 G'day mate 40 here So terrific essay in the Atlantic today. What will drive China to war? Cold war is already underway. The question is whether Washington can deter Beijing from initiating a hot one so Countries like people have certain predictable reactions to stress So you'll notice with some people the more stress they get under The more nice they become The more accommodating they become Other people the more stress they get under the more Aggressive and assertive they become they can become verbally aggressive physically aggressive then other people the more stress they they Fall under then the more mute they become and Then other people the more stress they they come under like the more likely they are to lie So that's been a pattern that I've had in the past the more stress and more pressure I was under the more likely the more trouble I thought that I was in the more likely I was to try to lie my way out Other people the more stress that they they come under the more likely they are to be honest All right, so they feel like wow, we're in big trouble now You know, I better tell the truth, right? So when you're under sufficient stress and sufficient pressure and fearing, you know, sufficiently negative consequences For many people that have the instinctive knee-jerk reaction. Well, I better start telling the truth now So there's fight. There's flight. There's freeze. There's deceive there's disclose People tend to have certain predictable patterns for how they react to stress And this is true for countries too. So what tends to drive China? to war and China tends to Tends to go to war when it feels under sufficient stress That's how it it reacts to pressure. It tends to lash out So Christopher Kent well and Richard Spencer. They're all Facing that Charlottesville civil lawsuit. Do I think that Chris can't well offering a minecraft to the jury will help his case? I'm skeptical Who is fighting China bro? Well, China is surrounded by countries that doesn't have very good relations with from Vietnam to the Philippines to Thailand to Taiwan to Japan to Russia so China could go to war at any time and just Slogged my way through very difficult book By Elbridge Colby the strategy of denial American defense and an age of great power conflict So it came out from Yale University Press. So, you know, it's good. So you want to read the single best book on American military strategy in 2021 particularly vis-a-vis China in the particularly with regard to Taiwan and Japan and in South Korea and The Philippines and Vietnam then read this new book by Elbridge Colby the strategy of denial American defense in an age of great power conflict so the Atlantic here as an essay written by Michael Beckley and You know, it's a cold war With Beijing is already underway. The right question to ask is whether America can deter China from initiating a hot war Question from the chat. Have I ever read the antiquities of the Jews by Josephus and no I have not So Beijing is a remarkably a revanchist power So you're probably wondering what the hell does revanchist means revanchist means one who advocates or fights for the recovery of lost territory or status, so if if you're dating a woman and she has an ex-boyfriend who's revanchist and He wants to To fight to recover her lost territories. You might be in a little bit of Might be in a nice little bit of bother So revanchism is a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses Encouraged by a country often following a war or social movement All right, so China wants to be made whole again So have you ever gotten you ever done deals with people and you feel like I need to be made whole Like I'm the vulnerable one. Yeah, I've laid out the money or I've laid out the time I've strategized I created this this business I need to be made whole and that's where China's at right now So China wants to reunite Taiwan with the mainland even though Taiwan's never been part of the mainland How are you not home, Mr. Ford? What can I do to make your life better? What's missing? Just just the pleasure of your company Loponius. That's that's all I need all I ever wanted was your love and your respect so China wants to turn the east and the south China seas into Chinese lakes It wants to grab regional primacy as a stepping stone to global power. So Why do powerful countries so what? Hegemony in their area of the world hegemony in their area of the world because when you have Hegemony in your area of the world like the United States has no peer competitors in the Americas the United States has nothing to fear about Central or South America has nothing to fear about Canada. It has no competitors in its area. Therefore, it's free to roam John Mirshimer makes this point. Why does the United States? Intervene all over God's little green acre because it has no problems at home Like if you have a submissive wife, it just puts up with anything that you do then you're going to be far more likely to roam Then if your wife is hoarding you accountable and will punish you severely if you start roaming So China wants to dominate Northeast Asia the same way that the United States Dominates the Americas so what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So China wants its own Monroe Doctrine so the Monroe Doctrine was Propagated by the United States in the early part of the 19th century saying that