Peter Boghossian: The Crisis of Honesty | Free Speech, Hard Conversations & What's Gone Wrong

"There is a crisis of honesty — and we're seeing the consequences in every sphere of life." 

American philosopher Peter Boghossian — author of How to Have Impossible Conversations and the mind behind Spectrum Street Epistemology — joins host Dane Giraud for a wide-ranging conversation on free speech, polarisation, religion, antisemitism, the trans medicalisation scandal, the breakdown of moral consensus, and why honest disagreement has become so rare. 

🎟️ SEE PETER LIVE IN AUCKLAND — SATURDAY 16 MAY Peter's final New Zealand appearance. Ellen Melville Centre, Auckland CBD. Doors 4:45pm | Starts 5:30pm | Tickets $10. 

Book: https://www.fsu.nz/events/free-speech-union-peter-boghossian-free-speech-hard-conversations-and-whats-at-risk 

IN THIS EPISODE 

— What Spectrum Street Epistemology actually is, and why Peter uses it with school students 

— Why "online is a cesspool" and what in-person disagreement teaches that comments never will 

— The atheists who are more religious than the religious 

— The breakdown of the dominant moral order and the necessary backlash that follows 

— Sacred cows: the topics institutions still refuse to discuss honestly 

— The trans medicalisation scandal and the cost of suppressing dissent 

— Rising antisemitism in the UK and the institutional unwillingness to name what's happening 

— Dane's own recent experience of an antisemitic smear 

— and how to respond 

— Why the Israel–Palestine conversation collapses, even between people willing to talk 

— Reading scripture as literature, and the value of radical self-knowledge 

— Why fighting, jiu-jitsu and stand-up comedy share something the cognitive world has lost: a corrective mechanism 

— The crisis of honesty 

— and why everything downstream of it is breaking 

CHAPTERS 

(00:00) Welcome & guest introduction 

(01:55) Why Peter keeps coming back to New Zealand 

(03:48) How Spectrum Street Epistemology works 

(05:48) Why online conversation turns toxic 

(08:16) Making evidence and doubt fun 

(10:02) Religion, identity, and moral certainty 

(16:18) When moral orders break down 

(22:34) Echo chambers and institutional capture 

(27:04) Sacred cows and policy taboo topics 

(42:46) A personal smear story unpacked 

(46:02) Why some conflicts resist dialogue 

(51:42) Reading scripture as self-knowledge 

(56:52) Fighting, reality checks, and integrity 

(1:00:02) The crisis of honesty 

(1:09:12) Final thanks 

ABOUT PETER BOGHOSSIAN 

American philosopher, author of How to Have Impossible Conversations (with James Lindsay), and founder of the Spectrum Street Epistemology project. Formerly faculty at Portland State University. His work focuses on belief revision, civil discourse, and how people change their minds. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Free to Speak, the New Zealand Free Speech Union podcast. If you enjoy the show, subscribe for uncensored conversations and free speech news from New Zealand and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Ki ora, and welcome to Free to Speak, the official podcast of the New Zealand Free Speech Union. I'm your host today, Dane Giroud, and we have a very special guest, Peter Begosian. Peter is an American philosopher, author, uh, educator. What else are you? I mean, there's so many, you know, I was going to say uh a man of many talents, a man who needs no introduction. When people say that, they say it because they don't want to remember a really long introduction. And you're the kind of person that warrants a humongous introduction with everything that you've done.

SPEAKER_06 0:47

So I should have my ideological enemies give my introduction. I would love that. We should try that for a change. People who hate me should give the introduction. Uh no, but I've been in I I love New New Zealand. This is the second time I'm back with the Free Speech Union. And I was back one more time. Uh this is my third time here, about a decade ago, maybe a little longer. I was here with the Dawkins Foundation to do a tour. Uh but this tour, we've been doing stuff in schools, the Free Speech Union. We've been doing Spectrum Street epistemology on the streets in Wellington and here in Auckland, which has been great. We've been do I have public events. Sarah McLaughlin, we did one on free speech here in Auckland. Uh we're meeting with people, university uh people, we're having these conversations here in this podcast studio. Uh, and so we've had a number of prominent public intellectuals and and people here. So it's been a remarkably productive time. And I'm eating a lot of sushi too, which I love.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Eating a lot of sushi. What about pies? I think that James Lindsay was quite a fan of the pies.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

Yeah, I don't do the carbs. I'm too old. James is much younger than I am, so he can get away with the pies. Great.

Why He Keeps Coming Back

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Hey, well, so um, so let's talk about uh the work that you're doing here with the free speech union, because I know that Michael Johnson, Johnston is is involved. He's a person I know quite well, another old rocker, retired rock and roller, like myself. So um he had a band, I'm told. Yeah, he had a band, I had a band. Yeah, uh but I think he might be a few years older than me. I think he was a punk band, I was a glam band, so we're a little different. Yeah, I think you told me he's 58. Oh, yeah, I'm 54. So there you go. Yeah, that checks out. Yeah. Okay. So and and so uh what what you're doing in terms of the epistemology, what what got you into that in the first place? What took you into that?

SPEAKER_06 2:33

Just fascinated by how people reason, how they think. If if they want to hold beliefs that are clearly false, uh how do they why is it that so many people over ascribe confidence to propositions, particularly moral propositions? I just find it fascinating. I'm just curious as to how people think through issues and if there are ways, which I now know there are, really effective, cost-effective, cost-effective and effective ways to help people think more clearly about complicated issues. So I just find it extraordinarily interesting. Ideology, belief, belief revision, it's just fascinating. Something that almost nobody works in, but yet everybody should be thinking about constantly.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Well, in terms of the schools, uh, what was the average age of the students that you would have been um that you you have been engaging with?

SPEAKER_06 3:27

Well, uh I prefer not to do uh I don't so I don't I can't I don't think in terms of age, I think in terms of I don't know if these are analogous here, but elementary school, middle school, high school, do you have those terms here?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

We don't have those terms, but uh we we watch so many sitcoms, we we sort of get the okay, okay, okay, yeah.

How Spectrum Street Epistemology Works

SPEAKER_06 3:48

So uh I prefer not to do it with elementary school pe people, kids, and I can tell you exactly why that is if you're interested, we could drill down on that. But uh middle school and high school kids. And even those, even those, so basically we come up with a list of claims, and let's let's take a second and talk about what it is that I'm doing here. What is spectrum street epistemology? This idea that Michael Johnson from the New Zealand Initiative is testing. And so we come up with a bunch of claims. For example, our most popular claim, oddly enough, aliens have visited Earth. And we'll write down all the claims on a board, and that read is sitting across from now. So he'll he is in charge of the board, the claims, the questions, so they can see, they could see it on the kids. Oh, we also do this with teachers, educators, so how educators can incorporate this in their classroom, incorporate this, particularly in their civics classroom, but cross across the curricula. And then we have mats. Strongly agree, uh, absolutely agree, strongly agree, agree, slightly agree, neutral, and then on the other side. We'll read a claim, everybody who starts on neutral, they'll walk to a mat, and then I'll facilitate a process of ask people why they believe what they bel what they believe or why are they on that mat. What would it take them to move one mat to the left or to the right, assuming that they're not on one of the spectrums because you can't move the other way, one of the ends. And then I'll facilitate a conversation across divides, specifically among people who disagree with each other. So that's more or less what it looks like. And because they're under 18, we always submit the claims to the administration before we do so. And uh the younger they are, the more careful we have to be with the claims. And we've been told that you know there are certain claims we shouldn't examine, claims about religion, claims about just certain uh claims that might that that parents might be offended by.

