WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.120 I'm not all here today, but I'm getting better. I guess this coffee 2 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:10.000 is home. Not what your country can do for you, ask what you 3 00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:17.480 can do for your country. Mister Gerbatcheff, tear down this wall, read 4 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:27.839 my lips. Either you're with us or you were with the terrorists. It's 5 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.679 the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilax. Rob Long is out 6 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:35.719 this weekend. We're going to talk to Peter Schweitzer about Chinese influence and David 7 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:40.840 Berlinsky about well you're just gonna have to listen, so let's rails a podcast. 8 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:45.320 So it's hard to believe that an expungeible gun charge in two misdemeanors is 9 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:50.159 what Hunter Biden gets. It's an intentional production by the DJ and my administration. 10 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:54.200 No one and known is above the law. Welcome everybody. It's the 11 00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:57.640 Ricochet Podcast. Number nine billion, seven and forty three million, six hundred 12 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:00.600 and forty two thousand. If you're keeping track now, just seems like that, 13 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:03.239 Actually no, it doesn't. It feels like number ten, number fifteen. 14 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:07.040 The spirit of adventure and newness is still in the air. As Peter 15 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:11.200 Robinson, who's been doing this is longer than I have steps up to the 16 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:15.920 mic once again with that fresh courage of a man who's willing to take on 17 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.680 the world and let the opinions fly and damn the consequences, right Peter, 18 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:23.680 Well, damn it anyway, No, damn it anyway. Yeah, we're 19 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.879 just saying before we start at the show, that you know, here we 20 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:29.319 are at the end of the week. I don't know when you're listening to 21 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.480 it, but chances are that the things, the objects, the fascinations, 22 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.680 the concerns that have churned through the American mind for the last week are probably 23 00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:46.439 as with us seeping out into sort of torpid state where we want to move 24 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:52.120 on. For example, the whole week everyone was concerned about the Titanic submersible, 25 00:01:52.280 --> 00:01:55.480 and now we know there's really nothing more to be said about it except 26 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:57.879 to home a few bars for those in peril at the sea and regret and 27 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:04.599 move on. Maybe you can talk about knock on things the way that some 28 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:10.439 people took this as a as an opportunity to let the world know what horrible 29 00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:17.280 people that they are. Ben Dreyfussy actor did a piece on his substack about 30 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:23.319 empathy and the basic human quality of and how these people who were taking just 31 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:28.039 absolute delight in the fact that there were rich people down there who were probably 32 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:30.360 lost, end or dead or are suffering was a good thing actually, and 33 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:37.759 that it is a sign of virtue to wish ill of those people and define 34 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:42.400 that their situation was almost a delight in some sort of cosmic sense. The 35 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:47.840 people who see things the explicitly and entirely through a title economic prism themselves are 36 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:53.759 are miserable, unhappy people who go about every day in a state of fury 37 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:57.120 because the world is not conforming to what they know to be the truth and 38 00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:00.120 the inevitability of things, and they have to get it out like this in 39 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:04.439 a way that is the most curious form of virtual signal signaling I can imagine. 40 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:07.039 I don't know if you saw a lot of this, Peter, But 41 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:10.800 is this new to our age as social media amplified it, or as social 42 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:15.759 media just allowed us to see that there are just rotten people out there and 43 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:23.639 they're always at man social What is there to say social media permitted people? 44 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.159 We don't we know, I haven't there's studies. I don't even know how 45 00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.120 you'd structure this study. But don't we know that being on social media is 46 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:36.919 like driving in your car, you James, mild mannered person that mild wealth 47 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.800 not mild mannered, is not right. But you wouldn't ordinarily, strolling down 48 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:46.360 the sidewalk flip the bird to a to someone no one else on the sidewalk 49 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:52.039 in the car. I have I have to say momentary anger. I have 50 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:58.599 said nasty things twitters like that. Is this is? This is this hatred 51 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:00.400 for the rich? Anything new? No envy is one of the seven Deadly 52 00:04:00.439 --> 00:04:04.400 sins? And do you think it stems from envy? Oh? Yeah, 53 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:09.520 for sure, for sure. It seems to me perfectly obvious. And this 54 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:12.759 last week was really really First of all, they missed the economic point. 55 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.439 They missed the story, and the story is that the richest man on that 56 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:19.519 submersible Hamish something or other can't recall. But as far as I can tell, 57 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:25.079 he was largely a self made man. So this is a man who 58 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:30.800 had gone through life creating enterprises, employing people, creating value of all kinds. 59 00:04:31.439 --> 00:04:36.519 He wasn't. He wasn't. He did not pull together his fortune from 60 00:04:36.600 --> 00:04:41.759 the from the sweat of the brow of oppressed peoples. It was a free 61 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:45.879 market economy in which he was operating. The second economic point, of course, 62 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:47.839 is that when rich people spend money on things that seemed frivolous to the 63 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:55.040 rest of us, they permit things to happen. Electric vehicles were originally just 64 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:59.199 it was a rich people around here in Silicon values started buying Tesla's. Now 65 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:01.920 they're a mass mark get commodity. On and on we go. So I 66 00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:05.920 don't know exactly what the future is of deep sea exploration, but that people 67 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:11.639 were paying a quarter of a million dollars a seat for the last some number 68 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:14.199 of years. I know. Bill Buckley was one of the very first who 69 00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:16.800 went down end up submersible and looked at the Titanic, wrote a marvelous piece 70 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:21.160 about it that all strikes me as admirable, and I'm waiting for you to 71 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:29.439 him the usual ode to the human spirit. So the other bit of this, 72 00:05:29.639 --> 00:05:32.800 I have to say, looking at the news this morning, and it 73 00:05:32.839 --> 00:05:38.560 now seems to be clear that something went wrong with that submersible. Very quickly 74 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:43.279 the Navy picked up the sound of an implosion. I read a couple of 75 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:46.120 pieces that if that is indeed what happens, and it now seems clear that 76 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:48.800 that is what happened, then death would have been instantaneous for everybody aboard. 77 00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:53.319 And I have to say, for me personally, that was a relief because 78 00:05:53.480 --> 00:06:00.439 even as all over Twitter people were mocking the five down below the surface, 79 00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:03.600 I was thinking to myself, I can't imagine a worse way to die, 80 00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:11.680 slow asphyxiation over ninety six hours, a mile and a half beneath the surface 81 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:16.839 of the ocean, total darkness. I just can't how, I just it's 82 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.279 a relief to me to know that it all happened instantly. I can't watch 83 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:26.800 videos of people spelunking, so I can't imagine putting myself in a situation where 84 00:06:26.800 --> 00:06:30.680 I hear I hear the seventeen bolts being being put in place to seal me 85 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:32.439 in the two before I'm dropped down at the Yankee depth. So no, 86 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:36.560 yes, right, no, you're absolutely correct. I mean, although when 87 00:06:36.639 --> 00:06:40.560 driving, I've never flipped anybody off. What I have done is have you 88 00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:44.040 never you? Okay, let the record show you are a better human what 89 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:47.360 everyone a better human being than I am. What I have done is given 90 00:06:47.399 --> 00:06:51.160 the Minnesota Midwestern equivalent of it, which is the raised hand, just a 91 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:55.759 raise head like like like what and I would if you're watching this on video, 92 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:59.120 of course you can see me making that distinctive gesture. But no, 93 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:02.879 you're right because as you are, you are ensconced in your own little intellectual 94 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:08.000 emotional bubble as you scroll through social media, ping, pogging, amongst a 95 00:07:08.040 --> 00:07:11.480 dozen different things that make you angry. And so when you land on something, 96 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:15.639 yes, you can bring all the full force of the peevishness that you've 97 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:17.439 brought from the other tweets into this one. It's not a pleasant place. 