SIO49: The Pro-Truth Pledge, with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode number 49. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, my guest today is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. Highly recommended, by the way, and for good reason. Really cool conversation. I think this can be considered another in the series, sort of an ongoing series I've had on changing minds and can we even do that? And if so, how and what should we focus on? Really Vital addition to that conversation. So without further ado, here's my interview with Gleb Tsipursky.

0:01:10 Thomas: I'm speaking with Gleb Tsipursky, and I'm told that I happened to guess the pronunciation of your name correctly. How are you doing today?

0:01:17 Gleb: You did right, Thomas, you did fine. I'm doing great. Thank you.

0:01:22 Thomas: Awesome. So, I'm really interested to hear about your work and the Pro Truth Pledge, and that's protruthpledge.org if anyone would like to go there now. But first, I'm kind of wondering a little bit about you. You know, who are you? How did you get into this? What's your background? Round oh.

0:01:37 Gleb: Sure. Happy to share. So my background is that I have been a scholar of decision sciences. And I'm a professor at Ohio State in decision sciences collaborative. And so decision science collaborative in the history department, and my research concerns decision making in politics and in business. That's my focus, and about, I got my degree of five years ago and got the job here at Ohio State, and I, three years ago, I founded a non-profit, Intentional Insights, to promote wise decision making in politics, business, everyday life, everything like that.

I wrote books like Find Your Purpose Using Science and other books, talk about finding meaning and purpose in life, so making good decisions in that area, and I've been a secular activist for, oh, decades, so For quite a while now, since my college days, I ran a secular student alliance club, so I've been a circular activist for a while and reason-oriented stuff, but I recently shifted, not shifted, but really focused intensely on politics because the deceptions and lies in our political sphere have just gotten out of control. Out of control, really horrible. I mean, Oxford Dictionary chose post-truth politics as its word of the year in 2016 for a reason, because of the lies and deceptions in the election campaign in the US and also in Brexit, the UK leave campaign. Pain, so so much lies and deceptions, and it's, you know, being a scholar of politics, I know how dangerous that is. I know how many countries have transitioned from democracies to authoritarian corrupt states, starting with lies and deceptions, attacks in the media, and

0:02:34 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:38 Gleb: With a single leader promoting himself. It's always been himself as single voice of truth and authority. And so it's really very, very dangerous for the future of our democracy. And so I decided to shift my energy to this field. And, you know, I'm still doing secular activism, but really much more focused on politics and rational thinking. So that's what I'm focused on.

0:03:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:03 Thomas: So You see our current time as a unique threat. It sounds like, it sounds like you were doing one line of work, uh, and then this, this recent 2016 events were, I guess, so egregious in an assault on truth that, uh, in your view, it's it's a unique threat enough so for you to kind of change your focus. Is that true? Yeah.

0:04:24 Gleb: Yes, absolutely. It's a unique threat because, I mean, I'm not the only one who identified it as a unique threat, you know. It's not like I'm sharing,

0:04:32 Thomas: Yeah. Of Course. Well. The only reason I, I mentioned it is because a lot of people, there are people who do try to make it into the status quo, you know, who do try to normalize what's happening.

0:04:43 Gleb: Yes, they do try to normalize it. And it's unfortunate that they do trying to normalizing it because there are so many Americans who haven't experienced going, I know Americans experience going from a democracy to an authoritarian state. I have, as a scholar, I have studied a lot of, I've studied, focused especially on these sorts of countries, especially Russia and the Soviet Union. I mean, Russia in the 1990s transformed from a state, one with freedom of speech, freedom of the media, to an authoritarian state under Putin. And Turkey is undergoing that transformation.

0:05:24 Thomas: I was, I was going to say, yeah, Turkey, uh, there, it seems like there's, there's some similarities there. Like what's going on in Turkey where, yeah, people, people are, are even voting in their own demise and in a way it seems like, which is really interesting in Turkey. Right now

0:05:29 Gleb: Absolutely. You're absolutely right. Yeah, So that's kind of, people are misled and deluded about what is in their best interests. You know, we have, it's unfortunately research shows, so I'm a scholar of behavioral science. It's very easy to mislead people and manipulate them. And lies and deceptions cause people to make really bad decisions about their future, and it's really pretty terrible how it works, but that's just the way it works, that's the way our minds work. We are very vulnerable to being deceived and misled, and you know, you and I, we care about the truth, and the vast majority of your listeners do so as well, but that is an outlier. We are outliers among the general society.

0:06:25 Gleb: We care much more about truth and reason than average Joe on the street. And the same thing happens in all other democracies. There is no democracy. We care about the truth because of our personalities. So there's research on personalities and values, and it shows that, you know, there's only a small proportion of the population that has a strong concern for the truth, that's kind of very skeptical-oriented, that reason oriented, most people are not, they don't really care nearly as much as we do and Well,

0:06:56 Thomas: You don't think these people would say they don't care, right? I mean, because I can't imagine someone agreeing to that, but I guess that you're likely saying that they think they care about the truth, but they're really misled about their own experience. Is that right?

0:07:00 Gleb: It's Simply so.

0:07:12 Gleb: What the research on this suggests is that it's not about, like, whether you say you care, it's More About the actions. So, for example, if you look at statistics on people who engage in fact checking, that's a very easy statistic to look at. You'll See that most people in the American population do not engage in fact-checking before sharing something. It's especially egregious among conservatives, statistically speaking. So, for example, if you look at fake news posted on Facebook in the 2016 election, you had conservatives posted something like 30 million pieces of fake news, and liberals reshared something like 7 million. So it's not like, you know, liberals are great. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there is a comparative, you know, there's much more re-sharing, unfortunately, of fake news by conservatives. It would be great if no one shared fake news.

0:07:18 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:09 Thomas: You know, one

0:08:09 Gleb: I

0:08:09 Thomas: Thing I've said, and I wonder if you have any information to decide on this either way, but one thing that I've said I'm really worried about in the wake of the election is the influx of liberal fake news. And I started to worry, maybe it's not as partisan as I thought. Now, I don't know. I don't think it's 50-50. And I think Fox News is ultimately the biggest perpetrator of the bubble here in my mind. But anyway, have you seen that? Is that something you're worried about where it might be, not 100%, but it might be a bit of a function of who is in power. So when the conservatives were, you know, they didn't have the White House, so they have to resort or they're more maybe susceptible to fake news and to sharing wishful thinking, fake news or whatever. And then do you think we'll see a flip? And are we seeing a flip with liberals being more susceptible to that with Trump in the White House?

