The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - Suicidal Empathy & Post-Election Liberal Meltdown! Livestream with Viva Frei (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_751)

00:00:00.000 The newest title of The Dr. Gad Said, who's sitting there.

00:00:04.980 If you saw what I see right now, what you're going to see,

00:00:07.460 I'm looking at a statue of a Greek hero chiseled out of rock.

00:00:12.440 Gad, I'm bringing you in.

00:00:14.320 Oh, my.

00:00:15.640 Oh, my.

00:00:16.260 I like that.

00:00:17.040 Chiseled Greek god.

00:00:18.180 I love it.

00:00:19.920 I look bigger than you on screen, but you're a good six inches taller than me

00:00:23.220 and more impressive than me in real life.

00:00:27.020 Gad, how's the battle?

00:00:28.140 In the upper six inches or where it really counts, in the pan six inches?

00:00:33.200 Which one were you referring to?

00:00:34.400 Probably both.

00:00:35.260 All that I know is that mine worked well enough for three kids,

00:00:37.340 and that's all I needed in life.

00:00:39.480 How are you doing, Viva?

00:00:40.480 So good to see you.

00:00:41.380 The same.

00:00:41.960 Gad, you're stuck behind the maple gulag up in Canada 1.00

00:00:45.120 where the shit is hitting the fan these days. 1.00

00:00:47.960 Yes. 1.00

00:00:48.420 Well, I don't know if you saw.

00:00:50.280 I actually prepared it for you.

00:00:52.300 I just put out a tweet of my fear.

00:00:55.740 You know, the full fear that all of my colleagues are exhibiting.

00:00:59.240 So could I share with you?

00:01:00.520 Can I read out my tweet?

00:01:01.780 No, please.

00:01:02.400 Do you see?

00:01:03.580 Oh, go to the private chat, and then you can send me the link.

00:01:06.440 But I'll just go to you right now and get it.

00:01:09.080 Yeah.

00:01:09.860 You're asking me to multitask.

00:01:11.520 It's so much for you.

00:01:12.440 I'll get it.

00:01:13.100 Is this the...

00:01:14.540 Let me see here.

00:01:15.220 It's pretty, it's pretty, it's very early in my feed,

00:01:18.700 like probably about half an hour ago.

00:01:21.020 Oh, 1226.

00:01:22.720 So it's...

00:01:23.280 1226.

00:01:23.880 It's, it's, it's called, it's my own Donald Trump orgiastic

00:01:28.920 Dear Diary entry of full fear.

00:01:31.640 You ready?

00:01:32.400 Yeah, I got it.

00:01:33.180 I'll bring it up when you read it, and I'll bring it up in two seconds.

00:01:35.780 Now, I was going to splash like, you know, fake tears on me

00:01:40.320 because I'm so scared.

00:01:41.300 So I'm going to read it for your fans.

00:01:43.400 Here we go.

00:01:43.940 Okay, ready?

00:01:46.040 Today, I stand before you as a fearful Jew of color. 0.85

00:01:50.620 Now that Trump has won, I realize that my days as a free man are numbered.

00:01:55.900 Also, my wife, who self-identifies as a man,

00:02:00.140 is fearful that he will be sent to a trans gulag.

00:02:05.420 Because my biological female wife is a man, 1.00

00:02:10.060 this implies that we are in a same-sex gay marriage. 1.00

00:02:13.340 I know that Trump is going to commit a genocide on gay people. 0.99

00:02:17.600 So I worry that if we were to ever go to the U.S., 0.99

00:02:21.360 we will be rounded up into extermination camps.

00:02:25.020 Finally, as a behavioral scientist and professor of 30 plus years,

00:02:30.300 I know that Trump is anti-science.

00:02:33.040 Hence, I'm likely going to be fired from an academic job

00:02:36.160 because he plans on eradicating science.

00:02:38.180 I'm looking at the possibility of starting a falafel food truck with my friend Ahmed,

00:02:46.380 but I worry that Trump is going to round up all Muslims.

00:02:50.320 Finally, my husband, meaning my biological female wife who identifies the man, 0.95

00:02:55.960 might wish to have unlimited abortions. 0.99

00:02:58.640 And I fear that he won't be able to do that anymore.

00:03:02.180 Please help me.

00:03:03.840 I'm so scared.

00:03:05.300 And then I put in brackets,

00:03:07.120 it's really surprising that Trump won on Tuesday.

00:03:11.280 Do you buy my story of full fear?

00:03:13.820 Do you feel my fear?

00:03:15.540 Well, the funny thing is,

00:03:16.940 if I didn't know you,

00:03:18.900 I would not necessarily be a thousand percent certain that that is satire and parody.

00:03:23.300 I mean, let's start from ground zero here,

00:03:29.020 like the step one.

00:03:30.240 People call mass formation psychosis a conspiracy theory

00:03:35.240 or something that doesn't exist.

00:03:37.100 What are your credentials for those who may not know you?

00:03:40.580 Well, I have a bachelor's of science and mathematics, computer science.

00:03:45.260 I have an MBA with a thesis in operations research.

00:03:48.440 I have an MS in science.

00:03:50.060 I mean, officially it's in management,

00:03:52.560 but it's in behavioral sciences.

00:03:54.320 And my PhD is in psychology of decision-making

00:03:56.920 with one of the leading cognitive psychologists in the world.

00:04:00.400 He just recently retired.

00:04:01.800 I've been a behavioral scientist for 30 plus years.

00:04:04.860 I pioneered the field of evolutionary consumer behavior.

00:04:08.740 So I know one or two things about human behavior.

00:04:11.960 So let's start with the number one thing.

00:04:14.280 Mass formation psychosis,

00:04:15.660 which we're told doesn't exist as a conspiracy theory.

00:04:18.640 Oddly enough,

00:04:19.380 the authorities that fact checkers use to debunk it

00:04:22.760 are behavioral science,

00:04:24.540 or they're so-called behavioral group psychologists,

00:04:27.200 which to me,

00:04:28.500 group behavior is mass formation psychosis by another name.

00:04:32.600 Your professional opinion, Doc,

00:04:35.660 does it exist or does it not exist?

00:04:37.500 And what is it in reality?

00:04:39.320 It does.

00:04:39.920 Look, it's hardly the first time

00:04:42.540 that the manifestation of this kind of unhinged collective irrationality

00:04:47.780 has taken place, right?

00:04:49.360 What makes it unique?

00:04:50.880 So, for example, oftentimes,

00:04:52.380 so to your question,

00:04:53.320 and I'll just add to it,

00:04:54.300 many times people ask me,

00:04:55.660 so what you refer to in your book

00:04:57.800 as parasitic idea pathogens,

00:05:00.480 is this a novel thing?

00:05:02.320 So to your question,

00:05:03.220 is mass psychosis something new?

00:05:05.940 It's not new,

00:05:07.280 but the specific parasitic ideas are new.

00:05:10.280 So to draw an analogy,

00:05:12.580 it's not as though viruses didn't exist prior to COVID,

00:05:17.420 but COVID was a new virus, right?

00:05:19.780 So viruses have always existed,

00:05:21.500 but there's now a new manifestation.

00:05:23.320 In 1918,

00:05:24.380 there was the Spanish flu,

00:05:25.920 another virus, okay?

00:05:27.240 So the problem arises today

00:05:29.980 that over the past 50 to 100 years,

00:05:33.100 there is a set of dreadful ideas,

00:05:36.520 all of which were spawned on university campuses,

00:05:39.780 and it took a while to proliferate

00:05:42.040 outside of the ivory tower,

00:05:44.020 and what we're seeing now,

00:05:45.920 in part,

00:05:46.520 which you call mass psychosis,

00:05:48.380 I call, you know,

00:05:49.620 parasitic idea pathogens,

00:05:51.920 is the result of that indoctrination

00:05:55.000 that has been slowly taking place

00:05:57.420 for 50 to 100 years.

00:05:59.080 The reason why I say 50 to 100,

00:06:00.620 because depending on the parasitic idea,

00:06:03.860 you can put a stamp of,

00:06:06.680 it's about 100 years ago.

00:06:07.860 So say, for example,

00:06:08.620 cultural relativism,

00:06:10.260 the idea that all cultures are equal

00:06:12.360 and who are we to judge the values

00:06:13.980 of another culture and so on,

00:06:15.580 that came from Franz Boas,

00:06:17.660 a Columbia University professor,

00:06:19.660 about 100 years ago.

00:06:20.860 On the other hand,

00:06:21.780 postmodernism is a movement

00:06:23.780 that started about 50 years ago or so.

00:06:26.580 So between 50 and 100 years

00:06:28.280 is when all the lunacy really started.

00:06:30.640 And now,

00:06:31.760 like,

00:06:32.160 I can only think of,

00:06:33.280 like, two modern areas.

00:06:34.160 You think of Nazi Germany

00:06:35.640 is the classic paradigm

00:06:37.020 of when society descends into madness.

00:06:38.740 You can think of Mao's revolution

00:06:40.520 or Stalinism in general.

00:06:42.620 And some people will say,

00:06:43.520 well, that's not,

00:06:44.100 that's not a form of mass group hysteria

00:06:46.580 or that's more living under tyranny

00:06:49.760 and everyone's too scared to do whatever.

00:06:51.160 But there were true believers

00:06:52.320 in all of those,

00:06:53.780 in as much as we're seeing

00:06:54.520 true believers today.

00:06:55.480 I mean, I guess,

00:06:58.280 so nothing new.

00:06:59.700 We're tapping into something

00:07:00.480 of human condition

00:07:01.640 of, I would call,

00:07:02.380 the weak spirits,

00:07:03.260 the weak minds.

00:07:04.340 Exactly.

00:07:05.020 So to take your example

00:07:06.780 of, say, the Soviet Union,

00:07:08.460 and I referenced this 0.97

00:07:09.600 in the parasitic mind, 0.78

00:07:11.340 Lysenkoism, okay, 1.00

00:07:13.800 was a scientific theory

00:07:16.500 named after Lysenko,

00:07:19.240 who was the head of science

00:07:20.720 under Stalin.

00:07:21.980 They believed that

00:07:23.900 the laws of heredity,

00:07:25.640 the laws of genetics,

00:07:27.160 were not consistent

00:07:28.780 with Marxist philosophy.

00:07:31.660 And therefore,

00:07:32.480 they purported

00:07:34.120 that there is another

00:07:35.260 more veridical genetic theory,

00:07:37.820 which then became known

00:07:39.440 as Lysenkoism.

00:07:41.220 Without getting into

00:07:42.400 the technical weeds,

00:07:43.420 it is based on something

00:07:44.600 in evolutionary theory

00:07:45.760 called Lamarckism,

00:07:47.520 which is a theory

00:07:48.340 of acquired traits,

00:07:49.380 which is not how

00:07:50.620 evolutionary mechanisms operate,

00:07:52.860 at least not when it comes

00:07:53.900 to, say, crossing crops,

00:07:56.540 when you're developing

00:07:57.920 an agricultural program.

00:07:59.060 But they thought

00:08:00.220 that that theory

00:08:01.280 was more in line

00:08:02.380 with their Marxist philosophies,

00:08:04.020 so they built

00:08:04.880 their food programs

00:08:06.060 and their agricultural programs

00:08:07.960 in line with this

00:08:09.320 false scientific theory,

00:08:11.580 which then led to

00:08:12.820 the death by starvation

00:08:15.060 of 20 to 30 million people.

00:08:16.980 The reason why

00:08:17.640 I tell that story

00:08:18.580 is because it demonstrates

00:08:20.160 that it's not only,

00:08:22.040 you know,

00:08:22.700 the uneducated

00:08:24.240 that are parasitized 0.84

00:08:25.580 by these weak minds, 0.79

00:08:26.660 as you said. 0.67

00:08:27.560 To the contrary,

00:08:28.700 it's usually

00:08:29.440 the intellectuals

00:08:31.340 who come up

00:08:32.240 with those dreadful ideas,

00:08:34.260 and then because

00:08:35.220 of their imprimatur

00:08:36.620 as experts,

00:08:37.920 they can then pass

00:08:39.000 on those theories 1.00

00:08:40.000 to all of the imbeciles 1.00

00:08:41.800 out there. 1.00

00:08:42.960 It's, like,

00:08:44.040 Lysenkoism 1.00

00:08:44.640 is kind of amazing,

00:08:45.740 especially when

00:08:46.200 you're talking about farming.

