Zuby | Strength, Faith and Survival Tactics

Zuby is a rapper, author and podcaster. Zuby exploded onto the internet earlier this year and after a number of months being mentioned on the biggest news outlets and podcasts in the world it's time to get him on Modern Wisdom. Today we talk all things woke from cancel culture to the ethics of encouraging trans children, Zuby's views on religious thinking among atheists and his advice for how to operate in an increasingly chaotic world. Extra Stuff: Follow Zuby on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ZubyMusic Zuby's Website - https://www.zubymusic.com/ Check out everything I recommend from books to products and help support the podcast at no extra cost to you by shopping through this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom #zuby #deadlift #mariolopez - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - I want to hear from you!! Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  On my Twitter account at Zubimusic, I posted up a nine-second video of me doing a deadlift in the gym. I was lifting 230 kilograms. It's actually well below my maximum, but I just had a clip of me doing it on my phone and I posted it up with a caption saying, "I keep hearing about how there's no biological difference between men and women in 2019, so watch me destroy the British women's deadlift record without trying." And then I wrote, "P.S. I identified as a woman while lifting the weights, so don't be a bigot." And this tweet caught absolute fire. It went hyper viral. It's got 1.7 million views on the original video. I think it got about 55,000 likes and 20-something thousand

• 0:40Speaker 00

  retweets. It just went nuts. It went viral in the UK, in Canada, in America, in Europe, like all over the world.

• 0:52Chris Williamson?

  I am joined by the strongest female deadlift champion on the internet. Zubim, welcome to the show.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  How's it going, Chris? How you doing?

• 1:00Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic to have you on, man. Recently spoke to Brian Carroll, who is a multiple record holder in powerlifting for men and now speaking to one for women as well.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  That's right, man. Deadlift and bench press, 84-kg weight class, women's, of course.

• 1:13Chris Williamson?

  How heavy is the squat? What have you got to get your squat to?

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Man, I haven't squatted properly for ages because of an injury that's been harassing me for literally about five years now. But my personal best on the squat is 190 and I believe the women's record in my weight class is about 210, something like that.

• 1:32Chris Williamson?

  A little bit of work and you've got the total as well.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, man. I think I could do it. I could definitely can completely annihilate the deadlift and the bench press ones, but the squat will take a little bit of work.

• 1:43Chris Williamson?

  I get you. So for everyone who's listening who doesn't have a clue what we're talking about, can you take us through what's happened over the last few months of your life?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, the last few months have been quite the whirlwind. So going back to February now, at the end of February, on my Twitter account at Zuby Music, I posted up a nine-second video of me doing a deadlift in the gym. I was lifting 230 kilograms, which is 500 and something pounds. It's actually well below my maximum, but I just had a clip of me doing it on my phone, and I posted it up with a caption saying, "I keep hearing about how there's no biological difference between men and women in 2019, so watch me destroy the British women's deadlift record without trying." And then I wrote, "P.S. I identified as a woman while lifting the weight, so don't be a bigot." And this tweet

• 2:32Speaker 00

  caught absolute fire. It went hyper viral. It's got 1.7 million views on the original video. I think it got about 55,000 likes and 20-something thousand retweets. It just went nuts. It went viral in the UK, in Canada, in America, in Europe, like all over the world. And then newspapers and media started picking up on it. It was covered by Fox News, The Daily Wire, Sky News, BBC, a whole bunch of different outlets, and then a bunch of podcasts such as Louder with Crowder, The Ben Shapiro Show, and the one that really catalyzed a few things, which was the Joe Rogan Experience. So it just went bonkers.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  At the time I tweeted it, I had 17,000 followers, and as of this week, I'm the proud owner of over 100... Well, I don't want to say owner. I'm the proud...

• 3:26Chris Williamson?

  That's owner, they are yours.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  What's the right term?

• 3:29Chris Williamson?

  I think it's owner.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, well, I have over 100,000 Twitter followers now, so it's increased just crazily this year, as well as my YouTube audience and my podcast audience and my music listeners. Everything I do has just exploded. It was a real catalyst for everything I do, which is awesome, but also kind of ridiculous.

• 3:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, no, this kind of real asymmetry with viral content and stuff like that is a real blessing when you get it right. And what's hilarious is the fact that this is you working up to like an RPE7.

• 4:04Chris Williamson?

  That's like, that's like, that's like a comfortable 75% pull. I don't know whether anyone's discussed this yet, but we have, we've had a number of debates on the podcast about whether pulling sumo is cheating or not.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  No, it's not.

• 4:17Chris Williamson?

  Sumo's not cheating.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  It's not even easier for everybody.

• 4:19Chris Williamson?

  Well, there we go. We've heard it.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  I mean, if it were, if it were easy, when people say it's easier, I'm like, then why don't you pull it? Because it's, it's competition legal.

• 4:28Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  So if, if it were easier, every single powerlifter would pull sumo, but they don't.

• 4:33Chris Williamson?

  So agreed.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  It's kind of silly logic to even say that. I mean, it depends on how you're built. For some people it is easier, but um, not for everybody or every, I mean, if you even look at the sort of world's strongest men guys, most of them don't pull sumo.

• 4:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Interesting, isn't it?

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, most, most of them don't. It really depends on your build, your sort of leg to arm ratio, your hips, all that kind of stuff. So.

• 4:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, we've got a very tall co-host on the show, Johnny, who pulls 310 and um, in the 103s, 105s, whatever it is, he pulls sumo, but we, we just wind him up by saying it's sometimes, it's easy, because you get your legs apart.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  I can do both, by the way. Just anyone wanting.

• 5:10Chris Williamson?

  Nice. That's funny. So this has happened. It's absolutely exploded. And what has that done in terms of exposure for your content now? Because having a look through your Twitter, and I strongly advise everyone who's listening to go and check out at Zuby Music, because it is, the caliber of that content doesn't smack of someone who only had sort of 17,000 followers a few months ago. It's very insightful, very well curated for Twitter, bulleted lists, some, some very nice sort of social commentary, all that sort of stuff. So what was the grind up to that point? What was happening up to there?

