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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
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- [01:15]
Robbie Bernstein
I'm doing well, Mr. Smith. How about yourself?
- [01:18]
Dave Smith
Very good, Very good. It's a. It's a beautiful day outside. It feels like spring is finally here. Rob, I think it's going to be 80 degrees today, so I'm gonna have to trade in this hoodie for a T shirt after this podcast and go.
- [01:32]
Robbie Bernstein
Tits and sunbathe, baby.
- [01:33]
Dave Smith
There you go. Now there's a. There's a visual for you. All right. Okay, so let's, let's jump into this today. You know, I was. Full disclosure, I was a little conflicted about whether or not to even do a response to. To this, but I decided Twitter beef will go unsquashed. Well, you know, look, I do. I. I feel like I, you know, I. At the risk of I don't want to beat some of these topics to death, but at the same time, you know, when somebody's make. When somebody's specifically making content about you and it's being viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, there does, you know, there. There's a feeling of, like, well, I should respond to this, especially when I think they're making very bad arguments, shockingly bad arguments, I would say. And, you know, look, I mean, this. This debate is just. It's been huge. It's really been unbelievable to me that it just has not stopped. Like, I kind of thought it would be like a few Days of being crazy. But it is just there were a couple weeks later, and it is still just, you know, really crazy, the response to it. And anyway, so the video. I'm going to respond to Constantin Kissin's video. He, We've tweeted back and forth many times over the years at each other, but recently, this morning, he, he irked me a little bit with something he said. So I was like, all right, you know what? Maybe it makes sense to do a response to this. He certainly seems to want to jump in to the conversation, so let's do it. I, as, as I've said before many times, I, I, I claim the right to respond when I am criticized. And so this is, I'll be exercising that right today, I do think, and I'll be obliged. Yes. Well, look, I mean, me, me and Constantine, I think, have, you know, I don't remember every interaction, but I think we've done a pretty good job of remaining civil while going back and forth and disagreeing on things. It seems to me like over the last couple of times he's tweeted at me that that civility is, is little bit. I'm, you know, like, I always am. I'm, I'm. My starting point is always like, let's talk about the ideas. Let's debate the issues. But if you want to be insulting and vicious, it's like, okay, I'll, I'll do that too, if that's what you want. I'll kind of try. I'm going to try my best not to do that in this episode. He did tweet at me something this morning about how he's always said I was very intelligent, but now he's beginning to question that or something like that. And it's just, you know, with all of these things, it's like, look, I get into sparring with people and I'm on Twitter and I do, you know, Internet debates and stuff. And so I've been a part of all of this. The truth is that I really do care about the issues that I'm talking about, and I just find them to be much more interested. Like, I don't give a what Constantin, what Constantin thinks of my intelligence. Like, who cares? It's just the most uninteresting and unimportant thing. Anyway, what I do care about is some of the ideas that he is presenting here. So he made a. Well, he wrote an article and that this is how he does it. He, like, writes articles and then he reads them. So we'll, we'll go through the video because that's a better, more enjoyable way to do it for podcast listeners. So let's jump into it. This was Constantin Kasin's take on the debate between me and Douglas Murray. And he did, excuse me playing there, he did say, which was interesting, that this is his most read article ever. And, you know, probably just because it was, you know, you have a debate on Joe Rogan, there's just not that many debates on Joe Rogan's show, and it's the biggest show, and we had, you know, two big names debating about the most contentious issue. So it makes sense to me that this would be a, you know, a widely read article. All right, let's. Sorry. Go ahead, Natalie, you can play it.
- [05:50]
Constantin Kissin
Prepare for the unprecedented I'm about to admit I was wrong. For years I've celebrated the rise of new media and its impact on our ability to seek truth, challenge false narratives peddled by legacy institutions, and transform the way we conduct our public debate. The rationale behind my thought process seemed solid. After all, the medium is the message. The reason I thought our conversations about politics, culture, and entertainment had become so fake was the rapidly shrinking sound bite and a media elite more interested in winning than learning. Journalism, academia, and politics merged into a monoculture whose consensus rested primarily on the vigorous inhalation of gases emanating from their own backsides into which they'd firmly inserted their heads. I don't know anyone who voted for Trump, was their mantra. Far from being a confession of ignorance and a lack of perspective, this phrase was uttered with pride at dinner parties to signal membership of the elite class. The response from this contingent to the sequential dismantling of their core assumptions about the way the world works was an attempt to use credentialism to make reality go away. Experts think vaccinating newborns against Covid is essential now. Pipe down, mask up, and follow the science. In decades past, absent the ability to make their voices heard, the proles would have had to grumble away about Big Pharma in obscurity, as people, mostly hippie lefties, had been doing for ages. But thanks to the technological revolution, which reduced the cost of running a major broadcasting channel from millions of dollars to the price of a smartphone, the era of gatekeeping was well and truly over. The discredited mainstream media continued to peddle lie after lie in an attempt to keep its political opponents from governing and being re elected. But it then faced a powerful counterweight. Elon Musk ended the regime of censorship and enforcement bias in the digital public square Of Twitter declaring you are the media now. As major podcasts and YouTube shows secured audiences most mainstream media outlets can now only dream of. By the time of the last year's presidential election in America, the rise of new media had become undeniable, with many rightly calling it the podcast election. Curious, open minded, inquisitive podcasters, unrestrained by the need to comply with corporate media, message discipline and social media censorship, were finally able to speak freely, seek the truth, and debate controversial ideas in good faith in front of grateful audiences of millions. Okay, so far so wonderful.
- [08:19]
Dave Smith
We could pause it right there. I could not agree more with the so far so wonderful point. So this is, I mean, I think a pretty good start that me and you, Rob, would probably largely agree with. I mean, I do think to some degree he's still, he's underselling exactly how corrupt and evil the old media guard was. But more or less, that's, I think what he's starting with there is exactly right. And it's exactly the type of stuff that we've been saying for a long time on this show. There's, there's just no question that this is what's happened. You know, I mean, the, the corporate media lost all of their trust. They were you, they were lying and weaponizing these lies for to maintain power. It got to a point where everyone saw through it and now people are pursuing alternate voices. I guess the only thing in there that I kind of disagree with is that there was never, you know, when he says the era of gatekeeping was finally over, well, that's not exactly ever true. It's never the case that there's no gatekeeping, you know what I'm saying? Like there's always, it's just became a much more decentralized group of gatekeepers, but there's still always going to be some voices who get in and some voices who don't. Every show, no matter what the show is, that they get to choose who they have on and who they don't have on. It's just that you don't get to gatekeep in the same way. So like let's say, for example, you're talking about the idea of vaccines. Well, the pharmaceutical companies, with their somewhat significant influence over the corporate media, can gatekeep voices like Bobby Kennedy from ever getting on there. But if Joe Rogan wants to have Bobby Kennedy on, there's nothing they could do about it. The same can also be said for the military industrial complex. I mean, if you turn on CNN or MSNBC or Fox News you are hearing from former CIA director, former Pentagon employee, former director of national intelligence. But you're not hearing voices like whether left or right. You're just not hearing the people who are outside of that or very rarely hearing the people who are outside of that establishment. But now Tucker Carlson gets to decide it's not up to some suit in a corporation somewhere. It's up to the guy who's built the trust with his audience, like it or not. So anyway, that would just be my, my only bit of critique there. But a good start from Konstantin Kassin. Seems, it seems like he, we've got a great bit of content here. He gets it. We'll see. Any thoughts on any of this, Rob?
