are less young women dealing with anorexia today as when we were younger, but more of

00:15:12.520 them are now dealing with gender dysphoria.

00:15:15.960 It almost feels like that issue has been replaced with gender.

00:15:20.360 The issue of anorexia has been replaced with gender dysphoria.

00:15:23.460 I don't know if you noticed that too.

00:15:24.600 But I also think of gender dysphoria and, you know, boys wanting to become women, women

00:15:30.720 wanting to become men, going through the chemical castration and the surgical castration.

00:15:36.180 That is also obviously maladaptive.

00:15:39.120 It's certainly not healthy for people's bodies.

00:15:41.580 Exactly.

00:15:42.000 Well, listen, in The Consuming Instinct, which was a book I wrote in 2011, in the opening chapter,

00:15:47.300 I say, in many universities, you now teach that homosexuality is innate, whereas heterosexuality

00:15:56.740 is learned as part of the heteronormative imposition.

00:16:01.600 Now, it doesn't take a fancy evolutionary psychologist to know that for a sexually reproducing species,

00:16:06.800 it can't be that homosexuality is natural, whereas heterosexuality is just imposed by heteronormativity.

00:16:15.760 But that's when I started getting the idea for writing The Parasitic Mind, because I would read that stuff.

00:16:21.780 Oftentimes, I would be sitting on granting agencies where we are reviewing the research.

00:16:26.340 I'd say, what kind of BS is this stuff?

00:16:28.980 And that's, so it's the, it's collecting 30 years of these insane stories that led to The Parasitic Mind.

00:16:35.980 You know, when you talk about collecting stories and just studying history,

00:16:39.500 it makes me think about another maladaptive behavior, which is the erasure of history, right?

00:16:44.340 So the removing of the statutes and the removing of the plaques and the removing of,

00:16:49.780 I mean, frankly, even the Bible, right?

00:16:51.660 This idea that only the new is worth reading and the old is worth throwing away.

00:16:57.900 And how is that not a maladaptive behavior for human society to not learn from the past?

00:17:04.800 So that's a great question.

00:17:06.720 And I loved your segue.

00:17:08.620 Many ideologies will always start off by erasing past manifestations of history, of societies that existed before them,

00:17:18.280 because only when they come to power is when the light is shown, right?

00:17:23.020 So for example, in Islam, what do you do?

00:17:25.540 You bring down the Buddha statues in the Taliban, right?

00:17:29.660 Wherever Islam goes, you get rid of any artifacts of previous societies because it was darkness before Islam.

00:17:36.380 Now, the progressives in a Western context are doing exactly the same thing.

00:17:40.120 By the way, and I'm going to come back to the story.

00:17:42.560 In the happiness book, I talk about how conservative consistently score higher on happiness than progressives.

00:17:50.600 And I offer a speculative, but I think quite plausible explanation, which relates to your question.

00:17:55.560 The conservative wakes up in the morning and says, yeah, our society may not be perfect,

00:18:00.580 but there's a lot of things that are worth conserving.

00:18:03.380 Hence, I'm conservative, right?

00:18:04.700 So existentially, I'm happy.

00:18:07.160 Yes, we can tinker here and we can tinker there.

00:18:09.820 But overall, we have a good system.

00:18:11.720 It's a happier perspective.

00:18:12.960 It's a happier perspective.

00:18:14.040 The progressive wakes up and says, we are a racist, misogynist.

00:18:18.800 We had slavery.

00:18:20.000 We indigenous, transgender, Islamophobia.

00:18:23.120 Around the corner lies unicornia.

00:18:27.060 And so if only I can erase everything that is to your question, I get rid of all existing

00:18:32.700 manifestations of the current evil society.

00:18:35.640 Around the corner, I will have existential glee.

00:18:38.820 And so I think that's why there is that reflex in many of these totalitarian ideologies to erase

00:18:43.980 everything that came before you.

00:18:45.580 Do you think that conservatives do have some maladaptive behaviors too?

00:18:50.640 I mean, are we, I don't know, angrier?

00:18:55.080 I'm trying to think what the left would say about us.

00:18:57.520 Look, I don't think your political orientation inoculates you against all possible traps of

00:19:04.800 life, right?

00:19:05.420 So for example, in my field, conservatives are much more likely to deny evolution, whereas

00:19:12.540 liberals and progressives are much more likely to deny evolutionary psychology.

00:19:18.240 Now, why?

00:19:18.820 The conservatives usually detest evolution because they see it as a frontal attack on their religious

00:19:25.280 beliefs.

00:19:26.280 Don't tell me that there is an impartial, random mechanism that created the beauty of

00:19:31.820 that flower.

00:19:32.740 It must be a manifestation of a godly designer.

00:19:36.460 And so I don't believe in your evolution nonsense.

00:19:38.540 That's the conservative who says that to me.

00:19:40.420 The leftist says to me, oh, no, no, I believe in evolution.

00:19:43.920 I just don't believe when you apply evolution to explain the human mind.

00:19:48.780 Don't tell me that there are innate sex differences between men and women.

00:19:52.880 That's Nazism.

00:19:54.360 Men and women are only different through social construction.

00:19:57.640 So I just gave you an example where both camps could be equally imbecilic for different reasons.

00:20:03.280 So I don't think being conservative or liberal inoculates you against parasitic ideas, although

00:20:08.520 in the book, all of the parasitic ideas are inherently leftist because I come from the

00:20:14.860 university ecosystem.

00:20:16.280 And the university ecosystem is largely inhabited by leftist professors.

00:20:20.380 So that's why all of those parasitic ideas come from the left.

00:20:24.060 So we can obviously talk for a very long time about all of these maladaptive behaviors.

00:20:30.320 I want to bring up one more, which is one that has really impacted, I think, our society

00:20:36.960 right now.

00:20:37.760 And that is young people being taught to lower standards, right?

00:20:43.920 And I see the lowering of standards not just happening in schools where, you know, I used

00:20:49.520 to be a teacher, I used to run a school.

00:20:50.980 And so every year we were told to lower our expectations, right?

00:20:55.080 Next year, we should have the standards even lowered.

00:20:59.440 And then even once you go into the business environment, right?

00:21:03.020 Like, how dare you be a CEO that expects so much of your staff and how dare you push these

00:21:08.320 people?

