Dr Gad Saad - The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

Full transcript: Dr Gad Saad on London Real

3:22 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dr Gad Saad, the author, evolutionary behavioral scientist and professor of marketing.

3:42 You pioneered the use of evolutionary psychology and consumer behavior, and have written over 75 scientific papers. Your hugely popular YouTube channel and podcast, The Saad Truth, deals with issues around religion, freedom of speech and wokeness. You’ve written four books, the last of which, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense, explores how the progressive left is successfully moving ideas once considered radical from university campuses into political and corporate arenas.

4:10 You believe that the West’s intellectual freedom is at risk of extinction if we don’t stop the spread of dangerous idea pathogens that are killing common sense and our freedom of speech. Dr Saad, welcome to London Real. Thank you so much for that lovely invitation. I’m so glad that we are finally able to make it, so I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you now. I’m really looking forward to it, and you know, I, I come across this quote from you, which maybe sums up almost everything you do, and you said this: any human endeavor rooted in the pursuit of truth must rely on facts and not feelings.

4:48 It’s a very interesting statement. You know, I graduated in 1993 with a degree in engineering from MIT, and I was taught that it all came down to the scientific method to prove things, and now 30-some years later, it seems like the world has changed dramatically, and I really want to get your thoughts. Also, this is personal, because my stepdaughter just started school in Boston at a university there. She’s 18, just turned 19 today, and so I’m, I’m deeply concerned that she’s about to go into a world that I don’t even understand, that I can’t control.

5:20 So you tell me, where do we start, Doctor? Right? well, I, I guess maybe we could start with my most recent experience at USC. So last week I was invited to speak at a one-day event celebrating the 10-year anniversary of a center at USC. The center is called the Center for Economic and Social Research, and it was a day to celebrate the values of the Enlightenment, and so I decided that I would do it. I would deliver a lecture on something that is very relevant to the quote that you introduced the segment with, the dichotomy between pursuing truth versus feelings, but I’m going to put it in more formal terms.

6:09 So I talked, at USC, about deontological ethics versus consequentialist ethics. So let me spend a minute or two explaining what that is. A deontological statement would be an absolute statement. So for example, if I say it is never okay to lie, that would be a deontological statement. On the other hand, if I say it is okay to lie if I wish to spare someone’s feelings, so if your spouse asks you, do I look fat in these jeans, and you wish to have a long marriage, you might wish to put on your consequentialist hat and say, no, you’ve never looked more beautiful.

6:46 So for many things in life we navigate through the world through a consequentialist prism, but when it comes to the pursuit of truth, I argue that you have to be deontological. In other words, there is no freedom of inquiry, but, dot dot dot, there is no freedom of expression, but, dot dot dot. In other words, I don’t need to worry about what the downstream consequences of my research might be, right? So for example, if I’m studying the difference between religious groups in terms of their proclivity to commit terror attacks, well, some would argue, you shouldn’t do this kind of research, because even if that research were to prove veritical, you would be, quote, marginalizing this group, and therefore you shouldn’t do it on consequentialist grounds.

7:37 Whereas I argue, no, that’s a very dangerous slippery slope, and so I try to take that message to the people at USC, in speaking about your stepdaughter and the vipers that she’s about to enter, and you would have thought that, you know, an, an esteemed place like USC would be very open to what I consider to be very, very non-controversial statements that I’m making, that defend freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech, individual dignity, personal agency, the scientific method. And if you saw the hostility that I faced. Now, the hostility was not, they, they tried to shout me down.

8:17 They didn’t throw tomatoes at me. It wasn’t a physical confrontation, but the level of either overt hostility or passive-aggressive hostility, so I was there for the whole day, and usually, you know, people will come up to me, if not to, to take selfies with me, or so on. They at least engage me. It’s warm, it’s academic. The manner by which people were turning their backs to me, as though I were, this, you know, I was basically indistinguishable from Himmler, was really laughable.

8:50 Two people were very, very angry that I proposed something that was truly, you know, beyond the pale, because I argued that you know, we can all be in favor of transgender rights without murdering truth. We don’t have to say that men too can menstruate, and that men too can bear children, in the service of protecting your rights. And people thought that those were very, very, very dangerous statements, so much so that one person argued that that kind of speech should be regulated by the government.

9:24 So if I am at a USC conference speaking about the values of the Enlightenment, and a statement such as men cannot bear children can cause such a reaction, we’re down a pretty, pretty dark abyss. Well, that used to get you canceled on Twitter before Elon Musk bought it, and so I guess this has been going on for a while. A quick question for you: were you getting that from the students or from the faculty as well? And do you think it being in California, where I was born, where you spent time as well, had a reason for that?

9:58 Of all of the, the hot, the, the hostile crowd that I faced in the Q&A, I think only one looked young enough to be a student. And some, I actually recognized them. The first one that spoke is actually a very respected psychologist, who was so angered by me that his voice was quivering. I mean, you know, when someone is incredibly angry and nervous, that they’re, they’re having a hard time catching their breath, because that’s how triggered they were. so no, it may or may not surprise your audience that these weren’t students who were triggered by me.

10:34 They were actual faculty members, if not research scientists. Hmm, and now, was it, sorry, to answer your question about California? I, I don’t doubt that there is an, an element of wokeness that is coming from the fact that USC is in California, but believe me, all of the universities throughout these beautiful lands have, have fallen to these idea pathogens. So so I could have been anywhere else. I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve given talks at University of Michigan, where, you know, people were just as hostile.

11:06 So I don’t think it is something that is unique to California. See, I don’t think it’s actually hit us over here in the UK yet, Doctor. You know, we, we see these things on Twitter and YouTube, and for me it almost looks like I’m watching a movie. It just doesn’t seem real, but I’m sure if I was in that classroom with you, I would be like, does it feel sometimes that this is almost a different species than you? It’s almost like a completely different type of, of animal that can get, I don’t know, agitated or not listen to reason, because you seem like the kind of man that comes in and you’re like, doesn’t every 1C this is logic, this is the scientific method, this is why we came so far in 500 years?

11:44 It, it seems like you’re almost speaking a different language to this new species. You know, you’re the, the, the, the incredulity that you’re attributing to me is exactly how I feel. So despite the fact that I’ve been navigating in this ecosystem for close to 30 years as a professor, despite the fact that I’ve written The Parasitic Mind, hence you would think that there is nothing that could surprise me as I walked out of the USC, event. And, my family, by the way, had joined me, so my, my children and wife were in the audience.

12:14 I have young children who were uniquely disturbed by the hostility that they saw their father, you know, being exposed to. And so as we left and we were walking around, I, I said exactly what you said without saying that there are different species. I said, you know, I just, I can’t believe that I can trigger this type of hostility that I just, you know, was the recipient of for saying things that should be so banal and obvious, right? I mean, you think you would think that we have won that debate.

12:49 You know, hundreds of years ago we had the Scientific Revolution. We had the Renaissance. We had the values of the Enlightenment. We were coasting along so beautifully, and now to say things like, you know, men can’t bear children is something that should be regulated by the government. By the way, I’m really hopeful that USC, they’ve promised me that they will be sending me the files of the day’s event, which, of course, when they do, if they do, I will be posting.

13:17 So hopefully everybody could see the, the kind of lunacy. So, yes, I am baffled by it, but I think that exactly speaks to the key premise of The Parasitic Mind, which is you know, we attribute, you know, the faculty of reason to human beings, and yet, just like countless other animals in the animal kingdom, we could be parasitized by brain worms. In this case, the brain worm is not an actual physical brain worm, that’s why I call them idea pathogens, but they end up doing the exact same thing as other parasitic infestations that go to the brain, which is they completely zombify you.

13:55 They take supposedly intelligent people and make them behave in ways that are truly baffling to the human spirit. Now, I wasn’t there, and I’m curious, if I was to try to get into their minds, what are they thinking? Like, what are the kind of things they say back to you? I’m sure it’s not one thing, but I’m sure it’s probably about three different things, but what are the things that are uttering from their minds? Is it cultures being oppressed, and we don’t want to upset them, we want to repair for them, we want to take away our privilege?

14:21 And not what is coming from them, because obviously they think they’re right. So it’s interesting to me to find out why they think they’re right. Yeah, that’s a beautiful question. I thank you for it. So there are several elements, but off the top of my head, one that doesn’t capture the full phenomenon, but then we can drill down further, is that they are driven by a sense of what I call full empathy, right?

14:46 And that perfectly speaks to the distinction between what I set up originally in our conversation, between deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics. If I am a pursuer and defender of truth in a deontological way, then I’m never encumbered by, as I said, the downstream effect. Oh, but you know, if I say that men cannot bear children, that is a statement that is fully founded in truth. Therefore, the fact that there might be point zero one percent of people who suffer from gender dysphoria who might be hurt by that statement is of no consequence to me, not because I’m a mean person, because my desire to defend truth and to navigate through reality supersedes my desire to be full empathetic toward you.

15:41 Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not a very empathetic person. I’m, I’m I’m sensitive and sentimental to a fault, but my desire to defend truth supersedes that. So I think each of these idea pathogens, which we can, I suspect, get into during our conversation, so postmodernism, cultural relativism, social constructivism, they’re all different variants of parasitic idea pathogens, but they share one thing in common: they start off with a noble cause, which then, in the service of that noble cause, you’re willing to murder and ratify truth.

16:18 And I say, no, I can chew gum and walk at the same time. I could be for individual rights, I could be for fighting for a world free of bigotry, without murdering truth in that service. So let me give you a concrete example. Equity feminism is a great idea that most reasonable people can support, which is that men and women should be equal under the law. There shouldn’t be institutionalized barriers for either sex to, you know, to flourish.

