The Jason Arday Story (8-9-26)

and Joe, do each of you just want to quickly introduce yourselves and then we will start our conversation. Joe, do you want to go first? >> Okay. Where's uh where's Jason? Let's go to Jason. >> Stuff like that. And I I had this presumption that we were all in it together and and I am very idyllic. Uh I'm an idealist. So, you know, similar to Zena, I guess I'm I'm very naive. You look for the best in people. And I guess like over the last two or three years you start you know you yourself maybe don't see yourself as something but you you recognize that people deal with you differently because something has changed and you find you know a lot of the relationships you have with people are transactional and in I'm very naive you look how I would behave and I don't behave like that anyway generally speaking but you recognize people deal with you because they want something fundamentally whereas that that helping interaction >> doesn't come when you are in in need. >> And what's really sad is that when you ask >> so damn, it's just so tiring setting everything up. I've just been having such a great time communing with God and I've been getting together with my mates and in my spare time instead of live streaming and preparing for live streaming, I've just been doing very professional, very safe gain of function research because it it's so important. I learned this from Anthony Fouchy. So just getting together with friends mates and and we're we're following all the protocols that Dr. Fouchy laid out and we're just building the most powerful viruses we can so that we can then figure out how to like stop them and and prevent harm. And so I've just been so busy with my gain of function research that I I just haven't had time for live streaming. And I'm just trying to catch up now on the Jason Aday story. I'm really excited, really inspired by this video. Decolonizing he doing the work as a person of color. >> When you, you know, if we work off the premise of supporting one another and not pulling up ladders, you know, you you kind of ask for that help of, you know, sometime a lot of the time in my case for obvious reasons, it would be people of color, >> you know, senior academics. You know, I'm not asking to be on a paper. I'm not asking to be on a book. I just need you to tell me how does this whole thing work because I don't I don't I don't know how to do it. And you don't get an email. You don't hear nothing. You know, all of these things. And And I >> Why do people of color have to be so racist against other people of color? That's what what's so distressing. So, I haven't done a lot of prep. This is not going to be the typical high quality 40 show where every sentence counts. Like, I've got everything lined up. No, this is just the chill stream. Just like I used to go to yoga almost every day and then if for some reason I missed three, four, five, six days of yoga going back like on the seventh day, it seemed weird. I I'd go to a Kundalini yoga studio and if you're not doing it every day, it seems weird. If you don't go to Shaw every day, then you step back into Shaw, it seems weird. If you don't live stream regularly and then you you haven't live stream in two months and then you step back and you try to do it again. It's it's weird. particularly I'm on a new computer and there at new settings and all sorts of things that I need to figure out but uh we're going to we're going to progress together. >> I think the thing that was most dis most disappointing that that was that this was a bigger trauma than any other thing that I might have experienced and it's been a lot >> man that is so sad. Why are people of color doing trauma to Jason Aday when he's just doing the work as a person of color and I do my best to be an ally was um the idea that you could have these you know prominent academics say like a lot of things they could talk talk a really good talk about equality and diversity but like there was a massive disconnect between their actions and their words. So in education like you know people always talk about the idea of practice. >> Think about how upsetting this must have been for Jason Aday. He did this six years ago right? This is a video from from 2020 and he's had to deal this is April 3rd right? This is in co early co uh the the pain and the trauma of being an academic in Great Britain doing the work as a person of color reaching out to do work with other people of color and the trauma that they inflict >> and you know these academics there was no aspect of practice in in their kind of DNA like that they would say things and when you kind of realize that the business of academia you know you realize how powerful it is to be able to say things in a particular way and you recognize the reputational and fiscal rewards for being able to do it. And I think it's kind of become the gig economy, you know, and you sometimes you question a lot how much do people genuinely care. And I think that was always a trope that was leveled at just white academics, you know, that they were exploitative of race, race, politics. And yeah, in many cases, they have a horrible history of doing that. But I also think there are some academics of color that don't cover themselves in glory either. Um, and that that for me has been the most disappointing thing because like you know I think there is a generation of academics coming through that think differently. That's not to say the generation before haven't and there'll be reasons for why they may be acting the way they act. But I don't know. I've just I've seen some things that I just think just think that's wrong. I just think that's wrong. And I just think that like, you know, it's almost like great world leaders, they all have they all have the ambition to do great for their own people, but then when they get a bit of power, they go mad and they forget the reasons why they got into it in the first place. And I think sadly, regardless of race, academia breeds that in people. And what it breeds is individualism. It doesn't breed like collegiality. And if if there's any trauma that has hurt me the most is is that one because like you know you can be standing next to someone on on you can be sitting next to someone on a panel or sharing a platform with someone doing a keynote and sometimes you're stood there and you're thinking this person doesn't give they don't care. I know they don't care. I know they don't I know that they got a track record of helping no one but themselves. Like they don't you know they've not helped people. >> Right. He's he's dropping truth bombs here about life in academia. And so he may have been a fabulist and a plagiarist at times and haven't we all? But that doesn't mean that in some areas of life he's telling the truth, right? People aren't just liars or truth tellers. People are situational truth tellers or situational liars. They make up things in one area of their life. They may keep very clean books as an accountant, but then they have this passionate, exciting, sexy, fabulous uh love life where they don't exactly practice the most high fidelity to truth. >> They're not, you know, and they say one thing, but they're doing something completely different because I mean, let's face it, like at the moment, >> see, right now, other people are playing Nathan Coffnness clips, right? Nathan Coffnes wrote the big expose essay on Jason Aday experience exposing his plagiarism. But I am an ally. So I'm going to play Jason Aday clips. I went through about 12 Jason Aday videos a week or two ago and I got gold and this is the most gold of the gold >> and everything has its time right at the moment. Race is big business. It doesn't matter how you you know in any across all of society's institutions right now you know race is big business and there are a lot of people profiting from that plight and you know a big reason for me kind of thinking okay you I think I said this when we met in Sheffield Muna like you know there comes a time where you can't you can't continue to profit from that plight um you know if things are not changing that that I think that morally for me and I'll speak for myself I think that's wrong and so you do you do vacate that space because then there'll be people who can bring new things to it. Um because yeah, I think it is disappointing. um they're people you look up to for many many years and there's always that expression like you should never meet your heroes and I and I feel like I've had more experience in academia like that and that's left more of an indelible imprint on me than the actual traumas I've experienced because because yeah I just I I don't understand how we're all in the same position as academics of color and you know to my mind you want to do everything you can to support one another and every day I I observe examples of complete opposite of that. And that's not me trying to be pessimistic. It's just I think it's one of those things that a lot of people know, but maybe a lot of people don't say. And I suppose I've always known it and I always thought it, but I never said it because, you know, you kind of think, "Oh man, maybe I'm the only one who thinks like this." But, you know, as time has gone on, it's it's a harder thing to console yourself with. Yeah, you kind of think to yourself like these people, I I don't know how much they care, you know, um how, you know, what have they done to bring other people on the ladder? What they done to help other people? What have they done to What have they done? >> Okay, I accidentally split my Chrome screen. I'm not a bloke who complains much, right? You know me. I'm I'm a man of the people. I'm a lover. I'm not a fighter. But damn it just yeah you using tech and you just have to fight this war just to to do basic things and none of the software companies none of the computer companies none of them respect your choices. I feel disrespected. I go through trauma when so I I I buy my new computer right new Windows 11 and first of all I got a brand new new spanking computer. I spent over $2,000. I get a gaming computer and I do not game at all. I just want a gaming computer so I can do all the live streaming that I need to in good quality so that I could be of service to humanity. And then I'm getting hardware errors on my brand new PC11 computer that I spent $2,200 for and the the screens going black and blank and I'm getting hardware errors every five minutes on my brand new computer. As if I need this, I try to spend all my time doing g either gain of function research or study of