- [11:02]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, I'm looking forward to the pivot to hey, but there's this one thing that's just too important for people to be allowed to have freedom, but not Israel.
- [11:11]
Dave Smith
Everything else is fine, just not, whoa, we got wars to fight here.
- [11:15]
Robbie Bernstein
And that's different than when you heard that pitch from people that wanted to tell you that about global warming. And that's different than when you heard it about COVID And it's different when you heard it countless other times. But this one is actually so important that we can't allow for that freedom thing because people are getting it wrong.
- [11:33]
Dave Smith
There you go. Okay, let's keep playing.
- [11:38]
Constantin Kissin
Well, what could go wrong with democratizing information? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot. Just as the assumptions of the elite class were proved wrong by the actions of their fellow citizens during the era of Trump, Brexit and Covid, the assumptions some of us held about the future of the media are now crumbling before our very eyes. With politics becoming the primary form of entertainment in Western society. More of us now get our news and opinions from entertainers rather than serious commentators. And just as importantly, we often struggle to tell the difference between the two. Now, having transitioned from a career in comedy to my current role as writer, interviewer and political commentator, I can hardly complain about the meshing of culture, politics and entertainment. And I am not complaining. I'm merely pointing out that the incentive structures and thought patterns we would typically associate with the entertainment business are not the same as those we would expect to see in journalism and academia. This difference was perfectly illustrated in the recent debate between journalist and author Douglas Murray and comedian and podcaster Dave Smith on the Joe Rogan Experience, the world's biggest podcast. Officially, the full three hour discussion was mostly about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, with Smith being in the so called anti war camp and Murray Being a supporter of both Israel's campaign to eliminate Hamas and Ukraine's struggle to retain its sovereignty and independence. These conflicts and both men's positions have been debated endlessly. That part of the discussion is less relevant here. The much more interesting fault lines were exposed on the fringes of the debate. The conversation began with the.
- [13:16]
Dave Smith
That's a mighty convenient approach to have. It's a mighty convenient. Sorry, go ahead.
- [13:23]
Robbie Bernstein
Bulk of the conversation or the substance of it?
- [13:26]
Dave Smith
Like, I mean it's, it's wild to me how many people who want to find a way to defend Douglas Murray in this debate, which just on so many levels to me seems to be like a crazy losing game. Like, I just like, why would you want to go down with this sinking shit? But okay, but really to just brush away, forget about any of the content of the debate, eh, that's been debated before. Well, okay, but like there's two wars raging on right now. You know, again, as I've made the point before, I often call what's going on in Gaza a war. Not really sure that's the appropriate name for it. But no, I am sorry. Especially if you're going to be talking about like journalistic standards and the difference between entertainers and commentators, which again, as, as Constantin admits himself, he's essentially the same thing I am. I mean, I guess he doesn't still do comedy. I still do comedy, but he's a guy talking about issues that he cares about on a podcast who is not an expert in any of these areas. But it is off. Isn't it awfully convenient how there could be so much discussed and written about, you know, like the, the my standards or my lack of expertise or all of this. And none of them ever want to do is point to like they've got these five things wrong. Douglas Murray demonstrated his expertise in this point. It's never that. And in fact he just openly imagine like starting your review of a debate and then openly going, hey, I'm not so interested in the debate that. Forget that part, but how about the other part? Like we're. Whatever. I. We'll see what he's about to say here. But it is just. I don't know, I do find it incredibly revealing that anybody would. Would be giving their take writing their most read article on a debate and just totally take a backdoor out of the substance of any of the debate. I, I don't know, it's. It's very strange. It's. Oh man, this is my most, my most read article I've ever Written. It was about the Lakers, Knicks game last night. But forget about the game. Let's just talk about the halftime show or whatever. It's just very bizarre to me. But all right.
- [15:50]
Robbie Bernstein
And do they have a specific credentialing system that they'd like to speak to for who would be qualified to be a commentator on these issues? Because feel like if you took our track record against Rachel Maddow, we probably have a better track record of better political analysis about basically everything from the time that I've been on this podcast. So we'll be back to just if MSNBC platform someone is. Are they endorsing Rachel Maddow right now and saying that that's the kind of expert class that we should be listening to or what. What is there some sort of a test people are supposed to take? And what test would be better than the track record of commentary and the legacy of getting things right than you and I have? So I'm curious to know in this discussion of that, we need to go back to some sort of a credentialing standard. What specifically is the standard that they're advocating for? And then give me, give me the specific names who are supposed to be the voices of reason or where are they supposed to have come from that they now have the standard of a stamp of approval? What is what.
- [16:50]
Dave Smith
No, we can't just. Rob, you can't just have podcasters talking about these things. Says a podcaster. I mean, there's no problem having Dave Rubin and Bill Maher talk about them. We need experts all. But, like, they're supposed to be experts. No, no, no. What this all is is just a naked, like, I don't like that they disagree with me. I don't like the people who are critical of Israel or critical of Ukraine. I don't like them getting platformed. Essentially, what's happening here, and this is just the fact, right, is that our side is winning. We're winning the battle on the podcast front. And yes, I mean, Constantine kind of lays it out there. Yes, this became the new center of where the American political conversation is. Hap is happening. And because. And in large part it's because. Well, I mean, it's a mix of things, but in large part it has to do with the fact that the biggest podcasters happen to be really open to this anti war point of view, you know, and they, they've heard people make the anti war argument and they're like, shit, that is really compelling. In the case of Tucker Carlson, for example, I mean, he's really like, you know what went from being kind of like essentially a neocon and then went to Iraq. He's been, he's been there and then got turned around on it and was like, oh, my God, this is a disaster, what we're doing here. But so because of that, now the gatekeepers, the new decentralized gatekeepers, aren't keeping the anti war voices out. And so we've got a shot now to make our argument and we're winning. Now, you could see this in opinion polls. Support for the war in Ukraine has gone way down since the beginning of the war, and support for the war or Israel's assault on Gaza has gone way down, particularly with the younger generation. And so this is essentially it. It's like you're losing the argument. And so now we got to figure out, you know, how to plug up this hole. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals, an amazing company run by amazing people. They are revolutioniz the way you invest in gold and silver. They've been paying interest in silver and gold for over eight years, helping you grow your wealth in real, tangible assets. Finally, there's a true alternative to saving in dollars, a yield on gold and silver with monetary metals. Listen, I know a lot of people who listen to my show own precious metals. And if you just, if you're owning physical gold or physical silver and you're paying storage fees or whatever, however you're doing it, there's a better way and it's monetary metals. Now, you can make interest on your gold paid in gold or interest on your silver paid in silver. It's really, it's revolutionary. And like I said, they're great people who run the company. So please go check them out. Monetary-metals.com. that's monetary-metals.com. all right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, let's keep playing and see.