00:08:47.240 It's almost as absurd,

00:08:49.700 but not quite as absurd,

00:08:51.200 or I guess,

00:08:51.940 you've seen Idiocracy,

00:08:53.280 correct?

00:08:54.320 I know of it.

00:08:55.500 I didn't see it

00:08:55.880 from start to finish.

00:08:56.900 You absolutely must,

00:08:58.040 because there's a part

00:08:59.320 of it where they're

00:08:59.700 giving Brondo,

00:09:00.540 you know,

00:09:00.720 plants need electrolytes.

00:09:02.200 It's got electrolytes,

00:09:02.980 so they're feeding plants

00:09:04.040 basically Gatorade,

00:09:05.400 the movie version of Gatorade,

00:09:06.660 and all the plants are dying,

00:09:07.720 and the guy's like,

00:09:08.120 why are you giving

00:09:08.740 the plants Gatorade?

00:09:10.340 And they say,

00:09:10.640 well, it's got electrolytes.

00:09:12.500 It's like,

00:09:12.800 do you know what

00:09:13.240 electrolytes do?

00:09:14.220 And they say,

00:09:15.140 they just need water.

00:09:16.000 And he's like,

00:09:16.520 the water growing

00:09:17.200 out of the toilet?

00:09:18.180 The water you have

00:09:18.880 in the toilet?

00:09:19.340 And he's like,

00:09:19.720 yeah,

00:09:19.920 he's like,

00:09:20.320 well,

00:09:20.660 Mr. Smarty Pants,

00:09:21.740 why don't I see plants

00:09:22.660 growing out of the toilet then?

00:09:23.780 And it's that level

00:09:24.880 of insanity

00:09:25.500 that you have

00:09:26.500 when the science

00:09:27.020 doesn't work,

00:09:27.820 you make up

00:09:28.580 some sort of excuse,

00:09:29.540 political excuse for it,

00:09:30.520 and lo and behold,

00:09:31.780 they had the dust bowl 0.99

00:09:33.140 and idiocracy, 0.95

00:09:33.880 and they had a famine

00:09:34.540 that killed 20 million people

00:09:35.840 as a result

00:09:36.840 of Lensankoism.

00:09:39.180 However,

00:09:39.920 you're in the thick

00:09:40.920 of Canada,

00:09:41.780 where I see people

00:09:43.020 virtue signaling

00:09:43.780 the election of Trump,

00:09:45.180 not understanding

00:09:46.200 it was a decisive

00:09:47.340 landslide

00:09:48.180 majority vote,

00:09:50.000 a popular vote victory, 0.99

00:09:51.540 and yet these jackasses 1.00

00:09:52.740 think they know better 0.99

00:09:53.640 than the people

00:09:54.140 for themselves.

00:09:55.080 What's the mood

00:09:55.640 up in Canada?

00:09:56.180 Well,

00:09:57.340 it's exactly

00:09:58.100 what you would expect

00:09:59.520 from a super-progressive country,

00:10:02.580 which is that

00:10:04.020 this demonstrates,

00:10:06.080 this only solidifies

00:10:07.420 our view,

00:10:08.480 I'm speaking now

00:10:09.240 as the progressive Canadian,

00:10:10.820 not as Gatsat,

00:10:12.060 that,

00:10:12.520 you know,

00:10:13.060 our southern neighbors

00:10:14.480 are truly ruled 0.99

00:10:16.500 by insane, 1.00

00:10:18.080 degenerate, 1.00

00:10:19.040 toothless, 1.00

00:10:20.200 maniacs 0.99

00:10:20.940 who sleep 1.00

00:10:21.480 with their sisters,

00:10:22.280 right?

00:10:22.480 I mean,

00:10:22.740 what else could,

00:10:23.940 what else could explain

00:10:25.580 that Trump would come to,

00:10:27.300 but by the way,

00:10:27.860 I,

00:10:28.860 yes,

00:10:29.100 of course,

00:10:29.480 I've got a talent

00:10:30.300 to use,

00:10:30.960 you know,

00:10:31.180 hyperbolic humor

00:10:32.080 and satire,

00:10:33.000 but what makes

00:10:34.420 that satire

00:10:35.380 so powerful

00:10:36.060 is that it really

00:10:36.880 is a very accurate

00:10:38.320 description.

00:10:38.940 As you said,

00:10:39.580 when I first read

00:10:40.700 my tweet,

00:10:41.140 and you said,

00:10:41.460 I wouldn't be able

00:10:42.220 to know if I didn't

00:10:42.960 know you,

00:10:43.520 if it's real or fake,

00:10:44.700 if you're being satirical

00:10:45.600 or not,

00:10:46.700 the kind of hysteria

00:10:48.460 you see,

00:10:49.320 Viva,

00:10:50.340 you know,

00:10:51.120 it offends me

00:10:52.240 to my core,

00:10:53.060 so I,

00:10:53.760 and again,

00:10:54.780 this is not some

00:10:56.360 misinformed,

00:10:57.860 quote,

00:10:58.520 low information voter

00:10:59.820 that's espousing

00:11:00.840 those positions.

00:11:01.800 Those are my colleagues,

00:11:03.760 many of whom

00:11:04.700 have all of the titles

00:11:06.900 and accolades

00:11:07.660 that you could hope

00:11:08.300 to have.

00:11:08.960 By the way,

00:11:10.180 well,

00:11:10.680 speaking of which,

00:11:11.740 Gann,

00:11:11.860 I mean,

00:11:12.000 I went down your feed

00:11:13.060 here also.

00:11:13.660 I mean,

00:11:14.120 we come across

00:11:15.380 similar stuff,

00:11:16.260 but this is,

00:11:16.940 this is a real thing,

00:11:18.100 by the way,

00:11:18.340 that you retweeted.

00:11:19.220 You said,

00:11:20.000 let's see if I can get

00:11:20.580 this here.

00:11:21.180 In my entire academic career,

00:11:22.420 I have never incorporated

00:11:23.400 political issues

00:11:24.140 into my pedagogic

00:11:25.120 responsibilities.

00:11:26.200 Check this out.

00:11:26.880 What happens if someone

00:11:27.600 in this person's lab

00:11:28.520 was a fervent supporter

00:11:29.680 of Donald Trump?

00:11:30.960 Academia needs to be purged

00:11:31.980 of this ideological rapture.

00:11:33.940 It is a cancer

00:11:34.740 that I've been warning you

00:11:36.060 about for decades.

00:11:37.080 Read this full,

00:11:37.820 read this,

00:11:38.540 or please read

00:11:39.040 The Parasitic Mind

00:11:39.840 and make sure you get

00:11:40.660 suicidal empathy

00:11:41.260 when it comes out

00:11:41.820 for pre-ordering.

00:11:42.540 I will,

00:11:43.040 but I gotta bring up

00:11:44.080 this tweet that you,

00:11:45.200 that you brought up.

00:11:45.980 There you go.

00:11:46.300 I sent this to my lab

00:11:47.480 this morning.

00:11:47.940 This is from a neuroscientist.

00:11:50.520 This is from academia.

00:11:52.340 This woman,

00:11:52.880 presumably,

00:11:53.800 or man,

00:11:54.380 I don't know who it is,

00:11:55.220 presumably reads,

00:11:56.220 grades other people's papers.

00:11:57.480 And if they know

00:11:58.340 their politics,

00:11:59.000 I would not expect

00:11:59.880 a fair review.

00:12:01.300 This is from what

00:12:01.900 the person wrote

00:12:02.560 to their lab.

00:12:03.100 Hyle,

00:12:03.740 well,

00:12:04.080 that didn't go well.

00:12:05.200 That didn't go well.

00:12:06.080 Sorry,

00:12:06.600 general population vote.

00:12:08.840 Doesn't matter.

00:12:09.820 That didn't go well.

00:12:10.420 Between the snow

00:12:11.300 and an election result,

00:12:13.480 that is to say

00:12:14.500 the least incredibly disheartening,

00:12:16.240 please feel free

00:12:17.220 to take a day or two

00:12:18.800 if you need time.

00:12:20.700 I want to say

00:12:21.260 that even though 0.91

00:12:21.700 America is terrible 0.96

00:12:22.760 and, 0.98

00:12:23.520 at least at this moment,

00:12:24.720 doesn't value us

00:12:25.820 or our identities,

00:12:27.440 you are all great people

00:12:28.560 and I appreciate you all,

00:12:30.600 except those who voted for Trump,

00:12:31.860 for your uniqueness

00:12:32.780 that makes our lab

00:12:33.960 a remarkable group

00:12:34.820 and we are a better place,

00:12:36.640 we are a better people

00:12:37.400 and scientists for it.

00:12:38.800 I am happy

00:12:39.680 that all of you

00:12:40.540 are part of the lab

00:12:41.740 and I will do everything

00:12:42.720 I can to support our group

00:12:43.820 and you each individually

00:12:44.940 for whatever comes

00:12:45.920 down the line.

00:12:46.760 I will be in today

00:12:48.060 and tomorrow.

00:12:49.340 I am WFH,

00:12:51.120 what does that mean,

00:12:51.440 working from home

00:12:52.100 on Friday

00:12:52.780 and available

00:12:53.460 for regular meetings.

00:12:54.380 We can complain bitterly

00:12:55.340 and cry together

00:12:56.000 for those who are scheduled today.

00:12:57.500 I don't know

00:12:57.940 if this person's in America

00:12:58.860 or Canada.

00:12:59.920 They talk as though

00:13:01.040 statistically 50%

00:13:02.940 of their lab

00:13:03.460 wouldn't be Trump supporters,

00:13:04.840 which means that

00:13:05.560 there is some ideological purge

00:13:07.260 that this person

00:13:07.940 is banking on

00:13:08.600 in academia.

00:13:10.360 Well, there isn't,

00:13:11.160 by the way.

00:13:11.900 I don't know either

00:13:12.780 if they're in Canada

00:13:13.700 or the U.S.,

00:13:14.360 but it isn't 50-50,

00:13:16.520 right?

00:13:16.800 Because as I provide

00:13:19.500 endless evidence 0.98

00:13:21.060 in the parasitic mind 0.94

00:13:22.120 of studies

00:13:23.200 that have looked

00:13:23.900 at the political affiliation

00:13:25.980 of professors

00:13:26.940 and, you know,

00:13:27.800 academia,

00:13:29.180 I mean,

00:13:30.100 across all disciplines,

00:13:31.680 it can vary

00:13:32.580 from 5 to 1

00:13:33.860 to 11 to 1,

00:13:35.680 which is certainly

00:13:36.660 unbelievably lopsided.

00:13:37.900 But in activist disciplines,

00:13:40.400 in anthropology

00:13:41.420 and in sociology

00:13:42.320 and in ethnic studies

00:13:43.900 and in communications

00:13:45.320 and so on,

00:13:46.200 it could be

00:13:47.120 130 to 0.

00:13:49.760 In other words,

00:13:50.540 you're more likely

00:13:51.720 to run

00:13:52.400 into a unicorn

00:13:54.100 or, you know,

00:13:55.000 a horse

00:13:56.020 with wings.

00:13:57.880 I mean,

00:13:58.240 literally,

00:13:59.220 than you are

00:14:00.060 to run

00:14:00.600 across a Republican

00:14:03.020 professor

00:14:03.640 in communications

00:14:05.000 or almost

00:14:06.100 in psychology.

00:14:06.920 So is that

00:14:08.660 a good thing?

00:14:09.400 I mean,

00:14:09.680 does it make,

00:14:10.280 I mean,

00:14:11.080 I explain to people,

00:14:12.140 look,

00:14:12.400 there are certain

00:14:13.220 issues in academia

00:14:14.680 that are true

00:14:16.560 irrespective

00:14:17.640 of your political orientation.

00:14:19.060 So, for example,

00:14:20.360 you know,

00:14:20.680 tectonic plate dynamics

00:14:22.960 are true or not

00:14:24.480 whether you're

00:14:25.180 Republican or Democrat.

