July 28, 2025 • 56 mins
Exploring Cancel Culture, AI, and Social Dynamics with Chadwick MooreIn this riveting episode of the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast, host Dian Griesel aka @SilverDisobedience sits down with writer and commentator Chadwick Moore to discuss the impact of cancel culture, the evolving landscape of AI, and the nuances of social dynamics in modern society. They delve into topics such as the co-opting of truth in mainstream media, political realignments post-COVID, the materialism of socialism, and the blurring lines between opinion and fact in journalism. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges conventional thinking and encourages viewers to engage deeply with the world around them.
Learn more about Chadwick here:
Please SUBSCRIBE! I’m Dian Griesel, Ph.D. aka @SilverDisobedience to my hundreds of thousands of monthly blog readers. You can learn more about me here: https://diangriesel.com
But for starters…I am a perception analyst, counselor, hypnotherapist, author of 16 books and a Wilhelmina model. For 30 years I have helped my clients to achieve greater understanding as to how perceptions impact everything we do whether personally or professionally.
This episode was recorded in collaboration with The Manhattan Center, New York City, New York. https://www.themanhattancenter.com/
More info here:
🔗 YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@SilverDisobedience
iTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silver-disobedience-perception-dynamics-hosted-by-dian/id1582857422
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diangriesel/
@SilverDisobedience on Instagram and Facebook
@DianGriesel on Instagram and X
SHOW RUN: 00:00 Introduction to Cancel Culture00:49 Guest Introduction: Chadwick Moore01:30 Chadwick's Writing Inspirations04:25 COVID-19 and Political Realignment06:41 Personal Experiences During COVID13:31 Solitary Confinement and Mental Health20:36 The Influence of Media and Art29:14 Discovering Innovative Gardening Ideas30:01 The Importance of Human Connection in the Age of AI31:20 The Flaws and Limitations of AI35:11 The Impact of AI on Education and Creativity36:34 Navigating the World of Journalism and Media47:23 The Role of Materialism in Modern Society54:32 Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi there is cancel culture mob rule or virtue signaling?
I wonder about this a lot. The other night I was having
dinner with a girlfriend and we were talking about what's going
on in the world and she said well at least we don't throw
people to the lions anymore. And I said well I don't know
(00:20):
about that because I've been cancelled.
I posted an American flag one day and lost 60,000 followers
between Instagram and Facebook in less than 24 hours and got
pummeled for doing that. So today I want to know and I
want to talk about cancel culture as the newest blood
(00:43):
sport. And I'm talking with someone who
I think is going to understand this topic and have a lot of
good things to say. His name is Chadwick Moore and
he wrote this book on Tucker, which I have to say I've now
read three times and I think it would be really good reading for
everyone. And that's not whether you like
Tucker Carlson or not. It's because it has so many
(01:04):
thought provoking ideas that could stimulate anyone's
thinking. And that's what Perception
Dynamics is about. It's to keep us thinking.
And if you've been following me for the past seven or eight
years, I think, you know, that'salways my motive.
I'm not going to tell you what to think, but I do hope you
think because that makes the world a better place.
And we have great conversations.So thank you, Chadwick.
(01:25):
Thank you so much for having me.It's great to be here.
So nice to finally meet you. It's.
Really. My pleasure.
Now you have challenged ideas inwriting for many of the top
publications in the world. I'm going to let you name them
if you want. You can decide who gets the
credit for publishing your work.What inspires you?
(01:49):
Oh, well, you know, I've always,I mean, I just love stories.
I love storytelling. I love, I mean, I love people.
I'm interested in people in the world.
I think it's just just a genuinecuriosity and gracious appetite
to know everything and, and to, to try to understand people and
(02:11):
what motivates people and, and try to understand the world a
little better. I think a lot of that probably
comes from, you know, being Southern.
My family's southern long, you know, they've been in the South
for, you know, almost since before that we were even a
country. And lots of women in my family
who, you know, I grew up with them just loving a good story
(02:33):
and everyone having, you know, hilarious family stories.
And maybe that's what it's, you know, cousins who are writers
also. And, and I think that that
there's some sort of thread in the family.
And I always love southern writers and Southern people.
And that's a big part of Southern culture, of course.
And and then I've just always been really into sort of oddball
stories and, and people who are sort of exist outside of, I
(02:58):
don't know, conventionality or the mainstream.
I just get really interested andinspired in those things.
I just find such a beauty in it.You do pick unusual topics.
You were writing about the Amishrecently, and I thought that was
an interesting topic to explore,especially we were talking about
Pennsylvania before. Yeah, for sure.
(03:18):
Yeah. That was about the really
interesting case that's coming may come to the Supreme Court.
They're petitioning about the the Amish community in upstate
New York who a few years ago, itwas Governor Cuomo at the time
sort of forced. This was before COVID even had
forced vaccinations for their schoolchildren.
Now Amish schoolchildren not going to public school, they're
(03:38):
going to Amish schools. So it's, it's, it was the new,
the, the Court of Appeals in NewYork rejected their claims of
religious freedom. And so it may be heading the the
petitioning for it to be headed to the Supreme Court.
I wrote about that for the New York Post.
But it, it is a really interesting, especially now in
the light of COVID, a religious freedom against government
(03:59):
overreach argument that I hope goes to the Supreme Court,
although they've been dodging especially vaccine cases lately
because it's been so controversial with COVID.
Yeah. The a time period that I still
will always consider the curse word in my life.
That time period, I try not to think about it.
It used to be the 2008 market crash.
Then it became COVID, you know, Yeah.
(04:22):
You know, life changers on so many levels.
It's COVID had such a profound impact on so many people,
especially with their politics and how they see the world.
They were, there were so many people who had a great, you
know, there was sort of like 2016 ish where a lot of people
had a kind of great political realignment.
And then there was COVID. And I'm still this day because I
(04:43):
would be out talking to a lot ofpeople around, you know, after
2020. And I was always so surprised at
how many people said that COVID was a huge political realignment
for them that really opened their eyes to how they saw the
world and how they voted and. Why do you think that was?
What's the tie in there? I, you know, I think it maybe it
(05:04):
was both the deception that theyrealized was coming down on
them. And I think that also played a
lot into 2016. I mean, that was for me when I
realized that I was being lied to by everyone in every
institution that I trusted and believed in, that I sort of
understood maybe had a bent in one way or the other.
(05:24):
You know, I used to write for The New York Times and places
like this and I realized there was a liberal bent, but it
might. But I didn't realize that I was
just being lately lied to, that there was absolute political
propagandizing going on that there were that, that there was
no longer in a lot of these, a lot of our mainstream media, a
even even a desire to tell the truth.
(05:46):
There's no curiosity anymore. It was just point scoring.
And I think that COVID, a lot ofpeople realize that something
was off from what they were seeing on TV and what they're
seeing in the street. And, and you know, I think that
once you have, once you start todistress these institutions, you
wonder what else they lying to me about.
(06:07):
I think that may have been a part of it is.
And then I think a lot of people, especially moms were
huge. I think demographic that that
that had this reaction to COVID was the, the control, the, the
school's the same. You, you can't go to school, you
have to, your kids have to wear masks and they're single.
Kids aren't getting sick, kids aren't dying.
Why does my kid have to get thisshot?
Why is my kid wearing a mask, you know, to go to the grocery
(06:30):
store, Whatever I think it was, it was a combination of those
two things, the, the, the, the lying and, and the, the, the,
the tyranny that came out of it,the authoritarianism.
And it was really scary to look at how many people did go along
with everything. It was frightening here in New
York, but then also at the same,in the same called.
(06:52):
More curse words. Oh, I bet during that time,
walking down the street because I wouldn't wear a mask.
I am not vaccinated. Absolutely.
And I mean, oh, my God, yes. People could be 6 blocks away
and they were shouting at me howI was a killer.
Yeah. I'm like, I'm nowhere near you.
You really believe the entire world's polluted?
(07:13):
And when that all came, when thewhole thing came out, I
remember. I mean, I worked with
pharmaceutical companies for 20,seven years and I'm like, if we
did any of this, I'd be in jail if we were pushing out these
kind of messages, if all this was coming out with lack of any
clinical trials that I can explain.
(07:34):
And I looked at clinical trial data for 27 years.
I mean, where is it? What's what's going on here?
Why are we? And I went to write an article
for my blog called The Emperor. Emperor has No Clothes.
And my husband's like Diane, could you just hold on that one
a little while? I'm not sure we're ready for
(07:54):
that just yet. Yeah, but it's yeah.
Did you end up publishing it or did did you hold on to it?
No. I held on to it.
Yeah, I know. And that's probably one of the
reasons that if I look back on anything that I'm disappointed
with myself in life, it's that. And it's probably one of the
(08:15):
reasons why I couldn't wait to sit and speak with you because
you did speak up. You did say things.
And I was a wuss and, and, but no longer I, you know, and I was
vocal about not getting vaccinated if someone asked.
I lost a lot of work my one of my modeling agencies when I was,
(08:36):
you know, doing modeling at the time.
So, you know, we just can't bookyou.
You got to be able to show this.I'm like, I'm not going to show
it, you know? And then it was, well, you can
get a fake card. I'm like, yeah, I could, but
then I have to live with myself.No.
Good for you. You know, no, but I mean not
going into restaurants. I mean restaurants that I felt
like I had supported for years in my neighborhood.
Yeah, yeah. And even aside from all of that,
(08:59):
it was like, I'm one thing that affected me.
So it affected me so much. And even today, because you
still see people walking out with masks on in 100° outside in
New York and you still see people wearing masks, young
people young. I write about cognitive
dissonance a lot and and continued influence effect the
(09:19):
idea that even though you have new information, you still the
fear has cemented that perception so hard that you
can't break away from it. Yes, and that's when you see the
person in their car alone, mask on, windows up.
They might not even have air conditioning because they
wouldn't want the air sucking in.
(09:39):
Yeah, and it's it's just so painful.
It's so because it's so anti human.
It's so anti human to cover yourface and walk around and to
think that you're fellow citizens, not even your friends
or family, but even people on the street are somehow dangerous
and going to infect you or something.
It's such a terribly anti human way of seeing the world.
And you're you're you're displaying how much you hate
(10:00):
people and you're afraid of people.
Exactly. That person in a mask hates you.
They're walking down the street telling you they hate you
because because you're going to get them sick.
Exactly. That's what I find more
disturbing. But at the same time, a lot of
good came out of COVID in the sense that.
OK tell me because I think I need a refresher course on that
I. Will I will buy because,
(10:21):
because, because we figured out who we were.
If you were someone like yourself who said, you know
what, I don't care if I don't get work.
This is something I believe in. I think something wrong is going
on and I'm going to take a standand I don't care if it has
negative consequences. You must feel really good about
yourself because you did that. You know, it's OK to feel proud
of yourself for when you have anentire machine, an entire
(10:43):
society coming at you telling you to do something and you say,
no, I'm not going to do that. I don't know if it's that I'm
I've just always been a questioner.
I relate to punks like when theywere real, right?
You know, that was what I gravitated to, like, like, I'm a
questioner. And it all started, frankly,
when I was in private practice back in the 80s when the whole
(11:05):
AIDS epidemic came out. And I was hooked.
My whole practice was guys that have been told they had HIV or
AIDS or whatever anybody was calling it at the time.
And I was hugging everybody. I'm still sitting here today.
I mean, I certainly know a lot of people died, but I also
wonder how much the cocktails they were given at the time, you
know, wiped out their immune systems.
(11:26):
Yeah, Anthony Fauci. We could go there.
I love it. Yeah, Fauci was, I mean, if, if
your listeners don't recall, waslike the enemy of AIDS
activists. They hated him.
They called him a murderer and amonster and a demon and.
And then to see some of those same people who were alive
(11:47):
during the AIDS crisis now flip,Yeah, have their little Fauci
St. Fauci candles.
And but worshiping the state is what it is.
I mean, that's what Fauci worship is.
So if if we're saying the good things that came out of COVID,
very clear lines. Yeah, I think it relates to
(12:10):
Fauci too, exactly that that that very clear lines were drawn
because you now know who really your enemy is.
