The Genius of Thomas Sowell Podcast - Courage, Authenticity & Sowell (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_617)
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 47 minutes
Words per Minute
141.8336
Summary
On January 18th, 2020, just one month before the COVID lockdowns began, the Danish National Symphony was about to perform for a packed house of 1,800 people when a shot rang out, and the crowd gasped in horror. What happened next will shock and surprise you.
Transcript
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On January 18th, 2020, just one month before the COVID lockdowns began, the Danish National
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Symphony was about to perform for a packed house of 1,800 people.
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The conductor, Valdemar Johansson, stepped onto the stage to take his place behind the
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Little did he know that a beautiful, yet deadly assassin, by the name of Nastassja
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Folgstedtlund, hidden in the rear of the auditorium, trained the sight of her sniper's rifle, dead
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A shot rang out, and Johansson fell to the ground, dead from a single bullet.
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What happened next will shock and surprise you.
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What was the thing that was không if there were any differentyims, but it seemed good to
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do a lot of confinement, but when it came out, there was a lot of pigment that can
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It'sine shared with people with variations to the dimensions.
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Maybe a lot of comum are more of the spaces to beικest and to be it like this cultura
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What you see hereafter we're doing here is a long time for spreading the
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air in order to hear what the widzian and the science of the fact that
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Like James Bond himself, has withstood the test of time and still elicits gasps of delight and amazement from audiences around the world.
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Dr. No was the first in a series of 25 James Bond movies over a 60-year period.
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Maybe it's just a coincidence, but that was the year my personal saga began.
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Perhaps that's part of the reason James Bond is so deeply embedded in my psyche.
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Ever since I announced I was going to have Gad Saad on the podcast, strange things have been happening to me.
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I'm not a paranoid person, but lately I get the feeling I'm being followed.
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I've been noticing the same faces at my neighborhood Starbucks, all showing up coincidentally at around the same time I get there.
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Yesterday, on my morning hike in Griffith Park, I noticed a couple about 500 feet ahead of me on the trail for at least a full mile.
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I read somewhere, they sometimes follow you from in front of you, just so you don't feel like you're being followed.
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The other day at the pool, a guy I've never seen before gets in my lane and follows me for at least 50 laps.
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At one point, I let him pass me, but before I knew it, he was right behind me a few minutes later.
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This is very suspicious behavior, and I'm sure they are trying to send me a message of some sort.
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So just to be on the safe side, I'm recording this episode from an undisclosed location, 100 miles outside of Los Angeles.
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I bought some equipment on Amazon, which helps me to sweep the room for bugs.
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And once I'm sure it's safe to speak freely, I'll be talking at a normal volume.
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I just want to say for the record, if this should turn out to be my last episode,
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I'm a very happy person, and I'm not at all suicidal.
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Honey, I love you and the kids, and please make sure my Thomas Sowell book collection gets split exactly evenly between our children.
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I would hate for one of them to feel slighted in any way.
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I first met Gad Saad at the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference last November.
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I dedicated a full episode to the conference, and if you haven't already listened to it, you really should.
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In preparation for today's conversation with Dr. Saad, I read his 2020 book, The Parasitic Mind,
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and also his new book, The Saad Truth About Happiness,
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which he was kind enough to send me an advance copy of before it was available to the public.
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So I feel like I've really gotten to know Gad Saad and to understand his way of thinking and seeing the world.
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As regular listeners will know, music is a critical component of my podcasting.
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When I was thinking about which theme music to pair with my Gad Saad interview,
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the James Bond theme song immediately came to mind,
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So why did James Bond get associated in my brain with Gad Saad?
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So I started thinking about James Bond and about what he represented for me all these years.
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I was surprised to discover that James Bond represents four very powerful ideas for me.
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I'd like to share these four themes with you because I think it will help prepare your mind for Gad Saad and the thrust of his work.
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The James Bond movies all have the same basic story.
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There's a very evil man or group of men who are out to take over the world or destroy the world in some way.
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And there is only one man who can save the world.
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Bond is so special, so talented, and so important that his government has issued him a so-called license to kill.
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Bond is allowed to kill whoever he needs to kill in his own judgment to accomplish his mission.
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He's the guy they call when the mission simply must succeed, when failure is not an option.
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The whole world is counting on James Bond, whether they know it or not.
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He's working behind the scenes to ensure the survival of civilization as we know it.
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As a child, then as a teenager, this idea of saving the world like James Bond always resonated with me and inspired me.
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And the idea that one person can save the world, that's a truly revolutionary concept.
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For me, it meant that I should always act, always speak up, never keep quiet, and never go along to get along.
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That I don't need the group's permission to take action.
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I remember an incident as a young boy in summer camp.
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There was one kid everybody was making fun of, because he had some sort of physical disability.
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I distinctly remember standing back from the group and not participating in teasing that boy.
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Sometimes, speaking up takes the form of keeping quiet.
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Years later, as a young twenty-something living in Manhattan, I witnessed a purse snatcher grab a young woman's bag and take off with it.
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Immediately, without even thinking, I started to chase the purse snatcher.
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I wasn't planning to catch him and fight with him, but I stayed right behind him and kept yelling,
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After about five blocks, he finally dropped the bag and ran off.
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I brought the bag back to the original scene of the crime, and the young woman was still there.
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I gave her her bag back and expected some sort of gushing, my hero-type treatment.
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Thanks, my boyfriend is not going to believe this.
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That might have ended differently had I looked more like Daniel Craig.
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For me, James Bond represents the spirit of fearless action for a just cause.
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It's the spirit of believing that I alone can save the world in my own way.
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It doesn't matter if I can really save the world.
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It's about believing I can and just taking action.
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When people ask me why I started a podcast about the ideas of Thomas Sowell,
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We Americans are so used to America being the world's savior.
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We Americans have been brought up on the idea that we had to fight a war to free ourselves
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That the British were the bad guys, and we were the good guys.
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So when the guy who is saving the world is a Brit, that's a disconnect right there.
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There's something really important going on here.
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Why are all the best places to live in the world former colonies of the Queen?
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Why do migrants to Europe from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East flood into Europe
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and try to make their way through Greece, through Italy, through Spain, and through France
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Is there something special about the British ethos that migrants from all over the world
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I'll leave you to answer this question for yourself.
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Speaking of the Queen, Britain maintains the trappings of its centuries-old monarchy to this day.
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We Americans tend to scoff at the idea of monarchy.
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But that is only because we compare it to democracy.
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And we laugh at how primitive the whole thing sounds.
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The son of the king automatically becomes the new king?
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But we fail to appreciate what a wonderful invention monarchy was at the time it was invented.
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competing generals and their armies would fight each other over who would be the next king.
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And this led to the shedding of much blood and many lives lost.
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Monarchy was a brilliant solution to the age-old problem of how to transfer power peacefully.
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This subject reminds me of a passage from Sowell's The Quest for Cosmic Justice,
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Primogeniture, the practice of leaving an estate entirely to the eldest son,
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is something that most of us today would consider unjust to the other children.
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Arbitrarily selecting the ruler of a nation by a similar principle
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would likewise be widely objected to on moral grounds, among other objections to monarchy.
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The purpose of primogeniture was, of course, to keep an estate intact from generation to generation.
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The point was not simply to make a given sum of wealth in one individual's hands
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larger than it would be if the land were shared.
