Hello and welcome to the dissident podcast brought to you by The Institute for Liberal values this is where we talk about how we can strive for a world in which freedom and reason are at the Forefront of all human society in this week’s podcast Elizabeth SPAC and Mike Burke discuss a new report
Called the corruption of the American mind which discusses a potential link between Qatari funding and anti semetic hate crimes on campuses okay hello everybody as usual please don’t forget to subscribe like share and just just please do one of those or even all of those really nice
Things because it helps us out whether that’s on Spotify or I don’t know Facebook Twitter whatever I have no idea really about social media um but if you do and well all I know is that sharing and subscribing and stuff help so please do that that would be very kind um okay
So today Elizabeth and I are going to have a look at a report that had just come out from the uh Network contagion Research Institute um so I know some of the people involved with this I know Joel finlin and well I met him a couple of
Times and I know Lee Jim obviously he’s been on the podcast um and this uh report is entitled the corruption of the American mind how concealed foreign funding of us higher education predicts erosion of democratic values and anti-semitic incidents on campus um so it’s looking at the relationship between
Funding undisclosed funding um from overseas regimes and how that has contributed to the kind of intolerance I think that you’re familiar with if you’re listening to this um as well as specifically and especially anti-Semitism which we’ve seen unfolding particularly after the horrible events on the 7th so it’s tying
Those two things together both the anti-Semitism um and this kind of hostile environment that was very clear for anybody to see regardless of whether or not you were Jewish or had any sympathy with Jewish or Israeli interests um so we’ve both had a chance to read through this Elizabeth what were your impressions
Well um so one little kind of I mean I guess I have lots of of things here first of all I want to make really clear of course that this is purely correlational data right so there is no causation that should be uh inferred from this although I believe that the
Authors you know I mean they have their their bias is clear you know um they don’t use the word cause but you know it’s it’s uh implied I think but I think that’s I I I say that you know in a in a critical way I I also think that’s very
Typical you know we’ve been reading lots of articles on here and and that’s not atypical at all so um uh I also you know on a podcast that’s not released yet we had a little uh a little you and I had a little dust up over a
Measure and um you know a measure that’s you know been uh you know studied over a long period of time many many many years 20 five years um shown to be reliable and valid it still you know we still had questions about it when we were talking
About it and it’s like you know oh can we can we pick apart this measure well we can but it’s kind of irrelevant because that’s the measure that exists and it’s been shown that when people are uh take the you know take this scale you
Know at one point in time and take it again they tend to score the same um and um you know that kind of thing this study also has some problems in that they’re using for example FBI data on hate crimes and um all you have to do is go and I I’ll
Link it in in the podcast but you can go to um us departmentof justice.gov um and look at the you know just you can or you can just Google you know um hate crime FBI hate crime statistics reliability and Val validity um there there’s a uh how many pages is this
Report 76 page report that uh was just released uh a couple years ago uh about the problems with the reliability and validity of the data for hate crimes and why that uh why those problems exist and some of them are the definition of hate crime some of them are that people don’t
Report crimes that would maybe end up being hate crimes maybe no one was uh you know physically hurt um and so they end up not reporting things maybe like graffiti on a wall they just scrub it off or or something like that um so uh different jurisdictions have different
Um definitions of hate crimes so for example the the FBI is relying upon local uh you know so County data State data and uh different even C at the county level they can have different uh descriptions of what rape is what uh you know and what a hate crime is and that
Kind of thing so I I don’t want to go down that you know too deep but my point is my point is not to criticize the what the authors did with the data but to say that the data itself is inherently not so great um by the FBI’s own standards
So by their own admission this data is not too great and one thing I would say too is that they’re relying on FBI or they’re relying on local jurisdictions to report to the FBI and then they they the authors access the FBI data which is available to
Anyone who who would have better most likely most likely who would have the money uh to have like someone in their office say to track and Report hate crimes to maybe um do some field training on what a hate crime is to maybe do some community outreach on what
On on hate crimes well that would be larger police forces right in metropolitan areas perhaps areas that had larger universities so we have a correlation here between uh universities and University size um that’s also correlated and the number of hate crimes and then also the number of hate crimes
Reported in the communities because they also extended it Beyond to the communities I’m just suggesting that there’s there’s some uh some some other variables here that uh you know that would likely uh influence the results so um yeah so anyway I could I could I could carry on and and may interject
Some more but I’ll stop there for now and of course I mean we have to bring in the kind of the will Riley into the conversation right how many of these are hoaxes sure sure will estimates that up to half of hate crimes reported hate crimes are hoaxes
Um so that’s again that’s another variable um that we’re looking at so this is this report is um ALS it is uh 53 pages long and they do a pretty good job of you know they have the citations they have the data um you know uh the you know the data is public
Available data so others of us were we so inclined could access uh data they used the foundation for individual rights and Education data on um on University complaints so that’s publicly available data they used the FBI data they used now this um something else also they used the data on this unreported money
Now um I I mean I didn’t you know I didn’t spend a crazy amount of time uh looking uh looking into this but you know one has to um you know Wonder like who again who’s not reporting a billion dollars worth of money and what makes them decide to report it later because
The government says oh we think you have unreported money you should you know report again this would be large school larger schools right um schools with names I mean these are you know the Harvard’s the yalees I mean the the you know the again this report we’ll link
This report in the in the podcast notes it’s you know it’s out there it’s not it’s not behind a pay wall or anything like that um so you can look at the schools um these would be uh you know schools maybe that foreign students would be more likely to
Attend um you know foreign students have never heard of you know I don’t know where I teach for example probably they’ve never heard of it even I’d never heard of it before I came to work here so uh or before I applied so um where would foreign students be applying to
