Can you feel it coming?
Something's waking up inside.
Hearts ablaze, we're standing tall breaking chains of yesterday.
Dead America finds it's voice, in the darkness, we make choice.
Truth and healing lead the way, hearts ablaze, we're here to stay.
Rise from ashes, come what may, we're finding hope in disarray.
Today, we're speaking with Dr. Sheldon Greaves.
He is the author of The Gorrilla Scholars Handbook.
Dr. Greaves, could you please introduce yourself?
Let people know just a little more about you, please.
Sure.
Um, I, uh, uh, I live in, uh, Albany, Oregon, uh, with my wife and three cats.
Uh, I, uh, have a PhD from the University of California Berkeley
in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, uh, which is not particularly marketable,
but it's, uh, forced me to develop a different way of doing intellectual
work, uh, in ways that are creative and unusual and frankly unconventional.
So, uh, my path has taken me to, um, uh, starting a small, uh, science software
education company, uh, working on a, um, uh, an amateur space lift capable rocket
and co-founding the first, uh, university designed from the ground up for training
people in intelligence, counter-terrorism, and executive protection.
Uh, so it's kind of a wild thing for someone who spent a lot of
time in graduate school, you know, learning how to read, uh, ancient
parchments and clay tablets.
Uh, what I have done is I've taken what I have learned from that journey
and put it into this book, which is basically about how to do interesting
and intellectual work when you don't have access to the tools, uh, of academia.
Uh, I'm, uh, I, I like to say that I'm an, an elitist in the sense that I believe
that we need elite thinkers in every corner and at every level of society.
And my book is a pathway to, uh, making that happen both individually
and uh, using a life of the mind, a collective life of the mind, is a way
of enhancing and augmenting our, our social lives, our community lives.
You know, it's pretty interesting and very deep in what you do.
So, talk to us first about why did you decide to write this book and what do you
think that it will add to our society?
Um, well, what kind of started me going on it was, um, uh, actually another book that
I encountered back in the, oh boy, this would've been the late eighties, uh, it
was called, uh, The Independent Scholars Handbook by a guy named Ronald Gross.
And he introduced me to a whole other way of thinking about what it
means to have a life of the mind.
Uh, he pointed out that a lot of the, the most innovative and interesting
thinkers were people who were outside of academia back at that time.
People like, uh, Buckminster Fuller, Barbara Tuchman, uh, uh, Betty Friedan,
Eric Hoffer, uh, people who made a real difference but we're not associated
with the university in any way.
Now, I went to the university because, uh, it was just kind of a path
that I had been on for a long time.
And I studied what I studied because I was interested in it, not because, um,
I was intent on going out and getting rich or anything.
But in order to do that, I had to get creative because we were just
starting to get to the point where university life was getting expensive.
It was getting harder and harder to get in and afford it.
And at this, while I was doing my degree, my wife was also
doing a doctorate at Stanford.
So we had, we were basically putting two kids through college as a, as a young
married couple, uh, namely each other.
So it seemed to me that there was something to be said here.
And as the years went by and I found myself doing all these strange and
interesting things, it occurred to me that this might be something that
someone else who didn't get a chance to go to university might find interesting
as a way of enhancing their own life.
Now,
it started out as a love song basically to a life of the mind.
But in the last few years, obviously things have changed.
We are now living in a time when higher education and even the very
idea of truth is under attack.
And, um, it strikes me that one way to fight back against that is to create a
society where, um, honest dialogue, and critical thinking, and a love of learning
is respected, and cherished, and nurtured.
And so it started out as a love song, but it's kind of turned into a manifesto.
So while the book has a lot of tips about how you can do research when
you don't have access to an university library or various disciplines that
will make you a better thinker and a better scholar, there's also, for
instance, a very extensive chapter on dealing with disinformation,
and there's another chapter on, um, how do you conduct a learning
community when you're in a situation
where the powers that be are doing everything they can to quash that.
So I take examples, for instance, from the, um, uh, the universities that, um,
uh, allied prisoners of war put together behind the barbed wire during World
War II, or the learning, um, societies and, uh, infrastructure that was put
together by Welsh coal miners to educate their kids and then later themselves to
help them get out of the coal fields.
