In this thought-provoking episode of Stefan Molyneux's podcast, a discussion unfolds between Stefan and a caller, who shares his multifaceted journey through academia and publishing as a PhD holder in information management. The dialogue begins with the caller expressing admiration for Stefan’s work and extends to the current challenges many face in getting their ideas and writings acknowledged in a landscape increasingly dominated by leftist ideologies. The caller emphasizes the distressing trend of quality philosophical works not receiving the attention they deserve, particularly those with conservative or counter-cultural viewpoints.
Stefan provides valuable insight into the larger dynamics at play, suggesting that the overwhelming dominance of leftist narratives in media, including scholarly publications, creates significant barriers for diverse perspectives. The conversation revolves around the idea that truth remains unchanged regardless of popularity, and the importance of seeking out genuine discourse amid a landscape riddled with bias and distortion. The caller articulates the pain many feel when they notice their work going unnoticed while false narratives gain traction, echoing a timeless philosophical concern about the relationship between truth and prevailing societal beliefs.
As the episode progresses, the discussion deepens into the realm of publishing itself, with the caller sharing his extensive experience dealing with academia's often opaque and subjective publishing standards. Both Stefan and the caller reminisce about their own attempts to publish significant work, grappling with the recognition—or lack thereof—that comes with it. They highlight the difficulties faced when attempting to share particularly groundbreaking ideas in a hostile intellectual environment, leading them to wonder if academia has truly strayed from nurturing innovation in favor of safeguarding status quo ideologies.
The idea of creating a new platform or journal becomes a focal point of their conversation, as they ponder the potential of establishing a space tailored for philosophical discourse rooted in Judeo-Christian values, without necessarily adhering strictly to religious dogma. The caller passionately envisions a community-driven initiative that would embrace diverse voices and perspectives, countering the entrenched bias of existing publications.
Stefan encourages this ambitious vision, warning the caller to remain vigilant against the inevitable challenges that arise when growing any movement, particularly in the current socio-political climate. The caller hopes to learn from the experiences of successful platforms like *Quillette*, noting the importance of starting with a strong foundation—a goal he remains dedicated to as he outlines his plans for the future. The episode closes with a collaborative spirit, as both men express hope that their conversation will inspire others to contribute to this burgeoning discourse on philosophy and shared truths.
Listeners are left with a sense of urgency to reassess the existing channels through which philosophical ideas are disseminated, encouraging engagement with alternative platforms and the collective responsibility to foster genuine intellectual conversations beyond the confines of current academic and media limitations. The conversation embodies the essential quest for truth amidst noise, urging both individuals and communities to rise above prevailing narratives that may seek to stifle meaningful dialogue.
0:06 - Greetings and Warm Regards
0:45 - The Challenge of Getting Published
2:12 - Personal Background and Philosophy
4:49 - The Profit of Falsehoods
7:58 - Academic Barriers to Publishing
9:29 - The Role of Academia in Publishing
11:14 - The Need for New Platforms
15:24 - The Medical Informatics Journal Example
21:06 - The Philosophy of Power
26:12 - The Nature of Academic Support
29:23 - The Fear of New Ideas
32:48 - The Evolution of Academia
37:08 - The State of Conservative Publishing
42:12 - The Impact of Affirmative Action
45:08 - The Changing Landscape of Book Reviews
49:08 - The Machinery of Academic Bias
55:12 - The Instinct to Reject New Ideas
59:10 - Launching a New Philosophy Platform
1:03:41 - Creating a Sustainable Community
1:10:33 - Closing Thoughts and Future Plans
[0:00] Well, Stefan, it's very, very nice to be with you again.
[0:06] My wife wishes or sends you her warmest regards.
[0:12] Ah, same back.
[0:13] Yeah. And let's start. I wanted to talk a little bit about my work, But since I've listened to one of your not-so-recent talks, but quite recent, the episode on why your books are not reviewed by anyone, especially people of substance.
[0:46] Yeah that troubled me and uh he has been troubling me for a while because it's not just you that's being uh shunned away from a good review it's quite a lot of people that write good stuff, so uh can we delve into this topic a little bit yeah.
[1:05] I think it's i think it's a great topic so yeah go ahead.
[1:07] Okay so would it help if i tell people a little bit more about myself so sure They're going to take my two cents with a little bit of, how should I say, maybe courage and not think that I'm, you know, just a nobody. Anyway, so I have a PhD in information management. As you know, I've got my PhD in Taiwan. I lived there for a while, so I've been able to experience quite a bit of cultural differences, different ideas, different ways of looking at life, philosophy, the whole nine yards. So I think that pretty much gave me some intuition and some taste on philosophy, especially, and how to deal with certain things.
[2:12] Let me go back to...
[2:16] Um what okay so how should i start okay so yeah my education um i've been writing uh quite a bit as you know and uh i've also ran into the same issue um how do i get my uh stuff to be more visible especially in a place and era and time when almost everything is very much to the left and they won't care to look at anything that's being written from a conservative point of view and especially with the tint of philosophy I've noticed that most or quite a few of the people on the left they don't really care about using philosophy much or if they do use it they use it in ways that no one really wants to uh i mean normal people don't really want to deal with it you know so um well you know i a lot of people may may think or say hey dan you know you don't really have a following on x or youtube so why would your 1.5 cents matter in in this philosophy thing. But as you well know, Stefan, truth is truth, whether one person speaks of it or one million speaks of it.
[3:43] Now, I want to paraphrase you a little bit and ask the following question. What if a million people present falsehood and BS?
[3:58] What is that supposed to mean that just because there's a million of them and they have a big following, there We're supposed to just go along with this great multitude.
[4:11] So another point that I want to make is that let's say that maybe there's hardly anybody that speaks certain truths. Does that mean that there's no truth? So let's think of it this way. Before the truth of the theory of relativity was known to humankind, does it mean that the theory of relativity didn't exist? So there's probably a lot of truth today that we don't even know of, and maybe a lot of people don't even want to speak of it because it's just not popular. So how do we go about that?