the United States would not look kindly at European powers interfering in the Americas so China feels encircled. So what happens when you feel encircled? All right, do you tend to become assertive? aggressive duplicitous disclosive Not sure it is disclosive a word You tend to fight or flight or fright All right, we all have patterns nations have patterns individuals have patterns What happens when we feel encircled under pressure under stress? What happens when you experience growing resistance on many fronts now for Leponius? Like he will not take no for an answer Leponius does not understand the meaning of the word stop. Leponius does not understand the meaning of the word don't Leponius does not understand the meaning of the word quit that Right, Leponius will not take no for an answer All right, so when Leponius faces growing resistance on many fronts he lashes out Leponius is one speed like go go go That's one speed. All right, so what's the historical record for the People's Republic of China? Since 1949 well when confronted by a mounting threat to its geopolitical interest Beijing does not wait to be attacked It shoots first to gain the advantage of surprise all right, so God forbid God forbid there there are men on dates and they want to take a woman to bed and Do they ask? No, they try to take advantage of surprise Right, so do they do they begin by you know, just delicately touching her shoulder God forbid or do they like give her a good elbow to the ribs? God forbid God forbid. Do they say oh, I really want to kiss you or do they say I want you to meet my mother No, like God forbid there are sort of aggressive men who when they want to conquer and they're facing growing resistance you know they'll go right for you know a very sensitive hotspot and Often combine it with a good strong kiss on the lips So there's like there's like the downward motion of the hand God forbid God forbid And then that the snuggling of cuddling or you know God forbid is like what the governor of New York did Where he cupped that woman's breast without permission now. He's facing a misdemeanor for sexual battery and assault so Many men God forbid God forbid there. They're on a date. They're at a bar They feel like they're making progress with the woman But you know, do they go through all the the steps of getting consent all along? No, they'll like they'll slide the old hand out God forbid the blouse You know, they'll cut the breast or they'll slide the hand between the woman's legs and combine it with a good strong kiss on the lips And then unless she calls the police, you know off they go God forbid God forbid. I Mean this is just what I've heard I mean God forbid that I should have ever acted that way Well, like when I didn't truly understand the profundity of the Torah like many many decades ago like I remember I Was I was an aspiring producer in Hollywood and and I went to see this This performance people were doing a showcase and this one woman invited me to her showcase and so we were hanging around about After the showcase and you know, we were talking we're having a really good conversation and God forbid God forbid Like right in the middle of the conversation like you know, my hand goes down her top And you know, I give her a good strong kiss on the lips and and off we go Another time I was at a party like hitting on every woman in sight and then finally walked out with this nice Christian girl and We're having a cuddle in the back of my 1979 Toyota that's in station wagon and I think I took her hand and I moved her hand to a place of mind that was like very sensitive and She said that she wasn't willing to like fully engage with that part of me until we first set a prayer to Jesus And I was like impaled on a on a moral dilemma here. I was I had converted to Judaism Now I could not say a prayer to Jesus. On the other hand, I was in a high state of excitement And I thought I've got really good chance here And I couldn't really think straight because most of the blood drained away from my from my head here to another head And so I was happy just to let her say the prayer to Jesus It was like a minute or two is like very beautiful long prayer and then off we went Okay, God forbid God forbid this is before I truly understood that the significance of the Toyota and its teachings about monogamy all right, so when When confronted by a mounting threat to his geopolitical interests Like Beijing does not wait to be attacked. It shoots first to gain the advantage of surprise So there were times like God forbid in my past when I wasn't the holy man that I am now that I would I Would God forbid I would kiss first to gain the advantage of surprise Like I figure if we're having a nice conversation and like if she's maintaining eye contact with me for three seconds Like she's not she's not moving away from the eye contact for three seconds And if she's like touching my shoulder or touching my elbow, then it's like Like move in, you know, just like boom, you know, give her a nice kiss on the lips And let's get this party started God forbid. This is this is before I became showman a gear Not not touching women and in lascivious ways. God forbid God forbid Okay, so in conflicts with the Korean War and with your Vietnam in 1979 China has used force as an educational exercise Like it's willing to pick a very costly fight