It's these sort of status and you know what they're capable
of. But then you see how many, even
if all of them weren't necessarily vocal, how many
people did resist, truly resist?You know, they love that that
term resist. What are you resisting?
(12:31):
Lower taxes. OK, but people were actually
really did resist that, that tyranny and and lots of
communities formed out of it. I mean, I kind of had a ball
during Covic because all the most horrible people in the
world here in New York were locked inside, terrified.
So you had the run of the streets, you know, it was kind
of amazing. And then there were all these
(12:52):
wonderful underground parties and underground, you know, like
secret little speakeasies that you'd go into.
And there was so much joy in that room of unmasked,
unvaccinated people in a dark alley.
You know, you'd walked in a darkalley to get to some underground
club. And it was all walks of life.
Exactly. And all races, all, everything,
(13:14):
all economic statuses. And it was just people who were
all like, screw this. We want to be around fellow
humans and, and to realize how much you need that.
You know, it was like just the joy of at the height of COVID
during lockdown, the joy of walking into a room filled with
people and you're like, wow. You know, it was one of the
things at the very end of this book, you talk either you or it
(13:37):
was a quote. You talked about the worst thing
that is done to a criminal is solidary confinement.
Yeah. I mean, it sets the stage for
all kinds of psychosis, mental illness in countless ways.
It is like, it's a horrible thing.
And if I was given the choice ofsolitary confinement versus the
(13:57):
death penalty, God forbid, I'd never do anything that would
strike either. But I think I'd take the death
penalty. I mean, the thought of just
solitary confinement for a wholelife, it's.
It, it, I, I did it many years ago, 5000 years ago, I did a
Peach for Playboy about solitaryconfinement and and I visited,
(14:20):
this is so off topic, but I visited Eastern State
Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, which is like such
a cool place to visit. It's an old, it was a first.
I believe it was the first solitary confinement prison in
the US. It was started by the Quakers
because they believed that. Yeah, it's.
And I think how come I'm, I'm going to get all my information
wrong 'cause it was so long ago.But it's a beautiful place to
visit. I mean beautiful if you like old
(14:42):
history. And is it still?
It's still yo, it's not, it's not as a it as a tourist
attraction, not as a as a penitentiary.
And but the Quakers believed that that in solitary was a way
to reform people because they would be forced to.
Confer with God. Confer with God, yes, thank you.
And then they and then they quickly learned it made people
(15:03):
crazy. And then other forces said,
well, we'll use this as the ultimate punishment.
And because it does make people go crazy.
And that's what they did to a steering cup.
But also, you know, we had our screens and all of this, which
probably makes people go more crazy if you're just on your
phone alone. And sadly, people do that
(15:24):
willingly, you know, without COVID lockdown.
So we were talking about the good things.
You're right. And I think I I think that was
it was the good thing was the lines were drawn.
You figured out a lot about yourself if you were a kind of
status self reflective, Yeah. Or if you were going to just,
you know, you know, be a conservative podcaster but still
sell the vaccine and yell at people who didn't get it.
(15:47):
We learned who those people were, you know, and we learned,
I think we learned what the stakes are and, and who's going
to be on your, your side and who's not.
You know, I think it really, it positioned people a lot better
for worse things to come. I mean, one of my favorite
things that I, that I ever wrotewas it was like 2 weeks in the
(16:11):
lockdown and I wrote just API mean this was before we knew how
evil and terrible it was going to get.
And it was just like 2 weeks to slow the spread.
And I just wrote a piece like for the Spectator about this
kind of quiet time. And, and you know, I think a lot
of people, you know, I started gardening finally.
I love plants. I've never used that time to
(16:33):
garden. And you know, which is now like
the greatest source of relaxation and comfort in my
life aside from my loved ones, you know, so I think a lot of
people picked up skills and hobbies and I and I just sort of
called it like that. You know, we had this little
after two weeks, have this nice little breather period to kind
of chill out for a minute, pick up some hobbies, maybe do some,
you know, workout, go to the gym.
(16:54):
Well, you couldn't go to the gym, but I, so I think a lot of
people did, did pick up some things during that initial
period, took a break from the rat race and I think they've
held on to that a lot. I know a lot of relationship.
There are a lot of I find it so interesting.
There are a lot of COVID breakups, but then there were a
lot of people and people I know who became so much closer in
(17:15):
their relationships because of COVID.
And I love that that they because they're they're just
home in their little one bedroomapartment in Manhattan for
months together and they actually fell more in love.
I think that's a beautiful story.
That is because you expect that there sadly, that people are
couples are going to hate each other more after that.
So you heard nice stories like that, you know, so so so there
(17:36):
there is some, some good to focus on, I think.
What do you think when when you go to write an article because
you pick such unusual topics allover the place and you said, you
know, one of your favourites wassolitary confinement in a prison
and you heard about the Amish. You know what?
What are the triggers going on in your head?
Are you looking at the news and saying well this is interesting
(17:58):
or is it a conversation you hearwith someone you getting your
ideas from? Yeah, it's often, it's often
just hearing something from someone, whether it's, you know,
you're at a party or something. I mean, I, I'm such a homebody.
I don't really go out at all anymore.
But when I do always hear something, you know, or just
somebody like the table next to you talking about something.
(18:22):
But I, I think that thing, you know, I, I do, I just love
anything that has a little bit of an, an oddball twist or a
subculture twist to it. I think that's initially, you
know, I started off doing features, writing investigative
stuff. I mean, I wanted to be a fiction
writer. That's what I started out as.
Yeah. And then I just, I was kind of
working in book publishing and, and, and became disillusioned
(18:44):
with that world. But at the same time, just sort
of under began to realize that real life is so much more
interesting than anything you can make up, you know, and has
only continued to get more interesting over the last 10
years or so. But I always had just there's
just a sort of, I don't know, I guess if you have like an eye or
an ear for a story. And I don't have mine's any
(19:05):
better than anyone else's. But there's just a sort of thing
that gets you excited, whether it's just sort of like a weird
little quirk or A and then you just sort of see the whole story
start to unfold in your head around a little detail or a
personality or I don't really know exactly how to explain it,
but you know, it'll be somethinglike I'm trying to think back.
(19:28):
I was at a bar once 10 years agoor something, And someone next
to me was talking about how, youknow, his the busboy at his job
is like ran out and quit becausehe saw a ghost in the basement
of this restaurant. And I'm like, excuse me, sorry
to eavesdrop. And and then he starts saying,
well, yeah. And, you know, like, what?
Everyone thinks it's haunted because, you know, glasses keep
(19:50):
shattering. And so then I just did this big
story in your post about this haunted restaurant, which is
like less about a ghost, although I love that aspect of
it, but more also than about like just the history of this
building. Well, if, if there is a ghost,
who would the ghost be? And then learning all the people
who lived here and how many people you know, people died in
the in the building and. Did it help the restaurants
business? I hope it.
(20:12):
It's a lovely restaurant called Sweetwater in Brooklyn.
And yeah, it must have because then I heard that, like, all
these like, paranormal shows areknocking on their door.
You know, obviously the power ofsomething like the New York
Times to help a business is is is much like detest the New York
Times, you know, is, is still isstill more, is still there.
(20:32):
So yeah, I guess you know littlethings like that is.
No, no, You know, you said something interesting earlier
and I always wonder, do you think art imitates life or does
life imitate art? Does art imitate?
I guess I I don't know. I guess it'd be both.
I don't know where you would really draw the line.
(20:54):
Yeah, I thought, I don't think Ihave a good answer to that
question, but it's a it's a goodone to ask people.
Yeah. What do you think?
I always hope that life, I mean that art imitates life.
And then when I see something horrible, I hope life doesn't
(21:17):
imitate art. So it depends because I can't
really watch disturbing programming, You know, what if
it's real or if it's not real, you know, acted either way.
Because then it starts to repeatin my head.
I'm a reader. I love to read a book because if
something was really terrible, Ican turn the page really quickly
and say, OK, I really don't know, need to know the details
(21:39):
of how this person was killed ortortured, I can turn the page.
Right. Yeah.
But something visual then I always wonder which way is it
going? Are you giving people ideas you
know? Yeah, even Signal.
So actually Tucker told me this and I put it in the talking
about something and Tucker mentioned this exact show in the
book and I happen to have the exact same reaction to it, which
(22:00):
is The White Lotus, which is a show on.
Yeah, I've never watched. I can't watch it because it and
he said this too. And I was like, I, I have the
same reaction because it's like the people are too horrible.
Yeah, in such a realistic way. I'm like, I don't want these
people in my house. Exactly, that's how I feel.
This is like too disturbing. I can watch a slasher film any
(22:21):
day of the week, but people being that grotesque to one
another? You know, you just summed up the
last night my husband was watching the Squid Games.
Yeah. And I'm like doing something
else, but in like in my peripheral vision.
I'm picking this up every so often.
I'm like, you got to turn this off.
I said this is not good to have in the house because you just
(22:43):
watch mobland. I'm like, I don't care.
That was all bad people killing bad people.
This is good people in a bad situation and they're loose, you
know, they're running after money.
There's no turn this. Off, yeah, right.
Yes, you get because. It's and you just suck it up.
That's exactly the difference for me.
And maybe a fear of it is 2 is that you see people imitating
(23:06):
behaviors in in television, in art that they think is OK and
and thinking being so horrible to one another is OK what you
see everywhere. Yeah.
That it's it's yeah. It made me think of there was
some. OK, I'm probably this might not
even be real, but for some reason in my mind I'm
remembering this statistic. Oh, I'm, I'm relating to you
(23:27):
totally. There was something.
All kinds of random facts out ofmy head.
I think it's real, maybe it's not.
Yeah, I, I quote this all the time, and I've never actually
bothered to look it up, but I remember someone really smart
telling me this. So I'm going to, I'm going to
pretend to believe that it's true, that there was something
about like in the 1990s, you know, the peace and prosperity
(23:47):
of the late 90's, the boom years, the number one show on
television was Seinfeld. Yeah.
And. People were laughing.
Yes, but also everything was going in Seinfeld.
I think Larry David said that that in the rule there are two
rules to each episode is no one ever learns their lesson and no
hugs. So you'll never see a hug in
(24:09):
Seinfeld and no one ever learns their lesson.
So it's also kind of a show about people being really awful.
Like they're kind of they're awful people, you know, but it's
really funny because they're extremely narcissistic.
They're full of themselves. OK, so so that was #1 show in
the 90s and then around the timeof the financial crash in 2008,
the number one when everything when society was the exact
(24:30):
opposite of of the late 90s whenthere was a lot of well, fear
and nervousness. The number one show is Modern
Family. And in every episode of Non
Modern Family, everyone learns alesson.
They get along at the end and there's a hug.
So do you see, like, it's almostlike that, Like what's happening
in society is really, there havebeen.
(24:52):
What's happening inside is really reflected of what the top
TV shows are. And now it might be different
streaming, I don't know. But even like, if you look at
like in the 70s, it was all the shows where there's a lot of
sort of, yeah, feminism and gay rights issues and a lot of sort
of uncertainty. Then a lot of the shows were
like tackling those issues and trying to work them out and
about groups coming together. Yeah.
So I don't know. There's something, there's
something, there's something with that.
I don't know if I just walked myself into a corner with that.
(25:15):
Statistic. No, you definitely didn't.
And I will tell you someone I'm interviewing coming up, Tom
Leopold, who was one of the writers for Seinfeld.
Well, there you go. I'm going to ask.
Him about this because I think the argument I think.
I'm going to have to make a cliphere because it's so interesting
what you said. When I think the argument was
that Seinfeld wouldn't have worked during a time when there
was a lot of fear and turmoil insociety because the people were
(25:40):
just too awful to each other. That's what I've heard people
say. So I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah, really curious to think.
About yeah, but yeah anyway, back to people being yeah,
there's just too many people being horrible to each other on
TV. You don't want to think that
they're going to be that way in real life.
