Why Critical Thinking Is Dead - Warren Smith

27:21Francis Foster:life, this is the one part of your life that was specifically carved out for you to think about things, to explore different ideas, to challenge and be challenged. And that's now been taken away effectively, right? So what do you think the impact of that is on society? It's a big question. I wish I had a really good answer to that. I think it's what we're seeing play out. Yeah, it just creates more of a tribal sense because everyone coming out of that system, out of that college that I've encountered personally, I can assure you there's no one coming out with a different point of view because it's being hammered so hard.

27:58And I was hired to be the personal videographer of, this is how I made money as a student, to the dean I was referring to with the presidents in China. So she would hire me to go in when there's a public speaker or someone coming and I would do a promotional video, edit it quickly and get it out in two days. And so I got to see, because Emerson has a very prestigious journalism program. And I got to see the people they were coming in, they were bringing in to speak, and they would bring in a conservative. This was when Trump was in the election. There was not every conservative they brought in, I still have the video, the footage too, of some of this.

28:34Every single speaker was still anti-Trump, the conservatives. They were explaining how he's not a real conservative. It was incredible. The most nuanced, interesting speaker was a Trump impersonator, though. I have some great footage of that where Rolling Stone was doing a thing on him. He was getting some traction. I don't know where he went, but he came in and laid into the students and being like, no one thinks what you're doing is cute. You all are striving. You think you're victims. And he was a graduate of Emerson in the comedy program. That was probably the most interesting speaker I saw.

29:06That would be the closest thing to a nuanced take that I... And how was that received? The students were kind of left aghast. Yeah, they just were kind of speechless. But I think he knew, he understands the nature of comedy is to be bold. He's not afraid to do that. There was not enough, there was no, I commend them, there wasn't shouted off the campus like you would expect. But had he not been in such a prestigious role or just been covered by Rolling Stone and been backed as a personal friend by the dean, he would have been in probably a different response.

29:40Francis Foster:Well, one of the interesting things about what you're saying is this kind of environment, it creates people who actually can't think, which is why it's kind of impressive that the student, the video you did about J.K. Ronning, with your help actually could think. Because increasingly, we see this now on the internet as well. It's like people are incapable of separating ideas from people. And the way that debates are now increasingly conducted, I mean, as we're sitting here recording this, this won't go out for a while, but there's literally some of America's most prominent journalists calling, saying that they have micropenises online.

30:14Francis Foster:And it seems to me like that, I mean, that's kind of a direct continuation of this, like where you no longer discuss any of the issues and it's just, you're on the wrong side, you're on the wrong side of history, you're the other. And what gets lost is the actual conversation. And it's deeply offensive to people from the micropenis community. Absolutely. I think it's largely, I've been working on this book that's coming out that kind of delves into this. I think it comes back to the laws of narrative and the fact that we can't separate the character from the narrative psychologically. It's impossible.

30:47I think it's largely because their narratives are built on their, their business is built on their claims. When you become wed to your ideas, that becomes your brand. Now you're defending your brand. So you're less likely to change your mind. And then it leads into these wars that we're seeing now. So that's, my approach is different because I don't find that to be, there's things that I feel strongly about still, right? But those are my first principles. That's not what we're seeing. We're seeing how the first principles manifest into politics. And frankly, politics is kind of boring to me compared to the deeper dynamics beneath all of this.

31:27Francis Foster:I totally agree. And it's one of the reasons we have had a lot of political guests on the show, but we've increasingly felt like that we want to space them out if having any of them at all. I mean, when we started, our rule was we don't have politicians on the show. And then, you know, you kind of, you know, things are going on in the world. You want to hear some of their perspectives, whatever. But over time, you're definitely right that it kind of, you end up playing a totally different game and it's not the game we want to play. And by the way, I think there is plenty of space, and you're demonstrating, I hope we're demonstrating it, for content, which is not about we're on this team or on this team, but more like we are adjudicating the issues that come up as we go.

32:09Francis Foster:And we have some principles that guide us in that. But like a lot of people won't be able to tell what we think about an issue that comes up. They try to, but often they're surprised by that. And I think a lot of people find that very discombobulating because they just want you to be on their team. Yes. Yeah. That's been an eye-opener as well for me. Yeah, there's been content creators where, because I do this format where I like looking at the dynamics of these interactions and you're not going to win them all. Everyone is going to have ones that go well because we're wrong about certain things.

