# The Brick Wall Brain: Why Aren't Facts Changing Minds?

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 19 Nov 2024, 56 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/62582732/podcast_772_brickwallbrainv2.mp3

On October 27, 2024 in Knoxville, Seth Andrews gave a speech about beliefs, brains, and why data often doesn't make a dent. Here's the audio of that presentation. VIDEO of this speech: https://youtu.be/Z4UJuQHYhWg Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
[0:18] Speaker 3: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 3: not because I put my hand on a book and
[0:24] Speaker 3: made a wish.
[0:25] Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking feels so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Beausian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: You know, of all the things that I get to do,
[0:58] Speaker 3: and I'm just so honored to be able to do it.
[1:01] Speaker 2: I love hosting a show.
[1:02] Speaker 3: I love being a part of this community, and I
[1:04] Speaker 3: love the interaction of speaking in front of a live audience.
[1:08] Speaker 3: And I don't know how many speaking events I did
[1:11] Speaker 3: this year is a lot. And so you're about to
[1:14] Speaker 3: hear the recording of a speech that I gave October
[1:18] Speaker 3: twenty seventh for the Rationalists of East Tennessee. And don't
[1:23] Speaker 3: we know that Tennessee needs all the rationalists it can get, actually,
[1:27] Speaker 3: the entire.
[1:28] Speaker 2: Actually the planet needs all the.
[1:31] Speaker 3: Rationalists that it can get and they were so gracious
[1:34] Speaker 3: to me, and so we all got together and they
[1:37] Speaker 3: made a cake for me to welcome me, and it
[1:40] Speaker 3: had the Thinking Atheist logo on it.
[1:43] Speaker 2: It was awesome. I posted it on social media saying,
[1:46] Speaker 2: check this out. It was just such an honor.
[1:48] Speaker 3: And then we had a full house the next day
[1:50] Speaker 3: and I talked about beliefs and the brain. The problem
[1:54] Speaker 3: is now, this is before the election, and everything's exploded
[1:58] Speaker 3: and the whole planet's on fire and all that stuff,
[2:00] Speaker 3: and afterwards people are so hot, and I'm talking about
[2:03] Speaker 3: myself too. I thought is it the wrong time? And
[2:08] Speaker 3: then I got really paranoid, and I said is it
[2:10] Speaker 3: the wrong message? And I couldn't decide. I was so
[2:15] Speaker 3: worked up. And you know, when you are highly charged,
[2:18] Speaker 3: this is the worst time to make decisions in most cases. Right,
[2:22] Speaker 3: You got to take a breath, You've got to get
[2:24] Speaker 3: some perspective. And so I sent the speech out a
[2:27] Speaker 3: private link to some people that I trust, and I said, look,
[2:30] Speaker 3: I hate to ask, but would you watch this and
[2:33] Speaker 3: tell me is it wrong or is it the wrong time?
[2:37] Speaker 3: And they said, You're not wrong. It is probably the
[2:42] Speaker 3: best time. To try to refocus ourselves, and so I
[2:45] Speaker 3: went back. I added kind of an opening disclaimer, like
[2:50] Speaker 3: thirty seconds with a voiceover which was done by a
[2:53] Speaker 3: third party, and then it goes into the speech itself. Okay, fine,
[2:57] Speaker 3: I'm just going to release this sucker out into the
[2:59] Speaker 3: whil now because I don't want to take a break
[3:02] Speaker 3: and split the speech. I'm going to play it uninterrupted.
[3:05] Speaker 3: Let me take my short break right now, and I'll
[3:08] Speaker 3: be back with The Brick Wall Brain coming up next.
[3:13] Speaker 3: Are you a fan of true stories, interesting history, celebrity trivia,
[3:18] Speaker 3: true crime, weird news? And you're going to love my
[3:22] Speaker 3: podcast True Stories with Seth Andrews and I'm your host,
[3:27] Speaker 3: Seth Andrews, releasing five minute podcast vignettes three times a week.
[3:32] Speaker 3: Search True Stories with Seth Andrews on Speaker and all
[3:36] Speaker 3: major podcast apps, or visit the website True Stories podcast
[3:42] Speaker 3: dot com. What you are about to hear is the
[3:51] Speaker 3: audio of a speech I gave for the Rationalists of
[3:54] Speaker 3: East Tennessee on the twenty seventh of October in Knoxville,
[3:59] Speaker 3: The Brick Wall Brain. Why aren't facts changing minds?
[4:14] Speaker 4: Given today's supercharged political and cultural climate, and with so
[4:18] Speaker 4: much at stake. Some might consider the following message tone deaf, misguided,
[4:23] Speaker 4: or even untrue. Consideration feels like concession, especially when the
[4:28] Speaker 4: most dangerous beliefs threaten harm to the people and causes
[4:31] Speaker 4: we care about. Yet we are all human. Many of
[4:34] Speaker 4: us once held terrible beliefs from which we were rescued,
[4:38] Speaker 4: And while there are some who may not be reachable,
[4:40] Speaker 4: there are many others who are. If the best ideas win,
[4:44] Speaker 4: humanity wins, and if there was hope for you and me,
[4:48] Speaker 4: there is hope for others as well.
[4:57] Speaker 3: What an honor it is to be a guest of
[4:59] Speaker 3: the Rational List of East Tennessee from Oklahoma.
[5:03] Speaker 2: Got off the plane.
[5:04] Speaker 3: I was talking to my host and I said, so
[5:05] Speaker 3: is Tennessee a particularly religious area? And when they stopped laughing,
[5:13] Speaker 3: we had a conversation about it. But there may be
[5:16] Speaker 3: believers in the room today, given the fact that we
[5:18] Speaker 3: are speaking on a campus area of the University of Tennessee.
[5:23] Speaker 2: It's okay.
[5:24] Speaker 3: You didn't need to wear garlic around your neck today.
[5:27] Speaker 3: I don't bite. It's all good today. We are all
[5:30] Speaker 3: human beings, and I think we're going to talk about
[5:32] Speaker 3: something that all people can relate to. Okay, I want
[5:36] Speaker 3: to start with the reiteration effect, thinking as power dot
[5:43] Speaker 3: Com has a lot of these, and I'm borrowing the slides.
[5:45] Speaker 3: We tend to believe information the more often we're exposed
[5:50] Speaker 3: to it. And here's the example. Napoleon was short. Wow,
[5:54] Speaker 3: that's interesting. Napoleon's shortness complex was massive. Did you know
[5:59] Speaker 3: Napoleon was short? You probably heard that a lot. But
[6:03] Speaker 3: it's a myth. It is untrue that Napoleon was short.
[6:08] Speaker 3: We grew up believing that his lack of height was
[6:11] Speaker 3: a thing and had made him the mockery of all
[6:13] Speaker 3: of Europe.
[6:14] Speaker 2: That is a myth.
[6:15] Speaker 3: The inch, as measured in France at that time was
[6:19] Speaker 3: slightly longer than the inch has measured in England. Historians
[6:25] Speaker 3: say Napoleon was actually maybe an inch or two taller
[6:29] Speaker 3: than the average height of a Frenchman at that time,
[6:32] Speaker 3: maybe five foot five.
[6:33] Speaker 2: We never checked.
[6:34] Speaker 3: We just assumed how many people here heard Napoleon was short.
[6:39] Speaker 2: Almost all of us. We have always been told that
[6:44] Speaker 2: dogs are colorblind. They are not.
[6:49] Speaker 3: Dogs have a much more compressed color range. Their eyes
[6:53] Speaker 3: evolved for distance and motion for hunting, usually in the
[6:57] Speaker 3: low light of dusk and dawn, so they didn't need
[7:01] Speaker 3: to locate bright things like fruits and flowers. This is
[7:05] Speaker 3: my hunting dog. This is Linus. He's my son, little
[7:11] Speaker 3: seven pound Maulti Pooh rescue, obviously a descendant of the
[7:16] Speaker 3: wolf right.
