Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Liberalism as an Anti-Fragile System | Armin Navabi
116 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of Project Liberal, co-hosts Joshua Eakle and Shawn Huckabay sit down with Armin Navabi, founder of Atheist Republic and an outspoken advocate for secularism, religious freedom, and liberalism. Together, they explore Armin’s fascinating personal journey from his upbringing in Iran to becoming one of the world’s most prominent atheist activists. Along the way, the conversation unpacks the intersection of secularism and liberalism, the evolution of the New Atheist movement, and the challenges of defending liberal values in a polarized world.
Topics Discussed:
- Armin’s personal journey to secularism and his efforts to build Atheist Republic
- The New Atheist movement’s evolution and its relationship with liberalism
- How secularism fosters freedom and challenges authoritarian systems
- The role of skepticism and humanism in shaping liberalism
- Liberalism as an adaptive, antifragile system in the face of populist challenges
- The importance of defending liberalism globally, from Europe to Iran
- The interplay of religion, culture, and liberal values in shaping society
Armin Navabi shares powerful insights on the resilience of liberalism, the necessity of skepticism, and the universal desire for freedom. This episode offers a thought-provoking discussion on the forces shaping modern society and why liberalism remains a vital framework for progress.
Links:
- Atheist Republic: https://www.atheistrepublic.com/Armin
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AtheistRepublic
- Project Liberal : Join Here
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Project Liberal Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Project Liberal podcast. My name is Josh Echol. I'm the president and co-founder of Project Liberal joined today. As is ah custom, I guess, sean with by Sean from our steering committee. um It's good seeing you again. I think you missed the last couple of episodes and I'm glad to have you back. Hi. It's
Armin Navami Joins: Exploring Secularism
00:00:21
Speaker
great. And today we have a special guest, Armin Navami, who is the founder of the Atheist Republic, champion of secularism, religious freedom, and liberalism. Armin, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you so much. It's an honor. Thank you for inviting me.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. So today we wanted to have a broad conversation about a couple different things. um First of all, I wanted to learn a little bit more about your personal journey, ah your journey to secularism, and your kind of pursuit of religious freedom. I wanted to talk a little bit about the new atheist movement, um mainly because ah Both me and ah several people in our audience have kind of a background in that movement, and that movement has evolved and transformed over the past several decades. And I think it's got an adjacency to liberalism, secularism, this kind of pursuit of religious freedom. And and so we want to talk about that. And then we also just wanted to talk about liberalism and secularism broadly, how it's applied to society, the dynamics between religion and culture, and some of the stuff that's happening in the United States. so
00:01:24
Speaker
ah That's a goal from my end. I was hoping that I could maybe just kick it off to introduce you to our audience by asking you just a broad question about your personal journey. What brought you to liberalism and kind of what got you involved in this movement to begin with?
Armin's Journey: Questioning Faith
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll try to make it as quick as ah possible. I was born in Iran. I was raised in, you know, Islamic society.
00:01:48
Speaker
ah Part of my education was to be a Muslim in school, follow Islam, learn about Islam. abide by Islamic rules and stuff. And it didn't make sense to me. There were some things from early on that was an issue with me. And I don't know how deep how much you want to get into that. m I had a problem. of I mean, I didn't know any atheists. I didn't mean didn't know anybody that had an issue with Islam. But and then since even since elementary school,
00:02:19
Speaker
even before elementary school actually, I had, um there were some stuff that was confusing, especially the concept of hell was very confusing to me because um the idea of people being tortured for thousands and thousands of years for not believing in God or not doing certain things was bizarre to me. And I could not understand why other people did not think about this. I remember,
00:02:47
Speaker
I remember crying about it when I was ah before element elementary school, even. um i I remember being told by my aunt that I shouldn't be upset about it because only rapists and murderers and really horrible people go to hell. And then when I went to school, we were told, no, actually, most people are going to go to hell because all Muslims will go to hell. All non-Muslims will go to hell for eternity, um and even Muslims will go to hell for thousands of years because of the sins that they have committed, and then after that they go to heaven. And again, I looked at my parents. My parents didn't pray, they didn't fast, they didn't go to a mosque unless somebody died or somebody was getting married.
00:03:27
Speaker
so my parents were so supposed to go to hell and then i remember actually burning my own skin trying to see how much it hurts to be to be burned i still have the marketing right here um and then as i when i did that i tried to imagine that all over my body and then for try to imagine that for five minutes for 10 minutes for a year and then i couldn't understand why people around me didn't wasn't like trying to Was it why this was not the focus ah of their and attention? Like if if I told you if I told any of you that I don't know ah Five guys are gonna come beat the crap out of you for an hour in one year from now Unless you do these things on my on this list I'm pretty sure you guys will spend the rest mean in one year from now You you guys are gonna spend the rest of this year making sure you get everything on that fucking list,
Religious Conflict and Personal Crisis
00:04:16
Speaker
right? So by the way, can I swear I don't yeah again like do yeah okay
00:04:22
Speaker
So I couldn't understand why people around me like they weren't worried like they call themselves Muslims, but they weren't Trying to avoid this place that apparently exists most people around me believe that it exists I mean everybody around me believe they exist and I think it seemed to me like it should be your priority To avoid going to this place. Everyone's priority should be to avoid going to this place So when I was um you know in ah In Iran, we are told that and everybody is born pure. It's not like Christianity, right? So you're not born with an original self. You're born pure with no sins. And for boys, you start sinning after age 15. For girls, you start sinning after age 9. But there is no...
00:05:07
Speaker
sinning before 15 for boys. So I wondered what happens if you die after before 15. Well you go to heaven because you didn't have any sins. and So suicide is a sin in Islam. If you commit suicide you go straight to hell and you stay there forever. However, nothing is a sin if you do it before age 15.
00:05:28
Speaker
So I put two and two together and I'm like, OK, what if I commit suicide before age 15? Then it wouldn't be a sin anymore because I did it as a child. um And I could basically i I thought I found a loophole in the system and I could make sure that I don't open the doors like there's no chance for me to go to hell if I just die before 15.
00:05:47
Speaker
Right. like and i From like a like a cold sort of utilitarian calculation, the objectively correct action, if you're younger than 15 and you believe those premises would be to definitely commit suicide as soon as possible, right? Because yeah what could be the best outcome for you would be to get to heaven and stay there forever as soon as possible. Yeah. i mean I mean, um not just as soon as possible. i just just wanted to make For me, to heaven wasn't that big of a deal. To me, I i just wanted to make sure I don't go to hell. I asked my religion teacher why I wouldn't just kill myself to make sure that I have no potential for sin and I won't go to hell. And my religion teacher told me that, well, because you will go to the most lowest part of heaven.
