August 26, 2025 • 40 mins
What happens when you grow up in a war zone and decide the solution to division is… more conversation? For Desh Amila, witnessing the devastation of civil war in Sri Lanka shaped a lifelong mission: bringing people together to talk across differences with honesty, nuance, and humanity.
From reinventing the way Australia engages with big ideas—marketing philosophers and scientists like rock stars—to launching Thinkable in Montclair, New Jersey, Desh has built a global platform for curiosity and connection. His speaker series will feature voices as diverse as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Richard Dawkins, Cornel West, John Wood Jr., Steven Pinker, John McWhorter, and Masih Alinejad, drawing thousands to venues that feel more like concerts than lectures.
At the heart of it all is Desh’s belief: when you give people a chance to listen deeply—even to those they disagree with—you create not just understanding, but community.
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about the power of dialogue, why ideas need stages as much as songs do, and how Montclair is becoming the latest home for this global movement.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello Hi, nice to meet you.
You look very podcast ready.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thank you, I thought you'd appreciate the setup.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
We do.
First of all, how do youpronounce your name?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
My name is pronounced Desh.
I'm Miller, you can just callme Desh, so my name is a
massively shortened version of aname.
If you ever meet a Sri Lankan,you'll know our name starts here
.
Our tag ins all around and backhere because our names are very
long.
This is a very short version.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Is it that you're also acknowledging the mothers
and fathers and different familymembers from your history?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That would make sense if that was the case.
It is not, it's just thingsjust have been add on over time.
Honestly, my parents don'treally know why certain parts of
my name exist, so when I had achild I just did not burden her
with the six names I have, thatshe doesn't need other than two
(01:01):
names.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She officially just has like a short name, kind of
like Very short.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We just made it very simple for her, because my name
does not fit in a credit card.
My name does not.
My name needs two lines on mypassport.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
The way that you came on our radar was, all of a
sudden there was a social mediaposting of Ta-Nehisi Coates
coming to Lackawanna Plaza for aThinkable event, and I was like
wait, what?
And then I went and looked atyour website and then I saw you
had a whole lineup of impressivepeople coming and I was like,
(01:37):
oh wow, we need to know what'sgoing on here.
And so here you are to let usknow a little bit more about
yourself.
Why is this all happening inNew Jersey and how did it all
come about?
So can you tell us a little bitabout your connection to New
Jersey first, and then how thiscame about?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'll start off there.
I'm relatively new to NewJersey.
It's not even three years sinceI've moved here.
I lived most of my life inAustralia Before that.
I was born in a small littleisland called Sri Lanka.
So since I moved here I've beenwanting to attend unscripted
intellectual speaking events.
Well, one part is becausethat's what I've been doing in
(02:16):
Australia for over a decade, sothere weren't events like this.
My first attempt is a bit of aselfish attempt, like I want to
go to these events, so that'ssort of the beginning of it.
Initially we trialed a fewthings, me and my team, and
there was a good response.
It wasn't in Montclair.
We did two things.
(02:37):
One was in Brooklyn, new York.
Then the other attempt was inNewark, j-pac, and they had a
decent response.
I live just around the cornerfrom Montclair and I love
Montclair.
I think Montclair is afantastic place.
So we thought why don't we justdive headfirst and put together
something that the town doesn'thave?
(02:58):
That's where the speaker seriescame and we called the series
Thinkable.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It was so impressive the people that you have brought
together from your otherplatforms.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your other work that
you've done and how you startedgenerating these great minds to
come on to your platforms?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, it all started.
I did my first event inAustralia, melbourne, australia,
in 2005.
And that was on the back of aradio station.
I was a radio DJ for a numberof years, straight from
university, and then I gotsucked into the event industry
and I was working with mainlyhip-hop and R&B very early
(03:40):
stages in Australia touringindustry.
After about four or five yearsof doing that, although I was
enjoying it, I was losing alittle bit of interest because I
felt like some of the eventswere a little vacuous.
People were there and you knowit was great.
It was, you know, fun, becauseI was personally going through a
(04:02):
journey, learning science,learning philosophy, questioning
what does it all mean, aspeople tend to go in their 20s
of sorts, and I wanted to see,hey, are there events around
these subject matter?
And there were some of thesespeakers I was interested in,
but they were in conferenceformats and they were at
(04:24):
universities and the last thingyou want is I mean I felt as at
that point was to be lectured atagain at university.
I just finished my four yeardegree, I didn't want to do any
of that and I was alsointerested in fashion and hip
hop culture.
There wasn't anything cool forme to attend.
(04:44):
So that's when, in 2010, I madea conscious choice to move from
doing these entertainment events, which I still love.
But I wanted to do somethingdifferent.
So I came up with a companycalled Think Inc and the idea
was to invite some of thesepublic intellectuals, these very
(05:05):
smart people, some of thesmartest people in the world, to
events in Australia and wewould put on these events at
sort of rock and roll slashhip-hop venues and market it and
try and get the cool kids toattend.
Oh, I love that.
Yeah, I mean, the first attemptwas too ambitious.
It didn't necessarily work, butthe second attempt, as a true
(05:27):
entrepreneur would do, you know,I didn't give up on the idea.
The second attempt, in 2012, Igathered everything together
again from not so big firstattempt, and then I invited the
co-founder of String Theory,Professor Michio Kaku, to
Australia, which ended up beinga sold-out tour, and that was
(05:48):
the beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Wait, where was he?
Where did he come from?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Michio Kaku is NYU professor.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So he came from New York.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
How do you swing that ?
I mean as an event planner, doyou pay for his ticket?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, we did everything.
So basically I went up to himand I said, hey, here's the idea
.
We're thinking about doing thistour in Australia.
Here's my background, we'll doeverything.
We paid his standard fee, whichwas quite a bit of money,
because a lot of these speakersdo commercial events but they
generally tend to be more atcorporate events, so they'll
(06:27):
speak at Google or Microsoft.
But I said, hey, I'll take therisk, I'll pay your fee, come
over and you'll be speaking to apublic audience.
I think the Sydney event we had2,000 people.
The Brisbane event had 1,500people.
Melbourne had another 2,000people.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
How did he feel?
What did he say about hisexperience?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh, he loved it, he was thrilled.
I remember a local newspaperwriting especially at the Sydney
event.
Sydney event was at the SydneyTown Hall, which is a smack bang
in the middle of the city, andthere was this audience wrapped
around waiting in a line to getin and the media was like how
did this hard science eventattract people lining up?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Like a rock star.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yes, it felt like a concert.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I already had a database of people who would go
to these Hip Hop at R&B eventsthat we would organize.
I started there.
I just told that database, hey,our marketing, the poster did
not look like a quote, unquote ascience event.
It looked like a concert posterwith scientists in the middle
and our marketing was like whatI wanted to see at these kind of
(07:38):
events and we've been promotingmusic events for a long time so
we knew how those marketingmaterials should look like.
And also, the other key pointis the price point.
So big conferences, where thesespeakers would normally go to,
they'll have a much higher pricepoint.
So we priced it at a pricepoint that is similar to what a
(07:58):
concert ticket would be, just atany average, not like big name,
A name, celebrity concert, butjust an average concert.
And that those two combined itjust appealed to the right
people.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Then the word spread we also use a lot of social
media and then it worked and itworked.
You, you pick topics that arekind of counterintuitive or you
know, against the cons, whatpeople believe that you should
do or how you should do things.
You're marketing a scientist,academic topic to concert goers.
A marketing company might sayactually we need to market it to
(08:31):
just a bunch of people that areshowing that they are only
interested in that.
You opened it up to people thatare interested in multiple
things, not just one thing.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, it was rather simple, because I don't have a
science background and I wasinterested in what Michio Kaku
was talking about.
But I was interested in at thebeginning, somewhat
superficially.
For example, I wanted to knowif parallel universe were a
thing.
I wanted to know time travel Isthat something that can be
(09:00):
achieved?
