Chapo Trap House - 684 - Chapo Victims Unit (11/28/22)

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

We start off with some Law & Order: SVU talk that flows into a discussion of crime paranoia that cost the Democrats the house in suburban Long Island. Then, America’s epidemic of loneliness and corrupt hustlers trying to scam people into unnecessary for-profit hospice care. Grim! So we lighten up the back half of the ep with some more listener questions.

Hello, everybody. It's Monday, November 28th, Chapo coming at you. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday. Let's get it rolling today. Felix, I've been watching a lot of Loan Order SVU episodes recently, because once again, you've infected my mind with this, and luckily it is on TV 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yeah. What period of SVU are you watching? The block that I got into yesterday was more of like season six, season eight, like back when, before Peter Scavino and any of the new, it's still Munch, Tutuola, Stabler, Benson, like the classic golden age SVU.

Yeah. I mean, okay, so I can, I put it into like two major eras. It's before Christopher Maloney left and after. After Christopher Maloney left, they tried to replace his presence on the show with a succession of pissed off detectives. They famously had Detective Amaro, who's played by like, I would say a generic version of Bobby Cannavale, like one of those guys. Yeah, I know, I know, yeah. Hey, we're walking in. You're on your freaking rest. Like a guy, like all of the character who's like, you know, he's a detective, but his

conflict is that he's too Latino, you know, he gets too Latino in his marriage and at his work and stop it, stop it. You're getting too Latino. And then they're not the same. It's not the same as Christopher Maloney. And then they bring it out, you know, Rawlins, the hot blonde detective who has like a gambling addiction and a bad father. Okay. So Rawlins is ridiculous. Rawlins is they, what they do for that character, they have this hot younger blonde detective who's like a shit kicker from Georgia. And instead of like giving her back, like as much of a backstory as Olivia, what they do is like

every week she like almost gets like raped to death by bookies because she has a gambling addiction or she like does something that that should get her fired as a cop, but like doesn't. I mean, didn't they introduce your character by she's basically she ends up having sex with a guy who's a criminal played by Donal Long, who's actually an undercover detective. Yeah. To keep his cover. He has sex with a police officer. And then that, you know, pseudo sexual assault becomes the genesis of their relationship on the show.

Yeah. They fall in love with each other. But that's like that's in between her having an on again, off again thing with the detective Latino who also like her, they do the same thing with her and Amaro, which is like they fire them and then bring them back every other week, because they keep they keep doing insane things like yeah, going undercover without telling anybody. But yeah, yeah, I was just watching the like the more cloud the golden age as SVU. And I got to say my favorite episodes are the ones that deal with like privilege in New York City

private school kids and like sex panics. I there was literally one about rainbow parties and like sex bracelets. And there's one just any episode where it's like online or chat rooms lead to an outbreak of HIV among thousands of high school students in New York, including the risk that Stabler's daughter may have been exposed. Those are really good. I like it when this is like later in the Stabler period, where they're like, OK, we got a plot twist. Stabler's daughter, she has the bad woman disease. She has woman madness. Yeah, the crime is such a bad father. His daughter, his daughter becomes a whore. And his son is like, fuck you, Dan, I'm turning the army. Yeah, get

under your roof. And he's like, I'll always love you, son. I'm not signing your induction papers. Yeah, you can. The difference between the two eras of law and order, in my opinion, are like, OK, in the golden era, every episode starts out the same. It's like a little like New York vignette, right? Yeah. It's like a two like, you know, just tri-state boobs moving a refrigerator. And they're like, oh, I'm thinking about going to the strip club this weekend. And the other one goes, you're you're you're full of it. You I bet you think those girls really like you. And then they like one of them trips and he's like, hey, watch where you're going. This lady's going to have our ass. And he trips over like the

most desecrated corpse ever. And then the SCU detectives are there. But after after Stabler leaves and after they get a bigger budget, they change it, they make it like less New Yorkie. And what happens is they'll show you like little vignettes. It will be like a girl growing up and falling in love and like getting a career. Yes. Yes. And then it will immediately cut to her like just like a desecrated corpse and Olivia Benson going, this is the most ejaculated on body I've seen this year. No feelings. Catherine and I were watching one of the very like the newer ones, like the post COVID SPU the other day. And the cold open was so bad, we had to stop watching

it because it was just like, yeah, it was this like the cold open encompasses like the year of COVID. And it's this woman who like owns a restaurant. And it's just like, oh, like they're they're they're they're banging pots and pans together for carers. And I was like, Oh, is this a rip from the headlines episode about my wife sucked off neighbors while I clapped for carers? No, it was just this like, you know, montage of this woman's life and like how hard it was to be, you know, in New York City during COVID. And then she's like going to lose her restaurant. And then it's just like, oh, she like takes the building inspector hostage. And I'm like, this isn't a special victim.

So where are the victims? Because they like all the guys who used to write for that show, that show was perfect because it was written by like 89 year olds who wrote every episode of like homicide or New York undercover. So they could write like a perfectly self contained like hour long cop story. And like just write really fun tri state goblin characters. But then after those guys like presumably died of old age, they bring in people who, you know, got master's degrees in TV. And they're like, Oh, we should actually I was thinking we should we should actually make it sort of like the Dolce Vita in the three minute intro before we show the woman's ejaculated on beheaded corpse.

