Jordan Peterson: “There was plenty of motivation to take me out. It just didn't work" | British G

How much responsibility do you feel you have with certain guys? The alt-right that has you says that some of them have enjoyed your

work

, so I'm not one of you. I'm not one of you. I'm not with you. I

didn

't enjoy my job. I've definitely read bits and pieces on the internet. Read more. You have sold 2 million copies of 12 Rules for Life. You have 800,000 followers on Twitter. 1.4 million followers on YouTube. What are you selling? Many people want to buy. I don't think it's selling anything well. I went to a show where you were and you were selling tickets to your show.

So people are willing to pay a lot of money to see you speak. Know what it is? It's

just

that you think people are hungry to hear from you, they're hungry for a discussion about the relationship between responsibility and meaning and we haven't had that discussion in our culture for 50 years, we've focused on the rights and privileges of freedom. and impulsive pleasure are all useful in their place, but they are superficial and that is not good, because if people are killed superficially, then the storms tear them apart and the storms appear, so I am talking to people about how they can build a foundation underneath them that

work

s and people need to know that because otherwise their lives are harder than they need to be.

What do you have that no one else has? What are you offering that no one else is right now? Well, I think I think. that's what I'm offering and it's not part of the public discussion, you know, and it's based on my clinical knowledge, so I've been a doctor for a long time and I'm familiar with the works of most of the greats of the 20th century. clinicians of the century and a reasonable amount of philosophy and a good bit of literature and I am a credible scientist and so I can put all that together and I have tried to put it all together and defend the importance of individual life and the psychological need for courage, nobility and responsibility, these things that sound old-fashioned but are old-fashioned in the best sense, they are old-fashioned because they have lasted forever and they are absolutely necessary and people need a call to responsibility because they need to mature, they need to want to be adults, you know. , and I don't think we do a very good job in our culture of advocating why it's good to be an adult and two things really made you famous, which is first of all the book 12 rules for life, second, I think it was an interview that went viral with Kathy Newman from Channel 4 News, in which he talked about women, right, he has a lot of followers, but I think that was really it.

Fascinating that interview because it was specifically about men and women and you said at the time that you know that YouTube's sku is very masculine and that your fan base is very masculine. That remains the case. Do you still talk mainly to men? I would say that the conversations are. probably 60 40 65 35 male to female book sales I don't know, I doubt it because it is usually women who buy books, although men buy non-fiction, if they buy books we don't know the demographics of the books, but we do know the book . it's definitely expanded my audience I would say um, and that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned, I mean I never specifically set out to talk to men, my students for most of my years in college have been primarily women, I think most of my graduate students.

If I had been a woman, it might be around 50 50, but I think it would probably lean more in the direction of being a woman, so it wasn't like it wasn't something I set out to do, but I think, like I said before, well, I can do it. I can't say how much of this is simply a consequence of the fact that YouTube has such a male bias that it might also have something to do with the call to

take

voluntary responsibility. I'm not exactly sure why that would be more necessary for men right now. I think it might be because our culture confuses men's desire for achievement and competition with the patriarchal desire for tyrannical power and that is a big mis

take

, they are not the same thing at all and it is very psychologically and sociologically inappropriate to confuse them so neatly.

One of the things I want to come back to is this idea for you to say in the book that you know there is a masculine order and a feminine chaos. That's not the case, I actually say that those are symbolic representations of the two things. Okay, so why is the order masculine? Um, I think it's because our primary social hierarchical structures are fundamentally male and that's not patriarchy, well, it's not the modern idea of ​​patriarchy, that's for sure, I mean, that's my idea of ​​patriarchy, which is a system of male dominance of society, yes, but That's not my sense of patriarchy, so what is yours?

In what sense is our society dominated by men? The fact that the vast majority of wealth is owned by men, the vast majority of capital is owned by men, women do more unpaid work in a very small proportion. of men and a huge proportion of people who are seriously dissatisfied are men most people in prison are men most people on the street or men most victims of violent crime are men most people who commit suicide are men most men most people who die in wars are men people who do worse in school are men it's like where's the dominance here?

Precisely what you are doing is taking a small substratum of hyper successful men and using them to represent the entire structure of Western society. There is nothing. About that, that's vaguely appropriate, but you could equally say that the majority of rape victims are women. Terrible things happen to people of both sexes, and one could perfectly usefully say that, but that does not provide any evidence for the existence of a male-dominated society. Patriarchy well, that

just

means that terrible things happen to both genders, which they certainly do, but there are almost no women who rape men, for example, so there is an asymmetry in sexual violence, well, yes, there is an ace , there is an asymmetry in all kinds of places, but that doesn't mean that Western culture is a male-dominated patriarchy.

The fact that there are asymmetries has nothing to do with your basic argument, no, but you could say it's a trope of people simply accepting that Western society is a male-dominated patriarchy. Like no, it's not true, and even if it has a patriarchal structure to some extent, the fundamental basis of that structure is not power, it's competition, that's why our society works, it's only when a structure degenerates into tyranny. that fundamental relationships between people become dependent on power, it is not power, if you hire a plumber who is probably a man, it is not because there are roving bands of tyrannical plumbers forcing you to make that decision and it is the case for almost every interaction that you have in the face of our culture you are dealing with people who offer a service in one way or another who are generally part of the broad middle class and who offer and what you are looking for is the person who can offer the best service and you may find that it is not a consequence of being dominated by something that is tyrannical and, again, our culture or Western culture, which is by no means perfect and certainly has tyrannical elements like all cultures, is the least tyrannical society that has ever been has produced and certainly the least tyrannical society that exists now, so where exactly is the patriarchy?

And everyone says that it is the least tyrannical society, it is not the same as saying that it is not a tyrannical society, that is exactly why I said it was the least tyrannical society, but that is what I mean. you haven't discredited the existence of patriarchy so you've said that actually now it's better you don't have to discredit women to prove their existence okay, let's go over it I'm writing a book about feminism at the time uh until In 1919 there were professions that women they were forbidden, they just weren't allowed to do it until 1880, why would men be blamed for that?

Because who was in those professions, who guarded the entrance to those professions, who was worried about losing her status if women became doctors. that emancipated women in the 20th century just out of curiosity, well a couple of different things, I think it was technology, I think it was the pill that helped tremendously because when was that development in the '60s? So it wasn't in 1919. No, but me too. I think it was a series of legal changes that started in Britain with the married women's property law that said for the first time that women are full legal beings under the law, that they can own property and that to me is a structure that It's been going on for a while now. when women

didn

't have the same legal rights as men until now, when they mostly do, but the culture is still lagging behind, I don't think you and I are necessarily speaking at such opposite purposes, it's just that your conception of the patriarchy I see in The book is that many men are quite nice and do good things for women.

No, that is not my conception of patriarchy and I do not demand or advise men to be nice. Well, you're talking about the guy who is the king of tampons. the sanitary napkin king of india, right, i wouldn't call him nice, okay, brave, okay, did you read about his life when he was trying to develop that, yeah god, he was absolutely miserable and he did it anyway, like As a result we liberate all types of women? and I think it was nice that's brave that's noble that's visionary that's not nice I think it's all very nice I think it's also something recent you know it's honoring your social obligations um I'm not so sure it's a social obligation because many others people would have done it if it had been a social obligation he said what worried him he saw that his wife was suffering with her monthly period and he had to choose between feeding his family and taking care of himself properly and he chose to feed his family and he thought that would do something about it that goes far beyond being nice, especially considering what he had to go through to do all the experimentation that produced his eventual technology, so, like this whole patriarchy thing, I don't think you have any idea how pernicious it is. and dangerous, it's well, no, no, I don't really go through the story.

They have fundamentally cooperated to push back the absolute catastrophe of existence. A terrible mortality rate. The probability of chronic starvation. Early death. The illness. The difficulty of raising children with all the death that was associated with that and looking back in time and saying well, basically what happened was men took the lead and went after women in this tyrannical patriarchy. It's an absolutely terrible misinterpretation of history. It's a terrible thing to teach young women and it's a horrible thing. to inflict on men, I mean I absolutely disagree with you, I think that's like saying that slavery in the US was actually most people cooperated well, no it wasn't like that, you had a system in which one group of people owned another group of people and until the women were full. legal rights they could own property for themselves they could work essentially they were owned by their parents first and then by the domination status of men and you said that you thought that what emancipated women mainly in the 20th century was the technological revolution no, no mainly, but that's one of two, I think it's two things mainly, no, I think the pill was a major force in the emancipation of women, I think about tampons, let's say, or the provision of adequate sanitary facilities, bathrooms and that kind of stuff. you are thinking instead that it was the action of brave feminists in the 1920s that produced a social revolution that overthrew the patriarchy that is your theory yes, that is a silly theory well, I am very sorry to hear you say that, but I think that In the interview with Kathy Newman, I think it is a multivariate right.

I think there are a lot of different things that they contributed to. Well, then suppose Western society was a tyrannical patriarchy, which is one of them, and then other things happened, so you have the pill, you have the dishwasher and the labor-saving appliances in the home, I think all of those they were really important, but you also have things like get-out-the-vote campaigns, yeah, you also have things like that, yeah, so like when you were in a system that existed? in England until 1918, I came home, why would you even want to look at history that way? What is your?