Why Online Talk Turns Toxic

SPEAKER_02 5:48

And would when the young people take part in that, I mean, this is obviously about modeling conversation, isn't it? I mean, that's part of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's part of what that we want them to take away from it uh in today's rather polarized world. Correct. Part of it. Part of it. So so so just focusing on that. So doing it practically in the space, a lot of this, a lot of these conversations aren't going to happen online. Is there a misalignment there? Do you think is it is it tricky?

SPEAKER_06 6:17

Online's a cesspool. Uh no, so this is so this training is not for online, it's for in-person. You know, it's like kids in high school deal with each other in person, they deal with each other online as well. But if the training were for online, then we'd have to use some kind of online modality. But because it's face-to-face and that's what we that's what we do. Now you those skills are transferable to a certain extent. To what extent, I can't tell you because I don't have data for that. I can speculate, but I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Do you think I mean, where does polarization today come from? It comes from online, do you think? Or do you think there are other factors at play?

SPEAKER_06 6:56

Well, people are just polarized about people there are contentious issues and people have substantive disagreements about a wide range range of things. The echo chambers that we find ourselves in in social media exacerbate those differences. So it just puts the conversation in hard mode, as we wrote in how to have impossible conversations. So we're less concerned, and it's not to say that the online domain isn't important. It is, of course, the online realm you you face unique challenges, and you know, we've evolved to see facial cues, et cetera. But that's not what we do. We do in-person, face-to-face, how to listen to people, how to repeat back what you think you heard, what are the conditions for belief revision, what is reasonable or unreasonable to request for someone of evidence? What constitutes good evidence, what constitutes bad evidence? So those are the kinds of issues and questions that we help people think through, and then we we try to help them. It's it's very difficult in you know, two hours with the kids, but we try to help them habituate these things so they can think, oh, what what is the reasoning for that? Oh, do I understand this correctly? What would it take for me to change my mind? You know, some pretty basic questions, but are really constitutive of the building blocks of rationality.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Yeah. I mean, examining your own thoughts is can be quite confronting. I I did watch one of the videos that you did in in on Cuba Street in Wellington.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Oh, yeah.

Making Evidence And Doubt Fun

SPEAKER_02 8:27

It was really entertaining to watch too. And you could you could see the the um uh the the wheels turning in in in the minds of some of these um some of the subjects that you had there as I had to deal with. It was quite a provocative one. It was about immigration and uh importing like five five million Islamists.

SPEAKER_06 8:46

Five million is so that so the so I want to pick up on something you said, you said entertaining. So I've always believed that education should also be fun. And when I was when I when I used to uh when I was faculty, the shit that I used to get from people for that basic belief from my colleagues was crazy. So I I don't know, I've yet to hear a persuasive argument why you something cannot be educational and fun. So we try to make those spectrums, true to epistemology is fun, so the kids want to do it. That's why often we start with when we let them choose the claim, they start with aliens. It's like a super fun claim. There's not a lot at stake, but yet there kind of is like that'd be the most significant thing since the invention of fire. I mean, it's it certainly could be. Uh but you know, and then you know, people say I don't believe in aliens. And then I'm just always escalating things, like, well, what if you saw this, or what do you saw? This is the one that we did. I can't remember the name of that place, Epsom Schools Girls Order. But I was escalating it to a truly crazy degree. Um but it but it's always interesting to test the limits of one's belief and to see what would constitute evidence before someone would change their mind, sufficient evidence necessary to warrant belief.

Religion, Identity, And Moral Certainty

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah, yeah. That's that's interesting. I mean, uh look, I I'm actually religious in my own way. Um, but I've uh I became very hooked on listening to atheists. Maybe I'm a sucker for punishment, you know, but I I just I I just love to hear the other side. Yeah. And and where people are thinking, and and I guess it's what Rashi, one of our rabbis, says that, you know, we we sort of you you sharpen your sword on on another man's sword, you know, or we'll we're stones to each other's swords or something like that. It's one of those sorts of, you know, and which is which is true. It's like we don't want to be in bubbles, you know. Well, actually many of us do want to be in bubbles. Very true. But yeah, but uh if you can get out of it, I think it just only makes your views stronger.

SPEAKER_06 10:46

Yeah, I mean many atheists I've met are religious. In what way? I mean, hasn't that the last decade showed us that? Uh, they hold propositions religiously, they subscribe to orthodoxies religiously, they belong to what has the trappings of religious communities, they just have different metaphysical beliefs.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, can you unpick that a bit?

SPEAKER_06 11:12

Yeah, sure. I think I don't know. So I see the star, David. So you're Jewish. Uh-huh. And are you Jewish because you think it's true? Are you culturally Jewish? Are you like a cafeteria Jew or what are you?

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Uh no, I would be well, I'd be somewhere in the middle. I mean, I'm not orthodox, I'm liberal. Um, I'm not going to um I I don't privately hold a belief that we should stone homosexuals or anything like that. Um but I do believe that there is a uh yes. See, it's interesting because when I say a higher power, I don't know what that is. And we we we have the sort of um thing of, you know, when you write God, you don't write G-O-D. You put a dash just to keep that symbolism in your mind that I don't really know what this is. So there's a higher power or there's something going on, but I don't really know what this is. So I'm I'm a mixed bag there. Sometimes I'm um I feel very strongly um um uh you know, I feel a presence of God or something like that. I you know keep kosher and all that kind of stuff, but I'm pretty out there liberal character too. So were your parents Jewish? My father.

SPEAKER_06 12:26

Oh, I was not expecting you to say that at all. I was expecting you to say your mother. No, my my my father.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:33

So if you took a 23andme test and found out that you were 0% Jewish, would you still believe?

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Uh well it's it's well b believe well, I'd be Jewish because I would have converted, but the um we're not really called upon to believe so much. Like I I think this goes to the heart of what what many religions are, but they're not all the same. It's easy to sort of lump them all together. Like that's certainly true. Yeah, I I view Judaism as more a um, I'm in the way I'll back up a bit. So I'm a screenwriter, I'm pretty literary. I like to read. I've always read from a very young age. I had a very you know advanced reading age when I was a kid and all that kind of stuff, right? So that's my job now. I write screenplays and things like that. So so these are books, and they're really powerful books, right? That's what the Torah is. It's a powerful piece of writing. That's what it is. Uh and and and what we don't ask ourselves enough, I think, is what's the genre of this book? Historical fiction. But but even more than that, what's the style, what's the tone? Like for me, it would be um uh well Harold Bloom. You know Harold Bloom, the Shakespeare style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he says, if you can read it in the original Hebrew, i i i it's not the same, but it's closest to Kafka. Right? He's making that a claim. Not not on the entire Torah, because of course you know, there's different writers that have sort of contributed to it over time, they they say. Like the Bereshit or Genesis is pretty cleanly one writer, they think. But when you get into the priestly stuff, it becomes they reckon there were insertions and things like that. But a lot of these stories are parables. You know, God or Hashem is very impish. And I and it's closer to a like a like Dante or something, like high ironic comedy. Because that's what people were reading back then. But I think translations and things like that over centuries have just flattened it out. And probably a reverence. You know what I mean? Like an over-ref reverence that's probably sort of flattened out a lot of the spiky bits of these. Um aspects of some of these uh books.