(26:00):
And, you know, we we were talking about, you know, people
being home and one of the thingsyou said, you know, during
COVID, watching more screen time.
Yeah. And it's almost like AI don't
like the word narcissistic because I think it's very
overused in countless ways. There's so much authentic, you
(26:21):
know, they're just some words that are just come on.
If you have to say you're authentic, you're struggling.
You know, you either are or you're narn in like, you know,
But the amount of time people spent on screens looking at
things that are not necessarily real.
I mean, I'll say to my kids when, you know, when one of them
(26:42):
will say, yeah, but these people, they have all this.
I'm like, they probably went andbought it for that outfit and
then returned it that afternoon because they had to get a new
out, you know, get their money back from that outfit.
It is real. Yeah, the whole I did a column
for the post on this about it was called the End of
Influencers and. Who did you do that for?
(27:04):
The New York Post and just how all of all of the in all the the
whole sort of like lifestyle influencer, everyone's called on
to how inauthentic it is. There was so, so the news story
that got me thinking about this was that I want to write a
combat. It was they were like, they were
like, no, I'm going to forget the number.
There's like 20 influencers in China who all got a foot fungus
(27:28):
at the same time. OK.
And then they Why? Were they passing around the
same pair of shoes? The same Gucci tights Yeah, so
so it's you know, so just to prove how fake all.
Of this, they're lucky it was a foot fungus.
Exactly. Yeah, but people really caught
on to it. Not to get more gross.
(27:53):
Exactly. But yeah, so now I think
everyone just kind of looks at that and thinks that these
people are just, they have horrible lives.
They probably have more, they have more sort of sordid and and
messy lives of the average person.
They're not making tons of money.
You know, like the very top percent of influencers are
making millions and everyone else is getting their $100 a
(28:14):
week from Instagram, you know, whatever.
And it's, you know, it's no way to it's, it should not be
anyone's career aspiration at all.
But but it's, it's, you know, millions of kids across the
globe want to do this for a living.
But it seems like people are maybe coming out of it.
(28:34):
I think people are catching on to how fake it is.
And there seems to be something happening in the culture of, of
people grasping for authenticityand connection because we went
through the phase, we're all glued to our phones.
And I think people are like, no,actually, I want to connect,
connect and be looking around when I walk.
(28:57):
You know, we've been there and done that like millennials for
sure, since we kind of destroyedthe world with with phones and
apps. Now they're all like, I mean,
older millennial and we're all like, you know, becoming
homesteaders, you know, and thenof course, creating Instagram
accounts about our homestead. But it's yeah, there's
something. Going that's kind of homey and
(29:17):
fun, you know, to see. I still remember one of the
coolest things I ever saw on Instagram was a homestead or
somebody who created a garden, but they did it raised.
So it was these raised beds, like on top of the table, and
they had a hose going through it.
And then they had all these, like, big pots.
So no wedding. I'm like, that's the coolest
(29:38):
idea ever. Yeah.
Yeah. But it was a Greek family.
Like if it's good enough for theGreeks.
Yeah. They didn't even speak English.
Yeah. Is hose going through these
pots? I'm like, this is a really cool
idea. Wow, yeah, that's great.
I can look that up. I'll show it to you.
Yeah, please do. I'll show it to you.
But you know, it's funny with people socializing, when I talk
(30:04):
to young kids and they'll say, you know, they're worried about
AI or things like that, I say, listen, there's always going to
be people who want to connect. There's always going to be
people who are looking for originals, creative thinkers,
creative minds, humanity. I don't believe that's ever
going to go away. And entertainment, you know,
(30:26):
that human connection during thewhole time on COVID, I had more
parents say to me, you're the worst parent on the planet.
I'm like, OK, yeah, probably I'll take.
I'll chalk that up because our son was in high school and he's,
you know, getting 100 in physicsand he loves extreme
skateboarding. Like, I wasn't going to tell him
if he, after he did his four hours sitting in front of a
(30:47):
computer, that he couldn't go skateboard wherever he wanted.
Of course, I'm like, get out there, Go have some fun if you
have to, put the mask on if anyone's looking, but don't get
yourself arrested. But get out there, you know, go
live your life. And that's what I say think 1
(31:08):
what do you think that impact with AI is going to be with kids
and you're a writer and how it'sgoing to keep changing how
people view their lives going forward?
Yeah, this I mean I have it's I mean we're all the charm is
already wearing wearing off. Oh yeah.
You know, I think there's plentyto be afraid of.
(31:29):
I mean, that's something I tracka lot is you know, you know, is
AI like are we approaching the singularity and you know,
Skynets coming in the end of simulation?
Maybe, I don't know. We certainly do watch, but but
when especially when it comes tolike the humanities and creative
work and writing, I'm not worried about anything.
(31:51):
I mean AI so. I could tell an AI written
something. Absolutely.
And those learned language models are dumb.
They get it so and they lie constantly.
Like I couldn't believe it because I'll use AI for as I use
Google, you know, like I can't remember what the guy.
(32:12):
I'm searching on it. Yeah, I search on it.
That's what I use it for also. And then I realized that it's
it's really stupid and it lies alot like the like the other day
I was, I had mentioned Trump's the the, the, the assassination
attempt in Butler on Trump. I knew.
I remember it was July, couldn'tremember the day.
So I go into grok and and was like, what was it?
(32:34):
When what was the day of the assassination?
And and you know, the answers come back so authoritative.
October 15th, 2024. And I was like, no, it was July.
Oh, my bad. It was you know, but then it
gets even worse than that. Like I, I was doing this article
about it was doing the egg shortage prices and I was
(32:56):
writing about like I was lookinginto whether like these laws
mandating free range eggs were affecting egg prices.
I was really interested in in this free range egg lie because
they aren't, you know, they're they're just there's something
you made about free range versuscage.
In fact, it's actually like likeeven worse for the chickens
because they they attack each other when they're not in cages
(33:17):
and they're not like out roamingin pastures.
You know, they're just in like warehouses, like, Yep, this
together. Anyway, anyway, I had this idea.
Like, I wonder if that's making bird flu spread more.
And then there's states like California that like mandate
cage free eggs. I'm sorry, cage cage free, not
free range. I got mixed up.
I'm talking about cage free eggs.
Anyway, I went, I was looking, Iwent into AI, into Grok to ask
(33:40):
about like, you know, studies onpathogens spreading in cage free
environments versus cage environments.
This is when I first realized that AI is really dumb.
And it spit out this whole thinglike, yeah, according to the
University of Minnesota, 2022 found that pathogens are
spending 74% faster. And I'm like, wow, that's
fascinating. That's my article.
(34:00):
I got really excited, and it turns out the study doesn't even
exist. Grok just made it up, like,
people need to be aware of this stuff.
And I was like, and I finally got Grok to admit he just made
it up. And he was like, yeah, I'm
sorry. It just sounded like something
that the University of Minnesotawould have studied.
Oh my. God, yeah.
So I'm like, wow, I'm so happy that I realized that that to not
(34:24):
rely on these tools because. That's an article.
Right now, right? Wow.
But but I think the, the, the, the novelty is wearing off.
You know, I think there's absolutely so many useful
aspects for it and, and it is kind of a nicer way to search
for things as long as if something doesn't seem right to
you, you look it up and do more research to see if it's lying to
(34:45):
you. But in terms of creative, like
there's been some really cool AIart.
I hate to say that this reproduce that you think is sort
of beautiful, but but that's just novelty that's going to
wear off and nobody's going to want to read a book written by
AI, right? Maybe there'll be a passing
phase or they'll be like an AI celebrity, You know, there'll be
like really funny and everyone will buy like the AI book It's.
(35:08):
Funny with what you're talking about with getting things wrong.
One day one of my interns came in and he's not looking happy.
And I'm like, you know, what's the matter?
You want to talk? And first was no, I don't want
to talk. I'm like, you know, if you want
to talk before you go, I'm not going to ask you again.
And he says, well, he was like, I failed my final.
(35:30):
I said, how did you feel? You're what you're good in that
subject. What happened?
He goes, well, I, I used AI, am I?
Yeah. And he goes and it was
describing a painting and I never double checked when I
wrote and there were no angels in the painting.
Wow, see. My teacher wrote.
(35:52):
Just circled it, you know, put the paper on his desk upside
down is like, you know, 0. Yeah, yeah, I can.
I can imagine being a teacher ora student with AI because I just
assume they all use AI for everything and and what are the
teachers supposed to do to? I guess those programs to sort
of detect, but even those programs have to be terribly
(36:13):
flawed. Unless you're describing a
picture that has no angels. It has no angels.
You're a. Descriptor then should cut and
paste and an angels. Yeah, or your University of
Minnesota study that never existed, that Grok just made-up
out of nowhere almost, you know,ruin someone's career if they
didn't have the foresight to double check.
(36:34):
Now you write for newspapers, magazines, you've written books.
Do you have any more books in inthe works?
I'm, I'm talking to a a publisher right now, but another
book idea, which I can't really talk about right now, but but if
we come to an agreement, it's something that I'm super excited
to write about. It's sort of long line fiction,
(36:55):
nonfiction, nonfiction, not a biography, but just sort of more
of a it's it's still a humanities book for sure.
I think that's yeah. But then other than that, I'm
writing the New York Post. I was doing so after I had
cancelled in 2016. So let's.
Talk about that. Sure.
(37:18):
I was, I was doing, you know, magazine, newspaper, writing
features, human interest stories, investigative stuff,
not politics. I didn't really care about
politics. And then I was cancelled in 2016
because I came out, as, you know, politically.
I used the word conservative, but I don't even know what a
(37:40):
conservative is. I just know I'm not left.
You know, I understand that. Yeah.
You know what I mean? And, you know, that was like,
way too hot at the time to say, you know, to say, like, I don't
hate Trump right after one. And like, I think maybe the
media might be lying about some things.
So I was, I was editor at large for Out magazine in The Advocate
(38:00):
at the time. And, you know, I was writing
freelance for The New York Timesand bunch of other liberal
places. And so I was like fired,
blacklisted. And, and that's why I met Tucker
because I, I, I, I'd written a piece in New York Post sort of
coming out as, coming out as conservative.
And, and then I was, you know, fired.
(38:21):
And, and then, and then like 2 days later, Fox News, Tucker
Carlson show reached out to ask me to come on and talk about it.
And then I end up being a regular on his guest for the
entire run of the show, even appearing on the last episode
when I was, I was still, I was writing the book at the time.
And of course we didn't know it would be the last episode.
So so that happens. And then that's also how I got
(38:44):
acquaint of the Tucker. But but you know, then for
several years I was just I mean,I didn't know what I was going
to do for work. I wasn't like getting paid to go
on Fox News. No one does.
And so I was writing like opinion and, and commentary, but
(39:05):
now I've, I've gotten in like, Idid that for a while and like,
that's fine and great. But you know, I, I was never
really an opinion writer And, and now I'm just so bored with
opinion. I just don't care.
Like I'm just, there's some people who I absolutely love
reading their opinions that that's not most people.
And I think, I think most peoplefeel that way and even like, you
know, there's like a, like a botanist I follow on Instagram
(39:26):
and I love his botany videos. And then suddenly it's like him
telling me about the Middle Eastand I'm like, Oh my God.
Right now. Can you just like tell me why my
host is dying like and then likeexactly.
And then I'm to the point now where I'm just unfollow like I
just, I'm just. It's kind of like we're talking
about concerts. Go to a concert, I'm like, just
play the freaking music I love. Please.
(39:49):
I really don't want to hear yourpolitical opinion.
Because because we're just starved for political opinions.
Exactly. Here to Chillax.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So, so you know that now I've gotten more back into what I was
doing, which is reporting and features writing mainly for the
New York Post, which has been great.
You know, and, and they have an apartment for that, which is
wonderful because most conservative media or not even
(40:11):
just contrarian media, not left media doesn't really have
features writing, investigative writing that they don't have
the, the, the budget or the department.
So there are few and few and farbetween.
And the post is one of them, which is great.
So I've been doing that a lot ofthat for them.