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The point was to make the total wealth available to the family as a whole
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larger than it would have been under equal inheritance,
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where it would have been broken up into smaller and smaller pieces with the succeeding generations,
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creating economic inefficiencies that reduce the total value of the fragmented estate.
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Primogeniture relied on family ties and a sense of duty to guide the eldest son
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Land was often worth more when it could be farmed in one piece
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than the sum total of smaller separate pieces after being subdivided.
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There are what economists call economies of scale in production,
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and these can be lost as land is fragmented over time
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by being repeatedly divided equally among heirs.
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The poverty in a number of countries has been attributed to the fact
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that there are minute land holdings in those countries,
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with a given farmer often having several of these tiny plots,
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requiring his working day to be similarly broken up
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and time lost in transit from one place to another.
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In short, cosmic justice for heirs can mean unnecessary poverty for society as a whole.
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This by itself does not necessarily justify primogeniture.
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It simply says that the costs of achieving justice matter.
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whether economic, psychic, or other, on an innocent person?
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imposes another arbitrary cost on another innocent person,
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which can be divided among heirs without such high costs,
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when and where it existed in a different world,
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For me, this passage serves as a powerful reminder
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that we should not judge the practices of the past
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to understand why our ancestors did things the way they did,
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which were actually available to them at the time.
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as powerful and important as he was in his own right,
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who was the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service,
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or the certainty of losing all those other agents.
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probably comes from the life experience of Ian Fleming,
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There is reason for thinking that a more telling lead
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walking, flying, or swimming across the screen.
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If you ever get a chance to visit Palm Springs, California,
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I'll put a link in the show notes to their website.
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The museum is located at the Palm Springs Airport
00:30:04.200
And of course, there's Writings on the Wall, sung by Sam Smith.
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Much of the James Bond music is sad, lonely, and tragic.
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For me, it's the musical embodiment of Sowell's tragic vision of human nature.
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For Sowell, man is a flawed and imperfect creature, and this will never change.
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And we have to learn to live with the trade-offs inherent in any society composed of such flawed creatures like ourselves.
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All of Sowell's writings are infused with this tragic vision of human nature.
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If you share this vision, his work resonates with you.
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So these are the four themes of the James Bond character, which always resonated deeply with me.
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I think this is why I felt driven to pair my Gadsad interview with the music from James Bond.
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For me, Gadsad represents these four themes as well.
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What James Bond was to the physical world, Gadsad is to the intellectual world.
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While Bond fights to save the world from bad characters, Gadsad fights to save the world from bad ideas.
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While Bond fights to save the world from those who seek to enslave or destroy us, Gadsad fights to save Western civilization from those who seek to destroy the foundation and basic principles of that civilization.
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Just as Bond epitomizes the masculine-feminine dichotomy, so too does Gadsad, as an evolutionary psychologist, embrace and celebrate the differences between men and women.
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And he champions the union between man and woman as one of the key pillars of a happy life.
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Finally, only someone who truly understands the tragic side of life would even think of writing a book about happiness.
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Dr. Saad is a tenured professor of marketing at the Concordia University School of Business in Montreal, Canada.
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His specialty is the application of the ideas of evolutionary psychology to consumer behavior.
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He has written papers about how showy products like fast cars affect men's testosterone levels, which in turn affects their risk-taking behavior,
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and how menstrual hormones affect women's buying decisions.
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He has written many articles for academic journals and published several books for an academic audience.
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In his spare time, Gadsad has been speaking up about cultural issues.
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He has stepped outside of academia and talked directly to the general public.
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I think it must have been one of his seven appearances on the Joe Rogan podcast which brought him to my attention.
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Who is this guy who Joe Rogan, the most listened-to podcaster in the world, keeps bringing back to his show over and over and over again?
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He has also been interviewed by Sam Harris, Adam Carolla, and Dave Rubin.
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But I think Gadsad's official break into the so-called culture wars began with his publication in 2020 of The Parasitic Mind,
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In this clip, Gadsad describes the types of mind viruses he is fighting against.
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Some of the parasitic viruses of the human mind that I tackle include postmodernism, radical feminism, and social constructivism,
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all of which largely flourish within one infected ecosystem, the university.
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While each mind virus constitutes a different strain of lunacy,
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they are all bound by the full rejection of reality and common sense.
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Postmodernism rejects the existence of objective truths.
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Radical feminism scoffs at the idea of innate, biologically-based sex differences.
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And social constructivism posits that the human mind starts off as an empty slate, largely void of biological blueprints.
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In the next clip, he talks about the dichotomy between reason and emotion,
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and how the two have gotten confused, especially at the university.
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Nor is it surprising that people differ in the extent to which they rely on feelings versus thinking when making choices.
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The problem arises when domains that should be reserved for the intellect are hijacked by feelings.
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This is precisely what plagues our universities.
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What were once centers of intellectual development have become retreats for the emotionally fragile.
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The driving motto of the university is no longer the pursuit of truth, but the coddling of hurt feelings.
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In this final clip, Gad Saad talks about the importance of being judgmental.
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To never judge is to be an intellectual coward, for it serves as an insurance policy against the possibility of being a polarizing figure.
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The most charismatic public intellectuals are typically those who share their judgments on a broad range of issues.
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Thomas Sowell and the late Christopher Hitchens are two of the leading public intellectuals of the past four decades,
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precisely because they never shied away from sharing their opinions on contentious issues.
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Of course, not all judgments are created equal.
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The difference between a judgmental ideologue and a judgmental intellectual is the process by which each arrives at his position.
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As long as one uses well-articulated arguments in support of one's judgments, it is perfectly acceptable to judge.
00:37:22.960
Dr. Gad Saad, welcome to the Genius of Thomas Sowell podcast.
00:37:29.340
And actually, your behavior in interacting with me is something that I cover in my forthcoming book on the importance of being judgmental.
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So anyways, it speaks to the power of persistence.
00:37:50.920
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because in your book,
00:37:54.320
you talk about how you got to interview Russell Tompkins Jr.,
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And you had to be very persistent with a lot of grit to get him on your show.
00:38:08.240
And this was egged on by your young daughter, I believe.
00:38:13.500
So do you want me to share sort of the denouement of the story?
00:38:18.500
So basically what happened in 2001, I had moved to California to be a professor at University of California, Irvine.
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And I'd always sort of entertained this fantasy that one day I would be holding a private party in some beautiful garden that I own,
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and I would be wearing a velvet suit with a bow tie, and I would come out to my esteemed guests,
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and I would say, ladies and gentlemen, the stylistics, and they would be performing at this private event of mine.
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And so I had the chutzpah to actually think that a professor would have enough money to invite the stylistics for such a show.
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So I reached out in 2001 or maybe 2002 to the management team of the stylistics,
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and then I was quickly disabused of the notion that I could afford them.
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Fast forward about 15 years later, we're around 2016.
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I invite all sorts of really interesting people to come and chat with me.
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And in this case, I'm not asking them to come and perform for me,
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but I'm just trying to have a chat with my childhood musical hero.
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Finally, my daughter says, why don't you call them and leave a message?
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And so one day I'm sitting watching a soccer match on a Saturday morning.
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The landline rings, which it almost never does.
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And so I already know before I answer who it is.
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He goes, hi, I'm trying to reach Professor Saad.
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I was giving a talk at a scientific conference in Philadelphia.
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And he says, name the place and time and I'll be there.
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So we end up spending a whole evening together.
