Hello. Welcome to Town Meeting TV. I'm honored to be here today with Abraham Awulich who was recently recognized by the Vermont Council on World Affairs as the person of the year. I was reading Abraham's bio written up and it's pretty remarkable. I'm just gonna give some highlights. You know at age 10 you joined the People's Liberation Army having been displaced from your family in the middle of the conflict. You resettled in Ethiopia, is that correct? That's correct. And then Kakuma, Kenya in a refugee camp and then as part of a resettlement program came to the United States in 2001. In 2008 you joined the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and then in 2009 co-founded the South Sudanese Development Fund. In 2011 you returned to South Sudan as a consultant to the newly formed government and I think you were living in Vermont at that time, is that correct? Yes I was in Vermont from 2001 to 2011 and went to the University of Vermont and also Community College of Vermont. And then in 2000 and then you became part of the South Sudanese, the newly formed South Sudanese government for about 10 years. Is that right? And in 2021 you left that government under? Well I was not part of the government directly but I was running a policy advisory institution called the Set Institute. That's where I worked for 10 years but primarily advising the government. And I played other roles of course temporary assignment with the government. I briefly worked for a year with the Ministry of Defense there and also was appointed to be a coordinator, deputy coordinator for South Sudan National Dialogue. And briefly also as a board member for one year of the National Revenue Authority of South Sudan. So those were the few government assignments in addition to being a consultant for the government. And not only is your story as a human being as an individual incredibly powerful and unique just your own struggles, your trials, your tribulations, what you have gone through and experienced and but also the country of South Sudan, how it's come into being has been a pretty remarkable story. Yeah, thank you, first of all for having me here. Yeah, the reason it is important to share these personal stories is because we hope that they can inspire other people that you can go through terrible events in your life early or in the middle of your life or even late in your life. But there is always another life beyond that. And so we had terrible childhood being exposed to the war conditions in South Sudan. Then it was Sudan before South Sudan separated in 2011 and having to persevere in the refugee camp life and being separated from families and to be thrown into a whole new world, like coming to the United States and then trying to establish a new life in a totally different community. And being able to get to know people like yourself and others who have been very supportive is a human story that there is the life is a journey marked with terrains that are difficult and some that are exciting. And so I could say, since I got to Burma in 2001, my life took a different turn. And I could say it has been a good life and a lot of support. And until this past year, when there was a bump on the road, when I had to leave the country again for security reasons to come to the United States. So let's talk about that in a minute. But I do remember in 2010, I think that was the year that you and a number of people drove to Boston to vote in the referendum around the forming of South Sudan. Is that correct? That is correct. I was I was actually one of the organizers based in Washington, because the center in Boston was open later. But but I was based in Alexandria, Virginia, where we organize the voting process starting in October 2010. But the voting actually took place on the 9th of January 2011. And that was folks folks from the I guess the diaspora folks who had left Sudan then Sudan, were refugees in countries all around the world who were invited to be part of the vote about whether to separate and form the new South Sudan. And I found that just absolutely inspiring that people would be so committed to take a four hour drive to cast a vote. And you know, here in the United States, so many people take voting for granted. It's something that we get to do two three times a year. And and here you guys were, you know, incredibly inspiring. What did that mean for you? Well, that was actually the first time in our lives that we we had to go in on matters related to our own country. Before that, in 2008, some of us who became American citizens voted during the elections of former Senator McCain and Barack Obama. So that was the first time we participated in a democratic exercise. But 2011 January 9th was the first time in the lives of majority of the people of South Sudan to vote in a democratic exercise that was so significant that it ended up establishing a new country. So it was exactly it was very, very exciting. And there were people who drove for 15 hours, you know, to come to Washington or to get to Boston, because there were only few places. And there were only four countries outside South Sudan that people in diaspora were allowed to vote. And that that is the including the United States and Egypt and Kenya and Sudan, people who are living in Northern Sudan. And so it was it was an extremely important exercise. And so technically, we we can consider ourselves the founders of the Republic of South Sudan. And and and that that is a that is something that happens very rarely in human history. And so we were extremely excited. And we got a lot of support from our American friends to exercise our democratic right. And so we are very proud of that moment. And and now South Sudan is a free country. Only that. We did not deliver what was promised. But that is now an that is now an internal matter. Yeah. Well, that brings us to 2021 and why you have left why you are now no longer in South Sudan. And so can you just talk a little bit about what happened? Your is I don't know if disillusionment is this is the right word, but tell us a little bit about what happened? Well, yeah, the last time I made a briefing to people of Proman, I essentially spoke about why I left South Sudan. And in summary, what I can say is that the level of insidiousness and excitement that we had in 2011 was based on the idea that we could establish a country that was a sharp contrast from from the the country that we left, which is the Sudan. Which was marked by marginalization of so many people. And and and the state was captured by a very few and using ethnic and religious divisions to keep the country apart and to and to perpetuate violence against people. And it was marked by so many coups and authoritarian regimes coming in and going. And so for nearly 60 years of its independence, Sudan was never a peaceful country. And so our hope was that the establishment of South Sudan marked a new beginning and a transition to a democratic society. At least that is what we were promised. And for those of us who had the opportunity to live in the United States and other democratic countries, like Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and European countries, we we we we exactly had in mind what democracy, the democratic society that we talk about would be. And that is a society where the government exists to serve its people and exist to unite its people. There is no reason to have a country. And you have everybody on each other's throat, especially citizens killing each other and hating each other. That actually defeats the idea of a nation. Nation is the idea of pulling people of desperate backgrounds together so that they can shape the future, a collective