Torah. And now I have to deal with bloody hardware errors on my new computer. As if I I don't have enough Zurus in my life. And so there is a redeeming quality out there. It's called chat GPT. So I just screenshot my problems, right? When my computer wouldn't start. So about a month ago, my bloody computer, which I I've had since 2018, just wouldn't start, wouldn't boot. So I was taking photos and pulling and unplugging this and and it wouldn't wouldn't ever boot up. and then found out the com computer was comput. So I get the new computer getting bloody hardware errors. I'm just trying to eat my brekie just trying to read the New York Times with a little bit of nice music going on in my headphones in the background. I got noiseancelling headphones from Sony like top top drawer $350 and bloody hardware errors like I need this surus. So, I I whip out my my phone, start taking pictures about what's going on, and chatbt guides me to update my driver for my what's that video thing? Uh, so I I update the driver and Baroo Hashem, thank the good Lord, no hardware errors have returned. But like, bloody hell, you have to update the driver to get rid of hardware. But then I I boot up my computer for the first time about uh three weeks ago and and I have to register with Microsoft. I cannot use my computer, right? Microsoft will not let me use my computer until I register with them and then agree to all sorts of BS that I I don't want Microsoft in my life. I hate Microsoft. But I do use a PC. I'm a loyal PC man. So I I have to agree to all sorts of Microsoft slop and then as soon as I get my computer going, I immediately switch to the Chrome browser browser. I'm not saying Chrome is just inherently better. I'm not saying it is superior globally. I'm just saying I like to use Chrome. I want to be respected. I'm a Chrome man. I don't judge you if you're an edge man, right? I don't think you're less of a man because you use a different browser from me. I just want to be respected. I am a Chromeman. Why can't you respect my choice to be a Chromeman? But does Microsoft respect my choice to be a Chromeman? No. I have to fight a neverending war with Microsoft just to keep my browser. Why do I have to keep fighting Microsoft? Why is it always switching me without my permission to bloody Edge browser? it. All these software computer companies are constantly raping me and doing things that I very clearly said I don't want to do. And I just gave up and I signed up for Microsoft Office. I did not give up my Chrome browser. I will fight day in and day out to keep my Chrome browser. I don't have a lot going on in my life, but I have my Chrome browser. I'm not giving up my Chrome browser. You will have to pry my Chrome browser from my cold dead hands. And yes, I have to fight this unending battle with Microsoft because it will not respect my choices. Then I I gave in. I used to be have to buy just like for 60 bucks at some cheap legal like it was advertised on Google that means it's legal like cheap version of Microsoft Word with my last computer like spent 60 bucks I think and that was good but I can't find those cheap versions of Microsoft Word. So I sign up for Microsoft Office. I I think I'm paying like $15 a month, but I use Microsoft Word, so forget it. I I'm spending $15 a month. Then I spend $20 a month for Adobe and I try to get something done with Adobe. It just keeps popping windows at me. Did you know you can do this? Do you want an AI of that? I just want to sign a document in Adobe and it keeps flashing windows at me. Like I may have a deadline to get something done. I'm trying to get something done in service of humanity and Adobe does it respect my choices. Does it allow me to use unhared unrated the product that I pay $20 a month for? No. I have to click no to 15 different browsers just to use Adobe that I pay for. And it is it's just like that endlessly. I'm just doing my live stream now. I'm just trying to share some Torah. All right. and bloody Chrome starts popping uh like separate split browsers on me just cuz I click on a link from the August Scholar Lootcraft and now I don't I have enough Surus now I've got a deal on browser number one with a split browser I don't have enough going on like Microsoft is raping me Adob's raping me actually Google is my favorite of the big tech companies it's my favorite you ever tried to use Facebook on your PC it is a horrible experience. It takes so long. It is it is just an awful awful awful experience. And chat GPT, it has gotten so good in the last two months. Have you noticed how much better is now? Whenever I have a tech issue, I just screenshot it, take photos with my phone, talk to chat GPT, and all sorts of issues, all sorts of troubles. like I suddenly I was limited to about 10 15% of the space that I used to have to write a simple WordPress blog post just my humble service to the universe right I'm just sharing light and love with the universe via WordPress for my small elite audience and then suddenly I could only go 10% of the distance before oh this is too large and you know what the problem was it was one bloody plugin and chat GPT found it. Thank God for chat GPT. ChatGBT found the unnecessary plugin. I removed the plugin. Then I was able to get in to my Amy Wax profile and collect about uh correct about 12 embarrassing errors. I'm a very respectable man. I don't like to be seen naked in public like with a cucumber coming out of a part of me, right? I I needed to get in there and fix the errors because like a lot of people look up to me. They respect me. They they see me as an oracle of truth and and now I've got this blog post on Amy Wax and it's got errors in it that I need to correct. But can I just simply go in and correct the errors? No. Something's happened to my WordPress and so I can't go in there and correct the errors because now the files too large. But once I delete that one bloody plugin, right, suddenly my WordPress works. But that's just it's neverending assault unless you like file a certain form with the city of LA, right? you have to pay them $400 in tax every year. It the the assault on you, the the everything feels like it's it's getting worse. And I know that's not empirically true. It just feels like it. This unending assault just to like protect my dignity. I'm a very respectable man and and I have to and and I just want to get along with everyone. I just want to share the light and the love. I I'm I feel like a king kindred spirit to Jason a day, right? He's my mate. He's my bloke. Yeah, he's done some bad things. I've done some bad things. All right. I just because he plagiarized, right, doesn't mean that you can just dismiss the man. I I'm sure he's got many great attributes. I I I am inspired by Jason Aday's story and and I just want to share the light and love that I've learned from Jason Aday. I just wanted to share and bring it to you. But does Chrome just let me do that? No, it has to start splitting up my browsers and I'm just trying to share the light and the love. What kind of crazy world is this? >> You know, that helps anyone but themsel, >> you know, I think any anyone can occupy a platform and kind of, you know, be be antagonistic and say all these things, you know, whiteness needs to be decentered and positionality and how about recognizing some of the privilege you've got? How about recognizing what you can do to help, you know, before you start telling white people all this stuff? Get your own house in order and think about things and think about the things that you're doing to help other people other academics of color before you start telling other people what they need to be doing and what they shouldn't be doing. And I think there's there's too many >> truth truth here from Jason Aday, right? He's dropping truth bombs, right? PhD thesis probably not as many truth bombs but here on this video decolonizing he doing the work as a person of color right Jason Aday right he knows how annoying Adobe and Microsoft are >> any there's too many people who like to tell other people what to do but they themselves are not enacting the things that they talk about and >> listen to Jason now say Bob is is a little too cynical for my taste he says coughness it seems is destined for the mainream dream now. Incredible. Really like this is not a place where we see some people rising and other people falling. This is a place of light and love, Bob. Right. This is a place of radical love and inclusion. Except for Microsoft and Adobe and other companies that annoy me. >> For me personally speaking, I always felt, you know, that's why I say there's a shelf life because it's exhausting to do that. It's easy to say things put them into I recognize that. where maybe I can't do the two things. Um, and when that day comes, I'll happily >> good on Jason. He's my mate. >> Out. And you let other people who've got the energy and the moral the moral compass to do that because I think in academia, one thing that is that a lot of people are bere >> sometimes it feels like all our heroes are gone or in prison. Like, is Ron Jeremy, you know, free to Rome anymore? No, Ron Jeremy is not free to Rome. Like, who what happened to our heroes? They've all been cast down that there's such a cold, cruel, cynical world out there. But let's celebrate the light and the love of Jason Aday. And I find he's just for me, he's the wounded healer. Like his flaws like the Yeah, he he didn't check this box, right? You can go, you can bang on that he committed this sin and he committed that sin, but for me he's the wounded healer. Like he's been through the mill, man. The amount of persecution that this guy has faced as a as an academic of color is just off the charts >> of and disconnected with his morals and ethics. Like they just, you know what I mean? Like some of some of the things people do, you know, you have people who are doing who are perceived to do exceptional things, but then the people that they work for that they treat like crap. >> Yeah. >> Sick with stress. >> Yeah. I can that that in itself is is mad is madness. >> And I I really I really hear that and never meet your academic heroes. >> Amen. >> Invariably, they're so much better on paper. >> Yeah. And I think this the issue with that is we our expectations are different for certain people. >> And I think for me as soon as I see an academic of color and I see someone that is in >> Right. So yeah, Jason Aday has done some bad things, but that doesn't make Jason Aday a bad man, right? And he just he was just dropping truth bombs. And and I know