EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,018 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- GSGad Saad
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) How you doing?
- JRJoe Rogan
This is it. What's going on, man?
- GSGad Saad
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you.
- GSGad Saad
10th episode.
- JRJoe Rogan
Crazy.
- GSGad Saad
Unbelievable.
- JRJoe Rogan
What are the odds?
- GSGad Saad
Short of your regular crew, am I in the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you're in the league.
- GSGad Saad
... Hall of Fame?
- JRJoe Rogan
There's very few people that have had 10 episodes. It's a small handful, for sure.
- GSGad Saad
I mean, that, I should put that as the top thing on my CV.
- JRJoe Rogan
Eh.
- GSGad Saad
All the other stuff is bullshit.
- JRJoe Rogan
What does-
- GSGad Saad
10 times on Joe Rogan, drop the mic.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is how out of the corporate world I am, I don't even know what a CV is.
- GSGad Saad
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I don't know what it stands for. I know people say it, I know what it means, but I don't know what it stands for.
- GSGad Saad
Want me to tell you what an academic CV looks like?
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure. What just, what does it stand for, what is CV?
- GSGad Saad
Uh, curriculum vitae.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah, okay.
- GSGad Saad
Uh, you basically, in academia, you'll start with your education.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GSGad Saad
All your degrees, all of your positions that you've held. I was assistant professor here, from here to there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GSGad Saad
Then all of your journal publications, all of your books, all of your conference art, you know, and so on.
- 15:00 – 30:00
So again, let me…
- JRJoe Rogan
horrific in the 2024, uh, understanding of human life and morality and the, just the horrors of war. That, you know, they're blowing up mosques, they're blowing up schools, they're blowing up apartment buildings, everything, anything where they think Hamas is.
- GSGad Saad
So again, let me preface, and, and I shouldn't have to say this, that a single person killed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GSGad Saad
... that's innocent is a tragedy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- GSGad Saad
But compare that reality to almost any other war that you have in working memory. Why is there a unique, unbelievably high threshold of morality that is placed on the Israeli nation, right? Now you probably already know this. The IDF does go through a lot of e- painstaking effort to try to minimize that, right? They drop leaflets in Arabic, they even sometimes call people in Arabic and say, "Don't go in this area." They hold ... So of course they've killed many, many innocent people. But they're placed between a rock and a hard place. What, what can you do, right? The other side knows exactly that if they do exactly how they, what they're doing, uh, either you don't retaliate and we win, or you retaliate very harshly as they have, and then you still win, right? Today, the propaganda war has been completely won by Hamas, right? Uh, there's a complete genocide in the informational war against the IDF, right? One other point, and then I'll cede the floor back to you. This, the term genocide, Jacques Derrida was a very famous, uh, postmodernist who developed the field of deconstructionism. Language creates reality, right? He was one of the guys who allowed the, the ecosystem of up is down, men could be women, left is right, slavery is freedom, right? It's that postmodernist game that allows these kind of insane ideas to flourish. Well, when you misuse words like everything is a genocide, that's, that does, that does no one, uh, a service. There is no genocide. There is a, uh, uh, a killing of a lot of people. Again, every single one killed is a tragedy. But if Israel wanted to commit a genocide, by the end of my appearing on this 10th time on this show, there wouldn't be a single Palestinian left. So if they were genocidal in their intent, then they really are shitty genocidal maniacs, because first of all, uh, the p- population, as you know, of, uh, the Palestinian territories has gone up, uh, five folds, right? So that's really sucky genocide. And they've killed, uh, depending on the count ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but that's all previous to this, this military action that's going on now.
- GSGad Saad
What are the numbers that-
- JRJoe Rogan
The population-
- GSGad Saad
... that you know of-
- JRJoe Rogan
... is going on right now? It's hard to say. You know, I mean, Israel has one statistic and then there's other statistics by human rights organizations that it estimate at least 12,000 missing in the rubble that are probably dead and 30,000 dead. Now, at the, uh, the number of those 30,000, what percentage is Hamas? I'm not sure.
- GSGad Saad
So I've heard the, the, the most favorable estimates to, to the IDF are about one-to-one ratio. The less estimate, it's about one to 1.5, okay? One to two- up to one to two. So if they-
- JRJoe Rogan
So if they killed 30,000 people, 15,000 are Hamas?