Uh, I talk about the, um, uh, the Antebellum African American literary
societies where a lot of the basic ideas behind, um, uh, the abolitionist
movement got thrashed out and some of, uh, the African American community's
strongest voices received their initial training, learning to read
and write, and how to argue a point.
Uh, so all of these things kind of play into that.
And, uh, but I also keep coming back to the idea that learning
is a pleasure, uh, you know?
I, I, there's, there is no, there are a few, there are a few phrases that
perplex me more than the phrase, "Makes Learning Fun." Uh, you know, you might as
well say makes breathing fun, you know?
Uh, our learning is what we do, it's, it's the human, uh,
characteristic par excellence.
Yeah, it, it is.
It's part of our human nature, you know, we, we develop through learning so we
definitely need learning in our life.
Uh, I come from a background where books and learning, it, it was not the focal
point of human nature and I, I really lack in many ways because of that.
So I, I remember interviewing Dr. Danny Brassell and he, he is a
great forerunner for kids actively participating in reading and learning.
And
he, he mentioned that having a lot of books in the home is a great
way to introduce that learning instead of a television or other
interactive learning mechanisms.
Books are a great way to develop the mind, and I really dove in and I
wanted to understand more about that.
And the more I thought about it, it, it's very true because when you learn to
read and read well, I, I don't mean just casually read, I'm talking about diving
into what reading actually is, learning.
This, this helps us develop a lot
better.
Because if you're reading it makes your mind more active.
You have to actively think, a red dragon, what does a red dragon look like?
And you have to imagine this so it expands your mind a lot more.
What, what is lacking in our world today is that physical reading, you know, books
should be at a hand throw away and, you know, we, we, we lack the understanding
of the importance of diving into a book.
And I did not do that until I was in my forties and getting close to my fifties.
So now I am actively reading all the time and I'm learning that, hey, my mind is
expanding better because I have to do those more intricate details of learning
by imagining and growing with my learning.
What's your thoughts on that?
Well, you've, you have nailed a, a, an, an incredibly important point.
When I was growing up, when we were growing up, um, my mother, uh, was
very active, uh, with the, um, the local public library in Salem, Oregon.
She was a member of The Friends of The, of The Public Library.
And the public library, uh, was both a place for us to, um, to, uh, you
know, go and amuse ourselves and I suppose it, at some level, it also,
uh, pinch-hit for my mother as daycare.
But, um, she was, she was very adamant about making sure that there were, that
there were books all over the place.
I mean, uh, we had lots of books at home, there was a book mobile that
showed up, uh, you know, a five minute bike ride away every Saturday.
Uh, there were book sales where you could go and, you know, like every six months
or so, the library would sell off, uh, books that they weren't using anymore.
Hardbacks were a quarter and paperbacks were a dime.
You know, I, I spent six bucks and got an entire encyclopedia set, you know?
Um, you know, and, and that kind of, that stuck.
And, um, so, you know, I mean, you can see behind me the whole
house is like this, you know?
Uh, and my wife is, is just as bad as I am.
Um, we're not good for each other when it comes to, you know, us accumulating books.
And it's not entirely true that I married her for her
library, but, um, uh, you know?
Um, the, um, uh, you know, the, um, the, the experience of a book with,
with actual pages, it's not just that you're interacting with it the way
you describe, the way you describe so well, there is now a solid body of
evidence to show that when students learn to read from a screen versus
learning to read from the printed page,
it's not as effective on a screen.
If you get to the end of like, say, sixth grade, the students who have
been, uh, reading off of a screen are on average about two thirds
of a year behind the students who've been reading off dead trees.
Uh, and I, I, you know, I can't really make any, um, uh, offer any explanation
as to why that's true, apart from, you know, some kind of a lack of interaction.
I don't have any kind of scientific or empirical, uh, explanation for that,
but that does seem to be the case.
Uh, the other thing too is that I do like to, you know, to go through a
book and, you know, I will, I will mark things, you know, in like pencil or make
little notes in the margin, you know?
