YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Wilfred Reilly Has the Real Data on Racism and Policing

Wilfred Reilly Has the Real Data on Racism and Policing — Transcript

by Dad Saves America · 22,394 words · 3,165 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:01Wilford Riley welcome to Dad Saves
0:03America uh glad to glad to be on the
0:05show you've got a new book and then
0:08you've got two others and there are so
0:10many things for us to go through in them
0:12that I uh I'm excited to dig in but
0:14before I do you know just describe
0:17briefly kind of what's your current job
0:19so you're you're you're an you're an
0:20academic you're at uh Kentucky State
0:22University correct so what what do you
0:24do as a professor yeah I'm a I'm a
0:27pretty typical academic Professor I
0:29teach at one of the American state
0:32universities what's called a land grant
0:33University so uh the Kentucky state
0:37would be like Michigan State to Michigan
0:39except a little smaller it's the second
0:42pen state I'm sorry I went to Penn State
0:44so yeah yeah yeah I mean it's a it's a
0:47pretty typical job I mean the one thing
0:48that makes Kentucky State interesting is
0:50that the second Kentucky State U is a
0:52historically black college uh so this
0:55goes back to 1886 the Kentucky
0:58Legislature wanted to por portion funds
1:00for another good-sized state school but
1:02they also wanted a black school and as I
1:04recall they were asked whether they
1:05would fund two colleges and they
1:07basically said hell no you know this
1:08isn't a wealthy state so you're getting
1:10this one uh mostly black guys and that
1:12that has been a big part of the Kentucky
1:16State Legacy since but I mean as a
1:18professor I teach what's called four and
1:21four generally I teach a series of
1:22classes each semester so I teach you
1:25know American government constitutional
1:27law the
1:28presidency Congressional practice that
1:31kind of thing and I mean you're expected
1:33to write you know every state you Prof
1:35is I've written four books so far which
1:38I expect we'll discuss I've written I'm
1:40on at least I mean I've written a bunch
1:42of stuff this year I'm a columnist for
1:43National Review so I have something like
1:4460 Publications but I mean I've written
1:46three sort of standard peer-reviewed
1:49good Journal academic articles or I've
1:51been on them Corey Clark wrote a famous
1:53review of academic censorship for pnas
1:56that's been cited a lot I'm one of the
1:57people that's was a part of that paper
1:59Bob moranto myself and Pat wolf wrote
2:02This is actually probably my favorite a
2:04review of the impact of black lives
2:07matter on crime and also an analysis of
2:11which police departments actually reduce
2:13rates of Officer involved shootings and
2:16that's an interesting paper because a
2:17lot of cops have read it I don't get the
2:20feeling that any activists have at
2:22all um yeah did let's dig into that you
2:25know so so what was the lay that paper
2:27out because I mean this gets into you
2:29you know it gets gets into a lot of
2:31things you talk about around statistics
2:33and popular narratives around race and
2:36crime and so this seems like a great
2:38place to start yeah well Bob that's Bob
2:40moranto Robert moranto Pat wolf at the
2:42University of Arkansas and I were
2:44interested
2:46in first of all a lot of the black lives
2:48matter research I'm speaking for me not
2:50my more gentlemanly co-authors but seem
2:51to just be like if you looked
2:53at it there was nothing about like did
2:55Black lives matter reduce police
2:57shootings um there one paper Maybe
3:00there's a lot of stuff like black lives
3:01matter and its impact on Ben and Jerry's
3:03flavorings of ice cream and by the way
3:06this type of stuff is very very common
3:08there is a human genetic database that
3:10was recently put together by I believe
3:12the UK and one of their restrictions is
3:15that you can't use it to test uh as I
3:17recall whether there are intelligence
3:20gaps between racial groups whether there
3:22are athleticism gaps between racial
3:24groups a couple of other things like
3:26that and so people are doing things like
3:27looking at the face shape of different
3:29ethnic groups and to me it's just a
3:30matter of time until someone bootlegs
3:31the whole thing and people start looking
3:32at interesting questions but the BLM
3:35literature was very much along the same
3:38lines and we were interested in a couple
3:40of things like one what was the effect
3:41on crime and
3:43two what do police departments do this
3:46was the focus of the paper to actually
3:49reduce uh both crime and officer
3:51involved shootings and we actually found
3:53that there are a lot of things that a
3:54department can do to reduce violent
3:57interactions with the public while still
3:59keeping crime low uh the biggest one is
4:01taking a few Rogue cops off the street
4:04like we now know the
4:06George yeah we now know the George Floyd
4:08case was more complicated than it was
4:10presented for years as being but you
4:12know I mean the officer involved in that
4:15case had something like four previous
4:17outstanding complaints one of them
4:19wasn't resolved I mean that case doesn't
4:21occur if you have a New York or Chicago
4:23style system where you just you don't
4:25even have to make the guy stop being a
4:26cop because of Union seniority you're
4:27just the guy that's washing back badges
4:30or you know checking cars into the
4:32impound or whatever me all those jobs
4:33you're handing over suspect files in the
4:36dungeon of the police department and if
4:38you do that well for two years then you
4:39get back on the street I mean it really
4:41it was that simple in many cases um
4:43train cops in how to use physical
4:45violence below the level of the gun was
4:47one there's a paper by a cop called
4:49Teach cops to roll that just talks about
4:51the impact of martial arts the thing is
4:53that's incredibly obviously useful but
4:55you have to fund it um I mean there
4:57potential injuries to officers that kind
4:58of thing just on and on and on I mean we
5:01talked about different things you can do
5:04like for example if you draw a gun
5:06rather than fire a gun you could double
5:08the length of paperwork associated with
5:09that but not the use of a non-lethal
5:11weapon like this is just actual social
5:13science like we looked at what worked in
5:15departments like the NYPD which had a
5:17very good record people don't know this
5:19but well I'm assume many people do but
5:21New York at one point was responsible
5:24for something like 20% perhaps of the
5:27murders in the United States there were
5:29years when New York City had 2100 or
5:312500 murders even Chicago I mean We R we
5:35rarely got up to the Thousand murder
5:37threshold you know the Second City um
5:39yeah you're talking about like probably
5:40the 70s and 80s I would think yes yeah
5:43the the sort of New Jack City era and
5:45the period immediately before that yeah
5:46that's exactly correct um and New York
5:49City under Giuliani Bratton for that
5:52matter David dinkin uh crack down on
5:55crime their things like point of sale
5:57and point of use restrictions on guns
6:00extremely tough policing even liberal
6:02Mayors like Eric Adams often tend to be
6:04former cops so New York now averages
6:06about 400 murders a year so we we looked
6:08at what they did and we found that a lot
6:10of it was very empirical very
6:13implementable the worst cities in our
6:15study were almost all kind of crooked
6:17Regional capitals so you're talking
6:19about like Little Rock Memphis Jackson
6:22Mississippi police departments were
6:24often a mix of
6:26um black and Rural white dudes I mean
6:29there's nothing wrong with that
6:30inherently but like there wasn't a
6:31culture of police discipline the idea
6:34was well these scumbags have it coming
6:36to them I'm not inditing any of those
6:37cities but I've heard officers comment
6:39on the paper and say that you know and
6:42that's where some unexpected places like
6:44Albuquerque but that's where you would
6:46have very high rates of uh ois officer
6:50involved
6:51shootings you know you also have high
6:53rates of crime in those places but you
6:54don't have a low rate of crime in New
6:55York you know so the question is how can
6:58you reduce that the second point of the
7:00paper is a lot simpler what happened to
7:02Crime under black lives matter it
7:03doubled I mean if you want to look at
7:05homicide the black homicide rate went
7:07from about 16 or 17 per 100,000 and that
7:11that's age adjusted but in
7:132012 to uh 33 per 100,000 10 years later
7:18I mean that that's it there there was a
7:20massive increase in crime concentrated
7:22among African-Americans anyone who tries
7:24to deny that is essentially just lying
7:26when you say black lives matter what
7:29what exactly are you talking about and
7:31because there's obviously there's the
7:32organization itself there's uh the
7:36events after George Floyd's death in um
7:402020 but then there's the organization I
7:42think starts in like what is it 2015
7:44after Ferguson so so when you say black
7:47lives matters impact on crime and
7:51police what's the time frame and what's
7:54the mechanism there like is it is it
7:56just the the message is it the actual
7:59organization doing things in specific
8:02places with specific people like unpack
8:04that for me what I'm referring to I
8:06guess is the post Trayvon Martin
8:09movement HED by Patrice kores and the
8:12black lives matter Global Network
8:13Foundation so very often when we talk
8:16about things like when I say you know I
8:18was an activist and people ask what does
8:19that mean do you have a sign were you
8:20out there on the street it's like no I
8:22worked at the lower management level for
8:24a group called The Human Rights Campaign
8:25which was retained by another group that
8:27we can call the people's project and I
8:29made an average of 2758 per hour as a
8:32street canvasser who most people thought
8:33was a volunteer like that's what an
8:35activist is they're are massive
8:37organizations that employ these guys for
8:39good and Ill mostly they're very
8:41well-intentioned young folks by the way
8:43but I mean it's the same thing with BLM
8:44we're talking about a very specific
8:46movement which had a pretty specific
8:47goal which was reducing police stop and
8:49arrest rates so I mean that's that's
8:51where you see things like the uh oped I
8:53don't think this was a full editorial
8:55but yes we mean literally defund the
8:57police running on the back page of the
8:59New York times so I mean during this
9:01period which I would date back first use
9:03of the hashtag is 2013 just after
9:05Trayvon Martin was killed by the way in
9:07a mutually provoked fight with a
9:09Hispanic guy I mean none of these
9:11stories ever turned out to be true like
9:14you you wish both men were with us today
9:16but this this is two guys getting into a
9:17fight one of the guys is losing the
9:19fight he's getting his head slammed
9:20against the pavement he's got a pistol
9:22on him he discharges one shot probably
9:23justifiably like there was no civil
9:25rights element to that case at all that
9:28was the beginning of all this then we
9:29led to Michael Brown Michael Brown hands
9:32up don't shoot again we now know that
9:34this guy attacked a police officer
9:36Darren Wilson Michael Brown's DNA was
9:38found on the slide and Trigger guard of
9:40Darren Wilson's gun the Barack Obama
9:42justice department refused to indict
9:44Darren Wilson this doesn't mean that I
9:46former working-class kid support any
9:48level of police abuse it's just all
9:50these narratives were lies and they were
9:53promoted by pretty specific
9:54organizations and you can track down as
9:56I and others have done this was a
9:58feature in Spike UK that I wrote that
10:00was pretty heavily edited that people
10:01contributed to but I mean you can track
10:03down who these organizations were how
10:05much money they took in how much money
10:06they gave out and the end goal was we
10:09need to reduce or remove policing in the
10:11USA so during that period I mean if you
10:14have an organization that says we need
10:16to stop American policing and during
10:18that period police stops drop 31% and
10:21the murder rate surges I mean the
10:23connection there is not especially
10:25difficult to draw and I mean it it's a
10:27problematic one but one last thing about
10:29BLM by the way that I don't think most
10:32black guys are like basketball playing
10:34white allies from the big cities or
10:35whatever understand college kids is that
10:38BLM was not a movement focused on
10:41helping the hood if you follow the money
10:43in fact uh neighborhood activists like
10:45Hawk Nome who's a cool guy have
10:47criticized black lives matter very
10:49extensively for this and in the spiked
10:50piece we were able to pull up where they
10:53had sent money and it was almost
10:54entirely like far-left gay rights anti-
10:57parenting organizations like just wild
11:00business like the transgender travel
11:02fund got six to seven figures and I I
11:05guarantee you this is true if you look
11:06up Wilford Riley BLM funding you'll find
11:08not only I but the people I'm citing
11:09you'll find tax documents um one of them
11:12was for the gels GW R LS which is again
11:16a trans and sex worker performance
11:19project if I recall correctly just on
11:21and on and on like none of them it
11:23wasn't like the abian Baptist Church of
11:26Harlem I'll tell you that like it was it
11:28was a very spef specific listing of
11:30organizations so yeah the impact of that
11:32I believe was a was a negative impact so
11:35um one of the reasons why I wanted to
11:37talk to you about this stuff and and
11:38like you've got your book uh hate crime
11:40hoax over your shoulder which this feeds
11:43into right these uh these events that
11:45get blown up in the media and a
11:48narrative forms around them and they
11:50have a big impact on how we talk about
11:53our identities and so the big the the
11:55kind of meta reason why I wanted to talk
11:57to you and and dig into this stuff and
11:58learn more from you about what you've
12:00studied here is that as a
12:02parent it's very hard to navigate a
12:05world filled with narratives that when
12:07you poke on them break especially when
12:10they have such a huge impact on your
12:13identity and I guess how do you think
12:15about that how do you think about what's
12:18happening to these with these stories
12:21and why they're happening the way they
12:23are because what you've just described
12:25sounds pretty nefarious so like say
12:29creating an organization that claims to
12:30be for a thing um has impacts that are
12:33pretty obviously negative to the people
12:36that claims to care about like the exact
12:38opposite thing like if you say black
12:40lives matter and the result of what you
12:42do is more PE more black men and women
12:45die that seems bad so without like
12:49reverting to well they're just evil and
12:51they're twirling their
12:52mustaches what do you think's going on
12:54like what do they want to do you know
12:59what's happening I think well there
13:01there are a lot of great questions you
13:02asked there I would distinguish like two
13:04or three things so first what should
13:05parents do uh you should you should
13:07teach your kid tact so he doesn't get
13:08into fist fites all the time or she but
13:10also just what the truth is like if you
13:13are white if you're of Caucasian descent
13:15you should not feel guilty about slavery
13:16because slavery was a universal practice
13:18that's not even debated that's just
13:21something that as a political scientist
13:22or a historian everyone knows the word
13:24slave comes from slav this isn't
13:26excusing white slavery which actually in
13:28the USA was a fair harsh version of the
13:30practice it's just I don't think if
13:31you're a Slavic fighting man you get
13:32your penis cut off that's a soft version
13:33of the practice either slavery was just
13:35one of those things humans did to each
13:37other if you lost the war you were
13:38getting on that boat this was the case
13:40for whites blacks whoever it's good
13:43we're past that but that's absolutely
13:44something you should teach your kids so
13:46what I would do is find an educational
13:48system that suits your family's needs
13:50that could be homeschooling that could I
13:52in most cities that's just a Catholic
13:54School by the way I mean Chicago is a
13:56full-on network of Catholic schools I
13:57mean that's all you need to do sister
13:59Rosemary is not consumed with guilt
14:01about the failures of the West um but
14:03that could be a prep school it could be
14:05a good public it could be whatever but
14:07find the education you need to convey
14:10real knowledge tell your kids real
14:11knowledge teach them enough tact that
14:13they'll tell their friends rather than
14:15start scuffles at the school by sharing
