#708 - Bryan Caplan - Is Feminism Changing For The Worse?
01:15:29 Share

Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My gusto day is brian caplin. He's an economist, a George Mason university and an author. Brian went a letter to his Young daughter encouraging her to not become a feminist.

Which begs the question, why would a father not want this? In what ways a woman being taken advantage of by an ideology, and how might brian be wrong? Expect to learn what tradeoffs feminism is making at the moment, and why the dangerous, why feminism does not like traditionally feminine roles, why there is so much as a lack of individual agency in the modern world where recent trend of demonizing, having children came from, why more people should not confirm how to think for yourself, and much more. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome brian cabin.

What is feminism in your opinion? Great question.

I don't want to say what IT is in my opining. What I want to say, rather, is how do we actually use the word? Anyone can just make up a new definition.

What I really wanted to think about was let's listen other people and see what definition fitch actual usage. And the definition that I offer is this one, feminism is the view that our society gently treats men more fairly than women. Feminism is the view that our society gently treats men more fairly than women.

If you look at official definitions, they will say things like it's just the view that many of women should be treated equally. What I point out of my essays, we've got public opinion data where we asked a whole lot of people, and guess what, almost everyone who says they're not a feminist still thinks that men and women should repeat ated equally. So that cannot possibly be the actual definition. It's more of an argumentative definition like calling your newspaper truth. And then then if someone disagrees with the ucl, you're against truth.

right? Okay, so it's a lexicon brazilian judge to yes, right? I understand why you're not a fan of IT. You wrote a book for a tendinous daughter could not be a feminist .

that is correct. Mean honestly, just comes down to the importance, is that really true that our society generally treat men more fair than women? What I did in that S A just go over all of the main complaints the people have to this effect and tried to see.

Does the evidence really hold up? I begin by saying, look, you can't just say that someone treated unfairly because the performance is unequal by that standard. I've been treated unfairly by the olympics because I don't have any medals.

What you really need to do is to go and compare someone's performance to the treatment area and the treatment they're gotten to the performance. I hear an economist, the natural thing to start with is with earnings inquiry success. There's been a lot of work on this. And the standard unch shine is it's very easy to explain these gender gap in career success by differences in things like the number of hours that many women work, the majors that they select in college, just the unpleasant ss of the jobs.

So if we go through some fairly standard differences and and of course, as well as just your priorities in life, is the job the top priority life or the other things that you're balancing? And when you put all that together, you can very easily disagree, explain almost all of the difference learnings between man and women. So that's one that I talk about quite a bit. Then I also go over things like complaints about in equities in dating, right? This is where I point out there is a very strong tendency among feminists to go and compare the average woman to the most successful men, which is not really a sensible comparison.

What are they been Carrying?

Body count? no. Do you think you know things more like you? How good is dramatic life for the very successful men versus the very most successful women? right? So you compare like the lives of a hollywood actor to holly's actress and say, now the holy wood actors have a Better I. No, there's no female. No, no, no actress is likely in order .

cabrio just going .

to going to the I see, of course, also in jobs are saying, like a certain percentage of the ceos are met, are larger than fifty percent percent CEO are men. And what I say is, look, if we're going to do that, we need to compare both the top and the bottom. And there, again, there is overwhelming evidence that men are overrepresented at the bottom as well as the top.

There are much more likely to be in prison, much more likely been suicide, much more likely to be homeless, much more likely to be in cells. We've never been on a date. So you put all this together, it's like it's not in any sense that men in general are treated more fairly than women in general. Rather, what we have is that there is a greater spread, which yet, if anything, based upon Normal ideas of insurance, the group that has the smaller spread is the advantage group.

What you mean when he says smallest spread and biggest read.

well, you for things like you are less likely to be far from average.

So for example, a high spread would be a group that as a lot of billionaire and a lot of homeless people, men, a low spread would be a group that has fewer billionaire and fewer homeless people, which would be women, right? Or similarly, you could go and look at the top of achievement and say, mor, over represented in nobel Prices in being best selling authors, right? Like in being famous composers that all throws as well while read IT.

How about we go and take a look to see whether man are also over represented among homeless, among suicides, among the unemployed? You know, long also, and would see you actually last was a little more complicated. But the other ones are all sod examples where we can see way to second that looks like manner actually on of those measures. They are over represented among those doing worst.

I'm gonna guess that if he did a gini gene coefficient for men, you would have chair inequality on pick whatever out committees that you want, life span, health span, happiness, mental IQ, income, body counts. So body counts probably .

the main exception, because there are prostitutes who just have enormous numbers of partners. They probably increase the inequality for women, like all of the other ones. I think very good. And by the way, you just what i'm doing is what I think everyone should be doing on these issues, which is not just going as saying I have a philosophy and IT applies all cases like let's think about the individual facts of the individual cases and maybe your theory of work eight times at attend someone who thinks the theory works a thousand times out of a thousand like, yeah, that doesn't sound like anything that happens to any actual theory about human behavior. It's more like someone who's so doug, matic and fanatical and their sense of their own on omission that all facts get twisted to fit the theory.

Why is IT the case in your opinion then that feminism is still such a pervasive cultural meme? If your assessment of IT is correct, which is that the lack of fairness doesn't seem to be affecting women in the way that is proposed.

right? That is a great question. I mean, the your wording makes this sounds sort of like feminism is on the decline but is still lingering.

Resides sites, probably least near its all time peak turns. What's going on here is my story. Think there's actually very general human tendency to care more about female well being and especially female suffering.

I don't think that this is unique to the moderate to western countries. Think that you can read almost anything written by human beings, almost any period, and you'll see this norm. You can go and read ancient books like the bible. And if you want to show that someone's really bad, you show them in murdering women. The same thing in pathology.

This is just a general human attitude that murdering man is like, well, you know, maybe had a coming, but murdering women, that is something that IT is to say i've deeply rooted feeling in human nature that this is especially horrible. What I think is happened in the modern world is that we start with these very standard human feelings that I think are indeed deeply rooted in human nature and evolution. And then IT becomes philosophy.

And once he makes something philosophy, then you take an attitude which can be balancing in other attitudes, or think is be hypocrisy. And IT doesn't get that bad as he gets implemented, but he wants to begin to philosophe. There's a demand for consistency. And once if there is demand for consistency, then you start overruling everything else that actually comes down on the other side and also treating doubt and questions as sin. And that is, I think, what really explains the success of feminism is that IT qualifies human feelings that have always been around, but nevertheless have been inconsistently and hyppolito ally before, which my view is, given that the philosopher is wrong, hypocras y and inconsistency is an improvement over consistency and h and single minded devotion.