00:14:27.020 The theory of evolution

00:14:28.160 has been verified

00:14:29.480 in endless ways

00:14:30.520 and it doesn't matter

00:14:31.200 whether you're

00:14:31.660 Republican or Democrat.

00:14:32.760 On the other hand,

00:14:33.800 on the other hand,

00:14:34.380 if I'm teaching

00:14:35.080 about the ethics

00:14:36.380 and morality

00:14:37.040 of the death penalty,

00:14:38.760 there are very

00:14:39.680 compelling arguments

00:14:40.760 that could be made

00:14:41.720 by both sides

00:14:42.880 of that issue,

00:14:44.160 right?

00:14:44.640 And so I would

00:14:45.320 certainly stand

00:14:46.300 to benefit

00:14:46.880 if I'm able

00:14:47.680 to hear those

00:14:48.560 that may not share

00:14:49.740 my views

00:14:50.260 on whatever

00:14:51.700 fiscal policy

00:14:52.800 that we're discussing

00:14:53.640 or foreign policy

00:14:55.880 or death penalty

00:14:57.040 and so on and so forth.

00:14:58.280 So in some disciplines,

00:14:59.980 you genuinely

00:15:01.160 are murdering 1.00

00:15:03.000 and raping 1.00

00:15:03.700 the pursuit

00:15:04.400 of truth

00:15:05.220 if you presume

00:15:06.460 that there is only

00:15:07.380 one right position

00:15:09.080 to take.

00:15:09.920 And so we are

00:15:10.500 cheating our students

00:15:11.760 and their intellectual

00:15:12.640 development

00:15:13.320 as this neuroscientist

00:15:15.240 is doing

00:15:15.680 by presuming

00:15:16.900 that anybody

00:15:17.700 who's in her lab

00:15:18.920 surely must be

00:15:20.320 of the same

00:15:20.980 political opinion.

00:15:21.680 It's grotesque.

00:15:23.540 I had,

00:15:24.080 there was another

00:15:24.380 beautiful one,

00:15:25.040 Gad,

00:15:25.080 I'm not sure

00:15:25.460 if you saw this.

00:15:26.620 When you say

00:15:27.460 like what they think

00:15:28.280 of Americans,

00:15:29.080 let me just make sure

00:15:29.560 my,

00:15:30.100 this is,

00:15:31.080 well,

00:15:31.400 she's a Democrat strategist 0.99

00:15:32.580 so that's fair enough 1.00

00:15:33.740 that she'll be an idiot. 1.00

00:15:34.800 White men 1.00

00:15:35.420 without college degrees 1.00

00:15:36.840 are going to ruin

00:15:37.780 this country.

00:15:38.760 Yes.

00:15:40.040 I mean,

00:15:40.480 think of,

00:15:41.300 think of,

00:15:42.140 I mean,

00:15:43.580 Elon Musk,

00:15:44.700 total uneducated

00:15:46.840 guy who's never

00:15:48.400 done anything

00:15:49.040 in his life

00:15:49.760 who's the biggest

00:15:50.660 supporter

00:15:51.200 of Trump.

00:15:54.440 You know,

00:15:54.760 Gatsad

00:15:55.360 has,

00:15:56.180 you know,

00:15:56.400 a very,

00:15:57.020 very long list

00:15:57.920 of degree,

00:15:58.640 you know,

00:15:59.260 the diplomas

00:16:00.060 and degrees

00:16:00.680 and all sorts

00:16:01.760 of titles.

00:16:02.520 Again,

00:16:03.120 just an uneducated 0.99

00:16:04.360 white guy,

00:16:04.900 although I'm Lebanese

00:16:05.880 so I'm a Jew

00:16:06.680 of color.

00:16:08.180 J-O-C, 1.00

00:16:09.260 I've never,

00:16:10.140 they're like that,

00:16:10.700 huh?

00:16:11.240 You've got Bill Ackman,

00:16:12.560 another guy who's

00:16:13.360 never done anything,

00:16:14.320 Douglas Murray,

00:16:14.940 you've got,

00:16:15.480 here's another

00:16:16.000 uneducated 0.98

00:16:17.000 white guy, 0.99

00:16:18.320 the Somali

00:16:19.340 woman, 1.00

00:16:20.300 Ayana Hirsi Ali

00:16:21.540 is also

00:16:22.900 an uneducated 0.91

00:16:23.860 white guy. 0.80

00:16:25.200 So,

00:16:25.820 it's,

00:16:26.100 you know,

00:16:26.440 it's such

00:16:27.780 an affront,

00:16:29.000 you know,

00:16:29.440 as you,

00:16:30.300 you know me

00:16:31.180 enough to know this

00:16:32.120 but maybe some of

00:16:32.960 your viewers

00:16:33.520 and listeners

00:16:33.900 don't,

00:16:34.740 in Chapter 1

00:16:35.660 of the parasitic mind, I basically state that the two fundamental ideals that drive and guide my

00:16:42.580 life trajectory are truth and freedom. So, you know, I'm perfectly happy if I do something wrong

00:16:50.840 to stand up and say, hey, I'm really sorry, Viva. I know I showed up 20 minutes late and please

00:16:56.260 forgive me, right? It takes humility, right? But that's what you need if you're going to function

00:17:01.800 properly in society. You admit when you're wrong, you stand proudly when you think you're right,

00:17:07.080 but you regulate your behavior so that you always exhibit epistemological humility.

00:17:12.160 Those folks simply could never do so, right? It doesn't matter how much evidence I show you

00:17:17.760 that Donald Trump's tent is the most inclusive tent that one could have ever imagined. It's still only

00:17:25.240 uneducated, hick, white people who are voting for him. 0.99

00:17:29.860 Look, you're going to love this. Now, in fairness to this, I don't know if it was from 2016 or 2024, 0.97

00:17:36.820 but it doesn't matter. With the imagery that you see here, look at this. I'm going to turn the volume

00:17:41.880 down so I don't get copy-claimed on this. This is European politicians, from what I understand,

00:17:47.960 sitting there with their arms crossed. Like, this has to be, there has to be some human evolution

00:17:52.240 thing about this particular stance that makes it repulsive. But you've got foreigners standing 1.00

00:18:00.280 like scorned housewives or angry mothers looking at their kids, and that is the attitude that they

00:18:06.640 have to people who voted en masse against them. And what blows my mind, now I've been breaking down

00:18:12.800 some of the stats. Set aside, it's a popular vote victory. The number may come down a little bit

00:18:18.200 because they're still counting California. 45% of Latinos voted for Trump. Record numbers with

00:18:25.800 black men. Record numbers with black women, but still, you know, 20%. And what they're basically 0.99

00:18:31.960 saying, I try not to draw these hyperbolic comparisons and call them, you know, like,

00:18:36.260 this is what slave owners used to do back in the day. But the treatment is that of a slave owner,

00:18:40.360 where it's like the minorities don't know what's good for them. They need the woman standing there 0.96

00:18:45.320 with her arms crossed, telling them how to think, how to vote and what to do. And when they deviate

00:18:49.640 and when they veer too far from the plantation, then they say, you better come back because we're

00:18:53.940 the ones telling you what to do. You don't get to think for yourself. But this, is there an

00:18:58.360 evolutionary reason for why that gives you? I mean, not, I don't know if I can make an intelligent

00:19:04.700 comment about specifically the scornful nonverbal stance. But I think in terms of an existential

00:19:11.420 stance, it basically is saying, you either believe as I do, or there is something morally

00:19:19.020 diseased about you. And therefore, that's why I must look at you with such scorn, right? Because

00:19:24.720 I am part as Thomas Sowell. Oh, Thomas Sowell, who's another uneducated white man, right? For those of

00:19:32.200 you who don't understand the satire, he's a black man, arguably one of our, the best intellectuals that

00:19:38.120 the United States has ever had. He's an economist. But apparently, he's a white, uneducated man, 0.94

00:19:43.800 he certainly would not be supporting Kamala and her degenerates. But that's, that's the reality, 0.98

00:19:50.620 certainly in academia. I mean, that kind of stance is exactly the world that I have inhabited for well

00:19:57.040 over three decades. I'll give you a great story. I mean, people learn a lot from storytelling. I mean,

00:20:03.080 I could give you all of the fancy academic stuff. But what sticks is when you back it up with actual

00:20:08.940 vivid narratives. Okay. So in 2023, I was invited to be one of the plenary speakers at a one day

00:20:17.680 conference at USC, you know, a prestigious university in Southern California. It was in celebration of,

00:20:25.880 I think, the 10 year anniversary of a particular center at USC. And it was a day on, you know,

00:20:31.320 are enlightenment values still, you know, de rigueur? Are they still valid? And so on. So I gave a talk

00:20:39.080 at that conference, and you can watch my talk on my channel, on deontological versus consequentialist

00:20:47.060 ethics. And if you want, just as a small tangential parenthesis, let me just explain what that is.

00:20:52.520 So deontological ethics are absolute statements of ethical positions. It is never okay to lie,

00:20:58.820 would be a deontological statement. Consequentialism would be judging the moral and ethical standards

00:21:06.880 of a particular action based on its consequences. So if I say, well, it's okay to lie, to spare my wife's

00:21:14.460 feelings, if she asks me, do I look good in that dress or not? Well, then that would be consequentialist.

00:21:19.500 And as I tried to explain in a very professorial manner at the talk, it's a very serious talk,

00:21:24.820 you know, no, no gad humor, very sober. I said, look, for many, many things, it makes perfect sense

00:21:31.160 for us to put on a consequentialist hat. But for certain foundational principles, by definition,

00:21:37.000 they are deontological. So if you say things like, I believe in freedom of speech, but, and the but is

00:21:43.800 just a bunch of consequentialist calculations, then you are an imbecile who doesn't believe in freedom 1.00

00:21:50.000 of speech. And I gave many examples to highlight this point, only one of which was the Trump example 0.99

00:21:57.440 when he was booted out of what was then Twitter. And I said, it can't make sense that you believe

00:22:04.300 in freedom of speech, but not for Donald Trump. Uniquely, there is an asterisk in this deontological

00:22:10.940 principle that says Donald Trump is not afforded that deontological right. That was my only contribution

00:22:17.080 contribution to Trump in that bigger lecture that I can remember. If you saw the Q&A period after,

00:22:24.880 which by the way, even though they promised that they would send me, they decided not to send it

00:22:29.740 because they realized that once I would advertise it on my large platform, it would make them look

00:22:36.100 really bad. They said, oh, well, we can't send it because we didn't get signed clearance from all

00:22:41.420 the audience members that the clip could be released. It was a public event. It didn't follow

00:22:46.480 any secrecy laws. But people started getting up and they were unhinged in their hysteria. By the way,

00:22:54.540 my wife and kids were with me in that room. And my children, who are still very young, came up to me

00:23:00.140 and said, Daddy, why are people screaming like that at you? It's insane. One of them, by the way,

00:23:05.840 so to our point about mass psychosis, said to me, it makes perfect sense that the government

00:23:12.320 would regulate some of your speech if it is dangerous and corrosive. Speaking specifically

00:23:18.360 to me, I said, can you give me an example of something that I said in today's event that you

00:23:24.760 would consider to be, that would require the government to step in and stop? He said, well,

00:23:31.480 for example, by the way, when he first began his Q&A, he had to say what his identity is.

00:23:37.500 I'm a Latino. I like when they put the extra T. I'm a Latino. I'm a gay Latino man who studies sex, 0.85

00:23:45.760 whatever. He said to me, when you said that men do not, cannot bear children and that men 0.97

00:23:52.060 don't menstruate, that should be regulated. So then I paused and in my inimitable God style, 0.90

00:23:59.660 I said, let me just repeat this to see if I understood. You think that when it comes to the

00:24:04.460 issue of whether men menstruate and can bear children, I'm on the wrong side of that issue?

00:24:11.700 And then you can sort of hear uncomfortable murmur. That happened not at a psychiatric ward,

00:24:17.860 it happened at USC. That's University of Southern California. Yes, sir.