00:21:08.940 You're so mean, right?

00:21:10.100 You should be that amazing commander in chief that can just cackle with your audience,

00:21:15.380 right?

00:21:15.640 Like, that is what we should strive for, as opposed to striving for excellence, sometimes

00:21:21.800 toughness, right?

00:21:22.820 Those kinds of things.

00:21:24.520 Would you say that the lowering of standards is also some sort of misfiring of a maladaptive

00:21:31.040 behavior?

00:21:31.580 I mean, indeed.

00:21:32.160 And so let me give you a few examples.

00:21:33.920 Going back to Seneca several thousand years ago, he's got a great quote, which I use as

00:21:38.600 an epigraph in one of the chapters in the happiness book.

00:21:41.420 I don't remember the exact quote, so I'm going to paraphrase it.

00:21:43.740 He says that when you look at a tree, the trees that have been exposed to a lot of wind

00:21:50.460 stressors end up being very well-rooted because they have to evolve the capacity to be able

00:21:57.540 to withstand, in this case, a singular stressor called wind velocity.

00:22:02.320 Trees that haven't been exposed to a lot of wind stressors end up being very brittle.

00:22:06.620 And now you take that principle, which was an incredible insight from 2,500 years ago,

00:22:12.540 and now you apply it in today's parlance.

00:22:14.840 You have Nassim Talib, who is a fellow Lebanese, who talks about anti-fragility.

00:22:19.300 Well, Seneca already said it 2,500 years ago.

00:22:21.800 Many systems will optimally operate if they are exposed to stressors.

00:22:27.760 So when you reduce the standards, you are removing the stressors that allow you to optimally flourish.

00:22:33.720 So let me give you a specific example from evolutionary medicine.

00:22:37.460 It turns out that kids who are raised in environments with no allergens, no pet dander, no dust,

00:22:46.580 they're not growing up on a farm, end up having a lot greater incidence of asthma than kids

00:22:52.420 who did grow up with those allergens.

00:22:54.400 Why?

00:22:54.640 Because your immune system expects, in order for it to operate maximally, it needs to face

00:23:02.600 those stressors, in this case, allergens, right?

00:23:05.420 So now let's apply it to university settings.

00:23:07.720 If you're not willing to be exposed to stressors called opposing ideas, because any opposing

00:23:14.960 idea becomes a violence to me, because you should exactly believe as I do, how can you become

00:23:20.940 a critical thinker, because I'm a much better critical thinker if I'm exposed to opposing

00:23:26.000 ideas that allows me to better hone my message against those ideas.

00:23:30.800 So you're exactly right.

00:23:32.140 Lowering the standards, removing the stressors, creating an environment that is not anti-fragile

00:23:37.380 is not the way for optimal flourishing.

00:23:39.720 It really makes me think about the participation trophies that probably the generation before

00:23:44.880 me started giving out, because now people just expect to be rewarded because they just,

00:23:51.020 you know, showed up, right?

00:23:52.260 It's like, well, what do you mean?

00:23:53.120 I tried so hard.

00:23:54.460 I tried so hard.

00:23:55.440 I get that in my classes where a student comes to me, says, okay, well, I got a B minus in

00:24:01.000 my final grade, but that's not fair, professor.

00:24:03.820 I say, well, why is it unfair?

00:24:05.460 Because I studied so hard.

00:24:06.680 If I go see my physician and my physician gives me my cholesterol scores, do I try to negotiate

00:24:13.500 a better cholesterol score because I tried so hard?

00:24:16.340 Or is that's my cholesterol score?

00:24:18.320 So you studied however hard you did.

00:24:20.860 You clearly didn't retain the material that is necessary.

00:24:23.780 Now get out of my office, right?

00:24:25.400 So, but they expect exactly to your point that because I tried so hard, here is the ribbon.

00:24:31.520 By the way, grades, and I talk about this in the parasitic mind, 30, 40 years ago, the

00:24:37.320 average grade in university, as it should be, was a C. Do you know what the average grade

00:24:43.120 is in American universities now?

00:24:45.600 The average grade, A.

00:24:48.320 The average grade is A.

00:24:50.360 So they're just hanging, giving them out like jelly beans.

00:24:53.140 A is left, right, center.

00:24:54.120 I even had now, in Canada, we're not quite, when it comes to some of these things, we're

00:24:58.500 not quite as bad, perhaps because we don't pay $80,000 a year to go to university.

00:25:04.340 Therefore, the students don't feel as entitled.

00:25:06.760 Hey, I'm paying $80,000.

00:25:08.020 You give me the A plus because otherwise I don't get the job with Procter & Gamble.

00:25:12.180 So we don't quite have it as entitled.

00:25:15.340 But even in Canada now, when I give my grades, and oftentimes they're quite low, I'll get

00:25:20.480 the department chair writing to me and saying, can you explain your grades?

00:25:24.460 Why do I have to explain to you my grades?

00:25:26.160 They came out as they came out.

00:25:27.980 If everybody fails, too bad.

00:25:29.620 If everybody gets A plus, good for you.

00:25:31.860 There is no gaming the system, but that makes the students feel bad about themselves.

00:25:37.320 So can you please give them better grades?

00:25:38.940 No, I won't.

00:25:39.560 Well, I mean, that is parasitic to me, right?

00:25:42.700 I mean, this idea that everybody just gets an A or we just lower the standards so that

00:25:47.420 everybody gets an A.

00:25:48.740 I'm like, no wonder they were okay with DEI, right?

00:25:51.200 Because if merit doesn't matter, if doing a great job doesn't matter, all that matters

00:25:57.040 is that you just show up quite literally, right?

00:26:00.620 Then all standards go bye-bye.

00:26:03.420 Exactly.

00:26:03.760 By the way, both in the US and in Canada, now in medical schools, many medical schools

00:26:09.180 are removing grading because, you know, boo-hoo-hoo, medical students have it so tough, you don't

00:26:15.140 want them to create that competitive environment.

00:26:17.400 When you have a trauma surgeon that's going to operate on you and is going to make decisions

00:26:21.640 that are life or death, do you want them to have been exposed to the stressor called

00:26:25.600 grading?

