In-Sight Publishing

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/14

Joel Nicoloff is the co-host of The Six Cents Report with Darnell Samuels. A podcast that “uses theology and economics to analyze events that Impact Canadians.” A creative mix and an intriguing duo. Both have been interviewed. Nicoloff is first, as I met him at the Economics for Journalists conference of The Fraser Institute. Here we talk about the report and him. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Actually, I’ll open on that. I start every interview with the question: May I have consent to record? I might say, “Please.” I might not say, “Please.” Because it is an important part of the ethics of journalists or media people, you want to make sure you are transparent, yes?

Joel Nicoloff: Yes! Of course, also, you want to make sure in case there was any miscommunication beforehand. They know now. You are being recorded.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] That’s correct. I always say, “Do you know what my first question is?” They go, “No.” Every single person goes, “No.” I say, “May I have consent to record, please?” And so, that’s important. 

Now, you’ve run a podcast for a decent amount of time. You are wrapping it up. So, this is really an ideal time to reflect and get your insights on getting a structure together that works for a two-person podcast. So, first of all, who are you? How did we meet?

Nicoloff: Yes, my name is Joel Nicoloff. I am a co-host of The Six Cents Report. We met at the Economics for Journalists conference by the Fraser Institute out in Vancouver.

Jacobsen: Now, what made you sign up for this Economics for Journalists conference in the first place?

Nicoloff: My co-host, Darnell, has gone to both the Economics for Journalists and Policy for Journalists and highly recommended them. When Fraser sent out applications and requests for referrals this year, Darnell referred me, and I figured, Why not apply? I do have a fairly solid foundation in economics, as I obtained a B.Com and currently work in the accounting world in my day job. I thought the connections I could make within the journalism industry would be beneficial to me, as well as provide an opportunity to refine my ability to communicate these principles in a layman’s sense.

Jacobsen: What was your big takeaway from that conference as a final note on that?

Nicoloff: For me, my personal takeaway was really niche in regards to our work on the budget and teasing out the economic and political aspects of a government budget. In addition, the component on behavioural economics was beneficial because I have always had some pushback regarding the way terms were used in this area of economics. My understanding of behavioural economics was improved by being able to tease out some nuances by asking our leaders some very specific questions.

Jacobsen: Now, what was the original idea behind founding a podcast?

Nicoloff: The foundation, for me anyway, was just listening to the conversations guys like Joe Rogan were having and wanting to be involved. I have always been relatively willing to engage in debate and conversation. I probably sent a voice note half-jokingly to a couple of buddies, saying I wanted to create a podcast and call it something like “I Want to Argue With You.”

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Nicoloff: About two months later, Darnell asked me, “Do you want to do a podcast?” Instantly, I said, “Yes.” That was probably in April of 2017. Over the Summer of 2017, Darnell and I started planning it. We launched our first season in December 2017.

Jacobsen: How many episodes did you produce? What was the approximate frequency average over those years?

Nicoloff: Right now, we are sitting at 180 episodes. We have our final 7 to be published. Episode 181 will be coming out once we finish the production. We call the episode “The Beginning of the End.” Some of that stuff I talk about here will be in there. We will finish at about 187. In terms of frequency, our intention was to publish content with consistency, and so our approach was to release weekly episodes in a season. In Dec 2017, we released our first season and published 16 episodes, and then in season 2, it grew to 24 episodes. Then we released about 40 episodes per season for the next three years until 2022 when our 6th season got cut short at 20 episodes, which was the beginning of the end in that sense. Darnell had started the teaching profession and building a curriculum, which makes life exceptionally difficult. New teachers, the first couple of years, very little free time. We actually have a podcast episode where the topic of creating a curriculum was discussed – episode 153: Why Dystopian Literature is Important

https://www.sixcentsreport.com/e/typbst-why-dystopian-literature-is-important-with-vince-cancilla-6cr-153/

Jacobsen: With The Six Cents Report as a podcast, what was the orientation around the use of theology and economics to look at events happening in Canadian society?

Nicoloff: For me, I am a little bit more trained in economics. Darnell is a little bit more formally trained in theology. I would say I am a backyard theologian. He is a backyard economist. So, we both brought a little bit of economics and theology. The idea was that we wanted to talk about ideas. So, we took issues that affect Canadians. Usually, we would take an article as a means of representing other points of view and just dig into particular issues and analyze them by applying our worldviews as well as economic principles. At the same time, I’m not trying to be exclusive. In this sense, if you don’t have the same beliefs or worldviews, the discussion may still be useful or valuable to you because we are attempting to engage in a manner that represents other views fairly.

Jacobsen: What episode was the most controversial?

Nicoloff: [Laughing] It is an interesting question. I’m sure Darnell would answer differently. We never got cancelled or people lambasting our takes or anything like that. In episode 75, we interviewed two people from another podcast called Teachers Like Us. It was around the time of a teachers’ strike in Ontario. The four of us were recording around Darnell’s kitchen table, and at about the 50-minute mark of the conversation, we got into the concept of white privilege and what that entails as a term and its usefulness, or lack thereof. There were two very different perspectives going head-to-head. In episode 181, Darnell tells the story about this episode, and he does a great job, so I’ll leave you with this….the episode ended up being 2 hours

https://www.sixcentsreport.com/e/teachers-like-us-strike-6cr-75/

Jacobsen: How far was the development of The Six Cents Report? Was there a backdrop where there was a lot of improvisational commentary at the time that was very well thought out coming out on both sides?

Nicoloff: We were, probably, right in the middle of it. I’ll find the episode number for you. We’d finished two seasons’ work. We were recording our third season. We were past 50 episodes. That was partly why we were able to find somebody who had their own perspective and had their own cone, to be able to engage us rather than just two guys with a couple of episodes.

It was a good back-and-forth, in my opinion. Darnell and I provided our analysis of the concept, and they articulated both their personal perspectives as well as their experiences in the classroom.

Jacobsen: When it comes to process, the construction of a single episode. How did you come up with the topics and then make that into proper watchable or listenable content for the audience?

Nicoloff: The manner in which we created an episode was largely the same every time. What differentiated us was how we talked about ideas. We really limited the number of episodes that were time-sensitive. While we have a couple of episodes on elections and our perspectives on party platforms or things like that, it would be very relevant to the election that is about to happen, whether an Ontario election or a federal election. For most episodes, we looked for an article as a launch point for a topic. If you look at Canada’s euthanasia laws and things like that, there are some significant ideas that underlie it. While we would use current articles to assist with representing other viewpoints fairly, we didn’t want the conversation to be dependent on that article or its recent publication. We wanted to have conversations that were “evergreen.”

We definitely wanted to avoid having episodes or conversations with the impetus of “Got to be the first one out. It has to be relevant to the headlines today.” We were really focused on using articles in the news today to have a more meaningful conversation that would stand the test of time. That might be a bit extra. With that said, I do think we created a lot of content that, if I showed it to my kids ten years from now, 15 years’ time, the ideas and perspectives in there would be a good starting point for a conversation with them.

With respect to the process of planning an episode,

Darnell, working with our producer, started to do time stamping. So, really setting a high-level template for episodes, largely, would be three bullet points, three questions, or three key aspects of the conversation. We would then to some extent, we would shift in between, but they wouldn’t be significant shifts. It really helped us stay on time, but also, our episodes were not edited for content. We edited for quality or any technological issues that may have shown up because those are inevitable, but we didn’t edit for content. We didn’t go, “Let’s ramble on this topic for an hour and a half and then cut it down to three minutes.” We could have been doing a live show all along in terms of the manner in which we did it. When we were planning an episode, whether it be from an article or a topic in general, e.g., euthanasia – in other words, the MAID program – in Canada, we would focus on three key ideas? This also gave us the ability to tell the audience what the episode is about at the start without necessarily knowing what each other was going to say. The standard for our episodes was to start with a little banter and then provide a preview of what the conversation was going to be. In some sense, do you want to stick around or not? I’ll know if I want to stick around for the third part or not. Most of the time, Darnell would prepare the time stamping a couple of days in advance of our planned recording session. It really helped us work well together because we both could prepare better. Asking ourselves, “Can I speak on all three of these things? If not, maybe I have a little more homework to do.”

Jacobsen: What about making sure the fidelity of the content is appropriate for the audience?

Nicoloff: Yes, so there is a level that we identify as our niche. Canadian economics and having a theological side to it. A lot of the time, I say morality instead of theology because it is more intuitive in terms of what I mean by that and more inviting to those with a different worldview. For any episode, we would try to hit two of the three. We were sort of a niche content. Let’s stay in our lane. By having a very economics or a very theological primary component to what we were doing, then just making sure it is relevant to Canadians in general because our audience wasn’t only Canadians; probably, 50% of our downloads come from the United States and other countries. We wanted to go into Canadian-centricpics.

Jacobsen: In terms of the actual product itself, I don’t mean the content of what was talked about, but the quality of the audio and the video, when you had video, for the podcast itself. How do you make sure that it is of sufficient quality for the audience?

Nicoloff: Yes, for Darnell and I, it is a matter of making sure that we have a good setup. That was both video and audio. Early on, our audio was recorded in a makeshift studio. We’d do recording sessions with our producer. Over time, we migrated over to an online platform. Can you get wired internet as opposed to wireless? Being aware of the technological requirements, I don’t need to go and spend $500 on a microphone, but I can’t get away with $20. So, finding that balance between funding this out of pocket – how much is the right dollar amount to spend? Just have the basic foundations to avoid technological pitfalls, in the sense that I know if someone’s audio sucks for the podcast, I’m going to turn it off. Prioritizing that, similarly, it is with video. Darnell makes a joke because of his skin colour. He has to have perfect lighting. I’m in a different dimension than myself, but I joke that I am so white I’m almost see-through. So, there is a level that I have to care about lighting, too. All of that. Where in my house am I recording? Generally, I record in the same place most of the time. I had a particular setup. I tried to get wired as opposed to wireless. The next level becomes the guest, just doing a little pre-emptive in communication. Ask about their technology setup and, in general, be proactive to minimize the amount of troubleshooting when it’s time to record.

Jacobsen: You mentioned self-funding. That’s an important concept in the media and journalistic landscape of the 2010s and the 2020s so far because of the reduction in finance and the reduction in jobs in the industry. With self-funding, these become passion projects. You’re making these calculations about how much you want to invest in the instruments for the trade, the podcasting. How do you make that balance between funding it appropriately and keeping the passion thriving for the project without having that pressure stop the project one year in rather than 5 or 6 years in?

Nicoloff: Yes, primarily, I think it came down to both Darnell and I valuing what we were doing rather than “this has to make money.” So, in my sense, I really valued the communication skills that I was continuing to develop in myself. This applies in other areas of life, from parents to even career. If I can continue to refine that skill, I will reap the benefits. I think the reason we continued as long as we did was because we both had benefits beyond just the product and hoped that it would be successful. There was an aspect of “I really want to keep doing this passion project.” Another aspect of that was being transparent/negotiating in some sense with our spouses to make sure, “Hey, this is what I need. What do you need?” It is a huge time commitment, too. There were times when my wife would take my kids to my parent’s house so I could record. My wife would make sure the kids aren’t running in the room that I am recording in. Different things play into really planning it and preparing to make sure that that commitment wasn’t wasted. Darnell is coming prepared. I am coming prepared, such that we know that we don’t want to waste each other’s time. The commitment from each other was important, too. Because, as Darnell came to a place where he was really burdened in time to continue, we were having conversations about it. I was aware of where he was at, such that I wasn’t getting disgruntled towards him. I understand where he is at; the other side of that financially is knowing what you want to spend. I could have easily built or almost built a podcast studio and spent a couple of thousand dollars on equipment. But would that be the right thing to do until I know that I will reap long-term benefits financially? I think our attitude was, “Sure, if we got there, we’ll spend the money. But right now, let’s spend what’s necessary to spend.” Microphones are a good example. Do your due diligence, do your homework, and find out what other people use; sure, could I have spent double what I have spent and increased sound quality by 10% or 20%? Sure. But that’s not a good return on my money. Not spending $20 and spending $100, you’re going to get a 500% increase in quality. It is setting a budget to some extent, knowing what that cost is going to be, being comfortable with it, and really planning that out. If we get to the next tier, then we will spend money on the next tier of equipment. You don’t have to do it all at once, in a sense, in terms of building out your technological solution. You can do it in stages as appropriate.

Jacobsen: Did any conversation happen around these funding platforms, crowdsourced funding platforms to help boost some of the projects?

Nicoloff: Yes, we looked at a couple. I used Podbean due to the technology, publishing, and hosting side of things. They had a – monetization option, but it required a significant increase in subscription in order to use it. So, we created a “buy me a coffee” page and . we had some support come through that. Re: ally, it was a question, like “If I went with the Podbean route, what would be the benefits? Maybe the spending will help my scale in the future, but it didn’t help today because I don’t know if I’ll get the benefit from the e-money extra.” Largely, I would say the monetization platforms don’t necessarily help you grow. They help you when you grow into the appropriate stage. For most podcasts, I have heard a statistic that 95% of podcasts get under 200 downloads per episode. We were pushing that 200 downloads per episode threshold. We had quite a few episodes that exceeded that threshold. I recall a podcaster saying it wasn’t. Their podcast reached 20,000 downloads per episode; monetization opportunities really presented themselves. That was through a partnership or various options that would exist on a medium that has an audience of substance. So, I was very in tune with those kinds of things and aware of what was best for what we want to be; let’s spend money for where we are and use platforms like “buy me a coffee to cultivate” more engagement from the audience that we already have and look to the quality of our product to continue to grow our audience.

Jacobsen: What would you consider something difficult to overcome in the midst of developing a podcast? Also, and potentially associated, what was something you wish you knew in your first year that you learned near the end?

Nicoloff: Something difficult to overcome was really the coordination. At the end of the day, early on, it was coordinating three people because our producer would largely be involved while recording. We did grow out of that. In that, I basically would do the production side while recording – a little bit of multitasking is involved there. Really, it was the coordination of schedules. Coordinating with two people and with three people, you might ask the question, “Why not do the podcast alone?” I would say that Darnell and I doing our podcast together is something I value greatly; I don’t know if I would ever want to do a podcast by myself. I have a couple of friends who do podcasts by themselves. The workload is substantial, from recording to publishing and promoting. There’s so much to worry about – the technological side of it with the equipment, recording, producing, publishing, and then the social media side of it. Not to mention the actual creation and continuous cultivation of content. There’s also the marketing of an episode or any graphical representation if you’re going to do a different graphic for every episode. There’s a lot involved.

In terms of what I wish I had learned earlier, it was probably how easy I could do the producing side of recording the podcast on video; we use a platform called Restream. The first couple of episodes, we did with our producer, and then he taught me. Then I ran with it. I would have liked to go to the video a little sooner. I think I am just learning how that side of a video podcast works. If I had known that, we probably would have started at episode 100 instead of 160.

Jacobsen: What would you make for your recommendation for individuals looking to start a podcast, whether it is straight audio or has an audiovisual component?

Nicoloff: I think this is one of the best pieces of advice that I came across, which I recommend to everybody. This is once you’ve made the decision to publish or to create a podcast: Launch with more than one episode. The day we launched, we had five episodes published. The rationale there was that your audience would want more after one episode. So, by having a mini-catalogue available, or let’s say you publish one a day for the first five days, even though you move to a weekly or a monthly schedule, something that gives your audience enough basis to say, “I want to subscribe.” Or they can really gain an understanding of what you’re producing and if they want to follow you; from planning or a “should I do this?” side of things, I would say, “Try.” Maybe even do a practice episode, or, in our case, Darnell and I planned a number of episodes out in such a way that, Arguably, we did a mini-podcast while we were thinking if this episode would be a good episode. “What would you talk about? What would I talk about? Early on, Darnell and I would almost always have a pre-recorded conversation so that we would understand what each other would bring to the table. Later on, we didn’t need to do that because we knew, for the most part, on any given topic what type of bent or what aspect of the conversation the other person would specialize in, if you want to call it that. I think, in this sense, if you look at the multitude of options, are you doing a podcast where you are by yourself, where it is your musings, your attitude, and your thoughts that will draw people in? That’s a very different thing from a conversation or interview. I think it’s really important to narrow down the type of content that you’re going to do. I should say the medium in some sense of what you want to do with that podcast: audio, interview. Our podcast, we knew what our niche was. I’m not saying you couldn’t change, but know what lane you’re going to be in. Largely, you want to sort those things out first; your ability to launch something that has longevity will be much greater than if you say, “I am going to start recording. I’m going to put it up on YouTube. I barely have a name. I barely have a logo.” For example, take a look at pictures on our website and the images on iTunes or any podcast catcher. Before we even launched our episode, we spent money to have a photographer take pictures. Because, again, we wanted a full package, “Here is what we are doing.” Doing a little bit of prep work to launch well is really important in order to have longevity. Of course, if you’re Jordan Peterson and already have a million viewers because you stirred up the world, you can do what you want, and people will just tune in, but that’s not true for most of us.

Jacobsen: Even with The Six Cents Report closing down or finishing up, do you have any hopes or dreams, or plans, or reboot at some point in the future with another podcast or the same podcast, or something with a similar nature and just production with audio content or audiovisual content talking about finance or theology, whatever it may be?

Nicoloff:. The idea for Darnell and I was, at this point in our lives and careers, that continuing to publish a weekly podcast was not possible. We wanted to close out well. Currently, episodes 175 to 180, we sort of just finished and fell off. I think of the last five episodes. 3 or 4 of them, I was interviewing people by myself due to scheduling difficulties. For these episodes, we brought back past guests and covered topics that made sense for me to do on my own. It wasn’t like we were totally going sideways with what we were doing. But we didn’t like the way it finished. So, we wanted to finish well, such that if we never recorded again, we gave our audience an appropriate farewell. I say that to say that, to some extent, we don’t know if we will ever do something again. Because we are not in a place to move there together, at least.

For myself, I think that the passion behind why I created the podcast hasn’t gone away. What avenue that passion comes through, I don’t really know. I do have a desire to do something. But it could be very different. Within my career, I actually work with a lot of charities and non-profits. So, I see a high value in the leaders of those organizations understanding economics. There is a potential that I try to cultivate something, like a talk. As an idea, I have been brainstorming in my head the idea of a talk or presentation titled: Why pastors should understand economics. I know I still have a passion for continuing to engage ideas. On the podcast, I’ve said many times, “I despise politics, but I really am interested in the ideas that underlie politics.” That’s still true. I know, for me, there’s some desire to do something. But I really haven’t figured out what that would be.

Jacobsen: Joel, any final thoughts on the conversation today?

Nicoloff: I touched on this a bit before about the various aspects of what we do, but our longevity was really because we all took a role. Our producer was a friend of ours who had a lot of radio experience. We leveraged as much of his knowledge and experience as we could. I took responsibility for the technical side of the publishing. And deciding what platforms to use. Podbean was the platform I chose for hosting and publishing each episode. Alternatively, I could have gone with Anchor, which was free, but you couldn’t do a show notes page. I knew we needed to have show notes for the type of content we were doing. Many of my perspectives were likely going to be new for listeners, so we wanted to provide support for these ideas.

Darnell took the lead on cultivating the episodes and was fully responsible for social media and episode promotion. When it came to producing, we knew we needed to pay a producer or have the producer on our team. I think that was so fundamental for us to not be burned out by this project.

We all had a role to play in different areas. Lots of hands make heavy work a lot easier. Unless you are exceptionally gifted in video-audio editing and graphic design and you’re technologically competent on some level of how podcasting works, RSS feeds, and so on. You might struggle.

Jacobsen: Joel, thank you very much for your time today to talk about the construction of a podcast.

Nicoloff: I’m glad I could help. I look forward to the magic of what you do in turning it into something else.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/13

The reason Canadian Christianity has been experiencing a precipitous decline over the last several decades has been, more or less, its Truth coming to Light. That is not to say the ‘light’ of Jesus Christ or the ‘truth’ of the religion, as propounded by neo-Christian existentialists in the manner of Dr. Jordan Peterson who argue for the Christian faith in hostile – to them – secular territory in an implicit manner because it’s – to him once more – more powerful that way, but more in the facts.

The facts are a continual wave of three streams of truths about the faith. One is the pervasive stories of maltreatment of human beings under the care of the Christian churches in Canadian society. Two is the reluctance to admit these crimes to the extent of pervasive covering from the hierarchs down to the priests. Three is the decade-on-decade secularization of Canadian society.

A sidebar on point three is that the secularization has not come anywhere close to completion. Therefore, any public commentary of a post-secular society is incorrect while a post-Christian society becomes more appropriate. What do these three points clarify in public discourse in Canadian society and its relation to the Christian religion? A short flippant answer is a collapse.

Not merely on the numerical front, that’s abundantly clear in the StatsCan or Statistics Canada data. Not simply in the sincerity sphere, that’s less clear, but more qualitatively apparent in the culture and in social life. People go to churches and cathedrals less. They know fewer of the dogmas and adhere to fewer of the beliefs. We’re witnessing a phase change in Canadian society.

The phase change is the dominance of secular culture with a decline of Christianity and a modest increase in Islam. Most of the religious maintenance of the culture comes from the immigration of religious people, as second-generation and third-generation Canadians become less and less religious than their parents.

The intergenerational loss of faith, failure to account for decades of crimes against humanity, a diminishment of sincere faith, the secularization of society, the plurality of faith based in Canadian culture, and the rise of the Nones, depict a non-religious future for Canadian society.

Those demographic and cultural shifts reflect much global sociocultural demographics too. In a post-World War II and post-Cold War Era with the rise of spheres of influence, we witness a rise of a global culture unseen except in ancient myth. The world is the Tower of Babel. A plurality of languages and people scattered everywhere. Yet, the waters are mixing drastically due to loose border policies and a cosmopolitanism winning over a cultural monopolity.

We will see two threads from the Christian faith in the 2020s and 2030s. One is adaptive and recognizes reality; the other is reactive and defies reality, think: collective defense mechanism. Freethought communities can work with the former in the inevitable culture war with the latter. The main tool will be humour in sociocultural life, and legislation and unifying oratory in legal and political life, respectively.

P.S. War began in the 2010s – get to work. I am.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/11

As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, I found myself winding down from a day’s work at the ranch. Amidst organizing a disheveled mound in a horse stall and clearing leaves and debris into a corner for disposal, my mind, quite unexpectedly, veered towards the realm of rap, hip-hop, and R&B – genres I hold in high regard.

This mental journey was sparked by a humorous yet astute observation made by comedian Eddie Griffin about the world of hip-hop. He had once dissected the distinctions within the genre, focusing particularly on ‘gangster rap’ and its inherent contradictions. As I scooped debris into wheelbarrows, Griffin’s words echoed in my thoughts.

Griffin humorously pointed out the oxymoronic nature of ‘gangster rap.’ True gangsters, as he noted, abide by a code of silence, a stark contrast to rappers whose art form is rooted in expression and, often, verbosity. This irony was not lost on me as I worked; the quiet of the ranch seemed to underscore his point. “If you’re a gangster, the first rule is ‘silence,’” Griffin had quipped. “But if you’re a rapper, you talk too fucking much!”

This reflection led me to consider 50 Cent’s take on rap as a predominantly black art form, “without question.” Yet, he acknowledges the challenge some face in accepting that a white artist like Eminem might excel or even outshine his black counterparts in this genre. It was a candid admission of the complex racial dynamics within hip-hop, an art form that constantly defends itself against stereotyping and strives for legitimacy in American culture and beyond.

Hip-hop has always been more than just music; it’s a narrative of struggles, triumphs, and the resilience of a culture. It’s an art form that adapts and confronts the difficult internal circumstances of race, all while justifying itself to what Paul Mooney termed “White America” and a global audience that often imitates black American culture more than any other, “Bar None.”

As I finished my chores and gazed at the quiet night sky, I couldn’t help but appreciate the depth and complexity of hip-hop. It’s a genre that, much like the chores of the ranch, requires hard work, understanding, and an appreciation of the nuanced layers that compose its essence.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/10

Melanie Rempel is the mother of Lauren Rempel. Lauren is involved in Para Dressage. This is their story and struggles to work within the provisions available for a parent and child in Para Dressage in Canada.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Melanie and Lauren Rempel. And your specialization is in?

Melanie Rempel: Para dressage.

Jacobsen: So, we met at Thunderbird Show Park. We had a lovely afternoon conversation. I wanted to explore some of that because I don’t recall – off the top – having a para-dressage interviewee. I aim to do equestrianism broadly, starting in Canada and then moving internationally. So, either can start. How did you get involved in horses?

Melanie: She’s always loved horses. When she was three, we met my niece Joelle at Spruce Meadows. She was calling them all “kitties” because she was three. After that, we still met her at Spruce Meadows. She just got hooked on horses. I used to teach at camp; I was a wrangler for four years at a camp in Saskatchewan. So, I love horses. So, it came to be that we just started taking lessons from a person in our town, and it just grew from there. Then, for the last six years, she’s been taking therapy. She had started at therapy because she has microcephaly, which is a small head. So, when she was born, she quit breathing. That caused her brain to not develop fully. So, her head is in the second percentile, and her body is in the 50th, so it’s small. So, she has short-term memory, intellectual issues, and social issues. She is considered a vulnerable sector child. So, she would be easy to pray on because she’s very trusting.

So, we started in therapy at Equilibrium Therapeutic Riding in Saskatchewan. Erin McCormack, her coach, just after the first year, said, “I think she could do dressage.” Equestrian Canada had just come out with the para-dressage video competition. They were letting kids or people with intellectual disabilities compete alongside it. She can’t get graded in the Para-Olympics grading, so she could never compete, which is kind of broader than the video competition. So, we were doing the video competition. She won high points champion for Canada in her division twice. She’s doing them again this year. This year, they made a division for intellectual disability, which is amazing. Because if that could grow, that’s exciting. That’s why we’re so excited to join that, to hopefully grow that intellectual disability category because she doesn’t fit the para grading system, and she doesn’t fit in the VIRTUS world sport, which is intellectual disabilities. She doesn’t quite meet the criteria on both ends. So, we were excited to do that.

She does the videos from February until November. Each month, she does it in her barn. We video it. I put it on YouTube and sent it to them. Actual judges judge it; she’s graded. She gets the dressage scores. It’s fantastic. It’s a great way for kids with disabilities who can’t afford to travel around. I mean, we’re in Saskatchewan, so there are not a lot of opportunities. So, that we can do it on video has been great. It’s grown for her. She’s been doing it for five years now. It helps with her critical thinking. It helps with her reaction time. It helps with her balance. It helps with everything; being on a horse is just therapy. To see kids and adults or people with disabilities, e.g., cerebral palsy, brain injuries, and other sort of disorders, get on a horse and be able to compete has been amazing. So, that’s where my passion lies. I want to see more and more kids like Lauren and others be able to compete. Unfortunately, Canada, in itself, is a little behind some of the other countries. So, yes, we’re hoping to help grow the sport.

Jacobsen: One detail. You mentioned a ranking showing how far Canada is behind. How far?

Melanie: Yes. So, I can’t remember where I saw it, but they said, ‘In the top 40 countries of the world, Canada is ranked 39th for disability inclusion.’ 39th, like not even the top five or the top 10. So, it’s incredibly hard for people with disabilities to get into not only sports but competition. It’s just not seen. The only other sport that we know of is Cheer. She also does a CheerABILITIES team in Warman, Saskatchewan. Again, it’s struggling because it’s so hard to get in, get funding, get a placement, and all of that, but yes, Canada has a long way to go before they get on the front stage, which feeds the para and feeds the para-Olympics. All of it.

