The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Parasitic Ideas in Medicine - the Woke Oath Supersedes the Hippocratic Oath (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.200 Okay, folks, so I'm going to ask everybody to kind of take their seats.

00:00:07.400 The dinner service is going to start.

00:00:09.760 They're going to be serving you while I'm chatting

00:00:13.140 and probably finish up the last little bit of the dinner service while Dr. Saad starts.

00:00:19.340 So I've got to put my Make Me Smart glasses on.

00:00:26.820 So hi, everybody.

00:00:28.020 Welcome either back to BDEC or welcome to BDEC for the first time.

00:00:34.420 If you were here last year, can you stick your hand way up in the air?

00:00:39.440 So lots of you.

00:00:40.280 If you were never here before, stick your hand up in the air.

00:00:44.180 Lots of you.

00:00:44.920 So it's probably maybe a little better than 50% second timers.

00:00:50.660 So thanks very much for coming.

00:00:53.400 I recognize last year's Beebles as that despicable fringe minority with unacceptable views.

00:01:00.140 First, a little bit of housekeeping.

00:01:06.620 The bathrooms are gendered.

00:01:09.000 Sorry.

00:01:10.980 I know, I know, I know.

00:01:12.360 We tried to get a change.

00:01:17.520 The women's are down the back.

00:01:19.800 The men's are up front.

00:01:21.300 And men, if you need to go to the washroom during the talk, you can actually slip out into this side hall and down that way.

00:01:28.400 It tends to be a little quieter.

00:01:30.120 And in case of landing on water, there is an inflatable vest under your seat as well.

00:01:41.520 I always feel like a stewardess when I'm announcing the bathrooms.

00:01:46.180 So we already committed our first microaggression by gendering the washrooms, but you're going to have to expect a lot of that this weekend.

00:01:52.160 Just for various reasons, we're going to be a little fussier than last year.

00:01:58.300 So please, please, please wear your lanyard, especially tomorrow.

00:02:03.460 We're going to be having to check them at the door.

00:02:05.880 So no lanyard, no get any.

00:02:08.440 So please do please do wear it.

00:02:11.800 The talks are being professionally recorded.

00:02:14.280 So please, please don't record the whole talks and post them.

00:02:18.940 If you want to record video clips or pictures, we're fine with that.

00:02:22.260 But there's no need to record the whole thing.

00:02:25.080 I'll make the same plea I did last year.

00:02:28.380 We live in this horrible, distracted world with buzzes and clicks and cell phones ringing all the time.

00:02:36.280 So please take a minute, as I will, to at worst turn your cell phone to silent and at best turn it off and challenge yourself to really pay attention and not tweet or text or look at anything else.

00:02:52.940 Nature intended us to meet in person and listen in person, and we have a good chance to do that this weekend.

00:03:01.240 Another little bit of housekeeping.

00:03:02.520 We schedule a very healthy amount of question and answer time.

00:03:08.460 When we do the questions, I'll kind of be reminding you, but please try to keep your question brief because sometimes questions turn into, you know, speeches.

00:03:17.780 So plan your question in a way that you can get it asked in about a minute because we want to hear the speaker and have lots of time to get as many questions in as possible.

00:03:28.200 And I will use my vaudeville hook if I have to.

00:03:30.800 So just, you know, so we have attendees from all over Canada here, some from the U.S.

00:03:39.680 And I just sort of want to do a little shout out.

00:03:42.180 So if you're from B.C., can you stick your hands up in the air?

00:03:47.500 Maybe from B.C.

00:03:48.260 How many from Alberta?

00:03:50.440 I think we have a lot from Alberta.

00:03:51.560 Yeah, lots from Alberta.

00:03:53.360 We'll do Manitoba and Saskatchewan together.

00:03:57.120 A few.

00:03:58.340 Ontario.

00:03:59.480 Lots from Ontario.

00:04:00.780 We have some Quebecers, including our keynote speaker.

00:04:03.880 And we have, I know we have New Brunswickers and Cape, certainly Noma Scotians here.

00:04:10.920 I don't think we have, do we have any Newfoundlanders?

00:04:12.920 I don't think so.

00:04:14.280 Oh, we do have a Newfoundlander.

00:04:15.560 All right.

00:04:16.080 We got one.

00:04:17.540 Anyway, I was going to say, if you're in Cape, if you're in Cape, oh, P.E.I.

00:04:21.080 I've missed, it's, it's just so small, I forget.

00:04:29.920 It's so tiny.

00:04:31.240 Anyway, if you, if you're around Cape, you really don't need Newfoundlanders.

00:04:35.680 We're both the same thing.

00:04:37.100 And I want to do one shout out.

00:04:38.780 We have a lady here who's back for the second year, who's come all the way.

00:04:42.120 I got confused.

00:04:43.040 I got an email last year.

00:04:43.920 It said, I'm flying in from Sydney and I'm wondering how to get to the conference from Halifax.

00:04:48.560 I was like, what the hell?

00:04:49.720 Like this person, not very good with Google maps.

00:04:53.020 And it turns out Sydney, Australia.

00:04:54.760 So Natalie Elker.

00:05:02.520 So here in the crowd, we have, we have lawyers, we have psychiatrists, we have psychologists, teachers, counselors.

00:05:11.680 We have scientists, we have general contractors.

00:05:14.940 We have small business people.

00:05:17.060 We have some healthcare administrators.

00:05:18.760 We have some drug reps and we have a few military veterans and we have this very strange number of dentists.

00:05:26.620 I don't know what the hell is.

00:05:27.760 So whatever it is with the mouth people, there's a lot of them here.

00:05:34.020 Why are you guys so subversive?

00:05:35.680 I don't know.

00:05:36.020 And what a great group of speakers we have lined up.

00:05:41.120 Last year, you know, we had Jay Bhattacharya and all these wonderful speakers.

00:05:44.940 And I thought we can't possibly top that this year.

00:05:47.300 I think we might have come close.

00:05:49.560 So we're just so happy that people agreed to come.

00:05:53.480 We feel very, very blessed that they're here.

00:05:55.320 Our speakers over the next two days, they're going to represent a wide range of views on a wide range of subjects.

00:06:04.220 The one commonality that you notice with them is that they all are not afraid to challenge orthodoxies and to cut against the grain.

00:06:13.140 Many of them have suffered repercussions for doing so.

00:06:17.400 Julie and I joke that anyone who hasn't been canceled at least once was not fit at free speech in medicine.

00:06:25.560 And in this room amongst your attendees, you're going to find people with a huge range of opinions.

00:06:29.860 We name the subject.

00:06:31.080 Global warming, homeopathy, libertarianism, abortion.

00:06:35.520 We'll all find something that we can disagree on.

00:06:38.760 And that's fine.

00:06:40.120 If everybody is thinking the same thing, it means that nobody's thinking very much at all.

00:06:44.480 I'd say there's one common thread that connects us all here.

00:06:48.340 It brought us this beautiful little out-of-the-way corner of Canada.

00:06:52.840 I think we've all felt the ground shift under our feet in the last few years.

00:06:56.660 There's a rift in the force.

00:06:58.760 It depends on exactly how you ask the question.

00:07:00.900 But right now, somewhere around two-thirds of us are afraid to express our political views publicly.

00:07:06.340 And this number stratifies significantly based on politics.

00:07:11.300 And as you can imagine, those on the right are much more afraid to express their views than those who are quite liberal.

00:07:17.880 This is not a healthy thing for our society.

00:07:21.000 And in particular, real science can't happen when it's handcuffed by politics.

00:07:25.100 So I'm going to read you a quote from Robert Oppenheimer.

00:07:27.720 There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry.

00:07:32.180 There is no place for dogma and science.

00:07:34.640 The scientist is free and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, and to correct any errors.

00:07:43.560 Our political life is also predicated on openness.

00:07:46.740 We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire.

00:07:53.200 And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.

00:08:05.180 So that's why we're here this weekend, to hear verboten views, to ask tough questions, to look each other in the eye, to argue and debate, to laugh and have a beer.

00:08:15.840 So enjoy the weekend.

00:08:17.020 Thank you.

00:08:17.080 Thank you.

00:08:23.200 Thank you.

00:08:53.920 Dr. Saad is the author of the very well-received book entitled The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, and more recently, The Sad Truth About Happiness.

00:09:04.440 I recommend highly that you get both.

00:09:06.600 We have them and have greatly enjoyed them.

00:09:09.340 And as an important piece of information that's little known, Dr. Saad actually identifies as a gender-fluid, 26-year-old, diabetic, native, transgender person with one leg.

00:09:21.400 Dr. Saad is a man who not only means what he says, but he says what he means, damn the torpedoes.

00:09:36.080 He doesn't shrink away from third rail topics or what I call nuclear waste topics.

00:09:41.660 He runs straight at them with logic, reason, and even better, a sense of humor, which I've seen very few people in the last number of years who can approach these serious and, in fact, critical subjects with a degree of levity, but still make his point.

00:09:55.600 So with this approach, Dr. Saad is kryptonite to the wokeerati and ideologues of all stripes, and in short, he's exactly the right person to open pre-speech and medicine 2023.

00:10:07.000 So thank you, Dr. Saad.

00:10:22.620 Hi, guys.

00:10:23.560 I already feel a bit emasculated by his height.

00:10:30.760 I need to be the center of attention.

00:10:32.640 I don't need a six-foot-four guy powering over me.

00:10:35.580 So thanks for that, Chris.

00:10:37.920 It's a real pleasure to be here.

00:10:39.600 I think this might be the furthest east that I've been in Canada.

00:10:44.780 I've been to Halifax.

00:10:46.260 I hope I'm not going to sound ignorant.

00:10:48.420 It should be west of here, correct?

00:10:50.080 Am I right?

00:10:50.940 So I think this is officially the furthest east I've been.

00:10:54.220 I'm looking forward to being at the conference but to also doing a bit of sightseeing to go to the Cabot Trail.

00:10:59.480 So thank you, Dr. Milburn and Dr. Kerwin for doing this.

00:11:04.500 They've basically heeded the call to get engaged, right?

00:11:08.600 In Chapter 8 of The Parasitic Mind, I ask people to activate their inner honey badger.

00:11:14.000 Well, they're certainly doing that.

00:11:15.840 They could choose to just live their lives as physicians, but yet they wanted to lend their voices, and here we are.

00:11:22.760 So thank you so much for organizing this.

00:11:24.760 So today I'm going to give you a broad overview of many of the ideas that I've been talking about over the past few years culminating in The Parasitic Mind.

00:11:35.680 I'll add some unique insights specifically from medicine, if only because this is a free speech and medicine crowd.

00:11:44.800 So let's get going.

00:11:46.180 So the two greatest threats to humanity.

00:11:49.860 So I often state that my biggest phobia are mosquitoes, and it's actually a perfectly adaptive phobia because mosquitoes have killed more people than all of the other animals combined, many folds over.

00:12:05.460 So most of the things that kill people throughout history have been biological pathogens, whether they be parasites or viruses or bacteria or fungi.

00:12:14.340 But then I argue that human beings can be parasitized by another set of brain parasites.

00:12:23.540 In this case, I call them idea pathogens, and very much like how other animals can engage in behaviors that are maladaptive to them to suit the interest of the parasite that is in their brains, well, idea pathogens also do this to us.

00:12:38.600 So that's the general idea behind the whole parasitic mind.

00:12:44.340 So here are some examples of, so here we've got the spider wasp.

00:12:50.860 When it bites, when it stings the spider, which is much bigger than it is, it then zombifies it.

00:12:58.000 It takes it to its burrow while the zombie is still in vivo.

00:13:02.180 It lays eggs on it, and then when the offspring hatch, they eat it in vivo.

00:13:08.060 Here's the classic example that some of you may have heard of, Toxoplasma gandhi, when the, it can, by the way, parasitize human brains, but when it does, the typical example is with mice, when a mouse is parasitized with Toxoplasma gandhi, it loses its innate fear of cats, and it becomes sexually attracted to the cat's urine, which is not a good mating preference to have.

00:13:30.480 If you're a mouse, if you're a mouse, this is an example, this is a brain worm that parasitizes ungulates, deer, moose, and so on, elk.

00:13:40.360 And when this animal is parasitized by this brain worm, one of the things that it does is it engages in circling behavior.

00:13:47.660 It can't extricate itself from this kind of bobbing and going around in a circle, even though the looming predators might be approaching, it can't deviate from that pattern, and of course, it meets its demise.

00:14:01.420 So let me show you some parasitized zombies in the human form to bring some Okura examples.

00:14:08.800 So we've got queers for Palestine, because we all know that if the fundamental feature of my identity is to be queer, then I should side with the Gazan side, rather than very queer-friendly Tel Aviv, because it turns out that in Gaza, they have this new 100% success rate of conversion therapy.

00:14:28.600 It's a gravity-based conversion therapy.

00:14:31.020 Continuing with this theme, here is a wood cricket, when it is parasitized by this hair worm, the wood cricket hates water, but yet the hair worm wants it to jump in water, because for it to complete its reproductive cycle, the cricket needs to be in water.

00:14:53.960 And so the cricket, once it is completely parasitized, it will suicidally jump into water to soothe the interest of the parasite.

00:15:02.920 And so let me show you.

00:15:04.520 So this is, these are two examples.

00:15:06.800 This is, I called it, geese for foie gras.

00:15:10.220 And here is Kentucky chickens for Kentucky fried chicken.