[4:50] Well it's it's tough of course through the power of the state and the media there's so much profit in falsehood right so for instance uh if if people believe uh that a single bombs are victims or the only reason that there are group differences in outcomes is bigotry or things like that if people believe that then literally trillions of dollars pass from one group of people to another group of people. So pretending to be a victim is really fascinating. Like only a few percentage points of men are actually narcissists, but if you talk to women online, apparently they all have dated narcissists. And so playing the victim and saying that you're hard done by, you're not responsible for your negative outcomes, that's all so profitable.
[5:39] In the past, if a woman was a single mother, if she got pregnant outside of wedlock, she was held to be morally responsible for what she had done. I mean, if she was raped, that certainly was a different matter. But in general, people would say that you are responsible for choosing to have sex with a man and you are responsible for the outcome. Now, he is too. But in general, men were sort of accepted to be hound dogs and women kind of had to say no to the endless grabby male hands or whatever. But now, of course, every single mother, almost without exception, is saying, oh, but he promised me the moon and there was no indication and he was a perfect guy and I'm a victim and I didn't do anything wrong and all I did was believe him and he was totally convincing and there were no signs and all of that. And so lies have just become...
[6:35] So profitable that it is, as I've said before, it's sort of like saying to someone who just won a million dollars in the lottery, it's like saying to them, oh, don't cash that, because that just means everyone's taxes are going to go up.
[6:50] It's not possible with the trillions of dollars being paid for lies to have any kind of truth that is put forward. I mean, I remember when I did my graduate school thesis, I had a very good advisor. I actually had to go to a bunch of different people to get an advisor because I was kind of outside of the history department because I was doing history of philosophy and he finally you know like gave me an A and he's like this is a really powerful and good thesis and so on and I'm like well let's let's get it published you know let's get it published in a journal and there was this long pause you know because I got an A it was very it was a very big and and uh ambitious uh thesis and I had really good uh proof and it It was a very sort of big, and in my graduate school, I remember there was, I think it was a woman who was studying sheep populations in a certain area of France in the 12th century. Like really, really, I'm the king of a neutron. I'm the lord of almost nothing.
[7:51] So I had a big thesis, and he was like, it's a great thesis. It's really, I've never seen anything quite like it. He was an older guy.
[7:58] And I was like, yeah, let's, the next step, let's get it published. You know if i need to refine it or or change it or shorten it or whatever let's let's get it published and there's this long pause like somehow this is like what like how how dare you and i just and you know he gave me a couple of names and i tried to follow up but never got any calls back it all just kind of dies on the vine it's wild just how interlocked these barriers are to, getting words or works or ideas out there published.
[8:35] Yeah yeah i know exactly what what, you're talking about because i've been in the academia research and publishing for a good 15 plus years of my life so when it comes to publishing stuff you have to figure out ways, and you need to really learn how to publish if you want to be a researcher. And then I've got over 35 publications in peer-reviewed journals and later I can post a link or share with you a link if anybody wants to see some of my publications. But I want to move on and let's talk about why... You know, people like you and many others have such a hard time getting published.
[9:30] Well, I mean, of course, I'm thankful for it in hindsight.
[9:34] Yeah.
[9:34] I mean, at the time, it was like, I mean, I still remember when I took a really, I mean, Canada's best and most challenging writing course, the hardest one to get into. And my first teacher hated my writing and my second teacher absolutely loved my writing because you know i mean i mean it's not objective i guess to some degree, and i got really great feedback and really worked hard on my novel this was my novel the god of atheists and i then got referred to an agent who then had somebody with a phd in literature review the book. And I've never seen anything like it. I mean, I read it somewhere on a podcast many years ago. This guy was like, finally, we have the great Canadian novel. This is the most magnificent work I've ever read. And from a new author, this is incredibly exciting. This is going to put Canadian literature on the map. It really was an insanely positive review. And I remember thinking, well, this is it. I'm going to go and be a writer. And that's kind of what I wanted to do. I was in the business world and i was a at that point i was chief technical i'm sorry i was director of technology for a medium-sized software company and i remember like every every single time my phone rang i'm like here it is my exit call and being dialed out of the matrix kind of thing, and nothing nothing okay.
[11:04] So uh in in regards to what you were just uh telling me uh i want to bring something um I want to bring something forward.
[11:15] So in my line of studies and research, I've done a few different fields. So I've done studies and research and teaching in business studies, healthcare management, and public health. So if, for example, I was going to publish something, an article or a review or anything like that, public health and I wanted to submit it to, for example, the International Journal of Business Management. Do you think that public health related article would have been published?
[11:55] It certainly would be a topic that they would be interested in, I'm sure.
[11:59] Yeah. If it has something to do with international business management, maybe. But because public health and, Public health related material hardly ever involves international business management because it's mostly localized. So most likely, no. So what I want to focus on is that this new field that I think you're trying to bring forth, which is a philosophy based on Judeo-Christian values, but not necessarily, with a religious stake. In other words, we don't necessarily have to believe in the Judeo-Christian God in order to promote philosophy or in order to do the right things and so on and so forth. So having said that, the major issue here is that there is no any kind of platform or journal uh designed for your take on um um on on this view view viewing life.
[13:17] Well okay so i hear what you're saying but if if it's going to be my take then i understand it shouldn't be published, because that would be like a movie review or you know this is my opinion or perspective on this movie but if i'm actually proving something philosophically then that's not a my take kind of thing it would be my thesis based upon right a fairly close reading of four major western philosophers absolutely so it's not it's not a take thing it was like this to me was really really important i explained something foundational about you know the philosophers who believe in higher reality always end up advocating for a dictatorship and the people who believe in empirical objective reality ended up with limited constitutional republics or democracies smaller of government and so on. And I sort of explained all why, and I gave examples from each of the philosophers. And, you know, it's like a good 100-page tightly reasoned thesis and, you know, lots of good examples. And so I thought this was a pretty great argument, a pretty great idea, and it was validated in the text, and it was something that was actually useful in the world. So when you start talking about the collective good or the good of society or collectivism as a whole that you're going to end up in tyranny or when you promote mysticism and there's a mysticism on the left too which is that everything is a group phenomenon right there's only races and classes and and genders and so on everything's a group phenomenon that you're going to end up with.
[14:46] Totalitarianism and i mean it seems like a pretty important.