Jacobsen: From a personal perspective, how do you feel your interest in horses first arose?

Lauren: I think it’s like the point where I called horses “kitties” at three.

Melanie: She’s never been shy around horses. It’s a natural thing in her. I think she’s drawn to them. At one point, when she was eight, I texted my husband. I said this is not a phase. It’s not just a girl who loves horses. This is a girl who can work with them. Trying to get her diagnosed took us from age 4 to age 10 to get a diagnosis for her. In that, one of the medical authorities told us, “Oh, yes, she’ll probably be in a group home. You should start looking for a home for her because she won’t function. She’s not going to be independent. She’s not going to be able to think for herself.” As a mom, I was heartbroken. I was like, “Really? That’s all there is in life for her?” And that’s right when we found the therapy side of horses. She has grown and blossomed. She’s been encouraged along the way, saying she’s got what it takes to compete. She deserves to be on a bigger stage than just a video competition. It’s great. It’s a stepping stool, but there’s just not the opportunities.

Jacobsen: What started the video competition? Was it a committee? Was it an individual impetus?

Melanie: That I can’t answer. I don’t know where it started. All I know is her coach is on the board for para-dressage on Equestrian Canada. It’s through her that we knew about it. So, she’s been a part. I’m not sure how long she’s been a part of EC, but she’s gung-ho and tries to get her students in the video competitions because her goal is to see how independent she can get her riders. So, like we said, some only do the walk test, but they’re competing. They have cerebral palsy; they couldn’t otherwise do any of this. I’m not sure where it started, but it’s a stepping stone. It’s a step in the right direction. I wish there would be a grade within Equestrian Canada for intellectual disability.

Jacobsen: What would sort of break down some of these barriers institutionally?

Melanie: Support, sponsorship.

Jacobsen: What kind of support? What kind of sponsorship?

Melanie: Sponsorship: money, flat-out money. For example, with VIRTUS World Sport, they have the Pan Asian Games; I believe they’re called that. So, you go down to the country. All of the athletes are paired up with a horse from a pool. They ride for two weeks and train, compete for a week, and then go home. So, sponsorship of horses, sponsorship of time, and payment for a facility, like even a Thunderbird here, would be great if a pool of horses exists for people with disabilities. Understanding, when you’re talking about it, there’s more awareness, so there’s more acceptance.

Jacobsen: Do you think the ‘behindness,’ to make up a word, in Canada, has more to do with institutions than individuals? In other words, the social culture is there; the institutional culture is not.

Melanie: I think it’s behind that way.

Jacobsen: It kind of seems to be characterized by sort of a value of tolerance. If you’re viewed as intolerant, you’re viewed as a bad person. If you’re viewed as tolerant, you’re viewed as a good person.

Melanie: Yes. I think on paper, and when you read stuff, it’s like, “Yes! We want people with disabilities to know they should have equal rights.” All of that, but it’s not happening. It’s up to some bigger organizations with that power and the money behind it to push it forward. Then say, “Let’s give these people a stage. As I said, VIRTUS World Sport is doing an amazing job. They’re doing video competitions as well. So, she could have been competing against people from Israel and Italy.

Jacobsen: And I raised this point earlier on the human rights domain. Canadian policy will stipulate one thing: Canadian voting record at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Security Council, and so on will be different. I did a series not in equestrianism but a separate domain on the Israel-Palestine issue with the country director for Israel-Palestine from Human Rights Watch and several UN special rapporteurs. The general notion about Canada was: We will state one thing, which is in line with international opinion, which is typically a good thing to do. Then, when it came to actual voting records, it was mixed in terms of sticking to universal human rights. Similarly, I’m getting a sense of this as well, where the institutions are behind what the culture supports. So, there’s a duplicity, maybe not conscious.

Melanie: Yes, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. I think people want people with disabilities to be able to do things. It’s like there’s a lag time. It’s like we got the death spiral on a computer in Canada. It’s loading, loading, loading, and loading. When is it going to happen? I hope that Canada gets up out of the bottom. How to do that? I don’t know.

Jacobsen: Are there ways to creatively bypass sponsorship issues and financial barriers? So, for instance, having video competitions, it’s remote. You don’t have to travel. Horses cost money to take places. You need equipment, trailers, and trucks. Some people take trailers without trucks [Laughing]. 

Melanie: Yes, then there’s the vet, then there’s a farrier. It’s so much.

Jacobsen: Even the shortage of farriers and vets, the people who can pay the most will have them, frankly. So, there’s even a generational gap between those in the pipeline and those in their 70s, maybe 80s, still doing the trade because it pays very well, and they’re the only ones to do it. So, that is impacting something in more vulnerable sectors of society.

Melanie: It’s huge.

Jacobsen: So, you’re coming from Saskatchewan. Places that are closer to Spruce Meadows are much bigger than Thunderbird.

Melanie: Much bigger.

Jacobsen: Huge. Thunderbird itself is big. It has grown rapidly, but nothing comes close to Spruce Meadows.

Melanie: The thing is, I don’t even know if they do dressage. I don’t know.

Jacobsen: I don’t know.

Melanie: That’s the thing. It wasn’t until I had someone in the family doing horse stuff. Where, I’m like, “Oh, yes, Thunderbird does dressage. There are so many more places around here. It’s like, “Well, do we move here?” And then the funding of it all, like I said, she has been making ice cream tacos to pay for all her riding. She – literally – makes ice cream tacos all summer. It pays for her riding and her therapy throughout the whole year.

Jacobsen: As with you, I recall the Lynne Foster story of selling things at Thunderbird Show Park.

Melanie: Now, I’m trying to create an equestrian t-shirt line that I’m hoping will help fund not only Lauren. But I want to make it so 10% of each profit of every t-shirt goes into a fund that we want to start to help support other athletes who fall in between the cracks, to help them get into therapy because money is the biggest barrier: Money and accessibility. Because, even the barn she’s at, Equilibrium, she has a waiting list. It would be great if there was more training, knowledge, and spotlight.

Jacobsen: These trainers, too, work very long hours. Their staff work very long hours because they show up earlier. They leave later, typically, because few people do the more basic or intermediate labour, which isn’t grounded in a decade of training experience.

Melanie: She’s been working her way. She works in trade for lessons, as well. Back home in Saskatchewan, and even here, she comes to help her cousin because she loves horses that much. She wants to help, but it has given her more insight and independence. The whole thought of her being in an institution. Now, you look at her. You wouldn’t even think of that. So, it’s like: Let’s just give more people the opportunities. Yes, there are jobs out there.

Jacobsen: It’s about a marker of the degree of civilization of a society or the degree of civility of society, which is how the more vulnerable sectors of society are doing. I remember talking to a man from Iran. He lives in Norway. He’s at the University of Oslo, a smart man. He’s in the newspapers. He founded a group called Iran Human Rights. His name’s Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. He works for these teenage boys getting incarcerated or death penalties for various things. I believe he and some others noted that sort of marker to me. I met him in Copenhagen. One of the markers of a civilized society is how they are treating their prisoners and the idea that ‘No, we’re not going to kill them. We’re going to, if there’s an empirical record for that, institutionalize them.’ So, it is to give them therapy and get them back into productive society. That’s much better than leaving them there for the rest of their lives.

Melanie: Yes, writing them off.

Jacobsen: That’s exactly what it is. I think a lot of societies do that. And people like yourself are very motivated and committed to giving your daughter a good quality of life. Have you talked to other parents in a similar situation?

Melanie: Yes.

Jacobsen: How are they feeling?

Melanie: Same thing. It’s like we’re all scrambling to find opportunities for our kids. Some love horses, some don’t. She’s in Cheer as well. So, I’ve been talking to a lot of the CheerABILITIES parents. We’re all on the same page. It’s hard to find places for your kids to compete. The Special Olympics is fantastic. I know in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan). There’s a school that’s been doing Special Olympics for 40 years in their school. She was part of that. They adapted to the sports. They had the entrance parade of all the athletes. They had all the divisions. She competed with others with the same ability and intellectual level. It was fantastic. She got to compete. She came home with ribbons. But I didn’t know about that until she was in grade 10. It’s been going on. So, it’s like more people need to know about these programs.

Jacobsen: Are there networks and associations that are informal for parents like this?

Melanie: Yes, there are, but I’m frustrated because she hasn’t met the mandate for any of those organizations. I don’t want to throw any of them under the bus because they all are at capacity, which is why they have to have such strict mandates. Same with VIRTUS; they have a very hard line of intellectual disability. She was three IQ points too high.

Jacobsen: What is the definition of intellectual disability for them? What is the IQ level rating?

Melanie: I think it was 75. She was 78. They have to have a hard and fast line because it’s worldwide. You have to have a line. I respect that and understand it. It’s frustrating when you have kids on the cusp who don’t quite fit in that. She doesn’t fit into para. She doesn’t fit into VIRTUS. She doesn’t fit into Special Olympics. I mean, we’ve been fortunate enough that she’s had so much support from her school, her EAs, her coaches, and her family like her cousin. She will be able to compete in able-bodied dressage. But it’s with assistance. She needs her test called out because of her short-term memory. So, talking with the other parents, we all have the same thing: Where do you find this? So, it’s great for us as parents. We sit together and say, “Well, my daughter did this,” “I heard of this.” If you’re part of the Kinsmen…

Jacobsen: Like those whole sets of groups, the Kinsmen, the Elks, the Freemasons…

Melanie: It’s the Kinsmen in Saskatoon. There’s more of a sports angle. The Canadian Tiger has kids in sports. Whatever is out there, it’s daunting as a parent. Finally, you get tired because we’ve been fighting, battling, searching, and hunting. It’s like, “Why can’t they make them more mainstream? Why can’t they make it just more open?” But again, funding comes into that. Everything comes down to money. You see Coke. All of them sponsor every main thing. It’s like. “Well, what about people with disabilities?”

Jacobsen: Also, the funding is more pronounced in this sport. It’s at the high end, like NASCAR. I mean teams of grooms, stablehands, riders, etc., akin to people whose whole job is changing tires at a pit stop. LJ Tidball in her interview with me. We made that comparison. It’s very apt. If you’re a kid and have a hockey stick and a puck, you can practice. It won’t be a rink; it won’t be protected.

Melanie: But you can practice your shot anywhere.

Jacobsen: Correct. So, that’s slightly different than what you do because it requires a live animal that has only known captivity, is friendly to people, and that you have to build a relationship with, right?

Melanie: And you can’t just go around the corner to a small-town rink like you can and have a free skate, and then you can shoot around a puck.

Jacobsen: If you swing that hockey stick, it will swing. That bat, it’s going to swing. Shoot that basketball; it’s going to go. If a horse does not want to move, it is not moving. They will plant their feet.

Melanie: All these people say that the horse does all the work. I’m like, “You sit on a horse and let it do its own thing. It’s probably just going to stand there.”

Jacobsen: I put it to the non-tangibles. The trust makes the horse move.

Melanie: Yes, because they want to move for you. They want to please you; they want that treat. They want to work.

Jacobsen: It’s just that mint at the end of the lesson, or the carrot or the apple or whatever. How do you feel about your relationship with your horse?

Lauren: I think he is good and can tell when you have bad days.

Jacobsen: How would you describe his character?

Melanie: I’m always speaking for her. I don’t mean to jump in, but he’s an older horse. He’s a gentle, grumpy old grandpa. He cares. He knows and can read her. It’s a silent thing with her like watching her with her horse melts me every time.

Jacobsen: Do you feel more confident after working with the horse?

Lauren: Yes.

Jacobsen: Do you feel you’ve built much trust with the horse?

Lauren: Yes.

Jacobsen: How old is the horse?

Lauren: 20.

Jacobsen: What’s his name?

Lauren: Thumper.

Jacobsen: Thumper? How do you spell that?

Melanie: “Thumper” like the rabbit, like t h u m p e r. He’s a therapy horse, so he is also used for some therapy lessons. But she leases him, so she’s the main rider of him. He’s a very careful horse. He works for that carrot at the end of the lesson.

Jacobsen: What would you say is his favourite treat?

Lauren: He likes carrots and apple flavours, too.

Melanie: Yes, food in general. [Laughing] These two get along well because she’s food-motivated.

Jacobsen: I think boy horses are the best, at least, for the English discipline. They do what they’re told. They let you braid their hair. They enjoy every meal. It’s great.

Melanie: She’s been working with them in riding and living. For the summer, she lived in her coach’s yard in a camper because she didn’t drive. So, that’s why I’m still a stay-at-home mom, technically. Even though she’s almost 19. I’m still a stay-at-home mom for her because I have to drive her, which I am more than willing. My husband and I decided early on that my focus was on her. Until she’s settled in some place, that’s a live-in situation, but I’m willing to do that because I want her to succeed. I want her to be independent. I want her to live life to the fullest. I want her to have everything normal – I hate using the word “normal” – that an able-bodied or able-minded person can have. Her teacher said it would have been a whole different situation if she could do math on a horse. So, when she says her confidence, it is through the roof because of the horses. Even socially, she was bullied by exclusion from K to 12.

Jacobsen: I’m sure you’ve experienced that. I’ve experienced that growing up. It is very terrible.

Melanie: It’s the worst feeling. As a parent, to watch your child be in that, I don’t want to negate what someone who’s been bullied has gone through, but to watch your child go through it is more heart-wrenching than anything.

Jacobsen: I think it’s the aloneness, or the loneliness rather, that comes along with the bullying that you not only have through the exclusion, but then you self-isolate. I think that’s similar to a lot of experiences that are happening.

Melanie: She’s an extremely social person. She’s always smiling. We call her a ray of sunshine. She’s known as the smiley girl wherever we go. But it hurts to see that. Yet, she shows up to Thumper. He’s all love. She’s got his trust.

Jacobsen: What are your dreams with Thumper?

Melanie: Just to ride and love him.

Lauren: Yes.

Melanie: Her bucket list item is to do…

Lauren: …A show at Thunderbird in dressage. 

Melanie: So, Thumper will only carry her so far. Again, we need a pool of horses for someone who’s beginning. They get these horses. Then, when they’re done, they move on to the next. I think that’s how the UK does it. They’ve got a whole pool of horses. Clive Milkins, who’s the Chef d’Equipe for the paralympic team, has come out and done clinics at her barn. He has kind of explained how it works in the UK. I wish Canada could adapt that somewhat, but it will take minds, money, time, and a physical place to do this.

Jacobsen: What’s the main feeling many parents have in this situation?

Melanie: I want to throw out frustration. I want to throw out longing and wishing their kids could have that. I’ve been in the trenches with this for so long like she’s 19. We got a diagnosis at 10, which took six years to get. It just seems like it’s such a long road. Everything is a fight or not a fight, but everything is working. It’s tons of paperwork and tons of interviews and tons of everything. It’s a lot of work. We’re all willing to do it because we want to see our kids succeed.

I know I jump all over the place when excited about this topic.

Jacobsen: I’m trying to think of a sort of wraparound. You mentioned something earlier, if I may bring it from off tape to on tape, about a hope to potentially be a groom for Joelle. How would you like to sort of achieve that dream?

Melanie: Coming to Thunderbird every year. We come to help her during the show season, which starts in April and goes on until about September. So, we’ve been coming for five years, where I drive her here and stay with her here.

Jacobsen: It’s not cheap. Thunderbird is, I mean, rightfully so, but it’s still very expensive.

Melanie: But for her, like she is a hard worker. She has put in the time and hours to live on her coach’s farm in Saskatchewan, which will help her for her future here. They feed off each other. People with disabilities are hard workers. I think there should be more tracks available for them, not just stock shelves and not just do the simple things, but they can compete. They can be on the world stage, but being a groom is hard work.

Jacobsen: Would you like to be on the Paralympic team ever?

Lauren: Yes, that’d be quite fun.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] Very fun!

Melanie: [Laughing] Well, like I said, even we were hoping that VIRTUS World Sports would have something. Because there, she could have been on the international stage. It would have been a lot. It would have been more of her speed, but, as we said, she can do the able-bodied with a few adaptations. So, yes, when we get to the higher levels, then we’ll see. But I mean, the sky’s the limit. I’m proud of her, extremely proud of her. She’s worked hard.

Jacobsen: What would you have words for her about seeing her growth?

Melanie: Words for her? I’m just plump and proud. I have set stuff up for her. She has never let me down. She has worked hard. She gets up at whatever time we need to get up. She’s there. You give her a pink pitchfork. She’s happy to care for both ends of the horses, as my dad always told me. So, I’m proud. I’m very proud of her. She’s had a hard way through school. She’s come out of it on top. I’m going to start crying because I’m just… [Crying] Yeah, it’s been a long haul.

Jacobsen: Would you have any words for your mom that come to mind?

Melanie: [Laughing] We’re an emotional bunch of people.

Lauren: [Crying] I think ‘helpful’… ‘amazing’….

Melanie: ‘Supportive’?

Lauren: Yeah.

Melanie: I’m usually her thesaurus. I know what she’s thinking. I think the tears say it all. So, yeah.

Jacobsen: Thank you both very much for your time.

Melanie: Thank you for bringing this to light. Like I said, I’m always ready to put this on people’s minds.

Jacobsen: Yeah, and part of this is a call to action, I think.

Melanie: Absolutely.

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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/09

My first trip to Europe was in 2019 between late May and early June to Iceland for the General Assembly of Humanists International. The central goal was to meet with the international humanist community, who I had, recently, been introduced to and made a significantly positive impression. I was on the Board of Humanist Canada, involved with the Centre for Inquiry Canada, Secretary-General (previously treasurer and vice president, separately) of Young Humanists International, an Editor and Contributor to Humanist Voices, and many more initiatives. I was captivated by the warmth of the humanist community, especially in the adherence to a singular life perspective. Life is here; we have one: so, you best make good use of it, doing more good than bad.

Wherein, even though, we have many more years than other primates or most other mammals. Life is still finite. And in the vast expanse of cosmic time, even biosphere time, we’re nary a blink of time. A sort of froth on the surface of an ordinary rock with an ordinary satellite with an ordinary nuclear furnace in an ordinary galaxy among billions of its brethren. That’s, by this point, trite in humanist circles and some common culture contexts now. It wasn’t at one point. That’s a sign of progress. Yet, there we were, jolly ol’ Iceland was time to reflect, to meet, to grow, to see the common visions if not common targeted objectives of a community of the non-theist: atheists, agnostics, humanists, and the like.

I arrived home much better informed and acquainted with the humanist cause(s) and the formal humanist communities from every region in the world. Yet, I was an ordinary Canadian coming from an alcoholic home and a lower-income – relative to Canada – family. I still had some student debt and needed to have more income generation with involvement in the humanist community, as the humanist cause and youth activism does not come with pay, often. I chose to work in some local restaurants, in Fort Langley, which is a National Historic Site in the Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, rather rapidly.

I remember one Jewish boss – I’ve had a large number of Jewish bosses and collaborators, thinking about it – asking as the pandemic started, “Is this going to be an issue?” I paused, recalled some information about the previous, recent and historic, pandemics faced by various civilizations and regions. I replied, “Oh, yeah.” I was right, especially when I didn’t want to be right. 

Everyone was warned millions would die without vaccinations, masks of sufficient particulate filtration, social distancing, and the like. Not a ubiquitous ear from large swathes of humanity. There was plenty of valiant mobilization with one of the first opportunities in the world to act against a common microscopic enemy across boundaries. What happened? Millions died, and vulnerable populations. Those most vulnerable to the impacts of such a pandemic were killed in larger numbers than other populations. This seemed like another time as humanists to reflect.

In my experience, many humanist oriented individuals understand a sense of the passing time: temporality, temporal finitude, it becomes both ontological fact of being for them and existential moral epistemology; it’s both an acceptance of being, as such, in the former, and then the feeling of sentiments in relation to this being as a way of knowing in body and mind. In a sense, their sensibility or consciousness towards the universe comes as a simultaneous intellectual acceptance of a morally neutral cosmos and the sentiments of this reverberated in an embodied mind. The body becomes sounding board. We feel how we think. That’s a feeling on global pandemics or on personal issues needing solving. 

I set a time limit to pay off the student debt of, and begin having some savings after, 2 years. This was accomplished. I was in 4 restaurants 7 days per week with janitorial work 2 nights per week by the end of it. All writing and activist work around that, day and night. This has been the pervasive work schedule as far back as I can remember. Then I decided to make a switch to another project in the horse industry with this accomplished. Within two weeks, I was out of this restaurant industry and then into the horse industry. Independent journalistic and activist work continued from this time.

With some more financial footing, and the Covid pandemic cooling down, I had some more flexibility with work, though still 7 days per week at an equestrian facility, and monies. I wanted to meet everyone in person, again, especially with more progress on the writing front, on newer independent projects, expanding, and then working on some interbelief activities too, and the co-foundation of some important and intriguing projects.

One was Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) by Dr. Leo Igwe as I was there at the start and began republishing articles, getting the website running and then the web administration for maintenance, and then incorporating his articles in experimental publications, e.g., African Freethinker. The targeted objective for AfAW for 2020-2030 is the elimination of witchcraft allegations, beliefs, and superstitions in Africa by the end of the decade.

The other was with a Muslim cosmologist and professor in Canada, Mir Faizal. We founded the Canadian Quantum Research Centre apart from Academia, or CQRC. Both Igwe and Faizal have been remarkable collaborators and self-starters in the work for advancement of humanistic causes. It has a reasonable start for citations, has a team of researchers, and has been going for several years now. I began other first of their kind humanist projects too. Then I wanted to connect with the global humanist community in person again.

The next General Assembly for Humanists International was special. In that, 2023 was a special year for the global humanist community with the inclusion of the first World Congress since 2014, 9 years. I was looking for a place to stay while in Copenhagen and ended up being a roommate with a Metis humanist colleague in his 70s, Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson. A prominent Metis doctoral counselling psychologist and humanist in Canada. It was August 1-7, 2023. The first people who I greeted upon arrival in Denmark were talented activist and intellectual Dr. Igwe and the gifted artist and aesthetic campaigner Victoria Gugenheim.

In my time there, I had some specific goals to reacquaint with everyone, as well as conduct some interviews. Also, I’m a person who enjoys the pleasures life has to offer too. I work fast and independently, though, and continue for extended periods. So, I can go to numerous establishments in one clip while going home to conduct interviews, write articles, or transcribe and edit written productions as necessary. All for the causes. 

So, I took some time out to explore the city, the nightlife, the dance establishments, the art, and the global humanist community who joined us. It’s a striking city, even on an ethnic heritage level, where I have some Danish heritage on my father’s father’s side, my grandfather’s side. There’s a distinct impression of an older city than Township of Langley or Canadian society in general. European cities in general are, as a matter of historical fact, longer lived. I would meet with one group here, another there, and get on with the harder work of professional life too. There are an enormous number of demands on me 24/7. I don’t speak of them much. I am reminded of the conference of the Canadian Association of Journalists in a similar manner to the General Assembly of Humanists International, where the Canadian Association of Journalists provides great return on investment for the finances and membership. Humanists International does much the same. 

This, in my experience with organizations, is not the norm. By the end of the conference, there were two keynote speakers. One was Remus Cernea who has done a tremendous amount for the humanist community in Romania and the other was Oleksandra Romantsova who has accomplished a lot through the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. The former in founding the Romanian humanist movement more or less, being a president of a political party, being a Member of Parliament in Romania, and, now, an accomplished war correspondent for Newsweek Romania, currently (in the lattermost). The latter seeing the need to document rights abuses in Ukraine and create a position for herself, amazingly, through sheer determination and hard work, and being the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, which was a first for Ukraine.

I conducted interviews with both of them and was pitched to join Remus in a trip to Ukraine to work on human rights work there. That’s a tantalizing prospect, especially as a person with a desire to test limits, and boundaries, explore new territory and culture – and with the equestrian project, at least nationally, coming more to a close. Heading home from Copenhagen, this closed off the reunion with humanists, opening a new chapter into journalistic work – planning for the first big transition to an indefinite period of work in a war zone, Ukrainian territory. Something I’d promised myself against, but something I needed.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/07

Victoria Gugenheim was drawing before she could talk and was beginning with makeup by age 6, then focusing on face and bodypainting by age 9. She enjoys the process of de-othering as means of humanizing people. Her artistic forms vary widely from bodypainting, clothing design, digital art, and drawing, to installations, makeup, painting, and photography. Her clients have included Alice Cooper’s Halloween Night of Fear, Charlotte Church, Sony, London Fashion Week, Models of Diversity, Nokia, Marvel, and The World Bodypainting Festival. Here we continue on the body as canvas.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: My intuition flared off, recently. A bit before the recent sessions together. I realized. The individual who rudely, though sincerely, called Andrew Copson wanton and debauched – I believe demonic too – on live television in the UK. It stuck, as an intuitive reasoning experiment. The conclusion, after bugging me for a week: The dude expressed common, sincere sentiments, which, in other countries, become State oppression and public retaliation for open existence, not for presence (as many are searched out and hunted), e.g., ‘Ayaz Nizami’, Mubarak Bala, Saba Ismail and Gulalai Ismail, Mohamed Hisham, Rishvin Ishmath, and others. When you came out as a humanist and a lesbian, was this liberating? Was this reaction-inducing in others in an accepting sense, rejecting sense?

Victoria Gugenheim: I found accepting, moreso discovering, my lesbianism personally revelatory. However, it did result in discovering quite a large undercurrent of homophobia, with one woman cancelling as she didn’t feel comfortable being painted by a lesbian (peculiarly though, she was fine when she thought I was bi!). A number of male fans left, having felt “betrayed’, which begged the questions to me, “why on earth were they following my work in the first place?” “Were they really following me on the basis they thought they could one day have sex with me, or bought into that fantasy?” I found that in some ways, quite cynically apt as there is a horrid connect between person as object and possession in contemporary society, and also women are still denigrated in the arts and seen as lesser. I’ve never personally played to that fantasy at all, I’m far too in my own world looking at theories, evoking looks, exploring concepts, and have been topless twice for political protests, always with other women of all ages and body types. That projection being put upon me though was quite a startling revelation. It also shows in a small but immediate way, how we still need to tackle misogynist attitudes and homophobia, as both are deeply anathema to human wellbeing. Statistically, acceptance for gay people has been declining, and there has been a rise in homophobic attacks, even in London. Ultimately it was a host of unpleasant reactions when I came out, but at the same time, there was also support from fellow lesbians, which was so beautiful. As for the veracity of the comments, thankfully they were not on par with the previous bomb threats I’ve received. Small mercies eh? 

There is still this odd stereotype of us being predatory too, likely a sour grapes construct from men in the 70’s with the rise of pulp about us and dodgy cult film. Doing things to empower the human spirit and convey concepts that need conveying has always been in my work, and Humanism was an emergent term for that, alongside being atheist and feminist. But I am keen to ensure that these definitions do not become moralistic confines, and am very much for exploring all sorts of wild, beautiful and wonderful ideas and concepts. Benevolent and curious freedom of expression shouldn’t be compromised. 

Jacobsen: How have you used these realizations of yourself in your art?