What is your goal? Because I believe that people who do not look at history are condemned to repeat it and I believe that we are going to repeat the persecution of women? Do you think it's a realistic possibility? Yeah, we're sitting here, you see, we're sitting here in America, right where we just appointed a fifth Supreme Court justice who is now anti-abortion now is conservative I think the right to abortion is actually critical for women to be able to. function as beingsfull humans in society and I think that is now threatened in the United States I think it is extremely conceited and complacent to think that civilization has peaked everything is up from here, yeah, well good luck with that, it's a life as you know, there are a lot of people who agree with me, there are a lot of people who clearly agree with you, I want to know that they are just a lot of people, I would say, who come to listen to what I say because they are sick and tired of having the desire to get ahead in the world and achieve something and take your place as grown men, let's say, who are under the weight of accusations that their ambition and directness are a manifestation of something that is fundamentally tyrannical that they are unhappy with, that It doesn't do anyone any good and it's not true either, it's a really terrible thing for young men and it happens all the time, that's why they are bailing out of universities like crazy there won't be a man left in social sciences in 10 years in the universities. universities and it is not surprising that it is an inhospitable place and it is inhospitable precisely because of that doctrine that said that throughout history the fundamental relationship between men and women was one of power, essentially slavery, okay, believe it if you want, no It's going to do your relationships no good.

I can tell you, so it's okay, we'll see how it goes. I am currently married, but you. I know I will raise it with him. I think the college example is really fascinating because in the book you talk about the fact that women are now the majority in two-thirds of college courses in the US, and you. I know I've also seen you say: Would you believe in a quality of opportunity but not a qualitative result? Maybe I don't believe in equality of outcomes. I think it is an incredibly pathological desire and doctrine. It's true, it's very dangerous.

History has shown exactly how. dangerous is equality of opportunity is something anyone with any sense would support, but equality of outcomes is so what's your problem with their notifications going beyond belief to support equality of outcomes? Okay, so what's your problem with there not being enough men in the social sphere? sciences maybe women are just smart maybe that's why there are more women in the university according to their doctrine, I don't think so, but that's what I think the logical scope of your doctor is not the fact that there is a distribution The problem I have with this is that the reason men are bailing out is because of the prevalence of the doctrine you are espousing, that's the problem I have with this, it doesn't matter much that they pull out, I don't see any way that universities are going to redeem themselves in the next decade and maybe that's okay, but I doubt it, let's see, that seems extremely pessimistic when the majority of people who go to university in general are increasing, yeah, well, That's not going to last long, why not? because it is too expensive and universities are doing all kinds of things that are not acceptable, mainly increasing the price, increasing the price and decreasing the quality of what they offer and contributing to the hands of people who are ideological acolytes of the routines of the identity politics and who perform postmodern tricks and promote neo-Marxism and all these things that are characteristic of the social sciences and humanities mainly, this is where I find it fascinating I because you know you talk in these quite apocalyptic terms.

I think you know someone is going to hear that and think, wow, there's a really big problem, but what we're really talking about is some annoyingly postmodern teachers and some students with blue hair. and funny ideas about gender in a handful of courses across America, that's what we were talking about, no one would have paid attention to me for more than 15 minutes, so you could see this as a superficial manifestation that is irrelevant, but that's not how Most people certainly also see the case that this battle of ideas about identity politics was a driving factor in the last American election.

If Hillary hadn't played identity politics, she would have been comfortable with the kind of identity politics, she would have kept the working class and she would have been president now, so these are not trivial issues by any stretch of the imagination, it's not just that some kids having a good time while creatively rebelling in college, it's a much deeper problem than doctrine, the doctrines I oppose. They are based on an assumption, probably the main assumption is that the best way to view history is as the domination of a tyrannical male patriarchy and that is also true particularly in the West, which is a doctrine that I find absolutely disgusting and historically absurd biologically ridiculous and ungrateful among other things who is ungrateful I'm sorry for that who is ungrateful look what you have alive in the best society that has ever been created you know I was reading about some Indians do you refer to me as a woman or me as a person of the century XXI in the world, I mean us, yes, I mean, I am incredibly grateful for what I have, but for me the project is politics, it is the construction of a tyrannical patriarchy, are you grateful for the productions of a tyrannical patriarchy, are you? as? that makes sense because I think life is good, I think it could be better than that's what's progressing, but I guess that's not proportional to your claim that you're the beneficiary of tyrannical patriarchy, so why not?

How can it be good if? it is the consequence of a tyrannical patriarchy tyranny is not good, I mean that is the definition of tyranny, something that is not good and yet it has produced all these things that you are grateful for, doesn't that contradiction bother you? in contradiction? Where did the good come from? Where is it good from? I think I'm actually benefiting from a lot of things that I don't support and that are unearned privileges in my life. I think it's absolutely like your job, like I've done it. a very good job, I had a loving family and I don't think that's going to do the world any good, it's a very good rationalization for your privileged position, well, fair enough, but you know, if you could trade it. with someone less privileged it could be a start I could I could do that and but I don't want to and I won't and I don't think I should be expected to do it why not, it's okay for you to occupy a position of privilege in patriarchal tyranny and if it's because you are a woman or is it simply because it is convenient let me tell you my political philosophy, I guess I am a social democrat and what I think is that if you have a good life you should try to pass it on.

I believe in a progressive redistributive tax system, for example, Lord Mandelson once said it in British politics, you know, but the new labor movement was fine with people being dirty. rich as long as they pay their taxes now I'm a little less okay with people being filthy rich well I guess I'd let you're probably in the top tenth of one percent of people who have ever lived on the planet who would be filthy rich by historical standards, okay, but I'm not sure where exactly it's on the line to be able to help the Neanderthals at this point by actually giving up some money, but here's my point is that what I think is and I believe in a structure in which people who have had a good life and many advantages should pay back and forth, which I think is the message you preach, you also have responsibilities and if you have had many advantages like us civilization has tyrannical patriarchy well, it's not a purely tyrannical thing, that's for sure, it's not, it's just not right and that's exactly the problem, but why would you describe it as tyrannical patriarchy and then argue that it's purely that? and that is exactly what is ungrateful is not purely that at all why to say that something has elements of it as it is purely that is not what is said simply defining it as a patriarchy implies unity unity dimensional unity and insisting that that is Furthermore, tyrannical does not offer a balanced point of view at all.

Well, I think that's probably where, yeah, I think that's probably where your disagreement with this comes from, and it's because I don't see it that way. I don't see it being univariate at all. see it as one why call it patriarchy because it describes a general structure, what if the patriarch is fundamentally made up of women? Is it still a patriarchy? Would it be a matriarchy? So, let's say we take a patriarchal structure like the medical one. profession and we fill it mainly with women is it then a matriarchal structure what makes it a patriarch to begin with are the hierarchical structures is the fact that they are mostly men is it the sociological structure or is it the fact that they are mostly men?

Well, I think that's really interesting because, for example, male elementary school teachers, only 15 of them are men and I interviewed some of them for my book and you know, they report exactly the same things that women do in dominated offices. by men, right?, people say. I have conversations that I feel left out of I feel stigmatized like I shouldn't be here People look at me askance when I say I'm an elementary school teacher and I'm a man You know they wobble, we all make implicit associations, so if it's a female-dominated structure then it is also a tyrannical patriarchy.

I think in that case men have a way of being able to complain about the fact that a female-dominated office leaves them feeling left out. Also yeah, I really feel left out, so how do we get something that's not a tyrannical patriarchy if it's made up of women and it's a tyrannical patriarchy and if it's made up of men it's a tyrannical patriarchy, are we left with no options? true, but well, or you could have a combination of an office where a combination of people have both, so if it's 50 50 then it's not a tyrannical image, no, not 50 50.

I'm saying 40 60. I'm saying Clearly, when there are only 15 male parameters, that is, they feel marginalized and excluded, then one thinks that the defining hallmark of a tyrannical social structure is the predominance of one gender and if that were relatively equal, then suddenly it would be a free and open institution I don't think primary male teachers are being tyrannized I do think they are being marginalized and I think they feel excluded and stressed well this is what I mean I think actually and I'm I'm surprised that Don't agree with me that having more male teachers in primary school would be a really good thing because children need role models, actually people, especially boys, who don't have a father figure in their life that is really important to them. having a stable adult to show them what it's like to be a man in the room might be, but you shouldn't get it as a consequence of a preferential hire.

No, I don't necessarily need to be a preferred hire. I think it would be nested. It's probably about doing that job, breaking the stigma of getting into that job. I think teaching is a really interesting example. It was seen at the time when he was 18 19 years old. There were no men in it and how did that make you feel? I loved it. Yeah, you know, the kids I used to fight with, which of course I can't do now because everyone knows that would be a catastrophe and I used to draw pictures of monsters for them and they would line up for it and I liked it.

I worked with boys quite a bit and I didn't care if it was female domination. I have been in female-dominated professions my entire life. I think I felt marginalized as a result. Well, then you've been lucky and I've talked to people. Who could be the opposite? Be careful and explain to me better, why would you assume it would be luck? Well if I say you know there is a statistical analysis and I have spoken to a wide range of people. and you know you would always expect outliers at both extremes some people have had a really bad time some people have had a really brilliant time everyone else the things I try hard to do is not get resentful well okay that's really good I have to say Your Twitter account doesn't give me the impression that you seem like someone who takes criticism very seriously.

It's true? I don't think you have any basis for that suggestion. I mean, if I were anyone, you would have seen my interviews online. Who took the criticism seriously? I would be in a lot more trouble than now. How. Well, I've been criticized incessantly for two years. I have been in scandals. I've probably been to I don't know how many. scandals in the last two years and I've had incredibly contentious interviews with journalists online, on TV, on radio, on podcasts, if I were someone who couldn't tolerate criticism, the evidence of that would already be clear. Twitter is a strange social network that I myself have outgrown. far from that, so it's not an easy place to behave as gracefully as you could and I think it's kind of a reward for impulsiveness because maybe it's because of the limitation of the characters or something, so I think people They tend to show the worst on Twitter and some of that isconsequence of the structure of technology.

I think I certainly agree with you. I think it's something we agree on. I think people are really at their best on Twitter. No, and you. I know I've gotten away from this quite a bit in the last month, mostly to see why you know, I've been keeping an eye on Twitter, all social media for the last few years, partly to see, well, I'm trying to monitor what's going on around me. , I guess that's probably the right way to think and see if I'm making mistakes and how they could be rectified, but I don't think Twitter has been good for me and I don't think that's the case.

