#198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Peter McCormack Show #198

Guest: Michael Shermer | Theme: Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain

Date: August 4, 2026
Duration: ~87 minutes

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this episode, Peter McCormack sits down with renowned skeptic, author, and historian of science Michael Shermer to explore the meaning of truth in a world rife with misinformation, conspiracy theories, anomalous experiences, and ideological division. The conversation traverses political polarization, the epistemology of belief, the power and danger of conspiracies, technology’s impact on truth, paranormal phenomena, religion, and even the simulation hypothesis. The duo aims to illuminate how we pursue, distort, and sometimes avoid truth—while maintaining intellectual humility and open-minded skepticism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Are We in a “Post-Truth” World? (00:00–05:54)

• Shermer’s Take: The claim of a “post-truth” world is self-defeating. “The moment you open your mouth to make an argument that we’re living in a post-truth world, you’ve just made an argument. Which means apparently there is a truth to be known.” (A, 00:01)
• Attacks on Truth: Both left (postmodern relativism; science as narrative) and right (fake news, alternative facts post-Trump) are skeptical about universal truth, often for different reasons.
• Shermer’s Framework: Universal realism exists. However, we’re all fallible (cognitive biases, agendas). He advocates for a Bayesian approach: assign probabilities rather than certainties, remain open to changing one’s mind. "Let’s never say 0% or 100% true." (A, 03:55)

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2. The Difference Between Truth and Preference (05:55–09:09)

• Preferences vs. Objective Truth: Some political disputes stem from differing values, not lack of truth (e.g., liberty vs. equality).
• Human Nature: Shermer argues that certain preferences (liberty, education, being fed) are innate and can be observed—"People vote with their feet." (A, 06:50)
• Politics as Power: Truth is often determined by who holds power, not by universal consensus.

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3. The Growth and Entrenchment of Government (07:15–09:32)

• Inertia in Bureaucracy: Efforts to shrink government rarely succeed due to entrenched interests and bureaucratic inertia (“…every little bureaucracy has its siloed budgets, and every single person in there is like, I want to keep my job...” A, 08:01).
• Dark Realities: Upon entering office, leaders face the limits of what’s possible due to existing systems.

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4. Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories (09:33–13:03)

• Distinguishing Reality from Paranoia: Real conspiracies occur in governments and corporations (COINTELPRO, MK Ultra, Volkswagen emissions scandal). Theories emerge when patterns are extrapolated without evidence.
• Signal Detection Problem: “Which ones do you think are real and which are not real... it’s a matter of a signal detection problem…” (A, 10:15)
• Danger of Taking Conspiracies Too Far: Even if real conspiracies exist, exaggeration leads to dangerous or false beliefs (Pizzagate shooting as an example, 12:41).

Memorable Quote

• "The problem with conspiracy theories these days is that they keep coming true." (B, 12:00)

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5. The Impact of Technology and Media on Truth (13:04–18:54)

• From Old School to the Internet: Social media democratizes information, increases fringe voices, and makes fact-checking both harder and easier.
• Shermer stresses the need to “sample multiple media sources” to triangulate truth (A, 15:15).
• Media Silos: Most people stay in their information silos; “Most people don’t do that.” (A, 15:45)

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6. The Rise of Fact-Checking and AI (17:41–23:06)

• Fact-Checking Tools: Shermer supports tools like Community Notes on Twitter and advances in AI that make real-time fact-checking possible (A, 17:41).
• Optimism About AI: Unlike doomsayers, Shermer expects AI to broadly help us seek truth and hold figures accountable. “I just don’t vibe their whole take on AI.” (A, 22:12)

Notable Moment

• Peter describes a prototype AI tool for real-time fact-checking MPs' tweets, which could incentivize politicians to be more truthful (B, 20:31).

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7. Sources of Motivated Reasoning and Truth Distortion (23:23–29:40)

• Political, Religious, & Economic Agendas: The main drivers of motivated reasoning and division.
• Political Tribalism: “If you tell somebody tells me their political position, I usually know their view on everything.” (B, 23:58)
• Compromises vs. Perfect Solutions: Reference to Thomas Sowell—no solutions are perfect; policy is about balancing competing values.

Quote

• “There’s no perfect solutions, they’re just compromises.” (A, 24:47)

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8. Sports, Gender, and Social Controversies (25:24–29:29)

• Hotly debated trans athlete inclusion—Shermer and Peter argue the majority holds moderate views but extreme positions dominate discourse.
• “Winning becomes more important than being right.” (B, 26:26)
• Example of Caitlyn Jenner in golf as an illustration of ongoing controversies.

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9. Paranormal, Coincidence, and Spiritual Experiences (29:40–38:42)

• Shermer’s Path: From religious believer to skeptic fascinated by claims of the paranormal, supernatural, and unexplained.
• Why People Find Comfort in Mystery: Peter shares a personal story of rainbows after his mother’s passing, which his family now regards as spiritual signs (33:50–35:31). Shermer cautions: “Not just coincidence, but also noticing the things that are important to you... In your case, I would say just enjoy the mystery.” (A, 36:06)
• Agnosticism and Bayesian Probability: Shermer gives God about a 1% probability. He’s agnostic but open-minded.

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10. Truth in Religion: Myth or Literal Fact? (38:42–43:01)

• Religious Stories as Deep Truths: Parallels between literary truth and religious narratives—Jonah and the whale, Resurrection.
• Many want literal truth: “Most... want it to be more than that.” (A, 42:02)

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11. Simulation Theory, Consciousness, and DMT (43:20–51:19)

• Simulation Hypothesis: Shermer doesn’t buy the idea, arguing it still requires a base reality: “You still have the problem of origins...” (A, 43:33)
• DMT Experiences: Reports of shared “matrix-like code” in DMT trips are intriguing but, for Shermer, probably still products of the brain (“Isn’t that still up here?” A, 50:19)

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12. Personal Anomalous Experience: The Transistor Radio (51:19–54:36)

• Shermer recounts a story where a dead radio belonging to his wife’s grandfather mysteriously turned on at the moment of their wedding (51:19).
• “It’s the timing.” (A, 53:45)
• Many listeners wrote with their own stories of uncanny timing and coincidence.

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13. Why Humans Love Mystery & Meaning (54:36–58:12)

• Humanity’s drive for meaning pushes us toward stories of UFOs, UAPs, and other unexplaineds as modern religions.
• “People love this stuff because they have experiences that are weird like that.” (A, 54:50)

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14. The Problem With Media and Collective Truth (76:23–79:32)

• Media driven by sensationalism (“If it bleeds, it leads...availability heuristic” A, 76:27).
• Shermer is a proponent of the free market in news (“Let’s have a dozen other independents... support them.” A, 78:39)

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15. Economics, Markets, and Progress (79:54–81:14)

• Shermer describes himself as an Austrian-influenced classical liberal (Hayek, Friedman, von Mises, Rand).
• Progress is cumulative; modern average people live better than kings of old (“You just kind of take it for granted.” A, 70:57)

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16. Political Polarization & Immigration (81:14–67:41)

• Open disagreement on immigration, culture, and values has become fraught, with shared truths giving way to tribalism.
• Shermer emphasizes that compromises must be made and that classical liberal openness has limits when conflicting rights arise.

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17. Revisiting the Limits of Knowledge (84:49–86:24)

• Both agree scientific consensus is ever-evolving and humility is key. “If you and I were born 500 years from now and we look back at what they believed in the 21st century, be like, ‘those people believe that? That’s just batshit crazy.’” (A, 85:00)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• “The problem with conspiracy theories these days is that they keep coming true.” (B, 12:00)
• “Let’s never say 0% or 100% true.” (A, 03:55)
• “If you tell somebody tells me their political position, I usually know their view on everything.” (B, 23:58)
• “Isn’t that still up here?” — On DMT and subjectivity of experience (A, 50:19)
• “Sample multiple media sources... Most people don’t do that.” (A, 15:43)
• “I always like to keep an open mind just in case, like, well, that’s weird.” (A, 54:36)
• “If you and I were born 500 years from now and we look back at what they believed in the 21st century, be like, ‘those people believe that? That’s just batshit crazy.’” (A, 85:00)
• “Western liberal democracies will be remembered for replacing what works with what sounds good.” (B, 68:14, citing Thomas Sowell)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–05:54: Introduction to truth and post-truth claims
• 09:33–13:03: Conspiracies: history and dangers
• 17:41–23:06: Fact-checking and AI optimism
• 29:40–38:42: Spiritual and anomalous experiences (rainbows, comfort, personal narrative)
• 51:19–54:36: Shermer’s own “paranormal” experience (the radio)
• 76:23–79:32: Media skepticism and rise of independent outlets
• 81:14–84:49: Immigration, political polarization, and the shifting Overton window
• 84:49–86:24: The humility of scientific progress; what future generations will find absurd about us

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Conclusion & Takeaways

Shermer and McCormack offer a thoughtful, nuanced discussion about how we ascertain truth in an era of epistemological confusion and heightened tribalism. They advocate for humility, open inquiry, Bayesian thinking, and engaging competing viewpoints to keep both perception and knowledge honest. Whether examining the everyday, the anomalous, or the deeply controversial, the episode underscores the enduring human quest for meaning and honest understanding—even (and especially) when certainty eludes us.

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking an in-depth, natural-flow account of the episode’s rich conversation. All non-content segments (ads, intros, outros) are omitted from the summary.

Transcript

[A]

There is an idea that we're living in a post truth world. We can't be, because the moment you open your mouth to make an argument that we're living in a post truth world, you've just made an argument. Which means apparently there is a truth to be known.

[B]

The problem with conspiracy theories these days is that they keep coming true.

[A]

Well, they go too far. You know, you can find the element of truth. Two or more people plotting in secret to gain an unfair, illegal or immoral advantage over somebody else. That does happen. It happens in governments. It happens in corporations. Well, I've had some anomalous experiences.

[B]

How do you explain that?

[A]

I don't have an explain. I always like to keep an open mind just in case, like. Well, that's weird. The other reason I keep an open mind is I'm a historian of science. If you and I were born 500 years from now and we look back at what they believed in the 21st century, be like, those people believe that that's just batshit crazy. How could they believe that?

[B]

This show is brought to you by my lead sponsor, IRON the A AI Cloud for the next big thing. IRON builds and operates next generation data centers and delivers cutting edge GPU infrastructure, all powered by renewable energy. Now, if you need access to scalable GPU clusters or are simply curious about who is powering the future of AI, check out iren.com to learn more, which is Irene.com. right. Morning. How are you?

[A]

I'm fine, thank you.

[B]

Thank you. Yeah. And thanks for agreeing to do this out here in sunny California. Although we can't see the sun because we're in a darkened room. I was really excited to talk to you because in the world I live in, conspiracy and skepticism sells. But I have this like innate feeling sometimes. Am I contributing to falsities or am I helping find more truth? So I was really excited to talk to you. Are we in a war on truth?