[14:51] A pretty important thesis, but nothing. And not even disagreements, not even like, well, here you've misquoted this, or this is wrong, or that argument doesn't follow. Nothing. It's just like it doesn't exist.
[15:03] Right. So let me bring in my next point that hopefully this will make some sort of sense. And hopefully we'll give everybody some intuition and hopefully a good take on how to solve this issue.
[15:25] So, a while back, when computer technology and computers were getting more powerful and better, they started to develop the medical system to adapt to computers and to medical informatics. Now, that's how the electronic health records came about, which is phenomenal because now you don't have to look for files in cabinets and they can be easily sent from hospital to hospital, to patients, to different physicians and whatnot. And quite a lot of this research, important research in medical informatics was done, but there was no journal that would publish it. Because every time we submitted, I mean, every time my previous peers would submit.
[16:33] Research and work related to medical informatics, they would just get an automatic desktop rejection saying, well, you know, this is not within the scope of our journal. This is not within the scope of our journal. And what do you think eventually happened?
[16:50] Well, the former advisor of my research advisor, he got together with a bunch of professionals, prominent medical workers and educators and whatnot in the field, and they created the Journal of Medical Informatics.
[17:13] Because they needed a journal or a platform where things can be, things that were researched and written in regards to medical informatics could be published. Obviously, you know, everybody wants to publish in nature and science, right? Especially if you're in the medical field or the scientific field or sciences, the biological sciences. But uh they can only publish so much and medical informatics isn't really the, straight down the line of science and nature right so they created this journal platform, and um although this this pioneer he he should uh i think he should get most of the credit for it, You will never find his name that he created or he started this Journal of Medical Informatics because it's a combined effort from all around the world where people that, you know, they finally came to a realization that, hey, we need a platform. We need a new journal where we can move this.
[18:31] I feel like the story is going on a little longer. if you could get me to the conclusion.
[18:35] Okay, okay. So to make the long story short is I just don't think we have enough platforms and journals to where, you know, we can publish things about philosophy, life, you know, from, like I said, you know, I mean, there might be some here and there, you know, in more conservative journals. But like I said, if they're approaching everything from a very religious point of view, they're most likely not going to, publish our stuff because it's probably not within the scope of their journals. So that's pretty much where I'm going with this.
[19:20] Yeah, I mean, but that's not a philosophical question. If it is a scope question, that's a different issue, right? I mean, if I try and get a philosophical article or a short story published in a physics journal, that's not going to go, right?
[19:38] Absolutely but um my what i'm trying to say is that uh perhaps your uh advisor and all the people around you even though they thought this was a great paper they just didn't think that whatever um source you try to publish it and would be would be within the scope of that platform or well i.
[20:01] Never know what i mean what does that really mean in the scope of or not in the scope of. I mean, it was a history of philosophy paper. It should be published somewhere in history or somewhere in philosophy or something like that. I mean, the scope thing is kind of subjective, right? Anyone can say, well, that is or isn't in the scope. But the question is, why wasn't an important thesis published? Or to put it another way, I've had this theory of ethics out in the world called universally preferable behavior. It's a really good thesis. It has sustained, you know, 14 years or 15 years or 16 years of criticism and objection. And even the professor of logic said that, yes, it proves that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behaviors, which is, you know, he seemed to brush past it. It's kind of a big deal. And... Why would philosophers who are trained, why would they not want to take this on?
[21:07] Now, they could say, because it's not a very good thesis, right? Which is, you know, fine. I understand. I would, you know, could there be ways in which it could be improved in the communication, blah, blah, blah. Fantastic. Okay, so I have a billion views and downloads.
[21:23] And if I'm doing something that's not as good as it should be, then why not help me improve it? Because I'm going to be out there talking about philosophy anyway. And as an academic, like if an academic philosopher said, and this has actually happened where they say, I want to debate your UPB. He's like, I've never said no. That guy who called in a week ago Wednesday, I was thrilled to have him come in. I was a little disappointed in how it went because I thought he was just not particularly helpful. In fact, he was just kind of insulting, which was a shame. But nonetheless, I'm going to be out there talking about philosophy anyway. Why not come and talk about it with me? And and even before i was controversial i guess i was controversial kind of from the beginning, but why not come and talk about it and help me improve and so on and that's always a big question like my comment i'm going to talk to the world about philosophy if you think i'm bad at it then call in and show the audience what a better philosopher sounds like and what a better reason and evidence sounds like and so on but they don't they just stay in their bubbles and i find.
[22:48] That odd yeah well you know um from my experience with the academia and publishers and editors and whatnot um you know your your advisor and professor whatever his um title was he most likely knew a lot of the editors and the reviewers of those journals and if he was you know in order for you to get your publications in I mean me and all the other researchers and publishers and whatnot you have to sort of like befriend them and you know you you know you gotta kind of like you know be smooth and all that and then if all of a sudden you throw someone their way that, that is very controversial, it's not going to look good for you. So I'm assuming that that's what they were looking at or that's what they were thinking about.
[23:42] How could you recommend this? Okay, and now maybe I can understand that when I sort of became a more public figure, but I mean, this is back when I was completely unknown.
[23:52] Yeah, well, okay, I'll give you another example. I've had a guy in my PhD program, information management. He was really good at computer science. And he wrote, he wrote a, I think he wrote some protocols for security and stuff like that, that even his advisor wouldn't really understand and wouldn't really know what to do with. I mean, this guy was phenomenal. He was really, really smart. So his thesis and protocols sat on his advisor's desk for quite some time until another guy happened to come to his advisor and took a look at it. And he's like, hey, man, this is really good stuff.
[24:47] He's like, well, you know, I don't really know what to do with this guy. And this friend of the advisor said, well, can I work with this guy? Because we can take his ideas to the next level. So he did that and this guy you know eventually uh got published and uh got his phd and whatnot and everything was great so um maybe it was not so how should i say maybe it was not so fortunate for you you you don't have the your advisor's buddy that came by to see your great stuff and say, hey, you know, I know how to help this guy to get things going and to get things published. So your thesis just said, you know, unfortunately.
[25:35] Yeah, I mean, I certainly get that there's good and bad luck. I mean, of course, there was this Darwin's bulldog, this guy who kept pushing the theory of evolution because Darwin was kind of a shy guy who didn't want to go out and debate it, but he had a guy who went out and debated it on his behalf. I get all of that.
