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Do you know Steven who is the most dangerous individual that a woman will ever meet in her life? Her husband. And
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the overwhelming number one reason is because of Dr. Gadsad is an evolutionary psychologist
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renowned for his thoughtprovoking and challenging insights into the underlining principles that shape decision-m relationships and
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societal trends. If you think that there is some knowledge that should not be pursued because it doesn't support your
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ideology, that's a grotesqually dangerous principle. So, for example, the idea that monogamy is natural is not
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true. Men are much more likely to want more sexual partners. That's what's been found in many studies across many
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cultures. But the fact that I explained why it might make evolutionary sense to cheat doesn't mean I'm justifying it.
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But now, here's the interesting part. Women too have evolved a very strong desire for sexual variety. You know, when a woman is most likely to cheat, it's when they
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In your book, you talk about a mate desiraability score. Yes. So usually we end up assorting on
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our mating value, which is taking all of our attributes and then saying, "What do you score?" So for example, the number
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one attribute that women seek is anything that's related to social status. Now, it wouldn't be good for an
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87 to go with a 36. That's going to put a huge stressor on our relationship. But
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here's the good news. There are effective strategies that could improve my score. And let's break them down very
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simply. First, Dr. God, what are the ideas that you've shared that have got you in the most
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trouble? I'm going to get hate mail for this. Buckle up. This is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life. Um, we've just hit 7 million subscribers on YouTube, and I
00:01:39
want to say a huge thank you to all of you that show up here every Monday and Thursday to watch our conversations. Um,
00:01:46
from the bottom of my heart, but also on behalf of my team who you don't always get to meet. There's almost 50 people
00:01:51
now behind the D of a CEO that worked to put this together. So, from all of us, thank you so much. Um, we did a raffle
00:01:57
last month and we gave away prizes for people that subscribed to the show up until 7 million subscribers. And you
00:02:02
guys love that raffle so much that we're going to continue it. So, every single month we're giving away money can't buy
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prizes, including meetings with me, invites to our events, and a,000 gift vouchers to anyone that subscribes to
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the D of SEO. There's now more than 7 million of you. So, if you make the decision to subscribe today, you can be one of those lucky people. Thank you
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from the bottom of my heart. Let's get to the conversation. Dr. Gad Sad, what have you devoted your life to? Uh the pursuit of truth and the
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defense of freedoms. And what does what does that mean? So truth is uh what we hopefully can
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achieve uh through the scientific method. Of course, truth is provisional in that whatever we might have thought was true 300 years ago, we have the epistemological humility to say, "Oh, we
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were wrong. There's a new truth." But I do wake up every morning thinking that there are wonderful things to discover
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about human nature given that I'm an evolutionary behavioral scientist. And so truth in that sense,
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uh, liberty and freedom in that there should be nothing that is off limits for people to do research on, to speak out on. So for example, you now hear a
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growing intrusion of the concept of forbidden knowledge. The idea that there's some research that because it
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might offend someone, it might marginalize a group, it shouldn't be pursued. I don't I don't believe in
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that. So there is no research that is off limits. As long as the research that you're doing is pursued in an unbiased manner pursuant to the scientific
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method. So example, one of the ways that you can end your career very quickly as a social scientist, if you do any
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research looking at group differences, certainly racial differences, don't you dare do any research on that. Even sex differences is not a good idea. So if you do research on sex differences and
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it demonstrates that women are superior to men on some task, go ahead, you're a hero. Publish it. But if you do research
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that shows that men are superior to women on a task, you better file that in the drawer and keep your mouth shut forever more because we don't want to be promulgating sexist patriarchal
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stereotypes. And so as someone who is an evolutionary psychologist who understands that humans are made up of
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two phenotypes called male and female, uh it is expected that there are many things on which men and women are the same. some things that men do better than women, some things that women do
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better than men. It's called evolution. It's called biology. Well, one of the things where I first began seeing how
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idiotic otherwise very intelligent people can be called professors is in the negation of what I said right now,
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which is just admitting that there are innate and evolved sex differences is a dreadful thing to say in the social sciences. And so that's how I first had a kind of Eureka moment. Houston, we
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have a problem. How could it be that these educated, sophisticated professors could negate something that on average a
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3-day old newborn pigeon should be able to recognize? And so that's what that's what sent me on my journey to eventually
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write the parasitic mind 30 plus years ago. So what is an evolutionary behavior scientist? Right. Great question. So you can study behavior in many ways. So
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for example, behaviorism which was something that was developed in the 1930s argued that everything that we do
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is as a result of stimulus and response. So for example, Pavlovian conditioning is a form of behaviorism. Right? You
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associate a unconditioned response, something that you already innately have. The dog salivates when he sees
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food. And now you condition him to if they hear the bell to associate that with the food. And now when I just ring the bell, he will salivate. And so the
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behaviorists of you know 70, 80, 100 years ago argued that all learning was due to behaviorism. So there are many different schools of thought when it comes to what is the best framework for
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studying human behavior. An evolutionary behavioral scientist argues that you can't study human behavior if you don't root the framework of how you're going
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to tackle this in an understanding of how evolution would have shaped the human mind. Now, this should sound as
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blatantly obvious, but again, for social scientists, that's Nazi talk because social scientists believe that evolution applies to every single species on Earth
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except one called human beings. Or if they believe that evolution applies to humans, it applies to explain
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why we have opposable thumbs. It applies to explain why we've evolved the respiratory system that we have. But
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don't you dare explain something above the neck called the human mind using evolution. I'm speaking now as those folks. They argue that we are cultural animals. We transcend our biology. So
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all that an evolutionary behavioral scientist does is whatever he or she is studying, they try to look for the
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ultimate Darwinian signatures. I'm going to give you two examples. This is from uh a book called Homicide by uh Martin
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Daly and Marggo Margot Wilson. a husband and wife team who are two of the pioneers of evolutionary psychology. I
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first read that book as a first semester doctoral student at Cornell where it it
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was an advanced social psychology course. About halfway through the semester, the professor, his name was Professor Dennis Regan, assigned this
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book to us. What they did in the book is apply an evolutionary framework to study
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patterns of criminality. And in a second now, I'll I'll unpack what that means. So there are certain patterns of crime that happen in exactly the same way for
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the exact same reasons irrespective of which culture it happens in and irrespective of time period. So it certainly can't be due to cultural factors. It can't be to era factors
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because it transcends all those things. So let me give you two examples from the book and that was actually my Eureka
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moment where I decided ah I will now take this evolutionary framework and apply it to consumer psychology to
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psychology of decision-m which eventually is the field that I founded. So, two examples. Example one, and
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forgive me if I put you on the spot. It's it's it's worthwhile to what do you think is the number one
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predictor of there being child abuse in a home? An absent parent. Okay. Very, very reasonable answer. And
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so, usually in lecture one, when I'm teaching an evolution psychology course, I'll ask this question. I'll start putting all the students answers. And
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they're all reasonable answers. If there is alcoholism in the home, if one of the
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parents had been abused in their past so that they they they mimic that behavior onto their children. Then all
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reasonable. Well, what if I and by the way, no one guesses what the real answer is. So then I say, well, guess what
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guys, you just listed 25 reasonable predictors. The number one predictor is hundfold more predictive than anything that's on that board. I've lectured this
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a million times. I'm getting goosebumps telling it to you right now. So, let me explain what a 100fold means. In
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science, when let's say you have I want to check the efficacy of a drug, and I want to compare it to a placebo, a sugar pill. Well, if it has a 1.2 odds ratio,
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meaning it's 20% more effective. So, it's 1 to 1.2, that would be a big effect. 1 to 1.2. What I'm saying is 1
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to 100. So it is astronomically greater effect than anything we would typically publish in science. Well the number one reasons Stephen I've kept you in suspense long enough is if there is a
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steparent in the family. So there's a 100fold increase in child abuse if the home is not made up of two biological parents. This is why the fable of
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Cinderella is such a universal fable because it speaks to an evolutionary principle. the nasty uh uh stepmother is
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only differentially nasty to her stepdaughter. She's actually very very nice to her two biological daughters. So
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now you would say, well, what would be the evolutionary explanation for that? Well, we know in many many species where
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you have very high parental investment, say for example in lion prides, lions are the only feline group where they're a social group. Most other uh felines
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are solitary that the only thing that the male does is the copulatory act and then there's not then he's off. Well, in
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lion pride, the males do invest heavily in their children. What ends up happening is there's two or three
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dominant males within a pride and they kick out all the young males that are now coming up so that there's all these frustrated young males in the savannah
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that are now looking to take over a pride. They will challenge the two three dominant males and for a very long time
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those older males will rebuff the attacks. But father time eventually catch up to you and you're left with two choices as the dominant male. You either leave and you end up, you know, having a
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slow death out alone in the wilderness or they will kill you. Now when the new incoming lions come in, do you know what's the first thing they do? First on the agenda list, first thing they do is
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what? They attack the kids. Exactly. They kill off in a complete systematic infanticide, genocide every single cub who by definition could not
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have been sired by them. Why? Because I'm going to spend a lot of energy and resources investing because we are a by parental species as a lion pride. I
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don't want I don't want to be investing in another male's cubs. Therefore, I now paradoxically, incredibly,
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after the females put up a big fight to try to stop those new incoming males, they end up losing the fight. First
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thing that happens after is the females go into estrus, meaning they become sexually receptive to the new males. So, I joke with my students in the human context, you put on Barry White music to
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get the ladies interested. You buy a beautiful gift, you pay attention. You want to get the lady's attention in p in
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lion price society, kill her children. So that's one example of how we've evolved the calculus in our brains to not feel as happy investing in other ch
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not in other children than our own. Now the next thing that ends up happening is some student will say, "Oh, but does
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that mean you are justifying through science child abuse?" And of course the answer
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is no. Right? An oncologist studies cancer. That doesn't mean he or she is for cancer. That doesn't mean they are pro- cancer. It means that if you want to understand cancer, you have to study
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it honestly. So if you want to tackle child abuse and you now know that that step parenthood is the biggest predictor. That's that's a valuable tidbit to have. So that's example one.
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Example two. Do you know Stephen who is by far the most dangerous individual that a woman will ever meet in her life? Whether it's
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the Yanomo tribe in the Amazon, whether it's the Hata tribe in Central Africa, whether it's in ancient Greece 2,000
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years ago, or whether it's in Detroit, Michigan 2,000 years from now, who is the most dangerous person by far that
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you will ever meet? Um, let me think about this. who's the most dangerous person she will ever meet
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by orders of magnitude more than anybody else. And the minute that I'll say it, you'll go, "Oh, no kidding." But the
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fact that you don't exactly demonstrates my point. And that's why evolution is so
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important. I think the most dangerous person she will ever meet is a another You're already off. Okay. I don't know. Her husband. I was going to say
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there you go. I was very close cuz my brain went her my brain went her future husband, right?
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Because I was thinking in the in the courtship process, that's quite dangerous. So whether it be her long-term partner
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or prospective long-term partner, right? So to your point, a husband is the most dangerous. And
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then the overwhelming number one reason that might drive him to domestic violence all the way to homicide is suspected or realized infidelity.
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Okay. I'm a true crime addict and se the stat is always in these true crime shows that about I think it's 70% of the time when a woman is goes missing was murdered
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it's the husband. Exactly. Something crazy like that. Exactly. Now, sometimes in those shows,
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it's because I want to get rid of my current wife so I can run off with another one. Yeah. But notwithstanding
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that potential effect, usually when I go into homicidal rage, it's because I I'm
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concerned that either you have cheated on me or you actually I I have proof that you have cheated on me. So then the
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question becomes, why have human males evolved the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral repertoire to respond in this way? Again, you're not justifying it. You're not saying, "Oh, if I give you
00:16:01
the scientific explanation, that means it's okay to beat women." But the reason is because we are a by parental species.
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Human dads are extraordinary dads in the mamleian context. We're by far one of the most vested dads. Well, now we don't invest as much as human females, but we are really super dads. So therefore your
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ancestors and mine Stephen male ancestors don't come from a line where they said hey don't worry ladies have
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have at it with the sexy gardener as much as you'd like because I'd be happy to then spend the next 18 years raising
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go kids. And therefore we've evolved that system to try to thwart a fundamental danger to our genetic interest which is paternity uncertainty. There is no such thing as maternity
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uncertainty. Right. Mhm. So when I read that book with such complicated phenomena that are
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explained so elegantly, so parsimmoniously, so simply so that you go, yeah, that makes perfect sense. That was my Eureka moment. And so evolutionary behavioral science is
00:17:07
exactly what I just described the last 5 10 minutes, which is taking the evolutionary biological and evolutionary
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psychological lens to study human phenomena. Before we get back to talking more broadly, just came to mind that
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with that context in mind then cheating is justifiable. Cheating in a romantic relationship.
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So it depends what you when you say justifiable, you're falling into the trap of if you explain it
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scientifically, it's okay. We also have a moral compass that's due to an evolutionary mechanism. So, one of the
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difficulties of life is how to navigate through the Darwinian strings that are pulling me in different directions.
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Right? I've evolved a desire to gorge on fatty foods. But if I do that in an unrestrained manner, I become a sumo wrestler and I die of heart disease at 42. So, I've also evolved the mechanism
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of self-control. So, the fact that I explain why it might make evolutionary sense to cheat doesn't mean I'm
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justifying it. Yeah. No. And I I think this is really important because we have to give people a toolkit to think about this
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conversation so that they don't assume that everything that's being said is an endorsement of the thing. It's just an
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explanation of the thing through the lens of evolution. And two very And you know what? Some people can't do that.
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Some people get so triggered by Most people are called my colleagues. Oh, really? Yeah. That's right.
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So, I just hope everyone listening now knows that everything here isn't an endorsement of a thing. It's an evolutionary explanation for a thing.
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And you know, I'm sure we're both full of biases, so nothing is ever that pure. But but we'll try and just hope that
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from here on out people understand that. When I ask that question about cheating, what I'm trying to understand is through an evolutionary perspective, is monogamy
00:18:47
a normal thing? I'm off and running for the next 10 minutes. You ready? I'm I'm ready. Let me let me give a
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little bit of context. So, I've got a lot of male friends and I see in all honesty the full spectrum of relationships. I've got and this is kind
00:19:05
of how I'll describe it. I've got a cohort of male friends that are absolutely faithful, in great relationships, um committed to their
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partners, and have exercised what I I assume is a form of discipline to not go after any temptations that they might have. Love that group of friends. Great. Have this middle group of friends that are struggling with all kinds of forces.
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everything from pornography to um to to to maybe dabbling. And then I have this other group of friends who I would categorize as the cheaters who cheat almost uncontrollably
00:19:36
on their partners uncontrollably. And this is the spectrum of friends here is about 20 people. Now I look at that
00:19:43
group of friends and I go who is right? Because morally I can say the ones over here are hurting people. The cheaters are hurting people you know especially if they they're found in what they're doing. But who is right from an
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evolutionary perspective? Well, they all are in a sense in that we all have the desire to stray, but we
00:20:01
don't necessarily instantiate that desire through overt behavior. Men and women. Men. Yeah. So, that's very good. So,
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usually if I were to say, oh, men have evolved a desire for sexual variety, most people, even if they know nothing about evolution, would say, yeah, that that makes sense. But now, here's the
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interesting part. Women too have evolved a very strong desire for sexual variety.
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Now, not to the same degree as men. So, there have been studies that have been conducted across a bewildering number of
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cultures. And in every culture that's been documented, men are much more likely to want more sexual partners and
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so on. But that doesn't mean that women are Victorian chased prudes. So now let me give you multiple lines of evidence that suggests that women are hardly the
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Victorian prudes that we might otherwise wish they were in a Victorian novel. You know when a woman is most likely to cheat situationally. I know cuz I've read your work. So
00:21:03
Okay. F. Okay. So So I'll say it or do you want to say it? Well, it's when they're maximally fertile, isn't it? Very good. You've done your homework. So
00:21:09
when they are maximally fertile is when they're most likely to stray. Now, that strategy, by the way, and and they're
00:21:15
less likely to insist on contraception. You would think that if I'm cheating outside my marriage, I'm I'm speaking as
00:21:21
a woman now. If I'm cheating outside my marriage, I would want to increase the likelihood of wearing I mean using
00:21:29
protection because I don't want to be pregnant. But if the strategy for why I'm cheating is because I'm shopping for
00:21:35
superior jeans, then it becomes incumbent that I don't use protection. Right? So you seldom have a woman who
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will cheat with a guy who has who is of lower phenotypic quality, genetic quality. So I I would love to have Bill Gates as home as my long-term partner,
00:21:55
but then I want the male Olympic swimmer as the guy behind the bushes. Now, if I
00:22:01
can convince Bill Gates that the Olympic male swimmer actually looks a lot like Bill Gates and it's really your sweetie. It's you, Billy. you're the one who then I I won the as a woman I've won the
00:22:12
genetic uh lottery game. Okay. So, it's not that women are not interested in sexual variet. So, that's one. Here's another one. If you map out, this is from studies. I
00:22:24
think it was in the early8s. I don't have the exact reference, but it's easy to find. Sorry. Just in your work, you say that women are more likely to cheat with
00:22:30
someone who has good genetic stock. Yeah. Is Bill Gates not got good genetic stock cuz he's rich and smart?
00:22:37
So, yes. So the intelligence element is yes. Maybe the drive element is yes. But
00:22:42
the phenotype is a no. I mean what's the phenotype? Phenotype is your physical manifestation. Right? So if I say I want a guy who is tall, who has a V, uh who's
00:22:55
got testosterone jawline, right? I mean, I don't usually, if I'm a woman, I don't
00:23:01
in my uh uh deep recesses of my mind fantasized about being ravished by Bill Gates. Do I? Are those physical features just pointing at the fact that this person can provide for me?
