Ryan Grant Little is a Canadian social entrepreneur, impact investor, and humanitarian organizer. He co-founded CanadaHelps in 2000, later worked across climate-tech and venture investing, and now operates from Kyiv through Roxolani Trust and Invest in Bravery. Public profiles describe him as linking humanitarian logistics, defense-tech ecosystems, and international capital. His work spans charitable innovation, startup support, and practical assistance for Ukraine’s wartime resilience, reconstruction, and long-term security during a period of historic national strain.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Ryan Grant Little about Ukraine’s defense-tech growth, investor caution, and the pace of working life in Kyiv during wartime. Little avoids unverified sector-size figures but emphasizes rapid expansion, mission-driven responsiveness, and the unusual speed of coordination under air-raid conditions. The discussion broadens into work culture, contrasting relaxed resource-rich environments with more disciplined, high-stakes settings where urgency, purpose, and resilience shape professional behavior and collaboration across Ukraine’s civic economy.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How large is Ukraine’s defense technology sector in terms of capital? Are there reliable estimates?

Ryan Grant Little: There are estimates, but I do not want to cite figures without verifying them. What is clear is that the sector is growing rapidly, at a strong, sustained rate. The growth trajectory is as important as the current size.

Jacobsen: You have been here for a year. When did you feel integrated into life in Kyiv after moving permanently? Was it a week, a month, or six months?

Little: I feel very welcome here. People are warm and open. However, I do not speak the language, which is a limitation, and I have not yet had the time to address it. I am working almost constantly.

I would not describe my experience as well-rounded. I work seven days a week. That said, there is something distinctive about working here. Because of the urgency of the situation, and, in some cases, the normalization of constant air raid alerts, people are highly responsive. They answer calls and messages quickly, often throughout the day.

This allows projects to move forward much faster. In my case, that applies to coordination, logistics, and decision-making.

Jacobsen: I have noticed the same pattern in media work, interviews, transcripts, and coordination. Progress can be much faster. How is it on your side?

Little: Completely aligned. In fact, I sometimes delay sending messages because I know people will respond immediately, even on weekends. I try to give them space to rest and spend time with their families.

There is a strong sense of responsibility. Many people have family members on the front lines or have experienced loss. That affects how and when you reach out.

At the same time, I appreciate the pace. It suits how I prefer to work. Coming from cities like Vienna and Berlin, this level of responsiveness is very different.

Jacobsen: That raises a broader question about work culture. In Canada, which is resource-rich, there is often a more relaxed mindset. In contrast, many East Asian societies, shaped by resource constraints and long historical pressures, tend to emphasize discipline and persistence.

That can have negative effects, such as stress and burnout, but it also builds resilience and consistency.

Little: Yes, and in parts of Europe, there are ongoing debates about sustainability of current economic and social models. Some countries have benefited from long-standing wealth accumulation, but global competition is shifting.

For example, industries that once relied on technological leadership now face competition from countries that have rapidly advanced their own capabilities. It is not yet clear how these dynamics will evolve.

Jacobsen: Persistence, staying with a task to completion and working as much as necessary, is often more pronounced in resource-constrained societies than in resource-rich ones with a more relaxed mindset.

Little: I have seen that dynamic as a hiring manager. There is value in balance, maintaining a relaxed baseline while being capable of working very long hours when required. It also helps when the work itself is meaningful.

In this case, the work is purpose-driven. For example, I recently messaged the head of Defense Builder, who is Danish but based in Kyiv, to ask if she could meet during the week. She replied with her availability and added that she was also available that same evening, it was a Sunday.

I hesitated to message her on a weekend, but her response reflected a shared understanding: we are here for a mission. That clarity of purpose changes how people approach their time and work.

It is refreshing to collaborate in an environment where the stakes and objectives are so clear. That is very different from working on incremental commercial products, such as another software platform with limited broader impact.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Ryan.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 400 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by Maksym Diachenko on Unsplash

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Irina Tsukerman on proposed social media bans for minors, free speech, TikTok, and the risks of emotionally driven policy. Tsukerman warns against copycat restrictions without longitudinal evidence, comparing them to COVID-19 responses and Prohibition. The discussion then turns to a reported Toronto HIV remission case, its medical limits, cultural meaning for gay men, and the hope of reducing lifelong treatment burdens while preserving attention to rights, evidence, public trust, and dignity.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, following in the footsteps of some European states, not only EU member states, but also the United Kingdom, there have been discussions about social media bans or age restrictions for kids. How “kids,” “children,” or “adolescents” are defined depends on the jurisdiction. Some proposals focus on children under 13; others look at under-15s or under-16s. The concern is online harm, addictive platform design, and childhood development. We have talked about this before.

So, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, fun fact, used to be a rapper before entering politics, and now he is very much the political family man. Personalities can be flexible, but usually over decades. People can change, but it takes substantial time.

What are your thoughts on the Canadian orientation on this? I will send you the link. I know you have given commentary on your general thoughts before, and I know you are a free speech activist in most contexts. So I am curious about your stance on this as well. There is something disturbing about all of this beyond the issue of free speech.

Irina Tsukerman: The disturbing part is that much of this is being done in a copycat fashion, without long-term studies showing whether these bans are likely to be effective or whether they may cause unintended harms. Why not run pilot studies? Why not let one jurisdiction take the lead, conduct a longitudinal study for several years, and then make a decision? Or why not adopt a phased approach, just to see how it works out?

It seems there is a massive international rush to adopt the strictest possible standards. These measures may be, A, difficult to enforce effectively, and B, capable of positioning governments to take further steps that could restrict the rights of adults in the future.

A lot of this is driven by emotional responses and the desire to “do something.” It is politically easy. It does not require major funding, independent review, or long-term study. It feeds into a populist push by certain types of people.

Interestingly, the reason I am so skeptical about all of this is because of what happened with TikTok in the United States. There was a major push to force TikTok’s divestiture or ban it, and the impact on young people was one of the stated concerns. Quite frankly, I agreed with concerns about that specific platform, but I thought the issue applied to everyone, not only teenagers or children.

