Two for Tea Podcast

Follow Gurwider on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal

You can find all Gurwinder’s Areo articles here:

https://areomagazine.com/author/gurwinderbhogal/

Articles referenced here:

How Not to De-Radicalize a Twitter Neo-Nazi - Areo:

https://areomagazine.com/2017/10/28/how-not-to-de-radicalize-a-twitter-neo-nazi/

Alex Jones Was Victimized by One Oligopoly. But He Perpetuated Another:

https://quillette.com/2018/09/30/alex-jones-was-victimized-by-one-oligopoly-but-he-perpetuated-another/

The Best Cure for Fake News is Fake News - Rabbit Hole:

https://rabbitholemag.com/the-best-cure-for-fake-news-is-fake-news/

Further References

You can find all the articles published as part of Areo’s free speech fortnight here: https://twitter.com/AreoMagazine/status/1394704394189479939?s=20

My interview with Ayishat Akanbi:

https://soundcloud.com/twoforteapodcast/63-ayishat-akanbi-styles-of-identity

Ayishat’s Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Ayishat_Akanbi

My article on the involuntary nature of belief: Can We Make Ourselves Believe? A Letter Exchange - Areo:

https://areomagazine.com/2019/08/18/can-we-make-ourselves-believe-a-letter-exchange/

I misspoke during the podcast. The original letter exchange was between Peter Boghossian and Maarten Boudry: Unbelievable: Can You Believe Something You Know is False? - letter.wiki:

https://letter.wiki/conversation/22

Bret Weinstein - YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi5N_uAqApEUIlg32QzkPlg

AARON Z. LEWIS:

www.aaronzlewis.com

Timestamps

3:09 Fake news

11:55 Learning and heuristics, signalling, status games

18:08 Social media, virality and the oligopoly of perspectives

33:43 Listening as a persuasive technique

51:26 Conspiracy theories as a spandrel, mithridatism of false information, why it should be freedom of opinion, not freedom of information, how do we solve the problem of conspiracy theories?

57:38 The lab leak hypothesis and the mainstream echo chamber

1:02:18 The Woozle effect

1:10:08 Hypernovelty

1:13:43 Predictive coding

For more of James’ related thoughts on free speech, representation and democracy see:

https://antigonejournal.com/2021/04/two-concepts-of-free-speech/

https://areomagazine.com/2019/05/16/two-concepts-of-representation/

https://proandepimetheus.blogspot.com/2020/08/harsh-but-unfair.html

https://freespeech.buzzsprout.com/370355/5178406-episode-30-dr-kierstead-on-ancient-greek-values-of-free-speech-and-diversity-of-thought-at-our-universities

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/08/04/dr-james-kierstead-dr-michael-johnston-why-the-new-hate-speech-legislation-should-be-scrapped/

Follow James’ podcast Free Kiwis, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjc1cT_a9JM

Follow James on Twitter @Kleisthenes2

1:00 Introduction

3:12 The difference between the two values of parrhesia and isegoria.

7:52 Why some people feel that defending free speech requires silencing certain voices

14:16 The Areopagus

25:22 Milton’s Areopagitica

27:53 Free speech absolutism

38:44 The futility of attempting to rectify manners

41:41 The two different types of representation

48:10 Representation in the arts and fiction compared with representation the political arena

58:33 Controversy over the death of Socrates. Socrates’ views on democracy

1:05:41 The state of free speech at New Zealand universities

Lee’s book with Lyudmila Trut, How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution (2017) can be found here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Tame-Fox-Build-Dog/dp/022644418X

I also highly recommend Behind the Crimson Curtain: The Rise and Fall of Peale's Museum (2020):

https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Crimson-Curtain-Peales-Museum/dp/1941953727

Follow Lee on Twitter @LeeDugatkin

Timestamps

1:27 Behind the Crimson Curtain and other books

2:59 The silver fox breeding project

14:13 When you select for tameness, you get a suite of other changes; evolution through changes to gene expression, rather than changes to the genes themselves.

22:36 Evo devo

24:51 The cascade of apparently unrelated changes which appear when you select for one trait. Neural crest cells. Why do tame animals often have floppy ears?

