Bret Weinstein: whatever happens today, the system is broken

Just ahead of the election, Freddie Sayers speaks to Bret Weinstein — a leading member of what used to be called the Intellectual Dark Web, evolutionary biologist, writer and host of the Dark Horse podcast.

Over the course of 45 minutes they cover the danger of censorship by the big tech platforms, the possibility of a new political coalition and whether we’re more likely to be heading into a new Renaissance era or towards disaster.

Enjoy!

KEY QUOTES:

On tech censorship:
I have a model in which many of the things that feel conspiratorial are actually a combination of phenomena: one part is emergent and one part is conscious, and the two of them work together to create something quite Soviet and bureaucratic. There’s also another possibility, which is that if one wants to do arbitrary things, if one wants to silence certain kinds of speech, and amplify other kinds of speech because they are advancing a political agenda, then they can build a system in which your antagonists are in a position to trigger algorithms.

On Trump:
I think Trump is going to perform way better than people expect. There’s no question that there is an Orwellian force that causes people to think twice before they confess even any nuance about Trump effective. I mean, I saw Noam Chomsky in the New Yorker a couple days ago said that Donald Trump was the worst criminal in human history, which is a preposterous statement coming from a place you would really expect a great deal more nuance than that.

And yet, here we are, that passes for intellectual evaluation at this moment, so undoubtedly, there are a large number of people who are frightened by the democrats willingness to pretend that this authoritarian mindset is reasonable… But I will say I hear it enough that I feel confident Trump will outperform expectations, whether he’ll win, I think he actually might well, but he is going to surprise people one way or the other.

On Portland:
Portland is mostly intact, but the energy in the system has built up there’s a tremendous amount of pressure which has taken a form that is quite ominous. We have regular violence breaking out on the streets. It’s always localised to a few blocks because it’s a small number of people who are engaged in it, but the police are simply not putting a stop to it. And the protesters who every night become rioters are learning what they can get away with. They are going neighbourhood to neighbourhood and terrorising business owners and people in their homes. And perhaps most ominous of all, the mayor, who is also our police commissioner, who is allowing this to happen is facing a challenge for office. Which might ordinarily be a good thing, except that he’s being challenged by somebody who has signalled quite strongly that she embraces the wrongly labelled anti-fascist perspective in this case.

On progress:
I am a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. I believe strongly that we will have to make progress if we are to survive as a species. That means I regard myself as a radical, but what I’m watching is people who are nominally on the same side of the political spectrum, who do not appear to understand that systems have basic requirements in order to function that these systems are necessary to our continued existence and they are jeopardising them. Because in a state where the where one party effectively has complete control, there is no force to cause a reality check. In effect, people’s fantasies have run away with them. They do not seem to understand that they are playing with the substance of our real lives as if it were a video game.

On misinformation:
The population is drenched in a kind of bullshit that is with them, almost from the instant that they get up in the morning, right. As soon as you’ve engaged your phone, there’s a pretty good chance, you’ve encountered something inauthentic, you know, some kind of advertising at least. And it’s with us all day, until we go to bed. That’s not normal. Right? Our ancestors didn’t face that there have always been con artists. But in general, that’s not what you were dealing with moment to moment. What this has created, is a kind of hunger that people don’t realise they’re experiencing for authenticity. And that paradoxically, has created an opening for very unlikely phenomena.

[matthiku]

Quote by George R.R. Martin: "When you tear out a mans tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."

[richwatkins]

Appreciative kudo, from a conservative, for Dr.Weinstein, a “dyed in the wool liberal:

Excellent and incisive analysis of big tech censorship, cancel culture, and group think—and the absolute necessity of protecting the de facto public forum for free speech. In particular, thank you for the clarity in pointing out that most public discourse has migrated into the unregulated private sector of big tech. Now we roll up our sleeves, feeling the evolutionary pressure to make our way out of the “adaptive valley” of dysfunction in which we find ourselves. We’ll do it.