98 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:23.879 It has you know, it has a great boon, and I'm glad it's 99 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:27.439 there. It's revelatory in what it says about people. But you're right, 100 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:32.000 social media doesn't make kids happy. It doesn't that, so it's not you 101 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:35.319 know, could we do without it? I'm just I'm thinking back to the 102 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:39.000 way we were talking before the show started, and I know there's nothing more 103 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.439 compelling than telling people what we were talking about before the short started. But 104 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.639 we were talking about, Hey, I'm called in radio and somebody who's bemoaning 105 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:48.360 the fact that, well, when you know, when Reagan got rid of 106 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.199 the Fairness Doctor, and all of a sudden it's turned into hate radio, 107 00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:56.000 and all these crazy people started calling there was the same thing. It is 108 00:07:56.040 --> 00:08:00.480 nonsense, but there is the There was at the time the sort of notion 109 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:05.920 that opening up the airwaves to everybody allows you, allows these voices, allows 110 00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:09.360 these these these crazy people to say these things unmediated, and that conversation continues 111 00:08:09.399 --> 00:08:13.199 to this day where you have my own Senator Amy Klobuscher, who's who's being 112 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:18.959 very concerned about the layoffs at Meta and Twitter and the rest of it, 113 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:20.959 and whether or not they will be able to get in front of disinformation for 114 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.560 the next campaign. I'm just I'm looking at these people the same way we 115 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:28.439 looked at the people talking about the callers. Let me decide, let me 116 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:35.960 listen or read and figure out exactly so the idea and this is this big, 117 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:41.399 overarching, top down idea that has come about from you want to say 118 00:08:41.399 --> 00:08:48.960 the left, but it's probably our technocratic betters are handlers the idea that disinformation 119 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:52.799 is this great threat and that freedom of speech, while it may sound nice 120 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:58.679 and the abstract, certainly has to be constrained by the smart people or we're 121 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:03.080 going to get the wrong outcomes. And looking at Twitter this week, as 122 00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:07.240 people talked about this, it's like, you know, all this is sort 123 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:11.720 of emotional disinformation what they were saying about these people. But I'm still glad 124 00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:15.440 it's out there. Like I said, I'd rather I'd rather all the flowers, 125 00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:18.799 you know, all the poisons in the mud hatch out, as Robert 126 00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:22.639 Graves had Claudius say, right, I'm with you on that. I have 127 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:26.000 to say I'm also with you on I don't know. Every time I say 128 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:28.720 I'm shocked by something, you say, oh, come on, get with 129 00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:31.480 it. Maybe you should. Maybe it's acceptable to be shocked. You should 130 00:09:31.480 --> 00:09:35.039 have been shocked a decade ago. I was shocked a decade ago. But 131 00:09:35.080 --> 00:09:41.600 I'm still shocked at I don't know. How is it that I am i 132 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:48.840 the only person left who considers free speech the most important of our rights. 133 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:52.279 It seems like it sometimes. I just don't understand the way the country has 134 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:58.159 just let it go and again again again. I say it. Go right 135 00:09:58.200 --> 00:10:01.279 ahead, pile on me for continuing to be shocked. But that the mains 136 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:11.120 the journalists, their entire profession, the whole tradition in which they're working depends 137 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:15.399 upon freedom of speech, and they're the first to do the We now know, 138 00:10:15.919 --> 00:10:20.840 thanks to the work of Matt Tayyee, beyond others that the federal government, 139 00:10:22.279 --> 00:10:28.320 agency after agency after agency was telling Twitter and Facebook take that downtake, 140 00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:33.080 that downtake, that down, and when they didn't do it, the federal 141 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:35.879 agency would leak to the New York Times or other members of the press, 142 00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:39.600 and the reporters would call and say, are you taking this down? Because 143 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:43.559 if it doesn't go down, there's going to be a story. Journalists at 144 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:52.919 major and formerly honorable institutions permitted themselves to become knowingly to become instruments of censorship. 145 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:56.600 I am in justice staggered by this instruments of the state in order to 146 00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:01.919 do the right thing exactly exactly. The younger crop of journalists do not believe, 147 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:05.480 and they speak sarcastically of what about. You know, both sides is 148 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:09.559 um If one side is illegitimate and destructive, there's no point in giving it. 149 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:13.120 If the planet is going to die because of climate change or climate crisis, 150 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:20.919 then both sides is hastening the decline the demise of us all. So 151 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:24.200 it is actually injurious to the body politics to get to let the other side 152 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:28.240 seem to have the same amount of weight and merit as the other. That's 153 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:31.679 part of the problem. But that's another podcast. This podcast is going to 154 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:35.840 be as current as is possible because we're going to talk about well, we're 155 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:41.480 going to talk with Peter Schweizer, founder of the Governmental Accountability Institute, is 156 00:11:41.480 --> 00:11:43.879 the host of the Drill Down podcast and the author of Clinton Cash, Secret 157 00:11:43.919 --> 00:11:50.360 Empires, Profiles and Corruption, and most recently of Red Handed. Welcome Peter, 158 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:54.799 Thanks for joining us in the podcast. So Peter found out this week 159 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:58.320 that Hunter Biden, you know, that fellow who left the laptop and which 160 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:03.679 was of course the subject of Russian information. I think, so he pled 161 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:07.639 guilty federal tax misdemeanors and he struck a deal to resolve a federal gun charge. 162 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:09.960 Gosha. That was sweet or was it? They say he got a 163 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:16.879 sweet heart deal? Is that so? Absolutely no question about it. Sweetheart 164 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:20.399 deal on a couple levels. Number one, the level of a criminal activity 165 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.080 that he agreed to, in other words, really what he was engaged in, 166 00:12:24.120 --> 00:12:30.279 his felony tax evasion. That's what these whistleblowers are I think, showing 167 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.440 and demonstrating and arguing, but also in terms of what was not in that 168 00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:39.720 agreement. It seems pretty clear that the US attorney in Delaware wanted a charge 169 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:46.759 Hunter Biden with felony violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act Farah, that was 170 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:48.759 not allowed to proceed by the Department of Justice. So it was a sweetheart 171 00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:54.080 deal on multiple levels for Hunter Biden. And I think that this issue is 172 00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:58.440 only going to further unspool. And let's remember, this pleagree is subject to 173 00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:03.919 the approved full of a judge during sentencing. That judge is a Trump appointee, 174 00:13:05.440 --> 00:13:07.879 and in light of the revelations of these irs whistleblowers, I'm not so 175 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:13.600 sure that judge is going to go along. The judge may refuse to accept 176 00:13:13.639 --> 00:13:18.000 the plea agreement. Yes, yeah, the judge has that option. Peter, 177 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:20.919 we are old friends. I want to disclose that as if it's I'm 178 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:24.120 actually I'm not disclosed. I'm boasting about it. I know, Peter Schweitzer, 179 00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:26.600 I want to get to red handed in a moment, of course, 180 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:28.840 I want to talk about this topic the other topic. But you know what 181 00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:33.360 I want to do is just say thanks, because you're doing what a lot 182 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:37.639 of people used to do but almost nobody does anymore, and that is called 183 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:45.519 journalism. You are a genuine investigative reporter. You go after big stories, 184 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.120 and you dig, and you dig and you dig. And since we are 185 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:54.759 long past the days when the Washington Post or the New York Times will publish 186 00:13:54.440 --> 00:14:00.840 big stories that tend to reflect badly on members of the establishment, you publish 187 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:05.480 these as books. You go on. So truly I want to say thank 188 00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:11.960 you. And the other thing I want to ask is is there are we 189 00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:20.320 now at the stage at which we can feel confident that an alternative business model 190 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:26.000 for journalism real journalism has emerged. That is to say, we now have 191 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:31.759 our own Fox News. Peter Schweitzer, you're heading something called the Government Accountability 192 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:35.519 Institute. I'd like you to tell us about that. But can we now 193 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:41.799 feel confident a that our side of each story is going to get out, 194 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:46.360 but also that real journalism will continue. I think of you, and I 195 00:14:46.399 --> 00:14:50.120 think of Matt Taiebi, although I'd be willing to bet that you never voted 196 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:54.519 the same way in either of your lives. But he's now said, wait 197 00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:58.399 a minute. The whole journalistic enterprises I used to know it is gone and 198 00:14:58.440 --> 00:15:05.440 he's setting up himself. So can we relax? You have people figured out 199 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:09.960 a new model or are you still struggling. That's a great question. And 200 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.159 it's always great to be with you. Peter. I don't think that we've 201 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:18.120 quite got the model yet, and that's not because we don't have great people. 