I don't think the reply feature on Twitter is useful and I think the fact that so many people on Twitter are anonymous is not a good thing. Do you think you'd be less angry if you weren't on Twitter? That's something I believe. quite a bit, I mean, I would just come into contact with less things that bother me on a daily basis oh, I think there's no doubt about that, yeah, yeah, I think that's definitely the case and I've talked to other people who quit Twitter and experienced the same. I don't know what it is exactly, but there's something about Twitter that really seems to increase people's desire to be provocative and maybe it's the case that only people who feel irritable respond, you know, we don't know, you know, if you post one post and a thousand people read it, certainly a thousand people don't respond, some people respond well, maybe it's biased. to those people who had a bad day like we don't have the right idea because it is a communication channel that no one understands we are not evolved to understand it we are not evolved to use it we cannot interpret it Also, you are interacting with random strangers, something you never do and It's never the same group of random strangers and you don't react to Twitter like they're random strangers.

You hoard Twitter like it's a person you know and it is. Don't you write in 12 Rules for Life about having had violent impulses that you didn't act on and I think in Maps of Meaning you elaborate that you say you've fantasized about stabbing a classmate in the neck and you say? You are very clear about the fact that you know that you never thought you would take them seriously, but it makes me wonder whether or not you are someone who thrives on anger and who considers anger to be something that you need in your life and that you need . finding what motivates them to do the things they need to do, those are two different questions, okay, you can answer them both.

One is do I thrive on it and the answer is certainly no, so I don't really like conflict, so how have they done it? you ended up doing this as a job which is to argue with people correctly just because you don't, that's not my job, it's not arguing with people, okay, so my job is to not do things that I don't think I should do well and my government I made the mistake of assuming that forced speech was acceptable as long as it was motivated by hypothetical compassion and that hasn't happened to me, so I pointed out that it wasn't because I wanted to or because I enjoyed it.

I really don't like conflicts. I'm actually a pretty nice person and that's partly why I'm a doctor and why I find constant conflict exhausting, but that's not the problem. You are not morally obligated. You are morally obligated to do things other than what you like, now I really enjoy the lecture series that I am giving and the reason is that it is not political at its core. I am trying to do everything I can to engage people who are trying to develop a vision for their life together and encourage them to act more responsibly, but not as a finger-wag, but because I have come to understand that the meaning What sustains you in life is found primarily through responsibility and through the voluntary adoption of responsibility. it is very likely that you will find your core strength and I think that is a clinically indisputable observation and that is all very good and I am very happy to do it and it seems to be having a healthy effect as far as I can tell. and but but it's not because I like anger, I mean, you were at my show on Thursday night, yeah, how much anger was in that.

Well, I thought it was fascinating because it was on Long Island. I drove, we drove there and we passed a Lamborghini dealership, a Porsche dealership, this is not a poor area, the audience was, I would say, very similar, as I was surprised how many women were quite mixed, it was overwhelmingly white and I thought that you talked, uh, you know, you said in the In the end, I was more incoherent than I normally am, you covered a wide range of topics, from you know, the state of the monkeys to perception, but the things that the crowd cheered and applauded when you said oh, you can't say that's a microaggression or multiculturalism.

It's a, you know, it's a scourge that's ravaging Canada and what I had was a strong feeling that it's ravaged Canada. Well, well, what I had was a very strong feeling of people whose lives. I never said it was a scourge that devastated Canada. I wouldn't have said that, well I'll certainly go back and check the exact wording of what you said, but I'm definitely not in favor of it as a fundamental doctrine. I don't think it's a scourge so I wonder if and I mean the same thing when we talk about multiculturalism because you have a first nations room in your house, right, you have a lot of first nations things, what is the coexistence of the honorary member of a first nations family as a wonderful thing?

I have a first nations artist and when I'm from when I went to Canada last year, but that to me is the essence of Canadian multiculturalism, living that preserved culture and living alongside the anglophone culture that in some ways supplanted it. that's not multiculturalism, well multiculturalism is the idea that all cultures can come together in one place without an overarching structure or underlying structures, as if that's not the case, how can that possibly be the case that define the situation in the world and the world is? full of war, so how can that possibly work if you're going to bring people together and they're going to exist together in harmony?

They have to play a game that everyone plays and that everyone knows. the rules can't be 10 different sets of rules for different people, that's not going to work, so it's absolutely naive to believe that if that worked, the world wouldn't be full of wars long before we had, you know, multiculturalism. There was still war, war, in fact, war is not like Stephen Pinker. I'm sure you've read your Stephen Finger says you know this is the least violent time in human history so something that's a consequence of working tyranny well if you think patriarchy has eroded in the last hundred years, maybe that's why, maybe you could give him some credit for that, I didn't actually say that patriarchy had eroded, well, you know, because you don't think it existed in the last hundred years.

First place is fair enough, but my definition of multiculturalism is a right based on citizenship, so you can be both Canadian and first nation, you can be Quebecer and also Canadian, you know, but that means that everyone in the environment multicultural are one thing and another, right? They are all one thing and another yes, yes, well, you know, our prime minister said, well, there is no Canadian identity, that's how it is, okay, what unites us?, nothing, we all protect our cultures, it's Like, well, that leads to war, okay, not that. Obviously this only leads to war, but unless you have people operating within a shared framework of perception and value, they cannot cooperate and compete peacefully.

I don't understand how that is a debatable topic. This is how people are organized. Well, I think so. what he said that's what Trudeau said, that's a stupid thing for the prime minister of Canada to say when you're prime minister of Canada, yeah, you could say I would agree a lot more with what Barack Obama said when he said, "You know that I". I'm trying not to turn it into red America or blue states into America, white America, blackmail. I'm trying to make America in America and that, to me, the Democrats are very good at that, well, they've tried identity politics for the last 20 years. all they have done is inflamed tribal tendencies, as far as I know, so that he can say that, but it is not obvious that that is the case and it is not obvious to me at all that one of the consequences of barack obama's presidency It was a reduction of racial tension in the United States No, I wouldn't agree with that either I think a lot of people found having a black professor with a college education very alarming and threatening to their idea of ​​preventing them from voting for him twice No, that's very true, but again it's fundamentally true, right, that's really the crucial issue at hand here, no, but he built a great coalition of well-educated white liberals and people of color, I mean, that's the Democratic election, right?

How is the increase in racial discrimination explained? tension in the United States, so well, I think it is caused by many things, at least one of which is the Republican party that sets it on fire, there is talk of the left playing identity politics, I think the right plays Identity politics all the time, the right. he doesn't dominate the universities no, but he dominates, but Donald Trump is president, so realistically Trump is not a typical Republican, no, I would say he commented for most of his life, if I remember correctly, he was a Democrat, right? he has some to blame donald trump okay but i will say the rest of the republican party is also very happy to play the game i would say white identity politics go they didn't abandon him as their candidate when he said they are mexican . not sending us your best people here, they are rapists, right, the whole idea of ​​the United States said, "I think it's a beautiful thing, all men are created equal, but it meant men and it specifically meant that white men, women and “Blacks couldn’t vote in the U.S.” was founded on identity politics this is not a new concept that has emerged in the last 20 years the united states was not founded on identity yes it was that is an absolutely absurd proposition the united states was founded on the same principles that What would you say? which played their powerful role through the development of English democracy and which was nested within a Judeo-Christian view that fundamentally presumed that both men and women were made in the image of God and that all people had divine value and were needed A long time for that set of ideas to fully manifest itself in the political arena, but to consider it a manifestation of identity politics I can't imagine why you would do that.

I don't consider it to be a manifestation of identity politics. a constitution that says only some people are citizens is a manifestation of identity politics, well what do you think changed it over time and then look, let's clarify our definition. You can't lump all cases of inequal treatment into the category of identity politics, identity politics is a very specific thing, it's really only been around since the 1970s, you can't go back to 1770 and say that the founders of the American constitution they were playing identity politics based on identity, that's my definition of identity which is not the definition of identity politics, unless you play fast and loose with the definition of identity politics, it's something that Nobody was talking about identity politics 20 or 30 years ago, it is a new term, you cannot say that the propensity of people to identify with their group is identity politics that is simply tribalism and it is like who knows how old a million is 500,000 years old and you're going to call tribalism identity politics well that's not useful if you want to talk about tribalism we could talk about tribalism but identity politics is something that is nested within a particular political view of the world, it has a basis Marxist and manifests itself in postmodernism and emerged in the United States, in France, first in the 1970s and then it has spread through American universities and increasingly. the rest of the West since then that's identity politics, if you want to talk about tribalism, that's fine, I'm not a fan of tribalism, that's why I don't like identity politics types and I don't care if they're on the right or the Left I think the right's use of identity as a primary marker for human categorization is just as reprehensible and dangerous as it is on the left.

My problem with the left at the moment. The fundamental problem with the radical left is that you are hyperdominant in academia and that is not good and that is not my opinion. You can look at the data for Jonathan Heights and see for yourself. He is the most moderate person you can hope to meet and probably less prone to anger than I am and I agree. I find many students to be phenomenally annoying, but I would wonder how much power they have in contrast to the things I find most disturbing happening in the world today, or even teachers,even 20 year olds don't have that much power. but they are not 20 forever, 10 years later they are 30. and 20 years later they are 40. true and what happens at the university happens everywhere five years later and very, very sadly for the people of my politics, left-wing politics, What happens to people as they get older is that they have traditionally become more conservative, so I don't think you can argue that the current situation where people are where they are in their 20s today is actually the same. ideology that leads them.

