Kind: captions
Language: en
welcome back to impact Theory as we dive
into part two Sam Harris and I confront
the Urgent matters of systemic racism
Trump the problem with the right and
rehash and old beef he had with me and
Constantine kiss's position let's get
back into
it um so the Border I think is something
that we can end up over focusing on I
think the border is a symptom of
something larger for me uh it is a few
different ideas that are um people are
in the grips of so so thing number one
is that for call it the last 50ish years
there's been a March through the
institutions with a radical Marxist just
uh directionalize it uh Viewpoint that
has come out to Dei and I think what Dei
is designed to do is break institutions
by
hijacking uh people's uh compassion
circuitry and that the real thing that
makes that stick is that also everybody
wants to do something incredibly
meaningful for the world and so you have
people that have a pretty cynical um
desire they're driven by Will To Power
and so their cynical desire is oh I can
break this institution I can tear it
down I can do my good thing in the world
uh by convincing people
to
um do make their contribution to the
World by just absolutely obliterating
power dynamics and that ultimately this
is a game of power being played but the
the sort of ground troops I think
oftentimes really do have wonderful
motives are motivated by compassion they
really want to help
um does that feel accurate or do you
think I'm oversimplifying or missing
something yeah I agree with that I think
um certainly most people most of the
time have uh reasonably good intentions
I mean incentives are a lot I mean
people can be relied upon to get pushed
around by what's in their self-interest
right so if you if you're going to make
windfall profits going down One path uh
even if that path seems uh ethically
suspect it's going to take a um a very
high integrity person to resist those
incentives um so what so the larger
solve here is we want systems of
incentives that make it easier and
easier for even selfish people to behave
more and more ethically and more even
more and more like Saints right if you
have the right system of incentives you
can even have sociopaths effectively
behaving like Saints because they're
just incent they're appropriately
incentivized to do that whereas if you
have the wrong incentives you can have
people who are nearly Saints behaving
like sociopaths because it's just that
the incentives are just overwhelmingly
aimed in the wrong direction um but I I
agree with you that um compassion has
been misdirected
and um just just informed by by bad
information I mean most people who think
to take something like defund the police
for instance that the worst um political
slogan ever patched um the people who
were in favor of defunding the police uh
I'm
sure 100% of them genuinely thought and
probably still think that there is an
epidemic of of you know racist police
violence aimed at at uh the black
community and that the way to address
that compassionately is to have fewer
cops on the streets right like this this
the real risk to young black men is that
they're going to get killed by cops
right that's just not true the real risk
to young black men or other young black
men this is just established Beyond any
possibility of Doubt by the actual
statistics on crime and violence in in
American society um and what you have in
the black community is is bad policing
failures of policing you know murders
don't get solved right petty crime you
have a history of a war the war drugs
which was targeted to to um
disproportionately to to minorities and
that has been terrible and has created a
cycle of incarceration that that has has
been a genuine source of misery and
unfairness in our society and so the War
on Drugs is its own problem and and what
it did to our justice system is is is
certainly worth analyzing and and not
making those mistakes again but when you
actually look at the reality of murder
in America it is overwhelmingly a story
of black men young black men killing
other young black men in the black
community and ineffective policing of
those crimes right and but even on that
and this is this is one of the areas
where I feel like people aren't having
the right they're not arguing at the
right level so I don't think anything
you said is untrue though people will
certainly debate that but compassion is
going to follow you here as well so when
you say uh why cops just really aren't
the problem the stats bear that out
immediately they're going to have an
emotional reaction they're they being um
activists that are trying to make life
better for young black men and so they
look at that and say okay well to to it
sounds Sam like you're trying to say
that there isn't a problem and even if
Sam well I I am literally saying there
isn't the that the problem they think
exists simply does not exist to the best
of our knowledge it it it exist I'm not
saying there's no racist cops out there
I mean yes but that is a rounding error
on the problem of lethal violence
against let me land the plan about what
happens to this part of the audience
when they hear you what they're thinking
in their minds is sure but the reason
that black-on-black violence is the real
concern even if I concede that point is
that they've grown up in a racist system
so of course uh that's going to be a
problem and what I'm saying is uh you
said earlier it's very hard to convince
people to change their mind and I think
the reason for that is what I call frame
of reference when somebody has a frame
of reference they're wearing What I Call
Whole Life beer goggles it just distorts
wildly everything that you see but
you're actually seeing it so you're
looking at it you actually see that this
is a problem of systemic racism that's
why my neighborhood is terrible that's
why black onblack violence is there and
so anybody that denies that is just part
of the systemic racist problem which is
why I don't even necessarily think
they're being manipulative when they say
anybody that denies this is just racist
plain and simple whether there's the