Schools that are well known for their research that already have you know funding sources and and that kind of thing and therefore then you know say I live in a Middle Eastern country and my kids you know or I immigrated or whatever my kids have gone to this great
School and I’m gonna like say hey if you’re going to donate to a school maybe you should donate to this one where my my kid you know my kid where people from around here have been going um these are going to be big big research schools
That tend to attract no no little school in Little School in Rural America with you know 2,000 students is going to have not just not have a billion dollars of unreported funding but a billion dollars just you know research funding that just drops into their into their laps um so
These big schools um that attract foreign students aren’t they also more likely they linked the researchers linked this to the students for justice for Palestine um well no kidding I mean I’m not sure sure that again I’m not sure that an online school uh a small school in Rural
America is going to have enough students who are knowledgeable interested um you know uh I don’t know uh to form a club right if you’ve only got a few thousand students in your at your University there’s not enough students to form a club of you know a a you know
There’s barely enough may they maybe even don’t have any fraternities or sororities they maybe don’t have any sports except intermural so I I don’t know I’m just kind of I’m finding a lot of of kind of other variables here that that’s such an American thing we
Don’t have them in UK it’s like there’s literally no such thing in the UK Al as far as I’m aware there’s no such thing yeah um very interesting I didn’t get involved in any of that anyway although I did go to the parties not going to lie I definitely went to the
Parties um so to me this report if Lee was here I would say to Lee this um a little bit hypocritical maybe this it’s almost a little bit implicit biase like the money sort of like emits something into the air and people breathe the air and then suddenly become
You know more uh anti-semitic I’m not saying that they say that but it’s like a little you know like how what is this money buying exactly uh you know it I I wrote down this little I said you know it’s just as easy to fall in love with a
Rich man uh as it is to fall in love with a poor man it’s sort of like this old kind of uh you know saying that that maybe um parents would tell their their daughters it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a man it’s
Just you know what it’s just as easy to do research that’s attractive to to funders as it is to do research that’s not maybe um so which came first the money or the bias you know which comes first the chicken or the egg you know uh
We have a bit of a chicken and an egg problem here so yeah similarly my my again like from my point of and you’re way more qualified than me to to to to address this from a method methodological point of view everything seemed to be in perfect order right I’m not criticizing
The way they did their statistics not criticizing it no no some would I notice if it was terrible no probably not um that’s not my my thing um but but but it seemed to be very rigorously done and and certainly everything was very well sourced there was no kind of you know we
Took apart this hasn’t been released yet but we we spent like three hours taking apart some bizarre woke corporate presentation and we looked at the data and that and we just ripped it to shreds right um and then you know the best study that was in there that was
Something that was good because it was funded by fiser and the rest of it it was you know high-profile rather than good but you know it did receive a lot of money and we looked at that and they didn’t disclose their methodology or their data sources or anything like that
So it wasn’t it wasn’t like that there were no kind of red flags um right my um my and and and also what they’re implying is that Qatari largely Qatari funding is causing a rise in anti-semitic hate crimes and I think they’re probably right to imply that um but there were
Some bits that they didn’t cover they didn’t get anybody like me involved for example so what I would have liked to have seen would be okay well what are you funding so is the funding being a building name um is it funding I don’t know um let’s
Try Qatari food week on campus see all of those things can be perfectly benign you know you could you could get something you could get funding from the Chinese government right which is a a really repressive authoritarian regime and yet that funding might be for Something Completely benign right right
So you don’t know or is the funding going into things like post Colonial studies well and there would be no way from the data that they got of course there would be no way to know because they’re using the IRS or the you know the government yeah not not from the
Data specifically but you could follow that up you could start to talk to the school so maybe they could I think it would be very difficult um you know I I I do think it would be difficult I don’t want to I mean I I agree with you
Completely I I do think just like the deal with the uh FBI statistics on hate crime I think it would be very difficult to tease some of this apart um but yeah I mean I there there it is definitely again not a flaw in the way they analyze
The data as you say but there’s there’s the data is um you know is not perfect it’s sort of a garbage in garbage out kind of thing can we can we really say that you know with with all these different like flaws and the data can we
Really say that much about um you know about again the correlations are significant they’re you know the the the analysis seems to be fine from the way you know from what from what we can see um so even schools or places that would accept money and not report
It my suspicion is that these are already schools places where sort of shoddy or underhanded kinds of things are happen these are PE these are places where people are learning that the the way to get ahead is you got to beat the system right like where my
Where my sister uh Works they the professors basically get told look if you don’t get a federal Grant within the first three years you’re not going to get tenure okay so these are people who are under extremely high pressure uh particularly now as there’s few fewer and fewer academic jobs um and
And and that kind of thing so um you know places that are able to to attract someone who wants to give this amount of money may be places where there’s already some kind of like you know kind of like shady things going on one of I
Mean like one of the things that that this made me think of is what if you did the same study but you tracked money that came from Jeffrey Epstein would you find the same thing because would you find you find something quite different you might or I
Don’t know that you would because it’s the same kinds of schools the same kinds of things so if all the other statistics are the same okay if you if we have the same universities who are accepting undocumented money who are also accept accepting money from Jeff Jeffrey
Epstein then you would find exactly the same thing oh no no that’s not what I mean je Jeffrey Epstein for all his flaws wasn’t anti-israel no no no that’s that’s my point this is exactly my point because you would find the same thing even though he wasn’t anti-semitic that
Is my point the same kinds of schools who are accepting un who are who are accepting money and not reporting it are the are the schools that if you look at that list are the same schools that were accepting money say from Jeffrey Epstein so you would have found exactly the same
Results and you would have said oh Jeffrey Epstein’s money is causing anti-Semitism or is causing something else yeah yeah yeah exactly whatever it is well we’re not saying cause and the researchers don’t say cause I want to be careful they they’re saying it’s correlated with okay um so kind of cause