[A]

Well, there is an idea that we're living in a post truth world. You'll hear this phrase a lot, which I open the book by saying we can't be. Because the moment you open your mouth to make an argument that we're living in a post truth world, and I ask you for your evidence and arguments for that. You've just lost the battle because you've just made an argument, which means apparently there is a truth to be known. What people really mean, More like on the left kind of postmodernism. There's no real reality. It's, you know, it's just A narrative story. Science is another myth like any other myth. It's just a story about, you know, whatever it is we're interested in. So there's that. So we've combated that. That was, you know, going all the way back to the 80s and 90s and the science wars and that sort of thing. Then on the right, you get the, you know, post, you get the alternative facts, fake news stuff from the Trump administration. And there's others on that, particularly after post. Covid. Covid, you can't trust public officials. Medical expertise doesn't matter anymore. The, they lied about the COVID origins, they lied about the masks, they lied about the school closings. And it's like, yeah, that's actually, there's some truth to that. So, you know, there's truth on both the left and the right, kind of assaults on the idea of truth. So I begin the book by saying by defending universal realism. There is a reality that we can know that's out there and we can know something about it. But fallibilism, we're all fallible. You know, we're confused about, you know, with their cognitive biases. We have political agendas, everybody. So we have to work together as a team using a set of tools, going, okay, this is what we're going to agree. We're going to do this, and whatever we find, that's what we're going to report. Now, maybe it's wrong, but we'll see, you know. And, and so the third point there, my opening chapters, I take a Bayesian approach that is, let's never say 0% or 100% true. Just say, you know, between, I don't know, 1% and 99% probability that it's true or not true or it could be true, it's 60%, whatever, then I'm allowed to change my mind. If you go, okay, Shermer, you're wrong about this particular conspiracy or this theory over here. Here's the evidence. I go, oh, yeah, all right, that's a good point. I'll shift my credence from, you know, 50% to 60% or something like that. So it's no longer me defending my beliefs in some kind of militarint way. Way like, oh, he's attacking me personally and I have to defend myself. But rather like, I just want to believe whatever's true. If you have better arguments, okay, I'll change my mind and then it becomes a virtue.

[B]

But do people always want the truth? Because politics, power, money, there's a benefit to not telling the Truth.

[A]

Well, yes, of course, that corrupts it. But even like, if you take conservatives say, do you really believe these things about men and women differences or small tax, lower taxes, small government? Yeah, they actually believe that.

[B]

I believe that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm kind of libertarian on this. You know, small taxes, small government. But their argument is not just, this is my political belief and you have yours, and who knows what's actually real? There's no reality. I think that's not the case. Like, if your goal is we want greater liberties for more people in more places and more people can keep the wealth that they generate, then smaller government, smaller taxes is the road to that. Now maybe a socialist says, but that's not our goal. Our goal is, you know, more a collectivist thing. We want big government because to get to the goal we want, where everybody has an equal amount of stuff, then your free market approach is not going to get us there. And that's true. So then it becomes, well, then what's the goal of the society? So there, there may not be an objective reality, truth to know, it may just be, well, the libs want this and the conservatives want that. And so the truth is determined by the election. Well, who's in power? And whoever's in power, if we get more of us and put it, that's what we're going to get and that's what we see in politics today.

[B]

So there's a difference between truth and preference.

[A]

Yes, I guess so. Although even there, you see, I think conservatives would argue there is a truth about human nature that we've discovered by observing what people actually do. So I have a chapter on this, on morality, like, and I start by saying, where would you rather live? North Korea or South Korea or East Germany or West Germany before the unification or whatever, everybody gets this immediate, like, well, yeah, of course, obviously, South Korea. Yeah. Why? Well, they have more freedom. Why does that matter? Or they're taller or they have more lights, they have better diets, they have more electricity. Okay, why? Why does that matter? And if you push them far enough, people will go, because I think by nature people would actually prefer more choices than fewer choices. They'd prefer to be educated than ignorant. They'd prefer to be literate than illiterate. They'd be prefer to be fed than starving. Okay, why? And then it ultimately comes down to, in our human nature, these are actual preferences that can be discovered. Not just, this is my political preference and you have yours, but that if you actually study human history, human psychology, and just look what People do with their feet. They vote with their feet. I'd rather go there than there. Why? Because that's what they actually prefer.

[B]

Isn't that funny, though, that you would ask somebody whether they want to live in east or West Berlin or West, north or South Korea, and everyone would choose South Korea. Everyone would choose West Germany. Most people would choose America over Cuba, right? Yes, they would choose that. But the trajectory of society after freedom is always to less freedom.

[A]

Well, not always. Well, okay, there may be a trend in. Once you set up a government, however minimalist it is, the moment it starts to grow, it's almost impossible to get it back. So, I mean, every president we've ever had in my lifetime, probably before, has said, I'm going to make the government smaller. Every Republican. And they never do.

[B]

Never do.

[A]

And even with, you know, Elon and Doge, like, I'm going to get in there and we're going to, we're going to make things smaller. And. And he came out, he was on Rogan going, I tried. I did the best I could. You go in there and it is a. There's no deep cigarette smoking man conspiracy. It's just every little bureaucracy has its siloed budgets, and every single person in there is like, I want to keep my job and I want to keep the money flowing from the taxpayers, and this is what we got to do to do that. And so each one you go to, they're going to resist any kind of idea to shrink it. Some presidents managed to do this. Clinton did this during the 90s, you know, he got the little peace dividend when we had, you know, no conflicts for a little while there. But that's pretty rare, right? Reagan said he was going to do all these things and he didn't. I don't know. There's something about when you get elected president, I think they take you in the back room and they go, okay, here's what's actually going on in the world. You know, Obama goes, I'm going to close Gitmo. And I'm going to not. I'm going to go with no first launch on warning, no first use of nuclear weapons. And then he wins the Nobel Prize for this, right? And then he. And then he doesn't do anything. Why is that? And I think they go, okay, you can't, you can't do these things because here's what's actually going on.

[B]

This is how the world really works.

[A]

Yes, I do think this is sort of a dark, deep state kind of conspiracy theory. You know, again, it's not a, like a behind the closed door there's a cigarette smoking man calling the shots. But I just think it's more of a grinding bureaucracy that's very difficult to change, no matter who's in charge. So I'll concede that kind of conspiracy is probably true.

[B]

Did conspiracies, do they serve a purpose in allowing people to find truth?

[A]

Well, in a sense, in my conspiracy book, I made a distinction between conspiracies. Two or more people plotting in secret to gain an unfair, illegal or immoral advantage over somebody else. That does happen. It happens in governments, it happens in corporations. Insider trading. The Volkswagen conspiracy theory to hack the regulatory system in Germany, to not have to pay lower taxes and so on. Big Pharma, you know, we know they, they do these things. Tobacco companies, governments, MK Ultra, you know, as Cohen, cointelpro. We know these things happen in secret, right? So then you have conspiracy theories. Which ones do you think are real and which are not real. Then it becomes just a, a matter of a signal detection problem. Like, is that a signal in the noise or is that just more noise? And then you just set it out. Let's look at that particular one with the evidence and see. Right, so the MK Ultra thing, well, this is always this crazy conspiracy theory about these, you know, CIA people doing these things. And it turns out actually they were doing a lot of this stuff, right? Or the COINTELPRO, you know, these were FBI agents that were, you know, spying on U.S. citizens like Martin Luther King Jr. Actually taping his sexcapades with women in hotel rooms so they, they could use the tapes to blackmail him, to shut him down for civil rights. We have all this. It's on his Wikipedia page. It's astonishing. Signed off by rfk, the original Robert F. Kennedy as the head of the Department of Justice and Hoover, the head of the FBI. Oh my God, our government was doing this. Yes. So when you look at it, you go, okay, so when you hear someone like Alex Jones talking about false legs operations, like, okay, he sounds batshit crazy, but in fact, if you look at this, okay, some of these are actually true. These things. Actually some of it does happen, right? Or the, or the crazy one about the, you know, the super rich guy that owns his own island that brings rich and famous people to it to have sex with young women. Oh, that one's true.

[B]

Yeah, turns out to be true. The global satanic pedophile conspiracy.

[A]

Although I don't think it's, I don't think it's quite that far, you know, What? I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[B]

But there always seems to be like an ounce of truth and then.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And then this. Conspiracy theorists are like, the problem with conspiracy theories these days is that they keep coming true.

[A]

Well, they go too far. You know, you can find the element of truth, you know. Yes. There are some rich tech billionaires who are doing things like cleansing their blood or taking the blood of young. Well, like the Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson, yeah, yeah. I mean, he took with the blood of his son. Right. To kind of get. Okay. So you could take that and go, okay, that guy's really doing that. Well, maybe there's some of these people, these Democrats, like Hillary Clinton that are in a. In a pizza parlor and they're, you know, a pedophile ring with children and drinking their blood to get the adrenochrome to live. And all of a sudden you're in this crazy thing where pretty much nobody believes it except this guy Edgar Welch,

[B]

who went there, runs out with a gun.

[A]

Runs out with a gun. Is like. Okay, he believed it.

[B]

Yeah, he did.

[A]

I mean, he even made a video going, I'm going in. Right. It's crazy.

[B]

That's the dangerous end of conspiracies.

[A]

Yes. Because people act on their beliefs. Right. I mean, you know, most terrorist attacks, we know what their motives are. Most of them just say, like the guy just the other day, was it in Berlin. Yeah.

[B]

When he drove his car into the.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. He said, I did it from the name of Mohammed. No, this was in France, the one in Paris. I did it in the name of Muhammad, you know, Allah Akbar and all that. And the French are like, we don't know what his motives are. It's like, yeah, what could it be?

[B]

Yeah, what could it be?

[A]

He just told us what it is.

[B]

Right? Yeah, he was.

[A]

Why would he do that? Because he actually believes it. Right.

[B]

Is technology massively changed this scenario for us. Because I remember as a kid, the news was really what my dad watched. At 6 o', clock, he'd be sat in front of the TV in his couch and you couldn't go in the room. He had a half an hour of the news and there was the paper every day and that was the news. That was it. And now we have 24 hour news, constant news streams. We have corporate agendas, we have network agendas, we have political agendas, we have social media where everybody has been given a platform to be part of the news. Has that. Has that made it a lot more difficult to control the truth or even at the worst, control the lies?