with a single enemy to teach it a lesson and to teach those who are observing from the sidelines to Teach her a lesson too right, so it's did you watch the TV show weeds the the young kid was getting getting bullied and And so the youngest kid got the advice to ah to Go to school and like find the biggest bully in the playground and just like punch him in the face So this is this is how China operates So often people are performing and they may perform all over us not for our Direct benefit or last but because they want to send a message to other people I mean, have you ever had someone like perform all over you and you're like what the heck bro? I didn't get it. Just just be cool, bro Like where you got to perform all over me, but they're performing all over you For for the benefit of a message they they want to send out and and you're just the prop you're just the meat They're beating into a sandwich So to speak God forbid Right, so when and why is Beijing used for so China attacks not when it feels confident about the future But when it worries its enemies are closing in so the Chinese Communist Party Wages war when it perceives an opening open window of vulnerability Regarding its territory an immediate periphery and this is like men God forbid there are men out there in the dating scene that they perceive an open window of vulnerability Or they perceive a closing window of opportunity and They go in So to speak God forbid God forbid Luke talk about the Richard Spencer Keith Woods quarrel Okay, so it's like the Greg Johnson Richard Spencer quarrel it's Everybody wants to rule the alt-right, right? So it's it's just a a battle for supremacy of the alt-right sphere and so the dominant Characteristic of people in the porn industry and people in the alt-right is they don't tend to have many connections So if you Are particularly connected to other people Then You're going to get into this highly marginalized world. You're going to you're going to be a highly you're going to be a marginalized loser And you're going to get into this world and you're going to want to try to To assert your dominance Right by definition people in the porn industry and people in the alt-right. They don't play nicely with others All right, those are the only type of people who are Drawn to these spheres because Perhaps the defining characteristic of those that get go in for conspiracy theories is that Uh, it's people who feel socially excluded, right? You feel socially excluded You're going to be much more likely to get into conspiracy theories And then the more you get into conspiracy theories the more socially excluded You get so you notice you start like you start listening to All right, this is my path. I started listening to the carpenters All right, sing sing a song sing out loud sing out strong Sing all good things not bad sing of happy not sad sing sing a song Let the world sing along sing of love. They could be sing for you and for me, right? So I started out with the carpenters. I just love that song Sing Sing a song Sing out loud Sing out strong Sing of good times not bad Make it simple to love Oh, okay, so I started listening to the carpenters All right And and I was listening to sing sing a song like completely inoffensive song like how how could anyone Anyone have an objection to sing sing a song, but it led me on a trajectory All right, so after listening to the carpenters I started listening to Kenny Rogers And then After listening to Kenny Rogers, I started listening to Abba and air supply Then I started listening to Abba and air supply and it led me to listening to Journey And then I really got into melodic rock. I started listening to aria speed wagon Then I started listening to night ranger And then I developed a taste for the scorpions just the ballads But then I started like liking the harder stuff I mean I started I started really Going for really hard You know scorpions hard rock music just like my my parents had Warned me about it's like it's early morning. The sun comes out last night. We're shaking and pretty loud My cat is purring. It scratches my skin So what is wrong with a night of sin? The bitch is hungry. She needs to tell so give her inches and feed her well More days to come new places to go. I've got to leave. It's time for a show Here I am Rocky like a hurricane Rocky like a hurricane So I started off listening to the carpenters and and then it led to Kenny Rogers And Abba and air supply and then Journey and then aria speed wagon and soon I was ending up listening to To not just listening to the scorpions. Not just the ballads, but like the hard stuff My body is burning. It starts to shout Desire is coming. It breaks out loud Lust is in cages till storm breaks loose. Just have to make it with someone I choose I mean, this is not godly material But I got led down the garden path and it just all started with with The carpenters sing the night is calling. I have to go. The wolf is hungry He runs the show. He's licking his lips. He's ready to win on the hunt tonight for love at first sting Here I am Rocky like a hurricane. Are you ready, baby? See this is not godly stuff, but I got led down the garden path. Okay opinion on a poll Apollo Poloism it just seems like a national socialism, but uh, you know with it with a nicer Rapper Yeah, it strikes me national socialism. Yeah, like before I