[7:18] Speaker 2: And I was totally relieved when I learned that.
[7:22] Speaker 3: He actually sees and experiences life in color.
[7:27] Speaker 2: Now on the right is what dogs see.
[7:31] Speaker 3: It's a dichromatic image here with the reds and the
[7:33] Speaker 3: greens compressed into a mix of blues and yellows.
[7:37] Speaker 2: But he sees color. Dogs see color.
[7:40] Speaker 3: And wow, you say I learned something new. I'm altering
[7:45] Speaker 3: how I think on this subject. It's actually a myth
[7:50] Speaker 3: that if you swallowed chewing gum, it stays in your
[7:52] Speaker 3: stomach for seven years.
[7:54] Speaker 2: Who is told that by.
[7:55] Speaker 3: Their parents you smallow your gum, it's gonna stick for
[7:59] Speaker 3: seven years. Nope, we assumed it. We believed it, but
[8:04] Speaker 3: we didn't check. If you swallow gum, it passes right
[8:07] Speaker 3: through like any other food would. It's a myth that
[8:11] Speaker 3: coffee dehydrates you. Caffeine itself is a diuretic, increasing urine production,
[8:18] Speaker 3: but you're still drinking something that is like ninety nine
[8:21] Speaker 3: percent water hydration and caffeination. I'm in, I'm in. I
[8:30] Speaker 3: love coffee. This is knowledge I needed. Did you know
[8:35] Speaker 3: there's no conclusive proof that sugar causes hyperactivity in children?
[8:42] Speaker 2: Oh?
[8:42] Speaker 3: Oh uh oh, hang on, now some parents are potentially
[8:49] Speaker 3: sitting forward in their chairs. Everybody knows sugar makes you hyper,
[8:55] Speaker 3: the reiteration effect.
[8:58] Speaker 2: We've heard it our.
[8:59] Speaker 3: Whole live Yes, but are we reacting differently here than
[9:04] Speaker 3: we did with the color blind dogs and the swallowed gum?
[9:08] Speaker 2: And yet this statement is true.
[9:09] Speaker 3: The hyperactivity connection was made in a single study done
[9:13] Speaker 3: fifty years ago involving one doctor who removed sugar from
[9:18] Speaker 3: a child's diet, but his result was never conclusively replicated.
[9:24] Speaker 3: Sugary foods are part of other environmental triggers that might
[9:29] Speaker 3: be responsible, and while there are a few kids with
[9:32] Speaker 3: some sensitivities to sweets, the sugar hyperactivity connection exists mostly
[9:38] Speaker 3: here in our perception. Now we start to see the
[9:43] Speaker 3: personal stories kick in.
[9:45] Speaker 2: I don't care what you say.
[9:46] Speaker 3: If my kids eat candy, it's pandemonium. I've seen it,
[9:52] Speaker 3: I've personally experienced. Right, it's true for me? Is the
[9:57] Speaker 3: name of this defense? Okay, fine, let's look at some
[10:00] Speaker 3: other long held beliefs that probably won't get people all
[10:04] Speaker 3: hot and bothered like this one. Polygraph tests are bullshit.
[10:11] Speaker 3: They do not work. Polygraphs are debunked nineteenth century technology.
[10:18] Speaker 3: You cannot determine whether or not someone is telling the
[10:22] Speaker 3: truth are lying, just by measuring their blood pressure, they're breathing,
[10:26] Speaker 3: their pulse rate and perspiration. There's this guy, he's a
[10:29] Speaker 3: former NSA National Security Administration analyst named Russell Tye.
[10:34] Speaker 2: And he came forward and he said.
[10:35] Speaker 3: Look, even if the needle was telling a real story,
[10:40] Speaker 3: you can fool a polygraph. You can bite your tongue,
[10:43] Speaker 3: you can think exciting thoughts, you can do mental arithmetics,
[10:47] Speaker 3: some distraction, daydream alter breathing.
[10:50] Speaker 2: You can even tighten your.
[10:52] Speaker 3: Rectum over and over and over again. And I know
[10:59] Speaker 3: you're doing I know you're all doing it right now.
[11:02] Speaker 3: You're all like, what's that feel like? It's false that
[11:10] Speaker 3: you should never wake a sleepwalker.
[11:12] Speaker 2: I always heard this, whatever you do, don't wake them up.
[11:16] Speaker 3: It's actually more likely that a sleep walker is going
[11:18] Speaker 3: to get injured if you let.
[11:20] Speaker 2: Them pinball around in the middle of the night.
[11:23] Speaker 3: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises that you guide
[11:27] Speaker 3: them gently back to bed.
[11:29] Speaker 2: But if you have to wake them up.
[11:30] Speaker 3: We don't want sleep walkers walking stairs, leaving their houses,
[11:35] Speaker 3: even driving cars, and this has been documented sleepers.
[11:39] Speaker 2: Behind the wheel. Hell, yes, let's wake them up. Okay.
[11:45] Speaker 3: It's a myth that if you touch a baby bird,
[11:47] Speaker 3: it will be rejected by its mother.
[11:50] Speaker 2: I always heard this one. Don't touch it, it'll be rejected.
[11:55] Speaker 3: Birds are bonded to their young. This whole idea links
[11:59] Speaker 3: to an old myth that birds can detect human scent.
[12:03] Speaker 3: Most birds actually have very limited smell functions. So while
[12:07] Speaker 3: we shouldn't be bothering the babies, if a chick falls
[12:09] Speaker 3: out of the nest, it is okay. In fact, it's
[12:12] Speaker 3: a moral thing to do to pick it up, scoop
[12:14] Speaker 3: it up, and put it back. It's going to be okay.
[12:18] Speaker 3: Good information to have. When I learned, I adjusted my
[12:22] Speaker 3: thinking on it. MSG motto sodium glutamate is not bad
[12:29] Speaker 3: for you.
[12:31] Speaker 2: Uh oh, here we are again.
[12:35] Speaker 3: The reiteration effect the it's true for me affect personal experience.
[12:41] Speaker 2: But this claim is a myth.
[12:46] Speaker 3: This flavor enhancer has been classified by the FDA as safe.
[12:51] Speaker 3: There's no discernible link between these supposed symptoms headache, flushing,
[12:57] Speaker 3: tightness in the face, numbness, fluttering heart, chest pain, nausea, weakness.
[13:01] Speaker 3: Researchers have found no clear proof of a link between
[13:05] Speaker 3: MSG and these symptoms. People have the same reaction when
[13:10] Speaker 3: given place ebos, So there's no reason to have the
[13:15] Speaker 3: no MSG sign on the door of the Chinese restaurant
[13:18] Speaker 3: unless you just want to try to alleviate people's fears.
[13:22] Speaker 2: But it's not a thing now.
[13:25] Speaker 3: Given what I've just said, have the anti MSG people
[13:29] Speaker 3: change their opinion. Hmmm, let's go deeper and find out.
[13:34] Speaker 3: MSG is not just in Chinese food. It's commonly added
[13:38] Speaker 3: to canned vegetables, catch up, mustard, salad, dressing.
[13:41] Speaker 2: Deli meat, potato chips, soup.
[13:44] Speaker 3: We eat it all the time and don't even realize it.
[13:48] Speaker 3: Glutamate is an amino acid. It's in almost all of
[13:51] Speaker 3: our foods. Monosodium glutamate is an isolated and purified form
[13:57] Speaker 3: of it, So glutamates are found naturally many cheeses, some
[14:01] Speaker 3: fruits and veggies, chicken, shrimp, chititaqi, mushrooms, broccoli, walnuts, cabbage.
