https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=mbtcebUs41Q
The last several years have made much room for conspiracy theories to flourish. Why? It’s all the conspiracies. Well it’s, you know, it’s, I think isolation has something to do with it. You know, I mean a lot of, all of us have a proclivity to spiral off into some delusion, you know, that’s whatever we’re, wherever we’re weakest in our conceptual structure. And part of the reason, well I think part of the reason for example, for free speech, the reason that free speech is so necessary is because you have to tell other people your stupid ideas so they can cuff you. So you don’t go insane. I really mean that. You know, because you say, well if speech is upsetting and if it’s offensive and so forth, why not just constrain it to only what’s nice and harmless? And the problem with that is we’re all pretty crazy and we have to throw out those, what would you say? Half-baked ideas. Yeah, that’s right, those half-baked ideas. Yeah, or quarter-baked or worse. We have to throw them out there because we’re not smart enough to fix them on our own. And so a lot of what we do collectively as we communicate is we really keep each other sane. And that’s part of the reason why a good marriage can be a good thing. It’s like, you know, you’re half-crazy and so is your wife or your husband, but if you put the two of you together you’re approximately one sane thing. And that’s… I even mean that technically, you know, because part of the reason that sex itself emerged is because the probability that pathology on one side is going to be met by precise pathology on the other at the genetic level is quite low. And it’s the same on the ideational front. The stupid ideas of your wife and your stupid ideas are probably not the same stupid ideas. And so you can… And you know, and then you hit a difficulty in your life together and you have to argue about what to do about it, which is, you know, annoying for both of you and difficult. But I think if you’re honest, if you’re both honest about it and you communicate, then the probability that out of that you’ll generate a same idea is going to be met by precise pathology on the other side. And if you’re honest about it and you communicate, then the probability that out of that you’ll generate a solution that’s better than either of you would have done on your own. And it’s not a mere compromise, but actually a better third path. It’s very high. It’s certainly better than just doing it on your own. And then… And more generally, I mean, I think the reason… I don’t think free speech is a right among other rights. I think it’s… You have the right to free speech so that you can bear the responsibility of thinking and thinking and speaking truthfully. And that’s necessary because if no one does that, then everything ends catastrophically rapidly. So one of the things you see in totalitarian societies, and this is really their hallmark and partly why they’re known as totalitarian, is that in a totalitarian society, everyone lies to everyone else about everything all the time. So it’s not like top-down dictator is telling everyone to think what to think. It’s like top-down dictator everywhere, everywhere. Wife lies, husband lies, children lie, teachers lie, businesses lie. What did they say in the Soviet Union? They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. And so… And the only antidote to totalitarianism is in fact free speech. And it’s not because there’s no such thing as hate speech because there clearly is. And it’s not because you’re so wise when you talk, but because the only antidote to stupidity is something like free expression and its criticism. And so when we’re isolated, we’re not doing so much of that. And then you add the virtual world to it, and it’s a weird place. You know, one of the things I’ve really been thinking about with regards to social media is that I think part of the reason social media is so unbelievably toxic. There’s two reasons, I think. One is it’s free. So that’s the wrong cost. It’s like you can say something to a million people for free. And so then maybe you say something stupid, caustic, bitter and miserable. And if you’ve been on Twitter, you’ve probably done that and certainly seen it. And there’s zero cost to it. You can do it. But then it’s even worse because one of the things that’s very interesting about social media is that people will absolutely say things that literally don’t matter. They would never say to anyone face to face even once. And why won’t they do that? Why will they do that? Well, it’s because if they said it face to face, something not good would happen. And it might be, some of the time it would be that they would actually get hit. But even if that didn’t happen, and we could say, although I don’t believe this, even though that might be inexcusable to react physically like that, and I don’t believe it is, by the way. But we’ll say it is for the sake of argument. There should still be some cost. So the person you met face to face is like they indicate their displeasure. And at least you bloody well see that. On social media, it’s not there at all. And so the incentives for communication in social media do not match the incentives in the real world. And that means that social media is insane. There’s an insanity about it because there is behavior that won’t work that isn’t met with opposition. And so you can spin off, and that’s not good. Like I don’t know what we’re going to do about it, but I really do believe it would probably be better if every time you posted something on social media, you had to pay something. Like maybe you had to wait. You have to wait five seconds before you get to post it. That’s a cost, right? It’s a cost in terms of time. So if you’re willing to pay it, okay. If you’re not, don’t. Or maybe it should cost you a nickel or something like that. So that’s another reason people can pop up conspiratorial theories. And you get a bad notion of how people are thinking and reacting by sampling social media. Now we’re all isolated for two years and we’re half crazy anyways. We know, Tammy and I went to Washington before we went on this tour, and one of the things we did learn, that part of the reason that the polarization process is affecting your society at its highest levels, let’s say in the discourse between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, is that a lot of the social institutions that aren’t mediated virtually have disappeared. You know, because the Republicans and the Democrats, they used to live in Washington together. Now most of them don’t. 40% of your reps sleep in their offices. They don’t have apartments in Washington. You know, if you’re a Democrat, a reasonable one, and you meet a reasonable Republican, the first thing you realize is they’re kind of 80% like you. But if all you meet is their political opinions in a virtual space, well, they’re nothing like you. And we don’t know what glue held the country together, and we have no idea how much those face-to-face meetings or those surrounding social institutions allowed people to humanize each other outside of the political domain. So that’s another contributor to conspiracy theories. One of the things I’ve been thinking, too, about talking to people along on this tour is, I know all of you are here, at least in principle, because you’ve decided in some way to try to aim up, get your life together. Maybe you’ve been convinced of the utility of that. One thing you might really want to think about is that your civic institutions at the local levels are pretty shaky now. You know, there’s not a lot of people. Churches are emptier than they were. Business clubs are starving for members. Like, the local institutions aren’t thriving, and that makes people isolated and lonesome because that was one of the things they used to do, so that wouldn’t happen. But it also really badly affects the integration of the whole society. And so, so, I think that’s a good thing. So, I really saw that in Washington. It was quite frightening to see. And, you know, too, in the House, everything’s filmed. So people can’t really say what they think the way they once did, because they sort of have to be, you know, they’re performing all the time, and that might make them less reasonable than they would otherwise be. Certainly less transparent. So, a lot more face-to-face, genuine, on-the-ground interactions with real people would likely help that. So, it’s worth thinking about if you’re looking for something to do.