The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Is "Race Realism" Simply Racism? ╏Nathan Cofnas Under Fire

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Is Nathan Cofnas's "Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution." a plan to heal or America, or is it simply a racist manifesto dressed up as science. We ask him to his face. Cofnas is the philosopher at the center of the Jason Arday plagiarism affair. He says that, all else equal, smarter people have more human worth. He says freedom of association is worth it even if some diner bans blacks and Jews. And he says race realism is about to break into the mainstream whether we like it or not. Noam takes him through A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution line by line: the Charles Murray debate, Jared Taylor, a speech by Michael Levin (whose book Cofnas calls important), white kids "brainwashed to despise themselves," Nikole Hannah-Jones's daughter and the lifeboat question. Periel arrives late, just in time to call it insane (as usual). 0:00 Intro: "I feel like you're a white nationalist" 9:26 Is a smarter person worth more? 23:33 "Some barriers set up between the races" 32:16 Jared Taylor, AmRen and Michael Levin 53:03 "White children are brainwashed to despise themselves" 1:29:54 Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter 1:41:53 Lower human worth? The lifeboat question 1:47:38 Closing argument: yarmulkes on the basketball court Nathan Cofnas, A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution (Feb 5, 2024) https://ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-for-the-hereditarian-revolution Nathan Cofnas, Are Smart People Superior? A Reply to Noah Carl and Charles Murray (Apr 26, 2024) https://ncofnas.com/p/are-smart-people-superior-a-reply Debate with Charles Murray: IQ and Human Worth (Sept 16, 2026) https://ncofnas.com/p/debate-with-charles-murray-iq-and Nathan Cofnas, Why We Need to Talk about the Right's Stupidity Problem (Jan 2, 2024) https://ncofnas.com/p/why-we-need-to-talk-about-the-rights Nathan Cofnas, Beating Woke with Facts and Logic (Oct 9, 2025) https://ncofnas.com/p/beating-woke-with-facts-and-logic Nathan Cofnas on X, "Jews tried to be white nationalists" (Apr 28, 2018) https://x.com/nathancofnas/status/990243373180219397 David Reich, How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of 'Race,' New York Times (Mar 23, 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html David M. Quinn, How to Reduce Racial Bias in Grading, Education Next (Nov 2, 2020) https://www.educationnext.org/how-to-reduce-racial-bias-in-grading-research/ Nikole Hannah-Jones on her daughter's schooling, New York Times Magazine (Sept 20, 2026) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-schools-black-students-segregation.html This American Life, Ep. 898, An Argument (Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter) https://www.thisamericanlife.org/898/an-argument

Good evening and welcome to Live From the Table. Before we start the interview, I have to tell you that Periel is going to be late today. I don't know if she's coming. I have some sad news for all you live from the table fans. Dan Natterman has quit the podcast. He sent me an email. He basically said, I quit. He didn't call me.

He didn't sit down with me for coffee. He just had enough. So, you know, Dan and I would talk. But if you want it back, maybe you should email him. get a drive going. We have with us today. Nathan Koffness is an academic who works in the philosophy of biology. His work has focused on controversial questions surrounding evolution, race, and intelligence, and academic freedom.

In 2026, he became the subject of significant public attention following his dispute involving former Cambridge professor Jason Ardei. I never know how to say. Ardei, Jason Ardei, which led to Ardei being fired and then sadly he committed suicide. Welcome, Nathan Koffness. Thank you very much. I hope your co-host didn't quit in protest because of me. Oh, no, he would have held on for another week. By the way, usually our guests have curated bookshelves behind them with all sorts of highfalutin titles that they probably never.

ever read. And you have empty bookshelves. Is that because you had to clear them all out before the public got to see what you're reading? Or is that just, you just moved in there or something? Most of my books are on Kindle. I move from country to country, so it's not really practical to have several suitcases worth of books. I had seen one person comment that this is a bad metaphor to have in the background as if this represents my mind. But I don't know, you have to take my word for it. I have read books before. You sound like it. By the way, I read everything on Kindle as well, and I make sure that my kids read as much as they can, everything on Kindle, because I like that they can touch the word and, you know, get the meaning of it, which is, you know, I know you could

look it up, but most people don't. And then, of course, afterwards, it creates a list of every word that you've looked up. So if you want to improve your vocabulary, I fantasize that my kids will do this, but I don't know that they will. Anyway, so what I call you, Mr. Koffinus, Nathan? Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, is fine. All right, Nathan, I thought that I wanted to interview you

about the Jason Arte thing, but I think that's all been gone over, and, you know, I don't know if we'll have anything new to say about that. And then I want to interview more about this race realism thing. You know, I'm a big fan of genetics. I wrote a paper in college for my senior year. The professor's name was Jay Cantor. And it was all about me saying that, listen, everything's genetic and even morality is genetic.

And I remember my argument being like, well, why would we have? have a conscience? Why would we have the ability to feel guilty? It has to be naturally selected for. And my clever example then was, and look at people who are sociopaths who are characterized by the inability to feel guilt. And obviously, you couldn't run a cooperative society with sociopaths. So this must be encoded and everything must come from there. And I got a very bad grade on that paper. And that's before people were even thinking that way, really. And then I heard an interview with you where you said that you, when you were applying to college, you were so taken by this issue that you brought it up to every interviewer.

And the other reason that's right. I brought it up in my interviews at both Duke and Harvard. Incidentally, the interviewer for Duke was very impressed by that. And he said that he was giving me the highest recommendation that he was giving me the highest score that he was allowed to give on the recommendation. Although I didn't end up getting in there. I did get into Columbia, which I got into Columbia where they had no interview. That's right. Harvard was a was a hard no. So, so, but having said that, now let me, let me, maybe it was too cheerful here. Having said that, I was really really taken aback

by your writings and the things that you said. I think that by the way, I'm going to give you a chance to say everything that you want. I saw an interview with you with some British guy

and he kept cutting you off and he seemed to be cutting you off exactly when he could kind of sense the point you were going to make and didn't want to let you get it out, that kind of, then they're going to have none of that from me. It was the notorious Nick Ferrari interview

where he asked me a question and then would interrupt as soon as I started. I didn't see that. No, I'm sure you're not like that. But I am going to challenge you with vigor because I feel like you're a white nationalist and you can disabuse me and that you speak in code

to people who understand what you're saying without spelling it out. And I selected a lot of quotes from your kind of manifesto, a guide for the hereditary revolution. I want to go through them with you. And although there are some disclaimers there, I didn't put the disclaimers. When I say disclaimers, I mean, you said some things that mitigate the harshness of certain things that you said. So in the spirit of fairness, let me read a few of these mitigating statements into the record. Number one, I leave open the possibility that a less intelligent person can be in some respect superior

or that they can have more all things considered worth. Number two, successful leaders will have to make a greater effort to distinguish themselves from thugs and crackpots, even if, in the short run, this alienates some of their would-be followers. Number three, the fact that race and race differences are real does not tell us what our ultimate values should be or what kind of society we should strive for within the limits of what is possible. and anyone can go and read them. I didn't include them because I figured you will say them on your own, but I don't want people to think that they're not in there,

but I felt like they were in some way pro forma. I have to interject before we begin. I certainly don't. I'm not a white nationalist. That's not my thing at all. And in the Guide for the Hereditary Revolution, I specifically say that, I quote Nietzsche, actually, who said that he feels no need to isolate himself.

Yeah. To sequester himself from the other races and, you know, we're all mixed. And that doesn't make sense to him. All right. Now, I think in principle, any kind of nationalism, black nationalism, Jewish nationalism, German nationalism, in principle, and even white nationalism, could be a way of having an identity and identifying with the group. It's just an empirical observation, which I say in the guide,

that we've seen over and over again that any attempt to form communities on the basis of white identity has expressed itself primarily as negativity toward other races or perceived enemies within the white race. So that's not my thing at all. And I'm not particularly popular among white nationalists. So an important point for me. And you know what? You seem perfectly sincere almost sounds glib.

But you seem to be telling the truth when you say that. So then you will explain to me the difference between the, white nationalist opinion and the things that I'm focusing in on that that you've said and explain the nuance differences, okay? So you've written this document, a guide for the hereditary revolution, and you think that this issue of acknowledging differences in average IQs between races is key to essentially reorganizing society to reach a new equilibrium. I think that's the and now I'm going to use I'm not going to talk this much for the whole interview but there's a lot

that I want to get out there just to set up so you know where I'm coming from right um you know that what is it the transitive property a equals B if if A equals B and B equals C then A equals C right so I am going to draw some inferences about what it is that I think you believe is true and you can you tell me if you're not so you believe that on the whole um black people have a lower IQ than white people. But I believe, and you believe that they will, because of that, if it were treated in purely meritocratic way, I hate to even say this, they would disappear from cognitively demanding jobs like professors, scientists, appellate lawyers, judges, neuroscientists, things like that.

Further, you say that, and on this I'm extrapolating from your conversation with Charles Murray, where you said that even people of average intelligence, I think you meant 100 IQ there, are unable to do sophisticated moral reasoning. But before, I wanted to make one more point about intelligence and this connection to moral goodness. And there's a certain level of moral understanding, which is simply unattainable for somebody with an average,

or let alone below average IQ. So I kind of figured, let's say 105 is necessary. By your estimation of the numbers, that would mean something like 90% of black people are incapable of sophisticated reasoning. You believe that people of lower intelligence have generally lower human worth. This is your phrase. And that would mean that, on average, black people have less human worth than other people. I say there is obviously a connection between intelligence and human worth. Everything that we value about human beings is their ability to plan, to have an identity,

to understand ideas. All of it is related to intelligence. More is better. You agree that if you knew nothing else other than person A has an IQ of 80, person B has an IQ of 120, and both of them are drowning, you would go for the, you would save the 120 over the 80 because of their instrumental value. Even there I wouldn't do it. And, well, I mean, so let's start there. Like, these are very horrifying things to put out there if that's what's believed. To me, to my opinion, go ahead.

Okay, so, you know, there are difficult topics to deal with. And, you know, I think it's possible to take ideas which are worthy of discussion. and combine them and manipulate them in a way that makes them far more inflammatory than they have to be. Now, with respect to... I just want to say this, I just want to say these are all things that you talk about. In other words, I'm not blaming you. These are all legitimate questions.

I'm not criticizing you. I'm just saying that... I mean, you're a thorough thinker, and I know you make connections. I've watched you know. I know that what I'm saying here are not – these are not the first time you've had these thoughts. I'm on record as saying that not everything that's true needs to be loudly proclaimed if all it does is conduce to bad feelings for no benefit. But, okay, so, but take those ideas one by one. Now, about achieving a new equilibrium.

What is the current equilibrium? The current equilibrium is everybody says that all people are born on average the same. All groups are on average the same. Therefore, disparities among groups must be the result of environmental factors. Because we've ruled out genes. It can't be genes. So therefore, it's the environment. And the most obvious environmental explanation for lower performance among historically persecuted groups is past or present racism.

That's the current equilibrium. Now, that leads to blaming people in the higher performing group, particularly whites, who are actually not the highest performing group. They're outperformed by Indians, by Asians, Iranian immigrants, Jews. But anyway, that's the current equilibrium, is blaming white people for disparities not favorable to white, that are favorable to whites. Is it that binary? Because doesn't like the nation of Islam have an opinion that's different than that, blaming, you know, saying, that black people need to study harder and have better culture.

They don't believe, right? They have their own cultural theory of why their people are doing worse in certain ways. It doesn't, right? So that's not the only other explanation. Well, whether or not that's true about the nation of Islam, that's a fringe belief. I'm talking about the equilibrium that exists within institutions in the United States and most of the rest of the Western world. So if you go to...

Go ahead, go ahead. I don't want to interrupt you and also want to have a conversation because it's Zoom, it's harder, but go ahead. Go ahead. At universities in, you know, Hollywood, basically any kind of elite institution, they're not run by the nation of Islam, right?

