[SPEAKER_00]: Peter Burgosian, welcome back to Real Talk with Zubi.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pleasure to be here with you again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been a while since our last conversation and the world has been through a lot since then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you've been traveling a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have been having, I don't know how many hundreds or probably thousands of conversations around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just give us a recap on what you've been up to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've been traveling non-stop since 2021, and we've been, I have my composure over here, read, and we go, and we have conversations with people about controversial issues and contentious themes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, or sometimes not, just esoteric ideas and philosophy, or maybe we talk about movies we've seen, but we have conversations with people, and then we do spectrum street epistemology, where we facilitate conversations across divides,
[SPEAKER_01]: help people clean up the way they think about issues and so yeah we've been to we've been all over the world so it's been it's been a remarkable experience and what are some of the key takeaways you've learned?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the key takeaways I've learned?
[SPEAKER_01]: I've learned that most people have no idea why they believe what they believe, even if they believe something in a very passionate affirmative way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've learned that most people hold beliefs for moral reasons as opposed to epistemological reasons or the justification is something moral ethical as opposed to facts or evidence or data.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've learned that it's pretty easy to give people basic tools to how to have better conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, it's not particularly a secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've learned I'm not particularly good at it with it's a different skill set when you talk to young kids, people who say eight or nine, it's very, very difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I have the skill set for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so what's the age range which you've attempted this with then?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know you even tried to talk to kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when we go into the schools, we were in Vertex Academy, Vertex Partnership Academy in the Bronx.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were in schools in New Zealand with the Maori with, helping teach critical thinking of facilitating that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were in Paris, and we weren't into the, they don't call them slums in Paris, they don't like the categorization, but we were in the less than wealthy neighborhoods in Paris, and we did it there, both with the kids and with teachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, we go into schools around the world and we do this, we provide, again, and I don't make any money for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all part of, it's all wrapped into what we do, it's part of our discharginger.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a part of what we do to discharge our mission.
[SPEAKER_01]: So fortunately, the free speech union,
[SPEAKER_01]: When we were in New Zealand, funded our trip, and so we have partner with non-profit, so they usually fund our trips, and then we just do these trainings and such for free training, so teach for our pedagogies, and the other part of the question is,
[SPEAKER_01]: I truly believe that all people want to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: People want to know it's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Younger people in particular are not afraid to ask hard questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: They like being challenged, they like controversies, they enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily debating, but the repartais, the back and forth, the fun aspect of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that has been incredibly hopeful to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned the word mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the mission?
[SPEAKER_01]: Free speech, open discourse, helping people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we have multiple missions, but the primary mission is fostering and promoting free speech, critical thinking, exposing corruption, particularly institutional corruption, academic corruption is one part of that, because everything is downstream of the academy, the media is downstream of the academy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we try to do that in a way that's both accountable and transparent.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have several ongoing projects now in which we are working with institutions and universities, and also in the media landscape as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, it all focuses on the idea that it's possible to have better conversations with simple tools, like ask somebody, Oh, do you understand that?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think they mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: You go to the other person you say is that correct?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they have that right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Little...
[SPEAKER_01]: lots of little tricks for silitating, not even tricks, but strategies, broad strategies to teach people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think that younger people, as a general rule, tend to be much more receptive to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they tend to be much more receptive, and when I say younger, I mean, 15, 16, 17, they tend to be much more receptive to having their ideas challenged, than kids in college who, over time, have become more brittle to have their ideas challenged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't surprise me, but why do you think that is?
[SPEAKER_01]: But to a good question, I think it is, I could be wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is because they're taught that to belong, they have to be offended, to be a member of a community.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're certain conclusions.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just have to be mortified by and other conclusions that they have to forward or they have to accept.
[SPEAKER_01]: And younger people haven't gotten that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, particularly younger people out of the US haven't gotten that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every country we go, they have a different set of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can and cannot talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have different kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in the United States, it's a lot of its race and gender in France, a lot of it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Islamism, radical Islam, the difference between radical Islam and Islam, the role, they don't call them colonies, but offshore territories, the role of offshore territories, crime rates, they don't talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there are different kind of cultural taboos when you go across topics.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Taiwan, it's China and what should be done about Chinese influence.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where the Chinese will blockade.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's who will come to their rescue.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's just in Hungary, you have different... Hungary is actually the place that I found the least restrictions for speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, even less so than your home country of the US.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my orders are magnitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, as far as as far as I know nobody in Hungary is ever told me not to talk I mean, I've had a critic of or bond on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's really true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we I've gone to dinner with critics He is a quick his a funny story for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: When when I first went to Hungary in 2021
[SPEAKER_01]: Blasher Orban, who's Victor Orban's campaign director, basically he's like the call Rove, the political advisor, said, listen, we want you to formulate, this is a 100% true story.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want you to formulate your own opinions about the country and the people, because I was a little skeptical, because Orban does not have the best reputation to say the least.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and so we're arranging meetings with you with the government's big big just that's the way to guide this is a true story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not kidding.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've arranged meetings with you with the government's most bitter critics, and I thought he was busting me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought there's just no, in the United States, it would just absolutely no conceivable way.
