- The future that we want to build is impossible
if important ideas are deemed
too heretical to even be spoken.
Sure— I mean, the people here are probably wrong
about all sorts of sh*t.
But there are a few ideas there
that could change the world.
My name is Mike Solana, and I have built
a platform for heretics.
- Radicals, dissidents, rebels and misfits.
You can call them whatever you like.
But, what if they're right?
- Hi, I'm Mike Solana.
I am the creator of Hereticon.
Hereticon is not a place for people to come
and just disagree with each other.
It's a place to spotlight ideas
that are not really allowed into the mainstream.
Everything that we put on stage at Hereticon
is something that I wouldn't say I necessarily believe.
My guiding light is: "Is there interesting evidence here?"
This is not a conference for flat-eathers—
they're welcome to come and join the party for sure.
But in terms of what we want to put up,
it's the sort of stuff that I look at a study or something
and I see data.
Charles Fort referred to this particular kind of data
as 'damned data.'
Facts, sort of studies
that for whatever reason, people won't look at.
There's almost like an antimemetic property
to things like UFOs, for example, or ESP.
And I want to just explore those things.
I wanna explore all those things.
- What attracted you to this initially?
What created the impetus for you to create this?
- Nobody has all the answers.
I think maybe that's one of the more
disorienting things about our culture right now.
We have this assumption
that the sort of people in charge
are right about everything,
and it's just clearly not true.
It's impossible.
If you believe in progress, a progressive world,
you want things to become better.
You have to defend the ability, not just the right.
We have the right to speak,
but you have to defend the ability
to actually express dissent among popular opinions
and legitimately new things; to share new ideas.
Nothing frustrates me more, actually,
broadly in culture right now,
than people who complain endlessly
about the free speech thing.
The point of Hereticon is not to talk about free speech.
The point of Hereticon is to actually say the thing.
Just say it.
That's what we're all here to do.
We're here to express the opinion, to share the idea.
Yeah.
- So what's your heretical belief?
- I believe there is a truth.
I believe there is a 'one truth.'
I believe there is a 'perfect truth.'
I believe it is also probably impossible
for the human brain to conceive of, at this point.
We're not perfect creatures,
and what we are is able to ask questions.
What we are is able to think of new things,
new ways of doing things.
What we are able to do is get better
and get a little closer to the truth.
But that process is impossible
if you're not allowed to ask questions.
Every sufficiently new idea
is necessarily nonconsensus in some way.
Right now, the price that we pay
for nonconsensus thought is too high.
People are losing their jobs.
People are afraid of losing their friends.
What that does is it stifles
our culture, it gets us to a place
where it's impossible to build new things.
And you can't create a sort of
better world if you can't build new things.
So, I think you're either growing or you're declining.
I don't believe that things enter stasis.
I think the future is some sort of
incredible utopia or humanity is over.
I think those are roughly the stakes.
- All right.
Mike, just for the record, can I have
you say and spell your name?
- Sure thing.
Mike Solana, M-I-C. Oh.
M-I-K-E S-O-L-A-N-A.
- Well, I have bad news—
that was the easiest question on my list.