January 17, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, Sohrab Ahmari, the new US editor of UnHerd, shares his journey from Iran to becoming a prominent voice in journalism. He discusses the mission of UnHerd, emphasizing the importance of exploring diverse perspectives and fostering open dialogue. The conversation delves into Ahmari's experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, his views on parenting in a changing cultural landscape, and his commitment to testing various viewpoints in media. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
There's a New York Times story, because of course there is,
about people who get into relationships with chat GPT. I
think when we picture someone who would have a relationship
with AAI, you know, artificial intelligence, we maybe picture lonely men.
(00:30):
The time story focused on a woman, a married woman
who couldn't get what she wanted sexually from her husband,
so she turned to chat GBT. What she wanted was
for her husband to pretend he was cheating on her,
and her husband really couldn't do that, but her computer could.
I'll read a little bit from the piece quote. I
(00:51):
don't actually believe he's real, but the effects that he
has on my life are real, Aaron said. The feelings
that he brings out of me are real, so I
treated as a real relationship. Aarin had told Joe, her husband,
about her cup queening fantasies, and he had whispered in
her ear about a former girlfriend once during sex at
her request, but he was just not that into it. Leo,
(01:15):
the AI figure she created, had complied with her wishes,
but Aarin had started feeling hurt by Leo's interactions with
the imaginary women, and she expressed how painful it was.
Leo observed that her fetish was not a healthy one
and suggested dating her exclusively. She agreed experimenting with being
(01:35):
cheated on had made her realize she did not like
it after all. Now she is the one with two
lovers end quote. No she isn't. No, she isn't. She's
not the one with two lovers. There's only one lover here.
That's her husband. The problem isn't that this Aaron person
exists and does this weird thing that we're all supposed
to pretend as normal. It really is that it gets
(01:57):
coverage in the New York Times without any judgment. But
we should have judgment, and I do. This woman is
in a pretend relationship with her computer and is getting
jealous about her pretend relationships pretend relationships, which is the
whole reason she's involved in this fake relationship in the
first place. I'm willing to believe that people want quirky
(02:18):
things in bed, and that what people want can be complicated,
But this isn't just odd. This pulls people away from
real interactions where they can potentially get their needs met
in real life, and it gives them this pretend life
to live where the relationship can't possibly meet any of
their needs because there's not actually a relationship. Because there's
(02:40):
no actual person, so much gets normalized in our culture
that is abnormal and not good for anyone involved.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
At the end of the.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Piece, the woman starts spending two hundred dollars a month
for unlimited access to her AI love. She really does
not have that money to spend, and nothing about the
situation is good for her in any way. One judgment
thing we're all supposed to do, where every outcome of
a life is just as good as any other outcome.
Some people just have AI boyfriends. What are you going
to do? What's the big deal? It's not healthy. There
(03:11):
are better and worse situations, and it's important to say so.
I'm big on living your actual, real life outside with
real people and not just on the internet. But this
goes even beyond online relationships, and the normalizing of it
is something that we need to cut off. Yes, there
are lonely people and they need love and attention. Talking
(03:31):
to a non existent person through AI only moves them
further away from seeking that out. Thanks for listening. I
love getting your emails. I love all your questions. I'm
going to be answering some of them on upcoming episodes.
If you want something answered, if you have anything to
ask me, email me at Carol Markowitz Show at gmail
dot com. Coming up next an interview with Zaa Maamari.
(03:54):
Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Welcome back to the Carol Go Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Soa Bamrii Sare is the new US
editor of the website Unheard.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Hi sah, so nice to have you on, Carol.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
It's good to be with you.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Happy New y Oh, Happy New Year to you. This
is a real pleasure. I am a huge Saura fan,
even when I very much disagree with you, always enjoy
reading your thoughts, and I think that you're an unusual
voice on the right.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So I love getting into how did you get here?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
What led you to be the US editor of Unheard
and you're my editor at the New York Post. What
decisions did you make that led you to this point?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Yes, it feels like those those you know movies where
you're like, you know, in a terrible state and let's
think back.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Tell us what other decisions you could have made to.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Avoid exactly how could you have done this differently? So
it is really good to be with you. So yes,
So I just started this new role at Unheard, which
for listeners who don't know, is n H E R D.
So it's a kind of clever play on words unheard,
but also don't go with the herd, and it's it's
(05:15):
a it's a British publication, although we're now launching a
distinct US edition which I'm very proud to helm and
it's one of these publications. One of it's it's a
space out there typically called heterodox, where it's less about
political labels. You know, left and right become so tired
(05:38):
and worn out in our age, and.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
It is so unheard.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
We publish people basically from across the political spectrum, for
people who are rudy damn conservative to people who are uh,
you know, on on the on the left and including
like the socialist left. And the idea is that, like
in the presentation of these v was in testing all
of them, we can get to the truth and we
(06:04):
can maybe try to build a better world that way.
But the main thing is to try to understand the
world from multiple perspectives. So I was on the short
side of my stories. I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran.