[SPEAKER_01]: No way in a million years and sure enough the next week he's setting up conversations with me from Peter Creco is one of the guys names We had on the show and But yeah, in the United States you're you're it's not that somebody externally tells you what you can't talk about But there are socially Social costs to that particularly if you're in the professor to if you're in the academy there are social social social costs to that
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's something interesting, you know, I've traveled to almost 50 countries over the course of my life and spent significant amount of times in various ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you probably know about me, you know, I'm from the UK.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was born there, but then I grew up and lived in Saudi Arabia for 20 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I now live in the UAE.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've spent a lot of time in the US as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in the American School System up until 5th grade, and I still spent a lot of time in the US.
[SPEAKER_00]: My biggest audience is for everything I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: are in the U.S. and then you know travel to probably two dozen European countries and other Middle Eastern countries, parts of South America, Central America and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you travel a lot and you talk to a lot of people, you notice some very interesting similarities and some very interesting differences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one observation I kind of have sociopolitically is that
[SPEAKER_00]: the sort of concept of free speech and perhaps we could just extend this to freedom in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it sort of exists, but it also doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you've said, depending on the society, depending on the nation, depending on the culture, depending on the people, everywhere has its lines and its boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we both agree that taken to an extreme that can be downright oppressive and immoral and a big problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: but at the same time Taboo's generally also exist for a reason, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that there are subjects that people sort of should be and need to be sensitive about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can understand why depending on the traditions and the background and the type of culture and society, why there are certain things they're like, hey, you know what, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: we're not super comfortable going into these topics or saying certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because I think even amongst free speech advocates, which I think we both are, you know, maybe I'm trying to articulate this thought properly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those things where rightly or wrongly, I guess I could say,
[SPEAKER_00]: the concept sort of exists in a way, but in the way it truly plays out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like let's take the USA.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think US is the best example because on paper the USA has the first amendment and it is the country with as far as I know there's no such thing as like there's no obviously no hate speech laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no blasphemy laws.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no explicit laws saying hey.
[SPEAKER_00]: you can't criticize this or you can't talk about this or so on but the vast majority of Americans do not feel comfortable to openly talk about all their views right so there's the as you said there's the social cost there is the you know and that can have financial ramifications
[SPEAKER_00]: There are, you know, there can be very serious consequences for crossing certain lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of fascinating to me who's spent a lot of my life in the Middle East, where I'd say the lines are much more clearly defined.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting is there are topics that you could more freely speak about in the UAE or in Saudi Arabia than you could say in the USA or certainly in the UK.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are things you could happily criticize in those Western countries, which you would not want to criticize say in the Gulf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but vice versa.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say, if you're a massive critic of woke ideology and everything that that entails, you're far more free to criticize that, uh, here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel more comfortable criticizing it here than I necessarily do in the UK, which is kind of fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: What what can you criticize?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like give me another example of things you can and cannot criticize in different places.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the second thing you said is something I've been thinking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: How sensitive should we be when somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, either to a cultural norm or taboo to what extent should we be desensitized or should we speak fully openly and honestly?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how sensitive should we be to that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess there's two part questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, what was the, uh, can you restate the first one?
[SPEAKER_01]: Side woke stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can, or can you not criticize in certain places you've been?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, sure thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are countries, for example, where harsh criticism or in some any criticism of the royal family is not tolerated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, and this is not just the Middle East.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, somewhere like Thailand.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Thailand, they do not criticize the real family, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: In Gulf countries, whether that's Saudi Arabia, perhaps Qatar, UAE, I don't know about Oman and so on, if they have, it's not like you can't say any minor criticisms, but being super harsh, being very disrespectful about like,
[SPEAKER_00]: the people in power, they're not fans of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the exact letter of the law says in each of these individual countries.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's something there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, there are countries where criticism of the dominant religion is not permitted.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are places where I'll tell you something that's interesting, and so I live in Dubai.
[SPEAKER_00]: And something that's interesting here is actually
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, so criticism is generally fair game, but being sort of flagrantly disrespectful towards religion generally is not advisable, so it doesn't even matter whether it's Hinduism, or it's Islam, or it's Christianity, or it's Judaism, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the sort of outright
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, anti-Semitism is outlawed in the UAE, in a way it's not outlawed in the U.K. or U.S.A. or Canada, even.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are things that, or even Christianity, you could say that Christianity in some ways is more protected in the UAE than it is in the West.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you see what I mean, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you went out in London or in New York and you want it to burn a Bible and you wanted to desecrate the cross and you wanted to say horrible things about Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're more free to do that there in those more supposedly Christian countries than you are here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the main reason, as I understand it, is just because, you know, the UAE is about, it's an extraordinarily diverse country.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 90% of the population is non-emirati.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have people here from all over the world, and they generally just want to foster respect and decency and community.