00:26:26.180 Or do you want them to have, you know, grown up in an environment of I'm okay, you're okay?

00:26:30.500 It's grotesque.

00:26:32.000 Well, I think it's also beyond that.

00:26:33.480 I think most CEOs or whatever business enterprise we're talking about, we don't want to hire

00:26:39.060 people who expect to get accolades and raises and titles and all of that because people maybe

00:26:45.780 showed up for the most part to work, right?

00:26:48.280 We want to reward people who do a great job.

00:26:50.820 We want people who work hard and think critically.

00:26:53.360 But what I'm saying right now is such an HR violation, especially given that we're sitting

00:26:58.920 here in California, right?

00:26:59.920 You are not allowed to expect more out of people.

00:27:04.180 And I think that that entire mentality is what you talk about in your book.

00:27:08.840 It's parasitic.

00:27:10.240 It is maladaptive.

00:27:12.020 Human society cannot flourish if we constantly just lower the bar to just make people feel

00:27:17.160 good.

00:27:17.580 And I'll even add another evolutionary angle.

00:27:20.300 So E.O.

00:27:21.000 Wilson was a famous Harvard biologist who recently passed away.

00:27:24.480 His area of specialization was social ants.

00:27:27.800 Now, why is that relevant?

00:27:28.880 Because social ants are genuinely communistic in that there is a reproductive queen.

00:27:34.440 And then everybody else, the worker ants and the warrior ants are all indistinguishable

00:27:38.940 cogs in the wheel.

00:27:40.220 So when he was asked once, I'm paraphrasing, Professor Wilson, what are your views on socialism

00:27:47.840 slash communism?

00:27:48.600 His answer is one of the greatest ants I've ever heard.

00:27:51.260 Great idea, wrong species.

00:27:53.900 Because what he meant there is that for certain species, this ethos of equity and so on makes

00:28:01.300 sense.

00:28:01.960 Worker ants are indistinguishable from each other.

00:28:04.760 Human beings are not communistic.

00:28:06.640 Some of us are taller, shorter, harder working, less hard working, more ambitious, less ambitious.

00:28:12.660 So it is natural that you would have non-equality in outcomes.

00:28:18.620 Messi is Messi because he's better than you.

00:28:22.020 It's not because he got a leg up due to the patriarchy, right?

00:28:26.560 So once you try to impose a sociopolitical economic system on a species that does not

00:28:33.460 expect that system, it will always fail.

00:28:35.560 That's why communism has been tried in a myriad of cultures.

00:28:38.980 And the answer is always the same.

00:28:41.020 It fails, but yet we keep trying it.

00:28:43.140 Maybe next time it'll work.

00:28:44.540 Let's talk about some solutions here.

00:28:46.080 Do you think we can work our way out of this parasitic mind culture?

00:28:51.560 So I always like to infuse some optimism.

00:28:54.460 Although maybe in the deepest of my mind, that is shrinking evermore.

00:28:59.700 The silent majority, I do believe, abhors these parasitic ideas.

00:29:04.280 Regrettably, though, most are completely cowered into silence for all sorts of what they consider

00:29:10.020 to be justifiable reasons.

00:29:11.760 You, professor, you have a lot of courage and you have a big platform.

00:29:15.760 So you're doing a great job.

00:29:17.240 Go get them.

00:29:17.880 But I have to be quiet because, and now here come the justifications.

00:29:21.640 That can't work, right?

00:29:23.080 That's why in the last chapter of the parasitic mind, I have, I guess, a cry to arms now that's

00:29:28.020 become quite popular.

00:29:29.540 Activate your inner honey badger.

00:29:30.980 The reason why I use that is because the honey badger has been ranked as the fiercest animal

00:29:37.360 in the animal kingdom.

00:29:38.400 It's the size of a small to medium-sized dog.

00:29:41.340 And yet it could withstand an attack by six adult lions.

00:29:45.160 Why?

00:29:45.600 Because it is so fierce.

00:29:46.920 So when I ask people to be honey badgers, I don't mean be violent, physically violent,

00:29:52.120 but I mean be ideologically committed to defend your principles, right?

00:29:56.140 If you are in a classroom and your professor says some insane idea, don't sit quietly because

00:30:01.520 you might get a bad grade.

00:30:02.880 Challenge them politely.

00:30:03.820 If you're at a pub and your friend says something that you disagree with, that you find reprehensible,

00:30:10.360 challenge them politely.

00:30:11.240 So I'm not asking people to be impolite or obnoxious or cantankerous.

00:30:16.040 Just participate in the battle of ideas.

00:30:18.780 So some of us have bigger platforms, some of us have smaller platforms, but just use your

00:30:23.400 voice.

00:30:23.680 So I truly believe if the silent majority speaks out in unison, we will get rid of the

00:30:29.500 parasitic ideas.

00:30:30.380 You know, somebody asked me at a speech that I gave a few days ago, what is it like to be

00:30:37.440 able to speak freely about my ideas and my values?

00:30:41.880 Because he really wants to, he's actually Lebanese too, by the way.

00:30:45.960 And they asked me, like, you know, what does it take and what is it like?

00:30:50.240 And I looked at them and I said, you know what?

00:30:52.720 It's better than a Chanel bag.

00:30:55.320 They totally got it.

00:30:56.600 But you know, I was like, I don't need physical things.

00:30:58.880 It's freedom.

00:31:00.000 It's so freeing once you're able to take those first steps.

00:31:02.740 And once you take those first steps, maybe society won't let you look back, but you don't

00:31:07.700 want to look back, right?

00:31:08.940 It's so freeing.

00:31:10.040 And that to me is, I mean, it really does bring you happiness more than any bag or anything

00:31:15.800 you would buy.

00:31:16.880 So I'll give you a personal eye blow that exactly speaks to that.

00:31:20.960 Remember earlier when I said, I never lie.

00:31:24.020 So I have a very exacting code of personal conduct.

00:31:26.840 I'm my worst critic, right?

00:31:28.540 So at the end of the night, when I lay down to go to sleep, the only way that I can forestall

00:31:34.520 insomnia is if when I do the accounting of my day, I felt that I was always authentic

00:31:41.320 and truthful.

