- 21 hours ago
In this episode, Stefan Molyneux converses with a PhD in information management about the challenges of recognizing conservative ideas in academia. They explore creating a platform for diverse philosophical discourse and urge listeners to seek genuine dialogue and promote truth amid societal biases.
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Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00Well, Stefan, it's very, very nice to be with you again.
00:00:06My wife wishes or sends you her warmest regards.
00:00:12Ah, same back.
00:00:14Yeah.
00:00:16And let's start.
00:00:20I wanted to talk a little bit about my work,
00:00:24but since I've listened to one of your, not so recent talks,
00:00:31but quite recent, the episode on why your books are not reviewed by anyone,
00:00:41especially people of substance.
00:00:46Yeah, that troubled me and it has been troubling me for a while
00:00:49because it's not just you that's being shunned away from a good review.
00:00:54It's quite a lot of people that write good stuff.
00:00:58So can we delve into this topic a little bit?
00:01:05Yeah, I think it's a great topic.
00:01:07So yeah, go ahead.
00:01:08Okay.
00:01:09So would it help if I tell people a little bit about myself?
00:01:12So they're going to take my two cents with a little bit of,
00:01:16how should I say, maybe courage
00:01:22and not think that I'm, you know, just a nobody.
00:01:28Anyway, so I have a PhD in information management.
00:01:31As you know, I've got my PhD in Taiwan.
00:01:35I lived there for a while, so I've been able to experience quite a bit of cultural differences,
00:01:47different ideas, different ways of looking at life, philosophy, the whole nine yards.
00:01:53So I think that pretty much gave me some intuition and some takes on philosophy especially
00:02:06and how to deal with certain things.
00:02:10Let me go back to what, okay, so how should I start?
00:02:24Okay, so yeah, my education.
00:02:26I've been writing quite a bit, as you know, and I've also ran into the same issue.
00:02:33How do I get my stuff to be more visible, especially in a place and era and time when
00:02:45almost everything is very much to the left and they won't care to look at anything that's
00:02:53being written from a conservative point of view and especially with the tint of philosophy.
00:02:59I've noticed that most or quite a few of the people on the left, they don't really care about
00:03:07using philosophy much or if they do use it, they use it in ways that no one really wants
00:03:12to, I mean, normal people don't really want to deal with it, you know, so.
00:03:20Well, you know, a lot of people may think or say, hey, Dan, you know, you don't really
00:03:25have a following on X or YouTube, so why would your 1.5 cents matter in this philosophy thing?
00:03:34But, as you well know, Stefan, truth is truth, whether one person speaks of it or one million
00:03:42speaks of it.
00:03:44Now, I want to paraphrase you a little bit and ask the following question.
00:03:53What if a million people present falsehood and BS?
00:03:58What is that supposed to mean that just because there's a million of them and they have a big
00:04:02following that we're supposed to just go along with this great multitude?
00:04:10So, another point that I want to make is that let's say that maybe there's hardly anybody
00:04:17that speaks certain truths.
00:04:21Does that mean that there's no truth?
00:04:23So, let's think of it this way.
00:04:24Before the truth of the theory of relativity was known to humankind, does it mean that the
00:04:30theory of relativity didn't exist?
00:04:36So, there's probably a lot of truth today that we don't even know of, and maybe a lot
00:04:42of people don't even want to speak of it because it's just not popular.
00:04:45So, how do we go about that?
00:04:51Well, it's tough, of course, through the power of the state and the media, there's so much
00:04:56profit in falsehood, right?
00:04:58So, for instance, if people believe that single bombs are victims or the only reason that there
00:05:06are group differences in outcomes is bigotry or things like that, if people believe that,
00:05:10then literally trillions of dollars pass from one group of people to another group of people.
00:05:18So, pretending to be a victim is really fascinating.
00:05:22Like, only a few percentage points of men are actually narcissists, but if you talk to
00:05:26women online, apparently they all have dated narcissists.
00:05:29And so, playing the victim and saying that you're hard done by, you're not responsible for
00:05:36your negative outcomes, that's all so profitable.
00:05:39In the past, if a woman was a single mother, if she got pregnant outside a wedlock, she was
00:05:46held to be morally responsible for what she had done.
00:05:50I mean, if she was raped, that certainly was a different matter.
00:05:53But in general, people would say that you are responsible for choosing to have sex with
00:06:03a man, and you are responsible for the outcome.
00:06:05Now, he is too, but in general, men were sort of accepted to be hound dogs, and women kind
00:06:09of had to say no to the endless, grabby male hands or whatever.
00:06:14But now, of course, every single mother, almost without exception, is saying, oh, but, you
00:06:22know, he promised me the moon, and there was no indication, and he was a perfect guy, and
00:06:25I'm a victim, and I didn't do anything wrong, and all I did was believe him, and he was totally
00:06:28convincing, and there were no signs, and all of that.
00:06:31And so, lies have just become so profitable that it is, as I've said before, it's sort
00:06:41of like saying to someone who just won a million dollars in the lottery, it's like saying to
00:06:44them, oh, don't cash that, because that just means everyone's taxes are going to go up.
00:06:48Now, it's like, it's not possible with the trillions of dollars being paid for lies to
00:06:57have any kind of truth that is put forward.
00:07:00I mean, I remember when I did my graduate school thesis, I had a very good advisor.
00:07:04I actually had to go to a bunch of different people to get an advisor, because I was kind
00:07:07of outside of the history department, because I was doing history of philosophy.
00:07:10And he finally, you know, like, gave me an A, and he's like, this is a really powerful
00:07:17and good thesis, and so on, and I'm like, well, let's get it published.
00:07:21You know, let's get it published in a journal.
00:07:23And there was this long pause, you know, because I got an A, it was a very big and ambitious
00:07:31thesis, and I had really good proof, and it was a very sort of big, and in my graduate school,
00:07:37I remember there was, I think it was a woman who was studying sheep populations in a certain
00:07:42area of France in the 12th century.
00:07:44Like, really, really, I'm the king of a neutron.
00:07:48I'm the lord of almost nothing.
00:07:51So I had a big thesis, and he was like, it's a great thesis.
00:07:55It's really, I've never seen anything quite like it.
00:07:57He was an older guy.
00:07:58And I was like, yeah, let's, the next step, let's get it published.
00:08:02You know, if I need to refine it or change it or shorten it or whatever, let's get it published.
00:08:07And there's this long pause.
00:08:08Like, somehow, this is like, what?
00:08:11Like, how dare you?
00:08:13And I just, you know, he gave me a couple of names, and I tried to follow up, but never
00:08:18got any calls back.
00:08:19And it all just kind of dies on the vine.
00:08:22It's wild just how interlocked these barriers are to getting words or works or ideas out there.
00:08:35Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about, because I've been in the academia, research
00:08:42and publishing for a good 15 plus years of my life.
00:08:47So, when it comes to publishing stuff, you have to figure out ways, and you need to really
00:08:57learn how to publish if you want to be a researcher.
00:09:01And then, I've got over 35 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and later I can, you
00:09:08know, post a link or share with you a link if anybody wants to see some of my publications.
00:09:15But I want to move on, and let's talk about why, you know, people like you and many others
00:09:25have such a hard time getting published.
00:09:30Well, I mean, of course, I'm thankful for it in hindsight.
00:09:34Yeah.
00:09:34I mean, at the time, it was like, I mean, I still remember when I took a really, I mean,
00:09:41Canada's best and most challenging writing course, the hardest one to get into.
00:09:46And my first teacher hated my writing, and my second teacher absolutely loved my writing,
00:09:55because, you know, I mean, it's not objective, I guess, to some degree.
00:09:58And I got really great feedback and really worked hard on my novel.
00:10:04This was my novel, The God of Atheists.