[SPEAKER_00]: They recognize, look, we've got people from all over the world of all sorts of different beliefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no benefits to the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: If people are just going around being like really nasty and horrible to each other, based on their religion, their race, their ethnicity, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they generally just want to foster
[SPEAKER_00]: respect and it's just kind of like live and let live in that regard and don't be harsh towards each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess that it's interesting because that limits itself to my second question is, how sensitive do you think one should be to the sensitivities of others?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's a clear cut answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as a Christian, I, you know, would generally go by the golden rule of, you know, treat people as you would like to be treated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also think that there is a difference between ideas and people, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not in the camp of,
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, if someone is criticizing Christianity, then they're personally attacking me, or they're attacking all Christians, or if someone is a critic of Islam, it means they're attacking or criticizing all Muslims and so on, so I think it's important to separate people from ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's good for us individually to do that ourselves so that we can actually have these conversations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also just think that people are different and, you know, I don't think every conversation is worth having with everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you've come across that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there are some people you've tried to communicate with, regardless of their beliefs and they're just, you know, the conversations just not worth having.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're too sensitive, they're too angry.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know how to control their emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't deal with any type of criticism or pushback, that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's one more, there's an addition to that list.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I have,
[SPEAKER_01]: It puts a conversation in hard mode if someone can't entertain a hypothetical, or if they think and this is a problem that is ubiquitous or nearly so, if they think that holding a belief makes them a better person, Dan Denett, the philosophy, philosophy calls that belief and belief.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, you have this cascading effect of if they have belief and belief and that they're certain that they're just, they're just, they're just, they're, they're just positioned as they're just sensitive anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those, those conversations, they just go into hard mode.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's interesting is I don't see that in kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take a quick story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we go around the world and we ask people these questions and a lot of this is in the United States, I shouldn't, you know, but we do we do we do travel internationally, but most most of what we do is in the US.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we go around the world, well, we're going to place I will not name and read has a bunch of questions or claims that he writes out to kind of some of them are ice breakers, you know, like pineapple belongs on pizza, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the claims that we had that was so interesting, it's our most popular claim by far, it's aliens exist.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the number one thing, if you said to me, what is the number one thing that we can get a general convergence of opinion on?
[SPEAKER_01]: People want to talk about, that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Convergence of opinion, not if they exist, but on all the topics they want to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we were just at a school fairly recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't name the school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was shocked when the principal told us to take that.
[SPEAKER_01]: claim off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought for sure, like that would be, that's the ultimate softball.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everybody can express on an opinion and we don't really know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I asked him why, he said, and I'm really interested in what he or take it on this is, he said, because we have some very conservative Christian families.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just almost shocked by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your take on that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite surprising.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I can see where he's going with it, if I try to use my imagination, but it does surprise me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you tell me where you think he's going, and I'll tell you where I think he's going.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think he's going, and I'm, I'm, I'm straw manning here because I've never spoken to this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wouldn't think about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would think that there may be some conservative Christians who, firstly, don't think that aliens do exist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And perhaps would not want to entertain the idea because it could cause
[SPEAKER_00]: a conflict or certain questions about their, if they believe that we are uniquely created by God, and that humans and Earth itself are very special and where the only,
[SPEAKER_00]: being human being like hyperintelligent species made in the image of God that exists in the universe that entertaining the idea that there are other aliens out there, who perhaps may or may not be created in the image of God, then it just causes
[SPEAKER_00]: I, it causes all of these questions to start to be entertained, which may challenge someone's beliefs if they're of a certain, I don't know, sector belief system within Christianity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be my straw man of why he may not want that question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so a couple of things on that, you could still have the divinity of Christ and have aliens.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing incompatible about that at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, if anything, I would think if you were an evangelical Christian, you'd be like, this is awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a whole new bunch of people, our creatures or whatever entities to which we can processalize.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in I could be totally wrong about this, because I did not ask him what his reason was.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there were aliens that would somehow cast doubt or perhaps suspicion on Christ divinity, like that he wasn't just, or you know, I don't mean, the whole thing is like, you know, maybe they have their own divinity, maybe they're cast in the image of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was my first thought that it would lead, that the parents would believe that if there
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, I don't know, you'd have to ask the why of that individual.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would also imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: that he might be being rather presumptuous of other people's beliefs.
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, the parents let alone the students, the parents of the students, right, thinking that, you know, let me just sort of draw this line here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know how these things are Peter as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be the case that there might just be like two or three parents out of, I don't know how many.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all you only need one.
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly who may potentially have an issue with it and therefore the whole thing gets vetoed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That can happen on all sorts of topics.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm doing a lot of assuming here because all I know is what you've told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that would be my kind of epistemology of why perhaps why perhaps that question was vetoed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's also interesting to me that there is, you know, as a general rule, we avoid controversial topics with anybody under 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think evolution is even remotely a controversial topic, but we avoid it because other people could think it's a controversial topic, but you can still accept the facts of evolution and be a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, I mean, the Catholics do, I guess maybe some people would say they're not really Christians,
[SPEAKER_01]: I've just some some Catholics do some don't I mean there are hundreds of millions if not a whole plus Catholics out there but the pope I think the last pope gave it explicitly talked about evolution but yeah it could be a cafeteria Catholic you can select a ways to be sure but it's just always struck me as odd that
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: The alien thing to start made me start cask a cascade of thinking about these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always struck me as odd that one would place the belief first and then construct a landscape around that belief as opposed to like, or or one would have that primary belief of whatever it is to do any of Christ Muhammad's revelations or what have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: One would have that primary belief.