Gugenheim: My first humanist Bodypainting emerged at The World Humanist Congress, which went down a storm, but in terms of being a lesbian, it’s actually not been quite so literal, although I’m desperate to explore lesbian history as it’s so often erased, and to highlight lesbian plights around the world in Iran, Afghanistan, China, Cambodia, all the places where you can be punished with death, correctively raped and on occasion, forced to transition. 

What +has+ happened is a deepening affinity for women and my own body. I’ve suddenly become very connected on a profound level to women, their suffering, their victories, their plights and their pain, moreso than I was ever before, even though I was outraged at their suffering worldwide. I now feel it my moral duty to share their stories and feel it almost on what feels like a molecular level. The revelation was so deep that it shook me, and lesbianism also was a profound realisation after trauma that reconnected me to my own sense of being a woman actually -being- in the world on her own terms, away from yet another confine; heteronormativity.

My clients have also, certainly changed. I have far more lesbians now!

Jacobsen: How do you approach the human body as a canvas?

Gugenheim: I have a mixture of approaches. Oftentimes I work with the body as allegory, creating stories and explaining complicated concepts, or creating something emotive or fantastical on skin. I was featured in an academic paper in South Korea for my work on this, actually! One way I love to work is a mini movement I have called Statementism- the idea that you can work with the body as the oldest, most immediate and responsive canvas we have in order to convey complicated and high end scientific and technological concepts, very much the past meets the future. I pay attention to the way a person holds theirself before, during and after the process, look for any ways they could be uncomfortable, check in with them, and see how their body responds and changes with the paint. For male commercial painters there is a LOT of objectification and I refuse to work that way. How I work is far more of a dialogue than most people would think. I care deeply when I’m painting someone, about how they are feeling, about the outcome, about what we want to mutually convey, which is anathema to seeing them as a flat, inanimate canvas. They live, breathe, move, get cold or hot, and the process is quite the choreography in itself. As for medium, I tend to only use Brush and Sponge as these are nimble, quick, punk rock and enable you to flit from place to place far more easily. 

Jacobsen: The canvas, the body, looks so difficult. Hard, soft, flexible, hairy in different places, sweaty and oily, it’s just a mess, evolved mess. What palette of materials are helpful in making the body more – ahem – palatable?

Gugenheim: Ha! Yes, we are indeed an evolved mess of 35 trillion cells, all somehow through nonsentient agreement trying to get through life in the least worst way possible until the senescence kicks in. Oddly, it’s a beautiful experience working with different body types. There are a broad range of textures, and more mainstream artists consider smooth skin devoid of texture to be the best canvas to operate on. They’re looking for android like perfection, and that takes away quite a sizeable chunk of variety. Instead I prefer to work with all sorts of skin textures and contours. I sort of think in wireframe and map the idea onto the body as I go. So that is the foundation (as all decent looks start with a good foundation, darling), and atop that is a multitude of glittery goodness. Usually Cameleon Paint, which is water based and EU and FDA approved. Following that are beautiful skin friendly glitters, hand made prosthetics and recently, an awful lot of 24k gold leaf and adornments. Sometimes I love just the paint and the technical precision of doing as much as I can with that. Other times I want to use as much gold as the armour of King Gustav of Sweden X, minus the death and blood. Not a big fan of those as a Humanist Bodypainter, really. Could do without.

For any aspiring artsy curiosos: If you decide to embark on the aesthetic suicide mission that is the world of body art, for whatever we have as opposed to a God’s sake, avoid any base level shenanigans from Amazon, PLEASE. 

Jacobsen: How do the different contours of different body types affect artistic choices?

Gugenheim: The body has its own topology, but you need to work with it in a way for a sophisticated piece that isn’t quite so obvious. One of my breakthroughs which I’ve taught all over the world is Blatchko’s lines. They matched so well with how to create sophisticated pieces of art, that some of my students were able to bypass conventional anatomy training entirely, getting an acute understanding of positioning just from the lines. 

Larger spaces like backs are beautifully primed for epic scenes, like deserts, huge mountainscapes, or biomech with lots of detail. For protests they are great for slogans. Wrists look beautiful when highlighted, as do collarbones, lending an ethereal quality that when taken in as an holistic piece of work, gives it an oomph. Unlike other artists, I also like using lots of black for drama, and find anything framed along the side of the body looks so much more “kapow” when adorned with black! 

Jacobsen: How do you prevent thematic and colour clashes in protest art, body art presentations without a protest focus, and stuff with entertainment focus like big-time movies, e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy or something where bodyart is very clearly in the movies?

Gugenheim: Interesting question. If you mean in terms of the emotive colour, then they are so thematically opposed that they have their own language and methods of creation now, although I am DYING to use more fine art in studio protest pieces, so if there are any Ex Muslims, Women Life Freedom activists or women who want to fight for their freedoms especially, do step on up!

Protest art is usually blocks of colour created quickly in a public setting for immediate effect. They are pieces meant to grab you on a visceral level, as opposed to being sophisticated. Logos, slogans, all of these are usually 1 to 3 colours, so there is a benevolent clash if you will, the clash of a woman’s body unclothed in public, with… the general public. A nonviolent riot of colour. 

Movie makeup is created under very different conditions, with a number of creatives planning looks and then teams of people executing them. Vision boards with a LOT of plagiarism are abundant (which I disapprove of and don’t personally use). It has to pass by committee for approval and then what the director says, goes. There are often SFX techniques like speckling, something called “cheating in” a prosthetic where you create the illusion someone has one when they don’t, and most SFX bodypainters will use airbrush. The cohesiveness is then decided by the director and the creative management looking at trial shots of the work. They decide on tweaks, what to take out, put in, emphasise, and this laborious process will go on until a consensus is reached. It is more of a group effort.

As for fine art pieces in a studio, they are a far more relaxed affair, the paint being built up in layers and an exploration of concept and feeling between the person being painted and the artist, which compliments the work…and there is always the colour wheel. 

Jacobsen: What are the areas of these artistic endeavours that have a unity of materials and purpose? Where, somehow, protest and entertainment are in the same direction. 

Gugenheim: Impact. You want everything you do to have impact. Power. Life. I want art that makes you look or takes your breath away. 

Jacobsen: Are there ways in which the human surface and form makes a better protest canvas than posters, videos, flags, and such?

Gugenheim: Absolutely! All of these pieces however work together in a sort of holistic, evolving protest web, and are useful for myriad reasons. Video can be used to carry the medium, make it more transmissable as a meme, so it’s highly useful. Seeing flags and placards en masse can add a feeling of solidarity, But we are evolutionarily primed to respond to a human body, and a supernormal stimuli like bodypaint, commands us to look. This supernormal stimuli principle is found, and can even be primed, in rats and gulls, basically any complex enough animal, even butterflies. Where you need to make a novel, commanding statement, where you want to make an emboldened and powerful point, where you want immediate media attention, use bodyart! 

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time again, Victoria. We’ll be back. 

Gugenheim: My pleasure, as always. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/05

According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directory with the main “Genius” listing here.

He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.

Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.

Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube. Here we talk about some co-developed ideas that originated with Rick decades ago as a young man, which has a further precedent in Digital Physics with Edward Fredkin.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, this is the ultimate frisbee of virtual realities. You go first, please.

Rick Rosner: Ok, so, from time to time, we’ve casually kind of discussed how it’s interesting/possibly important that the issue of whether the universe is real or a simulation. In pop culture you have The Matrix, which is a huge trilogy of movies. Blockbusters, that center around the universe being simulated and in pop culture in the future the issue’s going to be, I think, bigger and bigger because of video games. Maybe, other forms of entertainment will simulate reality with greater and greater verisimilitude.

Jacobsen: That’s right.

Rosner: The simulations will get better and better. But then I was thinking about it a little bit and realize that just saying casually say, “You can’t tell whether the universe is real or a simulation.” Or if you couldn’t tell did, what would you mean when you talk about simulation? It turns out to be. Well, I don’t know if it’s not simple, but it certainly needs pinning down. Because you have issues like, “Who is the simulation for? Is it for the video game? Is it for the consciousnesses in that world? Is it the whole universe or is it just a chunk of it?” And all those things have implications for reality. It is naturally arising, but exists in an artificial armature – well, not necessarily artificial.

That’s another issue, but our minds are supported by our brains. You’d call that a natural armature versus a consciousness that would be supported by an information processing device that’s been built by people who are built by individuals who learned how to create consciousness. And then, of course, you have the problem of the turtles all the way down thing. What’s supporting each of these worlds – the hardware world and all that stuff? And it probably leads to what you were talking about, which is you kind of like you said, ‘Who cares?” Simulated versus natural, because in the end, it was a stack of turtles. The whole thing may become moot at some point. Anyway, it doesn’t seem trivial or simple to me. What do you think?

Jacobsen: Yes, I don’t think it’s trivial. I do think it’s simple because you don’t have a lot of options. So, let’s say, you have a naturally rising universe. Okay, let’s say, you get a civilization. They perform various virtual reality simulations of their universe and other possible universes. So, there you have a virtual universe arising out of the universe. Let’s say, you have some kind of not quite existent, not quite nonexistent universe; that is very quantum mechanical, just extremely virtual in its existence, because it’s not fully manifested insofar as it can exist and cannot exist. It’s at that edge between kind of solidity and not. You have others start off natural and have an entire timeline, a world line of the entire universe. There’s no need for a simulation in the first place. So, in that case, okay, you have a natural universe running all the way through. And the first case, you have a natural universe running into a virtual simulation. You could also have this iterative effect where you have extraordinarily long-lived universes, where you start off natural or you start off kind of quantum mechanically virtual. Then it becomes natural, then that civilization in that natural universe that happens to evolve simulates a universe in which you have other little mini civilizations that then themselves do simulations and you have this kind of matryoshka doll situation of simulations.

Rosner: You have that even with the natural universe, because every armature needs to itself to be part of a material world that is made of information that’s being stored in, so the turtles all the way down. And also, there’s another issue which gets back to your point of “who cares?”; if the better a simulated universe is, the less it’s going to violate the rules of a natural universe.

Any decent similar universe? Go ahead.

Jacobsen: Or any simulation in our natural universe or another natural universe, the laws of physics that govern the computation of that computational device, doing the simulation will limit the type of simulations it can do.

Rosner: Yes, and also, the probability of discernible divergences from apparent naturalness in a decent simulation is low.

So, like, well, just doing naive math, there are eight billion people in the world and you find out. And one person is magic because it’s a simulation. The odds against that are one in eight billion. And of course, in practical and more realistic terms the odds that you see violations of natural physics revealing that you’re in a simulation are just super low because it’s just there are probability arguments to be made. For one thing, we live in a world where there’s no good evidence of the world; we live in now, being a simulation. The same way, there’s no evidence of there being time travelers visiting us, right? There have been no probabilistic arguments to be made. So, based on the evidence of our world and the history of the universe as we know it, it’s apparently highly probable that the rules of the universe are not being violated, right?

Jacobsen: Yes. I mean, for that simulation, for any simulation to exist, which is grounded on a natural universe, that simulation, the computation behind it must rely on that natural universe physics. You can’t get out of that.

Rosner: But it’s easy to imagine a series of 50 years in the future. One hundred and fifty years in the future. It’s easy to imagine video games that are convincing simulations. And you can enter into them. And it’s even possible to imagine that you can have your awareness abridged so that when you’re playing the video game, you think you’re actually living in the world, the simulated world. You can also imagine that this video game has characters like free guy that are conscious and not realizing that they’re in a video game.

Jacobsen: Absolutely. And to say, that it’s limited by the physics. That its computation is based on the virtual universe. It’s not to say it can’t have its own variables and kinds of laws. It’s just the computation behind it will limit what is possible there. And it may be such that when we talk about computers as universal computation machines, like a universal Turing machine or something; these are only limited by our experience of this kind of computation in our universe. I mean, so, “Yes.”

Rosner: Yes, it’s certainly easy to build from our physics.

Jacobsen: Yes. So, our computers might not be universal. They might be general in this context.

Rosner: Yes, but the deal is, it’s possible to imagine a future that has a whole bunch of video games that are convincing simulations. Where within the games, the rules, some of the rules of reality would be violated. You can imagine a convincing simulated world video game in which you can fly, for instance.

Jacobsen: Gravity is reversed.

Rosner: Or something, it’s easy to imagine that these kind of games will be pervasive in the future. So, yet, we live in a world. The world we live in now doesn’t have any of those violations of reality. So, what’s the deal, probabilistic? You find yourself being a conscious being in the world that you’re in. And what are the odds that it’s a natural world? We, apparently, are in or it’s a simulated world. That you’re part of a game that runs for three weeks or three hours. You become conscious. You’ve got backs in your awareness. You’ve got a history. All these issues need to be addressed scientifically and philosophically, ideally scientifically. Are there probabilistic arguments to be made about whether you’re more likely to find yourself in a natural world or a simulated world?

And, of course, the simulated world you assume is an offshoot of the natural world, and as we’ve been talking of a natural world; it’s that assumption of legitimation. We have talked about, “I think, therefore, I am.” Within the context, given the extreme complexity and self-consistency of the worlds of our minds or an individual’s mind with its memories and its ability to mentally simulate the world, given the extreme consistency in the amount of information involved, that’s a statistical argument for the existence of the possessor of that consciousness. So, analogously, are there probabilistic arguments to be built around natural versus simulated worlds? Also, the extent of the simulated world.

Jacobsen: They are, in some sense. Any evolved mind in a natural universe is running a simulation of it. And this is not digital. Like my own mind is running a simulation of my little environment here, in front of the laptop. Similarly, with you in front of your Skype machine, it’s just the way things are. So, you could say simulation is the dominant strain of quantity of computation. Although, natural is the dominant quality of it. I mean, we’re only in a finite volume. We have seven or eight billion people running all these simulations based on their own minds. But those are very small volumes in the entirety of the Universe, the natural universe. I think you make the same argument where in any other universe where they have these simulations, even massive galactic-scale simulations. Computational devices of that scale, they would themselves be limited in that natural universe, which is bigger.

So, there’s one split there. Maybe, in that argument, it’s not usually made, which is that natural universes are the ground state. They’re much bigger. So, there’s a lot more computation happening with regard to them. Any kind of simulation that’s happening within them, whether it’s what we call digital or evolved consciousness, either case evolved or constructed. They’re far more plentiful. Because once the natural universe is already set up, then you have a simpler setup to kind of run different simulations.

Rosner: Yes, so, I mean, there’s that argument that we think can be made, which is that it’s just much more likely that we’re in a natural universe.

Jacobsen: Yes. Even though, the number of “simulated universes,” are arguably much more plentiful.

Rosner: Yes, so, it’s a mess.

Jacobsen: I mean, just the human species is a hundred billion simulations at various kind of world lines.

Rosner: We intuitively think that it’s much more probable. We’re in a natural universe, but we don’t know the framework to do any kind of calculation.

Jacobsen: You can throw a ballpark even by saying one planet in one universe for one species amounts to one hundred billion simulations. So, 100 billion little tiny world lines within that one natural universe.

Rosner: At that point, I am still finding myself confused. There’s another level. There are plenty of issues around simulation. Another issue, though, is that if the universe is a vast information processing entity. It is not necessarily aware of structures such as ourselves and our planet that have originated, that are built out of the matter that is made of the information in that information process. That the information in the processor is manifest as matter and space. And the whole thing is as our universe, but that the information processor gets the information out of the process that we experience as the universe without necessarily any awareness that this universe exists. Without any specific idea:: If it’s a sufficiently sophisticated entity, if I see this is anything like true, then that entity will have a general idea that there’s a universe made of the information in processing without any specific knowledge of what happens in that universe.

Jacobsen: I mean, consider the consciousness of an ant. Who knows how many ants in the world? What I am calling simulations in a natural universe, I am including those. I am not just talking digital; I am talking evolved. And so the non-conscious, so to speak, like an ant.

Rosner: So, we’re talking about two different things. There’s another issue with simulation, which is intentional simulation for a video game, and a simulation you’re talking about, which is a mental picture of the world.

Jacobsen: So, an objective simulation and a subjective simulation. Subjective can have a lot more flavors.

Rosner: I mean, that’s another like framework that needs to be fairly well defined.

Jacobsen: Maybe, in an intrinsic simulation and extrinsic simulation? Something like that.

Rosner: Well, I mean, like the simulations I am talking about are meant to emulate a world.

Jacobsen: You mean the simulations where you have two black holes processed virtually in these massive supercomputers and trying to see what happens when two black holes collide?

Rosner: No, I am not. I am not talking about that. I am talking about simulations that lead somebody in the simulation to potentially ask the question whether they’re living in a natural world or a simulated world. So, I guess, to be more clear, I am talking about simulated worlds, simulations.

The simulation we have in our minds are not intentional. They’re not constructed worlds. I mean, just talking about it shows that there are issues that need to be pinned down.

Jacobsen: You’re talking at a high level of simulation in my mind.

Rosner: It’s not just high level. It’s something different. It’s like the simulation that makes free guy think he’s living in a natural world. But it’s just as the simulation in a video game.

Jacobsen: So it’s an as if natural universe.

Rosner: There’s external intention there. Somebody built that world with the intent of making it seem real for their own purposes. Simulations we have in our minds. I mean, we didn’t intentionally build them. They’re a product of our evolved minds. They’re not there. For nearly every organism on Earth, they are meant to simulate the real external world.

Jacobsen: So right there. So, you’re talking at three layers. You have a universe, a really sophisticated simulation. And then the subjective impression, the mental map that simulated being has in that simulated universe.

Rosner: Yes. And I want to bring up one more point. So, if the universe is a giant consciousness, it’s not aware of the specifics of the material manifestation of the information in its consciousness. You can still argue that a system that’s possibly aware of that universe that is contained within the information. And an external world, an armature could tweak the events. Within the information universe it contains, it seems unlikely. But maybe also not by that, the quantum of events in our universe, the outcomes of when an open quantum frame becomes closed. Because an event, a quantum event has happened, you would think that the outcome of that quantum event reflects something that happened. For that outcome contains information about the world that the information is about, and those things should be… anyway. I’ve done myself a whole lot of lack of clarity and would just be wasting more time to go further into it, but anyway. This discussion, at least in my mind, is that the simulated worlds and universes need a lot more clarity in pinning down what they’re about in order to discuss them effectively.

Jacobsen: And we can both agree the ground state has to be a natural universe.

Rosner: Yes, but no. I mean, the easiest universe to imagine is one that has a timeline where every quantum event that has a complete timeline representing an actual history, and that the events on that timeline… Although, all the gazillion quantum events are randomly operating, according to the rules of quantum mechanics in a natural way. That’s the easiest universe to imagine.

Jacobsen: Any simulation that comes out of that has to be based out of some processing unit grounded in that universe. I think those are two points. So, any kind of simulation coming out of that universe or any type of simulation, virtual reality, coming out of that universe will have to be grounded in the physics of that universe, which will have a particular kind of computation.

Rosner: Not necessarily video games now that have alternative physics.

Jacobsen: That’s not what I mean. I mean, the physics for the actual computation to take place. So, in our case, we have digital computers, so you can simulate any kind of physics, but that type of range of simulation is grounded in competition.

Rosner: Objects.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: Is actually generating the simulation, the computer’s operating in our world, which we naturally assume to be natural.

Jacobsen: Yes. So, in that sense, that’s a point of huge clarity, where the material object in our universe that is the computational unit is constrained by a particular physics. But the virtual reality that it creates can have all sorts of physics. But it’s constrained by that original physics.

Rosner: Yes, although, I don’t know if that’s a big deal.

Jacobsen: Well, I think it might clarify the difference with the armature in our universe. This sort of thing.

Rosner: So, in the armature, the whole idea of the armature and the turtles all the way down is itself a mess. In that, we’re assuming that you can have this implied infinity because it’s an infinity that is informationally moot.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: That, even though it’s implied, it’s so distant in terms of having any possible effect on our world that you can just kind of wave it away. It seems like a terrible way to reason, though they’re in like Feynman type physics. There is similar hand-waving to get rid of troublesome infinities.

Jacobsen: As far as I am aware, that’s common in physics to hide infinities in various places.

Rosner: Yes, and it’s mathematically ugly. It’s philosophically ugly.

Jacobsen: Which makes it unlikely to be true because typically the true is beautiful.

Rosner: No, I was just reading. Somebody was writing about that whole true as beautiful thing and was debunking it. When physicists like Einstein say that beautiful is true, that’s based on many years of work in physics. And so, that’s a very educated aesthetic if you want to call it an aesthetic. But it might be more legitimate to call it a scientific intuition that what Einstein would find beautiful isn’t what somebody who finds astrology, somebody who believes in astrology, would find beautiful.

Jacobsen: I see.

Rosner: So rather than call it beauty, call it educated intuition.

Jacobsen: Makes sense. Okay, that’s fair.

Rosner: So, I don’t know that any further discussion on this stuff will be productive.

Jacobsen: Well, I think a wrap up would be helpful.

Rosner: My wrap up is that there are lots of issues around what we mean when we talk about simulation and the different types of simulation we might talk about. And it would be helpful to get that stuff more pinned down before we talk about the implications of simulated vs. natural universes and worlds. Because there’s a difference between a simulated universe because you could set up a randomized quantum universe within a computer and let it play out; it would be very small and it could be a whole universe.

Jacobsen: We should make that distinction.

Rosner: What’s that?

Jacobsen: Maybe, we should make the distinction.

Rosner: Distinction between an entire simulated universe and a simulated part of the world?

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: Matrix. Because The Matrix doesn’t simulate the entire universe.

Jacobsen: Yes, I mean, in a sense.

Rosner: It simulates like the surface of Earth for all the people who are imprisoned in the simulation. And it simulates the stars and the sky and everything. But it dispenses in the interest of efficiency in The Matrix simulation. Does not give a shit about what might be happening on planets and some other galaxy. The simulation, matrix simulation, you have the images of other galaxies. And they appear to behave as distant galaxies might. But beyond that level of simulation, the prison keepers aren’t going to go to the trouble. The computational trouble of fully simulating distant galaxies.

Jacobsen: Well, in that sense, I think it’d be very, very rare to come across a true universe simulation. I think in that sense. You can make a distinction. This is a placeholder. That when you’re speaking of universes; you’re speaking of natural universes and you’re speaking virtual universes. You’re talking about worlds because it’s very likely only to be part. It’s going to be very partial.

Rosner: Again, just for me to wrap up, is just to say that this whole area is something that needs pinning down.

Jacobsen: Yes, I don’t even know what the terminology would be properly set forth to limit when we’re talking about that simulation of a world versus that subjective simulation.

Rosner: And what’s kind of weird is that, probably, the people building the universe will become the accepted terminology for, at least, some of these ideas that are going to be video game makers.

Jacobsen: Also, there’s another part of this, which is, “Do we simulate agents without agency?” Like bad guys in video games, they don’t have any agency. They’re just sort of these 3D.

Rosner: Right now, in video games, the only characters with agency are the characters being played by actual people.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: There may be characters within video games that are sufficiently complicated. I don’t know, because I don’t play video games. They might have like a sub-ant like level of agency. Because it’s a question as to “How much agency?”

Jacobsen: Very little.

Rosner: OK. But even so, an ant probably has more agency because an ant brain, probably, has like a hundred thousand neurons, which is not much compared to humans, 80 billion neurons. But it’s still a shitload of neurons enough to generate some behavioral complexity. And I am sure there’s no engine that runs a bad guy in a video game that has even the complexity of an ant brain. But in the future, it’s easy to imagine video game characters with the agency of an ant.

Jacobsen: And it’s different in what we have with those videogame characters because it’s a coding around which they behave as a 3D figurine, but ants have built into them – with ants that’s built into their system. It’s unified. There’s a central processing unit in them. In the simulated characters we have now in video games, that’s not even close to what is the case.

Rosner: No, but you got me. I am sure, like some of the non-playable characters and video games have very complicated decision trees.

Jacobsen: Sure. But it’s built. It’s distributed into the whole system and then played out through that little 3D figurine. In the end, it’s intrinsic to it. It’s much more tightly closed off.

Rosner: Yes, I think one thing we can say, at least in terms of this discussion, is that agents to have agency: Yu need to have consciousness.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: I think that in general, that seems. Well, that’s right.

Jacobsen: Yes, and maybe, also, there’s that sense of agency that has to come with a certain closed offness to the rest of the universe, where the only channels of information are getting in from your own little sensory apparatuses – whatever it is.

Rosner: Alright, I am tired. My voice is raspy.

Jacobsen: Ok, yes.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/03

*Interview conducted September 3, 2023.*

Ms. Oleksandra Romantsova is the Executive Director (2018-present) of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 under her and others’ leadership in documenting war crimes. This will be a live series on human rights from a leading expert in an active context from Kyiv, Ukraine, to complement live on-the-ground war coverage in the war zones from Romanian humanist independent journalist Remus Cernea. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, today, we are here for round two with Oleksandra Romantsova or Sasha. We’ll be talking about some updates to the situation in Ukraine vis-a-vis human rights. I wanted to start. There, recently, was a plane crash and an individual, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in that crash, which garnered a lot of media play. What was your first reaction to this? How did human rights defenders see this?

Oleksandra Romantsova: It was not only Prigozhin. So, it was not only him. But officials who killed Ukrainians tortured them. On the side, all of us need to check if it is true or not. If they are just trying to hide, then it’s bad news. A lot of people are killed in Ukraine. They publicly do that. They destroy people.

Jacobsen: People killed under suspicious circumstances, like with a radioactive substance. 

Romantsova: They kill if they violate something.

Jacobsen: Like a hummer.

Romantsova: Yes, a hummer, they kill people by hummer, publicly. They do that publicly and make a video and put it out publicly. So that they will never do that again. My reaction was like this.

Jacobsen: Not surprised. 

Romantsova: Exactly; I am not very surprised because these people are always playing darts. They create relationships only connected with violence. I told you about that.

Jacobsen: It is this culture of violence that we spoke about in the first session that he creates solutions for problematic individuals who become violent. It makes sense. It makes any public murder or killing suspicious with that kind of culture. For Erdogan and Putin, the presidents of Turkey and Russia, they are meeting. Any thoughts on that meeting that’s happening?

Romantsova: Putin, I don’t think we have a lot of news from there. It didn’t sound like a lot of really important news. Every time it happens, something like this. Putin put a brain out. After this, he starts to drill it, shell it, like Odesa. Because before that, Odesa, its region, was like this politician’s preference from the population. They accept. Now, it’s not good at all because Putin destroyed the infrastructure of our biggest port. Odessa has the biggest port and biggest exporter of grain. After this meeting in Turkey, after they started an agreement, they started to destroy not only the port but also the central city. One of the historical churches there. So, a lot of the population was killed, including children. After this, they shelled Chernihiv. It is a city in the north of Ukraine, which was a really strong Russian occupation in March of 2022. That was the first thing. In the center of the city, they had a festival. They destroyed the festival. They heard about the drums and exhibitions. They killed more than 45 people and 11 children. It’s like every time we hear about some occupation Putin doesn’t like. It means that you can be in danger because the rockets can hit any place: civilian objects, humanitarian objects, military objects. Anything, shelling everything.

Jacobsen: You have also noted, to me, volunteers, journalists, activists. They can be, have been, killed, jailed, harassed. What are the numbers that are coming out, even this early in full-scale invasion? 