- [20:00]
Robbie Bernstein
I think we should reenact Biden's disinformation approach and make sure Internet content like this is removed from the Internet because it's just as it's too dangerous for people to hear.
- [20:10]
Dave Smith
The new.
- [20:10]
Robbie Bernstein
We can't.
- [20:11]
Dave Smith
The new Ministry of Truth can be Douglas Murray and Constantine Cassin.
- [20:15]
Robbie Bernstein
Or maybe the FCC should take over podcasting and also make sure that there's no curse words or sexual content of any kind. I mean, what, what legislative body is supposed to reside over this misinformation on the Internet and make sure that it does not appear so that Israel can continue to have Public support?
- [20:35]
Dave Smith
Well, it's. Let's see if Constantine lays it out. It's an interesting question, Rob. Here.
- [20:39]
Constantin Kissin
Let's keep playing discussion of Rogan's decision to host Daryl Cooper, a man described by Tucker Carlson as America's most important popular historian. Cooper himself has the self awareness not to own the label of historian, instead describing himself as a storyteller. His latest work is a series whose aim is to Show World War II from the perspective of the Germans to those who have studied World War II extensively. Like Murray, Cooper's comments on Tucker Carlson's show and his podcast with Joe Rogan are obvious and frankly, boringly familiar. Nazi apologia Far from being novel, the idea peddled by Cooper that Churchill was a warmonger who, quote, turned the invasion of Poland into a global war because, quote, he was funded by Zionist financiers, formed the core of wartime propaganda fabricated by Nazi spin doctor Joseph Goebbels. The argument that Cooper advances.
- [21:33]
Robbie Bernstein
So is Douglas Murray the credentialed historian that gets to legislate what history is supposed to take place on the Internet, or is it supposed to be some sort of other administrative body that should be able to rule in Douglas's favor? Is there a court in which the opinion.
- [21:48]
Dave Smith
Because if you notice. Rob, it's a very good point. Because if you notice and then, you know, he's veering into Constantine here, which is again, it's. It's identical to woke leftists. I don't even know. I know. You know, sometimes I'll argue that they're the woke right, but they're not. They're the left. They're just woke. I don't know, it's. Oh yes, Nazi apology. If you're not even allowed to discuss these issues, you're not allowed to look at anything from the other point of view. Even when he says things that are mainstream history. Like there's the, you know, like the, the claim that Adolf Hitler was downplaying his anti Semitism in the early 30s. There's blinking on the historian's name. But he did a whole thing on this about how at the, at the Olympics, I think it was the, the SAR and Jetty was just talking about this on Breaking Points. But. Or maybe it was Ryan, one of them was talking about this. But there a. I had read this book many years ago, but there's. At the n. I think it was 1936 Olympics. The ones that are in Germany, the ones where you see Hitler tweaking out like a maniac there, they like took down a Whole bunch of the anti Jewish stuff. When they were hosting the Olympics because they kind of knew this isn't going to play that well in the rest of the world. And this is before the war. They were still kind of, you know, you're like, all nations, nation states, you know, they're. They're trying to maintain good standing. But anyway, it's just, oh, you're a Nazi. You're not. This is straight from Goebbels or something. It's like just so cheap and lame. But to your point, he just kind of throws in there as an assertion that to people who have really studied World War II, like Douglas Murray, like, where they never seem to have to explain, like, by what metric have you decided that Douglas Murray has studied World War II more than Daryl Cooper? Like, listen, again, there's. There are levels to intelligence and there are levels to knowledge. And I think that, like, this is one of the things when I was admitting I'm not an expert, like, I've had a lot of people on Twitter be like, dave, you are an expert. You should just say, you're an expert, dude, and be done with this, like, debate. It's like, no, I'm not. Here's the thing. It's like, in the same way that you could, like, okay, let's. Let's imagine me and you are sitting down and. Or let's say we're playing basketball and there is a. The. The number one high school player in America. Like, it's, you know, you're talking like Kobe Bryant when he was 17 is sitting there, and it'd be very easy for me to. You, me and you to be like, that's the best basketball player in the world. Like, this is just insane. He just did a 360 dunk. This guy's lightning quick. He's six foot eight. This guy's just incredible. But then, like, to someone who plays in the NBA, they'd be like, slow down. Like, there's levels to this. And much like as a lot of people who fight, they. They talk about this, it's like, the better at fighting you get, the more you realize how much you suck at fighting, you know, because you, like, you become a purple belt and it's like, oh, my God, you could kick anybody's ass. And you're like, I roll with brown belts and black belts all day. I could not kick anybody. So anyway, I say all of that just to say this for anybody who's consumed Daryl Cooper's work, feel however you feel about him, you could completely disagree with his politics or his conclusions or any of this? The dude is insanely well researched. Insane. Like, I mean, I genuinely think he's probably read over a hundred books about Israel, Palestine. Like, he's read everything, dude. Like, it's just. And so for him to just casually. And I just. And I know Daryl, and I know anybody who actually knows his work knows, like, if he's doing a World War II series, he is going to be reading everything about it. So how he just gets to claim that Douglas Murray really does his research? And he does. Do you guys ever feel the need, like, do you ever have to show your work on these claims? How do you know that? How do you know what Douglas Murray's read versus what Daryl Cooper's read? By what. By what metric are you making the decision that he's the one who's done his research and he isn't? By the way, that doesn't mean who's right or wrong. These are two very different claims. Right? Like, there are people who are extremely well read who are wrong about everything politically. But, like, the way they just get to play this game and just dismiss Daryl, it's. It's pathetic. It's like, this is not, again, not an argument. None of this is an argument. This is just assertions backed by nothing.
- [26:29]
Robbie Bernstein
We need censorship because too many people are listening to the other people.
- [26:34]
Dave Smith
Seems to be what it boils down to. But, okay, let's. I mean, they would claim they're not advocating censorship, but it's like, what exactly are you advocating then? You're. Are you advocating Joe Rogan? Stop having me and Daryl Cooper on the show. Because what's really the substantive difference between that and advocating censorship?
- [26:52]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, only their credentialed people who aren't actually credentialed, such as Douglas Murray.