[SPEAKER_01]: and kind of jury rig everything to fit within that belief as opposed to saying, wow, okay, there's overwhelming convergence of biologists on basic questions of anthropology, like basic basic questions of anthropology.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think when people start doing that, that's when a lot of social problems come in, we don't know what a woman is, we'll actually, you know what a woman is, but we don't, we start having, we start having the champion over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that that's a kind of recipe that acts against any form of social cohesion.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I could be wrong about that because maybe
[SPEAKER_01]: As you said, you know, into the way that things operate and Dubai is very different is, and I do like there is something about, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the discourse is already on hard mode when you talk about religious things, in general, not always, particularly if they're younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're going around burning crons or giving away for a while or defecating on away for whatever, that just puts a very difficult situation into a more difficult situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying that we should have laws against any of these things, but I do think that
[SPEAKER_01]: That is extraordinarily ill-advised behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100% there's a lot of stuff you've touched on, man, a lot of thoughts were coming to my mind as you were speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing that I have a theory hypothesis, I don't know what I'd call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of my thoughts is that I think that celitary itself is sort of a personality trait.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it can apply to any ideology or belief system, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think there are people who think that, oh, this religion, or this belief system, or this political ideology, or whatever, like this is just people who believe this or zealots.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that you have individuals, and you've always had individuals in history, who are just high in zealotry, just like they might be high in conscientiousness, or
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't matter, you could install Islam, Christianity, totally, a conservatism, a progressiveism, even atheism.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could install any worldview, and they'll be just hyper-zealous towards it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be veganism.
[SPEAKER_00]: I often tell people, and this is absolutely true, I have never ever lost a friend over political or religious differences in my entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have lost one friend when he became vegan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he became vegan, he refused to associate with, you know, I'm 100% serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: So from a moral perspective, from a moral perspective, from a moral perspective,
[SPEAKER_00]: He could no longer view people who do eat meat or animal products as decent people because he'd become so zealous on the vegan friend, which I can understand sort of logically, like I don't think it's
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a rational or a good world view, but I'm like, well, that's kind of strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just like you have people who think, well, I believe in this thing so strongly that anyone who is not in that circle, like I can't even view that you see this in politics all the time, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, people are far more divided over politics and the West than they are over religion these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so that would be a fascinating conversation in which to engage someone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would find the fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that you said that I think was so interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think of things in terms of personality traits, maybe I should, but I think in things of dispositions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the hardware running our brains, you could call that a personality trait.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the software is whatever we put on it, whatever we kind of load into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it's extremely important that we load in the right software because we all have these blind spots, we have these biases, we have these
[SPEAKER_01]: errors in our thinking, we have these susceptibilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to make sure that what we've loaded in there is itself going to lead to our flourishing and the flourishing of our communities.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know how to get around the fact that by and large, we do not choose our beliefs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll give you a very, very quick example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: very few people know that Obama history has been white-washed, or I don't know black-washed, whatever the term would be for, I don't know what the term would be, but Obama in his first term was against gay marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so was Hillary Clinton.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100 percent correct, 100 percent correct, and that's forgotten.
[SPEAKER_01]: So was almost everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think that, you know, it gets back to what we choose to believe, and even that idea that we can choose to believe something as itself quite interesting, if we're subsumed in a sea of everybody we know, like, look, it's just some mundane examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was told my whole life, by everybody I know, I told two things, eat breakfast, eat breakfast, people I loved and my grandfather.
[SPEAKER_01]: At most important meals a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I now no longer eat breakfast, I intermittent fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the best decisions I ever made.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or here's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh get put a coat on when you go out or you catch a cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my wife said to me, I said that to my son when he's very much younger and he, my, uh, my wife said, no, no, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of me thinking, oh, she is an MD, but
[SPEAKER_01]: and a PhD, and she knows exactly what she's talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: My initial gut reaction was no, you were wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that was my gut instead of saying, oh, really why?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your evidence for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So even, it was kind of a shameful, but I think it's important to err my mistakes in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas that's what I should have said.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the lesson is that when we've been sufficiently indoctrinated in ideas, swimming in this cultural
[SPEAKER_01]: that even if you do this for a living like I do, you're still susceptible to these ideas.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you make sure that the best ideas get in, you have the best epistemology, you're willing to revise a belief which is key, you're a trustful of reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are tall orders when we're trying to make a living, we're trying to have a family,
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a clean the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get this thing in my tooth.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been there for like six months I've been to the dentist.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like we're trying to navigate life's complexities and It's you know, I don't know if it's superimposed on that or under that we're trying to be less wrong more often.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's it's a it's a difficult thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I think we just need to be a little bit more Charitable and kind to other people because everybody's going through their own car app, you know
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's difficult because, you know, whether someone is coming at this from, you know, let's say a,
[SPEAKER_00]: a faith-based or religious perspective or a sort of purely atheistic evolutionary model.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's pretty clear that human beings are not sort of rationality first and emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many, many pressures on people for the way they think, the way they behave, the things they talk about, the things they don't talk about, and so on, you know, on a basic
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people want to fit in and most people most people don't want to be socially rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that they want to be loved Exactly, I'd say the fear of social rejection is greater perhaps than the fear of death and so it doesn't matter What tribe or what belief system you're talking about if if standing against the majority or standing against the norm Whether that's your your
[SPEAKER_00]: parents or your family or just everyone around you, your political tribe, your religious tribe, your e-religious tribe, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd imagine that in organized atheist circles, if someone were to convert and become religious, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of people would feel some type of way about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So people people like to fit in and that's a, I don't think we can sort of underestimate the power of that pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to pause on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a shame, that should never be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you just join some creepy cult or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if somebody has a fairly mainstream benign belief and they chose to live like that, the fact that that would get in a way of friendship, I mean, I have many Christian Frank Turrack as a buddy of mine who's wrote, I don't know if I'm gonna faith to be an atheist, feel visceral for the Veggie Tail guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have personal friends who are Christians, I have got guys that the guy at the gym who's a Muslim who's a good buddy of mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it just seems to me to be not only is it limiting, but it seems to me incredibly boring to only surround yourself with people who have the same beliefs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a shame that that would, I mean, your Christian, I'm not a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're, I don't know, we're how buddies we are since we live in different continents, but it's pretty crazy to me that that would be something that would interfere with the friendship or relationship, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, why ultimately does that stuff matter anyway?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't think, maybe that's just because I'm an atheist though, so I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I mean, I've come across, gosh, I've come across all types of people, but you know, I think like...