00:06:31
Speaker
so like heaven has seven seven parts apparently the best part is for martyrs that's where muhammad is and there i would people who go to heaven just because they died as children would go to the most lowest part of heaven and i was like this guy is an idiot i don't care if i go to the lowest part of heaven i could I'll take a parking lot if if you know for as long as I just don't go to hell. And also, how greedy do you have to be for you to gamble getting a higher part of heaven but and also opening the chance of going to hell for eternity? like i don't like that doesn' it like It's an obvious choice for me not to gamble just because I want a higher part of heaven. So I jumped out of the window from my school
00:07:14
Speaker
I broke my ah back without actually cutting my spine, which I got lucky. I broke both my legs. I broke my left arm. I was in a wheelchair for seven months. I missed one year of school. And the only reason why I didn't try it again um I had surgeries on my um left ankle but the only reason why I didn't try it again is because what I saw it did to my parents I saw my dad cry for the first time I saw my mom collapse on the ground and it was just so um as a child that was a devastating thing to watch so I decided not to do that to get to them again and then I hit age 15 and I was like okay I'm now and in this
00:07:53
Speaker
fucking game that nobody even asked if I want to play like nobody asked for my consent if I want to play this game and the penalties are so hot and by the way Islam has an answer for that they actually they say they did ask you if you want to play this game you just don't remember you consent it they actually Islamic philosophy says that you consent it to this at some point of which we don't remember apparently like you can do it with like a mind wipe attached to it or something like that so you just don't remember We don't remember that we consented to it, yes, but we did consent to this stupid game. So yeah, I was like, you know what? I can do this. I can do this. what How hard is it? Just ah pray your prayers faster in Ramadan and you know you should be good. And then I realized that actually it's actually a lot more difficult than I thought because that was those were I was in an age that I was noticing girls more and more
00:08:49
Speaker
And I'm like, holy shit, this is actually a lot more difficult because Islam is not just a tyrant of your actions. It's also a tyrant. Allah has a tyrant of your mind as well, because I'm not just sinning. and If I approach a girl or look at and look at a girl or I watch something online,
00:09:06
Speaker
No, I'm actually sinning even if I think about these things, if I actively think about these things. So I'm sinning all the time. And it's just, I felt disgusted, I felt ashamed, I felt unworthy and all those all those sort horrible traumatic stuff for it a teenage boy going through puberty and all that shit. It's basically a mind fuck.
00:09:29
Speaker
um So yeah, and even even then, I still couldn't understand why would my dad go to hell? Why would my mom go to hell? Like my mom my parents were decent people. My dad was a doctor. Every time he had a patient who could not afford his surgery, my dad would just do it for free. So again, he's going to go to hell because ah because of, because what? Because he doesn't pray? That doesn't make any sense.
00:09:51
Speaker
And with you know, we we watch soccer, we watch Hollywood movies, we watch BBC as our source of news. And every time I watch it, I'm like, okay, these are these people are all of them.
Path to Atheism and Founding Atheist Republic
00:10:01
Speaker
They're going to go to hell forever? It makes no sense. Like why how would they, like the soccer players from other countries are going to go to hell?
00:10:07
Speaker
So I started studying the history of religions, trying to convince myself um that you know maybe Muslim doesn't mean what we think. Maybe all of these people, Christians, Jews, and Jews, maybe they're kind of Muslim-like, Muslim-ish.
00:10:22
Speaker
And so I started trying to read the history of religion to try to convince myself that all of these people are not going to go to hell. And then that's when I started realizing, holy shit, this stuff is made up. Like studying the history of religion convinced me that this is obviously made made up. Like, why is nobody telling us that this is made up? This is so obviously made up. um And I became and I didn't know any atheist. I became when I became an atheist, I had no other atheist in my life.
00:10:51
Speaker
this I became an atheist by myself just by studying the history of religion. So that's my journey into atheism. So how did that eventually... I started a community to try to find because I felt very alone thinking like this because like am I really that arrogant to think like I'm smarter than everybody that I know in my entire life? I must be insane. Maybe like everybody else understands some things that that I don't. So I started an online community called it Atheist Republic.
00:11:17
Speaker
to try to find other people that maybe think like me so that I don't feel this alone. And then it freaking grew. Up until recently, which Facebook banned us, became the largest community of atheists in the world yeah with with two more two to and a half million followers around the world. But then we got banned from Facebook. So now we're just on YouTube. Atheist Republic is on YouTube and on Instagram.
00:11:42
Speaker
But yeah, it just exploded when I started it. So it was pretty, it was amazing. It's interesting how similar um that journey is because I was the son of three generations of evangelical pastors, obviously coming from kind of a Christian evangelical Deep South perspective. It was a very different story, but I can relate deeply to those kind of feelings of shame and and and frustration. And um trying to cope with that as a young person is incredibly difficult when you're thinking about what could come Now, the thing I'm curious about is, for me, ah you know i've I've made a journey ah personally, and I know many people in our audience consider themselves religious, some of them are agnostic, right so we've got a diverse audience. But I'm curious as to how you see the connection between your work to advocate for secularism, ah broadly speaking, and liberalism. Because I know you you describe yourself right as a liberal in many ways, I'm curious as to like how you see those two things interconnected.
00:12:36
Speaker
So the way I progressed towards liberalism after that is because I was, when I became an atheist, I was obsessed with this idea of freedom, right? Because I felt controlled. um I felt like this is this this mind virus inside of ah that was planted inside of our brain to just be able to, because the more I studied the history of religion, the more I the more i understood this is,
00:13:03
Speaker
It just it naturally grew for political purposes. Even I'm not talking about conspiracy theories where four men in a room decided to like design religion to control people. I'm talking about an evolutionary process of, I mean, sometimes it did happen like that, but most of the time it just grew organically. I won't name the religion I just thought of when you said that, but there's definitely one that immediately popped in my mind as a guy, definitely just made that up.
00:13:27
Speaker
Right. No, I mean, even, yeah, it's true, but even other religions that mainstream religions at some point in their history, there are times that you could point like, okay, at this point, these people are actively like using this to do that specific political thing.
00:13:44
Speaker
you know There are examples of that, but most of it, it just it was like a Darwinian evolutionary process of the survival of the greatest meme, but with with the utility of that meme being political or you know tribal or whatever, they there were some advantages to it. It's not like a, yeah, but so I understood, ah but I felt like this is, it's it's like a parasite. It's so like a parasite ah ah planted inside my mind to with the intention for that specific parasite for itself to grow rather than whatever is in my instant my ah personal self-interest. So I felt like this is like a chain that is being cut um to to do be free. And again, but what as as an ah as an atheist activist,
00:14:32
Speaker
um I made the mistake that most activists um do when they get started. I started having a reduction. It's like I reduced all the world's problems into that one specific thing that I was focusing on. yeah As if like this is the everything, every fucking problem in the world is because of this one thing. You know, once you turn, once you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
00:14:55
Speaker
But then soon I grew out of that phase and I just started noticing other things that are inhibiting our freedom. um And then that's why I feel like a general, I just, you know, general ah anti-limitations. Basically, I looked at and everything else in the world beyond religion that is inhibiting human freedom and potential for growth and prosperity. so i just saw the you know I'm still an atheist activist because I still think religion
00:15:27
Speaker
is one of those things that stands and between us and, you know, maximum freedom. Again, I don't i don't advocate for absolute freedom, because obviously some of the limitations are required, and that's the art of liberalism, trying to find the balance to find maximum freedom, not absolute freedom, but maximum freedom. And I still see religion as one of those things that stands between us and maximum freedom, but there are many, many other things other than religion that stand between us and maximum freedom. So generally, i'm um I consider myself not just an atheist activist, but also a liberal because I'm opposed to all of those things that ah are reducing the full potential of humanity ah and its growth. which And I think us achieving that growth, the key element to that is to to to set us free um as much as possible. That's how we get maximum growth, maximum prosperity.