- [26:57]
Dave Smith
Right. Who have lots of. Of different opinions on lots of different subjects. We can hear from all of them. You could even be comedian who hosts a podcast and. And then you could talk about serious things. We could have a range of opinions. Except for war. Except for when it comes to war, in which case we all must be lockstep on the side of these disastrous conflicts that all of you guys support. That never work out. That never work out. You know, it's crazy. It's whatever. Anyway, it's. I'm sure. I know Douglas was saying he downplayed it. People have sent me since then, but I should have had. This is one area I up on a little bit. I should have had that more in the front of my mind. But when I was like, didn't you go to Ukraine and write that article saying the Ukraine will win? And he goes, no, I didn't say that. I said it was possible. Ukraine, go read the article. The line is, Ukraine will win. Russia will lose. Ok, so sorry, guys. Yeah, you guys got much like the COVID experts. You guys have been too spectacularly wrong for too long, and you're losing. You're losing the argument.
- [28:00]
Robbie Bernstein
Sometimes, you know, it's an expert from the regime based on how many things they've got him wrong. And so perhaps that's specifically why we need to listen to these people more, is because of their track record of getting things so wrong. That's how you know that they're credentialed regime experts.
- [28:15]
Dave Smith
It does seem to be the standard. All right, let's. Let's keep playing.
- [28:20]
Constantin Kissin
Millions of prisoners of war and civilians died on the Eastern front because the Nazis failed to plan properly for the invasion is simply a lie. There's extensive documentary evidence that confirms the reason millions of prisoners of war and civilians died on the Eastern front is precisely because the Nazis succeeded in their plans. Because Murray is educated on this issue, he assumes that everyone else, including Smith, is too exasperated. He tries to explain that far from being revolutionary, these ideas have been pushed by discredited historians like David Irving for decades. Have you listened to his podcast, though?
- [28:56]
Dave Smith
For a second. So here's just an interesting little thing that you might notice. And again, listen, Constantine, what you're engaged in here is propaganda. Just pure. And it's not again, it's. It's always what it always relies on. Like, if you notice with these videos, right? And this is why I say it's propaganda. You're reviewing a debate and brushing aside the debate. You're talking about expertise, but you're not pointing out anything that I got wrong. You're not with Daryl Cooper. You're not going, okay, here he had the Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, or he had the anti Humans, or he's had these big, huge series and you're not going like, this is riddled with inaccuracies and here are five of them. You're not doing that. What you're doing is taking a couple of sentences, taking them wildly out of context, misrepresenting them. What Daryl Cooper actually said, he did not make the claim that the Nazis didn't intentionally kill people in Eastern Europe. That was not his claim. What he was saying was essentially, and he said that this applies to Israel also. So it ended up. He started making this point. Then Tucker Kind of went on a different path. And then he never got back to like really finishing the point. But the thing he was making was actually what he was doing was attacking neo Nazis. Actually what he was doing was attacking the defenders of the Nazi regime. He was saying that it doesn't even matter because you're responsible either way. So in other words, his point was, Rob, I don't know if you saw him make this, but he was saying, listen, if you are Israel and you go into Gaza and then you don't have a plan for how to get innocent civilians to safety, well, that's on you. It doesn't matter whether it was intentional or not intentional or nothing. It's your responsibility now once you commit the invasion. And so likewise, he was saying even to. Because he. One of the things he brought up, and this is a. It was a letter from like one of the Nazis back to Germany who was out in Eastern Europe. And I guess it was. I think it was in 1940, if I'm remembering correctly. But so he said, basically, they're right, they're in the middle of the war. You know, there's a lot of devastation. And he was writing back going, like, listen, you know, like all these Jews that we got in these camps, or maybe not just the Jews, but whoever was in these concentration camps, he goes, they're. I think a lot of them are going to starve to death and it might be more humane to just execute them or something like that. But Daryl was saying, like, look, even if that's the case, that even if you're saying like, oh, it was just like in the war, they didn't mean to do any of this or nothing. He goes, it's still a excuse because it doesn't matter. You invaded these countries, you set up these camps with no plans for how to take care of these people, and you're still responsible for it. So he wasn't making the argument that they never did this intentionally. He was saying, even if you make that argument, the argument still fails. That was the point. So again, you know, Daryl Cooper just wrote a piece the other day. I still have not gotten a chance to read it, but Daryl Cooper just wrote a piece last week, like, condemning anti Semitism. None of them will ever bring that one up. You know, they always bring up the three lines that they like to take out of context. They never bring that up. But aside from that, there's, you know, a Constantine here. And this is what I mean, like when it's starting to get into propaganda, is that he sits There. And he goes, actually, you know what? Bring it back a second, Natalie, because I want to make sure. Let me get this right, because I distracted myself from this range. Just bring it back a few seconds because I want to get the point that he was making.
- [32:36]
Constantin Kissin
Far from being revolutionary, these ideas have been pushed by this guy that the historians.
- [32:41]
Dave Smith
Stop it right there. Thank you. That's all I needed. So this is the other thing that's propaganda here, okay? And you remember I give Michael Malice a lot of credit for being the one who pointed this out to me. And then as soon as he points it out, you go, oh, that's a really, really good point. But his point was because you remember when they tried to cancel Joe Rogan last time. I'm sorry, that I might have brought another one on him, but it'll fail, so it's cool. But. So last time, they were trying to cancel him over the COVID stuff. And you remember, do you. You guys remember? I'm sure, Natalie, you weren't with us on the show there, but I'm sure you remember at this point, every single person in the corporate media, all of them all said, horse dewormer. Joe Rogan is taking horse dewormer. Now, ivermectin, the drug, first of all, it's. I think it's been prescribed a billion times to people. It's quite. It's a very. People have won Nobel Prizes for ivermectin and stuff. It's like. It's. It's. It's people medicine. Now, it's also veterinary medicine, but it's given to, like, hundreds of different species of animals. Now, one of those things is for horse deworming, and yet they all picked that one. Like, just think about that from, like, a mathematical point of view. Like, it. The odds of that are like, 1 in 100 billion or something like that, that you would all pick the one thing. If there's, like, tens of thousands of different options and every single person in the mainstream media happened to pick this one, why is that? Okay? Because they all decided that this was the most discrediting thing to say, that this is the thing that would make him look the worst. So likewise. Where'd you get David Irving from? Why are you saying, okay, now, it is true that David Irving may have shared some of these views, but Pat Buchanan wrote a whole book about it. Pat Buchanan was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon. He worked in the Ronald Reagan White House, and I think he worked in one of. I believe he was in three White Houses. He ran for President twice. He's, he's a New York Times bestseller. He was on TV and wrote a very successful column for like 50 years. He's a household name, more or less, in this space. Why aren't you picking him? Why are you saying this is from David Irving? You know why, Rob? Because David Irving was also a Holocaust revisionist. He also, I, I, I don't remember. I, I don't know enough to know exactly. They'd call him a Holocaust denier. I think he, I, I think his argument was that it was like a couple million people, but it wasn't 6 million people. Regardless of any of that, they could, you know what I mean, like, say, oh, he's regurgitating Pat Buchanan's thing. Why do they all pick David Irving for the obvious guilt by association thing? To smear him as a Holocaust denier, even though he's never once done that. Like, I'm sorry, this is a woke leftist tactic. Like, I don't, you know, and this is why it's such a losing, like, all of this to me. And don't get me wrong, I'm taking on this stuff because I think it's, it's a bad argument. I think they're wrong. And I, I'm, I'm actually shocked by how bad the argument is. But what, the thing that's been so strange for me over the last couple weeks is that you're just like, I can't believe you guys all want to go down this path. Like, you really want to sit here and argue on behalf of the expert class and the, the, you know, the, oh, these, these issues have been dealt with long ago. But what does that mean, you know, like when, when someone like Constantin will say the reason why Douglas Murray is so frustrated because we've already batted down all these stupid ideas. But, you know, I think for a lot of us, we go, oh, yeah, but that was back when the evil machine had full control of everything. Maybe we didn't really bat down these ideas. Maybe Pat Buchanan was right about all those things he was saying. I mean, I don't know. You know, the, yes, it is true to some degree that Douglas Murray's ideas won the day, and people like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul's ideas lost the day. But what have we gotten for that? And, you know, at a certain point, if we figure out that we've been lied to about everything for the last 20 years, some people might go, well, what were they saying 30 years ago? What were they saying 40 years ago? What were they saying 60 years ago. It's a natural reaction. It doesn't mean everything they were saying is wrong, but it definitely means you can't just dismiss it away as we. That's already been taken care of. Sorry. We've seen how this machine works. Okay, let's keep playing.