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's be honest, Peter, I mean, people currently and historically have divided themselves or over things that are even more benign, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could just be ethnicity, so-called race, national boundaries, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: human beings are very tribal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that's it's in our DNA it's not something I think is inherently positive or negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it can manifest incredibly positively.
[SPEAKER_00]: The most obvious example would be family and community and even a sense of patriotism like you know Americans feeling
[SPEAKER_00]: proud to be American and wanting to root for the American national team in a sports.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, the tribalism within a family is generally very good and healthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the reason why we care so much about our loved ones around us and our kin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, of course, we've seen extreme and horrible examples of tribalism.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some that are more sort of silly, like rival fans of rival sports teams wanting to fight against each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been spending time in Europe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you've heard about football.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm getting some.
[SPEAKER_01]: Among the thugs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have a quick story about that, if you don't like the great book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went to a...
[SPEAKER_01]: God, what's the name of that, I've never seen a talking in my life, but I went to, was it Chelsea or I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my friend got me a scarf.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was with whatever that team was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was it, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't show you that, I don't like anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is bought with a ball, I can't stand it, it is totally boring to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, so first of all, my impression was that this is a bunch of complete fanatics.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're an alien and you came down, what do these people like, what does it stake here?
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd think like all of humanity was to stake if some dude kicked the ball and the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so I came out of the stadium, whatever the team seems to aim was,
[SPEAKER_01]: And these guys came up to me, and they started just like saying stuff to me in this one guy He's just like, got right in my face, and And I said to him, I swear to this is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost verbatim I said to him, I am a native English beaker The time I think I was like 57 and I'm 57 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand and effort words you just said
[SPEAKER_01]: And because he was from Liverpool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Evidently, they're fighting over there fighting or whatever they're playing Liverpool.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're playing Liverpool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Liverpool, people from Liverpool, Liverpool, the ones I think, they're renowned for their horrifically bad accents.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he started laughing at me or laughing at my joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, where are you from?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I'm from United States.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, everybody says, I have a cousin there, whichever, and he said, well, what's your favorite football team?
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know any football teams, so, but I remember there was a team called the Dallas Cowboys, and I just, I just happened to just, remember my late father-in-law, you just loved the Dallas Cowboys, so I said, Dallas Cowboys, and he said, well, I like some other team.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, well, they suck, and then that was that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like diffused the, but that would be actually an example of how,
[SPEAKER_01]: even at that level of fanaticism, a little bit of finesse, a little bit of humor, you know, we're all humans here, everybody's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the other thing is, you know, I ask people, we go all around the world, we know, we ask people the crazy questions about cannibalism and just like everything you could think of and like, I don't think, nobody's ever threatened me with violence, no one's ever like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just, I'm constantly, I'm primarily amazed at the fact that people answer the craziest questions that I ask them.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something I've been thinking about that I'm wavering on.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a moral issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to run it by you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've recently been rethinking my
[SPEAKER_01]: I come across, everyone's so, I come across stories that are so utterly and absolutely heinous, that I just don't, I don't know what would be better, I don't know, I kind of know the benefit of keeping the people in prison for their whole life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly, they should never see the light of day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would hope, you know, people who rape five or
[SPEAKER_01]: and the list goes on and on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been reconsidering my opposition to the death penalty because I think on the one hand, I understand, I don't like the idea of the state killing someone, but on the other hand, I don't see any value whatsoever in keeping a truly, truly heinous human being.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'm struggling with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always been in favor of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it should be used more often than it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that most, I think the fact that every European country, I think, with one exception abolishing it, I think was a very critical mistake that they made.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll tell you my actual position on the death penalty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I've been pretty consistent on this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: in a very, very narrow set of circumstances.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the very narrow set of circumstances is what you are talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are circumstances where, so let me give an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: The type of mass shootings that make big news in the USA and internationally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say someone goes into a,
[SPEAKER_00]: a mall, a school, a mosque, synagogue, and they live stream themselves, shooting dozens of people and the police catch them, you know, red handed, they've still got the gun in their hand, they're still shooting people, let's say for whatever reason they're stopped before, you know, they're not gunned down by the police and they're actually apprehended.
[SPEAKER_00]: those type of situations, because the typical opposition to it is, oh, well, you know, what if the person was innocent?