32:46And sometimes even when you're right, it's going to go poorly. it doesn't just the nature of debates and I don't even like thinking of myself as a debater but I've noticed that as well where um like Tim Pool got really pissed at me because I disagreed with him on one video and that that I was like whoa that took me aback and there is this sense I've had a lot of people where there is this team dynamic where it's like yeah but you're supposed to be on our our ideological team but I'm it's important to note I I there's not a single person I'm going to agree with on everything." We were kind of referring to that.

33:20Yeah, right.

33:21Francis Foster:Well, I mean, one of the difficulties is if you play the team game, which I understand why people play because it's comfortable and there's lots of money to be made and friendships and gatherings and there's lots of advantages, network advantages to being part of a thing. I don't think that's really compatible with having solid principles. And I mean, I'm not even that interested in it anymore, but like the Candace Owens situation is a very good example of this, where she's making claims about the fact that Erica Kirk killed her husband with the connivance of Egypt or Israel. It changes every day, right?

33:57Francis Foster:And a lot of people on the right, on her team, are very quiet about it, which is, you know, maybe she's your friend, whatever. You handle it whichever way you think. I'm not, that's up to those people. but I just know that if someone on the left was saying, well, no, Charlie Kirk wasn't killed by the guy that we think he was killed by. Actually, he was killed by Erica Kirk. I mean, I think those people might have had something to say about it, right? So you either have consistency of party loyalty or you have consistency of thought and ideas and you can't have both sometimes, right? Going into this year, I told myself I was finally going to stop guessing about my health.

34:34Francis Foster:Like most people, I want more energy, better focus and to be still strong and sharp years from now. But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing. Everything's fine. Drink more water, sleep a bit more. No real insight, no plan, just vibes. That's why superpower stood out to me. Superpower makes it simple to actually understand what's going on inside your body. You do one blood draw, either at home or in a nearby lab, and they analyze over 100 biomarkers. That's heart health, hormones, metabolism, vitamins, minerals, and even environmental toxins. What I love is that you don't just get numbers, you get a personalized action plan, supplements, nutrition guidance, lifestyle changes, and even your true biological age that you can track over time.

35:18Francis Foster:Price-wise, this is a no-brainer compared to the alternatives. Superpower used to cost$499. Right now, it's$199, while other testing services charge$500,$1 ,000, sometimes more, for similar, often inferior information. Your blueprint activated with Superpower. Superpower is just$1.99 and for a limited time you can get an additional$20 off with our code TRIGGER Head to superpower.com and use code TRIGGER at checkout for$20 off your membership After you sign up they'll ask you how you heard about them so make sure to mention Trigonometry to support the show Once again, head to superpower.com and use our code TRIGGER at checkout Not to the absolute because you're going to yeah, you're going to you're going to disagree sometimes for sure.

36:07For me, the way I approach it, if I'm being quiet about something, the way I would articulate is I haven't seen anything to... I have not seen adequate evidence to indicate that Erica Kirk killed Charlie Kirk. That's how I would address it. Yeah, I think that's fair. Just leave it at that. I don't know Candace.

36:26Francis Foster:But on my point, the point I'm making is something else, Warren. And again, I don't really particularly care about having a go at these people who are supposed to call Candace out or those people or whatever. I'm not that interested. I'm just making a broader point, which is if you are, let's say on the right and someone on the left made these comments about Charlie Kirk, the response would be immediate and strong and thorough and probably vicious. And yet when someone on your team does it, you kind of go, oh, you know, I think attacking Charlie Cook's Widow's Rock. Yeah, that's going back to that.

37:02We can't separate the character from the narrative. Right.

37:05Francis Foster:And I guess the point I'm trying to make is I don't think it's possible to play a team game while also being true to the facts. I agree. I don't play, even if it looks like it, I don't play team. I think Jordan Peterson was right to call, and this has always stayed with me i don't like identity politics on the left or the right maybe it's because i was just listening to my favorite debate driving down here with um uh stephen fry i mean it's one of the simple debate but it's one of the most powerful and that was the message it's like when does the left go too far when is it yeah the right goes too far i'm not yes i team and it goes deep to psychology, evolutionary psychology, why we band together in these ways, but it's a foolish game, I think.