- [37:28]
Constantin Kissin
Have you listened to his podcast, though? Rogan interjects, it turns out Murray hasn't, and this is later used as evidence against him after the episode airs. Unlike Murray, I have listened to Cooper's podcast, including the one about the history of Palestine that people often cite in his defense. He details the persecution of Jews preceding the events he covers, and so he couldn't possibly be anti Semitic, is their argument. From this, they conclude that he couldn't possibly be a Nazi apologist. The reason they make this logical error is that in the entertainment world, words do not have meanings, they are feelings. And thanks to the woke left's misuse of the word Nazi for the last decade in podcastan, the term is not a descriptive label but a vague, meaningless insult used to cancel people. Unlike his opponents, Murray clearly understands that the term Nazi apologist has a defined meaning, and the fact that most Nazi apologists are anti Semitic does not mean you have to be anti Semitic to fit the description. The grok definition of a Nazi apologist is someone who defends, justifies, and minimizes the actions, ideology, or atrocities committed by the Nazi regime, often by excusing Nazi policies or promoting revisionist narratives that distort historical facts.
- [38:41]
Dave Smith
Since Cooper does precisely this in no, he fucking doesn't. Even by your dumb grok definition, Cooper does not do that. But hey, listen, this is like, Again, I'm just so sick of like, having the same argument over and over again. He's about to put a World War II series out. I say he's not going to minimize the Nazi atrocities at all. You clearly think he's going to. Let's see who's right. Let's see who's right when it comes out. Ok? And like, yeah, I mean, again, it's almost like we're getting into this territory. In fact, I don't know if you remember this, Rob. I believe we played it on the show, but there was this great moment that Sam Harris, my dear friend, had when he had Chelsea Handler on his show and they were talking. I think it was about Bill Burr, but I'm not sure about that. But someone, I think Sam, I don't remember exactly how it went, but the idea of having black friends got brought up and it was like, oh, he's not racist. He has a black wife. And she goes, oh, yeah, but that's the old, you know, I'm not racist. I have black friends. And then Sam just destroys her on it. And he goes, no, I know the left, like, does this thing where they just repeat that over and over again until it becomes, like, a trope. But, like, that's actually very good evidence that you're not racist. It's excellent evidence. Now, I am not saying it is technically impossible to be married to a black woman and hate black people. I suppose you could hate your wife. You could make an exception for your wife and hate all other black. Like, okay. But it is pretty damn good evidence. Like, it. It literally is on the level of if. If I was like, hey, Rob, you hate eggs. And you were like, I don't hate eggs. I had scrambled eggs for breakfast. And I go, oh, that's what they all say. They all say they had scrambled eggs for breakfast. And you're like, no, that's a very good defense against saying you don't. Now, technically speaking, is it possible that you hate eggs and you just force feed yourself eggs every morning even though they disgust you? Like, yeah, I guess technically it's possible, but it is, like, overwhelming evidence in the direction that you like eggs if you eat them for breakfast. In a very similar sense, yes. It is very strong evidence that you're not a Jew hater, that you're not a Nazi apologist, if you detail, in graphic, brutal detail, the horrific treatment of Jewish people in Europe. Yes, those two things don't jive together. And you gotta really jump through some mental hoops in order to tell yourself that. No, they don't. It's pretty straightforward. All right, let's keep playing.
- [41:32]
Constantin Kissin
Several appearances on major podcasts. How his series on Palestine will change this reality is clearly as confusing to Murray, who hasn't listened to it, as it is to me, who has. Indeed, one of the main areas of misunderstanding in the discussion is the role of expertise. He doesn't claim to be an expert is Smith's repast. To Murray's suggestion that Cooper doesn't know what he's talking about. He uses the same defense when Murray questions Smith's own willingness to opine on geopolitics. The central critique of Murray here is that he's arguing from authority, which is what the mainstream media has done for years, to gaslight the public about everything from transgenderism to Covid to war. Smith and his supporters argue that the concept of expertise has been so discredited that he and anyone else for that matter is entitled to express any view about any issue they want. The audience, they say, can judge these views for themselves. Murray's attempt to dismiss such views on the basis that they don't align with expert opinion is seen as an ineffective argument at best and an attempt at credentialism at worst. There's a sliver of truth to this criticism. Engaging the argument someone is making directly is a much more powerful approach. But to suggest that arguments from authority are entirely invalid is silly. Almost everything you believe is based on an argument from authority. Light bulbs, for example, are a fairly unsophisticated and omnipresent part of our lives. Yet the number of people watching this video who are capable of explaining how they work without resorting to arguments from authority will be vanishingly small. I'm not just talking about the fact.