00:16:22
Speaker
You know, there's a there's something interesting I noticed kind of in your story and how it might relate to a lot of the things we're currently seeing in sort of the more populous spaces of current politics right now, particularly the right populous spaces, right? Like MAGA and alt-right and things adjacent to those things, which is you see a lot of people who sort of adopt this moniker of being um sort of a free thinker, right?
Free-thinking vs Populism
00:16:48
Speaker
they're They're like, well, I don't believe the mainstream media I don't believe, you know, trust the science or whatever that stuff, right? And I noticed there's a sort of
00:16:59
Speaker
A crucial distinction between somebody who adopts this sort of free-thinking stance because it gives them an opportunity to kind of just lazily adopt a series of premises without having to deal with the complexity and nuance of reality, and someone who's a free thinker that actually did have to really make their way to a realization that wasn't spoon-fed to them, and ah the the distinction seems to be effort.
00:17:22
Speaker
Right? People that sort of are attracted to this sort of populist, I'm just going to not believe the mainstream. I'm going to listen to all the alt media and you know Tucker Carlson and and ah Michael Malice and whoever else will tell me what to believe about the world. um They're looking for like a low effort, easy way to basically feel better than the people around them by being like, I know the truth that no one else knows.
00:17:45
Speaker
But the thing that I noticed in your story is it's actually very much the opposite in that it was a huge struggle for you. Like it was high effort. The path of least resistance for you would have definitely been to just believe the Muslim thing, right? And just go along with what's happening around you like presumably most of your peers were doing.
00:18:03
Speaker
and I just thought that was an interesting thing that I noticed during the conversation is the fact that there does seem i mean there is legitimate times where one needs to buck against the trend and challenge ah sort of the consensus around you. But a good bellwether for determining whether you're doing that correctly is, are you putting in effort? And is it something where you're kind of having to strain against the path of least resistance when you do that? Or are you doing that because it's tempting, because it's easy, and makes you feel good?
00:18:31
Speaker
um ah That might be a useful heuristic, I think, I guess, is what I'm getting at.
00:18:37
Speaker
that's um i i might would you interested Would you be interested in looking at it? but like I could challenge that. i I might say that maybe i am also we're all doing the lowest effort thing possible. It's just that some of us, because Maybe my, my plan, my path was also low effort because my low effort is, you know, if something bugs you and you can't, it you know, and you cannot agree to it and it's like an itch that you have to scratch, actually my.
00:19:11
Speaker
you know so much I think like all humans are basically always going with the lowest effort possible. If you're doing so much more than other people to find out if something is true, it's because it just bothers you so much not to.
00:19:26
Speaker
but right so said no kind of like almost like a deterministic model of every human being. You have a bunch of vacant impulses and you just happen to be built in such a way that the path of least resistance is the one you took. I can't see what you're getting at. I was going to say liberalism is deterministic. We should just shut this podcast down right now.
00:19:45
Speaker
interesting it all over No, but we can't, but we cannot shut this podcast down because we are forced to continue because we want to continue. I'm really struggling not to just push this directly into a conversation about free will, which is probably not the intent.
00:20:03
Speaker
Okay, so then let's let's go back to the the the bigger the bigger question that I had for you then that about the specifically the new atheist movement. So I've got the context on your journey there. um I think it makes sense. I think ah we find that, just to kind of put some of the things you mentioned in context for the listeners, like I think that people that are among religious minorities, or you know in in many cases secularists who like the early 2010s and the late 2000s before this movement really took off, really understand why liberalism matters because they're you know they're the ones that will bear the brunt of being a minority. right A lot of religious minorities really understand that. That was i part of the motivation for founding our country with a separation of church and state. right
00:20:42
Speaker
So I'm curious though, like, it seems to me like the the new liberal movement hasn't fully stayed in the liberal lane. So when I first got involved in that movement, I was aware of it. I remember seeing atheist republic content in the early 2010s, right when it started taking off.
00:20:58
Speaker
um It seems like the movement is kind of schismed or fractured. It seems like some of the influencers that I was listening to back in that that time are now very, like they got involved and wrapped up in that anti-social justice movement and it kind of sent them down a path towards right wing liberalism, this kind of MAGA populist, we like to call it a authoritarian movement, some of them like yourselves kind of stuck with those core values of liberalism.
Resilience of Liberalism
00:21:22
Speaker
I'm just curious, it's like what's your thoughts on the broader trajectory of the movement and how it's fractured and how it's transformed over the last couple years?
00:21:29
Speaker
You know, i I agree that we need to do a better job communicating the why liberalism works. And a lot of people are not championing liberalism as they should. And it seems like everybody that is the enemy of liberalism is doing a much better job marketing whatever they're working on. um However, i I think liberalism actually, um unlike all these other movements,
00:21:56
Speaker
which they end up destroying themselves, you know, because they don't work. Liberalism actually grows so well in opposition to its enemies, you know? So liberalism, I mean, it needs champions, okay? But even without champions, it will still grow, maybe not as fast as it should with champions, but it will it will still grow because it just works.
00:22:23
Speaker
You know, it's just, um you know, I just think when. When you set things free, the immersion property key of you know the the spontaneous order out of the the freedom that you get, it just becomes such a, once you scale it, it just becomes such a force that nothing can stand in front of it. And we and people can start pretending that they are supporting something else, but it becomes such a central theme of everything that even if people want to pretend that they are favoring something else,
00:22:55
Speaker
They have to pretend they they use liberal did there the fruits of liberalism and the brand of liberalism and they try to act like this was theirs. So perfect example, you don't right with with economic liberalization is a great example because they they they were so they were growing to the point that they couldn't have sustainability and economic growth. The only way they were able to achieve a lot of their economic outputs was economic liberalization in the 80s and the 90s, right? And they branded their own version of authoritarian communism, whatever it might call, they didn't mean to derail you, but I think that's a great example of what you're talking about.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, and i also their their narratives changes as well. They're like, oh, liberalism sucks. This is what actually works. And whatever that this is, you keep noticing, keeps changing year to year. And once liberalism sets new normals, sets new standards, higher standards that we ah would be agreeing, you see that their narrative with a different label actually uses what liberalism is teaching maybe with like a five or ten year delay, but they still know that they're so behind what is accepted now that they have to adjust and say something else um that liberalism was saying five or ten years ago, or else they will go extinct.