So, you know, to some degree Iwas interested in quote unquote
the Stoner talk Like you know.
You talk about like hey man, isthat like?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah right, I love it .
The multiverse of Marvel,exactly, is that like?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
true, Exactly so.
And Michio Kaku is theco-founder of String Theory.
You know, his work is all aboutparallel universes.
He also has an element offuturism to it.
So you know, I market it justlike that.
I think our poster had aDeLorean in the background, you
(09:36):
know, I think we dressed him up.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's perfect.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I think actually come to think of it.
Let me show you something.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's totally my mind, it is your mind.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It is Michio Kaku as a Jedi.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
No way, Wait.
Did you do that before or after?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
This was actually when we brought him back for a
second time, after the successof the first one.
We made a limited of 120 unitsand, yeah, so we learned how to
really upgrade.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
That is so great, that is very impressive.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
This is how to get science out there and more
approachable.
I mean it's.
Yeah, I mean all of thesedifferent things that you bring
together.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
So, after you did that right, who was the next
person up that you were?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah.
So after this worked out, I wason fire.
I was like, okay, now we haveto establish the brand, let's
get as many people as possible.
We didn't want to just stick tojust the hard sciences.
So we were like, okay, who doyou think will make sense?
So we leaned into philosophers.
Come to think of it, fromMichio Kaku we invited another
scientist who's also speaks inthe same space, Dr Brian Green,
(10:41):
a Columbia professor.
We invited Neil deGrasse Tyson.
So Dr Brian Green, a Columbiaprofessor, we invited Neil
deGrasse Tyson.
So that was like the scienceband.
Then for the philosophy band,we went for Sam Harris, Richard
Dawkins, Professor Peter Singer,who happens to be Australian
but teaching at Princeton.
We invited Jane Goodall, LisaRandall, who's also an American
(11:05):
scientist, Ayaan Hisiali.
That was more Ayaan's event wasmore in the sort of religion
side of the or lack of religionat that point.
Steve Wozniak for business, andthe list goes on.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I have the list right here.
It's pretty impressive and youdo go from science, philosophy,
politics, activism, technology,culture, media, public
intellectuals.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
What is your underlying philosophy or
personal mission statement forhow to select a speaker or like?
Are you looking to show thatyou have you're open-minded?
That was a long way aroundasking that what's your
philosophy?
A long way around asking thatlet's do philosophy?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Look, I'll answer that in two parts.
When we pick speakers, we arevery conscious of the potential
platform we are providing toamplify a message.
We try to get publicintellectuals who have an
intellectual grounding that issolid, Whether we agree, whether
I agree with that or not, atleast they are intellectuals,
(12:07):
they are principled and they'renot provocateurs just saying
things to get attention.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So if you look at anyone and everyone we've worked
with, yes, I did notice that Iwas looking for the provocateurs
actually.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
There are kind of some that are in there but they
don't, but their hypothesisdoesn't fall apart.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Immediately upon investigation of what they're
saying, right but you couldbreak it apart, Sure you could.
I mean, this is where the what Iwant to see is the intellectual
disagreement.
So there are speakers that youwill fundamentally disagree with
their position.
However, they don't come acrossor they don't stand.
(12:48):
They didn't achieve what theyachieved by saying some
incendiary thing just to getattention to them.
There are lots and lots of them, especially now in social media
.
Lots of people say really,really horrible things and it's
just to get attention, notreally.
They're not making anintellectual argument.
So that's key.
(13:08):
Now the second part is why thisis important to me.
From what I did in 2010 to whatwe are trying to do now, this
is more of an evolution of it.
Especially, this is more whatis relevant, I believe, to
America and that comes from.
I was born in 1981.
I was born in 1981.
I was born in Sri Lanka 1981,sri Lanka is known for.
(13:30):
Nobody knows my birthday exceptfor my parents, but if you know
Sri Lankan history, 1981 iswhen the civil war broke out, so
I've only lived through.
I left Sri Lanka in 2000.
I've only lived through SriLanka, through a civil war, and
I've seen things in my childhoodand growing up there that no
one should see witness.
(13:51):
My dad was in hiding for sixyears when I was very little,
because he was on a kill listbecause he was pro-democracy and
pro-capitalism.
That party was not.
Now there were two thingshappening in Sri Lanka at that
point.
From the north, there was thecivil war happening that was
coming down.
From the south, there was aMaoist rebels that was coming up
(14:14):
, so the country was in utterchaos.
It was literally on fire,suicide bombs going off all the
time.
One thing I noticed is that itwas very easy for people who had
the megaphone.
The only TV channels availablewere the government channels.
Foreign media was not availablethat much and they couldn't go
(14:35):
to certain places.
Later they were completelykicked out of the country and
the country was entirely run onpropaganda.
That's why a civil war likethat lasted until 2009.
Now I can see in retrospectnobody speak up or spoke about
the other side, that we werefighting, or no.
Two people from either side hadany meaningful conversation.
(14:58):
This idea of not speaking tothe other resulted in the war in
the first place, and then itsustained for another Exactly.
And so for me, since I've beenin the West and I'm very
grateful for the opportunitiesI've received and I wouldn't be
able to do the things I'm doingif I was in the middle of that
(15:20):
civil war and never left thecountry.
So when I'm in the West, when Ihear people saying things about
the other side or the constantotherization that I see whenever
they criticize the existingsystems of the free society they
live in, my ears perk up.
(15:42):
I'm like I don't think youtruly understand what you're
saying, what you're asking for.
You know, I don't know if youremember, you know, in 2016,.
A lot of people were using thecivil war metaphor very easily
2020.
Every time America hadelections, I think it's after
2016,.
Some words are just willy-nillythrown out and I find them to be
(16:06):
scary, but for differentreasons, because truly, no, I'm
not alone, but I wanted to givespeakers an opportunity to spend
time discussing in detail thenuances of whatever that subject
matter is.
So I've been since, I would say, 2018-19,.
(16:27):
I've been specifically workingon events and event series that
are a little bit morechallenging, this speaker series
.
Again, if you see the list ofspeakers, you'll see there are
speakers that you know you mightfundamentally disagree.
I met with somebody who's bornand raised in this town, who's
very influential, and she toldme you've already got the town
(16:52):
in two camps.
In having deep discussionsabout do I want to go to this
one and this one, I'm likethat's the point.
That's the point.
It's a serious issue.
Come and hear both sides of theintellectual argument and then
that'll give you a perspectivethat you may have not heard
before.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yes, absolutely.
I think that's key for thetimes we're living in right now.
And for sure, when I looked atyour list of speakers before I
knew we were going to meet withyou I'm thinking, huh, I mean
from Dawkins, you know, toCornel West and to Nisi Coates.
I thought it was interestingand I thought, okay, what, what
(17:31):
is his ulterior motive and goal?
And I thought it was very smartto make it a series or a
subscription, because then it'slike no, don't just pick the
people that you want to see,because you agree with them.
It's come and see all of them,please, so you can then make
your own decision.
But you now have a basisbecause you've heard from their
mouth.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I'm very grateful for you saying that.
That's exactly.
I mean.
This is from a businessperspective.
This isn't a model that I'mbasically telling people hey,
you can't buy one ticket,because I know I can sell
tickets to certain speakers andI know it's harder to sell for
the others, but I want everyoneto hear all six.
There's a through line amongall of these people and if you
(18:14):
just go and listen to the peopleyou agree with, you've missed
the entire point.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I wonder what the final outtake is.
Where do you end up in the endIf you go to each one of these
and we should go through themhere in a minute is if you go
through them and by the endyou're like I think they're
right a little bit here and Ithink that person was a little
bit right here, a little bitwrong, a little bit right, and
everybody's like you know apiece of a pie of.
What do we end up with in theend of all these conversations?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
People in New Jersey.
Let's focus on this tour andthe people who will potentially
attend this.
This place is full of verysmart, very curious, intelligent
people.
Anybody who, let's say you havea point of view that you
disagree with, but you haven'theard it from the speaker.