Yeah I it's an interesting point. I certainly agree, based on all of the data that i've seen, plus just my intuitive sense of myself, people seem to have an awful a lot more sympathy for women falling behind, despite the fact that men, on average, seem to be falling further behind this studies that have been done. People will donate way more if they find out that this is an all women's shelter than if it's in .

all men's shelter. New women are wonderful effect.

yes, of new stories that uh proclaim the successes of women seem to be treated more favorably than ones that proclaimed the successes of men as this gamma buyers, the doctor john barriers identified.

which you may be familiar when there there's ever stories about successful men and unless it's like a homeless guy getting a job but it's very hard to picture these these stories are I can't yeah so .

two two things that I think you're interesting here. First one being I don't disagree that if you were to find out that women have been murder through out history you would have got, oh my god, like this is an abortion where is sort of male mortality is just a by product of existence that being said, women being sexually assaulted by some warring tribe.

You I I learned about um the cultural history of how relationships have evolved from a sort of culturally memetic standpoint and women have basically been property theyve been property of their kin. They've been property of their family. They've been property of their husbands for a very long time.

So I would agree that out on the extremes for women there are is treated as indaba ation. But there's certainly a lot of this treatment which is just being far it's a easy, it's a oozy. It's a whether new tribe taking over the old one. So the summer again, it's the not one thousand times out of a thousand thing.

right? Mean there, I would point out that the usual story is we first murder all the men and then we insulate the women, which is terrible, but still like, well, which which one would you rather be? No, i'd rather be in slave.

They murdered probably in slave.

yes. Does that? There is a little bit of that, although this also because there are suicide opportunity to, in case IT turns to be worse, definitely my preferences and slave me first and then I will be looking for my way out of that turned out to be more horrible than death itself yeah mean, on the question of the legal treatment of women, in, of course, that a lot of most of this is in the premodern period where we just don't have a lot of good data.

I mean, there is the legal doctrine where I think that at least often you are correct, although even there is a little complicated things like under roman law, fathers is legal in tighter to murder any of children regardless of of their gender. Now once you wear that, it's like, well, but they weren't actually doing IT like yeah I think that's true. I think that is extremely unusual that as Darwin predict, for someone to murder their own children, even when it's totally illegal.

But then I think you do have to look at or watch. The fact of the matter is IT really true that in a society where women were legally considered to be the property, the father, that he, that fathers actually did often dispose their daughters as if they were sheep, or rather is IT like the, rather were the Normal human beings, where, whatever the law says, your daughter says, I don't want to marry an daddy, and he's like, why I couldn't possibly say no as he was crying. I think that, again, there are human universal. And while there are course cruel people who will do terrible things, that the law allows IT much more common for the hute emotions that we take for granted today to have always existed.

And I always winning, the emotion of of winning and complaining.

Yeah, mean, you think that started after the pair? Like because the law change. I like like because people about people always been doing these kinds of things.

And again, just the way that if you read the literature of earlier period, you'll see that you does not see like women are living in fear of their fathers going and doing things to them because yeah, evolution. Fathers love their children. They love their daughters.

They love their sons. And then on on top of this is, this is very basic human feeling that women suffering is especially important. So you like, my favorite example of this that I mentioned was the Hillary clinton quote about how women are the biggest losers in war because they lose father and sense, just like, yeah, don't the fathers and sons lose more because they're dead? yeah.

Why this are? Are you familiar with gama buyers? Have you heard .

this before? See, maybe under IT is IT like like not caring much about the lowest satish people or what is IT. It's specifically men.

So doctor john barry center for male psychology came up. But this is really interesting insight once you see and see IT um if there is a story which is to female IT will sex the person if it's pro male will d sex IT if it's anti male will sex the person if it's anti female IT will d sexy yes.

so you end up with called the gamer.

Don't know you'd have to ask him he's been on the show and I pretty sure I did. I feel like there's other biases that come before IT and this this happens to be that because it's in order. And sure, anyway.

that makes perfect sense.

Suffin stance Sarah averardo d was this Young woman walking through a pop in the U. K. SHE was killed by a male police officer.

Absolutely terrible, right? And there was a lot of protests about women don't feel feel safe in these streets. There was a flash point for for sort of sex relations.

One week later, a man drowned jumping into the river attempts to save a woman who had done in the story essentially wasn't covered. And when I was covered, his sex wasn't revealed. IT was a london jumped in to save person from drowning, a woman from drowning, or something like that. So you do get this, you but OK. I mean, what would be, in your opinion, IT IT sounds like at least part of the problem, feminism has a branding problem, right, that it's coming in with the awful a lot of baggage memetics culturally what, given the fact that there are still causes that women need to have support for, even in the modern world. What would be your proposal for a santis ed new version of something that could talk about women .

issues mean, honestly, I think I would say that step wanted us to get the facts and find out whether is even true that women are doing especially badly. And if that is the opposite is true, then, well, seems like we should be focused on men.

But you, what is that? You can pat your head and rubber a stomach. At the same time, there will be certain areas in which we would want to focus. For instance, uh, I know that you ve got some views on circumcision. I think I like pretty much with your views on that.

Like that's a very particular wing of male disadvantage, right? I'm looking at is a way that we can get women to become mothers and then get them back into the workforce. So I like a very specific element of this. So would you try and make everything quite sort of desperate and have, okay, we're going to have a employment for mother's department. Am I gonna have a we need, did not circumcise our children department that pack your head .

and with your belly. Thing is quite striking because, of course, a lot of people can do that. What I would say is that there's always priorities. And any time you say that my issue is super important, you are implicated actually saying that the other issues are let at least I should go and get some of the attention that other issues are getting. Usually you're little hazy about what issues you want to do emphasize.

But the I do think that there are actually good reasons once you realized that the problem is not a big deal, not to go and emphasize IT and not to go and prioritize IT. You've probably heard of effective ultra ism. It's this idea that philanthropy should be based upon, first of all, how biggest the problem. Second of all, how much we do about IT and what the actual payoff. So I would say that would be the general guide.

I think I do think that not focusing on gender is at least a good presumption, because IT is the kind of thing that promotes the two negative emotions that I morning my daughter about in the sa, which, first of all, antipathy of just being angry, a bunch of other people who really are not responsible, our least to most of them are not, and then self pity of just feeling like a victim. So I say, like, you don't want to have a philosophy that encourage us and type of yourself pty. Human nature already naturally does way too much.

Both of these IT is Better to go and try to free yourself of antipathy and self pity than IT is to Foster them or create whole philosophe that justifies them. Honestly, I think that there are a number of major issues that the view that there is a problem is just false. So like the gender pay gap, I just think that IT is false to say that women are being mistreated by labor markets.

So the best thing would be if there is, first of all, a recognition, this fact. Second, evolving apology for making a lot of false sacred stations. And then we we're just done with that.

We move on to labor. Markets are actually very fair. People are getting paid based upon the performance. If you have different preferences, the market lets you satisfy those. Be grateful and stop the complaining.

If you say, well, I personally and being mystere ted like, well, then that's mostly like the world. Life is not perfect, fair, but is not the issue primarily of even or the ever of being a woman is just that lives unfair, right? So you would deal with .

that on a case by and say anything.

of course, of an individual session m being treated unfairly. My Normal advice is like, is the person you're dealing with that all open a reason? It's like, you know, if they were, where are you talked to?