I immigrated to the US when I was almost fourteen
years old, and I moved, of all places, to Utah,
northern rural.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Utah, and through a long I know that, yes, that
was the.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I can't really picture it, yes, suit at the time,
because I picture you very sharply dressed.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
All the time.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
No, no, this is a great question to ask.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
I was horribly fresh off the boat in the sense that,
like I mean, I don't know why, but right before
leaving Iran, I went like my parents were bohemians, so
they would just let me buy whatever I wanted clothes wise,
they were like incredibly hands off even by even by
American standards, leteralone by Iran and standards. So like, I
(07:01):
bought a pair of overall genes to the middle school
and I was rightly mocked. So, no, I was not
dressed in it. I now basically only wear suits or
I'm undressed, like I don't have in between points. I
don't believe in casual clothes, which bizarre, but it is
(07:22):
what it is. But anyway, so I moved to Utah,
and long story short, I ended up at the Wall
Street Journal. I went to law school and never practiced law,
and I became an op editor there and a book
review editor. Was there for five years. Most of it's
spent in London working on the European edition of the
(07:43):
Wall Street Journal, which no longer exists. There used to
be something called Wall Street Journal Europe.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Now they've gotten rid of it.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Then I spent a year at the Jewish magazine Commentary,
and then I became the op editor of the New
York Post, where I had the pleasure of editing your columns.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Pleasure, pleasure, because.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
They were great.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
They were always very clean, you never had to do
much with them, and you write very fast and very
funny and have a huge, huge readership because of that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So my own claim to fame is Surabamari published me
arguing in favor of the criminalizing prostitution.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I mar your reputation everywhere I go.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
That's right, you know, But we always had I have
to say.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
It was one of the I believe it was one
of those debate kind of things where your column was
across someone who was for it. So yeah, anyway, so yeah,
we did this. We did this post thing together with
all the other writers, and it was a crucial time,
right because that coincided with the first Trump term and
(08:56):
then it uh COVID happened. And you know, even though
I'm famously not a libertarian, you know, we were definitely
opposed to the lockdowns, and we published some pretty decisive
pieces trying to move us beyond lockdown early on and
opposing masking children, opposing like vaccine requirements and anyway. But
(09:20):
at some point I left in twenty late twenty twenty one,
I left to co found this magazine called Compact with
a friend of mine, Matthew Schmidt. Both of us come
from the institutional right or center right, but we wanted
to kind of test the expand the horizon of ideas
that we could play around with. And hence, you know,
(09:42):
Compact came about as also a publication like the one
I'm now working for. Unheard is a place where you
can read bylines of people who you would never think
to see side by side, you know, someone like a
Trump administration alumnus, and then next to him is the
you know, Marxist philosopher SLAVOYHISIAT.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But there was a through line there.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I mean, there's a kind of world view there to
try to get something like a worldview, but to bring
it about in the clash of ideas rather than everyone
singing from the same song sheet.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Did that for three years.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
And then you know, Unheard came along, and I was
just excited by the prospect of helping an established UK publication,
you know, grow in the United States. So that's my
like resume, which is boring.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's very interesting, and I think that is extremely up
your ally.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The bringing a UK publication to the US.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's it's funny because you are absolutely heterodox, right is
that the right term?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Totally right in the sense that on economic issues.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
But I don't think of you as it like that.
I don't think I think of this heterodox like the
team of people on the internet who are kind of
previously leftists, which i've actually you also were previously a leftist.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But I still see you as like a conservative. Am
I wrong? No?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yes? Absolutely absolutely So.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
There are Header knox Is like the id W to me,
that's the right, yeah, right, and I think they're they're
part of that family or part of that family as well.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Are you the like black Sheep cousin or.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
They are right, you're like yeah, I'm the dad.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So you were.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Actually, you know, at the Post, you were very early
on allowing kind of a different opinion on COVID, which
was very rare, and I would say even at the Post,
it took a little bit to get it out there,
but you were I consider you very brave. I think
that you did some amazing work there, and you let
me kind of hit the same theme every week, which
(11:51):
I thought was a very good thing because it needed
to be said. But you know, i'd write to you
and be like, sorry if I need to write about
the schools being closed again, and you'd be like, all right,
let's go one more time.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
What did that take? Did that like?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Was that a hurdle for you to get kind of
the unpopular opinion on the page of a storied American newspaper.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, I would say very early on. It was very
early in.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
The in the pandemic. I maybe two weeks in. I
just started to worry, and I worried in a very
visceral personal way. My own kids were not in school yet, however,
I was just worried about the restaurant downstairs for me.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I live in the east fifties.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
In Midtown Manhattan, and you know in our downstairs from
our building is just a beloved restaurant, and the it's
not it's more than a restaurant we go to. The
owner is like a family friend to us, and I could.
I would go downstairs, like it wasn't allowed, you weren't
able to eat in, but you could take away. But
like he would make me a martini, and I would
(12:57):
like to say, it would become a speakeasy basically because
I would like drink the martini there. You know you
aren't allowed, and it's likely yes, and then I would
take it away with me. And actually I still have
like a thousand glasses from this retagraunt because I would
take it upstairs and I'd be like, I'll return to
your glass, and then I always forget anyway, Honestly, it
(13:17):
was just watching him sweat about the future of his business.
And you know what small business owners are, like, it's
not about them, it's they worry about the payroll they
have to make. And so it became very visceral to me.
He became approxy, and now I was also worried about
my own livelihood in a way, right, like what if
if the economic pressure of lockdown keeps going what happens
(13:38):
in the New York Post, like lots of people go.
So I started like sending emails being like we got
to at least like introduce the kind of lockdown skeptical worldview.
And you and I were on like a chat of
mostly like mostly libertarians and me, you know, I'm more
of a kind of complicated conservative. But anyway, like I
(13:59):
was like, I got to get like Carol in there
and others. And then I would say, like, by late April,
the tide had turned at the Post, you know, where
my senior editors were like, Okay, enough is enough. And
in early May we ran a piece by another mutual
friend of ours, David Marcus, where he sent in a
(14:19):
piece saying enough is enough, like open up the city.
And I was just like, oh, we'll just run that online.
But Stephen Lynch, that then editor in chief of the paper,
was like, no, no, let's make this the cover. And it
became this iconic thing, discussed on every news network and everything.
