The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - March 11, 2025


The Parasitic Mind + Suicidal Empathy Are Destroying the West (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_801)

Topics
parasitic mind threats suicidal empathy virus
Hosted by
Gad Saad
Mentioned
Donald Trump Suicidal Empathy Sam Harris Erin Mullen Elon Musk Gardsard Hitler Aaron Linda Zoom
Jew-Hatred, Freedom of Speech, and Demography is Destiny (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_800) Elon Musk Should Win A Nobel Peace Prize - Interview on Al Arabiya - Part I (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_803)

Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

154.66

Word count

2,205

Sentence count

170

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

27

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dr. Ghaad Saad is a professor at Northwood University and a part-time troublemaker on social media. He has spent years studying and calling out the wildest ideological absurdities of our time, from radical sympathisers to open border policies, to the absolute circus of wokeism. And now he s putting it all together in his upcoming book, Suicidal Empathy. His argument: Western society isn t just making bad choices, it s actively self-destructing. Why? Because instead of using common sense, we ve embraced a bizarre, self-flagellating ideology where being endlessly apologetic is more important than survival.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 All right, folks, you know that feeling when you watch the world unravel and think, has everyone, of course, excluding ourselves, completely lost their minds?
00:00:11.180 Well, our next guest has been saying exactly that, except with research to back it up.
00:00:16.440 Dr. Ghaad Saad, a professor at Northwood University and a part-time troublemaker on social media, has spent years studying and calling out the wildest ideological absurdities of our time.
00:00:28.600 From radical sympathisers, to open border policies, to the absolute circus of wokeism.
00:00:35.780 And now he's putting it all together in his upcoming book, Suicidal Empathy.
00:00:41.240 His argument, Western society isn't just making bad choices, it's actively self-destructing.
00:00:47.440 Why? Because instead of using common sense, we've embraced a bizarre, self-flagellating ideology where being endlessly apologetic is more important than survival.
00:00:58.600 Dr. Ghaad Saad, it is always such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:01:03.920 I'm so happy to be with you and I'm happy that you are reaching new heights in your fame and stardom. You certainly deserve it.
00:01:12.660 Oh, bless you. And I know coming from you that that has to be genuine because you also like to tell people you're the best looking man in the world.
00:01:19.600 So I believe everything you say.
00:01:23.040 I mean, look at me. Do I have to say anything more?
00:01:26.780 Doctor, I was just looking at your ex-feed, which is how I start all of my research before these chats these days.
00:01:33.920 And you had done a post about losing a 30-year friendship because you wrote something that was semi-positive regarding President Donald Trump.
00:01:42.440 What is going on?
00:01:44.720 You know, last week I had gone to Savannah, Georgia and to Mississippi, to the University of Mississippi.
00:01:52.000 And when I at Savannah, in Savannah, I was speaking at a Republican club gathering.
00:01:58.200 And so I reached out to this gentleman who I knew was in the Savannah slash Atlanta area.
00:02:03.880 We had originally met when we were both students at Cornell.
00:02:09.620 We had hit it off famously well.
00:02:12.460 Now, we weren't living in the same city, so I can't pretend that we've been seeing each other, you know, every day of our lives.
00:02:18.020 But I'd always held a very, very strong, you know, affection for him.
00:02:23.560 And that's why when I got to Savannah, I reached out to him.
00:02:27.240 He said he couldn't meet me.
00:02:28.720 Then I reached out to him again.
00:02:30.200 I said, well, I'm back in Montreal now.
00:02:31.940 Maybe we could have a Zoom meeting. 0.99
00:02:33.880 He then writes me this long email, I mean, privately on LinkedIn, where he basically says, look, I saw what you said about Donald Trump.
00:02:43.600 And let me just summarize what it is.
00:02:44.900 It's actually my pinned post on my X feed.
00:02:47.700 I basically said something to the effect of, imagine that 95 to 99 percent of my academic colleagues continue to think that Kamala Harris would be a better president than Donald Trump. 0.99
00:03:00.580 Either I'm the biggest idiot or they might be wrong. 0.99
00:03:03.640 That's all I said. 1.00
00:03:04.840 Of course, Elon Musk responded right away.
00:03:06.900 No, you're right.
00:03:08.320 But this gentleman thought that it was beyond the pale for me to make such a statement.
00:03:13.740 So he said, unfortunately, we can't move forward in our friendship.
00:03:17.320 And here it is.
00:03:18.160 What leads people to that position where they cannot see a way forward if they disagree with someone on something?
00:03:28.640 They can't engage.
00:03:30.040 They just know, shut down. 0.98
00:03:32.240 Well, I mean, that's that's exactly a manifestation of the parasitic mind. 0.97
00:03:36.920 Right. 0.90