future together in which they can all prosper. And in which they can take care of each other and support each other. What we end up getting in South Sudan, however, is it's totally opposite of that. The state was quickly captured by a few elites, taking the natural riches that God has given to the people of South Sudan as their own personal property, and depriving ordinary citizens of any property, any development. Part of the reason in people of South Sudan took up arms, which was a very costly exercise was to actually regain their freedom and advance the lives of their people so that they can develop socially, politically and economically. And we didn't get that. So the country became extremely corrupt, extremely violent, and extremely bureaucratic. One man makes decisions for everybody. The Constitution does not bear any value in the country. It's totally neglected. And people are operating outside the law that we voted for. And so my job and the job of so many colleagues of mine, many of them who were here in the US and went back, it was our hope that maybe these are challenges of transition and that will support and input from us that we could urge the leaders to reform. But a decade later, which was exactly on the 9th of July, 2021, we did a review of what we have done over the course of a decade and where South Sudan has gone. And we discovered that it was a far cry from what we really wanted to do. We were being silenced. As time goes, politically, space shrunk and civic spaces shrunk. And there was no hope. South Sudan is growing warlords at a faster rate than we are creating entrepreneurs. And there is little to no political debate happening in South Sudan. Our old president does not even speak to people. He does not address people even when there are crises. And we have not had an election for a whole decade since we declared our independence. And so we took the stock of that and we said, if you go for a whole 10 years without an election, and there are no debates happening and politically, space is shrinking. How do you call that? We have become a dictatorship. Is this what we fought for? Is this what we had hoped to establish? And we said now, this is not it. And we actually said we are becoming complacent actually in this process. We are actually aiding in the establishment of a dictatorship because we feel that we are helping to get our country so that it becomes a democratic society, so that it becomes a fair society to all of us. But we are seeing that there is some preferential treatment. Some ethnic communities are treated better than others. Some individuals are treated better than others. And there is no formula for that. It is the leadership that pick and choose with the winner in South Sudan. And so it may be important, Abraham, for folks, many Vermonters who are not from Sudan or South Sudan or Africa may not realize that the diversity is actually incredibly rich in South Sudan, a number of different ethnic groups, languages that are spoken. I think that's something that I found actually incredibly amazing was watching the diaspora come together across those different languages and ethnic groups in Vermont and in places where people were gathering outside of South Sudan. So maybe you could just talk a little bit about that. Right. South Sudan is a diverse country in terms of its languages and ethnic communities. And there are estimates, you know, the number that you will find being thrown around is that there are 64 ethnic communities in South Sudan. It could be more or less depending on what you are using as a defining characteristic of an ethnic group. So for example, if you are using a linguistic identification, you could say that we have less than 64 ethnic communities. If you are using self-identification of communities as distinct, you could have up to four to 500 groups. And so that country is diverse and that diversity in our view is the richness of South Sudan is the value that we can earn from those groups. But we have to give them a reason to coexist and to live together. And that is the responsibility of political leadership to provide that vision, to provide that unity. And we get inspiration from the United States, from their declaration of independence all the way to the Constitution. It is the unity of their people that they consider so important. And the first word you find in the United States is the word unity. People are United States and people. And it has served the world so well. It created an imaginable, wonderful ideas that have come to shape the world now. And we could simply, we don't really have to work hard to invent a new thing. We could simply take advantage of that. And that is exactly where we have failed. And so in July last year, a number of South Sudanese intellectuals and people who are pro-democracy, we consider ourselves pro-democracy. We issued a statement listing the areas in which South Sudan has failed and where we have diverged from the vision that was set during the declaration of our independence. And that it was no longer possible to hope that South Sudan will one day be a democratic country when you can go for 10 years without conducting an election. This is dictatorship are never announced that we are going to establish a dictatorship. They are established using democratic aspirations. And over time, individuals capture the state and they begin to consolidate their power and begin to suppress voices that are contradicting their position of power. And that is how you end up with a dictatorship. And so in our case, that is exactly what happened. We were aspiring for a democratic country. We had trusted our leaders that they meant what they say and we supported them. And so we in that statement, we ended our support. We said we cannot longer stand for this. We demand a democratic transition now. And that is how we got in trouble. And then so the president issued orders for our arrest. Or if we cannot be arrested, we could be killed. And so we went into hiding immediately. Although one of our colleagues will have good will was not immediately. And he's now he has now been in jail today for 428 days. He has not been charged in any court of law. And he has not been taken to court to answer any questions just being detained by the orders of the president. And so we demand his media release. And if the government believes that expressing one's views is a crime, that is not what our constituents say. Let them take that to the court and prove why that is wrong. And that is what we have been campaigning also that our colleagues should release is being detained unnecessarily arbitrarily by the will of the president. And that is precisely part of the reason we cannot longer support that system. Thank you very much. Thank you. I mean, when we're talking about Sudan, South Sudan, when we're talking about South Sudan, your nearest border is Ethiopia, where there's a conflict happening. The UN World Food Bank just reported that food insecurity has doubled nationwide in the last two years.  