14:17every opinion they have um that that's
14:19that for that one but why do people have
14:22these opinions that are so far removed
14:24from reality I think if I really had to
14:26think about this because they followed a
14:28negative premise to its logical
14:29conclusion or they followed an incorrect
14:32premise to its logical conclusion
14:35so um this actually there there are two
14:38possible explanations one is that some
14:39people are legitimately just
14:41husters and I think that that absolutely
14:44is true for some people I mean like the
14:46founder of black lives matter Patrice
14:48kores I've never met her she could be a
14:50wonderful woman but you know like I was
14:52a businessman myself and you know when I
14:54see someone bought six houses at the end
14:57of a capital campaign yeah you kind kind
14:59of wonder what's going on you wonder
15:01when they're going to see the SEC or the
15:02equivalent in their field I mean it it
15:04was funny like one of the houses had a
15:07helipad um they were all very very nice
15:10properties except for one in Englewood
15:12California all of them I believe were in
15:15neighborhoods that were something like
15:1785 Plus percent white which was ironic
15:20for the founder of a black activist
15:22group so you can have some people that
15:24are just out there trying to get money
15:26to bring in as much luer as possible I
15:29think that a more likely result though
15:30is that people believe something I mean
15:32we mentioned Marxism feminism extreme
15:35men's rights activism so on uh this
15:37could be anything creationism no offense
15:39to Devout religious viewers on either of
15:41our sides but I mean if you believe a
15:43premise that's false 95 to absolutely
15:46false and you follow it logically you're
15:48going to come to faulty conclusions and
15:51this happens all the time I mean there's
15:52a great argument in The God Delusion and
15:54I don't even agree with the thesis of
15:55this book necessarily but Richard
15:57Dawkins the biologist is talking about
15:59why he can debate religion even though
16:01he's not a theologian and he moves away
16:03from Christianity for a minute and gives
16:04if I recall the example of Hinduism and
16:07he says the argument that I can't
16:08discuss the Hindu philosophy because I
16:10am not a Hindu vadic Theologian is
16:12absurd because I am starting from the
16:15premise that people have logic there's a
16:17baseline logical ability which and this
16:19is my line but makes juries
16:21interdisciplinary journals journalism so
16:24on Down the Line possible and on the
16:27basis of this logic I conclude that
16:29there are not invisible five armed blue
16:31Gods it's a rude description of a
16:34friendly rival Faith but it's a it's a
16:35logical conclusion you can come to so I
16:38don't need to hear the best defenses of
16:40why some of the gods have six rather
16:42than five arms in order to know I don't
16:44believe this I just don't think it's
16:46logically true but if you follow from
16:48the premise that I need to understand
16:50Hindu philosophy to disagree with
16:52it and further from the premise that a
16:55lot of it might be true you're going to
16:57reach conclusions that are pretty much
16:59indistinguishable from those of
17:01mainstream Hinduism if that makes sense
17:03so it's if you're starting from the
17:05conclusion that in the black lives
17:07matter case all disparities between
17:10groups have to be the result of racism
17:12for example right and I mean I think
17:15this is the big one this be sort of the
17:16ebx kendi math yeah and I I really think
17:20this is the big one like and I think
17:21kores believes this I know Kendy
17:23believes this I've debated him about it
17:24at least online Robin D'Angelo believes
17:26this if you're starting from the idea
17:28that any disparity between any two
17:30groups must indicate racism because the
17:33only other option is genetic inferiority
17:35right then you have no conclusion to
17:38come to unless you yourself are a
17:40vicious racist but that America is a
17:42very racist system so how do people come
17:44to these nonsensical conclusions that
17:46racism is everywhere police shootings
17:49must be the result of racism and the
17:52only solution is disbanding the police I
17:54guess the practice would be the practice
17:56would be all gaps are caused by racism
17:59there's a gap when it comes to police
18:00shootings and even though this will
18:02damage Society we can't allow a
18:03murderous racist Gap like this one now I
18:06would personally say that from a brutal
18:07kind of Roman Imperial perspective sure
18:09you can like you absolutely don't double
18:11the murder rate because your current
18:13system is morally flawed you must be
18:15insane crucify him but many people would
18:18disagree with that and if you begin with
18:20the starting assumptions of black lives
18:21matter you get to that point logically I
18:23would say the um we I did a video
18:29a couple weeks ago maybe a couple months
18:31ago about um about some of these issues
18:33and I cite one of your uh articles about
18:36sort of kind of the case for black
18:38optimism okay um that wasn't the title
18:41but uh I think that might have been a
18:43similar article from Coleman views but
18:46you know you've written about all the
18:48ways in which we as a society are not
18:53um maybe shouldn't be indicted as the
18:56most racist country on Earth you want to
18:58elaborate on that yeah well I mean first
19:00of all empirically as a political
19:01scientist the United States of America
19:03is one of the least racist countries on
19:05Earth I mean this is not very disputed
19:08data um it actually world population
19:11review in my opinion stopped running
19:13this information a couple of years ago
19:15during the national mental meltdown
19:18following the death of Mr Floyd because
19:21of the implications of this sort of
19:22plain fact but I mean every year there's
19:25surveys where well-trained social
19:27scientists and I imagine the major
19:29universities of the world in urban areas
19:32that you'd expect to be more tolerant
19:33than the average simply ask people how
19:35they would feel about having a neighbor
19:37of A different race or cast you know is
19:39this something you'd object to this is
19:40totally Anonymous I'll look up the
19:42details of the project after the call
19:43but it's very well done it's universally
19:45accepted in my field and the United
19:47States of America invariably is one of
19:49the countries where the smallest number
19:51of people would object to a neighbor of
19:53A different race religion anything
19:55similar and this is part of this is part
19:58of a General pattern actually where 94%
20:01of Americans support interracial
20:03marriage that's true across whites and
20:05blacks I mean so on down the line so
20:08yeah we are we're not the most racist
20:09country in the world we're one of the
20:11least I have experienced this
20:13anecdotally which is when you travel and
20:16the ironic thing is when you travel to
20:18places like Scandinavia okay the kind of
20:23kind of like racism that you encounter
20:25is so much more overt it's almost
20:28shocking to
20:29uh compared to here in the in the states
20:32or Japan which I haven't been to but I
20:34have many friends who' spent time in
20:35Japan and they're like oh Japan is just
20:38it's it's overt and it does seem like
20:41where you have very homogeneous
20:43populations you just tend to have people
20:45who are more overtly um racist more
20:48overtly like worried and afraid of
20:50people that don't look like them and
20:52then you come to America where we're a
20:54Melting Pot and we're used to getting on
20:56a Subway or going to a grocery store and
20:58see seeing lots of different types of
20:59people and being okay with it and yet we
21:02have this narrative that that is that we
21:05are uniquely horrible that we were sort
21:07of born in
21:081619 and this is permeating permeating
21:11our education system I know your book is
21:13your up your upcoming book is called The
21:15Lies your liberal teacher told you and
21:19this feels like one of them this feels
21:21like one of those lies that our kids are
21:23being told that we are this uniquely
21:25racist country so that's one example of
21:27how we're not you just ask people around
21:30the world how else what else should I as
21:32a parent help my kid understand about
21:36race and America so that they don't fall
21:38into this trap well there are a lot of
21:41different points here I mean so first to
21:43engage the main thing you said I mean
21:44yeah like most nations are far more
21:47overtly racist than the United States
21:49and this isn't just true of white
21:51Nations by the way I mean so like when
21:52you mentioned Japan the Japanese word
21:54for Foreigner is still gajin I mean you
21:56see this in you know comic books uh
22:00gajin means Foreign Devil and that's
22:02extremely extremely common the Chinese
22:05word for Foreigner used for both whites
22:06and blacks is guofan excuse my
22:09pronunciation but that means Barbarian
22:11dog if I recall correctly the the
22:14experience with whites certainly
22:16probably with black Ethiopians or
22:17whatever as well would have been foreign
22:19Warriors that were viewed as a bit below
22:21those of the Middle Kingdom much less
22:23its elegant silk clad diplomats so I
22:25mean this is an extremely common
22:27attitude you you see this as well in the
22:29traditionally historically powerful
22:31black Nations Arabic Nations mean
22:34there's a famous meme you see this on
22:36Facebook and Twitter of an Asian
22:37American who went to I believe Nigeria
22:40to help the local black population and
22:43when he got there he found that Nigeria
22:45is a rising you know top 30 uh global
22:49economy and that he was greeted with
22:51constant racism so the image in the meme
22:53is like all these black kids pulling
22:54their eyes to the side so they can quote
22:56unquote look Chinese to tease it's a
22:58whole soccer field doing it and the
23:00guy's like seen this no it it's I don't
23:03know what you'd search for to find it
23:04you know try to think it's something
23:05politically correct but I mean it's just
23:07that is extremely extremely common
23:10everywhere outside of what some people
23:12call the weird Zone the Anglo spere
23:15basically um it's partly due to
23:18homogeneity but even in very
23:20hetrogeneous countries like Mexico and
23:22India people openly refer to each other
23:25as backward cast or lazy Forward cast
23:29uh in Mexico you know Chino negro Blanco
23:32people's nicknames mean things like
23:34China man so we have uh because of a
23:38combination of everything from our civil
23:39rights laws to post British Victorian
23:42era politeness to just extreme diversity
23:46we've mentioned some of the cities in
23:47the country we've come past that and yes
23:49that absolutely should be recognized
23:50should be recognized as something whites
23:52blacks everyone else sacrificed to do
23:55and so the narrative that comes in count
23:57counter to that the 1619 narrative is
24:00primarily false the reason it's false is
24:03not even so much that the things that it
24:05says like there used to be a great deal
24:06of ethnic conflict in the USA are
24:09inaccurate it's that they are kind of
24:11the 33 degrees of knowledge was always
24:13associated with foolishness or with the
24:15devil in European mythology the
24:18assumption is that someone who is
24:19listening won't know that Asia Africa
24:23Arabia so on were much worse that's
24:26that's the great caveat here we had
24:27slaves well everyone had slaves we
24:30helped the world free them it was the US
24:32and the UK that literally armed their
24:34navies and blockaded whole countries
24:36like Zanzibar to end the global trade in
24:39slaves we ended the international slave
24:41trade in the USA in 1808 so I mean not
24:45being aware of that only being aware of
24:48only being aware of our warts in the
24:51context of what being warts and all
24:52means is is a foolish approach also a
24:56lot of the things said in Tradition like
24:58that simply are not true I mean the idea
25:02that the United States began in 1619
25:04slavery didn't be begin in the United
25:07States until and I talk about this in
25:09lies my liberal teacher told me but
25:11until almost 50 years after that I mean
25:14when Anthony Johnson and the first black
25:17you know arav easts to the USA got here
25:19they were indentured servants slavery
25:22hadn't yet been formally implemented as
25:24a practice slavery of course is
25:25servitude that you can't leave but the
25:27general idea that was that if you were a
25:29black SL servant just as if you were a
25:31white servant you were going to be in
25:32bondage for maybe 10 years then you were
25:36going to be you you know he'd lost the
25:37war it was going to suck but then you
25:38were going to be released you were going
25:40to in many cases be given some land and
25:43you would have the opportunity to buy
25:44both black and white servants so I mean
25:47when I mention the name Anthony
25:49Johnson the first slave owner in the
25:52United States many people would say was
25:53a black man he was an angolan sort of
25:57lower Chieftain captured by the
25:59Portuguese during the incessant fighting
26:01that existed for males in particular of
26:04every group during this period he was
26:05brought to the United States brought to
26:07the Commonwealth of Virginia he suffered
26:09his time as an indentured servant which
26:11is absolutely miserable for almost
26:12everyone of these roles people weren't
26:14actually taught to be blacksmiths or
26:16something like that they were used as
26:19essentially enslaved Farm labor for the
26:21length of those contracts which of in 23
26:22years his was 10 but he was then
26:25released he ended up getting married
26:26fighting the Indians with his white
26:27neighbor so on and the case that settled
26:31legal American slavery actually involved
26:34another man I think John quore who was
26:36his bond servant who tried to run away
26:39and Johnson argued that uh recalcitrant
26:43Bond servants should be kept permanently
26:46by the people who owned them as I recall
26:49the matter and so he became there may
26:51have been one or two before him in other
26:53states but the first American slave
26:54owner and we're talking about the 1650s
26:571660s here
26:59so the 1619 project idea itself is wrong
27:02slavery in its full form didn't exist at
27:05that time and the United States I'll
27:07note also didn't exist uh the USA began
27:10in
27:101776 so we had we had slavery in America
27:13from 1776 to
27:151865 that's it I mean it's a you know
27:18shameful unfortunate block of time but
27:20it's worth comparing that to the entire
27:22Global sweep of the exact same
27:25practice what should you tell your kids
27:27which I think your question you should
27:28tell them all this and more I mean I
27:31would strongly encourage you to buy what
27:33used to be considered just conventional
27:35history books uh and books in general
27:38from Jared Diamond to Charles Murray
27:40that everyone used to read through about
27:42what
27:432010 and have them in a library in your
27:45house and just communicate this
27:47information uh there there's not much
27:49more to be said than that what else have
27:54our liberal teachers told us that are
27:57lies
27:58well sir that's a great question uh
28:00there are there are about 10 chapters in
28:01the book I usually do these kind of 10
28:03chapter structures that fit together
28:05Loosely but I think pretty well and
28:08basically lies my liberal teacher told
28:10me to to answer the question uh
28:12explicitly there are each chapter
28:14focuses on something that most people
28:16now believe um sometimes I do a
28:19statistical analysis very often I just
28:20look at what the textbooks say but that
28:22is that is wildly inaccurate so uh one
28:25such example would be Native Americans
28:27were peaceful
28:28um you know they're peaceful people
28:31Dances with Wolves they spend all day in
28:32making love and growing crops um living
28:36in balanced harmony with nature well
28:38that actually even more so than peaceful
28:40I think is a a good description of of
28:42the focus there yeah so there that
28:44chapter opens with an official
28:46Department of Agriculture uh lesson on
28:49native nations and they actually say
28:52things like this Allah you know the
28:54Native Americans had no word for want uh
28:57they they never killed an animal out of
29:00need or took a fish they did not plan to
29:03use and just on and on and on a peaceful
29:05harmonious people this is like a 16 page
29:08lesson that's gone out to thousands of
29:10schools I'm laughing because I know that
29:13among the practices for hunting Buffalo
29:16was to drive entire herds off the edge
29:19of cliffs and this is before you could
29:20refrigerate any meat so almost all of
29:23the dead buffalo that would run off the