You've seen a clip of thisspeaker saying something you
fundamentally disagree with.
(19:01):
Now you go to the event, nowyou listen to this person, break
down the said idea in detail,and then you may still disagree
with it, but you now, all of asudden, have a perspective.
Where are they coming from?
What is the intellectualgrounding they've built?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
How did they get to those thoughts?
And you see them as human.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Right, because now we're seeing yeah, yeah, I think
that's what the ultimate thingis to cool it down.
Exactly, yeah, I think that'swhat the ultimate thing is to
cool it down.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Exactly and when you see it in that context,
hopefully people will thinkthings through before
immediately reacting tosomething, and I think, more
than ever now, it's so important.
People see things online andyou get access to information
almost immediately and I see thereaction, because algorithms
and everything is optimized forthat reaction.
(19:49):
But hopefully this will getpeople thinking a split second,
saying hold on.
That doesn't sound right.
I saw this person, although Idisagree with, but I don't think
this way portraying this personmay be accurate.
Let me look at the broadercontext of what they said.
Then you will have a morelevel-headed approach.
I think we need more of thatthan this short, very quick
(20:12):
soundbite model of consuminginformation.
Look, this is an uphill battlenow more than anything with
modern social media.
So I am hoping the events thatwe're putting here, this old
school town hall style eventsit's what I'm calling it now I
want the community to get behindit.
Challenge the speaker.
You will have the opportunity.
(20:33):
There's a Q&A session audience.
Q&a session.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Challenge them.
Yeah, you're going to befascinated when you see the
Montclair version of a Q&A,because there are definitely
going to be people that areprepared with statements and
questions, and it'll be.
It'll be fiery, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think it's important I think you know
passion is important as long asit's respectful yes, you know,
and I don't think any of thespeakers that's there are going
to be having a hard timeanswering a question.
If it is about the specificthing that they've been working
on their entire career, they'llbe able to.
They'll appreciate challengingquestions.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Is there a mediator, or are you interviewing each one
of these candidates, or like?
How is it?
How does what's the formatgoing to look like?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So this is an unscripted format.
We haven't picked all themoderators, but each event will
have a moderator.
So the 60-minute conversationwith the intellectual, then
there's a 30-minute Q&A with theaudience and there is a type of
ticket that allows some peopleto then meet the speaker, if
they are available for a meetand greet.
Not all speakers are availableBook signing, meet and greet,
(21:42):
photo, food and drink.
That'll happen afterwards.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Okay, let's go through who the people you have
lined up.
I know that they're spaced outby a few months each one, so
let's go through them.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
We're starting off with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I think he's probably one ofthe most well-written public
intellectuals.
His writing is beautiful andthe points he makes tend to have
societal impact.
I mean, his writing on theAtlantic about reparations
really kickstarted thereparation conversation in this
country and obviously lots ofpeople agree with him.
(22:18):
But therebut some of theconversations, some of the
criticisms that he's received.
Also his latest book.
He talks about theIsrael-Palestine situation.
Again, this is an opportunityfor people who disagree with him
about anything he's written tochallenge him.
(22:41):
Then our second event is inFebruary and that is with Cornel
West and John Wood Jr.
Obviously, dr West is aself-proclaimed socialist,
democratic socialist, and JohnWood Jr is a small C
conservative.
We have to make a point ofdifference now, because
(23:03):
conservatism in this country.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
You do actually, because conservatism in this
country is yes, you do actually.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So he comes from a different school of thought.
So they're just going to have aconversation about America and
modern America.
What values do Americans standfor?
What are the commondenominators that bring a
democratic socialist or asocialist versus a small c
conservative together?
(23:31):
Because you'd be surprised, youknow, there are a lot of things
they agree on, but there arethings they fundamentally
disagree on, obviously with theeconomy and whatnot.
So that's happening in february.
Then in march we have the umincredible richard dawkins uh,
who will be celebrating theselfish gene Gene 50th
Anniversary his incredible bookthat changed our understanding
(23:52):
of evolution, science andbiology in so many different
ways.
That book is 50 years old.
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
That is really really crazy to think about.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Right.
So this is, I think, the onlyevent he's doing in America to
talk about specifically theselfish gene.
That's also a verymisunderstood book by a lot of
people.
That's going to be aninteresting event.
And then in April we haveSteven Pinker.
Steven, obviously, I think he'sin more ways than one.
(24:24):
He's intellectual.
He's written some amazing books.
He has a new book coming outlater this year called when
Everyone Knows that EveryoneKnows he's going to be talking
about his book, but also his oldbooks, better Angels of Our
Nature, enlightenment Now.
So then I think we are taking amonth break and then we are
(24:48):
back in June with….
Speaker 1 (24:50):
John McWhorter.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes, john McWhorter.
So if you disagree withTa-Nehisi Coates when it comes
to reparations subject matter,you would have agreed with John
McWhorter.
So this is why it's importantto hear if you're in agreement
with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
This is a perfect opportunityto hear the other side.
John McWhorter is also anacademic and you know he's a
(25:15):
linguist Earlier we were talkingabout names and I know why.
So he has an interesting way oflooking at subject matter
through the lens of a linguist,but also a cultural critic.
His latest book is aboutlanguage.
His book before that was verycontroversial because it was
(25:35):
talking about, now, almost aword that has completely lost
its meaning walk.
He wrote a book called WalkReligion.
I don't want to speak on hisbehalf, but from a linguist
perspective and alsounderstanding how religion is
formed, and his argument wasthat belief in a set of ideas.
(25:55):
It's formed a new form of areligion akin to a religion.
But again, you can challengehim if you disagree with him.
And then the final event.
This one is super importantbecause it is with Masih
Alinajat.
She's a hero of mine.
If you know her story, she willbe your hero too.
I guarantee that she may nothave the credentials and the
(26:16):
books of the other speakers, butshe has a life story unlike
anything you've ever heard.
She is and I don't say thislightly she is public enemy
number one for Iran.
Don't say this lightly.
She is public enemy number onefor Iran.
Iran has tried to kidnap heronce, assassinate her twice in
American soil and just earlierthis year the second group of
(26:39):
assassins that tried toassassinate her at a Brooklyn
home were convicted.
While that case was happening,fbi released that there was a
third attempt at a life and shewas lucky because she didn't end
up going to the university togive this speech but the
assassins arrived.
So she has an incredible.
If you've ever seen Iranianwomen taking their hijab out and
(27:05):
screaming women, live, freedom.
That is all galvanized byMarcia Linechad and she's built
an incredible social mediaplatform to tell Iranian stories
and Middle Eastern stories.
Even within her community shecomes across controversial, but
I know for a fact she's brave toa point where sometimes it
feels a bit reckless, but shehas this incredible belief that
(27:30):
her life is devoted to freedomof her people.
She's a women's rights activistand she doesn't do many public
events, obviously for the factthat her life is constantly
under threat.
She's moved houses 21 times,will you?
be providing security to thatpoint Immense, security will be
provided.
This is the second time I'mdoing a project with her.
(27:51):
Anyone who's listening,thinking negatively, please know
.
The FBI is all over this.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know, I know a little bit about her because of
my background being Iranian, andalso I have some people in my
orbit that are working with heron some projects that she's got
going on.
She also, as you mentioned,within her own community, has,
you know, opposing, you knowpeople about, you know thoughts.
I think everyone really canfind that coming to all of them.
(28:21):
They're going to be, their mindwill be broadened, they will
grow from it and also I thinkthe ultimate goal of humanizing
people's perspectives is theultimate goal.
It's what we need.
Thank, you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I want to add one more thing.
When you go to these events,you're going to see people
around you.
Let's say you're going to anevent, there's a speaker that
you fundamentally disagree with.
You go to hear them.