Romantsova: We started collecting information about journalists, volunteers, and some local leaders from Kherson, because that was a lot of information then. Russia came there and occupied Kherson. They started to jail them, torture them, kidnap them. These people made a major base for the Russian occupation. They are waiting for Russians. That’s why they need support. All of these people, that’s why it’s the addition of some newspapers and web portals that give the news by the names of previous journalists who have the trust of the population. They do that about Russians. The Russians come in and kill off the regime. So, now, we have more than 300 such stories. We need to understand. The same thing happened inside Russia. Because people want to protest in any small way against the war, they are jailed. They politically prosecute journalists, human rights defenders, and activists. People who are trying to do some peaceful demonstration. All of them are jailed in Russia or escape from the Russian Federation. There are 600 people who are political prisoners. 6,000 of them were prosecuted for protesting the war. If they say something at work or say some truth about the Russian Army, they call Russian charges. Russian prosecutors exactly accuse them –  that they lie about the Russian Army. Russians shelled Odesa court. If you speak about that inside Russian, you will be put in jail.

Jacobsen: One thing I have noticed is that I did a similar series, which I’m hoping to do in a similar way with the Russo-Ukrainian War on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I did it with three of the UN special rapporteurs. One of the Human Rights Watch country directors and human rights people in and out of the territories. It was a couple of years. If this continues for an extended period, I will be doing it for much longer. The idea would be to do a number of interviews thematically oriented around a live context. Remus Cernea, Romanian humanist and independent war correspondent, is another pillar of the work that I am doing here. So, one thing I noticed from the Israeli-Palestine context was Omar Shakir, who is the Human Rights Watch director for Israel-Palestine, noted in one of the ten or so sessions that we did. When the IDF forces attack Palestinian territory and people, they could be journalists, medical personnel, and those who are properly armed in conflict. Yet, I believe, according to Norman Finkelstein too, shooting to maim rather than kill was a phenomenon, so that when one looks at the kill count, the numbers are artificially low because that’s not taking into account those who may have had their legs blown off and went back into Palestinian society with no legs, for example [1]. They have no place in that society as a disabled person in terms of things they can functionally do in a limited context in society. Is something similar happening within the Russo-Ukrainian War context?

Romantsova: I will not compare Israel and Palestine and Ukraine because none of us: not Ukraine, not Russia, no high-level developed military like Israel; I mean, Russia: stupid, brutal. Sometimes, they do these things… it’s like all these things you’re talking about is strategy. Russians don’t have a strategy. They put thousands in the Russian jail system because the Russian jail system is huge. You can put thousands in one jail or move them into another. It takes their whole life. Again, Palestine and Israel are a long-term conflict, which started with other countries surrounding Palestine. It is totally standalone from Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are in a long conflict. But it’s not about that. Russia is always trying to get land from Ukraine. So, for me, it is too much to compare this population, Ukraine, to Palestine. Russia is just trying to destroy the country and take our lands. It is so primitive in thought. That’s why a lot of people can’t believe it.

Jacobsen: When people are put into these jails and shuttled around…

Romantsova: Look, I am just explaining the situation in the jail. If you are taken to jail, you need access to a lawyer. Your parents or relatives need to know you’re arrested. What happened in Ukraine was taking land and being kidnapped by the Russian Army, taking the northern part of Ukraine and being kicked out from the Ukrainian Army. They kidnapped people and took them into the Russian Federation. After that, they took them to jail. They don’t give access to them. They don’t have any contact with family or relatives. They don’t give them contact with a lawyer. They just put them in jail and give them numbers. Even in Russia, the situation, they give them numbers like livestock, like an object. Now, when they transfer these people from one jail to another jail, they transfer them like furniture. One of our partners, a Russian lawyer, is trying to make contact when they go to jail. It is the name and surname of the person and why they went to jail. “Give us the reason why they are here; what is the accusation? Give us the opportunity to have contact with them. I am their lawyer. I have contact with their family, their relatives.” Russia doesn’t let them do it. They do not have any international or even their own law. They create new laws. Russians don’t like people at all.

Jacobsen: [Laughing]. 

Romantsova: Seriously, they don’t even like their own people. They don’t care about their own people.

Jacobsen: They even repealed the domestic abuse laws. 

Romantsova: Yes.

Jacobsen: It’s a massive regression. These are not symbolic alone; these are regressions. 

Romantsova: So, same with the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian Orthodox Church is exactly about… I don’t like this religion because of its rules. They preach the rules blah-blah-blah, but the Russian Church visits to explain to people why they need suffering lives. They use religion in this way. That’s why we have a problem with the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine because of the ties. They have a church. One of the biggest. Now, when they give the, for example, they give the text about why we need to support the Russian Army. Some support the Ukrainian church, but when somebody does that, even if you’re a priest, you need to be arrested. Again, it is national security. Some have given up and supported the Russian Orthodox Church.

Jacobsen: Amnesty International is probably the largest independent human rights body, followed by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations is, obviously, the largest structure and one of the largest bureaucratic structures on the globe. Let’s focus on Amnesty International for the moment; how much are they involved in this conflict, if at all?

Romantsova: Amnesty is not involved at all. 

Jacobsen: Why is that?

Romantsova: Because Amnesty International made a really stupid mistake. It is not really about the record. They show the records. So, Amnesty is a totally disgusting situation, which creates a conflict inside of Amnesty International. I didn’t see this happening in Amnesty offices of other countries when we met. They exactly produced communication text. Then they talked about Ukrainians telling journalists fighting with civilians, and that’s why they make it dangerous for Ukrainians. They told them that they had a record of that. They never showed the record. They never showed actual facts, which caused such confusion. They don’t have direct contact with the Ukrainian minister who has comments. What is the condition around the people who are fighting now? They talked about civilians. Amnesty International did it this way. When the General Secretary put it out this way, ‘Sorry, we were so professional.’ So, I’m just waiting for when they have an election. I hope she will not have another term. Before that, Amnesty International made a great investigation. They have a record of shelling of Mariupol Theatre. It was a big, big thing about children and other civilians who hiding there. Russians don’t care about that. They dropped ADM (T4 Atomic Demolition Munition) bombs and destroyed the Theatre totally. Now Russians rebuilt it. Then they explained that they did it because the Azovs were there. That was a huge thing: Children were here. Nobody thinks about this investigation. This Amnesty International did this stupid communication thing and now all will remember only it.

Jacobsen: This context of severe human rights abuses. There will be United Nations special rapporteurs. Are there any following this conflict, or are any officials from the United Nations appointed to record, collate and collect information from the various human rights organizations on all sides of the Russian-Ukrainian war?

Romantsova: In 2014, we had a special UN mission led in Ukraine. They continued work. I think the general ones like UNESCO and some investigation missions from ECOSOC. We have a few projects because they do missions without permission from the Russian Federation. The OSCE is there too. All of these. We have the offices of the UN here. Most of them have some humanitarian role. Humanitarian missions have not the possibility to gather evidence. Evidence around the questions of war crimes.

Jacobsen: Were there any points of contact that you think would be relevant for the audience today, news-wise?

Romantsova: You need to understand that most of the mission relate to security. They are going to Kyiv, mostly. They are trying to bring the people to Kyiv. It’s not safe to go anywhere. Only UN high-level representative… I will send stuff to you. There is a woman from Geneva. She is going to Ukraine to present the UN mission there. There will be rockets. But you can imagine what would happen in the East or South.

Jacobsen: Sasha, thank you for round two. 

Romantsova: You’re welcome!

—

Footnotes

[1] In Canadian Atheist interview with Dr. Norman Finkelstein entitled “Interview with Dr. Norman Finkelstein on Gaza Now“, I ask and Finkelstein states:

Jacobsen: In contrast to the nonviolent protest tactics of the Palestinians, what has been the main tactic of the Israelis?

Why does this require a pretext, even strained ones, to prevent poor international public perception, in line with the question on media reportage bias? 

Finkelstein: Well, Israel always claims it has a pretext. The pretext this time to the non-violent protest has been two-fold.

First of all, Israel periodically targets Hamas militants or Islamic jihadi militants in the hope of provoking a counterattack with these so-called rockets.

So, Israel can claim it is defending itself. In fact, what it is really hoping to do is end non-violent protests and get the Hamas to use its rockets, so Israel will then have another pretext to go in and slap Gaza.

So long as Hamas does not play along wit this dirty Israeli provocation, Israel has trouble finding a pretext to go into Gaza.

The problem, right now, is that in the absence of media coverage Israel barely even needs a pretext to continue to fire, or to kill and injure, with abandon in Gaza because nobody is paying much attention.

I should add that Israel is highly sensitive to public attention. It has been careful to limit the actual killings and instead have its snipers aim, for example, at the knee caps of Gaza protestors, so as to permanently maim them.

What’s called life changing injuries, which is basically a death certificate to those who get these injuries, it means that you’re disabled for life. You become a parasite in Gazan society. You have no future.

But these sorts of life changing injuries don’t get any media attention because, typically, it just says, “X number of people killed.” It may then say, “Wounded,” but “wounded” is somewhat or very misleading because these are not just wounds in general.

These are calculated, life changing injuries, permanent maimings for the demonstrators.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/01

According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directorywith the main “Genius” listing here.

He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.

Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.

Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I’ve been pondering the concept of metaphysics for quite some time. You’ve been thinking about this even longer than I have. Together, we’ve developed the idea of potentially reintegrating metaphysics with physics. Ancient Greek philosophers, especially those from the Ionian school, were deeply engaged in metaphysics. They didn’t have the physics that we have now.

Rick Rosner: You don’t necessarily need to, but nowadays, you can engage in metaphysics with a better chance of accuracy. The more you know about the universe and the closer you are to an accurate picture of it, the more likely your metaphysical ideas won’t be wildly off. Unless your metaphysics is either so vague it can describe anything, or so profound it remains relevant regardless of the universe’s accurate portrayal.

Jacobsen: Right, so we’re discussing the practical utility of metaphysics in providing a valid and sound description of the universe.

Rosner: Yes, and it’s worth mentioning that physicists, and maybe scientists in general, but especially physicists, often say that all science eventually boils down to physics. Biology, chemistry, they all reduce to physical interactions. When they become more complex, they turn into chemistry, and even more complex, biology, and eventually even the social sciences. However, people still specialize in biology, chemistry, and the social sciences because it’s efficient. You don’t need to deconstruct everything to basic physics all the time, although sometimes, delving into quantum physics helps explain new phenomena in biology and chemistry.

Jacobsen: Sean Carroll talks about poetic naturalism, where we can scientifically discuss love in many ways. However, we still use poetic and literary language, like “I love you,” to describe human experience, understanding that it’s founded on scientific reality. It’s about considering different levels of analysis and description, from folk psychology and interpersonal reactions to physics. Essentially, it’s all interconnected.

Rosner: Exactly, and our world has enough flexibility to allow these different levels of order and complexity. For example, my friend Chris is attempting to map every single feedback loop in biology within the human body. These feedback loops exist at various levels of complexity relative to basic physics, and he believes most are yet to be discovered.

Jacobsen: This is similar to Dmitri Mendeleev with the periodic table. He started simply, with many gaps, which were filled in over time. Chris could be initiating a similar process for feedback loops in biology.

Rosner: When we talk about metaphysics, we’re discussing the principles of existence, which overlaps with physics. It’s about what can exist and, by extension, what cannot. Quantum mechanics, especially, aids this discussion. It’s essentially the math and physics of things that barely exist, dealing with incomplete information. It describes how things behave when not fully characterized, like the position and velocity of an electron.

Jacobsen: However, I wouldn’t classify the math of quantum mechanics as metaphysical. It’s more about the math of existence.

Rosner: True, but there’s still a metaphysical aspect because it models what existence fundamentally is. You would think metaphysics should lead to more stringent and precise science. However, it seems we can use the solid science of quantum mechanics to inform our understanding of metaphysics.

Jacobsen: That’s counterintuitive, considering the history of metaphysics, which hasn’t been great at arriving at precise, sound views of the world.

Rosner: It’s akin to the struggle in defining consciousness or the history of theology. There are myriad interpretations, often leading to wrong or contradictory answers.

Jacobsen: In Western tradition, we’ve seen centuries of speculative metaphysics. In contrast, the last five hundred years have shown gradual refinement in understanding the universe through physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. While some mysteries may be eternal, others are merely hard problems awaiting solutions.

Rosner: Quantum mechanics, being about a century old, has seen various attempts at applying its principles to other contexts, often incorrectly. Yet, you can use these principles in different ways, such as in predicting traffic behavior or in sports analytics. There’s a strong connection between quantum math and Bayesian probability, both frameworks characterizing uncertainty.

Jacobsen: So, when we talk about ‘frameworks,’ we’re referring to these structures or descriptions of the universe. However, these are not the universe itself. They are tools we’ve developed to create accurate maps of reality. But they remain maps, not the terrain.

Rosner: The language we use evolved because it was useful. Language and thought products aim to predict and act. Therefore, every word and its associated characterization is subject to fuzziness. Some words, like ‘apple,’ are fairly specific, but still encompass a range of variation and imprecision.

Jacobsen: Consider the notion of the soul, which historically justified inhumane treatment of animals. Our experience feels unified, but for a long time, the assumption was that a spirit or soul underpinned it, leading us in wrong directions.

Rosner: Let’s pause on the soul concept. The soul, as some see it, is an essence of oneself, transcending details and memories. It’s the core of who you are. However, I see the soul more as an informational substrate, somewhat independent of individual cognition.

Jacobsen: Extending that idea, one’s impact on themselves, others, and the environment during and after their life can be seen as an extended sense of the soul. It’s an extended self, essentially.

Rosner: An analogy between information and the universe is that the universe consists of space and matter. We think about the material bodies, but the space itself, curved around, forms an underlying structure determined by matter distribution. This curved space that contains everything is akin to what a soul might be – an underlying landscape determined by the aggregate of everything that’s happened.

Jacobsen: So, our descriptions of the universe, while useful, are just tools for understanding. They don’t capture the intrinsic operations of the universe.

Rosner: Language evolved to help us survive, so it’s efficient in that sense. But every word and sentence is subject to fuzziness and imprecision. This is especially true for terms in metaphysics.

Jacobsen: Hence, the danger in assumptions like the soul, which can lead to misguided beliefs and actions.

Rosner: The soul, as an informational aggregate resulting from everything that’s happened, is an unspecific underlying structure. It’s shaped by the overall curvature and dynamics of the universe.

Jacobsen: We’ll need to pause here and come back to this discussion later.

Rosner: Sure, let’s continue later.

—

Rick Rosner: We’re fortunate in that regard. It involves the concept of selling that idea.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Absolutely. This discussion is primarily within our IC context, a limited scope where we share common ground. It’s more for our benefit than for others. My understanding is when people reference the physical, they are talking about the material. I perceive the physical as a subset of the material, which in turn is a subset of the natural. In an IC context, the natural is a subset of the informational. Essentially, information is fundamental. Take two different time states; the difference between them signifies a change of state, measurable in the amount of information that differs. Additionally, the intrinsic information required for each state is crucial. The soul can be conceptualized as an informational construct, especially when considering the idea of an extended self. It’s an informational construct extending beyond standard cognition but remains completely natural and devoid of any mystical elements. This perspective brings us back to the discussion on metaphysics and the concept of the soul in a universe that operates quantum mechanically, which is fundamentally incomplete and lacks complete self-knowledge.

Rosner: Perhaps we haven’t concluded our discussion about the soul.

Jacobsen: Maybe not. Let’s explore the idea of the soul as a continually changing, incomplete construct.

Rosner: If we consider the soul as a cumulative landscape shaped by specific informational events, memories, and knowledge, it’s clear that this landscape requires a complete history of your experiences. To argue that it’s a general landscape, one might suggest that you could fully characterize your soul with all the information in your mental universe. However, this isn’t practical. For the soul to be a conceptually useful tool, it should be an abridged version of all the information that contributes to its formation. For instance, when considering babies, we often use simple descriptors like ‘happy baby’ or ‘cranky baby,’ which summarize a complex set of information about each child. This abridgement is what makes the concept of the soul practical. We should be able to characterize an individual’s essence using much less information than what went into forming their personality.

Jacobsen: Extending this idea to the soul as a natural entity, it suggests that souls can overlap. My extended self overlaps with yours to some extent. We might consider first-order and second-order souls or subsets of the soul.

Rosner: This concept is somewhat echoed in certain religions, like Judaism, which posits that people continue to live in the memories of those who remember them.

Jacobsen: I was thinking along those lines. It aligns with a secular Judaist perspective.

Rosner: However, it’s quite unsatisfying. Compared to traditional promises of an eternal afterlife or infinite oblivion, it seems lackluster.

Jacobsen: Yet, it’s more satisfying than the notion of complete oblivion.

Rosner: It feels closer to oblivion than to infinity. But if we could somehow externalize consciousness, allowing it to exist independently of the brain, we could develop a more satisfying concept of living on. Today, we leave more behind, like digital recordings and social media posts, but it’s not quite the same. If we could replicate consciousness and share it, then the idea of living on through our thoughts becomes more compelling.

Jacobsen: The ‘nuggets of consciousness’ you mentioned are productions, not consciousness itself. This would be a secondary extension of the soul.

Rosner: Zuckerberg once mentioned wanting Facebook to be telepathic in the future. If that means exporting feelings so others can experience them as their own, it opens up new possibilities. Sharing consciousness in this way would be a significant advancement.

Jacobsen: However, this ‘exportation’ would be different from actual consciousness. It would be more of a recreation of the secondary aspects of the soul.

Rosner: If we could open the ‘black box’ of consciousness, allowing shared subjective experiences, it could lead to a more profound understanding of consciousness. It might require a long process of shared experiences to merge consciousnesses effectively.

Jacobsen: Transplanting a complete map of consciousness to a different context would be akin to copy-pasting, lacking the necessary associations for optimal functioning.

Rosner: This is an area that requires new technologies and mathematics. Yet, there can be well-defined distinctions between first and second-order aspects of the soul in an informational context.

Jacobsen: The first-order aspect of the soul is akin to the mind, while the second-order aspect extends beyond, influenced by our interactions with others and the world.

Rosner: We’ve touched upon various aspects of the soul. Essentially, we’ve been attempting to characterize it in informational terms, which aligns with our discussions on metaphysics.

Jacobsen: Right. The universe’s incomplete knowledge about itself makes the soul an inherently dynamic and changing construct. A perfect metaphysics would likely equate to perfect physics, blurring the line between the two.

Rosner: One argument is to discard metaphysics as it’s often muddied by less rigorous philosophies. Another argument suggests that well-founded metaphysical statements are essentially physical, tied to the universe’s principles.

Jacobsen: Metaphysics got cleaner with the advent of proper science. Historically, metaphysical thinking was dominant, often tied to religious and mystical beliefs. Modern science has gradually reduced the space for ‘God of the gaps’ and metaphysical speculation.

Rosner: In summary, metaphysics has been historically linked with imprecise philosophies, but there are arguments for a set of general principles about the world that could be termed metaphysical. Alternatively, well-founded metaphysical statements could be seen as physical, connected to the universe’s principles.

Jacobsen: Lastly, the soul as an informational construct with first and second-order properties is a derivative concept from these discussions.

Rosner: Exactly. We’ve explored the soul from various angles, suggesting that it can be understood as an underlying informational landscape shaped by a person’s history and experiences.

Jacobsen: In conclusion, our exploration of the soul and metaphysics leads us to consider the evolving nature of these concepts in light of our growing understanding of the universe and consciousness.

Rosner: Precisely. The end.

Jacobsen: The end.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/30

Tianxi Yu（余天曦）is a man who’s interested in IQ tests. Here we talk about the high-IQ communities in China, and more.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s cover some news for you, personal and professional, how are the high-IQ societies developing in China?

Tianxi Yu: Activity is slowly declining, people don’t care much about IQ tests and related topics anymore, and are more likely to discuss life, entertainment, and do more realistic social communication.

Jacobsen: Have you taken any new ultra-hard tests? If so, how have you done? If not, why not?

Yu: The last submission was Mahir Wu’s CAT2, the only Mahir’s test I hadn’t submitted before. It is one of the toughest spatial tests, and I obtained a score of 30/36 with an IQ=179 SD=15. It’s probably been a long time since I’ve done IQ training, and CAT2 is the only Mahir’s test I haven’t gotten a first on, and I’m currently ranked probably third!

Jacobsen: You tend to perform very well on numerical stuff. Obviously, everyone, in the professional world of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychometrists, and the like, agree on the fact of general intelligence and its higher heritability as one ages or develops. Less smart parents can produce more smart kids; more smart parents can produce less smart kids. However, smart parents are more likely to produce smart kids; and, less smart parents are less likely to produce more smart kids. Environmental factors play a decent role, especially in early development. However, culture can make already high lopsided intelligence even more so – average verbal and genius level numerical intelligence. For instance, a culture with a robust mathematical and numerical education – drilling math sense into kids – can make someone’s innate math and numerical sense and abilities even greater. Did this seem to happen in your case? The stereotype in the West is China has a great intensity on mathematical and numerical education. If true, then it’s just a statistical generalization (generalized fact), not a stereotype. 

Yu: I was trained in math when I was young, starting with bead counting and waiting until I was in elementary school to take OU training. I grew up in Hubei province, which is a major education province in China, and the difficulty of the exams is among the highest in the country, so we were arranged to participate in many competitions from a young age, which also made me bored with exam-oriented education. In high school, I did not continue to participate in competition training, but this may be a regrettable choice for me, because I showed talent in mathematics, science and chemistry subjects, especially physics, if I insisted on competitions at that time there may be more choices. But I’m relieved now, after all, I’m doing well now. In China, there is a word called “卷(juan)”, which means vicious competition due to uneven distribution of resources, resulting in people having to spend more to get less in return. At present, the phenomenon of “juan” is getting more and more serious, and ordinary people can only live an ordinary life by working very hard. This may answer your question, China emphasizes all aspects of education, not just numbers, and if graphing had a curriculum, the top of the spatial IQ test would probably be Chinese as well lol.

Jacobsen: What have you been doing in the meantime, personally? Any new hobbies since our last interaction?

Yu: I got into the government service through a tough competition, currently working in a biology lab, and have been busy in the midst of a new job lately. What I’m interested in, is probably reading books, I’ve bought more than twenty books this year, but I’ve only read about ten of them because I’m too busy with my work. Most of the books I’ve read lately are related to politics, economics, and culture, and I’ve been fascinated by their contents. Two of the books that have impressed me the most, “Being Inside” by Xiaohuan Lan and “The Rise and Fall of Nations”, I used to have a misunderstanding of macro and even disdain for it, but now world macro has a deep attraction for me and makes me want to study it.

Jacobsen: What are the updates with the high-IQ societies in which you’re involved, including CatholIQ, Chinese Genius Directory, EsoterIQ Society, Nano Society, World Genius Directory?

Yu: I haven’t followed these societies for a long time, and have previously requested the Chinese Genius Directory and the Esoteric IQ Society to remove my name, but have gotten no response from either. I think there are certain problems with the current IQ societies, such as less attraction, less marketing ability, and no ability to keep people active.

Jacobsen: Professionally, how are you building a career, training, or pursuing some passion now?

Yu: Maybe my answer won’t satisfy you too much. My attitude toward life in the moment is to keep alive without serious ambition, retaining hope for the future, retaining curiosity and the ability to explore the frontiers of the world, and then trying to work at my current position without being laid off. That’s my attitude at the moment. The economic situation now is very bad, and even China has internal and external problems. Let me tell you a set of data, the youth unemployment rate is no longer published, before that it has been maintained at a high level of 20%, and in the Great Depression in the United States in 1927, the rate of unemployment for the whole population was just about 25%. Now China’s employment is very difficult, I took the government office last year, ten years ago, no one to go to the government units, but now with the economic downturn, the number of exams more and more people, the national average enrollment ratio has remained at more than 70:1, many positions are several thousand people in the admission of a person, the first two years there was a 25,000 people competing for a job situation. As for why I test government agencies, because outside the system is worse, even companies like Tencent, Ali, Huawei, also in the big layoffs, many graduates work for a few years, even in the probationary period when they were laid off. It’s not hard to explain why I stayed negative about the passion.

Jacobsen: What can provide some checks and balances for fraud within the high-IQ communities? When it does happen, I am aware. People don’t take kindly to it. Props to the high-IQ community for doing its own clean-up, not every industry or community can say that. It’s about incentives because everyone suffers reputationally if not handled. 

Yu: I’ve thought about this too, and it can only be done through very strict offline exams, with increasing the reputation of highly intelligent people, to create a virtuous cycle, and I’m going to go ahead and make the relevant push, won’t reveal too much until then.

Jacobsen: What do you think the most important positive news in the Chinese high-IQ world at the moment? 

Yu: Embarrassing, none, hopefully there will be one in the future.

Jacobsen: How could the Chinese high-IQ community integrate better with the international high-IQ community? Traditionally speaking, it’s been dominated by the Americans and the Europeans. I think that’s a relatively fair, objective, and factual statement.

Yu: I think it is difficult for China’s high IQ group to integrate into the international high IQ group. China’s national conditions dictate that it is the people who are more in tune with the social system who are in control of the society, not the smarter people. Chinese society has been like this for the past 5,000 years, emphasizing inheritance, conformity, and unity in order to do great things, and it is very difficult to change in the short term. This set of thinking may be a bit pedantic nowadays, and people have already understood the drawbacks of the previous system, but the good thing is that the CPC is also actively selecting young cadres nowadays, and also reducing resistance for young people, so hopefully, in the next round of the Kampo cycle, the whole of China will be refreshed.

Jacobsen: Who are some new notable members of some of the Chinese high-IQ societies?

Yu: Unfortunately, not many new people are joining us at the moment.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/29

As noted by John Paul Tasker in CBC News, the status of the Church, particularly the Christian Church, in Canada has been a long history of privilege over other sectors of society, other religions, and non-religions. Those come with benefits to Christians, generally speaking, and costs to everyone else.

As Christianity has continued its decline, we have seen a carving back of the overextensions of religious belief and practice into religious privilege more into equality. One of those is more symbolic, but an important footnote to the conversation around religion in Canada.

King Charles had the title of Defender of the Faith for about a century. However, there is a push to change the identity of the head of state, especially because of the lack of established church. We have a declining Christian population, rising non-religious population, and no established church.

So, the title of Defender of the Faith seems both practically absurd and symbolically unequal. The Trudeau government has indicated, according to Tasker, a disinterest in the continuation of the King of England’s religious role in Canada.

Tasker said, “The ‘defender of the faith’ title dates back to the Tudor period in the 16th century and refers to the monarch’s unique position as the “supreme governor” of the Church of England — the state religion established after King Henry VIII pulled English churches from papal control.”

I didn’t know this, but, apparently, the King becomes a sovereign religious figure in the Westminster parliamentary democratic system with sacred duties. It’s laughable. No less an ass-colonizer Christian nation at its foundation as Canada could conceive of such a position.

It’s important to note the still-existing symbolic representation of a deity in the Charter of Rights of Freedoms in the Preambular clause with the recognition of the sovereignty of “God.” Whose god? Why one, not many? What definition of a god? And so on, it’s simple prejudice shoved in for Christian appeasement.

Tasker opines that there is a push to show the relevance of the King or the monarchy, probably more generally, to the Canadian public. The reference to the United Kingdom is being dropped, too, by the way.