00:23:13
Absolutely. I mean, and you're saying, "But Bill Gates already provides." Yeah. But it's this also what's called
00:23:18
the sexy son hypothesis. Bill Gates will not produce I mean he'll produce kids who potentially to the extent that intelligence is heritable will give me intelligent kids but he won't give me uh
00:23:30
the kids that are Bronny right and of course some of us are lucky to have both Bronn and brains but that's a rare kind
00:23:38
compliment thank you now imagine if I were 4 in taller then I mean that's it I would be crowned emperor no but in all seriousness both men and women are very duplicitous in
00:23:49
their sexual behior behavior. So the idea that monogamy is natural is not true. Now it is natural in that about
00:23:56
85% of documented cultures have monogamy as an institutional mechanism because we're a biparental species and almost all the other ones are have what's called polygyny which is a term not to
00:24:10
be confused with polygamy. So I'm going to do a little parenthesis and I'm going to come back to the lines of evidence
00:24:15
that proves that women like sexual variety as well. So polygamy just means one to many. People use it as synonymous with one man, multiple women. But that's
00:24:27
not what polygamy is. Polygamy is one to many, which can take two forms. It could be one man, multiple women, which is
00:24:34
called polygyny. Or it could be one woman, multiple men, which is called polyandry. There are almost no societies where institutionally we have polyandry
00:24:49
because it wouldn't make evolutionary sense for that mating system to arise. The only famous case of polyandri is
00:24:57
called Tibetan uh fraternal polyandri. So the word fraternal means that to the extent that
00:25:04
there are ecological reasons why we have to tolerate one woman going with multiple guys, it'll be brothers. And
00:25:11
the reason for that is because of a mechanism called inclusive fitness which is that I can increase my reproductive
00:25:18
fitness through direct reproduction. I have children and therefore they will share half my genes but I can also invest in the children of my siblings who share also genes with me and I could
00:25:32
still be increasing my inclusive fitness. So therefore, polyandry need not be a Darwinian dead end because I'm
00:25:39
still extending my genes even in in such a system. So is this why I take care of my
00:25:44
brother's kids in part because that my nieces and nephews are 100%. As a matter of fact, I've done
00:25:50
several scientific studies where I exactly do these kinds of tests where I look at
00:25:58
what is the pattern of investment in different family members as a function of their genetic relatedness to me. So R is something called the coefficient of
00:26:09
genetic relatedness. So me and my brother are R is.5. Me and my identical twin our R is one. Me and a random stranger are R0. Me and my nephews and
00:26:22
nieces 0.25. Me and my parents 0.5. Me and my grandparents 0.25. Okay. So we wanted to test whether the pattern of investments in this case through gift
00:26:34
giving whether they correlate to the genetic relatedness between the giver and recipient. And as you might expect intuitively, even if you're not a fancy evolutionary psychologist, the greater
00:26:46
the genetic relatedness, the larger the size of gift. I'm much more likely to give a bigger gift at my brother's
00:26:52
wedding than I am to my second cousin. Okay? And so we've evolved this calculus that allows us to met out these investments in line with our genetic rel, by the way, you see across
00:27:03
countless animal species. the likelihood of you coming out of your borro to protect people who are in the borro
00:27:09
increases if whoever is in the borro has greater genetic relatedness to you. So the other part in the 2018 paper that's
00:27:16
going to blow your mind because that one you wouldn't intuitively have expected it. The the first finding you say yeah
00:27:22
it makes sense I give more gifts to my brother than to my third cousin. So we wanted to check whether at an actual
00:27:29
Israeli wedding because they had data from actual 30 I think it was 30 weddings. So they had field data. They had the data of all of the uh attendees
00:27:41
and the gifts that they gave. Uh Uncle Morai gave $180. Rafika gave. Okay. So what we wanted to test is whether the mother's side or the father's side of
00:27:54
the bride and groom across all genetic relatedness coefficients which side would give more. Now in the Middle East it's a patriarchal society but evolutionary theory would predict
00:28:05
something differently and let me explain why. So take for example your four grandparents. Okay there's maternal
00:28:11
grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather. In terms of the genetic
00:28:17
relatedness, they're each equally genetically related to you. 0.25 quarter of their genes they share with you. But
00:28:24
here's the second part. Genetic assuredness is not the same across the four. Your paternal grandfather has two
00:28:32
layers of paternity uncertainty. Your maternal grandmother has zero generational paternal paternity uncertainty because there is no maternity uncertainty. So therefore, you
00:28:46
would predict that the paternal grandfather would invest the least in his grandchildren, the maternal
00:28:51
grandmother would invest the most, and the two other grandparents in the middle. That's what's been found in many studies across many cultures.
00:28:57
You might have to explain paternity uncertainty. Paternity uncertainty means that when a child is born, you never know that he is
00:29:04
your child, right? Uh you the mother always know that it's her child. She had the child, right? So we wanted to test
00:29:11
whether the mother's side of both the bride and groom would give greater gifts than the father's side precisely because there is no such thing as maternity uncertainty but there is such a thing as
00:29:22
paternity uncertainty and that's exactly what we found. So the women's family gave more presence. Exactly. Okay.
00:29:27
Yeah. Thank you for summarizing that long rant. But and why why again just to clarify why that is because they're trying to
00:29:33
make sure that the male is invested. No, there because the mother's side is simply more vested in investing in the in either the bride or groom because
00:29:44
they know that that is their infant. Yeah. Because there's no uncertainty. There's no uncertainty. You got it.
00:29:50
Okay. So, now can we close the loop on the sexual variety? So, so far I said that uh there's definitely evidence that
00:29:57
women also have a sexual variety pension by virtue of them cheating more when they are maximally fertile with they and
00:30:04
not insisting on uh contraception and all that. Here's another one. You do a mapping of across primates. So, here come the bonobos, here come mountain
00:30:15
gorillas, here come chimpanzees, here comes humans. So you put all the primates and you do a uh calculation of
00:30:23
the size of the testes of the males in that species as a function of female sexual promiscuity in that species. Are you with me? Yes. So mountain gorillas
00:30:38
phenomenal beasts 450 lbs some of the most majestic males. They have a territorial they they have a polygenous arrangement. There is one male dominant male that controls control to sexual
00:30:53
access to many females. So based on what I just said, can you predict what the size of their testes are?
00:30:59
They can have small testes. Yes. Because there isn't sperm war competition. Therefore, imagine how
00:31:07
unbelievable it is that a fundamental male morphological attribute, the size of your testes, is an adaptive response to a female behavior in that species.
00:31:21
Greater female promiscuity in that species, bigger testicles. So, mountain gorillas, very small testicles. Okay? Chimpanzees are just walking testicles.
00:31:33
Their bodies just exist to support massive testes. Why? Because in chimp society, we say hello sex. We say goodbye sex. We fight sex, postfight
00:31:46
sex. So there is constant sex happening so that the same female is being impregnated by multiple males. So the way that I fight against that is
00:31:57
by developing bigger testes because then there are mechanisms where having bigger
00:32:02
testes solves that problem. So now here comes Robin Baker actually a British scientist who wrote a book called Sperm Wars where he argued in his book some have said it's contentious others said
00:32:16
that it's tight that the morphology of human sperm the makeup of it the makeup of it is not simply the standard one that we're all used to
00:32:28
seeing which is there is a head with a tail and they're all rushing to that mythical egg. Those are called fertilizers. He demonstrated in his research that there are two other types
00:32:40
of sperm phenotypes within a man's ejaculate. There are the blockers that don't look like the fertilizer and defense. Defense. Very good. And then there are
00:32:53
the killers. Oh, that go around hunting other men's sperm. Now, let's put it all together. sperm is viable within the reproductive
00:33:06
a woman's reproductive tract for about 72 hours. Therefore, for men to have evolved, the chemical weaponry to have blockers and killers
00:33:18
means that in our ancestral past, the likelihood of women having been with more than one man within a 72-hour period, whether willfully or through
00:33:30
aggression, would have been high. Therefore, that's why you evolve that response. Now, here is where you can see
00:33:37
what happens with ideology and therefore how why I wrote parasitic mind. When I lecture this in front of radical feminists, they'll come up, Dr. Sad,
00:33:49
you're such a brilliant scientist. Why? Because the research that I just described demonstrates that women could
00:33:56
be just as sexually ver voracious as men and that they've evolved a desire also for, you know, a sexual appetite that corresponds with my women's studies and
00:34:08
radical feminism classes. Therefore, when from this side of my mouth I say something that supports their ideology,
00:34:16
I become a hero. If from this side of my mouth I say, "Oh, but incidentally across cultures, it's been studied across many many cultures. Men do have
00:34:26
much greater desire for sexual variety." Boo. So I can either go from hero to zero depending on whether what I just said supports your ideology or not.
00:34:40
That's not how you adjudicate science. Science truth exists independently of whether it supports your ideology or not. Hence eventually the parasitic mind because you're parasitized by bad
00:34:52
ideologies. What are what are the ideas that you've shared that have got you in the most
00:34:57
trouble? So in my scientific work, humans are biological beings shaped by the dual forces of sexual and natural selection.
00:35:09
Buazi. Buazi. Okay. I mean people are coming around now because the beauty of science is that it's autocorrective right I mean some of the biggest works
00:35:20
you you now know that they're the biggest work by how much they were originally rejected so many Nobel prizes
00:35:28
the story is always the same scientist proposes an idea that is completely unorthodox contrary to the prevailing whims of accepted science and is
00:35:40
constantly reed rejected until it's not very simple example. Probably the thing that
00:35:48
has saved human beings the most from death over the past 100 years. Well, it's stuff related to hygiene issues because a lot of times you'd have childhood mortality because of exposure
00:36:01
to different pathogens. Well, the gentleman who came up with the idea of why so often women die during childbirth. Do do you know what the
00:36:12
answer is? Um because the doctor's not cleaned his hands or Yes. Beautiful. Well done, Steve. So, uh it's Seml Weiss who was a doctor who
00:36:23
said, "What's happening here? Why are these women getting this post uh natal very devastating uh fever and then within an a day or two they're gone? And
00:36:35
so he said, "Oh, wait a second." So the the surgeons have just worked on cadaavvers. What's a cadaavver? Uh like a dead dead body. Okay. So like let's say they're they're doing forensic
00:36:47
pathology stuff. Okay. and then they move straight to a gynecological intervention with the woman. So when he said and he did the studies that that
00:37:00
showed, hey, here are women who we we asked the guys to clean or didn't ask the guys to clean it and people laughed
00:37:07
him out of town. He died in a sanitarium in a mental institution. He he was completely like today we we erect
00:37:13
statues of him. Right. So, so to answer your first point, when I first started my career, when I said, "Oh, by the way,
00:37:20
you can't study consumers without understanding their physiology, their hormones." What kind of bush is this?
00:37:25
This is not a biology department. Get a grip. You should have you should you should not be in the business school. So, what do you mean? You think that you
00:37:31
can you think that when a consumer eats, they transcend their biology? It's outside of their biology. Well, now a lot of them are coming around. So that when I first promulgated this idea 30
00:37:44
years ago, I was a Nazi. Today it's dear Dr. Sad, it would be an honor if you come and give the plenary lecture at our
00:37:50
university. Oh, but what happened 30 years ago when I was a bullshitter? Well, apparently they caught on. So, so
00:37:55
in my academic work, the mere fact of saying that we're biological beings was the most triggering thing. In my public
00:38:03
engagement work, that's not directly related to my science. Well, it's a very long list, hence the parasitic mind. But
00:38:10
certainly when I talk about things related, say, to Islam, that doesn't get me a lot of Islamic friends, unfortunately. You're Jewish, aren't you? I'm Jewish context. Yes, I'm Jewish.
00:38:22
But but what I say would be true whether I was Jewish or whether I was uh anything else.
00:38:28
So, how as an evolutionary behavioral scientist, how much of what we do is driven by sex and relationships? uh I mean so in in my earlier books so
00:38:40
I'm going to answer it again in a broad in a big way uh in my first book which is the evolutionary basis of consumption and then in the consuming instinct I argue that there are four key Darwinian
00:38:52
mechanisms that drive much of our purpose of behavior so that's speaks to your point uh there is behaviors that are related to natural
00:39:04
selection or our survival instinct. So, for example, the fact that I'm almost certain that you and I have a preference for some instantiation of a fatty food
00:39:16
more than raw celery is almost a guarantee. Am I right? Yes, I agree. Yeah. Okay. And I'm I'm willing to bet that
00:39:23
everybody who's in the studio will will also agree. Okay. Now, we may have a different preference. So, I I pref I may
00:39:30
prefer fatty steak. you prefer uh chocolate mousse, but we both prefer chocolate mousse and steak over raw
00:39:36
celery. And so there are many consumatory acts and preferences that I can easily ultimately map to that drive. The most obvious of which would be our
00:39:48
food preferences. Okay. To your direct question, then the next module. So that first module I call it the survival
00:39:54
module. The next module called the reproductive module. sex to your question are all the things that we do because they're very much driven by sex related issues. So the types of products
00:40:08
that men and women use as sexual signals are astonishingly the same across cultures. So for example, owners of Ferrari are 99% male. Even
00:40:22
though there are a million women who have the resources to certainly buy a Ferrari, yet they don't. Oprah Winfrey is not stopped from buying a Ferrari cuz she can't afford it. And yet she's not
00:40:34
doing it. In the human context, fancy cars take on the morphological feature of the peacock's tail. So all animals that are sexually reproducing use sexual
00:40:46
signals. Humans, given that they're also a consumatory animal, will use specific
00:40:51
products to signal, look at me, I'm better than than Stephen. The way that I do that is by hopefully demonstrating cues that I have higher status than you. Okay?
00:41:02
Now, women will also engage in vigorous sexual signaling, but it'll be related to things that are beautifification, right? So cosmetic surgeries around the
00:41:13
world are almost exclus but it's very very much of a female domain and so there are many many behaviors whether consumer related or
00:41:25
not that could be then mapped onto the reproductive module to your question. Then there are two other modules that I
00:41:32
hinted at earlier when I talked about gift giving. So there's the kin selection module. These
00:41:39
are behaviors that are related to the fact of I increase my inclusive fitness by investing in my kin. Okay. And then there is reciprocal altruism module
00:41:53
which is why would I ever jump into the river? So if I jump into the river to save my three children that's skin selection because each of my three children on average shares 50% of their
00:42:05
genes with me. So if in the service of saving those three kids, I end up dying, the evolutionary calculus is totally in
00:42:11
favor of me dying. Who cares? Okay. On the other hand, why would I jump into the river to save Stephen?
00:42:17
First of all, until we met today, you're a stranger. Why would I ever save a stranger? If you're not a stranger and
00:42:22
you're a friend, you but you're still zero genetic relatedness. So there the argument is is that it's due to
00:42:28
reciprocal altruism and that human beings have evolved the mechanism of reciprocity to oil our social bonds
00:42:35
to return a favor to return a favor. So so literally the I scratch your back, you scratch mine
00:42:41
literally comes from our primate cousin species where you engage in reciprocal grooming. So what happens? There are a bunch of parasites that are all over my fur that I can't get to. And so what I
00:42:54
do is I come stand and I give you my back and you will sit there and pick at all of it. Of course the expectation is
00:43:00
you'll now return the favor. So I literally scratch your back and you scratch mine. Now where did that
00:43:06
signature come from originally? One argument is that imagine we are walking around in the savannah where the most common threat that we face life is
00:43:17
basically two things. I mean other than sex, get dinner and make sure you don't become somebody's there.
00:43:24
Mic drop. That's it. That's life. Okay. So, one of the problems that we've all faced, hence why we've evolved gustatory preferences for high calorie foods is caloric uncertainty and caloric
00:43:34
scarcity. We don't have a neighborhood store to go buy our food. So, I might actually die of starvation. Well, what if we mitigate that risk whereby we set up an insurance policy with non-kin,
00:43:48
another group of folks that are also walking around Savannah? Hey, next time that we bring down the big prey, that's
00:43:55
1,000 pounds of meat, we will share with you, but hey, you do the right thing and reciprocate back to us. So, now you
00:44:02
might say, okay, well, that's all nice, fancy science, but how does that manifest itself in in human consumer
00:44:07
behavior? Well, there are so many behaviors that you and I engage in if we're friends that are completely rooted
00:44:13
in that reciprocal module. So, for example, when it's your birthday, I call you and I invite you out to dinner. I
00:44:21
expect, unless you're a social cheat, that when it's my birthday, you will reciprocate. Now, from a strict economic
00:44:28
perspective, why don't we skip this whole charade? I'm going to pay $70 for your meal, you're going to pay $70 for
00:44:34
mine. We're going to end up at the same spot. Let's not do it. The reason why we have to do it is because that reciprocal
00:44:39
ritual is what oils our bonds of affinity. And so there are many many behaviors that we engage in that are exactly tailoring that. So to summarize
00:44:50
much of our behaviors I argue in my earlier books could be mapped onto one of these four modules.
