Valuetainment - July 09, 2021

What Burgers, Ferraris and Porn Teaches us About Evolution - Gad Saad

Topics

inclusive fitness controversy sells nature vs. nurture issue sexual fluidity idea pathogens identity politics freedom fight censorship dangers freedom of speech bullying

Hosted by

Patrick Bet-David

$10 Gas Price Spike Prediction The Scariest Question Everyone Must Ask Themselves

Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 20 minutes

Words per minute

188.32

Word count

15,126

Sentence count

1,198

Harmful content

Misogyny

33

sentences flagged

Toxicity

81

sentences flagged

Hate speech

62

sentences flagged

Summary

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

In this episode, Ghat Saad joins me to talk about his new book, The Consuming Instinct, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, and Identity Politics. Ghat is a social psychologist, evolutionary behavioral scientist, and author who has written many books. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and many other publications, and is one of the most influential social psychologists in the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).

Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .

Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .

Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .

Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.

Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.

Show only flagged segments

00:00:00.120 We've been parasitized by so much wokeism that now companies have, in many cases, lost focus of their main mission.

00:00:07.840 How does a woman respond to infidelity? 1.00

00:00:10.100 Oftentimes people who hate evolutionary theory will get upset because they think that if you explain something scientifically,

00:00:16.420 this means that you are justifying it or condoning it.

00:00:19.080 A lot of the activists will argue heterosexuality is learned, whereas homosexuality is innate. 0.97

00:00:26.960 Now that is insane.

00:00:27.980 What infectious ideas today do you feel are creating a lot of momentum? 0.74

00:00:32.600 Most people are cognitive misers, meaning that they are intellectually lazy.

00:00:36.880 If I want to truly find out whether the Democrats were the racist ones or not, 0.95

00:00:41.620 well, that's going to have to force me to actually do some work. 0.90

00:00:43.960 Why don't I just believe Uncle Biden who tells me that, no, it's the Republicans that are the KKK white supremacists,

00:00:50.280 and that's good enough for me. 0.99

00:00:51.320 Oftentimes what people say in their imbecilic, myopic way, they think that the attack on freedom only comes from the government. 0.98

00:00:59.420 The greatest danger comes from creating a society where we will self-censor. 0.96

00:01:04.740 So, gang, I want to prepare you for this because get ready to have a mental workout in the next 60 to 90 minutes with my guest today,

00:01:15.800 Ghat Saad, who has written many books.

00:01:20.160 Let me just kind of give you a background.

00:01:21.380 I'm a professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist, author, wrote a book, which I love, The Consuming Instinct,

00:01:28.980 What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift-Giving Reveals About Human Nature,

00:01:35.100 which we'll get into as well as this recent book that just came out October 6th of 2020, last year,

00:01:41.760 The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.

00:01:47.360 And then we'll talk about critical race theory.

00:01:49.260 We're probably going to get into identity politics, and we'll get into a few other topics.

00:01:52.200 But, Ghat, thank you so much for making time for being a guest on The Attainment.

00:01:56.100 Oh, thank you so much, Patrick.

00:01:57.560 What a pleasure to be with you.

00:01:58.560 When I announced that I was coming on your show, I got a lot of excitement.

00:02:02.020 I must shamefully admit that I wasn't very familiar with your show.

00:02:06.160 Now I've corrected that mistake.

00:02:08.720 Well, I'm glad to have you.

00:02:10.020 Our audience is also very excited to hear from you.

00:02:13.720 So let's get right into it, if you don't mind, for some of the folks that maybe don't know you,

00:02:18.680 they haven't seen your content.

00:02:19.820 You've got tens of millions of views online.

00:02:21.920 But for those that don't know, would you mind taking a minute and giving us your background?

00:02:25.740 Sure.

00:02:26.100 So, I mean, my personal background or professional one?

00:02:28.300 Well, personal, where you're from, and then professional.

00:02:30.360 Yeah.

00:02:30.620 So personal, I was born in Beirut, Lebanon in the 60s.

00:02:34.800 We were part of the last group of Lebanese Jews who had steadfastly refused to read the

00:02:41.460 signs of the looming dangers.

00:02:43.900 And so we were in Lebanon in the mid-70s when the Lebanese Civil War broke out.

00:02:48.060 We were there the first year.

00:02:49.820 All future butchering is always measured against the benchmark of how brutal the Lebanese Civil 1.00

00:02:54.920 War was. 0.54

00:02:55.880 And I could tell you, as an 11-year-old child, I could attest to how brutal it was.

00:02:59.780 And we were able, luckily, to escape after that first year of the war, moved to Montreal,

00:03:06.280 Canada.

00:03:06.900 And that's where my adventure in the West began.

00:03:12.700 Professionally, my scientific work is at the intersection of evolutionary biology and evolutionary

00:03:18.480 psychology and consumer behavior.

00:03:20.160 So I look at what are the fundamental biological drivers that make us the consumers that we

00:03:25.680 are.

00:03:26.000 But of course, I define consumption very broadly.

00:03:28.160 It's not just consuming Coca-Cola and posting pictures on Instagram.

00:03:32.380 We consume religion.

00:03:33.540 We consume friendships.

00:03:34.660 We consume, you know, all literature.

00:03:37.700 And so everything is consumatory.

00:03:39.180 I look at the biological underpinnings of that consumatory nature.

00:03:43.660 What inspired you and what got you to say, I want to learn more about this stuff?

00:03:47.780 Oh, yeah.

00:03:48.240 Thank you.

00:03:48.720 Great question.

00:03:49.240 So first semester as a doctoral student at Cornell University, 1990.

00:03:54.600 I can't believe that it's almost, well, it's more than 30 years ago.

00:03:57.220 So I had taken a course, an advanced social psychology course with a professor by the name

00:04:02.860 of Dennis Regan.

00:04:04.340 And about halfway through the course, he assigned a book called Homicide, which was a book looking

00:04:09.860 at patterns of criminality from an evolutionary perspective.

00:04:13.340 And so I can give you a few examples if you'd like, but that's when I was bitten by the bug.

00:04:19.600 So, for example, if I told you, Patrick, let's see if you can guess this.

00:04:23.160 Let's see if you are a budding evolutionary psychologist.

00:04:25.820 If I told you what is the number one predictor of all possible predictors that can help us

00:04:32.400 understand whether a child is going to be abused.

00:04:35.640 So, for example, you could say if he's born on the wrong side of the tracks.

00:04:39.720 So give me your best possible predictor, and then I'll give you the correct evolutionary

00:04:44.400 one so that you get a sense of how powerful evolutionary thinking is and understanding

00:04:48.820 human phenomena.

00:04:49.380 Number one predictor, a lack of father figure?

00:04:52.860 I mean, that's a great one, and I'm sure it has an effect, but I'll just jump to the

00:04:57.120 actual answer.

00:04:58.200 The number one predictor is if there is a step-parent in the house, and the idea being

00:05:05.740 that humans are a bi-parental species, meaning both men and women invest heavily in their

00:05:10.560 children, and therefore most people, whether they do it consciously or not, are going to

00:05:16.560 exhibit differential investment in their biological children and their step-children.

00:05:22.380 So, for example, if you think about Cinderella, well, the story of Cinderella is rooted in evolution

00:05:28.180 principles, right?

00:05:29.160 It's the evil stepmother, but she's only evil to the stepdaughter. 1.00

00:05:32.720 She's not evil dispositionally also to her biological children, and there are some very

00:05:37.900 clear biological reasons why people would exhibit that penchant to be less investing in their

00:05:45.120 stepchildren.

00:05:46.200 I'll give you one other quick example.

00:05:47.840 Who is the number one most dangerous person in a woman's life, irrespective of which culture 0.98

00:05:53.040 she comes from?

00:05:53.980 Well, it turns out, not surprisingly, it's not the guy who's hiding in the tree.

00:05:57.460 You know, a serial killer.

00:05:59.080 It's usually her long-term partner, her male partner, who typically, when he is triggered

00:06:05.160 into a homicidal rage, is because of either realized or suspected infidelity.

00:06:10.760 Now, why would men be so triggered by that possibility?

00:06:14.220 Because since we are a bi-parental species, I don't want to spend 18, 20, 25 years raising

00:06:20.640 the kid of the sexy gardener who used to come and, you know, trim our bushes.

00:06:25.160 Therefore, I become, when I say I, I mean prototypical male.

00:06:29.600 Both you and I, Patrick, are descendants of ancestors who really cared that their women

00:06:34.140 hopefully don't stray.

00:06:35.940 So because of paternity uncertainty, men have evolved the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral

00:06:41.480 patterns that create sexual territoriality. 0.95

00:06:44.740 And so when I saw the explanatory power of evolutionary thinking, I had my aha moment.

00:06:50.920 So I thought I would apply evolution to study consumer behavior.

00:06:54.500 Yeah, that's fascinating when you're talking about that.

00:06:56.880 So let's go to the first book because, I mean, I got some questions for you just in regards

00:07:00.940 to your first book.

00:07:01.780 And then we'll get into the second one as well.

00:07:03.880 So the consuming instinct, what juicy burgers, Ferrari's pornography and gift giving reveal

00:07:12.220 about human nature, when you wrote this 10 years ago, exactly 10 years ago, last month,

00:07:17.520 June of 2011, which has been translated to Korean and Turkish, interesting to have been

00:07:22.220 translated to Korean and Turkish.

00:07:24.680 What's the book about?

00:07:26.060 And what can you tell us, what can you tell us about the consuming instinct about juicy

00:07:30.380 burgers, Ferrari's pornography and gift giving?

00:07:32.800 Right.

00:07:33.020 So the reason why I chose those four examples, there's a backstory to it.

00:07:36.980 So I'll explain in a second.

00:07:38.100 Apparently speaking, the book is basically arguing, contrary to all of the social sciences,

00:07:43.980 which presume that what makes us different from other animals is that we transcend our

00:07:49.800 biology, right?

00:07:50.860 So typically social scientists think, well, sure, evolution explains the behavior of the

00:07:55.140 mosquito and your dog and the giraffe. 0.81

00:07:57.380 But don't you dare, Dr. Saad, apply the same principles to explain human behavior, let alone

00:08:01.840 consumer behavior. 0.96

00:08:02.920 Well, that's completely silly.

00:08:03.940 When I put on my hat as a consumer, my hormones don't cease to matter.

00:08:08.900 My biology doesn't cease to matter.

00:08:10.540 So in a very general way, what the consuming instinct is about is how to apply biological

00:08:16.160 thinking to understand why we do the things that we do when we put on our hats as consumers.

00:08:21.500 Now, why did I pick juicy burgers, pornography, gift giving, and so on?

00:08:25.800 Well, because I argue that there are four fundamental Darwinian modules that drive our behavior.

00:08:32.180 There is the survival module, right?

00:08:35.120 So everything that's related to our survival instinct.

00:08:37.740 So the juicy burger example speaks to that because we've evolved the gustatory preferences

00:08:43.120 to prefer some juicy manifestation rather than raw celery, right?

00:08:49.020 Patrick and I might disagree about the type of fatty foods we prefer.

00:08:53.320 I might prefer a juicy steak.

00:08:55.000 You may prefer a fatty chocolate mousse.

00:08:58.360 But we both probably prefer some fatty food over, you know, raw carrots, precisely because

00:09:03.860 your ancestors and mine evolved in an environment of caloric scarcity, caloric uncertainty.

00:09:08.780 Therefore, our taste buds have evolved to deal with that evolutionary problem.

00:09:13.000 So that's juicy burgers.

00:09:14.720 Pornography refers to the Sega module, which is reproduction.

00:09:17.920 So many of the things that you and I do, and everyone else does, is precisely linked to

00:09:23.420 the fact that we are a sexually reproducing species.

00:09:25.560 So in the same way that the peacock's tail evolved so that he can impress the peahens into saying,

00:09:31.400 look, despite the fact that I've got this very burdensome tail, I'm still alive.

00:09:35.800 You should pick me.

00:09:36.660 I'm the right mate for you.

00:09:38.160 Well, in the human context, my Maserati becomes my peacock's tail.

00:09:42.740 So that explains a lot of the, you know, and the reason why we're attracted to pornography

00:09:48.500 is because it titillates our computational systems in our brain for sexual variety. 0.99

00:09:53.420 You mean I can get on the internet now and there are 10,000 beautiful nubile women that 1.00

00:09:59.020 are ready to, quote, mate with me virtually?

