 I noticed the free speech issue, I guess really after 9-11, and I noticed it really on two sides of it. There was a sudden rise of patriotism where you couldn't criticize Bush, and there was a sudden pushback against anybody who criticized Bush. And I was very critical of Bush on his right, if you will. I thought he was a wimp. So I thought to deal with the threat that we really faced, you need to be a lot tougher and you need to be... And people say, no, you can't do that, you can't criticize Bush. And then, so that was kind of from the right, and then from the left, oh my God, I mean, people would yell me down and demonstrate and attack, and I was, I don't know if you know Daniel Pipes, but I was often with Daniel Pipes doing events after 9-11, and it was just mayhem. I noticed that then, I think before that I really did take it for granted. Acknowledging the academic side, I think that's always existed. I think if you're pushing the envelope in academia, even on whether what you're doing is right or wrong, I mean, put that aside, just pushing the envelope and challenging the authorities to be. It's part of the tenure system. They reinforce themselves. It's always there. But on the culture, it was 9-11 really struck me as this real change in the culture. Yeah, I think I probably agree with that because there are different consequences to trying to restrict someone's open and honest dialogue about an issue. And I suppose there is no greater important issue on a civilizational scale than how we handle the issue of whether Islamic doctrines are consistent with our secular liberal democracies and so on. And so in that sense, I agree with you. What amazes me is the extent to which, and I've weighed in on this in other venues, the extent to which my academic colleagues refuse to even engage in a discussion on this topic, even in contexts where no one could know that they're taking these positions. So even if I want to have a private conversation with someone at a conference sitting at a bar, the amount of hedging that they engage is. And it shows you, I mean, if you are this afraid given the current demographic realities, do you want me to predict what's going to happen to your fear when it's 10 times where we are today? So I think I agree with you that the sort of the issue went on steroids is precisely when Islam became so central to our daily lives. Why do you think that is? What is it? Because it's absolutely that. It's as if they've got a battle going on in their own minds. I'm not supposed to think this. I'm not supposed to say this. I'm not even supposed to hear this. And so you can't even have that conversation one-on-one with people because they're so afraid of the consequences, I guess. So I think it's twofold. Let's talk about sort of the more banal one. Well, banal, but even more consequential, people are literally physically afraid. I always tell people who think that all religions are equal. I say, why don't I set up three different websites for you under your name? And one will be critical of Jainism. One will be critical of Jehovah's Witness. One will be critical of Islam. And we will post your personal address and then let's test your idea. That's a very easy way to empirically test your position. And then of course they kind of shut their mouths, right? But I think a second reason that's maybe a bit more difficult to actually penetrate is the fact that people have been parasitized by this notion that it is uniquely gauche and inappropriate to criticize Islam. Because, you know, it is a religion of the brown person. It is the religion of the downtrodden. Even though in most places where Islam rules, it's by far the majority. In most of the cultures, it's 98, 99, 100 percent. So they're hardly the minority in terms of the places where Islam rules. They really rule. But they're still downtrodden in the sense of they're still poor. They're poor. They're refugees. They're noble. They're exotic, right? And so to criticize Christianity is extraordinarily progressive. And if I want to be part of the academic ivory tower to criticize some idiotic notion and Christianity makes me progressive. If I criticize something as idiotic, if not more so in Islam, well, that's just racist and bigoted. And so until we're able to convince people that there is nothing unique about Islam in your capability to attack it, to critique it, to ridicule it, to mock it, then we're going to have this problem. Well, I was giving a talk at Oxford and this one professor tried to convince me that while it was okay to criticize the West for slavery, it was wrong to criticize other cultures for slavery. That is, you being a Westerner can only comment on your own culture and you have to just leave other cultures alone. And it was a woman and I said, so you're okay with the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia? And she said I wouldn't be okay with it if I were treated like this here, but I can't comment on I can't have a position because it's multiculturalism. It's so insidious. It's unbelievable. Look, my next book will deal with what I call idea pathogens, right? I analogize biological pathogens that parasitize brains. So, you know, the classic example I give, but there are many of these that I'll be covering in the book. There's a mice can be infected with a particular parasite that causes it to lose its innate fear of cats, right? Well, that's not a very good thing to not be afraid of cats when you are a mouse, right? There are ungulates, so elk, moose, deer, that when they become parasitized by a particular brainworm, they