It's the assumption is all groups are born exactly the same. On average, disparities, favoring whites vis-a-vis, you know, blacks or other groups are the result of white racism. So anyway, this is... I don't, I mean, that is one aspect, but first of all, people have a tremendous ability for cognitive dissonance, right? So, like, not everybody forces themselves to come to that conclusion, but I think that

there are a lot of people out there and say, you know, there could be some differences, but, you know, but look at, you know, look at these schools and look at the way homework is not valued and look at the stories we hear about how crappy the teachers are and, you know, you know, there's so much we need to correct right in front of our eyes before we should ever even need to come to grappling with that later question. We know, regardless of what it is that confidence is saying, we're not doing right by tremendous numbers of people in this country. So let's just focus our attention. I mean, for instance, tutoring has some effects. If you have kid that you know is not as small. I mean, every parent sees that their kids have genetic

abilities, right? So if you have the less intelligent kid, you get them a tutor. You don't say, ah, what the hell? There's nothing you can do about that kid. And tutors have some results, maybe not as much as a parent wishes they would have. Similarly, SAT, I was doing some reading about that today, SAT prep courses. Like for half of them, they don't help. Some people, they help significantly, and some people, they help an enormous amount, right? So, like, you know, you don't need to get into the genetics of the kid who did bad on his SATs. You do the best you can buy him. And once you've exhausted everything, like truly exhausted everything.

And by the way, humans can rationalize that for a long time, whether they actually have or haven't exhausted everything. Parents do that all the time, right? Then you can start worrying about your thing, but then beyond your thing, then why we have to rearrange the country. But go ahead. You have a lot to respond to. Well, I'll just postulate for now that many people in the Western world, including America, care very deeply about racial disparities, and they trace them back to injustice committed by white people, including systemic racism. This is like a big thing. This is a big part of our culture. This is what wokeism is. wokeism is

Well, I believe some of that too, and I'm not woke, but yes, I believe some of that too. Go ahead. Well, okay. Now, one way that we correct this alleged injustice is through affirmative action.

So that means people from less well-represented groups in certain domains are given extra points when it comes to college applications and that sort of thing. In 2013, Harvard conducted an internal study of its admissions process,

and they determined that if admissions were based only on grades and test scores, the undergraduate population would be 0.7% black. At the time, it was 12.5%. Now it's 14%. So the vast measurement majority of black undergrads at Harvard, according to Harvard, would not have been admitted if it were a pure meritocracy selecting people on the basis of academic merit.

Harvard-like affirmative action. This kind of affirmative action exists across the board for admissions and hiring in elite cognitively demanding professions. That's just how it is. That passage that you quoted was addressing mainstream conservatives who say that the solution to the race issue is a colorblind meritocracy. So this is what people like Christopher Rufo will say, or the Daily Wire people will say. We just need a colorblind meritocracy, treat everyone as individuals,

and then there's no more problem. So I was saying that is not going to work because if we actually had a colorblind meritocracy, black representation would fall to a degree that very few people understand. The 15-point, approximately 15-point IQ gap between white Americans and African-Americans has enormous implications.

When you're drawing from, you're, you know, you know, IQ 120, 130, 140, like that range. The ratio of white, Asian, to black does not look at like the general population. Like, it's just a fact that black representation becomes very low. And that's something that any honest discussion has to deal with. Two things. First of all, um, this bleak statistic of the number of people that would be accepted at Harvard just based on their, you know, objective measures,

that conversation, painful as it is, that's the kind of conversation you might hear Glenn Lowry having or John McWhorter or Coleman Hughes. They don't feel the need to embrace genetic explanations for them to talk about that and actually want to eliminate affirmative action. Similarly, what's his name, Shelby Steele from the other end? This is going back to a long time. I don't know if he's still out there talking about it. He wrote a book where he was saying that he's against affirmative action because he wanted to eliminate the stigma that a black graduate from Harvard would have. He said, you know, when people kind of know the reality,

then you have this degree from Harvard Law School, let's say. And people say, yeah, well, yeah, that's fine if you're a white guy, but what does that degree really mean in your hands? So he wanted that eliminated. None of that requires this embrace of race realism. Affirmative action is, you know, you can make the arguments unfair, and especially when they went off the deep end on it, where they didn't just say, you know,

we have a history of racism and slavery and Jim Crow, so let's limit, let's make sure we have five or ten percent, of the students to be black at all times, they said, we're also going to limit how many Asians come in. And we're going to limit, we're going to slice and dice the entire human race so that even if the population of Asians in the country triples, we're still going to have the same number of Asians at Harvard every year. And this becomes untenable. And I think that's really what broke, that's what made the steam kettle boil. And it was the Asian thing. But let me do, okay, so let me just, that's my answer, but this is the thing. First of all, as to the first

list I gave, I feel like your audience connects these dots on their own. But let me read from your manifesto, as I've called it, your paper, because there's much more there. And this is what I understand. So where should I start here? A race is like an extended family, although you'll probably be disappointed if you're, if you expect your racial brethren to treat you that way. And it's natural to care about the fate of your people. Our physical and psychological nature reflects our racial heritage, and for partly biological reasons, we may feel a connection to our cultural traditions. And then you say, this is what got me, those who truly value diversity should favor the preservation of racial distinctions. There must be some barriers set up between the races.

Barriers set up between the races in order for each one to express its own unique genius. What did you mean by that? So there's a lot of talk about how great diversity is. And in fact, I to some extent, agree with that. If you value diversity, if you value anything, then you must value the conditions that are necessary for the valuable thing to continue to exist. When I put it abstractly, I mean, surely that's a reasonable thing to say.

No, I know. Maybe I'm just not getting it. So when I say abstractly, if you value X, then to that extent, you value the conditions that are necessary for X to continue to exist. Just in the abstract, is that abstract statement a reasonable idea? I don't think so. I don't think that, I don't think we need barriers between the races. I'm saying in the abstract, okay, you can say that I'm misapplying it in this particular case. I would need to fill in the details of that.

Yeah, okay, I'm going to grant it for you. Go ahead, go ahead. But a reasonable intuition to have that valuing X means valuing means desiring for X to continue and therefore whatever conditions. Now, there may be reasons. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like if you value coffee powder and you value hot water, you don't put the coffee powder in the hot water, like I get it at that extreme.

I don't think it's a trick question. No, no, that's not. I know it's not. I know it's not. So, okay, so if it's good that there are different kinds of people, that we have Jews and Asians and Africans and people have different cultures, different ways of doing things. Now, I claim that the different ways of doing things are partly rooted in average genetic differences. is if you think, now, not all diversity is good. There's some diversity that's bad and that ideally we could, you know, correct.

I think it would be nice to raise everybody's average IQ to a high level. So it's not good that some people have lower general intelligence. But there are differences in style, in personality, and interests, which to some extent have are influenced by genetics, I think that's desirable and gives rise to the diversity of cultural traditions and cultural products. So to the extent that I find that valuable, I think that we should preserve that diversity. Now, what does barriers mean? Barriers doesn't mean that we're not allowed to talk to each other that we sequester ourselves. I mean, I think that a model for the kinds of barriers that I'm talking, you know, it's like language, just the fact that Chinese

is a very difficult language to learn, and for them, Western languages are difficult to learn. And therefore, we don't all just mix and start speaking Esperanto and become, you know, brown beige colors. Okay, but you know, you could have said we should, we should, We should not be so quick to try to tear down the barriers if we want to keep diversity, you know, which is, you know, Americans have always favored a melting pot, and we've always figured that we're never going to overcome the diversity. We just kind of blur it a little bit. But from the blurring, we get new outcomes and new things.

But you said we need to set up barriers between the races. For each one, and I'll tell you what I took from it, which was the worst possible interpretation, I took from it that, because you said each, to express its own unique genius. And I thought, well, if he thinks that the Jews are super smart and the blacks are super musical, and, you know, maybe what he's saying here is that we shouldn't be so quick to want to see the human race regress to the mean. So they have a lower frequency of all these individual geniuses and rather just have some, you know, mix between them all, which then suffocates or suppresses

at least the frequency of these unique geniuses. Because after all, if all the Ashkenazi Jews completely start marrying black people, by your way of thinking, we're going to have a lot less of these high IQ physicists out there, right? So is that... I'm using genius... That's how I interpret it what you wrote.

In the traditional sense of like a spiritual... energy that that so what barry do we set up what barry do we set up so i mean i i i'm i'm pushing back against a traditional liberal ideal of we all become one we're all the same aspiranto is not really a thing now but that used to be a very big uh an aspiration for many liberals that we're all going to speak the same language. There will be no barriers, and there will be no more diversity. I think

that the point is, if I would spell out the implications, people are used to these slogans about like any kind of barriers are bad, and

you know, where all the human race like but if you actually spell out what people are, the values that people are actually committed to, I think there's a contradiction in saying that you value diversity, but you don't want any,

no barriers whatsoever. A barrier doesn't mean to force. You're forcing people to do something. It just means naturally there are cultural barriers. You can't just become a Jew. And at first, anybody in the world can become a Jew. you can become a Jew but it's hard there are barriers set up it's very explicit if you want to become a Jew the rabbi will tell you no you don't okay but one like this now Jews have in fact

acquired racial diversity after having left uh Israel living in different parts of the world there were converts, which over the last 2,000 years, which has caused Jews in different parts of the world to become, to some extent, racially diverse, although there's still a genetic continuity from the ancient population. One could look at your date and everything and say, well, maybe the best thing for us to do

is all to intermarry as much as we can, so we bring down, you know, some people are just not going to, but bring down as much as we can, this problem, right? You have fewer and fewer, pure Jews, fewer and pure blacks, for and fewer, pure Asians, we're all become, the means become closer and closer, maybe to the point where, and I mean, I know that you don't have to be a genius to think of it in that direction, but okay, but so listen.

So I'm saying, those, the person who said that is a, that is a thing that people say. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying that if you value diversity, but it's not something you say. Right, so it's not something I say. I say, if you value diversity like I do, then, then you wouldn't want that. So somebody could say that they do want that. And then that's just a fundamental disagreement. Let's continue. I hope you won't have to leave because I have a lot here. And I, you know, I'm, I've seen you do like three-hour podcasts. So I hope you'll spare me some extra time here because this is, this is very important stuff. So you write virtually every genuine scholar of race is one or at most two degrees of separation removed from deranged

crackpots and neo-Nazis, which makes it difficult for intellectually responsible outsiders to know whom to listen to. With the exception of Oporia, a magazine, and podcast that was founded a couple years ago, race-realist institutions tend to be either officially anti-Semitic, and this anti-Semitism has really been where you've fallen out with, what's this guy, Kevin McDonald's or whatever, or closely associated with anti-Semitism. And then you're right, American Renaissance. Now that's Jared Taylor's organization, is not anti-Semitic, and it is an important center for high-quality discussions of race. Many J-Cures, that's Jewish questioners. Now, that's already, when you say J-Cures, this betrays a certain

familiarity with the alt-right. Many J-Qers attend and speak at his conferences. Most normal people have no interest in sorting through this mess. Okay, now I just want to introduce Jared Taylor. He may not be an anti-Semite, but he is clearly a racist, right? I'll just read, this is from this article, Africa in our midst that he wrote after Katrina, that apparently from what my reading of these people is like this is what red-pilled a lot of people to the all right. Many whites will realize, some for the first time, that we have Africa in our midst, that

utterly alien Africa of roadside corpses, cruelty, and anarchy that they thought could never wash up on these shores. To be sure, the story of Hurricane Katrina does have a moral for anyone not deliberately blind. The races are different. Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization, any kind of civilization, disappears. And in a crisis, it disappears overnight. Now, I'm saying to you, if he wrote this about Jews, you would not be able to overlook it and say it was an important center for high quality discussions about Jews, but you are able to overlook it and say it's a place for high quality discussions about race. And that, I can't understand that. And by the way, just while

I'm here, you know, you also said, like there's some Twitter conversations, Jews tried to be white nationalists. 40% of the speakers at the first Ameren American Renaissance conference were Jews, but they got chased away by Kevin McDonald fans. And as soon as a non-anti-Semitic white nationals organization was created, Jews showed up and said, we're here to help. White nationalists told them to piss off, now complain that Jews don't support them. So this really does sound, I'm not being unfair to you. This does sound like these are your people. So I can't answer for what other people have written. Jared Taylor has very different views than I do on certain topics. He is a white nationalist. But you characterize him as a high quality

place for talk about race. So I said American Renaissance has been for many years a place where there have been intelligent, sophisticated people. Michael Levin, for example, who was a philosophy professor at City University, wrote an important book on race. So I recommend that people listening to this who were wondering what to think, look up Michael Levin and draw their own conclusions. I'd never heard of him. I looked him up. You can find him on Rumble. Here's a little bit of his lecture called Is There a Superior Race? And he's being introduced by the aforementioned Jared Taylor. As you know, Professor Levin is best known for his writing and public speaking on question of race and IQ. And his book, Why Race Matters, was one of those rare literary achievements that is

actually reviewed on the front page of American Renaissance. Now that is fun. As I say, Professor Levin is back for his third straight AR conference and I'd like you to give him a very, very warm job. So the box score is this. By the four standards that people ordinarily use, when they talk of one person and one group being superior to another, I think it's true that whites are superior. It's a very hard thing to say. Say it on television. Really take a lot of guts. But I think it's true.