They they kind the title the title let’s go to the title because I think this is important the corruption of the American mind how concealed foreign funding of us higher education predicts erosion of democratic values and anti-semitic incidents on Camp that’s cause yeah I mean you know well predicts is I mean
You know like um you know the number of ice cream cones bought predicts you know uh shark attacks but that doesn’t mean that you know I yeah yeah yeah um so so yeah I think that there’s a little bit of it smacks a little bit of implicit bias it’s like
Well and and I would you know again sort of challenge him on on this because um you can’t have it both we can’t have it both ways right even though we want to have it both ways uh when we’re you know um but to recognize the hypocrisy there
Is like oh you know uh implicit bias has never been found to predict behavior in any research studies okay so the fact that it exists you know it’s like we can measure implicit bias but we but no nobody’s ever been able to link it to behaviors so all of a sudden now you’re
Going to say that this implicit bias of having accepted money causes you know like now we’re linking it to behaviors you know you you know okay well this is this this is this you might be right in so far as this link would either be impossible or very hard to do but this
Is what’s missing like what are they funding you know if you are think that would why would that but I I don’t disagree with you but why would that solve the problem I think it would add to the the the the data and it would help us um maybe evaluate but that would
Not solve the problem because of of this sort of implicit bias kind of spooky kind of thing where oh the money comes in and anti-Semitism just grows I can answer that question I can answer that question so so for example um the you know I I don’t want to say
Critical social justice because there are versions of critical social justice that are more nuanced than this but certainly the the dumb down version of critical social justice that is the most impactful out there right as measured by things like book Sals holds to a particular world view wherein um you
Know a very very dumb down version of the oppressors versus oppressed ontology right so they would look at a country and and Israel is often the focus of it so they would look at a country like Israel they would say that Israel was created artificially um they would say look
Who’s they the people who are advancing the dumb down version of critical social justice so people in so we’re not talking about the funders yet we’re not talking about we’re just talking about a random we’re not talking about the human or or anybody no I’m talking about
People who adhere to the dumb down version of critical social justice okay so the cendes of the world the D’Angelos of the world the I mean pretty much the whole of postcolonial theory as it is right now I I if there is how do you link that to
This funding how do you link them I can’t I can’t yet okay okay I I I but but I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll go there just just give me a second so we know who they are right specifically not just wokies I mean wokies would not be
The the kind of critical race Theory wokies are kind of adjacent to this right this is more like the post Colonial wokies which is more it’s significant within the United States but it’s more actually a UK thing than it is a us thing so post Colonial theory is
More kind of looking at the legacy of the British Empire and things like that it’s significant within the United States too but it’s really it you know you would say that the the most influential form of wokery was within the US is critical race Theory critical race theory is also very
Influential within the UK but postcolonial theory is more influential within the UK um so anyway these people the postcolonial theorists do look at universities as being the legacy of the British Empire and upholding the Privileges that the Empire afforded British people right at the expense of other people they see um
Israel as being a continuation of that because Israel went directly from British Empire Control right it was the Palestinian mandate the the BR ruled directly from Britain and then it was given it was given to the Jewish people by the Brits so it was a direct Act of
Empire power to give them that that that state um and so they would then look at it and they would say well okay the Palestinians are relatively less well off than the Israelis are or what is the the cause of that well it is zero sum oppression right that the the the Jews
In Israel are well off because they are oppressing the Palestinians and that’s what these people actually believe um and so with that in mind if you can show if and here’s the big if right because this isn’t shown in this report if you can show a clear link between
Funding and those kind of programs or those kinds of academics then I think you get a lot closer to this kind of anti-Semitism charge right but there isn’t that here no there isn’t yeah that’s that’s yeah and and I don’t know so I don’t know I don’t know
Whether it would be as hard as you suggest to do by the way um so for example well in this data I mean there’s nothing in the the the data that they had access to there’s nothing there and they would have had and there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
Schools that they would what at least 403 schools that they would have had to have researched so so maybe this isn’t ask too much like you know that that paper that they put out is interesting in and of itself right um but what is needed is further research then I mean
That would be a better way of putting it right yeah and I think I would have been happier with the paper if that’s what how they had concluded if they had actually said like these are hints and um again you know like you have to go a
Long ways from to in my mind you have to go a long ways from you know researcher X lab Y and you know um uh Department Z got some funding you know uh to CommunityWide uh anti-semitic hate crimes that’s a lot that’s a leap for me
Right right right so so this is and this is something that kind of pisses me off with this Lee I love you with Lee very well um but this is what pisses me off with sometimes with this kind of academic right so this kind of academic
Is often it’s all data data data data data right it’s all objective it’s all what are the facts right we’ve got anti-Semitism here and we’ve got funding here whereas we need that ideological analysis right like if you show me where the funding is going I will pick that apart right I I
Will be able to show you the link I will be able to explicitly show you well maybe call maybe I also think I also I also think that it would not have been as hard maybe it couldn’t have you know gone to where you went but but
Where you’re going but to maybe score these universities on say you know some scale regarding you know do they have for example you know do they have a a gender Studies major do they have H you know these you know do they have like a a social justice you know whatever how
Many how many Dei officers do they have I don’t know whatever so they in theory Maybe they could have uh you know maybe scored the universities on that without then without relying on you know they could have gone to each University’s website kind of done some digging and
Maybe gotten something you know you know I I would have been more comfortable if they had have said look there is a correlation left at that and then ask somebody like us like you know the job that we did with that report okay let’s go in and let’s look at what