[14:08] Speaker 3: MSG increases saliva and that improves taste. It can be
[14:14] Speaker 3: a bit salty, but it has about a third of
[14:18] Speaker 3: the amount of sodium in normal table salt. So unless
[14:23] Speaker 3: you have a specific and rare sensitivity, you would not
[14:26] Speaker 3: feel any health effects with MSG until you had eaten
[14:31] Speaker 3: three grams or more on an empty stomach. That's about
[14:34] Speaker 3: six times as much MSG that is in most food,
[14:38] Speaker 3: and your symptoms would still be mild and they would
[14:42] Speaker 3: quickly disappear. This is the scientific finding. Now, this is
[14:48] Speaker 3: where everyone in the room stands and applauds. Thank you, Seth,
[14:52] Speaker 3: thank you for this scientific perspective. Oh stuf, right, let's
[15:01] Speaker 3: all get together. Let's pack the bus and get some
[15:03] Speaker 3: chalmine together. That's what you're all saying, right, Is that
[15:07] Speaker 3: the response I would get out there in the ether.
[15:11] Speaker 3: Probably not. They would say, look at what MSD has done.
[15:13] Speaker 2: It was brain. I refuse to.
[15:16] Speaker 3: Put that in my body. Well, what's that about? Why
[15:22] Speaker 3: the pushback? There?
[15:24] Speaker 2: Even irritation? Oh you want to see irritation? Wat's this?
[15:32] Speaker 3: Detox Diets are a scam. Detox is not a medical
[15:39] Speaker 3: term in the context of diet. The wellness industry stole
[15:45] Speaker 3: this term from legitimate addiction recovery programs to sell the
[15:50] Speaker 3: myth that you can eat and drink.
[15:52] Speaker 2: Toxins out of your body.
[15:55] Speaker 3: Interestingly, they never define what those toxins actually are. Are
[16:01] Speaker 3: we already have a detox machine the liver detox by
[16:06] Speaker 3: diet is a bogus claim. It is made by an unregulated,
[16:11] Speaker 3: fifty billion dollar a year detox product industry. But wait,
[16:19] Speaker 3: that's something that the FDA and big food would want
[16:23] Speaker 3: us to believe, right, it's all part of the conspiracy.
[16:26] Speaker 3: I'm convinced detox diets work. I don't care what he says. Well,
[16:30] Speaker 3: what's this about the trillion dollar wellness industry? Overall, trillion
[16:35] Speaker 3: dollars wellness industry has learned to manipulate us. They play
[16:40] Speaker 3: on fears about the pharmaceutical industry, about chemicals, Western medicine.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Which is not a thing by the way.
[16:48] Speaker 3: You know, you go into China, you know what they're
[16:50] Speaker 3: practicing medicine as they just call it medicine and then
[16:53] Speaker 3: sell the alternative, which is conveniently unregulated and unaccountable to
[17:00] Speaker 3: give results.
[17:02] Speaker 2: Then there's the appeal to nature.
[17:03] Speaker 3: Anybody heard this one natural good, unnatural bad, artificial bad.
[17:08] Speaker 2: And there's plenty of.
[17:09] Speaker 3: Dangerous things in nature that you don't want anything to
[17:13] Speaker 3: do with right. And there are many things in nature
[17:16] Speaker 3: that are dangerous that intervention, like chemical manipulation, has made
[17:20] Speaker 3: safer for us. Everything's made of chemicals. When somebody comes
[17:24] Speaker 3: up to me and they're like, well, I'm not going
[17:25] Speaker 3: to eat anything that's chemical, I'm.
[17:28] Speaker 2: Like, well, good luck with that. Everything's chemical.
[17:33] Speaker 3: And yet the appeal to nature fuels public distrust about
[17:37] Speaker 3: everything from vaccines to gluten to GMOs.
[17:41] Speaker 2: Which are safe by other way.
[17:44] Speaker 3: When emotions get involved, we're not engaging the rational mind
[17:49] Speaker 3: nearly as much. Marketers and manipulators know this. They have
[17:53] Speaker 3: long understood this. Where knee jerky emotional primates. Here's a
[18:01] Speaker 3: hot button that definitely gets people worked up out there.
[18:04] Speaker 3: When I say mother Teresa was not a good person, right,
[18:14] Speaker 3: didn't expect applause on this one. You think I'd get
[18:19] Speaker 3: applause if I went out to the rest of the
[18:21] Speaker 3: university and said it. Do people say, interesting, seth, tell
[18:27] Speaker 3: me what you know about mother Teresa so that I
[18:29] Speaker 3: can assess and improve my perspective.
[18:31] Speaker 2: Now they do not do that. Instead, they look at
[18:34] Speaker 2: me and go, how dare you mother Teresa?
[18:40] Speaker 3: This woman in our brains lovingly linked to notions of
[18:44] Speaker 3: purity and goodness? Why do people get so upset? And
[18:49] Speaker 3: I follow up usually with this question. I say, name
[18:51] Speaker 3: three things about Mother Teresa that I have nothing to
[18:54] Speaker 3: do with, where she was born or the fact that
[18:56] Speaker 3: she was Catholic. Just give me three, or I might
[18:59] Speaker 3: boil it down to one. Give me one thing.
[19:03] Speaker 2: Nobody in a decade, nobody has.
[19:06] Speaker 3: Been able to give me a specific piece of information
[19:10] Speaker 3: about her life, who she was, or what she did.
[19:16] Speaker 3: If I mentioned that she preached poverty while living like
[19:19] Speaker 3: a rock star, she thought suffering was a good thing,
[19:23] Speaker 3: she found it facilities where sick people were handcuffed to
[19:26] Speaker 3: their beds and often treated by unqualified non doctors, or
[19:32] Speaker 3: that her sainthood was a marketing ploy by the church.
[19:37] Speaker 2: Very few want to hear it.
[19:40] Speaker 3: They love the idea of this charitable mother saint, and
[19:45] Speaker 3: they defend the idea of her even though they have
[19:49] Speaker 3: no idea who she was. And since I'm hitting beloved believes,
[19:54] Speaker 3: I'll mention this one. The biblical Noah's Art story never happened.
[19:59] Speaker 3: All of biology, zoology, geology, incredible scholarship has debunked it.
[20:05] Speaker 3: The story refutes itself. Not only it didn't happen, but
[20:10] Speaker 3: it couldn't happen. The similar Mesopotamian flood myth, the Epic
[20:14] Speaker 3: of Gilgamesh, predates Genesis. It has a bunch of the
[20:17] Speaker 3: very same story elements. Flood myths were common throughout Sumerian
[20:22] Speaker 3: faith traditions. The whole scenario, a five hundred year old
[20:26] Speaker 3: guy builds a stadium sized boat out of trees and tars,
[20:30] Speaker 3: and then antarctic penguins walk eight thousand miles to stand
[20:34] Speaker 3: next to camels in the middle Eastern desert, and they
[20:37] Speaker 3: sit for a year next to giant pandas and anacondas,
[20:41] Speaker 3: and nobody else on earth owned a boat, and the
[20:43] Speaker 3: mix of rain water and seawater mixes and somehow doesn't
[20:47] Speaker 3: kill all water based life, and they're thousands of onboard
[20:51] Speaker 3: creatures and they're all shitting themselves every single day, And
[20:54] Speaker 3: somehow eight people shovel thousands of tons of waste out
[20:59] Speaker 3: of a massive with one window, and they don't die
[21:02] Speaker 3: of methane poisoning. God gives a specific blueprint instructions for
[21:07] Speaker 3: the arc in the beginning of the story cubits. Here's
[21:10] Speaker 3: exact cubits, and then he goes mute, forcing Noah to
[21:15] Speaker 3: send a bird to go out and do recon to
[21:17] Speaker 3: try to find land. And then the arc has no sail,
[21:21] Speaker 3: no motor, or no rudder, So it wouldn't have made
[21:23] Speaker 3: a hell a bit of difference because they couldn't have
[21:26] Speaker 3: steered it to land anyway.
