UFOs: Examining the Evidence | Peter Boghossian & Michael Shermer

In this conversation, the world’s leading skeptic, author Michael Shermer, explains what it would take for him to believe claims of extraterrestrial visitation. Michael follows Pierre-Simon Laplace’s principle, popularized by Carl Sagan: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Michael has bet $1,000 that irrefutable evidence of human contact with aliens will not materialize by the end of next year. So far, he has no takers.
Peter and Michael discuss the brain as “an engine of belief” and how the human desire for transcendence and moralization leads people to extend their confidence beyond the warrant of the evidence. Education is one antidote to this cognitive malady, and Michael promotes teaching children statistics, probability, and how to “think like scientists”.
Peter and Michael also discuss organizational splintering (including in the skeptic and atheist movement), fashionable beliefs, why believers in alien visitations aren’t interested in SETI, Bayesian reasoning, the deep state, true conspiracies, Dr. Paul Hotez vs. RFK Jr., childhood gender transition, and Michael’s forthcoming book, Truth.
Dr. Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101.
Michael wrote a monthly column for Scientific American for 18 years. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers "Why People Believe Weird Things" and "The Believing Brain." His latest book is "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational."
Skeptic Magazine www.skeptic.co...
The Michael Shermer Show www.skeptic.co...
"Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational" by Michael Shermer www.amazon.com...
Shermer's $1,000 bet michaelshermer...
Rogan's invitation to Dr. Paul Hotez / 1670196590928068609
Twitter: / michaelshermer
MORE ALIEN CONTENT:
UFOs, Censorship, & Friendship with Michael Shellenberger • UFOs, Censorship, and ...
SSE: Are aliens living among us? • Are ALIENS Living Amon...
Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:45 The Substitution Hypothesis
8:15 Parallels between different social movements
15:12 Orienting people's disposition toward reasoning
19:35 Aliens
37:50 Michael and Peter react to street epistemology clip
41:51 What would it take for Michael to change his mind about aliens?
50:15 Misinformation monitoring on social media
55:15 Joe Rogan's, Dr. Hotez, & RFK Jr.
1:02:50 Backfire Effect
1:07:30 Trans issues
1:18:18 Conspiracies & "The Deep State"
1:23:55 What Michael thinks the future generation should know
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⸺BOOKS⸺
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[@drpeterboghossian]

Michael's book, "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational" www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Why-Rational-Believe-Irrational/dp/1421444453/

[@mumfi3400]

Great episode, Peter! I enjoy listening to Shermer, but a couple of things he said are not factual. Grusch's security clearance (Title 50) which he still retains is one of, if not the highest security clearances there is, and he was read into 2000 SAPs (special access programs). Also, there were emails to/from John Podesta regarding UFOs in the WikiLeaks.

[@erichabegger9895]

The discussion of aliens here is leaving out two important points: 1. Human civilization routinely uses eye witness testimony in assessing events and their accuracy. This is what happens in practically every criminal legal case ever brought against a defendant. The jury is instructed to weigh the testimony of witnesses, including mitigating reasons in favor of, or against, the witness testimony about a crime. To argue against all the eye witness testimony throughout the world about UFOs that are being sighted is the same as arguing that every juror that ever sat in a trial is disqualified from assessing the truth of the eye witnesses because the juror didn't personally see the UFO. 2. Currently, human civilization doesn't know how to overcome the general relativistic limitations on traveling interstellar distances in a reasonable amount of time. But that does not mean there are not loopholes in physics that would bypass that limitation. Those loopholes are known and understood in a rudimentary way. Scientists just haven't been thinking out of box, like they should be doing. Eye witness testimony shows acceleration of those craft as high as 500Gs, or even higher. That testimony from witnesses points to a firm disagreement with what our current physics understands and it points to a way to cancel the inertia of the mass in the UFO. Once a civilization accomplishes that kind of engineering all bets are off that aliens are truly from a different world. A UFO coming from a distant star's solar system is the most reasonable explanation consistent with all the witness testimony of how they perform.

[@spookyninja4098]

Mean while - The US House Oversight Committee is holding a public hearing on the 26th of July on UFO whistle blowers from the US military being high ranked and ranking Intelligence officers who are testifying that the US military has Alien materials hidden from Congressional oversight since 1947.

[@GoodLifeInSpain]

​@@erichabegger9895 The first wagon train left the mid-west and traveled to California in approximately 7 months. If you told any of those people that you could travel from the west coast to the east coast in 61 minutes, they would have scoffed and called you crazy. Yet, less than 190 yeas later, an SR71 Blackbird flew from California to Washington DC in 61 minutes and 20 seconds. The sad truth is...we don't know squat about the universe. A civilisation 100 million years ahead of us probably has a better handle on the physics of it all and has likely figured out how to navigate the stars in ways that astrophysicists haven't even considered.

[@GoodLifeInSpain]

I find the title of Michael's book to be pretty patronizing. Considering the universe is 14.5 billion years old and earth is only about 4.25 - 4.5 billion years old, and considering there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars...it's actually IRRATIONAL to believe that a civilisation 100 million or a billion years ahead of us hasn't figured out how to navigate the stars in ways that are completely beyond our comprehension.

[@katiemiaana]

I agree with Helen that it is all culture bound, given a society with less rigid gender norms, feminine men and masculine women accepted then the need to resort to quite frankly misogynistic anti scientific rhetoric that denies reality, ie. a transwoman is a woman would not be necessary. People can only do this whilst they have access to HRT so it has institutional backing also which muddies the water.

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

🙌

[@robbie_]

I think there's a huge elephant in the room here. Michael says "just read the studies", as if the scientific enterprise is free and open. It is not. Politicians set up systems of incentives and scientists through their institutions work within those incentives. The incentives are, for example, getting onto a PhD programme, getting tenure, getting research grant money, getting published in reputable journals, etc. When it comes to something like climate change, suggesting we just "follow the science" really doesn't work because of this. It's really notable to me that most of the people you'd consider sceptics are retired.

[@notnotkevinjohn]

Even accepting that scientific institutions aren't immune to corruption or ideological capture; what better alternative do we have for knowing what's true? No one is saying the studies are perfect; they're saying they represent the best data we have available to us. If you have better data, by all means, show us where you got it and how you know it's not reliable.

[@robbie_]

@@notnotkevinjohn Oh but everybody is saying the studies are perfect. That is where you're wrong.

[@notnotkevinjohn]

@@robbie_ Okay, who has made that claim?

