Chomsky on ChatGPT, Education, Russia and the unvaccinated

foreign [Music] and you hear me I can hear you and am I audible as well good can you hear me too yup this is fine captions ah right fine um so before we start um how long do we have Professor Chomsky yeah it's aim for 45 minutes all right well let's uh get to it so I have a couple of topics I would like to discuss Professor Chomsky um first of all the newest Fad in education called chat GPT and the future of Education secondly I would like to talk about critical pedagogy thirdly I would like to talk about your newest book and I would like to end um with uh the pandemic or the end of the pandemic so these are four topics I would like to discuss in these 45 minutes okay um so first of all I really like your new haircut um Professor Chomsky because it takes up 10 years my wife couldn't stand looking at me anymore she insists I want it to look like Moses well you did yeah yeah so she persuaded you to touch your hair well it looks great thank you uh so I was uh wondering how every day I see a new interview of you appearing on on YouTube you must you must be doing at least one interview a day you have a really rigid interview so uh how many interviews and media appearances do you have on a yearly basis three today theories talk that one was a talk and an interview but several hours a day usually several hours every day except Sunday maybe then there's classes meetings other things pretty busy yeah I can't imagine so nice well it's good to talk to you again it's really good to have you on the show again um so I was wondering at 94 still having this rigid interview schedule what's what's your routine how do you stay fit do you have do you have a daily routine foreign that any doctor would approve of mostly sitting at the computer ready well I I know you have dogs so you must be taking a walk every day the word because they'll hear it all right see here it will run for the door it's paraphrases yeah yeah yeah yeah no no no no specials right under the desk as soon as there's an interview yeah so no special routines no no glass of wine at one o'clock or I don't know some gymnastics before you start your day nothing it's genetic I suppose so um chat GPT I'm a teacher uh and um you know it's it's the fad of the day Chad GPT children around the globe um assign uh their homework to check gbt they give a prompt and they will say please write a book report about um I don't know um the withdrawal which we're going to talk about later and check GTP will generate a very nice book report so um what do you know about GPT have you heard of this um development of this latest fed in education well it's uh I don't think it has anything to do with education except undermining it chat GPT is basically high-tech plagiarism it's a system that uh accesses and astronomical amount of data and finds regularities strings them together looks more or less like what somebody could have written on this topic basically plagiarism just happens to be high-tech well plagiarism can be a nuisance uh teachers I mean as in the universities for example and uh departments where essays are required for years there have been programs that help professors detect uh plagiar plagiarized essays okay now it's going to be more difficult because it's easier to plagiarize but it's about the only contribution to the education that I can think of that it makes it harder to detect plagiarism the systems have absolutely no uh value with regard to understanding anything about language or cognition they tell you nothing about that any more than plagiarism does and there's in fact the more they improve the greater their flaws for a very simple reason these are systems that do just as well for actual languages as they would do for impossible languages so it's as if somebody produced a new version of the periodic table of the elements which includes all the elements all the possible elements all the impossible elements and doesn't make any distinction between them could be if absolutely no value to science or understanding and that's basically what these systems are uh they may have some value for something it's not obvious what you were a university Professor how would you deal with these kinds of problems students using chat GTP to generate reports and doing you know homework foreign I mean when I spent most of my life at MIT it wouldn't happen there simply because the students wouldn't even think of doing it they were interested in the topics so they pursued the topics a student learns nothing from this of course absolutely nothing it's just a way of avoiding learning and there were places where the way to deal with it is to make the educational program interesting enough so that students don't want to avoid it this is a way of avoiding education it's kind of like I mean there are colleges I've talked to teachers who do it who've been uh iPhones in class because the students will sit there you know having a chat with somebody on their iPhone well one way to deal with that is to ban iPhones another way to do it is to make the class interesting enough so that nobody would think of it and that's the challenge well doesn't this development you know the fact that millions and millions of students are using chat GPT to make their homework assessments and book reports just to tell you there is a huge pandemic going on in education boredom it's a sign that the educational system is failing if students aren't interested they'll find a way to around it I mean we've all taken classes in which we had no interest and you studied for the exam you know got a good Mark two weeks later you forgot what the course was about well that's one form of Education not a very good one and unfortunately uh that's the form of Education that's being uh driven forward under the contemporary neoliberal programs designed for efficiency what's called efficiency uh metrical results that you can put down somewhere used to read teachers and schools it's a kind of education that was ridiculed during the Enlightenment was compared with pouring water into a vessel and letting some of it drip out taking a test now now it's considered the right way to do it it's called teaching to test absolutely the worst form of Education and if you have a form of Education which is has no appeal to students doesn't interest them doesn't challenge them doesn't make them want to learn they'll find ways out maybe not come to class so um chapter is based on artificial intelligence so it it can have a great impact on the way we educate and the way we experience education I know um for a fact that Elon Musk is trying to connect the brain to computers so how long will it take do you think before um a company like neurolink will be able to connect the brain to a computer and program I don't know part of the brain so that we don't have to learn French anymore well I wouldn't worry about that that's science fiction almost nothing's known about the brain but uh allows us even to conceive of this I mean you can't get to the point where you can detect neural signals which might uh lead to an action being performed like raising your hand um maybe at that level but learning French I wouldn't worry about it actually we already have that you don't need a neural link for yeah take your computer I have a laptop computer sitting here if I want to look up something in French I just tap a couple keys and I get it so yeah now