SPEAKER_06 15:04

Yeah, so you're less religious than many atheists I know.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 15:09

How well they don't just look at at propositions in their moral universe. They they don't take them as the way that you just explained the way that you read the Torah or that you have excuse me, certain interpretations of things. They take certain moral pronouncements as apodictically true and immune to revision and oddly both universal and not universal, but because they don't subscribe to the law of non-contradiction, so that works out well for them. But the you anybody can approach any idea religiously, like climate change. You you you can have people who hold an idea and they belong to a kind of community of people, but instead of a it would and would not be a faith community. It just depends on what the content of the belief is. But anybody can hold a belief with tenacity and be a member of our quote unquote religious community of a community of which other people hold the belief tenaciously too. There's nothing particular about God beliefs. I mean, just look at Hindus.

When Moral Orders Break Down

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Well, I mean, we call the woke the clerical class often, don't we? Um uh censorship, I think, is born. A lot of the censorship we're hearing we're getting today is from that sort of uncertainty and religiosity that's in a lot of these um ideological streams.

SPEAKER_06 16:36

You know what the the backlash against is I'm even hesitant to say this on the show, but there's a guy we can see the emergence. So when when one dominant moral order breaks down, either another will take over or microfissures will erupt within that superstructure, and then within those structures new beliefs will emerge, and not always, but but I'd say the mode is the or maybe not that would be the right way to put it, but but yeah, maybe like I I don't want to give a percentage because it you'd have to delve deep into historical intellectual history, but th what emerges and the kinds of things that emerge run antithetical to the moral order that was just questioned. So there's a guy online now. I'm not advocating anybody watch this because I don't want to give many more views, but he basically wears this cowboy hat and he goes around finding black people, calling them the N-word. And and he records this and live streams it, and the live streams are astonishingly popular. I cannot believe this guy has not gotten shot yet. I'm just I'm just he's had guns pulled on him and stuff. But but but that itself was like that would have been unthinkable in 2021. I mean, even telling people that at the height of the pandemic they shouldn't um they they shouldn't protest for racial disparities or against or the idea that racial disparities were caused by systems. But we see the breakdown of the old moral order and what happens in the new moral order. And his reasoning is very interesting, or the reason he gives, I wouldn't call it, I wouldn't elevate it to reasoning, but he will always say free speech, free speech, free speech, while he's calling these people to their face, the N-word. And it's really it, you know, it it's just it's just a fascinating phenomena. But again, I mention this only in the larger context. The largest context of freed is freedom of speech, and then the proxies to that are what happens when we see a breakdown of moral or the moral order, which we've seen.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Hmm, so so this is like this is an unfortunate backlash. I guess individuals like yourself and I would hope that we return to I mean it's a metaphor, but the center or or a liberalism and the tolerance that comes along with it. But people aren't gonna do that.

SPEAKER_06 19:29

No, it's not an unfortunate backlash. I would argue it's a necessary backlash. Acceptance of gay marriage has uh gone down from what it was. Acceptance of uh of uh homosexual adoption of children has plummeted. So I mean you can all all of these things, oh, and then um you know, now that people are start starting to it it it's not just that people are starting to speak honestly about things, it's that people are going for the sacred cows that they couldn't talk about before. The number of African Americans shot by other African Americans, Roland Fryers work with African Americans shot by the police, the number at Harvard, for example, of African Americans. So before, all of those things were sacred cows, like you absolutely couldn't talk about them. You see the re re-emergence of people talking about race and IQ. You see people openly talking about, and again, I'm not making any evaluative judgments here. I'm just describing the phenomenon. People overtly talking about inbreeding. We've had guys on our show to talk about inbreeding and this in Pakistan, talking about restricting immigrations from countries that have high inbreeding rates or high crime rates. Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Pakistan constantly come up in that. So it's not just the key is that these are necessary consequences to a regime that either self-imposed censorship or the government imposed censorship. This had to happen. There was no other way. And I think it's going to set back so so I mean you could delve into this, but I guess one question is if you look at the data of people who are accepted into Ivy League schools. Now, if this is bracket whether or not an Ivy League school means anything, you just bracket all of that stuff for the moment. That data is shocking once any kind of affirmative action or diversity requirements is shed. Like once you don't do that anymore. And now people are not only not afraid to talk about that. I can tell you what the data is, but but it's, you know, blacks would go from 13% to under 1%. But now people are starting to openly question the idea of a black physician being legitimate or whether or not So, you know, when you have environments that don't allow people to have honest conversations about something, not only do you Have a problem with not having an infrastructure, a moral infrastructure to wrestle with and figure out what your public policy should be. But by I would argue, by necessity, that breeds forms of extremism, like this guy going around the street and saying the N-word to black people, and then I just I again it's shocking to me that he hasn't been murdered yet. But uh then he will he will do that under the guise of free speech. So you're you're not you're not stopping what you want to stop. In fact, you're exacerbating it.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's and this is something I get concerned about a lot, you know, with our community and you know, being on boards and thinking about security and things like that, um, is that uh suppression is not gonna make people safer. I mean, it's just taking away, I mean, if you're taking away the words, what's left, you know, um violence.

SPEAKER_06 22:57

Have you been following what's been happening in the UK with Jews being assaulted?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:04

Okay. So the Home Office put on a tweet and I mentioned on my Twitter feed, and of course, they don't state the nature of the problem, they have to man manufacture some other problem. So the you know, they they of course they put in the far right in there. So I mean so I just get exacerbated because this whole thing is so fucking stupid. And you know, you can only talk about it so much. But I have I'm trying hesitant to dive down this this rabbit hole. Anyway, so I'll let you lead the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

What why are you hesitant?

SPEAKER_06 23:46

Because you've been there before, or is it just too frustrating or because the the information that one would need at a rudimentary level to come to not even moral conclusions, but to even understand the players, the stake. And I think the perfect example of this is what's happening to Jews in the UK. Um I'm I'm I'm just hesitant because many people are trapped in information uh echo chambers, and those echo chambers, and almost exclusively they're legacy media. So if you're only getting something, for example, in the United in the United States context from NPR and MSNBC, you're gonna form certain conclusions about the world that are utterly untethered to reality. They're just from one side of the coin. It would be kind of akin to people only listening to the most extreme right wing, and that's all that's the only thing that that they digest, and that affects their cognitions. So for me to look, look, let me give an example. You know what the SPLC is? Uh yeah.

unknown 24:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 24:58

So so they were the organization that was fighting racism. And that was it. If you were on the SPLC list, my friend Ayan was on the list, James Lindsay was on the list.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Roger Noah's at one point.