knew it I I'd moved from the carpenters to kenny rogers To ann marie To abba to air supply to journey and before long It's like staying alive staying alive. Like I was in the I was in the grip of the bg's and disco It just like and and this music it just had the beat of of sexual intercourse And like then I was like looking at pornography So it all started with the carpenters Then kenny rogers and marie abba air supply journey Are you a speed wagon the scorpions? I'd call pornography Like I just went went on that trajectory it all begins with a song by the carpenters Okay so So when does china attack not when it feels confident about the future, but when it worries its enemies are closing in So the chinese communist party we just wore when it perceives an opening window of vulnerability or a closing window of opportunity To consolidate control over disputed areas and this pattern holds regardless of the strength of china's opponent So bg has often attacked far superior flows including us to cut them down to size and beat them back from Chinese claimed territory so So some people you don't mess with because you never know when they're just going to go to war Like some people are so unpredictably aggressive and assertive that you just leave them alone So in 1950 right the fledgling people's republic of china was less than a year old it was destitute It had been fighting for decades of civil war been fighting with japanese brutality Nonetheless it moored advancing u.s troops in korea Out of concern that the americans would conquer north korea and then use north korea as a base to attack china So in the expanded korean war that resulted china suffered a million casualties at risk nuclear retaliation It was slammed with punishing economic sanctions that stayed in place for a generation But to this day bg still celebrates its interventions as a glorious victory that warded off an existential threat to its homeland 1962 The chinese people's liberation army attacked indian forces Stensibly because they'd built outposts in chinese claimed territory in the himalayas But the real cause the chinese communist party feared that it was being surrounded by indians american soviets and chinese nationalists All have been increasing their military presence near china and later that decade fearing that china was next on muscoe's hit list the chinese military ambushed soviet forces And set off a seven month undeclared conflict that risked nuclear war late 1970s Beijing picked a fight with vietnam So deng xiao ping chose to do it to teach vietnam a lesson Because vietnam had started hosting soviet forces on its territory and invaded kembodia, which is one of china's few allies china does not and has never had many allies So from the 1950s the 1990s China nearly started wars on three separate occasions by firing artillery or missiles at taiwan or near taiwan So this is 1954 or 55 1958 1995 1966 So the main goal was to deter taiwan from forging a close relationship with the united states or Declaring its independence from china So we have this overarching pattern of behavior That's consistent beijing turns a violent when confronted with the prospect of permanently losing control of its territory Tends to attack one enemy to scare off others Rarely gives advance warning and it rarely waits to absorb the initial blow all right, so This is now time for you to share how listening to the carpenters may have led you to kenny rogers and marie journey rs speed wagon Like the scorpions and like heavy metal It's a it's a very familiar path The carpenters is a gateway drug Now beijing has not fought a major war since 1979 uh in 1988 chinese frigates gunned down 64 vietnamese sailors so China as it's become increasingly powerful It's got 1.3 billion people sky-high growth rates It's got an authoritarian government that caused big business So china has been increasingly perceived as too good to pass up as a consumer market In a low wage production platform. So you've got country after country Carrying favor with beijing often often cutting ties with taiwan to do so they're just like I think almost all japanese auto companies don't sell to israel because they don't want to alienate their arab customers So britain ended back hong kong in 97 1997 portugal gave up mcow in 1999 america fast-tracked china into major international institutions such as the world trade organization half a dozen countries settled territorial disputes with china from 1991 To 2019 more than 20 countries cut diplomatic ties with taiwan's as a cure relations with beijing So china was steadily advancing its interest without firing a shot just hiding its capabilities and biting its time But those days are now over. So china's economy is sputtering So from 2007 and 2019 growth rates fell by more than half Productivity declined by more than 10 percent. So remember the average chinese worker Is half as productive as the average turkish worker But china's per capita gmp ranks 75th in the world Okay, chinese debt has surged eightfold in the past 14 years China's population is aging at a devastating pace the most quickly aging population in human history of which we're aware China is on a path to loot and have its population halved in the next 30 years In the next 15 years, it will lose 70 million working age adults gain 130 million senior citizens So countries are less