37:56Francis Foster:Well, one of the things that happens is, I think, in the podcast and content creation YouTube space, what we're talking about, which is ideas, and politics, they get meshed together. And so, you have people who are talking about ideas, and sometimes they're talking about politics, and we do this too. And then those two things come together, and I think it's quite confusing. It's like, are you talking about ideas? Are you talking about politics? Because they're just different games. And I think a lot of the discrepancy comes from that actually. Yeah. It's like the difference between the first principles and how those underlying dynamics versus how they manifest into politics.

38:34I mean, I agree with you on that for sure. Yeah. I think part of the worry is when we talk about education is, because I used to be a teacher so everyone can drink now.

38:44Francis Foster:I mention it every episode. That's right. Yeah. I like it where it's like, yeah, you do. Where's your mom from again? Anyway, two drinks. But one of the things that you do as a teacher is you disseminate information, give them information. Arguably, the most important part of teaching is not the information aspect of it. You're teaching skills. So when I was a drama teacher, what you were doing is you were teaching skills to kids so they knew how to be creative. They knew how to structure and create improvisations, long form improvisations, plays, how to be more realistic on stage, etc. What you're doing is teaching people how to think critically.

39:22The problem comes if we don't do that. These skills are not intuitive. They have to be learned. That's interesting. Yes, because I think the recognition of logic is intuitive. But you're right, because this is going counter against what we were just describing about that tribal evolutionary impulse to band together for survival. And yes, breaking away pattern disruption is... Well, it's a pattern disruption. Most people aren't going to do it. The majority... I think about it like this. The majority of people are going to be like water. They're going to take the path of least resistance. It's easier to be foolish than wise.

39:59There's risk that comes with breaking away from the group. Being... I sat down with Dr. Peterson. He described it as being the zebra with orange stripes, right? The reason zebras blend in is because they all have the same stripes. White and black stripes aren't going to cause you to blend into the grass. You're blending to the herd. I think you are on to something there. That's what I'm trying to delve into with what I've been writing and trying to put it into words. Because when I look at some of these kids, and you look at some people who debate these kids on campuses, and you see the kids get angry and upset.

40:37it and then there'll be the comments on youtube is like our kid gets owned or whatever else and i go actually i think we all now need to be a little bit more adult i've been guilty of this i hold my hands up and go it's not the fault of the kid it's the fault of the system producing it because if it's just one kid being produced who can't argue can't think critically you can go well the kid wasn't listening or there may be you know maybe they weren't a good student or whatever it may be. But the fact that we're producing legions of people who can't think critically, that's not the people's fault who are getting produced.

41:14It's the fault of the system. And what we need actually is a radical oval. And it's also the fault of the adults who won't contend with them or allow them to be contended with for fear of the emotional damage or they won't be able to handle it, even when we're talking about college students who are

41:29Francis Foster:Well, that's why I was asking you about why college administrators cave to this stuff, right? Because I think within that, there is actually power that they don't realize they have, because those are also teachable moments, right? When a bunch of kids demand some kind of readjustment of the entire system, if you have strong leadership in that moment that communicates that that is not how this works, that can teach those kids something. And I think there's been an abdication of responsibility on the part of the adults, I think, which is what Francis is trying to get in that way as well. Would you agree?

42:07Francis Foster:Yeah, for sure.

42:11It goes back to that. I just can't stop thinking about this example with Sam Richards and how there's this fear of all of these problems are going to have so many variables, though. There's the variable of liability. Well, it's being streamed on YouTube. Okay, well, let's take that off the table. What about the classrooms where it's not being streamed on YouTube or being shared? Is that occurring? I'm sure it must be happening. I haven't seen it personally. It doesn't mean it's not happening. But I think I agree with you. It's safe to say that the majority of cases, it's not being fostered. And it's also as well, not only do we not encourage kids and young people to think critically, we also fetishize emotions.