0:09:04 Gleb: Don't think so, actually. I think we've seen liberals and conservatives both share fake news, but liberals place a much stronger value on fact-checking and so on. So if you see trust in fact checking among, uh, liberals and conservatives, and this goes, you know, both, if you look at the polls, when liberals are in power, when conservatives are in power, it's systematically the case that liberals trust fact checking more than conservatives, and then they engage in fact-checking more than conservatives. So this

0:09:37 Thomas: But I mean, if what I'm saying is potentially true, I mean, this might be really, really, really fresh data. You know, like, could it be possible that those attitudes will get a little relaxed? I mean, maybe maybe liberals would answer, oh, yeah, I care about fact checking. And then maybe I'm just just putting out there as a thought with what we're seeing here. Maybe they stop doing that a little bit because I know people share. What is it? Occupy Democrats. And it's full of fake news. News. It's full of misleading stuff. So that's something I worry about. So would we be able to keep an eye on the data and I suppose evaluate this question as we're going? I mean, could it be possible that we just haven't seen that yet?

0:09:42 Gleb: Sure. Yeah.

0:10:21 Gleb: I I Can tell you. So I'm looking at, I just pulled up some statistics on Fact I'm Trusting mainstream media on Facebook, um, on trust in mainstream media, which is a good indicator of where people trust mainstream media fact checking, and I'm looking at the last year when conservatives were in power, which is 2007, so In 2007, Republican trust in mainstream media was 33%, and Democrat trust in mainstream media, it was 66%. So you had, uh, Republicans in power, but their trust in mainstream was 33%, Democrats for 66%. And let's look at the number, now another number, in, let's say, 2013, so when, you know, the height of the Obama administration, you have trust among Republicans and mainstream media at 33%, and so the same one that it was in 2007

0:10:27 Thomas: Oh, good. I love this.

0:10:45 Thomas: Yeah. Huh.

0:11:16 Gleb: And change, and trust among Democrats and mainstream media at 60%. So that gives you clear evidence that it's not dependent on who's in power.

0:11:22 Thomas: It's interesting. I don't. Well, that it sounds like that's not dependent on who's in power. Sure. Do But Do you think that answers the question of who's willing to share these fake news stories online? Who's willing to circulate? Oh, turns out this one weird trick can ensure that Hillary becomes president tomorrow. You know, like I don't know that I don't know that that necessarily answers that question. You know, like that someone.

0:11:34 Gleb: Yes.

0:11:54 Gleb: I hear the question, Thomas. I don't know whether it does, but it's trusted mainstream media.

0:11:57 Thomas: OK, but it does give some indication. Yeah, I grant that. And it is certainly an interesting, worthwhile statistic to look at. So that's fascinating. OK, well, you've given me a little bit of hope because I were I worried for my fellow liberals when, you know, I I don't know if you know my podcast opening arguments, but but Andrew and I have to tackle a lot of liberal fake legal stuff on there. And I maybe I maybe was getting a little of a negative view based on that.

0:12:02 Gleb: Yes. Yes. Sure. Sure. Nice. Okay. Yeah, Sure. No, fair enough. It's something that I worry about, but I don't worry about it too much because I see, you I saw these statistics and data, so Republicans have consistently shown distrust in fact-checking and mainstream media over the last decades, and Democrats have shown a much higher trust in mainstream media and fact-checking, so I suspect that just because it's not really correlated to who is in power, That seems to me to not be the case, especially I think it's much more correlated with the kind of messages that are coming from people who are perceived as the leaders of the, you know, the liberals and conservatives and we see that the leaders of liberals are sending messages such as, you know, when they go low, we go high, versus, uh, Trump and conservative leaders sending messages of, you know, uh, the media are the enemy and we should body slam the media.

0:13:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:14 Thomas: Of the media. Yeah.

0:13:35 Thomas: Right. Well, and I think it's a critical ingredient to Fox News's existence to paint themselves as the one kind of true news that that is giving you the fair and balanced thing. And the rest of them, because I know this for a fact for, you know, because of my conservative family, I mean, they would look at Fox News is, oh, sure, they're a little conservative is probably what they would say. But they're they're more like in the middle and the rest of the media is in the far left. Like that's how that's how a lot of Fox News viewers view it. So that sounds like it would kind of explain that 33 percent versus liberals who are like, you know, are able to consume more different, you know, diverse media sources that don't.

0:14:02 Gleb: Yes. Yep.

0:14:18 Thomas: Yeah, they don't need just one telling them everything, I think.

0:14:22 Gleb: That makes a lot of sense to me, so yeah, so this is, uh, kind of what brought me to where I am and what brought me to get gather together a group of other behavioral scientists as well as media experts, experts and politicians and other people to figure out what to do about this problem. And so we've been working on that hard, and we've been working in two-pronged effort. One is, how do you get people who are not really rational to update their beliefs? So how do they get that? Because we as, let's be honest, we as a movement, reason-oriented movement, the people have failed pathetically at actually making this happen, you know, the we have been trying to do so for the last, you know, let's say the modern reason oriented movement, the last two decades, but we have seen the culture around us get more and more irrational

0:14:28 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah, I want

0:15:20 Gleb: More and moral

0:15:20 Thomas: To I want to add another wrinkle to that. And my apologies to bring in my current kind of what's going on with my show recently. But I think we just saw with this publication of the gender studies hoax paper, a lot of what we thought were skeptic people willing to abandon skepticism in favor of ideology. And I wonder when you talk about, well, we as a movement haven't made any ground. Well, who knows if we as a movement are as skeptical as we think, really? I mean, I don't, I don't want to falsely equivocate between the skeptic movement and the religious right or something. I don't, by no means do I mean to say we're somehow equivalent, but I worry that maybe we're not as a group as skeptical as we like to think we are, as it feels like to me. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

0:15:21 Gleb: Yeah I think We're certainly not as skeptical as we would like to think we are, and this is something that I tried to work on as well in order to improve people's ability to be skeptical. But I think I'm more concerned about the lower-hanging fruit.

0:16:25 Thomas: That's certainly a fair point, especially given current political situation. I think it would be it would certainly be unfair of me to say that a bigger threat to truth, you know, like that we got to focus on this percentage of the skeptic movement because they're a bigger threat to truth than, you know, Trump's White House or something, because by no means do I mean to say that. So that's that's certainly a fair comment. One more thing that occurred to me while you were saying that was I'm just really glad to be speaking to you. I don't know how familiar with the podcast you are or anything. But yeah, this has been a journey that I've been going on ever since Trump's election.

I don't know. Did you happen to hear when I spoke to Dr. Price, Trump supporter? Porter? Okay. Well, I had him on here and I did my best, but, but it's been a worry of mine. And, and honestly, I, I got to the point where, as as I tried to argue with him and I've tried to engage people and, and I've also spoken to some other experts, kind of like you, uh, who, who are, who are experts in why we believe silly things or, or why we're not susceptible to logic all the time. And I've, I've started to wonder, you know, on this show, what can we do? Like, sometimes I feel like I just

0:16:49 Gleb: Sure.

0:17:03 Gleb: No.