nowadays Google Translate is fast enough to to have a live conversation with a Frenchman for example you don't have to speak French anymore I've experienced it not really I mean I use Google Translate but you never trust what you see it's a way of determining whether some article is worth reading you get the gist of it and figure out what it's about if you're really interested in understanding you would never trust Google translate or GPT chat GPT that's if you want to get a general idea nothing I mean I have nothing against things that are useful like right now I'm using live transcription is it basically achieved the same way Brute Force but it's kind of useful I mean I don't actually trust it if you but if you look at it you'll see plenty of errors but uh it's much better it's it's a fine assistance for someone who's hard of hearing so that's good it's like a visual aid if you're a slight side has been or wearing glasses if you can't see so neurolink is not going to be a threat to education anyway soon um AI at least jet GPT is not going to be an improvement at least not the way it is now so if you have to guess what education looks like in 30 years we we don't have a neural link to be afraid of we don't check GPT is not get really going to be a threat so what is education going to be like do you think in 30 years it's the choice of Educators planners government officials those who fund are usually defund education they'll determine if education is not appealing to students meeting their needs and concerns there'll be all kinds of ways to avoid it I'll tell you my own experience when I went to college back in 1945 we had to take a uh course in chemistry big lifter course I mean it was so boring I couldn't stand it so I never went to class never I had a friend who took pretty careful notes and they used their notes to pass the exams uh I never went to the lab and uh I had the lab manual it's obvious the way the lab experiments were going to turn out so I just filled in the lab manual they knew what I was up to because when they registered for the next term I was charged for breakage at the lab and I couldn't say I never don't even know where the lab is but you know that's the worst kind of education yeah so the question what the future of Education of course I took courses which I was very interested in I would pay attention work hard you know try to learn what was going on well that's what education ought to be cultivating those interests and concerns it fails to do so students will do what I did in chemistry now they can do it with chat chat bgbt yeah it reminds me of the the the quote you always tell people uh referring to a colleague who tells a student who asks what are we going to cover during class and your colleague says it doesn't matter what we are going to cover it's about what you are going to discover and I think many classes are far away from discovering anything we're teaching to the test one of the world's leading physicists at MIT has talked to his freshman class he was asked by freshmen what are we going to cover in this class that says it doesn't matter matters would you discovered and that's real education but it's up to the teacher to make sure that that's the way it works and uh if that fails it's not necessarily the teacher's fault so for example the in the United States in the last 40 years has been a major effort to destroy the educational system a lot of it just by defunding so you go to a college now they want to cut back on professors meeting with students he used adjuncts who were basically slave labor you pay them nothing even graduate students pay them even less a lot of Administrators they're run by business models in the schools and lower schools the teacher may have 50 Children you know the problem is going to be keeping from killing each other you're not going to teach anything uh well those are the uh and the programs for teaching like on it's bipartisan under the Obama Administration the programs are basically teaching to test as boring and stupid as possible ensuring that nobody will ever learned anything except maybe some skills you know maybe they can uh be maybe they can be skilled workers or something like that but uh that's highly destructive of Education not just in the United States and Britain a couple of years ago one of the major cultural critics Stephen colini had an article when she said that he said that the Tory government is trying to turn first class universities into third class commercial later prizes by insisting that if you want to have a Classics program at Oxford you have to show that you can sell it on the market well if you want to destroy the culture that's the way to do it we know that the Trump Administration and Betsy DeVos had a really a policy of privatizing education and defunding public schools now we have a Biden Administration uh how is he doing when it comes to education it's not as I mean the Trump Administration was strict neoliberal and their ideas education shouldn't exist should just be private this is quite explicit so Milton Friedman the you know the economic Guru of the Reagan Administration I didn't believe they should have public education everybody should be out on the market trying to survive somehow and of course it's a way to you actually look at the history it was a way to start it in the 70s as with Friedman's participation as a way to avoid uh integrating the schools it was a way to get around the Civil Rights actions which were attempting to integrate schools and if white wealthy parents didn't want to uh one didn't want integrated schools they could they would go to religious schools and other private schools and then expect to have Public Funding for it Friedman was strongly in favor of the fact he worked with segregationist groups to try to undermine the public education system it's pretty ironic when you look at the history because Mass public education was a major U.S contribution to democracy and functioning democracy in the late 19th early 20th century U.S was way in the lead European countries came much later same at the college level the land-grant universities like MIT for example were an innovation in higher education that the European countries didn't come to until after the second world war this was a century earlier now the so-called Libertarians the neoliberal extremists want to destroy all the the Betsy divorce was quite Frank about it should Secretary of Education said we shouldn't have education it should be just private by now it's even worse there's a Supreme Court is now sort of kind of a heart rate Catholic uh run uh Christian nationalists who think that the public ought to fund the private education they're breaking down the First Amendment state barrier between State and religion so it's the duty of secular parents to fund a religious schools it's getting to that point they're pretty Frank about it it's a Christian nationalist movement based on reactionary Catholic doctrines not Pope francis's Church let's stay in the field of Education I would like to talk about a critical uh pedagogy um I think one of the goals of Education should be to to raise critical citizens capable of assessing power assessing the state of democracy uh assessing their own environment and assessing the way um they are living their own lives and one of the books that really inspired me was Paolo ferrera's uh pedagogy of the oppressed this is the Dutch version