There must be a push in other countries within the commonwealth, so as to modernize and make consistent the standards of reference for the contemporary period.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/28

Bryan Passifiume in the National Post commented on something that may seem obvious. Where, in a Western states such as Canada, there is a trend towards a reduction in religiosity. Typically, if women have more equal rights, education is high, and incomes are higher than average, then the society becomes less religious over time.

If natural-born Canadians tend to be less religious, and if new immigrants are more religious, then those facts can be plugged inot Passifiune’s analysis. In that, individuals and families from poorer countries with fewer rights for women, less education, and lower incomes, will likely be newer immigrants. This will influence, a bit, the secular nature of the Canadian state.

There may be a surge of apostasy within those families and for those individuals in those communities exposed to a more liberal democratic form of life, as seen in Canada. Potentially, this could mean an increased demand for secular communities to provide a community for these possible upcoming apostates. We’re talking more than a million new immigrants in a short matter of time.

Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett stated, “If you look at the the data for new immigrants, disproportionately they’re coming from countries where religion is a much more public reality than in most western democracies… New immigrants are more likely to express their religion publicly than non-immigrant Canadians… They’re more likely to attend religious services, they’re more likely to desire to have their children educated according to their religious tradition.”

The countries with the most incoming immigrants are China, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Philippines, France, Pakistan, Iran, the United States, and Syria.

Data published by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada points to India as this country’s top source of immigrants in 2022, with 118,095 new people arriving from that nation last year.

Cardus, the source of the study for the data analysis on the immigration, developed a spectrum of spirituality index. The categories in the spectrum were religiously committed, privately faithful, spiritually uncertain, and non-religious.

The only major observable or significant different between the numbers was between the religiously committed at home and those new. 14 percent and 28 percent consider themselves as such, respectively.

Among those who consider themselves “religiously committed,” only 14 per cent were born in Canada, while 28 per cent were born outside of the country.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/27

Chuck Green in Nebraska Today made some important comments on the nature of atheist closeting. Even after the successes of the New Atheist movement, which simply meant a more brash, sometimes, and a more open and straightforward, more accurately, statement of non-belief in theological claims, there continues to be a self-silencing of non-believers in the United States, which, by comparison, means most countries of the world. Why?

Green notes how those without a religious affiliation are the fastest grouping population in the United States. One reason, as noted over years of interviews and conversations with these individuals all over the world, is the Internet. The decentralization of informational access provides a basis for individuals to critically evaluate cultural beliefs with others. This, by itself, neuters fundamentalism for many. Global informational cosmopolitanism is the first benchmark of a Type I civilization. Everyone garners mutual understanding, which begets tolerance in diversity.

However, as Green notes, “But the social stigma associated with atheism leaves this population vulnerable to isolation and poor mental health outcomes.”

That’s an ongoing problem. Arguably, since the population of non-believers is increasing precipitously, this has been adeclining problem with improved recognition and movements devoted to their visibility, e.g., New Atheism, Firebrand Atheism, reinvigoration of global Humanism in branding — think IHEU to HI — and advances in the global South, advances in science to justify agnostic empiricism, pluralistic multiethnic societies reducing supremacist movements to comedy, and the like. Nonetheless, the stigma and isolation and self-abnegation is a crucial element for consideration. Again, why, especially in the United States?

Green uses research by Assistant Professor Dean Abbott who looked into the psychological well-being of “rural-residing and women-identified atheists — in the context of anti-atheist discrimination in the U.S.”

“Both rural and woman-identifying atheists were thoughtful about not sharing large parts of their worldview,” he said.

And that’s significant. People comfortably go to ‘safe spaces’ as entire colleges and universities devoted to religious study, credentialing, and life. They wear crosses, make movies, write books, fund political parties, conduct wedding ceremonies, wear culturally appopriate signifiers, and such. They talk about going to religious institutions every week, praying, and so on. How come this sector of the population feels the need to self-silence? In theocratic societies, it’s obvious: Fear of political pressure, legal consequences, and social reprisal, so various abuses. Even an American example as shown by Dr. Herb Silverman, it was illegal to run for political office.

600 atheists — 300 from each group — took part in the study. If you have an experience with social scientific research, you can realize the depth of the sample size for a study. That’s, in fact, quite enough to get a good idea. The two groups of atheists experienced things in different ways.

Many atheist women found atheism, in and of itself, liberating when coming out of a Christian background. Most of the restrictions are for women in the Christian faith, though the faith was liberationist for its time; it’s almost retrograde now. Green uses the word “expectations” when describing this phenomenon. Women atheists found the general expectations from the faith stultifying, restrictive.

You can find many atheist women like this. Usually, two camps, the majority: they find liberation. A superminority who have come out and left the religion, then declare an aggressive stance against not only illegitimate patriarchal tyranny but also transferred — overextended — to innocent men. It’s a sad sight, hard to defend those unfortunate men having to be the punching bag for these unfortunate, too, women’s processing of trauma. It happens; that’s life.

North American religion has truly been nullified on a number of levels, which explains the attempts at a resurgence for political power and social relevance. Canadian Christianity lost the culture war. It will be, by my math, less than half of the population — and not very serious worshippers — somewhere in 2024. That decline will continue onwards towards a more United Kingdom level for the rest of the 2020s, at least.

An important finding from the study was anti-atheist discrimination was “uncommon.” Yet, those women found the authority of the Christian faith and the norms distressing. A stereotype for women atheists was being “sexually immoral” for simply being atheists, which is clearly nonsense and an attempt at shaming women into conformity. It’s wrong. These stereotypes can be actively encouraged by church leadership.

The rural atheists had different challenges. They feared violence, so “a heightened sense of danger.” One secular opinion writer for their community received a death threat at a local restaurant. Death threats are common in the secular world for writers and prominent people. Even if the issues facing atheists in these rural areas, let alone rural atheist women, were covered and known, the care is, typically, faith-based anyway. This makes the entire social and care landscape geared by and for religious believers, often Christian. That’s another reason for the isolation. Why participate in an unwelcoming community and then getting help includes only faith-based treatment?

Abbott is working, happily, to create a mental health handbook for professionals working with non-religious clients, remembering anti-atheist discrimination was not the issue. It’s a larger set of issues, but specific to geographics, socioeconomics, and gender.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/26

I chose to work in the equestrian industry in Canada because I wanted to write about the industry and sports, as a side project. I wanted to transition out of 7 days a week at four restaurants with janitorial seven nights a week at 2 of them, too, which was about two years building up to it.

I intended to take on the challenge of someone with zero horse, or large domesticated animal, experience and work with them. Everyone said I’d fail — literally, not an exaggeration. Hilariously enough, that’s fair. “You’ll be back.” No word of encouragement.

Naturally, I wouldn’t be the appropriate one to ride and train horses professionally. For the most part, individuals who ride and train professionally start in the single-digit ages to, at the latest, early to middle teens.

When those neural networks continue to form and integrate at a rapid and malleable clip, those are the times to become acquainted with horses for the development of a firsthand horse sense. Everything else becomes second nature if done later. My horse sense is second nature, not first.

In conducting basic labour at an equestrian facility, the most valuable experience has been talking to people whose primary concern, as in their definition of a “horse person,” is the horse. That’s true, in a good way. Some are obsessed in the wrong way, too. In another manner, it’s an extended version of cat people and dog persons, but much more involved.

Two perspectives can be taken in this context. One is animal welfare and non-human animal rights. Another is equine sport and industry. The sport can put the animals through challenging physical demands, which has a history of cruelty to the animals and people too.

At the same time, they can receive excellent care and feeding programs with respect for the animal. There is maltreatment in that area, too. Those present a more complex story but represent two apparently paradoxiform paths of truth about the industry and sports. That’s the fun, unravelling paradoxes for a more profound single truth.

The purpose of this article arose from something coming up in conversations, on and off, with horse people. As with any industry and sport, there have been scandals. I’m not new to writing about scandals. I’ve seen lots in the high-IQ communities in interviewing them for almost a decade. It’s not simply Mensa. There have been over 100 high-IQ societies, half of which could be classified as defunct by my analysis.

I stinted in the sustainable and ethical fashion world, which was fun. Interestingly enough, there weren’t any scandals. None that I can remember off the top. Some people worked in more straightforward circumstances, and others worked in more challenging contexts to get the business running. No true scandal, however.

I’ve seen much in the human rights domain. I’ve observed this in the women’s rights domain. I’ve come across this in student unions. I’ve had lots of experience in Model United Nations and came across a bit of this at Model United Nations. I’ve encountered endless amounts of this in religious communities, a bit in secular societies, and somewhat in Settler and Indigenous communities. I didn’t see this in the harm reduction community, happily.

In the secular communities, where, on a personal note, as an example, the president of an organization attempted to coerce the youngest member of the board, by far (me), to take his revenge against a former president, I resigned after this and another event. I still argue that those worlds, each of them, are vastly positive. This is the world, though; it doesn’t come in neat little packages.

I could run the list from almost A to Z. In Canada, I’ve seen this in journalism. There’s much talk about Cancel Culture as a capitalized abstraction. It’s natural in some sense: People get cancelled across communities; and unreal in another: Folks come back more often than complete reputation obliteration. People have career consequences, but not cancellation in the sense of permanence.

It’s more like Public Penalty Culture. Neither political — left or right — nor socioeconomic. Guess what? That’s not new. There have always been different social and political consequences for freedom of expression. These aren’t philosophical orientations seen with cancel culture.

It’s a tactic. Hence, why do we see intimidation against more left-oriented journalists like Amber Bracken or intimidation against more conservative journalists like Lindsay Shepherd? We’ll continue to see this similarly in how victim as an identity is seen too: It’s practical and comes with rewards. It’s here to stay.

Now, typically, the scandals in Langley, British Columbia, revolve around the Evangelical Christian community, not because of their size in the general population, barely half, but because of their political motivations and misbehaving in the midst of it.

In addition, their central university, Trinity Western University, is the largest private Christian university in the country. That’s an achievement and a testament to the brilliant organizational somewhat growth-oriented leadership of Neil Snider over decades.

It’s scandals at the times when Trinity Western University does something sociopolitical with their religion or something discriminatory because of their religious tenets, as they publicly flout them, leading to, in fact, prejudice. It’s a softball journalistic project because they tend to embarrass themselves and ruin their reputation without external intervention.

Some examples: rather than help a student who attempted suicide, they expelled her, a 51-year-old guard on campus was charged with manslaughter, queer students publicly speak about homophobia on campus, and their longest-standing university president Neil Snider (the longest in Canadian history of any university public or private) resigned after a sexual harassment scandal (where it was rescinded after an apology, happily).

Of course, they lost a court case up to the Supreme Court of Canada to (not) win an Evangelical Christian law school based on a Community Covenant everyone — staff, faculty, administration, and students — had to sign mandatorily. It was found a concern to prevent discrimination against gay and lesbian students. After the embarrassment, they dropped the Covenant, but only for students. That’s just the start.

What’s the solution, more Bible study and prayer? Of course not; those don’t work. If they did, those issues wouldn’t arise. Unless God is testing their faith, the tricky bastard. So, scandals aren’t new here or in other reportage for me. And I could ramble for a much longer article, but that suffices.

Within equine sport and industry, there is a history of abuse of horses, mistreatment of staff, sexual misconduct, grooming of mostly girls and some boys, involvement in sex trafficking — see Clare Bronfman and Sara Bronfman of NXIVM, use of illegal and cheap labour — mostly Latino men, financially bad dealings, fraud in medical documentation, doping, drug and alcohol misuse among staff and riders, und so weiter. There is a minor conspiracy of silence because there is a community for the sport. Cui bono?

Many play a role and have a livelihood built upon it. At the same time, people need to put food on the table and have a roof over their heads, and staff shortages and employee retention are significant issues across the industry. In British Columbia, the industry is shrinking rapidly.

According to the 2019 “Equine Industry Economic Impact Study,” the “Total Economic Impact” in 2009 in British Columbia was $879 million and $784 million in 2019. That’s a 10.81% reduction in Total Economic Impact in British Columbia over a decade. The issues function relationally, and intergenerationally.

Both the mostly white/Euro-Canadian girls coming into work can be poor workers and flakes as a difficulty for employers, and the pay and working conditions aren’t necessarily excellent in a period of significant inflation of the prices of goods, services, and housing for the workers. In 25 months or so at the current job, I’ve seen 20 or so employees come and go – 19 white girls and 1 older heavily drinking man; and it’s a small operation. Men aren’t attracted to work in the industry.

The issues for workers in the horse industry are multitude. Most are poor. Education ranges from grade 9 to grade 12, for the most part. They do not receive overtime, double time, dental care, medical care, or any form of healthcare (unless salaried, which is rare). 

The wage caps out relatively quickly in the industry. The working conditions are difficult, manual labour with no real lunch breaks. This is their reality. The main future sits with education and technical skills in a knowledge economy, which means the shrinking horse industry, in British Columbia, as an example, becomes a luxury item. 

Clients tend to be professional types, have grade 12 to Ph.D. education, for the most part, e.g., business owners, lawyers, or dual-income homes funding their kids. There is a definitely a distinction in higher-end barns between staff and clientele. These appear to be statistical trends, neither stereotypes nor images.

It’s hard for everyone, significantly as the industry may be shrinking for many while costs increase for everybody: lease costs, hay costs, grain costs, horse purchasing prices, tack costs, board and lesson costs, farrier costs, veterinarian costs, and even manure pickup, shavings dropoff, and machinery maintenance.

Regardless, people love their horses. I have no doubt many would bankrupt themselves for the love of their horse. It’s a deep, abiding passion. I have to respect that. At the same time, in my first week of work, I was threatened by a female colleague. “I got the last guy fired. So, don’t get on my bad side.”

When I got my first back injury and called my GP to leave work at lunch, I was stopped. A woman colleague said, “Maybe it’s your work ethic! Maybe it’s how your mother raised you!” They tried to threaten me into not leaving based on what became a legitimate WCB claim, in front of a catatonic management, apparently. The second WCB claim management attempted to blame this on me subtly insinuating that a prior back injury must have existed. Nope, only here.

I’ve had a colleague stalk me to old colleagues/friends at old restaurant jobs. I’ve been asked for 3 months notice, not if leaving the job but, if changing continuous work hours in any way: Good labour is hard to find – let alone replace. I offered 2 to 7 months out of generosity and honouring commitments here, while awaiting new job changes. In Canada, 2 weeks is considered the norm. 

The long-term staff drive away new staff with this behaviour. Interestingly, I’ve only seen this abusive behaviour by women, and rarely towards other women on site. So, there is a sexist undercurrent explaining why so few men take part in the sport here. Women abuse too, and excuse the abuse when in the presence of other women. 

They can exhibit kindness in giving a place to rent on site when it is needed, as was the case with me. However, when push comes to financial shove, it can become a tool. Where, I wanted to reduce hours still to full-time rather than double full-time or more. They threatened to take the apartment away because they falsely claimed the hours would be below full-time. A lesson to any working student: Do not trust verbal contracts and always get things in writing from owner-operators because the cards are largely stacked in their favour. You cannot rely on individual good will and whim.

When WCB came to the worksite, both the stable manager and employer encouraged not speaking to them when they tried to speak to me, which is to state: Employers encourage lying or silence by staff to the Workers’ Compensation Board.

We have to be aware of abuses of staff on site, even if they’re deemed a dominant group. The racism isn’t seen in the labour as much in Canada. It’s more, by others’ accounts, exploitation of working students, which is to say: mostly young women and girls. However, I have had eyebrow raising statements said only by young women in front of me about Mexicans.

• “They know how to do everything.  And they’re so cheap.”
• “Sometimes, I wish we could hire only Mexicans. They’d do what they’re told and with a smile.”
• “Scott, you’re our Mexican!”

Thus in a Canadian context, the exploitation of labour happens to young women often white; while in America, it’s men and Latino men in particular. The racism comes in less than 10% of people, often younger women, but only in occasional phraseology, not in law, work, or anything formal as a barrier. That’s a sign of progress in Canada and a compliment to the horse culture in Canada because the race issue isn’t legal discriminations. It’s occasional attitudes. America appears to have a different context with a contiguous border with Mexico.

The industry has some toxicity and legality issues. These may want to be investigated more thoroughly for the health and wellbeing of workers and compliance with the law. Maybe, Latino workers could form a union to protect themselves from exploitation in the States. As with any sport, there is a competitive streak. I’m told things are better than they’ve ever been. However, I have seen numerous young women undermine each other to get ahead on the job site.

There are plenty of cases like the above.

It’s a mostly white women’s industry now. They act as men did in different areas when men were dominant. Which is an argument for egalitarianism, gender balance breeds healthy relations; neither men nor women hold monopoly on generic virtue, and only on styles of virtue and vice.

Simultaneously, and the important compliment to individuals working in this struggling industry, those same people will offer consolation, lowered rent on site, some of their lunch, and help with barn chores on hard days. They’re just people, but individuals coming into a job with minimal candidate screening because the industry needs workers.

People can give all of themselves in their shifts, while, as rural whites, for the most part, their livelihoods, family legacies, and life paths into the present are neither exceptionally good nor promising of a hopeful future, typically. These actions reflect a stressed blue-collar, working-class cohort of rural, mostly Euro-Canadians in the Township of Langley.

Equine sport has scandals in them, too. As recently as a few days ago, as of the time of writing this article, there was another update on the Eric Lamaze lawsuits over wrong horse deals with some resolution for $1.39 million. Lamaze is Canada’s most decorated show jumper.

Our only individual Olympic gold medallist in show jumping who has been having a rough go of it — defender or not — over the last couple of years. By analyzing some of the records, an outstanding equestrian show jumper and a bad person.

As it happens, that’s been during my time in this industry, which is to say: I started on October 1st, 2021. It’s not cosmic, but luck to write on this industry, at this time. For the original reason, I also chose this industry and sport because Langley is titled the “Horse Capital of British Columbia.”

Rather than go out into the international scene again, I chose a local context for a small side project. I was getting some appreciation for opening the conversation in the community for some minor work with interviews. So, thank you for that.

The next topic I might get less love for is SafeSport cases. I first brought this up in an interview with local Township of Langley hero LJ Tidball of Thunderbird Show Stables, who has been an accomplished rider and trainer for decades. Another who I interviewed earlier but published later — like 8 or 9 months late (sorry, Beth!) — was Beth Underhill, an accomplished and great Canadian show jumper. Canada produces exceptional women show jumpers: Erynn Ballard, Beth Underhill, Amy Millar, Tiffany Foster, and others.

This is to say, I was informed of the issue in conversations with all sorts of equestrians, then raised the issue lightly with Underhill, formally with Tidball, published them in reverse order, and now, with a systematic presentation of SafeSport in the upcoming articles. And articles more than interviews now, as I focused mostly on interviews, previously.

One horse person told me that writing on the horse industry and sport is “dangerous.” So, I am, anyway. The series of articles to follow will cover SafeSport and SafeSport cases. The United States Equestrian Federation has an easily accessible database, which will be the basis for the first set of articles. The categories for the United States Equestrian Federation are Banned[1], Interim[2], Suspensions[3], and Restrictions[4]. Those will be covered in that order for these individuals; dead individuals on the list are removed after 90 days.

Simply look at the general gender connection to most names; typically, a face-value assumption is that most of the offenders are men with some women. So, it’s not a black or white phenomenon, but the scales are weighed towards more men given one of the four statuses by the USEF.

Naturally, more details will follow as the cases are examined with whatever resources are available in public news or reportage. To have them in one place will be an exciting new archival work. For ease of segmentation, the coverage will be four articles with Banned, Interim, Suspensions, and Restrictions on this mini-project.

–

[1] In Banned status, we find Kenneth Acebal, George Aguel, Mickey Bason, Gabriel Elluomini, Zoubair Bennani, Sam Berry, Clare Bronfman, Harrison Brown, Ruben Camacho, Jeff Campff, Randall Cates, Amanda Devore, Barry Duncan, Juan Gamboa, James Giorgio, Phil Godsey, Robert Hedin, John Lindstedt, Barry Lobel, David Loman, Douglas Masters, Steve Milne, John Monetti, George Morris, Tom Navarro, Adrienne Raymond, Greg Reason, Joseph Silva, Mitchell Steege, Chan Sutton, Donald Ulmer, Gordon “Cappy” Wheeler, and Charlie White.

[2] In Interim status are Michael Barisone, Chris Bearden, Blake Gardiner, Chip Marshall, Russell Matthews, Aaron K. Rhea, Michael Occaforte, Derek Strine, and Geoffrey Woolson.

[3] In Suspension status, we have Jerry Aguilar, Francis Berger, Richard Berger, Richard R. Fellers, Shelley Fellers, Phillip Fountain, Richard Galarza, Dylan Harries, Tom Harvey, Christian Heineking, Thomas Keogh, Alex Lawler, Erik Lee, Chuck Maslin, Diane Masters, Nicanor Miranda, Paul Polster, Nicole Reason, Vick Russell, Antonio Sanchez, Michael Sisul, Michael Traurig, and Arie Van Der Heiden.

[4] In Restriction status, we get James Prettyman, William Tate, Jr., John Manning, Brian Gruber, Manuel Torres, Henry Pfeiffer, Winsford Taylor, and Caroline Van Der Merwe.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/25

Nuns, nothing but the purity of virginal self-sacrifice for their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, unburdened by the allegations ubiquitous over decades about the priest class within the Roman Catholic Church — until now.

The Roman Catholic Church has been facing profound sexual scandals by those deemed the intellectual and ceremonial protectors of the Faith, the priest class. Unfortunately, as we’re seeing, there’s tremendous publicity about this intellectual and ceremonial status, and then the reality, unfortunately. I wouldn’t claim to be a moral exemplar or, necessarily, want to be one. It’s disingenuous. I, like most of you, am just a Canadian citizen with concerns.

It is important, however, to point to systems of power, often unquestioned, and wealth and ask critical questions or simply speak the truth for an accuracy in the historical record. The Roman Catholic Church was a co-arm of the Government of Canada in oppression of the Indigenous. Not only those, but the young in general too, I do not mean ideologically alone. This goes without statement.

In 2004, a commission from that time found over 4,000 priests faced accusations of the sexual abuse of youth in the last 5 decades, at that time. The story is more complicated. For one, some of those accusations will be false, either in actuality or degree of reality.

Now, the Roman Catholic Church has been declining in Canadian society for decades. The most precipitous decline has been between 2001 and 2021 based on solid census data, Statistics Canada. The data was 12,793,125 Roman Catholics in 2001 at 43.2% of the population and then 10,799,070 at 29.9%. So, in both absolute numbers and in percent of the population, the Roman Catholic Church is dying off.

How will this affect public policy, politics, and so on? The moral stature of the Roman Catholic Church has been devastated internationally with the effects of these crimes coming to light, which were deliberately withheld from the Catholic laity and from the public. To me, in some sense, that’s neither good nor bad, but the truth needs speaking.

It goes to an old Carl Sagan point: Where does this leave us (cosmically and) in Canada? It means simply this: we’re on our own. For any justice and moral developments, it sits with us. And yet, those news items continue to hit the public. Naturally, those declines in the total number of Catholics in Canada have a corresponding problem with acquisition of a new class of nuns.

There were 47,000 nuns in Quebec alone in 1961. That declined to less than 6,000 by 2018. There are some false triumphs in small reportage, e.g., about ‘radical’ new young nuns joining the ranks.

Marlena Loughheed, a spokesperson for the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, for an article by Sebastian Leck in 2017 said becoming a nun has an attraction of experiencing faith in a way that is “real and that’s robust” for younger women. But again, this is opining, mush. We have to be realistic. The reality: Massive religious absolute numbers decline and intellectual class decline.

So, this brings us to the original stipulation at the top of the article, i.e., the image of nuns. Not only is this class of women declining precipitously over decades, they have encountered a few potshots in the media.

As Molly Hayes in The Globe and Mail noted, “A 97-year-old nun has been criminally charged in a historical sexual-assault case connected to a notorious residential school in Northern Ontario.” No one should be above the law.

Tyler Griffin in the Toronto Star described the arrest and charge of the 97-year-old nun going back decades. To be clear, the nun was charged, Francoise Seguin of Ottawa.

“The incidents are alleged to have taken place in the 1960s and 70s at St. Anne’s residential school in Fort Albany First Nation and Bishop Belleau school in Moosonee, Ont., as well as a detention facility in Sudbury, Ont., said OPP spokesperson Bill Dickson,” Griffin said.

The nun is supposed to be in Moosonee on December 5 for court. Seguin is not a one-off either.

Brett Forester reported how several Canadian nuns have been getting similar stories coming out about them. To be clear, secular people don’t like these stories. There may be flippant jokes around hypocrisy, which is grounded in the truth; an institution proclaiming high moral ground, all the while oppressing and committing crimes then trying to hide the facts.

The fact of the matter for secular people: There shouldn’t have to be these events in the first place. Churches could be moral exemplars, could be institutions representative of a philosophy of love and forgiveness, of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Yet, it’s not there.

It takes dissidents like Rev. Gretta Vosper to drag the churches into the 21st century. For her, it is the United Church of Canada. For the Catholic Church, who is it? Is it Tammy Peterson? She seems like a nice lady, smart person, but her approach is different than what is necessary.

The Roman Catholic Church continues to shrink, and will continue its declines reflective of its moral decline, because of the simple fact: Moral degeneration within its ranks over decades from the founding of the country and failure to account for crimes.

Regular Canadians are not stupid; they’re just busy with getting by the days of the week at work and at home. They know this. They know people who have been affected or know of people who have been affected by the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church in the country.

The question remains: In spite of the inevitable decline of the Roman Catholic Church and most Christian denominations in Canada, as the Christian population will likely be less than half of the population somewhere in 2024, maybe 2025, what will be the morally uplifting response of the older generations of Christians for newer generations of Christians within the multicultural, multiethnic, and multireligious country everyone cherishes Canada for — and the international community of Member States of the United Nations knows Canada as now?

As a non-religious person, I have hope in the moral renewal of the Roman Catholic Church in Canadian society. Proper accounting for crimes of some priests and nuns against individuals and the Church against Indigenous peoples can be the first major, practical step in doing so.

Canada deserves better; the victims deserve better; Catholic hierarchs deserve better; and, most importantly, the laity of the Roman Catholic Church deserve better.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/24

Nicole Shasha is a humanist from Britain, a wedding and funeral celebrant whom I met at the World Congress and General Assembly – 2023 – of Humanists International in Copenhagen, Denmark, earlier this year. She agreed to an interview, hooray! Here’s the result. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay, so, today, we are with a lady British humanist, Nicole Shasha, who I met in Copenhagen. I asked if we could interview being a lady humanist, as a lady, in Britain, as a humanist. 

Nicole Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: So, how did you come to Humanism? Was there a family background, or did you discover this as you grew up?

Shasha: So, particularly, in calling in Humanism, my family background was two different religions. My dad was Jewish. My mom was Christian. But they, in a quite liberal-minded fashion, decided to raise me and my sister by telling us about religion but not pushing us in any way. When I was about 12, I received, like many people of my age, I think, I stumbled across Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and became an atheist. I was always living humanist principles. I’d say 2020. It made me think about things coming across Humanism. I thought, “Oh, this is everything I love and everything I have lived since I was a theist with rationality, science, and empathy.” It was really, really cool for me. That’s how I found Humanism. I was looking for something to get involved as well. I became a big humanist and advocate.