0:17:38 Gleb: Sure,

0:17:38 Thomas: Don't even know. I, so I honestly switched in my mind and, and I want to get back to what you're doing for sure. But, but I, but just to keep in mind the frame that, that I'm coming from kind of the frame of mind that I'm coming from, I've honestly wondered if I should even bother trying to convince the other side. I honestly wonder, I've wondered allowed, and I really am serious about this, if we had mandatory voting, I think it would be a different question. But with the fact that the biggest resource out there for both parties, I think this is a major flaw in our system, the biggest untapped resource is always going to look like people on our side who didn't vote. So

0:17:45 Gleb: Okay. That's a good question. Mm-hmm. Mm-hm.

0:18:19 Thomas: Each side is going to think, you know what, we just need to move further right or further left because that would have accessed those those people who stayed home or something. I mean, a lot of people say that. And I wonder, is that what's, is it easier? Is it always going to be easier unless we change the rules and force people to vote, which I actually believe we should do. But is it always going to be easier for me to say, or for someone equivalent person on the right to say, look, I'm never reaching a Trump supporter. I tried, I had Dr.

0:18:25 Gleb: Mm-hum.

0:18:47 Gleb: Mm-huh.

0:18:47 Thomas: Price on, I did my best and it just, I'm never doing it. Why don't I just try to to fire up my own side so that in 2018 for the midterms and in 2020 for the next election, my own side gets fired up and votes more. And I think that's what conservatives have done more than Democrats have done, maybe. So that's kind of where I'm coming from on this. So I'm really happy to have your expertise on here to deal with some of these issues.

0:19:13 Gleb: Sure. Sure. No, I totally hear you. And I think this is what many people are aspiring to do. They are aspiring to fire up their own side among conservatives and liberals alike. And from both perspectives, this is what's going on. And the challenge with this perspective, so there are a couple of challenges. One is that if you try to fire up your own side, there's a phenomenon called the tragedy of the commons, are you familiar with the tragedy of the comments for listeners who might not be familiar?

It's basically the situation is that when everyone shares a common resource, and this is everyone is sharing common resource, in this case trust, collaboration, truth in our society, if we all try to take more, take advantage of the common resource to grab more of it for ourselves, we destroy this common resource. So if we try to pull for more of our values for, then we destroy trust and collaboration and civility with the other side, because if we go further to the other, we have to, one of the fundamental aspects of going further to the other, you know, to our own perspective is slamming the opposition is in-group, out-group. So you're destroying the

0:19:44 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Outline it. Yeah.

0:20:37 Gleb: Civility, the collaboration, the trust with the other side. So in the short run, it's to reach political goals of your own, let's say liberal or conservative, it's definitely beneficial, and I'm not saying it's not, to fire up your base. But in the long run, for our society, it's going to end up in a cluster cluck.

0:20:59 Thomas: Yeah. Well, do you, well, okay. Let me, let me clarify though, because I'm, I'm, I think there's a couple assumptions in your answer that may not necessarily be true, uh, all the time. So if I say I want to fire up my base, I do, I guess you're right that I may have to do some otherizing, but I also, it's also just a focus question. Like, should I focus, like I've got a finite resource, which is both my time and also my show's time and what little influence I have, which I don't think is much in the grand scheme of things, but working with what I have. I have a finite resource. Should I use that resource to try to reach someone who is just, in all actuality, never going to change their mind, no matter if I'm the greatest arguer in the history of time? When someone gets all their news from Fox News, it's going to be very difficult to change their mind versus if I focus on maybe current issues that should justifiably rile up Democrats.

0:21:09 Gleb: Yeah. Sure.

0:21:57 Thomas: So I don't have to assault truth and I don't have to necessarily assault the other side if I focus us on, I don't know, gerrymandering. I focus us on, look at the injustice that's happened. Look at income inequality. If I just spend my time doing my best to fire up our side or my side, I'll say, I won't speak for you or anything, but fire up liberals on issues that don't necessarily assault truth at all and don't assault, they might assault the other side in some way. I think that's kind of inevitable, but not in an explicit way, if that makes sense.

0:22:30 Gleb: So I hear, I hear the question, and I think it's a very valid point. So here's my concern. We live in the same society, right? We live on the same side with conservatives, with liberals, with moderates, with whatever. So we share, let's say, about 90 percent of our goals are the same. We We all want well-being for our families. We all to live in a safe society. We all some level of security for other people in our society. We all good jobs. We all concern for our family. We share about 90% of goals.

0:23:07 Thomas: Okay.

0:23:07 Gleb: If we focus on the 10%, 90% is what we share with the people who are at our most oppositional. 90%, we all still want, you know, good family, whatever, all these things that are fundamental, basic for everyday life, we share 90, and that's with our worst enemy. You know, let's say with Rush Limbaugh, you know, I share 90% of goals. I can say that, you know, pretty, and I think you do as well, you know, with Trump, I share 90% of goals, you, we just have a lot of disagreements about how to get there, but we still share 90. So with people who are moderates, wherever, if you are at the furthest extreme, if you're like super far liberal with a person who is in the center, you'll share 95% of your goals and methods.

Now, and and so on, if you tend, if you focus on the 10% of things that you disagree, you create unnecessary conflict. You You create stress, you create tensions, you create fighting. You undermine, you destroy trust. If you say, here, let me get together with the people with whom I agree on 99% of things, instead of and fight against the people with whom I agree in the 9% of things because that's inevitable.

0:23:32 Thomas: Hmm.

0:24:29 Gleb: Then, what are you going to do for your society? How is your society going to end up in the long run? If you take an an external perspective, step outside of yourself and look at another society where you see people who agree on 90% of things fighting bitterly in a very hostile manner and destroying trust and collaboration in their society, where's that going to end up? That's really going to screw people over. I mean, this is what Trump is doing. This is what others are doing who are in the conservative camp. They are saying what Trump has done is a really strategically effective move of going extreme and appealing to that 1%.

That has proven effective, and it will prove effective. The thing is, we see Republicans and Democrats alike adopting that strategy. They are adopting that. Liberals are going more liberal. Conservatives are going much more conservative. You know why? Because Trump won, and nothing succeeds like success. Trump won. He won using lies and deceptions that, A, fooled people, manipulated people, and, B, made them more extreme. Now, Trump is, you know, nothing succeeds like success, like I said. So other people are adopting his strategy. You are kind of thinking about adopting his strategies, in essence. You are saying, why not rile up the base? Why not do the same thing that Trump did? That's

0:25:08 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:57 Gleb: How he succeeded. I

0:25:56 Thomas: I think it's unfair to frame it in those terms, to be honest with you. I think you can rile up the base in different ways. You know, I could, I could, I mean, yeah.

0:25:59 Gleb: Hear that I'm only referencing the part about riling up the base. I'm not saying that you're all suggesting to use lies and extremes. I

0:26:07 Thomas: Okay. Because I believe all the Republican candidates in the primary wanted to rile up the base. I don't think there's any difference in that objective. I think virtually every candidate for every office is going to want to rile up their base.

