Bret Weinstein || Uniting America

we have Brett Weinstein on the podcast. Brett has spent two decades advancing the field of evolutionary biology, earning his PhD at the University of Michigan before teaching at the Evergreen State College for fourteen years. He has developed a new Darwinian framework based on design trade offs and made important discoveries regarding the evolution of cancer, it's ain essence,

and the adaptive significance of moral self sacrifice. He is currently working to uncover the evolutionary meaning of large scale patterns and human history and seeking a game theoretically stable path forward for humanity. With his wife, Heather Hying, he is co writing A Hunter Gatherer's Guide to the twenty first Century and is the host of Brett Weinstein's Dark Horse podcast. Brett, great to chat with you today, Thanks

for having me. So I want to start here because you're a theoretical evolutionary biologist, and a lot of people might not know what that is exactly. A lot of people have heard of a theoretical physicist, perhaps more so than a theoretical biologist, and I was wondering if you could tell our listeners a little bit about what that means. Sure, well, if you think about it, you have the non living world and you have the living world, and most of what we care about is either in the living world

or a consequence of it. So it would be good to figure out what it is that evolution is trying to accomplish, if I can use a term like that, and what implications that has for the structures and patterns that we find there. So I look into those patterns and I try to understand how they got the way they are and what it implies about what we should expect going forward, especially as it relates to people. Let me ask you something because I've done some research on

evolutionary psychology, and some evolutionariologists really despise evolutionary psychology. They say they're not the real evolutionary theorists or researchers. I was wondering if do you have any criticisms of evolutionary psychology,

what are your thoughts on the field. I have one criticism of evolutionary psychology, which is that I think it has been a bit timid, and that in fact, evolutionary psychology represents the right question, but that we need to upgrade our tools in order to look deeply into that part of the evolutionary pattern. And I'm kind of waiting for the breakthrough, but it doesn't seem to come by tools.

You mean, self report questionnaires on college sophomores and generalizing it to all human nature might not be the best methodology understand human nature. No, I mean, yes, it's one part particulate at that level, that is one part, but I think overall, I think the problem is in that we have not properly understood what the relationship is between the content of human culture and the genes that underlie

our physical structure. And until we understand the nature of that relationship, it's very hard to make any sort of deep progress on the cognitive side, because we don't know what sort of things to expect and therefore, which patterns violate those expectations, which fraction of them suggest We're on the right track. What is your your thinking on epigenetics and that emerging field epigenetics is incredibly important. I don't

think we have it placed correctly yet. But when I was in college, epigenetics was already a concept, but it applied to things like culture. Epigenetics literally means above the genome, and there was an understanding then that something like culture had to have a relationship to genes. As molecular epigenetics has boomed as a field, it has eclipsed our deeper

understanding of what the epigenetic landscape is. And as much as it is revealing some of the most important patterns to be unearthed in biology in the last several decades, we need to put it in the proper theoretical context, which I just have seen almost no progress on so far. That is super interesting. I wonder how there can be greater integration between kind of work you do and kind of work that like behavioral geneticis are doing, for instance,

within psychology. You know, because yeah, have you thought about the twin methodology and how that sure? And you know twins are great they do reveal important patterns. They are tough, they're great people. Some of them are. Often the great ones come in pairs. But but really, we have a general problem in science, which is that financial incentives inside the university system have caused us to abandon theoretical pursuits in many places, not because they don't make sense and

aren't important, but because they don't pay. The grant overhead, being the financial fuel that runs a research university causes us to default into favoring people who run big, expensive experiments, and that has sidelined theory. So, whereas theory and empiricism are partners, we treat them as if they're competitors, and experiment has won out. And it's really like your liver winning in a competition with your heart. You suffer as the result of it. My gosh, I've never heard that

metaphor before, But well, you suffered personally, right. You were at Evergreen for fourteen years and you resigned in twenty seventeen. What did you resign? My wife and I resigned. We really had no choice. The administration of the college, which was in charge of policing, had allowed an unsafe work

environment to evolve. Literal anarchy in which I was actually being hunted by students who had These are students I had never met, who decided that I was a racist and therefore in need of some kind of re education or punishment. They certainly were demanding that I be fired, and effectively the president of the college sided with them by telling the police not to enforce the law. We had student patrols roving the campus armed with bats. We

had people intimidated, battered. So it was a very dangerous situation and it was not one in which we could continue teaching having been demonized. My gosh, what was that emotionally like for you in Heather? Fascinating? You know, at the time, I was actually teaching about the way civilization functions and what causes it to break down. And in fact, I think it was the day before, maybe it was two days before this protest of students erupted at my class, again,

students I'd never met before. I had delivered a model of witch hunting, and in part it was on my mind because of what I was watching take place on the campus. But anyway, I had put it on the board and my students and I were discussing its implications and then a witch hunt broke out right there on

our campus with me as the designated witch. And fortunately for me, I guess the protesters, who quickly became rioters, filmed everything and they uploaded it, which allowed the world to evaluate for themselves what it was that was taking place. So yeah, emotionally it was absolutely otherworldly. Yeah, that must have been quite surreal. So despite the protesters' methods, did they have any like if you had a discussion with them, a cordial, rational discussion, did they have any valuable points

that they were making at all? I would love to say yes, that would be the generous thing to say. I did have many discussions with them, though, and while I found that I could frequently make progress with individuals, that the progress was very quickly erased once they returned to the collective, to the group. Yeah, that was a very frustrating pattern to observe. Yeah, because there's there's some amount of social status within your group right to to

amplify things. There's that. I also think there was a great deal of fear and that in some sense, this is the important lesson for we're watching unfold in the wider civilization right now, is that a lot of people end up saying things that they initially don't believe because they're afraid not to, and then having said these things, they convinced themselves that they're true. They basically rationalize themselves into believing these things, which on their face are obviously false.

So your views on this are are quite nuanced, as are most of your views, if not all your views. I haven't come across anything categoric where I'm like, no nuance there, Brett zero. But this particular particular topic I've tried to look through some of your ratings on and I just want to quote you because I think sometimes you can probably be misrepresented in your views in this. So you said, to be perfectly clear, we in the US have a race problem, and there is no stable

solution to be built on a slanted foundation. On those two points, we should all be able to agree. So just that part, I just want to capture that part because I think it's really a great launching pad for this discussion about acknowledging that we you know, multiple parties cant acknowledge there is a race problem, but disagree on this the solution right, and disagree on the methods used. Right.