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It really is a great lesson in life because, you know, I always say if you're not getting
00:40:31.800
rejected several times a day, then you're not really living on the edge.
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You know, we try so hard to avoid rejection, but we should actually be seeking it.
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And, you know, you reaching out to them over and over again.
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Of course, you were setting yourself up for rejection after rejection.
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But, you know, and it's not going to work every time, but it's going to lead to a happier
00:40:56.580
And, you know, it's tough to do because I should just mention, it's not as though I was,
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I reached maybe two, three, four times every time separated by a couple of months.
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But not notwithstanding that caveat, you know, you're setting yourself up not only for potential
00:41:13.080
rejection and failure, but also someone like me who can easily be offended by personal
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If you don't answer me, then I'm going to take offense to it.
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But yet I had to swallow my pride and say, look, maybe this guy is busy.
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And so you sort of have to also be humble in recognizing that when people sometimes reject
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And so I'm glad that I had the wisdom of my then eight-year-old daughter to get me through
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You know, I had my wife egging me on to get you on the show because, you know, my wife,
00:41:52.220
and I told you this, we met at the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference in November of last
00:41:58.100
And okay, before I talk about my wife, when I first walked into the conference, I saw
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And I thought to myself, of course, no conference on academic freedom would be complete without
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the presence of Gadsett, who more than anyone epitomizes what academic freedom is supposed
00:42:19.580
The second thing I thought was, it's no coincidence that he's in the front row because he's the
00:42:26.420
type of person who has a zest for life, who's going to participate 100%.
00:42:30.920
And you don't want to miss even the slightest facial expression of one of the speakers, you
00:42:36.840
know, and you're also there to learn, you know, you came to learn, you rolled up your
00:42:41.360
intellectual sleeves and you were there to learn.
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And there's something, you know, inspiring about being, you know, what I call a front
00:42:48.580
rower, you know, someone who always goes to the front row.
00:42:52.200
And the interesting thing is that the front row seats are usually the easiest to get.
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A lot of times I walk into a place, I always go right to the front row because I know there's
00:43:06.840
I don't know why that is, but people are intimidated.
00:43:09.740
People maybe want to hide in the back so that they're not called upon, maybe.
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So, you know, your presence at the conference was a real inspiration for me.
00:43:23.740
And my wife was egging me on to get you on the show because you had awakened her to the
00:43:31.720
idea pathogens that she had been swallowing hook, line, and sinker for many, many years,
00:43:46.320
You know, and I remember telling you that over the snack table at the conference.
00:43:58.580
No, you know, and by the way, that story, you can't imagine how enriching it is for me
00:44:03.920
to hear that because, you know, people will often ask, you know, why do you get involved
00:44:09.980
Well, it's because I get to hear an incredible story, a woman that I've never met, that I
00:44:15.820
somehow have been able to hopefully positively influence.
00:44:24.960
And, you know, I want to talk with you a little bit about that later in this interview about
00:44:39.300
In preparing, you know, for this interview, I read, I studied actually two of your books,
00:45:03.440
The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.
00:45:08.080
And thank you for sending me an advanced copy of The Sad Truth About Happiness, Eight Secrets
00:45:20.460
So I was very tickled that you mentioned Thomas Sowell in both of these books.
00:45:26.720
In The Parasitic Mind, you called Sowell, quote, one of the original slayers of social justice
00:45:35.400
You complimented him for never shying away from sharing his opinions on contentious issues.
00:45:41.320
In your new book about happiness, you extol Sowell for preaching a message of personal agency
00:45:51.420
In February of 21, you wrote an essay called 10 Reasons Why You Should Love Thomas Sowell.
00:45:58.020
So tell us about your relationship with Sowell and his work.
00:46:01.840
So I first encountered him not through reading one of his brilliant books, but I can't remember
00:46:08.700
the exact genesis, but it was, you know, some YouTube clip from, you know, the 1960s or 70s,
00:46:16.040
where he's taken on some feminist on, you know, I don't know if it was Phil Donahue or,
00:46:24.560
And I was just like somewhat, I mean, not maybe mesmerized, but God damn, who is this guy?
00:46:30.920
And so then you start doing the deep dive and then you discover Thomas Sowell.
00:46:36.800
That would have probably been, I would say, you know, maybe 15 years ago, because I had
00:46:42.500
been in my own academic work fighting against a lot of these social constructivists and militant
00:46:49.660
feminists and what I call the flat earthers of the human mind, the folks who reject the
00:46:54.500
idea that biology can influence human behavior, that evolutionary psychology can influence our
00:47:00.900
And I think it was through, you know, my constant battles with many of my academic colleagues
00:47:09.400
So it was first YouTube and then from YouTube, I then started reading some of his work.
00:47:14.180
And as you know, this past summer, I was reading, you know, I always, whenever we go somewhere
00:47:19.440
on a trip, one of my most stressful moments is to decide what is the next book that I'm bringing
00:47:26.140
And I was lucky enough to be rational enough to choose vision of the anointed ones for
00:47:34.940
And then when I read that, I'm like, my goodness, almost every word that he says in there could
00:47:42.700
So yeah, Thomas Sowell, I share your admiration for him.
00:47:45.920
So, you know, how deep have you gotten into his work?
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I mean, you know, where are you in that journey?
00:47:52.240
A full book, Only Vision of the Anointed, little snippets from many different books,
00:47:57.660
several articles from his, you remember his old ongoing, you know, series that he used
00:48:06.980
But I must say that, how many books has he written?
00:48:20.820
So I would say, and this is completely speculative, but out of all his written words, I would be
00:48:28.420
hard pressed to imagine that I've read more than 5% of it.
00:48:32.900
But it's enough of a percentage to know that he's unbelievable.
00:48:37.840
So you've got a lot more ways to go, which is great.
00:48:40.460
Which actually reminds me of why I started this podcast.
00:48:49.780
And somewhere in my second year, I was like, you know, I'm getting a lot out of these books.
00:48:56.120
But the ones I'm really getting the most out of are the Thomas Sowell books.
00:49:00.400
Why don't I just focus only on reading all the Thomas Sowell books?
00:49:05.580
And while I'm at it, why don't I start a podcast to talk about them?
00:49:08.980
And so that's where I, you know, that's where I am now.
00:49:12.220
One of the reasons why I have a hard time, I mean, I read also, you know, voraciously
00:49:17.660
my entire life, both professionally, you know, right?
00:49:20.720
If I'm writing a book, I have to read a million other books as part of the research, but also
00:49:26.100
It's one of the things that I enjoy reading, doing the most.
00:49:28.800
But related to a point that I discussed in my forthcoming book, I tend to be a maladaptive
00:49:34.520
So oftentimes my reading speed is slowed down because I get into this kind of OCD where
00:49:43.180
I reread a sentence three times because God forbid, I must have missed one word that I
00:49:49.360
I mean, I, by the way, I read the end notes of every book.
00:49:51.920
And so I often wonder if I were to take up a challenge like yours, or I want to read a
00:49:58.080
book a week, whether I can do it only not due to motivation or, or, or interest, but
00:50:04.300
simply because my punctilious perfectionist nature might not allow me to get through a
00:50:12.460
The only reason I was able to do it was because I go on three hour hikes every morning and
00:50:18.300
I was able to listen to the audio books and I had the book downloaded on my phone.
00:50:23.960
So if I saw something that I really liked, I could stop and grab the quote and save it.