00:10:06And I then got referred to an agent who then had somebody with a PhD in literature review
00:10:15the book, and I've never seen anything like it.
00:10:17I mean, I haven't, I read it somewhere on a podcast many years ago.
00:10:21Like, this guy was like, finally, we have the great Canadian novel.
00:10:23This is the most magnificent work I've ever read.
00:10:26And, you know, from a new author, this is incredibly exciting.
00:10:29This is going to put, you know, Canada's Canadian literature on the map.
00:10:32Like, it really was an insanely positive review.
00:10:36And I remember thinking, you know, well, this is it.
00:10:41I'm going to go and be a writer.
00:10:42And that's kind of what I wanted to do.
00:10:44I was in the business world.
00:10:45And I was, at that point, I was chief technical, I'm sorry, I was director of technology for
00:10:50a medium-sized software company.
00:10:52And I remember, like, every single time my phone rang, I'm like, here it is, my exit
00:10:56call, and being dialed out of the matrix kind of thing.
00:11:00And nothing.
00:11:02Nothing.
00:11:04Okay, so, in regards to what you were just telling me, I want to bring something forward.
00:11:14So, in my line of studies and research, I've done a few different fields.
00:11:24So, I've done studies and research and teaching in business studies, healthcare management, and
00:11:31public health.
00:11:32So, if, for example, I was going to publish something, an article or a review or anything
00:11:41like that about public health, and I wanted to submit it to, for example, the International
00:11:47Journal of Business Management, do you think that public health-related article would have
00:11:54been published?
00:11:55Well, it certainly would be a topic that they would be interested in, I'm sure.
00:12:00Yeah.
00:12:01If it has something to do with International Business Management, maybe.
00:12:06But because public health and public health-related material hardly ever involves International Business
00:12:17Management, because it's mostly localized.
00:12:19So, most likely, no.
00:12:21So, what I want to focus on is that this new field that I think you're trying to bring
00:12:29forth, which is a philosophy based on Judeo-Christian values, but not necessarily with a religious
00:12:43state.
00:12:44In other words, we don't necessarily have to believe in the Judeo-Christian God in order
00:12:52to promote philosophy or in order to do the right things and so on and so forth.
00:12:58So, having said that, the major issue here is that there is no any kind of platform or journal
00:13:08designed for your take on this view in life.
00:13:18Well, okay.
00:13:18So, I hear what you're saying, but if it's going to be my take, then I understand it shouldn't
00:13:24be published.
00:13:25Because that would be like a movie review or, you know, this is my opinion or perspective
00:13:29on this movie, but if I'm actually proving something philosophically, then that's not
00:13:36a my take kind of thing.
00:13:37It would be my thesis based upon a fairly close reading of four major Western philosophers.
00:13:44Absolutely.
00:13:44So, it's not a take thing.
00:13:46It was like, this to me was really, really important.
00:13:49I explained something foundational about, you know, the philosophers who believe in higher
00:13:53reality always end up advocating for a dictatorship.
00:13:55And the people who believe in empirical objective reality ended up with limited constitutional
00:14:01republics or democracies, a smaller government, and so on.
00:14:04And I sort of explained why, and I gave examples from each of the philosophers.
00:14:08And, you know, it's like a good 100-page tightly reasoned thesis and, you know, lots of good
00:14:15examples.
00:14:15And so, I thought this was a pretty great argument, a pretty great idea, and it was validated in
00:14:22the text, and it was something that was actually useful in the world.
00:14:24So, when you start talking about the collective good, or the good of society, or collectivism
00:14:30as a whole, that you're going to end up in tyranny.
00:14:32Or when you promote mysticism, and there's a mysticism on the left, too, which is that
00:14:38everything is a group phenomenon, right?
00:14:39There's only races and classes and genders and so on.
00:14:42Everything's a group phenomenon that you're going to end up with totalitarianism.
00:14:46And, I mean, it seems like a pretty important thesis, but nothing.
00:14:54And not even disagreements.
00:14:56Not even like, well, here you misquoted this, or this is wrong, or that argument doesn't
00:15:00follow.
00:15:01Nothing.
00:15:01It's just like it doesn't exist.
00:15:02Right.
00:15:04So, let me bring in my next point, that hopefully this will make some sort of sense, and hopefully
00:15:11we'll give everybody some intuition, and hopefully a good take on how to solve this issue.
00:15:25So, a while back, when computer technology and computers were getting more powerful and
00:15:36better, they started to develop the medical system to adapt to computers and to medical
00:15:50informatics.
00:15:51Now, that's how the electronic health records came about, which is phenomenal, because, you
00:15:59know, now you don't have to look for files in cabinets, and, you know, they can be easily
00:16:06sent from hospital to hospital, to patients, to different physicians and whatnot.
00:16:12And quite a lot of this research, important research in medical informatics was done, but
00:16:22there was no journal that would publish it.
00:16:26Because every time we submitted, I mean, every time my previous peers would submit research
00:16:33and work related to medical informatics, they would just get an automatic desktop rejection,
00:16:40saying, well, you know, this is not within the scope of our journal.
00:16:43This is not within the scope of our journal.
00:16:44So, and what do you think eventually happened?
00:16:49Well, the former advisor of my advisor, he got together with a bunch of professionals, prominent
00:17:03medical workers and educators and whatnot in the field.
00:17:06And they created the journal of medical informatics because they needed a journal where a platform
00:17:17where things can be, things that were researched and written in regards to medical informatics
00:17:25could be published.
00:17:27Obviously, you know, everybody wants to publish in nature and science, right?
00:17:33Especially if you're in the medical field or the scientific field or sciences, the biological sciences.
00:17:42But they can only publish so much.
00:17:44And medical informatics isn't really the straight down the line of science and nature, right?
00:17:51So, they created this journal platform and although this pioneer, he should, I think he should
00:18:03get most of the credit for it.
00:18:05He, you will never find his name that he created or he started this journal of medical informatics
00:18:13because it's a combined effort from all around the world where people that, you know, they finally
00:18:23came to a realization that, hey, we need a platform.
00:18:28We need a new journal where we can move this.
00:18:31I feel like the story is going on a little longer.
00:18:33If you could get me to the conclusions.
00:18:35Okay.
00:18:35So, to make the long story short is I just don't think we have enough platforms and journals
00:18:46to where, you know, we can publish things about philosophy, life, you know, from, like I said,
00:18:54you know, I mean, there might be some here and there, you know, in more conservative journals.
00:19:02But like I said, if, if they're, if, if they're approaching everything from a very religious
00:19:08point of view, they're most likely not going to publish our stuff because it's probably
00:19:15not within the scope of their journals.
00:19:17So, that's, that's pretty much where I'm going with this.
00:19:21Yeah.
00:19:21I mean, but I, that's not a philosophical question.
00:19:23If it is a scope question, that's a, that's a different issue, right?
00:19:26I mean, if I, if I try and get a philosophical, uh, article or a short story published in a
00:19:34physics journal, uh, that's not gonna, that's not gonna go, right?
00:19:38Absolutely.
00:19:39But, um, my, what I'm trying to say is that, uh, perhaps your, uh, advisor and all the people
00:19:46around you, even though they thought this was a great paper, they just didn't think that,
00:19:50uh, whatever, um, source you try to publish it and would be, uh, would be within the scope
00:19:59of that, uh, platform or source.
00:20:01Well, but I, I never know what, I mean, what does that really mean in the scope of, or not
00:20:05in the scope of, I mean, it was a history of philosophy paper.
00:20:08Should it, it should be published, uh, somewhere in history or somewhere in philosophy or something
00:20:13like that.
00:20:14I mean, the scope thing is kind of subjective, right?