The issue was the way TikTok collects data and the concern that, because of ByteDance’s relationship to China, it could function as a foreign intelligence or influence risk, not simply that it was targeting kids with trivial or sometimes dangerous content, although that too was part of the concern. This was not generic social media harm; this was something more specific and targeted.

But the bottom line is that there was a huge wave of outrage from exactly the sort of people you might expect. Then, once Donald Trump backed an alternative solution, a U.S.-based TikTok arrangement, majority-owned and controlled by U.S. persons, with oversight of American user data, the outrage largely disappeared. That arrangement may have changed ownership and data governance, but it did not necessarily address the underlying design incentives of the platform.

In recent months, there has been far less public outrage about TikTok. That suggests some of the concern was performative, used for political advantage. Even those with genuine concerns appeared willing to accept the situation once other political or commercial considerations took precedence.

So this is how society really looks at free speech, business, and social media, the kind of burden being imposed for reasons that are, at the very least, questionable and not necessarily tied to legitimate concerns. These measures can be very dangerous, not just for speech, but more broadly.

If the public concern is not strong enough for people to remain consistent in their positions and continue pushing for the measures they claim to support, then why should politicians go along with it and engage in this kind of virtue signaling? I will call it exactly what it is. This is about satisfying people who could just as easily be satisfied in other ways, as we have seen with the TikTok backlash. The fact that there is this conformist policy trend, leading countries to quickly adopt measures without evaluating their potential effectiveness, is concerning.

It reminds me of the reaction to COVID-19. There was a genuine issue, of course. But many governments rushed into actions that had to be revised quickly because initial assumptions or measures turned out to be flawed. That led to significant controversy: accusations of inconsistency, confusion, and loss of public trust.

I am concerned that this pattern will repeat itself. When governments adopt the most stringent, emotionally satisfying policies in a copycat fashion, those policies often backfire. A more measured approach, targeted protections, ensuring adequate medical supplies, and adapting policy based on emerging evidence, would likely have produced more consistent outcomes.

Instead, panic drove policy. Governments felt compelled to act quickly, often in response to fear-driven narratives. I am seeing a similar dynamic now. I am not saying social media restrictions are equivalent to public health measures, but they could lead to comparable unintended consequences.

For example, prohibition-style approaches, like the alcohol bans in the 1920s in the United States, led to widespread abuse, the rise of organized crime, and other predictable side effects. Policies that ignore human behavior tend to fail in predictable ways.

Parents who are concerned about monitoring their children’s online activity would likely prefer those children to remain in environments where they can be supervised, rather than forcing them to seek workarounds, VPNs, anonymous platforms, or more extreme online spaces, due to the taboo effect created by bans.

Jacobsen: This is very interesting. I do not know what this will mean politically, because when a new disease emerges and affects a generation without a clear cure, and only years later begins to see effective treatments, it becomes more than a medical issue, it becomes a cultural phenomenon.

In Canada, there have been reports of a patient in Toronto achieving long-term remission of HIV following a stem cell transplant, sometimes described as a potential functional cure. That is very interesting. With medical technology, once a solution is identified, the next challenge is scaling it, making it widely accessible. Given current geopolitical conditions, scaling could still present challenges, but perhaps not insurmountable ones.

What are your thoughts on this reported development? In a real medical sense, rather than something questionable, what do you think this might mean culturally, particularly for gay men, given how widespread HIV was in North America, especially in the United States, for so many years?

Tsukerman: It is tragic that it took as long as it did to reach this point. I wish something like this had been available earlier; it could have saved thousands of lives. That said, it does sound medically promising.

The medical establishment will need to determine whether this outcome is specific to a particular patient, given the complexity of stem cell transplants, or whether the approach can be generalized and scaled. I would hold off on celebrating until there is a broader evidence base and a larger sample size.

Still, for some individuals, this may mean a return to full normalcy and good health. That is absolutely something to acknowledge and welcome.

As for the idea, often raised by socially conservative commentators, that if HIV becomes curable, people will abandon safe practices and return to reckless behavior, I think that is misguided. There are many other sexually transmitted infections that remain uncured, which alone provides reason for caution.

More broadly, human behavior is not primarily dictated by the presence or absence of a single disease. The existence of HIV did not eliminate risk-taking behaviors, and its potential mitigation will not fundamentally reshape identities or orientations. It will not change the fact that people are gay, nor will it eliminate other forms of behavior that carry risk.

The real issue is whether people can live healthy, productive lives without the burden of chronic illness, expensive lifelong treatment, and associated restrictions. If medical advances can reduce that burden, then they offer meaningful improvement in quality of life.

This is not about altering moral frameworks or social identities. It is about health, longevity, and the ability to live without constant medical concern. In that sense, it offers hope, practical, human hope, for people to focus on their lives rather than one defining medical condition.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Irina.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 400 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash

Melanie Trecek-King is a science educator, speaker, and writer focused on critical thinking, science literacy, and misinformation. She is the creator of Thinking Is Power, Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College, Education Director for the Mental Immunity Project and CIRCE, and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Her book, A Field Guide to Spotting Misinformation, extends her work helping people evaluate claims, recognize manipulation, and navigate the information environment more wisely.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Melanie Trecek-King about the structure and purpose of her new book, which moves from self-awareness to journalism, science, and the broader misinformation playbook. Trecek-King explains why active inoculation matters, arguing that students learn best by constructing misinformation themselves and recognizing its techniques. She also distinguishes between skepticism and cynicism, frames deception as a universal biological challenge, and shows how scams exploit distraction, misplaced trust, and vulnerability in digital spaces today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the structure, orientation, and purpose of the new book?

Melanie Trecek-King: For context, before you read the book, it is structured into four parts: understanding ourselves, the misinformation playbook, understanding journalism and misinformation within that field, and understanding science and its associated misinformation. This mirrors how I structure my classes, starting with self-awareness and misinformation, so people can better evaluate information and identify reliable sources. The book uses many stories and examples throughout. Most are more engaging than the Ed Graves story.

Jacobsen: It sounds genuinely uplifting, a real Pixar narrative.

Trecek-King: If I could produce Pixar-level material, I would be working for Pixar.