Bit like probably need to get away for that person. I always unless there's some other more little person about that person that's open raising. But this is just like practical guidance for living life. You can't expect that other people are going to be fair, you overall and you need to be, on the one hand, looking out for yourself, but also not creating a big story about how life is not fair to you or to your kind. When the evidence isn't back that up.

what do you think are the trade, ffs, that feminism is making at the moment? Because what is IT? IT seems to me like women aren't necessarily benefiting from feminism in the way that they might think. But are they being hurt by IT?

That's a good question. I mean, and in a way at all is sort of reinforces my point that we especially care about women suffering the arguments against feminism, the most acceptable of the ones where we say it's actually hurting women, right?

Those are the ones, oh my god, that is the anti in terms .

of what's going on. So I think at the individual level, the main issue is just promoting negative attitudes of antipathy and self petty. What I tell my daughter is like, he is just not true that men in general are out to get you or won't like you.

Your my advice is, if you want to do well in the world, go and make as many friends as you can, especially friends with people that in a position to go and help you. I'd end the way that you make friends is by being friendly to them and being not having and having a positive, constructive attitude. So when I say, like antipathy gets in the way of that, antipathy just makes you default out.

This person is going to treat me badly. This person is going to be unreasonable, unfair. So there's sad and the same thing with the self pity.

Like you, like you, self pity is really bacon to human nature. Like you never need to encourage IT. There's so much so that for me, I don't have the latest iphone that's totally human nature to feel that way.

So like really what you need to focus on is everything you've got all your opportunities, be grateful for what you have. And this is the attitude of of a person that is going to be successful. So here are, those are the main issues in terms of the individual woman.

I say that there is the other big effect of just mistreating men and which and is not going at least wait, mistreating men who cares about them like that's the attitude that I saying is a terrible attitude. It's bad to be unjust. A man you should not be done just to anyone.

The fact their men doesn't mean that it's OK and that whatever happens to them too bad like this is the payback for two thousand years of them is treating us as little. Was that true either? So there is that into beating in term in terms of a sorted like collective harm and is there is a lot of work on things like discrimination of saying that if people are worry, they are going to sue them.

This is a reason for them, them in the higher in the first place. I think that there's definitely something going on there and it's something to consider. Terms of weather is just confirmation law in general benefits. Women, though, on baLance, it's still night, but it's a benefit that is based upon deepen justice.

wow. okay. yeah. So at the widespread latitudes, nature of women, especially being super vigilant for potential mistreatment in the workplace, could cause some employers to look at a woman and think h SHE looks like she's got a good solicitor that's not high her in case something occurs down the line. I mean, I know what I mean.

This is probably one of the best examples where I think that is true, that women were hurt by me too. Specifically is there is a couple paper showing that mentorship crashed after me too. And that is obviously beneficial women to go and get extra training from someone.

But strikingly, the main feminist response to this was, we will not tolerate this reaction, will like IT is totally ridiculous to go and penalised us because of this irrational fear that you might get sued and where that we just need to go and tell men that this is not acceptable. And yeah, well, this is situation where of their going to totally agree and then probably keep doing what is not hide you in hiring is is one where it's formal and so is easier to litigate. But mentorship is informal and anything informal is very hard litigate unless you're going to have a system that just convict people on an accusation, which I think is a lot of what feminists want to do.

So what i'm feeling here .

is on on average, of course.

there I emphatic everything is on average, the average. What i'm feeling here is an echo. I am sensing the equivalency on the male side of the spectrum. I'm sure you've seen movements like the black pill movement um inside ideology stuff like that have a number of friends are very deep into the research with this. And I do think that there's way less massage ini in these groups.

And you might think the actual most massages etic men at the ultra high performing chats, not the ones that are the sort of a forgotten monster energy marinated in cells. But there is an awful lot of self pity. There is an awful lot of antipathy within these groups toward the opposite sex. So this isn't necessarily A A feminist quite. This is a natural human response that can then be kind of perpetuated and spun up once you get into a group that has an out gree.

Yes, absolutely. So I have been actually doing comparing contrast reading insel of the insel Vicky and then I think the FM geek wicky. There's a lot of similarity between them. I mean, I noticed that an arguing feminist, they often say, brian, you're just repeating in cell talking points.

And no, I am I am saying some things that they say that are true while not actually adopting the whole philosophy, which I agree is a very destructive one of antipodean self beauty. What I would say is that the inserts that you so despise, they really are the myriad of you. And I think of myself as being someone who's just tried to fairly arbitrate between two unreasonable groups um and you know anything of course to go and say that women on baLance are not treated less fairly. The men does not mean that there aren't any specific female complaints that are sure. Of course there are um but also there are some specific male complaint to their true and and then only only goes is like the more you read than the more you realize well, look, people just need to tolerate some level of unfairness in society because otherwise people barely be able to breathe yeah and that goes both ways .

to remember a Scott aronson's description of his experience, probably about fifty years old now, maybe ten years old. Something like that blog post. Could you explain for the people who are not familiar with this? And then Scott Alexander entitled blog post after that, could you give, I think, this really instructive?

Yes, for the record. So I am good friends was got home and I hung up with them a lot in texas, but I also have read the pieces, so I will claim to have some inside knowledge of the situation, although filter through his perspective. But I trust you got but trust for scots, but I especially trust got arson.

Who I know well personally was. So Scott anson did a piece for his blog title, optimize, where he, and this is barely even a cricketer of IT. He said, look at ninety eight percent agree with feminism like i'm so on board, I care so much, but I just want to say one thing, which is that when I was a teenager I was almost suicide dal.

Or really, I was suicidal because I read a lot of feminist writing and I just felt like any thought I heard about women was wrong. Any attempt go and talk to them, any attempt to go and just have some desperate, hopeless, hopeless effort to go and find a girlfriend was wrong, thought that anything that I might do or say would be harassment. And the eventually learn Better.

But anyway, would be nice if in the fighting, actual and justice against women, you could just go and show a little bit of sympathy, a little little bit of understand for shy mae nurse like myself, especially when they are Young and they just don't have much experience and they don't understand what's going on. And then the famous reaction to this was genuine historical, calling him a rapist, store incipit ent. Rapist entitle, yes, entitled.

And like, you think that you have a right to sex. And like, he didn't say any of those things here. Rather what he said is you, I pledge ninety eight percent and you ninety eight percent of what you say is through and I just have a few slight and you just be a little bit nicer the that's IT and from actually really like like that the reaction was so just in absurd and insane.

And IT is the one where you just look at that, you say, like, you know, this is like called affinity tics is talking about. I did get a chance to actually to tell Scott, like, do that really make you rethink that whole ninety eight percent thing? I'm not going to repeat, got answer, but I definitely did hassle about that.

Say, how about we go down more to like five percent from ninety eight? Could we do that? look.

So he's the thing that I think is the inevitable pingpong game that occurs happening. And I saw this with milli arney, who came on the podcast reason he wrote book called the two parent privilege, how amErica stopped getting married and started falling behind something like that. SHE is a policy.

Wk, from washington, D. C. And I tried in the episode to push her beyond just what is the data telling us to? What is the implication and maybe even what is the cause of this? I want to give me the mechanism.

