TRIGGERnometry - September 11, 2024


＂Gender Gets You Cancelled, Islam Gets You Killed＂ - Andrew Gold


Episode Stats

Length

50 minutes

Words per Minute

216.9261

Word Count

11,009

Sentence Count

830

Misogynist Sentences

15

Hate Speech Sentences

49


Summary

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

In this episode of the podcast, we are joined by author and YouTuber Andrew Gold to discuss his controversial book 'The Psychology of Secrets' and the controversy surrounding it. We also talk about the anti-Islamic backlash Andrew has faced since his book was released.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:01.000 You've gone and got yourself cancelled, mate.
00:00:02.600 Yeah. Again.
00:00:03.800 Again.
00:00:04.300 Double cancelled.
00:00:05.100 Double cancelled.
00:00:06.500 But it does seem to be gender that gets you cancelled.
00:00:09.200 Islam gets you killed.
00:00:11.100 How did they find out that you have these horrendous opinions?
00:00:14.200 If you go to my YouTube, it's just...
00:00:19.100 I have very real discussions with my wife about, you know,
00:00:23.600 are we safe?
00:00:25.300 And are we safe in the UK?
00:00:27.100 Can you imagine knowing there are people calling for the death
00:00:30.800 of you and your family and they live down the road from you?
00:00:35.200 Andrew Gold, welcome back.
00:00:36.500 You were on the show, like, feels like very recently,
00:00:39.400 because it was very recent.
00:00:40.600 We don't normally bring people back this often,
00:00:42.500 but A, you're doing really well.
00:00:44.600 It's good to see another British YouTuber doing well.
00:00:47.100 And B, you've gone and got yourself cancelled, mate.
00:00:49.200 Yeah, again.
00:00:50.400 Again.
00:00:50.900 Double cancelled.
00:00:51.700 Double cancelled.
00:00:52.500 Yeah, thanks for having me on the show.
00:00:53.500 No, it's great to have you back.
00:00:55.000 So you wrote a book.
00:00:56.500 And then what happened?
00:00:58.400 So the book, yeah, The Psychology of Secrets,
00:01:00.700 it's about authoritarianism and suppression
00:01:03.200 and how governments and authoritarian regimes and things
00:01:06.900 suppress their people.
00:01:08.900 Also just about the sort of more of a microcosm of secrets themselves,
00:01:12.400 what it is to keep them, that kind of thing.
00:01:14.400 And, yeah, before it had even gone out,
00:01:17.400 I had been invited to all different kinds of events,
00:01:19.700 book festivals, bookshops, those kinds of things.
00:01:22.400 Bookshops would do signings and that.
00:01:24.100 And promptly, a week or so later, disinvited from them all.
00:01:29.100 I haven't been given all of the information,
00:01:31.200 except for one or two that I know did come to me.
00:01:34.700 There was an event at the Tate.
00:01:36.000 I don't know if it was the Tate, the organisers themselves,
00:01:38.100 or the event makers who made the event there.
00:01:40.600 There was a festival called Hayward Festival or something.
00:01:45.600 And it's a really difficult thing here,
00:01:47.300 because I don't like picking on individual festivals
00:01:50.100 and things like that.
00:01:51.100 A lot of them don't have any money.
00:01:52.200 As we know at the moment recently,
00:01:53.300 they don't have sponsors and things like that.
00:01:55.300 It's really difficult for them.
00:01:57.000 At the same time, unless we do start to show them
00:02:00.100 that it's worse for them,
00:02:01.800 because they only care about popularity,
00:02:03.200 that it's actually worse for them when they cancel,
00:02:05.300 because they're worried about controversy,
00:02:07.300 they're going to keep doing it.
00:02:08.300 Anyway, so that's what happened.
00:02:09.300 But why was that happening?
00:02:11.600 That book seems uncontroversial to me.
00:02:14.600 Yeah, there's nothing controversial in the book,
00:02:16.100 except for a chapter about what we call PDF files on YouTube.
00:02:19.800 There is a chapter of these people keeping a secret,
00:02:22.100 the people who go to parks and try to get children.
00:02:25.600 You can't say that word on YouTube,
00:02:27.100 which is also ridiculous.
00:02:27.800 Can you not?
00:02:28.900 If you want me to, I can.
00:02:29.900 No, no, but does that get demonetised?
00:02:32.500 Yeah, sometimes, particularly in the first few minutes.
00:02:34.300 What if you call them nonces?
00:02:36.300 I think that's all right,
00:02:36.900 because Americans probably don't think of that,
00:02:39.200 although Joey Barton got in trouble for talking about bike nonces, didn't he?
00:02:43.200 Well, he called someone specifically a bike nonce
00:02:45.700 and then had to say that he doesn't actually formally think that that person likes children,
00:02:50.700 which I thought was weird,
00:02:52.200 because everyone knows that a bike nonce doesn't mean that he's actually a nonce.
00:02:55.700 He just means he's obsessed with bikes, right?
00:02:58.500 Or has inappropriate relations with a bike.
00:03:00.500 Just a weirdo.
00:03:01.000 How do you do that?
00:03:02.000 Well, you have to ask for a bike's consent.
00:03:04.000 Yeah, there's quite a lot of phallic endings of the bike.
00:03:07.500 Not that I'm an expert on that.
00:03:09.000 Right, but this episode has taken a turn.
00:03:11.000 Anyway, there's chapter 10 about nonces.
00:03:15.000 That's the only controversial thing.
00:03:16.500 The reason was because I've said many, many times that trans women are obviously,
00:03:21.600 obviously, very obviously, not women, right?
00:03:26.300 I mean, everyone knows that.
00:03:27.600 A child knows that.
00:03:28.300 95% of the population know that.
00:03:29.900 The other 5% sort of know it,
00:03:31.300 but are being tricked into thinking they don't know it,
00:03:33.700 or whatever it might be.
00:03:34.700 And that is where the issue lies.
00:03:36.900 I thought it might be more to do with Islam,
00:03:38.400 but I've been told because I've been saying I'm worried about,
00:03:40.100 I'm concerned about some of the aspects of Islam,
00:03:41.800 but it does seem to be gender that gets you cancelled.
00:03:44.700 Islam gets you killed.
00:03:46.200 But I haven't been killed.
00:03:47.400 I've been cancelled.
00:03:48.400 Right.
00:03:49.000 So that's really interesting still,
00:03:50.800 because we talk all the time on this show,
00:03:53.800 and people make the point that things are getting better,
00:03:56.800 that we are starting to move beyond peak woke,
00:04:00.600 as it's often called.
00:04:02.600 Do you think we have, or is this an example that we haven't,
00:04:05.400 and this stuff is still in the water?
00:04:08.000 It's something that's really hard to empirically know, isn't it?
00:04:10.200 Is it getting better?
00:04:11.100 Or are we starting to surround ourselves with viewers
00:04:13.600 and other collaborators who are all like-minded in this respect,
00:04:18.000 so it seems better to us?
00:04:19.800 It's really, really hard to know.
00:04:21.000 What I would say about bookshops in particular,
00:04:22.800 festivals in particular,
00:04:24.200 that these are particularly woke places.
00:04:27.800 They will be the last bastions of the wokeness.
00:04:29.800 So if it is starting to get a little bit better,
00:04:32.400 that's the last place.
00:04:33.600 Universities, of course, as well.
00:04:34.600 It's the academics.
00:04:35.400 It's the type of person who is happy to work for a relatively low wage,
00:04:38.800 providing they can try and tell everybody else what to do, I think.
00:04:42.000 I don't mean that of all bookshop people.
00:04:44.600 I mean, a lot of them are just wonderful people who want us to read more books.
00:04:47.200 Of course they are.
00:04:48.000 And a lot of them are really good people who understand all of the nuances.
00:04:51.600 But unfortunately, they're going to get protested,
00:04:54.400 so they're in a difficult spot as well.
00:04:56.000 How did they find out that you have these horrendous opinions?
00:05:00.000 If you go to my YouTube, it's just...
00:05:02.000 Trans women aren't women is like the banner.
00:05:07.000 Please don't take our slogan.
00:05:09.000 Yeah.
00:05:10.000 I think I did see that.
00:05:11.000 It was a Kelly J Keen who was like that.
00:05:13.000 I thought, well, that's got over a million.
00:05:14.000 Let's just keep saying it.
00:05:15.000 This is a problem that we have as well as creators,
00:05:18.000 particularly on YouTube.
00:05:20.000 The algorithm is changing all the time.
00:05:22.000 We have to make a living.
00:05:23.000 We have these extremely expensive productions
00:05:26.000 because we want to be able to compete just as a few of us
00:05:28.000 against huge TV channels like the BBC
00:05:30.000 to give an alternative or a different view.
00:05:34.000 That costs a lot of money.
00:05:36.000 It's a lot.
00:05:37.000 So then you put out a video and you go,
00:05:38.000 okay, I'm going to give it a more nuanced thing.
00:05:40.000 Hey, maybe trans women or not women, we should talk about it,
00:05:42.000 or something like that.
00:05:44.000 And it will get like, as you guys know,
00:05:45.000 that will get one-tenth of the number of views,
00:05:47.000 which means you can't then afford to run the channel,
00:05:49.000 which puts the videos out there with more nuanced views
00:05:51.000 that convince people.
00:05:52.000 So you're in this difficult trap that I'm sure you guys can relate to,
00:05:56.000 right?
00:05:57.000 You feel that way sometimes or not?
00:05:59.000 I don't know.
00:06:01.000 I feel that we've tried to thread the...
00:06:04.000 I mean, I think you're right that you're always thinking,
00:06:07.000 how do we have a title and a thumbnail that gets people interested
00:06:12.000 on the one hand, but also for us being faithful to the content
00:06:16.000 is quite important, right?
00:06:18.000 So that is a balancing act, I suppose.
00:06:21.000 But I also feel that it depends on who you think your audience are.
00:06:26.000 I think there are some audiences that are much more likely
00:06:29.000 to go for super click-baity things.
00:06:31.000 And I'm sure somebody can go through our channel
00:06:33.000 and out of the 500 interviews we've done, pick out 10,
00:06:36.000 and they say, oh, look at this click-bait.
00:06:38.000 Generally speaking, though,
00:06:39.000 I think we try to be a bit more sensible about it,
00:06:42.000 which I think you do as well, in fairness.
00:06:44.000 However, these people went to your YouTube channel
00:06:46.000 and did see some content that may have suggested
00:06:49.000 that trans women are not necessarily there.
00:06:51.000 They saw some of it, and they saw some of it
00:06:53.000 that was quite intense and extreme.
00:06:55.000 I think there's a difference that a lot of people don't realise
00:06:57.000 between click-bait and sensationalism.
00:06:59.000 And click-bait being, as you say, something that isn't actually there.
00:07:03.000 Well, YouTube protects against that.
00:07:05.000 If someone says, oh, that's the thing that's there,
00:07:07.000 you click on it, and it's not actually there,
00:07:09.000 you won't watch much of it, and it means that YouTube
00:07:11.000 won't share that video around.
00:07:13.000 It has to actually be there.
00:07:14.000 But if you take, let's say you do an episode with Matt Goodwin
00:07:16.000 or someone like that, and the most sensationalist thing he says,
00:07:19.000 well, he said it. It's in there, and it was aggressive,
00:07:21.000 and he was right. You think he's right.
00:07:23.000 There's nothing wrong with what he said, but that's the title.
00:07:25.000 And then someone who doesn't know you
00:07:26.000 and doesn't watch the entire nuanced conversation sees just that.
00:07:29.000 Transwomen are women. This is the end of civilisation.
00:07:31.000 Those kinds of things, which do seem a lot more sensationalist
00:07:35.000 than our shows actually are.
00:07:37.000 And that's an issue with YouTube.
00:07:39.000 It's an issue with the platforms.
00:07:41.000 It's something that the BBC, for example,
00:07:42.000 don't necessarily have to contend with.
00:07:43.000 A lot of the legacy media don't have to,
00:07:45.000 so they'll look down on us, and they don't realise
00:07:47.000 that's a luxury belief in many respects.
00:07:49.000 And I've had this argument with a lot of legacy celebrities
00:07:52.000 who say, oh, I just wish your titles weren't so good.
00:07:54.000 And it's like, mate, you got in through a gatekeeper
00:07:56.000 while it was okay to be a white man going for jobs.
00:07:59.000 You don't have to worry about the title of your show.
00:08:01.000 You don't even know what it is.
00:08:03.000 If we could charge everyone in this country
00:08:05.000 160 quid a year under pain of imprisonment,
00:08:07.000 I don't think we'd need to have sensationalist titles either.
00:08:10.000 Not a bad idea.
00:08:11.000 And it's also, as well, it's ignoring,
00:08:13.000 if you look at any type of newspaper,
00:08:16.000 they always had sensationalist headlines.
00:08:18.000 That's true.
00:08:19.000 So I find it deeply hypocritical
00:08:21.000 when you have these publications pointing the finger at us
00:08:23.000 and going, mate, you're the sun.
00:08:26.000 Mm-hmm.
00:08:27.000 What Francis is saying is,
00:08:29.000 we're no worse than the Daily Star.
00:08:31.000 Exactly.
00:08:32.000 Now get your tits out.
00:08:33.000 Exactly, and put little stars on the nipples.
00:08:34.000 Anyway.
00:08:35.000 Well, you get some of the smug people at other podcasters.
00:08:37.000 You get a lot of the centrist kind of smuggy podcasters
00:08:39.000 decoding the gurus.
00:08:40.000 That's one of them.
00:08:41.000 They've had a go at you guys.
00:08:42.000 They've had a go at me.
00:08:43.000 Have they had a go at you?
00:08:44.000 I think they just don't know.
00:08:45.000 Was it just you?
00:08:46.000 Yeah, so it should be.
00:08:47.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:08:48.000 The Jews.
00:08:49.000 The Jews.
00:08:50.000 Yeah, that's actually true,
00:08:51.000 because they've had a go at me now.
00:08:52.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:08:53.000 Hmm.
00:08:54.000 Well, they've had a go at us,
00:08:55.000 and literally in the middle of having a go at me
00:08:56.000 for saying things like,
00:08:57.000 look, if you like this content, please do subscribe.
00:08:59.000 They were doing a whole thing.
00:09:00.000 Oh, typical grift.
00:09:01.000 And as the sentence was-
00:09:03.000 Well, they asked them to subscribe.
00:09:05.000 That is grifting.
00:09:06.000 For free.
00:09:07.000 Yeah.
00:09:08.000 As that conversation was happening,
00:09:09.000 it started to go towards mute on their audio podcast.
00:09:12.000 It started to simmer down the audio or whatever,
00:09:14.000 and then said, if you want the rest of this,
00:09:16.000 please subscribe to our Patreon.
00:09:17.000 I thought, how can you not realise the hypocrisy here?
00:09:19.000 That they are literally in the middle of their sentence
00:09:22.000 cutting off the viewers.
00:09:23.000 That's the respect they have for their listeners.
00:09:25.000 While we're just saying, hey, subscribe for free,
00:09:27.000 or if you like it, if you want extra stuff, do come along.
00:09:29.000 I don't know.
00:09:30.000 There's a smarmy smugness in the centre.
00:09:31.000 There's a smarmy smugness on the TV,
00:09:34.000 and of course, bookshops, festivals and things.
00:09:36.000 And to get back to your question,
00:09:37.000 yeah, they saw that stuff.
00:09:38.000 They saw what I'd written,
00:09:39.000 what I'd had in the thumbnails and titles and things.
00:09:41.000 They didn't watch the shows, obviously, I imagine.
00:09:43.000 And they got in touch with Pan Macmillan,
00:09:45.000 who was the publisher.
00:09:47.000 And Pan Macmillan said, sorry, they've disinvited you.
00:09:51.000 And here's the thing that I find really upsetting about this.
00:09:55.000 They're book festivals.
00:09:56.000 If you look at some of the greatest writers in history,
00:09:59.000 they tend to be quite problematic people.
00:10:02.000 They don't tend to be very particularly well-balanced.
00:10:05.000 They don't tend to be nice on occasions.
00:10:07.000 Charles Dickens was a bit of a C word.
00:10:10.000 So now, how are we going to make something that celebrates an art form?
00:10:15.000 Art forms are created by artists who very frequently, like I said,
00:10:19.000 are not the best people morally.
00:10:21.000 How is this going to work?
00:10:23.000 It doesn't.
00:10:24.000 And then you have to get into what does morally even mean?
00:10:27.000 With regards to my book about secrets, we think we tell our secrets to people who are polite.
00:10:35.000 It turns out that actually polite people are the people we're least likely to reveal secrets to.
00:10:39.000 And that's because polite people in any regime would have been the card-carrying members.
00:10:44.000 All polite really means is adhering strictly to a societal norm of a particular time and place.
00:10:49.000 Anyone who's too keen to do that is not someone you would want to tell your secrets to.
00:10:52.000 Because if you did that in the Stasi, you'd be out. You'd be tortured and all of that stuff.
00:10:57.000 So we know, we've got it inherent within us, which is amazing really,
00:11:01.000 that we shouldn't tell secrets to polite people.
00:11:03.000 We tell secrets to assertive people, people who are going to get stuff done without necessarily judging you.
00:11:09.000 So what does it even mean to be a polite person in particular?
00:11:11.000 What does it mean to live by the rules of the book publishing world?
00:11:14.000 For them to even set those kinds of rules, like this is the narrow Overton window of books that we accept and beliefs we accept,
00:11:21.000 suggests to me an authoritarian streak.
00:11:24.000 And why do we, you know, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but like whenever I've had a secret,
00:11:29.000 I've always wanted to tell it to somebody. Why do we do that?
00:11:32.000 Yeah, that will be, well, a lot of theories, but evolutionary biology going back to that.
00:11:37.000 I love all that stuff. I love thinking about the tribes and why we do things.
00:11:40.000 So a tribe that had people in it who had this physical compulsion to reveal their secrets
00:11:48.000 might have done better and lived and passed on all their genes within it.
00:11:52.000 If you knew where some food was, but you tried to keep it for yourself
00:11:55.000 and you didn't feel compelled to tell everybody else in the tribe,
00:11:58.000 that tribe cohesion isn't going to be very good. You won't do well.
00:12:01.000 For millions or hundreds of thousands of years, the tribes who had this secret telling thing.
00:12:06.000 And we call it the fever model. That's what they are. I don't call it anything.
00:12:09.000 That's what those sort of scientists and people call it.
00:12:11.000 The fever model, very much like a fever in real life, which makes the body uninhabitable for the virus.
00:12:17.000 Your body starts to feel that way while you're keeping a secret,
00:12:20.000 which is why you have such visceral portrayals of it in literature.
00:12:23.000 The telltale heart, crime and punishment, those kinds of people start to almost as if they have a flu of some kind.
00:12:29.000 They're dying until they can get their secret out and feel better.
00:12:33.000 But it's not always a good idea because the social consequences might be dire and you might be ostracized.
00:12:38.000 So it's about weighing that up.
00:12:40.000 And it's also as well, everybody knows what the rules are, but they're not written down anywhere.
00:12:48.000 Because when we were working in the comedy industry, I remember this comedian came up to me and she was like,
00:12:53.000 well, you always say that there's things you're not allowed to say.
00:12:55.000 What aren't you allowed to say? And I just went one, two, three, four, five.
00:12:58.000 And then she stopped and just walked the other way.
00:13:01.000 Because we all know what the rules are, but it's very interesting because you go,
00:13:06.000 how did they become the rules? And how are they enforced?
00:13:12.000 Because they're not forced overtly. They're enforced covertly.
00:13:16.000 Yeah. And it's insidiously done. As you guys know, often in the universities,
00:13:21.000 young people changing to these fashionable words, I find it amazing.
00:13:25.000 You know, for a long time, you weren't allowed to say colored.
00:13:28.000 That was the one thing you're not supposed to say.
00:13:29.000 And it was funny in England for us or for the crowd to laugh whenever there was like an old football commentator
00:13:35.000 who didn't seem to get the memo. And it was like 20 years too late.
00:13:38.000 And were we really laughing at them because or pointing at them because we thought they were racist
00:13:42.000 because they used the word colored. Did we really think that when the context was,
00:13:45.000 he's a wonderful person, this colored person, or he's doing good things for the colored,
00:13:49.000 whatever it might be. The intent was always good.
00:13:52.000 However, this is somebody who wasn't au fait with the latest words and lingo.
00:13:57.000 And that was funny to the rest of us because it meant we grew in status by comparison.
00:14:01.000 About three or four years ago, we finally got to a point where I think everybody in the UK,
00:14:06.000 probably in America, knew. Finally, everyone, everyone's grandma, grandpa knew you're not supposed to say colored.
00:14:12.000 And then it changed from black to of color. It went back to of color again.
00:14:15.000 So it seems like there were people almost messing with us, trying to catch us out,
00:14:18.000 trying to use the new words. And this is a very cultish thing to do as well,
00:14:21.000 to start changing words and making sure everybody uses the right words.
00:14:24.000 We saw that, you know, Heaven's Gate. They do that all the time.
00:14:27.000 The neuro-linguistic programming, which just means they all changed their names.
00:14:31.000 Everyone had different names. Again, much like the trans stuff.
00:14:33.000 There's she, he, zeer and all the weird pronouns that they have.
00:14:37.000 This has been done by so many cults over time.
00:14:40.000 It's nothing new, but it always feels new to those cult people who are making up the rules for the rest of us.
00:14:46.000 And when we talk about cults, which I think is a fair comparison,
00:14:50.000 I always think of cults as people who operate on the extremes.
00:14:54.000 People who have decided to move away from mainstream society, like the Heaven's Gate cult and all the other ones.
00:15:01.000 But this is mainstream. This is right here. Can a cult be mainstream?
00:15:05.000 Yeah, it depends how you look at cults. And a lot of the people, like in any industry, let's call it,
00:15:10.000 the people who talk about cults, they like to gatekeep what a cult is.
00:15:14.000 So they say, that is a cult, that is not a cult.
00:15:16.000 And they will say it's irresponsible to suggest there's any cultishness anywhere else.
00:15:20.000 That's palpably untrue. The elements of cultishness are written into our DNA.
00:15:25.000 That's who we are as humans. We are cultish. Every single one of us in some ways acts in cultish ways.
00:15:30.000 It doesn't mean that we're a 10 out of 10 cult like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown or Scientology or Waco or any of those.
00:15:36.000 But you can even see how like a book club, you go to a book club, that's going to be culty.
00:15:42.000 Because in the book club, maybe you feel like there are certain things you can't say about the book you've just read.
00:15:46.000 Maybe those are the only friends you have. And you feel like if you say the wrong thing, you're going to be ostracized, you're going to be kicked out.
00:15:51.000 So it's tribal in that sense. There might not necessarily be a leader as there is in cults.
00:15:56.000 David Miscavige of Scientology, for example.
00:15:58.000 So I do think that we are always going to be a little bit cultish.
00:16:03.000 That political ideologies of course are, and they're using the same tricks.
00:16:08.000 So of course it can be mainstream. And then you can say the average person hasn't signed up to the trans cult to a 10 out of 10 degree.
00:16:15.000 But some of them might be a three or a four. There are little things where they think, oh, I shouldn't say the wrong thing.
00:16:18.000 Their friends will kick them out. And to me, that is cult-ish.
00:16:21.000 So coming back to your story then, your publisher gets this email, you've been disinvited or whatever the term is.
00:16:27.000 Did you try to contest it or make a big stink about it or whatever?
00:16:32.000 Like there's obviously different ways you can go in that situation.
00:16:34.000 I felt terrible. That's the first thing to say.
00:16:37.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:16:39.000 Some people said, because I wrote this article and some sort of woke people were going,
00:16:43.000 Oh, I thought we weren't supposed to care about feelings.
00:16:45.000 I was like, well, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of how this works.
00:16:47.000 You're supposed to have facts and then any good writer hopefully imbues those facts or shows the consequences of those facts, which are the feelings.
00:16:53.000 But the facts still have to be there. You can't build your house on shaky ground, which is just the feelings.
00:16:57.000 Anyway, that's too complicated for that particular anonymous troll who I didn't give a second thought to and I'm still talking about two days later.
00:17:03.000 What was the question? What were we talking about?
00:17:05.000 The question was, what was your reaction? How did you try to deal with it?
00:17:09.000 Francis called me and was really, really nice.
00:17:12.000 That tells you you're in trouble.
00:17:14.000 That's how you know you've messed up.
00:17:16.000 When you get the Francis call in the industry, you're out.
00:17:20.000 Francis called and said, look, it's a horrible feeling.
00:17:24.000 And he empathised and it helped me a lot.
00:17:26.000 And he said, you've just been thrown out to the savannah.
00:17:29.000 You're out on your own and you should know that you've got this community around you.
00:17:33.000 And it was such a beautiful thing to do, so thank you, Francis.
00:17:36.000 That was the initial thing, but we happened to be messaging just as I got that email.
00:17:39.000 Pit of your stomach, horrible, horrible feeling.
00:17:42.000 And then there's embarrassment.
00:17:44.000 Because again, if you're in the tribe and you've been caught, say, doing something that you're not supposed to do,
00:17:48.000 stealing some of the food, taking the shelter, whatever it is,
00:17:51.000 again, your body primes you to feel embarrassment and shame so that you don't repeat those kinds of things
00:17:56.000 so you stand a better chance of staying in the tribe.
00:17:58.000 Well, as Francis said, I'd been kicked out that tribe.
00:18:01.000 It felt awful, pit of my stomach kind of thing.
00:18:03.000 And you don't want to rock the boat in that moment because your book's about to come out, first book ever.
00:18:07.000 It's a big publisher, Pan Macmillan.
00:18:09.000 And the individuals working there are really nice people.
00:18:12.000 That's the nuanced thing.
00:18:13.000 And maybe it's not what people want to hear.
00:18:15.000 They want to hear, like, everyone's horrible and everyone's this.
00:18:17.000 People are very complex.
00:18:18.000 And a lot of them are really, really nice people who are trying to do their job.
00:18:21.000 And I felt bad that I've made these PR people have a more difficult job than they would otherwise have had with a typical writer.
00:18:27.000 As the days went by and the weeks went by, I started to feel a bit pissed off,
00:18:31.000 especially receiving messages through people.
00:18:35.000 And I don't want to say who the people are because they're just the messengers.
00:18:37.000 But from the big wigs at Pan Macmillan saying, don't share this on social media.
00:18:42.000 And it's going to make things worse, that kind of thing.
00:18:44.000 Well, as you guys know my story, I had about seven years with the DEI stuff where I was told you can't have this job because you're a white man.
00:18:51.000 You're going to be, you know, you can go off screen and we'll get somebody who's a minority on instead.
00:18:56.000 Well, I had about seven years of everyone saying, do not talk about this.
00:19:00.000 Don't mention it.
00:19:01.000 That's a very lonely feeling.
00:19:02.000 And whenever I did say to someone, they were always like, well, didn't that happen?
00:19:05.000 You know, I just had a hundred producers tell me this and now I have to face that.
00:19:09.000 So it felt like that was happening again.
00:19:11.000 But rather than because of my skin color, this time because of my beliefs, which is slightly less insidious.
00:19:16.000 A private company has the right to say, hey, we don't want this guy at our at our festival.
00:19:21.000 I just think that the problem here is that I hold a belief that the vast majority of humans across the world hold as well.
00:19:28.000 And as I think I was saying before, until we start to speak up about this, until we make them realize that the consequences are worse for canceling people, because that's what they care about.
00:19:37.000 They just care about, am I going to get a bad rap? Are people going to stop coming to my festival?
00:19:41.000 So we need to show them actually it's even worse.
00:19:43.000 Unfortunately, you're in a difficult position in festivals, but it's even worse if you cancel us.
00:19:47.000 And your publishers, and correct me if I'm wrong, they weren't the most supportive, were they?
00:19:54.000 I don't think they were too bad. Did I say that they were really bad?
00:19:59.000 No, no, no.
00:20:01.000 No, France just wanted you to slam the pub and say go on.
00:20:05.000 They were fine. They were fine.
00:20:07.000 That's British for no.
00:20:09.000 They are so ideologically captured. Going back to that cultish aspect.
00:20:14.000 These are not people who go home and bow down to Tom Cruise every day and say I love you and see him in a dream or whatever.
00:20:20.000 But they are people who are so far gone that firstly they can't even imagine that people like us might have reasonable arguments to make.
00:20:27.000 I'm sure you've come up against that a million times.
00:20:30.000 Brianna Joy, is that her name?
00:20:32.000 Joy Gray.
00:20:33.000 Joy Gray, for example.
00:20:34.000 She went into that not even imagining you might have been quite smart and have better ideas than her.
00:20:40.000 Because the other side is, as they say in Scientology, the suppressive person.
00:20:44.000 So these guys are so far gone that, I mean, one example I wrote about in my Substack piece yesterday was I was at one of these events.
00:20:50.000 I was with a guy who's one of the editors at one of the publishers, so I don't want to sort of, you know.
00:20:55.000 But, and the funny thing is this won't even necessarily show who he is, but he's somebody from minority who also represents as queer or says they are queer.
00:21:03.000 And they were speaking to, because I was just eavesdropping, they were speaking to a woman who is a body positive, extremely overweight, autistic, mixed race, pro track.
00:21:13.000 There's like 50 of these that I could go on and on, but it was just one of those people who I think is quite a difficult person as well, as you can.
00:21:19.000 Really?
00:21:21.000 And they're sitting there having this conversation where the editor's saying, God, we had this book that I really wanted to do that was like trans people for business or something, business advice for trans people, I don't know what.
00:21:32.000 And it's so annoying because the marketing people, they said they did the research and nobody wanted to buy that book, obviously.
00:21:39.000 Like obviously, who wants to buy business for trans people? Why would it be different for a trans person? Just do business, sell an idea.
00:21:44.000 But it wasn't good for anyone. And they were going on about, oh, what a shame, isn't it sad? I think I'm going to try and make that book anyway.
00:21:50.000 And all I could think was you've been given this prestigious title where you are the gatekeeper at one of these century old publishing houses that have thousands of people in your employ,
00:22:01.000 thousands of people relying on wages and things like that. And you've been told this book will not sell.
00:22:06.000 But you are so ideologically captured that you believe it is good somehow, virtuous, righteous, to make a book that no one's going to read, providing it tells the readers, the paupers, that this is what we should all be reading about trans business.
00:22:21.000 I mean, it's insane, isn't it? When people are arguing about taking a decision and making a product that has no commercial value to it whatsoever.
00:22:32.000 I mean, that is the antithesis of what companies should be doing.
00:22:35.000 It also denigrates what good business people do and good creatives do. Because really good creative people, I think it's an art, of course, to be a creative person.
00:22:43.000 But the real art is in being creative in a way that society can profit from it.
00:22:48.000 It's all well and good being the best tiddlywinks player in the world, right?
00:22:51.000 But you're probably not going to make good money from it. And for good reason, it doesn't really serve society.
00:22:55.000 So by all means, be a great writer who wants to write about trans business. But unfortunately, no one wants it.
00:23:00.000 So if you're a real genius, if you're really successful or want to be really successful, make an idea that people want.
00:23:06.000 And that's the nub of it. Because if you look at companies like Disney, they're doing exactly the same thing, different type of content, obviously.
00:23:14.000 And they're declaring a huge loss year after year after year. And you're watching this and you're going, this can't carry on.
00:23:23.000 There has to be a point where they're faced with either bankruptcy or change the business model.
00:23:29.000 You would like to think so. I mean, that Disney example is a macrocosm of what I saw in the publishing world in that conversation.
00:23:36.000 So we know that. We know there are people at the top at Disney who are probably scared to say things.
00:23:41.000 And there are other people who are going, this is my idea. This is what they should want because my son is trans or whatever.
00:23:48.000 Don't put that in the trailer. My son is trans. I don't have a son.
00:23:51.000 That's a great title. Yeah.
00:23:53.000 Got it. Andrew reveals, son is trans. Disowned the son.
00:23:56.000 Elon Musk's kid's trans, isn't it?
00:23:58.000 But I mean, then you do get a lot of these, and I'm not entirely sure about this.
00:24:01.000 You might have to check it after, but David Tennant, for example, a famous actor in the UK,
00:24:04.000 he's come out as very pro the whole ideology.
00:24:08.000 And I think he has a trans child or someone in the family.
00:24:12.000 And unfortunately, those are people who are just beholden to the mad ideologies of their offspring.
00:24:19.000 So you didn't, because I think this isn't to second guess your decisions, but quite often in the situation that you find yourself in,
00:24:27.000 actually the smart thing is to say something, is to go, look, this is what people are doing.
00:24:32.000 But you kept being told, don't say anything, don't say anything. And ultimately you didn't initially. Is that right?
00:24:37.000 Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure about it. It's something I spoke with Francis about. Like, look, I know this is a big deal
00:24:42.000 and will get me clicks and views and things. Now that's something that the other side will hold against you.
00:24:46.000 Like, oh, you want clicks and views? And it's like, this is my living and I can't make my living.
00:24:50.000 I'm not going to do a second book. Like, of course not. I'm so lucky that I managed to get that book.
00:24:55.000 That book was done before I was even a YouTuber, didn't have a name or anything.
00:24:58.000 I had to go to like 50 different literary agents and then they had to sell it to 50 or so publishers who all said no.
00:25:05.000 You know, the standard story that everybody who tries to sell a book has, it's impossibly hard.
00:25:09.000 And I'm very proud that I got to do it.
00:25:12.000 Firstly, they wouldn't want me to. And I wouldn't want to do it because I'd have to deal with the sort of knowing looks and the,
00:25:17.000 oh God, is he a bit controversial? These kinds of, I can imagine meetings where they would say,
00:25:21.000 oh, you know, not just me, but Francis and Constantine, you know, oh God, do we want to do their book?
00:25:25.000 This is a bit awkward. The real hypocrisy comes, obviously, when like the bookshops that didn't want me to hold meetings in there,
00:25:32.000 I'm sure they might have Jordan Peterson. They might have Jeremy Clarkson who punched a guy.
00:25:37.000 You know, I think if you're that successful and famous, I think that's when the money comes into it.
00:25:42.000 That might be the case with Disney as well. I don't know. If there is an idea that's slightly not woke,
00:25:45.000 but they know it's going to make huge amounts of money, maybe that will change it. I don't know.
00:25:50.000 But you're right. I wasn't going to say anything at first. I wasn't sure. I was a bit scared to,
00:25:54.000 because what happens? Do they pull my book? I'm even thinking that now.
00:25:57.000 Do they stop it going out in America? It goes out there in a few months. It's not even out there yet.
00:26:01.000 Does something happen? I don't know.
00:26:03.000 The thing is, a little bit of controversy is not going to hurt, Andrew.
00:26:06.000 Yeah.
00:26:07.000 As well. If people are upset about something you've said and you haven't said anything actually terrible,
00:26:16.000 that's not going to hurt. And I'm not as successful as Jordan Peterson or whatever,
00:26:20.000 but I have no problem, neither does Francis, getting a book deal,
00:26:23.000 because once people are interested in what you have to say, it's kind of...
00:26:27.000 So that's why I think...
00:26:28.000 You're going to love my trans business book, mate.
00:26:31.000 It's great.
00:26:32.000 I saw you being approached... I mean, look, when we were in America,
00:26:35.000 and I wondered if there's a sort of American publishers were sort of hovering around the event we were at,
00:26:39.000 and I wondered, is it maybe a little bit different in America? Is there slightly less fear?
00:26:44.000 There is, I think. But even in the UK, ultimately what it's about, I think,
00:26:48.000 is once you establish that people are interested in what you're doing, then at that point, money talks.
00:26:53.000 Yeah.
00:26:54.000 So at this point, I think it's good that you're talking about it,
00:26:57.000 and particularly given that the book itself isn't controversial, but it is very interesting.
00:27:01.000 Yeah. Oh, thank you. Well, apart from the PDF files stuff.
00:27:04.000 Why is that controversial? Surely, isn't everybody against that?
00:27:08.000 Yeah, well, that's...
00:27:09.000 Not everybody. What about the ProMap community?
00:27:12.000 That is a good way of putting it. God bless them.
00:27:14.000 The thing was, that was a chapter that was just me going as a journalist,
00:27:19.000 which is what I've always wanted to do, just the gonzo journalism.
00:27:21.000 I mean, so many of us have other... You guys are comedians, of course.
00:27:24.000 I spoke to Andrew Doyle about this. He was a literary reviewer.
00:27:28.000 That's what he really cares about and wants to do.
00:27:30.000 I think I always liked the whole Louis Theroux kind of going to meet all these weird subcultures
00:27:34.000 in different parts of the world. So that book allowed me to do that.
00:27:36.000 So I was off in Germany meeting a young 25-year-old woman who is attracted to children,
00:27:43.000 and she said she's never offended. But people sometimes will be a bit...
00:27:47.000 I mean, it's been fine, actually, so far, but some people might be offended and go,
00:27:49.000 oh, you've platformed this woman who you've made anonymous.
00:27:52.000 And I've never said, oh, so she should... I said she's good because she is withholding from doing that deed.
00:27:58.000 Here's a question.
00:28:00.000 Yeah.
00:28:01.000 When you were putting up...
00:28:02.000 I'm worried, by the way, just so you know.
00:28:04.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:05.000 I'm tense.
00:28:06.000 Go on, mate. Go on. Let it go.
00:28:08.000 Here we go.
00:28:09.000 So when you were putting out all of that, all of the, you know, the trans stuff, trans women aren't women.
00:28:15.000 We really should have copyrighted that, mate. Anyway, we're going to...
00:28:18.000 Well, I mean, Kelly J. Keene was the one that said it.
00:28:20.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:28:21.000 We just sat there and shat ourselves on camera as people were saying it.
00:28:24.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:28:25.000 Anyway, carry on.
00:28:27.000 Let's be honest. You knew you were treading the line.
00:28:31.000 Did you not think, hang on a second, this could be...
00:28:35.000 Because I certainly felt that way.
00:28:37.000 And I know Constantine did as well when we were...
00:28:39.000 Especially the spiciest stuff.
00:28:40.000 Nah, man. Balls of steel.
00:28:42.000 Yeah, and you've got each other.
00:28:44.000 Some of us are out here on our own, but you know...
00:28:46.000 And that must help sometimes, right?
00:28:47.000 You've got each other, you're like, hey, let's go for it.
00:28:49.000 I mean, my previous channel, which I was...
00:28:52.000 That's what I was doing until six months ago when I started Heretics.
00:28:55.000 It was about cult ideology, and that's what really interests me.
00:28:58.000 I love thinking about how humans get moved one way or another,
00:29:01.000 the banality of evil, how it might happen to me, where I might be doing.
00:29:05.000 I love that.
00:29:06.000 And so I did so much stuff on, obviously, the Scientology and Nixxiom
00:29:09.000 and all that stuff, but every now and then...
00:29:12.000 And I did Hasidic Jews, of course, as well.
00:29:14.000 Every now and then I did one on, say, Islam, or I did one on trans,
00:29:18.000 which I just felt obviously still have these cultish elements.
00:29:21.000 And firstly, they didn't do very well compared to the others.
00:29:23.000 I mean, the Hasidic Jews stuff was hundreds of thousands of views.
00:29:25.000 Everyone was really interested in it.
00:29:26.000 Everyone was criticising, oh, God, there's this community where they're...
00:29:29.000 And there are things to criticise about the Hasidic Jewish community.
00:29:32.000 Islam didn't get many views.
00:29:34.000 And the comments were just, oh, well, you're a racist.
00:29:37.000 You're just a racist then.
00:29:39.000 Trans stuff, you're transphobe.
00:29:40.000 Suddenly there's like Reddit, subreddits about me being the transphobe.
00:29:43.000 Everybody's putting in their two pence about me being a transphobe.
00:29:46.000 And I just thought, being a contrarian, which I think all of us must be,
00:29:50.000 and all our viewers must be to be watching this kind of content,
00:29:54.000 it's like you've got that itch now.
00:29:56.000 You're like, well, if those are the two things that I can't talk about,
00:29:58.000 the two cultish things, and I'm writing about suppression and authoritarianism,
00:30:02.000 then I'm making a new channel and that's what I want to talk about.
00:30:05.000 Because I don't have any friends who are right-wing.
00:30:07.000 I don't know anyone who is a student studying English literature with me,
00:30:11.000 who is some right-wing Nazi and believes that people of different races
00:30:14.000 are less important than other people or whatever it might be.
00:30:17.000 I have loads of friends who are woke, who sign up to these things unthinkingly.
00:30:22.000 That will change, mate.
00:30:24.000 There are lots of friends who are woke.
00:30:26.000 It is starting to change, yeah, come from this.
00:30:28.000 But that's what it was.
00:30:29.000 You're right.
00:30:30.000 I knew it would be hard and I knew it would hurt.
00:30:32.000 And it does really hurt.
00:30:33.000 You feel misrepresented and misunderstood,
00:30:35.000 but you also feel like it's too important not to do it.
00:30:38.000 And one of the things you have covered,
00:30:40.000 and I'm really enjoying Heretics, by the way.
00:30:42.000 Oh, thank you.
00:30:43.000 You're doing a great job with it.
00:30:44.000 You and Winston Marshall have both really taken off in the last few months
00:30:47.000 and it's great to see.
00:30:48.000 Trigonometry blueprint, Winston and I.
00:30:50.000 We did, we do.
00:30:52.000 And Winston and I speak about that.
00:30:53.000 We're like, you know, thank fuck for trigonometry.
00:30:55.000 I thought, can I say fuck on trigonometry?
00:30:57.000 I thought, yes, I can.
00:30:58.000 Yeah, I think you can.
00:30:59.000 But look, everybody's got a...
00:31:01.000 Like, the way really cool stuff happens is through inspiration.
00:31:05.000 And then you combine that with your own skill set.