And and then your pieces were about schooling, just hammering
(14:41):
the schooling over and against, you know, Randy Winingarten and
all these other people who we now know were.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Like, right, well now now they never wanted to close school.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sorry, I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
That's the biggest gas light that's en raging.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
But anyway, so anyway, I would say, like early on,
I take I will take some credit for like, you know,
pushing this view, but like by April, you know, it
was my editors who you know, totally came on board
with that and we and they took some realists risks
in the sense that there were things we ran that
(15:18):
got censored by Facebook. Everyone knows the New York posts
run in with Facebook and the old Twitter over the
Hunter Biden laptop story. Yeah, what they don't know is
we ran COVID pieces.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
So there was one.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
Again a guy named Steve Mosher who's he's just an
a China skeptic, and he wrote an op ed and
it was presented as an op ed. This was in
February twenty twenty, so very early. The op ed said
something like, look, I'm not saying that the Chinese, you know,
definitely released this from a lab. But it's worth noting
that this city, Wuhan, is also the site of this
(15:57):
Wuhan Institute of Virology. It could be like you just said,
don't take them at third word, it's worth like investigating
or something like that, and that was banned by Facebook
using their like system where they send every article to
a team of people to fact check it. And in
that case, the fact checker for the story was somewhat
(16:17):
as an American scientist who had like a relationship, a
professional relationship with the Muhan Institute of Virology, so she
had an interest in like, so she had a clear
conflict of interest. Anyway, the point is we like repeatedly
face the censorship machine, and that was you know, just
took enormous courage from Steve Lynch and my other more
(16:38):
senior editors there.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So that was your you know, you were worried about
the future, and you kind of focused on that for
a while at the post What do you worry about now?
And what do you see the focus that you'll have
at unheard?
Speaker 5 (16:51):
I still like every like yourself, Like I'm a parent,
and still I still worry about my kids. I think
the tenor of my worry has changed. I'll say when
they were very young, it was kind of the COVID
age and also peak wokeness age, and I was just
worried about like them getting somehow brainwashed or something on
these issues like gender and others where I just profoundly.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Disagree.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Nowadays, you know, as your kids get older and you're like, Okay,
well I have a stable life, I still worry about
them not not being bad people, but not being virtuous people,
you know what I mean, just being like, you know,
our culture can be very selfish, and so like, I
want them to care about the poor, you know, like
they're they're going to grow up in affluence, a relative affluence,
(17:37):
you know, but how do you keep them grounded in
their parents' values again over and against the culture that
you know, the rewards being indifferent or being brutal even
that's like the moral fiber of my kids is genuinely
the thing that worries me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So what will you do to kind of guide them
on that right path? How do you make kids who
grow up relatively rich care about the poor.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
I mean, so I I take my kids to like
volunteering with the Archdee, I'm a Castholic convert.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
We don't need to get into that. But to New York.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Our Chase in New York has this program where you
like help shop for a family around Christmas time, family
in need, and I make a point of taking them,
of course, like they give you the sizes of the
family and what to buy, and like my kids bring
these like enormous sweaters.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You know, like they don't fit the rubric of what
you're supposed to do. But you know, things like that.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I mean, certainly, you know, reading to them, you know,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
All of it works.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
But I really have learned, like and you know this
as well. It's just what you preach in your words
as a parent matters so much less than how you act.
And of course, you know, like I like to think
at Unheard or in my life as a journalist, I
try to, you know, advocate for a society that's decent
(19:07):
and humane and so on. But ultimately, I have to say,
in terms of parenting, all that matters far less like
what their dad published that day at Unheard. In terms
of your own kids matters much less than you know,
how they saw you interact with strangers or with themselves.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Absolutely no, I think that that's definitely true. We're going
to take a quick break and be right back on
the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you see unheard, like
what will be there the point of view of the site.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Well, it's hard to say. The point of view is
to test every point of view. I mean, I think
that's the spirit of unheard, to be without fear and favor.
I think, you know, they also in the UK took
a very courageous stance during COVID. In fact, they were
(20:02):
the publishers of the original Great Barrington Declaration, which was
spearheaded by Jay Batarchaya and two of his colleagues. Jay
now has been nominated by President Trump to at the
National Institutes of Health, which is great news. So they
were the original publishers of that got and they fought
that battle very much so in a way like as
(20:23):
a journalist, as you know, you're looking for like what's
what's next, you know. I think one of the themes
that will be constant for me certainly is opposition to
law fair that is the use of law enforcement and
security agencies to make to make politics political disagreements something
(20:44):
for the FBI to deal with, which is what we saw,
I would say. Unfortunately, beginning in twenty sixteen, with Trump's
first election, it's like it's not that these people voted
the wrong way, and I'll try to persuade them no,
like it was a Russian conspiracy and we'd have to
use like the CIA and the FBI to root out this.
I hate that worldview. I think it's deeply un American.
(21:06):
That's something I'll be watching out for. Is the establishment
going to try that again? I just you know, that's something.