00:20:17Anyone can say, well, that is, or isn't in the scope, but the question is, why wasn't
00:20:23an important thesis published?
00:20:27Or to, to put it another way, I've had this theory of ethics out, uh, in the world called
00:20:33university preferable behavior.
00:20:34It's a really good thesis.
00:20:36Uh, it is, uh, it has sustained, you know, 14 years or 15 years or 16 years of, uh, criticism
00:20:44and objection.
00:20:45And, uh, even the professor of logic said that, yes, it proves that rape, theft, assault
00:20:51and murder can never be universally preferable behaviors, which is, you know, he seemed to
00:20:55brush past it.
00:20:56I'm like, it's kind of a big deal.
00:20:58And why would philosophers who are trained, why would they not want to, uh, take this on?
00:21:07Now they could say, because it's not a very good thesis, right?
00:21:11It's just, you know, fine.
00:21:12I, I understand.
00:21:14I would, you know, I mean, could there be ways in which it could be improved in the communication,
00:21:18blah, blah, blah.
00:21:19Fantastic.
00:21:19Okay.
00:21:19So I have a billion views and downloads.
00:21:22And if I'm doing something that's not as good as it should be, then why not help me improve
00:21:31it?
00:21:31Because I'm, I'm going to be out there talking about philosophy anyway.
00:21:35And as a, an academic, like if an academic philosopher said, and, and this has actually
00:21:41happened where they, they say, I want to debate your UPB.
00:21:44It's like, I've never said no.
00:21:45Uh, that guy who called in a week ago, Wednesday, I was, uh, uh, thrilled to have him come in.
00:21:52I was a little disappointed in how it went because I thought he was just, uh, not, not
00:21:57particularly helpful.
00:21:58Uh, in fact, he was just kind of insulting, which was a shame, but nonetheless, I'm going
00:22:03to be out there talking about philosophy anyway.
00:22:07Why not come and talk about it with me?
00:22:10Um, and, and even before I was controversial, I guess I was controversial kind of from the
00:22:19beginning, but why not come and, uh, talk about it and help me improve and so on.
00:22:25And that's always a big question.
00:22:27Like my comment, I'm going to talk to the world about philosophy.
00:22:30If you think I'm bad at it, then call in and show the audience what a better philosopher
00:22:37sounds like and what, uh, uh, better reason and evidence sounds like and so on, but they
00:22:42don't, they just stay in their bubbles.
00:22:47And I find that odd.
00:22:49Yeah.
00:22:50Well, you know, um, from my experience with the academia and, uh, publishers and editors
00:22:55and whatnot, um, you know, your, your advisor and professor, whatever his, um, uh, title
00:23:05was, he most likely knew a lot of the editors and the reviewers of those journals.
00:23:11And, uh, if he was, you know, in order for you to get your publications in, I mean, me
00:23:17and all the other researchers and publishers and whatnot, you have to sort of like befriend
00:23:22them.
00:23:23And, you know, you, you, you know, you got to kind of like, you know, be smooth and all
00:23:27that.
00:23:27And then if all of a sudden you throw someone their, their way that, uh, that is very controversial,
00:23:33uh, it's not going to look good for you.
00:23:36So I'm, I'm, I'm assuming that, uh, that's what they were looking at, or that's what they
00:23:41were thinking about.
00:23:42How could you recommend this?
00:23:43Okay.
00:23:44And now I, maybe I can understand that when I sort of became a more public figure, but I
00:23:48mean, this is back when I was completely unknown.
00:23:50Yeah, well, um, okay.
00:23:55I'll give you another example.
00:23:56I've had a, uh, a guy in, in, in my, uh, PhD program, information management.
00:24:04He was really good at, uh, uh, computer science and he wrote, he wrote a, um, uh, I think he
00:24:15wrote some, um, uh, protocols for, for, uh, security and stuff like that, that even his
00:24:25advisor wouldn't, wouldn't really understand and wouldn't really know what to do with.
00:24:30I mean, this guy was phenomenal.
00:24:31He, he was really, really smart.
00:24:33So his thesis and protocols sat on his advisor's desk for quite some time until another guy
00:24:40happened to come to, to his advisor and took a look at it.
00:24:44And he's like, Hey man, this is really good stuff.
00:24:46Uh, he's like, well, you know, I don't really know what to do with this guy.
00:24:49And, and, and, and this friend of the advisor said, well, can I work with this guy?
00:24:53Cause we can take his, um, um, we can take his ideas to, to the next level.
00:25:00So he did that.
00:25:01And this guy, you know, eventually, uh, got published and, uh, got his PhD and whatnot.
00:25:08And, uh, everything was great.
00:25:10And so, um, maybe it was not so, how should I say, maybe it was not so fortunate for you.
00:25:20You, you don't have the, your advisor's body that came by to see your great stuff and say,
00:25:26Hey, you know, I know how to help this guy to get things going and to get things published.
00:25:30So your thesis just said, you know, unfortunately, uh, yeah, I mean, I certainly get that there's
00:25:37good and bad luck.
00:25:39I mean, of course I did.
00:25:40There was this Darwin's bulldog, this guy who kept pushing the theory of evolution that
00:25:46because Darwin was kind of a shy guy who didn't want to go out and debate it, but he had a
00:25:49guy who went out and debated it on his behalf.
00:25:52I get all of that.
00:25:55So, uh, there is, but, but it's being consistent over the, I mean, I was, I was very much recognized,
00:26:01as I mentioned, as a, as one of the top two students at, uh, McGill.
00:26:05And I had a professor read one of my papers to the class saying, this is about as perfect
00:26:09a paper as I've ever had in 30 years of teaching and, you know, that kind of stuff.
00:26:13Right.
00:26:13So, uh, the, the talent was there, but there was just this void of support or encouragement
00:26:21or, um, I mean, I remember my teacher of Aristotle, I took a full year course on Aristotle and
00:26:27I wrote bonus papers and sat down with her in her office and made the case and argued
00:26:32and debated and, and we had a pretty good, pretty good relationship.
00:26:35And you think, you know, I mean, I know that in the business world, I was always looking
00:26:39for talent, always.
00:26:40It's what you have to do in the business world.
00:26:42You have to look for talent.
00:26:44And I think it certainly is the case that I'm talented in philosophy and work hard in
00:26:50philosophy.
00:26:51And I suppose it's just a very different world than the business world.
00:26:55So when I had a computer programmer who was really good, I would teach him everything
00:26:59I knew.
00:26:59If I had a programmer, as I had a couple of times who wanted to come out and do sort of
00:27:03sales calls, I'd book them a ticket.
00:27:05They'd come fly with me.
00:27:06I'd teach them everything I knew because you want to develop talent.
00:27:09You want to nurture talent and so on.
00:27:12Right.
00:27:14And I guess in academia, it's just a, it's a whole different matter because it's not
00:27:18really customer facing.
00:27:21It's not part of the free market or something like that because, you know, a secure boss wants
00:27:27to develop talent.
00:27:28An insecure boss doesn't want to be outshone by talent.
00:27:33I think that's exactly, I think that's, that's, that's what I was going to say.
00:27:37You know, in the academia, most professors, they're not, they're not really, I mean, the
00:27:42only thing they have to do is publish.
00:27:44Now, it would have been great for this advisor of yours if, if, if you guys would have published
00:27:51the paper together because if he was a, if it's a really good paper, you know, I, I used
00:27:57to be an advisor too.
00:27:58And some of my students, they had some pretty good papers and, you know, I published them.
00:28:03I, I helped them publish and I got credit too.
00:28:06You know, you get credit as first author and then you get credit as a co, co author or as,
00:28:13as a correspond, corresponding author.
00:28:15So as an advisor, you're automatically the corresponding author.