16:45 So that’s great, but then militant feminism took this idea and said, well, wait a second, no, in the pursuit of eradicating quote, patriarchal, sexist ways, we now need to promulgate the idea that men and women are indistinguishable from each other. Men and women do not have any evolved, biologically based sex differences, because by promulgating that utter nonsense position, then it will better allow us to fight against the sexist status quo. So you can see again how it’s consequential.

17:20 It’s in the pursuit of an otherwise noble goal. I’m willing to fudge the truth in the pursuit of that goal. So, to answer your question, and hopefully not too long-winded, they’re all coming from what originally seems like a noble place. Why are you marginalizing the noble and peaceful religion of Islam with your facts, Dr Saad? Why are you marginalizing?

17:43 Why don’t you instead say that all religions have both good and bad people, and all religions could potentially lead to terrorism? Well, in an incredibly banal way, that is potentially true, but you might imagine that extremist Jains, people who practice Jainism who walk around with a, with a, sweeping you know, sweeping the floor in front of them lest they might literally crush an ant. That’s how committed they are to never harming any biological organism.

18:18 You might, you might imagine that extremist Jains might be less likely to engage in terrorist acts than other religions, but according to the noble people at USC, that would marginalize people. So shut your mouth and go la la, I don’t see the truth. So I think that’s the reason why they do what they do, right? So I think you explained that really well with the militant feminists. They believe in this concept so much that they’re willing to paste it above the truth.

18:45 And coming from the scientific method, or a science system where I was kind of born as well, you’re like, but if you throw the truth out, then we lose everything. We lose our sanity, and you’re like, so even though it might offend people, we always need to honor the truth, first. We can still have all of our nobilities. We can have our causes, we can have our empathies, but if it doesn’t all come back to some facts, we need to look ourselves in the mirror and say, what are we doing here, guys?

19:10 Like, we’re just kidding ourselves. Perfectly right. Exactly right. And that’s, that’s, that’s what frustrates me so much, because the reality is I’m probably more sentimental and sensitive than all of these people. That’s why I call it full empathy, because when you drill down with a lot of these people, they really are, they’re authoritarian, but they protect themselves with the cloak of so-called progressivism, but nothing in what they do is actually consistent with truly classical liberal values, and that’s why I get so frustrated.

19:42 So to go back to your earlier question about, you know, do I think that they’re aliens, I look at them with the incredulity as though they are aliens, because how could, so the first gentleman who spoke, that I said is a very well-known psychologist. I mean, if you look objectively at his scientific output, you’d say, I mean, obviously this person is not, you know, a babbling idiot. I mean, he’s a very accomplished psychologist. He used to be at University of Michigan, now he’s at USC.

20:10 He certainly has had a wonderful, esteemed career, and yet he is fully parasitized. He’s a complete zombie, and so, and I think again that’s the power of the metaphor of using this neuroparasitological model, because what neural parasites do is exactly hijack your neuronal circuitry to the benefit of the parasite, right? And that’s what these ideas do. They quietly lead us to the abyss of infinite lunacy, so that we say things like, of course men can menstruate, of course you could have six-foot-four biological males competing with five-foot-one biological women, and there’s carnal, innate differences between these two.

20:53 Men don’t have any morphological, physiological, anatomical, hormonal, behavioral differences from women. This is not me satirizing their positions. These are their official positions. So when we’ve gotten that far along the abyss, Houston, we have a problem. Doctor, can you tell me where this all, or when all this happened, and why all this happened?

21:17 Because I don’t remember maybe this being an issue. Okay, I was at MIT. We didn’t exactly talk about social causes. We were in the lab, and they were just beating me until I could figure out my differential equations, but I don’t remember it in the early ’90s. When did this come about?

21:31 Why did it come about? I have a guy that’s been on my show, who’s a 77-year-old man who’s got a castle in Scotland. He’s a high-performance coach, extremely, extremely, politically incorrect, and he said that political correctness is a manifestation of a lack of self-esteem. He’s been saying that for 20 years, and I, maybe that’s just one part of it, but where do you think this came from? So, oh, again, fantastic question, because if you wish to understand, I mean, in the exact same way that we, you know, we try to understand where the COVID virus originated, and in the pursuit of that objective, people were branded and tired as racist, because you can’t even talk about the geographic origin of an actual biological virus anymore unless it might marginalize people. so to your point, you know, where did these idea pathogens begin?

22:25 Why did they begin? Well, of course, I’m here to tell you that, in a slight rephrasing of George Orwell’s famous quip, it takes intellectuals to come up with some of the uniquely dumbest ideas, and so all of these idea pathogens were spawned and began their proliferation on university campuses. So that explains the origin. Now, when did they come about? It depends on the specific idea pathogens.

22:55 So cultural relativism, the idea that we, you know, we can’t really tell, you know, you judge a culture unless we judge it in its own context. There are no human universals, each culture is a microcosm of its own reality, that started, you know, almost 100, you know, 80, 90 years ago by Franz Boas, a cultural anthropologist at Columbia, and then his students promoted that. Now that idea pathogen, and the reason why I call it idea pathogen, is because it is perfectly incorrect.

23:27 All cultures are not equal. Cultures that cut off the clitorises of little girls are not equal to cultures that don’t do that. Cultures that throw gays off rooftops are not equal to cultures that don’t. So the, the idea that all cultures are equal is insanely laughable. Okay, but so let’s talk about why that idea pathogen began.

23:52 Well, in the social sciences, one defines their identity based on their abdication of biology. Right? So if you are a sociologist or an economist or most psychologists, or an anthropologist, unless you’re a biological anthropologist, you share your common disdain for using biology to explain human behavior. So, and that’s something that I have faced from the start of my career when I tried to Darwinize the behavioral sciences in general and the business school in particular.

24:25 Right. So I came in in 1994 as a fresh young assistant professor, where I was arguing, well, how could we study consumer behavior and economic decision making and employee behavior and employer behavior without ever recognizing the biological and evolutionary mechanisms that drive our behaviors? Surely as consumers we don’t somehow exist in a plane outside the purview of our biological heritage. And that was viewed as, this is insane, what kind of nonsense are you saying, professor?

24:53 So cultural relativism arose precisely because, again, again, it came from a quote noble place, which is there were all sorts of miscreants and cretins that had misused evolutionary theory. Think about the British social Darwinists, who, it had nothing to do with Darwin, but they assured Darwinian theory to say, hey, there’s a natural struggle between the classes, where the upper, where the upper class, you’re the lower class. Hey, that’s just nature. So if you die out in your polluted environments without any education, hey, that’s just nature.

25:27 Then the eugenicists come along and say, hey, this Darwinian, if we sterilize gay people so that they can’t reproduce, hey, that’s just natural, that’s Darwinian. The Nazis came along and said, hey, it’s a natural struggle between races, we’re the Aryans, we win, hey, that’s just Darwinian. And so the cultural anthropologists said, well, we need to find the way through consequentialist ethics to create new edifices of reason bereft of biology, because then that could, you know, stop future scientists or politicians or, you know, demagogues from misusing biology.

26:01 So that would be a long-winded answer of how that particular cultural, I mean, idea pathogens came to be. Postmodernism on the other hand is a bit, you know, younger, so about 40, 50 years ago a whole bunch of French imbeciles, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and then others developed the idea that, you know, there is no objective truth, language creates reality. That’s called deconstructionism. Jacques Derrida: to speak of a universal truth is insane because we’re always bound by our idiosyncrasies, by our personal biases, by subjectivity.

26:38 So there is no capital T truth. So that’s why, by the way, I refer to postmodernism as the granddaddy of all idea pathogens, because you can’t wake up as a scientist in the morning if you were a postmodernist, because scientists, while they recognize that all truths are provisional, meaning that what was true 50 years ago may no longer be true today, science is auto-corrective. We do operate under the premise that there is a truth out there to be discovered.

27:06 Well, postmodernism is saying, no, no, there is no such thing. And so, depending, depending on the idea pathogen, the timing of it is slightly different, but I would say between 40 and 80 years ago is when most of them happen, and then it takes a while for it to simmer, and then they all come together and slowly erode our edifices of reason. And that’s where we are today. Has social media accelerated it, because of the monkey see, monkey do effect, or everyone can publish ideas, or has that accelerated it, and will it continue to accelerate it?

27:41 So social media in of itself can be used for good or bad. So in the same way that dreadful ideas could spread, to your point, one can easily argue, but then why can’t people who’ve got the good ideas also use social media as a tool to spread better ideas? So I don’t think it’s necessarily social media as an inherent system that spreads bad ideas. Now, what you could argue is that there are inherently more, you know, blue-haired Taliban activist types who use social media, and therefore they end up being overrepresented on that medium, but it’s not inherently the immediate.

28:22 Now, the other thing you can also argue is that, to the extent, until Elon Musk came along and bought Twitter, to the extent that those social media companies are run by supremely woke people who banish others who may not share their views, then to your point, you’re exactly right. But inherently, in principle, social media could be used for good or bad. I would have never built the platform that I have had if it had not been for all of the tools that are afforded to me through social media, right?

28:54 I mean, you know, who could have thought that when I first started my YouTube channel, right? I mean, you would think, I’m, you know, I’m a professor, I publish papers in peer-reviewed journals. You get excited as an academic if your paper gets cited a hundred times ten years after you publish it. A hundred times. Well, I can get on Joe Rogan’s show, and there’s been 20 million downloads.