Throughout his life that has never been the case, he will stick around long enough to do a lot of damage as if he were already fine, but even if we accept that students and their pomo teachers are pretty annoying, which I think I probably agree with. something that not only are they annoying like they are destroying universities and that is not a good thing and they are destroying particularly the social sciences and the humanities; the sciences are safe so far but not for long because scientists in particular are terrible at politics and leftist activists are great at politics and that's why they will eventually win the national science foundation is already introducing diversity hiring requirements in mathematics and universities it's like good luck with that that's not going to work there are almost no mathematical geniuses If you start putting all kinds of arbitrary restrictions on their hiring, you just won't do it and you'll end up not finding the ones that do exist.So, also, no I think that's true because if you say there are very few mathematical genes, well, I want to be a fellow at Oxford University next year, so I spend time talking to academics that I've talked to.

Many scholars in my book agree with you that there is an illiberal tension that is spreading through many universities. I don't think it's an existential threat and I certainly don't think it's the biggest problem in the world for me. The current policy is what I would personally choose. What do you think is the most important problem? I think the rise of authoritarian strongmen around the world is very worrying and that's one of the reasons why I find the subtitle of your book fascinating, because it's called an antidote to chaos why isn't it an antidote to order that you also say that in its excessive manifestations it is bad?

I've said it, well, you can't write a book about everything, no, no, but you've specifically chosen the antidote to chaos, so why? it's chaos 300 lectures online and I talked a lot about the pathology of order in those lectures okay but I'm just a fan of authoritarian strongmen that's for sure well but I think the way you talk about order in the book is something that people will take away from this, be specific, okay, so let me think about the way you talk about natural dominance hierarchies in lobsters, let's move on to lobsters because I think what people take away from those are male lobsters. compete for female lobsters and that says something about society now that men need to be dominant in society because if lobsters do that then there is something we can read about humans, there is nothing in that chapter to suggest that the way that men should succeed in human hierarchies is a consequence of the exercise of power, there is not a single line in that entire book that states that because it is not what I believe, most human hierarchies, as I already pointed out, are hierarchies of competence, not of power, okay, so that's why we don't live in a patriarchal tyranny and therefore, if you want to be a successful man, then you must be competent and that will make you rise in the hierarchy and that will make you attractive and for good reason, unless you want an incompetent partner, which is possible and does happen, but it's not something I would recommend.

People sometimes choose an incompetent partner because they feel intimidated by the competition and so will settle for someone they don't respect because they feel they can dominate them. and you will not be intimidated, but it is not a recipe for a happy life, I can tell you that there is not a line in that chapter that talks about the power and the proper means to conduct yourself in life. in the book and there's nothing in anything I've said that suggests it's okay, no, I'm sorry, but it's really important because people have read this chapter and it makes exactly the argument that you make and it's a misunderstanding, so which is a misunderstanding of The book is fine, but if so many people are receiving the same misappropriation, could it be that so many people are receiving it?

There are two million people who have bought the book and there are a very small handful of people who have a particular ideological perspective and who enjoy it. develop that perspective because it indicates what kind of reprehensible individual I am, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote or what I have said or what I believe. I don't believe that our fundamental hierarchies are based on power that is not I don't believe that the way we rise in our hierarchies is a consequence of manifesting power, it is competition. Well, my big problem with lobsters is that scientifically it's nonsense, it's just that you can't read what lobsters do and what they do with what humans can do. that's why serotonin works in lobsters, but it works in two different ways, so if serotonin makes lobsters more aggressive, it makes them less aggressive, right, no, that's not right, serotonin makes lobsters human beings are more dominant but less aggressive and the only reason it makes them more dominant is because they are less irritable and they are less defensively aggressive, so it's not nonsense.

I know my neurochemistry, so if you're going to play with neurochemistry, let's go and do it, we'll use the antidepressants that work on lobsters. If they do it. We make a the lobster that has been defeated in a fight is more likely to fight again that is not the same mechanism that happens with the same humans because don't get depressed like humans do, I think you are anthropomorphizing yourself to a ridiculous degree, these are creatures that urinate out of their faces, I think the fundamental issue among well-informed animal behaviorists is that anthropomorphizing with animals is generally the appropriate tactic unless you have reason to doubt it, which is because there is continuity between us and animals instead of discontinuity and the idea that anthropomorphizing animals is inappropriate is something derived from the behaviorism of the 1950s.

Highly trained affective neuroscientists and people who study

motivation

and emotions, as well as neurochemistry, they know perfectly well that there is a biological and behavioral continuity throughout the animal kingdom and also throughout the kingdom. which is exactly why I chose lobsters to indicate that there is so much continuity in the systems that allow us to estimate a status position that we share with creatures that are a third of a billion years old and the reason I made that argument was to put put an end, at least in part, to the absurd Marxist proposition that hierarchical structures are a secondary consequence of Western civilization and free market economies, which is as absurd a perspective as could be developed on any topic: hierarchies have a third of a billion years.

Neither the West nor men nor capitalism can be blamed and we are programmed for hierarchical perception in ways you can hardly imagine, even our ability to classify a set of objects seems to be closely tied to our ability to evaluate the relative status of objects. people in our social environment, so the biochemistry is very similar and the reason we know this is because most of the drugs that are used in people are tested on animals first, now they are not usually animals as primitive as lobsters. but it's enough, so much of what we know about neurological structure, for example, is a consequence of studying the flatworm, which is a much more primitive organism than the lobster.

Continuity is the rule. Well, what can we learn from orcas? They live in matriarchal groups, often led by a grandmother, someone who has gone through menopause, why isn't that an example you've chosen to talk about in the book? It's because locusts say what you ideologically want to talk about, what your belief is. that there is a kind of Marxist ideology, you say that what I was saying, what I was doing with the locusts, I just said what it was, that hierarchies have existed forever, who is really arguing today other than maybe three crazy Marxists. academics that there are no hierarchical hierarchies, they are not, they are not arguing that there are no hierarchies, oh there should be no such thing as hierarchies, oh there are many of them who are actually arguing because I see that almost never in The Wild as an argument.

I see that people think that the hierarchy should be based on merit and there should be more: what is the name of the demand for equality of results? If it is not an attempt to flatten hierarchies or eliminate them, what else could happen? be and you don't think that neo-Marxists and postmodernists think that hierarchy is a social construction, okay, you're not talking about the same people I know, that's for sure, for social constructionists everything is a social construction, including hierarchies. but I just don't think it is a very widespread opinion in the world, it could be liberalized. 20 percent of social scientists identify as Marxists and where is that statistic from?

Look for it and look for it in the heights, it works, you know? I know I mean, I'm interested, I don't know, I've checked it out quite a bit, yes, yes, but I'm just a perfectly valid statistic, I don't have the reference handy, so it's one in five, okay and there. the number of conservatives or even liberals in the social sciences and humanities is not only getting smaller, it is getting smaller, and social constructionists are believed to believe that hierarchy is built into biology; They are not very good social constructionists, if that were so. that is what they believe and postmodernists and neo-Marxists are radical social constructionists because they would not believe that human beings are infinitely malleable and that we can be recreated in any image that ideologues want to recreate us in. "If they didn't think that and it's much more common than you're admitting, I mean, there's no competitive position on campus except between evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists, say, and they're under complete attack." As far as I know, I'm certainly next on the chopping block.

I have been warning you for the last two years. Social constructionists don't like evolutionary psychologists and they don't like biology, and I don't really understand why, except that it interferes with this idea that human beings are infinitely malleable and prevents them from being able to blame the West for hierarchy. Look, if you are really concerned about the poor as a social democrat, let's say the first thing you need to do is abandon your presupposition. That the dispossession produced by hierarchies is a consequence of the patriarchal structure of the West is a much deeper problem than that, so we have always been dispossessed long before capitalism.

Well, I think I would agree with that, so if it's a much deeper problem than that, how do you address it? I don't know well. That's a bit. I mean, for someone who's smart, you just throw your hands up and say. Maybe there is something. There are many things I don't know how to address. I don't know how to deal with the fact that people vary wildly in their cognitive ability, or these are big problems, but we can start with a redistributive tax policy in which people who earn a lot pay more taxes than people who are at lower levels. lower down the income scale.

Redistributing income was a fairly obvious way to make the poor less poor. It's something you know the Labor government did. I almost think they have child poverty. It is possible to do things and we have mechanisms. Well I do not. I wouldn't make the immediate presumption that it was redistributive tax policy that caused child poverty. You know that absolute poverty in the world has been reduced by half between around 2000 and 2012 and you can't attribute that to redistributive policies, no, I can't. I'm just talking about Britain, I'm talking about that particular government that, if you knew, there have been fiscal analyzes done, but I think let's leave the locusts aside.

I mean, you know that chapter is about people becoming responsible. and competent, it's not about them becoming dominant and powerful, okay, it's not that at all, but my problem is that I think a lot of marine biologists criticized you, right, and a lot of geneticists, okay, I can name it, pz Myers He is one of those who criticized you. Adam Rutherford, former editor of Nature, has criticized that chapter. I think biologists question the fact that most organisms are organized in hierarchies and that the fundamental biological mechanism for regulating the hierarchy is the serotonin system. That is not debatable now, you can find animal organizational structures that vary from that to whatyou would call a fundamental pattern, but the existence of variation is no proof against the existence of a fundamental pattern as I don't, I don't know how.

You can sit there and be skeptical about this if you know the literature on hierarchical structure and you understand that throughout the animal kingdom animals tend to organize themselves in very hierarchical chemistry, types of hierarchies, so there's one that you have and that's why we know that with respect to hierarchies, yes, but the way is like you say the pattern like you know that the hierarchy is the pattern, okay and that's okay, so chimpanzees have a very obvious social structure and bonobos don't, no It's as different as people have made it. It turns out that bonobos are much more violent than the right ones and they are not hippie monkeys.

