EP. 100 – Who is censoring you?

[Intro]

"But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg said, is freedom for the other fellow. This same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire, quote end quote. "I detest what you say. I will defend to death your right to say it." If the intellectual liberty, which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of Western civilization, means anything at all. It means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. The ordinary people in the street, partly, perhaps because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to being tolerant about them, still vaguely hold that quote, "I suppose everyone's got a right to their own opinion" end quote" It is only..." - and pay attention to this guys. This is amazing. - "...It is only or at any rate, it is chiefly the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it. In theory, as well as in practice."

On Truth by George Orwell, pages 126 and 127. This I really could read just this quote to you guys today, this passage of the book and the podcast right now, because it says everything "it is only or at any rate is chiefly the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it in theory as well as in practice." This is written nineteen forty five, nineteen forty five. [00:17:36][33.0]

 He was talking about the fact that the people that should really be the guardians of the liberty of the freedom of speech are the ones who are trying to silence you, the people who are intelligent, who write the newspapers, who write the books, who should say and tell you "man you can say whatever you want because you are free, you have freedom." They are the ones that hate your freedom. [00:18:02][26.1]

 And this is going to sound really funny. It's going to sound really funny. But here's what's happening right now. I don't know when you're listening to this podcast, maybe you are listening to it in 2025, And then maybe this doesn't make any sense anymore. But if you are listening to this podcasting 2021 February, it's going to make sense. So right now, what's happening in Brazil is this thing called Big Brother Brazil. And they have this girl, her name is Lumena and she's a psychologist.

So you think, well, you know, she understands about the human behavior. She's going to be a great person to talk to because she's a psychologist. She's probably going to understand where people come from. And she's going to be very patient again because she's a psychologist and she's going to be very intelligent because, again, she has gone through the university system. She has gotten her psychologist certificate, you know, diploma, whatever it is. And she has the credentials to practice as a psychologist.

So, you know, you know, everything that could point to the direction that she would be a very reasonable and good person and, you know, very intelligent. You know, everything points to that direction. And it couldn't be further from the truth.

In many instances, she has been the one to silence people in that game, she has been the one to point fingers and say, you shouldn't say this, you are wrong because of this and this and that. And then she pushes however many agendas she has at that day, and then she tells you you are wrong. And you can't say this because this is wrong to say. So you can't say it. And this is the big problem here. You know, you can be wrong. I don't really care, you can be totally wrong. You could say the most insane thing right now, but you should be able to say it. You shouldn't be silenced for any reason.

And if you look - and again, this is 1945, right. Orwell wrote this in 1945 and he knew it. It looks like he knew. And it's very weird, like, to me, maybe Orwell went into the future and saw what is happening today. And then he went back and wrote all these things because it's incredibly accurate. Who are the first people to try to silence you and try to tell you that you shouldn't say something out loud? Are they your friends?

The people that are normal?

Or are they the scientific intelligentsia, the people that love the theories, the people from Harvard and Yale and the federal universities in Brazil? Who is censoring speech right now, who goes on Twitter and tells that "this person shouldn't be on Twitter because they are dangerous? Protect me!" Isn't it incredibly weird that the people who should hold the freedom of speech and the liberty as their highest value, so let's talk about people in the press, people that work in newspapers, shouldn't they be the first ones to tell you that you should be able to say whatever you wish, but they are not.

 And at a time that Orwell wrote this in 1945, maybe things weren't as bad as - I think they were really just as bad - But maybe, you know, a few years ago, I remember it not being this bad, but today it is incredibly bad. There are words that you can't say. There are words right now that I put on my Instagram, I'm going to be canceled or banned.

There are things right now that if I tell you on this podcast right now, you are going to be so triggered and mad and you may even stop to listen to you stop listening to the podcast forever. And there are people in newspapers, people in universities, people in the media, on TV, news, news programs, news TV shows that are telling you, the normal person, what you should think and what you should say. And if you say something wrong, you should be silenced.

And this is what George Orwell was talking about it here.

He's talking about the fact that people that are in the scientific community are silencing others. Isn't it weird? Think about today, today, what's happening today, you know, when I say today, I mean, in today's day and age, we have a pandemic and then we have different treatments for this pandemic, but only one treatment is allowed to be spoken about. There are some things that are working or maybe they're not working. I don't know. I don't know. But there are some things that exist that people are not talking about. And when you talk about them, you are a conspiracy theorist. You should be canceled. You're dangerous. You shouldn't talk about these things. So who who is being this who is being who is pro censorship here, who is being the dictator? Who is being authoritarian?

Is it you - who are just someone that's just trying to speak your mind or is it the scientific community or is it the newspaper or is it the media? That's all I want you to think about today. And this is from George Orwell, 1945. I’m going to read it again, I suppose. Everyone, I'm sorry. This part...

 "It is only or at any rate, is chiefly the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who want to be the guardians of liberty. Who are beginning to despise it in theory as well as in practice.".

Man, this is just amazing. That's it for today. I'll leave it at that. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. And if you want to read this podcast episode, because it was a little bit complicated, you can read it on our telegram. See you next time. And that's it! See ya!