29:16 How does that compare in terms of the speed and rapidity of the information? So again, social media is not inherently nefarious. It’s the people who control social media that we have to worry about. All right, well, then let’s talk about that phenomenon. Probably the best way to do it is to talk about the Twitter Files, which were revealed after Elon decided to buy Twitter, which some people said was not a company, he was actually buying a crime scene.

29:41 And I’ve watched the Twitter Files come out. I kind of have a vested interest in that, because we were censored pretty heavily in April of 2020, and I can get into that later. But what do you see being revealed in the Twitter Files? Like you said, I think it’s been proven that 97 of the staff members there all either voted or donated to the Democratic Party. So I think they’re even analytics of showing they were a certain way, even though everyone kind of knew that.

30:08 What do you see there, Doctor? Yeah, right. Well, actually, in The Parasitic Mind there’s a section where I break down the political donations, you know, Democrat to Republican, across not just Twitter, across all of the major, you know, social media players, and it is simply astounding. I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s not 70/30. You’re right, it’s, it’s 99.2 to 0.08.

30:32 It’s 97 to 3. It’s at that level of bias. So you’re exactly right, everybody already knew it. I think all that you’re going to get through the analysis of the Twitter Files is that people are going to have new hard data to support what everybody already knew. So it’s certainly not a useless exercise to go through it, but I doubt that you will see anything that most sane people could not have already told you.

30:56 I told you so. I already knew that, because I mean, I saw it. Just, you know, I mean, luckily I was never banned from Twitter, but I very much noticed that my voice seemed to never get amplified. I mean, I was completely stagnant for a very, very long time. Then Elon Musk came along, and suddenly the explosion of subscribers I had, I mean, literally from one day to the next, was just breathtaking.

31:22 So, so I don’t think we needed the Twitter Files to know what was happening, but it certainly helps in terms of building a case of how dangerous it could be to have these companies who control all of our informational flow being lopsided. Have you gone deep on the Twitter Files and looked into some of the things surrounding the FBI and the CIA, or some of the other repressions or shadow banning? Have you gone into that? I haven’t. The most that I’ve done is, when they would release, you know, whichever journalist was handling a particular instantiation of the Twitter Files, when they would release a long thread, right, that’s a 30-piece or 30-tweet thread, I would just read those, but I haven’t gone into a deep dive into the files.

32:09 Are you asking because you haven’t? There’s something that you’d like to discuss? Yeah, well, so I’ve kept an eye on it. I’ll just tell you quickly our story, and I want to get your thoughts on maybe what happened with us. So, Doctor, I started this show in 2011.

32:21 I was inspired by Joe Rogan. I was an early fan of the UFC and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so I was walking, watching his show, even 13, 14 years ago, when it was just on Vimeo, wasn’t even on YouTube. So I was a fan. And I got jaded with the banking industry, and I just decided I was gonna start my own version, and we were having long-form conversations, unedited, unscripted. And I did this for nine years.

32:44 Got up to two million subscribers on YouTube, half a billion views, published about 10,000 videos on the YouTube platform. I was a partner. I had gone down to the headquarters, obviously getting paid ad revenue. And on April 6th of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I had a guest on my show that was asking questions about masks, about PCR tests, about if we were doing the right things. It was the second-largest YouTube live stream in the world that day, 65,000 concurrent viewers.

33:15 The largest was President Trump’s coronavirus briefing at the White House that night, so he just beat us out just by about 20,000 live viewers. And based on a previous episode I’d have with this guest, it had been watched about 10 million times. The live stream was 4x, so we extrapolated this would have been watched 40 million times. This video podcast, which, wow, which at the time would have been the most watched podcast in history, because Elon smoking weed on Rogan was about 25, 30 million.

33:45 So this thing was gonna go to Pluto, and it was an amazing conversation. Again, it’s me and a 67-year-old man having a calm conversation like this. We didn’t incite violence. We didn’t incite political overthrow. We were asking questions when, funny enough, nobody else was.

34:00 30 minutes later, Doctor, YouTube deleted and banned that video, and it was the first time that ever happened to me in nine years. I thought the weirdos got censored, you know, not me. And it started off this massive fight I had with YouTube and all the other technology platforms about what I could publish, and I was right on the cutting edge of it, and we’re about to make it. We’re about to release a documentary film about everything that happened. But just to finish the story, I ended up getting two strikes, almost had my entire channel deleted and disappeared, which, by the way, was also nine years of my life.

34:37 It was my digital identity that was being taken away. I got, removed from Dropbox, which is interesting, because I didn’t know they would watch my content, but they took my account out. PayPal suspended my account with over a hundred thousand dollars in there. Obviously shadow banned by Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. They dropped me.

34:54 Like I said, a bunch of other things, systematically blocked me, and when I said, who’s looking out for my right for freedom of speech? And I looked at the governments, they all pointed the finger, and I know you talk about this in your book, and they said, no, no, no, that’s a private company, and you ticked the box on their private policy, so you’ve got to go talk to them. And I was like, well, when you lock us in our houses, this feels like a public utility.

35:17 And there was actually some precedent here in the UK, when a company acts as a public utility, it might have to follow the law of the land. But when I finally looked at the Twitter Files and I saw that the FBI and the CIA were going into Twitter and suppressing the right to free speech, I thought, wow, here I am asking my government to protect me, they point the finger at the private sector, and then, meanwhile, they go in the back door and violate my rights by telling the private sector what to do. And I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I leave that to my guests, but it also possibly makes sense, and I’m waiting for the YouTube files, for a reason why I might have been systematically de-platformed across a lot of different technology companies at once, if it was something like an FBI, CIA, Senate subcommittee.

36:03 So that’s what happened to me. Final point, we ended up creating our own platform, and we pulled off, on May 3rd of 2020, the largest live stream of a human conversation on our own platform, and I’ll be honest, it was kind of a big f*** you to the tech platforms, to show them that we could do it ourselves. And so that’s how it kind of ended. Didn’t really end. So that’s what happened to me.

36:25 What are your thoughts on that, Doctor? Wow, well, thank you for sharing that, and I’m really sorry it happened to you, but I’m, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but, to me it’s like you just described every Tuesday of anyone who says anything that those overlords don’t agree with. Now, again, I’ve never been kicked off in the, you know, the way you were, and the strikes and so on. But let me, let first of all, let me just say this. The story that you just said, had you told that story at USC when I was there, I can assure you that you wouldn’t have had one empathetic or sympathetic ear.

36:58 To the contrary, they would be, well, they should have gotten rid of you even earlier. It’s amazing that they let you stay there, and again, they would have said so, precisely using a consequentialist ethic, which is, it doesn’t matter whether what you and that gentleman were discussing could potentially be true. As far as they’re concerned, it was too dangerous, given public policy measures, for you to be holding such a conversation. So I mean, the Nazis used the consequentialist ethic for why they needed to get rid of you, those vermin Jews, right?

37:32 So the idea of using consequentialism to support your otherwise quote noble cause is an indelible part of the human spirit. So it doesn’t surprise me. Now, in my case, speaking of, I think the gentleman you were talking to was about COVID, correct? correct. So let me tell you, and I mentioned this, by the way, at USC, so, and I don’t, I don’t know if this was the gentleman that you, you, you talked to, but, do you know who Matt Ridley is? I just had him on my show, actually, about three, four weeks ago.

38:03 Okay, well, so, so Matt and I know each other well. He’s been on my show, I think, twice. he, he actually, provided a blurb for The Parasitic Mind. just a lovely chap, trained in evolutionary biology, and so on and so forth, House of Lords, so certainly not a quack. His team reached out to me when his last book came out, where he, you know, he was discussing the possibility that it’s, you know, the lab leak theory, and so on.

38:36 And at the time, and I said, I’m ashamed that I’m admitting this, and I said this at USC at the time that they reached out to me. I told his, his folks, I can’t remember who was the publicist or the publicist, whatever. I said, look, I’m perfect, you know, I’m the ultimate honey badger, right? I mean, I get a million death threats from people that are a lot scarier than, you know, the, the mask orgy folks. But let’s be pragmatic.

39:03 If we hold the chat, here’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to be removed 14 seconds after we post it, and in the worst case, in the best case scenario, I get a strike against my channel. In the worst case scenario, I’m taking off, and just like you, you had spent, you said, nine years. I started in 2014. I’m gonna lose all the years of effort that I’ve built to build this inventory of content.

39:31 And so I said, look, it seems like reckless, smarter than to just do it. So it’s again, it’s not that I’m, I’m afraid to hold difficult conversations, because I’ve taken positions that are astoundingly more, quote, dangerous than discussing the lab leak theory, but pragmatically I know it’s not going to lead us anywhere. Now, you can’t imagine how much that kept me up at night, because what was happening is, in my pragmatic understanding of how the overlords control us, I was acquiescing to the fact, you know, what, let’s not have the chat, it’s not going to lead anywhere, and I felt dirty.

40:09 I felt disgusted. I felt cowardly, even though I was being too harsh on myself, because, as Aristotle explained to us, you know, being a cowardly soldier is bad, but being a reckless martyr of a soldier is also bad. There is the golden mean. And so I was kind of beating myself, because I, I was saying, well, why am I being pragmatic in my calculation? But the reality is, I know it would have happened the exact same thing that happened to you.

40:37 Now, is this the kind of world we want to live in, where someone like me or someone like you decides, you know, should I even have this conversation? By the way, that’s the, that’s the biggest danger, and I discussed this in The Parasitic Mind. It’s the calculus of self-censorship. That’s the most dangerous part. It’s not the fact that there’s going to be six-foot-four guys knocking at my door.