00:15:13.940 And then I'm just going to mention very briefly this lady, if, in case of you, some of you don't know who this is, this is very recent, a couple of days ago, she was caught, you know, there's been many cases of people being caught pulling down the, you know, the posters of kidnapped babies in Israel and so on.

00:15:33.640 Well, Anna Epstein is Jewish, and yet she decided that the right cause that she should be supporting is to support Hamas and not the Jewish babies that have disappeared.

00:15:47.460 That's what happens to a parasitized mind.

00:15:49.660 This is not a statement about your political position, right?

00:15:52.460 It's just, I grew up in the Middle East.

00:15:55.860 Hamas would not be very receptive to the support of Anna Epstein.

00:16:00.440 But here we are.

00:16:03.640 All right, so what are some of these idea pathogens that I talk about in the parasitic mind and a lot of my public engagement?

00:16:13.800 Radical feminism, cultural and moral relativism.

00:16:18.060 There's all sorts, political correctness, social constructivism.

00:16:21.900 Social constructivism is the idea that we are born empty slate, and it's only socialization that makes us who we are.

00:16:27.340 So if there are any differences between men and women, it couldn't be biological based because we're all born tabula rasa.

00:16:33.640 And of course, the granddaddy of all idea pathogens, the one that allows all of these other ones to flourish, is really postmodernism.

00:16:40.680 Because postmodernism espouses the notion that there are no objective truths other than the one objective truth, that there are no objective truths.

00:16:49.060 Otherwise, everything else is shackled by my personal biases, my subjectivity, and so on.

00:16:54.340 And so it becomes a form of intellectual terrorism, a form of nihilism.

00:16:58.320 Anything goes up is down, women is men, right is left, and so on.

00:17:02.200 And I'll talk more about that in a second.

00:17:03.580 So basically, the tsunami of lunacy is made up of three parts.

00:17:09.780 There are attacks on scientific truths, attacks on the epistemology for seeking scientific truth, as per postmodernism,

00:17:16.680 and then an attack on the ethos of meritocracy.

00:17:20.900 And I'll talk about all these in great detail.

00:17:23.420 But since we're dealing here with, at least in name, with a lot of people from medicine, this is Hippocrates,

00:17:32.400 so the Hippocratic oath that you take when you become a physician.

00:17:36.080 So this is the stat, you know, first do no harm, and so on.

00:17:38.820 Here is, this is not my satire.

00:17:41.700 This is an actual transcribed new oath that University of Minnesota people have to recite when they do, I think, the white lab coat ceremony.

00:17:53.500 So I'll read it because it really picks up a lot of the idea pathogens that I talk about.

00:17:59.820 This was very recently, by the way.

00:18:01.340 And the gentleman who led it is not some quack.

00:18:04.380 He has some very impeccable credentials.

00:18:06.580 You would think that he might be inoculated against many of these brain worms.

00:18:11.380 Alas, he's not.

00:18:12.680 So let's read it.

00:18:14.060 With gratitude, we, the students at the University of Minnesota Twin Studies Medical School, class of 2026,

00:18:21.180 stand here today among our friends, families, peers, mentors, and communities who have supported us in reaching this milestone.

00:18:27.560 Okay, so far so good.

00:18:28.960 It's going to go down very quickly.

00:18:31.540 Our institution is located on Dakota land today.

00:18:35.000 Today, we begin with the self-flagellation.

00:18:37.960 Many indigenous people throughout the state, including Dakota and Ojibwe, called the Twin Cities home.

00:18:44.000 Okay, fine.

00:18:44.820 Land acknowledgement.

00:18:45.840 If you want to do it, why not?

00:18:47.700 We also recognize that this acknowledgement is not enough.

00:18:50.840 We commit to uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the healthcare system.

00:18:58.700 We recognize inequities built by past and present traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism, and all forms of oppression.

00:19:10.540 These are physicians that are going to help you.

00:19:13.400 As we enter this profession with opportunity for growth, we commit to promoting a culture of anti-racism, listening and amplifying voices for positive change.

00:19:24.240 We pledge to honor all indigenous ways of knowing.

00:19:27.460 See, it's not just the scientific method that should adjudicate scientific issues.

00:19:31.700 There are many different ways of knowing, of healing that has been historically marginalized by Western medicine, knowing that health is intimately connected to our environment.

00:19:41.700 We commit to healing our planet and communities.

00:19:44.460 And it goes on and on, okay, health, equity, and so on.

00:19:47.360 So several of the idea pathogens that I mentioned in the big figure are captured here, cultural relativism, postmodernism, and so on and so forth.

00:19:58.540 So for the people who thought when I first started warning people many, many years ago that this problem was really starting to fester in universities, I would often get the following objection.

00:20:09.520 Sure, but this is just in some esoteric humanities department.

00:20:13.160 This isn't just some rarefied ivory tower social science, you know, maybe in sociology.

00:20:20.160 I said, no, it's coming for every discipline.

00:20:22.600 So now we have feminist mathematics, right?

00:20:25.900 I come from a mathematics background.

00:20:27.940 If there is one field where your identity doesn't matter by definition because it's axiomatic, it's mathematics.

00:20:35.600 But no, there's feminist mathematics.

00:20:37.540 And so for the physicians here who thought that they wouldn't be coming for you, the wokesters, they are here for you.

00:20:44.360 There is no field that is not prone to be parasitized by this nonsense.

00:20:48.880 Let's go on.

00:20:50.620 Here is, this is a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, arguably the most prestigious medical journal.

00:20:58.480 Maybe the Lancet might be another one.

00:21:00.060 Racist like me, a call for self-reflection and action for white physicians.

00:21:06.600 You should read the entire paper.

00:21:08.640 I actually read a lot of it on my platform, on my, I can't remember if this one I read it while literally self-flagellating.

00:21:16.660 I can't remember.

00:21:17.140 But it really is that.

00:21:20.860 I am sorry for being white.

00:21:22.380 I'm sorry for using white science.

00:21:24.520 I know that as a white physician, I'm, you know, I suffer from, you know, dermatological sin and so on.

00:21:31.060 It's just unbelievable to read.

00:21:33.180 It feels as though it's me trying to be as satirical as possible.

00:21:37.300 But no, it's in the top medical journal.

00:21:42.100 All right.

00:21:42.800 Here is, again, if you thought, you know, we used to hear about how tough it is to get into medical school and how competitive it is.

00:21:50.240 This is a chart that shows, just look at the size of the histograms.

00:21:55.980 This is the number of schools versus schools that still have the white supremacy idea of grades.

00:22:03.840 These schools have gotten rid of that.

00:22:06.280 So it's only pass or fail because it's too stressful to actually be graded.

00:22:11.300 It's too competitive.

00:22:12.840 We wouldn't want physicians to develop an ethos of antifragility.

00:22:18.240 It's more about nurturance.

00:22:20.740 I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

00:22:23.560 Here, basically, and forgive the shameless plug, but in this book, I talk about the concept of antifragility.

00:22:30.320 One of the things that I found out when I was writing my latest book where, you know, I had to go back and study the ancient Greeks really well.

00:22:37.080 I quickly realized that oftentimes I would have what I thought was a beautiful new insight to very quickly be humbled by the fact that some ancient Greek philosopher had already said my insight 2000 years ago.

00:22:51.420 Here is one such example from Seneca talking about exactly the concept of antifragility more than 2000 years ago.

00:22:59.620 No tree which the wind does not often blow against is firm and strong, for it is stiffened by the very act of being shaken and plants its roots more securely.

00:23:09.100 Those which grow in a sheltered valley are brittle, and so it is to the advantage of good men and causes them to be undismayed that they should live much amidst alarms and learn to bear with patience what is not evil, safe to him who endures its ill.

00:23:23.340 Basically, in less fast to talk, strong trees that are not brittle are those that have been exposed to a lot of wind stressors.

00:23:30.960 The exact same thing applies for the students that we train.

00:23:34.820 If I don't, you know, engage you critically, challenge your ideas, then you're not going to be antifragile right here, and so that's probably not a good idea.

00:23:45.620 So, let me just give you some examples of how these parasitic ideas are slowly taking over everywhere.

00:23:54.120 So, this is from Quebec.

00:23:56.100 The Quebec deputy minister got into a lot of hot trouble because at one point when they were talking about some environmental issues, he argued, well, we shouldn't be adjudicating some of these environmental issues using other ways of knowing.

00:24:10.840 There's just the scientific method.

00:24:12.760 He then had to apologize for that.

00:24:15.620 So, let me just make an important distinction.

00:24:19.340 It could well be that there are indigenous communities that have lived in a particular ecosystem whereby they have, through the number of generations that they've lived there, a unique insight about the flora and the fauna.

00:24:32.600 So, in that sense, we could learn from them.

00:24:34.860 But once we seek to test the hypothesis, there isn't the scientific method, but then there is the Lebanese Jewish way of doing science.

00:24:44.980 There's just the scientific method.

00:24:46.920 So, there is no indigenous way of knowing, just like there isn't Protestant way of knowing or Yemeni way of knowing.

00:24:54.480 There's just science.

00:24:56.440 But apparently that's too, he had to apologize for that.

00:24:59.780 And this is the University of Cape Town in South Africa, they developed sort of the hashtag science must fall hashtag, which is that much of what we know in science, to the extent that it comes from men who are historically white, then that might be a problem.

00:25:20.220 And hence, we need to decolonize.

00:25:22.500 And so, you're starting to see that, you know, you decolonize literature, you decolonize philosophy, but now we're seeing that decolonization attempts in the hard sciences.

00:25:32.840 So, my own university has a, I think it's a $500,000 grant to decolonize light.

00:25:40.860 So, the way that physicists have studied light is just one way to study light, but there's an indigenous way to study light.

00:25:50.340 It's insane.

00:25:51.240 Now, this story, some of you may have heard it before, some of you may have not.

00:25:57.500 Even if you have heard it, it's worth hearing it from me in person.

00:26:01.640 I always say it because it perfectly captures the ethos of where we are, the zeitgeist of where we are today.

00:26:10.320 But this happened in 2002.

00:26:12.880 And you'll see in a second why I've got these two figures.

00:26:15.340 In 2002, one of my former doctoral students had just defended his dissertation, and so we were going out to dinner.

00:26:27.220 My wife, who's here, myself, him, if you don't mind me taking off the jacket, it's getting hot.

00:26:33.360 And he was bringing along a date.

00:26:36.540 So, he calls me up a few hours before we're going out to dinner to tell me,

00:26:42.260 oh, I just want to give you a heads up, the lady that I'm bringing tonight is a graduate student in postmodernism,

00:26:50.520 women's studies, and cultural anthropology, to which I answered, ah, so the holy trinity of bullshit.

00:27:00.240 And so then he said, yeah, but I said, no, no, I got you.

00:27:03.760 I got you.

00:27:04.300 This is your party.

00:27:05.560 I'm going to be on my best behavior.

00:27:09.480 There's no gad here.

00:27:10.640 I'm going to be serious.

00:27:13.080 Which, of course, was an utter abject lie.

00:27:17.520 Because about halfway through the evening, and I love telling that story when my wife is here,

00:27:22.300 because she was there in that historical dinner.

00:27:26.840 I turned to the lady, and I said, oh, I hear you're a postmodernist.

00:27:32.360 Yes?

00:27:33.000 She said, yes.

00:27:34.020 There are no absolute truths?

00:27:36.460 No.

00:27:36.640 I said, well, I'm an evolutionary psychologist, so I do study human universals, things that are shared across humans,

00:27:44.120 that are fundamental features of our shared biological heritage.

00:27:48.040 Do you mind if I propose what I think is a human universal, and then you can retort?

00:27:53.840 She goes, shoot, shoot, go.

00:27:55.520 Now, this is 2002, so this precedes the men can get menstruate and men can get pregnant by 20 years.

00:28:04.360 So I said, is it not true that for homo sapiens, for humans, only women bear children?

00:28:10.860 Is that not absolutely universal?

00:28:14.120 So she looks at me, what a simple mind I have, and she goes, absolutely not.

00:28:18.680 I said, no, how is that?

00:28:21.300 She said, well, there is some Japanese tribe off some Japanese island where within their folkloric, mythological realm,

00:28:30.400 it is the men who bear children.

00:28:32.520 So by you restricting it to the biological realm, that's, you know, how you keep us barefoot and pregnant.

00:28:37.320 So once I recovered from the mini stroke I had at seeing this, I then said, okay, maybe it was,

00:28:47.420 I think it was my mistake that I took a simply too corrosive and poisonous example, like only women bear children.

00:28:54.760 So let's bring down the heat and discuss maybe something a bit less controversial.

00:29:01.040 Is it not true since time immemorial that sailors, so now we're going to see why this one is up here.

00:29:07.320 Isn't it true that since time immemorial, sailors have relied on the premise that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west?

00:29:16.220 Is that not a universal?

00:29:18.800 So there she used a subvariant of postmodernism called deconstructionism, which the founder is Jacques Derrida.

00:29:26.940 And so the idea is that language creates reality.

00:29:30.040 There is no reality outside of the language that you use to describe that reality.

00:29:34.840 So you're constrained in that sense.

00:29:36.340 So using that methodology, she said, well, what do you mean by east and west?

00:29:41.880 And what do you mean by the sun?

00:29:43.900 That which you call the sun, I might call dancing hyena.

00:29:48.300 I said, well, fine.

00:29:49.600 The dancing hyena rises in the east and sets in the west.

00:29:53.480 And then she said, I don't play those label games.

00:29:56.480 Now, why do I always repeat the story?

00:29:58.860 Because, first of all, we're a storytelling animal.