Them and I promise you, you'llbe pleasantly surprised who is
around you, your peers, likeyour townsmen and women, and
(28:55):
you'll realize wait, I thought adifferent kind of audience goes
to these kind of events andyou'll realize my perception of
the potential audience for thisspeaker versus who's around me
are very different, and you getto speak to them as well, after
the event, before the event, andI think that is incredibly
(29:17):
eye-opening.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I like that when you were also saying, like with the,
like a food or a wine andcheese or whatever, that you
would have people in theaudience be able to interact
with each other and see, oh,we're all here to broaden our
minds and yet we may have verydifferent opinions on this topic
and feel pretty passionateabout it, but we're still all
(29:39):
here together.
Yeah, like a nice.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Have you had, in any of your past events, a problem
within the audience, or therebeen any?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
well um large disagreements uh, I think my
most controversial event umhappened.
Uh, I think in 2019.
I had an event where the topicin conversation was feminism,
and that event uh went a littleoff the rails, which was not
(30:08):
something I was expecting In theaudience.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
In the audience.
And was it men that wereagainst?
Was it me?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Tell us what the disagreement was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So this event?
From the beginning I was a bitnaive about the event.
So this event came about when Iwas at an event and I told
somebody hey, I came up in aconversation and we were talking
about various subject matter,feminism came up and to respond
to somebody, I said you know,I'm a feminist.
And I went on to make my pointand somebody said why do you
(30:45):
call yourself a feminist?
And I said well, from theliteral definition, I think
pretty much most people here arefeminists.
And he said no.
And then we had a disagreementand I was like wait, when did
the definition of this wordchange?
I didn't At that point.
I've read a few books and I gota few more books and I read
Kristina Hoffsummer's book aboutfeminism and I read Roxane
(31:10):
Gay's book about feminism andthen I realized, oh, this is
different.
They have two different pointof views here.
So I thought that would be aninteresting event and I invited
those two ladies to come toAustralia to do an event about
feminism.
I realized something was off.
(31:31):
As we get close to the event, westart looking for a host and
I've made lots of connections inAustralia with notable
intellectuals, journalists,people with notoriety to host.
So I have a massive list ofpeople to pick from.
I realized something was wrongwhen every single one of them
(31:52):
declined to host this event.
I was like what's going on?
We have award-winning femalejournalists.
Nobody wanted to host it.
And then one of them was afriend of mine.
She took me out to dinner andsaid Desh, I don't think you
know what you're gettingyourself into.
No one is going to host thisevent for this particular reason
.
And she walked me through.
She said you're going to haveto end up hosting.
And I said I've been doing thisfor almost 10 years.
(32:14):
I've never hosted this event.
That's not why I do this.
I am the producer.
I put this together, I don'thost.
She said look, you at leasthave a melanin force field so
you might be able to get awaywith this.
You will not be able to find ahost for this event.
And a week out of the event shewas right we couldn't find a
host.
So I ended up hosting thatevent.
(32:36):
And now I got a lot of helpputting together how to host
that event.
That event is live on YouTubefor any listeners who wants to
have an entertaining 90 minutes.
Anyway, when I host that event.
I put what I thought were honestquestions, trying to understand
, but from my first question,things went south.
(32:59):
Audience was divided into twoand I've never had an event
where they were debating live.
While we were having theconversation, people were
yelling and saying things, andwe never had that before.
It was a very challenging eventand then it got topped off.
After the first event, one ofour speakers wanted no trace of
(33:20):
the event on the internet.
Before we could even do thesecond event in Melbourne,
australia, I had a cease anddesist letter.
I had lawyers after me.
It was a barrage of things.
However, we were within ourlegal grounds.
It was a bit of a bullyingtactic.
The event was trending inAmerica, by the way, twitter at
this point of what was happeningin Australia and a bunch of
(33:42):
journalists from here werepaying attention.
And then the New York articlethere's a 5,000word in-depth
investigative piece as to whatreally happened, and that got
published.
And so, yeah, that was the oneevent that was crazy If anybody
wants to know the inner workingsof that, read that article.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
We're going to link to it in our notes.
That's a cascading event.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
How were you feeling you could turn the ship around
while you're on stage?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I think it felt like a sports game.
I would hold a speakeraccountable to what they said,
and then one group will cheerand go crazy that I did that.
And then I would go to theother speaker and then the other
group will cheer.
So it was just a shoutingmatter.
People were just crazy.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
It is so emotional.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I mean, I wouldn't have said that at an event
Hashtag feminist, I would havebeen canceled immediately.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Oh, my God, you're right.
I just stepped right in that.
But I'm emotional in general,whether or not I'm a woman or
not.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
By the way, I'm just being if she was a man, she'd
still be emotional.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
If I was a man, I'd be fired up no, but I think
that's, I think we all are, wejust express it.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
We express it differently because of our
societal.
I was going to say culturalexpectations of how we behave.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
We're stepping in it a lot, sorry, let's just, you
know, edit heavy editing on thisepisode.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
No, I'm going to let it run.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I want to ask you that about that.
You said that you have these onYouTube, and so is there going.
Is that going to be also thesame format you're going to have
these on social media andyoutube or is it different?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
because, let me put it this way, yeah, let me put it
this way um, we haven't madethe decision whether we are
going to put all the events onon social media right now.
Our aim is to have thisin-person experience, so we
encourage people to come.
Even Even if we release this onYouTube, I promise you it is
not the same.
If you were in that audience ofthe feminist event, the energy
(36:00):
there that happened, whathappened and how everything went
down, you cannot recreate it.
Recreate it on YouTube, it'snot the same.
My encouragement is please come, because you will have a
memorable six-night experience.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
I also just wanted to ask how did you decide to do it
at Lackawanna Plaza?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I was introduced to the owner of the venue and also
the wonderful manager of thatvenue by my barber in Montclair,
Charlotte Zane.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Oh yeah, we had him on the podcast.
We had Z Charlotte Zane.
Oh yeah, we had him on thepodcast.
We had Zane on here.
He's great.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah.
So Zane told me about the placeI went and how to look at it.
One of the things that's veryimportant to me is the community
element of this.
Again, you can live in acommunity with people you
disagree with, but you can stillshare a beer, have a cuppa and
disagree.
Zen and I disagree on aliens.
You can ask him.
He talks about aliens.
(36:55):
I'm like, okay, let's look atthis scientifically, let's look
at our understanding of theuniverse.
So we have disagreements allthe time so Desh, not pro-alien.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Can you tell him that ?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
you've had Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh no, he knows.
He knows We've had thisconversation.
I've told him.
Okay, next time when I workwith Neil I will ask him.
There's been some questionspresented to Neil on behalf of.
Zanes he knows, the venue at LaCuanha is a historic location
and I think it is meaningful ifwe can do this year in, year out
(37:32):
, and the community comes overhere and build another community
within the community that areunafraid to ask tough questions,
listen to speakers, make newconnections, and Lackawanna was
the perfect place for that.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I'll give you a tidbit of what I tell people.
We spoke to the history of theMontclair History Center and she
said that the Lackawanna Plazawas actually.
The architect died in theTitanic.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, wow, that's reallyinteresting.
I think we have a little clipof her telling us that is really
like, really that's interesting.
So it is very historicalbuilding.
I'm interested in all thesetype of topics.
I guess it is a stoner kind ofthing.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's not necessarily a bad thing, because it's your
inquisitive mind, it's yourintellectual curiosity.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
And looking at Jeanette you're great at this,
looking at things from alldifferent perspectives, not
wanting to just swallow down onepoint of view, but be like wait
all of these people aredefinitely minds that are very
relevant today and they'reforming people's thoughts and I
wish you so much success and I'mexcited.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I'm excited that you're doing this.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
We can't let you go until you tell us something you
love about New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
This is actually quite easy.
This was a bit of a surprisefor me when I discovered I love
nature.
I was born in the hill countryand surrounded in greenery, so
discovering some of theincredible parks.
I know it says Garden State Forsome reason.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I didn't register.
Nobody thinks that.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Exactly, new Jersey and garden is not something.
There's almost a disconnect,but I realize it's quite literal
.
