WEBVTT - A Doctor in the House 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:05.720 If you thought more hours a day, minutes a week 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.280 was enough, I think again. He's the last remnants of 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.920 the old republic, the sole fashion of fairness. He treats 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.800 crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the rich 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.240 pill poppers in the penthouse, to clearinghouse of hot takes, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.120 break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:30.240 Maller starts right now in the air everywhere. We are 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.479 back at it again. The weekend is here on a 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.040 Friday as we kick off festivities here the Fifth Hour. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.080 If you're new to the show, if some new people listening, 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:44.280 I understand, especially today that probably not normally listeners, that 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.559 this is a spinoff of the Overnight show. We do 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.080 five nights a week, the Ben Mather Show, and it 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:55.080 is only in the podcast format, and unlike the shackles 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.800 of overnight sports talk radio, we can go anywhere, right, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.640 we had the whole landscape that we can go any 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.480 place we want on this podcast. And we do this 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:10.480 eight days a week. Podcast drop on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.199 only available on the podcast format, not broadcast on commercial radio. 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.120 And we are joined again by West of the four 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:24.640 oh five David Gascon with his own sound effects. Here 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:32.160 is this is this is gonna be extra spicy hot today. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.919 I am preparing for the negative feedback that we're probably 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:40.720 gonna get, but I I'm okay with that. Excited. So 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.800 we've we've actually had our our guests on deck for 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.680 about two months and um, so obviously scheduling and whatnot 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.440 needed to come into one and it finally did. And uh, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.160 I'm excited about it, especially because of the time that 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.560 we're in right now and also with the dead period 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.840 of the national from a football league. UM, I'm gigged 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.760 up about it. Yeah, So every Friday we try to 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:08.720 have someone on. You know, we've had a lot of 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.240 radio friends on that have come in here and hung 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.000 out with us. Sports radio guys are colleagues at Fox 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.519 Sports Radio. We've had in here. We had a comedian 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.720 last week. We've had an eclectic group of people that 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.320 have come in. We've had former athletes and now we 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.600 can add from the world of academia and not often, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.560 you know, I'm just a dumb sports guy that I 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.600 get to talk to somebody who's educated and worldly into 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.360 all of that. But I am excited here now before 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:39.799 we welcome in who we're going to chat with. I 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.079 must put the standard disclaim around. If you are easily 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:50.360 triggered by a commentary about society and wokeness and cancel 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.160 culture and that type of thing, I get it. If 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.640 you can't handle a pushback against that, this would not 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.640 be the podcast for you if you're closed minded. But 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:01.640 if you're willing to listen in here and you wanna 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:03.440 you want to hear what this man has to say, 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:04.799 we're gonna talk to you here in a second. And 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.280 it's a perfect podcast because it really resonates with a 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.600 lot of the things we've been battling in the sporting world, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.760 right with the wokeness, the woke mcwoke as we'd like 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.640 to call it in these parts, and social media, with 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.079 the what's real and what's not real, Like it's all 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:21.880 tied together. So we're gonna get into as much of 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.880 that as we can. And the person who is joining 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.880 us today a well respected figure on on social media. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.920 He's been teaching, he's he's tenure. Dr goad Sad is 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.080 his name. He is the author of The Parasitic Mind, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.720 How Infectious Ideas Are Killing a Common sense? But he 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:48.680 is a Lebanese Canadian and a very public intellectual. He 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.280 is the Professor of Marketing at the John Molson School 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:58.160 of Business at Montreal's Concordia University. He has spent time 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.600 at several other institute over the years. I guess gun 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.960 and I'm looking forward to chatting with Dr. Dr said 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.200 here and getting into a number of different things. Yes, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.280 I have. Do you have any friends their Lebanese? I 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:14.400 had when I was When I was younger, there were 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.000 a few kids in school, but I currently not my 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.360 circle of friends. I don't know I have one. I 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:25.120 went to a small Catholic elementary school in my hometown, 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.680 San Pedro, and the rival school which is called Mary Star. 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.680 I played up against a guy like flag football as 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.200 a kid. But this this kid, who was like eleven 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.200 or twelve at the time, looked like a full grown man, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:42.520 just built like a box, had a receding hairline, sideburns, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.880 and the mustache. And I thought, man, this guy, there's 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.840 no way this dude is is my age. And then 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.960 we graduated elementary school, we turned into the same high 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.440 school and we became really good friends. And we called 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:56.080 him the Moose. His name is Maurice, but we call 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:00.400 him the Moose. Um, he showed me a fascinating scar 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.280 when we got to learn about him and obviously his family, 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.160 and he showed me his stomach and he's got like 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.960 washboard six board abs and a scar in the middle 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.760 of his stomach. And I said, Moose, what's that scar from? 