So the question is what is the race problem? Well, I guess my question is, as you see it, what do you see as some of the major sources of the racial tensions in the country right now that we're seeing in the US. Well, to paint with a somewhat broad brush, I would say there are two populations in the US for whom the goal of equality has never been attained, and that these two populations these are American

Blacks and American Indians. Equality has never been attained because the origin stories for these populations are unlike the other immigrants that have arrived here. So obviously, the Indians arrived when there were other people or their ancestors did, and when Europeans arrived, they systematically disrupted the culture and maybe more importantly, the relationship to the ancestral lands that had existed,

and that disruption has never been undone. In the case of blacks, most blacks who are here now derived from a slave population in which culture was systematically disrupted in order to make African derive people compliant. And the problem is, until you actually level the playing field, you don't find

out what would unfold in a fair society. What you get is patterns that never equalize and the white population ends up suspecting it has something to do with endogenous factors in these other populations, when really it has to do with disruption of the natural relationship to habitat and to other people that exist in every human population. So you wrote, discovering the truth about our race problem is a delicate process made impossible by individuation on the left

and a failure of interracial compassion on the right. I thought that was really interesting. I wanted to zoom in on what that means de individuation on the left. I can understand the failure of interracial compassion on the right, but you've critiqued the left as someone who is on the left, right, you're still are you still on the left? What's the break at breaking news on that. Let's put it this way. If I take the political compass test, which is not perfect, but nonetheless it took that test,

I come out extremely far left. Now, that does not mean that I believe many of the things that those who are self declared leftists believe. I actually find myself with very little overlap with them. But nonetheless it means I believe we have a society that is not functioning fairly and that we have an obligation to change. Basically, the degree of danger we are putting ourselves in by remaining with the current system is so great that we have no choice in my opinion, So yes, quite far

on the left. Okay, So what is this individuation that you're talking about that you're saying on the left? I'd love to zoom in on that. Every time I turn on Fox News, I hear the enemy is the far left woke ideology. That's the phrase that has constantly played over and over and over again when you turn on Fox News. Is this part of what you're talking about, what they're referring to as the far left woke ideology? Well, I think there's something endogenous on the left, and it's

not it's not inherently wrong. It's part of a picture. But on the left, you have a tendency towards collectivism. That is to say, you have a focus on those failures that are the result of something systemic and it is our collective responsibility to address them. Which I agree. There are many systemic problems and it is our obligation

to address them. But in order to do this, one tends to surrender their individuality towards a group that is marching towards some objective, And so yes, we do see that in this woke ideology that is spreading so effectively at the moment. So is it possible to care about both? Is it possible to fight for justice for your in group? Okay? Is all this possible at the same time, fight for justice for your group, not hate the outgroup. Entreat individuals

as individuals. Can you Can I be a person who does all three others at the same time, or do some necessarily pull away from others? I don't know why any of us would do anything else. I think the thing Yeah, ok so I didn't know where we're going to that. I was like, no, society has an obligation to make a level playing field. It will never be perfectly fair. But the thing that I say that sometimes confuses people is that the unfairness needs to be randomly

distributed with respect to things like race. To the extent that unfairness is not randomly distributed, it's not it's not bad luck, it's something else. It's a bias. So yeah, we have an obligation to fix those things. But on the flip side of that, you also have an obligation

to individually take care of your responsibility. In other words, society has to anti up and provide you the opportunity to succeed, and you have to anti up and provide the ability to take advantage of those opportunities when they're delivered. It seems to me that these are two sides of the same coin, and the right sees one of them very clearly. It gets the individual responsibility part clearly, and it doesn't see the collective responsibility nearly as well. And

the left is the mirror image. So this is interesting because you've created an initiative Unity twenty twenty that you think helps to correct some of that polarization or some of that Yeah, let's just start with that word polarization. How do you think this plan by focusing on central left and center right, reconcile some of those issues. Well, you know, I'm damned if I do, and damned if I don't if I say center left and right. So people tend to react badly to the idea of centrists,

and I totally understand why they do. The fact is, I'm not a centrist. I don't think there's anything magical about the center other than the center is where we meet to agree on what is in our collective interests as a nation. It has to be so as somebody on the far left, I can say, I'm happy to meet people on the right in the center to discuss

what we must do now. Unity twenty twenty is an initiative to win back the White House on behalf of the American people, and it does attempt to neutralize the polarization that prevents us from ever attaining power. That said, it is not a policy initiative. The idea is that it is corruption in presidential politics and other national politics

that prevents good policy from being made. So we now know that effectively, the interests of the American people do not show up in the policies that are delivered by Congress and signed by presidents. These are special interests that have their desires manifest in legislation. And if it was the case that the people were actually being represented in government, we could do a lot. There's plenty of room for

improvement that would make lives better very rapidly. So the objective of Unity twenty twenty is essentially to override the corruption and return the policy making process to one that serves average people. You are a fascinating human being for forty seven thousand reasons. But one reason right now why you're fasting person is because you're far left, but you're not woke. Right Like, if I said, Brett, are you woke?

You wouldn't say yes to that answer that question, right, that's a tougher question to answer than you think for the following reason. Now, I don't know whether I'm right about this, but my perception is that fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, woke was something I would aspire to be because woke was actually an honorable phenomenon at the time. Woke was not something you would say about yourself. Woke was a designation that blacks would give to somebody who

understood what the situation they faced was. So it was an honor to be called woke by somebody who had

reason to understand the black experience in the US deeply. Now, I would never in a million years call myself woke now because I find the view of America that is being advanced by this coalition to be absolutely frightening and totally Unamerican, the view being just viewing everything through a racial lens, primarily right, and that in fact, not only must we view things from a racial perspective, but that

that is a desirable state. Right. In other words, we are not even seeking a state in which the law or anything else is color blind. We're seeking to accentuate these differences. And I find that dangerous, wrong headed, abhorrent, and no I would. I would run from that designation

at the moment. But it doesn't mean that I don't miss the honorable thing, you know, the original meaning of that term, like so many you know, one time I would have called myself a feminist, also because I thought what feminism meant was equal opportunity for men and women, which seems very reasonable to me. However, what feminism has become is something I can't sign up for. And so you know, we're losing these terms. But you're not a masculist,

you haven't. No, I'm a humanist relationship, of course. Yeah, it's the rational thing to be. So, as you know, I'm a fan of unity twenty twenty. This is how we got connected. I tweeted I'm in, you know, and I don't. If you look at all my history of tweets, the very few times do I say I'm in. I use that very judiciously, So I mean things that I say, at least I try and try to mean them at the time. So I think that it's a very laudable goal.