00:50:51.900
You know, in some ways you remind me of Thomas Sowell and let me explain why.
00:51:02.780
Both of you are academics who specialize in somewhat technical subjects.
00:51:07.420
And yet you both have chosen to communicate your ideas with the general public in a way
00:51:14.880
You've mentioned in the past that fellow academics sometimes look down on you for your appearances
00:51:21.240
on Joe Rogan's podcast, for example, and also for your irreverent style of communication.
00:51:28.180
I've heard economists who somewhat look down on Thomas Sowell for, they claim, not making
00:51:34.520
any original contributions to the field of economics.
00:51:46.920
Is there any hard evidence that all the so-called original ideas which economists win Nobel Prizes
00:51:53.780
for have contributed to advancing humanity in any way?
00:52:00.200
I'm just asking, is there any evidence that they do?
00:52:06.120
So first, I think I could retire now because any time that I am compared in any way to
00:52:14.700
So I think I might put that quote of yours on my CV.
00:52:23.980
So one of the things that the scientific method expects is what's called replication,
00:52:31.820
So if there is a phenomenon that we can sort of include as part of the core knowledge of
00:52:37.600
the field, it has to hopefully be replicated and validated across different independent
00:52:44.020
teams, all of which then converge to confirming that this finding seems to be veridical, which
00:52:49.620
of course, by the way, even that would be still provisionally true because if in 300 years
00:52:54.080
someone comes along and falsifies that, well, then we're back to the drawing board.
00:52:57.420
That's what's beautiful about the scientific method.
00:52:59.500
We're always updating what we consider to be true.
00:53:02.880
And so to the point of replication and in answering your question, maybe in an indirect,
00:53:07.880
oblique way, less than 5% of findings published in the leading business school journals have
00:53:21.460
So I can't answer to the fact of whether some of the findings have helped society.
00:53:28.340
Of course they have because many of the things, for example, that you see in the AI algorithms
00:53:34.480
that allow Facebook to understand our behavior and to then predict what we're going to do next
00:53:40.820
better than our brains can predict, that really comes from a lot of people who understand consumer
00:53:48.340
So there's an insurmountable amount of cases that suggest that, of course, we are doing
00:53:53.420
things that are practically relevant and so on, let alone academically relevant.
00:53:57.420
But the fact that only 5% of the edifices of reason that we purport to be teaching our
00:54:05.060
students, only 5% has been replicated, that should make us stop and really think hard about
00:54:11.540
And one of the reasons why, by the way, Alan, I love evolutionary psychology is because usually
00:54:17.260
the findings in evolutionary psychology have an extraordinarily higher replicability rate.
00:54:25.180
Because before you argue that something is a human universal, as is often the case in
00:54:30.760
evolutionary psychology, you have to have demonstrated its veracity across different cultural environments,
00:54:38.100
across time periods, oftentimes across species.
00:54:41.480
And so that which many of the other fields in the business school, let alone the social
00:54:48.260
sciences, they suffer from lack of replicability, that is not something that evolutionary psychology
00:54:54.640
For your eyes only, can see me through the night.
00:55:11.480
When I look at someone like Sowell, he spent years and years figuring out how things work
00:55:37.320
Then he spent more years and years teaching what he learned to the general public, including
00:55:43.740
And he did that so that people can make better decisions when they vote.
00:55:47.880
In my mind, that's the highest contribution an economist can make to humanity.
00:55:53.100
And I did an episode on why he deserves a Nobel Prize just for that.
00:55:58.980
Now, if your research into happiness can help people to become happier, isn't that more important
00:56:05.000
than you simply coming up with a bold new theory on happiness that no one ever thought of before?
00:56:11.180
I mean, a lot of the ideas in your book are very basic.
00:56:13.680
And yet, if you can communicate them in a way which inspires people to actually use them,
00:56:24.260
And to that point, before I answer the happiness point directly, you might remember, and it speaks
00:56:30.500
to your earlier question about how some of my colleagues would look down upon me for appearing
00:56:34.880
I'm guessing you are perhaps referencing the story in chapter one of The Parasitic Mind,
00:56:40.280
where I talk about my going actually to Stanford.
00:56:43.000
Although it wasn't on the Stanford trip where you and I met, it was an earlier trip in 2017,
00:56:48.280
where I had been invited to the Stanford Business School.
00:56:51.260
So that's pretty much the mecca of academia, where I had been invited to give a talk on
00:56:59.820
And the night before, I had gone out to dinner with one of my hosts, just one-on-one.
00:57:06.400
And during the night, he said, oh, you know, I looked you up on Google and so on.
00:57:11.760
I didn't know you were such an academic celebrity.
00:57:15.520
I said, oh, as a matter of fact, I'm probably going to be appearing soon.
00:57:18.740
So he kind of looks at me with disdain and says, oh, well, you know, we don't condone
00:57:23.380
And I said, well, you don't condone what exactly at Stanford?
00:57:26.440
You don't condone appearing in front of a crowd of maybe 20 million people who are going
00:57:32.540
He said, well, we don't do research so that it could be sexy enough to appear on Joe Rogan
00:57:41.160
And if it's worthwhile research, then I would like to think that I could share it with 20
00:57:52.280
But now coming back to happiness, you're exactly right.
00:57:55.240
I think that if I can help, I don't know how many people, X number of people have a certain
00:58:01.320
set of guidelines that are likely to increase their chance of being happy, then how do you
00:58:07.640
Look, by the way, and this is not to denigrate academic research.
00:58:15.620
Do you know, Alan, how many average citations the typical academic paper receives?
00:58:27.140
But, you know, I hear numbers bandied about be like 100, 200, 15, 5.
00:58:35.600
Okay, so most people's academic papers get referred to never.
00:58:48.300
If you, your first guesses were 100 or 200, I think you said.
00:58:53.480
If you have a paper that's been cited 100 or 200 times, that's a highly successful paper.
00:59:01.800
I mean, of course, it depends how many years it took to amass the 100.
00:59:05.400
I mean, if it took only a year, then it's better than if it took 30 years.
00:59:08.440
But already, very few papers are going to amass, you know, 200 citations.
00:59:14.100
As a matter of fact, if you go on Google Scholar, it gives you your I-10 index, which is how many
00:59:19.680
publications have you published that have more than 10 citations?
00:59:25.880
Why wasn't, if it's very common to have 1,000 citations, then that would have been.
00:59:34.860
So, so the idea is that it's very hard once you're bitten by the bug of communicating to
00:59:43.760
thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people to be satisfied with only communicating
00:59:51.260
with 37 colleagues who share your interest in psychology of decision-making.
00:59:56.240
And again, it's not to denigrate that because you need to do that.
00:59:59.680
That's part of your mandate as a professor to push the research frontier.
01:00:03.640
But my God, do I also get an incredible tingle when someone sends me a selfie of a copy of
01:00:13.420
They're sitting on a beach, you know, in Oman, and they send me a selfie of that, right?
01:00:18.560
Because that person had 1 million different possible things they could have done for that
01:00:25.600
And yet I captivated their attention on that Oman beach.
01:00:32.280
So I think that professors should be able to do it all.
01:00:35.460
I don't think we should only be speaking to other ivory tower folks.
01:00:39.020
And another reason why I think both of us love Thomas Sowell.
01:01:00.140
In your book about happiness, you make the argument that authenticity is an important foundation
01:01:19.500
Quote, A central feature of personal authenticity is realness or genuineness.