enthralled by china's market. They're more worried about its coercion and aggression Taiwan is tightening its ties to the u.s. Taiwan is revamping its defenses Japan has engaged in the largest military build-up since the Cold War Now talking about doubling defense spending Is rabbi yosef mizrachi high IQ. He seems to have an IQ i'd say in the 120 I think he's got the same sort of IQ as me India is massing forces near china's borders and vital sea lanes vietnam and indonesia expanding their air naval and coast guard forces australia So opening up his northern coast to u.s. Forces australia's acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear-powered attack submarines France, germany and the united kingdom are sending warships into Well, east asia dozens of countries are looking to cut china out of their supply chains anti-china coalitions such as the quiet and orcas of proliferating And globally opinion polls show that fear and mistrust of china has reached a post-cold war hype So if beijing sees that its possibilities for easy expansion are narrowing It's very likely to resort to more violent methods So just like a bloke if he encounters just rejection after rejection after rejection some bloke's turn into elliot rogers If people feel socially excluded They're much more likely to latch on to anti-social conspiracy theories such as oh, there's no such thing as covid or vaccines are bad news This is the result of people feeling socially excluded and then they latch on to these conspiracy theories And as a result latching on to qanon and the like they become even more socially excluded so china China coerced its weak arrivals in the western pacific. They provoked a bloody scrap with india in 2020 Because they were afraid that new delhi was becoming more closely aligned with washington So chinese communist party spent three trillion over the past three decades building up a military Designed to defeat china's neighbors So now china faces closing windows of opportunity in its most important territorial disputes So china wants to become the predominant power in asia and the world And they want to claim not just hong kong, but taiwan large chunks of india And 80 percent of the east and south china sees So most of china's trade goes through the east and south china sees so peter zion says You can destroy china very easily just put a couple of destroys in the indian ocean and cut china's energy flows So china has to import all of its energy The lights would go out in a few weeks says peter zion Where the bizarre conspiracy theories about trump's alleged connections to russia paranoid fringe conspiracy theories No, I think they were an effective tactic so There are conspiracy theories that make you less effective And then there are conspiracy theories that you simply adopt as a tactic so That's why you need a clear thinker like myself who's able to separate Conspiracy theories that people really believe and leads them down an antisocial path And then conspiracy theories that are simply invoked as an effective tactic All right china's primary antagonists japan taiwan the philippines are all part of a strategic chain of us allies And their territory black blocks beijing's access to the pacific So china wants to reabsorb these areas And it's cultivating a very intense revanchist form of nationalism So school children study the century of humiliation So for many chinese citizens making china whole again Is as much of an emotional as a strategic imperative and you may say oh 40 when it comes to military Strategy then talk to me about girlish things like emotions. Well emotions play a huge role in Wars like the more committed A group is the more emotionally involved. They are the more formidable All right more likely they are to punch above their weight So taiwan is the place where china's pressures are most severe So peaceful reunification has become unlikely. Well, it's silly to talk of reunification because china taiwan will never will never Together well chris can't well get out of jail early for good behavior. I suspect not so 68 percent of the taiwanese public identify solely as taiwanese not as chinese 95 percent want to maintain the island's sovereignty or declare independence So china retained viable military options because they have missiles that could incapacitate taiwan's air force and us bases on okinawa in a surprise attack That could pave the way for a successful invasion So president biden recently stated that america would fight to defend taiwan from an unprovoked china attack So washington is planning to harden taiwan's defenses But the military balance looks like or temporarily shift in beijing's favor in the late 2020s So many aging us ships submarines and planes will have to be retired so america could get its ass handed to it in a high intensity conflict with china later on this decade So china does attack taiwan washington would face a choice between escalating Or seeing taiwan conquer and if taiwan's conquered many of america's allies in the anti china coalition will think that america is Not not such a good deal to ally with against china So china regularly sends well armed coast guard vessels into waters surrounding the disputed senkaku islands weakened japan's control there so tokyo wants to regain the strategic advantage But uh china could attack japan just to humiliate it and to