00:44:55
And in that earlier book the consuming instinct you talk about a mate desiraability score
00:45:01
right? What is a mate desiraability score? So imagine a car. A car is made up of
00:45:07
many attributes, right? So the car could be what's its gas efficiency? What's the
00:45:13
strength of its uh uh engine? How well does it hug the the the road? What's its green? Is it a green car? Or does it have bad exhaust? So So a car is a multi-attribute product. It's made up of
00:45:27
many attributes. And then it could be that the way that I choose which car I pick is the one that scores the best on
00:45:34
the totality of those attributes. Okay, that's called the multi-attribute choice. Well, human beings are also
00:45:41
products made up of many attributes. So, in the mating market, you and I, let's say we do men now, but of course it applies to women, too. There's a bunch of attributes that we know that women
00:45:53
are going to either like about us or not like about us. Overwhelmingly, by the way, the number
00:45:59
one universal attribute that women seek is anything that's related to social status. Right? So, in other words, it could be my ambition. It could be my assertiveness. It could be my social
00:46:12
dominance. It could be literally the the big diplomas I have behind my back. It could be the number of zeros behind in
00:46:19
my bank. It could be how many cattle heads I have if I'm Hadza tribe. But in no culture has a woman ever said the following. Give me a non assertive beta
00:46:32
meek man who has pear-shaped hips and a nasal voice and I'm turning into a sexual frenzied animal. That those words have never been uttered in the history of humanity. Okay. But what women will
00:46:46
say by the way it's not that they only look for rich guys, right? Because many women will be madly in love with the
00:46:53
starving artist. But the starving artist is showing what? Ambition. Ambition. Assertiveness. There is a
00:47:01
trajectory of creation that's coming around the corner. I'm going to become a big rock star. But no, that's why by the
00:47:08
way if you do uh I I think that study has been done where you and actually some of my students in one of my classes
00:47:14
did a similar study for their project. Just show a guy, exact same guy in a personal ad. He's got a guitar or he
00:47:20
doesn't have a guitar. Nothing changed. It's the exact same guy. It's Stephen. But give me a guitar. No. Oh, with the
00:47:26
guitar, Steven's gorgeous. Without the guitar, he's less gorgeous. What's the other explanation for that that people might jump to? They might
00:47:32
say, "Well, I like music, so that's why I prefer Steven with a guitar and he's going to play some songs and I'm going to feel good and then I'm going to have
00:47:38
sex with him." So, so that's a very good question. So that is the difference between proximate
00:47:44
explanations and ultimate explanations. Much of science operates at the approximate level. It explains the how and the what of a phenomenon. How does diabetes work? What are the factors that
00:47:57
increase the likelihood of you having diabetes? That's perfectly fine. The ultimate explanation is the Darwinian
00:48:03
why. Why would the phenomenon have evolved to be of that type? So you could say, "I'm just drawn to a guy who knows how to play music." You've just
00:48:14
explained proximate. It's like saying, "Why have we evolved to have sex?" Because it feels good. That's
00:48:19
approximate. The ultimate explanation is that a sexually reproducing species has
00:48:24
to have a mechanism by which you're drawn to engage in the behavior that results in procreation. So it's not that
00:48:31
ultimate explanations are superior to approximate ones. is that you need both levels of analyses to fully explain a
00:48:38
phenomenon. So what is going on there with the guitar from an evolutionary perspective? Why is the guitar attractive? He's creative.
00:48:43
Yeah. Uh he's got the assiduousness to have the discipline to pi virtuoso attractive all other or Picasso. Picasso is a short little guy. He's frumpy. He's bald. Yet he's got a
00:48:58
very very long line of very attractive women saying, "Can can I have sex with you, Picasso, tonight? How is that possible?" Is it because at some level we're associating that talent with status?
00:49:10
Absolutely. I the person that can play the piano at the party probably has a lot of status. They're going to have a lot of options.
00:49:16
100 as a matter I mean just listen to famous rock stars and what they say as to why they became musicians. I mean, literally almost to the word. It's as if
00:49:29
they plagiarized each other. Oh, I quickly realized that that's how I can get the girls, right? They never said
00:49:35
it's because in my childhood, I grew up listening to Bach and Mozart and it tickled my auditory reflex, right? They
00:49:42
usually said, "Oh, I go to a party and I break out the thing and the lineup begins." And then Jean Simmons sleeps
00:49:49
with 5,000 girls and the lead singer of Simple Red, who's a rather forgive me, whatever your name is, He's ginger guy.
00:49:57
He's not exactly the model of my sexual dreams if I'm a woman. But yet he was, you know, with tons of women, right? But to finish the point about mate desiraability scale. So now imagine all
00:50:08
of those attributes that I can cook. So okay, God sad. Well, I'm not tall. That goes against me. But I'm not very hard to look at. That goes for me. I play
00:50:22
soccer really well. I learned very quickly when I was 15 that the best way that you won't get bullied by anybody is when you're the big soccer star. Okay.
00:50:32
Uh I've done pretty well in my life. So there are some traits that I score badly
00:50:37
on and some traits that I can compensate on. And so we can put them all into a basket and say, okay, well, what on a
00:50:44
scale of 0 to 100, what would God score on his mate desiraability scale? And so that's what that scale is. It's
00:50:50
basically taking all of our attributes and then saying what do you score is is Stephen a 78 or a 92. Now here's what's very interesting to to that question which you didn't ask.
00:51:01
Humans engage in what's called assortative mating. Assortative mating is the idea that birds of a feather
00:51:09
flock together. So there are two maxims. There's the birds of a feather flock together and there's the opposites attract. Opposites attract only works
00:51:17
well for short-term mating. I am sexually koi and shy and I'm an introvert. You're sexually daring and extroverted. That complimentarity might
00:51:28
actually result in a nice tric behind the bushes. But for long-term mating, if you want to assure success of a long-term marriage, then it's overwhelmingly birds of a feather flock
00:51:38
together. And usually here what we mean is we share similar values. We share similar goals, similar mindsets. We really have to assort on these. If I'm an asserbic atheist and you're a
00:51:50
committed Catholic who views everything through Jesus, it doesn't take a fancy professor to know we're not starting on
00:51:56
the right foot. Okay. But here's the other part about associative assortative mating. This is actually something that
00:52:02
I first um proposed as an open question many years ago on one of my appearances of Joe Rogan and I received like a hundred emails saying, "Oh, I want to do that research with you." Which I still
00:52:14
haven't done, so maybe it'll happen now. So, let me repeat it. So, I argue that people assort based on
00:52:22
their overall mate desiraability score, which is the question you asked. Meaning
00:52:28
if I'm an 87, I'm unlikely because the mating market is is literally a market. It's a market.
00:52:36
Okay? If I'm an 87, I can command a girl or expect a girl in the 80s. It wouldn't be good for an 87 to go with a 36. We all
00:52:49
want to get the 100. Both men and women want to get the 100. But what stops us is that I don't score 100. So, I want to
00:52:56
get the gorgeous supermodel and so on, but maybe I'm not good enough to get her. And and and all women want to get
00:53:02
the highly accomplished gorgeous male Olympic swimmer who's both Bronny and a neurosurgeon, but they can't get him because he's got the pick of the litter. So, usually we end up assorting on our
00:53:16
mate value. But now here's the part where I proposed as a hypothesis and it it it's it's never been tested although I discuss it in the happiness book. So I argue I predict although I haven't
00:53:27
tested it that what will predict the likelihood of a couple staying together into the future is whether their mating overall mating scores stay in line or
00:53:42
they begin to diverge. So, I'm the high school quarterback, so all the girls think I'm hot. I get to go to the prom, whatever it's called, uh, with the
00:53:56
cheerleader, the head cheerleader. She's the hot girl. I'm the king of the high school. That's great. At that point,
00:54:02
when we're both 18, we assort on our mating value. Now, let's fast forward 10 years later. The hot cheerleader is now finishing her third year in
00:54:13
neurosurgery. Yes, there's a lot of hot pretty smart looking male doctors. The the hot quarterback when I was 18 has become fat. He's lost his hair and he's
00:54:27
uh consistently unemployed and shows no interest other than playing video games.
00:54:33
So, what's happened? When we first met when we were 18, our mating values were the same. But now hot cheerleader has
00:54:40
become neurosurgeon. Her score has gone really up. Hot quarterback is now a degenerate. Now there's a huge difference in our mating scores. That's going to put a huge stressor on our
00:54:53
marriage. So one of the things I argue in the happiness book is yes, make sure to meet someone who matches you in your
00:55:00
mating value and work hard at making sure that you stay at the right mating value. Once we get that divergence, I'm
00:55:06
predicting divorce. Okay. The It's super interesting. The question that springs to mind is as men and women age, who tends to drop
00:55:18
in their desiraability score? What do you think? I don't know. You want me to answer it because then I
00:55:25
can get the hate mail? No problem. No, no, but I I asked that as well because there's clearly some data on who's asking for the divorces, who's
00:55:30
initiating the divorces, who's cheating the most. That would so women are overwhelmingly the ones to instigate a divorce.
00:55:36
Yeah, that's true. Although from a strict evolutionary perspective, the mate val all other things equal maid value of men goes up with age. Mate
00:55:49
value of women goes down with age. Now, here is how you reduce your chances in the mating market if you're a woman. You ready? Of course, just aging. Yes.
00:56:01
Number one. Number two, if you're tall, that's a death blow. Why? Because wh it's not that women want only tall guys because then we all the other guys would we would
00:56:15
have been twiddling our thumbs in frustrated celibacy. But women want a guy who's taller than them. That's
00:56:22
what's guaranteed. There was actually a study done a few years ago now where they looked at 720 actual couples. Guess how many violated
00:56:33
that norm? Women taller than men out of 720. I don't know. One. One out of 720. One. Right. So, women, it it's a it's a non-starter that a woman doesn't want a
00:56:45
shorter guy than her. She might I mean, Lionel Messi is my height, but he's Lionel Messi, and he found a gorgeous
00:56:50
woman who's shorter than him, right? But what you don't want now, if I'm a 6'1 woman, now of course they are still 6'2 and taller men, but just statistically speaking, we've just shrunk the possible
00:57:03
pool. There's a gorgeous guy, super handsome, very funny, very educated, who's 5'8, but I'm 6'1. I tower over him. If I wear heels and I add another
00:57:15
four inches, he becomes my son. Well, this all brings to light something else which has been discussed a few times on
00:57:21
this show, which is if we said there that men's mate desiraability score stays pretty consistent unless all goes up unless they do something very bad. But the kind of
00:57:34
inverse conversation there is that women's desiraability scores are now higher than ever when they're younger
00:57:40
than ever. Yeah. So you've got and I believe from what I've been told that the male's desiraability score is now lower than
00:57:46
ever if we think about income age groups in the lower age groups. So if you think
00:57:53
about income um differences, if you think about educational differences, who's graduating from college, who's
00:57:59
smarter and all these kinds of things because of the very important changes that have happened in society, um men
00:58:06
and women are getting closer and closer to par here. Yeah. Which means that the I mean someone on the podcast described it to
00:58:12
me as the tall woman problem, but it can also be described as the small man problem.
00:58:17
Well, and it's small. It's small and tall. Not I was going to finish. Yeah. It's not just the height. So I said
00:58:24
death blow would be you get older, you're tall and you're very educated. So, if you are a 38-year-old 6'2
00:58:35
PhD from Stanford and you're a woman, good luck. Why? Because number one, I've gotten older, so there's a smaller pool, right? Uh, number two, I'm tall. I want
00:58:48
a taller guy. Number three, when I'm a PhD, I'm a woman now. When I'm a PhD, I want a guy who is as educated and accomplished as me or more. So now I
00:58:59
need to find a 6'4 guy who's also a PhD. Right? Here's the paradox by the way that people don't realize. People think that oh the reason why women always desire high status guy that this is
00:59:10
[ __ ] It's not true. Is because historically they have been dominated by the patriarchy. So they sought that which they didn't have. And that's completely falsified by the fact that
00:59:22
very high status women actually insist more on the guy being higher status. So if it were, so for example, if I am a neurosurgeon and a diplomat and I'm a woman, I don't say, "Oh, well, now that
00:59:36
I have all that I need, let me look for the illiterate 17-year-old Cabana boy who can't read three words cuz that's what I want." No, she even wants She
00:59:46
insists more on the guy being meeting her or higher in status. So if I'm if I'm older, tall, and super educated, it's a death blow.
00:59:58
What does this all say about what's going on with masculinity at the moment? Because um when I've said this a few
01:00:03
times on the show, but when you look at the stats around suicidality amongst men, um when you look at mental health
01:00:08
issues amongst men, when you look at some of the influencers that men are now drawn to more than ever that are offering a new vision of masculinity, there's clearly some kind of transition,
01:00:19
something going on in society at the moment as it relates to what it is to be a man. You you said this thing about
01:00:25
beta male earlier on. No one wants a beta male. Well, you know, it feels like there has been a
01:00:30
narrative that has encouraged a bit more beta maleness in society and we're seeing a bit of like a counter movement.
01:00:36
I've had so many women, some of which have been on the show, say to me that they've got a young son, um, and they
01:00:42
are confused about the advice they should be giving their young son in such a world. I get tons of women who write
01:00:48
to me and and ask me sort of the f I'm paraphrasing where where are the bold men, right? I I I go to a place I'm looking super,
01:01:01
you know, ready to meet people. I'm easy to look at and no one approaches me. Well, if you inculcate over many generations that if I approach you and
01:01:14
say, "My god, my name is God, you you look lovely. What a beautiful dress." That's a compliment becomes a form of
01:01:22
compliment rape. Then is it surprising that I may be a bit ambivalent in approaching you? I mean I I often joke that given some of the what is now considered hashtagme too Italy should
01:01:35
cease to exist because the whole country is hashtagme too right what do I mean by that Italians stereotypically of course
01:01:43
are seducers they pursue women I mean women will say you I love Italian guys how they approach now we're not talking about uh you know being persistent to the point that they're harassing you
01:01:54
that they're pinning you down physically but there is a dynamic of courtship whereby men who are bold, men who
01:02:01
approach, men who take chances, who are confident are going to get the pretty girl. Well, now imagine if you create a dynamic in for all sorts of reasons, one of
01:02:14
which is radical feminism, the other one of which is to pathize half of humanity called men through the label of toxic
01:02:21
masculinity. No, it's called sexiness. a guy who jumps into a a building to save
01:02:27
a puppy and he's called a fireman. That's what we fantasize about. That's not toxic masculinity. That's
01:02:32
masculinity, right? And so, a lot of women will write to me and say, "Where are those men, professor?" Well, those
01:02:39
men are too afraid to come out. I I'll give you a couple of examples. Okay? At my university, we now have a
01:02:46
mandatory sexual training module that we have to take otherwise we can't continue, right? It's it's part of like you you know you have to October 15th to
01:02:59
get the refresher because until my benevolent kind employer taught me how to speak to
01:03:07
women, I was clueless. So the first 57 years of my life, I walked around as a Middle Eastern savage, not knowing how to interact with women. Of course, I'm being sarcastic, right? But then the my
01:03:19
benevolent employer came along and through very very cute, condescending, and patronizing cartoon vignettes, they teach me how to act. So, you know,
01:03:33
a compliment that is in the wrong context could be a form of sexual violence. So, for example, uh you're
01:03:40
walking down the street and you see a guy complimenting an a woman and it appears that she's not uh welcoming that compliment. Is that sexual violence? And
01:03:52
so, I will first just to test the algorithm say no. And then it comes out, ooh, I understand why you might be but that is a form. Are you with me?
01:04:02
Yes. So now I'm 59 with a big personality. This kind of [ __ ] doesn't get to me. That's why I speak openly and publicly to the chagrin of all of academia. But the 21-year-old who
01:04:17
doesn't have that same strength of personhood. Do you think he's going to think twice before at the next party
01:04:23
walking up to a girl mustering up all his courage to ask her if she wants a coffee? Of course he is. So I think
01:04:30
that's where that problem of dynamic comes from. And I'm now going to share a personal story with one one of my
01:04:37
brothers which is also in the happiness book which speaks to when you're the opposite of the non-bold timid guy. One of my brothers uh has been in
01:04:49
Southern California since 1984. He became very very successful and wealthy. Uh was an Olympian uh judoka. He he represented Lebanon in the 1976
01:05:01
Olympics. The reason why that's relevant is because physically he's very dominant, but my brother is 2 feet tall.
01:05:09
Obviously not, but he's he's shorter than me. He's Okay. I'm like 5'6, 5'7. I mean, he's maybe five three. Okay. But but a bulldog, right? I always like
01:05:21
to say just because then it makes it easy. I say I mess his height. So that makes it easy. Okay. So, uh, he's not Messi's height.
01:05:28
He's shorter than Messi's height. He's shorter than Meridana, right? So, but he walks like he's seven feet tall. Okay.
01:05:37
So, we used to in the early 90s, I would come visit him. He he used to live in in Newport Beach where we are now. And we'd
01:05:44
go to clubs. I'm I'm single at that point. And my brother would say, "All right, God. We're going to play the
01:05:50
game." I'm like, "Oh, his name is Dave." No, David. I'm not in the mood. Find the
01:05:55
most beautiful and unattainable girl here. Oh, come on, man. I don't want to do this. Do it. Okay. All right. So, I
01:06:03
look around. So, now I want to find not only the prettiest girl. I want to find an impediment to you getting her. What's
01:06:10
an impediment? A really doineering looking man that she's with. Therefore, that makes it even less likely that you can get her. Yes. Okay, David. I found her. The the girl
01:06:22
over there with the high heels in the middle of the dance floor. That's the one. You sure got? Yes. That's the one.
01:06:27
Okay. He stands there. Dominant tattooed guy goes to the bathroom. David in great white shark mode goes up to the girl. She with her high heels.
01:06:40
He's coming up to here. I just Okay. Haha. I hear them smiling. He comes back to me complete cold. Says she'll call me tomorrow. [ __ ] David. No way. Zero
01:06:52
chance. It's not happening. Next day. Come. Come. This is kind of an Arabic thing. Come.
01:07:00
Hi, David. It's Candy. We met yesterday. The thing I'm looking forward to meeting you. How did he do it, Stephen? He did
01:07:07
it because testicles this big. He's 7 foot2 in his aura. Now, you might say, well, yeah, boy does it add a lot of inches metaphorically
01:07:19
when you have Ferraris and so on. But there's a more general story here. He owns the world. He walks like he owns it, right? But he's not of great. So, if
01:07:30
you ask women, yeah, it' be great if I'm 6'2 and I walk big, but I could be 6'2 and very meek and very tepid and very beta. Or I could be 5'7 and I'm messy.
01:07:44
most are going to go for messy. So that's what I mean by the way when I say that mating is a compensatory choice.
01:07:50
Compensatory means that it to your earlier point about made desiraability, we are judged on a basket of goods. If
01:07:59
it were that we're only judged in a non-compensatory way, meaning so for example, if it were that women say, "I
01:08:06
always go out with the tallest guy," then there's no way for me to compensate for that. my humor won't get me higher
01:08:13
score, my looks won't get me, my education, my accomplishment, I'm dead because there's there are a lot of
01:08:19
taller guys. But if the way you choose me is as a function of how I score on a basket of goods, then I might have a shot. So that's why I tell people, by the way, that even though we all score
01:08:31
poorly on some things, but there's a whole bunch of other things that we that is within our possibility to improve. I
01:08:38
guarantee you for all that you are, if you improve on assertiveness, ambition, if your vocabulary changes so that when you sit at a party, people can judge you by the way within the first few
01:08:50
sentences that you say. Just your elocution, the vocabulary that you use, the the thoughtfulness of your answers.