Why is IT the case? What is happening developmentally amongst the children? And SHE was very tentative, right? Know she's written this big book about things, but SHE very much kind of defined the rules of play of where SHE wasn't to get out over her skis with regards to this.

And I was that's like I I wish that he had just brow science to wait through stuff because it's funny. But what he did was SHE decided i'm gonna hold myself within this sort of, uh, within my rum of expertise. I like that's a pretty good indication of somebody detecting in good faith with a lot of but like i'm trying to be really, really accurate with what they say.

Since she's released, SHE has been slammed online. absolutely. And what i've seen, although I don't think that this going to happen to her, i've seen somebody who is probably on a political compass test center left, certainly somebody who wrote a book to try to reduce inequality between class groups, right? This is exactly exacerbating the precise inequality that we don't want to have happen, and so on. As so often IT was written as fast as I can see with a good amount of compassion.

But i'm seeing the exact mechanism by which many people become radicalized to one side or another side of some sort of oil because they think, well, I mean, if I guess the only people that are rather going to listen to me about the world that I have about the justified or sometimes unjustified antithetic yourself, pity that I got, well, I i'm gonna go with the group that is me accepts me. I'm not onna. Keep on, you know, trying to work is ninety eight percent of my entire world going toward you group that says that you despise me. And i'm an entitled more on itself.

something like that.

So rapist I rapist very a rapist .

in his heart is like straight out of the new testament original thing .

so yeah just my point being you know I see here um especially the antipathy IT creates this ever escalating eating cycle right that spins up and up and up and people become a more violent in the this taste and the lack of ability to see the other side issue. And this is how you have you know two groups of people largely just talking past each other I mean.

I only think about it's got Alexander calls the great tribe and this is the which he admits it's still a tribe, but is a tribe with different norms and Better norms that trying to not actually fall into being either of the either the blue tribe or the red tribe, as we call them. Confusingly, here in the us, up with every other country, the world, red equals laugh. But somehow in the U. S, red.

equally in the wrong way round. yes.

B, and then blue, I don't know what if of .

the road that you drive on.

you got IT running around. Yes, but where I think for at least close, the only country that has this color me but but anyway, yeah, so that you makes like a lot of sense in the year ingredient ing. And then in the other god arenson reaction to this was just a write, a peace, defend or receives me.

The Scott Alexander reaction was right to peace, sending up for Scott and son and saying, yes, like there is this group of shy mile nerds who want to talk to women. They are not very good at IT doesn't mean that they have any horrible any anything, any horrible plans of like they're usually very nice people. It's just that they don't really know how to talk to women. The only way to learn is to try IT and not be very good at you at first. So can you go and cut them some as lack think is totally reasonable point.

You had an idea about why we all get accused of being pick pockets of that, right?

This was specifically a reference to the humiliation of Mandatory training that happens here at universities. A lot. So seeking, I like, imagine if there was some kind of Mandatory pick pocket training where they bring all the workers and they say, pick pocketing is wrong, don't pick pocket others.

Pick pocketing others means reaching into their pockets about permission and taking their stuff and then keeping IT. Don't be a pic pocket, right? And like, okay. Um why you telling me this though like I know all this already, this is all quite obvious and and yet to me this is very much what most sensitivity training is like what most of the training about you know like internet security is like they're telling you a bunch of totally obvious stuff and and why well, a lot of IT is really just seems to be humility you to say, look, we are going to talk you like children and you have to sit there and suck IT up to flock. Some of IT is for legal purposes where they get sued.

They can say we told them not to do this right, as if the main reason people pick pocket is that they don't they no one ever told them not to do IT or they don't understand what would constitute IT. Although another part of IT is ritching up the definition so that almost anything counts. Pick pocketing where it's like what you looked at, what was in someone s pok without their concept.

That's a kind of pick pocket. So that's also what's going on. And once you have your training set up, they do often will start having higher and higher standards.

Now I say this is to go make fun various straining that you'll see, especially on college campuses, about sexual assen. So like, I don't sleep with their students. Oh, I don't know.

We are exposed to do that. Oh, thank you. Like, come on like we all know this. I know the reason why people are doing IT isn't because they aren't aware the rules.

The reason they're doing IT is because they don't like the rules and the rules are stopping. They were knew and they want. So what if IT really an issue of something was really confusing, be a different story. So may be actually the internet security, at least you might think that that's more complicated. Although honestly, having gone through internet security training, i'll say that the stuff training on is so basic because honestly, they need to make a test that can be passed by the lowest I Q person in the organization and therefore they can't really be hard because otherwise they have to fire people .

over fAiling the light test training over OMG. So one of the things that were both fans of is uh agency trying to give people a sense of personal agency, individual sovereign IT seems to me and I hadn't thought of these two words before, but that seems like antipathy and pity are yeah self pity in the pity for antipathy itself are probably about is close to solve for agency as possible like IT will dissolve your ability to feel like an agent's individual oh yeah.

that's a great point. I mean, yeah because like the one I like to tell people is imagine a person who has the absolute maximum reason to feel until at the inself pity, like someone who was stabbed in the back and paralyzed and they know the person who did IT, you know, like you, I don't know, was like your your x wife stabbing the back now your paralus from the neck down for the rest of life. So you have every reason to hate this person.

Every reason feels sorry yourself. And the question is, if you wanted to help this person, would you go to them and say, be full of antiethical, be full of self beauty? Course not. You'll be trying to go and come up with some story to make them feel Better. Like, okay, I would like I understand why you would be overwhelmed with titling self pity, but you've got to get past that because if you're going to have any enjoyment out of life, if you're going to be able to salvage any part of what you're hoping for, you're gonna have to go and focus on what you can do and what you can have now. And just being angry at the woman who did this to you and feeling sorry for for poor you, though, completely justifies totally unconstructive.

What would you say then, given that we have an incredibly broad number of people who are willowed in a low agency existence, what's your prescription? Uh, philosophically or tactically or strategically forgetting someone from antipathy and self pity into agency.

The movie, what about bob? Actually, the lead psychologist in IT has a book called baby steps about how someone who has problems needs to give up on the idea of solving them all over night. Instead, just try to take small little steps and improvement.

The l the character is remote worthy in the movie, but I think it's totally sensible if a person is having trouble with life. Don't say fix everything overnight to say, right, let's take some small steps and move from there. So that's what I would be in by doing mean, in terms of philosophy, I say that philological, it's easier to go and just realized philosopher is wrong than to get rid of all the neck negativity that the philosopher is inspired.

You you're just the very fact that you decide incorrect. Is that mean you won't they will stop feeling bad about the things that first we taught you to feel bad about? But still, I would, I would say, I, well, just next time that you are feeling bad about this, remember what? There's a philosophy that originally got me feeling bad about this. The philosopher is wrong. So now we try to go, and we think the situation from a different point of you, I would say that as well, mean also honestly, I would just say don't hang out well, like another good baby step is hanging out more with people who who do not feel so much sensible, the in self pity, so that your new peer group is encouraging you to improve instead .

of holding you back. Yeah I think the story that you tell yourself about why you're feeling bad and what does that mean that I feel bad and what is the story that I tell myself about that this kind of recursive uh, narrative game that you play with yourself probably counts for A A big chunk of the discontent and the pain that you feel, right? Yeah, have the situation.