And if you look at the the world map, in Sub-Saharan Africa, there's 100% food insecurity. What are the impacts of these kinds of conflicts on the ability to establish peace and democracy in South Sudan? Well, I can tell you that the world has shrunk. And we have become interdependent. So the war in Ukraine, the war in Ukraine in Eastern Europe is affecting our people directly, because food supplies and other things that we get from there have been reduced significantly, which has jacked up prices in the in the local market, putting it out of many people's reach. Yeah, so Tigrayan conflict is first of all, a tragic event. Ethiopia is the largest neighbor we have in the region with over 100 million people. And it is a growing economy. And the Ethiopian people have suffered from droughts and famine for so long. And they were on their way. After a leadership transition, we had hoped that Ethiopia was on the way to stabilizing and becoming democratic country and a growing economy, which would be important for us. But since the conflict erupted, it has disrupted the markets. And it has also created a lot of uncertainty within the region, even the investors in neighboring countries are not so sure of the spillover effect of those of that conflict. So it has disrupted supply routes. The Tigrayan, I mean, the Rittrian port is an important regional port for bringing in resources into Ethiopia and then into eastern South Sudan and South and Sudan. And it has also created its own dynamic between Ethiopia, Rittrian Sudan, there is an element of tension there. So it has negatively affected our people. And you have climatic conditions. South Sudan is highly flooded right now. I was just informed today that one of the areas in my own county where I come from in Lake Steady is under water right now. The houses have been completely wiped out and crops. This is we are approaching the harvest season now in October. And some of the crops are destroyed. In addition to conflict displacement. So if you were to check the latest reports on poverty in South Sudan, when South Sudan became independent, the poverty level was around 50 50. And that means 50% of the population was barely above the poverty level. And based on the international definition of $2 a day as the cutting line. Now, the poverty level is over 90%. Some calculations actually put it at 97% of the population in South Sudan is in desperate public situation. And so, so the conflict in Ukraine, the one in Tigray, and also climatic conditions and internal conflict in South Sudan, which is ongoing right now, in upper Nile region, have impoverished a lot of people. And that is part of our concern is to end human causes of the suffering and so that we can deal only with the climatic condition. And that all of those, all of that destabilization makes the work that you're trying to do as part of the People's Coalition for Civil Action more difficult. What is next for your organization, the pro-democracy movement? What is next for your work in South Sudan? Well, we will continue to believe that all crisis in any country can be resolved peacefully. And that the only way you can resolve any conflict peacefully is to have dialogue. And so what we have been advocating, and we have done this with a number of groups now in the country, is to is to bring the people of South Sudan into what we call the Round Table Conference, a conference in which different stakeholders in the Sudanese society can sit around the table and hammer out a constitutional agreement to fix based on the 10 years history that we have had now, to fix the fundamental problem that we observed and to and to try to make a democratic transition. In doing that, we have reached out to various political parties and armed groups and civil society organizations and faith organizations. And we have invited them to join a forum that we call the National Consensus Forum. We have lost any consensus on fundamental issues that make a nation. And so our hope is that we want to regenerate that consensus which we had in 2011. And then move now to a different stage in what we call the National Round Table Conference to formalize those that consensus and turning it into a constitution. And now using that constitution to launch a second republic, they will say that we failed to establish the first republic, which is what we have now. And we can we can reestablish the republic on on new basis on a new social contract with the people. And having a democratic transition, that means having an election for the first time. Of course, with a lot of support from the region and the international community. That is where we stand now. And we think that those who have failed the people of South Sudan, and who have subverted the democratic aspiration of the people of South Sudan, should be disqualified from contesting in any election. So that is basically that is our position right now. Do you have the support of the international community? What what more support is needed? Well, first of all, in a in a in an authoritarian state, it is very difficult to to support democratic groups, because everyone in South Sudan who has access to any money, any form of money, is a supporter of government. If you are not a supporter of government, of course, you have no money. And so, so international support in building democratic movements and for a democracy group support to them is critical. Number two is a political decision by the Troika countries. The Troika countries are three countries that had helped South Sudan to become independent. That is the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Norway. And we have talked to them, their their invoice. And what we are asking them is that the choice is clear now. You either stand with with the authoritarian regime, which has victimized its own people, or you support pro-democracy organizations and support also the call for the round table and and the call for a new constitutional agreement in the country. And we have, we have found positive response to that. Obviously, they would love to see a democratic transition in South Sudan. They have their own challenges. For example, here in the United States, President Biden, as he has his hands full with the situation in Ukraine, and domestic situation, you know, trying to keep the people of the United States united and focus on important issues. And so he has not really paid a lot of attention to to events happening in Africa, and perhaps even in other parts of the world. And so part of my job being here in the United States is to get President Biden's attention. And we have done that successfully through the Congress. And our own Senator from Vermont, Senator Lee has been very supportive, has issued several statements in support of pro-democracy, and has also called upon the United States to support these pro-democratic movements. The same thing to Congressman Peter Welch. He gave me audience in his office in Washington, and offering support, moral and political support to the work that I'm doing. And so have other people, other congressmen and senators. And so what we need, the support that is more important is the support of the American people. In 2001, when we came and we shared our story with the American people, they responded overwhelmingly. And they gave pressure to President George W. Bush to initiate the peace process in Sudan by appointing Senator John Danforth to go and make sure that there is peace in Sudan. And there was peace. And so South Sudan and the peace that we have experienced came as a result of the efforts of the United States. And those efforts came through the the American people. So we are calling also upon the American people to once again call on their representatives and in the States and in the national government to pay attention to South Sudan and to support the few voices such as mine, people who are doing this work, I'm safe now, but I have colleagues who remain in South Sudan and they are, they speak with an extreme danger of being persecuted for their views. So we need to regenerate that support, both political moral and even financial support. So that is what that is the more we need. So the importance, you know, I just want to bring it back, you know, you were honored again by the Vermont Council on World Affairs as the person of the year. And this, you know, when you