Lex Fridman: prediction

Transcript context

…I think you should be able to study what people think and I think it’s important that we actually do. So I think that… Let’s take for example, QAnon. Yeah, QAnon is wrong. But where did it come from? Why did they think that? What’s the motivation? Who taught them it? Who came up with these ideas? This is important to understand history, that’s important to understand modern American politics. And so, if you put your scholar hat on and which… You should be curious about everyone, about where they’re coming from. Daryl Davis, who I’m sure you’re familiar with, part of his goal was just simply to get to know where people were coming from. And in the process, he actually deradicalized a number of Klans members when they actually realized that this Black man who had befriended them actually was compassionate, was a decent person. They realized all their pre-conceptions were wrong. So it can have a deradicalizing factor, by the way. But even when it doesn’t, it’s still really important to know what the bad people in your society think. Honestly, in some ways, for your own safety, it’s probably more important to know what the bad people in your society actually think. I don’t know what you think about that but I personally think that freedom of speech in cases like that like KKK and Campus can do more harm in the short term but much more benefit in the long term. Because you can sometimes argue for this is going to hurt in the short term. But I mean, Harvey said this, it’s like consider the alternative. Because you’ve just made the case for this potentially would be a good thing even in the short term.And it often is, I think, especially in a stable society like ours. Whether it’s strong middle class, all these kinds of things where people have the comforts, the reason through things. But to me, it’s like even if it hurts in the short term, even if it does create more hate in the short term, the freedom of speech has this really beneficial thing which is it helps you move towards the truth, the entirety of society towards a deeper, more accurate understanding of life on earth, of society, of how people function, of ethics, of metaphysics, of everything. And that, in the long term, is a huge benefit. It gets rid of the Nazis in the long term, even if it adds to the number of Nazis in the short term. Yeah. Well, and meanwhile just… And the reality check part of this is people will always bring up, “What about the Klan on Campus?” I’m like, “They’re never invited. I haven’t seen a case where they’ve been invited.” Usually, the Klan argument gets thrown out when people are trying to excuse… And that’s why we shouted down Ben Shapiro and that’s why you can’t have Bill Maher on Campus. That’s why… And it’s like, “Okay.” And it’s a little bit of that what about-ism again about being like, “Well, that thing over there is terrible and therefore this comedian shouldn’t come.”…

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