32:18 Other changes associated with domestication; cross-fostering experiments

40:08 Humans as self-domesticated apes

46:46 The amazing people working on the fox domestication experiments

54:34 More thoughts on early human–wolf interactions

David has created a series of films on this controversy on his Rebel Wisdom channel. You can find them here:

https://rebelwisdom.co.uk/42-film-content/vaccines-ivermectin/842-vaccines-dark-horse-final-word

David and I talk about the responsibilities of independent media with regard to this issue here:

https://rebelwisdom.co.uk/42-film-content/vaccines-ivermectin/837-dark-horse-journalism-with-iona-italia

David’s article for Areo can be found here:

https://areomagazine.com/2021/08/12/on-bret-weinstein-alternative-media-ivermectin-and-vaccine-related-controversies/

David’s deep dive article on the scientific background to these issues can be found here:

https://medium.com/rebel-wisdom/on-vaccine-safety-ivermectin-and-the-dark-horse-podcast-an-investigation-f32491d4c970

Follow David on Twitter @fullydavid

Nicholas’s book, Drones and Terrorism: Asymmetric Warfare and the Threat to Global Security (2018) can be found here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/drones-and-terrorism-9781838608439/

Subscribe to Arc Digital: Arc Digital

For more relevant writing by Nicholas, see the following articles:

https://www.arcdigital.media/p/every-option-in-afghanistan-was-bad

https://medium.com/arc-digital/americas-predictable-avoidable-unnecessary-syrian-disaster-f0e1292e9449

https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/trump-cancels-drone-strike-civilian-casualty-report-does-it-matter/

https://medium.com/arc-digital/el-paso-was-terrorism-dayton-wasnt-and-why-that-matters-9b01a2ed2d94

https://medium.com/arc-digital/the-forever-war-keeps-going-76844f9ae16e

https://medium.com/arc-digital/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488

Follow Nicholas on Twitter: @Ngrossman81

Timestamps

0:56 Intro

3:08 Background to the situation; Trump’s handling of the withdrawal from Syria

7:48 Have the Taliban reneged on their agreement with Trump

8:59 The nature of the US presence in Afghanistan

18:08 20 years of at least some Afghans having a freer life; treatment of women in Afghanistan

21:00 What is your explanation for the evacuation flights being mostly men?

28:08 The connections between the Taliban and Al Qaeda

35:49 The Taliban is not simply "local culture"!; but what extent are the Taliban aided by local sympathisers?

44:52 More on the withdrawal; why weren’t people working with the west taken out earlier?

53:58 What are your viewpoints on reluctance to issue visas to Afghans

1:06:51 Thought on US withdrawing from everywhere possible; did the US create the Taliban?

1:16:29 What is your sense of the short and medium term future of Afghanistan?

To find out more about Angel: http://angeleduardo.com/

Follow Angel on Twitter @StrangelEdweird

0:55 Introduction

2:18 Starmanning

7:58 David Fuller's Areo piece and Majid Nawaz

13:00 Daryl Davis

14:28 Is starmanning civility porn? Does it create false equivalences?

16:23 Steve Sailer

21:20 Changing our minds; an intellectual ship of Theseus

23:45 Signalling in more productive ways

27:45 Vitriol on social media

30:58 My boyfriend's brother looked me up on Twitter

32:52 What are you trying to achieve when you use social media?

34:08 We don't need to vent emotions

35:08 If Taleb had been around in the eighteenth century

36:59 Westworld

39:08 Twitter's new "are you sure you want to say this?" feature

41:56 Free speech, the Areo article and the euphemism treadmill

50:15 Terms becoming taboo, changing societal attitudes

55:19 A passage from teaching creative writing

58:08 A public shaming

1:04:13 Summing up

For more about Dinyar: Dinyar Patel – Assistant Professor of South Asian History:

https://dinyarpatel.com/

Dinyar’s book, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism (2020), can be found here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Naoroji-Pioneer-Nationalism-Dinyar-Patel/dp/0674238206

Follow Dinyar on Twitter @DinyarPatel

Timestamps

3:18 Why Naoroji was important: an excerpt from Dinyar’s book

9:15 Why Naoroji is so much less well known than other Indian nationalists

12:45 Economic drain theory

16:35 Indianising the Indian Civil Service

21:00¬- Naoroji’s career in the UK Parliament

29:09 Lord Salisbury’s notorious remarks about the “black man” running for Parliament and other racist attacks

36:45 The latter part of Naoroji’s life: greater radicalisation, a more international focus and changes to the direction of Indian nationalism

41:27 How is Naoroji viewed by other modern Indian historians?