I think it's what the facts support. And actually my first contact with Professor Levin was a fan letter that I wrote to him 10 years ago. We call them moral or principle that may follow the golden rule. And the fact is that this trait, I think the evidence is fairly clear, this trait, this important trait, is not distributed evenly among the races. I think there's a good deal of evidence that blacks, for example, are less concerned with this sort of golden-ruled way of thinking than whites are.

There was a study I quote in my book about turn-taking, black behavior of turn-taking situations. They have more difficult, sort of waiting their turn while the other guy gets his turn. I'm much more inclined impulsively to burst in. Many people, it's sort of something that's discussed even in Hollywood, the fact that blacks talk back to the movies in the movie theater, which shows a lack of empathy for the people that just want to watch the movie. Blacks never existed. Well, obviously Africa would have been different,

but Asia and the United States would not have been. been very different at all. Our history would have been a little different, but basically, the world that we see would be the world that would be here. If Asians hadn't existed, Amy Wax has recently spoken at the American Renaissance conference, a professor of law at Penn. Now, there are many people who have spoken at American Renaissance who I don't think contributed to the conversation, but I don't have any relationship with American Renaissance. I don't. Well, is Jared Taylor a racist?

I don't think he has hostility to people on the basis of race. Again, that doesn't mean that everything that I can answer for everything that he said. But if I said Jews. My statement was that if I said Jews and what they said, go ahead, sorry. American Renaissance, Peep speakers at American Renaissance has also said things about Jews. Now, I don't think that every negative

comment or unflattering comment ever made about Jews is anti-Semitic. No, but if Adolf Hitler had said Jews and Germans are different. When Jews are left entirely to their own devices, German civilization, any kind of civilization disappears. And in a crisis, it disappears overnight. this would be something we all quoted of Hitler as evidence of his anti-Semitism.

It wouldn't be a close case. People also do this thing where they take like a passage from Mind Kampf and they attribute it to somebody that they don't like. And then they fool people into thinking that the other person said it. And it's like, oh, they're really Hitler. And you know this passage. You know this. It sounds very sinister. So the same.

The name of the column is Africa in our midst. Come on, Hal. All right, let's move on then. Look, my comment in the guide wasn't that I agree with what Jared Taylor said about this essay that you're reading or that this is how I think we should express ourselves. Okay. Let me show you there's more parallels. So I think that you're very close to Jared Taylor, although I totally open to the fact that you're not like him.

and that there was some issue where you guys simply come to a certain fork in the road and then he goes sharp left and you go sharp right. I don't mean left and right by liberal. I just mean like, you know, diverge strongly. But these are all, I mean, questions, it's fine to ask them. Yeah. But, you know, there's this kind of guilt by association. She's not guilt by association.

Look, so I said that American Renaissance has platformed high-quality discussions of race. I mentioned a couple names. Then you say that, okay, Jared Taylor said this thing, maybe using language that I might not use. So what do I think about that? Well, I'll tell you why it's not guilt by association,

because this guy, Kevin McDonald, who said some hateful things or junk science things about, Jews, you want, you want to depart company with him. All right, listen, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, a guide for the hereditarian revolution. You say, um, after knowledge of race, different has spread, people's moral intuitions will start to adjust, and institutions and social norms will increasingly reflect the new preferences of the elites. Jared Taylor has written, I declare the experiment of failure. American society should be reordered. Let people of different

races go their separate ways if that's what they want. You know, basically two ways of saying the same thing. You're right, and it's natural to care about the fate of your people, our physical and psychological nature reflect our racial heritage. He writes, we should recognize the normal, healthy desire of many citizens to live in a way that is culturally and racially coherent. You write, those who truly value diversity should favor the preservation of racial distinctions. There must be some barriers set up between the races in order for each one to express its own unique genius. He writes, ask yourself, what's the point of a mixed race society? Would you build one if you were starting from scratch? What are the advantages

Seriously, is diversity so inherently marvelous that we should outlaw the very idea of people going their wrong way? No, people outlaw the idea because homogeneity is marvelous and people want it. But we've been on the road to nowhere for so long we don't dare turn back. So then now this is where I think you've on record is agreeing with him. I have a video. I can play it. He writes, freedom of association is a basic freedom. for some it means integration, but there should be no moral or legal obstacle to those for whom it means separation.

And you're right, suppose we eliminated civil rights laws and gave people back their freedom of association and the right to create their own workplace cultures. Most leading institutions would continue to be the same. But it's a moot point because it's probably pointless to attempt to change the law unless we also gain the support of the people who interpret and implement the law. Now, what you're saying there is that until people accept, except hereditarianism, you'll never get a critical mass of elites to change the laws and repeal the civil rights law to go back to what you regard as our right of freedom of association. And just just as really is not, it's not guilt by association. Can you play that MP4, Koppiness on Jared Taylor? What are Koffness's thoughts on Jared Taylor?

I'll be very interested to see Jared's response to my extremes with McDonald. His policy positions are, he opposes immigration and he advocates free association. Now, he's considered an extraordinary. primarily politically incorrect figure. I think he's made a very serious strategic error by associating himself with people like Richard Spencer. And although he hasn't endorsed Kevin McDonald, he's been on panels with him,

hasn't dissociated itself from McDonald's. But in principle, I think free association is a reasonable policy that should not not an extremist position, something that could be accepted by liberals, concerned. Okay, Stephen. And later on, you talk about the movement. So what is freedom association? What is your vision of freedom of association? How does that interact with the barriers? What would people be allowed to do? I'm advocating freedom. It's freedom of association, right? No blacks in my restaurant, that kind of freedom of association? Why would you

bar blacks from your restaurant? Maybe I hate them. Okay. There's plenty of people. There's plenty of people today in the United States of America that were very happily, happily say, no Israelis in my restaurant, no Jews in my restaurant. I've seen that they have them in Europe. They have the signs that say Zionists not welcome. So, okay, I find a different restaurant. Zionist is of course the word, the politically correct word.

But you feel this is important for America to go to this? See, I think you're mixing a certain scientific data study. You know, data is data. Like I just saw on Twitter the other day that they found that Korean kids adopted at birth, you know, going to graduate school, basically the same rate as other.

Like, you can't, there's a lot out there. I'm not here to tell you that the universe is wonderful all people. But it seems to me that everything everybody was worried about, what could come from these ideas, is what you're pushing forward here. Like, like, rather than saying, well, let's triple our efforts to make sure, you know, let's, you know, let's cut bait. And, you know, like I said.

I kept, you brought up a number of points. I mean, talk about the freedom of association. drawing parallels between some things that Jared Taylor has written that I've written. I mean, we've both written on a similar topic. So, yeah, and our position in favor of free association, which I don't see why somebody would regard that as so sinister. Freedom of association. I don't see why when Americans get freedom of association, they're going to ban black people or Jews from their restaurants.

Nathan, we had, maybe some will. I mean, you go to the, the, somewhere in the hills of Kentucky, some diner will ban blacks and Jews. And yeah, that's unfortunate. But I think that, uh, okay. That, uh, freedom, freedom is my load star. And I don't see that as being a big risk anyway. But don't you see, first of all, there's a certain thing if it's not broken, don't fix it, right?

Unless America is suffering from the fact that we don't have the right to essentially harken back to certain Jim Crow era practices. Jim Crow was legal segregation. So the government came in and said you're not allowed. No, I'm saying Jim Crow era, meaning where blacks, you know, could go to a certain part of the rest and couldn't sit at the lunch counter. These are the things which we would now allow people to do as individuals, not legal. Look at the government made rules because if they didn't have those laws, then people would have ignored them. Yes, I have integrated. I understand.

But from the point of view of the black citizen, what I'm saying is like, what is, like, what is, like, what is, broken here that you feel that it's so necessary to revisit allowing people to make such decisions what is the social ill that we're living under say you know what we need to change something around here because and and that change needs to be people need to be able to just get to say no blacks loud no jews loud because our freedom of the like what who's the so i get jarrid taylor when he believes that the uh western civilization any kind of civilization disappears when whenever black people are around, yeah, it doesn't shock me at all. He wants to belong to an all white club and all, that's clear what he wants.

But why do you want it? Right now, the government becomes intimately involved in people's associations, because in certain contexts, if there isn't sufficient racial diversity or other kinds of diversity, the government regards that as prima facie evidence of discrimination. And then the onus is on you to prove that you're not discriminating. So the government already has its hands in, you know, people's business in a very intimate way that I don't agree with. With somewhat libertarian leanings. I know.

You fear that if people had freedom of association, then we would go back to Jim Crow, people would spontaneously institute all these racist policies, but I don't see why that would happen. I also feel, I also fear something in the very process of making that change, which is that the people who come out of the woodwork and fight for it. Listen, I described you to somebody as, and I said, I know this is corny, but I don't feel he's a patriot. Hear me out.

In the sense that one of the deepest obligations of patriotism is to have this love for all your citizens and concern, your fellow citizens and concern for them. And, you know, if you imagine yourself on the different end of this stick, the shit ended the stick in these new policies that you're hoping for, maybe you wouldn't be advocating for them, but the kind of things that people are going to be saying out loud in that process, in that totally quixotic process of,

because you know it's never going to happen, of even a constitutional convention, or, you know, this very difficult process of changing us or a Supreme Court that's going to overrule. None of this is actually going to happen. Overrule what? Do you mean freedom of giving it? Overall the Civil Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 64, whatever, you know, like, none of that's actually going to happen.

All we're going to do is raise the temperature and encourage the Jared Taylor's. Now, let me ask you one other questions because it's all related. In this other thing, and this was actually the first thing I should have mentioned, even now when wokeism does not pose a serious physical threat to anyone, it is poisoned art, culture, scholarship, and social relationships. and here is the only example in your article, the Hereditarian Revolution article, where you give a concrete example of why this is necessary. This is what you say. I think it's the only example.