00:31:42.160 That's why, by the way, when we do the photo shoot and you ask me smile, I feel a bit uncomfortable

00:31:47.480 because I feel like it's inauthentic for me to be exhibiting an emotion that I wasn't

00:31:52.300 feeling.

00:31:52.720 So it's at that level of purity that I live my life.

00:31:56.620 So therefore, the reason why I always speak out is because I wouldn't be able to fall asleep

00:32:01.940 on that pillow if I thought I saw a murder or rape of truth in the corner and I walked

00:32:08.120 by ignoring it, I would be inauthentic.

00:32:11.340 I would be a fraud.

00:32:12.240 So in a sense, the random vagaries of my personhood are such that I am a honey badger because I

00:32:19.900 am allergic to BS.

00:32:21.820 Now, I understand that people come in many sizes and shapes and colors, so not everybody's

00:32:26.360 going to have my combative style, but everybody can contribute something to the battle of ideas.

00:32:31.320 So I'm not asking you to be Joe Rogan.

00:32:32.940 I'm not asking you to be Gatsad or Jordan Pierce or whomever, just within your small sphere

00:32:38.160 of influence, get involved.

00:32:39.960 Do what you can.

00:32:40.660 Do what you can.

00:32:41.480 And I think it's a good segue to the next conversation I want to have with you about

00:32:45.380 happiness because I do think that when you are authentic, when you get to go to sleep

00:32:50.180 at night knowing that you didn't live in a lie, that is your first step towards happiness.

00:32:56.960 And we are dealing right now with a mental health crisis in the United States.

00:33:01.960 I don't know what it's like in Canada, but I am seeing so many young people mentally

00:33:07.200 broken, just mentally broken.

00:33:09.400 And your next book was about happiness.

00:33:11.800 And my guess is somewhat is you wanted to address that, right?

00:33:15.880 At this mental brokenness, this unhappiness, the richest times, the most prosperous times,

00:33:22.780 yet the most depressed times and anxious times that we've ever seen.

00:33:28.120 So let's talk a little bit about happiness.

00:33:30.400 Is it even attainable?

00:33:32.220 Right.

00:33:32.740 So I think we mentioned offline that, and I'll repeat here, about 50% of individual differences

00:33:40.420 in happiness stem from our genes.

00:33:42.800 So some of us are born happy.

00:33:45.260 Some of us have a more sullen, acerbic, cantankerous personality.

00:33:50.780 But that still leaves 50% up for grabs, right?

00:33:53.620 So you may start off with a sunny disposition much more so than me, but if I make certain

00:33:58.980 choices and adopt certain mindsets, I can surpass you with that other 50%.

00:34:04.240 And so in the book, I go through a bunch of these.

00:34:07.780 And if you want, I can mention a few of them if you'd like.

00:34:09.920 Well, I mostly want to, you know, I think people can read your book and, you know, you

00:34:14.000 mentioned that it's, you know, marriage and job and meaning and all of these things.

00:34:17.720 But I don't want people to think, which at least that's my perspective.

00:34:21.900 You might have a different perspective on it, that it's almost like happiness is a zero

00:34:27.880 sum game, right?

00:34:28.820 Because I know people in my life who are just constantly looking for that next thing that's

00:34:33.520 going to make them happy.

00:34:34.620 And then they're just never happy, right?

00:34:36.780 So I can speak to that.

00:34:37.840 So in the last chapter of the happiness book, I have a quote from Viktor Frankl, you know,

00:34:44.560 the meaning of life.

00:34:45.780 And the quote, I basically just need to replace the word success by happiness.

00:34:50.820 He talks about success is not something that you consciously seek, but rather you pursue

00:34:57.700 certain goals in life of which the downstream effect might be success.

00:35:02.400 I argue happiness has to be pursued in the same way.

00:35:05.380 I don't wake up in the morning and say, what are the steps that I must take today to be happy?

00:35:10.720 But if I've made certain decisions, like waking up next to someone that I go, oh, my goodness,

00:35:17.220 what a lovely person to wake up next to.

00:35:19.260 And then I go off to a job where I have existential glee.

00:35:22.960 I'm rubbing my hands in anticipation.

00:35:24.360 And then I come back at night to that lovely person that I woke up next to.

00:35:28.500 That's going to lead to happiness.

00:35:30.420 So it's not the willful pursuit of happiness that will make us happy, but rather the types

00:35:36.160 of decisions and mindsets that we adopt that will hopefully lead to happiness.

00:35:40.060 Do you think somebody can be truly happy without experiencing adversity first?

00:35:46.240 I mean, I think about somebody like you and your background.

00:35:48.780 You can share some of it.

00:35:50.040 Sure.

00:35:50.300 Grew up in Lebanon, had to escape with your family at age 11.

00:35:55.700 And you certainly have been able to build certain perspectives.

00:35:59.380 So maybe you can enjoy the little things in life, right?

00:36:02.860 You know, we're sitting earlier having a meal and kebab and you're like, oh, my God,

00:36:06.820 this is such indulgence, right?

00:36:09.440 You have such perspective where can one attain happiness without experiencing hardship and

00:36:16.740 adversity?

00:36:17.360 I definitely think, and I think when we talked earlier, I said that it might sound paradoxical

00:36:22.040 for me to say that the tragedy of my childhood has actually made me happy.

00:36:26.960 And it's not, I'm not being flippant or facetious.

00:36:29.420 Well, it allows you to contextualize whatever is bringing you down on a given day, right?

00:36:34.880 So example, when my last book came out, you know, there's tons of media attention and

00:36:40.520 so on.

00:36:41.080 I have to go here.

00:36:41.880 I have to go there.

00:36:42.500 I'm getting stressed out with all the scheduling.

00:36:44.920 And then I stopped for a second.

00:36:45.920 I said, well, wait a minute, you're whining to yourself because a lot of really cool people

00:36:50.720 want to talk to you about your book.

00:36:52.860 And oh, by the way, you escaped the Lebanese civil war.

00:36:56.140 Why don't you buckle up and stop whining?

00:36:58.400 I mean, this is an internal dialogue I'm having, right?

00:37:00.420 And so by being able to contextualize whatever is worrying us on a given day against the backdrop

00:37:07.560 of some serious adversity that we faced in the past, that's a very powerful tool.

00:37:12.040 I'll give you an example from a guy who came on my show.