40:59 It’s the fact that in the internal privacy of my mind, I am calculating, as a student, should I say something in class or will I be penalized? Should I host Matt Ridley, or will my YouTube channel, that’s how freedom dies, bit by bit. And so I’m truly sorry for what you went through, but I’m glad that you’ve come back bigger and stronger than ever before. Yeah, I’m thankful for it now, but it was a real defining moment in my life, and, I think, I don’t know if it was my upbringing in the States, but my initial reaction, one, was one of anger when that happened, and so we just fought back.

41:35 And, and just decided to push it, but the self-censorship is the most dangerous thing, because you start doing it at a subconscious level, and it’s that parasite which you were saying, and that might be about your wife in the jeans or anything else around you, and pretty soon subconsciously you’re self-censoring and just numbing yourself, and then now you really are a zombie, and you walk around and you can’t say what you think, which ultimately harms humanity. It harms our truth. It harms our progress, it harms everything.

42:03 And to watch it happen on a social media channel is fascinating, because first they take away your shares and your virality. Then, when you’re still a bad boy, they demonetize you. Then, when you’re still bad boy, they give you a strike, and then when you really don’t want to listen, they take you off the platform, and these little things start to just really make you smaller and smaller and smaller, and it works. Can I, can I give you a few examples? I’ve had, so on LinkedIn, I’ve had countless posts removed for insane reasons.

42:37 So for example, if I criticize some policy of, you know, by Joe, Joe Biden’s administration, I will receive a thing: this tweet, this post, has been removed because it is considered, you know, harassed, you know, unprofessional, and harassment and bullying. So in a free society, never mind that I’m a professor who weighs in on these issues, if I’m just a, if I’m a trucker, anybody, I cannot directly criticize a policy by the president of the United States, because that’s considered harassment and bullying to whom? To the, to Joe Biden, right?

43:15 So, so I’ve had countless of those on LinkedIn, on Facebook. I’ve had several strikes where they say, you know, you’re about to lose your Facebook page forever, because I will take a screenshot of a death threat that I received for those of you who don’t know, who are listening to me for the first time, we are Lebanese Jews. I’m Jewish, from Lebanon, from the Middle East. So I received many death threats of the, this is how we’re going to boil you, Jew, this is how we’re gonna put you in the oven, Jew, we like you, so you’ll be the last to go in the oven, and all kinds of stuff.

43:53 So I will take a screenshot of it, especially when the person is stupid enough to identify who they are or their email, and I will advertise it. I will get banned for spreading hate. So then I try to write to Facebook, I say, I’m just describing the death threat that I’m receiving now. If you want to be charitable, you might say, oh, but that’s just an algorithmic glitch, or that’s just, you know, the person who is reviewing the things is not paying attention.

44:24 But again, do we want to live in a world where there’s this kind of Overlord oversight over our every syllable? I venture not. No, we don’t. And, yeah, sorry for the fact that you get those death threats. They’re not nice.

44:38 I ended up running for mayor of London afterwards, and I got them too, which isn’t a nice thing, but when they start threatening your family members, that’s really not nice. And then when the police tell you there’s not much they can do, it’s not the nice thing to do, but I guess it’s just par for the course if you want to try to get those messages out there. Doctor, you have something in the book where you say there’s a crowd that says, I believe in free speech, but, dot dot dot.

45:04 And it was interesting when I was going through this struggle, I was posting my vlogs, and everybody was arguing against me, and they had that, oh, of course we have free speech, but can you talk about the way you analyze that? Because it’s important. Yeah, so again, that goes back to the deontological versus consequentialist ethics. When you’re saying the but part, you are immediately triggering the consequentialist thing. Yes, of course I believe in the deontological principle of freedom of speech, but, and now the but is exactly mired in consequentialism.

45:34 So let me give you, three or four examples of what I consider faulty consequentialism, which will include the “I believe in freedom of speech, but” so when the very esteemed Malibu, I refer to him as the Malibu meditator, do, can you imagine who that might be? I was just about to ask what your beef was with Sam Harris. Yes, yes, so, and now, of course, you will receive a bunch of emails. God, Saad suffers from Sam Harris derangement syndrome. I couldn’t give a damn one way or the other about Sam Harris.

46:06 I use them as an example because humans are storytelling animals, so by using a specific example, or especially one who is, quote, an esteemed meditator and luminary and intellectual, then it pisses me off. So I am, go, not because it’s personal animus, but because you represent something that’s very dangerous. So when Sam Harris gets on his soapbox and says, of course I believe in freedom of speech, but not for asteroid hurling towards Earth, Donald Trump.

46:35 I mean, he’s, he is worse than Osama bin Laden. He has said those words. He is a once-in-a-lifetime existential threat to humanity, so of course it made sense for Twitter to remove him, because the threat is simply too great. Okay, if that one is not enough of a lunatic statement, how about this one? Of course I believe in journalistic integrity, and I believe in truth as a matter of fact.

47:01 I’ve written a book called Lying, where I talk about the fact that you shouldn’t lie. I’m speaking now as the Malibu meditator, but when the media, in conjunction with all the social media companies, decided to suppress the Hunter Biden story, that was perfectly reasonable, because had that story not been suppressed, then orange Himmler would have ascended the throne a second time, and we can’t have that asteroid hurling towards Earth. So again, yes, I believe in journalistic integrity.

47:37 But let me give you a third one. Of course I believe in presumption of innocence, but not for gang rapist Brett Kavanaugh, who went up and down the Eastern Seaboard raping every woman inside. Now, sure, there is no evidence for that. Sure, it came up 36 years ago. It may have happened, may not have happened, but we can’t take the risk of granting him the courtesy of not assuming that he’s a gang rapist.

48:06 After all, it’s not a criminal case, it’s a job interview, so it’s okay to presume that he is a gang rapist as the default value. Okay, so each of those examples are not a satire. I’m not satirizing the positions. I am enunciating the exact position that they took, and yet I can’t reach those people, right? I can’t say, you can’t see how intellectually dishonest you’re being.

48:34 You’re the guy who meditates all day and talks about intellectual virtues and honesty and so on, so that’s why I go after supposedly Sam Harris, but I’m not going after Sam Harris. I’m going after the position that countless of his latte-sipping friends in Malibu also enunciate, because they are smarter than us. They’re not like the great unwashed. They’re not the rubes, they’re not the plebs. That’s why, by the way, people can’t exactly handle me, because I do hold all the fanciest credentials, and I do go and give the fancy talks at Stanford and at USC, as I just did, and I do have a very long CV.

49:17 Yet I’m the defender of the common man. I am not part of the highfalutin ivory tower progressive lisp folks, and therefore I create antipathy in the people at USC. Why can’t you be like us? By the way, it’s the exact same reason, not that I’m in any way similar to Trump other than in the following way. I argue that the reason why Donald Trump triggers such hostility amongst the Left, the highfalutin ivory tower, is because he serves as an existential aesthetic injury to their being.

49:53 Right? If Donald Trump, this ogre, this pig according to them, this cantankerous, kind of angry, he speaks with the wrong vernacular, his elocution is off, if he could ascend to the most important position, then all of my progressive lisp is for naught. Therefore it invalidates me. Therefore I have to bring him down, otherwise I’m fraudulent. That’s why he’s disgusting, that’s why I have to revile him.

50:22 And for the same reasons, that’s why the fancy professor at USC, whose voice was quivering when he was asking me questions, he he can’t accept that someone like me, who’s better looking than him, who’s got more swagger than him, who plays soccer really really well, that invalidates the, the exemplar of what it is to be a progressive invertebrate castrato academic. Gad Saad must be killed so that we can flourish. So there’s that. That was beautiful. So their egos under attack, and so they just go down to the lowest level of injury, of energy, to the amygdala, visceral.

51:03 Right? It’s disgusting, right? I think that guy, my wife might be fantasizing about being. It’s Darwinian, it’s visceral. Gods, it disgusts me.

51:14 It’s never, I disagree with position X, let’s discuss it. You must be shut down, you’re vile. What do you mean I’m vile? I’m very friendly. I’m very warm.

51:26 I’m very sentimental. I actually, if you, if you watch the talk, I mean, actually my, my family came up to me, and a few fans came and said, we’re amazed that you could stay so calm. I’m totally calm. I’m smiley, and yet I trigger such animus. It could only be explained by the deepest ego defensive visceral stuff, and these are supposed to be the highest levels of intellectuals.

51:49 I mean, USC is not a not a bad school. I mean, they should be the ones that are more capable than anyone else of forcing themselves to use that frontal cortex and to try to debate the issues, not have that visceral reaction or go into an emotional reaction. But it’s not happening. That’s what’s fascinating to me. Indeed.

52:09 Go ahead. well, just recently, just while we’re on Sam Harris, recently Jordan Peterson was on Joe Rogan, and they, they kind of, they almost expressed some sadness, and they said, oh wow, Sam Harris has really lost his way. They almost, were you, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know, they almost given up on any chance of him coming back to any level of humanity because of his recent, I think he went off on the unabated laptop and just kind of tripled down on some of the things you said. Well, I think he said something like, if there was the worst form of child pornography on the laptop, it still shouldn’t have been talked about.

52:48 And then everybody was like, wow, you really jumped the shark. Can you comment on the latest level of extremism, and even how people that hurt his critics are even shocked and a little even worried about the man in that sense? So I’ll say two things. Number one, one thing that we haven’t talked about in terms of the Malibu meditator is he came out on, I think it was trigonometry, I can’t remember which show it was, but he said, you know, if everything that I had said about COVID had come out the way I had said it, rather than the exact opposite of what I said, then I would have been right.