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.839 And he said it's a it's from surgery. I said, 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.520 from one. He said, there's a bullet lodged next to 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.680 my spine and the doctors couldn't get it out. He 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.760 was shot as a kid in Lebanon, and his parents 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.880 obviously fleet Lebanon, I think when he was like three 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.479 or four years of age and came to the Nited States. Um, 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.839 his parents have gone back on several occasions. But obviously 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.360 it's it's extremely dangerous. But the Moose is the one 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.880 friend that I had it's Lebanese and still have. And 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.480 he's a great guy. And uh, he's personable, he's charismatic, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:50.080 and he's just like the docks. So, um, yeah, I'm 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.640 I'm excited to have the dock in the house. Yeah. 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.800 He's got a YouTube channel, The Sad truth S a 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:00.240 a d hundreds of thousands of followers on there. He's 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.640 very popular on Twitter as well. And he's done some 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.760 big podcasts, Like he's really coming down. I mean, he's 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.400 he's hanging out in the mud with the common people 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.520 here because he's been on Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin, 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.239 who we've had on Jordan Peterson. These are some big, 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.720 major figures in the podcast world, and he's done all 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.320 those shows and he's he's coming to our level here, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.800 which is cool. And he's in a different for him 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:29.000 because he's taking shots from everybody. But then as much 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.000 incoming fire as he gets, he throws it right back, 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.920 especially at some of the celebrities, some of the athletes. Um, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.680 he's not afraid of spar at all. All right, well, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.719 let's get into it. We welcome in now to the 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.560 Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and David Gascon Dr Gad 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.280 Sad from Montreal joining us. And before we get into 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.440 the nuts and bolts of this doc, I did read 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.320 that you spent some time at you see, Irvine. I 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.080 grew up in Irvine, so I feel like we have 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.360 a bond there. What was your experience in southern California? 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.840 Oh boy, well, listen, uh, I lived in California for 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.960 a few years, as you said, as a visiting professor 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.000 at U C Irvine. But I but my my relationship 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:16.040 with Southern California goes back to because one of my 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.600 brothers had moved to California, I think in eighty four, 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.680 and so in eighty five was the first summer that 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.200 I hung out in so called at the time, he 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.800 lived in Manhattan Beach. So he moved from first Manhattan Beach, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.920 then he moved to a place called Via Ledo and 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.000 Newport Beach, and then he moved to Laguna Beach. And 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.440 so Southern California has been, you know, sort of a 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.800 second home to me since the mid eighties. But yeah, 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:45.080 I mean, my experience is that I'm desperate to return 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.040 to live there permanently, and somehow I haven't found a 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.360 way to make it out there on a permanent basis. 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:53.640 We gotta get you back. Somebody should hire you, bab. 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:55.080 I don't. I don't know how that works in the 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.080 academic world that you are in, but you know, somebody 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.080 shouldn't me really, And so you are the professor of 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.520 marketing at the your professor marketing at John Molson's School 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.600 of Business in Montreal and Cordia University there, and you're 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:17.120 domain I guess that I was reading about psychological evolutionary 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.760 psychology rather as applied to business. So for the person 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.200 that's never heard of you, get, how would you describe 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.280 what you do day to day? Right? So I mean 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.320 I wear you mean specifically in my scientific career or 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.400 across all differents, just just in jenif for the layman 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.319 who maybe has you know heard about you? And you 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.600 I know you've been a lot of podcasts and you've 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.000 got a lot of media and stuff. But but for 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.280 those that haven't heard of who you are, what exactly 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.320 is your work? Yeah? So scientifically, what what I do 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:52.239 is I uh, marry if you'd like evolutionary biology, consumer 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.920 psychology well as relevant in the business school. So basically 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.199 what I look at are the fundamental biologic call drivers 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.640 that make us the consumers that we are. And so 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.520 how do our hormones affect our behavior? What happens to 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.760 Ben and David to their testosterone levels? If I put 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.240 you in a Porsche? What happens to Ben and David's 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.800 testosterone levels? If you see another guy, a competitor in 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.480 a Porsche, And as I'm sure you can predict, you 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.080 can you could probably guess what will happen to your testosterons. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.280 In those two scenarios, I look at things like, how 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.600 do women's ovulatory cycles, which is of course shaped by 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.640 their own hormones, how that affects how they beautify themselves 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.640 across the menstrual cycle. So I look at the biological 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:43.880 physiological drivers of consumer behavior. Now that's really quite novel 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.080 in the context of the business school, because until I 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.280 came along and pioneered the field of evolutionary consumption, no 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.600 one was ever applying biology to study who we are 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:59.240 as managers, as employers, as employees, as you know, personnel, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.600 as financial traitors, which struck me as insane, right, I mean, 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.760 we don't suddenly lose our biological heritage when we put 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.199 on our hats as boss or as employee, or as 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.160 consumer and so over the much of my career, what 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.520 I've been trying to do is what I call Darwinized 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:19.280 the business school. So that's my scientific work. Now, I 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.320 also am someone who's not a stay in here lane professor. 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.160 In other words, I like to mix it up, and 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.800 so very early in my career I decided that I 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.959 also wanted to engage with the public. I didn't want 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.960 to just publish, you know, for fellow academics and fellow scientists, 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.680 and so I weigh in on all sorts of issues, 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:38.920 some of which are relevant to my scientific work and 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.520 others that are not. So I'm really someone who likes 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.400 to wear multiple hats and I love that. And in 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.000 this climate though, and and I know you're in Canada, 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:51.239 but in this climate in general, Like, how how difficult 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.800 has this been for you? Because you don't, you know, 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:55.720 keep your mouth shut on some things where a lot 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:57.840 of other people don't say anything, You're actually putting your 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.200 neck out there. So, uh, how what is this last 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.199 couple of years been like for you? It's very tough because, 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:12.320 as you correctly pointed, uh, academia is probably the place 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:17.040 that is most you know, paracitized by political bias. I mean, 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.000 it's where all of the what I call idea pathogens 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.600 in my latest book, they all originate from academia. And 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.920 so it's tough because you know, if you know, if 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.160 being someone who is outspoken in Hollywood is stuff, or 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.960 being someone who's outspoken in the media stuff, then you 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.880 really don't want to be outspoken the way that I 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.520 am in academia. Now that's one of the reasons, by 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:40.880 the way, why tenure is so important. I mean, not, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.040 by the way, not that just because I have tenure, 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.400 I I haven't suffered a lot because I have and 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:49.040 I can share some stories. But you know, one of 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.719 the values of having tenure is precisely because it hopefully 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.080 allows people who have the courage to speak out to 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.479 do so, because people can't just fire you on a whim. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.040 I mean about what happened to Socrates when he was 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.880 executed in ancient Greece. Think about what happened to Galileo 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.600 when he was placed under house arrest during the Inquisition, 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.480 and so so having tenure affords me some protection, but 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.360 it doesn't protect me from the thirty three trillion death 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.679 threats that I received. It doesn't protect me from a 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.120 university in southern California who was desperately keen on hiring me, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.760 but then upon some professors not liking the idea, they 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.600 completely derailed the process. So I still bear many costs 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:38.400 in speaking out, but at least tenure affords me some protection. Yeah, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.320 it's it's crazy times that we live in it, but 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.080 it seems like all these things that we're going through 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:45.720 as you as you know, because you work in that 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.120 world academia, Like this, a lot of this started in academia, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.480 Like who who's the driving force behind this? Like I 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.720 I'm trying to wrap my mind around a lot of 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.439 things I just shake my head at that have been 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.760 going on the last couple of years. But it's you 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.680 know who, who's who's pulling the strings on this? Yeah. 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:10.679 So I often joke, although I'm actually being very truthful 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.120 in what I'm saying, it that it takes academics and 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:18.000 intellectuals to come up with some of the dumbest ideas. Uh. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.840 And so you're exactly right that all of these dreadful 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.920 ideas all stem from academia. For example, I'll give you one, 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:27.440 and if you want to do more, we can we 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.880 can cover other ones. Uh. Post Modernism is the idea 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.679 that there are no objective truths. We are completely shackled 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.880 by our subjectivity, by by our personal biases, by you know, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.160 my relativity. You know, what's relatively true for you might 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.520 be different for me. Well, that's a dreadfully bad idea 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.080 because scientists wake up every morning under the working assumption 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.679 that there are you know, natural phenomena that we can 0:13:54.720 --> 0:14:00.280 investigate as an evolutionary psychologist, I obviously study a haired 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.160 human nature. There are things that make the Peruvian consumer 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.720 and the Nigerian consumer and the Japanese consumer similar to 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:09.600 each other precisely because they have a shared biological heritage. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.480 So postmodernism is in a sense what I call intellectual terrorism, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.120 because it rejects the idea that there's anything as a 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.040 fundamental objective truth. Now, the ones who come up with 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.920 these kind of you know, imbecilic ideas, they don't suffer 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.960 the consequences of their stupidity. Right. So, for example, one 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.440 of the reasons why you don't have many of these 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.400 dumb ideas in the business school where I where I reside, 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.480 or say an engineering school, is because you can't build 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:40.720 bridges using postmodernist physics. It doesn't exist. You can't you 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.800 can't build a mathematical model to understand consumer choice using 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:49.280 postmodernist mathematics. And so this is why my discipline has 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.960 been less parasitized by this kind of stupidity. But in 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:55.360 other disciplines and the humanities and the social sciences, it's 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.720 literally nonsense. Like if you walk in as a lay 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.000 person and see some of the stuff that your children 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.800 type be taught. You wouldn't believe that this is actually 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.600 being taught, right, I mean I received emails guys from adults. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.120 You know, A fifty year old person will write to 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.240 me and say, you know, dear Dr said, I hope 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.360 you don't mind if I ask you a question. I 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.040 just want to know. I mean, is it still acceptable 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.880 to say that only women uh menstruate? Or is that 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.280 no longer biologically acceptable? So the fact that a fifty 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.040 year old person in the twenty one century has to 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.320 contact me because he has lost the confidence to know 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.080 whether it's only women who menstruate or whether it's people 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.400 who menstruate, tells you how far down the abyss of 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.080 lunacy we've gotten. Doc, speaking of that lunacy and getting 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.840 into this with you, you had mentioned that obviously things 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.160 have been going onward the intellectuals and some don't don't 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.359 have that kind of repercussion that other individuals do. Um, 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.720 where did we turn where we couldn't question things we 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.320 can process, or at least to process information. But it 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:04.720 seems like more more now in the day and age, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.440 that we can't question anything anymore. Why is that? Well? 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.840 It really again starts, I mean, and I hate to 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.120 keep you know, putting the blame on universities, because of 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.480 course universities are also the purveyors of of great enrichment 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.480 at great knowledge and so on. But it really starts 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.680 in the universities where the reflex in the universities has 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:28.400 been to truly create sterile echo chambers when it comes 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.880 to you know, uh, idea diversities right, and here i'd 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.360 I'd love to if I could take a minue or 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.120 two to analogize from something from evolutionary medicine. So on, 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.960 evolutionary medicine. Uh. There is this concept known as the 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.960 hygiene hypothesis. The idea being that, for example, if you 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.720 want to raise children who are not going to suffer 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.840 from asthma, you should raise them in an environment where 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.720 they are exposed to allergens you know, pettander for example, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:00.480 because their immune system will then develop a the proper 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.600 immunological response to allergens. So your immune system expects to 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.879 be triggered by allergens, otherwise you will end up having 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.560 respiratory ailments if you grow up in a sterile environment. Well, 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.240 this brilliant neuropsychiatrist then and I discussed this in the 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:23.760 book He analogized this concept too. You know, ideological echo chambers. Right, 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.000 Our brains, I argued in the book, have evolved to 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.800 be exposed to allergens. In this case, allergens are opposing ideas. Right, 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.200 I become a better debater if I learned what is 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.320 your opposing idea? Are our big brains expect to be challenged? 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.919 And yet what we've done over the past forty fifty 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:47.040 sixty years is create perfectly uniform echo chambers and universities. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:49.720 And the way I demonstrate in the Parasitic Mind is 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:55.640 I just site studies that showed the breakdown of democrat 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:02.359 versus Republican political affiliations of professors, and it is absolutely insane. 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.439 In some fields, it's in the order of, you know, 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.520 forty four to zero, you know, a hundred to one. 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.840 So how could you then have well trained young adults 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.760 go into the world when they are truly, absolutely being 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.560 exposed to only one side of two issues. It's grotesque 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.720 and that's what I fight again. So on that note, then, doc, 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.560 why because you are active on social media then and 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.880 I have seen as much, um, why take shots at 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.720 some of the celebrities and athletes in our domain that 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.959 feel like they're above reproach because in a sense, it's 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.639 almost like a no win situation, right where they're not 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.360 gonna acknowledge what you are saying as a retort even 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.840 though you are correct. So why do that? Right? So 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:54.960 because they've got gigantic platforms, and and and by the way, 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.199 I get asked that many times, why do someone you know, 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:02.200 like you, with your credentials worry about what Sarah Silverman says? 