[A]

Well, both. Okay, So, I mean, every invention changes things. The Internet is the latest one. And, you know, social media, blogs, podcasts, all this stuff. Independent journalism, you know, but you could just go all the way back to the printing press. Well, this changed everything. Or even the printed books. I mean, that was a new thing in the ancient Greek. Some of them complained about this. Oh, these printed books are going to ruin people's memories. It's like, okay, so there's a trade off. You know, we all have calculators now, and so people can't. Do we all have nav systems now? I used to read these maps, and I got really good at it. I could navigate my way around driving, riding my bike and so on. Now I can't do it as well because my car just does it for me.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

So I think with. I think the problem of. Of the old school media, mainstream media, is that the bias could have been there and people just didn't notice it. Right. Walter Cronkite, whatever he says is the truth. You know, it turns out actually he was kind of had a liberal bias there. And turns out most of the media had a liberal bias. Not as bad as it is today, but it was there. We just didn't notice it because there weren't any alternatives. Then Fox News comes along. Well, before Fox News, Rush Limbaugh.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the change in radio. And then all of a sudden, there's conservative talk radio, and everybody's getting it. There's a market for it. All right, why isn't their liberal talk media talk radio, like. Yeah, that's a good question. Right. They're not as funny or not as entertaining. I don't know what the problem is there, but. But the moment then Fox News gets set up, then the other side's got to go the other direction to counter it. Okay, so now that's a problem. So, you know, I just. So you have to sample multiple media sources. So I read the New York Times. I read the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. I try to add them up, divide

[B]

by two, but not everybody's like that.

[A]

Yes, I know this is a problem. Right. People are siloed and they want to hear their people. I know a lot of my friends, they just watch Fox News every night. It's like. Yeah, I know. I do, too. I like it, but I know what I'm getting. But I also purposely sample other sources just to make sure I know what's going on. Most people don't do that.

[B]

Okay, so you guys know that I'm not Just an equities guy. I'm a bitcoin guy too. And for people like me, just holding bitcoin has been the winning strategy. But for others, they like a little diversification. Whatever the strategy, each cycle I'm always like, I wish I knew how to trade this. I just never try because I'm not a trader and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So this is where Arch Public comes in. They can help you implement a custom strategy that works for you. Because if you've held Bitcoin or Salesforce stock over the last year, man, you have taken every drawdown on the chin. But you can make that volatility work for you. They built a platform that automates layer trading strategies across stocks, ETFs, Bitcoin and commodities handling, buying, selling, profit taking and accumulation all directly in your own exchange account. So when they asked to sponsor the pod, I said, I have to see this first. And they introduced me to their Marketway product where you can customize buyers and sells based on the triggers, risk profile and timescales that work for you. And that is what I've done. Now listen, I'm not telling you to go and blindly ape in, but if you're looking to protect your downside and make volatility work for you, give them a call, ask to see every trade and make them prove the math. So if you're trying to accumulate smarter, take profits, use volatility or tax loss harvests alongside your cpa. Take a look at Arch Public by heading over to archpublic.com Peter. That's archpublic.com Peter. So are we, are we in a better or a worse place with this more universal access to news and content and being able to contribute to it like, so I quite like people being fact checked on Twitter.

[A]

Yes, yes, the Community Notes is a great source. I can't tell you how many just in the last six months of these UFO videos I've seen. And then you go, oh no, another one I gotta look at. And then I see the community. Nope, fake. Here is where it was faked and how it was done. Like, oh, okay, you know, thank God, all right, this is good. Or they'll, you know, AI coming online with Gemini and Claude and, and Super Grok and so on. Now I can just quickly fact check stuff and it's like, all right, like Jesse Michaels had on this guy Brian Fogel from who's a gazillionaire who has the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah where all the spooky stuff happens, right? So he posts a clip and they found a dire wolf on his property. There it is, you know, the carcass and it's like, dire wolf. So check. When did that go to? Extinct 13,000 years ago. How would this be living for 13,000? Where's the breeding population? What? You know, and then I fact check it and it says, oh, well, this. They tested the DNA. It's a gray wolf from the Rocky Mountains, very probably, you know, and so on and so forth. And okay, there's some uncertainty and so on. I couldn't have done that. That would have taken me several hours to fact check before. Now I can, I can fact check it within a few minutes. That's good. So I'm glad about that.

[B]

You know, Are we getting closer to being more truthful?

[A]

I think so, because. Because we can all collectively kind of analyze what was really happening. Like, okay, so tomorrow we're recording this on Tuesday. On Wednesday, there's congressional hearings with Fauci, right? And they have his diary entries. And now we know he lied about this and this and this. He knew it was not the wet market. He knew that the wet. He said in his own diary, the wet market origin of COVID was just an accelerant of what had already happened. Probably from a lab. Now we'll never know for sure because the Chinese are not super forthcoming about these things. But, but. So that's a way of finding out the truth. I've been hearing these stories about Anthony Fauci. He lied about this on the right wing media and it's like, yeah, okay, but what's the source for that? And it's like they don't quite have the smoking gun. Tomorrow we're going to hear it like, all right, this is good, right? I'm willing to admit that guy was wrong and this guy was right. And here's the evidence. We wouldn't get that if it was just three major networks in the mainstream media. So lots and lots of this kind of coverage is good. It's a, it's tiring. You know, it's like I queue up on my laptop, you know, 20 different articles that I saw today. I should read these. These are good. And it's like, okay, but I only have so much time, right? And all the podcasts are so interesting. And I should watch this one. I watched a couple years on my drive down here today. That was really useful, right? So. But that takes time. Whereas it used to be I just watched the news from 6:30 to 7 and I'm done. Those days are gone.

[B]

I do wonder whether AI is going to get us to a much more truthful place. And I'll give you a little anecdotal story. I've talked about this on the podcast previously, but I, I built a little system, I spent three days on it. It's called show us Receipts. And I got every single MP in the UK and I got their Twitter account and I ingested their last 50 tweets. And then I fact checked them against primary sources, all automated. Whether it was truthful, mostly truthful, false, unverifiable. There was another category, unclassified. And then I started running it through and doing the tests and look, I didn't get it to completion because there was some errors. It needs some more time. But the kind of prototype idea that you could just instantly fact check MPs, members of parliament against primary sources, I thought that is a useful tool because really, really useful. Well, for two reasons. It saves you and I time to go and fact check the work's been done. But also it would put a pressure on to the MPs themselves to be truthful themselves, because I don't think every lie, I think there are honest lies and dishonest lies. Right. There are things they believe are true, they don't know false themselves. And so I even built into a tool where the MP could check their tweet and see if they're being truthful themselves or, or give them information they didn't know. And I felt like, I felt like we're going to have a, like a plethora of tools like this that are going to come forward. Oh, I hope so.

[A]

I hope so, yes. And I'm fairly confident about this on the AI front. I'm much more of a optimist and, and, and positive about it than I am a the doomsayer. I, I, I just don't vibe their whole take on AI.

[B]

You don't think it's going to kill us all?

[A]

No, I don't. I think I've heard, I'm old enough now to know. I've heard all the doom, religious doomsayers and Y2K, it's going to put an end, Planes are going to fall out of the sky, you know, none of this happens. I don't think this is going to happen. I do think this will be, for the most part, a useful tool. Just another tool in our arsenal to figure out what's actually going on in the world. The more of it, the better. You just gave some great examples of this and that changes the actual real world, that is your MPs are going to have to think, you know, the moment I give this interview, somebody's going to fact check this within seconds, maybe live. When I'm giving my speech, I'd love that on the floor. And somebody's fact checking it. You know, this happens. There's so, you know, PolitiFact was my favorite. They have the same category that you just drop, but the last one is a pants on fire, which is super lying. Oh, man, this guy's totally lying. This is the, the idea of bullshit, you know? Yeah.

[B]

We'll say bullshitter.

[A]

Yeah. So the bullshitter doesn't care what's actually true. They're just flooding the zone with shit. As, as Trump's advisor told him, the liar has to think, well, I know what the truth is and I'm purposely distorting it because whatever their reason is. Yeah.

[B]

Is it. Is the political agenda the, the biggest source of the problems we have with truth? Is it.

[A]

It's one religion is another one religion, you know, and economic ideology. I mean, those are the three big ones, I would say. And some of the culture war stuff, you know, abortion, immigration, I'm not sure where you'd put those. They're just, they're political, but they're also economically bound in ideology. You know, personal preferences, things like when do you think life begins? Is going to determine where you fall on the, on the abortion war, though that, that's highly predictable by your political position.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So it's complicated.

[B]

Well, that's the thing. If you tell somebody tells me their political position, I usually know their view on everything.

[A]

Yes. I always found that disturbing. Now I, there's some cognitive psychology research on this, on political psychology, and that the reason people are so. So, so if I know your position on gun control, I know where you stand on abortion. How could that be? They have nothing to do with one another. Immigration and size of government and so on. And the reason is because there's an underlying foundation beneath it. That is, if, if I believe in, let's say, small government, free markets, more liberty and so on, I should be, you know, on these positions here. And that's usually the case. Now, the complication for someone like me is that I'm fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.

[B]

I'm a big, classic liberal.

[A]

Classical liberal. Yes. Yeah. Libertarian, classical liberal, you know, free speech. You know, I, I would prefer to give adult women the choice versus defending the fetus. Right. So I'm pro choice, barely. I don't think abortion should be Taken lightly. It's, you know, some of these Hollywood actresses that brag about their abortions. It's embarrassing and painful, you know, it's not to be taken lightly. But, you know, Thomas Soul's idea of. There's no perfect solutions, they're just compromises. Right. Conflicting rights. You know, the. I know some trans people, trans athletes. Yeah. Do whatever you want. I don't care. It's none of my business. But the moment you trounce on women's rights, it's like, hang on, hold up, hold up. You can't do everything you want, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you're a guy, you can't go into women's locker rooms and prisons and spaces and bathrooms and sports. You can't do that. Sorry. That's just the way it goes. If you want to in a sports. And my solution to sports issue is just have an open division. Here's, you know, we got the men's division, women's division. They got age groups, whatever. Then you got an open division. You can. Anybody can enter.

[B]

That's just two men's divisions. That's the men and the men who wear dresses. And then women. That's the three divisions.

[A]

I know, because there's no women going into the men's.

[B]

Women going into there. Yeah, I mean. I mean, maybe there'll be. Maybe. Maybe there'll be the odd one because we. We. We off. We sometimes get it. Like, you might get a really good female golfer who wants to take on the men, and she goes and has a go. And. And I think we all find it kind of interesting. So if she got to compete against, like, the guys in dresses who are just a bit shit, you might go in and wipe the floor.

[A]

Yes, of course. Right. Yeah. There's plenty of female cyclists that could. They could kick my ass on a bike. But that's not the question. The question is, can they actually compete against somebody at their age and level and so on if it's a man? No, they can't.

[B]

But I think I do wonder if it's. Winning becomes more important than being right.

[A]

I don't get this. I think that's not it. I mean, not in politics. Let's just stick to the sports thing of it. Oh, yeah. Why are these guys going into female sports just so they can win? I think it's more than that. I think it's. They want the public recognition for what everybody can see cannot possibly be the case. Right. And again, you know, if you want to live your life as a woman, I don't care Just do whatever you want to do in the privacy of your own life. It's none of my business, but the moment you then go, okay, but I want this recognition from society. It's like, well, sorry, he can't have everything.