01:08:58
I can very quickly judge where you are where I could put you in the in the in the pigeon hole. So there are way you
01:09:04
know what why don't you crack a book and read a bit right why don't you stop playing video games
01:09:09
on this point of masculinity the just further upstream a little bit we talked about men approaching women now I have
01:09:15
to present the counter narrative to this because I don't think most men understand what it is to be a beautiful
01:09:20
woman and and what they go through on a daily basis this um ITV made a piece se I think seven days ago I saw it on on X
01:09:28
or Twitter um which showed what it's like to be a a beautiful woman walking down the
01:09:33
Um, this was only 7 days ago. There's been a variety of different videos like this, but I'll just play it for you so you can see.
01:09:40
What's going on? I'm filming undercover alone in Cardiff, where police recently announced a
01:09:45
decrease in violence against women. Within seconds, a group of men approached me.
01:09:51
I play tennis. Yeah. This guy didn't respect my personal space. I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I saw you. I had to say hello. You look
01:10:02
nice. That's kind of my friend. That's fine. The guy in the black t-shirt sees me up
01:10:09
ahead and speeds up to get next to me. And like many others, he overstays his welcome. I think I'll be okay. 20 people approach me in just 2 hours.
01:10:20
Now, I don't think men realize that that that's the nature of what a woman goes through. So, in the context of this
01:10:25
conversation about, no, we do have to be on the front foot if we are going to find a mate. When you
01:10:31
understand that that's what that beautiful woman that you're thinking about going up to has already gone
01:10:36
through it does change your you know I got you but I I've got an a ready deployed answer for that life is about modulation right saying the right thing
01:10:48
in the right way at the right time right I'm sort of paraphrasing a quote of Aristotle which in in the per not the
01:10:56
person in the happiness book I have a whole chapter that is going to address your beautiful woman story. So I talk about the inverted U. Uh does that ring
01:11:08
a bell? Do you know what that is? The inverted U. I can imagine on a graph. On a graph, but not not this way. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the other way. Like a
01:11:14
hill, right? So the inverted U is basically the the mathematical representation of
01:11:20
something that certainly the ancient Greeks taught us long ago, but they weren't the only ones to say this. You know, everything in moderation, right?
01:11:27
So Aristotle in his golden mean argument said look if you have let's say a uh soldier who's very cowardly meek lacking courage that's not good. If you have a
01:11:39
soldier who is so bold rash reckless in his risk takingaking that's not good either. So too little is not good too much is not good and the sweet spot is
01:11:50
in the middle. So in the happiness book I have an entire cha chapter whereby I argue that everything in life the number one universal rule of optimal
01:12:02
flourishing is to find the sweet spot irrespective of any context that you're talking about and then I demonstrate it
01:12:08
through a bewildering number of examples at the neuronal level at the individual level at the societal level okay so now
01:12:16
let's apply that principle to here right those guys are at the other end of the curve, right? Knowing when to act in the right way, at the right time, in the right measure, that they're not doing
01:12:30
that because the likelihood of that beautiful girl when you come up and act like a rather harassing buffoon in that
01:12:37
context of her saying, "You know what? I'm sold. Let's have massive sex behind that tree right now." Right? Therefore,
01:12:44
we know that statistically speaking, that approach is never going to work. It's done for no other purpose than to harass. Whereas when I'm at a party
01:12:54
where we are supposed to be mingling and I come up to you and I say, "Forgive me.
01:13:00
I hope you don't mind. I just want to say gorgeous dress." Does that seem like what I just said is similar to how
01:13:07
they're acting? So life is about modulation and those guys are certainly not modulated. Obviously, there's a bunch of things that are clearly violations there. Um, of everything
01:13:18
you've just said about the right place, the right time, they they look drunk. Uh, it's very late. She's alone, so
01:13:25
she's in a position of vulnerability in many respects. So, rolling up to her in such a way is But from the from the male
01:13:31
perspective, you said the probability of getting a good outcome there is so low. But from the male perspective there,
01:13:36
they're probably thinking, listen, if the probability is 0.001, why not? I'll take it. They're probably thinking that. Well, by the way, perhaps, but if
01:13:47
you were an empathetic person, you'd say the fact that she may feel threatened is
01:13:53
enough reason not to. Yeah. Not to do it. Therefore, to me, they're all [ __ ] I agree. And I I at the heart of this though is this idea of self-awareness. Exactly. Because the men that rolled up there,
01:14:05
they might in their own heads think they have a chance. They might like have a distorted view of their probability. I
01:14:11
mean, one of them rolled up and said, "Hey, uh, do you want some tennis lessons? I'm a tennis coach." And from what I saw in the video, he was a good
01:14:17
30, 40 years older than her. Yeah. And in his head, he must have thought that the effort he's exerting there is
01:14:25
worth the probability that he's assumed because there's just like no self-awareness. And I think at the heart of this is like, how do you build that
01:14:31
that self-awareness to know? Oh, I I love that you're asking this because one of the things that frustrates me the
01:14:36
most in social interactions is when so I'm not a beautiful woman, so I don't get that violation, but I get a million other violations for all sorts of
01:14:48
reasons. One of which is that people do recognize me a lot and they do come up. So they don't do it because they're
01:14:54
trying to get me behind the bushes. But then they'll stop me and lecture for the
01:14:59
next 25 minutes about whatever idea they're having in their head. Now, I'm polite. I'm thankful that people appreciate my work and will come up. But I didn't sign up while I'm walking with
01:15:11
my children and wife for you to lecture me for 25 minutes uninterrupted without me saying a word. If you come up and
01:15:18
say, "Oh, I read the perfect mine. Professor, loved it. Do you mind if I take a picture with you?" I'm always
01:15:23
gracious. I'm always but so all of those social phauas almost all of them could be linked to what you said which is a complete lack of self-awareness which let's break it down even more.
01:15:37
There is a concept in uh psychology uh called theory of mind. Are are you familiar with it? No. Theory of mind is a ability that you must have in order to
01:15:51
have meaningful social interaction. What does theory of mind mean? When I'm chatting with you, I have to be able to
01:15:58
put myself in your mind. So, for example, if I'm talking to an audience that knows nothing about evolutionary
01:16:04
psychology, I might alter the specific words I use because I have theory of mind that makes me say they don't know what domain specific computational systems would be. If I use those words,
01:16:17
I just lost not because they're dumb, but because they don't know that jargon. So, I already exhibited a good
01:16:24
communicator skill, which is I put myself in the theory of mind of my audience and I modulate my message
01:16:30
depending on who I'm speaking to. Well, autistic children, by the way, fail on theory of mind. So, one of the ways that you are able to diagnose because autism,
01:16:42
you can't give a blood test that shows, oh, there's a marker of autism. So the way that you typically uh diagnose autism early is through various tasks
01:16:53
that they go through. So there is a task for children that you suspect might be autistic where they will fail on such a test which makes sense intuitively because you know that autistic children
01:17:05
don't have very good social skills are emotionally withdrawn don't read cues well. So, for example, if I'm sitting with you for 25 minutes while you lecture me about why Camala Harris is a
01:17:18
great president. I didn't sign up for that. You want to shake my hand? That's great. Now, you can tell if you're not
01:17:25
if you are self-aware that I'm getting impatient. You should be able to tell that my children are starting to shuffle
01:17:33
uncomfortably because they're getting impatient. But you're just as oblivious as those [ __ ] So so many of social
01:17:41
interactions are because of people's lack of self-awareness. And I am shocked by the extent to which most people lack self-awareness. So it's not that 95% of
01:17:54
the people that I meet are unbelievably socially gracious and it's only the 5% degenerates that are bad. It's the opposite. But then there's a there's an explanation for that. Okay, go. Because the ones that did have
01:18:06
the self-awareness never came up. Right. Okay. Oh, so therefore I'm only exposed to the bad instances. So the ones that have the self-awareness in the theory of mine, saw you walk past with your family and
01:18:17
went he's with his family, love his work, but I'm not going to roll upon him with his family. You're exactly right. By the way, that's
01:18:23
the exact same mechanism that explains something called the overconfidence bias, which is a cognitive bias whereby
01:18:30
we overestimate something in an over. So for example, if you ask most professors, so do you think that you your uh your
01:18:38
teaching uh ability is it below average, average or above average? 90% of professors say above average. Well, statistically that can be. Well, why does that happen? It's exactly for what you said. The the students who thought I
01:18:51
was great took the time to come up to me and say, "Professor, love the course." The ones who thought I was an [ __ ]
01:18:57
they didn't come up to me. So what did my brain code? Only the great ones. and therefore I must be great.
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01:19:09
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01:20:01
What if the way you present yourself isn't appealing to the world? And again, this brings us back to this idea of like
01:20:07
being a beta male. And when you say beta male, what we're saying that what is the definition of beta male? It's
01:20:12
so yes, it's used colloially. Beta male would be none of the markers that uh exhibit the types of qualities that women would find attractive you possess.
01:20:24
So it could be social dominance, it could be physical dominance, it could be high status, it could be assertiveness,
01:20:30
could be ambition, it could be look uh one of the reasons why women say I I love I'm very attracted to a funny man, a funny guy. What what they're effectively saying is I want an
01:20:43
intelligent man. Because it's very very unlikely that you could be a very funny satist if you're not intelligent. Dave
01:20:50
Chappelle is probably smarter than a lot of my colleagues, but they have a lot of degrees. But he wouldn't be able to
01:20:55
stand up in front of an audience, keep their attention for an hour and a half on really powerful social commentary
01:21:03
where they pay $150 to come if he wasn't if he weren't incredibly intelligent. Right? So, so beta and and alpha doesn't just mean tall and dominant and I have a
01:21:14
club and I beat you with it. It means, do you exude the types of cues that on average in the mating market people would say, "God damn, that's an attractive guy." Whatever that means.
01:21:25
That's that's how I define it. So, if you had to give advice then to men and women who were intent on being
01:21:33
higher value and higher status, how what would that advice be and how would it differ? Some of the advice will be
01:21:39
exactly the same for both sexes. Yeah. But some of the advice would be sex specific in recognition that not of not
01:21:46
all of the mating attributes are equally desired by the opposite sex. Right? So for example,
01:21:52
no man has ever uttered the following words. Linda, you have a gorgeous body. I'm unbelievably sexually drawn to you, but
01:22:03
you're not exhibiting the type of elacrity to improve your GPA score, and your lack of assertiveness in your studies suggests that I'm not going to have sex with you tonight. No man has
01:22:16
ever uttered those words. But a lot of women meet a super hot guy at a club. He opens his mouth and what comes out is [ __ ] imbecility and suddenly the sex
01:22:30
opportunity has just shut down. So why am I saying all this? There are some traits that if men were to work on that's going to bring them more bang for
01:22:42
the buck than if women worked on other ones both. So for example, kindness and intelligence are universal traits equally desired by both men and women.
01:22:55
So that's that's true for both men and women across cultures. But social status is preferred by women in men in every known culture. Physical beauty and youth
01:23:07
is preferred by men over women in every culture. So So some traits the advice would be the same. some traits it'll be sex specific. I wonder because I'm trying to give I'm
01:23:19
trying to figure out how to give advice to that bottom 50% of men that are basically having no sex,
01:23:26
right? Which I'm told about over and over again that are at risk of becoming incelss or playing video games in their room that
01:23:33
are turning to pornography as a medicine, I guess, and an antidote to their lives. What kind of advice would
01:23:39
you offer to those those sort of disillusioned men? Is that guy also 90 pounds overweight and pear-shaped? Probably not in shape. Okay. So, you know what? Hit the
01:23:51
treadmill. Looks matter. They don't matter to women as much as they do to men, but you know, I my my wife often
01:23:58
jokes with me. I don't I don't know if you've ever seen this on on the internet. I will often post, you know, in a joking manner, a photo of me from
01:24:05
1985 in actually in Southern California in in in San Diego where I'm in my soccer physique days where I have the eight pack and the V and the whole thing. Right? And my wife would joke
01:24:16
with me. She said, "How come I never got that version of Gad?" Right? Now, that doesn't mean she obviously stayed with
01:24:23
me when I was, you know, 86 pounds heavier. So, it's not the only thing, but boy is it better to have this six or
01:24:29
eight pack than not have it. So, uh my height I can't change, right? So, I can't tell those guys that are
01:24:36
potentially going to be in sales, you know, please try to grow 4 in, right? But again, crack a book. So, for
01:24:42
example, even with my own children, right? You would think having the father that they have, they're born, they come out of the womb, and they're reading. You know how hard it is for me to get
01:24:52
them to get away from this damn thing? Right. It's it's it's it's one of the biggest frustrations I have as a parent. And and as I said earlier, they're they're very graceful. They're very poised. Probably compared to other
01:25:02
children, they're a lot more knowledgeable. But it's not a reflex for them to say of all things that I could
01:25:08
do right now, I want to go to a room and read. Whereas it is a reflex that I still have today with complete full
01:25:14
dedication. So read more, learn how to speak better. There there again mating is a compensatory process. There are things that I can't change about me. I can't change my height. I can't change
01:25:28
the symmetry or lack thereof in my face. But if I'm thinner, all other things equal. I'm probably going to be better. So, it's never a lost cause. Wherever I am in my mating desiraability score,
01:25:41
there are always effective intervention strategies that could improve my score. So, I'm I'm currently at a 42. I think
01:25:48
that if I do strategies ABC, I could probably get up to 60. and 60 is going to open me up to a lot more desirable women than when I was 42. We we talked a little bit earlier about
01:26:00
um pornography. I think I I said the word once, but I found it quite interesting. You know, we talked a
01:26:06
little bit about sexual variety that you make a case that porn in some ways might be good for us. Not quite. I say, so I say that porn, it
01:26:20
makes perfect evolutionary sense that porn is a behavioral trap that can lead to addiction. So, I'm not saying it's good for you. I'm not saying that we've evolved to specifically consume porn,
01:26:33
but here's what porn is doing. So, in in evolutionary theory, there is a distinction between an adaptation and an
01:26:41
exaptation. And adaptation is something that has evolved because it confers either survival or uh reproductive benefits. So my preference for fatty
01:26:54
foods is an adaptation that's linked to survival. My uh desire to use high status products to impress the ladies is a behavioral trait that helps me in the
01:27:06
mating market. Okay. An exaptation, not to be confused with an adaptation, is when there is a phenomenon that piggybacks on an adaptation itself. It
01:27:17
serves no purpose. Do you follow what I mean? So for example, the color of our skeletal system is not an adaptation.
01:27:25
There were already path dependent engineering solution that led to the fact that our skeletal color is the way that it is. It's it's not itself an
01:27:36
adaptation. How would you use this in and I'm going to come to pornography in a second. For example, you could say
01:27:44
religion is an adaptation. If you want to say that, this is what you'd have to argue. Groups that are religious by virtue of their religiosity
01:27:55
exhibit greater communality, greater cohesion, greater in-group outgroup demarcation. So groups that are religious tend to outlive groups that are irrel irreligious. So that would be
01:28:08
an adaptive argument for why religion evolved. An exaptation argument for why religion evolved is that religion solves no adaptive function, but rather it
01:28:19
piggybacks on systems that already exist in my brain. So for example, I already come with the brain that's coalitional. I view the world as blue team, red team. There's us, there's them. That's already
01:28:31
a mechanism that's built into my brain for other reasons. And now religion comes along and piggybacks on that,
01:28:37
right? The Jews have the Jews and the Gentiles. The Christians have the believers who are going to be with Jesus
01:28:44
in in heaven and the rest of you [ __ ] who are going to burn in hell. The the Muslims have the believers and
01:28:50
the kufur, which is a derogatory term for non-Muslims. So all of those religions have at least Abrahamic
01:28:57
religions have the same structure of us versus them. So with that background, pornography is not something that specifically evolved in us because there there was no pornography in in the
01:29:10
ancestral savannah. But we for example men have evolved a preference for visual stimuli. Men have evolved a greater pension for sexual variety.
01:29:23
Now, there's a product that piggybacks on those innate preferences that says, "Hey, guess what? There's a screen where
01:29:30
I'm going to take you where you could shop for as many new mobile, fertile, ready young women, and you never have to see the same woman twice if you serve for the next 600 years. My brain has
01:29:44
been hijacked." So, pornography is not something that we've evolved a gene for. But pornography utilizes existing systems to trap us. That's why, by the
01:29:54
way, in two of my earlier books, I talk about the evolutionary roots of dark side consumption. Dark side consumption
01:30:01
are maladaptive behaviors like pornographic addictions, pathological gambling, eating disorders, compulsive
01:30:08
buying. So I explain how these maladaptive behaviors have a biological signature. I was reading Psychology
01:30:15
Today with the the study with 688 young Danish adults who were surveyed and respondents viewed the viewing of porn um hardcore pornography as beneficial to their sex lives, their
01:30:28
attitudes um towards sex, their perceptions and attitudes towards members of the opposite sex and toward life in general.
