Reflecting On Sam Harris’ Viral Triggernometry Clip - Konstantin Kisin

One of the things that Sam brought up on the episode with me was his infamous Twitter clip with you. What was the experience of that particular 180 seconds catching fire? Like, you know, I felt terrible when that happened. Really, really terrible because I've never been on the end of a Twitter [ __ ] storm to that extent, but it's not pleasant. no matter how strong-minded you are, whatever. There's a reason that Rogan always says, don't read the comments, right? Like, like the great man Joseph Stalin says, quantity has a quality all of its own. So, there's only certain number of negative comments you can ignore until just the volume of [ __ ] becomes overwhelming. So, my primary concern actually, not I don't know Sam well, but uh was for his well-being actually. I just I just worried how he would experience that more than anything. That was my concern because our approach is always about giving a guest an opportunity to reveal themselves in the best light possible. And for some people that light shines very brightly and can burn. Um but that's not our intention. We never go into an interview with the desire to out somebody or expose somebody. It's not a gotcha. It's not a gotcha. So, I was worried about him and I emailed him straight away just to, you know, check up on him and and, you know, also we didn't put that clip out. We could have done because we obviously understood that it was a controversial thing he said. And actually, most people don't know this, but that was not the most controversial thing he said in that interview in my opinion. We talked about COVID on locals, which was the paywald section of the interview, and what he said there I found quite what did he say? I don't remember the wording and people will have to go and watch it, but it was, you know, I came away from that thinking that, you know, he's overestimating the threat and as a result of that is prepared to do some pretty drastic things or or demand drastic things to be done. Um, so first and foremost, as somebody who interviews people for a living, I was concerned for him, but I also felt that, you know, what he said was wrong. I didn't agree with it. Um, and I I I my view on it is that if you overestimate the nature of the threat, all else follows. And I think on Trump and co that that is where Sam in my opinion is is is well that's why he's doing what he's doing and saying what he's saying because if I thought Trump was as bad as Sam thinks, it would be very tempting to think along the lines that Sam thinks along. And likewise with co if I thought this was like Ebola that spreads I'd also be you know we should also be honest you know the conversation people like well there's never ever ever any reason for the government to mandate vaccines and I broadly agree with that unless the disease is really like dangerous and deadly. I I said this at the beginning of co like imagine that the disease had 100% mortality rate for all women or it was 100% mortality rate for all people under the age of 10. Maybe some people would support it. Well, yeah, but I I think that the the fundamentally it came down to a risk and reward equation. And most people considered that the risk of getting COVID was not greater than the risk of either getting the vaccine or of opening up mandated vaccines as a pathway overall. Right? And it's just where do you sit on this equation? There's lots of other things, but broadly I think it's where do you sit on this equation? And Sam, I completely agree with him that I think co as an event was like the worst kind of vaccine that we could have given our epidemiology, our medical system, the view of vaccines overall. Vaccine skepticism at large I bet has gone through the [ __ ] roof. It has. It has. Have you had a look at this? Yeah, of course it has. I know anecdotally, just speaking to people how much that's that's the case. Yeah. So if we are to have something that comes around the next time and it does kill [ __ ] all children under 10 or all women or whatever the [ __ ] It's got some incubation period of 28 days and a mortality of 40%. It's just a scop. It's another scop. This is Claus Schwab doing it again. This is the WEF and it's like oh god like that's that's it literally would have been better if COVID hadn't happened right. Yeah. Sure enough we can get masks out of the way more quickly and we've got like some some inefficiency in in the system. were opened up. But if you were to look at COVID as a like operational logistical vaccine, our response to it failed us way worse than if we'd never got it at all. And we got a vaccine injury from CO. Yes. Yes, we did. And and I also think the one thing that is sort of inexplicably neglected in all of this is I'd really like to know where CO came from. I'd really like to know. Don't you think that's important? Don't you think we should know where it came from? because there are some credible assertions about its origins that would suggest that we may have another pandemic soon. Um, is that right? I haven't seen this. Well, if this came from a lab in Wuhan because of gain of function research and we are not willing to be honest about that and gain of function research continues, why wouldn't we have another pandemic? I never looked into this much. I know that Sam had Matt Ridley and somebody else somebody else on his show. We've had Matt on to talk about this as well. Cool. Yeah. And the truth is we don't know. Yeah. But I I'm using the kind of the smell test here because I grew up in a in a in a communist society. Um and what communist societies do when there is something and all societies do this to a large extent because people don't like to to expose their own flaws and no one wants to be like oh I was responsible for killing millions of people you know but they will cover it up in a way that you know that is proper and Matt actually gave this example of there was a leak somewhere in the Soviet Union which was a radioactive leak I think or maybe it was a biological uh and they covered up for ages is and then you know when the Soviet Union collapsed we finally found out no no it was actually a leak. So if this is a product of uh gain of function research getting out into the real world which is credible that there's there's very credible assertions about that the world needs to know and this type of research needs