00:24:11
Speaker
It's a defensive mechanism that they have so I think like even I mean again I don't want to say liberalism doesn't need champions It does need champions to because to grow faster, but even without its champions It will just is just too powerful for anybody to be able to once it's once it starts rolling It becomes such a powerful force that nothing can stop nothing can stand in front of it and um Maybe I shouldn't say that because I we need more champions and I don't want people to feel too secure Because if people feel too secured and we're not gonna get the champions that we need But I don't know. i I also don't want to lie to people. I think like we should be worried, but not too worried ah Like we have grown so much. that I mean the 90 between the 90 I tell people I
00:24:57
Speaker
uh so liberalism mostly people attribute that to the age of enlightenment and the popularity of it grew ever since the french revolution uh but since but it grew and grew and grew among philosophers and many other people and activists but by the 19 between 1930s and 1950s anybody that could look at the map would tell you that it It is it was it's over liberalism is yeah like we're moving into the new communist era because communism was controlling like half the planet at one point I mean between the night. Yeah, I mean not just like the jet ah yeah Empire of Japan and communism and nazism nazism communism japanese ah Japan's empire was basically controlling 90%
00:25:44
Speaker
of the 85% of the freaking planet. so anybody and you wouldn't any Any political analyst would not be called crazy. would be like you know You would accept this analysis from them if they tell you that yeah liberalism seemed like this naive kumbaya dream of some philosophers at some point and now reality is showing itself that the world doesn't work like that that you need force you need power force is basically what works in politics and stuff like but but you see liberalism came back with a with a vengeance and destroyed all of its enemies and crushed them i mean we didn't even without much requirement for that much you know uh championing i mean it just
00:26:30
Speaker
yeah Here's one reason why liberalism is so effective and eventually will crush all its enemies. It's not only that it works in in culture and you know politics and management, it's also because it's just so good for business and it makes money. you could you could You could act tough as much as you want, but at the end of the day, I as a liberal would be able to afford paying for so much more ah you know weapons and much more powerful weapons than you would ever be able to, because my my economy works, because my economy is capitalism, and I will eventually be able to outspend you. So I'm going to destroy you. That's basically what happened in World War II, right? It's just the mainly the industrial might of the United States was just able to produce weapons at such a scale. I forget the exact context, but I remember reading
00:27:23
Speaker
Some anecdote, I'm gonna get this half wrong, of some, like, German soldier or somebody talking about how, like, when he knew they were going to lose the war. And it was something like when he saw a look at, like, the rations that they were sending with the Americans, and the rations would have, like, little sweet cakes and stuff like that, because he was like, well, if they could afford to do that for their military rations during a world world war, like, they're so far beyond us, there's just no way we're competing with that at that point.
00:27:48
Speaker
it writes right And here's another thing. okay so what we have't We have the narrative world and we have the objective world. And humans, you know most of the time, they spend living in the narrative world. you The objective world is a world made out of bricks that are math and physics. The narrative world is a world made out of the bricks that are letters and words. right And most and animals live in the objective world. Humans spend most of the time living in the narrative world.
00:28:15
Speaker
So within the narrative world, ah liberals liberalism's enemies will be able to do all sorts of propaganda and like whatever and try to sell us a world that maybe doesn't exist. But as as as much as it's true that we spend our most of our time in the narrative world, the narrative world is anchored in the objective world.
00:28:36
Speaker
so At the end of the day you might be able to spin off everything like create a fantasy world for us that doesn't exist but if your fridge is empty there's no at some point you know if my fridge is full and your fridge is empty it's really hard for you to spend that off spin that into a way. yeah I mean, I know some people have, like for example, I know Islam is very successful, you know, if you're living in Gaza, and bombs being thrown down on you and your children are dying, Islam is successful at telling you that this is actually really great, Marxism is good, this is worth the cost. So some people are very effective at making the narrative world like completely divorced from the objective world, but it's very, very difficult to do that. I mean,
00:29:22
Speaker
ah No amount of marketing will be able to or or like philosophizing or podcasts or YouTube or whatever will be able to show the difference between the two sides of the Berlin Wall. Like people do not need to be political philosophers or educated or analysts for at some point to realize like, yeah, yeah i prefer I prefer to live on the other side of that fucking wall. Like I don't need i don't need to be that smart to realize that.
00:29:50
Speaker
And that's why liberalism eventually wins. No matter how you think, oh, people are not nuanced, people are not educated, at some point you're going to find yourself at the wrong side of the Berlin Wall and you're going to want to be on the other side. And that's why liberalism will eventually win.
00:30:05
Speaker
that that's That's actually a very powerful um context and it it's it's absolutely correct. and It speaks to what I think a lot of people in our political space are thinking right now with the election of Donald Trump just last week. Yeah, there's a lot of pessimism right now. Yeah, well, and and ah there's a lot of people that are basically saying,
00:30:25
Speaker
ah You know, let him do what he wants if he achieves the economic agenda, which by the way, I mean he's the first mainstream illiberal ah Really a liberal, you know politician that's been elected. I mean we've had liberalism as effectively the background noise of our politics There have been policy disagreements, but we've had a broad-based commitment to our institutions and free trade things like that for us For most of for my entire life and for most adults entire life ah You know, the consequences of his economic agenda at the very minimum, which is economically illiberal and economically populist, will absolutely cause people to be more poor and cause people to yeah see prices go up and jobs to be lost. And that's basically the case is, you know, let them deliver on this economic populist agenda because when confronted with reality, they're going to look, you know, it's going to speak volumes for the liberal case.
00:31:11
Speaker
And i I think that I'm actually not that worried. I mean, I might we might disagree on this. I'm not that worried regard with regards to Trump. I think United States has too much. The institutions in place are powerful enough.
00:31:27
Speaker
for us to just it be able to take ah I mean we might have down ups and downs but United States is on it on a path that is so superior to most countries in the world that politicians that are being elected would not be able to I think maybe I'm being naive about this or too optimistic I just see the future of United States to be so good relative to other countries in the world and I just think like the back and forth between the politicians it's actually a good thing even if sometimes somebody gets elected that you you know so somebody might not like I just think this this tension between these politicians
00:32:08
Speaker
these mistakes and then corrections. That's actually how liberalism grows. Liberalism needs something to be these challenges. And I think like the United States has managed to come up with such a perfect balance of having strong and institutions that keeps everything in place for it for for the whole thing for the framework for everything else to be as free as ah needed, including electing politicians that you know might be optimal for something and not so optimal with other things. I don't know, Trump's maybe, I don't know, maybe he ends up cutting costs and if maybe when it comes to tariffs, like you know that's and not a very liberal position to have. But I don't know, maybe his cost cutting measures end up being something more in line with
00:32:55
Speaker
what a capitalist would like. We don't know like what will happen. Again, I think like as a liberal, I think that one reason why I like liberalism is because liberalism is is rooted in both skepticism and humanism. So one reason why I'm a liberal is because we I think it's it's a healthy position to have a to think that we don't know the answer.