01:01:26.380
One is real if there is congruency between one's internal feelings and overt behaviors,
01:01:33.360
even if such genuineness yields negative personal or social outcomes.
01:01:39.340
When I was reading this section of your book, it occurred to me that one of the reasons I
01:01:44.440
love Sowell so much, and I suspect that many other people feel this way as well, is that
01:01:53.780
He speaks his mind and he doesn't seem to care how his ideas will be received.
01:01:59.860
One can say the exact same thing about you, actually.
01:02:02.760
Tell us more about this concept of authenticity and why you believe it's such a key feature
01:02:13.640
I'll, I'll, I mean, I can answer it in a, in a sort of theoretical philosophical way, or
01:02:18.060
I can give you a concrete story that speaks exactly to that quote.
01:02:22.500
So a few days ago, I don't know, maybe a week ago, I faced a conundrum, okay, as often
01:02:30.780
There was a gentleman whom I'd never interacted with on a one-on-one basis, but who had recently
01:02:37.880
And especially so since I'm now, you know, starting to do my media tour for different
01:02:42.860
A lot of people said, Hey, you should go on this guy's show.
01:02:46.100
He's got a huge following and blah, blah, blah.
01:02:48.320
So I started checking him out to see, you know, what's this guy about?
01:02:51.920
And I saw that every second, every second tweet seemed to be as though his account had been
01:03:03.320
Love is love through kindness and loving the flowers.
01:03:10.640
You must cut your cucumbers with love because, you know, the cucumbers to have feelings.
01:03:17.020
And at first I thought, I can't, could this be satire?
01:03:20.140
Is he doing like God, sad satire or is he, is he, you know, trolling?
01:03:27.100
Now it could have been either that he truly is that naive that, you know, love will conquer
01:03:35.460
So we can talk about his authenticity or lack thereof, but the more important element to your,
01:03:41.740
the quote from my book is what should I do with this information?
01:03:46.120
Should I swallow my tongue because there is a careerist, a pragmatic, clear benefit to me
01:03:56.200
holding my tongue and going, dear so-and-so, I love what you're doing.
01:04:04.640
Let's get together so that I can come on your show.
01:04:10.800
Because your tweets are pissing me off and they sound false and they sound inauthentic
01:04:17.520
and they sound as though you're peddling pure bullshit.
01:04:26.600
So then my internal state has to be consistent with my overt behavior.
01:04:37.020
I'm not insulting him in obnoxious ways, but I am being critical of his positions.
01:04:43.920
Now he had claimed, I'm always willing to learn.
01:04:48.800
I'm always willing to exchange and debate people who disagree with me.
01:04:59.100
And then of course he got, you know, attacked mercilessly by people saying you're fraudulent
01:05:05.240
because you, you preach that from this side of your mouth and then you do this from the
01:05:09.920
So the point of authenticity applies both to him and that I think he's being authentic,
01:05:14.660
but more importantly, I had to be authentic with my genuine self.
01:05:23.080
I'm not going after someone, attacking them in a defamatory way.
01:05:27.780
I'm saying, here is how I disagree with your positions.
01:05:31.840
And I simply couldn't be quiet long enough to benefit from his large social platform.
01:05:38.040
And sometimes I, I wonder whether I am being too authentic, whether on the inverted U curve,
01:05:44.400
I haven't found my sweet spot, but then I think not because what allows me to walk tall,
01:05:51.020
even though I'm hardly a tall guy is that my sense of personhood doesn't have any glaring
01:05:59.360
What you see is what you get for better or worse with all my qualities and all my faults.
01:06:05.280
And I think that is a fundamental feature for being happy because there's nothing for you
01:06:11.700
If you're always speaking the truth, as far as you know, there's nothing, no lies for you
01:06:16.740
to remember, it's a much easier way to live life.
01:06:20.140
You know, I really, really agree with that for, for at least since I've been a teenager,
01:06:24.760
there's one quote I came across that I've made my life's motto.
01:06:33.560
He said this, it was a seven word quote that has always stuck with me.
01:06:44.260
And, and I, and I'm, and I'm glad to hear there's some scientific evidence that this
01:06:49.240
actually leads to a happy life because it does have its costs.
01:06:51.940
As you mentioned in your book, you know, you've talked about the career costs that you've
01:07:00.540
I was just going to say that, I mean, I'll give you one example, which I actually mentioned
01:07:05.780
Uh, I ended up taking out the identifying markers of that particular university, although
01:07:12.280
I certainly didn't mind mentioning it, but just to stay consistent with that protocol,
01:07:17.740
I'll simply say that it was a Southern California university where the, you might remember this
01:07:23.340
passage from the book where both the president of the university and the then chancellor of
01:07:28.660
the university were gigantic fans of my work and were incredibly keen on having me joined
01:07:35.940
Now, for me, that was a, a, a wonderful, wonderful news because while being Jewish,
01:07:43.340
For me, the promised land is anything that is close to Newport beach, California.
01:07:51.400
And then at the last second, when it was pretty much a signed and done deal, uh, apparently
01:07:58.200
there were some folks who were not very happy for me to join the place.
01:08:03.380
Now, while I may regret the fact that I didn't get to spend the last, you know, at least decade
01:08:12.440
You know, I, if you, if you ask me, Hey, had you not said A, B, C, D, I could have now guaranteed
01:08:23.920
And, and again, you know, some might say, well, you're too exacting in your code of
01:08:28.700
I say, no, it allows me to put my head on the pillow at the end of the night and avert
01:08:33.680
insomnia because I never feel as though I'm being fraudulent or a scammer or charlatan
01:09:10.280
On the subject of authenticity, I want to ask you about the last chapter of the parasitic
01:09:18.360
In your book, you make the case that Western society is drowning in a flood of harmful
01:09:23.440
ideas and that each of us needs to join the battle.
01:09:27.840
You write this quote, most people are too busy to notice the dangers of idea pathogens or wrongly
01:09:36.480
The intrusion of anti-science, anti-reason, and illiberal movements occurs slowly and incrementally
01:09:44.380
without many people becoming aware of the larger problem.
01:09:48.880
Hence the slow and inexorable death of the West by a thousand cuts.
01:09:54.840
So your goal in writing this chapter, I assume, was to inspire people to speak up and oppose
01:10:02.240
the many crazy ideas which have taken hold nowadays.
01:10:07.060
You talk about the bystander effect, how everyone assumes that someone else is speaking up so they
01:10:13.940
It's like, hey, Gad Saad is speaking up about this issue, so I don't have to.
01:10:17.940
You talk about believing in your own voice, no matter how small the audience might be.
01:10:22.720
You talk about how we shouldn't be afraid to judge others, how we shouldn't shy away from
01:10:31.580
You talk about how we should avoid virtue signaling.
01:10:34.620
You talk about the honey badger and why we should be more like this creature.
01:10:39.680
By the way, my nickname for you is the Manuka honey badger, the honey badger of honey badgers.
01:10:50.260
You make it sound so obvious and easy, but I think this is where most people get stuck.
01:10:58.320
To me, the perfect example of this was the women's swim team at the University of Pennsylvania,
01:11:04.960
Not a single female swimmer spoke up when a biological male joined their team and competed
01:11:12.680
Everyone was afraid to be the only one speaking up.
01:11:23.440
And do we need some sort of game theory to understand why people are not speaking up?
01:11:31.180
Well, by the way, excellent summary of all of the key points in that chapter.