you're going to say, "Oh, 40, I dismiss him because he doesn't live up to my high academic standards that I I I just don't think he could pass peer review." And and then you miss out on so much light and love and wisdom. >> In a position of power, my assumption is always, okay, this person is doing something to help others, to bring other people into the space, to amplify. >> Is Jason Ay better on paper? I don't know. It just seems like an incredible man. Like gifted, compelling, like big heart. What an incredible story >> by other voices and amen. >> There have been times and unfortunately it has been black men >> in academia where I have felt extremely disappointed in the fact that they >> Yeah. Look, yeah, you really if you want to get the premium Jason Aday experience, he he's better in writing just like Curtis Yavin, right? his inspiration and courage Jason Aday in conversation with Rajani >> until I was 11. >> No, I do. >> Um and then >> I want to get the full story here. >> Amazing story generally speaking and then the professorship which is like >> the story which is like 1%. So it's 160 plays 24,000. So it's such a small number but I guess where it all started for me was um Clappam South London um which very proud to be from South London and I guess Clappam has changed a lot over my lifetime in terms of um what it's like and kind of I grew up between my grand lived in Brixham and and or lived still lives in Brixton and and I grew up in Clappam and um I guess to kind of keep it really succinct my my childhood was sort interesting. I mean, >> I won't go into everything here because it's probably not the place, but um the kind of headlines were I was diagnosed with um asperes um and global development delay just after I turned three. Um and basically I I didn't learn to I I didn't speak so I signed until I was 11. Um and then I I learned to read and write when I was an adult. So, I was just and I was just I' just turned 18. I learned to read and write. >> Unbelievable. >> Um, and I was part of a program actually um which it doesn't really exist anymore, but it was called Seven Up at the time. >> Wow. >> He he was part of the most famous TV British television documentary series that I think started in was it 1950s or early 60s and and and people go, "Oh, I can't see him in the series." But that's only because white racists have like cut him out now. >> And seven up is basically when they follow you over the duration of your life. So they follow you at kind of 7, 14, 21. >> And um I was pulled out of the project when I was 14. And basically um a lot of the a lot of my childhood involved spending time with kind of behavioral psychologists, speech therapists basically who I guess made all of these kind of predictions on how things would turn out and how things may. >> But if all he was was like a star of this TV show Seven Up, I mean Diane, that would be enough. That would be remarkable enough. But his story is even more incredible. I mean, I hope you're sitting down. >> May end up be well, not may how they would be um at some stretch down the road. And I guess um yeah, that's kind of not how things turned out. But I mean, I I um the things that kind of really moved me as a child was was sport. Sport was a big thing. And I was fortunate to play football to quite a good level um for a very long time. um >> he was a professional football star >> as a kid and then came out of an academy system and then went into um into playing some professionally but like >> yeah I don't know just interesting that's the only word I would describe it as and then um I took up playing snooker when I was 10 >> it was a professional and um got to a really good standard really good standard um >> I mean is there anything this man can't do >> um not good enough to be a professional. Um, I did try and enter the professional tour, um, but failed. >> Wait, what happened? Did I I clicked the wrong thing. What the hell? I'm just trying to play some Jason Aday >> different way. So, not being able to communicate with people >> um was interesting. Um, and I guess something kind of more privy to that was the fact that I spent all of my schooling in a special needs school. So, um, I I I was with >> I mean, he has had to overcome so much. And then you have to add in the white racism and the police, the the way that they would harass him. And he wasn't doing nothing. He didn't do nothing at all except try to, you know, he played professional football and he's on TV shows and tried to be a professional snooker player. He's just like living his life, showing the light and the love. And bloody police and white racists >> are the pupils that um had very severe learning difficulties and um physical disabilities. >> That's not enough. And then you have to add white racism and bloody police on top. >> Um and that in some ways opens your eyes and your worldview to very different things from a very young age. Um and so I had a view of the world which was very different um by the time I was like particularly by the time I was 11 13 around that time. >> I had a really interesting view because I'd never had any formal schooling in um in I guess what would be considered then a mainstream school um if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and it it kind of shows and it's an alternative view of the world and >> Oh yeah, >> there's a really interesting thing about that because >> so all his professional work contains song lyrics but nobody has noticed until now, >> right? The man has the soul of a poet. guess there's a there's a there's a there's a kind of virgin perspective on the world that you have which is kind of situated in Melancholia sort of and you have this kind of untainted world view and and at 11 you know you're very much a child and I guess what I couldn't have envvisaged even though I'd been prepared for those experiences by the time I was 11 I I didn't think I'd be in a situation where I actually had to utilize that wisdom at the age of 14 and um that experience like right had >> so let's go back notice him narrate two completely incompatible childhoods and nobody notices >> probably not the place but um >> now don't think you're superior to Jason AD's enablers right people in on your side in your coalition in your tribe say ridiculous untrue things all the time and you're not going to condemn it or or challenge it because it's inconvenient And so this is what we all do with our own side. >> The kind of headlines were I was diagnosed with um asperes um and global development delay just after I turned three. Um and basically I I didn't learn to I I didn't speak so I signed until I was 11. >> All right. So we got two incompatible childhoods here. Nobody notices. So it says he was non-verbal till 11, illiterate until 18, educated entirely in a special school among severely disabled peers in the same breath. He was in academy football then semi-professional play. He was snooker to a near profofessional standard. He had an attempt at the pro tour. He was a competent government in construction at 15 and he was selected for a longitudinal documentary project. Right? Any one of these is possible. Together they are two separate lives. Um, and then I I learned to read and write when I was an adult. So, I was just and I was just I just turned 18 and I learned to read and write. Had to apply my makeup on twice. So, I said to them, "Expl." So, a black woman said this to me. I said, "Explain. What do you mean?" And they're like, "Well, I know you like music, Jason." So, I'm going to kind of explain it to you in music terms. I was like, "Brilliant, fantastic." And they said, "You know that song by like Imitation of Life." And I said, "Yeah." And I know you like MM Jason. So like um you know there's this line where it says like come on come on no one can see me cry. And when I come into work I feel this horrible sense of doom and I encounter racism every day. I go into a toilet I cry. I get out of my system and I say to myself, I need to hold myself together for five more hours. And then I reapply my makeup in this small mirror in a cubicle and people just must. >> Bob says, "For all we know, Jason is a post irony comic doing a decades long practical sketch on western academia." Bob, that's brilliant. >> And you said, "People must just think I've got the worst digestive problem ever because I go away for like 40 minutes a day to do this." And it was just so sad, you know, that that idea really kind of embedded itself in my head. I apply my makeup on twice. >> Now, despite everything he's been through, right, all the white racism and the police, it's still quite um self-deprecating. >> My own journey or experiences. So, please forgive me. I'm I'm so sorry. um >> powerful. >> I think in terms of people who kind of help you get get across get onto the bridge first and foremost and get over the bridge, I would say that there there's two um there's there's two people who were like instrumental. Um so my mom Gy who I never call mom actually call um her whole thing was like you're going to do something great. She like she would say that every single day and I and I can remember hearing that as a child, not particularly understanding what she meant, but she was just so fixated on this idea that you're going to do something great and you'll do something that no one's ever done before and people will be in awe of what you've done. Now, probably all mothers in some way, shape, or form to lessing or varying degrees will say that to their children. >> All right, this is Jason Aday. Things can only get better. This is one of my favorite all time speakers. >> Thank you so so much. Um first and foremost, how are you all keeping? Are you all well? >> See, he thinks about other people. >> It's really good. Um it's really good to um be here to be honest. And um it's really funny when when you do these things, one of the things that's really interesting is like the first question I'm always asked is do you have any slides? You got anything you prepared anything? And um I mean probably part of it is a little bit experience but the bigger part of it is that um in a previous life I was a PE teacher and um >> so he never has any slides. But this guy he's got charisma to burn. I could just listen to Jason Aday all day. I just find it so elevating. >> One of the things that was always really interesting with that kind of life is that you prepare these lessons, these amazing lessons and then after lunchtime >> I bet they were great. Right. I I bet he prepared really original, detailed lessons. I I bet he was