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Wow. Well, so I'm a professional rapper. I'm an independent musician. I've been doing it full time since 2011, but I've been rapping since 2006. So if you go on my Twitter profile, you see my Twitter's been active since July 2009. And before that, I was on Facebook and YouTube. And before that, I was on MySpace, if you want to take it back to the beginning. So I've been, um, I've been active on social media for a very long time. I've been building my audience for a long time, primarily through my music and my, my gigs and my concerts and selling CDs, traveling all around the UK, whether that's down in Bournemouth or the Isle of Wight, or up in Newcastle or Glasgow. I've been to every city in the UK multiple times,

• 6:32Speaker 00

  doing shows, selling my CDs, talking to people, just promoting my music. So that was the thing that I was initially known for, and that's the main way that I built up my organic audience. So it's been a really long grind to get to where things are. I mean, I've released five albums and three EPs. I've got eight releases in total out there. Those are all available on iTunes and Spotify and all that. Sold over 25,000 albums out of my backpack, just traveling around the UK. Put out a ridiculous number of, I mean, I've got 55,000 tweets on my, just on my Twitter. And then crazy amounts of content on Facebook and YouTube and all these different places. So it's all been, um,

• 7:13Speaker 00

  I mean, it's, it's been great because, because I laid such a strong foundation. It meant that when that tweet went viral, people, it, it meant two things, or maybe more than two things. Number one is that people came and a lot of them stayed because they realized that I had a lot more to offer beyond just one funny, kind of silly tweet, right? People go viral all the time on Twitter, but they don't have 100,000 followers because the tweet goes viral, but then people go to the page and there's nothing particularly interesting there beyond that one-off funny tweet. So people don't really follow or people disappear. With mine, you know, people came and then they were like, oh, oh, he's a rapper. Oh, his music's actually good. Oh, he's a, he does podcasts. Oh, he's, I like his podcast. Oh, he's got interesting stuff to say and he's funny. So

• 7:58Speaker 00

  a lot of people came and they stayed. Um, and then also it just meant that I've been able to deal with some of the craziness. Um, you know, the ma- massive amount of love and attention, massive amounts of hate and criticism. I've been dealing with both of these things as a professional musician for well over a decade. So I'm kind of seasoned to it. All that's happened is that the volume has increased, which is something I'm still adjusting to and the volume is going to increase again. So. In a way, it's kind of what I wanted. It's just, it's just odd how it happened, you know, that that was of all the content I've put out there, of all the things I've done, of all

• 8:41Speaker 00

  the money I've spent, of all the traveling I've done, the idea that it was that ridiculous tweet that didn't even have anything to do with my music, that opened so many people up to who I am and what I do, that, you know, it's, it's been very bizarre, but um, I'm thankful for it.

• 8:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, when you're grinding away five years ago, 10 years ago, in a studio in the arse end of London somewhere, trying to get the same verse 20 times, and then all you should have really been doing is just working on your sumo deadlift form and.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Well, one of my friends, one of my friends, Jose, made a really good point. He said, you know what, man? It took you 15 years of training to even make that video.

• 9:20Chris Williamson?

  Nice.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  So he was like, you know, that wasn't an overnight, like, most people cannot lift what you just lifted. So most people would not be able to even make that video. So I was like, actually, you know, when you, when you think of it that way, that does make a lot of sense. It's quite, it's quite a good metaphor, I guess, in way that it can look like something just, oh, I'm just gonna do this thing. But it's actually, not a lot of people are able to do that thing because they didn't put in the groundwork beforehand. So what might be easier for that one person, just like the guy you were talking about earlier, who can squat over a thousand pounds, right? I'm sure for him doing that, it's not going to look particularly difficult, but the average person cannot.

• 10:02Chris Williamson?

  It's gonna end them, yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  No, the average person can't even do a quarter of that. So, yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, but that's, that's how the world works, man.

• 10:13Chris Williamson?

  I get you. So, one of the quotes that I really love is, uh, luck equals preparation plus opportunity. And I think that that definitely seems to kind of be what's happened. And I know a lot of the podcasts and people that you've been on with recently have focused on the issues and what, what the actual narrative is around that. And we can go on to that in a second. But for people that are listening and, you know, everyone who has upward, some degree of upward mobility and is on that grind is hoping for that moment, right? That breakout moment. But what you've identified there, I think is really interesting, which is that. The same way as someone who's a stonemason, working away with a hammer and a chisel, it's not the hundredth strike which actually breaks the stone, it's the ninety-nine that came before that. And you're totally correct with what you say, that it's all well and good being handed

• 10:56Chris Williamson?

  an opportunity and having this super viral moment. I recently read a blog that said, actually, there's a fairly high likelihood of everyone, or most people, a significant majority of people, going viral to one degree or another at some point now, because of the way that degrees of separation work online. And you're like, okay, cool. Like, that gives you a platform, and that is an opportunity. But if you are just gonna hope that that, I don't know, creates some springboard out of nowhere, and there's no substance behind it, the preparation hasn't allowed you to get ready for the opportunity, there's nothing in there. So I think there's like a real amount of poetic justice that's kind of occurred with that, despite the fact that obviously you've worked a lot harder on other things than pulling, like, a deadlift

• 11:40Chris Williamson?

  off the floor. So, you know, you've had a lot of time to view this from a front row seat. What do you think that the reaction to the tweet that you put out, what do you think it says as a commentary? Have you got an overall conclusion of how that, how it's made you feel, or your sort of thoughts at the moment?

• 12:04Speaker 00

  I would say that the thing I'm really, I've really picked up on over the last few years, but especially over the last few months, is I've become, I guess, more of a public figure and a better known person, is that there are so many people who feel silenced, shall we say. So, so many people were very thankful for that tweet, because they've been seeing stuff going on, and they're like, oh my gosh, like, things are getting absurd, things are getting ridiculous, objective reality is, is being disposed of, and whatever there's.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Millions of people around the world are feeling that, if not billions of people. And so that tweet was just something that very, in a visual way and in a satirical way, just exposed some of the silliness in the world that people are aware of, right? So this whole idea of, like I said in the comment, you know, the idea of men and women not being different or having the same physical and strength capabilities, right? Some of these ideas or the idea that a man like myself with my beard and my muscles can identify as a woman and everybody is supposed to just accept that I'm a woman and not question it and allow me to compete in women's sports and play rugby against

• 13:28Speaker 00

  them and box against them and deadlift against them and all that, right? That some people are saying this from an ideological perspective, trying to say that that's all fine and the vast majority of people do not agree with that. The vast majority of people are like, no, that's ridiculous. That doesn't make sense. That's not based in reality. But for various reasons and societal pressures, they feel like they can't express that. Or if they can express it, they can only do it on a very small platform or perhaps in private. So by me putting that out there, it was kind of like everybody exhaled, I think. You know, I think people were like, oh.

• 14:02Chris Williamson?

  He's the guy. He's the guy.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Finally, somebody, right? Finally, someone just said it and showed it.

• 14:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 00

  Right? It's visual as well. So it's like you, I think it's one thing if you read something, it's not, I think the video, the video as well, just the fact that people saw it and it was a very clear rebuttal.