01:11:36.640
Look, there's something in economics very much related to game theory, as per your question,
01:11:43.120
The idea is that let's suppose you've got a plot of land where there is communal grazing.
01:11:49.540
And if there's too much use of that land, then the land never has the opportunity to replenish
01:11:56.020
itself and heal itself for next season and so on.
01:11:58.940
So all of the 10 farmers that are using their livestock to graze the land come to a gentlemanly
01:12:04.980
agreement and says, okay, guys, all of us are going to now commit for the next one year of never
01:12:16.920
But then the optimal strategy is for one of the farmers to violate it.
01:12:22.400
Hopefully the other nine will be true to the agreement.
01:12:25.220
And then we really all win because if only one farmer uses the livestock grazes, it could
01:12:33.740
And hopefully all the other nine will be honorable, whereas I'm not being.
01:12:37.400
But of course, the tragedy of the commons is that every single one of the farmers think
01:12:42.760
So that's the idea of coordinating a collusion or a collective action.
01:12:47.360
So what's happening in the diffusion of responsibility, I know that I should be speaking and I know that
01:12:54.820
Gad Saad said in his book that it is incumbent on each of us to speak.
01:12:58.720
But, you know, I don't want to not be invited to the cool kids party and I don't want to
01:13:02.920
not go to the cool Malibu, you know, highfalutin progressive list parties.
01:13:07.820
And therefore, you know, how about I be cowardly and hopefully all the other people will heed his
01:13:17.860
And therefore, we all go quietly into the abyss of infinite lunacy.
01:13:22.960
And so what I try to tell people is, look, first of all, here's what you can do within
01:13:29.620
No one is expecting you to have the reach of Joe Rogan.
01:13:32.260
Nobody's expecting you to be as erudite as Thomas Sowell.
01:13:36.600
But within your small sphere, maybe you heard that your grade five kid was being taught some
01:13:42.880
insane things at school that you disagree with.
01:13:45.460
Don't sit idly, send a polite email to the teacher, even if it's something as small as
01:13:53.660
You don't have to start a parental indignation group.
01:13:57.560
Just which in whichever way that you can, you could affect change.
01:14:07.800
Just don't diffuse the responsibility onto others.
01:14:10.140
And to the honey badger point, the reason why I specifically chose the honey badger,
01:14:15.400
because for those listeners of yours who don't know much about the honey badger, it has been
01:14:20.540
officially formally ranked as the fiercest animal in the animal kingdom.
01:14:35.520
It could be stung by an incredibly venomous snake and it passes out and then rebounds.
01:14:44.960
The reason why I say six is because there are YouTube footages where you literally see
01:14:48.940
six adult lions shying away from an insane honey badger.
01:14:55.000
Now, the honey badger is the size of a small dog.
01:14:57.040
So it's not as though it is ferocious by its size.
01:15:03.740
It's ferocious in its I don't give an F mindset.
01:15:08.220
And so what I tell people when I implore them to activate their inner honey badger,
01:15:12.080
it's not that they should be physically violent, but be ideologically fierce.
01:15:17.560
If you truly believe that there are clear definitions of what it means to be male or female,
01:15:24.480
as have 117 billion people who have existed since the start of Homo sapiens, we all seem
01:15:33.500
to have known exactly what male or female was until three minutes ago when someone at Oberlin
01:15:43.000
But I seem to have married a person that seemed to have the right genitalia for us to bear children,
01:15:51.500
What an incredible coincidence, 117 billion people.
01:15:55.220
So if you find that it is insane and it stretches your credulity to hear such nonsense, challenge
01:16:02.240
your politician, challenge your principal at your kid's school, challenge your friend on
01:16:10.560
And if we all of us speak in unison, I famously said on the first time that I appeared on
01:16:16.900
Tucker Carlson's night show, I say famously because he started laughing when I said, I
01:16:22.440
said, look, if we all speak in unison, we will get rid of these problems by next Tuesday.
01:16:28.280
If we don't, it will be a slow train ride to hell, right?
01:16:33.740
It's a challenge of coordinating the collective action.
01:16:37.680
If we're able to do that, I think all this nonsense could be eradicated very quickly.
01:16:41.460
You're right, but I just want to challenge you on one thing, though.
01:17:02.440
Some people are able to speak up and monetize their speaking up.
01:17:15.440
You've been able to monetize speaking up to some extent with your books and YouTube and
01:17:21.320
But most people will never be able to monetize speaking up.
01:17:28.360
If you have to pay your mortgage every month and you've got to go to Costco and you've got
01:17:31.800
to pay the groceries and your insurance and your cell phone bill and all that, I mean,
01:17:37.400
If simply the fear of losing your job or of losing a client, that would be enough to shut
01:17:57.420
And I'm not trying to be bombastic or, you know, hyperbolic.
01:18:07.840
18, 19-year-old men, all of whom said, oh, I'll go, I'll go.
01:18:12.660
And they landed knowing that they were going to be mowed down like little insignificant
01:18:26.440
Because I'm contextualizing the fear that people fear today, which you're mentioning
01:18:33.100
Yes, I'm not belittling the fact that you don't want to lose your job and not be able
01:18:36.860
to pay your mortgage, but that there is nothing that is worth fighting for as grand as freedom
01:18:44.940
of speech, as defense of reality that doesn't involve some cost.
01:18:50.180
Now, I'm not suggesting that people be reckless martyrs, right?
01:18:54.680
Which, by the way, speaks to, in one of the chapters of my forthcoming happiness book,
01:19:04.620
And for almost every phenomenon that you could think of, there is a middle sweet spot, which
01:19:16.280
It's not good to be a reckless martyr who jumps and takes unnecessary risks because you're
01:19:22.920
But somewhere in the middle lies the golden meat, the sweet spot.
01:19:26.040
So this is where I implore people to use whatever cost-benefit risk-reward calculus in deciding
01:19:34.920
how they wish to involve themselves in the battle of ideas, but do it in some form.
01:19:41.080
So for example, you're too afraid to go publicly on Twitter because maybe your boss is going
01:19:47.660
Although that itself should get you pissed off, that in a free society in the 21st century,
01:19:53.140
But okay, you want to be pragmatic and you want to be able to pay the groceries for your
01:19:58.140
How about you just challenge your friend privately when you're sitting at a pub, when they say
01:20:05.220
In other words, there are many ways by which we could lend our voice in the battle of ideas
01:20:11.280
while not necessarily taking any unnecessary risks.
01:20:14.980
And I should also mention that the costs of speaking out are hardly only monetary, right?
01:20:23.020
Because you could, for example, argue, as I explain in the personic mind, some people
01:20:27.140
will write to me and say, yes, professor, sure, you're courageous, but you're a tenured
01:20:32.580
And then I usually write back to them and say, can you send me your home address so I can
01:20:37.020
redirect all of the death threats I receive straight to your home?
01:20:40.460
Because it doesn't seem as though tenure is protecting me when I'm looking left, right
01:20:44.980
and center everywhere to make sure that I'm not getting knifed in the next five minutes.
01:20:49.240
There was a time when I would go into my university classes to lecture where I had received many,
01:20:56.020
many death threats that caused the police to be involved and so on, where at the end of
01:21:00.260
my lecture, as I would be whisked back into the waiting car for me to go back home, I would
01:21:05.960
have something akin to like an anxiety thing because I survived another week until next
01:21:11.580
week's class without being knifed or killed somewhere because I didn't know if they were
01:21:16.380
So we all have a cost to bear, boo-hoo-hoo about your concerns.