talk about the outreach and the support that's needed, what does this award mean for Vermonters and for the South Sudanese and to you? Well, it could not have come at the right time. And also in the right place. I was extremely honored to be recognized by the the Vermont Council on World Affairs. And of course, they cited the fact that this award is given to someone who embodies the values of promoting understanding international understanding and peace between the United States and the rest of the world. And so what I what I believe the significance of this award is that it is an indication that the people of Vermont value what we stand for. And the aspiration of the people of South Sudan. And they feel that they have they had created this process with the inspiration that I was given, being living in the city of Burlington, going to the University of Vermont and the community college, the values that I learned from the community, the open mindedness, the desire to promote social justice, and the desire to be inclusive, and to be accommodating to people of strange cultures, is a contribution that came directly from Vermont. And so, so they are proud of the work that I am doing and to stand up for what is right and for democracy. And I think they want to put a spotlight on that. And then that is exactly what they have done. And, and so I'm very proud and I was so happy to be back on Church Street, and to meet friends that I have known for so many years, and to just drive around and enjoy the neighborhood, new things that have come up in Vermont. And so I will continue, I will use this recognition as a springboard to, to continue to raise awareness among the American people, and raise awareness about the desires and expression of the people of South Sudan, including the Sudanese community in Vermont, which I co-founded in 2001. And, and even the Association of Africans living in Vermont, which I'm also a founding board member. They have a special both in Vermont, they want to have a good life, they want to be recognized and be, be integrated into the community. But they also want good things back home. They still have relatives there. And they, and they aspire to go home one day and live as free citizens. And, and have two homes that they can go to. And so that is their aspiration, to the aspiration of those people in Vermont, and, and elsewhere in the United States to see South Sudan as a successful democratic country. And so it means a lot to me and I'm, I'm grateful for that recognition. Abraham Awilich, thank you so much for spending time with us today, and sharing your story and the story of the work of the People's Coalition for Civil Action, the pro-democracy civil rights movement, trying to make a free and democratic South Sudan.  So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Megan. And I'm so delighted that you could give me this space. And, and I thank the, is it a citizen TV now? I forgot the. Town Meeting TV. Yeah. Yeah. Then I really appreciate the Town Meeting TV for always giving me the space to share with Vermonter's the effort that I'm working on, including my, my charity initiatives through the Sudan Development Foundation. We continue to, I continue to support those initiatives. We still, we are still running medical clinics. We are supporting one primary school. And so we continue to ask people to support Sudan, the Sudan Development Foundation, and, and to continue to making donations so that we can continue to inspire hope in those communities where we operate. So thank you very much. And I look forward to coming back to Burlington very soon after I have, if, if I have made a breakthrough through my advocacy here in Washington, the destination is Burlington. I'm, I'm coming back to Burlington and get back into the community. So thank you very much. All right. Thank you. And thank you for watching. Stay tuned for more Town Meeting Television Community Programming.


Prior to his exodus from Twitter, Jordan Peterson called out Scientific American. In his tweet, he said, Darwin was wrong, but some random columnist for, quote, scientific American is right. Probability, zero. More woke idiocy and thinly veiled Marxist criticism of, quote, unquote, essentialism, masquerading as enlightened science. Scientific American has had some questionable pieces in the past, so I decided to check this article out that Jordan Peterson was speaking of. When I opened the article in question, the first thing I noticed was that it was written by Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the most well-known neuroscientists in the world. In addition to that, she's a best-selling author. Jordan Peterson has said some pretty ignorant things in the past, but this, you know, like his tweet really got me asking a couple questions. One, does he really not know who Lisa is? And two, if he doesn't, why didn't he just take two seconds to go Google it real quick? Regardless of your opinions of Jordan Peterson, the man is not stupid, so what's going on? I'm always trying to figure out why people don't do the bare minimum by looking into things. So what I believe we're seeing, and this is a wider-spread problem within the Manisphere, this thing is called strategic ignorance. And the reason this is an issue is because as many of you know, the Manisphere reaches a lot of young men, and strategic ignorance is this form of misinformation. This misinformation is indoctrinating a lot of people and within the Manisphere, that's specific to young men. So today, I thought we could discuss the art of strategic ignorance and how prevalent it is within the Manisphere community. And if you're a long-time subscriber of the Rewired Soul, you know we're gonna get into some solutions at the end of this thing. So first, we need to understand what strategic ignorance is. In recent years, it seems the world is just getting crazier and crazier, and I have become absolutely fascinated with irrationality and things like self-deception and denial. Why do we lie to ourselves? Why do some of us refuse to seek the truth? Why do we think we're independent thinkers when it's so obvious that we're just going along with the tribe? Strategic ignorance is an insidious form of self-deception. Strategic ignorance is avoiding information because it goes against our self-interest. For example, let's say you're like me and you know that you could shed some pounds. Well, most of us know that eating a high amount of calories isn't gonna help us accomplish this goal. Even if we're not dietitians, we're well aware of ingredients and nutrition items that we're going to need to look at if we wanna lose weight. There's a simple way to avoid eating bad foods, and that is by checking nutrition labels. It's one of the easiest things we can do, but why won't we do it? Instead, we don't look because we don't wanna know the truth. If I knew the truth about what's in this thing that I really wanna eat, now there's a responsibility to make a healthier decision. But if I don't check, I don't know, and that, my friends, is strategic ignorance. Like, I was a drug addict and alcoholic for many years, and I just celebrated 10 years sober, and I've educated myself a lot about addiction. But back then, I chose to not learn about it because by learning about addiction, it would have ruined my buzz, you know what I mean?  