Jacobsen: I interviewed James Randi before he died. One of his recurring points was that these phenomena resemble “whack-a-mole.” You address one instance, and another emerges. It also relates to overconfidence. When you watch interviews with proponents of pseudoscience, such as those claiming spoon-bending, they often display extreme confidence. They can be highly persuasive despite lacking evidence.

Randi described it as an ongoing cycle: these claims persist, reappear, and sometimes escalate into legal disputes. It would be interesting to examine how such cases have unfolded in court, whether claims were ever tested under evidentiary standards.

Trecek-King: One piece of background information is that the original title for the book was How to Be a Charlatan. It would have been a great title, but it was not approved.

In my classes, I teach students how misinformation works at a structural level. For example, I introduce the techniques used in pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, propaganda, or science denial. The goal is to understand patterns rather than individual cases, because specific claims change constantly.

Then, I have students create misinformation themselves. They take the characteristics of pseudoscience and apply them to something fictional or humorous. For example, they might design advertisements for fake health products. This process helps them internalize how misinformation is constructed.

By creating it, they become better equipped to recognize it. When they encounter similar patterns on social media, they are more likely to identify and critically evaluate them. The exercise is both effective and engaging, and the results are often quite creative.

One group of middle school students attempted to create a product framed around exaggerated or misleading claims. Their teacher declined certain directions, yet they still received submissions that embedded layered humour and deception.

At one point, during a presentation, someone in the audience recognized a reference the students had included, an example of how these constructions can contain signals that are not immediately obvious.

When you re-examine the material through the lens of intentional construction, it becomes clear that the students were deliberately applying persuasive techniques to mislead. The structure, naming, and imagery all mimic real-world pseudoscientific marketing.

The claims are vague but suggestive, allowing the audience to project meaning onto them. That ambiguity is a common feature of pseudoscientific products; it creates the illusion of effectiveness without providing measurable or testable claims.

Schools often try to protect students by restricting access, locking down websites and limiting research to pre-approved sources. That intention is understandable, but it does not reflect reality. Students are already encountering misinformation online. The goal should be to help them understand and evaluate what they are seeing, rather than assume we can shield them entirely.

That is why I value these exercises in creating misinformation. They provide an engaging way for students to grapple with how misinformation works. Students often return and show me examples they have encountered online that closely resemble what they created themselves.

We apply this approach across domains. I teach them how conspiracy theories are constructed, how science denial operates, and how pseudoscientific claims are framed.

Jacobsen: Is that the only effective form of inoculation, having people actively engage in constructing these narratives?

Trecek-King: This approach is called active inoculation. I have published with John Cook, who researches inoculation. The broader framework is inoculation theory in social psychology, the idea that exposing individuals to a weakened form of misinformation, along with strategies to resist it, builds cognitive resilience.

There are different types of inoculation. Passive inoculation involves one-way communication, while active inoculation involves participation, such as the creation of misinformation. There are also fact-based approaches, which focus on correcting specific claims, and technique-based approaches, which focus on identifying the methods used to mislead.

These exercises are an example of technique-based active inoculation. Students use misinformation techniques themselves. There is substantial evidence that this approach provides broad protection against categories of misinformation, rather than addressing each new instance individually. Otherwise, it becomes a “whack-a-mole” problem, where another quickly replaces each debunked claim.

If we instead teach how misinformation works, particularly in areas like health pseudoscience, students can apply those insights more broadly.

Jacobsen: That is an important direction. We already know many approaches that do not work; public discourse makes that clear. The focus should be on identifying and scaling what does work, especially in public communication.

Ideally, major outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The Independent, or even the Daily Mail would prioritize this kind of content more consistently.

Trecek-King: Another critical point is empowerment. If we want people to resist misinformation, we need to give them a sense of agency.

There is also an important distinction between skepticism and cynicism. Some people assume that rejecting everything is protective, but that is not effective either.

Jacobsen: It is still more useful than credulity.

Trecek-King: That may be true, but rejecting accurate information is also harmful.

Jacobsen: As H. L. Mencken put it, “nine times out of ten, the cynic is right.” Skepticism, ideally, brings it closer to 10 out of 10.

Trecek-King: As a biologist, I approach misinformation from the perspective that humans are not the only organisms that deceive. Misinformation is as old as communication itself. When people hear that I study misinformation, they often respond that it is a major problem, but one that affects “other people.” They assume it is a problem for less-informed individuals.

I broaden that perspective. Some plants and organisms produce deceptive signals, and other organisms fall for them, often to their detriment. This is a no-blame, no-shame framework. It situates misinformation within the context of evolution and biology. It is part of being alive, trying to filter signals in an environment where not all signals are reliable.

Many approaches to misinformation make people feel blamed or embarrassed. That discourages honest reflection. Instead, framing it as a universal challenge makes it safer to engage with. It helps people recognize that anyone can be misled.

Communication is not inherently about truth; it is often about influence. That is an important distinction. My goal is to present this in a way that fosters empathy and understanding, rather than ridicule. While writing the book, I was nearly scammed twice.

Jacobsen: By whom?

Trecek-King: One involved a fake podcast invitation. Another was a social media phishing attempt that compromised my Facebook account.

Jacobsen: That is quite an experience.

Trecek-King: My Facebook page is my largest platform, with approximately 75,000 followers. I work with moderators, and in this case, a message passed through multiple people. Each assumed someone else had verified it. We were all busy and distracted. By the time we realized what had happened, control of the account had been taken. It was difficult to recover, and it was a stark example of how easily these situations can occur, even when you are actively studying misinformation.

Jacobsen: Does your book address scams directly?

Trecek-King: Yes. Scams are a form of misinformation. It is important to understand how they function and why people fall for them. Scammers strategically use communication to influence behaviour for their own benefit. Accuracy is not the goal, persuasion is.