And this is my question though from a strategy perspective. You want to include as many people as possible in this movement. You want people to see that there's a better way forward for them. Maybe if their initial gut reaction is, oh, this isn't for me, so this isn't. My question is how can we? So let's say we're talking to some of our listeners who do identify themselves as woke, right, and they don't like to constantly be painted with a broad brush themselves right, because in a

lot of ways they are with people. Just use that word and for a whole group of people to think a certain thing. But let's say there are people who are really part of the Black Lives Matter movement. They really think that the methods of the Black Lives Matter movement are the correct methods for progress for racial quality. They're good faith about it. Let's say there's listeners who are good faith about it. How can we bring them

into the fold? Oh, I think this is so important. Yes, for one thing, the movement is fueled by anger at a system that has left people high and dry, and I think that that energy is completely predictable and we should just simply have expected this to occur, and that the twist is you have a movement that has co opted that energy and is now pointing it to very bizarre objectives like destroying the nuclear family, eliminating the police, and other things. This is not going to help black

people or anyone else. And so I think the key is lots of people are not paying close attention to what they are marching for to the extent that they have the sense that things are bad and that they need to be fixed. The answer is, yep, you've got that right, but pay very close attention to what you've been signed up for, because it isn't. The contents of the box do not match the label. So if you're looking for real change, the first thing you should want

to do is not eliminate the police. That's going to result in absolute madness. What you would want to do is eliminate corruption. It is the corruption that has allowed rent seeking elites to concentrate opportunities so that it is not widely accessible to the extent that that's a process that's getting worse that millennials are now facing a rather dire career picture. The obvious answer is to fix the corruption so that policy can work in our favor rather

than as a mechanism of parasitizing us. You're just going to stop there. I'm like on the seat because, oh, I mean so at some level, you know, I'm hesitant to say more because to me, you know, corruption is not a sexy issue. It's not fun to think about it, right how you can't imagine yourself marching on corruption and sticking a sword through it. But at some level that thing is the key to every other issue. I hear you.

I mean, I have these like dreams that people like, God, that's so unrealistic, but I have these dreams of like everyone fighting the common enemy, which is discrimination in all of its forms in any direction. I have this like dream.

Sometimes I wake up three in the morning with this dream where like I'm at a rally and everyone who's been discrimined in some people with learning like me, I was learning disability discrip Like everyone who can resonate with that experience comes together and rallies around a similar experience against the like you said corruption or maybe just you know, discrimination in a universal value system format as opposed to oh well, discrimination only works if you're part of that

in group, but if you're part of that in group, then it's okay to you know. You know. So I hear what you're saying, and I maybe I'm just too optimistic. I think there's got to be a way of creating a world where we can rally around these similar experiences. I mean, the whole book was Transcendent, was about that, so I believe in it. No, you're exactly right, and the fact is, at some level we know we're being conned. The Hidden Tribes Report, I don't know if you've read it.

I read it, but it says that there's something like eighty six percent of us who basically agree on the way things should be eighty six percent. How is it that a democracy fails to listen to eighty six percent of its population that's in basic agreement about what we want, right, that's a stunning fact. Instead of the eighty six percent actually dictating the way things function, we find that we are divided almost exactly evenly, so that every presidential election

is a nail bier. Why is that why, if we have so much agreement, are we so thoroughly divided in a way that affects how power is allocated? And the answer is we are all missed. We are looking at each other with suspicion, when in fact, the actual enemy of our well being is something we could easily overwhelm if we could overlook our differences. And it's not a remote dream, it's actually the way the country is supposed to work. So many people, I think, are beginning to

realize that we are being played. We are about to be played racially in a way that we have not been played in a very long time. We are about to be returned to a state in which we view each other race first, whereas maybe the greatest triumph that the nation has is that it has been headed away from that view of humanity and towards a unifying, galvanizing view of who we are and what we need. Well, that was a great segue into Andrew Yang, because you

literally just said humanity first. First of all, is any chance at all Andrew Yang will be one of these candidates for unity twenty twenty? Is that still hope? Hopeful? A little? I think? So you know it depends. I have talked to Andrew Yang, and I have specifically told him that this needs to be a draft in order to work. Right. So the fact is, if he approached us now, I would turn him away and I would say,

we have to come back to you. The draft is the way that this functions narratively so that people understand. It's also the way that the success would have the power behind it to actually confront corruption, which obviously exists well beyond the presidency. So yeah, Andrew Yang would be a perfect center left person for the ticket. He's by far not the only person who could do it, but yeah, I favor it. He's also demonstrated an ability to capture

people's imagination. He I don't think he likes campaigning, but he's proven that he's good at it. So yeah, I'm very fond of Andrew and I think he would do a good job. But it doesn't have to be Andrew. And one of the things I'm looking forward to is a discussion of what the ideal ticket would look like. Yeah, and do you have something in mind for the right? Was there a general that you were thinking of at something?

Admiral William McRaven, Admiral there you go. Yeah, I saw one of those like truth uh mind readers for a second, Well I'm getting a general, you know, one of those like yeah, yeah, I'm just forgetting the name of the person. But yeah, well he's extraordinary and I would suggest people look into him. I saw a recent lecture he gave a post COVID lecture at the Navy War College where he was or he was the Navy Postgraduate School where

he was talking about strategic things. Anyway, he's a very decent, clearly patriotic, highly capable person who understands what leadership is and is perfectly comfortable talking about it. He's also been the chancellor of the University of Texas, and you know, he's right of center. He's anti Trump. So anyway, he's a very interesting character, and I would suggest people check into some of the speeches he's given. I think they will find him very compelling, as I do. Okay, that's

also good segue into my question. Because we talked about how to get people that woke far left into the fold. What about Trump supporters? What would you say to Trump supporters, because that's equally equally important is if you want to get we want to get everyone in right. We want, we wanted to be inclusive. Let's let's be clear about this. I think there are people among the woke who are so driven by this need to divide and punish that

they will not join us. And there are people who are so died in the wole uh Trump, you know, Trump or bust, that they won't join us either. But it's not the majority of Trump supporters. So one of the very fascinating things that has happened to Heather and me over the last few years is that although we are very solidly on the left, we have been embraced by a good number of people on the right, which means that we travel in those circles frequently. We have

lots of those conversations. We have good friends that group of people. Now, dare you well, that's the thing, is the joke, of course you were. But the picture, the portrait that is painted of people on the right is so in error in so many cases. And you know, it may be that the portrait matches people on the far right fringe, just as the portrayal of these you know, wild eyed, insane wocusts might be true of those on the far fringe. But it's not true of the average