[21:27] Speaker 2: There might have been fifty feet close by, and they
[21:29] Speaker 2: just kept on going.
[21:31] Speaker 3: Eight people commit incest to repopulate the earth, creating up
[21:35] Speaker 3: to twenty thousand ethnic groups in four thousand years. The
[21:39] Speaker 3: entire story is a giant mountain of horseship.
[21:42] Speaker 2: Okay, and I.
[21:43] Speaker 3: Say this to people who believe the Bible, and it's
[21:47] Speaker 3: the same thing.
[21:47] Speaker 2: We're back here, how dare you?
[21:52] Speaker 3: Because people take the Bible and its claims personally. An
[21:57] Speaker 3: attack on these stories is an attack on their faith.
[22:00] Speaker 3: An attack on their faith is really like an attack
[22:02] Speaker 3: on a family member or themselves. And so the defenses begin.
[22:07] Speaker 3: Just a few the appeal to authority. God says that
[22:10] Speaker 3: I believe it the bandwagon fallacy. Billions of people agree
[22:14] Speaker 3: with me. It's the most popular religion in the world.
[22:17] Speaker 3: Are all of those people wrong? There's the sunk cost fallacy.
[22:22] Speaker 3: I believed in my whole life. I'm not going to
[22:23] Speaker 3: change now, or you're wicked and stupid.
[22:27] Speaker 2: You're going to hell. God will judge you.
[22:29] Speaker 3: I'm sure none of you have heard that when challenging
[22:31] Speaker 3: the Bible, right, we're not talking about an opinion. We're
[22:35] Speaker 3: not talking about data. We're talking about an identity. Here's one,
[22:40] Speaker 3: and I know you've heard this one in the state
[22:42] Speaker 3: of Tennessee. America is the greatest country in the world.
[22:48] Speaker 3: So you and I check the statistics and wait a minute.
[22:55] Speaker 3: According to surveys done by US News and World Report
[22:58] Speaker 3: and Statista and and other polling and research organizations, Switzerland
[23:04] Speaker 3: overall is the best country than Canada, Sweden, Australia. The
[23:10] Speaker 3: United States loses in almost every metric the economy, quality
[23:16] Speaker 3: of life, lifespan, happiness, crime rate, health care, education, cultural influence.
[23:23] Speaker 3: Statista says that we rank first in two categories military
[23:30] Speaker 3: spending national pride, meaning we're number one at saying we're
[23:40] Speaker 3: number one. If I wish to challenge this to a
[23:47] Speaker 3: weird number one American, would they budge in their opinion?
[23:51] Speaker 2: In their perception, the.
[23:54] Speaker 3: COVID vaccine is safe and has saved millions of lives.
[23:58] Speaker 3: Now you're taking the journey with me, but We can
[24:01] Speaker 3: all think of people who might hear that and walk
[24:04] Speaker 3: out of the room, yet imagine they're here, so I
[24:08] Speaker 3: thoughtfully present data. The Center for Disease Control reports, No,
[24:14] Speaker 3: you can't get COVID from the vaccine. There is no
[24:17] Speaker 3: live virus. The vaccines do not shed their components. The
[24:22] Speaker 3: COVID vaccine won't alter your DNAs.
[24:25] Speaker 2: Anyone heard this one. We're going to become mutants, right? No, no, no.
[24:29] Speaker 3: It never enters the cell nucleus where DNA lives. It
[24:33] Speaker 3: won't make you infertile. If you are a pregnant woman,
[24:37] Speaker 3: you can and should get vaccinated. Not only will the
[24:41] Speaker 3: COVID vaccine not microchip you, it contains no metals that
[24:47] Speaker 3: can even produce an electromagnetic feel. Bill Gates hasn't tagged
[24:52] Speaker 3: you so he can watch you sit on the toilet
[24:54] Speaker 3: and get your mail.
[24:55] Speaker 2: Right now, we're seeing the reiteration of effect.
[25:00] Speaker 3: We're seeing opinions that get tattooed onto personal identities. We're
[25:05] Speaker 3: seeing a lot of identity based biases kicking in group think.
[25:11] Speaker 3: In group thinking, COVID has become highly political. It's a
[25:15] Speaker 3: statement about us who we are, what our values are.
[25:18] Speaker 3: So accepting or Rejecting the reality of COVID has become
[25:22] Speaker 3: a statement about our identity. Resistors and disbelievers have often
[25:28] Speaker 3: been primed to see an evil scheme or an attack
[25:32] Speaker 3: on their freedom. So even if they thought COVID was
[25:36] Speaker 3: a danger, and many don't, but some do. More important
[25:40] Speaker 3: than the virus that could harm you is pushing.
[25:43] Speaker 2: Back on these mandates. Nobody's going to tell me what
[25:48] Speaker 2: to do.
[25:50] Speaker 3: For many of the US means rugged individualism, collectivist values,
[25:56] Speaker 3: working as a society. Uh oh, that sounds an odd
[26:00] Speaker 3: off a lot like socialism. Government mandates are tyranny, and
[26:06] Speaker 3: my identity as a free American says never. Now, I'm
[26:09] Speaker 3: going to show you kind of an intense photo from
[26:12] Speaker 3: decades ago. Smallpox killed over half a billion people in
[26:16] Speaker 3: the twentieth century alone. It was one of the most
[26:19] Speaker 3: contagious and deadliest diseases known to humankind. English scientist doctor
[26:26] Speaker 3: Edward Jenner proved that a mild dose of cowpox infection
[26:32] Speaker 3: would inoculate people against smallpox. Within five years, the vaccine
[26:38] Speaker 3: had gone global, but anti vaxers freaked and this was
[26:44] Speaker 3: around eighteen hundred, and they declared war on doctor Jenner.
[26:50] Speaker 3: Here's an eighteen O three anti vax depiction of doctor Jenner.
[26:55] Speaker 3: He's inoculating people, and look at the people they start
[26:58] Speaker 3: turning into caw. Here's another fear mongering editorial cartoon. It
[27:06] Speaker 3: as children being fed to a diseased cow like monster. Fear, misinformation, disinformation,
[27:14] Speaker 3: conspiracy theories, science denial, public endangerment. Does this sound familiar
[27:21] Speaker 3: to anybody else? And this was a nineteenth century movement,
[27:26] Speaker 3: a resistance culture, an identity.
[27:31] Speaker 2: Here's another one.
[27:32] Speaker 3: New seat belt requirements were introduced in the mid nineteen fifties,
[27:37] Speaker 3: and they.
[27:37] Speaker 2: Met rabid opposition. Free America said belts, Nah, can't force me.
[27:44] Speaker 2: I'm not going to do that. You're not going to
[27:46] Speaker 2: restrain me. And then they came.
[27:48] Speaker 3: Up with all these excuses beyond that, well, seat belts
[27:52] Speaker 3: are cut in half. They're actually more dangerous than being
[27:54] Speaker 3: in a car rack that kind of stuff. Identity beliefs
[27:58] Speaker 3: often lead into false equivalence claims. I'm resisting the man.
[28:03] Speaker 3: Mandates are like slavery. No one will enslave me, and
[28:07] Speaker 3: against the persecutors, I, the righteous rebel, will cry freedom.