Um, there's a wonderful old Jewish saying, um, A virgin book
bears no offspring, you know?
Uh, you know?
And, and I think, I think there's a certain amount of truth to that, you know?
My, my book is the result of many, many other books with lots of
underlining and, and margin notes.
So, um, you can't, you can't really do that on Kindle.
Uh, I mean, they say you can, but it's, it's not the same thing.
Yeah, it, it's like an extra effort beyond and, and it breaks you from what
you're doing instead of that quick jot.
Hand and, hand and eye go together well and when, when you break that,
it like takes you away and then you have to regain your consciousness.
And, and there's a study about that also when you break away and you have to
come back, it takes your mind a certain amount of time to refocus and regather.
So if you're doing that, you know, pen and eye to paper, you don't break away
and you, you can actually focus better.
So our learning standards have dropped in a way by going to these electronic
devices and it's, it's really caused distractions in many ways.
And I, I'm wondering, you know, it, it is a great augmentation of learning, but
should it be the forefront of learning?
I don't think so, I don't think it should be at the forefront.
It's a, it's a tool like any other tool, but you don't use a hammer for everything.
Uh, the other problem that I find is that, um, uh, you know, every
new piece of technology brings unintended consequences in its wake.
And one of the problems that I have found with, um, uh, this kind of technology,
at least in the schools, for the last couple of years, I've been working as
a substitute or an, uh, educational assistant in the local school district
and there was this one, uh, class that I was helping out in, this, this, this
poor teacher was dealing with thirty-two kindergartners and they all had their
iBook, you know, their, their iPads, and
they were all trying to log into the system.
Trying to get thirty-two kindergartners to all log in to a network in a timely
manner, it's like asking a starfish to do brain surgery, you know?
I mean, it took forty-five minutes to get everybody logged in.
And by that time, you know, and this was pretty typical.
I mean, that was on a good day.
Uh, the, the, the technology frankly is buggy, it's not terribly, you
know, it's not always reliable.
And then once you get to it, you know, it's a, so much of what's, what
is being done there just replicates what was done with a worksheet.
Now in the, in the past, I, you know, I will say grading those
worksheets took a lot of time.
The computer saves a lot of time for the teacher on, in that respect.
But does it save as much time as it takes to get everybody logged
in and, and, and doing their stuff?
I don't know.
On the other hand, I've seen fantastic use made of, um, uh, YouTube videos
and, and you know, things of that sort.
You know, uh, well, let's find something, boom, you know, and it,
and it makes things a lot easier.
And for certain kinds of teaching, uh, that's great.
You know, I have, I have no problem with it.
But, you know, uh, the other problem, of course, is during the pandemic when
a lot of education was conducted over Zoom, and that proved to be problematic.
Because not only was the, was the education not getting through as well,
there was a lack of socialization among the students that is, is still being felt.
The effects of that are still being felt even years later as those kids that
were kind of, not quite socialized are still trying to get that act together as
they, as they move through the system.
So, you know, um, and now, of course, we have, you know, we have AI and Chat
GPT and all that sort of thing, which is, um, giving kids an excuse to write
something without thinking about it.
And that's deadly.
Yes.
Uh, that, you hit it right there.
You know, and, and really AI is just pre-programmed information that these
models have been programmed to output.
So when we think about that, you have to really go through and edit this AI.
You know, I, I use Descript for my transcript, for instance, and
I, I would say that transcript is maybe eighty-nine to ninety percent accurate.
But you need that human oversight to go through and edit that and make sure that
it's accurate to the hundred percent mark or else it, it's like you said, there's,
and there's a lot of people just, oh, that's good enough, and they let it go.
But
like you said, it's an excuse to just get by and I, I think that is dangerous
for our society in many, many ways.
You brought up YouTube.
YouTube is a fascinating visual, audible learning device for us, and
it takes me back to, you know, when I was in school, those big reels would
be pulled out and the projector set up and we would watch a show, you know?
So that, that was one of the best times of learning for me in the classroom because
it, it was an image that I could get into.
So there are these different forms of educating our brain and people
take information in differently.
What, what is your thoughts and opinions on that?