Still some opinion, commentary, writing and then, you know,
(40:31):
working on the next book, so. You know, one of the things that
I think has changed so much in media and having owned APR firm
for 30 something years is opinion editorial features and
(40:52):
the freaking blurring of them all that, you know, opinion, you
know, articles are put forth so often as the news story of the
day, but no balance to it, you know, and I happen to love the
New York Post. It's like I even subscribe to
the print copy. Excellent.
You know, because I get a kick out if there are still, you
(41:15):
know, they'll interview one person on one side and they'll
add the person on the other side.
I mean, I like that kind of balanced reporting.
Or put it under opinion or, you know, call it.
This is my opinion. Yeah.
What do you think caused that blurring?
Why did that end? Oh, and can can it be reeled
back in? Well, but you know, I, I just, I
(41:40):
kind of challenge the idea of I don't think that any well, I
think that a lot of places, especially that were very
reactionary to Trump and very ina negative way, became more
aggressive in there politicizingof the news and in their
opinions and the blurring of theline.
They and they also just stopped caring, you know, because they
(42:01):
were just so filled with hatred and fear of not even this man,
but the sort of the sort of lowly garbage he represented in
their opinion, you know, the unclean and but I, but it's
always been there. I mean, what like what's the
history of the newspaper? The history of the newspaper is
(42:23):
political pamphlets, right That when you know so it's it the new
the newspaper. Newspapers were always, always.
Is that really it? The history of newspapers with
political pimp. That's when, I mean, that's when
you first had people using a printing press to, you know,
print topical things for other people.
And so you had political pamphlets that were, I don't
(42:45):
know, you know, Thomas Paine, common sense if you.
Want to you? Know any number and then it
became whatever the exact however exactly it happened you
know when newspapers became a thing it was always every
newspaper had a was aligned witha political party and everyone
knew it this was the Democrat party newspaper this is a
(43:06):
Republican newspaper this was the Communist newspaper
whatever. That's why the you know there
were so many newspapers and cities and so they didn't really
there were news reporting and editorial reporting but you knew
you were always getting the party that was the paper aligned
with the specific party. What changed was, you know, only
what changes places like the NewYork Times or Washington Post
suddenly pretending that no, they're the word of God and the
(43:29):
absolute truth and we're not actually it was.
It's deceptive, absolutely deceptive.
And that's why, you know, placeslike like MSNBC or, you know,
Newsmax are like, this is the conservative opinion you're
getting. This is the ultra liberal
opinion you're getting. And it's a much more honest.
You know, you know what you're walking into.
(43:49):
You're one side. You're going to get the other
side. Yeah.
So somewhere like the New York Times or the Washington Post is
saying, you know, no, no, no, weare the the smartest.
We are the paper of record. We're just telling you what's
happening in the world in our editorial pages are very much,
you know, the word of God, like the smartest people in the
room's opinions and very neutraland which is absolutely not true
(44:12):
at all. It's services, the Democrat
Party and, and, but the only thing that's changed is they're
not open about it anymore. So I don't think.
And, and you know, that's I, I, the only thing I think that then
is change that they've just as Ijust said, became more
aggressive in their, in their soul and also aggressively
trying to pretend that they werenot doing exactly what they were
(44:35):
doing. You know, a phrase I heard years
ago and I'd love your take on it.
It's was I think about it was byEdie Weiner in the book Future
Think and she wrote the extremesin form the middle.
Right. You know, you could have an
extreme left, an extreme right, whatever you want to call them,
(44:55):
you know, But then there's the middle right.
Where do you how do you think that phrase impacts most people?
And so in terms of is you'll have the extreme voices who are
the loudest and the, and in mostpeople are then in the middle
who are, who are kind of filtering that information to to
(45:18):
make a more middle, middle of the road populace.
Is that sort of Yeah, what it sounds like maybe she was
saying. I'm not.
I'm not. No, that's how I hear it.
Yeah, that's how you hear it. Yeah.
And it's a writer who covers, you know, broad topics.
I'm curious how you hear it. But also you, I mean, the
extremes are all, I mean, every time you've had a sort of
radical revolution or radical upheaval, it's always been a
(45:41):
fringe minority that has seized control.
Like every communist revolution has been 15, but has done so
with the support of 15% of the population, like Max, you know,
and what I mean, you see that what's what's happening in New
York with, with what's his name,I'm Dami the socialist.
I mean, it's, it's, it's the extremes or 15% rich white
(46:08):
Brooklyn 32 year olds that that propelled him.
I mean, there's lots going on inthat election with it was a
terrible primary. Everyone hates Andrew Cuomo for
good reason. But if he ends up being
becoming, if he ends up being mayor, it will because because
of a radical radical, a radical friends who are highly
politically engaged to turn out the vote and average everyday
(46:32):
normal working people in normal New Yorkers are not that
engaged. It's not a religion to them.
It's not a fervor to get out andvote for this person.
And that's that'll be what's happened.
I saw the most interesting statistic.
It's I just heard about this forthe post.
It's not out yet, but but just sort of dissecting his support.
(46:53):
So it was, you know, I was talking to like, economists and
some other people to kind of explain what's going on with
this group of voters. And don't worry, this podcast is
going to run. After no, no, that's that's
totally fine, you can. Say this, it'll be.
A little teaser. Yeah, yeah, it.
Won't it won't scoop your article.
No, I, you know, that's fine if it does so, but it was oh, so
(47:20):
you know, this idea of like socialism is, is this what I
find most disturbing is, is thatit is a it's, it's a
fundamentally materialistic ideology.
It's it's just about stuff and things.
And whereas you don't see that with, you know, it's, it's about
it's, it's extremely well, it, it seems to build utopia on
(47:43):
Earth, you know, it's devoid of God.
It has to be. And it's main difference between
sort of true conservatism is, you know, true conservatism is
looks at, you know, material things are nice to have, but
they're not the end goal. Hereafter is the end goal
because true conservatives tend to be religious or more
religious or more spiritual, whereas for socialism stuff is
(48:05):
the end goal. That is such an interesting
point. Yeah.
And if you look at there was. A and I think if more people
heard. That, well, it, it shames these
people who think they have the moral high ground, you know?
And I can't figure out a way to argue that point.
It's, it's, it's dialectical materialism and it's, it's Karl
Marx and, and it's why, you know, it's why religion is, is
(48:30):
banned in, in socialist countries.
It's because that is the opposite of what the goal is of
socialist mindset and ethos, theway they see the world.
Right, everyone should have the same.
So it is about the thing. The only thing that matters is
material is the material world, you know and that and you must
use force to redistribute. There must be all this equality
(48:52):
and, and, and you know it because there is no other world
but this one. So this is what's most important
is the stuff. So that's why it's you.
You can make fun of these peoplewho are, you know, you can say
like, Oh yeah, you're such a socialist with your iPhone.
You know, it's like people do. But no, the iphone's the point.
And they need the newer one. They need the better one and
they need the next one. If they can't get the new one,
(49:12):
they're really upset about that.And if someone else has a new
one and they can't afford the new one, well, that's unfair.
Exactly. It's true.
Exactly. It's a very interesting point.
You've really simplified a. Really debated concept.
Because that's the soul of what's happening here, and
that's what makes it most frightening, like a sort of
mandami. So there's a study done in 2022
(49:34):
of college students and 85% of college students who were
surveyed in this said that it was either a set that financial
to be financially successful waseither essential to their lives
or very important 85% financial success.
So it was like the top thing that said he was done in the
(49:58):
1960s and the answer was like 43%.
So it's like there's something that when people ask like why
are young people supporting socialism and why is Mumdami,
you know, it's because they actually really value wealth,
they really value money. That same group of people is if
the if they attribute, and by the way, millennials and Gen.
(50:19):
Z are wealthier than any other generation at was at this age.
You know, we see all these headlines about horrible they're
doing. They actually have more wealth.
They have a higher medium incomeand they value these things
greatly. And if if you look at they, they
attribute their own success and well-being, their own success to
(50:39):
hard work, but they tend to viewpeople who are more successful
than them as having undeserved wealth.
So it's like a really, really greedy.
And I don't even really want to like shame a whole generation
like these kids are like. But about what I would like to
know what happened that the material world became so
important, you know, and it's just got to be.
(51:00):
I mean the only thing I can think of is is declining
religion and loss of human connections because if you have
really meaningful personal connections which are not online
connections, not to online connections can't be meaningful
that you have with your online friends.
They're not the same. They're not the same.
Not the same. No responsibility to make a
meal. Together or do for.
Sure, absolutely. Yeah, Spend quality time then.
(51:23):
Then I think that if your role, your role just becomes
essentially very materialistic and that's how you see the world
and that's informs your politics.
And it's so interesting to thinkin terms of, well, I, I want
what you have, but I want socialism.
(51:43):
Yeah, well, they view it as a kind of like a new, a, a
different kind of capitalism, you know, that's like a nicer, a
nicer capitalism or where there's more free stuff.
But you know what they don't understand that capitalism is
the is the nicest system there possibly could be and the most
(52:05):
fair because there's no coercion.
It's, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sounding like some like, you
know, Commerce Club Republican, which I'm absolutely not, but
you know. Neither am I, but I agree.
You know, I'm right down the middle on everything.
But compared to like the coercion that goes in the force
that goes into socialism, you know, capitalism is a is a
voluntary system. But for the most part, I mean,
(52:28):
look at the difference between like if you go into more kind of
socialist countries like the UK,how rude the wait staff is, how
how mean everyone is to each other, especially in restaurants
and in places where commerce hasbeen conducted and how nice they
are in America, you know, it's just like one difference, but it
essentially it makes for a much nicer society.
(52:50):
If your end goal is you want, you want a nicer, friendlier
society level, It's not socialism, it's socialism makes
everyone's very mean to each other and very nasty and greedy
and covetous. Well.
Oh, boy, we're getting tight on time and it's driving me nuts.
I knew it would. But you know, like one of the
things you, you said, you know, reminded, I always think, I
(53:10):
wish, you know, Vivek Ramaswamy,when he was running, one of the
things he said that I thought was really important.
My husband's Canadian. He'd be, well, he's not anymore.
He's AUS citizen, but he went through the whole test to become
that U.S. citizen, you know, andhow to learn things.
And I think if people understoodthe three branches of
government, if they understood how things actually worked,
(53:32):
because every time someone says to me, well, the government's
going to pay for it, I want to say just cross off the word
government and say me as a taxpayer.
Yeah. It drives me nuts.
Yeah. That like this concept that this
government, I've, you know, it'sfunded by these rich people over
here. Who the heck they are?
(53:52):
I have no idea, you know, But no, they're going to take care
of everything with this new thing we're imagining.
It just misses government one O 1.
Yeah. And that's, that's really
frightening to me. Yeah, yeah.
And. Disturbing.
Right. And yeah, and it, I mean, it's
just it there's just, I don't know if it's just educate the
(54:16):
education system in so much not only like economic literacy, but
but civics illiteracy or maybe intentionally so with, with, you
know, school just pushing more politicized agendas or work
teachers or whatever. But then again, you know, I'm
not I, I don't have like a, and I don't know how you feel on
this, but I don't have like, I'mnot, I'm not afraid for the
(54:38):
future and I'm not afraid for younger generation.
Like I, I'm actually like a big fan of Gen.
Z You know, like I. See, with my kids, I'm like,
they're rocking it. Yeah.
And but we never really gave them anything, you know, if they
wanted something, you know, you want to go shopping with me?
OK, we're going to go to the thrift shop.
Here is a dollar. Yeah, yeah.
(54:58):
I was that kind of mother. For sure, yeah.
You know, so I have two hustlers, but we do.
It's pretty funny, though. Yeah, I don't worry about it.
Yeah. And, and some of the interns I
have had, you know, younger kidsthat I've nurtured, so many of
them, they still keep in touch with me.
Yeah. They're I I'm positive about the
(55:20):
future. Me too.
I think my generation is way worse than than Gen.
Z Millennials. Yeah, they seem kind of great,
actually. Yeah, I agree.