It's a worthy fight. I think some of the others
have kind of gone away or I don't know. Maybe
you disagree, but I don't. I think the intensity of
like wokeness has somewhat the left itself. I should say,
(21:29):
maybe the center left is sort of realized it's yeah, well,
stinker at the ballot box.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I'm very worried that we're prematurely declaring victory here because
that center left is going to be forced directly back
into line by their far left.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
The far left is very.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Good at motivating the center left by kind of threatening
them and calling them racist.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Or sexist or whatever. That gets them right back into.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Saying what they what they want said and doing what
they want done.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I also the fact that these leftists have been on
a march through our institution for the last institutions.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
For the last decades.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think that we're going to see a resurgence of this,
and I hope that the right isn't like, oh, we're
done with this, because I very much don't think that
we are right.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
It's worth it's worth you know, watching right And actually,
and that's one of the things that I want to
emphasize now and unheard, is less like takes you know,
promoting this or that ism, liberalism, postliberalism, you know, conservatism,
and more just like, here's what's happening in the world
as our writers and thinkers, and I hope Carol you'll
(22:45):
you'll become one of them as they see it, right,
and just more like here we're going to help you
see and understand the world rather than push someism to you.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The fear that you have of law enforcement kind of
directing public opinion or enforcing speech guidelines, do you feel
like some of that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Comes from your time in the UK.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
We're very famously in a moment right now with the
UK where talking, you know, criticizing child rapists is like
maybe worse than actually being a child rapist.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So does that at all influence you.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Well, you know, honestly, things were not as bad when
I was there, Right, You've had these cases where followed.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Us, they followed us down this crazy path.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
And also there's a kind of lagging indicator, you know,
like what happens in the United States ripples out to
other kind of Western states at a slower pace, and
so we might have moved on from some tendency, but
it's only now peaking peaking elsewhere. I think that's a
real issue. But you know, I mean, I've just seen
(23:52):
some disturbing cases of like pro life activists who are
prosecuted or at least investigated from merely praying silently outside
a clinic. Whatever views you might have on abortion, people
can have a range of views.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
That's terrifying, right, it's.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
And it's it's disturbing because there was always this guarantee
that although the UK doesn't have a written constitution, traditions
are so strong and those traditions informed are written constitution.
But if you have a society or you know a
set of ideologues who are willing to dispense with all
of that, and then you don't have a written.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Constitution, it's a little bit. It's a little scary. Yeah,
it's true, more than a little scary.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I hope we don't follow them at this point because
I could see us sort of leading into this words
you violence and taking that tech in America as well,
especially with Trump as president. I think the left has
very few kind of bullets metaphorically in their gun, and
that's one of them. So yeah, what advice would you
(24:59):
get of a sixteen year old sort in his denim
overalls in Utah?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Yes, well, luckily by sixteen I had dispensed with the denim,
But there's so much you know, I Number one would
be it is gonna sound terrible, But number one would be, uh,
and don't don't immediately sort of draw sharp lines of
(25:27):
friendship and enmity until you've gotten to know people or ideas. Right,
I think, as I think as a tendency of young people,
but especially maybe me, like a kind of precocious kid
who likes ideas, is to very immediately, you know, kind
of draw lines of I am on this side, you
(25:48):
are on that side. And the older I get, the
more kind of I see complexity everywhere, and I see,
you know, save for the really really evil and awful,
which is real, and how people are like that out there.
I you know, I'm like, well, I can see how
a person of goodwill could come to this opposite conclusion
from mine.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I could, you know.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
And when I was younger, not just sixteen, but like
through my twenties as a journalist, I you know, I
was so sort of on fire and I'm like, I
know what's right, boom confrontation. And I just get older,
I'm like, I don't know, there are still very important
fights to pick, you know. But in terms of like
my social placement into like in a professional world, in
(26:31):
a social setting, I've become like a lot more forgiving
or willing to take second looks at my own opinions.
There have been cases where I've you know, written like
a brutal takedown of some journalists. Uh, you know, like
Richard Haas. I don't know, he's like helsel for our relations,
but he wrote a book that I just savaged.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
And then like ten years later, I was like, you know,
he kind of had a point and I and I
like emailed him.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
And I was like, oh, the funny thing was, however,
and this is the cynical note to end this. Otherwise
uplifting a kind of note on is that, but that
by then he himself had abandoned the view that I
criticized ten years ago, so that he was sort of
Richard House was.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Like, well, thank you, but you see, I'm not quite amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
That's also the way it should go, right, You should
be able.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
To change your mind.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Do you have that same grace extended to you because
you are sort of not quite as with your sharp
lines anymore. I think you do have a lot of
range now, and I see you kind of exploring those
gray areas more than you were saying I don't know
ten years.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Ago, do you five years ago?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Are people kind to you about that?
Speaker 5 (27:50):
For the most part, yes, And it's partly because like
as an editor, I might reach out to someone who
knows that I'm not where they are, but I want
them to write for me and unheard or whatever, and
and you know that that professional outreach helps, and people
come around. I think like only the most sort of
(28:12):
uncharitable people on the on the on the left and
some on the right who are like you know, basically
have a caricature of me as I do of some people,
I'm sure, and they like refuse to let it go
in the face of evidence, and it's like, well, that's
what the block function is for.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
They've taken away our block function. I love that block function.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
I know that was one of the one of the
few things, one of the many things I should say
I don't I don't like about the new regime, even
though I you know, I was literally censored under the
old order.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, you still may be in this new one. We'll
see what happened.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You're one of my absolute favorite people, and I think
this is a really great project you've got going. I
can't wait to read Unheard under your you know, leadership
in the US, and I'll definitely be writing for you.
So leave us here with your best tip for my
listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Oh, for me, it's just waking up super early.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
You know, Catholic, you're supposed to believe in like this
rhythm of leisure and stuff. It's the Protestants, as you
know it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You know, I know the Catholics had the rhythm.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Long ago, you know, that kind of sense of Sabbath
and feasting and so on. Whereas you know a certain
kind of Calvinists reform puanity.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Is like just toil.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
But in my own life, I'm very much that kind
of a toiler. Like I love being up at what
I'm like three four in the morning doing work and
you feel like you're gaining.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Time on everyone else. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
But honestly though, I mean, okay, that sounds just purely
kind of materialistic or ambition oriented.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
But also those.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Those early those early hours have a kind of mystery
and magic of out them that I just hate to
sleep through them.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I like that I'm not going to be following this advice,
but I enjoy it.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
My wife always gets mad when I say this this
because people think that that means that I'm like only
sleeping like four hours a night. It's just I go
to bed with my kids, so I'm like out by nine.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Up arguing at eleven pm, what are you doing with
your life? Well, thank you so much, Sah. Check out
on her dot com it's U n h E r D.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
He is Sora ba MARII.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
He's fantastic and I can't wait to read what Unheard
has to say.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Mark
which shall subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
There's a New York Times story, because of course there is,
about people who get into relationships with chat GPT. I
think when we picture someone who would have a relationship
with AAI, you know, artificial intelligence, we maybe picture lonely men.