[@robbie_]

@@notnotkevinjohn I can give so many examples. One, for example, the BBC had a meeting back in 2010 or thereabouts where they decided they were not going to air sceptical opinion. Another, the "97% of scientists agree" paper was statistical rubbish. The criticism of that paper was not discussed in the media but that statistic has been repeated ad nauseum. How many examples of claims do you need?

[@notnotkevinjohn]

@@robbie_ This always happens with the ufo crowd, I ask you for a piece of evidence and you answer a different question and then immediately pivot to another claim. Give me the name of the person who claimed that studies are perfect. Failing that, give me the name of the show it was on, or a keyword I could search on KZbin to find the clip. Give me enough information that I can be sure I am looking at the thing you are talking about. I don't understand why you are pivoting to the '97% of scientists' claim. The claim was not that 97% of scientists thought that studies demonstrating the existence of climate change were perfect, only that they were correct. Do you understand that is a different claim? so, if it's not too much trouble, just a single example that I can verify and that supports you claim will do just fine.

[@efsbass]

Lmao I remember Neil de grass’ skepticism to an abduction question “if you’re in the ufo, why don’t you grab something off the examining table and bring it back with you.” 😂

[@Fairdemand554]

Shermer hasn’t thought enough on the premises that hold up the trans idea. There is no possible way for a male to ‘feel like’ a female. A male only has access to the mind of a male, he doesn’t know what it would feel like to think like a woman. Every thought and feeling he has is that of a man, no matter the feeling. And in fact there are tons of case where a woman identifies as a man, goes on testosterone and is suddenly surprised at the feelings that arise from it, proving that the person in fact did not feel like a man all along. The entire trans idea is a farce. It’s ghost in the machine nonsense.

[@odinallfarther6038]

I laugh every time this guy is introduced as a sceptic he is sceptic about every thing he doesn't believe .

[@johnnypt14]

I agree. It reminds me of that one dictionary that added a definition to "woman" as "someone who chooses to live as a female". Except.....what is that? Living as a female? Can a man live as a person who gives birth? Can he live as someone with a different chromosome makeup?? It's just nonsense. You can't "live" as a female because the very things that define female cannot be replicated by something else.

[@candiceberg5232]

I feel like i just listened to 45mins of 2 people says 'i think it was swamp gas' Where does this 'examining evidence' portion take place

[@psjak1]

Haha wow took so long to find this comment. I agree. The evidence is overwhelming, as Ross Coulthard says in a US court of law witnesses testimony is enough to end lives. And in this case there’s thousand of recorded cases. At least we should investigate straight away and demand truth, fair to say that we can’t be certain it’s aliens. But there seem to be something beyond our physics, just Google the AIAA science paper on the Gimbal video and listen to the pilot testimony for the tic-tac

[@gapho5198]

When evidence is presented.

[@psjak1]

@@gapho5198 There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that is public, spanning decades, some of which more recently involve pilots who used to fear their jobs and lives for speaking on this topic. As well as references to the fact governments have a lot more sensor data as shown in the 3 video snippets confirmed by the pentagon. We somehow were able to accept that blackholes existed before there was any photo. Some things we can acknowledge are very difficult to collect data on, alien tech, well do we really think they're going to land on the White House lawn? If there's any chance they've made a treaty with with other life form as David Grusch says, then they may have very well agreed to remain "hidden" for 75 years or some amount of time. Who knows, I'm just speculating on what's out there, but at the very least these claims should concern us enough to take it seriously and demand more investigation. I think we may be surprised what's been hidden behind the stigma

[@jackiekjono]

Wokism was in fandom before it was in the atheism movement. I think autism plays a role. I think the first communities to fall to it were those places where the socially awkward congregate - especially if they were fairly sex-segregated places to start with (atheism cons might be place where there are a lot of socially awkward guys. Slash fiction forums might include a lot of socially awkward women.) In my experience among the slash fans, when you met someone in person who was the most absolutely terrifying person online who owned all of the social power, they would turn out to be a mousy, easily intimidated sad little person who could barely function and she seemed to not understand just how powerful she was online because she would still feel like a tiny mouse. If you don't really understand your own power, it is hard to see the value of mercy.

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

So I wasn't imagining that furries seem overrepresented among wokesters?

[@jayjaydubful]

​@miroirs-jumeaux surely it is 100% a fetish of the wokesters? Not that conservatives don't have sexual pathologies, but I would think that the furry kink is very contained amongst the liberal 'left'

[@mmaximk]

The hypothesis that UAP are secret US technology has at least two fatal contradictions: First, the location of UAP activity where their detection by instruments and observation by individuals without clearance is a certainty is not compatible with secrecy - especially when those instruments and eyes belong to various branches of the US military itself. Secondly, detections and reports of these objects predate the jet age. Since the flight capabilities of the objects are more advanced than currently acknowledged military aviation, it is not plausible that the US (or any other military) has had such capabilities for almost a century without ever deploying it to military ends in any live theatre of war.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

Exactly. These technologies would still make any nation that had them dominant.

[@VesnaVK]

Tomboy does NOT mean gender dysphoria. I was shocked and disappointed to hear this

[@BunE22]

Yeah, I was the first girl born of 13 grandchildren, there were 2 after me. So I grew up with brothers and male cousins. It's easy to see why I was a tomboy.

[@HellCatt0770]

Yes! Speaking as a tomboy I didn’t want to be a boy I just liked a lot of physical activity, building things and hated dresses/hair clips and dolls (creepy things). Not my fault someone made up some stupid ideas what girls are like! I’ve had 3 daughters 1st and 3rd were anti-dress and hated pink, dress-up, dolls etc., middle one loved all that stuff but still ended up becoming an engineer! In my experience the sexist stereotypes are just wrong! Men and women - very few [maybe no one) fits 100%

[@VesnaVK]

I hated all that pink frilly stuff but wasn't athletic. It just means kids are individuals. It's the woke brigade who are bringing back the stereotypes. They're the ones who are saying that trucks are for boys and dolls are for girls. (And that's how you can tell what "gender" a kid is.)

[@miguelbinha]

My father and all his platoon had a cigar shaped craft hovering over them in Lake Niassa , during a military patrol in the colonial war in Mozambique.l in 1962. All his platoon saw it and took defense positions. It stayed there for long minutes. No matter what anyone says, I know it's true. No suggestion, no drugs, no collective hallucinations. It is real.

[@RVMTube]

Atheists tend to have a strict belief system, where they will defend their beliefs in-spite of contrary evidence, to the point of dismissing evidence. Notice how in one breath he gives weight to multiple eye witnesses and says that 3 eye witnesses would constitute something... but then makes fun of Jesus and the bible, when the gospels are literally 4 corroborating eye witness accounts...