0:26:19 Gleb: Disagree. I think Trump, went in the general election, he did not go to the center, he went to the far, so, it's

0:26:28 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Okay. I see what you're saying. So, so, so you're talking more in like the general election trying to reach maybe more moderates rather than just, okay. Yeah, no, I, I, I get that for sure. I think that, uh, I I'm in a different position or, or anyone just out in the public is in a different position, but I see what you're saying now.

0:26:32 Gleb: About making a more extreme society, society, which is what Trump is doing. And if we go to the base, we make a more extreme society. So that is a question of where do you want, what kind of society do you wants to live in? I pursue a perspective, my ideology is in the end utilitarian, by which I mean doing the most good for the most number. And I care about liberal values. Personally, I'm a liberal, but I care about human values first and foremost, I'm a humanist, and so I care about my society, conservatives and liberals, I want all people to have a better life, and I want my society to function well, and this is why I went got together with a group of other behavioral scientists and politicians and media experts and so on to talk about and figure out strategies of how to reach the other side, and we've been quite effective in doing that. I went, yeah, we went on to

0:26:49 Thomas: Yeah. Really?

0:27:45 Thomas: Well, let me, okay. Let me put a pin on that. Cause I do want to hear about that. I want to hear about how you've reached the other side, a hundred percent. But the only thing I wanted to try to respond to though, is this notion of agreeing 90%, you Rush Limbaugh or something like that. You know, I think the only thing that is difficult about that is that the kinds of political decisions we're arguing on, I don't think ever touch on the 90%, really.

I mean, I think that we argue about things, things that are political, I suppose, points, political areas of how we should manage the country and how we should manage each other and what rights we should have and whether gays can marry, all that kind of stuff. I think the 10% we disagree on is all politics is, really. It's not as though there's a wealth of political questions or legislation or whatever, and we agree on 90% of that. So it makes it difficult to say, oh, look, we actually agree more than we disagree when the only questions we're adjudicating are things we disagree on, that kind of makes it difficult for me to maybe adopt that, I guess, pleasant outlook on Rush Limbaugh.

0:27:59 Gleb: Sure. Okay, I hear what you're saying. So I'm not talking about the things we fight about. Of course, the things that we fight about are going to be the things as we disagree about. I'm talking more about what kind of society we want to have. I think I much prefer to have a realistic, truthful and accurate perspective on the Rush Limbaugh. I can accurately say, I think You have a very different perspective on Rush Limbaugh when you say that we agree on 90% of things, we fight about the 10% of things. Then you say we disagree on 100% of things.

0:29:07 Thomas: Okay, yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I think that, the, the thing, the disagreement, I guess, I, I, I hope this isn't too obscure a point, but I don't think that it's as easily quantifiable as all that. I mean, if we, if we tried to make a network of facts and start to actually check off the numbers of what we agree on, yeah, we agree on gravity, and you know, we agree on basic laws of of physics, and we go, maybe we'll see. We agree on all this stuff, that, but, but I don't, I think a more useful indicator of, like, you know, how common is our worldview? Like, how much, what's our Venn diagram, I guess, of our, of our worldview, is how do we answer the, the questions on which there even is a one side or the other in politics, you know? Cause it doesn't, cause there's not going to be any vote to, like, well, should we, uh, nuke our own land?

0:30:29 Thomas: Like, there's not going to be a, you know, on all this stuff we agree on, there's just not going to be a question where it matters. So, like, I do agree that, sure, we're all humans, like we want to feed our kids and we want to, you know, like I get that, but, but it also, I don't know how useful that is when you, like the fact that Rush Limbaugh and I agree that things fall toward the center of of the earth, like it doesn't accomplish anything. Does that make sense? Okay.

0:30:52 Gleb: I would disagree with that, and I will use this as an opportunity to lead into how you actually have a conversation that convinces people on the other side to adopt.

0:30:58 Thomas: Fair. Enough. You start with your common, commonality. That we do agree that things fall toward the center of the earth. Now, what if you're talking to the flat earthers, how do you go about that? No, I'm just kidding, I'll let you answer. Yeah.

0:31:06 Gleb: Yes. Exactly. But You know, you know what I mean. So, uh, yes, so I'll give an example of where I went on Scott Sloan's show. Scott Sloan is a well-known conservative radio talk show host. He debated, he's known in secular circles because he debated Aaron Raw about the art exhibit, and Aaron Raw called him a conservative Christian, which he is. In the debate, and you know, that's, so it's a pretty accurate evaluation of who Scott Sloan is. And I went on Scott Sloan's show to talk about Muslim terrorism. So as you can imagine, Scott Sloane wasn't hot on Muslims and wanted to persecute them and so on, as do the vast majority of conservative talk show hosts. So I talked to Scott Sloan, and I said, well, let's take a look at the statistics.

0:32:02 Gleb: And first of all, but before taking a look at the statistics, let's establish shared goals. I didn't say that, I wasn't explicit because you can't be explicit in this stuff. I said, hey Scott, I totally understand, you know it's very natural to feel fear and anger toward Muslims, fear and anger are natural human responses, that's how our brain responds to situations of violence and so on, these are natural responses, so I totally understand that. So that's what I told him. Now, what was I doing, what was my strategy?

My strategy was to validate his emotions, not to feel, not to cause him to feel that his emotions are wrong, and this is one of the fundamental break in science research findings on how you reach people on the other side. Most people who are going to be not already oriented toward truth and facts are very emotional emotionally oriented, so you need to reach them emotionally and make an emotional connection, help them feel that their emotions are valid, and that their emotions are true, and you establish an empathetic emotional attunement with those people. It's not intuitive, it's not intuitive for me, like this is not a thing I'm comfortable doing, you

0:32:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:16 Gleb: Know I'm very comfortable in the argument, in the rhetoric space with logic and so on, but it's just what the research shows us, that's not what you do with people like Scott Sloan, and the large majority Yes.

0:33:26 Thomas: Well, I certainly agree on that, yeah.

0:33:28 Gleb: So you met emotional attunement, the first thing. Second thing is I established shared goals. So I said, look, Scott, we, you know, your emotions are totally valid, and I said, okay, let's, let's be on the same page here, we will all want safety and security. Now, that's what we are concerned about. Now, to me, I'm personally more concerned with civil rights for Muslims and any other people than safety and insecurity, but I do have a concern on safety and safety, and knowing the research and behavioral science on what conservatives value, I know that one of their primal values is safety and security. So I didn't mislead Scott Sloan, but I didn't tell him the full extent of what I'm actually looking for. I went to where he is, and I said, we both value this thing.

0:34:14 Gleb: And so I established shared goals. And so here is where it's really important to have this understanding of what are your shared goals with this person. You know, if you have a shared, if you're for some, you know, If you're talking to an anti-vaxxer, you want to talk about having family and safety in families, and you want your families to be safe. Let's say that. So that's something that the anti-vaxxer would agree on. So you establish those shared goals, and then you proceed from there. Or with Scott Sloan, you talk about safety and security with Muslim terrorism and things like that. So we want safety and safety. And Scott Sloane agreed. So both of those. So we established that emotional attunement, one second is shared goals. Then I talked about the statistics.