- GSGad Saad
It-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that what you're saying?
- GSGad Saad
That would be best case scenario.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, if ... Uh, one-to-one would be 15,000 to 15,000, and then you can take it from there, right?
- GSGad Saad
Oh, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. Okay. So- Oh, one-to-one.
- GSGad Saad
One-to-one.
- JRJoe Rogan
But half of them. So half of-
- GSGad Saad
Half of them would be-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so half of 30 is 15.
- GSGad Saad
Exactly, okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GSGad Saad
So now-Let's compare it to... Uh, uh, and I don't know if others have made this analogy. When, when you drop the bomb, the atomic bomb, almost all the people who were killed were noncombatants, right? So then that ratio would be 250,000 killed to zero. I mean, unless there's a few Japanese military guys that were in Nagasaki or Hiroshima, you drop... And again, I'm not, I'm not trying to say, "Oh, but they're not as bad as these other guys, so they're okay. Let's give them a, a ribbon and a medal." But again, it's... It is anti-Semitic when you place one group of people to a standard of morality that is not expected of anybody else. So for example, if you really care about Arab lives, then you certainly should care about all of the Yemenis that have been killed that are a lot more than whatever's happened in, uh, after October 7th. You would care about the 500,000 Syrians that were killed. You would care about the war between Iran and Iraq that led to several million killed. And on... How about in Lebanese Civil War? 150,000 died in the first-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right. But that's not happening currently, so people aren't totally aware of that. Like just those statistics that you brought up, the Lebanese deaths, the, the just... Most people are not aware of that. Most people that are discussing this, especially college kids are not aware of that.
- GSGad Saad
That's why I'm here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I mean, it's all ugly. It's all awful. It's all... There's nothing that you could say that is in any way, shape, or form-
- GSGad Saad
Right.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Well, let me ask…
- GSGad Saad
problematic Jew hatred. Okay? So now if I let in 100,000 such people into the country, it doesn't take a fancy evolutionary psychologist and a professor with a 47-page, uh, academic CV to say, "Well, probably Jew hatred is gonna go up." So that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing the outcome of having an immigration policy that has let in people that don't share our foundational values. Again, this doesn't mean so- someone's gonna write in the comment section, "What a hypocrite. You're an immigrant, Gad Saad." Well, there are immigrants and there are immigrants. There are tons of Muslims who want to come in here and leave all that baggage at the door. They want nothing to do with that. They just want to live the American experience. The problem is, we don't have the machine that can look into your heart and mind, right? So it's a statistical game. So if you're going to let in hundreds... I mean, look what's happening in Germany. Look what's happening in France. Look what's happening in Denmark.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, let me ask you this. Why do you think that stuff is happening? Why do you think there's this mass immigration?
- GSGad Saad
So that's, that's a great question. So it's, it, it's covered partly in Parasitic Mind, my earlier book, and in my next book, which I call Suicidal Empathy, right? So empathy is a emotion that has evolved for very clear evolutionary reasons. So just like any of our other emotions, for example, envy, there, there are evolutionary reasons why we've evolved the emotion of envy, right? It can compel us forward. I see that Joe's doing well.... keeping up with the Joneses, maybe it'll get me off my fat ass so I can work harder. So there are very clear evolutionary reasons why empathy exists. But the problem is when empathy misfires, it either becomes hyperactive or it misfires in, in directing the empathy to the wrong person. So for example, uh, illegal immigrants more important than American vets. Right? Uh, and I can show you many public policies where you have these insane policies, all of which are due to suicidal empathy. So to answer your question, I think that the Western mind is we are kind, tolerant, compassionate, empathetic people. There are people out there, they're Guatemalan, they're Honduran, they're Yemeni who don't have it as well as we do. Wouldn't it be nice if we open up our doors? So the reflex is a noble one. It's a nice one, but it exists in unicornia. The real world doesn't operate that way. If you let in people that have a huge hatred of homosexuality, are you going to have an increase in homophobia in your country or a decrease, right? So, so I think that's the, the answer, the answer is misdirected empathy across the West.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it really that simple?
- GSGad Saad
I, I do-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it seems like it's happened so rapidly that it, it seems like a plan, like a plan to create more chaos.