Well, yeah, you're absolutely right.
There're, there're people who learn visually, there're people who learn, uh,
audibly, there're people who learn when they're doing something with their hands.
Uh, and this is one of the problems that public education has faced from
the beginning is how do you educate a whole bunch of people, uh, to the point
where they could become useful citizens?
And our solution to that is to apply, uh, a mass production model where you
have an assembly line and you get a, and the, and the problem is it's like,
you know, it's, it's like you have raw material and it's all different
and you can't always adjust for it.
And people kind of get squeezed into, the square peg gets
squeezed into the round hole.
Sometimes you can make it work, sometimes you can't.
The other thing too is that it's a question of timing.
Some people aren't ready to handle Shakespeare in, you know, eighth or
ninth grade, but then maybe a few years later in their twenties or
something, they, they go to, uh, they go to a performance of Romeo and Juliet
and they go, wow, that's amazing.
I wanna learn more about this, you know?
Uh, or, you know, uh, again, it's, it's a question of timing.
Now in, in, um, in earlier times, let's, let's go back to the ancient
Greeks, because that's kind of where our education system gets its start.
There were, there were no grades, there was no graduation,
there was nothing like that.
Education was just kind of what you did, especially if you
were, uh, a gentleman of means.
In, in fact, our word school comes from a Greek word schole', which means leisure.
Because that was considered to be the appropriate activity of a gentleman
of leisure, and you educated yourself so that you could hold your own in
freewheeling discussions about the big ideas with the smartest men in town.
And freewheeling discussions about the big ideas between the smartest
men in town was also a pretty good description of Greek democracy.
So, you know, here we are, uh, we've got this, this need to, um, to have
a citizenry that is, uh, educated.
Uh, and especially now when that educational system is under attack.
I mean, we, we have, um, I mean, okay, I'm rambling a little bit here, but
it, I've, it is, it is a national disgrace, in my opinion, how, um, school
teachers are treated in this country.
You know, they're underpaid, they're overworked, and it has been
demonstrated on more than one occasion that they are literally willing
to take a bullet for their kids.
Uh, you know, but, you know, we're gonna blame everything on them anyway.
Um, if, uh, if being able to deal with, with big ideas in open, uh,
discussion is the basis for democracy in ancient Greece, what kind of
government is our assembly line?
Heavily, you know, edited and in many cases censored education.
What is, what kind of government is that preparing us for?
That, that's unsettling to me.
Well, you know, when we talk about our politics today, it's, it's so shattering.
I mean, the polarization behind it.
And you know, when, when we talk about politics, it has to be in a fashion
and a form that is intellectual, it has to be solid and true to itself.
And there's none of that in any of our politics today.
It's, it's like you said, a disgrace.
And really it's up to us, the people, to recognize that and change that.
And that change comes through the voting box and that, that
gets pretty touchy nowadays.
However, if, if there is no moral aspect to what we are doing with our political
life and there's no accountability for our leadership for the spewing rhetoric
that comes out of these people's mouths,
what are we as a society?
You know, really Sheldon, we, we as Americans, yes, we're finding out.
And we as Americans, the world looks upon us after World War
II, like this leadership role was thrust upon us, and yet we have,
we have destroyed the value in the trust of leadership.
And it's hard to trust leadership and authority and science anymore,
and that degradation of our learning capabilities is extremely important
right now.
We, we have to
reassert to individuals, it's okay to be where you are.
And like you just outlined, you know, it, it takes time to learn and
learning comes when it's accepted.
So yeah, our leadership and what we are thinking about
is really off, in my opinion, and I think we need to bring it back to the teachers.
The teachers should be our number one priority, second to possibly healthcare.
And, and, and that's, that's more focused on the people and the value
of what they are, and who they are, what they can bring to our society.
How do we fix this polarization?
Well, you know, one, one of the, the really important ways I think
to do that is, and you've, you've alluded to this a couple of times,
is to reenthrone, uh, honest dialogue as, uh, a, a real activity.
Now in the book, I have a couple of, I, I have an entire section that's devoted
to different ways that you can bring people together to talk about things.