[25:54] So, there is, but it's been consistent over the, I mean, I was very much recognized, as I mentioned, as one of the top two students at McGill, and I had a professor read one of my papers to the class saying this is about as perfect a paper as I've ever had in 30 years of teaching, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
[26:13] So the talent was there, but there was just this void of support or encouragement or, I mean, I remember my teacher of Aristotle. I took a full year course on Aristotle and I wrote bonus papers and sat down with her in her office and made the case and argued and debated. And we had a pretty good relationship. And you think, you know, I mean, I know that in the business world, I was always looking for talent. Always. It's what you have to do in the business world. You have to look for talent. And I think it certainly is the case that I'm talented in philosophy and work hard in philosophy. And I suppose it's just a very different world than the business world. So when I had a computer programmer who was really good, I would teach him everything I knew. If I had a programmer, as I had a couple of times, who wanted to come out and do sort of sales calls, I'd book them a ticket, they'd come fly with me, I'd teach them everything i knew because you want to develop talent you want to nurture talent and so on right, and i guess in academia it's just a it's a whole different matter because it's not.
[27:19] Really customer facing it's not part of the free market or something like that because you know a secure boss wants to develop talent an insecure boss doesn't want to be out sean by.
[27:32] I think that's exactly i think that's that's that's what i was gonna say you know in academia most professors they're not they're not really i mean the only thing they have to do is publish now uh it would have been great for this advisor of yours if if if you guys would have published the paper together because if he was a if it's a really good paper you know i i used to advisor too and some of my students they had some pretty good papers and uh you know i published them i i helped them publish and i got credit too you know you get credit as first author and then you get credit as a co uh co-author or as as a correspond corresponding author so as an advisor you're automatically the corresponding author so he could have got gotten plenty of credit for that But then, like you said, you know, maybe he was afraid of being outshined by you, and he just didn't like that. He just didn't like the challenge.
[28:31] Also, I guess the question is, you know, for me, as I sort of thought about it later, what's the last big, important, powerful idea that's come out of academia? I mean, as you know, the theory of relativity, I mean, you know, Einstein developed that when he was working in a patent office. So what was the last big, helpful, useful philosophical idea that came out of academia? What, white privilege, like some bigoted nonsense like that? Like, what have they done that is important to society? And I think when I come along with my big dick swinging ideas, so to speak, I think it makes people feel small.
[29:12] Right.
[29:13] And people have to look back and say, okay, well, if this kid is doing this kind of work, what have I been doing? And I think the people, I don't think they're shying away from me.
[29:24] I think they're shying away from their own smallness and their own regrets. You know, that old statement about academia, that the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small.
[29:33] That's right. Yeah. So one thing about publishing and research and stuff like that is that, well, I look at most professors nowadays, especially those on the very left.
[29:51] If they can just publish one thing that's a little bit different than the last thing, but not too different, because then that would require a whole lot of research and a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of resources and whatnot, then the less the better, in a sense. I don't know if you know what I mean. So that's why, you know, especially the social sciences today have been a disaster. And, you know, when I was teaching business studies, i honestly didn't care if my students knew the definition of e-commerce.
[30:31] But if they can show to me, like, how to do e-commerce, that would pass them the class. So, actually, I never really graded much on definitions or anything like that. But I gave students assignments like, okay, why don't you create a platform where you can sell something or you can market something or, you know, that's what I did. But all the other teachers in the business department, they were like all strung up on definitions, memorized vocabulary, this and that and the other. Not one of them ever had a successful business in their life. And, you know, it showed why, because they weren't really focusing on teaching students business principles and how to use them. Rather, they were focusing on, oh, you know, you need to memorize this. You need to know the definition of this, that and the other. And, you know, that's to me, it's so much nonsense. That's why I kind of gave up on the academia these days. And, you know, I'm doing my own thing, doing a little bit of business, you know, and stuff like that.
[31:38] And I think a lot of academia probably started in, I think, started in the 60s. And I remember I had a professor who was so old. He taught, though he only had an undergraduate degree. He was a full professor with a Bachelor of Arts. Hey, he taught me some aspects of Victorian literature, and that's how old he was. You only needed to have a four-year degree to become a full professor back in the day.
[32:04] But I think I was probably just the last generation of people to get in and actually have non-toxic ideas. Mostly boring, mostly irrelevant. I had a full year's course on politics with one of Canada's most famous political theorists. you could torture me verily unto death. And I could not tell you one idea that I got out of that full year course. I'm sure I have my notes somewhere, but I literally could not tell you anything that I got out of that course. Even though I studied a lot, I respected the guy and it's Charles Taylor, I think his name was. And I'm like, nothing, nothing, nothing. I can't remember a single thing. I remember being up at the classroom. I don't, and I'm pretty good at remembering things. I don't remember a single thing.
[32:49] So I think the change in the 60s was academia went from navel-gazing irrelevance to an active worm-tongue servant to the beasts of power. And I think that's one of the reasons why my thesis was not scooped up, because now ideas are all evaluated relative to, does this serve the pursuit of power? If it does serve the pursuit of power, fantastic.
[33:20] And if it doesn't serve the pursuit of power, or if, heaven forbid, it limits the pursuit of power, then it's like it doesn't exist. It's not of any relevance. It's like, if I need a screwdriver, I'm going to pass over all of the spanners, you know, all of the crescent wrenches, all of the drill bits, because I need a screwdriver. So that's what i need and so i think the sorting mechanism certainly in the arts, has been uh does it serve power right if it doesn't serve power and my thesis would limit power because my thesis says here's the root justification for power which is mysticism and here's the proof in a variety of philosophers and so i think that i was i think the pause for my professor back in the day to mind read a guy probably long dead. But the pause in my professor's mind was, well, this is a great thesis, but it does not serve the pursuit of power. So it's not going to get published, but I don't want to tell you that, or I don't want to admit that to myself. So I'm just going to have this long pause because not only does this not serve power, but it actually serves to try to limit power, which means it's definitely not going to get published.