They’re publishing this is where the money’s going what are they publishing again though I just I can’t get to even if you get to that even if you get to anti-semitic ideas in you know a particular pocket because I think you’re going to be hard to find not find you know the
The because this some of this critical social justice stuff is anti-Semitic and it’s pretty much everywhere now pretty much yeah pretty much everywhere now it’s going to be hard not to find it okay it’s it’s almost you know it’s um I still don’t know how you get
To you know more hate crimes in in the community as a as a direct link again you know it’s a correlation but there’s I think that there’s you know a lot of a lot of other things going on you know that we just can’t capture it’s hard to get to to hate
Crimes because we don’t really know what a hate crime is right exactly exactly I mean it’s just like a mass murderer you know it’s like it some in some places it’s like more than three and some places it’s at least five and you know it’s and and you know what kinds of um
You know motivations and that kind of thing so it’s it’s defined differently so not only is is it poorly reported but it’s also defined differently in different areas of the country and they get to choose they don’t even the the reporting to the FBI isn’t even
Mandatory you know if you don’t have if if you don’t if you don’t do it you don’t do it like just you know so I did a bit of digging uhhuh um not into the data because that’s not my thing um but into qari
Funding um in the UK so I spoke to some of my contacts at some of the UK’s top top top top top top top universities and um yeah from the point of view of my context the qataris are are deliberately funding critical social justice um programs within the UK within
Top UK universities including and this is worryingly security studies oh yeah I’m not surprised about that yeah I’m not surprised I mean yeah so let’s put it another way a I have to be very careful what I say here a un University Department very closely linked with the
Ministry of Defense in the UK just uncritically took a lot of money um for a project um from let’s just say a Gulf Power it’s wild it’s wild that this kind of thing is happening the universities are look universi influence culture a lot I think we’re comfortable with saying that
Would you be I think you know and and it’s wild that these authoritarian regimes foreign authoritarian regimes are being able to influence to buy influence within UK and US universities with either no oversight or in the case that I found oversight and the oversight was clapping hands well
Done isn’t that lovely right right right you know this is abjectly terrifying yeah and and here’s the thing I mean you know we talk about this all the time but I don’t think universities realize the extent to which they are jeopardizing the uh the influence and
The Prestige and all that you know that they have enjoyed all of this time um you know they’re they’re behind I I really think that that I don’t want to say most but many in society are you know are moving away from the respect the sort of reverence
That they have given you know um given universities phds in general um and and this is the kind of thing that’s you know that’s also going to contribute so now we have massive grade inflation where we have Absolut there’s nothing nothing predicts uh high school and college graduation except grade
Inflation so we have more high school graduates and more college graduates than ever before in the popul so as a percentage of population and no other correlate no other correlate remain remains significant the only thing that explains it is gr inflation so test scores aren’t better you know High School grades
Aren’t better in you know uh uh uh aren’t a better predictor of college grades they’re just better High School grades are just better it’s like so um so that’s one thing that’s undermining right the critical social justice stuff undermining the you know respect for universities this kind of thing under
Mining respect for universities just even the fact that there was all this undocumented money that then that the the government asked and they were like oh okay we’ll just report it now because we’re above this all anyway oops you know I mean they you have to be pretty
Confident that you’re not that nobody’s going to come knocking if you’re you know you didn’t you didn’t report it and now you are reporting it and you know did anything bad happen to these universities because of it doesn’t seem to be no and so um I don’t know what’s
Going on in the higher echelons of universities where they just seem to think that they will continue to enjoy the same level the same degree of reverence um you know despite all of this I I I just don’t know what’s going on it’s it’s it’s alarming um and and and well
Let’s let’s look at what we see you know you know we Okay so we’ve kind of like looked at the paper and we said okay you’ve got a you know the methodology is fine you’ve done a good job you’ve sourced it really well all of that’s
Great however the the data that the data that you’re working with is poor quality which by the way they did not do a good job of talking about yeah that that’s that’s a valid criticism they should have they should have talked about that but then that’s you know somewhat mitigated by the fact
That they have such a whopping correlation um and let’s go into the interesting part what what are we actually seeing in our well yeah um let me just say I don’t I wouldn’t describe the whopping correlation it’s very significant okay but we don’t you we don’t typically judge significance by very
Significant it either is or it isn’t it’s not like o it’s got three asterisks by it so it’s very significant so it’s still not it’s not I mean again you know we we talk about this all the time it’s still not explaining a lot of the variance okay so
It’s significant but it’s not explaining a lot of so you know so this is a kind of problem because what I what what we want to do what I want to do is use this to explain what I’m actually seeing right right and that’s yeah I think and
It’s you know we get into confirmation bias right because it’s like it’s like oh this fits with what we’re seeing so it must be right which you know um I just I I again I just I see it as sort of a a spurious it’s like you know you found this
But you know there’s a lot of other a lot of other variables and and I’m not saying that that these variables again these the the the relationships are significant these variables are predicting some are predictive okay but I don’t think we can get anywhere near causality I think there’s other things
Going on that are relevant and um and and so I agree with you it’s like what does this show us this shows us that more study is needed this I I want to say something about you know because I I was um in compliance for a long time so
Research ethics and so there’s this ongoing there’s always this ongoing discussion in research ethics about money and um you know the potential for undue influence and coercion so um it’s kind of interesting because uh you know even though we talk about it all the time there’s a lot of problems with it
So uh generally speaking the Belmont report which is something that a lot of compliance officers rely on say that coercion occurs when an overt threat of harm is presented in order to gain compliance okay so that would be a you know a threat undo influence occurs through an an offer of excessive unwanted
Inappropriate or improper reward okay so that’s what we would think of as maybe some of this money right would be undo undo influence um so what’s interesting is in in uh you know this is a person who does a lot of her name’s uh larent um does a lot of
Research on uh ethics and so they there’s people although they have this abstract idea of what undue influence is um so for example in in this study 79% agreed that payment is an undue influence if the individual perceives no reasonable uh um alternative but to participate and that’s what we would say