Jacobsen: That makes sense. Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Melanie.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 400 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by Seema Miah on Unsplash

Dr. Stephen Hupp is a professor of psychology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He earned his PhD in clinical psychology from Louisiana State University and serves as the executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and as the editor of Skeptical Inquirer. His work emphasizes critical thinking, empirical scrutiny, public understanding of science, and the responsible evaluation of extraordinary claims through education, scholarship, and skeptical outreach for diverse audiences in classrooms, publications, conferences, and broader civic life. Visit csiconference.org to learn more about CSICon to be held June 11-14 in Buffalo, New York.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Dr. Stephen Hupp about politicized science, creationism, cognitive inoculation, and the continuing need for skeptical communities. Hupp explains why prebunking misinformation can work better than after-the-fact debunking, how less charged examples can teach critical thinking, and why pseudoscientific claims persist across generations. The conversation also explores the ideomotor effect, facilitated communication, and the harms caused when discredited ideas return to public life under new labels.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So there can absolutely be politicized science, but there is also the politicization of anti-scientific or non-scientific worldviews. In the American context, one of the classic examples is the creationism-versus-evolution conflict, especially the long struggle over what was first called creation science and later rebranded by some advocates as intelligent design. H.L. Mencken covered the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925, and that fight has had many later echoes in public life.

What you often see is that some activists try to build a political movement around claims that have not earned acceptance through the normal scientific process. They seek funding, develop educational materials, and try to insert those ideas into school curricula rather than persuading relevant experts through research, peer review, and scholarly consensus. So how does a conference help?

Dr. Stephen Hupp: One of the exciting things in skepticism right now is that the field is not stagnant—the ways people investigate and counter misinformation are evolving. For example, Skeptical Inquirer has recently highlighted research on cognitive inoculation, also called prebunking, suggesting that there are better ways to address misinformation than simply debunking false claims after the fact. The older model of myth-busting was often: present the myth, then present the corrective evidence. But when people hold beliefs closely, direct correction can trigger resistance rather than reflection.

So an important insight now is that, alongside debunking misinformation that is already circulating, it is just as important to engage in prebunking: helping people recognize misleading argument patterns before they take hold. That includes teaching critical thinking skills, such as identifying cognitive biases and logical fallacies, and doing so first in less politically charged contexts. In that sense, a conference can bring together researchers, communicators, educators, and activists who are refining those tools and helping the movement become more effective in public life without simply becoming another partisan camp.

As a psychology professor, if I start class on day one with highly politicized topics such as vaccines, I can lose a large part of the room immediately. But if I begin with something like Magic 8 Balls, Ouija boards, or horoscopes, people are still interested, yet those topics are usually less politically charged. That gives me a way to teach the same logical fallacies and cognitive biases through examples that provoke less defensive resistance.

Jacobsen: And that distinction matters. When Richard Dawkins held the title Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, he often emphasized the distinction between actual design and the appearance of design in nature. That is an important distinction. People naturally slip into language that suggests intention, purpose, or agency when describing living systems, but evolutionary biology explains how complexity can emerge without a designer.

Hupp: Something similar happens when we say that Ouija boards, horoscopes, or Magic 8 Balls “work.” They do work in a limited sense: they produce effects, responses, or experiences that feel meaningful to people. But the more interesting question is what mechanism is actually doing the work. In the case of a Ouija board, one possibility is a supernatural force. Another is that someone in the group is consciously steering it. A third is the ideomotor effect: people begin to expect movement in a certain direction, and their muscles respond without their conscious awareness. That idea comes first, and the motor action follows, often below the level of conscious intention.

That is why the ideomotor effect is so important in skeptical inquiry. It helps explain not only Ouija boards, but also practices such as dowsing. And one of the classic observations in Ouija-board testing is that when participants are blindfolded or otherwise deprived of the relevant visual cues, the board stops producing coherent results. The effect depends less on spirits than on expectation, suggestion, and unconscious movement.

More seriously, the same basic mechanism is relevant to facilitated communication. In that practice, a nonspeaking person may appear to communicate by pointing to letters while a facilitator supports or steadies their hand or arm. But the scientific consensus is that the messages are being authored by the facilitator, not independently by the disabled person. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association states that facilitated communication is a discredited technique, that there is no scientific evidence supporting its validity, and that there is extensive evidence that the facilitator is the source of the messages.

But they often do not realize they are doing it because of the ideomotor effect. Facilitated communication was heavily discredited in the 1990s by controlled testing and position statements from major professional bodies, but it never fully disappeared. Instead, it has re-emerged in newer variants, including methods in which a communication partner holds the letterboard or otherwise structures the response environment, which can still influence what is produced. Critics argue that these newer forms often preserve the same core problem: the helper may be authoring or steering the message, consciously or unconsciously.

That is part of why The Telepathy Tapes has drawn so much criticism. The podcast, created by Ky Dickens and released in 2024, presents claims that some nonspeaking autistic children can communicate telepathically or read minds. Critics from skeptical and autism-science communities have argued that the series revives discredited facilitated-communication-style methods while omitting the body of controlled evidence showing that facilitators, not the disabled individuals, are often the true source of the messages.

So the deeper point stands: these ideas do not necessarily disappear just because they were debunked. Whether it is facilitated communication, newer spelling-based variants, or claims linking vaccines to autism, the public service performed by skeptics and science communicators is not a one-time cleanup operation. It requires a continuing community of people willing to respond patiently, publicly, and repeatedly to pseudoscientific claims before they harden into harm. That is especially important because the consequences are not merely abstract; in cases like facilitated communication, families, schools, therapists, and disabled people themselves can be profoundly affected by false beliefs about what is happening.

And that is where the old James Randi line still fits. He described some of these beliefs as “unsinkable rubber duckies”: you push them down, they pop right back up. The phrase has circulated for years in skeptical circles because it captures the frustrating durability of bad ideas. Every generation encounters some version of the same old pseudosciences, often repackaged in a newer language or attached to newer media.