29:25cliff would just
29:26rot so
29:29that but continue no yeah they would do
29:33that the the only meat you would take
29:35would be the tongue and the back hump
29:36because that's apparently the best part
29:38of a buffalo and you just killed a
29:39thousand of them yeah the natives were
29:41interesting people great warriors
29:43fascinating religious tradition but the
29:45idea that they were any better morally
29:48than the people they fought is extremely
29:50bizarre and I think could only have been
29:53believed in sort of the very recent past
29:56but just chapter after chapter goes do
29:58these things um one of the chapters
30:00looks at the idea of the Red Scare and
30:03so the entire question was were there
30:04actually Communists in Russia and
30:06communist spies in the USA during this
30:08time and to myself for you that might
30:10even seem like an almost stupid
30:13intelligence insulting question but the
30:15answer is yes I mean we have a list of
30:17papers in political science known as the
30:19venona papers that look at the Russian
30:22agents that were in the United States by
30:24name so aler his and most of these other
30:27people were protected by entire sectors
30:29of the political left were actually
30:31Russian spies and we've known that for
30:3320 years and Delton Trumbo as we've gone
30:35on making movies and so on lionizing
30:38these guys so that's a that's a chapter
30:40of the book uh I do I do have one
30:43chapter this is already been said
30:44extensively on kind of the center right
30:46but I have one chapter looking at
30:48slavery globally and not really gloating
30:50about the you know miserable performance
30:52of any of the races we were all doing
30:54this but just saying well one of the
30:55first human words was slave I mean the
30:58Sumerian glyph for man from the
31:00mountains there's a similar word that
31:02has man from the mountains with chains
31:04around his wrists again after some kind
31:05of military conflict and that means
31:07slave so and there's woman from the
31:10mountains which is a little more
31:11explicit and that means slave as well so
31:13I mean one of the first things that we
31:15did after encountering other people was
31:17to fight them I mean none of them are
31:20all that Graphics was like they're drawn
31:22on clay with reads at this point but I
31:24mean like one of the first things we did
31:26after encountering other genuine ly
31:28different human beings was fight them
31:30take prisoners take concubines so on
31:32down the line so to pretend that Western
31:36European and American white people
31:39invented this over the last couple of
31:41hundred years borders on the insane it's
31:44kind of an internalized pathology of
31:46guilt but I mean there are a number of
31:48other chapters what happened white
31:50flight in the 1960s what was the real
31:52cause of that after Great Society social
31:54policy I also talk about black and
31:56Caucasian family collaps in that chapter
32:00there's another chapter devoted to kind
32:01of the lies of today are we seeing an
32:04epidemic of young men being murdered by
32:06police are we seeing an epidemic of
32:08interracial crime on either side an
32:10epidemic of hate crimes is cultural
32:13appropriation real what about white
32:15privilege and then there there are five
32:17more each chapter just takes on
32:18something that's very popular today but
32:21that has very little evidence supporting
32:23it at least in my opinion so there is
32:26this thing going on that I I don't have
32:29an answer for and I'm curious how you
32:31think about it which is that if
32:34you pick up your book and you are the
32:38one to drop the scales from the reader
32:41eyes about all of these narratives one
32:44thing you can come away from feeling is
32:47that everything is
32:48BS that everything's a lie that all of
32:51our institutions are shot through with
32:52liars and and Crooks and thieves and
32:56that everything is awful really like
32:59it's a kind there is like a a path to
33:02kind of nihilism um and even if you
33:05don't get all the way to full being a
33:07full cynic you are still left with a
33:09question of well who do I trust
33:14now because all of my teachers lied to
33:17me and told me these Grand stories on
33:19which their entire ideology is based
33:22about who's an oppressor and what's the
33:24nature of power and reality itself and
33:26they're all sort of
33:29eyes how do you think about navigating
33:33this world we're in when we are
33:35surrounded by so many easily falsified
33:38stories from people who claim to be
33:40experts and have letters after their
33:43names and call themselves doctor and all
33:45of that well I mean first of all if
33:47you're a professor of gender studies or
33:49whatever you should never call yourself
33:50doctor but I mean like the I think that
33:52there are two there are two real answers
33:55one of them to crib a wiser man than I
33:57or at least a better Spoken Man than I
33:59is uh trust but verify so when you see
34:02something in mass media I mean and this
34:04is this is a trend you see very much on
34:06Twitter or Facebook where you'll see
34:08videos of a guy of One race being beaten
34:11up by someone or the other a cop or
34:13three black guys or something and
34:14there's a mob of people screaming
34:15happens all the time every day they'll
34:17get you you know don't go outside before
34:20believing in that kind of nonsense it's
34:22probably a good idea to actually and I
34:25guess this is part of the answer to your
34:26question go look at easily of available
34:28data and see what reality is I mean the
34:31National Crime rate there's it's called
34:33The BJs in CVS the beu of Justice
34:36statistics National Crime victimization
34:38survey anyone who's graduated from
34:40college or a good high school can figure
34:42this out and you just go online and look
34:44it up I mean I don't want to volunteer
34:46myself for 10,000 unsolicited emails but
34:48if you guys watching this you email me
34:50if you find me using my sales techniques
34:52and email me I'll tell you where to find
34:53the basic crime data or the basic
34:55healthc care data in the USA um right so
34:58that's that I think is a big part of the
35:01answer when you see something you
35:03shouldn't automatically believe it but
35:05that shouldn't make you a trust free
35:08cynic either there are sources you can
35:11believe in whether that's some reliable
35:13local media or your your intimate
35:15partner or more importantly the actual
35:18data resources themselves like we're not
35:19just making up the National Crime data
35:21it might be slanted 5% to the left or
35:23the right depending on the president but
35:25it just really is there and there's
35:27there's a lot of stuff like that the
35:28second thing I would add is just use
35:30common sense so I mean very very often
35:33we see like threeyear cycles of
35:36that end with people recognizing what
35:38everybody already knew anyway so like we
35:41just saw a big paper on the covid
35:43vaccine that basically said covid
35:45vaccine saved a lot of lives but boosted
35:47myocarditis 600% in young males and I
35:50was like that exact sentence is what I
35:52thought about the covid vaccine two
35:54weeks out like obviously it's good for
35:56seniors obviously it's kept some people
35:58alive also obviously you're starting to
35:59see people fall over on the pitch so
36:01like there's an element of just this
36:03seems to be reality I'm noticing it why
36:07shouldn't I believe that unless there's
36:09a very good reason not to believe you
36:12should generally accept the evidence of
36:14your own mark1 eyeballs and of common
36:16sense I'm actually before I get back
36:18into some examples of this trend just
36:20going to repeat one of the core ideas of
36:23Western thought is that there's this
36:25skill called logic I mean and as you
36:28know Junior professors we often teach
36:29logic 101 ethics 101 American government
36:32101 and using this skill any country
36:35lawyer or Homemaker or something like
36:37that can serve on a jury write a letter
36:39to the editor the biggest papers in the
36:41country you know can do anything along
36:43these lines make shopping decisions that
36:45cost $20,000 this this just is an
36:48ability decide whether or not to send
36:49someone to jail so when you have this
36:51ability to decide to raise your own
36:53children to be successes so when you
36:55have this this amazing personal ability
36:57that almost everyone does who's a
36:59functional taxpayer post childhood it's
37:02good to rely on it if you see something
37:05that seems absolutely irrational and
37:07illogical like the sentence some women
37:09have 9-inch penises you should look at
37:12that and say no that doesn't make sense
37:15and you're probably correct no matter
37:17how many people are speaking against you
37:19but what I'm saying here to get back to
37:21the the thought flow of this point is
37:23that very often after about two years of
37:25panic what you'll see is that what
37:27everyone knew is revealed to be true so
37:30these studies just kept dropping this
37:31past week right I mean there was another
37:33one that found that gender affirming
37:34care for kids quote unquote doesn't work
37:37the swedes the British are pulling back
37:39from it the British clothes their God
37:40aul Tavistock Clinic it turns out that
37:43if you're an emotionally disturbed
37:4413-year-old girl who has anorexia making
37:47a fake penis out of your leg I don't
37:49know if that would be allowed at that
37:50age but a masectomy would that's not
37:52going to make you better you probably
37:54should treat the underlying issues
37:55eating disorder cutting a parental
37:58divorce whatever those might be and
38:00again that's something that I think most
38:02autism spectrum absolutely yeah and I
38:05think like every businesswoman female
38:07friend that I have made that point again
38:09four years ago there are people like
38:11hazel Appleyard on Twitter that have
38:13been saying nothing but this for maybe a
38:16decade you know Watson comes to mind so
38:19we now know that the obvious was true
38:21like a massive double blinded study
38:23found that the obvious was true what
38:26people are fighting against the obvious
38:27will often do by the way is try to stop
38:29the study they'll try to derail it at
38:31What's called the IRB level they'll try
38:34to prevent you from publishing it a lot
38:36of the people I've mentioned like myself
38:37and Corey Clark have been on the
38:39receiving end of this kind of thing like
38:40oh look at the names on this and it's
38:43just it's just the most conventional
38:44ever breakdown of data in a state or
38:46SPSS spreadsheet so once it gets through
38:50you generally find that even academic
38:54skillfully put together knowledge
38:55conforms to reality so just hold hold
38:57your ground until that happens I guess
38:59would be another piece of advice but
39:00don't give up on logic hold your ground
39:02till it happens and find reliable
39:04sources of data if someone asks you what
39:06crime is I don't mean to keep beating
39:07this horse to death I've been talking
39:09for a bit but if someone asks you what
39:10crime is go to the National Crime Report
39:13Google FBI UCR and you'll find that
39:16black people over represented so are
39:18whites in the South but you'll also find
39:19that you're not going to be murdered
39:21when you walk outside don't go on
39:24Facebook and say man I saw a video I
39:26know what you know fill in the Gap
39:28Hispanics are capable of that's that's
39:30not
39:32reality that it um we started this
39:36channel kind of in the aftermath of of a
39:38film I was working on that we sort of
39:40became dad Saves America and it was
39:41about how our kids are being raised
39:45increasingly to be fragile oh yeah and
39:47that there're sort of these three
39:49pillars of um breakdown social media uh
39:53overprotective parenting and sort of
39:55overwrought social justice a lot of what
39:57we're talking about these sort of
39:59narratives of Oppression and
40:02victimhood that um when you take them on
40:05are sort of textbook terrible for your
40:08psychology but the funny thing was at
40:10the time the crime stats were really
40:13obvious that that crime had been had
40:16come down in America to I think the
40:18point of like 1963 was the last time it
40:20was as low as it was in 2019 and I know
40:23it's ticked up but what's the current
40:25we're sitting here it's it's in we're
40:27we're in 2024 beginning of 2024 what is
40:30the the current picture because we're in
40:32this election year everyone's talking
40:34about crime and safety things have
40:36gotten worse than they were three years
40:37ago but paint the bigger picture for me
40:41well crime is up pretty dramatically I
40:43mean with the caveat that this does not
40:46represent breakdowns and crime across
40:48races and so on um African-Americans
40:50overrepresent among homicides whites
40:52among certain other offenses I I don't
40:54want to break down every group of
40:55Muslims and terrorist acts and some on
40:57but I mean illegal immigration human
40:59trafficking you get a large percentage
41:00of Hispanic Americans at present but I
41:03mean leaving aside who does each
41:06specific crime homicide is generally a
41:07decent proxy for the crime rate uh it's
41:10hard to hide a body and if you look at
41:12that I mean I think it's fair to say
41:14that crime has ticked back up to mid to
41:16late 90s levels um so I mean immediately
41:19after the loss of or the death of George
41:21Floyd you know you saw 20,000 murders a
41:24year which was always the the
41:26representative bar for a bad year for
41:28the first time since 1993 I believe that
41:30happened in 21 22 I couldn't speak for
41:332023 so crime is up now when people say
41:36crime is down there's kind of a game
41:37being played with the statistics because
41:39crime in the 1970s and 80s in urban
41:42America was at Colombia levels I mean
41:46you know New York we've already gone
41:48through 2,000 plus murders a year
41:50Detroit I mean the city nearly
41:52depopulated Chicago we were just under a
41:55thousand murders a year so I mean what
41:57happened in America is that for a bunch
41:59of reasons and the Freakonomics boys
42:00would argue this includes abortion by
42:01the way this includes some awkward stuff
42:03but for a bunch of reasons mostly
42:05centered on just policing enforcing the
42:08law I mean Giuliani and Bretton I think
42:11people disagree with this but really
42:12drove this trend in New York starting a
42:14couple years before they're usually
42:16credited with beginning it which messes
42:17up the data a little but I
42:19mean starting in the 1990s the very
42:23early 1990s Crim started dropping
42:26precipitously from those levels and it
42:28basically fell until
42:322018 now there were sporadic jumps there
42:35during the BLM era for the first time in
42:37a long time in decad so in 2015 we saw a
42:40small surgeon crime and this is
42:41described as the Ferguson effect but
42:44following uh George Floyd's death we saw
42:46the much larger Floyd effect and again
42:49this depends how you classify crime so
42:51when I look at crime I normally look at
42:53The BJs index crimes which are assault
42:56aggravated assault rap robbery and so on
42:59Down the Line uh and those those jumped
43:02pretty dramatically but I mean for
43:04example Riot AR Fray is not a crime
43:06counted by The BJs so obviously in 2020
43:09if you counted vandalism during a riot
43:12as a violent crime as some of the
43:13Europeans do I mean you would have seen
43:15another million or whatever incidences
43:17of violent crime I mean whole whole
43:19chunks of major cities are on fire the
43:21Lake Street business district in
43:23Minneapolis was burned to the ground I
43:25mean Kenosha Wisconsin that's not far
43:26north north of Chicago chunks of the
43:28city look like bombs hit them so the
43:31Floyd effect was pretty significant and
43:33it brought crime back to not that Peak
43:36awful era in the early 90s mid 80s but
43:40back to the levels that we thought we
43:42were past uh certainly back to 20,000
43:46deaths a year and I I think that's
43:47pretty notable like there's obviously
43:50something very dishonest about someone
43:53saying well look crime is down and there
43:57start using the starting point of
43:592021 when for every year before 2021 for
44:0330 years crime had been lower than it
44:04was in
44:052021 and crime today remains higher than
44:09it would have been in 2002 or 2005 or
44:122009 so this is one of those Arenas
44:15where there's a lot of game playing with
44:16the data the short answer is crime is up
44:19not as much as some people say
44:21interesting I
44:23um the uh what what other things outside
44:27of the crime and and um and the police
44:31do you really feel like our lies that
44:35really need to be broken and haven't
44:39been broken yet that we where we haven't
44:41gotten past the sort of psychotic fever