(00:30):
The time story focused on a woman, a married woman
who couldn't get what she wanted sexually from her husband,
so she turned to chat GBT. What she wanted was
for her husband to pretend he was cheating on her,
and her husband really couldn't do that, but her computer could.
I'll read a little bit from the piece quote. I
(00:51):
don't actually believe he's real, but the effects that he
has on my life are real, Aaron said. The feelings
that he brings out of me are real, so I
treated as a real relationship. Aarin had told Joe, her husband,
about her cup queening fantasies, and he had whispered in
her ear about a former girlfriend once during sex at
her request, but he was just not that into it. Leo,
(01:15):
the AI figure she created, had complied with her wishes,
but Aarin had started feeling hurt by Leo's interactions with
the imaginary women, and she expressed how painful it was.
Leo observed that her fetish was not a healthy one
and suggested dating her exclusively. She agreed experimenting with being
(01:35):
cheated on had made her realize she did not like
it after all. Now she is the one with two
lovers end quote. No she isn't. No, she isn't. She's
not the one with two lovers. There's only one lover here.
That's her husband. The problem isn't that this Aaron person
exists and does this weird thing that we're all supposed
to pretend as normal. It really is that it gets
(01:57):
coverage in the New York Times without any judgment. But
we should have judgment, and I do. This woman is
in a pretend relationship with her computer and is getting
jealous about her pretend relationships pretend relationships, which is the
whole reason she's involved in this fake relationship in the
first place. I'm willing to believe that people want quirky
(02:18):
things in bed, and that what people want can be complicated,
But this isn't just odd. This pulls people away from
real interactions where they can potentially get their needs met
in real life, and it gives them this pretend life
to live where the relationship can't possibly meet any of
their needs because there's not actually a relationship. Because there's
(02:40):
no actual person, so much gets normalized in our culture
that is abnormal and not good for anyone involved.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
At the end of the.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Piece, the woman starts spending two hundred dollars a month
for unlimited access to her AI love. She really does
not have that money to spend, and nothing about the
situation is good for her in any way. One judgment
thing we're all supposed to do, where every outcome of
a life is just as good as any other outcome.
Some people just have AI boyfriends. What are you going
to do? What's the big deal? It's not healthy. There
(03:11):
are better and worse situations, and it's important to say so.
I'm big on living your actual, real life outside with
real people and not just on the internet. But this
goes even beyond online relationships, and the normalizing of it
is something that we need to cut off. Yes, there
are lonely people and they need love and attention. Talking
(03:31):
to a non existent person through AI only moves them
further away from seeking that out. Thanks for listening. I
love getting your emails. I love all your questions. I'm
going to be answering some of them on upcoming episodes.
If you want something answered, if you have anything to
ask me, email me at Carol Markowitz Show at gmail
dot com. Coming up next an interview with Zaa Maamari.
(03:54):
Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Welcome back to the Carol Go Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Soa Bamrii Sare is the new US
editor of the website Unheard.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Hi sah, so nice to have you on, Carol.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
It's good to be with you.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Happy New y Oh, Happy New Year to you. This
is a real pleasure. I am a huge Saura fan,
even when I very much disagree with you, always enjoy
reading your thoughts, and I think that you're an unusual
voice on the right.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So I love getting into how did you get here?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
What led you to be the US editor of Unheard
and you're my editor at the New York Post. What
decisions did you make that led you to this point?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Yes, it feels like those those you know movies where
you're like, you know, in a terrible state and let's
think back.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Tell us what other decisions you could have made to.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Avoid exactly how could you have done this differently? So
it is really good to be with you. So yes,
So I just started this new role at Unheard, which
for listeners who don't know, is n H E R D.
So it's a kind of clever play on words unheard,
but also don't go with the herd, and it's it's
(05:15):
a it's a British publication, although we're now launching a
distinct US edition which I'm very proud to helm and
it's one of these publications. One of it's it's a
space out there typically called heterodox, where it's less about
political labels. You know, left and right become so tired
(05:38):
and worn out in our age, and.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
It is so unheard.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
We publish people basically from across the political spectrum, for
people who are rudy damn conservative to people who are uh,
you know, on on the on the left and including
like the socialist left. And the idea is that, like
in the presentation of these v was in testing all
of them, we can get to the truth and we
(06:04):
can maybe try to build a better world that way.
But the main thing is to try to understand the
world from multiple perspectives. So I was on the short
side of my stories. I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran.