So we need new generations of skeptics and science communicators. It is not enough to have debunked something once in 1994, 1978, or 1925 and imagine the work is done forever. Every new audience encounters the material afresh. That is why conferences, magazines, podcasts, classrooms, and public-facing skeptical communities still matter.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Stephen.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 300 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

Dr. Angelos Sofocleous is a philosopher whose work focuses on depression, melancholia, and the lived experience of mental distress through phenomenology. He studied Philosophy and Psychology at Durham University, where he completed both his BA and MA in Philosophy, and later earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of York. His doctoral work explored how depression alters interpersonal relationships and reshapes a person’s experience of being in the world. His research has addressed themes such as non-participant spectatorship, unhomelikeness, temporality, and mindfulness in depression. He has published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology on major depressive disorder and treatment, and a 2025 journal article lists him as affiliated with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Dr. Angelos Sofocleous about depression, existential psychotherapy, and the limits of narratives that turn suffering too quickly into growth. Sofocleous explains that students struggle most when philosophy is brought to bear on extreme suffering, such as war, torture, genocide, or sexual abuse, where talk of resilience can ring hollow. He discusses Viktor Frankl in a careful way, distinguishing the search for meaning from passivity and stressing that suffering does not automatically make people stronger. The conversation also turns to what students actually find useful: phenomenological and existential approaches that begin with lived experience and remain sensitive to the varied social realities in which people try to cope.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you teach existentialism, ancient philosophy, ancient Cypriot philosophers, melancholia, and contemporary empirical understandings of depression under modern diagnostic criteria, what do students find most difficult to grasp? In which contexts do they struggle to make sense of these concepts or relate them to their own experience?

Sofocleous: The biggest difficulty usually appears when we move from ordinary hardship to extreme suffering. Students can usually see how philosophy might speak to disappointment, grief, anxiety, or periods of low mood. But once we start talking about war, torture, genocide, or sexual abuse, philosophical language comes under real pressure. In those contexts, it can sound morally thin, and sometimes quite offensive, to suggest that suffering should be used as a route to growth or strength. Students are often very alive to that danger.

In such cases, people are often not trying to improve themselves or become wiser. They are trying to survive, to preserve some minimal dignity, and to hold on to a life that is still livable. That is the first reality one has to respect. So students often resist any account that makes suffering sound too quickly meaningful, or that turns trauma into a lesson in resilience. Quite rightly, they worry about romanticising experiences that may leave lasting psychological damage.

What they really challenge is the idea that severe suffering can, in general, be turned into growth. We sometimes discuss Viktor Frankl here. Frankl, of course, survived the Nazi concentration camps and later developed logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy centred on meaning. His work can be powerful, especially because it insists that meaning may still matter even when freedom is drastically reduced. But I think it is better to treat Frankl as describing one possible response to suffering, not a rule that can be applied to everyone. Some people are strengthened by adversity. Others are deeply harmed by it.

So the difficulty is not usually that students fail to understand Frankl. It is that they are unsure how far his account can be generalised. Frankl’s reflections come out of an extraordinary life and an extreme historical situation. That is part of what gives them force. But it also means we have to be careful. Not every sufferer can respond in that way, and not every form of suffering yields insight, strength, or moral growth.

Jacobsen: In Man’s Search for Meaning, which claims have not held up under later scrutiny and evidence?

Sofocleous: That is a good question. I cannot point to one clear empirical claim in Frankl that has simply been disproved. My concern is more about how his work is interpreted. Often it is presented in a simplified way, almost as if it teaches that suffering is valuable because it makes us stronger. I think that is too neat, and it risks flattening what is more difficult and more serious in his thought.

Part of the issue is a broadly Stoic idea that even the worst situation can be used for inner development. There is something attractive in that thought, because it preserves a sense of human freedom and dignity under pressure. It says that even when circumstances are terrible, a person may still have some say in how they respond. But once that idea becomes a general cultural message, it can slide into a redemptive picture of suffering, as though hardship is worthwhile because it improves us.

Students often push back at exactly that point. They ask whether this places too much weight on the sufferer, as if the burden is now to transform pain into meaning. They also ask whether it suggests that if someone does not grow from suffering, they have somehow failed. That is where the view becomes troubling. Frankl can be read as saying that one should find meaning within one’s circumstances. Sometimes that may be necessary or even life-preserving. But it can also sound too close to accommodation.

In the camps themselves, of course, the room for changing one’s circumstances was almost nonexistent, and Frankl’s emphasis on inner freedom has to be read in that light. But his work is now read by people in many different situations, including everyday forms of suffering where change may well be possible. In those cases, acceptance is not always the right response. Sometimes the more sensible response is to leave a damaging situation, resist what is unjust, or try to change the conditions under which one is living.

That tension between acceptance and change is where students often keep pressing. They are usually sympathetic to the idea that meaning matters. But they are wary of any suggestion that suffering is secretly an opportunity. I think that wariness is justified.

Jacobsen: What approaches are students most willing to integrate into their own lives when they are experiencing psychological difficulty?

Sofocleous: Today, many students and practitioners are drawn to phenomenology and existential approaches in therapy. Alongside more established models such as cognitive behavioural therapy, there is a growing interest in lived experience. Rather than stopping at diagnostic criteria or symptom lists, these approaches ask what grief, depression, anxiety, or alienation are actually like for the person going through them. They ask how the world appears, how time changes, how relationships are affected, and how meaning starts to loosen or break down.

Students often respond well to that because it feels closer to real life. Two people can receive the same diagnosis and still be living through very different kinds of suffering. A phenomenological or existential approach leaves room for that difference. It does not dismiss diagnosis or treatment, but it does resist reducing the person to a label. It asks what this experience is like for this person, in this life, under these particular conditions.

What people often need first is to feel that they have actually been heard. That, to me, should be the starting point. Before we rush to classify, explain, or fix, we need to understand the person who is suffering. In that respect there is still a link with ancient philosophy, because the deeper question remains how to live. But in practice that question is often much more modest than it sounds. Sometimes it is simply about how to make life more bearable, less alien, or a little more meaningful than it presently feels.

Existential psychotherapy tries to help a person move toward a life that feels more livable and more their own. It is not about giving ready-made answers. It is about helping someone clarify what matters to them, face difficult realities, think about freedom and limitation, and find a way of living that feels more honest or more grounded. I think students often appreciate that, because it does not treat suffering as just a technical problem to be removed.

Jacobsen: Even with your research, teaching, and practice, which aspects do you find most difficult to maintain consistently? What challenges arise during particularly difficult periods?

Sofocleous: One difficulty, for me, is remembering just how different people’s circumstances can be in practice. In academic or therapeutic settings, it is easy to speak in broad terms about what helps: time in nature, exercise, meditation, journaling, rest, reflective space. All of that may be useful. But many people do not have the time, money, privacy, or stability to do those things consistently. Some are working long hours, caring for others, or living under conditions that are already exhausting.