White children are brainwashed to despise themselves because of their skin color. Anecdotally, white children are sometimes driven to transgenderism in an attempt to escape the shameful status of oppressor. So am I really supposed to be? to get behind this transformative plan for a new equilibrium because white children are brainwashed to despise themselves because of the skin color. First of all, I don't even know that that's true. Second of all, the notions of like inherited guilt, these ridiculous

notions of inherited guilt that these white kids might be being taught by the woke people. And obviously, America is sick and tired of wokeness anyway. And who even knows without Twitter in social media, how many people would really be woke. But let's just say that these wives, so you tell kids, listen, we're not going to teach history anymore this way. We're not going to bash America anymore. We're going to tell kids it doesn't, you're not responsible for what anybody did or didn't do.

You don't need to despise yourself. You have no connection to what is we're talking about. What we want to do is flip it. But for the black kids now, we want them to live in a world where it's normalized, where they're in the halls of Congress, they discuss about the fact, oh, we've got to face reality here. you know, blacks are one standard deviation, less intelligent than white people. And of course, and I'm taking it from your point of view here. Don't confuse it from my point of view, which is like, if I'm confident, and I believe

that these black kids aren't even smart enough to understand what overlapping means and distributions mean, you're going to teach all these kids to grow up with not some ridiculous notion of America that you can explain to them is not fair, but actually an inferiority complex. Hey, hey, dude, don't dream of being a professor. Don't dream of being the physicist. Don't be a thing. Because it's as if like a Jewish kid's dreaming of being a linebacker. Like, it's not going to happen, you know. This is what you want to teach them. And I'm saying, that's not the soul of an American patriot. You don't want to, you don't want to ram that down the throats of young children, even if it is, God forbid, true. And I don't believe it's true.

I don't believe. I have something else say about that later, but what do you respond to that? White kids are despising themselves? That's a reason? I'm not going to be defensive about whether I'm a patriot or not. I'm sure you're patriotic. I explained what I meant by that.

I explained what I meant by that. But my feeling of my identity as American has grown deeper as I've experienced other countries and understood more profoundly the American understanding of freedom and how it's different from the rest of the world and how I identify with what I see as traditional American values and feeling American. But anyway, leaving that aside,

I certainly don't think that what I'm doing is quixotic. First, it's important to realize that, okay, a lot of people now have seen me talking about this stuff, they identify me as the guy who talks about hereditarianism. This stuff is very well known among young people, particularly young conservatives. And in fact, I've met many conservatives from the Gen Z generation. Hereditarianism, race realism. This isn't something. they argue about. It isn't controversial. The only reason that we're not hearing about it is because the Boomer and Gen X gatekeepers are preventing everybody from talking about it in

National Review or on Fox News. But it's coming. This is going to break through into the mainstream. It's just a matter of time. And the question is how are we going to talk about it, not whether we're going to talk about it. Or if I would stop talking about it, then the issue would go away. That's not happening. People who grew up with the internet developed in a totally different informational environment

than we did. I was born in 87. So the internet wasn't really a thing in the way that it is now when I was growing up. The first time that I learned about hereditarianism and the science of race, I was 17 years old in the college classroom. I heard it from the professor. That's not how it is now. People learn about it when they're little kids on the internet. And the conclusion that people are drawing

is that the Nazis who said that races are different, they must be right about everything. because, well, the establishment, my teachers, the New York Times, all the authorities who are saying that there are no differences, it's metaphysically impossible for there to be average differences between groups. They're obviously wrong, if not lying. So therefore, I'm going to go listen to the Nazis. Then that is actually what's happening on a pretty large scale. Okay.

When you make a calculation about, well, if I, If Koffness says these things, then people will feel bad or whatever. Okay, that's a legitimate, legitimate point. But you also have to consider the alternatives, which is that the issue is here, and we're going to have to deal with it whether he wants you or not. I'm sorry. I'm listening to carefully,

and I want to find something that you say to latch on to. Like I say, oh, okay, I feel better now. because, you know, I watched you for a lot in the last 48 hours, and at certain times, I mean, on certain subjects, you're very, very bright. And the way you proceed from point to point is, you know, very pleasant to watch as an intellectual person. Like, you're very smart and you make a lot of sense in certain ways. And then you just go left. So, in my opinion.

So, first of all, I just want to say that, you know, I don't think you really answered my point, my circumstantial point that I found telling, which led me to the Jarrett-Therra thing, was that you'll lead with the fact that white kids are learning to despise themselves. That's kind of a tell as to where someone is coming from, what it is that they, like,

what toe was stepped on that caused you to say, ow. But then, yes, I agree with you. And that's the only reason I'm doing this interview. I had to think 10 times about doing this interview because I don't like this topic publicly as much as I can't deny that the whole nature of the human biology. This is obviously interesting to a curious person. But the reason that I will do the interview

is because people are hearing it anyway. People are hearing it anyway. And so I want to do my part to helping people put it in perspective such closer to the way I put it in perspective. And certainly when you couple what you're saying with statements about how smart people have more human worth than less intelligent people, that lower IQ people are just more likely to be criminals than higher IQ people. When you liked, and you don't like a lot of things on your substack, this article by this zero contradictions.net. You know this article?

It's a FAQ on how do people understand hereditarianism better? And it just talks about all the alleles that black people supposedly have of being unable to follow rules and, you know, rambunctious, and it's not just at the lower IQ, they have six other reasons that they're more likely to be criminals. And by the way, it also says that black people are genetically less likely to respond to chirping of smoke alarms. You know, this is like, to me, it's like, I'm presuming that's junk science. I don't think there's a, you know, sufficient, I mean, to me, it just seems ridiculous and that you would in any way whatsoever lend your imprimatur to that kind of stuff.

Yeah, sure, people are going to talk about this anyway. So why don't you help us digest it in a way that doesn't drive people apart from each other? And let me just say one other the thing while I got you here, because this I think is a good cautionary tale. In the bell curve, Charles Murray, who now looks like an old fuddy-duddy compared to what people are saying now, this is at the height of crime. Charles Murray wrote, in trying to understand how to deal with the crime problem, much of the attention now given to the problems of poverty and unemployment should be shifted

to another question altogether. Coping with cognitive disadvantage. So we're not going to be able to fight crime unless we cope with cognitive disadvantage. And sure enough, we did fight crime. Crime plummeted to levels we never imagined possible, and we never actually put cognitive disadvantage front and center. And thank God that we didn't, right? You agree with that?

Thank God we didn't follow Charles Murray's advice. He was fucking wrong. And, you know, I've said anything I'm going to say. I was seven years old when he wrote that. But you're echoing a certain fatalism about the only. way to solve certain problems is by, you know, ripping the Band-Aid off and let's just talk about this. Yeah. You brought up a number of points.

Yeah. I feel that in the background of some of your comments is the idea that everything is currently just fine. There's no problem at all. No race problem or something that can be easily solved just by... Pause there for just one second because I'm fine to talk. about that. I just want to say everything I'm presenting

here is the reason I said I think you're a white nationalist and I don't expect you to accept that I've been fair with you but at some point I will post like this zero contradictions dot net article

that you zero contradictions he's a very autistic careful writer, he's written a tremendous amount. Off the top of my head, I can't necessarily tell you what his source is for a random sentence. In my experience with zero contradictions, he's very thorough and careful. There are a lot of alleles that say 80% black people have, that

only 20%, let's say 80% black people have and only 20% of white people have. Many places in the genome are like, and the genome are like that, which is what causes racial differences in appearance and behavior. Black people probably have more alleles related to aggressive behavior, lower foresight, worse impulse control on average, which counts for that group's five to eight times higher chance of committing a homicide. And of course, criminal behavior isn't also purely genetic. It's also a result of random factors, but these aren't the main factors regarding people's behavior in the grand scheme of things. Like, this is, like, why would you want to dip your

tip of your pinky into endorsing a guy like that. Or let me put another way. Do you believe that's true? So there are genetic differences that account for behavioral differences between

populations. No, that black people have more alleles for aggressive, lower foresight, worse impulse control. Look, these are heritable traits. That's not even It's not controversial that these are heritable traits within populations. And yet crime in New York is way down, down to levels of... We know why, because of much more sophisticated policing.

And I wasn't there in 1994 when Charles Murray made a wrong prediction. I can't be held accountable for that. I have not made any wrong. I'm accountable for my predictions. But I don't think you answered... I'll answer. Go ahead. Sorry. What's the question? The objection, which is, if you think that everything is fine and there's no problem, and we're going to solve, and wokeism is something that's not a big deal anymore,

everyone's tired of it, and we're moving on, and we can just kind of do the Glenn Lowry, John McWhorter strategy, and then no problem, then, yeah, sure, then there's no, then you would think that, why would we talk about hereditarianism? Yeah. There are lots of offensive things that are true. that we don't talk about because it's not necessary. So this could be just another example of that. My claim is that actually things are not okay at all,

that if we have this ideology that says all people are on average exactly the same, disparities are the result of the environment, specifically white racism, and this is just a disastrous ideology. which is never going to go away it our whole society revolves around this idea and correcting the disparities and sniffing out white racism wherever it is and we go through periods where we're more or less the the war against racism is more or less intense but this has been going on for generations so let me answer

answer you that. Yeah. Okay. Finish your... Go ahead. Go ahead. So, listen, I don't think everything is fine. I don't think there's been a time in the 250 years of America, you could ask somebody and say, yeah, everything is fine. There's

always a problem. I have a theory that humans always need to have a certain kind of level of concern and worry about things.

so that the analogy I've made before is like, you know, you look through a microscope, or you just look at a slide, and you see all these terrible things on the slide. And you, with a tweezer, you take them out, and now they're gone. And then you put it under a microscope at the first level of magnification.

You say, oh, my God, look at that. And then you clean all that up, and then you double the magnification. And at some point, you're looking at, you know, a 512 or 1,028 or whatever the magnetization. But when you look through the microscope, it looks just as big and as ominous as it did when we were looking with the naked eye.

And I think we tend to do this with problems. And I think that's what this problem that you're referring to, especially now that it's on a low ebb, Trump won the popular vote. They eliminated racial preferences in the Supreme Court. is, you know, and I'm not endorsing all this things, although I do endorse the Supreme Court. Joe Rogan and all these anti-woke podcasters are the biggest podcasters in the world. There's so many, I mean, if you were in the woke business, there's so many reasons you'd have to be very worried that your business was on a downward trajectory.

I think that what you're, what you were looking through is what I'm describing, a ultra-magnified kind of obsession. Like Daniel Kahneman used to say nothing is ever as important as it seems to be when you're thinking. about it. I don't think wokeness is as serious as it seems to be when you're thinking about it. And this is our lives, our careers, justice. Well, you, you, yes, because because you inhabit the ultimate third rail of research. Yes, for you, I agree. For you, I agree. But you are, you were representative of like one-tenth of one-thousandth of one-thousandth of one percent of- No, I'm talking about white people, particularly millennial white males, for example. The affirmative action has been, for many of us, the, a defining factor in our lives and our careers.

Yeah. So I opposed it. But they outlawed it now. It's gone now. So now we have a war between the extreme woke, right? Kamala Harris was going to be the wokenest president in history. She won like three quarters of the vote among people with advanced degrees. So that was very recently.

So there's no evidence that people have actually changed. their ideology. It's just that the plebeians who never really understood what woke was about and managed to elect their candidate who, you know, I don't know if you're pleased with how that's going. The anti-woke movement is going. But I have some serious problems with the alternatives that have been offered to wokeism and the fact that the cognitive elites remain overwhelmingly on the woke left. And I don't think that the MAGA right is going to be able to establish a functioning society in the long run.

Well, I... Right now, we're poised to go back and forth between the extreme wokeism and, and a right wing, which is becoming increasingly notified. Yes. But if you want to breathe new life into the woke movement, just let the next presidential candidate to start talking about hereditarianism. I mean, this is, this is, but I was no question. Because that's the thing people say, well, if you show the wokes, they're wrong,

then they'll just get madder and become even more woke. I don't agree with that. Okay. I think that there's some. Some woke people, if you show them the wrong, many woke people will never consider, but some will. But you can't show them they're wrong coupled with a flirtation with all these things that I'm describing. This is my point to you. When Stephen Pinker, who has gotten in trouble for some of this, correct me if I'm wrong, this is from memory now.