but you know his word have you ever met with Palo frere by the way uh well here you can see what life transcription does it says have you ever met Battlefront no have you ever met Paulo yeah Polo foreign I know his work but I never met him actually I was in a his views were somewhat similar to John Dewey's in the United States and that I knew pretty well in fact I went to a dewey8 school when I was a child up until the high school very different and it's based on similar ideas that the pretty much what you said before that the goal of education is to prepare uh young people to be able to participate effectively constructively in a Democratic Society not be tools with the hands of somebody else which is what teaching to test is so I was wondering if if it's possible in American schools to have a form of critical education or is the system designed specifically to eliminate any criticism on the school system or politics or whatever is it possible to have a critical life battle right now very life I think they're about 30 States Republican states states with Republican legislatures which have passed one or another kind of law they don't put it this way but essentially to prevent the teaching of American history and to replace it with patriotic slogans it's not put in those words with the words the way it's put is to ensure that children meaning privileged white children are not made to feel uncomfortable in class well you read American history you're going to feel uncomfortable if not not if you read patriotic slogans or listen to Fourth of July aerations if you look at the actual history you see plenty to be uncomfortable about you should you should find out what kind of society we have why it's this way where it come from should know all those things if you want to participate in a Democratic Society if you want to just follow orders never ask questions then you know let's not teach American history or Society or anything else uh the fuss about critical race theory is pretty much like that a lot of fewer but critical race Theory no it's nobody knows what it is in fact the leading uh spokesman for uh putting putting pressing on Banning and Christopher rufu Manhattan Institute right-wing Institute he said very clearly by critical race Theory we just mean a covert term for a lot of things we don't like you know uh so it doesn't matter what this Arcane field of legal analysis really is but but the idea is to try to prevent students from having an education from coming to understand what kind of world we live in what kind of society we have its achievements its injustices what should be dealt with what are the problems we have to face shouldn't do then and to be precise to be honest it's not just the right wing you can learn a lot about this by looking at the Publications that came out in the early 1970s a very important period because in the 1960s there was a wave of popular activism student activism women's activism others it was a period in which lots of challenges to Authority Doctrine uh racism sexism all sorts of issues came on the agenda that scared the pants off the establishment across the Spectrum at the rate there was a very harsh reaction at the What's called the left it was more interesting so one document of recommended since it appeared in 1975 and I've used many times is a book called the crisis of democracy very much worth reading it's a it's from the liberal internationalist element in international Society liberal internationalists in the United States Europe and Japan uh you get the complexion of it from the fact that the Carter Administration was drawn almost completely from their ranks trilateral Commission and what's the crisis of democracy that there's too much democracy the 1960s they say too many sectors of the population became engaged in the political Arena pressing for their rights and interests that's no good they don't say it but what's implicit is it's only the privilege and the powerful folks like us we should run things the rest of you go away and shut up and what they called for is more moderation and democracy so go home be passive in acquiescent and we'll take care of things actually that is liberal democratic theory if you look at it I've written a lot about it what do they say about the universities that's interesting they say the inter universities are failing in their task of indoctrination of the young indoctrination of the young that's the task of the universities and they're failing that's where you have these kids out on the street opposing the war in Vietnam calling for human rights civil rights women's rights and so on we don't want all that stuff so go back to indoctrination of the young this is the left of the spectrum it's much harsher on the right but it's across the Spectrum you know and you see it in the policies that followed they take various forms but basically improving the indoctrination of the young that's the left liberal position what happens if we don't teach children about critical race theory about the slavery the past uh what happens when we don't teach kids about um you know social emotional learning and woke or subjects and topics that were a threat to run the sentence run the centers who ban dozens of books instead of Florida what happens when we don't teach children about the true past um of The American Nation for example what happens if you don't teach them of course you don't teach them and they don't learn by themselves they won't understand why things are the way they are why is there such an enormous Gap say in wealth between black families and white families huge gap why you don't teach them the reasons it'll engender racism must be something wrong with them you know they're lazy they're the wrong genes or something so if you want a racist Society it's the way to do it if you teach them what the real answers or what happened for 400 years you get a different Society same with Native Americans where they stuck away in those reservations because they're no good at anything or is it because they had a rich Lively civilization which was destroyed by genocidal Invaders which is well you won't understand the way the world is where our privilege and wealth came from what's uh what are the injustices in our current Society you have to know something about this and therefore it's important if you want to preserve privilege clip means not just privilege but white privilege you have to make sure to suppress what actually happened and same with women's rights or anything else where these women parading around and demanding all sorts of things why don't they go back and take care of children in the kitchen where they're supposed to be as the Nazis insisted that's where the women's belong race children and take care of the family will take care of the rest it's kind of society you want don't teach every half don't teach what happened don't teach the fact that in the in the for the founding fathers uh women were not persons literally they were property the founding fathers of course took over the English common law Blackstone in which a woman is the property of her father hand it over to the husband the property the husband at one of the arguments against women giving women the right to vote rights to vote was that it would be unfair to unmarried men because in married men would have two votes himself and his property uh worth knowing that that lasted in the laws until 1975. 