Uh, like, you know, salons, or seminars, or teach-ins, you know, and I'm drawing
on a lot of different traditions here.
Um, but there are also some ways that we can set rules
for how we talk about things.
Now, um, let's see, are you familiar with the Long Now Foundation?
Okay.
There, there're a, there're a bunch of, uh, relatively harmless Silicon
Valley bros who are very interested in thinking about the future of humanity in
terms, in very, very long terms, like, you know, for the next 10,000 years.
And so they have these, they have these various projects, uh, some of
them are a little silly, some of them are rather profound, but they have
developed this very interesting debate format that they use when they have,
uh, public debates on some of these big topics that they're dealing with.
So here's how it works.
Let's say you have two debaters, Alice and Bob.
Alice starts out, she sets out her position and her argument,
and then it goes over to Bob.
But Bob cannot present his, uh, argument until he has articulated Alice's
argument to Alice's satisfaction.
When Alice is, is convinced that Bob knows, you know, and is not distorting
anything, then Bob can make his argument.
And then the same thing happens there.
Then Alice has to re, you know, and what you find is in some cases, um,
in, in, in a few really odd cases, you find out that both, both debaters are
actually talking about the same thing.
They're just talking about it in different ways, you know?
Um, another example is if you have two debate, uh, debating sides, um, but you
have a little committee of, I don't know, maybe three or four or five people in the
middle, ordinary lay people who have read up on the subject and they are referees.
And if one side, uh, starts using some kind of jargon, they say, wait a minute.
You used a term there, you need to explain what that means.
I don't know what that word means, you know?
Or if they're, if they're pulling something funny, they call them on it.
And the referees kind of have, you know, the, the, the power to do that.
Uh, yet another, um, another technique that sometimes turned up in some
of the, um, uh, the salons in, uh, 18th and 19th century, uh, Paris,
was that the salonniere would, um, uh, suddenly call for each side to,
um, to argue the case, to, to switch sides so that A had to argue on B's
behalf and B had to on A's behalf.
And this is
actually, uh, a technique that's often used in the intelligence
community when you have two groups that are trying to figure something
out, and they'll, they'll switch and each one will argue the other side.
And very often something very fruitful comes out of it.
And it's a good way to avoid, um, your own biases getting injected into something.
But, but all of these things, um, they, uh, they avoid misunderstanding.
But what's more important, they also cultivate a kind of enforced empathy where
you really do have to see what the other person is thinking and, and, and seeing.
And, and quite honestly, if you are engaged in a debate, the best way
to win that debate is to know the other guy's argument better than they
do, uh, because then your argument is gonna be much, much stronger.
But, you know?
So, so there, there are ways around this.
Yeah, that's very true.
Yep.
Uh, another organization similar to what you described is Braver
Angels, and they bring both sides in.
And, you know, it's, it's a unique debating, uh, form and, and I highly
suggest you look those people up and it, it's unique, Braver Angels.
So, yes, I, I believe they're based out of Canada, uh, if I remember right.
It's, it's been a little while.
So, you know, we, we have a lot of these nuances coming at us,
and podcasting is one of them.
It's like one of these areas that people are kind of congregating
to for these discussions.
And I'm finding that more of the medium to long form discussions are now
being popularized and being presented to people and it's more acceptable.
And I feel that this is a great way to entice learning in our
communities, to bring more of this free nature podcasting to our society.
What do you think of that?
Oh, I think it's a wonderful development and I think it reflects the fact
that people are hungry for quality content, uh, for um, for meaningful
discussion, and something that isn't just, uh, you know, somebody up
there staring wild-eyed and spittle flecked and yelling into a microphone.
Uh, that gets old after a while, it's exhausting.
Uh, and in some cases I think that's the point.
But, um, yeah, I, I'm delighted to see it.
And I'm also, uh, you know, very pleased to see, uh, that.
I, I, frankly, when I started looking for, you know, at podcasts where I
could, uh, promote the book, I was astonished at the range of and number
of podcasts that are out there.
And I just think, Wow, that is, that is great.
We need that, we need that desperately.
So, you know, kudos, keep it going.
Let's, let's continue.