start engaging in what's called circling behavior. They go around and circle and they cannot extricate themselves. So if the predators are coming, they will still go around. So I argue that in the same way that there is this class of biological pathogens, human beings can also be parasitized by idea pathogens that will lead us down the path, you know, towards the abyss of infinite lunacy. So multiculturalism, identity politics, cultural relativism, postmodernism, radical feminism, all of these, each of them might not be sufficient to, you know, make you collapse your edifice of reason, but put together it becomes a tsunami of nonsense that's difficult to defeat. Yeah, and I think that's fascinating because all ideas, I mean, all bad ideas are going to generate that. It's just a question of how many and to what extent. And I think, and this relates, we'll talk about this more, I think, I think reason is an achievement, right? So the default is all the crap. The default is religion and mysticism of all, because I consider many of these ideologies mystical because they're not rooted in reality. They're not rooted in fact. So the default is mysticism in this and reason is an achievement. And if you let go of reason in any one of these ways, disaster follows, whether it's a civilizational disaster or individual disaster, it's a disaster follows. So what you're basically saying is that it's easy for human minds to be parasitized by idiotic viruses. And you're exactly right. It takes great effort to actually not be parasitized, to be inoculated from these pathogens. You're right, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, in a sense, you know, Rand viewed that effort as the essence of what free will is. That effort to engage your reason is the essence of what free will is. It's to turn it on or to turn it off to engage in the efforts or not. I was going to say be careful. Never say free will with Sam Harris. You'll get very upset. Oh, no, no, I, you know, I know every one of these members of the intellectual doc web, I have a whole list of things that I disagree with each one of them. It's, you know, it's interesting. It makes for lively conversations. Thus, although many of them, many of them are avoiding me. So I was invited two weeks ago, I was speaking at the Association for Psychological Science Conference in San Francisco. And I was delighted to be invited by, I guess, the gentleman who coined the term Eric Weinstein. Oh, yes, yes. He invited me and he was maybe he doesn't want me to say this, but we're speaking on the phone. He said, I just want to let you know that it wasn't me who did not include you in that list of. And that I think it's, I mean, he was being very gracious because at one point I was trolling the New York Times author who had. And it's people literally thought, you know, I'm sitting in my bedroom in a fetal position sucking my thumb crying. Why, why did I was trolling her? I was having fun. I had a smile on my face. I said, don't worry about it, Eric. I'll learn to love again. It's okay. Yeah. I think I'll always be on the margins, but I think you are deeply embedded in the intellectual doc web. So I think it'll be a while before anybody embraces me inside, except Dave. Dave seems to be the connector and the person who links us all together, which is wonderful. I mean, it's just, I love the guy. He's fantastic. I actually saw a thing somewhere. I don't know where that had done exactly what you said. Sort of a first level sociometric analysis. And I think Dave was the top connector of all the examples. I think that's absolutely right. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so I mean, Islam really functions as one of these, but it's, but you know, I've always viewed that the, the civilizational issue. And I wonder what you think of this is not Islam because I think it's pretty pathetic. It's us, right? It's our inability to define and defend Western values, what it is to mean Western values. If we actually had that conception, they would be a little, they would be a pest, a little pest that we could get rid of. It's not, you know, they don't really have the weapons or the intellectual firepower, any kind of firepower to threaten us. It's our weakness. 100%. That allows us to, I mean, You probably know this quote. It really, in several versions, it comes from several Islamic leaders and thinkers who have said the following. So I'll kind of paraphrase it. We will not conquer the West militarily. We will conquer the West in three ways through the womb of our women, through Hijra immigration. That's the Arabic word. True. Through by using your miserable freedoms against you. They say it loudly. They get on top of the mountain and give you the exact playbook. And you're exactly right that it is the weakness of the self-confidence in your own values that allows this playbook to play out, right? And I've often said that I despise the Western weakness a lot more than I do the Islamists. Because at least the Islamists are fighting for a cause. You may not like their cause, but at least they've got, they act out their convictions. And you have to respect them for that in some deluded way. But the Western castrated coward, he's the worst of the worst. I agree completely. And even those three, so I think they actually hurt their cause when they engage in violence. Because it's a violence that wakes up the Westerner at least for five minutes to defend himself. But those three, all three would be combated easily by the West saying, by the West assimilating them. And I think we have a powerful