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[Music] what causes delusion the prevailing view
is that people adopt false beliefs because they're
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too stupid or ignorant to grasp the truth but just
as often the opposite is true many delusions prey
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not on dim minds but on bright ones and this has
serious implications for Education society and
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you personally in 2013 the Yale law professor Dan
Kahan conducted experiments testing the effect of
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Intelligence on ideological bias in one study he
scored people on intelligence using the cognitive
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reflection test a task to measure a person's
reasoning ability he found that liberals and
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conservatives scored roughly equally on average
but the highest scoring individuals in both groups
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were the most likely to display political bias
when assessing the truth of various political
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statements in a the study Kahan and a team
of researchers found that test subjects who
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scored highest in numeracy were better able
to objectively evaluate statistical data when
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told it related to a skin rash treatment but
when the same data was presented as relating
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to a polarizing subject gun control those who
scored highest on numeracy actually exhibited the
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greatest bias the correlation between intelligence
and ideological bias is robust having been found
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in many other studies such as tarb bur lodged to
2006 stanovich at Al 2012 and Joselyn and Haider
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marle 2014 these studies found stronger biases
in clever people on both sides of the aisle and
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since such biases are mutually contradictory they
can't be a result of Greater understanding so what
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is it about intelligent people that makes them so
prone to bias to understand we must consider what
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intelligence actually is in AI research there's a
concept called the orthogonality thesis this this
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is the idea that an intelligent agent can't
just be intelligent it must be intelligent
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at something because intelligence is nothing
more than the effectiveness with which an agent
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pursues a goal rationality is intelligence in
pursuit of objective truth but intelligence can
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be used to pursue any number of other goals and
since the means by which the goal is selected is
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distinct from the means by which the goal
is pursued the intelligence with which an
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agent pursues its goal is no guarantee that
the goal itself is intelligent as a case in
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point human intelligence evolved less as a tool
for pursuing objective truth than as a tool for
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pursuing personal well-being tribal belonging
social status and sex and this often required
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the adoption of what I call fashionably irrational
beliefs or fibs which the brain has come to excel
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at since we're a social species it is intelligent
for us to convince ourselves of irrational beliefs
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if holding those beliefs increases our status and
well-being Dan Kahan calls this Behavior identity
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protective cognition or IPC by engaging in IPC
people bind their intelligence to the service of
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evolutionary impulses leveraging their logic
and learning not to correct Illusions but to
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justify them or as the novelist Saul Bellow put
it a great deal of intelligence can be invested
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in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep
what this means is that what while unintelligent
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people are more easily misled by other people
intelligent people are more easily misled by
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themselves they're better at convincing themselves
of things they want to believe rather than things
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that are actually true this is why intelligent
people tend to have stronger ideological biases
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being better at reasoning makes them better at
rationalizing this tendency is troublesome in
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individuals but in groups it can prove disastrous
affecting the very structure and trajectory of
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society for centuries Elite academic institutions
like Oxford and Harvard have been training their
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students to win arguments but not to discern truth
and in so doing they've created a class of people
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highly skilled at motivated reasoning the master
debaters that emerge from these institutions
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go on to become tomorrow's Elites politicians
entertainers and intellectuals master debaters
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are naturally drawn to areas where arguing well
is more important than being correct law politics
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media and Academia and in these industries
of pure Theory sheltered from reality they
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Ed their powerful rhetorical skills to convince
each other of fibs the more counterintuitive the
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better naturally their most virent arguments
soon escape the lab spreading from individuals
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to departments to institutions to societies some
of these arguments can now be found everywhere
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a prominent example is wokeism an identitarian
ideology combining elements of conspiracy theory
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and moral Panic which became fashionable in
Academia toward the end of the 20th century
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and finally spread to the mainstream with the
Advent of smartphones and social media wokeism
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reduces the world down to simplistic oppressor
victim relations in which people who are white
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straight slim or male are the oppressors
while those who are non-white LGBT fat or
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female are victims Woks typically reject claims of
objectivity as a weapon created by straight white
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men to enforce the dominant CIS heteronormative
patriarchal white supremacist worldview as such
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they believe that the purpose of scholarship
is not to determine truth but to promote social
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justice or as they call it diversity equity and
inclusion to this end they will often use their
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intelligence to persuade people of arguments that
are logically unsound but which are perceived to
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contribute to a more Equitable world for inance
instance in the late 1960s some master debaters
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decided that fat people are oppressed in a world
where slimness is the nor so they began to carve
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out a whole field in Academia known as fat studies
to address this oppression by creating cunning but
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irrational arguments to normalize obesity ignoring
Decades of medical research showing that being fat
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is a serious health risk fat studies Scholars
argued that anti-at attitudes are health risks
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because they may cause obese people anxiety and
stress since then these activist academics have
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developed even more convoluted rationalizations
many now argue that wanting to fight obesity is
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white supremacy just as fat studies was created
to normalize obesity in the interests of social
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justice another academic field gender studies
was created to normalize transgenderism and
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gender non-conformity through similarly dubious
arguments one such argument that sex is a spectrum
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is often Justified on the basis that there's no
single thing that distinguishes all men from all
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women such an abstract explanation is seductive
but beneath the aure it's just an elaborate case
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of the univariant fallacy it's true that no
single thing distinguishes all men from all
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women but no single thing distinguishes all cats
from all monkeys either is this proof of a cat
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monkey Spectrum even though fibs like sex is a
spectrum and obesity is healthy are objectively
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false woke academics have made the mainstream
through a combination of crafty arguments and
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idea laundering the practice of couching opinions
in academic jargon and placing them in academic
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journals to disguise ideology as knowledge these
kinds of Master debat beliefs now Prevail among
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cultural Elites including those who should know
better such as biologists but they are rarer
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among the common people who lack the capacity