00:10:01.520 Well, it's very easy for then the brain to be hijacked by this alluring visual stimulus.

00:10:06.820 Then the other two basically refer to two other modules.

00:10:11.300 Kin selection explain, why would I ever jump into the river to save three brothers? 0.81

00:10:16.400 Well, the reason would be because my three brothers on average share half their genes with

00:10:21.160 me. So if I jump into the river and save them, and even if I die, it makes perfect evolutionary

00:10:25.860 sense to do so.

00:10:27.180 So a lot of gift giving rituals that you and I engage in with one another, if let's say

00:10:31.360 you're my brother, speak to that kin-based altruism.

00:10:35.680 And then finally, reciprocal altruism refers to, well, okay, I would jump into the river to

00:10:41.000 save my three brothers, but why would I jump into the river to save Patrick?

00:10:44.860 He's not my brother.

00:10:45.820 I mean, my literal genetic brother, but in this case, maybe Patrick is a very good friend

00:10:51.080 and he will reciprocate.

00:10:53.220 Today, he's drowning in the river, but tomorrow he might reciprocate and protect me if I come

00:11:00.140 under harm.

00:11:01.460 So what I basically argue is that much of what we do as consumers can be traced back to one

00:11:06.740 of those four key Darwinian modules, and hence that subtitle.

00:11:09.960 I hope it wasn't too long-winded.

00:11:11.320 I love that.

00:11:12.000 I love that.

00:11:12.440 So you know, I don't know if you've heard, probably you've heard this question.

00:11:14.960 You're on a boat.

00:11:16.260 You got three people on.

00:11:17.400 You can only save one.

00:11:19.200 It's your mom, your child, or your wife. 0.95

00:11:23.600 Who do you save?

00:11:24.820 Have you looked this one up or no?

00:11:26.500 Have you, okay.

00:11:27.140 Well, it's funny that you say this because actually there is an exact same story to the

00:11:32.540 guy, the evolutionary scientist who was developing that framework.

00:11:37.420 It was based on, you know, I would jump into the river to save four brothers.

00:11:41.420 So who would I save?

00:11:42.860 I guess I'd have to do the evolutionary calculus.

00:11:45.060 Well, it would depend on whether you ask me this when I got married, if I'm 22 years

00:11:50.320 old, or if my wife is post-menopausal, right?

00:11:53.500 Because the reproductive, sorry, it's going to sound cow. 1.00

00:11:58.340 Calculating.

00:11:58.900 The reproductive benefits of saving her depends on where she is in her reproductive window. 1.00

00:12:05.620 So it's a complicated story.

00:12:07.120 But the fact that you ask this exactly speaks to the type of evolutionary calculus calculations

00:12:12.380 that we go through.

00:12:13.060 So it depends on what phase of your life you're in.

00:12:16.300 So earlier on, it would be your wife.

00:12:18.700 Later on, it may be your kid.

00:12:20.940 Exactly.

00:12:21.580 And by the way, your kid carries more weight for you or less, depending on how old they

00:12:29.480 are.

00:12:29.680 So for example, in societies where they have practiced infanticide, infanticide is the recurring

00:12:35.920 killing of children, they usually will kill the last born.

00:12:40.920 Because the last born, so if I've already invested 17 years in raising a child, right?

00:12:47.460 And they are about to enter the reproductive window of their life trajectory, then I don't 0.88

00:12:54.060 want to kill them, right?

00:12:55.200 Because, I mean, don't forget that I also extend my genes through my children having children, 1.00

00:13:01.500 right?

00:13:01.620 Because when my children have children, I am linked to them one quarter of their genes,

00:13:05.900 right?

00:13:06.060 So this is called inclusive fitness.

00:13:07.660 So I could propagate my genes either directly, I have children, or by investing in my kin.

00:13:15.420 And therefore, in cultures where you have infanticide, and typically the reason why you have infanticide 1.00

00:13:21.280 is because you realize that you don't have the necessary resources to see them through to

00:13:26.180 maturation.

00:13:27.260 And so you make the very cold calculation of ending, if you want, their life.

00:13:31.840 Well, you do so if they're two months old, you don't do it to a 17-year-old who's about

00:13:36.300 to be reproductively viable themselves.

00:13:39.000 Yeah.

00:13:39.340 So when I asked this question of other people, by the way, this was an interview question.

00:13:43.320 So it was trying to figure out where a person stood.

00:13:46.360 And it would many times give a cultural answer.

00:13:49.980 Because Latinos, maybe they would choose their mom because of the connection with mom. 0.64

00:13:54.960 You know, Americans would choose their, you know, wife. 0.95

00:13:58.340 And you have, you know, different Asian that would choose their child because it's future.

00:14:03.440 You know, it's very interesting.

00:14:04.800 But it's definitely always starts a conversation about what direction to go with this.

00:14:08.580 So let's go back to what you were.

00:14:09.980 Go ahead.

00:14:10.900 Forgive me for interrupting you, Patrick, because what you just said has such an implication for

00:14:16.260 a segue.

00:14:16.560 Yes, you're right that there are cultural differences.

00:14:20.500 But underneath these cultural differences, there are some consistent human universals.

00:14:25.100 So speaking about children.

00:14:27.540 So when a child is born, irrespective of which culture you come from, typically people will

00:14:33.800 say, oh, my God, the child looks exactly like the father.

00:14:37.960 And you're much more likely to say so if you are from the mother's family, because you're

00:14:43.720 trying to convince the mother's family that she didn't stray from the relationship.

00:14:50.380 Oh, my.

00:14:51.600 So since you went over there, okay, infidelity men, infidelity women, you know, how does man

00:14:59.160 respond to it differently than a woman responds to infidelity?

00:15:03.040 Great question.

00:15:03.980 So there is some fantastic research that was done back in the early 1990s, where they asked

00:15:10.520 men and women to imagine their partner either engaging in sexual infidelity or romantic

00:15:16.140 infidelity.

00:15:16.860 Romantic infidelity, your husband always has lunch with this wonderful colleague of his.

00:15:22.940 They share their dreams.

00:15:24.120 She understands his humor.

00:15:25.780 So there's no sex.

00:15:26.820 It's all platonic.

00:15:27.860 But there's an emotional bond that is forming.

00:15:30.300 Well, guess what happens?

00:15:31.200 Because men respond much more harshly to sexual infidelity.

00:15:35.420 Women respond a lot more harshly to emotional infidelity. 0.89

00:15:39.560 Why?

00:15:40.240 Because, again, men are responding to the threat of paternity uncertainty.

00:15:44.460 Women are responding to the threat of you removing your investment from the relationship. 1.00

00:15:50.620 And it turns out that it's a much bigger predictor of me packing my bags and leaving you if I develop

00:15:56.840 an emotional bond with another woman rather than just a sexual dalliance.

00:16:00.680 This is why men, oftentimes, in a very clumsy way, when they are caught cheating one time

00:16:08.480 at a conference somewhere, they'll say, she meant nothing to me.

00:16:12.340 It was a one-time thing.

00:16:14.120 What they are effectively doing is speaking to that evolutionary concern, which is, I could

00:16:18.700 completely decouple my investment in you from the fact that I just had a desire for sexual

00:16:24.640 variety.

00:16:25.180 Now, by the way, when I explain these things, oftentimes people who hate evolutionary theory

00:16:29.860 will get upset because they think that if you explain something scientifically, this means

00:16:34.700 that you are justifying it or condoning it.

00:16:37.000 And I'm, of course, doing no such thing, right?

00:16:39.240 If you're studying cancer, that doesn't mean that you are for cancer.

00:16:43.060 It doesn't mean that you are justifying and condoning cancer.

00:16:45.560 It means that you're studying cancer.

00:16:47.340 So if you want to understand all sorts of ugly things that people do, you have to study

00:16:52.480 them properly.

00:16:53.120 And that's why I love evolution so much.

00:16:55.180 What a thing to study, infidelity on how women respond to it versus men. 0.79

00:16:59.260 So this is a channel, a lot of our audience, they're entrepreneurs, business owners, sales,

00:17:04.440 they're executives, they're running.

00:17:05.860 Now, obviously, we've got bodybuilders, we have mob, we have politics, we have different

00:17:10.300 things that we cover, but specifically, it's business.

00:17:13.280 Marketing.

00:17:13.900 So you just said consuming instinct, what Juicy Burgers, Ferrars, pornography, and gift giving

00:17:18.840 reveals about human nature, right?

00:17:20.220 So a company's built their brand on having a certain set of audience.

00:17:24.680 That's who they draw.

00:17:25.820 Let's just say, pick a product.

00:17:28.040 You know, if you got Fox News, Republicans, CNN, Democrats, MSNBC, far left, ESPN, sports,

00:17:36.840 you know, you go to Yahoo Horoscope, certain, anyways, you go to all these different places.

00:17:41.400 How do you see this?

00:17:43.780 Because a company as big as Victoria's Secret, who's known who their customer is for the longest

00:17:48.960 time, and who buys their stuff, who to appeal to, how do you view and justify a company that

00:17:56.220 big with a CEO to say, look, we're going to go in a completely different direction.

00:18:00.000 We're not going to have our, you know, the, what do you call it, their angels anymore that

00:18:04.460 you see and all this stuff, the girls.

00:18:06.420 Now we're going to go, we're going to get activists.

00:18:08.400 We're going to go on a complete different angle.

00:18:10.500 We're not going to go to that route.

00:18:12.140 How do you justify to say, yeah, they're doing the right thing.

00:18:14.600 They're going the right direction versus saying they're about to pay a price for it.

00:18:17.880 Well, there are going to pay, they are going to pay a price for it.

00:18:21.600 And so one of the things that I do in my, say, when I'm teaching MBA classes and I'm doing

00:18:26.160 all this evolutionary stuff, I want to kind of assuage the worry of my students because

00:18:31.780 they feel as though they've wrongly fallen into the wrong class, some biology class,

00:18:36.220 rather than some MBA course of consumer behavior.

00:18:38.400 And I tell them, you know, be patient because it's all going to come together.

00:18:42.480 I'm teaching you now the universal explanations for human behavior, but then I will give you

00:18:48.300 some very practical implications in marketing.

00:18:51.520 So, and so to address your question, let me give one such example.

00:18:55.060 So if you look at romance novels, romance novels are almost exclusively read by women all 0.98

00:19:00.480 around the world.

00:19:01.100 There is, there's not a single culture where that phenomenon is reversed.

00:19:05.020 So if I want to study female preferences, I could look at the archetype of the male hero

00:19:13.960 in a romance novel to see what, what is it that women fantasize about when they are consuming 1.00

00:19:19.200 such a product.

00:19:19.820 And it turns out that it's always the exact same guy.

00:19:21.940 It's as if it's plagiarized across every single romance novel that's ever been written,

00:19:26.140 Patrick.

00:19:26.500 So what is he?

00:19:27.340 He's tall.

00:19:28.120 He is socially dominant.

00:19:30.100 He is a count, meaning a prince and a neurosurgeon.

00:19:33.860 He is reckless and a risk taker.

00:19:36.640 He wrestles alligators on his six pack, but he could only be tamed by the love of this one

00:19:41.340 good, good woman.

00:19:42.440 I just shaved, I just saved you the, the, the heartache or, or the effort of having to read

00:19:48.140 every romance novel that's ever been written.

00:19:50.000 I should have never read Fifty Shades of Grey.

00:19:51.480 Exactly.

00:19:52.680 So now let's, so that's my, my next point now is going to bring home the, the, the question

00:19:58.120 that you asked.

00:19:58.980 So a few years ago, a company, I don't remember their name, uh, was a progressive company.

00:20:03.740 They wanted to create a new line of romance novels that extricated themselves from this

00:20:09.140 archetypal view of the toxic masculine man.

00:20:13.460 And so they created a new line where the guy, you know, is sensitive.

00:20:17.900 He cries all the time. 0.99

00:20:18.960 He sucks his thumb.

00:20:19.780 He watches Bridget Jones' diary. 0.99

00:20:21.900 Well, guess what happened?

00:20:23.380 The consumers in this case called women said, sorry, not interested.