53:26 So you see, you only had to change a few variables, all of which I was wrong on. So had I not been wrong, I would have been right. So you see, I was right. To which I created a YouTube clip where I said, if my grandmother had balls, we would have called her my grandfather, the dictum of Sam Harris, right? In Arabic, it’s, I’ll say it in Arabic, is, if my grandmother had balls, we would have called her grandfather.

53:58 Right. So that is so insane, because it speaks of a pathological form of quote intellectual hubris. Right? It’s arrogance. I will never admit to being wrong.

54:12 You can never show me evidence that I’m wrong. In Arabic, you do like this, I am never wrong, right? In Arabic, this is called, it’s a form of, of, of orgiastic pride, right? That pisses me off. Right?

54:27 So I’ll come back to what the other guy said in a second. Now, why does that quote trigger me? It’s not because I have Malibu meditator derangement syndrome. As a matter of fact, I, I faced a great personal conundrum as I saw Sam, you know, sinking into his his [expletive] because I have a very exacting code of personal conduct, which is, you know, if you’re a friend, if I know you, then I’m going to give you a lot more leeway. It’s kind of like how, if you invite someone to your house in the Middle Eastern culture, you have to be exaggerated in your hospitality.

55:04 So I know you, I’ve had dinner with you. We’re not the best of friends, but we’ve communicated. I’ve been on his show. We’ve had dinner together once. I consider you part of the circle, that I, of, quote, intellectuals that I know.

55:17 So for four or five years, when he was espousing all of his [expletive], I kept quiet, but then I felt inauthentic if I had stayed that way. Why? Because now we go back to deontological, what’s more important, me defending true truth or me being loyal to a guy who’s not really a deep personal friend? But even if he were, I mean, even if he were my mother, that doesn’t mean that you’re allowed to commit certain deontological violations. And so after four or five years, I did only start speaking out against what he was saying.

55:51 So I went through that internal kind of forensic accounting, should I do it or not? Now, when I first did it, I did it in my usual satirical, jocular way. I would hide under the desk, pretending that I’m scared of Trump, and I would say, you know, Sam and I are currently hiding under the desk because, you know, the SS of Trump are coming. So he could have, if, if in Arabic you say, if you had a personhood, he could have said, haha, God, you got me, you’re mocking me, you know, it’s all cool, it’s ribbing, it’s locker-room stuff.

56:24 What did he do instead? He unfollows me. What does he do next? He blocks me. Now, do I give a damn in the grand scheme of things whether he follows me or not?

56:33 No, but, but again, as a person who comes from a culture of honor, a culture of honor and shame, that to me is dishonorable. Therefore I am now going to undo my cuffs and start coming after you, not because I have personal animus against you, because you’re exemplifying traits that are not virtuous. Okay, so that said, I did a clip where I announced, hey, maybe, Sam, I’m, I’m doing this as kind of an open message of some friendship. You now have Brett Weinstein, who has spoken out against you.

57:08 You now have Jordan Peterson and, Joe Rogan, who have said, in a very gentle way, that you might be going nuts. You had Elon Musk, who trolled him, who said, you know, Sam, there is such a thing as too much meditation. Right? So I did a clip, and I said, look, here are people who come from many, many different crowds, many different political persuasions, many different ecosystems, yet they are all offering you, in their unique ways, a warning sign that maybe you need to revisit some things.

57:44 Perhaps you should find some epistemic humility. By the way, I haven’t said this publicly. So Elon, Elon Musk, used to follow me. He had apparently become a fan, and I guess not many people he doesn’t follow many people, and I thought, okay, that’s great. You’ve got the ultimate, the richest honey badger, who now follows me.

58:07 Okay, I mean, I don’t care, but it’s, it’s a nice, it’s nice when honey badgers unite. So I thought that was exciting. The day that I posted the clip of, here are some people who have criticized Sam Harris, and as a courtesy, because I mentioned all of them in the clip, I then tagged them. Right, it’s not, it’s not bullying. It’s because if I do a whole clip on Brian Rose, maybe Brian Rose wants to know that I spoke about him, so I will tag you: hey, heads up, I just did a clip on you.

58:40 I found out, within, because there’s apparently some kind of bot or some automatic thing that follows who are the people that Elon Musk follows and who are the people that Elon Musk unfollows. So then people started sending me messages: oh, Professor Saad, Elon Musk just unfollowed you. I’m like, what? So I went to check, and I’m like, what the hell, man? Like, really?

59:04 All it took is for me to tag you about you having trolled Sam Harris for you to say, that’s not a very honey badger move. Anyways, it doesn’t matter, but all this to say, you know, all of these personal imaginations are so silly. I only get involved in all this because there’s a higher issue at play, which is never violate deontological first principles, that defines the beauty of the West, under no circumstances. So to go back to your original question, there is no, I believe in freedom of speech, but the minute that you say, but you’re a cretin, you’re a fraud, and let me now defend that.

59:46 Walk the walk. I’m Jewish, I escaped execution in Lebanon. There is nothing more offensive, nothing, by definition, than Holocaust denying, why? Because it’s an astoundingly historically documented reality where there was a group of people that were systematically eradicating at mass-scale level entire people, so there almost can’t be anything that is more grotesque. Yet as a free speech absolutist, I defend the right of Holocaust deniers spewing their [expletive].

1:00:20 So if I can do that, then Sam Harris should be ashamed of himself day and night that he hits us with his laptop, but Hunter Biden [expletive]. Yeah, really well said, and I appreciate you calling that whole situation out. Yeah, I, I had a weird history with Sam Harris. Early on the show, we invited him on, and he wanted to come on, but it was like audio only, and I was like, okay, you obviously have a camera, you just don’t want to turn it on. I was just like, it’s just going to be weird.

1:00:50 And so that was one, and then I saw him debate Jordan Peterson at the O2 Arena, and I was really excited for it. It was kind of an epic moment, that 10,000 people showed up at this arena. The last time I’ve been there, I’d seen Beyonce perform, and they had a great moderator, and then we got there, and it was just a real dud, because Sam was just, it’s just, there was no life there. I was just like, gosh, I mean, oh, but religion just isn’t true, and I just, I was really let down.

1:01:18 I think the last time was he was going to come on the show, and then he saw other guests we had on the platform, and said, oh, I can’t be on the platform with those people. I think one of the people had been censored, and funny enough, Dr Steven Pinker, who I really like, the Harvard professor, had said a similar thing. He’d asked me to remove his episode because I had an episode with someone else on. And I got back an email exchange with him saying, but you do believe in freedom of speech, and this person has a right to say, and people have a right to listen to it.

1:01:48 And so you really want me to take your message off because it’s with someone else? I couldn’t believe it. And, but again, I guess when there’s a, when there’s a glitch in the Matrix, you get to see, you know, what do they say when the water goes out? You can see who has a bathing suit on. And sometimes in these times of struggle, you get to see what people are really made of versus what they project to the world, what they are.

1:02:12 And, yeah, it’s, it’s sad to see. I’m glad you called it out. I really am. Okay, thank you for that. Can I, can I add, hopefully, an inspiring message to the people who are watching?

1:02:23 I live my life as though and again, I’m not, I’m not speaking of myself to toot my horn, because I, I want, I want for people to hopefully take inspiration from it. Right? There is nothing worse for me than to lose a millimeter of my honor or dignity. Right? So in other words, I walk like a 70- foot-tall person.

1:02:47 I’m, I’m the, I’m the height of Messi. So by, by, by objective morphological reality, I’m not a six-foot-four guy, but when I walk into a room at USC, I’m by far the tallest guy. That’s because of, to use again the Arabic word, my personhood. So therefore, when Stephen Pinker says, remove this, because I don’t want to be associated, then you don’t have a strong personhood. By the way, I love Stephen Pinker.

1:03:20 For many, I’m a big fan. I mean, I read his 2000 book, The Blank Slate, and as an evolutionary psychologist, I was, this guy’s fantastic. So he, you know, is he a brilliant psychologist? Yes. Is he a phenomenal popularizer of science?

1:03:34 Yes. Do I consider myself a fan of his work? Yes, but you say [expletive] like that, boy, have you gone down in my esteem? And I know for a fact that what you said about Sam is true, because when I was speaking with him on his show, and we were talking about certain people, I can’t remember if this was offline or on air, or off, offline, where I said, oh, you know, you should have this guy on to discuss Islam, or you should have this guy on, and he kept referring to, but I don’t think that would be good for my brand image.

1:04:02 I don’t think so. So the fact that he was equivocating and using that calculus already, to me, that was upsetting me, because I never use that calculus in judging whether I should talk to someone, because many of the most wonderful conversations I’ve had on my show would never have happened if I were using that calculus. But it’s because I am a honey badger, and honey badgers, as you know, the expression is, don’t give a f***, live your life that way. And you know what?

1:04:33 It’s liberating. Don’t you know in Judaism there’s an expression, which maybe many Jews don’t live by, but you never kneel in front of anybody other than God. Now, I’m not a very religious person, but I live my life under that, that, that you know, maxim, which is, to contact Brian Rose because you are so afraid, and so, you know, fetal position Thumb in your mouth, please. I don’t want to be associated. Who gives it [expletive]?

1:05:03 I mean, walk tall. And so by the way, that’s one of the, that’s one of the things that makes me, again, a pariah in academia, because while I am, again, in my professorial stance, I’m, you know, very professorial. I conduct myself with full dignity. I also am a multifaceted person. I could be spicy when I need to be.