00:03:37.180 Because what what he's effectively saying is that there is only one possible state of the world, and that is to think that Donald Trump is indistinguishable from Hitler.
00:03:49.780 And if you don't believe that, then you are morally damaged.
00:03:55.100 Right.
00:03:55.500 I mean, it literally is that right.
00:03:57.500 I mean, so, for example, what about if I'm Jewish, which I am, and I think that the Democratic Party is filled with a lot more anti-Semites than the Republican Party?
00:04:07.920 Would that grant me a bit of an affordance, oh, dear, moral one to prefer the Republicans?
00:04:14.660 Right.
00:04:14.980 So there are many, many ways by which perfectly rational and reasonable people could think that the Republican Party, given the issues that they care about, would be the optimal choice.
00:04:26.480 He can't afford you that courtesy.
00:04:28.980 Therefore, I'm a moral degenerate.
00:04:30.860 Therefore, he has to break the ties with me.
00:04:32.460 So that would then mean that he thinks all the people, the millions and millions of Americans, the popular vote, every swing state, they're all morally bankrupt, essentially, as well.
00:04:44.880 Exactly.
00:04:45.500 Exactly. 0.79
00:04:46.100 Including a neighbor of mine who this gentleman that befriended me or unfriended me is black.
00:04:55.120 This neighbor of mine, him and his wife moved recently from the Bay Area in San Francisco.
00:05:00.700 They moved to Montreal.
00:05:02.540 He confided in me that he used to be an ultra anti-Trumper in the first term of Trump.
00:05:10.260 He was super woke.
00:05:11.820 He's now exactly the opposite. 0.97
00:05:14.180 He also happens to be black. 0.68
00:05:15.900 So I wrote to him jokingly.
00:05:17.720 I texted him to my neighbor and I said, well, the other black friend told me that, you know, I'm not supporting the community, meaning the black community, by being pro-Trump. 0.99
00:05:28.600 So I could only assume that you are a fake black person. 1.00
00:05:32.400 And then he writes back to me because he is self-assured because he's not a woke idiot. 1.00
00:05:38.400 He goes, no, no, no, I'm not actually a black guy. 1.00
00:05:41.580 It's an illusion of your mind. 0.79
00:05:43.820 I'm a white guy.
00:05:45.180 So reasonable people can joke around.
00:05:48.000 But I'll just give you a quick story.
00:05:49.560 I've never said this publicly. 0.55
00:05:50.640 So we joke around him and I, whenever I see him in our in our neighborhood, I will pretend as though I'm getting very, very scared because I'm seeing a black guy. 1.00
00:06:00.720 So I'll pick up my phone and I'll start calling the cops.
00:06:03.460 He start laughing hysterically.
00:06:06.060 Secure people are able to make fun of themselves, make fun of others without capitulating like a little wilted flower.
00:06:14.260 A current example for me is doing this very show, 69 X Minutes, with someone that some people don't like in the Jewish community.
00:06:26.980 And they don't think that I should share a platform with someone they dislike, disagree with, don't think fondly of.
00:06:33.560 But my take would be, shouldn't I be trying to reach the largest audience possible, particularly people who might not see it the way that we see it?
00:06:42.160 Isn't that what this is all about, engaging with people who don't agree with you?
00:06:47.000 That's a beautiful point.
00:06:48.180 So there's a great book that I cite in Chapter 7 of The Parasitic Mind.
00:06:54.780 The chapter is titled How to Seek Truth.
00:06:57.120 And in that, at the start of the chapter, I talk about this book by two French psychologists where they argued that the human capacity to reason did not really, did not evolve to seek truth, but rather to win arguments, right?
00:07:15.220 And therefore, it doesn't, so yes, you and I might be thinking, hey, shouldn't we be reaching across the aisle because we're all trying to ultimately make sense of the world and seek some objective truth?
00:07:28.160 Yes, that's all nice.
00:07:29.700 But when your coalitional thinking takes over, which is blue team versus red team, I don't care about truth.
00:07:36.180 I care about my team being right.
00:07:38.120 That's exactly what causes the Democrats to not clap and be touched when a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor is up there.
00:07:51.580 If you're unable to see beyond your tribal allegiance and unite over the story of a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor, that's what orgiastic tribalism looks like.
00:08:03.340 What is the greatest threat, existential threat, to our world right now?
00:08:09.200 Because I tend to think it could be this parasitic mind that you speak of.
00:08:13.480 Well, I repeatedly keep saying, Aaron, that there is nothing in nature that is remotely as dangerous as a parasitized mind, right?
00:08:23.260 Now, think of it this way.
00:08:25.520 300 years ago in Massachusetts, people thought that this was a perfectly good way to organize society. 0.67
00:08:31.860 If we think that Linda, our neighbor, is a witch, we throw her in water. 0.99
00:08:36.820 If she does end up swimming and not drowning, then that proves that she is a witch and then will burn her at the stake. 0.98
00:08:44.100 If she ends up drowning, then, oops, I guess she wasn't a witch. 0.93
00:08:48.100 Now, that's a small microcosm. 1.00