[@miguelbinha]

@@RVMTube indeed. If they discredit it now, imagine when they are confronted with its demonic origin.

[@RVMTube]

@@miguelbinha troll, you wondered too far from your bridge.

[@miguelbinha]

@@RVMTube always the mockers...Smart pants...

[@RVMTube]

@@miguelbinha an argument based on something would be more valuable than an assertion .

[@ReeTM]

I'd love to know Shermer's take on the West's tyranny during COVID. Deluded to the point of denial.

[@hcleskov-fischer6033]

He was very much in favour of it. In a recent triggernometry podcast he defended Fauci, saying one couldn't know if Covid wasn't as deadly as Ebola. According to shermer it was only appropriate from summer 2021 (!) to be skeptical about mask mandates and lockdowns. Great Sceptic...

[@sionnach.1374]

I have a feeling he would gave been pro mask even though there was no good non manipulated evidence to support their use

[@just_another32]

I like the guy but I imagine he would stick with mainstream narrative on covid related stuff

[@realistic_delinquent]

Shermer doesn’t actually have opinions. He has an exceptional eye for the most popular position, be it informed or delusional, and he leaps on it. I’ve never seen this man deviate from the most popular option on any census poll. I think he thinks that’s what “truth” means. Unfortunately, he is also a very gifted sophist, so his role is effectively to consolidate opinion in the direction of the popular opinion.

[@yamishogun6501]

Shermer has a video up on his views of Covid, and they match the NY Times. He was pro mask mandate and even said others don't have the right to make him sick. He would never have said that about the flu, and the IFR of Covid was only 50% to 100% more deadly than the flu. (He was at no risk of dying from Covid at his age and health.)

[@andrewwood7303]

I’ve followed Michael for what feels like forever and his level headedness is a wonder to behold. His ability to cut to the essence of any issue is second to none. The only time I’ve ever seen him mildly flustered is when Deepak Chopra tries to feed him a speculative, esoteric word salad. Wonderful to see him helping Peter to refine and develop his intellectual life. Big fan of both these guys - keep up the hard work!

[@sd5919]

Level headed? Dude is the iconic midwit.

[@Piperdreams]

Levelheadedness doesn’t exist in making specious speculations and biased opinions, isn’t cutting through to the essence of issues. Skeptics risks becoming snared in their own traps of trying to prove fallibility which is what Michael has a tendency to get caught in the right/wrong/gotcha despite him denying it … because they’re too impatient to withhold their skepticism until all the facts are known. I think in this episode, Peter was helping Michael to be more considered.

[@andrewwood7303]

@@Piperdreams I’m not sure if this is a reply or a long statement of some sort.

[@rayfighter]

@@Piperdreams when it comes to confused individuals attacking Shermer's skepticism, he came out of this discussion with flying colors, despite rather erratic inputs from Boghossian.

[@simonrae3048]

Agree 100% Michael is the ultimate in good old fashioned common sense. He got me started on this KZbin thing just around Covid. Have now watched loads of other presenters like Dawkins or Hitchens. I now get time, the endless endless millions of years, get evolution and understand the concept of the ape..... man, And that we are making it up, in real time, as we go along. There is no overarching conspiracy because no one knows WFT is going on> And when a comet threatens mankind in the near future, it will concentrate everything and people will realise all the other stuff was window dressing. The speck of earth in a frighteningly huge Universe. It's amazing

[@royjacobs1204]

On a scale of 0-80% i dislike Sharmer around 80%, plenty of data points clarify this.

[@smelltheglove2038]

He’s a little smug but he makes really good points when talking about stuff I agree with him on. Hahaha. I think he’s a bit too skeptical about UFOs and ancient civilizations.

[@brianmeen2158]

@@smelltheglove2038well ufos is difficult to talk about as the “evidence” just isn’t there. I would love it if we find out they(actual aliens) exist but I just don’t believe it yet

[@odinallfarther6038]

As a sceptic he is weak .

[@viktordoe1636]

He is not sceptical at all. He critizices things which are contrary to his own political and world views. He is not at all sceptical about things that align with his views. This is not scepticism this is being close minded.

[@odinallfarther6038]

@@viktordoe1636 👍🏼 I agree with him on many things but he's no sceptic and certainly no intellectual .

[@say10..]

Thanks Peter and Michael. I could listen to you two talk all day.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you!

[@nebyenrub]

If anything Steven Greer has to say is true, then this conversation doesn’t include most of the context needed to form any kind of informed opinion on this matter. Seems unlikely that Dr. Greer is completely full of it.

[@HellCatt0770]

I actually think Greer is a VERY unreliable source. If UAP calling was for real then you could get them to turn up for press, scientists etc.

[@d.s.5157]

Greer is a charlatan and fabricator 😂

[@biglollol]

As someone who believes in the possibility of aliens, I think Greer is full of shit. Never been able to prove anything.

[@heathmckenzie6875]

Great episode. I think what some people in the skeptic community fail to realize is that for many people, stated beliefs are a social and pyscological tool much more than a statement of what they actually believe. I think behaviour provides a better insight into what most people actually believe than their stated beliefs.

[@Earthad23]

People act out what they really believe.

[@tonyburton419]

Not totally, but to a very considerable extent.

[@brek5]

Yeah, it is astonishing how many people fall apart when you start asking them first-principles questions about their ideas (and often get angry). Whatever it is--I'm pro-life/pro-choice, for example--or any topic, and then just ask them what the purpose of that is and how that policy would achieve that purpose. I rarely get past just platitudes or tautological statements rather than being able to drill down to the ultimate aim of their, say, policy recommendations.

[@spookyninja4098]

Mean while - The US House Oversight Committee is holding a public hearing on the 26th of July on UFO whistle blowers from the US military being high ranked and ranking Intelligence officers who are testifying that the US military has Alien materials hidden from Congressional oversight since 1947.