00:28:19So he could have gotten plenty of credit for that.
00:28:21But then, like you said, you know, maybe he was afraid of being outshined by you and
00:28:26he just didn't like that.
00:28:29He just didn't like the, the, the challenge.
00:28:31Also, I guess the question is, you know, for me, as I sort of thought about it later,
00:28:35what's the last big, important, powerful idea that's come out of academia?
00:28:41I mean, as you know, theory of relativity, I mean, you know, Einstein developed that when
00:28:47he was working at a patent office.
00:28:49Like, so what was the last, what was the last big, helpful, useful philosophical idea that
00:28:54came out of academia?
00:28:55What, white privilege, like some bigoted nonsense like that?
00:28:58Like, what is, what, what have they done that is important to society?
00:29:03And I think when I come along with my big dick swinging ideas, so to speak, I think it makes
00:29:11people feel small.
00:29:12Right.
00:29:13And people have to look back and say, okay, well, if, if this kid is doing this kind of
00:29:18work, what have I been doing?
00:29:21And I think the people, I don't think they're shying away from me.
00:29:24I think they're shying away from their own smallness and their own regrets.
00:29:28You know, that old statement about academia, that the fights are so vicious because the stakes
00:29:31are so small.
00:29:33That's right.
00:29:35Yeah.
00:29:35So one thing about publishing and research and stuff like that is that, well, you know,
00:29:43if you, I look at, you know, most professors nowadays, especially those on the very left,
00:29:51you know, if they can just publish one thing that's a little bit different than the last
00:29:57thing, but not too different because then that would require a whole lot of research and
00:30:03a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of resources and whatnot, then the less, the better, in
00:30:11a sense.
00:30:12I don't know if you know what I mean.
00:30:13So that's why, you know, especially the social sciences today have been a disaster.
00:30:19And, you know, when I was teaching business studies, I honestly didn't care if my students knew the
00:30:29definition of e-commerce.
00:30:30But if they can show to me, like, how to do e-commerce, that would pass them the class.
00:30:39So I actually, I never really graded much on definitions or anything like that.
00:30:45But, uh, I gave students, uh, assignments like, okay, why don't you create a platform where
00:30:51you can sell something or you can market something or, you know, that's what I did.
00:30:55But all my, all, all the other teachers in, in, in, in the business department, they were
00:30:59like all strung up on, um, uh, definitions, uh, memorized vocabulary, this and that and the
00:31:07other.
00:31:07And not one of them ever had a successful business in their life.
00:31:11And, you know, it, it, it showed why, because they weren't really focusing on teaching students,
00:31:17uh, business principles and how to use them.
00:31:19Rather, they were focusing on, oh, you know, you need to memorize this.
00:31:22You need to know the definition of this, that, and the other.
00:31:25And, you know, that's, to me, it's so much nonsense.
00:31:28That's why I kind of gave up on, uh, the academia these days and, you know, I'm doing my own
00:31:35thing, doing a little bit of business, you know, and stuff like that.
00:31:38So, and I think, I think a lot, a lot of academia probably started in the, I think starting in
00:31:43the sixties.
00:31:43And I, I remember I had a professor who was so old, he taught though.
00:31:48He only had an undergraduate degree.
00:31:51He was a full professor with a bachelor of arts.
00:31:54Hey, he taught me some aspects of Victorian literature and that's how old he was.
00:32:00You only needed to have a four-year degree to become a full professor back in the day.
00:32:05But I think I was probably just the last generation of people to get in, uh, and, and actually
00:32:11have non-toxic, um, ideas, mostly boring, mostly irrelevant.
00:32:15I had a full year's course on politics with Canada's, one of Canada's most famous political
00:32:20theorists.
00:32:21You could torture me, uh, verily unto death.
00:32:24And I could not tell you one idea that I got out of that full year course.
00:32:28I, I'm sure I have my notes somewhere, but I literally could not tell you anything that
00:32:32I got out of that course.
00:32:34Uh, even though I studied a lot, I respected the guy and, um, it's Charles Taylor, I think
00:32:39his name was.
00:32:40And I was like, it's like nothing, nothing, nothing.
00:32:44I can't remember a single thing.
00:32:45I remember being up in the classroom.
00:32:46I don't, and I'm pretty good at remembering things.
00:32:48I don't remember a single thing.
00:32:49So I think the change in the sixties was academia went from navel gazing irrelevance to an active
00:32:57worm tongue servant to the beasts of power.
00:33:00And I think that's one of the reasons why my thesis was not scooped up because now ideas
00:33:09are all evaluated relative to, does this serve the pursuit of power?
00:33:15If it does serve the pursuit of power, fantastic.
00:33:19And if it doesn't serve the pursuit of power, or if heaven forbid, it limits the pursuit
00:33:25of power, then it's like, it doesn't exist.
00:33:27It's not of any relevance.
00:33:29It's like, if I need a screwdriver, I'm going to pass over all of the spanners, you know,
00:33:38all of the crescent wrenches, all of the drill bits, because I need a screwdriver.
00:33:43So that's what I need.
00:33:44And so I think the sorting mechanism, certainly in the arts, has been, does it serve power?
00:33:52Right.
00:33:53If it doesn't serve power, and my thesis would limit power, because my thesis says, here's
00:33:58the root justification for power, which is mysticism, and here's the proof in a variety
00:34:03of philosophers.
00:34:05And so I think that I was, I think the pause for my professor back in the day, to mind read
00:34:10a guy, probably long dead, but the pause in my professor's mind was, well, this is a great
00:34:17thesis, but it does not serve the pursuit of power, so it's not going to get published.
00:34:24But I don't want to tell you that, or I don't want to admit that to myself, so I'm just going
00:34:28to have this long pause, because not only does this not serve power, but it actually serves
00:34:34to try to limit power, which means it's definitely not going to get published.
00:34:40Yeah.
00:34:41Yeah.
00:34:41That's, yeah.
00:34:43So you pretty much, you pretty much answered your question, and the question that I had
00:34:49for, you know, that I was going to actually talk about to you.
00:34:53So going back to the point that I was trying to make earlier, is that how do you feel if
00:35:02our philosophy community is going to, maybe over the next few weeks, months, years, what
00:35:14have you, just develop a platform or a journal where, you know, people that have our point
00:35:25of view, not necessarily our point of view, but people that actually do studies and write
00:35:31material that's suitable to this specific point that we were just talking about, which
00:35:39is less power, I'm sure that this can help, you know, this can help philosophy, can help
00:35:48the world, can, you know, can help people in general, because there's a lot of great stuff
00:35:53that never gets published, because nobody would publish it.
00:35:56Well, but published, what happens in general is the journals get sent around and read by various
00:36:03faculty. And so if you were to create a journal that was, say, anti-leftist or pro-free market
00:36:10or whatever, I mean, outside of maybe specifically economics articles, because there's still some
00:36:15respect for market principles in economics, but if you created this journal, who would read
00:36:24it? Who would put it around? Who would pay for it? How would it influence anyone? And I'm
00:36:30not saying it wouldn't, I just, I don't see the path by which it would, but that doesn't
00:36:35mean that it wouldn't, it just means I can't see it.
00:36:38I'm not saying that this should be necessarily an academic journal. I would like it to be
00:36:43more of a, you know, I don't know, have you ever heard of this journal called Cuellette?
00:36:49Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:36:51Okay. Well, what do you think of it? Give me your take on that.
00:36:54Well, I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that they do publish a wide variety of
00:37:00things, but they also publish some things that would be considered anti-leftist, politically
00:37:04incorrect, or non-work.
00:37:08I think they used to publish that a lot more in the past. I think they're being very, very
00:37:13friendly towards the left these days. So I don't know why it seems to me like, okay,
00:37:18so are you familiar with how this journal or platform got started?