0:35:01 Gleb: I said, look, let's look at the statistics on what happens. We can see that in 20, so the interview was in 2016. So in 2015, there were six attacks by Muslim terrorists in the United States out of a total of 1.8 million adult Muslims. Now that's a rate of one out of 300,000. If we spend our resources on safety and security on monitoring Muslims, persecuting them, we'd miss so many of the actual terrorists. We don't have nearly enough resources to monitor Muslims. So that's a very bad, that's not a good thing. That's a lot of false positives. That's very bad filter to filter terrorists by Muslims. The probability of if Muslim, then terrorist is incredibly small. And I agree. And the second one was that right now the FBI praises Muslim communities for collaborating with us on rooting out terrorists.

0:35:55 Gleb: If we start persecuting Muslim communities like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz proposed, this was during the election process, heavy policing of Muslim communities, they will not be very likely to help us root out terrorists in their midst. And third, we already have Al-Shabaab and other terrorist organizations using Donald Trump's anti-Islamic rhetoric to recruit Muslims in the United States for terrorists. So we'd have more terrorists, not less, if we have more persecution of Muslims. So on this stuff, you know, based on these, we would be less safe, not more safe if we started persecuting Muslims. Muslims, and you know, just like we still have emotions of fear and anger toward Muslims, but you know, emotions don't always tell us the truth.

0:36:41 Gleb: If our emotions cause us to, you know, if our boss is telling us some negative stuff about our job performance and we want to shout back at our boss, no, that's not true, that's not the right thing to do, we wouldn't be able to keep our job if that's what we do, right? So our emotions are not going to always tell us the truth. So in this case, for, for the sake of safety and security, we should be nice toward Muslims. We should be inclusive and tolerant of them, even if our emotions tell us we should lash out at them. And Scott Sloan updated. He was like, yes, that makes sense. And we should be nice and inclusive toward Muslims, and that's kind of the conclusion. So here, you know, simple strategies. Emotional attunement, what does that person feel? Validate her or his emotions. A shared sense of goals, which comes from a broad awareness of the great commonality that you have with that person, and the small degree of actual difference. And third, guiding that person through the specific things that cause them to have a

0:36:55 Thomas: Is

0:37:44 Gleb: Delusional perspective on reality and leading them to a correct perspective on the reality out of a sense of shared goals.

0:37:51 Thomas: This the uh kind of thing that is designed for those, for people who, as, as you said, the research kind of indicates don't really respond to argument and facts, because I get, I think if someone tries this on me, I'm going to, I'm, I'm probably going to be a little annoyed. I kind of just like to focus on facts, but, but I don't, I don't know, you know, like, yeah, yeah. Okay.

0:38:10 Gleb: Yeah, this is the this is what the vast majority of uh Americans aren't, like you. Are you and your listeners are outliers? I'm an outlier, I would not respond to that well. You know, I, when I'm engaging with someone in uh in any sort of, you know, let me say this way, if I know somebody is oriented toward truth and reason, this is not a strategy I would adopt, but you the large majority of the American population is not oriented toward truth and reason, so it's a very safe strategy to adopt with any person you see on the street, unless

0:38:24 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Yeah. What What are the percentages on that from the research? Do you know? I mean, like I want, it would make a difference, uh, you know?

0:38:46 Gleb: I'd say in the 90s. I'm sorry, I mean, yeah, it's, it's what it is, you, that's, that's what it is.

0:38:52 Thomas: Yeah. How depressing. No, it's not your fault. Yeah. Do do you know offhand, like the kinds of studies that yield this? Because I, I'm curious about it. Like what, how do, how has this been tested?

0:39:09 Gleb: I You can see the studies on people who are oriented toward emotional engagement versus analytical engagement, and there are a number of personality tests that yield this sort of stuff. People tend to go to Myers-Briggs, Myers Briggs is not very well indicative of this stuff. There are a number of personality tests, the Big Five personality test, and people's um score on empathy is a good predictor of this sort of thing. So yeah, personality tests would be the kind of studies that you, that you'd want to look at, yep.

0:39:43 Thomas: Really? That's interesting.

0:39:45 Gleb: But most people, like I said, are just not oriented toward reason, and we shouldn't, we should orient toward reality as opposed to our desired version of reality. Yes.

0:39:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Is that the example that you were going to talk about with reaching the other side? Is there, uh, any, any other success stories you'd care to share now?

0:40:00 Gleb: So that's so that I mean, there are plenty of stories like this, others with Scott Sloan, with Bill Cunningham, I mean with John Wells, yes.

0:40:10 Thomas: And has it stuck? Because I've, I had a problem. I interviewed, that's good.

0:40:14 Gleb: It did stick, yeah, it did, so

0:40:16 Thomas: I mean, I interviewed Michael Shermer And, it was amazing how often he agreed with me or at least said, said, oh yeah, good point. I was wrong about that. And then it very quickly seemed as though his behavior went right back toward what it was before on some of these questions that I challenged him on. Is there anything to that? Is there any difference in approach that would matter, or is it just a question of the personality of the person you're engaging, where if they're more interested maybe in appeasing whoever they're talking to than actually revising their beliefs, that kind of thing is going to happen?

0:40:16 Gleb: I had the, yeah.

0:40:50 Gleb: Oh, so research shows that you, what you want to do is you want a constant reminder system for, for someone to change, there are a couple of things. One is what you want to do is have some sort of reminders. So it's the same thing, good research on this takes place in the field of diversity training. If you come in and do a diversity training, one-time diversity training, it has some impact, but then it fades over time. This is the same sort of thing. Diversity training shows people that no, no, their racial stereotypes are not going to be correct, but then it fades over time. And how you ensure that it persists is creating a system, a system that reminds people, that gives reinforcements, that gives feedback, and gives punishments and rewards for maintaining behavior as any sort of behavior change.

0:41:47 Gleb: So here we get to the second part of my work, of the work that we do at Intentional Insights, which is the Pro-Truth Pledge at protruthpledge.org. So I'd recommend that your listeners go to protruthpledge.org right now so they can follow along with us. And what this is, is a behavioral science instrument to induce people, encourage people to stick to the truth, avoid lies and basically change the dynamics for our society. We have incentives in our society, unfortunately, right now, to lie, to deceive, to share misinformation. And this tool is intended to essentially tilt the floor, to nudge people toward the truth and to avoid sharing lies.

So it describes 13 behaviors that research shows are oriented toward the Truth. So, for example, I'll just read some of them aloud. And for those of you who are following along in ProTruthPledge.org, you can read it with me. So I'll strive to avoid sharing misinformation, even in service to a cause I believe is good. I will aim to express myself in ways that clearly distinguishes between what is my opinion and what are the facts. If my information is challenged, I'll make a reasonable effort to verify that it is true before repeating it and retract it if I cannot verify it.

