Scott Shay, Conspiracy Theories in Academia |525|

Scott Shay is a business leader worried about the intellectual corruption of academia.

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[00:00:00] Movie Clip: My deepest I was about to go when the camps together through all that just to be shot in the living room by Verba. Nazis Jonas, God damn Nazis.

[00:00:17] Alex Tsakiris: That’s Al Pacino from the Amazon series hunters about a group of modern day Nazi hunters. Spoiler alert Al Pacino isn’t quite what he seems to be in that little clip there. Although isn’t that a perfect theme set up for this show in general, and for this episode, things aren’t always what they seem. Take, for example, today’s guest the very excellent and well spoken, Scott Shay who’s written a book called Conspiracy U, now, you know, or you might know from listening this show that I have a special affinity for successful business people who then venture into these kind of intellectual pursuits, like Scott does. This guy is sharp, and he’s worldly in a lot of ways. And as you’ll see, in this dialogue, he’s able to quickly kind of cut through a lot of the chaff and get down to talking about real stuff. And we talk about plenty of real stuff in this interview, here are some clips. I do run across people now and then who have the whole hoax thing. And it pops up in sometimes the strangest way. I’ll talk to people and I’ll think, or having a good conversation, and then I find out this part.

[00:01:29] Scott Shay: I’ve talked to folks just like they have to who are and I talk about folks in the book who are had PhDs in something, they’re not dummies. And yet when it comes to believing in a conspiracy theory about the Jew Arthur Butz, who’s a Professor of Engineering at Northwestern University as tenure claims that everything that happened to my father and everybody else was just a myth designed by Zionists with political motivation, and that these Jews were so smart that they were able to place 1000s of false documents. Sadly, what happens on campus no longer stays in campus. These theories are becoming much more ubiquitous. They are infiltrating in some areas into the investment world this whole BDS movement, boycott this divest and sanction is a direct heir to what happened on campus.

[00:02:27] Alex Tsakiris: Let’s go to something a little bit harder. Because the other I guess, concern I had with the book is that, when I think of anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, I think of this Ghislaine Maxwell and her pedophile lover Jeffrey Epstein, were both Israeli spies who took pictures of powerful men having sex with underage girls to blackmail them, their alleged Mossad handler has sensationally claimed. Now, I would just add that that alleged Mossad handler kind of stands up to scrutiny pretty well. He was tried in court and was actually acquitted because he showed that he was an agent of Israel and his arms dealing.

[00:03:07] Scott Shay: Well, look, first of all, I’d like to say this. What have the with the anti-Zionists say is something separate? I mean, there. By the way, I have no idea if that’s right, wrong or indifferent. I’ve never heard that or seen that before you put it up on the screen. So I don’t express any opinion. But I will say this, the United States has done despicable things, a lot of countries do despicable things.

[00:03:34] Alex Tsakiris: So, I think this is a really good interview from a really terrific guest who’s willing to go there and enga...