 What are steps that people can take today to get these tool sets to ask better questions? Right, I mean There's quite a few resources out there available. I can't just pimp my own my own material But you know there are plenty of critical thinking websites and challenges online that people can find There are shows they can listen to because just by listening to shows and opening your mind and broadening your mind You kind of through osmosis start to pick up those skills Right because you you know, especially if somebody calls somebody out on bullshit You know why you know, you know that they've violated some rule of logic or they've committed some fallacy of reasons somewhere They might not give always give a name to the face kind of thing But they will be able to get it intuitively and then if they want to more formally Structure their reasoning skills they can go on and they can find You know all kinds of stuff, but again, I'm obviously biased I've taken these skills and kind of distilled them to try to make it as easy as possible for people Not only to read and remember but to apply so Yeah, can we actually dissect the ABC? Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, sure So I took what I think are the six most foundational skills Or tools of the critical thinking skill set and they just follow the you know the mnemonic of a to f So a is for argument. So right off the bat. We talk about what is an argument and Part of the problem with critical thinking that I'm mentioning in this the next book that's coming out in May is That the the very term critical thinking can scare people because they almost immediately think you're gonna criticize me You're gonna find something wrong with me and they get their hackles up about it And it's almost anxiety and invoking to say critical thinking, but I can't call it I've tried if you guys can come up with a sweeter better more precise term constructive constructive thinking Right, but you are critiquing ideas You know and people need to know that critical is constructive to yeah as well as destructive And there's nothing wrong with destructive criticism if your ideas suck we need to call you out on that and we need the tools the term argument What does it bring to mind right mommy and daddy are arguing though a couple over there They're arguing and arguing has a negative connotation to it in critical thinking argument is a really good thing In fact, it's the best way in which you can put your ideas together so that people can best understand Why it is you believe what you do they might not have to agree with you But you make it very clear to them when you put your ideas in the form of an argument and so that's why I use the The now rule house So your roof is your conclusion and you want your conclusion Supported by really strong walls which are your premises and those premises have to satisfy the foundational criteria of things like Consistency and simplicity and relevance and reliability and sufficiency And if they do then you have a fairly sound structure You have a fairly sound argument and if you don't and one of those walls is weakened your premises are not very well researched Or you didn't get it from a reliable source and that wall comes down and maybe so does your roof come down as well So that analogy I think plays fairly universally around the world for teaching people that arguments are good things and put your ideas into that structure and Do the same with others if you don't quite understand what another person is saying try to imagine and get them What is your overall point? You know you force them and then Fairness is the cornerstone of critical thinking we have an obligation to the other person with whom we disagree To try to represent their argument back to them in the best possible light. Don't be coy Don't be slimy. Don't try to misconstrue it or create a straw man out of it steel man It we're using this term now steel manning an argument It shows intellectual maturity for me to be able to tell you what your argument is so that you go Yeah Yeah, in fact, you even put some stuff in there. I didn't even think of I thought you bring it up like Chris Voss He's a B. O. S. S. He has a great book called never a never split the difference. Oh, okay And he's an F. He was an FBI interrogator working for negotiations, right? And he has a chapter in the book called that's right and one of his best strategies is he wants to reiterate the person's Belief system better than he or she can do it to a point to the say that's right Yeah, but this is this is what I just like about most arguments and especially with politicians You know you you see this in the social media space Somebody says a sentence somebody picks that one point and instead of understanding the whole point now We're going down this rabbit rabbit hole of like in significance Because somebody is paying attention to a point instead of understanding the whole picture The whole perspective of what that person's saying and the sooner we realize that fairness really is nobody way is the cornerstone And it's got to go both ways It's about civility as well, right? We've lost touch with that We've lost that capacity to be civilized towards one another in disagreement. It's easy to get along when we agree, right? Everybody's having a good time. Everybody agrees Once you get disagreement though, you know, and this is what CS Lewis called the art of disagreement We have to relearn that I'm afraid we're gonna have to re-teach that to students that it's okay We're always going to disagree. We're never always gonna be a hundred percent on board Yeah, every detail of every aspect of but I think I think social media and internet has a role to play because funny thing is that I was Watching like old debates between Milton's what's in the seventies and sixties and eighties. Yeah, Bob I'm just looking at