• 14:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Of these arguments that people make. So it was like, okay, no, he wasn't actually trying during that deadlift and I'm not a professional lifter.

• 14:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Right? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not competing in powerlifting or strongest man or whatever. There's loads of guys who are considerably stronger than me. So the fact that I, a recreational lifter, can just go and shatter the women's records.

• 14:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  As could many other recreational lifters. That kind of puts a nail in the coffin of this idea of, okay, there's no physical differences, which, which I don't even know how anyone who inhabits the real world could say to begin with. But I have heard these arguments. I have heard, I have seen people try to argue that the reason why men are physically stronger and faster is because of socialization.

• 15:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 00

  And if, if, if girls were raised differently and boys were raised differently, they'd be equally strong. And you're just. When people say these things, I'm just kind of looking at them blankly like, what? Like.

• 15:20Chris Williamson?

  It's a bit like, it reminds me a lot of the Emperor's New Clothes, this kind of situation.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  It is.

• 15:26Chris Williamson?

  Um, I, I mercifully, and I don't know if you agree, the UK to me seems to be at least a little bit more attached to reality than America. Now, I don't know if that's simply because most of the big publishing and social commentator platforms are coming from America, that you hear people like Loud with Crowder or Joe Rogan or Gavin Mcginnis, or whoever it might be, talking about these issues. Um, I, I haven't been personally exposed to any of it in the UK. Um, you know, potentially.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Okay. Oh, I've, I've seen a lot of it here.

• 16:01Chris Williamson?

  Really? Is that internet or real life?

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Both.

• 16:05Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  I mean, even in, even in the world of music.

• 16:08Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  Right? Because I've seen this in the world of music. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, I was filling out a form and um, it got to the section where they compile, you know, at the end of when you fill out a form and they ask you for your gender and ethnicity and that kind of, I can't remember what they call it, that kind of information. Okay. I got to the gender section and there were about six different options in the dropdown list, or you could put other and write your own thing. And there was a little asterisk saying gender is not the same as sex, gender is whatever you personally feel or identify

• 16:47Speaker 00

  as. Okay. Uh, I've seen that before. I get down to ethnicity and you can pick your own ethnicity too. All right. This is on like a professional form. And so it says, yeah, similar, similar wording, ethnicity is not the same as race or skin color. It doesn't, it's not necessarily linked to your nationality or your origin. Ethnicity is defined as what you personally feel and what you personally identify as. So according to this form, I could write down that I'm a Native American woman and everybody is supposed to take that 100% seriously. Um, and you know, stuff like that. It's just, and, and you know, there,

• 17:31Speaker 00

  there's, there's lots of other things that I've seen. But yeah, I mean, that was in the UK, that was UK based. Um, there's quite, there's quite a. There's a lot of, it's happening in the UK too. It's happening in all the, the entire Anglosphere as far as I'm aware. UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. I don't know if it's, um, maybe the English language, maybe because we don't have, um, gendered nouns and stuff like that. So maybe it's easier for people to get away with this warping of reality. But, um, yeah, so I have seen it trickling in there and, you know, with, with some stuff, I don't, there are certain things I don't really care about. There's lots of things that I think are silly, but it's like, whatever. But, um, when certain lines start getting crossed, then that's where I feel like people

• 18:14Speaker 00

  do need to step in and draw certain lines and boundaries and go, okay, wait, hang on. This isn't a good idea because X, Y, and Z, you know, having, having Anthony Joshua identify as a woman and go and compete in women's boxing, that's, that's not a good idea, right? That's not, that's not good. That's not safe. That's not fair. Let's, let's not do that. Right? But according to certain people's rules, as long as he feels that he's a woman, then according to them, that's okay. And again, it's just, no.

• 18:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's bizarre as well. I, I feel a lot like I'm treading on eggshells with this sort of stuff.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Everybody does.

• 18:52Chris Williamson?

  Steven Wood. Yeah, Steven Woodford, the guy behind Rationality Rules, very, very big YouTube channel, philosophy YouTube channel. Do you know who, do you know who I'm referring to?

• 19:01Speaker 00

  I think I've heard of it, but I'm not familiar with the concept.

• 19:03Chris Williamson?

  Rationality Rules is a really good YouTube channel and this guy understands cognitive biases, ethics and philosophy to a, a degree of fidelity, like pretty much probably no one, a young guy as well, like just out of university, quarter of a mill subs. And he treads on, got a bit of poo on his shoe, talking about transgender athletes. And as far as I could see on the video, didn't, he, he maybe didn't have wholly formed views.

• 19:35Chris Williamson?

  But it wasn't, it was in no way derogatory as far as I could see, et cetera, et cetera. And he gets denounced by the Atheist Society of America, which is like this company that he's worked up towards for his entire life. And you're like, I don't, are you people not supposed to be the ones that are the closest to reality, the ones that are the least sort of ideologically bound? Like it should be complete reason, et cetera, et cetera. And then he goes on this huge tirade apology thing. And I'm

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 20:05Chris Williamson?

  Watching this guy, he's desperately trying to save his YouTube channel. And I get it like, you know, I, I love his content and it's a shame that it came to that. And maybe he did make a genuine U-turn.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  But how, how strong was the backlash that that threatens his YouTube channel?

• 20:20Chris Williamson?

  Pretty strong. Like I think, and I think more than anything, his concern was that as soon as he got ratified by this atheist society of America, I think it might be Texas, something like that.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Do you know why I'm, sorry, do you know why I'm laughing is because this, this sounds like, um, I often, I often joke that, uh, certain atheists are more religious than religious people.

• 20:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  So when I, so when you're talking about like this atheist society, like ostracizing this, um, heretic, it makes me laugh because I'm just like, well, that's extremely, that's like a very, that's like a very, yeah, that's a very religious sort of thing. You know what I mean? That's why I find it a little funny.

• 20:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. I mean, are people trying to find religion in their choice of gender? Or are they trying to find religion in their adoption of a political party and stuff like that now? Um, I know that that's something that you have, uh, commented on before. And I, thinking about it, I agree. There's a, Alan de Botten from the School of Life says something similar. He says that, um, our lack of connection to a greater sense of good and a greater sense of belonging. And all of the other things that were the trappings and the trimmings that came along with religion are actually what people are now trying to substitute into their life.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've been saying that for a very, I've been saying that for a very long time. I've just got a bigger megaphone now.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Um, uh, cause I've, I've observed it, right? I've observed it. The thing is, I think that fundamentally, the, the word religion or religious sort of weirds weird certain people out, like they don't, they don't really like it. But. I think there's almost two ideas of religion. You've got, you've got organized former religion, Christianity, Judaism, you know, Islam, et cetera. But there's also, you know, there's also another meaning of religious, just like someone can go to the gym religiously. Someone can, someone can, someone can do their, their, someone can work on a computer program religiously. And people know what that means, right?