deter it from close alliance with the united states So chinese strategists think that a short sharp war could humiliate japan rupturous alliance with washington serve as an object lesson for other countries in the region So beijing could parachute in special forces under the senkaku islands Proclaim a large maritime exclusion zone in the area Deploy ship submarines warplanes and drones supported by hundreds of conventionally armed ballistic missiles aimed at japan And then tokyo would either have to accept china's fate of complete Or launch a very difficult and bloody military operation to recapture the islands so China is very likely to try to accomplish a fate of complete like take islands around japan take taiwan Take other islands in the south pacific So fate of complete is a much more powerful Strategic move than steady escalation because when you just steadily escalate You're giving warning to your enemies and you are incentivizing them To form a coalition and to arm themselves against you So china has grown accustomed to shoving around its weaker neighbors, but our position to china is growing So vietnam indonesia the philippines they're all increasing their defense forces So from beijing's perspective circumstances are looking right for a teachable moment for a fate of complete Maybe the best target would be the philippines So beijing might relish the opportunity to humiliate the philippines the philippines And america would have a few good options It could stand down and allow china to impose its will on the south china sea and the country surrounding it Or it could risk a much bigger war What would forty do if a caller production would move to china? I'd pray on it So get ready guys for the terrible 2020s So china now faces strong incentives to grab land and break up anti china coalitions So china's tendency is to hit first and hit hard when it perceives gathering dangers And so tamping down or reversing chinese aggression in the western pacific would require a massive use of american force So just like china sent lots of million troops fighting against america in the korean war They might be willing to really slug it out in the pacific So the last 200 years modern wars between great powers have typically gone long rather than stayed short So a us china war could Keep escalating be incredibly damaging to both sides There are a few plausible off-ramps and severe pressures for escalation So china's historical warning signs are flashing red. This is michael beckley hiding in the atlantic Okay, here's Important essay. Did you know that germany has a qanon problem and you think oh no germans? They're solid people there They got common sense. They wouldn't fall for something like qanon the germans. They're not going to go all anti vaccine Now i'm not going to play john pilger in the coming war on china john pilger give it give me a break so The 2016 Study conducted by princeton university found a clear link between social isolation And tendencies to believe in conspiracy theories So this is why socially deprived areas in east germany appear far more likely to become breeding grounds for conspiracy theories Compared with places where people enjoy more stable social networks. So How stable is your social network? How song how strong how deep how deep is your love? How deep is your social network because that will tell me how vulnerable you are to conspiracy theories so uh working class people who feel socially excluded They're much more likely to believe in conspiracy theories losers are much more likely to believe in conspiracy theories And this came from princeton guys And this is this is high quality work Have you read the academic paper the dark side of meaning making how social exclusion leads to superstitious thinking? Isn't this what barack obama tried to teach us about losers? Do they just cling to their guns in their religion? We're driven to seek meaning But uh, it can go awfully wrong awfully awfully wrong So you're saying 40 tell me more about this 2016 paper out of princeton Right the dark side of meaning making how social exclusion leads to superstitious thinking All right meaning making How's your meaning making lately you guys making solid meaning? And how about that dallas cowboy victory? Can you believe with that that backup quarterback throwing for over 300 yards that thrilling last minute victory over the minnesota vikings in minnesota? six straight victories for the dallas cowboys Have I looked into james bradley's the china mirage? No, I have not look let's talk about meaning making guys Meaning making is a fundamental characteristic of thinking minds like you and me expose a person to a set of completely unrelated events And then observe the complex ways In which our minds try to create connections between unrelated events and to tell stories about these unrelated events and go beyond the facts To imbue chaos with order like laponius you strike me as the type of bloke who sees completely unrelated events And you start your mind automatically starts finding connections And telling stories and going beyond the facts to imbue the chaos with order Right, so under what conditions If people search for meaning Backfire and leads to conspiratorial thinking and superstitious beliefs So press one if you're still clinging to your guns and to your religion And press two if you're feeling