01:30:35
So I guess the question here is is pornography when we think about our evolution and the implications of us
01:30:42
consuming pornography and the behavior that it then turns into is it a net good or a net that's a good one and well the research is unclear on this so I've seen studies
01:30:53
that have exactly to your point have said hey you know what it spices things up as long as you do it openly you know
01:30:59
uh again it's a question of modulation remember I said doing it at the right time right amount the right context and
01:31:06
so on, right? If once in a while, for whatever reason, whether it be alone or in the context of a couple, you decide to incorporate pornography to spice things up, good for you. If you can't
01:31:19
get to work on time cuz you're spending 6 hours uh feverishly uh masturbating to
01:31:24
pornography and then you don't have the sexual vigor to then be intimate with your partner, then we have a problem,
01:31:30
right? So many psychiatric conditions that are rooted in in behavioral dysfunction,
01:31:36
if they're done at the right amount, they're not a problem. It's when they go on the bad side of the curve. Let me give you a again a a big uh a big view
01:31:47
of this problem. OCD, obsessivecompulsive disorder, is a psychiatric condition and it can
01:31:53
manifest itself in different obsessions or different compulsions. So obsession could be uh I'm engaging what's called ruminative thinking, right? Did did I
01:32:04
say something at yesterday's party that was stupid and now everybody thinks I'm a [ __ ] Now I will start to try to
01:32:12
speak to everybody at the party in a ruminative obsessive way to make sure that I didn't say anything. Now compare
01:32:18
that to germ contamination fear as a form of OCD. I will now wash my hands repetitively 600 times to make sure that I didn't get uh infected by anything when I shook somebody's hand. Right now,
01:32:31
there is an evolutionary adaptive version of that which is scanning the environment for environmental threats
01:32:38
once is at the right level of behavioral regulation. Right? Check the back door that it's locked. Wash your hands once when you shook many hands at the party. But then what happens to the person who
01:32:50
doesn't suffer from OCD? There's a warning flag that goes up in your head. Then you tend to that flag. And what
01:32:56
happens to the flag? It goes down and it's finished. The OCD person, the flag is hyperactive in an infinite loop. I wash my hands, flag goes down. As I walk
01:33:07
away from the sink, flag goes back up. I wash my hands again. I am stuck in a repetitive ritual for 8 hours in
01:33:14
scolding hot water where the skin is coming off me. I didn't go to work cuz I've been washing my hands since 7:00 in
01:33:20
the morning. That's what happens with pornographic addiction, right? I'm sitting and surfing the internet 6 hours
01:33:27
for porn. So, it is at the disregulation part of that behavior. So, it's not that there's anything innately evil or
01:33:35
diabolical or bad with surfing porn once in a while, but it's once in a while. 6
01:33:41
hours a day, we have a problem. A lot of men that watch pornography, and I've had this said to me a few times, um feel an
01:33:46
immense amount of shame um about the behavior. They they wish they didn't. If they could if they could
01:33:52
press a button or write down who they want to be, they probably would be someone that wasn't watching pornography. I think that's probably a
01:33:58
safe assumption to make as a general rule. And the other thing that I've heard is that because of the dopamine
01:34:04
receptors in our brain, it's going to kind of um dampen our in real life sexual attraction and performance and cause to lead in erectile dysfunction.
01:34:20
All those things are certainly uh plausible, right? I mean uh and also motivation. made the motivation
01:34:27
argument to me if you start messing with your dopamine in such a way that's the same dopamine and same sort of I guess chemical set you need to go and pursue.
01:34:34
Exactly right. And are those people that that you're talking about are they are they ones that we would classify as
01:34:40
being in a dysfunction or even if they watch porn once every four weeks they're feeling great shame and they're self
01:34:46
flagagillating. I don't know. It was actually was I got told this by a I do get DMs from guys that are continually asking me to have
01:34:52
more conversations about pornography because there's shame associated with it. When I looked at the Google search
01:34:58
terms, the most frequent search term in the category that I searched was how do I quit pornography?
01:35:03
And it was by by a way it was it was the astoundingly the most searched thing as
01:35:09
it related to pornography, which is how do I quit? And the question itself is quite desperate, right? So that makes me think that they
01:35:16
are in the wrong side of that curve, right? They're already in disregulation mode because if it were something that
01:35:22
I'm It's kind of like I I eat one bad thing a month. That doesn't seem to be a bad issue. If I eat three bad things every single day, I will wake up 86
01:35:35
pounds overweight. Right? So again, Aristotle taught us right thing, the right place, and the right amount. So I don't think that there's a deontological rule and we can if you want explain what
01:35:47
that means. There is no deontological rule that says under all circumstances any porn consumption is diabolical and
01:35:55
evil. I don't think that's true. Now maybe also I'm not a religious Puritan. Maybe if you're a religious Puritan you
01:36:01
say not even watching one second of porn you're the devil. But from a from a non
01:36:07
sort of judgmental, non-puritanical thing. Hey, listen. Uh you've been outside of a I mean, forgive me. I'm going to be very direct. You're not in a relationship. It's been uh 6 months
01:36:19
since your last sexual encounter. You have certain libidinal drives. You decide to sit and watch some porn that
01:36:26
one time. I don't think that makes you Lucifer. But if you spend six hours a day every day while your wife is saying,
01:36:33
"Hey, are we going to get some sexy time tonight?" And you go, "My refractory period is such refractory is what
01:36:40
happens when is the time between your last ejaculation and when you can get hard again." Well, if I just masturbated
01:36:47
five times today, I'm probably not going to be up for it at night. And so again,
01:36:53
it's a question of is it a dysfunction or is it part of the regular norm of behavior. So I don't think people have to feel so guilty about watching porn once in a while.
01:37:03
What do you think I I should say to my future son about the world that he's growing up in in terms of the mismatch between our evolution and
01:37:17
his natural hard wiring? Wow, what a great question. So there is a there is something called the mismatch
01:37:23
hypothesis in evolutionary theory which basically says that many problems that we face today arise out of a mismatch of a phenomenon that was adaptive in our
01:37:37
ancestral past but is no longer adaptive in our contemporary modern world. Classic example to stick to food. We've
01:37:45
evolved the gustatory preferences to as a response to caloric scarcity and caloric uncertainty. Therefore, being attracted to fatty foods, gorging on a
01:37:56
lot of food makes perfect evolutionary sense when we don't know when our next meal is coming from. When we live in an
01:38:02
environment of plentitude, then that exact phenomenon becomes maladaptive. So if you look at for example I think the top eight or nine killers on the World Health Organization thing they can all
01:38:13
be attributed to the mismatch hypothesis. So I would tell your son knowledge is power to our earlier point
01:38:21
of view getting that degree you never lose in knowing more you being aware of the mismatch hypothesis dear son will allow you to hopefully not fall as
01:38:32
easily into behavioral traps. And what are the most important because you have a book here called happiness, eight
01:38:38
secrets for leading the good life. If I was to give him advice on how to live a happy life, what are the most important things that
01:38:44
I should be aiming at? So I I look at both decisions that we can make for happiness and mindsets. So
01:38:51
let me maybe discuss a few of each. So by far the two choices that will either impart upon me the greatest happiness or the greatest misery is choice of spouse and choice of profession. Okay.
01:39:04
And let's break it down very simply. If I wake up next to a person in the bed and I go, "Oh, god damn, not this one
01:39:10
again." I'm not off to a good start. If I wake up next to this to to that person
01:39:16
and I go, "Oh my god, how did I pull that off? What a delight to wake up next to this person?" Well, that's good. Have they empirically measured this? Have they Not not in the way I'm explaining the
01:39:28
anecdote. Uh, now if I go off after I woke up to this lovely person, I go off and do things in my day-to-day activities that make me do existential
01:39:39
glee. Oh boy, what a great day I have lined up. I'm going to be working on my next book. I've got uh I've got uh diary
01:39:47
of a CEO that's going to be super fun. A lot of new people are going to hear about some of my ideas. Then I'm going
01:39:52
to maybe have a chat with a graduate student on some really exciting research I'm doing. So, wow. Oh, yeah. I mean there's a lot of stress but it's all
01:39:58
gives me a lot of purpose and meaning and then at night I return to that lovely person. I've cracked the the the
01:40:03
happiness code right now. Of course the question is if the devil's in the details what can I do to maximize my
01:40:11
chances that I make those right choices. I explain in the book contrary to 99.9%
01:40:17
of the quote self-help prescriptive books where they tell you exactly with guarantee here are the eight steps. I explained that life is a statistical game, right? It there are statistical
01:40:30
vagory. So all I can do is increase your odds of obtaining happiness. I can't guarantee anything, right? You could never smoke and get lung cancer, but not
01:40:41
smoking certainly reduces your chances of lung cancer greatly. So earlier I mentioned birds of a feather flock together versus opposites attract. Overwhelmingly, if you want to increase
01:40:53
your chances of a happy marriage, remember the maximum birds of a feather flock together. Complimentarity works
01:41:00
really nicely in the short term. It doesn't sustain a long-term marriage. The butterflies, the hormones don't last
01:41:07
when you've been in a marriage. That doesn't mean you're not still sexually attracted to your partner 25 years later, but that's not going to carry the
01:41:14
train. Okay. Okay. So, but just to give a little bit more, I guess spec specificity and nuance to this. You're
01:41:20
not cuz my partner, she's really into like spiritual stuff. Yes. She's really into like crystals and lots
01:41:25
of things that I'm not into. I think we have a great relationship. We've been together a long time.
01:41:30
And she's like I'm into Manchester United and soccer. She's not into that. Well, we might have to have you revisit
01:41:36
that because I'm a Manchester City guy, but go ahead. Okay. Well, that's the end of the podcast. So, yeah. Um, my apologies. No. Uh, look, I'm not
01:41:45
suggesting that there aren't clear differences in a but if I were to distill, if I were to to use statistical term, if I were to factor analyze your
01:41:56
most fundamental life principles between you and your partner, do you think you're more alike or more different? We're more alike. We're we're aligned. That's my point.
01:42:08
Yeah. And this is why I say it because when people hear it, they might think of it as like tastes. No, it's not about taste. It's not about the most
01:42:14
fundamental deontolog, right? I mean what you know my wife loves the fact that I'm a trutht teller. My love my wife loves the fact that I have purity
01:42:24
in my right she appreciates the fact that you know and similar with her like for example we both have never been the type to seek to trigger jealousy in the
01:42:37
other. Many people will will will say, "Oh, you know, if when you trigger jealousy, that spices things up, right?
01:42:43
My wife has never a single time done a single thing, right?" But that's because she has a standard of personal conduct that's very elevated. Well, can I ask you as well in there, just are
01:42:55
there things about your wife that you don't have as much, but are fundamental values, but you're drawn to because she's kind of giving you them? I call
01:43:06
her MacGyver. Do you know do you remember who Macgyver was? Macgyver was a show in the 1980s, I
01:43:12
think, where he was reputed to be able to put things together. He he he's in a pickle. He's in a cell. So he takes soap and cuts it up to cut the bar. He right
01:43:25
my wife at a complete reversal of the typical stereotypes of male and female. You give my wife an empty can of tuna and a soccer ball, she'll make a rocket
01:43:37
and she'll fly you to Mars. She is unbelievably in French you say de bruya. Uh she knows how to put things together
01:43:44
and so on. And I'm just mesmerized by her ability to do for me for all my fancy academic stuff. Uh take a light
01:43:52
bulb. It'll probably take me four weeks before I figure how it works. She's already built a rocket. is basically
01:43:58
Elon Musk of the sad household. I greatly admire that in her and it's something that I possess very little. I wanted to ask one of the things you said a second ago was about this the
01:44:08
evol evolutionary basis of we're talking about happiness and what it is to be happy. You talked about the partner
01:44:13
part. What is the evolutionary basis of meaning and purpose? Why do we need that? Right? So we've got a very big frontal lobe. Right? So for remember earlier I
01:44:25
was talking about adaptation versus adaptation. One argument for why we love literature so much is that it our brains need nourishment via storytelling and
01:44:38
therefore that's an exaptation. My brain expects to be fed stuff that keeps me engaged and therefore literature is one way by which I eat that nourishment to use the food analogy. Right? So I
01:44:51
suspect that because we are sentient beings, right? We we we're not beings that are only driven by instincts of survival and reproduction, right? I
01:45:01
mean, all animals have to solve two problems. Survive and reproduce, right? That's it. That's the entire game of life. But because we have consciousness,
01:45:13
because we have metaan knowledge, because we are sentient, there needs to be more to life than simply having sex
01:45:20
and reproducing. And therefore, the way that you elevate that consciousness is through purpose and meaning. So, I'm a
01:45:27
very happy I mean, I should mention though that happiness about 50% of individual differences and happiness
01:45:34
scores comes from our genes. But the good news is is that it leaves 50% up for grabs, right? So I may be born with innately a more sunny disposition than
01:45:45
you. So I'm now winning at the race. But if I don't have make good choices, if I don't adopt good mindsets, then even though you
01:45:55
started lower than me in an innate sense, you might surpass me. And so it really is an interaction of nature and
01:46:01
nurture uh purpose and meaning. So to that I may be answering it in an oblique way. I argue and remember I said having a a good partner and having a
01:46:13
good job are the two ways that you can maximize happiness. I argue that the best way to achieve occupational
01:46:20
happiness is two metrics. One of which is going to relate to purpose and meaning.
01:46:26
Having temporal freedom all other things equal is better than not having temporal freedom. Let me
01:46:31
explain what I mean by that. a an airplane pilot once the door shuts the next 16 hours
01:46:40
from LA to Singapore it's set right I mean literally temporarily in terms of time physically I'm stuck right that to
01:46:48
me is unthinkable I float through life I I work harder than most people but I do
01:46:54
it in my own way right now I'm going to go to a cafe and work on a book prospectus then I'm going to go train
01:47:00
for an hour then I'm going to go read for 3 hours and that temporal I don't have what I call scheduling esphixia right that helps me I do
01:47:11
you do try to resolve that if you can number two which is going to speak to purpose and meaning I argue that all
01:47:18
other things equal any job that allows you to instantiate your creative impulse is a direct path to purpose and happening happiness uh purpose and meaning what do I mean by that a standup
01:47:32
A comic is creating a routine that until he came along we didn't have. A chef is
01:47:38
creating a dish out of nothing. An architect is creating that bridge that didn't exist before. An author remember
01:47:45
earlier we were talking I think I think it was off air and you were saying how long did it take you or what was the process? I said you know there's
01:47:51
something magical about writing a book right because there literally is a day where you open the laptop you open a
01:47:57
word document. that word document which eventually you're going to call the parasitic mind save doesn't have a
01:48:05
single letter typed it's blank and then through the magic of creation creative impulse a year later I press the send button a year later you're consuming
01:48:17
that book that has to be a direct path to purpose and meaning now that doesn't mean that the actuarial scientist your
01:48:24
brother doesn't have a worthy life but surely literally a person who wakes up who's an artist, who's an author, by the nature of him creating says, "Oh,
01:48:37
I can't wait to get to the studio." I doubt that. Maybe not your brother. I doubt that most actuarial scientists go,
01:48:44
"I'm going to get into that actuarial table today like there's no tomorrow. I'm gonna spank that actuarial table."
01:48:50
Okay. Okay. So, putting a bunch of ideas together from your work then to arrive at a conclusion that I haven't heard you say. I read in the consuming instinct
01:49:00
your your other book chapter 4 that younger siblings like me Yes. youngest of four are more likely to be creative. Oh, you you you pulled that one out.
01:49:11
Okay. So, does that mean that if we're more likely to be creative and creativity is associated with happiness
01:49:16
in the in the way that you just described that I am happier than all of my siblings?
01:49:21
Do you want to guess what Dr. Sad's sibling order is? You're the youngest by far. So, let me let me explain let me step before I answer that and the way
01:49:32
you frame the question, let me explain what the mechanism is. Okay. I also just want to add one layer to
01:49:37
that as well. I was sat with at a dinner the other day with my um with about 10 of our directors really their founders
01:49:43
of companies essentially and I I thought it would be interesting to go around and ask them because I've started to form a bit of a picture about this and I went
01:49:49
around the table and asked every single one of them where do you rank in order of siblings and eight of them ranked as
01:49:55
the youngest sibling. Oh, I love it. That was so crazy. Yeah. Is that Yeah, that's psychology. So, let me tell you
01:50:00
the background to that theory. Okay. Which I've done my own research on and published work on it. But the original theory comes from Frank Sulloway who's a
01:50:11
historian of science who wrote a book which I highly recommend to all your viewers. Uh it's a
01:50:18
it's a bit technical but you can get through it. It's called Born to Rebel. It's a book that explores historically the the the the people who've generated
01:50:31
the biggest breakthrough radical scientific innovations and what was their birth order. And it turns out not unlike how you did it with the 10
01:50:41
and eight of them were last born. Out of the 28 most radical scientific innovations ever posited, 23 out of the 28 were the the last born
01:50:55
later. Now, so then the question is, okay, well fine, that that's just a phenomenon, but what explains it? Now,
01:51:02
the explanation is mind-blowing. You ready? So Frank Sulloway argued that typically when we study the psychological effects of birth order, it's from the perspective of the parents
01:51:15
behavior to the child as a function of their birth order. First child, I'm very strict. Second child, I'm getting tired. Fifth child, run the streets. I don't give a [ __ ] Okay, so that's the causal
01:51:28
causality of the birth order effect. He flipped the whole thing. He said, "No, no, no. much of the impetus of the birth
01:51:35
order effect is coming from the child. And let me explain how he said that one of the fundamental survival problems,
01:51:42
it's an evolutionary theory. One of the fundamental uh survival problems that a child faces is to differentiate itself from all other siblings to to etch
01:51:57
maximal investment from the parents. How do I do that? So that's called the Darwinian niche partitioning hypothesis. When you start off your firstborn, all
01:52:09
of the niches are unoccupied. There is the I'm a good boy niche. I'm a rebel niche. I'm a right there. There are many many there's a panel of niches that are unoccupied. So I'm firstborn. I'm going
01:52:23
to pick whichever one. The second born is born. There is n minus one niches. one is
01:52:31
taken. So the I'm a good boy niche. I got to differentiate myself. I'm second. I'm an [ __ ] niche. I'm a I'm a contrarian niche. Let's keep going down the birth order. There are fewer and
01:52:43
fewer unoccupied niches left for later borns, especially if the siph argued that that forces the last born to
01:52:56
score differently on key personality traits. one of which is open to experience. So he argued that later borns up to last borns by virtue of
01:53:08
having to solve that original problem will end up being much bigger out of the box thinkers not being stuck on
01:53:16
conformity on orthodoxy. Hence in the context of scientific innovations the lastborns are the ones who say no this
01:53:22
is [ __ ] I'm going this way. Okay. And so I tested that theory in a consumer psychology setting where I demonstrated that lastborns were much
01:53:33
more likely to be product innovators and early product adopters. So I I took the
01:53:39
exact framework but instead of applying it to radical scientific innovations, I applied it to radical product
01:53:45
innovations and adoptions. Mhm. So, so all that to say that based on that one could surmise that if openness to experience is correlated to
01:53:57
happiness, then the latterborns would score happier. I I really wonder which one it is cuz I can attest to kind of both being true. I probably was a little bit rebellious to get attention, but
01:54:09
also by the time I was 10, the same rules didn't apply to me. When you said, "How many are you?"