[@Man_fay_the_Bru]

So basically they think it’s real so it is😏

[@mellowtron214]

*Im an atheist with young children, and I agree that I’d rather my kids go to a religious school than a Wokē cultist school. Mainly because I know the ins and outs of religious ideology, and it is not difficult to defeat in the field of thought. They have nothing, and it’s easy to explain that to anyone. Wokeness however, has 15/20ths of a thing here, -10,000 of a thing here. It’s diffused across everything everywhere. So it’s harder to explain away, I can do it, and often do, but it’s ubiquity and convoluted fuckery is more difficult to unravel than religion, which is simply factually untrue. Aspects of wokeness are true, they touch on parts of actually existent issues, so it’s harder to get a child to understand that racism is wrong, but what these self proclaimed “anti-racists” are doing IS RACISM because they have redefined racism etc etc. it’s more complex and dumb.*

[@Earthad23]

Everybody believes in something, the variable is what that thing is you want to believe in.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

My response to "racism is always wrong" is " why do rattlesnakes have rattles?" To rell you they are rattlesnakes. In other words,you have been lied to.

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

I give Shermer a lot of credit for being able to change his mind when new evidence appears, and that alone is really great. That said, I find his 'priors' (see comment below) indicate he doesn't have great judgment to start with. I suspect he has to change his mind a LOT based on new evidence because his initial read of a situation isnt all that good.

[@orihoola]

That's a great observation. Begs the question, would you rather be lucky (priors) or good (adaptable to new information)?

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

@@orihoola I would rather be both, good judgment up front AND be willing to learn and adapt. Many people I know are actually like that.

[@sd5919]

Lucky or good? Awful question. Shermer is neither. If you’re as wrong as he is on a question of this magnitude (UFOs) you need to accept that you’re simply intellectually inferior.

[@Pierre-Leloup]

As far as UFOs are concerned, I have much more confidence in Ross Coulthardt, who is an exemplary and extremely competent journalist, as he has a much wider field of vision on the subject because he is much better informed than this guys, sorry for them...

[@HellCatt0770]

Agree I have a lot of respect for Sherma - first time I saw him Graham Hancock and Randal Carson completely annihilated him on Joe Rogan! He is wrong about Ancient History and maybe many other things but he puts himself out there and doesn’t just shout ‘bigot’ then run away. We could all learn from this!

[@kyledrake9750]

The reason grievance groups start splitting and attacking each other is that their MO is to feed on those around them to increase their sense of value. It is about forcing a narrative on those you are interacting with where you become the "good guy", the pure one. It is the game of becoming the virtuous big fish regardless of how small the tank gets.

[@camhopson7067]

Great points!

[@grippercrapper]

Absolutely. It’s just evidence that their intentions were never pure. It’s all a facade.

[@davidkennerly]

I was waiting for the audio to fall out but it never did. I'm not sure why the audio warning was necessary.

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

what color is the dress?

[@JTNugget]

Calling the valuing of eyewitness testimony "religious reasoning" is a pretty damning belief of the entire history of common law.

[@lucasdieguez1244]

I'll never understand why skeptics are so adamant on having evidence for some matters, yet for others all that matters is "freedom" of choice. It also baffles me how they always see empathy as something "good"; maybe they just don't know the difference it holds with "sympathy". Boghossian was excellent, as always.

[@Man_fay_the_Bru]

It’s simple…there’s NO PROOF ALIENS ARE COMING TO EARTH IN SPACESHIPS🤦‍♂️

[@notnotkevinjohn]

I think you're conflating the importance of evidence with the importance of freedom of choice. For example, I can be skeptical of the claim that vaccines cause autism, while still strongly supporting the imperative that people should be free to choose whether or not to take them.

[@richarddoan9172]

What are these other matters that skeptics are hypocritical about? You seem to have something in particular in mind.

[@alexandermcclain5561]

We love you, Peter.

[@nickj.7876]

We sure do❤

[@CSestp]

Damn it peter, why do you not have a traditional podcast listening option? Would love to hear these longer interviews while on my hour and a half drive.

[@theinnerlight8016]

Downland the episode in the youtube app?

[@drpeterboghossian]

We do!!

[@williamlavagna1096]

nice bait

[@CSestp]

@drpeterboghossian what services or name is it under, tried to find you on Spotify and was only able to come up with individual interviews on other podcasts.

[@CSestp]

​@@theinnerlight8016I'm not paying for youtube.

[@grippercrapper]

You did it once again, Peter, another great video. Keep this up and I’ll never need Netflix.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you! I appreciate the support.

[@jackiekjono]

Mr. Shermer has not been paying attention to the Catholic church. Before sending his child to a Catholic school he should check out some of James Lindsay's new discourses podcasts on the Catholic church. The current Pope is a hard core Liberation theology guy which is the Catholic version of social justice Marxism. Paolo Frieri who is primarily responsible for woke education also came out of Catholic Liberation Theology. There are some great Catholic schools out there but, they are getting harder and harder to find.

[@ashleybennett4418]

The catholic church has been opposed to progress for centuries

[@WendiFriesen]

I had a visitation about 20 years ago. It was totally clarity, the memory is still intact. I shared the experience with a UFO researcher and she told me that the details that happened is the same experience for many who've had visitations. Interview me to learn more.

[@redplanet76]

The problem with being a hyper skeptic is there is NO DOWNSIDE RISK. For instance on UAP, if despite all the evidence we have, you remain hyper skeptical, and it proves to be true, then all you do is shrug it off and no one really cares. So it's not impressive to me for you to remain hyper skeptical ... there is no virtue there because there is no risk there. Great discoveries often carry huge prior risk.

[@jompot]

zero evidence- as in ZERO

[@WhiteWolf126]

We have no evidence.

[@TheVaged]

Jee golly gosh, you know we might be trusted with nuclear weapons and be the premiere aviators in the Army but we totally got a saucer and a balloon mixed up, sorry about that!

[@Earthad23]

@@WhiteWolf126What about thousands of people seeing things? What about mass sightings? We didn’t have evidence for mountain gorillas other than tall tales from witnesses. You can’t just dismiss claims because you don’t want to seem foolish.

[@brianmeen2158]

Skeptics are great but they zap the fun out of life in ways . Are there are creatures or paranormal phenomenon that skeptics are truly challenge and weirded out by? Things they cannot begin to explain..?

[@eileenkast4982]

By not agreeing to debate Hotez has lost credibility. RFK Junior keeps saying the same thing to everyone who disagrees with him He says this.,,,”Tell me where I’m wrong “. This is always met with silence. Makes you wonder Kennedy has agreed to debate several people against just himself and no one will do it.

[@rossydv]

Followed Shermer for decades. Big appreciator. Newish to Boghossian. Diggin’ him too👍

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thanks

[@rossydv]

@@drpeterboghossian do you accept volunteers (in Canada)?

[@dentonweiss3642]

The reason we don’t care about SETI, is because we believe they are far beyond radio communications. Period.