socially excluded And press three if you're feeling of social exclusion has led you down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories And press four to tell me about how listening to the carpenters Sided you down a slippery path to eventually listening to hard rocks such as the scorpions Okay, so Meaning making is automatically triggered It is evolutionarily adaptive And it's developmentally dynamical It's a developmentally dynamical feature of the cognitive system and you're saying wow 40 you're blowing my mind here so meaning making influences information processing from perception To decision All right, we want to make sense of the world around us And much of the sense that we make of the world around us is only in our brain right reality is so random and complicated that we impose on reality all these These uh superstitious beliefs So generally speaking the ability to make sense of a complex and complicated and chaotic world has many positive consequences So there are a lot of irrational beliefs that are good for you Wow 40 is the new tim fool I'm not sure am I am I worthy of this great honor? 40 sounding like phil de franco and sam sader Oh, am I am I worthy of these these great great honors? so So there are a lot of irrational things that you can believe that will contribute to your health and happiness So I I don't want to read I don't want to remove from you your irrational beliefs that are contributing to your health and happiness So the ability to form meaning out of chaos and random events Results in mental and physical health benefits and increased sense of well-being emotional regulation and adjustment to trauma So wonderful making meaning out of random events wonderful thing But it can sometimes backfire Sometimes we will falsely remember events that we haven't actually experienced We will prefer to process Information in a way that's consistent with our beliefs So we will distort reality and process things that happen to make them consistent with our beliefs And we will engage in motivated reasoning as a way to maintain internal consistency So a motivated reasoning means that we'll we'll twist things so that we can maintain internal consistency so people When our friends behave in ways we don't approve of we will rationalize it Right, so it's like oh, you know this can't be right that you know laponius engaged in nefarious illegal behavior It must be a 40 report that I've received so We want meaning we assign meaning to random events. We assign meaning when it's not there and This can lead to conspiracy theories. So it's kind of an exaggeration of these universal human tendencies to try to find meaning in random events Now when people feel uncertain And when people lack control over a situation When people feel socially excluded, they're more likely to endorse superstitious beliefs and conspiracy theories. So I really got into yoga when When the way I'd been making a living for the past 15 years as a blogger had kind of fallen apart the past 10 years so I had most of my friends between 1997 and 2007 were in the writing world But when I could no longer make a living as a writer I lost Essentially a lot of my friends a lot of my social circle. I was kind of bereft and so I became More enamored by things like kundalini yoga that that provided a substitute community for me And also had increased commitment to my orthodox Judaism. You're going to be shocked, but I have a lot of tendencies towards cults there's Large part of me that just wants to embrace any group that embraces me. It's like, oh, yeah, look, we love you And I just want to go join, you know, any cult that says, yeah, look, we love you so When you feel more on control of your life when you feel more socially included Then you're going to be less likely to believe, you know bogus conspiratorial superstitious nonsense so When people feel uncertain, unloved and unincluded You're going to watch the Luke Ford show And you're going to want to reestablish your control of this confusing and often hostile world by engaging in a motivated search for meaning To kind of overcome your social exclusion and to regain control So this will make you particularly prone to endorse superstitious beliefs and conspiratorial thinking Magical thinking so social exclusion these two feeling like your life is meaningless So you're socially excluded. You feel like life is meaningless. And so You're going to go on a search for meaning and you're going to look for meaning in In places where it's not there You're just imposing meaning on things that aren't there. It's like the QAnon crowd So I've been on many searches for meaning. Why is 40 been on all these searches for meaning? A dominant feeling of powerlessness and a feeling of social exclusion That's why I've been searching for meaning So when your sense of meaning in life is threatened You'll likely have an increased belief in miracles and miraculous stories Do I think that women have sex with male strippers at bachelorette parties often? No, I don't think so not very often So when your sense of meaning in life is threatened It does not generally lead to a loss of meaning But it tends to trigger a search for meaning that increases one's belief in miracle stories. So I was listening to this great podcast on yoga gurus and it mentioned One guy who was a devotee of various schools of yoga and