That points to a real limit in a lot of therapeutic advice. It can assume a degree of flexibility that many people simply do not have. What sounds straightforward in theory can be very difficult in real life. People come from different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds, and those differences shape what is actually possible for them. A recommendation that helps one person may be inaccessible or even unrealistic for another.

If existential psychotherapy is to be genuinely helpful, it has to adapt to the person’s circumstances rather than assuming that everyone can live in the same reflective way. That means greater sensitivity to culture, social background, material limitation, and everyday pressure. Lived experience is still central, but lived experience is never abstract. It is shaped by work, class, family expectation, social norms, and all sorts of practical constraints.

So the challenge is to keep the depth of existential and phenomenological thought without losing sight of ordinary reality. It is not enough to understand someone’s experience in the abstract. One also has to understand the actual world in which that person is trying to live.

Jacobsen: Thank you for your time.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 300 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by Aydin Hassan on Unsplash

Nataliya Plaksiyenko-Butyrska is a Ukrainian foreign-policy analyst and East Asia specialist serving as a Visiting Senior Fellow at the New Europe Center. She has written more than 100 analytical pieces on international relations, especially the Asia-Pacific, China’s regional and global influence, and Ukraine’s relations with Asian partners. Her educati…

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Volodymyr Pavlov (Translator, English-Ukrainian)

Oleksii Onisiforov is a Kharkiv resident whose life was upended by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After living in his apartment since 1988, he built a family house in Tsyrkuny in winter 2021, only to see both homes affected by occupation, missile strikes, and mortar fire. Speak…

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Anna Dorosh is a Ukrainian public-sector professional working in the Cabinet Secretariat of Ukraine, with expertise in European integration and strategic communications. She is a former assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine. She is the initiator of an independent charitable project supporting children in difficult life circumstances, es…

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Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index indicates that both Ukraine and Russia had poor corruption rankings in 2000, with Russia slightly better positioned. After the 2012 methodology change, comparable data from 2014 to 2025 show diverging trajectories. Ukraine demonstrates gradual improvement, particularly after 2022, while Russia sho…

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Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice…

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Albina Pryshchep (Translator, Ukrainian-English)

Nataliya Nazarova is a Ukrainian journalist who coordinates the work of the Center for Journalistic Solidarity of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine in Dnipro. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she has worked with colleagues supporting journalists affect…

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Faye Callaghan is a maternal health specialist and midwife working with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Ukraine. With expertise in reproductive health in humanitarian and conflict settings, she focuses on ensuring safe childbirth under extreme conditions, including the development of bunkerized maternity facilities. Her work addresses mate…

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Kurganska Christina is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, aromatherapist, and mental-health advocate based in Kyiv. She is chair of the board and public head of the NGO DoLadu Mental Health Lab, registered in November 2022 to support the mental health, rehabilitation, and reintegration of Ukrainian defenders, veterans, and the wider public. DoLadu has operated m…

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By Mykhailo Tymuliak

Montreal, Quebec — April 2026

Over four and a half thousand delegates filled the halls of the Palais des Congrès in Montreal for the Liberal Party’s national convention. The energy of the conventio…

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By Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Iryna Sergiyenko (Translation, Ukrainian-English)

Inna Sergiyenko is a Ukrainian autism advocate, educator, and founder connected with Child with Future, a Kyiv-based initiative supporting children with developmental disabilities and their families. Motivated by her son’s autism diagnosis in Israel, she helped establish a pr…

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Part 2 of 2

Anna Zvyagintseva is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist whose practice moves between painting, installation, and video, guided by ideas that choose their medium. Working through “imperceptible gestures,” she explores bodies, the unseen, and fragile textures of everyday life during war. Recently, she has returned to painting for its presence…

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João Pildervasser is Academic Affairs Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at Springer Nature, where he helps strengthen the publisher’s relationship with the regional research community. He joined Springer Nature in 2015 as the editor responsible for developing life-sciences book publishing in Latin America and the Caribbean, later managing an impactful portfolio and fostering open-access projects with leading institutions. In 2024, he moved into his current role. Pildervasser has also contributed to deeper regional engagement, including the launch of Springer Nature’s Latin American Research Advisory Council, created to amplify local perspectives and encourage cooperation across borders among researchers regionally.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with João Pildervasser of Springer Nature about Brazil’s outsized role in Latin American research, the CAPES open-access agreement, and barriers limiting regional visibility. Pildervasser argues that funding instability, language, and editorial unfamiliarity—not research quality—often constrain impact. He emphasizes that consultation, author training, research integrity, and institution-level partnerships are essential for making open access expansion credible, collaborative, and beneficial across academia, policy, and society throughout the broader region today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do Brazilian institutions shape the research landscape of the Americas?

João Pildervasser: Historically Brazilian institutions have played a central role in shaping and leading the research ecosystem in the Americas. As the third largest research publishing country in the Americas, behind only the US and Canada, Brazil has an output comparable to France, Australia and Spain. It publishes almost half of all Latin America and the Caribbean’s research output. Due to its scale, strong research institutions and national research programs, Brazil often set reference points to the wider region in terms of funding, assessment, and research dissemination. A great example of Brazil’s leading initiative is the historical CAPES Journals Portal and its efforts to explore new ways to expand open access (OA) publishing at scale.

Jacobsen: What makes the CAPES agreement a regional turning point?

Pildervasser: While not the first transformative agreement (TA) signed in the region with Springer Nature (since 2022 Colombia has a national TA in place and multiple institutional TAs have been signed in Mexico), the scale and impact of the CAPES deal is unprecedent: it enables researchers from more than 400 institutions to publish open access in Springer Nature hybrid journals without caps or individual payments. Given Brazil’s size and leadership role, the agreement sends a strong signal that Gold OA, where the final published version of record is immediately available at publication for all to read and use, can be expanded in a way that is both operationally and economically viable, and aligned with national research priorities across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Jacobsen: Where do you expect the biggest practical benefits?