• 22:17Speaker 00

  So there's, so human beings do, as far as I'm aware, like this isn't something I've sort of scientifically studied or anywhere, anything. This is just anecdotal from living on the, on the earth for three decades and a bit, right? Is that most people are, I think people sort of have a, what I'd call a religious core. Okay. And that can be filled with an organized religion, but it can also be filled with a strong political ideology, a strong dietary ideology. You get religious vegans, you get religious carnivores, a strong idea. It could be sociopolitical, it could be, it could be radical feminism, it could be.

• 23:01Chris Williamson?

  Football team.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  It could, yes, yeah, well, football is very religious. Professional sports is very religious.

• 23:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  I mean, it's, it's very religious. It's the same, it's the same circuitry. You see what I mean? It's, it's the same circuitry that those things sort of act on. And so what I do find with, you know, I don't, I don't wanna, I don't like to ever group everybody, but with, you know, certain people who are atheists, who are against religion or whatever, is they can often be religious in a whole different way. You can even be a religious atheist, as far as I'm concerned, right? You have people who are, they're more militant and aggressive and firm in their atheism than I am in my own Christianity.

• 23:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  You see what I mean, right? I, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of like a humble religious person in that I accept that I could be wrong.

• 23:53Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Okay, so I believe that God exists. I, I believe, I, I believe certain things, but I'll be the first to put my hands up and say, you know what? I could be wrong. I could, I could die and it turns out the whole thing that I've been believing was, was just wrong. Right? That's entirely possible. But I've come across certain people and had debates and it's almost like they don't even. They're so firm. They're like, absolutely no way on earth God exists. Like, you are totally wrong. All these other billions of people are totally wrong. I know this 100%. I know for certain that there's no afterlife. And I was like, whoa, like, whoa, like, to me, that's weird, because I'm like, I don't know. That's also, to me, like, wow, that's more hardcore.

• 24:36Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. It sounds like a theocrat. They sound like a theocrat about not being like a theocrat.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is, this is, this is kind of what I mean. So it's not, it's not to rip on anyone. Like, you do have people who are traditionally religious, who are the same, who think absolutely, this is the one true faith, and everybody else is wrong, and everybody else is going to hell, and everyone who doesn't believe exactly what I believe is wrong. And to me, it's, you know, that, that you've, you've got to have a level of humility, because to me, it's a, it's a faith, right? Faith means that you don't, you accept that you don't have all of the scientific evidence and data and whatever to, you know, like, nobody can write some proof, right? The, the counter, the counter to every person who believes in God is always, well, what's your proof that God

• 25:27Speaker 00

  exists? And it's like, well, in a scientific sense, I can't, I can't give you like a formula, or something that will prove, I, I can give you like my logical, rational explanation as to why I think God exists, but I can't give you some rigorous proof that you could in physics, or in, in mathematics or something, because you're talking about, you're talking about a whole different dimension of reality as well, where I don't even think science sort of applies. You see, you see what I mean? It's like the concept of infinity. We all kind of know what infinity is, but infinity is beyond our human capability to understand, right? You can't,

• 26:10Speaker 00

  how can you have a, a number or something that never was always there and is all, it doesn't?

• 26:18Speaker 00

  Like it feels like you understand it for two seconds and then two seconds later you don't

• 26:22Chris Williamson?

  It's out of your grasp. It's like trying to hold on to water in your hands. Yeah, I totally, totally agree. A analogous situation that's occurred recently is this Mario Lopez debacle, which has just exploded in America. So for the listeners that don't know what I'm talking about, the guy that played AC Slater in Saved by the Bell that you watched on TV 20 years ago, and has done like, he's a host for MTV and he does other bits and stuff. He is, for a long time, the super clean, smiley guy on your TV, fantastic teeth, you know what I mean? He's just there, he's being super positive, he's just getting, he's getting it done. And he

• 27:06Chris Williamson?

  said on a, I think it was actually a Candace Owens show, where he says this, and he says, "Look, I'm never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids, obviously. And I think if you come from a place of love, you really can't go wrong. But at the same time, my God, if you're three years old and you're saying you're feeling a certain way, or you think you're a boy or a girl, or whatever the case may be, I just think it's dangerous as a parent to make that determination then, and be like, okay, well, you're going to be a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be. It's sort of alarming, and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on." Now,

• 27:43Chris Williamson?

  that to me is almost a pedestrian paragraph because of, because of how many caveats he's had to put in place. It's like, it's, I'm not this, I'm not being certain here, and I'm just gonna try and be polite. Like that in anyone's world, that is overly polite, it's literally verbose in its politeness. And he got annihilated. Did you watch the fallout of this?

• 28:12Speaker 00

  I've seen some of it, yeah. I've seen some of it. The only mistake he made was apologizing.

• 28:19Chris Williamson?

  The apology, the subsequent apology, the comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were, Lopez said in a statement. I have have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ community, and I am going to use this opportunity to better educate myself moving forward. I will be more informed and thoughtful. What's your thoughts on that?

• 28:44Speaker 00

  His initial statement was completely correct. His apology was disappointing because he should not have apologized. I know why he did, of course. I can only imagine what kind of a fire and pressure he came under from his, I don't know, producers and colleagues and coworkers and whatever. But if you're not wrong, don't apologize, and especially don't apologize to one of these crazy mobs that just goes after you because they go after, you know, they pick targets who they think are vulnerable or weak, right? It's like a herd of lions trying to find the antelope that's limping so that they can

• 29:27Speaker 00

  all mob on them in a pack, right? They'll never do it. They'll never do it one on one, but they'll come in a pack and they'll try to attack someone. And if you stand firm and you don't back down, then 48 hours later, they'll find a different target. So I think he should have just weathered the storm. And then, but yeah, I'm a little disappointed that he that he backed down to the mob because I thought people would have learned by now not to make apologies for things you're not sorry for. If I say two plus two equals four, and someone else thinks it equals five, and they set a mob on me to try to get me to say that it equals five, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to say, no, it equals four. I don't care how many people are telling me it equals five. It equals four. And the point that he made was actually quite important because

• 30:14Speaker 00

  We were talking about certain lines not being crossed and I think two of those lines which are sensitive, which are both things we've touched on here. One of them is when it comes to people's safety and security. Okay, so for example, in the whole sports thing. Okay, so if you've got in any sort of physical contact sport or anything like that, if you have people who are biological men competing against women or being in their changing rooms and stuff like that, that's a safety and a security concern that you would have thought that, you know, anyone who considers themselves any type of, you don't even need to be a feminist, right? But you would have certainly thought that lots of the feminists would be up in arms about that. And I know some of them are. But just

• 30:59Speaker 00

  any person who's reasonable and is concerned for women would be like, okay, we don't want to do that. That's a bit of a concern. And then the second line that I draw a hard line at is stuff involving kids, man. Stuff involving children. You know, I've got, I'm not a parent yet, but I've got nine nieces and nephews. And he was specifically talking about a three year old. Okay, three year olds don't know anything. Three year olds can't make decisions, let alone life altering ones.