00:37:15.540 There's a gentleman by the name of David McCallum, who is arguably the most incredible guest I've

00:37:21.060 ever had.

00:37:21.520 And I've had a lot of great guests.

00:37:23.340 David was accused of a murder when he was 17.

00:37:28.260 He spent 29 years in prison.

00:37:31.860 And at the age of 46, so almost 30 years into his freedom being stolen from him, he was fully

00:37:38.200 exonerated.

00:37:39.180 So he comes on my show to discuss it.

00:37:41.320 As we were sitting down and chatting, I turned to him and I said, you know, David, you must

00:37:46.500 be the reincarnation of Buddha or something because you're a much better man than I am.

00:37:52.300 Because if it happened to me, I want to burn the world down.

00:37:56.480 I'm full of rancor.

00:37:57.620 I'm full of vindictiveness.

00:37:59.440 I'm full of vengefulness.

00:38:01.100 And you seem totally at ease.

00:38:03.420 And so he answered, he goes, you know, I have a sister who's been bedridden with cerebral

00:38:08.920 palsy.

00:38:10.220 And yet she finds the ability to smile and be happy.

00:38:16.760 So if she's able to smile, well, I guess what I went through is not such a big deal.

00:38:20.440 So a guy who had 29 years of his life stolen was still able to reframe that astounding tragedy

00:38:29.520 into, well, you know, it's not so bad.

00:38:31.400 Other people have it worse.

00:38:32.840 So it really is a mind game, right?

00:38:35.580 Happiness is a mind game.

00:38:36.980 There's all sorts of ways by which we could reframe things, infuse gratitude into our lives,

00:38:43.400 think about some of the stresses we face in our past.

00:38:46.060 And suddenly our current reality doesn't seem so bad.

00:38:49.720 Yeah.

00:38:49.960 I guess happiness is perspective and mental resilience.

00:38:54.020 There you go.

00:38:54.660 You know, I'm going to share a story with you that I heard very recently about a young boy

00:38:59.000 who had to escape a war zone.

00:39:01.900 His parents had to hide him at the bottom of a car and put luggage over him as they were

00:39:09.500 escaping the Lebanon Civil War.

00:39:15.300 Later on, this 11-year-old, correct me if I got the age right, moves to Canada where he

00:39:22.640 has to introduce himself in front of a classroom, identifies himself as really a child who is

00:39:30.140 usually shot at, the following day or around the same time, remember, this child remembers

00:39:36.560 seeing a bunch of snow and, I guess, a grim kind of looking environment.

00:39:42.840 And this child says, yeah, the weather is not so great.

00:39:47.180 The snow is kind of freezing, but hey, it's better than bullets.

00:39:52.680 That's a very, or bombs.

00:39:54.140 Or bombs.

00:39:54.700 Yeah.

00:39:55.180 That's...

00:39:55.580 I capture your story, right?

00:39:56.640 But although both those stories are on the same day, you said the next day.

00:40:00.840 Okay.

00:40:01.200 It was the same day.

00:40:02.680 I introduced myself with the shooting motion and the snow is falling happened on that same

00:40:07.540 fateful first day.

00:40:08.740 By the way, I didn't mention this to you previously.

00:40:11.780 In grade seven, in that school, I had a teacher.

00:40:15.860 Her name was Mrs. Carsley that had been an influential teacher in my life.

00:40:20.360 So this is two years after I've moved from Lebanon.

00:40:22.860 About three years ago, I received an email from Mrs. Carsley.

00:40:30.320 Hi, Gad.

00:40:30.980 I don't know if you remember me.

00:40:32.600 I was your grade seven teacher.

00:40:34.660 And when COVID finished, because, you know, in Canada, we were locked up for many years,

00:40:39.500 we went out for coffee.

00:40:43.040 So, you know, and I asked her, I said, how was I when I was...

00:40:46.600 And the way she described me was exactly the way I still view myself today, which shows

00:40:52.400 you that an element of our personality is like leopards can't change their spots.

00:40:57.000 I was the same guy back then as I am today.

00:41:00.300 Well, I bring up this story because I think of courage, right?

00:41:03.960 And I compare you to other professors who, I guess, are spineless worms who are castrated.

00:41:12.540 Is that what we call them now?

00:41:14.220 Invertebrate castrati.

00:41:16.920 Invertebrate castrati.

00:41:18.040 Also known to people like me as castrated worms.

00:41:21.580 Indeed.

00:41:21.920 Okay.

00:41:22.240 So we compare you and your courage and you're willing to be outspoken to these other professors

00:41:27.740 and you talk about, you know, the diamond cage that they're in because of their whatever

00:41:32.560 promises and salaries, et cetera.

00:41:34.560 But I think it is very possible that as a child, you developed these skills to have perspective.

00:41:42.300 It definitely is part of my personhood.

00:41:44.520 So, you know, there's a random combination of genes that stem from your parents creating

00:41:49.960 a child.

00:41:50.480 So I'm just naturally that way.

00:41:53.220 And that even when I was five years old and again, Abraham synagogue in Wadi Abu Jameel

00:42:00.460 in Beirut, Lebanon, and you have to stand up for this prayer, you have to sit down, you

00:42:06.220 have to do to the left, Macarena to the right.

00:42:08.560 And I looked to my dad and I say, well, why are we doing this?

00:42:12.180 And he's like, I should shut up, just do it.

00:42:14.760 And at that point, I already had that combative honey badger.

00:42:18.300 What do you mean?

00:42:18.920 Just do it.

00:42:19.720 No, explain to me why we're doing it.

00:42:21.500 And I started getting upset at just kind of lobotomized religious rituals.

00:42:26.680 So I think it's who I am innately that I don't put up with BS.

00:42:32.440 I'm pathologically authentic, so I can't modulate.

00:42:35.380 And I think that my early childhood built that resistance, that resilience, and that

00:42:41.460 courage.

00:42:42.060 Professor, why do you think universities are such breeding grounds for disastrous ideas?

00:42:49.100 So I do talk about this in the parasitic mind.

00:42:51.820 I think each of those parasitic ideas starts off as a noble goal, but then it metastasizes

00:43:00.080 into nonsense.

00:43:01.320 So example, equity feminism is a great idea.