1975 the Supreme Court finally ruled that women had the right to serve on federal juries meaning their peers so technically they're then persons you go back to the second phase of the Constitution the amendments after the Civil War excluded women they were not persons well is it worth knowing that I think so if you want to understand this Society but if you want to make sure you don't understand it then or the teacher Board of the schools from teaching it I think the way you do it is by concocting fairy tales about how the wook movement is trying to turn children into sex slaves I think about forget the percentage I think maybe half or so of the Republican Party think the Democrats are run by pedophiles who are trying to groom children that's good propaganda and it's a way of enraging parents getting them to try to organize to stop the schools from destroying their children you know talking about physical education I think this book will never be talked about in education let's move on to your newest book I think it's and he was one or have you published another one recently I mean yeah so um this book the withdrawal is about um U.S imperialism Wars um it says Iraq Libya Afghanistan uh but it covers Vietnam and Laos as well actually in the book and um the book ends with Vijay prashad reminiscing about his contacts with you over the past 30 years uh but there is no chapter in which you talk about Fiji so I was wondering who is Vijay and what does he mean to you what do you admire at him about him he's done fantastic work more than a good deal more than anyone else he's been the historian and advocate for the poor majority of the world the global South poor in the United States there's nobody comparable I mean it is both his scholarly work which is excellent business is activism that we're constantly on interviews together he's always in some other part of the third world you know traveling around constantly working on the problems that they face his uh try Continental Institute is at the Forefront of dealing with the basic problems of the large majority of the world who were bored and excluded from our concerns and considerations right just saw that I read an article just today which pointed out that the you're going to have more uh impact on the leadership to deal with global warming because of the decline of CC scopes ski slopes in Switzerland and because hundreds of millions of poor people are starving in the third world that's pretty accurate you will have an effect at the Davos conference they're worried about then ski slopes in fact I can see it right where I live there's a drought in the southwest I live in Arizona uh plenty of green golf courses around there's a concern you know the right wing is concerned that if you put up two too many solar panels uh take take up too much land so it's a big problem well it was an article studied England turned out that the amount of land used for golf courses is I think about five times as much as used for solar panels you've got to have your priorities correct I'm mindful of the time so let's talk about it shortly what's what first of all why did you decide to um co-author a book with Vijay on this topic well we've been in contact for many years and there is a striking a Confluence of collapses of the Imperial the measures of the of this Century the subtitle gives the illustration it seemed a good time to try to write about the shape of the world order that's developing and in fact if we were to do uh a second edition right now or maybe an update we might refer to articles that are in the newspapers right today say reporting from Davis very interesting you can find one I think it's in Politico today talking about how the mood ish Davis is the Masters of the Universe as they call themselves you know the rich and Powerful of the of the world it says the mood is shifted it's from what we were describing withdrawal and decline to the new rise in of U.S power and admiration for U.S power because it's really showing its muscle again we're now showing that the U.S is showing we can really Dominate and rule the world so you better respect us uh it's not that we're declining and very excited about this major change that's taking place we can go back to the good old days when the U.S could run things just by force and violence of course that's not the terminology they use but that's what it remounts to so um you also talk about Russia and Ukraine but of course this was written I think early in the year so there was not a lot of information available but certainly when there's a second edition the UI go to include that chapter as well I suppose well the of Putin's invasion of Ukraine gave a real shot in the arm to U.S power is a major gift to the United States in many ways the United States is benefiting enormously from the war one just militarily small I mean Russia is the one military adversary of the United States and with a small tiny percentage of the U.S military budget of the United States is able to destroy a large part of the Russian military using Ukrainian bodies but to sideline the uh so that's a real bargain for the uh and beyond that in geopolitical terms uh the Putin's invasion drove Europe deep into the pockets of the United States to the detriment of Europe Europe's declining and suffering but the United States is benefiting enormously and now you have to remember that through the whole Cold War since night since the end of the second World War there's been a conflict over this it's a nature and future of Europe has a huge population Advanced economy vast culture and so on should should it be an independent force in world affairs that's the goalless division uh Billy brunt's hospitality Olaf Palmer others said yes you're pretty an independent third force not subordinate to the United States there's a conflicting Vision Europe should be subordinate to the United States that's the Atlantis division meaning under NATO which is run by the U.S of course this became a significant issue in 1990 it was a collapse of the Soviet Union Gorbachev proposed an expanded version of the Godless the conception what he called a common European home from Lisbon to Vladivostok no military alliances independent economic trading block moving towards some kind of social democracy that's the Gorbachev vision well that was alive Putin's killed it Not only was the invasion criminal but it was also completely stupid from the Russian point of view he's handed the United States it's fondest gift on a silver platter namely Europe subordinate to the United States no independent Force we run things well that's part of the major change that's taking place there's another aspect to it though the world doesn't go along with this you read U.S propaganda it seems we're fighting it great moral leadership doing wonderful things the world doesn't see it that way almost the entire Global South says None of our business a few Europeans want to fight each other go ahead but and don't hand us this tale about uh humanitarianism and democracy we've been at the wrong end of the guns for hundreds of years we know what you're up to you don't believe anything about humanitarianism or law or democracy or any of that sir hundreds of years of experience so cut the hypocrisy you want to have a proxy war with Russia with you go ahead but it's not our business if you look at sanctions almost nobody participates it's just Europe and the angler the English-speaking countries