But then you have these layers of guilt and shame and double and self a steam or lack that off that you lay or on top. And I think that is where the philosophical world view you comes in. Quite importantly, like, is this happening to me? Did I get to choose this? You know, there's a study which i'm sure you've seen about two rats are in a wheels, one rat runs, and when IT runs, the other rat has to run.

The one rat that runs gets all of the benefits from exercise, and the rat that has to run gets all of the downsides from stress. The point being the being able to take your sense of control, your locals of control, being internal, is a very, very large part of of life. And mean .

was interesting about that to me, is that I actually have a moderate locus control, because I just think it's true that luck is important in life. I so I realized that I would probably be psychological Better for me to have the false belief that there's no luck. But I just think that such an instance view that are not going to so blind myself to the fact, well, you kind of get lucky making this friend at that .

right that time and it's you by .

your own rationality yeah so I can also look, you're just be really cautious about the things that you can change. Focus on those. You don't need to tell yourself a big lie in order to motivate yourself to say, look, there's a lot of stuff, this in my power, and i'm going to do that stuff.

This is, remind me, one of my favorite movies. I hope this isn't giving giving away and spoiled ers. But it's so scare that I just doubt that anyone would watch IT anyway.

But it's called the upside of anger and the basic plot. And have you ever seen have you seen IT by any chance? No, the basic plot is that there is a dad of you.

There's a family, mom and dad. I think it's four daughters. And the dad runs off the secretary and just disappears and abandon the entire family.

And the mom becomes a terrible, enraging alcohol like, and he just hate the world. He's so mad. And then there's the interaction to her and the daughters on and on.

And then at the end of the movie, they discover that IT is not true. The father ran away or abandon them. The father just fell into a ditch and died.

And and he had, and nothing to do with the secretary, anything else. And then you just realize, wow, you learn, in fact. And then you suddenly realize all these, these, this anger that I had is just wrong, just predicated on a totally false story. The world, in watching the move, you can almost instantly see people saying, like, I don't feel angry more because my anger was based upon a story that is false. Now I don't think that just abandoning a whole philosopher of life is going to make IT quite as easy to feel good as that one very particular sense of the trail. But so you like really in the story is very psychological, credible, that the anger just gets replace with a sense of horrible guilt, that how could I have so wrongly judged this person who actually was loyal to his family the whole time and had an accidents?

So I swear this makes sense in my mind. Let's see if that makes sense in public. I went to dinner with R, F, K jr.

About three months ago when he was in Austin. There was bunch of different people, a lot of interesting people. Uh, one of them was tim Kennedy is a Green berry.

You might know he lives in aun. He does sort of um self defense thing called cheap dog response. Tim Kennedy was open Carrying as he does because that that is of thanks.

Say you say tim Kennedy. yes. So so way to see. Is he also a Kennedy .

actually different different Kennedy?

O I I was getting reviews.

by the way, great. And unrelated .

to the Kennedy family.

precisely correctly, all of R, F, K, junior security was outside. He had some staff in with him, but IT was a lady P, R person and maybe an assistant of some kind and some other stuff. He had no security inside tones outside, right? But no security inside.

And I would remember looking at the gun on tim's hip and thinking if he pulled that gone out now and shot R F. During the head, his entire career would be gone back over with a tooth comb to work out exactly the moment when he became a russian sleep agent. Oh, IT.

Was that U. F. C. Fight that they did in abide by when secretly the saudi prince met him back stage.

And that was when they had changed him. And every podcasts is ever done would be reanalyses ed, bit by bit. He did the series called finding hitler, searching for hitler.

Whatever the reason he did that was to get into argentina, because that what i've got, I want to realized, was like individual actions can. Cause retroactively for the entire story to be recharged. And it's almost like the same as what you're talking about, right, that his entire life would have been looked at in a different manner.

So yeah totally see how that the case. One of the things, I guess, to just round out this sort of agency pot that I think would be interesting to find out from you, as if somebody is or somebody has a friend that is struggling with the self pity and the antipathy and the externalized locals of control over the externalize locals of control. What have you found anything that is a good south for that, that can kind of start to give people a little bit of perspective, that you can enact change in your life.

There are things that you can do. This isn't just happening to you. Is there anything philosophically that you find yourself relying on if you end up getting too close to antipathy and self pity?

I think much more often about how to make people feel happier their lives and how to raise their locals control. I so in Normally, but I tell them is, look, the most important cause of human happiness or unhappiness is whether you're spending a lot of time with people's company. Enjoy now that itself comes out of look as a control like well, I am with I am stuck with people's company.

I don't enjoy. You're not really stuck with them like you may say, you're stock with them, but you could go and try you like you go through your mental rolodex of people who already know there some people that you like more that you don't spend much time with. And could you try to spend more time with them, some people that you like less, and you could just turn down the dial abit.

You don't need to start purging your grandma because he is a big mouth. You could just see her half as often as. But I would think of that as actually self. You have eventually touching them as a control because you're are telling them to go and take you take actions in order to go and and make themselves happier.

So I guess I would probably start there in terms of just saying looking to focus on things you can do that will improve your life and things that you can do don't focus on what you can do. Think that's all totally reasonable. I mean, I recently did two really popular post. One on advice for men on finding their soulmate than the one advice women on finding their soulmate. I think if you go through a lot of IT is basically saying like you exert more locus control so they like me, unlike there's a lot of things you can do and these are some of the easiest this steps you can take in order to make what you want to happen happen but yeah, you just sit there are saying, like poor me, then nothing's going to happen of course no. At least almost certainly you could just wait to be saved someone said, oh, i'm going to save .

you what were the important differences between men finding their soulmate and women finding their soulmate?

Let's see. Good one. Think for both groups. I said, put less weight on physical attraction.

This, I think for men, I said, is especially important for them to put less weight on that. And IT look, just consider this thought experiment. Imagine you're married a super model, but he is a terrible personality.

How do you feel about your life? Like everyone's, they are terrible. Mean, I even said, imagine you start dying a supermodel, but he is a terrible personality.

How long is IT take before you are miserable? And yeah like three weeks. So are right. Well, I think you are degree with my point is just a matter of exerting the self control to focus on personality overlooks, which I think you know both gender do IT, but it's especially bad for men. See for in for both gender.

I was telling them things like you figure out these top priorities and then just downward e everything else, we flexibility, everything else for women. I did have this advice of just go older. So like just go five or ten years older, especially because a very common complaint for women is men my age or so we mature, all right? Well, they don't have to be erratic.

They could be five years old. And you could go and find an immature guy and then help to change him and he'll turn out and become mature guy. But a lot of guys never become mature.

If you get a note guy, you can say, well, as you mature already no. In that case, no. And if he is great, I don't have to speculate about his future maturity because it's is already there.