44:44dream of The Fad thing well I I feel
44:47that most of the secondary claims of the
44:50modern political left from Hamas didn't
44:52commit rape to the police commit um you
44:56know thousand thousand of murders of
44:58unarmed black and you know ethnic white
45:00and Latino that's been added now but
45:03people young men per year I mean a lot
45:04of that's just nonsense I mean so the
45:07the I'm going to get to a bigger one now
45:09but just as a brief note on the uh
45:11police shooting rates so there was a
45:13study done a couple of years ago now by
45:15skeptic Research Center that looked at
45:17black and urban white men and they found
45:19that the average young man at least if
45:21you consider those categories
45:22representative thought that the number
45:24of people that were shot annually by the
45:26police who were just unarmed just male
45:28and just black was like
45:3010,000 so 40 odd per of the people in
45:33the study thought that the number was
45:35about 1,000 or more and as I recall the
45:38categories it would have been about
45:391,000 to about 10,000 then another 14%
45:43thought it was about 10,000 this
45:45category and another 8% thought it was
45:47more than that so you had this this
45:49incredible breakdown where what are you
45:52talking me 50 plus% of the people in
45:55this pool thought that the cop were
45:57killing between 1,000 and say 20,000
46:00unarmed black men per year now the
46:04actual number of unarmed people shot by
46:06the cops in a typical year is under a
46:08100 uh if you break out black males it's
46:11like
46:1220 last year actually it was
46:1512 so I mean there's there's a fantastic
46:19disconnect from reality when it comes to
46:21this on the left and in the center
46:23that's worse than the disconnect from
46:25reality that I see on the right regard
46:26regarding anything there's nothing the
46:29covid vaccine might come close but
46:30there's nothing where the right just
46:32thinks there have been hundreds of
46:34thousands of people killed where nothing
46:35has happened at all I mean I can't I
46:38can't think of one thing why do you
46:41think that is and why would it be
46:45ideologically uh
46:46biased well I think it comes from
46:49there's an entire narrative on the left
46:52which is essentially that the Civil
46:54Rights Movement failed that not much has
46:57gotten better in the USA and I think
46:59that a lot of people like myself and
47:01Coleman kind of started out writing
47:03about civil rights activism as well as
47:05our normal major graduate school fields
47:08or
47:08whatever almost naively just the idea
47:11was well that can't be accurate these
47:13people must be misled so let's let's
47:15tell them the truth that's so insane in
47:18reality when you engage these people and
47:20you meet them at conferences and so on
47:21you realize pretty soon that a lot of
47:23them know that the USA is not in worse
47:26shape today than it was in
47:281955 but that this is the justification
47:32needed for a whole bunch of programs
47:33that still exist today like large boost
47:35affirmative action so I mean I and many
47:39others have kind of stumbled on this
47:41political mindfield that's sustained by
47:44lying and every so often you see someone
47:46who points this out like Roland frier
47:48just get absolutely torpedoed where
47:51you'll see a piece of data come to light
47:53like he said not only what I said there
47:5512 unarmed black men shop at cops every
47:56year but also if you break out all males
48:00or indeed all citizens and you just look
48:01at people that are stopped by the cops
48:03whites are I think he said
48:0427.5% more likely to be shot there's no
48:07BLM movement out there protesting for
48:09them there are a lot of broke white guys
48:10as well without being crude so it was
48:13just it was this fascinating finding it
48:14was really a positive finding the cops
48:16need to go a little little easier on uh
48:18workingclass white men but overall
48:20there's no statistically significant we
48:22would say discrimination against anyone
48:23it's a good job by these Multicultural
48:25forces they meet some tough out there
48:27but you know that's not how it was
48:29presented I mean he was accused of
48:30having falsified data he was lab shut
48:33based on sexual harassment charges that
48:36suddenly popped up from nowhere I don't
48:38mean to mock if that did happen exactly
48:40as described and would have been brought
48:41to light anyway but that seems kind of
48:43questionable given the circumstances his
48:46accuser was Claudine gay um the
48:49plagiarist about this and a lot of
48:51others have no it's been interesting
48:53it's like uh a recent show I saw someone
48:56say
48:57claudian gay is starting to feel like
48:59one of the bad guys that pops up at the
49:01end of Scooby-Doo movies it was claudian
49:03gay all along yeah well I think it kind
49:06of was what Claud and gay represents so
49:08I mean I I think that there's a movement
49:10that is based around a narrative of what
49:13are basically falsehoods that exists to
49:17kind of secure revenues like I don't
49:19think it's particularly innocent anymore
49:21I mean you could go through the groups
49:22like I mean when I mentioned uh BLM gnf
49:25that's one of about 130 organ organized
49:27black lives matter groups and like the
49:29total amount of money given by Corporate
49:30America to Black lives matter was .6
49:33billion and that's that's an article
49:35from The Economist that's July 2021 I
49:38believe as mainstream as it gets just
49:39Google BLM gets 11.6 billion but I mean
49:43billion with a B just I want to make
49:44sure I billion with a B yeah billion
49:46yeah BLM gnf alone got I think it was
49:48180 million like when we were tracking
49:49these gift to these trans groups and we
49:51were tracking gifts in the six to seven
49:52figures only yeah these these these
49:54people got a lot of money and I mean
49:56that you know Al Sharpton I don't no
49:58he's kind of a little player these days
50:00no no hate for the Reverend but I mean
50:02the National Action Network never went
50:04anywhere that's probably 50 to 80
50:06million a year whatever Jesse used to be
50:08a Rainbow Coalition that's now our push
50:11that again that's a mainstream Civil
50:12Rights group these days and you go on
50:14down the line I mean you've got um
50:16similar organizations for Muslim
50:18Americans I mean I mentioned working for
50:20a large gay rights group before it moved
50:22down the trans path I mean they have a
50:23nine story building in DC that's got to
50:25that's got to be worth tens of millions
50:27just in of itself outside of a
50:29fundraising kit Year bye I mean the what
50:32splc has a well-invested endowment of
50:34470 Million last I looked probably about
50:37600 million now so there there's a
50:39massive body of entities that has an
50:42actual vested interest that's at Fortune
50:441,000 corporate levels in certain policy
50:48positions being maintained that's not
50:50sort of some sort of right-wing game if
50:52I were the senior vice president of
50:53diversity at Sony I mean would have a
50:57pretty significant interest in this
50:59myself otherwise I understand that's a
51:01Japanese company I doubt they have one
51:03but just it it is what it is the the
51:08broader point that I was going to make
51:09here though is I think things like the
51:11police shooting storyline are just
51:14little offshoots they're sort of octopus
51:16tentacles from a deeper narrative which
51:19is the kind of postm marxist narrative
51:21that we've talked about which is that
51:23every Gap in performance between people
51:26is due to Prejudice and this leads to
51:29almost every inherently nonsensical
51:32position that we see today um from why
51:35is there so much insistence on the
51:36gender pay Gap now that we know that it
51:39vanishes when you adjust for the jobs
51:40people prefer to do to much more in my
51:44opinion serious things I mean why is
51:47there the constant focus in business on
51:49Equity across every profession the
51:51Baseline idea is that any Gap that you
51:53see has to be due to Prejudice I'll get
51:55to the point there that is incredibly
51:57false idea but it's incredibly pervasive
51:59in business and Academia really every
52:01field I've been in it's just wildly
52:03wrong so that probably is the big thing
52:05you need to cut out when you ask that
52:06question so I'm curious if what we're
52:09dealing with with this sort
52:10of equity thing right this sense of oh
52:14if I see a disparity it means there's a
52:16problem if it's really this very deep
52:19like zero Su bias we have that's like
52:22goes back to the pre-industrial human
52:25life where if you have more berries in
52:28your stack you took them from a tree
52:31that only has so many and that means you
52:33must have taken them from the rest of us
52:35and so you're bad because you're
52:37hoarding the fixed number of berries and
52:39it's that I mean it does feel like that
52:41Zero Sum intuition which modern society
52:48solved uh is at the root of a lot of
52:50this stuff at the root of like this the
52:52Communist sense of exploitation and and
52:57um and this like Equity thing like well
53:00if you're doing better that means I must
53:02be doing worse I mean is that how you
53:04think about it or how do you think about
53:06the
53:07like again trying to be as charitable as
53:09possible like what drives belief in
53:12things that we can disprove pretty
53:14easily when it comes to these Equity
53:17claims that's an interesting question I
53:19mean so the conflict with kind of core
53:23human nature might explain reluctance to
53:25accept capitalism and so on in the first
53:28place so for a very long time now I
53:31don't actually really as someone who
53:32occasionally hunts I don't know if I I
53:34totally agree with that analogy even for
53:36primitive tribesmen I mean like if
53:38someone else kills an elk that doesn't
53:39mean there's one less elk for you to
53:41kill I mean it means you have to walk a
53:43little further it means it might mean
53:45there more elk for you to kill the elk
53:46herd is in the area you should you know
53:48you should instead of feeling jealousy
53:50take advantage of this opportunity learn
53:52to track better or something but I mean
53:54nonetheless I understand what you're
53:55saying and I I think that that certainly
53:58in the past there was a more fixed level
54:00of wealth let's say and for a lot of
54:02history you got wealth by taking it from
54:04other people so I mean yeah plunder
54:08reaving yeah if you if you look at like
54:10the Romans versus the Persians and so on
54:12historically there would be a fairly
54:15concentrated amount of gold in one
54:16Borderland area and the way you would
54:18get more gold for your family is that
54:20you'd lead your Horsemen in a successful
54:22raid against the other side's horsemen
54:24and you'd get in through their their
54:26line of defense enough to raid one
54:29wealthy peasant's Farmhouse and you'd
54:30grab a bag that had five pounds of gold
54:32and you'd laugh gleefully and you'd ride
54:34back to your lands with like a daughter
54:36over your shoulders and waving your
54:37swords and this this was like classical
54:39historical barbarism it's what people
54:41actually just did I mean they'd break
54:43the Border raid each other I mean you
54:45steal more often in terms of like the
54:47whites versus the natives in America
54:48you'd steal cattle sheep horses so I
54:50think the basic idea that you could make
54:52money without taking it from people or
54:55having other people it from the ground
54:57for you did strike a lot of people as
55:00amazing and historically there's always
55:02been a tone a tone of what I'd call like
55:05peasant resentment against people that
55:07could do this like the Jewish Bankers
55:08are stealing from us and what that
55:11doesn't recognize is that the Jewish
55:12Bankers are providing a service that
55:14dramatically improves the community if
55:16it's not available if money is not
55:19available to be lent that allows the
55:21development of Farmland during the off
55:23season or something like that that just
55:24doesn't happen you paying back in a
55:26additional 5% mostly in barter is a
55:29pretty small price to pay for that but
55:31that's always been viewed as a sort of
55:32dark magic like they're Conjuring money
55:34from nowhere they're lying they're
55:37they're unnatural they're violating the
55:38natural way of things does that have a
55:40lot to do with what we're seeing today
55:42maybe it's an interesting hypothesis I
55:44wonder if there's a way to test it um to
55:47me the the more key point is just that
55:49the the equity idea is wrong I mean and
55:53to me all of quote unquote wokeness
55:55comes down to these three prongs like
55:58prong one I said this for nro in a
56:00pretty lengthy piece actually but prong
56:02one
56:03is all gaps between people are due to
56:06discrimination the only other option is
56:08something totally unacceptable like
56:09genetic
56:10inferiority two you know these gaps thus
56:13give proof of discrimination within our
56:16society we don't need any other proof
56:18and three the solution is equity which
56:20is proportional representation
56:22regardless of performance what we
56:24actually find is that for a bunch of
56:25reasons including genetic reasons if
56:27you're looking at why men and women do
56:29different things or why Samoans do well
56:31in the NFL or something like that
56:33probably different groups of people
56:35perform at radically different levels at
56:38different times and often the reasons
56:40for this are totally uncontroversial I
56:42mean when I first looked at black white
56:44and Latino personal incomes one of the
56:47things that struck me was that you could
56:48close a third of the difference in Most
56:51states sometimes more than that just by
56:53looking at Media or modal age so I mean
56:56the most common I say this a lot it's
56:58not a particularly brilliant point but
56:59it's one that's just ignored all the
57:00time the most common age for a white
57:02American right now 58 most common age
57:05for a black American's modal average
57:07perfectly Fair description of it is 27
57:09the most common age for Hispanic
57:11American's 11 I mean that's a younger
57:14much more immigrant based Community
57:16right now large traditionally Catholic
57:18families a lot of kids so when you say
57:21well there's a high crime rate in these
57:23immigrant communities you'd have to
57:24adjust for age teenage men are the
57:27historical Warriors they're more likely
57:29to commit crimes but also when you say
57:31well they have less savings and whites
57:33are indeed blacks what a bunch of bums
57:35you have to adjust for age there's
57:37There's no practical way to expect an
57:4018-year-old much less an 11-year-old to
57:43have much in the bank unless you're
57:44talking about a piggy bank so I mean all
57:46this has to be done every time you look
57:49at gaps between groups to make any sort
57:51of point and no one ever does it outside
57:54of a few obscure academic papers on the
57:56right wing of things so that's my main
57:59problem with the uh the equity narrative
58:03and with the disparities equal
58:04discrimination narrative it is probably
58:07founded in deep human psychological
58:10realities but in the here and now it's
58:12also just wrong so if I were going to
58:14cut out One belief that a lot of people
58:17have that's very damaging it would be
58:19that one I
58:21think how has um your own ident Iden
58:26itty shaped the way you think about
58:29these issues around race you know it's
58:32one of these things that's like
58:34simultaneously uh it's difficult to
58:37Grapple with because you know so Coleman
58:40Hughes is out right now with a new book
58:42about um the case for color blindness
58:45right and I'm 46 I graduated college in
58:50the late '90s
58:52and it would be totally uncontroversial
58:55to say I support a colorblind Society in
58:58like
58:591999 today that is like declaring
59:03yourself a Nazi in many quarters so um
59:08how do you think about where identity
59:11and Race Matters like and where it just
59:13shouldn't or doesn't and what color
59:16blindness means and how do you inter how
59:18do you like experience that
59:20argument well I given that you know
59:22everything we're talking about about
59:23logic and empiricism but then you're
59:26getting treated by you're getting
59:27treated by the world in particular ways
59:30especially when you come out and say
59:31some of these things well I mean I
59:32support a basically colorblind Society
59:35in the way that anyone who played a
59:36Varsity Sport during the 1990s or went
59:38to high school or college then I mean
59:40that's the era you mentioned as well uh
59:42pretty much does at least unless they
59:44are a personal bigot themselves this was
59:46this was something we already mostly
59:47accomplished by the way I mean if you
59:50look at the race relations ratings from