It's a beautiful place.
I live just across the roadhere.
It's a beautiful park.
For me, that's the number onething.
(39:33):
I love the gardens and parks.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So I agree, thank you .
Well, thank you, and maybewe'll see you at the park
sometime.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, I'll definitely see you at the event.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Oh, yes, for sure.
We're really looking forward tothem.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So thank you so much.
Really appreciate having me.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
Hello Hi, nice to meet you.
You look very podcast ready.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thank you, I thought you'd appreciate the setup.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
We do.
First of all, how do youpronounce your name?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
My name is pronounced Desh.
I'm Miller, you can just callme Desh, so my name is a
massively shortened version of aname.
If you ever meet a Sri Lankan,you'll know our name starts here
.
Our tag ins all around and backhere because our names are very
long.
This is a very short version.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Is it that you're also acknowledging the mothers
and fathers and different familymembers from your history?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That would make sense if that was the case.
It is not, it's just thingsjust have been add on over time.
Honestly, my parents don'treally know why certain parts of
my name exist, so when I had achild I just did not burden her
with the six names I have, thatshe doesn't need other than two
(01:01):
names.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
She officially just has like a short name, kind of
like Very short.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
We just made it very simple for her, because my name
does not fit in a credit card.
My name does not.
My name needs two lines on mypassport.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
The way that you came on our radar was, all of a
sudden there was a social mediaposting of Ta-Nehisi Coates
coming to Lackawanna Plaza for aThinkable event, and I was like
wait, what?
And then I went and looked atyour website and then I saw you
had a whole lineup of impressivepeople coming and I was like,
(01:37):
oh wow, we need to know what'sgoing on here.
And so here you are to let usknow a little bit more about
yourself.
Why is this all happening inNew Jersey and how did it all
come about?
So can you tell us a little bitabout your connection to New
Jersey first, and then how thiscame about?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I'll start off there.
I'm relatively new to NewJersey.
It's not even three years sinceI've moved here.
I lived most of my life inAustralia Before that.
I was born in a small littleisland called Sri Lanka.
So since I moved here I've beenwanting to attend unscripted
intellectual speaking events.
Well, one part is becausethat's what I've been doing in
(02:16):
Australia for over a decade, sothere weren't events like this.
My first attempt is a bit of aselfish attempt, like I want to
go to these events, so that'ssort of the beginning of it.
Initially we trialed a fewthings, me and my team, and
there was a good response.
It wasn't in Montclair.
We did two things.
(02:37):
One was in Brooklyn, new York.
Then the other attempt was inNewark, j-pac, and they had a
decent response.
I live just around the cornerfrom Montclair and I love
Montclair.
I think Montclair is afantastic place.
So we thought why don't we justdive headfirst and put together
something that the town doesn'thave?
(02:58):
That's where the speaker seriescame and we called the series
Thinkable.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It was so impressive the people that you have brought
together from your otherplatforms.
Can you tell us a little bitabout your other work that
you've done and how you startedgenerating these great minds to
come on to your platforms?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, it all started.
I did my first event inAustralia, melbourne, australia,
in 2005.
And that was on the back of aradio station.
I was a radio DJ for a numberof years, straight from
university, and then I gotsucked into the event industry
and I was working with mainlyhip-hop and R&B very early
(03:40):
stages in Australia touringindustry.
After about four or five yearsof doing that, although I was
enjoying it, I was losing alittle bit of interest because I
felt like some of the eventswere a little vacuous.
People were there and you knowit was great.
It was, you know, fun, becauseI was personally going through a
(04:02):
journey, learning science,learning philosophy, questioning
what does it all mean, aspeople tend to go in their 20s
of sorts, and I wanted to see,hey, are there events around
these subject matter?
And there were some of thesespeakers I was interested in,
but they were in conferenceformats and they were at
(04:24):
universities and the last thingyou want is I mean I felt as at
that point was to be lectured atagain at university.
I just finished my four yeardegree, I didn't want to do any
of that and I was alsointerested in fashion and hip
hop culture.
There wasn't anything cool forme to attend.
(04:44):
So that's when, in 2010, I madea conscious choice to move from
doing these entertainment events, which I still love.
But I wanted to do somethingdifferent.
So I came up with a companycalled Think Inc and the idea
was to invite some of thesepublic intellectuals, these very
(05:05):
smart people, some of thesmartest people in the world, to
events in Australia and wewould put on these events at
sort of rock and roll slashhip-hop venues and market it and
try and get the cool kids toattend.
Oh, I love that.
Yeah, I mean, the first attemptwas too ambitious.
It didn't necessarily work, butthe second attempt, as a true
(05:27):
entrepreneur would do, you know,I didn't give up on the idea.
The second attempt, in 2012, Igathered everything together
again from not so big firstattempt, and then I invited the
co-founder of String Theory,Professor Michio Kaku, to
Australia, which ended up beinga sold-out tour, and that was
(05:48):
the beginning.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Wait, where was he?
Where did he come from?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So Michio Kaku is NYU professor.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So he came from New York.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
How do you swing that ?
I mean as an event planner, doyou pay for his ticket?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, we did everything.
So basically I went up to himand I said, hey, here's the idea
.
We're thinking about doing thistour in Australia.
Here's my background, we'll doeverything.
We paid his standard fee, whichwas quite a bit of money,
because a lot of these speakersdo commercial events but they
generally tend to be more atcorporate events, so they'll
(06:27):
speak at Google or Microsoft.
But I said, hey, I'll take therisk, I'll pay your fee, come
over and you'll be speaking to apublic audience.
I think the Sydney event we had2,000 people.
The Brisbane event had 1,500people.
Melbourne had another 2,000people.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
How did he feel?
What did he say about hisexperience?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh, he loved it, he was thrilled.
I remember a local newspaperwriting especially at the Sydney
event.
Sydney event was at the SydneyTown Hall, which is a smack bang
in the middle of the city, andthere was this audience wrapped
around waiting in a line to getin and the media was like how
did this hard science eventattract people lining up?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Like a rock star.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yes, it felt like a concert.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, I already had a database of people who would go
to these Hip Hop at R&B eventsthat we would organize.
I started there.
I just told that database, hey,our marketing, the poster did
not look like a quote, unquote ascience event.
It looked like a concert posterwith scientists in the middle
and our marketing was like whatI wanted to see at these kind of
(07:38):
events and we've been promotingmusic events for a long time so
we knew how those marketingmaterials should look like.
And also, the other key pointis the price point.
So big conferences, where thesespeakers would normally go to,
they'll have a much higher pricepoint.
So we priced it at a pricepoint that is similar to what a
(07:58):
concert ticket would be, just atany average, not like big name,
A name, celebrity concert, butjust an average concert.
And that those two combined itjust appealed to the right
people.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Then the word spread we also use a lot of social
media and then it worked and itworked.
You, you pick topics that arekind of counterintuitive or you
know, against the cons, whatpeople believe that you should
do or how you should do things.
You're marketing a scientist,academic topic to concert goers.
A marketing company might sayactually we need to market it to
(08:31):
just a bunch of people that areshowing that they are only
interested in that.
You opened it up to people thatare interested in multiple
things, not just one thing.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, it was rather simple, because I don't have a
science background and I wasinterested in what Michio Kaku
was talking about.
But I was interested in at thebeginning, somewhat
superficially.
For example, I wanted to knowif parallel universe were a
thing.
I wanted to know time travel Isthat something that can be
(09:00):
achieved?
So, you know, to some degree Iwas interested in quote unquote
the Stoner talk Like you know.
You talk about like hey man, isthat like?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah right, I love it .
The multiverse of Marvel,exactly, is that like?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
true, Exactly so.
And Michio Kaku is theco-founder of String Theory.
You know, his work is all aboutparallel universes.
He also has an element offuturism to it.
So you know, I market it justlike that.
I think our poster had aDeLorean in the background, you
(09:36):
know, I think we dressed him up.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's perfect.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I think actually come to think of it.
