Dr. Gad Saad of Concordia University in Montreal, who is known for applying principles from evolutionary psychology to the field of consumer behavior (and for his podcast The Saad Truth), joined Joe Rogan this week for a conversation about Islamophobia and political correctness, Islamic immigration to the West, and Saad's pet disorder: 'Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome', which describes the act of putting your head in the sand to escape your problems.
"Do you know that's a myth?" the 'Joe Rogan Experience' podcast host asked about ostriches burying their heads in the sand. "The myth being, folks, that ostriches don't really stick their heads in the sand."
"Yeah, absolutely, it has become just a metaphor," Saad assured him. "It has really taken on a life of its own, I am actually thinking about studying this scientifically. What is it that causes people to be more likely to be parasitized by the types of mindsets that would cause you to suffer from Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome? A classic example would be how much evidence do you need to see around the world that there might be some religious ideology that is somewhat problematic, and antithetical to secular, liberal modern values. How much information would you need to see? What type of information would you need to see before you arrived at a conclusion like that?"
"One of the things I'm thinking of doing is formally quantify a score OPS (Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome), how much someone suffers from OPS as a type of mindset," he explained.
Joe Rogan interjected: "There are certain people who just never want to hurt anyone's feelings, except when they think that it is within their rights to attack that person because that person is victimizing someone else... Did you hear about the guy in Canada who is getting sued -- the human rights council fined him $12,000 because he walked into an apartment that he owned with shoes on, and there was a Msulim family living there, and their lease was up and he was looking to rent the apartment... And because he walked into a building that he owns with his shoes on, he has to pay the $12,000 for failing to accomodate their religious practices."
"Welcome to Canada," Saad said, bringing up the new law in Montreal -- M-103 which make Islamaphobic statements illegal.
"Why is it that people are so----," Rogan asked. "Especially with Muslims, have you noticed that there is a lot of people that will accuse everyone of Islamophobia, but then they love to shit on Christians. That is very, very common. It is not that they believe in religious freedom -- they have like a pet cause of being a contrarian to a lot of far right people who are really terrified of Muslims, and they are trying to balance it out with their own crazy left wing version of that."
"There are two explanations," Saad explained. "First is they are just afraid to criticize Muslims because there are greater repercussions than criticizing a Christian... just from a basic survival standpoint. Also, secondly, as part of the OPS, there are all sorts of erronious ideas that people have been infected with. They think that the Muslims religion is a religion for the downtrodden, the brown people, the exotic other. And so to criticize them when they are a hapless, exotic minority is racist and sexist -- and people really believe that. Even though most of the countries that these people are coming from, not only are they the majority, they are the exclusive majority."
"To argue that people who come from these countries are 'religious minorities' is ridiculous. They are minorities when they come to the West, but never mind that they are the majority in their home countries, they have never interacted with someone who does not share their faith," Saad continued.
"I don't think people understand that," host Joe Rogan said. "You can't go back from that -- without violence. i'm not saying that that would happen in the U.S., but the fact that it can happen anywhere means it can happen everywhere... If someone tried to do that today -- if you had a blonde haired, blue eyes guy who made all women wear a certain outfit, and wouldn't let women drive, and they weren't allowed to have rights -- How many people would stand up for him?"
"That's incredible," Dr. Saad responded.
"There's something about old ideologies that gives them legitimacy. It is so strange. What is that?" Rogan asked.
Saad responded: "You take an idea that someone holds, unless you can cloak it under the robe of a religion, you commit him to a psychiatric institution. If he says it is religion, you give him a free pass. It is grotesque."
"When you argue this could happen in the United States, you are not stretching at all, if you look at a long term view of Islamic immigration, if what you focus on is: Do we have the proper vetting processes to stop ISIS from coming in. That is a very short term solution... It is not as though every country that is Islamic became, overnight, Islamic. In some cases it was a very quick invasion, while in other cases it took 500 years before the dmeographic reality shift. So yes, if you look at it int he perspective of 5-10-50-100 years, the U.S stands no threat. But take a long term view. I love this quote, I think it was from the Taliban: The U.S. has all the clocks and watches, but we have all the time in the world, eventually we will conquer you."
Saad continued: "So, do you want to have a society that is becoming more Islamized or less?"
"Let me draw another analogy: At the end of every day, you can weigh yourself and get one of three results. You've either lost weight, your weight did not change, or you have put on weight. Think about it with Islam: When Islam comes into a place, the society can either get better, it can remain unchanged, or it can get worse. Do we have enough data after 1,400 years to suggest that we can try to bet about what will happen to society [if we continue to allow mass Muslim immigration]? Sadly, yes, we do."
"Again, I hate to preface -- of course, most Muslims are lovely and peaceful and wish to simply raise their children. But Islam as an ideology, when it comes into a new society, is that a good thing? If yes, maybe we should all turn Islamic. If no, then maybe we should have an honest conversaton about this," Saad concluded.
Watch the full podcast discussion with Joe Rogan and Gad Saad:
About Gad Saad: Gad Saad is a professor of marketing at Concordia University, and research chair in evolutionary behavioral sciences and Darwinian consumption. He is also the author of "The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption" and "The Consuming Instinct."