[DiamondLil]

It is as if the steerage passengers, who have valid complaints about their treatment, have decided to sink the ship, without understanding that they, too, will drown! Perhaps first.

[JamesCoffey]

Why can’t smart people like Bret and Freddy get that the reason we are more tribal today in western democracies is because we made almost every part of life political. Once this happens then to have your own life they way you want it means that your tribe needs to be in power. Before WW1, govt spending to GDP was single digit %. Today it is 25% (USA), 30% (AU), 35% (UK) up to 50% in many EU nations. This means that by far the largest growth industry over the last century is govt. If we remove govt from as much of our lives as possible, we can stop fighting over who is in power and get one with living our own lives.

[markzelunka]

Best quote: "nobody knows how to draw the line between false ideas and ideas that are ahead of their time"

[stillwatersfarm]

This man who calls himself liberal makes a very good conservative argument. Preserving and improving the current system is what conservatives want. We want you to leave what does work alone. That doesn’t mean we don’t want what is broken fixed.

[junehope]

The democrats have already started a “list” of trump supporters

The USA is frightening me

[leilanibenjamin]

Thank you Bret, for systematically removing shrouds of confusion from the truth, and for sharing your thoughts calmly and continuously. ❤️

Bret (Heather along with him) is the single voice of reason that I can actively listen to without being wholly dismayed at the total disillusionment of human integrity and volition.

[ramblinralph]

How have I lived so long without ever once looking at something called 'twitter'? I'm told that I'm not missing anything at all.

[notyou]

Great talk, but is it correct to lay blame for Portland's continued violence at the feet of the police? Haven't the police been restrained by the Mayor? Also, when arrests are made aren't the judges and D.A. releasing them immediately?

[CasadelAguaGeraldWebb]

Fantastic guest, and great interview.
There is a simple solution to solve the divisions. But like he said..how do you get past the Blue & Red parties in all countries!
A new freedomist movement needs to be created

[iriselliott]

A major problem in the USA is, too many 24 hour opinion “news” channels. People no longer trust themselves to think.

[Docinaplane]

My undergrad degree is in evolutional biology and ecology. Watching the moral panic and hysteria of these times is very weltschmerz inducing. When I try to offer clearer thinking, the push back is very intense. I'm sure many people have experienced this. I've been a radical most of my life. Seriously, when has the majority ever been right?

[jannisarie]

This year has been a bad year for science.... Science became political and I dont know if it will recover for a long time.

[burnhamsghost]

Bret's comment about many of these conspiracies being a combo of emergent behaviors and willful conspiracy is spot on.

[williamgianopulos]

Where is Christopher Hitchens when you need him most?

[paulnew]

One thing I find strange, for such a dangerous disease, no one at these test centers are wearing bio protection, or bio decontamination, neither in hospitals!
Under the health and safety act, all employer's have to carry out a risk assessment.
If risks are identified, all reasonable precautions are required.
If possible risk of death, all precautions have to be applied, and then risked assessed again.
So with covid, it seems there is a risk of death, due to it being infectious, and as they say deadly. So anyone who in their work place, who may come in contact with a person infected, would need all precautions, and protections, so as not to become infected.
So you see these testing sites, and it seems to me, their protective equipment, is woefully inadequate, and the same in hospitals, and carehomes.
Or is it the risk assessment, identifies covid as a non deadly, mild disease, that does not require the sort of biological protection, that a deadly disease does?

[roadpizza]

Such an intense and incredible interview. Freddie is the epitome of polite yet hard hitting interviewer. I cannot imagine the hours of research he does. Wish he was on mainstream America! Cheers all!

[padraigadhastair]

Freddy, you've done it again. Your guests are all high caliber but the dark horse, BW, is the cherry on the Sunday. Good work mate!

[WoopyGoldbergsHair]

Let’s put it this way, if the majority of speech happens on social media, and is in a private place that can regulate your speech, you effectively have eliminated freedom of speech.