1:05:25 I can be jocular when I need to be. Again, why? Because I have the self-confidence to put myself and show myself to the world in different lights. My sense of self is not so insecure and brittle that I have to always pretend that I’m austere and august, and always looking into the air, pontificating, smoking a pipe. But that’s what insecure people do, and that’s why I’m hated by a lot of those progressive types, because secretly they wish they could be like that, but in reality they can’t, and therefore they have to argue that you’re an [expletive] and you’re simply too uncouth.

1:06:06 Well, first of all, I love learning about the honey badger, because I hadn’t really heard of that species before. I love your Arabic expressions, by the way. Their choice, and, the Jewish expressions too. Those are nice. So keep those coming, please. you know, it’s funny you say that, because some of the guests that have had the biggest impact on me, Doctor, are ones that, like, literally the day before I was thinking, what the hell am I having this person on my show for?

1:06:31 This is just way out there. They seem crazy. I don’t even like them. I don’t agree with them, but I would bring them in and just zip my lips and let them talk, and then not only that, like, allowed me to have their ideas bounce around in my head for weeks and months, and those people changed me more than anyone else on this show. And I started to learn that I’m not always right, funny enough, and my first take on things, and I can change my mind, and I need to change my mind.

1:07:02 And to do that, I have to experience some discomfort. My ego is going to have to get bounced around a little bit, and I’m going to have to listen. I’m going to have to just sit there and listen to someone else’s perspective and digest it in order to evolve. That’s the beauty of this long-form content that we’ve seen explode for the first time in history. It really can give a lot to humanity if people can give it a chance, and like, I’m living proof of that.

1:07:29 I’ve changed so much because I’ve been forced to expose myself to contrary points of view. So, yeah, can I build on that before we go to the next topic? two quick stories, one that’s happened, one that’s about to happen that no one has heard of publicly before this, so we’re breaking new ground here, to the point of speaking to people that you might otherwise not speak to. One of my dearest friends, now that we developed a friendship from him coming on my show, is Imam Muhammad Right, who is an Australian imam, who actually exemplifies a lot of the values that I exactly espouse.

1:08:20 So let’s suppose I had come with the calculus of, I don’t want to speak to some imam who’s going to tell me about, you know, I’m not a huge fan of many elements of Islam. This is not a guy I want to talk to. Meanwhile, I can absolutely tell you, without any equivocation, that he is one of the loveliest, most liberal, in the true sense of the classical liberal sense, of, you know, people that I’ve met. I love him to death. I was invited to an important function, of personal function, of his recently.

1:08:51 I was able to go because I was out of town. We’ve become fast friends. Every time he comes to Montreal, we go out and hang out. So that’s story one. Story two, that’s yet to happen.

1:09:00 So last week I was watching a movie called, The Mauritanian. Have you watched? Have you seen it? No. The Mauritanian is the story of Mohamedou, who is a Mauritanian man who was picked up, I think, in Afghanistan by the Americans, put in, Gitmo, spent 14 years there, you know, tortured in the worst possible ways.

1:09:28 And so the movie is about his story. it stars Jodie Foster, who plays his lawyer to get him out. So I watched that movie, again going back to deontological ethics. I was so angry that you can keep a person for 14 years without levying any formal charges against them, that you can brutalize and torture someone. I didn’t even get to whether he’s guilty or not, just that you could do that. You are violating deontological ethics.

1:10:05 Now, had I been a consequentialist, wait a minute, he’s in Islam, he’s probably an Islamic horrible guy, I’m no fan, in my personal history of a lot, so I can easily become part of the butt crowd, right? I believe in, but not for this [expletive]. No, I had tears in my eyes. I was angry because I was driven by deontological principles. Now, here is the hopefully kicker part that’s going to inspire your audience.

1:10:34 I reached out to him within maybe 30 minutes of me having watched the movie, and so on. We’re now communicating privately. The guy who was picked up in Afghanistan, who might be supposedly, according to the Americans, a you know, Al-Qaeda guy, we are now speaking in the most warm of ways, and he has agreed to eventually come on my show. So despite the fact that I could have easily said, that’s not a guy I want to talk to, I don’t know if he was guilty or not, but he seems like an extremist.

1:11:10 We actually turn out to be bonded through universal brotherhood and through shared universal values. So again, maybe the Malibu meditator and Stephen Pinker could listen to this part and revisit their positions. I appreciate that story, and, I think it also is a testament that when you can actually put two humans in a room, or maybe through one-on-one digital communication, it’s hard not to see the humanity in someone, and when you really listen to their entire story, that’s why I love these long-form conversations.

1:11:47 And there’s that old phrase my grandpa used to say: you never know a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. And we really understand why they think that, and these nuanced points of view that are very complicated can never be summed up in a quote or a meme or a clip. Then you could see the humanity, and we can actually come together and find some common ground, find some way to compromise, find a solution. And that’s beautiful. For example, I’ve had the same, and it’s been amazing, and there’s so much more of that out there if people will allow it to happen, and also maybe get off the Twitter wars and get into communication.

1:12:21 I want to ask you a couple questions, Doctor. Will Donald Trump get reelected? Is my question. Wow, what an amazing question. I, I don’t usually like to be a you know, a forecaster.

1:12:32 You know, I’m torn, because on the one hand, I said so this is not answering will he, right? I’m gonna answer the should he. My feeling is that from a pragmatic perspective, it is true that Ron DeSantis can carry many of the same policy positions that Trump voters appreciate. He is also, I think, a honey badger without having the Trump aesthetic injury part, that makes not only the progressive, you know, Malibu meditator types recoil, but even people who are on the fence might say, I don’t want the drama.

1:13:08 I don’t want the Twitter fights. I don’t want all his cantankerous, non-presidential stuff. So from that perspective, I would say he shouldn’t, because, you know, I think from a holistic perspective, maybe the country would be better served with someone else who exemplifies many of his traits without being kind of Trumpish. will he? I, I hate to disappoint you.

1:13:32 I, I really am on the fence. some days I think that, you know, he will be the nominee, and maybe he could, if he could have some discipline, and if Joe Biden runs against, runs again against him, he will defeat him. Other days I say he’s just too far gone for most people other than the super Trump voters to, to kind of swallow. I don’t know. I may turn it back to you.

1:13:57 What’s your position on this? Do you think he will? Well, my next question was, will he be arrested and indicted? Because Elon, your buddy Elon, who used to follow you, said last week, if he gets, you know, cuffed and perp-walked, then that’s a guaranteed re-election. You’re right, right. you know, I, I thought, and again, I’m completely being speculative here, right, I, unlike some of these other people we were mentioning, I do have, epistemic humility, meaning that when I know something, I walk with the swagger of someone who really knows what they’re talking about.

1:14:31 When I don’t, I’m the first to admit that, you know, I’m really on shaky grounds. So I really don’t have any clear sense. I thought that maybe they had delayed the thing, you know, the indictment or whatever, with the grand jury and so on, because someone had gotten to, is, is his name Bradley, the attorney general of New York? Oh yeah, yeah, I think that’s his name, yeah, yeah. So whatever his name is, I think it’s Bragg.

1:14:54 I think that maybe somebody had told him, you know, it’s, it’s exactly to your point. You know, what you’re, you’re really laying the ground for Trump to be re-elected, and it’s such a dangerous precedent. Maybe you should walk it back and walk away. My my intuition is that he will not be indicted, but you never know in these political machinations what’s gonna happen. See, I did the math, the chess, the political chess in my head, and I thought, well, if you know, if there isn’t a they, but if there is a they of Democrats, left-wing people, and they saw that by cuffing him and stuffing him, as they used to say, would get him reelected, they wouldn’t.

1:15:29 But then I think about that quivering woke professor at USC, and then I realized that they still can’t help themselves. They still have to go vilify him, persecute him, hang him, because he is the enemy, and the one that took away their relevance. And so at an amygdala level, they can’t stop themselves. So I think they will, and it might be the undoing. I think, I think you might be right.

1:15:53 I, I might support that position. Okay, another question: how do you still have a job? How are you still in academia, in a field of, of people that seem to be completely contrarian to how you feel? How do you still have a job? So I, I like the joke, although I’m, I’m not sure that I’m joking.

1:16:12 I like to say it: it’s simply impossible to hate me. Look at that smile. Look at that. I agree, it’s very hard. Thank you.

1:16:19 I do think, though, in all seriousness, there is a personal style element that makes it a bit more difficult for people to exhibit animus towards me. I’ll tell you a quick story, and I’ll, I’ll come back to answer the question. It’s relevant to your question. I was once interviewed by someone, a pretty prominent writer and, journalist, at the end of the day. I think it was off air.

1:16:44 He said, you know, I’m angry at you, God. I said, why? You know, we had a very nice conversation. He said, because I came with every intention to dislike you, but damn it, I like you. I said, well, why is that bad?

1:17:01 And so I think that’s exactly the point. I mean, which is, because I, if once you know me, I’m I’m a very warm person. I’m actually very down to earth. I’m, I don’t take myself seriously. Not that I don’t take my job as a professor seriously, but I can, you know, show vulnerabilities.

1:17:18 I could engage in self-deprecation. I can engage in full grandiosity. You know, I’m playful. It, you know, it, it triggers less of that aesthetic injury in the greater crowd. I also think the fact that I score the highest in victimology poker.

1:17:37 So if you come to me with, you know, I’m a victim because I was misgendered at Wellesley, I go, oh really? Let me tell you about how I avoided snipers in Beirut when I was 11. which was just Tuesday morning. Then we’re gonna get to Tuesday afternoon, when I ran really fast from the extra, and then Wednesday, when, then it becomes very hard to play victimology poker with me. So then that, right, if Brian Rose says something against Islam, it’s a, it’s one thing.