the light. Yeah, how the students behave and asking really articulate questions And I'm like fuck world of a difference. Yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, well, you know everyone's shouting it. Yeah, what may have buckly those guys? They they really knew how to have dialogue and disagree without being reduced to an ad hominem without, you know Calling the other person names or whatever look at Trump. Look at all the names. He had for people Yeah, like he immediately goes to the ad hominem, right because I guess in his business mind or whatever That's how you get the gain the upper hand or whatever right you you demean the other person Yeah, I'm kind of power struggle. I really enjoyed the exercises in the book how to be a really good pain in the ass Was it good or great how to become a really good good pain in the ass. So basically It was a script somebody having a discussion and then using the tools we would break it down and say well Where is the conclusion the thesis? What's the roof? What's supporting? What what's the What's the foundation here right and something as simple as that can be replicated in schools And I thought that was really interesting. I wish this kind of stuff was done more to help people understand Well, I did take it into the school system in 2016 2017 I Was granted the right with the Minister of Education at that time Liz Sandals for Ontario to go into some high schools for a pilot project and it went extremely well But at that time the Ministry of Education was dealing with yet another strike with teachers and staff I don't know if you remember that But after it was settled. I mean she was very honest with me She said if I come down now after we've settled all this and I heavy-handedly say you have to now teach critical thinking That'll be one more point for them to up for resistance right to say really we just got all this settled And now you want us to do X? She said it's far better to come up from the ground from the school boards up get it into the school boards Get them using it and then that will influence other school boards So I've been trying to do that for years now, but it's kind of a An uphill battle as well. It's wild to me that that is not one of the most important classes to be taught in schools how to think I How to project manage how to think how to learn these are some of the basics You know, it surprised me even At the university and college level where I see our interns or young people who are working with us That are still going to school part-time doing these assignments There is no structure for them to understand the ones that are working with us or have gone come through an internship They understand how to PM how to organize people how to how to deviate the work how to do something like simple as Like you know cards and scrum none of this stuff is taught at school, but yet you're given an assignment and you have a month to do it or two months to do it and If that young person doesn't have the family structure or the connections to understand Oh, yeah, you know what? I saw my my parents know how to do a project and this falls into place This is a project. How the hell are they supposed to know this is why like kids do worse in school Then they could they could potentially be doing so much more if they don't learn things like critical thinking things Like how to project manager project. Yeah, we assume students know how to think that they come ready made They don't There are rules there are rules for thinking when you violate them We can we can call you out on those and we should be called out as well So, yeah argument first a is for argument then B bias for bias You have to understand that no human is without bias so Understand do what I call the mirror test start figuring out. What are the you know? Then the natural and the cultural biases that have led to you're believing what you now do about a particular issue And what if you were born somewhere out somewhere else in the world or even at a different time? Do you think you would still have that same belief? You know because it's almost You know impossible that you wouldn't I mean you are a largely a product of your surroundings and how you were raised Mm-hmm, and if some of those beliefs come from very fundamentalist ways of looking at the world It's gonna be real difficult like One example I give is a fundamentalist Christian maintaining that Masturbation is a sin And it's believed in the Catholic faith the one I was I was raised really. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a Cardinal sin it's not just any sin and The reason why is because in the 1800s with the advent of high-level microscopy. They were able to see spermatozoa and So I think it was Pope Pius. I can't remember what number 14 Decided those little sperm are little people. They're humunculi and therefore you can't spill your seed on the ground It's got one major, you know receptacle. Mm-hmm, and that's a woman's vagina. Definitely not a man's anus. Definitely not a man's anus and so I'm doing rap now I'm doing spoken word So if you masturbate your spermatozoa are going where God did not intend and so that's why it's a cardinal sin Now you tell a 13 year old boy, you know that Not only can you not do that? But if you do you do know that God is watching and he's pretty much got a list and he's checking off, you know, and that's You know, that's that's a jerk-off road to hell right there if you keep doing that So it's like what kind of damage are you doing to a kid's brain? by telling them that to me to Richard Dawkins to Lawrence Krauss to Sam Harris that is harm you are now that is child abuse you ought not to tell a child that yes You have a right to believe in your religion and you have a right to practice your religion But if your religion maintains that it's fucked up. It's not. Oh, well, you