202 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:22.919 I think Matt does fantastic journalism. Michael Schellenberger is great journalism. It's 203 00:15:22.960 --> 00:15:26.679 it's it's a combination of things. Number One, you have to have the 204 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:33.000 resources for these deep investigative dives. It takes a lot of time and a 205 00:15:33.039 --> 00:15:37.799 lot of money. News organizations, mainstream media news organizations used to have it. 206 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:41.399 That has dwindled. But at the same time, you've seen this ideological 207 00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:46.240 tilt you talk we were talking about this earlier among journalists, where you know, 208 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:50.919 Donald Trump is an existential threat or climate change is an existential threat, 209 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:54.440 so we're going to do tilted stories because we're saving the planet, right, 210 00:15:54.759 --> 00:16:02.039 those two trends. I think that the sort of showing how the journalists are 211 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:06.000 biased and only showing one side of the story has emerged. You still have 212 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:10.759 the resource problem. I mean, you know, we exposed the Biden deals 213 00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:17.639 in China in twenty eighteen. I had seven researchers working full time. Did 214 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.399 you really for ten months to uncover that story? We're a five to one 215 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:26.639 c three we get donations. The point being we found that story because there 216 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:32.039 was a Chinese social media website that had pictures of Hunter Biden's standing with the 217 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:37.759 equivalent in China of the head of Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, 218 00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:41.720 the Treasury Secretary in twenty eleven, and I was thinking, what is 219 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:45.039 going on here? It takes a lot of time and money to unschool very 220 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:48.759 complex stories, and I don't think we have the resources to do that yet. 221 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:52.279 But if I can interject you, I mean, I work for a 222 00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:55.799 newspaper, a pretty solidly staffed in newspaper, and yeah, we're not going 223 00:16:55.840 --> 00:16:59.519 to do that story because we're concentrated here on our home state. But the 224 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.080 New York Time Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal have 225 00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:04.839 the resources to do that. And if the New York Times and you know, 226 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:08.519 the Washington Post does that story, it will be amplified through the wire 227 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:14.119 services to willing papers elsewhere. So it's it's resources, yes, but it's 228 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:17.799 also desire. I mean, as we saw m MPR came out right away 229 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:21.279 and said we're not going to handle the laptop story because obviously this is just 230 00:17:21.319 --> 00:17:26.000 all you nonsense. Something for which they've never been brought to account. So 231 00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:27.880 it's a choice. I mean resources, yes, but it is a choice. 232 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:33.559 And the problem with that is that that since so the mainstream journals aren't 233 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.759 doing it, it's easier to delegitimize guys like you because you're seen as being 234 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:44.039 partisan hacks who come to this with bushels and axe handles and in the agendas 235 00:17:44.039 --> 00:17:47.599 to grind. No. I think you're right, it's it's resource. The 236 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:52.359 resources exist in these mainstream media outlets. They don't want to cover these stories. 237 00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:56.240 When I first covered the Bidens and exposed it in twenty eighteen in China, 238 00:17:56.319 --> 00:18:00.799 I actually had a very nice launch with a with a very experience seasoned 239 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:04.480 a well known reporter for the New York Times who covers China and other issues. 240 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:10.319 And in that book in twenty eighteen, I had you profile exposing things 241 00:18:10.319 --> 00:18:14.759 related to Mitch McConnell's family and their ties to China, as well as the 242 00:18:14.839 --> 00:18:18.720 Bidens. They followed up with a story on Mitch McConnell. The New York 243 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:22.480 Times did themselves sort of standing on the shoulders of my work, which is 244 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:26.240 fine, which is great. That reporter told me in twenty eighteen. If 245 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:30.359 Joe Biden runs for president, we are absolutely going to cover this story. 246 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:34.480 They never did. They never did. I don't think it's because he didn't 247 00:18:34.519 --> 00:18:38.599 want to cover it. I think it's because the editorial leadership did not want 248 00:18:38.599 --> 00:18:41.279 to cover it. So, yeah, they don't. They don't have a 249 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:45.039 desire to cover these stories. But honestly, what they are doing is they 250 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.559 are completely trashing their brands. If you look at if you look a Pew 251 00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:55.160 research you know that looks at trust in American institutions, Congress is at nineteen 252 00:18:55.240 --> 00:18:57.960 percent, it's the lowest. Right next to them at twenty one percent, 253 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:04.319 is the media. They are destroying their brands by selectively reporting what they're choosing 254 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:07.559 to cover and what they're not covering, And it's only going to get worse, 255 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:12.839 and they're only damaging themselves because they can't muscle these stories anymore. Precisely 256 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:17.519 because of what Peter said, You've got these alternatives that are putting this stuff 257 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:23.200 out. Okay, two red handed? Then, Peter, how did I 258 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:27.160 was about to say what attracted you to this story? But in you've already 259 00:19:27.160 --> 00:19:30.960 made clear that in a certain sense, this is a story you've been covering 260 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.880 for years. Give us, well, let's sell some books. Give us 261 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:41.079 one or two of the most arresting revelations. What's the book about. Just 262 00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:44.680 give us, let's just let's just take it through and give listeners are not 263 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:48.240 they'll be hearing about this for the first time. What is the book about. 264 00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:52.279 Give us one or two really arresting findings red handed? I mean, 265 00:19:52.279 --> 00:20:00.240 the subtitle is you know how Americans get rich helping China win? And so 266 00:20:00.279 --> 00:20:04.680 it focuses on Washington d Silicon Valley in Wall Street and just three quick illustrations. 267 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:08.160 When it comes to the Bidens based on the laptop, the Bidens have 268 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:14.519 received thirty one million dollars from four Chinese businessmen who are named in the laptop, 269 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:18.720 who are named in the book, and all four of those businessmen who 270 00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:23.240 transferred money to the Bidens with no services or anything given in return for that 271 00:20:23.319 --> 00:20:27.720 money. All of those businessmen have links to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence. 272 00:20:29.119 --> 00:20:30.599 One of them, at the same time he set up the Bidens in 273 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:34.640 a twenty million dollars deal, was at the same time business partners with a 274 00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:40.880 Vice Minister for State Security in China. All of them have that profile. 275 00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:45.359 So the Biden money in my mind is not just about corruption. It's about 276 00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:51.759 compromont, it's about espionage, it's about possible recruitment. Go to Silicon Valley. 277 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:57.000 The biggest, most talented companies in Silicon Valley are aiding and abetting China 278 00:20:57.640 --> 00:21:03.240 in its military words to exploit artificial intelligence. They know it's going on. 279 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:12.640 They've helped those companies in China that are developing these military technologies enhanced their capabilities. 280 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:19.839 Microsoft, Facebook, or Meta and Elon Musk regularly say very favorable things 281 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:25.160 about China because they want access to the China market. And then go to 282 00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:29.799 All Street and you can find the same thing, inglorious things that are being 283 00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:34.519 said by major hitters on Wall Street who are prostrating themselves let's be honest about 284 00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:40.720 this and saying wonderful things about China in exchange for access to the market. 285 00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:42.400 So that's really what the book is about. And if you look at the 286 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:48.359 front cover, you can see the collection of individuals that we expose in the 287 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:56.079 book. If you know this, the FBI does or should know it, 288 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:02.799 The National Security Agency does or should know, the CIA does or should know 289 00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:08.039 it, And the New York Times and the Washington Post do or should know 290 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:14.559 it. Why is only Peter Schweitzer writing about this? Well, good question. 