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.160 Or well, because Sarah Silverman has, you know, twenty five 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.840 times my platform, Lebron James has I don't know how 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.840 many times my platforms. So in other words, uh, you know, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.880 any syllable that Lebron James utters, regrettably will carry more 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.360 weight than the hundred top intellectuals put together. So by 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:24.840 sometimes going to their platform and challenging them, I'm recognizing, 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:28.919 as a good professor of marketing that I sometimes have 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.360 to take the message to where the consumers are, right. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.120 I mean, if I only speak to my high salute 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.480 and high grow I've rey towered dwelling colleagues in the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.320 ivy leagues, I might convince them, but that's twenty five people, right, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.920 But if I go to Lebron James thirty million people 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.879 or however many, and I can get one percent of 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.800 them to rethink their position. From an impact perspective, I've 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.679 been quite impactful. So I'm not so haughty and so 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.119 elitist as to think that I am above communicating with everyone. 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.320 That's why I stimes I'll engage someone on social media 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.479 has two followers. Most of my colleagues with never you know, 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.800 stooped to communicating with the great unwashed. And that's why 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.000 I call myself the professor of the people. Well, with 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.280 the marketing aspect, then, doc, do you feel like our 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.840 society is dumber or smarter because of social media? I 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.040 mean it's a two edged sword because on the one hand, 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.840 of course, uh, social media allows for the rapid velocity, 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:27.919 you know, spread of information, right. I mean I can 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.119 get on Joe Rogan and then he could tweet something 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.280 and I could have more impact based on that tweet 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.720 than I could in writing academic papers. So on the 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:42.320 one hand, of course, social media affords us unbelievable opportunities 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.919 to spread messages. But of course the other side of 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.600 the coin is that it allows all sorts of you know, uh, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.639 enemies of reason to also proliferate their message. So I 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.160 guess the question is are you a good enough consumer 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.360 of information to know which information is the vertical one 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.080 and which is the yes one? And that's why I 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.440 always keep fighting at the Battle of ideas, because I 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.000 always get so upset when I see garbage being espoused 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.600 by all sorts of people. Yeah, and dog and following 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.000 up on that, you know, we are on social media 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.560 obviously all the time. Everyone is in our the media 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.320 business that I work in, and how much of it 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.280 is real? I've I've taken the position it's kind of 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.320 like the matrix, right that you know, you don't know 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.159 what's real and what's fake, and there's a lot of 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:31.159 bots and algorithms and all that, and it's it's really like, 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.919 as you you deal with the human reaction to you know, 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.640 business and products and whatnot. Isn't this a form of 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.919 mind manipulation in many ways at the same time because 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:43.919 you really don't know, as you said, you don't know 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.200 what's real, what's not, and who's trying to pull your chain? Yeah? 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:52.159 Absolutely listen. Uh A kind of a related note, I 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:57.040 realized that via my use of satire. So for your 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.119 listeners who may or may not know this. Why the 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.240 many tools of persuasion that I use is, you know, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.760 I'm very very heavy on satire and sarcasm, right and irony, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:12.840 and so oftentimes I rejoice in having a major media 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.600 outlet not realized that I was being sarcastic and then 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.919 share my stuff thinking that I actually meant what I 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.480 said when I was actually being perfectly sarcastic, and as 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:25.960 as I guess, you guys know that that's very much posed. Well, 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.879 a few years ago, I can't remember who it was, 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.359 maybe it was PJ Media, and one of these major 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:36.840 outlets had put out the top ten dumbest quotes of 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.600 the year, and I think I had landed at number five, 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.240 or I can't remember that of the whole year. They 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:48.960 didn't realize that I was aping all of the progressive platitudes. 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.000 I was being sarcastic, and of course, once they realized that, 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:56.119 they very quietly removed my quote. But I rejoiced in 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:00.199 being able to to to fool all of these embestoles, because, uh, 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.600 it demonstrates what kind of lunatic world we live in. 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.040 I loved your your video the other day about you 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.280 know what's going Obviously you're very tight and you grew 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:10.520 up in the Middle East, and and what's been going 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:12.159 on in the last couple of weeks there and you 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:17.040 issued an apology of video which was that was a 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:22.560