00:43:04.500 It basically says that men and women should not be paid differently if they're doing

00:43:09.740 the exact same.

00:43:10.420 There should be no institutional mechanisms, legal or otherwise, that differentiates or

00:43:16.000 is biased towards one sex or the other.

00:43:18.720 But well, by that definition of feminism, we should all be feminists.

00:43:22.960 I'm an equity feminist.

00:43:23.800 Well, there should be equality feminism then, not equity, right?

00:43:27.340 But that's the term, but you're right, equality feminism.

00:43:29.020 Now, then the radical feminists come along and they say, well, if we wish to eradicate

00:43:34.640 the status quo patriarchy, we need to promulgate the idea that there are no innate sex differences

00:43:42.220 between men and women, that all sex differences must be due to arbitrary social construction.

00:43:48.040 So in the service of, quote, eradicating the sexist status quo, if we have to murder and

00:43:55.340 rape truth in the service of that goal, it was well worth it.

00:43:59.040 Well, I argue that no, the pursuit of truth has to be deontological.

00:44:04.540 Deontological means there's an absolute statement that you never deviate.

00:44:08.220 There is no, it's okay to lie if, for this reason.

00:44:12.320 The pursuit of truth, the pursuit of science has to be a deontological principle.

00:44:16.460 Freedom of speech has to be a deontological principle.

00:44:19.220 By the way, I'm Jewish.

00:44:20.500 I believe in the right of the most offensive speech, which is Holocaust deniers, right?

00:44:25.760 I mean, what could be more offensive than denying a historical reality where 6 million

00:44:30.720 people were eradicated like little cockroaches?

00:44:33.600 But in a free society, I have to be willing to tolerate imbeciles, falsehood spreaders,

00:44:38.580 racists.

00:44:39.020 I will beat them with better speech.

00:44:40.880 So that's what I mean by deontological.

00:44:43.180 And so, yeah.

00:44:44.280 But how come almost every single time bad ideas come from universities?

00:44:49.420 So Orwell answered it one way.

00:44:51.240 I'll paraphrase it.

00:44:52.300 So he said something to the effect of, it takes intellectuals to come up with some of

00:44:56.420 the dumbest ideas.

00:44:57.340 Yes.

00:44:57.620 And I wholeheartedly agree with that.

00:44:58.940 Now, why is that?

00:45:00.240 Because in many cases, the academic who literally lives in the ivory tower is fully decoupled from

00:45:08.320 the autocorrective mechanism of reality, right?

00:45:10.900 So for example, I am housed in a business school.

00:45:14.080 In the business school, there is less parasitic ideas.

00:45:17.280 Because if you build an economic model to predict the economy that's based on postmodernism,

00:45:23.240 reality will tell you, you suck.

00:45:26.500 If engineering schools also have less parasitic ideas.

00:45:29.540 Because if you build a bridge using postmodernist indigenous physics, as opposed to physics,

00:45:35.560 then the bridge will collapse.

00:45:37.100 So some disciplines have an inoculation against these parasitic ideas because reality will quickly

00:45:43.820 catch up to you.

00:45:44.840 But in other disciplines, in the humanities and some of the social sciences, I could sit

00:45:48.940 on top of my pulpit, pontificate about nonsense.

00:45:52.820 There isn't an autocorrective mechanism that's called reality.

00:45:56.260 And that's why I become the promulgator of nonsense.

00:45:59.720 And then the damage is done through the students, but they don't get to actually experience the

00:46:04.080 damage and see that.

00:46:05.520 So then it just, they get pumped into society with bad ideas, but there's no consequence

00:46:10.580 to the professors themselves.

00:46:12.220 Or there is consequences.

00:46:13.660 It's called Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, right?

00:46:17.000 Justin Trudeau, I don't think he's innately a diabolical human being.

00:46:21.580 I mean, I don't know, but my instinct is that he is simply a product of all of the progressive

00:46:27.700 parasitic nonsense that has been fed into him straight out of the womb.

00:46:32.240 And therefore, he's a walking manifestation of every parasitic idea that I discuss in my

00:46:37.760 book.

00:46:38.320 So there are consequences.

00:46:40.480 They're called our future politicians.

00:46:42.540 That's why I would often get from people, well, why do you care so much about these parasitic

00:46:47.300 ideas?

00:46:47.680 They just exist in some silly, esoteric department in the humanities.

00:46:52.060 I say, no, no, no.

00:46:53.020 But these bad ideas escape.

00:46:55.060 Just like a virus escapes from a lab, it starts off in some esoteric humanities department,

00:47:01.100 but then it becomes your prime minister.

00:47:03.100 And then you have problems.

00:47:04.900 So talking about business school, I want to cause some more trouble in this conversation.

00:47:11.360 So I have a personal philosophy that I've developed actually being an educator.

00:47:15.000 And that is against this concept that people should be a master of only one trade.

00:47:20.700 One of the reasons why I love your background and your CV is that it's frankly all over the

00:47:25.660 place.

00:47:26.040 It's a complete mess.

00:47:27.160 Complete mess.

00:47:27.880 It is.

00:47:28.260 Which I think is so interesting and so valuable.

00:47:32.340 And if you, you know, I have a master's in business.

00:47:36.020 And so in business school, we were taught that we should put our team members or staff members

00:47:40.700 on assembly lines and create org charts with boxes and make sure that they know exactly

00:47:46.440 what their sandbox is and make sure that everybody knows their job descriptions.

00:47:50.420 And God forbid things bleed into others because everybody has to be very focused on their one

00:47:56.120 specific trade.

00:47:58.620 Right.

00:47:58.940 And it's the same case in education, by the way, if you, if you look at the way, at least

00:48:03.680 in the United States, education is structured, it's assembly lines, right?

00:48:07.740 You learn math first period.

00:48:09.260 You'll learn literacy second period.

00:48:11.280 You'll learn whatever gender studies third period.

00:48:14.360 Gender studies somehow seeps into everything, right?

00:48:17.080 That is even math.

00:48:18.060 That is always generative, right?

00:48:19.440 But the things that actually matter, they really try to box people into different disciplines,

00:48:23.980 which I think really bangs out the human instinct out of you and your ability to really flourish

00:48:30.000 and really build things.