0:42:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:10 Gleb: I will gladly celebrate those who retract incorrect statements and update their beliefs toward the truth. And these are four out of 13 behaviors that research shows are most likely to help people orient toward the true. So this is for both people who are already skeptically oriented and getting them to orient more toward the proof, but especially for people who aren't, and the main target is It's people who are not skeptically oriented, but who want to fight the scourge of lies in our society and sign up to be committed to the truth. And this is something that we want everyone to take in our Society, everyone, to get to show a clear commitment to the Truth, as well as have institutional mechanisms to remind them of what is true, and have a system to evaluate and monitor people for sticking to the pledge and give them rewards for doing so and punishments for not.

0:44:07 Thomas: What sticks out to me on this is, celebrate, uh, updating. I like that a lot because one thing that has been a real frustration for me, uh, is the, the people who, and, and all my listeners already know who these people are, but the people who kind of sit from behind a Twitter account or from a, whatever it is, and opine and threaten others' views while never being willing to engage with disagreement. So there's people who just will not have a conversation but are perfectly comfortable, for example, trying to demolish an entire field of study in gender studies. But there's people who will never have a conversation. And I was reflecting on that the other day and I was thinking like, why is it? I was trying to think like, why is it that, that there are people who just will not engage in conversation, uh, with those they disagree with.

0:45:00 Thomas: And, and if not me, and this is not all dependent on me, like it's other people I know it's, it's a, it's a, it's, it seems to be a, a pattern, not just a, Oh, this guy doesn't Like me kind of thing. And, and I, I was thinking about, cause like I will talk to anybody anytime and I was trying to think about like, well, why is that? That. And I think the reason is like either it's like either I'm right about something or if I'm wrong, I can just say, oh, I was wrong. And then and then I get to be right. Like, it's so easy. Like, it's not that hard, but it's like it seems like such an obvious thing.

But then think about like how often that just doesn't happen. Like it, all I, and I get, my, my thinking is that it must be related to the fact that I guess people have their, often have their name and their reputation, reputation and their brand staked to certain positions, maybe. And so they're not allowed to do that, really. Like we're not allowed, we don't really allow our leaders the space to update their beliefs, I don't think. And I don't know whose fault that is. I don't know who needs to work on that. But that celebrate updating seems to me to be a good way. Did you read that one? I'm not sure.

0:45:09 Gleb: Yes. Yes, exactly, gladly celebrate those who retract and correct statements and update their beliefs toward the truth, yep.

0:46:11 Thomas: Yeah, Exactly. And that's kind of something that I don't think we allow certain people to do in our society. We look up to those people who never admit that they're wrong ever, so that they can kind of have this imaginary world in which they're a wizard who never got anything wrong. And it's frustrating. I think that is a barrier because really, what are you worried about in a conversation? It's one thing if you're like, like, well, I'm not going to talk to someone who's just going to yell at me. Well, okay, that's fine. But if it's somebody who's merely going to try to argue with you, and especially if you consider yourself some sort of thought leader, if you consider yourself someone who is a public figure who is informing the public on stuff, I think you have an obligation to, I suppose, on occasion, engage with people who disagree with you. So I try to do it. It's not easy, and it's hard.

0:46:27 Gleb: Yeah, it is not Easy.

0:47:13 Thomas: And and and from my end the hardest part about it is actually finding people who are willing to do it, it's not, but uh but yeah, so I I really like that aspect of the uh the pledge.

0:47:18 Gleb: Yeah, So uh you would be a good fit because this is an s, this is an effort, in each of these behaviors, one of that one in particular, is an effort to change our society, so we unfortunately, like you said yourself, have a tradition of condemning people as flip-floppers instead of celebrating updating. We would like, it wouldn't it be nice if when our leaders learn new information that changes their perspective, so they would say, that they would say, oh no, this new information now has caused me to tip my perspective toward the other position, and that's great, as opposed to, oh no, that person flip-flapped, you know, he was worried before, he was against it, he only, maybe he learned some information that, you know, caused him to be, be against it, that's great, you know, wouldn't we want to celebrate that? So yes, so this is designed to change people's values, and as you can imagine, you know, imagine a world where all, imagine if everyone in our society lived by every one of these behaviors, how great of a society would that be, how much better.

0:48:06 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

0:48:34 Gleb: I

0:48:33 Thomas: Definitely. I I think that this, this maybe is too lofty a goal for any sort of politician, like I don't think politicians will ever be in the, in the, I, I have the ability to to freely admit to changing their mind because I think everybody who votes for them wants to know, you firmly believe in what you're saying and you'll never, like they're voting for, they're almost, I mean we're voting for like a set of ideals and we don't want that to be able to change, you know, so that's kind of tough. But I would say that you and I, you know, everyday people should certainly be able to live to this, now to live up to this pledge, um, I mean,

0:49:07 Gleb: Actually, uh I would question it because we have a number of politicians who already signed the pledge and who are committed to living by this pledge, I think how they present it to their um constituency is that they are going to be specifically, they're educating their constituency about this being a better way of doing things. You know, I currently believe this, if I learn new information that caused me to change my mind, I will change my heart. You know, and maybe you are, but

0:49:34 Thomas: Maybe I'm cynical, but I kind of believe that the the new information they would learn is, oh wait, if I change my mind here, it'll get me more votes. I kind of feel like that's the new information.

0:49:43 Gleb: It may be the case, you know, it may be the case, but, you know, I, I think,

0:49:47 Thomas: Yeah. Oh no, I'm not saying we shouldn't try, certainly. I just was saying I'm not holding my breath for that. That's all.

0:49:49 Gleb: I hear you. Sure. Well, I mean, like I said, we have a number of politicians who already signed the pledge and know, who and we are evaluating and monitoring their behavior to make sure they stick to the pledge.

0:50:02 Thomas: It's like Big Brother stuff right there. That's...

0:50:04 Gleb: Yes, absolutely. This is totally big brother stuff where, you You know, anyone who is a public figure, I'm a public figure, you're a public figure. You know anyone who is a public figure who has an impact on the public sphere, one Of the aspects of the pledge, that's the for people who are following along, that's the third one, the third FAQ. What are the punishments for breaking the pledge? Anyone who is a public figure who signs the pledge is willingly entering into a contract to be monitored by people who who have signed the pledge, who are private citizens, and then monitor their words to make sure they're sticking to the truth and not sharing misinformation.

And if they are sharing this information, then there is a process to evaluate whether they're sharing misinformation. If someone who is a volunteer for the pledge observes anyone who is public figure who shares misinformation, then they would approach that person privately to try to resolve the situation, say, hey, you know, with an innocent until proven guilty approach saying, hey, you know, I think you might have shared this misinformation, but maybe I misunderstood, or maybe, you know, you misspoke.

0:50:17 Thomas: Yeah.