00:37:24No, no, but I'd love to hear the story.
00:37:27Sure. So Claire, which is the founder of this thing.
00:37:32Sorry, Claire, what does that mean?
00:37:35Oh, Claire, that's the name of the lady, yeah. She's the founder of the...
00:37:39Yeah, I don't know that a first name basis makes much sense to people. What's her full
00:37:44name, if you know?
00:37:45I think it's Claire Liedermann or something like that.
00:37:50Okay. All right. That's fine. Yeah, I just, I mean, Claire, it sounds like, you know, Claire
00:37:53from down the road who we borrow sugar from. But okay, so let's just say Claire. So go
00:37:57ahead.
00:37:58Okay. Okay. So she had a great idea to start this platform for free thought, which now I
00:38:05think is just free thought for the left, not so much for the right, but for conservative
00:38:09views, but, you know, regardless. So she invited a bunch of...
00:38:14prominent figures to... When she said, okay, I got this platform, journal, what have
00:38:19you. So she invited a bunch of very prominent figures like Jordan Peterson, a few other
00:38:27conservative, you know, famous people. Not all of them academicians or academic people,
00:38:38but, you know, people that were either successful in life, you know, in business, what have you
00:38:46and whatnot. So they all published like a bunch of papers and this helped her to get, get going,
00:38:55to get famous. So, you know, they just published like not, not, not academic articles or anything,
00:39:00but, uh, just articles about life, about common sense, uh, some philosophy here and there and stuff
00:39:07like that. And, uh, this is what got her going. Now, once she got going, of course, you know,
00:39:12she, she couldn't always pay these people or, or invite these people to, to constantly write
00:39:18for her because, uh, you know, these people, obviously they don't have time to just constantly,
00:39:22uh, you know, uh, keep up, uh, Colette. So then, you know, now everybody can actually, uh,
00:39:29send the publication to Colette. So, you know, I, I don't know, it kind of lost its, uh, uh,
00:39:34you know, its, um, initial goals and stuff like that. And I think one of the, the, the lead editors,
00:39:43she's, uh, she's a lesbian feminist, which I don't think that, uh, I mean, just because you are what
00:39:52you are, it doesn't mean that, uh, you can't be a good editor, but the thing is, you know,
00:39:58obviously you're going to uphold your, your, uh, your political, uh, views and you're not actually
00:40:03going to allow through, you know, uh, things that, uh, you find contrary to your views. So I think
00:40:10that's why, you know, whenever you, and I think Claire might've made a mistake by hiring this,
00:40:15this person to be like, uh, the biggest in charge, because I could tell, you know,
00:40:21the last good papers I read in Colette were probably nine, 2019, 2020. I haven't seen anything
00:40:29decent or I haven't, I haven't really seen anything conservative for the last few years in it. So,
00:40:36uh, I, I don't spend as much time in it anymore. And I don't know if you do or not anymore either,
00:40:42but, uh, I used to, yeah, I used to spend quite a bit of time, uh, reading articles there because,
00:40:49uh, I found pretty good, uh, philosophy in some of them. And, uh, I don't know if you've read anything
00:40:56about, uh, from this, uh, uh, former, uh, academic guy. He was a professor, uh, one of the very few
00:41:05professors that, uh, is conservative. Uh, I think he was teaching psychology or something like that.
00:41:11His, his name is Sergio Klausman or Klein, Kleinman or something like that. He's, uh, he was a Jew
00:41:17that, uh, migrated from Romania. So he was very pro free market, you know, anti-communism and all
00:41:25that. And, uh, I think the last time they published him was in 2019. I'm, I'm kind of curious why,
00:41:31because he used to write some really good stuff for killer, but I assume once they changed, uh,
00:41:36you know, uh, leadership positions, you know, those people in charge, they, they, they start
00:41:44making changes and sometimes, well, there's a, uh, I mean, there's a whole, as you get larger and
00:41:50larger as an organization, you're subjected to more and more sort of these affirmative action
00:41:54hiring policies and affirmative action always seeks to promote leftists because affirmative
00:42:01action, uh, it's, you know, it's women and, uh, say non-europeans or something like that,
00:42:06all people that statistically or, or homosexuals, all people who statistically tend to skew left.
00:42:12I mean, not exclusively, but there's a significant proportion of leftism. So, uh, all of the affirmative
00:42:19action stuff is to just make sure that you don't ever have an organization that stays explicitly
00:42:27conservative. And so I would assume, I don't know about this company, but most companies,
00:42:32when they grow, uh, it's, it's how the left gets into successful. They attach right through these
00:42:36well, why don't you have any of X, Y, Z protected group on your board or like, it's all just this,
00:42:42or it's all just that. And it's not diverse enough. And that's just a way that they, they sort of tunnel
00:42:47in and, uh, and take over through these kinds of, uh, quota, quota systems.
00:42:53Yeah. So that's, that's, that's exactly the problem we're dealing with Stefan. That's why you,
00:43:01you know, um, you, you start out with something good. And then over time you, you can't publish
00:43:08any more good stuff in it because you just, well, I mean, I specifically, I've managed companies from,
00:43:15uh, you know, a few people to like 35, 40 people, which is, you know, quite a, quite a big growth
00:43:20and requires quite a bit of skill. And I have sort of specifically refused to and avoided
00:43:26growing because growing means being subject to more and more regulations and more and more
00:43:33affirmative action and less and less choice and decision about who I want to work with.
00:43:38And I, uh, I don't like that. So I'd, I'd rather stay small. Like I don't have a fancy studio or
00:43:46anything like that. So I stay small so that I can stay working with the people I want to work with
00:43:53and with the integrity that I absolutely need to maintain. Cause I, I mean, certainly after all this
00:43:58time, having sacrificed so much for the cause of philosophy, uh, there's the, I mean, the more you
00:44:03sacrifice, the more you dig in, right? You could say it's a fallacy of sunk costs, but for me,
00:44:06it's like, well, there's no point changing now. I've already given up so much. I mean,
00:44:10I've already paid the price. I might as well, there's no point changing now. And so, yeah.
00:44:15And, and so I, I don't know what happened with Quillette, but I assume it had something to do
00:44:19with you grow and then you get into the sites and, and so on.
00:44:23Yeah. And that's, that's very unfortunate because like I said, you know, that, uh, well, you know,
00:44:28I think if you, if, if you go back, uh, if you go, uh, uh, back, uh, far enough, uh, the New York
00:44:35Times, uh, wasn't so much to the left, like, like it is today. And boy, you have to go back a long
00:44:41way, man. Yeah. It wasn't Will Durant. No, not, sorry, not Will Durant. There was another fellow
00:44:46who was, Will Durant is a student in history of, of random writer of the history of philosophy and
00:44:50other things, but I can't remember his name now, but, uh, he, he got a Pulitzer for reporting how
00:44:57wonderful things were in Stalinist Russia. And that's in the 1930s. And he was published in the,
00:45:02uh, New York Times and, uh, just, and they've never rescinded it or given it back or said we were
00:45:08wrong. So yeah, I think you have to go back pretty far. Yeah. So, okay. My point is going back to,
00:45:15uh, uh, book reviews and, you know, whatnot, uh, you know, the New York Times and even Colette,
00:45:23they, they published quite a lot of book reviews. Now, uh, obviously if, if, uh, if I was going to,
00:45:31if I was going to go review on one of your books, what do you think is the chance that, uh, they're
00:45:36going to publish my review? Uh, New York Times. Well, they would publish, they would publish your
00:45:39review if, if you were to write something like the following, they would, I mean, they would publish it
00:45:44where they'd say, you know, here's here on the wild west of the internet, the tragic lack of
00:45:49academic or professional standards has produced this kind of puerile garbage. And, you know, and
00:45:54then you'd hear a quote from my book, uh, everything that you could stitch together that made the least
00:45:58sense possible when assembled, like some sort of Franken pieces. And so if you were to, you know,
00:46:03haughtily deride the complete foolish, ridiculous, amateurish, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm sort of
00:46:10quoting from the guy who, who called in last Wednesday. And so if you were to put it forth
00:46:16as the most scathing, horrendous thing, like I was on the cover of the New York Times, three pictures
00:46:20of me because some young guy had been radicalized into getting a girlfriend and a job. Yeah. But
00:46:28heaven forbid he was a Christian, right? So that's the pipeline to extremism and radicalism and so on,
00:46:35but they won't ever do anything on leftist radicalism. Like that's just not going to happen.