00:20:28.040 That's not what I fantasize about when I'm trying to escape in a romance novel.

00:20:31.900 So if you do things as a company that violate fundamental tenets of human nature, the market

00:20:40.180 has a very clever way of correcting your misconception.

00:20:44.240 So I always tell my students, uh, ultimately a good marketer is one who understands human nature,

00:20:49.620 whether they've taken my courses or not.

00:20:51.500 So that's the bottom line.

00:20:52.340 It's interesting.

00:20:53.200 You say that.

00:20:53.960 So I, it took me five, I took five years to write a fiction book.

00:20:57.560 Okay.

00:20:58.460 It's a young adults fiction book.

00:20:59.920 And it's, you know, we brought a lot of consultants in.

00:21:03.680 We went through a lot of different revisions back and forth.

00:21:05.980 And once we got to sitting down with the publisher and the publisher said, your book has to be

00:21:11.540 appealing to women, young adults, the audience who reads young adults, 70% are going to be

00:21:17.540 this age to this age.

00:21:19.020 If you can appeal to them, you're going to be able to get a book that's going to sell.

00:21:23.100 If you don't, it's not going to work out.

00:21:24.180 So even the marketers, the sellers, the publishers sit there and say, yeah, we're not interested

00:21:29.380 in that.

00:21:29.760 It's not a business model that's going to work.

00:21:31.280 So to you, based on what you're saying right now, because here's how I process it.

00:21:37.020 I process it as if you go read any of the old marketing books, you know, which ones I'm

00:21:41.480 talking about, you know, there's a, uh, a Kellogg and, you know, you go through some of these

00:21:46.240 that everyone reads at all MBA, you know, business schools, you know, you'll see certain

00:21:51.000 approaches on how to get colors, story, marketing, pitch, all that stuff.

00:21:56.140 But it looks like many of these companies are getting away.

00:21:59.420 Maybe not all of them.

00:22:00.180 A lot of them are getting away from sex, drugs, rock and roll, you know, that whole thing.

00:22:04.160 The sex, drugs and rock and roll still sell today.

00:22:07.920 I mean, they do, uh, certainly the sex part.

00:22:10.560 So for example, if I'm trying to sell beauty products, uh, putting a, for an endorser who has

00:22:16.620 facial symmetry is going to work because facial symmetry is a marker of good phenotypic

00:22:23.320 quality.

00:22:24.040 It means that you haven't been exposed to the method, right?

00:22:26.880 So to be beautiful is to be symmetric.

00:22:29.220 So whether I am selling a cosmetic line in Romania or Bolivia or Nigeria, people in all

00:22:35.320 those countries, irrespective of the race they come from, irrespective of the ethnic group

00:22:39.360 and so on, they're all going to agree as to who is beautiful.

00:22:42.640 I think the problem, and maybe that's what you're alluding to is that now we've been

00:22:46.320 parasitized to use a term from my latest book.

00:22:50.120 We've been parasitized by so much wokeism that now companies have in many cases lost

00:22:55.560 focus of their main mission, right?

00:22:57.920 Now it is no longer enough to provide consumers with a product that they need without harming

00:23:03.760 some third party, let's say the environment.

00:23:06.160 Now I need to appear as though I am socially engaged, that I am fighting against social injustice.

00:23:12.220 Think of the Gillette ad a few years ago.

00:23:14.680 I don't know if you remember it, Patrick, where they were sort of down talking to all

00:23:18.820 men, stop being toxic masculine men.

00:23:22.800 Well, I don't want Gillette razor company to be lecturing me and patronizing me about how 0.97

00:23:29.660 to be a better man. 0.97

00:23:30.540 Why don't you shut your mouth and just sell me a good razor and I'll worry about demoralizing 1.00

00:23:36.360 at home. 0.94

00:23:36.720 So in my view, I think it's a mistake for companies to be engaging in all of this blue 0.53

00:23:42.220 haired wokeism.

00:23:43.740 Why do people fall for you?

00:23:45.080 I mean, you look at so many people like, for example, when Nike announced they're going

00:23:50.060 with Kaepernick, you know, the year and a half ago, two years ago, I don't know if you

00:23:53.000 remember that.

00:23:53.400 We're like, hey, here's the direction we're going to be going.

00:23:55.280 And they did.

00:23:56.320 And they would say, I will never buy another Nike ever again.

00:23:59.620 And then Nike just announces, we have our biggest quarterly profits, you know.

00:24:02.960 And then the other side says, they were right.

00:24:06.500 The marketing team knew what they were talking about.

00:24:08.760 And folks are like, well, I guess we didn't know what we were talking about.

00:24:11.840 So once they show the data, some people are saying it's kind of good to take a position

00:24:16.360 today versus before a lot of people played it neutral.

00:24:19.020 As you were speaking, I brought out a prop.

00:24:22.040 Let me explain what it is.

00:24:22.920 It's a memory stick.

00:24:24.140 But for a second, pretend that it is the cork of a wine bottle.

00:24:27.860 Okay.

00:24:27.980 In Arabic, there's an expression that says getting drunk simply by smelling the cork

00:24:35.340 bottle, which means what, basically?

00:24:37.000 It means that I am so weak that it doesn't take me to drink the whole bottle to get drunk.

00:24:43.880 I just need to take a whiff of the cork bottle and I'm already dizzy with drunkenness, right?

00:24:48.820 So Kaepernick is exactly that, right? 0.99

00:24:51.380 For most people who are too imbecilic to kind of understand the greater issues, he just seems 0.99

00:24:57.260 as though he's fighting for justice. 1.00

00:24:59.860 So these are the people who are getting drunk by the smell of the cork.

00:25:03.940 But for most people, I think, and there's actually been a study that has tried to look

00:25:08.020 at, does wokeism work in terms of the share, you know, does it increase the share price

00:25:15.540 of the company?

00:25:16.580 And the results certainly don't support that, that being woke, becoming more blue-haired in

00:25:21.600 your engagement doesn't lead to higher share prices.

00:25:24.860 So yes, some people will succumb to that kind of virtue signaling, but I think most consumers

00:25:31.400 are smart enough to understand when it's just empty, virtuous signaling.

00:25:36.180 Is the whole idea about, you know, who cares about controversy?

00:25:39.920 As long as people are talking about it, you're winning.

00:25:41.720 You know, the whole thing about, you know, negative media attention is still, you know,

00:25:45.980 marketing is marketing, doesn't matter whether it's positive or negative.

00:25:48.720 Do you agree and agree with that?

00:25:51.100 I mean, yes, in the sense that we, to bring it back to evolution, we've evolved to pay

00:25:57.020 a lot more attention to negative information than to positive one.

00:26:02.060 And for obvious, you know, evolutionary adaptive reasons.

00:26:05.540 And so once you have some controversy that is laden with some negativity, even if it's false,

00:26:12.240 by the way, you've probably heard the old story about a falsehood can travel 10 times

00:26:18.040 around the world before it is, you know, corrected, well, that's, yeah, exactly.

00:26:22.460 Right.

00:26:22.700 And so, so yes, I do believe that controversy works.

00:26:26.140 By the way, I know a lot of colleagues of mine who were completely obscure in academia.

00:26:30.920 I mean, they, they were, they never published anything.

00:26:34.260 They, they were hardly at good schools.

00:26:36.300 They were very, very obscure D level academics who then faced some controversy and suddenly were

00:26:42.920 catapulted to the front lines.

00:26:45.380 And so, yes, I completely agree that controversy sells.

00:26:49.040 I mean, look at Jordan Peterson, right?

00:26:51.980 Well, I don't, I wouldn't put him in the D list, by the way.

00:26:54.600 He's not, he's not a D list.

00:26:55.820 No, no, no.

00:26:56.180 We, he's the only guy we've ever had on four times.

00:26:58.640 Jordan Peterson's the only guy we've interviewed four different times.

00:27:02.140 And I had him at our event.

00:27:03.660 Should I be offended that you've invited him four times before going to Dr.

00:27:08.440 Sat for the first time, one could be offended, but I should be magnanimous and not be offended.

00:27:13.440 As an evolutionary behavioral scientist today, we're going to find out if we can invite you

00:27:17.820 back for a second time, which at this pace we're going, you're definitely being invited

00:27:21.880 back, but, but you know, we had him on, we had him at an event two years ago.

00:27:26.340 I had president Bush, Kobe Bryant, Jordan Peterson, Billy being at an event with 7,000

00:27:30.360 people and MGM.

00:27:31.440 And I interviewed Jordan Peterson.

00:27:32.880 That was exactly a month before he went away and he was kind of dealing with his own

00:27:37.760 personal issues.

00:27:38.460 But look at Jordan Peterson.

00:27:40.080 He faces off against what the university wanted to do.

00:27:42.840 He comes out and says, this is the stand I'm taking.

00:27:44.680 Boom.

00:27:44.920 Next thing, you know, he takes off, you know, look at Trump comes out and says, Hey, if

00:27:49.160 you remember the 2015, 2016, a Republican side, day one, everybody thought Scott Walker

00:27:54.440 and Jeb Bush were going to win it.

00:27:56.380 I don't know if you remember Scott Walker, like the main Wisconsin superstar.

00:28:00.660 This is presidential Jeb Bush day one, $140 million.

00:28:04.380 Trump comes out and says, they're sending them criminals, rapists, drugs, all this other

00:28:08.800 stuff. 0.93

00:28:09.060 And next, you know, he takes off.

00:28:10.360 So, you know, there's a, there's a bit of it where you're noticing that become a, even

00:28:14.700 in boxing today, look at the Paul brothers, look at Logan and Jake Paul, how they're using

00:28:19.480 controversy to bring eyeballs to themselves and how effective it is.

00:28:23.780 It's more than just controversy.

00:28:25.640 If I, if I may interject Patrick, I think people respect those who are not fence sitters.

00:28:31.700 I always remind people, don't be a fence sitter, right?

00:28:35.480 If I were to ask you who are the top five people that you admire most in the world, I'm willing

00:28:40.840 to bet none of them are fence sitters.

00:28:42.860 Why?

00:28:43.200 Because it takes courage to take position.

00:28:45.200 Whether you like Trump or not, he's not a fence sitter.

00:28:48.340 Whether you like Jordan Peterson or not, he's a principled man.

00:28:52.100 Whether you like or not got sad, I go after everything and everybody.

00:28:56.440 I don't care.

00:28:57.080 I don't modulate the pursuit of truth to not hurt someone's feeling.

00:29:01.000 That's why in chapter eight, and I guess we'll talk about it later in chapter eight

00:29:04.020 of my latest book, I talk about activate your inner honey badger.

00:29:07.320 Why do I say that?

00:29:08.040 Because the honey badger is an animal, the size of a small dog.

00:29:12.840 And yet it is more, you know, ferocious.

00:29:15.280 It's so ferocious that it could withstand the attack of six adult lions.

00:29:18.820 Why does it do it?

00:29:19.600 Because it's intimidating as hell.

00:29:20.960 So be a honey badger.

00:29:23.480 So as an evolutionary behavioral scientist, you're looking at ways we behave, respond,

00:29:31.300 marketing, a lot of the things that you covered here yourself.

00:29:33.740 And you speak to a lot of business schools, to a lot of, you know, folks who are trying

00:29:37.140 to get their MBAs.

00:29:38.460 What are your rules?

00:29:39.560 I've read a lot of books on marketing.

00:29:41.260 People have different kind of angles on how to take it, how not to take it.

00:29:44.640 What have you noticed being the formula great marketers have used historically?

00:29:49.220 What is it?

00:29:49.780 Yeah, I mean, there are several.

00:29:51.700 So let me give you one that kind of continues what I was talking about earlier about understanding

00:29:55.980 human nature.

00:29:57.360 If you're a social scientist, you typically believe that the human mind, we are born tabula

00:30:02.960 rasa, empty minds.

00:30:04.640 And it is only socialization that makes you who you are.

00:30:07.860 So why do men prefer certain types of women?

00:30:10.680 Well, it's because they learned it from Oprah and Elle magazine.

00:30:14.100 Why do women prefer certain types of guys? 1.00

00:30:16.900 Oh, it's because they saw it in Hollywood.

00:30:18.900 So that perspective presumes that the mind of the consumer is infinitely malleable.