We may not have Public Broadcasting for, uh, for that much longer.
But it's not like we don't have the public who is broadcasting or podcasting.
So public broadcasting gives way to public podcasting.
Yes.
I, I think that that's a great point you bring up.
You know, our current administration, and we're recording this, what, in
August of 2025, so it's Donald Trump in this administration doing some pretty
horrific things to Public Broadcasting.
I, I was raised watching Public Broadcasting and it, it is, it has always
been a place where you could present ideas to the public in a public form.
And you, you get more unbiased approach to news with Public Broadcasting.
And yet we're seeing this diminishing effect on all of these
things that matter to our society through our current administration.
And it, it seems like nobody's speaking up about a lot of it
because they're terrified of the consequence, maybe, I, I don't know.
And I, I think that's very disturbing that we're finding ourselves in
a position where Americans are terrified to step up and say,
Hey, you're doing the wrong thing.
Your, your thoughts are diminishing what American values have always
bolstered, you know, freedom, respect, uh, common dignity to your fellow man.
And
where, where do you see our, our lives going if we take away these
aspects of learning through such means as Public Broadcasting?
Well, it's not just that we're going to lose Public Broadcasting, that's going
to be replaced by broadcasting that is not in the interest of the public.
I mean, we already see, you know, um, right wing media and, uh,
and various conspiracy theory oriented, uh, organs out there.
And what you're going to get is, um, uh, a crueler society, a more cynical society.
Uh, you're gonna find people who are less, um, willing to, uh, look out for
other people, look out for each other.
Uh, there will still be people who are willing to do that, brave souls who
are, who are willing to push against that, but there's going to be a cost.
Uh, and I think a lot of the rhetoric that we're seeing that decries,
uh, or denigrates things like, like learning, like, uh, social justice
and things like that, it's intended to raise the social and political
cost of exercising your conscience.
Uh, that, you know, there are other regimes out there who have
done that sort of thing, uh, and it's, it's a very old story.
My hope, however, is that there is always a resistance.
And sometimes it takes decades to find its way, uh, find its way out.
Uh, I'm thinking for instance, um, late 19th century Poland,
uh, was under Prussian rule at this, at that particular moment.
And, uh, the government closed the universities to anyone who wasn't male
and a friend of the, of the government.
And so the people of Poland, the, uh, the disenfranchised, uh, university people,
they set up their own secret universities.
They were called Flying Universities because they had to keep moving around
to, uh, stay ahead of the authorities and, um, they proved to be very effective.
In fact, one of the, uh, one of their innovations was that they admitted women.
Oh, you know, heavens.
And one of the women who, uh, was, who received her undergraduate education
at one of these Flying Universities, uh, grew up to be Marie Curie.
Uh, you know, and there was a, this, this came back, uh, the Flying
Universities came back to Poland during the, uh, communist years.
And one of the, uh, people who received his education, uh, in this
secret underground university, uh, we know him as, as Pope John Paul II.
So it's possible to have really first rate minds come out of these bad
circumstances, but we have to be willing to take risks and we have to be willing
to, um, equip ourselves with the kinds of tools that I have tried to lay out,
uh, in, in this book, uh, about not just, uh, not just thinking and reading
and researching, but organizing and learning to talk to each other, uh,
even if we have to do it in a whisper.
And that's not the American way.
Uh, you know, it, it, and, and it's hard for people to understand that
because we've lived under these
immoral ways for a long time and, you know, I've, I've watched
it creep in and people, they, they need to educate themselves
because I, I think that's the key.
If we let them dumb society down through things like the iPhone and the easy way,
like we talked about earlier, if, if we rely on Google to do everything and
think everything through for us, we're subject to some harsh treatment later.
Because you can't feed yourself, you can't fish, you can't hunt, you know,
you, so it's vital to understand how to take care of yourself because no
one is responsible for you except you.
And I think that's critical in these days to understand.
And, and through my research, I found out that your book offers
information on how to find resources and sources of information that
is true and accurate and correct.
Could you talk to us about that section?
Sure.
Um, uh,
the problem is that, uh, everybody lives in a bubble.