[34:40] Yeah, so you pretty much answered your question and the question that I had for, you know, that I was going to actually talk about to you. So going back to the point that I was trying to make earlier is that how do you feel if our philosophy community is going to, maybe over the next few weeks, months, years, what have you, just develop a platform or a journal where, you know, people that have, our point of view not necessarily our point of view but people that actually do studies and write material that's suitable to this, specific point that we were just talking about which is less power, I'm sure that this can help philosophy, can help the world can you know can help people in general because there's a lot of great stuff that never gets published because nobody would publish.
[35:56] What happens in general is the journals get sent around and read by various faculty and so if you were to create a journal that was say anti-leftist or pro free market or whatever i mean outside of maybe specifically economics articles, because there's still some respect for market principles in economics. But if you created this journal, who would read it? Who would put it around? Who would pay for it? How would it influence anyone? And I'm not saying it wouldn't. I just don't see the path by which it would, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't. It just means I can't see it.
[36:37] I'm not saying that this should be necessarily an academic journal. I would like it to be more of a, you know, I don't know. Have you ever heard of this journal called Cullet?
[36:49] Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.
[36:51] Okay. Well, what do you think of it? Give me your take on that.
[36:54] Well, I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that they do publish a wide variety of things, but they also publish some things that would be considered anti-leftist, politically incorrect, or non-Wook.
[37:08] I think they used to publish that a lot more in the past. I think they're being very, very friendly towards the left these days. So I don't know why. It seems to me like, okay, so are you familiar with how this journal or platform got started?
[37:24] No, no, but I'd love to hear the story.
[37:27] Sure. So Claire, which is the founder of this thing. Sorry, Claire, what does that mean?
[37:34] Oh, Claire.
[37:35] That's the name of the lady, yeah. She's the founder of the...
[37:39] Yeah, I don't know that a first name basis makes much sense to people. What's her full name, if you know?
[37:45] I think it's Claire Liederman or something like that.
[37:50] Okay, all right, that's fine. Yeah, I just, I mean, Claire, it sounds like, you know, clear from down the road who we borrow sugar from but okay so let's just say clear so go ahead.
[37:58] Okay, so she had a great idea to start this platform for free thought, which now I think is just free thought for the left, not so much for the right, or conservative views, but, you know, regardless. So she invited a bunch of uh prominent figures to when she she said okay i got this platform journal what have you so she invited a bunch of uh very prominent figures like uh jordan peterson uh a few other conservative uh um you know famous people the uh not all of them academicians or academic people but you know people that were either successful in life you know in business what have you and whatnot so they all published like a bunch of papers and this helped her to get, going to get famous so they you know they just published like not not not academic articles or anything but just articles about life about common sense uh some philosophy here and there and stuff like that and uh this is what got her going now once she got going of course you know she she couldn't always pay these people or invite these people to to constantly write for her because uh you know this obviously they don't have time to just constantly uh you know uh keep up uh.
[39:26] So then you know now everybody can actually send the publication to so you know i i don't know it kind of lost its uh, you know its um initial goals and stuff like that and i think one of the the the lead editors she's uh.
[39:46] She's a lesbian feminist, which I don't think that, I mean, just because you are what you are, it doesn't mean that you can't be a good editor. But the thing is, you know, obviously you're going to uphold your political views and you're not actually going to allow through, you know.
[40:06] Things that you find contrary to your views. So I think that's why you know whenever you and I think Claire might have made a mistake by hiring this this person to be like uh the biggest in charge because I could tell you know the last good papers I read in Killett were probably nine 2019 2020 I haven't seen anything decent I haven't I haven't really seen anything conservative for the last few years in it so i i don't spend as much time in it anymore and i don't know if you do or not anymore either but i used yeah i used to spend quite a bit of time uh reading articles there because i found pretty good uh philosophy in some of them and uh i don't know if you've read anything about uh From this former academic guy, he was a professor, one of the very few professors that is conservative. I think he was teaching psychology or something like that. His name is Sergio Klaasman or Kleinman or something like that. He was a Jew that migrated from Romania, so he was very conservative.
[41:21] Pro-free market, you know, anti-communism and all that. And I think the last time they published him was in 2019. I'm kind of curious why, because he used to write some really good stuff for Kuleb. But I assume once they changed, you know, leadership positions, you know, those people in charge, they start making changes. And sometimes...
[41:45] Well, there's a, I mean, there's a whole, as you get larger and larger as an organization, you're subjected to more and more sort of these affirmative action hiring policies. And affirmative action always seeks to promote leftists because affirmative action, it's women and say non-Europeans or something like that, all people that statistically, or homosexuals, all people who statistically tend to skew left.
[42:12] I mean, not exclusively, but there's a significant proportion of leftism. So all of the affirmative action stuff is to just make sure that you don't ever have an organization that stays explicitly conservative. And so I would assume, I don't know about this company, but most companies, when they grow, it's how the left gets into successful. They attach right through these well, why don't you have any of X, Y, Z protected group on your board, or like, it's all just this, or it's all just that and it's not diverse enough and that's just a way that they sort of tunnel in, and take over through these kinds of quota systems.
[42:53] Yeah, so that's exactly the problem we're dealing with, Stefan. That's why you start out with something good, and then over time, you can't publish any more good stuff in it because you just… Well.
[43:10] I mean, I've specifically resisted growth. I mean, I've managed companies from a few people to like 35, 40 people, which is quite a big growth and requires quite a bit of skill. And i have sort of specifically refused to and avoided growing because growing means being subject to more and more regulations and more and more affirmative action and less and less choice and decision about who i want to work with and i uh i don't like that i thought so i'd rather stay small like i don't have a fancy studio or anything like that so i stay small so that i can, stay working with the people I want to work with and with the integrity that I absolutely need to maintain. Because I mean, certainly after all this time, having sacrificed so much for the cause of philosophy, there's, I mean, the more you sacrifice, the more you dig in, right? You could say it's a fallacy of sunk costs. But for me, it's like, well, there's no point changing now. I've already given up so much. I mean, I've already paid the price. I might as well, there's no point changing now. And so, yeah. And so I don't know what happened with Quillette, But I assume it had something to do with you grow and then you get into the sites and so on.
[44:23] Yeah. And that's very unfortunate because, like I said, you know, that, well, you know, I think if you go back far enough, the New York Times wasn't so much to the left like it is today.