1:18:06 If God says it, it’s another thing. It’s another thing if God speaks in flawless Arabic. So that’s another thing. Also, I think the fact that I’m very measured, and even though I’m very spicy, I’m very direct. I, there’s, there’s nothing that I walk away from.

1:18:23 I always am modulated in what to say. I don’t attack individuals. I attack ideas. I mock ideas using satire, so that it makes it impossible for you, if you’re trying to cancel me, to know whether the tweet that I just put out is a tweet that is truly progressive, or whether I’m making fun of progressives. So for all sorts of reasons, it’s hard to take the sniper shot and take your best shot at me.

1:18:57 I’m also tenured, but now here’s what tenure doesn’t protect you from. It doesn’t protect you from the fact that it’s been four years since I last held my university-wide, very prestigious shared professorship, which I held for 10 years, and it would be an absolute no-brainer for it to continue, but when the mandate was up for it to be renewed, it’s now been four years that they’ve refused that. It’s and therefore I’ve lost a lot of additional income that comes with that chair.

1:19:29 I’ve lost the fact that I get course remissions that come from holding that chair. Anything that I ask for, the minute that I begin to ask it, it’s a no. So we may not be able to find a way to fire you and cancel you, but boy, are we never going to, you know, be on your side. I’ll give you a great specific example of that. I decided to troll my university.

1:19:54 So last year I received, and I say this not to brag, because it’s really relevant to the story, so on Republic Day, which is India’s, you know, Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi puts, picks, you know, a few, I don’t know how many, a few global people, and he sends them a letter of commendation. You know, thank you for your great soccer player, thank you for being a great cricketer. So I was chosen by the Prime Minister of the largest democratic country in the world to be, you know, thank you, you’re the global leader, the global block.

1:20:36 Okay. So I said, you know what, I want to find out how much my university loves me or hates me. So I wrote to every university administrator and their mother to say, oh, I know that you guys would be very proud of such a you know, accomplishment from one of your professors, and I know you’re always asking us to submit, you know, all our accolades. Oh, well, you know, here is me receiving a letter of commendation. Oh, I’m going to Ottawa to meet the High Commissioner of India to receive a personal letter from the Prime Minister of India, so you know, I look forward to you announcing it all over the university, billboards, because it’s a very important promotional tool.

1:21:16 You know, well, they never announced it. It turns out, and when I asked why is that, they said, oh, because this is a private letter from the Prime Minister to you, and we don’t want to violate that protocol. I said, well, no, because the letter is officially published, you know, publicly, plus I’ve received the clearance from the Prime Minister’s Office to post it on my social media, which I’ve already done. So you’re not violating any protocol. Go ahead, promote it.

1:21:49 And they said, yeah, no, we can’t do it. So when your university decides that it’s not worthy to associate themselves with you by sharing in your accolades, then yes, maybe it’s hard to cancel me, but you can certainly make my life a living hell. And regrettably, in some cases, this is exactly what happens. So they’re shadow banning you. Indeed.

1:22:13 Tell me about, your next book coming out. I think this summer. It’s The Sad Truth About Happiness: Eight Secrets for Leading the Good Life. Oh, thank you so much for asking about it. so, The Parasitic Mind was about what happens to minds when they are parasitized by idea pathogens. So it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a quote, negative book.

1:22:35 Well, I mean, it does offer you a vaccine, a mind vaccine. It offers you an inoculation against these idea pathogens, but it’s about what happens to your mind when it goes awry. Well, then I thought, okay, well, why don’t I write the flip book? Why don’t I write a book about what happens when you are, imbued and endowed with positive mindsets? What might some of these be?

1:22:58 But what frankly led to me even thinking about writing such a book, it had never been, excuse me, on my radar to write, you know, a how-to-live-life, book. It was just never something that I thought I’d be interested in. What led me to write it is that whenever I would post something on my platforms that was prescriptive in nature, you know, guys, here is how I lost weight, I used to be 86 pounds heavier, here is what you need to do, those messages would resonate more than anything else that I would ever write.

1:23:35 Like, and oftentimes my prescription would be something that I thought was profoundly obvious, and yet it would be life-altering to countless people who would write to me and say, oh my God, you know, I just lost 30 pounds because of what you just said on Joe Rogan. I just did this with my wife because of what you said there. So I thought, wait a second, I mean, people seem to resonate with me as a person, with my positive prescriptive messages. Why don’t I take a shot at writing such a book, because I am someone who is, by this position, happy?

1:24:11 So, but that’s the genetic part, right? 50% of our happiness is due to genes, but then that means that 50% is up for grabs. That’s the part that we can affect, change. And so I said, okay, you know what, I’m going to write a book. So the book is basically a combination of my personal anecdotes, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the Arabic, Jewish stuff that you said that you love to hear me say.

1:24:35 Oh, it’s full of that stuff, because it’s all informed from my lived experience, but then it is backed up by the ancient wisdoms. Here comes Aristotle, here comes Epictetus, here is Seneca coming at us, here’s Socrates, right, here is Confucius, and then backed up by contemporary empirical science and happiness research, psychology research, behavioral science, neuroscience, and so it’s a melange of God-isms, God stories, ancient wisdoms, empirical science. Put it together, that’s the book.

1:25:10 Wow, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been, I’ve been posting kind of a Stoic quote every single day for the past couple months, and people seem to really enjoy hearing the things from Epictetus and Seneca and Aurelius, and it’s, it gives me a lot to think about each day, so that with the God spin on it. yeah, I’ll tell you one quick story about, forgive me, I hope, I hope it’s not, I hope it doesn’t bother you that I just interject, So I, in the book, I talk, because you mentioned all the stories that you just did, by the way, I I love all of them, but someone recently asked me who would be your favorite, and it was impossible for me to say, but then I thought, I said, well, okay, if you’re forcing me to answer, I’m going to go with Aurelius, because I love the fact, and then I’m gonna tell you another story in a second, because I love the fact that this guy comes out with Meditations, but he’s also emperor of Rome.

1:26:05 And as you know, he’s pissed off when someone is coming to him to interrupt him with emperor stuff, because he would rather be immersing himself in thought. I said, I love this guy. I mean, I want to hang out with this guy. This is my guy. And so that’s why I decided to go with Aurelius, because he exemplified the polymathy, the Renaissance man that I so admire, and that I try to live my life according to those edicts.

1:26:31 You know, be interested in many things. But the other thing I was going to say is, I remember, because you said that you post all these quotes by the Stoics, I remember one. Do you know when I seen Taleb? Yes, right. So Nassim is a good friend of mine.

1:26:45 He’s actually a fellow Lebanese, and so one day he was joking with me, you know, the sparring stuff, the teasing. He said, you know, God, I don’t know what the hell it is that you study in psychology, because anything that needs to have been discovered about human nature, the ancient Greeks have already said it. And so at the time I said, okay, I mean, I get what he’s saying, but okay, he must be exaggerating. And so on. Then as I was doing my deep dive research on all these things for the book, so I would come into a passage where I’m like, my God, what a brilliant insight I just had, and then I go, I say, Epictetus already said that 2,000 years ago.

1:27:24 And so I said, you know what, I think Nassim might be on to something. Now, of course, it’s overselling. Of course we’ve done a lot of things, but there is real value in what Nassim said, which is, it is unbelievable how profound these guys were, because there must have been at least 10 places where I said, I can’t believe I made this link, this is beautiful, I can’t wait to write this at the café, and then I find out, oh, someone has already covered it.

1:27:49 Yeah, I’ve actually had the same experience reading these quotes, because I’ll read them, I’m like, what, I could have sworn I, you know, heard some, some new age person, you know, in Malibu or something say that, and, or it was in some new book or new concept, and I’m like, wait a second, yeah, two thousand years ago, and it’s deep and it’s nuanced and it’s super relevant to exactly what was happening today. But by the way, the whole philosophy of Stoicism, I mean, you know, cognitive behavior therapy would be almost plagiarism of some of their stuff. I mean, I mean, and then I, so I thought, okay, I’m gonna do a whole thing on, you know, the link between cognitive behavior therapy, which is, you know, one of the most effective therapeutic tools that we have in, in clinical psychology and psychiatry in terms of talk therapy, not pharmacological intervention, and then so many of those insights the Stoics had already covered.

1:28:46 Yeah, it’s, it’s fascinating how far ahead they were, and they don’t really get the credit for it, so I’m glad you’re doing a deep dive into that. and I’ve been doing my own little research myself. I guess I wanted to finish and ask you about the Middle East. I got the privilege of going to Beirut in 2005. I was, I was kind of an American in London, been here for a few years. My travel agent suggested it, and I said, I said, isn’t it dangerous?

1:29:09 And he’s like, well, Brian, don’t you see what’s happening in London? Can’t be more dangerous. I went there with an American friend. We had an amazing time. It was fascinating and very wild.

1:29:19 I later went to Tel Aviv. I’ve been to Jerusalem. I just got back from Dubai. There’s, they’re all very different places in the Middle East, but I also find them all, I don’t know, very satisfying places, you know, with people that are kind of from the earth, you know, real, straight-shooting people that have a lot of warmth and a lot of realness and a lot of, brotherly love. Does that make sense?

1:29:44 I, hard for me to put my finger on it, and I want to know your thoughts. Yeah, well, thank you for that question. you know, one of the things that I regret the most as a parent, maybe the only thing that, so far, Roberta made, be the only regret that I ever experienced, is that. So I speak my mother’s dog is Arabic. I speak fluent French, which we learned also in Lebanon. Lebanon used to be a French protectorate, of course.