a fantastic PE teacher. I wish Jason Aday had been my PE teacher. >> Everyone comes in and you know, you got kids wired, people's wire, and you're like, "This plan is not going to work. You're going to have to change on the spot." And very often, >> so such wisdom there. Like he recognizes that he is not the boss, right? The situation is the boss. When you're talking about issues around race, decolonizing, the insection, generally speaking, one of the things you actually never know is who you're going to be speaking to. So, you're invited to speak to places, but you have no idea who you're going to be talking to. So, in a lot of cases, you have to be adaptable to the situation. So, you know, you have a conference like this, but I wouldn't know who would be here. So, a lot of the time, you're kind of getting a feel for what's happening, and then you're kind of responding or being agile to that. So he's asked to speak at a lot of places. He has no idea who he's speaking to, who he will be speaking to. So he just reads a room and he gives the room what it wants to hear. >> What a lovely thing. >> Particular situation. So um a lot of it is kind of running through thoughts, but hopefully it'll it'll correlate and make some sort of coherent sense. >> Um so I guess the easiest thing >> is always the hook. So, um, you know, I think in terms of legendary one hit, >> I I think he's pretty good. There's a story, some some trash novelist, but I think James Clevel, that's a novelist, right? And I think did he do a novel or something called The Rat? Anyway, it was about someone who was like king in prison, but then outside of prison, he was nobody. So like my father Desmond Ford, he was a star in Seventh Day Adventist world. Outside of it, he was nobody. He nobody outside of Seventh Day Adventism like ever heard of my father. My father didn't matter. Like outside of Seventh Day Adventism, my father didn't have any accomplishments. He didn't matter. He didn't contribute. He wasn't in the discourse. He he was nobody. But inside Seventh Day Adventism and in a selection of ex 7th day Adventists, he was mammoth. He was a star. hit wonders. We got Dar and um Dar's legendary one hit was Things Can Only Get Better and I guess it became the the soundtrack to you know New Labor Labor fire brand in terms of Tony Blair etc etc and what's really interesting with this idea is that you have this kind of space that's been changed you know in terms of galvanizing a whole new focus in terms of how people think when we kind of think about um I guess race and higher education what's happened in the last 5 years is quite remarkable. Um to give to kind of provide some context. So we're seeing you know we've seen a huge increase in kind of the numbers of black and ethnic minority students going on to postgraduate study through lots of different schemes um that have happened. Um Dr. um Bendina Woodoo has been huge in that leading route. Um >> so so good at telling people what they want to hear, right? No slides, right? He he's describing the exact conditions that make his work unuditable. No slides, no knowledge of who is in the room. He has thoughts running through his head. He hopes they're coherent. Right? This is his style. And it's just so charming. He's got the disclaimers, right? He doesn't know anything. He's not an expert on anything. He includes himself among those who don't understand. Doesn't claim that his conception is correct. Right? This is disarming. This feels sincere. You can't challenge this. Right? You can't press a man. You can't challenge a man. You can't order a man has just told you he doesn't know anything. Right? You press this kind of man and you are a bully. Right? You press the humble man and you are the bad man. He's got some really sharp critiques here about decolonialism. You'll be glad that you stuck around. >> Paul Williams and Dr. Shantel Lewis have been huge in that. There's been a lot of mechanisms around that. um the broken um pipeline leading routes report which led to 8 million pound funding competition from government um to the OFS. So there's been a lot of kind of advancements, but what has kind of perforated those advancements in that time are kind of little fads that have happened in that time. And probably the biggest fad that's happened is is decolonizing. And the reason why I I I say that because that particular term has been franchised and it's been packaged really really well and it's kind of happened within the storm. The Iowa >> He's absolutely right. He he says a lot of true things, right? He says some bollocks but he also says a lot of true things >> to you know walking running or jogging running but what we've done is completely accelerate straight to decolonize and I'm yet to meet a person who can define to me what decolonizing means because people >> right who could press who could give a hard time to such a humble charming man and Bob knows I must say Luke presentations without slides are often better them with slides. Absolutely. Right. People often rely too much on slides. They read directly from them instead of using them as props or illustrations. Right. Jason knows the truth. >> Do it one in such different ways and in and and one in a way that actually doesn't it's not actually sustainable. If anything, most of the decolonizing processes that exist in in of the last two or three years have actually caused more harm to black and ethnic minority people because they find themselves at the sharper end having to mobilize those interventions at a cost to their own physical and mental well-being also without the professional recognition for doing that as well and it being valued as professional currency. So in terms of the idea of decolonizing and in relation to I guess a subject area and look >> right it's getting a question here from the audience. >> Hi I'm Dan Bar from uh St George's University of London. Um I hope my question doesn't come across as all lives matter because it's not meant that way but the the modern world is the product of colonialism. I think you can say that but it's not all rubbish. So, how do we go about distinguishing, you know, what we want to decolonize versus what we and what do we do with the good parts of colonialism? I mean, you know, within the context that I meant the question, right? >> That's that's a great question. Um, my mom went to St. George's. Yeah, she graduated from there. Yeah. Um, so I guess from from from from my point of view, um, the good part to decolonizing is is almost like someone asking me what >> Okay, let's uh he's just completely lost here, right? Someone asked him a serious question and uh the port bloke is just uh lost at sea. So, I I don't want to I don't want to focus on that. I want to try to stay positive. Let's uh let's talk about five benefits of getting an early autism diagnos. And I can remember hearing that as a child, not particularly understanding what she meant, but she was just so fixated on this idea that you're going to do something great and you'll do something that no one's ever done before and people will be in awe of what you've done. Now probably all mothers in some way, shape or form to lessing or varying degrees will say that to their children. But um I I really believed it. My mom kind of really emphasized the fact that whether it's something domestic, whether it's something because it was never and and or lives still lives in Brixton and and I grew up in Clappam and um I guess to kind of keep it really succinct my my childhood was sort of interesting. I mean, I won't go into everything here because it's probably not the place, but um the kind of headlines were I was diagnosed with um Asperers um and global development delay just after I turned three. Um and basically I I didn't learn to I I didn't speak so I signed until I was 11. Um and then I I learned to read and write when I was an adult. So, I was just and I was just I just turned 18 when I learned to read and write. Um, and I was part of a program actually um which it doesn't really exist anymore, but it was called >> He was part of Seven Up, the most famous documentary in British history. Okay. >> Is so excited to be with you today. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, so is so just to say to your listeners like this is the first time the book came out last week and this is the first time we're kind of talking about it and now it's out. >> Wow. His books didn't seem to have much impact. >> So this is like really interesting. So it's going to be it'll be quite like organic um as all good interviews should be. But um yeah, I think that Jason and I would often have conversations about the ways of the world um whether that was work, relationships, families, and how we as neurode divergent people that also are black happen to experience these different parts of social life. Um I think in particular, um the kind of heart of the Very cool. Yeah. And Jason >> Julie, I I don't have anything. I never have. But um I've But what I will say is that >> he has no online presence. He's saying here this is uh from about 10 months ago. >> It it would be available from the Princeton bookshop anyway online. And >> Oh, yeah. Buy the book. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He he he Princeton, right? Princeton published a book on which he was a co-author. >> Yeah, it can kind of >> that's a big deal. Like that's a very big deal and I know you both are in academic space but that's the Princeton review. Like that's a a big deal to get published. So yeah, be sure to find it, support the book, share the book and and like you said just like one person like it just takes one person to create massive change and can be like dominoes to other things. So really appreciate the work you both are doing. >> Such powerful powerful work. >> Everyone for coming along. Um I'm Sha Atri. I'm an associate evening uh displaying information and research about Oxford's first black women students. So um do come along and have a look at that too. It's up up until Monday. So um I'm going to now introduce Dr. Jason Arde, our associate professor of in the department of sociology at Durham University. and um very prolific. I was scrolling down your your list of publications. I can't begin to talk about them all, but um mainly addressing questions of race, education, race and class, social social justice, intersectionality. Um has a new book coming out. >> People who have done the same thing and with a straight face they say this is original contribution to knowledge. You're like, "No, it's not. No, it's not. My PhD is not an original contribution to knowledge, BUT I DID IT." WAIT, KNOCK ME over with a Yamoka. He came out and told us October 27, 2021, his PhD is not original contribution to knowledge because my supervisor told me if you do that, you'll pass. And then it's like I've not published anything from it. I don't think anyone's ever read it. It's on reflective practice. So this is what I mean like you end up doing what your supervisor wants you to do. And it's this idea that, you know, I and I wanted to study, if I was able to choose, you know, the educational experiences of minority ethnic children or migrant children settling in the UK. But they said that that was a bad idea. Now, when you're green and you work behind the ears, you're like, "Okay, I believe you. I'll do what you told me to do." >> See, he could have done original valuable work, but some white racist who was I assume was his PhD supervisor like forced him to do a thesis, a dissertation where he could add nothing, right? If only he'd been allowed to do the work he wanted to work to do. Like he could have made original contributions to knowledge >> do. But you know your ears seem a lot der than mine was back then. So I think you're going to make better choices than I did. So I think it's really important that you have that courage and conviction. And if that's what you want to do, you do it. But you that's the sword. That's the hill you've got to be willing to die on, >> you know, because obviously your supervisor going to be waiting, not your supervisor, but super and say told you told you so. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah. >> So, that's really important that Drew just said, not your super. Yeah. So, >> right. He wanted to to do an original contribution to knowledge and he was prevented. Let's let's get back here. >> Don't be swayed on that. My job is to guide you. My job is not to tell you what is right and what is wrong. You have the hypothesis that's and you work with that and your idea is to make this contribution to knowledge. And you can't do that if somebody's influencing your you need to do this. you need to do you need if someone's doing that all the time you end up producing you know that's why there's so many clones of the same people in academia right there's so many people who have done the same thing and with straight face they say this is original contribution to knowledge you're like no it's not no it's not my PhD is not an original contribution to knowledge but I did it because my supervisor told me if you >> no he just essentially told us that he uh plagiarized but he's he's been advising parliamentarians for years >> right metaph speaking, but I think it requires us to dig this up and actually find out the reasons why certain things happen. So, you know, for me, I've spoken to parliamentarians. I have been an adviser to parliamentarians for nearly six, seven years now. And one of the questions I ask is I I don't understand how can there only be like 38 black female professors? How how is that actually possible? How come we don't see more people from workingclass backgrounds in the academy? How come we don't see black and ethnic minority people residing in the numbers that we find at the undergraduate level, postgraduate level, and post-graduate? >> Yeah, I don't understand why why don't all groups have exactly the same life results? Like I I hear all sorts of racists out there telling me that different groups have different gifts, but I I think every group should have the exact same life result or it's bad >> collectivism. So for example, there's the secret to becoming an academic. >> Now it's interesting who knows those secrets and who's obscured from those secrets. Now it's not by coincidence that people of color don't seem to know these secrets. I did a PhD uh in 2015. Two days after I finished my PhD, someone said to me, "Jason, mate, you've um you're in so much debt." I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I know." Like, um he's like, "Why didn't you just do a studentship?" So, I was like, "What's a studentship?" This is 2015. It's not that long ago. It's like, "What's a studentship?" He's like, >> hey, why are why people withholding valuable information about studentships from black academics? It's disgraceful, >> mate. They pay you to do to study. They pay you to a PhD. It's taxfree money. I was like, a studentship? He was like, yeah, surely you know what a studentship is. And so I asked other um I guess black aspiring academics, do you? I don't know about you, but like every white person I know was clued into studentships. Like we were kids. Like we all knew there was this gravy train. Why weren't black people taught about this? >> You know what a studentship is at that time and they're like no I've not heard I've not heard of one. And what's kind of really interesting is yeah that I mean it seems foreign because everyone knows that now but it was only up until recently that that se >> speaking of Dr. Aday what does Mr. before think of Abdul say being referred to as doctors often as so I I think you should only refer to people as doctors if they're medical doctors licensed medical doctors but uh a lot of people love being called doctor so it's just fun right who doesn't enjoy who who does not get filled up right replenished like just experiencing the light and the love flowing out of one at the opportunity to say Dr. Joe Biden right for me it's just a transformative experience I am never sweeter kinder more vulnerable and more full of light and love than when I am talking about Dr. Joe Biden like I stubbed my toe the other day my first question was where can I go see Dr. Joe Biden >> secret was let out the bag and that those ideas around individualism and selfishness and how people keep gatekeeping who doesn't have hold of that information. Now if you take for example organizations like Leading Roots which is spearheaded by the wonderful Plet Williams and Chantel Lewis those organizations have let the cat out the bag. Now everybody knows the secret. Now, that's the closest you're ever going to get to making it a level playing field. Now, what's really interesting is that there was this program on channel 4 called the talk. Um, and the talk was about the conversations you have with young people of color about race. And at the end of it, Lenny James said, "You know what? People waste so much time trying to make things equal. What would just happen if we all started at the same start line? if we all started at the same start line, what would happen? And it made me wonder, what what would happen? >> What would happen? >> Because, you know, people of color, this is the start line. People of color are like they're out, they're outside, they're outside if we all started, if we all started at the same line. What would actually happen? Because my point is is that you have these people of color navigating this crossfire hurricane and still finding a way to not only get in the academy and survive it but thrive it. And it comes back to this idea of suffering. You know, when I've spoken to those people and I've interviewed probably over 500 academics in the last 5 years. >> Yeah, I I'm sure he has. He wouldn't be lying, would he? >> Of color. And I would say that's pretty much most of the sector because there's not, you know, a massive spread of black academics in the sector. It's only 12 13%. As of 2019, courtesy of Advance H. When I've interviewed all of them, the one thing they have said is that I have suffered. M >> my family life has suffered, my mental health has suffered, I have lost relationships, I have lost, you know, aspects of my personality that I can't get back. I've lost years that I can't get back. >> This is awful, right? How how they've suffered. comes I'll happily bow out and you let other people who've got the energy and the moral the moral compass to do that because I think in academia one thing that is that a lot of people are bereft of and disconnected with is morals >> and ethics like they just you know what I mean like some of some of the things people do you know you have people who are doing who are perceived to do exceptional things but then the people that they work for that they treat like crap. >> Yeah. you know, >> sick with stress. >> Yeah. I mean, how can you that that in itself is is mad is madness. >> I know. I really I really hear that. And never meet your academic heroes. Invariably, they're so much better on paper. >> Yeah. And I think this the issue with that is we >> So, we all feel bad. We're all wondering how Jason is doing. He's been sued so much. But the great news is he told us April 3, 2020 in this video he's had an exit plan for years >> academics and students and the one common theme particularly around academics of color who've been in it a long time is that it it b it chews away at them. It chews away at their soul and I I don't want to be that person you know I really don't want to be that person and I've always said like my daughter will be 18 in 5 years and I think that would be a good time for me to knock it on the head and in 5 years I'll be 40 or nearly 40. So that was uh last year he turned 40. >> So that would be a good time for me to find something else to do because I think then you create spaces and platforms for a new generation of people with new ideas, a new vigor, a new kind of energy that you you need to have to challenge it because I think if you stay >> Bob says our day has not suffered. He has taken advantage of lack standards, lack of good judgment in the wider society. But can you imagine how how hollow that made him feel? I mean that sounds like a heck of a lot of suffering to me. I >> think this the issue with that is we our expectations are different for certain people. And I think for me as soon as I see an academic of color and I see someone that is in a position of power, my assumption is always okay this person is doing something to help others to bring other people into the space to amplify other voices. And there have been times and unfortunately it has been black men >> in academia where I have felt extremely disappointed in the fact that they they haven't recognized the contribution of black women. >> They haven't cited the work of black women. They haven't created spaces for um black women to be given a voice. And it it really really disappoints me more because you see in their writings and you see in the platforms that they're offered that they are positioned as people that can speak on race from an intersectional lens, >> but within