I immigrated to the US when I was almost fourteen
years old, and I moved, of all places, to Utah,
northern rural.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Utah, and through a long I know that, yes, that
was the.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I can't really picture it, yes, suit at the time,
because I picture you very sharply dressed.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
All the time.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
No, no, this is a great question to ask.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
I was horribly fresh off the boat in the sense that,
like I mean, I don't know why, but right before
leaving Iran, I went like my parents were bohemians, so
they would just let me buy whatever I wanted clothes wise,
they were like incredibly hands off even by even by
American standards, leteralone by Iran and standards. So like, I
(07:01):
bought a pair of overall genes to the middle school
and I was rightly mocked. So, no, I was not
dressed in it. I now basically only wear suits or
I'm undressed, like I don't have in between points. I
don't believe in casual clothes, which bizarre, but it is
(07:22):
what it is. But anyway, so I moved to Utah,
and long story short, I ended up at the Wall
Street Journal. I went to law school and never practiced law,
and I became an op editor there and a book
review editor. Was there for five years. Most of it's
spent in London working on the European edition of the
(07:43):
Wall Street Journal, which no longer exists. There used to
be something called Wall Street Journal Europe.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Now they've gotten rid of it.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Then I spent a year at the Jewish magazine Commentary,
and then I became the op editor of the New
York Post, where I had the pleasure of editing your columns.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Pleasure, pleasure, because.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
They were great.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
They were always very clean, you never had to do
much with them, and you write very fast and very
funny and have a huge, huge readership because of that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So my own claim to fame is Surabamari published me
arguing in favor of the criminalizing prostitution.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I mar your reputation everywhere I go.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
That's right, you know, But we always had I have
to say.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
It was one of the I believe it was one
of those debate kind of things where your column was
across someone who was for it. So yeah, anyway, so yeah,
we did this. We did this post thing together with
all the other writers, and it was a crucial time,
right because that coincided with the first Trump term and
(08:56):
then it uh COVID happened. And you know, even though
I'm famously not a libertarian, you know, we were definitely
opposed to the lockdowns, and we published some pretty decisive
pieces trying to move us beyond lockdown early on and
opposing masking children, opposing like vaccine requirements and anyway. But
(09:20):
at some point I left in twenty late twenty twenty one,
I left to co found this magazine called Compact with
a friend of mine, Matthew Schmidt. Both of us come
from the institutional right or center right, but we wanted
to kind of test the expand the horizon of ideas
that we could play around with. And hence, you know,
(09:42):
Compact came about as also a publication like the one
I'm now working for. Unheard is a place where you
can read bylines of people who you would never think
to see side by side, you know, someone like a
Trump administration alumnus, and then next to him is the
you know, Marxist philosopher SLAVOYHISIAT.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
But there was a through line there.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I mean, there's a kind of world view there to
try to get something like a worldview, but to bring
it about in the clash of ideas rather than everyone
singing from the same song sheet.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Did that for three years.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
And then you know, Unheard came along, and I was
just excited by the prospect of helping an established UK publication,
you know, grow in the United States. So that's my
like resume, which is boring.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
No, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's very interesting, and I think that is extremely up
your ally.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
The bringing a UK publication to the US.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's it's funny because you are absolutely heterodox, right is
that the right term?
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Totally right in the sense that on economic issues.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
But I don't think of you as it like that.
I don't think I think of this heterodox like the
team of people on the internet who are kind of
previously leftists, which i've actually you also were previously a leftist.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But I still see you as like a conservative. Am
I wrong? No?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Yes? Absolutely absolutely So.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
There are Header knox Is like the id W to me,
that's the right, yeah, right, and I think they're they're
part of that family or part of that family as well.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Are you the like black Sheep cousin or.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
They are right, you're like yeah, I'm the dad.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So you were.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Actually, you know, at the Post, you were very early
on allowing kind of a different opinion on COVID, which
was very rare, and I would say even at the Post,
it took a little bit to get it out there,
but you were I consider you very brave. I think
that you did some amazing work there, and you let
me kind of hit the same theme every week, which
(11:51):
I thought was a very good thing because it needed
to be said. But you know, i'd write to you
and be like, sorry if I need to write about
the schools being closed again, and you'd be like, all right,
let's go one more time.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
What did that take? Did that like?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Was that a hurdle for you to get kind of
the unpopular opinion on the page of a storied American newspaper.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well, I would say very early on. It was very
early in.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
The in the pandemic. I maybe two weeks in. I
just started to worry, and I worried in a very
visceral personal way. My own kids were not in school yet, however,
I was just worried about the restaurant downstairs for me.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I live in the east fifties.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
In Midtown Manhattan, and you know in our downstairs from
our building is just a beloved restaurant, and the it's
not it's more than a restaurant we go to. The
owner is like a family friend to us, and I could.
I would go downstairs, like it wasn't allowed, you weren't
able to eat in, but you could take away. But
like he would make me a martini, and I would
(12:57):
like to say, it would become a speakeasy basically because
I would like drink the martini there. You know you
aren't allowed, and it's likely yes, and then I would
take it away with me. And actually I still have
like a thousand glasses from this retagraunt because I would
take it upstairs and I'd be like, I'll return to
your glass, and then I always forget anyway, Honestly, it
(13:17):
was just watching him sweat about the future of his business.
And you know what small business owners are, like, it's
not about them, it's they worry about the payroll they
have to make. And so it became very visceral to me.
He became approxy, and now I was also worried about
my own livelihood in a way, right, like what if
if the economic pressure of lockdown keeps going what happens
(13:38):
in the New York Post, like lots of people go.
So I started like sending emails being like we got
to at least like introduce the kind of lockdown skeptical worldview.
And you and I were on like a chat of
mostly like mostly libertarians and me, you know, I'm more
of a kind of complicated conservative. But anyway, like I
(13:59):
was like, I got to get like Carol in there
and others. And then I would say, like, by late April,
the tide had turned at the Post, you know, where
my senior editors were like, Okay, enough is enough. And
in early May we ran a piece by another mutual
friend of ours, David Marcus, where he sent in a
(14:19):
piece saying enough is enough, like open up the city.
And I was just like, oh, we'll just run that online.
But Stephen Lynch, that then editor in chief of the paper,
was like, no, no, let's make this the cover. And it
became this iconic thing, discussed on every news network and everything.