philosophy, a powerful ideology that would assimilate them. So it turns out that in America the Muslims have fewer kids. That when they're better assimilated, they're fewer kids. All the three kind of drop away because they become American or they become Canadian or they become whatever. It's because we don't demand assimilation. Because we don't know what to assimilate into. Like you ask a European, what is Europe? They don't know. They have no idea. What are Western values? Maybe they think Christianity, but that's their downfall if they think the West is Christianity. It really is the whole Islamic agenda falls apart. If one still West stands on its two feet. But the problem is that the person who is fully assimilated, it takes a very small committed interaction with the holy books to again be revert to being problematic. So my question, and of course you don't know who will succumb to that pull. My thinking is very simple. Any ideology. It doesn't matter which one doesn't have to be only Islam that is incongruent with our foundational values. I don't need to tolerate it. No one needs to tolerate it. So if you wish to come into our cultures and abide by our foundational values without a seeding a single millimeter on any of those values. Welcome in my brother. Let's live together in peace. If you don't, then there are many, many other cultures, many other places where you can exercise your right to your religion. But your religion never supersedes the right of a third party. It's really not that difficult. Yeah, I mean, again, I think if Western cultures committed themselves to separation of church and state, committed themselves to a female genital mutilation as a crime and we will prosecute that crime, committed themselves to actually following the rule of law, then you get that. Then if they come and they don't belong, they leave, but you don't, you never surrender one iota to them. My challenge is that some people would argue we should have a ideological test before they come into the country. And that worries me to no end because giving the government the power to decide on ideology scares the bejesus out of me. So I would rather government never thinks about ideology. We culturally enforce it. And frankly, how difficult would it be for someone who is committed to cause, let's put it charitably mischief to beat any ideological test, right? I mean, it doesn't take an evil genius to beat. What do you think of female genital mutilation? Oh, I abhor it. What do you think of Jews? I love them. What do you think of gays? They're my closest friends. Geez, that took a lot of difficulty for me to beat the ideological test, right? So this is why I think all this vetting stuff is complete nonsense. I mean, yes, there is vetting that you make sure that somebody was not an active member of a terrorist group, but to really vet your heart and mind bullshit. No, I agree. I agree. And you know, I've been arguing since 9-11. I don't know your position on this, but I've been arguing since 9-11 that all they need, all the West really needs to do is crush them. It's really defeat them. Make it clear to them they cannot win. Psychologically, it's very difficult to become a passionate suicide bomber for a cause that you know is lost. So if we made it clear to them that their cause was lost, that they had no hope of ever achieving it, I think the appetite for the radicalization for their suicide bombing would decline dramatically and more and more of them would want to go with a winner, which is the West. So let me give you a quick anecdote that comes from saying that the Taliban members use. So they say apparently that the Americans have all the watches, but we have all the time in the world, right? InshaAllah, right? So to speak to your point, I think that the temporal view of those who are committed to having ultimate peace around the world where we all will be under the flag of Islam. So you see Islam is a religion and peace. It seeks peace. We are all under the flag of Islam. How could you say that that's not peaceful, right? And so I think the issue is that the Western mindset is very different in terms of its temporal orientation from sort of the Islamic one or at least the expansionist Islamic one. And again, I hate to preface this. Most Muslims don't think like this and are lovely and are kind and I want my children. So my issue is that the guy sitting on the fence trying to decide am I going to go the Islamist throughout or my go-go just be a normal human being. I think he's swayed to go one direction or the other by way he sees more confidence, where he sees more interest and where he sees victory. So when ISIS was gaining territory, lots of recruits because they were winning. But if ISIS is crushed on day one, if the Saudi theocracy is eliminated, if the theocrats around the world are destroyed, you know, it turns out that November 4th, 1979, the taking of the embassy by Tula Khomeini in Iran was a key moment in Islamist history because it emboldened even Sunnis that said, oh, wow, if we can do it in Iran, if you can get rid of the Shah or Iran, a relatively secular westernized country, then we can do it anyway. And they went to all these other countries and really the modern Islamist movement was started then, Sunni Anshiyat. And if you destroy those models for them, then I think, yeah, there are always going to be a few, always. But the passion, the growth, the excitement, the energy around it, I think dissipates. Let's hope that you're right. Well, nobody will ever do what I argue for. So we'll never actually test that theory.