for mental gymnastics required to justify such
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intricate delusions despite being irrational
wokeism is nevertheless an intelligent worldview
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it's intelligent but not rational because its goal
is not objective truth or even social justice but
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social signaling and in pursuing this goal it's
a powerful strategy people who engage in woke
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rituals such as telling obese people they're
perfect just the way they are or encouraging
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kids to question their gender or calling for
the defunding of the police signal to others
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that they're cultured and compassionate towards
societies designated downtrodden their actions
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often end up hurting rather than helping those
in need but they make some people feel good for
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a while and they increase their own social status
which explains why wokeism is most prevalent in
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Industries where status games and image are most
important politics media Academia entertainment
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and advertising wokeism is what happens when
identity protective cognition is allowed to run
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rampant through cultural institutions like
Harvard and Hollywood but while wokeism is
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currently systemic in the West in the 1800s the
dominant racial ideology in America really was
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white supremacy as a result the master debaters of
that age often used their reasoning not to justify
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discrimination against whites but discrimination
against blacks an example would be the American
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physician Samuel cartrite a strong believer in
slavery he used his learning to avoid the clear
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and simple realization that slaves who tried
to escape didn't want to be slaves and instead
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diagnosed as suffering from a mental disorder
he called Dr P Mania which could be remedied by
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whipping the devil out of them it's an explanation
so idiotic only an intellectual could think of
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it much like the fictitious disorder that white
people are diagnosed with today white fragility
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cartright's case shows that the problem of runaway
rationalization is not just a disorder of today's
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woke intellectuals but of educated people of any
persuasion at any time and that includes you since
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you're watching a video about intelligence right
now you're likely above average in intelligence
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which means that you whatever you believe should
be extra vigilant against your intellect being
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commandeered by your animal impulses but how does
one do that exactly how does an intelligent person
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avoid a disorder that prays specifically on
intelligence the standard rationalist path
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is to try to avoid delusion by learning about
cognitive biases and logical fallacies but this
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can be counterproductive research suggests that
teaching people about misinformation often just
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causes them to dismiss facts they don't like
as misinformation while teaching them logic
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often results in them applying that logic
selectively to justify whatever they want
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to believe such outcomes make sense if knowledge
and reasoning are the tools by which intelligent
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people fool themselves then giving them more
knowledge in reasoning only makes them better
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at fooling themselves I've been writing about
irrationality since 2017 and in that time I've
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noticed a disturbing pattern whenever I post of
a cognitive bias or logical y my replies are soon
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invaded by leftists claiming it explains rtist
beliefs and by rightists claiming it explains
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leftist beliefs in no cases will someone claim
it explains their own beliefs I'm likely guilty
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of this too it feels effortless to diagnose others
with biases and fallacies but excruciatingly hard
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to diagnose oneself as the famed decision theorist
Daniel caraman quipped I've studied cognitive
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biases my whole life and I'm no better at avoiding
them this is not to say that educ ation is futile
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learning can help to limit motivated reasoning
but only if it's accompanied by a deeper kind
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of development that of one's character motivated
reasoning occurs when we place our intelligence
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and learning into the service of irrational
goals the root of the problem is therefore
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not our intelligence or learning but our goals
most goals of thinking are not to reach objective
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truth but to justify what we wish to believe
there is only one thing that can motivate us
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to put our intellig into the service of objective
truth and that is curiosity it was curiosity that
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was found by kahan's research to be the strongest
countermeasure against bias but how do we make
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ourselves curious is it even possible good news
if you're watching this you're probably quite
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curious already but there's something you can do
to supercharge your curiosity enter the Curiosity
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Zone basically curiosity is the desire to fill
gaps in knowledge and as such curiosity occurs
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not when you know nothing about something but when
you know a bit about it so learn a little about
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as much as you can and this will create itches
that will spare you to learn even more curiosity
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is essential to directing your intellect toward
objective truth but it's not all you need you must
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also have humility this is because the source of
our strongest biases is our ego we often base our
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selfworth on being intelligent and being right and
this makes us not want to admit when we get things
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wrong or to change our mind and so in order to
protect our chosen identity we stay wrong if you
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define yourself worth by your ability to reason
if you cling to the identity of a master debater
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then admitting to being wrong will hurt you and
you'll do all you can to avoid it which will stop
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you learning so instead of defining Yourself
by your ability to reason Define Yourself by
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your willingness to learn then admitting you're
wrong instead of feeling like an attack will
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become an opportunity for growth anyone who's
sure they're humble is probably not so I can't
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say whether I've succeeded in becoming humble but
I can say that I always try to be humble and well
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there's little difference between trying to be
humble and actually being so for me trying to be
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humble entails the constant interrogation of my
own motives could my most cherished belief be a
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fib why do I really believe what I believe what
are the reasons beside reason could I have my
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self-questioning makes me agonize over every word
I write but in the long term my hesitancy gives
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me confidence for by being careful about what
I think I develop trust in my thoughts humility
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and curiosity then are what we most need to find
Truth by seeking one we also seek the other being
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curious makes us humble because it shows us how
little we know and in turn being humble makes us
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curious because it helps us acknowledge that we
need to know more in in the end rationality is
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not about intelligence but about character without
the right personal qualities more education won't
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make you a master of your biases it'll only make
you a better servant of them so be open to the
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possibility that you may be wrong and always
be willing to change your mind especially if
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you're smart by being humble and curious you may
not win many arguments but it won't matter for
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even losing arguments will become a victory that
moves you toward the far grander prize of Truth
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thanks for tuning into this episode of after skool
if you found this subject interesting and want
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more consider checking out my other writings
at gender. substack.com the link is in the
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[Music]
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description