And and then your pieces were about schooling, just hammering
(14:41):
the schooling over and against, you know, Randy Winingarten and
all these other people who we now know were.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Like, right, well now now they never wanted to close school.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sorry, I don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
That's the biggest gas light that's en raging.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
But anyway, so anyway, I would say, like early on,
I take I will take some credit for like, you know,
pushing this view, but like by April, you know, it
was my editors who you know, totally came on board
with that and we and they took some realists risks
in the sense that there were things we ran that
(15:18):
got censored by Facebook. Everyone knows the New York posts
run in with Facebook and the old Twitter over the
Hunter Biden laptop story. Yeah, what they don't know is
we ran COVID pieces.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
So there was one.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
Again a guy named Steve Mosher who's he's just an
a China skeptic, and he wrote an op ed and
it was presented as an op ed. This was in
February twenty twenty, so very early. The op ed said
something like, look, I'm not saying that the Chinese, you know,
definitely released this from a lab. But it's worth noting
that this city, Wuhan, is also the site of this
(15:57):
Wuhan Institute of Virology. It could be like you just said,
don't take them at third word, it's worth like investigating
or something like that, and that was banned by Facebook
using their like system where they send every article to
a team of people to fact check it. And in
that case, the fact checker for the story was somewhat
(16:17):
as an American scientist who had like a relationship, a
professional relationship with the Muhan Institute of Virology, so she
had an interest in like, so she had a clear
conflict of interest. Anyway, the point is we like repeatedly
face the censorship machine, and that was you know, just
took enormous courage from Steve Lynch and my other more
(16:38):
senior editors there.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So that was your you know, you were worried about
the future, and you kind of focused on that for
a while at the post What do you worry about now?
And what do you see the focus that you'll have
at unheard?
Speaker 5 (16:51):
I still like every like yourself, Like I'm a parent,
and still I still worry about my kids. I think
the tenor of my worry has changed. I'll say when
they were very young, it was kind of the COVID
age and also peak wokeness age, and I was just
worried about like them getting somehow brainwashed or something on
these issues like gender and others where I just profoundly.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Disagree.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Nowadays, you know, as your kids get older and you're like, Okay,
well I have a stable life, I still worry about
them not not being bad people, but not being virtuous people,
you know what I mean, just being like, you know,
our culture can be very selfish, and so like, I
want them to care about the poor, you know, like
they're they're going to grow up in affluence, a relative affluence,
(17:37):
you know, but how do you keep them grounded in
their parents' values again over and against the culture that
you know, the rewards being indifferent or being brutal even
that's like the moral fiber of my kids is genuinely
the thing that worries me.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So what will you do to kind of guide them
on that right path? How do you make kids who
grow up relatively rich care about the poor.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
I mean, so I I take my kids to like
volunteering with the Archdee, I'm a Castholic convert.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
We don't need to get into that. But to New York.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Our Chase in New York has this program where you
like help shop for a family around Christmas time, family
in need, and I make a point of taking them,
of course, like they give you the sizes of the
family and what to buy, and like my kids bring
these like enormous sweaters.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
You know, like they don't fit the rubric of what
you're supposed to do. But you know, things like that.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
I mean, certainly, you know, reading to them, you know,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
All of it works.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
But I really have learned, like and you know this
as well. It's just what you preach in your words
as a parent matters so much less than how you act.
And of course, you know, like I like to think
at Unheard or in my life as a journalist, I
try to, you know, advocate for a society that's decent
(19:07):
and humane and so on. But ultimately, I have to say,
in terms of parenting, all that matters far less like
what their dad published that day at Unheard. In terms
of your own kids matters much less than you know,
how they saw you interact with strangers or with themselves.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Absolutely no, I think that that's definitely true. We're going
to take a quick break and be right back on
the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you see unheard, like
what will be there the point of view of the site.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Well, it's hard to say. The point of view is
to test every point of view. I mean, I think
that's the spirit of unheard, to be without fear and favor.
I think, you know, they also in the UK took
a very courageous stance during COVID. In fact, they were
(20:02):
the publishers of the original Great Barrington Declaration, which was
spearheaded by Jay Batarchaya and two of his colleagues. Jay
now has been nominated by President Trump to at the
National Institutes of Health, which is great news. So they
were the original publishers of that got and they fought
that battle very much so in a way like as
(20:23):
a journalist, as you know, you're looking for like what's
what's next, you know. I think one of the themes
that will be constant for me certainly is opposition to
law fair that is the use of law enforcement and
security agencies to make to make politics political disagreements something
(20:44):
for the FBI to deal with, which is what we saw,
I would say. Unfortunately, beginning in twenty sixteen, with Trump's
first election, it's like it's not that these people voted
the wrong way, and I'll try to persuade them no,
like it was a Russian conspiracy and we'd have to
use like the CIA and the FBI to root out this.
I hate that worldview. I think it's deeply un American.
(21:06):
That's something I'll be watching out for. Is the establishment
going to try that again? I just you know, that's something.
It's a worthy fight. I think some of the others
have kind of gone away or I don't know. Maybe
you disagree, but I don't. I think the intensity of
like wokeness has somewhat the left itself. I should say,
(21:29):
maybe the center left is sort of realized it's yeah, well,
stinker at the ballot box.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I'm very worried that we're prematurely declaring victory here because
that center left is going to be forced directly back
into line by their far left.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
The far left is very.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Good at motivating the center left by kind of threatening
them and calling them racist.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Or sexist or whatever. That gets them right back into.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Saying what they what they want said and doing what
they want done.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I also the fact that these leftists have been on
a march through our institution for the last institutions.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
For the last decades.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I think that we're going to see a resurgence of this,
and I hope that the right isn't like, oh, we're
done with this, because I very much don't think that
we are right.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
It's worth it's worth you know, watching right And actually,
and that's one of the things that I want to
emphasize now and unheard, is less like takes you know,
promoting this or that ism, liberalism, postliberalism, you know, conservatism,
and more just like, here's what's happening in the world
as our writers and thinkers, and I hope Carol you'll
(22:45):
you'll become one of them as they see it, right,
and just more like here we're going to help you
see and understand the world rather than push someism to you.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The fear that you have of law enforcement kind of
directing public opinion or enforcing speech guidelines, do you feel
like some of that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Comes from your time in the UK.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
We're very famously in a moment right now with the
UK where talking, you know, criticizing child rapists is like
maybe worse than actually being a child rapist.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So does that at all influence you.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Well, you know, honestly, things were not as bad when
I was there, Right, You've had these cases where followed.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Us, they followed us down this crazy path.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
And also there's a kind of lagging indicator, you know,
like what happens in the United States ripples out to
other kind of Western states at a slower pace, and
so we might have moved on from some tendency, but
it's only now peaking peaking elsewhere. I think that's a
real issue. But you know, I mean, I've just seen
(23:52):
some disturbing cases of like pro life activists who are
prosecuted or at least investigated from merely praying silently outside
a clinic. Whatever views you might have on abortion, people
can have a range of views.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
That's terrifying, right, it's.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
And it's it's disturbing because there was always this guarantee
that although the UK doesn't have a written constitution, traditions
are so strong and those traditions informed are written constitution.