Stephen Pinker, I remember, wrote something about IQ and intelligence. And there was another guy, another Jew, in the New York Times, some doctors has many years ago already, wrote some op-ed. And the New York Times published it, saying, you know, we better get ready for this. It's coming, you know, cognitive differences. David Reich. David Reich.

Okay. David Reich is also a professor at Harvard. Yeah. Who wrote, as you say, that, yeah, the science is coming, that the race, that the deniers, that the people who say that there are no group differences in traits like intelligence are going against the science. Now, there's no way Stephen Pinker is going to hem and hauntow or want to be or or say anything even the slightest bit favorable about jarrath taylor and his

outfit where he's not going to talk about the reason we need to do this is because white kids are learning to despise themselves i i think this is counterproductive i'll announce you a different question as a scientist but this is i have to make it at a point here please do so stephen pinker who i have great respect for i'm a huge fan all that he had been talking about about the possibility of race differences for many years. He, I can't remember what year it was published, but he published a chapter in a book called What's Your Dangerous Idea, where he said that there may be genetic differences between people.

He gave a talk on, where he more or less endorsed the idea that there had been selection for intelligence in the Jewish population. So, but yes, you're right. He was not very aggressive about it, and he spoke in the more euphemistic language that you favor. And what was the result? Did Harvard become less woke over the last 30 years that Pinker has been making these comments? Or has it become the wokenest place on earth? You're not postulating.

You're not saying if Pinker had said what you wanted him to say. say he would have somehow, you know, overcome the tsunami of wholeness. I'm saying it's not Pinker's sole responsibility, but I'm saying there were people who took the strategy that you say is the right one. Not just Pinker, but there are other people who also spoke in code. Well, I'm saying, I'm saying it's the right one from your point. I don't think Pinker had, Pinker was not trying to reorder society. I mean, okay.

Okay, so I am. I'm trying to defeat wokeism. I'm trying to defeat wokeism. and you suggested that, well, maybe I would have more luck if I would adopt, if I would speak more like Stephen Pinker. So we already have Stephen Pinker, have been speaking like Stephen Pinker for a long time, and other people have been doing the same thing. And it got woker.

So wokeism, I think, to me, wokeism, and I hope we have time for like one or two more, to me, wokeism was characterized by mob mentality, being able to avail itself of new tools, Twitter and the like to express false outrage and it was amplified

by COVID and George Floyd and all sorts of outlier events outlier probability events and it reached a national mouth foaming point, and its close cousin was a me-to.

And there's such a general recognition now that it was an overshoot and kind of a moral panic such that we haven't heard about anybody getting ruined or me-toed or canceled in a while. Like it's really, I don't feel nearly the same worry that I used to feel after every show. Oh my God, what are they going to clip out? What are they going to clip out now? What are they going to clip out now? it's receding. And that's how I feel about it.

And I hope it continues to recede. And yet, let's bring me to my next point. So you're a scientist. Let me just check with you. You believe in the merits of the importance, the integrity of double-blind experiments, meaning like even Connman had written about, Daniel Connman is the guy who wrote this book,

thinking, fast, thinking, slow, you know, very important book. I don't know if he stood the test of time. And he wrote in that book about how he, when he knew he was reading the paper of someone he had previously graded well, he noticed that he was now giving their next paper a better grade.

And then he created a system for himself that he wouldn't know who he was grading. But of course, in general, we all learn about double-blind experiments that if the researcher knows who has the placebo and who has the medication, who has this, you know, anything about the psychological experiment, that distorts the results the experiment.

And are you worried that everyday people of average intelligence, when they hear this hereditarianism about frequencies of certain people being just less intelligent, that they won't begin to see this? Like if I have a job interview with a black dude, any hems and haws, or says something inartful like I do every day, people say, oh, there it is, you know, that's all. all I need to hear. It's a black guy. The human mind just connects the dots. The smartest people do this. I've had conversations. I don't even want to repeat in my life where people I've seen

what are you doing? One has nothing to do with the other, but they put these things together. Aren't you worried about that lack of abandoning essentially double blindness in our relationships with people? So in the first part of that, you mix up the methods of wokeism with the ideology itself. So cancelling people on Twitter or mobbing them or cancelling them in the way that was characteristic of the great awokening. You're right. Those were methods employed by people with a certain ideology. Similar methods can be employed by people with other ideologies. The defining feature of wokeism isn't that they engage in mobbing, something which humans have always done since we were going back to Homo erectus,

or the fact that people were very sensitive about deviation from the ideology. The ideology was the denial of group differences and the idea that group disparities present a moral emergency to correct the environment and bring about a quality of outcome. Can I redeem myself? You're 100% right in your logical thing there. What I meant, what I didn't probably, I just didn't express it, which is that a relatively small number of people

were able to leverage all these tools to bring pressure to bear on people in a way, and mobs and shame people into this stuff, in a way they were never in the past. These people always believed this kind of stuff but now in the era of social media, they were able to, as I say, it's like I always talk about the Wizard of Oz,

pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. That's kind of what the woke mob was. So, yes, but you are your, I take your point. So go ahead. So, okay, so now in the year 1101, I could have made comments similar to the ones you just made about wokeism, saying how Christianity is on the wane,

it's not really a big thing anymore. And I could give you statistics about, well, in the last, you know, three years ago, you couldn't say anything or you would be killed, burned at the stake, and now it's not like that anymore. So, you know, just stop talking about Christianity. It's not a factor. Yeah, well, the crusade was from 1096 to 1099, and then the crusade is over.

Yes, that intensity isn't going to be maintained forever, but there will be other crusades. It's not going away because the ideology is still there. And it's the same with wokeism. The ideology is still there. People have not changed their minds. The same people who were engaging in cancellations in 2020 to 2022, they still feel the same way. They've been disempowered. but it just takes one election for somebody like Kamala Harris or even woker than she is

to open the floodgates again. Do you feel like any of your personal bitterness from what you've been through and the way you've been treated fuels any of this, maybe in some way distorts your ability to think about it in a more disinterested way? distorts my look the the argument stands or falls okay on itself you know i say that wokeism is based on a logical argument which is starting with the empirical premise of group sameness um you know if people if there's an argument against against that then i'm i'm open to hearing it okay now obviously i have experiences with with wokeism that i don't make a secret of that. Well, you've been vilified. I mean, I didn't know of you, but after reading about what you've

been through, I could see you'd be very bitter. I mean, bitter sounds as a very negative connotation. Yeah. You know. When you treat it unfairly, because you're engaging in ideas in good faith, in your opinion, then, of course, you'd be bitter. You can't get a job. You get fired. You get called names. I'm sure. I mean, it's kind of boring. to whine about that kind of thing, but, you know, sure. I do want to make one more comment about the thing that you said at the end, about, well, people won't understand overlapping distributions, and then they'll... Well, I said that they will distort their opinion of people in the same way researchers

who are trained not to can't help but distort. But I... Well, researchers who are... trained, I don't understand the concept of overlapping bell curves? No, I meant that when, we will not allow any medication to go to market if the guy doing the research knew who had the placebo and who didn't. Just like anytime you hear about symptoms on a TV show, you think, oh, I think I have that, right?

Like, this is very human. So I'm saying, like, when you start telling everybody, which is become second nature, everybody knows, oh, these people are less intelligent, then when they meet somebody, then that becomes the way they perceive that person. I mean, there's been studies, I don't want to board, like those studies were like they gave second grade teachers, and it was in mixed classrooms. Anyway, when they gave them created essays by students,

but when the essays kind of were coded for black names and stuff like that, not overwhelmingly, but to some degree, the teachers scored the same essays worse, when it appeared that the essay was written by a black student. I mean, many of those, many of these studies are fake. Many of the studies in Conneman's book have also fallen.

I'll send you this one. I'll send you this one off the air, but go ahead. In general, you'll agree with double-blind theory. Well, the, there's a well-known study

which found that white liberals, you probably saw the headlines about this, white liberals dumb down their language when they speak to black people. Because they listen to you. No other, no other, well, that's the thing, right?

So the, the people who don't listen to me have these stereotypes. Now, I, look, people have these stereotypes, people live in the world

and people make generalizations, whether it's conscious or not, uh, I, I actually think that gender, you shouldn't dumb down your, language when you're talking to everybody. I think in general that that doesn't, that's

not an effective way to communicate. But it's not, you don't have to show people the data, the scientific data for them to have stereotypes and to make generalizations about the world that reflect what the data show. No, but it, when you tell them, when you tell them, when you tell them the data, it's just going to amplify the effect. Now, I have a, I have two personal anecdotes. I know anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence, but even you cited an anecdotal thing. I told these on, on the show before. So one is a friend of mine whose child was not thriving as a, you know, nursery school or something like that. And they did a battery test, I say, Mr. Mrs. X, you know, child has a under 90 IQ.

You have to face reality. And, you know, these are the things you should do. And the mother just wasn't having it. She wouldn't accept it. She's like, no. And she put this effort into it, that effort to it and that effort to it and never told him. And the kid just recently graduated Dartmouth. White kid, no special treatment.

You know, just wildly wrong. There's always these false negatives. You can raise a kid's SAT scores with privileged kids. They take all to take the SAT courses. And we know there's many false positives, kids who score better than they're, you know, ought to be scoring. And we're perfectly fine with that. But then we have the kids who are underprivileged.

And we know X number of them. We don't know what that X is, but X number of them underscore their true potential, because their environment is much closer to an environment where you would really begin to see that effect. Nobody tells them to do their homework. No, the schools are awful. Who knows what they're going through. And we're ready just like, well, whatever happens to them, we're going to cut bait on them.

And then the other anecdote I have is in my own family, my son was diagnosed with all these learning issues. and he went to this the Lowell School in Queens, a special school for kids with these learning issues and he wasn't learning a fucking thing. And I said, are you going to get him to take the regents?

You get him to do this. Mr. Dwarman, you know, please, we're the experts here. We know how these, and I remember saying, he can't even, he doesn't even know how to sign his name. He said, oh, you know,

they're not using script anymore. So he doesn't even know how to do 15% to give a tip. And she's like, well, in the days when 15% was a tip. And she says to me, well, 15% is easy. I mean, you take 10%. And then you just take half of that.

I said, I know how to do 15%. He doesn't know how to do 50%. And so I finally got fed up. Now, these are the experts. And I pulled him out of school and I put him in just regular fucking public school in Ard's Lee, New York. This kid got an 88 on the American history regions, a 90-something on the trigonometry regions. They saw in him what his, you know, dossier told them to see in him. one of these experts recognized in him,

oh, this kid is actually way smarter than, you know. So this all informs me. And that brings me to, can you play Nicole Hannah-Jones' daughter? So this, I'm sure you followed this amazing Nicole Hannah-Jones column where she, about her daughter and all this stuff. I've been so busy recently. I haven't been able to file it. I know it's a big thing.

So this is a conversation between Nicole Hannah-Jones and her daughter. And after you hear it, this is, God bless Nicole Hannah-Jones' daughter. she, I mean, she speaks up for herself and it's nice that the mother obviously gives her the green light to do so. But I want you to hear it and then respond to what this conversation would or wouldn't look like in the New Equilibrium Society of Nathan Koffness. Go ahead, Stephen. It's like, why should my child be the one that's rescued? Like, you should escape what we consigned so many other kids. just like you too, I just would never feel right about that.

Why? Why? It makes no sense. You're talking about, oh, I'm just going to give you the worst just because it's not fair that you... I didn't actually be bored. All you're supposed to do is just like putting you in a good school, like, oh, well, I don't want to put you in a great school and have you have advantages over other kids. Isn't that what you want? Is that what you want me to have? Is that not a normal thing you want me to have?