[44:40] Boy, you have to go back a long way, man.
[44:42] Yeah.
[44:42] Wasn't Will Durant? No, sorry, not Will Durant. there was another fellow who was, Will Durant is a student and writer of the history of philosophy and other things. But I can't remember his name now, but he got a Pulitzer for reporting how wonderful things were in Stalinist Russia. And that's in the 1930s. And he was published in the New York Times. And they've never rescinded it or given it back or said we were wrong.
[45:08] So yeah, I think you have to go back pretty far.
[45:12] Yeah. So, okay, my point is going back to book reviews and, you know, whatnot. You know, the New York Times and even Colette, they publish quite a lot of book reviews. Now, obviously, if I was going to do a review on one of your books, what do you think is the chance that they're going to publish my review?
[45:36] Well they would publish they would publish your review if if you were to write something like the following they would i mean they would publish it where they'd say you know here's here on the wild west of the internet the tragic lack of academic or professional standards has produced this kind of puerile garbage and you know and then you'd hear a quote from my book everything that you could stitch together that made the least sense possible when assembled like some sort of franken thesis and so if you were to you know haughtily deride the complete foolish ridiculous amateurish blah blah blah like i'm sort of quoting from the guy who who called in last wednesday and so if you were to put it forth as the most scathing horrendous thing like i was on the cover of the new york times three pictures of me because some young guy had been radicalized into getting a girlfriend and a job.
[46:27] Yeah, I remember that.
[46:27] Yeah, but heaven forbid, he was a Christian, right? So that's the pipeline to extremism and radicalism and so on, but they won't ever do anything on leftist radicalism. Like, that's just not going to happen, even though what I did wasn't even radicalized. But so, yeah, you could review one of my books as long as it was part of a superior, full-on Douglas Murray, lip-curled, upper-class boarding school sneer at the foolish pedants and peasants working their way thinking they were producing philosophy when it's just this kind of puerile garbage that the filter system is designed to keep away from the susceptible public like if you were just having a full-on you know uh lip-curled sneering rage fest at the interlopers to your professional haughty haughty ethics i think you could get something like that published but nothing where you actually engage with the ideas and try to reason with them.
[47:22] I don't doubt you at all, but that's not my intent. My intent is to truly review your book and list all the important things in it, list what we can get from it, what we can learn from it, how we can use it in our daily life, how that improves philosophy. That's what I really want to do. And I'm pretty sure many other reviewers want to do the same. But the question is, where are we going to publish it?
[47:51] Right. And, you know, of course, I did this show some years ago. I went through the communist manifesto with my daughter. And I mean, that really is puerile, hysterical, incorrect garbage. Like, it's just, I mean, I know it's a sort of pamphlet kind of stuff. And, you know, the workers of the world unite, you have a world to gain, you have everything, you have nothing to lose but your chains. Again, some really great polemical writing. But I mean, is it a better book than, say, UPB or something like that. Well, I mean, UPB has actual syllogisms. It's fairly tightly reasoned, and it's got examples and historical stuff. And it's true. It's accurate. It's validated.
[48:31] So, yeah, it's a wild thing to see. But I always try to think the best of people. I always try to think, well, maybe there's this excuse or that excuse.
[48:42] But I'd have been writing about this in my latest book, but there's this machinery that people don't even really see that is kind of programmed into their brains. So they would come across something like my long-ago thesis from like 1991 or 1992 or whenever it was. So they would come across that, and there would just be this machinery.
[49:04] Right, this mousetrap that would snap in their mind and say, well, we can't.
[49:08] Recoil, right? I can't, and if you were to say why exactly, they wouldn't be able to tell you with any specificity other than it's vaguely negative in some manner. It's vaguely bad. It's just not quite right. You know, sort of like in England, if you just don't have quite the right posh accent, what what it's just it's not quite right there's a little tinge of liverpoolian lower class and like so there's this machinery that that is kind of programmed to people's brains from very early on and you know a million videos and movies and songs and so on and there's this consensus that's built up through this uniformity of the control of the means of media production and academic production and literary production and so people just get kind of programmed you know i think it's sort of the bruce hornsby and the rangers song uh the way it is you know it's just uh they passed the law in 64 to give those who ain't got a little more you know but it only goes so far and.
[50:15] Racism and like the people just get it's a pretty song but people just get this they get this machinery set up there's this machinery that guides people that moves people around like train tracks and they don't even know it they think they're choosing stuff, so i think for the most part if somebody were to be handed a.
[50:33] A book of mine, there would be an instinct. The machinery has said, you must reject this. This is bad. It will harm your career. This is going to be viewed negatively. And it's nothing specific. It's not because of the why. It just is wrong think. It's bad think. And I wouldn't mind that in particular, except particularly in the realm of philosophy, these philosophy professors are all studying rebels who were often, most often, dismissed or raged against in their own day. I mean, Socrates, sort of the founder of the modern philosophical tradition was, of course, as you know, charges were brought against him by Miletus, and he was hemlocked to death. And so these people all study these moral heroes who stood up against the slings and arrows of outrageous prejudice and hostility and anti-rationality in their society and, everyone who studies Socrates thinks he's Socrates but most of the modern academics are just Miletus and there are new Socrates that they simply scorn and attack and reject and, everyone thinks that they're the hero but they're actually the villain and the petty villain of the piece.
[51:53] Right so um, Now, I want to go back to some reference you made that perhaps before you were famous and all that, and you wrote the good thesis, it would have been way easier for you to get it published or to get a good review on it because people just didn't know your take on philosophy, didn't know your take on a lot of things, including free markets.
[52:26] But the fact that I'm saying small government means more free market. And the fact that I am, you know, I had positive things to say about John Locke, I had positive things to say about Adam Smith, of course, founder, in many ways, a sort of modern free market, invisible hand theory. And so even to have any positive references to any free market thinkers that's enough to just i think it's michael malas said most people's minds are just a series of mouse traps designed to go off when certain sounds are heard and certain stimuli is heard and most people they're like uh to use another analogy they're like i was i was walking the other day at night with my daughter down some lonely road and there were these dogs and she said no i think they're on electronic collars. And I'm like, oh, I don't know. Let's turn back just in case, right? Just in case. And I think most people are just on these electronic collars, but they don't like to think that they're on electronic collars. It's sort of sour grapes kind of stuff. So everybody is on these leashes.