whole concept of um I don't need another
black face I need another black voice
right so that even if somebody um who is
Black is saying this just isn't true the
stats don't bear it out they're going to
get attacked as well because what
they're not addressing is the worldview
that says uh this isn't their fault and
that anybody that's being oppressed
anybody that's starting certainly
poverty is just such an easy way to see
somebody being crushed by some unseen
hand right you just go anybody being
crushed it is isn't their fault and
therefore I'm looking for an external
problem I am not saying hey even though
this isn't your fault that you're
growing up in poverty clearly it's not
your fault you were just born into it
bad luck uh but only you can do
something about it that's where the
Collision has to happen where it's like
I get it this isn't their fault poverty
is a cycle that people are just born
into but the only way out is for that
individual to do a
thing well they may need help I mean I I
I I think it's we we simply don't know
what the perfect social policy is to
eradicate inequality in our society I
think we should I think I think we
should
be I mean to two things are true
simultaneously it's I think it's it's
foolish to imagine that there will be no
inequality and it's I think it's even
foolish to imagine that we want a
society with zero inequality there
there's something about inequality that
is probably useful in a variety of ways
but you've already moved on and but but
no but but just let me just on the point
the the a certain degree of inequality
should be in it's right to play on our
compassion circuits it should be
intolerable to us if we have people
starving to death in America that's just
you know a level of dysfunction we have
to figure out somehow to some way to to
correct we don't have people starving to
death in America and that's that's a
that's one measure of how much better
life is in a society like ours than it
is elsewhere in in the world but we want
the floor to keep as as we produce more
and more wealth we want some of that
wealth to to continue to raise the floor
beneath which no one is going to fall in
our society so even the poorest person
in our society is much less poor than
they are in in subsaharan Africa and
much less poor than anyone was a 100
years ago and that's good that's
progress and we want I I think we we do
not want to live in a society where you
have a Genny Co coefficient like in
Brazil where that it becomes just
rational for rich people to live with
you know in gated compounds with razor
wire across the top because there's just
so much crime out on the sidewalk for
obvious reasons because people are
desperately poor and they're not
figuring out anything else creative to
do with their lives but to rob people
richer than than themselves well so this
this gets to the thing that I'm really
trying to drag people to and and there's
something about the way that I approach
this I am not able to get people um in
my Lane here the reason the Jenny
coefficient matters is is a true thing
about human psychology which is poverty
isn't a problem poverty next to wealth
is a problem because it triggers the I
know you know the capucha monkey thing
give a capucha monkey a cucumber for
doing a thing and is perfectly happy to
take it but it prefers grapes so if you
give its neighbor a grape for the same
task the kapo monkey getting the
Cucumber goes [ __ ] ballistic yanking
on their cage throwing the Cucumber back
at the person I mean it's absolutely
just funny if I'm honest just watching
it happen because you recognize the
truth of that in yourself as a human and
so what where I'm trying to get people
to go is because it's all started with
uh is the West committing suicide and if
it is committing suicide how do we
defend the West if if it is worth
defending I think you've already made a
good case that the West is worth
defending but the line that people need
to draw is it's worth defending because
it yielded better outcomes so now that
our current system is beginning to yield
a Genny coefficient that is bad we can
say okay something is starting to break
down and so now we need only address
that it is currently yielding an ever
increasing Genny coefficient and if we
know that leads to violence and our
norstar is human flourishing and humans
don't flourish in violence we now have a
system that is no longer outputting the
thing it needs to Output so to me the
West is predicated on one simple fact
some ideas yield better outcomes than
others you must put those ideas out into
a market place and let them compete so
we let people have free speech we let
people have private property we let
people generate wealth by creating
things that other people want and hey
even though it's a trade-off it is
definitely not a perfect system that you
can then just track based on results now
what I see breaking down is an assault
on results-based systems full stop
because they yield inequality and going
back to you have cynical actors driven
by built of power hijacking The
Compassion of people to get them to stop
looking at outcomes and so now you have
Thomas Soul's quote the last 30 years
have been marked by exchanging what
works meaning it yields an outcome with
what sounds good
so I'm I from what I can see the only
way to defend the West is to get people
to buy into some ideas yield better
outcomes and that we must judge every
social program every potential way that
we solve a problem through the outcome
that it
generates yeah I I just I mean there
there's a couping is there's intentions
you have to have the right intentions I
mean if you have bad intentions then
you're you're going to seek bad outcomes
so we don't want to Discount the role of
intention but yeah we we want to know
whether the the goods we're attempting
to achieve in the world are actually
achievable and if we're not if we're
producing Harms that that we don't want
we should be aware of that and we should
error correct and in so far as we don't
have systems that are responsive to that
or or or incentives that are responsive
