Dave Rubin Talks About 'Echo Chamber' Mentality

TRANSCRIPT FROM THIS 'DIRECT MESSAGE' WITH DAVE RUBIN:

Published on Ora TV on Sep 30, 2015:

Hey everyone!We're going to be doing something a little different this week -- I’ve got Maajid Nawaz jumping on a skype call!He and Sam Harris are co-authors of a new book about Islam, and Maajid is a former Islamic extremist himself. A ton of you have been asking us to sit down, but he lives in London, so we thought we'd give this a shot. Actually he's in New York at the moment, I saw a picture of him and Morgan Freeman in a mosque yesterday, so I'll ask him about that and much more in a little bit.But first, a little housekeeping:

I want to talk about some of the principles we laid out in the first episode and some of the reaction to last week's show. It seems that a bunch of you weren't thrilled with my guest Jimmy Dore. Jimmy is a hardcore lefty progressive and uses some of the tactics I mentionedI wouldn't be using on the show.First, let me say I can only hold myself to the rules that I laid out. If I stopped and mentioned every time a guest said something that goes against my personal rules, the show would be slow and painful.More importantly, as we build a community based on tolerance and other ideas, it's important we remain tolerant of ideas we don't like. Jimmy is a great friend of mine. We've worked together on air for years, we've done stand up gigs together, and I've had him and his wife over for dinner numerous times.Yes, we don't agree on everything, including some pretty big issues, but I think life is more than just scoring who is right on everything all the time.

The most interesting part of last week’s response was that some people said the episode was an echo chamber and I didn't push back enough.Other people questioned why I even had people I disagree with on at all. That's the beauty of the Internet, right?We can all be part of the same conversation and still see it through each of our individual prisms.Good journalism is the search for truth.This show will be a battle of ideas, not just having our own reinforced.

There is so much intolerance of the other on both sides and I think we can create that's much better than that. Actually I don't think it, I know it, and I see it already happening. Last week I had a hardcore progressive lefty, this week I have a former Islamic extremist turned moderate trying to reform his religion.Next week I have a gay conservative from Breitbart -- Milo Yianopoulos.I won't agree with all of them all the time, but I most likely won't shout them down either. I have enough faith in you guys that if we have honest conversations here, the truth will present itself.

This of course reminds me of the galactic republic in the early days of the Death Star. Grand Moff Tarkin wanted to stifle debate because they had the most powerful super laser in the universe.Of course, let’s not forget that Darth Vader said that the Death Star was nothing compared to the power of the force.

The force is in our side... let's use it wisely.