00:33:16
Speaker
We don't know what works. liberals so We either have some people telling us, so a centralized authority or elite group of people telling us this is how things work.
00:33:27
Speaker
ah that is That is more in line with, I don't know, communism or Marxism or people who think that there's a central authority or a centralist power that knows that this is good or this is bad. I think liberalism is more rooted in skepticism, understanding that no elite, no educated group of people ah is going to be able to decide that this is, just like when in within the market or within the economy, nobody could decide that this is the right supply or this is the right price.
00:33:56
Speaker
But in politics also, we don't know what works. So it's just better to let it just protect the framework and let it all compete. The competition, the Darwinian competition is what gets us the best and answer. So sometimes within this competition, you get Trump and Trump might have certain things that end up being good, might have some certain things that end up being bad, but we can't know that. We have to let the process of this company. It's the competition that we have to embrace.
00:34:26
Speaker
I think that's what liberalism brings us, the competition.
Wisdom of Crowds and Liberalism
00:34:30
Speaker
I think the main thing that we need to, well this is why we are not for mac absolute freedom because the limitation that we support as liberals is whatever protects the framework, then the nation state, the rule of law and the nation state and border integrity. um And also I think like being concerned with mass illegal immigration,
00:34:53
Speaker
and mass migration is also an important part of protecting the framework. So other than protecting the framework, everything else should just be left for the the the wisdom of the crowd. And again, i don't want us to I think as liberals, we shouldn't have this top-down view of da the the crowd, the the the people who are beneath us who don't understand liberalism.
00:35:16
Speaker
I think liberalism is actually understanding that there's three layers to this. You have the average citizen who might not have that much, you know, who's busy doing other things, who cannot spend time understanding the nuance of power. We shouldn't expect a person to be advanced in understanding politics and society and everything. that They're supposed to live And then we have other people who um might be educated, who might be spending their time reading politics, understanding these things. They might be on average higher than the average citizen. But I think what what is above both of these is the wisdom of the crowd, even though it's, a you know, so a lot of people think democracy doesn't work because an average citizen seems not to be very intelligent. But I think like the wisdom of the crowd is much, much more intelligent
00:36:06
Speaker
than the average individual. Because when you let this competition happen, you get an emergent property of debt of of and that arises from this Darwinian competition. it's like an ant that This is why liberalism is so powerful. If you take an ant for ah from a colony, it doesn't seem to have that much information for it to be that wise.
00:36:29
Speaker
It follows some very, very basic rules. But if you look at an ant colony, all of a sudden, it seems like it has a mind of its own, and it seems to be working in a very intelligent way. And I think that's what the crowd in society in human society does as well. And this is you know we saw that within the economy.
00:36:46
Speaker
you don't to to be able to have a prosperous economy, you just need to need to let the crowd do what it wants without much limitation. And we're like, oh, no, Armin, the average individual doesn't have an economic experience. It doesn't matter because the average individual just has to know when I go buy a gum, if I like the apple flavor or strawberry flavor, when I buy the apple flavor, I'm already putting all the information. I don't need to be an educated person.
00:37:14
Speaker
I entered the information that was required into the system and the system is why is what do you understand what I'm trying to say? I think I'm getting into too much economics. yeah Yeah, keep going No, if you got more to add don't let me don't i I have multiple thoughts because this is very thought-provoking stuff um I would say the first thing that kind of came to mind for me during that sort of I don't want to say diatribe that has a negative connotation. I don't mean to imply that that that stream of thought is a concept that comes from Nicholas Nassim Taleb in the book that was titled this, Anti-Fragile, is that part of what you seem to be saying is you're describing sort of liberalism as an anti-fragile system and what defines an anti-fragile system as opposed to a fragile system or a resilient system is a fragile system falls apart when it experiences pressure.
00:38:07
Speaker
A resilient system resists that pressure but basically stays the same, right? So it has like a shield in front of it, things bounce off of it, but the system is unchanged. It's not any better or any worse. It just is kind of there. It gets better actually. It actually gets better. It grows because of the pressure. Well, that's what I was going to say. The third categorization is anti-fragile.
00:38:28
Speaker
which is which is where the experience of sort of negative pressure actually causes the system to adapt in ways that make it better. um You see this kind of in a lot of different contexts you see it in the human body with regards to the immune system like exposure to sort of pathogens and things like that causes your immune system to adapt that's why people who um presumably if you were to raise a human being somehow in full isolation of any exposure to any germs by the time they're an adult they would probably be unable to even inhabit a normal society because they would be so at risk of so many diseases that they have no immunity to whereas as a human being that grew up in a normal environment you know they exposed to germs from other kids they probably played in dirt and you know the dog licked their mouth because their kids and their dumb and they do that sort of thing
00:39:16
Speaker
right They get exposed to all sorts of stuff and the body is adaptive, so it's not just that they don't get sick. They do probably sometimes get sick, but they actually come out better for it. um The other thing is I'm noticing a general thrust in your thought, which is just, and I don't mean this as a criticism. It's gonna sound a little bit like a criticism, but I'm actually kind of sympathetic to it. You have a very deterministic outlook in the sense that you kind of see the world in terms of,
00:39:44
Speaker
uh here are the principles on which things operate and here is the status of reality as it is and so we can infer from that that this will be the necessary outcome uh that if we know that liberalism is an adaptive system on a memetic level and i wanted to clarify this earlier for anyone who's not familiar because i assume armin you're using meme and sort of the dawkin sense of the term not in like the common parland sense nowadays we use meme to mean like silly internet image with funny quote right or whatever Yes. But for those who don't know, and daed in the selfish gene by Richard Dawkins, he coined the term meme originally back in like the 70s to describe a unit of cultural information.
00:40:26
Speaker
with the, you know, the idea would be a meme might be, you know, placing the toilet paper on the toilet paper rolls, so it rolls outward, or the meme might be, um you know, putting a porch in front of your house with a certain design that facilitates sitting in the shade or something like that, just these little pieces teaching your son how to make a boat.
00:40:45
Speaker
Right, right. any Any piece of cultural information that can be transmitted from person to person and the premise is that much like genes evolve over time by sort of competing with each other and the ones that replicate more successfully become more common, the same thing is true of units of cultural information or memes, right? um So I guess the idea here is that liberalism as a meme is extremely adaptive and as a consequence um Almost in a Fukuyama sense, it's the end of history is inevitable and our liberal future is going to happen as kind of your perspective. Yes, but it could happen faster. like I'm not saying that we should hold back and not do anything about it. like um
00:41:26
Speaker
yeah i think and just I don't think liberalism is in danger of collapsing, but I do agree that it might be in danger of not growing as fast as it but as as it could. It still requires, I mean, it's a good idea to have champions for it um so that it could grow fast because any, any the I mean, its like it has a compounding effect, right? So the most but There are billions and billions of people that haven't born yet. If you are a person that has been even managed ah to increase the speed of prosperity by a single second, of ah billions of people are going to live much more prosperous lives just because you managed to move ah you know the the speed of things just a little bit forward. Because what interest compounds, right? So like a small change now adds up to a huge change 20 years from now, right?