their practice they are upholding patriarchy. And it's and that for me that's the part that I find really jarring. And I put um a tweet out a couple of months ago where I I named you Jason and I said you were the first black academic that I had actually seen that was doing a keynote and took time to actually recognize the women that had paved the way for you to actually be in that space. And the fact that you can actually name someone is the most disheartening thing because you think if you look at the people that are in um positions of power and influence within academia at the moment, particularly around the issue of race, it is predominantly men. >> It is. Yeah. And you know, and the thing that has always just been the saddest thing for me is that like let let's be honest, those men that don't do that labor and yet and and I include myself. I do do the labor, but what I'm saying is I profited from the labor and the blood, sweat, and tears of women of color, particularly black women, to end up in that position. And there are a lot of times when you're stood there when to be honest with you, you're a little bit ashamed. Um, because in some way you're complicit in that. It's like I told you the story of when I first started in academia and you see things happening, but you're thinking, well, if I jump in, I'm going to get in trouble, you know? And then and then you get to a stage where you realize you're you're complicit in that. You're part of that. You're part of that. you're part of that horrible um dynasty of men of color who stood by and watched their sisters suffer, you know, and then at some stage someone will talk to you and and you and you begin to kind of think people telling them how good they are. So, you just surround yourself with people, >> wow, he's got some sharp insights into the world of academia here. You need to hear >> you're privileging you're you're benefiting from something at the expense of other people. That's the time you kind of say to yourself, you get you get out or you kind of you ground yourself with good people. So they can tell you that. But I think in academia most of the time most people are not grounded by good people because a lot of academia is people telling people how good they are. A lot of academia is people telling people how good they are and it's matched by people telling them how good they are. So you just surround yourself with people like that. So you don't you never really engage in any kind of honesty because people just tell you all the time you're great which is >> right. He honesty he's telling us here honesty is such a lonely word but it's what he mostly wants right he's just looking for honesty >> like like you know I do a lot of stuff like that anyway like um but yeah my I think the thing that kind of separates me from my consciousness cuz sometimes my own head is just you know getting away from from that is I suppose um you know my biggest thing in life was always to I wanted to help other people as much as I could. That was my only real ambition in life and so you know a lot of um you know I'm in a very privileged position as I think we all are and a lot of the money I get for things. >> He is so relieved and so happy and so glad now that he is no longer in a position of so much privilege. >> Um I I spend it on basically homelessness. So what we do is we kind of buy a lot of goods um in a box and this was like toiletries, clothes, shoes and things like that and then we um and then we put some money and it's enough normally for three nights in a homeless shelter around London and what we do is we kind of go around different parts of London. So we >> look you may have plagiarized a bit but this guy has helped thousands of homeless people. He he's guided them up out of the streets and now the people he's helped, they've become astrophysicists and professional snooker players. They they are now producing movies. They are doing like groundbreaking innovative work in physics, right? Thousands of people he has lifted up from the streets. And and this poor bloke, he only ever wanted to be a a concert pianist, right? He he he's not a complicated man. He just wanted to bring he just wanted to play the piano and bring >> students off descent. So it was a lot around aspiration. So if a student turned around and said, you know, particularly students of color and they would say, you know, I want to be a concert pianist, which a student once said, and I was when I had to observe another teacher in class, the teacher said, well, I think um I think that's a bit unrealistic, but I do think you're quite good at sport and maybe you should concentrate on doing that. Um and that kind of stifling of ambition kind of really pricked a conscience in me in terms, >> right? If only you'd had more encouragement, he would be a pianist with the London Philarmonic right now. But because he's black, right, I presume this white person told him, "Oh, you're good at sport. That's more realistic >> of kind of thinking that you kind of have a responsibility to um to try and help these students as much as >> powerful. Powerful." I wrote um I interviewed one particular person and they knew that they know that I obviously love music as I told you at the beginning and uh in particular I likem. So they said to me like Jason you know that song by like a imitation of life. I was like yeah yeah I I know that song. It's a great song great song. They're like you know that line it where they kind of say like come on come on no one can see me cry. I said yeah that's that's a great line like um yeah this sugar cane this hurricane I'm not afraid. Come on come on no one can see me cry. So I said to them, "Yeah, yeah, that that's that's that's a great lyric." And they was like, "Yeah, is a great lyric." And you know, every time I come to work, I apply my makeup on twice. So I said, "Uh, what do you mean?" They were like, "Well, I have this horrible feeling at work when I get there. I I encounter the first two hours, you know, racial microaggration." So many of these Jason Aday videos are being made private and being removed from the internet and it just kills me because it's like we're telling Jason hide your light under a bushel, right? Don't share the light and the love, right? People are are preventing me from sharing with you the light and the love that you need to hear right now. >> Sorry. Racial microaggression after racial microaggression. I have to find a way to deal with it. I can't cry in front of people because if I cry in front of my colleagues, they'll see this is weakness. So, I go into a toilet. I cry for about half an hour. I'm fairly certain they think I've got the worst stomach problem in the world. And then I reapply my makeup in the toilet in my small mirror where no one can see me cry. And I come back out. And you know beyond the jovialness of kind of having this song reverberate in my head I was literally thinking of the practical application of applying putting your face on for another expression in the morning crying in the toilet because you're >> awful awful it's been through so much. Welcome to the surviving society collaborative and on >> and a lot of scholars and colleagues of mine noticed of color was that black and ethnic minority people weren't actually being given the opportunity to tell those stories themselves. When they started doing that, what emerged was a policing and a trivialization of the research that they do as not being empirical, as not being rigorous, um as being theoretically flawed. >> Yeah. >> Um when this research was being done by white scholars, and this research is helpful by white scholars, but just to make a comparison, that that wasn't happening. M >> in fact there wasn't even a questioning that black people and ethnic minority people weren't actually involved in the knowledge construction part of the process. In fact parts of it were probably quite um exploitative. >> Yeah. >> Um and as a sector there's a responsibility on all of us to reflect on that and to look on that and how we change things. Now, we've been presented with an amazing opportunity to really think about how we center the voices of black people in academia and give them the autonomy and the emancipation to talk about their lived experiences without >> Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point. Okay, what do we mean? What do we mean here? I mean, one of the things that you kind of speak about which is a a recurrent tenant. It's almost a spine of the trice is the white narcissist bit. Could you just unpack that for people that will be engaging with this will be listening, you know, as far as I'm aware. >> All right. Maybe a maybe a plagiarist. Sure. But he's a pretty good interviewer. >> I haven't heard of that term before. So, I would credit you with, you know, um the development of the term. So, what does that mean for people who will be listening in and who might be using who may be able to use that as um a proxy to explain their experiences with whiteness? >> Sure. Um, and I I've been very kind of I've been very careful and cognizant about the term white narcissist because it has lots of implications and underpinnings from, you know, psychoanalytic and psychological therapeutic work, uh, clinical psychological formulations of narcissistic personalities, etc. For me, I've I've been very careful to say I'm not talking about an individual psychological structure, but rather what I'm trying to do is I think something that we all do really, which is make sense of this very real uh effective thing, right? It's it's inside us. We feel it. We experience it. We observe it in in schools, in in classrooms, in uh boardroom meetings, and in lecture theaters. We observe it in the canteen in the cafeteria but we can't quite make sense of it. the literature and the research has very very um you know in a very rich way talked about whiteness and whiteness grammar whiteness systems um and but for me there was something missing from that >> vid Starky talks and today I'm delighted to be talking to a chap if I dare call him that who is very much in the news Nathan Kaufnas the the David um I'm a David but this is a real David a hero who brought down the monster of DEI at Cambridge. Nathan, we have a lot in common. We both have lots of degrees. They happen to be real ones. But shall we abandon them and just call each other Nathan? The other thing we've got in common, just so everybody understands, the reason we are both grinning is that we are enjoying vengeance. Good, honest, straightforward and Christian