to that that's that's clearly a problem
um we but we should recognize that there
are there consequences to just failing
to coordinate like if you take the
American society as a whole if you
have let's let's say I mean I'm not
saying we have good remedies for
homelessness in California but let's say
we did let's say we just had the most
compassionate and well-intended and in
fact wise policies with respect to
homelessness in in uh and what to do
about it in California and they didn't
have any of that in neighboring states
right in neighboring states they just
had a Draconian get off my lawn policy
right well then California is going to
attract all of the nation's homeless or
all of the homeless from the surrounding
states even with a good policy and and
be overrun and to some degree I I think
that's probably happened in California
uh because our doesn't that in to you
automatically mean it isn't a good
policy well no but I'm
saying idiot compassion can have bad
consequences that way where you just if
you're just essenti essentially
subsidizing fentanyl Addiction on your
sidewalks right that's obviously stupid
even locally but it's going to have this
Global consequence of of drawing more of
the the drug addicted and and and
homeless to you but I'm saying that even
if we had a good policy right which is
better than just funding drug addiction
on our sidewalks um if no if no other
neighboring states have good policies
well then we're still going to be
pulling more than our fair share and it
could break our system too so like we we
need we have a coordination problem that
we have to solve as a nation and
arguably as a as a global civilization I
think there there are problems that we
can't solve as a nation right I mean you
know climate change is not something any
one nation can
address and uh a global pandemic is not
something that any one nation can
address right so we need coordinated
efforts even at a global scale um and we
should recognize this even from a
position I mean you don't have to be a
saint or even to be especially motivated
by compassion to want these Goods to to
be shared broadly you just have to be
wisely selfish I mean you just have to
recogn no matter how selfish you are as
a a billionaire
in Silicon Valley no matter how much you
are taken in by the illusion that you
are completely self-made and that nobody
gave you you know nobody gave you any
help at all even though that you even
though you can't account for any of the
abilities and contexts that allowed you
to do the work you did right um but be
as be as resolutely selfish as you want
then ask yourself the question just how
many homeless people do you want to have
to step over on the sidewalk leaving
your compound right do you want to be a
do you want to feel unsafe at a
restaurant because there's so many
people panhandling you know at the
tables you know in the cafe do you want
to be able to sit outside in a
restaurant or is that going to be
Unthinkable now because there there's
there so much chaos on the street just
what sort of society do you want to be
in do you want to be surrounded by
desperate envious people or do you want
to be surrounded by creative
self-actualized happy people who can be
your customers and who are who are going
to who are going to celebrate your
success when you do when you do
something visibly successful or are you
going to or do you want to be surrounded
by people who are thinking maybe it's
time to get the pitchforks and murder
you right it's
like even just just just a psychopathic
commitment to self
should bear at least some some modum of
of of
um altruism with for for self
preservation alone you should want life
to be minimally good for everyone around
you and uh so I'm so we we don't need
widespread sainthood to get to to agree
on on policies that would would make
life better for more and more people and
and solve a problem like
homelessness what do you need then I
mean we well we need to cancel dumb
ideas right I mean they're they obvious
they're so for instance our default is
in America that in a in public space
we've got you know we've got freedom of
assembly right you should be able to
you're you are free to be on the
sidewalk right it's a public space it's
not you're not trespassing it's not a
private space and our default sense is
that someone should be free to live out
the chaos of their mental illness or
their drug addiction or their
violence on in front of us and even die
in front of us on the sidewalk and that
compassion the better part of compassion
is allowing that to happen allowing the
autonomy to of just living your
disregulation out in front of others and
it somehow is unseemly or bigoted or
otherwise selfish to point point to the
obvious social cost of having to live
with this dysfunction in our midst right
so so like that that to have to cross
the street with your children so as to
avoid the obviously insane or obviously
you know drug addicted uh person on this
side of the street that's a social CA
right that's a that is that is there are
businesses that aren't open opening or
that will soon be closing because of all
this chaos here there are parts of town
that you're not going to want you as as
a parent are not going to want to go go
to or have your kids go to those
restaurants will close right like I this
is this all of the spirals and we all
have an interest in figuring out how to
help that person and figuring out how
that help is best delivered in a way
that doesn't make this particular part
of the city and in some cases that some
of the nicest parts of the most valuable
parts of of a city uninhabitable and um
so we we we need policies that so in in
this specific case we we need a policy
that allows you to take someone off the
sidewalk and we and and and I
recognition that the really
compassionate thing to do is to intrude
into their lives and get them the help
they need at a place where it can be
delivered not not on the sidewalk in
front of a of a you know a department
store um
and yes these there are people who need
to be taken out of society and and
institutionalized in some sense whether