person in the street. Average person in the street is angry. They know that we have a race problem. They want it addressed, and they're not paying attention to the details. The average person on the right, they voted for Trump, but they did so as a middle finger to a system that they knew was broken. And in fact, one of the amazing facts of the twenty sixteen election is

how many people actually moved from Bernie to Trump. That's not a logical jump at an ideological level, but it is a logical jump if what you were voting for Bernie for was because he was actually a challenge to the broken corrupt system. And so at the point the Democrats successfully dealt with Bernie, the other challenge to the broken corrupt system was Trump. So people jumped there not because they were pro Trump, but because they were voting

against the doopoly. This is super interesting for lots of reasons. And here's one link I thought on the spot I think would be interesting to discuss. Let me know if this makes sense. But you've done some really interesting work on the evolution of religion, and you had a really interesting discussion with Dawkins about isn't it adaptation or is it a virus of the mind? Right now, I'm very interested in this topic as well, and I used to

teach about this at NYU. I taught a course in cognitivecology, and I wouldn't have my students debate those two positions for and against. What similarities are you seeing between the work you've done on the evolution of religion and some people are calling wokeness religion these days, Some people are calling are saying it it has a lot of the

similar characteristics of a religion. And I was wondering if you've made a direct sort of linkage between those two between your earlier research program and some of these ideas you're talking about now. Yeah, I mean, I think the analogy is unmistakable. There's definitely a lot about this movement

that functions religiously, but it's not alone in that. Many things do, and in fact, the mirror image over on the you know, died in the Wold Trumps side also functions in a kind of a religious way, and in

fact sometimes explicitly so. Like as much as this sounds like something that had to be a parody, I recently ran across a Twitter account that was in Earnest had a portrait for its banner of Trump at you know, in the Oval office signing a document and Jesus was reaching down and literally guiding his hand, and it was mirror but you so anyway, I guess my point would be the religious modality is one that exists in human

beings for clear evolutionary reasons. Dawkins doubt of that position, notwithstanding, But the nature of the particular program that inhabits that religious module is highly variable, and sometimes it's a cult, which is to say, a religion that has not stood the test of time, so we don't know whether it contains information that leads people to evolutionarily sound behavior or not.

Sometimes it's clearly doesn't. But the BLM protest movement spreads in the same way that religious dogma spreads, which is part of what's frightening about it, because it also, similar to a religion, opts out of the mechanisms that would allow you to test the claims that are central to it. Yes, yes, I hear what you're saying, and I want to clarify something. I actually try my best on the Psychology podcast to represent the person's views as actly as possible and why

don't even feel like they're they're representing it. I want to even represent it better than they're representing it. So I'm going to do that right now. I saw a tweet you you you wrote at one point where you said, I'm for Yeah, I believe black lives matter, but I'm not into hashtag black lives matter. I think that's an

important nuance to interject into this conversation. You know, some people might be listening to this and say, oh, he didn't Brett, Well, did he just say black lives don't matter? Is that what he just said? And I want to be quite You've you've tried to parse out these things, right, So can you can you elaborate riff on that a bit? Oh? Absolutely, and thanks for introducing it. Yes, this is exactly how

I feel. Right if you allowed a natural discussion of this question, I would tell you black people, this is one of two populations in the US that has had a persistently raw deal right lots of other people, including Jewish people, a population I come from, and we haven't had it to too. We haven't had We've had trouble, We've done Okay, I'm not complaining, But the point is has there been discrimination, of course there always is for blacks, and for Indians there has been a different problem. It

comes from the origin story issue. It is urgent that we fix those problems. One of the things that bothers me most about Trump's approach and his tendency to divide US is that make America great again. The again is a problem because it has never been great for some populations. And the point is to say make it great again is to suggest that we should return to some state in which it was wonderful. And my feeling is until everybody is included, we're not done. There's nowhere to go

back to. So, yeah, black lives matter. Here's how What I think the slogan means is that black lives are undervalued in the US and that that's appalling and it has to be addressed, which I agree it does. It has to be addressed. However, the state we should be shooting for is a color blind state, which doesn't mean we pretend not to see race. It means that the system has to not have any biases built into it. In other words, the blindness in color blind is the

same blindness as in blind justice. You know, the the sculpture with the scales and the blindfold over her eyes. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Yeah, So we have to have a society that functions like that, that in which your race does not work for you or against you in any official context, kind of like a raw sort of way, like complete veil. Yeah, a veil. I love that the blindfold on blind justice is a rallsy and

veil of innerds. Yeah. I've been writing about that recently, on how we should treat each other, not just morally but in terms of ideologies and things. But yeah, okay, so what is the campaign slogan of unity twenty twenty? If you had insert make America is make America human again? Make them like. I'm going through a bunch of things in my head right now, but I should probably ask you what it is. Well, you know, look, I'm hesitant about slogans because fair at sub level, we are just

drenched in bullshit. And although I think there are honorable slogans, anytime somebody is involved in a branding exercise, I just want to roll my eyes. But at some level, look, make America great. I'm down right you want to make America great. I'm first in line let's do that. How are we going to do it. Let's get the corruption out of the way so that we can deal with the obvious problems right and to the extent that there are biases and the well being is not evenly distributed,

let's deal with it at the level of opportunity. It happens that when people have opportunity, they make use of it if they don't have the tools, let's deal with that. But these are all solvable problems if we can just get ourselves pointed in the right direction and so, you know, make America great at last. Something. It's the again part that sucks. Yeah, it's not even that it sucks. It doesn't accidentally suck. It's a deliberate finger in the eye to one set of people, and it is an explicit

appeal to a nostalgia that is unjustified for another. I agree, and it seems so obvious. But how come, like how this is this shit isn't obvious to everyone? Well, you know, that's a good question, I would say. In navigating these conversations, which is something I've been doing ever more in the last three years, there's often a booby trap that as you attempt to escape some path that's been established for you to traverse. You run into some obstacle and it

prevents you from escaping the path. And so the trick is really figuring out, well, what do I do to get over that gap? So, you know, the one you raised as a perfect example. Are you for or against Black Lives Matter? I am for the slogan, I am against the movement. Well what does that even mean? How could you be for the slogan and against the movement. Well, let me tell you. I think black lives are undervalued.