00:24:23.600 It's officially crazy. The thing is, though, I think it's officially crazy. The idea was that by

00:24:35.000 denying a biological fact that that qualifies as the requisite degree of real life violence,

00:24:40.160 that it would warrant censorship online. Exactly. And it's all of those parasitic ideas. So

00:24:49.240 in the parasitic mind, I was trying to come up with a universal explanation for why each of those

00:24:56.720 parasitic ideas are so catchy. Like, what is it that could make someone actually believe this nonsense? 0.73

00:25:03.480 So in the same way, and let me draw an analogy. Different cancers have different trajectories,

00:25:09.560 but the singular thing that they have in common is unchecked cell division. So at least we can agree

00:25:14.920 that that that is a commonality across the different cancers. Okay. So what is common across all of these

00:25:21.320 parasitic ideas, postmodernism, cultural relativism, social constructivism, radical feminism,

00:25:27.180 it's that they all start off with a noble objective. And then in the service of that noble objective,

00:25:35.140 if you have to rape and murder truth in the service of that objective, so be it. So it's a

00:25:41.300 consequentialist argument, right? So I'm a really super empathetic and kind person. I really love

00:25:48.520 trans people, and I really don't want them to ever have their feelings hurt. So in the service of that

00:25:54.780 goal, well, the reality is most of us don't care that you're trans and want you to live a life that's

00:26:01.440 fully dignified and void of bigotry. But in the service of that goal, I'm not going to nod my head and

00:26:07.720 say, oh, yeah, yeah, men too can menstruate. Oh, yeah, yeah, men too can bear children, because I want

00:26:13.220 to protect your unique personhood, right? That's what I tried to explain to the degenerates in the

00:26:19.760 Canadian Senate in 2017, when I went up as a as an expert witness to say that there are dangers in

00:26:28.100 denying reality. It starts off with a noble empathetic reflex, but then it metamorphosizes

00:26:35.640 into pure bullshit. So that's what's common across all that lunacy. 0.99

00:26:40.080 In the context of your studies, have you done any breakdown as to like what the

00:26:44.300 proportion of true believers are, what the proportion of fake believers are, but who love the power that

00:26:50.000 it gets them, and what the proportion of actually mentally ill individuals who are legally not able to

00:26:56.120 consent among this calculation? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. So I don't have the empirical

00:27:01.220 evidence to answer that question. But I've often questioned it myself in terms of in the deep

00:27:08.960 recesses of their minds, when they go to bed at night and lay their heads on the pillow, do they

00:27:14.060 genuinely believe that? And I suspect that many of them do, because it is a way to protect their

00:27:22.980 their, it's an ego protective mechanism, that I am a truly orgiastically empathetic and kind person,

00:27:31.980 which by the way, not to engage in promotional plugging, but that's exactly the point of my next

00:27:37.520 book, right? Suicidal Empathy. Because what parasitic mind did is it said, here is what happens

00:27:45.220 when your cognitive system is parasitized, right? But we also have an emotional system, right? We are both

00:27:52.360 a thinking and feeling animal. So the parasitic mind is about how parasitic ideas distort your ability

00:28:01.420 to think clearly and to navigate reality clearly. And then in the follow-up with Suicidal Empathy,

00:28:08.320 well, here is what happens once your emotional system is hijacked. And so now you have, if you like,

00:28:14.320 the full, the full story.

00:28:17.060 I'm going to play you, have you seen, you saw Jimmy Kimmel's tearful, tearful statement.

00:28:22.280 Oh, I actually retweeted it. He was so empathetic.

00:28:25.180 Here, let me bring this up. Because this is where, like, I think there's, there's people who exploit this

00:28:29.680 for ego and clout. There's others who exploit it for actual malice. Like, within the online, you know,

00:28:36.560 you must admit that men can shower with, with, with girls, et cetera. There are those who are

00:28:41.920 genuinely mentally unwell, like DSM-5 clinically diagnosable. There are other sociopaths who want

00:28:48.220 to do it because they are deep misogynist and want to abuse women. And then there's others who just 0.98

00:28:52.180 want to do it because it's a lever for control and influence. Watch Jimmy Kimmel because a lot of

00:28:56.480 people were observing. He's not crying out of any form of sincere empathy. He's crying because on the

00:29:01.520 one hand, maybe he doesn't feel that he has any influence anymore because nobody listened to his wise

00:29:05.560 advice. Where's it? Where's the audio here? Hold on a second. Getsky spouses. Did I put the,

00:29:09.860 oh yeah, there we go. Put it down there. Listen to Jimmy Kimmel's crocodile tears.

00:29:13.140 Let's be honest. It was a terrible night last night. It was a terrible night for women, 1.00

00:29:17.360 for children, for the hundreds of thousands of, of hardworking immigrants who make this country go. 1.00

00:29:23.620 Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible

00:29:35.260 night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors, for our allies. Who overwhelmingly voted

00:29:39.560 for Trump. For our allies in Ukraine. For NATO. Go fight, Jimmy. For the truth. And democracy and decency.

00:29:50.260 And it was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him. And guess what? It was a bad night for

00:29:54.500 everyone who voted for him too. You just don't realize. You had a little too much to think there,

00:29:58.760 middle class who voted overwhelmingly for Trump. What do you, like, do you think that they're

00:30:03.820 finally losing whatever control they had over directing narratives and controlling public

00:30:09.760 influence? They are. I mean, certainly they are. But by the way, to your earlier question about

00:30:14.000 which camp, let's say, would Jimmy fall in? I don't think he genuinely believes that stuff. I mean,

00:30:19.660 I think it's a combination of other factors. In the deep recesses of his mind, he does know that it's

00:30:26.160 full of shit. There's no, there's no conceivable way. And think of it this way. Or it's a way for him 1.00

00:30:31.920 to atone for some of the public stuff that he had done in the past. His, the black face, the coming

00:30:38.420 from behind the woman. Remember like he's doing as if he's, he's mounting someone. I can't remember

00:30:43.020 what it was. And so one of the ways that I can atone for all of that vulgar stuff that I did in my

00:30:49.860 youthful transgression is to now demonstrate that I truly am, as Thomas Sowell said,

00:30:56.160 part of the anointed ones. Go ahead. No, that's, that's, that's an amazing observation because

00:31:01.640 it's, that's the similar pattern that I've noticed with Howard Stern, with all of those who were the

00:31:06.680 biggest degenerates who are now trying to buy their, their way into the good graces of the

00:31:10.480 political elite. It's Angela Merkel, whose grant, I think it was the grandparents who were Nazis. 0.89

00:31:16.920 What better way to demonstrate that I repudiate all of my grandparents' behaviors by now letting

00:31:26.140 in with suicidal empathy, millions of people from Muslim countries. Surely I couldn't be 1.00

00:31:32.540 a racist and bigot if I open up Germany to all of those folks. By the way, your grandparents 0.96

00:31:40.240 eradicated Jews from Germany by you letting in millions of people who come from cultures that are 0.97

00:31:49.220 defined by their Jew hatred. Tell me how Jewish life is going to, uh, play out in Germany, uh, dear 0.97

00:31:57.660 Dr. Merkel. Well, that, that was the ultimate irony for those who don't recall the, the, the Syrian 1.00

00:32:02.840 refugee crisis in 2015. And Merkel basically opened up the borders of all of Europe because there's 0.57

00:32:08.100 free travel within the countries in Europe to Syrian refugees who typically are, uh, for whatever the

00:32:13.460 reason people might think it's, there's good reason, but hostile to Jews. And I, my remark at the time

00:32:19.120 was a lot of people were saying it's the making up for her, uh, Nazi history that she's overcompensating.

00:32:24.360 And I made the joke, like, how the hell do you know? Like if, if, if the, if the one thing you

00:32:27.700 want to do is get rid of the Jewry of Europe, what other means would you do it while trying to look 1.00

00:32:32.100 benevolent while you do it? And then lo and behold, it was such a great exercise in assimilation and, 0.88

00:32:37.140 uh, immigration policies that you have to offer money to these Syrians to go back home and the 0.99

00:32:42.080 refugees to go back home. Um, again, it will on that subject. And we're going to come back and 1.00

00:32:48.640 forth. First of all, you don't, don't feel bad to plug the book. The, the, the new book is called

00:32:53.220 suicidal empathy or that's going to be within the title. Do you have a title?

00:32:56.320 Yeah. So that's, that's the tentative title. So it's a, it's a term, uh, that I coined to explain

00:33:02.840 this orgiastic emotional malady. And, uh, actually I'll even tell you the background of how the book came to

00:33:10.940 be. So I had written, I had been using, and I've coined that term and I've been using it on all my

00:33:16.400 social media. And at one point I wrote a long, uh, post where I demonstrated the various public

00:33:23.700 policy decisions that are exemplars of suicidal empathy. And then I get an email from one of the

00:33:32.360 really big publishers, the executive editor. And he basically just said, he, he, he puts my tweet

00:33:38.820 and he goes, looks like we found your next book or something like that. And so that's how it started.

00:33:45.600 Uh, and so we, we first, uh, communicated last April and I've been feverishly working on it since

00:33:53.380 because, uh, you know, it's, it, in a sense, I'm having a hard time putting a, an upper bound on how

00:34:01.900 long the book's going to be because every day I get sent 9,000 new cases of suicidal empathy.

00:34:09.420 So at some point I'm going to have to apply a stopping rule and say, okay, no more. The book

00:34:13.440 can't be more than 43,000 pages long. Um, no, I don't remember when the first time you used it was

00:34:20.320 that I heard it, but I, I, I loved it and have been using it ever since. And it's an amazing idea.

00:34:25.440 The idea is there in my mind, if you have a better example, you'll let me know that New York lady, 1.00

00:34:30.920 the activist whose boyfriend gets stabbed to death on the streets at four in the morning in New York 0.95

00:34:36.800 by a black guy who's having a mental health crisis. And she literally shows more concern for the dude

00:34:42.480 who just stabbed her boyfriend to death than for her boyfriend who is lying there bleeding to death 0.95

00:34:47.300 on the ground because she wants to be understanding and sympathetic to the violent, mentally ill murderer 0.97

00:34:52.340 who just killed her boyfriend. And like, this is insanity. This is activism gone to the point of 0.99

00:34:57.160 where you must kill me in order for me to show you how virtuous I am. Exactly. Uh, so that is a great 0.82

00:35:03.040 example. I've got a million of those in the book. I'll just give you one or two others that are well in

00:35:08.720 line with the one that you just gave. Uh, in 2013, a Norwegian man was sodomized, raped by a Somali 0.72

00:35:20.240 migrant. The guy was caught. He served a very minimal prison sentence because in Norway, it's all 1.00

00:35:29.460 about, you know, doing ceramics classes. It's not nice to punish people. And then when he finished his

00:35:36.740 sentence, he was going to be deported back to Somalia. The guy who was raped by him went public

00:35:45.520 saying how awful he felt because now the Somali sodomizer was going to have a much less promising 1.00

00:35:55.340 future in Somalia than he did, than he would have in Norway. Because if I am sodomized by a guy, the thing 0.93

00:36:04.280 that I'm most concerned about is to ensure that he has a enriching future in the country where he sodomized 0.94

00:36:12.720 me. Now I can, can I offer the psychological, the, the, the framework for why the suicidal empathy

00:36:20.600 happens? Oh, please. Let me just ask you one question about that story. Are we sure that the

00:36:25.740 man was not wrongly convicted and that they were involved in an amorous relationship? Because

00:36:29.200 that, that, and I'm not even trying to be funny. It just, it sounds, there's no world in which one

00:36:34.780 would fear that their rapist, uh, being deported to their country of origin who raped them, uh, would be 0.93

00:36:40.600 treated badly after, after rape and let alone that type of rape. So we know that it is a rape. And we 0.99

00:36:46.660 also know that the guy who was raped, uh, I mean, presents himself to the world as a staunch feminist

00:36:54.880 and anti-racism ally. Uh, and so, so no, we, we know exactly that he holds those beliefs. Let me, let me

00:37:02.940 offer, I mean, I, I want people to go out and buy the book. So don't think that by me offering you the

00:37:07.940 theoretical framework, you you've gotten the full cow. You're doing the audio book this time,

00:37:13.020 correct? Gad? Oh, it's so funny. You said this. I was just, I was just, uh, going through, uh,

00:37:19.380 some details of the contract. It's taken way longer for me to sign the contract. They, they approached

00:37:24.840 me, as I said, I think it was like last April. And one of the clauses that I put, I mean, you're the

00:37:30.360 lawyer, but you appreciate what happens when you're looking through a contract and you're put, I said,

00:37:34.520 uh, you know, Hey guys, the main criticism I received for my last two books, which is a pretty

00:37:44.200 good thing. If that, those are the only recurring criticism you're getting is that people were super

00:37:48.840 pissed off that the parasitic mind and the sad truth about happiness were not narrated in my own

00:37:54.040 voice. Can we at least put a clause that that is an option? And so they, I just got back twice

00:38:01.200 manuscript and they added that in. It's, it should be obligatory because you have a, it's not that

00:38:06.160 you have a good voice, you have a good voice as well, but a distinctive good voice. It's sort of

00:38:09.360 like, you know, listening to Alex Jones's book. I don't think it was someone who had a sufficiently

00:38:13.480 similar voice that it wasn't shocking or glaring, but you, you listened to your book was, nobody has

00:38:18.140 a voice like you. So, sorry, good, good clause, good addition. Um, and now what you were just about

00:38:23.060 to say, I was going to tell you about the, the, the, uh, a summary of the theoretical framework

00:38:28.000 of what, what drives suicidal empathy. So let me step back a second and offer an analogy.