- [43:08]
Dave Smith
That this is what Constantine starts doing this in a lot of his videos here. And it's just, you know, it's like the last time we took it apart when he's explaining first principles and just clearly does not know what a first principle is like. Like objectively not my opinion or your opinion. Just like that's not what a first principle is because my first principle is that October 7th was wrong. Like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how that works at all. He's just misusing terms here. In argument to. From authority or an appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. Okay? It's saying that because somebody's an authority figure, therefore they are correct. What he's talking about is specialization, the division of labor, and the fact that human beings have very limited knowledge. We don't. I don't need to know anything about light bulbs to ex. That's not an argument from authority. That's. That's just. I don't know and other people do. And I judge it based on the fact that it seems to work in arg. An appeal to authority would be if I were to say, none of these lights are working, none of these are turning on. And you were to say, yes, they are because an electrician said so. You get the difference. There's just different things. One's a logical fallacy and one is not. But again, this is as I've made the point several times now. You can pick your logical fallacy here, but Douglas Murray is clearly making one. It's either an appeal to authority or he's just straw manning. Because if. If you're saying that the claim here is that I don't think we need expertise. I've never said Anything that even kind of indicated that. And in fact, as I go out of my way every time I'm on Joe Rogan's podcast, I make sure to mention all of the experts who have influenced my thinking on these topics. So again, it's just a non argument. There's nothing here. It's just not true. Yes, it is true that we rely on expertise. Nobody is, nobody is arguing against expertise. What I, what I argued against was that the expert class should be the only ones who can weigh in on these topics. Not that expertise isn't important. Again, as I've said over and over again, if this really was Douglas Murray's argument, which it was a bit more than that, but if this really was his argument, then he could have stated it in one sentence and we could have moved on. Hey, when you talk about these issues, it's really important to know what you're talking about. You agree, Dave? You agree, Joe? Yes, 100% agree. Yes, 100% agree. Let's have the debate now. That's it. Otherwise you're just knocking down strawmen. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is the Ridge wallet. I love the Ridge wallet. Big, big fan. It's the coolest, sleekest, like minimalist wallet. They've got a bunch of different designs and they real, they're just really cool looking. It's like, it's like a great conversation starter. And also you don't need, you know, it's like you don't need that big old bulky wallet. I think Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza figured this out 30 years ago. But you're throwing your spine out of alignment. You're sitting on a brick in your back pocket. All you need is the sleek little Ridge wallet. It holds your cards and your cash, everything you really need. So make sure to go grab one. They also have an air tag attachment so you'll always know exactly where your wallet is. You don't have to panic about losing it. Ridge isn't just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like key cases, suitcases, rings, all built with the same sleek, durable design. No matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99 day risk free trial and a lifetime warranty on all of their products. So right now Ridge is having their once a year anniversary sale. You can get up to 40% off@ridge.com PotP10. That's the website. Head on over to ridge.com PotP10 to see their biggest sale of the Year after you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please let them know that you heard on the part of the problem podcast. Ridge.compotp10 all right, let's get back into the show. Anything you want to add, Rob, or you want to jump back?
- [47:18]
Robbie Bernstein
Light bulbs aren't real, and the only reason why racists will marry black people is because they have white vaginas. And I'd like to be on the record with both of these factual statements.
- [47:29]
Dave Smith
There you go.
- [47:31]
Robbie Bernstein
He's an expert to this conversation.
- [47:33]
Dave Smith
He's an expert, folks. All right, let's keep playing.
- [47:37]
Constantin Kissin
People couldn't explain how electricity works. I'm talking about the fact that almost everyone who can will only be able to do so by quoting the work of other people rather than experiments and research they themselves have conducted. While Rogan seems to side with Smith in this exchange, it is highly unlikely he would adopt the same approach to his own areas of expertise. When it comes to mixed martial arts, his interview guests are the best of the best. The dazzling array of UFC champions, top MMA coaches, respected trainers, and other experts does not appear to include comedian Dave Smith. There's a popular clip on the Jerry YouTube channel in which.
- [48:16]
Dave Smith
Pause it for a second. Wrong. I've talked MMA a bunch with Joe on the podcast. You're just factually wrong. In fact, Joe talks MMA with comics all the time, and you know what he does is like, yeah, okay. It's an area that Joe has legit expertise in, and if they get something wrong, he'll be like, nah, I think that's wrong. And if they get something right, he'll go, great point. That's exactly right. Because he takes on what you're actually saying. He doesn't just say, I'm the expert, therefore everything you say is wrong. So you just. Just blatantly wrong. Terrible example. And a terrible example to pick me of, because I've actually talked MMA a bunch with Joe on, on and off the podcast. Also, the same example Douglas Murray used. Interesting.
- [48:59]
Robbie Bernstein
I'll tell you something interesting about light bulbs. I don't understand how light bulbs work, but I have electrocuted myself. And from learned experience, I could tell you if you touch the exposed light bulb, you might electrocute yourself. You know what else I can tell you from learning experience? If you consistently listen to regime experts, you're probably getting bad information. Now, I might not actually be an expert in any of the topics that the regime tries to pitch to me, but I can tell you more often than not from the 10 years of following These topics, when the regime is really selling you on something, you might want to do your own homework, because from my own experience, they seem to be lying a whole bunch. I don't need an expertise on light bulbs to tell you, hey, I touched one and I got electrocuted. Hey, you might be careful. You might want to be careful touching that thing. And don't use Christmas lights as shower lights. I can tell you that one. I'm not an electrician, but I learned my lesson on that one. Say, I. I don't know, it's just. It seems like a lot of fancy talk for, hey, we need some censorship, because I got a check from Israel and I got a word to sell here.
- [50:04]
Dave Smith
It sure does feel that way. I. I will say, it's like, again, you know, Bobby Kennedy made this point, is a excellent point, but when someone said something, they. They hit him with this appeal to authority. And they were like, well, the experts say that vaccines don't cause whatever negative outcomes. And he said something along the lines of. He goes, listen. When I. He's an environmental lawyer for many years, and he was like, every suit I ever brought, the prosecution called expert witnesses and the defense called expert witnesses. And every single time, the experts completely disagreed. You know, you could find experts that said, oh, there's this. This lake is horribly polluted. And then other experts would say, no, this is level. And so this is kind of where a lot of this breaks down, too, is that you go, it's always like, listen to the experts. But then it's also like, well, which experts? Which experts are you listening to? Are you arguing that there aren't experts who agree with what I was saying? Is that really the claim here? It's like, okay, no, nobody's making that claim, by the way.
- [51:11]
Robbie Bernstein
It's.
- [51:11]
Dave Smith
It's great. Like, they. Especially the pro Israel. It's like, they're like, we have to defer to the experts. And you're like, okay, every single international humanitarian organization claims that there is, like, a goddamn catastrophe going on over here and that it's war. War crimes are being committed and have been for many, many decades. Like, okay, well, not them. You go, like, then they appeal to international law. You go, well, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. No, no, that part's stupid. You know, it's like, always, like, okay, there's no list of X. There's no shortage of experts who are critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. So, again, can we just have the actual debate? Can you make a real point Seems like you can't. All right, let's keep playing.
- [51:52]
Constantin Kissin
Smith breaks down why Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. I was unable to find one of him breaking down Brazilian jiu jitsu moves, despite Smith possessing a similar level of expertise on both subjects. Smith and Rogan are irked when Murray expresses his befuddlement that Smith has been.