00:30:01.920 So we really were captivated by these personal stories.

00:30:06.300 But it perfectly captures what a dead end, epistemological dead end postmodernism is.

00:30:12.780 Because this was a graduate student at a very prestigious Canadian university.

00:30:17.620 She wasn't an escapee from a psychiatric institute, although you couldn't tell the difference.

00:30:23.760 Right?

00:30:24.240 So I'm having an adult conversation with a graduate student.

00:30:29.640 But we can't agree that women bear children.

00:30:32.020 And we can't agree what's east, what's west, and what's the sun.

00:30:35.560 That's what postmodernism is.

00:30:37.140 And if you think that she's an outlier, she's not.

00:30:39.420 She was aping exactly the stuff that's been promulgated by postmodernists for 50 years.

00:30:44.920 All right.

00:30:47.680 This was continuing with the kind of trans stuff.

00:30:51.540 This was me speaking in 2017 in front of the Canadian Senate where I was trying to argue, yes, Bill C-16, of course, we all want people to live free of bigotry.

00:31:07.440 Sure.

00:31:08.480 But here are some possible slippery slope issues, right?

00:31:13.820 What happens when I'm teaching evolutionary psychology and I teach the sexual selection, Darwin's sexual selection, which expects for sexually reproducing species two phenotypes, male and female.

00:31:27.080 What stops someone in the room saying, well, you're promulgating hate, you're transphobic, I'm non-binary, and so on.

00:31:34.720 And you should go and watch it, how they started scoffing and mocking.

00:31:38.640 Really a theater of the absurd.

00:31:40.100 Well, I hate to be the guy sitting and telling you I told you so, but every single thing that you're seeing now, if you go back to my testimony, I predicted every one of these.

00:31:48.800 Not because I'm some prophet, but it's because I can look at what the boundary condition is if we keep thinking in this manner, and then I can predict it.

00:31:59.480 Typically, I satirize it.

00:32:01.120 And then that which I satirize ends up becoming true.

00:32:04.540 It's insane.

00:32:06.380 We can't continue on this course.

00:32:10.080 Here we've got, of course, you all know this justice.

00:32:14.320 Well, she's now justice, but she was being confirmed.

00:32:16.740 Imagine in the 21st century, two people at a U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing where this senator says, define what a woman is, and she answers, I can't tell you what a woman is.

00:32:33.500 I'm not a biologist.

00:32:35.000 Well, if you look at what I wrote here, this number is an actual real estimate.

00:32:40.240 There's roughly been 117 billion people that have ever existed.

00:32:46.460 So until about 15 minutes ago, every single one of those 117 billion people seemed to know exactly how to navigate the very, very confusing part of who's male and who's female.

00:32:59.060 But now in progressive science, we know that to no longer be true.

00:33:03.020 And I'm going to give you examples of physicians with whom I've had heated exchanges.

00:33:08.360 Physicians, right?

00:33:09.080 They studied anatomy, right?

00:33:10.700 Because the rest of us, you know, are too confused by this whole genitalia stuff.

00:33:15.740 By the way, I was so fortunate that being a non-biologist, even though I'm an evolutionist, by training, I'm not a biologist, that I was able to pick someone with whom I was able to procreate.

00:33:27.920 It was a complete flip of the coin.

00:33:32.360 Here is one of my favorite ladies with a penis, Dylan Mulvaney, who's a woman.

00:33:39.080 All right?

00:33:40.040 Now, here are three physicians with real credentials.

00:33:48.340 The first one is not a gynecologist.

00:33:51.460 The next two, the other two are gynecologists.

00:33:58.780 So, by definition, they should have a sense of what constitutes male or female.

00:34:03.600 And they've all three agreed, non-satirically, that Dylan Mulvaney is absolutely 100% a woman.

00:34:13.040 How do you navigate that?

00:34:16.700 This is me having a conversation with an anesthesiologist, an anesthesiologist of color, where I won't show you all of it, but it's just unbelievable the exchange that we had.

00:34:31.540 She ended up eventually blocking me.

00:34:33.060 And she was also arguing that, first of all, as a man, I can't make it.

00:34:40.880 Because I said, oh, because I've published, you know, papers in top scientific journals on the effects of the menstrual cycle on women's behavior.

00:34:49.740 And then she answers, oh, we, whatever.

00:34:54.540 So, a cisgendered man wrote a paper and presented it as evidence of his mansplaining.

00:35:00.260 Right?

00:35:00.380 And so, then I answered, only female physicians have the technical expertise and lived experience to recognize what is the menstrual cycle.

00:35:11.180 This is why, when I once had a nosebleed, I thought it was menarche.

00:35:16.320 Menarche is the onset of the menstrual cycle.

00:35:21.220 So, when I bled for my nose, I didn't know any better because I wasn't a trained anesthesiologist.

00:35:27.920 So, imagine how deeply you must be parasitized to actually publicly engage someone like me and think that you're on the right side of the matter.

00:35:42.780 That's what a wood cricket that jumps suicidally into the water does.

00:35:50.600 This happened recently, just so that you don't think I'm picking on physicians.

00:35:54.780 These are our noble anthropologists.

00:35:58.760 They shut down a session organized by, I think, six women where they were simply going to talk about that in many of their fields of study,

00:36:11.820 bioarchaeology, biological anthropology, physical anthropology,

00:36:16.860 in those fields, the distinction between biological sex and gender don't matter.

00:36:21.480 It's all about the binary categorization of male and female,

00:36:26.120 which, again, should be hardly a contentious issue for a sexually reproducing species.

00:36:31.340 But their session was canceled because the Canadian and American Anthropological Association

00:36:37.640 thought that making that point would create great harm to non-binary people and transgender people.

00:36:46.460 All right.

00:36:49.180 Now, social constructivism, why is that an idea pathogen?

00:36:54.900 Social constructivism, as I said, is the idea that everything is a social construction.

00:36:59.980 So, now, the reason why I have Tory preferences here

00:37:03.080 is because one of the things that social scientists always teach us

00:37:08.620 is that gender roles, even your biological-based behaviors, are due to social constructions.

00:37:16.180 Little Linda learns to play in a nurturing manner with the doll.

00:37:21.560 Little Bobby learns to play aggressively with the truck.

00:37:24.520 And that starts a cascade of gender roles.

00:37:27.120 And so, how would you debate someone who's holding to that position?

00:37:34.060 So, the next one, bear with me.

00:37:35.760 It's a very technical part of this talk, but a very important one.

00:37:39.980 So, the way that you argue against someone,

00:37:44.700 and so I have a chapter in The Parasitic Mind, Chapter 7,

00:37:47.540 where I talk about how do you seek truth.

00:37:49.380 And I basically argue that the way you seek truth

00:37:52.000 is by building what I call nomological networks of cumulative evidence.

00:37:56.340 So, bear with me as I explain this.

00:37:58.440 So, in the middle, what I'm trying to show,

00:38:02.260 let's say everybody in this room is unbelievably hostile to the idea

00:38:07.360 that there might be biological-based reasons

00:38:10.160 for why little boys and little girls prefer certain toys.

00:38:13.840 How would I go about flipping you?

00:38:15.700 How would I go about convincing you?

00:38:17.640 So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to get you data

00:38:20.300 from across cultures, across time periods,

00:38:24.380 across species, across disciplines,

00:38:27.640 all of which triangulate to demonstrate the veracity of my position.

00:38:31.900 So, let me give you a few of these.

00:38:33.660 So, I can get you data from developmental psychology

00:38:36.440 showing you that little boys and little girls

00:38:40.100 who are too young yet to be socialized.

00:38:42.800 So, by definition, I'm picking a sample that can't be socialized.

00:38:48.300 They haven't reached that cognitive developmental stage.

00:38:51.320 And I could show you that they already exhibit

00:38:53.340 the sex-specific toy preferences.

00:38:55.680 You follow?

00:38:56.320 So, the little boys are already tending towards the ball and the truck.

00:39:00.280 And the little girls are tending to the doll.

00:39:03.180 Okay?

00:39:03.900 Now, that itself would be a fatal blow to the social constructivist argument.

00:39:07.480 But I'm not going to stop there.

00:39:09.100 I can get you data from comparative psychology.

00:39:11.760 Comparative psychology is where you compare across species.

00:39:14.000 So, I can get you data from vervet monkeys.

00:39:16.940 I can get you data from rhesus monkeys, from chimpanzees,

00:39:19.960 showing you that their infants have the exact same

00:39:24.080 sex-specific toy preferences as human infants.

00:39:27.540 That's not looking good for the social constructivists.

00:39:30.140 I can get you data from across cultures,

00:39:33.100 cultures that have nothing to do with the West,

00:39:35.480 sub-Saharan nomadic cultures.

00:39:37.640 They have the exact same toy preferences.

00:39:40.080 I can get you data from 2,500 years ago.

00:39:44.000 Where on funeral monuments, mausoleons,

00:39:48.200 little boys and little girls are depicted

00:39:50.020 playing with the exact same types of toys as today.

00:39:52.960 I can get you data, since we have a medical crowd here,

00:39:56.480 I can get you data from pediatric endocrinology

00:40:00.160 where little girls who suffer from congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

00:40:05.760 It's an endocrinological disorder

00:40:07.740 that masculinizes little girls' behaviors and traits.

00:40:11.620 So little girls who suffer from this disorder,

00:40:14.340 what do you think happens to their toy preferences?

00:40:16.600 It's exactly reversed.

00:40:18.080 It becomes like that of boys.

00:40:20.080 So look how I'm building completely different lines of evidence,

00:40:24.300 all of which point to the fact that it's simply not true

00:40:28.260 that toys are socially constructed.

00:40:30.520 The difficulty with such a methodology is that it requires effort

00:40:35.980 to build those nomological networks.

00:40:38.300 But that's one of the reasons, by the way,

00:40:40.160 why it's very hard to cancel me.

00:40:42.520 Because, yes, I come from the Middle East,

00:40:45.500 therefore it's harder for you to say I'm from Arkansas, John Smith.

00:40:49.060 Yes, I score higher than you on the victimology poker.

00:40:52.620 But I also do my homework.

00:40:55.600 So when I go to a crowd, even a hostile crowd,

00:40:59.020 good luck to the person who wants to debate me

00:41:01.180 on the merit of the arguments.

00:41:02.920 But on the other hand, if you ask me a question

00:41:04.660 about something that I don't know anything about,

00:41:06.800 I'll be very honest and say that's above my pay grade.

00:41:09.180 I don't know anything about that.

00:41:10.520 So these types of nomological networks

00:41:13.160 allow you to really develop a tsunami of evidence

00:41:18.300 in support of your position.

00:41:20.880 All right, let's keep going.

00:41:22.080 So again, the hygiene hypothesis applied to ideas.

00:41:26.600 So again, I'm going to use this example

00:41:29.240 because we are with a medical crowd.

00:41:32.240 Some of you may know the principle

00:41:33.760 from evolutionary medicine called the hygiene hypothesis,

00:41:37.560 which basically argues as follows.

00:41:40.280 If you take, for example, children who've been exposed

00:41:42.820 to environments where they were exposed

00:41:45.720 to a lot of allergens versus children

00:41:48.140 who grew up in a very sterile, non-allergenic environment,

00:41:52.700 the ones who grow up with more allergens

00:41:55.100 will end up having fewer autoimmune diseases.

00:41:58.140 Say, for example, asthma.

00:41:59.300 The idea being that the immune system

00:42:01.780 requires to be exposed to these triggering allergens

00:42:05.660 in order to optimally function.

00:42:08.120 Well, you could analogize exactly this idea

00:42:10.320 to critical thinking.

00:42:11.880 Your brain requires to be exposed to allergens.

00:42:15.480 In this case, allergens are opposing ideas.

00:42:18.720 And that allows me to develop better debating skills.

00:42:21.760 If I only speak next to people who are friendly to me,

00:42:24.300 I don't know how to predict

00:42:26.260 what your next argument might be against me,

00:42:28.340 so I don't become a good debater.

00:42:29.800 I don't build this really airtight nomological network.

00:42:35.840 So speaking of these kinds of echo chambers,

00:42:39.220 which would be contrary to being exposed to opposing ideas,

00:42:43.660 is look at these fields.

00:42:46.600 So here what you're seeing, I don't know,

00:42:48.440 it might be too small for you to see,

00:42:50.020 it's the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors

00:42:55.280 in different disciplines.

00:42:58.820 Okay?

00:42:59.320 So imagine having a field like communications,

00:43:05.320 56 to 0 ratio.

00:43:09.040 There is not a single Republican professor.

00:43:12.860 Anthropology, 133 to 1.

00:43:16.740 Religion, 70 to 1.

00:43:18.480 English, 48.3 to 1.

00:43:21.280 Basically, the idea is that almost every field

00:43:23.960 you could think of,

00:43:25.260 the ones that are the least lopsided

00:43:27.080 typically might be engineering or the business school,

00:43:30.100 because typically those fields

00:43:31.980 are a bit more inoculated against the parasitic ideas.

00:43:35.880 But look at how lopsided those disciplines are.

00:43:40.100 Now, in many areas of science,

00:43:42.800 it doesn't matter whether I'm Republican or Democrat,

00:43:45.260 if I'm teaching evolution.

00:43:47.020 But is the death penalty moral or not?

00:43:50.080 What should be the optimal fiscal policy of a society?

00:43:53.520 What should be our optimal immigration policy?

00:43:56.500 We benefit from hearing from multiple sides

00:43:59.800 of the political aisle.