00:42:23
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. So you know if you if you are a person that managed to make the world just a tiny bit better, in your time that you had, ah you are responsible for unbelievable numbers of people living much, much better lives just because of the count and compounding effect. I mean, that that should be a very motivating thing to understand. You don't need to be like a very significant person in the world to make a big change. Given how much we have ahead of us, you could be just just a small impact on the world. you're going to you you have to be You have to be praised for
00:43:01
Speaker
ah Billions of years in the future because of what you did. Yeah, so yeah, I have a very optimistic. Yeah, I actually I really like the way you're framing it because it definitely is a little bit of Hopium in this moment, which I think is really. Hopium implies you don't think it's real. where is the term work op Let's say optimism. Yeah, Hopium is probably better.
00:43:22
Speaker
ah That's a good point, and ah to me though, it that's you know there might be a reason why I use that word, because i you know I'm not very optimistic in this moment for the near future. I do think you're right, Armin, over the long scale of humanity. Yeah, but the long scale can be very long, depending,
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm looking at my life. I'm looking at my kids' lives. right I'm looking at the immediate next 50 years, and I see a backsliding happening, and I think it's going to have negative connotations in the immediate future. and Then I think there's this dynamic um in American society. like We have not we've not lived in a world where we have the ability to destroy all of humanity in seconds with say nuclear weapons or bioweapons which are now possible. And so the concern that I have um is not only, you know, I don't want to see the immediate economic impact to my kids. I do agree that actually the the consequences of negative economic impacts from economic populism are likely going to result in backlash. And so that's what I'm hoping for.
00:44:19
Speaker
But I also go, you know, like having somebody who's lawless at the at the head of the, but you know, ah executive branch, which job is to enforce laws and somebody who's incompetent, which it seems like there's many incompetent people that he's putting as administration could cause national security risks. And then when you have a.
00:44:36
Speaker
Situation where people are I mean if there's a nuclear exchange or that's the worst case But I mean even if it's just a global conflict and there's there's war I mean that that you know many times of of serious ah violence and chaos you see ah a backsliding further towards authoritarianism as a reaction so Near future. I mean I i hope you're right. I guess I'm hoping that the institutions hold they have if they don't then we're gonna be in a for a lifetime of backsliding, right? So tell me, like what do what do you think is going to happen to the institutions? I'm not that worried at at all with regards to Trump. me i mean I might regret saying this in a couple of years and you proved ends up being correct. um I will take all of this back if I'm wrong.
00:45:19
Speaker
But i don't like I don't understand what, I mean, some things might happen that we won't approve of here as liberals, yeah but for the institutions, the main institutions to collapse, it's just too much money involved for it to collapse. I mean, this is why I love capitalism, yeah because it's just so much, there it I think like,
00:45:41
Speaker
The institutions in place are much more deep rooted in United States than a lot of people realize. It's not up to anybody to move them away. There's just too many people that are profiting from it. And I just think likes it's ah it's a system now. It's not like based on any individuals or any group of people to be able. I feel like all all of the individuals that we're thinking of, they're just part of a much, much greater system than a lot of people realize.
00:46:10
Speaker
that they're just like... it's a it's a it's a very powerful river and even the president is just like a drop in this powerful river that would not be able... I don't see a changing direction. I see the main things that we should be concerned about and you know as liberals is one, Putin and then the CCP and the Islamic Republic of Iran. These are the the main sources of power that are anti-liberal. And I think both parties, and the main one being like the most powerful one of these being the CCP, both parties are aggressively anti-CCP.
00:46:51
Speaker
um and don't so And I see that other two, you know Putin and the Islamic Republic basically doing a very good good job themselves to destroy themselves. This is what this is what what is beautiful about liberalism. The enemies of liberalism tend to have self-destructing habits, self-destroying habits that they just seem to be wanting to be insisting on taking themselves out and not maybe in the short term, but eventually in the long term. um And that's why liberalism is so lucky because every single other method seems to be just
00:47:29
Speaker
self-destructive. So i don't I don't see the concern even in the short term, to be honest, but go on. Yeah, no. I mean, the the national security concern comes to me from undermining our relationships with our allies. I mean, there's a lot of conversation today about ah Donald Trump's pick for national intelligence director, um which was chosen by Tulsi Gabbard, who is an individual who's had spent a lot of time, ah you know be effectively being a an apologist for Assad. I was going to say, I'm not going to mess words. I'll just say it. She's a Kremlin puppet. That's what she is. whether it's Whether it's because she literally is or because she's decided to be that, that's what she is. Right. For Syria and Russia, Syria is a proxy of Russia. and um I think that that alone is going to cause concern ah from our allies with sharing intelligence which undermines our military capability. I think there's also the concern of us withdrawing or moving away from NATO, which is going to cause even more chaos and violence, I think, in the long run, because I think that's been an incredibly effective tool to keep the peace in Europe and across the world.
00:48:32
Speaker
um And I'm looking at just all these short-term things that could happen as a result of this. And then again, there's just this broad incompetence. It's like it's like a clown it's like a clown car of cabinet appointments that are gonna make it very hard for the United States to respond in a meaningful way to a um to to some sort of even a, it could be a ah to to an ally being threatened or it could be something like NATO Article 5 and how we might respond to an attack on either our direct sovereignty or one of the NATO allies.
00:49:02
Speaker
You know, I don't know, I can't tell you what will happen, but I do know that these people are very incompetent. I do know that our allies have deep concerns about them. And um I think that it will embolden authoritarian leaders. And then to your point about the CCP, it seems to me like Trump's only motivation is things that can benefit his bottom line. So I mean, Trump ran in 2016, railing against TikTok as like a Chinese propaganda app in the United States. And we all made fun of how he said China, because he said China so much, because every every other word was about how bad China is. But then he met with the executives of TikTok, or or the CEO of TikTok, and and and completely 180'd on that whole thing. He meets every country until he meets the dictator, and then he thinks that's the greatest guy he's ever met. That seems to be the general pattern. And so I see that causing ah immediate national short-term security issues for the next four years. And then I also see Trump as a lawless figure. I mean, his actions after January 6th, between his loss of the election and January 6th, with specifically the fake electors scheme that he put together, shows he has no regard for the limitations on his power, and he's willing to put stress on the system in any place he can to try to see what he can get away with. so The constitutional limitations need to hold, but now he's surrounded. He's got a Republican majority in the House, Republican majority in the Senate, a Republican Supreme Court. i don't know What kind of president we're gonna set and what that short-term impact is gonna be I don't think it's gonna be full on a collapse but I mean like if we get into a military conflict it could be nuclear exchange of the worst and it could be something like a
00:50:30
Speaker
you know, a war, another war, on the ground war that where the United States is sending troops. I mean, we already know, look, ah we're facing the reverberations of our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan as a country. It's part of the reason why we have Trump now. um And we've been facing that for 20 years. The impact of that has been crazy. So I think you're right, long term, it's going to win, but there are a lot of short term concerns that caused me a lot of Yeah, so so let me ah let me talk about those things because they're very interesting. I mean, I'm just trying to put say the other side. I mean, it it might make you know for people not to stress. It might be a good idea to. and So, yes, try here's the thing. When it comes to liberalism and the system that it puts in place.