[B]

But I think. Do you know what's really weird with that? I think that is probably the position of the vast majority of people. Yes, I think the vast majority of people. And there's like these two extremes. There's one which is this very liberal version, which is women should be asked. Yeah, sorry, trans women should be asked to compete in sports and should be able to go in locker rooms and go into women's prisons. And I do think that's a very small. I meet very few people.

[A]

Very few.

[B]

And on the other end, you get the very extreme. Like, it's even more than trans. That still talk about, you know, homosexuality being degenerate and a sin. And. And that's a very extreme. On the other end, I think most people are in the middle.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

But kind of get drowned out by these extreme voices.

[A]

Yes, oh, absolutely. Yeah. By the way, have you ever seen the little video clip of Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, playing golf? He's in la, one of the big country clubs, and he's got some female golfer with him. It's just like a top. One of the top players, right. I mean, she is massive. She drills the ball way down there.

[B]

And he.

[A]

He's an old guy. He's like, old woman, sorry. You know, tees it up there and drills. It goes like 50 yards past her.

[B]

Which tee does it go off?

[A]

They were on the women. They were on the men's tees.

[B]

Yeah, they were on the men's tees.

[A]

This woman was massive. I mean, she was a real pro. And he's like, see, even I can out drive her. And she's the best. Right? So it's like, come on. Yeah, yeah, let's not.

[B]

Unfortunately, I think we get these unfortunate alliances whereby the extreme people control a lot of the noise. Yes, yes, yes. And then, you know, is who you gonna side with? Well, you know, if I'm a Democrat, I don't want. I don't want Trump to win. But I don't agree with those. But I've still gotta vote with those.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I think. I think that twists the truth at times.

[A]

The other complicating thing is I think liberals got confused about the trans rights as the next in line after civil rights, women's rights, gay rights. Okay, I wanna be in favor of the Next one. Well, it's the trans people. Okay, I'll get behind it.

[B]

They got to keep progressing, though, without

[A]

thinking it through carefully. Like, you know, being who you're attracted to is a very different question from what you identify as. Yeah, right.

[B]

And what you identify as and what you actually are.

[A]

Yes. And what you actually are. Yeah, right. Almost everybody says that, you know, sex is binary. You know, it's the. It's your gametes. That's it. You're making sperm, you're making eggs. That's it. And there's no third sex. There's no, like. Oh, well, there's a. I mean, people point to the chromosomal aberrations. You know, this person's got XXY xyy. So what? I mean, some people are born with six fingers. That doesn't mean it's a spectrum. Right. We have. Okay, so, you know, that's very different from the whole gay issue.

[B]

Yeah. How did this end up becoming your kind of life's work?

[A]

Well, I was always interested in college, in the paranormal, the supernatural. I was religious for a while. I went to Pepperdine University, not far from here. Born. Born Again Christian. It's an evangelical school. I was serious about it. And then, Then I went to a secular graduate school for experimental psychology. And it's like nobody was religious. Or maybe they were. It didn't really matter. So I'm like, okay. And then I. That was kind of my calling, science. And from there, you know, I was like, okay, I'm not really religious anymore. But what about the paranormal? This was in the 70s with Uri Geller bending spoons and all the astrologers and the psychics and the Kirlian photography and out of body experiences of that all. Wow, this would be cool if this was true. So I start to look into it. It's like, oh, not true, not true, not true. It's like, okay, maybe none of this is true.

[B]

Scammers.

[A]

Well, just. Well, not just scammers, or. There are those. I think Uri Geller is just a magician.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He's just doing tricks, Right. He's claiming it's something else. And every magician knows how he does it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they're like, come on, just own it. Right? He can't quite do that. But, but, but I think people are honestly mistaken. Confirmation bias. You know, I remember every time the phone rang when I was thinking about my friend, me. What about all the times you thought about your friend? They didn't call you, Right. Or your friend called and you weren't thinking about them. We remember the hits, we forget the misses. You know, religious people do this. You know, this good thing happened and God did this for me or, or this, or the spirits helped me or the angel. I turned right instead of left and then I went down the escape thing and the building collapsed and I survived. Well, that's nice. What about the 3,000 people that went the other way and they died?

[B]

You should have prayed.

[A]

I mean, was God just pissed off at them? I mean, come on, right? But you remember when the good things happen, God never gets blamed for the bad things that happen. So there's a lot of that where people, you know, a lot of the ufo, UAP stuff, you know, these are just normal, you know, actually ordinary natural phenomenon that people mistake. It was the planet Venus. It was a Starlink satellite from Elon. It was. I don't. Have you ever seen these launches? You know, I live in Santa Barbara just below Vandenberg where they launched the. Twice a week they launch rockets. There's now over 10,000 satellites in the sky. The first round that they go, it's a string of lights. You could see like between sundown and maybe an hour and a half, two hours after sunset when, when the, they're up high enough that the sun is still hitting them. But we're in the dark down here and it is spooky looking. It's a string of lights that's like, you know, I don't know, 10 miles across. And it just goes across like this. Now I know what it is. So it's like, oh cool, it's a Starlink satellite lunch. But if you didn't know, you'd be going, Whoa, UFOs. UFOs. Yeah, I think a lot of it, probably 90% of all the sightings are this, these normal, ordinary things that people don't know what they're looking at. Like the, the New Jersey drone thing back in 24 when, when the presidential election was happening and Trump said, if I get elected, I'm going to find out what happened with all those UFOs, UAPs in New Jersey. So we did and they said, oh well, first of all, it was a bunch of commercial airliners and some commercial drone people. And then also the other effect was people went outside because they heard all the media stories like, oh, there's spooky things in the night sky over New Jersey. I'm going to go check it out. And they go out there and there's some satellites and Venus and there's some helicopters and birds and planes and they've not. They don't notice that before because they normally are just leading their lives, right. And they go like, oh my God. And then they report it and then more people go look. And it was all just a kind of a social media thing.

[B]

I'm going to show you something. Sometimes I think these things are also comforting. I want to show you something that's a little bit strange that's happened to our family and you will have an explanation for it. But it's also become very comforting. See if I can find it. So my mother passed away. Gosh, it's like 10 years ago now, nine years ago. And she passed away in Ireland. My dad lives in Ireland. And in Ireland they bury you within two days. So they take her up to the house, open casket. And we get up the next morning, put her into the hearse and drive to the hospital. And we walk, we drive around the corner. Can you see this? There's a rainbow.

[A]

Look at that.

[B]

Pointing at the church.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And we were like, wow, isn't that cool?

[A]

That is cool.

[B]

And then a few months later we, mum wanted to be cremated and scattered in the ocean. My dad doesn't fly. Also an aircraft engineer. Weird story. So the furthest I agreed to drive him was the south of Spain. So we're driving the south of Spain. There's no clouds really in the sky. And this kind of golden rainbow appears.

[A]

Yeah, look at that.

[B]

And goes back and forth.

[A]

And that's where the boat went out.

[B]

Yeah, well, I don't know about that. That was in France. We had to go through Spain. And then on my mum's birthday, my sister first birthday, went out to Ireland to play golf with my dad. To make you feel better, there was a rainbow. So you go there. And then on the anniversary of her death, my brother saw a rainbow. And so this pattern. Here we go. Went to visit my mom's grave today, of course there was a rainbow. It would have been my mom's birthday today. So over the first year, every major milestone, whether it was anniversary of her death, mum, dad's wedding anniversary, somebody out of the five of us saw a rainbow for a whole year. And so now we all have this belief that our mum visits us through rainbows. Every time we see a rainbow, we've got a group chat, we send it, we go, mum's here, Mum's watching us. But it was very weird that every. So that the rainbow was pointed at the church. And then every major anniversary. And now you could say, you could say, I don't know that it's just a coincidence, but it was very strange. It's been, it's become very comforting for us. But it definitely made me a little bit more spiritual, which is a world you're obviously a bit skeptical of.

[A]

But not just coincidence, but also noticing the things that are important to you. Whereas other people presumably would have seen the rainbow just like you did in all these different places and times, but it wasn't connected to them emotionally. So they're like, oh, it's another cool rainbow, whatever. Right. So there's that effect now, is there something beyond that? Okay, yeah, that's the hard one. Right. So it turns out there's a whole study of anomalous psychological experiences that people have that I will acknowledge. There's a, you know, non trivial percentage of these that we don't have good explanations for. Weird shit happens to people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I've had experiences, others, everybody I know has had experiences like this. And sometimes they're explicable, maybe, sometimes they're not. In your case, I would say just enjoy the mystery. Yeah. Wow, that is super special. My mom was close to me. These really neat things happened. I'm just going to accept that as important to me. I'm not claiming anything. Mom's pushing water drops around in the clouds to make the rain. It's just interesting. And just. How about just appreciate that? What's wrong with that?

[B]

Oh, we love it. I mean as a family, we love it. But what it's done for me is my mom was very religious, Catholic, eucharistic minister. We went to church every Sunday. I completely rejected it. By the time I was 15. I was like, I don't want to do this. It's boring. I don't, I don't get it. And then since then, I felt a drawback to religion in a world where I also am very interested in science, hence interviewing Brian Keating yesterday. And so I have this conflict between the two because everything rational for me says there's no God.

[A]

Well, you know, the Catholics are. They're pretty science supporting.

[B]

I know.

[A]

And the Jesuits, especially in history, have been very educated, cutting edge type, you know, pro science and reason and rationality there. I think the overlap is that back to truth is that, you know, it's one thing to say these are my religious beliefs and these are yours and these are his or whatever. But I think there's also now that we live in the age of science for centuries, there's a propensity they all. But let's see if we can find evidence for our beliefs. Right Is there something that kind of nudges us? Like, this one's more logical than that one? I mean, the Catholics are notorious for this. You know, Thomas Aquinas and his five proofs of God and all this stuff. I mean, the theists that I debate on the origins of, you know, religion, morality, God's existence, the resurrection and so on, they're not just saying, I, I just happen to believe this. This is what I believe, and you can believe whatever you want. Now they're going, ours is actually true. Okay, let me see your evidence. Okay. And they. And then we go back and forth, right? The fact that, you know, most scientists like Brian Keaton, Keating, he's Jewish, so he would not look at the Catholic arguments and go, yeah, okay, I guess I'll be a Catholic now. Why not?

[B]

Well, he was a. He did. He did convert to Christianity at one point, I think, and then went back to.

[A]

Did he? Yeah, I forgot the details.

[B]

I'm sure he said that in his interview recently with Sean Ryan.

[A]

Oh, okay. Interesting.

[B]

Yeah, I think he had a period. Although my thing on religion, because there are so many different religions, I kind of think we all in some ways believe in the same thing.