0:51:17 Gleb: So can you clarify this? And if that person retracts the information, that's great. If the situation, if not, then the situation is escalated to a mediating committee, which is made up of vetted volunteers, people who are well-trusted, have been part of the Pro-Truth Pledge for a while, and who evaluate the situation. And the person who is a public figure is given several more chances to defend her perspective, why she shared this information, and retract their words. So if they want to retract, that's great. Now, at the final stage, if they choose not to retract their words, that's when we would assume that they are choosing to deliberately mislead, so they are being deliberately deceptive, as opposed to just, you know, saying something by mistake. And, you know, I can say something silly by mistake, or I can be, you know, genuinely mistaken, have a genuinely mistaken belief, and then the I will be glad to celebrate my updating. But if someone is trying to deliberately deceive, like a politician signs it with an intent to deceive, despite signing the pledge, that's when, and they would refuse to retract their words. Well, yes.

0:52:03 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:29 Thomas: That's when the SS goes up. No, I'm just kidding. You've got the Big Brother.

0:52:33 Gleb: That's one of my big brothers, well, not the big brothers, but what we do is we have reputational punishments. So we send a media advisory to all the media. Let's say it's it's the mayor of, you know, Dallas. So we send the media advisory to all the media stations in the Dallas area saying the mayor is in contempt of the Pro-Truth Pledge. Here's the evidence to show that, you now, she signed the pledge and she has been given, she has violated the pledge by saying this stuff. She's been given many opportunities to retract her words, but she chose not to. So she's now in contempt to the Pro Truth Pledge, and with all the evidence for it. Then we'd also email all the people in the Dallas area who signed the Pro-Truth Pledge and indicated they want to receive action alerts.

0:52:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:53:22 Thomas: Mobilize But

0:53:24 Gleb: That's right, mobilize. It's a grassroots effort. So it's crowdsourcing the truth. So this is one of the aspects of this pledge is crowdsourcingthe truth. So we get people in Dallas area to tweet the mayor, call the mayor email, the mayor protest, the mayor write letters to the editor return generally raises things about the mayor being in contempt of the pro-truth pledge.

0:53:45 Thomas: Let me, let me, let me ask you this, though, because I, I think that while this thing, and I, I have no idea how many, how many people have signed this pledge actually, if you don't mind sharing, 600?

0:53:54 Gleb: 600.

0:53:55 Thomas: Okay, so while it's a, a small boutique movement full of people, smart people, with regard to the truth, I feel like that, that works, how do you manage when somebody's going, going to start arguing, wait, who decides what is the truth here, you know, like, who gets to Who's, who's the arbiter Of It and when any group gets big enough, you know That's That's going to Be impossible Yeah, who

0:54:11 Gleb: Sure. So, yep. Yep. That's why we thought, yep, we thought that pretty clearly. So you can see the second FAQ on what is considered misinformation. So some things are going to be, you know, agree or obvious, you Know, right now it's not August, you Now, it's right now, it's May. And if I said it's August, You know, we'd all agree on one. It's a clear lie. Second Second is something that goes against a credible fact-checking website. And we decided that we want, yep, we decided so that we are not going to be, you know, attacked for picking partisan websites, we outsourced a job to Facebook.

0:54:43 Thomas: Are those What are those Credible fact-checking Websites, right?

0:54:54 Gleb: Right, we outsourced the job to FB.

0:54:52 Thomas: Yeah. Checks and balances, wait Facebook, oh

0:54:58 Gleb: Yep, Facebook has decided to work with a number of fact-checking websites, which it decided which it decided are highly reliable and credible in order for it to work for its fake news program. And so Facebook has strong financial incentives to make sure that any website it works with is highly reliable, incredible.

0:55:21 Thomas: I see, I, so I, so you're not, Facebook's not face, fact-checking anything, you're just going with Their expertise of Who their, what websites they're, like, okay. OK, gotcha.

0:55:25 Gleb: No, exactly. So we would not be accused of being biased in any part.

0:55:32 Thomas: Well, you know, Facebook's just a liberal conspiracy. So, yeah.

0:55:35 Gleb: Yes, this is why so many conservatives are on it. And finally, and the final determinant is the scientific consensus. So whatever the science, because science is the best way we as human beings have of discovering the truth about the physical reality about this. In any area where the scientific census is clear, that's what we would determine to be true. So in the scientific consensus, and we can go into that, it's basically meta-analysis of a number of studies or polls of scientists or statements by highly respectable scientific bodies.

0:55:38 Thomas: Hmm.

0:56:09 Thomas: Yeah, that's interesting. So what about I mean, I'm not trying to poke holes in your thing, but it just occurs to me if you are.

0:56:14 Gleb: Well, please, poke holes. I want as many polls as possible. We want

0:56:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, there you go. If I mean, I'm guessing you're relying. You meant to use the words where it's where consensus is clear and all that. But if you are, let's say you're a scientist. I have a lot of scientists to listen to show. I have a lot of people in academia and people who email me, especially regarding the previous few weeks of episodes, which was really awesome. But what if you're somebody in the field who holds a minority view? Are you not able to sign this pledge?

0:56:20 Gleb: To strengthen the focus.

0:56:41 Gleb: No, if you're a scientist who holds a minority view, we have an exception specifically for scientists who hold a minority view, because the only way, yep, we don't. I've had a lot of interviews. I mean, I told you, we've got a number of behavioral scientists together, politicians, media figures, and, you know, who are deciding on the pledge to figure it out.

0:56:49 Thomas: Oh, okay. He thought of everything. Oh, okay. Great. I

0:57:03 Gleb: And we're all like,

0:57:03 Thomas: Just love it. You couldn't have been more prepared for questions that we in no way planned that I was going to ask. I have to, my hat's off to you.

0:57:09 Gleb: I'm fine. Thank you. Now, we do have an exception for scientists, and it's for what are the rewards for taking the pledge for if you're a scientist. So that's going to be the fourth FAQ. If you're an scientist, it talks about how you are given an exemption from the scientific consensus aspect. Because the only way Yes, we don't hold next we don t because scientists, the only way that science gets ahead, the scientific consensus has changed, is because other people come along and say, hey, the scientific and census is wrong and I'm gonna prove it. Here, and they tend to be first criticized by other scientists, you know, how do paradigms shift?

If the first time to be criticized by other scientists, and then they can prove more and more with the experiments showing their information, then they get, their you know, they they go from quack status to being like, oh, maybe this is like, you know, minority opinion, to, oh, maybe that makes more sense than I thought, and finally to being, you know, the new, the new thing, the new paradigm. So from, and this is kind of from the history of science perspective. So we had historians of science who are, I'm a historian science myself, so evaluate this to

0:57:11 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you don't hold an expert to the same. Okay.

0:58:29 Gleb: Make sure that for scientists are able to sign it who are in minority opinions, that's not a problem, as long as a politician doesn't go and say, I know better what climate science is about than scientists.

0:58:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I can find one scientist who agrees with me. So, uh, gotta come to a close here. Uh, time has flown. This has been really fascinating conversation, but I want to ask you, I touched on it earlier and, uh, I just wonder, uh, if I could get your opinion on what do you think about voter reform, like any sort of voting reform? Because I really do.