vengeance. Cambridge spat you out after. >> So I had a writing teacher who who said that when someone tells the truth, an unexpected amount of truth, like it feels like very molecules in the air change around you. >> After a couple of years, it spat me out after 56. You were a junior research associate of a college. I was, I think, senior honorary fellow. You were spat out over two articles. I was spat out over a word. So we can we can rejoice together. And can we begin then? Uh we're going to talk about our day obviously the the the man that you brought down and that you deserve enormous credit. And by the way, the other thing that deserves credit is what we're doing now talking online. The world of X and the world of the social media broke this story. If it had been left to the mainstream media and especially the BBC who has been throughout our day's most ardent patron and defender, none of this would have happened. But can we begin with you? I don't want to go on. Well, we may come back to my story and Cambridge. Give a brief summary of your Cambridge experience. >> Well, uh, thank you very much for having me. Now uh Sophocles himself could not have come up with a more appropriate person to break this story than me. Uh >> give a brief a modest comparison if I may. >> Well, I think when when Cambridge heard that that that the story had had broken out, they must have thought let it be anybody but Nathan Koffnes. Um now uh how did I come to get the story in the first place? Uh um uh and also uh the fact that it was not a random was not random and the response by Cambridge and by Ard's defenders was in part determined by the fact that I was the one breaking the story. So to understand their response and how it it was very different than it might have been if for example times higher education had broken the story uh you have to know a little bit about my background. So actually I first came to Cambridge as an MLI student in history and philosophy of science in 2015. Uh then I did my DIL at Oxford and then I returned to Cambridge as a Lever Hume early career fellow in 2022. So that was a three-year contract. Uh, so set to expire in 2025. >> Wait, what the heck? >> I, while I was employed at Cambridge, I simultaneously had a uh a research associate at Emanuel College, which was separate from my job in the philosophy faculty. Now, um, my area of of research is the philosophy of biology. So I'm interested in evolutionary theory uh and its relevance to a range of problems in philosophy and science and as part of that I'm interested in evolution of different human groups and how different ancestral populations may have diverged from each other in the average distribution of traits due to different selection pressures over the last um t you know 30 40,000 years. That's a long way of saying race differences and race differences in intelligence. Um uh in uh uh January 2024, I started the Substack newsletter, Nathan Koffnes' newsletter. The first essay that I published was called Why We Need to Talk About the Right Stupidity Problem. And uh sorry, >> can you just say that again more slowly and loudly? You began by talking about how stupid people like you and me are. In other words, those of us on the right. >> So, as I say, I am very much on the right. And I specifically looked at uh found evidence from the general social survey that people who are raced realist like me, which is the correct view, have the lowest IQs of all. like like very um very few people getting you know because they they administer abbreviated intelligence tests to people in the general social survey which is a population representative group of Americans that are surveyed regularly for the last few several decades and uh so they ask them questions like can racial disparities be attributed to uh genetic differences and then if you say yes then uh you you know you do poorly on logic test that they give you and you you you do poorly on a vocabulary test. So I I'm just saying that that's just how it is. Like it's about it's about telling telling the truth and that's the truth even though that's the correct position and even though you know I think a right-wing perspective is in some ways the correct way of of un of viewing the world. >> Can I just ask you to just one second? Can I ask you to pause there? What you're saying is that the traditional label of the Conservative Party as the stupid party is broadly right. That if you look online at the slop that passes for conservative thinking, all the stuff about Fabians being a secret society, this kind of stuff, it is rubbish. And it's embarrassing rubbish, isn't it? >> So in psychology, this is called stereotype accuracy. one of the one of two or three effects in psychology that's actually real. So stereotype accuracy >> uh I mean okay once in a while there's an unfair stereotype but for the most part you know if you think that Jews are rich or uh you know Jamaicans are fast sprinters that's not only based on irrational race hatred like there is it doesn't mean all Jews are richer all Jamaicans are fast sprinters uh but you know there are >> generally speaking generally speaking it's more likely to be true than false. >> So, for example, if uh the richest person in Jamaica is a Jew, uh and the fastest man in Israel is the son of the ambassador from Ghana. He's the the record holder for for the sprinter. So, it's not that's not like a total coincidence. And the stereotype about those those people is is based on statistical generalizations which are which are in in many cases true. >> And of course nobody raised a peep about this paper. Nobody would >> that's the point. So I I spoke in very frank terms about how the right in its as it currently exists attracts low human capital. the people who ident that doesn't mean that it's an inherently unintell it's inherently unintelligent intelligent to be on the right as I say I'm on the right uh so but uh um that that's just the way it is people who are on the right low intelligence for genetic reasons no one at Cambridge said anything about that was that essay got a lot of attention so it's not like people didn't know about it but they didn't care nobody said oh how would a conservative student feel if they read this like >> uh or h how can we trust you to grade the conservative students paper? You you discriminated. No, not a word. Then a month later, I wrote a follow-up article which is uh developing some of the ideas in the original uh in the original essay where I said that the only way to create a philosophically coherent right is to talk about the reality of race differences because all right-wing positions are just utterly indefensible if you can't talk about hereditarianism. uh you end up tying yourself in knots trying to explain why you don't care about these group disparities and the the leftist will always get have the better argument and will always appeal to to smarter people. Okay. So month later, February 2024, I write a guide for the hereditarian revolution. And this essay includes a frank discussion of race differences, particularly in the American context. what would happen if we got rid of affirmative action because many conservatives think that the solution to uh race racial issues is a color-blind meritocracy. So everything will be fine if we just treat everyone as individuals. Very common idea like the National Review Hoover Institution crowd. That's what they say. So my point or what one of the points I make is that you don't understand what would happen if we actually had a colorblind meritocracy where uh representation of of certain groups such as African-Americans would be decimated. It would it would fall um not just a reduction of 10% but it would fall to 10% of what it is or even less than that. Can I can I just again ask you to to um um just go back over that ground and and talk about evidence? You know, I'm a historian, so I'm peculiarly alert to the question of evidence. When you made that remark about the collapse of I mean, let's take the example the number of black students enrolled at Harvard. The evidence that you relied on was not evidence that you had produced. It was evidence that Harvard had produced. I'm correct in that, am I not? >> Well, there are very few people who are capable of understanding that. Um, the the widespread view is that I made it up out of hatred for for black people. Um, in fact, it was Harvard's statistic. And what this just one second again just so as we spell this out because it's so important we get this point clear. What Harvard did was to say if it applied the normal entry criteria based on SATs that kind of thing to black students they would fall and I may not have got the precise figures from 14% is it to.7. >> Yeah. In the year that the study was conducted, I think blacks were like uh 12 a.5%. Now it's uh and and they said that that uh if admissions were based only on grades and test scores, i.e. merit, then they would be actually a little less than 0.7% black. 0. >> Again, let's let's as we're flattering each other, one of the things I always tried to say to my students or used to say when I had more students was orders of magnitude. get your orders of magnitude right. then it doesn't really matter too much about the detail of you know is it 6 or 7 but get that though it's very important to understand which is the bigger which one of your critics didn't of course um but so so in other words Harvard itself said that there would be this catastrophic failure of as it were black representation at Harvard uh if ordinary the the ordinary standards which apply to all other students including Indians including Japanese including Asians as well as whites were applied to blacks. That's exactly what was said. >> Well, they hold each race to a different standard depending on his hierarchy and and its position in the woke totem pole. So, uh actually if you had meritocratic admissions, the proportion of white students at Harvard would not change that much. I think it would rise by like a couple percentage points according to to some some study. It would mainly be that blacks are being replaced by Asians. >> Exactly. Exactly. Right. So you said you said this there was then this vast outcry and what happened? Um, so I I should say as background in 2022 when I received the offer for the Lever Hume Early Career Fellowship, I also received a a similar uh offer from a very uh prestigious university in Asia. And uh many of my friends told me just go to Asia like you you know if you go to Cambridge don't you know what happened to Noah Carl uh at Cambridge