We have to address it, but that the movement is saying some crazy stuff that has nothing to do with that, Like the nuclear family is a wide invention and it's being used. The whole idea is being used to oppress other people. That's nonsense. Or some people been criticizing the notion of anti racism is actually another form of racism. Yep. So somehow you have to establish that I am against a without being four B. Once you do that, then

you can have a discussion. See it's tough. I don't know if you've ever heard of the psychologist Abraham Maslow. I think he's a humanistic secon. My whole project is to bring humanistic psychology back. That's like, I call myself a humanistic psychologist. And he had a great concept that

I'm trying to bring back called dichotomy transcendence. He really believed that wise people are those who are able to take all of these false, rised dichotomies people are talking about in society and come to a sensible integration of them, sense of wholeness. And and I'm trying, you're trying. It's I think it can be done. You see, you see little hints of progress, you know, like sometimes some tweets do well that I write that say, look, look it's

I'm not so what was one thing I said. I'm not a truth warrior, but I'm a truth explorer, you know, Like I believe in social justice, but I also believe in free speech. Like like like some people trigging all these things as dicholomies, right, Like, if you're for free speech, that means you hate black people. What what are you talking about? What? No? No? Yeah, well you know it's funny. I think when I first became aware of you, you had I don't want to say attacked, but you had

issued a kind of challenge over the intellectual dark Web. Oh, I wanted to talk about the intelluctual dark web. Yeah, well, now's the moment. So you know, I was I was somewhat troubled by your position because my sense was that that's exactly what the intellectual dark web was doing, was it was trying to carve out a space from nuance in order to not fall into these dichotomous wells. And I guess I was troubled by the fact that you

weren't for an effort like that. Yeah, let's talk about this, because a lot of people have been saying to me, They're like, Scott, you're you're totally part of the intellctual dark web, and I'm like, I am I need to ask britt am I. So, yeah, I want to talk to you about it because it's not part of my identity, right, It's not, you know, like this, it's I try to

hold off on anything part of my identity. It's just like that's but maybe that's what makes me part of ironically part of the intellictual dark web, is that I like to refuse anything that I had to like commit to a particular ideology. But also the history of that tweet I know, it really pissed off your brother Eric, you know he was He responded me on Twitter about that, and then all of his followers, you know, came down. I mean, and I was thinking about it. I'm always

open to revision. By the way, my head is always open to version. I do research on the light verse dark triad, so in one way, just give you some context. It was partly Alice Draiger and I had a wonderful conversation at the Headerdox Academy conference, and Alice had used that term, I believe in one of her podcasts, and I was like, ohtho, at least to my white triod of research, I'm going to totally use that word. I didn't know what, like minefield, that was gonna step into.

I thought I was being a bit cheeky, you know, because I studied the light verse dark triad. And but okay, all that behind us, like a year later, right a year later, am I part of the intellectual dark? Can you tell me what is the uniting thing about that? So I can actually think that through it right now on the spot. Well, you know, this is an interesting topic because I don't think anybody has the answer. The

fact is there are various avenues that one explores. So a friend of mine, Ryan Bennett, wrote a piece in which he said, the intellectual dark Web is not a club, it's not a group of people. It's a protocol. And I actually love this. I don't think it's exactly right. I think the intellectual dark web is several different things, but protocol is certainly one of them. And the idea is, if you remind me of what Maslow's term was for avoiding these dichotomy transcendents. I love that. I did not

know that I was reinventing a wheel. Yeah. So if your purpose is dichotomy transcendence, you are inherently interested in nuance. You are inherently interested in forging new ground, and that is certainly part of the protocol. So you know, in Ryan's formulation, IDW is what IDW does in Ryan's Did you say Ryan's yeah, Ryan Bennett. So Ryan bennan a friend of mine. You will soon enough, I have the sense. But in any case, his point was, it's a protocol.

It's a mechanism for interacting that avoids the usual failure modes, and it tends towards nuance because that's the way you do it. And you could also say you know that IDW is defined by people who register an obligation to treat points made by others that you believe to be wrong with the benefit of the doubt, so that you can investigate whether or not you may have missed something right.

So the Twitter phenomenon that we see where people leap on somebody for saying something that they don't like, it's the opposite of that. And even when IDW doesn't work. So if you look at, for example, the initial podcasts with Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson which fell into an unresolvable conflict over the nature of truth, it ultimately manifested in two nights of discussion over that very issue with me sir as moderator, and I think great progress was made.

I'm very proud of what we accomplished. And so the obligation to figure out what's true. Or if people remember the video in which I became a public figure where those students were challenging me in the hallway, I said I wasn't interested in debate, I was interested in dialectic right. What does that mean? Well, it means that the purpose of argument is to figure out what's right, not to win. Right, So it's all we do is college. It's what we're

supposed to do. It's not necessarily what people do. And so anyway, I would say, you know, IDW is no more list of people now than it was then. And the real question is are you behaving in this way? If so, IDW is a phenomenon and you're part of it. So I can be IDW and have a heart, is what you're saying. I would say, you almost have to. Maybe you do have to because it require Yeah, you know, you may not have the same heart. Frankly, I think you know, Sam Harris is a very different creature than

Jordan Peterson, really dissimilar. But there's a lot of room, you know, since when is being a very different creature a bar to positive interaction? I mean, you know, I'm very different than my dog, but we really do get along, you know, and for good reason. Is there like a formal christiening process, like I feel like like I can my intuition is feeling like I'm on the verge of like, oh my god, I'm gonna come out as IDW right now. This is gonna happen for the first time in my life.

Is there a certain formal pross selection process. Is there like a yet the bow at the feet of Jordan Peterson or something? But what is what is the you know, is there any can anyone be in part of this group? I mean, I think so, I think you know the way. The problem is, here's here's what the gate looks like. The gate looks like you have to have been through something thing that allows people to know that you're for real.

In other words, there's a lot you could pretend that this was your ethos because I don't know, it was a niche and you could make money doing it or something like that. Or you could behave this way because it's the right way to behave and you would do so come hell or high water. And so I guess that's the question is do we know if you're faking or do we know if you're for real? And unfortunately there's no you know, it's not like there's a test. The world exposes you to the test and then we

figure out whether you pass right. But it's not like there's a group that votes on it. It's like we get to see how you behave in a crisis, and it matters. So I'm like friends with eighty percent of the people who are in the IDW. But but I'm still a little skeptical. And this is another question. Can I be in the IDW and be skeptical of the IDW? Can am I allowed to? So I have one one thing I wanted to point out to you, some skepticism.