Uh, it's sort of in the same way that everybody is on a diet,
it's just that some diets are deliberate and some diets are not.
And so how you curate your bubble is, is very important.
So I, uh, as I mentioned earlier on in the broadcast, I spent some time, um, uh,
with the, with the intelligence community.
And one of the things I learned was that as an intelligence analyst, what
differentiates you from a run of the mill scholar is that the intelligence analyst
has to always be aware of the possibility that someone is trying to spoof them.
Someone is trying to deceive them.
Well, we're all an intelligence analysts now.
So, um, what you have to do is you have to be very deliberate
about what your sources are.
You have to, you know, if, if you have a source that, um, you know, tells you, uh,
that something is one way consistently, and it obviously turns out not to be the
case and they don't correct themselves, then you kind of have to just, I don't,
I don't accept that from them anymore.
Uh, there are some sources that are good on some things, bad on others.
The Wall Street Journal is pretty good on business stuff, but their
editorial page is full of cranks.
So I don't pay attention to the editorial page.
Um, you know, you just, that's, that's part of it.
You just have to, you have to be kind of strict about who you listen to.
And if they don't measure up, you stop listening to them.
Now, that's one side.
Another side is that there are people out there who do know stuff that
don't really have a vested interest in pushing one agenda or another.
And interestingly, uh, at least for the moment, uh, one of the best
sources of that is the US government.
So by law, every, um, every congressional district has to have at least one
government documents repository that is stocked with stuff that comes
from the government printing office or the superintendent of documents.
And one of the things that you can access there is a guidebook to, uh, that, that is
basically a catalog of government experts.
So if you want to find an expert on, uh, I don't know, uh, Salmon
populations, up here in the Pacific Northwest, that's a big thing.
You can contact the, um, government documents repository or go there and
one of the people there can point you in the direction of some person,
give you a name and an email address or phone number of two or three
people at Fish and Wildlife who are experts in that and can, can help you.
Uh, and there are, there are of course other, uh, services like that that serve
like journalists and that sort of thing.
But this one is free.
Well, for the moment anyway, who knows?
They may try to privatize that.
So that's one example.
Um, another example is, uh, making better use of your public library.
Uh, the thing is there is so much more in a public library
than just what's on the shelves.
Uh, get to be good friends, get to be on a first name basis with the
reference librarian, they are wizards.
They can find stuff that you had no idea was even out there.
Uh, and, and that's another thing too, is that Google doesn't have everything.
Maybe, uh, I don't know what, between five, maybe optimistically
nine percent of the web is actually indexed by Google, uh, the rest isn't.
And there's also huge bodies of knowledge and, and information out there that is
never going to get it, is never gonna get on the web because of copyright rules or
other, um, intellectual property laws.
There's no way they're gonna let that on the web because then, you
know, they'll lose control of it.
But the librarians, they can, they can figure out how to get that stuff.
Now another problem is that, um, academic journals are almost impossible
to access for ordinary people because they're sitting behind these
ridiculous paywalls where it costs, it costs you, you know, forty bucks
to download a PDF of a ten page paper.
Uh, but there are now networks out there where you can look for these things.
Uh, you know, like there's a, um, there's a trick you can use on, uh, on Twitter,
X, whatever the hell they're calling it now, uh, I think it's the hashtag
ICANHASPAPER or something like that, it's, it's in the book, where you put
that out there with a, the title and the author of a paper that you're looking
for and if someone, and you know, someone can see that and say, Oh, I've got a
copy of that, here, I'll send it to you.
Uh, there are also, uh, a lot of, um, frankly, pirate sites where they
have millions, literally millions of academic, uh, papers and research and
even entire books that would normally be behind payables, but they're out
there and you can get them at, okay,
Yeah.
Downloading it.
Uh, technically that's illegal, but so is jaywalking, you know?
I mean, that's, that's kind of my, my attitude towards,
towards these sorts of things.
So there's, there's a whole, there's a whole lot of different ways that
you can access, uh, information.
Uh, and, uh, quite honestly, um, the more, the more laterally you think,
what you'll often end up finding, the real payoff is when you find
something that no one else knows about.