01:21:21.320
I'm not trying to be minimizing, but the reality is, what about what I went through as a child
01:21:29.260
So the only way you could live in an enlightened, free, civil society is if we all put in the
01:21:37.280
costs necessary to protect the deontological principles that allow that society to flourish.
01:21:43.640
So no, I'm not going to shed a tear for you because you have a mortgage to pay.
01:21:48.240
I also have a life to live and I had a panic attack two years ago because of the death threats
01:22:41.260
Feel the earth move and then hear my heart burst again.
01:23:07.340
In your new book about happiness, you describe humor as an important component of a happy
01:23:13.980
When I read this, I was reminded that one of the things I love about Thomas Sowell is his
01:23:21.100
As you know, I collect Sowell quotes and almost all of them are funny in one way or another.
01:23:29.180
Gad, would you like to play a quick game with me right now?
01:23:38.960
And I've put together 34 funny Thomas Sowell quotes.
01:24:04.280
So this proves to the audience that this is a total random selection.
01:24:11.180
Take away the spirit impact theory and you would have widespread unemployment in government
01:24:16.700
agencies that enforce anti-discrimination laws.
01:24:20.780
Trial lawyers might have so much time on their hands that they would have to sue more doctors
01:24:36.960
So this is one of Thomas Sowell's funny quotes that, you know, I just, I did an episode recently
01:24:43.540
about disparate impact theory and, you know, how if some policies have a disparate impact
01:24:49.100
on certain racial groups, that those policies are de facto racist, you know, and there couldn't
01:24:55.340
be any real differences between different groups.
01:24:57.320
It has to be the policies that make the differences.
01:25:00.420
And, you know, and he was saying that, you know, if they, if they got rid of disparate
01:25:04.680
impact theory, that these trial lawyers would have so much time on their hands that they
01:25:08.000
would have to sue more doctors in order to make ends meet.
01:25:10.400
I know you laughed when you read it, but what, what, what do you, what do you make of this
01:25:17.500
You know, how do you describe this type of humor?
01:25:22.780
Because there's a lot to dissect and process for you to be able to get to sort of the humorous
01:25:37.380
I'm not sure that the average person, and I, and I don't mean that in an elitist sense,
01:25:42.800
I'm just being pragmatic, you know, because then they might say, well, what, wait a minute,
01:25:46.860
I don't even understand what disparate impact theory might mean.
01:25:50.740
So to put it all together, to understand then the punchline might require quite a bit of
01:25:57.000
So I might argue that while that is a perfectly reasonable approach to humor, satire, which
01:26:04.940
I use very often, which some might say is itself quite impenetrable, unless you're quite
01:26:10.780
intelligent, I find that to be an even more punchy form of humor.
01:26:16.260
And by the way, that's why you may know that satirists are arguably the most despised people
01:26:24.060
that every autocrat wants to get rid of first, because the autocrat and the ideologue is not
01:26:33.800
They're worried about the guys with the sharp tongues and the stingy pen.
01:26:38.840
And satire is really akin to the surgeon's scalpel.
01:26:42.380
So I might have a slightly different comedic style, but I certainly appreciate that quote.
01:26:59.900
Most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are.
01:27:07.520
But yes, it's funny that you said this, because I don't know if you saw it in the parasitic
01:27:15.020
I was kind of channeling my inner George Orwell when I'm talking about idea pathogens, which
01:27:22.260
all of these idea pathogens regrettably were spawned on university campuses.
01:27:27.520
And I say, it takes intellectuals to uniquely come up with some of the dumbest ideas.
01:27:35.680
And that's actually one of the places where I think I appreciate from the 5% of material
01:27:41.580
that I've read of Thomas Sowell, he seems to have a disdain for the highfalutin progressive
01:27:55.120
And by the way, to your earlier question, because many of them reek of falsity, reek
01:28:04.120
Part of my humor is actually a manifestation, and now I'm linking the different threads of
01:28:10.680
your questions, is a manifestation of my authenticity.
01:28:14.560
And some of my, quote, lowbrow humor, I mean, I'm not doing farting jokes, but, you know, when
01:28:20.640
I hide under the desk in full fear, I'm not doing the fancy disparate impact theory, right?
01:28:30.100
But that, if I may say, requires a very unique comedic talent and an incredible, if I may
01:28:41.680
Some would say, oh, you're losing your serious, austere professorial aura when you hide under
01:28:49.580
You're no longer appearing professorial when you wear that pink wig when I went to Ithaca
01:28:56.280
and I came back from Ithaca more woke than ever, and therefore I changed my hairstyle.
01:29:06.360
It reeks of my desire to approach life as a playground, one of the chapters in the book,
01:29:12.220
which is, I can perfectly be the very serious professor that you saw me when I spoke at the
01:29:18.740
Stanford Academic Freedom Conference, and then the next day be wearing a pink wig while
01:29:25.940
That's called being a multifaceted, multidimensional human being.
01:29:30.000
And regrettably, most academics don't have the sense, the strong sense of personhood to
01:29:35.720
think that they can pull off the multiple facets of themselves.
01:29:39.660
So they always have to be looking up into the sky, pontificating deeply.
01:29:47.720
Nobody does it better Makes me feel sad for the rest
01:30:11.460
Let's talk a little bit about creativity as a component of happiness.
01:30:17.720
You mentioned in your new book that the physicist Richard Feynman was an ardent bongo drummer,
01:30:24.560
And that the classicist Victor Davis Hanson, who's one of my intellectual heroes, that he's
01:30:32.860
And you mentioned that Thomas Sowell is a passionate photographer, which I think a lot of my listeners
01:30:40.320
You can actually see his photos at tsoowell.com.
01:30:43.600
That's his own personal website, if you're curious.
01:30:45.640
Tell us why some type of creativity is so vital for happiness.
01:30:52.920
And let me mention that for me, podcasting has developed into exactly the kind of creative outlet
01:31:02.220
Look, you and I right now are involved in a tangle.
01:31:18.500
That dance will be recorded and people will listen to it and hopefully will appreciate it.
01:31:24.080
That did not exist before you reached out and said, hey, let's dance together.
01:31:31.600
So I completely get what you're saying about the creativity.
01:31:34.000
Now let's step back and answer your broader question.
01:31:37.480
When I was talking about the creative impulse as a route to happiness, it was in the context
01:31:42.740
of one of the early chapters in the book where I'm talking about the two most important decisions
01:31:48.940
that will either impart the greatest amount of happiness upon you or the greatest amount
01:31:53.180
of misery, and that is hopefully choosing the right, exactly that one, choosing the right
01:31:58.800
spouse wisely, judiciously, and choosing the right profession.
01:32:04.660
Now, you might say, well, how can we ever know?
01:32:07.100
Well, you could never know, but there are certainly some clear guidelines that augment the probability
01:32:15.800
Life is about navigating through statistical minefields, right?
01:32:20.080
And so in the context of choosing the right profession, I argue that the professions that
01:32:27.220
are most likely to impart the greatest amount of purpose and meaning to you, all other things
01:32:34.280
equal, are those that allow you to instantiate your creative impulse.
01:32:41.100
I define the creative impulse very, very broadly.
01:32:44.360
So you could be a chef and you could, adhering to what I'm saying, right?