00:08:50.400 Now, somewhat elsewhere, 80 years ago, there was a little guy with a mustache who genuinely thought that Jews were parasites. 1.00
00:08:59.040 They were vermin. 1.00
00:08:59.980 They were rats. 0.98
00:09:00.660 So, it was perfectly reasonable for him to pursue an extermination strategy. 0.75
00:09:05.380 So, if you look throughout history, the greatest disasters begin with a parasitic idea and off we go.
00:09:12.620 Yes, natural disasters can be devastating, but nothing is as dangerous as when this guy goes bad.
00:09:19.420 I kept becoming frustrated by something that I couldn't define until I spoke to you for the first time.
00:09:27.640 And I explained the situation.
00:09:28.980 I said, I'm a mother.
00:09:29.760 I care about kids in Gaza.
00:09:31.020 That's why I stand up against the terrorists who are causing them so much pain.
00:09:35.140 Why do people think that?
00:09:36.300 And you said, suicidal empathy.
00:09:38.300 This is your new book, and I reckon this could be the greatest thing you ever do.
00:09:41.680 What is it, and why is it, and how is it destroying us?
00:09:44.940 Excuse me for the cough.
00:09:46.480 Yeah.
00:09:46.600 So, the parasitic mind was about what happens to our cognitive processes when they are zombified.
00:09:56.060 But, of course, human beings are both a thinking and feeling animal.
00:10:00.840 So, if the parasitic mind is saying what happens to our cognition when it is parasitized, suicidal empathy completes the story by saying,
00:10:09.660 wait a minute, in order to completely zombify you, I also have to parasitize your emotional, your affective system. 0.89
00:10:17.300 So, that's the general story.
00:10:19.020 Now, specifically, suicidal empathy, the reason why it's empathy, not some other emotion,
00:10:25.220 because all of the devastatingly bad public policy decisions that we're seeing both domestically and in foreign policy in the West
00:10:35.600 stem from a misfiring of empathy, right?
00:10:38.840 So, it is wrong of us to say that some immigrants are less likely to assimilate than others.
00:10:47.220 We're all equally likely to assimilate.
00:10:50.160 That sounds nice.
00:10:51.620 It sounds kind.
00:10:53.020 It sounds compassionate.
00:10:54.120 It's about as true as you jumping off a building and gravity not killing you,
00:11:00.220 but at least I am a kind and empathetic person.
00:11:02.940 It's also very kind if I let in MS-13 gang members from El Salvador and give them free stuff,
00:11:10.920 more than American vets who've lost their limbs, if not their lives, fighting for the United States.
00:11:17.060 That seems kind.
00:11:18.160 It's also kind when we don't put felons who've already had 87 convictions, putting them in prison for a long time,
00:11:27.540 because especially if they are felons of color, society has already damaged them because we live in a white supremacist society where they are forced to become criminals.
00:11:38.500 So, what's the point of you putting them behind bars for the rest of their lives?
00:11:42.180 Can't you be kind?
00:11:43.440 So, I can go through every single insane policy decision and demonstrate to you that at its root, it stems from dysregulated empathy.
00:11:53.640 So, doctor, I've got one question left for you, and I mean, you're brilliant, but this might stretch it, I think, even for you.
00:12:02.020 How do we solve this virus?
00:12:05.160 Is there an injection we can take?
00:12:08.820 How do we stop the world falling prey to something that will eventually kill us all?
00:12:14.280 Well, so, it's actually a two-pronged attack because you really do need a vaccine against the parasitic ideas and against the suicidal empathy, but they go in tandem.
00:12:25.600 So, let me give you a very concrete example.
00:12:28.160 Cultural relativism is a parasitic idea that afflicts your ability to think.
00:12:33.820 Cultural relativism says, who are you to judge the beliefs and the behaviors of another culture? 0.98
00:12:40.380 If another culture wishes to cut off the clitorises of five-year-old girls, that's their right to do so. 1.00
00:12:47.020 Don't be a cultural imperialist. 0.97
00:12:48.960 Well, because I might be infected by cultural relativism, it is that that then allows my suicidal empathy to be properly triggered.
00:12:58.480 It's a one-two punch.
00:13:01.020 The parasitic idea disarms my cognition, and then here comes the zombified emotional system.
00:13:08.020 So, the way you do that is by fighting against those dreadful ideas.
00:13:12.440 There is no alternative.
00:13:13.660 It's when Erin Mullen calls you to come on her show and you're sick with what looks like bronchitis, you say, I'm going to tough it and go on.
00:13:21.680 And then, eventually, people do come around.
00:13:23.980 I've had, I mean, literally thousands and thousands of people who've written to me and said, you know, you saved me from the insanity that I used to believe in.
00:13:33.480 And so, there is no other alternative other than to win the battle of ideas.
00:13:38.020 It's a long, hard slog, but it's a battle you are fighting bravely on behalf of us all.
00:13:42.960 Dr. Gardsard, thank you so much for your time.
00:13:44.860 Really appreciate it.
00:13:45.880 Thank you.
00:13:46.220 Always a pleasure.
00:13:46.880 Thank you.
00:13:47.180 Thank you.
00:14:09.860 Thank you.