Now someone says, like I can't possibly do that. It's too gross. Just like all what's the most you're going to do?

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, i'd see an awful lot of the an awful lot of the complaints from a women who are strugling to find man that they think is sufficiently mature at the age. And you see this in IT, IT seems to be tied up in the data that there is a significantly bigger portion of eighteen to thirty men who are single than eight to thirty women who are single. So I think women, i've already largely cotten on to this. Again, IT fixes the total girl problem of women out earning menus, who economically, because age is one of the biggest predictors of wealth, and if wealth is something you need to offer, all right, give him a seven year head start and there is is out ahead of you.

Yeah, I think like another big difference. I said, well, so for men I said, like you just have to get to get over your lack of confidence and ask so that's important anybody about for women, what I said is like it's true that you don't have to ask and order get dates, but you still do need to ask to get the guy you want. I I like G, M.

For women just to get a little bit more flexible on being willing to go and ask. And I think for them, I said, look, if you just feel tongue, ed, like especially the woman just telling you that you've seen promising, oh my god, like I hate you now like you told me, I see promising you like like it's it's on the one hand and like IT is far from throwing yourself at a guy. But same time, I think IT is unambiguous.

The guy also have mentioned like the of the sense of it's always obvious what the other person wants, so there's no need for me to tell them there's always obvious what I want, rather is no need to tell them like just forget that nonsense. People are not mind readers. We have, like we so greatly overnight, other people's ability to read us because we are always thinking what we're thinking, but we never get inside. Anyone else has had I know the idea that everyone secretly knows what that is you're thinking and they're just playing dumb.

Especially if you're talking about the opposite sex, especially if you're talking about the opposite sex, we have no idea how the inside of your mind works. Yeah, I I had I would .

get some idea. But yeah.

advice I was throwing around for a while about receptivity from women. So a lot of women still have. They feel like there is an additional lowering and status s if they make the first move.

But does this story, you've have heard of dropping a handkerchief that the ladies would have done in the sort of renison period, and the aristocracy would drop a handkerchief, the gentlemen would pick IT up, and that would be the beginning of the conversation. Like the modern equivalent of that is a gaze that link is a little bit too long. Also, women need to kind of adjust the sites of whatever that shooting with to account for me too.

And men's concerned that they are going to make a woman feel uncomfortable. So is an awful lot of moving, moving, moving parts here. One of the other things that I quite .

enjoy before you move on. So one of my big piece of vice of my daughter is never be afraid to play the, i'm not one of those feminist cards. We men, yes OK so, and yes, this is one word. Of course I yell.

I knew a lot of people who would get get an angry about IT I to look, i'm not saying to go and denounce women or otherwise saying, look, just put people at is if someone is nervous IT is common sense and ratigan wise just to go and smile and to say, it's all cool. Don't worry, i'm a decent person. I don't prejudge you as being bad. And I think that the i'm not one of those feminist cards is one of the best ones for women to play IT really does distinguish you from women that men just feel like they have to walk on, excuse around to one where they will talk to you for they I just great for work, great for dating, great for that for actually making friends I think the only thing is holding people back is loyalty to this physical ho dogma.

Why do you think there's been a demonization of having children over the last few years? IT feels like this is kind of tied into a lot of feminist metairie h and medicine. Tres is going on. We've seen the decline in fatlings rates. What what do you things going on with this demonization of specifically having kids?

I think that the demonization comes from a very narrow corner of mostly the internet. The real story is not so much demonization, is just apathy and disinterest. IT is true. There is a demonization corner.

My Younger son read, read its all the time and he's saying, okay, dad, like right, the child free people, they're not that bad but the anti needless st, they're crazy the enos, the people who post videos of kids getting trapped by horses and stuff like that and like, right but I am familiar philosopher lantana alem. I mean, that really does seem to heavily flow from the work of south african philosophy d. benette.

And he came up with this argument that, to buy my mind is truly bizarre. You know, like he has a number of arguments, but the hard core argument comes down to, no one can sense to be born because they can't, because they don't exist yet. And any everyone who exists will experience sum suffering.

And even if that suffering is overwhelmingly out outweighed by by joy, still like IT is wrong to ever inflict suffering on anyone without their consent. And therefore it's always wrong of kids. right? In this argument has persuaded a strAngely large number of people to my mind, my reply to this is, so this implies the good, smart is evil because you can't like, how do you know that unconscious guy doesn't want to die?

You're going in administering first day to a man he was beaten in essential sss. But how do you know that he doesn't want to just lead out? So like, well, there is this fills over a dockery called hypothetical consent, which Normally is bogus because we can just ask you whether you can send.

But IT has customer for cases where, like, well, he would probably consent to you was conscious, but he can't simply would probably consent to be born or to be conceived if you could, but you can't, but it's reasonable to resume IT. Then there is, I brought our category of people to think that life is worth living, a epic ious answer this two thousand five hundred years ago when IT is reply is consisted in, well, we're increase ed, there's clifts don't like to jump off. I have gotten, I got a threatning email from my university's mental health office for promoting suicide for saying stuff like this.

It's like, i'm not you even understand what your university is about. It's about thinking about things like if that counts is promoting suicide to say epic, I said something and IT and its good argument. I don't know what you're doing on university capus.

but I I familiar with benatar one of my friends is podcasting with them all be IT when he didn't have a screen on because he's still large on a whatever.

But he's no his philosophy so no .

one knows his face.

I don't think he teaches at a university and I was face.

I don't know if he teaches under his real name. I don't know whether that's a sudden .

I might be wrong. And so even if we even if .

we step ourselves a little bit away from the hard core, a anti atlit philosophers, again, you could maybe call IT a, uh, generalized anti children culture, right? And this is more toward the ambiguity that you mentioned about having kids, this hyper individualism. What do you think that comes from?

Hm, I mean, I think feminism definitely have something to do with IT, especially the idea that any woman that thinks that ring kids should be the first priority as an adult is just stupid and foolish and sort of being a dormant to the patriarchy.

I mean, just writing to me that if they were a girl today in especially suburban high school, who said, I just want to be A M, I think that that, like the outcry against that, would be overwhelmed, not because they hate the idea of having kids, but because they elevate the idea of having fear as being the most important thing in life, and kid as being an optional thing. And I would think these are two at both, two extremely important things in life. And yeah, is a trade off. Of course, as a homeschooling dad who actually did all the night shifts for all of my kids, I can say I probably would have one or two more books if I did no kids, but I chose to be less successful as a professor so that I could go and have kids because that was more important to me and still is.

Oh, so there's a big, there's a big memetic element going on here with regards to children.

So know that that's totally true. I think that is a separate point. But yes, too large to grow. And so I mean, the leads medal in term terms of imitating other people, there's a information element, the fact that we have baby boom and bus, a lot of IT seems to be that child yelling like the the number of children that you want to have is based fairly heavily upon just what's Normal in your culture or subculture.