[53:29] They have these mousetraps in their mind as you've got to veer away from things and they can't tell themselves the truth about that. So they can't say, well, this is good thesis. It's tightly reasoned. It's provocative. It's interesting. It's useful. And it's very well sourced. I mean, I can't tell you how many books I read grind through that thesis. The bibliography went on and on. But people can't say to themselves, which to me would be an interesting question. This is a really good thesis.
[53:59] It got an A. It is a very challenging subject.
[54:03] Why don't I like it? Oh, that's a tough question. That's a tough question. I mean, it's like the women who post online and say, why do I dislike the guys who are really nice to me and I like the guys who treat me like crap? I mean, that's a pretty important question, right? It's not like sugar, right? So people with regards, let's say that somebody was handed a UPP and didn't know it was me or didn't know who I was, which would be great. And they would start reading it and they would start to feel uncomfortable because UPP pulls them beyond the range of their electronic collar.
[54:44] Which is the Overton window, right? What are you allowed to discuss? And of course, if UPB is true, then academic power is immoral because it relies on the initiation of the use of force and violations of property rights. And so people just start reading stuff. They get this uneasy, ooh, this is wrong. We shouldn't talk about this. We can't, this is not good, right?
[55:12] And they don't want to know why that is because that's really difficult for them emotionally, right like if a woman says if she really does dig into well why do i just get attracted to guys who treat me like crap it's like well because my mother chose a bad guy or i had a bad guy i haven't dealt with that like bad father or something like that haven't resolved it or i've been susceptible to propaganda that says well all men are bastards so you might as well screw the pretty ones or something like that, right? So to actually dig in, if somebody sort of picks up a thesis and is really upset by it, I mean, and these are people who, you know, know thyself is Socrates' first commandment. So if you pick up something and you say, okay, but there's nothing objectively wrong with this. There's nothing objectively wrong with it. So why do I feel uneasy why do i not like this thesis why do i feel the urge to throw it away like it suddenly, spouted sprouted at her fangs and was trying to sink its teeth venomed teeth into my into my veins why do i feel like i need to throw it away from me and why do i need to pretend like i never read it i mean that would be really interesting questions to ask yourself, But it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen at all.
[56:27] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like we already mentioned, there's jealousy. There's like the fear of, oh, you know, if a student is outshining me and, you know, then it means I'm going to have to put a whole lot of time and resources and, you know, stuff into like writing a good paper just as this one or even better. You know to show that uh i got good stuff going on too and you know all this kind of stuff my my question now is that uh what i want to point out is imagine they didn't know you back then, and uh even though you had pretty much like uh uh a clean record you know like dmv you know the yeah yeah the wikipedia page yeah but now you got all kinds of records uh white supremacist uh, racist yeah we don't have to honestly it's not like we don't have to go through.
[57:28] The list i think everyone.
[57:28] Knows yeah yeah so so and all of that stuff is just all of that stuff is designed to give.
[57:33] People an answer as to why what i do makes them uneasy without them actually going down any particular path that might lead to self-knowledge.
[57:39] Yeah yeah yeah so um if i may um, I kind of want to bring back my initial point. Maybe our philosophy community here, your audience, me, whoever's interested, perhaps we can create our own new platform where we can publish stuff that we can take it to the next level. And we don't really need to worry about it like, hey is there like a source that's going to look at or be willing to accept my review or our articles this and that and the other you know i've been thinking about this for a while and you know i was just trying to figure out how how to go about doing something that claire did because like you said it's probably good to do something but on a smaller scale than what she did i think what she did is very successful i mean obviously she she's going somewhere she's got a lot of readers uh she's got uh all kinds of uh people that that are interested it's just like the message is not there anymore stefan she she she lost her ways i'm sorry you know well.
[58:55] And of course there would be no particular problem or issue with starting something like that and i certainly would encourage people to i mean i certainly would encourage you that if you want to start something like that that's a a good project to.
[59:10] Get going i mean the challenge.
[59:12] Is and you know i'm sure you're aware of this too but the challenge is you start something like that and at some point, at some point you will get a visit you'll get a visit.
[59:27] And you.
[59:30] Know what they say uh in in Mexico, right? If you become a prominent politician, you get the visit. And the visit is silver or lead?
[59:39] Bribes or bullets. And I don't know because, I mean, I've had a couple of feelers that way, but nothing I would sort of point out and say that's definitive. But as I started to grow, I started to get some offers. Hey, we'd love to fund you. You know, we've got this. We'd love to put you on TV. We'd love to give you a big radio show, like all of this kind of stuff. Right. And I never was particularly tempted by it because I just want to speak the truth. I don't, I never even really wanted to be famous i just want to if the fame serves the spread of virtues fantastic um but if you are successful just just be aware that you're going to get, you're going to get the visit it's like those envelopes handed out at some funeral to the political leaders right so you just yeah and you just you just have to be prepared, right right for the visit yeah which is you know we really we'd love to fund you but you know you've got to you got to go a little bit in this direction or whatever it is right and there'll be the nudge and there'll be all that kind of stuff and as long as you're aware of that ahead of time because i mean i had the visit though more from money than moral corruption but i had the visit uh once or twice in business as well and yeah just just be aware that you're gonna get the visit and you've Got to be prepared for that and know what that's going to mean.
[1:01:02] I'm saying that anyone at Quillette, I don't know, right? But I couldn't answer that. But I will say that. Be ready for that. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:01:10] Yeah, so I was thinking to do something a little bit different than what. So, you know, Quillette is based in Australia, which is, you know, a Western country, which is suffering from Western decay, just like all the other Western countries.
[1:01:27] Well, it's not decay so much as straight up sabotage and detonation. But anyway, go on.
[1:01:32] So anyway, my take is... Or my approach is to uh maybe base myself either in asia or eastern europe where it's, you know a little bit less problematic than it is in the west and hopefully we can keep this thing going to to you know a little bit further than killett was able to uh because you know killett started out around 2015 and i think it lasted about four or five years so i hope to if we do start something to go uh at least 10 years you know or more or as many years as we can you know but more than more than four that's for sure yeah and and i think again.