it's it's just deliver uh Rehabilitation
with respect to drug addiction or it's
or it's mental health treatment or
getting them on appropriate medication
um there's there are better and worse
ways to do this there's no there's no
perfect way to do any of this but why
don't we get these policies well because
so so at the first cut you have uh
people who have a very confused notion
of compassion which is uh it is to
intrude upon this person to not to move
them off the sidewalk to move them out
of your nice neighborhood to be
concerned in the first place about your
nice neighborhood for you rich guy to
care about crossing the street with your
kids right all of that is white
privilege and gentrification and and
completely
um uninteresting from an ethical
perspective like that is that is some
species of selfish evil does that like a
trick that has been played on people or
is that just accidental did that come
from a good place how did that narrative
get started well it's it's it's easy to
see
how if you have a very class-based view
of of everything and you you resent
certain parts of you you resent areas of
town becoming gentrified and and rents
going up and it becoming harder to live
in those areas because rents have gotten
higher like like if all that if that
whole process seems dystopian to you in
principle well then you're going to have
then then you're going to say all of
this is a consequence of of you the rich
people getting what they want and
extracting it from this part of society
right we wouldn't have this homelessness
problem in the first place if housing
was just more affordable that may be
true in a few cases some cases some
percentage of cases it's not true across
the board I mean so so much of of the
homeless problem is a problem of
Substance Abuse and Mental Illness right
it's not just that rents are too high um
but in so far as in so far as building
more housing and affordable housing is
the remedy we should do that but we have
to recognize it's not the remedy across
the board and we can't we in California
can't become a sanctuary for the entire
country's homeless problem um so it's
again it's requires a coordinated effort
across States but but you you have to
dissect that
each moment of moral confusion that is a
block a blocker to a a an actually comp
passionate and effective policy and the
first one here
is people have a right that person who's
who's lying in his own vomit in front of
a the J crew store on the
mall has just as much a right to be
there as you do to go shopping there
right and if you own J crew well you're
just a you're you know you're just some
rich guy who who um is worried about
your you know your retail business and
that's a completely superficial concern
compared to the real human emergency of
this person's life you know on the
sidewalk um and it stops there right you
you're you're some species of bigot to
not want to have to step over that
person in order to go into a store and
you're some species of bigot if you're a
store owner noticing your business being
destroyed by the dis by the chaos and
dysfunction on on on the sidewalk and
all of that class-based resentment
toward the rich people who are trying to
figure out how their
this this what used to be a nice
neighborhood got so ugly
um that has to be dissected and and
realigned with a really compassionate
policy which is you are not doing this
person any favors letting them bake in
the sun you know on fenel on a sidewalk
right like that is not the freedom you
should want them to be exercising right
you should you have to figure out a a a
a uh a policy by which you can intrude
upon their lives and and move them to a
place where they can actually get help
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Theory do you think simply um explaining
to people what the moral math ought to
be will actually make this happen or do
things have to get so bad that pain and
suffering plus having heard somewhere a
podcast at one time Sam Harris walks me
through the moral math swings us back in
the opposite direction well I I I don't
think there are that many Minds that
have to be changed I think you know the
people in charge the people who are on
our city councils and in the mayor's
offices and the governor Etc those are
the minds that have to be changed and
then we get we can get new policies um I
mean so far as you people have to vote
for initiatives all of that I mean there
there's there's a war of ideas that has
to be won but I don't think it's it's
hard to win it and certainly there's a
lot of lwh hanging fruit here I I think
the again to come back to where we
started with this conversation there
there's a
distortion uh that that social media has
has created for us where you have a very
small percentage of activists who are
seriously confused about right and wrong
and good and evil who are so loud on
social media that they cow everyone into
silence I mean it's just it's just so
painful to become the target of people
who have way too much time on their
hands uh uh on social media that that
people step away from it and it's but it
is a minority I mean we we just have a
very distorted sense of just how many
people are
I mean to take to take an issue we
haven't touched here but around which
there's a ton of activism like just just
just what percentage of people in the
trans Community are actually trans
activists who are making people's life
hell online right it's probably a small
percentage of even the trans community
and the trans Community is the tiniest
percentage of of any society and so you
have you have not a lot of people just
just going scorched Earth you know
online and and it's such that you I mean
it becomes a a a national political
priority if you're a Democrat to to
figure out just what's your policy on
the whole trans thing as though it's
like it's right up there with like you
know a civilizational collision with
China and Russia and Iran it's like we
got that here and then pretty much at
the same level we've got you know trans
athletes and trans baths and and
and uh you know I maybe have to give
equal time to those things right and