SPEAKER_06 25:11

Yeah, he sued, he sues and then later got off the list. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was the gold standard that everybody listened to. I made it on the list, but only in relation because James Lindsay was on the list. Um, yeah, now, but back then that was no joke, right? And so if I told you that, and if you look at pictures of the people on the board of the SPLC, they're overwhelmingly black. If I told you, as Alex Jones did in 2021, that those people would almost definitely be the largest funders of the KKK and actual neo-Nazi groups, if I told you that, you'd think I was a conspiracy theory. And I've uh said for decades, how many people are, I mean, Reids heard me say it for a decade now. How many people are? I mean, we're talking about how many neo-Nazis are there? How many KKK? I mean, how many people are we actually talking about? But it but even for me to say, you know, that's why this SPLC thing was just so shocking. It's like, you mean to tell me that a group of black people is the primary funder of neo-Nazis and KKK in the United States manufacturing racism where it doesn't exist, as my buddy Douglas Murray says, there aren't enough Nazis, so you have to invent them. You mean to tell me that they did this solely for financial gain and it worked. Well, right there, right then and there, that should shoot down the argument of anyone who thinks thinks black people have low IQ. That was a genius fucking move. That was like genius.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Well, it's like, you know, we say it's a free speech union. Now our goal is to put ourselves out of business. But you know, we've seen it with the with the game movement too, haven't we? It's like they won. Now what? You know, they had they had to keep going. I mean, this isn't a good idea. Well, now that's my reason. Now I'll tell now I'll tell you.

Sacred Cows And Policy Taboo Topics

SPEAKER_06 27:04

I'll tell you what. Now they have to start mutilating the genitals of children.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

That's what. To keep going, to keep getting the funding, to keep having that sort of to be in the headlines, to get all the the accolades and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_06 27:16

I mean, this is the largest scandal. I mean, Mia Hughes has some great stuff she was just posting on X about it. This is singularly the largest scandal, even pre-Tuskegee, and what was done to primarily gay and autistic kids was unfathomable. And again, part of the reason for that is all these kids were damaged, double mastectomies, because we didn't have free speech, because people were not allowed to question the orthodoxy. And if you were, you were debaned, you were deplatformed over and over again. Yeah, Graham's Graham's good friend of ours, friend of the show, is a great guy. His career was ruined, you know. Father Ted guy is a great guy. His career was ruined. So again, I I I think that you just we just need to think about. So I'm 59. That's how I remember my Michael's age, because he was 58, he's one year younger than me. So we just need to think about this is just a property of human nature. It's not a property of the right or the left. I mean, admittedly, yeah, right now it's overwhelmingly the far left and the identitarian left. No, no, no sane person could argue with that. But when I was a kid, uh, you know, I mean, just think about the ACLU allowing uh uh the Nazi Party to uh protest in Jewish neighborhoods in Skokie, Illinois. They were for that, in favor of that, not for the protest, but for their right to do so. But but now free speech is a property of the left. I mean I have my own con I have my own um uh beliefs about why that is uh but but that's that's what we see.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Well uh so so why why would you think that that I mean I I think about the well I I would call it a swing to the right on speech when you know I'm I'm old enough to remember the the the the Reagan era and and moral majorities and uh you know let's go after heavy metal, it's gonna make you know if you play your record bad. Yeah, yeah, all that stuff. Um uh I mean that was just a it's even the stuff we're just talking about, like with the trans thing, like we we had a very famous we had one of the more famous trans people in in the world in New Zealand who was a um Georgina Bayer who recently passed away. I did a podcast with her for the Free Speech Union podcast a few years ago now, um, before she passed, obviously. And um she uh I spoke to her about you know dealing with a a trans child and how you deal with it. And she's basically said they're but they're on 90% of them are gonna grow up to be gay, most likely. Just love them. Don't do anything medical. Uh and and she and this is a person that won a a um won a meralty in a conservative farming um uh area, and then went on to become a a Labour Party person. And it would have been in her mid to late sixties now, so uh one of those classic leftists that were very very pro-free speech. But was quite ill towards you know the last 20 years of her life and and got but it just got marginalized on this issue. And this is a person that had been you know that had went gone through the whole thing, got the operation, done everything like that. And yeah, and was very firm on this. There's many trans people like that that I've encountered who you know, you sit down, you talk to them for two hours. They're not on the side of Buck Angel comes to mind. Yeah, Buck Angel Buck Angel comes to mind. Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh they're not on the side of medicalizing children. I I I I just I mean it's a little bit like the social social media ban argument where people are holding these sort of can these two views that a kid should not be exposed to social media until they're sixteen. But then the day they turn sixteen they can vote and should vote for my party. You know that which doesn't make a lot of sense, you know. Um but uh uh you know, these are people that would jump up and down if a kid got tattooed or was found drunk in a park um uh and could see that you know the father handing a kid beers that they'd probably call their child protection agencies. But they can they can mutilate them.

SPEAKER_06 31:43

Yeah, it's funny. When my son was 17, he went to he wanted to color his hair, and he went to the barber and he needed a uh parents' permission slip, or I don't know, slip or whatever, just a written permission for him to color his hair because he was 17. And my son said to me, but if that were an abortion clinic, they would they would have ushered me right in. I'd have been good to go. But but I think that those we there is something inherently sensor, like we we have these censorious impulses and we love to discharge those. We love to other people, we love to make moral pronouncements. And the sooner we're honest, oh that's the other thing, we're just not being honest about the nature of our problems. We're not being honest about like who's who's actually killing Jews. Like nobody, almost nobody is willing to be honest. Okay, great. You keep not being honest about it, and we're gonna get more dead Jews. Like great, keep it up. Good job, keep going. Um, it's the far right. Really? It's the far right. Well, that's a data-driven question, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah, but but is is it is this the I don't know, it's like the technocratic leadership we have, like Akiya Starmer. Yeah, or a person like that. When you when you look at a person like that, when you hear him and he says things like, People are are trying to divide us. It's like really, yeah. Him. I thought that's the right thing.

SPEAKER_06 33:02

He was a human rights lawyer. Yeah, no, he's the one, right. Yeah, he's the one the Green Party would be another one. Yeah. So, yeah, okay, so great. But but that I mean they should just be honest about it. Like we hate Jews. Okay, well, there's a guy who's honest about it. Okay, now we can have a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

Uh I I think that's where the Greens would be. I wouldn't, I don't think they'd be if they ever got into power. I mean, that's the end of any Jewish presence.

Echo Chambers And Institutional Capture

SPEAKER_06 33:25

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, look at Mundami's wife. Did you follow that? Yeah, I saw I've seen bits of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then he's meeting with Netanyahu and he's talking about like, you know, how do we fight anti-Semitism? Like these people, I these people are fucking liars. I mean, look, he should just say, listen, you know, I just don't like Jews. Maybe they smell bad. I hate them. Someone's gonna clip that out as if I said that. Now, um, but he should be honest about his beliefs. He should be honest. He's not honest. You cannot part look, I understand. I I want to be clear, Dane. I understand you are not the views of your ex-wives, or even if you're a current wife. I get that. But it I could not fathom being a w with a woman who behaved as if as his ex-wife did, and then he's claiming, well, she wasn't in the public spotlight, so don't pick on her. Well, she she was actually, she's on covers of magazines. She did so uh the same thing is happening. I don't know if you follow follow what happened to Matt Goodwin and um in the UK, but all of these the root problems, it's not just a free speech problem, it's a it's a complete unwillingness to be honest about the nature of your problems. And that is institutionalized with the people running these X accounts, with the people running social media platform, not only social media platforms, but everything is downstream of the university. Like the the interviews that I go go to here, I mean, these these places are ideologically captured cesspools. I mean, they're just pathological liars. They should just be completely honest about I'm a big fan of being honest about things myself.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Well, well, yeah, look, I mean, I've I've said this before. I I actually have no problem with racists. Like I can uh if someone tells me they're a racist, I can debate that person, I can I can talk to that person. I know where I stand. But it's the people that sort of clearly are, but uh uh uh sort of hiding behind things like moral relativism and cultural relativism and things like that, that just get my blood boiling.