00:46:38Even though what I did wasn't even radicalized, but, but so yeah, you, you could review one of
00:46:43my books as long as it was part of a superior full on Douglas Murray lip curled upper class
00:46:51boarding school sneer at the foolish pedants and peasants working their way, thinking they were
00:46:58producing philosophy, but it's just this kind of puerile garbage that the filter system is designed to
00:47:03keep away from the susceptible public. Like if you were just having a full on, you know,
00:47:08lip curled sneering rage fest at the interlopers to your professional haughty, haughty ethics. I
00:47:16think you could get something like that published, but nothing where you actually engage with the
00:47:20ideas and try to reason with them. I don't doubt you at all, but that's not my intent. My intent is to
00:47:27truly review your book and, you know, list, uh, all the, you know, all the important things in it
00:47:35list, you know, what we can get from it, what we can learn from it, how we can use it in our daily
00:47:41life. How that improves philosophy. That's what I really want to do. And that's, I'm pretty sure many
00:47:45other reviewers want to do the same, but the question is where are we going to publish it?
00:47:51Right. And, you know, of course I did this show some years ago. I went through the door,
00:47:56I went through the communist manifesto with my daughter. And I mean, that really is puerile,
00:48:01hysterical, incorrect garbage. Like it's just, I mean, I know it's a sort of pamphlet kind of stuff.
00:48:07And, and, you know, the workers of the world unite, you have a world to gain you everything.
00:48:11You have nothing to lose, but your chains again, some really great polemical writing,
00:48:15but I mean, is, is, is it a better book than say UPB or something like that? Well,
00:48:22I mean, UPB has actual syllogisms. It's fairly tightly reasoned and it's got examples and historical
00:48:28stuff and, and it's true. It's accurate. Like it's validated. So yeah, it's, it's a, it's a wild
00:48:34thing to see, but I, and I always try to think the best of people. I always try to think, well,
00:48:40you know, maybe there's this excuse or that excuse, but I'd have been writing about this in my
00:48:45latest book, you know, but there's this machinery that people don't even really see that it's kind
00:48:51of programmed into their brains. So they would come across something like my long ago thesis from like
00:48:571991 or 1992 or whenever it was. So they would come across that and there would just be this,
00:49:03this, these, this machinery, right? This mousetrap that would snap in their mind and say,
00:49:08well, I can't recoil, right? I can't. And if you were to say, why exactly? They wouldn't be able to
00:49:15tell you with any specificity other than it's vaguely negative in some manner. It's vaguely bad.
00:49:26It's just not quite right. You know, sort of like in England, if you just don't have quite
00:49:33the right posh accent, what, what, it's just, it's not quite right. There's a little tinge of
00:49:38Liverpudlian lower class. And like, so there's this machinery that, that is kind of programmed to
00:49:43people's brains from very early on and, you know, a million videos and movies and songs and so on.
00:49:48And there's this consensus that's built up through this uniformity of the control of the means of
00:49:56media production and academic production and literary production. And so people just get kind
00:50:02of programmed, you know, I think it's sort of the Bruce Hornsby and the Rangers song,
00:50:07the way it is, you know, it's just, they passed the law in 64 to give those who ain't got a little
00:50:12more, you know, but it only goes so far and racism. And like the people just get, it's a pretty song,
00:50:18but people just get this, they get this machinery set up. There's this machinery that guides people,
00:50:25that moves people around like train tracks, and they don't even know it. They think they're choosing
00:50:28stuff. So I think for the most part, if somebody were to be handed a book of mine, there would be an
00:50:36instinct. The machinery has said, you must reject this. This is bad.
00:50:41It will harm your career. This is going to be viewed negatively. And it doesn't, it's nothing
00:50:48specific. It's not because of the why. It just is wrong think. It's bad think. And I wouldn't mind
00:50:56that in particular, except particularly in the realm of philosophy. These philosophy professors are all
00:51:04studying rebels who were often, most often dismissed or raged against in their own day. I mean, Socrates,
00:51:12sort of the founder of the modern philosophical tradition was, of course, as you know, charges were
00:51:17brought against him by Miletus, and he was hemlocked to death. And so these people all study these
00:51:24moral heroes who stood up against the slings and arrows of outrageous prejudice and hostility and
00:51:31anti-rationality in their society. And everyone who studies Socrates thinks he's Socrates, but most of
00:51:39the modern academics are just Miletus. And there are new Socrates that they simply scorn and attack and
00:51:45reject. And everyone thinks that they're the hero, but they're actually the villain and the petty
00:51:50villain of the piece.
00:51:54Right. So, um, now that, uh, you know, I want to go back to some reference you made that perhaps
00:52:03when, uh, before you're famous and all that, and you wrote the good thesis, it would have been way easier
00:52:10for, for you to, to get a published or to get a good review on it because people just didn't know
00:52:16your take on philosophy, didn't know your take on, uh, you know, uh, a lot of things, including,
00:52:25uh, free markets.
00:52:26Well, sorry to interrupt, but the fact that I'm saying small government means more free
00:52:31market. And the fact that I am, uh, you know, I had positive things to say about John Locke,
00:52:37I had positive things to say about Adam Smith, of course, founder, in many ways, a sort of modern
00:52:41free market invisible hand theory. And so even to have any positive references to any free market
00:52:50thinkers, that's enough to just, I think it's Michael Miles said, most people's minds are just
00:52:54a series of mousetrops designed to go off when certain sounds are heard and certain stimuli is
00:52:59heard. And most people, they're like, uh, to use another analogy, they're like, I was, I was walking
00:53:06the other day at night with my daughter down some lonely road and there were all these dogs and she
00:53:10said, no, I think they're on electronic collars. And I'm like, oh, I don't know. Let's turn back
00:53:14just in case, right? Just in case. And I think most people are just on these electronic collars,
00:53:19but they don't like to think that they're on electronic collars. It's sort of a sour grapes
00:53:24kind of stuff. So everybody is on these leashes. Uh, they have these mousetraps in their mind as
00:53:31you've got to veer away from things and they can't tell themselves the truth about that. So they can't
00:53:36say, well, this is good thesis. It's tightly reasoned. It's provocative. It's interesting.
00:53:42It's useful. And it's very well sourced. I mean, I can't tell you how many books I read
00:53:47grind through that thesis. The bibliography went on and on, but people can't say to themselves,
00:53:55which to me would be an interesting question. This is a really good thesis. It got an A. It
00:54:01is a very challenging subject. Why don't I like it? Ooh, that's a tough question, right? That's a
00:54:08tough question. I mean, it's like the, the, the women who post online and say, why do I dislike
00:54:14the guys who are really nice to me? And I like the guys who treat me like crap. I mean, that's a
00:54:18pretty important question, right? It's not like, right? So people with regards, like let's say
00:54:26that somebody was handed a UPP and didn't know it was me or didn't know who I was, which would be
00:54:34great. And they would start reading it and they would start to feel uncomfortable because UPP pulls
00:54:40them beyond the range of their electronic collar, which is the Overton window, right? What are you
00:54:46allowed to discuss? And of course, if UPP is true, then academic power is immoral because it relies on the
00:54:56initiation of the use of force and violations of property rights. And so people just start reading
00:55:02stuff. They get this uneasy, ooh, this is, this is wrong. We, we, we, we shouldn't talk about this.
00:55:08We can't, this is not good, right? And they don't want to know why that is, because that's really
00:55:17difficult for them emotionally, right? Like if a woman says, if she really does dig into, well, why do I
00:55:22just get attracted to guys who treat me like crap? It's like, well, because my mother chose a bad
00:55:27guy or I had a bad guy, I haven't dealt with that, like a bad father or something like that,
00:55:31haven't resolved it, or I've been susceptible to propaganda that says, well, all men are bastards,
00:55:36so you might as well screw the pretty ones or something like that, right? So to, to actually dig
00:55:42in, if somebody sort of picks up a thesis and is really upset by it, I mean, and these are people
00:55:48who, you know, know thyself is, is Socrates' first commandment. So if you pick up something and you
00:55:55say, okay, but there's nothing objectively wrong with this, there's nothing objectively wrong with
00:55:59it, so why, why do I feel uneasy? Why do I not like this thesis? Why do I feel the urge to throw it
00:56:07away like it suddenly spouted, sprouted adder fangs and was trying to sink its teeth, venomed teeth
00:56:13into my, into my veins? Why, why do I feel like I need to throw it away from me? And why do I need
00:56:19to pretend like I never read it? I mean, that would be really interesting questions to ask yourself,
00:56:23but it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen at all.
00:56:27Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, uh, like, like we already mentioned, there's jealousy, there's like, uh,
00:56:34the, the fear of, Oh, you know, if a student, uh, is outshining me and, uh, you know, then it means
00:56:44I'm going to have to put all a whole lot of time and, and, and resources and, and, and, you know,
00:56:50and stuff into like, uh, writing a good paper to just as this one or even better, you know, to show
00:56:55that, uh, I got good stuff going on too. And, you know, all this kind of stuff. My, my question now is
00:57:01that, um, what I want to point out is imagine they didn't know you back then. And, uh, even
00:57:09though you had pretty much like, uh, uh, a clean record, you know, like DMV, you know, the clean
00:57:15record, but now you got all kinds of records, uh, white supremacist, uh, racist. We don't have to,
00:57:26honestly, it's not like, we don't have to go through the list. I think everyone knows. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:29So, so, and all of that stuff is just, all of that stuff is designed to give people an answer
00:57:34as to why what I do makes them uneasy without them actually going down any particular path
00:57:38that might lead to self-knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, if I may, uh, you know, I kind of want
00:57:46to bring back, uh, uh, my, my initial point, uh, maybe our philosophy community here, you know,
00:57:55your audience, uh, me, whoever's interested, perhaps we can create our own new platform where
00:58:04we can publish stuff that, uh, you know, uh, we can take it to the next level and we don't
00:58:11need, really need to worry about it. Like, Hey, is there like a source that's going to look
00:58:15at, uh, or be willing to accept my review or our articles, this and that and the other,
00:58:21you know, I've been thinking about this for a while and, uh, you know, I was just trying
00:58:26to figure out how, how to go about, uh, doing something that Claire did, because, um, like
00:58:31you said, it's probably good to do something, but on a smaller scale than what she did.
00:58:37I think what she did is very successful. I mean, obviously she, she's going somewhere.
00:58:41She's got a lot of readers. Uh, she's got, uh, all kinds of, uh, people that, that are
00:58:47interested. It's just like the message is not there anymore, Stefan.
00:58:51She, she, she lost her ways. I'm sorry. You know?
00:58:55Well, and of course there would be no particular problem or issue with starting something like
00:59:02that. And I've certainly would encourage people to, I mean, I certainly would encourage you
00:59:06that if you want to start something like that, that's a, a good project to get going. I mean,
00:59:11the challenge is, and you know, I'm sure you're aware of this too, but the challenge is you start
00:59:16something like that. And at some point, at some point you will get a visit, you'll get
00:59:27a visit. And you know what they say, uh, in, in Mexico, right? If you become a prominent
00:59:34politician, you get the visit and the visit is a silver or lead bribes or bullets. And I
00:59:42don't know because I mean, I've had a couple of feelers that way, but nothing I would sort
00:59:47of point out and say that's definitive. But as I started to grow, I started to get some
00:59:52offers. Hey, we'd love to fund you. You know, we've got this, we'd love to put you on TV.
00:59:57We'd love to give you a big radio show, like all of this kind of stuff. Right. And I never
01:00:01was particularly tempted by it because I just want to speak the truth. I don't, I never even
01:00:05really want it to be famous. I just want to, if the fame serves the spread of virtues,
01:00:10fantastic. Um, but if you are successful, just, just be aware that you're going to get,
01:00:17you're going to get the visit. It's like the envelope handed out at some funeral to the
01:00:21political leaders. Right. So you, you just, yeah. And you just, you just have to be prepared
01:00:25for the visit, which is, you know, we really, we'd love to fund you, but you know, you've got
01:00:31to, you got to go a little bit in this direction or whatever it is. Right. And there'll be the
01:00:36nudge and there'll be all that kind of stuff. And as long as you're aware of that ahead of
01:00:40time, cause I mean, I had the visit though, more from money than moral corruption, but
01:00:46I had the visit, uh, once or twice in business as well. And yeah, just, just be aware that you're
01:00:54going to get the visit and you've got to be, got to be prepared for that and know what that's
01:01:00going to mean. Well, what I'm saying that anyone at Quillette, I don't know. Right.
01:01:05But I couldn't answer that, but, uh, I will say that, uh, be, be ready for that. Sorry.
01:01:09Go ahead. Uh, yeah. So I was thinking to, to do something a little bit different than
01:01:14what, uh, so, you know, Quillette is based in Australia, which is, you know, a Western
01:01:20country, which is suffering from West Western decay, just like all the other Western
01:01:26countries. Well, it's not the case as much as straight up, uh, sabotage and detonation.
01:01:31Anyway, go on. So anyway, my, uh, take is, or my approach is to, uh, maybe base myself
01:01:40either in Asia or Eastern Europe, where it's, you know, a little bit less problematic than
01:01:48it is in the West. And hopefully we can keep this thing going to, to, you know, a little
01:01:56bit, uh, further than Quillette was able to, uh, cause you know, Quillette started out
01:02:01around 2015 and I think he lasted about four or five years. So I hope to, if we do start
01:02:10something to go, uh, at least 10 years, you know, or more or as many years as we can, you
01:02:19know, but more than, more, more than four. That's for sure.
01:02:22Yeah. And, and I think again, that has to do with how quickly you grow and what
01:02:26happens when you get the visit.
01:02:28Yeah. And I, I think, uh, you know, if, if, uh, if this, this thing is going to be based
01:02:35either in, uh, Eastern Europe or somewhere in Asia, uh, it's probably going to be a whole
01:02:43lot different than it is in the West. So that's, that's, that's what I'm hoping that's going
01:02:49to make the difference that, uh, you know, to let, could, couldn't make, because I, I'm
01:02:55pretty sure that when Claire started this whole thing, she wanted to be different than, uh,
01:02:59than the New York times. And she wanted to review, I mean, she wanted to accept all kinds
01:03:04of reviews, perhaps all your books, uh, and your articles and whatnot. And, uh, yeah, perhaps
01:03:10in 2015, 2016, if I, if I knew you back then, and I would have written a review for
01:03:15you, uh, a decent review, you know, not, not just, you know, all kinds of nonsense and
01:03:21bashing and this and that. And, you know, like stuff. Yes. Yeah. You would have probably
01:03:26been, been published in Colette back in 2015 or 2016, but, uh, I mean, that was the pre-Trump
01:03:32thing. So that's, uh, yeah. Although I get, it was just starting then, I suppose, but.