00:48:31.580 And so when you walked in today, I said the words Leo da Vinci, and I know you were very

00:48:37.780 excited about that.

00:48:38.820 But I think that this concept of the Leonardo da Vinci, the jack of many trades, the ability

00:48:45.200 to expose students to multiple disciplines, not necessarily only one discipline, is so important

00:48:51.520 is partially why I think we're losing instinct, we're losing innovation, and we're losing

00:48:57.700 them to this parasitic mind virus because of the lack of exposure of reality, which is

00:49:04.800 multidisciplined.

00:49:06.460 And so forgive me for this little rant.

00:49:08.200 I usually don't do that.

00:49:09.180 No, no, please.

00:49:09.880 But I'm really curious what you, as an evolutionary psychologist and somebody who's studied even

00:49:16.700 academia, what are your thoughts?

00:49:19.100 Are we boxing people in?

00:49:20.660 Oh, 100%.

00:49:21.800 So academia is the creation of hyper-specialists, right?

00:49:27.300 So know a tremendous amount about a very little small minutiae, and then pump out a million

00:49:35.040 papers on that small minutiae.

00:49:37.480 Never deviate from your stay in your lane focus, right?

00:49:42.360 I've lived my life, and thank you for pointing that out on my CV, exactly as a rejection of that.

00:49:48.040 But by the way, when I would get approaches from universities to hire me, oftentimes where

00:49:55.240 my candidacy would fail is they would say exactly what you said, but it wasn't viewed

00:50:00.420 as a positive.

00:50:01.300 You're all over the place.

00:50:03.040 Why aren't you focused?

00:50:04.680 And then I would say, but isn't it more impressive to publish in medicine, in economics, in politics,

00:50:10.300 in psychology, in marketing, than if I were publishing in only one small epsilon field?

00:50:16.140 But in academia, the answer is unequivocally no.

00:50:18.840 You should be a hyper-specialist.

00:50:20.420 All big ideas always happen at the intersection of disciplines, right?

00:50:25.840 The mapping of the human genome required people from many disciplines to come together in order

00:50:31.100 to crack literally the human genome, okay?

00:50:33.500 So Leonardo da Vinci is the great guy that he is, exactly for the reasons that you said.

00:50:37.620 He's a sculptor and a futurist and an engineer and a painter.

00:50:41.560 He's both social sciences and humanities and natural sciences.

00:50:45.840 He's the ultimate polymath.

00:50:47.660 So when I'm training my students, I tell them, look, if you want a safe academic career,

00:50:53.760 then here is the prescription.

00:50:55.760 Be a hyper-specialist.

00:50:56.900 Life is short.

00:50:58.760 You want to explore many intellectual landscapes.

00:51:02.180 So my advice to you is be a polymath.

00:51:04.980 So I give them both sides, and then they decide based on their risk-reward ratio how they want

00:51:11.500 to go through it.

00:51:12.200 But I completely agree with you.

00:51:13.680 Not only in the disciplines that I've published in, I'm a polymath, but even, for example,

00:51:19.340 the fact that I decided that I wasn't willing to only publish academic papers,

00:51:23.720 I think I get as much influence in coming on your show and having thousands of people

00:51:30.560 consume our ideas as I would in publishing an academic paper that's going to be read by

00:51:36.240 12 people.

00:51:37.180 In 2017, I was invited to speak at the Stanford Business School.

00:51:41.180 The gentleman who was hosting me, who's a professor also, a consumer psychologist, takes

00:51:45.140 me out the night before.

00:51:46.360 He says, oh, I looked at some of your background, and you're a friend of Joe Rogan's, and you

00:51:51.540 appear on his show, I said, yeah, actually, I'm going to appear on his show soon.

00:51:54.400 He goes, yeah, well, we don't condone that at Stanford with that smugness.

00:51:58.020 I said, well, you don't condone what at Stanford?

00:52:00.000 He goes, well, we don't do our research so that it could be sexy enough so that we go talk

00:52:04.180 about it on Joe Rogan.

00:52:05.260 I said, well, I don't do the research also so I could appear on Joe Rogan, but I could

00:52:08.540 do good research and appear on Joe Rogan.

00:52:11.320 It's not mutually exclusive.

00:52:12.860 Doesn't it make sense for me to excite 20 million people about the research that I do rather than

00:52:17.560 have four people?

00:52:18.420 You know, I actually told him, and he didn't like it, I said, you know, I prefer to not

00:52:22.140 have my paper being read by the editor, the reviewer, my mom, and my girlfriend, right?

00:52:28.860 And he didn't like that because he viewed it as I'm being haughty towards academia, whereas

00:52:34.180 he was from his ivory tower at Stanford looking down on Joe Rogan.

00:52:39.080 Well, now many of these guys will send me emails saying, dear God, can you connect me with Joe

00:52:44.720 Rogan?

00:52:45.140 So now the metric has changed.

00:52:46.780 Now they see the value of that.

00:52:48.920 Well, I'm in the business of creating and disseminating knowledge.

00:52:52.580 I'm not haughty.

00:52:53.660 Any place, anywhere I can go where I can hopefully spread good ideas, I'm there.

00:52:58.540 I think it's also more fun when you get to do multiple things, right?

00:53:02.100 Like life is about that.

00:53:03.660 And so, you know, I hope that anybody that's listening that feels that they're really boxed

00:53:07.600 and they, you know, maybe feeling a little suffocated can take some of this advice from you.

00:53:12.780 And even for me as an educator, allow your children to have exposure to many different

00:53:18.100 things.

00:53:18.520 You know how many moms and dads I know that will enroll their kid in only one sport because

00:53:23.980 they think that if they do more than one sport, it's going to distract them.

00:53:27.400 I mean, you're practically a soccer expert, right?

00:53:30.960 It's like, does it make any sense that a child would only play soccer and not do soccer and

00:53:35.880 basketball and judo or whatever?

00:53:38.300 You develop completely different skills by doing different sports.

00:53:41.800 My son recently told me, he goes, daddy, daddy, every time we play any sport, you seem to be

00:53:46.500 really good at it because I'm athletic because I've got good hand-eye or eye-foot coordination

00:53:52.060 precisely because I've sampled from the buffet of many different athletic pursuits.