00:30:25.980 I, as the smart company, can get the consumer to want and like anything that I teach them

00:30:32.740 to want and like.

00:30:33.500 And I think that is a grossly incorrect position because the genes, as E.O.

00:30:39.600 Wilson, the Harvard biologist said, the genes always hold culture on a leash.

00:30:45.300 So in other words, culture can, can cause you and I to have slightly different food preferences,

00:30:51.300 but across all cultures, people prefer more rich food than raw, you know, raw celery.

00:31:00.320 So you, if you are a marketer, you always have to recognize the interplay between culture

00:31:07.060 and genes.

00:31:07.840 And if you create products that are antithetical to human nature, the market will quickly let 1.00

00:31:14.260 you know that you are an idiot. 1.00

00:31:16.480 So let me give you another example. 1.00

00:31:17.980 McDonald's and all of the other companies for fast food companies that have done well

00:31:23.920 around the world, they've done well, not because they have Justin Timberlake singing

00:31:28.240 a jingle, although that certainly helps because it creates top of mind awareness, but they've

00:31:33.260 done very well because they offer something to my gustatory preferences that I don't need

00:31:38.220 to be taught to prefer.

00:31:39.420 I don't need to teach my young child that fatty, juicy French fries is something that they

00:31:45.700 should respond positively to.

00:31:47.980 Here's a, here's a thought experiment.

00:31:49.520 I could give you $10 billion advertising budget to sell you grass juice at McDonald's and all

00:31:57.280 of the celebrity endorsers to promote it.

00:32:00.120 And it's never going to take off because my gustatory preferences and yours don't like

00:32:04.840 raw grass juice.

00:32:06.360 So the main lesson from anything that I teach in my MBA courses is there is no way to understand

00:32:12.560 the consumer without an understanding of the fundamental drivers that drive consumer behavior.

00:32:17.960 And that's rooted in our biology.

00:32:19.780 It's not rooted in culture.

00:32:21.160 It's not rooted in religion.

00:32:22.300 It's not rooted in Oprah.

00:32:23.980 Okay.

00:32:24.360 So, so fantastic.

00:32:25.620 So let's go a little bit deeper with that.

00:32:27.980 So how much of what I like, what you like is what you like versus what's being sold to

00:32:34.100 us.

00:32:34.420 For example, let me go a little deeper.

00:32:36.620 No matter how many skinny models I saw on Calvin Klein, I was never turned on by them.

00:32:41.660 Right.

00:32:42.200 You know what I'm saying?

00:32:42.720 So I saw me, this is what you're supposed to look like, like a Zoolander looking. 0.97

00:32:47.040 You're, you know, looking like it never did nothing to me.

00:32:50.100 I was almost like, can I get you a double Whopper right now?

00:32:53.160 Go eat a Big Mac.

00:32:54.440 Please eat some pizza and put some weight on your 95 pounds.

00:32:57.980 You look like you're about to break.

00:32:59.800 If I even touch you, like I'm worried about touching you here.

00:33:02.060 Right.

00:33:02.300 So how much of it is us believing in the dream that's being sold from media, from politicians,

00:33:11.380 from our clergy, from our parents, where, you know, kids, parents tell them, you know,

00:33:16.340 a good man is somebody who believes in God and lives a godly life.

00:33:19.840 A good man is somebody that takes care of themselves.

00:33:23.340 Honey, you have to look sexy, put on the right makeup, or, you know, you got to go serve the 0.99

00:33:27.400 military because it's this, you got to have, you got to work hard.

00:33:30.340 You know, you got to really work hard.

00:33:31.540 All these things that we go through, organized, clean, athlete.

00:33:35.300 My dad loves football.

00:33:36.580 I'm going to go be a football player to make him proud.

00:33:38.960 How much of it is the marketing being done around us by media, TV, parents, military,

00:33:43.140 all that stuff?

00:33:43.900 And how much of it is actually us?

00:33:45.300 Yeah, I mean, great.

00:33:45.980 So if I were to rephrase your question, I would say you're, in a sense, if I distill

00:33:52.360 it, it's you're asking about the nature versus nurture issue, right?

00:33:55.660 How much of who we are is due to nature, genes?

00:33:58.260 How much of it is due to nurture, you know, all the things that you mentioned?

00:34:02.400 Well, and the best way for me to answer that, I'm not trying to do a cop-out answer.

00:34:06.800 It's really the true scientific answer.

00:34:09.000 So I'm going to use a metaphor here.

00:34:11.680 So if you take all of the ingredients of a cake, you take the butter, you take the eggs,

00:34:16.520 you take the flour, you take the baking soda.

00:34:19.120 Each of those ingredients are separate, right?

00:34:22.200 Before I bake the cake.

00:34:23.240 Once I bake the cake, and now I show you the final cake, if I were to tell you, Patrick,

00:34:28.320 please point to the eggs, you couldn't.

00:34:30.140 It's an inextricable mix.

00:34:31.600 Patrick, please point to the sugar.

00:34:33.360 So we are that cake.

00:34:35.120 We are an inextricable melange, mix of our genes and our environments.

00:34:40.260 Now, depending on the phenomenon you ask me about, it might tilt more towards nature or

00:34:45.440 nurture.

00:34:45.760 My height is driven a lot more by my nature than my nurture.

00:34:50.020 No amount of hugging and coddling by my parents would have turned me into a six foot six basketball

00:34:55.420 player.

00:34:56.300 So the best answer I can give you is it depends.

00:35:00.240 Some things are almost exclusively nature.

00:35:03.020 Some are largely due to nurture, but most are somewhere in the middle.

00:35:06.800 I hope that I've given you a satisfactory answer.

00:35:09.340 Yeah.

00:35:09.840 Maybe let me go a little bit deeper with that.

00:35:11.660 And I know that answer, and I've kind of a word, the nature, and we'll debate that all

00:35:17.740 the time.

00:35:18.220 Are entrepreneurs born?

00:35:19.500 Are they made?

00:35:20.200 And we'll kind of go.

00:35:20.700 I'm going a little bit deeper than that.

00:35:21.920 So for example, I sit there and I market the idea of being gay and lesbian to you.

00:35:34.400 On TV, it was getting, I don't know, 0.2% of TV or media was showing what a gay character

00:35:44.980 is or commercials having gay, lesbian, all that stuff, right?

00:35:48.880 And today, it's widely accepted, left and right.

00:35:51.520 It's no longer like a thing where Trump was asked on his campaign, hey, so what do you think

00:35:57.400 about the LGBT?

00:35:58.460 He says, it's a lot.

00:35:59.240 What do you want me to do?

00:35:59.780 That's what, let's go next topic.

00:36:00.900 And it's just kind of moved on.

00:36:01.820 No one's debating it anymore, except from the far extreme conservatives, you know, more

00:36:06.700 clergy based, you know, faith based Republicans.

00:36:09.860 But if I, if I increase that from 0.1% to 1% to 2% to 5% of coverage on TV to 10% and it's

00:36:17.300 now my face, does it influence me as a kid thinking, you know, maybe I am gay, maybe I

00:36:22.740 am lesbian, maybe I, does it influence that at all?

00:36:25.700 No.

00:36:25.840 So I think what it would do if we, if we take that specific example you're giving, what

00:36:30.720 the changes in culture will do is that it might normalize the existence of homosexuality such 1.00

00:36:39.800 that we no longer consider it a taboo, right?

00:36:42.440 So through those interventions, we change the cultural norms that allow us to now view same

00:36:50.080 sex couple as, you know, just who cares? 1.00

00:36:52.300 I can just, you know, without batting an eye, but it's not going to affect my underlying

00:36:58.780 sexual preferences, which are innate, right? 0.64

00:37:02.080 But interestingly, by the way, a lot of the activists, now look, look how silly this can 0.98

00:37:05.580 get. 0.96

00:37:05.820 A lot of the activists will argue that heterosexuality is learned, whereas homosexuality is innate. 0.97

00:37:14.460 Now that is insane. 0.51

00:37:15.640 We are a sexually reproducing species.

00:37:17.620 So you would think that for a sexually reproducing species, the default value would be heterosexuality, 0.98

00:37:24.380 but apparently I'm just a dumb evolutionary behavioral scientist. 0.97

00:37:28.540 Well, I want to show you this. 0.93

00:37:29.720 I, this literally just came up while I'm talking to you.

00:37:31.780 I just searched it on Google.

00:37:32.980 So let me try to share screen and just kind of show this to you.

00:37:36.500 I want to hear your thoughts on this.

00:37:37.640 So this is from Gallup.

00:37:38.740 So Gallup shows, let me know if you can see it.

00:37:41.960 I can see.

00:37:42.760 Yeah, go ahead.

00:37:43.420 Okay.

00:37:43.680 So Gallup shows that since 2012 till today, American self-identification as LGBT went from

00:37:53.520 three and a half percent to three, six, three, seven, three, nine.

00:37:56.420 Now 5.6% identify as LGBT up 2% from just eight years ago to 2020.

00:38:04.100 So in Gallup is pretty center, you know, it's not left or it's right.

00:38:08.880 Where, you know, like, for example, maybe I'll take a different angle with this.

00:38:12.360 I don't have to go necessarily to this.

00:38:13.560 Let's take another one.

00:38:15.440 I'm speaking at a conference.

00:38:17.240 They invite me to speak group of pastors.

00:38:20.220 Hey, marketing.

00:38:21.480 They wanted me to talk specifically on the marketing side.

00:38:24.920 Hey, why is, you know, money being given to churches down?

00:38:28.680 Christian non-denomination, not necessarily on the denominator, specifically non-denomination.

00:38:32.780 Why is it down?

00:38:34.100 You know, these young people just don't get it anymore.

00:38:36.820 And I said, you know what?

00:38:38.500 Go to Mormon's YouTube channel.

00:38:40.620 So if you go to Mormon's YouTube channel, Mormonism is up. 0.57

00:38:43.300 Okay.

00:38:43.840 You go to a bunch of churches, they're up.

00:38:46.560 Non-denomination is low.

00:38:48.020 Okay.

00:38:48.420 Why is that?

00:38:49.220 What are you guys doing that you weren't doing before?

00:38:50.860 Right.

00:38:51.120 Okay.

00:38:51.600 Here's another one for you.

00:38:53.020 The argument of atheists.

00:38:55.260 That argument wasn't that high 50 years ago.

00:38:59.600 Okay.

00:39:00.160 We had it.

00:39:00.880 Don't get me wrong.

00:39:01.460 Of course we've had it.

00:39:02.060 We've had it for a long time.

00:39:03.340 And this isn't a new thing.

00:39:04.520 Thomas Jefferson had an element of debating the existence of God.

00:39:08.360 So it's not a new thing.

00:39:09.240 I'm not sitting here telling you everybody always believed in God, but you'll hear a lot

00:39:12.640 of people say things like this.

00:39:14.220 You know, I used to be a Jew.

00:39:15.620 I used to believe in all this other stuff.

00:39:17.220 And I used to be Catholic.

00:39:18.120 I used to be Christian.

00:39:19.240 But listen, we're much smarter today.

00:39:21.100 You know, we know, let's face it.

00:39:22.340 There is no God.

00:39:23.100 What are you talking about?

00:39:23.920 It's been proven all this other stuff.

00:39:25.060 Is that because we're smarter or is that because the people on TV and social talking about that

00:39:31.860 God doesn't exist has increased the percentage of that message being given where people are

00:39:35.440 starting to say, you know what, maybe you're right.

00:39:38.000 God doesn't exist.

00:39:39.180 I'm trying to see how much of that's being influenced from media.

00:39:41.880 I think it's several factors, whether it be the LGBTQ data that you shared from Gallup or

00:39:47.960 whether it be the atheism example that you gave.

00:39:49.940 So one possibility is by creating a, quote, safer environment for someone to truly identify

00:39:58.420 as an atheist when in the past it was difficult for me to do so or to truly identify as a member

00:40:04.260 of the LGBTQ community, whereas earlier I would have been ostracized by my family and kicked

00:40:09.300 out of my small town in the southern USA, then those patterns go up, not so much because

00:40:15.560 there are now more LGBTQ people, but because people are more comfortable admitting to

00:40:19.860 who they are.

00:40:20.400 So that's one possibility.