This of that one major factor going on, which means you can sort to get a multiply, you can get a multiply effect where if women, women there, they say women are focusing more in their careers that has a direct effect, reducing fertility. But I also was the indirect effect is now Normal to have you were kids, which then means that even people are not focused on the careers, want to go and fit in. I have worked quite a bit with the actual data, fertility, and especially dislike, but I think both accomplished and desire fertility.

And what's you're so like, two big lessons that I like to trump IT. So one is, at least in american data IT, is that IT is not true that income by itself, least low fertility. In fact, in combine self as higher fertility, really, what's going on is that education leads to low fertility.

And so and if you raise education against income, you see, education reduces fatlings, income increases IT. And the basic web shot of this is that the most further people are high income of education groups like cypher, MERS. And on the other hand, the least farlow groups are high education, low income like, say, philosopher who drive a taxi, right? So that and once you put in this way, you realized him.

So IT isn't really the material element. It's more of the social element of education. If we actually were teaching kids in school, things like babies are, babies are growth.

Babies are terrible. David Bennett has the right argument. I don't know of any school that really does that. It's more of you just teach people other priorities as being overwhelming importance. And then just like with problems, if you talk about one problem all the time, you are implicated saying other problems don't matter. If you talk about only one life goal is being important all the time, you're implicity saying other life goals don't matter.

The other result that I think is very well, i'd see it's not surprising, but it's really we're saying because it's kind of think people ouldn't want to say without data, but I do have the data. It's that women's education, women's income are much more important for determining the outcomes than the man's education income for both gender. It's got the same direction, but basically looks very much like women's preferences are a lot more important for the outcome, which comes down to something like you women have an actual definite opinion about how many kids they want to have men or more along for the ride.

And like you want, have three kids, great. One, have one kids, great. It's not quite that men don't have any preference at all and don't bargain and or don't select, but IT really is more of the of the kind of decision that women women dominate and within the family is how many kids are we going to have.

right?

So to say, in terms of getting fertility up, you got to change women's minds. That's more important.

Generally, a high income man married to a medium, low education woman might be able to get this moving a little bit.

Oh yeah, I mediately you. By the way, I also, in my advice for a women, I say, like you find out my kids they want early, maybe not the first day, but say by the third date, like it's important thing .

to know yeah yeah. The social desirability bias is something that I learned from you that you said is the most underrated effect in all of psychology. And I I can't can't stop seeing IT. No good. I explain that to people that unfamiliar.

simple idea, when the truth sounds bad, people lie, and often the truth will the truth said sufficiently. And frequently people stop even being conscious about lying. Really mundane examples or things like in my fat is only one acceptable answer to that.

Oh, brand great are wonderful. You're beautiful. That is the way you are.

We can see this in lots different areas. You can see the things like church attendance. More people clam they went to church than actually went to church.

More people claim to vote than actually vote. One of my favorite examples of all is there's actually a study of, first of all, U. S.

People, would you aboard down syndrome? And only about like, I think like twenty, twenty five percent of people say they say they would but then we see what what happens me actually that situation. And then is more ninety percent right now. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that people were truly lying, but they were just blurring out what sounds do good without thinking about IT and tell they need to actually make a decision and then suddenly it's no longer just words i've go home, my god, like I don't want to do that stated .

and revealed preference as a hell of a drink or yes.

that's quite right now. I have ve a lot of applications of this, some beginning as Mandan as the the strange language of one to come to my party on saturday. Oh, I can't.

Will you be in a cage? Will you be in the middle siberia? Unable to get to a plane in time? What do you mean you can't? And the answers, right? Fine, I don't want to is the truth I say I can to know because that sounds Better, even though IT is actually .

really yes.

I .

will.

Yes I why not? Because I don't with because I have some other things to do that would be Better than that for me. And what is that like sitting no watching TV that's Better ah in the answer.

But then I say there are many years of life where social tables bias has become silent. Ellington, it's almost the only thing going on. So I encourage people as to go, and first of all, read any particle speech by political they don't like, and just go through the sentences one by one.

And silk, could this possibly be literally for them? And I think you'll find, well, like the politicians I don't like, or lying all the time when put the fact goes and says trump lies like seventy percent of the time, like now ninety nine point nine percent is the correct number because you just read the sentence will be sentence will be things like we're doing everything possible for this. No, you aren't.

If you're doing everything possible there, you spend zero on anything else, right? So no, wrong, false. And obviously so therefore a is that .

not part of just the imprecision of language in the fact that when we speak, there is a degree of like windsor that kind comes along for the ride?

Interesting question. Yeah many people say, right well, everybody knows it's not meant to be literally true. I say actually it's the kind of thing I think that like politicians are playing on the ambiguity of maybe it's literally true. Maybe it's not.

If they say this is an existing til risk, that's putin story about what they have to do in video is an, is existent al risk cormoran, right? And just like now, what like when people hear this is everyone role is everywhere. Supporters saying, well, obviously not really existent al, but so like you saying that to get people's attention or there are a whole lot of people who are actually believing IT, just like it's the truth from god's mouth.

And I think actually in politics, there's a lot of people who are just taking IT very navely and and so I do you think this is a problem? I think that it's not merely that you have to double the redirect to get the same result that you would have gotten if everyone spoke honestly. Think rather, there are just a lot of things that government does that people were honest just wouldn't exist like like a people on doing code where to say look, rather than saying, look, we're doing this to keep people safe, fake said we're doing this in order reduce the number of fatalities from one billion to nine hundred fifty thousand. Think there just be a lot less support for the measures. If if you were that honest about IT.

if what that fundamentally comes down to is IT useful or is that true, right? There are things that you can say that are useful, things that are true, that become less useful, and you go OK. Well, what's the point of this communication? Is IT to communicate the truth.

or is IT to get the intended outcome? Yes, although soon as someone starts doing that, that is like useful for who? Useful for you to get power and hold IT. I wonder if that something politicians care about, as opposed to getting the best overall result for society, doing careful cost benefit and analysis after collecting the best .

possible things we can, even that though all the way down still ends up with lexicon semantic fucker y and you just.

it's remark .

the lexicon semantic fucker y, you heard to have us. Because what people then start to do is they make lives of omission rather than lies of commission. They purposefully obfuscate, not using words that allow them to be held up. It's what happens in law courts is is so and so .

for I didn't say get through .

necessarily not the case that possibly the game of applausive liability. So I think this is kind of the equivalent of the justification for performance enhancing drugs to legitimized olympics. I think just let let the gloves come off and lie as much as you want. Don't ever hold anybody to any account and just let IT become a neurolinguistic programme soup and just see who can make the best lies all the way down and let's see .

who wins then yeah, I confessed some slides so like emotional sympathy. But I think that if you just look at the world in the sea, like, you know, the very worst governments in the world are, they have the biggest line demagogues. Part of this all says, because one of these are almost always dictators, the dictators who just get away with bigger lies.

Yeah, yeah. So you like there there are just so many fund applications, social service ability bias. One of my favorites actually is understanding what is the pointer propaganda. I'm a huge orwell fan. And if you read or well, IT sounds like the whole point of propaganda is just to tell you, is basically to obscure the action of the actual truth and actually to crush the truth. Or, you know, you don't know something, I probe gan a censorship, rather censorship.