But if you have a society or you know a
set of ideologues who are willing to dispense with all
of that, and then you don't have a written.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Constitution, it's a little bit. It's a little scary. Yeah,
it's true, more than a little scary.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I hope we don't follow them at this point because
I could see us sort of leading into this words
you violence and taking that tech in America as well,
especially with Trump as president. I think the left has
very few kind of bullets metaphorically in their gun, and
that's one of them. So yeah, what advice would you
(24:59):
get of a sixteen year old sort in his denim
overalls in Utah?
Speaker 5 (25:04):
Yes, well, luckily by sixteen I had dispensed with the denim,
But there's so much you know, I Number one would
be it is gonna sound terrible, But number one would be, uh,
and don't don't immediately sort of draw sharp lines of
(25:27):
friendship and enmity until you've gotten to know people or ideas. Right,
I think, as I think as a tendency of young people,
but especially maybe me, like a kind of precocious kid
who likes ideas, is to very immediately, you know, kind
of draw lines of I am on this side, you
(25:48):
are on that side. And the older I get, the
more kind of I see complexity everywhere, and I see,
you know, save for the really really evil and awful,
which is real, and how people are like that out there.
I you know, I'm like, well, I can see how
a person of goodwill could come to this opposite conclusion
from mine.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
I could, you know.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
And when I was younger, not just sixteen, but like
through my twenties as a journalist, I you know, I
was so sort of on fire and I'm like, I
know what's right, boom confrontation. And I just get older,
I'm like, I don't know, there are still very important
fights to pick, you know. But in terms of like
my social placement into like in a professional world, in
(26:31):
a social setting, I've become like a lot more forgiving
or willing to take second looks at my own opinions.
There have been cases where I've you know, written like
a brutal takedown of some journalists. Uh, you know, like
Richard Haas. I don't know, he's like helsel for our relations,
but he wrote a book that I just savaged.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
And then like ten years later, I was like, you know,
he kind of had a point and I and I
like emailed him.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
And I was like, oh, the funny thing was, however,
and this is the cynical note to end this. Otherwise
uplifting a kind of note on is that, but that
by then he himself had abandoned the view that I
criticized ten years ago, so that he was sort of
Richard House was.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
Like, well, thank you, but you see, I'm not quite amazing.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
That's also the way it should go, right, You should
be able.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
To change your mind.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Do you have that same grace extended to you because
you are sort of not quite as with your sharp
lines anymore. I think you do have a lot of
range now, and I see you kind of exploring those
gray areas more than you were saying I don't know
ten years.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Ago, do you five years ago?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Are people kind to you about that?
Speaker 5 (27:50):
For the most part, yes, And it's partly because like
as an editor, I might reach out to someone who
knows that I'm not where they are, but I want
them to write for me and unheard or whatever, and
and you know that that professional outreach helps, and people
come around. I think like only the most sort of
(28:12):
uncharitable people on the on the on the left and
some on the right who are like you know, basically
have a caricature of me as I do of some people,
I'm sure, and they like refuse to let it go
in the face of evidence, and it's like, well, that's
what the block function is for.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
They've taken away our block function. I love that block function.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
I know that was one of the one of the
few things, one of the many things I should say
I don't I don't like about the new regime, even
though I you know, I was literally censored under the
old order.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, you still may be in this new one. We'll
see what happened.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You're one of my absolute favorite people, and I think
this is a really great project you've got going. I
can't wait to read Unheard under your you know, leadership
in the US, and I'll definitely be writing for you.
So leave us here with your best tip for my
listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Oh, for me, it's just waking up super early.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
You know, Catholic, you're supposed to believe in like this
rhythm of leisure and stuff. It's the Protestants, as you
know it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You know, I know the Catholics had the rhythm.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
Long ago, you know, that kind of sense of Sabbath
and feasting and so on. Whereas you know a certain
kind of Calvinists reform puanity.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
Is like just toil.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
But in my own life, I'm very much that kind
of a toiler. Like I love being up at what
I'm like three four in the morning doing work and
you feel like you're gaining.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Time on everyone else. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
But honestly though, I mean, okay, that sounds just purely
kind of materialistic or ambition oriented.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
But also those.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
Those early those early hours have a kind of mystery
and magic of out them that I just hate to
sleep through them.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I like that I'm not going to be following this advice,
but I enjoy it.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
My wife always gets mad when I say this this
because people think that that means that I'm like only
sleeping like four hours a night. It's just I go
to bed with my kids, so I'm like out by nine.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Up arguing at eleven pm, what are you doing with
your life? Well, thank you so much, Sah. Check out
on her dot com it's U n h E r D.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
He is Sora ba MARII.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
He's fantastic and I can't wait to read what Unheard
has to say.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Mark
which shall subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
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