Maybe about a lot of researchers at universities right like I if I don’t get money I’m not going to keep my job or if I turn down money my University’s gonna say what the hell you don’t turn down money right you know somebody came they wanted to give you money that’s the
Whole Jeffrey Epstein thing right he shows up he hangs out with them he gives them money it’s like what are you gonna do you know um but here’s an example so Mary’s a resident of a in US inner city who was invited to participate in a vaccine study um she said that because
She’s lost her job and needed money she felt she had no reasonable alternative but to participate most uh only a very few people thought that she was coerced but 64% thought she was unduly influenced so there you know most so people are seeing in research they’re seeing undue
Influence that’s just one example but there were many undue influence was was seen a lot more so we have in the abstract we have um you know people saying that undue influence is this you know where you see not an Al you know that we where you don’t see an
Alternative um and then you also see it in the uh a little bit in the in the scenarios but a little bit less um but they’re not seeing coercion so they’re seeing undue influence but they’re not seeing coercion and these are you know they’re so they’re not seeing the the threat but
They’re seeing the you know the lure right this the sucking in um and we’re we’re constantly dealing with that in in ethics and I’m wondering at these universities again if that’s more a better predictor than where the money comes from in general just sort of this you know there’s
Some Co there’s some undue influence in general going on and who is I mean look I I threw this out with Elizabeth Weiss the Anthropologist that uh I talked to the uh podcast that was released about three weeks ago um the bones of contention one
Um you know I said you know it’s it um I have no evidence of this whatsoever this is just purely anecdotal but it feels to me like those of us who are sort of pushing back against this critical social justice St pushing back against some of this undue influence
Okay are the people who have who are who are more interested in the ethical uh guidelines maybe for our field um are more uh interested in things like academic freedom and free speech um that that are more comfortable discussing the nuance and kind of working through something like is this in undue
Influence let’s talk let’s think about let’s let’s not just say yes or or no let’s really dig into it and the people who are com who are just sort of skimming the surface seem to be the ones who are doing things that we think are not nonsensical right they’re they’re
They’re not digging into this sort of ethics and and maybe the of of their fields and stuff and so I wonder if that’s a if we could measure that I’m not saying we can measure that I mean that’s exactly my observation right um You knowa case in
Point I was having a debate another debate with uh a journalist who is very on the Palestinian side and the journalist was saying look how many people Israel have killed since the beginning of this offensive isn’t this terrific and you know the first thing is where’s your Source what’s your source for these
Deaths oh the Gaza Ministry of Health really right right now now this person is smart this person is a quite a famous journalist and you might use that data but then you would want to trust but verify right well yeah I mean because that’s Hamas right exactly it is
Exactly it is Hamas right so your data is Hamas okay and and you’re a famous journalist and and and and if somebody was making the argument from the other end like so for example Israel said only you know the Israeli Ministry of Health says only 10 people are being
Killed then they would be the first to say yeah but that’s Israel Israel is saying that well you know you can’t apply these standards to yourself so so people aren’t thinking these ideas through right right so if if you have places that are not thinking some of these things through
Already maybe they’re you know sort of not thinking about things like undue influence as deeply as they should be they’re you know as evidenced by you know taking money from you know places where maybe they shouldn’t take money are those people that are already or are more vulnerable to this critical social
Justice which is in itself anti-semitic and so is that really what’s going is it not just the money is the money a sign a a uh a proxy for what’s already going on so let’s unpack this a little bit more so so I I I don’t want to see that these
People can’t think things through because they can neither no um they they what they key thing is they don’t do is they don’t think it through if thinking it through would cost them something exactly right so you know same person I was debating with I said to him
Look forget whether these statistics are being inflated or not right let’s just say that they’re real Hamas boast about openly and here’s a series of YouTube links where you can actually see the leaders outwardly openly just saying exactly this repeatedly emphatically and clearly that they they hope that their civilians die because in
So doing they are FasTrack to heaven and so that’s great for their civilians if they die right so they basically pretty much openly say that they use humans civilians as human Shields so now when you then go on and you criticize Israel for causing collateral damage and civilians dying question number one who
Is more responsible for the deaths of those civilians is it the Israelis who didn’t want to kill them or Hamas who deliberately put them In Harm’s Way right so who and and and you know the classic example would be like if I rounded up a bunch of people forced them
On the gunpoint onto a busy highway shot any that tried to escape and then Elizabeth speat runs over one of them by accident in her car who is more responsible me or Elizabeth speac You’ Clearly say it was me right but it’s not even that’s not even it either right
It’s like by going along by saying that it’s Israel that is the the agent here that is the most responsible for the deaths of these civilians you are then incentivizing Hamas to use even more human Shields and get even more of their people killed so you’re actually harming the very people that you’re
Claiming to stand up for and none of this is difficult to get none of this is but they don’t they don’t get so they didn’t get or they do get it and they like you said they could get it they could get it but they’re not but they’re
Not motivated to and and so this is so so this is what is happening there are and look let let let’s be fair to an extent we all do this right but we’re kind of moot I think some people are more motivated than others to hold themselves in
Check yeah now you know and if I and this is where well I was just going to say this is this is where um where religion you know we often talk about um you know so where religion kind of comes in in terms of giving us guidance and rules and um you know
Uh sometimes sometimes religious gives us Le religion gives us less to think about right because there’s you know there’s rules and we just we just do what you know what’s told and and idea that you know critical social justice is somewhat of a a religion right and so
There’s certain rules it’s like this is you know this is how this is how we’re going to do it and many T PE religious Scholars or people who are who are you know who who maybe love their religion enough to really do the research and and
And you know um and study religion um you know do know the origins they don’t just follow the rules they know the origins and um I think you know you’re right like so many of these people who are just sort of like following along with critical social justice don’t they