[28:14] Speaker 3: What a rush to be the hero in your own
[28:18] Speaker 3: story and to join tribes of fellow heroes. And the
[28:22] Speaker 3: more you're reposed, the more you're contradicted, well, the more
[28:27] Speaker 3: right and righteous you are. How do you feel about
[28:32] Speaker 3: this guy? I used to buy into the boy genius
[28:38] Speaker 3: narrative a few years ago I did today. I call
[28:41] Speaker 3: him phony Stark. I mean, Tesla's are great. I think
[28:46] Speaker 3: Tesla's are great cars. SpaceX has done some cool stuff.
[28:51] Speaker 2: But he is not a good man.
[28:55] Speaker 3: I'm amused by this sticker that some people are putting
[28:57] Speaker 3: on their Teslas. So I bought this before we knew
[29:00] Speaker 3: Elon was crazy. But all right, let's talk beyond the
[29:07] Speaker 3: Tesla the EV. All right, the EV, and I dig
[29:12] Speaker 3: the electric car in general. There's the Hyundai Ionic and
[29:15] Speaker 3: the Ford Mochi and the Chevy Voult.
[29:17] Speaker 2: I mean they're cool. I don't kid myself.
[29:19] Speaker 3: The driving and EV turns you into this guy, you know,
[29:22] Speaker 3: mister environmentalist. You know, we know the grid still charges
[29:25] Speaker 3: the cars. We're still figuring out lithium mining and lifespan
[29:30] Speaker 3: to the batteries recycling disposal.
[29:32] Speaker 2: Well, you know whatever. But I mean, when it.
[29:34] Speaker 3: Comes to the gas versus electric conversation, I've noticed something different,
[29:38] Speaker 3: at least where I live in the oil and gas
[29:42] Speaker 3: state of Oklahoma. There's a lot of Oklahomas who apparently
[29:46] Speaker 3: equate car and truck exhaust with freedom.
[29:52] Speaker 2: That is not just what they think, it's who they are.
[29:56] Speaker 3: So let's say I meet this guy out on you know,
[29:59] Speaker 3: the street, and driving is f one point fifteen, and
[30:01] Speaker 3: he's got eagle decals and a lift kit or whatever,
[30:04] Speaker 3: and so I start talking about electric cars. And it's
[30:08] Speaker 3: fascinating to see many people talk about gas cars like
[30:12] Speaker 3: they are so linked to the United States, an American invention.
[30:16] Speaker 2: I don't think so.
[30:18] Speaker 3: The German inventor Carl Benz first patented the gas vehicle
[30:22] Speaker 3: back in eighteen eighty five, hashtag Germany, not the United States.
[30:28] Speaker 3: But tell me that these gas power trucks don't just
[30:32] Speaker 3: look like America America.
[30:37] Speaker 2: How about this one, Oh yeah, America? Or this one.
[30:45] Speaker 3: We got the flag, we got the Constitution, the Eagle, red, white,
[30:49] Speaker 3: and blue, Donald Trump, America.
[30:51] Speaker 2: This is an identity.
[30:57] Speaker 3: So many will just make this connection electric car equals environmentalism.
[31:01] Speaker 3: That's Biden Harris, emissions laws, government oppression, tyranny. They make
[31:07] Speaker 3: these connections in their brain a slippery slope. Notice anything
[31:11] Speaker 3: about those freedom convoys. Anybody see a Tesla in there.
[31:15] Speaker 3: I don't see a Tesla in there. Now, here's the
[31:18] Speaker 3: scenario that some people are going to call a stereotype.
[31:21] Speaker 3: And I may be guilty of stereotyping, but just go
[31:24] Speaker 3: with me.
[31:24] Speaker 2: I'm in Oklahoma.
[31:25] Speaker 3: I'm just going to toss this out based on my observations.
[31:29] Speaker 3: Once I see a guy with this emblem on his truck,
[31:32] Speaker 3: I'll bet I can tell you maybe twenty other things
[31:36] Speaker 3: about the guide driving in. Would this person ever buy
[31:41] Speaker 3: an ev political party Republican?
[31:47] Speaker 2: Ethnicity? Probably white, religion?
[31:53] Speaker 3: Favorite news channel Fox News? Did they get the vaccine Vegan?
[32:02] Speaker 2: Oh? Hell no?
[32:07] Speaker 3: Do they accept the science of climate chain, reproductive choice?
[32:14] Speaker 2: Gun owner?
[32:17] Speaker 3: Probably a pistol in the glovebox right or under the seat.
[32:21] Speaker 3: Immigrants at the border, he's like, I'll get my gun.
[32:26] Speaker 3: Probably nationalized healthcare. That's socialism. And again, these are guesses,
[32:33] Speaker 3: maybe stereotypes, but it's also I think totally legitimate to
[32:37] Speaker 3: observe and address trends and tendencies. I'd like to say
[32:41] Speaker 3: I've got enough Oklahoma equity to be able to make
[32:43] Speaker 3: this observation that that guy will likely be a white
[32:48] Speaker 3: Christian nation, free market oil and gas, gun toting love
[32:52] Speaker 3: it or leave it. American conservative weird about LGBT people
[32:58] Speaker 3: distrustful of foreigners, would love to bomb the whole Middle East,
[33:02] Speaker 3: just nuke them, turn it to glass. Probably owns an
[33:06] Speaker 3: equal number of firearms and Bibles. Here's a guy who
[33:12] Speaker 3: fits that profile, as posted on the patriot Takes page.
[33:16] Speaker 3: Christian white, straight, unwoke, unvaxed, gun owner, meat eat or
[33:19] Speaker 3: in mail.
[33:20] Speaker 2: How else can I piss you off? Today?
[33:25] Speaker 3: Now, what we're seeing are not just his opinions, they're
[33:28] Speaker 3: his identity, They're who he is. He might as well
[33:31] Speaker 3: display this symbol somewhere else in his life. And this
[33:34] Speaker 3: symbol is actually partially at least a response to another
[33:38] Speaker 3: symbol of another identity group. I'm talking about Black Lives Matter.
[33:43] Speaker 3: Now this is not an equivalence argument. As I speak
[33:45] Speaker 3: about tribes and identities, I think one definitely has more
[33:48] Speaker 3: merit than another here. But BLM is an example of
[33:53] Speaker 3: an identity belief that we feel very strongly about. Condemning
[33:59] Speaker 3: racism and abuse within law enforcement and the culture, and
[34:03] Speaker 3: the very true claim is that black people face greater
[34:08] Speaker 3: danger against police brutality. The system is broken, it needs
[34:13] Speaker 3: to be fixed. The bad cops need to be fired
[34:16] Speaker 3: and or prosecuted, and education and procedures must evolve. We
[34:22] Speaker 3: identify as agents of advocacy and equality. In the wake
[34:29] Speaker 3: of BLM, the thin blue line symbol became a tribal response. No, no,
[34:35] Speaker 3: you are vilifying police. The men and women in blue
[34:39] Speaker 3: need our support. Back the Blue, Blue Lives Matter. Interesting
[34:44] Speaker 3: this symbol has also become the darling of many white
[34:46] Speaker 3: supremacist groups. The Back the Blue Identity group makes this
[34:51] Speaker 3: blanket statement that whatever happens, we stand behind cops because
[34:56] Speaker 3: whatever they do, they are unfair, vilified, and they enforce
[35:02] Speaker 3: law and order. In that light, Black Lives Matter protests
[35:07] Speaker 3: against police racism are actually a betrayal of all the
[35:11] Speaker 3: men and women in uniform. This is binary thinking. It's
[35:15] Speaker 3: tribal thinking. We are just, they are unjust. How much listening,
[35:22] Speaker 3: conversation and mind changing takes place between those two groups,
[35:28] Speaker 3: the blue line in the Black Lives Matter groups? How
[35:32] Speaker 3: often do they thoughtfully exchange information for better understanding so
[35:37] Speaker 3: that the best ideas might win the day. No, No,
[35:41] Speaker 3: everybody's in defense mode. Everybody's on lockdown. This is what
[35:44] Speaker 3: makes flat earthers so maddening to talk to. Has anybody
[35:48] Speaker 3: gotten into a conversation with a flat earther. I'm at
[35:52] Speaker 3: a flat earther at a Free Thought event in Chicago.