00:53:56.560 Yeah, so fun.

00:53:57.480 Okay, speaking of fun, I want to play a game with you.

00:53:59.660 Here we go.

00:54:00.740 This is going to be the hardest game you'll ever play, but, you know, it's PragerU.

00:54:03.920 We've got to challenge you and there'll be no participation trophy at the end, I guarantee you that.

00:54:07.540 Go for it.

00:54:08.280 Okay, the game is called Would You Rather?

00:54:10.500 So you're going to have to choose between these two options.

00:54:13.940 If you feel very strongly that you want to elaborate, I'll let you do it, but we're going

00:54:17.740 to try to get through a lot of these concepts together very quickly.

00:54:21.020 We'll start with an easy one, at least I think it is.

00:54:23.760 Would you rather tell your wife a white lie or tell her something that would hurt her feelings?

00:54:30.340 Right, so that speaks to the earlier point I made about deontological versus consequentialist

00:54:35.760 ethics.

00:54:36.640 Deontological would be never tell a lie.

00:54:39.240 Consequentialist would be it's okay to tell a lie if you want to spare someone's feelings.

00:54:42.940 Well, I always tell people the secret to marriage is when you hear the following question,

00:54:47.040 do I look fat in those jeans, put on your consequentialist hat and say you've never looked

00:54:51.800 more beautiful.

00:54:52.680 So to answer that question, I would rather tell her a white lie and spare her feelings than

00:54:57.120 to hurt her.

00:54:57.980 Okay, no comment from me.

00:55:00.600 Would you rather gain more influence or gain more wealth?

00:55:04.760 More influence, although given the current predicament that I find myself in, the wealth would allow

00:55:14.560 me to escape my current reality so that I could gain more influence.

00:55:18.140 So I'm the abstract, more influence, but money also talks, it buys you freedom.

00:55:23.740 Would you rather live in a constant lie or lose your entire career?

00:55:29.500 I can't live in a lie.

00:55:31.420 As I mentioned earlier, I'm authentic to a fault, so let it be.

00:55:35.060 I had a feeling you'd say that.

00:55:36.760 Okay, would you rather live in regret or live with guilt?

00:55:42.440 Guilt makes it seem as though I've done something wrong.

00:55:45.460 And again, being very morally scrupulous, I can't live with the sense of longing guilt.

00:55:52.720 And so maybe regret, oh, I wish I would have taken that art class that I never ended up

00:55:56.880 taking.

00:55:57.080 So I'll take regret over guilt.

00:55:58.720 All right, I know that was a tough one.

00:56:00.220 Okay, would you rather lose your freedom or live in danger?

00:56:06.560 Freedom is everything, freedom and truth.

00:56:08.760 In chapter one of the Parasitic Mind, I talk about those being my two ideals.

00:56:12.900 So freedom rules.

00:56:14.340 Freedom all the way.

00:56:15.740 Would you rather be a master of a trade or a jack of all trades?

00:56:20.520 I'm going to go with the latter, given that Leonardo da Vinci is my hero.

00:56:24.320 All right, I gave you an easy one here.

00:56:25.640 Okay, would you rather be around competent people or around diverse people?

00:56:34.180 Given that diversity today means irrelevant cues, I'm going to go with, surround myself

00:56:40.280 with competent people who know what they're doing.

00:56:42.040 Especially if it's your doctor, right?

00:56:43.840 Exactly.

00:56:44.460 Or your pilot.

00:56:45.360 Exactly.

00:56:45.700 Would you rather be the first at accomplishing something or one of many exceptional?

00:56:52.860 I do have that pioneer complex.

00:56:56.200 And so I'll go with the former.

00:56:58.120 Be the first.

00:56:59.420 You'd rather be the first.

00:57:00.920 Plant that flag that says God's ad rules.

00:57:03.500 All right.

00:57:04.120 That's good.

00:57:04.600 I didn't expect that.

00:57:05.640 Okay, would you?

00:57:06.360 Okay, this is a good one.

00:57:07.200 I think.

00:57:08.020 Would you rather live in Canada when the weather is perfect for the season or in Texas during

00:57:15.600 a muggy storm season?

00:57:18.520 Texas.

00:57:18.880 Texas all the way, baby.

00:57:20.340 Texas all the way.

00:57:22.540 All right.

00:57:23.320 Would you rather be a Jew in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, or

00:57:32.260 select any of the other 50 Muslim states, or a Muslim in Israel?

00:57:40.120 I'm Muslim in Israel.

00:57:42.320 Would you rather play soccer or sheshbish, backgammon?

00:57:48.620 Soccer.

00:57:49.340 Soccer?

00:57:49.580 I love sheshbish, and there's a story of how I won my wife.

00:57:55.860 The first day that I met her parents, they're Lebanese also, he brings out, in Arabic, you

00:58:01.540 say talle, which is the sheshbish, right?

00:58:03.560 And I said to him, we'll play up to five.

00:58:08.660 If I win, I get your daughter.

00:58:11.420 I won.

00:58:12.080 Many years later, he told me that I allowed you to win.

00:58:16.060 Of course.

00:58:16.600 Because I thought you were a good guy.

00:58:17.780 Of course.

00:58:18.800 Of course.

00:58:19.580 Never give the win away, right?

00:58:21.920 Exactly.

00:58:22.560 Okay.

00:58:23.060 Final one.

00:58:23.860 Would you rather be part of a winning team or the star of a mediocre team?

00:58:31.520 Winning team.

00:58:32.680 Be part of a winning team.

00:58:33.760 Be part of a winning team.

00:58:34.900 I completely agree.

00:58:36.080 Yeah.

00:58:36.300 Well, it's a great way to end this episode.

00:58:38.680 Professor, thanks for coming on.

00:58:40.160 Thank you so much.

00:58:40.540 I love talking to you.

00:58:41.280 That was great.

00:58:41.620 Really fun.

00:58:42.080 Thank you.

00:58:42.340 Thank you.

00:58:49.580 Thank you.

00:58:51.360 Thank you.

00:58:51.860 Thank you.

00:58:52.420 Thank you.

00:58:53.060 Thank you.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - August 26, 2024

Discussing The Parasitic Mind on PragerU's Real Talk with Marissa Streit (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_703)

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