Pildervasser: The most immediate short-term benefits will be observed by researchers and institutions. As Springer Nature data show, Gold OA delivers significantly higher impact, with up to 6x more downloads and 1.6x more citations compared to non-OA subscription articles. We expect that Brazilian research will be more read, used and cited, generating visibility and impact among its international peers. Another benefit for CAPES/institutions is the detailed monitoring and reporting provided by Springer Nature enabling them to track article volume, corresponding authorship and the overall TA impact. At the long-term, we also expect to see a greater impact beyond academia as open research system have positive effects both over policy design, social development as well as economic growth given that the primary beneficiaries of OA are those who did not have access to subscription-based content, typically policy makers, social organizations, the private sector, and often society at large

Jacobsen: What barriers prevent Latin American and Caribbean research from receiving global attention?

Pildervasser: Currently most barriers faced by Latin American and Caribbean researchers are unrelated to research quality: limited or unstable funding mechanisms, lack of international visibility, language challenges and unfamiliarity with global editorial processes. Overcoming these barriers requires collective actions from researchers, institutions, publishers and funding agencies.

Jacobsen: How does Springer Nature avoid a top‑down model?

Pildervasser: To avoid a top‑down approach we build our relationship with the communities we serve through dialogue. In Brazil, the CAPES agreement discussions began in 2023, and it was shaped through sustained consultations of multiple Springer Nature groups with representatives from the Brazilian research ecosystem. These conversations were instrumental to clarify concerns, adapt expectations, understand current needs and challenges ensuring that the agreement reflected local realities while remaining compatible with global publishing standards. As a result we are proud to say that we have built a model grounded in trust and collaboration with CAPES and the Brazilian community.

Jacobsen: Following from the previous query, how does the institution respond to the needs of researchers in the region?

Pildervasser: Responding to researchers’ needs requires listening at multiple levels. Springer Nature combines national‑level collaborations, such as the CAPES agreement, with local and institutional academic engagement through editorial outreach, training activities, and partnership that bring local perspectives into strategic discussions. One example is the Latin American Research Advisory Council we have in place since 2024 that convenes diverse voices of the research community from the region to discuss challenges and prospects, provide opportunities for learning, and facilitate cooperation and engagement.

Jacobsen: What are the main lessons from conversations with institutions in Brazil?

Pildervasser: Two key lessons emerged during our engagement with institutions over recent years. First, trust is built on clarity. Many concerns and hesitations we faced during the initial conversations were rooted in misconceptions regarding the editorial decision-making process taking place at our journals, so transparent and open discussion with editorial teams were essential to address these issues. Second, collaboration goes beyond access models. Institutional leaders understand that while open access is a major contributor to research impact, publishers can also deliver value to the community through editorial training and promoting best practices in research publishing. Building bridges with institutions through different approaches have compounding effects that result in better, more impactful research and a collaborative and informed research environment.

Jacobsen: How do research integrity and author training make open access expansion successful?

Pildervasser: Open access can only reach its full potential if we can trust in the integrity of papers that are made openly available. Ensuring integrity is central to the role of a publisher and has never faced greater challenges than it does now, which is why we are rapidly increasing our investment in this area (see https://www.springernature.com/gp/advancing-discovery/research-integrity ). Author training is one key part of trying to support research integrity and we offer two free online courses for researchers in this area (links here and here). Training helps researchers navigate peer review, ethical standards, and responsible publishing practices, while reducing uncertainty and misinformation steering away from bad actors. At the same time, robust integrity frameworks ensure that editorial decisions remain independent and quality‑driven, regardless of access model.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, João.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 300 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Image Credit: João Pildervasser.

How do Ontario’s education-sector strains and Alberta separatist arguments expose deeper legal, political, and treaty-rights tensions in Canada?

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Irina Tsukerman about two volatile Canadian fault lines: the strain on the education sector and Alberta separatism. They examine Ontario’s teacher-training pressures, college integration, and whether cost-cutting could weaken pedagogy while AI reshapes classrooms. The conversation then turns to treaty rights, Crown obligations, parallels with Quebec, and external influences on separatist movements. Tsukerman argues independence would trigger fresh negotiations, not automatic continuity, and warns that legal shortcuts around First Nations concerns are unconvincing in her analysis.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, two Ontario colleges, one of which is St. Lawrence College, began an integration process, and the claim is not based on those two colleges in particular, but on the industry overall, the sector facing financial strain. In Ontario, teacher education is a university-based Bachelor of Education program that has been a four-semester program (generally two academic years) since 2015, rather than changing from two years to one. College fast-track programs offer a more rapid training cycle than those at the university level. Ontario’s college sector is facing serious financial strain, with Colleges Ontario warning of major deficits, program suspensions, and job losses.

So, seeing some trends there, teacher shortages, fast-track training, and the integration of colleges are extreme cases in this second quarter, and financially in the academic sector. What are these indicative of in the Canadian context?

Irina Tsukerman: I see. While the quality and quantity of education, or anything else that matters, are important, it is concerning that, for budgetary reasons, quality could be sacrificed in favour of quantity. Those two concepts could be connected in terms of teacher training.

There is a reason why training needs to be fairly extensive. There is an art to pedagogy and a science to it. One year of basic training may be enough to teach young children the most basic skills.

But beyond that, education today is becoming more complicated, with AI starting to play a role, assorted psychological updates and new approaches emerging, and education itself in various areas becoming increasingly complex over time. So, in fact, this will harm the education system as a whole. And I would like to know whether there is a way to raise the necessary funding rather than simply cutting expenses on necessary things.

The question is: how has it come to the point where basic, essential services are being re-evaluated in light of the budget? Has the system been so mismanaged that underprepared teachers could be entering the workforce?

Jacobsen: Yes.

Tsukerman: And a bigger question is, some theories suggest that AI at some point will replace teachers altogether because the cost of training AI, while significant, could be significantly less than training human beings, a class of human beings. And they may have more consistency in methods.

And they could also be trained for a more individualized approach to students, especially those with issues, whether gifted and talented or on the special education spectrum.

Jacobsen: Also, they do not forget and could, in fact, detect issues or talents far earlier than any human, even a talented teacher, potentially.

Tsukerman: Exactly. And if you are already talking about an overcrowded classroom of 35 students, that itself could become a non-issue if you can have several AI agents per small group of students, or even one per student, while leaving time for group interactions and projects.