00:40:22.120 But there's a slightly more, I mean, not sinister, but, you know, less clear example.

00:40:28.880 And actually, I had a guest on my show.

00:40:30.380 It hasn't aired.

00:40:31.500 The conversation hasn't aired.

00:40:33.160 Her name is Abigail Schreier.

00:40:34.700 She wrote a book where she basically argued that the increase in transgender young women, 0.95

00:40:42.700 so biological women who now self-identify as male, is akin to a social contagion, right? 0.86

00:40:51.340 In other words, in the same way that a contagion can spread, ideas also spread.

00:40:56.220 And so for whatever reason, it becomes intoxicating to be a member of that identifiable group.

00:41:02.640 So the next question you can ask me, well, why would anybody ever want to self-identify as

00:41:08.700 a member of a marginalized group, like the LGBTQ folks, people?

00:41:13.180 And here, actually, I'm going ahead to my latest book.

00:41:17.000 I actually explained this using something called a psychiatric disorder called Munchausen

00:41:21.760 syndrome.

00:41:22.240 Can I take a minute or two to explain what that is?

00:41:23.760 Go for it, please.

00:41:24.320 So in 2010, I had written a scientific paper in a medical journal on Munchausen syndrome,

00:41:31.340 which is the mechanism whereby someone feigns a illness so that they can garner the empathy

00:41:38.320 and sympathy that comes with having that illness.

00:41:41.060 Munchausen syndrome by proxy is even more diabolical because this is when you have someone under your

00:41:46.460 care, your elderly parent, your pet, or typically your biological child, you harm them.

00:41:53.040 You physically harm them so that you can then garner the empathy and sympathy by proxy.

00:41:58.280 Oh, poor you.

00:41:59.240 You're a parent of an ailing child.

00:42:01.140 So I was trying to understand the evolutionary reason why biological mothers would harm their 0.60

00:42:07.140 children to get that ego stroke. 0.95

00:42:08.860 So now I'm going to tie it in with that social contagion that I just talked about.

00:42:13.020 Well, to the extent that it now becomes a form of victimhood to be a member of a marginalized

00:42:19.420 group, I can get my ego strokes, my empathy and sympathy by being a member of that group.

00:42:26.420 You follow?

00:42:26.760 Now, as you might imagine, Abigail Schreier got into a lot of trouble because, quote, she 1.00

00:42:33.200 was erasing the voices of those transgendered kids.

00:42:36.580 Now, she wasn't saying that transgenderism doesn't exist.

00:42:39.800 She wasn't saying that we should be bigoted towards transgenderism.

00:42:42.520 She was simply saying that for some of the people, they aren't truly transgendered.

00:42:48.220 They are simply succumbing to a social contagion.

00:42:50.540 So to go back, to finalize with your Gallup poll, I suspect that some of that uptake is

00:42:55.760 due to the social contagion effect.

00:42:58.340 So the irreversible damage is the one I think you're talking about.

00:43:01.220 The bush.

00:43:01.460 Exactly right.

00:43:02.240 Exactly right.

00:43:02.740 So let's go on that.

00:43:04.100 Let's go even deeper with that on what you're saying.

00:43:06.000 So I'll give you a story.

00:43:07.440 I'm in the army.

00:43:08.360 I'm 18, 19 years old.

00:43:09.760 So I love women like I can't have enough of them. 1.00

00:43:13.740 Like I was like, you know, I was greedy, extremely greedy.

00:43:16.940 Right.

00:43:17.880 And I was a capitalist.

00:43:19.100 I wanted to experience everything and anything I could.

00:43:22.340 One day, one of the guys at our unit says, I found the sickest club, but I can't tell

00:43:26.960 everybody about it because we could all be kicked out of the army if they find out what

00:43:29.860 club this is.

00:43:30.500 I said, what club is it? 0.98

00:43:31.260 It's a gay club. 0.98

00:43:32.500 So it's a gay club. 0.97

00:43:33.380 Yeah.

00:43:33.560 But I'm telling you, it's the best club in America.

00:43:35.360 I'm like, it's the best club in America.

00:43:36.900 Where is it at?

00:43:37.640 It's in Nashville, Tennessee.

00:43:38.660 Get out of here.

00:43:39.120 No one's going to put the best club in Nashville, Tennessee.

00:43:41.620 I'm telling you, it's the best club in Nashville, Tennessee.

00:43:44.260 What's the name?

00:43:44.880 I can't tell you.

00:43:45.620 I just have to take you there first.

00:43:46.920 All right.

00:43:47.140 So at this point of the game, thank God I trust this guy because he was my workout partner.

00:43:51.860 So I asked him, I said, listen, I mean, I partied with you.

00:43:54.080 I've never seen you like men.

00:43:55.160 He says, no, no, you don't understand.

00:43:56.080 I don't like men, but you got to go here with me.

00:43:58.880 You'll see why it's unfair.

00:44:00.320 I said, okay, let's go.

00:44:01.480 So we go to the club.

00:44:02.960 So we take one of our friends.

00:44:04.380 It's four of us.

00:44:05.020 Now, two of our friends, by the way, all of them till today.

00:44:08.700 We're in contact.

00:44:09.840 So we go to the club.

00:44:12.340 First of all, women are there with the intention of they don't want to be flirted. 1.00

00:44:16.220 They want to be left alone.

00:44:17.220 Right.

00:44:17.420 So they're kind of going, they're saying, oh, the gay men, I love gay men because they're

00:44:20.420 this, they're that.

00:44:21.420 So there's only a few straight men there.

00:44:23.440 We're four of them.

00:44:24.580 Okay.

00:44:24.760 So the market's on our side.

00:44:26.400 We're winning here.

00:44:27.440 Right.

00:44:27.700 But we go in and obviously it was exactly what he said.

00:44:32.800 It was unfair.

00:44:33.980 It's like the movie, Wedding Crasher, where the scene where Owen Wilson goes to meet Will

00:44:39.320 Farrell and Will Farrell's like, ma, meatloaf.

00:44:41.940 He says, man, I'm not going to weddings anymore.

00:44:43.900 I'm crashing funerals.

00:44:45.440 You got to see.

00:44:46.260 It's like, it's not even fair because you know, all this stuff.

00:44:48.480 Anyways, now, obviously there's a part of it.

00:44:50.220 That's not funny, but that's humor movie.

00:44:51.980 You know, we all watch Wedding Cratch.

00:44:53.120 It's funny, but one of my friends, a guy comes and flirts with them.

00:44:57.880 Now for me, it's like, listen, it's cool.

00:44:59.520 I get along with everybody.

00:45:00.980 I'm very comfortable, but I have no interest.

00:45:03.840 But one of the guys comes and tells one of our friends and he says, so you like men?

00:45:09.220 No, I like women. 1.00

00:45:11.140 He asks a simple question afterwards.

00:45:13.560 How do you know? 0.96

00:45:15.560 And I got to tell you this question of how do you know, confuse the living crap out of 0.97

00:45:21.680 this guy.

00:45:22.160 So we leave the place.

00:45:24.520 We got a one hour drive back.

00:45:26.080 It's two o'clock in the morning.

00:45:27.140 We've had 20 beers and us.

00:45:28.480 We're driving with, you know, alcohol levels.

00:45:30.540 That's not appropriate at all.

00:45:32.060 The entire time is like, how do I know?

00:45:34.760 Like, what are you doing?

00:45:36.300 But I really don't know.

00:45:38.100 What do you fantasize?

00:45:42.380 But this is what's crazy about it.

00:45:44.980 You know what ended up happening?

00:45:46.500 This guy experienced just to find out if he knows or not.

00:45:49.960 That's what he had a gay encounter just to answer that question.

00:45:54.100 Just to answer that question, whether he did or not.

00:45:57.680 So the part I'm going to you with this, obviously, there's humor behind the story, but it wasn't

00:46:02.280 humorous on the drive back.

00:46:03.820 I just remember being hammered and we're cracking up about it.

00:46:06.960 But the point I'm trying to make to you is, if media and TV, social, if they have this

00:46:12.820 much power, if they just put it in your mind to say, how do you know cocaine isn't good

00:46:18.680 for you?

00:46:19.260 How do you know you're not a trans? 0.97

00:46:20.800 How do you know you're not this?

00:46:21.900 How do you know you're not that?

00:46:23.200 How do you know?

00:46:23.760 We don't know.

00:46:24.380 How do you know communism doesn't work?

00:46:26.040 How do you know?

00:46:26.780 How do you know?

00:46:27.480 How do you know?

00:46:27.880 You're like, maybe I don't know.

00:46:29.860 Maybe it is euphoric.

00:46:31.380 Maybe it is utopian type of a life.

00:46:33.720 Maybe I should try it.

00:46:35.220 That's what I mean when I say the marketing today, the amount of influence they have.

00:46:38.720 Is it really changing the way we're wired because we're questioning stuff about ourselves

00:46:42.740 that maybe we just don't know?

00:46:44.520 I wish marketers had that much influence.

00:46:48.740 They don't.

00:46:50.240 Now, in the case of your friend, maybe he had some questions that he needed answered.

00:46:55.260 But I think that if you were to ask 100 men who are avowed heterosexuals, how do you 0.99

00:47:03.580 know you don't want to get sodomized by a Turkish hairy guy? 1.00

00:47:07.440 How do you know? 0.99

00:47:08.560 They'll say, well, because I don't fantasize about that.

00:47:11.140 Basically, my entire internal life of fantasy has been rooted in fantasizing over Beyonce 0.99

00:47:17.800 and not about a Turkish hairy guy sodomizing me. 0.94

00:47:21.060 So I don't think it's that mysterious. 0.99

00:47:22.880 And I don't think any marketing guy is going to convince me to go to a gay sauna and have 1.00

00:47:28.840 sodomy. 1.00

00:47:29.740 So I think that's on your friend.

00:47:32.140 But I will mention something that is scientifically interesting to what you asked.

00:47:36.640 There is something called sexual fluidity.

00:47:40.640 And it's actually, it's a real term whereby, so if you look at women, they're much more 1.00

00:47:46.940 likely to be fluid.

00:47:49.020 So for example, a woman could be completely committed to being a heterosexual woman.

00:47:53.880 She really prefers men.

00:47:55.760 But you know, in that dorm at Wellesley on that cold evening night when my girlfriend and 0.93

00:48:02.540 I were really tight and we started wrestling, a little lesbian session broke out. 1.00

00:48:06.500 Now, I say that, you know, in a jocular manner.

00:48:08.760 But women have the capacity to be a lot more fluid in their sexuality whilst completely being, 1.00

00:48:17.240 you know, committed to being heterosexual.

00:48:19.500 It's much, much less likely in men.

00:48:23.180 And the data, the scientific data suggests that very few men wake up on a Tuesday and

00:48:27.940 say, today, I have to kind of think inside, do I want to be clobbered by Shaquille O'Neal

00:48:35.220 or is it going to be Beyonce night?

00:48:37.820 No, I think I'm going Shaquille.

00:48:39.600 Very few guys.

00:48:40.480 Maybe your friend was one of those, but he's a unicorn.

00:48:43.720 I hope he doesn't see this interview because he's going to be upset with me.

00:48:46.280 I highly doubt he's going to see it.

00:48:47.420 But we didn't mention his name, so we don't know.

00:48:48.860 No, we did not.

00:48:49.420 So we're safe.

00:48:50.140 We're safe.

00:48:50.500 Let's just give him a name.

00:48:51.520 Let's call him Jackson is what we're going to call him.

00:48:54.700 Okay.

00:48:54.800 So, all right.

00:48:55.860 So, but let's go back to that.

00:48:57.540 Let's go back to that.

00:48:58.360 Whether you're going to wake up in the morning with a fantasy about getting clobbered by Shaq. 0.99

00:49:01.860 I can't see that happening with you, but let's just see somebody does wake up. 0.54

00:49:05.600 He'd be clobbered by me.

00:49:06.980 I'm the guy in that relationship.

00:49:08.880 He's the girl, Mrs. Shaq.

00:49:12.080 That visual is just a very strange visual.

00:49:15.800 I'm going to try to take out of my head today, guy.

00:49:17.820 That's not a visual I want to have with a evolutionary behavioral scientist hooking up with Shaq. 1.00

00:49:22.720 So, so, so let's, let's get away from that.