even if you're if you're Biden you know
I mean like I mean it's insane what he
has done to his own political prospects
just on that issue I'm not saying that
that you know that we shouldn't be
compassionate around the trans issue and
that we shouldn't have political
equality for Trans people all of that's
real and worth talking about but the
idea that that that you know Biden has
used the amount of political Capital
that he you know barely had
on that issue the way he has
um I mean it's just it's it's it's a a
pure Distortion based I think largely
upon what what activists have managed to
do on social
media there's a concept in finance about
debt cycles and that there's no escaping
the debt cycle and they don't take the
exact amount of time but there's six
stages uh that people move through you
start by reshuffling all the debt
usually through just blood death turmoil
uh you start building from the ground up
in this really great society that uh has
not tripped into uh over accumulating
debt yet has not had the inflationary
practice of printing money and you just
basically March your way towards the
sixth phase which is total collapse
because you've overprinted the money you
get hyperinflation uh your debt is just
unimaginably High and the only way to
discharge that is Through Blood letting
and so people war and fight and they
just say okay Jesus we're just just
going to let go of the old debt and
start a new and that's your cycle you go
over and over I um I don't want the
following statement to be true but I
worry that it might be that the um Good
Men hard times like that whole cycle is
just a cycle and we have to go through
it and that my earlier statement about
there just has to be enough pain where
uh your daughter gets attacked by a
crackhead uh on your doorstep and now
enough people have that kind of
experience that they just don't care
whether they sound PC or not they're
just like nope this isn't going to
happen anymore to your earlier point
about if uh the Democrats don't protect
the Border then fascists will like at
some point people have just had enough
and they're going to stand up and
they're going to take this back and you
get this violent swinging of the
pendulum um I would much prefer that
people can be persuaded with ideas but
when I look at the world
um I just
in the face of you saying there's only a
few people that have to have their minds
changed and I'm like you've been out
here for 20 years yelling into the wind
uh and I have certainly been influenced
by your ideas but it doesn't seem like
the right people are it seems instead
that people are breaking off into
different states and people are leaving
California going to Texas going to
Florida if they don't want to put up
with this kind of thing which is not in
my estimation the ideal scenario so do
you think that it just um there's a
better way to present these ideas and we
really will win at that level um
or not well I do worry about that that
kind of pendulum swing and and
um us
just losing our patience and losing our
cool and and suddenly becoming way more
callous than we are just because we are
swinging back we're swinging away from
some
um you
know s some very silly policies um and
their bad consequences I I think I mean
again I I've mentioned this a couple
times but it's just worth keeping in
mind um there is this massive problem of
preference falsification where you where
we it it is is seeming like many more
people agree with the the fringes than
do and the silence so the Silence of the
majority is being misread as as
agreement or at least just or or
certainly not disagreement and whereas
it really is just silence and in many
cases I I know this firsthand I there
are many people who agree with
me on my EDG as opinions and just would
never say anything in public I mean
they're so grateful that I'm out here
saying the things I'm saying so that
they don't have to but they don't see
the consequence of their silence in
their Lane whatever that that lane is um
because it seems like in most cases it
seems like mere acquiescence to the
crazy opinions that they're happy I'm
criticizing right so um so like I me
what you said about Dei right um I mean
until
yesterday to be against Dei in any in
any way really I mean to to to do
anything other than celebrate it as you
know finally we've
arrived is to be
racist and and to be called racist in in
America certainly is the wor it's it's
the worst thing you can be called
probably you know next to a pedophile um
and to merely be called it is to be
tainted with I mean to to be called it
with no justification is is in many
cases enough to to perform a kind of
reputational murder and
um and and that's just we have to grow
out of that you know we have to so if
you want to if you really want equality
if you really want to embrace M MLK's
vision of of valuing people based on the
content of their character and get past
the superficial differences of between
people like skin color you have to you
have to hold to that right and you can't
overcorrect into this ebex Kandi
anti-racist uh re you know I.E reversed
racist uh uh attitude which is white
people are bad and it's completely
legitimate to harm their interests
prefer preferentially because as a way
of correcting for all the history of
inequality in our society I'm not I mean
I I think it's totally valid to to look
at the consequences of past racism and
worry that there's something more we
should be doing to correct for the what
what is what is currently a status quo
that when you look at the details you
should still make people uncomfortable I
mean the fact that on average white
families have eight times the wealth of
black families in America
right to whatever degree past racism is
the reason why that's the case that is a
legacy that nobody should be happy about
and it's completely understandable that
there are people who look at that and
say okay well we should pay reparations
right that's the way to solve this
problem now I happen to think it's the
wrong way to solve the problem there's
and you if you if you want to hear
someone