00:51:11
Speaker
um I want systems that politicians, even if politicians only care about the bottom line, it doesn't matter because the system in place ah means that for you to get to what you want, you have to work within the system that puts you in this direction. right so yeah Politicians might come in place that would make the US military not as strong as it should be, but I really think the dent that ah that will make is so small compared to the might of the U.S. military. You know, U.S. military will still be able to win every single war that comes at it, no matter like I think like even if Trump makes the U.S. military ah weaker, if it's at a thousand right now, I don't know, might it maybe it would be at nine hundred and ninety or something like that. It will still be the most powerful
00:52:00
Speaker
you know, an entity with god-like powers. ah cry cri look Every other military in the world looks like a tiny little ant compared to it. And also I am very pro-NATO, very pro-NATO. In fact, I wish we had more NATOs, especially in the Pacific. I wish Japan, you know, South Korea, Australia, you know, Vietnam, Philippines, um all and the United States started made a NATO of themselves. I wish we had more of that around the world.
00:52:30
Speaker
um but again and and again if if I was the president I would be supporting NATO 110% but again we don't know maybe maybe this will make Europe stronger maybe yeah mean we don't know again maybe Europe needs to stop ah rely like maybe the one reason why we united states doesn't have any other military even close to it's to be able to rely on as an ally is because everybody is just too reliant on the u.s military maybe we need maybe some opportunity for other countries
00:53:07
Speaker
to maybe yeah I mean, Europe is just an American project. The entire reason why we Europe is better than other places is because they're just riding on the back of the US s military and US capitalism and the success of the US, maybe a little bit of a distance um um um Again, this is not something I would do. If I was a president, I would be supporting our allies 110%. But again, that's because maybe we don't know what works best. Maybe this distance will give the opportunity. I mean, Europe is like a little child that the United States is carrying on its back.
00:53:44
Speaker
and ah both when it comes to the economy and military. You know, it's it's not growing up. I mean, it has an economy that is so much based on regulations and limitations and no opportunity for entrepreneurship, no opportunity like it's a welfare state. Why is the United States growing so fast and the US is just falling behind?
00:54:06
Speaker
maybe Maybe they need a little bit of a moment of realization that this does not work. They're lagging behind. The whole world is moving to the future, and Europe is still insisting on micromanaging the entire everything. like that that We know that doesn't work.
00:54:23
Speaker
And, you know, everything that they have comes from the U.S. Maybe maybe the United States, as the parent, needs to actually remove those, you know, the wheels that you have on a what is there is called yeah trading ground that might yeah training wheels. Maybe this is maybe maybe this is the moment that the training wheels are coming off and Europe actually gets to and come up with the realization that this is not the right way to move forward. Maybe maybe this is a good thing.
00:54:50
Speaker
I'm just imagining some French guy listening to this getting very, very angry. what i mean I mean, to be fair, i mean I'm not an American. i mean I'm a Canadian citizen, and this is true for me as well. In fact, for every non-American, you have had it very too good.
00:55:10
Speaker
The American, you have been your life, every safety, security, the rights that you enjoy, the products that you have, the prosperity you have, you are not paying anything for it. The American taxpayer is paying for a military that the entire world is riding on. the the The reason why the global markets work, the reason why with the trade, that the global trade that we have worked,
00:55:36
Speaker
It's because of the US, the security that the US s military has brought to the entire world. And we're all just sucking on it for free. We're not paying anything for it. It's the American taxpayer that is paying for it. So I understand why somebody, you know, again, I wouldn't vote for Trump, but I understand why somebody might but because like, what the fuck? Why are we doing our like, why is the rest of the world not participating? I think it is part of it is fair to to to ask for the world to participate.
00:56:02
Speaker
in maintaining this world order, this liberal world order, and there needs to be more participation in holding it. so but I understand the frustration. well i really Again, I think this this conversation is is a really good and timely one in this moment because I do think you're right. There are going to be things that come out of this historical, the next decade.
00:56:23
Speaker
that are really going to reshape things in a way that actually in the aggregate might be a good thing. um well you know You mentioned this earlier, so the the the commentary on European security, i I do think that, well, my preference to your point is that we defend our allies, I get that Europe being more self-sufficient is probably in net a good thing in the long term. They need to be more sufficient. I think European leaders are waking up to that, so that's a good thing. The other thing I'll say is, I think you're completely correct. like we We talked about this internally. When liberalism has a threat, it rallies to meet it. um When it goes and unchallenged is when it starts, when when liberals forget to how how to argue for their views and when they kind of start, you know, resting on their laurels, so to speak. So this new challenge, my hope, and this is the something we've talked to members of our board about and our our leadership team is,
00:57:13
Speaker
that it this populist wave that's rising doesn't get so big that it sinks the ship. And that's the thing that is concerning to me. I don't want to see it get so big that it destroys American institutions. That's why I voted Democrat for the first time in my life, because I think it really is. We do have a lawless president and a lot of other things. But you're right. If we can make it through these next four years, liberalism might as an antifragile system, it'd come out stronger than it's ever been, right? And I think that is a very optimistic way to look at it. I think that's... Right. I will say, one thing I think is is notable about Armin's point of view that I'm kind of picking up on is, I'm sensing that he has a humility about his own ability to know what the good thing is that needs to happen, right? Because I think you look at it, Armin, in terms of like, there's this system
00:58:00
Speaker
It's much bigger than me. I only have as an individual my own little tiny impact on it and it's going to do what it's going to do. And it may be that we look back on this 10 years from now and we go there needed to be this dialectic between this sort of populist right pushback against certain things that have been maybe progressing in a certain direction for like the last, you know, 20 or 30 years or whatever, but in a way that it would not have been possible for you to to know in advance, right? Like yeah maybe the,
00:58:26
Speaker
um Maybe the system doing its thing is the process by which we learn what the correct output is, and there's not really a way to short-circuit that. Right, that's that's exactly why I say liberalism is based on humanism and skepticism. Humanism defines the goal, skepticism defines the process. we are We don't know what works, so we let a Darwinian model, we want to let the society free enough for the competitions to figure the competition to figure out what works. Instead of us dictating what works, we di this this is why this is why I think liberals have to be careful. because liberal Sometimes liberals think that, oh, I've seen what works, so now I will tell you what works. But liberal liberalism actually is the process of not deciding what works, but letting the society to
00:59:17
Speaker
to discover in and what works in this competition. That's what liberalism is. In fact, did the best definition I've heard of liberalism, ah which I added a few to it, is liberalism is a political order that takes best advantage of the spontaneous force from within a free society with the goal of the betterment of the human condition. That's what liberalism means to me. and When it comes to a free society, even this, I was trying to, I was obsessed for a while to to discover what that level of freedom is. Like, okay, so we know we need a balance of freedom, but not absolute freedom because we need to protect the framework for all of this to be able to go forward in, but the maximum level of freedom so that we could take advantage of this emergent property of this spontaneous order coming from a free society.