Don’t know their own they don’t know their own sources they don’t know their own literature and um and you know they’re just just continue to dig and dig the hole well yeah because it kind ofits them it benefits them in the short term right we go we go back to this kind of
Adaptive maladaptive argument so if you’re in a university um does it make sense to go along with this stuff yeah in shortterm interests right but it’s certainly not in the interests of the university in the long term it not your longterm interest either and not for the students
At all no and and so when when it’s not good for the University and it’s not good for the students it’s also not good for you know for us in the the the long-term either so but it but you’re right it’s it’s just the shortterm you know there’s um the short-term
Pain being cancelled of being ostracized and and that kind of stuff is just too much I guess for for most people um I mean if you look at the ethics of what happened to you that was wildly unethical and well it’s not in the past tense it’s one of the things I’m always
Like correct and I have to correct myself on too because it’s like wait a minute I’m right this is still current this is still you know uh it’s still happening right um so I I wanted to talk about another little study because it is
About money um so um this is a uh in the Journal of gambling issues so kind of interesting that’s like the one issue that I don’t have I have plenty of Vice like lots of but not that one but no no just left me stone dead just like completely uninterested in GBL not
Attractive to you okay so this is um this study was done in in uh Canada they tracked um it’s part of another study they offered people uh money to fill out a survey about gambling okay about their gambling habits and um so they used a What’s called the Canadian problem
Gambling index to measure whether and to divide people into people who were problem gamblers and people who were not okay and everybody got compensated for particip in in the study so they got 15 Canadian dollars for filling out the survey so this is so interesting to me they tracked when
People um uh uh cash their check and they found that people who had a gambling problem cashed their check two days earlier than people who didn’t have a gambling PR problem now again this sort of gets back to my sort of this idea like it’s just as easy to to
Fall in love with a rich man right it’s the same amount of money it’s the same amount of love right let’s just let’s just fall in love with somebody that’s got money when you’re talking about research you know it’s like if you if you’re if you are motivated if you’re
Driven to you know buy money you know for your research right I mean it it is a bit of an addiction this you know this research situation at um and uh you know it’s it’s it drives everything I I don’t think people people who aren’t in you don’t really understand the the extent
To which um you know it it really is the driver of everything um then you know you’re you’re after the money right and and um you know you you cash your check two days sooner now you might say oh two days you know uh you
Know big deal but um you know it’s just a simple survey and a simple you know reward check that everybody got so I think that that that impulse that impulse to to to take the money you know um you know to do that shortterm to get that shortterm reward um don’t ask too
Many questions just just do it just you know um you know I that’s why I saw that connection uh from what you were just you know you were just saying yeah um so from my perspective is this is this happening are the Chinese government and the Qatari government buying influence in US
Universities and UK and this paper doesn’t say anything about the UK um right so academic hat on um you’d have to say I can’t answer that question right but it makes intuitive sense to you it it makes intuitive sense but also it backs up like what I’ve heard from academics themselves at some
Of the UK’s most prestigious universities who have told me well um you know what I wonder though uh because again the research shows that that most people who get funding who get you know whether it’s you know whether it’s within again you know to go back to my
Compliance examples whether it’s in a research study and people get you know they’re getting paid for research or not getting paid for research or they randomly assign people to get either nothing say $100 or $300 and they you know pay the the $300 people will say I didn’t do it for the
Money right and the I did it for the research I you know the money was nice okay they’ll say things like you know well who wouldn’t want to receive money um you know just for doing what I was already going to do so you know I’m
Using an example of like an a like a a a step tracker thing you know so when early early on they were seeing does is this really going to help people lose weight and so it’s like oh well I didn’t do it for the money I did it to contribute to
Research um so I don’t know that uh that researchers who say that it either is going on or isn’t going on I don’t know if we’re very good at knowing whether research is influencing us or not who’s funding us Elizabeth not anyone damn it no no no no but but but
No but it seriously it seriously raises a question doesn’t it you know if you are doing what we’re doing which is essentially trying to hold Western Civilization together I’m not saying we’re being effective or not in that that’s what we’d like to do right so before you accuse us of being hyperbolic
We’re not saying we are doing that we we’re trying to do that uh um you know the hyp desperately clinging to to threads attempting to and maybe failing um but but how come it is so easy to get all of this woke nonsense funded because you know you are looking
At ideological stuff that is is being that is suboptimal no it’s it’s awful right like some of the the research that’s being published is awful and some of the good quality research like we’ve gone through psychological papers in which the the quality of research in terms of the methodology and everything is fine
But it doesn’t support the claims that are being made right that’s that’s been one of the themes that we found um so how is it that it is so easy to get that kind of crap out there and yet the better arguments hardly get in any airtime at
All even though the public are quite receptive to them so before we were so rudely interrupted by an internet uh outage an internet hiccup there um I was just saying like I’m not really sure we’re very good at knowing whether we’re being influenced by money or not and you were
Saying that you are hearing maybe that you know hearing people say that they believe that they see it no maybe not in themselves maybe we’re better at at know accusing others of it we are knowing whether it’s happening to us yeah I I I think that standards of evidence is a
Really really hard thing because you want a certain standard of evidence to make an academic claim which is why they’re not making any specific claims they’re kind of nudge nudge wink wink in the paper right they’re not saying outright that Qatar is deliberately trying to corrupt us education that is
What they’re saying but they’re not saying it outright because they know that the standards of evidence just aren’t there yet um and yet if you are in the policy business if you’re looking at you know if you’re working for an intelligence agency or if you are in Consulting
Government or working in government to make a decision on you know which way are we going to go policy-wise then it’s nice if you have the academic standard of evidence but you really can’t wait for that you know you have to make decisions based on a much lower