withstanding on this topic talk about it
you can listen to John McWater and Glenn
Lowry you know they've kind of dissected
why they think this this would be a
disaster but um but the impulse to just
based we know what our history was with
respect to race in America and to look
at present inequality with respect to
wealth and health outcomes and levels of
crime it's completely natural to say
okay wait a minute we've got something
to atone for here and what can we do to
to to help
um I'm totally sympathetic with that Dei
at the level of who gets into medical
school is the wrong way to help right to
lower the standards so that when you
walk into an office and your doctor's
black and you have to think oh my God I
know that for the last 15 years
standards have been lowered at every
stage along the way to promote more
black black cardiologists and black
neurologists and now I have to now I'm
left thinking does this guy or gal have
lesser qualifications than the Asian
doctor that I could go to or the Jewish
doctor I could go to and to know that in
many cases the answer is probably yes
given the system we've built that's
awful right it's it's ra it's racist to
have to think that way but the fact that
you're you could be justified in
thinking that way based on the on bad
policies that is that's serving no one's
interest certainly not the black
community's interest so if we're going
to put a a thumb on the scale
we have to figure out ways of doing it
that don't
actually
destroy what is good about meritocracy
right where you know that the person
who's flying the plane is actually
qualified to fly the plane and you did
you they you didn't great on a curve
based on skin color so as to get more
black or brown Pilots I mean that's just
no one wants that at 30,000 ft
Everyone's an elitist everyone wants a
qualified pilot right everyone when it
when when it's brain surgery for your
kid you're an elitist you want a
qualified brain surgeon you don't want
the Dei version of brain surgery um and
when we find out that Asians had to
score 400 points higher on the SAT to
get into Harvard because of their Dei
policy um and then you you know Harvard
was correcting for it on the admissions
committee by saying that Asians had
lacked personality right this is was was
their euphamism for how they were going
to implement their Reverse Racism um
it's an embarrassment in the
and rightly so for the whole institution
so
we there's a t there there there's no
question that there are inequalities
that we want to respond to
compassionately there's no question that
there'll still be some amount of
inequality left that we ultimately have
to convince ourselves we don't care
about right because there's no way to
make everything equal all the time um
there's no question we want to figure
out how to spread the wealth around but
we want to incentivize creative self P
people to make as much wealth as
possible these are all there are going
to be tradeoffs at the margins but at
the in the current environment it's very
easy to recognize bad policies yeah um I
want to paint a vision for how I think
uh we get out of this let me know if you
see any holes in this because you've
done a good job of M mapping the problem
space um I come at it as a business guy
which I think is the right training for
looking at something like this because
you're getting punched in the face by
the market all day and you realize to
pay your staff their salaries and make
sure they they can take care of their
family you better solve these problems
real fast uh you you have to understand
what a good outcome is it has to be very
well defined and you have to be thinking
kind of like a pool player uh it's not
enough to get the ball in the pocket you
want it to go in you have to set up the
the Q ball for the next one that you're
going to knock in so think of it as
second and third order consequences so I
think I'll I'll just grant that that um
doing some of the admissions saying that
Harvard was doing was really coming from
a wonderful place they were just only
thinking first order consequences they
were just thinking I'm going to give
more African-Americans a chance at this
but they may not have even looked at the
die already being cast by if Jeffrey
kenada is right and it really comes down
to the number of words that a child
Hears by the age of three and the ratio
of positive to negative words because of
what it does to the language centers of
your brain um that uh by the time they
get to a college admissions board that's
really not the place to to try to help
them again now I'm looking at as a
business guy and I'm willing to say and
quite frankly I changed the whole
direction of my business when I realized
that this was true that in some ways you
have to give up on adults and that's
just you're going to work so hard to try
to overcome those problems uh whereas
Jeffrey Canada has started schools and
he'll put the school in the same
building as a school that's failing I
mean just bad test grades everywhere you
look and he chooses children randomly
from the population of kids that would
go to that school so they're not hand
selected and they just absolutely crush
the test scores that they get so same
kids same school building but different
teachers different techniques and they
just absolutely Smash and it's really
really incredible and so I'd be very
curious to know again I need to know
what outcome I consider desirable if
those kids with which have better
reading learning mathematics scores more
of them go to and graduate from college
uh I'm going to guess now I am guessing
this part that they have um higher
lifetime earnings but I'm also going to
guess that they're higher in verbal
fluency they are higher in mathematical
fluency all of things which just as a
selfish person in society I just want to
um through human freedoms and ensuring
that they are armed with the best
education and thusly best brain
development humanly possible I get to
extract the value that they'll add to
the world right so Road are going to get
better maybe cars get better uh
education gets better just medicine gets