Let me show you something.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's totally my mind, it is your mind.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
It is Michio Kaku as a Jedi.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
No way, Wait.
Did you do that before or after?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
This was actually when we brought him back for a
second time, after the successof the first one.
We made a limited of 120 unitsand, yeah, so we learned how to
really upgrade.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
That is so great, that is very impressive.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
This is how to get science out there and more
approachable.
I mean it's.
Yeah, I mean all of thesedifferent things that you bring
together.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
So, after you did that right, who was the next
person up that you were?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah.
So after this worked out, I wason fire.
I was like, okay, now we haveto establish the brand, let's
get as many people as possible.
We didn't want to just stick tojust the hard sciences.
So we were like, okay, who doyou think will make sense?
So we leaned into philosophers.
Come to think of it, fromMichio Kaku we invited another
scientist who's also speaks inthe same space, Dr Brian Green,
(10:41):
a Columbia professor.
We invited Neil deGrasse Tyson.
So Dr Brian Green, a Columbiaprofessor, we invited Neil
deGrasse Tyson.
So that was like the scienceband.
Then for the philosophy band,we went for Sam Harris, Richard
Dawkins, Professor Peter Singer,who happens to be Australian
but teaching at Princeton.
We invited Jane Goodall, LisaRandall, who's also an American
(11:05):
scientist, Ayaan Hisiali.
That was more Ayaan's event wasmore in the sort of religion
side of the or lack of religionat that point.
Steve Wozniak for business, andthe list goes on.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I have the list right here.
It's pretty impressive and youdo go from science, philosophy,
politics, activism, technology,culture, media, public
intellectuals.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
What is your underlying philosophy or
personal mission statement forhow to select a speaker or like?
Are you looking to show thatyou have you're open-minded?
That was a long way aroundasking that what's your
philosophy?
A long way around asking thatlet's do philosophy?
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Look, I'll answer that in two parts.
When we pick speakers, we arevery conscious of the potential
platform we are providing toamplify a message.
We try to get publicintellectuals who have an
intellectual grounding that issolid, Whether we agree, whether
I agree with that or not, atleast they are intellectuals,
(12:07):
they are principled and they'renot provocateurs just saying
things to get attention.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
So if you look at anyone and everyone we've worked
with, yes, I did notice that Iwas looking for the provocateurs
actually.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
There are kind of some that are in there but they
don't, but their hypothesisdoesn't fall apart.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Immediately upon investigation of what they're
saying, right but you couldbreak it apart, Sure you could.
I mean, this is where the what Iwant to see is the intellectual
disagreement.
So there are speakers that youwill fundamentally disagree with
their position.
However, they don't come acrossor they don't stand.
(12:48):
They didn't achieve what theyachieved by saying some
incendiary thing just to getattention to them.
There are lots and lots of them, especially now in social media
.
Lots of people say really,really horrible things and it's
just to get attention, notreally.
They're not making anintellectual argument.
So that's key.
(13:08):
Now the second part is why thisis important to me.
From what I did in 2010 to whatwe are trying to do now, this
is more of an evolution of it.
Especially, this is more whatis relevant, I believe, to
America and that comes from.
I was born in 1981.
I was born in 1981.
I was born in Sri Lanka 1981,sri Lanka is known for.
(13:30):
Nobody knows my birthday exceptfor my parents, but if you know
Sri Lankan history, 1981 iswhen the civil war broke out, so
I've only lived through.
I left Sri Lanka in 2000.
I've only lived through SriLanka, through a civil war, and
I've seen things in my childhoodand growing up there that no
one should see witness.
(13:51):
My dad was in hiding for sixyears when I was very little,
because he was on a kill listbecause he was pro-democracy and
pro-capitalism.
That party was not.
Now there were two thingshappening in Sri Lanka at that
point.
From the north, there was thecivil war happening that was
coming down.
From the south, there was aMaoist rebels that was coming up
(14:14):
, so the country was in utterchaos.
It was literally on fire,suicide bombs going off all the
time.
One thing I noticed is that itwas very easy for people who had
the megaphone.
The only TV channels availablewere the government channels.
Foreign media was not availablethat much and they couldn't go
(14:35):
to certain places.
Later they were completelykicked out of the country and
the country was entirely run onpropaganda.
That's why a civil war likethat lasted until 2009.
Now I can see in retrospectnobody speak up or spoke about
the other side, that we werefighting, or no.
Two people from either side hadany meaningful conversation.
(14:58):
This idea of not speaking tothe other resulted in the war in
the first place, and then itsustained for another Exactly.
And so for me, since I've beenin the West and I'm very
grateful for the opportunitiesI've received and I wouldn't be
able to do the things I'm doingif I was in the middle of that
(15:20):
civil war and never left thecountry.
So when I'm in the West, when Ihear people saying things about
the other side or the constantotherization that I see whenever
they criticize the existingsystems of the free society they
live in, my ears perk up.
(15:42):
I'm like I don't think youtruly understand what you're
saying, what you're asking for.
You know, I don't know if youremember, you know, in 2016,.
A lot of people were using thecivil war metaphor very easily
2020.
Every time America hadelections, I think it's after
2016,.
Some words are just willy-nillythrown out and I find them to be
(16:06):
scary, but for differentreasons, because truly, no, I'm
not alone, but I wanted to givespeakers an opportunity to spend
time discussing in detail thenuances of whatever that subject
matter is.
So I've been since, I would say, 2018-19,.
(16:27):
I've been specifically workingon events and event series that
are a little bit morechallenging, this speaker series
.
Again, if you see the list ofspeakers, you'll see there are
speakers that you know you mightfundamentally disagree.
I met with somebody who's bornand raised in this town, who's
very influential, and she toldme you've already got the town
(16:52):
in two camps.
In having deep discussionsabout do I want to go to this
one and this one, I'm likethat's the point.
That's the point.
It's a serious issue.
Come and hear both sides of theintellectual argument and then
that'll give you a perspectivethat you may have not heard
before.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yes, absolutely.
I think that's key for thetimes we're living in right now.
And for sure, when I looked atyour list of speakers before I
knew we were going to meet withyou I'm thinking, huh, I mean
from Dawkins, you know, toCornel West and to Nisi Coates.
I thought it was interestingand I thought, okay, what, what
(17:31):
is his ulterior motive and goal?
And I thought it was very smartto make it a series or a
subscription, because then it'slike no, don't just pick the
people that you want to see,because you agree with them.
It's come and see all of them,please, so you can then make
your own decision.
But you now have a basisbecause you've heard from their
mouth.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I'm very grateful for you saying that.
That's exactly.
I mean.
This is from a businessperspective.
This isn't a model that I'mbasically telling people hey,
you can't buy one ticket,because I know I can sell
tickets to certain speakers andI know it's harder to sell for
the others, but I want everyoneto hear all six.
There's a through line amongall of these people and if you
(18:14):
just go and listen to the peopleyou agree with, you've missed
the entire point.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I wonder what the final outtake is.
Where do you end up in the endIf you go to each one of these
and we should go through themhere in a minute is if you go
through them and by the endyou're like I think they're
right a little bit here and Ithink that person was a little
bit right here, a little bitwrong, a little bit right, and
everybody's like you know apiece of a pie of.
What do we end up with in theend of all these conversations?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
People in New Jersey.
Let's focus on this tour andthe people who will potentially
attend this.
This place is full of verysmart, very curious, intelligent
people.
Anybody who, let's say you havea point of view that you
disagree with, but you haven'theard it from the speaker.
You've seen a clip of thisspeaker saying something you
fundamentally disagree with.
(19:01):
Now you go to the event, nowyou listen to this person, break
down the said idea in detail,and then you may still disagree
with it, but you now, all of asudden, have a perspective.
Where are they coming from?
What is the intellectualgrounding they've built?
Speaker 3 (19:16):
How did they get to those thoughts?