in Japan the rest of the world doesn't participate in effect what they're doing is what the one of the effects of the war and the sanctions is to lead to the development of independent Financial systems so India it's trade with Russia can be in rules it's traded with China in the Chinese currency uh interesting development with the oil producers Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates they're moving towards independence from U.S control one of the strength of the dollar for 50 years 60 years has been that it's a Petra dollar payments for oil or in dollars Saudi Arabia UAE you have accepted that not any longer they're starting to develop independent relations with China it's called a Petro Yuan and it's a independent Financial system that Europe has been strangled by the U.S financial controls so for example when the U.S pulled out of the uh joint arrangements with uh Europe and Iran on the Iranian nuclear programs U.S pulled down and then imposed sanctions on Iran to punish Iran for the fact that the U.S had pulled out of the agreement Europe was strongly opposed they wanted to maintain trade investment in Iran can't do it U.S sanctions or third-party sanctions if you violate U.S sanctions you get thrown out of the International Financial system which is run out of New York well Europe went along with that but for how long most of the world isn't going along with it anymore there's a good deal of lying about this in the western press you have to be pretty careful so there's a lot of euphoria in the western press a couple months ago and a Prime Minister Modi of India expressed his opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine this was published all over the place and what actually happened is there was a meeting in summercond with Modi and Putin and Modi started his comments by saying war is not the way that was highlighted all over the place India is separating itself from Russia a great wonderful thing well take the trouble of one of the nice things about the internet is you can look things up so you can look up the Indian government website and see what Modi actually said he did say war is not the way and then he went on with a practically a love letter to Putin saying our relations have never been closer we're going to work together to get a better world and we're on the same side of everything and so on all of that was cut out of Western commentary just the first few words well it's pretty much the same when the Russians sent a delegation to the conference in Indonesia the International Conference in Bali they were welcomed lover of foreign minister went and others welcomed in Africa it's not the world of the United States sees propaganda here is very careful that you see only a particular picture of the world which uh Power Systems want you to see the world is actually quite different again the advantage of the internet is if you want to you can look up foreign services together not Europe but you get a very different picture so the news has been dominated by the Russian invasion it's uh all we talk about in the Netherlands as well um and the pandemic has gone to the background so if if we if you if you we take a look at the United States has the pandemic finished is it over pandemic is Raging in the United States the United States is one of the world's worst records in dealing with the pandemic uh it's kind of interesting to look at the coverage the it's China That's condemned for its treatment of the pandemic actually China the number of up until recently the number of the total number of deaths in China is about maybe what you get in a week in the United States they've saved millions of lives but we don't talk about that what we talk about is the fact that the current right now there is a problem in China as the people are released from the controlled system which saves millions of lives and there hasn't been adequate preparation for uh giving enough vaccination and so on maybe they'll take care of it maybe not but their record up till now is incomparably better than the United States by comparative standards they would have saved the equivalent of several Million Lives but China never gets any credit for that of course because you have to show that they're bad incidentally speaking of the Netherlands uh it's not just the Ukraine war the U.S war against China is having a very harmful effect on the Netherlands you Biden has virtually declared war on China now that's the way it's described in the business press the United States must use its economic power to prevent China from developing how by blocking uh advanced technology like semiconductors U.S can use its power and control to prevent Chinese development it's here that's that's considered wonderful in the United States yes we have to do that our task is that we don't try to outdo China by doing better ourselves we out do China by preventing them from developing that's considered very praiseworthy well where's the Netherlands fit in you know this happens to be one of the the main producer in fact of high quality uh materials for semiconductors and the U.S is Banning the Netherlands from you sending them to China allowing China to use anything that has American components in it and of course the way Supply chains work everything has an American component maybe a patent or something that may harm the Netherlands very seriously if the Netherlands goes along with U.S orders as far as I know it's hasn't been decided yet Japan is also under the same pressures they've been finding ways around it also South Korea Samsung goes under those pressures so the United States is trying to coerce its allies into declining economically to support the U.S Ward to prevent China from developing that's a major effect in world affairs how will the Netherlands react be interesting to see how will Germany react when it's being de-industrialized Germany had a very success the world's most successful industrial system a complex system ranging from Netherlands to Slovakia it's all collapsing are they going to accept to be de-industrialized as part of the U.S effort to dominate the world big question for Europe Netherlands in particular but that's off the topic it's not the pandemic well exactly so I was wondering um you say the pandemic is still raging in the United States but and yet I believe all the all the measures have been lifted when you look around you you don't see mouth masks anymore you don't have to keep a three feet distance so how how can you say there is still a pandemic going on while all these measurements and restrictions are lifted the efforts to deal with it have declined and that's very serious not just the fact that people walk around without masks the funding has declined you want to get a booster shot now you got to pay for it it's not given with you know very low pay anymore uh worse than that research has been cut back severely I mean the vaccines were made available very quickly and effectively because of a lot of funding of research and it's been withdrawn every scientist knows there's going to be more pandemics and we're not preparing for them because funding for the kind of research that might lead to more effective vaccines maybe even the universal vaccine that's been sharply cut back so we're planning to ensure that there'll be much more damage from coming coming pandemics but that's common to you to Western U.S policy across the board there's also