better everything gets better better
better y but that is again it's an out
focusing on the outcome and
understanding not just the getting the
first ball in the pocket but how do I
set myself up well for the next shot uh
but the thing that I think freaks
everybody out so much that I I just
cannot get this idea to to be um
repeated by anybody is that I say you
have to give up on adults like I it's
just the reward of time and energy is
just not there they can make change
adults can make change please understand
like I have a a university that I teach
only adults at um but they're what I
call the 2% and so I started all of this
trying to teach adults when I was
running my previous company Quest
Nutrition and I just had so many kids
that grew up in the inner cities 2% of
them changed their life forever 98%
though did nothing with the ideas was
crazy because they were blinded by their
frame of reference uh and potentially
just not having encountered enough of
these ideas early enough in their brain
development that that it just made it
harder for them later in life again
that's a poverty thing it doesn't have
anything to do with skin color right um
so anyway that to me seems the way out
you just have to be relentlessly focused
on nipping the problem in the bud which
as far as I can tell is poverty uh that
you need education that is going to
dramatically impact brain development
and then you have metrics all along the
way for for um early indicators of
future success verbal fluency reading
comprehension mathematics problem
solving how to be creative and address
novel problems so on and so forth um do
you think maybe that's impossible but do
you think if it were possible that that
would work or am I missing something
well so I don't know I can't speak to
Canada's results in um Jeffrey Canada's
results in in education but you know
assuming there they are as you say um
yeah obviously there's
there's there's a consequence to having
the right techniques and at the the
earliest possible level in education
versus the wrong ones um and we so we
want we want good teachers and we want
good methodologies and in so far as we
know how to implement all that we should
do it and we and I think
it's we should prioritize it at a level
that's far beyond what we do I mean it's
amazing that I mean being a a a primary
school teacher is a very low status job
compared to all the other jobs on offer
and it it it pays badly it attracts
people who couldn't I mean you know
you're not you're not choosing between
going into aerospace engineering or you
know teaching kindergarten right I mean
like that it's it's the educational
track that would get you there is
different it's just it it should be a
much higher value job what how we
educate our kids and
um we may we it's quite possible we
haven't figured out how you we certainly
haven't figured out how to use
technology so is to make that a better
process than you know I mean if Co
taught us anything you know just getting
more iPads into the system is not not
improving things
um and I'm amazed at how mediocre
education can seem even when it's the
best seemingly the best education you
know on offer you know like a private
school education um so much of it seems
seems to be just warehousing kids you
know it's like the the real problem
that's being solved is the parents have
to go to work every day we have to get
these kids up earlier in the day than
they can physio phys physiologically
they can even begin to pay attention
because the parents have to leave the
house at that hour you know to go to get
to work and so we have these blurry-eyed
kids getting warehoused in in you know
with nice laptops in you know PR private
schools that cost $50,000 a year um and
it's much worth obviously in in bad
Public Schools uh and yet even bad
Public Schools cost whatever it is
$177,000 a year per student in in
California I think something like that
um there's an insane you know level of
bureaucracy around it so there's a just
a a reaming out of the system we have to
do and a lot of change we need to make
to to do it but I agree with you that we
want to
prioritize the changes we can
effectively make I'm not I don't think
we can give up on on adults but we you
know in terms of how we weight the our
resources yeah I mean we you know if you
can radically change a person's life at
age six in a way that you absolutely
can't at age 16 well then yeah we need
to be driving toward the the earlier
interventions um and then we have to do
whatever we can do for for older kids
and adults uh because again
self-interest alone should make you want
to not have to confront the Stark chaos
and violence of of a totally
disregulated life right outside your
office or or you know the restaurant
you've you know gone to with your kids
or you know your home I I I just don't
think it works because the The
Compassion circuit is too easy to hijack
when you were talking earlier I took a
note that said they just have better
bumper stickers so compassion people on
the left like it's it's just way easier
to say that we need to take care of
these people and that you know think
about how much of the things that you
have if you grew up in a good family
middle class that yeah that really is
privilege and did you really do anything
to earn it and by the way neither of us
believe in Free Will so it's like really
really did I earn any of this no because
this is essentially Billard billiard
balls bouncing around uh however the
reason that I stay trying to push these
ideas out is that regardless of whether
Free Will exists or not we do respond to
encountering ideas I we're systems that
can be influenced at every stage exactly
all right on that note I actually owe
you a public apology so
uh you had come on my show so I had seen
the uh the trigonometry clip that you
did that went crazy viral and I watched
it and I was like okay hold on Sam is
somebody I respect tremendously I you're
one of of the most important parts of
the sensemaking apparatus I think
literally for the world certainly for me
uh and I'm seeing people again use memes
to just be like oh we don't have to pay