291 00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:17.400 I know the FBI knows about it, and I can say this now 292 00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:21.920 because the New York Times ran a piece about it. The FBI knows about 293 00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:27.039 it because the FBI has been in communication with me on a myriad of research 294 00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:33.240 projects going back to twenty fifteen, and we're always happy to cooperate with law 295 00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:40.359 enforcement. What's interesting is the New York Times story was basically saying the FBI 296 00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:45.519 is relying on people like Peter Schweitzer rather than checking the veracity of what was 297 00:22:45.559 --> 00:22:48.279 being reported. So the FBI knows about this, I think a lot of 298 00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:52.279 government agencies know about it. The New York Times and the Washington Post know 299 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:56.400 about it. They choose not to cover it. And part of the reason 300 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.839 we don't get a lot of action in Washington on this cap hill we're getting 301 00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:07.720 some movement is you, frankly, have some powerful Republicans that benefit commercially mightily 302 00:23:07.279 --> 00:23:11.559 from their relationships with China, and they're over a barrel. I mean, 303 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:15.480 as I talk about in the book, Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine 304 00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:19.200 Choo. The Chow family has a shipping business. The ships are all built 305 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:23.359 by Chinese state owned companies. The construction of these ships, it's hundreds of 306 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:29.480 millions of dollars, are financed by Chinese state banks. The crews that manned 307 00:23:29.559 --> 00:23:33.559 these ships are all recruited from China, and the contracts that they have to 308 00:23:33.720 --> 00:23:38.759 ship goods on these big vessels across the Pacific come from Chinese state owned enterprises. 309 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.920 If Mitch McConnell does something that ticks off China, they can destroy the 310 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.200 Chow family business overnight, and that's the kind of leverage that China wants over 311 00:23:49.279 --> 00:23:56.200 its political opponents. Peter out here in Silicon Valley where I live, I 312 00:23:56.319 --> 00:24:00.440 couldn't. I'm not going to name name is because nobody this is the kind 313 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:07.200 of talk that takes place among friends. Name any one of the big operations 314 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:15.400 out here, and they all employ a lot of Chinese, some are Chinese 315 00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:22.039 nationals, some are Chinese Americans, and the general feeling is it's hopeless, 316 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:29.480 meaning we can either do business. We can either code and work on our 317 00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:34.359 next product, or we can run our own intel operation and try to make 318 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:38.160 sure that whatever we develop doesn't get to Beijing. But we can't do both 319 00:24:38.759 --> 00:24:47.079 because we have so many Chinese employees that it is simply taken for granted that 320 00:24:47.160 --> 00:24:52.200 when a major innovation takes place, it gets flipped over to Beijing pretty quickly. 321 00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:57.079 Now, in one sense that's chilling, but in another sense, you 322 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:03.119 just describe the kind of actual reality that people are dealing with here. All 323 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:08.279 of these operations that we're describing are publicly listed companies. They have fiduciary responsibilities 324 00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:17.559 to their shareholders. They are in competitive marketplaces, they must continue to innovate. 325 00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:22.240 And so the question, I mean, the first impulse is to say, 326 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.519 well, they're just not good Americans. But on the other hand, 327 00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:29.160 you say, wait a minute, when did it become their job. Where 328 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:33.079 is the United States government? It's up to them. It's up to the 329 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:41.920 federal government to enforce certain rules on all actors, so that making sure that 330 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:48.119 your fundamental security measures get put in place within companies becomes a fundamental way of 331 00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:53.839 doing business across the competitive space. I don't know. So there's a premise 332 00:25:53.880 --> 00:26:00.839 there, which is that in some sense it's hopeless that in some sense these 333 00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:03.400 people are in business. They have to do business. And then maybe really 334 00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:07.400 it's the federal government that's falling failing here. Attack any of those if you 335 00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:10.720 want to, what do you make of that that is in the air out 336 00:26:10.759 --> 00:26:14.880 here. That's a kind of stand standard conversation. Yeah, no, and 337 00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:17.920 I think there's there's some truth to that. What I would say is, 338 00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:22.960 yes, we cannot totally disengage from China, but we should at least make 339 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:26.079 it harder for them. So I'll give you an example. Yes, Google 340 00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:32.359 has Chinese employees. You could argue Google needs Chinese employees because we don't have 341 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:37.200 the STEM talent in the United States. But that's different than Google funding literally 342 00:26:37.359 --> 00:26:45.079 funding and sponsoring research facilities for artificial intelligence in China that are controlled by the 343 00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:49.279 Chinese military. It seems to me that is something on a order of magnitude, 344 00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:56.720 you know, exponentially worse than recognizing you're going to have certain employees in 345 00:26:56.799 --> 00:27:00.559 your company and they may you may engage in intellectual property that So that's kind 346 00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:06.240 of what I'm talking about. And I think it's really incompany upon shareholders and 347 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:11.400 consumers in the United States to effectively shame these companies, you know, to 348 00:27:12.039 --> 00:27:18.200 make clear that this is a problem, that you're subsidizing our enemy and we 349 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:22.119 don't want you to do it. The federal government has been lax here. 350 00:27:22.759 --> 00:27:26.759 But I also think that you know, it's high time that we hold some 351 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:30.759 of these companies into account. They're certainly concerned about their posture on other, 352 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:34.359 let's say, social issues. I would think this is one we need to 353 00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.160 make sure that they're being clear on as well. Last question, Peter, 354 00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:42.000 doesn't matter if you look at China demographically, they're going to suffer collapse. 355 00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:48.480 They have a huge amount of debt and an economy based on a real estate 356 00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:53.000 bubble that is popping and popping and popping and being refilled and popping and popping. 357 00:27:55.119 --> 00:27:56.200 In the long run, of course, we're all did But in the 358 00:27:56.200 --> 00:28:00.680 long run, really do we have to worry that much about China? Or 359 00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:03.519 can we just shit it out and let them fall apart? Well, the 360 00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:07.559 question really a minute, it's a great question. The question really comes down 361 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:15.000 to what do you think President ge or the man that follows President Gees posture 362 00:28:15.079 --> 00:28:17.799 is going to be given the realities they face. Is it going to make 363 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:21.400 him more aggressive or is it going to make them softer towards the West? 364 00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:26.519 All indications with ge since twenty twelve is that it has made him harder, 365 00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:30.759 It has made him more aggressive, it's made him more desperate. That's what 366 00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:33.839 I think we need to be concerned about, and we also need to realize 367 00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:36.720 this is sort of the subject the research I'm working on right now and the 368 00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:40.039 next book is in a lot of respects, it's not a question of whether 369 00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:42.559 we're going to be at war with China. I would contend China's already at 370 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:47.759 war with the United States. Their involvement with Fentonel, the things that they 371 00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:52.720 did during COVID to exascerbate the body count of American dying, other things that 372 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:57.000 they are doing, so they kind of view their posture already at war with 373 00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:02.359 the United States. They're serious casualties, I would argue, in the millions 374 00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:07.160 that have died as a result of China's policies, that's the present reality. 375 00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:11.160 I don't think we have the comfort of looking twenty five thirty years down the 376 00:29:11.240 --> 00:29:15.480 road because of these trans as you correctly point out, are against China. 377 00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.680 I don't have the comfort of looking thirty five years down the road. The 378 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:26.599 two of you may Peter Schweitzer from the Governmental Accountability Institute, the books that 379 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:30.400 are Clinton Cash, Secret, Empire's Profile and Corruption, and most recently Red 380 00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:32.920 Handed, We like to have you back again soon. There's so much to 381 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:34.480 talk about, and thanks for joining us here in the podcast today. Peter 382 00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:41.319 Peter Schweitzer, one of the best working journalists in the country get red Handed. 