to end but if we are unwilling to have that conversation honestly and do the proper investigations which would be difficult because the CCP wouldn't want that and on top of that you've got all this other [ __ ] about how it's racist and all of that. Uh we've got a problem. So there I I think my worry with everything that's happened with CO is not only have we not learned the lessons, I feel like like you said, we've got a vaccine injury from the experience and everyone is sort of stuck in their corner and like Sam said to you, everyone's got their own facts about it now. Correct. Yeah. Um that's that's a problem. It's interesting what you said about the felt sense of being in the blast radius of Sam's online experience. I noticed it. Someone called it Sam Harris's world embarrassment tour because he did my show, he did Steven's show, and he did Tom Billy's show. And I don't know, man. Like there seems to be something. It's almost like there was resentment sat on the internet. Latent resentment sat on the internet waiting for Sam to [ __ ] up and then he did a thing. Oh, maybe maybe it's I don't think it was personal. That was my the reason I paused there. I don't think it was personal to Sam. I think particularly on his Trump comments, there are a lot of people who were like, "This is what we always knew the Trump haters think deep inside." And Sam was willing to vocalize it, which is I don't care how big the transgressions are on the other side. I don't care what Hunter Biden has done. I don't care what Joe Biden's done. No matter what they do, it can never be as bad as orange man bad. And that's sort of how he came across. And so the people who who felt gas led this entire time about um you know the overestimation of the threat of Trump, they they were vindicated in that moment. And I think Sam just caught him was caught in the rage of people feeling like the kind of like the perfect time storm with the perfect pebble in the perfect river that directed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting, man. You know, we I I had this conversation with a a fitness influencer called Sarah Safari in LA a couple of weeks ago. Uh I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this. I think it's analogous to this Sam situation. A lot of people, especially right of center, say things like you can't judge somebody on just one thing that they say. Yet, when it came to a six-pack of Bud Light being sent to Dylan Mulaney by some marketing intern somewhere deep in the annals of the Anheiser Bush thing or Millerite release one video, the Millerite thing felt a little bit more produced. It's probably gone through a few more layers, but largely I just wondered I thought it was interesting that the charity that a lot of people write of center ask to be given to their commentators or you know their champions that are canceled for taking out of context points. There was that uh Rosanne Bar bit with Theo Vaughn where she made a joke about the Jews which was the most egregious clipping that I've ever seen from anything ever. the end of a three minute long bit and they took the final 30 seconds and put it up as if it was representative of the whole thing. It was so [ __ ] bad. But I did notice nobody decided to use that same idea about, well, hang on a second. Maybe maybe this is just one small department in one small corner of one small brands marketing push and they gave this person who is very unpopular on the internet a six-ack of Bud Light and before you know it, Kid Rock's got an AR-15 pointed at a few cases of your drink. What do you think about? So, I think I would separate those two out. So Sam I think is that point applies very much and this is what the angle I'm coming on from and I felt that while I strongly disagree with what he said I think that was clear in the interview. um he has enough credit in the bank with me that I'm willing to have a lot of understanding and a lot of grace with him. And I I like and what I would say as well is, you know, we were having a lot of tech issues on the day that we interviewed Sam and he sat there for like a good hour while we were trying to scrambling to get the microphones to work and he was the most decent human being that we've had on the show. And you see who someone really is when the cameras aren't rolling. that seemed to me like a really important thing that other people obviously wouldn't have seen. So, um I have a lot of time for Sam and respect for him. I don't have the same relationship with Dylan Mulvaney. And I also think you haven't taken a world of wisdom from Dylan Mulaney over the last You'll be surprised, man. You'd be surprised. And so, um I think look, Dylan Mulvaney is a symbol in to many people like Sam is a symbol to many people for different things. But I I think it's a slightly different issue because you I don't know if you saw but immediately after the the Dylan Mulaney controversy, the marketing executive who was responsible for this, there was there was a video of her talking to I think a reporter about the thinking behind what the idea there was. So it seemed a little bit more thought out. It was thought out and her her angle was our our customers are [ __ ] That was her angle. are [ __ ] Yeah. What's a [ __ ] customer? Well, it was just it's just these guys who've got like a, you know, old-fashioned sense of humor and they don't do you know what I mean? Like we're going to educate our customers. And I'm like, you sell beer. That's not your job. Sell them the [ __ ] beer and shut up. Right. Um, and look, the trans issue, for reasons I actually think are quite understandable and obvious, is the lightning rod of our time. Um, so I'm not surprised that that caused the reaction that it did. And I understand it. I I I do think and I said I wrote a Substack on this at the time that perhaps the giving so much attention to it is what prompts these brands to to go down this route. Obviously with Dylan Mulvaney, it backfired for sure. It's a roll of the dice for attention. It's a roll of the dice for attention that I don't think they'd considered and I think that executive ended up being fired. I do understand why people got as fired up about as they did because you're rewarding behavior that a lot of people would feel is the wrong behavior to reward in the public eye. Dylan Mulaney. Mhm. But that woman is one lady. Maybe maybe in her interview with the