Jacobsen: What kind of advocacy have you done? What kind of activism have you done?

Shasha: My main thing I have been doing and still do. Along with AJ, whom I believe you have already interviewed, we are the youth coordinators for the UK and part of the Humanists UK youth society. We’re Young Humanists UK, which is the name of our branch of Humanists UK. In the UK, one of our issues is the members tend to skew a bit older. There’s nothing wrong with being older. But you need younger people to represent a wider array of generations. They will be the future of Humanism. That is something AJ and I have been trying to connect with youth and youth Humanism, which they definitely do. For instance, something a lot of young people care about now is the environment. That’s a bit part of rational thought, and climate change is happening, so we should get on board with that. I am also a humanist school speaker, which is something we have here in the UK. I get invited to schools, usually primary, just by coincidence, and tell them about Humanism in the religious education curriculum. Now, the law in the UK is that non-religious viewpoints have to be taught alongside religious ones.

Jacobsen: That’s fantastic.

Shasha: I’m also, and this is the last point, a humanist celebrant. The biggest part of my advocacy. I am trained in funerals and weddings. I lead personalized ceremonies with humanists for people marrying or dying.

Jacobsen: How does one become a humanist celebrant? In Copenhagen, a big aspect of workshops and discussions was the popularity of celebrations of life and being a celebrant, and even a chaplain in the military, for Humanism. How does one become engaged, educated, and certified for that kind of advocacy?

Shasha: In the UK, it is quite a big thing we’ve got going on. I’m not quite sure how long we’ve been running it. It was a huge part of Humanists UK, which was, in the past, the British Humanist Association when it was founded 127 years ago when it was providing funerals at a time when they were primarily Christian. You can apply through Humanists UK and train through there. There are people who have been doing it for a long time and have a wealth of experience. I find it really, really meaningful and incredible. When we were in Copenhagen, there were people who wanted to be chaplains from different countries, and their organizations hadn’t got that yet. Humanism can, sometimes, get bogged down in overintellectualism, which is something I am guilty of. The real reason and the real meaning of why we are doing this and why it is important to people’s daily lives is important.

Jacobsen: What do you think could bring humanist discourse down to Earth?

Shasha: That is a really good question. I think there is nothing wrong with our lofty intellectualism on occasion. I think it is a good part of being a humanist to be thoughtful about things. I think making sure, as organizations and members of organizations, not everyone is interested in that. Even if they have what they call a humanist outlook, just being aware, ultimately, if we can get people to resonate with us, it is because we delivered humanist views at a wedding. I think that’s a really big part. Something I’ve been doing recently. I’ve been making a local community branch in a city called Leicester. We didn’t have a humanist group before. One thing that we’re trying to do is that a lot of people have lost a lot of community ties with the loss of religion. I think that’s a great shame. Focusing on community things and social elements and not having to discuss a book or philosophy or anything, tapping into people, and having friends and community and things. I try to focus on that as well.

Jacobsen: When I was on another career path outside of independent journalism, I was in three psychology labs. I was doing quite well and had all these plans. I was struck by other things and realized talents, proclivities, and interests were in another place. So, one thing those psychology labs did was have pub nights and game nights, not as a central piece, but as an item to bring everyone together. We would have our individual research projects. We’d have staff meetings for individual labs to talk about the research and get everyone on the same page about what is going on, and also introduce new members and say “Goodbye” to individuals heading off to graduate school, etc. Another item was those pub nights and game nights. A lot of people showed up to those. In fact, a lot of faculty showed up. That’s not psychology. That’s not research. But it’s an important part of bringing everything down to the ground. We ended up discussing very interesting abstract problems in the philosophy of psychology. Things like that. To your point, it’s a similar point to bringing humanists to the ground, just doing fun things together. I am aware Young Humanists International does game nights and so on. I think that’s a fantastic thing. Do the youth in Humanists UK do much the same things, especially since they’re much closer to the international group than the Philippines, Nigeria, Canada, and so on?

Shasha: Absolutely, we are, comparatively, a much closer country. Because of that, we are used to not travelling so much. But yes, because we’re not as able to do that as much as a local group, obviously, gathering everyone from around the country in one place like London. People who are outside or very far away from London are excluded. We have done that, particularly when it was a big national Humanists UK event. There was always a lecture on Darwin Day, Darwin’s birthday. Something of interest to humanists. Then there are young humanists’ socials afterwards. Absolutely, the convivial nature of having a community and hanging out and having a drink is so wonderful. In Copenhagen, we all had a great time.

Jacobsen: It was really fabulous. 

Shasha: It was really instructive. Yes, it was lovely. We weren’t just connecting over the lectures. It was being in the pubs and hanging out.

Jacobsen: One thing that comes to mind is Kacem Al Ghazzali. I was aware of him. I didn’t know him. He wasn’t even aware of me. [Laughing]

Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: So, we met at one of the pubs near the pier, I guess. It was some intense conversation about Islam and ex-Muslims, yada-yada-yada. There was a tinge of aggression. By the end of the night, we went partying. Ahmed Elbukhari was there. Ana Raquel Aquino Smith was there. Adrian Nunez was there. So, it was a Libyan, a Moroccan, a Canadian, a Peruvian, and a Brazilian going to a Latin dance club. 

Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: 4:30 in the morning, we were at some pub or other. It was the two of us. It was the last time and last place that was open in Copenhagen at that time. I believe it was a Sunday. [Laughing] By the end of it, we are in the elevator. I remember we had drunk a bit. I believe he had drunk more than me. At the end of it, he says, “Scott… I love you,” as the elevator doors shut. Those are the memories that sustain you in Singapore throughout the year. That is a memory that will definitely stick with me in meeting this person. We had a very intense conversation. Then, at the end of it, “I love you.” Those are really the bread-and-butter of a humanist life because we’re not referring to some blessing from a deity. We’re just enjoying the company of people with very different backgrounds and very different experiences.

Shasha: That’s exactly it. The fact that we’re all trying to enjoy the one life that we have. Something that I felt lucky to be involved in the international humanist community. You meet people from backgrounds of countries that I wouldn’t have otherwise: hearing about their lives, their backgrounds, whether Humanism in their countries or what their life is like. I am extremely lucky to continue to be privy to that with Humanists International. It’s those minutiae of this funny thing that happened to us. We can talk about all the grand things that we do, and they’re important. It is the little details that you remember.

Jacobsen: I grew up in a community of old women. I was raised by some old women in part. So, to me, the small little things, a new song that you really enjoy, an owl flying into your garden [Ed. actual case]. Things like that. Those make my life. I care about the big things, too. The majority of my life is around the small, thoughtful things that you happen to enjoy. What about the youth branch of Humanists UK in terms of projects that it is doing for its youth members? Are there particular things that are exciting coming and should be focused on this year or coming into next year?

Shasha: AJ and I have some things that we’re probably not ready to announce just yet, but a lot of what we’re doing is making sure our youth members are connected with the wider Humanists UK campaigns at the moment. So, for example, this weekend, AJ and I and a team of volunteers of our young humanists members have a stall at the New Scientist. They have a new show. People who are interested in science are often humanists. We are doing outreach there to get people interested in Humanism. When we describe it, people go, “Oh, I already believed that.” It is having people look at the local group to become involved, how to become a celebrant, or simply being abreast of all the young humanist things. Having spoken to some young people who turn up to the local group, it is full of people who are very old, then people might think, “This isn’t for me.” So, we work to keep people involved and in the thread of humanist thought and what people are doing.

Jacobsen: To the original topic outside of tangents, what is it like being a humanist woman in Britain? Not making you a spokesperson for all women or British humanists [Laughing].

Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: But in terms of individual experience, is there a different character to the experience in the country that has a large humanist and non-religious population, or is Christianity a large minority but not even close to a majority anymore?

Shasha: Absolutely, it is very far off. In the latest census, the majority of people say they have no religion. As a humanist and a woman, it is interesting. I’ll tackle the humanist part first. While most people are non-religious, and even people who end up having a spiritual belief are against organized religion, I think having a humanist outlook on some people is quite odd. I wouldn’t say it’s any prejudice or something like that. I know that in some countries, announcing yourself as an atheist can be quite dangerous. It’s not that. There are loads of people who end up believing superstitious things, conspiracy things, or even magical thinking. I like being, particularly as a young woman, a voice of reason and science to all things. To other people who might go to the religious side, they might think there are fairies in my garden or something. I try to get them to question that belief slightly. To be a woman humanist, I don’t think someone who is a sexist wouldn’t be a good humanist. I find that gender equality is very good. I think there is a perception among outsiders that it is a male-dominated thing. Things like science and rationality should be, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think there have been many cases of British humanist women throughout history who have done amazing things in carrying us forward.

Jacobsen: Would you say this is a relatively common experience and perspective among peer women? 

Shasha: I think no. I think I have most of the humanists I have worked with. I’ve never had a question with them about being a humanist woman rather than being a humanist. I suppose that’s a good thing if we do not really have to think about it.

Jacobsen: That’s a great thing if it doesn’t come up. If it was a problem, people, humanists, especially those who believe in freedom of expression, would talk about it. If it is not coming up, it is not a priority issue. Even though, for some, it may be an issue. Although, in your experience, it appears to be a non-issue.

Shasha: Absolutely, the stereotype of women is about caring and compassion. That’s a stereotype that has worked in my favour in things like the ceremonies that I do for people who are grieved. I think that is one of the sections within Humanists UK that is female-dominated as opposed to male. But yes, absolutely, we can live normally day-to-day; it’s a wonderful thing. We’re lucky for that.

Jacobsen: What do you notice in a young cohort, even, say 5-10 years, of women in Britain coming forward because they’ve experienced an even lessened influence of Christianity in their cultural experience?

Shasha: Absolutely, even when I was coming up, there was very little religious influence. I didn’t have to even believe in a religion. Among my peers, even at university, there were so few people who were truly religious. There might be some people who call themselves Christian. But they weren’t, really. They never went to church. They were it in name. Now, it’s even less. What I like about young humanists is that we get more apostates. But there tend to be very few Christian apostates. They tend to be the individuals who come from communities that are more religious in this country. As they become second and third-generation here, they still have to get a bit more connection from that when they realize that they don’t believe anymore. I think that’s important as a reason for Humanists UK’s existence. While Christianity is no longer the dominating religion, there are other ones that we need to support the people who struggle to leave.

Jacobsen: To quote Jerry Seinfeld for my last question…

Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: … “The female brain is one of the most competent and capable organs in all of the biological universe.” #girlpower…

Shasha: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: As we can see internationally in statistics, we can see this in reliable sources. The educated majority of the upcoming generations and our current cohort are women, in general, especially in developed countries. The majority of the workforce in some of these countries is increasingly becoming women, especially in key or core intellectual enterprises and areas of society: law, medicine, politics, and so on. How do you see a humanist outlook as incorporating this emancipatory progression that has been happening for centuries, arguably, or, at least, a century and a bit for women and the changing ideas of gender norms in those contexts? How does Humanism provide a healthy fit for this contemporary egalitarian society?

Shasha: I think that’s a really interesting question. I’d say Humanism, of course, has been human-focused, and the idea women and men are fundamentally equal and should be treated equally is a longstanding idea. The humanist outlook is a way to think about these things. Only through dialogue can you deconstruct the latent sexism that some people might be thinking. I have some coworkers in a previous job of mine, a non-humanist job. We had to drive a lot around in it. They were constantly saying, “Women are driving and always crashing.” All those stupid sexist jokes. This is a bit lame. Only through humanist discussion of trying to connect, “Why do you think it’s okay to make these jokes? You don’t think it’s harmful. But fundamentally, you have some beliefs about women that you haven’t looked at.” Connecting to people who may have some hangover from that, also celebrating what we have achieved with humans in so few generations. The fact is that women can do any job that they want and will not be held back by their gender. Most people agree with that. I think that there’s lots of humanist and rational thought to thank for that.

Jacobsen: Nicole, thank you very much for your time today to talk about a little bit of a niche humanist topic of being a lady British humanist. 

Shasha: You’re very welcome. Thank you very much for having me.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/23

A little late on the eight-ball here. However, there’s been a positive development in secular history in Canadian society with the introduction of the first humanist chaplain to the Canadian Armed Forces.

On May 18, 2022, Captain Marie-Claire Khadij was appointed the first humanist chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces. That’s a landmark, because, as I recall, I wrote on an atheist chaplain attempting to become an official position in the United States Armes Forces: Jason Heap who is a doctor in theological history.

Heap failed twice in their initiative and sued both times. I do not think the second lawsuit went well or with the original intention either. Now, that is instructive. This can be an educational moment for Canada in how to make secular progress and for the United States in how to get humanist chaplains into the military. If religious ones respecting equality in Canada are allowed, then non-religious chaplains should be allowed too.

The Government of Canada press release stated, “Captain Khadij — currently posted with the Canadian Army’s 2ndCanadian Division at CFB Valcartier, Que. — entered the CAF as a chaplain in 2017, initially representing the Roman Catholic faith tradition. Over time, she found that humanism is more aligned with her values. She views spirituality as a search for meaning in life, which some do through religion while others, like herself, seek meaning through humanist values or secular ethics.”

That’s a fair statement. I’m not precisely surprised, but I am happy. The only basis in a multicultural, multiethnic society with a plurality of faiths is equal representation or equal non-representation.

The Canadian Armed Forces’ Royal Canadian Chaplain Service (RCChS) found the core values and beliefs of Humanism, humanist chaplaincy, consistent with its core tenets. Therefore, Captain Khadij was able to move forward with this development.

For such a pluralistic society and largely non-religious society with matched liberalized religiosity if present, Khadij won’t be enough in the Canadian Armed Forces to do this enough. There is a larger need for the provision of non-religious chaplains.

Khadij in the press release said, “The majority of members come simply to speak with us and get support. Most members know that the religious or spiritual tradition of the chaplain does not change the kind of service they receive. Regardless of the chaplain, each member is welcomed, listened to and supported on their journey. And if they have specific faith questions, they can be referred to a chaplain of that specific tradition.”

Humanist Canada played a major role in getting Captain Khadij into the role. That’s a win for humanists throughout Canada. What does this mean for the likes of Heap, for individuals who want to serve in that role while lacking the support?

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/21

Takudzwa Mazwienduna is a member of Young Humanists Zimbabwe. Here he talks about Young Humanists Zimbabwe.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We did an extensive series of short-form interviews on Zimbabwean humanist culture and secular issues. Something like 33 of them. It was a lot. We did this for Canadian Atheist. The publication seems to have fizzled out, at the moment, in June of 2022. It’s happening all over the media landscape, even Jezebel shut down in the last 24-48 hours, I think [Ed. November 10, 2023]. It was a major feminist publication that grew for 16 years. It happens. Finance is the issue; the transition from print to online is the issue behind finance, and finance is the issue behind firings, publication closings, and reduction in staff. Journalism is a business and a moral duty. So, finance inevitably impacts most without finance or capability to self-sustain financially if moral duty trumps finance. Also, people read differently now with new media technology. With that series ended, I reached out to restart on a new platform with a wider remit, The Good Men Project. They’re left-wing. I am left-wing on some subject matters – centrist and conservative on others, so I see a positive relationship in those left-wing areas for working. That seems fair to me. So, first question, what’s new, personally?

Takudzwa Mazwienduna: How have you been Scott? I left South Africa when the COVID19 pandemic hit, went back home to Zimbabwe for a while, managed to finish compiling my first book “A Vehicle For Progress” and self published in 2021. I left Zimbabwe for the Philippines in 2022, and in between my remote work schedule, I am writing a new book, my first fictional one. It explores the moral decay that characterizes religion in Africa today. 

Jacobsen: Professionally, what’s new?

Mazwienduna: My girlfriend and I co founded a startup in the State of Florida in the USA. We operate it remotely, as we live more permanently in Montenegro as digital nomads. I love that it gives me the financial freedom to make time for my book writing.  

Jacobsen: What is the status of the Zimbabwean Secular Alliance?

Mazwienduna: We finally formalized to become Young Humanists Zimbabwe. We currently have a podcast and blog website that explore secular and humanist issues in Zimbabwe. 

Jacobsen: What is the state of the Humanist Society of Zimbabwe?

Mazwienduna: We have all united to become Young Humanists Zimbabwe.

Jacobsen: What political conflicts have been an issue in 2023 for Zimbabwean secularists?

Mazwienduna: There haven’t been any significant conflicts, cooperation rather has been the order of the day. 

Jacobsen: What have been inflection points in Zimbabwean popular culture, media, social life in 2023?

Mazwienduna: Zimbabwe is catching up with a globalizing world, and this is mostly reflected in the music and art which is something of a renaissance at the moment. It is chaotic and exciting at the same time. It is also a ripe opportunity for new ideas to make it to the mainstream, and Young Humanists Zimbabwe plans to influence the emerging culture with progressive ideals.

Jacobsen: What are the edges of secular combat for equality in Zimbabwe now?

Mazwienduna: There are many concerns about secularism to do with both the Zimbabwean government and its opposition, but Zimbabwean politics have been very dysfunctional for a while, it’s a lot like the Wild West used to be in the 1800s, there is no law and order and the government’s position on something like secularism is not consequential or significant. Most Zimbabweans are leaving for the UK and Ireland because there are no economic opportunities. 

Jacobsen: We’ll continue in the next session. Thank you, Takudzwa. 

Mazwienduna: Thank you Scott!

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/22

There’s a sense in which human rights advocacy can be graded by degrees. Some can be informative. Others, advocacy from afar in articles, interviews, donations, professional work. Still more, they can be people in collectives working for dignity and equality. Even more, others can be awardees and/or lightning rods of edges of human rights advocacy. One of those people is Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. She has fought for equality and dignity of women in Iran. She has been convicted 5 times, arrested 13 times, sentenced to 31 years in prison plus 154 lashes. Currently, she is in prison.

Since the Islamic regime took power in Iran in 1979, people have protested against the brutality and oppression of the Iranian morality police and the theocratic system. There can be inflection points. One was the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini in September, 2022.

Amini’s murder unleashed the largest political demonstrations since 1979.

20,000 protestors were arrested, thousands were injured, and 500 protestors were killed. Demonstrators created the slogan “Zan — Zendegi — Azadi” meaning “Woman — Life — Freedom.”

Mohammadi has a history in work for gender equality. As a physics student in the 1990s, she wrote for reformation oriented publications as a columnist. She has been involved with the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Tehran, which was founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Mohammadi’s arrests started in 2011 for helping activists who had been jailed. She then fought against the death penalty. She was re-arrested in 2015 for fighting against the death penalty.

Once in prison, she began fighting against the sexualized violence and use of torture against political prisoners in Iranian prisons. In protests in Evin prison, in Tehran, Mohammadi assumed leadership of protests, expressing solidarity with inmates.

Even with strict impositions on communications, she got an article out, which went to the New York Times. It was published on the 1-year anniversary of Amini. The central theme has been, while in prison; if more of these political prisoners are inmates, then the more powerful they become.

More recently, she has engaged in a hunger strike. The reason: The prison guards would not take her to the hospital; unless, she wore a headscarf. She and seven other prisoners — those other prisoners out of solidarity — refused to wear the headscarf.

The concern is Mohammadi has a heart condition; the reason for the need to visit the medical professionals. Even still, her fight continues. As with most of these people, the fights would continue with or without the awards.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/20

*Interview conducted October 16, 2023.*

Mr. Moh is the Communications Director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana. Here he discusses LGBTI rights in Ghana. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, today, we are here with Mr. Moh. He was giving a presentation at the Copenhagen World Congress and General Assembly for Humanists International. He is highly involved with queer issues in Ghana. This is a recommendation of Roslyn Mould, Vice President of Humanists International and the Founder of Accra Atheists. So, I think the first question is: How did we miss each other at Copenhagen?

Mr. Moh: It’s possible because I wasn’t there for that long. Copenhagen came to me very impromptu. I had to prepare things and figure it out because I had other things to do, because I was covering for a colleague of mine. He was supposed to go, but couldn’t. I didn’t spend much time at the conference. Maybe, that is how we missed each other. 

Jacobsen: If you were to pinpoint the number one issue right now in Ghana for the larger queer community, the LGBTI community, what is it?

Moh: Of course, it is going to be the recent bill, so-called recent because it was introduced 2 years ago. It is still the major issue confronting the queer community. Of course, it’s a very crazy bill. It’s been reported around the world as the most draconian bill against LBGTQ community at the time. Luckily for us, Uganda decided to go ahead of us and pass a much crazier bill. The bill is the biggest issue at the moment. That is the biggest issue confronting the queer community. 

Jacobsen: Within Uganda and Ghana, are these bills mainly being supported by conservative religious movements and communities?

Moh: Yes, definitely, there have been numerous reports that shows that these bills were not homegrown. They were not bills that our members of parliament decided to work on to introduce in our parliament. It was given to them. It was sent to them by these conservative groups. That is also because, for years – years; these conservative groups have been lobbying numerous African parliaments. In Ghana, for instance, in 2019, they partnered with a local organization to have a conference on the African family and all of that. That is when they actually even mentioned one of their main objectives was to introduce a bill to criminalize the queer community in Ghana at the time. Of course, at the time, we didn’t think that it was something that would materialize because we know how the political situation in the country is; however, it is a foreign influence. It has materialized. It is not entirely homegrown. It was imported and supported by far-right conservative groups in the United States.

Jacobsen: These would be hardline Catholics and Evangelical Christians, correct?

Moh: Mainly Evangelical Christians, because the report shows it was the World Congress of Families, they’re mostly Evangelicals. But then, the Catholics supported it because it was an alliance with their doctrines.

Jacobsen: Why did they target this particular issue, especially internationally toward Ghana in particular?

Moh: If you look at the history of Ghana, and how Ghana is positioned internationally and politically, you would see why Ghana is the main target to start this wave of homophobic bills in Africa. That is, in history, Ghana was the first country to actually gain independence. From that onwards, the then President Kwame Nkrumah was at the forefront to realize this Pan-Africanism, Pan-African dream. He was in touch with other freedom fighters in Africa and all of this. Ghana is seen as the pioneer of things. Politically, it is ripe. Whenever things happen in Ghana, it is very possible that is can happen in other African countries. Also, generally, Ghana is seen as liberal in the West African region. It is seen as the most peaceful country is Africa, the most peaceful place to have businesses and all of that. It is a very strategic political move to target Ghana to use this bill as a thing. However, of course, their bigger plan is not just to come for the LGBTQ community. They have their own plans, which are mostly conservative beliefs. Of course, it makes sense to target the LGBTQ community because that is a community that brings all of these different religious groups together to hate, because when you take Islam, for instance; it is against homosexuality. Christianity is against homosexuality. To some weird extent, the current practices of African religion are also believed to be against homosexuality. Even though, evidence shows that in the past; it wasn’t. You can see that it is an issue that they can come together to push. Outside of that, of course, they are working to fight against women’s rights, children’s rights. They are pushing for ‘parental rights.’ “Yes, we protecting our children. That is why we are against this bill.” It is something that has been thought through for it to happen. That would be my analysis of it. 

Jacobsen: Are most of these Evangelical groups in America Caucasian, Euro-American, or white communities?

Moh: White, very, very white. One of the persons in the forefront of this group is Sharon Slater. The name, of course, gives it away. She is very white. So, she has been present in almost all of the meetings that we are aware of; in Ghana, she was at the parliamnet lobbying. Her name appears in some of the meeting minutes. In Uganda, it is the same. Whenever there is a meeting for the Cngress of Families, she is there. She is in the forefront. You can see that mostly, whenever they’re meeting these African parliaments; they are the white ones. It is either her or the other white people, and in the African parliaments with the African parliamentarians. I haven’t seen any black person in the diaspora who is part of their team, yet. That I can say. But all that I have seen and the people there who have been ther eas part of the World Congress of Families have been white. 

Jacobsen: America has a lot of family issues. If taking on their perspective, the lack of fathers and the broken homes, and the highest number of single parent households, single moms and single dads, in the world in the United States. Why the focus on an African nation-state and its culture with a political-ideological move rather than its own borders?

Moh: I mean, it’s not like they’re not working there. They are also doing that. You are influenceful when Roe v Wade was overturned and other major laws wer e overturned in the United States. It has their fingerprint all over it. Of course, it is not limited to their place. However, when you look at it as why they are going to Africa, it has been a breeding place for Evangelical Christians for a long time. In every corner of Africa, you will see missionaries. These missionaries, church missionaries, doing differet projects and preaching. Africa is known for religious, strong religious, stance. So, of course, it would be an easy place to spread such hate. Of course, if you look at the situation happening in Africa, it’s a lot. It’s a lot, politically. For instance, there is a lot of hunger on the continent. So, Africa is always seen as this place that needs help; that needs foreign aid. That needs philanthropy. So, that is what we see. Of course, these things come with these philanthropic activities and all of that because they say they are bringing their Bible and Koran, saying, “This is the Good Word. We are helping you.” That would be the motive and idea behind it. It is not surprising that Africa is seeing this as well. Thanks to colonization, which laid the foundation for this, Africa didn’t really entirely move forward after colonization. The whole thing that happened during colonization. We didn’t get the chance or give ourselves a chance to reflect that, maybe, our culture has been changed through this. So, maybe, what kind of continent do we want? Who is to be included, excluded? We didn’t have that moment. It all comes together, politically, for this to happen. Because, of course, when the missionaries left, when the colonization left, they left us with Bibles and all of that. That is what we embraced. Hundreds of years of this being beaten into us, and given to us. Of course, this is going to be way of life for us. You understand. The foundation was laid for a long time before this Christian Evangelicals even came in, because they also saw an opportunity; and they took it. 

Jacobsen: Also, there are, within Ghana, hardline prominent people who are anti-LGBTQ, anti-LGBTI. How is the fight going against those individuals? What are their current social or political moves to undermine minority populations? 

Moh: Generally, it has been documented that mostly in Africa; there are politicians who have this populist approach to democracy, always find a good future for themselves, politically. I don’t know if that makes sense. When you look at Ghana, one of the politicians that pushed and pushed in 2014 for this, when the first ‘kill the gays’ bill was introduced. Nothing happened to him. Fast forward, he is Minister of the State. So, every other politician sees that, of course. If you hate on queer minorities, it doesn’t affect your political career in your country. Generally, the population’s idea is that they are fighting the good fight for them. It is positioning them for a very long political fight in their countries. These people, these individuals that are in Ghana, for example. They are following the same example. It is nothing new. Because they know that, at home, their political career will soar whether the bill passes or not, as long as they can ride on this propaganda that they are for the people, safeguarding the morals of the society, pushing away the evil of the West, then their political career is solid. Now, it is hard to fight them because they have the support of the masses. So if anything happens to them, or if we are able to push for sanctions against them and all of that, the queer community would face backlash for that, because they end up saying that it is “because of you” that this person is facing sanctions. Of course, they know this. That is why they say in some of their pronouncements, “We are being attacked. They are trying to sanction us,” because these are some of the implications of their actions internationally. Nationally, they would have a very long political career. 

Jacobsen: Would you consider this the worst time?