know, it could be right It could be no it's wrong. Well same thing right now. Isn't the Roman Catholic still against homosexuality? Yes, yeah, I don't follow No, Francis seems to be more accepting of it, but when you push him hard enough Yeah, he'll have to stick with you know, the central tenets of the the craziest thing I heard before is like they Condemned condoms It's not just that they condemn condoms It got so whacked that there were bishops in Africa who were saying if you used a condom You were more likely to get AIDS like it's gotten way out of hand. It's insane. So I have a Certain level of tolerance for religious belief and So you you know all of ethics can can look like this if the if the you know The y-axis is harm and the x-axis is time Mm-hmm, and we have tolerance up here You know a high level of tolerance for low level of harm as we move across time Then my tolerance is gonna be very high Once the harm starts to rise the tolerance is gonna dip and there's gonna be an internet Intersecting point at which we get to say time out here Yeah, no no no you have a right to believe in this But you then don't have a right for the entailments of that belief that cause harm to other people So I think we can all agree we're cool with religion in so far as any other belief system if you're not harming people Yeah, really not our business, you know, but And the same I would say for Islam There we know of cases where women are taking their young daughters to the Middle East to Africa to have clitoractomies Yeah, female genital mutilation, so How is a 14-year-old girl gonna speak out against her community and say you know what I'm gonna opt out on this one When she's pressured, you know to follow suit, you know, and that's only one specific sect of Islam It's not all of us. All right, so then how do we educate? How do we protect that girl? You know and and at the same time respect a group's Constitutional right to practice, you know freedom of conscience Religion no easy answers, but can we all agree that that is a harmful act that is highly unnecessary You do not need to remove a woman's clitoris outside of therapeutic reasons cancer, whatever There's no for religious reasons. I got to say no no we can't we can't do that and I'll respect your views, but at that point No, and I think our government actually should have the duty the obligation to speak up and say No, you're in Canada now. I don't think we can really honor You're going to another country to have this done. She comes back. What kind of complications could there be right? You know some women some girls have bled to death some have had all kinds of uterine Complications because of it infections also brings a good debate of like circumcision today and circumcision you let the let the kid decide when he's 18 or 16 or whatnot if he wants to You know take the hood off and go convertible. Yeah, that's his call All right, so where we were at see yeah, so we've lots and lots of biases see is for Context and you can't take information Isolate it, you know, it's always embedded in a context better. We appreciate that context. This goes to our story of the gentleman who murdered his daughter five years ago Vladimir context. I saw that as a post Some young lady outraged saying this man should go to hell and this and that and right I clicked and I read and I was like This is interesting. I don't know it's not as cut and dry context is king Context is king right here because Here we have Tracy Latimer as a 13 year old was severe. I think it was cerebral palsy and Constantly having seizures not Very conscious, you know, I mean not a consciously aware Human being and he just saw her health Diminish and diminish and diminish and she was choking a lot and I Guess he had decided in his mind that she had suffered enough and he took it upon himself to euthanize her the problem with that is Plenty of people had been euthanized by their family members and didn't didn't serve time Oh, really? Yeah, because the judge would see the compassionate grounds. Yeah I think it's ridiculous now to put the brother into prison for doing something when the the deceased had written Fully out. I wish to die. My brother is going to do this for me. And so it exonerates him Tracy couldn't voice whether she wanted to live or not. Therefore the judge had no real option But to convict him the church the quotes from this. What is it the? CBC article is interesting to hear He says it was pointless to torture her daughter any further. She had already gone had four operations If she moved her hip would it go she had rods in her back She had been worked on enough and it goes on basically to him It was just one science experiment after another. They wouldn't let the daughter pass away And she was just immiscible in pain and not you know an itch But severe constantly. Yeah, it was not a good state to be in so they convicted him of murder Yes, and he served his time and then he got out and he's a murderer It wouldn't be murder one, I don't know what he got it would be two or murder or manslaughter Yeah, because euthanasia is legal. Well, that was at a time when it wasn't. Oh, this is an old case. Oh, this is old school This is 15 years. Okay, and don't forget what else was happening in the state is convicted 25 years ago Okay. Okay. Jack Kevorkin. Do you remember him? Oh, yeah. So dr. Death. They called him in the States He had a machine called the what do you call it the? Thanatos machine was Greek for death and it was the same three chemicals that are used in You know federal penitentiaries when the death sentence. Yeah, so the first thing is a kind of a Narcotic to kind of really, you know mellow you out and whatnot. The second is a major muscle relax And because when they put the toxin in your body will naturally say yeah, and then the third one is the toxin and Kevorkin's machine worked very