00:44:01.160 But if everyone is coming from the exact same political aisle,

00:44:04.060 we're certainly cheating our students.

00:44:07.100 So just to show you some other,

00:44:08.680 I won't go through all of these,

00:44:09.920 but, I mean, look at all these different ones.

00:44:12.060 This is Lambert, the first study.

00:44:14.340 You know, history, 33.5 to 1.

00:44:17.600 Journalism, 20 to 1.

00:44:19.440 Only 15% of law school professors

00:44:22.940 are conservative and 85 are liberal.

00:44:26.840 Here's all of the...

00:44:28.260 This is a study of administrators,

00:44:31.080 academic administrators.

00:44:32.000 It's a 12 to 1 bias.

00:44:34.500 So it's extraordinarily lopsided.

00:44:37.000 And by the way, it's roughly...

00:44:38.540 It's no different in Canada.

00:44:39.840 These are all American data,

00:44:41.960 but it's quite bad in Canada as well.

00:44:45.400 Now, since we have a lot of medical people here,

00:44:48.640 this is a very cool study

00:44:50.120 where they looked at,

00:44:51.920 within medical specialties,

00:44:55.300 political orientations.

00:44:56.700 And the ones that are the most on the right

00:44:59.840 are surgery, anesthesiology, and urology,

00:45:03.160 because, again, those are fields

00:45:04.740 that are very black and white

00:45:07.180 in the sense of it's very difficult

00:45:09.360 to introduce ideological principles

00:45:11.420 within those disciplines.

00:45:12.580 On the other hand,

00:45:14.900 infectious disease, psychiatry, and pediatrics

00:45:17.480 are super woke.

00:45:19.740 Now, if you might say,

00:45:20.700 well, who cares about this?

00:45:22.280 Well, it turns out that depending on

00:45:23.900 whether your physician is a Democrat

00:45:25.780 or a Republican,

00:45:26.920 and you come in there

00:45:28.560 with the exact same ailment,

00:45:30.220 you might come up with

00:45:31.180 a completely different intervention strategy

00:45:33.420 as a function of the political orientation

00:45:35.720 of your physician.

00:45:36.880 That shouldn't be the case, right?

00:45:38.300 It should be a deontological principle.

00:45:39.940 You have diabetes,

00:45:41.580 here's the ultimate,

00:45:42.540 the best course of action.

00:45:43.940 Well, no.

00:45:44.840 Depending on your physician's

00:45:46.480 political orientation,

00:45:47.860 you'll get different prescriptions.

00:45:52.720 Moving on,

00:45:53.540 I'm going to talk next

00:45:54.400 about these really important principles

00:45:56.760 in ethics

00:45:57.940 between deontological

00:45:59.140 versus consequentialist ethics,

00:46:00.840 and you'll see in a second

00:46:01.780 why I'm saying this.

00:46:03.040 So, of course,

00:46:03.540 many of you have seen this.

00:46:04.720 We condemn freedom of speech

00:46:05.920 that hurts someone's feelings.

00:46:07.680 This is what's called

00:46:08.520 a consequentialist position.

00:46:10.760 And in a second,

00:46:11.600 you'll see what I mean.

00:46:13.740 A deontological statement

00:46:15.240 is if I were to say

00:46:17.420 it is never okay to lie.

00:46:19.580 That's an absolute statement.

00:46:21.620 A consequentialist statement would be

00:46:23.420 it's okay to lie

00:46:24.840 if I'm, you know,

00:46:26.580 for some downstream effect.

00:46:28.680 So, are there Jews

00:46:29.940 hiding in your house?

00:46:31.560 You may lie,

00:46:32.440 and it makes perfect sense to lie

00:46:33.680 because there's a greater benefit here,

00:46:35.980 which is you're saving people's lives.

00:46:37.300 Here's another one.

00:46:38.540 Of course,

00:46:39.680 do I look fat in those jeans?

00:46:41.320 I've been married now for 24 years.

00:46:43.300 I know very quickly

00:46:44.360 to put on my consequentialist hat

00:46:46.180 and say,

00:46:47.220 absolutely not.

00:46:48.620 You don't look fat.

00:46:49.360 Am I right?

00:46:52.900 But,

00:46:53.580 but,

00:46:54.380 when it comes to freedom of speech,

00:46:57.240 by definition,

00:46:58.340 it has to be deontological.

00:46:59.860 Freedom of inquiry

00:47:00.880 is deontological.

00:47:02.640 The pursuit of truth

00:47:03.840 is deontological.

00:47:04.980 But now watch how,

00:47:07.520 so here's,

00:47:08.180 I'll come,

00:47:08.800 I'll come to a second.

00:47:09.680 So, here's,

00:47:10.440 here's an example of

00:47:12.240 something that should be

00:47:14.540 deontological in terms of

00:47:16.420 at least the truth

00:47:17.200 that your physician tells you,

00:47:18.660 but it turns out

00:47:19.920 that it would be too harmful

00:47:21.920 to the feelings of someone

00:47:23.620 to tell them

00:47:24.380 that they're overweight.

00:47:26.020 So, instead,

00:47:26.980 we celebrate the idea

00:47:28.600 that you're beautiful

00:47:29.620 at any size,

00:47:30.720 you're healthy

00:47:31.440 at any size.

00:47:32.100 Now, I had put this,

00:47:34.080 this is,

00:47:34.480 look,

00:47:34.640 back in 2017

00:47:35.680 where I was joking

00:47:37.380 that, you know,

00:47:38.560 weight is,

00:47:39.180 at the time,

00:47:39.680 I was much heavier

00:47:40.400 and so I was joking

00:47:41.920 that weight is a social construct

00:47:43.820 and I expect my physician

00:47:45.400 to not succumb

00:47:46.220 to white science

00:47:47.020 and so on.

00:47:47.700 So, I had gone

00:47:48.360 to see my physician

00:47:49.460 for a checkup

00:47:50.520 and he's looking

00:47:51.900 through his iPad.

00:47:53.520 I said,

00:47:53.800 so,

00:47:54.160 how are my numbers looking?

00:47:55.340 He goes,

00:47:55.560 well,

00:47:55.700 I'm not really worried

00:47:56.560 about your numbers,

00:47:57.720 but rather,

00:47:58.600 I said,

00:47:59.000 uh-oh.

00:47:59.280 So, he pulls out

00:48:00.720 this tweet

00:48:01.640 not knowing

00:48:03.040 that I'm being satirical

00:48:04.680 and he actually

00:48:06.340 was concerned

00:48:07.480 about my mental health

00:48:09.360 and actually,

00:48:11.880 you were in the room,

00:48:12.620 right?

00:48:12.980 And I looked at him

00:48:14.160 and I said,

00:48:14.760 I'm being satirical.

00:48:16.660 He goes,

00:48:17.000 oh, I see.

00:48:18.340 So, uh,

00:48:19.080 but,

00:48:19.540 but this whole story

00:48:20.820 of, you know,

00:48:21.980 healthy at any weight

00:48:23.260 is a demonstration

00:48:24.240 of what happens

00:48:25.280 when we don't tell

00:48:26.440 the truth

00:48:26.980 for consequentialist reasons.

00:48:29.280 So,

00:48:29.980 here are some examples

00:48:30.940 of recent

00:48:32.280 super smart intellectuals

00:48:35.620 who have violated

00:48:37.660 each of these.

00:48:38.640 I'll leave it to you

00:48:39.620 to guess

00:48:40.080 who these people might be.

00:48:42.080 Or it might be

00:48:43.040 that all four of them

00:48:44.040 represent a single person.

00:48:47.280 Now,

00:48:47.760 I'm speaking in the voice

00:48:48.660 of that person,

00:48:50.100 which,

00:48:50.460 by the way,

00:48:51.300 is mirrored

00:48:52.020 by many of my

00:48:53.140 super smart

00:48:53.860 progressive colleagues.

00:48:55.820 Freedom of speech

00:48:56.720 is great,

00:48:57.760 but,

00:48:58.500 see the but,

00:48:59.280 now we switch

00:49:00.100 to consequentialism.

00:49:01.420 Freedom of speech

00:49:01.960 is great,

00:49:02.480 but it is perfectly reasonable

00:49:03.920 to have banned

00:49:05.020 Donald Trump

00:49:05.740 from Twitter

00:49:06.360 because he is simply

00:49:07.580 too dangerous

00:49:08.260 to be allowed

00:49:08.920 to spew his garbage.

00:49:10.420 Right?

00:49:10.620 So,

00:49:11.040 yes,

00:49:11.260 of course I support

00:49:11.960 freedom of speech,

00:49:12.820 just not for

00:49:13.660 Orange Himmler.

00:49:15.100 Number two,

00:49:16.800 presumption of innocence

00:49:17.880 is great.

00:49:18.760 I support that.

00:49:20.040 It's,

00:49:20.460 it's a foundational

00:49:21.320 bedrock

00:49:21.880 of our justice system,

00:49:23.340 but not for that

00:49:24.480 serial gang rapist

00:49:25.840 Brett Kavanaugh.

00:49:26.820 holding a seat

00:49:28.240 on the Supreme Court

00:49:29.140 is simply

00:49:29.660 too important

00:49:30.360 a job

00:49:30.840 to take chances

00:49:31.660 with this guy.

00:49:32.620 Sure,

00:49:32.780 they may not be

00:49:33.540 convincing evidence.

00:49:34.740 Sure,

00:49:34.960 it's something

00:49:35.480 that somebody said

00:49:36.340 36 years later

00:49:37.420 without any proof,

00:49:38.420 but we can't

00:49:39.380 take a risk

00:49:39.960 and grant him

00:49:40.680 the courtesy

00:49:41.140 of presumption

00:49:41.740 of innocence.

00:49:42.600 That's simply

00:49:43.220 too dangerous

00:49:43.960 to do so.

00:49:45.640 Of course,

00:49:46.260 I believe

00:49:46.760 in an impartial press

00:49:48.200 that always

00:49:48.860 tells the truth,

00:49:49.980 but,

00:49:50.800 to have allowed

00:49:51.660 the Hunter Biden

00:49:52.560 story to be reported

00:49:53.840 would have led

00:49:54.860 to Donald Trump's

00:49:56.400 re-election,

00:49:57.820 hence it was

00:49:58.380 perfectly fair

00:49:59.500 to have lied

00:50:00.560 and suppress it.

00:50:01.960 And then freedom

00:50:02.580 of inquiry is great,

00:50:04.060 study whatever you want,

00:50:05.440 just as long as

00:50:06.460 it is not antithetical

00:50:07.700 to the ethos

00:50:08.720 of social justice.

00:50:10.140 Does anybody

00:50:10.660 want to take a crack

00:50:11.680 at who may cover

00:50:13.000 these first three?

00:50:14.880 Yeah,

00:50:15.780 Sam Harris,

00:50:17.100 who wrote a book

00:50:17.860 on never lying,

00:50:20.140 but apparently

00:50:20.860 it's okay to lie

00:50:21.860 if it's in the service

00:50:22.960 of those consequentialist

00:50:24.100 ethics.

00:50:25.320 That was the split

00:50:26.620 between Sam and I.

00:50:27.680 We're no longer

00:50:28.320 involved in a bromance.

00:50:30.740 So the noble lie,

00:50:32.180 of course,

00:50:32.580 as you know

00:50:33.000 from way back

00:50:33.740 in Plato's Republic,

00:50:35.220 in academia,

00:50:36.040 it could be forbidden knowledge,

00:50:37.420 I'll talk about that

00:50:37.960 in a sec,

00:50:38.660 in infectious diseases,

00:50:41.280 I mean,

00:50:41.740 sure,

00:50:42.120 you can't go

00:50:43.100 to be with grandma

00:50:44.660 as she is

00:50:45.380 on her deathbed

00:50:46.980 because COVID,

00:50:48.700 but 100,000 people

00:50:50.340 marching

00:50:51.000 for George Floyd,

00:50:52.960 then the virology

00:50:54.560 of that situation

00:50:55.780 is such

00:50:56.280 that you don't

00:50:56.960 have to worry

00:50:57.580 about that

00:50:58.000 because there's

00:50:58.520 a greater goal

00:50:59.400 you have to fight,

00:51:01.340 you have to be

00:51:01.900 anti-racist.

00:51:03.420 And, of course,

00:51:03.880 I already talked

00:51:04.400 about this one.

00:51:07.000 These are just

00:51:07.880 examples of

00:51:08.680 forbidden knowledge

00:51:09.440 throughout history.

00:51:10.960 Here is,

00:51:11.440 of course,

00:51:11.860 Socrates

00:51:12.340 when he was

00:51:13.460 executed eventually.

00:51:15.120 Here is Galileo.

00:51:17.100 Does anybody know

00:51:18.080 why I have

00:51:18.960 this movie poster?

00:51:20.480 Does anybody know

00:51:21.180 what the story

00:51:21.720 there is

00:51:22.140 of

00:51:22.780 Name of the Rose?

00:51:24.260 Name of the Rose

00:51:24.980 is a movie

00:51:26.220 that was in

00:51:26.740 the mid-80s

00:51:27.760 where

00:51:28.280 Sean Connery

00:51:30.680 plays a,

00:51:31.600 I think,

00:51:32.200 either a Gregorian

00:51:33.020 or Benedictine monk

00:51:34.420 who goes to an

00:51:35.640 abbey

00:51:36.020 to investigate

00:51:37.860 why all of

00:51:39.020 the monks

00:51:39.560 were dropping

00:51:40.420 dead.