Again, though Peterson can be awful, he's clearly intelligent in certain aspects. To become a psychologist, he obviously had to do a lot of research, but he couldn't spare one minute of his life to Google Lisa Feldman Barrett. As you could see, it doesn't take long to Google Lisa and instantly see she's a professor of psychology at Northeastern University. Under the snippet for her website, it shows she's in the top 1% of the most cited scientists in the world for her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. But in Jordan's tweet, he refers to her as a quote, random columnist for scientific American. Lisa, being the class act that she is, simply retweeted it by saying, this tweet speaks for itself.  This specific type of strategic ignorance has a moral component to it. And as you'll see, this happens a lot within the manosphere. And although he says stuff like this... Up yours, woke moralists. We'll see who cancels who. Jordan Peterson's entire platform comes from a place of morality. People in the manosphere believe they're upholding the ultimate moral duty of teaching these young men what it means to be a man. And the manosphere folks, they also believe that they're defending men against the perceived injustices that are directed towards men. To purposely spread misinformation about Lisa would be an immoral act by Peterson. An act of immorality can lose him a lot of support from his following. But by utilizing strategic ignorance by not looking Lisa up, it provides Jordan Peterson with this shield of plausible deniability. We'll dive into it a bit more later, but a key aspect of the manosphere's strategic ignorance is to not look deep into the science of anything. Jordan Peterson believed this was a slam dunk by saying that Lisa's peace in Scientific American was part of some awoke Marxist agenda. This wasn't a simple opinion piece written by Lisa Feldman Barrett saying that Darwin was wrong like Peterson suggests. Feldman Barrett's primary research is into emotions and she's explaining why body language is an extremely flawed way to detect emotions. First, she explains how research shows that facial expressions vary greatly. Quote, in real life, people express a given emotion with tremendous variability. In anger, for example, people in urban culture scowl or make some of the facial movements for a scowl. Only about 30% of the time according to meta-analyses of studies measuring facial movement during emotion. Scowls are also not specific to anger because people scowl for different reasons such as when they are concentrating or when they have gas. The same tremendous variation occurs for every emotion studied and for every other measure that purportedly tells us about someone's emotional state, whether it's their physiology, voice, or brain activity. Scientists have been moving towards AI that detects emotions, but Lisa goes on to explain why this is flawed research as well. Quote, emotion AI systems therefore do not detect emotions. They detect physical signals such as facial muscle movements not the psychological meaning of those signals. The conflation of movement and meaning is deeply embedded in Western culture and in science. An example is a recent high-profile study that applied machine learning to more than 6 million internet videos and faces. The human raiders who trained the AI system were asked to label facial movements in the videos, but the only labels they were given to us were emotion words such as angry rather than the physical descriptions such as scowling. Moreover, there was no objective way to confirm what, if anything, the anonymous people in the videos were feeling in those moments. So one has to wonder, did Jordan Peterson actually even read this article or did he just read the headline? But let's be charitable. Let's say that he actually read this article. Charles Darwin's book, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals was written in 1872. This means that it was written 150 years ago. To think that science can't be updated in 150 years because you have a hard on for Charles Darwin is absolutely ridiculous. Even Darwin was smart enough to know that his groundbreaking research was just a starting point for future scientists to build off from. With Peterson, he should absolutely know better, but what about Andrew Tate? Andrew Tate is another well-known figure in the manosphere who has been infecting the minds of young men around the world with his misogynistic and sexist takes. But for some reason, people seem to see him as some good source of advice. Guys, I'm waiting for my blue slushie to be ready. I guess it takes a minute for the machine to get ready. And no, I can't have the red one. And I'm watching these three guys have conversations about one of the guys likes a girl that's in Starbucks. And he thinks she's giving him signals to go in and ask her out or ask for a number or whatever. And the guys are trying to pump him up. And one of the guys goes, well, Andrew Tate says, if you don't know who Andrew Tate is, look him up, try not to give him any views. But for the love of God, I don't know if I should get out of the car and help these guys out or if they're already quoting Andrew Tate, are they too far gone?  I don't know. I feel like it's a Star Wars moment. Can he be saved from the dark side? Nah, I don't think he can. One of the reasons young men take what he says so seriously is because he has a lot of money. This is a clear example of the halo effect, which is a cognitive bias that makes us believe that one aspect of a person influences everything else about that person. It's a cognitive shortcut. For example, the thought process goes, Andrew Tate has money, therefore he must be smart and he's someone that I should take advice from. One would think with how much money Andrew Tate has, he has a ton of time that he would use to do something productive like educate himself on what he talks about and maybe read some books. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Reading books is a very cheap way to, I guess entertain, I wouldn't call it entertainment because my brain is far too advanced. I'm gonna sit there and go, smart people read. No, I need action. I need constant chaos in my life to feel content. I need to be driving a super car and fighting.  I can't just sit there. Oh, and the pirate on the boat.  Listen, whether or not someone reads books is absolutely none of my business, but it allows for strategic ignorance on the part of men like Andrew Tate within the Manisphere. A common trope of the Manisphere is to turn evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology to explain what men and women should and shouldn't do. By engaging in strategic ignorance, they can act with the confidence of someone who has read a ton of books and they know everything, but they avoid any information that may contradict their prior beliefs. In her recent video, Munecat does an excellent job explaining how people in the Manisphere simply don't look further into the research that they're citing. When discussing the guys from Fresh and Fit, she points out that oftentimes the same study that these guys use to argue their terrible beliefs is the same study that explains exactly why they're wrong. They just didn't go further into the research. One of my favorite books on self-deception is actually one that I just found, just read it, loved it so much. It is called Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite by Robert Kurtzman. He discusses how acquiring new information gives you additional responsibilities. Kurtzman writes, having information can cause social problems with subtle and wide-ranging effects. I'm going to discuss issues related to one's reputation in the context of perceived duties. Many philosophers have written extensively on this, most notably Kant, so I'll just make a few general remarks. People's reputations suffer to the extent that they are perceived not to discharge a duty. If you can save a drowning child at little risk to yourself, people perceive