Visiting Iceland & England, Richard Dawkins, David Deutsch, & Free Palestine! (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_839)
Episode Stats
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Summary
Scott Saad's thoughts on his trip to Europe and his experiences in Reykjavik, Iceland, London, and the House of Lords. He also talks about his experience at the Center for Humanitarian Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and at the Centre for Social Thought at the University of Buckingham.
Transcript
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This is Scott Saad, just returned from a incredibly jam packed trip to Europe.
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And so I thought I would share some of my thoughts and, uh, you know,
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Uh, first, uh, I was accompanied by the way, uh, by my wife.
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Uh, the first leg of our eight day trip was to Reykjavik, Iceland.
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It was a trip that was organized by a phenomenal host with whom we've become
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Uh, he invited me to give a talk on the parasitic mind and suicidal
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empathy at, uh, Harper, which is this beautiful venue.
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Right on the waterfront in Reykjavik, uh, there were some security concerns.
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Uh, I had all these strapping young Icelandic guys making sure that, uh,
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Um, I did notice, uh, that there were several places where, uh, the people from
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Reykjavik apparently made it clear that they support the Gazans against the nasty
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There was a whole mural with all kinds of stuff.
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But even I went into a restaurant where there were murals that were apparently, uh, painted
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by a famous Icelandic artist, you know, recounting sort of the, you know, feminist movements in
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So it's supposed to be a historical thing, but each of those, uh, paintings had Palestinian
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iconography, whether it be the Palestinian flag or the Kefiya.
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Uh, and so I wasn't aware that the history of Icelandic feminism went right through the
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But that shows you what happens to a mind that is parasitized.
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Uh, so there was a lot of that everywhere, you know, free Gaza, Gaza, free Palestine, and
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We went to the Blue Lagoon, the Sky Lagoon, uh, had wonderful, uh, dinner event.
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After, uh, Reykjavik, we then flew to London and on the first day in London, um, I was invited
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to the House of Lords by a Lord in the House of Lords.
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Uh, we spent three hours with him and his wife, went to, uh, lunch in the, you know,
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But as we made our way to go to the entrance of the House of Lords, there were thousands
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and thousands of protesters, you know, global intifada, free, free Palestine from the river
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So you might imagine I'm trying to make my way to the House of Lords where, when there
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are, you know, thousands of people with keffiyeh.
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So it was very, very heartwarming to see that the noble people of London are rightfully supporting
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the Gazans against the, you know, those genocidal Jews.
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And I had to have police escort to enter the House of Lords in Britain.
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Uh, then I had an event, uh, that evening in London, uh, with, uh, uh, Batya Argon, I
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can't remember the, hold on, let me just look for the exact name.
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And then, uh, Matt Goodwin and, uh, Eric Kaufman, who is a professor at University of Buckingham,
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And he organized that event, great event, great turnout.
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Uh, you know, I give a lecture there, then fielded some questions and so on.
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And then from London, we drove to Buckingham, which is about an hour and something away from
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London at the University of Buckingham, where there was a three-day conference, Thursday,
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I think till about around noon, uh, organized by Eric Kaufman at the University of Buckingham.
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He founded the Center for Heterodox Social Science.
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And the conference was about, you know, heterodox social science.
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And so I spoke at that, uh, conference, uh, and then had a chance to meet the vice chancellor,
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James Tooley, lovely guy, very affable, very warm.
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Um, and, you know, the University of Buckingham is a small university, but they really are trying
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to set up sort of a hub, uh, where, you know, heterodox thinkers, you know, could be, could,
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you know, could have a place where they could interact.
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So they're trying to create a place where you could sort of do anti-woke social science,
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All of this organized and spearheaded by Professor Eric Kaufman, who's just absolutely lovely guy.
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I had a chance to meet all sorts of other people who helped, uh, Joseph Robertson, uh, Charlie
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I'm going off the top of my mind, uh, their names.
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Then had a chance to meet all sorts of new people who, you know, came up to me at the
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Let me make sure that I don't, uh, misstate his name.
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Yeah, Kevin McCaffrey, who is the editor of Theory and Society.
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He is trying to, uh, incorporate Darwinian theory within sociology.
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And so we had a very, very, uh, interesting conversation.
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Uh, all kinds of other people that I met that were just lovely, truly.
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It was just a wonderful experience to be able to immerse yourself within a gathering of
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like-minded people where you're not going to be, uh, ostracized from the cool kids table
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because, you know, you said something nice about Trump or you, you actually believe that
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Um, so the amount of, uh, love and support and gratitude that I received was absolutely,
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Began with Reykjavik, went on to, uh, London, went on to Buckingham.
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Um, oh, and then, uh, the last day prior to returning yesterday to Montreal, we made our
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Visited Oxford University, um, and met up with Richard Dawkins at his home.
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Uh, this was facilitated by the incredible, one of the absolute loveliest and sharpest guys
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you can ever hope to interact with, Michael Shermer, who was filming a documentary for
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And he actually filmed me in this beautiful, austere church for the book.
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He, he asked a few people, uh, to be in the documentary, uh, Richard Dawkins, David Deutsch,
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And so I filmed, uh, uh, part of a documentary for, uh, Michael Shermer in Buckingham.
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Um, uh, and also, uh, accepted to do an interview with Spike magazine.
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But anyways, uh, so we made our way to Oxford, hung out with Richard Dawkins, uh, and also
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Richard's, uh, not Richard's, um, Michael Shermer's assistant, Alex, who's another absolutely
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Uh, then after Richard Dawkins, we made our way to a park, uh, because Richard, um, Michael
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Now, David Deutsch and I have become very friendly.
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One of the absolute sharpest guys that you could ever hope to talk to.
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Uh, so we finally met in person, even though we had, uh, you know, he'd been on my show a
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And because it was raining and we were going to film outside, uh, Richard, I keep saying
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Richard, Michael and, uh, the filmmaker, the, the, the gentleman who's taking care of the
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filming, Alex decided that they couldn't, you know, set up the, the equipment to film.
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So what we ended up instead doing, we just stood there at the park for maybe two plus
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We meaning David Deutsch, Michael Shermer, and myself just chatting.
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And Alex would walk around with the cell phone and, you know, filmed the entire conversation,
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I mean, we, I mean, very, very quickly, we just got into really, really deep and profound
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So I, my understanding is that they will be releasing both probably the entirety of our
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conversation, but also many different clips and you really don't want to miss it.
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So met Richard Dawkins, met David Deutsch, went to Oxford, met the vice chancellor of University
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of Buckingham, visited University of Buckingham, went to the House of Lords, gave a talk at London,
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gave a talk at University of Buckingham, gave a talk in Iceland.
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I had to cancel my appearance at this big festival in Wales just because it, it just didn't work
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Tomorrow I head off for three more engagements in the United States and then back to Montreal,
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buckle down and try to get some serious headway with suicidal empathy.
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So there you have it, folks, a lot of great stuff happening.
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I hope to meet some of you at some future event.