383 00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:48.440 Thanks guys to kill Peter. And now we pivot to the philosophical, 384 00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:52.880 theisophical, to different matters entirely than we were talking about before. And we 385 00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:57.279 aren't honored to have with us. David Berlinski, Senior Fellow the Discovery Institute's 386 00:29:57.359 --> 00:30:03.319 Center for Science and Culture, the author of Deniable Darwin, The Devil's Delusion, 387 00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:07.640 Human Nature, and just out this month, Science After Babbel. David, 388 00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:11.680 welcome. I was reading an excerpt of your book today, and what 389 00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:15.279 are the lines that struck me and I copied it down, was that talking 390 00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:21.680 about science and the constellations are lack thereof of science. Talking about the arid 391 00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:26.359 nature of the things we are discussing, you said, there remains a curious 392 00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:33.400 fact that no one much likes what everyone accepts. I found that interesting that 393 00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:37.799 we are in this world of scientism, that we are in this world where 394 00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:44.880 we had erected this edifice of knowledge, but it hasn't brought in anybody happiness 395 00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:48.839 as a matter of fact, the more the more it comes out with what 396 00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:55.240 you regard as outlandish ideas be unhappier. Our viewer of ourselves in the world, 397 00:30:55.519 --> 00:30:57.680 in the universe seems to be So, why is it? Why why 398 00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:00.039 do we all just trust the science? I guess I should ask you, 399 00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:07.839 Well, I don't know that we all trust the science. We just find 400 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:12.920 ourselves in a world in which we are obliged to accept certain features of the 401 00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:21.599 world which are clearly the user fructs of the scientific system of belief. We 402 00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:26.759 don't have much choice with respect to many of those artifacts. Telephonies, the 403 00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:33.960 food system, habitation, sanitation, all of those are just given to us, 404 00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:37.920 and as givens we have to accept it. So our margin of choices 405 00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:45.960 relatively narrow. When I remark or remark that none of us much likes this 406 00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:49.759 system of belief, it's not for the technological benefitiis from may or may not 407 00:31:49.880 --> 00:31:56.720 be particularly satisfactory. It's for the underlying vision of what it means to be 408 00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:01.039 a human being in a human universe that I'm speaking. And it seems to 409 00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:07.200 me that without a great deal of careful reflection on the part of the scientific 410 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:13.799 community, it has nonetheless given us a certain perspective that as we occupy a 411 00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:17.559 minor planet in the Solar System, we are of no cosmic significance whatsoever. 412 00:32:17.640 --> 00:32:22.519 There's nothing particularly remarkable about human life. It's a continuity with animal life, 413 00:32:22.519 --> 00:32:28.400 and animal life with an accident. There's no intrinsic meaning, purpose, dignity, 414 00:32:28.519 --> 00:32:34.960 or teleology associated with human life. Religious beliefs completely arbitrary and lacking in 415 00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:39.759 all credibility as far as we can see. The ultimate constituents of reality, 416 00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:46.160 so speaks the scientific community, are things like quantum fields erupting every now and 417 00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:52.519 then into some shower of particles. And that's about it. Now, it's 418 00:32:52.519 --> 00:32:59.160 perfectly obvious why most people don't consider that a particularly attractive world view. But 419 00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:01.799 there is any way. That is a worldview. It's a dominant worldview. 420 00:33:01.799 --> 00:33:08.440 It's a very pervasive worldview, and it's a worldview that's not all that easy 421 00:33:08.519 --> 00:33:16.160 to rebut and yet rebutted. David Berlinski does do in his book Science After 422 00:33:16.839 --> 00:33:23.559 Babbel. David, may, I tell you why you're just an execrable human 423 00:33:23.599 --> 00:33:28.680 being for having the temerity to write such a book and offer such arguments. 424 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:35.359 Here's why, Because we know better. We know what religion leads to. 425 00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:40.880 We've been through the wars of religion. It was only science, only the 426 00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:47.839 discovery and steady application of the scientific method, of empiricism, of trial and 427 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:57.559 error, of serious engagement with reality around us, that got us out of 428 00:33:57.599 --> 00:34:05.160 our heads, out of useless, unprovable speculation on how many angels can dance 429 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.199 on the head of a pin, that enabled us to climb out of poverty, 430 00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:14.800 that gave us the industrial revolution that is now giving us gave us the 431 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:20.679 communications revolution that's now giving us a green a world of green energy, and 432 00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:25.079 that has imposed a certain peace that has let us get along together in a 433 00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:34.440 pluralistic way by putting religion and this whole dark age of human thought in a 434 00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:40.119 box where it belongs and giving us science instead. And this is the existential 435 00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:45.840 We speak to you in Paris. Paris is the city of camu and sac. 436 00:34:46.119 --> 00:34:51.280 If it is the case that we are alone in a vast universe, 437 00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:54.639 that life has no meaning except the meaning that we impute to it, well, 438 00:34:54.679 --> 00:35:00.440 then welcome to existentialism. Great minds have been there all ready in the 439 00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:02.159 twentieth century. That is just we just are going to have to learn to 440 00:35:02.199 --> 00:35:08.039 live with reality, be brave, embrace it, and don't try to knock 441 00:35:08.079 --> 00:35:15.960 it down, to which David Berlinski responds, how all that sounds good to 442 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:21.719 me, at least the first forty seconds of your remark. If you stop 443 00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:24.039 after forty seconds, yeah, if you could point me in the direction of 444 00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:30.320 where I would find the Enlightenment in its full flower, I would at least 445 00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:34.000 consider leaving my apartment and going there. But as far as I can, 446 00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:40.199 sitting where I am in my apartments in Europe, the Enlightenment is about as 447 00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:45.800 far from contemporary concerns as it has always been. It seems to be even 448 00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:52.719 on the contrary that the Enlightenment has proven itself feckless and incompetent in the face 449 00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:57.519 of twentieth century of horrors, and it seems to be doing no better in 450 00:35:57.559 --> 00:36:02.159 the face of twenty first century. But more to the point that we had 451 00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:09.159 been offered on the part of the scientific establishment in the late twenty is not 452 00:36:09.320 --> 00:36:15.159 embracing manly confrontation with the reality. But across the border with is prawl from 453 00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:23.039 the reality. And I think that withdrawl, the melancholing law withdrawing row is 454 00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:29.239 the overwhelming fact of the scientific enterprise in the twenty four century. Every sense 455 00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:38.159 of reality is now trembling because there's a very cold wind blowing. The Enlightenment 456 00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:42.960 ideal, which is really a Greek ideal, that we can know the world 457 00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:45.960 as it really is, seems very fragile. No, we can't really know 458 00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:50.360 the world as it is. What we can know of various theories, very 459 00:36:50.440 --> 00:36:54.119 various perception. Look, all of our social life today is consumed with the 460 00:36:54.239 --> 00:37:01.400 idea that the believer proposition is exactly what is meant by knowing that proposition. 461 00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:07.960 That's what the phrase so often used, my truth really comes to the standard 462 00:37:08.039 --> 00:37:15.400 for epistemological commitment now is not knowledge but belief interconviction. That's not a confrontation 463 00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:22.039 with theology. That's a withdrawal from reality. Every sense that the stertal world 464 00:37:22.119 --> 00:37:29.800 imposes constraints on human cognition, that's proven to be very flabby. Look at 465 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:35.519 the chat GPT. Interact with chat GPT, and it's a remarkable technological achievement, 466 00:37:35.599 --> 00:37:39.079 no doubt, and interacting with it is very constructive, very salutary. 467 00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:45.920 Look, the thing hallucinates, It says things which are not so it's a 468 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:50.719 form of intelligence. I think it's a prophetic form of intelligence, because that 469 00:37:50.920 --> 00:37:54.920 is where we are headed to a universe in which what is imagined, believed, 470 00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:01.880 conjecture, construe has epistemological promise over what is known and what is true. 471 00:38:02.760 --> 00:38:07.320 It's no hallucinating, it's just behaving the way we're all going to behave 472 00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:12.400 in fifty years. I don't know where to start to start to pull out 473 00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:17.719 questions from from the remarkable answers. I mean, we can know the world 474 00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:22.760 in a sense I know that if I bang my head against that wall, 475 00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:24.800 it will hurt. I know that if I slam my hand on that door 476 00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:29.119 over there, it will be a similar sensation. I also know that there 477 00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:34.599 are things that I do not see that birds and bugs see because they are 478 00:38:34.639 --> 00:38:37.800 looking at the world through different wavelengths and for different purposes. But we can 479 00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:42.039 all agree on a certain number of things that exist, that are true, 480 00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:45.559 that are solid, that are right. That's the whole. That's the whole. 