59:52that era when people were looking at you
59:54know Jordan and and bird on the
59:56television and you know cheering against
59:58them passionately but only as men really
1:00:01um I mean 75% of whites 69% of blacks I
1:00:04think rated race relations is very good
1:00:06you look today that figures down to
1:00:07around 33% so I mean we've progressively
1:00:10become worse we can empirically
1:00:12measurably look at whether modern woke
1:00:15approaches have made race relations
1:00:17better and they haven't they've made
1:00:18race relations dramatically poorer
1:00:21that's not debatable like we know it we
1:00:23we keep records of this every single
1:00:25year so I mean a couple of different
1:00:28things I guess when you ask what do you
1:00:29mean by color blindness I think what you
1:00:32mean by color blindness is just that
1:00:33assuming that race itself is a trait
1:00:36that has zero or a neutral value like
1:00:39most people probably feel a small level
1:00:42of extra attachment for their own group
1:00:44I mean I'm biracial I'm now upper middle
1:00:47class I'm American you know a number of
1:00:48other things and in situations like
1:00:50watching sport that would matter I would
1:00:52cheer for an American Boxer over a
1:00:54foreign one always sometimes a black guy
1:00:57over a white guy you know what what are
1:00:59their tattoos what are their flags are
1:01:00there other associations I'm half Irish
1:01:02you know that's certainly something you
1:01:04see uh in the pugilistic field
1:01:06represented but I think beyond that if
1:01:08you're hiring for a job which is
1:01:09something we've both done race should be
1:01:11absolutely neutral I mean you have
1:01:12columns education a diploma and before
1:01:15that a degree you know performance the
1:01:18equivalent of an IQ or EQ test if that's
1:01:20if You' sneak that in for this job you
1:01:23know what how' the interview go that
1:01:24kind of thing uh race shouldn't be one
1:01:26of those it is isn't for most people at
1:01:28least in our generation it doesn't
1:01:29matter and that's the moral problem that
1:01:31most people have with both racism and
1:01:33affirmative action by the way that it's
1:01:34extremely weird to look at a potential
1:01:36executive and say okay he was 18 points
1:01:39behind the top guy here but we're going
1:01:41to give him 20 points for being Hispanic
1:01:43like that feels atavistically kind of
1:01:45slimy even if you understand there's
1:01:47some kind of social purpose here maybe
1:01:50you can do that at the Grand scale if it
1:01:52comes to some kind of government grant
1:01:53but you don't want people making those
1:01:54decisions and getting used to that kind
1:01:56of calculation ever so that's what
1:01:58that's what color blindness means it
1:01:59just means not judging people based on
1:02:01race it's an extremely uh normal
1:02:04practical idea it's very easy to do in
1:02:08fact we're talking about Executives
1:02:09there are whole numbers of ways to do
1:02:10that but I mean like you can simply
1:02:12remove the names from resumés so that
1:02:13you have no chance of looking at
1:02:15someone's race I often have done that so
1:02:18that I yeah I think that's a good a good
1:02:19way for a society to operate why has
1:02:21this become a bit taboo I think that
1:02:24it's a result of what we're talking
1:02:26about there's a strong vested interest
1:02:28in what I call the old Wars capital O
1:02:30capital W continuing so if you run a
1:02:33group like let's pick one of the little
1:02:35ones we said National Action Network
1:02:36maybe 80 million a year you run a group
1:02:38that takes in 50 to 80 million a year
1:02:40griping about race do you stop griping
1:02:42about race what would be the end result
1:02:45of you no longer griping about race you
1:02:46go back to being a local lawyer I guess
1:02:48he's a TV host now but I mean what about
1:02:51Ben Crump he doesn't take any more
1:02:52dubious race cases Trayvon Martin's
1:02:54former lawyer who's now there every time
1:02:56someone gets uh gets shot by the police
1:02:59you just you go back
1:03:00to domestic violence defenses or I mean
1:03:04I'm not sure that was it reminds me of
1:03:07that um Upton Sinclair quote that a man
1:03:10cannot understand what his paycheck
1:03:12depends upon him not understanding yeah
1:03:15you you will never you will never uh
1:03:17gain by wagering on a man to understand
1:03:19something when his paycheck depends on
1:03:21him not understanding it and I think uh
1:03:23Upton was talking about religious
1:03:24divines where people
1:03:26School teachers and Brilliant Backwoods
1:03:28preachers and so on for years would
1:03:30struggle with the basic concept of
1:03:31evolution struggle with and you you kind
1:03:34of understand that and even sympathize
1:03:36with it you're not going to end your
1:03:38career especially since some level of
1:03:40disputation between religion and science
1:03:42continues by saying well okay I agree
1:03:44that what my opponent says is 100%
1:03:46correct in this Arena though it's it's
1:03:49actually less sympathetic I mean we're
1:03:50talking about a situation where there
1:03:51was near race war level conflict it's
1:03:53over we can document that it's over and
1:03:56people are saying that it continues so I
1:03:58mean let's let's look at that and unpack
1:04:00it for a second have you ever looked at
1:04:02that psychological experiment where they
1:04:04showed people blue cubes with some
1:04:06purple ones mixed in and when they took
1:04:08the purple ones out like different
1:04:10shades of blue were identified as
1:04:13purple you know it's funny you should
1:04:15say this I I I don't know if I I was
1:04:17recently looking at something similar
1:04:19and that is I think maybe this is
1:04:21actually in the same category of study
1:04:24which is that we have this ability to
1:04:27become more sensitive yes as things get
1:04:31more subtle yes and so you can actually
1:04:33double I saw the one study showed you
1:04:35can double the ability to detect very
1:04:39slight variations in
1:04:41Hue with practice is that is that kind
1:04:43of what you're talking about or is it
1:04:45something else yeah it's the it's the
1:04:46same thing there's a whole genre of
1:04:47these studies but in the one that I'm
1:04:49referring to people were looking at and
1:04:52the I think the original colors were
1:04:53purple and blue so let's just keep those
1:04:55people were showing a bunch of cubes of
1:04:56purple and blue and they were asked to
1:04:58pick out the purple cubes and they did
1:05:00and they isolated every purple Cube
1:05:01every purple Cube was bad in our analogy
1:05:03thrown to the side now the host the
1:05:07organizer of the experiment eventually
1:05:09just stop stopped running purple cubes
1:05:11which would be the equivalent of old
1:05:12school racism today so you have
1:05:14different shades of blue some shades of
1:05:16blue are more purpley than others but
1:05:18they're all things suran that anyone
1:05:20would recognize as blue now the
1:05:24expectation was that people would just
1:05:25say are no more purple cubes the problem
1:05:28is solved the problem of the purple
1:05:29infestation let's all go home get lunch
1:05:32what actually happened was that people
1:05:33started identifying different shades of
1:05:35blue as purple like the shades of blue
1:05:38that were closest to Conventional purple
1:05:40and this went on for a while I don't
1:05:42know if they the experiment ever ended
1:05:43without the experiment or ending it and
1:05:45I think not only is this going on right
1:05:47now because some people have a rational
1:05:50interest in it going on what they're
1:05:52doing when it comes to certainly a a lot
1:05:55of the race stuff also I mean I've
1:05:57called out the feminist slm feuding
1:06:00online a lot of these categories in
1:06:02situations where they used to be a real
1:06:04problem you know 30 plus percent of men
1:06:06if you recall the 1970s probably 20 plus
1:06:08perc of women if you think about people
1:06:11made jokes about my wife threw a skillet
1:06:12at me so I hit her I mean people were
1:06:13domestically abusive fairly regularly
1:06:16we've now largely broken this problem
1:06:18people don't tend to throw Skillets at
1:06:19their husband or their wife have people
1:06:22said we're in an era of happy marriages
1:06:24now and started settling at a higher
1:06:26rate hell no course not no what we've
1:06:28done is redefine what not just
1:06:31potentially abusive because I agree some
1:06:33of this can to reach that level but over
1:06:34the line abusive behavior that has the
1:06:36same legal penalty in many cases what we
1:06:38just described is we've just changed it
1:06:41we recently changed the definition of
1:06:43sexual assault itself well that's not
1:06:44the topic of this show but I mean so if
1:06:47you say well we may have gotten rid of
1:06:49most physical assault from women and 80%
1:06:52of it from men are we in the clear no we
1:06:55can say well now our focus is emotional
1:06:56and verbal assault that doesn't mean
1:06:58there are no genuinely abusive people
1:07:00today but what we've seen is actually no
1:07:02change at all in the recognition that
1:07:04most relationships are better in fact
1:07:06men and women are both more depressed
1:07:08about relationships than they ever have
1:07:10been we're seeing something similar in
1:07:12race relations like there's almost no
1:07:14old school racial violence there are no
1:07:17lynchings even outside of ghetto schools
1:07:19there are very few beatings of white or
1:07:21black kids Twitter videos aside for
1:07:23being the wrong race if you're Italian
1:07:25American and you go to a mostly Irish
1:07:27and Mexican school you're not going to
1:07:28be beaten up by 15 guys like you might
1:07:31have been in the Bridgeport neighborhood
1:07:32in Chicago in
1:07:341967 you know that that's not a thing
1:07:36that's going to happen so have we
1:07:39embraced this no not really we've turned
1:07:41toward
1:07:42microaggressions I mean many many
1:07:44different terms of this time and I I
1:07:46think that that's that's just the effect
1:07:47we're describing this this is sort of
1:07:50comes back to this
1:07:52um what we were talking about a little
1:07:55little while back right which is yeah so
1:07:57aggression becomes like well now we need
1:07:59to have microaggression
1:08:02but a new generation will feel the
1:08:05microaggression as if it's being punched
1:08:07in the face in fact now they'll say oh
1:08:10silence is violence but also speech is
1:08:13violence so so violence becomes not
1:08:16violence um do you see an end to this
1:08:22cycle or are we doomed to continually
1:08:25adct ad apt to being ever more subtly
1:08:27offended to the point where no no no
1:08:30there isn't there's only there's only
1:08:31one shade of blue but now we're sort of
1:08:33Imagining the purple in the in the mix
1:08:36of a single mathematically chemically
1:08:39created set of all identically identical
1:08:42blue Shades no I I don't think people in
1:08:45in the United States in particular are
1:08:46going to put up with this I mean you
1:08:47know there something like four million
1:08:49people serving in the military right now
1:08:51you know I mean we generally win Wars
1:08:52against and that might be that includes
1:08:54civilian workers and so on National
1:08:56Guard but I mean like there are plenty
1:08:58of people that have real risk involved
1:09:02jobs I think it's going to be difficult
1:09:04to avoid that if you look at say
1:09:05truckers and so on we're a car-based
1:09:07society so I mean roughly 50,000 people
1:09:10per year are killed just tooling around
1:09:11on the highway I was nearly in a car
1:09:13wreck yesterday I mean we're a society
1:09:15where 10% of the population hunts I mean
1:09:17so I think that this again gets into the
1:09:19importance of teaching your own family
1:09:22your own kids what reality is in roll
1:09:25them in something like a Jiu-Jitsu Dojo
1:09:27if they get to 10 or 12 and they'll
1:09:29understand what actual violence is
1:09:30they're rolling even with friends people
1:09:31are picking them up and slamming them on
1:09:33the ground and all this sort of stuff
1:09:34and that is I mean panra on the Greek
1:09:37martial art is another thing where
1:09:38people literally do that boxing so I
1:09:40think that there are enough people that
1:09:42tackle football there are enough people
1:09:44involved in those actual competitive
1:09:45activities experiencing actual pain
1:09:48going on to do a couple years on the
1:09:49service just driving down the road and
1:09:51you know seeing the aftermath of impacts
1:09:53with humans or large animals I don't
1:09:55think people are going to truly believe
1:09:58that argu your girlfriend arguing with
1:10:00you means you've been the victim of
1:10:02violence no I don't I don't think that's
1:10:04going to be a majority position though
1:10:06and this is actually a different issue
1:10:09one of the things with the a lot of
1:10:11these ideas on the woke political left
1:10:13there are some ideas on the right that
1:10:15are nearly as bad that have brought a
1:10:16appeal I mean there's a petition online
1:10:19right now uh the repeal the 19th
1:10:21petition that something like four
1:10:22million signatures from people arguing
1:10:24that women shouldn't vote so I mean
1:10:25there also is there also is that
1:10:27backlash to communist sort of mainstream
1:10:30almost fascistic population impulse
1:10:32which can be very dangerous and very
1:10:34widespread um and I'm I'm worried about
1:10:36that as well but I think when it comes
1:10:38to Fringe academic communist ideas they
1:10:40have a limited reach and that's good um
1:10:44I mean I actually asked that question on
1:10:46Twitter once it was a totally Anonymous
1:10:48poll with a link to Survey Monkey and I
1:10:50asked do you believe that some women
1:10:52have 9-in penises it's not just a glib
1:10:54question it's a trans line that was used
1:10:56in a meme that Gad sad includes in his
1:10:58book on mind viruses and I expected
1:11:01because my page has a pretty broy
1:11:02audience but it also has everyone's kind
1:11:05of like feminist girlfriend and fiance I
1:11:07expected like 30% yes and I divided the
1:11:09poll into men and women the respon yes
1:11:12response rate if I recall correctly was
1:11:131% like anonymously no one was actually
1:11:17going to say they agreed with that no
1:11:20one actually believed that to be true it
1:11:22was the emperor has no clothes in real
1:11:24life and we see that all the time with
1:11:26would police defunding be a good idea do
1:11:29black Americans have a higher crime rate
1:11:30than white Americans do white Americans
1:11:32also have a high crime rate is mass
1:11:34immigration good everyone knows what the
1:11:37answer is there's just a reluctance to
1:11:39deliver it so I think when we're talking
1:11:41about these academic ideas the real
1:11:42question is how can you overcome the
1:11:45reluctance the I I'm reminded of a
1:11:48concept uh called Collective illusions
1:11:51that people
1:11:53believe people people believe that
1:11:56others hold a position that they don't
1:11:58have and so they feel compelled to say
1:12:01the thing they don't believe because
1:12:02they think everyone else believes that
1:12:05when in reality almost nobody believes
1:12:07it and so we all end up saying nonsense
1:12:10thinking we all agree or that's that
1:12:12enough people agree that it's impolite
1:12:14and it it just begs the question like
1:12:16what sort of game theoretic trap are we
1:12:20in that no one's willing to say hey
1:12:22isn't that not true I mean if the
1:12:23emperor has no clothes that's exact
1:12:26that I mean not at all the bust in but
1:12:27that's what I was going to say like if
1:12:29you're talking about Collective illusion
1:12:30or mass formation psychosis in a psych
1:12:32or poly side textbook the opening
1:12:34discussion will be the emperor has no
1:12:36close the ancient story um you don't
1:12:40really we don't really need to get into
1:12:41complex Game Theory to explain that it's
1:12:42just sort of the prisoners dilemma like
1:12:44everyone quote unquote snitching
1:12:46everyone dishonorably speaking is the
1:12:48best outcome for everybody I mean like
1:12:50if your neighbor is a lunatic idiot and
1:12:52he believes this thing and you
1:12:55speak along with him you're not punished
1:12:58and if you speak the insane thing if you
1:13:00you assume the insane group is
1:13:02temporarily in power and your neighbor
1:13:04is a lunatic idiot and or your neighbor
1:13:06disagrees with you he's likely to get
1:13:08punished whereas you're likely to be
1:13:10rewarded at least while the the nut The
1:13:12Nutty folk are in power so this is again
1:13:16this is something that's very old among
1:13:19humans I actually I
1:13:21posted online a couple of days ago like
1:13:25individual self-identification of your
1:13:27sex especially for men has to be the