You don't want me to... You do, though. Okay, yeah. But you do. You have advantages. You have so many advantages. Right. Okay.

So not... But I'm not saying, I'm saying in school-wise. I'm in school every day. I was in that building every single day. That doesn't make sense. I'm there more than home. Obviously, I get more in general, but school is the most important thing.

That's the main thing. Why do you imagine, like, you're able to do well in... Um, because it's a better school. But you? you think it's possible your foundation wasn't as terrible as you think it is? No. So you think you came in like a blank slate of . And now have learned everything there?

No, but... You have been able to have the same academic success as your classmates. Yeah, to get through it because... Well, not even, though. Like, I... Everyone last year, I had my grade come out. I remember crying because everyone else is, like, was so good.

And I was just like, how is it so easy for everyone else but me? So now I don't think that I got through it. I think I just tried my hardest. Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say you did not receive the top quality middle school education. That's fair. Even basic fractions. I mean, like, I was never taught that.

I had to relearn everything for my tutor. That's fair. Everyone's not sure. Not your kid. You can't save everyone who doesn't want to be saved. All right. That's what you think, though? That's it.

You think... That's even. That's basically it. So, you know, this is a heart-rending thing to me. And, I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is it your position that everything they're discussing there is really... I don't know what the word is. A delusion in some way that they believe that this actually matters,

which school, blah, blah, blah. But in the end, it's just noise that this child is going to be the same, regardless of the quality of the education that we give her. So regarding anecdotes, I think I'd have to look at, you can fact check me on this. I think that Shaquille O'Neal grew up very short. Look that up, Stephen. It's either him or some other basketball player. I'm not really a basketball expert. I remember here.

And then suddenly he had this enormous growth sport and grew afoot. It's not him as somebody else. Yeah, somebody else. He was six feet four at 12. So who was it? I need a second on that. Hold on it.

Maybe chatbot would be able to figure it out. So yes, this kind of thing happens. and these statistics are far more meaningful on a population level than they are for individuals. And there are many individual exceptions, people who are not just talented test takers, but may have intelligence that is not captured by the test, or for some reason they just aren't good at taking the test. Or conversely, people who are very good at taking tests, but somehow, the intelligence doesn't really shine through in any kind of real life or activity. Nevertheless, the statistics are what they are.

On average, there are group differences in the ability to cogitate, to use your brain to manipulate information. Okay, but here's Rodman. Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman. Okay. Dennis Rodman. Here's a young girl, and it seems very credible because the mother, you know, seems to understand what she said, who was struggling with fractions, struggling with

school. She said because the school was terrible in the column you read, nobody was checking her, nobody was doing the homework, they weren't even grading the papers. and now she's in a better school now and she feels all of a sudden I'm improving, I'm getting better, I'm learning and my fear is that a society that embraces

your view of the futility of trying to overcome genetics would lose any real interest or urgency in addressing this problem that woke Nicole Hannah Jones actually pissed all over. But now she's come around.

Nicole Hannah Jones didn't want her daughter to have advantages to achieve her full potential, which is the opposite of my view. My view is that everyone should have the resources to achieve their full potential. When it comes to education, we already have more than enough, we're putting more than enough money. We spend a mind-boggling amount of money. Right. So the problem is how,

we spend the money. If we have... Now, the social science on this is, I'm clear, that the differences between schools, I mean, when you're talking, at least when you're talking about middle class, what is available to middle class people,

which doesn't, so I'm not talking about the worst, most dysfunctional schools you know, in the inner city, they may very, very possible that they do disadvantage people in meaningful ways. But if your school is at all functional, then the differences between

like a slightly better school, slightly worse school, or an elite school, they don't seem to make much of a difference in the long run. Like, that's just... By the way, I tend to agree, with the difference between slightly better

and slightly worse school. don't make a difference in the long run. It's been a slightly worse school coupled with a slightly worse home environment. I mean, you're not a parent. I mean, just every parent knows if I didn't make my kids study for their exams, do their homework, read to them in ways to improve their vocabulary, get them a tutor if they need tutoring. and I'm not fantasizing that I could put them, you know, two standard deviations ahead of where they were, but this matters. It matters an enormous amount.

I have to interject here. We know from adoption studies, so we have identical twins who are separated at birth and raised by different families. Nancy Siegel, Minnesota twin study, we had her on years ago. Go ahead. Not really. it makes a difference in childhood. It makes a big difference, but when you look at them, by the time they're in their mid-20s,

the impact of parenting style has basically faded away. In the aggregate. It's only genetic. Now, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take care of your kids and you shouldn't do what's best for your kids. you should because childhood is also an important part of life and people should learn and grow and can i tell you why i that's not plausible to me and and i believe listen

i i've raised a child that's not my genetic child and he's just like his i mean just like his father we never met so like i'm i'm the i'm the easiest person to persuade on on this stuff but um he he's met his father's since but uh but you know if you look at let's say, I don't know, the second intifada. And you see a group of people who are, you know, dressing up their kids in suicide belts and ready to die. And, you know, at some point, culture is powerful enough to get one group of people to do things.

We couldn't even, you wouldn't even believe that was possible that humans would do that, right? These data only apply to people, Americans, who are allowed, who are eligible to adopt children. It doesn't apply to any other population. So maybe because adopted parents are so thoroughly vetted, it doesn't really tell us, there's got to be some different. If you're running a crack house, you can't participate in the Minnesota adoption study. And something not quite as bad as a crack house, but just a very unhulled. wholesome home life.

Listen, I mean, I'm becoming a cliche left-wing person here, which I'm not, but I never meant by being a right-wing person to foreclose myself to the idea that nothing matters, that essentially that the way I raise my child just doesn't matter. They can see me stealing from people or they can see me being honest to people and they'll find their own honest, the thievery dynamic. And by the way, some of that might be inborn. But I'm just not ready.

I just can't believe that. I know how my behavior is informed by certain incidents in my life, lessons that I was not taught so much as witnessed, you know. But you probably witnessed many things and they're opposite. And somehow one set of things makes an impression on you and not the other, the opposite. And it's just partly your genetic endowment that determines what it is you respond to. All right. And now you construct a story about how you were influenced by the environment because, you know, you don't see into your genome.

You just experience what happened to you. And so your story about yourself makes reference only to you. what you experience. Now, why do you, why do you, why do you go from this other than some sort of a natterman, you don't know, natterman like, like, figure me, I don't know, like a personality quirk where you like just can't resist. Why would you promote yourself to talk about low intelligence being, uh, correlated with lower human worth? Like, like, why would you rob your own credibility that way and, and close people off to, to receiving you? as they say, when they know that you're also advocating that the fact not only these people

less intelligent, but you know, that also means they're worth less in a more esoteric way or metaphysical way. I think it's the opposite. I think you shoot your credibility when you deny it. A common accusation made against hereditarians is you can't say this because it would imply that people have different worth, the basis. on IQ, which is a simplification. But there's some relationship. And if you deny it, well, you're denying something that is obviously true, and then it doesn't look good at all.

It doesn't make you look great. It's not obviously true. I mean, it's, first of all, we're entering an age of AI. It could be that all the high brain power professions are done by computers. And actually, the most human worth is in people with a strong back and extreme human empathy to be nurses and stuff like that. Like, I don't know what you're saying is, you know, valuable to... What do we value about human beings?

What makes a human being more valuable than a chimpanzee or a mouse or a slug? I don't... Nobody knows the answer to that. I know you don't... Part of that is intelligence and other qualities that are intrinsically related to intelligence. Yeah, but I know you don't like Thomas Jefferson

all men are created equal thing. You wrote that somewhere. But, you know, and you said that, well, you know, all things being equal, you would save the drowning child with a higher IQ. I'm like, you know, I mean, we all, we value different things. I would like my child to be smart and good looking and musically talented. But if the child turns out to be a bit dim and ugly and tone deaf, am I supposed to tell this child, well, you know,

I hope you don't find yourself in a situation where there's too few lifeboats because they'd be perfectly reasonable in giving your spot to somebody else because, you know, you have less human worth. This is crazy talk. You don't need to say it. You don't need to say it. But it's true. But if somebody, it's a philosopher, I'm a philosopher, I'm a professional philosopher.

If somebody makes the philosophical claim that there's no relation between intelligence and human worth as a philosopher, I have to object. Well, Charles Mario, even Charles Murray didn't agree with you. All right, so listen, I'm going to play one last thing before we go. Perryl, Perryl joined us. Do you want to say something? And by the way, I make fun of Perry Lell's intelligence all the time.

I mean, I think that that is... Oh, that's her real voice, by the way. Go ahead. An insane thing to say. And I can assure you... She calls everybody insane, don't worry. No, no. I can assure you that if you had a child who,

was a moron and you had the opportunity to save him or her versus somebody else's child who was a genius. He's not going to disagree with that. There's no doubt in my mind that you would save your idiot child. And I'll go on. Of course, because it's my child. So the child is valuable to me. Okay.

And if you had a parent. Wait, wait. And if you had a parent who is in a hospital and had a very empathetic nurse, because they were suffering, you would value that more than some asshole doctor who is nasty to them. So, I mean, to assign value like that seems like an incredibly flawed position to take. But you're attacking the position that value is entirely determined by intelligence, which is certainly not my view. My view is that intelligence is very important.

It's one of the very important things that we value. The most important thing. I'm not attacking your position. I don't know if the most important thing. I don't know. I'd have to think about that more. But if all things being equal, that's an important clause, all things being equal, if you know nothing more,

two people are drowning. And the only thing I know is this one has an IQ of 120, and this one has an IQ of 80. I'm going to save the IQ 120. Because all things being equal, intelligence is both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable. So what if the person who had an IQ of 120 was a cunt, and the other person was just like the nicest person ever?

Right. So I said all things being equal. Apparently Einstein was a prick, by the way, so you might want to reconsider. But all things are not equal. All things are never equal. And also, why are there no books behind you? We already covered that.

So to isolate, and this is the method of philosophy, right? To isolate the value of X, we have to control for everything else. So controlling for everything else, the only difference is intelligence. If intelligence is valuable, then we treat it as valuable. So, all right, listen, you've been, you've been a very good guest. I feel like I haven't really cracked through. I'm not, I think that there is a, what do I think?

I don't think you're, I don't think you're a Jared Taylor hateful person. I don't think that. I don't know, but I don't, it doesn't seem, I never heard anything you said here or elsewhere that would imply that. And yet, you play. to his audience and are clearly reluctant to call him out for things in the same way you would

if he was saying those things about Jews. I think that there's an emotional part of this story. You know, you can put Vaseline on a lens and blur details for the better. And the picture looks better. Everybody agrees it looks better and everything just more harmonious and you can put too much Vaseline on a lens and you can't even see anything anymore

and there's a soul that understands that sometimes a little Vaseline on the lens is for the better. I'm struggling to put in the words but let me just play with this last video. Play that last video I sent you so as I'm walking around

I tend to pace when I'm thinking. I had a lot of anxiety about this particular interview. And just like a few minutes before I got to the olive tree, I'm walking down the street and I see something I guess I'd never seen before. It was these two Jews in Yamikas.

I'm going to play it for you. This is the very famous West Third Street basketball court in New York. We're like, you know, generally only good people play. I don't know how those Jews got on the court. But anyway, these two Jews are playing these black dudes basketball. And they're wearing kipas, you know?

And I thought, what a beautiful thing to see just as I want to talk to you about what it is that I object. So I just play a few seconds of it, Stephen. There's really nothing happens except you just see the guy with the Yamika, you know. And this is, all right, Steve, that's it. So like this, you can take it down. So like, this is this beautiful image. of, you know, what I think the world should be. Now, these kids are wearing yarmugas.