well Here's something you don't know But one of the guys you let you met at the last talk I gave. Yeah Was a founding member of an underground Organization that helped people die. Oh wow crazy story dr. Richard Thane. Oh, really? And him along with John Hostess you can look you can look this up or you can post a link To this guy. It's funny. You see you meet a guy such a sweetheart. Yeah, just want to hug him Well, they they helped rather notable people Die. Yeah, like Canadian poets and people like that fairly famous people But it was never written, you know, the cause of death was just they died in their sleep or whatever But no interest is this John Hostess guy. He was helping them do it. I think he helped and eight lives and Then when he himself wanted to die it was months before made or medical assistance dying was legal in Canada He had to go to Switzerland to have it done. Oh, Richard Thane went with him interesting, yeah, and Death is probably the most serious decision any person is gonna have to make and if you can do it consciously Great, that's that's kind of a bonus. It's the ones who can't yes So in our wills my wife's in my will. We have what's called an advanced directive And the advanced directive is to our sons who will be the powers of attorney. Yeah, I just did that with my mom Oh, she said if I ever become a potato, yeah, so you give the kids, you know, you say, you know, check it out You're bright people. You'll know if we're having a good time or not. Yeah, and Make the call because I should the age to like if you're 80 become a potato That's like where you develop early onset, you know, yeah mention that kind of thing And you can't fully do that. That's the issue We might as well jump into this right now before we get to the D and F's if we're talking about medical assistance and dying When I was asked to put in my two cents about the development of it and Then they went ahead and it came back to us a lot of bioethicists said this doesn't account for anybody with psychiatric conditions or future conditions that says Six months imminent death. You got to be within that kind of window for the board to say, okay We'll grant it and then there's two ways in which you can take yourself out have a doctor administer Or they just give you the prescription and you get the script filled and you do it yourself. Oh, wow So there's two ways you can do it socrates a lot of doctors address and the hemlock and everything I want a photo like that Finger a few people a few of my interns crying. Yeah And then the hemlock milkshake. Yeah So the problem is is that Doctors really don't want to do this. We're finding out. Sure. Yeah, we're not thrilled about doing this. They will yeah But that's huge on them, you know killing somebody what you do today, honey Oh, I killed a few people And so I think there should be like nurse practitioners people who are okay with doing this Who are especially trained? Yeah to do this kind of work. We should talk to vets to put down animals how they feel too Oh I cried more putting down a rat Yeah, then I did watching both of my parents die interesting because the rat It's life its quality of life was coming to an end. It had a tumor It was having seizures It wasn't having a good time and then you have to make that decision for it But on the way to the vet when it's looking at you like it's just another day. Yeah, and you know, it's going to die That's tough. Yeah And now that I have a dog it's going to be even worse because it's a far more sentient being right So that's going to be really tough when a person knows they're on their way out Euthanasia literally means in Greek good death. Oh it does. Yeah. Oh cool. So you literally want to have a good death We want a good life. Did you think of robin williams? Apparently he was diagnosed with something right? Oh, he had a he had a severe form of Parkinson's. Did he? Yeah? Yeah Yeah, so if he didn't uh the way I look at it If he didn't do it himself then when he had the faculty and the ability Right. He may not have been able to do it later. Well, that's our beef is when you have early onset dementia How do you know where that six month window is it's unfair? And how cruel is it to know you're losing? Your capacity for conscious awareness For an intelligent person what what more cruel fate could could await a person than to gradually realize You know and have their spouses say you've asked me that you've asked me that 26 times in a row Have I have I you can't even feel bad about it It should be like a checklist like have we tried this protocol this protocol this until he exhausted everything. Yeah, then it's like Yeah, but then again I've seen people in various stages of dementia and Alzheimer's and even when they've lost their Capacity to recognize anybody again. They seem to be having an okay time. Yeah, they're not in any pain They're not in any distress. You know like video games You can do all kinds of stuff, but How do we know what they're your game console? There's interesting studies on the transcranial stimulation now coming up really really promising research Using different frequency dc current Um, okay really really interesting. One of my buddies was a pioneer in that a guy named michael purzinger. He was up in Sudbury and he did the electromagnetic stuff and Yeah, I mean People who believe in the sanctity of life and that you shouldn't treat people You know as they believe as objects as a means to an end to put them out of their misery so to speak Whether they're religious minded or not believe that it's life's hardships that push us to become better people And that's why god wants us to do it. Okay, I get that You know, that's your belief and that's how you see things and that's fine The problem with that though is a we don't know of any such god exists And b we don't really know what's going on in the faculties