- GSGad Saad
I ... So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it's, it's happened ... The, the border policy in America is puzzling. It's very b- it's baffling because it seems like there's a plan, the, the flood the country.
- GSGad Saad
So it's a, it's a c- sort of a conspiratorial kind of cabal-
- JRJoe Rogan
I- it, it seems like there's something going on that's allowing it to happen, even though everyone recognizes it's a problem and it's solvable, but they don't solve it. In fact, the, the, the United States government is actively tried to stop Texas from enforcing-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... their border.
- GSGad Saad
So what ... But I think that's just ... So I've often tweeted that the most dangerous weapon in, in human context is a parasitized mind, right? I mean, a bomb is dangerous, but it is, it is the human mind that activates that bomb, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- GSGad Saad
It's, it's a guy with a little mustache that said that Jews are the real problem in the world, and I need to get rid of the world-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GSGad Saad
... of that parasite, right? So parasitic thinking, I mean, the ... one of the reasons I think that that book did so well is because it really explained how all of these parasitic ideas came to a head together, and they were all spawned on university campuses over the past 40 to 80 years. So one, one hypothesis is what you said, which is there is kind of a grand scheme that's willfully doing this. Another one is that all of the Western leaders of roughly the same age, I mean within 20 years of each other, are all a product of a Western education, university education, that was completely infected with these dreadful parasitic ideas so that when these leaders go out there and have the power to enact policies, they enact these policies. So my view is slightly different from yours in that I don't think that there is a supra, mega, you know, willful, uh, plan. It's just that all of those Western leaders are the product of a really shitty university system.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm. Right. But there's obviously two schools of thought, right? There's the left wing school of thought and the right wing school of thought in regards to this. The right wing school of thought wants to seal our borders, wants to secure the borders, wants to stop illegal immigration. The left wing wants ... I mean I don't know what they want because they, they start talking about border policies being a problem as well, and they start talking about the issue with the border, and they try to blame Trump for the issues with the border-
- GSGad Saad
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is always hilarious.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But they're just so ... With that kind of stuff, with blaming, like when Biden blames Trump for things that he clearly did, it's just gaslighting, right? And it's just, it just shows you how little respect they have for people's ability to understand what's actually-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... going on.
- GSGad Saad
Well, look, suicidal empathy, we ... I mean we can move beyond the border. How about, say, in the justice system? Suicidal empathy results in you caring more about the perpetrator than the victim. That's suicidal empathy, right? Because that argument h- ... So here's how the ... that leftist argument works. If a person, especially a criminal of color, commits a crime, that's probably because he grew up as a person of color, so he's already been marginalized by the society.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GSGad Saad
So now he commits a crime. You're now double whamming him by putting him in the penal system, so you need to be more caring. So he's already got fif- 57 previous arrests, let's give him a 58th chance. So again, I don't think it comes from ... It, it comes from really parasitized thinking, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. But that ... those policies are supported by George Soros-
- GSGad Saad
That's true.
- JRJoe Rogan
... specifically. And then when he actively goes after DA's-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
(inhales deeply) …
- GSGad Saad
was noticing that a lot of ... there was this huge mortality rate of women as they were giving birth. And so he started running these naturally occurring experiments where you either ... So, the, the physician has just worked on a cadaver...
- JRJoe Rogan
(inhales deeply)
- GSGad Saad
And then goes and does the obstet- obstetrics.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- GSGad Saad
Okay. So when he said, "Wash your hands," he, he, he died, I think, penniless, destitute, in a mental asylum or something. Right? And then later people said, "Oops, he was right." Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause they didn't understand bacteria back then.
- GSGad Saad
They didn't understand bacte- What, what? Yeah, that guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- GSGad Saad
That's it. Semmelweis, exactly.
- GUGuest
C- Cadaveric particles? Does that mean...
- GSGad Saad
Cadavers.
- GUGuest
Cadavers.
- GSGad Saad
Cadavers.
- GUGuest
Right, yeah.
- GSGad Saad
So...
- JRJoe Rogan
So every case of childhood fever was caused by re- resorption of cadaveric particles. Oh my God.
- GSGad Saad
But the blowback against this guy...