00:49:25.120 Let's go to a whole different place, but specifically to that topic.

00:49:28.280 Okay.

00:49:28.680 So, let's get away from the gay and how do you know, right? 1.00

00:49:32.820 Let's go to the same phrase being repeated a billion times until you're like, you know what? 1.00

00:49:40.080 Men are dogs. 0.99

00:49:41.460 Men are dogs. 0.98

00:49:42.380 Men are dogs. 0.98

00:49:43.380 Men are dogs. 0.98

00:49:44.320 Men are dogs. 0.98

00:49:45.240 Men are dogs. 0.97

00:49:46.240 Hose before bros. 0.90

00:49:47.400 Well, bros before hos. 1.00

00:49:49.140 So, he's like a woman. 0.99

00:49:50.880 All women do this. 1.00

00:49:52.160 All men lie. 1.00

00:49:53.200 All men. 0.93

00:49:53.640 Like that's, you hear that a billion times.

00:49:56.440 You're like, you know what?

00:49:57.460 That's right.

00:49:58.680 You know, men are this, men are that.

00:50:00.340 Okay.

00:50:00.860 So, 1960, 64% of African-Americans are voting Republican.

00:50:08.720 1964, 92% of African-Americans are voting Democrat.

00:50:14.320 Okay.

00:50:14.520 Let me say that one more time.

00:50:15.240 I'm sorry.

00:50:15.580 1960, 64% of African-Americans are voting Democrat.

00:50:19.600 64.

00:50:20.060 36% are voting Republican.

00:50:22.320 64% are voting Democrat.

00:50:23.840 That's in 1960.

00:50:25.320 Fast forward four years later, Barry Goldwater, 1964, 92% is voting Democrat.

00:50:32.460 It went from 64% to 92% in the span of four years, right?

00:50:36.380 Wow.

00:50:36.940 So, the messaging, and today, by the way, the numbers are at around 88%, 84% to 88%.

00:50:41.700 We're still at that same number.

00:50:43.220 Trump, it was a little bit lower, but you're still at around the mid-80% range that we have

00:50:46.200 today.

00:50:46.440 So, you hear the phrase, Democrats or Republicans, Democrats are for Blacks, Democrats are for 0.95

00:50:51.980 Blacks, Democrats are for Blacks, Democrats are for Blacks, Democrats are for Blacks. 0.99

00:50:55.360 You go look at Jews. 1.00

00:50:57.540 Jews come to America. 0.65

00:50:59.340 The rich Republicans' country clubs didn't allow Jews on, right?

00:51:03.480 No Italian, no Jews, no, you know, you've seen that sign before, right? 0.98

00:51:06.980 So, Jews, so powerful, they make so much money. 0.99

00:51:09.780 Why are they Democrats?

00:51:10.400 Democrats, most of their beliefs is conservative, but why are they Democrats?

00:51:14.320 Because Democrats are for Jews, Democrats are for Jews, Democrats are for Jews, Democrats. 0.96

00:51:18.080 I'm Armenian.

00:51:18.960 Your wife is Lebanese-Armenian.

00:51:20.440 I'm Armenian-Assyrian, right?

00:51:22.340 No, this is, so my mom, one day I'm talking to her, and I say, Mom, you know, everybody

00:51:26.360 in school is talking about Democrats and Republicans.

00:51:28.420 What the hell are we?

00:51:29.100 I still don't know.

00:51:29.680 What are we?

00:51:30.040 My mom's like, nope.

00:51:31.360 You know, one day you're going to read the book Karl Marx.

00:51:33.540 We're Democrats, is what we are, because Democrats are for the poor.

00:51:37.360 Republicans are for the rich.

00:51:38.440 You know what I said?

00:51:39.640 I said, I want to be a Republican one day, Mom, because I want to be rich.

00:51:42.680 I don't want to be a Republican.

00:51:43.640 I just want to be rich.

00:51:44.800 And she says, no, we're for Democrats.

00:51:47.460 How much does messaging, repeating it over and over and over and over and over again,

00:51:54.440 get me to flip to a different side, whether I look at somebody in a good way, a bad way,

00:51:58.580 an ugly way?

00:51:59.360 Yeah, well, repetition, as a matter of fact, I've done research on what's called advertising

00:52:04.180 repetition effects, right?

00:52:05.360 So how many times should I repeat a message?

00:52:08.360 But by the way, even for repetition effects, there is an inflection point.

00:52:12.120 In other words, repeating a message many times is great up to a point, but then you repeat

00:52:17.280 it beyond that point, it could backfire against you, right?

00:52:20.480 So it's an inverted U.

00:52:22.040 Got it.

00:52:22.360 But yes, absolutely.

00:52:23.560 You're right.

00:52:24.280 That repetition is one of the central tools in the arsenal of weaponry that marketers will

00:52:29.360 use.

00:52:29.600 Now, let me give you a somewhat fancier cognitive psychology explanation for why people succumb

00:52:36.420 to this.

00:52:37.200 So there is a German psychologist by the name of Gerd Gigerenzer who developed a research

00:52:43.720 stream called fast and frugal heuristics.

00:52:47.380 Heuristics are mental shortcuts, right? 0.93

00:52:50.120 It's a decision rule that you could deploy rapidly.

00:52:53.380 So what's a fast and frugal heuristic?

00:52:55.260 A fast heuristic is one that you could deploy very, very quickly, and it's frugal in that

00:53:01.340 it is not cognitively costly to deploy.

00:53:04.220 So let me give an example of a fast and frugal heuristic in your wheelhouse of investment

00:53:09.320 and so on.

00:53:09.920 So there is something called the recognition heuristic, which basically goes as follows.

00:53:14.300 Choose that which you recognize.

00:53:16.540 So if I give you two investment portfolios or an investment portfolio made up of a bunch

00:53:21.620 of companies, some of the companies I recognize, I recognize Coca-Cola, I recognize Ford, but

00:53:27.080 I don't recognize Gentech. 0.65

00:53:28.340 So one group of people are going to implement the following investment strategy, a fast and

00:53:33.680 frugal strategy.

00:53:35.020 Simply choose to invest in stocks of companies that you recognize.

00:53:40.780 So that's one strategy, right?

00:53:42.220 It's a very naive one, right?

00:53:44.620 The other one is use all sorts of mathematical modeling from PhDs in mathematics from Princeton

00:53:51.000 to come up with the optimal investment diversified strategy.

00:53:55.580 Guess what?

00:53:56.500 The simple fast and frugal heuristic performs just as well as the fancy one.

00:54:02.060 In other words, there are evolutionary reasons when simply deploying a fast and frugal heuristic

00:54:06.580 works just as well.

00:54:08.020 So now let's link it back to the repetition stuff. 0.51

00:54:11.040 Most people are cognitive misers, meaning that they are intellectually lazy. 0.52

00:54:15.220 I don't want to spend all my time knowing whether Islam is peaceful or not. 1.00

00:54:19.380 If Barack Obama tells me enough times that Islam is peaceful, then I will simply use that as 1.00

00:54:25.900 a shortcut and then it will make my world much simpler.

00:54:29.420 You follow what I mean?

00:54:30.200 So there is a cognitive enticement for me to simply be swayed by a repetitive message.

00:54:39.960 Because if I don't do that, I'm going to have to do the heavy lifting of actually going

00:54:45.480 out to find out for myself.

00:54:46.820 So for example, if I want to truly find out whether historically the Democrats were the

00:54:52.680 racist ones or not, well, that's going to have to force me to actually do some work,

00:54:57.080 whether it be on Google or in the library.

00:54:59.140 Screw that.

00:55:00.180 Why don't I just believe Uncle Joe Biden who tells me that, no, it's the Republicans that 0.99

00:55:05.360 are the KKK white supremacists. 0.58

00:55:07.000 And that's good enough for me.

00:55:08.100 So I think that instinct of succumbing to repetition stems from the fact that most people are

00:55:14.580 cognitively lazy.

00:55:15.880 By the way, the answer that I just gave not only guaranteed that I will be invited again

00:55:20.500 on your show, it has guaranteed that I will be the number one most invited guest on your

00:55:25.880 show.

00:55:27.320 Why don't you smoke that?

00:55:28.840 I got to tell you, your level of humility is on a whole different level.

00:55:32.280 I mean, it's just, it's like a number one most humble guy of all time.

00:55:38.040 I don't think so.

00:55:39.200 And I wouldn't, I don't think that necessarily helps at the highest level when you want to

00:55:43.480 get your message across, but go back on that.

00:55:45.640 You know, we were having a debate, friends, family, we're sitting there and this is the

00:55:48.940 question I'm asking, you know, it's the question is, uh, you know, oh, things are changing

00:55:53.640 dramatically.

00:55:54.780 Things are really changing.

00:55:56.160 You know, it's just, oh my gosh, we've never had a, like this before.

00:56:00.460 Okay.

00:56:01.780 Have quiet, rich people who make their money, create jobs and take care of people.

00:56:06.900 Have they been around?

00:56:07.740 Yes.

00:56:08.660 Have con artists, rich people who abuse people, take advantage of people.

00:56:12.960 Have they always been around?

00:56:14.500 Yes.

00:56:15.440 Have lazy people who want to be entitled to your wealth and tell you how unfair it is on

00:56:22.420 why you're making money.

00:56:23.240 Have they been around?

00:56:24.120 Yes.

00:56:24.360 Have people who always, you know, look at themselves as the, you know, you don't even

00:56:30.260 understand what kind of, and they use guilt or, you know, if you only knew how hard my

00:56:34.060 life was, you would know why I'm not winning.

00:56:36.940 They're always looking for a reason why they're not, have they always been around?

00:56:39.440 Yes.

00:56:39.900 Have people who sit in the middle and I say, I don't know, I kind of agree with both

00:56:42.480 sides.

00:56:43.320 I don't know if I fully agree that I don't know, but you know what, you kind of make

00:56:45.820 sense.

00:56:46.280 Have the people in the middle always been around?

00:56:48.720 Yes.

00:56:49.080 Have dictators always been around?

00:56:50.460 Yes.

00:56:50.800 Have arrogance always been around?

00:56:52.400 What's really changed?

00:56:53.480 I mean, what has really changed today?

00:56:55.160 Are we really behaviorally changing that dramatically today versus a hundred years ago, 200 years

00:57:00.860 ago, 500?

00:57:01.520 And if yes, how?

00:57:03.100 So, well, it depends on which phenomenon you're speaking of.

00:57:06.220 I mean, on some things, of course, there is a social evolution that happens where, you

00:57:12.980 know, I used to, I mean, I'm speaking generically, I've never smoked, but, you know, I used to

00:57:17.540 think that smoking was okay because the pharmaceutical companies told me that it's

00:57:21.580 healthy to be a smoker.

00:57:22.780 But then I learned through epidemiology that it's actually not true.

00:57:26.200 And so I altered my behavior.

00:57:27.580 So, so it's, so there are some things that are impervious to change.

00:57:31.760 The fact that you and I, and probably every other man who's ever lived prefers a woman

00:57:36.620 who has an hourglass figure to a woman who is like the one you mentioned, the heroin chic, 1.00

00:57:41.680 the 90 pound woman, or, you know, or there is no culture where men repeatedly prefer women 1.00

00:57:47.560 that look like male Olympic swimmers with broad shoulders and narrow waist.

00:57:52.600 That is never going to change.

00:57:54.060 No amount of marketing is ever going to alter that because that is such an indelible part

00:57:59.020 of what makes me a human that you're not, no persuasion is ever going to change that.

00:58:04.260 But on other things, there is a change, right?

00:58:06.260 Who could have foreseen the types of intoxicating addictive power that social media has on our

00:58:12.300 kids 10 or 15 years ago?

00:58:13.680 Today, it's probably harder for me to get my kids to pry the cell phone away from my

00:58:19.440 kids than it is to have them love me, right?

00:58:23.660 It's impossible to get them to get off the social media.

00:58:27.040 So, so some things are open to change.

00:58:29.180 Other things are not.

00:58:30.080 And I guess that's exactly what an evolutionary behavioral scientist does.

00:58:32.900 He tries to, he or she tries to study those things that are interacting with the environment

00:58:37.720 versus those things that are an indelible part of our human nature.