the much more serious than the pandemic is the crisis of heating the atmosphere baking the planet much more serious that's being cut back in fact going into reverse of course subsidies the fossil fuel companies continue but new federal new fields are being open for exploration a lot of planning for long-term investment Euphoria in fossil fuel headquarters profits are going through the roof and great opportunities for the long-term development investment to destroy the world as quickly as possible which is what's happening so this is capitalism run or cert coin berserk I mean capitalism is based on the principle that Adam Smith called the vile Maxim all for ourselves nothing for anyone else and don't care what the hip effects are that's capitalism can be controlled it's been somewhat controlled in past years now it's lit free and it means we destroy ourselves take a look at I think say the region where fossil fuels are being produced the Eastern Mediterranean region take a look at the scientific projections display is really other Regional scientists they're predicting that in by the end of the century temperatures will have risen 5 degrees Celsius and the sea level will have risen two to two and a half meters of the densely populated areas along the sea what's that going to be go a little bit north to Cyprus there's a war Brewing between turkey and Greece Syria's kind of War what's it about pipelines and exploiting the resources of the Eastern Mediterranean so let's see how we can kill ourselves faster uh pandemic is serious this is much more serious I'm in the leadership political leadership of the world is on a race to see how we can destroy ourselves as quickly as possible actually one of the few sane voices now is the U.N Secretary of General Gutierrez just you might want to read his book a couple days ago at the world economic Forum in Davis pleading have a little bit of Sanity you know nobody listens much better to make more money tomorrow and who the hell here because what happens well that's uh the world we're living in capitalism going insane I have one last question uh Professor Chomsky because um I want to be respectful of your time uh you know you have so many fans around the globe but um since since last year you'll have lost a couple of fans because um well there appeared a video on Twitter in which you talk about the unvaccinated and some people blame you for saying that the unvaccinated should isolate themselves from society in order to keep the harmful safe and now that was in 2021 we're in 2022 now um I was wondering uh have your uh um are you still do you still have the same opinion when it comes to the unvaccinated because many of my followers have been asking their question when I say exactly what I said then the unvaccinated or people are perfectly free to refuse vaccination shouldn't be forced on them but then they have a responsibility to act as decent human beings if others want to protect themselves they should honor that right if a hospital for example or a restaurant or a meat packing plant or whatever imposes restrictions saying please don't come in here if you're not vaccinated or masked the unvaccinated have a responsibility to honor that in that regard they should isolate themselves unless you regard the unvaccinated or some privileged caste who is right to do anything harm people if they feel they could well you have to I think you should agree with this so it's the same position I had then well because some people might say that there's a lot of research by now and research will say that even the vaccinated are still capable of transmitting a virus to another person and people still can get ill they're certainly uh have a right to believe that if they like but if say a hospital decides to follow the advice of a hundred percent of medical journals around the world 100 of a professional societies around the world and impose a vaccination constraint they have a right to do it they don't have the need to follow your opinion you can have your opinion they're entitled to say we're going to follow the advice of the scientific Community almost universally we have a right to do that you don't like it too bad you don't want to put on a mask go somewhere else I think that's quite proper it's like this as if somebody said look uh if you look at the statistics uh there aren't very many deaths from people who go through red lights you know probably almost none so why should I stop it originally it's an infringement on my freedom well not the kind of society I would like to live in well hospital is of course an easy example because there are many um fragile people in hospital in danger of being infected what about schools or a playground take a restaurant suppose people in a restaurant workers in a restaurant and people who go to the restaurant want to be free from infection so they have a masking requirement I think that should be honored pick a meat packing plant where men are working together men and women are working together under hideous conditions right next to each other there are meat packing plants which have imposed masking and vaccination requirements I think they should be honored you can say I don't believe that it's I'm infectious okay your fear to not believe it but not to endanger others it because many people um consider you a freedom fighter you know you you protect or you you try to advocate for the for minorities and then it causes some kind of cognitive dissonance a Chomsky almost you know [Music] um um tomsky not um respecting this small minority that doesn't want to be vaccinated and we've been reading about you for so many years it refused to be vaccinated anyone's free to refuse yeah but you should have the decency to allow others to protect themselves like following traffic laws yeah uh yeah I do believe in Freedom from arbitrary illegitimate Authority but aob traffic laws I don't think that's illegitimate yeah the thing is it's just it appears uh to some that um that the unvaccinated shouldn't be taking part in society almost because it's it's a pretty it can be all over Society but they should not they should observe requirements by groups that want to follow the advice of in fact a hundred percent of medical uh basic medical authorities and say this is the way I want to protect them so I don't think the unvaccinated or a privileged test yeah I think that's a really reasonable point of view of Professor Chomsky and it doesn't stop me this point of view from respecting you for for all the work you have done so you didn't lose me there I I was just obliged to ask this question for my followers so I would like to end this interview again because it's it's the third time you join my show thanks a lot for doing that and um what's what's your next book when is your next book coming out next book not right you're not working on anything right now yeah another collection of interviews and articles with uh follow-up from the book called The precipice that was probably the next one also some technical work coming out but a language well anyway uh Professor chumsky thanks a lot for your time you've been really generous and um well I would like to thank you for all the work you've done and for inspiring me and all my readers and viewers and I hope to read many more books and to see many more of your videos and presentations so Professor Chomsky thanks a lot once again enjoy the rest of your day bye-bye foreign