So you recently had on some of my favorite black thinkers of of current issues going on in the world. Most of them are my friends, you know, Coleman, who I know from Colombia, you know, and would have coffee right now and then and lunch and have discussions that Chloe wonderful. But you kind of brought together this panel of people that all basically are part of the same you know, into idea framework. Why didn't you bring in in that discussion? Why don't you bring in, like people

from the Black Lives Matter movement to debate them? Why? Why have people who are not that far apart from each other debate each other? Is that a fair question? I mean it's a fair question. I don't think you're right. I think there's a tendency to see them as part of the same milieu because they get along, right, but they actually disagree tremendously. Okay, Right, you have people in that group on the far left. You have people in that group pretty far right, you know, Glenn Lowry and

and John mcwurder. You know, they argue every week. Right, there is not agreement. What there's agreement on is to be decent about it, you know, to listen carefully to what the other person's saying. You don't get to deploy talking points. And so it's funny to me that people read the Black Intellectual Roundtable as a bunch of people who agree. Right. There's probably only one thing on which that group really agrees, right, and it's that we're not

going to behave in a certain way. Right, it's not. It's an anti authoritarian group. Now, as for having somebody from the Black Lives Matter movement on, I would gladly do it. What my experience has been is that it is harder to get them to agree right to participate, So it takes more effort. The people who showed up for the Black Intellectual Roundtable on the Dark Horse podcast, I just sent them an email. They said, yep, great,

and next thing you knew we were on camera. So not against having point of view that wasn't represented in that group. But that group does not represent one point of view by any stretch. So I take your point. I take absolutely take your point. I was thinking more like you if you rang Coats up right, and you're like, will you be on this panel with these these fellows? Do you do you think he would Well, I mean, you don't know what he would say, but well, I

should say. I do think I made one mistake, which is I was trying to invite him, and I was trying to find contact information and all I found was a publicist. Now, probably at the point that I had the publicist's email address, I should have emailed the publicist and I would have gotten nothing back, and it would have ended up the same way, but I would at least be able to say, well, he was invited too. But the reason he wasn't invited wasn't that I didn't

want to invite him. It's that he was harder for me to reach. All those other people I could reach, they were friends of mine, some of them have stayed in my house. I know them well. In Coade's case, I don't know how to reach him, and so he was just harder to corral, and I don't know what he would have said. Okay, so fair fair points. So so it sounds like the uniting thing about the intelllt dark Weber. You want good faithness and that seems to

be like a core thing. If that's the case, then sign me up, you know, like, if that's the case, but you're open to it's one more thing, okay, it I think you have to be capable, right, you have to be committed to good faith even when it does not function in your interest in the narrow sense. But you also have to be uh courageous enough to fend off what comes back when you have those other two characteristics.

And so anyway, you know, it's not mine to define, but I would say if you were to try to reverse engineer what the characteristics were in people who are associated with that term, those are always present. But the intel dark web is doesn't function as a religion or a cult in the sense that you're allowed to criticize it from within at certain points. All right, I mean, of course, and exact you know, Eric coined the term, but I think everybody, including Eric is uneasy with the term.

We're uneasy with you know, are there boundaries to it? What are those boundaries. What the hell does the term mean? The term was coined ironically, so yes, every single person who's associated with it is uncomfortable with it, right on, right on. Thank you for all these clarifications. This is a great opportunity for those clarifications. So I want to move to a topic that is actually a mutual area of interest of ours, not as if the other stuff isn't,

but this is a real mutual area of interest. Is growing up with a warning disability. I have just been informed. When I told people I don't know if you saw on Twitter? I said, I'm talking, you know, to you? Does anyone have any questions? And some people said, did you do see that tweet? By any chance? I did late, but I could see it because I got a million

all these people right through lots of things. But something I didn't know is they said, you know, both you and your brother grew up with the worrying disability and had some troubles in school. Is that correct? Well, not only did we grow up with a learning disability, but we each had our own learning disability, so it was like we had two of them. Can I know what they were? Well, let's put it this way, as an

evolutionary biologist. I don't really believe that dyslexia exists because I know that writing only showed up in humans eight thousand years ago, and so dyslexia is not what it has made out to be. But yeah, I to this day, I can't write something, so I can. You know, if I write myself a note and I pick it up three days from now, it's a very good chance I won't know what it says. So, you know, severe dyslexia

if that were a real thing. But from the point of view of interfering with school, Wow, I was off track by the second grade, and I really never found my way back. Yeah, well you did more recently, only sort of. That's true, actually, only you're still an outsider.

I was an outsider the whole time, and the only reason I made it through was that, you know, I would say about one in five teachers or professors that I had decided that the fact that I was not capable of doing the normal stuff was not a reason to get rid of me, because I was very good at doing some of the stuff that was more difficult, And you know, I don't know where I would have ended up without that. Eric had a harder time. He never found an advisor, for example, in graduate school, so

his story is quite different. What was his learning disability? It would also be dyslexia, dysgraphia. Somewhere in that ole world I think said they you both had different learning disabilities. No, I was just saying that we each had our own learning disabit. Was I was kidding? Oh, okay, okay, I didn't know if that was technically true. So yeah, I grew up with an auditory central auditory processing disilder that they made me repeat third grade. Anyway, it's a very

long story I'm not going to get into. But I wrote a book called on Gifted Intelligence Redefined, which tries to talk about those science of intelligence in a way forward in an education system that appreciates neurodiversity. And I suspect this is a topic of mutual interest. Correct me if I'm wrong, absolutely, And you're like, I don't want to talk about But if you are interested in talking about this, I'd love to talk about briefly, what are your views on IQ and some of the methods that

we use to assess potential. Because I've been sessed, I've been obsessed with this question for twenty years in my career. Yeah, well, this is complex. It's gonna be hard to know how to cover it all. But I would say in my case, I am certain that as painful as it was dealing with what we now call a learning disability, that it was necessary to being who I became, and I wouldn't

change it. If I could go back and fix my dyslexia and not have any problems in school, I would not in a million years choose that path, because being on a to deal with the structures that we are handed forces you to learn how to do things in other ways, and I'm convinced that this is among the

most useful educational experiences you could have. So I think partly we have to be a bit suspicious of the way that we teach students that don't have such a disability, and we should be trying to figure out, without traumatizing them, how to provide the same kinds of hurdles so that they can learn to overcome them and become very competent as adults. Where do you see IQ coming into the picture of that? Have you thought deeply about that measurement

tool that's often used to select from gifted students. Yeah, I think it's cruddy, but I think it captures something, and I don't think we deal with it well because there's an assumption that if it shows up in a metric like IQ, that we're necessarily talking about, you know, some sort of genetic blueprint for the brain. And I don't think that that matches very well the emerging picture of what the brain is and how the mind develops