Standard of evidence and as you do in your everyday life right right um you know you can’t sit down okay am I going to choose the blue pen or the black pen to write the birthday card well you know how would this go across let’s wait for
A study to find out what the chances are of EX person receiving a card written in this ink better than that ink you know you just have to go you have to you have to we all have to operate on on much lower standards of evidence that includes governments
Um so you know this is an academic paper and they have to write it in an AC mic way so that they cannot openly conclude that Qatar Qatar is deliberately using their money to cause anti-israel and anti-semitic they’re more concerned about Israel I think than
The Jews but you know the two are kind of inexorably Linked In most people’s minds um you know are guitar deliberately using their money to cause anti-israeli sentiment on campus right knowing that for example qar does fund Hamas and houses its a lot of its leaders in you know mind-bogglingly opulent Mansions um
So are they are they using that money to those ends as academics we can’t say yes right well and I’m not willing I mean I’m again I’m sort of suggesting this it’s a little bit conspiracy theory a little bit ho you know a little bit too um you
Know implicit bias for for me but I mean I’m willing to entertain your you know I’m willing to hear you out but again again you know if you’re in the business of intelligence then you don’t have the time to wait around for that evidence to become available for it to become as
Crystal clear as that again you’d like it to be that way but you have to make a decision otherwise lives could be lost right otherwise you could have a major terrorist event or something like that or how long would it take for us to so let’s assume Qatar are doing that
Right how long do you think it would take for us to gather enough evidence to be to publish a report that would conclusively say that that’s what’s going on oh I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t have published this I’m not suggesting at all that’s that’s not the question I’m
Saying of course I know I get where you’re coming from right but but what I’m saying is let’s say that Qatar have made a policy a secret policy that they are going to use um their significant amounts of wealth in order to deliberately influence us colleges and thereby hopefully the rest
Of American society to be against Israel how much now from an academic point of view how would we get the evidence that we would need in order to publish that could we ever get there uh I mean maybe but it would be pretty tough yeah it would be really really really really
Tough but but if that is what they’re up to then we do need to lower the standards of evidence in order to get a conviction yeah yeah I mean I think it’s perfectly uh fine to consider this again you know the way that I would consider you
Know I I don’t want to reject out of hand everything that smacks of a potential conspiracy theory I don’t want to to you know just say oh it sounds like it’s conspiracy theory so you can’t be true I mean just because well some conspiracy all true right exactly
Exactly so I’m not you know but this this does have that sort of like you know it it seems like a really long way around to do to influence I mean I’m sorry but you I I get it that you’re you’re not going to agree with me but I think this is a
Really this is a pretty long game this here let me say this I don’t think that that idea is that far off of uh grooming children to be gay and let me tell you why because by the time let’s say I’m grooming children to be gay by the time
Th that child is grown up and participating in you know same-sex relationships or you know deciding to be TR or whatever I’m dead so it’s like this so this idea that like Oh Let’s do let’s play this really long game so that in 50 or a hundred years there’s going
To be enough of enough people who believe this in order to influence International politics is just a little right know that I agree with you about the gay grooming thing right which is why you but but the but the example that example doesn’t work right because the
Gay in order for the gay grooming thing to be true it would need so many participants in it right there’d need to be so many people who are clued into this conspiracy the going along no no no not at all it would need a handful of people like like who is controlling
Qatar’s Sovereign wealth fund no no no I mean I mean in the US in over here need an awfully lot of people to come over to the critical Joseph and to start engaging in hate crimes I mean come on no no no no no no no no all they would
Have to do is find Scholars who are already publishing in critical social justice they’re not they’re not creating a new movement they’re finding a movement that exists and funding it this is what the Soviets have done since time in Memorial right in order to in order to spread hate crimes well right Soviet
So we know this because this is all being Declassified now both from a Russian point of view and an American point of view but the Russians since time in Memorial the Soviet intelligence plan was to look for existing cleavages within us society and try and drive a
Wedge in them and they still do that right we we know that the Russians do that we have evidence that they do that like in in in terms of them pushing narratives around black lives matter in terms of them putting uh at the same time driving the magga narrative as well
We can track the IP addresses okay but but wouldn’t that be to more to disrupt yes uh democracy so this is a whole different argument this is in order that you know um there you know at some point in the future um you know there will be you know more people committing hate
Crimes in care about the hate crimes Qatar is not trying to cause hate crimes in fact if you were to talk to the Amir of Qatar and say now talk way you’re talking beyond the article then right what what I’m saying is that that the kind of hate crimes and the anti-Semitism that’s
Coming out on campus is a side effect it’s not the desired effect right I don’t think that they mean to do this I don’t think they care whether they’re doing it or not you know I don’t think they’re bothered one way or the other right what they want to do
Is undermined Israel’s influence within the region that’s what they want to do okay so I might I might buy that more that because I thought you were sort of arguing that they were trying to like get people to engage in hate crimes because that somehow Advanced no I don’t
Think they care I don’t I I sticking too closely to the article so look from from their point of view they’re going to probably think look if people are going around beating up Jews if that undermines Israel’s position within the region that’s a good thing but we don’t care the Jew being
Beaten up one way or the other right right I don’t think that they think that the Jews are subhuman or anything like that but again if people are making that case and that harms Israel’s position within the region that’s a good thing what we do know about
Qatar um we know that they’re funding these universities we know that they host Hamas the Hamas leadership lives in Doha um again funded by the Qatari government to to Millions upon Millions if not billions of dollars um we know that they fund Hamas all of this is this is objectively true
Right um we know that Qatar is trying to become more relevant so on the one hand Qatar hosts the biggest US military base in the Middle East um whilst on the other having open links with Al-Qaeda with um again Hamas you know they host the leaders of
Hamas the biggest US military base which tells you something right we know that there is tension between um Qatar and their big rivals and we know who their big Regional Rivals are Elizabeth oh no this you listening last time Saudi Arabia that was going to be my guest but