Channel: EduKitchen

Views: 338,792

Keywords:

Id: IgxzcOugvEI

Length: 66min 22sec (3982 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/pilgrimspeaches]

How does he not see that this is the perfect example of manufactured consent

[u/hiptobeysquare]

if you look at the statistics uh there aren't very many deaths from people who go through red lights you know probably almost none so why should I stop it originally it's an infringement on my freedom well not the kind of society I would like to live in

What is wrong with him, what is wrong with these people?! He's still going with the traffic light metaphor? Metaphors are more true than data.

suppose people in a restaurant, workers in a restaurant and people who go to the restaurant, want to be free from infection so they have a masking requirement

He's completely ignoring the question about vaccines. Pfizer admitted in the European Parliament that they never tested for transmissibility. And even considering his rhetoric here: if people who go to a restaurant are so worried about infection, so worried about such a deadly disease, why are they going to a restaurant?! Other people are responsible for the health of people who go into crowded places in the middle of a deadly pandemic??! I want any overweight or obese people to go on a diet as a requirement for entering a restaurant that I frequent, because overweight and obese people have a much higher Covid symptom (and transmissibility) rate. When is Chomsky going to criticize the obese, overweight, those suffering from comorbities and pre-existing conditions for not self-isolating?

Only those who dare question authority, dare do some personal research, dare exercise bodily autonomy, are acceptable objects of hate and discrimination. Unhealthy lifestyles, unhealthy diets, unhealthy behaviors and habits (like going to a crowded place in the middle of a deadly pandemic) should be defended and celebrated.

I do believe in Freedom from arbitrary illegitimate Authority but I obey traffic laws

And it's back to the traffic light metaphor. Absolutely no mention of data or doctors or censorship. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Nichts.

but they should not they should observe requirements by groups that want to follow the advice of in fact a hundred percent of medical uh basic medical authorities.

What is wrong with him? Censorship just doesn't exist in his world. The discoverer of the AIDS virus was against the v-words. The inventor of the mRNA delivery technology is against the v-words. A lot of other top professionals are warning about them. Just ignore them, then claim 100% of experts support you. Even dictators only claim 95% to just under 100% of a majority in their elections!

What is wrong with him? Has he always been like this, and we just didn't see it? It's crazy-making. And I've been around people this narcissistic before, I had to live with them: their ego is so fragile, they can't even acknowledge to themselves for one moment that they were wrong. They will always turn around and accuse you of doing what they did, sometimes what they did just a moment before they accuse you of doing it.