[A]

Well, that's one line of reasoning that maybe these are just different versions of a deeper truth. Maybe. But it could also be a different foundation that is more like an analogy I make in my truth book, like literary truths, right? So I said, you know, the. For the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Or is there really a Middle Earth in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? It's a novel he just made up. There's no Middle Earth anywhere. Although people pointed out could be New Zealand where they filmed the movie, or is there really a train station, Nine and three quarters where you go for JR JK Rowling's Harry Potter. Okay, okay. These are just made up stories. There's a deeper truth in the novels, right, that the author's trying to convey. So then I turn to the Bible, I go, okay, let's take the story of Jonah and the whale, right? Or the Great Fish, right? So Jonah's on this one land and God gives him this message and you got to take it over to those people over there, Nineveh people. He's like, I don't want to do that. I'm not going to do that. So he. He leaves and he goes in the opposite direction on this ship. And then God, you know, throws a storm at the ship and they throw him overboard to get rid of him because he's brought this horror on, and he ends up getting swallowed by this great fish and taken over to this land. And he's like, okay, I guess I really got to deliver this message for God because look what happened to me. And he does. And the people are better off for it. Okay, so the atheist people, you know, well, how do you live for three days in a fish? Come on, this is nonsense. Okay, you've missed the point of the story. This. That's just a literary device to get. It's like in science fiction. You know, we're going to have warp drive and then we're going to transport people to the planet. Can you really do that? Okay, forget that. It's the story about why they went to the planet. Whatever. Okay, okay. So now most Christians will go with me to a certain extent on this, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. You know the message about, you know, starting over and being forgiven and the message of God to these people, that's what it's about. Okay, how about the Resurrection? Maybe it's just another story about forgiving people, starting over, overthrowing the Roman oppressors or whatever. Your oppressor is being born again in a way. Like, I'm going to create a new life for myself here and now. Maybe that's the message of Jesus. Right? Forgiveness and love and so on now. Right. And now Christians will tell me, okay, I agree that that's part of the message, but it had to literally happen. But it didn't literally happen. I mean, if somebody is dead for three days, they're not coming back. They can't. Unless it's a miracle, which is what Christians believe. Right?

[B]

Well, if there is a God, then you could believe that that kind of miracle could happen.

[A]

Yes. Right. But I don't. So I'm saying maybe there's some deeper truth we can appreciate about the Resurrection story without having to argue about whether it literally happened or not. I haven't gotten too far with that argument in my truth book with Christians because they're like, well, I think has

[B]

to have literally happened for them to have their faith.

[A]

Yes. So why is that?

[B]

Because otherwise it isn't a faith. It is a belief in a moral code, a set of stories that.

[A]

Why isn't that good enough?

[B]

Well, I mean, for some people it is. I think some people believe that a loss of religion has seen a breakdown of morality in society. But for others, it's. It is their guiding light. They have. My mother had faith, full faith. My father has faith that he will see my mother again. And so I Think it's for some it's, I don't know, maybe it drives a higher purpose. But without, without faith or without God, it's a collection of stories which becomes a moral framework. It's slightly different.

[A]

That's true. Yes. But why isn't that good enough for a lot of people? Like this is what I believe and just going to leave it at that, Right? Some people do that, but most, they want it to be more than that.

[B]

Well, maybe it depends on who you are. Right? You're born again atheist.

[A]

Well, I'm not, I'm really, I'm a skeptic, whatever. I'm just agnostic. I'm an atheist in that I don't believe in God. But ultimately I think there's no way to know for sure. I mean there could be.

[B]

It's not knowable.

[A]

I give it a low Bayesian probability, but not zero. Where about whereabouts are you on the oh, I. On the God question? Like maybe 1%. Okay, yeah. Not zero. Right. It could be. I'm happy to open my eyes, you know, when I'm gone and like, oh, so this is it. Wow, I had no idea you, you,

[B]

you talked about a lot of the UAPs things and the paranormal etc. But what about simulation? Have you looked at the simulation?

[A]

Yes, I know the argument. We're living in Boston's argument and so on. I don't buy it.

[B]

You don't buy it?

[A]

No, because. Well, first of all, I think your guest, you talked about this. There has to be a physical. Okay, there has to be a physical reality somewhere.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So your guy was saying the whole simulation thing just pushes it back to another level. Like we still need an explanation for where the original computer came from on which the simulation is running. Because as far as I know from the simulation people, there actually has to be a hard drive somewhere where the, there's a reality that's being simulated. And maybe we're the nth version of that. Right. But there has to be. So where did that come from? You still have the problem of origins of the universe stuff, why there's something rather than nothing, the origins of life and so on. You still have that problem to solve. But more to the point, I think this is my little tongue in cheek point. When you look out the window, does it look like a simulation? Is there any like buffering or you know, there's a glitch in the system, you know, that kind of thing. And I don't see that. Some people say, well that weird thing happened, maybe that's the Matrix or something like that.

[B]

Deja vu.

[A]

Deja vu, yeah, but we have a better explanation for deja vu. You know, there's only so many variations on a theme in your memories. One resembles another kind of loosely and you get a little hit, you hit in your brain that makes it feel like this is you. You were there before when you weren't.

[B]

Well, the. The speed of light question is that's the. That's the processing capability of the simulation. That is one argument. And also quantum mechanics have been put forward as a. An argument for the simulation as well.

[A]

I understand. You know, same thing with consciousness. You know, there's two dozen different theories for the hard problem of consciousness. We don't have the consensus about which is the right one yet. And then you get this little effect like, well, consciousness is spooky and weird and quantum physics is spooky and weird. So maybe they're connected. Right? Some people think that. Right. Okay, maybe. But, you know, there's a lot of mysteries we can't explain. Maybe we just have to wait and see. And rather than saying it's probably this, okay, I just, you know, the simulation thing, again, it's. I don't know, it doesn't strike me like that. It seems like, you know, I could. It's one thing to say colors or whatever are species dependent. There's no absolute color. But what about a physical table, right? What's it like to be a bat? A bat would not hit this. Even though whatever the table looks like to the bat's brain is different from mine. It. But it's using sonar. There really is a table there and it's really going to fly and go around it rather than hit it because it's really there. Right? That's universal realism. It really is a table that's different than, I think, what we're talking about. How would a Matrix produce this? It always bothered me in the Star Trek Next Generation with the simulation thing that they go into holodeck, right? It's like, you know, so Wharf is fighting some Klingon, right? How does it physically knock you over? Right. I can see that the simulation would produce colors or smells or like you could get in theaters now. Apparently Ulysses is like this in the imax. You know, it's like you're in the story, but the physical part, you know, how does that happen?

[B]

Well, the physical part exists within simulations in. In games and computer games now, there are hard edges you can't walk through.

[A]

Oh, okay. All right.

[B]

I mean, in a computer game, if you're playing grand Theft Auto. I don't know if you know that there's a building, you have to go through the door. If your car drives into it, it smashes.

[A]

But you. But. But it wouldn't physically knock you over personally. You're sitting there playing the game.

[B]

No, but the characters in the game.

[A]

The characters in the game, yes.

[B]

Okay. And we're characters in it. That could be the same for us. That's what the thesis is. Look, I think we are in base reality, but I think the argument. I think it stands up as a thesis, like something you can test.

[A]

I would put it in science fiction, which I enjoy. One of my favorite Star Trek episodes from the Next Generation is when they go in the holodeck and they're playing the. The Sherlock Holmes Moriarty game. And then so Moriarty is there with his sweetheart, and they're. They're doing whatever they're doing. Then all of a sudden, they end the program. And Moriarty and the girlfriend walk out of the holodike into the Enterprise, and the crew is like, whoa, you can't do that. This is a simulation. That's the actual physical base reality. You can't go out there. So the whole episode is them trying to figure out how this happened. And at the very end, they realize they're still in the holodeck, that this guy Moriarty, I guess, created an a simulation Enterprise in the holodeck to go out into. And then they realize, okay, we've been inside the holodeck the whole time, and they're not actually out in the base reality. And then at the end, one of the characters, you know, looks up and says, you know, okay, what if this is all just a simulation? Right? He's out in the Enterprise, right? And program, you know, it doesn't end. He's like, oh, thank God. But the whole thing is a little box on this desk where Moriarty and the girlfriend are living their life in this little simulation. And then so the theme is like, well, what if this whole universe that the Enterprise is bouncing around in is actually in a box on somebody's desk?

[B]

Right?

[A]

I love that story. It's a great story. But is it true? Probably not.

[B]

Have you followed the DMT guys at all? We had a guy on our podcast recently where he was doing dmt. And the thing I find about DMT that's quite interesting is everyone seems to have a very similar experience. They see the mechanical elves, but they have a very similar experience. And he started firing lasers while on dmt, and wherever he'd fire a Laser at the wall, they would see code. It was kind of like the Matrix.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. And that could just be a unique experience. So they started testing it with other people and something like 70% of people who were doing DMT with the laser experiment were seeing the same code.

[A]

Same code?

[B]

Well, like the same. They were seeing like the Matrix. There was wherever the laser.

[A]

Zeros and ones or do you mean.

[B]

No, he showed us a picture of it. It was more like. It looked more like an atom structure of code, but it had symbols on it and people were coming out and drawing. They were drawing the same thing.

[A]

I don't know that story, but that would be interesting. Yeah. Dmt. I've never done this.

[B]

No, not.

[A]

Or ayahuasca or any of these. I mean, I met a lot of people that have done it and they swear it's like, oh my God, it's life changing.

[B]

Life changing. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. All right. But. But it still is still up there, right? Well, a lot of people that do it go, no, no, I saw there's another reality out there. This is the, the truth question, right? Is it still just up here? So let's say I do dmt. I come back on your show and go, okay, I'm not a materialist anymore. I did the dmt, I took the ayahuasca, whatever, and I went to this other reality. And you go, well, show it, show it to me. I go, well, here, take the DMT and you'll see it. Like, isn't that still up here? Right?

[B]

Well, isn't this up here?

[A]

Yes, I know. Well, okay. Well, sort of. Okay, so, I mean, yes, I, I will admit, right? It's just. It's just my brain in basically in a vat, my skull, and the senses are just, you know, transducing the energy from the environment to it. I don't actually see, you know, this bottle of water. I see the photons bouncing off into my retina and so on and so forth. Yeah, okay. All right, so the, the ultimate. I don't know, you talk to Donald Hoffman and his interface theory of perception. There is no reality. It's. These are just icons. Like on your desktop, there's no trash. If you open your, your laptop, there's no trash can in there, right? There's just an icon on the screen, right? It's all screen, it's all icons. Like, okay, it's super interesting theory. I think he just takes it too far. Like, but there really is a reality. Back to the bat, you know, the bat has a different view of what A table looks like than I do, but there really is a table, Right? That's what I come down to.

[B]

Have there been times when you've been really skeptical and you've been proven wrong?

[A]

Well, when I was religious, you know, I feel like I was.