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- GSGad Saad
... from the senior physicians, I mean, this guy was destitute. He died completely, uh, unvalidated. I mean, it was only post hoc that he... There you go, nervous breakdown.
- JRJoe Rogan
S- allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown, was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum, he was beaten by the guards. Oh, God.
- GSGad Saad
It's incredible story. Here, here's another one. I don't remember his name. The, the truth tester, Jamie, will get it out for us. There's a gentleman who won the Nobel Prize, I'd, I'd say in the last 20 or 30 years, for arguing that ulcers are caused by a particular virus or ... I, I don't know if it's a virus or a bacterium. And everybody laughed him out of town.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- GSGad Saad
He ended up winning the Nobel Prize. And so I often joke with my students, I say, "If people laugh at your ideas and fight them, it's either for one of two reasons. It's a really shitty idea, and it's, it's worthy of that derision..."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- GSGad Saad
... or prepare to go to Stockholm to win the Nobel Prize."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- GSGad Saad
B- be- because, I mean, literally...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, it's one or the other.
- GSGad Saad
It's one or the other...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Yeah. …
- JRJoe Rogan
have immense memories. Their memories are nuts. Like they mem-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They, they get reunited with their calves like 20 years later.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they run and embrace each other, and it's just-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... joyous. When elephants die, they mourn. They mourn the death.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They have huge brains, but it's also a huge animal.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it doesn't manipulate its environment, so we don't respect it.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sort of like the way ... The reason why dolphins are in Sea World is 'cause that l- literal slavery. It's slavery of probably a parallel or if not more-
- GSGad Saad
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
... intellectual species.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Something with a cerebral cortex 40% larger-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... than a human being's. Something that communicates in a language that we can't decipher. Something that has different dialects. Something that operate, operates in these very tight social groups.
- GSGad Saad
But they do some rough sex. I don't know if you've heard or seen-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, they do. They're-
- GSGad Saad
(laughs) They're pretty rough.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dolphins are horrible.
- GSGad Saad
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dolphins are ... They're, they kill-
- GSGad Saad
They-
- JRJoe Rogan
... their babies.
- GSGad Saad
There's no #Metoo with the dolphins, let me tell you.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's worse than that. Dolphins, when they find a female and she has a child, if he has not had sex with that, that dolphin-
- GSGad Saad
Yeah.
- 1:15:00 – 1:17:16
Well, before you came…
- GSGad Saad
to studies social systems and so on. And he was part of the original culture wars where a lot of his colleagues hated him, because he was arguing that biology affects human behavior. E.O. Wilson, check him out. He's unbelievable. Well, in the late '90s, he wrote a book called Consilience: Unity of Knowledge, and, and that became one of the f- foundational books in how I did my academic career, which is... Consilience is trying to unify disparate areas of human endeavor that you typically wouldn't think should be linked together. So, you could link the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities through the consilience of evolutionary theory, so... Because you could study psychology using evolutionary theory. Of course, you could study biology using evolutionary theory. Or you could study esthetics, which is in the humanities, using evolutionary theory. So, that became a really important concept of my own work, because my brain operates as a s- synthetic machine. I like to synthesize across... Right? So one of the reasons why I decided early on to break out of just being an academic, 'cause I couldn't see myself as a stay-in-your-lane professor. I need to try to... Right? So coming on Joe Rogan is going to allow me to share ideas and synthesize things with millions of people rather than writing another academic paper that, if I'm lucky, will be read by 50 people and cited by 12. And so-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, before you came on, though, when you ca- when you came on, does... Being on the show is not that problematic.
- GSGad Saad
Uh, in what's... You mean by my colleagues?
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, people wouldn't criticize being on the show, 'cause nobody even knew what it was.
- GSGad Saad
Well, that's true. Once they did know what it was, people looked down on it. So I don't know if I've ever shared this story before, and even if I have, it's worth repeating. I discussed this in The Parasitic Mind. I had been invited to Stanford, uh, in 2017 to speak at their business school, a very academic, scientific talk on how to apply evolutionary theory, blah, blah, blah. So the... My host, who's a fellow, he's a consumer psychologist, invited me out to dinner the night before, and, and I think after I was going there, I might... Uh, I think I was flying down to Southern... At the time, we were in Southern California still. 2017, you were in Southern...
Episode duration: 3:30:24
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