00:38:34.960 Take for example, by the way, when you started, you said he's not a clinician in a technical sense.

00:38:39.920 That's true, but I'm now known the moniker is I'm the global therapist to the world. So while I don't

00:38:47.080 hold a clinical license, effectively speaking, I am the head parasitologist of the world because I'm

00:38:53.680 trying to resolve a psychiatric malady at the group level. What, what, what more can you want as a

00:39:01.120 clinician? But in any case, so joking aside, uh, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder is a condition,

00:39:09.980 but by the way, I've written several, uh, academic papers on various psychiatric afflictions from an

00:39:15.580 evolutionary perspective. So I've done, uh, Munchhausen syndrome by proxy. That's where I then develop

00:39:22.240 the theory in parasitic mind for the malady of collective Munchhausen and collective Munchhausen

00:39:27.980 by proxy and transgenderism, uh, Munchhausen by proxy and so on. And actually, let me stop you on

00:39:34.120 that. That wasn't very important for people to appreciate that. The idea of this whole trans thing 1.00

00:39:37.900 that parents impose on their children is a Munchhausen Munchhausen syndrome by proxy is when

00:39:43.200 a mother who wants the attention, the social adulation would make her kids sick. And it was like, 1.00

00:39:47.020 Oh, poor baby, you know, we'll get, you'll get all that social credit score and whatever, 0.87

00:39:50.440 because your kid is sick. And so when it's real, people feel it. And when it's, when they don't,

00:39:55.080 when it's not real, they get their kids sick so they can then feel it. That is apply it mutanus 0.73

00:39:59.180 mutanus to parents who say, Oh, my four-year-old is trans and I'm empowering his existence. And

00:40:03.500 everyone's like, Oh, good for you. Take to social media and put out videos. The, the, the transgender 1.00

00:40:07.400 Munchhausen syndrome by proxy is an amazing, uh, insight connection to make. Sorry. I want to

00:40:13.060 highlight that. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, if anybody who's interested in the

00:40:17.140 original scientific paper that I wrote, it's, it's in, I think 2010 in medical hypotheses,

00:40:23.340 it's a medical journal. So I've also written paper. I'm only saying this, not, not to give

00:40:27.980 you my CV, but because it's relevant to my OCD explanation. I've also written, uh, papers,

00:40:33.340 psychiatric papers on an evolutionary explanation of suicide, which you might imagine is a difficult

00:40:39.620 concept to explain evolutionarily speaking, you're ending your life. And I've also written a

00:40:44.920 evolutionary based paper on sex differences in the symptom mythology of OCD. In other words,

00:40:52.660 men and women are likely to exhibit sex differences in terms of the O's and the C's that they succumb

00:41:00.740 to. And I argue that there's an evolutionary reason for that. Okay. Having said all that,

00:41:04.940 so that gives you a sense of where my scientific, if you like credentials come from to then be able

00:41:12.600 to diagnose this. Okay. So OCD actually has an evolutionary explanation and here, here, here's

00:41:20.640 how it goes. And then I'll link it to suicidal empathy. The idea that we should scan the world

00:41:26.180 for environmental threats makes perfect evolutionary sense. So for example, if you and I are going out

00:41:32.280 for a pizza and I noticed that your nose is running and then you sneeze into your hand and you shake my

00:41:37.980 hand, then it makes perfect evolutionary sense that I would have the reflex to say, Hey, I'm going to go

00:41:42.980 wash my hands before we have the pizza, because it makes sense for me to have that repulsion at the

00:41:49.720 possibility of having germ contamination. If I go to the back door and check that it is locked before we

00:41:56.140 all turn in to bed, that makes perfect evolutionary sense. The problem with OCD arises when that

00:42:03.680 adaptive mechanism misfires by being hyperactive, right? So the, the, the flag usually goes up.

00:42:11.620 I tend to it. The flag goes down and then I go on with my day. But if I spend eight hours in an

00:42:18.060 infinite loop, washing my hands and scolding hot water so that I don't make it to work and my skin is

00:42:24.520 falling off, then that becomes a dysfunction. It's a dysregulation of an otherwise adaptive process.

00:42:31.080 So having written a lot about this dysregulation, evolutionary dysregulation in my scientific work,

00:42:39.240 that's how I had the insight. Aha, that's what suicidal empathy is. Empathy, when it is directed at the

00:42:48.040 right people and in the right amounts, perfect, makes perfect evolutionary sense because we are a

00:42:54.060 social species. We have evolved certain positive emotions that allow us to, if you like, lubricate

00:43:01.760 our social bonds. It makes sense for me to have theory of mind, to put myself in your shoes when

00:43:08.100 you are feeling pain. That's a good empathetic reflex for me to have. The problem arises when empathy is

00:43:15.680 dysregulated. And in this case, I mean, there are several ways that it misfires. One of which

00:43:22.000 is it misfires to the wrong target. So being empathetic to my Salvadorian neighbors down south 0.91

00:43:32.960 because they have a right to live the American dream, so much so that it supersedes the empathy 0.99

00:43:39.980 that I should have for American veterans who lost their limbs defending my right to be an asshole 1.00

00:43:47.360 doesn't make sense. That's dysregulated empathy. So what I do in the book is I take many, many public 0.99

00:43:53.620 policy decisions that have resulted in the full decay of the West, and I argue that at the root of

00:44:00.040 each of these public policy mistakes is suicidal empathy. God damn, that's going to be an international 0.98

00:44:06.380 bestseller. Again, as you say it, and I don't know if this is going to be already in your thought process, 0.99

00:44:11.260 but not speaking from any personal experience with OCD, that you have, I've always found like

00:44:16.860 there's ways in which it manifests. And one is normal fear, like you say, like I was biking

00:44:22.400 yesterday and I forgot it was daylight savings. And so biking at six is a lot darker than biking at

00:44:26.880 seven. And I'm on a path, I'm not worried about people now. I'm worried about gators and panthers

00:44:30.620 at sunset. And then there's, so you have the rational fear, then you have the irrational fear applied to

00:44:37.000 the rational fear, which is just an over-exaggeration, over-emphasis of it. You have the misfiring of it

00:44:43.220 being on things that are not existential threats or the over-application of it from like, wash your

00:44:48.040 hands. But then if you also approach someone sneezing across the street as an existential threat,

00:44:52.940 you're over-adapting, so to speak. Or you're wearing a mask alone in your car in 2024.

00:45:00.740 It is, it's so beautiful an analogy. Hold on, I was taking notes in the email. No, that was it.

00:45:06.600 The over-emphasis on actual threats or applying it to non-threats and the suicidal empathy. Have you

00:45:12.740 thought about this yet at some point? And I'm not trying to be funny because I think it's almost

00:45:16.500 scary. The suicidal empathy goes from suicidal empathy to homicidal empathy, that they will

00:45:22.040 actually start killing you for your own good? Well, okay. So, and we can answer that either

00:45:26.960 literally or figuratively. Let's go figuratively, then literally. Right. Figuratively, it already

00:45:34.000 happens all the time, right? I'm going to kill your career. I'm going to kill your reputation. 0.99

00:45:41.280 I'm going to kill your prospects of ever being invited to the cool kids party. So, the homicide 0.99

00:45:47.280 has already happened. It hasn't happened though, literally. Now, in other countries, I could

00:45:54.600 literally kill you because I have the power. Oh, are you willing to accept Islam? We're giving you 1.00

00:46:01.880 the choice. So, you're freely able to decide no. Now, of course, because there are consequences

00:46:08.280 in life, if you make the wrong choice by not accepting Islam, we're going to have to mercifully 1.00

00:46:14.780 detach your head from the rest of your body. But that's done after we've given you the courtesy

00:46:20.340 of choosing for yourself. So, I don't think we're at the point today in the West where you can

00:46:26.300 orgiastically, literally engage in the homicide that you're talking about. But boy, can we certainly

00:46:31.860 do it figuratively in very painful ways. And I don't know if you know of any historical

00:46:36.800 analog. What is the social, the threshold, like the percentage of social acceptance threshold?

00:46:42.100 When did it become, you know, when 5%, let's just go to the easy example that no one takes

00:46:46.640 offense with, which is Nazi Germany. 5% of Germany is Nazis. And they say, we've got these crazy ideas.

00:46:51.640 And it was like, okay, well, too bad. We're not buying into it. It's offensive. There's a threshold

00:46:56.660 at which not only do people start to give it some sort of credibility, but also at which they start

00:47:02.460 to become fearful of it, where it starts taking hold. Like, what percentage do you actually...

00:47:07.200 That's actually, it's even, I mean, I'm not trying to sound patronizing, but it's even a more

00:47:12.940 intelligent question that you already stating it, even though... Exactly. That's how smart you are.

00:47:21.640 That's what Laval University trained lawyers... Well, no, I did my philosophy degree was in,

00:47:28.780 my thesis was called deontological consequentialism. What?

00:47:32.640 Again, I'm trying to find... I knew that there was somewhat of a semblance of a brain in you.

00:47:37.640 I did four years of philosophy, honors degree at McGill. Then I went to Laval for my law degree.

00:47:42.860 And I did one year exchange in Paris, which is why I did an extra year of McGill, because I wanted to

00:47:47.160 get my honors degree, which required a cumulative GPA of above 3.0. But my year in Paris was pass-fail,

00:47:53.360 so it didn't count. So I did another year of philosophy. And I'm still... I'm trying to track

00:47:57.160 down my thesis, because when you talk about consequentialism versus deontology, Kantian

00:48:02.780 categorical imperatives. And I sit there saying, whenever I hear someone say, it's okay to kill

00:48:08.140 a baby if it means saving 10. And I'm saying, my reaction was always, it's never okay. What you're

00:48:13.380 basically just saying is, I want to minimize the evil, because I think that the evil to be minimized

00:48:17.440 is the killing. So I'm going to kill one to prevent somebody else from killing 10. And my theory has 0.99

00:48:21.440 always been, you haven't minimized anything. You've actually just maximized the aggregate evil,

00:48:25.460 because the other evil still exists. But no, the question is like, yeah, socially, what is this?

00:48:31.460 Yeah. Let me answer that in a technical way. I mean, vulgarize to the masses. By the way,

00:48:37.040 a lot of people don't understand the word to vulgarize, which in French, as you know, is...

00:48:44.900 Vulgariser.

00:48:46.100 Vulgariser. And the reason why it came up to my... Well, first, I'm a lover of words. And I remember,

00:48:53.680 I think it was my 2011 book, The Consuming Instinct, this, the red book here, where is it? No.

00:48:59.620 Hold on, let me zoom out, and then I'll see it. Oh, yeah, right over your shoulder here.

00:49:02.860 Yeah, on the... This, not next to the... No, the other way, this one.