SPEAKER_06 35:42

Imagine somebody somebody telling you they hate Jews, and then someone else telling who's in power telling you, oh, they don't actually hate Jews. That's the Green Party in the UK, particularly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the the the technocratic type who's a sort of politician I've grown to really detest, you know, like Yukir Starmer, who will say things like, Okay, two Jews are being, you know, there's these ambulances are being firebombed, um, people are clearly trying to divide us. And I think there was a tweet by British British comedian who said, Oh, oh, are they? I I thought they were I thought they were trying to kill Jews. You know, I mean that to me summed it all up. But there's this kicking the can down the road thing, it's almost like he's a a really shit school principal, and that's the way he sees himself. I'm at this crappy school, I'm gonna keep my head down, I'm gonna kick every can down the road for as long as possible and be out of here in 12 years or six years.

SPEAKER_06 36:43

Yeah, he's a useful idiot. He's a useful idiot. But you know, on the flip side of that, if I were to steel man his case, I'll try to do that now. It's that we've passed the point of no return with Islamic immigration. We don't know how many Islamists are in the country, we don't know how many Islamists are in the military. Uh so we have to have a kind of appeasement because if we don't, social cohesion will be further corroded, eroded, deteriorate, and then there'll be widespread civil unrest. So we need to appease people as much as possible. And whether it's blasphemy laws about not burning the Quran or saying something that insults people. And again, look, I don't live there. It's not I'm uh the the world has had a history of Americans telling other people how to live, and I'm not gonna join that, I'm not gonna join that dog pile. I'm just gonna watch it burn.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Oh man, that's so depressing.

SPEAKER_06 37:36

Oh, don't be depressed at all. They get it, they're getting what they deserve. Don't be depressed at all. They're lying constantly. They're people who are known terrorists who are running for office. Don't be depressed at all about this. This Gaza candidates. But really, I really mean it. Don't be depressed about what Mundami's gonna do to New York. He's already bankrupt. The city's already broke. Uh you shouldn't be depressed at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Doesn't happen that quickly?

SPEAKER_06 38:03

Pretty much. I mean, the data, the data, look, look, that's a data-driven question. You can look at it yourself. Look at what he's doing in the supermarket. The supermarket's a three million dollar. I mean, so you look, you you could look at those, but if your ideological lens is so strong that it's gonna skew one way or the other, but the response to that is should not be to be depressed. The response to that is as an as an American is what can I learn from some you know, 50% of people in uh Minnesota. This is I just was reading about this this morning, um, had uh I can't remember the exact phr phrasing of it, but basically they knew about Somali daycare fraud. I mean, I don't live in Minnesota. Uh so I I think that the lesson the depression is not the right lesson to learn from this. The right lesson to learn is okay, there are what what can we do, what can we do to make sure this doesn't happen to us? Because Paris is gone. Brussels is complete cesspool. Brussels is out. So what can we do to make sure that these things don't happen to us? And one of the things that you would need to do is you have to have a certain kind of courage or fortitude and risk people saying bad words to you.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

And we're in a place now where people are speaking more and appropriate to speak more. But but I mean for the Jewish community, there's no choice. They just have to go. They have to go.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

You mean they have to leave, like Kristalkocht? Yeah, well, of course they have to leave.

SPEAKER_06 39:34

I mean, look, most But why are they leaving? Why are they leaving? Who is is it the Vietnamese? Is it the Sikhs? Are they leaving because of the Sikhs? Are the Sikhs hunting Jews and stabbing Jews and lighting ambulances on fire? Okay. So we have to be honest about the nature of the problem. And the the longer we are not honest about the nature of the problem, the more Jews. And then I can't remember that not I can't remember that woman's name said, I'm shocked that two Jews were stabbed. And I put out a I put out a tweet saying, like, what? Like, if alien ships came down shaped like pizzas, that would be shocking. That would be shocking. If Jews were not stabbed, that would be shocking. She was the same person, by the way, who was chant chanting. So that's the thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:21

Um the intifada. Globalize Yeah, globalize the intifada. Yeah. What's it means? You bring the intifada low obviously. Yeah. From the river to the sea. What do you think that means? Yeah. But again, I'm not making a moral pronouncement about this. I'm just saying that we need to be honest about the nature of this problem. I'm not saying people can or cannot say anything. I'm just saying let's start having honest conversations about what people actually believe. And then we can look at the reasons for why they believe it.

A Personal Smear Story Unpacked

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Yeah, no, it's it's just it's I mean, look, I I had a I had a really disturbing thing happen to me overnight, actually. Um I um uh, you know, I'm into a young comic sometimes, and uh sometimes I'm doing it to sort of maybe package a show for them. You know, uh if I if I find a good comic, I'll say, well, I'll jump on that and I'll I'll package them and I'll I'll do all this. So there was a uh young woman that came to me and and well I found her online and we'd talk a bit. I I I never met her in person, but she was talented, she was doing online clips and everything. And uh and uh yeah, so we we're sort of in engaging a bit, and and and then I say to her, Well, look, if you want to make a bit more money, why don't you just stand up? You know, you've got a good personality, you should go out and do stand-up. So she goes out and she does stand-up, and then she sort of goes her own way. I think we pitched something once, it didn't really go anywhere. And so I move on with my life, and I'm figuring that she's moving on with hers. So at last, yesterday morning I wake up and I'm getting all these messages, and she's got this um post on Facebook, right? It's got a it's got over 2,000 people have looked at it now and they're all commenting. And uh and she screenshotted a message that I had with her. She started going on about Gaza and everything and saying some really, really shitty things. And and I felt I had a relationship with her, so I was like, hey, look, I noticed that you've weighed in here. Um I don't, you know, I'm probably the only Jew you know. If you're open, I'd love to have a conversation with you. You know, I just think there's a little bit of stuff that you've said, which is not you know, you obviously don't know that much, but I said it in the most politest way I could. Yeah. And then she replied, Well, this isn't wasn't an invitation for you to have a crack of me. And I say, okay. And that was the end of it. So I thought, okay, oh, I'm not gonna spend time on this. I just moved away from it. I put the offer out there that I could we could have a conversation. So she's like, That's all you can do. That's all you can do. That's all you can do. You did everything you can do.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

I did everything I could do.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

I tried to be as polite, but in her message, she said, um, my basically my career was ruined by you know, she she does says everything but this guy ruined my career. So there's all sorts of crap going on here. And she said, and all the other content creators that are doing well, if they're doing well, you know that they've basically kissed the ass of the Jews.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

So with the so it was like it's the space lasers you people have. It was it was it was the Dreyfus affair. It had it's got it had that tongue.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