1:13:29craziest policy people have ever adopted
1:13:32and a lot of my friends are actually
1:13:33other academics that do things like
1:13:34study religion people are like nope yeah
1:13:37that's not really true I mean for a long
1:13:39time in the Catholic European countries
1:13:41denying that the sun orbited the Earth
1:13:43was punishable by eight lashes I was
1:13:45like shut up you know okay I get the
1:13:47point but there were like dozens of
1:13:48examples of all this where people would
1:13:51be told absolutely crazy
1:13:53stuff I mean there was a per per during
1:13:55the early American era of psychotherapy
1:13:58where women who reported what we would
1:14:00Now call orgasms were told they were
1:14:02nyam maniacs and insane I mean just a
1:14:05bunch of stuff like this I I'm not going
1:14:07to go deeper and make any jokes but
1:14:08that's the thing that happened there was
1:14:10another period where people who reported
1:14:12over intense emotions you I'm sure you
1:14:13know this as well but we're given
1:14:14labotomy the solution to a number of
1:14:18mental disorders was to have an ice pick
1:14:20shoved into your brain all the experts
1:14:22were saying it so the idea that we are
1:14:24to today in a unique era of lunacy
1:14:27separate from historical Islam or
1:14:30historical extreme Catholic and Orthodox
1:14:32Christianity or the other religions
1:14:34overseas or the the things that the
1:14:37first wave of feminism was reacting to
1:14:39or any of these other eras I mean that's
1:14:41actually pretty questionable we're just
1:14:42showing that same ability to believe
1:14:44stupid that's the best form of
1:14:47optimism I've heard in a while actually
1:14:51and actually let me I want to ask a
1:14:53question that um I sort of um maybe it's
1:14:56a hard question maybe not which is
1:15:00you've you've focused on things that put
1:15:02you in the heterodox with the academy
1:15:05yeah and certainly among like black
1:15:07academics right is that fair to say um
1:15:11how do you guard yourself against being
1:15:14a reactionary against sort of embracing
1:15:17a I take the contrarian point of view
1:15:20that's a good question um and that's my
1:15:23identity now is I'm the Aran I I'm super
1:15:27skeptical when something seems left and
1:15:29woke and and now I fall into traps and I
1:15:33before I'll give you one example from
1:15:36Recently that's related to everything
1:15:37we're talking about which is um this
1:15:40video that I you know did about this uh
1:15:43Obama movie The Leave the World Behind I
1:15:46I I talk about some of your work in that
1:15:48in that video and one of the things I
1:15:50also reference is this Minneapolis movie
1:15:53about George Floyd
1:15:56and it seems like that movie's
1:15:59presentation which see which when you
1:16:01watch it feels like wow I guess Dereck
1:16:03chovin was
1:16:04innocent upon closer inspection it turns
1:16:07out that movie maybe is not so not
1:16:11enough of a full story for you to change
1:16:13your position so I think I got over my
1:16:15skis saying like you know a lot of my
1:16:17commenters were saying George Floyd
1:16:19wasn't murdered this is a BS story just
1:16:21like all these others and I was hesitant
1:16:23to say anything about that and then I in
1:16:26that video I said no I guess I was I
1:16:27guess I was wrong I guess I got
1:16:29Bamboozled but then maybe not maybe it
1:16:31turns out actually no no no this is more
1:16:33complicated and I was maybe leaning into
1:16:35that heterodox position how do you think
1:16:37about that how do you guard yourself
1:16:39against it how do we keep ourselves from
1:16:41becoming like celebratory Fringe people
1:16:44from the reactionary right that's a good
1:16:46question I'm glad you asked it uh I
1:16:48think that the short answer is just what
1:16:50we do with stuff from the left which is
1:16:52continue to have faith in data com sense
1:16:56logic I mean at both of our levels you
1:16:57can get some of the data yourself you
1:16:59can commission it put it together
1:17:00yourself then you know it's true people
1:17:02have trust in you if you're a producer
1:17:04of information that is viewed as
1:17:06reliable so I mean it it's the same
1:17:08thing so I mean first with as read the
1:17:11George Floyd thing like I don't know I
1:17:13don't know enough to say whether this is
1:17:16true or the what the movie is accurate
1:17:18or not I found the fall of Minneapolis
1:17:19pretty convincing people are now saying
1:17:21it was rebutted but the rebutter while I
1:17:23also like him is a left-wing uh writer
1:17:26on policing called Bradley Balco so I
1:17:29mean very often the the reality is kind
1:17:31of just in the middle like I think the
1:17:33George Floyd case was so sensitive that
1:17:35folks are kind of jumping on any
1:17:38bandwagon that makes the response to the
1:17:41conventional narrative look bad but I'm
1:17:43not really sure why we would believe you
1:17:45know Mr Balco over one of the better
1:17:48political News hosts from that City I
1:17:49mean they should have a debate or
1:17:51something I right now I don't consider
1:17:52that to be resolved at all interesting
1:17:56so the the George Floyd case itself is
1:17:58an interesting one like obviously I
1:17:59don't think anyone thinks Derrick chovin
1:18:01is the epitome of Ideal policing but
1:18:03like once you get past that there
1:18:05actually are practical questions and
1:18:07like the most practical question is
1:18:09would being put in a tough but common
1:18:11hold have killed George Floyd if he
1:18:14hadn't eaten all of the meth and fentel
1:18:17that he had on him at the time of his
1:18:19arrest like that really that would be
1:18:21the question that would determine a
1:18:23murder charge versus a man charge or no
1:18:25charge in front of a jury that was just
1:18:27looking at like rural cop X and like
1:18:30poor Caucasian victim y that's the
1:18:33question I I think when you look at
1:18:35something like 11 milligrams of
1:18:38processed product from two hard drugs in
1:18:40someone's bloodstream you know I trained
1:18:42as a lawyer before becoming an academic
1:18:46uh while we're talking about like crazy
1:18:47Urban Stories the background and all
1:18:48that but I mean I don't it's it's kind
1:18:50of hard to just say there's no
1:18:52reasonable doubt in that case
1:18:55not that Shin's a good cop and should
1:18:56get his badge back but like there's no
1:18:58there's no 35% doubt that that could
1:19:00have happened like as a jury man it's
1:19:02going to be very difficult for me if I'm
1:19:05not watching a riot outside the
1:19:07courtroom window to to make that call
1:19:09and I I think obviously what happened in
1:19:12that case was heavily how to put this
1:19:13politely heavily influenced by Affairs
1:19:16in the country at that time I mean this
1:19:18is a little before we saw the left and
1:19:20the right literally fight in the street
1:19:21in kosha where both sides had guns
1:19:24you've got the wild west standoff
1:19:27written house um you know justifiably
1:19:29legally but unfortunately shoots three
1:19:31people can't have that but I mean like
1:19:33people knew that stuff was they were one
1:19:36step away from it so that obviously
1:19:38influenced the jury verdict in my
1:19:40opinion you almost never see a sentence
1:19:44of like what was it murder 2 murder
1:19:46three and manslaughter those are
1:19:49different crimes you can't commit murder
1:19:51one or murder two and manslaughter you
1:19:54can't have the intent to kill someone
1:19:56and then accidentally kill them through
1:19:58recklessness I mean it's been a while
1:20:00since I opened a law book I'm sure I
1:20:01might be off by a word or two but that
1:20:03that's that's insane so I mean I I don't
1:20:07think that that that narrative has been
1:20:08entirely rebutted the question is would
1:20:11Mr Floyd have been killed had Shin not
1:20:15had he been restrained the exact same
1:20:18way but he not taken all those drugs and
1:20:20we're never going to know that any case
1:20:22but that one if that's on the table and
1:20:24you have two coroners reports that's
1:20:27that's probably something like a
1:20:28mistrial so that was um the unfortunate
1:20:31and crazy situation but beyond the
1:20:34George Floyd thing like how do you not
1:20:36become I described a former punk rock
1:20:39friend of mine who's now a rock ribbed
1:20:41Republican recently is just having the
1:20:43politics of anti like as a young man
1:20:46like as a young man he was getting in
1:20:47brawls government's evil we're giving
1:20:49money to Israel not Palestine and if you
1:20:50ask this guy why we should give money to
1:20:51palestine's I don't know they're not the
1:20:54man like Israel you know and now it's
1:20:56the same thing in Reverse like we're
1:20:57giving money to Ukraine fighting Russia
1:21:00why should we help Russia instead I
1:21:02don't know they're not the man they're
1:21:03old enemy it's just it's the same thing
1:21:05in Reverse it's
1:21:07anti-politics um I think I already said
1:21:09this but just the same tools of logic
1:21:10and Common Sense which you used to get
1:21:11out of this I'll say two things on the
1:21:13right that may irritate some people but
1:21:15I've actually looked and these may be
1:21:17National Review columns at some point
1:21:19know it's up to the magazine to approve
1:21:20them obviously but I looked at some of
1:21:22these claims that were being made by big
1:21:24on the right most of whom I like by the
1:21:26way most of whom do pretty good work
1:21:27most of the time but one of them was
1:21:29like because of Dei we're going to see
1:21:31planes falling out of the sky and the
1:21:33other one was like porn and video gaming
1:21:35or burning young men's Brains and both
1:21:37of them sounded kind of plausible I'm a
1:21:38good data guy I figured it would take
1:21:39like half Daya check these I looked
1:21:41they're just I mean like the
1:21:43first claim planes are falling out of
1:21:45the sky only like 5% of Pilots are
1:21:47minorities and they're all like
1:21:4950-year-old veterans 3.5% black almost
1:21:53all X army and Air Force
1:21:552.2% Asian almost all X army and Air
1:21:57Force either here or somewhere else
1:21:59they're some of the best Pilots to find
1:22:01this out all you have to do is go to the
1:22:02FAA so I mean like once you know that if
1:22:05you still keep saying yeah see a black
1:22:06pilot that plane's plunging yeah this
1:22:08just racism so how do you know that you
1:22:10just go to the FAA you check the number
1:22:11of black pilots and you check their
1:22:13scores to the extent you can that's it
1:22:15that done did did it it's not a problem
1:22:18done you know um the porn and gaming
1:22:20thing that's a more interesting one
1:22:22obviously if you're a guy speaking to
1:22:23the young man you shouldn't spend all
1:22:25day sitting around your house in your
1:22:26pajamas watching other people have sex
1:22:28and shooting people that don't exist but
1:22:30like the actual idea of like do these
1:22:32men's minor
1:22:33vices do these affect your brain is it
1:22:37like dopamine surging that's going to
1:22:40affect you more anything else if you do
1:22:42an hour with the dopamine research you
1:22:43find that everything causes dopamine to
1:22:46Surge in your body uh scoring when you
1:22:48play basketball does no pun intended
1:22:50actually having sex certainly does about
1:22:52twice as much as either pornography or
1:22:53gaming boxing like you can think some of
1:22:56these things are healthy and some of
1:22:57them aren't but there's absolutely no
1:22:59evidence that the normal level of usage
1:23:01of either of those things has any effect
1:23:02on guys I looked at the uh sex crime
1:23:06rate over the years to see if there's
1:23:08any evidence that correlates with like
1:23:09pornography use I found two things one
1:23:12guys have been using a lot of arguably
1:23:14too much porn since like 1980 that's
1:23:17when stores selling it popped up in
1:23:19every good siiz town we don't have those
1:23:21anymore so you have to look at alternate
1:23:23mechanisms of delivery
1:23:25that's the same amount and
1:23:28two like I guess the point would just be
1:23:31no there's no correlation between that
1:23:32and rap if anything there's a slight
1:23:34decrease people are at home they're
1:23:36interacting less with women so you can
1:23:38say look I think this is morally trash
1:23:41uh you know get out of your house get a
1:23:43job but you certainly can't say like the
1:23:45young men of this country are being
1:23:47driven mad that's that's wrong so very
1:23:50often you can just empirically look at
1:23:52data on the left or the right and see
1:23:54what reality is I think that's the point
1:23:55there Alex Epstein who's A friend of
1:23:58mine has his book The Fossil future oh
1:24:01makes a point along these lines that I
1:24:03really like a lot which is he says look
1:24:06um the problem we have is not that we
1:24:09don't have good expertise we actually
1:24:12have pretty good expertise the problem
1:24:14is that the information system that
1:24:16takes the underlying like legitimate
1:24:20people's
1:24:21research turns it into prog aggressively
1:24:25more idiotic nonsense with each each
1:24:28iteration it's it's this sort of um it's
1:24:32just like the most regressive thing ever
1:24:34by the time you get to a politician you
1:24:36start with like in the case of climate
1:24:39change which is the focus of that book
1:24:41um the worst case scenarios of the
1:24:43ipcc's underlying report says that
1:24:46Humanity will be two times richer in
1:24:492100
1:24:51yeah and then and then by the time you
1:24:53get to
1:24:55AOC she's like we're all going to be
1:24:57dead in 12 years there and that is like
1:24:59a statement that is just a whole cloth
1:25:02fabrication but each step along the way
1:25:05more nonsense is added until we're in
1:25:07full-blown lying making stuff up on on
1:25:10the Fly how do you think about that Pro
1:25:13like how do you understand that process
1:25:16of Corruption of expertise yeah I think
1:25:20that's something everyone sees as an
1:25:22author or a writer I mean even for
1:25:24myself I love all my Publishers but I
1:25:26always joke that your book if it's going
1:25:27to be a potential bestseller is going to
1:25:29end up with some title like I mean even
1:25:31like M like hate crime hoax how the
1:25:32other side's selling a war and you know
1:25:34you're just used to that as an author
1:25:36but if you ever talk to a Sci-Fi author
1:25:37like sitting there saying it with it
1:25:39right over your shoulder I love the book
1:25:40I love regnery but it's it's just
1:25:42something like I once asked a Sci-Fi
1:25:44author why the cover of his book it was
1:25:46like a woman on all fours holding a
1:25:48sword and like the book itself is this
1:25:50well-written book about like Wars in
1:25:52Another Universe and he was like do you
1:25:53think i' painted the cover bro like it's
1:25:55it's just everything that you present to
1:25:57the public as I'm sure you know is going
1:25:59to be run through marketing it's going
1:26:01to be run through 15 or2 people that
1:26:03read it it's going to be run through
1:26:04reviewers and yeah it's going to come
1:26:06out differently uh my academic and
1:26:08public intellectual articles are often
1:26:09treated in the same way you know I'll
1:26:12say something like you know there's
1:26:14still racism but affirmative action
1:26:15counters it and the headline will be
1:26:17like Uncle Tom Riley says no systemic
1:26:19racism exists you know so that's the
1:26:23that's the type of you're going to see
1:26:25with climate change and with fossil
1:26:26fuels I do think this is problematic
1:26:28because we're not just talking about
1:26:29even something as important as ethnic
1:26:30fighting we're talking about something
1:26:32that people really genuinely think is
1:26:34going to kill them what the climate
1:26:37change data because I suspect this will
1:26:38have a decent a pretty large audience
1:26:39what the climate change data actually
1:26:41finds is that in about 125 years the
1:26:45world's going to be 2.5 degrees warmer
1:26:47and that could have some pretty
1:26:49substantial impacts so what they say
1:26:52very often in the papers is if we don't
1:26:55meet this carbon threshold we won't be
1:26:57able to go back and deaths will occur
1:26:59which is correct like we won't be able
1:27:02to get back to X level of temperature
1:27:04for like a thousand years and that'll
1:27:05cause 20,000 deaths and I don't want to
1:27:08say that doesn't matter but there are 8
1:27:09billion people in the world so that's
1:27:11the original starting analysis and this
1:27:14will be part of a paper that's chocka
1:27:16block with graphs like I'm you you
1:27:18mentioned that one of them is going to
1:27:19be income of the world during each of
1:27:21these hypothetical years that always
1:27:23increases so when people say climate
1:27:25change will cost $20 trillion that's