Correct observers of the Barnabas have admitted that it is fine, but you still say that, as if the fact, those little details don't matter, as if they can't. being something like a hierarchy that is much worse than another hierarchy, that's my problem, I'm not saying that at all, clearly there are hierarchies that are worse than others, right, baboons have terrible hierarchies, for example, and I'm saying that tyrannical hierarchies are not. my cup of tea that is not the point I was making what I was saying was that hierarchies cannot be blamed on capitalism or the West, they are integrated into our biology, that the neuronal, the neurochemistry, is so old that the we share. with crustaceans, so that's a third of a billion years, which is proof that hierarchies are not a recent construction if you need to provide evidence like that and that the best way for people to adopt a strategy that will move up the hierarchy, which is something desirable in most respects is to face the suffering of the world with candor, that is what that chapter is about and the people who have been criticizing it read it as if it were a defense of the patriarch western it's like there's no defense of western patriarchy I don't think that's true I think the way people criticize it is the and I think this What happens a lot with evolutionary psychology is something that's not exactly what lobsters are. , but it's where other things in the book are other things you said, for example, like uh, women wear rouge because it reminds men of ripe fruit, well, the first time, why?

Do you think women wear rouge? I have no idea right, that's not really a very good answer. Well, yes, you said before that there were a lot of things you don't know the answer to, but I'll tell you one thing you're criticizing the most. your perspective on this you're criticizing mine so I guess it's an alternative idea why do women why do you think where women wear makeup? I think they are a huge nightmare. Let me go back to why women can reach because it reminds them of men. of wrong fruit, first of all, it's not right, the fruit is red, why wouldn't you want color vision to detect ripe fruit?

Do you want to eat women? No, I think unless men have sex, that's not really what and where the evidence is. that women who have redder cheeks have more offspring, what do you think happens during sexual blushing? But that's the key point, right? It's what you would expect, actually, if it's sexual selection, that women who are ready are the ones who are prone to redness and yes, young women have more children, it's a primary sign of fertility, I think you wait a second What do you think women wear makeup for? Come on, if you're going to come after me on this, fine, come on.

Let's say women say well, women wear makeup to feel better about themselves, that's not a very deep analysis of why makeup, that's my facial makeup, I'll tell you why I wear makeup, which is to stop the comments that would receive if I didn't use it. Makeup and my gender I always say my gender is low maintenance, right, I don't feel particularly like a woman inside. I don't really know what that would mean, but what I try and do is try to look, you know, the same way. There are black women talking about the problem with natural hair: it's considered unprofessional and as a woman, if you don't wear makeup, it's seen as a political choice, it's seen as something you know you are, so you wear makeup. to protect themselves from what from geological men no, no, but also from tyrannical women, I would say that I think that women judge the appearance of others very partially and there are very good reasons for this, probably because they have learned that from oppressive men , No, i do not do it.

I don't think so, I don't know why you think that's the case. So I think women are encouraged to be seen as competing with each other. You are encouraged not to believe that there is anything about it that is natural, eh, well, I would be reluctant. go into that because I think you could talk about intersexual sexual competition, which is a very important topic between the social sciences and the evolutionary sciences, it is not my particular competence, but yes, I would not do it. My conception of patriarchy is not that men are bestial towards women. is that there is a structure in which women also participate that in general privileges and benefits men to be able to control female reproduction and I think those are two very different things, you write in 12 rules that you skipped a grade in school and you were small for your age, do you think that shaped your personality and life experiences?

Well, to some extent it made it difficult for me to participate in sports, so I didn't really do anything that was fundamentally athletic until I was in graduate school, so my parents are to blame for that because they felt it wasn't good for me, but no. I'm unhappy about that. I finished school faster. I wasn't a fan of the school and the quicker I finished it, the better I think I could have done. It encouraged me to do two other things: I probably hung out with rougher kids than I might otherwise have, partly as compensation, I guess, for being smart and academically capable and also small, so I probably exaggerated my roughness, I guess, and that made me happy. made me more verbally more able to defend myself verbally but other than that I don't think it had much effect I think I left all that behind that's very good too the other thing I was really interested in was you marrying your teenager darling, mm-hmm, yeah well I met her when she was eight so we've known each other for 50 years yeah I think this is really fascinating so I read it and I thought it was pretty moving and then I was reading a little bit about Well you know the animal kingdom and a little takeaway from the lobster section is that you know what happens if your best lobster is that you can fertilize all the females so that they are evolutionary successful as a lobster, right? um, that's a propensity for polygamy, which is one of the things that attracts human society and now you're a pretty big lobster and yet you're monogamous you're faithful to your wife you don't know you don't know you don't want to go around getting everyone pregnant the women you know Look, no, no woman is enough of a problem, so I think for me that's right, that was really interesting because it's a way in which we're obviously very different from animal society and, to me, I mean that There are many societies in which exactly that happens. right, you've been able to overcome that biological drive, right, and in the sense that maybe there are other biological advantages, like men's propensity for violence, that could also be overcome, it's not obvious that you want to overcome it, I mean.

You don't know what it entails, you know, I mean, obviously, first of all, defining violence is not that simple. How about the use of force in self-defense? Does that constitute violence? I think for me it's a separate category of violence. but it is not so easy to distinguish them, if what you want to do with an aggressive child is socialize him so that he becomes sophisticated in the manifestation of his aggression, you do not want to inhibit him, you certainly do not want to. I don't want to socialize little boys to be more like girls. First of all, you don't know how to do it to begin with, but secondly, it's not a very, it's not a advisable strategy, so I found it really very interesting because in the book you say that, actually, if you feminize men, that might give them more, you know, it might have more appeal to those same fascists, that's standard psychoanalysis, it's like psychoanalysis 101.

If you repress something, it comes back with a vengeance, okay? Tell me what you mean by feminizing in that sense because if you don't mind me telling you, you are a fairly feminine man you are in touch with your feminine side you are very well dressed you talk a lot about your diet you have talked about your emotions yes, you are talking about my diet, right, but you cry in public, you enjoy spending time with your kids, you know all these things that aren't sad, right? You are not stereotypically masculine and I think that is very admirable behavior and quite strange for a patriarchal tyrant.

Well, that's why I think in some ways you're probably not a patriarchal tyrant, although really all of our programming, if you want to call it that. in biology it is surmountable because you are integrable, true, but you are a man who some people would say has many feminine traits like that and I don't think that means that you are now falling for the charm of authoritarian fascist ideologies. because you know you're baking cakes, oh I noticed the appeal and then what do you do with that job to make a living so that there's no temptation in that, which is also what I recommend to everyone else.

If you see any temptation in that, then you should straighten up real quick and that's what I've done for decades, so of course you have to see the appeal in that, if you don't see the appeal in it, you're a fool, just like that. what if you don't see it. You see the appeal in radical leftist ideas, I mean, if they didn't have them, if you didn't understand the appeal, you couldn't understand the ideas, they're dangerously attractive, you know, it would be wonderful if there was a strong man who could solve all our problems and those who deserved it got exactly what was coming to them, it's not something I would recommend as a wish, but that doesn't mean you know you want to be blind to its attraction, you want to see what the dark parts of you are attracted to it, it helps you. to be attentive to where things can go if they go sideways, so I don't think it has anything to do with my interests, what would you say more classically feminine? um no.

From what I can tell, I mean I also have all kinds of classically male interests, so it's true and it seems to be reasonably well balanced, so you talk to them about social issues. I shouldn't socialize little boys like girls, but in reality you know I have. There are many stereotypes. I'm interested in politics, which is overwhelmingly male-dominated. You have many classically feminine interests. Why do you know what the problem is here with people who have personalities that are a mix that there is no problem with? The problem is when it is dictated by decree, well, I mean, who is who is a fan of the educational system, so in the schools you think you know that there is something good, I described it, I don't remember the name of the psychologist at the moment, but was quite influential in the 1980s and recommended as a check on male violence that boys be socialized more like little girls and I don't think that's a particularly unpopular view, so the emphasis on competition, for For example, in games, the increase in competitive games where scores are obtained. they don't hold up, that kind of thing is quite a manifestation of that kind of theory, as far as I'm concerned, the idea that there is something intrinsically wrong with competition is a very silly idea, especially if you want to motivate relatively aggressive children. because re competitive well, competition that's not good, someone has to lose it's like well, you're not going to get very far looking at the world that way, I'm afraid you know you might want to generate a large number of games for everyone have a chance.

Winning is a good idea, but you certainly don't want to devalue the notion of winning. If you're doing something necessary, you should reward people who are particularly good at it. It is part of the definition of what is necessary and what control. You don't want to control aggression any more than you want to control sex, you want to integrate it and if it's integrated, that's shadow integration from a union perspective and something I talk about a lot in my lectures is like you need it. to have the ability to be in danger you need to be dangerous but you need to learn not to use it except when necessary and that is not the same as being harmless harmless that is a terrible virtue it is like a rabbit there is nothing virtuous about harmlessness it just means that you are ineffective, yes, I think you would agree, well, I think there are some people who through their harmlessness become iconic and become symbols, I think Gandhi's principle of nonviolence is not harmless, he just transcended his profound violence , that's something completely different.

Okay, without him, without that ability, there's no way I would have had the strength of character that I had. He was an integrated person, not a harmless person. Okay, that's something very different. Did you have different ambitions for your daughter and forYour children were different. I encouraged my daughter in her desire to be her mother, which is not something I did with my son. Did you encourage her desire to be her father? You're absolutely right, so it encourages you both to be parents, right? those are different, yes, I know and yes, I mean, and in a sense I think it is more difficult for young women because, of course, the problem of integrating family with career is a more complex problem for young women to solve. women, so I spent a lot of time. time talking to her about how she could resolve it.

She wouldn't say we came up with anything spectacularly original or successful, but at least I let her know that whatever path she chose was fine with me if she, as long as she was. be honest with herself about what she wanted, but also that you know that I am not a fan of the idea that the most fundamental orientation that a person can have in their life is their career. I don't think that's true for most people, I certainly don't think that's true for most women, and I think the evidence supports that statement pretty directly, so, however, that's the only thing I think is true.