This is a young Māori woman who I don't know how she sort of you know absorbed this, but it's like, and this is the thing that does my mind in about uh anti-Semitism, she's sort of absorbing this ancient, like the tropes never really they don't really change. But it it it's it's quite wild, you know. Um but yeah and In the thread, people were like, ah, you showed him, you put him in his place, and all the I mean, it was just horrendous. You know, and I I was quite dismissive at first, but overnight I started thinking a bit deeper about it and think that, you know, I tried to laugh it off, and I did an interview with someone at a radio station and was very um tried to yeah, laugh it off. But the deeper I thought about it, it's like this is this is Drefer stuff. But we're in a position now where I mean, like the other thing is like I was flattered by all the power she was giving me. You know? It's like I I don't have the power to call up people and say, you know, every bar owner in the country don't hire this woman. You know, no one like any conspiracy, they haven't thought about the mechanics of how it would actually work. Um but uh but we we are in an industry, or my industry, but we we we we are in a world now where you know she she may get some big people on side with that. Like it's it's not you know that should be just absolutely nut bar. But the world we're in now, I can't trust it. I can't trust it because there could be there could be a big wig. They may think that it I did. You know? Um, it's insane stuff. So what do you do?

SPEAKER_06 45:26

Uh I mean you just act in the most ethical way you can and you just be incredibly honest with people and your dealings.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:33

And I'm sorry that happened to you. It and it it is what it is, and you just move on. I mean, there's nothing. I mean, what are you gonna do? There's nothing really you can do. You can't make someone have a conversation with you if they don't want to have a conversation. You can't put on your your trunk or your boot, as they say here, and just start talking to her. No, no, there's just nothing you can do about it.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

No, and I very clearly wasn't gonna do that. And when she said no, I was it's a one and done thing, you know? Yeah. Like I I tried, I'm out of here. I don't even really know you that well.

Why Some Conflicts Resist Dialogue

SPEAKER_06 46:02

Uh so you know, and you know, but it's um David Deutsch calls that the pattern. The hatred of Jews is this pattern that continuously emerges. And I've had uh you know, I've thought about this. I I actually never talk about the Israeli-Palestinian uh questions. I I know nothing. I'm not an international politics guy. I don't know about like I couldn't tell you really the first thing about that situation or conflict. So I I don't wait, wait into I try to only speak to things in my area of expertise. It's probably a and I'll always tell people like, well, you know, you shouldn't listen to me on that. But I think that's one of the issues that's incredibly difficult to have a conversation about. You know, we that's one of the only s uh spectrum street epistemology topics that we intentionally avoid. Interesting. Um we we did one, we did one in London where we asked the question um the two-state solution is the best solution. And one of the things we do is we have boards. Reed brings these little boards around. People write their reason on the boards, and we have other people guess. So one person was on strongly agree, one person was on strongly disagree, or maybe absolutely, I can't remember, but something like that. And you know, we say, write down the best reason you have for standing on that mat. What is the best reason you have for strongly agreeing that the Tuesday solution should be best? What's the best reason you have for strongly disagreeing, et cetera? And then we have people guess what their reasons, the other person's reasons are, no one could guess it. That's how far apart people are. They don't even know why anybody would think it's a good idea. Forget trying to fix it. They don't even have the faintest clue about why someone would think it's good.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I I I did a I did a podcast for the free speech union with a young Marxist um a couple of weeks ago. And um, and he was a good he was a good kid, but we did get onto this topic, and it was interesting because he went straight to the it's a settler colonial state. All right, right. They love it. And I was yeah, and I was like, no, it's closer to the reconquister of Spain. Now, these are very two very different examples, aren't they? Like never the twain a meeting there, but that's how pronounced people are.

SPEAKER_06 48:14

So he said So good on him for talking to you, right? That's good for him for coming onto your show and talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Oh, yeah, he no, he did. Well, well, here's the thing it's uh I had a giggle with the guy because it was like the woke won't sit down with me. Uh a Marxist will, but he'll have a protest to run away to, you know, and he did cancel a couple of times before we actually got to have that conversation because they love protesting. I don't know why. I can't think of anything worse than just sitting around the being outside and the elements and cars going past you holding a sign. I can't think of anything worse. I can't oh I defend protest rights, obviously, you know, but I can't think of anything worse. But anyway, they love it, they love it, they love it, they live for that. But um, yeah, but he was good, he he had a good conversation, and um, but you know, you could see there's a little bit of starch when we started getting into it, you know, the back stiffened a bit, and I thought, okay, and and I didn't want to get too deep into it with him either, because it had been we were talking about marks and free speech and things like that. I just I just thought it would derail things if we went too deep into it. But um, but that you know, yeah, it's interesting. Like after October the 7th, there's still a belief amongst the people on that side that that one state could work.

Reading Scripture As Self-Knowledge

SPEAKER_06 49:26

Yeah, it's interesting. So did you yeah, that that would have been an interesting conversation. I would have approached that from an angle of I mean, how old was he? 25. Yeah, so he probably I'm making massive inferences here, speculations, but you know, I would have had one of the things I would have had them in my back pocket was, oh, Marx was a Jew. And, you know, that's one of the reasons Hitler hated Marxism, because anything that came from Jews was de facto like a priori bad. I would have had that that because he probably would have said, my guess is I don't hate Jews, I just think that you know Zionism or the state of Israel is inherently an oppressor state or something like that. But it would be have been interesting to kind of tease out the difference between Jewishness, Jewish, Israel, et cetera. I mean, I'm always fascinated why that conflict, like the Uyghur conflict, gets almost no no attention whatsoever. It's fascinating. And I'll ask people that. Reed and I were in a taxi a while ago, and the cab driver was um it's a long story, but uh basically he was uh really upset about Israel. This was in London. His name, I think his name name was actually Muhammad. And I I said to them, I said to him, Well, are you upset about the Uyghurs? Because they're they're actual con they were like literal concentration camps over there. Like the we don't need need to go into that. He's like, oh, it's not happening anymore. I'm like, no, no, it is. It's still happening. And they're Muslim. They're Muslim. So and again, it's not that wasn't a conversation that you should or should not believe something about Israel or Palestine occupation. It's not a comment about that. It's like what is it specifically about that conflict as opposed to actual conf concentration camps in other countries, like the like the Uyghurs, the paradigmatic example of that. So I just find those those, and you know, we can tease those differences out in spectrum treat epistemology, but not not if you're not 18, we're not going, we're not going there. Yeah. No, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Hey, um just I we've been talking a while now. So like um before we wrap up though, uh going back to religion, right? Yeah, um, I have a bit of a different view about it. Belief, it's not like I guess in our faith, we're not being saved necessarily, you know, we're not at all. So it's like um we're not being saved by Keistama. Um when we're not being saved, it's more a civic theology, and we're sort of getting in between the cracks of the laws to see how um what leeway we could get out of it or what moral lessons we could pull out of it, right? Right. What I find so so in my study like like uh I I had a a bit of a moment when I looked at the Noah story, right? And there's Noah story. Noah, Noah in the Ark.