you as having an obligation to do so. So, getting access to new information can give you a new duty that you didn't have before. Basically, if the Fresh and Fit crew or Andrew Tate actually exposed themselves to additional knowledge, it could hurt their reputation, much like Jordan Peterson being strategically ignorant helps them protect their brand as men who are supposedly doing something morally good. Now, this is a great time to pause and ask ourselves, do we have a moral duty to educate ourselves? And feel free to leave a comment down below because this is something that I'm constantly wondering about. Like, is it immoral of us to just be oblivious to things even though the information is readily available? So, it's difficult to answer this question because most of us, we're extremely busy and don't have time to educate ourselves on every topic under the sun. But in the case of the manosphere, the situation is different from the average person. See, they're reaching a lot of people and they've positioned themselves to be people of influence. So, do you think people with a large influence have a moral duty to educate themselves completely on a topic before holding strong beliefs and relaying them to others? Think about how many men are out there parroting the bad information from people within the manosphere that's rooted in strategic ignorance. The information is then spread and can influence others within individual communities. That's when we return to the question of, do we have a moral duty to educate ourselves? Personally, I would argue that this depends on the topic. For example, if I'm telling someone that I heard some study says drinking coffee at 7 a.m. is better than drinking coffee at 8 a.m., that's a low risk situation. So, in that example, what's the worst thing that can happen if I don't take a deep dive into that study or that information? To be clear, just out of my personal values, I fact check that information because I think it's important to do so, but if I didn't, really not a big deal. Worst case is the person realizes the study is bogus and stops trusting my opinions when I bring up studies, but it'll do minimum harm. But what about higher risk situations? Like, what if it was about something I heard about medications? Do I have a moral duty to educate myself before spreading information to others? Like, I would definitely say yes, because if we influence someone about what to do or not to do when it comes to medication, that can be harmful. People in the Manisphere community are being conditioned to not look into information. There's a certain amount of trust that goes, there's a certain amount of trust that goes into believing what these men have to say, and it could be beyond harmful. So recently, after realizing how big of a problem the Manisphere was becoming, I wanted to get to the root of the issue, and I kept asking, why are young men so miserable? And more importantly, why are young men so angry? Right? Like, I know my personal experience, like I used to be a really angry young dude, but I wanted to see what was going on. So over on Twitter, by the way, follow me on Twitter, at The Rewind Soul, I was asking for book recommendations, and someone recommended this book called The Boy Crisis by Warren Farrell. I had never heard of Warren Farrell, so I decided to do some quick research into him to see if he's someone who knows what he's talking about. First, I saw that his book had 923 reviews, which isn't bad. This amount of reviews typically means that the book has sold a lot of copies. Like, to put it in perspective for you, a lot of really good books are lucky if they have 100 reviews. So typically, bad books not only don't sell a lot of copies, but they have a way lower rating as well, but as you can see, Warren Farrell's book had four and a half out of five stars. I also saw that he has a PhD and has written a lot of books over the last 40 years. These were all indicators that he's probably someone who kinda knows what he's talking about. Like, he has a decent reputation, a lot of people are reading his books, so I grabbed a copy, and once I started reading, I realized how wrong I was. From the start of his book, it was filled with terrible information and bad data. The fact that it went through editors was mind-blowing to me. See, I came to this book looking for answers as to why young men were so angry and miserable, but throughout the book, his primary argument is that women have it much better than men. Since followers of the Manisphere are being conditioned in strategic ignorance, this can be dangerous. This is no different than blaming marginalized groups for all of your problems instead of what the source actually is. And by the way, if you didn't get the memo, that's capitalism. To give you an idea of the misinformation in this book, it started out by saying how there's discrimination against men and how women are treated better. He mentions a study that more men are suffering from obesity than women due to their depression. Aside from this being correlational, it's barely true at best. According to the CDC, obesity in men is only slightly higher than women. Now, you could argue that it's happening at a faster rate over time, but as you can see, more of the female population has been dealing with this a lot longer than men have. Next, he says that women are out earning men in urban cities. This should instantly trigger a red flag for anyone who reads it. So I looked it up. I wasn't able to find any research that looked into earnings for specific cities, but we can get a general idea with the data from the most populated states. And here's what the data looks like for those states. In California, on average, men make an average of $7,162 more than women. In Texas, they're making on average $10,516 more. In Florida, men make $7,705 more. New York, $8,821. And in Pennsylvania, $11,396 more than women. Now, I want you to think about that for a second. This well-respected person, Warren Farrell, is telling men, parents and the rest of the world that women are out earning men and it's completely false. All right, this book sold thousands of copies. Without looking up this type of information, what do you think young men are thinking when they hear this? Lastly, Warren Farrell also said that the bias towards women can also be found in Google Trends data. He said, there are more people searching for, and I'm not kidding when I say this, quote, foods to eat to conceive a girl. And that's four times higher than, quote, foods to eat to conceive a boy. All right, I wanted to pause right there because let's take a moment just to acknowledge how dumb it would be to search that. If people could simply eat foods to conceive either a boy or a girl, it'd be like this scientific breakthrough of the millennium. All right, so I figured that maybe, just maybe, maybe he cherry-picked these search terms to argue his point. But even that wasn't the case because it's not even true. Listen, it only took me a couple seconds to go to trends.google.com and look into this. With the book being released in 2018, I went back to trend data from 2017. And as you can see, the search is not four times higher for women. At best, you see random spikes for both boys and girls, but boys still gets more searches.  Personally, I don't think it matters because it's harmful either way. But before we conclude, we need to discuss racism. Something you'll notice in the manosphere is the narrative that anyone of any race can just pick themselves up by their bootstraps. FD Signifier has discussed people like Kevin Samuels and his influence on young black men.  