[@cooperwesley1536]

Shermer is wonderfully Old School with respect to his skepticism. Back in the day, the common expression with respect to any new idea or conspiracy was "I'm from Missouri, show me"... which meant, "prove it." At his core, Shermer still operates this way... as do I. I think this is why I'm so neutral (and periodically suspicious) with respect aliens. I'm totally open to the idea (it makes sense), but to believe it, I will need to see the proof on full display at the Smithsonian.

[@sd5919]

Midwit rot.

[@tristanblaze8238]

@@sd5919?? Anything else to add to that

[@cleven77]

What a great conversation! So logical, so rational, so honest. Love these guys.

[@pdxnikki1]

Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. They require sufficient evidence.

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

Couldn’t the evidence be both extraordinary and sufficient?

[@odinallfarther6038]

That's a fair, point I think the demand for extraordinary evidence is just a rhetorical embellishment grabbing them by the short a curlys an attention grabber .

[@pdxnikki1]

@@EmperorsNewWardrobeSure, but it's not necessary. Only sufficiency is required.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

​@@pdxnikki1that's what I've said for a while. If it's enough evidence to convict someone in court,it's enough evidence.

[@palmereldritch_6669]

Our school system is antiquated and isn't even good at teaching antiquated things. Education should be about getting people to think about things like ethics, epistemology, statististics, psychology, life purpose, managing finances, and other practical things. Also, the best education is engaging, personalized, and interactive.

[@angelawest9759]

Couldn’t agree more. I have been saying this for years. Schools have not moved on much from its original 19th century model. We need massive reform in education. It kills me that we teach kids algebra but don’t teach them about psychology or money.

[@palmereldritch_6669]

@@angelawest9759 The most frustrating thing is that this country has produced mountains of evidence as to how to improve education. Yet we ignore it while other countries are capable of changing and improving. Football gives people brain damage, yet it's still the cornerstone of high school in America. Absurd.

[@padraigadhastair4783]

Thank you Michael and Peter, amazing conversation. Cheers.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you!

[@populisttrope9385]

Shermer admitting he would rather send his son to Catholic school than any Cali school says everything you need to know.

[@golpherguy6388]

Awesome interview and discussion! 👍🏻

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you.

[@bhaskarbagchi1643]

I am a mathematician with a degree in statistics, though I must confess that, after a lifetime of pure maths, I have forgotten most of stats. But I do understand the basics. Wish to make a few points. I am not a "believer", but I think that there's enough out there for the subject of UFOs to deserve serious and urgent scientific scrutiny. Aside from the question of why apparently credible people with apparently credible background should risk their career and sanity to come forward with such incredible claims (I am thinking of Grusch and those who back home up, and potentially those who are going to testify under oath in the Congressional hearing of 7/26), there's also the "eyewitness accounts" of countless "experiencers and abductees". I get it that all this doesn't count as scientific evidence, but it justify a serious and concerted attempt at collecting such evidence (such as by the Galileo project). Also, if you truly believe that Grusch is credible but mistaken, then why was he subjected to harassment and threat after his whistle blower complaint to the IG of IC, as he claims he was? Also, if what these people seem to have found is secret US technology, why was the US government secretly studying this phenomenon all the time ( the 2017 NYT article) and now continues to do so openly? Why are so many in the Congress taking these claims seriously enough to try and include such funny language in the upcoming defence bill? While we are agreed that there must be other intelligences in this vast universe, it does seem absolutely incredible that we should be on a galactic highway where so many of them congregate. But, given that we know so little about life and intelligence, let's be a little humble and say "who knows!"

[@PJM273]

There's about a million people on Twitter and YT (and almost every Joe Rogan fan) that I'd like to strap to a chair and force them to watch this. Thanks, Peter.

[@blindjusticeandcommonsense2786]

A minor point about George W saying we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. The important variable was time. Saddam HAD weapons of mass destruction and the US and the UK knew he HAD them because the US and UK had sold them to him. The time bit is that he had since gotten rid of them. So then W was scratching his head and came up with the line about him moving them. Which was plausible in the sense that the US and UK had no evidence trail but at least the 'moving them' was a hypothesis that could then be tested. (If you want to check on the bit about the US and UK having sold the stuff to Saddam it is public domain material. Including the efforts by the UK government to lie about it and let people go to prison over the 'Iraqi super gun')

[@greghavens7679]

I have to disagree with Michael on the secret vehicle subject. The U.S. Gov't loves to show off it's new toys. I think keeping a DIY UFO at Area 51, a secret would be a very short lived secret.

[@TheHighlanderprime]

He’s so wrong on this subject on so many level. It exposed his true biases over and over again. And Peter seems to share the same linear inclination towards the subject.

[@paeporeckoner]

thanks Peter - you're the light we need in this darkness of woke and I hope your conversations and voice will help us rid our society of this fascistic attitude. You are part of the reason I no longer blindly accept leftist ideology. And don't worry because you are indeed on the right side of history :)

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you!

[@LeighAnnMiller]

Two of my favorite people! ❤

[@jeremiahmacclure]

Love Michael Shermer, he is our David Hume. Not to minimize Peter's contributions of course.

[@TheHighlanderprime]

He’s not Hume.

[@Hin_Håle]

"And I have to talk to you about..." 🥁🥁 "Aliens" 😂

[@thesunabsolute]

To answer the question posed at 36:00. I believe the most sensible reason for the secrecy would be the legality of it all. Who legally owns the right to reverse engineer Alien tech? The US? The country where the craft crashed/was found? Shouldn't that tech be shared with the public, and the human race in general? The whole thing opens up a legal can of worms that the US Government does not want to get involved with. If they are reverse engineering alien tech, this is a edge that they want to keep for national superiority over other countries, and they have no intention of sharing it.

[@Hgdownunder]

A dress is not a secondary sexual characteristic

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

is it a tertiary sex characteristic?

[@Larkarran]

also curious that Shermer is aware of autogynephilia but doesn't make the connection between that and these men wanting to have breasts and wear dresses.

[@Cotictimmy]

DARPA may have some crazy projects, but they aren't completely crazy. They rejected Peter Daszak's proposal that they fund respiratory virus 'Gain of Function' research in a U.S. defense lab. 🤣

[@CarloFromaggio]

Why listen to Shermer when he is the poster child of skeptics? I'd love a discussion, and I have no side, but this is a predictable conversation that is not worth listening to.

[@brianmeen2158]

Who would you like Schermer to talk to though? Who can effectively represent the “ufos are real” side?

[@simonhadley8829]

But you found it worth commenting on.

[@odinallfarther6038]

He is the establishments sceptic .