around it. So I would say I won't be shocked if we come up with a much better measure than IQ. But IQ is clearly correlated to some things that matter. What I don't think we do very well is understand that even in the cases where we can establish that there is something genetically heritable in IQ differences, we don't understand the implications at all, and we leap to a conclusion about it what it means that I believe is just simply false. Can you elaborate in that at all? Sure,

so let's say important stuff, it's crucial. But yeah, somehow we can't get there because as soon as you open the question, you have to deal with the danger of what it might reveal, and so there's a desire to shut down the conversation because people aren't ready to take the risk. But we've covered this many times before on this podcast in a I've never gotten in trouble, So that's that's good news. Yeah, well, I guess I would

have to know what it is that you've concluded. But let's just say there is a danger of mistaking genetic heritability for and inability to alter a difference. So let me give you an example. Let's say that you had a bias built into a population in which some phenotypic characteristic, let's say it's nose shape, hair texture, anything that is understood to be correlated with stupidity, not because it is, but because populations demonize each other, they dehumanize each other,

they do all kinds of things for evolutionary reasons. Okay, So a child who is born with this phenotypic characteristic may be understood to be stupid, not because of anything about them at the level of the nature of their brain, but as a result of a prejudice. Okay, And that child may get less enrichment in school because they're not

expected to benefit from it. And when they do something well, they may get less reward because it will be assumed to have been luck whereas if another child had done it, it would be assumed to be skill something like that. What that means is that that phenotypic characteristic will now be inherited with lower intelligence. Not because the phenotypic characteristic has anything to do with intelligence, but because it projects something into the world that causes something to be reflected

back that adjusts intelligence intelligence developmentally. So if you then study and you just say, well, I'm not interested in what the characteristics are, i just want to know if there are things in the genome that reliably correlate with decreased intelligence. Lo and behold, you find one, and you don't realize that what you're looking at is a phenotypic marker that causes people to interact with the person differently, rather than a blueprint for a circuit in the mind. Right,

I agree, one d P. Yeah. So what I'm saying is that's not controversial at all. Oh, it's not controversial, but people don't extrapolate from it. What that means is that you can identify genes that have effects on intelligence, and people will assume that those genes must do have some effect on the way the brain is strugued directly. Part of the intelligence construct see, I see, I see right, When the necessary mechanism may be other people's prejudice, that

is completely possible. So until we do the work properly, we're not going to understand what we're looking at, and people will be leaping to the conclusion. The wrong conclusion that I think they leap to is that brains look like bodies. We all know that there are differences in populations because we see different sports inhabited by different people. Ethiopia and Kenyons dominate marathon running, right. That's not because they, you know, have a lot of marathon running going on

in Kenya and Ethiopia. It has to do with physiological differences between Kenyans and Ethiopians and the rest of us. So people assume that the mind will look like this, and there's no reason to assume that the mind looks like this. In fact, I think there's very good reason

to assume it doesn't. But when we begin to see hints of something that somehow connects genetic differences with differences in performance on IQ tests and other things, people assume that's what they're seeing, and they have their natural reaction. Either it confirms their prejudices or they try to drive the information out of view because they don't like where

it's pointing. And neither of these things makes sense. Well, what are the implications here for the actual behavioral genetics research? Are you saying that some of the multitude of no one disagrees in the field now that intelligence is the contract, there's an influence of many, many interacting genes. There's no

way the gene for intelligence. You say that perhaps some of the genes which behavle put within the IQ category might actually be related to something else that causes certain people to treat that person in a way that causes their actual intelligence increase, our decrease. You're making me think of the Matthew effect with all of this as well. You know, the rich got rich or the poor get poor.

And there is that great research by Keys Statovich an other showing that early readers who have a little bit of a difficulty, just a tiny bit, they don't get picked, you know for the advanced reading team, those who do get picked, and then it continues and continues throughout the years. Yeah, I think we don't have the first clue what we're looking at, and you know, basically we're a long way

from understanding how the mind works. In fact, we're a long way from understanding how a c elegance works with something like two hundred neurons. So you know, the point is it's too early to leap to conclusions. You know, you it's certainly the case that there are actual structural differences between the brains of men and women, which would be expected to have a much larger implication in terms

of capacity than any difference between human races. And yet we find differences between males and females in average intelligence to be negligible. So because female brains are very efficient, is what it may suggests. Yeah, yeah, let's put it this way. We're a long way from understanding what's going on, and it doesn't make sense to be leap into conclusions. Now.

We can talk phenomenologically about how different brains work, but in terms of being able to peer into the genes and figure out how that cascades into brains that then mature into minds, we're still in the very early stages. I hear you, but nothing you said was controversial. Still, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop at some point, because I thought that you were saying, well, people don't take it to the ultimate conclusion and when they do going to realize it's how controversial it is.

But no, what you said is perfectly sensible. Well, the problem is you have to be able to accept certain things, like there's a genetic contribution to any of our traits, for instance. Well, no, I don't find that one is so dangerous. But the fact is there are differences in IQ between populations in adults. The assumption that people often make is that this is blueprinted by genes in some way.

That's a faulty assumption. I don't know enough to say it, and there's good reason to think it's unlikely that major differences are blueprinted this way. But even the acknowledgment that there are differences between populations in average IQ that are predictable is troubling. I find it troubling. Now, the question is, are those differences the result of some exposure difference differences in the quality of the environments that people are born into.

Are they you know, due to differences in the nutrition that people experience in early life? You know, there can be a lot of factors. But even just talking about the fact that those differences exist in the first place has frightening implications. So what I find interesting about that is in certain circles that discussion and the way it's framed is more controversial than other circles where the same

exact data is discussed in different framing. So I'll give you an example that I mean, I work in the field of gifted education, and I work with people who are very passionate about closing excellence gaps. And it is a fact that there are huge gaps at the very top top of academic achievement. Now when those research are doing, it's coming from a place so they want to make their little better place, and that's the like it's obvious that's what they're leading from, is how can we address

the excellence gaps that exist? And I find it interesting because that's uncontroversial when it's discussed in that framing. But there's a different framing where someone just if you just come out on Twitter, you say, admit it, you know African Americans are not as smart as white people. Well, of course, without context, without where's that person coming from. That doesn't sound like a very good faith person to me,

you know, if they're just going to say that. So that's something that I find interesting by this topic is because like I am interested personally, I'm interested in excellent scaps too. In the field of gifted education, I want to understand what are the causes. I want to understand who's falling between the cracks, and to do that you have to face the reality of the situation head on. But in that field, it's uncontroversial to face that reality

head on. People are actually interested, they've gone beyond it already in my field to actually understand it does. Does that make sense? Yeah? Totally. You know, first of all, I would say the bitter pill for all of us is that we're all dummies. We could be a lot smarter if we had decent developmental in environments. And the fact is we've created developmental environments that mislead us and they cause us to be bewildered more often than not as adults, and frankly, we all need to level up.