They're not sacrificing their diversity, right? Their diversity, they're wearing that diversity, loud and clear on their heads, and they're going home to, you know, their sookas. But there they are, playing with the black guys while, you know, Gaza is burning. And this is a real thing that we can aspire to. it's important. And, you know, if you come to my restaurant, the olive tree, you'll see

every night parties come in, black people with white people with gay people, and they're hanging out and they're having a good time. And it's all real. It's a real intimate friendships, right? And they're quite, you know, I'm sure they're diverse. And at the back table, the comedians sit. And they're, of course, all different races. And, you know, and they know that some stereotypes are partly true and they make ethnic jokes and they argue but they love each other and and it all somehow works and I and I feel like you see these ugly trees of of wokeness or whatever it is and and you want to burn them down but in some way you're not realizing that that fire is going to burn the whole forest down like you're going to it's it can

spread to the entire social fabric of America. And, you know, I don't know your background, but there is something about, like, my life growing up in New York City public schools, being a musician, spending my life around, embedded really with people of all different colors, black people, having an Indian wife, and all of it that I just feel like it's not nearly as hopeless as you might imagine it to be

from the point of view of your background in your life, which I know nothing of, and I shouldn't presume to make assumptions, but I just somehow doubt that it's as steeped in interactions. Many of these people, you know, are totally woke as

mine has been. And I just feel like you need to have, we all ought to have, because we're all stuck together. You know, like I can see why some nations, it's much easier to be Japan and not have to, but we are all married together as one nation now. And we have to find a way to come together as one nation. And if it's not interpreting, whatever it is, we have to be, we have to be one. And if that means inefficient spending or, you know, as I said, there's false positives, false negatives.

If there's only, you know, five or ten percent of a certain population that's really going to be, and we spend as if it was 50 percent and we waste a lot of money, we're wasting a lot of money in a good effort. And, you know, this is the last thing. I'm finished. Like I've said for a long time, I'm totally with you. When you see there's not enough doctors of color or this is a color, I say, well, this is annoying to me because if it's a lot of, I'm going to say, this is annoying to me, because if you look at the way these kids are in grammar school, what would you predict otherwise? How would you predict otherwise?

I mean, the disparities in achievement between minorities and white people and, my goodness, Asian people in like the sixth grade, they tell you exactly what to expect when they're older. But so long as we haven't really pulled up our sleeves and addressed that problem in the grammar schools, with charter schools and all the various things out there, this supposedly Mississippi miracle, I don't know if it's real or it's not,

but there's all sorts of things where people like Nicole Hannah-Jones' daughter are not coming home to their mothers, say, listen, they don't even teach us fractions until we've addressed all that. That's what I think we should be focusing on. And I would say to anybody, any walk person, say, don't hand me that about disparities

in the medical school, because look at how these kids are doing when they're young. You know what? Stop with that nonsense. Let's all get together and let's address these problems when they are young. And then maybe 30 years or now, AI will come in and swoop in and a lot of these things won't even matter. I don't know. Kick the can down the road

in some way. I don't know where reality is. But I do not think you can come to America and tell them you need to erect barriers between the races and, you know, we need to be able to have freedom association. It doesn't require people to have businesses that serve. This is just to me, it seems like madness to me. All right. I spoke a long time.

Giving you the last words, sir. Jews and black people playing basketball together is completely unremarkable. I grew up on a soundtrack, some violin music when I show it on the air. Go ahead. I grew up in Manhattan. and a fairly, I will mainly Jewish community, but I interacted with all sorts of people. I don't really care about the race of the people that I'm friends with.

My wife is a different race. My wife is Korean. Many of my friends are, I know that's a stupid thing to say, right? It's not stupid. It's not stupid. but we're interested. My best friends are a different, different race. That's my view.

I don't say. What I said in a guide for the authoritarian revolution is that personally, they've organized my own life around identity as a Jew or as being white or whatever is not my thing. With respect to the Jews and blacks playing basketball, They're not going to marry each other or each other's sisters. They're going to marry within their own group. But there have been interactions. There have been interactions between Jews and Africans going back thousands of years.

And as I said, it doesn't have to be like a weird cultural experience. It's just interacting with people and not even thinking about race is how it works. 95% of the time. In the background of your comments, though, is, in my view, a failure to recognize the very serious problem, which is wokeism is real. It is the ideology of the ruling elites.

How you're treated from the time you're a little kid in school, through your career, is colored by race. And that's not because people have accepted my ideas. That's because they've accepted the idea, the woke idea that everybody's on average the same and disparities are evidence, if not proof, of injustice.

We hear about it constantly. This is the constant theme of the humanities, of the social sciences. It's an obsession, the national obsession. And the same thing is true in West in Europe and other countries, Anglophone countries. All right. So, yes, if it were just, you know, everyone playing basketball together and going to the olive,

what's it called, the olive tree, the restaurant. The olive tree. And everyone could be happy and we don't have to talk about it, then I wouldn't talk about it. But that's not where we are. and there is an issue, and that's why we have to face these facts. I would just say, and I'll just keep my engineer, he's an affirmative action hire, by the way, that you should, I just wish, not you should, I don't presume to tell you what to do, but I just feel like it would be the right thing to do to separate yourself from these people

who are obviously fueled not by the same gasoline that you are. These people like Jared Taylor and this guy, zero, whatever that was, these people are, they're out to, for something else, to create something else in the world, in my opinion. By the way, I believe zero contradictions is not white. Whatever. I don't think he's black. I don't believe so.

No. I forget. Stephen. Yeah, I just want to go on record. I don't know if this is woke or not, but did these tests, that we're basing off of, like IQ in general, like it's, they were created at a time to, like, establish a discriminating factor,

like, quickly used for sterilization, immigration. And wouldn't you, I mean, like, if multiple races were involved in a consensus of creating the IQ test, don't you think they would have the questioning line up with more of the cultural wisdom they're passing down themselves? You don't think that's a factor?

Why do East Asians and the United States Indians score higher on these tests than the white people who made the tests, people from a completely different cultural background? Yes, Stephen. Sure, sure. I'd say conformity. I think, yeah, if we are saying it's the most valuable trait, we're saying it's the most probably a trade to us now. So if you create the filters to accelerate the things that are the most valuable to those in a place of authority then, and now we're stuck with that since I'm looking

in the 1800s, like... Steven, just the thing, and then, I mean, we're just shooting the shit. To me, there's two ways. There's two conversations. Both of them are interesting conversation. One is to get into a conversation challenging, refuting, scrutinizing the data. and I'm not really qualified to do that, and I chose not to do that. And then there's another conversation and say, okay, let's assume arguendo that this data is, for the most part. You don't have to say it's 100% correct, but you think it's the picture that it tells is a picture that we have to deal with. What is the best way to react to that situation? And this conversation that we had is really about my disagreement about what is the best way as a nation to react to the worst case scenario if it's true.

And that's that. You know, maybe we have another conversation. I'm sure Confist is an expert on it about the actual data. But I'll tell you, Stephen, you don't want to walk into a buzzsaw. Yeah, I know. I mean, you know, standardized testing is, I don't know, I have my issues with that. Just in general, it seems like we're relying on an old test. Because the problem with this data, as I understand it, is that though many of us still feel

there's something about our experience with the world, which makes us really have an intuition that is something not quite right here. The data itself is just, I mean, do you ever see this movie three identical strangers? We've talked about it, like these three kids raised completely apart and they're exactly the same in all their, it's not just their IQ, it's their, it's their, uh, personality traits and their, their mental, uh, equanimity and then all, all kinds of stuff, you know, and, um, we see this over and over and over again. And you have kids, you see it in your kids. Oh, like my kid, my kid, manny, you know, he was talking, like nine months and, and in sentences at 14 months,

and this kid, it's, is a fucking scholar. Like, you know, this is not a coincidence. It's, I didn't raise him in any way. No, he takes after his wife. Your mic's off. No, your mic. It's on now. It's on now. Go ahead.

Did you say? Did you mute me? I said, yeah, he's a scholar. He takes after your wife. Yeah, it takes after my wife. Yeah. Like, this is reality. And gene pools are realities.

And now, I don't know if races are shorthand for gene pools because Jews are white. And we're not the same gene pool as white people. I know, I mean, I imagine there's certain parts of continents where people of the same race didn't see each other for thousands of years. I don't know how it all goes together, but it's all, maybe we should have that conversation again, because I find it all very interesting. I give you another last word. Go ahead. Well, just to... You agree with everything I'm saying, I take it, right? To address the point about IQ test.

So the myth is that IQ tests ask you. You know, how do you pair, does Merleau go with with mackerel or does, or is it Cabernet? And what's the way, what's the address of the country club? And you ask people a bunch of questions like this and then give them an IQ score. In fact, IQ tests are not like that at all. It's asking you to rotate a shape to, it gives you an example of a shape and then four pictures of a shape and which one is the same as the first one but just rotated in a different position.

And the Jews are worse at that one, right? We're not as good. You're actually worse at this. Jackie Mason has a bit about what happens when you give Jews directions compared to Gentiles, as you may know. Imagine how smart the Jews must be. of the other tasks to still score so highly despite their deficit in spatial relations? Jews are good at symbol manipulation, but not spatial.

Wow. Or you ask people, you give people numbers. So I give you a bunch of numbers, you know, 1, 3, 7, 8, and I ask you to repeat the numbers or to repeat them in reverse order, something like that. So, yes, you do need to come from a certain cultural background to understand the concept of test-taking. You have to know what numbers are. You have to understand what, you know, there are certain things that you have to understand. But it's not like asking, these are things that base, the kind of knowledge that's required to take IQ test is pretty basic, that basically everyone has been exposed.

But what if this? I mean, I don't want to give this zero contradiction guy any credit, but just he talks about genes first, what were they sitting still and, you know, behavior and things like this. What if, it's not intelligence at all, just like, you know, certain people can't just sit still and focus as long as other people to take a whole IQ test. And then they're actually just as smart, but, you know, they have other things which would make it harder for them to score as well on a test. Well, as I mentioned before,

there are some people who are just bad at test taking for various reasons. And so their low score wouldn't reflect their potential. That's, but those genes will vary among individuals. I taught SAT prep for a while, and what I realized is most people just had an excess anxiety of they're supposed to be bad at from where they came from. all we did was teach him how to take the test. We didn't teach him anything.

Okay. I want to tell you an experience I had. We're finished here. So, you know, I'm 64 years old now, and it's amazing how my mind is definitely not what it used to be. And not everybody in my age feels this way what most people do. But anyway, when I took my, I took the L-SAT. Now, I was always a pretty good test taker, you know, I, he scored like, you know, 93rd,

94th percent on most things. I wasn't like a serious student. And then I took it the LSAT. And the day before, or two days before the LSAT, I took a practice test. It was supposed to be under test conditions. And I got so frustrated during this practice test that I left in the middle of the test.

I said, ah, fuck it. Whatever I get, I get. And then two days later, I took the test, and I sat down in actual test conditions. And I'm telling you, it was like the matrix. Time slowed down. down. I can remember it to this day. This is 30, 40 years ago. I got too wrong on that test. One of them I changed just as I was about to leave the door. The original answer was the

right answer. And I don't know why the fuck I changed it. I knew when I left. I shouldn't have changed it. But it was such a weird answer. I didn't believe it. So I would have gotten just one wrong. Now, you know, this is top 10th of 1% on the LSA. I got into every law school I applied to based on this, purely an L-SAT. But there's something about that experience I had, which made me wary of test results because it wasn't a false positive because somehow it was real.

It wasn't like I got lucky, but somehow I got myself into the right headspace of concentration and focus that I'm seldom able to get. But if I had just gotten that score that I was on about to get, two days earlier with the actual test, you know, actual,

I don't know if I would have gotten a terrible score. Maybe I would have gotten a 39 or 40 now, instead of 45. You know, that, and that's a real thing I experienced. And I can't be the only one. Like I understand, it's not, I can't generalize this to everybody. Like I used to joke about whether torture works.