00:51:41.040 And they were

00:51:41.520 dropping dead

00:51:42.160 with poison

00:51:43.200 on their tongues.

00:51:45.000 And it was

00:51:45.940 very perplexing.

00:51:46.880 And it turns out

00:51:47.660 because the head

00:51:49.240 of the secret

00:51:51.060 library

00:51:51.640 had a copy

00:51:53.220 of Poetics

00:51:54.440 by Aristotle

00:51:55.380 where you're

00:51:56.260 talking about

00:51:56.860 the importance

00:51:57.440 of humor,

00:51:58.260 which kindly

00:51:59.000 Dr. Milburn

00:51:59.920 mentioned is

00:52:01.080 one of the

00:52:01.580 persuasion strategies

00:52:02.640 that I use

00:52:03.180 in my work.

00:52:04.360 Humor,

00:52:04.820 satire,

00:52:05.300 and sarcasm

00:52:05.820 is an incredibly

00:52:06.560 powerful tool.

00:52:07.920 That's why

00:52:08.380 dictators usually

00:52:09.440 put to death

00:52:10.980 the satirists

00:52:11.840 first,

00:52:12.160 because they're

00:52:12.580 not afraid

00:52:13.220 of the guys

00:52:14.120 with the big

00:52:14.640 muscles.

00:52:15.520 They're afraid

00:52:15.960 of the guys

00:52:16.400 with the sharp

00:52:17.340 tongues.

00:52:18.480 Those are the

00:52:19.000 ones who can

00:52:19.600 cause problems

00:52:20.600 to my ideology.

00:52:21.820 So in this case

00:52:22.620 what happened

00:52:23.160 is the monks

00:52:24.160 would sneak

00:52:24.720 into the library

00:52:25.600 to read

00:52:26.460 Aristotle's

00:52:27.560 forbidden book

00:52:28.400 and what

00:52:29.340 this particular

00:52:30.500 monk

00:52:31.000 who didn't

00:52:31.760 want them

00:52:32.100 to read it,

00:52:32.680 he had laced

00:52:33.660 the bottom

00:52:34.960 of the book

00:52:35.460 where you

00:52:36.160 turned the page

00:52:37.000 with poison

00:52:37.920 so that if

00:52:38.780 they did that

00:52:39.560 they would

00:52:40.220 then die.

00:52:41.240 So again,

00:52:41.980 forbidden knowledge.

00:52:42.900 So we've had

00:52:43.680 the idea

00:52:44.160 of forbidden

00:52:44.620 knowledge

00:52:45.120 throughout

00:52:45.920 millennia

00:52:46.540 and now

00:52:47.240 imagine

00:52:47.720 we have

00:52:48.240 people here

00:52:48.900 who've suffered

00:52:49.540 because they

00:52:50.400 said,

00:52:50.620 hey,

00:52:50.980 I'm a physician,

00:52:52.240 I'm an expert

00:52:52.780 and I don't

00:52:53.440 support what's

00:52:54.140 happening with

00:52:54.600 COVID.

00:52:55.440 Shut up.

00:52:56.440 You're not

00:52:56.780 allowed to say

00:52:57.320 that.

00:52:58.720 Of course,

00:52:59.420 there are other

00:53:00.000 examples of

00:53:00.960 forbidden knowledge.

00:53:01.880 This one

00:53:02.260 is a recent

00:53:03.220 one.

00:53:03.600 This is Matt

00:53:04.620 Ridley is someone

00:53:05.240 that I know

00:53:05.660 well.

00:53:06.040 He's a

00:53:06.500 vushai biologist

00:53:07.340 who was sitting

00:53:09.360 in the House

00:53:09.800 of Lords

00:53:10.200 in the British

00:53:10.880 Parliament

00:53:11.280 and he wrote

00:53:12.520 a book

00:53:12.820 that's now

00:53:14.120 turning out

00:53:14.540 to be

00:53:14.900 quite correct

00:53:15.740 where he

00:53:16.100 said that

00:53:16.580 there is

00:53:17.140 good evidence

00:53:17.740 that COVID

00:53:18.240 was like

00:53:19.040 the lab

00:53:19.480 leak theory

00:53:20.100 and I

00:53:21.380 remember

00:53:21.780 when they

00:53:22.680 had reached

00:53:23.160 out to me

00:53:23.720 to come

00:53:24.100 on my

00:53:24.400 show,

00:53:25.220 I'm happy

00:53:26.620 to platform

00:53:27.200 all heretics

00:53:29.020 but I

00:53:29.880 told them

00:53:30.380 very pragmatically

00:53:31.180 I said

00:53:31.520 if you

00:53:32.340 come on

00:53:32.720 my show

00:53:33.200 we're going

00:53:34.040 to go

00:53:35.480 through the

00:53:35.840 effort of

00:53:36.420 doing it

00:53:37.640 I'm going

00:53:38.260 to upload

00:53:38.780 it.