• 31:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  That will affect everything from their mental wellbeing to their physical bodies to their ability to reproduce in the future. You want to let someone decide that at the age of three? That is crazy. And that's basically what he was saying. He didn't even say it in all the words that I am.

• 31:47Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  But that's a crazy idea. That's not, that's, yeah, I mean, I don't even have the words for it.

• 31:56Chris Williamson?

  Well, I mean, so my business partner has a two month year old and a two and a half year old.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:02Chris Williamson?

  And the times that I see that two and a half year old, he is easily. Five different characters an hour. He's an astronaut, then he's a postman, then he's, then he's a dinosaur, then he's doing something else, then he's doing an impression of daddy, then he's this, that and the other. And you don't take any of these things seriously.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  No.

• 32:21Chris Williamson?

  Because at that age, children don't know what's best for them, which is the exact reason why the parents are around. The parents are around because if left to their own devices, the children would cause some sort of catastrophe. They'd ride the, they'd ride the dog into a stream or they, you know what I mean? Something, something would go wrong.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  They'll kill themselves, man. If you leave the average two-year-old alone for a couple, for an hour in a certain environment, they'll kill themselves, man.

• 32:47Chris Williamson?

  There's something dangerous in that room. Even if you've nerfed the shit out of everything, there's something in there that they can eat or put in their eye or do whatever it is. You're totally right. And to hear, is it child abuse? Is it child abuse to allow children to make those sort of decisions or to support those sort of decisions?

• 33:06Speaker 00

  As far as I'm concerned, yes. As far as I'm concerned, yes. I don't think that, um, you know, once people are adults, once they're 18 plus, let's say, perhaps even a little bit older, when you're thinking about brain development, but certainly say 18 plus, then, I mean, you can't, you're not going to give, no one wants to give a child, no one thinks a three-year-old should be able to get a tattoo. No one thinks a three-year-old, I mean, getting a tattoo is a much more of a minor than going on hormonal treatment or cutting bits off of your reproductive parts, right? But no, no one would give a three-year-old a tattoo, even if they really, really wanted one.

• 33:46Chris Williamson?

  I have seen some mothers from Newcastle with three-year-olds who've had their ears pierced, though, which is.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I, I, I can understand that one more, actually, weirdly.

• 33:55Chris Williamson?

  Slightly less, less long-term repercussions, though.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you wouldn't give them, you wouldn't give them alcohol to drink. You wouldn't let them, of course, they can't consent to, consent to anything sexual, um, you know, but, and, and that's, that's the disturbing thing. Cause it's like, look, if you're gonna let little kids. Start consenting to things, then that's, you know, some people say slippery slopes aren't a real thing, but no slippery slopes can be a real thing. And it's like, no, children just do not have that agency. Children need to be protective. They can't make their own decisions. They can't consent to things. You can't even let them choose what they want to eat for dinner because they're just going to want to eat Haribo.

• 34:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  And ice cream.

• 34:36Chris Williamson?

  They certainly are. Knowing my business partner's son, that was exactly what he would choose.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  What do you want to eat for dinner? Oh, chicken nuggets and Haribo and ice cream. It's like, you can't eat that.

• 34:43Chris Williamson?

  It's not always good for you.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Every day. Yeah, exactly. You've got to be a parent and be like, no, okay, you're going to have some vegetables. You're going to have some rice. You're going to have some chicken and you can have, yeah, then you can have a couple Haribo if you're a good boy or a good girl.

• 34:56Chris Williamson?

  So on the other side of that fence, there is an argument that could be made from someone from a difficult leaning in terms of how they look at the world that says, well, if you're not supporting the child in being what they are, that's child abuse. The opposite side to that.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  They're wrong.

• 35:13Chris Williamson?

  Is that because the starting point is where we need to stick to until someone has agency or sufficient agency?

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. And because certain things are, certain things have, so what we're discussing here is something with a permanent life altering consequences. Okay. If you or I genuinely decided that we wanted to go on hormone therapy and live the remainder of our lives as a woman.

• 35:44Chris Williamson?

  Zubina or Chris, Christine.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess you could still be Chris.

• 35:48Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Then people can have their ideas about that. And I may have some reasons why I'm skeptical about that personally. But you're a grown man. I'm a grown man and you're an adult and you have agency. And if that's the choice you make, then. You know, you can, you can do it. Okay. But if you are a child and someone wants to put you on hormone blockers or on testosterone or on estrogen or start having surgeries to, I mean, that's going to affect you for the remainder of your life. And it's well known that most people who experience any

• 36:33Speaker 00

  kind of gender dysphoria in their young age, most people get over it within a relatively short space of time. And it's not even that uncommon. For example, if you've got a little boy who's got, say they've got three older sisters, okay, it's not that rare that that little boy at some little point might be, oh, I wanna, I wanna be a girl, or he might wanna wear his, his sister's shoes or her dress or whatever, just because they're surrounded by women. And that's, but that doesn't mean that that boy is a girl. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that, oh, he's actually a girl, so we need to put him on hormones and make sure he doesn't go through puberty property and properly and whatever. And that'll affect

• 37:13Speaker 00

  them. I mean, that's, when they do become a reproductive age, they, they then won't, might not be able to reproduce. They'll be infertile. They won't be able to have their own children. They may go through all kinds of psychological problems and issues and physical development issues. I mean, Lord knows what kind of can of worms you're opening. So to let somebody that young make those kind of decisions is utterly, it's reprehensible as far as I'm concerned. It's, it's amazing to me that it even sort of needs to be explained. Like, I, sometimes there are certain things I was like, man, how am I even needing to

• 37:48Chris Williamson?

  Why are we engaged in this?

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, why, why do I even need to justify my position here? And it's such a, it's such a new thing. It's such a localized thing. I mean, if you go around the world, if you go to anywhere in Africa, anywhere in South America, and almost anywhere in Asia, anywhere in the Middle East, and you start talking about, they'll look at you like you are a complete crazy person. They'll be like, what on earth are you talking about that a two year old boy can know? Like, what, what do you mean? Right? They'll, they'll wanna lock you up for even talking about it.