[SPEAKER_00]: We know, we obviously don't want to ever execute someone who has the potential to be innocent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there are cases which are just so clear cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's black and white, especially if you're talking like multiple homicide, you're talking like a mass killing.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no doubt who did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no doubt what they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in those type of situations, I'm just like, get rid of it, like what's the, you know, like, I don't, I don't see the opposition in those type of scenarios.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's something that's more a less serious time crime or it's something where
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some ambiguity or there's some type of possibility that, you know, maybe this isn't, you know, maybe this isn't the right person or so on and those type of situations then yeah, I oppose it for the same reasons Many other people do, but I think there are some thankfully we're talking like a very very tiny percentage of crimes and very tiny percentage of true But in those situations I think it does more more good than harm and I think
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when it comes to those circumstances, I've never really understood the opposition to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm not a fan of killing people in general, but if someone has gone out and deprived however many other people of their right to their right to life,
[SPEAKER_00]: then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everyone agrees, unless you're a sort of a crazy, crazy, woke progressive, everyone agrees that the whole point of the justice system is that essentially, if you violate, you know, other people's rights and do bad crimes, then you also lose some of your rights, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you generally have a right to be free and to walk around in society, but no one has a problem with, you know, a thief or a murderer or a rapist
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but then people think, oh, it's, but it would be a step too far to execute them and it's like, well, it's, I, and to me, to me, it's not let me push back on that because this is what I'm struggling with and I really want, I really, I really do want to think through this and on on us way.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say that you and I both agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's absolutely 100% clear that somebody is guilty, multiple camera angles, confession, multiple eyewitnesses, just absolutely unequivocal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this person mass murdered 20 people.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my concerns is that if we agree on that, well, then there'll be just a slope, a slippery slope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Humans are terrible at this, you know, that it'll go from 20 people or this guy murdered one person, or this guy raped somebody, or this guy,
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I don't know like because I do think I think of I saw this video online with these two women one pretended to fall down sick and this good Samaritan came to help him and then she stabbed him with a hypodermic needle and put something in him and he became paralyzed and they robbed him and ran away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe if I were a better person, I wouldn't wish death upon them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or what about that guy, that older guy who was just standing in the train in the thus in New York, and some lunatic just pushed him into the train.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have these activist judges who, almost universally, they are liberal white women letting these people go, who clearly, clearly do not belong in civil society.
[SPEAKER_01]: no question at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so then I think to myself, well, okay, so if we can agree on that, does this, and then I think, well, what about this guy who pushed the old guy in the subway and killed him, does he deserve the death?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that guy survived.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then I, did he survive?
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not, he survived, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so then, how do you think that guy deserves the death penalty who pushed him?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at minimum life in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we're on the same page there for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you what I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, my gut instinct and my sense of justice would be like death penalty, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: For lots of things, for lots of things, but my sort of rational,
[SPEAKER_00]: more reasonable side, which is more aware of what you said, the kind of slippery slope type situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the expansion would keep its application very, very narrow and defined.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people who actually oppose what if he died?
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if he died, I'll tell you, I'll tell you my position is whether that guy, if that happened, whether that man who chose to do that random act of violence, whether he got the death penalty or was just thrown in jail or they locked away the key, like my position is I don't really care.
[SPEAKER_00]: D.C. what I mean, like whether he got life in prison or they chose to execute him, like I'm not advocating or campaigning on his behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are the type of person who does those type of things and you just think it's fun to go around and take people's lives, I don't really care what happens to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the details of it are irrelevant to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My compassion is 100% on the side of the victims.
[SPEAKER_00]: My compassion is 100% on the side of innocent people.
[SPEAKER_00]: to me it's kind of splitting hairs, there are people who I actually know people who oppose the death penalty because they think it's too lenient and they think that it would be better to let someone sit in a cell and rot there for decades than to just take their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know people who oppose it for that reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's my, that's my position.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting that you said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, as a Christian, would your position be that you don't want to kill them because, or would a, would a reasonable Christian position be?
[SPEAKER_01]: You wouldn't want to kill them because they have to have time to repent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians don't all agree on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there are many, many Christians who are pro-death penalty and there are many Christians who are opposed to it sometimes for secular reasons, sometimes for Christian reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that the Bible is in opposition to the death penalty.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, certainly in the Old Testament, it prescribes it for various things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I've never, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I've never really heard a, I don't know, I think a lot of opposition to it as well also comes from this idea that I don't think some people like to accept the notion that true evil exists and that there are, I think that's absolutely right and that there are sadly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, there's like a tiny subset of the population, which as far as I can see exists in every country and is exist to all through human history Who for whatever reason?
[SPEAKER_00]: Will murder people will kill will rob will rape will do terrible terrible things Um, a very interesting example is have you been to El Salvador?
[SPEAKER_00]: Mmm, oh, Buchale, you're gonna talk about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I've never been to El Salvador.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, to me, El Salvador is a very interesting example.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've been over there twice, I've met Bucelia a couple of times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, as you probably know, El Salvador used to be the homicide capital of the entire world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's worse that had triple the homicide rate of Haiti, and Haiti is not known for being safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think it's worse they had like 115...
[SPEAKER_00]: homicides per 100,000 people per year, which is insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, less than a decade later, it's now the safest country in the entire Western Hemisphere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a lower homicide rate than even Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, population of 6 million people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put about 60,000 people in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they dropped the homicide rate by over 99%.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 1% of the population was doing all of the killing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would assume it's the same in the USA.
[SPEAKER_00]: I assume it's the same in the USA.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Matt Thorne has written about this last the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very small number of people who, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so people who oppose, you know, there are people who are mad about that or think it's an injustice or so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: But something I've never understood, and this is, you know, a lot of people more on the left, they have this strange compassion for violent criminals, which I've never quite been able to square.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's somehow like to me,
[SPEAKER_00]: one of my general perspectives and it's something that shapes my politics to some degree is just um, I'm just like on the side of innocent people, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think it's fair for 99% of the population to live in constant fear and under constant threats from 1%.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you go
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been to sea caught.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I know people who have visited.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So no, I haven't been inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen videos, but I haven't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because Rob Schneider got invited to their pantomime on a few other places and we were going to go together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would want to see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I want to see with my own eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen videos of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They guys have their heads bowed in their hands behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it looks pretty draconian, it looks pretty intense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they in there for the rest of their lives or what?