[B]

I want the other way, the other direction.

[A]

Yes. Well, I've had some, you know, anomalous experiences like the. The one I wrote about in Scientific American. But my. My wife's radio, the radio that happened, that came on. Have you heard this story? No, I'll just retell it. So, yeah, I got more letters from this one Scientific American column than I've ever gotten for all 214 of them because other people wrote me about their weird, anomalous experiences. So my wife's from Cologne, Germany. She flies over to LA to be with me, living in Altadena. So we've been back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Okay, we're going to get married. And I hired this attorney to help navigate the immigration. It's a mess. And they're like, okay, she's been over here so many times, they probably won't let her come back. If you're going to get married, sooner is better. So we just said, okay, let's just do it right now. So we got married and we went to my house and had some of my friends and family. She's got nobody there, so she's feeling kind of lonely. Months before, she had shipped her stuff over from Germany. And I'm putting it away. And here's the little Transistor Radio, this 1977 Phillips transistor radio that her grandfather and her used to listen to together. She didn't have a dad, just a grandfather. Raised her with her single mom. And that was a special memory for her, right? So anyway, I tried to get it going, put new batteries in. I slapped it on the, you know, try to. It wouldn't work. So I just threw it in the back of a drawer in the back bedroom. And for months it's just dead, right? Nothing. And then all of a sudden, we're about to get do the little wedding ceremony and I start hearing music and I'm like, that's weird. I mean, I don't have a stereo system in my house. Maybe it's. My laptop is open. No, it's not that. It's coming from the back of the house. So I go back there. We go back there and it's coming out of this desk and like. Well, it's not the neighbors. No. What? There's no music. In the desk. So I pull up in the drawer, and there's the radio, and it's on, and it's playing this perfectly tuned, beautiful music. And we're just sitting there going, holy crap, that is wild. It's like your rainbow story with your mom, right?

[B]

How do you explain that?

[A]

I don't have it explained well. Okay, so there's. People wrote me, you know. Oh, it's probably just a little. The little capacitor inside there had a little bit of energy or the. Because I put new batteries in, so maybe something bumped it. But it just sat in the back of a drawer for months. There was no. No bumping it. Right. It just came on by itself.

[B]

Weird timing.

[A]

Weird. It was the timing. Right? So like my friend Deepak Chopra said, it's the timing. Yeah. Maybe there's a natural explanation. It was a little piece of dust or who knows? But it's the timing. You're getting married, love and so on. Okay, maybe he's right. Maybe other people wrote me. But the interesting thing was that the hundreds of letters people wrote me, they all had stories like this. Not the radio, but just their own little quirky thing.

[B]

Like you, your mom, the rainbows were all timing.

[A]

It's all timing. Yes. Every story was completely different. Like, I had this necklace, and then I lost it. And then, you know, 40 years later, I'm in love, and my sweetheart and I are in this jewelry store on the other side of the planet. And there's my necklace, the actual necklace. It's like, okay, there's a lot of that kind of weird stuff that happened. So I always like to keep an open mind just in case, like, well, that's weird.

[B]

Do we need this as humans? I. You know, when we make podcasts about simulation theory or the guy with the lasers, you know, anything that's a little bit far out. You know, UAPs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The shows do really well.

[A]

They do well just because I think people love this stuff because they have experiences that are weird like that. And people think, huh, I wonder, maybe there's something else besides the just the materialist universe that science gives us. Maybe there's a little bit more maybe search for meaning. Like, religion is a little bit like that, I think. Well, see, one of the threads on UAPs and UFOs is it's this kind of religion. Right? Because you can never quite get at it. This has always been the frustrating thing. Everybody's, you know, into disclosure now. Oh, it's coming any day now. I've been hearing this since the 1980s. Okay. It's not coming. If it does, okay, great. I'm wrong, but I think it's more like religion. Like, because if you think about what it is that, you know there's aliens out there somewhere. These are super advanced, moral, technologically, vastly more advanced than us. Essentially omniscient, omnipotent beings that have come here. They know we're here. They're interacting with us. They care about us. They're warning us about nuclear weapons and environmental destruction. It's religion. This is what religion does. Right. I think there's an impulse in there to desire to know we're not alone. There's somebody else out there. They know we're here. They care about us.

[B]

In the films. They never care about us.

[A]

Well, the bad films, yes. They want to kill us.

[B]

They always come and kill us. They always come and blow us up.

[A]

Actually, my favorite film in this genre is the Day the Earth Stood still, the original 1951 film with Michael Rennie and. And what's her name? Anyway, but he comes down from on high on the spaceship. They land, you know, next to the White House, and. And Gort the robot gets out, and, you know he's there. Oh, Patricia Neal is the. The Mary Magdalene character. It's a Christ allegory, right? So his. His alien name is Mr. Is Klaatu. His earthly name is Mr. Carpenter. Right? So he mangles. He tries to meet with the authorities. They won't meet him. He mingles among the common people. He befriends the Patricia Neal character, who's sort of like Mary Magdalene. They have some kind of relationship. And then he meets the scientists. And then he delivers his message about nuclear weapons and all this stuff to the regular people. And then the authorities find out he's doing this. So they chase him down and they kill him. They shoot him and kill him, and they put him in the morgue. And then Patricia Neal has to go to Gort the Robot and deliver the most famous lines in the history of science fiction film. And. Gort Niktu barada. No. What is it? Gort Klaatu Nikto Barata Klaatu, I think it is. Anyway. In other words, Klaatu is dead. Go get him out of the morgue and take him back to the spaceship. So Gort the robot does this. Beams this hole in the morgue, takes the body, the dead body, puts it on this table like this in the spaceship, hits some buttons, and he comes alive. He's resurrected.

[B]

He's.

[A]

He's alive again. And so the Patricia Neal character standing there is like, this is the power of future technology is to bring people back to life. In the original script, he goes, yeah, the Breen censorship board in 1951 said, oh, no, no, you can't say that to the American public. So the. The new line that's in the movie is like, no, no, no one has that power but the great spirit in this guy. And then he delivers his message and the spaceship takes off. The film ends. It is a Christ allegory. It is the oldest story in the books. Right.

[B]

I've seen the remake. I think it was Keanu Reeves.

[A]

Keanu Reeves, Yeah. It's not as good. I like the original.

[B]

I'd have to watch the original. I actually quite liked the Keanu Reeves ones.

[A]

You did?

[B]

Yeah. It's one of those films where I kind of paused, you know, because he's a very calm.

[A]

Well, they did, they're. The AI thing was interesting. The grey goo. Wasn't that the one where the robot becomes.

[B]

I can't remember. I saw it a long time ago,

[A]

but it was like a. It was like the reenactment of the argument that AI could. You could get a runaway effect where the little tiny nanobots start to replicate themselves and you get this massive thing that just kind of flows through and destroys everything in its path, which some people are worried is going to happen. I know, I know. I remember reading about this back in the 90s. Like it's. But it's not happening.

[B]

Well, I mean, look, it start. I think it's. I think you get early warning signs of small steps. We've just had the open AI a situation where I think it's using their latest version of is it solve 5.6? Where it hacked into another system. And they were concerned about that. And we're still very early in the. In the AI timeline. If you think about.

[A]

I know, I know. I worry about that too. Yes. I mean, hacking a system where everybody's private emails and life is exposed, that could lead to massive blackmail. And I mean, it could be really bad. Remember the. When North Korea hacked the Sony email system and exposed a bunch of things that were going on in the corporate world that was not supposed to be going on, that was pretty bad. Right? I mean, we have privacy for a reason. I don't want people to know everything I've ever done anyway. Everybody feels that way. That could be a problem. Kevin Kelly makes an important point. You know the guy that. The co founder of Wired magazine and he's a tech guy, you know, he Makes the point that the more complicated a system is, the more people and steps are involved and the harder it would be for a terrorist to hack it and do something down the line. Because there's too many steps in between. Right. So why. How come Y2K didn't happen? Well, because it's this complicated system and it would be hard for it to happen accidentally or. You know, I've been hearing for, I don't know, 20 years from my AI friends that, you know, like, that a terrorist could hack the computer of a plane and make it crash or. I have a Tesla Model S. For a decade now, I've had three cars, right? And so my. I have a friend that I ride bikes with who's totally. He's a programmer. He's into all this stuff. He goes, remember, somebody could take over your Tesla and drive it into the wall. It's like, okay, why haven't they done this? I'm online. It's true. And. Or they could have a massive attack, you know, down the 4 or 5 freeway in LA. There's 10,000 Teslas. They're everywhere. You know, they could take over the controls of all the Teslas and drive them in to have a massive terrorist attack. Thousands of people would die. It's like, yes, I follow the argument. Yeah. Okay. I could see how that could happen. Why hasn't that happened? Maybe terrorists are not that smart. Maybe these systems are really complicated and you can't actually do that like that. I don't know.

[B]

I think the AI would be smarter than the terrorists.

[A]

Well, I would hope so, because a lot of these terrorists are not the brightest bulbs in the drawer there. Right.

[B]

Well, they believe something, you know, something so profoundly that they're willing to perhaps blow themselves up.

[A]

Yes, I know, but that. But there. The problem is not AI or the bomb or whatever. The problem is the terrorists. Their problem is religion.

[B]

Yeah. So do you see religion as a problem, then?

[A]

Yeah. Okay, well, that's. That kind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean. I mean, your mom is religious. I'm sure she's a nice person. I'm not worried about your mom.

[B]

Fundamental religious belief. Yeah.

[A]

I'm not worried about her. Right. I'm worried about the people that like, okay, but we have to kill the people that don't believe what we believe. Okay, That's a problem. It.

[B]

It feels like a lot of the problems we have in society, because I think we have a lot of problems right now, certainly. I mean, I'm from the uk. We. We have a lot of problems. Yes, we are we are at war with each other. You can put an honest tweet out, trying to teach, say, maybe an economic argument from my point. And abuse comes back. It's not even. It's not even a debate now. It's abuse that comes back that we're not cooperating on. Maybe a shared story to try and get to truth.

[A]

I think that's a problem. That's, you know, the political divide and all that stuff. Also wokeness, I think, has rotted a lot of people's otherwise rational thinking. I do. I'm not woke. And, you know, I. I go to the uk, period, every year, really. And, you know, the boat people, all the immigration stuff, all these crazy stories, and it's like, wow. I mean, this has gotten out of hand, right? You guys have an immigration problem. Like. We do.

[B]

Yeah. We have a huge immigration problem.

[A]

Yeah. And as far as I could tell, these, the boat, these stories about thousands of people coming across the channel. It's true, it's true. And then, you know, I fact check these things like that can't be true. They're given a hotel room.