00:49:06.980 Yeah, that's a water. No, that's your microphone. I'm joking. I think it might be covered up by your

00:49:11.520 mic. Okay, it doesn't matter. It's the red one. It's called The Consuming Instinct,

00:49:15.740 What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornographies, and Gift-Giving Reveal About Human Nature. It was a book,

00:49:22.400 it was a trade book meant to demonstrate how you could apply evolutionary psychology and evolutionary

00:49:27.620 biology to study our consuming instinct. What does a trade book mean?

00:49:30.960 Oh, that's a great question. So there are different classes of books. So let's take the

00:49:38.440 one that most of your viewers and listeners would know, a textbook. A textbook is a book that's

00:49:44.640 written as a pedagogic exercise to be sold to university students. So let's say you were taking

00:49:53.340 a course in Philosophy 101. I'll write a textbook that hopefully professors that are teaching this

00:50:00.640 course will adopt throughout Canada and North America. So that's called a textbook. An academic

00:50:05.880 book, which is very different from a textbook, is a very technical book that's written for other

00:50:14.220 academics and graduate students and so on. It's a scientific, so it's not meant for Philosophy 101.

00:50:20.760 One, it's meant for practicing philosophers, okay? Now, academic books, if they sell a thousand copies,

00:50:29.980 that would be considered a hugely successful book because they have very, very limited market. It'll be

00:50:36.000 university libraries that will purchase them, you know, specialists in the field and so on. So my first

00:50:43.620 couple of books were academic books because I was trying to lay my flag on the, on, you know, having

00:50:50.120 pioneered the field of evolutionary consumer psychology and so on. Okay. So this, which book is

00:50:55.200 it? I think it's, if it's the, okay, there you go. This book right here, that's called the evolutionary

00:51:03.540 basis of consumption. That was my first book and it's very, very technical. I mean, it could still be read

00:51:10.700 by non-professionals, but it's a very scientific academic book. Okay. So that's the evolutionary

00:51:16.160 basis of consumption. Then here I have an, oh, no, this way. Here I've got an edited book, which I'll

00:51:25.320 also explain what that is. That's called evolutionary psychology in the business sciences. It's an academic

00:51:29.860 book, but it's edited in that different chapters are written by different specialists and I serve as the

00:51:39.120 editor of the entire compendium. And I usually will write an intro and an opening chapter and so on.

00:51:44.740 So these two books are academic books. Okay. So they will have a much smaller distribution, even though,

00:51:53.280 I mean, these were actually very successful by any standard. Okay. Then the next one, this one,

00:52:00.560 it's, so to answer your question, this, this one was my first trade book, the consuming instinct.

00:52:06.700 Now what I was trying to do there. So to answer your question, what is a trade book? A trade book

00:52:12.320 is meant for the masses. It's meant to be read by as many people as possible. It's what you will see

00:52:19.800 at Barnes and Noble and at Indigo and so on. It's not for the specialist. It's not for students. It's for

00:52:26.480 the general reader. And so as you might imagine, many professors can be very successful as academic

00:52:34.640 writers, but dreadfully bad as trade authors. Why? Because they don't know how to speak in a voice

00:52:43.980 that would be appealing to the general masses. Okay. So now coming back to, thank you for asking

00:52:50.480 that. I think this is the first time that I've ever on a show explained the difference between

00:52:55.020 different types of books. So trade.

00:52:56.820 Well, and I love the fact that you describe it as appealing to the masses, as opposed to what I

00:53:00.360 suspect most would describe it as, as dumbing it down for the masses. Exactly. Yes. Don't,

00:53:05.820 don't talk down to people. You know, I recently had a chat with Rob Schneider, the actor, who's just

00:53:11.020 delightful. He's, he's amazing. He's amazing. I mean, just like you want to hug this guy. Okay.

00:53:15.860 And to, I think it was maybe towards the end of the show, he said some really sweet things to me.

00:53:21.080 He goes, you know, there's a lot of us in Hollywood, whatever, that are huge fans of yours.

00:53:25.660 And what one always walks away when they hear you speak or read your stuff is you're never talking

00:53:31.520 down to us. And that really touched me because I think that that's one of the, I know it's gauche

00:53:38.340 to speak about oneself, but one of the things that I most appreciate about my engagement with the

00:53:43.060 public is that I really take pleasure in having the corrections officer and the trucker write me a

00:53:50.180 fan email. Because if he is res, if my voice is resonating with him, that I'm doing something

00:53:56.420 right. It, it, it's a no brainer that the Stanford professor might write to me and say, Hey, I love

00:54:00.880 your last paper on whatever. That's my job. That's what I do. But the fact that the trucker says, Oh my

00:54:06.480 God, I was listening to you and Viva. And I decided that I'm going to go back to school because you,

00:54:10.860 you motivated me to study psychology. Well, now I think I've done a really good thing.

00:54:15.580 And you, when you say it out loud like that, it's the exact problem with not with academia in and of

00:54:20.840 itself, but with experts in general is people generally want to make their own decisions.

00:54:24.980 So give me the info and then let me decide. Whereas most look down and say, no, I'm going to

00:54:29.160 tell you what to do. And don't even ask me when it came to like COVID, for example, was the prime

00:54:33.840 example. We're not explaining it to you. You're not able to understand and shut up and do what we say

00:54:38.520 versus here's here are the pros and cons, the risks, and you make your own decision. It's, it's a form of

00:54:43.160 control and not a form of education. Exactly. Right. Uh, so coming back to the term vulgarization. 0.72

00:54:49.860 So when I was, uh, uh, communicating with my editor for the consuming instinct, which was going to be

00:54:57.880 my first trade book, I use the term, I think it was maybe during when we were coming up with sort of

00:55:04.940 the taglines for my media, whatever I said, well, you know, the book is an attempt to vulgarize

00:55:10.920 evolutionary psychology. And she said, Oh, don't, don't, don't use the word vulgarize with the

00:55:15.020 American audience. Why not? It's, it's a beautiful fan. It's a nice one. She goes, no, say popularize

00:55:20.440 and so on. And that always, uh, was annoying to me because it's, it's exactly what the word is meant

00:55:27.280 to say, which is to make something accessible to the masses. Anyways, I don't know why I was,

00:55:33.300 why I said that. What was the, what was the, the, uh, trade book you were talking about your first

00:55:37.000 trade book. And I think you were getting into the latest trade book. So the first trade book

00:55:45.920 was the consuming instinct. The next trade book was the parasitic mind. The next trade book was 0.84

00:55:54.460 the sad truth about happiness. Yeah. That's what that one is right over your shoulder there. If we

00:55:58.340 can see that right there. And then the next one is suicidal empathy. Uh, now to our earlier point

00:56:06.260 about, you know, don't tell people what to do when you, you said that a minute or two ago,

00:56:11.100 actually, that was one of my biggest challenges when I was working on the happiness book. And let

00:56:18.660 me explain, I mean, that, that story in of itself is, is really fascinating. So in, when you study

00:56:24.320 decision-making, there are different ways that you could study psychology of decision-making. You could

00:56:30.000 study it from a normative perspective and bear with me. I know it's tech. Is it okay if we get tiny

00:56:35.880 bit? No, please go. So normative decision-making is, for example, the classical economic, the classical

00:56:45.240 school of economics, say at University of Chicago, where many of the Nobel Prizes come from, they

00:56:50.840 adhere to a view of decision-making that's called homo economicus. Homo economicus is this ultra rational

00:56:59.200 being that adheres to axioms of rational choice. Example, if I prefer car A to car B, and I prefer

00:57:07.580 car B to car C, it must be that I prefer car A to car C. It's an axi, it's called the transitivity

00:57:15.800 axiom. It's transitive. If A is bigger than B and B is bigger than C, then A must be greater than C.

00:57:21.000 So they take those axioms of rational choice, and they say that anyone who violates those is

00:57:27.540 behaving irrationally. Now that's called normative decision-making because you're saying that you

00:57:33.240 have to adhere to a norm, a norm of rationality. Holy shit, I'm doing a full academic lecture here. 0.99

00:57:40.040 I should be charging all the assholes watching. I'm writing down questions. 1.00

00:57:43.580 Exactly. Yeah. And to everybody who's watching, yes, this will be on the final exam.

00:57:49.940 All right, let's go on. So that's normative decision-making.

00:57:55.060 Descriptive decision-making is studying decision-making to solve optimization problems.

00:58:03.900 And hence, you're prescribing an optimal path of decision-making. This is actually like, I literally

00:58:10.020 have thought about creating these lectures and charging people money. And one of the-

00:58:14.740 Yeah, they're masterclasses. There's no reason why you shouldn't be doing it.

00:58:17.460 I know, I know. I'm such an idiot. 1.00

00:58:18.960 Well, there's only so much time in the day, but- 1.00

00:58:21.440 Exactly. But, by the way, one of the bifurcations in the road that I'm currently facing is,

00:58:29.320 I am an academic through and through. It's in my DNA. But if I now have to, you know,

00:58:35.580 poll people about their gender pronouns in the morning, which of course I don't do,

00:58:39.160 there's an element of academia that's becoming very, very costly to me, so that the thought

00:58:44.920 has crossed my mind, is it time for me to step aside? Now, if that were to happen, then it would

00:58:50.240 allow me to set up those masterclasses. And you've been one of the ones who's been most

00:58:54.140 strongly and feverishly telling me, sign up for this, set up, paywall. You're probably the one

00:59:00.820 who's most been doing that. And to my great shame, because I'm a moron, I still haven't done a lot of 0.97

00:59:06.620 that stuff. Well, I mean, not to say it hasn't gotten bad enough for you in- I don't want to 0.94

00:59:10.860 besmirch where you work, because I don't want to get you into trouble through association, but

00:59:14.240 not to say it hasn't gotten bad enough, because I think it's gotten way worse than anybody even

00:59:18.060 knows as to how bad it is where you can't safely go on the campus where you teach, and you have to

00:59:22.280 teach remotely, and you have to worry about security. I think it's gotten bad enough where

00:59:25.620 you will see the writing on the wall, but it takes some time to catch up.

00:59:31.080 And that's one of the reasons why it was a godsend, frankly, that I got this position at

00:59:35.300 Northwood University. They're very much into freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech, free

00:59:39.780 enterprise, economic freedom. And so their president reached out to me and said, look, we're big fans of

00:59:44.400 yours. We're ready to make you a permanent offer. I was a bit tentative about that only because at the

00:59:49.460 time I was in California with my family for five weeks. So I wasn't ready to change my life without at

00:59:55.520 least trying it. So we decided we agreed to do a one-year leave. My university was kind enough

01:00:01.140 to grant me the one-year leave. And so for the, at least for the next, yeah, I say, look, I'll say

01:00:07.020 also what I think they want you out. And if they can get you out without a fight, Hey dad, don't take

01:00:11.880 a vacation. Yeah. You can come back to your job. As I said, as I said, kindly, I also had a little smirk

01:00:18.520 because I realized that boy, why is God sad being so diplomatic? But yes, there you go. That's my

01:00:25.180 if anybody doesn't appreciate the dynamic. Gad takes a lot of flack for his writings and

01:00:30.460 statements on Islam. He teaches at Concordia university, which has been historically one

01:00:34.400 of the most radical universities, uh, in, in, back when I was in 2000, like they were, they

01:00:39.900 were protesting. Yeah. I can only imagine. Hold on. This dog's got to get out of here. You

01:00:44.700 know, go, go, go. Oh, yeah. Speaking of, uh, evolutionary biology, how many paralyzed dogs would have

01:00:53.940 survived in the nature? I look at that dog every day. It's like, my goodness. Oh, if

01:00:58.620 only you struggle. There is though, an evolutionary explanation for why we are so bonded to our

01:01:04.780 pets. And I actually discussed it briefly in the consuming instinct in the, in the red

01:01:08.880 book that I showed up. I have a theory that they're wonderful. They keep us, they keep

01:01:12.180 us, you know, company. And if things get really bad, you can kill them and eat them. So it's 1.00

01:01:16.020 bada bing, bada boom. I'm joking, everybody. Yeah. As you mentioned something, the, the, the,

01:01:19.940 the, the, a is greater than B or sorry. A is, uh, B is greater than C is greater than

01:01:25.240 B. B is greater than C. Therefore, A is greater than C. That works on an objective level where

01:01:29.760 like that's logic one-on-one. I said, everybody should always take a philosophy one-on-one

01:01:33.640 logic because they teach you that. Then I realized, as you say it, it doesn't apply to things that

01:01:37.220 are subjective. Like I like Billy Madison is better than happy Gilmore. Uh, dumb and dumber

01:01:41.520 is better than Billy Madison, but I don't necessarily like dumb and dumber more than happy Gilmore. 1.00

01:01:45.060 Okay. Well, you just described, uh, a Nobel prize winning studies. So, so let me, so, okay. So hold 0.96

01:01:53.420 on. So, uh, I just described normative decision-making and I was on my way to describing prescriptive,

01:01:59.300 but let's pause prescriptive for a second. So I can answer what you just said. So the two,

01:02:03.980 so my, my doctoral training, my, I mean, my official PhD is in psychology of decision-making

01:02:10.120 specifically. My doctoral dissertation was on looking at the following problem.