01:54:14
There's four. Okay. When you said run the streets, that's the perfect explanation of my childhood. My my oldest the oldest,
01:54:21
which is my sister Amanda, she if she wasn't home by 9:00 p.m., she was also a woman, so the rules were slightly different for her. 9:00 p.m. it was it was hell to pay. If I didn't come home for 2 to 3 days, there was no one there
01:54:34
to ground me anyway. And I think that opens you up to experimentation. You start fiddling with stuff. You start I I was doing all kinds of things in the house, like breaking things apart, looking inside them. started little
01:54:45
businesses selling the cigarettes from my mom's room. Sorry, mother. She really doesn't know that I ever did that, but all these kinds of things which started
01:54:51
to build this, you know, repository of information, but also it built my confidence. Yeah. In a way, which allowed me to be
01:54:57
entrepreneurial and develop this different relationship with risk. So, it's hard to figure out which one it is. Maybe it's both. It's probably both. I think it's a bit
01:55:03
of both. Uh but yeah, I you know, I haven't been I I know that your team had asked me what are some questions that we
01:55:09
could ask that no one else. Well, certainly pulling up that birth order one, you've succeeded on asking me a
01:55:15
question that I certainly haven't been asked in a long time. So, kudos to you. Well, yeah, it's a incredible. We have a
01:55:20
lot of great researchers. So, and by the way, both my wife and I are lastorns. So, to to the assortative mating, and I'm not sure if that's been done, and if it hasn't been done, it' be
01:55:31
very easy to do, right? So, here's an experiment. If anybody steals it, I better get the credit. You just look at a thousand
01:55:39
marriages, calculate their satisfaction score, their happiness score, and then see if there is a sort of mating on birth or ownership. Interesting. Boom. There's there's your thesis for
01:55:51
your undergraduate psychology degree, which you will pursue and send me an email that I deserve the credit for
01:55:57
having forced. Why don't I just run this as a advert on social media as a survey and and so I can get a link run it as a
01:56:04
Facebook meta ad at people and say um are you married? If they say they are I'll say how long have you been married
01:56:10
they'll say how long I said are you and your partner where do you rank in terms of birth order and then I can get the
01:56:15
stats. Absolutely. So many studies now scientific studies are conducted online and they can be conducted online in exactly the way that you said you use existing social portals to have a big
01:56:26
wave of data collection. But there are other ways by the way you could have you have you heard of mTurk? No.
01:56:32
So mturk is a platform where people sign up to be participants. Right. Now, let's
01:56:40
say I'm a researcher and I say, I want men over 18 years old. Okay. Mhm. Well, that's easier to get than if I were to say, I want men who are over 18
01:56:53
years old, shorter than 6 feet, and from Lithuania, and they're diabetic. Now depending on how I structure my criteria
01:57:02
of inclusion, the price that I have to pay for getting those participants will go up.
01:57:09
Yeah. Right. So if I'm running a study, I just need male and female adults to run a
01:57:15
study on this task. It ends up being a few cents. And so it has opened up the velocity at which we can do research, scientific research, not just stuff I post on Twitter. scientific research it
01:57:28
has increased it 10fold. So, so you can certainly do that. We'll do it. So, we will I set this as a challenge for my research team and our
01:57:34
data science team which is to run a survey on social media using adverts. So, digital adverts, Facebook ads, meta ads, X ads, whatever. And the survey should basically seek to answer first
01:57:45
their gender, their marital status, ask what birth order they fell in, and then ask what order their birth their marital
01:57:53
partner fell into. But then also understand how long they've been together because we want to check these marriages are legit. Absolutely. And I'll put it on the screen.
01:57:59
That'd be so cool. And please share with the result. Well, by the way, what we're doing right now is what I call So in the
01:58:07
in the happiness uh book, I have a chapter called life as a playground. And I argue that science is the highest form of play because what when you're doing a
01:58:18
1,00 piece puzzle, you're putting which puzzle, which piece goes with what. Well, what's science? There's a bunch of variables floating around. Does this one
01:58:25
correlate with this one? Does this one cause this one or the other way? I'm just playing now and I'm getting paid
01:58:30
for it. How could I not be happy? Mhm. But the puzzle of life, unfortunately, it's the puzzle is
01:58:36
three-dimensional, which means sometimes you think you got it in the right place, but actually it was just 100 years
01:58:41
later, you find out that it was completely wokeness. Yes, sir. It's it's really intriguing to me that the evolutionary scientists that I've spoken to have for some reason all found
01:58:54
themselves on the subject of wokeness in society and it and it's hard for the average person to maybe understand the link between evolutionary science and wokeness and politics.
01:59:04
Right. So you want me try to tease those out? Yeah. And what well how did you find yourself talking about the idea of
01:59:10
wokeness? Right. So it it all began as we mentioned earlier in our chat when I saw
01:59:16
the rejection of biology in explaining human affairs which is something that I called biophobia. The fear of using biology to explain human affairs and at the time it was in the service of the
01:59:28
scientific work that I was doing. I mean what do you mean you're desk rejecting my paper at a journal because you don't
01:59:34
think that biology is relevant to consumer behavior? How could it be otherwise? That's insane. So that's when I was
01:59:40
first exposed to the possibility of a human a human mind being parasitized right. Uh now let me explain why I use the parasitic framework how I came up
01:59:52
with that. So one of the things that you do as an evolutionary scientist when you're trying to understand the
01:59:58
evolutionary signature of a behavior you often will compare it across species. Remember earlier I talked about testes
02:00:05
size and uh AC and across primates and female right? So it was many different species and that allows you to then draw a final principle based on comparing all
02:00:17
those species. So I started looking through the animal literature to look for something that might explain why do
02:00:24
animals do insane things. And so that's when I fell on the field of parasettology, which is just the study of parasites. But I wasn't looking for because a tapeworm is a parasite, but it
02:00:37
goes into your intestinal tract. I wanted the parasites that go into your brain, those are called neuroparasites.
02:00:44
And it turns out that there's a very I mean, it's almost like science fiction. There's a whole field of study that's
02:00:50
that explores this host parasite dynamic where the parasite is trying to enter the host's brain alter its circuitry to suit its interests. What is a parasite?
02:01:03
So a parasite is usually I mean literally a brain worm. So for example, toxopplasma Gandhi is a parasite that can infect human minds, but it most
02:01:14
famously infects the minds of mice. When they are parasetized in their brains by
02:01:20
this parasite, they become sexually attracted to cats and their sex and their urine, which is not a good. Yeah. So let let me give you a few examples. There's a wood cricket, an
02:01:33
actual cricket that abhores water. Okay. it it doesn't like it stays clear of water when it is paracetized by a hairmworm
02:01:44
needs to get the wood cricket to jump in water because it could only complete its
02:01:50
reproductive cycle in water. So a wood cricket that doesn't have the brain worm looks at the water and says I'm staying away. A wood cricket that is paracetized by this hairworm jumps into the water
02:02:03
merely to its death because it has altered its neurosircuitry to suit its interest. Okay. So when I saw that field neuroparictology I had my Euroka Eureka moment just like
02:02:15
I did when I first discovered evolutionary psychology. I said, I will now use the neuroparacettological model
02:02:23
to argue that human beings can not only be paracetized by actual physical brainworms, they could be parasetized by ideological brainworms. And so
02:02:35
continuing the metaphor, I said, so what are these parasites? Postmodernism is a
02:02:41
parasitic idea. So, so postmodernism actually I argue that that is the granddaddy of all parasitic ideas because postmodernism purports that there are no objective
02:02:53
truths other than the one objective truth that there are no objective truths. So,
02:03:00
and the reason for that is everything is shackled by biases. Everything is shackled by subjectivity. So, to speak of an objective truth with a capital T
02:03:10
is nonsense. Everything is subjective. And therefore, I argue in the book that all of these parasitic ideas originally started with a noble goal. And in the
02:03:22
service of that goal, if there has to be a collateral damage called truth, so be it. It's a worthwhile collateral damage
02:03:29
in the service of that higher social justice goal. No, it's a deontological principle. It's an absolute. Right? So you never pursue science in a biased
02:03:41
manner. Freedom of speech is available to all. It's not I believe in freedom of speech but not for Donald Trump. Then you're being a consequentialist.
02:03:51
So that's what the book is about. It traces the history of all these parasitic ideas and then it offers a
02:03:58
mind vaccine against that stupidity. What if the freedom of speech causes harm? Yes. to people and risks their lives. That's a great question. So, I am a free
02:04:12
speech absolutist. And so, let me explain what that means. We didn't get into my personal history. I'll just give
02:04:18
it for the relevance of what I'm about to say. I was born in Lebanon. I grew up in Lebanon and we escaped Lebanon under imminent death because of being Jewish.
02:04:30
Okay? So my Jewish identity caused me to come close to being eradicated. Give me some color and detail to that story.
02:04:40
So I was born in Lebanon in the 60s. Uh Lebanon was historically referred to as the Paris of the Middle East. Progressive tolerant Lebanon. Progressive tolerant in the context of
02:04:51
the Middle East, which means something very different than progressive and tolerant in the West. And you'll see in a second why. When I was 5 years old,
02:05:00
uh, Gamal Abd Naser, who was the president of Egypt, who was a very popular figure in the Arab world because he was what's called a panarabist, meaning he was trying to unify the Arab
02:05:10
people under one umbrella, right? To hopefully defeat the pesky Jews and so on. He passed away. when he passed away when I was five years old, as so often happens in the Middle East, people take
02:05:25
to the streets to scream and shout and burn and lament and so on. And as they were proceeding down my street where I
02:05:32
lived as a 5-year-old child, the the screaming was death to Jews, death to Jews. So I turned to my mother and say, "Why why are they screaming death? What
02:05:43
do we have to do with this?" Hi, don't don't put your head out. Okay, so that was my first time where I saw, wait a
02:05:49
minute, there there are people out there that want me dead because I'm Jewish. Fast forward a few years later, we're in
02:05:56
class and the teacher, this is pre-Ivil War, okay? The Civil War started in 75. Uh, sitting in class, teacher says, every to everybody, please stand up and say what you want to be when you grow
02:06:08
up. I want to be a policeman. I want to be a doctor. I want to be a soccer player. One kid gets up who I had known
02:06:16
through all the years of elementary school who knew I was Jewish said, "When I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer to
02:06:22
rockus applause and laughter and so on." Then the Lebanese war broke out. It became impossible to be Jewish in Lebanon. We left Lebanon under very,
02:06:32
very difficult conditions. Once we immigrated to Montreal, Canada, my parents, maybe they regret it now, kept returning to Lebanon because we still had business interest in full-fledged brutal massive
02:06:47
war. On one of their return trips in 1980, they were kidnapped by Fatah, which is one of the Palestinian factions. Some really bad things
02:06:59
happened to them. But then luckily through the connections that we had we were able to get them out. Some bad things happened to them inside captivity.
02:07:10
I mean you can imagine they were tortured. Yeah. Uh my mother said and I' I've seldom said this. I'm only saying it because you you're asking. My biggest fear when I found out the story after
02:07:25
the fact. I didn't even know they were I didn't know that they they they were kidnapped as it happened. I knew there
02:07:32
was a lot of mayhem in the house and I was asking what's going on. They said, "Oh, mom and dad have some business issues." They were lying to me to
02:07:37
protect me. I'm I'm 15 years old. Okay. Although there was a kid at school in my high school who whose parents were very
02:07:45
good friends of my parents, also Lebanese Jews. He knew that my parents were kidnapped. I didn't know they were
02:07:52
kidnapped. And later I found out that as he saw me in high school walking around
02:07:57
and laughing and joking, he thought, "Boy, this guy is made of ice. I mean, he's he's callous that he's taking it so
02:08:07
relaxed." But actually, I didn't know that this he knew, but I didn't know. Okay. So when they came out of captivity
02:08:14
and came back to Montreal, my biggest speak about evolutionary psychology and the male mindset, my biggest fear was whether my mother had been raped.
02:08:26
Now she told me stories of whatever, but she said that she she says I never knew
02:08:31
if it was true and we only discussed it that one time and we never discussed it again. She said that no, she wasn't.
02:08:38
Now, I don't know if she lied about that. She She said some other really bad things. I mean, I'm not going
02:08:43
to get into all of it, but I've always wondered whether she said that just so that, you know, it's not exactly, you know, it's shame and so on. But I
02:08:54
remember that if she had said yes, my thinking as a 15year-old boy was that I would spend the rest of my life seeking vengeance on those [ __ ] Okay? So, it wasn't a pleasant upbringing. I could
02:09:06
tell you stories that you wouldn't believe. It would be much worse than Rambo. So now coming back to your uh
02:09:12
freedom of speech issue and if it causes harm. I am Jewish with my personal history. I support the right of Holocaust deniers to spew the most
02:09:25
offensive thing possible which is they are rejecting a documented historical reality where 6 million people were exterminated. Nothing could be more offensive. No, it never happened. So you
02:09:38
want to talk about hurt and offense and insult, that's it. But in a free society, I have to tolerate racists,
02:09:46
imbeiles, [ __ ] falsehood spreaders. I beat them by speaking here by telling better ideas. So the only context where I don't support freedom of speech, it's
02:09:58
already enshrined in the first amendment, direct incitement to violence. Okay. So, let me draw a thing.
02:10:06
I go I'm I'm a let's suppose I were a white supremacist or neo-Nazi. If I get up on a show and say Judaism is a croc of [ __ ] it's useless. It's the most
02:10:19
disgusting religion. Totally okay. Freedom of speech. If I say later tonight at the corner of Lens, Lexington and 6th Avenue there is a synagogue.
02:10:31
Let's go to when they come out of service and beat the hell out of those Jews, if not kill them. That's not okay.
02:10:38
Now, it has to be direct incitement of violence. So, you can't say criticizing Judaism or Islam can create Islamophobia, [ __ ] No ideology is
02:10:50
above scrutiny. No belief system is above scrutiny. Your feelings are hurt, f off. Grow a pair. Okay? So, as long as you don't say, "Let's kill the Jews,
02:11:03
spend all the rest of your life criticizing Judaism," that's your right. Some people will say that it's kind of
02:11:10
like I was thinking of it like a staircase. As you were speaking, I was drawing a staircase because if I sat here and I said I consider myself to be
02:11:17
a black man. I mean, I'm half black. I guess my my mother's Niger and my father's English. But if I was to sit
02:11:22
here and say all mixed ethnicity people like myself are evil, they are disgusting, they are vultures, they are vermin, which is some of that sort of 1940s
02:11:35
narrative towards um the Jewish population. It's not long before if if me as a podcaster and many more of us all got behind that narrative, you would see this inevitable rise in people going
02:11:47
out there and killing people that are mixed race. Yes. And this is this is where it becomes tricky, right? So for me, Joe Rogan, Lex
02:11:54
Freedman, Andrew Huberman, all of the, you know, podcasters who have who have a significant audience, Alex Cooper, you
02:12:00
name them, all started hitting a specific group of people with a narrative. I'm convinced there'd be a
02:12:06
rise in violence towards those people just walking down the street and living their lives. Right. And this is where the issue arises.
02:12:11
Okay. So then let me let me let me test your belief. Are you familiar with the grooming gangs in Britain?
02:12:18
I'm familiar with the notion of it. Yeah. I I know I think I know what you're going to say. I think I've heard. So up and down England, in every town
02:12:26
that you can think of, big or small, for the past 30 plus years, there's been an
02:12:31
industrial scale level grooming and raping of white British girls. The perpetrators are 90% plus on the conservative estimate, 90%. Coming from
02:12:44
one background and one ideology. Is it marginalizing and insulting to identify that ideology? I'd say it's not because it's probably import an important data point to understand the causation of a
02:12:58
of a thing. Okay, let me give you another example. Um, American prisons are predominantly occupied by black men or at least it
02:13:10
overindexes with black men versus the population ratios. So, are black men therefore criminals um at birth? Right. Well, that the way I
02:13:23
would address that is I would defeat that statement with science. So, I would say, can you show me the data that suggests that dispositionally, meaning
02:13:34
innately? What would be the mechanism by which uh black men are higher than white
02:13:40
men? Now, if you show it, great. But I'm willing to bet you can't show it. Therefore, what you just stated is a
02:13:46
bunch of [ __ ] And you know how what you're going to suffer are the social consequences and stigma of being a racist [ __ ] But I I let you say it,
02:13:53
but I'll defeat your idea. On the other hand, if you said uh if we look at patterns of criminality in the United States, are black men
02:14:05
exponentially uh over represented? Yes. Now, we can say it's because it's white supremacy that causes black men to kill white
02:14:16
people. Or we could say, could there be any positive agents that if we are caring decent people, maybe we should talk about openly? Well, in today's world, I couldn't even I say I don't
02:14:29
give a [ __ ] But most people would say, don't even say that that there's a greater incidence of black criminality.
02:14:35
That itself is racist and you're marginalizing people. So that's why I don't believe in the concept of forbidden knowledge.