01:00:13
Speaker
But then I realized like even deciding the level of freedom should be up ah based on a a competition between different political parties, even that should be decided within a Darwinian model, not not even within a society, but by competition between societies as well. So this is a Darwinian model within a society, within political parties, within different interest groups, within different people, but also internationally between a competition between other societies as well. Again, we see this property in evolution, we see in the ah AI models, and also we see Adam Smith introduce it to us first in in the society when it comes to the market, but liberalism has showed that this also applies with politics as well. So it's it's true, every whenever you have too complicated of a system with so much chaos and so many
01:01:08
Speaker
ah variables that no no centralized authority could decide what help what works. That's when you just let things free and you just let the competition and the Darwinian model just do its thing. And that's how you get the highest amount of progress. And that's why liberalism works. Sorry, I went on a a very powerful way to put it. I don't disagree with any of that. um ah And so I guess what we're going to be able to do, Armin, is come back in 10 years and look and see if we've made progress. My hope is the answer is yes. I do think in the hundred and thousand year time scale, we absolutely will make progress. So that's a good thing. um Sean, do you have anything else you wanted to ask before we close? I don't know if we're coming towards the end of the conversation. I just wasn't sure if there's anything you wanted to tee up before we started to pivot out.
01:01:56
Speaker
No, actually I think his, his little rant there was like a perfect capstone on the conversation. I be honest i agree. Well, so Armin,
Challenges to Liberalism: Islam and Wokeism
01:02:04
Speaker
we're at the hour. Is there anything that you want to plug to our audience? Tell them about if they may want to learn more about you or your work.
01:02:11
Speaker
Yes, yes. I mean, if you can search for my name, I'm an FOB. But if you want to follow my content, you can search on YouTube, search for Atheist Republic. Me and Susannah are there. We're making content every week. um And we also engage a lot with our audience. So if you come to our live streams, if you're part of the live chat, you get to notice that it's just not it's not just me and Susannah speaking.
01:02:33
Speaker
ah You are also engaged with us throughout the show. So it's a very fun atmosphere. We talk about everything. We're we're focusing mostly on and when it comes to the enemies of liberalism. Right now, where we we're focusing a lot on ah Islam, vokism. We have a history of fighting far right. Mostly in India, we paid a heavy price for that.
01:03:01
Speaker
Um, because we used to have a lot of fans that really liked our anti Islam narratives until we went after that in India as well. Um, but, and also we are spending a lot. It turns out they just liked it when it sounded like you were defending their particular sort of reactionary religious beliefs. And then when you turned it on them, they got upset. Yeah.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Exactly. We're spending a lot of time defending Israel right now. I'm a proud Zionist as well. So that's a huge part of our ah channel defending. Yeah. So, yeah. And also the rise of Islam in Europe is is is a major concern for us. And we focus so on that a lot on our channel. So, yeah, Islam, Wokism, Israel, Islam in Europe and all of the other stuff that we mentioned here today, that's what mostly what we and what we focus
Iran's Liberal Populace vs Government
01:03:53
Speaker
on. Basically, we go after the enemies of liberalism, both. Oh, we also have a Persian channel. So the way we look at it, we have an English channel and a Persian channel. Our Persian channel is basically, it's called Jom Hurebi Hodaian, which means atheist, republican Persian. If you speak Persian, and go there. And we feel like when it comes to liberalism, we're growing we're doing it, the we're we're ah both on defensive and offensive.
01:04:14
Speaker
So we think like our English channel is basically mostly has a target audience in western and liberal country and we're we're basically equipping our audience with the tools to defend liberalism in liberal countries and our Persian channel is going to the set to the home of the source of one of the anti-liberal governments which is the Islamic Republic with with a very liberal ah society, and we think that's a more of an offensive. Basically, we're going to where the enemy is trying to target the world liberal order, and they have they have been very clear that they are trying to destroy the entirety of the world liberal order. they then that Their intention is on that.
01:04:56
Speaker
they went after the palavies in 1979, now they want to remove the world liberal order in the middle east by destroying israel and the goal is to eventually come for the us and basically that's the final boss that's their entire goal to destroy the world liberal order and i think we think israel is standing in their way So we're basically defending Israel and also standing very aggressively against the Islamic Republic. And a lot of Iranian people in Iran are supporting us. Most of our audience and on the Persian channel, 80 percent of our audience is from inside Iran. And again, I might i want to remind people that Iran has the the greatest divide between the people and the government. No country has a wider gap than the Iranian people. The difference between how illiberal the government is and how liberal the people are.
01:05:41
Speaker
yeah yeah very they were when actually Living in a liberal democracy in many ways just like in a lifetime like less than a lifetime ago, right? So I mean couldn't a yes. Yes, port if less we have or around 40 years ago. Yeah, so actually if you wanted to defend a liberal order yeah It's crazy to look at some of like the photographs and advertisements and stuff that used to come from that part of the world back when it was More liberal and it's a good reminder that it really wasn't that long ago.
01:06:06
Speaker
No, it wasn't. And right now it's even more liberal than then. it's Because they experience a liberal ah government. They are the one of some of the most aggressive liberal people I've ever seen in my life. the most Some of the most freedom-loving people. like I think like an average Iranian is actually more thirsty for freedom and secularism than the the person that lives in a ah free, secular country because they know what it's like to lose freedom and lose their secularism.
01:06:32
Speaker
And again, supporting the Iranian people and supporting the Israeli people is some of the best ways ah to defend the world liberal order because these the Israeli people and the Iranian people um are fighting the greatest enemies of ah the world liberal order, which is
Supporting Global Liberal Order
01:06:49
Speaker
the Islamic Republic. And basically, if you want to defend this whole world system that is making everyone's life better, support Israel and support the Iranian people against the regime.
01:06:58
Speaker
Armin, I wish you luck. I know with the work that you're doing is incredibly controversial, and I know you've you've, like many other people online nowadays, have faced, you know, the fun outcomes of fighting for liberal values in this moment. So I want to say thanks for the work you're doing, um and thanks for coming on, and at least giving our audience kind of a more hopeful outlook, I think, is, I will say, I'm feeling a little bit more hopeful about the situation in the United States after talking, so we really appreciate it.
01:07:27
Speaker
Oh, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for having me. Thank you, guys. That's nice. so If you're interested in learning more about Project Liberal, Project Liberal is a cross-partisan coalition of you know yeah yeah people passionate about the free and open society. We're seeking to advance liberal values against authoritarianism that is rising across the Western world. If you want to join, become a member, go to projectliberal dot.org slash member, and next within the next month, we'll have another diverse voice of ah but a variety of different people from this growing coalition on, so feel free to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We appreciate that. Sean, thanks again for joining me. Of course, always. Armin, you have a wonderful afternoon. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you, guys.