[1:02:23] That has to do with how quickly you grow and what happens when you get the visit.
[1:02:27] Yeah and i i think you know if if uh if this this thing is going to be based either in uh eastern europe or somewhere in asia uh it's probably going to be a whole lot different than it is in the west so that's that's that's what i'm hoping that's going to make the difference that uh you know to let could it couldn't make because i i'm pretty sure that when claire started this whole thing she wanted to be different than uh than the new york times and she wanted to review i mean she wanted to accept all kinds of reviews perhaps all your books uh and your articles and whatnot and uh yeah perhaps in 2015 2016 if i if i knew you back then and i would have written a review for you, a decent review, you know, not just, you know, all kinds of nonsense and bashing and this and that and, you know, like...
[1:03:23] Yeah, the boring stuff, yes.
[1:03:24] Yeah, it would have probably been published in Kulet back in 2015 or 2016, but...
[1:03:30] I mean, that was the pre-Trump thing, so that's...
[1:03:33] Yeah.
[1:03:33] Although it was just starting then, I suppose, but...
[1:03:36] So good luck trying to do it now, you know, that's...
[1:03:39] I think it would be tougher now, for sure.
[1:03:41] Yeah.
[1:03:42] And when were you thinking of starting it, And is there anything that you wanted to, I've got to stop soon, but is there anything that you wanted to mention to my audience about how to pursue this?
[1:03:51] What I wanted to ask the audience is any people that are interested to help design such a platform, you know, they can email me. They can also have access to my writings on Medium. And I also started a sub stack because you know medium is it's just not a good place to publish anymore what's the issue with.
[1:04:16] Medium these days.
[1:04:18] Oh they just uh you know they just if if uh if you write from a conservative point of point of view they just kind of shun you and they they don't they just don't allow you to to be seen by anyone but if your life if you write a crazy lunatic leftist stuff oh you you're gonna get pushed all the way to the top right so uh yeah i mean you know i mean the the guy is hard to the left the director you know the founder the same so you know it's it's it's just a pity that uh you know everything that uh the left touches just just just goes to crap you know and uh you know you can't i mean what exactly do you see that's uh being pushed to the top on uh on medium these days you know just uh nonsense about trump how bad trump is how he's gonna take us to rooms and he's going to destroy uh you know democracy and this that and the other.
[1:05:14] And stuff like that i mean you you can't see anything that's being propagated to the top that's uh that's decent philosophy decent uh life lessons uh uh or or just simply anything decent you know so uh but i mean you know i've got a bunch of articles there that uh in the past they have gotten a lot of uh views and attention and stuff like that and it's just a pity to to keep writing for for a place that they're just gonna shun and and you know like uh block everything from from being seen by the by the general public you know it's it's just you know i mean it's it's kind of like uh you know like when when you were first uh banned from youtube and you had your small audience and stuff like that i mean you try to do different things so i i've been trying to do different things since since my uh you know my publications on medium they have been kind of like blocked and you know uh i haven't been exposed to the general public as as much as i used to once they learned of my views.
[1:06:17] And my uh opinions and stuff like that so but you know just like uh i'm trying to follow in your shoes and um i'm hoping to you know just do something different um and you know just Just like this former advisor of my director, he got the academic and the scientific community to all go in on creating this new journal of medical informatics where a lot of good stuff that has...
[1:06:55] Propagated and pushed the field of medicine forward was done because of his, idea but it wasn't just his effort it was like everybody in the community they said yeah you know what we really need this we can't get our research and publications in nature and science because they're just not meant for that and uh obviously you know they already had too too many people trying to i mean you know if uh if if you want to publish in nature and science it's it's kind of like being a uh a conservative person trying to publish in new york the new york times you know right right it's just uh at that level you know but but then again you know uh because.
[1:07:41] Look the world population is growing right which means our community community of uh people that enjoy philosophy is also growing right so we need more platforms we need more sources where we can have access to you know uh writings podcasts and this that and the other and whatnot and just like you said you know perhaps one day uh even this platform that i'm trying to create right now might be too too too small to to to uh publish a whole lot of stuff on philosophy and stuff like that but uh just like you often say hey you know we always need a good challenge to keep uh you know to keep focused and to keep uh sharp right so you know i i hope you know that if we do start this thing um and it's gonna grow and someday it's not big enough i hope somebody else will will uh start another platform you know that promotes philosophy and common sense and what have you, you know.
[1:08:43] And do you have any sort of sense of the ideal budget that you would be looking for?
[1:08:51] Um... Geez i should probably ask uh claire yeah i mean if you.
[1:09:01] I mean if anybody who's done this kind of stuff before uh it's just certainly uh i'm sure you're aware like if you have business ideas uh.
[1:09:07] Right so i read how claire started she said she started in her garage with a couple of computers so it didn't cost her much at all right she got a bunch of help from from uh people that really, believed in her you know, dream and view and aspirations so I'm hoping that okay I can spend some money definitely to, help pay for you know some of the people that want to help and stuff like that but you know I certainly hope that some people that are more or less like me they have a job and they have some income and they really really want to take philosophy to the next level or to a new level, they can contact me and say, hey, Dan, let's get this thing going. Let's help philosophy. Let's help Stefan. Let's do it. And then I have the ideas. I can really, because I've been an editor and a reviewer and I know how to create platforms and stuff like that, I can give them ideas how they can help, for us to create this, joint project or group projects, just like the Journal of Medical Informatics was created. And now it's a very flourishing journal and it helps to move the field of medicine forward.
[1:10:33] Well, that's fantastic. Well, listen, I'll stop here, but I hope that you'll keep me posted about how things are going and it's a very, very interesting project.
[1:10:42] So is there a way you can post my email somewhere for those that are interested?
[1:10:50] Yeah, give me the best email to contact you and we'll publish it with the show.
[1:10:53] And then I'll also give you my Substack link and Medium and stuff like that. And I'll also give you my publications over the years in the scientific field so people can get an idea of what I did and what I know and whatnot. And yeah I think that would be excellent thank you so much Stefan you're very welcome.
[1:11:16] Man and I appreciate that.
[1:11:17] And we'll stay in touch yeah absolutely all the best thanks again bye bye great to see you bye bye.
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