Moh: The worst, I would say yes because the queer community hasn’t experienced this level before. In the past, it has died down within two days. It is mostly not serious issues. It might be a queer person beaten somewhere. It became sort of normal. It is in the media for a day or two, then it is gone. Now, for two years running since the closure of a community centre and then the bill, it has constantly been in the news. We have seen a rise in attacks, a rise in abuses, a rise in blackmail. So, yes, this is the worst time a queer person can be in Ghana, or even in Africa; I would say. We are seeing all these bills popping up in different parts of the continent as well. 

Jacobsen: How is Alex Kofi Donkor doing in all of this?

Moh: Generally, of course, it takes a toll on a person who has become the face of an issue in a country. Now, we are trying our best to make sure that he is safe. Of course, he is an activist. So, he still believes in what he believes in. He is still fighting. But now, due to security reasons, we are all looking at our modes of activism. So, we are also trying to utilize different kinds of methods to push through. That is what he is doing as well. He is taking it pretty well. I would say. 

Jacobsen: How about yourself? Do you consider yourself safe psychologically and physically in the midst of some of this stuff? 

Moh: No. I don’t feel entirely safe. However, we grew up in this system. So, we are able to navigate through it. Psychologically, I definitely acknowledge that this takes a whole lot of mental toll. So, now, I have a therapist who I talk to every two weeks and try to get in touch with myself. I do some exercises and all of that. That helps me feel grounded and all of that. It is not easy. I am not entirely safe. That’s the thing. I don’t think any queer person, especially activists, are entirely safe in our country.

Jacobsen: Have there been public beatings or murders of LGBTQ people in the light of some of this stuff?

Moh: There have been a lot of beatings. Murders, not yet. There was a stabbing that happened a month ago. Luckily, the victim did not die. However, just last week, there was a suicide situation, where a teacher was outed as bisexual. He took his life. Outside of that, we have seen a hike in abuses, almost every week; we get a new case of a lynching and abuses of someone in some part of the country. We are seeing this everywhere: the community, the chiefs, the traditional leaders. They all perpetuate these things. 

Jacobsen: How did Kamala Harris’s help in any way?

Moh: Publicly, it really didn’t. 

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Moh: [Laughing].

Jacobsen: [Laughing] Fuck, eh. 

Moh: I don’t know how or why they thought it makes sense for them to say she was here to talk about LGBTQ and to tell the state to accept the LGBTQ. That’s what they did. That became the meaning of Kamala Harris’s visit. So, personally and politically, for the queer community, Kamala Harris’s visit caused more harm than good. Even though, he wasn’t here particularly to do that. Because we all saw what she was here for, to improve ties between Ghana and USA when Russia is trying to make friends in the region. That’s what happened with the visit. Also, she wasn’t here for the community anyway. 

Jacobsen: What is Canada doing if anything positive or negative because I am calling from Vancouver or Langley, Township of Langley?

Moh: Canada has been steadfast in their foreign policies regarding LGBTQ. That’s a good thing. Personally, we have had different engagements with the Canadian mission here on how to strategize against the bill, and other stuff all well. On the international front, Canada is doing their best diplomatically on how to not let this bill come into force. I would, personally, appreciate those efforts. Canada, especially in Ghana, has not publicly done anything to cause backlash in the community. So, I don’t think they’ve done anything bad, yet. [Laughing]

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Moh: Stressing the “yet,” our engagement has been positive so far. Not just the Canadian mission here, some time ago, we had conversations with Members of Parliament who visited. I am sure it was translated to their visits to parliamentarians here. Generally, Canada is doing well in this front. 

Jacobsen: Any final thoughts based on the conversation today?

Moh: Final thoughts, I would say that we need more platforms. I am glad that we are having this conversation. Even if there are people who do not know about this, now, they would through your platform. So, any available platforms that would be willing to carry the story or highlight it is, of course, very welcome. We appreciate all of the support from the international community. Hopefully, it gets better. 

Jacobsen: I believe that’s the main message. “It gets better.” [Laughing]

Moh: [Laughing]. 

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Mr. Moh.

Moh: Thank you, too, Scott.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/20

*Interview by Adewale Sobowale, transcription by Scott Douglas Jacobsen.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of “In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal” (ISSN 2369–6885). Jacobsen is a Tobis Fellow (Research Associate) at the University of California, Irvine for 2023-2024. He is a “Freelance, Independent Journalist”, “in good standing” with the Canadian Association of Journalists. He considers the contemporary scientific method as the pragmatic, functional source of understanding the world and universal human rights as the moral frame leading substantive ethical discourse, internationally. You can email: Scott.Douglas.Jacobsen@Gmail.Com. Here I talk with Adewale Sobowale of The Migrant Online about a lot of things.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I’m enjoying the Vancouver life still, still at the ranch here. 

Adewale Sobowale: [Laughing] Alright, how was the experience?

Jacobsen: It was good. I found it, more or less, educational. I found them focusing less on specific orientations around economics and more on principles and models, and concepts, of economics. That’s different than one might expect in an economics course for journalists provided by a thinktank because, when most of us have an idea of a thinktank, we’re thinking of a group of people with a good deal of funding who provide a specific lens on economics, on policy, on politics, on analyzing society. This wasn’t that. So, I think the fact that we included people from left to right to center in the political spectrum looking at some of the biographies of some of the people participating with us in our class of 22 minus 1 was very good. So, I think the presentation was fair and the information was informative. How did you find it?

Sobowale: By the way, Could you introduce yourself?

Jacobsen: Sure [Laughing], that might help. [Laughing] So, hi, my name is Scott Jacobsen. I live in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. I am a freelance, independent journalist in good standing with the Canadian Association of Journalists. I am a Tobis Fellow for my second/renewed year 2023/24 at the University of California, Irvine in the Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality. The title is Tobis Fellow for that. I have a lot of titles and things of that nature and a long history of doing different things. Right now? I just came off shift doing ranch labour with horses. It is exactly what you’re thinking about: cleaning buckets, shovelling poo, driving the tractor, loading manure bins. Things of this nature.

Sobowale: You must have a lot on your hands. 

Jacobsen: [Laughing] I assure you. We have a team. This team, they grew up with horses. It’s a much different experience for them. For me, I had no background with horses. As far as I am concerned, I had no right to be here. Yet, I wanted to take on that challenge. In a Ghandian sense, I wanted to be among a people to be able to know them, and then be able to write on them, appropriately. So, I have been doing interviews, writing some articles, but more interviews with people in the equestrian industry in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. Because, at least, the moniker in public discourse – news, opinion pieces – in the history of the township is “the horse capital of British Columbia.” That’s a fair statement given the number of horses here and the fact that we have Thunderbird Show Park, which is, probably, the largest facility, probably, in British Columbia for any equestrian sport. Probably, the biggest in Canada would be Spruce Meadows, which has this huge international status. People I have interviewed in Holland would consider it an honour to fly their horses from Holland to Alberta to compete at Spruce Meadows. This is the kind of thinking of a horse person when they look at Spruce Meadows or other similar stature places.  

Sobowale: Now, we discussed about your activism and all those things. Can you just tell us why you’re an activist and which type of activism are you into?

Jacobsen: I’m into a lot. It depends on the frame. It depends on the time. It depends on the interest. If I have the time, I try to commit some time to it. If there is a season of life where time or finance might be a little more limited, I can’t fund things as much as I would like to; I can’t take as much time as I would like to, to help some initiatives that, to me, seem important. So, the types of activism, more to the question; they’ll, typically, be around critical thinking, scientific education, Humanism, human rights, and a wide smattering of those things. Those tend to be relatively broad terms. You know, when we say, “Human rights,” as you know, those can be broken down to a number of different things. I know we are doing this interview for Migrant Online. When you look at the number of international treaties and rights documents on migrant and refugee rights, there are an extraordinary number going back decades near or at the founding of the United Nations. One of the most recent was even in 2010. Certainly, there will be more coming through in different bodies of the United Nations. It speaks of States’ responsibilities and human rights simply for the fact of their humanity. 

Some things would also be around human rights. There has been a focus on some Indigenous rights. That has been more giving some profile of people in the secular community who haven’t had much of a voice. In fact, there isn’t much of an organization around it. If an individual classified under the United Nations title of “Indigenous” exists and does not adhere to the traditional beliefs, so, they know of their cultural background or what is left post-colonial context. Yet, they don’t believe in the supernaturalism around it, for example. Those people have a hard time organizing because they could lose, sort of, community support for having given up those beliefs. There is a similar situation, as Mandisa Thomas of Black Nonbelievers (Inc.) told me, with regards to African Americans who reject the African American Church, for instance, because it is sort of a mixed history. On the one hand, and this is the way it’s explained to me, there is the history of racism and slavery and the use of the church to oppress, while, at the same time, during the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Era in the United States; the church was one of the only places of civil and political organizing to simply fight for basic rights, for equality, as African Americans with not only white Americans, but others in the United States. It is seen as a system of oppression taken on by African Americans and then used in a positive way for community building. 

But then, if one doesn’t adhere to a belief in a God and in the relevance of the Bible to their personal lives, it becomes very difficult – this is the way it is explained to me – because it is sort of a mixed history because it is a positive and a negative thing to them. Just given their right to freedom of belief and freedom of religion, they have the right to leave. The rub is when they do leave. It comes with certain social consequences. It becomes particularly acute when the major social capital, social support systems, aren’t from the State. It’s from the community and, primarily, from the church community. So, by rejecting that structure, they give that up. So, I’ve done some work profiling some of those voices because I think it’s important. I have more stuff coming on down the line regarding that. A lot of people who tend to be non-religious in highly religious societies. There are some very good societies where people get along. There is a lot of inter-religious, inter-belief dialogue. People getting along, respecting each other. There are other contexts where the State, by law, is used to keep people, sort of, in the closet about their non-belief. There are a number of people who I have interviewed who could not finish the interview because they were taken to jail in the process of the interview. 

This did not happen in Canada. One happened in Pakistan. Another, who I did several interviews with and was doing several more, as I talked over dinner with you, happened to an individual from Nigeria, Mubarak Bala. I don’t know if his term is up. He is the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria. It’s an important country because it is a huge population of people. Not everyone agrees with what was done, obviously, because people don’t want that to happen to them for their personal philosophical beliefs. Yet, it happens. I think cataloguing some of those views does a little bit of work that is important to help out. It is free. It is a little bit of time, little bit of labour, and taking the time for a conversation. Others, it’s really getting people who come out of traumatic circumstances. There were a couple of cases, where it is somewhat associated with the last topic. Individuals who gave up their religious belief. But it wasn’t necessarily for formal theological reasons. It wasn’t, “I studied the text. And I disagree with the orientation or the statements within the holy text.” Rather, it’s the home circumstance was abusive. They managed to get out or had to flee. It’s similar with some of those cases where the State is after them for their things stated, then the reprisal isn’t from the public, but more from that which the public pays for with taxes: the government. 

Other cases, there’s been a lot of board work as well. So, I think United Nations Women Canada does important work, but I think that’s dissolved into a foundation now. There are a lot of concerns with the United States in Canada given the overturning of Roe v Wade, which was a major landmark in a lot of active equality movements, human rights movements, reproductive justice movements, for women in terms of, at least, having some choice in whether they have the child. So, if they can delay their pregnancy or plan it out, or if an unplanned pregnancy happens and it’s the wrong person, say, then this can be halted. They can pursue an education.

Sobowale: Excuse me, are you linked to any organization?

Jacobsen: Right now, Humanists International, I am linked to. I do some work interviewing some of them. I used to be part of Young Humanists International. So, Young Humanists International, I used to be the Secretary-General for a time, which is an elected position. I believe I was elected in 2019 in Iceland. I was on the Board of Humanist Canada. Right now, I am on the Council for Centre for Inquiry Canada. It is a less active role than being on the Board and there are a larger number of people for that organization. It would, typically, be defined as a secular humanist organization. The main stuff I am doing right now would be associated with The Good Men Project for writing, as a platform. In-Sight Publishing as a sort of experimental platform, which stage-wise is having new things added to it. But given its experimental nature, how that will turn out is an open question, although, I have been working on it for a while on-and-off. And then, there is also the University of California, Irvine Ethics Centre. I am a Tobis Fellow there. A lot of the work I do through there or for them has to do with women in the academic system. I would say those three: The Good Men Project, In-Sight Publishing, and the University of California, Irvine, are the main ones with a lot of independent work. There were a lot of former board positions, where the term just ended. We can go into that more if you like. But I don’t want to ramble too much [Laughing]. 

Sobowale: Why are you interesting in fighting for human rights?

Jacobsen: To me, it seems like the substantive alternative. In fact, the only real game in town, internationally. Where, we have parochial ethical systems. You might find some in various Abrahamic religions or minority religions around the world. They have their uses. People, they build lives. They would define themselves as a religious person, as a moral person, living according to rules of their holy text. The one that everyone seems to, at least, declare that they would abide by, for the most part, even if they don’t in terms of action on the ground by governments, by States, Member States of the United Nations, is international human rights, international law. Those, to me, everyone, at least, seems to take part in them and that seems substantial to me. It seems more legitimate because everyone is partaking regardless of ethnicity, sex, gender, religion, non-religion, etc. So, it seems to me like the right thing to do, and, in terms of, at least, having the premise of a moral discussion; everyone plays by the same rules. 

Sobowale: What would you say about the state of the world now?

Jacobsen: Mixed [Laughing]. 

Sobowale: What would you say about the state of the world now?

Jacobsen: I would say the state of the world is mixed. I may have the general statement wrong. However, I think there are more democracies now than there have ever been. If that is so, that’s a positive.

Sobowale: Just a minute, when you said, “There are more democracies now.” Don’t you think there are pseudo-democracies?

Jacobsen: Yes, I would take it as a sliding scale. That would be the first caveat. On one, there are more democracies than ever. On the second hand, there is a sliding scale of democratic governance. So, individual States that have corruption of various degrees will have a lower democratic rating. Those that are autocratic, authoritarian. They would have an even lower status. I would take it as a sliding scale based on the strength of the institutions. I would assume there are indexes that sort of gather relatively agreed upon indices of democratic systems and then the degree to which each country has them. You collate those per country. You get the country. You rank-order them. Then you get a matrix of values per country. Then you rank-order them, then you have a relative system. There is a weakness inherent in that sort of ranking. 

Sobowale: Why has migration become a political issue? 

Jacobsen: Because if it’s a political issue, I would assume that it garners votes. If you can have something that is a social issue for a decent number of the population, good and bad, across the spectrum, then you can make a divisive opinion about it: complete migration, complete no migration. Then you come off as a firm, non-wishy-washy politician. People like that. So, you get votes in either direction. So, “hot button issues,” as they say in North America.

Sobowale: This migration issue, they are using it to gain or lose votes. 

Jacobsen: Yes, I mean this was part of the discussion over the weekend for our class. It’s not the money, in this sense. In some sense, we can talk about economics as about money and money as human utility, but money doesn’t capture everything. So, it’s not quite a generalized human utility index, so far. But in terms of just getting votes, if you take votes, the economics of votes. What topics come to the top of the list? If migration is a really big topic, then you orient your frame and your political party around that frame vis-a-vis migration and, at the end of the day, human beings – migrants and refugees, then you can run it through the marketing and public relations people. And they’ll jazz up the public about how you are dealing with this hot button issue. So, you can garner more votes on that. Either it’s xenophobia, “We don’t want these people here.” Or it’s ultra-compassion, “We are super good. The other party is super evil. We want more people in because we are the good, compassionate people. Those evil people don’t want them in.” Obviously, an oversimplification and simplistic, but I think the general orientation of the argument is that it is an economics of votes, and there’s a utility in taking firm stances or extreme stances, or both, about certain hot button issues. One of them happens to be migration. 

There can be entirely invented ones too. If you can get a public riled up enough, this can also have political impacts. Even though, your neighbour might have superstitions about numbers. And you don’t. And you want to buy their property. This was an example from Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, before he died. His son is actually likely stepping down next year or as soon as next year. He said, “If they move, and you put a pitch for the price for the home,” this isn’t the exact example. “You don’t care about that numerical superstition about some number. However, you have to take into account the other thinking of that person when you are purchasing that property because you have to take the how they are framing it.” So, even though, it is imaginary. It is a superstition about any number, doesn’t matter. You have to take that into account. A non-rational, irrational thing in order to do rational decision-making about house purchasing next door. It’s like that on any human issue, really. 

Sobowale: By the way, as you are talking about economics or whatever, I tend to think some of these leaders are, more or less, gaining economically, from instability, from whatever. You know?

Jacobsen: Yes, that’s where the economics of votes is really about economics too [Laughing]. 

Sobowale: ​​[Laughing].

Jacobsen: If you are a politician, in most countries, it pays well. You can decide your pay, sometimes. You get benefits. Some of the best benefits in the world. You get prestige. You get respect, sometimes. You get hate as well, and stereotyping as a politician. You get, sort of, career advancement. You can try to run for president, prime minister.

Sobowale: That’s true. 

Jacobsen: If you’re a place like Iceland, you have a president and a prime minister, but that’s another story. [Laughing]

Sobowale: By the way, even the arms dealers, the guys dealing in arms and ammunitions. They gain economically. 

Jacobsen: Yes, that’s the black market. In many ways, if you outlaw industry, an industry, you create a black market overnight. I mean, the more rapid example, by analogy, would be if you pass a law, overnight, you’ve made a whole class of criminals. A slow motion version of that analogy, going to the original example; you make a black market by outlawing things for guns because war is profitable. People will slowly develop a black market for AK-47s. Open question: What about all of the arms and artillery and tanks that the American military left in Iraq and Afghanistan after the Doha Agreement with the Taliban in 2020/2021? This is open field for high technology to be taken by religious fundamentalist militants, by State actors hostile to the United States, or simply State actors who have an interest in the black market economy of arms, even people who are non-State actors who have an interest in the black market economy of arms. There are prominent cases. I remember looking at some international individuals from different countries, including Nigeria, I think, who were dealing with arms or who had militias kidnap kids, drug them, brainwash them, train them to be killers. It is really horrific. Fundamentally, back to your original question about why get involved in some of these things, or at least write on them, do a small like that, not be boots on the ground getting kids out of hostage situations. It seems like the right thing to do. That’s an intuition rather than a firm fact. Yet, I think it reduces the total number of human suffering. So, I think it is a reasonably good thing to do. 

Sobowale: By the way, don’t you think the “Third World War” is starting?

Jacobsen: I don’t know. If you look at the Doomsday Clock of the Atomic Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists [Ed. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.], or however it goes, I forget the exact organization it’s from, but it is the Doomsday Clock. Certainly, it has been ticking closer to midnight. But we have conflagrations with the Russo-Ukrainian War, with the Hamas-Israeli war.

Sobowale: The last one or the continuous one. 

Jacobsen: The ongoing ones, it’s sort of in Middle East-North Africa and Eastern-Western Europe – Eastern Europe. Those two, certainly, represent conflagrations. Yet, I think it’s important to reflect. Most of human history has been war. I believe the number is less than 10% of recorded human history has been peaceful. So, the default is 9-to-1, war. Something like that. So, war is not new, as we both know. The ratio of war is not new. The major threats on the immediate ground have to do with nuclear powers fighting one another. 

Sobowale: By the way, what I wanted to say, you know, when you look at it: the distribution of arms or whatever. The amount spent on arms and munitions. If you could just slice this into half, would the world not benefit?

Jacobsen: I mean, I’m a peacenik. So, it’d be nice. The question is, “How do you get from A to B?”, or A to Z – so to speak. Treaties help. Where there is mutual benefit in a very hot situation, the Cold War would be a good example between the Soviet Union and the United States. Those treaties, that started, if you track them. I forget off the top because it’s been years since I looked at that stuff. The treaties, when you look at those treaties to reduce arms mutually, they were effective. So, international law and treaties, and focusing on reducing nuclear arms, did work. And not many nations necessarily have them. So, I mean…

Sobowale: …one thing, I see. Just like the internet, I mean, internet could be used for good purpose and for negative purpose. Nuclear, too, it could be used for good and for bad. 

Jacobsen: Yes, it’s… the common example is a hammer. You can hit a nail into a 2×4 and build a cabin for a family to live in, in the forest, or you can bludgeon a skull and kill someone. This is in some of the oldest literature around like the story of Cain and Abel. These sort of violent stories of brother killing brother. I think it extends in a loose way to using a hammer to build a home or bludgeon a skull. Those kinds of examples are very clear to people. It sets an example that the category “technology” is neutral. It depends on the orientation of how you use it and then the purpose behind that, the why you are using it. Technology, even to the current moment, is like that as well. Something as advanced as nuclear technology is in a similar state. Even ones that are more slow proceeding threats since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution would be the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, and other emissions, those create, you know, these sort of negative feedback effects where there is a capture of additional energy into the atmosphere. It is sort of a greenhouse effect. So, we get a warming planet. That is more slow going. That didn’t start… that started well before either of us were born, but we can somewhat pinpoint it based on different metrics.

Sobowale: What kind of world would you see 5 years time?

Jacobsen: It is always interesting to ask that question or reflect on that topic when a war starts. Imagine asking this at the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. I would argue we’d have relatively rapid technological change, faster than now, because we are not seeing linear changes on information processing fronts and developments in those styles of information processing. Somewhat similar to human, somewhat different, we are seeing exponential effects. So, let’s say a doubling happened every year, okay, year one from now. It seems the same as a linear change. By the fifth year, you’re 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. So, it’s 5 years, but it has been 16 times the change. That sort of scales up. That has effects on everything that is downstream from information processing changes. I think any kind of warfare we’re going to see, if we are sticking to war examples for the last few that we’ve had. We’re going to see less on boots on the ground, ships in the sea, planes in the sky, and more fourth dimension of war in terms of cyberwarfare: hacking, shutting down plants, gathering data and information about the citizens, the army. Those sort of hacking initiatives will be a difficult forefront. We are seeing some changes in the Canadian Armed Forces around this as well. Where some positions have come up in the last several years to sort of develop a frontline of protection for Canadian citizens from this, but, I mean, obviously, the secret intelligence services will be more important for that. I would see: war, but also a changing landscape of war. I believe the Israel-Hamas War will, probably… I mean, it is idiotic to make these kinds of predictions. Maybe, a cooldown and then a re-entrenchment by the Israeli forces into Palestinian occupied territory and with Ukraine and Russia; that ball is still up in the air. Most other parts of the world will, probably, be relatively similar.

Sobowale: Okay, we have about 6 minutes more. What do you hope to achieve with your activism?

Jacobsen: A modicum of change that only one person can make in a limited amount of time with limited resources, with time being another resource [Laughing].  

Sobowale: You know, change could be relative, you know? Look at this. The arms dealers, they are there to make money. I regret to use the word “developing” because we all know they’re underdeveloped. They are just there, right? They are there to make money. Where does that leave us?

Jacobsen: If people want to make money, that’s their prerogative. Not everything has necessarily been monetized at this time. Although, human beings, certainly, in many regards have been objectivized… objectified and made into commodities. Obviously, that’s a longer discussion, but, to the original question, nearing the end of that 6 minutes. I would aim to add a little bit of good that I can in a limited amount of time, and that without any praise from a higher power or sense of doom about a hell after motivating me, simply because it is the right thing to do is good enough for me. 

Sobowale: I just wish you all the best. Because I know the stories are out there. Because, I mean, like I just said, the arms dealerl, you are out there trying to fight for human rights, trying to do all those things. Maybe, the leaders in the developing countries. It’s kind of a morass, you know? But then, I just wish you all the best. So, let’s just quit the program and we’ll talk some other day. 

Jacobsen: Excellent, thank you, and thank you for the opportunity.

—

Audiovisual interview original publication at The Migrant Online:

(November 9, 2023)

A chat with Scott Jacobsen, a Canadian activist and journalist!

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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/19

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS is a quantum physicist who holds a University of Surrey Distinguished Chair as well as a personal chair in physics since 2005 and a University chair in the Public Engagement in Science. He is a living three-piece suite. He spends roughly half his time as a ‘public scientist’ as a populariser and science communicator and has written many books aimed at the lay reader as well as presenting numerous TV documentaries and radio programmes, mostly for the BBC. Here we catch up after a few years and talk about science communication and Humanism.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay, this is an interview with Jim Al-Khalili. Our last interview was several years ago for a British magazine called Conatus News [Ed. Now Uncommon Ground Media Ltd., “Interview – Professor Jim Al-Khalili, on Science and Humanism,” and “In Conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili (Part 1).”]. Obviously, remotely at the time, from Vancouver, Canada, I reached out because I realized I hadn’t done an interview with you in a while. 

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili: Right [Laughing].

Jacobsen: I have been doing [Laughing] more interviews in a series with other humanists. I thought I’d do another round with you. Obviously, you’ve been writing books. You’ve been doing work for BBC Radio 4. Maybe we should focus on some of the commentary that you’ve been mentioning lately. Potentially, some of the programming has been ‘dumbed down’ for scientific presenting to the public. What are some of your reflections on it?

Al-Khalili: I suppose we have to draw a distinction between television and radio. For years, I presented documentaries on the BBC. A lot of them now are available. If they are not owned by the BBC, if they are produced by independent production companies, they can sell them to other providers, e.g., Netflix and Amazon Prime. They have been great because of the programs I have been commissioned to do. You can get really stuck in the science. These are popular science programs. It is not so much the dumbing down but the fact that the BBC and other networks are simply not commissioning any more television documentaries. So, what is available there either repeats, which is great, I don’t have to do any work. My stuff gets churned out and has a long shelf life, which is fine. I don’t know if it is because of a lack of money getting stuck into the science or not appreciating that there is an appetite for viewers out there. For radio, no, it’s fine. I’ve presented my BBC Radio 4 program, The Life Scientific, which then goes out on podcast. It has been going on for 12 years now. I interviewed other scientists. We can get stuck into some serious science and talk to them about their life and work. That’s very rewarding. That’s, essentially, a big chunk of my public engagement and my outreach activity these days. 

Jacobsen: Do you notice, even though there is an appetite for this scientific presentation in television documentaries, an impact on the public opinion or public knowledge of science with a decline in commissioning of these? 

Al-Khalili: I’m not sure. Certainly, for viewers in North America – Canada and the US, where they are getting to see these BBC productions because they are available online on Netflix and Amazon Prime, I was recently in the US. There is a niche audience who are fans of these programs. They find them very rewarding and very fascinating. It’s nice to receive compliments about them. So, they’re not aware that I have not made anything new. They are seeing it for the first time. I say, “Yes, I filmed that 10 or 11 years ago.” I’m not sure what the impact of a drop in commissioning is being seen yet. I think all of the time, there is an audience out there, and all of the time, these things are available. But it is a shame if we aren’t producing new material. There is not that much out there. In the US, for example, PBS, Nova, National Geographic, and Discovery – who would traditionally have the output in these programs, aren’t even producing the real scientific stories that people want to hear about. There is always the natural history. The David Attenborough type of programs. With high production values, they are seen all around the world. It’s a bit more niche for someone like me to talk about quantum physics. But there is an audience out there. There are people who want to hear this stuff, who are fascinated. “Blow my mind! Hit me with stuff.” We’ll see if there is going to be a resurgence one day. We keep trying. 

Jacobsen: There’s also democratic intellectual health. If the public doesn’t have these types of professionally produced, presented, and qualified documentaries on science, what happens? Who fills that void?