00:58:41.460 Very cool.

00:58:42.080 And that's why we need you.

00:58:42.900 That's why we need you to run.

00:58:44.000 That's what we need you to keep doing.

00:58:45.200 And by the way, just, just to clarify, when I do all that bombastic, grandiose stuff, I

00:58:49.940 am joking.

00:58:50.880 I'm not genuine.

00:58:51.780 I'm actually a very down to earth guy.

00:58:53.680 Of course.

00:58:54.300 Listen, just from talking, but you're the kind of guy I would want to go to dinner and,

00:58:58.760 you know, debate topics, talk topics, go deeper.

00:59:01.700 You're that guy.

00:59:02.500 You're the person I wants to be friends with and just have dinner with you.

00:59:06.100 I mean, that's how I judge in the military.

00:59:08.260 You would, you would see who you would get along.

00:59:10.020 We're like, it's just a guy I want to be friends with you.

00:59:11.760 This, this is the kind of person you want to have in your life.

00:59:13.740 That's the feeling I get from you.

00:59:14.800 Can I tell you something?

00:59:15.980 By the way, what you just said means a lot to me and it's very sweet.

00:59:18.520 Thank you so much, Patrick.

00:59:20.080 I tell people, so I receive, as you might imagine, you know, tons of fan mail and all

00:59:25.060 that.

00:59:25.480 The ones that mean the most to me or some of the ones that mean the most are precisely

00:59:29.820 from military guys.

00:59:30.820 The guy who is the Navy SEAL, the guy who is the special forces who says, you know what?

00:59:36.900 We want, we would have wanted you to be with us.

00:59:39.100 And I don't know, maybe it's the machismo part, but I'm like, I want to hear from that

00:59:43.300 guy, not from the Stanford professor smoking the pipe.

00:59:48.300 And so I really understand what you mean.

00:59:50.220 It's about being in the trenches with guys that are cool, that have your back.

00:59:54.240 I'm all about that.

00:59:55.120 And now maybe, by the way, that comes from the fact that I was also a very competitive

00:59:59.340 soccer player.

01:00:00.260 So when you're a competitive soccer player, you can't get offended by every word that

01:00:04.460 someone says.

01:00:05.100 It teaches you to be anti-fragile. 0.98

01:00:07.520 You don't wilt away because someone trash talks you.

01:00:10.660 And so maybe there's also that element that allows probably someone like you and I to get

01:00:15.180 along and be sympathetic.

01:00:16.580 I was having a conversation with these two guys who were trying to troll me.

01:00:20.460 And I told the guys, is that really the best you got?

01:00:22.800 I said, do you realize if you were in the army, the guys at my unit would destroy you

01:00:27.900 with the way they would troll?

01:00:28.880 You would emotionally be hiding in a closet for the rest of your life.

01:00:32.020 You guys got to pick up your trolling game because you don't have it.

01:00:35.020 But let me go to your latest book.

01:00:37.240 So The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.

01:00:42.220 What infectious ideas today do you feel are creating a lot of momentum and why?

01:00:47.960 Right.

01:00:48.800 Thank you for talking about the latest book.

01:00:51.220 So let me kind of give you the back, the elevator story of the book, and then I will answer

01:00:56.680 your specific question.

01:00:58.000 So I argue that contrary to the current pandemic that we're facing with COVID, we've faced another

01:01:04.360 pandemic for the past 40, 50 years.

01:01:06.760 And in this case, the virus is not a biological virus.

01:01:10.140 It's a mind virus.

01:01:11.180 That's why I call these idea pathogens or parasitic ideas.

01:01:14.580 And so where do these ideas come from?

01:01:16.220 So if we're trying to find out where the COVID virus came from, we're not allowed to say because

01:01:21.620 to say where it comes from would be racist, of course.

01:01:24.120 So where do these idea pathogens come from?

01:01:26.960 They all come from the university ecosystem.

01:01:29.060 In other words, as I always remind people, it takes intellectuals and professors to come 0.99

01:01:33.120 up with some of the dumbest ideas. 0.87

01:01:34.440 So now I'm going to answer your, so what I do in the book basically is I talk about all 0.98

01:01:38.400 these idea pathogens, where they originate from, what downstream effects they have had

01:01:44.160 on society, and then how we can vaccinate ourselves against these bad ideas.

01:01:48.860 So now I answer the question of what are some examples of these idea pathogens?

01:01:53.340 So probably the granddaddy of all idea pathogens, Patrick, is what's called postmodernism.

01:01:59.120 So postmodernism is a framework that developed in the university environment, which basically

01:02:05.240 purports the following.

01:02:06.900 There are no universal truths.

01:02:08.760 There are no objective truths.

01:02:10.460 We are completely shackled by personal biases, by our subjectivity, by relativism.

01:02:17.940 So to speak of a universal truth is silly because there are no such truths.

01:02:21.920 Now, you could imagine how that's a complete form of intellectual terrorism because scientists

01:02:27.500 do wake up every day thinking that there is a truth to be discovered out there, right?

01:02:31.100 Now, the truth in science might change, right?

01:02:33.420 What was true 300 years ago may no longer be true today.

01:02:37.400 We update what we consider to be true, but we do operate every day under the premise that

01:02:41.780 there is something to be discoverable in the world.

01:02:44.120 There are natural phenomenon that are universally true.

01:02:47.440 If I throw you from a building 50 times, gravity is going to have the exact same effect 50

01:02:52.560 times out of 50.

01:02:53.460 So postmodernism is a deeply flawed and nihilistic framework because it actually takes you down

01:03:01.800 a dead end, right?

01:03:03.760 What can you build?

01:03:04.900 You can't build bridges using postmodernism.

01:03:07.440 You can't understand consumer choice using postmodernism.

01:03:11.060 And so it creates a form of chaos when students are taught all of this nonsense.

01:03:18.420 Here, I'll give you one or two other idea packages.

01:03:21.040 And then if you want to hear more, I'll tell you more.

01:03:23.460 Social constructivism is another idea pathogen.

01:03:26.000 It purports that we are all born with empty minds with equal potentiality, and it's only

01:03:31.620 socialization that made us who we are.

01:03:33.420 So Michael Jordan didn't start off his lot in life with an advantage over Patrick.

01:03:39.240 It's only because mama hugged him enough or didn't hug him enough that he became the NBA

01:03:43.900 star that he is.

01:03:44.740 Now, it's a very hopeful message, right?

01:03:46.400 Because it basically argues that any of our children could be the next Einstein or the 0.99

01:03:50.820 next Lionel Messi, but it is perfectly rooted in bullshit. 0.53

01:03:54.100 So each of these idea pathogens that I described, I argue they start off with a noble cause, 0.93

01:04:00.980 but then they metamorphosize into the murder of truth in the pursuit of that original noble

01:04:06.920 cause.

01:04:07.580 Does that make sense?

01:04:08.320 Yes, it does.

01:04:09.360 Yes, it does.

01:04:09.980 So, you know, what is your biggest concern outside?

01:04:13.420 I mean, obviously postmodernism, all these others, but what is your biggest concern with

01:04:17.320 the side effects of what critical race theory could do to us in the next 12, 24, 36 months?

01:04:23.960 Yes, so critical race theory stems from one of the idea pathogens that I discuss in the book.

01:04:30.340 So identity politics, the idea that I am first a member of a group before I am an individual,

01:04:36.960 right?

01:04:37.160 I'm not God sad.

01:04:38.540 I'm Lebanese Jew first.

01:04:40.140 Well, no, I am God sad.

01:04:41.960 I present myself on Patrick's show, not as a representative of Lebanese Jews.

01:04:46.500 I present myself as God sad with all my flaws and all my merits.

01:04:50.780 And I ask you to judge me based on my unique personhood.

01:04:53.940 That's what classical liberalism is.

01:04:56.040 Well, identity politics shatters that.

01:04:57.980 It says you are a member of the LGBT community or the Muslim community or the black community

01:05:03.740 or the indigenous community.

01:05:05.500 That's what defines you.

01:05:07.020 Now, I escaped the society that is a perfect manifestation of how you organize a society

01:05:14.340 along identity political lines, right?

01:05:16.320 Lebanon, everything is viewed through the prism of your religious tribe, right?

01:05:21.540 As a matter of fact, in Lebanon, there's an Arabic word in, well, in Lebanese that says

01:05:26.120 hawiyeh.

01:05:26.800 Hawiyeh means your internal passport, your internal ID card, so that if the cop stops you, you show

01:05:32.980 him your internal ID.

01:05:34.320 Well, the most conspicuous thing that you see on the ID is which religion you belong to,

01:05:41.260 right?

01:05:41.420 The constitution of Lebanon is organized along religious lines.

01:05:46.520 The president has to be of this religion. 0.90

01:05:48.620 The prime minister has to be of that religion.

01:05:50.840 This is the number of seats this religion gets in the parliament.

01:05:54.220 So everything is viewed through the prism of identity political line.

01:05:57.980 What do you end up with?

01:05:59.100 You end up with the Lebanese civil war.

01:06:01.080 That's what happens in the Balkans.

01:06:02.680 That's what happened in Iraq.

01:06:03.960 So everywhere where you create these tribal factions, they might coexist for a while, but

01:06:11.040 eventually the stressor of this political allegiance to different groups will start causing mayhem

01:06:19.160 in the society.

01:06:19.920 So what worries me the most is that the West is losing the belt of protection that it had

01:06:27.260 because of its very liberating and enlightened values, each of these are now being trashed

01:06:33.880 by all the idea pathogens that I describe in the book.

01:06:36.380 So in 10, 20, 50 years, if we continue along the same lines, we will have a repeat from the

01:06:42.720 Beirut that I escaped in 1975.

01:06:44.460 So you, you, you asked a couple of questions at the beginning, you said, what is the number

01:06:50.580 one reason why a man becomes a, what did you say?

01:06:54.720 Well, the man becomes a children is because he had a stepfather, right?

01:07:00.080 That's the one you're talking about because a stepfather always treats his biological sons,

01:07:04.180 kids different than he does his stepchildren.

01:07:06.880 And he said, the second reason why does a women end up becoming it all because a long-term 1.00

01:07:11.480 relationship with the man that they had in their lives, because men, you know, the jealousy

01:07:15.700 of women cheating on him and fidelity, et cetera, et cetera.

01:07:18.220 Okay.

01:07:18.840 So man, you know, what is the ultimate thing man is willing to fight for?

01:07:25.240 I have my opinions.

01:07:26.600 I've read a lot of books on the topic where you think about, Hey, when you start a new country,

01:07:32.220 what do you need to have in the country to attract the best families to come on board?

01:07:36.160 Okay.

01:07:36.620 You have to think about what a mother thinks about every morning she wakes up, which is what

01:07:40.000 are my kids going to be safe?

01:07:41.480 So number one is security, right?

01:07:42.660 And then, you know, the creativity of man, what does creativity man need?

01:07:46.420 What do you think is the number one thing man is willing to put their lives on the line

01:07:51.300 that eventually they're going to be like, listen, man, you've crossed the line.

01:07:54.800 I'm going to have to fight you for this. 0.99

01:07:56.360 You're going to have to kill me to take this away from you. 0.99

01:07:58.080 What is that one thing for most of us? 0.97

01:07:59.740 So I actually discussed this in chapter one of the parasitic mind, where I'm trying to explain

01:08:04.540 what are the two life ideals that shape every trajectory in my life?

01:08:10.760 And I came up with two, which answer your question.

01:08:14.200 It's truth and freedom, right?

01:08:16.380 You can't pursue truth without freedom.

01:08:18.960 And you can't have freedom if you're constantly murdering truth.

01:08:23.120 So they're kind of, they, they, it's a feedback loop between these two.

01:08:26.680 Now, freedom to me means many different things.

01:08:28.960 It's not just, you know, freedom of speech, which of course is fundamentally the most important,

01:08:33.360 right. But, you know, I tried to look at decisions that I've made in my life that speak to freedom

01:08:39.880 in completely different domains. So let me give you another example. When I used to be a competitive

01:08:44.020 soccer player, I played what's called the playmaker role. In other words, I would float around the

01:08:49.920 field looking for spaces to try to, you know, be creative. Now, if a coach came along and told me

01:08:56.960 today, you're playing more on the left side of midfield, you have to track back and cover.