1:30:13 English and Hebrew. My wife speaks English, French, and Armenian, because she’s Lebanese-Armenian, so she left Lebanon at a time when she hadn’t yet learned Arabic, but at home they spoke Armenian. So between the two of us, we speak five languages, and yet our children only speak English and French, because if I spoke to them in Arabic or Hebrew, then my wife would be locked out. If she spoke to them in Armenian, then I would be locked out, and we ended up only speaking in English and French.

1:30:42 Now, why am I saying this? Because that which you’re talking about, you go to this new land, it’s exotic, it’s different, it’s people of the earth, it’s brotherly, and so on, that Middle Eastern vibe. I would want to, in, well, part of it you could say, oh, it’s just in your genes, but part of it, of course, is cultural. I want my children to go back to Lebanon. I, I want to spend a two-year visiting professorship at AUB, American University of Beirut, where they could come back flawless in their Arabic speaking.

1:31:15 Yet I choose not to, because I, maybe I’m wrong, but I consider it too dangerous. I mean, first, for their unique reality, of God, said also, someone who has criticized some things that someone might get offended by in the Middle East. So I really regret that I haven’t been able to immerse not only myself in returning to my homeland, but in getting my children to experience it, precisely because a lot of those qualities that you, as an outsider, were able to see, that’s how we are made.

1:31:46 I mean, that’s how we roll in the world. That’s why I am, I have that unique, I mean, yes, a large part of it is just God’s side, it’s my unique personhood, but a lot of it stems from the world that I come from. For example, you know, people would call me, friends would call me, and say, when I was a kid at home, at my parents’ house, they would say, oh, what’s happening over there? There seems to be, are you guys people fighting? I said, no, nobody’s fighting, they’re just talking in the background.

1:32:14 Why? Because we’re animated, because we’re passionate, because we tease each other, because it’s, I mean, you can’t grow up in the Saad household and be anything but a honey badger, because you’re gonna be eaten alive. And so there is this camaraderie, there’s passion, there is food, there’s, you know, I hate to say it, I don’t mean to be stereotypical, is oftentimes lacking in the austere world of the West. And right, that, that, that, as you said, the Earth stuff, which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I, I, the test, to go back to our earlier conversation, why the test, those calculations of full niceness.

1:32:50 I, as a matter of fact, when you come to our house, by the way, let’s say, if, if ever one day I have the pleasure of inviting you to our home, you better be sure that you’re not leaving the house until you’ve put on five pounds, because in a Lebanese house it would be grace, greatly dishonorable if you didn’t eat 17 plates. Well, it’s the exact opposite in a Western home. If you ask for seconds, you’re a glutton, you’re a pig. Well, if you don’t ask for fifth in my home, that means we weren’t good hosts.

1:33:20 That means you are insulting us, because our food is not good, and so on. So those elements are things that are so rich, that are so beautiful, that really add to the richness of the fabric of social interactions. And so I hear you. I hope that one day I could return to the Middle East, but to kind of give a prognosis of whether I think it will happen or not, I think if two things have to happen in the Middle East. Number one, you have to, and I don’t know if it’s possible to do this, number one, you have to get rid of the tribal mindset, right?

1:33:52 You have to go back to deontological systems that recognize that, you know, there are universal values that we could band around that are more important than whether I am Sunni or Shia or Maronite or Jewish. If there’s a way to inculcate the Middle East with that, that will be a big tick of positivity. The second thing there is astonishing, fatal corruption in many Middle Eastern countries, which don’t allow for the flourishing of, you know, civil, societies.

1:34:27 Lebanon is a great example. So if there is a way, and I’m not sure that you can solve these two problems as much as you can, you know, cure cancer tomorrow, but if you can, then, I think, my God, you would unleash a potential from the Middle East that’s much bigger than all the oil riches. The richness of our culture is a pounding, and boy, that would be a great thing. Yeah, it would be. I agree with you. first of all, I remember the straight talking that came from Israel.

1:34:51 I mean, just fascinating. I’ve had, I’ve filmed a documentary over there with a movement guy named Ido Portal, and like, they always give it to you straight over there. It’s, it’s very refreshing, and yeah, look, there’s positivity. I mean, Dubai and Israel just normalized relations, and the people traveling back and forth, and the human capital potential, you can start to see it. I mean, look outside of Silicon Valley.

1:35:13 I think Tel Aviv is one of the biggest technology centers in the world. Dubai is a force to be reckoned with, and they have no oil there. And I mean, I don’t know if you’ve been there, but it’s the city of the future. It’s fascinating. I was hanging out with one of the top members of the government there, in Paris actually, yes, last night, and I just love the way they think.

1:35:33 They’re the city of the future, and they honestly make our Western democracies look backward and look broken, based on what they’re doing over there. And so you’re right. Forget the oil wealth. Just if you could empower all that human intellectual capital, it’s, it’s so powerful, and and there is a real dynamic there, a unique way in which Middle Eastern people communicate with each other, by the way, which my children have picked up, but because they don’t speak Arabic properly, they don’t quite.

1:36:03 So if I go to a Lebanese store and I’m being served by a fellow Lebanese, or whatever, Egyptians or whatever it is, the way even men speak to each other. So, for example, it’s hard to translate, but it’ll be like, oh, oh, my, my soul, how can I serve you? There’s a flowery thing that comes in Arabic that is so beautiful, it really is so beautiful that the Western mind just can’t comprehend. So for example, if I were now at the end of our show, if if you were Arabic, the way that I would end, as I would say to you, I’m gonna say it, then I’m gonna translate, which means there is no way to be satiated from you.

1:36:47 So it’s a very flowery and beautiful way to say goodbye, right? Because, because you’re, the fact that I’m saying goodbye to you, I’m walking away from you, but I want to leave you with the fact that I’m walking away from you despite the fact that it is impossible to be satiated from you. I would, well, that expression is pure poetry. Well, that’s like every second of every day, that’s how we speak to each other. So if we can get rid of all the religious [expletive] and the tribal [expletive] and the corruption, you’re gonna unleash a wave like you’ve never seen before.

1:37:19 That’s a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing. All right, on that note, on that amazingly positive note, I’m going to wrap this up. really appreciate you, your ideas, and again, you do have a very clever and nuanced way of putting them out there, to where people can see this goodness inside of you, and they can feel it, and that in itself is an art, because again, if you cannot, one thing I’ve learned in the last 12 years, Doctor, is that I can have lots of different people in this chair, but unless they can communicate the ideas that penetrate inside that other person’s brain, well, they might as well not be talking. And so it’s that nuance, that way that you can potentially, maybe, put your own positive parasites in people’s brains.

1:38:05 It gets them to think differently. And yeah, I just want to commend you for that, and I appreciate you continuing to speak out. Again, I’m very, dismayed a bit that you have to worry about threats and death threats, but, you know, again, you’re a tough guy from, from Beirut. I guess you’ve pushed through. So look, wishing you all the best.

1:38:23 Come see us next time you’re in London. If people want to follow you on Twitter, how do they do that, and how do they get a copy of the new book and the old book? Well, first, thank you for your lovely words. Several people, when I said that I was speaking to you, wrote, don’t speak to him, don’t speak to him. Boy, am I glad that I don’t listen to people.

1:38:39 It’s been an unbelievable pleasure to talk to you. You are the light, sir, so thank you for that. so if you want to reach me, or follow me on Twitter, at God, G-A-D-S-A-A-D. If you want to watch my either YouTube channel or my podcast, it’s The Saad Truth, S-A-A-D truth, and the book is available for pre-order. It really is. I don’t know if people know this, but it really is important if people pre-order it, because what happens is all the pre-orders are put together in a packet, which is then released the first week when the book comes out.

1:39:13 If one is released, then you can quickly get on the bestseller list that first week, and then that serves as an avalanche. So if you like my work, if you are planning on buying the book, please consider pre-ordering it. You can do so at Amazon, and, if you want to write to me, please go ahead. I try to answer as many people as possible. It’s become a lot more difficult as my platform has grown, but I certainly read every email.

1:39:36 So, please reach out, and they can find your email on your website, right? They can find my email. They could, exactly, or my, there’s my university address also. I, I answer those two. Okay, and it’s The Sad Truth About Happiness: Eight Secrets for Leading the Good Life.

1:39:49 We’ll have a link here below to pre-order that on Amazon. I’m looking forward to it. You’re gonna do an audio version, so, just to answer you, and not too long-winded, the, the biggest criticism I receive for The Parasitic Mind is the fact that it wasn’t me who narrated it, and even Joe Rogan came after me saying, what kind of dumb move was that? And I tried to explain to people that it’s not my decision to make. The audio publisher who buys the rights to the book ultimately decides whether they want the author to narrate it or not.

1:40:17 I understand that, you know, people like my voice, and they want to hear it in mind. So I’m pushing really hard to make sure that I narrate the next book, but ultimately it’s not my decision, but I’ll do my best to do so. I’m gonna just call you on that, because I got a funny feeling that Dr Gad Saad, when he puts his mind to something, gets his way. So you honey badger your way right in there and get that audio, because I agree, I really like hearing it from the horse’s mouth.

1:40:41 I know it takes a week. I mean, like your audiobook and like this episode, I mean, quite frankly, Doc, I think people will be consuming this content a thousand years from now. So I think it’s important. Lovely, that essence of you with your voice, with all those Arabic expressions, it’ll be perfect. So thank you, sir.

1:40:59 That’s lovely. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Come see us when you come to London and we’ll do this in person. And, just really appreciate you, and until next time, thank you, sir.

1:41:09 Cheers. All right, thanks everybody. We’ll see you next time on London Real. Bye.