The Death Of Truth And How To Revive It - Gad Saad - #217

**Chris Williamson** (0:02)
Hi friends, welcome back. My guest today is Gad Saad, evolutionary psychologist, professor of marketing at Concordia University, and all-around fascinating human. I've been looking forward to this one for an awfully long time. I first heard him on Rogan a few years ago, and I've wanted to get him on the show ever since. Bad ideas are infecting every area of society, it seems, at the moment. And Gad's new book, The Parasitic Mind, is hopefully going to teach us how to inoculate ourselves. So today, expect to learn why postmodernism is the granddaddy of bad ideas, why people are so easily persuaded by them, whether Gad is bored of spending his time arguing with people on Twitter, what he truly thinks of Nassim Taleb, who he predicts will win the 2020 election, and much more. This is definitely a multiple listener one. Gad is a true polymath, pulling in information from all areas of academia. So I really hope that you enjoy today. In other news. Can you hear that? If you listen very, very carefully. That is the sound of a brand new sponsor. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Manscaped, who is the best in men's below the waist grooming. Manscaped offers precision engineered tools for your family jewels. That's right. You no longer have to play that incredibly delicate game and the weird sort of shame squat thing that you're doing in the bath. Don't, every guy that's listening, don't pretend like you don't do it. We've all been there. Manscaped just launched in the UK, which means that you are finally able to trim your body with all of the sensitivity and precision that you would want for the most sensitive area that you have. You and me do not want to nick that sort of bit in between balls and bumhole. It's a very nerve wracking trimming around there. And also trimming your chest hair or wherever else you might be hairy is just such a clout on. However, Manscaped has redesigned their electric trimmer to create the greatest ball and chest hair trimmer ever created and just released their brand new and improved Lawn Mower 3.0, which features cutting edge ceramic blade technology to reduce grooming accidents and 90 minute battery so you can take a longer shave. I mean, if your body hair shaving takes more than 90 minutes, then I would seriously seek medical advice. Also has waterproof technology, which means that you can shave in the shower and an LED light, which illuminates the grooming area for a closer and more precise trim. I cannot explain how useful an LED light is. That makes it sound like it's fucking Mordor down there, which obviously it isn't, but you get my point. You can get 20% off and free shipping with the code modernwisdom at manscaped.com. That is manscaped.com. Just enter the code modernwisdom and you can get 20% off everything that's there. So if you've been thinking, I really should upgrade my personal grooming kit, now is the chance. manscaped.com, the code modernwisdom. Make your testies your besties.
But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Gad Saad.
It has been a very long time coming, but I'm finally joined here by the man behind The Saad Truth, the Gadfather himself. So good to have you here.

**Gad Saad** (3:38)
Thank you so much for having me, Chris. Good to be with you.

**Chris Williamson** (3:40)
Pleasure. Burning question that obviously everyone has come here to work out, is Adele's hairstyle problematic?

**Gad Saad** (3:50)
Deeply problematic. I didn't know that she was a mixture of Himmler and Hitler, but apparently she is.
By the way, for those of you who don't know this, about a few years ago, I did a couple of sad truths. The one sad truth was where I gave temporary clearance to anyone who wanted to eat Lebanese food. I gave them a 24-hour period. because I'm Lebanese, I'm entitled to speak on behalf of all Lebanese. And so I gave a culinary clearance for 24 hours. And then I asked for everyone to take a photo of their passports so that they can give me clearance in whatever they want to give me clearance in. So for example, a Portuguese person would write and say, my name is José whatever Rodriguez, and I give you clearance to eat Portuguese spicy chicken. So you should go check it out because it shows you that most people are still sane and make fun of this stupidity.

**Chris Williamson** (4:43)
So that's like an IOU, reciprocal altruism thing that you've got going on here. I eat your food, you eat my food, but you can only eat it once. And then it's like you've got a track and trace thing going on as well. Which COVID, so we're going to talk about your new book, Parasitic Mind. But before we do, could you give us a bit of an overview of your background as an academic? Why do you have a license to talk about this subject?