481 00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:52.320 But what we have now is in the absence of a dominating idea with 482 00:38:52.400 --> 00:38:59.559 such gravity that everything revolves around it, we have instead just a kaleidoscope of 483 00:38:59.599 --> 00:39:02.280 individual constellations in which everybody has their own beliefs and they're all equally valid, 484 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:07.000 and we have nothing uniting us except for the belief that all beliefs are valid. 485 00:39:07.760 --> 00:39:12.480 If I'm summing up correctly, what you have to say, The question 486 00:39:12.599 --> 00:39:15.519 isn't how do we get back to a central organizing principle again, because that 487 00:39:15.559 --> 00:39:20.639 could be a very bad central organizing principle. How do we get back to 488 00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:25.840 a good one? And is it possible in these days where identity and information 489 00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:32.320 and knowledge and belief is so prismatically scattered that there's no hope of gathering it 490 00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:37.679 back into a single shaft of light. Again, If that sounds like a 491 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:39.440 sort of question that makes any sense, what do we do? I guess, 492 00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:45.039 well, I don't know what we are going to do. I'm going 493 00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:50.079 to finish my cigar. Well, let me ask chat GPT. What is 494 00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:53.039 David Berlinski going to do? But here's the point. Everything you just said 495 00:39:54.159 --> 00:40:00.360 it is common sensical the people with a certain kind of education, position, 496 00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:06.960 certain background. But this was accommodated in the eighteenth century by Bishop Barker, 497 00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:13.679 who said, to be is to be perceived. There's nothing else. You 498 00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:17.480 bang your hand on a door, you can dismiss the door as an external 499 00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:23.000 object and savor or regret the pain that has just been induced in your hand. 500 00:40:24.119 --> 00:40:29.599 Einstein had the same discussion with proponents of quantum theory. I had forgot 501 00:40:29.639 --> 00:40:32.559 who he asked, Heisenberg or Niels bought. Do you really believe that when 502 00:40:32.599 --> 00:40:37.320 I'm not looking at the moon it disappears There's no such to which the obvious 503 00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:45.079 answer from Barkley's position, from any idealist position, any solipsis position, is 504 00:40:45.159 --> 00:40:49.039 yes, there is no such thing as the external object. There are only 505 00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:53.400 ideas in your mind or in the mind of God. Interesting, interesting way 506 00:40:53.400 --> 00:40:58.000 to present that. When I was in graduate school in the mid nineteen sixties, 507 00:40:58.039 --> 00:41:01.719 the philosopher to which everyone repaired was Unan, and after yun Count and 508 00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:07.480 then after Count the twentieth century critical analysts Burton Russell all the way to Plant. 509 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:12.639 I would bet that the philosophers who are being read avidly now in the 510 00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:20.079 graduate schools not un but Barkley, not Count but Hagel, and following Barkley 511 00:41:20.199 --> 00:41:24.400 and Hagel, all the old forgotten British idealists. Because we are clearly living 512 00:41:24.400 --> 00:41:31.880 in a time bordering on the form of collective solipcism. The fact that when 513 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:37.719 I smack my hand on my own table, I feel something my hand is 514 00:41:37.800 --> 00:41:40.920 undoubted. We all agree to that. But the further inference that there's a 515 00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:49.079 system of permanently existing objects beyond the ken of my senses can be denied, 516 00:41:49.239 --> 00:41:53.440 and it has very consistently been denied by Barkley. For example, to be 517 00:41:53.639 --> 00:41:59.880 is to be perceived, its replaced in the twenty first century by the apathem. 518 00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:04.719 To be is to be believed, and even more notable, to be 519 00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:08.760 is to be believed by a great many people. That increases the strength of 520 00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:14.480 conviction which we can bring to bear on a belief. Something that Botley has 521 00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:20.000 changed, and the way we look at these issues David Boswell's Life of Johnson, 522 00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:24.639 Sir, how do you refute Bishop Berkeley? And I refute them? 523 00:42:24.679 --> 00:42:29.079 Thus he kicked the stone? Because that convince you. After what I've just 524 00:42:29.159 --> 00:42:32.480 said, it convinces me. But that's because I start in a certain position 525 00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:36.519 in the first place, to which I now come. You have named this 526 00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:42.840 book science after Babel. You're going to tell us in a moment quite what 527 00:42:42.920 --> 00:42:45.880 you mean by that, But I can't help observing it's in the title, 528 00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:50.400 and it's in you, and you and I have known each other a while 529 00:42:50.519 --> 00:42:58.719 now that not only are you totally conversant with all the philosophers of the twentieth 530 00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:05.920 century, the mathematical under the only man I know who really understands quantum mechanics, 531 00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:10.400 I mean, really understands it. Here you are putting right into the 532 00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:21.440 title an allusion to the Hebrew Scriptures, which means what you take this late 533 00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:29.719 Bronze Age early Modern period book collection of scriptures? Seriously? You think there 534 00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:32.840 is wisdom to be found there relevant to us today. I know better than 535 00:43:32.880 --> 00:43:36.320 to say, David, do you believe in God? Because I've tried that 536 00:43:36.360 --> 00:43:42.400 before and it's gotten me nowhere. Why is Babbel in the title? Well, 537 00:43:42.400 --> 00:43:45.400 there are two reasons. One you pointed out yourself. It's a magnificent 538 00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:50.159 biblical story. It's pregnant story. It's also the something to the Great painting 539 00:43:50.239 --> 00:43:54.039 by Peter Bordal. Yes, I think, I'm not sure. I'm looking 540 00:43:54.039 --> 00:43:55.920 for a copy of mile. I don't know where it is, but I 541 00:43:55.920 --> 00:44:00.519 think there's a copy of the painting on the book cover. The statement, 542 00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:09.159 but it's an ambiguous title. The story of the Tower Babbles, the story 543 00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:15.519 of the extent to which the arrogance of architects. Architects building a tower to 544 00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:22.800 reach the heavens was confounded by God because he divided their tongues so they could 545 00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:27.760 no longer successfully communicate. And that's in the picture too, because you can 546 00:44:27.800 --> 00:44:32.840 see looking at the picture that there's enormous squat tower is incoherent. I like 547 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:39.800 that image. I like the story because even though it makes a point about 548 00:44:39.840 --> 00:44:46.280 the incoherence of the architecture, the fact visible in front of your eyes remains 549 00:44:46.719 --> 00:44:52.519 the tower is still selling that architects or no architects. I think that's the 550 00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:57.679 real meaning of the title. We are clearly in a position where we had 551 00:44:58.039 --> 00:45:01.760 begun to examine the scien. We've worked with three centuries incredible songs that we've 552 00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:07.199 worked with three centuries with an eye to consistency, coherence, and further development. 553 00:45:07.639 --> 00:45:13.159 Discovered that there are places of info inherence. But we on the outside, 554 00:45:13.159 --> 00:45:16.480 and I'm certainly on the outside, nonetheless, are obliged to admit that 555 00:45:16.519 --> 00:45:22.800 this great power is still standard despite any any math versions I many I could 556 00:45:22.800 --> 00:45:28.880 express, And it can be finished if people get together, solve the language 557 00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:31.599 problem, learning one another's tongues, work out a way to do it. 558 00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:37.559 But now Unfortunately, where we are today, we have the very notions of 559 00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:45.719 empiricism are being eroded by this, this insistence on personal truth, on my 560 00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:50.880 truth, because all of the things that undergird the ability to construct the tower, 561 00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:57.360 things like just basic mechanics, things like math, are being held up 562 00:45:57.400 --> 00:46:05.800 as products of a of an errant, evil civilization, with colonialism and racism 563 00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:07.119 and everything else baked right into the bones of it. I mean, it's 564 00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:10.199 critical race theories, as you have to demolish all of these institutions in order 565 00:46:10.239 --> 00:46:15.079 to create the one that will bring about the utopia, So you can't even 566 00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:17.880 the tower may stand, but we look at it like dumb apes goddling, 567 00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:25.519 because we will end up without the skills to begin construction. Anew, I 568 00:46:25.559 --> 00:46:30.320 agree with you. I agree with you completely. I don't look forward to 569 00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:36.559 aher army. The best of circumstances in which languages are suddenly reconciled and the 570 00:46:37.119 --> 00:46:42.239 development of the science since taking place between the sixteen and the twentieth century once 571 00:46:42.280 --> 00:46:45.199 again proceeds on upload, something new will happen. I think something new is 572 00:46:45.239 --> 00:46:50.039 happening right now on artificial intelligence. That's a separate discussion. But I agree 573 00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:54.920 with you that they're real and serious threats to the integrity not only of the 574 00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:02.039 scientific establishment, but of intellectual itself. Our ability clearly and predicting the reason 575 00:47:02.079 --> 00:47:13.039 about anything is compromised when some sense of the superiority of certain ways of addressing 576 00:47:13.079 --> 00:47:20.719 issues is dismissed from consideration in favor of rather squalid political deals in which every 577 00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:24.480 identity boot in society is represented in proportion to its numbers, so that at 578 00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:30.480 the Institute for Advanced Study, if you're proposed to study the latest developments in 579 00:47:30.639 --> 00:47:37.400 quantum field theory, at least two percent of your professorship must be composed of 580 00:47:37.480 --> 00:47:43.599 Swiss Chinese lesbians. That is a recipe for disaster. Everybody understands that. 581 00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:45.519 Everybody knows it, everyone's afraid of it, and no one can do a 582 00:47:45.559 --> 00:47:49.440 blessed thing about it. That is a fact of life. It's not a 583 00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:52.679 fact if everybody, it's a fact of life. Anyone, whether any form 584 00:47:52.719 --> 00:47:59.079 of organized intellectual life is going to survive the present moment of collective solecism. 