• 38:17Chris Williamson?

  Despite that, they're the same, they're the same species, same genome.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, but, yeah, it's just.

• 38:23Chris Williamson?

  Totally, they're not, not experiencing the same, the same situations. One of the things that I keep on thinking about, and it, obviously, it's apparent in Mario Lopez's Apology is the equivalent exponential growth that you've seen is the same slippery slope on the other side that people can get pushed down from one step of saying, maybe it's not a tremendously good idea to let three year olds change their gender to you're transphobic. And it's this exponential increase.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  It's a bullying tactic. That's all it is. It's just a tactic. Right? People know that if you slap a label on somebody, whether that's racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever, Islamophobic, whatever phobia or label people can try to slap on someone. People do this all day. It's nothing new. It's just a cheap way to try to discredit someone. It's simply a tactic. And it's a, it's a really disgusting one. Firstly, because it's slanderous. And secondly, because it minimizes, it dilutes the terms. Okay? If you call everybody who disagrees with you racist, then you're diluting the term for, you're diluting what racism actually is. And you're, you're minimizing harm that's

• 39:38Speaker 00

  caused by genuine racism. And you're also providing cover for actual racists. Okay? If I've heard the term race, I see it slung around so much now, both in real life and on Twitter, that I myself, I'm pretty desensitized to it. Okay? If someone's like, oh, that guy's a racist. My first, you know, if you went back 15 years ago, my gut would be to believe them. And to be like, oh, oh, what's going on? Whereas now my gut is to be like, oh, gosh.

• 40:10Chris Williamson?

  They disagree with someone.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Do you, do you mean, do you mean they're actually a real racist? Or do you just mean that they're a little bit right wing? Or they're a bit, or they're conservative? Or they like Trump? You know, and it's, it's, it's gotten silly. And people are just amping up this rhetoric all the time. You're getting people on Twitter saying, oh, everybody who supports Trump, every single one of you is supporting white nationalism.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  I'm like, what about the black guys and the Latinos and the black women and all the the Arab people who all like Trump? I mean, you're saying they're all white nationalists? Like, come on, just think, like, stop using such ridiculous, you're here criticizing Trump for his rhetoric while saying saying stuff that's far more inflammatory and divisive than anything that comes out of his mouth. So it's just, people just need to kind of take a step back and chill.

• 40:59Chris Williamson?

  It does, it does stop us from getting to the, the nuance of the discussion as well, right? Because as soon as you go from being anything which isn't zero, if you, as soon as you add a one or a two or a three, all the way up to 100, you get pushed to 100, which stops, stops the ability to have the virtuous middle, which is actually where the devil's in the details, right? And the rubber meets the road at the point where people want to find out what's the, that's the reason that I enjoy doing this podcast. I like to deconstruct stuff so I can find out exactly where the rubber meets the road with particular issues. And it's one of the most interesting things I think you can do when you're conversing with people. But as soon as, like you say, someone that you disagree with gets given

• 41:39Chris Williamson?

  an ism or an obia, and you're like, well, there we go, conversation's over.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, they tried it with me. It didn't work.

• 41:47Chris Williamson?

  What, what isms and obias did they give you?

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Um, sexism and transphobia.

• 41:53Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, both for the same tweet as well. Um, but it, it doesn't stick because it doesn't work. I just make people look stupid when they call me anything like that. And ultimately, it's not true. So I don't care. If someone says, if someone calls me sexist, I will literally laugh in their face. Okay. I might even agree and amplify just to like, make a joke, right? I'll tell them, I don't know.

• 42:17Chris Williamson?

  It's that ridiculous.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's that ridiculous. I'll tell them to, I don't know, get back in the kitchen or whatever, even if it's a guy who says it, just like, whatever. It's such a dumb thing to say. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not sexist. So I don't, I'm not going to go on the defensive and start claiming my righteousness. It's just like, no, go away. Like, if you call someone something, the appropriate answer, if someone accuses you of something with no evidence and that you're not, is to, you know? Call them an a-hole because that's what they're being. No, really. If someone just came up to you, Chris, and was like, "Oh, you're a racist," then you don't need to, you don't need to start justifying why you're not. You don't need to go on, they want you to go on the defensive.

• 42:57Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Right? You don't go on the defensive. You just say, "No, well, you're being a jerk. You're a jerk because you have no evidence that I am and I'm not, and you're accusing me of being this thing. So if you want to have a conversation, stop being a jerk and we can talk," or the conversation over. But people always feel this need to defend themselves. And, you know, people who attack in these mobs, they're very like, they're like sharks in the water, right? So as soon as there's a little bit of blood, they're like, "Oh, we got him. We got him. Yeah, we got him. We got him," you know? And then they try to find another target and they keep trying to do it to all these different people. And, you know, most people, you know, they do the false apology and they, they say that, you know, because the funny thing, okay, in that Mario Lopez thing, at no point did he say why, how or why what he said was wrong, right?

• 43:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, insensitive deeper understanding. It's like this, it's like you go on to obiapology.com

• 43:52Chris Williamson?

  that, you know, you put in a certain number of characteristics and then it spews out this thing because, you know, I mentioned earlier on rationality rules and Stevens, the first five minutes of his response video were that. It was that language, that exact language right there. And I don't know, man, I don't know.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  It's like, it's like a struggle session.

• 44:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, in the Soviet Union and in Mao's China, when they used to get people to admit to crimes that they, that they hadn't committed, right? And they just get people and they just have to say, confess to something.

• 44:28Chris Williamson?

  Whatever they want. Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, whatever it is. It's like a new age version of that where you put people up, especially public figures, you put them up on this thing and they have to give this false apology or admission to a kind of atone for their sins. And then, okay, they can maybe come back in the club. Otherwise they get canceled. That's the, that's the new term. But I just think people need to really stop giving into this. I mean, it's, it's incredible how many, um, I get so many messages and emails now from people, especially in the world of entertainment, also in the world of tech and in media, who one, tell me that I'm extremely brave for being as honest and frank as I am, but then two, say that, oh, they can't speak out because they're worried about losing their job, or they're worried about losing this opportunity,

• 45:12Speaker 00

  or all this kind of stuff. And it's just, it's crazy. I mean, we're supposed to be in a free country with free speech and freedom of expression, both in the UK and in the USA. So the idea that people are essentially succumbing to a form of terrorism, as far as, it's terrorism, isn't it? Right? If you're, you know, making people so afraid of their repercussions to say what's on their mind, or to express their genuine beliefs or whatever, because you're terrorizing them, and you know, you're making examples out of other people to show what'll happen if they step out of line. That's terrorism.

• 45:50Chris Williamson?