[35:56] Speaker 2: My brain melted flat Earth. So we do what we do.
[36:03] Speaker 3: We present the science, the data, and it doesn't work
[36:09] Speaker 3: because flat earth is not just an opinion, it's an identity,
[36:14] Speaker 3: a culture, a family. And the more attack they feel,
[36:20] Speaker 3: the more they dig in and shut down. With the
[36:24] Speaker 3: fallacy known as the Galileo gambit, somebody says, you know what,
[36:28] Speaker 3: you can go ahead and mock me. Right, this revolutionary
[36:33] Speaker 3: person had an idea that was called outrageous and people
[36:36] Speaker 3: called him crazy.
[36:37] Speaker 2: They call me crazy.
[36:39] Speaker 3: I'm like that revolutionary person. We've heard this with Galileo
[36:43] Speaker 3: and with Einstein, right, they called Einstein nuts, and yet
[36:46] Speaker 3: look how smart he was.
[36:48] Speaker 2: I'm like Einstein.
[36:50] Speaker 3: There's an amazing documentary on Netflix came out in twenty eighteen.
[36:55] Speaker 3: It's called Behind the Curve, and it's about flat earthers
[36:58] Speaker 3: that came up with an experiment and to prove that
[37:00] Speaker 3: the Earth was flat, and they used a laser and
[37:03] Speaker 3: they had a point A and a point B. They
[37:05] Speaker 3: come over here and they've got the laser, and then
[37:07] Speaker 3: they've got a receiving point over here, and they said,
[37:10] Speaker 3: all right, this is going to prove it once and
[37:12] Speaker 3: for all. And you know what happened with the laser.
[37:16] Speaker 3: It was way over the target area because, wait for it,
[37:20] Speaker 3: the Earth is not flat.
[37:22] Speaker 2: Now.
[37:23] Speaker 3: Did these flat earthers have an epiphany and change their minds. No,
[37:31] Speaker 3: they said, we're going to go back and we're going
[37:34] Speaker 3: to make another experiment that gives us the results we want.
[37:41] Speaker 3: This is the twenty eighteen Flat Earth International Conference at
[37:45] Speaker 3: Crown Place Airport Convention Center in Denver. And the MC
[37:50] Speaker 3: told the crowd, I'm not ashamed of ridicule. I'm not
[37:54] Speaker 3: ashamed of mockery. I'm not ashamed of insults. And the
[37:57] Speaker 3: crowd cheered this hero, this martyr for the cause, who
[38:01] Speaker 3: had put himself in the crosshairs of public scrutiny and ridicule.
[38:07] Speaker 3: Interesting what he said, I am not ashamed. This ring
[38:10] Speaker 3: familiar to anybody else. Nine eleven truthers say it was
[38:16] Speaker 3: all an inside job. I believe it with all my hearts,
[38:19] Speaker 3: and I am not ashamed.
[38:22] Speaker 2: Aliens live among us. I believe it with all my heart,
[38:27] Speaker 2: and I am not ashamed.
[38:29] Speaker 3: Kem trails our government, mind controlled drugs. I believe it
[38:34] Speaker 3: with all my heart that I am not ashamed there's
[38:39] Speaker 3: a secret cabal of Satanist Democrat blood drinkers trafficking our
[38:44] Speaker 3: children out of the basements of pizza parlors. I believe
[38:49] Speaker 3: it with all of my heart, and I am not ashamed.
[38:54] Speaker 3: We are a Christian nation founded by Christians, four Christians.
[38:59] Speaker 3: I believe it with all my heart, and I am
[39:02] Speaker 3: not ashamed. Christianity the planet's biggest in group, the biggest tribe,
[39:10] Speaker 3: quoting proudly and defiantly from scripture.
[39:13] Speaker 2: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.
[39:18] Speaker 3: I believe, we believe we are unwavering, solid, faithful. So
[39:23] Speaker 3: you and I engage with specific data points. We talk
[39:28] Speaker 3: about the Bible, its failures, We talk about the founding fathers,
[39:33] Speaker 3: the nature of the Constitution. We get into the Pledge,
[39:37] Speaker 3: we get into all of these other things. Do the
[39:40] Speaker 3: believers open up to these new ideas like they might
[39:43] Speaker 3: have with dog seeing color and coffee hydrating you?
[39:47] Speaker 2: No, No, don't bet on it.
[39:49] Speaker 3: I used to think I could walk into a room
[39:52] Speaker 3: with facts, make my case, change somebody's mind, and we
[39:56] Speaker 3: would all lock arms and we would just frolic off
[39:58] Speaker 3: into reason built together.
[40:00] Speaker 2: There would be.
[40:01] Speaker 3: Light and confetti from the sky, and there would be
[40:03] Speaker 3: Enia music and it would just be.
[40:05] Speaker 2: A moment, right, no, no, no no.
[40:08] Speaker 3: Instead, they'd either get in my face, go blank, or leave.
[40:14] Speaker 2: And I couldn't figure it out.
[40:16] Speaker 3: Why am I not only not getting traction, but why
[40:19] Speaker 3: is everybody leaving even more fortified in their opinion. The
[40:24] Speaker 3: amigdala is the part of our brain that processes emotion.
[40:27] Speaker 3: This is the center for physical threat response, fight, flight,
[40:31] Speaker 3: or freeze. The same part of our brain fires up
[40:36] Speaker 3: at an ideological threat as does with a physical threat.
[40:43] Speaker 3: This is why people lock down, shut down, or blow up.
[40:48] Speaker 3: So you and I get in somebody's face and we say,
[40:50] Speaker 3: on this highly charged issue, you're wrong. People feel pushed around, attacked,
[40:59] Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden they say I'm out
[41:03] Speaker 3: of here or screw you.
[41:05] Speaker 2: Right when we were.
[41:07] Speaker 3: Hoping they would say, I'm interested. Let's exchange perspectives and
[41:11] Speaker 3: figure this out. With a perceived or a real attack,
[41:14] Speaker 3: people will retreat to a place where they feel safe,
[41:18] Speaker 3: usually with those who have their backs. So the anti
[41:21] Speaker 3: vaxer retreats to the anti vax Facebook group. The flat
[41:25] Speaker 3: Earther goes back to the flat Earth conferences, clubs and tribes.
[41:29] Speaker 3: Christians retreat to Christianity churches, Christian social groups. It's because
[41:34] Speaker 3: they're that they feel safe, They're validated, protected, not attacked.
[41:39] Speaker 3: And I really feel like if you and I are
[41:40] Speaker 3: going to make a dent and the one on ones
[41:43] Speaker 3: out there, we have to become, in a.
[41:45] Speaker 2: Way a safe space.
[41:48] Speaker 3: A lot of people push back against this, they argue
[41:52] Speaker 3: with me about it, and maybe they're right, maybe I'm wrong.
[41:57] Speaker 3: Roasting bad ideas and bad people people has.
[42:00] Speaker 2: Its place on the macro stage.