585 00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:02.639 It's very difficult to answer. But all that being said, and I agree 586 00:48:02.639 --> 00:48:08.000 with you completely on the shrewdness of your political analysis. You must not forget 587 00:48:08.199 --> 00:48:20.000 that every squalid movement in contemporary life can be traced back intellectually to philosophical or 588 00:48:20.039 --> 00:48:25.800 mathematical or physical principles that are much deeper than the squalidness of the present day 589 00:48:25.920 --> 00:48:35.000 would indicate compromising with truth, for example, drawing back from empiricism, these 590 00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:39.199 are not simply matters of identity quality. They have their roots and philosophical and 591 00:48:39.320 --> 00:48:45.599 mathematical developments of the nineteen filities, and that should be that should be acknowledged. 592 00:48:45.639 --> 00:48:50.639 It's not a trivial phenomena in your faces, it's a very deep It 593 00:48:50.679 --> 00:48:53.159 has its trivial aspects. I'm the first one to make fun of it, 594 00:48:53.239 --> 00:48:58.760 but it has its much more significant expense as well. We know certain things 595 00:48:58.880 --> 00:49:04.719 now in the fashion of no go theorems in physics, that is to say, 596 00:49:04.800 --> 00:49:08.559 we know certain things are just not possible when we want to speak of 597 00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:15.119 the truth. We know there is no terminal point. We consistently and continuously 598 00:49:15.159 --> 00:49:20.280 we will be forced to move to evermore expansive definitions. And that's just a 599 00:49:20.360 --> 00:49:28.159 fact of logic. And there are many, many other similar considerations that could 600 00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:32.920 be adduced. It's not the fact that all progress in mathematics and philosophy leads 601 00:49:32.920 --> 00:49:36.719 in the direction we would like it to lead. Sometimes it leads in the 602 00:49:36.760 --> 00:49:39.920 reverse direction. And that's happened in the twentieth century. The fact that quantum 603 00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:45.239 mechanics is not support naive and criticism. Nobody wanted that, nobody expected it, 604 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:51.039 but it doesn't. And that's just a fact. We're talking with David 605 00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:58.360 Berlinski, philosopher and mathematician whose new book is Science After Babel, and if 606 00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:05.320 you are like me and unlike David, you will need to savor Science after 607 00:50:05.400 --> 00:50:12.000 Babel, page by page by page. David, here's we have to talk 608 00:50:12.039 --> 00:50:15.079 more. We just have to. But here's here's a question, a kind 609 00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:22.239 of closing question from me for now, recognizing that it's morning over here for 610 00:50:22.360 --> 00:50:25.280 us, and James and I have commitments, and it's evening over there for 611 00:50:25.400 --> 00:50:29.480 you, and you'd like to I got all the time in the world you 612 00:50:29.719 --> 00:50:30.440 have, Okay, I was about to say, you want to you want 613 00:50:30.440 --> 00:50:35.599 a NEGRONI to go with that cigar? All right? So we have been 614 00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:40.400 through an episode in this country and in the West generally, but of COVID, 615 00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:49.360 of public health officials standing on the science, the science, the science, 616 00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:55.559 using that, using the science to justify a certain political well, I 617 00:50:55.639 --> 00:51:01.760 think it was just ham fistedness, but to shut down opposition. And so 618 00:51:02.079 --> 00:51:08.039 this is in mind you seem you being you. Of course, there are 619 00:51:08.079 --> 00:51:14.960 many arguments taking place at many different levels. But are you arguing in science 620 00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:22.920 after Babbel, that we have been untrue to the scientific project, that we 621 00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:29.039 have failed to treat science as science, that during the COVID lockdown, for 622 00:51:29.079 --> 00:51:36.480 example, even as Burke said, a thousand knights should have sprung to the 623 00:51:36.559 --> 00:51:42.440 defense of the Queen of Marie Antoinette of France, a thousand scientists should have 624 00:51:42.440 --> 00:51:46.280 sprung up to say to Fauci, no, no, no, there's still 625 00:51:46.320 --> 00:51:51.519 debate over this and over this and over this, and you should use some 626 00:51:51.599 --> 00:51:55.119 of your budget of billions to set up rapid tests, in other words, 627 00:51:55.159 --> 00:52:01.039 to pursue the science. Or are you making the argument that at this stage 628 00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:07.199 of the game, one of the many things we now know about science is 629 00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:15.199 that it is in and of itself limited, that, far from giving us 630 00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:21.519 the sword with which we can slash every Gordian knot that stands between us and 631 00:52:22.239 --> 00:52:29.119 a deep understanding of reality, it's a limited tool. It can slash some 632 00:52:29.199 --> 00:52:34.360 knots, but not others. I guess what I'm asking, And of course, 633 00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:37.280 by comparison with whatever you're about to say, it's a crude question. 634 00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:42.119 Are you saying more science, but we must be true to science, we 635 00:52:42.679 --> 00:52:49.119 have permitted ourselves to misunderstand it. Or are you saying the whole scientific project 636 00:52:49.840 --> 00:52:55.719 became infused with a grand kind of pomposity and science is isself very limited? 637 00:53:01.440 --> 00:53:07.039 Can I adopt both positions simultaneous, sho being you? Of course, look 638 00:53:07.079 --> 00:53:10.679 the one thing I have to remind you of yours. I was not in 639 00:53:10.719 --> 00:53:15.760 the United States during COVID. I was in France, and I think experiences 640 00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:21.679 as between France and I say, in retrospect then look rather different. There 641 00:53:21.800 --> 00:53:28.159 is no comparable movement in France attacking French health officials, for example, in 642 00:53:28.199 --> 00:53:31.559 the way that Fauci is being attacked. And I'm not even sure what the 643 00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:35.880 what the graverman of the attack is. That's how far away I am from 644 00:53:35.960 --> 00:53:39.880 current affairs in the United States. But apparently he made some serious mistakes with 645 00:53:39.920 --> 00:53:46.679 respect to masking, with respect to school shutdowns exactly the masking school shutdowns, 646 00:53:47.480 --> 00:53:52.039 and I forgot there was there was really nothing comparable. I think there was 647 00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:58.039 a fairly widespread, indeed sense of admiration in France for the way health officials 648 00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:02.480 actually managed the pandemic. In the end, everybody agrees that the French government 649 00:54:02.519 --> 00:54:07.039 blundered very badly in the first two or three months. They didn't take the 650 00:54:07.159 --> 00:54:12.320 lesson of Italy very seriously. There was slow to respond, and people were 651 00:54:12.440 --> 00:54:15.079 horrified to discover that they had no masks, that they had never bothered to 652 00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:20.440 stock up in masks. The mask program ended in two thousand and eight or 653 00:54:20.440 --> 00:54:24.320 something like that, but thereafter I think the government very successfully rebounded. It 654 00:54:25.199 --> 00:54:30.400 did launch a program of vaccination which continues to this day. It did obtain 655 00:54:31.039 --> 00:54:37.599 I think something like eight vaccinal coverage. I can't say it was a triumph 656 00:54:37.679 --> 00:54:45.360 because too many people died, but in certain respects it was France's public system 657 00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:51.199 at its best. So I really can't comment on I do know that Fauci 658 00:54:51.320 --> 00:54:55.719 seems to have played an extremely dishonorable role with respect to the origins of the 659 00:54:55.800 --> 00:55:00.800 COVID virus in Uhan, and that I know from the inside, because I 660 00:55:00.920 --> 00:55:06.519 published pieces and influence about that, and I know about the calls that he 661 00:55:06.599 --> 00:55:09.880 made, and I know about his efforts to gain a unanimity of opinion with 662 00:55:10.119 --> 00:55:15.360 respect to the impossibility of a laboratory. But I gather that's not really what 663 00:55:15.400 --> 00:55:20.880 you are talking about. Well, even setting fout to your side, are 664 00:55:20.880 --> 00:55:24.639 you saying we need to Our problem today is that we have misunderstood what science 665 00:55:24.679 --> 00:55:29.639 can and cannot do, and we need to return to a true understanding of 666 00:55:29.639 --> 00:55:32.440 science and back it. We need more science, but we need to understand 667 00:55:32.440 --> 00:55:37.280 it properly. Or are you saying, ladies and gentlemen, after three hundred 668 00:55:37.360 --> 00:55:43.079 years of this, science has an announcement to make. It can only do 669 00:55:43.239 --> 00:55:50.880 so much, and we must while remaining true and appreciating these staggering goods that 670 00:55:50.920 --> 00:55:55.400 science has given us. If we wish meaning in life, if we wish 671 00:55:55.440 --> 00:56:00.559 to pursue the deepest philosophical questions that we've been working on for the last couple 672 00:56:00.599 --> 00:56:05.199 of thousand years, we're going to have to We're going to have to accept 673 00:56:05.280 --> 00:56:09.320 the limits on science and turn to other means. Is that closer to the 674 00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:15.159 argument in science after babble? Well, I think it's a reasonable argument. 