01:03:36So good luck trying to do it now. You know, that's. I think it would be tougher
01:03:40now for sure. Yeah. All right. And when were you thinking of starting it and is there
01:03:45anything that you wanted to, I got to stop soon, but is there anything that you wanted
01:03:48to mention to my audience about how to pursue this? What I wanted to ask the audience is,
01:03:54uh, uh, any, any people that are interested to help design such a platform, uh, you know,
01:04:00they can email me. Um, they can also have access to my, uh, uh, writings on medium. And, uh,
01:04:08I also started a soft stack because, you know, medium is, it's, it's just not a good place
01:04:14to publish anymore. Oh, is that right? And what's, uh, what's the issue with medium these
01:04:17days? Oh, they, they just, uh, you know, they just, if, if, uh, if you write from a conservative
01:04:24point of point of view, they just kind of shine you and they, they don't, they just don't
01:04:28allow you to, to be seen by anyone. But if your life, if you write, uh, crazy, you don't
01:04:34want to take the leftist stuff or you, you're going to get pushed all the way to the top.
01:04:38Right. So, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, the, the guy is hard to the left, the director,
01:04:43you know, the, um, found the same. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just a pity that, uh,
01:04:49you know, everything that, uh, the left touches just, just, just goes to crap, you know?
01:04:54And, uh, you know, you can, I mean, what exactly do you see that's, uh, being pushed
01:05:00to the top on, uh, on, on medium these days? You know, just, uh, nonsense about Trump,
01:05:06how bad Trump is, how he's going to take us to ruins and he's going to destroy, uh, you
01:05:12know, democracy and this, that and the other and stuff like that. I mean, you, you can't
01:05:16see anything that's being propagated to the top. That's, uh, that's decent philosophy,
01:05:21decent, uh, life lessons, uh, uh, or, or just simply anything decent, you know?
01:05:29So, um, but I mean, you know, I've, I've got a bunch of articles there that, uh, in
01:05:33the past they have gotten a lot of, uh, views and attention and stuff like that. And it's
01:05:38just a pity to, to keep writing for, for a place that, uh, they're just going to shun
01:05:43and, and, you know, like, uh, block everything from, from being seen by the, by, by the general
01:05:48public, you know, it's, it's, it's just, you know, I mean, it's, it's kind of like,
01:05:54um, you know, like when, when, when you were first, uh, banned from YouTube and you had
01:05:59your small audience and stuff like that, I mean, you try to do different things. So
01:06:03I, I've been trying to do different things since, since my, uh, you know, my publications
01:06:07on medium, they have been kind of like, uh, blocked and, you know, uh, I haven't been
01:06:13exposed to the general public as, uh, as much as I used to once they learned of my views
01:06:18and my, uh, opinions and stuff like that. So, but, you know, just like, uh, I'm trying
01:06:24to follow in your shoes and, um, um, I'm, I'm hoping to, you know, do, do something
01:06:29different. Um, and, you know, just like this, uh, former, uh, advisor of my, uh, director,
01:06:38he got the, uh, academic and the scientific community to, to, to all go in on creating
01:06:45this, uh, this new journal of medical informatics where, you know, a lot of good
01:06:52stuff that has propagated and pushed the field of, uh, medicine forward, uh, was done
01:07:01because of his, uh, idea, but it wasn't just his effort. It was like everybody in
01:07:07the community, they said, yeah, you know what? We really need this. We can't get our
01:07:11research and publications, uh, in nature and science because they're just not meant for
01:07:16that. And, uh, obviously, you know, they, they already had too, too many people trying
01:07:21to, I mean, you know, if, uh, if, if you want to publish in nature and science, it's,
01:07:26it's kind of like being a, um, uh, a conservative person trying to publish in New York, uh, the
01:07:33New York times, you know, it's just, uh, at that level, you know, but, but then again,
01:07:39you know, uh, because look, the world population is growing, right? Which means
01:07:45our community, community of, uh, people that enjoy philosophy is also growing, right?
01:07:50So we need more platforms. We need more sources where we can have access to, you
01:07:57know, uh, writings, podcasts, and this, that, and the other and whatnot. And just like you
01:08:03said, you know, perhaps one day, uh, even this platform that I'm trying to create right
01:08:08now might be too, too, too small to, to, to, uh, publish a whole lot of stuff on philosophy
01:08:16and stuff like that. But, uh, just like you often say, Hey, you know, we always need a
01:08:20good challenge to keep, uh, you know, to keep focused and to keep sharp. Right. So, you
01:08:28know, I, I hope, you know, that, uh, if we do start this thing, um, and it's going to
01:08:32grow and some days not big enough, I hope somebody else will, will, uh, start another
01:08:38platform, you know, that, uh, promotes philosophy and common sense and what have
01:08:42you, you know?
01:08:44And would you, uh, do you have any sort of sense of the, uh, ideal budget that you
01:08:48would be, uh, looking for?
01:08:52Um, geez, I should probably ask, uh, Claire.
01:08:59Yeah. I mean, if you, I mean, if anybody who's done this kind of stuff before, uh, it's
01:09:04just certainly, uh, I'm sure you're aware, like if you have business ideas, uh, then
01:09:08you need to, uh,
01:09:09So I read how Claire started, she said she started in her garage with a couple of
01:09:14computers. So it didn't cost her much at all. She got a bunch of help from, from, uh, people
01:09:19that really believed in her, uh, you know, uh, dream and view and aspirations. So I'm
01:09:29hoping that, okay, I can spend some money definitely to, to, to help pay for, you know,
01:09:34some of the people that want to help and stuff like that. But, uh, you know, I, I, I certainly
01:09:38hope that some people that, uh, are more or less like me, they have, uh, a job and they
01:09:43have some income and they really, really want to take philosophy to, to, to, uh, uh, uh, the
01:09:49next level or to a new, new level. They can contact me and say, Hey, Hey Dan, you know,
01:09:54let's get this thing going. Let's, let's help philosophy. Let's help, helps the fun. Let's,
01:09:59let's, let's, let's do it. And then I, I, I have, I have the ideas. I can, I can, um,
01:10:04really, because I've been an, uh, you know, an editor and a reviewer and I know how to create
01:10:10platforms and stuff like that. I can give them ideas how they can help for us to create,
01:10:15uh, this, uh, uh, joint project or, uh, group projects, just like, just like, uh, you
01:10:21know, the journal of, uh, medical informatics was created. Uh, and, and now it's a very,
01:10:27it's a flourishing journal and, uh, you know, it, it helps to move the field of medicine
01:10:32forward. Well, that's fantastic. Well, listen, I'll stop here, but I, I hope that, uh, you'll
01:10:38keep me posted about how things are going. And, uh, it's a very, very interesting project.
01:10:42And is there a way you can, um, um, post my email somewhere for those that are interested
01:10:49to, uh, give me the best email to contact you and we'll publish it with the show or
01:10:53if you want to also give you, I'll also give you my, uh, uh, soft stack, uh, link and,
01:10:58uh, medium and stuff like that. So people can, and I also give you my publications over the
01:11:02years in the scientific field. So people can get an idea of, uh, what I did and what I
01:11:08know and whatnot. And, uh, yeah, I think that would be, uh, uh, excellent. Thank you so much,
01:11:15Stefan.
01:11:15You're very welcome, man. And, uh, I appreciate that and we'll stay in touch.
01:11:18Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again. Bye-bye.
01:11:22Great to see you. Bye-bye.
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