42:54so if you're having a debate and you say something that i profoundly disagree with or you criticize a point and i get offended because i hold that point dear suddenly it becomes acceptable to be offended or angry or upset and i'm in the one in the right and you're the one in the wrong yeah that's how it gets weaponized i was just thinking about probably the next video i do is looking back at you talking to alex o 'connor i think and he was trying to make the case as though hate speech laws are justifiable. Well, because we have libel laws, defamation laws. So can't you imagine, Constantine, a case in which you are actually causing emotional distress or harm to someone because of this medical condition?

43:40And I think you handled that well. You were kind of like, just like, what are you? They're just two completely different things. So I thought it just reminded me of that. I thought that was interesting.

43:49Francis Foster:I agree with you. I'm great. I've forgotten we had that conversation. I like Alex. We get on very well, actually. I don't remember that bit, but it was a long time ago. Yeah, I just stumbled on it. I hadn't seen it before. That's interesting. You're someone who really thinks about this very carefully. Do you have thoughts on how to develop critical thinking skills, how to teach critical thinking skills?

44:12Yes. In martial arts, there's this concept of the cotta. When you're in a real street fight, or for example, you can't stop and think. It's all do, subconscious. But the kata breaks it down into rehearsable movements like a dance, so I was trying to come up with a methodology that could be taught for that portion of it, because there's multiple facets to this. The more I thought about it, I realized critical thinking is not just for debates, it's for navigating these daily games that we're engaging in, whether or not we realize it. When I was at that school, navigating what I just described you that was a game that was being played on multiple levels and you can anticipate what you're all and you're trying it's not necessarily you're trying to win you're trying to achieve the ideal outcome and recognize where the best move is on the board that i'm trying to figure out okay so and a lot of that is non-verbal it's not it's not so that the the signals that were being sent to me for example that were no one came up to me and said we want you to be fired for your, because I disagree, but the body language around JK, it was, I noticed it, there's a lot of communication that's nonverbal.

45:24Perhaps even most communication is nonverbal. And people don't say what they really think at the copy machine, what your colleague really thinks, but they telegraph it. Okay, so, but once we do enter the verbal, what is the kata that will allow us to navigate this? So I try and formulate a method that will help with that. For me, I describe it as a sort of a flaw filter where it's not so much I come at it as though this is the least bad option I've been able to find can you genuinely offer anything better and it's important to recognize the least bad option because as Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others there's gonna be flaws and that's a method people take or a strategy people take just pointing out the flaws that doesn't disprove you have a better alternative so I'm listening for the alternative I imagine kind of like this red light bulb go that is sitting on the desk and I'm listening I'm just this filter not really taking a strong position necessarily depends but and when I when that light bulb goes off at the first flaw now you're ready to make a move it's a I lay out a strategy for that but a lot of it is demeanor how do you develop the demeanor and then we that gets into the laws of narrative I think a lot of understanding these dynamics you need to understand the laws of narrative to understand and think critically about dynamics like we've been describing with why are these moves being made with people teaming up in this way or not breaking away from their team for this they're not thinking critically their team comes first and a lot of that perhaps it's because my i spent 10 years studying screenwriting and filmmaking the laws of narrative but i a lot of these lessons have are relevant and i think it gave me the basis for what i use i use today so Hopefully, that book will be something that people can use to develop critical things, but also how to navigate these daily games.

47:24Francis Foster:Well, it's interesting you bring up daily games because it's kind of how I think about it. Like if you think about life in general, the closer you are to the truth of whatever the issue is, the more functionally better off you're going to be in that situation, right? So if you have, if your understanding of how to run a business is as close to the truth as possible, you're going to be better at running a business. If your understanding of what the truth of a YouTube channel is and how to run one, you're going to be better at doing that. If your understanding of what relationships are like is closer to the truth, that's much better for you than having your own emotional experience that drives you away from the truth and towards confirming your own biases.

48:09Francis Foster:or whatever else. And that's what I think a lot of people don't realize is truth has a, it's not just a like morality thing. It has a tremendous value. And so when we argue about what the truth is about politics or philosophy or society, that's the place from which we're coming. And that's why it's so valuable, right? Yeah. And that's interesting that you put it that way, that there is a true way to run a business because postmodernism would claim that, which is all about truth claims being the result of social conditioning. Many would claim there is no true way to run a business. It's up to me.