And you see them as human.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Right, because now we're seeing yeah, yeah, I think
that's what the ultimate thingis to cool it down.
Exactly, yeah, I think that'swhat the ultimate thing is to
cool it down.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Exactly and when you see it in that context,
hopefully people will thinkthings through before
immediately reacting tosomething, and I think, more
than ever now, it's so important.
People see things online andyou get access to information
almost immediately and I see thereaction, because algorithms
and everything is optimized forthat reaction.
(19:49):
But hopefully this will getpeople thinking a split second,
saying hold on.
That doesn't sound right.
I saw this person, although Idisagree with, but I don't think
this way portraying this personmay be accurate.
Let me look at the broadercontext of what they said.
Then you will have a morelevel-headed approach.
I think we need more of thatthan this short, very quick
(20:12):
soundbite model of consuminginformation.
Look, this is an uphill battlenow more than anything with
modern social media.
So I am hoping the events thatwe're putting here, this old
school town hall style eventsit's what I'm calling it now I
want the community to get behindit.
Challenge the speaker.
You will have the opportunity.
(20:33):
There's a Q&A session audience.
Q&a session.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Challenge them.
Yeah, you're going to befascinated when you see the
Montclair version of a Q&A,because there are definitely
going to be people that areprepared with statements and
questions, and it'll be.
It'll be fiery, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I think it's important I think you know
passion is important as long asit's respectful yes, you know,
and I don't think any of thespeakers that's there are going
to be having a hard timeanswering a question.
If it is about the specificthing that they've been working
on their entire career, they'llbe able to.
They'll appreciate challengingquestions.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Is there a mediator, or are you interviewing each one
of these candidates, or like?
How is it?
How does what's the formatgoing to look like?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So this is an unscripted format.
We haven't picked all themoderators, but each event will
have a moderator.
So the 60-minute conversationwith the intellectual, then
there's a 30-minute Q&A with theaudience and there is a type of
ticket that allows some peopleto then meet the speaker, if
they are available for a meetand greet.
Not all speakers are availableBook signing, meet and greet,
(21:42):
photo, food and drink.
That'll happen afterwards.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Okay, let's go through who the people you have
lined up.
I know that they're spaced outby a few months each one, so
let's go through them.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
We're starting off with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I think he's probably one ofthe most well-written public
intellectuals.
His writing is beautiful andthe points he makes tend to have
societal impact.
I mean, his writing on theAtlantic about reparations
really kickstarted thereparation conversation in this
country and obviously lots ofpeople agree with him.
(22:18):
But therebut some of theconversations, some of the
criticisms that he's received.
Also his latest book.
He talks about theIsrael-Palestine situation.
Again, this is an opportunityfor people who disagree with him
about anything he's written tochallenge him.
(22:41):
Then our second event is inFebruary and that is with Cornel
West and John Wood Jr.
Obviously, dr West is aself-proclaimed socialist,
democratic socialist, and JohnWood Jr is a small C
conservative.
We have to make a point ofdifference now, because
(23:03):
conservatism in this country.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
You do actually, because conservatism in this
country is yes, you do actually.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
So he comes from a different school of thought.
So they're just going to have aconversation about America and
modern America.
What values do Americans standfor?
What are the commondenominators that bring a
democratic socialist or asocialist versus a small c
conservative together?
(23:31):
Because you'd be surprised, youknow, there are a lot of things
they agree on, but there arethings they fundamentally
disagree on, obviously with theeconomy and whatnot.
So that's happening in february.
Then in march we have the umincredible richard dawkins uh,
who will be celebrating theselfish gene Gene 50th
Anniversary his incredible bookthat changed our understanding
(23:52):
of evolution, science andbiology in so many different
ways.
That book is 50 years old.
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
That is really really crazy to think about.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Right.
So this is, I think, the onlyevent he's doing in America to
talk about specifically theselfish gene.
That's also a verymisunderstood book by a lot of
people.
That's going to be aninteresting event.
And then in April we haveSteven Pinker.
Steven, obviously, I think he'sin more ways than one.
(24:24):
He's intellectual.
He's written some amazing books.
He has a new book coming outlater this year called when
Everyone Knows that EveryoneKnows he's going to be talking
about his book, but also his oldbooks, better Angels of Our
Nature, enlightenment Now.
So then I think we are taking amonth break and then we are
(24:48):
back in June with….
Speaker 1 (24:50):
John McWhorter.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes, john McWhorter.
So if you disagree withTa-Nehisi Coates when it comes
to reparations subject matter,you would have agreed with John
McWhorter.
So this is why it's importantto hear if you're in agreement
with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
This is a perfect opportunityto hear the other side.
John McWhorter is also anacademic and you know he's a
(25:15):
linguist Earlier we were talkingabout names and I know why.
So he has an interesting way oflooking at subject matter
through the lens of a linguist,but also a cultural critic.
His latest book is aboutlanguage.
His book before that was verycontroversial because it was
(25:35):
talking about, now, almost aword that has completely lost
its meaning walk.
He wrote a book called WalkReligion.
I don't want to speak on hisbehalf, but from a linguist
perspective and alsounderstanding how religion is
formed, and his argument wasthat belief in a set of ideas.
(25:55):
It's formed a new form of areligion akin to a religion.
But again, you can challengehim if you disagree with him.
And then the final event.
This one is super importantbecause it is with Masih
Alinajat.
She's a hero of mine.
If you know her story, she willbe your hero too.
I guarantee that she may nothave the credentials and the
(26:16):
books of the other speakers, butshe has a life story unlike
anything you've ever heard.
She is and I don't say thislightly she is public enemy
number one for Iran.
Don't say this lightly.
She is public enemy number onefor Iran.
Iran has tried to kidnap heronce, assassinate her twice in
American soil and just earlierthis year the second group of
(26:39):
assassins that tried toassassinate her at a Brooklyn
home were convicted.
While that case was happening,fbi released that there was a
third attempt at a life and shewas lucky because she didn't end
up going to the university togive this speech but the
assassins arrived.
So she has an incredible.
If you've ever seen Iranianwomen taking their hijab out and
(27:05):
screaming women, live, freedom.
That is all galvanized byMarcia Linechad and she's built
an incredible social mediaplatform to tell Iranian stories
and Middle Eastern stories.
Even within her community shecomes across controversial, but
I know for a fact she's brave toa point where sometimes it
feels a bit reckless, but shehas this incredible belief that
(27:30):
her life is devoted to freedomof her people.
She's a women's rights activistand she doesn't do many public
events, obviously for the factthat her life is constantly
under threat.
She's moved houses 21 times,will you?
be providing security to thatpoint Immense, security will be
provided.
This is the second time I'mdoing a project with her.
(27:51):
Anyone who's listening,thinking negatively, please know
.
The FBI is all over this.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know, I know a little bit about her because of
my background being Iranian, andalso I have some people in my
orbit that are working with heron some projects that she's got
going on.
She also, as you mentioned,within her own community, has,
you know, opposing, you knowpeople about, you know thoughts.
I think everyone really canfind that coming to all of them.
(28:21):
They're going to be, their mindwill be broadened, they will
grow from it and also I thinkthe ultimate goal of humanizing
people's perspectives is theultimate goal.
It's what we need.
Thank, you.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I want to add one more thing.
When you go to these events,you're going to see people
around you.
Let's say you're going to anevent, there's a speaker that
you fundamentally disagree with.
You go to hear them.
Them and I promise you, you'llbe pleasantly surprised who is
around you, your peers, likeyour townsmen and women, and
(28:55):
you'll realize wait, I thought adifferent kind of audience goes
to these kind of events andyou'll realize my perception of
the potential audience for thisspeaker versus who's around me
are very different, and you getto speak to them as well, after
the event, before the event, andI think that is incredibly
(29:17):
eye-opening.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I like that when you were also saying, like with the,
like a food or a wine andcheese or whatever, that you
would have people in theaudience be able to interact
with each other and see, oh,we're all here to broaden our
minds and yet we may have verydifferent opinions on this topic
and feel pretty passionateabout it, but we're still all
(29:39):
here together.