SPEAKER_05 52:37

Oh, oh, I thought you were talking about something totally different. Okay, okay. Well there's a new this is a story about the guy anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Well well, so with the Noah story, there's this pretty dark reading of it that the rabbis and the Madrash had. And that is that he goes, he you know, he's he has to save the world because the world's evil. And then he uh he's on the boat. When he's on the boat, he's got demons in the hull of the ark as well. He has to save them. He's got two, you know, two of each kind, he's got a couple of demons. A lion swipes him at feeding time and castrates him. So Noah loses his balls at some point in this reading. So so he he gets through the the adventure, comes back, builds a vineyard, you know. He builds a vineyard, gets drunk a lot, he collapses in his tent drunk, his son comes in and actually has his way with him. Right? Yeah, that's one of the readings. And and then his son, yeah, has his has his way with Noah. So which makes sense because he comes out and he and he banishes him. He says, you know, I never want to see you again. You know, you go to another far-off land, I never want to set eyes on you again. Now, with this reading, the whole story changes, doesn't it? From the kids' book.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

Did you are you getting this from where are you getting this from? Ancient Jewish sources.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Well, okay then, that's news to me. Yeah, well, but but there's multiple I'm not saying this is definitive, there's all sorts of other you know, some people say that other things happened, and you know, some rabbis will say this, some sages will say that. But with that ending, what does the story mean now? You can't read the world of evil, it could be under your nose. Right? That's sort of what it's saying. So, what role does God play in that parable? He's instigating it, but it's not like it's not a you need to you need to believe in God and follow God, and you know, the Christians would probably have a more of a harder line with because they don't have interpretations like that, obviously. But this becomes that's what I mean by that high ironic comedy sort of genre thing, that that it's there. So that's a really interesting lesson. It's like you could take that story and say, well, this is about moderating myself because I am gonna confront evil in the world. I can't cleanse the world of evil, it'll always be around me. I'm gonna have to learn to live with it somehow. You know, somehow I'm gonna have to learn to live with it. So there's all sorts of lessons like that in there. So for me, the faith became a tool for radical um I guess self-knowledge. You know? And it's interesting because, you know, you do fighting. I I did this podcast with uh 10 different fighters and coaches, and they were like one hour things where I just got them to, I interviewed them for like six hours and then just distilled it down to a um, I got an actor to to play them in the podcast, and they were um talking about uh, you know, the journeys that they went on. And what I found interesting there is that that was a theme of all these fighters. It's like they they're going into the ring to learn about their limits and and and the depth of their of who they are, their capacity.

SPEAKER_05 56:20

Always about yourself as opposed to someone else. That's the absolute emerging theme every time.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

So it's it's again, there's a radical there was a Palestinian girl, uh young, young woman, 23, 24, who who was fighting, and she was it took a while for her to open up, but when she did, she'd been bullied a bit when she was very young, war on terror stuff and and everything. So she found herself, you know, she went to these kickboxing classes and really got into it. And, you know, she's fighting herself in the ring every time she goes over.

Fighting, Reality Checks, And Integrity

SPEAKER_06 56:52

Totally. It often makes me wonder how people get to know themselves absent some kind of framework. Uh, more than framework, absent some kind of resistance. How do they test themselves? And I'm not talking about getting a college degree, that's not a test. I'm talking like an actual test of oneself. And many young men find the best way to do that in the ring. Some people find, I don't know, ultramarath, some people find it in the physical realm, some people find it in uh you know other other domains. But I I I often wonder if people don't fighting is just it's kind of like the difference between receiving enlightenment from meditating on a mountain every day for 20 years and then just dropping acid and getting it quickly. I mean, finding fighting is a way to get to know yourself very, very quickly, your fears, what you're capable of, what you're not capable of. And I wonder many people eschew those sorts of self-discoveries and self-knowledge. And to a certain extent, I pity them, but in another sense, you know, now it's it's become ubiquitous. I was just saying to my buddy, I got lost a while ago while I was driving my phone. I have a crappy phone, I got to get a new one, and it was uh out of batteries, and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going. I pulled over twice, and both of the times that I pulled over in random places are like MMA studios, uh, which you know didn't even exist in the world when I was growing up. They literally didn't even exist until Hoce Gracie kind of came and dominated. But but it is it is an extraordinary opportunity to know oneself. But I think in the same way, spectrum street epistemology and engaging in these dialectics is an extraordinary way to understand it it's a way to test oneself cognitively and intellectually. It's it's a way to maintain, truly maintain one's integrity and the virtue of changing your mind. That's why I'm completely convinced. I've told Reed 500 times, it is the ultimate bullshit detector. Like people who are full of shit won't play. We did one with Brian Tremarke. Is that his name, Reed? Tomaki. Tomaki, yeah. The and that guy had no problem playing. I mean, he is a true believer, like, no question. What's that?

SPEAKER_02 59:10

A lot of people try to cast suspicions on that. Uh, but you know, I've met him too, and and I'm from that sort of neighborhood, actually.

SPEAKER_06 59:17

Um I don't believe that yet he believes I don't believe that one he is absolutely a believer.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Yeah, yeah, I believe that. Yeah. No, it it was it was fascinating that and one of the boxes um said he's thought about something comparable because he was trying to articulate it, and he said, stand-up comic. Like, if people people are either there's gonna be a response, you know, people are gonna see what he can throw and what he can take. He can talk a good game, he can have some pretty amazing, you know, intimidating tattoos, but none of these things are gonna matter when he gets annoyed. That's so true. That's so true. You're gonna see it. And it's like the joke's either gonna work and people are gonna laugh, or they're just gonna stare at you.

The Crisis Of Honesty

SPEAKER_06 1:00:02

Yeah, it's interesting. My my uh my good friend Matt Thornton, who wrote The Gift of Violence, said something to me when I was younger. I don't know why this was the case, but whenever I saw someone like fully tattooed, I'd be like, holy shit, that's probably like a dangerous guy or threatening, threatening guy. And my friend Matt has this expression, tough is not how you act, it's how you train. And I remember one day I was a purple belt and it's the middle rank in jujitsu. And I don't consider it fighting. I fighting is to me is when you throw strikes and such, but there was a guy who came into the gym who had fuck you tattooed, like in huge English lettering, like in an arc in his in his chest, and then he had little fuck you. So he's the second guy I've seen who had something like that. And you know, if you had asked me to engage him years ago, I would have been utterly terrified. But now I'm like, I didn't even think anything of it. I just we just got right in there, slapped hands, and he was a great guy. Um well, I mean, he's a great, great guy to roll with. I mean, it wasn't a danger, he was a danger to me. He, you know, I'm his training partner, so he's kind of um but but it really is true. It's you can't look at anybody's outward adornments and say, oh, he dresses this way, he must be this, or he has tattoos this way. You know, and the other thing is once if I may, what once you some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life are also some of the most dangerous people I've ever met in my life. The problem comes when one engages in an activity that is untethered to reality. Now, there are two examples of that. There's activities in the cognitive domain, like and they participate in standpoint epistemology. This idea that, you know, there is uh you know, objective truth is colonialist or you know, you're just in enacting whiteness. That's the cognitive domain. There are many versions of that. But then the physical domain, when people engage in a fake martial art. So one of the things that you have you see happen, particularly with men, young men, and even to be more specific, is that at some level they know that the activities in which they are participating do not yield the results that they're claiming. So these fantasy-based martial arts will not help you win a fight. Going to standpoint epistemology, thinking things are whiteness or erasure or what have you. This is a form - it's it's even worse than a form of dishonesty with yourself. And as a consequence for that, you have to make up for the slack between what you claim or you pretend the activity can do and what it actually does. And so in you know, non-traditional martial arts, uh in fantasy-based martial arts, just you know, oosing and borrowing and all this nonsense and you know, tapping a hundred times over. And and like you said before, in in this this uh in the cognitive arena, people just they won't have conversations with you, or they will resort to infective and ad hominem attacks on you, or because they have to do those things because they wouldn't have to do nobody gets upset about gravity, right? Nobody's upset about electromagnetism, but all of a sudden everybody's upset about certain elements of biology a fucking break. I mean, it's just inherently dishonest. That's again, it's a crisis of honesty. That should be the title of this conversation. There is a crisis of honesty, and we're now seeing the consequence of that manifest in virtually every every sphere of life.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