So it's you know, it's not even like trying to bring people along to you know, the high achievers, because even the high achievers are falling far short of what they might if they had the right developmental circumstances. A great point. So anyway, Yeah, of course, what we should be doing is closing the gaps and leveling all of us up and figuring out what a proper educational environment

looks like. And I assure you it does not look like a bunch of people facing the same direction with some person at the front of the room scratching, you know, higher glyphs on the wall. This is not modern. We could do a lot better. Absolutely, So I want to be really appreciative of your time. Do you do you have time for a couple tweets from others in that thread that I put up this morning. Sure, that's a tentative. Sure, because you have no idea. I don't know what's you

don't know what's going I never do. Of course, I'll try to pick the ones that are that are most good faith in that spirit. In that spirit, Rock Whittington asked, ask him how he's doing, smiley face, How are you doing? How am I? Yeah, we want to know, like as a human, as a human, like, how are you doing? It's a good question. I appreciate that somebody would would

ask how am I doing? You know, it's funny. Twenty twenty is very dangerous for all of us, and it I can't say that it's possible to feel good about it. There's just not a lot about it that allows that. On the other hand, it has filled me with purpose. So in some sense, except for the fact that there are not enough hours in the day, I have to say, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, and that feels good. So I think I'm all right. Good. Well,

I'm glad to hear that. Holly ninety six days until Halloween. That's Hollway's entire Twitter name. I actually really like that. Asked or said tips on self improvement as an adult for people whose developmental environments were lacking or even downright destructive. Well, I think the thing is a lot of us have something that knocked us off track early on, and not everybody makes it back from that. But the key, I think is, if you have been knocked off track, you

can't afford to have your wound remain open. You have to have it heal over and develop into scar tissue, which scar tissue is not as good as the tissue it replaces, but it does allow you to go on with your life. And so I think for those of us who have been through things that are damaging and disfiguring, getting to the point where those things are no longer The primary fact of how we interact with the world

is the key. And so if you have an open wound from whatever has happened to your your first order of business ought to be getting to safety and allowing it to scar over so you can move on with your life, hopefully enlightened by what you went through. My cell metaphor get the boat holes plugged, but eventually open the sale and move forward. Oh, it's same idea. That's that my metaphor I'm kind of putting behind me right now, Hannah said, when was the last time he changed his

mind about an opinion that he holds on something? Slash someone, I have one that I recall from the list. Okay, so many years ago, I would have been your standard advocate for gun control, and I still believe that the arguments for gun control are accurate. But I also have come to believe that all though the founders did not envision the current scenario, they did leave the Second Amendment in place with it somewhat perplexing introductory phrase, because they

wanted a hedge against tyranny. And I do have the sense that that instinct of theirs is being proven right, that we are watching the collapse of structures that keep social order, and as much as that is putting us in danger, it also has left a kind of well, let's put it this way. I wonder if the Second Amendment battle may be over as a result of the fact that individuals are recognizing that at some level they can be abandoned by government in an almost in an instant.

Did you see that I became a Second Amendment rights poster boy poster child overnight? Did you know fiasco? Oh gosh, I tweeted something I thought it not. See this is You'll notice a pattern here. Sometimes I think I'm twinkling, innocuous, and then I step in it like I did with you and I, and here we are a year later. I'm glad you brought it up, because I didn't know that it pissed you all stuff. So the thing with

the two A is Amendment. I was here in Santa Monica and there was a standoff between some protesters were literally throwing smoke bombs up into our into our balconies, and we were getting sick. So we called the police, and the police said, sir, the city's under attack. Do what you have to do. And I couldn't believe that the police just said that to me, and so I tweeted out, I can't believe the police just says this to me. And then before I know it, I have

a viral tweet. You know, I've and culture, I have been Shapiro, I have you know, everyone's like to see, this is exactly why we need the second So and then I so I stepped into becoming the poster boy for the Second Amendment overnight. Didn't expect that. Yep, it's bizarre. But I mean, we're seeing all kinds of things, and you know this is just the beginning. But there was a letter recently released by the Seattle Police chief saying that they were no longer going to be able to

respond to defend property. So you know, that's a long way from not defending people. But how quickly did we get here is the problem? Well, that's exactly what someone one of the park Whend shooter survivors tweet out, life comes at you fast with my tweet, and I think that was his point. Okay, PHG says why he will continue to vote left. I'm going to phrase that as a question where we arrange that person's words. Why will you continue to vote left. I don't know where the

assumption comes from. I know this person has a big assumption here, don't they. Yeah, I will vote for reason, and you know, let's put it this way. In this election, I mean, obviously, Unity twenty twenty is the initiative that I'm focused on. But let's say that I wasn't in this election. If the right offered a candidate who was patriotic and capable, I would have no choice but to vote for them over Joe Biden. Right, So the person's assumption is simply off. I will vote for a competent

patriot over an incompetent or unpatriotic person every time. And it doesn't mean that I don't think we need to make progress. I'm a progressive for a reason. But at the moment, what we need is sanity, and whatever part of the spectrum it comes to us from, we have no choice but to embrace it. Actually, like that is your campaign slogan for Unity twenty twenty, Sanity, make America scene again? You think that? Like that? I think that's what it should be. Actually, think about it, talk about

it with your team. Yeah. Dan Dolmar had a question about Unity twenty twenty, He said, not seeing much traction for Unity twenty twenty. Is there going to be a campaign? Are your kind of going to be giving any speeches? Seems like COVID hasn't made quote stumping impossible. Well, I think COVID has made proper stumping impossible. But stay tuned. You will see things this week that will change your view of Unity twenty twenty and hopefully put it in front of a lot more minds. You know what. I

want to end on that note. I just think that's a beautiful note to end on, Brett. I really wish, I really wish your project. Well, you know that I'm a supporter and I'm like, now the end of this call, I feel like I'm ninety eight percent in the intellectual dargwab. This is up from fifty percent before this call. So that's huge. That's huge. Hell yeah, And I really thank you for talking to me today and I wish you all the best. Well, thanks, Scott, It's been fun and

I look forward to the next one. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in on the discussion at the psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology pod dot com. If you can, please add a rating and review on iTunes. I read all of the reviews and really appreciate your feedback.

Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.