Welcome. This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special. This week's episode is the intellectual

dark web edition. So on this week's Sunday special, we're going to recap some of the conversations I've had with fellow members of the Intellectual Dark Web. This is a term coined by my friend Eric Weinstein. Basically, the Intellectual Dark Web is just a bunch of people with a wide variety of political viewpoints who are willing to hash out conversations in decent fashion. Now, we used to just call this America, but that's not the reality anymore. The way that it works in America now is that if you disagree with any sort

of prevailing narrative, you will immediately be canceled.

A group of us sort of got together in informal fashion originally, and then started talking in maybe slightly

more formal fashion. It's really a network of friends who are willing to talk about things we disagree

about. Like Sam Harris and I, we disagree about nearly everything. And Eric Weinstein and I, we disagree

about nearly everything. And Joe Rogan disagrees with everybody about everything. That's what makes

these conversations fun. It's what makes the relationships fun. See, this used to be part of the fun in games of American politics and of American thinking, is that we would all pursue truth together by examining each other's ideas, turning them over, and debating them with one another. This obviously has become such a unique phenomenon in American public life that we actually gave ourselves the name, right? Eric gave us the name Intellectual Dark Web, It sort of stuck, and then it grew. And there are a bunch of different figures who are members or adjunct members of the intellectual dark web. One of the things you're going to hear us talk about a lot here is the value of freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of discussion. It's one of the reasons the intellectual dark web originally formed. It's something there are so many people who really want to destroy. I call them disintegrationists in my new book, How to Destroy America, in three easy steps. That one is out July 21st. There's a whole group of people in America who believe that a culture of free speech and discussion is really about power differentials and preventing people who are dispossessed from speaking. That's an absolute lie, but it's become an incredibly powerful talking point. It's why you see cancel culture on the rise. And I mean really on the rise these days. I talk about all that and how to destroy America in three easy steps. People ask me, what is the intellectual dark web? All I think it is is people who are open-minded. That's all. People who are willing to have conversations that you're really not supposed to have these days. And by that, I mean any conversation at all. And that means that a lot of the people in this group are liberals. I believe I'm the only person in the group who plans on voting for Trump in 2020. It's funny. The media have obviously characterized the entire group as rabid right-wing fascists, which is unbelievable. You're talking about in Brett Weinstein, a socialist, and Eric, a quasi-socialist. You're talking about in Sam Harris, a lifelong Democrat. With Joe Rogan, you're talking about a guy who alternatively would vote for Bernie Sanders or maybe Donald Trump or whoever the hell knows, right? Joe kind of switches on a moment's notice. You got Jordan Peterson, who might be considered conservative, except that he's Canadian and doesn't vote in American elections. You've got Dave Rubin, who was a gay liberal, who became a gay quasi-conservative. So it's all over the place, the intellectual dark web. But it gained importance again at a time when cancel culture seemed to be in the offing. When it gave, I think, people, a sense of comfort that, yeah, maybe we actually can talk with one another. It's the distinction I commonly make on my own show between the left and liberals. I say that there are people who I know, who I like, who are liberals. They disagree with me on everything, but they are still willing to stand up for my right to say things. And then there's the left, which wishes to just shut down all conversation in fascistic fashion and make sure that nobody can ever say anything. In this episode, you're going to hear me talk with my friends, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, and Christina Hoffs-Somers. All of these people are very controversial. I'm not supposed to be friendly with them. But each of these conversations was a blast. We actually are all friends off the air as well. I think he'll enjoy this window into the kind of conversations that we actually do have in real life. These ones are just on camera. The last compilation Sunday special we made was on the topic of Judeo-Christian values. One of the people we talked to in that conversation was my friend Michael Shermer. Looking back on being part of the Sunday special and being part of that conversation,

Michael wrote us this letter, quote, My conversation with Ben was one of the best I've had among the thousands of media interviews I've done over the past quarter century. One reason is it wasn't an interview but a conversation. Ben is one of the most informed minds I've encountered in a long time. The fastest talker west of the Mississippi, the toughest man south of the picket wire next to me. to quote John Wayne's character, Tom Donovan, describing the scurrilous Liberty Valence whom he shot. Even though Ben and I disagree on many things, we agree on the most important thing of all, that free speech and open dialogue are the royal road to truth, and I suspect he would, like me, reject the sentiment behind one of the most memorable lines in filmic history when the legend becomes fact print, print the legend. Not only do facts not care about your feelings, as Ben says, facts also don't care about your legend. I can't wait to face Ben again, high noon on Main Street in Shinbone, Arizona. I appreciate that, Michael. We hope to hear from some of the other guests that we've talked to over some of these prior shows, and we can give you their reactions to the conversations, which I think are really fascinating.

In some cases, maybe they'll report some of my points. We'll bring those to you when they come in. It turns out you don't have to agree with everybody in order to get along with everybody. And if we all had a little bit more of that, you too can be a member of the intellectual dark web, again, what we just used to call First Amendment normal conversation in the United States.

So I hope you really enjoy the episode. These conversations were some of the most

stimulating that we've had on the Sunday special, specifically because there is disagreement

and good-natured disagreement about the biggest issues in life from me talking about atheism and

religion with Sam Harris to me talking about free markets with

Eric Weinstein. I mean, it's just all over the place, and that's the fun of it. It's freewheeling and it's interesting. It is the podcast arena. I mean, I will say that podcasting has made this sort of stuff possible. The internet has made the sort of stuff possible, which is why you're seeing the left seeking to crack down on the internet and the means of distribution on the internet. That's why we all have to fight back against all of that. So with that said,

I hope you enjoy this episode of the

Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special compilation from the intellectual dark web. We're going to jump

into it all in just a moment. But first, I want to take a moment to give a shout out to all of our

advertising partners who make this show possible, and we definitely

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