48:44And all interpretations are equally valid, which goes back to...

48:47Francis Foster:How many postmodernists have a business that they run? Right. Right. So it's an... And I think that it's such an important... It's such an important dynamic that in most... When you're encountering these students, many of them are arguing postmodernism. They don't know what postmodernism is. Try debating someone on postmodernism. Like they'll just, they'll avoid it and they'll say, I don't want to get into that. Well, it's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall, right? But you see, you take any example that, I mean, you talked about martial arts. I imagine, I'm not a martial artist, but I imagine it's true that there are different ways to throw a punch and there are different ways to do this.

49:23Francis Foster:But there is a truth. But there's one punch that's most effective. Our bones can only structure in one way. Given your body composition, there's only one way you can get the most momentum in that position. So that's an important distinction. And this is what I think a lot of this dynamic that we now have in terms of the way people communicate is, I think actually most people I see online are behaving like postmodernists. Almost everybody, left and right. So you spoke to Destiny the other day. I made a video critiquing it. And there's already a response video where I compared it to postmodernism, his response.

50:00People are claiming, well, no, Warren's claiming it's postmodernism, but that has to do with truth claims. But when destiny says to you, well, what is a lot? It's always changing. Therefore, you shouldn't be concerned about it. What do you mean unprecedented? What do you even mean by when you're claiming it is or it is not a lot that is a truth claim? So and maybe I should have said it's similar to talking to a postmodernist when they do that. Everything's always changing, so we can't expect a standard. What traditions are you... Kazi, can you point to a single tradition that hasn't changed? Traditions don't matter to a postmodernist.

50:33It's all... And it's absolutely the opposite to how I view... Perhaps it's because of my background in narrative, where I do believe these stories, these archetypes, are not just the result of social conditioning. They resonated, they will resonate for deeper reasons.

50:52Francis Foster:New Year, new systems, right? This is the time when we all look at the messier parts of our business and think, there has to be a better way. And there is. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the smarter way to run your business communications. And this call is money out of the door. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation so you never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number with the full conversation thread visible to everyone.

51:31Francis Foster:Quo works wherever you are, right from an app on your phone or computer. It lets you keep your existing number and makes it easy to add teammates or new numbers as your business grows. And Quo isn't just a phone system. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. It can even respond after hours, keeping your business responsive when you're offline. Make this the year when no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free. Plus, get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash trig. That's Q-U-O dot com slash T-R-I-G.

52:09Francis Foster:Quo. No miss calls, no miss customers. you know when i got taught post-modernism at university i remember just sitting there and going this doesn't make sense that's literally what i thought because when i asked them to explain post-modernism they couldn't really explain what post-modernism is yes and i in my art class required to take modern art right oh we go in there she's explaining to me very nice professor but she's explaining to me that the banana nailed to the wall is of equal aesthetic beauty as the David, Michelangelo, or whatever it is. There are no objective standards for beauty. Beauty is purely a social construct, which actually goes against biology, that there are actual, there has to be a yardstick that drives us to see a hierarchy of beauty, so we have a target to pursue.

53:05But the interesting thing that I find about postmodernism and why I think it's so prevalent today is that you can only really understand postmodernism if you're disconnected from reality. And every postmodernist you speak to has these claims what you're describing is not postmodernism. And that gets very frustrating. This is the technique that I see the most often. We know what strawmanning is. They claim, no, you're misrepresenting my argument. But what will happen, Destiny, for example, he will misrepresent your argument, claim, no, what you're describing is critical race theory. That's not what critical race theory is.

53:44All critical race theory is, is thinking critically about the structures of group dynamics and power in the past and how that's, and they make it sound completely harmless. So circumvent say, fine, going off the nonverbal thing. then what I'm talking about, call it whatever you want, is what led those students at Emerson to do this and what led that professor to tell us to surrender our white privilege. That's what I want to examine, the ideology that leads to that. You can call it whatever you want and they're going to try and go off on this thing. Just keep them on the rails. Absolutely, because the more you investigate it, you go, oh, you have to be disconnected from reality in order for this to seem like it makes sense.