  It's the heads on spikes as you go into the

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah, literally, it is.

• 45:56Chris Williamson?

  Mario's head is currently sat on a spike outside of the TV studio. And the worst thing, you made a really good point about the fact that it dilutes down the people who are actually the problem. And it also doesn't allow those of us who have compassion. My empathy is crippling, like absolutely crippling for almost anything. I spoke about Daniel Sloss, the comedian, with this. And we said that, you know, you see those videos of dogs coming home to soldiers, like after they've been at war. And I'm just like bawling my eyes out at these things. And I can't bet. But the problem is that if you do want to have compassion and try and understand complex situations, and someone who is going through gender dysphoria, someone who has suffered with racism, et cetera, et cetera,

• 46:41Chris Williamson?

  et cetera, it's like to be able to To be able to step into that room and try and understand that, you also have to do all this other stuff as well. You're like, right, I'm gonna have to put this bag on and this bag on and this bag on. And yeah, it's, it's not very, it's not very helpful. So I think you're right. It'll be interesting to see how many more Mario Lopez's there are and how many more Zubis there are over the next like five years. You know what I mean? Like, that's, that's gonna be interesting. And because of the way that popular culture defines and it trickles down into defining what everybody else thinks, it's not actually gonna take lots of those situations to occur to actually begin defining culture like

• 47:25Chris Williamson?

  ahead of it. I think that, you know, a lot of those situations can be like the stone in the river that directs the flow a little bit. So one of the other things I wanted to discuss is Titania McGrath. I don't know how to pronounce her name. Titania, Titania McGrath? Titania. Titania McGrath. So I have, this is the first time that the listeners will hear it. I've managed to confirm her slash her character to come on the podcast. My goal, she's currently performing Edinburgh Fringe. If you are at the Fringe, 9pm every night. I suggest that you go and see it. The show has had fantastic reviews already. What I wanted to do is to get the actress that plays her to sit down and to have Andrew Doyle,

• 48:08Chris Williamson?

  the man who's behind her, as her publicist. And I wanted to have this back and forth. But apparently, one of the agreements is that the actress won't, won't speak in character on interviews, which is really, a really good idea. Because I mean, if people actually begin thinking that she is her, all hell will break loose. But there was a tweet that came out that is probably the best one I think I've seen her do, which is, if you only have sex with people you find attractive, you might want to ask yourself why you're such a superficial bigot?

• 48:42Speaker 00

  Oh gosh, I think my favorite one was that being a cis white male is an act of violence or something like that. That was one of my favorite ones.

• 48:52Chris Williamson?

  One of the things that's super interesting about this, because Andrew is British, right? And also the whole, the fact that he got ousted due to like a typo from some book publishing thing, I don't know whether you saw this, but the only reason, like, so he never wanted to, he never wanted to be the person that's like behind this account, right? For the people that don't know what we're talking about, it is a fake social justice warrior account satirically going through, saying these sort of things, the absolute extreme example of what you might see on Twitter, got banned, then people are like, hang on, you can't ban this, it's a satire account, these are actually allowed under Twitter's Terms of Service, it's stipulated, it's satire account, et cetera, et cetera.

• 49:31Chris Williamson?

  And due to some guy, a book publishing thing accidentally fired on some blog somewhere that it was Andrew as the author, and then everybody trickled down because he's the same guy that is behind Jonathan Pie as well, Jonathan Pie.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  He does some writing for him, right?

• 49:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, so, you know, and apparently now it's just like all hell, similar to yourself, all hell broke loose.

• 50:00Chris Williamson?

  But yeah, the fact that, the fact that he's got that understanding and that nuance strikes at what I was talking about in the UK again, because again, for me, this sort of stuff, like cis male and the superficial bigotry and stuff like that, it's, it's not language that I hear, it isn't.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 50:20Chris Williamson?

  And it's interesting that you say that you have, but yeah, I absolutely can't wait to.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  You might be protected up there, you're in Newcastle, right?

• 50:27Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, you might actually be somewhat insulated from it up there.

• 50:30Chris Williamson?

  You think because it's a bit less cosmopolitan than London, somewhere like that, it's a little bit more?

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, and people, I know Newcastle well, and people in Newcastle are just, yeah, a bit more in touch and grounded.

• 50:42Chris Williamson?

  Spit and sawdust up here, yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  So, and sort of sane, yeah, a lot of these ideas, it's a bit like how in the US, like if you go to the South. Of the USA, or you're a sort of in Middle America, in the Midwest, you're going to get far less of these social, you're going to get far less social justice nonsense, right? They're not, they're not running around in, in Houston and, you know, most parts of Texas and Arizona and Kentucky and Alabama, right? There's no social justice warriors there. But if you go to Portland, you go to Los Angeles, you go to New York, you go to, you know, the coastal cities, then that's where a lot more of this ideology is based. Uh, so in the UK, I mean, if you're in London or in Brighton.

• 51:25Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, what's the wokest city in the UK?

• 51:28Speaker 00

  Brighton.

• 51:29Chris Williamson?

  Brighton's the wokest city in the UK?

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Easy, easily.

• 51:32Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Easily, yeah.

• 51:34Chris Williamson?

  I wouldn't have guessed that.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, Brighton, easily. Yeah. Um, Brighton's the one place where you would encounter people who do genuinely, yeah, who use this kind of language and will, you'll, you'll say something, lots of the things that we've said here, they'd find extremely offensive and want us to apologize for and start giving you a lecture on, you know, why you as a privileged cis white male should not be, you know, saying certain things, or perhaps you should even be speaking to me in a certain way as a person of color and all, right, all, all, all that stuff.

• 52:06Chris Williamson?

  Should you be speaking to you in a certain way as a person of color?

• 52:09Speaker 00

  I don't even, I hate that term. I don't even use it. It's just silly.

• 52:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. Joe Rogan recently went through a, a, a breakdown of person of color and colored person and like the fact that you can rearrange the same words in a sentence and one way's like currently accepted and then one way was accepted but now isn't accepted.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's silly. Um, I don't, I don't use, I don't use terminology of, um, uh, my ideological opponents, shall we say, although I don't, I don't like to view people as opponents. I like to just view people as people, but I guess I oppose certain ideas. Okay. I try, I try not to, I try to separate people from ideas. So I've encountered people who, you know, have some of these. Bizarre ideas and I I don't agree with them on them, but as long as we can have a conversation and be decent to each other and, you know, maybe agree to disagree, maybe we'll change each other's minds on on certain things from time to time, then it's it's it's all good. But um I don't think

• 53:13Speaker 00

  it's a, yeah, there's just some ideas that I don't think are a net benefit to society. So anything that I feel is that way, then I will most likely oppose.