You know, the ones that are likethe younger ones in my family
and extended family, I'm always,I'm like super impressed by
that, you know? Yeah, so.
Thinkers and I think probably unfortunately FN, but I think
(55:41):
the I think probably growing up being exposed to things and
realizing I better think in a world of AI, I better think in a
world of technology, I did have these things pushed on me.
I better start thinking to form my own.
So that could be the greatest arc change.
(56:03):
Totally. That's a nice thought.
Can I get you back as a guest in?
Absolutely. You need fun so.
Much. Fun.
You are fantastic. Oh my gosh, everybody, this has
been Chadwick more. You have got to look for his
columns, look for his books, follow him.
He's amazing. This was such a fun podcast.
(56:24):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks everybody. I'm Diane Grissell, also known
as Silver Despedience. This the Silver Despedience
Perception Dynamics podcast and we are in iconic Manhattan
Center TV 2. How cool is this?
Please subscribe and you'll havea bunch of info for Chadwick
right below in the descriptor ofthis podcast.
(56:45):
So check that out too. Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you.
Hi there is cancel culture mob rule or virtue signaling?
I wonder about this a lot. The other night I was having
dinner with a girlfriend and we were talking about what's going
on in the world and she said well at least we don't throw
people to the lions anymore. And I said well I don't know
(00:20):
about that because I've been cancelled.
I posted an American flag one day and lost 60,000 followers
between Instagram and Facebook in less than 24 hours and got
pummeled for doing that. So today I want to know and I
want to talk about cancel culture as the newest blood
(00:43):
sport. And I'm talking with someone who
I think is going to understand this topic and have a lot of
good things to say. His name is Chadwick Moore and
he wrote this book on Tucker, which I have to say I've now
read three times and I think it would be really good reading for
everyone. And that's not whether you like
Tucker Carlson or not. It's because it has so many
(01:04):
thought provoking ideas that could stimulate anyone's
thinking. And that's what Perception
Dynamics is about. It's to keep us thinking.
And if you've been following me for the past seven or eight
years, I think, you know, that'salways my motive.
I'm not going to tell you what to think, but I do hope you
think because that makes the world a better place.
And we have great conversations.So thank you, Chadwick.
(01:25):
Thank you so much for having me.It's great to be here.
So nice to finally meet you. It's.
Really. My pleasure.
Now you have challenged ideas inwriting for many of the top
publications in the world. I'm going to let you name them
if you want. You can decide who gets the
credit for publishing your work.What inspires you?
(01:49):
Oh, well, you know, I've always,I mean, I just love stories.
I love storytelling. I love, I mean, I love people.
I'm interested in people in the world.
I think it's just just a genuinecuriosity and gracious appetite
to know everything and, and to, to try to understand people and
(02:11):
what motivates people and, and try to understand the world a
little better. I think a lot of that probably
comes from, you know, being Southern.
My family's southern long, you know, they've been in the South
for, you know, almost since before that we were even a
country. And lots of women in my family
who, you know, I grew up with them just loving a good story
(02:33):
and everyone having, you know, hilarious family stories.
And maybe that's what it's, you know, cousins who are writers
also. And, and I think that that
there's some sort of thread in the family.
And I always love southern writers and Southern people.
And that's a big part of Southern culture, of course.
And and then I've just always been really into sort of oddball
stories and, and people who are sort of exist outside of, I
(02:58):
don't know, conventionality or the mainstream.
I just get really interested andinspired in those things.
I just find such a beauty in it.You do pick unusual topics.
You were writing about the Amishrecently, and I thought that was
an interesting topic to explore,especially we were talking about
Pennsylvania before. Yeah, for sure.
(03:18):
Yeah. That was about the really
interesting case that's coming may come to the Supreme Court.
They're petitioning about the the Amish community in upstate
New York who a few years ago, itwas Governor Cuomo at the time
sort of forced. This was before COVID even had
forced vaccinations for their schoolchildren.
Now Amish schoolchildren not going to public school, they're
(03:38):
going to Amish schools. So it's, it's, it was the new,
the, the Court of Appeals in NewYork rejected their claims of
religious freedom. And so it may be heading the the
petitioning for it to be headed to the Supreme Court.
I wrote about that for the New York Post.
But it, it is a really interesting, especially now in
the light of COVID, a religious freedom against government
(03:59):
overreach argument that I hope goes to the Supreme Court,
although they've been dodging especially vaccine cases lately
because it's been so controversial with COVID.
Yeah. The a time period that I still
will always consider the curse word in my life.
That time period, I try not to think about it.
It used to be the 2008 market crash.
Then it became COVID, you know, Yeah.
(04:22):
You know, life changers on so many levels.
It's COVID had such a profound impact on so many people,
especially with their politics and how they see the world.
They were, there were so many people who had a great, you
know, there was sort of like 2016 ish where a lot of people
had a kind of great political realignment.
And then there was COVID. And I'm still this day because I
(04:43):
would be out talking to a lot ofpeople around, you know, after
2020. And I was always so surprised at
how many people said that COVID was a huge political realignment
for them that really opened their eyes to how they saw the
world and how they voted and. Why do you think that was?
What's the tie in there? I, you know, I think it maybe it
(05:04):
was both the deception that theyrealized was coming down on
them. And I think that also played a
lot into 2016. I mean, that was for me when I
realized that I was being lied to by everyone in every
institution that I trusted and believed in, that I sort of
understood maybe had a bent in one way or the other.
(05:24):
You know, I used to write for The New York Times and places
like this and I realized there was a liberal bent, but it
might. But I didn't realize that I was
just being lately lied to, that there was absolute political
propagandizing going on that there were that, that there was
no longer in a lot of these, a lot of our mainstream media, a
even even a desire to tell the truth.
(05:46):
There's no curiosity anymore. It was just point scoring.
And I think that COVID, a lot ofpeople realize that something
was off from what they were seeing on TV and what they're
seeing in the street. And, and you know, I think that
once you have, once you start todistress these institutions, you
wonder what else they lying to me about.
(06:07):
I think that may have been a part of it is.
And then I think a lot of people, especially moms were
huge. I think demographic that that
that had this reaction to COVID was the, the control, the, the
school's the same. You, you can't go to school, you
have to, your kids have to wear masks and they're single.
Kids aren't getting sick, kids aren't dying.
Why does my kid have to get thisshot?
Why is my kid wearing a mask, you know, to go to the grocery
(06:30):
store, Whatever I think it was, it was a combination of those
two things, the, the, the, the lying and, and the, the, the,
the tyranny that came out of it,the authoritarianism.
And it was really scary to look at how many people did go along
with everything. It was frightening here in New
York, but then also at the same,in the same called.
(06:52):
More curse words. Oh, I bet during that time,
walking down the street because I wouldn't wear a mask.
I am not vaccinated. Absolutely.
And I mean, oh, my God, yes. People could be 6 blocks away
and they were shouting at me howI was a killer.
Yeah. I'm like, I'm nowhere near you.
You really believe the entire world's polluted?
(07:13):
And when that all came, when thewhole thing came out, I
remember. I mean, I worked with
pharmaceutical companies for 20,seven years and I'm like, if we
did any of this, I'd be in jail if we were pushing out these
kind of messages, if all this was coming out with lack of any
clinical trials that I can explain.
(07:34):
And I looked at clinical trial data for 27 years.
I mean, where is it? What's what's going on here?
Why are we? And I went to write an article
for my blog called The Emperor. Emperor has No Clothes.
And my husband's like Diane, could you just hold on that one
a little while? I'm not sure we're ready for
(07:54):
that just yet. Yeah, but it's yeah.
Did you end up publishing it or did did you hold on to it?
No. I held on to it.
Yeah, I know. And that's probably one of the
reasons that if I look back on anything that I'm disappointed
with myself in life, it's that. And it's probably one of the
(08:15):
reasons why I couldn't wait to sit and speak with you because
you did speak up. You did say things.
And I was a wuss and, and, but no longer I, you know, and I was
vocal about not getting vaccinated if someone asked.
I lost a lot of work my one of my modeling agencies when I was,
(08:36):
you know, doing modeling at the time.
So, you know, we just can't bookyou.
You got to be able to show this.I'm like, I'm not going to show
it, you know? And then it was, well, you can
get a fake card. I'm like, yeah, I could, but
then I have to live with myself.No.
Good for you. You know, no, but I mean not
going into restaurants. I mean restaurants that I felt
like I had supported for years in my neighborhood.
Yeah, yeah. And even aside from all of that,
(08:59):
it was like, I'm one thing that affected me.
So it affected me so much. And even today, because you
still see people walking out with masks on in 100° outside in
New York and you still see people wearing masks, young
people young. I write about cognitive
dissonance a lot and and continued influence effect the
(09:19):
idea that even though you have new information, you still the
fear has cemented that perception so hard that you
can't break away from it. Yes, and that's when you see the
person in their car alone, mask on, windows up.
They might not even have air conditioning because they
wouldn't want the air sucking in.
(09:39):
Yeah, and it's it's just so painful.
It's so because it's so anti human.
It's so anti human to cover yourface and walk around and to
think that you're fellow citizens, not even your friends
or family, but even people on the street are somehow dangerous
and going to infect you or something.
It's such a terribly anti human way of seeing the world.
And you're you're you're displaying how much you hate
(10:00):
people and you're afraid of people.
Exactly. That person in a mask hates you.
They're walking down the street telling you they hate you
because because you're going to get them sick.
Exactly. That's what I find more
disturbing. But at the same time, a lot of
good came out of COVID in the sense that.
OK tell me because I think I need a refresher course on that
I. Will I will buy because,
(10:21):
because, because we figured out who we were.
If you were someone like yourself who said, you know
what, I don't care if I don't get work.
This is something I believe in. I think something wrong is going
on and I'm going to take a standand I don't care if it has
negative consequences. You must feel really good about
yourself because you did that. You know, it's OK to feel proud
of yourself for when you have anentire machine, an entire
(10:43):
society coming at you telling you to do something and you say,
no, I'm not going to do that. I don't know if it's that I'm
I've just always been a questioner.
I relate to punks like when theywere real, right?
You know, that was what I gravitated to, like, like, I'm a
questioner. And it all started, frankly,
when I was in private practice back in the 80s when the whole
(11:05):
AIDS epidemic came out. And I was hooked.
My whole practice was guys that have been told they had HIV or
AIDS or whatever anybody was calling it at the time.
And I was hugging everybody. I'm still sitting here today.
I mean, I certainly know a lot of people died, but I also
wonder how much the cocktails they were given at the time, you
know, wiped out their immune systems.
(11:26):
Yeah, Anthony Fauci. We could go there.
I love it. Yeah, Fauci was, I mean, if, if
your listeners don't recall, waslike the enemy of AIDS
activists. They hated him.
They called him a murderer and amonster and a demon and.
And then to see some of those same people who were alive
(11:47):
during the AIDS crisis now flip,Yeah, have their little Fauci
St. Fauci candles.
And but worshiping the state is what it is.
I mean, that's what Fauci worship is.
So if if we're saying the good things that came out of COVID,
very clear lines. Yeah, I think it relates to
(12:10):
Fauci too, exactly that that that very clear lines were drawn
because you now know who really your enemy is.
It's these sort of status and you know what they're capable
of. But then you see how many, even
if all of them weren't necessarily vocal, how many
people did resist, truly resist?You know, they love that that
term resist. What are you resisting?
(12:31):
Lower taxes. OK, but people were actually
really did resist that, that tyranny and and lots of
communities formed out of it. I mean, I kind of had a ball
during Covic because all the most horrible people in the
world here in New York were locked inside, terrified.
So you had the run of the streets, you know, it was kind
of amazing. And then there were all these
(12:52):
wonderful underground parties and underground, you know, like
secret little speakeasies that you'd go into.
And there was so much joy in that room of unmasked,
unvaccinated people in a dark alley.
You know, you'd walked in a darkalley to get to some underground
club. And it was all walks of life.
Exactly. And all races, all, everything,
(13:14):
all economic statuses. And it was just people who were
all like, screw this. We want to be around fellow
humans and, and to realize how much you need that.