54:31Which is why discussions on Twitter and social media are so postmodern is because they're fundamentally disconnected from reality. Ridiculous ideas can live in social media because they're not applied to the real world, because they're in the ether. They're in the digital age, if you know what I mean. Yes. Yes. That's why I love the format that I am playing with because it circumvents the strategy where they'll claim no one's saying that. No one is making that argument. Well, I'll show you the words coming out of their mouth and then comment on it and then cut to them doing it again. My favorite video I've ever made was the postmodern professor talking with Joe Rogan.

55:11And it was like you couldn't, you couldn't, if you described it, no one would believe you. So I have, I can't, And this is a narrative, a law of narrative, the central law of screenwriting. Show, don't tell. I can show, I can't tell you about it because you won't believe it. I can show you, though. Absolutely, because we've had Adam Carolla on the show many times. And one of the points Adam makes is the most sensible people are those people who work with their hands. We can talk about postmodernism and go, oh, the aesthetic beauty of a banana nailed to the wall is compared to a Caravaggio. at Caravaggio, but you can't go to your carpenter and go, what is a centimeter?

55:47Right. Find where the rubber meets the road. So like we were just doing with critical race theory, find a tangible point. That professor said this to me in that room. Where does the rubber, the trans conversation debate? We're talking about laws, structuring laws, right? Just go right there in the debate, not the theory portion of it or how I feel about it. It's like, how are we going to actually implement this where the rubber meets the road?

56:10Francis Foster:Warren, do you have any thoughts on why humanity is at a point now where this way of thinking has become appealing to people? What is it about modernity or the condition of humanity at this moment that means that people are capable of thinking this is a useful way to think? We had a big transformation in the 60s, my parents' generation. The Vietnam War had a big impact. Postmodernism introduced from France. That's became very appealing because of that transformation. That generation became the administrators. That's the dean at the college, that generation. That's my parents. They're on board with all...

56:48It's fun talking to them because it quickly dismantles, but they're still...

56:53Francis Foster:And what was the transformation? Why did the Vietnam War have this effect? Well, because people viewed the Vietnam War, right or wrong, as a big injustice and a miscarriage of power, and it put them on edge. it's we had World War II very different that I mean the narrative has shifted drastically it's so different than from World War II to there that I think culturally music the counterculture and there's cool things about all that like I like Jimi Hendrix on it's I think that was yes the turning point that has now led to the the generation in control and now we're seeing a completely new generation the destiny his audience who are pushing for literally they're literally we need to they're claiming we we need to do what they did to hunter biden because and he was listening to his moderator try and talk to destiny concerned about the radicalization violent threats being like why do we need to make things up when they're doing things wrong already They believe there's enough to point where this guy believes they're actually if they're doing things wrong, we should be able to point to it, which seems reasonable.

58:02If you're going to try and arrest someone, you should be able to point something. Destiny's response is yet. No, but they're too clever for that. So we have to make it up. It's literally like I'm going to make a video about it and show you him saying that again. Show, don't tell. People won't believe it. But they're saying we need to lock them up at any cost. It doesn't matter because for the greater good, essentially. And that's why these skills are so important, because they are a really effective tool against radicalization. And we've seen people, young people particularly, be radicalized, radicalized into progressive leftist movements.

58:35We're now seeing people get radicalized on the right. Yes. And these tools are very effective for fighting back against that. Yes, understanding the laws of narrative hopefully will help with that, I think. But we should touch on this. I hope I didn't alarm me with the death threat thing, the guy who was kind of going a little bit crazy. All right. Well, I don't know if you saw that. I did.

58:56Francis Foster:I have good security, so I wasn't too worried about it. Yeah. But what was interesting about that is that I've had people since then messaging me saying this guy has been harassing me for a long time, even on the left. Tilly Middlehurst, who kind of rose to notoriety from debating Charlie Kirk, like the opposite it, emailed me the other day. She's like, this guy, thank you for posting that. This guy has been creeping me out. People are really concerned. I had no idea about any of that, but that is, but you're right. That is the movement that's happening. Well, I mean, one of the things with the internet as well is, I think it's created a space for activating a lot of people who are just mentally not very well.