02:14:42
Forbidden knowledge is the idea that there is some knowledge that should not be pursued precisely because of your
02:14:49
scare staircase. It's going to result in negative downstream effects. I argue that that's a grotesqually dangerous principle. Why? So here I'm going to introduce the term and explain it which
02:15:02
I've mentioned earlier. In ethics there are two ethical systems. There is what's called deontological ethics and
02:15:09
consequentialist ethics. Deontological ethics is absolute statements like contient imperatives. It is never okay to lie. That would be a deontological
02:15:20
statement. A consequentialist statement would be it is okay to lie to spare someone's feelings. So I always joke if you want to have a long happy marriage
02:15:30
when you hear the following question. Do I look fat in those jeans? put on your consequentialist hat really fast and say, "No, sweetie. You've never looked more beautiful. I might have just lied,
02:15:43
but I just spared my partner, my wife's feelings." So, for many, many things, it
02:15:49
makes perfect sense that we all wear our consequentialist hat. But there are certain principles that are foundational that by the very definition of that
02:16:01
principle have to be deontological. Okay. Freedom of speech is deontological. The pursuit of truth has to be deontological. Presumption of
02:16:11
innocence in the justice system has to be deenthological. Right? Journalistic integrity if you truly are a truth reporter has to be deontological. But what have we seen throughout the last
02:16:22
four or five years? Let me show you violations of these. I believe in freedom of speech but not for Donald
02:16:30
Trump. the antlogical principle has become consequentialist. I believe in journalistic integrity, but
02:16:37
not when it comes to Hunter Biden's laptop because if we release that information, then h then Joe Biden loses
02:16:45
to Orange Himmler and then that's too bad. So, it's perfectly okay to suppress what we now know is an absolutely true laptop where there is astronomical
02:16:57
political corruption, but it was okay to lie. I believe in presumption of innocence, but not for Brett Kavanaaugh because, you know, he's a gang rapist
02:17:07
going up and down the eastern seabboard raping everybody. Now, of course, we have no data to support that, no
02:17:13
evidence. And the one who accused him one day before the confirmation said that she thinks it was 36 years later.
02:17:20
It could have been 38. It could have been last week. I can't really remember, but I know that he sexually assault me
02:17:26
and we don't really care about this thing called evidence. A lot of my super fancy colleagues in friends said, "Oh, I
02:17:34
know that we should assume that someone is presumptively innocent, but it's too important in this case to apply that
02:17:40
deontological principle." They didn't use that word. They don't even know it. So in this case, let us just assume that
02:17:45
Brad Kavanaaugh was a serial rapist. So no, there is no forbidden knowledge in science. I I'll give you a great example. There's a guy called, his name escapes me right now. He was a
02:17:57
psychologist at University of Western Ontario who spent his entire career studying racial differences. And here's now the worst part in
02:18:08
intelligence. Okay. So, I remember one time this is I don't think I've ever mentioned this story personaliz so
02:18:15
you're getting an exclusive here. 1996 I'm speaking at the international congress of psychology.
02:18:21
I'm a young professor just out of my PhD. I'm talking about something very non controversial about what are the types of strategies that people use when they're making decisions under time
02:18:33
pressure. And I'm in a room. So, there are four other speakers in that session. Okay? and the room is filled with maybe 1500 people and there is like this real
02:18:45
electricity and I'm and I'm not a very nervous public speaker thinking what's going on here why is there such tension well I found out I had I hadn't looked
02:18:56
at the program the guy who gets up to speak before me is that infamous psychologist who now starts putting up
02:19:04
graphs of the intelligence of white women black women black men And I said, "Oh my god, I'm dead. I'm going to be lynched by proxy." Now, here's the good news. When he finished his talk and I'm
02:19:17
next, about 1,425 out of the 1500 people rushed out of the room to follow him and badger him. And I was like, that was the only time in my life where I said, "Thank God that everybody's left." Usually, you want
02:19:30
more people in the audience. I was like, "Oh, thank God." And then I have got like, you know, 70 people there. I'm
02:19:36
right now. in his case. I've asked close colleagues of his uh and as I'm talking
02:19:43
I'm trying to remember his name. Philip Rushton, that's his name. Philip Rushton, they people could check him
02:19:48
out. I've asked some of his colleagues, do was this guy was he a racist? Because
02:19:54
he's always said, look, I just collected the data and I presented the data and I
02:20:00
offered possible explanations. Now, even something as contentious as potentially incendiary as that, I would argue if you truly collected the data in
02:20:14
a completely unbiased manner, you should not be not publishing it because it's going to appear racist. Well, what do you think? Do you think I care if something's true or not? And I think I have the,
02:20:28
you know, I have the what? I don't know. I don't know what the word is. Strength of character.
02:20:34
I don't want to I don't want to pretend like I'm some like hero that's pursuing truth at all costs because that's not
02:20:39
how I feel about myself. What I would rather know is what's true because then I can deal with the truth and the truth doesn't offend me in any
02:20:46
way. If you told me now that 31-year-old mixed race guys that have Nigerian heritage and their father's from Coventry are statistically dumber and and it was robust, I would believe it
02:20:57
and I would be okay with it. 0% of me would would suffer any offense. 0%. of a strong personhood. Maybe that's it. There's nothing that I'm so happy with who I am in myself.
02:21:08
I'm so content with my own life and the way that I found it that if you told me that my brain size means that I'm weak
02:21:14
in X, Y, and Zed, which literally a doctor told me cuz they scan my brain and said, "Oh, you've got ADHD, which means you're going to be bad at all these things. Your handwriting is going
02:21:20
to be bad." I go, "Cool." Yeah. There's no offense taken. But I can also imagine a world where a certain someone
02:21:27
with a certain disposition might just take offense to a lot of things. So then in that case we have we're at a
02:21:33
bifurcation at that point. We can either say to anyone who might be offended please
02:21:40
grow a pair because the world is requires anti-fragility and there are stressors in life that are going to hurt you and you'll thank me later for me teaching you to have to grow a pair. Or
02:21:52
we can take the other road which says let's sanitize the world so that we maximize that no one is ever hurt
02:22:01
because we're kind and compassionate people. And if in that service of that sanitization process we have to murder
02:22:07
truth so be it. And that's by the way what leads to all those parasitic ideas because as I said I'm I'm trying to be
02:22:13
charitable to the to the promulgators of those [ __ ] ideas. They it starts off with a noble cause right? They're trying to improve the world in their warped sense. And because that's the highest
02:22:26
goal, they end up if I have to murder truth, that's that's a collateral damage. It's okay, right? I don't want
02:22:33
to I don't want a 6'4 guy who's got a stronger jawline than me and a beard to say, "Please address me as she and you better do so." And it's a governmental
02:22:45
edict, right? That that's what Jordan Peterson and I, we were both summit. I mean separately by the Canadian government to appear in front of the Canadian Senate when we were offering
02:22:57
our warnings against it's now bill but at the time it was a table bill called Bill C16 which was trying to incorporate gender identity and gender uh
02:23:08
orientation or whatever it's called into the hate law rubric. And my position was
02:23:14
yes, of course, we should seek to have a world where everybody lives dignified lives free of bigotry. But should I be
02:23:23
teaching in my evolutionary psychology courses that there is no such thing as male female that we clearly know that so
02:23:29
then sexual selection that Darwin taught us is no longer true. And they all started scoffing and mocking in a
02:23:35
theater of the absurd. Well, pretty much I hate to be the guy who says I told you so, but lit. I mean literally every
02:23:41
single thing that I predicted came out to be true because once you lose the reflex to have a deontological defense
02:23:49
of a deontological principle then all bets are off. An objective sense objective sense. No. Of course I fight
02:23:56
for the right of everybody to live lives free of dignity. But you can't play sports with a girl. I mean in what world do we live in? I played sports with a girl last night.
02:24:08
I don't want to hear about it. co-ed football. We played soccer. Ah, is that right? Okay. But you know what I mean. You shouldn't run the 100
02:24:13
meters and call yourself I mean you know the Leah Thomas case, the the swimmer swimmer. Yeah.
02:24:19
I mean imagine the level of pathological narcissism that you must experience where you say the need for me to
02:24:25
reaffirm my identity even if he truly held that identity is supersedes the rights of all those women. Yeah. Do you know what just to give my position on on this? I if someone asked
02:24:38
me if someone had the jawline you described and they asked me to refer to them as a woman and they were wearing a
02:24:43
dress. I've got no problem with that. Okay. I'm going to refer to if you if that's what you you want me to refer to you as
02:24:50
in the same way that if when I asked you before the start of this conversation, how do you want to be referred to? You told me your name, your title, etc. I
02:24:56
will because again, it's not hurting me, right to to refer to you as she, he, they,
02:25:01
whatever you want. And if that's going to make you feel um better about yourself then on a costbenefit analysis
02:25:08
in my head I go it's costing me nothing to refer to you as that. Yes. If it then has implications which shift
02:25:15
that costbenefit analysis i.e there's harm caused to another group of people because of that or I'm I'm you know I might be thrown in prison if I accidentally make a mistake. That's
02:25:25
where I think I think that's a little I think I completely agree with that. Right. as long as you don't harm others
02:25:32
in that calculus in that dynamic and as long as it's not compelled right so and I've said it I said look if if I I I've
02:25:39
never had this in my classes but let's suppose a student came to me privately and said you know I'd like to do you think I'm going to say no way [ __ ]
02:25:46
I'm going to no I will I will go along as you said but if it's the government who says you better do it now we're
02:25:52
different if the government says you better start putting he him in uh in your electronics signature. No. Right. I'll give you an example. I think in the
02:26:03
Canadian uh government has now issued for passports a thing whereby because you want to be inclusive and kind to non-binary people, which basically makes
02:26:15
up one out of every 15,000 people. So, it's not even the tyranny of the minor of the minority. It's the ten tyranny of the minority minority minority. I mean, it's really it's a unicorn. Non-binary.
02:26:29
Non-binary is I'm neither male, neither female. So, because historically, you know, sexually reproducing species, male, female phenotype, that to put male and female marginalizes the non-binary.
02:26:43
Now, we lose that marker. No, no, no. I want to be referred as a biological male. My wife is a biological female. my children also have. So all of our most
02:26:56
fundamental biological markers should be erased lest it might offend the one in 50,000 nonb No. So that speaks to your first point which is what about causing harm to other people. So yes, I will
02:27:09
never go out of my way to be frivolously mean to someone and my default value will be to be kind to you. But your need
02:27:17
to honor your identity doesn't mean that I get to go on the celebratory train with
02:27:24
you. Do you know who sometimes gets caught in the crossfire on these issues? And it's not just with the issue around gender,
02:27:29
it's around, you know, religion and race and these kinds of things are the people in that group, in that minority group
02:27:36
who agree. Yeah. But because they identify as maybe the the a sex that wasn't the sex they
02:27:42
were born as, they then get they get the abuse. You talked about it being difficult now being a a Jewish person in Canada. Yeah. It's it's really difficult, I think, in
02:27:53
this current moment to be a trans person in this world because this macro debate is raging,
02:27:58
right? It's raging on if I go on Twitter, if I go on YouTube, it's it's passionately raging on both sides. And I want I got
02:28:05
friends that identify as they them um and they aren't participating in this raging war, but I I imagine I would imagine that the probability of them experiencing abuse now walking down the
02:28:16
street has increased. And again, I guess this is this is goes back to the sort of consequential truth versus the objective
02:28:23
truth. But those are the people I feel sorry for because I know them. They're not in this like
02:28:29
screaming ex war, but their lives have been made worse because of all of this stuff.
02:28:34
That's sad. And they're just minding their own business, getting on with their lives, loving whoever they love, identifying however they want. And I feel that's
02:28:39
kind of I that's the group of people that I feel most emp most empathy towards in this current debate.
02:28:45
Yeah. No, I hear you. I hear you. By the way, only because you mentioned the word empathy. So my next book is titled
02:28:51
suicidal empathy. Because in the book what I'm arguing to our earlier point about to be properly modulated and
02:28:59
regulated I argue that the the emotion of empathy has clear evolutionary reasons right I mean there are adaptive
02:29:06
reasons why each of our emotions has have has evolved the problem is when it misfires. Yeah. When not only it misfires in that for example it becomes hyperactive but when
02:29:18
it also misfires to the wrong target. So if I'm empathetic to the transerson to the detriment of all biological women, that's a misfire, right? Yes, it would be great for immigrants to
02:29:32
come in legally to experience the beauty of the West. I am an immigrant. Elon Musk is an immigrant.
02:29:38
I I guess I am. I was born in Botswana, but you're an immigrant, but you hopefully came in legally. That doesn't mean
02:29:44
No comment. Sorry. No comment. No. Uh but opening the door to 10 million 12 million because it's not fair for Guatemalans and Al Salvador and not to come in and share the experience. No,
02:29:58
that's not right. uh life you know who Thomas Soil is the the famous economist he's a yeah you mentioned I think you mentioned I mentioned before right Thomas soil uh who's an economist said look I'm
02:30:09
paraphrasing his words and I agree with it economics is this is the study of tradeoffs of cost benefits right if we had infinite resources then yes let's
02:30:21
give free health care to every human who's ever lived and will ever live but that's not the world we live in so if I
02:30:28
am a paying uh taxpaying citizen who's paid into the system for 40 years. Do I like the idea that someone can come across the southern border and have the exact same
02:30:40
rights as me? Does that seem like it's the proper directing of empathy? Maybe not. If if you're homeless, it's a very bad thing. Does that mean that your rights to be shooting up uh the drugs in
02:30:54
the public park where my children play supersedes their rights? And so in the next book, I'm going to be looking at a bunch of policy decisions that in my
02:31:04
view are disastrous and argue that they all stem from this reflex of suicidal empathy. If one immigrant crosses the the border into America and they go to Texas and it
02:31:18
improves their quality of life, who does that hurt? Deontologically? Everybody. Why? Because there are rules and laws, right? Is it is do you teach your future
02:31:31
children, God willing, don't steal, or do you live in San Francisco where it's okay to steal if it's under 950? What are you going to teach your kids? Don't steal. That's it. You answer your question.
02:31:42
What are they stealing? They're stealing the money that should go to people who've paid taxes for 40
02:31:49
years. They're stealing my right to Okay, I I did my masters. I'm I'm going to say this not because I'm
02:31:57
uh signaling my CV because it's relevant to the story. I did my masters of science and my PhD at Cornell. I was a professor at Cornell, professor at Dartmouth and a professor at UC Irvine.
02:32:10
I'm probably one of the best known professors around. If I want to come as a Canadian to the United States, do you
02:32:17
know what I have to do? I have to follow the law. I can't come and say I'm going
02:32:23
to live here and I'm going to work here and I'm going to take this job and I'm right I mean I I literally get stopped
02:32:31
and taken to another room where they say are you making money and many of the border recognize me will take pictures
02:32:38
with me because it's a country of laws and therefore I with whatever attributes I might bring that are positive to the United States has to go through a formal process. But if I'm an
02:32:53
MS13 gang member with two tier tattoos on two tears tattoos that says that I've killed two people in El Salvador and I walk in, do you think does is your reflex and intuition, Stephen saying,
02:33:06
but it's not fair to let him in. We we understand why very dangerous 59year-old professor Gatsad should we should really vet him and he should go through the legal process before my biggest goal in
02:33:20
life is to live in Southern California. I haven't been able to because legally I can't I don't have a professorship here.
02:33:26
That's the thing that hurts me the most. I don't live in the luminosity of the sun. So that [ __ ] who comes in
02:33:32
illegally is hurting me because I'm freezing in Montreal. He's not hiding. He is hurting me.
02:33:38
Why? Because once the legal system breaks down, then all bets are off. So what's happened in San Francisco where all of
02:33:50
the retail shops have closed? So crazy. I was talking to my friends about this this morning.
02:33:55
Oh, I sent a photo to my friends of a CVS and said, "Why is toothpaste and chewing gum locked in a glass cage in CVS in
02:34:01
America? America's going to be the richest economy in the world. It's going to be the, you know, the the apple of everyone's eye." And I went to a CVS yes
02:34:08
yesterday and I asked for um some deodorant and some mouthwash and then I was like it's trapped behind a cage mouthwash deodorant. Do you see that you you know what happened?
02:34:19
What? I I so you press a button and someone comes over to you to open the cage to
02:34:25
give you the like toothbrush and they open the c and I said to the guy why do you trap it all behind glass
02:34:31
cages? and he tapped me on the shoulder and he pointed down an aisle and he says, "Look." And as I looked down the
02:34:38
aisle, there was a man stealing and putting putting stuff in his socks. So, do you do you do you I hope you understand that you just answered that question, right? Because if I steal that
02:34:50
one toothpaste, am I really hurting you, Stephen? You live in England. How How is
02:34:56
saying to that guy in San Francisco, don't steal? No, it's deontological. You are hurting me. You're hurting me deontologically. You're hurting the ability for society to have predictable
02:35:09
laws, predictable cause and effect relationships. If you steal, you'll be punished. Does this rely on society being fair though? And your next point is going to be it's
02:35:20
not fair, therefore why should we have laws? Yeah. Well, just wondering because if if people see that and they go, well, I
02:35:26
don't know the answer here, so I'm just posting questions. I'm really intrigued by this train of thought. So I understand what you're saying. We do
02:35:32
need laws. And I accept that point because if we didn't have laws, then all systems kind of fall apart, things fail,
02:35:38
then people won't want to come here anyway. The reason they want to come here in part is because there's laws and that's created a society. But does it is
02:35:45
is that theory of sort of moral theory contingent on the fact that the society is fair and then obviously people would
02:35:51
then argue that this society isn't fair because they've got there's people with their fingers on the scales. No society is perfect. But as someone
02:35:58
who is buffeted from the sample of societies outside of the west, no society is better than we you have here. Meaning that if you look at some of the
02:36:09
staunchest defenders of the western tradition, it may or may not surprise you, Stephen, to know that many of them
02:36:16
are immigrants, right? I often use the example of Ayan Hersy Ali, right? The Somali immigrant who's one of the staunchest. She's she's Muslim herself. She's one of the strongest critics of
02:36:28
Islam. Why? Because she has sampled the buffet of that society. She didn't go to Welssley College where it's rarified in
02:36:35
Boston and then she can pontificate while she bought her kafia from Amazon. Right? She's lived that. I don't have to
02:36:43
pontificate about things that I know nothing about. I grew up in the Middle East. So therefore people who've lived
02:36:48
those experiences can come to the west and say hey guys in the west you think that this society is the default value
02:36:56
of societies. No no no this is a bleep. This is an anomaly. You should really work hard to defend what you have. You
02:37:03
crack the code of the values that you need to have foundationally for everything to flourish. This is not
02:37:09
normal. This is anomalous. But once you start having consequentialist intrusions
02:37:15
into those deontological systems, it breaks down very quickly. As you saw in San Francisco, as you saw in the rush of
02:37:22
millions of people to the border because the most fundamental law of law, I mean Newton talked about every reaction,
02:37:28
every action has a reaction. Let's put it in other terms, cause and effect. Once you break that law, you're breaking
02:37:35
the most fundamental laws of nature, right? So, should a felon have a 68th chance? So, you've now been arrested again and then we go through your record
02:37:48
and we find that you've been arrested 67 previous times. How many times must you be arrested for you to have lost your
02:38:01
opportunity for another chance? Right? Because that 68th time, that suicidal empathy, because I'm so progressive, led to that woman being killed, was her
02:38:14
life worthwhile that we might have wanted to be a bit harder on you. So that's what I mean at. So yes, of
02:38:20
course, I support the right of people to better their lives. And we're all coming
02:38:26
from a nation of immigrants legally, man. And also the other point I guess is that
02:38:32
people would rebuttal and say about their the privilege. They'd say, "Steve, you know, um you got tremendous
02:38:38
privilege because of the parents you had and they brought you to the UK when you were a baby from Africa." And
02:38:44
I'm stopping you. And they'll say you got they'll say you got genetic privilege. They'll say, you know, you your dad had a good brain and
02:38:50
he's passed some of that to you and your mom had a good brain. And they'll say to you, they'll say, "Gad, you know, if you weren't brought from the Middle East
02:38:57
when you were younger, you wouldn't have had these opportunities. So, you need to pay that forward to other people that don't have opportunities and privilege
02:39:03
by welcome welcoming them in, being highly empathetic towards them, even if they're in the in Mexico.
02:39:10
Legally or illegally? Legally, I'm off. I'm let's do it. I'm all in. illegally. No, you don't get, you know, it's unfair
02:39:18
that all these incelss don't have access to sexual partners while some of us have
02:39:26
access. Maybe we need to set up a communist system where using an app they get to share with our women. Let's have communist mating, right? Well, why is it that you're only getting access to your
02:39:37
partner? That's privilege. How about the homeless guy who doesn't have any sex for the past two years? Don't you think,
02:39:43
Stephen, that you owe him? So, equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Yes, sir.
02:39:48
We're saying we don't believe in equality of outcome. No, no one, I think, with a brain believes in equality of outcome. Oh, no. There is one with somewhat of a
02:39:55
brain. Camela Harris say that she doesn't have a brain. So, you're right. But she pretends that she has a
02:40:01
brain and she is Lenin. She is communism. It be it it completely paralyzes me in befuddlement to be able to play a clip of this woman
02:40:15
where she's saying I'm a mixture of Stalin and Lenon and Marx and Marx in everything that I believe in and the United says United States which is
02:40:27
technically a capitalist country says sign me up I think you'd be a good president. So if we define equality of
02:40:34
outcome is everybody deserves this the same chance to get the same outcome. Is that kind of how it's defined or
02:40:39
Well, it's it's it's equality of outcome says to the extent that we don't have equality of outcome, it must be because of nefarious reasons. So, so for
02:40:51
example, and I've actually satized this, you know, one of the things I do is satire and I draw analogies to show how
02:40:57
stupid things are. I said, you know, there are 200 countries in the world. Do you know how many have won the World
02:41:03
Cup? I don't know. Any number. 200 countries. World Cup's been going on since 1930. I'm going to say 12. Eight. Okay. That is so unfair. How come those
02:41:15
Japanese have never been given a chance? What about the Jews? Israel never winning once. Why is FIFA so
02:41:21
anti-Semitic? Never once in Islamic country. That sucks. It's those [ __ ] Brits who've won. Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Uruguay.
02:41:35
That sucks. Laos never. What happened? Malaysia never. Botswana. We've never won one. You've never won. That's racism. I looked at the uh results of uh the
02:41:49
Boston Marathon over the past 35 years. Do you want me to summarize it for you? I'm going to do it.
02:41:55
Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya. Ethiopia, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Kenya, Ithrea, Kenya, Kenya,
02:42:07
Kenya. What a bunch of [ __ ] The Boston Marathon. Only black guys from Kenya get to win. What about short Jewish guys? Never. We don't get a deserve to deserve a chance. It's so
02:42:20
ludicrous that even morons like Kamala Harris will say, "No, no, but that's different." No, no, it's not different.
02:42:27
It's a deontological principle. Human beings are a hierarchical species. Some are taller, some are shorter. Some are harder working, less harder working. Smarter, less smart. Funnier, less
02:42:39
funnier. Communism works well for some species. EO Wilson, who was a Harvard biologist, recently passed away. One of my big professional regrets is that we were never able to have a conversation
02:42:52
on my show. He's one of my big intellectual heroes. His expertise, Stephen, was in the study of social
02:42:58
ants. He was an entomologist. Now, why is that relevant to the story? Because social ants are communists because there
02:43:05
is a reproductive queen and everybody else is indistinguishable. They're worker ants or warrior ants. They're just a blob. Right? So when he was asked, I'm slightly paraphrasing, when
02:43:17
he was asked, "Professor Wilson, what are your views on communism socialism?" His rebuttal is one of my favorite
02:43:24
rebuttals in the history of humanity. So the answer to communism socialism, great
02:43:29
idea, wrong species, right? Humans come with their own innate human nature. Our innate human nature is not communistic.
02:43:40
That's why communism has been tried in many countries for the past 100 years. And what has been the result in every single place it's been tried? A grotesque abject failure. The reason for
02:43:53
that is because when you take a socioeconomic political system that is contrary to human nature, you don't need
02:44:01
Gatsad to predict for you that it will fail. That's like arguing. I would like to create a new science law. It's called non-gravity.
02:44:12
So, I'm going to throw a bunch of people off big planes, but because I'm a fervor believer in non-gravity, I don't think
02:44:20
that they will drop. But then I'm astonished when out of a 100 people, all of their brains squash on the floor.
02:44:28
That's because they're we're constrained by this reality called gravity. By the same token, Kamala Harris is the
02:44:34
anti-gravity person. So, I'm Canadian, so I don't have a direct dog in this fight. The reason why I speak out against it because again, my social commentary supersedes transcends whether
02:44:47
I'm American or Canadian. I'm talking about bigger issues. Is communism the ideal model for maximal flourishing?
02:44:55
Nothing could be clearer, but we've got all these degenerates trying to implement it here. Would you vote for Trump if you could
02:45:00
if I were American? Yeah, in a heartbeat over Camela Harris because that's so right now we let's assume that it does end up being Camela Harris versus
02:45:12
Donald Trump. I would vote 10 times for Donald Trump. What's wrong with Donald Trump?
02:45:19
He he's his worst enemy in that cosmetically speaking I think he's gotten better maybe by because of age, maybe by discipline. uh he's gotten into
02:45:29
a lot of snafuss where he triggered the eyeire of many people simply because of how he delivered messages where had he
02:45:37
been a bit more polished he would have avoided those things. So for example I think that the fact that he never returned on X has actually been a
02:45:45
blessing for him because he's the guy who at 2:00 in the morning the president of the United States at the time is
02:45:51
battling with some idiot because he can't have the discipline to stop himself. So I think what about his character though?
02:45:57
Cuz if you if your kid grew up with the character of Donald Trump, would you be proud? Probably more pride than Joe Biden.
02:46:04
But this is what happens on the other side. So you don't want me to ever compare to someone else? Well, this is what happens on the the
02:46:09
reason I'm asking these questions is because if I ask someone on the like far left, the first response they say they
02:46:14
their measurement of goodness seems to be a comparison of the other side. Right? So uh
02:46:20
if your son grew up with a character, okay, so here are the some positive traits and some negative traits of him. Okay. I I don't uh pretend to know him.
02:46:27
Uh he is an entrepreneur. I don't think there is a human being who's been a better exemplar of what a honeybadger is. Now, let me explain what
02:46:39
I mean by that because you may or may not know that now. So, in in the last chapter of the parasitic mind where I
02:46:45
have a a set of call to action, okay, calls to action. One of them is I say activate your inner honey badger. Why?
02:46:53
The honeybger has been determined officially as the fiercest the most ferocious animal in the animal kingdom. That's saying a lot. There's a lot of fierce animals. It's the size of a small
02:47:03
to mediumsized dog, right? And yet it can go into a hornest net, get attacked by a million bees, and get the honey. It can withstand an attack of six adult
02:47:16
lions, and they back away. It's the size of a small dog. Why? because it is so ferocious. It's my brother going to that beautiful girl not caring that he's 4 foot two, right? He's the man. He's the
02:47:28
top guy, right? So, when I say to people, activate your inner honey badger, I say be resilient, be tough,
02:47:33
not not be violent, be ideologically fierce in defending first principles. Well, who has had more things thrown at this guy than Donald Trump? and he's got
02:47:46
more vigor and and stamina than you and I combined. Well, let's take a very concrete example. Who has been shot in the head and then stood
02:48:00
up and went fight fight? Those are very those are qualities that I am going to teach my son. Now, is he polished? Is he
02:48:09
eloquent? Does he speak with proper elocution? Does he have a big vocabulary? No. No. No, no, but I'll
02:48:17
take a ferocious honey badger any day over. Those aren't character traits though, eloquence and stuff like that. When I'm
02:48:23
talking about character traits, I mean if someone said if someone seemingly attempts to steal an election. You know, Mike Pence did a speech the other day where he basically said Donald Trump
02:48:33
asked me to at that moment when Mike Pence could have I think prevented the electoral decision. He said Michael Mike Pence who was his his vice president,
02:48:43
Donald Trump asked me to go against the constitution and I couldn't do it. Right. So
02:48:49
that's a character thing. Uh so and maybe it's linked to the focity of the honey badger because someone that's
02:48:54
that ferocious when they in faith can't accept defeat. They can accept defeat. As an academic, I like to be I know what
02:49:01
I know and I know what I don't know. So here I would be speculative in saying that that behavioral trait is a
02:49:06
manifestation of a that that behavior is a manifestation of a character trait. I
02:49:11
don't know if that link is right or not. I could easily argue and I'd be speculating so I don't know for sure
02:49:18
that he was convinced that that election was absolutely unequivocally stolen. So
02:49:25
when he's doing those things, it's not he's saying I wish to be dictator for life. I mean he did leave office, right?
02:49:31
But he's saying find me the mechanism to ensure that those [ __ ] don't steal it from me. So I'm I'm neither here or
02:49:38
there on this one. No, he's not a dictator. No, he didn't incite a violent insurrection. He did. So, these are
02:49:45
things we can debate, but in term I I'll put it another way. Do you think that the world the world is
02:49:52
made up of some very very nasty bullies? Do do we agree on that? Very very nasty. Yes.
02:49:57
There's all the Islamic guys. There's North Korea. There's China. There's Putin. Who do you think when they sit at night
02:50:06
they fear more? Do they do you think that they feel the cackler, Camela Harris, avocado brain, Joe Biden, or do you think crazy cowboy?
02:50:19
Here's the here's the uh nuclear button. You ready? Eeny meeny miny mo catch a tiger by the
02:50:29
toe. Do you see what I'm doing? That unpred unpredictability, that's very powerful. When you go into a
02:50:36
prison uh yard for the first time, everybody's looking at you. Is this guy going to become a punk and my girlfriend or is this guy that I should fear? How you act that first hour or two is going
02:50:49
to determine how you do your time? Well, Donald Trump is the guy that I want to be running my prison yard, not the cackler. I hope you understand what I'm doing here. I'm trying to in there's two
02:51:00
things I'm doing. The first thing is I'm trying to form my own opinion by interrogating. Am I successful at all in
02:51:05
No, no, it's really interesting. No, it is really interesting and it's not just you I'm asking these questions through because I ask a bunch of people that are
02:51:11
smart and have different perspectives and helps me form my own, but also I feel I feel an obligation to represent the other side. I understand how you
02:51:17
feel about Kla Harris. So, I'm trying to interrogate this this feeling of Donald Trump. Is there any character trait that you can point out in Donald Trump that
02:51:23
is overtly I'm almost certain that he had remember you said you've got three groups of
02:51:29
friends and one group pathologically cheats on their partners. I'm willing to bet that Donald Trump is the head of that thing. So, as a moral person who wishes to be loyal and honor my wife, I
02:51:42
don't appreciate that trait because many high status men have access to a lot of beautiful women. And then what
02:51:48
determines your virtue and your character is to be able to have the self-control to not succumb to that. I
02:51:55
value that. I don't think Donald Trump has it. Happy. I said something negative about No, no, no. Do you know it's funny
02:52:00
because when I when I when I heard your opinion on um Donald Trump and Camala Harris, I was in my hotel room thinking
02:52:08
one of the things I observe in people that are political have a political opinion is they are like incapable of saying
02:52:15
anything critical about their own their own candidate or the person that they'd vote for. And it baffles me because it's
02:52:20
the same parasitic mind virus where you've lost objectivity that that you talk about in your work. So
02:52:26
no 100%. So, and I I wouldn't necessarily only stop there, right? I mean, we we could stop there, but but he
02:52:33
doesn't strike me as a man that is of the highest moral virtues, right? So, I am very much driven by an exacting code of personal conduct. I'm willing to bet
02:52:45
that he doesn't come close to that. So, so, so, but again, you live in the real world, right? So, in the real world, you don't have a perfect messianic character. That's Jesus, right? So given
02:52:57
those two choices, which one do I want? Well, I want the guy who's a bit scarier. And Donald Trump is a lot
02:53:03
scarier than the Cackler. I understand. And I I see flaws and I see at least one upside or more in both options. So, but anyway, um what's the
02:53:17
most important thing we should have talked about that we didn't discuss? maybe the importance of social connections uh which is one of the
02:53:25
fundamental ways that you could lead a super happy life to to the point of the happiness book. It turns out that the
02:53:32
quality of your social relationships is a better predictor of your health in the long term than your cholesterol scores
02:53:38
at page 50. That's crazy. So having these meaningful dialogues, whether it be in a formal
02:53:44
setting like on a on a show or whether it be going to the pub and interacting with people about whether Manchester
02:53:49
City or Manchester United is better. We're a social species. Having meaningful connections with people is
02:53:55
crucially important. Get out there, read, get educated, build meaningful connections with people, and hopefully
02:54:01
you'll be happy. I have a closing tradition on this podcast, Dr. Dad, where the last guest
02:54:07
leaves a question for the next guest without knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is tell me about a
02:54:13
time in which someone said something to you, positive or negative, which really capital letters struck stuck with you and does still to this day.
02:54:25
Oh, what an amazing question. Uh, am I allowed to know who that guest was or you don't? Unfortunately, no. No. Okay, perfect. Well, what a what a cool uh thing to do.
02:54:36
And as you were saying it, I was already answering it in my head. So remember earlier we talked about purity and the exacting standard of uh exacting code of
02:54:47
personal conduct. About maybe 30 years ago, uh my mother said, you know, God, you better learn that the world doesn't abide to your
02:55:00
purity bubble. And the quicker that you learn that, the happier you will be. And I think it's the by far the most
02:55:06
profound thing that I've ever heard anybody say because oftentimes what that ends up causing is because of my code of personal conduct this kind of
02:55:18
maladaptive perfectionism this moral scrupulosity this purity bubble the world should be you should never be
02:55:24
dishonest you should never be duplicitus if I treat you well you should so it's this like I live in this laal la land of
02:55:31
purity at least my expectations what ends up happening you you're setting yourself up for disappointment because you are expecting
02:55:38
the world to abide to this beautiful purity bubble but the world is ugly and messy and so you end up with things where someone comes up to you and says for 25 minutes you know taking your time
02:55:51
with your children then when they leave I'm pissed off to my wife for the next 10 minutes because I was imposing my
02:55:57
expectation which is I would never dare do that to someone else. So, I think if I were able to lower my expectations
02:56:06
and and internalize that message, I wouldn't be as disappointed in so many people so often. Easier said than done. Easier said than done. Yes. It needs to be like a morning practice.
02:56:18
True. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Um, Dr. God, I found your books to
02:56:24
be really, really important because they are unapologetically challenging and for
02:56:32
anybody who cares about the pursuit of truth, whether they agree with you or not, but just the pursuit itself of truth, they care about ideas that are
02:56:39
unapologetic and are courageous and are immune from political correctness. And I
02:56:47
know that some people who I doubt any of them got to the end of the conversation, but um some people who do care about
02:56:54
such a thing, I think those people are the most important of our time and they can find I think so many of the answers that they're searching for in the books that you write. I love the book about
02:57:06
happiness, happiness, eight secrets for leading the good life. And I I referenced your earlier book as well, but the parasitic mind book I think is
02:57:13
the most important of them all because it's so unbelievably relevant. And if you understand what's written in this
02:57:18
book, I think you have a different lens, a different pair of sunglasses that you can walk through the world with and it
02:57:23
can make sense of the things that you're seeing. In fact, both of the books have this sort of throughine because if you
02:57:29
understand the world, as you said just then, you can be happier within it despite its imperfections. And so, thank
02:57:36
you for doing the work that you do. I know it comes at a tremendous cost, a personal cost. I don't know whether you see it as a cost, but it's just an
02:57:42
inevitability. Um, but it's incredibly important and I'm a big big fan of the work that you do. Not not to say that I
02:57:47
agree with everything you've ever said. Um, but I I care the most about hearing it nonetheless and it feeding into my
02:57:55
sort of big intellectual reservoir of information. So, I'm really really appreciative of you and I hope you continue to do the important work you're
02:58:01
doing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can I end with a compliment? Of course you can. I've been on a million shows and I unhesitantly say
02:58:08
that this was one of the best conversations. So, thank you for that. Oh, that's a really remarkable honor. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
02:58:13
Cheers. [Music] Isn't this cool? Every single conversation I have here on the Diary of a CEO, at the very end of it, you'll know I ask the guest to leave a question
02:58:27
in the diary of a CEO. And what we've done is we've turned every single question written in the diary of a CEO
02:58:34
into these conversation cards that you can play at home. So you've got every guest we've ever had their question. And on the back of it, if you scan that QR
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code, you get to watch the person who answered that question. We're finally revealing all of the questions and the people that answered the question. The
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brand new version two updated conversation cards are out right now at thecon conversationcards.com. They've sold out twice instantaneously. So if you are interested in getting hold
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of some limited edition conversation cards, I really really recommend acting quickly.
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[Music] [Music]