So so you read all about sounds like globe and censorship is that the government wants to crush the truth because they know that in the contest between the truth and a lie, the life will be defeated. And so they have to go and imprison anyone, anyone who speaks the truth. Nice story. But here's the thing.

If you go and look at dictatorships, say that they spend a lot more time crushing other lives than they do crushing in the truth that you got a sadi arabia a they're not that worried about the easy as saying, like how do we know that the korean is even true? They're much more worried about a mula saying, you, a law does not ordained the house of sad or law ordained me. Those are the people that put fear into the hearts of a middle eastern islam's tyred because that person is saying a competing lie. So the title is, as stadium monopolize the pretty lies sensor shape, say, only I get to tell ridiculous lies. Anyone who says any other lies, I will kill you.

I'd certainly think I remember rob henderson writing something about the goal of propaganda is not to control what you think, it's to convince you of what other people think. So it's basically a game of you will threw the aben paradox, and through memetic desire and through social desirability, bias and so on, you will end up doing what you think other people think. So the goal is not actually to change your mind, it's to change your mind about what you think of the people are thinking.

Probably both. That is a good point.

Yeah, you know, the able .

paradox sounds really familiar.

but really good. Learned, I learned IT last week.

I where everybody like the canes beauty contest, you gure out with other people will think, however other people think is the most beautiful person.

Two, two degree. Yet the ability paradox is a situation in which a group makes a decision, that is, country to the desires of the group's members, because each member assumes the others approve of IT. That explains how a number of accurate individuals can be comedians.

So when they get together, think emperors new clothes and equate, invite you to his wedding despite not wanting you there because he thinks you want to attend. You attend despite not wanting to because you think he wants you there. At a business meeting, someone suggest an idea of the making, the influence of the face of the brand or trans influence. So each member has misgivings about this, but assumes that the others will consider them transfer, because if they speak out so ever to prove the idea, despite no one liking IT or basically .

all of north korea. Yes, right? I strongly expect that you've i've got five or ten percent relievers in north korea at least. yes. I think the I mean, I also have no doubt that if you open the border, south korea, a large ensure of the population would leave very quickly.

Yeah, yeah, you have this other tweet that I loved from a wild o dear intellectuals, if you ever decide you've been deeply wrong for years, don't instantly rebrand yourself as a wise spokesperson for your new view. Instead, publicly admit that your judgment clearly isn't very good, and stop pontificating for a few years. Why.

yes, is inspired by a few particular people who remain nameless, who did this bizarre transformation from. I started off as the world's expert on this view, and now that view is totally wrong and stupid on the expert. On the other view, like all if, is totally wrong and stupid.

And what does that say about the fact that you held IT for ten years? I mean, I just think that you get it's well, it's logical possible that a person could just see through the areas and become incredibly thoughtful about a new view. I just think that is highly unlikely. And this is more of someone has either fame or money or both on the line and therefore, they can't actually goes through this honest period of condition where they just say you like. I could be that wrong.

What what would be a hypothetical example of someone doing this?

I mean, one of my favorite ones is all of the rabbit downers who deconstruct and then quickly claim to be the leading spokesman for anti communism. This is a big deal in the forty and fifties a wicker chAmbers comes to mind is one example. See who are sydney hook? Let's see, there's a bunch of other ones.

Let's see, think maxi sin as well. And basically I like the like he was a ross kiss. But anyway, actually they they spend like years going and acting like jose's Steven is save your banking and then is like, oh, but turns out to use a horrible mass murder or wise.

Okay, now i'm going to go and tell everybody of how to be an anticommunist st. I mean, the one end, like if you have specific things you've have observed, then fine, say, like I actually saw the killing fields. So listen to me, I was but but on the other end to say, but now on the expert on how anti communism should work now, I think we should probably listen the people who never thought that was a good idea.

And I mean, I will say that I I especially have IT out for riders or chAmbers who wrote a totally unfair review of iran's at the shrug. Hear someone who who hated communism from her teenage years when he first encountered IT, never had a good word to say about IT. I think that a lot of encyclical things to say about a horrible IT was and then with ter, her chAmbers has the nerve to call her a fascist in his review for national review. Like like that guy like you know you just want to say, you know you like there's a reason became a stolen which is that you don't have a correct attitude about how to think about ideas and how to treat other human beings.

Um it's at the sort of performative empathy or I get social desirability by a sort of wrapped up in A A world where your your words are more important than your deeds, which they certainly are now but they are basically at any distance, right? Because we can't see what you're doing but we can read what you wrote or hear what you share.

Um and yeah this has got spin up so much more recently where you see a lizer, you know is supposed to be this champion for bigger body women. But IT turns out that she's fat shaming all of her dances back stage and making the meat. But on is out of the vaginas of amsterdam strippers elen. To generous.

I have no knowledge of any of this. So i'll take your word for IT.

I promise you it's true. I promise you this videos out. And yet my point being, that is often the people that proclaimed loudest about the thing that are the ones that are the worst, 嗯， people committing that that particular misgiving.

right? This reminds me a couple of other esses I have. I have one called joke.

Could such a man care? And IT just starts with, are you going to hear the official official speeches of kim jhn gon or major? And it's all about how such a great, compassionate person I love the people of the poor on a champion and at the current stage in their career, you're like assher.

We know what you're really doing, what you're up to, but then you go back in time and realize there was some earlier period when they didn't have power and they couldn't really go and do horrible things and they were just but they were still going and expressing the same ideas. Kim zhang ang s not a good example because he's born to this, but madera was a perfectly fine example. But anyone who starts off as a non politician and activist, and then they eventually get IT, you can go in fine, what they originally saying and say, right? Well, and the one reaction is, well, obviously they were really corrupted by power, whatever.

But my reaction this is, look, think about the nicest people that, you know in real life. Could you imagine that they would become mass models if you put him in charge? I was like, like, no, the nice people I know like, like they might.

They probably get overthrown or assassinated, but they would not be orgeron anyone to be killed. They're just too nice to do that kind of thing. And so when you look at someone who has power and they and they have all of this wonderful altera sic reti c, and they head IT for a long time, and you say, well, they got corrupted.

No, much Better story is they were always terrible. They're always the kind of person that was going and just telling people what they want to hear demagogy ging exploiting social arables bias to gain power. And once you realized that is like the fact that people are saying this kind of flowers authorities talk, there's a good reason to go and distress those people because it's just so common for them when they get power to be terrible.

I love IT brian caplin, ladies and gentlemen, brian, why should people go? They want to keep up today .

with everything you're doing. A great question. So all of my books are so the mean ones we talked about today, or I don't be a feminist, as well as how evil politicians and voters is about scientists.

Those are all about all my books available on amazon. These books of essays are real cheap as twel bucks haven't raised the Price despite high inflation. I also blog for bet on IT. And finally, I still have a personal page to be happened up com.

All some, I appreciate.

Thank you. Fantastic being here. Been a lot of fun.