[@hester234]

Great conversation, picked up a few inspirations for my reading list! Thanks a lot to both of you, I'm already hyped for your next get-together :)

[@jkonior1]

Great interview!

[@joewestla]

So different question for Michael. What odds ratio would you accept for the proven existence of aliens visiting the planet? You implied that the right bet is 1:1, $1K to $1K but then you brought up the odds market. At what bet are you indifferent? 1:1000? 10:1000? 100:1000? Has that increased lately, even by a small amount?

[@geometricsphereuniversalin7043]

He gets some things right and some things wrong, like most people

[@Jan96106]

In other words, he is just as biased as anyone else, perhaps even more so. Like others, he feels confident speaking about items he has not researched (or at least not recently).

[@jay-rk1mn]

Michael Shermer as a canary in a coal mine that watches his fellow Canary drop dead and flies outside, says everything's fine in there

[@peznino1]

Explain. I'm a 95.

[@calvin624]

I just went to see if you had these in podcast form on Amazon Music, I simply searched for your name and I found you but the episodes were ordered from Oldest to Newest - so it looked like a defunct podcast at first, I had to scroll down to work out it was still an active feed. I've never changed the "Sort" function on my podcasts tab - I would be interested to know if others have similar experiences? I closed the app and checked out other podcasts, they were all ordered Newest to Oldest as you'd expect (and indeed if you press "reset", it is the default ordering system). It could be a one off, but the way these companies are I wouldn't put it past them to do this in order to subtly dissuade people from subscribing to your podcast feed.

[@brandotheone]

This was an incredible conversation. Thank you!

[@glitter_pus]

Michael Shermer is so level headed this is an exciting crossover

[@dirkvanschalkwyk1919]

Well done on finding an Aussie to testify for the aliens at Speakers' Corner. 😊

[@shiva369]

She sounded like a New Zealander to me

[@rskye11]

As a former teacher, "sit on your bottom" really spoke to me as a solution for non-disclosure.

[@MrsRitchieBlackmore]

Great conversation, per usual! To expound upon the Hotez VS Kennedy debate issue...RFK Jr. has literally never changed his argument. He wrote an entire book on it. It would be so easy for Hotez to read that book and prepare a counterargument. So why won't he??

[@peterdalmationcro4217]

He doesn’t have to. RFK Jr isn’t a doctor, neither is Rogan. If they go back to school & get their degree in medicine, I’m sure Dr Hotez & other doctors would only be too glad to listen to any concerns that they may have. It’s like a street sweeper asking a pilot, ( I think you should debate me on, how to fly a plane better, because I’m sure I know how too ). Also, let’s do it on camera, while another street sweeper joins in on the tag team. Oh, we’ll move the goalposts if we don’t get our way, we’re known for that. SEE THE PROBLEM?

[@MrsRitchieBlackmore]

@@peterdalmationcro4217 RFK Jr. has never moved the goalposts, though. His arguments have never changed. If Hotez can smoke the "street sweepers" so readily, than he ought to do it, if not only for the enormous windfall to the charity of his choice courtesy of Musk et. al.

[@peterdalmationcro4217]

@@MrsRitchieBlackmore Fair enough, your point is valid, but personally, I don’t think he should do it. He’s already been on Joe’s podcast, & he got tag teamed. Besides, everything worked out as good as it could. Like it or not, the vax worked. Some people had side affects, ( myself included ), but it’s better than the alternative. It’s a numbers game, a million died in the US alone, add in the long covid casualties. How many deaths were strictly related to the vaccine? Not saying there weren’t any, but it wouldn’t be many, we both know that. Good luck, let’s move forward 👍.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

​@@peterdalmationcro4217the problem is your appeal to authority. The typical refuge of a weak mind. If it would be so much of a slam dunk he could put the whole subject to bed. See the problem?

[@peterdalmationcro4217]

@@ronaldreagan5981 Haha, “ weak mind “ lol 😂. Next time your kid break’s his leg, take him to RFK Jr, or stoned Joe Rogan’s house for treatment, they’ll fix it 👍. You’re an internet scholar “ Champ “, an embarrassing one at that. This anti- government trope you keep crying about is hilarious 😂. Wait, hang on, you must be one of those “ street sweeper’s “ I mentioned in my previous post, correct? Here’s a thought, get back to sweeping 🧹 “ Champ “, the street’s won’t clean themselves 😂😆🤡👈.

[@13abcde]

When there is secrecy, it always gets around to the point where it is mostly used against the "insiders" rather than against "the enemy". The government agencies, I think, just figure that if the people know less, they can get away with more. Also, the kind of person who gets into these jobs is the kind of person who wants to be "exclusive". They enjoy watching people beg for information. The police are like this. They are a door that swings one way when information is involved.

[@casualviewing1096]

This was a great conversation, but was your audio picked up and edited between a bunch of different mics? Shermer is fine but your audio is all over the shop. At times it sounds like you’ve edited your sentences together using single words from different sentences.

[@gratuitousfootnote1183]

Is it a "craze" Peter? Chuck Schumer just released a bill with the phrase "non human intelligence" 30 plus times.

[@smelltheglove2038]

If chuck is saying it, leads me to believe it’s a psy-op. Which sucks because I want it to be true.

[@Sweetpea628]

Artificial intelligence?

[@smelltheglove2038]

@@Sweetpea628 it was about UFO disclosure. The DOD said they have crashed vehicles and alien remains. Which is why I think it’s just a distraction. Kinda sucks. Again, I was hoping it was real.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Then take Shermer’s bet.

[@smelltheglove2038]

@@circusbrains the big deal is whatever they’re covering up. You haven’t noticed the multiple simultaneous psyops going on right now?

[@TheKatieLea]

Kyle Hill has a few vids on here where he pokes holes into some of the more popular recent "ufo vids", in case it may prove interesting to anyone

[@jacobdeem8187]

Let's be real tho... Until Shermer is standing in an alien ship, he's not gonna believe it. Even then he question wether it's happening

[@notnotkevinjohn]

This is just something non-skeptical people tell themselves about skeptics: that their standards for evidence are impossibly high. It helps them avoid even considering the possibility that their standards for evidence are just impossibly low.

[@jacobdeem8187]

@@notnotkevinjohn I think you def have to have evidence of some kind. I would lile to know what it would take for him to believe it himself. The government saying it's true? Them showing one on tv? Does he need to see it personally?

[@notnotkevinjohn]

@@jacobdeem8187 Okay, did you not watch the video? He gave a very detailed answer to that exact question in this interview.