[42:04] Speaker 3: I'm talking here about one on ones. You and I
[42:08] Speaker 3: are face to face, eye to eye, voice to voice, right,
[42:11] Speaker 3: making people feel safe on the larger stage. Honestly, mockery
[42:15] Speaker 3: helped me to see that maybe some cows need to
[42:18] Speaker 3: be roasted, right, some sacred cows definitely need to go
[42:21] Speaker 3: on the grill. And it was me watching in the shadows,
[42:24] Speaker 3: not feeling personally attacked, but I was watching it happen.
[42:27] Speaker 2: I saw Christopher Hitchen's debate Holy s Nikes.
[42:30] Speaker 3: That guy went hard at religion, but he wasn't coming
[42:32] Speaker 3: after me as a human being, right, So I will
[42:36] Speaker 3: go after and sometimes mock and ridicule ideas because quite frankly,
[42:40] Speaker 3: I think it's sometimes healthy to do so. But I'm
[42:43] Speaker 3: not pointing at an individual who might be a good
[42:46] Speaker 3: person with a bad idea right.
[42:48] Speaker 2: There in my zip code.
[42:50] Speaker 3: How often have we responded to pointing and mocking.
[42:54] Speaker 2: And shouting in the one on ones?
[42:56] Speaker 3: And what did that produce besides a feeling of superiority
[43:00] Speaker 3: As this humiliated person doubles down runs off, we might
[43:06] Speaker 3: have been talking about their belief, but we were declaring
[43:08] Speaker 3: war on their identity and we didn't even know it.
[43:11] Speaker 2: Good luck changing minds that way.
[43:16] Speaker 3: Maybe there's no interest in changing minds because they are them.
[43:20] Speaker 2: They can't be reasoned with.
[43:21] Speaker 3: They're too stupid or too evil to even warrant meaningful engagement.
[43:27] Speaker 2: Just crush them.
[43:29] Speaker 3: Doctor Arthur Brooks is a social scientist and a contributor.
[43:32] Speaker 2: To The New York Times.
[43:33] Speaker 3: He wrote an article called Our Culture of Contempt, which
[43:37] Speaker 3: addresses a study published in twenty fourteen by the National
[43:41] Speaker 3: Academy of Sciences dealing with motive attribution as symmetry. Each
[43:48] Speaker 3: side is convinced it is driven by benevolence. The other
[43:52] Speaker 3: side is evil motivated by hatred, and is therefore an
[43:57] Speaker 3: enemy with whom one cannot negotiation or compromise. He'll never
[44:03] Speaker 3: talk him out of it, so crush them utterly. Battling
[44:10] Speaker 3: bad people has another function. It signals to our in group,
[44:15] Speaker 3: our tribe, that we're worthy to be in the group.
[44:18] Speaker 3: So we're always running for office, right, We'll go on
[44:21] Speaker 3: Facebook and make a claim or do something and get
[44:24] Speaker 3: involved in a battle or just whatever, and we look
[44:26] Speaker 3: around and say, ah, everybody, you see, see how worthy
[44:29] Speaker 3: I am? I qualified to remain in the club, maybe
[44:32] Speaker 3: even for promotion. And let's say I'm in that in
[44:35] Speaker 3: group or tribe, and I'm starting to question in doubt,
[44:39] Speaker 3: and maybe i was wrong about something, and I'm not
[44:40] Speaker 3: sure this jibes, and hang on, I've got new information.
[44:43] Speaker 2: I'm going to evolve my position.
[44:45] Speaker 3: We risk consequences, We betray our group, and we risk
[44:51] Speaker 3: social death, shunned, vilified, even threatened by the people that
[44:56] Speaker 3: used to have our backs. Our tribe turns on it.
[45:01] Speaker 3: David McGraney has written about this. He wrote a book
[45:05] Speaker 3: called How Minds Change about those who had an epiphany
[45:09] Speaker 3: and then were punished by the people who used to
[45:12] Speaker 3: have their backs. They changed their minds the in group
[45:16] Speaker 3: then said you're an out grouper, kicked them out and
[45:19] Speaker 3: destroyed them, or committed themselves to destroy them. They cram
[45:23] Speaker 3: them into a box, crushed the box. How often are
[45:29] Speaker 3: identity beliefs reductive because many things can be true at
[45:35] Speaker 3: the same time. It's a crazy, complex world. It can
[45:42] Speaker 3: be true that racism, corruption, and the abuse of power
[45:46] Speaker 3: is a cancer in law enforcements, but a great great
[45:52] Speaker 3: many of the over seven hundred thousand American police officers
[45:57] Speaker 3: are men and women doing their best instead of difficult, dangerous,
[46:01] Speaker 3: and usually thankless job. This complicated issue doesn't fit in
[46:06] Speaker 3: a binary model. It doesn't fit in the box. This
[46:12] Speaker 3: is a gun culture. For many, guns are a statement
[46:16] Speaker 3: of identity. Personally, I hate.
[46:21] Speaker 2: The National Rifle Association. I hate the NRA.
[46:25] Speaker 3: I think it's insane civilians can buy AR fifteens. But
[46:30] Speaker 3: I own a couple of handguns I shoot for targets,
[46:34] Speaker 3: guns that I am licensed and trained with a keeping
[46:37] Speaker 3: a gun safe. I would give them up if there
[46:40] Speaker 3: was a federal mandate. They're not part of my identity.
[46:43] Speaker 3: I just have them. That's a nuanced take. So which
[46:46] Speaker 3: box do I fit in?
[46:47] Speaker 2: A my pro gun or anti gun. Wait a minute,
[46:49] Speaker 2: how's that work.
[46:52] Speaker 3: I go hard at fundamentalist claims and dogmas in religion.
[46:55] Speaker 3: I fight against Christian nationalism's war on democracy, but I'll
[46:59] Speaker 3: fight for somebody's right to be privately and personally religious.
[47:06] Speaker 3: And my religious friends are wonderful people. They're wonderful some
[47:10] Speaker 3: of the best people I know fit that in a box.
[47:15] Speaker 3: I am married to someone who is not an atheist.
[47:18] Speaker 3: Natalie calls herself spiritual. I think she used to call
[47:21] Speaker 3: herself Christian, but now I think she's more of like
[47:24] Speaker 3: I think there's something out there, and she talks about maybe,
[47:27] Speaker 3: you know, our grandfather's looking down in on her and
[47:30] Speaker 3: that kind of thing. She spiritual is a good word
[47:33] Speaker 3: for her.
[47:34] Speaker 2: She is not an atheist.
[47:36] Speaker 3: She is the best person I know and my best
[47:39] Speaker 3: friend in this world.
[47:41] Speaker 2: Which box does she fit in?
[47:45] Speaker 3: I think bands on the hijab are a bad idea.
[47:49] Speaker 3: I think banning the hijab is bad, But I also
[47:53] Speaker 3: know how the veil has been used to oppress and
[47:56] Speaker 3: enslave and dehumanize women, So I don't think it'd be
[48:00] Speaker 3: celebrated like as part of these diversity marketing campaigns. I
[48:04] Speaker 3: don't think the hijob should be used in that way
[48:07] Speaker 3: because it validates the oppressors. So in the all nothing world,
[48:11] Speaker 3: would I be pro hijob or anti hijob.
[48:17] Speaker 2: I watch some.
[48:17] Speaker 3: Atheist and religious people talk about each other. You're an idiot, No,
[48:22] Speaker 3: you're an idiot. You're a sheep, No, you're a sheep.
[48:25] Speaker 3: We reduce, we label, we dehumanize because it's easy to
[48:30] Speaker 3: want to see the destruction of the enemy the other.