675 00:56:15.519 --> 00:56:19.639 To the extent that it's reasonable. I hope I've made it for sure. 676 00:56:19.800 --> 00:56:23.320 There are many areas of life. Perhaps the most important areas where none of 677 00:56:23.320 --> 00:56:30.559 the great theories really is helpfully instruct or certainly not quantum field theory. Where 678 00:56:30.599 --> 00:56:34.480 it comes to the aching questions of life and death, meaning, significance, 679 00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:40.320 the inference to something beyond our brief human existence. None of these questions are 680 00:56:40.360 --> 00:56:45.039 touched on by quantum field theory or the lang Lands program in mathematics, or 681 00:56:45.079 --> 00:56:50.559 anything else. What we get from the science, since our glimpses of a 682 00:56:50.719 --> 00:56:54.880 more ordered structural laws sharing in thot ways of world, that's something else. 683 00:56:55.639 --> 00:57:00.519 That's a benefit. It's the same benefit we get from looking at work art 684 00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:06.199 But in terms of science as its practice today, it seems to me there 685 00:57:06.360 --> 00:57:13.599 is a farm or dangerous than eubristic sense of limit less possibilities than there was 686 00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:19.599 Sage fifty years ago. After all, the introduction of artificial intelligence is not 687 00:57:19.719 --> 00:57:24.599 supposed to end with a system that roughly mimits human intelligence. It's supposed to 688 00:57:24.679 --> 00:57:31.280 introduce us to an inferior of ever superior intelligence in his own minds, and 689 00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:37.679 that's a program of unlimited ambition. The same thing is true of various attempts 690 00:57:37.679 --> 00:57:45.000 in Silicon Valley and beyond to merge consciousness into a computer system or to promote 691 00:57:45.199 --> 00:57:51.960 various absurdain im dissolution personally republican transhumanist schemes. They all participate in the same 692 00:57:52.039 --> 00:57:58.400 desire to push boundaries away and march well beyond the boundaries we thought we had 693 00:57:58.400 --> 00:58:00.519 the opposed. So no, I don't. I don't think the message is 694 00:58:00.559 --> 00:58:05.960 that the scientific community itself is discovering them. It never will, it never 695 00:58:06.079 --> 00:58:09.719 has. The question is, and it's a it's a real philosophic as well 696 00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:15.039 as the scientific question. Are there those limits? Is everything that's not forbidden 697 00:58:15.079 --> 00:58:20.880 by the laws of physics actually possible? And it possible desirable? Those are 698 00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:24.159 very significant questions. I didn't have an answer, but I think they should 699 00:58:24.199 --> 00:58:31.639 be asked. Well. To Peter's point, there has been there's never been 700 00:58:31.679 --> 00:58:35.280 a time in American culture where there hasn't been a desire for some sort of 701 00:58:35.280 --> 00:58:38.400 spirituality. They just don't like Christianity because it's what their parents made them go 702 00:58:38.440 --> 00:58:42.679 to when they were kids in the hand to where itchy church pants and being 703 00:58:42.719 --> 00:58:45.599 a place to smell the old candles. They didn't like it, and so 704 00:58:45.639 --> 00:58:50.360 they came accurrent They fell for every single little idiotic, newfangled or imported idea 705 00:58:50.360 --> 00:58:52.960 that came along. So there's always been a desire for some sort of spirituality. 706 00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:58.679 It's a question of whether we have something that can can can meet the 707 00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:01.000 challenges that the new era of science is providing. When you say that there 708 00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:07.480 are no boundaries there, that there's a sense of a desire for more and 709 00:59:07.639 --> 00:59:14.440 more, almost theological forms of science that pause with these strange, these strange 710 00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:19.400 quantum ideas that the brain really can't wrap itself around, and but maybe are 711 00:59:19.400 --> 00:59:22.039 true when you need to find out, etc. Etc. It brings me 712 00:59:22.039 --> 00:59:25.480 back to the one thing I've never been able to grasp in my gut and 713 00:59:25.599 --> 00:59:30.599 head at the same time, and that's dark matter. I'm sure there's a 714 00:59:30.800 --> 00:59:34.280 perfectly good reason for it, and that there are people who can explain it 715 00:59:34.320 --> 00:59:38.360 to me, but it almost seems religious in its desire for we can't explain 716 00:59:38.519 --> 00:59:42.199 this part about the universe, so we're going to make up a thing that 717 00:59:42.280 --> 00:59:45.679 explains it. And what I love about this whole theory is that it comes 718 00:59:45.679 --> 00:59:50.519 down to two views of human of humanity, of our of our destiny. 719 00:59:50.960 --> 00:59:53.239 If there are a sufficient mass in the universe, at some point, expansion 720 00:59:53.360 --> 01:00:00.400 stops and it contracts back down into that singular singularity, into that infinitely hot, 721 01:00:00.400 --> 01:00:02.000 dense point. Then it explodes and starts the whole thing again. And 722 01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:07.639 the whole universe is a series of this back and forth, almost like respiration. 723 01:00:07.239 --> 01:00:09.800 And we're in one form of the breath now the other. If there 724 01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:14.159 isn't sufficient mass to bring the universepect together, is heat death or the end 725 01:00:14.199 --> 01:00:17.360 of the universe is every single particle separated by hundreds of billions of light years, 726 01:00:17.760 --> 01:00:22.000 which is a bleak thing. And there are some people who find solace 727 01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:27.320 in heat death. And there are some people who find solace the people, 728 01:00:27.559 --> 01:00:31.599 the people who believe that, who believe that there is that humanity itself is 729 01:00:31.679 --> 01:00:38.639 a is a uniquely loathsome thing of virus in the universe. Lots of those 730 01:00:38.840 --> 01:00:44.239 nuts around, But they always believe that getting rid of humanity, you might 731 01:00:44.360 --> 01:00:49.599 promote the welfare, say of cows. I don't want to confront them with 732 01:00:49.639 --> 01:00:54.960 a prospect of an omnivorous heat that destroys everything. Everybody rebels against that, 733 01:00:55.079 --> 01:01:00.800 scruples at that. But the idea of the multiverse that's equally repugnant, isn't 734 01:01:00.800 --> 01:01:05.519 it. Imagine clambering to the edge of space and time only to find your 735 01:01:05.559 --> 01:01:09.480 double on the other side of the fence, pursuing some inane course of correction 736 01:01:09.559 --> 01:01:14.880 in your own life, and having all sorts of philosophical problems about which is 737 01:01:14.920 --> 01:01:19.440 the real you. I think I prefer the heat death to that. I 738 01:01:19.480 --> 01:01:22.719 would like to argue about the multiverse with you, and we probably already are 739 01:01:22.760 --> 01:01:24.000 in some other multiverse, but we're gonna have to get to that in another 740 01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:29.880 show. You're gonna have to come back because um, there is so much 741 01:01:30.440 --> 01:01:34.880 to be found in what you say that it just takes me and I'm gonna 742 01:01:34.880 --> 01:01:37.639 go back and listen to this and regret all the things that I've never asked 743 01:01:37.679 --> 01:01:40.159 and h and feel stupid for the questions that I did. In the meantime, 744 01:01:40.239 --> 01:01:49.480 however, day you know that one is exactly I know that's that's that's 745 01:01:49.559 --> 01:01:52.679 exactly it. In any case, we enview you, Envy you, your 746 01:01:52.760 --> 01:01:57.480 cigar, your view of the city. Almost done. It's a metaphor for 747 01:01:57.519 --> 01:02:00.199 the show, right right, right right. That's so, buy an extra 748 01:02:00.280 --> 01:02:05.280 long Romeo and Juliet next time and we'll have at it again. The book 749 01:02:05.320 --> 01:02:08.000 is Science after Babble, and we're going to have you on again. We 750 01:02:08.119 --> 01:02:13.039 vow it, we we pledge it, we demand it. David Berlinsky in 751 01:02:13.079 --> 01:02:15.000 Paris joining us on the Ricochet podcast. What a pleasure, sir, good 752 01:02:15.079 --> 01:02:19.440 night, good night. Thanks very much for having me, David, thank 753 01:02:19.480 --> 01:02:23.880 you so much. Zike has done both of you. You know, this 754 01:02:23.960 --> 01:02:27.840 is the point of the podcast where you usually tell people that they can meet 755 01:02:27.920 --> 01:02:32.679 up in real space and have a meeting. But I think we should have 756 01:02:32.719 --> 01:02:37.639 a Paris Ricochet meetup. I don't know how we're going to figure it out, 757 01:02:37.639 --> 01:02:42.039 but I think we should, and we should all find some extraordinary restaurant, 758 01:02:42.679 --> 01:02:45.440 complete with French beers and snails and the rest of it, and invite 759 01:02:45.480 --> 01:02:49.079 David and just pepper him with questions for the entire evening, because I have 760 01:02:49.119 --> 01:02:54.119 the feeling that fellow is inclined to a philosophical conversation of an unstinting nature, 761 01:02:54.239 --> 01:03:00.679 and that would be a good idea, right Peter, Oh, I have 762 01:03:00.599 --> 01:03:07.559 have I have experienced essentially unstinted, Yes, unstinted, two cigars, several 763 01:03:07.599 --> 01:03:15.719 negrones. Talking with David is one of the great I was about to call 764 01:03:15.760 --> 01:03:19.360 it mind blowing, which is a kind of banality from what the nineteen sixties, 765 01:03:19.719 --> 01:03:23.079 but it does really feel almost as though after you do, you know, 766 01:03:23.199 --> 01:03:27.920 there's some people it's almost the definition of a bore that you feel less 767 01:03:28.000 --> 01:03:30.239 alive after talking to him, David. It's the other way around. Not 768 01:03:30.320 --> 01:03:32.639 only do you feel more alive, but you feel as though, in some 769 01:03:32.679 --> 01:03:37.440 basic way you're your brain is actually bigger inside your skull, that he has 770 01:03:37.519 --> 01:03:42.960 somehow expanded your way, the very way in which you look at at at 771 01:03:43.159 --> 01:03:45.880 anyway. Well, he drives me to bad radio. Good radio is where 772 01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:49.519 you come back immediately with a question. There's no dead air. You gotta 773 01:03:49.519 --> 01:03:53.199 be you just yes, you move along, and if you're trained in radio 774 01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:57.559 or trained as a guest, you have the ability to start speaking even if 775 01:03:57.599 --> 01:04:00.679 you do not know what you're going to say exactly. It just comes with 776 01:04:00.719 --> 01:04:03.440 the profession telling me with David, I would I would take that paragraph and 777 01:04:03.440 --> 01:04:08.800 I download it, and I'd pick it apart, and I would I would 778 01:04:08.800 --> 01:04:13.480 be comfortable with forty five forty five seconds of dead air, which is an 779 01:04:13.519 --> 01:04:16.280 eternity trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to say what I wanted to 780 01:04:16.320 --> 01:04:19.599 say and not make a fool of myself for saying it. So that's absolutely 781 01:04:19.639 --> 01:04:23.840 fun and I cannot imagine adding alcohol to the max. But we're going to 782 01:04:23.880 --> 01:04:26.400 have to leave that for some other day. Like I say in the in 783 01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:30.639 the multiverse, we're already doing this in Paris and we're on our third NEGRONI. 784 01:04:30.199 --> 01:04:34.119 So what more can we say than that, Peter? Can we know? 785 01:04:34.880 --> 01:04:38.480 We want to tell you. By the way, this podcast was brought 786 01:04:38.480 --> 01:04:42.119 to you by us and by all the wonderful folks you've heard about in the 787 01:04:42.159 --> 01:04:45.199 interstitials, and of course by ricochet dot com. Support us by supporting ricochet 788 01:04:45.239 --> 01:04:50.159 dot com, go to ricochet dot com, slash join jo I n and 789 01:04:50.280 --> 01:04:56.800 become part of what some are saying is the last remaining sane sliver of the 790 01:04:56.800 --> 01:04:59.760 Internet. And there are days when I doubt that, But there's never a 791 01:04:59.840 --> 01:05:02.079 day where I dont hit Ricochet four or five times just to see what's new. 792 01:05:02.639 --> 01:05:06.559 Peter, Um, that's it Rob? Next week, I hope, 793 01:05:06.599 --> 01:05:09.320 or Charlie or somebody. We don't know what happened? Do we know? 794 01:05:09.480 --> 01:05:13.280 Do we know what happened to Rob? We don't know what happened. Actually, 795 01:05:13.480 --> 01:05:16.039 wait, isn't he how bizarre? Right? Curse? Isn't he in 796 01:05:16.079 --> 01:05:19.320 Europe? He may be in Paris at this very moment. It would have 797 01:05:19.320 --> 01:05:24.719 been great if he just wandered into the frame there exactly playing accord, like 798 01:05:24.760 --> 01:05:28.639 a clown of money Python. But that would for all we know. He 799 01:05:28.880 --> 01:05:30.559 you know, that says exactly what he is doing. He was sitting in 800 01:05:30.639 --> 01:05:34.320 the other room, just biding his time. All right, that's it, 801 01:05:34.360 --> 01:05:38.880 we're done, we're good. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet four 802 01:05:39.760 --> 01:05:48.280 as the main pusche and maybe now we Ricochet joined the conversation