01:09:01.000 So you are restricting my freedom. I, it's as if you had decapitated my head. I lost all my creative

01:09:07.520 juice. So for me, so to answer your question in a very sort of existential way, the most fundamental

01:09:13.600 thing that people fight for is for freedom, right? I mean, and security is ultimately linked to freedom.

01:09:19.320 If I don't have the freedom to walk outside in New York city without having a stray bullet, kill 0.96

01:09:24.580 me. That's not very good. So freedom is everything. The rest is details. Yeah. I'm kind of with you 0.97

01:09:31.180 there. So right now, if freedom is everything and you are being pushed today, the other day, I, we make

01:09:39.900 a video on our podcast. We talk about an athlete that gave his opinions on a health matter and Hey, whether

01:09:46.420 I want to do this or not a decision, I don't want to take. We wrote it. We read it. What he said

01:09:50.820 that video was flagged. It got a strike channel was shut down for a week and then channel came back a

01:09:57.620 week later. Right. And we haven't had a lot of strikes with our channel. Our channel was clear

01:10:01.280 monetized the whole nine. We followed the rules that they have, but it makes you kind of sit there

01:10:06.240 and you're like, Oh, I don't know if I want to touch this. Just like last week, I was at Rudy Giuliani's

01:10:11.640 place all day. We interviewed him four hours. If the interview goes live, this is going to get

01:10:17.980 millions on top of millions of views because what some of the things he said, my attorneys are saying

01:10:22.620 don't put it up because there's likely if something's going to happen to your channel, if you put up

01:10:27.080 that specific topic, what he said about that thing that he revealed to everybody, that's going to be

01:10:31.880 controversial. Is it good idea that, is it a good idea that we're going in the direction where we have

01:10:36.900 to wake up every morning saying, I don't know, because some people are giving the argument from the

01:10:41.120 other side, well, it's not, you know, fact checking. It's not good. If it's not true, if it's not this

01:10:45.540 and how do you know this? And it's not, it makes people think it gives people ideas. How dangerous is

01:10:50.260 the direction we're going with censorship? I think what the example you gave is exactly the right point

01:10:57.100 to make, because oftentimes what people say is, well, it's not the government that's stopping you. So this

01:11:02.540 has nothing to do with freedom of speech because in their imbecilic myopic way, they think that the 0.99

01:11:08.900 attack on freedom only comes from the government. Well, you just gave an example that had nothing 0.93

01:11:14.080 to do with the government. You have a unbelievably successful YouTube channel. I checked it, 3 million.

01:11:20.360 My God, I only dream of having such a reach. Congratulations. Thank you. You've worked hard.

01:11:25.560 You've done the right things to be an engaging person, to have great guests. Now you have to think

01:11:31.500 twice. Do I want to lose all that? So what will you do? You'll do self-censorship, right?

01:11:35.920 So when the kid in class wants to say something that's positive about Trump, he has to decide,

01:11:43.240 should I say it? In which case the professor might grade me down in my grade. By the way,

01:11:48.980 in The Parasitic Mind, I publish anonymously several bits of letters that I receive from people,

01:11:56.520 from students, from professors, from parents of students, one of which was exactly this case,

01:12:00.680 which is a student had worked on a scientific paper for a while with his supervisor. The supervisor

01:12:06.360 found out that the student had said something mildly positive about Trump. He takes his name

01:12:12.820 off the paper. So this wasn't the government stopping you from speaking. The greatest danger

01:12:18.760 comes from creating a society where we will do the bidding of our attack of freedom of speech.

01:12:25.920 We self-censor, right? Now I happen to be someone who, for better or worse, I'm a honey badger. So

01:12:32.000 I never modulate my, and believe me, I've had, I used to get so many death threats that when I would

01:12:38.900 go to campus, I had to be accompanied by security. The university came with me to the Montreal police

01:12:46.860 to file a report because, and I had to bring a whole dossier with all the death threats. So there are

01:12:51.980 many costs you have to bear, irrespective of whether it's the government that's infringing

01:12:57.380 your freedom of speech. So I really get upset when people say, well, so what if YouTube demonetizes

01:13:02.900 you? That's not the government. That's not an infringement of freedom of speech. Well, no,

01:13:06.280 because the next time that I want to put something on COVID, I'm going to think twice as to whether I'm

01:13:11.300 going to say what I feel or not. So I completely agree with you. What you felt is exactly the type of

01:13:19.520 problem that we need to redress so that we can truly have a free and flourishing society.

01:13:25.480 Here's what I believe in. I believe the bully doesn't win long-term. I believe the bully creates

01:13:30.220 a bigger bully that whoops his ass in ways that it hurts him for many, many years to come. 0.99

01:13:35.440 That's what I believe in. Because, you know, when, when I sit with a lot of investment bankers, 0.99

01:13:43.220 who invest into different companies that I have. Okay. I was with one yesterday in Fort Worth,

01:13:47.200 and they manage around $28 billion, eight billionaires' money, $28 billion, one deal we're

01:13:52.160 doing, they're looking at investing with me. So I sit with them. And 90% of the conversation,

01:13:58.700 I crushed it. 10% of it, I'm like, wow, those questions I didn't have an answer for. I got to

01:14:05.180 work on that, right? Now, 10 years ago, when I sat with guys like this, 10% of it, I crushed it.

01:14:11.460 So I, you know, the other 90%, I had no clue what I was talking about. And it didn't lead to a lot of 0.56

01:14:17.560 business. So you get better over time. But what happens is when you bully, and you only want to

01:14:23.880 impose one way of thinking to an audience who has other ideas, you make their arguments stronger,

01:14:30.860 because they get to pick apart every single one of your argument. And then when they get the voice

01:14:36.240 back, when they get the mic back, that's not a pretty sight when they get the mic back. So I

01:14:41.820 believe that the fighters show up. I believe in the sheepdogs. I believe in the guys that eventually

01:14:47.740 wake up and say, yeah, that's kind of enough of you bullying. Let's kind of really show you who the

01:14:51.740 real bullies are. It's the guys that sit around quietly who bully bullies. And we're very good at

01:14:56.420 it. It's time to give that mic back. And you can still have a mic, but you cannot bully people moving

01:15:00.560 forward. You can give your ideas, but it's no longer being forced on. So I'm optimistic that what

01:15:05.260 happens long term is we're going to be taken care of. Are you in the same belief that that's

01:15:11.420 eventually going to be taking place? I do. So if you're asking me, am I optimistic that we'll be

01:15:15.900 able to address all these problems? I am. Otherwise, I wouldn't wake up in the morning with vigor and with

01:15:20.960 a smile on my face and with hope. You'd be thinking about Shaq when you woke up in the morning.

01:15:24.440 We don't want that. By the way, I love that you mentioned sheepdogs, because we're a family with

01:15:30.400 Belgian shepherds. So I don't know. I mean, you were a military guy. All of the commandos all have

01:15:35.040 Belgian shepherds. But we've had Belgian shepherds before. It was cool to be Belgian shepherds.

01:15:38.800 And let me tell you, I would rather walk into a tough neighborhood with a couple of Belgian 1.00

01:15:43.200 shepherds than with, you know, loaded with guns. I mean, these guys are so fierce. It's unbelievable.

01:15:47.420 But OK, coming back to your question, I am hopeful that there will be an autocorrective process where

01:15:54.400 those who are being bullied are going to rise up. The silent majority will speak out. But here's the

01:15:59.500 problem. We can either solve it today peacefully through dialogue, through the battle of ideas,

01:16:06.220 or we could solve it down the road in a much more violent way. So to go back to critical race theory

01:16:12.480 that you mentioned earlier, you know, people are not going to sit quietly forever as their children

01:16:19.540 are being taught in school that they suffer from dermatological original sin, as I call it,

01:16:26.220 because their skin you is white. Right. So we've we've taken the old racism against black people,

01:16:31.100 which was reprehensible then. And we've cloaked it in the robe of progressivism today, where it is

01:16:37.260 perfectly OK to be unbelievably racist to white children because, you know, bruh, systemic racism.

01:16:44.820 OK, so good, peaceful white people are one day going to wake up and say, I've had enough. Now, 0.97

01:16:52.640 do you want them to wake up peacefully by attending the parent teacher meetings or do you want them to

01:16:58.320 wake up in 40 years and be a lot more violent? The choice is yours. That's why I constantly get

01:17:02.860 engaged because I don't want to see violence. I want to see us defeating those other idiots in the 1.00

01:17:07.600 battle of ideas. Here's the challenge with that, though. The challenge with that is that most people 1.00

01:17:12.740 who are in power believe they will have their power a lot longer than they usually do. They don't

01:17:20.260 realize that you're eventually going to lose your power. It's just it's not permanent. Right.

01:17:24.700 Sonny Francis, who is the father of Michael Francis, a an infamous gangster who just died a year and a

01:17:33.460 half ago at the age of 104. And he goes way back. Sonny Francis feared, feared gangster back in the

01:17:39.560 days. He told his son something once. He said, listen, be very respectful to even the smallest,

01:17:46.840 weakest person today because who's in charge historically changes, who you who reports to

01:17:53.960 you today. One day you may be reporting to them. So just be respectful of everybody, whether they

01:17:58.640 have power, they don't have power. Unfortunately, today, the people of power today don't respect those

01:18:04.540 who don't have the power today. If they did, it'd be a different story. Well, hence the deplorable

01:18:09.740 argument of Hillary Clinton. Right. She thought she was a shoo-in for the presidency. And so she didn't 1.00

01:18:16.280 need to be respectful to those great unwashed rubes. They were deplorable. And then suddenly 1.00

01:18:21.900 it came back to haunt her. Now, rather than her having some humility and say, you know, I actually

01:18:26.980 was a useless candidate who made some serious faux pas. It was Trump. It was the Russians. It was this. 0.98

01:18:32.880 She had no humility to recognize her faults. But it speaks to exactly the point you made.

01:18:37.620 She thought she was guaranteed the power so she could denigrate those that are below her.

01:18:41.880 And, you know, what I like what Twitter did and YouTube and Facebook did is when she started

01:18:46.100 making claims that the election was a fraud when Trump won because of Russia, it was impressive 1.00

01:18:51.080 to see Twitter, YouTube and Facebook deplatform her. It was very impressive when that took place

01:18:56.940 with Hillary Clinton. Obviously, hence the sarcasm that never happened. 0.74

01:19:00.640 I was just thinking, I was trying to think, is he being sarcastic?

01:19:03.940 Because I don't remember her being deep. Well played, Grasshopper. Well played.

01:19:09.960 Well, listen, I got to tell you, 90 minutes went by like it's five minutes. I had a blast with you.

01:19:14.700 This was a lot of fun.

01:19:15.860 You are a fantastic guest.

01:19:17.620 I appreciate you for coming out. And I'm looking forward to the next time. Hopefully next time

01:19:21.720 I'm going to be face to face instead of over Zoom.

01:19:23.660 I look forward to it, brother. Thank you so much for having me on. It was lots of fun.

01:19:26.980 Anytime. And we're going to put the link below. So anybody that wants to go order his book,

01:19:30.400 his link's going to be below. Take care. Take care. Bye, bye, bye.

01:19:33.620 Bye.

01:19:34.060 I got to tell you, this was one of my favorite interviews of all time because we were laughing.

01:19:37.440 We were thinking. We were going, having a banter. You know, I was learning. Hopefully you were

01:19:43.000 learning. It was just an incredible conversation dialogue. Those are my favorite kind of dialogues

01:19:47.380 that we have. And if you enjoyed this interview, there's two other interviews I want you to watch.

01:19:50.580 One of them is with Jordan Peterson, where I interviewed him. This has got to be in front of six or

01:19:56.600 7,000 people at the same event where I interviewed President Bush and Kobe Bryant, the late

01:20:00.280 Kobe Bryant. If you haven't seen that, it's very deep. He gets emotional. And this was right before

01:20:05.680 he left for about a year, year and a half. Haven't seen it. You got to watch this. The other one was

01:20:09.500 with Daniel Lieberman. That was another one that we had a lot of fun left. And we talked about random

01:20:14.660 things. So either one of these, you're going to enjoy. Click on either one to watch. Take care,

01:20:18.520 everybody. Bye-bye.

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