Therefore, it's clearly not. Now, I'm only half black, so I can't speak to the personal experience that many black people have in this country. In fact, my only experience with racism that was directed towards me was this one girl who I was talking to way back in the day and she literally ghosted me after I told her I was half black. But that was probably for the best, you know, before she met the family and all that stuff. The reality is that although we've come a long way, racism is still a major problem that people refuse to address. In the Mansfield, people like Jordan Peterson will point to Ibram X. Kendi or Robin D'Angelo to try and make the topic of racism seem overblown and silly. Robin D'Angelo studied sociology and Ibram Kendi majored in African-American studies. Although I think they may have some valuable points that add to the discussion, I do sometimes personally think that they go a little too far. But if you only listen to Jordan Peterson and these others in the Mansfield, you would think that Kendi and D'Angelo are literally the only academics discussing racism. When I look at a list like this that Jordan Peterson tweets, there's one name that's missing every single time and that is Dr. Jennifer Iberhart. For those of you who don't know who Dr. Jennifer Iberhart is, she is awesome. Iberhart graduated from Harvard University and went on to teach at Yale. Now she's currently a social psychologist at Stanford University and researches racial biases. Her book, Bias, Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do really highlights the research that she's been doing as well as the training that she does for police departments all around the country. And when I heard about the research that she's been doing and the trainings, it absolutely blew my mind. It's really easy for someone like Peterson to attack Kendi and D'Angelo. These two are a part of the extreme. What makes attacking them easy is that these two just present ideas. What's harder to attack is evidence that's rooted in solid research and that is exactly what Dr. Jennifer Iberhart does. So we have to ask ourselves, do people like Jordan Peterson just not know about Iberhart and her work? By now, you should know that the answer is that they're probably using strategic ignorance. Why ask if we have any peer reviewed research about racial biases, when you can just attack the people who are in the extremes like Kendi and D'Angelo. Strategic ignorance provides the perfect cover so you never have to deal with the actual scientific research. All right, we've reached the fun part. So what's the solution? I've said it before and I've said it again. So when I got sober, I was taught by my sponsor that it's a lot easier to fix me than it is to fix the rest of the world. And I think we all need to do our best to avoid strategic ignorance. And the way we do this is by challenging our own confirmation bias. If we find some research or information that agrees with us, like I usually see it as a red flag. If I read something and I'm like, oh, this is definitely right. It's exactly what I thought. I'm like, this means I need to check something else out. All right, so I try to find different information that's gonna challenge it. If our beliefs are correct, they should stand up to scrutiny, right? I regularly read books by people I disagree with. And most of the time I walk away and I realize how weak their arguments actually are. But sometimes I see even in certain topics that maybe I was wrong. What makes a critical thinker is someone who challenges their beliefs and updates those beliefs based on new data and information. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to argue for the neoliberal idea that we're all individuals and should focus on ourselves, all right? We should actively challenge people when they're using strategic ignorance. We should provide them with information that explains why they're wrong and hopefully without being a jerk about it. We should educate others and try to get them to challenge the people that they're following, the people that they're listening to because by asking questions, we're getting them into that thought process, right? So even though we can't control what they do or what they think, by being in front of them and asking questions about the topic or the ideas that someone like Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate has, the people reading that are like, yeah, maybe I should be asking that question too. And when in conversations with people, right, that are bringing in these bad ideas, something that I was taught and I try to practice is doing some Socratic questioning, all right? So don't ask them why they believe something. Ask them how they came to believe that thing. And again, this won't change their mind, but it'll at least get them thinking, okay? All right, everybody, that is it for this video. Thanks so much. We made it all the way until the end. I appreciate it. This is my first like real video back in, God, I don't know, like a year over a year has it been that long? I missed ya. And I'm scripting this. I have a little teleprompter app on the laptop right here. So by the way, if you notice anything if my eyes are shooting around in weird directions, like I tried to angle it so that didn't happen. But if you notice anything, leave a comment. I've been doing podcasting for a while and let me tell you something I hate about podcasting is there's no comments, there's no feedback. Like I remember when I started on YouTube, people would be like, oh, your lighting's messed up, your sound's messed up, whatever. Can't do that with podcasting. So let me know how this came out. I'm gonna get back into the groove of this thing, get back more into, you know, my camera presence and all that, whatever. But again, I'm gonna be back doing a ton of videos. This took me forever to make, mainly because I was like setting up the office.  But anyways, it took me a while, but I hope to have at least one video a week. But I'm also thinking about doing like smaller regular commentary videos in between the bigger ones like this. So anyways, if you're not yet, make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don't miss any updates. Make sure you're following me over on social media. It's at the Rewired Soul on Instagram and Twitter. I love chatting with all of you. I love getting book recommendations, video recommendations. I've been loving a lot of different video SAS. It's really why I wanted to come back to YouTube. And lastly, lastly, the other thing is too, that you don't have time to get into in this video is therapy, all right? So if you're interested, especially if you're a young man, all right, down in the description below, there's an affiliate link for BetterHelp Online Therapy.  And it's not just how I stay sober.  And I've personally used BetterHelp Online Therapy. It's affordable, it's online. You work with a licensed therapist from your state. It's a pretty sweet deal. You can pick people based on your specific needs, whether it's like depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, whatever it is. So if you're interested in that, check out that affiliate link for BetterHelp Online Therapy down below. It's a lot better to run into these guys in the ministry here who are often just saying really wrong and harmful and dangerous things, all right? But anyways, again, thank you so, so much for watching.  And if you're new, don't worry, just hang out, you could be a real one too. All right, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. Make sure you like the video, make sure you subscribe, share it, get the world out. World out, I mean the word out. Get the word out, and I'll see you next time.