00:53:38.980 This was at

00:53:39.280 the time

00:53:39.660 when they

00:53:39.980 weren't

00:53:40.200 allowing it

00:53:40.820 and within

00:53:41.600 five seconds

00:53:42.520 of me

00:53:43.000 uploading it

00:53:43.820 first of all

00:53:44.460 they'll take

00:53:45.180 it down

00:53:45.620 and then

00:53:46.400 they'll probably

00:53:47.180 cancel my

00:53:48.440 channel

00:53:48.820 and it

00:53:49.840 wasn't because

00:53:50.420 it was selfish

00:53:51.140 I'm pursuing

00:53:51.980 my interest

00:53:52.420 but it

00:53:52.900 seemed like

00:53:54.680 the reckless

00:53:55.160 martyr

00:53:55.580 and I've

00:53:56.340 always

00:53:56.860 you know

00:53:57.740 struggled

00:53:58.660 with that

00:53:59.180 decision

00:53:59.580 because on

00:54:00.040 the one

00:54:00.300 hand

00:54:00.620 I fell

00:54:01.580 prey

00:54:02.020 to the

00:54:02.680 intimidation

00:54:03.580 but here

00:54:04.660 we are

00:54:05.160 I was telling

00:54:05.920 them there's

00:54:06.360 no point

00:54:06.740 you're coming

00:54:07.080 on my

00:54:07.360 show

00:54:07.600 it's going

00:54:08.000 to be

00:54:08.300 cancelled

00:54:08.660 is this

00:54:09.420 the way

00:54:09.680 we want

00:54:10.020 to adjudicate

00:54:10.740 these important

00:54:11.340 issues

00:54:11.700 and of course

00:54:12.520 this is

00:54:12.960 Lysenko

00:54:13.440 who believed

00:54:15.020 in a theory

00:54:15.740 of genetics

00:54:16.860 that was

00:54:17.400 contrary

00:54:17.900 to the

00:54:18.520 laws of

00:54:19.140 genetics

00:54:19.620 hence

00:54:20.840 Lysenkoism

00:54:21.700 that was

00:54:22.760 more consistent

00:54:23.380 with Marxist

00:54:24.180 philosophy

00:54:24.620 and that

00:54:25.140 led

00:54:25.460 to the

00:54:25.880 downstream

00:54:26.180 effect

00:54:26.620 of 20-30

00:54:27.360 million people

00:54:27.940 dying of

00:54:28.480 famine

00:54:28.760 so there

00:54:29.940 are real

00:54:30.740 downstream

00:54:31.520 consequences

00:54:32.360 to being

00:54:32.900 parasitized

00:54:33.640 by ideology

00:54:34.520 so how

00:54:42.760 do these

00:54:43.220 parasitic

00:54:43.820 idea

00:54:44.240 pathogens

00:54:44.760 promote

00:54:45.600 an ethos

00:54:46.280 of

00:54:46.440 consequentialism

00:54:47.360 so

00:54:48.120 postmodernism

00:54:49.240 destroys

00:54:49.940 the epistemology

00:54:51.040 of truth

00:54:51.680 but it

00:54:52.980 elevates

00:54:53.520 one's

00:54:53.900 lived truth

00:54:54.340 so you

00:54:54.600 often hear

00:54:55.160 now

00:54:55.400 where you

00:54:55.840 can't

00:54:56.200 argue

00:54:56.540 against

00:54:56.780 me

00:54:56.920 that's

00:54:57.220 my

00:54:57.620 lived

00:54:57.960 experience

00:54:58.540 right

00:54:58.880 now in

00:54:59.440 some

00:54:59.640 cases

00:55:00.000 your

00:55:00.320 lived

00:55:00.580 experience

00:55:01.080 matters

00:55:01.520 when I

00:55:01.960 tell you

00:55:02.400 about

00:55:02.640 here is

00:55:03.320 the horrors

00:55:03.900 of what I

00:55:04.360 went through

00:55:04.800 in the

00:55:05.060 Lebanese

00:55:05.440 civil war

00:55:06.100 there is

00:55:06.860 a story

00:55:07.360 there are

00:55:07.820 lessons to be

00:55:08.500 learned

00:55:08.700 but there

00:55:09.340 but there

00:55:09.360 but there is

00:55:09.600 no

00:55:09.840 my

00:55:10.240 lived

00:55:10.600 experience

00:55:11.200 when it

00:55:11.900 comes to

00:55:12.360 the

00:55:12.500 distribution

00:55:13.040 of

00:55:13.280 prime

00:55:13.640 numbers

00:55:14.160 there's

00:55:14.720 just

00:55:14.960 the

00:55:15.160 distribution

00:55:15.680 of

00:55:15.900 prime

00:55:16.160 numbers

00:55:16.560 there is

00:55:17.440 no

00:55:17.640 my

00:55:17.960 lived

00:55:18.220 experience

00:55:18.760 when it

00:55:19.240 comes

00:55:19.520 to

00:55:19.840 neuroscience

00:55:20.580 and what

00:55:21.580 the amygdala

00:55:22.240 does

00:55:22.600 there's

00:55:23.060 just

00:55:23.340 neuroscience

00:55:24.060 right

00:55:24.580 but

00:55:25.060 postmodernism

00:55:26.040 and all

00:55:26.940 these other

00:55:27.400 idea pathogens

00:55:28.240 they liberate

00:55:29.200 us from

00:55:29.640 the shackles

00:55:30.360 of reality

00:55:31.120 anything

00:55:31.680 can be

00:55:32.520 for

00:55:33.320 anyone

00:55:33.660 social

00:55:34.320 constructivism

00:55:35.400 it destroys

00:55:36.680 truth

00:55:37.180 but it

00:55:37.980 engenders

00:55:38.460 hope

00:55:38.840 how does

00:55:39.400 it do

00:55:39.660 that

00:55:39.920 if I'm

00:55:41.060 a parent

00:55:41.560 I would

00:55:42.160 love the

00:55:42.580 idea

00:55:43.040 that my

00:55:44.160 child

00:55:44.720 when they're

00:55:45.300 born

00:55:45.660 they have

00:55:46.620 equal

00:55:47.340 likelihood

00:55:47.860 of becoming

00:55:48.720 the next

00:55:49.560 Lionel

00:55:50.040 Messi

00:55:50.340 and the

00:55:51.520 next

00:55:51.740 Michael

00:55:52.060 Jordan

00:55:52.440 that makes

00:55:53.740 me feel

00:55:54.240 good

00:55:54.480 because

00:55:54.760 then if

00:55:55.120 only I

00:55:55.600 can hug

00:55:56.000 them

00:55:56.200 enough

00:55:56.520 or not

00:55:56.920 hug

00:55:57.160 them

00:55:57.340 enough

00:55:57.580 if

00:55:57.960 there's

00:55:58.240 some

00:55:58.420 schedule

00:55:58.920 of

00:55:59.220 reinforcement

00:55:59.760 that I

00:56:00.140 can do

00:56:00.560 so that

00:56:01.160 I can

00:56:01.480 aspire to

00:56:02.140 them being

00:56:02.560 Albert

00:56:02.920 Einstein

00:56:03.320 or being

00:56:04.440 Lionel

00:56:04.820 Messi

00:56:05.080 so I

00:56:05.840 don't

00:56:06.000 like

00:56:06.260 the idea

00:56:06.840 if I'm

00:56:07.340 a social

00:56:07.660 constructivist

00:56:08.380 of you

00:56:09.000 telling me

00:56:09.640 that we're

00:56:10.420 not born

00:56:11.020 with equal

00:56:11.500 potentiality

00:56:12.420 that we

00:56:12.980 are born

00:56:13.500 with certain

00:56:14.060 biological

00:56:14.560 imperatives

00:56:15.200 I prefer

00:56:15.980 that we're

00:56:16.380 born tabula

00:56:17.020 rasa

00:56:17.320 and anybody

00:56:18.260 could be

00:56:18.680 anything

00:56:19.060 but that's

00:56:19.680 perfect

00:56:20.060 nonsense

00:56:20.480 but it

00:56:21.120 makes me

00:56:21.480 feel good

00:56:22.160 as a

00:56:22.820 parent

00:56:23.080 radical

00:56:24.060 feminism

00:56:24.640 destroys

00:56:25.280 truth

00:56:25.820 but it

00:56:26.460 helps in

00:56:26.900 eradicating

00:56:27.580 the so-called

00:56:28.460 patriarchal

00:56:29.080 status quo

00:56:29.720 right

00:56:30.260 if I can

00:56:31.020 promulgate

00:56:31.600 as a

00:56:31.940 radical

00:56:32.220 feminist

00:56:32.660 the idea

00:56:33.240 that there

00:56:33.700 are no

00:56:34.360 innate

00:56:34.740 biological

00:56:35.300 differences

00:56:35.920 then it

00:56:36.580 makes it

00:56:36.960 easier for

00:56:37.640 me to

00:56:38.820 pursue the

00:56:39.440 noble goal

00:56:40.100 of eradicating

00:56:41.180 the patriarchy

00:56:42.460 trans activism

00:56:44.160 destroys truth

00:56:45.380 but it helps

00:56:46.360 in celebrating

00:56:47.180 people's unique

00:56:48.220 personhoods

00:56:49.120 right

00:56:49.340 when both

00:56:50.280 Jordan Peterson

00:56:51.140 and I

00:56:51.600 in our

00:56:52.160 different ways

00:56:52.860 said here

00:56:53.640 are some

00:56:54.160 downstream

00:56:54.640 effects of

00:56:55.300 what's going

00:56:55.680 to happen

00:56:56.200 if you

00:56:57.080 go on that

00:56:58.400 celebratory train

00:56:59.800 every single

00:57:01.040 thing that we

00:57:01.480 said came

00:57:01.900 true

00:57:02.240 because we

00:57:03.460 saw what

00:57:04.240 was coming

00:57:04.720 down the

00:57:05.140 line

00:57:05.380 right

00:57:05.880 I could

00:57:06.620 be fully

00:57:07.100 supportive

00:57:07.580 of your

00:57:07.980 right to

00:57:08.400 live your

00:57:08.780 life in

00:57:09.260 any way

00:57:09.620 that you

00:57:09.900 want

00:57:10.160 that doesn't

00:57:10.880 mean that

00:57:11.200 you have

00:57:11.560 the right

00:57:11.960 to take

00:57:12.440 me on

00:57:12.760 that ride

00:57:13.280 with you

00:57:13.720 cultural

00:57:15.660 relativism

00:57:16.480 is another

00:57:17.120 idea pathogen

00:57:18.180 because it

00:57:18.640 destroys truth

00:57:19.600 but helps

00:57:20.440 protecting so

00:57:21.220 called marginalized

00:57:21.900 groups so

00:57:22.620 for example

00:57:23.200 I've had

00:57:24.760 conversations

00:57:25.420 with many

00:57:26.460 westerners

00:57:27.100 where I say

00:57:27.620 do you think

00:57:28.740 a culture

00:57:29.500 that won't

00:57:31.180 cut off the

00:57:32.860 clitorises of

00:57:33.900 little girls

00:57:34.880 is superior

00:57:36.300 to one that

00:57:37.040 forces that

00:57:37.880 now that

00:57:39.140 should be a

00:57:39.700 pretty pretty

00:57:40.360 easy moral

00:57:41.100 calculation to

00:57:42.100 make a

00:57:42.640 society that

00:57:43.460 doesn't go

00:57:45.200 to a little

00:57:45.740 girl that

00:57:46.240 doesn't have

00:57:46.760 the right to

00:57:47.280 consent to

00:57:47.940 having that

00:57:48.680 procedure done

00:57:50.040 on her is

00:57:50.960 certainly one

00:57:51.620 that's superior

00:57:52.160 to one where

00:57:52.780 that's imposed

00:57:53.480 but then they

00:57:54.580 squirm they

00:57:55.340 equivocate

00:57:56.100 because who

00:57:56.740 am I to

00:57:57.380 judge the

00:57:58.420 cultural norms

00:57:59.820 of another

00:58:00.300 society no

00:58:01.480 that should be

00:58:02.240 deontological

00:58:02.860 you don't have

00:58:03.540 the right to

00:58:04.420 cut off the

00:58:04.900 clitorises of

00:58:05.520 little girls

00:58:06.040 and then

00:58:07.260 finally of course

00:58:08.020 identity politics

00:58:08.980 diversity inclusion

00:58:09.840 and equity

00:58:10.400 destroys meritocracy

00:58:11.940 but it elevates

00:58:13.240 marginalized groups

00:58:14.520 right

00:58:14.820 so how do we

00:58:18.260 save our

00:58:19.020 universities

00:58:19.680 it's a it's a

00:58:22.720 it's a tall

00:58:23.300 order let's just

00:58:24.560 go through all

00:58:25.100 of them

00:58:25.420 number one

00:58:26.480 pursue knowledge

00:58:27.700 unencumbered by

00:58:28.660 ideological activism

00:58:29.900 no knowledge is

00:58:31.100 forbidden if

00:58:31.800 gathered objectively

00:58:32.680 using using the

00:58:33.740 scientific method

00:58:34.480 if you try to do

00:58:35.580 any research for

00:58:36.400 example on sex

00:58:37.180 differences as I

00:58:38.360 have good luck

00:58:39.340 if the sex

00:58:40.220 difference comes

00:58:40.900 if the sex

00:58:41.780 difference comes

00:58:42.560 out showing that

00:58:43.740 women are superior

00:58:44.820 on some task

00:58:45.780 then it's going to

00:58:46.720 be accepted in

00:58:47.360 many journals

00:58:47.960 if I if it shows

00:58:49.200 god forbid the

00:58:49.920 other thing then

00:58:50.880 you better file it

00:58:51.820 away in your

00:58:52.680 cabinet and never

00:58:54.340 show it

00:58:54.780 is this the way

00:58:55.720 we want to

00:58:56.380 pursue science

00:58:57.120 there are very

00:58:58.080 clear evolutionary

00:58:58.800 reasons why men

00:59:00.020 are superior on

00:59:00.920 some tasks

00:59:01.540 why women are

00:59:02.620 superior on other

00:59:03.460 tasks and why

00:59:05.040 there are no sex

00:59:05.940 differences on yet

00:59:06.920 other tasks

00:59:07.960 it's called

00:59:08.900 evolutionary

00:59:09.360 psychology but

00:59:10.480 yet it becomes

00:59:11.980 very difficult to

00:59:12.660 publish such

00:59:13.120 speakers no more

00:59:15.120 identity politics

00:59:16.260 instead promote the

00:59:17.680 dignity of the

00:59:18.260 individual rather than

00:59:19.140 supporting oppression

00:59:19.940 olympics and

00:59:20.500 victimology poker

00:59:21.260 every single day at

00:59:23.060 my university I

00:59:24.500 will receive endless

00:59:25.700 emails that are

00:59:27.060 you know celebrating

00:59:28.640 some indigenous

00:59:29.400 thing some black

00:59:30.620 experience thing

00:59:31.580 some what about

00:59:33.280 Lebanese Jews I

00:59:34.780 mean we went

00:59:35.260 through a really

00:59:35.740 hard time in the

00:59:36.380 Middle East why

00:59:36.940 isn't there a

00:59:37.600 dean for the

00:59:38.340 Lebanese Jew

00:59:38.980 experience right

00:59:40.560 but no there's

00:59:41.680 now just an

00:59:42.300 orgiastic everything

00:59:43.560 our curriculum has

00:59:45.020 to be indigenized

00:59:45.960 how do I

00:59:46.860 indigenize psychology

00:59:48.100 of decision making

00:59:48.960 how do I

00:59:49.940 indigenize evolutionary

00:59:51.180 theory well what

00:59:52.300 does that even mean

00:59:53.140 but that's where

00:59:54.420 we're at no more

00:59:56.060 coddling of the

00:59:57.000 culture of offense

00:59:57.880 and the ethos of

00:59:58.740 perpetual victimhood

01:00:00.040 and so on a

01:00:01.620 just society is

01:00:02.600 rooted in the

01:00:03.140 ethos of

01:00:03.680 meritocracy we

01:00:04.620 are not social

01:00:05.340 ants the reason

01:00:05.920 why I said that

01:00:07.040 because EO

01:00:08.360 Wilson one of

01:00:09.680 I dare say an

01:00:12.440 intellectual hero

01:00:13.220 of mine he wrote

01:00:14.680 a great book in the

01:00:15.540 late 90s called

01:00:16.400 consilience consilience

01:00:17.780 means unity of

01:00:18.800 knowledge and he

01:00:19.860 argued that

01:00:20.380 evolutionary theory

01:00:21.340 allows us to

01:00:21.980 unify the social

01:00:23.260 sciences the

01:00:24.060 humanities and the

01:00:24.960 natural sciences he

01:00:26.720 was a Harvard

01:00:28.380 entomologist he

01:00:29.980 studied social

01:00:30.660 hands and when he

01:00:31.820 was famously asked

01:00:33.160 what are your

01:00:33.780 views on

01:00:34.460 communism and

01:00:35.680 socialism he

01:00:37.460 said great idea

01:00:38.860 wrong species

01:00:39.920 now that's an

01:00:42.240 incredible quote

01:00:43.320 because it's

01:00:44.620 actually very

01:00:45.260 profound right

01:00:46.100 because if I

01:00:47.360 am a social

01:00:48.040 ant communism

01:00:49.820 works really well

01:00:51.380 because every

01:00:52.220 single member of

01:00:53.520 that colony is

01:00:55.220 by definition

01:00:55.900 equal they're a

01:00:57.000 worker ant or

01:00:57.820 army ant they're

01:00:58.700 indistinguishable from

01:00:59.580 each other except

01:01:00.780 for the reproductive

01:01:01.600 queen so

01:01:02.700 so that

01:01:03.660 socio-economic

01:01:04.540 political system

01:01:05.700 called communism

01:01:06.500 is perfectly

01:01:07.620 congruent if I'm a

01:01:08.840 social ant if I'm

01:01:09.960 a human it's

01:01:10.840 it's incongruent

01:01:11.900 that's why it has

01:01:12.600 been tried in so

01:01:13.400 many countries and

01:01:14.520 it has always

01:01:15.120 failed because any

01:01:16.300 product that you

01:01:17.160 introduce any

01:01:17.920 economic system that

01:01:19.080 you develop any

01:01:20.080 political ideology

01:01:21.120 that you produce

01:01:22.100 that is antithetical

01:01:23.460 to human nature

01:01:24.260 will ultimately

01:01:25.160 fail it can't

01:01:26.640 succeed it can't

01:01:27.840 be anti-human

01:01:28.620 nature promote

01:01:30.720 an ethos of

01:01:31.540 intellectual and

01:01:32.220 political diversity

01:01:33.160 of course all

01:01:35.400 ideas beliefs and

01:01:36.680 ideologies are open

01:01:37.740 to criticism debate

01:01:38.920 mocking ridicule and

01:01:40.640 other forms of

01:01:41.400 scrutiny short of

01:01:43.260 direct incitement to

01:01:44.300 violence eradicate

01:01:45.360 hate speech laws

01:01:46.280 university speech

01:01:47.540 codes and codes

01:01:48.780 regarding hostile

01:01:49.740 environments I am

01:01:50.920 so I'm Jewish I'm

01:01:52.520 from Lebanon we

01:01:53.640 had a very rough

01:01:54.360 time in the Middle

01:01:55.060 East and yet as a

01:01:56.540 free speech

01:01:57.060 absolutist I defend

01:01:58.760 the right of

01:02:00.180 Holocaust deniers to