- [52:08]
Dave Smith
Okay, let's pause it. Let's just pause it right there. Okay, you're right. The. But, you know, it didn't get clipped up. I mean, I have talked about jiu jitsu on Rogan's podcast before, and, like, I don't know. But just. The point just fails because, like, I have talked. I guess he's right. That clip. They put out that clip, and it went super viral. You notice again, what Constantine's not doing is pointing out what I got wrong in the clip. He's not saying, like, oh, he said this, and he got it wrong. But I want you to genuinely ask yourself this, everybody who's. Who's listening, because this is like a very basic honesty test here. And Constantine to you, too, because I'm sure you'll watch this. How the. Do you know what level of expertise I have about Brazilian jiu jitsu compare to the. The cause of the Ukraine war? By what are you claiming to judge that I have the same. You're just putting me at zero at both. Like, me and Constantine debated Ukraine, and, like, the general consensus was that I smoked him in the debate. So, like, what expertise does he think he has that I don't have? But why would you. How would you possibly know? How. How many books have I read about the lead up to the war in Ukraine? How do you know? You have no fucking idea. You're just pretending you're lying. You're making this up. It's just. And it's. It's ridiculous. I mean, like, I would never. I don't know. I don't know. I just would never do this. Like, I would never engage in this tactic. I mean, it's possible that. That after smoking someone in a debate, if it was like, like, okay, I. The one thing I could think of was when I debated Austin Peterson on Israel, and it was coming off, he debated Clint Russell, and then he debated me, and they both went terribly bad for him. And at one point, I remember. I mean, he got so much wrong, just didn't know it. At one point, Clint mentioned the Nakba, and he goes, the Nakba? I haven't heard of that. I think you're referring to the Balfour Declaration, and Clint was like, no, the Balfour declaration was in 1917. We're talking about 1948 right now. And like, okay, so after that debate, and then after my debate I did conclude, I go, I don't think this guy's ever read anything about this topic. But it was like four reasons. You know, it was like, I, I think you're, you, you don't know what you're talking about. For reasons these guys seem to never feel the need to give any of the reasons just asserted. Douglas Murray knows. Daryl Cooper doesn't. Dave Smith doesn't like. Okay, care to elaborate? All right, let's, let's keep lying about.
- [54:50]
Constantin Kissin
Israel and Palestine without ever having visited the Middle East. The shock at the idea that someone ought to see things with their own eyes before commenting on them is palpable. Indeed, in the aftermath of the debate, Smith promoted a popular video in which Murray's statements to this effect are contrasted with his previous ridicule of the concept of lived experience. This is very low quality thinking. If you do not see things with your own eyes, your opinions are by definition not your own. They are an agglomeration of opinions and facts you have gathered from other sources whose veracity you cannot properly evaluate. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Indeed, most of our.
- [55:31]
Dave Smith
About this is an absurd claim, like, just totally ridiculous. Your opinions aren't your own unless you've been to the place. Like, I mean, I just do. I do not understand how those, how he wrote that down, sent it out, then read the words in front of a camera and didn't think to himself, oh, wait, what, wait, what am I saying exactly here? Your opinions aren't your own if you got them from somebody else or if you haven't gone to the place before. Like, that just makes absolutely no sense. So you're saying if I. Let's just say you, you attend a debate between two experts. Now, the whole purpose of a debate, right, is to persuade the audience. You hear the arguments this guy makes. You hear the arguments this guy makes. You go, I think that guy made superior arguments. Oh, and he had no answer for that. And that, oh, that was a really good point. He just. I think this guy's right on that issue. That's not my opinion now because somebody else informed my opinion. By the way, the logical conclusion of this, you understand, is that none of us have any opinions about anything. Because even going to a place, you're still being influenced by the people. Like, it's not as if, obviously, again, if Douglas isn't knocking down a strawman Obviously you can gain insight by traveling to a place you could learn things that you didn't know before. But to pretend like by putting your feet on the soil, you magically now take in all of the information and everybody's experience and see it from everyone else's perspective is ludicrous. The idea that like that's the only true opinion is if you go somewhere like, anyway, it's just, it makes absolutely no sense. No, you can gain, in fact, you can gain a lot more insight by reading experts than you can just by going on a trip. I mean, like, look, let's say Rob me and you went, what was it, two years ago now? We went on a European tour. We went, we went to Ireland and Scotland and Amsterdam and London. I don't know too much about those countries history. Like I know a little bit here and there. I know mostly what kind of involves America, you know what I mean? Like, are the areas I know most about. But like, okay, let's say we went, we go to Ireland, right? If I were to do a deep dive on Ireland or the Irish history the way I have on Israel, Palestine or Ukraine or you know, any of the topics that I talk a lot about, like, let's just say if I were to read 15 books about the history of Ireland, okay, which I'm not gonna do, but like, I could do it if I had to. So let's just say I, I read 15 books. Are you honestly telling me that you think I would get more insight from our trip there's. Than from reading 15 books about it? Like, that's just not clear at all. But anyway, the idea that we don't, we don't have opinions unless we've been to the place and seen it with our own eyes. This makes no sense. This show is sponsored by Better Help Guys. If you are considering starting therapy, maybe you're on the fence about it. Let me just say that I highly recommend therapy. It's something I've benefited from in the past. I know many others who have benefited from it too. And if you are one of those people who's on the fence, check out Better Help because this is the best way to do it. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire, they match you with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Check them out@betterhelp.com problem today and you'll get 10% off your first month. That's B T T E R H lp.com problem for 10% off your first month. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [59:39]
Robbie Bernstein
So conceptually, if I were to see a picture of the pyramids, I can't have an opinion that they're impressive because I haven't actually been there. And inversely, if I read or see footage of the Holocaust in Auschwitz, I can't have the opinion that it's terrible because I wasn't there. And the only way that you could form an opinion is by actually being somewhere. So I guess the entire field of history, by the way, that doesn't exist, I guess all of physics. I mean, I don't know how many people are in a lab observing the laws of physics. I guess maybe. I don't know. Maybe that's not a good example. But there's entire fields of study that are conceptual, so.
- [60:14]
Dave Smith
Absolutely. Or the idea that, like, an astrophysicist can't have a real opinion, only an astronaut can. Right. Like you haven't been there. So it's just. It's. It's. I mean, literally, I'm right.
- [60:30]
Robbie Bernstein
I can't do the analytics about the being on Mars to try and plan for how someone could survive on Mars. I'd have to actually go to Mars.
- [60:38]
Dave Smith
Yeah. It's not your opinion.
- [60:39]
Robbie Bernstein
The only way that I could decipher the information about how we might survive on Mars.
- [60:43]
Dave Smith
I am. And I mean this. I'm shocked.