59:38Francis Foster:And it, you know people are able to develop these kind of parasocial relationships that are both positive and inverted commas and negative in the sense that some people think that they're in a relationship with an only fans model to which they send money and other people think they are in a relationship with somebody who they watch online that they don't like and um i remember what was that movie with robert de niro about baseball was it called the fan have you ever seen that yeah i think i I think it's called The Fan. The Fan. Yeah, I think so. Where he basically, De Niro is a big fan of this baseball player.

1:00:14Francis Foster:Yeah. Remember this? Yeah. And he sort of feels like they're in a relationship and he's trying to help him out and he ends up doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And I think what the internet has done is it's kind of created a tool for weaponizing mental illness. And if you were like an alien that came down from another planet and read the comments on the average tweet and you just went through the comments, you would just go, you know, schizophrenia, psychosis. You'd just go, bam, bam, bam, bam. Because, you know, I always say this, like, there's a lot of mentally ill people and they're mostly on the internet.

1:00:49Francis Foster:And that's what I think. And I'm not saying this in a disparaging, a derogatory way. I just think there are a lot of people that use politics now as well to kind of fulfill all these things and deal with, cope and deal with issues that they need real help with, to be honest. Yeah, we were talking about this just a moment ago and I forgot a major component of this, which I think is perceived value. So when I started to get into the space, a viral video, I recognized, whoa, there's little more powerful than the ability to connect with an audience, which is one reason that school fears it so much, because you can't buy it.

1:01:24Brands try, that's what sponsors are. And I think there's this psychological phenomenon where if there's 10 people looking up you're gonna look up and see that something occurs with online people celebrities in general this perceived value and you take some any of these personalities they'll say something and it's because of the surrounding narrative and we can't separate the character so we're seeing it through the lens of that narrative and I'm just thinking like you because I was struggling this myself when I first started was like no one's gonna care if I make such a mundane observation. But the same, a mundane observation in the hand, in the mouth of someone else, they're viewing it through that narrative and it takes on a whole nother meaning.

1:02:13I think that has something to do with it. There's something deeply psychological about it where you reach a point where someone is famous for the sake of being famous at that point. It's like a struggle for them until then you see actors kind of break through that threshold until that point it's all about the roles but once they cross that threshold of perceived value it's we want to watch them because it's leonardo capro whoever it is because they're famous that's a whole nother threshold there's like something actually switches

1:02:44Francis Foster:psychologically and do you think that's the point at which those people now feel like they have to have opinions on stuff that probably otherwise they wouldn't express what i think happens is that they're climbing the ladder to that threshold by those opinions. And then once they're invested, that's their business. And now they are going to defend those opinions because it's not their opinions they're defending, it's their business. Warren, it's been great to have you on. Before we head to Substack where our audience get to ask you their questions, what's the one thing you think we're not talking about that we should be?

1:03:14Double slit experiment in quantum physics. Are you familiar with the double slit experiment?

1:03:19Francis Foster:Are you Francis? No, I'm not. I won't take up the time. No, no, take up the time. Yeah. Well, I have this chapter in the book, Where Logic Ends, and it's the one that's sticking in my mind the most because there's so much about reality that is illogical. So as someone who's striving to be logical, how do I contend with where logic ends? And quantum mechanics and physics seems to be indicating that the very nature of reality behaves in a way at the atomic level that defies logic. the double slit experiment, they take an electron, you would expect these two slits, imagine a paintball gun, it's firing between these, you would imagine the paintballs would create two lines where they fit through the slits and it's splattering everywhere else.

1:04:01That's not what we get, only when the electrons know they are being observed. And if you, this sounds crazy, like it's not logical. The quantum, the math, like we can observe this. There are many lectures on YouTube where they will, you can listen to physicists break this down, takes 10 minutes, or you can delve into it deeper. To me, we know it's happening. So there's something about our consciousness interacting with the very fabric of reality that is extremely exciting to me.

1:04:34Francis Foster:And you're saying logic is not the only force in the universe? No, there's the logos. I think there's a deeper reality beyond what we can observe within the logos. That's very interesting. I was going to make a joke about anyone who's married knows logic doesn't always work, but let's head over to Substack, head over to triggerpod.co.uk where Warren's going to answer your questions. Given your time as a teacher, what is one vital change you would implement in North American high schools if you had the power to do so?

1:05:22We'll see you next time.