I've driven over 2 million miles per night, which means I've been here for over 20 years. When I first started, I had a five-year plan that I was going to work for night, or any truck company, five years and quit. But I saw how great night was with their people, their dedication to their drivers, how much freedom that I had, that suddenly I found myself here five, 10, 15, all of a sudden it was over 20 years, and I was like, what? You're here for 20 years, and it only seems like yesterday we had the cab overs when we first started. It doesn't seem like 20 years, not at all.


Hello everyone, I am Mrs. Kanchan Khedikar working as an assistant professor in Computer Science and Engineering department at Valchan Institute of Technology, Solapur. Today we will learn network address translation, it is abbreviated as NAT. Learning outcomes at the end of this session student will be able to discuss NAT technology and they will discuss how it can be used to elevate the shortage in number of addresses in IPv4. Before starting the network address translation in detail, let me explain you what is the need of NAT. We know that ISP who is responsible to distribute the addresses to the network. But the distribution of addresses through ISP has created a problem. ISP has granted a small range of addresses to a small business. But if business grows and need a larger range of addresses then ISP may not able to grant the demand because the addresses before and after the range may have already allotted to the other network. In most of the situation some computers need access to internet. So the number of a located address does not match the number of computers in the network. Assume any small business having a number of PCs. So that particular small business having the 20 number of PCs. Out of these 20 numbers only 5 PCs are connected to the internet. So only 5 addresses are visible. But actually there are 20 addresses. So the technology that can provide the mapping between the private and universal addresses at the same time support the virtual private network is known as network address translation. The technology allows a site to use a set of private addresses for internal communication and set of global internet addresses for communication with the rest of the world. Now let us see in short what actually NAT is. NAT maps private address to public IP address. That means it maps the private IPs to public IP. It is a short term solution to the problem of depletion of IP addresses. It is required because of the shortage of the IPv4 addresses. Now let me explain the network address translation in detail with the help of diagram. The site has only one single connection to the global internet through a NAT capable router that runs the NAT software. In this diagram the NAT software or the NAT router is shown. Now consider this is a private network which has total 20 private addresses. This is a NAT router which is connected to the internet. So here this private address and there is another global address. So NAT router who is responsible to connect private network with global network or we can say that with internet. So NAT router connects one private address and one global address. Now let us see address translation. In this address translation the private network one packet is moved from any one host of the private network to the global network. So here this packet contained source address <IP_ADDRESS> which is passed through the network address translation router that is NAT router. So NAT router has a software which store the outgoing packet addresses. By transmitting that packet NAT router changes its source address. So once the packet is moved from NAT router it changes its source address. So initially for the outgoing packet the IP address is <IP_ADDRESS> but whenever that packet is moved from this router it address get changes and it become <IP_ADDRESS>. The same thing is happened with incoming packets. So these two are incoming packets. When this incoming packet is moved to the NAT router, NAT router changes its destination address to the private address. So in this way address translation takes place. Now pause the video and write down the answer. Question is what are the situations where NAT is required? Let us see the answers. When we need to connect to the internet and our host do not have globally unique address then NAT required. When we want to hide the internal IP addresses from outside for security purpose then we require the NAT. And the third one is a company is going to merge in another company which use the same address space then we require the NAT router. Let us move toward the translation table. Why there is a need of translation table? Let us see the translating the source addresses for an outgoing packet it is very straightforward but to know the destination address of incoming packet from internet is difficult because in the internet or in the private network there are so many hosts. So it is very difficult to identify that particular host address. So address translation table is required. So there are two type of address translation table one is by using one IP address only and the another is by using pool of IP addresses. So let us see using one IP address translation table has two columns first column is a private address and another column is the external address router make the note of the destination address. To response come from the or if the response come from the destination then router uses the source address of packet to find the private address. So let us see how it find out the private address. Now using one IP address that means this router allocate only one IP address one global IP address to that packet. So in this diagram this is the private network and this is the outgoing packet which contain source address and destination address. Whenever this packet is reaches to the NAT router NAT router store its addresses that is source address and destination address. So its source address is <IP_ADDRESS> whereas its destination address is <IP_ADDRESS>. While moving forward this packet to the internet NAT changes its source address and that source address is <IP_ADDRESS>. Now the same thing is happened with the incoming frames. When the incoming packet is arrived at NAT router it check the source address and destination address. So here for this incoming packet source address is <IP_ADDRESS>. So this address is accessed by translation table and this address helps to find out the destination address or the network IP host. So this address for this address the source address is <IP_ADDRESS> ok. So this address is the destination address. So in this way translation table is needed to find out the incoming as well as outgoing frames or the packets. But there is one disadvantage using only one global address by NAT router it allows only one private network host to access the same external host. So to eliminate this or allow or NAT allow to access the multiple private network we have the solution and that is using a pool of IP addresses. NAT router uses a pool of IP addresses. For example 4 addresses like <IP_ADDRESS>, 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11. So these 4 private network host can communicate with the same external host at the same time. Let us see the advantages of NAT that is network address translation. NAT increases the flexibility when connecting to the internet. It eliminates address renumbering as a network evolves. It conserves legally registered addresses. These are the 3 advantages of NAT. So in this video we have learned NAT technology and the advantages of NAT. This is the reference. Thank you.