1:27:27against a baseline of whatever like
1:27:30income would be three times as high
1:27:32inste it'll be twice as high and that's
1:27:34if we choose to make the decision to
1:27:35bail out Somalia and India now again
1:27:37there's a you know a ruthless Roman
1:27:40Emperor frame you would just say sort of
1:27:41like why would we why would we support
1:27:44our lower income enemies uh they can I
1:27:47mean you know but I I think in the USA
1:27:50given our current level of guilt and
1:27:51India is not an enemy um Somalia it
1:27:54guess isn't currently we fought them but
1:27:56I mean I I think we probably will do
1:27:58that so what you're talking about is you
1:28:00know drop from 3x to 2x that's what we
1:28:03lose a hundred billion or hundred
1:28:05trillion dollars means deaths will occur
1:28:07means there are certain projections
1:28:08caused by heat death and they haven't
1:28:10adjusted for cold death yet I'm I'm kind
1:28:12of going on and on here but if you
1:28:13actually take the full paper it includes
1:28:15a ton of things what they take is the
1:28:17one
1:28:18sentence irreversible death will occur
1:28:21and that even that that's like the New
1:28:22York Times so okay we understand human
1:28:24death will occur that is tragic or so it
1:28:27is conventional to pretend that humans
1:28:28are mortal creatures um you know the
1:28:31other options might be worse but from
1:28:34there you go to like AOC who reads a
1:28:36paragraph long synopsis from her
1:28:38staffers and who says we're all going to
1:28:40die we've got 12 years or death that's
1:28:43what the full paper which is 115 pages
1:28:45with Graphics is condensed to because in
1:28:4812 Years it'll be impossible to reverse
1:28:50one quarter of one degree of climate
1:28:52change which is projected to cause X
1:28:54number of heat fatalities but also to
1:28:57save X number of lives as cold
1:28:58fatalities decrease so there's the wonky
1:29:00reality and then there's the crazy crazy
1:29:02spin on
1:29:03it um as we uh I think come to a close I
1:29:09I want to talk about how you think about
1:29:12where we
1:29:14head um in this world of like
1:29:17information so you know you are looking
1:29:21at the data you are a social science
1:29:23you're political scientist you're doing
1:29:25social science you're trying to do it
1:29:27honestly and now we have this world in
1:29:31which
1:29:33um we've got chat Bots and all kinds of
1:29:35things that are making it I think even
1:29:37harder to necess you know what's the
1:29:40true
1:29:41sources
1:29:43what where are my senses going to get
1:29:46tricked are you optimistic or
1:29:48pessimistic about like where we're
1:29:50heading as a as a society specifically
1:29:53in in the West like America the you know
1:29:57the Western world are we um have we
1:30:01peaked are we going to keep muddling our
1:30:04way through to A Better Tomorrow H how
1:30:06do you think about this I'm optimistic
1:30:08about our upper end and overall
1:30:10technological level I'm pessimistic
1:30:13about our average General level of
1:30:15knowledge and I I would distinguish
1:30:17those two pretty sharply so I think in
1:30:20terms of everyday quality of life
1:30:23provided by still not totally insane
1:30:25leadership class the world in 100 years
1:30:27will be better than the world world
1:30:28today I don't think anyone disagrees
1:30:30with that I don't think any most people
1:30:32think we'll have some kind of crude form
1:30:33of fusion power I don't think anyone
1:30:36denies that we'll have human space
1:30:37colonies the dragon and the eagle be
1:30:39Waring in space that kind of thing in
1:30:41terms of the level of knowledge that the
1:30:43average person has I think that we're
1:30:45going to have a lot of Idiocracy light
1:30:47going on um I mean if you look at this
1:30:50from a bluntly if you look at this from
1:30:52any perspective culturalist the friends
1:30:54the schools are going um hereditarian
1:30:56we're not supposed to ever discuss
1:30:58genetics but I mean the less educated
1:31:01you are the more likely you are to have
1:31:02multiple children in the USA right now I
1:31:04mean just like on and on and on through
1:31:06all the trend lines it's very likely
1:31:09that they're going to be a lot of people
1:31:10who aren't extraordinarily functional
1:31:13and who are going to be fed kind of paum
1:31:17uh very consistently like the chatbot
1:31:19thing what is it Google Genesis or
1:31:21genery or whatever that was like the
1:31:23pope all the if you ask them to generate
1:31:25an image of the Pope it's all like
1:31:27muscular black guys and Native American
1:31:29women and old Indian presses right now
1:31:33it's completely nuts you like can't get
1:31:35Google's chat bot to generate uh white
1:31:39people and I hate saying white people
1:31:41because especially as an Italian
1:31:42American I've never grown up thinking
1:31:44myself as white it's such like a
1:31:46ludicrous metaphysical category but even
1:31:49so according to according to google
1:31:52sorry I can't do that like you try it
1:31:54you can replicate this as of today hey
1:31:57create an image of a white family no I
1:31:59can't do that anything about race I
1:32:01can't do hey generate a Chinese family
1:32:03sure generate a black family sure yeah
1:32:06but I mean I I think that that's going
1:32:07to be that the the crudeness is going to
1:32:10be taken out of it so heterodox upper
1:32:12middle class people won't have something
1:32:14that can so easily criticize but you see
1:32:16this already across the map right now
1:32:18like if you are an ordinary midwit high
1:32:21school student and it feels mean to say
1:32:22midwit high school student none of them
1:32:24are geniuses yet you know but if you're
1:32:25just a guy who's in Iowa future IQ 105
1:32:30you have a paper to write you want to go
1:32:31out with your girlfriend after and you
1:32:33Google like daily wire to see what the
1:32:35top conservative brand is doing you're
1:32:36going to notice that there 14 pages of
1:32:39negative scandals and reports and so on
1:32:41and then a few positive comments about
1:32:42the host and you're going to probably
1:32:44assume that that reflects the reality
1:32:46around the show those boys must have
1:32:48done something awful because you're just
1:32:50a normal person you don't think
1:32:51Wikipedia is run by a cabal of frequent
1:32:55editors who are mostly Junior professors
1:32:57at semi- Elite second tier colleges and
1:33:00they've gotten so crazy with their
1:33:02reviews that the founder of the site has
1:33:04gone Rebel and is on Twitter saying it's
1:33:06worthless you don't know that I mean so
1:33:09that is you're just G to say okay daily
1:33:12wire maybe I won't get my news from them
1:33:14you know and that kind of thing that is
1:33:16the real risk with AI chatbots just like
1:33:18I don't think climate change is a risk
1:33:20to destroy the world I don't think these
1:33:22chatbots are going to take over and
1:33:23start sending missiles flying into human
1:33:26cities to reduce Global temperature or
1:33:28something like that all you have to do
1:33:29is program them not to like I mean I
1:33:32I've talked to some very high-end
1:33:34computer scientists about this and it's
1:33:36like can they actually achieve sapience
1:33:38and the computer science as opposed to
1:33:40philosophy of science guys are like no
1:33:42all you have to do is program the damn
1:33:45thing that it has to take orders from
1:33:47humans and the control la like there are
1:33:49a dozen things you can do I tend to
1:33:51assume that that is true like I don't
1:33:54think that Google AI is going to control
1:33:57the world I think the real issue with
1:33:59Google AI is that it is going to contain
1:34:02and this would be just as bad if the
1:34:03right controlled it like what are some
1:34:05great birth control techniques for me as
1:34:07an 18-year-old girl that wants to party
1:34:09with her boyfriend Chastity like I mean
1:34:11it would be just like you could easily
1:34:13see the same things being put into I
1:34:16mean it does work 100% of the time what
1:34:19are the 100% accurate forms of birth
1:34:21control it's just abstinence pops up on
1:34:23the screen but I mean like you could
1:34:24easily see this kind of thing coming
1:34:26from the right as well but right now
1:34:29this is this is happening on the
1:34:30political left so I mean I think you're
1:34:32going to see these biases throughout the
1:34:34internet sphere in AI generation so like
1:34:38for example one of the ones that was
1:34:39genuinely offensive to me was the you if
1:34:41you ask Google whatever uh did Hamas
1:34:44commit rapes during the October 7th
1:34:47military campaign and have they
1:34:48committed otheres this is alleged but
1:34:51some call it racist and Hamas it so the
1:34:54claim is ready contested because Hamas
1:34:56denies it I mean that sort of thing is
1:34:59going to be an annoying second grade
1:35:02teacher stomping on you know a
1:35:05researcher's face forever unless it's
1:35:07unless it's stopped unless Elon or
1:35:09somebody gets in there and creates an
1:35:11anti-woke AI that would be absolutely
1:35:14obnoxious it would just be I mean it
1:35:15would generate nothing but like race
1:35:17realist research and you know hard R
1:35:21memes about politicians but I mean at
1:35:23least that would provide an
1:35:25alternative um are you
1:35:28uh do you think the best is behind the
1:35:32west and that the East is where we're is
1:35:35where um progress lies for Humanity how
1:35:38do you think about the biggest you know
1:35:40we talked a little bit about like
1:35:42Civilization how do you think about the
1:35:43path of civilization I know that's kind
1:35:45of like a ridiculously broad question
1:35:47that maybe is silly but I think it's
1:35:49genuinely hard to predict because at any
1:35:52point so there's a there's a series of
1:35:54novels called the draa novels written by
1:35:56SM Sterling about an alternate human
1:35:58civilization where they just adopt the
1:36:01philosophical ideas of makavelli and nii
1:36:03and Julius Caesar as opposed to the
1:36:05philosophical ideas of various Christian
1:36:07Saints and Martin Luther King so they
1:36:09become these ruthless conquerors they
1:36:10end up taking over the planet rather
1:36:12easily they beat us in What's called the
1:36:13final war and they become a slave
1:36:16Society but in fact slaves rise to many
1:36:17high positions and they go off into the
1:36:19Galaxy to fight aliens and the book is
1:36:21funny because it's presented no attempt
1:36:24to engage in moral pum and present these
1:36:27people as especially evil many
1:36:29westerners react to them as evil but my
1:36:31reaction reading the book is like well I
1:36:33personally disapprove of slavery and so
1:36:34because it Con contains sexual assault
1:36:36and that sort of thing but I mean this
1:36:39is just what a society founded on Roman
1:36:41principles that kept up their military
1:36:42training would have
1:36:45done the uh I mean are there any taboos
1:36:49we haven't talked about that you would
1:36:51like to opine on before we uh
1:36:54Bid Farewell no I think we got through
1:36:56most of them but I mean I will finish
1:36:58that last uh comment so I mean I think
1:37:00that the
1:37:01idea the idea of evil Beyond 12 human
1:37:05universals or so like eating the Flesh
1:37:06of man child rape that kind of thing is
1:37:09really pretty meaningless I mean every
1:37:11Arab I know thinks of only fans as evil
1:37:14so in the
1:37:17USA we right now have adopted a very
1:37:20very soft kind of post post
1:37:24postchristian morality that I sometimes
1:37:26half jokingly call prey morality where
1:37:28the most important idea is empathy why
1:37:31should we open the Border because those
1:37:32people deserve a better life uh I
1:37:34frankly don't think you can believe in
1:37:37that fashion and survive the ideas that
1:37:40you're advocating aren't really
1:37:41inherently any more real than anyone
1:37:44else's ideas including the dra's ideas
1:37:47and although they might seem morally
1:37:49more pleasant to most people they're
1:37:52going to inevitably Doom Society if you
1:37:54get enough hostile migrants for example
1:37:56that don't particularly like your
1:37:58culture at present or you do a number of
1:38:00other things like you refuse to fight
1:38:02Wars or you double spend on the welfare
1:38:04system with a non-sustainable population
1:38:07so if the West keeps going down that
1:38:09path I don't think that things are
1:38:10looking very good we'll we'll be here in
1:38:12200 years like Britain is but I don't
1:38:14necessarily think we're going to keep
1:38:16going down that path we'll probably find
1:38:18at some point some kind of mean between
1:38:21brutality and submission and continuous
1:38:23existing uh competition with China is
1:38:25very likely to prompt that but I guess
1:38:27as a last sentence we certainly are
1:38:29going to see the rise of the great
1:38:31minority Powers that's what the bricks
1:38:33are and I guess PE people of color
1:38:35aren't minorities in these countries but
1:38:36I mean bricks is China Brazil Russia
1:38:39India South Africa and Nigeria now
1:38:42tagged on I think Ethiopia has jumped
1:38:43into the alliance so it's kind of like
1:38:46India China and Rising Africa very
1:38:48explicitly saying they're going to
1:38:50challenge the west and unless we respond
1:38:52I mean yeah the challenge will be
1:38:53successful but I I can't imagine we
1:38:54don't respond at all there is one thing
1:38:57I uh in a let me fake out our ending
1:39:00that I want to I do want to raise before
1:39:01we go and that is immigration so you've
1:39:03written about this in in your books and
1:39:06um and and I have very mixed feelings
1:39:10about this philosophically I'm very
1:39:11libertarian oriented and so I'm inclined
1:39:15towards a a fairly open immigration
1:39:19position like okay hey I I
1:39:21don't America was built on relatively
1:39:24open immigration I can't really imagine
1:39:26a merit-based criteria that would have
1:39:28allowed my
1:39:30Sicilian you know great grandparents to
1:39:33come in who
1:39:35were you know wouldn't have checked any
1:39:37box on yeah we want these people um
1:39:41what's your position on what immigration
1:39:44should be and um make the case for it
1:39:48yeah I mean I I think my position is
1:39:50pretty easy to make the case for
1:39:52actually again a lot of this gets back
1:39:53to morality uh I think my default
1:39:56position I don't mean this to sound kind
1:39:57of cocky or faux internet sociopathic or
1:40:00anything but I don't think there are any
1:40:01ultimate morals at all in the sense of
1:40:03reviewed by a personal God in a world
1:40:05Beyond this one there's very little if
1:40:07any evidence of that I think there are
1:40:0910 or 12 human universals that you know
1:40:12no honorable Warrior would violate I've
1:40:14given two of them but I mean there
1:40:15others don't have sex with your parents
1:40:16and so on the anthropologists have done
1:40:18a good job of compiling I mean see
1:40:19people react with visceral disgust When
1:40:21you mention them and that that's really
1:40:22the Baseline of the disgusted reflex I
1:40:24mean would I eat someone no I mean but
1:40:26and almost everything else beyond that
1:40:28like your view of consensual fighting
1:40:29between men your view of premarital sex
1:40:32your view of drug use I mean that's
1:40:35varied incredibly widely across
1:40:37societies and you know this is in law
1:40:40what is it um malam Deus and malamin say
1:40:44I mean there are very few things that
1:40:45are considered inherently bad unprovoked
1:40:47murder of a woman of your tribe and then
1:40:50there are a bunch of other things that
1:40:51are against the law because they're
1:40:52against the law and that that annoys a
1:40:54certain kind of person especially a
1:40:56Libertarian when you say that but it's
1:40:58actually a pretty good reason for
1:40:59something to be against the law like we
1:41:00found that car wrecks increased by 30%
1:41:03when we legalize weed so we made weed
1:41:05illegal again okay I'm fine with that um
1:41:08so my migration position falls into this
1:41:10perspective it's not ultimate it's not
1:41:12one of the 12 so the you're making a
1:41:15policy that makes the most sense for
1:41:16your Society at that time my my
1:41:18migration policy would be absolutely
1:41:20anti-racist but it would be merit-based
1:41:22I would in people and it wouldn't just
1:41:25be like five it wouldn't I we probably
1:41:27would have let in most of the historical
1:41:28Italians you'd have to show that you are
1:41:30non crazy
1:41:32employable IQ or some similar metric
1:41:36over whatever you know how would I
1:41:38actually phrase this non-criminal sane
1:41:41not Afflicted with one of several of
1:41:43what we categorized as plague level
1:41:45diseases you know reasonably fit with
1:41:48some exception made for elders and Elite
1:41:50scientists and so on and Baseline mental