And that's why the gift of that radical honesty and finding some framework in your life, no matter what it is, could be fighting. I mean, the screenwriting for me, I can access some pretty deep feelings and sublimate it all into characters and things now, and that's it's been really good to be able to do that. You know, it's a it's a playground, you know, it would be like the mat that that I can really use.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Would it though? Would it so stand-up comedy would, but I don't think screenplay writing would.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

I go through quite an emotional process. I did one, I did one recently. My my ex-wife passed away um two years ago. Yeah, and um and she she had addiction issues, so it's not like I would have necessarily divorced her apart from this thing that was happening, you know, and we had to we had to part. So I was looking after the children and I was given a script, it was I was adapting a an uh a novella for a for a guy, and um and it was about someone at the end of their life, you know, confessing to something. And this was sort of happening at the same time, and it it really I was able to work a lot of things out because uh it's almost like a you know when you're a kid, you got two two soldiers and then you make them have a conversation. I'm kind of doing that. So I got all these proxies in this artificial world, and I I entered my artificial world, and these proxies just work it out for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:06

Um I think I think there's a difference though. I think with the that example of screenplay and the story of your history with your ex, that's more a kind of therapy because there's no corrective mechanism. When a comic goes up on stage, people either laugh or don't, or maybe some laugh. There's more of a corrective mechanism for if someone is actually funny. I suppose ultimately maybe does this thing sell?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

That's a kind of corrective mechanism, or but but the thing is true, but the people that are watching it are not gonna know my story. A hundred percent. You know my story now, but like they're going to see something completely different. I mean, you know, the Mandalorian and and Groku, which has just come out, there might be a guy working on that who's working something out. But we're not gonna see that. We're just gonna see baby odor and shit, you know. So like could they meet up but you find the metaphors, you know, you find the metaphors in these stories, and they can, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. But that is a difference. That is the difference. Yeah. No, the stand-up. Well, I've done that myself. Like I've been around on comedy tables where I've where people are reading my jokes. And I I remember going around a table and it was a Mori comedy. So I'm writing a Māori comedy, you know, because I'm I was raised in South Auckland in a very multicultural neighbourhood, so I know the humour. So I'm writing this. And there was this joke. Because, you know, often if you haven't said a joke aloud, you've got no idea whether it works or not. You know, it's in your head you could be tickled, but it's only when it's said. You know, and this is and this is a bit related to free speech. It's when you put things out there that you know if they're gonna fly, you know. It's like, I mean, you pushing back on the on on the therapy side of everything. I mean, that was a good I needed to hear that. Um but this joke just you know, the the person said it, but nothing was funny about it. It sounded like a racist guy at a bar turning around and just blasting the guy next door. It was just horrendous. And silence in the room. And then I just go, I'm I'll be putting a line through that one, I think. And everyone just you know broke at that point. But um But yeah, you never know, but you gotta take a risk. You know?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:16

Yeah. Yeah, and the risk should both be calculated and it and it should have some end. Like you should know why you're taking the risk. So when I wrestle with guys half my age, I had this guy yesterday, I was so sore. I had a guy who was 24, he was a protocol, he was on me for five and a half minutes. I fucking could not get this guy off of me. I was feeling my age, I'm almost 60, I'm 59, and I was just really truly feeling feeling my feeling my age with this kid on me. But you know, even those things, I wouldn't actually call that a risk because I didn't feel I was gonna get hurt, but um yeah, but I think kind of entering into those particularly as it slides into moral issues, you know, like that those moral calculations, there's a kind of moral calculus. I think spectrum street epistemology helps people by and large clean up the way they think about those things. And so, you know, when we talk to people in the schools, we talk about how it's necessary for functioning democracy and you know, we don't want to end war, we want to talk to people out. But the only reason you receive those benefits is because the epistemological benefits precede those. So those are consequences of the epistemological benefits, and those themselves are kind of have embedded attitudinal dispositions. Oh, I'm willing to revise my belief. Oh, I'm trustful of reason. Or, oh, you know, maybe some people say, I don't want to be on the absolute of anything. And then I'll try to figure out something that they should be on the absolute for. They told me to tone it down at a couple of the schools. I was really giving some crazy examples. But um, yeah, that's that's that's the thing when you do when you do morality. It um when you really truly plumb moral questions, you you you to to really do that, you have to find challenging examples, or else you just you know you're just sitting around having a circle jerk.

Final Thanks And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_02 1:09:12

Oh well, Peter, look, we've been going an hour 10 now, so it's been yeah, it's been fantastic. I mean, I could I could do this all day. I've really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed the opportunity to to meet you and and speak with you. Um it was um quite an honor, you know. I was a bit intimidated to begin with. Um what are you intimidated for? I'm just being honest, you know. I'm just being honest with you because you know I've watched you for many years now and I've always been I've always really admired you. And um, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean this is this is a natural thing. And um and I like that people intimidate me. I think that's a healthy thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:51

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't uh well I pr I I appreciate your kind words. I I don't I don't I don't know I don't consider myself intimidating at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

No, you're not intimidating, but it's like there's a there's a there's your your intellect is one to to that that I really respect. That that's what I would, you know. I really, really respect um your honesty and and everywhere you've gone. And um, I mean I would have consumed hours of of content at you over the years um for a long time now. So I appreciate it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:23

Well I'm I'm I'm uh just just to be clear, like I'm I'm just one guy, but I have a whole team behind me. Like I there's no way I could do this without Reed, without Call of Leader, without Travis, without Gav. Like we have a whole team that helps that helps me to try to move the needle on things. And then we're donor funders, so our donors, like I could never do this without donors. I would be, I don't know what I'd be doing something else. But so I'm in I'm incredibly grateful that I get to, you know, these people trust me with their time. They trust me with their so it's like I'm in truly grateful. And I, you know, I couldn't be doing what I'm doing if I wasn't, you know, if the FSU didn't bring me down here, if people like you and you set up the things of the Black Power guys and you know uh Jelaine and Robin and and and Michael and Stephanie, all these people are kind of making contributions to to move the needle on some some pretty pressing issues. So I'm I'm very grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

Thank you for listening to Free2Speak. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider sharing the podcast with others. We release new episodes regularly, and subscribing is the easiest way to stay up to date. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, you can contact us at podcast at fsu.nz. If you want to find out more about the New Zealand Free Speech Union, visit fsu.nz.