01:02:15.340 When is it that we have acquired enough information about competing alternatives for us to stop

01:02:21.540 acquiring additional information and make a choice? So for example, if I'm choosing between two cars,

01:02:26.720 I may be, I may choose, I could look up 50 attributes on the two cars, but most of us don't

01:02:31.680 do that. Instead, we look at enough information that at some point my brain says, I've now seen enough

01:02:38.940 to buy car A. So what I was trying to do in my, uh, doctoral dissertation is study the stopping

01:02:45.980 decisions of information search, which could then be applied to anything. So when people write to me

01:02:50.540 and say, Oh, but you know, you study marketing. I mean, there's almost never a mention of the word

01:02:54.660 marketing in my doctoral dissertation. It just so happened that I can then apply it to consumer

01:03:00.500 behavior, hence marketing. But the fundamental doctorate, the fundamental problem that I was

01:03:05.520 studying applies to mate choice. It applies to employee selection. It applies to, should I stay

01:03:10.840 in a marriage or leave the marriage? So it applies to any process that involves the iterative acquisition

01:03:16.460 of information. And when do I stop? Are you with me? Holy shit. This is a good conversation.

01:03:22.540 And you know what?

01:03:23.580 Speaking of killing the dog, now the dog wants to come back in the room. Hold on. 0.50

01:03:26.800 From an evolutionary perspective, I'm probably the stupid one for just not leaving the door 0.99

01:03:35.020 open at a given point in time. I'm leaving the door open now, people. I know my wife and 0.98

01:03:38.060 kid are not here, so I'll have some quiet. Okay. All right. Let's go on. So, uh, so my doctoral

01:03:44.380 work was in the area of behavioral decision-making and the gurus of that field are two, no Jews. 0.98

01:03:54.620 Oh, they're Jews. Jews. Uh, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, two Israeli psychologists who then, 0.98

01:04:05.680 you know, moved to North America. They were lifelong friends and colleagues. And what they did to your 0.70

01:04:11.900 point about, I prefer Gilmore, but whatever violation you said, the first paper that Tversky

01:04:18.440 published in 1969 was with my doctoral supervisor, Jay Russo, uh, who did his PhD in psychology and

01:04:27.980 cognitive psychology at University of Michigan. Uh, now Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated that many

01:04:34.740 of the axioms of rational choice that classical economists tell us we should adhere to, we don't. 1.00

01:04:41.560 And so they won the Nobel prize in economics for demonstrating that economists are full of shit. 1.00

01:04:49.480 Okay. And that idea being, they've already made up their mind as to what they want to get. And so 1.00

01:04:53.340 they will fit into the preferences, the way to get there. No, no. It's that the, the, the economist

01:05:00.140 has a very restrained axiomatic view of how human cognition should operate. It should be hypercomputational,

01:05:10.260 hyper-rational, but human minds don't work that way. They don't adhere to this orgiastic form of

01:05:18.820 hyper-rationality. So what Kahneman and Tversky did is go through all of those axioms of rationality

01:05:26.740 and demonstrate that we violate them all the time. And so they designed many astoundingly clever

01:05:32.840 experiments to show to your Gilmore story that we don't do all the things that these economists tell

01:05:40.100 us in La La Land that we should be doing. Okay. Now I say they won the Nobel prize. That's technically

01:05:45.360 incorrect because Kahneman won it for work that he did with Tversky. Tversky didn't win it because he

01:05:53.020 had unfortunately passed away and you can't win it posthumously. So officially it's only Kahneman who

01:05:59.520 won it, but it's really Kahneman and Tversky. Okay. Now, so that, that's the normative decision-making.

01:06:06.460 Okay. Prescriptive decision-making, as I mentioned earlier, is prescribing how you ought to optimize

01:06:15.040 something. And I know that, that sounds like fancy. Give me a concrete example. Take for example,

01:06:20.460 a classic problem known as the traveling salesman problem. You have a salesman who has to visit 10

01:06:26.800 cities. He's going to start in city A. He has to return to city A and he has to visit each city once

01:06:35.460 in what order should the path be as to minimize the cost of travel. That turns out to be an easy

01:06:45.380 problem. If you've only got three cities, you could manually try all three and then calculate,

01:06:50.260 which is the optimal one. When I give you 13 cities, you're going to be spending until the next

01:06:56.440 4 billion years to calculate all the permutations and combinations. So the field,

01:07:02.520 the mathematics field that solves those problems algorithmically is called operations research.

01:07:11.400 And so in my, in one of my, I have two masters. In my first masters, I did a mini thesis in operations

01:07:18.440 research, which is this optimization field. Now, why is it called prescriptive decision-making?

01:07:22.940 Because you're trying to prescribe some optimal behavior. If you wish to reduce the travel costs,

01:07:31.820 this is the order in which you should visit those cities. Are you with me?

01:07:35.900 Yep.

01:07:36.340 So first approach to decision-making normative, second approach, prescriptive, third approach,

01:07:43.920 descriptive. Descriptive simply says, describe how people actually make decisions. I'm not trying to

01:07:51.100 find some normative way of behaving. I'm not trying to prescribe some optimal way of behaving. When

01:07:58.360 you decide you want to buy a car, let's study the cognitive processes by which you arrive at choosing

01:08:04.120 the car or marrying that girl or voting for Trump or Kamala and so on. And so for much of my career

01:08:10.860 as a psychologist, as a behavioral scientist, I existed in descriptive world. I'm trying to develop

01:08:19.020 theories that describe actual decision-making behavior. Okay. Why am I talking about all this?

01:08:26.120 Because I'm going to link it back now to the challenge that I had when I was writing the happiness book.

01:08:31.720 Now, when you're writing a happiness book, by definition, this is going to involve some

01:08:38.140 prescription. Here is what you ought to do to lead a happy life. And I had always been very

01:08:45.040 epistemologically suspicious of the people who stand as gurus and lecture to the rest of us what

01:08:53.320 to do. And being the very, very careful professor and scientist that I am, I wanted to make sure to

01:09:01.920 tell my readers that I am not offering you the incontrovertible recipe for happiness. Rather,

01:09:10.520 spoken like a real academic, life is a game of managing statistical probabilities, I'm going to give

01:09:21.220 you some prescriptions, which if you apply them, increase the probability of you summiting Mount

01:09:30.380 Happiness. So look at the difference between how carefully I just positioned that book to how,

01:09:38.480 to your point, everybody who was much smarter than you told you, shut up, you don't walk your dog

01:09:44.680 after eight out after eight o'clock, because that's settled science. Shut up, pleb. So those were exactly 1.00

01:09:51.180 who the fascists were. And it turns out that they weren't part of the Republicans. Many of them are

01:09:56.600 super progressive professors, leftist professors. The correlation between progressivism and fat and

01:10:03.820 fascism or tyranny or at least, I don't know what the proper word is for it, but like

01:10:07.240 Karenism, like progressivism and Karenism, people who just tell you what to do and shame you when 0.95

01:10:14.400 you disagree with them. I find it's almost a direct overlay. It's a one circle Venn diagram,

01:10:20.520 progressives and Karenists who... By the way, I have a student who regrettably has disappeared. Often

01:10:28.820 what happens when you have MSc students who are doing theses with you or PhD students,

01:10:33.980 it's the first time in their lives where they're now tasked with creating knowledge rather than

01:10:41.320 just absorbing knowledge from a classroom. And so oftentimes, regrettably, even though students

01:10:48.060 might be very bright, they get sucked into a black hole and they never resurface from. And so I've had

01:10:53.740 very, very bright students who wanted to work with me under my tutelage that never ended up finishing

01:10:59.440 their degrees. And I'm not the one who will call you every day, say, what are you doing today? I mean,

01:11:04.260 you're an adult. You also have to have the personal agency to get your work done. In any case,

01:11:11.360 that one particular student, I had proposed the following thesis topic to him, and he was very keen to

01:11:18.660 do it. It very much related to your working hypothesis, which is, for example, can we identify

01:11:27.800 morphological signatures of people's political orientations? So this is not quite Karenism,

01:11:35.860 although it is, in a sense, because there is a morphological exemplar of the woman that looks like

01:11:43.220 a Karen. You follow what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. I'm just, I'm just trademarking Karenism right now

01:11:47.720 here. Boom. Karenism is trademarked, peeps. I'm joking. Actually, it is the first time that I've

01:11:53.600 heard it used with the ism part. So... Because it sounds like, it sounds like communism, but it's

01:11:58.400 Karenism. It's Karenism, exactly. So anyways, I hope that that particular student resurfaces because

01:12:03.960 we had already started to collect the data and it's, it's very, very powerful data because it's taking a lot

01:12:10.360 of, a lot of the elements that I discuss in the parasitic mind and it's testing some really cool

01:12:17.540 empirical hypotheses. So hopefully, if, if that student is watching, call me. I don't know where

01:12:25.280 you've disappeared to, but it's time to come home. But why was I mentioning that? It was about the

01:12:32.380 decision-making process. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So yeah, so I think I finished that story. So all I was

01:12:36.800 saying is that the challenge for me when writing Happiness Book was that I was now entering into

01:12:43.820 a world that I heretofore had not entered, which was prescriptive world, right? All of my other work

01:12:50.660 is, let me explain to you the evolutionary reasons for why we do X, Y, Z. I'm describing behavior

01:12:58.660 under some parsimonious theoretical framework. Happiness was a completely different endeavor.

01:13:03.940 Yes, I'm going to use ancient wisdoms. I'm going to use contemporary science. I'm going to use my

01:13:10.660 personal life trajectory to offer you some prescriptions of how to live a happy life.

01:13:17.260 But at first I was very hesitant to do so because I thought, you know, I don't want anybody to think

01:13:22.900 that it is a, it is an assured guarantee recipe. Well, it's, it's, it's, um, I don't know. I can

01:13:29.260 analogize it to golf where a professional might never get a hole in one, but the better you

01:13:33.880 swing, the more likely it is you get your ball within a certain vicinity. You don't cheat on your

01:13:38.940 wife. You might still get divorced, but cheat on your wife and you are increasing the odds of getting

01:13:42.760 divorced and murdered and not necessarily in that order. Uh, so no, the, so, I mean, I don't want to

01:13:48.520 get to the punchline of what a suicidal empathy is going to be. I kind of want to know how it ends.

01:13:52.280 Where do you see, I mean, America's a good litmus test for the world right now. I think it might've

01:13:56.800 gone singularly crazy, but then I sort of look to Europe and Europe has gone crazy as well in terms

01:14:02.380 of a same type of Karen ism in terms of speech, in terms of government overreach, there's a bit

01:14:07.840 of a pushback, but whether or not the government's gotten already too far along to be pushed back,

01:14:12.800 where do you see things going? And then I actually want to talk a bit about Canada while we're sure.