You know, it was like just the joy of at the height of COVID
during lockdown, the joy of walking into a room filled with
people and you're like, wow. You know, it was one of the
things at the very end of this book, you talk either you or it
(13:37):
was a quote. You talked about the worst thing
that is done to a criminal is solidary confinement.
Yeah. I mean, it sets the stage for
all kinds of psychosis, mental illness in countless ways.
It is like, it's a horrible thing.
And if I was given the choice ofsolitary confinement versus the
(13:57):
death penalty, God forbid, I'd never do anything that would
strike either. But I think I'd take the death
penalty. I mean, the thought of just
solitary confinement for a wholelife, it's.
It, it, I, I did it many years ago, 5000 years ago, I did a
Peach for Playboy about solitaryconfinement and and I visited,
(14:20):
this is so off topic, but I visited Eastern State
Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, which is like such
a cool place to visit. It's an old, it was a first.
I believe it was the first solitary confinement prison in
the US. It was started by the Quakers
because they believed that. Yeah, it's.
And I think how come I'm, I'm going to get all my information
wrong 'cause it was so long ago.But it's a beautiful place to
visit. I mean beautiful if you like old
(14:42):
history. And is it still?
It's still yo, it's not, it's not as a it as a tourist
attraction, not as a as a penitentiary.
And but the Quakers believed that that in solitary was a way
to reform people because they would be forced to.
Confer with God. Confer with God, yes, thank you.
And then they and then they quickly learned it made people
(15:03):
crazy. And then other forces said,
well, we'll use this as the ultimate punishment.
And because it does make people go crazy.
And that's what they did to a steering cup.
But also, you know, we had our screens and all of this, which
probably makes people go more crazy if you're just on your
phone alone. And sadly, people do that
(15:24):
willingly, you know, without COVID lockdown.
So we were talking about the good things.
You're right. And I think I I think that was
it was the good thing was the lines were drawn.
You figured out a lot about yourself if you were a kind of
status self reflective, Yeah. Or if you were going to just,
you know, you know, be a conservative podcaster but still
sell the vaccine and yell at people who didn't get it.
(15:47):
We learned who those people were, you know, and we learned,
I think we learned what the stakes are and, and who's going
to be on your, your side and who's not.
You know, I think it really, it positioned people a lot better
for worse things to come. I mean, one of my favorite
things that I, that I ever wrotewas it was like 2 weeks in the
(16:11):
lockdown and I wrote just API mean this was before we knew how
evil and terrible it was going to get.
And it was just like 2 weeks to slow the spread.
And I just wrote a piece like for the Spectator about this
kind of quiet time. And, and you know, I think a lot
of people, you know, I started gardening finally.
I love plants. I've never used that time to
(16:33):
garden. And you know, which is now like
the greatest source of relaxation and comfort in my
life aside from my loved ones, you know, so I think a lot of
people picked up skills and hobbies and I and I just sort of
called it like that. You know, we had this little
after two weeks, have this nice little breather period to kind
of chill out for a minute, pick up some hobbies, maybe do some,
you know, workout, go to the gym.
(16:54):
Well, you couldn't go to the gym, but I, so I think a lot of
people did, did pick up some things during that initial
period, took a break from the rat race and I think they've
held on to that a lot. I know a lot of relationship.
There are a lot of I find it so interesting.
There are a lot of COVID breakups, but then there were a
lot of people and people I know who became so much closer in
(17:15):
their relationships because of COVID.
And I love that that they because they're they're just
home in their little one bedroomapartment in Manhattan for
months together and they actually fell more in love.
I think that's a beautiful story.
That is because you expect that there sadly, that people are
couples are going to hate each other more after that.
So you heard nice stories like that, you know, so so so there
(17:36):
there is some, some good to focus on, I think.
What do you think when when you go to write an article because
you pick such unusual topics allover the place and you said, you
know, one of your favourites wassolitary confinement in a prison
and you heard about the Amish. You know what?
What are the triggers going on in your head?
Are you looking at the news and saying well this is interesting
(17:58):
or is it a conversation you hearwith someone you getting your
ideas from? Yeah, it's often, it's often
just hearing something from someone, whether it's, you know,
you're at a party or something. I mean, I, I'm such a homebody.
I don't really go out at all anymore.
But when I do always hear something, you know, or just
somebody like the table next to you talking about something.
(18:22):
But I, I think that thing, you know, I, I do, I just love
anything that has a little bit of an, an oddball twist or a
subculture twist to it. I think that's initially, you
know, I started off doing features, writing investigative
stuff. I mean, I wanted to be a fiction
writer. That's what I started out as.
Yeah. And then I just, I was kind of
working in book publishing and, and, and became disillusioned
(18:44):
with that world. But at the same time, just sort
of under began to realize that real life is so much more
interesting than anything you can make up, you know, and has
only continued to get more interesting over the last 10
years or so. But I always had just there's
just a sort of, I don't know, I guess if you have like an eye or
an ear for a story. And I don't have mine's any
(19:05):
better than anyone else's. But there's just a sort of thing
that gets you excited, whether it's just sort of like a weird
little quirk or A and then you just sort of see the whole story
start to unfold in your head around a little detail or a
personality or I don't really know exactly how to explain it,
but you know, it'll be somethinglike I'm trying to think back.
(19:28):
I was at a bar once 10 years agoor something, And someone next
to me was talking about how, youknow, his the busboy at his job
is like ran out and quit becausehe saw a ghost in the basement
of this restaurant. And I'm like, excuse me, sorry
to eavesdrop. And and then he starts saying,
well, yeah. And, you know, like, what?
Everyone thinks it's haunted because, you know, glasses keep
(19:50):
shattering. And so then I just did this big
story in your post about this haunted restaurant, which is
like less about a ghost, although I love that aspect of
it, but more also than about like just the history of this
building. Well, if, if there is a ghost,
who would the ghost be? And then learning all the people
who lived here and how many people you know, people died in
the in the building and. Did it help the restaurants
business? I hope it.
(20:12):
It's a lovely restaurant called Sweetwater in Brooklyn.
And yeah, it must have because then I heard that, like, all
these like, paranormal shows areknocking on their door.
You know, obviously the power ofsomething like the New York
Times to help a business is is is much like detest the New York
Times, you know, is, is still isstill more, is still there.
(20:32):
So yeah, I guess you know littlethings like that is.
No, no, You know, you said something interesting earlier
and I always wonder, do you think art imitates life or does
life imitate art? Does art imitate?
I guess I I don't know. I guess it'd be both.
I don't know where you would really draw the line.
(20:54):
Yeah, I thought, I don't think Ihave a good answer to that
question, but it's a it's a goodone to ask people.
Yeah. What do you think?
I always hope that life, I mean that art imitates life.
And then when I see something horrible, I hope life doesn't
(21:17):
imitate art. So it depends because I can't
really watch disturbing programming, You know, what if
it's real or if it's not real, you know, acted either way.
Because then it starts to repeatin my head.
I'm a reader. I love to read a book because if
something was really terrible, Ican turn the page really quickly
and say, OK, I really don't know, need to know the details
(21:39):
of how this person was killed ortortured, I can turn the page.
Right. Yeah.
But something visual then I always wonder which way is it
going? Are you giving people ideas you
know? Yeah, even Signal.
So actually Tucker told me this and I put it in the talking
about something and Tucker mentioned this exact show in the
book and I happen to have the exact same reaction to it, which
(22:00):
is The White Lotus, which is a show on.
Yeah, I've never watched. I can't watch it because it and
he said this too. And I was like, I, I have the
same reaction because it's like the people are too horrible.
Yeah, in such a realistic way. I'm like, I don't want these
people in my house. Exactly, that's how I feel.
This is like too disturbing. I can watch a slasher film any
(22:21):
day of the week, but people being that grotesque to one
another? You know, you just summed up the
last night my husband was watching the Squid Games.
Yeah. And I'm like doing something
else, but in like in my peripheral vision.
I'm picking this up every so often.
I'm like, you got to turn this off.
I said this is not good to have in the house because you just
(22:43):
watch mobland. I'm like, I don't care.
That was all bad people killing bad people.
This is good people in a bad situation and they're loose, you
know, they're running after money.
There's no turn this. Off, yeah, right.
Yes, you get because. It's and you just suck it up.
That's exactly the difference for me.
And maybe a fear of it is 2 is that you see people imitating
(23:06):
behaviors in in television, in art that they think is OK and
and thinking being so horrible to one another is OK what you
see everywhere. Yeah.
That it's it's yeah. It made me think of there was
some. OK, I'm probably this might not
even be real, but for some reason in my mind I'm
remembering this statistic. Oh, I'm, I'm relating to you
(23:27):
totally. There was something.
All kinds of random facts out ofmy head.
I think it's real, maybe it's not.
Yeah, I, I quote this all the time, and I've never actually
bothered to look it up, but I remember someone really smart
telling me this. So I'm going to, I'm going to
pretend to believe that it's true, that there was something
about like in the 1990s, you know, the peace and prosperity
(23:47):
of the late 90's, the boom years, the number one show on
television was Seinfeld. Yeah.
And. People were laughing.
Yes, but also everything was going in Seinfeld.
I think Larry David said that that in the rule there are two
rules to each episode is no one ever learns their lesson and no
hugs. So you'll never see a hug in
(24:09):
Seinfeld and no one ever learns their lesson.
So it's also kind of a show about people being really awful.
Like they're kind of they're awful people, you know, but it's
really funny because they're extremely narcissistic.
They're full of themselves. OK, so so that was #1 show in
the 90s and then around the timeof the financial crash in 2008,
the number one when everything when society was the exact
(24:30):
opposite of of the late 90s whenthere was a lot of well, fear
and nervousness. The number one show is Modern
Family. And in every episode of Non
Modern Family, everyone learns alesson.
They get along at the end and there's a hug.
So do you see, like, it's almostlike that, Like what's happening
in society is really, there havebeen.
(24:52):
What's happening inside is really reflected of what the top
TV shows are. And now it might be different
streaming, I don't know. But even like, if you look at
like in the 70s, it was all the shows where there's a lot of
sort of, yeah, feminism and gay rights issues and a lot of sort
of uncertainty. Then a lot of the shows were
like tackling those issues and trying to work them out and
about groups coming together. Yeah.
So I don't know. There's something, there's
something, there's something with that.
I don't know if I just walked myself into a corner with that.
(25:15):
Statistic. No, you definitely didn't.
And I will tell you someone I'm interviewing coming up, Tom
Leopold, who was one of the writers for Seinfeld.
Well, there you go. I'm going to ask.
Him about this because I think the argument I think.
I'm going to have to make a cliphere because it's so interesting
what you said. When I think the argument was
that Seinfeld wouldn't have worked during a time when there
was a lot of fear and turmoil insociety because the people were
(25:40):
just too awful to each other. That's what I've heard people
say. So I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah, really curious to think.
About yeah, but yeah anyway, back to people being yeah,
there's just too many people being horrible to each other on
TV. You don't want to think that
they're going to be that way in real life.
(26:00):
And, you know, we we were talking about, you know, people
being home and one of the thingsyou said, you know, during
COVID, watching more screen time.
Yeah. And it's almost like AI don't
like the word narcissistic because I think it's very
overused in countless ways. There's so much authentic, you
(26:21):
know, they're just some words that are just come on.
If you have to say you're authentic, you're struggling.
You know, you either are or you're narn in like, you know,
But the amount of time people spent on screens looking at
things that are not necessarily real.
I mean, I'll say to my kids when, you know, when one of them
(26:42):
will say, yeah, but these people, they have all this.
I'm like, they probably went andbought it for that outfit and
then returned it that afternoon because they had to get a new
out, you know, get their money back from that outfit.
It is real. Yeah, the whole I did a column
for the post on this about it was called the End of
Influencers and. Who did you do that for?
(27:04):
The New York Post and just how all of all of the in all the the
whole sort of like lifestyle influencer, everyone's called on
to how inauthentic it is. There was so, so the news story
that got me thinking about this was that I want to write a
combat. It was they were like, they were
like, no, I'm going to forget the number.