I say, listen, I know people would say torture doesn't work, but I know that if they tortured me, I'd tell them what they want to know. and I can't be the only one. Like, how's my proof that torture must work sometimes? And I feel like there's got to be a lot of times that these tests are erratic and there's false positives and false negatives.

And we have to concern ourselves with rooting out the false negatives because these are our citizens. So go ahead. Don't determine somebody's life on the basis of one test. They continue to give them chances to prove themselves or to develop.

Like a genetic test? Sorry. You can start with a genetic test, but ultimately you should, people should be judged by their performance, not by a test. The test... Oh, it was out of 48.

I got a 47. Sorry, I go, go, go, go. It's a useful tool for identifying people who are statistically more likely to be successful in certain domains. Yeah. if somebody else proves to be more successful, then don't say, well, it can't be true because the tests said otherwise. You look at the evidence. You can't accept everybody to law school.

You can't accept everyone to the top law school, right? So how do you choose who to accept? In order to be a lawyer, to be a serious lawyer, you have to be able to reason at a very abstract level. you have to understand difficult verbal concepts. It requires intelligence. And who are you going to admit? Somebody who scored well on the test of verbal reasoning, which is exactly what we want from lawyers, or somebody who got a more middling score,

or somebody who got a low score? Ideally, we would test everybody and let everybody have a 20-year career as a lawyer and see who was, you know, one the most cases, and we would admit them to law school. But that's not the point of the admissions process is to identify people's potential. So you use the best tool at your disposal that is practical, and that is, you know, the test. This was always my analogy was about genetics. It's that, you know, you have two seeds for trees, and within the genetics,

of these seeds, one is the genes to be a very tall tree and one is to be a less tall tree. And that's it. Like that's that, you can't change that. But if you don't, if you give the tall tree one, not enough sunlight and not enough water, he will grow to be a short tree. And he might even be shorter than the tree that was destined to be shorter than here. So our task as a country is to make sure that all our children are getting all the sunlight and all the nutrition in their soil that they need to get so we can be confident

that they're reaching their potential. And I don't think there's any consensus that that's what's going on yet. And until there is that consensus, I think, this is a very strong argument that doesn't require any look at hereditarianism, and it's, it's a, and it's not a concession to the woke. You're saying, listen, we need to take care of our children. There's too many children growing up in, in bad environments, and let's, let's put our attention to that. And there'll be other benefits we can't even imagine from that. I was just about to say, but we finally found something we totally agree on, and we can end on that

note although then at the end you said we need to reach a consensus that everyone has is experiencing conditions that will allow them to reach their potential I mean my my concern is that as long as there are disparities the mere fact that there are disparities will be taken as proof yes of the fact that some people do not have the have not experienced the conditions to achieve their potential, and then certain people will be blamed for that, and we're back to another great awakening. Maybe, but as people with their own eyes see less and less evidence of different environments,

and maybe at the same time, those disparities are less pronounced somehow, then, as I said, they put a little Vaseline over the lens, and everybody moves on, you know, these issues come around, but, you know, I don't know. It's a, it's, it's, it's, there's no, there's no, there's no perfect answer. Like, there's just no perfect. It's not like if your way succeeds, everybody's just going to accept it. There's going to be 35, 40, 50, I don't know what percent of the population that's going to stubbornly

adhere to these views anyway. It's still going to be dissension. All right, sir, um, listen, I, uh, I don't know what to say. You kind of disarmed me at the end here. I do have, I am repelled by some of the stuff that you've written and the way that you don't stand up to the people I think should be your natural enemy. But I am being honest when I say, I do believe you when you say you don't carry any hatred in your heart. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like you do.

So I mean, that's as honest as I can be. I don't know. just write an article blasting these people and they're fucking hate i've i've written plenty of articles calling people on the right uh people who i could i call racist in a bad way racist since racist usually just means people who acknowledge that there are group differences maybe the reason that you could you point this out to maybe the reason that the liberals uh score higher on IQ tests despite the fact that the right-wing data, in your opinion, is, you know, irrefutable almost is because the liberals kind of take my view.

It's like, you know what, there's other things. This cure is worse than the disease. Well, I showed, I looked at the general social survey, which asks a representative sample of Americans, a variety of questions, and gives them an abbreviated IQ test. one of the questions is do you attribute racial disparities to natural differences so this is what i see as the correct view so basically are you a hereditarian and people who say that they are hereditarians have the lowest IQ scores very low IQ scores so yeah but you clearly i've i've well i i like maybe i

like to think I'm an exception, but statistically, on average, hereditarians have low IQs. I've said this openly, and I've said that hereditarianism tends to attract people of low cognitive ability and emotionally disturbed people. I've said all this. This was in why we need to, my first substack essay, which is called why we need to talk about the right stupidity problem. Yeah. All right. Going once, going twice. All right. You know, this is the podcast where people usually come for the last 30 seconds of their five minutes of fame. So, or 15 minutes. Is it 15 minutes of fame? So I know you've been on quite a ride. I don't know where this leaves you. But it was, this has been a very good conversation. And since I came at you very hard, I appreciate that you. didn't walk off or anything. So thank you, sir. Nathan Confess, everybody.

I had no temptation to do that. Naterman quitting? I mean... Does it seem normal to you that after doing the show for 10-something 10 plus years with me, he did not call me, sit down with me, say, hey, can we get some coffee, that he just shot off a cryptic email, and that's that? Does that seem normal?

I mean, do you want like a real answer or a... Do you think if I wanted him to stop doing the show, that's the way I would have done it with? No, no, of course not. No, but like, I think that you should, the two of you should sit down and have a conversation. I think it's insane to, I mean, be having this conversation right now. I mean, is it, I don't know, quirky?

I mean, it's Dan, so, you know, I don't hold Dan to like the same sort of social... standards, mores? Yeah, I mean, mores maybe, because I don't think he's thinking about it in that same way. Yeah, I think the two of you should sit down. Like, I think the three of us should sit down.

I think that that would be like... And induce him to come back? I mean, whatever it is. I don't know. I mean, I love Dan. I know you love Dan too. I used to. Yeah.

But I think that, you know, he brought up a point that bothers him, which I think if you... Which was? Which that he feels like he doesn't have like a place to shine on the podcast. All right. Well, you know what? I do all... Don't. Don't. I'm not going to have an argument about this.

Don't like put me in a position where I'm now like, he's not here. So like I'm sort of forced into this corner of by the nature of like you're like triangulating this so that like I have to state his position. Like I'm not going to do that. I'm saying that like I do think that there's a better. more productive way to do this. And we should probably sit down. Is it a way convincing him to come back?

I mean, I don't know. Why don't you guys interview comedians? What? You and Dan do a show or interview comedians. Yeah, it's really fun. They can tell their funny stories. Yeah, and we like it when you're here too. Yeah.

But you were doing than you stopped. Yeah, because of you. I didn't stop it. Will you show up? Will you come? No, it was supposed to be something that I didn't have to show up to and you guys were going to do it and then you fizzled out. Because we like it.

And he liked it. likes it when you show up. Yeah, I'm sure he does. Because but, but you say that, you say that like there's something wrong. I'm sure he does. Like that's some, like that's bad. Because he can just stop talking when he's out of things to talk about and not have to, not have to carry the burden of moving the show along. Well, isn't that the fucking point of doing a podcast with other people? I'm just saying you guys can interview comedians and he could shine and I'll come sometimes. Well, I think that if you commit to coming sometimes that there might be something there. Depends on the comedian. I don't really like, you know, like to me, this is way more interesting than, I'd way rather argue with a white nationalist than, you know, Keith Robinson.

Yeah, I mean, it's a different show. And also, like, this guy's not really like my wheelhouse. I don't, you know, it's, I don't know. This guy? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what. Oh, Stephen, what did you think, Stephen? Wait, wait, wait. The bookshel's, holy crap.

What the fuck was with those bookshelves? Like, that was so weird. He reads Kindles. That's, I mean, put a plant on there, bro. Like, put a, no, no, no. I don't think this is actually the thing to, to, to respond about him. It is 100% the thing. There is something so profound about a philosopher that doesn't have any books behind him.

Listen, if I, if I started, if I were his age, given my, reading habits, I would have barely any books. I buy everything on the Kindle. Okay, listen to me. No, your bookshelves are filled with pictures of stuff. No, your bookshelves are filled with books. What are you talking about? Those are my father's books. Listen to me. All I'm saying is that that whole point about like the intelligence thing is not, like that does not hold water. It doesn't. I mean, you can make fun of me or whatever,

but I studied philosophy and I'm actually much smarter than I play on the show. And I mean, that's a ridiculous thing to say. And I don't know about all the rest of the shit. But anyway, I do think that we should have a conversation with Dan. And I do think that you handled that interview very well. Stephen, what do you think? Do you think soft skills like compassion or self-reflection are a sign of intelligence also? Of course.

No. Are they not tested for? Of course they are. Capacity for emotional. There's no question that the Nazis aggregate were high IQ people. So what? So what? But that's not the question, though.

The question is whether soft skills are a sign of intelligence. Yeah. Well, I mean, are nurses, or like hospice nurses, are they intelligent? Do they, are they valuable? I mean. Valuable is another question. No. Hospice nurses are probably not the brightest profession.

Oh, my God. Compared to like neurosurgeons? No. But is there a different, are there a different kind? of intelligence. Like there is something called emotional intelligence, right? Which I would say you probably is not your strong suit. I like your point about that the LSATs. Being less scared by some practice or exposure is big. Yeah. That was good. Wait. Stop for a second. Emotional intelligence. Like that's a different kind of intelligence, right? It's a euphemism. It's not a euphemism. It's not a euphemism.

It's not a euphemism. I'll tell you why it is. Yes, it's, there's a skill of, there are personality slices that, that, that term refers to, which are like, how well do you read other people? How well do you understand how people are going to react to what you say? Discretion, all kinds of, able to read faces, able to read, yes. And they are intelligences. Okay.

but they really have nothing to do with the Manhattan Project. Like, he's talking about there's a certain type of intelligence which moves the human race forward. And this is really the result of top 10th, top 100th of 1%, top 1,000 to 1% people. And by the way, I don't know that his answer, you weren't here was actually candid with me when I asked him,

are you afraid of diluting the human race down to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, regressing to the mean, I think, because he didn't say no, right, Stephen, he didn't say no. Yeah, I agree. He just didn't want to say that. I think that's, he said, the unique intelligences. I mean, this guy got a perfect score on his GRI, he's, he's a very smart guy. And he isn't, and he has that kind of, somebody with some article in Quillette that describes him as, you know, he, I should have brought it up, he, where he, he said, you know, I, my whole life, I could never follow rules.

Like, you know, he doesn't have the emotional intelligence and by his own admission. And I don't think he gives a shit. So in his mind, he's like, yeah, it's good for the human race to have super smart groups of people. But I'm saying that we should preserve that. But I'm saying that there are different kinds of super smart people. I understand that like rocket scientists and like neurosurgeons have and people who only get one thing wrong on their LSAT test. have a... Two things wrong.

One of them I... Just one of them I changed wrong. Did you know when you walked out of there that you got a near-perfect score? 100%. That's interesting. I think that... But it was the only experience I ever had like it in my life.

Like I walked out on and I said, like I said, time slowed down. I knew every... It was, it was bizarre. It was weird. I mean, it's not that surprising because it's you and how well I know you. But putting that aside for a second,

I think that like there's book smart and there's street smart, right? Like, is that fair? Like, is it con man smart? Yes, of course he is. Is it a bank robber smart? Is a serial killer smart? Like, the way that Nathan is talking is like, you know, there's this one thing and this is the most important thing

and everything else is not as valuable as that. And I really reject that. I don't blame you. Good.