reporter she said this went all the way up and the director CE the [ __ ] chief marketing officer or whatever was involved in this. But if it wasn't the case, I don't think if if it turned out that it was one small group in in the corner as I like guessed or whatever, I don't think that the internet would have given Bud Light any more leeway. I don't think they would have said we need to separate the art and the artist here. You know, they've made beer for three decades for however [ __ ] long it's been around. And maybe maybe it's right. Maybe it it shows their woke bonafidees. It shows that they're the man-hating like left-leaning bluehead cucks that they always were. But I don't know, like it seems like a lot of the time people want it's a it's a smart idea to be able to say Rogan has been in a few controversies over the last few years. Most people said, "I have faith that you're telling me this is the tip of the iceberg. I've seen the whole iceberg." Right? I know that there is nothing lurking deep down in the depths. Massive advantage he has is he's published like 5,000 hours of content over the last decade, which means that you have a pretty good body of evidence that sits on the other side of the scale. Bud Light, you don't know much about what's going on inside of the marketing department. But I just thought it was interesting. I thought that maybe this is a time where it would be illustrative and you should be careful about trans transgressing rules that you want to be enforced. So if you want the don't judge somebody by one single occurrence rule to be enforced and then you don't enforce it that you said before that tit fortat game it opens up what they did it is this playground mentality. I understand what you mean but I think I disagree actually. I think the reason that people uh were as upset about as they are is while it's these are different companies the sense is imagine it wasn't just Rogan who said something but it was Chris Williamson and trigonometry and all the other podcasters who do what we do all at one point said the same thing and then there was yet another example of a podcaster saying it. So when you look at the Gillette toxic masculinity ad, if you look at all the other instances where corporations put pride flags all over, they replace their brand with not in the Middle East. Not. Well, obviously not. Yeah. Do they do it in Russia? They can't do it in Russia, right? I doubt it. I doubt it. I can't imagine why. In Mother Russia, gay has you. Yeah. Exactly. So I think what people felt was here again we've got a corporation just absolutely taking the piss, lecturing the ordinary public and thrusting these very niche issues onto what is a very very like normal household beer and you just can't escape this [ __ ] That's what I think people feel. Kind of a straw that broke the camel's back and just big corporation overall. That's interesting cuz what I was doing was I was taking Bud Light as a individual instance on its own. What you're saying is this is more endemic of a broader trend among big corporations. Well, broadly speaking, if you think about what the anti-woke narrative is, the anti-woke narrative is, and I agree with very large parts of it, is that most of the major institutions, whether that be media, whether that be the civil service, whether that be the political systems, the parties, the uh the corporations, the education system, they've all been captured or corrupted uh or through some other mechanism become uh the projectors of a certain worldview onto the public who do not share that worldview. And so when you see the toxic masculinity Gillette ad, which is like, hey, you know, you you're you're a man, you're a piece of [ __ ] buy our razor, you know, hey, you're a piece of [ __ ] buy our beer, etc. It sort of builds up to a point like, why is everyone telling me I'm a piece of [ __ ] Um, and it gets old and you know and I actually, you know, particularly this anti-mascul anti-masculinity narrative that you see everywhere in movies, uh, in advertising, in in all sorts of different genres. Uh, I think it's really really dangerous because if you think about Gillette ads in the ' 90s, you were a bit younger than me, I don't know if you remember them, but they were the best a man can get and it's like some blonde hot chick in like a whatever. She's like dragged on. Actually, that wasn't the '90s Gillette ads. The '90s Gillette ads were a bunch of men being healthy masculinity. It was a man putting his tie on as he holds his baby up before he's going to work. It was a man uh hugging his son on his way to his wedding. It was a man protecting his wife or, you know, it was a it was a healthy view of men and relationships and men and women and so on. Um, and I I sort of say, you know, healthy masculinity is the '90s Gillette ads. That's what it looks like. Um, men being responsible, men in relationships with women being respectful, being kind, but also being strong, looking after their children, teaching younger versions of men how to be men, etc. Right? Um, and I understand why people, men and women, are [ __ ] tired, really, really tired of this idea that men are bad and evil. Like my wife who is complet I always say my wife is completely a-political and as a result of that extremely based right like she hates this [ __ ] and I can't tell you how many women I speak to who are very very tired of men being demonized in this way and so am I. Well especially given that a lot of those women will have sons and they want their partner to be good and healthy. They don't want them to be feeble you know. Um so I actually I understand the push back against that. I really do and I think it's necessary. This episode is brought to you by Short Form. Short Form is my absolute favorite way to discover new non-fiction books and gain deeper insights into books that I've already read. You guys know about how important my reading list is to me. And Short Form is an easier, faster, and cheaper way to dive into ideas that I've always been curious about. They're essentially book summaries on steroids. They provide super detailed guides of the book's key ideas, and they've got smart insights and interactive exercises. I really love using short form to revisit some of my all-time favorite books like The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green. 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