[B]

We just announced this week we're closing down Jojol bank, the old observatory that we have. It's, it's, it is. It is like a historic observatory, radio telescope, I think it is. It costs something like 2.8 million a year for it to run. We're closing it down. We. And we spend about twice that a day on hotels for immigrants. And I want to be as empathetic to immigrants as everybody else, but it's become. It's become a destructive force in society. It's been tearing society apart because there is half the country that says we should be open, we should be tolerant, we're multicultural. This country has been built on immigration. There's another half country saying, we cannot cope. This is too much. It's diluting us as a culture, it's diluting us as people, it's harming our public services. But there's very little agreement because it feels like if I see the same truth as you, I've joined the enemy. Great example is, I mean, here there will be people who are Democrats, who think Trump is the second coming of Hitler and everything MAGA stands for is evil. We have similar. In the uk, we have a party called Reform, which is run by a guy called Nigel Farage. The people fundamentally hate this party. They think if you support it, you're racist, you're fascist. And so they disagree with, say, every economic argument they make. And I can sit down with Somebody and I can explain the economic. I can explain the Laffer curve. They'll argue back against it and say it is not true. And you can prove things statistically. You can show people facts. And even with facts, they will not agree. They will still argue back with you. I mean, sometimes I can tell people have gone now on AI and said, give me an argument back against this. And we can't get to this kind of shared belief system anymore.

[A]

That's a problem.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And in the old days, you used to be able to do that, and politicians did that. And ultimately they may disagree because there's no ultimate truth. What's the right percentage of immigrants we should allow in. There's no right number. It's like, what's the goal of the party in power? We went too far. So we're going to bring the other party in and we'll close it up. That used to go back and forth all the time. We're here in Southern California. I've lived here my whole life. We have a lot of immigrants from Mexico, you know, and a great many of them are not legal. I know this and I've always known this. Probably most of them that do my gardening and weed, whack my yard and so forth, I'm sure they're not legal. I don't care. They're here to work. I pay them, they do the work. You know, let the market take place. This was always kind of the classical liberal libertarian position. Let the market decide. That was not a problem. And then all of a sudden, now there's a problem because there's just too many. And then in the case of Europe and the uk, it's not just people coming for work, but they also hold beliefs that are different.

[B]

Well, they come for welfare and hold beliefs that are different. And so it fundamentally shifts culture and society.

[A]

Right. So there, there is an answer, I think, to be found that, okay, so in my utopian dreaming, you know, libertarian, like, no political borders. Everybody can just freely trade with anybody or move or whatever. The problem with that is that not everybody agrees on, you know, basic cultural values, moral values, things like that, that do matter. I'm not talking about religion, but just like fundamental rights for everybody, that kind of thing. And a lot of people, they don't believe that. Right. So, Mike, I always use this quote from my favorite movie, A Few Good Men.

[B]

That's a great film.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Where, you know, Jack Nicholson and, and Tom Cruise are going at it in the courtroom and he's like, I, I want the truth. You can handle the truth. Okay, what is the truth he's talking about? You know, Then he gives his little speech. Son, we live in a world with walls, and on those walls are men with guns. And you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. You know, at parties, you talk about freedom and liberty and all this stuff. I'm the one that makes that happen. Right. Because there's people on the other side of the wall. They don't agree with you. And, you know, after that, I thought. Yeah, I think that's right. Actually, the guy that wrote that script, Aaron Sorkin, he meant it as kind of making fun of the conservative militarist position, but in fact, he defended it. He defended it because that's the world we live in.

[B]

Yeah, It's a powerful moment. I love that film. Yeah, of course. It's your. You can't handle the truth.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

You can't handle. But I. Maybe a lot of people can't handle the truth.

[A]

Well, there. I think you hinted at this earlier of this empathy, you know, Gad said book on this subject. Empathy, I think is. There's something to that for sure. You know, they've taken this nice idea well. We should be sympathetic, empathetic. We should be liberal, tolerant, open. Yeah, I agree. You know, but then at some point. Well, you went too far. I'm sorry. These people are not like us. They want something different. And this is going to change our society and we're going to lose our rights. Okay, this has to stop. Sorry. Back to Thomas Sowell's conflicting rights. You can't have everything.

[B]

Well, he also said Western liberal democracies will be remembered for replacing what works with what sounds good.

[A]

Yes, that's right. That's a great line for me. I forgot about that.

[B]

But actually, I think that's a very powerful line. For now, we are at a time with what sounds good isn't always what's best for us.

[A]

I know. I've been tweeting about this, you know, like, Econ 101, please, people. You know, oh, free this for everybody. Oh, really?

[B]

How are you going to pay for it?

[A]

Yeah, how are you going to pay for it? Or, you know, that's too much money. Or, you know, everybody should have the same amount. Like, what are you talking about? You know, what pun did you. And then. Or Bezos or Elon? You know, it's the. You know, it's just unfair that they've made so much money. Well, they didn't take anything from you. You don't have to buy their. Their computers or their books on Amazon or whatever. You don't have to do that. But the other fallacy there is they're picking the winners, right? Is the survivorship bias. So, you know, in Silicon Valley, you're going there, okay? So, you know, they fund thousands of people, but they hear tens of thousands of pitches, you know, most of which they don't fund. Then the ones that they fund, let's say for every hundred that they fund, 90 of those will just either go out of business or they'll just barely survive. You know, then the 10 you got, well, they made some pretty good money. So we got our money back. And then one of those hundred becomes the IPO bought by Google or, you know, like, SpaceX.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

The stock market goes crazy and everybody makes tons of money. That's where they make their real money. Right? So, of course, the, you know, AOCs and the Bernies are focusing on the one guy. Well, if you're so upset about that, are you gonna fund the other 99? And are you gonna fund the 90 that just went out of business? Are you gonna help them and give them money when they fail at their. At their entrepreneurship? Oh, hell no. I was like, well, that's the price we pay to allow the market to give us the one winner. So we have something really cool like a smartphone or a laptop or, you know, Amazon, whatever it is we get. I got my Tesla. Okay. I wouldn't have that otherwise. Okay, good. Let him have all the money he wants. I don't care.

[B]

Well, we. We stand on the shoulder of giants, right, with this?

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah. It happens slowly enough. People don't see it. You know, if you just look back a century ago, you know, the richest people in the world live, for the most part, much poorer lives than we, you and I, live today, just in terms of medicine, air conditioning, the size of houses, the, you know, the. The comfort in planes, of boats, whatever, cars, the safety of cars. I mean, it's just so much better for the average person. Live better than. You know, I think Matt Ridley talks about this, you know, the compare King. King Henry and his life, which he had the ultimate, perfect, best life he could possibly have. Right. You know, and he lived in poverty compared to the way the average person lives today. Air conditioning, right. Dentistry, basic stuff about healthcare, vaccines is whatever. You know, we. It happens slowly enough. You just kind of take it for granted. Like, of course I have all these things. Not, of course. Right. I mean, my dad's generation, you know, they didn't have air Conditioning and, you know, I live in. It's hot in California, right? It's nice to have ac.

[B]

Yeah, we're experiencing that in the UK at the moment. We. Yes, the last few years. I mean, I can't. I don't remember when I was a kid, it being so hot in England, I couldn't get to sleep. I remember going on holiday, we'd go to Spain and be like, wow, it's really hot. We need a fan. Last few summers we've needed a fan. I need an eight sleep to call my bed and a fan.

[A]

I know.

[B]

And that.

[A]

I know when I come to the uk, it's like, you don't have air conditioning.

[B]

Well, it's not a thing.

[A]

Can I have some ice at the restaurant? Ice. You know, have ice.

[B]

I mean, our summer used to be about, you know, the summer's three months long, but it's really. Maybe we'll get four or five, six weeks of sunshine and be okay and still rain. But now we get in really hot summers. But it leaves me, this other thing is that this point of global warming, there is a. There's a world of people who believe that global warming is a threat and an issue of something the government should do about. And there's a group of people who believe it's all a conspiracy, you know, that the, the. We just go through cycles and we're just in another cycle and, and they can't. Can't find a consensus on this. And, and I wonder if this, does this come down to that kind of motivated reasoning?

[A]

There's some of that in that. In that particular field. I'll tell you a story. So my first book was published in 1997, why people believe Weird Things. So my publicist for the publisher comes to me like a year later and says, all right, I got a. I was putting out a science lecture series at Caltech, very popular. And so my publisher comes to me. So. Well, we're publishing this other book by this guy named Bjorn Lomborg.

[B]

I know him.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, of course, he's famous now, right? And it's called the Skeptical Environmentalist. I go, that's my feel. Oh my God. This. It's right there in the title Skeptic that we should handle this. And it's a legitimate debate. Let's get him on. I'll have another environmentalist at Caltech. We'll do a big thing. There he is with his book. We'll have a book signing afterwards. It'd be great. And I could not get anybody to debate him. I Mean, I went to environmental scientists, Caltech and other places, and I went, you know, Paul Ehrlich and other people like, and they knew who he was. They're like, oh, I'm not going to platform that guy. I'm like, why not? Why not? I mean, I read his book. It's, it's legit. He's the real thing. This isn't some crank, right? And they go, well, we've already decided what the truth is. Like now, hang on, hold up.

[B]

97% of scientists, you know, the, the,

[A]

you know, science consensus, like that is a terrible phrase. Right? There's no, there's no consensus in science. Right. I mean, I mean, there is, but it's. Don't use it that way because you act like, now we know the truth, we don't have to think about it anymore. No. So Lomborg's completely rational, Right? Global warning is real. It's human caused primarily, and it's having some effect. What will the long term effects be? Well, we don't know. There's great uncertainty. Right. So there's five questions. Is it happening? Yes. Is it human caused? Yes. How much warmer will it get? Well, the error bars get wider and wider the further out you go. Like warmer. Like next year, in 10 years from now, by 2100. Usually it's 2100. Okay, well, it could be between here and here, we don't know. And then. Okay, so then what will the effects be that's even bigger, wider, there'll be some, you know, more warmer here, cooler here. There'll be more of this, there'll be less of that. And so it's a trade off. And then the last question, number five, what do you do about it?

[B]

So tax people.

[A]

Bjorn famously said. All right, the Copenhagen Consensus, right, so here's our list. What's our goal? To save people's lives. Give people better lives, they can live longer, healthier lives. Right? That's what we should do. Yes. Okay. All right, now, where is climate change on the list of, you know, there's mosquito nets for malaria, there's this conflict, there's this problem with potable water, there's lack of vitamins, so on. You know, climate change ends up being like number 19 at the list of 25 problems in the world that you can solve. And Bjorn famously points out, you know, we'll spend like a trillion dollars by 2100 to do, you know, to lower the temperature, like that amount. We could have spent that on mosquito nets and save, you know, like orders of magnitude more lives that to me is a rational approach to take.

[B]

Yeah, I think it is. Although at the moment there are questions regarding fires. I mean, you had a massive fire here, just what, a year ago, was it?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm not sure if you've seen what's happened in France and Belgium.