And the interviewer is just a fanboy:

I think that's a really reasonable point of view of Professor Chomsky and it doesn't stop me this point of view from respecting you for for all the work you have done so you didn't lose me there I was just obliged to ask this question for my followers

Everything and everyone is just a cult now. Chomsky's cult. Jordan Peterson's cult. Covid cult. Woke cult. Climate change cult. Anti-climate change cult. Elon fan cult. Anti-Elon cult. TDS cult. V-word cult. Crypto-currency cult. I'm sure other people here could add to the list of cults we have in today's world.

Chomsky also finds time to accuse Trump of neoliberalism in the interview. Trump did many harmful things, and his administration was pretty neoliberal, with lots of moves to privatize public institutions, to turn everything into a "market". But this is a brave card to play when the DMC is just another variety of neoliberal, and managed to turn your own body into a privatized corporate space where you had (and still have?) to bargain and pay for simple freedoms like going to the supermarket or even leaving your house. He seems to have a very simplistic view of neoliberalism (i.e. Neoliberalism is basically just privatization), and, if you've read Philip Mirowski, seems to have very little idea of how neoliberal society, psychology and politics work. As Mirowski says: neoliberalism is not simply an economic project, it's a political project first, which wants to completely redesign society and human behavior first. Mirowski's investigation of neoliberalism is exponentially more insightful and perceptive than anything I've heard from Chomsky.

If Chomsky can gaslight you to your face like this about covid and the v-words, how can you trust another word he says? He's gaslighting himself at this point. We know the v-words don't stop transmission, and their benefits to the vaccinee are dubious at best. Yet he tells you to your face: "Yeah but traffic lights, restaurants and meat packing factories." I just can't read or listen to anything by him, or by anyone else whose true colors have been shown by the litmus test that is Covid. And the list of people I can read or listen to, and trust them to be honest and sincere, now is very very small. There's basically nobody I trust anymore. (And to be more nuanced: it's shown up a lot more about people than a simple for-or-against the v-words, it's shown a lot of people's true character.) Unconsciously, Chomsky's, and so many other people's, behavior is toxic, poisonous. Most people might consciously accept it, but unconsciously they know they've been gaslit, lied to, manipulated, insulted and treated like an abuse victim, and this grows in the back of people's minds. The people of the Soviet Union were slowly psychologically poisoned by this constant behavior from their elites and institutions over decades until they didn't believe a single thing their leaders or elites said or did anymore and had no problem tearing everything down.

[u/BarredSubject]

Chomsky was my entry point to politics but he's turned into a lunatic. Maybe he always was one. I don't wish him any happiness in his final years.

[u/BillysGotAGun]

Chomps has become an irrelevant, confused old man forever coasting off his increasingly dated works.

[u/Promyka5]

"There's research that says the vaccinated are still capable of transmitting the virus."

"Well, people have the right to believe that if they want."

Thanks, Dr. Chomsky, for granting us the permission to believe the truth if that's something we want to do.

As Janine Small, Pfizer's President of International Developed Markets, testified under oath before the European Parliament's COVID committee, the Pfizer COVID vaccine was never even tested to determine its efficacy to prevent transmission of the virus. If that's the case, it's a good guess that they were certainly never formulated to perform that function. What utility does the isolation of an entire segment of the population have in light of that fact? Exactly what moral responsibility do I have as an unvaccinated person to remove myself from society if even vaccinated people can transmit the virus to others?

Perhaps, even as intelligent as he is, Noam Chomsky never developed the ability to admit when he is wrong and change his position to reflect that recognition. And yet he insists on lecturing me and people like me on matters of morality. The value of lectures like that are reflected in his act of rejecting his own accountability.

[u/Vexser]

I remember that he was [almost] saying to "machine gun" the purebloods in the streets. I have no interest or respect on what that evil person says. He has clearly chosen his side, and it's not the side that I am on. No amount of sophistry can wallpaper over the arrogant self-righteous Nazi hatred he has of fundamental human rights.

[u/fishbonevinnie]

Chomsky is an asshole and always has been. A lazy academic and a closet Zionist as well.

[u/romjpn]

Some leftists have such a hard on for vaccines because it fits their worldview of the "collective above the individual" like it's some sort of ultimate public health measure that has absolutely no downside at all. What about those who are injured from vaccines? Yes because even the safest vaccine will have some unlucky people who will sacrifice their lives for the "collective". What do we do about them? Should people be forced to play Russian roulette for the "collective" or be ostracized by the vax fanatics?
Metaphors about traffic laws are too simplistic. When someone runs a red light, they're playing russian roulette with themselves and the collective. That's why we generally consider it as very idiotic. It's empirical, very simple to apprehend and understand. There's no "big traffic light" business to falsify data and sell us something.

[u/Koro9]

Poor old Chomsky, he lost his mind I think, he's not what he used to be.