I mean, no one else knows about.
And, um, that's, that's when it really gets fun.
So, uh, there are a lot of opportunities I think out there for independent
scholars, for gorilla scholars that aren't working under the, the
kinds of funding and disciplinary constraints that academics have.
Uh, and they also aren't working under the same, um, constraints of
where they get their information.
Uh, there's a whole area of inquiry out there that's just waiting to be tapped.
And I think that, um, uh, gorilla scholarship is a way
to get out there and do that.
And in those, at, at the same time, improve the quality of our
discourse and our political thinking.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that a lot.
You know, in essence, we all should be polymathic and we should be autodidact,
and that's when the true learning begins.
And, you know, that, that's when you can talk about the love of learning.
You know, forced learning through the institutional values, I'm, I'm not
convinced that that is really the way to have our communal dialogues per se.
And this new frontier, if you will, is allowing people to discover
that they do have things to offer.
So, you know, it, it's been fascinating speaking with you
today, it just got started it seems.
I could speak for hours with you because you are a wealth of knowledge.
Could you tell people how they can get ahold of you, get in touch with you,
get involved with what you're doing?
Sure.
Um, well, let's see.
Uh, you can, you can find my book on Amazon.
Uh, it's available in hardback, soft cover, uh, uh, electronic copy and,
uh, it's published through spines.com.
And if you go through them, you can access various platforms that have the audiobook.
So there's that.
Uh, probably the best way to get a hold of me is to, um, email me at,
uh, sheldon@gorrillascholar.com and that's with two R's and two L's.
Um, uh, just look at the title of the book, because gorilla can
be spelled with one r or two, either one is, is apparently okay.
But I use two R's and two L's.
Uh, so sheldon@gorrillascholar.com and, um, uh, yeah, that's, uh, you know, I'd
love to hear from, from some of your listeners and, uh, you know, I'd love to,
I'd love to continue this discussion if, uh, if the opportunity presents itself.
Yeah, there, there's definitely more dialogue that needs to happen between
us, uh, because we, we didn't even scratch the surface on, you know,
your, your knowledge about biblical understanding and the Hebrew Bible, the,
you know, this is fascinating to me.
And I think the number one thing, politics and religion in our life.
And everybody's afraid to be honest, true, and be curious.
And, and I think if we formulate that curiosity instead of,
Hey, I have to be right.
We're gonna have a great, bright future.
Is there anything else, Dr. Greaves, that you wanna share with our listeners that
we haven't covered about learning today?
Uh, I guess the only thing that I would, I would do, uh, that I would want to
add is just to, to reiterate, uh, that learning is, is, is a source of joy.
Um, there's, um, one of my favorite novels growing up was, uh, T.H.
White's, the Once and Future King.
And there's this wonderful quote that, um, comes out of it.
Merlin is talking to, to, uh, Arthur, who's having a bad day.
And, uh, Merlin, uh, says, The best thing for being sad is to learn something,
that is the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night
listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may
see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honor
trampled in the sewers of baser mines.
There is only one thing for it then, to learn.
Learn why the world wags and what wags it.
That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate,
never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.
That is an awesome way to end a podcast right there.
Dr. Sheldon Greaves, I, I thank you for sharing with us today, and
you have a wealth of knowledge.
Thank you for being out there.
Thank you, it's my pleasure.
Thank you.
Chasing dreams in the neon glow, ancient pages turned, but the rebels know.
Dusty roads hum a restless tune, under the harvest of a broken
moon.
Only ivory cracks when the wild ones speak, gorilla lies where the back
streets meet.
From Sheldon's
trail to the county fair, knowledge blooms where the brave ones dare.
Blackboard rivers and chalk dust skies, every whisper wears a disguise.
But the harmonic calls through the hollering pine, breaking
chains with a voice divine.
Schoolhouse starts swinging wide tonight, lanterns burn with stolen light.
The clear ones rise with the sun so clear, tearing down what the old world fears.
Only ivory cracks when the wild ones speak, gorilla lies where
the back streets meet.
From
Sheldon's trail to
the county fair, knowledge blooms where the brave ones dare.