01:02:01.680 deny the Holocaust

01:02:02.500 there's almost by

01:02:03.880 definition nothing

01:02:05.040 that could be more

01:02:06.080 insulting and

01:02:06.760 offensive I mean

01:02:07.660 literally nothing that

01:02:08.600 could be more

01:02:09.000 offensive than to

01:02:10.260 deny the Holocaust

01:02:11.160 yet in a free

01:02:12.420 society you have to

01:02:13.820 tolerate the

01:02:14.460 assholes the liars

01:02:15.880 the racists the

01:02:17.080 imbeciles now of

01:02:18.840 course where you

01:02:19.320 draw the line is

01:02:20.380 where outside my

01:02:21.400 university they're

01:02:22.780 hanging around and

01:02:23.920 they're chanting

01:02:24.520 gas the Jews and

01:02:26.120 Gaza Gaza now that is

01:02:28.000 incitement to

01:02:28.800 violence I had to

01:02:30.440 go teach a class

01:02:31.420 two days ago I

01:02:32.740 was surrounded by

01:02:34.200 security to walk

01:02:35.400 into so this is in

01:02:36.860 the 21st century a

01:02:38.840 professor in Canada

01:02:40.160 has to walk around

01:02:41.980 with security in

01:02:43.820 order to be able to

01:02:45.120 teach his classes

01:02:46.220 not because I said

01:02:47.860 anything offensive

01:02:48.620 just because I

01:02:50.120 dared mourn the

01:02:52.040 loss of the

01:02:53.680 butchering of 1400

01:02:54.840 Israelis on October

01:02:56.280 7th some of whom

01:02:57.540 could have been my

01:02:58.420 family I was now

01:03:00.220 promoting genocide

01:03:01.480 against the Gazans

01:03:02.840 and therefore it was

01:03:04.480 dangerous for me to

01:03:05.640 walk into campus

01:03:06.640 by the way my

01:03:07.820 university has a

01:03:09.300 very unique

01:03:10.280 demographic reality

01:03:11.580 I'll leave it for

01:03:12.840 you to decide what

01:03:13.560 that means now if

01:03:14.880 that's the case

01:03:15.600 today what do you

01:03:16.680 think happens in 10

01:03:17.640 years what do you

01:03:18.320 think happens in 30

01:03:19.280 years it doesn't

01:03:20.600 take a fancy

01:03:22.180 professor to see

01:03:23.880 the writing on the

01:03:24.720 wall and then

01:03:25.640 finally science

01:03:27.260 reason logic and a

01:03:28.740 commitment to

01:03:29.260 evidence-based

01:03:29.860 thinking Trump

01:03:30.860 ideology hurt

01:03:31.940 feelings and

01:03:32.940 fashionable anti-science

01:03:34.860 full intellectual

01:03:36.260 gibberish thank you

01:03:38.160 very much

01:03:38.800 I think this is working

01:03:53.500 yeah thanks thank you

01:03:55.200 Dr. Saad I'm gonna

01:03:56.120 come here stay up

01:03:57.320 here I'm gonna keep

01:03:58.460 up here so Dr. Saad came

01:04:01.640 all the way to the end

01:04:04.220 of the earth I was gonna

01:04:05.080 say that I know this is

01:04:06.000 the furthest east you've

01:04:06.820 been because if you go

01:04:08.080 any further east you know

01:04:09.140 the old maps where it

01:04:10.700 falls off the edge of the

01:04:11.440 world with sea monsters

01:04:12.240 that's the next stop so we

01:04:14.840 appreciate it coming all

01:04:15.700 this way and thanks so

01:04:16.620 much for a great talk to

01:04:17.420 the pipe red

01:04:17.760 now I'm just gonna I'm gonna

01:04:26.400 invite folks to come out up

01:04:27.820 and if you want to ask a

01:04:28.800 question come on up to the

01:04:29.580 mic are you absolutely

01:04:31.580 whatever's company and I'm

01:04:34.000 gonna hand you this in a

01:04:34.720 moment so you come on up and

01:04:37.900 ask question as I say try to

01:04:40.200 formulate a question about a

01:04:41.400 minute or so for Dr. Saad and

01:04:43.760 just afterwards just so you

01:04:46.000 know I think we and I'm

01:04:48.900 looking way back here at our

01:04:50.320 bartender are you guys gonna

01:04:52.260 boot us out of here pretty

01:04:53.100 quickly after or can we stay

01:04:54.380 for a beer here

01:04:55.140 whatever or you guys can let

01:05:00.000 us know but at some point I'd

01:05:01.700 encourage you you can go up to

01:05:02.600 the main building the piano bar

01:05:03.980 is open tonight so we but I

01:05:06.400 don't think you have to be

01:05:07.080 rushed to get out of here

01:05:07.900 afterwards so with that Roy

01:05:10.800 Eapin you can go ahead and ask

01:05:12.420 Dr. Saad's first question so

01:05:15.520 I'm a I'm a physician and I

01:05:17.520 yeah I work at McGill as well

01:05:19.920 and what I oh I'm more I'm a

01:05:26.160 physician and I work at McGill as

01:05:27.980 well and what I've noticed over

01:05:29.660 the last 30 or 40 years are the

01:05:31.680 kids are getting more and more

01:05:33.280 anxious more and more and anxious

01:05:35.660 and unhappy and I think a lot of

01:05:38.160 that is coming from this woke

01:05:39.720 ideology because you're sort of

01:05:42.480 doing I mean reasonable things to

01:05:44.420 their minds is there you think

01:05:48.220 there's anything to that yeah so

01:05:50.140 thank you for that question so in

01:05:52.000 my latest book in the in the

01:05:53.700 happiness book I have a chapter

01:05:55.540 where I talk about a whole bunch of

01:05:57.720 correlates to happiness how does

01:05:59.240 personality affect happiness how

01:06:00.960 does religiosity affect happiness

01:06:03.140 and so one of the things I talk

01:06:04.540 about is how does your political

01:06:06.780 orientation affect happiness and the

01:06:10.140 research has unequivocally and

01:06:12.460 consistently found that

01:06:14.260 conservatives tend to be happier

01:06:16.660 than progressive liberal types the

01:06:19.980 type the people who might be

01:06:21.060 parasitized by this stuff and I

01:06:22.800 offered a speculative hypothesis I I

01:06:25.860 haven't tested it but I think it's a

01:06:27.300 it's a plausible one so here's my

01:06:29.360 reasoning as to why that

01:06:31.600 correlation happens when you're a

01:06:33.780 conservative and you wake up in the

01:06:35.220 morning by definition of the word

01:06:38.720 conserve you think that

01:06:40.460 existentially there are certain

01:06:42.060 values worth conserving and

01:06:44.420 defended on the other hand when

01:06:46.260 you're a progressive you wake up

01:06:48.300 you're existentially angry because

01:06:50.600 just around the corner there is

01:06:52.740 unicornia if only we can burn down

01:06:55.800 the current racist transphobic

01:06:57.840 Islamophobic sexist world around the

01:07:00.500 corner there'll be a much better world

01:07:02.000 and so existentially I'm full of

01:07:04.680 anxiety I'm full of anger bitterness I

01:07:07.500 need to change the world and so I

01:07:09.680 think your your your observation is

01:07:12.860 probably well-founded yes thank you

01:07:15.680 and just let you guys know when you come

01:07:18.400 up fast I said Mike you gotta go into

01:07:20.140 if you're not COVID unsafe you're not

01:07:22.240 supposed to suck the mic

01:07:22.940 I'm good being in front of the mic

01:07:25.400 thanks Chris that was an amazing

01:07:27.920 presentation thank you so much for

01:07:30.100 coming to the deck and sharing your

01:07:31.780 words so I'm a molecular immunologist

01:07:33.880 with a focus in parasitology and

01:07:35.840 pathogen interactions so I thoroughly

01:07:38.140 enjoyed all your parasite references

01:07:39.880 and one of the things that I was

01:07:43.220 reflecting on I'll keep this short Chris

01:07:45.520 was parasites by definition exist to

01:07:50.340 find their definitive host okay so the

01:07:52.980 crickets definitive host is the where I'm

01:07:54.660 getting into the water the the

01:07:56.700 hiated cyst definitive post is is some

01:07:59.380 kind of path prey right so it's a prey

01:08:01.980 item it's some kind of predator I would

01:08:04.580 love to know in the context of Canadians

01:08:07.140 what is your thoughts on what the

01:08:10.640 definitive host would be for the parasite

01:08:14.160 that is infecting the minds of our

01:08:15.960 children and how might we equip

01:08:19.800 ourselves as parents to help prevent that

01:08:23.440 which idea pathogen are you talking

01:08:25.660 about that's personalizing the children

01:08:27.100 because there are many different

01:08:28.040 strains okay yes yes let's go with

01:08:32.880 pot post-modernism so post-modernism as

01:08:36.860 I said it's it it liberates me from the

01:08:39.720 shackles of absolute statements anything

01:08:43.060 goes so imagine how liberating and it's

01:08:47.160 nihilism it is right so when I'm a young

01:08:49.460 person I love the idea of not being

01:08:52.140 restricted by the constraints of my

01:08:54.780 genitalia you mean I could have male

01:08:56.980 parts but I could be anything else

01:08:58.860 great you mean there are no absolute

01:09:01.040 truths wonderful so I argue in the

01:09:04.320 parasitic mind that what all of these

01:09:06.460 idea pathogens have in common is they

01:09:09.180 actually start off with a noble cause and

01:09:12.680 in the service of that noble cause they

01:09:14.800 end up murdering and raping truth right

01:09:17.360 so equity feminism is a great idea which

01:09:20.300 basically says hey we should all be equal

01:09:22.660 under the law but then radical feminism

01:09:25.080 comes along and says but that's not

01:09:26.440 enough in order to for us to truly

01:09:29.040 eradicate the patriarchal status quo we

01:09:32.080 have to promulgate the met the message

01:09:33.960 that men and women have no innate

01:09:36.160 biological differences so in the service

01:09:38.940 of that noble goal out there if I if truth

01:09:42.320 suffers so that's just consequence that's

01:09:44.980 why I talked about consequentialism versus

01:09:46.700 in the logical no I should be able to walk

01:09:49.380 and chew gum at the same time I could be

01:09:51.400 fully socially liberal in some of my

01:09:53.460 positions yes of course most people here

01:09:55.520 support the right of transgender people

01:09:57.600 living dignified lives free of bigotry that

01:10:00.500 doesn't mean that I have to say oh no of

01:10:02.060 course men can menstruate of course

01:10:03.660 everybody knows that right but I get

01:10:05.980 emails I mean just imagine how incredible

01:10:08.240 it is I get emails from adults dear dr sad I

01:10:12.180 I know that you're an evolutionist and

01:10:14.020 your study about so what is the official

01:10:16.700 accepted thing today do men also

01:10:19.320 menstruate and then I I literally write

01:10:22.040 back I say no they don't thanks for

01:10:24.340 writing in right but imagine how

01:10:27.080 epistemologically lacking in self-confidence

01:10:29.880 you are at that point that you need to

01:10:32.100 write to me to get the imprimatur that

01:10:34.620 no no your intuition that only women

01:10:36.660 menstruate still holds so I think for the

01:10:39.560 kids they're so malleable that I you

01:10:41.740 know I mean that's why advertisers are

01:10:44.200 not allowed to target a child if they

01:10:46.480 haven't reached the cognitive

01:10:47.620 developmental stage to know that they're

01:10:49.740 being persuaded and targeted right

01:10:51.820 because it's so easy to brainwash them

01:10:53.980 into any story so I don't know if I've

01:10:57.080 answered your question but that's your

01:10:57.980 job what is the definitive host though

01:11:00.860 what is why why is it so easy for them

01:11:04.160 to be intoxicated by this idea why is it

01:11:07.180 happening who is praying who who is

01:11:09.700 making this happen and why well ideologues

01:11:12.160 so depending on the depending on the

01:11:14.620 idea pathogen it'll be a different set

01:11:16.920 of ideologues so for example cultural

01:11:18.900 relativism the idea that all cultures are

01:11:22.000 equal who are we to just are the cultures

01:11:23.680 originally started more than 80 90 years

01:11:26.960 ago by a cultural anthropologist named

01:11:29.240 Franz Boas and he knew that placed in the

01:11:33.080 wrong hands biological principles could be

01:11:36.100 misused for political purposes right so

01:11:38.520 then the Nazis eventually did it right

01:11:40.140 hey there's a Darwinian struggle between

01:11:41.900 the races we're the Aryan race sorry Jews

01:11:44.540 you lose right British class social

01:11:47.060 elitists did the same thing hey we're the

01:11:48.840 upper class you're the lower class if you

01:11:50.900 die of tuberculosis in your shanty towns

01:11:53.380 who cares that's Darwinian and so he

01:11:55.320 developed a an edifice of anthropology where

01:11:58.580 biology ceased to matter because then it

01:12:01.800 would hopefully avoid the possibility of

01:12:04.400 people misusing it so there isn't a

01:12:06.520 singular answer depending on the idea

01:12:08.640 pathogen there's a different reason why

01:12:10.880 some ideolog promulgated it sure thanks

01:12:15.060 so much for your talk those highly edifying

01:12:17.140 I'm Ben Turner general surgeon I was

01:12:20.800 delighted to see my own specialty at the

01:12:22.300 top of your list of most conservative

01:12:24.060 specialties I was dismayed to find out

01:12:27.460 wasn't really my own experience and I had

01:12:29.480 front row seats to watch all the surgeons I

01:12:31.460 know and all the other positions I know with a

01:12:33.340 few exceptions switch very early in coven

01:12:36.520 from what the hell is the problem why is

01:12:38.680 everyone so fussed about this thing to lock

01:12:41.200 everything that's the only answer and that

01:12:43.600 that switch was from your objective you know

01:12:45.960 scientific method modes of learning they

01:12:49.300 talked about to your I forget what the

01:12:51.100 expression was be your alternate sources of

01:12:53.620 the truth or something that aren't actually

01:12:55.360 sources of truth and that's a problem ways of

01:12:58.360 knowing a different ways pardon me a different

01:12:59.800 ways of knowing yeah the problem with that was is

01:13:02.980 that we're all used to trying to convince people

01:13:06.640 using the first way of knowing the objective ways

01:13:09.040 where you have a premise a premise a conclusion

01:13:10.720 and so I think we all had the experience of trying to

01:13:14.080 argue with those things against people who aren't even on that plane of knowing

01:13:19.060 anymore and who deliberately took themselves off it because they were

01:13:22.360 perfectly good with that until cobit have you had any success and if so what's

01:13:26.980 your secret in in getting people back on to a level playing field is at the

01:13:32.320 moment they think we have mind viruses and and we know they do and we can't we

01:13:37.420 can't talk to each other so thank you for that question so the good news is

01:13:41.440 that yes I've had tons of success but not at the velocity that I would like to

01:13:47.440 have that success so in other words the ideologues are parasitizing a thousand

01:13:52.840 minds a second while I'm trying to change five minds with my work so I think

01:13:58.080 the it's lopsided and how quickly those bad ideas are spreading so it is

01:14:03.820 possible to flip someone to come back from the dark side but it takes a lot of

01:14:08.320 effort but but you certainly can now the old people who are completely

01:14:12.700 impenetrable so remember when I put up the normal logical network with all the

01:14:17.920 different lines of evidence if someone goes la la la hear it in other words they

01:14:23.920 don't even grant me the courtesy to present the evidence to them and there is

01:14:27.880 no way for me to administer the mind vaccines but as long as you show up and

01:14:32.260 say I'm willing to listen I'll flip you thank you

01:14:37.160 that's sad and if you're to put what you said in the context of mental defense

01:14:44.540 mechanisms which one or one is what you pick you mean the fact that people are

01:14:51.740 not open to hearing contrary evidence to them that would be a defense Russia

01:14:55.400 like for example rationalization would be would be oh I see yes well took to the

01:14:59.840 earlier gentleman who who said that a lot of the surgeons were now flipping in the