had an extensive collection of literature like you know of ancient yoga teachers And then he found this dead body in a river and he decided to cut it up And see if what is what the ancient wisdom had told him about how Bodies worked Whether that was true and he cut up this dead body and found that all the ancient wisdom that he'd been taught about Bodies was bogus. So then he went home and he took all the books of ancient Yoga wisdom and he just threw them out His life had been crushed So that's called an existential crisis or a spiritual crisis When your way of understanding the world is not sufficient to deal with reality So for one's effort after meaning To backfire It's not sufficient that you just experience a loss of meaning one needs to actively engage in a search for meaning So social exclusion Your your way of finding meaning and purpose in life has been diminished So you want and you don't feel in control of your life So you're going to go look for meaning looks to re-establish control and you're much more likely to find in conspiratorial and superstitious beliefs Then this is a study from princeton guys All right, so what you've got here got these three squares So This square is meaning search This square is exclusion. This square is conspiratorial beliefs and they all feed back on each other All right The chat is popping. Why do I think about remski saying most yoga teachers are from a showbiz background? I think he said the most successful Yoga teachers are from a showbiz background and that seems to ring true I spent like I spent 15 dollars for two of these pens And then I took one to work one day And it got taken Like like an eight dollar pen just got stolen boy Mr. Ford doesn't let let me call him Luke doesn't let me address him by his Hebrew name either Most liberals who buy into the official narrative don't exactly seem to be leading very meaningful lives Uh, most most liberals seem to Be doing okay as far as meaning like most liberals that I know are University educated in professional jobs earning six figures married with kids So the elite have become increasingly liberal and right wing politics has become increasingly proletarian working class How many cue cards do you think are part of your audience? Not sure Not sure Okay So I got a question for you. Have you discovered a satisfying life purpose? So press five if you have discovered a satisfying life purpose No, four if you moderately found a satisfying life purpose and press one if you're really lacking in A satisfying life purpose Uh press one if you feel socially excluded press five if you feel Press one if you feel socially included press five if you feel socially excluded All right, this is from Princeton And as all talks about the standardized regression coefficient between exclusion and conspiratorial beliefs and it was statistically significant As well as the regression coefficients between exclusion and meaning search and meaning search and conspiratorial beliefs Now when people feel socially excluded, they are more likely to endorse superstitious beliefs Because people want meaning So seeking meaning can often backfire and lead to erroneous judgments So social exclusion triggers conspiratorial thinking Which complicates efforts to dispel conspiracy theories in the general population because when you start embracing and espousing conspiracy theories people Will socially exclude you even more So social exclusion triggers an exclusion belief cycle that makes conspiracy theories impervious to change so the socially excluded endorse superstition and conspiracy Which leads to further exclusion and the cycle continues So the individual experiences social exclusion Then such as the like-minded individuals who further reinforce his conspiratorial beliefs until they become entrenched So when we socially exclude people for their conspiratorial wackiness We're likely to contribute to the entrenching of these beliefs So social exclusion Creates exclusionary environments which conspiracy theories and superstition are likely to flourish Which then further alienate vulnerable populations So we need to better understand the collective level processes that are responsible for the emergence and maintenance of conspiracy theories in larger communities Is the fact that the Pfizer vaccine is in clinical trials until 2023 a conspiracy theory? I don't know anything about it, but the coveted vaccines that are approved for use in the united states were extensively exhaustively tested And I think it's just ridiculous to think that there's somehow a significant threat to your to your health Am I saying that ramsey paul is wrong? I haven't kept up with uh with ramsey paul Ramsey paul says israel controls the united states. Is this true? No, that's that's nonsense so Israel punches above its weight in many parts of life okay, so The the coveted virus is continually mutating and changing So you have to continually adapt the influenza vaccine to a changing virus That's why you don't just get a flu shot once you have to have flu shots every year because influencers change and mutate So we're gonna likely need covet booster shots for For many many many years Start reading the newspapers and go directly to the source bro. I go directly to peer reviewed academic studies, bro The latest and greatest From the academy. That's what i'm all about Bye. Bye