Yeah, like a nice.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Have you had, in any of your past events, a problem
within the audience, or therebeen any?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
well um large disagreements uh, I think my
most controversial event umhappened.
Uh, I think in 2019.
I had an event where the topicin conversation was feminism,
and that event uh went a littleoff the rails, which was not
(30:08):
something I was expecting In theaudience.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
In the audience.
And was it men that wereagainst?
Was it me?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Tell us what the disagreement was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
So this event?
From the beginning I was a bitnaive about the event.
So this event came about when Iwas at an event and I told
somebody hey, I came up in aconversation and we were talking
about various subject matter,feminism came up and to respond
to somebody, I said you know,I'm a feminist.
And I went on to make my pointand somebody said why do you
(30:45):
call yourself a feminist?
And I said well, from theliteral definition, I think
pretty much most people here arefeminists.
And he said no.
And then we had a disagreementand I was like wait, when did
the definition of this wordchange?
I didn't At that point.
I've read a few books and I gota few more books and I read
Kristina Hoffsummer's book aboutfeminism and I read Roxane
(31:10):
Gay's book about feminism andthen I realized, oh, this is
different.
They have two different pointof views here.
So I thought that would be aninteresting event and I invited
those two ladies to come toAustralia to do an event about
feminism.
I realized something was off.
(31:31):
As we get close to the event, westart looking for a host and
I've made lots of connections inAustralia with notable
intellectuals, journalists,people with notoriety to host.
So I have a massive list ofpeople to pick from.
I realized something was wrongwhen every single one of them
(31:52):
declined to host this event.
I was like what's going on?
We have award-winning femalejournalists.
Nobody wanted to host it.
And then one of them was afriend of mine.
She took me out to dinner andsaid Desh, I don't think you
know what you're gettingyourself into.
No one is going to host thisevent for this particular reason
.
And she walked me through.
She said you're going to haveto end up hosting.
And I said I've been doing thisfor almost 10 years.
(32:14):
I've never hosted this event.
That's not why I do this.
I am the producer.
I put this together, I don'thost.
She said look, you at leasthave a melanin force field so
you might be able to get awaywith this.
You will not be able to find ahost for this event.
And a week out of the event shewas right we couldn't find a
host.
So I ended up hosting thatevent.
(32:36):
And now I got a lot of helpputting together how to host
that event.
That event is live on YouTubefor any listeners who wants to
have an entertaining 90 minutes.
Anyway, when I host that event.
I put what I thought were honestquestions, trying to understand
, but from my first question,things went south.
(32:59):
Audience was divided into twoand I've never had an event
where they were debating live.
While we were having theconversation, people were
yelling and saying things, andwe never had that before.
It was a very challenging eventand then it got topped off.
After the first event, one ofour speakers wanted no trace of
(33:20):
the event on the internet.
Before we could even do thesecond event in Melbourne,
australia, I had a cease anddesist letter.
I had lawyers after me.
It was a barrage of things.
However, we were within ourlegal grounds.
It was a bit of a bullyingtactic.
The event was trending inAmerica, by the way, twitter at
this point of what was happeningin Australia and a bunch of
(33:42):
journalists from here werepaying attention.
And then the New York articlethere's a 5,000word in-depth
investigative piece as to whatreally happened, and that got
published.
And so, yeah, that was the oneevent that was crazy If anybody
wants to know the inner workingsof that, read that article.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
We're going to link to it in our notes.
That's a cascading event.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
How were you feeling you could turn the ship around
while you're on stage?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I think it felt like a sports game.
I would hold a speakeraccountable to what they said,
and then one group will cheerand go crazy that I did that.
And then I would go to theother speaker and then the other
group will cheer.
So it was just a shoutingmatter.
People were just crazy.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
It is so emotional.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I mean, I wouldn't have said that at an event
Hashtag feminist, I would havebeen canceled immediately.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Oh, my God, you're right.
I just stepped right in that.
But I'm emotional in general,whether or not I'm a woman or
not.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
By the way, I'm just being if she was a man, she'd
still be emotional.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
If I was a man, I'd be fired up no, but I think
that's, I think we all are, wejust express it.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
We express it differently because of our
societal.
I was going to say culturalexpectations of how we behave.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
We're stepping in it a lot, sorry, let's just, you
know, edit heavy editing on thisepisode.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
No, I'm going to let it run.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I want to ask you that about that.
You said that you have these onYouTube, and so is there going.
Is that going to be also thesame format you're going to have
these on social media andyoutube or is it different?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
because, let me put it this way, yeah, let me put it
this way um, we haven't madethe decision whether we are
going to put all the events onon social media right now.
Our aim is to have thisin-person experience, so we
encourage people to come.
Even Even if we release this onYouTube, I promise you it is
not the same.
If you were in that audience ofthe feminist event, the energy
(36:00):
there that happened, whathappened and how everything went
down, you cannot recreate it.
Recreate it on YouTube, it'snot the same.
My encouragement is please come, because you will have a
memorable six-night experience.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
I also just wanted to ask how did you decide to do it
at Lackawanna Plaza?
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I was introduced to the owner of the venue and also
the wonderful manager of thatvenue by my barber in Montclair,
Charlotte Zane.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Oh yeah, we had him on the podcast.
We had Z Charlotte Zane.
Oh yeah, we had him on thepodcast.
We had Zane on here.
He's great.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah.
So Zane told me about the placeI went and how to look at it.
One of the things that's veryimportant to me is the community
element of this.
Again, you can live in acommunity with people you
disagree with, but you can stillshare a beer, have a cuppa and
disagree.
Zen and I disagree on aliens.
You can ask him.
He talks about aliens.
(36:55):
I'm like, okay, let's look atthis scientifically, let's look
at our understanding of theuniverse.
So we have disagreements allthe time so Desh, not pro-alien.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Can you tell him that ?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
you've had Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Oh no, he knows.
He knows We've had thisconversation.
I've told him.
Okay, next time when I workwith Neil I will ask him.
There's been some questionspresented to Neil on behalf of.
Zanes he knows, the venue at LaCuanha is a historic location
and I think it is meaningful ifwe can do this year in, year out
(37:32):
, and the community comes overhere and build another community
within the community that areunafraid to ask tough questions,
listen to speakers, make newconnections, and Lackawanna was
the perfect place for that.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
I'll give you a tidbit of what I tell people.
We spoke to the history of theMontclair History Center and she
said that the Lackawanna Plazawas actually.
The architect died in theTitanic.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, wow, that's reallyinteresting.
I think we have a little clipof her telling us that is really
like, really that's interesting.
So it is very historicalbuilding.
I'm interested in all thesetype of topics.
I guess it is a stoner kind ofthing.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It's not necessarily a bad thing, because it's your
inquisitive mind, it's yourintellectual curiosity.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
And looking at Jeanette you're great at this,
looking at things from alldifferent perspectives, not
wanting to just swallow down onepoint of view, but be like wait
all of these people aredefinitely minds that are very
relevant today and they'reforming people's thoughts and I
wish you so much success and I'mexcited.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I'm excited that you're doing this.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
We can't let you go until you tell us something you
love about New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
This is actually quite easy.
This was a bit of a surprisefor me when I discovered I love
nature.
I was born in the hill countryand surrounded in greenery, so
discovering some of theincredible parks.
I know it says Garden State Forsome reason.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I didn't register.
Nobody thinks that.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Exactly, new Jersey and garden is not something.
There's almost a disconnect,but I realize it's quite literal
.
It's a beautiful place.
I live just across the roadhere.
It's a beautiful park.
For me, that's the number onething.
(39:33):
I love the gardens and parks.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So I agree, thank you .
Well, thank you, and maybewe'll see you at the park
sometime.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, I'll definitely see you at the event.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Oh, yes, for sure.
We're really looking forward tothem.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
So thank you so much.
Really appreciate having me.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
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