[@jacobdeem8187]

@@notnotkevinjohn I did not get to watch the entire thing. Life got in the way. I'll revisit.

[@jacobdeem8187]

@@notnotkevinjohn also as I side note, I was mostly joking about him not being a believer.

[@steelcurtain187]

Great discussion it’s relaxing just hearing you two talk about these big topics

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you

[@LouisGedo]

*Looking forward to this discussion*

[@drpeterboghossian]

Hope you enjoy!

[@LouisGedo]

@drpeterboghossian It's one of my favorites on your channel actually.......and your channel has many terrific discussions!

[@ironphill911]

If wokeism started in the early 2010s when millennials and Gen z started at college, then it was the kids learning it, not teaching it. This is deliberate.

[@pigetstuck]

Why 18 and not 25? 30?

[@bradhoare9394]

Saying the UFO community has no interest in the SETI program is just objectively untrue I'm afraid.

[@JereKrischel]

Bayesian reasoning is only the beginning of proper Popperian falsifiability.

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

How so?

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

At 22 mins, Shermer is correct that many UFO people wont study SETI etc, which is unfortunate because SETI is (or was, before it went woke) a legit scientific approach to aliens. It IS possible to both study SETI and keep an open mind to aliens. I am never sure what to think about Shermer, I kind of like him, but I also find him a little off-putting. His academic background does not lead me to believe he properly understands math or science, despite his assertions about them (all the time).

[@starkeyshelbyj]

Yeah Peter, thank you so much! Felt so crazy until I found you, and all you're guests, even when I dont agree! So grateful for the education you're providing, eching the person below!

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thank you so much.

[@heatfield4243]

What is the probability distribution for folks who think they are born in the wrong body?

[@ronaldreagan5981]

It's probably a lot higher if you live in a blue city in a blue state.

[@dentonweiss3642]

Peter, you think Commander Fravor and his 3 copilots/wingmen , Ryan Graves, and countless other military pilots are all mistaken then?

[@DylanYoung]

The UFOs bit was the least interesting part. Why is it the title?

[@dianaocean3428]

Peter, I Love You! I love your show! YOU are the ONLY person, so far, who I have given $$ to, (for starters)! I would support James' New Discourses next. Then, probably Trigger Nometry and Marshsll Matters. ON frickin' principle! I will be 60, this December, and I really appreciate your honesty, integrity, intellect and courage, also creativity! Anyway, I will now restart the interview .... just had to take a moment to say Thank you, Mr. Boghossian! I love how much I learn when I listen to these conversations! 🙏❤🏝❤🙏

[@pdxnikki1]

You'll love being in your 60's. I turned 60 in April. So much fun! Wisdom is a wonderful thing.

[@hendrixisgod777]

At 26:55, my go to argument against Alien sightings by other pilots. My favourite plane, the blackbird sr71; if a commercial pilot saw one of those streaking past at Mach 3, they’d say it was an alien spaceship. The fact that the blackbird has been obsolete for twenty years just goes to show how advanced spy planes/bombers have become. No ufo sighting from commercial pilots can reasonably be relied upon; they don’t know what’s already out there. I really like this guy.

[@krizpoland]

I'm here for Michael. Thank you.

[@aidanbarrett9313]

I like to use Oswald Spengler's definition of religion - the binding forces that help human beings overcome our collective fear of death.

[@karlpilkingtonspilko-pants3287]

That’s a great definition.

[@BunE22]

But Christianity teaches not to fear death. ?

[@brianmeen2158]

Have to be honest when someone I’m close to dies - religious thinking definitely comforts in various ways . That said, religious thinking also leaves me with more questions that have no answers. On the other hand, the atheist outlook in that life just happened a long time ago and we are clumps of cells - that is not exactly a great way to view things either . Especially when it comes to Morality

[@Earthad23]

@@brianmeen2158You’re right, the most brilliant scientific minds of our past understood this. Religion is philosophy about being. We are not objects in a universe, we are the AWARENESS of it. That awareness is eternal. People are just looking at the world and trying to rationalize the irrational. You don’t die, it’s a dream that you’re dreaming. I apologize if this sounds insane.

[@Earthad23]

I would say it’s a orienting ethical framework that points upwards, if it didn’t point up it died out. It’s a way to confront the horror of being with an attitude of gratitude.

[@AndyJarman]

I distinctly rember Obama's first two weeks in office. It was obvious he had been sat down and told what was really goung on and why he couldn't honour so many of his election promises.

[@AndyJarman]

Just as Claasical Liberalism's Achille's heel is for opinions to be open to criticism and review, so free market competition is open to the occult techniques employed in swaying people's choice. During Margaret Thatcher's Liberal-isation of markets and removal of state subsidies during the 1980s many weird and wonderful financial practices were cooked up and sold to the customer base. It wasn't until 2009 with the global financial crisis that the implications of adopting and trusting these strange concoctions came home to roost. This is a very real problem with Neo Liberalism. It really believes nore choice and freedom is an absolute good. Unfortunately those totalitarian dictatorships that survived the collapse of the Berlin wall were in a remarkably strong position to predate on this naive belief in the unseen hand of the narket place. For example, China continues to rip off the rest of the world by not charging its people for international postage charges. The USA charge's its retail and manufacturing sector billions in oost and freight charges. The result is I cannot buy American products because to me (in Australia) they are prohobitively expensive. Worst still, Western democracies allow the Chinese to buy huge tracts of land and large residential developments. This has inflated the value of farmland and residential properties because the Chinese loans are guaranteed by the CCP. This is why Free Speech has to be limited. Ideas that are manifestly unhealthy or illegal must be suppressed. However, the body politic has been so enfeebled in terms of the quality of the people and their ideas that we are rapidly being consumed by oandering populism. And I would position Woke ideology in the populist camp. Wokism is exploiting the openess of liberalism to the extent it has become blatently impractical and illiberal.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

The problem with liberalism is that it permits the support of socialism,which is always destructive of human endeavors. Evil must be called evil and it must receive no quarter.

[@starnejme6902]

Why the dig at RFK at the beginning? I haven't listened to all of it yet. I hope he explains where RFK is wrong.

[@m4anow]

PETER, I LOVE YOUR CONVERSATIONS...PLEASE WORK ON YOUR AUDIO/MICROPHONES/SOUND QUALITY, respectfully

[@drpeterboghossian]

On it. Thank you.

[@slaapliedje]

Thought it interesting that while saying he doesn't believe in the substitution hypothesis, he then goes on to describe that there is a thing about having an ideology... so he does believe in the substitution hypothesis?