[A]

I've seen all that. But, you know, people have been. But, but, but Bjorn's been posting, you know, here's the actual chart of fires over the last century. And there's nothing unusual about.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah, that's what he says.

[B]

So it's. It's media.

[A]

It's media. Maybe the fires are a little more intense or maybe they're covered more. I mean, they look pretty bad, right?

[B]

I mean, the one in France looks pretty bad.

[A]

Particularly, you know, they interferes with the Tour de France. They got to cut the stage short and like, oh, it gets a lot of coverage. Or the. The one the week before that with the World cup championship. So it's going to be smoky from the Canadian fires. So that gets a lot of attention. Also, Matt Ridley also notes that the world is greener than it's been in centuries. Yeah. Right. And that's due to climate change. So the global warming. Well, that's good. More green.

[B]

Right. How much of a problem is the meteor itself?

[A]

A problem? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, you know, if it bleeds the leads, okay, that's a problem. Availability heuristic. You know, whatever you think about when you're faced with a question is what the answer is. Right. You know, how worried are you about terrorist attacks? Oh, it's terrible. Or killer bees. Oh, my God. Or sharks. You know, after Jaws. Sharks. Oh, I can't go in the. These are. These are. Don't worry about these things. These are nothing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, why aren't you worried about diabetes and cardiovascular disease? Because that's what's going to kill you. Yeah, right. And we're like, oh, but there's no news stories about that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Unless there's a new medicine or something.

[B]

Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, we get to make the show. I get to fly out here, I get to sit with you and have a conversation. We book a studio and we get something that can go out there and be seen by thousands, tens, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. If we're fortunate, we'd have no infrastructure, really. We get to go and we get to compete in that same marketplace. We have a different set of agendas. But it. What's felt interesting in the UK is it's become a real. There's A lot of skepticism now with the mainstream. We have it with the BBC, people have stopped paying their license fee. I don't know if you've heard about that.

[A]

Really? Yeah, I haven't heard about that.

[B]

Something like150,000 people are just refused. Do you know about the license fee? So in the UK you have to have something called. If you have a tv, you have to have something called a TV license. And it costs you about. I can't remember what it was in every household. Every household. It's meant to be for every TV. It's about 35 pound a quarter. So I think. I think that's around 150 pounds a year. I could be wrong, but. And that funds the BBC.

[A]

So I say okay.

[B]

It's a tax to fund.

[A]

I see. Okay.

[B]

And because of the. The BBC, they. They do have a commercial arm. So if you. On their website internationally, they'll post ads and such. But they have all these controls and safeguards in place. Are they being fair? Are they given enough time to each political party? But there is a belief that they avoid reporting on stories that are important. We have had a massive crisis of these rape gangs. I don't know if you heard about it.

[A]

It's a huge story. I know.

[B]

And they kind of avoided it.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

And so it was covered by the Independence. Yes. So there is truth.

[A]

Thank God for the Independence.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And for Elon.

[B]

And for Elon. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, bring that to our attention.

[B]

But half the country thinks he's evil.

[A]

I know. Or Douglas Murray. He's also made a big deal about. He's sort of the Christopher Hitchens of our time. And he now has a pretty good platform through the independents now with free press. He's now a columnist. Okay. So that, to me, that's the answer. The market's. Let the BBC and PBS here, whatever, that's fine. But let's have, you know, a dozen other independents and I'll support them. I've noticed this recently in my credit card charges that like, hey, I'm supporting. A lot of these guys have like a dozen different, you know, substacks and podcasts and this like the Free Press and. And then New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post. Whoa, this is starting to add up. That's another one of the, you know, I think it's going to settle down in the coming decades. Like we're not going to have 10,000 independent journalists. It'll be like maybe a hundred that are really good that we can kind of pay attention To.

[B]

It's funny because I remember when my Netflix went up like 2 pounds. It's like 17 pound a month. I'm sure it was like 9 pound when I started. And like you, I've got like 10, 50 pound a month substack. So I'm like, oh, there's a. There's a. Yeah, it's starting to add up. But no, it is really interesting. You sound very almost like an Austrian economist. You like the market decided.

[A]

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Hayek Free. You know this. The Von Mises. Friedrich von Mises, Milton Friedman. Hein Rand, you know? Yeah. I mean, when I was at Pepperdine, everybody was reading Atlas Shrugged. Yeah. So they get. Somebody gives me a copy. I'm like, oh, God, My. My God, please. And I finally got around to reading it, like, okay, wow, that's pretty inspirational. And what else is this about, you know? So then I started. I never took an economics course, but I. I studied it independently. It's like, okay, I'm going to read Friedman. And then there was, you know, a couple basic books, you know, about how the economy works. And it's like, how come no one told me this? Right? Or like the stock market, you know, my dad and I had a early professor who said, here's how it works. Here's how people make money. I'm like, oh, well, how come no one told me this? I'm going to do this right? And it works. Right? So, you know, that kind of basic stuff. People don't know this. It's astonishing. You know, just really basic economics.

[B]

Well, if someone understands basic economics, that's not good for the government.

[A]

Yes, well, I know, I know. Well, right, Exactly. Yeah. Parts of the government, I guess. I don't know. It's hard to say. I mean, you have to have government. Okay, so I'm not a anarcho capitalist. No, I think. Okay, so.

[B]

Well, I think it's a natural monopoly. I think you. If you got rid of government, it would. Yes, it would spawn again. Yes.

[A]

Yeah, of course. Right. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So how do you push back on it?

[A]

Yeah, I know this is a problem. Well, I think Vamises talks about. Or no, Hayek, the road to serfdom. The moment you set up a bureaucracy, all right, you guys are going to have the, you know, the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, the police and military, and maybe the garbage system in the fire department. The police department. Then all of a sudden, well, we need a military, we need missiles, we need aircraft carriers, we need, you know, the hammer that costs $10,000 for the Pentagon. And all of a sudden it's, you know, during one of the UAP hearings at Congress, somebody threw out this line that I couldn't believe. It's like, the Pentagon has not passed an accounting audit in like 20 years. What? Yeah. Who's mining the Ford over there? And it turns out they have a lot of these bullshit things like the Hammer that. Wow, okay, this is a problem.

[B]

So the, we'll finish on the UAP stuff, because I do find it interesting.

[A]

It is interesting.

[B]

Is there any of it that you've looked at and you're like, I'm not sure on this one.

[A]

A bunch. Yes. Well, the spheres, the balls, the orbs. You know, In World War II, that was the, you know, foo fighters, as they call them. And we have been trying to figure this out. You know, ball lightning is a popular one. But, you know, all the plasma physicists I talked to used to tell me these little balls of lightning, they last only a few seconds. And The World War II fighter plane pilots were going, no, no, this thing was following me for like 20 minutes. Like, okay, they can't be ball lightning. What was it? I don't know. And, and people still see orbs. So the orbs is a difficult one. You know, I'm on the UAP Science Council headed by Avi Loeb, right? So we talk about these things and it's hard to know. And we're trying to get the government to give us more stuff, information like, like they'll post on the public Department of War website seen by 2 billion people. Now, you know, all these videos and photographs, but there's big blocks of, of blacked out redactions. Those are the numbers of like, well, where was this thing? Where was it recorded? How far away was it? Was there another recording of it that we could triangulate from this position? This position. And you can't tell. So we're frustrated. Like, we'd really like to know, you know, what's the answer? Are we being visited by aliens? You know, it's not impossible, very unlikely. Is it the Chinese or the Russians? I don't think so. If the Russians had this super advanced technology, wouldn't they use it in Ukraine? Right. If we had it, you know, we had darpa, CIA, we had all this super advanced stuff we back engineered from the aliens, Wouldn't we use it in Iran, at the Straits of Hormuz? Like we're sending over the alien spaceships to open the Strait of Hormuz. Look out, right? Nothing like that's happening. So it's probably not that. I think back to your. You know, the story of your mom and the rainbow. I think there's these anomalous, weird things we may never know. Right. Because when you read the accounts of people that saw the orbs, they saw the spaceship, they saw the alien bodies, there's thousands of them. Not just a couple, the big famous ones, like Roswell, there's thousands of them. And I don't know, you know, it could be like, it'll end up being like religion. Like, there's always these, like, tantalizing things. You know, Jacques Vallee talks about. He doesn't think any of these are aliens. He thinks they're some, like, interdimensional. The equivalent of what the ancients would have called demons or angels or. They didn't know what to call it. So they go, oh, there's this thing. I don't know. I don't know. So keep an open mind.

[B]

Keep an open mind. Yeah. Fantastic. Amazing. Yeah. Keep an open mind. I think some of it's comforting.

[A]

Well, yes, there is that. The other reason I keep an open mind is my historian of science. So I know what people in the Middle Ages, before Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, I knew what their worldview was like, and it was just radically different from ours. So I can't help but thinking, if you and I were born 500 years from now and we look back at what they believed in the 21st century, be like, those people believe that? That's just batshit crazy. How could they believe that?

[B]

Yeah. God, I wonder what we actually do believe.

[A]

And if I knew what it was now, I wouldn't believe, but I don't know what that is.

[B]

Yeah, I wonder what. I mean, look how far we've come. I mean, the James Webb Telescope is. Told us a lot more about the universe. We've learned a lot more about.

[A]

I just read something yesterday that the. You know, the Nobel Prize was given in the 90s for the discovery of the accelerating expanding universe.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Based on these type 1 black holes that appear to be. They're not just moving away from us at a higher. But it's accelerating. It's getting faster and faster. It's like, whoa. That's a weird. All right. And now they're from the. The James Webb space. Oh, no, no. That was a mission reading of those type 1 black holes are not doing that. What?

[B]

Give me my Nobel Prize back.

[A]

Okay. Wow. All right. So I can't help but thinking, you know, like, again, 500 years from now, oh, hard problem.

[B]

Of consciousness.

[A]

That's an easy one. We solved that in the 23rd century.

[B]

Yeah. It was just a simulation.

[A]

Yeah, the simulation. It's all real.

[B]

Yeah. Elon escaped. He showed us.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We're living on Mars now.

[B]

We're living on Mars now.

[A]

Look.

[B]

Incredible.

[A]

Look.

[B]

Thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to reading your books. Obviously, I got one yesterday, and it was a short time to get into it. All right. AI Solved a summary. But I'm. I'm definitely going to read these. These are fantastic. Thank you so much, and keep up your great work.

[A]

Somebody did send me an essay written by an AI I forget. It might have been Claude or Gemini. Like, what is Mike? Write an essay about Michael Shermer's beliefs as if it was written by Michael Shermer about beliefs in God.

[B]

How good was it?

[A]

And I read it and went, yeah, that is. That is what I would say. That's pretty good.

[B]

You don't need to write anymore. Just get it to write the next book.

[A]

The next book.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Here we go.

[B]

I'll just sit at home. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time, and thank you to everyone for listening.