[SPEAKER_01]: And who pays for that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, yeah, it's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the way they actually did it was, so in El Salvador, they have like an ongoing state of emergency, essentially.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the way, so it's one of those things where I think there is a reasonable criticism that somebody can make as to, as to the sort of how, as the processes to how they did it, how they were able to round all of these guys up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a very interesting situation because it's one of those ones where it shows how when things are at an extreme idealism, if you want to actually protect human life, idealism sometimes has to go out of the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we all agree with a due process.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, we generally agree with like the way that I think the justice system should operate.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you have a situation where you have gang wars going on and they've been going on for decades and dozens of people at a tiny country are being murdered every single day and you can use this sort of emergency power to drop the murder rate by 99%.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it might mean that you have to suspend some of the proper proceedings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: You press that button.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can kind of see what I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of...
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's kind of like those questions about should the USA have dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right, is should that button have been pressed?
[SPEAKER_00]: I see good arguments for I see good arguments against in this one and what's interesting in in El Salvador is, you know, 90% of the population approves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you have a supposed democracy and you have something which the vast, vast, vast majority of population are for and want and they can now live their lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think in the West, I think most people don't, I never went to El Salvador when it was terrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never went when it was the murder capital, but I've spoken to people there, I've spent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the stories that you hear from people, it's one of those places where like everyone you talk to every local, know somebody who was murdered by these gangs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were just living their lives in fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can just walk around the city, you can travel between, you can go downtown, like everything was just a risk, like the gangs just controlled everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it's flipped, now it's totally not like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the same time, like wildsty can understand some people's concerns from an idealism perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also just like the,
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the results on the ground, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to tell me these people would have been better off if they just let this continue and you tried to do everything, quote unquote, the sort of right and perfect way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, does he, does he have plans?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was wondering, I mean, that would be really the, the basis, almost literally the basis for an economy if he started taking in prisons for other countries, from other
[SPEAKER_01]: God paid for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does, does he have plans to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know he was in conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my first question.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what kind of a person is he when you talk to him?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first answer, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: First answer, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one, man, he's my favorite world leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't just say that because I've met him of all the world leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're only handful of countries where I look at the President or Prime Minister or the
[SPEAKER_00]: respect and admire this guy and he's he's one of the few he's very very smart very kind very down to earth He's very open-minded like he he listens and he pays attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's very like savvy He's around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's English is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know and he's a millennial
[SPEAKER_00]: right so he's a millennial and he's he gets it you know he was they were the first country to you know use bit coin is legal tender like he gets a little bit coin thing he understands just
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, he has the unique, I often have thought about what makes a good national leader, and I think it's a combination of qualities which are quite rare in conjunction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to genuinely be patriotic and love your nation and love its people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to be courageous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to be competent, and I think you have to have a vision, and I think importantly you need to be benevolent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the last one's very important, because you can have people who are super patriotic and nationalistic, but they're not benevolent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're willing to do sort of truly awful things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that combination is just rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think most Western leaders are cowards.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think even if they know where they sort of should do what they need to do, they don't hold on to do anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just on aside, put that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think with him, he's just like, look, this is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He receives tons of criticism, tons of backlash, mostly from outside the country, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of people would just fold at that, and he's just like, look, I don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our country was basically
[SPEAKER_00]: Unliverable, nobody would have wanted to invest there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody would want to go on vacation there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it's just like flying up the rankings of places that people want to visit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Americans that have moved to El Salvador in the last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I actually, I actually know one couple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Real quick, are there term limits over there because I'm wondering what happens if there are term limits and somebody else gets voted in and he lets all these guys back out again.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be an incredible social experiment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not advocating that, I'm just saying that would be extraordinarily interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are term limits, five years, two terms of five years each I believe, however, and this was very controversial because they have like a super, super majority government because he got such an overwhelming amount of the vote and I do believe that they may have voted to scrap or change those.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where like, you know, I'm sure you've heard people say, oh, you know, he's a dictator and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, that's also an interesting question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a genuine democracy in the vast majority of people, we're like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to change this thing because we want this person or this party to stay in power for longer than
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, previously, I mean, even in the USA, they have constitutional amendments.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was literally just thinking, yeah, you have to go to the constitution.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to amend it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a process that one can go through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that they, I think they did that, but I'm not an expert.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not an expert on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you get to meet him?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's followed me on X for a few years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how I guess he came across me the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other people do, I don't know how people find me, and then he, you know, he'd repost retweet my stuff once in a while, and then in 2024 when he got reelected, I got invited to the inauguration.
[SPEAKER_00]: by a couple of friends who live in El Salvador, who are big in the Bitcoin world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like the advisors to the government on their Bitcoin policy, they invited me and a delegate of other Bitcoin enthusiasts out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got a chance to briefly meet him then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I went again in November last year for a Spokin event they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was like a dinner arranged by for like
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 people and I was one of the 20 people who they invited to have dinner with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my first time I met him It was just like very very brief, but the second time, you know, we sat down and had a dinner together at a at a table very cool It was a pretty cool pretty cool experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm pretty very very very very cool very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, not necessarily to change subjects very abruptly But and I'm hesitant to go down the rabbit hole at such a late hour, but bottom line you're take on a ran the war
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the fact that my city is being bombed.