attention to Sam now to your point about
selfishly selfishly that's just from
where I'm standing that's a terrible
thing for the world uh so I wanted to go
in and really understand it and so I
came up with a breakdown of what I
thought you were saying and you and I
discussed it uh and then Constantine and
I discussed it and then uh much to my
dismay
you uh name Che both Constantin and I in
a later podcast where you like I'm no
longer going to try to uh explain myself
to people because people just cannot
understand me and you said look I think
Tom and Constantin are good guys I'm in
the Communication business full-time but
I've I've admitted that I can't I can't
uh correct someone's misperception of my
of what whatever they thought I said and
I'm no longer going to try yeah it's
it's a pretty uh forlorn position to
have arrived at but understand
obviously one I can't totally hold to
but but yeah I that was a moment of just
I mean it was It was kind of comic
despair because I realized that like I
had spoke spoken to both of you
independently for something like three
hours on that topic and still you were
you both seem to be converging on a what
I viewed as a misunderstanding of my
actual position I will not speak for
Constantin but I will speak for myself I
was a gast when I heard it because I
thought you were so wrong and I felt
that I had so come to your Aid giv like
the only plausible explanation that
there was for what had happened uh and
then I went in researching for this
episode uh rewatched all of it including
what I said and I I really was wrong uh
so I it's one of those when I went into
the research I was like there's no
Universe in which I don't understand
this uh so to be confronted with the
fact that I did get it wrong is utterly
fascinating so I want to um present now
what I think you were saying in that and
again it's not necessarily that I agree
and I touched on some of this earlier in
our interview about where I don't agree
uh in that I think it has a second order
consequence you may not notice or may
not care about I don't know but so
anyway here's the take from that clip
where a lot of people were just like
Trump derangement syndrome you can't be
trusted so for people that don't know it
was about the hunter Biden laptop and
you said more or less obviously a
paraphrase uh there's no corruption
you're going to find on that laptop that
is going to be more troubling than the
corruption that I already know that
Trump has right and given that the
laptop was a political game that was
being
delivered uh one needs to acknowledge
that and be willing to play an equally
effective you didn't say political game
but that felt like the undercurrent like
you you just have to meet that with um
and it was a coin tossup you're very
clear on that you're not sure what the
way to go was so you just thought better
to go slow now because there was a few
things you you started to say there's
nothing that could have been on and then
you stopped yourself but me and others
put that together with oh you were about
to say there's nothing that could have
been on that laptop combined with an ear
well in your defense I said that Biden
could have the corpses of children in
his basement exactly but it was clear a
joke and so but those things end up
getting conflated and then uh through it
all what I thought you were saying as I
sort of pars through it and thought okay
how could knowing that Sam is a
well-intentioned person what could he
have meant the first erone conclusion I
came to was you believed Trump was an
existential threat to the world now in
rewatching the clip you're very careful
you said Trump is an existential threat
to democracy not to the world so I
missed that right uh so that was part of
my thing and I was like okay Sam is
saying if he's an existential and again
I I was not speaking especially well on
on that podcast so I I said a few things
that were genuinely misleading so I use
like an asteroid hurdling toward Earth
analogy and that immediately puts people
in mind of okay I think Trump is an
existential threat to the life on this
planet right but I wasn't using that
analogy to make that point I was using
it to make the other point that we were
talking about cons conspiracies and
whether conspiracies are ever legitimate
and my point is if there's a asteroid
come hurling toward Earth yeah if you
people are going to conspire behind
closed doors to figure out what to do
about that that's we don't care about
cons not nothing intrinsically bad about
about people coordinating their efforts
in private to figure out how to solve an
emergency and so but again there was a
lot that was easily it that podcast was
so easil easy to clip to my disadvantage
but the truth is any podcast is this
podcast is I mean there there's no
question that someone can take out a
snippet of of something I've said in the
last you know two plus hours and make me
look like a racist who doesn't care
about inequality in our society and and
you know thinks whatever that you know
um I mean
just there's so there's so many bad
intentions adjacent
to an honest diagnosis of any specific
problem in our society I it's like it's
so easy to to look like you're getting
tipped over into someone who just
doesn't care about suffering in this
world I mean so anything said about
Islam or Gaza or or um race in America
or I mean it all is easily uh
caricatured or misunderstood and so it
is it's always a tight rope walk and I
you know I need I can be I can only be
as careful as I can be in talking about
it but in that case it sounded like to
to the the naive ear and that this clip
was engineered to produce that effect it
sounded like I was
saying you can throw all of your
commitment to honesty and and and and
integrity out the window because this
was a this was such an emergency it's is
you're justified in lying bearing
evidence you know throwing all your
journalistic Scruples out the window
ignoring real stories just to get the
the political outcome that I want I Sam
Harris want which is Trump not having a
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