• 53:25Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I understand. So to finish off, one of the things that I wanted to ask, I I appreciate that you understand this with a lot of nuance and you are someone who it seems kind of similar to Jordan Peterson a little way, like the way that when the left decided to pick on him, it's like they picked on the wrong fucking guy. So bad. And it's like the same with you. Like if there was someone that was going to come to the front, it was going to be someone who like overtly could be first off classed as a minority. So you've got that card to play like whenever you want, right? You've got like the race card in your pocket and then you've got and then you've got your ability lyrically to write, to speak, to do all of these different

• 54:10Chris Williamson?

  things. You are someone who I feel is, you know, hopefully well equipped to deal with whatever the fuck the future's got in store for you going on Joe Rogan pretty soon. So that is going to make a big change. So for some of the people that are out there, how would you suggest that they go about viewing the world, um, tools or tactics with regards to skepticism or conduct or however you think, have you got some advice for people about how they navigate the next sort of two, two years, five years?

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Wow. Well, you mentioned Jordan Peterson, so I'll take one of his rules, which is tell the truth, or at least don't lie. Right? I think that's important. I'm I'm really big on authenticity and I always have been, both in my music and outside of it, you know, just trying to be honest and not say things that maybe are beneficial or might seem expedient in the short term, but in the long term are likely to do you damage or get you caught in some sort of web of lies. So just being honest. And then and then, yeah, that goes further to sort of. Standing your ground, standing your ground, but also being not in, not as in digging yourself

• 55:19Speaker 00

  in on an idea and not allowing other people to challenge it. No, no, no, like do the opposite of that. Get outside of your echo chamber. But um, don't be afraid, don't crumble at the first question, right? If someone, if someone challenges something or someone wants you to apologize for something that you're not sorry for, then you don't have to apologize. And it would be, it would be an empty apology anyway. If I do something and um, I'm not sorry about it and I'm forced into some kind of apology, then I'm still not sorry about it. It's just, you're just saying.

• 55:54Chris Williamson?

  I said the words.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I said the words. Um, but that doesn't really, that doesn't really mean anything. Um, and then beyond that, I guess, uh, just being, being, trying to be open minded and talk to different people of different viewpoints and you know, if you've got something that you're, or and, and you know, just be willing to learn, um, and be willing to have your mind changed. It's, it's a, the, the reason any of us know anything is because we've been wrong in the past. Okay. Pretty much everything you know is because you are wrong at some point. So if you are never wrong, or you feel like you're never wrong, you're probably not learning anymore.

• 56:34Chris Williamson?

  Probably not updating the OS appropriately.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Every day you should, you should be being wrong about something almost every day. Nothing catastrophic, right?

• 56:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  But um, yeah, you should be, oh, okay. Someone, I say something and then you're like, oh no, actually, da, da, da, look at this is the data or these are the facts or have you thought this, you know? If I'm being intellectually honest, if it's a better argument or it's a fact that goes against what I believed, it's like, oh, okay, no, you're right. And then I incorporate that into my thing. And then hopefully the next time you have a conversation with the next person, you're a little bit wiser and that continues to happen. And I kind of look forward to, um, it's one reason I'm not so worried about getting older is like, I look forward to, uh, Seeing just how much I'll know and what kind of person I'll be in 10 years and 15 years and 20 years. Uh, cause that's when, yeah, that's when it should all start peaking. And I think that's why someone like Jordan Peterson, his rise has just been crazy because

• 57:27Speaker 00

  it's really interesting. I mean, it's rare for someone to become world famous in their mid 50s, isn't it? But it's almost, but you were talking about that, that striking and it's like he's been building up and building up and building up. And then he's sort of

• 57:42Chris Williamson?

  Half a century of preparation.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, literally. And then when the, when the spotlight came on him, it was like,

• 57:48Chris Williamson?

  Oh my God. Yeah. This is, you fools. This isn't even my final form.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, literally. It was like, whoa, like this guy's a phoenix, just sort of like, whoa, like

• 57:58Chris Williamson?

  Absolutely.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  This guy's a force, you know?

• 58:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Um, but had the spotlight been on him maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago, it wouldn't have been, he wouldn't have formulated his ideas.

• 58:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  And been able to articulate them in the, in the way that he does, which is very masterful. Um, I went to see him live last year and it was, it was really interesting.

• 58:15Chris Williamson?

  Where, where did you see him?

• 58:17Speaker 00

  Uh, Oxford.

• 58:18Chris Williamson?

  Oh, cool. I saw him at the Manchester show. Manchester show was fantastic as well.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it's really interesting because it's, yeah, I mean, it's weird. He's touring like a rock star, just doing these talks.

• 58:28Chris Williamson?

  Chatted about, chatted about like things, things that you could not pay me to go and you couldn't have paid me to go and learn about that 15 years ago. And now I'm like, I'll put my hand in my pocket.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:40Chris Williamson?

  Um, yeah, it, it's, it's interesting. And you know, it's so tropey now to, to talk about Jordan Peterson, but being precise with your speech, telling the truth, being friends with people that want the best for you, all of those sort of things. They're fantastic rules to live by. Um, yeah, I, I really, I genuinely, genuinely do hope that there is a Jordan Peterson future ahead for you, man. I think that you, you know, tentatively, I hope that you have the skills to, to navigate the space and to be a really, a really interesting balancing voice going forward. Obviously we need to get another 15 kilos on your squat.

• 59:17Chris Williamson?

  But once we've done that, I, you know, I, I, I really do think that there'll be a lot of, a lot of world at your feet for you to kind of play around with. And I genuinely, I'm super excited to see what the next, the next year sort of particularly for yourself has in store. And I'm very feeling very fortunate to hopefully be a part of that genesis process and, and kind of help you along the way as well.

• 59:40Speaker 00

  I appreciate that, Chris. Thank you very much, man.

• 59:42Chris Williamson?

  Today's been awesome. Anybody who wants to find out any more, get at Zubimusic on Twitter. Where else can they go? Is the website, anything else?

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure. So I'm on Twitter at Zubimusic, same handle on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook as well, at Zubimusic. And my website is zubymusic.com. I've also got a merchandise website where you can get my music and merch, which is TeamZubi.com.

• 1:00:04Chris Williamson?

  Fantastic. All links to everything that we've spoken about will be in the show notes below. If you've got any comments or any feedback about today, obviously it's quite nuanced and interesting conversation. The comments are always open or at Chris Wellek, wherever you follow me. But for now, Zubim, man, thank you so much. Good luck with Joe when you're out in the States and I'll catch you next time.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Thanks, bro. I appreciate it. Have a good evening.