[@mipsuperk]

57:10 if it were a lawsuit, before arguing before a jury, you would have to get everything you're going to argue into evidence and if you try to argue something that's not in evidence, the judge will put a stop to it. What about if in the debate all citable studies had to be disclosed to the other party in advance of the debate?

[@herverouge2364]

I am glad I have found someone in 2023 who has the same thinking as me ! Thanks !

[@Johnsnyder89]

Lol I enjoy Schumer even though I disagree with most of what he says but him trying to discredit the phenomenon because main stream media isn’t covering it is quite laughable

[@CrudelyMade]

there was a scientist who wrote several books, one was talking about how giant squid didn't exist, despite all the stories by sailors, etc. Once giant squid body was captured, someone interviewed him, and he admitted he was wrong. Another one of his books was explaining that bigfoot didn't exist. the interviewer asked him if maybe he might change his opinion on that, and the scientist was adamant bigfoot didn't exist. but.. the year before, obviously, he was just as adamant that giant squid didn't exist. at some point.. you have to look at the preponderance of anecdotal evidence and make a judgement on that, instead of saying there is zero evidence and therefore 'no'. and on preponderance there does seem plenty of evidence (not proof) that aliens have visited earth. the same is true about giants living in north america. old newspapers were full of these stories, the indian oral history is full of these stories, and even the head of the smithsonian examined remains, and this is documented that he did this, including his comments. but.. we don't have the bones for some reason.. so.. are these all hoaxes, including doctors, sheriffs, the head of the smithsonian museum? possibly. but maybe it's also reasonable that maybe they did find these things. where are they all? I don't know, where is all the art the germans stole? the amber room? that's a whole room! the difference may be considering good enough evidence in lieu of proof. that's my 2 cents. ;-) we all have to take someone's word for it sooner or later.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

Yes. This is the problem. Always assuming people are liars or incompetent is arrogant in the extreme. My personal experience is of seeing fairly close up(less than 2000 feet. As reference,there was a heavily travelled flight path at no more than a mile and a half away in the same direction.) , an aircraft that had no engines and no wings or control surfaces . I'm willing to accept that this was human made,but first you need to offer an explanation of how it was kept in the air , who would be involved in discovering this new technology ( the army doesn't run any colleges. The education happens in known institutions by known people. ) ,and where the experiments were done. ( This will not be a small ,easy job. Cern is kilometers across. Something similar will be necessary to discover what must be essentially antigravity. Otherwise it would have been discovered with less. Plus,this type of technology would totally disrupt the balance of power ,with the nation owning it being immediately dominant. Therefore, for all the above reasons,I say that what I saw was alien.

[@rayfighter]

it's not that Shermer (or me in that matter) assume that people are liars. He repeatedly says so. What he says is that people are confused. Anecdotes are "oh wow, cool", but other than that, useless in practicality. If you are the person who is more for the utility, and less for the feel good, you would agree...

[@LemonsAndSalt69]

@@ronaldreagan5981 You lying sack of shit. You saw nothing, Dream on loser. Typical high school education.

[@Walt2005]

The problem with some skeptics is that they focus on the objects that were identified and could be explained and not the ones that there was no way to prove what the hell they are. Even less detract from the evidence of the cameras and telemetry of the fighter jets.

[@bunjidogg]

When you need to be brought to your senses, listen to Michael Shermer.

[@dgumbrecht]

At the start of the section titled "Parallels between different social movements" Peter poses the question "why are some people immune to these ideas" or more broadly "this way of thinking". This is a very narrow lens through which to view this issue. Those of us that don't subscribe to these ideas don't subscribe to them because they don't appeal to our moral or epistemological intuitions. This does not mean however that we are immune to being caught up in mass social, moral or political movements, even potentially pathological or irrational ones. In fact the more convinced we are that we and those who agree with us are immune to the parts of our psychology that make us susceptible to these movements, the better we will be at rationalizing why the ones we fall into are correct. The only reason we can stand outside these epistemological bubbles and theorize how people could fall prey to them is precisely because, as Michael points out, the "woke" are only something like 7-9% of the country. Imagine if those numbers were reversed Peter and Michael would be discussing instead how it is that some people could reason their way into opposing intersectionality, or critical theory. More briefly, because some people are immune to the bad ideas of this specific movement does not extrapolate to immunity to bad ideas generally. We must all, as Michael and Peter generally are, always be vigilant and mindful of our own thought processes and try to avoid bad ideas and bad ways of thinking. None of us are immune to motivated reasoning or cognitive biases.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

Who is to say which is which?

[@angelawest9759]

Have recently discovered Dr Peter Boghossian and loving your content.

[@greatoak7661]

PLEASE talk about the DUMBs. I want to hear what he has to say about the Deep Underground Military Bases. Dr Greere gave Congress the 146 locations and entry points.

[@ChimpingBulldog]

Great discussion.

[@will.roman-ros]

I would love to debate the reality of alien visitation. These guys haven't done their research, or used all the logic available to them. I would love to enlighten them.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

Me too. When you've seen one, you know you've seen one.

[@will.roman-ros]

@@ronaldreagan5981 right. But my point is you don't have to see one with your own eyes. The logic is: only one story has to be true for alien visitation to be a reality, and you can include yours among hundreds of thousands...

[@ronaldreagan5981]

@@will.roman-ros oh, that's absolutely true. But actually seeing one puts the final nail in the coffin. If you are so open to ideas,let me hit you with one that is another level up,but easier to see evidence of directly. One that makes the question of alien's visitation moot. We are living in a computer simulation. And it is easy to see. How do you feel about that?

[@bogkazealijamislim5998]

My daughter was a Tom boy until this year, good solid marriage and home schooling in solid communities are the solutions. Her beautiful mother was a lesbian but that was due to environment. I and my battle brothers showed her positive masculinity and torned her straight. It's a purely cultural phenomenon, a flaw.

[@ronaldreagan5981]

Yeah. I think women are all half lesbian and can go either way at any time.

[@Shadinsb]

Holy shit. You're both clueless and should stop spouting nonsense.

[@jeswho]

8:56 The implication of Terror Management Theory is that those who are not susceptible to these kinds of fashionable cultural ideologies are at peace with their own mortality.

[@TheHighlanderprime]

Peter, there’s no alien craze if it’s actually coming to reality based on the preponderance of different forms of historical and current evidence. That conspiracy theory is turning out to be a justified one. And that, is once again proving the specious usage of the term “conspiracy theory” as a disparaging meme.