I really do think mandatory voting would, would help the, the, I would, I think it would help this a lot. And maybe there's some, if there's some downside that I'm not privy to, I don't really care about, honestly, the, the liberty aspect of being made, I do not care about that because I don't, I don't think there's a slippery slope of, oh, first you're made to vote and then you've, you know, the, the gulag or something. But, but so, so I don't care about those arguments for now, but maybe there's some other, I could very well be some other bad consequences I don't know about, but I just feel like if we all had to vote that that there wouldn't be this drive to appeal, to go further and further to the left or right in order to motivate the base or whatever. And there would be, there'd be more of an effort made because everybody's voting. Then the calculation would be, okay, I need to have the message that appeals to the most voters as simple as that. And I wonder if that's something you think would be a good solution.

0:59:19 Gleb: Exactly.

0:59:56 Gleb: No, I don't have enough information to say whether it would be a good solution. I think what I would prefer is something like removing financial obstacles for voting, by giving people, people money to vote, so giving them financial rewards for voting. So I know that many lower income people just can't go and vote because they can't be freed from their job for that time, so giving people with a lower, I mean no, I

0:59:58 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Well, there's already laws that mandate that they'd be able able to go vote. I wonder if they're, I mean, they're

1:00:29 Gleb: Mean, I have, like, having evaluated these laws, I did some research on this, they're not effective, that because their employees, their employers don't, don't let them go vote.

1:00:32 Thomas: Just not effective. Oh, okay. Okay. Wow.

1:00:38 Gleb: And they can't afford because, you know, if somebody is working for, you know, living paycheck to paycheck and they're getting, you know, $10 an hour and they need to take off, you know, two hours to go vote and then usually the voting line would be even longer for that, you know, and stay in line. They can't support that, which is another problem. So I would support laws that give financial incentives to people with lower income to vote in order to cover their loss of time and loss of money.

1:00:59 Thomas: Yeah. Which is another problem. Yeah.

1:01:12 Thomas: Yeah. Or, and maybe so. And when I said that, that there's laws, I didn't mean, therefore it's not a problem. I just meant I'm, I would, I don't know why these laws aren't working. I would, I would, I would also support a strengthening of those laws so that it makes it so that people actually can vote. Cause I think that's fundamental. People, people, even, even, even be, it's kind of funny because my plan is sort of the reciprocal of your plan. Like I, I, I think in Australia you pay a fine if you don't vote. So it's, it's not too terribly unrelated to say you don't get this money if you don't vote. It's a, it's pretty, I think we're, I think we're more in agreement than you might think on that. But I very much think it's critical to republic, to the democracy, that everybody has the means to vote.

And I don't, it's so weird because it's a problem that up until this election, I wasn't really that familiar with because I guess I live a life of privilege, but I've never, ever had an issue voting. It's the easiest thing. Uh, but I guess there's so many places in our country where, you know, you can't vote by mail or you can't, you know, like the, if you go to the polling place, the lines are astronomical. I've never had that issue.

1:01:30 Gleb: Yes, it

1:02:17 Thomas: So it's, it really was eyeopening to me to see that. And, uh, that, that, that seems like a disaster to me. So interesting.

1:02:24 Gleb: Is. Yeah. I wanted, as we're coming to the conclusion of the interview, I wanted to check with you whether you would be yourself willing to take the pro-truth pledge and ask your listeners to do so.

1:02:36 Thomas: Absolutely. I am happy to do so. Uh, I will take that pledge. I will share it on my social media. I encourage everybody, we'll of course have links. Hey, Gleb, one thing I like to do on here is if there's any links to research that you had handy, I love to be able to put that in the show notes, which I think is already part of your pledge here, endeavor to share my sources. So if you've got anything to send me, I would love that.

1:02:47 Gleb: Sure. Sure. Yes. Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

1:03:00 Thomas: And that's something I always try to do on the show. I think it's critical. I want to be able to back up my claims and have people be able to pick them apart if they're wrong. So yeah, no, this is what I'm all about. I think I may flatter myself in saying I've already been trying to do this as much as I can, but I'm happy to put it in writing or whatever, to put it in digital print.

1:03:09 Gleb: Excellent.

1:03:19 Gleb: Yes. So make sure to, since you're a public figure, to check the public figure and to give both of your podcasts as Links.

1:03:27 Thomas: Oh, okay.

1:03:28 Gleb: No.

1:03:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to. I can, I can, I can have us do it over on opening arguments too, maybe. I'm not doing it on my comedy podcast. Sorry. That one's just for fun.

1:03:35 Gleb: I'll be happy. I'll be happy to appear in Opening Arguments and talk more about from the legal perspective on this.

1:03:43 Thomas: Oh, interesting. Yeah. We'll see what legal powers you have. I don't know. Yeah. I don't, I think, I think we can, we can make a pledge over there. That would be easy. So, all right. Gleb Tsipursky, do you want to talk about anything else we need to hit before we come to a close here?

1:03:55 Gleb: No, I just hope that everyone will take the pro-truth pledge and share about it with your friends. I think this is a super easy way to show your commitment to the truth and a way to really change the dynamics for our society to advance the truth and fight against the tide of lies. Thank

1:04:13 Thomas: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on those fascinating stuff. And I'm really happy to hear about the work you're doing and I certainly wish you luck in continuing it.

1:04:22 Gleb: You, and thank you for your own work.

1:04:44 Thomas: All right, really cool stuff. I am definitely taking that pro-truth pledge. I encourage everyone to, hey, click on the link. It's in the show notes and I, you know, he, I bet you we could double, we could probably 10 times over his current enrollment in the pro-truth pledge, but if I'm being modest, we could probably easily double that sign up amount for the pro-truth pledge just from this podcast and the people who decide to, uh, to actually follow through on that. That would be really cool.

I think it's a perfect fit for this show. It's exactly what I try to do and I'm happy to do that. Look for that link. I'll share it around. Let's take that pledge. I think it's a great idea. With that said, sort of in the interest of maintaining my standing as a pro-truth person here, I think I might do a short-ish addendum to the Evergreen episode because I'm seeing, I would say, overwhelmingly I would the reaction was positive, but I would I had a little bit more pushback than normal.

Now I always get a little pushback on any social justice related stuff from the usual sources, but But I would say this was like a little more than normal and it made me want to address what I think are the main criticisms and ultimately and re-examine and make sure, you know, that I have the right opinion because I want to do my best to have the most correct opinions I can. And so I solicited a response to get some criticisms from people. I'm collecting those.

I think Thursday, I think I'll just do a little follow-up because it's been enough that I want to try to address it. Uh, but other than that, lots of stuff happening in the news, lots to talk about.

1:06:27 Thomas: So I will see you on Thursday for a nice, uh, fresh newsy episode. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks to Gleb Tsipursky and take that pledge guys. I'll see you next episode.