01:15:03.860 wrong way so there's a great one of the classic studies in psychology there are

01:15:09.800 a few there's the Zimbardo experiment with the Corrections officers there is the

01:15:13.760 Milgram experiment where you can get people to zap someone to death unbeknownst

01:15:19.520 to that that's not really happening and then the third one that many other many

01:15:23.540 people don't know about which kind of maybe answers your question on the earlier

01:15:26.860 gentleman the Solomon ash conformity experiment so what you basically do

01:15:32.720 there is you put three lines that are very very different in length and then

01:15:38.460 you put one other line that is the same length as so there's ABC and then X and

01:15:43.400 the task is for you to tell me which of ABC is the same length as X and for

01:15:49.460 anybody who's got any vision that's not you know blind it should be very very

01:15:53.660 obvious right so this is X and this is B the other ones it's this big or this

01:15:59.340 small and the point of the experiment is to see whether you can get people to go

01:16:05.400 along with the wrong answer unbeknownst to them that the other people who are

01:16:09.900 giving the wrong answer are Confederates Confederates meaning that they're in on

01:16:13.260 the experiment so what you do is you set up a line of eight people the first

01:16:17.580 seven are actually Confederates they're fake subjects and so the first one when

01:16:22.920 you ask them so which of these three lines is the same as this one they give the wrong

01:16:27.200 answer they say oh it's C the second one says C the third one says C now anybody

01:16:33.440 who's got functioning eyes should say you're all nuts the right answer is B the

01:16:40.100 reason why Solomon Asch's experiment is truly one of the greatest experiments in

01:16:44.420 the behavioral sciences is because it is shocking the number of people who just

01:16:48.920 nod and go yes yes it's C so even now why is that so powerful because the real world is

01:16:56.420 is a lot more great it's more nuanced so there is opportunities for us but here

01:17:01.880 the stimuli were unbelievably unequivocally clear and yet I can get tons of people to

01:17:08.980 give the wrong answer so I I don't know if it's a a defensive mechanism as you were

01:17:14.900 asking I think our capacity to be heard like sheep is so ingrained in us that's why

01:17:21.680 the person who stands out and says you're all full of BS is is hailed as a hero and

01:17:27.560 courageous because it's so contrary to human nature yeah thank you you know I

01:17:31.400 think it could be a avert human aversion to uncertainty exactly fair enough yeah

01:17:35.840 exactly thank you hi dr sad my name's I'll just adjust this my name is Graham I'm a CPA so I'm one of the

01:17:46.640 business people that's maybe a little bit less susceptible to this stuff my

01:17:51.020 question for you kind of got triggered at the end when you're talking about

01:17:53.240 demographics a lot of these problems they sort of seem to come as like a syndrome

01:17:58.160 they seem to occur over and over again in the same people and there seems to be a

01:18:02.600 bit of a demographic split people who subscribe to these ideas either

01:18:07.880 ideologically or in some cases for physical reasons aren't having children and

01:18:12.440 and the people who maybe have the opposite ideas are having lots of

01:18:16.220 children so do you do you see some kind of like maybe demographic battle going on

01:18:20.600 right good good question so I mean the probably the biggest demographic variable

01:18:25.340 is just aging serves as a natural inoculation mechanism against a lot of this

01:18:32.200 BS right so in the same way that for example when you ask a criminologist how

01:18:36.980 should you handle violent criminals the answer usually is let them age because

01:18:42.920 when they age their testosterone goes down they become less aggressive so that

01:18:46.880 the 20 year old who was really violent who got into fights who was willing to

01:18:50.600 rob and murder at 57 it's not it just testosterone drops so usually when you see

01:18:58.100 the trajectory of a person's ideological shift throughout their life cycle it's much

01:19:04.700 more the case that people go from being liberal to conservative than the other

01:19:09.140 way around so that's probably the demographic variable that's most

01:19:13.340 predictive of these kinds of parasitic ideas age has a way of making you less

01:19:19.760 susceptible to a lot of this nonsense like do you think some of these ideas

01:19:23.720 might just die out because the people promoting them aren't reproducing I mean

01:19:28.520 let's keep our fingers crossed I mean I I wouldn't I wouldn't put all the chips on

01:19:41.660 let's pray that they don't reproduce I mean I get your point but no I think

01:19:47.840 there's there's a lot of work to be done hi dr. James Manson I'm one of the

01:19:56.000 lawyers in the room and you know my clients come to me I work for a not-for-profit

01:20:02.480 we do a lot of public interest stuff a lot of constitutional stuff and clients

01:20:07.820 come to me right now kind of asking for hope you know like can we get some hope

01:20:11.960 here I don't often know what to tell them and I I see Lisa over there as well

01:20:17.520 she's one of my colleagues sir and it's hard for us right now to see that there's

01:20:22.040 optimism or hope right now having listened to your talk are you optimistic

01:20:27.500 about the future are you okay so why or why not because we could use all the

01:20:33.740 help we can thank you so much that's a great question so until October 7th and the

01:20:41.820 response to October 7th I would have been a lot more optimistic but by this

01:20:47.040 position I'm someone people call me the happy warrior because I can joke around

01:20:51.480 I'm fun I that's why I wrote the happiness book because people would

01:20:55.260 always say how do you tackle all these serious issues you always seem to be

01:20:58.260 playful and so on so by this position I am optimistic I'm very happy there's

01:21:02.280 always a better day but then when October 7th happened I don't mean to imply

01:21:07.020 that it's because it touched me because my family is in Israel so on so

01:21:11.800 think of it this way October 7th happens one of three things can happen

01:21:17.020 around the world there could be increased Jew hatred there could be no change in

01:21:22.240 Jew hatred or there could be decreased Jew hatred the response to October 7th has

01:21:28.660 been that there's been a massive increase globally against Jew hatred and so I put

01:21:34.540 out a tweet about five six days ago that really went it's actually pinned right now

01:21:40.180 in a sense it answers your question because it's an incredibly dark tweet where

01:21:45.400 I wasn't my playful self I was saying look I really think it might be good night

01:21:49.620 for the West if we stay like this because my my argument was look if you go see a

01:21:54.940 physician and he tells you you have cancer God forbid you either implement the

01:22:00.240 strategies that you know work or you ignore them and do the exact opposite and what I'm

01:22:04.980 seeing is all of us who are warning the West about what's coming the West just

01:22:10.800 doubles down on a lot of the decisions that have gotten us into the quagmire so if

01:22:16.220 that's the case then how can I be optimistic so I still hold out hope that we can reverse course but

01:22:22.200 today I'm a lot less optimistic than I would have been a few weeks ago

01:22:25.200 thank you so much thanks for the book my name is Arnie Lang I'm a general internist in Ottawa but

01:22:34.120 before I was a physician I was actually a teacher so I think of this from the perspective of my own

01:22:38.880 kids and the fact that young people are kind of getting indoctrinated really at the grade school

01:22:43.300 level as well I basically practice in an outpatient setting at this point I'm not really interested in

01:22:50.880 academia for the some of the reasons you're describing I don't want to get in political

01:22:54.720 trouble because of being on the wrong side of these kinds of issues so my question is I'm looking at

01:23:00.680 the US and they have some ideas there I mean we met Dr. Milburn mentioned the Heterodox Academy

01:23:05.580 I've heard of the University of Austin for example sure what I'm thinking about is I wonder if anyone

01:23:13.860 in this room is aware of or yourself of the best jurisdiction in Canada to set up an alternate

01:23:21.480 university that could be accredited the issue right now I think would be that for example I'm originally

01:23:27.020 born from BC you'd never get an NDP woke government in BC to accredit a degree for a new university there

01:23:35.260 that wasn't along those that line of indoctrination as far as I can see but have you thought about that in

01:23:41.860 terms of different jurisdiction great question so there have there are a few little oasises of

01:23:47.560 sanity in the US in terms of universities probably the best exemplar of that is Hillsdale College

01:23:56.160 so Hillsdale College which officially is in Michigan but they hold you know events all over the country

01:24:02.420 has positioned itself as kind of the classical liberal university completely anti-woke and so in a

01:24:10.940 in an ecosystem of three four thousand universities and colleges in the US they've been able to really

01:24:17.420 get out of that clutter because they really have positioned themselves and people are hungry for

01:24:22.320 these types of schools there's a recent school that started you probably they've had a recent school but

01:24:27.680 they've been taken over by anti-woke folks in Florida New College of Florida have you heard of it do

01:24:33.460 you know it it it's the one that uh the the DeSantis gang is taking over it used to be super woke and now they're

01:24:42.900 trying to model it a la Hillsdale so there are these little centers of sanity uh but you're right that there is no such

01:24:52.420 center in Canada so I was going to make a plug since I'm originally from BC for uh a place called

01:24:57.440 Quest University Quest Quest University in Squamish BC it was a non-profit private university that was

01:25:04.620 up for the taking back in the old days you have these uh a big rich finance years for new universities

01:25:11.040 uh Cornell University Stanford University in the US Miguel in Canada really so I'm wondering if there's

01:25:17.820 another jurisdiction somewhere that uh would be open to the idea of maybe the Chicago principles

01:25:22.680 or something of freedom of inquiry so we can get back to the scientific method as a position as a

01:25:27.700 science teacher I mean that's what we need for to retain a civilization in my view so I I hope that

01:25:34.560 that happens but I'm certainly not aware of any movements that are happening currently in Canada I do

01:25:38.940 know maybe he'd be happy that I'm plugging this for on his behalf but uh Jordan Peterson is starting a

01:25:44.900 Peterson Academy they asked me to do some courses for them but I don't think it's credentialized right

01:25:50.880 it's just kind of lifelong learning but boy I would love a school like the one that you're saying hopefully

01:25:55.620 it will happen thank you cheers and I'm just going to say well we'll we'll take our last question but

01:26:00.020 I'm going to throw in there and say um you reminded me I forgot to say thank you our sponsor proto case

01:26:07.480 has donated a large amount of money to make this happen

01:26:11.740 but but this this is just me randomly coming in and switching to thank protocase what what I wanted

01:26:24.340 to say was I don't think there's any hope to get anything non-woke accredited that's just not going

01:26:29.440 to happen in Canada if you look at the structure but the beauty is there's companies like protocase

01:26:34.100 springing up everywhere that recognize now that just because you graduated from high school has

01:26:38.000 nothing to do with whether you're literate just because you graduated from university with a I

01:26:43.580 don't know like cultural studies degree doesn't have anything to do with whether you're going to be a

01:26:47.600 good employee and fewer and fewer companies are actually demanding uh these these credentials this

01:26:53.160 idea of you know this credentialism that's happened so I I see the hope not in being able to reform

01:27:00.080 universities in Canada but maybe in the fact that they'll they'll die and we'll have an alternate

01:27:03.500 system that'll just spring up that'll mean something yep anyway we'll take our last question

01:27:07.440 and we'll give Dr. Gata Dr. Sato a well-deserved break thank you for fitting in my question

01:27:13.560 I just want on a comment on optimism I just want to say thank you for giving me optimism because

01:27:22.660 intellectuals like you and Jordan Peterson are honestly giving me hope on a daily basis

01:27:26.280 and I'm sure people here can relate uh so just on this question of aging demographics and politics

01:27:33.440 I was wondering given that we have the baby boomer population aging and we have more older adults

01:27:38.780 than ever before proportionately in society have you wondered why like have you considered that that

01:27:45.760 seems sort of counterintuitive that we should expect people to be having more conservative leaning views

01:27:50.460 as opposed to this kind of extreme leftist woke ideology being so predominant so here's some optimism

01:27:56.500 I hear from the field a lot of uh teachers write to me and say that the current generation of high

01:28:04.140 schoolers are visibly less woke than the immediately previous ones so there does seem to be some sense of

01:28:12.580 anecdotal hope that uh sort of the the feeder armies of wokesters is maybe coming to an end uh I can't speak about the

01:28:22.100 older folks uh you know they could have been remnants from the hippie socialist news who knows but uh

01:28:27.780 but it really does seem as though there is a bit of a pushback even starting at the high school level

01:28:34.440 but again what worries me is that even if we were to reverse course it's not something that can be

01:28:41.520 reversed it took 50 60 years for all of these parasitic ideas to become the prime minister of canada

01:28:49.040 uh so it'll it'll take a while that's the problem it's really a long game and that's why i keep doing

01:28:58.440 what i do my wife always tells me you know you you already made a very stressful life why do you take

01:29:03.340 on all these things well because we have reasonably young children i'm not doing it for me i'm doing it

01:29:08.020 for your children and your grandchildren because if not we'll lose this country very quick well thank you

01:29:13.060 again thank you so much all our children and yeah thanks for some more to dr sock

01:29:17.440 great and uh i think that's a great opening to set the tone for the conference you know we're going

01:29:31.320 to get into some specific details over the next few days with uh issues like drug policy and assisted

01:29:37.220 suicide and uh transgenderism you know just uh all of the non-controversial topics we'll talk about

01:29:43.220 um so i think there was a bit of a confusing misprint which was totally my fault on the schedule it we do

01:29:50.040 start at eight in the morning so um you know enjoy tonight but not so much that you can't be here for

01:29:56.560 eight in the morning because it'll be uh dr zucker talking at eight o'clock on transgenders so uh with that

01:30:02.540 we'll let you guys enjoy your night chit chat and like say at some point we can work way up to the main

01:30:06.840 building okay

01:30:07.340 okay

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - May 21, 2025

Parasitic Ideas in Medicine - the Woke Oath Supersedes the Hippocratic Oath (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_836)

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript