TRIGGERnometry - Why Critical Thinking Is Dead - Warren Smith

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00:00:30.000 it was actually a very good example of someone applying critical thinking to an issue in good

00:00:37.020 faith this kind of environment it creates people who actually can't think which is why it's kind

00:00:43.600 of impressive that the video you did about jk ronning with your help actually could think

00:00:48.260 they insinuate that we'll make it so you can't teach essentially we won't give we'll give you

00:00:52.940 a good recommendation if you sign this thing i hope you don't make any mistakes that was their

00:00:57.820 language. It's kind of mafioso, isn't it? What did that entire experience teach you about the

00:01:05.220 education system? There's a fear that I see at the college level and the high school level around

00:01:09.760 the emotional impact of the students to be able to have these conversations. Many would claim

00:01:15.300 there is no true way to run a business. It's up to me, and all interpretations are equally valid.

00:01:20.740 How many postmodernists have a business that they run?

00:01:23.180 Warren Smith, welcome to Chickenometry.

00:01:28.180 Thank you for having me.

00:01:29.180 Great to have you on, man.

00:01:30.180 Been enjoying a lot of your content.

00:01:32.180 Before we get into opinions and debate and all that kind of stuff,

00:01:36.180 tell everybody your story because your story is very interesting.

00:01:39.180 Oh.

00:01:40.180 You're surprised by this fact.

00:01:42.180 Yeah, so I was teaching media content creation

00:01:48.180 and a piece of content went viral,

00:01:51.820 opened a door for youtube i was like oh see how far this will will go this is interesting

00:01:58.140 i knew there was a risk but the it didn't outweigh the cost of not trying if that makes sense

00:02:06.140 caught up kind of in a way i thought there was an 80 chance that the school given kind of skipped

00:02:11.660 over this video and viral or we said i knew they weren't happy with that i thought there was like

00:02:16.380 80 chance they just won't renew my contract they did a slightly different move got rid of me quickly

00:02:22.700 midday kind of threw me into this weird limbo where now i have to focus on this i was under

00:02:29.100 50 000 subscribers wasn't financially viable scary time worked out here we are so what was

00:02:36.620 the what was the school and what was the video so i don't want to dox the school because it

00:02:42.860 it would be unnecessary i mean it would take a google i imagine no people have tried oh okay

00:02:49.420 they don't want it so nobody knows which college you were teaching at this was a high school high

00:02:54.460 school okay okay right um so you asked me which schools what was the other part of the question

00:03:00.140 what was the video oh the video was with a student up making the claim that jk rowling

00:03:06.940 asking me how have your views on harry potter changed given jk rowling's bigoted opinions

00:03:11.420 There's a presupposition in there.

00:03:13.340 All right, let's just run through that, and he ended up changing his mind, realizing he

00:03:17.100 didn't have the evidence necessary for the claim, and that was all it was.

00:03:22.060 I was surprised that anyone watched it, to be honest.

00:03:24.780 Well, it was a great video because it was actually a very good example of someone applying

00:03:29.420 critical thinking to an issue in good faith, and you could just watch through the logical

00:03:36.220 fallacies that the person had in their head to ask the question in that way.

00:03:41.180 and you kind of de-radicalized almost them in that moment so why why would that be such a

00:03:45.980 controversial thing well there were many teachers not happy about it because they disagree on jk

00:03:52.220 rolling and word would get to me they don't say these things to your face and non-verbal

00:03:58.700 communication is extremely important in navigating these day-to-day games that occur but i was

00:04:04.140 working with another teacher a music teacher who had been collaborating with me on youtube in the

00:04:09.420 in the past already, we were fascinated by the technology, the medium, and he would tell

00:04:13.820 me, man, they're looking, they're not happy, they're looking for, just be careful, they're

00:04:17.540 looking for any reason. And in the meantime, he and I had set up a little studio space

00:04:21.540 that's still that bookshelf that I record to this day. Every Friday, he would come over

00:04:26.320 and he would be the voice off the camera. And he had opposite views from Romania. And

00:04:32.060 so it would make for really good conversations. And there was something interesting about

00:04:35.380 not having the person on camera because i think it allowed the viewer to project themselves in a way

00:04:41.140 but anyways so why would they not be happy also just the response i think is primarily because at

00:04:46.740 first so the video goes viral the next day pierce morgan wants to have me on for like a 15 minute

00:04:52.100 quick thing and i remember like man do i'm gonna have to run this through the chain of command

00:04:57.220 with the school this is gonna be they're gonna say no so i just did it and i came in the next day

00:05:03.220 people they already knew because i remember the day after before pierce morgan came in

00:05:07.220 and every i wasn't going to say anything maybe they won't notice everybody knew because elon

00:05:12.580 had tweeted it out and so they had a meeting after school and like yeah so this happened

00:05:16.980 with warren he didn't break any rules he's not in trouble so then i do all right then i do the

00:05:20.580 pierce morgan thing then i come into school and they're like all right we've got to meet with the

00:05:24.260 lawyers um the head honcho the person in charge of the school who's really just this business

00:05:29.460 person never at the school we see her maybe once or twice a year the principal was nice guy he was

00:05:35.140 the one like this is crazy this is like and he was a little bit like look man if you're going to do

00:05:40.180 pierce more you got to run up the chain of command and i was like okay and he's like but honestly i

00:05:45.620 would have done the same thing so he was reasonable in that sense but this went above his head so i

00:05:49.940 meet with the with the lawyers and they're on conference call well you didn't break any rules

00:05:55.940 they literally said congratulations um you're probably going to want to keep making things

00:06:03.060 you seem to enjoy it i hope you don't make any mistakes that was their language

00:06:08.020 it's kind of mafioso isn't it there are aspects of this that are eerily like we can get into it

00:06:14.100 if you want but very strange that people want like you're making this up it's crazy so let's

00:06:18.660 talk about that like the i hope you don't make any mistakes you know be ashamed yeah that's what it

00:06:24.340 was yeah so let's talk about that that aspect of it in what way well you were saying there's some

00:06:30.340 stuff that you could share yeah that people oh that was out so after i'm thinking about this

00:06:35.220 incident where the teacher that i've been collaborating with he was like my best friend

00:06:39.540 at school got along really well because our content the subject matter was very similar

00:06:44.420 we shared interest camera technology both fascinated with it and we'd be making all

00:06:47.780 these promotional videos for the school to go online so maybe a month goes by before i get

00:06:53.620 fired and he's warning me and warning me about all this stuff and i get fired and he it's like

00:06:59.940 something had switched and i anticipated this as well i knew that they were going to sit him down

00:07:04.660 like you can't keep doing this with warren like he's dead to us it was like i was deleted like

00:07:11.300 in me it was very like you don't exist it's very strange no contact but all of his he helped me set

00:07:17.940 up the space so a lot of his equipment's in that space and so a week goes by and he finally he

00:07:22.420 He texted me.

00:07:23.420 He texted me the day after I heard the news because I was, I was like escorted out.

00:07:28.300 Really?

00:07:29.300 Yeah.

00:07:30.300 And so I had no call.

00:07:31.300 I couldn't say goodbye to anybody.

00:07:33.100 It was.

00:07:34.100 Wait, well, hold on.

00:07:35.100 Maybe I'm lost in the timeline.

00:07:36.400 You do this video about JK Rowling, but the student, they say don't make any mistakes.

00:07:41.860 Did you then make a mistake?

00:07:43.360 Yeah.

00:07:44.360 What was your mistake?

00:07:45.360 I did the same thing again with a different student, but I took more.

00:07:50.100 So teaching media, I have a list of who has the clearances, who has signed the releases,

00:07:54.820 the parents.

00:07:56.900 And we had had another conversation, like, oh, this one's kind of interesting.

00:07:59.660 This might work.

00:08:00.660 We had been making the content in my house, because we were like, man, we've got to...

00:08:05.080 We don't want any more heat with the school, so let's just do it all at the house.

00:08:08.620 But this one exchange, I was like, this is interesting.

00:08:10.420 It was about JK Rowling, a student claiming she was racist.

00:08:13.080 And we knew the audience, this is what the audience wanted.

00:08:16.520 had the i had the clearances and so i i shared it on x i think but i was like the lighting was

00:08:23.800 atrocious so i ended up deleting it the school took that as evidence that i knew i was doing

00:08:30.680 something wrong and i was trying to cover my tracks that was was the lawyer's speak that came

00:08:35.960 at me later but they sat on that for like three weeks hoping i would do it again i found out

00:08:41.000 later like they could have told me hey this is what we're talking about like make these adjustments

00:08:45.720 but they want they were waiting for something to use it was clearly a tactical so that would be

00:08:50.120 the mistake even i was like so they pulled me in the the office i was like did you talk to the

00:08:54.280 student did you talk to his parents i did more than i've ever done like the steps like yeah

00:08:58.040 there's this new step though you have to ask so and so the you're super and i had two sets of

00:09:02.920 supervising principles because it's divided well you didn't check with this person so you're gone

00:09:09.720 and um they made it very clear like you can either accept you can accept it now that we

00:09:15.480 want to get rid of you for youtube because it's not just and i get that in a way it's like

00:09:20.840 it's it i i get that um or we can conduct an investigation and get back to you in three days

00:09:27.480 like you haven't talked to the parents or the student even that you're worried about like do

00:09:31.080 they the student doesn't care like okay let's wait and then they kind of all that needs and

00:09:36.840 anyone listening to this if you find yourself in a similar situation force them into admitting what

00:09:40.680 they're doing be like okay you want to fight you're firing me now then i'm not giving you

00:09:44.280 three days because what they're going to do is try and go through everything and find something

00:09:48.200 better and then point to that so anyways a week goes by i recorded a video about it just to

00:09:56.280 process my thoughts i was it was really psychologically uh it's one of the most

00:09:59.960 difficult periods i've ever been through i came home that day i was just throwing up the whole

00:10:05.320 i slept on the bathroom floor um and the next day i sat down and recorded something waited

00:10:12.520 i didn't post it for like a week or two and then i did and jk rowling reached out which was

00:10:18.760 a significant gesture for me meant a lot anyway so he a week goes by he needs to get his equipment

00:10:24.840 he comes over to the house he's talking completely different he's like you you knew you weren't

00:10:29.800 supposed to do that i was like dude i talked to you about all of these things that we you told

00:10:33.880 me they were trying to he was like this was he was trying to like as though it's like i couldn't

00:10:39.240 recognize him he was like trying to insinuate that i had calculated this to purposely be fired

00:10:45.240 and it was like he was trying to get me on tape or something yeah i was gonna say it sounds like

00:10:49.640 he was wearing a wire yeah that's what i meant by the mafia thing but if i try and tell i've only

00:10:53.720 told the story once if i tell it people like that's this sounds like you're just making up

00:10:58.360 a mob move or something but this is true like and he got his equipment out there and he and

00:11:03.240 didn't say a word which is another indicator something was strange because he wasn't saying

00:11:07.000 anything other than these things and we went outside and he had a cigarette we knew we both

00:11:12.920 knew this was the last time we were going to talk to and we were like best friends wow yeah

00:11:18.280 and i was like man this is i don't think you understand just the game they're playing here

00:11:22.120 i was like and just be careful like you as well because this could happen to and i had seen people

00:11:26.200 get taken out the principal who hired me was there for eight years devoted eight years and

00:11:31.240 the assistant principal who hired me taken out on the same day two years prior and it was

00:11:36.680 nonsensical reasons they just will force they have the ability because it's not like a regular

00:11:41.080 public school they have the ability to force through outcomes however they want it creates

00:11:45.160 a very weird environment yeah so i and he left and as he was walking out i was like hey there's

00:11:49.960 this one device that will allow me to continue to plug a mic in this xlr adapter can i can i

00:11:57.240 buy it from you and he just handed it to me didn't say a word got his car and and that's the last

00:12:02.920 time i saw him and then i get a text from the school a week later saying hey that um he left

00:12:09.240 this microphone and we had gone through great lengths to make sure all this equipment was

00:12:13.800 personal so we're not crossing any lines school contacts me says you have our microphone so we're

00:12:19.160 going to use that as leverage for this negotiation where they send an nda they said if you sign this

00:12:24.280 nda will pay you the rest of what we owe you for the year we'll pay you for the end of the month

00:12:28.920 but we'll pay to the end of the year if you sign this nda i'll prevent you from ever talking about

00:12:32.600 this just go over with a lawyer like a person from h they're very rushed on the phone they want to

00:12:39.880 do you have any questions yeah i have a lot of questions sorry click like that kind of thing

00:12:44.760 i have to get a how am i going to afford a lawyer i i don't have any money like and they know that

00:12:50.200 so they think you're just going to sign it and they may they insinuate that we'll make it so

00:12:54.360 you can't teach essentially we won't give we'll give you a good recommendation if you

00:12:58.440 sign this thing it would also give them control of some of the videos on the youtube channel as well

00:13:03.960 so i did not sign sign it peter bogosian helped me get a lawyer cost me i think she went easy on

00:13:10.840 me because she knew the predicament so she i think she gave me a break on the cost cost a couple

00:13:14.680 four thousand probably which is probably a good deal for she negotiated with them and she's like

00:13:20.520 she was said to me if i were you i've never said this to a client normally clients come to me with

00:13:25.960 these offers these india they say just sign it because why do you need to talk about this she's

00:13:29.800 like but this is strange my advice to you would be to if you can afford to not take it was like

00:13:34.520 eight thousand dollars nine thousand but to me that was massive she's like if you can afford it

00:13:39.720 pass on it don't do it and i'm so glad i didn't i wouldn't be talking to you right now what did that

00:13:46.360 entire experience teach you about the education system i was talking to these guys about it too

00:13:51.400 there's a fear that i see at the college level and the high school level around the emotional

00:13:55.480 impact of the students to be able to have these conversations so like the sam richards who i've

00:14:00.760 worked with and i do videos covering him sometimes where he's live streaming his college courses and

00:14:05.800 they do very well because people find it fascinating he's very worried about getting

00:14:11.240 shut down he just got i was supposed to i went down and spoke to his class which is 500 students

00:14:16.920 and i was supposed to go down this month but he just texted me the other day and said he has a

00:14:20.600 meeting he's been summoned to by the provost and he doesn't think they're going to get shut down

00:14:24.840 but that threat is always looming and that's what they're going to use if i told him this earlier

00:14:28.920 on i was like it's going to be over the potential for hurt feelings they will probably won't even

00:14:33.560 be able to point to anyone where there is actual damage or anyone who really cares because he's

00:14:39.560 careful about which students he selects they all know they all know what they're doing before they

00:14:43.800 do it they understand it but the school can can still point to and that's one of the things the

00:14:49.560 school pointed to with me is they said okay well yes but the student having something like yeah

00:14:55.960 we didn't expect this to go viral and yes it doesn't break any rules but when there's millions

00:15:00.920 of people looking at it it could take a toll on him i was like yeah but also they're almost all

00:15:05.160 positive because he changes he was reasonable in the video he to me he i think he was a very mature

00:15:10.120 student a very intelligent student and it's also as well you couldn't see what the student looked

00:15:15.880 like which is a massive part when it comes to child safety right it would logically it would

00:15:20.440 be the same thing as if that music teacher made a song with one of the students they posted on

00:15:25.320 youtube just the audio and it goes viral so that's technically the exact it's just a voice

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00:17:04.780 wasn't your first time in the crosshairs of this kind of phenomenon because you were at Emerson

00:17:09.260 college weren't you where i think it was 2016 where you saw the real flourishings of woke

00:17:15.560 post trump so let's talk about that because that's fascinating as well yeah i still teach at emerson

00:17:20.800 i teach a filmmaking course and that was originally my plan was to hopefully be a professor at college

00:17:27.440 my parents were both professors academia seemed like a great job and it it is it's got great

00:17:33.700 benefits. And what I saw there in 2016 was, it shook me for sure. I wasn't into any, I was,

00:17:42.340 I discovered the space as well, Jordan Peterson, and I was fascinated by it because there was

00:17:48.980 certainly a problem with what I was encountering at school. Students, 300, over 300 students

00:17:54.480 marched into a faculty assembly claiming that Emerson was racist and making, with literally

00:17:59.760 a list of demands and the administration kowtowed to it they gave in and that was the next day

00:18:09.760 the week following that i was taking a pedagogy course with the dean of undergrad

00:18:13.920 teaching it and we had to devote the four-hour class this week to discussing the systemic racism

00:18:19.680 at emerson and the head of the social justice center which is a literal office literal people

00:18:25.120 um you could do uh bias anonymous bias reports they were sitting in and the white students were

00:18:34.340 told to surrender our white privilege for the duration of the four hours and i thought that's

00:18:39.080 so weird how does one surrender i don't know i would love to have a discussion with them

00:18:44.120 but they won't probably they wouldn't have a discussion and it's worth bearing in mind

00:18:48.460 to people who don't know emerson emerson is an incredibly left-wing college yeah it's extremely

00:18:54.340 left-wing. I didn't meet a single conservative professor at the time. There was one student I

00:19:00.540 can remember from grad school that was libertarian. So that being the case, you think,

00:19:05.620 why is it that one of the most progressive left-wing schools in the country is suddenly

00:19:12.580 racist or white supremacist? It just doesn't make any sense. Well, it's a captivating narrative

00:19:18.180 that creates an emotional satisfaction. It also gives the students the ability to make demands

00:19:22.380 their professors they couldn't otherwise make so i was asked to teach my first class screenwriting

00:19:27.500 and the teacher that was signing it to me i was her ta she was warren okay you're about to do this

00:19:32.620 so remember hold the students accountable so for example warren i have this one student doesn't

00:19:36.860 show up to class doesn't do any assignments and i'm going to give her the grade she deserves you

00:19:40.540 need to do the same thing the protest happens i'm about to teach it and we have a follow-up meeting

00:19:45.020 remember warren i was saying about that student she got named on the website on the it was a

00:19:48.700 facebook group hashtag emerson so racist accusing of microaggressions claiming she made a

00:19:55.500 microaggression which doesn't require evidence because it's subconscious it's a microaggression

00:20:00.220 yeah warren i was really wrong about that because that student i forgot how difficult it is she

00:20:04.060 told me about how difficult it is to be black at emerson so i can't hold her it's insinuating i

00:20:10.540 can't hold her to account for not coming to class because there's not enough professors who that

00:20:14.860 that are Black, according to them. They don't see themselves reflected in the student body,

00:20:19.740 even though there are many Black students and Black professors. 0.99

00:20:23.180 That's so crazy. So what it's effectively saying is you can't uphold academic standards because 0.94

00:20:29.900 somebody is of a different color. That's what that student was pushing for, 0.92

00:20:33.820 and many do. It allows them to push for that. So people are going to do what's in their interest

00:20:38.460 if you give them the ability to. So it doesn't surprise me in the least that they took this

00:20:42.460 this narrative and ran with it and why do you think colleges caved to this kind of thing

00:20:46.480 because well so the the pressure uh the the culture that exists within this high level

00:20:57.760 highbrow academic elite where they all need to be they all strive to be as sensitive here's an

00:21:03.040 example one teacher didn't cave and I have the letter that he wrote he sent an email I think

00:21:09.160 sent it to the whole school which is bold i have it though i don't remember the president he said

00:21:14.520 we shouldn't be kowtowing to a mob essentially well articulated long email the president to respond

00:21:21.640 yeah i'm pretty sure that teacher did not blast it he sent it to the the president of the college

00:21:26.120 the president countered by blasting everyone's anyone with an emerson email address received

00:21:32.600 this email so i have both letters and it was essentially applying that pressure that you are

00:21:39.480 going to be ostracized yeah you have tenure but you're cooked if you go down this road you don't

00:21:44.260 represent our values that we uphold and we're striving how dare you these students are brave

00:21:48.540 enough to stand up and tell us about their victimization and the subconscious turmoil

00:21:53.040 that they're going through every day how dare you treat it in such an insensitive way and that was

00:21:57.820 a long email but that was that's how i would summarize it because from what you're talking

00:22:02.740 about with emerson to what's happening in the school it just sounds like the seeds were planted

00:22:07.920 a long time ago and the inevitable consequence is where we've reached now where any type of

00:22:14.480 debate is shut down or seen as damaging or harmful to the students yeah i would i really enjoyed i've

00:22:22.240 I've always enjoyed pushing back where I think it's warranted.

00:22:26.140 And I would in class, and it was interesting to see how the professors responded.

00:22:31.320 It was interesting to note that so many of the graduate level students, in my discipline

00:22:36.520 at least, were direct students from China, which I didn't, I still don't, I think it's

00:22:41.160 because they pay higher tuition as essentially business.

00:22:43.980 But Emerson has a high representation in China.

00:22:46.320 Every year they send ambassadors over, they would select a student ambassador to go over

00:22:50.040 for the convention in China.

00:22:52.200 remember because the the dean also had a high presence in china she talked about how many times

00:22:57.240 she'd been there but even but i remember bringing challenging one day in social and um cultural

00:23:03.400 media studies i have the textbook still in chapter one is by carl marx talking about can we control

00:23:09.480 the internet and i was like well we should ask how's it working in china like what do you guys

00:23:13.960 think and i said it just like that he said no you can't can't talk about like that or talk about

00:23:19.240 that's like this is a college level this is a graduate level class you want to analyze whether

00:23:24.360 we control the internet but we can't talk about real world examples because it's culturally

00:23:28.440 insensitive is the way he's insinuating it's a little example that one stands out in my mind

00:23:32.680 vividly but there was a lot of nonsensical encounters with professors that oh it just

00:23:37.240 gets under your skin and then that drive when you do see an alternative like jordan peterson who i

00:23:41.080 think put his finger on the source that you're describing what led to this you could describe

00:23:48.200 largely as postmodernism.

00:23:49.860 Well, what I find extraordinary, Warren, is that you can kind of understand that in

00:23:56.140 a society of social media and all this kind of stuff, you kind of go, well, maybe there's

00:24:01.840 some sense to people being a little bit more careful about expressing controversial things.

00:24:08.280 Maybe if you work for a big company, everyone doesn't need to know your political opinions

00:24:13.480 because you're going to come into work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:16.300 The one place that you would think you would encourage people to explore difficult and

00:24:22.020 controversial ideas is university, is college, because that's what it's for.

00:24:27.580 It's not even political opinions.

00:24:29.100 If we're having a conversation about can we control the internet, that's not political.

00:24:32.940 We're engaging with the logic of the claim.

00:24:35.520 And it's one thing I totally understand, especially at the high school level.

00:24:39.860 Yeah, I don't like it when I see left-wing teachers preaching about Trump in class.

00:24:44.760 I wouldn't do that from the right. It's another, if you're going to have a discussion, if a student

00:24:48.840 asks you to explain, which literally happened to me, what is the difference between the left

00:24:53.400 and the right, essentially? Or what is communism? You can do it in a fair and balanced way.

00:24:58.520 Yeah, well, the left are good people.

00:25:00.680 At the college level, that's what you're going to get.

00:25:03.080 Right. But I guess what I'm getting at is, I mean, I think it's obvious to anyone who

00:25:08.360 who understands the pipeline of how you go from school to college, to work, to life,

00:25:15.060 this is the one part of your life that was specifically carved out for you to think about

00:25:19.800 things, to explore different ideas, to challenge and be challenged.

00:25:24.000 And that's now been taken away effectively, right?

00:25:26.720 So what do you think the impact of that is on society?

00:25:29.320 It's a big question.

00:25:30.920 I wish I had a really good answer to that.

00:25:33.080 I think it's what we're seeing play out.

00:25:38.080 Yeah, it just creates more of a tribal sense

00:25:40.080 because everyone coming out of that system,

00:25:43.080 out of that college that I've encountered personally,

00:25:46.080 I can assure you there's no one coming out

00:25:48.080 with a different point of view

00:25:49.080 because it's being hammered so hard.

00:25:51.080 And I was hired to be the personal videographer,

00:25:53.080 this is how I made money as a student, to the dean.

00:25:56.080 I was referring to with the presidents in China.

00:25:58.080 So she would hire me to go in

00:26:00.080 when there's a public speaker or someone coming,

00:26:02.080 And I would do a promotional video, edit it quickly, and get it out in two days.

00:26:07.060 And so I got to see, because Emerson has a very prestigious journalism program.

00:26:13.500 And I got to see the people they were coming in, they were bringing in to speak,

00:26:17.360 and they would bring in a conservative.

00:26:19.180 This was when Trump was in the election.

00:26:22.060 There was not every conservative they brought in.

00:26:24.160 I still have the video, the footage, too, of some of this.

00:26:27.420 Every single speaker was still anti-Trump, the conservatives.

00:26:31.620 they were explaining how he's not a real conservative it was incredible the most

00:26:35.860 the most nuanced interesting speaker was a trump impersonator though i have some great footage of

00:26:40.820 that where rolling stone was doing a thing on him he was getting some traction i don't know where he

00:26:44.740 went but he came in and laid into the students being like no one thinks what you're doing is

00:26:48.820 cute you all like you're striving you think you're victims and and he was a graduate of emerson

00:26:54.340 in the comedy program and that was from the most interesting speaker i saw that would be

00:26:58.900 the closest thing to a nuanced take that i and how was that received

00:27:05.060 the students were kind of left aghast yeah they just were kind of speechless but i think he knew

00:27:10.900 what he understands the nature of comedy is to be bold yeah he's not afraid to do that there was

00:27:16.100 not enough there was no i i commend them there wasn't shouted off the campus like you would

00:27:20.740 expect but had he not been in such a prestigious role or just been covered by rolling stone and

00:27:27.700 been backed as a personal friend by the dean he would have been in probably a different response

00:27:32.420 well one of the interesting things about what you're saying is this kind of environment it

00:27:37.540 creates people who actually can't think which is why it's kind of impressive that the student

00:27:42.740 the video you did about jk ronning with your help actually could think because increasingly we see

00:27:48.260 this now on the internet as well it's like people are incapable of separating ideas from people and

00:27:54.260 the way that debates are now increasingly conducted i mean as we're sitting here recording

00:27:59.620 this this won't go out for a while but there's literally some of america's most prominent 0.94

00:28:03.620 journalists calling saying that they have micro penises online and it seems to me like that i

00:28:09.380 mean that's kind of a direct continuation of this like where you you no longer discuss any of the

00:28:15.300 issues and it's just you're on the wrong side you're on the wrong side of history you're the

00:28:20.820 other and what gets lost is the actual conversation and it's deeply offensive to people from the 0.68

00:28:26.740 micro penis community absolutely i think it's largely i've been working on this book that's

00:28:32.260 coming out that kind of delves into this i think it comes back to the laws and narrative and the

00:28:35.940 fact that we can't separate the character from the narrative psychologically it's impossible

00:28:40.500 i think it's largely because their narratives are built on their their business is built on their

00:28:46.580 claims when you become wed to your ideas that becomes your brand now you're defending your brand

00:28:51.300 so you're less likely to change your mind and then it leads into these these wars that we're seeing

00:28:58.820 now so that's my approach is different because i don't find that to be there's things that i

00:29:04.820 feel strongly about still right but those are my first principles that's not what we're seeing

00:29:10.100 we're seeing how the first principles manifest into politics and frankly politics is kind of

00:29:14.900 boring to me compared to the deeper dynamics beneath all this i totally agree and it's one

00:29:21.140 of the reasons we we we have had a lot of political guests on the show but we've increasingly felt

00:29:26.580 like that we want to space them out if having any of them at all and i mean when we started we are

00:29:31.780 always we don't have politicians on the show and then you know you kind of you know things are

00:29:35.780 going on in the world you want to hear some of their perspectives whatever but over time you're

00:29:40.020 definitely right that it kind of you end up playing a totally different game and it's not the game we

00:29:45.300 want to play and by the way i think there is plenty of space and you're demonstrating i hope

00:29:49.700 we're demonstrating it for content which is not about we're on this team or on this team but more

00:29:56.500 like we are adjudicating the issues that come up as we go and we have some principles that guide us

00:30:04.020 in that but like a lot of people won't be able to tell what we think about an issue that comes up

00:30:08.900 They try to, but often they're surprised by that.

00:30:12.900 And I think a lot of people find that very discombobulating because they just want you to be on their team.

00:30:17.900 Yes. Yeah, that's been an eye-opener as well for me.

00:30:23.900 Yeah, there's been content creators where, because I do this format where I like looking at the dynamics of these interactions,

00:30:30.900 and you're not going to win them all.

00:30:34.460 you're everyone is going to have ones that go well and because we're wrong about certain things and

00:30:39.580 sometimes even when you're right it's going to go poorly it doesn't just the nature of

00:30:44.140 debates and i don't even like thinking of myself as a debater but i've noticed that as well where

00:30:50.940 like tim pool got really pissed at me because i disagreed with him on one video and that that

00:30:55.900 whoa that took me aback and there is this sense i've had a lot of people where there is this

00:30:59.980 team dynamic where it's like, yeah, but you're supposed to be on our ideological team, but

00:31:05.580 it's important to note, there's not a single person I'm going to agree with on everything.

00:31:11.740 We were kind of referring to that. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, one of the

00:31:14.700 difficulties is if you play the team game, which I understand why people play because it's

00:31:19.500 comfortable and there's lots of money to be made and friendships and, you know, gatherings and,

00:31:23.740 you know, there's lots of advantages, network advantages to being part of a thing. I don't

00:31:29.420 think that's really compatible with having solid principles and if i mean the i'm not even that

00:31:35.900 interested in anymore but like the candace owens situation is a very good example of this where

00:31:40.700 she's making claims about the fact that erica kirk killed her husband with the connivance of

00:31:47.180 egypt or israel it changes every day right and a lot of people on the right on her team

00:31:54.220 are very quiet about it which is you know maybe she's your friend whatever you handle it whichever

00:31:58.700 way you think i'm not that's up to those people but i just know that if someone on the left

00:32:03.340 was saying well no charlie kirk wasn't killed by the guy that we think he was killed by actually

00:32:07.800 he was killed by erica kirk i mean i think those people might have had something to say about it

00:32:11.780 right so you either have consistency of party loyalty or you have consistency of thought and

00:32:18.420 ideas and you can't have both sometimes right going into this year i told myself i was finally

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00:33:52.940 Not to the absolute, because you're going to disagree sometimes, for sure.

00:34:00.620 For me, the way I approach it, if I'm being quiet about something,

00:34:03.540 the way I would articulate it is I haven't seen anything to...

00:34:07.620 I have not seen adequate evidence to indicate that Erica Kirk killed Charlie Kirk.

00:34:13.200 That's how I would address it. 0.97

00:34:14.620 Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:34:15.520 And I just leave it at that.

00:34:16.440 You know, I don't know Candace.

00:34:18.760 But on my point, the point I'm making is something else, Warren.

00:34:21.800 And again, I don't really particularly care about having a go at these people who are

00:34:25.860 supposed to call Candace out or those people or whatever.

00:34:29.080 I'm not that interested.

00:34:30.140 I'm just making a broader point, which is if you are, let's say, on the right and someone

00:34:36.160 on the left made these comments about Charlie Kirk, the response would be immediate and

00:34:43.080 strong and thorough and probably vicious.

00:34:45.120 yeah and yet when someone on your team does it you you you kind of go oh you know i think

00:34:52.120 attacking charlie kirk's widow's wrong yeah that's going back to that we can't separate

00:34:56.120 the character from the narrative right that's yeah and i i guess the point i'm trying to make

00:35:00.980 is i don't think it's possible to to play a team game while also being true to the facts i agree

00:35:06.900 i don't i true i don't play even if it looks like it i don't play team i think jordan peterson

00:35:15.100 was right to call and this has always stayed with me i don't like identity politics on the left or

00:35:21.100 the right maybe it's because i was just listening to my favorite debate driving down here with um

00:35:28.380 uh stephen fry i mean it's one of the simple debate but one of the most powerful

00:35:33.660 and that was the message it's like when does the left go too far when is it yeah the right

00:35:38.220 goes too far. And it goes deep to psychology, evolutionary psychology, why we band together in

00:35:46.940 these ways, but it's a foolish game, I think. Well, one of the things that happens is I think 0.62

00:35:52.540 in the podcast and content creation YouTube space, what we're talking about, which is ideas

00:35:59.420 and politics, they get meshed together. And so you have people who are talking about ideas

00:36:05.100 and sometimes they're talking about politics and we do this too and then those two things come

00:36:09.580 together and i think it's quite confusing it's like are you talking about ideas are you talking

00:36:13.900 about politics because they're just different games and i think a lot of the the discrepancy

00:36:18.300 comes from that actually yeah you know yeah it's like the difference between the first principles

00:36:22.540 and how they those underlying dynamics versus how they manifest into politics i mean i agree with

00:36:28.060 you on that for sure yeah i think part of the worry is when we talk about education is because

00:36:34.140 I used to be a teacher so everyone can drink now. I mention it every episode. That's right, yeah.

00:36:39.580 I like it where it's like, yeah. Where's your mom from again? Anyway, two drinks. But

00:36:46.300 one of the things that you do as a teacher is you disseminate information, give them information.

00:36:51.420 Arguably the most important part of teaching is not the information aspect of it, you're teaching

00:36:56.460 skills. So when I was a drama teacher, what you were doing is you were teaching skills to kids

00:37:02.140 So they knew how to be creative. They knew how to structure and create improvisations,

00:37:06.700 long form improvisations, plays, how to be more realistic on stage, etc.

00:37:10.780 What you're doing is teaching people how to think critically. The problem comes if we don't do that.

00:37:17.900 These skills are not intuitive. They have to be learned.

00:37:21.420 That's interesting. Yes, because I think the recognition of logic is intuitive,

00:37:25.580 but you're right because this is going counter against what we were just describing about that

00:37:29.980 tribal evolutionary impulse to band together for survival and yes breaking away pattern disruption

00:37:39.580 well it's a pattern disruption most people aren't going to do it the majority i think about it like

00:37:44.060 this majority of people are going to be like water they're going to take the path of least

00:37:48.380 resistance it's easier to be foolish than wise there's risk that comes with breaking away from 0.67

00:37:53.580 the group being i sat down with peter dr peterson he described as being the the zebra with like

00:37:59.820 orange stripes right like the reason zebras blend in is because they all have the same stripes white

00:38:05.740 and black stripes aren't going to cause you to blend into the grass you're you're blending to

00:38:10.540 the herd you're i think you are on to something there that's what i'm trying to delve into

00:38:17.020 with what i've been writing and trying to put it into um to words because when i look at some of

00:38:23.580 these kids and you know you you look at some people who debate these kids on campuses and

00:38:28.540 and you see the kids get angry and upset.

00:38:31.100 And then there'll be the comments on YouTube

00:38:33.080 is like, oh, kid gets owned or whatever else.

00:38:35.180 And I go, actually, I think we all now need

00:38:38.480 to be a little bit more adult.

00:38:39.920 I've been guilty of this.

00:38:40.900 I hold my hands up and go, it's not the fault of the kid.

00:38:44.280 It's the fault of the system producing it.

00:38:46.720 Because if it's just one kid being produced

00:38:49.200 who can't argue, can't think critically,

00:38:52.240 you can go, well, the kid wasn't listening

00:38:53.920 or maybe they weren't a good student

00:38:57.340 or whatever it may be.

00:38:58.540 but the fact that we're producing legions of people who can't think critically that's not

00:39:05.100 the people's fault who are getting produced it's the fault of the system and what we need actually

00:39:09.580 is a radical oval and it's also the fault of the adults who won't contend with them or allow them

00:39:15.260 to be contended with for fear of the emotional damage or they won't be able to handle it even

00:39:20.620 when we're talking about college students who are adults well that's why i was asking you about why

00:39:24.940 my college administrators cave to this stuff, because I think within that, there is actually

00:39:31.140 power that they don't realize they have, because those are also teachable moments.

00:39:36.800 When a bunch of kids demand some kind of readjustment of the entire system, if you have strong leadership

00:39:44.060 in that moment that communicates that that is not how this works, that can teach those

00:39:50.860 kids something.

00:39:51.860 And I think there's been an abdication of responsibility on the part of the adults,

00:39:55.540 I think, which is what Francis is trying to get in that way as well.

00:39:58.960 Would you agree?

00:39:59.960 Yeah, for sure.

00:40:04.240 It goes back to that, I just can't stop thinking about this example with Sam Richards and how

00:40:08.360 there's this fear of all of these problems are going to have so many variables, though.

00:40:13.900 There's the variable of liability, well, it's being streamed on YouTube, okay, well, let's

00:40:19.040 take that off the table.

00:40:20.040 the classrooms where it's not being streamed on youtube or being shared is that occurring i have

00:40:25.000 it i'm sure it must be happening i haven't seen it personally it doesn't mean it's not happening

00:40:30.840 but i think i agree with you it's safe to say that the majority of cases it's not

00:40:36.840 it's not being fostered and it's also as well not only do we not encourage kids and young people to

00:40:44.120 think critically we also fetishize emotions so if you're having a debate and you say something that

00:40:50.760 i profoundly disagree with or you criticize a point and i get offended because i hold that point

00:40:56.440 dear suddenly it becomes acceptable to be offended or angry or upset and i'm in the one in the right

00:41:03.160 and you're the one in the wrong yeah that's how it gets weaponized i was just thinking about

00:41:08.200 And probably the next video I do is looking back at you talking to Alex O'Connor, I think.

00:41:14.600 And he was trying to make the case as though hate speech laws are justifiable, well, because

00:41:20.600 we have libel laws, defamation laws.

00:41:24.440 So can't you imagine, Constantine, a case in which you are actually causing emotional

00:41:29.700 distress or harm to someone because of this medical condition?

00:41:33.800 And I think you handled that well, you were kind of like, just like, what are you, they're

00:41:36.620 just two completely different things. So I thought, it just reminded me of that. I thought

00:41:41.220 that was interesting. I agree with you. I'm great. I've forgotten we had that conversation. I like

00:41:45.860 Alex. We get on very well, actually. I don't remember that bit, but it was a long time ago.

00:41:50.560 Yeah, I just stumbled on it. I hadn't seen it before. That's interesting.

00:41:53.280 And do you, I mean, you're someone who really thinks about this very carefully. Do you have

00:41:56.760 thoughts on how to develop critical thinking skills, how to teach critical thinking skills?

00:42:02.000 Yes. So with martial, in martial arts, there's this concept of the kata, right? And it's when

00:42:10.760 you're in a real street fight, or for example, you can't stop and think, it's all do, subconscious.

00:42:19.020 But the kata breaks it down into rehearsable movements like a dance. So I was trying to come

00:42:23.500 up with a methodology that could be taught for that portion of it, because there's multiple

00:42:29.160 facets to this i really more i thought about it i realized critical thinking is not just for

00:42:34.040 debates it's for navigating these daily games that we're engaging in whether or not we realize it

00:42:39.240 when i was at that school navigating what i just described to you that was a game

00:42:43.080 that was being played on multiple levels and you can anticipate what you're all and you're trying

00:42:47.640 it's not necessarily you're trying to win you're trying to achieve the ideal outcome and recognize

00:42:53.080 where the best move is on the board then i'm trying to figure out okay so and a lot of that

00:42:59.480 is non-verbal it's not it's not so that the the signals that were being sent to me for example

00:43:05.720 that were no one came up to me and said we want you to be fired for your because i disagree with

00:43:11.080 but the body language around jake here it was i noticed it there's a lot of communication that's

00:43:16.440 non-verbal perhaps even most communication is non-verbal and people don't say what they really

00:43:22.440 think at the copy machine what your colleague really thinks but they telegraph it okay so but

00:43:27.240 once we meant once we do enter the verbal what is the kata that will allow us to navigate this

00:43:32.680 so i try and formulate a method that will help with that for me i describe it as a sort of a

00:43:39.400 flaw filter where it's not so much i i come at it as though this is the least bad option i've

00:43:46.520 been able to find can you genuinely offer anything better and it's important to recognize the least

00:43:51.480 bad option because as churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except for all

00:43:56.440 the others there's going to be flaws and that's a method people take or a strategy people take

00:44:00.840 just pointing out the flaws that doesn't disprove you have a better alternative so i'm listening

00:44:04.280 for the alternative i imagine kind of this like this red light bulb go that is sitting on the

00:44:08.600 desk and i'm listening i'm just this filter i'm not really taking a strong position necessarily

00:44:13.640 depends but and when i when that light bulb goes off with the first flaw now you're ready to make

00:44:18.600 a move it's a i i lay out a strategy for that but a lot of it is demeanor how do you develop the

00:44:25.480 demeanor and then we that gets into the laws of narrative i think a lot of understanding

00:44:30.280 these dynamics you need to understand the laws of narrative to understand and think critically

00:44:36.520 about dynamics like we've been describing with why are these moves being made with people teaming

00:44:41.400 up in this way or not breaking away from their team for this they're not thinking critically

00:44:46.440 their team comes first and a lot of that perhaps it's because my i spent 10 years studying

00:44:52.280 screenwriting and filmmaking the laws of narrative but i a lot of these lessons have are relevant

00:44:58.840 and i think it gave me the basis for what i use i use today so it's the hopefully that book will

00:45:08.120 be something that people can use to develop critical things but also how to navigate these

00:45:15.160 daily games.

00:45:16.160 Well, it's interesting you bring up daily games because it's kind of how I think about

00:45:20.600 it.

00:45:21.600 Like if you think about life in general, the closer you are to the truth of whatever the

00:45:27.200 issue is, the more functionally better off you're going to be in that situation.

00:45:32.400 Right?

00:45:33.400 So if you have, if your understanding of how to run a business is as close to the truth

00:45:37.860 as possible, you're going to be better at running a business.

00:45:41.220 If your understanding of what the truth of a YouTube channel is and how to run one, you're

00:45:46.640 going to be better at doing that.

00:45:48.460 If your understanding of what relationships are like is closer to the truth, that's much

00:45:53.880 better for you than having your own emotional experience that drives you away from the truth

00:46:00.320 and towards confirming your own biases or whatever else.

00:46:03.640 And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize is truth has a, it's not just a like

00:46:08.320 morality thing. It has a tremendous value. And so when we argue about what the truth is about

00:46:14.160 politics or philosophy or society, that's the place from which we're coming and that's why

00:46:18.880 it's so valuable, right? Yeah. And that's interesting that you put it that way, that

00:46:22.400 there is a true way to run a business because postmodernism would claim that, which is all about

00:46:29.120 truth claims being the result of social conditioning, many would claim there is no

00:46:34.800 true way to run a business. It's up to me. And all interpretations are equally valid,

00:46:39.120 which goes back to... How many postmodernists

00:46:40.960 have a business that they run? Right, right. And I think that it's such an important

00:46:48.240 dynamic that when you're encountering these students, many of them are arguing postmodernism,

00:46:53.120 they don't know what postmodernism is. And try debating someone on postmodernism,

00:46:58.320 like they'll just, they'll avoid it and they'll say, I don't want to get into that.

00:47:01.680 Well, it's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall, right?

00:47:06.080 But you see, you take any example that, I mean, you talked about martial arts.

00:47:10.000 I imagine, I'm not a martial artist, but I imagine it's true that there are different

00:47:13.700 ways to throw a punch and there are different ways to do this.

00:47:16.540 But there is a truth.

00:47:17.860 But there's one punch that's most effective.

00:47:20.140 Our bones can only structure in one way, given your body composition, there's only one way

00:47:24.080 you can get the most momentum in that position.

00:47:27.440 So that's an important distinction.

00:47:29.420 And this is what I think a lot of this dynamic that we now have in terms of the way people

00:47:33.640 communicate is, I think they've, I think actually most people I see online are behaving like

00:47:39.940 postmodernists.

00:47:40.940 Yeah.

00:47:41.940 Almost everybody.

00:47:42.940 Yes.

00:47:43.940 Left and right.

00:47:44.940 Okay.

00:47:45.940 So you spoke to Destiny the other day, I made a video critiquing it, and there's already

00:47:49.700 a response video where I compared it to postmodernism, his response.

00:47:53.740 People are claiming, well, no Warren's claiming it's postmodernism, but that has to do with

00:47:56.980 truth claims.

00:47:57.980 destiny says to you well what is a lot it's always changing therefore you shouldn't be concerned

00:48:04.060 about it what do you mean unprecedented like what do you even mean by when you're claiming it's it

00:48:08.200 is or it is not a lot that is a truth claim so and maybe i should have said it's similar to talking

00:48:13.920 to a postmodernist when they do that everything's always changing so we can't expect a standard

00:48:18.300 what traditions are you can you cause can you point to a single tradition that hasn't changed

00:48:24.000 traditions don't matter to a post-modernist. It's all, and it's absolutely the opposite to how I

00:48:31.160 view, perhaps it's because of my background and narrative, where I do believe like these stories,

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00:50:05.200 You know, when I got taught postmodernism at university,

00:50:08.800 I remember just sitting there and going, this doesn't make sense.

00:50:13.300 That's literally what I thought.

00:50:14.760 Because when I asked them to explain postmodernism, they couldn't really explain what postmodernism is.

00:50:20.860 Yes. And in my art class, required to take modern art.

00:50:24.720 We go in there. She's explaining to me, very nice professor, but she's explaining to me that the banana nailed to the wall is of equal aesthetic beauty as the David, Michelangelo or whatever it is.

00:50:38.520 There are no objective standards for beauty.

00:50:42.460 Beauty is purely a social construct, which actually goes against biology, that there are actual, there has to be a yardstick that drives us to see a hierarchy of beauty so we have a target to pursue.

00:50:57.440 But the interesting thing that I find about postmodernism and why I think it's so prevalent today is that you can only really understand postmodernism if you're disconnected from reality.

00:51:11.060 And every postmodernist you speak to has these claims, what you're describing is not postmodernism.

00:51:17.140 And that gets very frustrating.

00:51:18.620 This is the technique that I see the most often.

00:51:21.480 We know what strawmanning is.

00:51:22.740 They claim, no, you're misrepresenting my argument.

00:51:26.260 But what will happen, Destiny, for example, he will misrepresent your argument, claim,

00:51:31.760 no, what you're describing is critical race theory.

00:51:34.160 That's not what critical race theory is.

00:51:36.240 all critical race theory is is thinking critically about the structures of uh group dynamics and power

00:51:44.600 in in the past and how that's and they make it sound completely harmless so circumvent say fine

00:51:50.980 going off the non-verbal thing then what i'm talking about call it whatever you want is what

00:51:56.880 led those students at emerson to do this and what led that professor to tell us to to uh surrender

00:52:04.660 our white privilege that's what i want to examine the ideology that leads to that you can call it

00:52:09.200 whatever you want and they're going to try and go off on this thing just keep them on the rails

00:52:13.340 absolutely because the more you investigate it you go oh you have to be disconnected from reality

00:52:20.700 in order for this to seem like it makes sense which is why discussions on twitter and social

00:52:27.920 media are so post-modern is because they're fundamentally disconnected from reality

00:52:33.000 ridiculous ideas can live in social media because they're not applied to the real world because

00:52:38.920 they're they're in the they're in the ether they're in the digital age if you know what i mean yes

00:52:43.160 yes that's why i love the format that i am playing with because it circumvents the strategy where

00:52:50.980 they'll claim no one's saying that no one is making that argument well i'll show you the

00:52:55.180 words coming out of their mouth and then comment on it and then cut to them doing it again my

00:52:59.840 favorite video I've ever made was the postmodern professor talking with Joe Rogan and it was like

00:53:04.280 you couldn't you couldn't if you described it no one would believe you so I have I can't this is a

00:53:08.600 narrative a law of narrative the central law of screenwriting show don't tell I can show I can't

00:53:14.980 tell you about it because you won't believe it I can show you though absolutely because we've had

00:53:20.280 Adam Carolla on the show many times and one of the points Adam makes is like the most sensible

00:53:24.900 people are those people who work with their hands like we can talk about postmodernism and go oh

00:53:29.400 You know, the aesthetic beauty of a banana nailed to the wall was compared to a Caravaggio, but you can't go to your carpenter and go, what is a centimeter?

00:53:39.620 Right. Find where the rubber meets the road. So like we were just doing with critical race theory, find a tangible point.

00:53:45.700 That professor said this to me in that room. Where does the rubber, the trans conversation debate?

00:53:50.960 We're talking about laws, structuring laws.

00:53:54.580 Just go right there in the debate.

00:53:56.840 Not the theory portion of it or how I feel about it, it's like, how are we going to actually

00:54:01.420 implement this where the rubber meets the road?

00:54:03.460 Warren, do you have any thoughts on why humanity is at a point now where this way of thinking

00:54:09.680 has become appealing to people?

00:54:12.740 What is it about modernity or the condition of humanity at this moment that means that

00:54:18.200 people are capable of thinking this is a useful way to think.

00:54:22.600 We had a big transformation in the 60s, my parents' generation. The Vietnam War had a big impact. 0.82

00:54:28.600 Postmodernism introduced from France became very appealing because of that transformation. That 0.78

00:54:34.040 generation became the administrators. That's the dean at the college, that generation. That's my

00:54:38.520 parents. They're on board with all... It's fun talking to them because it quickly dismantles,

00:54:43.960 but they're still um and what was the transformation why did the vietnam war have

00:54:49.480 this well because people i think because people viewed the vietnam war right or wrong as a big

00:54:53.320 injustice in a a miscarriage of power and it put them on edge it's we had world war ii very

00:55:01.080 different that i mean the narrative has shifted drastically it's so different than from world war

00:55:07.000 ii to there that i think culturally music the counterculture and there's cool things about

00:55:12.920 all that like i like jimi hendrix on it's i think that was yes the turning point that has now led

00:55:19.560 to the the generation in control and now we're seeing a completely new generation the destiny

00:55:26.040 his audience who are pushing for literally they're literally we need to they're claiming we we need

00:55:33.080 to do what they did to hunter biden because and he i was listening to his moderator try and talk

00:55:39.960 to destiny concerned about the radicalization violent threats being like why do we need to make

00:55:46.440 things up when they're doing things wrong already they believe there's enough to point where this guy

00:55:51.080 believes they're actually if they're doing things wrong we should be able to point to it which seems

00:55:54.760 reasonable if you're going to try and arrest someone you should be able to point something

00:55:58.040 destiny's response is yet no but they're too clever for that so we have to make it up it's

00:56:03.560 literally like i'm going to make a video about it and show you him saying that again show don't tell

00:56:07.480 people won't believe it but they're saying we need to like lock them up at any cost it doesn't matter

00:56:11.880 because for the greater good essentially and that's why these skills are so important because

00:56:17.960 they are a really effective tool against radicalization and we've seen people young

00:56:24.200 people particularly be radicalized radicalized into progressive leftist movements we're now

00:56:28.520 seeing people getting radicalized on the right yes and these tools are very effective for fighting

00:56:34.280 back against that yes understanding the laws of narrative hopefully will help with that i think

00:56:38.680 but like so i just we should touch on this i hope i didn't alarm me with the death threat thing the

00:56:43.000 guy who was kind of going a little bit crazy i all right well like i don't know if you saw that

00:56:47.960 i did i have good security so i wasn't too worried about it yeah but what was interesting about that

00:56:52.280 is that i've had people since then messaging me saying this guy has been harassing me for a long

00:56:58.120 time even on the left tilly middlehurst who kind of rose to notoriety from debating charlie kirk

00:57:03.400 like the opposite emailed me the other day she's like this guy thank you for posting that this guy

00:57:08.840 has been creeping me out people are really concerned but i had no idea about any of that

00:57:15.000 but that is but you're right that is the movement that's that's happening well i mean one of the

00:57:20.440 things with the internet as well is uh i think it's created a space for activating a lot of

00:57:27.560 of people who are just mentally not very well and uh it you know people are able to develop these

00:57:34.840 kind of parasocial relationships that are both positive and inverted commas and negative in the

00:57:40.120 sense that some people think that they're in a relationship with an only fans model to which

00:57:45.000 they send money and other people think they are in a relationship with somebody who they watch

00:57:49.640 online that they don't like and um i remember what was that movie with robert de niro about

00:57:56.360 baseball was it called the fan have you ever seen that yeah i think i think it's called the fan i

00:58:02.360 think yeah i think he basically de niro is a big fan of this baseball player yeah you remember this

00:58:08.520 and and he sort of feels like they're in a relationship and he's trying to help him out

00:58:12.120 and he ends up doing all kinds of crazy stuff and i think what the internet has done is it's kind of

00:58:17.640 created a tool for weaponizing mental illness and and if you oh if you were like an alien that came

00:58:24.200 down from another planet and read the comments on the average tweet and you just went through 0.96

00:58:30.600 the comments you would just go you know schizophrenia psychosis you just go bum bum bum 0.97

00:58:35.520 because you know i always say this like there's a lot of mentally ill people and they're mostly

00:58:41.240 on the internet and and that's what i think and i'm not saying this in a disparaging a derogatory

00:58:45.860 way i just think there are a lot of people that use politics now as well to kind of fulfill all

00:58:52.180 these things and cope and deal with issues that they need real help with, to be honest.

00:58:57.680 Yeah.

00:58:58.680 We were talking about this just a moment ago, and I forgot a major component of this, which

00:59:01.740 I think is perceived value.

00:59:04.800 When I started to get into the space of viral video, I recognized, whoa, there's little

00:59:09.820 more powerful than the ability to connect with an audience, which is one reason that

00:59:13.600 school fears it so much, because you can't buy it.

00:59:17.620 Brands try.

00:59:18.620 That's what sponsors are.

00:59:21.460 And I think there's this psychological phenomenon where if there's 10 people looking up, you're

00:59:26.060 going to look up and see that something occurs with online people, celebrities in general,

00:59:32.560 this perceived value.

00:59:35.520 You take some, any of these personalities, they'll say something and it's because of

00:59:41.460 the surrounding narrative and we can't separate the characters.

00:59:45.000 So we're seeing it through the lens of that narrative.

00:59:47.460 And I'm just thinking like you, because I was struggling this with myself when I first

00:59:51.120 was like no one's going to care if i make such a mundane observation but the same a mundane

00:59:56.720 observation in the hand in the mouth of someone else they're viewing it through that narrative

01:00:02.000 and it it takes on a whole nother meaning i think that has something to do with it this

01:00:08.720 and there's something deeply psychological about it where we if you get out your you reach a point

01:00:14.240 where someone is famous for the sake of being famous at that point it's like a struggle for

01:00:19.280 them until then you see actors kind of break through that threshold until that point it's

01:00:23.680 all about the roles but once they cross that threshold of perceived value it's we want to

01:00:29.280 watch them because it's leonardo capro whoever it is because they're famous that's a whole nother

01:00:34.960 threshold and there's like something actually switches psychologically and do you think that's

01:00:38.720 the point at which those people now feel like they have to have opinions on stuff that probably

01:00:44.320 otherwise they wouldn't express what i think happens is that they're climbing the ladder to

01:00:48.160 that threshold by those opinions and then once they're invested that's their business and now

01:00:54.000 they are going to defend those opinions because it's not their opinions they're defending it's

01:00:57.360 their business well it's been great to have you on uh before we head to uh substack where our

01:01:02.240 audience get to ask you their questions what's the one thing you think we're not talking about

01:01:05.760 that we should be double slit experiment in quantum physics are you familiar with the double

01:01:11.440 slit experiment are you francis no i'm not i won't take up the time no no take up the time yeah well

01:01:18.640 i it is the i have this chapter in the book where logic ends and it's the one that's sticking in my

01:01:24.720 mind the most because there's so much about reality that is illogical so as someone who's

01:01:30.240 striving to be logical how do i contend with where logic ends and quantum mechanics and physics seems

01:01:35.600 to be indicating that the very nature of reality behaves in a way at the atomic level that defies

01:01:41.360 logic the double slit experiment they take an electron you would expect these two slits imagine

01:01:46.700 a paintball gun it's firing between these you would imagine the paintballs would create two

01:01:51.620 lines where they fit through the slits and it's splattering everywhere else that's not what we get

01:01:55.040 only when the electrons know they are being observed and if you this sounds crazy like it's

01:02:01.200 not logical in quantum the math like we can observe this there are many lectures on youtube

01:02:06.620 where they will you can listen to physicists break this down takes 10 minutes but or you

01:02:11.340 delve into it deeper to me it's it's and it's we can we know it's happening so there's something

01:02:18.060 about the our consciousness interacting with the very fabric of reality that is extremely exciting

01:02:26.060 to me and you're saying logic is not the only force in the universe no there's the logos i

01:02:30.780 think there is a deeper reality beyond what we can observe within the logos that's very interesting

01:02:36.940 Interesting. I was going to make a joke about anyone who's married knows logic doesn't always

01:02:40.880 work, but let's head over to Substack. Head over to triggerpod.co.uk where Warren's going to answer

01:02:47.100 your questions. Given your time as a teacher, what is one vital change you would implement

01:02:52.980 in North American high schools if you had the power to do so?

01:03:06.940 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - May 02, 2026

Why Critical Thinking Is Dead - Warren Smith

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