[48:34] Speaker 3: And again here at the end, I'm not saying that
[48:38] Speaker 3: opinions and beliefs and values, communities, groups, group ideas are
[48:42] Speaker 3: all equivalent, not remotely. I'm not saying we shouldn't take
[48:45] Speaker 3: our values personally. I add, like you have deep feelings,
[48:50] Speaker 3: I have deep convictions that are part of who I
[48:52] Speaker 3: am when it comes to changing minds out there. After
[48:57] Speaker 3: fifteen years in activism, I can just tell you this.
[49:00] Speaker 2: That is not working.
[49:04] Speaker 3: Screaming in the streets, screaming on the internet. God an
[49:09] Speaker 3: outrage is the currency, the oxygen of the internet. That
[49:14] Speaker 3: is not how we fix the world. How many good
[49:18] Speaker 3: people have had bad ideas, how many were rescued from
[49:24] Speaker 3: bad ideas? And if you and I are interested in
[49:28] Speaker 3: not just cursing the darkness, but maybe spreading a little light.
[49:31] Speaker 3: We have to ask ourselves do we treat people like
[49:35] Speaker 3: people with personalities, families, dreams, lives? Are they a good
[49:43] Speaker 3: person with bad ideas? Have we ever been a good
[49:46] Speaker 3: person with bad ideas? Did that make us less than human?
[49:50] Speaker 3: Am I arguing to win? Or am I trying to
[49:54] Speaker 3: change a mind or expand a conversation so that the
[49:58] Speaker 3: best ideas?
[49:59] Speaker 2: When? Oh, we know how good it feels to win?
[50:02] Speaker 2: I love this meme. This is how I feel when
[50:04] Speaker 2: I went an argument.
[50:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a rush. It's a rush to win. What
[50:11] Speaker 3: language am I using? Am I turning the temperature up
[50:15] Speaker 3: or down? Your opinion is idiotic? Is not going to
[50:19] Speaker 3: produce the result you probably want?
[50:22] Speaker 2: Okay?
[50:24] Speaker 3: Am I sending but not receiving? Maybe they're not the
[50:27] Speaker 3: only brick wall. Intellectual humility is so critical and that
[50:34] Speaker 3: includes sincere listening and how much of what's happening here
[50:39] Speaker 3: is about them defending an identity and me defending mine.
[50:46] Speaker 3: I like what research professor and author Brene Brown said.
[50:50] Speaker 3: She said, people are hard to hate close up move in.
[50:55] Speaker 3: There are genuinely horrible people out there. I have to
[51:00] Speaker 3: put these caveats out because someone's going to quote mind
[51:03] Speaker 3: me and say Seth says we should sing Kumbaya with Nazis.
[51:07] Speaker 3: I'm just like Jesus, that's not what I'm saying. Okay,
[51:11] Speaker 3: Most often people are just people. And I'll offer this
[51:15] Speaker 3: little observation. If your first reaction to these comments I've
[51:19] Speaker 3: made today is forget it. They're all rotten, stupid bigots, unreachable,
[51:23] Speaker 3: they're all lost causes. I'm gonna blast and block without hesitation.
[51:27] Speaker 3: There's a fair chance you might be feeling a little
[51:30] Speaker 3: more than your thinking. Sometimes it's understandable, especially if we've
[51:34] Speaker 3: been wounded. You want an example of somebody who's just unreachable,
[51:41] Speaker 3: Christian nationalist, anti gay bigot Fox News watching Goden Gun's
[51:46] Speaker 3: evangelical conservative tethered to dangerous mythology and really bad ideas.
[51:52] Speaker 2: You want to see that. You're talking about me.
[51:57] Speaker 3: Thirty years ago, a naive, indoctrinated younger me. I was
[52:06] Speaker 3: both a perpetrator of bad ideas, but I was also
[52:09] Speaker 3: a victim of bad ideas.
[52:13] Speaker 2: I was good. I was a good person. I was
[52:15] Speaker 2: trying my best to be a good person. I was
[52:17] Speaker 2: a human being. I had humanity.
[52:19] Speaker 3: I just needed a chance to discover the larger, better world.
[52:25] Speaker 3: Sometimes we draw the hard line and take the hard stand. Okay,
[52:29] Speaker 3: sometimes we got to do battle, but we're often bad
[52:33] Speaker 3: at choosing which battles to engage in. And many identity
[52:38] Speaker 3: believers can be reached.
[52:40] Speaker 2: If we slow down.
[52:43] Speaker 3: We first appeal to their humanity and also to our own.
[52:48] Speaker 3: A great resource for civil conversations is street epistemology. This
[52:54] Speaker 3: is a method for engaging people using the Socratic method.
[52:58] Speaker 3: You ask questions, lots of questions in goodwill. You're not ambushing,
[53:03] Speaker 3: you're not setting up, you're listening sincerely.
[53:05] Speaker 2: You're engaging in good faith. Man, this world needs more
[53:10] Speaker 2: of that.
[53:10] Speaker 3: There's a whole YouTube channel where the street epistemologists like
[53:15] Speaker 3: Anthony Magdabosco and many others go out and they just
[53:18] Speaker 3: engage people every day on the street and they'll just
[53:21] Speaker 3: start talking to them on camera.
[53:22] Speaker 2: Would you speak with me for a moment while I roll?
[53:25] Speaker 2: Is that? Okay? And it's amazing. Believers come in.
[53:28] Speaker 3: Nobody's throwing stuff at each other, nobody's shouting or insulting.
[53:32] Speaker 3: It's good faith, goodwill, but it's meaningful conversation. And some
[53:36] Speaker 3: people have come back later and say, because of the
[53:38] Speaker 3: seed that was planted there, I started to challenge what
[53:42] Speaker 3: I was thinking and I.
[53:43] Speaker 2: Escaped from my dogmatic belief. It happens, and they've got stories.
[53:49] Speaker 3: I've already mentioned this wonderful website Thinking is power dot com.
[53:55] Speaker 3: The site helps us to understand how beliefs are formed.
[53:59] Speaker 3: It explains how even smart people can get fooled and
[54:03] Speaker 3: provides great resources for being better thinkers.
[54:07] Speaker 2: I cannot recommend this site enough.
[54:11] Speaker 3: You know, on my own education, I learned that this
[54:14] Speaker 3: little guy Linus is able to see the world in color.
[54:19] Speaker 2: I'm going to try to do the same.
[54:21] Speaker 3: I'm not going to surrender my values, but I am
[54:25] Speaker 3: going to adopt a little more dog philosophy in my
[54:29] Speaker 3: own approach out there as an activist in a human being,
[54:34] Speaker 3: I'm going to bark less and wag more, you know,
[54:39] Speaker 3: no matter how frustrated I get. And it's an exercise
[54:42] Speaker 3: and it's imperfect, and I blow it all the time,
[54:44] Speaker 3: and I have to go back and reset, and it's
[54:46] Speaker 3: just a daily, hourly, minute by minute challenge. I don't
[54:50] Speaker 3: always know which battle to pick. I don't always know
[54:52] Speaker 3: when to go hard and when to soften up. I
[54:54] Speaker 3: don't always know who's reachable and who's not.
[54:57] Speaker 2: I have no idea, so I don't have the ant.
[55:00] Speaker 3: I'm just saying in my own life, I want to
[55:03] Speaker 3: bark less and more.
[55:06] Speaker 2: I want to.
[55:06] Speaker 3: Try to de escalate, rehumanize, soften my approach.
[55:11] Speaker 2: Let's give it a shot.
[55:12] Speaker 3: Let's not guarantee failure right off the bat. Let's see
[55:16] Speaker 3: humans as humans because we are humans trying to become
[55:21] Speaker 3: better humans. I think that is something worth identifying with.
[55:28] Speaker 3: Thanks for having me out today. It's been an honor.
[55:30] Speaker 2: Speaking to.
[55:38] Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter. For a
[55:42] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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[55:53] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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