[SPEAKER_00]: A reasonable thing, just like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm here with my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, that's not ideal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a strong, in terms of the geopolitics of it and the nitty gritty, I don't have a strong position on it, just like I don't have a strong position on Russia, Ukraine, or on Israel, Palestine, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I defend innocent life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate the loss of innocent human life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the things that's probably the thing that just upsets me most in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's random crime, whether it's war, whether it's whatever it is, anything that leads to just the loss of innocent human life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a fan of, and I'm not someone who really kind of takes sides on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that a life of this nationality or of this ethnic origin is sort of implicitly worth more than the other or whatever regardless of the location, the age, all that type of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very consistent on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: My thought on all these conflicts is I hate the innocent people get hurt and harmed and killed in the crossfire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want them to, I want them to end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want people to just be able to be free and be able to live their lives and be able to flourish.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care where they're from or where they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a very sophisticated takelet say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely decent one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's all it is to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the details, I don't know about all the political jousting and so on, and I don't have the historical knowledge to trace these things back decades and decades and see exactly who's in the right, who's in the wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know all the nitty-gritty of it, but that's kind of just my general position on all these kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I hope there's a resolution very soon for a number of reasons primarily the loss of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's a shame I'm sorry you're going through that, it'd be very stressful to me that could be Bond would be a digital life stress that I would really want to deal with at the same time though, I mean if we're talking like statistically like Dubai is still ridiculously safe, I mean over the past
[SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, this has been, as we record this, this has been going on for about a month now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God, there's only been one death in the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an odd, odd, only been one death.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, you know, I'm no expert in this at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, I found it to be bizarre that the Iranians attacked anybody but the Americans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just, you know, I remember from Sunsu's out of war, and it just strikes me as a universally idiotic strategy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, you know, what do I know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there are geopolitical complications.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suni, she has blitz since things that I don't have any, that can't even begin to fathom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think a lot of it is just proximity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the UAE has received the majority of the retaliation, which is interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you told me, if two months ago, someone would say, oh, you know, the USA and Israel are going to strike Iran.
[SPEAKER_00]: who will they retaliate against my answer would not have been like, oh, yeah, they're going to start attacking Abu Dhabi and Dubai and that was not on my big go car, but maybe that shows my own ignorance of the understanding of the yeah, I don't know the geopolitics or chose their their profound ignorance too.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other option.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of it's just proximity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's closest point.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the UAE is less than 100 miles away from Iran's border.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think just in terms of where the drones and missiles can, I'm sure if they could shoot stuff at the US, they'd love to, but it's just geographically too far away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm a proximity-arguer was like, someone comes in here with a machete.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I kick him away and then read happens to be next to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't exactly read.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not sure if the frog's so many argue at, let's go, I know, but there must be some rationale that we don't understand that something that's going in through their heads, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will say that the, you know, the market driver'sly spooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: The more recent response remains high, I think it's having a Dilliterious, if not a dragging effect on the entire economy's world economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm hoping for, you know, people, this is people's livelihood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping this is resolved as soon as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same here, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm confident that it'll
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm confident that things will resolve and you know what's interesting because obviously over the last month I've had so many people from all over the world like people know I live in the UAE and so I've you can imagine the amount of concern messages I've received from friends and family all over the world and you know it it's interesting I didn't know
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly had never previously thought about, because Dubai is kind of like, the UAE's kind of like known as the Switzerland of the Middle East, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just this super, super safe place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Low taxes, lots of wealth, just kind of mind their business, don't bother anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea that the UAE had such sophisticated defense systems.
[SPEAKER_00]: like my mind was actually blown like I'd never thought of like oh, what would happen if you know what would happen if there were like air strikes on Abu Dhabi or on Dubai like why would that even happen I'd never thought of it and then when this all kicked off I mean they have like a 95% inception interception rate or something over 2,000 missiles and drones have been launched now at the UAE.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I didn't know it was that many.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's over over 2,000 and as it currently stands as we record across the entire country, I believe there have been eight deaths and somewhere around 200 injuries, which is sad, but given the sheer, I mean, if you think of 2,000 missiles and drones being launched, that's like very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very
[SPEAKER_00]: They very much minimized the damage and the casualties.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm very grateful for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in some ways, it makes me feel even more, I don't know, kind of more happy about being here, like just they've shown their competence and their ability to deal with such a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think most people would have thought, and also the residents themselves,
[SPEAKER_00]: people aren't panicking, people aren't freaking out, you know, men, women, children, babies all over the place, things are still busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world, the whole city hasn't shut down or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so people have kind of shown their resilience and I don't think people would have assumed that Dubai residents have that, because Dubai residents have this reputation of, oh, it's just all these,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not the reality, but it has the sort of global reputation of, oh, this is just like a playground of rich people and they have no resilience and they're all detached from reality and so on and I think this is proving that that's not the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish the best fire in my front.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Ben.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're honestly, I don't say this to everyone, but you're honestly one of my favorite people to talk to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the way that you think and it always ends up becoming a conversation rather than merely an interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's very kind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I just, my heart is out to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know of the stress you're under, so I, you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to be in my prayers, but you'll certainly be in my thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: You and your family, I wish nothing but the best for you, my friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you having me on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Peter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you.