The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:07:53 · Greg Lukianoff
[00:07:53] S1: Well, you know, I've departed a little bit from my normal MO on this to just just to say that I am concerned about the anti Israeli sentiment. I'm not Jewish, but I am concerned about the anti Israeli sentiment that has kind of taken over, spread from campuses where I think it's it's reached a a concerning point. So I I definitely have... You know, I I admit to some bias on on this. But when it comes to my First Amendment and free speech analysis, I I basically think three things. One, the First Amendment is on Robert Kraft's side. To be able to say that you can't use my private venue in order to perform because I don't like your message is within his right to do. However, the analysis should never end there. Just in the same way that we wouldn't cheer when a bookseller decides that I'm not going to sell any copies of Ulysses, they have the right to do that. But that's not great. People don't really think that's good. But the third one's the one that I think a lot of the people who are on Kraft and the other venue owners' sides are missing, is attempts to squelch these point of views Mhmm. Tend to make them more intense. And particularly if part of the narrative is that, pro Israel people have too much, societal influence, then deciding this artist can't perform at my venue, it doesn't send a great message. It plays into conspiracy theories. And even though I'm I'm sympathetic to Robert Kraft's opinion on this, I'm not a... You know, again, I'm departing from what I'm supposed to do, but but I'm I'm not a fan of what MacMorman's opinions on this. But nonetheless, I don't like it. And I think Americans get concerned when artists are denied venues because of their political point of view.
00:09:27 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:09:27] S0: It's so interesting. I really like your take on this. I agree with you. I I see it as a private venue, and if I don't want someone in my house for whatever reason [00:09:37] S1: Sure. [00:09:37] S0: I don't... I I can say, no. You're not invited, and I don't want you here. [00:09:41] S1: But as your friend, if you decided to disinvite someone who was like a genius at who you've already been friends with, but you just don't like his one political view, I'd probably be as your friend to be like, oh, come on. Have him over. Talk. You know? And that's what free speech culture is. The argument of free speech culture is essentially free speech is useful, but it's super useful if people actually talk to each other and actually hear each other out and and do all these things that actually make free speech more useful. You're not required to observe it, nor should you be. But at the same time, I think in a in a healthier free speech culture that America's had, people would have said something more like, well, I'm not buying tickets to him. [00:10:18] S0: You know? Yeah. Just don't go. And to be fair, if Robert Kraft had called me, which he did not, I would have said, you realize you're gonna juice his downloads. Absolutely. Granted, I am... If it's not Tom Petty, I'm not listening to it. Maybe Flea would That Mac [00:10:30] S1: was my second concert.
00:10:30 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:10:30] S1: was my second concert. [00:10:32] S0: There you go. Well, you're you're a man of of great taste in music. He's just brought more attention to him, and you're right. It's probably not serving the purpose of fighting antisemitism. The the the thing I did not like about it, I'm curious to get your take here, is that people were conflating it with what's going on in the White House, banning media firms. And I saw the two as entirely distinct. [00:10:53] S1: Oh, yeah. No. These are not even on the same plane. [00:10:55] S0: In terms of AI, are my free speech or your free speech rights being violated when people strip mine, your content, and then resell it back to people? Does that have any overlap, or can we take any cues on what to do there from from theories around free speech? It's interesting because it's at
00:11:14 · Greg Lukianoff
[00:11:14] S1: the intersection of something that was very important for the success of, forgive the expression, the West, which is intellectual intellectual property is a... Like, I'm really starting to appreciate even at an even deeper level how important the patent system was for a a lot of the progress and prosperity we take for granted today. Now I also did intellectual property law for for the one year I wasn't working at FIRE after law school, and I was troubled by it in a lot of ways. And when it comes to trademark and copyright, you know, there... There's a there's a major tension there where essentially... And we're talking about copyrighted works. That essentially you want knowledge to be free. You don't want it to be unreasonably withheld. So we have, you know, copyrights expire, for example. Things go into public domain. The best argument for the AI companies is that essentially they, you know, they they they have the same access to open information as everybody else does and that they can use that. The best argument against it, of course, is that you are, in some cases, you know, stealing, information from copyrighted sources at a scale that simply wasn't practical before. But the funny thing for me is I know, for example, coddling the American mind, we got the, like, the notices of being... It was, you you know, part of trained models. And they asked me if I wanted to like participate in one of those class action lawsuits. And my response was like, well, no, I'm actually kind of excited. I'm actually pleased that they're using my contribution in order to inform what it thinks.
00:12:45 · Scott Galloway
[00:12:45] S0: One year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death. Any thoughts on where Americans stand on speech and what his murder kind of revealed about it?
00:12:57 · Greg Lukianoff
[00:12:57] S1: You know, I had a lot of criticisms of Charlie Kirk also for not being great on on freedom of speech, particularly of of scholars he disagreed with. I think he was really bad on that. I did, however, after he was murdered, you know, Goblin watched some of the ways he actually debated with some of these kids and came away much more impressed with it, for lack of a better word, than than than I expected. He he was more patient and, in some cases, nicer than I I expected him to be. And none of this matters for for... Also for what happened. The guy was murdered. And as best we can tell, the guy was murdered for trying to argue with people, you know, that he disagreed with, but usually in a pretty civil way. And I watched the way this is handled sometimes on the left. They they... They've turned him into a caricature of who he was by the time he died. A lot of the stuff that people really object to what he said, I always try to, like, take seriously the possibility I'm wrong. So, like, my... After he was murdered, I I tried to actually, you know, reevaluate him. And some of the stuff that I didn't notice is that some of his more that I would consider, you know, again, my own political opinion, obnoxious statements were before he actually started debating with students. And I thought when you see people, you know, celebrating his murder or refusing to talk about it... And that's something we found, by the way, in the FIRE research is that as far as topics that students find very uncomfortable to talk about, Charlie Kirk is the new one that's been added to Israel Palestine as things that students don't wanna talk about. I I think we've handled it... I think the right handled it terribly by going after people who said insensitive things about him being murdered. But I also think the left, you know, handled it pretty terribly by, in some cases, acting like, well, that guy just had it coming.