01:14:16.940 Uh, I mean, right now I'm not feeling great. I'm certainly feeling better than I did Tuesday

01:14:23.240 morning, right? Because at least by Trump winning, you are going to have some auto-corrective

01:14:31.020 mechanisms that will swing things in the right direction. But I keep warning people I've already

01:14:35.780 done since Tuesday, several shows, and I keep repeating the following point, which I'm happy

01:14:41.980 to repeat here. Don't now be complacent, sit back and say the problem is solved. Trump is here because

01:14:48.260 Trump will come in and Trump will leave. And someone else might come along who is also a

01:14:53.100 Trump guy, JD Vance. But if you don't eradicate the parasitic ideas and the suicidal empathy that

01:15:00.920 has taken 50 to a hundred years to flourish and proliferate, then you, it's just in French,

01:15:07.100 you say, right? It's, it'll come back even maybe stronger than ever before. Right? Remember when you

01:15:13.880 take an antibiotic, if you don't kill all of the bacteria, the ones that remain, it's a form of

01:15:20.840 evolutionary selection will be even that that's how you develop the evolution of the superbug.

01:15:25.600 So if you don't eradicate this nonsense, it'll come back even more orgiastically nasty in some

01:15:32.640 future iteration. So yes, celebrate that Trump won, but then don't sit back on your couch and eat

01:15:38.320 potato chips all day. There's still a lot of work to be done. That, that analogy actually of like

01:15:42.820 why the doctors say, take the antibiotics, even if you feel better, because if you don't,

01:15:47.620 it comes back stronger and more resistant to antibiotics. Is that, that's an amazing idea,

01:15:52.480 but you know, the superbug to the parasitic mind. It's called in mind, it's, I'm giving you a lot

01:15:57.340 of stuff from suicidal empathy. It's actually, it's, it's, it's, it's genius gab, but you know that

01:16:03.220 already. And, and, and I'm, my personal dilemma is yeah, Trump won and everybody can celebrate,

01:16:09.060 but I don't think that I'm done yet mocking into oblivion everyone and publicly shaming those who 0.96

01:16:14.840 were the most arrogant, pompous pricks on earth. The Michael Cohens of the world, the, the Cardi B's 0.79

01:16:20.740 of the, the ones who thought they could brow people to submission because they need to be mocked and

01:16:24.840 humiliated and basically not disavowed, but, um, I shunned into irrelevance. Yeah. I had on a guy

01:16:32.860 named Richard Barris yesterday, who's the best pollster out there. And, you know, I said like with Trump's

01:16:37.820 victory, is it unique to Trump or is it sort of party wide? It was a stupid question as I started 1.00

01:16:42.540 asking. And he's like, no, it's, it's Trump. It's the character. It's the person that people love 1.00

01:16:46.980 and Trumpism, which could be, you know, when Trump comes and goes in four years, it could be someone

01:16:52.160 else who has to fill in that Trumpism, whether or not it's JD Vance, we'll find out as things evolve,

01:16:57.000 but it's true. Like if, if Trump comes and goes and it's a flash in the pan, um, then it's a,

01:17:03.260 it's a short, it's a big victory, but short lived. So 100%. And so if I can draw an analogy,

01:17:09.340 I was recently approached by someone, I won't, I won't give the details. I don't give them away

01:17:13.900 who said, and this has happened to me many times in the past, but someone says, you know, I'm such a

01:17:20.400 fan and all kinds of compliments. And then there's a, but, so I'm waiting for the, but, but do you not

01:17:27.300 think that when you do the pink wig, it affects your, uh, you know, legitimacy as a professor or

01:17:37.420 when you hide on it? And I look at them, I say, you exactly don't get it. I mean, it, it, it couldn't

01:17:46.200 be any clearer that you need to consume more of my content. It is precisely because of the unique

01:17:54.340 set of skills that I have that I'm able to be this effective. Uh, I just spent quite a bit of time

01:18:01.340 being about as professorial as you can get, right? So no one is going to outrank me on professorial

01:18:07.520 status. That doesn't remove the fact that I can act like a buffoon in the service of trying to 0.95

01:18:16.440 persuade you precisely because I have enough authenticity and self-confidence to know

01:18:24.060 that it doesn't diminish me by putting on the, the, the wig. It's precisely because I am 18 feet

01:18:31.900 tall, metaphorically speaking, that I can wear the wig. Now to draw an analogy with Trump, it's the exact

01:18:37.460 same thing. If he were more stately, a la, uh, Romney, and if he were more kind, a la pick your other

01:18:46.700 presidential guy, his voice would have never resonated. You need him to be exactly who he,

01:18:53.620 he has to show up in the garbage truck for, for it to work and for him to win on Tuesday.

01:18:59.180 It's God. I like we're, we're lit. We don't even know this, but our thoughts must've been the same

01:19:03.100 at a given point in time, like just recently, cause I have the discussion with my father who

01:19:06.980 said that he follows me on Twitter. He's like, David, do you have to swear so much? I was like that.

01:19:10.900 First of all, part, there's an element of getting, not getting attention, but getting people to focus

01:19:16.580 on something and you could be polite as you want and have a great message. And a, no one's going to

01:19:21.780 hear it and good for having a good message that no one hears. And B, you'll still get demonized.

01:19:26.280 You could be, you could never wear the pink wig. You could never do the satire. You'll still get,

01:19:30.260 you'll still get derision because of what you say. So on the, strategically, there's no reason not to.

01:19:34.900 And on the other hand, it is the level of honesty where, you know, like I was thinking Trump's in power.

01:19:39.700 If I ever got the call, Viva, would you be the press secretary? And for a second, I'm thinking,

01:19:43.420 ah, my tweets are too much of a liability. And then I, and I really, I'm thinking like, no,

01:19:47.900 my tweets are an indication that you'll get respect. But if you pull a Jim Acosta,

01:19:51.840 I will berate you and tell you to stop being an idiot and sit down and get, give the mic up to the 1.00

01:19:55.840 next real journalist. You've justified all of my bad conduct yet. I hope you should feel proud of 1.00

01:20:02.080 yourself. Listen, authenticity is the whole ball game, right? I mean, I actually in the,

01:20:08.080 in the happiness book, I have a whole section on authenticity. Now they are,

01:20:12.240 there are two layers of authenticity. There is, there's personal authenticity, you know,

01:20:16.800 is Trump authentic? Is God sad? Is Viva authentic? But there's also existential authenticity, meaning,

01:20:23.080 so in this, I was talking about this in the context of living your life so that hopefully at the end of

01:20:27.760 your life, you have as few regrets as possible. And there I was arguing, if you live a life of

01:20:32.960 existential authenticity, then you are protecting yourself against that. And by the way, and I'm

01:20:38.960 not saying this just because I'm on your show, you perfectly exemplify that which I tell people to do,

01:20:44.860 which is you did become a lawyer and you, I think you were the editor of the law review. So it's not

01:20:51.860 like, so you had all of the credentials and all the things, and you went to a top law firm. And then

01:20:57.620 you looked at one point in the proverbial mirror and you said, that's not what I want to do. And

01:21:02.520 very few people are going to say, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to philosophy degree

01:21:07.980 at McGill. I'm going to do law school. I'm going to become the law review guy. I'm going to go to a

01:21:12.780 law top firm. And then I'm going to drop all that so I can do balloons with ice. What is that thing you

01:21:17.900 did? The impimba effect. Amazing. Right. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm sure your parents

01:21:24.080 came very close to disowning the good Jewish boy, but guess what? Who won at the end? By you living 1.00

01:21:31.640 an authentic life, an existential authentic life, I'm sure you've been able to flourish in ways that

01:21:37.780 you could have never imagined had you continued. So don't become a pediatrician because your dad

01:21:43.200 and your mom are pediatricians and they expect that of you because you will wake up at 60 and say,

01:21:48.300 I always wanted to be an architect and now my life is gone and it's too late. So authentic. And by the

01:21:54.880 way, the ancient Greeks and the Delphic maxim of know thyself, it's just two words, know thyself

01:22:04.000 has stood the test of time because it is universal and since time immemorial.

01:22:09.500 Amazing. Again, so what is your, uh, if I may ask the situation with Northwood, Northwood

01:22:14.840 University? Yes. So North, thank you so much for asking. So Northwood reached out to me, uh,

01:22:20.060 by the way, the president of, I don't know what it is. Their entire, not their entire, but quite a few

01:22:26.840 of their senior staff are Canadians. So the president, this, so Northwood university is a

01:22:32.700 university in Midland, Michigan. Midland is, I'd never heard of it. It is gorgeous.

01:22:38.980 Now there is a reason why it's so gorgeous. It's because this is where the headquarters,

01:22:44.300 the global headquarters of Dow chemicals is in Midland. And so they've poured in billions of

01:22:50.800 dollars to this town precisely because if you're going to bring a top chemist from Zurich to, you

01:22:57.400 know, rural Michigan, you, you need to have culture. You need to have a, uh, you know, a sushi place

01:23:04.480 and you need to have cafes. So when I first went there, my inaugural visit, uh, earlier this semester,

01:23:10.300 I, and my wife came with me, I was concerned, like, is it, is it going to be like, uh, you know,

01:23:14.760 crystal meth labs everywhere. And it is gorgeous, beautiful downtown, uh, cafes and restaurants and,

01:23:23.600 you know, cool. It's just, it's beautiful. The campus is beautiful. Northwood university is

01:23:29.040 interestingly, it follows the European model of les grandes écoles. Les grandes écoles is,

01:23:35.740 these are the schools that are focused on only one thing. So for example, Sciences Po for the future

01:23:41.840 political leaders, uh, all the business schools are usually separate schools. They're just business

01:23:48.320 schools. So Northwood university is really a big gigantic business school. That's completely rooted

01:23:55.700 in all of the freedom ethos that you could think of. So the president reached out to me in, uh, uh,

01:24:04.220 the summer when I had put out, out of office for five weeks, I'm not answering anybody. And he knew

01:24:11.420 of some of my difficulties at Concordia. They were all big fans of my work. And luckily I violated

01:24:17.940 my edict to not check my emails. And so I had this long email from this guy that I'd never heard of,

01:24:23.980 who had been the president of San, uh, San Francis Xavier, uh, in Canada. And he reached out, he said,

01:24:31.220 Hey, can we talk? We'd love to have you join our, our family. And since then it has been one of the

01:24:37.240 most, it's not like I'm being paid to say this, right? I mean, I wouldn't have said it. I'm very

01:24:42.280 authentic. He's a gem. I mean, if all academic presidents were like Kent McDonald, there would

01:24:49.520 be no problem in academia. Okay. Uh, his whole team is unbelievable. They've given me complete

01:24:55.680 freedom to do things as, as I please. I'm teaching two courses in, in, uh, spring. Uh, but otherwise,

01:25:03.140 so that my title is visiting professor and global ambassador. The global ambassador part

01:25:07.580 is to promote the school, right? Is to use my platform. Look, there are 4,000 universities in

01:25:14.560 the United States. So a classic marketing problem is how do you differentiate yourself? How do you

01:25:20.540 break out of the clutter? And so hopefully I could contribute to, you know, breaking them out of the

01:25:27.040 clutter. And I think so far it's been very, very fruitful. A lot of people have gotten to know

01:25:32.020 Northwood, uh, via my intervention. So I've got nothing but unbelievable things to say about that

01:25:38.460 place. That's it's amazing. And the best marketing on earth is to have someone who people trust love,

01:25:43.720 who is what they call woke or based as we not woke, sorry, anti-woke and base or whatever the words are

01:25:49.860 people, you know, who it's, it's a university that would bring on a Gadsad and not suppress a Gadsad

01:25:56.040 is a university where I, as a parent would want to send my kids without a question. And I've got

01:26:00.920 nothing to do with the university. So it's, it's, it's, it's fantastic.

01:26:05.080 Gadsad, do you have another 15 minutes?

01:26:06.760 Let's do it.

01:26:07.540 Okay.

01:26:08.140 It's impossible to be satiated of you, man.

01:26:10.380 No, no, I do it. And I got questions. I don't want to neglect. So everyone on YouTube,

01:26:13.360 come over to rumble and I'm going to get to some questions and low and local stuff in a second.

01:26:17.280 I'm just going to end it on YouTube. It changes nothing from our end, but it's the Q and a after party.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - November 12, 2024

Suicidal Empathy & Post-Election Liberal Meltdown! Livestream with Viva Frei (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_751)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript