The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Islam, Suicidal Empathy, and Trump (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_789)

00:00:00.000 There's a lot of good sex in Islam. So a lot of stuff that I can't pursue in the earthly realm, I can certainly be promised in the afterlife. 0.94

00:00:10.560 A reasonably conservative estimate is 300 million killed in the 1400 years of Islam. It's a lot of souls lost.

00:00:19.180 There is no documented society throughout human history where Islam has become the majority religion and thereafter individual freedoms have flourished. 0.84

00:00:29.640 Gay, trans, as long as you don't tell me that men too can menstruate, right, then I'm the most socially liberal guy in the world. 0.97

00:00:37.800 When it comes to immigration, when it comes to death penalty of repeat child molesters, I'm the number one guy for execute them. 0.99

00:00:45.200 Donald Trump does intimate most of the positions that the average person with a brain has.

00:00:50.660 Anybody who replaces Justin Trudeau would be a great advance for Canada.

00:00:55.420 A lobotomized turtle would be coming in with a lot of excitement.

00:00:58.980 Why is it that the West is so completely impotent to ever connect the dots together? 0.80

00:01:06.380 If we have to murder and rape truth to get to that ultimate goal, so be it. 0.70

00:01:11.540 I'm Jonathan Sacerdotti.

00:01:13.440 Dr. Gadsad, thanks so much for joining me. It's really great to have you with me. How are you doing?

00:01:18.680 I'm doing well. I could be better. I've had a rough week last week and I've had to reschedule our meeting because I suffered from a nasty stomach bug.

00:01:26.980 But I'm happy to be here with you.

00:01:29.340 Well, I hope you're feeling a bit better and thank you for doing that. So I appreciate it.

00:01:33.980 Listen, we're talking now as a result of the rescheduling. It's a momentous moment, actually.

00:01:38.760 So I feel quite privileged because we know that Donald Trump's going to take the U.S. to the moon, that there are now only two genders in the United States, that the Gulf of Mexico is going to be the Gulf of America, that America is going to be the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth again, that he's a peacemaker and a unifier.

00:02:00.040 I mean, this is messianic stuff. What do you make of it?

00:02:03.480 Well, I mean, I guess it depends what you use as your metric of comparison, right?

00:02:09.440 If you're comparing to the current administration, then a lobotomized turtle would be coming in with a lot of excitement.

00:02:18.020 So again, it's like saying Justin Trudeau, anybody who replaces Justin Trudeau would be a great advance for Canada.

00:02:26.380 But that notwithstanding, I think that Donald Trump does intimate most of the positions that the average person with a brain has.

00:02:35.880 We are a sexually reproducing species made up of two phenotypes called male and female.

00:02:41.940 Your compatriot, Charles Darwin, explained that to us on the origin of species.

00:02:46.580 And until about 15 minutes ago, that was incontestable, but apparently it wasn't for the previous administration.

00:02:52.340 So I think there will definitely be some wonderful auto-corrections to all of the woke nonsense.

00:02:58.620 Now, will it reach the heights that he's promising?

00:03:00.900 Probably not, but I'm certainly hopeful.

00:03:02.880 And it's good to aim high, I think.

00:03:05.060 I mean, it's unusual to have leaders, sadly, these days who seem to do that.

00:03:09.680 And I must say, I think it's strange times when we find that an incoming US president has to make an executive order to say that there are men and women.

00:03:20.240 It seems like we've really caught the woke mind virus.

00:03:24.640 And to talk about your work, this is really a parasitic mind virus. 0.98

00:03:29.020 One does wonder what the purpose of this parasite was. 0.98

00:03:33.700 Most parasites infect their host for a distinct purpose of their own.

00:03:37.820 What on earth was the purpose of the mind virus that had us deciding there were all these different genders and men can be women and women can be men just if they say so and put a bit of lipstick on or whatever?

00:03:49.000 Well, that's a fantastic question.

00:03:50.220 I actually addressed that in the parasitic mind.

00:03:52.340 Let me draw an analogy with, say, oncology.

00:03:56.140 You know, you could study cancer, many different forms of cancer.

00:04:00.160 Pancreatic cancer behaves differently from leukemia, behaves differently from, you know, liver cancer or skin melanoma.

00:04:07.180 But one thing that they do all have in common is the unchecked division of cells.

00:04:12.360 So if nothing else, we know that that is a fundamental commonality to all cancers.

00:04:17.140 And so I try to address exactly your question in the same way that you've got all these different cancers that at least have one thing in common, unchecked cell division.

00:04:27.300 I try to look for what is the commonality across all of these parasitic ideas.

00:04:32.540 And just for your viewers and listeners, a parasitic idea would be so the granddaddy would be postmodernism.

00:04:38.340 There are no objective truths other than the one objective truth, but there are no objective truths.

00:04:43.460 Social constructivism would be another one.

00:04:45.580 Radical feminism would be another one. 1.00

00:04:47.480 Cultural relativism would be another one.

00:04:49.440 So then what I was trying to do to your question is, well, why would these parasitic ideas be so alluring, so sticky, so enticing, so viral?

00:04:59.080 And so my argument is the following.

00:05:01.700 Let me know what you think.

00:05:02.860 People seem to resonate with it.

00:05:05.140 All of these parasitic ideas start off from a noble place.

00:05:08.880 And then in the service of that noble goal, if we have to murder and rape truth to get to that ultimate goal, so be it.

00:05:17.620 So let me give you a concrete example.

00:05:19.520 Equity feminism is the idea that men and women should be treated equally under the law. 0.97

00:05:24.660 There should be no institutional barriers for why the two sexes should not be treated equally.

00:05:29.260 Based on that definition, you and I would probably put up our hand and say, hey, sign me up.

00:05:34.160 I'm an equity feminist. 1.00

00:05:35.440 Then radical feminists come along and they say, in the service of squashing the toxic masculine patriarchy, 1.00

00:05:43.040 we need to now promulgate the idea that there are no distinguishable evolved differences between men and women.

00:05:51.120 All differences between the sexes must be due to social construction because that will allow us to achieve our noble goal of squashing the patriarchy.

00:05:59.700 So in the service of what started off as a nice idea, if I murder and rape truth, so be it.

00:06:05.380 And so I argue that all of these parasitic ideas, they free us from the pesky shackles of reality. 0.99

00:06:13.040 I don't want to be shackled by my genitalia. 0.85

00:06:15.980 I don't want to be shackled by my biological limitations, right?

00:06:20.360 It makes it's much more hopeful for me to espouse the idea that your child and mine could be the next Michael Jordan and the next Lionel Messi.

00:06:29.140 That makes me feel better.

00:06:30.600 So if in the service of some noble goal, I have to squash the edifices of reason, so be it. 0.99

00:06:38.220 But it just seems so idiotic that we've got to the point where we had to literally rot our brains to get there. 0.94

00:06:44.100 That, you know, the very starting point that men and women are just constructed differently by our narratives and our society is so counter to fact that it does seem a dangerous place for us to have gone. 0.95

00:06:59.300 And I think many are therefore grateful that perhaps there is, well, the leader of the free world resetting it a bit, right?

00:07:05.120 By the way, just if I may add, my first exposure to these parasitic ideas was precisely in my scientific work, which sought to incorporate evolutionary thinking in the study of human behavior in general and consumer behavior in particular.

00:07:22.660 So I came into the business school saying, hey, guys, you can't study consumer behavior or economic decision making or entrepreneurship or behavioral economics without studying the fundamental biological mechanisms that drive our purpose and behavior.

00:07:37.440 Well, to me, that seemed like a profoundly obvious and banal point to make to almost all of my colleagues, whether it be in the business schools or in social sciences.

00:07:48.240 That was completely crazy talk.

00:07:50.500 Surely biology applied for every other species except one called human beings.

00:07:56.380 And if it applied to human beings, Jonathan, it only applied up to the neck.

00:08:00.800 So sure, go ahead and use biology to explain why we have opposable thumbs. 0.96

00:08:05.320 But surely you're not some kind of quack Jewish Nazi who believes that the human mind is prone to the same evolutionary forces as your dog. 0.98

00:08:13.720 That's crazy talk. 1.00

00:08:14.620 And so that was my first exposure to, boy, some really intelligent people could actually be bafflingly imbecilic. 0.99

00:08:23.440 And that's how I then got onto the journey of the parasitic mind. 0.98

00:08:26.800 So I think medically we fight parasites with anti-parasitics.

00:08:31.620 I'm curious what the antidote should be.

00:08:34.380 What's our thinking anti-parasitic and how can we stop the development of more sophisticated parasites?

00:08:40.400 And I guess where I'm going with this is, you know, if we think about the mind virus, as it's been called, is the way to deal with it that we set up a lab in Wuhan and develop better mind viruses and try to infect our enemies or ourselves? 0.65

00:08:54.800 Or is it that we come up with these, you know, anti-virals, anti-parasitics, whatever we want to metaphorically call them?

00:09:00.360 Is there a way out of this predisposition we have to be infected?

00:09:04.520 Beautiful. So I'll first answer the last part.

00:09:07.920 You said predisposition to be infected.

00:09:10.220 And then I'll answer the sort of the general mind vaccine.

00:09:13.420 That's a really important sentence you said, because often people ask me, is this a new reality that we face?

00:09:21.640 And I always answer, absolutely not.

00:09:23.580 The capacity for the human mind to be parasitized is part of the indelible architecture of the human mind.

00:09:29.840 Right. There was a time where in Salem, Massachusetts, it was thought to be a good idea.

00:09:35.780 If your neighbor, Linda, you thought she was a witch, throw her in some water. 1.00

00:09:40.020 And if she swims and she doesn't drown, then that proves that she's a witch. 0.95

00:09:43.820 But if she drowns, oops, I guess we were wrong.

00:09:46.040 And oops, we made a mistake.

00:09:47.540 She's not a witch. 1.00

00:09:48.300 And that was a perfectly reasonable thing to carry out.

00:09:52.700 So the capacity for human minds to be parasitized is eternal.

00:09:57.720 What is unique to the present time period is the specific parasites that are affecting this, right?

00:10:05.740 Postmodernism didn't exist in Salem, Massachusetts.

00:10:09.080 And so, but which, by the way, is exactly the same if we push the metaphor, right?

00:10:13.080 I mean, the COVID virus is a new virus.

00:10:15.960 But the fact that we have co-evolved with endless pathogens has been part of our evolutionary history.

00:10:21.060 Okay, so that's number one.

00:10:21.900 Number two, I've actually have been arguing to, for many years, and I'm now kind of connecting with some pretty powerful people who would love for me to develop a mind vaccine institute, right?

00:10:36.160 Where you literally bring people in of all types.

00:10:39.080 It could be politicians.

00:10:40.060 It could be journalists.

00:10:41.120 It could be academics. 0.99

00:10:43.100 And to try to inoculate them against the possibility of these parasites.

00:10:49.900 So definitely what you're suggesting is something that's on my to-do radar list.

00:10:55.240 But let me give a specific example of what would a mind vaccine look like, if I may.

00:11:01.360 It's a bit technical.

00:11:02.780 So if you give, is it okay if I give a five-minute answer?

00:11:06.140 You can give us even seven.

00:11:08.140 Thank you.

00:11:09.380 So in Chapter 7 of The Parasitic Mind, the chapter is titled How to Seek Truth, I argue that there are different types of truths.

00:11:20.080 So, for example, there are axiomatic truths in mathematics, right?

00:11:23.980 So, for example, there are certain truths that we know.

00:11:27.520 Here's an example of an axiomatic truth.

00:11:31.320 The transitivity axiom.

00:11:32.660 If I prefer car A to car B and I prefer car B to car C, it must be that I prefer car A to car C.

00:11:38.720 So those are called axiomatic truths.

00:11:41.200 But there are empirical truths.

00:11:43.080 Men are taller than women. 1.00

00:11:45.740 And that, of course, holds true even though your aunt Linda is taller than your uncle Jethro, right?

00:11:51.280 And there's a way by which we can test that truth.

00:11:54.160 But what about more difficult statements?

00:11:56.900 What if I were to tell you, Jonathan, it is not true that toy preferences are socially constructed, as every single social scientist has told us.

00:12:05.620 There are evolutionary and biological reasons why little boys prefer certain toys and little girls prefer other toys.

00:12:12.940 How would I go about demonstrating that truth?

00:12:16.580 Well, they've done that with apes, haven't they?

00:12:18.060 They've shown like male apes will pick up cars and things and female apes will pick up dolls and babies. 0.87

00:12:23.900 I'm going to come exactly to that in a second.

00:12:25.940 So one type of mind vaccine is the building of what I call nomological networks of cumulative evidence.

00:12:34.260 It's a mouthful.

00:12:35.740 But what it basically means is, can I come up with every conceivable line of evidence, distinct lines of evidence that would triangulate and supporting my argument?

00:12:47.560 So let's do the toy preferences.

00:12:49.960 I can get you data, cross species, to your point, with vervet monkeys, rhesus monkeys, and chimpanzees, showing you that they exhibit the same sex specificity as human infants.

00:13:01.280 Already that would be fatal to the social constructivist, but I'm not going to stop there.

00:13:06.280 I'm going to get you data from developmental psychology, showing you that human children who are too young to yet have the capacity to be socialized, already exhibit those pensions.

00:13:17.120 So that already doesn't look good for the social constructivist.

00:13:20.940 I can get you data from pediatric endocrinology, where little girls will suffer from congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is a masculinizing disorder.

00:13:30.540 Those little girls will have sex reversal of their toy preferences. 1.00

00:13:34.580 I can get you data from completely different societies, sub-Saharan Africa, so it's not the West, where they exhibit the same preferences.

00:13:42.240 I can get you data from 2,500 years ago on ancient funerary mausoleums in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, where little children are depicted with the exact same sex specific toy preferences.

00:13:56.780 So look what I've done.

00:13:57.560 I've gotten you cross-cultural, cross-temporal, cross-methodology, cross-species, and it becomes impossible for you to refute it.

00:14:06.020 Now, here's the problem with this particular mind vaccine.

00:14:09.620 It's effortful to take that vaccine because it's not easily, you know, amenable to each person to go out and build such a network.

00:14:19.540 But what allows me to not be, one of the reasons why it's hard to cancel me is because when I go into very hostile territory with a lot of interlocutors who hate anything that I have to say, I've already built that nomological network for whatever debate we're having. 0.98

00:14:38.300 I've already inoculated myself against all of your bullshit. 0.71

00:14:42.360 So if you're going to come and debate me to our earlier point about you speaking at Oxford Union, good luck. 0.99

00:14:49.460 But what that allows me to do is I have epistemic humility, meaning that I really know what I know and I know what I don't know.

00:14:57.920 So if you ask me a question where I haven't built the requisite nomological network, I will be a lot more tepid in my answer.

00:15:04.880 Hey, that's a great question, Jonathan.

00:15:06.200 Unfortunately, it's above my pay grade.

00:15:07.960 I don't know enough about it to tell you.

00:15:09.400 So I think that there are, at times, effortful ways by which we could inoculate ourselves against the lunacy.

00:15:17.980 So I'm pleased to hear that you are working in developing a kind of mind virus vaccine.

00:15:24.980 I hope it doesn't make you like the Fauci of the mind.

00:15:28.740 I might be a good caller if that's possible.

00:15:32.060 Okay, well, that's definitely good.

00:15:33.980 Not having met you in person, I can't comment.

00:15:36.480 So I don't have the empirical data.

00:15:37.840 But let's flip to another kind of issue I think that I've heard you speak a lot about recently, which does touch on this, and that is Islam.

00:15:49.860 So I think that since October the 7th, many people have been a lot bolder in criticizing Islam.

00:15:55.740 And that's because I think there was a realization that what happened in Israel was not just about land or about Palestinians and Israelis, but it was effectively about jihad.

00:16:07.020 And similarly, I think it's coincided, well, in slow motion with jihad around the world.

00:16:12.640 So whether it's been driving a truck into a crowd in New Orleans or in Germany or any of the numerous Muslim terrorist attacks around the world, I think people are slowly waking up, and I say slowly, to this threat. 0.97

00:16:28.420 So I wonder how you think, as a professor, an expert, an academic, on the mind and on how ideas influence us.

00:16:37.840 I'm very curious about Islam as a set of ideas rather than as a religion.

00:16:42.460 And why you think, as somebody that grew up in an environment where it was prevalent, why you think it is so appealing to people, is it, as I suspect, in a way, one of the most expert religions in terms of marketing?

00:16:57.000 Is it that it has a very good way of selling itself to human beings?

00:17:00.380 Exactly right.

00:17:01.460 So I've actually made that exact point in several forays, and certainly in the parasitic mind, where I compare, let's say, Islam to Judaism. 0.99

00:17:12.240 Well, Judaism absolutely sucks as a marketing endeavor, right? 1.00

00:17:17.440 Because if the goal is to, quote, penetrate the market, if the goal is to build customers, then we have about 15 million customers in Judaism, and that number doesn't seem to grow much. 0.98

00:17:29.920 And we have about 125 times as much Muslims, right?

00:17:35.260 Now, every single element of the architecture of the mimetics of Islam is structured to promote that growth. 0.99

00:17:48.340 And regrettably, if we care about market penetration, it's the opposite in Judaism. 0.87

00:17:52.520 So let's just take one, but we could discuss other ones if you want.

00:17:56.480 Judaism is not a proselytizing religion.

00:17:58.800 If you wish to convert to Judaism, it is really, you know, you're tested in your will to convert. 0.80

00:18:06.300 So it's not, you say that one public proclamation, the shahada, and then, boom, you're Muslim, right?

00:18:14.100 It takes a lot more effort.

00:18:16.440 By the way, you're not even allowed to, even though many people violate that, you're not supposed to convert in Judaism for ulterior motives.

00:18:23.960 So if you convert because you're trying to marry a Jewish spouse, that would be a no-no. 0.74

00:18:30.020 It really has to be from a pure sort of spiritual awakening that you're doing this, right?

00:18:35.820 Okay, so then it doesn't take a fancy professor to then say, well, which one is likely to, you know, one of them I just say abracadabra and I become that thing.

00:18:44.480 The other one I have to get a PhD before I become, well, let me do the abracadabra one.

00:18:48.660 So, now, there are also rules about, I mean, literally reproduction, right?

00:18:54.200 Islam is built, you can have up to four wives, you could take non-Muslim women, but not the... 1.00

00:19:00.760 So there are many, many elements of Islam that allow it to proliferate beyond just the sword,

00:19:07.340 which is, of course, another way by which it has proliferated for 1400 years.

00:19:11.740 So there is definitely, so what you said is exactly right, but what...

00:19:17.780 If I may jump in, because I see where you're going, but what I'm asking, I think, aside from this, is why are the ideas of Islam,

00:19:24.620 it may be easy to put into action and understand why it's happening, but the ideas of Islam, when I read the Quran,

00:19:30.640 seemed maybe attractive to someone in the 7th century in Arabia, but to me, the promise of flowing water, sex on tap, food and fruits,

00:19:39.240 I mean, I've got the shop at the end of my road where I can find probably most of those, if not all.

00:19:43.900 I'm not sure about the sex on tap, but you never know.

00:19:46.380 I think in the modern world, it seems to me a strange assortment of fear and promise,

00:19:53.440 and I wonder why you think mentally and psychologically that's attractive.

00:19:56.560 Right, so I, yeah, so I was answering the first part, which is just, why is it memetically viral in the sense that I answered it,

00:20:05.220 but you're talking about the specific contents of the codified elements of Islam.

00:20:11.960 Well, again, as an evolutionary psychologist who understands that there are four key Darwinian modules that drive our behavior,

00:20:20.220 two of which are survival and reproduction, there's a lot of good sex in Islam, right? 0.99

00:20:25.540 You're promised a lot of, so a lot of stuff that I can't pursue with a lot of Darwinian alacrity in the earthly realm,

00:20:37.020 I can certainly be promised, and they give you details about how those prospective mates are going to look like in the afterlife.

00:20:46.280 And so, by the way, right, when you tell a female suicide bomber in Islam that you can do it, 0.99

00:20:55.780 it doesn't say you have access to 72 cabana boys with really pouty asses, 0.99

00:21:02.100 because it turns out that all religions seem to be really good as evolutionary psychologists 0.99

00:21:07.680 in understanding that there are sex-specific mating preferences that are different across the two sexes.

00:21:14.220 So the promissory note that I give to the male as jihadi suicide bomber is different than the one that I give for females. 0.61

00:21:23.340 So I think we can easily analyze it from a Darwinian perspective.

00:21:26.960 I think the next question, which you didn't necessarily ask, is why is it that the West is so completely impotent,

00:21:34.500 notwithstanding that you're saying that some are starting to criticize, completely impotent to ever connect the dots together?

00:21:44.640 And so I've got a chapter in the parasitic mind.

00:21:47.580 It's called Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome, because, of course, the ostrich, while it doesn't literally do that,

00:21:53.580 it's become a metaphor of ignoring reality.

00:21:55.680 So I literally list all of the reasons that super bien-pensant Westerners have come up with for why a particular terror attack happened.

00:22:09.280 So, for example, we needed Bill Nye, the science guy, to explain to us that the Bataclan terror attack in Paris,

00:22:17.460 where they screened Allahu Akbar, and then gave us the specific Quranic incantations,

00:22:23.660 that was actually due to climate change.

00:22:26.640 It was due to solar panels, right?

00:22:29.240 Have you seen that or not?

00:22:31.520 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:32.260 Yeah.

00:22:32.640 So we've also been told that, I think it was the Belgian jihadis, lack of art exposure.

00:22:41.900 I mean, who amongst us didn't grow up not seeing enough Chagall and Klimt, and then decided to go to ISIS and join Raqqa? 0.97

00:22:50.180 It's a direct line from not enough Chagall to killing the gays off rooftops. 1.00

00:22:55.440 Well, listen, I mean, it's what I think, you know, I was talking with Enid Wealth, not that long ago, 0.98

00:22:59.800 it's what she calls Westplaining.

00:23:01.440 So the idea is that Islam and its practitioners are very clear about why they do things a lot of the time.

00:23:07.800 And just in the same way that we talk about Islamophobia, we don't hear them talking about Kufarophobia.

00:23:14.500 It's just totally acceptable.

00:23:16.500 So I think that the idea of Westplaining, as she puts it, is we're always trying to impose our reasoned explanation

00:23:21.920 for these very unreasonable actions, even if they're completely clear about why they did it,

00:23:28.120 as they were on October the 7th.

00:23:29.540 You know, this is for the nation of jihad. 0.99

00:23:31.000 One of those clips I watched from their dash cam said, not this is for more electricity in Gaza.

00:23:36.500 But I wonder, though, in that case, so what I, you know, I wrestle with this idea a lot.

00:23:42.400 Why do you think it is specifically that Jews are so bad at criticizing Islam when Islam is pretty good at criticizing Jews? 1.00

00:23:50.880 And I can say that as a Jewish, non-Muslim, gay, Western, whatever other list of things they might dislike about me person. 0.99

00:24:00.240 Do you own a black dog? 0.99

00:24:01.280 Because if you own a black dog, you need to try a fact that gay, Jew, and owner of a black dog, you're done. 1.00

00:24:07.980 And I drink alcohol, too. 0.99

00:24:09.280 So other than, you know, I mean, what I'm trying to get at is it's very, very explicit.

00:24:15.060 If you read Islam's fundamental text, its foundational text, it's not about different strains or different practices.

00:24:22.080 The actual foundational touchstone is so clear on what it thinks of, let's say, me.

00:24:29.580 Why is it that it's seen as impolite or racist or politically incorrect?

00:24:35.200 And for so many Jews, why do you think Jews are supremely bad at daring to criticize something which is very, very explicit about them?

00:24:44.120 So there are several possible, you know, factors at play, one of which could be linked to the dimmi psychology, right?

00:24:55.200 So in Islamic society, a dimmi is not even a second-class citizen. 1.00

00:25:02.140 It's less than a second-class citizen.

00:25:03.600 It's people of the book, meaning of Abrahamic faith, Christians or Jews, that could be tolerated in Islamic society until, of course, we reserve the right to stop tolerating at any time. 0.96

00:25:16.760 We no longer wish to tolerate.

00:25:18.500 And because we are going to tolerate you, we're going to have to impose certain very humiliating restrictions on you.

00:25:24.900 Now, not in every Islamic society it has been, you know, imposed with complete, you know, judiciousness.

00:25:32.580 But certainly in the Quranic principles, you have that.

00:25:35.220 Now, imagine if I am a dimmi in such a society.

00:25:39.160 I developed the reflex to never criticize the one who could look at my beautiful daughter who's coming of age and decide that, you know, I've got designs on her, right?

00:25:51.420 And so that would be for Jews in an Islamic, like I'm a Mizrahi Jew from Lebanon.

00:25:59.220 So that might explain my situation, why people like me would not, not me.

00:26:04.580 Obviously, I criticize Islam, but others. 1.00

00:26:06.700 Now, other westernized Jews, because they have been at the forefront of fighting for civil rights,

00:26:13.920 because their own civil rights have always been, you know, eradicated and so on.

00:26:18.960 You know, they're walking in Selma, Alabama, and they're, you know, they're the pioneers of fighting for civil rights in the United States and so on.

00:26:27.660 It becomes inculcated in the mind of a Jew that it is uniquely gauche to criticize another's religion. 0.95

00:26:36.520 It's just, it's not something that, you know, when I speak with a progressive lisp and I go to Oberlin College and I'm a good Jewish moron, then it's just not something that we do. 0.97

00:26:49.020 So even if you might end up decapitating me, I will know that I will go to my death being a progressive Jew speaking with a progressive lisp. 0.56

00:26:58.380 By the way, it's a very similar mechanism for why French Canadians, in their desperate attempts to protect the French Canadian language in Quebec, 0.99

00:27:07.440 have thought that it was a beautiful idea to let in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Muslims, who will then decapitate you. 1.00

00:27:15.240 But before they do that, Jonathan, they say, bonjour, ça va? 0.96

00:27:19.760 So as long as the decapitation happens in French, there really is no problem.

00:27:23.760 So that might explain why the Jews have a hard time with it.

00:27:26.600 I guess it's about priorities in that sense.

00:27:28.680 But I've always thought as well that, you know, there is a great deal of truth to that.

00:27:33.040 And I think there's an added element of guilt, which is, as a people who've been constantly persecuted for our religion or beliefs, unjustifiably,

00:27:41.840 we are maybe afraid of criticizing other people's beliefs, even when they are so dangerous to our own existence.

00:27:49.800 And I think that brings me to this other idea of yours, suicidal empathy.

00:27:54.160 Yes, sir.

00:27:54.360 Because it's not just Jews who have this.

00:27:57.340 It's this very modern Western liberal attitude that we must be empathetic and tolerant,

00:28:03.760 even of unempathetic and intolerant people, even when they're literally killing us because of who we are.

00:28:12.300 So I wonder, in terms of this idea of suicidal empathy, what do you think the best way to wake people up is?

00:28:22.260 I've had many conversations where, you know, among like-minded people who always said,

00:28:27.440 well, the next massive terror attack that's going to wake everyone up, you know, when they blow up the tube and then they blow up the tube and it didn't.

00:28:33.960 Or when they, say, when they blow up a concert of little girls dancing to Ariana Grande, that'll wake them up and it doesn't.

00:28:42.240 I wonder if you think there is anything that can wake us up.

00:28:45.800 And the thing I wanted to specifically ask you about is, you know, when you have trouble waking up in the morning, there's two options.

00:28:51.340 There's the, you know, really loud multiple alarm clocks choice.

00:28:55.240 Well, there are those kind of expensive sun lamps that slowly come on and fool you into thinking it's daytime, even when it's still dark outside.

00:29:04.600 What would be the, clearly the loud alarm clock version, you know, bombing us, killing us, isn't working.

00:29:10.220 But what might be the sun lamp version and do you think there's any hope for it?

00:29:15.320 Well, I like the language, the analogy.

00:29:19.500 So let's do the sun lamp version.

00:29:22.260 It's to try to convince people that there is nothing laudable about orgiastic empathy.

00:29:30.620 It's not a value that makes you virtuous.

00:29:33.660 So let me step back and not to get too philosophical, but I guess I am a professor, so it's part of the territory.

00:29:40.220 In my last book, in the happiness book, one of the chapters, I talk about the ubiquitousness, the ubiquity of the inverted you.

00:29:49.300 Inverted you is something that Aristotle taught us in the Nicomachean ethics.

00:29:55.300 So too little of something is not good.

00:29:57.200 Too much of something is not good.

00:29:58.580 And life happens somewhere at the sweet spot.

00:30:01.180 So if a soldier is too cowardly, it's bad.

00:30:04.880 If he's too risk-taker, then he's going to be a reckless martyr.

00:30:08.780 You have to temper it, be in the middle.

00:30:10.420 Okay.

00:30:10.540 And so I demonstrate in that chapter that much of our maximal flourishing happens when we find that sweet spot across many bewildering number of domains.

00:30:20.020 So now let's apply that principle to empathy.

00:30:22.520 No one is suggesting that empathy is not a laudable value.

00:30:27.340 As a matter of fact, from an evolutionary perspective, that positive emotion is an indelible part that oils our human sociality.

00:30:36.080 So, for example, for you and I to have a meaningful exchange, I have to have theory of mind.

00:30:40.600 I have to put myself in your mind, get a sense of what I think you know, and that oils our capacity to engage in a meaningful way.

00:30:47.740 So you expect a highly intelligent social species to develop the emotion of empathy.

00:30:54.900 But all good things in good measure.

00:30:57.780 So as long as it isn't to the right person, at the right amount, at the right place, it's perfectly laudable.

00:31:04.260 Once it isn't, it becomes dysfunctional.

00:31:06.920 And I'll see the floor back to you in a second.

00:31:09.580 Let me draw an analogy with a psychiatric condition.

00:31:12.980 OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, is a dysfunction.

00:31:16.540 It's a psychiatric disorder.

00:31:18.000 But its root is based in an adaptive mechanism.

00:31:22.120 The idea that I should scan the environment for environmental threats makes perfect evolutionary sense.

00:31:28.280 If you are sneezing and then you go to shake my hand, I will very politely go to the bathroom to wash my hands because I don't want to catch your stomach bug or your, you know, flu or whatever it is.

00:31:39.200 Right?

00:31:39.400 Too late.

00:31:40.180 Too late.

00:31:40.760 Exactly.

00:31:41.280 As I found out last week.

00:31:42.720 But if I, so once the flag goes up, the warning flag, I tend to it, it goes back down, I go on with my day.

00:31:52.420 What the OCD sufferer has is an infinite hyperactive flag.

00:31:58.400 So that person will spend eight hours in front of squalding hot water until their skin is falling off.

00:32:04.680 They can't go to work and they'll be fired from work because they are making sure.

00:32:08.380 Let me just wash one more time to make sure that my hands are not contaminated.

00:32:12.280 Right?

00:32:12.560 So it's a hyperactive mechanism that is otherwise adapted.

00:32:16.560 Well, I argue for the exact same principle when it comes to empathy.

00:32:20.680 Empathy is great, but it's not, it shouldn't be meted out to Guatemalan gang members more so than American vets. 0.93

00:32:30.200 Once you do that, you're targeting the wrong target.

00:32:32.760 And so that would be the slow, what you call the slow sunlight, which is to kind of embolden people to recognize that orgiastic, unencumbered by any reason, empathy is nothing laudable and it's bad and has to stop.

00:32:49.300 It's always so hard to sell people moderation though, isn't it?

00:32:52.360 Because it's like the least sexy thing in the world.

00:32:54.620 I think in reality, people kind of like an idea and they go for it more.

00:32:59.840 And in this era of algorithmic instant gratification, we're often forced down those kind of rabbit holes of following our urges to their very limits.

00:33:10.480 And one other aspect of it that I think I've heard you talk about is kind of tribalism, let's say.

00:33:17.420 So, for example, the idea of the research that you did on how we distribute our gift-giving budget.

00:33:25.620 So the idea that we prioritize those close to us.

00:33:28.940 Again, I wondered how this fits in with Islam or religions because I get told a lot when I criticize Islamic thinking or doctrine that not all Muslims are suicide bombers and such like.

00:33:43.660 And of course, that's true. And I know many Muslims who find all of that as reprehensible and destructive and terrible as I do. 1.00

00:33:52.200 But then I have experienced something over the last 15 months.

00:33:54.760 I wonder if you have too, which is some people who I knew as very moderate Muslims in their behavior, very modern people.

00:34:03.080 When it came to this sort of crunch moment, there was a tribalism in that, their gift-giving of mental loyalty suddenly went a bit towards this deeply evil jihadi tendency. 0.93

00:34:15.640 And I found myself thinking, wow, I thought we were friends.

00:34:19.360 And you think there's a justification for the rape, murder and kidnap of my people, of any people.

00:34:25.620 So do you think that there is a way for us to defeat these instincts like tribalism or our own biology in how we're coming up with ideas and loyalties?

00:34:35.460 Fantastic question. And you're exactly right that I've addressed this in my scientific work.

00:34:42.400 I've actually addressed it also using Israeli data, not really only relevant to the extent that we talked about some of these little Easter issues.

00:34:51.500 I've done research with Israeli weddings showing that not only to the finding that you mentioned, that the closer I am genetically to the recipient of the gift, the larger the gift, right?

00:35:06.560 So that's one finding.

00:35:07.660 But I also demonstrated with a few Israeli colleagues that the mother's side of the bride and groom give larger gifts than the father's side, the paternal side, because there is no such thing as maternity uncertainty, but there is such a thing as paternity uncertainty.

00:35:30.900 So even in the context of a patriarchal society in the Middle East, biology matters.

00:35:38.140 So why am I saying all this?

00:35:39.780 Because it's very, very difficult to eradicate some of these fundamental biological imperatives.

00:35:46.520 So coalitional psychology is a fundamental feature of our human psychology.

00:35:52.460 We view the world as blue team, red team.

00:35:54.760 That's what makes Abrahamic religions so easy to internalize because there are the Jews and the Gory. 1.00

00:36:03.700 There are the believers and the Kuffar. 1.00

00:36:05.540 There are those who are going to be sitting with Jesus in heaven and the rest of us assholes are going to burn in hell. 1.00

00:36:11.280 So all of these religions draw these demarcations. 0.99

00:36:13.680 So to answer your question, we will never eradicate our capacity for coalitional thinking, but maybe we can eradicate the fact that if you're on the blue team and I'm on the red team, I decapitate you.

00:36:28.340 Maybe I won't invite you every day over for dinner. 0.96

00:36:31.440 Even that would be reprehensible, although in the Quran it says don't take Jews and Christians as your friends.

00:36:36.340 But maybe my coalitional imperative doesn't have to instantiate itself in the most, you know, bloodthirsty ways.

00:36:46.600 By the way, the idea of genetic relatedness and so on, there is a great quote from Leon Uris.

00:36:53.780 I'm going to totally butcher it, but it's in this book right here in The Consuming Instinct where he says, you know, the nation versus this, my tribe versus other tribes, my clan versus that.

00:37:05.540 So you keep bringing it down.

00:37:07.360 So he's literally using in his own poetic way, the language of evolutionary psychology, which is we met out our investments as a function of these evolutionary imperative.

00:37:18.640 So I don't think we'll get rid of it, but maybe we can sort of deactivate some of the ugly manifestations of that imperative.

00:37:25.820 So in a way, I suppose one of the unique beauties of being human, as opposed to any other species, is perhaps that we allow ourselves to have a level of control or intellect over some of these biological or psychological urges.

00:37:40.080 And I mean, when it comes back to the Islam question, I had a sort of remote conversation between two quite well-known Muslim friends.

00:37:50.860 So one was Loai al-Sharif, who you might be familiar with.

00:37:54.200 I don't know if you are.

00:37:55.020 He's very big online.

00:37:56.620 He's a Saudi origin based in the UAE influencer who loves Israel and Judaism.

00:38:02.360 So on the one hand, I have him.

00:38:06.260 And on the other hand, my colleague in the Oxford debate, Mossab Hassan Yusuf, who was the Green Prince, the son of Hamas. 0.86

00:38:12.680 So the two of them, in my opinion, I've had, you know, quite long conversations with both of them about Islam.

00:38:18.780 And they have very different attitudes towards it.

00:38:20.780 Both of them, obviously, like us lot.

00:38:23.900 But they have very different attitudes towards what they do with it.

00:38:27.480 So Mossab, on the one hand, says, you know, this is rotten.

00:38:32.100 And even people who aren't extreme in their practice of Islam are therefore not Muslims, because they're not really adhering to any of Islamic doctrine.

00:38:41.720 Whereas Loai says, no, no, there must be a sort of enlightened Islam eventually.

00:38:48.260 And he urges the rest of us to hang on tight and hope it comes before we get beheaded.

00:38:52.900 And that to take Mossab's approach, he said to me, is to put a target on billions of people's backs.

00:39:01.980 My question, I guess, that I'm searching for here, what is the right approach?

00:39:06.080 Is it to try then to convince existing Muslims that their belief system is problematic?

00:39:12.940 Or is it to try to wait for this moderation of Islam and hope that we aren't slaughtered while we're waiting for it? 0.96

00:39:21.860 But forgive me for putting you on the spot.

00:39:25.120 Can you guess what my answer will be before I give it?

00:39:29.260 Yeah, I can if you want me to try it.

00:39:31.660 It's up to you.

00:39:32.420 I think you would want us, from observing your talking on this in the past, I think you would suggest that we need to kind of wake people up and convince them to leave behind the faulty ideas of not just Islam, but any ideology that you should try and convince people. 0.71

00:39:50.480 But is that practical?

00:39:51.760 Yeah, so, I mean, I can see the benefits of both approaches.

00:40:00.300 It's not as though, what is the name of the general in Mossab, the other one?

00:40:03.960 What's his name?

00:40:04.940 Lawai.

00:40:05.380 Lawai.

00:40:06.380 It's not as though he's the first one in 14 years, 1,400 years of Islamic history to come up with this idea.

00:40:12.240 Oh, reform, that's an idea.

00:40:14.300 How come most of them get killed, right?

00:40:15.620 That's the problem.

00:40:16.440 Exactly.

00:40:16.740 So, not only all of them have been killed, any serious ones, and it has never, you know, gained any traction, but if you go by the official doctrines of Islam, it is the final, inerrant, eternal word of God to not be changed by one syllable.

00:40:39.200 Harif, one letter, cannot be changed. 0.72

00:40:43.080 Doesn't that serve as the final mic drop? 0.56

00:40:45.280 So, we could play all sorts of games, and I often satirically will go online, you've probably seen it, where I say, oh, but if only you understood Arabic philology, Quranic Arabic philology, you'd know that kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, take an espresso break, resume, or just a killing really means killed with kindness.

00:41:03.380 But if only you knew that, but you need to be at Al-Azhar University studying under Sheikh Karadawi to be able to understand that kind of nuance. 0.99

00:41:12.660 But all of you asshole Westerners don't get it, that's why you misunderstood. 0.98

00:41:15.980 That's because we're reading it in translation, we couldn't possibly get it, right? 0.99

00:41:19.040 Exactly.

00:41:19.660 But I speak Arabic, so I know better, and I know that it really means kill with kindness.

00:41:24.700 So, we can play all those games.

00:41:26.580 It won't get us far.

00:41:27.680 How many more people have to die before, as your friend said, well, hang on tight and we'll resolve it.

00:41:35.120 We've had 1,400 million years, 1,400 years.

00:41:38.580 Depending on the estimates, we have up to, I mean, the estimates vary, but a reasonably conservative estimate is 300 million killed in the 1,400 years of Islam.

00:41:50.000 That's a lot of souls lost, right?

00:41:51.960 So, how many more?

00:41:53.020 Another 300 million?

00:41:54.240 So, but I understand that it's impractical and that, well, what are you going to do?

00:41:58.620 You're going to press a button and it's going to cease to exist.

00:42:01.160 So, what, you know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a different approach.

00:42:06.220 She says, you can't ask people to leave a religion and be in void.

00:42:11.200 She used to be more bent towards atheism.

00:42:14.120 Now, she sees sort of Christianity as a sort of big sieve where people can go from being Muslim to maybe being Christian because they have to believe in something beyond simply non-belief.

00:42:25.800 So, there are different approaches.

00:42:27.920 What I can tell you is there is no documented society throughout human history where Islam has become the majority religion and thereafter individual freedoms have flourished.

00:42:40.320 That hasn't existed and it will never exist.

00:42:42.400 And that's because I think that Islamic doctrine, it doesn't prioritise individual freedoms. 0.58

00:42:47.200 In fact, that's one of the fundamentals of it.

00:42:49.120 But that's very interesting because effectively that is the difference between Loa and Mossab.

00:42:54.100 Loa continues to consider himself a Muslim but quite a Jewish one, he says, which is very confusing because Islam, of course, is meant to replace Jews.

00:43:03.380 But then Mossab actually became a Christian. 0.63

00:43:06.040 This is what he did after his 10 years of helping the Shabak to foil suicide bombings.

00:43:11.900 And now I feel, you know, we had a long conversation, a bit like this one, but in person.

00:43:16.000 And he told me he's kind of not moved on from Christianity, but he's not as practising and he's incorporated other kind of spiritualities into his thinking.

00:43:25.320 So, I do think that's very interesting.

00:43:27.420 I suppose where I want to go from that is to ask you, when I talk about a lot of this stuff, I get accused of being far right.

00:43:33.940 And I'm not the only one.

00:43:35.660 There's also people like Tommy Robinson in the UK and Elon Musk is recently a sort of champion of his online.

00:43:43.000 The idea that this makes you far right is interesting.

00:43:46.160 And our own Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has suggested that those who were standing up for the young children who were raped and, as you said, tortured and even killed by the Muslim rape gangs in the UK,

00:44:00.960 that people who talked about that were bolstering the far right.

00:44:04.760 This idea of far right is an interesting one to me as well.

00:44:08.220 What do you think is far right these days?

00:44:12.140 And do you think people who are slurred as being far right should just embrace and say, well, if it's far right to stand up for children and women and gays, then so be it?

00:44:22.780 Or should we fight back against that?

00:44:25.380 You know, labels have never really, I mean, if I were to be hurt by labels, I would have been out of this game a long time ago because on any given day, I'm accused of every conceivable thing.

00:44:37.260 I mean, I get hate mail where someone misinterprets my satire and thinks that I'm a jihadi.

00:44:43.320 I get emails where people say that, you know, I'm literally the guy orchestrating the bombing of Gazan children.

00:44:52.120 I'm the head of the Mossad.

00:44:53.940 You can't be, that's me, apparently.

00:44:55.480 Oh, that's you? Okay.

00:44:56.700 But are you going to the Mossad retreat?

00:44:59.580 I didn't get the invite, but I'm often told it's me.

00:45:03.160 I'll speak to the folks.

00:45:04.480 But anyway, so, you know, I get all kinds of stuff.

00:45:07.520 I just sort of go like this.

00:45:08.860 Yes, of course, once in a while it annoys you, but you really have to have fixed skin.

00:45:14.020 So, no, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about the labels.

00:45:17.740 By the way, people have often, not accused me, but sort of been frustrated with me because they say, well, you seem to be coy about what your political orientation is.

00:45:26.300 Why don't you say what you are?

00:45:27.340 And my answer, not to in the least bit be coy, is that I really am a man of ideas.

00:45:33.340 So, there are many ideas, which if I gave you my position on, you'd say, oh, he's being right.

00:45:38.840 And there are other ideas. 0.64

00:45:40.220 Okay, gay, trans, as long as you don't tell me that men, too, can menstruate, right? 0.54

00:45:45.680 Then I'm the most socially liberal guy in the world. 0.99

00:45:48.580 I couldn't give a damn what you do, who you marry, what happens. 0.60

00:45:52.160 I don't care.

00:45:52.720 So, I'm the most progressive guy in the history of the world.

00:45:56.460 When it comes to immigration, when it comes to death penalty of repeat child molesters, I'm the number one guy for execute them.

00:46:04.180 Now, that makes me ultra right wing.

00:46:06.880 So, depending on the issue, I can oscillate from being very right wing to being very left wing.

00:46:12.520 So, I'm really a guy of ideas.

00:46:14.800 Don't care about labels.

00:46:15.960 I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about these things.

00:46:18.460 As expected, I agree.

00:46:19.700 But I've got, I think, two last things I'd like to ask you, if we've still got time.

00:46:25.640 One is about the idea of our biology influencing our behavior, which, of course, is quite fundamental to your work.

00:46:35.300 And I heard an interesting question in one of the trigonometry podcasts, actually, from Constantin Kissin, where he was asking about this, about, for example, how testosterone might change our behaviors, but more than individually as a society.

00:46:48.660 So, we often read that testosterone levels are much lower historically and that there's more estrogen in our food or water or whatever it might be.

00:46:59.340 And then he was questioning whether that might have made us as a society somewhat, let's say, softer in our behavior.

00:47:07.160 I wonder how you think that might chime in with the idea of suicidal empathy.

00:47:12.740 Do you think that maybe part of the empatheticness of our being could have been influenced by something as simple as our decreasing testosterone levels?

00:47:23.640 Phenomenal question.

00:47:24.620 So, I think it's a two-pronged attack.

00:47:28.780 One could well be those testosterone levels dropping so that it really is feminizing society. 0.85

00:47:37.640 But I think a more direct pathway to that is the feminization of values, right?

00:47:44.460 So, men and women are very, very similar, if not identical, on many traits, and they're different on others.

00:47:51.200 And the framework that explains on which ones were similar versus which ones were dissimilar is exactly evolutionary psychology.

00:47:58.060 And so, when it comes to, for example, certain objectives at a university, men leaders in academic institutions behave in very different ways.

00:48:11.560 So, for example, I go to meetings, departmental meetings, if it's headed by a female head, where I'm unsure if I'm about to take nap time because I'm in grade five kindergarten.

00:48:24.860 How is everybody doing?

00:48:26.560 How is everything?

00:48:28.000 How are you doing?

00:48:29.080 What's your feeling like?

00:48:30.480 Tell them, right?

00:48:31.240 It's a very different approach.

00:48:33.420 Now, yes, I'm being stereotypical, but stereotypes exist because they're real, right?

00:48:38.840 So, there is an elevation of certain feminine qualities that historically were not as prevalent in certain domains, right?

00:48:49.540 So, when Justin Trudeau says that Canada is going to follow a feminist foreign policy, what the hell does that mean?

00:49:00.400 Here is my foreign policy. 0.99

00:49:01.920 You mess with us and kill 100 of us, we multiply it by 100 of what we kill of yours. 0.99

00:49:10.640 What I just said is called the policy since time immemorial. 0.99

00:49:16.040 Let me explain history very simply.

00:49:18.900 There is a river.

00:49:20.160 There are two tribes on both rivers.

00:49:22.940 The men on each of the two tribes would really like to get the attractive resources that the other tribe has.

00:49:29.980 The only thing that stops them, the only calculus that stops them, is that they know that there are men in the other tribe that would not take too well to that.

00:49:39.300 So, they think about before they do it.

00:49:41.760 Now, imagine if we create a new society where the men on one side of the river say,

00:49:47.440 that is so toxic masculine.

00:49:50.180 That is so non-empathetic. 0.87

00:49:52.260 That is so violent, barbaric, and Neanderthal-like. 0.94

00:49:55.620 A new mound, which was trained by radical feminists, says that no, give up your children. 1.00

00:50:03.740 As a matter of fact, I'll show you where my children are hiding so you can gang rape them because I want you to feel welcome in my society, right? 0.92

00:50:10.620 So, I think it's a lot more the radical change in the values as in part instituted by the parasitic ideas and the suicidal empathy that has feminized us much more so than that there is greater estrogen in some of the byproducts.

00:50:26.620 So, our urges that you describe so clearly and our kind of biological tendencies, what's unique about humans is that we have the ability to transcend those, to transcend our biology, to kind of put our culture and our intellectual above our biological.

00:50:47.480 But, of course, we're always going to be susceptible to those.

00:50:49.960 So, I think in closing, I guess I want to ask you the big one, which is how should we tackle it?

00:50:56.380 You mentioned that you'd seen this Oxford Union debate, if we can call it that, that I did.

00:51:01.680 And a few people have said to me, you know what your mistake was?

00:51:04.300 It was to go there and try and make a reasoned case because all they wanted in that room was an emotional case.

00:51:11.060 And I've often sort of fleshed that out myself by saying that I think a lot of people prefer a beautiful lie to an ugly truth.

00:51:17.760 So, if that's the case, these are very human and natural tendencies.

00:51:22.600 It's going back to something I asked you earlier, I think.

00:51:25.240 Should we be looking for a way to make our messages more emotional and more beautiful and more in line with the biological urges?

00:51:36.400 Or should we be trying to make better humans and helping them overcome their biological determinism and their lack of conscious free will?

00:51:44.020 Or should we be, again, should we be waking them up?

00:51:46.500 Or should we be creating dreams out of what we want them to think and do ourselves?

00:51:50.960 Well, first, I love the fact that you explain the canard of biological determinism.

00:51:56.100 One of the reasons why people abhor the application of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology to study human behavior

00:52:02.860 is precisely because they succumb to the fallacy, the false fallacy is redundant,

00:52:10.740 that we are just mere passive executors of our genes, of our biological imperatives.

00:52:18.720 Exactly to your point, I also have evolved other mechanisms that could temper those Darwinian, right?

00:52:24.840 At any given moment, I've got Darwinian pulls pulling me in different directions.

00:52:30.300 And that's what gives me that prefrontal cortex that allows me higher order technique.

00:52:34.880 So you're exactly right.

00:52:36.180 And I get so frustrated when my fellow academics so often misconstrue biological explanations as being deterministic.

00:52:45.680 So you're absolutely right.

00:52:46.860 But to your sort of either or, I think in a sense, if you forgive me for saying it's a false dichotomy

00:52:53.160 because we are both a thinking and feeling animal.

00:52:57.000 So to argue that let's cater to our emotions, hence it's natural, we're both.

00:53:03.180 The challenge, Jonathan, as I explained in Chapter 2 of The Parasitic Mind,

00:53:07.820 is to know when to invoke which system.

00:53:10.660 So for example, if I'm walking down a dark alley because I'm taking a shortcut to get home

00:53:17.120 and I see four young men who look suspicious loitering,

00:53:20.800 I get a fear-based response, an emotional response that's perfectly adapted.

00:53:25.480 In that context, it makes perfect sense that it is my emotional system that went on hyperdrive.

00:53:31.720 If I'm trying to do well on a calculus exam and I trigger my emotional system rather than my cognitive system,

00:53:38.120 I'm probably not going to do well on my calculus exam.

00:53:40.660 So it's not that for maximal persuasion intent, I have to activate your reasoning or your emotions.

00:53:50.860 It depends on the situations.

00:53:53.280 This is why in my own public engagement, I have many weapons within my arsenal.

00:54:00.360 I can be as professorial as you can get or I could hide under the desk pretending that I am scared

00:54:09.600 because Donald Trump just got inaugurated while wearing a pink, you know, wig. 1.00

00:54:16.380 Now, many people who don't know me or understand me will write to me because they're idiots 0.99

00:54:21.500 and they'll say things, but doesn't that take away from your, you know, professorial? 0.99

00:54:27.280 I said, no, I'm a multifaceted human being.

00:54:30.660 I have a sense of humor.

00:54:32.320 I'm colorful.

00:54:33.820 I'm also very academic and professorial.

00:54:36.840 And I will use different approaches to get my message across.

00:54:41.080 By the way, I will say this to you, to your general question about emotions versus reason.

00:54:46.780 Listen, I get more fans coming up to me in the street commenting about my humorous skits

00:54:54.700 than I do about all of my fancy academic stuff.

00:54:58.660 Not because they don't like my, but because that sticks, right?

00:55:03.020 Because people resonate with that.

00:55:05.280 That's why politicians use emotional cues.

00:55:08.460 So it really depends.

00:55:09.540 If I'm speaking at Stanford, I'm trying to convince a bunch of progressive LISP academics

00:55:14.520 that I will use all the professorial things needed.

00:55:17.560 If I'm trying to reach as many people as possible, I will use your.

00:55:20.860 So all bets are off when it comes to gaining access to your mind.

00:55:25.380 I guess on the big issues, though, the difficulty is trying to agree amongst ourselves which thing

00:55:33.420 needs to be subdued by the other.

00:55:35.480 So when it comes, for example, to Islamophobia, I would say not a phobia, very rational.

00:55:41.540 It's a survival instinct.

00:55:44.040 And other people will say, no, no, it's your human baseness that's afraid.

00:55:48.140 And you should be subduing that with your reason and, you know, make it beautiful in your mind

00:55:54.620 and you'll understand the beauty of it.

00:55:56.340 But I suppose, as you say, you need to choose who you give which message to

00:56:00.540 as long as you're consistent in your line of thinking.

00:56:03.460 And I suppose on that level, I'd love to keep talking to you for hours,

00:56:07.220 but I appreciate the time you've given me.

00:56:09.760 I say in the words of a wise man, stand bravely, live proudly, dream boldly.

00:56:14.580 That's President Donald Trump just about an hour ago.

00:56:18.140 And let's hope that the golden age has just begun, as you said.

00:56:21.600 I certainly know that your thinking and your contributions on all these issues and others

00:56:25.880 is enormously influential to me and many people around the world.

00:56:29.140 So thank you for it.

00:56:30.420 And thanks for talking with me.

00:56:32.240 Thank you, sir.

00:56:32.920 Great talk to you.

00:56:33.720 Cheers.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - January 24, 2025

Islam, Suicidal Empathy, and Trump (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_789)

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