and the level of reasoning of that person when they're in that state So who's going to make that call? And at what point do we say Their life is no longer worth living from my perspective as a person speaking on their behalf That's a tough call and it's I'm not saying it's going to get easier I think it's going to be more complicated on my buddy Yuri on here that specializes in longevity Yamenaka factors And so like hypothetically, let's say we're researchers heading We Statistically speaking, we'll have the ability to extend life. Yeah for a very long time. Well with telemeric sciences. Yes. That's exactly Yeah, so let's say hypothetically within the next 50 years We'll see the first 100 and 150 year old person through this through this It'll be the next milestone for sure Then the question comes like let's say we for a time like you look at progress that we've made in the last 100 years I can't even imagine we're going to be in the next 100 years. Yeah. And so we fast forward 100 years from now and Let's say we have the ability for you to live till 300. Mm-hmm. At what point do people say? Well I've lived my life here. Well, I'm kind of tired my uh, I don't know My buddy Jim Shea and I are like we're sticking around Yeah, as long at least that's how we feel right now if I can learn Yeah and contribute those are the two things as long as I can continue to learn new things And I can continue to contribute one way or another I'm good the moment. I feel that I can't contribute and I can't learn I want to be offed and I've told my wife that But it'll come In a combination of ways, right? It'll be regenerative science Figuring out how we can just make better organs better muscles better that kind of thing And it'll be the transhumanism right gets get the artificial parts in there of the ones that are wearing out Right replace them with far better materials than grow them Or we can operate the great genetically that's his strategy. He thinks we're more of a of a car So he's like, how do you grow the mitochondria? How do you grow the, you know Ribosomes, how do you grow? How do you grow every grow a hip grow an arm everything down to the cellular mechanism? Yeah And grow it better and grow better. Yeah Well, we can grow skin now. We're doing skin graphing with growing skin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So brave new world, hopefully You know the the biggest irony of my life is that they'll figure out how to do this, you know a week after i'm dead I don't think living longer is our problem I think we need to figure out how to live better before we learn to live longer, which is Actually the main point of our conversation Going back to abc's Yeah, do you want me to get back? Yes. Well, it's d. Yeah, let's finish it off. So d is connected to a It's how we can diagram our argument. So or somebody else's argument, whether it's spoken written, whatever And it allows us to visually then see what the house looks like and all the component parts So we know what the conclusion is. That's whatever the person happens to believe, you know Euthanasia is good. Euthanasia is bad. Whatever abortion is good. Abortion is bad That's their conclusion But then we can see what all of their reasons are and how those reasons relate to that that conclusion And we can do it for our own thinking as well, right? We can write down What it is we think and why it is we think that so we have a better understanding. So diagramming is like a I call it the most boring part of the critical thinking skills But it is so essential because it allows us to literally see What an argument looks like on paper, you know, visually get a good good grasp of it So that we can then say it back to the other person if it's not our argument And then critique it much more fairly because we can literally say is this what you mean? Yeah, right? And they can see it and they go. Yep. Yeah, or if they disagree we can then revise it and then begin Yeah E then is evidence so many claims required and there's different types of evidence So you got to be careful which type of evidence is best for This particular type of topic And f just involves all of the different types of fallacies that can be committed or errors in reasoning So I mentioned trump uses lots of ad hominems, you know, literally latin for against the man or against the person Uh, usually that means you've lost the argument. You start criticizing Characteristics about a person you've lost because you're no longer addressing what they're saying. No, it's like the virgin saying don't kill the messenger Yeah, so you're dealing with a relevant as did with uh, Jean Cretchen's face Cretchen. Oh, yeah Conservatives of 93 did that You know, it's any any time you demean a racism is just a big ad hominem You're just you're demeaning another person for irrelevant characteristics that have nothing to do with the issue at hand So those are the the the six, you know argument bias context diagram evidence and fallacies. Those are the basic Tools within the overall critical thinking skill set If people learn what those are about and how to utilize them better and it's like a language though It's not it's not a quick fix. It's not something you can learn just overnight and apply It's going to take a little bit of time. Sure, but at least there's like a heuristic. There is yeah There is and by having it with the first six letters of the the english alphabet It's a very handy mnemonic really just if you can remember a to f and what all those are Then you can remember how then to apply them and you know what I mean at the mnemonic just trails down like a like a tree and then basically It'll increase the likelihood for us to at least understand The differences between arguments that people might have so that we can better Uh position ourselves to appreciate how have we been biased to believe what we now