Al-Khalili: Yes, absolutely; the BBC, in particular, as you know, is a public broadcasting corporation. It has a remit to educate as well as entertain. Something called the Reithian value of the BBC. It is its responsibility to produce these things. It is a shame. If we end up having people getting their opinions from all sorts of weird and wacky sources, anyone can post anything. It’s great. YouTube and social media are great. But, of course, if the average person doesn’t know where to go for reliable information, we only have ourselves to blame if there is a rise in conspiracy theories or if people don’t know the value of vaccinations, and so on because they are not being exposed to serious, well-researched, well-evidenced science in these well-made documentaries. 

Jacobsen: Maybe I can take a step back because this is something I don’t, actually, know. How did you first get involved in wanting to be a public presenter, public science person, or educator?

Al-Khalili: It wasn’t intentional. I followed a very traditional route in degree, postdoctoral research, getting onto the academic ladder, and becoming a lecturer, as we say in the UK, but in North America, you become an assistant professor or associate professor. You move up the ranks. That was my life. Publishing papers, getting research grants, going to conferences, at some point, it was probably early in my career – early to mid-30s. I realized I enjoyed doing outreach. It started small: talks about local schools at science festivals. I’d be the guy in the physics department that a journalist would point to: “Jim Al-Khalili will talk to you.” Everyone else was a bit nervous about it. [Laughing]

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Al-Khalili: I got as much a kick out of explaining science and demystifying complex ideas as I did doing the research myself. It is one thing that leads to another. When I started off as a science communicator, there weren’t many people out there one could look to. There were the Carl Sagan’s of this world. But not everyone is going to be a Carl Sagan. There wasn’t any one role model to look at, “I want to be like that person.” You meet someone. If that hadn’t happened, I would not have published the first book. I would not have done that first interview on that documentary. If I… Serendipity, being at the right time in the right place, also, when I started science communication in the mid to late 90s, it was becoming more respectable. So, my generation was the first where it was okay to be regarded as a serious, respected academic but also to be someone who can communicate science and work in the media. Until then, it was regarded as something… “You’ve gone over to the dark side.” Even people like Carl Sagan were no longer regarded as serious scientists because he tried to spread the word to wider society; thankfully, that’s changed. A lot more people want to do this. “How did you get to be presenting in front of a camera?” It happened. It was never an ambition or a plan of mine. I realized I enjoyed them once those opportunities came. 

Jacobsen: As the 90s moved forward into the 2000s, there was a natural incentive for that kind of presentation. 

Al-Khalili: Yes, documentary providers in the UK, BBC, Channel Four, started commissioning science programs. The big multi-part series I presented first was “Atom” in 2006. Thereafter, I was making a 2- or 3-part documentary series a year for the next decade or more. “All right, you’ve done this. What’s next, Jim? What do you want to make a program about next? Is it the history of science? Is it some particular area of science?” There was a boom. There was a decade of commissioning of science documentaries between 2006/7 and 2016 and 2017. Then, money got tight. People lost their appetite. It started dwindling then. It’s not much at all now, which is a big shame. 

Jacobsen: When you have been doing these big documentaries presenting scientific ideas to the public? What idea tends to be the hardest to get through to someone who may not have the specialization of training?

Al-Khalili: It so happens that the sorts of things I talk about are those complicated concepts, whether quantum physics or Einstein’s theories of relativity. Those are the counterintuitive ideas in science. There’s a lot of hard science, complicated science, whether molecular biology, genetics, or astrophysics. But they can be explained. You can find simple examples and analogies and can do simple demos on a TV program. You’d interview someone. But it is those concepts that are part of my own specialism, like quantum mechanics, which I think are the hardest. Not just with explaining and waving my hands around, but how do you give the audience that they think, “Yes, I think I get that.” Sometimes, you have to admit that the audience will need years of study to really appreciate what you’re telling them, but you can still blow their minds. “I don’t care. I’m not going to get all of this. Make me feel clever! Give me something.” Sometimes, that’s enough to excite people about science. If they want to know more, they’re going to have to dig deeper than I can provide on a TV documentary. 

Jacobsen: You had a career in the formal humanist community as well, not sort of a regular member, so to speak. 

Al-Khalili: Yes.

Jacobsen: How have you found being part of the humanist community, presenting science to the public more or less as a unified endeavour?

Al-Khalili: It follows naturally for many scientists to be humanists. We have a rationalist view of the world. Scientists, if they are any good, don’t say, “The world is this way because God made it this way.” We want to know why; we want to find the laws of nature. So, we are naturally of that mindset. We don’t want to appeal to anything supernatural or a higher power; we want to rationalize in a way that we can understand. Then, we are awe-struck by the wonder of nature itself. We don’t need anything more than that. What is the purpose? Why is the world? The world is the way it is; that is fascinating enough for us. We celebrate because we want to be a good person, which is part of what defines our humanity. It is not because of something external. It was natural for me. I think, like many people, I was a humanist before I knew I was a humanist. You have it pointed out to you. You realize, “That’s my worldview. That’s how I see the world. Oh, I’m a humanist, then.” Because I come from an unusual background, inThat, my mother was a devout Christian, an Evangelical born-again Protestant Christian. My father was a Shia Muslim. Religion was never rammed down our throats at all. It was very tolerant, liberal, and so on. Inevitably, that dichotomy and, being fascinated by science and looking for rational explanations of things, training as a scientist led me to move away from religion, probably in my teens. It was only relatively later in life that I embraced Humanism as what you would define it as today. I was thrown in the deep end. Not only did I embrace Humanism, but I was asked to take up the role of President of what was the British Humanist Association, now Humanists UK. So, it is interesting to be sink-or-swim, what do I think? [Laughing] Have my view of these things.

Jacobsen: [Laughing] Andrew Copson, he’s made a similar comment. A lot of people are, in fact, humanists if you check the individual boxes of premises of the orientation. They don’t take the formal title. I think that’s a very fair point. 

Al-Khalili: Humanists UK has this quiz you can take online, “Are you a humanist?” People do it. More often than not, they’re 100%. “Yes, you are definitely a humanist.”

“Oh! I never realized.” [Laughing]

Jacobsen: [Laughing] That culture with humanists in the UK, not only the longer history of it, but it probably accounts for the large humanist membership and a robust one. 

Al-Khalili: As we grow, more and more people are realizing. More people are choosing humanist celebrants for weddings and funerals. It’s not another religion. It’s not a tree-hugging, hippie-dippie, weird views. It’s simply, “Well, okay, I want to be good because that defines me as a human being, not because some ancient book tells me to be good or that I will be rewarded in some future afterlife or that I will be threatened with damnation if I don’t do this. No, I do this because I want to do it.” I think a lot of people think that way. That’s what Humanism is about.

Jacobsen: Even in Canada, I was in contact with someone in the Armed Forces. They are starting to get humanist chaplains in the military. Our first one was only in 2022. So, there is still quite an edge to be pushed forward, just for that form of equality for humanists, secular humanists. However, you want to phrase it.

Al-Khalili: It is good. It is changing now.

Jacobsen: When I went to Copenhagen earlier this year, the big thing was the global South was one big focus or an area of conversation among the national leaders because they, obviously, have a harder time of it when 95% of the population adheres to religious orthodoxy. That becomes, in terms of my conversations with them, a very common political tool. It makes any kind of progress in a humanistic, democratic direction difficult.  

Al-Khalili: Yes, we’re in a privileged position here in Western Europe, UK, Northern Europe, Scandinavia, where there are very large humanist organizations. By and large, people are not religious. We don’t have that problem. We forget the vast majority of the rest of the world; religion is a dominant worldview. 

Jacobsen: Do you have any contact with science communicators from that global South region who are trying to do the things Carl Sagan did, you did, Stephen Hawking did, with regards to the education of the public in radio, documentaries, or media in general?

Al-Khalili: It is starting. I’ll be in touch now and again with people asking for advice. “We’ve got this program. How can we progress with it?” It is starting, but it is starting slowly. They are faced with a much greater challenge. Here in the UK, whether my science communication or my non-religious beliefs, I was pushing against an open door. A wider society was ready for a rational worldview trying to understand the mysteries of the laws of nature. I didn’t have to battle against prejudice or against people who were resisting that view. This is why I say we are in this privileged position in the West, in the first world, but even in the US, it is a lot harder. Those who have a religious belief or who believe in a higher entity, believe in God, are in the majority in the US. They are in the minority in the UK. Sometimes, we forget. It is a lot harder to promote humanist ideas and ideals and, indeed, rational scientific worldviews in many parts of the world today. 

Jacobsen: In the United States, on other metrics, it is an outlier with regard to religiosity. A lot of the major creationist organizations are there, too. These sorts of things. I think you get a society that… Actually, I believe the most cited epidemiologist is Gordon Guyatt. He’s at McMaster University and is a co-founder of Evidence-Based Medicine. Something he notes is that the values and preferences of society guide choices in medicine, for example. If you get places like the Scandinavian societies or Canada, you get societies. They value equity. If you go to the United States, they value autonomy. That changes how they do their national healthcare. Is it mostly private or mostly public? Canada is mostly public. The United States is mostly private. Is there that much of a difference in the quality of care? Or the argument, “I just want to be front of line.” The answer on most of the metrics: Not really, it’s just more expensive. I think one argument that they make for the healthcare system in the United States is half the outcome for twice the cost; you have a quadrupling of inefficiency. Those have a big impact.

Al-Khalili: It is the inequality of it. The haves and have-nots. If you can afford your medical insurance in the US, great, you are looked after. The technology and the medicine available to you are second to none. But plenty of people don’t have medical insurance, people who can’t afford it. It does mirror humanist values. Not being selfish, not thinking about number one, this is our world. We only have one world. We only have one shot at life. Life isn’t a rehearsal. There’s nothing else beyond this. Make the most of this time here; part of that is, I like to think, to have compassion, have empathy; I think that feeds into ideological views, whether political alignments in the US. Be nice! [Laughing]

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Al-Khalili: It is a nice dictum to adhere to; part of that is making sure wider society is fairly treated rather than just looking after number one, which, for me, is a selfish way of living your life. 

Jacobsen: Within the international humanist community, we’ve done our recent 2022 update to the 2002 Amsterdam Declaration, which is the third version. I think you’re aware. It is an empirical ethic. Therefore, it will be an evolving ethic with more evidence. What are some areas that you think Humanism will be expanding into in terms of its considerations based on new evidence from the sciences or based on a better understanding of human psychology and behaviour?

Al-Khalili: There are areas in science that are moving rapidly now that have ethical issues. Artificial intelligence is a very good example. I don’t mean if you have a computer that is conscious, it will be endowed with a religious belief or if it should have humanist values. I mean, we have to redefine what it means to be human. Studies into the nature of consciousness, for example, redefine what it means to be sentient. We know that humans aren’t the only conscious living creatures on this planet. So, whether it influences whether we become vegetarians or vegans because we don’t want to cause suffering to other animals, science is constantly giving us a revised view of the world. That means that we have to constantly revise our behaviour and our ethical values. What are we doing to the planet and biodiversity? These are huge challenges that face us. It’s a shame when they get clouded by political ideology or when people are so easily swayed by opinions that they hear because of the fact that we are constantly bombarded by information and data these days, partly due to the internet and social media. That means it is harder for us to make sensible decisions about how to live our lives. I think having humanist ideals plays into how our world is developing constantly, all the time, and increasingly so now with technology changing so rapidly. We have to examine our behaviour and how we deal with each other, how we deal with our planet. This is something that humanists need to be part of that conversation, constantly, because, if not, the ideologies and the bigotry, and the hatred… we’re seeing what the world is like today and how polarized opinions can be. I think humanist values, hopefully, would help remind people of the humanity. 

Jacobsen: Two points about the edge. One is about artificial intelligence. One is about consciousness. What is it about human information processing that allows us to have this conscious arena of manipulation of information? Is substrate independence an assumption that we’re making about consciousness? If you take it from an evolved carbon-based organism into silicon circuits, would it be replicable in that sense? Reverse engineering and putting it into a different substrate, then you have a conscious system. 

Al-Khalili: I think it is substrate-independent. Consciousness isn’t magic. The human brain is made of matter, made of atoms. They are fitted together to make neurons that fit together into a network and fire and exchange information. There isn’t some magic pixie dust that you sprinkle on the brain to turn this lump of squiggly grey matter into a mind that thinks itself aware is sentient. There is no reason for that complexity. The brain is the most complex system in the universe. There’s no reason that complexity can’t be replicated somewhere else. It doesn’t mean that we have an artificial general intelligence that can think and is conscious and that it is now human because what defines us as humans is more than just our brain. It is our environment, our heritage, and how we deal with our surrounding world. The fact that we’ve got hands. We experience reality in a unique way that is not going to be experienced in the same way as a computer sitting on a desk. But then, things like joy and anger and guilt and empathy are higher-lever computations. I see no reason why they can’t be replicated in some other medium. That is not unique to us as humans. They won’t behave like humans, but these higher-level emotions, I don’t see why they couldn’t be artificially created as well. 

Jacobsen: Final question: Are there any books or projects that you’d like to plug in?

Al-Khalili: I’ve started writing a proposal for a new book on the nature of time, which is actually part of a research project I am working on now. More specifically, it’s on the direction of time. Why does time have an arrow from past to future? It is a very deep question in physics and philosophy that has been out there for millennia. I am not saying I have solved it, but it is something that I am very fascinated by. My research in this area is spilling over into writing a popular science book on the arrow of time. That is like way down the road. So, I don’t want to make too big of a plug because it won’t appear for a couple of years.

Jacobsen: We heard it there first. Thank you very much for your time again. [Laughing]

Al-Khalili: [Laughing] My pleasure, Scott.

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/11/18

Lina Tebbla has Sami background, which, as far as I know, is the only recognized Indigenous group or people group in Europe. She is an atheist. This is part of a wider effort to catalogue those freethinkers who are Indigenous, to get their views and experiences too. Here she talks about her life and views. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did the Saami start? Was there a connection to people like the Vikings?

Lina Tebbla: There was a differentiation between the Vikings and many other people, but the lifestyle they had a resemblance to what the Sámi people are doing today. So yes, there’s a connection, but it’s not at all the same, of course. 

Jacobsen: These kinds of interviews are going to be necessary. This is new, and a credit to Magnus Timmerby for connecting to you through the Copenhagen World Congress and General Assembly of Humanists International. He and I were having a conversation about Victoria Gugenheim. I was helping her cut some A3 frame stuff into fit. He mentioned your name because I said I was hoping to do this project of interviewing indigenous freethinkers. He said that he knows some heritage of a friend of his. 

Tebbla: Oh, yes, I understand now. So yes, my family is off and on because we ultimately left the Sami identity around 1920. Then, in the late 1990s, a woman doing her thesis in archaeology contacted our family and said, “Hey, did you know?” And, of course, some of the elders of our family knew but did quite a good or bad job at hiding it. Some people were good at it, and others were terrible at it.

Half living the Sami lifestyle, half living the Swedish lifestyle, but denying and hiding. Once my grandmother died, the Sami people of our village were very frank about the fact that they knew that she was Sami-speaking. They were sharing knowledge about my family’s heritage. As in other countries like Canada, the Sami people have been persecuted, and the children have been taken from them and put into boarding schools. Being a Sami person at the beginning of the century was a problem. That’s why my family decided to leave that identity and take on a Swedish identity. Also, the memories of my grandmother and her siblings made them afraid to share their background and knowledge with others. It was only the closest people who already knew that also knew their story. And when they died, the memory of our heritage was still among the people who are alive. They have been generous enough to teach me the old ways and let me into the lifestyle of my grandmother and father’s error. 

Jacobsen: And these boarding schools; were these religious?

Tebbla: Not so much. A little bit, but not so much. It varied. I don’t know very much about it. I know what’s from popular culture, but what I know about it is that they have been in effect from, like, let’s say, the mid-1800s. Of course, religion had a much more significant role in society back then. Still, the focus has always been to wash away the Sami identity and the language from these kids and teach them to be Swedish because Sami did not fit into Swedish back then.

Jacobsen: How big is the population of the Sami now?

Tebbla: That is also a question I still need to learn, but there are several different layers of Sami in Sweden right now. There are the people who are hardcore Sami. The Sami people have lived in Scandinavia, or Sāpmi as we call it, for a very long time. So, we’re very much blended. We come in many different shapes and sizes. You cannot see who is Sami just by looking at their appearance or their racial identity. It is much deeper than that. It’s the culture. But I was saying that there are culture bearers. Some people are a little in between, who may know some language and are active in certain areas, and others are like me. I think that the vast majority are people like me, who are several thousand in Sweden, who every year, when somebody in their family dies, or they find papers or whatnot, family history reveals itself. They understand that we have been living a lie. In my case, it was my father who told me. So, I think it is a rough definition; 70 to 80% are people who live without the culture, 20% are half-time living with the culture, and the other 10% are hardcore living it, almost like the old school days. 

Jacobsen: The language itself – typically languages and cultures evolve – evolves. So, they’re not a static thing similar to personal identity or senses of the self. Has it been traced how the culture became over time in some ways?

Tebbla: That’s a fascinating question. Well, my reflection upon the language is that the Sami language was like many indigenous languages, never really written down. So, that is a fabrication of our modern times, which has been helpful because that means that many people who don’t have native-speaking relatives who can teach them can go to different schools and buy books. Even though the material is very scarce. Still, there is an alternative to do that, at least. That Sami differs from the spoken language of the elders. You can hear it when they speak. It is just that the people who wrote down the Sami language only had part of the language themselves. So, there are gaps in grammar and words, which makes it so that the language needs to find new ways. So, there are new words. An elder of mine told me that “heartbeat” is the same as “snowmobile” because the snowmobile makes the same sound as a heartbeat in the snowmobile engine. That is beautiful. I never thought of it that way, but it speaks volumes about how the language has evolved. Adapting to modern times is essential because that means it has a chance to survive.

Jacobsen: How is Sami traditional spirituality, for instance? In North America, there are over 600 bands of indigenous people in Canada. Each has its orientation, but there tends to be an idea of a creator of some sort, their narrative of how they came to be, and so on. For individuals who might be in a freethought community within, like Sweden, who happen to be Sami, how do they incorporate that into that free thought?

Tebbla: There is a story about the maker. There are a couple of female and male gods. There are certain symbols connected to these Gods. My interpretation of the spirituality connected to these is also accurate. You have a few who are hardcore, people who call themselves modern shamans or whatnot. I will not judge how true they are, but they are really into it and trying to dive deep into it, over-reacting a bit of what it has been. But then there are people, I think I’m one of them, who use these symbols to riot against the system, showing that you could not wash them away. For instance, I bought a ring symbolizing Máttaráhkká, the elder mother. She is a god. When the church tried to Christianize the Sami people, the symbol of Máttaráhkká resembled an M, and the Sami females kept wearing that M mark, making the priests believe it was a symbol of Mother Mary.

Jacobsen: [Laughing].

Tebbla: It is not so much about spirituality as it is an act of rebellion, a silent revolution. And many people wear these jewellery or these symbols today. They are more symbols of what was lost and what was done to the people rather than that they believe that Máttaráhkká is going to come and save them. However, as in many different types of religions, people are a little bit off and on, I guess, but it has been so shattered and so silenced that I think there are very few, if any, alive who do know what the Sami religion was. There are several interpretations, and much research is going on. I think it’s perfect, and some people need that to hold on and save a part of themselves or their way of understanding life. I’m not judging them, but for me, these symbols are my rebellion against the Swedish government trying to break down my family to show that we’re still here.

Jacobsen: You noted the Christianisation attempts as well as state involvement; that particular orientation sounds a lot more like the colonial context for what is now Canada, where the state approved and, I believe, funded the churches to go and be, in a way, an arm of the government to colonize. How was this implemented in Scandinavia, probably generally, but Sweden in particular for this case?

Tebbla: We should look upon it as in Sápmi because it was almost the same everywhere. So, that process has been ongoing and very similar to what’s been happening in Canada. I think pretty much everything can be just copy-pasted into what’s been going on in Sweden, which makes it so that the Sami people are a little bit critical about when Swedish delegates are trying to judge Canada or Australia for what they’ve been doing to their indigenous people. Still, we have fewer rights than the indigenous people of Australia, Canada or even the US. So, that is also a huge problem, but everything: boarding schools, the taxation system, not having the right to speak your language, being punished for expressing cultural artifacts or rituals. It is so that a lot of Sami people are Christian today. If it works for them, that’s fine, but I think you could also, in a more historical setting, see that as a very successive way of colonizing a people; that they still 100 years since the last wave started, people are still Christian in a very secular society as Sweden is. 

Jacobsen: Similar to Canada, although I mean in the 2001 census, 77% of Canadians identified as Christian. About the same identified as indigenous communities, although it may have a different flavour within 20 years for the 2021 census that came out recently. Only 53% of Canadians identified as Christian. So, there is a massive decline in Christian identification and probably even those who do remember have a much lighter and less rigorous form of it. At the same time, in Canada, we have more attempts which could fail; they could outright fail at reconciliation, building an educational truth among the culture about acts done by the government and the church, primarily. Are there any “truth and reconciliation” efforts in Sweden?

Tebbla: Yes. So, the church has made some efforts in that way. I think it was last year, or the year before, that the Archbishop of Sweden had a ceremony asking for forgiveness and closure of the Sami people. For me, it was very moving because I remember the shame that my father and my grandmother, whom I love very much, carried. Some other Sami people who have lived in the culture all their lives did not trust the effort; it didn’t feel natural to them. To me, it meant something that it was a symbolic act. The first try can never be perfect, but it helps you understand when you do the second, the third and the 10th try at something. So, I think it was good at least that the church tried. The government, not so much. They do what they do; they give money, support culture projects, and help make natural reserves, but they have yet to be there. They have yet to ratify, for instance, which Canada and many other countries have, but not Sweden.

Jacobsen: As far as I know, only two significant rights documents incorporate indigenous rights. One everyone knows is the UNDRIP, The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The other one is more of a document within the ILO. I believe it is Convention 169—the International Labor Organization around labour rights of indigenous peoples.

It should be noted on tape that the Sami are the only recognized indigenous group within United Nations classifications of indigenous peoples within Western Europe, as far as I know. I might have to correct it, but I believe so or one of the few if that’s the case. So, when I heard from Magnus about this, I was like, “Please!” 

So, what I’m hoping to do with these kinds of things is really to gather an international repository of some of these conversations and what I’m getting preliminarily so far; a small sample size is pretty much boilerplate: similar stories of language, land, money, failed attempts at apologies – some successful, some not, not even apologizing in other cases in Canada. The pope came one time and didn’t apologize. Recently, years later, he did go and apologize. 

There is a deceased commentator, named Lee Maracle. She noted in an interview, not mine, that if he does not apologize now, the first time when he decided not to go to the Catholic Pope. It probably means that it’s happening elsewhere, with the implication being that he would then have to have a cascade of responsibilities to apologize for this and that and that: reparations, apologies, and giving land back, this sort of thing. 

So, as someone of recent descendants who have said, “Okay, we’ll take on Swedish identity just to get rid of the maltreatment socially,” say, do you see yourself more as a freethought person who doesn’t have any supernaturalistic inclinations? And that’s the way to go for you. At the same time, you understand the historical context of colonialism in the erasure of beliefs, so those beliefs may not be accurate in a factual scientific sense. However, they have a sentimental value, and the historical facts of colonialism must be confronted to reconcile all of the contingent acts passed with present conditions for equality. 

Tebbla: Yes. So, I see. That’s the blessing of being new to something – seeing things with fresh eyes. Also, the Elders of the Sami village have been very generous with their thoughts and knowledge to me. We can be very open and speak to each other very directly, and they share what hurts and they share what they remember. My relationship with spirituality and religion is entirely dual because I can see how, in the Sami population today, spirituality plays a role in their resilience in the sense of who they are. It also depicts their relationship to nature, which is like the core value of their religion. However, I do not believe in God, and I do not believe in spirits. Just being there with the reindeer and with the people and repeating what our ancestors did is enough for me, and it gives me a sense of strength and belonging; it is the values that are the future of the world. 

Jacobsen: In the recent Amsterdam Declaration 2022 for Humanists International, there’s much democratic input into what we are defining as humanism globally; there was much feedback and one of the big pieces, I think, was a significant update, or at least a more explicit update was caretaking for the wider environment. There’s an excellent fit there. 

Tebbla: Yeah, and also understanding it. So, it’s not just about going outside and hugging a tree. It’s about understanding that when this plant grows here, the reindeer will move this way, which means that this will happen to the land, and the water will flow there. And that has nothing to do with spirituality so much as it has to do with the knowledge that people have been living in nature and maybe not knowing the cause of everything but having a sense of how natural phenomena are connected, and that knowledge is essential. One of my elders has been tracking for the government for 15 years what’s going on because he’s a reindeer keeper. He’s been following what happened with the water levels, how much snow, what moss, what plans, and how the reindeer are moving over these 15 years, and he recently sent that report to the Swedish government. It paints an unfortunate story for the climate but also shows how much informal knowledge there is in the forest today because people still live the old way of life.

So, it has to do with understanding climate change and what solutions we could do in a smaller setting besides, of course, the more significant goals, but also how we can restore essential environments for the microenvironment, how we can track the development of pollution or forest fires or floodings and also maybe knowing what’s going to come and counteract that for the people and the animal living in the nature who’s going to be affected by it. 

Jacobsen: One last question. I’ve worked at an Olympic-level equestrian facility for about two years, mostly seven days a week. Before, I was very much a writer-academic. I decided to make a switch. Indeed, that rhythm of seasons and much non-verbal communication, really just seeing what’s out there, not just codifying it in terms of linguistic representations, becomes very apparent because if you’re not able to tell, this horse has a bad attitude, then you’re going to get bitten. You’re going to misread them, and so on. I got bit yesterday. 

With this horse, we all think he has a bad attitude. I like him, but he was in a bad mood with me that day. So, I understand entirely in that context what you’re saying. That could be an explorable mesh for those who connect to their indigenous past culturally and ritually, like smudge ceremonies in North America. At the same time, they reject the idea of a maker in your terms or a creator in North American terms, spirits and so on, but the connection to the past is something. 

It’s a soft approach that harder secularists might want to take into account, that just going out and debunking, just going out and doing street epistemology, isn’t always the right approach to the Sami work with this. I think respecting people’s past who are not coming from an accessible context is essential for their orientation toward free thought and humanism. Do you have any final thoughts on our conversation today? 

Tebbla: No, but what you said is, we didn’t talk so much about that, but the reindeer is essential to the Sami culture. I used to work a lot with horses when I was young, so the step into the Sami culture was very much through the reindeer and the connection with the reindeer because they’re miniature wild horses. As you said, the soft touch because, in the end, when you come from such harsh environments and have lived through many of these aggressions from the government, you also understand that life is holy in itself. It does not come from the maker; it does not come from the Bible; it is Holy in itself, and energy needs to be preserved in any way or form. And you do that by nurturing it, caring for it, and protecting it; by that, you say, ‘Soft touch.’ And ask yourself, “What did I do wrong that the horse bit me? What did I do wrong when the reindeer didn’t want to come?”

It’s been a very fruitful perspective to have on life with my kids, with my work, with my colleagues, and with my husband. It humbles me and takes me back to a place where I feel safe, comfortable, and happy.

Jacobsen: Lina, thank you for the opportunity and participation in the series. 

License

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.

Copyright

© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.