- [60:45]
Robbie Bernstein
There's never been a guy who's. Before he went to a factory, was pulled in for a consulting job, and then looked at the spreadsheets and the books to figure out what might actually help the company be more profitable. Never happened.
- [60:57]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, it's. Again, like I said, I'm shocked. And not like Douglas Murray was, like, being performative that he was shocked. I haven't been there. I'm genuinely shocked that Constantine would go down with this. It might be the worst argument I've ever heard. Anyone like you don't have opinions unless you've been to the place. It's wild. All right, let's keep playing.
- [61:21]
Constantin Kissin
They are an agglomeration of opinions and facts you have gathered from other sources whose veracity you cannot properly evaluate. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Indeed, most of all.
- [61:33]
Dave Smith
Pause for a second. Why can't you evaluate other people's opinions? You can't have an opinion. Like, why can't you evaluate somebody else's expertise? If that's the case. True. Then shouldn't nobody be allowed to side with Douglas Murray? In the debate. After all, they're just listening to another expert who's been there. Right, Expert. Anyway, let's keep playing.
- [61:58]
Constantin Kissin
Most things are not our own. You know why? Because we get them from people we consider to be authorities on the subject in question. You might call them experts. The great trick being deployed here is to allege that experts can be trusted while relying on a different set of experts. On Ukraine, the non expert Smith is using the ideas of people he considers experts, like John Meyersheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. On World War II, the non expert Cooper deploys the arguments of people he considers experts, like David Irving and so on and so forth. All opinions are valid and should be given a hearing. Screamed the people whose entire media diet is made up of people who only push the narrative they prefer. This is where Smith.
- [62:41]
Dave Smith
Who said that? Who said that? Again, just. Just blatant strawman. Yes, again, the. None of us were ever t. Not me or Joe. Were not arguing against expertise, and we were not saying. I certainly have never said I'm not informed by experts. Yes, I've read the experts that back up your side. I've read the experts that back up the other side. I think the ones on your side are full of. And the other ones make much better arguments. That's my opinion on this. The point is that I still get to talk about this and I still get to have an opinion, just like you do. Constantin, this is just too nutty. Dude, you're in the. You're in the process. I mean, isn't this. How is this not a performative contradiction of some sort? Sense, Rob, he's explaining all of this right? On a podcast. Like, what. What are we talking about here? This is too crazy. All right, I'll play a couple more minutes, and then I think we're just gonna call it an episode, because this is just too nutty, really Turning into.
- [63:40]
Constantin Kissin
The arguments he makes about countries he's never visited from other people. And the arguments are then judged not on whether they're true, something Smith does not have the ability to assess, but on whether they sound true.
- [63:55]
Dave Smith
I don't have the ability to assess the truth. So then get. Okay, listen.
- [64:00]
Robbie Bernstein
But he does.
- [64:01]
Dave Smith
Then neither do you, so you can't make that claim. This is. It's. You're in. You're contradicting yourself. It's like saying. Okay. It's like saying the truth doesn't exist. What's the problem with that sentence? Rob, you're making a truth claim, right? If you're saying the truth doesn't Exist? You're saying that's the truth? Well, then the truth would have to exist. It's a self contradicting statement. If you're saying I can't assess the truth, then neither can you, dude. By the way, you've also never been to Israel or Gaza.
- [64:33]
Robbie Bernstein
He hasn't.
- [64:34]
Dave Smith
So you can't have a comment on this either or. It just sounds true, right? No, this is, this is, this is wokeism. This is postmodernism. This is. I mean, yeah, there's no truth. There's no way of knowing what truth is. Yes, there are things called facts and logic and regular people can actually use these things. All right, let's keep playing a little bit more and then we're going to wrap up.
- [65:00]
Constantin Kissin
Makes basic cognitive errors of the kind I described the last time he and I sparred over my viral Israel video. As for experience, the woke concept of lived experience was not ridiculed because experience doesn't matter. You would have to be deeply dishonest to deny that experiences are informative. If Michael Jordan claimed that there's a correct way to dunk a basketball based on his experience and his conversations with Kobe Bryant, do you imagine that Smith and his defenders would screech about MJ just using arguments from authority and lived experience? The reason many of us pushed back against the concept of lived experience, other than the great tautology.
- [65:39]
Dave Smith
Well, like, yeah, we would if he was lying to us. You know, like if he told you the best way to dunk a basketball is with your feet, I'd be like, well, first off, that's illegal in basketball and that'll be a turnover. And also I've watched you dunk with your hands many, many times. Again, you could see, right? Everyone could see this here. It's like a blatant straw man. No one's arguing against expertise and nobody's saying that your experience doesn't matter. The point is that to say something like your opinion's not valid because you've never been there isn't actually taking on someone's argument and that is identical to the lived experience argument. To just say that like, like literally the argument would go something like that this is how the lived experience argument would go. Would be something like, you'd be like, like, well, I'm looking at this data here and I can see the number of police shootings last year and I can see the number of unjustified police shootings here. And it's actually very, very few amount of black people were unarmed. Black people were killed by cops. And it doesn't seem to be at a much higher rate than other races. And they'd go, you've never been a black person, so you don't know what it's like. You don't have the lived experience that is identical to the argument Douglas Murray was making. Thing. It's not saying that like, look, here's the thing, is that if I got into a debate with Michael Jordan about how to play basketball, he should just fucking school me at the debate. He shouldn't have to sit there and just tell me he's an expert the whole time. And if he was just telling me, then that's a non argument.
- [67:13]
Robbie Bernstein
And period. The thing about Michael Jordan is that he won a lot of championships, as did Kobe Bryant. And so if they decided to talk about that topic, I go, wow, wow, these are the experts. But when the expert class decides to tell me something and they've gotten it all wrong repeatedly, I go, it's like if Michael Jordan broke his legs before he got to the NBA and never played basketball other than at the high school level. It's a good point.
- [67:39]
Dave Smith
It's a good point. We judge him. Yeah, it's because he won a lot. That's why you're even bringing up his name. It's because he was right in the sense in your analogy. Right. So, like, yes, I suppose that if Douglas Murray, if the war in Iraq was a smashing success and then the war in Afghanistan was a. Was a smashing success and then the war in Libya was a smashing success, and then the war in Ukraine was a smashing success, then, yeah, maybe he'd get a little bit more of that respect. But the thing is, he supported all of them and they were all unmitigated disasters while I was good on them. So, yeah, forgive me if I don't just take him at his word. And I'm going to insist that him or you, Constantine, have to make a fucking argument, which none of this is. All right, we're going to wrap up on that and I promise we will move on, on to other topics. But you know, they keep handing me free content and let's get real. It's fun. It's fun. People like it. There's always these episodes where people go like, oh, I don't even like these episodes. And you're like, well, they do really good numbers. So I think, I think you do. All right, guys, we do got a wrap on that. Thank you very much for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.