You get paid under capitalism, right? But that's how you can say something like that. It's a cliché, but it's so painful to hear, maybe a cliché, but it's still true. Women make capitalism better, for God's sake. It's not, it's not. You have to invest in a child for 18 years before she has any financial use. a consequence of delayed economic utility we don't know how to monetize it it's not a consequence of capitalism it's a consequence of the fact that human beings have an 18 year dependency how that is monetized not even in principle well, we don't know To be fair, we used to send them up chimneys and at that time, well, it's really interesting that at that time children were seen as property much more of man, that is, when they became economically useless.

All the legal studies show that that's when we started moving to a female custody model because it was care work, but this is the point. I'm doing a model look. I will tell you that there are a lot of men who are not very happy with the female custody model and that would be Yes, and that would include men who are essentially denied custody when they get divorced and have young children, so I don't think one One of our main problems or at least one important one-dimensional problem is the proclivity of men. impose custody of their children on women, there is certainly another side to that argument, barry, no there is and I think there has actually been a lot of anger generated by the way we have one in Britain, anyway, we have one in England and Wales.

We have an adversarial fault-based divorce system which is something that is changing, but what it does is encourage people to come in on the first day and say that if you want a divorce you will have to present a case that the other person has. been boss, it doesn't matter because if you go to a no-fault divorce system, then all that happens is that the blame falls on who should get custody, so it doesn't eliminate the acrimony by any means. changes it to custody of the children, that's what happened in Canada and in Britain we actually talk about access instead of custody because the idea is not that you own the children, but that you really want to be able to see them and pass time with them. them and I think that's really important, but fault-based divorce is something that increases the chances of couples having a bad divorce, that's the problem: it pits people against each other from the beginning, they have to go to the courts and dispute that the other person has done something wrong, which is not a good basis to start with, then a discussion about you getting divorced should be encouraged, even if no one has done anything wrong, no, I think having to prove that in a court of law is not something that This will lead you to better arbitration on how to resolve the money and how to resolve access to the children.

I think that's the point where you get a ridiculous situation where couples who say, "Well, actually we've grown apart," unless they want to wait five years or two years for separation, they have to come in and plead unreasonable behavior to get divorced and start dividing your assets, that's the joy of no-fault divorce is that you don't have to file those competency cases, you can just say our marriage doesn't exist. I don't work anymore and we parted ways without getting into all that acrimony, which seems pretty sensible to me. It also seems quite naive to me. I have seen very few divorces without acrimony.

They are very hard on children, so I guess not. Anything that makes them easier is a very good idea, it may be good in the short term, but it is not good in the long term, unless you don't believe that marriage is a useful institution and that it is part of patriarchal tyranny. So you might think that too, but it is a very useful institution mainly for children, so I agree that I am married. Modern marriage has much to recommend it. I also think it is a patriarchal institution. That's literally why you think that. because you think that practically everything that happens in our society is a patriarchal institution, it's easy to think that because then you only have to think one thing, you could give an answer for everything, you could leave me part of the patriarchal institution, I don't.

I think you're obeying the rule that says maybe treat people like they have something worth listening to so I'm not defending patriarchal tyranny. I don't think you do either. I think you're arguing that that's like a universally clichéd case about patriarchal tyranny. No, I don't see them at all. Why do women traditionally change their names when marrying? I don't know exactly why you think they do it because it was to symbolize the transference. of their ownership from one family to another family that's why in the handmaid's tale you have guarantees oh god Margaret Atwood well the feminists almost ate her up last year so that was kind of interesting to watch I think she made a very good work, but I was not divided by all feminists.

I am a feminist. I thought what she said about due process in cases like that was perfectly reasonable. Well, a lot of people didn't, but you know, guess what this is. You can find someone on the Internet. which doesn't agree with almost anything, but then why do you think women change their names when they marry traditionally if it's not about the transfer of property traditionally? I don't know if I have an opinion on that and the specific reasons for that. I'd have to research it for quite a while before deciding, but I certainly wouldn't reduce it to a one-dimensional argument about men's ownership of women, so it's okay, you just know that part of the problem is also with this type of discussion.

Thus and that is why I consider it a manifestation of ideological possession. It's predictable. Well, that's what you know. Knowing your position but having a coherent ideology means it's predictable because you don't need an ideology. it's one logical thing that flows from another and all those pieces come together, so what I find very interesting about your way of thinking, I find it a little disconcerting is that I don't really see how all the pieces fit together, you know, you say that. You don't know you believe in God, but there's a lot of emphasis on yes? I actually say that I act as if God exists, but what really is my definition of belief.

Okay, but that's it, but that doesn't seem very obvious to me. with your insistence that we know that it's really just pure science and there isn't one, you know this because what insistence that it's just pure science? I wrote meaning maps, there's no insistence that it's just pure science, that's fine, but you make a different picture you make appeals to science all the time you say well this is what the literature says and the problem with God is, Ultimately, you can't say this is what literature says, there is no literature, that's why I don't do it.

I'm not saying anything about the scientific status of God other than what can be experienced, perhaps under certain conditions of what you would call chemically induced mysticism, which seems to be something you can say something about scientifically, but I see that there are two different realms. . kingdom of values ​​in the kingdom of facts and in the kingdom of facts science reigns supreme but that is not the case in the kingdom of values ​​we have to look elsewhere for that is what the humanities were for before they were hijacked by ideologues and You know the idea that something should be consistent.

You were talking about the need for coherence and ideology. It's like I'm not listening to what you believe. I'm listening to how you can represent the ideology that you were. taught and it's not that interesting because I don't know anything about you I could replace you with someone else who thinks the same way and that means you're not here that's what it means it's not nice so you're not no, you're not drawing, you're not integrating the details of your personal experience with what you have been taught to synthesize something that is genuine and surprising and, as a consequence, participating in a narrative sense and that is the pathology of ideological possession, is not good. and it's not good that I know where you stand on things once I know some things it's like why have a conversation.

I know where you stand on things. I bet you don't know where I stand on everything. I hope that that was true, okay, let's talk about transgender issues, that's one of the things you think I think about transgender issues. I suspect you think that gender expression, gender identity, are fundamentally social constructs, but I could be wrong, no, I think there definitely are. We have observed some biological differences between the sexes. I think gender is an enormously powerful social structure that we've built on top of and that is largely, but not entirely, socially constructed. I think when you look back in history, we know that biological differences have been steadily shrinking and, as we were talking about at the time when they didn't, in Scandinavia they have been magnified, but we were talking about that's actually a major exception. because Scandinavia has gone further than any other area of ​​the Scandinavian countries in establishing equality.

Social policy and differences in interests, career choice and personality between men and women have consequently grown, not shrunk, which is exactly the opposite of what social construction predicts, but also suggests that they are actually malleable. instead of being well fixed. Of course they are malleable, no one would suggest otherwise, so that's what I mean, so I think they are not malleable in the direction that the social constructionist assumed. As you flatten the sociological landscape, you maximize biological differences, no one saw that coming. and you would think that it's a bunch of right-wing scientists who are insisting that it's not mainstream psychology and that there are no radical right-wingers in mainstream psychology and everyone who discovered that was absolutely shocked by it and these articles have been cited by thousands of people and have tens of thousands of topics and have been done in almost nationwide cross-cultural samples, but I also think that behavior in Scandinavia has changed, for example many more men now take paternity leave. that there is a part that is reserved exclusively for men that does not seem to make them tremendously unhappy, so I think that there are definitely behavioral things that are susceptible to the nudges of society, of the government and of the state and that do change the way in which people behave so that we can meet in the environment now in which people can be educated and that we can develop as a consequence of learning.

That's certainly not an arguable proposition and I also think there's no evidence of gender identity in the way it's used and for uh, you know, as an idea of ​​a soul, I think that's the way I often find myself it is used by transgender activists, yes, well, I think about having a feminine soul and that seems strange to me, I don't do it. I don't see how you can understand something like biological determinism, which is one of the most perversely fun things about these types of arguments, but I attribute it to the lack of demand for logical coherence as a consequence of postmodern thinking.

We can believe one thing when it is convenient in one situation and another thing when it is convenient for another, so we are in the perverse position where if you are a man born in the body of a woman that is biologically determined but if you are a woman born in the body of a woman that is socially constructed okay, good luck with that theory, right, I don't think you can be a man born in a woman's body, a woman born in a man's body, what I believe is that there are some people who feel alienation from their bodies and want to eliminate them, well, everyone feels that way, but they feel it to such an extent that clinically the best treatment for them is to transition and live as if it were them, yeah, well, I don't think there is no evidence. that that is clinically the best treatment, we certainly don't know enough to make thatpresupposition and I think we're playing with fire assuming that's the case, but the long-term outcome studies certainly don't show that, so it's not the case, so I would make a very big distinction between adults and children.

I think it would be a good distinction to make correctly, but I think we are very quick to diagnose and treat children the way I find and without waiting for them to arrive. investigation and I find that concerning, yes, very well, the lawsuits will include it in about 15 years, so there is a place that we have found and that is something that I hate a lot, right, I'm sure it does. a territory and a fan of that, very true, I don't think that's something you could have predicted, I think because that's not now the orthodox feminist position.

I completely agree, isn't it that good? Congratulations, we have all learned. something um I just wanted to talk quickly uh about me too movement uh tell me your reaction to what's unfolded over the last year I won't put words in your mouth tell me well there's certainly no shortage of evidence of reprehensible sexual behavior on the part of people who can use the power to get your way, so that's not so good. I suspect that the metoo movement probably did some good things and some terrible things, so I'd say there's a dangerous propensity to abandon the concept of presumption. of innocence, so on college campuses, for example, we are moving toward a preponderance of evidence model.

I am not very happy with that model, I think it is a very big mistake. The presumption of innocence is nothing short of a miracle and we abandoned it at our extreme peril, so I'm not happy about it. I think the idea of ​​believing the victim is something only a fool could conjure up because it opens the door to an incredible opportunity for manipulation. I think I would disagree with you and a little more. That's because I think what that means is that what people advocate is not dismissing or not instantly believing the victim, which is true, that's partly why they're very different.

There are a lot of people who advocate the fundamental attitude to believe the victim, so some people argue that you shouldn't automatically distrust the victim, which is perfectly reasonable, but that's not where it ends, so okay, climate change, uh. I saw you posting a link to a study that suggests you know a lot about the climate the talk has been exaggerated, what are your beliefs? Well, I spent a lot of time that I don't really have. beliefs about climate change I wouldn't say, I mean, I think the climate is probably warming, but it's been warming since the last ice age, so I don't think it has accelerated dramatically in Los Angeles, even in the last one yeah , maybe possibly not so obvious.

I spent quite a bit of time reviewing the relevant literature. I read about 200 books on ecology, what would you call it on ecology and economics, when I worked for the United Nations over a period of about two years and it's not as obvious what's going on as with In any complex system, the problem I have fundamentally It's not really the problem of climate change, but I find it very difficult to distinguish valid environmental claims from environmental claims that are made as what you would call a secondary anti-capitalist front, essentially, so it's so politicized that it's very difficult to analyze the data from politicization, so I saw that there was a line in 12 rules that says that people affected by poverty do not care about carbon dioxide, yes, that is definitely true and I think it is not an unreasonable point. do because you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the right people, if you can't eat, you can't really worry about what's going to happen to the planet in 50 years, however, I don't think that's a reason not to address climate change because Those same people, people in global science, it is partly a reason, but it is because people in globalization generated plants that prevent people from starving, so yes, it is partly a reason and certainly It is true that making energy more expensive obviously makes things more difficult for the poor.

So yeah, it's definitely a problem and I would say you know it's kind of a conundrum for those on the left: what are clean air going to be or do hungry people think? Well, we don't have to choose. Okay, oh, renewable energy. Good luck with that or nuclear power. I would be fine with more nuclear power. Yeah, well, it doesn't seem like we're moving in that direction very quickly, but that's a solution, although it worked for the French. the fascinated david attenborough is something of a national religion in britain, so there's a part where you say that population control advocates like him confess to eric harris as one of the columbine killers, why then It is virtuous to propose that the planet could be better off if there are fewer people on it and I find it completely mind-blowing that you have evaded controlling its population through people who are not born and the mass killing of people who are already alive.

The

motivation

I question, right? Tell me more about that, well, what kind of statement? Would the planet be better off with fewer people on it? First of all, there is an easy solution. Unfortunately, you might leave Elon Musk's best efforts behind. That is not yet a permanent option. That's what I meant, yes, if you're really worried. about his carbon footprint there is a very quick fix for that so I think it's fake for the other people or maybe it's the people who haven't been born yet it's like I don't this is the problem too. What I have with much of the environmental movement is that there is a powerful current of anti-human sentiment that motivates it and disguised under the guise of virtue on a planetary scale, it is as it could be, I mean, it is not like we are not fouling our own nest .

I know that's why I'm fascinated by where you're coming from because the book you know is a lot about how things are in balance and harmony, and order and chaos overcome each other. Well, what overpopulation has done is get to the core says we have overpopulation, well, I think it's very difficult to see under the current model of fossil fuel-based capitalism. Sorry for using that word, I know it bothers you, but that's what until we run it when we run out of fossil fuels, yeah, that's not going to happen, well, it will happen, yeah, because there are people who have been saying that that It's going to happen for 50 years and now that the United States is a net exporter of fossil fuels, right, so no one saw it coming, but it happened and you're right, that could be the case, but right now I would say you know that China is installing new coal-fired power plants.

You know from the bucket load it's very possible that the things that the developed nations did that now the developing nations knew about it and now we're doing something sometimes they worry about clean air when they get richer that's what the data indicates Once GDP goes up to about five thousand dollars a year people start to worry about environmental problems, so if we make that happen fast enough, I don't think it will happen too late for some things, it looks like we're going to reach a maximum of about 9 billion, I think we can handle that. I think probably, people, one of the problems we're going to have in 100 years, assuming there are creatures like us in 100 years, is that there will be very few people, not too many, you know, projections max out at about 9,000. million, it's only 2 billion more than we have now, there is every reason to assume we can cope with that, especially given the rapid decline in poverty around the world, there is a bit of a bottleneck right now , there will probably be more extinction than we are doing. to the oceans by overfishing doesn't seem very smart, but we've only been aware of our role as planetary stewards since 1960, I'd say, and we're not doing too bad for people who are just waking up to the fact that we actually have that we are actually a planetary force and I don't think we are overpopulated, I think all the arguments that all the people who made those arguments in the 1960s, like Paul Ehrlich, I think he wrote the population bomb, predicted mass hunger in the year 2000 was totally and completely wrong now we have been very lucky with things like golden rice for example, genetic engineering of crops, I think it's not luck, well no, it is, I agree, you know, human ingenuity It's a huge part of that is definitely right in more people, you know, more ingenuity, you know, and in Bjorn Lomberg, who I really admire, the skeptical environmentalist who's actually gone a long way to try to figure out what we could do to planetary level that would really be useful. and productive Your research has indicated that the best possible investment is not the carbon tax is not the cessation of the use of carbon-based fuel but probably the investment in early child care around the world, especially in developing countries. development, it seems correct to me, you have done the Analyze very carefully one more area that you have talked about and that has caused controversy is the raising of homosexual children.

You said the devil is in the details and you want to see more studies on this. What do you think the adverse effects of same-sex dating might be? Parents, well, I don't think we know which model is optimal for children, that's really the problem. I mean, I suspect two parents are better than one, I suspect that's true, I don't know that one parent is definitely worse than two, we know that, but we don't know what exposure to role models is necessary for continuity of maternal behavior or for the adoption of functional gender roles. We don't know anything about that and that is the variable, obviously, no one knows what the consequence is. having been raised with two people of the same sex maybe neither is correct so there doesn't seem to be any evidence so far that's all the literature review suggests there absolutely was one couple that showed problems but they were in couples that were already They had broken up, so there is no evidence, maybe something will be found, but at the moment there is no evidence that there is any problem with having gay parents.

I never said there was, someone asked me I think. It was a question as if there was a problem, what would it be? It's something like this. No, I mean there is a very strong conservative case to be made for gay marriage. I guess I don't mean that I would necessarily be motivated to make a conservative argument. David Cameron. our former prime minister said I support gay marriage because I'm a conservative, yeah right, so you know, it's obvious that homosexuality has been around forever and also what's the appropriate social response to that, well, it's conceivable to attract so many people as possible to something. approximating the same game, I think a reasonable case could be made for that, what is the consequence of that for the children of those families?

I don't know, I mean, what I would say is that the obvious risk is that there is no one of the opposite sex around. I mean, it doesn't take the insight of a genius to come up with the observation that that might be a problem, no, maybe it isn't, and my suspicions are that there are probably much more relevant problems with respect to what Lo What happens to children is not a good thing, so this is one way to know that it is now a conservative position to hold. I think 20 years ago it would have been anathema to general control.

Well, people were worried about the deterioration. of marriage and I think any further transformation would weaken it even further and I think that's not an unreasonable position given how weak it has become and I don't think it's been good for people in general okay let's talk about freedom of speech for finish. in your book about Nietzsche, who became the Nazis' favorite intellectual, and you also talk about a professor only through his sister's poor translations of his work, true, but you also talk a little about another professor whose ideas you thought that led you to never be.

Maoism and you said I don't know how you can't be more worried about where his ideas lead. Do you worry about where you know where your work could be taken and used by other people? I saw you posing with them. It worries me. that all the time with a pepe flag i can't believe you mentioned that right but i think it's the e seriously i can't believe you mentioned that you should go online yes i do there is a believe me there is a video uh called I think his name is Jordan Peterson, an alt-right favorite.

Have you seen the video of the person who put that flag full of life with me? It's online but I don't look at it. I have seen it. You wouldn't, I'd say, and why are you worried about Pepe anyway? Jesus, it disappeared like three years ago and most of it was trolled by young people trying to drag the media into idiotic accusations like the idea that this was a white supremacist gesture which they asked me about on cbc it's like no no it was, it was fortra trolls playing the media for fools, which worked and a lot of the joy was that too, okay,but the problem with people ironically pretending to be Nazis on the internet was not intended to be nonsense, but no, this is a separate phenomenon and 4chan definitely, ironically, pretends to be as bad as it can be, is that some people take it very oh really.

Recently there was a case in America of a guy who stabbed his father because he thought his father was a Democrat, he bet he was writing stuff for a conservative website, he was really into the pizzagate conspiracy theory, probably be paranoid, so there are people who take this. They take it very, very seriously and they stick with it. What is your point? I'm saying you know how much responsibility you feel you have, particularly to the far right guys, as you say some of them have enjoyed your work, so I'm not one of you, I'm not one of you, I'm not with you. , you haven't enjoyed my work, I've definitely read bits and pieces on the internet, I read more, okay, find some evidence that I'm extraordinarily sick and tired of. this particular line of questioning of accusation I'm not a fan of the identitarian right the ethnonationalists the far right first of all what do you mean by far right exactly do you mean ethnonationalists you meet white supremacists no I mean people? who are on the right but have their power base outside of the mainstream media, see themselves as an alternative, so I see them as a pretty loose definition.

Alt-right has been around for 30 years so it's the progenitor of what I see now breitbart and things like that are the new media version of those very old media well let's define what constitutes alt-right first for me they are ethno - Nationalists tend to be white supremacists and generally when people tire me out with a far-right epithet, the reason they do it is to associate me with those people who don't like me and the reason is because, like me , I have made it very clear not only in my videos but also on Twitter that I don't like them I don't like their anti-Semitism I don't like their use of identity politics I don't agree with their goals I think their notion is something like if all the The world is going to play identity politics, we are going to play it too and we are going to win and I can certainly understand that motivation, but I think it's a bad game overall and I think the only reason I was ever associated in any sense anything to do with the alt-right was because it was extremely convenient for radical leftists, whom I fundamentally detest, to present myself as a representative.

From that point of view, apart from that zero now it's fine, but that's not what you said, so there was no point in saying that you were fine, you mentioned the big picture, but I did mention that, but there was a reason why I did that, that's that. Nietzsche himself said that I am an anti-anti-Semitic right wing, and yet his ideology and his philosophy ended up being used by the Nazis, so my question to you is: how much responsibility do you feel for what I feel? It's not how much responsibility I feel. it's how much responsibility I take on correctly and I take on as much responsibility as possible, which is why I do what I do when I travel the world.

I speak in different cities. To people as much as I can, I'm posting content that I think is useful to people online and I'm clarifying what I believe. I have 300 videos on YouTube for pretty much all intents and purposes, every word I've ever said to students. in a professional capacity since 1992 and even though I have countless highly motivated enemies, they have been unable to find anything I have said in 30 years that, uh, what would you say would justify any of those accusations or any other accusation for That matters, as well which is quite a phenomenon. I mean, I understand it to a certain extent.

You know, sorry about Pepe's flags. Can you help me explain why, why did you pose with that? What were your reasons for doing it? Did people just come? Get up and I'll bring it to you and yeah, I was posing with I've probably been photographed, I haven't met 5,000 people in the last two years and you know, it's one after the other, often in groups of 150 or 200 people and it was only like 15 seconds and They brought this flag, one of them had spoken at the event, they were doing it ironically. um they unfurled the flag and we took a photo and that's what you would post ironically with a hammer and sickle flag.

I don't know, given the circumstances, what I would have done. I have all kinds of Soviet art in my house, because I think anyone could get caught up in it and social shame is a huge factor and you don't want to tell people that. I've been very nice to you and you don't really want to do that. I'm just wondering if that's something you regret now and wouldn't do again if you had the chance. Well, I don't think it was like that. well for me ah I don't think he betrayed my old self we'll just leave him where he is I made the decision I made given the circumstances and I took into consideration what was there I think I think the pepe The formulators did a wonderful job trolling the media standard.

I don't think they were what everyone assumed they were. I think they did a wonderful job of trolling you too, in a sense, recruiting you and your image and your attractiveness to people. to its kind of cause, which is ironic, I don't really think so, so it's not really, you know, deep down, I don't find it very ironic, actually, don't you find it ironic that a lot of the kind of 4chan culture? which means I'm going to say the worst thing I can say just to show that I can say it because freedom of speech is still alive.

I think that in itself is quite poisonous to the discourse. I think I'm trying to behave. Online in a relatively civilized way I don't always succeed, but I don't think that simply walking into a room and shouting epithets is something I need to do on a daily basis to prove that free speech isn't quite right. I think we probably could do it. I agree that it's a reasonable, reasonable, uncommon consensus note, but I have to go back to the idea of ​​free speech because I think the whole idea of ​​the intellectual dark web and this came up a couple of times at your event Thursday, is based on the idea that you have been marginalized for your opinions or a press for your opinion based on my claim to that right, is based on well, I don't know, I'm not claiming that I've been marginalized, I would never use that word first That's for sure, but the idea of ​​a dog doesn't make me feel oppressed.

I'm glad to hear it, but I think the way you received the applause from that crowd went a long way. idea of ​​breaking a taboo, right, oh this is a microaggression, but I'll say it anyway, you know hard work is the way to succeed and I thought it was fascinating because to me you don't seem like someone who has particularly suffered. an outrageous amount for your opinions, people certainly haven't agreed, they've been rude, you know? In some cases, the only reason I haven't suffered an outrageous amount for my opinions is because I've handled the consequences of your opinions. expression exceptionally well my job was at risk my career was at risk my family's stability was at risk so I wouldn't take that too far how your job was at risk Jesus last year 200 of my faculty colleagues signed a petition to getting me fired, that was just one of a dozen things that happened.

The university wrote me two letters, two cease and desist letters from their human resources departments with their legal staff, three of them and that's it. Rick Meda has just been fired in Canada, at Acadia University. for talking about many of the same things I've talked about, so the fact that I came out of this relatively unscathed has very little to do with the virulence of the attacks, there is a lot of motivation to eliminate me, it just wasn't the case. It's not working well and I think the fact that it didn't work out for me makes me ultimately optimistic about where we are because I know why because I worked.

I went to a panel a while ago with Zaghanara, a Burmese comedian who was jailed for getting a joke right and we're not at that stage yet. I think we certainly are not. We are so close. How about the guy with the pug in the UK? Dankula says, that's the right one, but he actually did it. I mean it was a joke. I may not have liked it. I didn't say it was a good joke. I didn't say it was a proper joke. I didn't say anything like that. I didn't say it was a well thought out joke. joke, but it was a joke, yes, no, just no, fundamentally no, I don't think it was a joke, I think it was camouflaged as a joke and that's what it looks like, well that's exactly what you would believe if you were inclined to chase comedians no, I'm not inclined to bother, well you're inclined to chase him, I don't think he's a comedian and I don't think I'd have to look at the circumstances of that case, but I think he didn't like his girlfriend's pug and You thought it would teach him to do something reprehensible like a prank, right?

But I see you engaging in, for example, tweeting Douglas Murray's article like he's Tommy Robinson, and I think you see it as a free speech issue and that's not it. How do I see the Tommy Robinson case? I consider it contempt of court for someone who jeopardized a sexual harassment trial. How do you see that case? I consider it very fortunate that Tommy Robinson did not die in prison. I think he would say the same thing about a There are a lot of people in prison. I think it's very difficult to be in prison if you're a sex offender, for example.

I think our British prisons are less inhumane than American ones, but they are still brutal places. However, I think it was an appropriate punishment. for someone who tried to collapse a harassment trial well, but are you? and I guess you're sorry, are you a prison abolitionist? No, sure, okay, so you think some people there are crimes that people need to go to prison for, why would you ask? a question like that sounds like someone who isn't interested in receiving appropriate punishment no, but I thought maybe they had made an assumption about you and I didn't want to make an assumption about you um, I'm just going to end with a quick shot, so I know that this is not right.

This is YouTube, so we've been able to talk for a long time, but I just want quick answers from you. Who is your favorite author? Dostoevsky. Who is your favorite woman? Author Margaret Lawrence I don't think I know her She's a Canadian author Kind of an antidote to Margaret Atwood in my opinion Okay, when did you last cry? oh god who knows last week probably who your smartest opponent is hmm sam harris is pretty smart because you've had debates about atheism with him and about rationality yeah I don't really consider him exactly an opponent you know I mean We don't agree on things, I don't really tend to think of people as opponents in general, I mean, but Harris is, you know Harris is smart, he's good at arguing his case and that's been interesting, what a great question, You don't know the answer to what a great question?

I don't know the answer? Well, God, it's hard, there are so many of them, personally, it's what I should do in two years, when was the last time you changed your mind about something important? I'm changing my mind about things all the time, every time I give a lecture I change my mind about something, but something important, something big, oh. Well, I can tell you, I mean, one thing I've learned in the last two years is that I think I overestimated that there is an obesity epidemic in North America, maybe in the entire Western world. I think I overestimated the degree to which that was a consequence of a sedentary lifestyle and I overestimated the degree to which a lack of discipline contributed to it.

I think I think a lot more now that it's a disease, those are two different things, right? Discipline is self-control and illness is something outside your country. Well, let's say you're overweight, you should exercise. In reality, the evidence that exercise will make you slimmer is not that good and maybe the reason you don't exercise is because you are sick, not because you are sick. you're not exercising, so I'm much more sympathetic to the hypothesis that the obesity epidemic is actually a consequence of a large-scale disease isn't exactly correct, it's fundamentally a dietary problem and there are no root causes for that.

Are you still eating your diet exclusively from beef? Unfortunately, yes, actually, just beef. You can't have tomato sauce. Nothing true. Yeah, I wouldn't, it's not something I would recommend lightly. It's a little difficult for your social networks. Life makes traveling hard enough and it's very boring, but what has it done to you? Well, I lost 50 pounds in seven months, I stopped snoring. I had some autoimmune diseases that seemed to have disappeared. I'm not taking antidepressants. My mood isn't perfectly regulated, but I'm under quite a bit of stress, so that might have something to do with it.

I sleep much less. I can work more. I imagine your arteries might not be. I do not do it. Anyway, I don't think there's any evidence for that. I don't think we have any idea what causes arteriosclerosis. I think all the dietary knowledge we have is garbage, and partly because it'sincredibly difficult to do proper dietary studies that you can't Controlled studies say that everything is correlational and there are so many variables that I think correlational studies are useless, so also this all-beef diet, this all-beef diet apparently cured my daughter, then, who had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, that was the original diagnosis. she was idiopathic, which means we don't know what health is causing it, yeah, but she doesn't have any symptoms, so that kind of thing makes you sit up and pay attention because it doesn't make any sense when was the last time you lied because the book says you don't lie, you still lie, everyone lies like Dr.

House himself told us what is the most important thing, I am very careful with that, what is the most important thing for you in life, not to be stupid, how would you like make silly mistakes?, not be cautious, yes. That's tough on you, tough life man, right, how would your life have been different if you had been born a woman? multiple orgasms, not bad, what is your biggest regret for not taking the opportunity to learn to play the organ when? I was seven years old, if that's your biggest regret, this is going to be a big deathbed because that's, yeah, well, you know, I would have liked it, it would have been better for me if I had been a better musician and, finally, how would you like to be remembered as?

Someone honest Dr. Jordan Peterson thank you very much.