46:47 How did Naoroji’s Parsi background affect his life, his approach, his experiences?

50:08 Two final points: the difficulties inherent in researching this material; Indians in Victorian era Britain

You can find full details of Adrian’s fiction here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/science-fiction-and-fantasy/adrian-tchaikovsky-books-in-order.

Follow Adrian on Twitter @aptshadow.

Timestamps

0:57 Introduction

1:58 Children of Time optioned

3:24 Passage from Doors of Eden

7:53 Alternative evolutionary scenarios

9:55 Gould and the Burgess shale

12:13 Intelligence without sentience

14:10 What are the defining characteristics of intelligence?

19:38 A.I., Shards of Earth and adapted humans

22:48 The singularity

29:03 Networked intelligences And a debate on the latest Star Trek!

31:53 Ursula Le Guin

33:23 Oher favourite SF writers

36:06 Why did you become a fiction writer?

38:33 Passage from Doors of Eden

45:27 Why Adrian is especially drawn to SF/Fantasy

48:53 Writing Neil de Grasse Tyson style proof

50:48 Two types of research

53:57 Research and Wolf Hall

55:02 Ursula Le Guin/ Left Hand of Darkness

56:46 Twitter questions - 3rd book of Children of Time

57:32 Titles being changed

59:16 Putting oneself in the place of a hive mind

1:00:38 Role playing games

1:01:53 Final thoughts - Dogs of War, Bear Head and Adrian reads from Children of Time.

You can find a complete bibliography of David’s work here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-M.-Buss/e/B000AP5RSU

David’s book, Bad Men: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment and Assault (2021):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472146336/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

(US title: When Men Behave Badly)

The Buss lab at the University of Texas:

https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/

Follow him on Twitter @ProfDavidBuss

Other References

Tina Turner and Kurt Loder, I, Tina (1986), adapted in 1993 as the film What’s Love Got to Do with It

Timestamps

1:42 David Buss reads a short passage. Introduction to the book.

3:08 The origins of intersexual conflict in the evolution of sexual reproduction

8:55 Men’s greater desire for sexual variety

11:21 What kinds of men are most likely to be rapists?

14:08 The mate deprivation hypothesis debunked

21:13 Women’s evolved fear of strangers

30:23 Predictors of intimate partner violence

32:28 Mate value discrepancies

38:17 Why women are unfaithful

43:08 Online dating

50:27 The MeToo movement

53:34 Defending evo psych

Jerry’s book Why Evolution Is True (2010) can be found here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300564/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne/

Faith vs Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (2016) can be found here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/312382/faith-versus-fact-by-jerry-a-coyne/9780143108269/

Speciation (2004) by Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr can be found here:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speciation-9780878930890?cc=gb&lang=en&

Jerry’s blog: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/

Follow Jerry on Twitter @Evolutionistrue

Further References

Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now (2018); The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011)

Timestamps

3:30 Why Jerry wrote Why Evolution Is True

5:45 Public misperceptions of evolution

8:52 Evolution as a tinkerer: the example of hernias

11:08 Turtles, rhinos and tradeoffs

14:38 How mutation works

16:33 How speciation works (with an excerpt from Why Evolution Is True)

23:46 What people (including Darwin) misunderstand about speciation

28:38 Faith vs. Fact: why evolutionary biology has become the main political battleground of religion vs. science

33:42 A creationist road trip.

36:36 Scientists allying with religious groups. The work of the Templeton Foundation.

42:08 Belief in belief.

46:36 The biggest threats to rationality other than religion.

47:10 The argument from evil; rejection of vaccines

49:59 A reading from Evolution Is True