00:31:07.000 So you have a unique skill set, having done filmmaking
00:31:10.000 and done your other channel and worked at the BBC and whatever.
00:31:13.000 And Winston's got his own skill set.
00:31:15.000 He's like the most well-read man you'll ever meet.
00:31:17.000 If you ever go to his house, it's like covered in books everywhere.
00:31:20.000 So everyone's got their own skill set.
00:31:22.000 So you take what you have and then you look at what other people are doing.
00:31:25.000 You put that together and hopefully you come up with something new that didn't exist before.
00:31:28.000 Which is what you're doing, which is what Winston's doing, which is what we did when we started trigonometry.
00:31:32.000 Because we looked around and we saw people in America mostly at the time doing stuff that nobody here was doing.
00:31:38.000 And we were like, let's do that with our own twist.
00:31:40.000 So that's how it works and it's beautiful that you guys are crushing it.
00:31:43.000 But what I was going to ask you was one of the things you really have honed in on is Islam.
00:31:50.000 And you mentioned you had concerns about it.
00:31:52.000 And I think post October 7th, with what we've been seeing on the streets of major Western cities,
00:31:58.000 that conversation has come to the fore and people are, you know, talking about the ideology,
00:32:06.000 the fact that Islam isn't just a religion, there's also a political dimension to it and all of that.
00:32:11.000 That was a conversation that was being had by people like Douglas Murray and others a while back.
00:32:16.000 It's really come back and you're one of the people who's keen to talk about it.
00:32:19.000 Tell us more about why you're interested in it and what are some of the concerns you have.
00:32:23.000 I think it's just another place where people unthinkingly, maybe they react emotionally and they see pictures of what's happening in Gaza,
00:32:30.000 which of course is terrible and so horrible to watch and I feel terribly for those people.
00:32:35.000 It's almost as if the world is split into two groups of people and one group is that group of acting emotionally
00:32:42.000 and acting like they would like the world to be, as Bertrand Russell is one of my favourite quotes,
00:32:48.000 but it's too much pressure to come up with it.
00:32:50.000 But it's just, you know, look at the facts, don't look at how you'd like the world to be in
00:32:54.000 or what you think would make the world better.
00:32:56.000 And then the other half of the world looks at things and goes, okay, there's this war going on, why?
00:33:00.000 People are saying it's genocide, people are saying it's apartheid.
00:33:03.000 These are thought-terminating cliches in cult terms. These are...
00:33:06.000 Thought-terminating cliches. That's such a great line.
00:33:09.000 Yeah, but you can't come back to that.
00:33:11.000 That's what I've been thinking about a lot because people keep using phrases of that kind
00:33:16.000 and I'm going, like, it doesn't... those words don't mean what you think they mean
00:33:21.000 and they don't map onto the reality of anything that's going on.
00:33:24.000 No.
00:33:25.000 But they are very powerful at getting people to just, like, chant the same thing.
00:33:31.000 That's it.
00:33:32.000 Thought-terminating cliches. That's a great... I'll keep that in mind.
00:33:35.000 I'd even take it further if you're in a relationship. It's something I had to learn, I think, in my own personal relationships,
00:33:39.000 not to say to people, you are a person who does this or that is you because then people can't come back from that
00:33:44.000 and it's not conducive to a helpful conversation.
00:33:48.000 Apartheid.
00:33:49.000 And, look, if your ideology falls apart after one line of questioning, then it's on shaky ground.
00:33:55.000 If your ideology falls apart when you say, okay, oh, this guy's a woman, that's quite an extraordinary claim.
00:34:00.000 What's the extraordinary evidence? What is a woman? Nothing.
00:34:05.000 And it's shocking because we are people who value critical thinking, so you think, well, they have such strong beliefs,
00:34:10.000 they must have something tangible, and they don't.
00:34:13.000 And so apartheid, you go, interesting, because I'm a Jew and I've been to Israel a whole bunch of times
00:34:20.000 and we used to go fairly often, and one thing I did not see was one race lording it over all the others.
00:34:27.000 It was absurd to me. Israel is extremely mixed and does a better job of it than many other countries.
00:34:33.000 The idea it is apartheid is insane.
00:34:35.000 Some people then know a little bit more and will say, oh, but what's happening in Gaza and all that?
00:34:39.000 That's where the apartheid is. It doesn't make Israel an apartheid state. It makes Israel a country at war.
00:34:43.000 And these are things that are very difficult for, I guess, people who are in that particular cultish ideology to understand,
00:34:49.000 and I don't think they want to understand it.
00:34:51.000 One good thing that's come of it, I mean, so much negativity and bad stuff has come from the whole war situation.
00:34:56.000 One thing I've noticed is that Jews have left wokeism. Jews have a long history of being on the left, of course,
00:35:02.000 and sometimes in communism, Marxism and wokeism.
00:35:05.000 Obviously, any race, ethnicity, culture, you have a huge divide of people. Everyone's very different.
00:35:10.000 But I've seen so many people I know, Jewish people I know, who were woke and who disagreed with me on everything
00:35:14.000 to do with trans and this and that, who at universities, if they work there or they work in academia, wherever it is,
00:35:20.000 for the first time are starting to go, oh, you know what, maybe, and if that's not right, what else is not right in this?
00:35:26.000 We know from all sorts of studies that we don't form beliefs in the pursuit of accuracy.
00:35:31.000 We think we do. We think we form a belief because we want it to be right and we're right about everything.
00:35:35.000 We actually form beliefs because of the people around us and we want to fit in.
00:35:39.000 It makes sense, again, from an evolutionary perspective.
00:35:42.000 The only way that people leave cults as well, like, you know, you might hope someone like your friend or your son
00:35:47.000 is going to stop in the trans thing or whatever. They never do.
00:35:50.000 They almost never leave cults just of their own accord or because they've heard better information.
00:35:55.000 The only way that they leave cults is if they're treated so badly in their own cult.
00:36:00.000 So we are seeing that. I've seen it countless times.
00:36:02.000 The Scientologists who said, like, nothing would have convinced them.
00:36:05.000 You say, but Lord Zinu is not a real thing.
00:36:07.000 They're like, yes, he is. Tom Cruise isn't going to come and fuck you.
00:36:10.000 Yes, he is. Whatever they believe.
00:36:12.000 The Jews in places that are particularly woke are suddenly coming into university or wherever it is
00:36:18.000 and going like, oh, these people are saying that what happened to my second cousin
00:36:22.000 was an act of freedom and liberty when my second cousin was raped or whatever.
00:36:26.000 And they're going, oh, this is me being treated really, really badly by my own people.
00:36:30.000 Those people, it takes a few months, takes six months, maybe you speak to them again
00:36:33.000 and they're like, they're a little bit more open about, oh, maybe the trans stuff is also a bit cultish.
00:36:37.000 Maybe some of the other things.
00:36:38.000 So one good thing that's come from it is a lot of Jewish people and Jew adjacent people
00:36:43.000 have started to move away from wokeness.
00:36:46.000 So come back to your concerns.
00:36:47.000 You mentioned you had concerns about Islam.
00:36:49.000 Just flesh that out for us.
00:36:50.000 Because I know you had, we had Yasmin Mohammed on the show a while back.
00:36:54.000 You've had her on recently.
00:36:55.000 She's very, very good at talking about her own story, but also some of her concerns.
00:36:59.000 So talk to us about that.
00:37:00.000 Yeah, Yasmin, I mean, Yasmin Mohammed is one of the greatest speakers in the world, I think.
00:37:05.000 And I'm just amazed by her.
00:37:08.000 As much as anyone else, as much as Douglas Murray, as much as any of these people,
00:37:11.000 she is just absolutely brilliant, passionate and angry.
00:37:16.000 We did a thing on Peter Boghossian's street epistemology.
00:37:20.000 So could you be friends with somebody who is a Muslim?
00:37:23.000 And I stood in the middle because I think, well, I'd like to think I could be friends.
00:37:26.000 And she said, no, absolutely.
00:37:27.000 And Peter asked our reasons and if we'd like to move afterwards.
00:37:30.000 And Yasmin's reason was because that person wants me dead.
00:37:33.000 And I was like, well, OK, I guess I should shuffle up towards Yasmin
00:37:37.000 because I don't want to be friends with someone who wants Yasmin dead.
00:37:40.000 And that is the issue currently with Islam.
00:37:42.000 It's something that Dawkins said, of course, at the event we were at talking with Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
00:37:46.000 that all the religions have stuff that we may or may not agree with.
00:37:49.000 But Islam seems to be stuck, or at least its adherents, its believers seem to be stuck 700 years in the past.
00:37:54.000 What do you do with that?
00:37:56.000 And what do you do with a nation's social cohesion when you have a huge influx of people
00:38:02.000 with very different beliefs from your own?
00:38:05.000 How do we make that work?
00:38:06.000 This is absolutely terrifying.
00:38:08.000 I can't stress that enough.
00:38:10.000 And we're at a point now where particularly as Jewish people,
00:38:14.000 and I think that's why Jewish people really sense this,
00:38:16.000 I have very real discussions with my wife about, you know, are we safe?
00:38:22.000 And are we safe in the UK?
00:38:24.000 And I tell family members to, I mean, Jewish people have what is called a mezuzah on the door.
00:38:29.000 It's sort of a bit of a script or whatever.
00:38:31.000 I mean, most of them are not even religious.
00:38:33.000 These are culturally Jewish people, but they have their little mezuzah thing and marks on the side of the door.
00:38:37.000 I wouldn't have that now.
00:38:39.000 We live where we live, right next to two mosques.
00:38:42.000 And we know that there's all sorts of radicalization that does go on in mosques.
00:38:46.000 That was 20 years ago when we knew about that.
00:38:48.000 Channel 4 documentary is when Channel 4 used to do real hard-hitting investigations.
00:38:52.000 They did all of these investigations into mosques and the radicalization that goes on within them.
00:38:56.000 And people literally calling for the death of Jews.
00:38:58.000 So when there are people who are super woke in my comments going,
00:39:01.000 oh, you're an Islamophobe or something, I would say to them,
00:39:03.000 can you imagine knowing there are people calling for the death of you and your family,
00:39:08.000 and they live down the road from you?
00:39:10.000 That is something that is unimaginable for most people.
00:39:12.000 And in the last 20 years, that's only been exacerbated.
00:39:15.000 But even 20 years ago, the police then were annoyed with Channel 4.
00:39:19.000 There's a whole documented thing about this where the police were saying to Channel 4,
00:39:23.000 like, hey, come on, you're stirring up tensions here,
00:39:25.000 rather than being like, there's what?
00:39:27.000 All these mosques where people are saying we must go and kill the Jews.
00:39:29.000 Are you kidding?
00:39:30.000 They didn't care.
00:39:31.000 The reason they don't care isn't because they're anti-Semitic.
00:39:33.000 It's because they're scared.
00:39:34.000 People are scared.
00:39:35.000 And what do we do?
00:39:37.000 I honestly don't know.
00:39:38.000 I mean, what do you guys think we should do?
00:39:39.000 What happens next?
00:39:42.000 I mean, that's a question.
00:39:44.000 What do I think happens next?
00:39:46.000 I think what we need to have actually some frank discussions,
00:39:49.000 which are honest about the situation that we're facing,
00:39:52.000 particularly when it comes to radicalization and extremism
00:39:55.000 and the inevitable results of that, which is terrorism and violence,
00:40:00.000 we need to be honest about it.
00:40:03.000 And I don't think people are being honest about it.
00:40:05.000 They're a little bit more honest about it on the right,
00:40:07.000 but they're certainly not being honest about it on the left.
00:40:09.000 And until we actually admit that there is a real issue going on,
00:40:13.000 we're never going to be able to tackle that problem.
00:40:16.000 I'm not even using the word solve. Tackle it.
00:40:19.000 Because not every problem you can solve.
00:40:21.000 That's how far away we are from even solving it.
00:40:23.000 We can't even begin to speak about it.
00:40:25.000 We can't begin to tackle it.
00:40:26.000 That's why people turn to us,
00:40:28.000 because people can see it happening in their homes.
00:40:31.000 Not in their homes, hopefully, but around them.
00:40:35.000 It's really hard.
00:40:37.000 And at the same time, you don't want to become someone
00:40:40.000 who gets so stressed out by this
00:40:42.000 and who only surrounds themselves with other people,
00:40:44.000 who only talk about it,
00:40:45.000 and who then maybe become a little bit blind to racism that does happen,
00:40:50.000 or immigrants who come over who might not be Muslim,
00:40:53.000 or Muslims who are peaceful as some are.
00:40:55.000 I mean, the percentages of Muslims who hold very scary beliefs
00:41:00.000 that don't work with our society is,
00:41:02.000 whenever I've seen those stats, I don't have them to mind,
00:41:04.000 but they're always just like, oh, that's quite extraordinary.
00:41:07.000 The number who believe October 7th didn't happen
00:41:09.000 or was orchestrated by the Jews.
00:41:11.000 The number who think they would like Sharia law in our towns
00:41:14.000 and cities in the UK.
00:41:15.000 It's not one or two percent.
00:41:17.000 These are big numbers.
00:41:18.000 And again, people don't realize Jews make up about 200,000,
00:41:22.000 300,000 of the population.
00:41:24.000 Muslims make up over four million and rising fast.
00:41:27.000 And it's really hard,
00:41:29.000 because when we're having these kinds of cultural debates,
00:41:31.000 everyone who goes to work will have one or two Muslim friends at work.
00:41:35.000 Very few have even met a Jewish person.
00:41:37.000 So, of course, the conspiracies are going to grow.
00:41:40.000 They're only going to hear one side.
00:41:41.000 And I don't know how we combat that.
00:41:43.000 What's interesting is it is an extraordinarily Western problem
00:41:48.000 in the sense that, for example, there are places in the Middle East
00:41:52.000 that are much better at dealing with Muslim extremism and terrorism
00:41:57.000 than we are.
00:41:58.000 The UAE, for example.
00:42:00.000 Like, they've basically dealt with the extremism issue
00:42:04.000 much more effectively than we have.
00:42:06.000 And part of the reason is they don't pretend that this problem doesn't exist.
00:42:10.000 They know that within their religion there are some extremists
00:42:13.000 and they deal with it.
00:42:14.000 I mean, I grew up, I lived for four years in Soviet Uzbekistan,
00:42:18.000 surrounded by Muslims.
00:42:19.000 There was never any issue.
00:42:21.000 So it's not specifically Muslims or even Islam.
00:42:26.000 It depends on how it's practiced and depends on what is allowed to be preached in mosques
00:42:30.000 and it depends on what is being taught in schools and in madrassas.
00:42:33.000 And it depends on what society's attitude is,
00:42:36.000 from the police to the politicians to the whoever, towards extremism.
00:42:41.000 And actually, you know, whenever anyone criticizes Islamic terrorism
00:42:46.000 or whatever, people always say, well, you know, Muslims are the greatest victims of Islamic terrorism.
00:42:50.000 And it's true.
00:42:51.000 For reasons actually we discussed with Ayman Deen when we had him on the show.
00:42:55.000 Which is basically there's a civil war going on within Islam.
00:42:59.000 And it's the extremists who want a Sharia law and a caliphate
00:43:05.000 versus the people who actually want a nation state like the Gulf monarchies, etc.
00:43:08.000 So while that's going on, yes, Muslims are the main victims of terrorism,
00:43:13.000 in which case the simple answer if you're a politician would be to say, well,
00:43:16.000 that means the Muslim community of Britain is on our side when we crack down really hard on the terrorists
00:43:22.000 and the extremists and the radicalizers and the rogue Imams and the whatever.
00:43:25.000 But that never gets said. That never gets said. It never gets said that the Muslims are on our side.
00:43:31.000 We are together in fighting the extremists.
00:43:33.000 They happen to be Muslim extremists.
00:43:35.000 We'd be equally opposed to Jewish extremists or Christian extremists.
00:43:38.000 We'll go to wherever the extremists are and deal with them because we know that we have the support
00:43:43.000 of all the communities in dealing with extremism.
00:43:46.000 No one ever says that, even though that seems to me like a really obvious point.
00:43:49.000 We just don't know how much of a, let's say, reaction that they'd get from the Muslim community.
00:43:55.000 If they feel like they're singled out. If you go back to that sort of culture,
00:43:58.000 I know what you're saying that it depends on the person, it depends on the individual family.
00:44:03.000 We all know and have met lots of Muslim families who are perfectly pleasant and lovely,
00:44:07.000 and just like Christians, just like Jews, just, you know, they do their religious stuff and that's their thing.
00:44:12.000 But in the communities itself, I'm not sure that would go down well at all.
00:44:15.000 What we do see is Labour sort of just going around to all these meetings with Muslims saying,
00:44:20.000 how can we placate you?
00:44:22.000 Yeah. But this is my point, right?
00:44:24.000 Yeah.
00:44:25.000 If either that argument is right, which is the Muslim community is a peaceful community full of peaceful people
00:44:33.000 and they hate extremism and terrorism as much as we do, that would be one outcome.
00:44:39.000 The other outcome is we discovered that isn't the case.
00:44:43.000 In either case, we're moving towards some kind of better understanding of what the problem is.
00:44:47.000 That's true.
00:44:48.000 Which means we're moving towards a solution.
00:44:49.000 That's true.
00:44:50.000 Right?
00:44:51.000 But it's the dishonesty that we're never even holding people to account on the basis of their own arguments.
00:44:57.000 Like, if you're saying to me, 99.9% of these people don't support violence and extremism, great.
00:45:06.000 Then there are people, they're on our team. Let's go and deal with the extremists together.
00:45:11.000 Yeah.
00:45:12.000 Right?
00:45:13.000 Yeah. I think we all know it's not 99.9%, is it?
00:45:17.000 In this country, probably not.
00:45:18.000 No.
00:45:19.000 Yeah.
00:45:20.000 That's the problem.
00:45:21.000 That's why it's so hard to know what to do because of that.
00:45:23.000 And that, like you said…
00:45:24.000 On that happy note.
00:45:26.000 No.
00:45:27.000 We're going to wrap…
00:45:29.000 No.
00:45:30.000 Again, that is the issue.
00:45:31.000 But you are never going to solve this problem unless you actually start to have some pretty uncomfortable conversations.
00:45:38.000 Yeah.
00:45:39.000 Until you start doing that, until you start putting a little bit of jeopardy in the room, we're not going to get any closer to solving it.
00:45:48.000 Well, I'm sure Keir Starmer will deal with it.
00:45:50.000 Yeah. First, he's got to identify what a woman is, then he'll tell him about Islamic extremism.
00:45:54.000 You work your way up.
00:45:55.000 Yeah.
00:45:56.000 Then he can suppress her rights in the name of Sharia law.
00:45:58.000 Put her in the burka.
00:45:59.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:46:00.000 It's tough.
00:46:01.000 I'm very nihilistic.
00:46:02.000 I'm really…
00:46:03.000 Defeatist and nihilistic.
00:46:04.000 And I think it's because I spent so many years before this channel thinking about cults.
00:46:07.000 And as I say, I speak to my friend Aaron Smith-Levin, who I think you guys at some point should interview.
00:46:12.000 He's wonderful on all of this because he was in Scientology.
00:46:15.000 And he says openly, there's not a single word you could have said to me that would have convinced me.
00:46:20.000 And unfortunately, you look at question time.
00:46:22.000 You look at this super woke audience asking stuff to politicians, just clapping, clapping, not really listening to the questions.
00:46:28.000 No ability to critical think, to think critically.
00:46:31.000 And I just…
00:46:32.000 I'm sorry, I'm not giving an answer here.
00:46:34.000 And I know I need an answer, but I'm just very nihilistic and you guys have to solve it.
00:46:38.000 Are you thinking of leaving?
00:46:39.000 The country.
00:46:40.000 I spent too long away and it was wonderful for the most part.
00:46:44.000 But I wanted to come back here to be near my family.
00:46:47.000 I know a lot of Jews that are thinking of leaving.
00:46:50.000 Yeah.
00:46:51.000 Yes.
00:46:52.000 Yeah.
00:46:53.000 So do I.
00:46:54.000 And they go.
00:46:55.000 And they go to like Australia often.
00:46:56.000 Places like that.
00:46:57.000 Places that are a little bit stricter on their immigration and have got things okay.
00:47:01.000 I don't know.
00:47:02.000 Would you?
00:47:03.000 Well, I mean, we're spending a lot of time in the US.
00:47:06.000 I don't know about leaving exactly.
00:47:08.000 I love this country and I would like to have a foothold here at least for a long term.
00:47:14.000 But like, I think after October 7th, I think a lot of people realized that a lot of the things we've all been thinking about are actually true.
00:47:24.000 That's true.
00:47:25.000 One of the things we are doing actually is like, you know, my wife is Argentinian and so I've moved her over here.
00:47:31.000 One of the reasons it would be so hard to move again is because she was a lawyer there.
00:47:34.000 And I sort of, by pushing her to move to the UK, she had to do a whole conversion course, start again, basically, which takes years and years and years.
00:47:41.000 And if I suddenly go home today and go, Constantine in France has suggested leaving.
00:47:45.000 Shall we go somewhere?
00:47:46.000 And she'd go mental.
00:47:47.000 She'd go mental at you guys and me.
00:47:48.000 But she's Latin American.
00:47:49.000 She's going to go mental anyway.
00:47:50.000 Don't tell.
00:47:51.000 Why are you bringing us into it, mate?
00:47:52.000 I had a Latin mother.
00:47:53.000 I don't want an angry Latin woman.
00:47:55.000 More Latinos.
00:47:56.000 No, thank you.
00:47:57.000 Yeah.
00:47:58.000 Man, for the wedding, we had like 40 of them in our house, Latinos everywhere.
00:48:02.000 It was just, it was lovely.
00:48:04.000 But anyway, what I was going to say is, for the first time I started saying, you know what, as soon as we're married, so now I have to get an Argentinian passport.
00:48:14.000 Because if shit kicks off, and it might do, I need to get out of here.
00:48:18.000 Yeah, you'd never find any Jew haters in Argentina.
00:48:21.000 Argentina took the Jew haters and the Jews.
00:48:23.000 They took everyone who could come and help this country.
00:48:26.000 But, you know, if it did really kick off in Europe, it's a place I could go if I had the visa.
00:48:30.000 When I was there before, I had to leave every 90 days and come back again.
00:48:33.000 But if there was a war like that, they'd probably shut the border.
00:48:36.000 You know, no one wants everybody coming there now, I think.
00:48:38.000 So that is something we genuinely talk about and genuinely are concerned about.
00:48:42.000 All right, mate. Well, listen, it's great to have you back on the show.
00:48:44.000 It's good to see you doing well.
00:48:45.000 As you know, before we go to locals and ask you questions from our supporters,
00:48:49.000 the last question we always end with is, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?
00:48:53.000 I forgot about that.
00:48:54.000 Um, shit. What's the one thing we're not talking about?
00:48:57.000 That's a British person's internal dialogue.
00:48:59.000 Yeah, yeah.
00:49:00.000 Americans have got like a list of 10.
00:49:02.000 Yeah.
00:49:03.000 Well, listen, the one thing we're not talking about is...
00:49:06.000 Don't do that again.
00:49:07.000 From Alabama.
00:49:08.000 Sorry, sorry.
00:49:09.000 What are we not talking about? Shit, why didn't I do this?
00:49:11.000 It's so hard to think on the spot, isn't it?
00:49:14.000 Yeah.
00:49:15.000 Because you're not as professional and we've been at it a bit longer, mate.
00:49:18.000 Don't worry.
00:49:19.000 Yeah.
00:49:22.000 We're not talking about...
00:49:24.000 Yeah, fuck it.
00:49:25.000 We'll go to locals.
00:49:26.000 Sense of humour.
00:49:27.000 Everyone's lost their sense of humour.
00:49:28.000 I spoke to Tom Nash. You know, Tom Nash lost his arms and legs.
00:49:30.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:49:31.000 Yeah.
00:49:32.000 He was where we were at this event.
00:49:34.000 He's come to England in the end and we did...
00:49:36.000 He does this thing called Last Meal, which isn't even out anywhere yet, but he just does...
00:49:39.000 I think he enjoys it.
00:49:40.000 He had Dawkins on and he asks you your last meal and he cooks it for you.
00:49:44.000 I don't know how.
00:49:45.000 Oh, does he?
00:49:46.000 He went around to the other night in London and he's cooked me this lovely meal.
00:49:49.000 But then he asks you all those kinds of questions.
00:49:51.000 Just like, where's the one moment in your life this?
00:49:54.000 And you're like, how can I think on the spot?
00:49:56.000 I wish I knew the questions before.
00:49:57.000 But his main point all the time is that by getting rid of a sense of humour, by getting...
00:50:03.000 Everyone's so scared to say the wrong thing.
00:50:05.000 It makes things infinitely harder for him because people approach and don't know how to say hello.
00:50:09.000 Whereas he wants to joke, he gives his hook to people and he sees how they shake it or fist bump it or what they do.
00:50:15.000 And we need to laugh.
00:50:17.000 You guys are comedians.
00:50:18.000 You've both made me laugh a lot on stage and I want us to keep laughing because we're all going to be dead.
00:50:24.000 I love that you specified that we didn't make him laugh in the course of this.
00:50:27.000 Back then you did. No, you made me laugh a lot.
00:50:30.000 Andrew, thanks for coming on.
00:50:32.000 Follow him over at Heretics on YouTube and head on over to Locals Now where we ask Andrew your questions.
00:50:39.000 As it's you, strong opener mate.
00:50:41.000 Does the right scare you as much as the left?
00:50:43.000 Why or why not?