Jacobsen: This one, actually, this is a genuinely complex topic because there are so many different claims. And it requires a specialist, but you will at least be able to penetrate the legal context more than I would. So an Alberta separatist lawyer, noting some prior news we covered, described how American representatives met privately with Albertan representatives, off camera, to discuss separatist rhetoric stemming from the “51st state” rhetoric.

So here we have an Alberta separatist lawyer arguing that an independence vote would not violate First Nations treaty rights. Now, for those reading this, the way Indigenous rights, particularly First Nations rights, are structured has two contexts. Federally, “Indigenous” has a specific meaning in Canada. By federal definition, Indigenous refers to the three distinct groups in Canada: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

And then second, like many territorial land claims, the territories can overlap and extend across different jurisdictions, depending on whether you are dealing with a territory, a province, a state, or even countries, depending on the treaty claims. And in Canada, you will see them titled Treaty 1 Territory, Treaty 2 Territory, Treaty 3 Territory, and so on.

So Alberta includes Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Treaty 8 Territories. So it gets complicated quickly because we also have a Governor General, and Canada is defined as a constitutional monarchy. So there are Crown land claims.

So you see what I am saying. When I read that, I thought, “ This is deep. And so then if you are bringing separatism as an aim among a minority, but still an aim, into the American system, to become another state, for instance, then that brings another title claim with another jurisdictional orientation, then Canada, then First Nations, then the Crown. So things become complicated quickly. And not all of these have been entirely sorted out, particularly in British Columbia.

So that is history in context. That is not precision, which is the lawyer’s tool of trade with language. So, when you see this, what issues do you see?

Tsukerman: There is, of course, a lot. Clearly, the lawyer is trying to communicate that essentially if Alberta became a separate country, then these territorial demarcations and disputes that have been negotiated with multiple layers of government, from the Crown to Canada as a country and to separate provinces, would not necessarily be treated any differently than if Alberta were still part of Canada. That is not the case.

I doubt Alberta would try to relitigate agreements originally negotiated by the Crown and the federal government. In fact, that could happen. In some ways, this whole argument is not all that different from Brexit and assorted other exit movements.

We are seeing Scotland engaging in much of the same rhetoric. And if Scotland were to separate from the United Kingdom, would it then automatically rejoin the European Union? Would it be considered as if it had never left, or would it have to start the entire process all over?

Would there be any advantage to it ever being part of the UK? I see some parallels in this line of examination. What is clear to me is that a new state may inherit some obligations and privileges of its historic predecessor, should that happen.

But much will depend on the negotiation process at the time of departure. There is no automatic path to independence, and there is no automatic status quo to be inherited. All of that would have to result from discussions with every stakeholder in that process, including the First Nations.

So he is trying to work around this concept, but I do not think that will work. But has external interference fueled this separatist process, or is it completely indigenous?

Jacobsen: Yes, there has been, for all intents and purposes, in my entire lifetime. That is actually good. That is actually a good distinction between the two forms. One: Alberta is acting like Texas, where Texas periodically threatens to secede from the union. And then, for Quebec, with the Bloc Québécois party, it has been about separation, not in the sense of just land and way of life, as in Texas versus the rest of the United States. It is more based on language.

And so it moves more into the mode that you find, not in war terms, but in legislative democratic terms, where, at least as they claim, Russians have framed intervention in the southeastern parts of Ukraine around protecting Russian speakers. So it is that kind of thing. So there are at least two distinct forms that I am aware of.

And to repeat the Quebec example, I would have to fact-check myself to get the precision right, because I am not a scholar of this. But there have been a couple of votes where they almost succeeded. But now francophone speakers in Canada are about 20–22% of the country, depending on how it is measured, and that share is relatively stable or slowly declining. And many of those are bilingual.

Overall, those who speak only French are a minority, and those who speak only English are a majority. And those who speak English and some other language, Mandarin, Hindi, Gujarati, whatever, that is all mixed in there too. And so English is more dominant as a working language. But federally, we have official bilingualism, strengthened under Pierre Trudeau and later constitutionalized in 1982 with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A stipulation to more or less match, in a Canadian context, several principles similar to those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the UN. Sort of. But as you and I know, many of these documents are fundamentally aspirational, which is a good thing.

So there have been two distinct cases of attempts at separation, one based on language, one more on way of life and economics. For instance, British Columbians and Ontarians are talking about renewables. If there are more renewables in New York City, and there are definitely a lot of renewables in California, and then Texas is talking oil, basically, New York and California sound a lot like Ontario and British Columbia?

Tsukerman: Sure, that makes sense. That said, Texas is not looking to secede as a mainstream policy, but there have been secessionist movements in California, ironically fueled in part by some Russian involvement.

Jacobsen: Yes, and also, there is no, this is not Canadian, where we can discuss that a bit next session, but there are a lot of Russian speakers in Israel. Many Russian-speaking Jews emigrated there, especially from the former Soviet Union. There are Ashkenazi populations across Eastern Europe, and many of them went to Israel, but they still speak Russian. They speak Hebrew too, but you can still have Shabbat dinner in Russian. Okay, thank you very much for the opportunity today, Irina.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Lifestyle and Finance Writer and Editor for A Further Inquiry with more than 300 published articles in the outlet. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978–1–0692343; 978–1–0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369–6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018–7399; Online: ISSN, 2163–3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719–6337), Vocal, Medium, The Good Men Project, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bankat In-Sight Publishing. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20–0708028), and others.

Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash

Polaryx Therapeutics is a biotech company developing disease-modifying small-molecule therapies for rare pediatric lysosomal storage disorders—genetic diseases in which malfunctioning lysosomes lead to toxic cellular buildup, progressive organ injury, and often neurological decline. Polaryx is pursuing non-invasive delivery to improve practicality in ch…

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Vasyl Myroshnyk is editor-in-chief of Zorya and the combined Zorya/Visnyk Bohodukhivshchyny publication in Zolochiv, Kharkiv region. He delivers newspapers to frontline villages himself, reports from an area under constant strikes, and has become a prominent symbol of hyperlocal resilience, documenting war while keeping communities connected to verified…

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