01:32:48.520
You are creating a small little sensorial experience, which until you came along and created, those
01:32:57.860
You could be an architect and be involved in the creative process.
01:33:04.000
I mean, I'm always amazed how the book that you just read that I sent you, well, I guess
01:33:11.280
you read two books, but the latest one, there was a day when I opened my laptop, I opened the
01:33:16.740
Word document and there wasn't a single letter written.
01:33:21.920
And then 12, 14 months later, it goes to the publisher.
01:33:25.220
And then a while later, here's Alan reading that book and hopefully enjoying it.
01:33:29.740
That's a mystical experience, that creative process.
01:33:32.480
So whether you are a journalist writing an investigative piece or whether you are an artist creating
01:33:38.200
a new painting or a chef or an architect or an author, anything that allows you to instantiate
01:33:44.660
your creative impulse has to lead to greater purpose and meaning.
01:33:49.980
Now, then someone could ask, but okay, but what if I am an insurance adjuster?
01:33:58.680
We, of course, need all sorts of people who are not necessarily the creative types, but you
01:34:03.600
could still then instantiate your creative impulse by choosing hobbies that cater to that,
01:34:09.560
So I may have decided to become a pediatrician because my dad was a pediatrician and his dad
01:34:16.480
I've always wanted to be a ceramics artist, but it wasn't seen nicely in my Jewish community
01:34:24.600
But how about when I finish my rounds at the hospital, children's hospital, instead of going
01:34:30.620
home and watching mindless television for three hours, why don't I sign up for the ceramics
01:34:35.380
class in the Lifelong Learning Institute where I might instantiate that creativity?
01:34:41.540
So I think anything that allows you to tickle that creative reflex is guaranteed to get you
01:34:49.640
I've spent a lifetime running and I always get away, but with you I'm feeling something
01:35:25.220
Let's end our conversation per day on the subject of marriage.
01:35:30.100
You mentioned in your new book, the 1993 movie, A Bronx Tale.
01:35:38.360
So my mind is very much in tune on the subject right now.
01:35:41.500
Tell us why marriage is so important for happiness and what lesson you learned from a Bronx tale
01:35:52.040
So let me answer the first part of your question using my evolutionary hat.
01:35:58.660
Humans are in a sense in a evolutionary conundrum because we have both evolved the conflicting
01:36:06.780
desire of long-term coupling because we are a bi-parental species.
01:36:13.540
By definition, compared to other mammalian species, human dads are super dads.
01:36:17.540
We are by far one of the most invested mammalian dads of all mammals, but by far.
01:36:23.580
We may not invest as much as women on average, but we are certainly considered to be a bi-parental
01:36:29.540
Therefore, it makes perfect evolutionary sense for the mechanisms, for example, the affiliative,
01:36:36.360
the emotional system of romantic love to have evolved because it needs to keep us bonded
01:36:43.420
long enough to invest in our children until they reach sexual maturity.
01:36:48.480
So on the one hand, it is perfectly natural for there to be long-term unions as per a marriage.
01:36:55.420
On the other hand, as I explain in a later chapter, when I talk about variety seeking,
01:37:01.300
we've also paradoxically evolved the desire for, for those of you who are only listening
01:37:09.720
to this, Alan put his hand on his ears as though he's fainting.
01:37:18.320
And so it's always this multiple Darwinian tugs that are pulling us in different directions.
01:37:23.380
But all other things considered, my God, is it more enjoyable to be able to share your
01:37:32.880
Imagine now when the, the denouement of my book coming out now was something that I can't
01:37:41.640
But imagine when I see my 11 year old going to the cafe with me and he's trying to struggle
01:37:54.520
And then my wife comes to me and I actually had her on camera the second that she finished
01:38:00.460
And she started tearing up because she was sad that now she had read, she had finally
01:38:06.500
And now she doesn't have the anticipation of wondering what's to come.
01:38:12.040
So I can't imagine feeling the same sense of excitement if I couldn't share that with
01:38:19.720
But to your second, so, so all other things equal, I think that long-term coupling to use
01:38:25.940
the evolutionary term or marriage is certainly correlated to happiness.
01:38:29.640
Although I could completely understand that some people decide not to, but to the Bronx
01:38:34.920
tale question, so there I took a snippet from the movie called The Door Test, where the young
01:38:43.820
man is about to go out on a date with a young woman, they're there in high school, and his
01:38:51.060
mentor, who's this kind of local mafia boss, tells him, when you take her out, make sure
01:39:02.540
He said, well, so this is, the movie's taking place in the 60s, where you don't have an
01:39:07.000
automatic, you know, opener of the car, of the car door.
01:39:11.000
He says, you first open her door, then you come around the car, and you wait to see if
01:39:17.920
as you're coming around, she moves, she moves to open your car door.
01:39:25.160
She's not only thinking of herself, and then you know that she's a keeper.
01:39:31.480
Now, I explain this in the book, and then I say, well, let me tell you about my door
01:39:36.900
test, although it was kind of a serendipitous tea test, tea, what you drink.
01:39:42.980
So the way that I met my wife when I was giving some in-house executive education at a company,
01:39:50.680
I had been mandated to teach, I think it was six weeks of material to the executives of this
01:39:58.360
You know, one week, it might be psychology decision-making, one week, it might be advertising,
01:40:04.440
Around maybe the third class, I had contracted, as I have in the past, often a really bad
01:40:12.920
And so when I get bronchitis, I have this really nasty kind of whooping cough.
01:40:20.180
So I was struggling to try to get through this, I think it was like a three-hour lecture.
01:40:26.460
And about halfway through the lecture, I called for a break where, you know, people went and
01:40:32.160
And unbeknownst to me, without my having done anything, my wife-to-be went downstairs, went
01:40:40.600
to whatever place to get a tea, brought it back to me and said, you know, you seem to be
01:40:46.580
struggling, breathing, hopefully this can help you.
01:40:49.560
And, you know, I was more mesmerized by that kind, considerate act than her beauty.
01:40:57.800
But that was inconsequential compared to someone who had the gentle consideration to do something
01:41:06.800
And so the reason I mention all these things in the book is I say, you know, we have to
01:41:11.600
be attuned to these important cues when we're choosing a partner.
01:41:16.580
You know, lust is nice, but we know that these things fluctuate in very predictable ways.
01:41:23.580
But if you have someone who is structurally on the inside, a high quality individual,
01:41:36.000
I, you know, I was looking for someone that I thought was a nurturing woman.
01:41:40.600
And I, I, like you, I've been very lucky to have found that, the most wonderful wife I
01:41:53.460
Which I'll be coming, by the way, in August, because I'm first going to be speaking.
01:42:00.020
Do you know what the Commonwealth Book Club is?
01:42:04.100
It's, I mean, I didn't know what it was, but I subsequently have found out that apparently
01:42:12.340
So first I'll be going there to do an event in celebration of the release of the book.
01:42:18.420
And then I'll be going down to Southern California, where I'll be doing a whole bunch of shows
01:42:23.200
So maybe we'll have an opportunity to meet them.
01:42:25.720
If you come to Los Angeles, I would love to meet you.
01:42:29.520
Gad Saad, thank you for joining me on the Genius of Thomas Sowell podcast.
01:42:59.060
This has been episode 33 of the Genius of Thomas Sowell podcast.
01:43:04.100
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01:43:10.360
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01:43:14.180
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01:43:17.820
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01:43:26.880
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01:43:34.100
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