1:41:52function over level X over our
1:41:54population mean in the South or
1:41:56something like that so we would let in a
1:41:58good number of people and say when you
1:42:00have that standard you let in 1.5
1:42:01million a year or whatever to balance
1:42:03our rate of population decrease I just
1:42:06pulled that completely out of my ass but
1:42:07it's a good immigration plan and it
1:42:09would actually work quite well and I
1:42:11don't mean to be gber cruit about that
1:42:12but like you it's not that hard to
1:42:14design a system that works you don't
1:42:16want criminals you don't want lunatics
1:42:18you want hardworking men and women
1:42:21here's the cut off you do have to take a
1:42:22mental test we might throw EQ in there
1:42:24that's it um why don't I want the same
1:42:28policy because we didn't have any sort
1:42:29of proven employability or you know
1:42:32mental barriers for immigrants in 1880
1:42:36why wouldn't I want the exact same
1:42:37policy why would I be a bit more
1:42:39restrictive um because we're not the
1:42:41America of 1880 we don't need young
1:42:44fighters from around the world to come
1:42:45over here and Challenge commanches and
1:42:47grizzly bears I mean that it's really
1:42:50that simple like we were a very unfilled
1:42:52country
1:42:53I remember there was a moment that's
1:42:55been depicted in a couple western movies
1:42:57where the two railroad Crews I think one
1:42:59was Irish one was Chinese American kind
1:43:01of linked the East and the West Coast
1:43:03with this the old rod iron track that
1:43:06the great native tribes couldn't tear up
1:43:07I mean they built this thing this steel
1:43:09road across the country great
1:43:10achievement that we've now forgotten but
1:43:13I mean the reason that that didn't
1:43:15happen until 1890 or whatever it was is
1:43:18that there were these Warrior nations in
1:43:21the middle it's a great it's a stretch
1:43:22of 3,000 miles of land so that was the
1:43:25environment that the Dutch and Irish and
1:43:28so on homesteaders were coming into uh
1:43:30they knew they were going to have to
1:43:31fight they knew they were going to have
1:43:32to get in CED wagons and move west
1:43:34unless they wanted to stand some teaming
1:43:35Urban slum now that's not the case I
1:43:37mean we're a modern welfare state you
1:43:39know we're on par with Germany or France
1:43:42or near when it comes to the benefits we
1:43:44offer if if welfare use rate for
1:43:46immigrants I thought this was racist
1:43:48calumny when I first heard it but I
1:43:50checked it out from Center for
1:43:51immigration studies which is quite a
1:43:52respectable group it's accurate uh
1:43:54welfare use rate for first generation
1:43:56legal immigrants is 58% right now so
1:43:59obviously at some point you have to
1:44:00crack down on that I mean you can't
1:44:02bring in a massive population of people
1:44:05that are going to use your welfare
1:44:07system until death and then produce you
1:44:10know a generation of people that do fine
1:44:12second generation Hispanics as well as
1:44:13anybody else as far as I understand but
1:44:15that that doesn't make sense it would
1:44:17make more sense to encourage native born
1:44:18white black whatever Americans to have
1:44:20kids to literally take that money and
1:44:22subsidize
1:44:24family planning in a non-genic way I
1:44:26mean so that that's the cut off that's
1:44:29the difference between then and uh now I
1:44:33think um um as a political
1:44:38scientist there's an assumption that
1:44:40you've made that I'm curious what it
1:44:42rests on which is that our policies will
1:44:46be somehow rational in the same way that
1:44:48you can make a rational argument for
1:44:51something that sounds like kind of
1:44:52common sense like okay let's let plenty
1:44:55of people in so long as they're not
1:44:56diseased crazy criminals okay that seems
1:45:00like a pretty decent humanistic pretty
1:45:02simple good um and yet we live in a
1:45:05world where uh becoming a legal citizen
1:45:08of this country is really hard and takes
1:45:11forever and so that creates a black
1:45:13market that
1:45:14sucks um so so our politics doesn't seem
1:45:17to be rational right now now how do you
1:45:20you teach politics you are political
1:45:22scientists how do you understand what
1:45:25the political process actually is and
1:45:28does that mean does that make you more
1:45:29or
1:45:30less believing that it can deliver
1:45:33anything reasonable well I I think that
1:45:35and this is a very important point the
1:45:37political process comes down to the
1:45:38people in the country I mean one of the
1:45:40reasons that politics is so ineffective
1:45:42is that when the average citizen doesn't
1:45:44know anything I mean they're they're
1:45:47busy working but also they're Bamboozled
1:45:48by nonsense from MSNBC and the new
1:45:51right-wing networks on the other side so
1:45:53on down the line when the average
1:45:55citizen doesn't know that much it's
1:45:56increasingly hard to get them involved
1:45:58in governance and that's where you get
1:46:00these crazy policies I mean people that
1:46:02are very aware of what they think the
1:46:03government should do I think lobbyists
1:46:06write about 40% of the legislation in DC
1:46:08right now they go in and they take
1:46:09charge and that's one reason by the way
1:46:11the right hasn't made any moves on
1:46:12immigration I mean if you look at this
1:46:14uh this latest immigration bill that
1:46:16came through the house the right first
1:46:17agreed on a cap of 8,500 migrants per
1:46:21day before he pressed the panic button
1:46:22then torpedoed it cuz big Donald Trump
1:46:25didn't want it I mean it's just they
1:46:26weren't any more rational about this
1:46:28than the left was the reason for this is
1:46:30that business loves illegal immigration
1:46:31and business is still about half the
1:46:33right I mean that that's it that's the
1:46:34reason when I've been in business
1:46:36meetings and we've talked about
1:46:37migration just casually before things
1:46:39started but I know these same people
1:46:40today I mean there are two reactions
1:46:42three reactions one is who gives a
1:46:44I'm a Libertarian which I mean you and
1:46:46to some exent me were like whatever but
1:46:48I mean it's it's not like you're talking
1:46:49about murder here people were carpenters
1:46:51and montere want to come here and be
1:46:52carers okay uh a second perspective is
1:46:55it drives down American wages which is
1:46:57the main reason that I am against Mass
1:46:59certainly illegal immigration and
1:47:01economists pretend to debate this
1:47:02business people know it
1:47:03does I mean like you keep hearing this
1:47:06stuff like well Americans won't go do
1:47:08stoop labor in the Strawberry Fields
1:47:10it's because it pays $9 an hour like I'd
1:47:13be i' be still pretty fit I'd be willing
1:47:14to walk around throwing berries in a bag
1:47:16for $50 an hour even if it meant the
1:47:17berry price increased by x amount but um
1:47:21that's not the case and so you're going
1:47:23to get mostly a young migrant mostly
1:47:25male labor or Workforce that's point two
1:47:27and point three is I love my nanny like
1:47:31if you're a member of the upper middle
1:47:32class and you live in Chicago or New
1:47:34York or LA or San Francisco or San
1:47:36Bernardino you're going to receive the
1:47:39benefits of immigration with none of the
1:47:41negatives I mean like almost everyone
1:47:43that comes over and makes your lawn look
1:47:45good plants those tropical plants you
1:47:47know takes care of the house takes care
1:47:49of the pool is going to be from
1:47:50somewhere else they're doing those jobs
1:47:52for half the price of the Americans that
1:47:53used to so I mean I I think that that's
1:47:56one of the reasons that the gops had
1:47:57such a hard time condemning Mass illegal
1:48:00migration the the people the GOP base is
1:48:03like workingclass white guys or the
1:48:05smattering working-class Spanish and
1:48:06black guys by this point like they don't
1:48:09approve of this at all but the if you
1:48:11look at say Mitt Romney or something
1:48:13like that there's no hostility toward
1:48:14migrants at all yeah it's a very
1:48:16interesting uh snapshot of a of a world
1:48:19that's on
1:48:20the that's it's hard to know what's
1:48:23nonsense and what's not in this in this
1:48:26conversation as your what are you
1:48:28working on right now what's the what's
1:48:29the next
1:48:31great uh taboo for Wilford Riley to
1:48:34smash through well right now I'm really
1:48:36working on promoting uh lives my liberal
1:48:38teacher told me I mean so I've written
1:48:40four books at this point which is not
1:48:42bad it's kind of getting over the first
1:48:44two or three that's well first of all
1:48:46it's kind of silly arrogant thing to say
1:48:48I mean most people aren't University
1:48:49professors or detective novelist don't
1:48:51write any books at all but like it's
1:48:52kind of like releasing a rapper country
1:48:54album like many people have done that
1:48:55once Millions but you that have to sell
1:48:58enough to get to the second I did that
1:49:00so then you've got the third major press
1:49:02book I mean the first one's a small
1:49:03academic
1:49:04monograph
1:49:05um yeah yeah that's a fair description
1:49:08it's literally my dissertation just
1:49:11printed so I'm talking about that and I
1:49:13also I have a lot to do really I mean I
1:49:17teach three or four classes every
1:49:18semester I'm a weekly columnist for
1:49:21National Review I'm actually a little
1:49:22behind on that I usually submit about 3
1:49:23weeks out of a month and so I basically
1:49:27focus on my core tasks like this is the
1:49:30stuff I have to get done you know knock
1:49:32that out and then see what else is
1:49:33available I expect I'll write another
1:49:35book I mean and I'd be interested in
1:49:38updating some of Thomas Soul's work in
1:49:40the past you know like what does ethnic
1:49:43America look like now for example but I
1:49:44mean all that would require a lot of
1:49:46approval from from the big guy and from
1:49:48a Publishing House buying it and that
1:49:50kind of thing so right now just just the
1:49:52book itself and the other the other
1:49:54things I
1:49:55do um do you
1:49:58think college is worth
1:50:02it uh in general but I think so I think
1:50:06a lot of things can be easily Pro easily
1:50:09purchased for less than the average kind
1:50:12of upmiddle class citizen pays for them
1:50:14so my cars are relatively recent
1:50:16relatively recent year Mercedes I bought
1:50:19it from a friend who owns a car
1:50:20dealership after some negotiations for
1:50:23you know more money like more than
1:50:24$10,000 but not a massive amount of
1:50:27money it was just you can look around
1:50:28you can find dealerships you can go on
1:50:30pages of ads for vehicles and call
1:50:33people it's the same sort of thing with
1:50:35any kind of purchase and I didn't just
1:50:37bring that up to discuss in my own life
1:50:38I'm saying that that is a practical
1:50:40reality that I found applies to
1:50:43virtually everything and again that
1:50:44comes from that kind of sales background
1:50:46and also that legal negotiating
1:50:48background I think uh with college the
1:50:50question is how to make college or how
1:50:52to make educ work for you so I mean
1:50:55first of all if you go to the Army which
1:50:56is something I'd recommend for a lot of
1:50:58students I have who need some maybe a
1:51:00little more disciplined whatever um
1:51:03college is free for four to four and a
1:51:05half years so you're not necessarily
1:51:07going to be in Afghanistan In the Heat
1:51:11of the
1:51:12fighting in any particular time if you
1:51:14do that you're very likely to be in
1:51:15Germany something like that picking up
1:51:17job skills then you can come back and
1:51:18decide whether you still need a degree
1:51:20you can go to Community College for
1:51:21generally about $3,000 a year and knock
1:51:24out your first two to two and a half
1:51:25years so I I certainly think that going
1:51:27to college and getting a four-year
1:51:30degree using practical strategy is is
1:51:33worth doing and there just there reasons
1:51:35for that like at a typical good college
1:51:37a KSU or UK down the road University of
1:51:41Kentucky Northern Kentucky certainly I
1:51:44mean the level above that with the ivys
1:51:46something like that the networking you
1:51:48can do uh you're a member of a Greek
1:51:50organization you have a 50 friends from
1:51:52college that kind of thing is is going
1:51:53to be very difficult to replicate
1:51:55outside that environment the learning
1:51:57you're going to do with in-class
1:51:59professors is going to be very difficult
1:52:01to replicate outside that environment
1:52:03there are online universities and quote
1:52:06unquote universities but I mean like
1:52:08half my half the students you get in
1:52:10college probably don't read now I mean I
1:52:12don't think too many people are going to
1:52:13sit down and read like in my
1:52:14constitutional Law class an 800 page
1:52:16book about court cases from Brett
1:52:18Schneider Without You Know The Faculty
1:52:20down in the front of the room so those
1:52:22two things and then three just the
1:52:24college Ambiance what's an RA what's a
1:52:26keg party I mean what what what is an
1:52:30internship look like how do you get one
1:52:32all those things that you're going to
1:52:33need to pass on to your kids again in
1:52:36sort of normal up mid life those come
1:52:38out of the college and grad school
1:52:40experience so yeah I think it's it's
1:52:42worth it but you should you should
1:52:43manage your money you should know what
1:52:45field you're going to go into that
1:52:46should ideally be something like
1:52:47engineering or one of the harder social
1:52:49sciences if you're on the the soft side
1:52:52Quant political science is certainly
1:52:54employable there are things you don't
1:52:56need to go to college for like sales uh
1:52:59we were notorious for not hiring people
1:53:01with that background on sales floors I
1:53:03mean we can teach you how to do that in
1:53:04two weeks we'd be more interested in a
1:53:06philosopher or something like that um
1:53:08but for the majority of people I guess
1:53:10this is a lengthy yeah it's worth doing
1:53:12but weigh your financial options don't
1:53:14go deep in debt know what degree you
1:53:16need um I ask this of every guest uh
1:53:20because we're call Dad Saves America and
1:53:23I try to tackle all kinds of big issues
1:53:25that we're facing you know as people but
1:53:28all but usually through that lens of the
1:53:30country and of our kids and um and so
1:53:34how do you think about your role in this
1:53:37American
1:53:38story well I mean I actually I don't
1:53:41want to get back to the like I don't
1:53:43believe that our rules are entirely real
1:53:46and so but I mean I think that my role
1:53:49is my goal for my life was would quite
1:53:52frankly be without you know hurting
1:53:55people too dramatically to be as happy
1:53:57as possible um it would actually be
1:53:59quite simple so I don't I don't have a
1:54:02grand goal I would like um contentment
1:54:06wealth continued development of my
1:54:08writing and artistic abilities the
1:54:10things most people would like and that I
1:54:12suppose would be my my primary goal and
1:54:14every time we look in actual
1:54:16psychological literature other than you
1:54:18know caring for your wife or fiance
1:54:19which I also of course do your family
1:54:21which I also of course do that's the
1:54:22primary goal for most people who are
1:54:23honest anonymously in my role in this
1:54:26American Pageant or something like that
1:54:27I mean I think I'm a citizen and I think
1:54:30I'm in a in the classical sense of the
1:54:32term and I think I'm in a privileged
1:54:34position where I can tell the truth a
1:54:36lot I'm not brutally struggling
1:54:38financially I have tenure at a college I
1:54:41know how to do reasonably complex
1:54:43statistical analysis so if someone says
1:54:45something even like the things we've
1:54:47been talking about like black Pilots are
1:54:48more likely to kill you I can check for
1:54:5050 minutes and see whether or not that's
1:54:51true so I do feel to the extent I feel
1:54:54duties a Duty or an obligation to do
1:54:57that and I guess that would be my
1:54:58primary social
1:55:01contribution well Wilfred we've talked
1:55:04about a lot of things and uh you are a
1:55:07blast to talk through these things with
1:55:09so I really appreciate you coming on the
1:55:11show and I'm looking forward to our next
1:55:13conversation that sounds good thanks for
1:55:15having me on

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Wilfred Reilly Has the Real Data on Racism and Policing by Dad Saves America, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 22,394 words across 3,165 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.