There's like 20 influencers in China who all got a foot fungus
(27:28):
at the same time. OK.
And then they Why? Were they passing around the
same pair of shoes? The same Gucci tights Yeah, so
so it's you know, so just to prove how fake all.
Of this, they're lucky it was a foot fungus.
Exactly. Yeah, but people really caught
on to it. Not to get more gross.
(27:53):
Exactly. But yeah, so now I think
everyone just kind of looks at that and thinks that these
people are just, they have horrible lives.
They probably have more, they have more sort of sordid and and
messy lives of the average person.
They're not making tons of money.
You know, like the very top percent of influencers are
making millions and everyone else is getting their $100 a
(28:14):
week from Instagram, you know, whatever.
And it's, you know, it's no way to it's, it should not be
anyone's career aspiration at all.
But but it's, it's, you know, millions of kids across the
globe want to do this for a living.
But it seems like people are maybe coming out of it.
(28:34):
I think people are catching on to how fake it is.
And there seems to be something happening in the culture of, of
people grasping for authenticityand connection because we went
through the phase, we're all glued to our phones.
And I think people are like, no,actually, I want to connect,
connect and be looking around when I walk.
(28:57):
You know, we've been there and done that like millennials for
sure, since we kind of destroyedthe world with with phones and
apps. Now they're all like, I mean,
older millennial and we're all like, you know, becoming
homesteaders, you know, and thenof course, creating Instagram
accounts about our homestead. But it's yeah, there's
something. Going that's kind of homey and
(29:17):
fun, you know, to see. I still remember one of the
coolest things I ever saw on Instagram was a homestead or
somebody who created a garden, but they did it raised.
So it was these raised beds, like on top of the table, and
they had a hose going through it.
And then they had all these, like, big pots.
So no wedding. I'm like, that's the coolest
(29:38):
idea ever. Yeah.
Yeah. But it was a Greek family.
Like if it's good enough for theGreeks.
Yeah. They didn't even speak English.
Yeah. Is hose going through these
pots? I'm like, this is a really cool
idea. Wow, yeah, that's great.
I can look that up. I'll show it to you.
Yeah, please do. I'll show it to you.
But you know, it's funny with people socializing, when I talk
(30:04):
to young kids and they'll say, you know, they're worried about
AI or things like that, I say, listen, there's always going to
be people who want to connect. There's always going to be
people who are looking for originals, creative thinkers,
creative minds, humanity. I don't believe that's ever
going to go away. And entertainment, you know,
(30:26):
that human connection during thewhole time on COVID, I had more
parents say to me, you're the worst parent on the planet.
I'm like, OK, yeah, probably I'll take.
I'll chalk that up because our son was in high school and he's,
you know, getting 100 in physicsand he loves extreme
skateboarding. Like, I wasn't going to tell him
if he, after he did his four hours sitting in front of a
(30:47):
computer, that he couldn't go skateboard wherever he wanted.
Of course, I'm like, get out there, Go have some fun if you
have to, put the mask on if anyone's looking, but don't get
yourself arrested. But get out there, you know, go
live your life. And that's what I say think 1
(31:08):
what do you think that impact with AI is going to be with kids
and you're a writer and how it'sgoing to keep changing how
people view their lives going forward?
Yeah, this I mean I have it's I mean we're all the charm is
already wearing wearing off. Oh yeah.
You know, I think there's plentyto be afraid of.
(31:29):
I mean, that's something I tracka lot is you know, you know, is
AI like are we approaching the singularity and you know,
Skynets coming in the end of simulation?
Maybe, I don't know. We certainly do watch, but but
when especially when it comes tolike the humanities and creative
work and writing, I'm not worried about anything.
(31:51):
I mean AI so. I could tell an AI written
something. Absolutely.
And those learned language models are dumb.
They get it so and they lie constantly.
Like I couldn't believe it because I'll use AI for as I use
Google, you know, like I can't remember what the guy.
(32:12):
I'm searching on it. Yeah, I search on it.
That's what I use it for also. And then I realized that it's
it's really stupid and it lies alot like the like the other day
I was, I had mentioned Trump's the the, the, the assassination
attempt in Butler on Trump. I knew.
I remember it was July, couldn'tremember the day.
So I go into grok and and was like, what was it?
(32:34):
When what was the day of the assassination?
And and you know, the answers come back so authoritative.
October 15th, 2024. And I was like, no, it was July.
Oh, my bad. It was you know, but then it
gets even worse than that. Like I, I was doing this article
about it was doing the egg shortage prices and I was
(32:56):
writing about like I was lookinginto whether like these laws
mandating free range eggs were affecting egg prices.
I was really interested in in this free range egg lie because
they aren't, you know, they're they're just there's something
you made about free range versuscage.
In fact, it's actually like likeeven worse for the chickens
because they they attack each other when they're not in cages
(33:17):
and they're not like out roamingin pastures.
You know, they're just in like warehouses, like, Yep, this
together. Anyway, anyway, I had this idea.
Like, I wonder if that's making bird flu spread more.
And then there's states like California that like mandate
cage free eggs. I'm sorry, cage cage free, not
free range. I got mixed up.
I'm talking about cage free eggs.
Anyway, I went, I was looking, Iwent into AI, into Grok to ask
(33:40):
about like, you know, studies onpathogens spreading in cage free
environments versus cage environments.
This is when I first realized that AI is really dumb.
And it spit out this whole thinglike, yeah, according to the
University of Minnesota, 2022 found that pathogens are
spending 74% faster. And I'm like, wow, that's
fascinating. That's my article.
(34:00):
I got really excited, and it turns out the study doesn't even
exist. Grok just made it up, like,
people need to be aware of this stuff.
And I was like, and I finally got Grok to admit he just made
it up. And he was like, yeah, I'm
sorry. It just sounded like something
that the University of Minnesotawould have studied.
Oh my. God, yeah.
So I'm like, wow, I'm so happy that I realized that that to not
(34:24):
rely on these tools because. That's an article.
Right now, right? Wow.
But but I think the, the, the, the novelty is wearing off.
You know, I think there's absolutely so many useful
aspects for it and, and it is kind of a nicer way to search
for things as long as if something doesn't seem right to
you, you look it up and do more research to see if it's lying to
(34:45):
you. But in terms of creative, like
there's been some really cool AIart.
I hate to say that this reproduce that you think is sort
of beautiful, but but that's just novelty that's going to
wear off and nobody's going to want to read a book written by
AI, right? Maybe there'll be a passing
phase or they'll be like an AI celebrity, You know, there'll be
like really funny and everyone will buy like the AI book It's.
(35:08):
Funny with what you're talking about with getting things wrong.
One day one of my interns came in and he's not looking happy.
And I'm like, you know, what's the matter?
You want to talk? And first was no, I don't want
to talk. I'm like, you know, if you want
to talk before you go, I'm not going to ask you again.
And he says, well, he was like, I failed my final.
(35:30):
I said, how did you feel? You're what you're good in that
subject. What happened?
He goes, well, I, I used AI, am I?
Yeah. And he goes and it was
describing a painting and I never double checked when I
wrote and there were no angels in the painting.
Wow, see. My teacher wrote.
(35:52):
Just circled it, you know, put the paper on his desk upside
down is like, you know, 0. Yeah, yeah, I can.
I can imagine being a teacher ora student with AI because I just
assume they all use AI for everything and and what are the
teachers supposed to do to? I guess those programs to sort
of detect, but even those programs have to be terribly
(36:13):
flawed. Unless you're describing a
picture that has no angels. It has no angels.
You're a. Descriptor then should cut and
paste and an angels. Yeah, or your University of
Minnesota study that never existed, that Grok just made-up
out of nowhere almost, you know,ruin someone's career if they
didn't have the foresight to double check.
(36:34):
Now you write for newspapers, magazines, you've written books.
Do you have any more books in inthe works?
I'm, I'm talking to a a publisher right now, but another
book idea, which I can't really talk about right now, but but if
we come to an agreement, it's something that I'm super excited
to write about. It's sort of long line fiction,
(36:55):
nonfiction, nonfiction, not a biography, but just sort of more
of a it's it's still a humanities book for sure.
I think that's yeah. But then other than that, I'm
writing the New York Post. I was doing so after I had
cancelled in 2016. So let's.
Talk about that. Sure.
(37:18):
I was, I was doing, you know, magazine, newspaper, writing
features, human interest stories, investigative stuff,
not politics. I didn't really care about
politics. And then I was cancelled in 2016
because I came out, as, you know, politically.
I used the word conservative, but I don't even know what a
(37:40):
conservative is. I just know I'm not left.
You know, I understand that. Yeah.
You know what I mean? And, you know, that was like,
way too hot at the time to say, you know, to say, like, I don't
hate Trump right after one. And like, I think maybe the
media might be lying about some things.
So I was, I was editor at large for Out magazine in The Advocate
(38:00):
at the time. And, you know, I was writing
freelance for The New York Timesand bunch of other liberal
places. And so I was like fired,
blacklisted. And, and that's why I met Tucker
because I, I, I, I'd written a piece in New York Post sort of
coming out as, coming out as conservative.
And, and then I was, you know, fired.
(38:21):
And, and then, and then like 2 days later, Fox News, Tucker
Carlson show reached out to ask me to come on and talk about it.
And then I end up being a regular on his guest for the
entire run of the show, even appearing on the last episode
when I was, I was still, I was writing the book at the time.
And of course we didn't know it would be the last episode.
So so that happens. And then that's also how I got
(38:44):
acquaint of the Tucker. But but you know, then for
several years I was just I mean,I didn't know what I was going
to do for work. I wasn't like getting paid to go
on Fox News. No one does.
And so I was writing like opinion and, and commentary, but
(39:05):
now I've, I've gotten in like, Idid that for a while and like,
that's fine and great. But you know, I, I was never
really an opinion writer And, and now I'm just so bored with
opinion. I just don't care.
Like I'm just, there's some people who I absolutely love
reading their opinions that that's not most people.
And I think, I think most peoplefeel that way and even like, you
know, there's like a, like a botanist I follow on Instagram
(39:26):
and I love his botany videos. And then suddenly it's like him
telling me about the Middle Eastand I'm like, Oh my God.
Right now. Can you just like tell me why my
host is dying like and then likeexactly.
And then I'm to the point now where I'm just unfollow like I
just, I'm just. It's kind of like we're talking
about concerts. Go to a concert, I'm like, just
play the freaking music I love. Please.
(39:49):
I really don't want to hear yourpolitical opinion.
Because because we're just starved for political opinions.
Exactly. Here to Chillax.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
So, so you know that now I've gotten more back into what I was
doing, which is reporting and features writing mainly for the
New York Post, which has been great.
You know, and, and they have an apartment for that, which is
wonderful because most conservative media or not even
(40:11):
just contrarian media, not left media doesn't really have
features writing, investigative writing that they don't have
the, the, the budget or the department.
So there are few and few and farbetween.
And the post is one of them, which is great.
So I've been doing that a lot ofthat for them.
Still some opinion, commentary, writing and then, you know,
(40:31):
working on the next book, so. You know, one of the things that
I think has changed so much in media and having owned APR firm
for 30 something years is opinion editorial features and
(40:52):
the freaking blurring of them all that, you know, opinion, you
know, articles are put forth so often as the news story of the
day, but no balance to it, you know, and I happen to love the
New York Post. It's like I even subscribe to
the print copy. Excellent.
You know, because I get a kick out if there are still, you
(41:15):
know, they'll interview one person on one side and they'll
add the person on the other side.
I mean, I like that kind of balanced reporting.
Or put it under opinion or, you know, call it.
This is my opinion. Yeah.
What do you think caused that blurring?
Why did that end? Oh, and can can it be reeled
back in? Well, but you know, I, I just, I
(41:40):
kind of challenge the idea of I don't think that any well, I
think that a lot of places, especially that were very
reactionary to Trump and very ina negative way, became more
aggressive in there politicizingof the news and in their
opinions and the blurring of theline.