the same thing is going to happen to you but I said no it's impossible because after Noah Carl was fired in 2019 the following year in response to the Noah Carl affair the university adopted a very uh uh strong free speech policy. to prevent something like that from ever happening again. Anything that's lawful speech, speech within the law will be protected. Nothing can happen to you. You can't. >> So you said you're fine. >> Free. So I said, "Yeah, Derek. Look, it's there on the website. They say you can't get in trouble for free speech. >> Can we get >> Right. That that is such an autistic comment, right? Just because you've got some standard on the website or some abstract value. I I got shocking news for you. The values that are extolled by corporations such as Starbucks, they they don't necessarily embody them. In fact, there's absolutely zero connection between what corporations, firms, universities, churches, synagogues, uh individuals. There is zero correlation between the values that people and organizations and universities claim and their actual practice. Right? The reason that people communicate is not primarily to tell truth. People evolved to communicate, to advance their own interests, to signal whose side that they're on, to signal to their tribe that they love and support and protect their tribe, to show that they're a good person. The primary reason that individuals and firms communicate is not to tell the truth. Sometimes telling the truth can be useful. It's not that people are automatically lying. It's just there's absolutely no correlation between what people say and truth. There are very few instances in life where telling the truth is the primary value of whoever's speaking or writing. Think of it as akin to playing tackle football, right? the type of behavior that you can engage in once the whistle goes and the play is live on a football field where you are legally playing tackle football. You cannot engage in that behavior outside of the football field without putting yourself at great risk. So too with telling the truth, right? There is a time and there is a place where your primary objective should be to tell the truth. And those times and places are about as common as the times and places where you suit up and you play a legal game of tackle football. There aren't many places there aren't many situations in life where your primary obligation is to tell the truth. In almost every situation in life, there will be other higher values in your best interests. So, at work, you need to just tell your bosses and your co-workers and everyone else what they need to hear, what they want to hear. You start telling the truth at work, you're going to get fired, right? You start telling the truth at church, you're going to be expelled from your church. You just start optimizing for truth at your synagogue, you're going to be thrown out of your synagogue. There's no group that I can conceive of that has any numbers, power, or influence where their primary request from you is that you optimize for truth. Life doesn't work that way. Very narrow segments of life can you play tackle football and that's aokay. There are only very narrow segments of life where your most important obligation is to tell the truth. And there's absolutely no correlation between the statements that people make, firms make, churches make, synagogues make, universities make, and what they actually stand for. People do not primarily communicate to tell the truth. People primarily communicate to signal in their own best interests. So they want to signal to a neighbor that they're a good neighbor. They want to signal to people at church that they belong to the church and they will help other members in the church and they will give out the right signals that they are aligned with this particular group. At work you need to say the things that you're expected to say. If at the big Christmas dinner, you are expected to stand up and extol the firm's virtues, you need to stand up and extol the firm's virtues or you're not going to have a job. And when you're extolling the firm's virtues, if you try optimizing for truth, you are not going to have a job. You go on a first date and you start optimizing for truth, you're not going to have a second date. That's not because people are evil. It's because we have a lot more requirements. We have a lot more things that we put much higher priority on than than telling the truth. So when I do this live stream, I I try to optimize the truth. But uh it's akin to someone strapping on a uniform and going out and playing tackle football. I haven't live stream in about two months. This feels really uncomfortable. It feels really tiring. It feels I don't like what I'm been feeling because this is a challenge. I got a new computer, new settings, things aren't lined up right. I don't have the the music. I'm just putting myself on the line. It's just so easy to to say, you know, one stupid sentence that would forever ruin my life, destroy the most important relationships in my life. When you start speaking online or you start writing emails, right, there is a tremendously strong current and that current only goes in one direction against your best interests, right? You start posting on social media, sending emails, and you start telling the truth, you're going to destroy your life. You start speaking honestly from the heart, you're going to destroy your life. You have to be so disciplined. You just you have to fight as hard as I have to fight off Microsoft to keep my bloody Chrome browser. I you have to fight as hard to maintain your safety and best interests when speaking online or when sending an email as Adobe popping all sorts of nuisances and announcements on you when you're just trying to get some work done under subscription that you pay $20 a month for and you're trying to get something done in time and you have to constantly go to war with Adobe just to use the product that you pay for. Right? So there will be very few instances in your life where people want you to tell them the truth and the correlation between the number of times people want you to tell the tell them the truth and the times that they tell you that they want you to tell the truth. There's absolutely no correlation when someone says I want you to tell me the truth, right? They are no more likely to want to hear the truth than if they had never said such a thing. So this notion that oh Starbucks says that they stand for XYZ values therefore there's going to be some correlation between the practices and the business operation of Starbucks and the values that they put on their website. There's no correlation, right? They may do some things towards what they say, but there's no strong connection, right? When you have your annual review at work, you'll most likely be asked about uh how well have you lived up to the firm's values. Right now, in all likelihood, most places you've wor you had no idea that the firm, the operation, the business had values. But talk to other people who've done the annual review and get your answers in order. And it you don't need to say anything approaching the truth. Just say we stand for diversity. We stand for equity. We stand for inclusion. Uh we want to make the world a better place. We stand for truth and for we we're here to help people. Like whatever people want to hear, tell them what they want to hear. I was set up with a woman because she told another woman, I just want a man to tell me that I'm beautiful. And she said, ah, I know just the person. Luke will tell you that you are beautiful. Now, objectively, was this woman beautiful? Not so much. But I was happy to tell her that she was beautiful because I'm someone who wants to bring light and love and I recognize that the times in life where I should be like optimizing for truth are indeed quite narrow. Again, pause just so that everybody understands a little bit more about what happened. That brought down the vice chancellor. That brought down the appalling woke international lawyer, vice chancellor Steven Tupe, who disgracefully had been uh he'd been the vice chancellor and president of the University of British Columbia and Cambridge insanely thought that somebody of that background was worthy to lead worthy to lead Cambridge. So, when you get caught like telling a lie, like there are many good reasons to signal that you're a truthful, honest person, right? You always want to be signaling that you're a truthful, honest person, right? Even if you're not. And then like when you get caught out, right, you just just have your explanations in order like, you know, I'm autistic or um you know, I made a mistake or you know, I'm turning things around or you know, I'm getting the monkey off my back. But he was brought down, wasn't he, over essentially one word that the formula on freedom of speech which he wanted required you to be respectful of all other opinions. And the university led by your department, led by the philosophy department argued, no, you've to be tolerant. And it also the the terms of the uh of of the of the uh uh revised policy on freedom of speech also uh played down the importance of welfare and sort of coddling students. And it drew on another great tradition, didn't it? It drew on the tradition of the Chicago. >> Now, it's great fun to talk to people who are low in agreeableness and higher in optimizing for truth, right? I love it. I think is fantastic as long as it's not self-destructive or antisocial. Right? Every community, every society, every synagogue and church, every firm, every operation has all sorts of obvious truths that it has to deny to cohhere, right? We'd all go crazy if we optimize for truth 24/7. So, we all need our precious little lies. And and if you go to war with people's most precious lies, it's not going to go well for you. principles be which state that no university can function if the university itself has political or social values. The university has to be neutral. Everybody participating in the university. >> Yeah. And and that's never going to happen because we didn't evolve. There's no evolutionary benefit to being neutral except in very narrow circumstances such as when you're playing football, right? Life evolved tribally. We evolved to live in a group strategy in within a community and no community that survives is neutral. So time and a place for neutrality generally speaking not an effective uh life strategy. Okay. I I so I think this works. It will get better. Life will get better. Jason Aday says so. Talk to you later, mate.