I I was afraid no Saudi Arabia hosts Mecca and Medina which are the two most important um cities in in Islam right so they are the preeminent power um but the the Saudi royal family you know they they’re Merchants a few Generations back they’re not like this kind of super like
Storied family and so you know people like Iran and Qatar Qatar being a Sunni power Iran being a Shia power are kind of pissed off with Saudi Arabia they they don’t want Saudi Arabia to be the preeminent um Islamic power in the region especially now that um Saudi
Arabia seem to be kind of edging away from Islam right they’re they’re becoming more and more secular they’re still very Theocratic by Western standards um but they very much are liberalizing at quite an extraordinary Pace um so and the Saudis want to be friends with the Israelis so Qatar you know are Kar
Trying to undermine undermine Israel absolutely I don’t think there’s anybody in foreign policy who would argue otherwise you know they’ll do dealings with Israel they’re trying to do dealings between Hamas and Israel in order to get the the hostages released but again they’re doing that because they want to preserve hamas’s continuity
They want to keep them there they’re worried that um if there is no deal for the hostages Israel will go in and wipe Hamas out and they don’t want that because they have a lot of influence over Hamas as do Iran um so why then would Qatar being put being putting you know
All of this money into US universities why would they be doing that and again look there there there are pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that are missing as I suggested I want to know what programs are these going to and then I want to look at those programs and analyze them
From an ideological point of view and I don’t have that yet but if I have to make a decision on this why are Qatar putting so much money into these universities and we see a correlation between AR Rising anti-semitic hate crimes then my guess would be that qara putting money into
These programs to fund decolonial specifically ideological programs in order to weaken support for Israel within the United States and they’ve been quite successful in that so I’ll you know get you saying like is this 10 something 10 we’ll see 10 years down the line or in the future
No we can see this now no I’m just saying that this is well beyond though it’s not your thing that that’s fine it’s also well beyond the article I guess is my point so like we we agree that the article is you know limited yeah and um and you know so it’s it
Opened this discussion which is valuable and maybe we’ll drive here’s another here’s another problem with the article like because it’s you know you got an defamation League people in there and you know people who I like and I’m very sympathetic with again I’m very pro-israel and I’m very worried about
The obvious levels of anti-Semitism that you can just see anywhere right now right um but you know if you want data on that that’s there too right there are you know the rising anti-semitic hate crimes even before the seventh is well documented so you know Joel Lee if
You’re listening I’m very very very very sympathetic with you um but I think that the the interests of these people may be to tie this directly to Rises of anti-Semitism in the United States and while I agree that there is a cause and effect relationship and all likelihood
From an academic point of view you’re right you can’t really show that what I think you can show better and I’m I wish they had gone down this route is that the money by guar is being used you know forget about the anti-Semitism it is being used the purpose is to under
Undermine Israel’s role in the Middle East and that in and of itself might not be anti-semitic you know you might just be because you don’t like Israel or you want some other power to be in it doesn’t mean that you hate the Jews um but that that that’s what’s going on
Here I think I think that’s what the balance you know if you have to say what is this money being used to do then I think that’s the best call you know the other Alternatives being it’s genuinely being used to combat homophobia no it’s been given away
Because out of the kindness of their hearts no it you know it has a design and and and that design is the most the most likely explanation for that design is one that is most congruent with qatar’s foreign policy and I’ve explained what that foreign policy is it’s to undermine the
You know the effectiveness of Israel and Saudi Arabia um so that’s what’s going on I think but again in order to state that I have to drop the standard of evidence a bit and it’s necessary sometimes to drop the standard standard of evidence if you’re trying to combat a potentially hostile
Regime which this is and us really should stop being so friendly with Qatar and just accepting money without any questions whether it’s from je for yeah whether it’s from Jeff or or China or well here’s another thing that wasn’t being discussed you know there’s a you
Know number one was Qatar number two was China yeah now what are they up to well we know that they also are interested in certainly in the United States breaking away from its role as the this is one thing I I did learn from from last week
Which is that you know you pointed out that really although China would like to start to be more influential they have some interests they’re not particularly effective right now in that region and so you know other more circuitous Roots might be uh more uh they might be using more Securus Roots I
Guess because they’re not that effective um no so I mean China are really but might like to influence things well well they’re in they’re in China are in a really bad predicament because their leadership Xi Jinping is completely deluded and he has purged anybody who will tell him the truth you
Know so anybody who tells him something he doesn’t want to hear like we’ve got floods here or the flooding is worse than expected or whatever and that that person will be gone imprisoned executed fired whatever they they’ll be done so there is nobody xiin ping has less access probably to Reliable information
On what’s happening in China than you do I mean that’s how severe it is within China right so you know China used to have effective intelligence agencies that were pretty good not anymore and even if there are effective people within those intelligence agencies and they have the means to gain intelligence
They’re not able to communicate that to the leadership because again the leadership only wants to hear what the leadership wants to hear um Qatar doesn’t seem to have that problem now I have no idea of the decision-making structure within Qatar but they’re being very very effective in my view in spreading
Propaganda against Israel um and that’s what I think that this is I think that that’s the most likely explanation um for this funding is to try and weaken us support for Israel we will aw the next uh the followup project with baited breath yeah I I mean I’m sure there’ll be
One yeah I mean I I I don’t know the West really needs to get it act together um even if you reject the conclusions that I’ve come to here and I think that the balance of evidence would seem to suggest that this is the most likely explanation but you know even if you
Reject it you should not be letting foreign regimes buy influence in in in universities in the UK and the US you are asking for trouble and we are definitely not it is definitely not helping us dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in no so you know we’re in
The middle of a deep deep deep cultural malaise um and there are people who would like for it to get worse yes and this ain’t helping no and on that cheering not thank you very much and we will speak next Week
source