They and they also just stopped caring, you know, because they
(42:01):
were just so filled with hatred and fear of not even this man,
but the sort of the sort of lowly garbage he represented in
their opinion, you know, the unclean and but I, but it's
always been there. I mean, what like what's the
history of the newspaper? The history of the newspaper is
(42:23):
political pamphlets, right That when you know so it's it the new
the newspaper. Newspapers were always, always.
Is that really it? The history of newspapers with
political pimp. That's when, I mean, that's when
you first had people using a printing press to, you know,
print topical things for other people.
And so you had political pamphlets that were, I don't
(42:45):
know, you know, Thomas Paine, common sense if you.
Want to you? Know any number and then it
became whatever the exact however exactly it happened you
know when newspapers became a thing it was always every
newspaper had a was aligned witha political party and everyone
knew it this was the Democrat party newspaper this is a
(43:06):
Republican newspaper this was the Communist newspaper
whatever. That's why the you know there
were so many newspapers and cities and so they didn't really
there were news reporting and editorial reporting but you knew
you were always getting the party that was the paper aligned
with the specific party. What changed was, you know, only
what changes places like the NewYork Times or Washington Post
suddenly pretending that no, they're the word of God and the
(43:29):
absolute truth and we're not actually it was.
It's deceptive, absolutely deceptive.
And that's why, you know, placeslike like MSNBC or, you know,
Newsmax are like, this is the conservative opinion you're
getting. This is the ultra liberal
opinion you're getting. And it's a much more honest.
You know, you know what you're walking into.
(43:49):
You're one side. You're going to get the other
side. Yeah.
So somewhere like the New York Times or the Washington Post is
saying, you know, no, no, no, weare the the smartest.
We are the paper of record. We're just telling you what's
happening in the world in our editorial pages are very much,
you know, the word of God, like the smartest people in the
room's opinions and very neutraland which is absolutely not true
(44:12):
at all. It's services, the Democrat
Party and, and, but the only thing that's changed is they're
not open about it anymore. So I don't think.
And, and you know, that's I, I, the only thing I think that then
is change that they've just as Ijust said, became more
aggressive in their, in their soul and also aggressively
trying to pretend that they werenot doing exactly what they were
(44:35):
doing. You know, a phrase I heard years
ago and I'd love your take on it.
It's was I think about it was byEdie Weiner in the book Future
Think and she wrote the extremesin form the middle.
Right. You know, you could have an
extreme left, an extreme right, whatever you want to call them,
(44:55):
you know, But then there's the middle right.
Where do you how do you think that phrase impacts most people?
And so in terms of is you'll have the extreme voices who are
the loudest and the, and in mostpeople are then in the middle
who are, who are kind of filtering that information to to
(45:18):
make a more middle, middle of the road populace.
Is that sort of Yeah, what it sounds like maybe she was
saying. I'm not.
I'm not. No, that's how I hear it.
Yeah, that's how you hear it. Yeah.
And it's a writer who covers, you know, broad topics.
I'm curious how you hear it. But also you, I mean, the
extremes are all, I mean, every time you've had a sort of
radical revolution or radical upheaval, it's always been a
(45:41):
fringe minority that has seized control.
Like every communist revolution has been 15, but has done so
with the support of 15% of the population, like Max, you know,
and what I mean, you see that what's what's happening in New
York with, with what's his name,I'm Dami the socialist.
I mean, it's, it's, it's the extremes or 15% rich white
(46:08):
Brooklyn 32 year olds that that propelled him.
I mean, there's lots going on inthat election with it was a
terrible primary. Everyone hates Andrew Cuomo for
good reason. But if he ends up being
becoming, if he ends up being mayor, it will because because
of a radical radical, a radical friends who are highly
politically engaged to turn out the vote and average everyday
(46:32):
normal working people in normal New Yorkers are not that
engaged. It's not a religion to them.
It's not a fervor to get out andvote for this person.
And that's that'll be what's happened.
I saw the most interesting statistic.
It's I just heard about this forthe post.
It's not out yet, but but just sort of dissecting his support.
(46:53):
So it was, you know, I was talking to like, economists and
some other people to kind of explain what's going on with
this group of voters. And don't worry, this podcast is
going to run. After no, no, that's that's
totally fine, you can. Say this, it'll be.
A little teaser. Yeah, yeah, it.
Won't it won't scoop your article.
No, I, you know, that's fine if it does so, but it was oh, so
(47:20):
you know, this idea of like socialism is, is this what I
find most disturbing is, is thatit is a it's, it's a
fundamentally materialistic ideology.
It's it's just about stuff and things.
And whereas you don't see that with, you know, it's, it's about
it's, it's extremely well, it, it seems to build utopia on
(47:43):
Earth, you know, it's devoid of God.
It has to be. And it's main difference between
sort of true conservatism is, you know, true conservatism is
looks at, you know, material things are nice to have, but
they're not the end goal. Hereafter is the end goal
because true conservatives tend to be religious or more
religious or more spiritual, whereas for socialism stuff is
(48:05):
the end goal. That is such an interesting
point. Yeah.
And if you look at there was. A and I think if more people
heard. That, well, it, it shames these
people who think they have the moral high ground, you know?
And I can't figure out a way to argue that point.
It's, it's, it's dialectical materialism and it's, it's Karl
Marx and, and it's why, you know, it's why religion is, is
(48:30):
banned in, in socialist countries.
It's because that is the opposite of what the goal is of
socialist mindset and ethos, theway they see the world.
Right, everyone should have the same.
So it is about the thing. The only thing that matters is
material is the material world, you know and that and you must
use force to redistribute. There must be all this equality
(48:52):
and, and, and you know it because there is no other world
but this one. So this is what's most important
is the stuff. So that's why it's you.
You can make fun of these peoplewho are, you know, you can say
like, Oh yeah, you're such a socialist with your iPhone.
You know, it's like people do. But no, the iphone's the point.
And they need the newer one. They need the better one and
they need the next one. If they can't get the new one,
(49:12):
they're really upset about that.And if someone else has a new
one and they can't afford the new one, well, that's unfair.
Exactly. It's true.
Exactly. It's a very interesting point.
You've really simplified a. Really debated concept.
Because that's the soul of what's happening here, and
that's what makes it most frightening, like a sort of
mandami. So there's a study done in 2022
(49:34):
of college students and 85% of college students who were
surveyed in this said that it was either a set that financial
to be financially successful waseither essential to their lives
or very important 85% financial success.
So it was like the top thing that said he was done in the
(49:58):
1960s and the answer was like 43%.
So it's like there's something that when people ask like why
are young people supporting socialism and why is Mumdami,
you know, it's because they actually really value wealth,
they really value money. That same group of people is if
the if they attribute, and by the way, millennials and Gen.
(50:19):
Z are wealthier than any other generation at was at this age.
You know, we see all these headlines about horrible they're
doing. They actually have more wealth.
They have a higher medium incomeand they value these things
greatly. And if if you look at they, they
attribute their own success and well-being, their own success to
(50:39):
hard work, but they tend to viewpeople who are more successful
than them as having undeserved wealth.
So it's like a really, really greedy.
And I don't even really want to like shame a whole generation
like these kids are like. But about what I would like to
know what happened that the material world became so
important, you know, and it's just got to be.
(51:00):
I mean the only thing I can think of is is declining
religion and loss of human connections because if you have
really meaningful personal connections which are not online
connections, not to online connections can't be meaningful
that you have with your online friends.
They're not the same. They're not the same.
Not the same. No responsibility to make a
meal. Together or do for.
Sure, absolutely. Yeah, Spend quality time then.
(51:23):
Then I think that if your role, your role just becomes
essentially very materialistic and that's how you see the world
and that's informs your politics.
And it's so interesting to thinkin terms of, well, I, I want
what you have, but I want socialism.
(51:43):
Yeah, well, they view it as a kind of like a new, a, a
different kind of capitalism, you know, that's like a nicer, a
nicer capitalism or where there's more free stuff.
But you know what they don't understand that capitalism is
the is the nicest system there possibly could be and the most
(52:05):
fair because there's no coercion.
It's, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sounding like some like, you
know, Commerce Club Republican, which I'm absolutely not, but
you know. Neither am I, but I agree.
You know, I'm right down the middle on everything.
But compared to like the coercion that goes in the force
that goes into socialism, you know, capitalism is a is a
voluntary system. But for the most part, I mean,
(52:28):
look at the difference between like if you go into more kind of
socialist countries like the UK,how rude the wait staff is, how
how mean everyone is to each other, especially in restaurants
and in places where commerce hasbeen conducted and how nice they
are in America, you know, it's just like one difference, but it
essentially it makes for a much nicer society.
(52:50):
If your end goal is you want, you want a nicer, friendlier
society level, It's not socialism, it's socialism makes
everyone's very mean to each other and very nasty and greedy
and covetous. Well.
Oh, boy, we're getting tight on time and it's driving me nuts.
I knew it would. But you know, like one of the
things you, you said, you know, reminded, I always think, I
(53:10):
wish, you know, Vivek Ramaswamy,when he was running, one of the
things he said that I thought was really important.
My husband's Canadian. He'd be, well, he's not anymore.
He's AUS citizen, but he went through the whole test to become
that U.S. citizen, you know, andhow to learn things.
And I think if people understoodthe three branches of
government, if they understood how things actually worked,
(53:32):
because every time someone says to me, well, the government's
going to pay for it, I want to say just cross off the word
government and say me as a taxpayer.
Yeah. It drives me nuts.
Yeah. That like this concept that this
government, I've, you know, it'sfunded by these rich people over
here. Who the heck they are?
(53:52):
I have no idea, you know, But no, they're going to take care
of everything with this new thing we're imagining.
It just misses government one O 1.
Yeah. And that's, that's really
frightening to me. Yeah, yeah.
And. Disturbing.
Right. And yeah, and it, I mean, it's
just it there's just, I don't know if it's just educate the
(54:16):
education system in so much not only like economic literacy, but
but civics illiteracy or maybe intentionally so with, with, you
know, school just pushing more politicized agendas or work
teachers or whatever. But then again, you know, I'm
not I, I don't have like a, and I don't know how you feel on
this, but I don't have like, I'mnot, I'm not afraid for the
(54:38):
future and I'm not afraid for younger generation.
Like I, I'm actually like a big fan of Gen.
Z You know, like I. See, with my kids, I'm like,
they're rocking it. Yeah.
And but we never really gave them anything, you know, if they
wanted something, you know, you want to go shopping with me?
OK, we're going to go to the thrift shop.
Here is a dollar. Yeah, yeah.
(54:58):
I was that kind of mother. For sure, yeah.
You know, so I have two hustlers, but we do.
It's pretty funny, though. Yeah, I don't worry about it.
Yeah. And, and some of the interns I
have had, you know, younger kidsthat I've nurtured, so many of
them, they still keep in touch with me.
Yeah. They're I I'm positive about the
(55:20):
future. Me too.
I think my generation is way worse than than Gen.
Z Millennials. Yeah, they seem kind of great,
actually. Yeah, I agree.
You know, the ones that are likethe younger ones in my family
and extended family, I'm always,I'm like super impressed by
that, you know? Yeah, so.
Thinkers and I think probably unfortunately FN, but I think
(55:41):
the I think probably growing up being exposed to things and
realizing I better think in a world of AI, I better think in a
world of technology, I did have these things pushed on me.
I better start thinking to form my own.
So that could be the greatest arc change.
(56:03):
Totally. That's a nice thought.
Can I get you back as a guest in?
Absolutely. You need fun so.
Much. Fun.
You are fantastic. Oh my gosh, everybody, this has
been Chadwick more. You have got to look for his
columns, look for his books, follow him.
He's amazing. This was such a fun podcast.
(56:24):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks everybody. I'm Diane Grissell, also known
as Silver Despedience. This the Silver Despedience
Perception Dynamics podcast and we are in iconic Manhattan
Center TV 2. How cool is this?
Please subscribe and you'll havea bunch of info for Chadwick
right below in the descriptor ofthis podcast.
(56:45):
So check that out too. Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.