Now, a classic one, like the classic one, like the teen sex panic one began with, you know, classic New York City thing, a troop of Boy Scouts on the top of a building looking at constellations through telescopes. And then like, then then two of them are like doing, you know, they they move the telescope down and they're like, check this out, you know, like, there's a there's a babe in one of these windows. And then like the scout leader is like, what are you doing? You got to look at the sky. And they're like, Oh, I don't think she's moving. And it's just a body on a roof. Yeah, those are those are great. And then yeah. And then in that episode, it was like,

like high school girls who are like, okay, first it starts off about like, oh, they're hooking up and kids don't date anymore because they're just having blowjob parties. And then very like from one commercial break later, it's like, she was a underage porn star with HIV. Yeah, yeah, those are really, that's like my I have like favorite tropes of the series and the tropes go on even after this series had a decline after Stabler left. But okay, like when they investigate school kids, and it turns out, yeah, like a 14 year old has seven kids and is a porn actress and like is a hooker on the weekends. I love that.

I love I love when there's a totally normal guy and they get his DNA on like nine murders. And then the twist, and it's not a twist anymore because they've done this approximately 37 times. The guy it turns out the guy had a secret son or twin brother who got the rapist gene. He's normal, but he has someone who's genetically identical to him who got the killer gene. They love doing that one. Okay, there's the only watch where it was like, okay, it begins and they're doing one of those like, you know, sort of puppet presentations for like young children about like inappropriate touching. And you know, like the puppets say like, Hey, what do you do if someone touches

you in an unsafe space? And then like, and then after the little like school assembly, they like have an opportunity for the kids to like, you know, like ask them questions or talk to them one on one. And then like, one of the little kids is like, I like, you know, I touched weenies with someone and they're like, yeah, okay, we got to get we got to get stapler in here. And then they bring the mom and they bring the mom in and they're like, they're like, okay, like, I'm sorry, ma'am, but like, your child has made an allegation that he's been sexually abused. And the mother goes, not again. And it's just like her other kid was abused by her father. And then the son that was abused is now abusing his younger

brother. And if that's not bad enough, he's abusing his younger brother. But like as a 14 or 15 year old has set up some sort of dark web live streaming where he rapes his brother for like a network of thousands of pedophiles. Yeah, no, Matt, there's so many Matt in like 2007, they did like 50 episodes where it's like, damn, not only is he doing child porn, it's gone viral. 35,000 views. He gets home from volleyball practice and he starts streaming child porn. He's going viral on the child porn net. The name of the website was Timmy's treehouse. Yeah, all the like, like in in 2007, when they find out about like dark web and shit,

like according to them, half of all websites are like live streamed, like ritual, just no films in rape. Yeah. Yeah. And and every time like it'll always be like they do a lot of that where it's like a teenager is like abusing children. And he always like he runs off and Craig in the Dan Florek captain character always like sides. Yeah, sides King Dan Florek always says like a hilarious antiquated thing. He's like, all right, people, we found him. Now we lost him. Let's viral him to make him viral on the internet. So everyone knows what he looks like. We have a trend of trend of up. We got trended. Yeah, let's put him on meta filter everybody. Everybody get on dig. Redig this. Park this content.

Everyone email low tax season season 28 of long order SVU is dedicated to the memory of Richard low tax. So you you you're you're telling you're telling me people paid $10 to register and then another $10 to search. I can search on Google. What a good show. What the hell? What the hell is the pink forum? The best show ever made. Yeah, there is. There are there's going to be at least one SVU centered episode in the near future. Look forward to that. And I don't I don't even want to tease the other thing that for that another podcast is doing. It's very exciting. But a lot of SVU content coming down the pipeline. I mean, SVU might be one of the single most important television shows of the 21st century

because it absolutely is predates it predates and sets the stages for the true crime explosion like absolutely because popular culture. One of the tributaries there main ones is SVU. It's like that's what nourishes the soil where all those podcasts bring up later. Yeah, it like it's interesting because like OK, we'll brought up like the moral sex panic episodes, right? That's how like suburbanites got freaked out about this shit before everyone was on the computer all the time. Was that like, yeah, you'd see it on an episode of SVU or like maybe a chain email or something like that. Or I remember actually I remember my parents were like very resistant to like most moral panics of the 90s and 2000s. There

were very like media literate people and like resistant to that sort of thing. But even they like I remember telling me one time when I was like nine, they were like, we just heard this news report on NPR. Apparently suburban girls are joining the Bloods Gang and getting sexed in. And like they were they were smart enough to like avoid most of those. But if you're constantly like bombarded with that where it's like targeted at you like affluent parents, it's targeted at you to be afraid all the time. Even if you even if you resist all the other ones, you're gonna hear one that's gonna like you're gonna go, oh, that's totally true. That's happening to everyone. That's probably happening in our our our block.

Yeah, it's definitely happening in the parking lot, which is the only public space these people encounter in their lives. So of course, it's where they're gonna get you because they're being conditioned to be terrified of any place that has not been privatized. And like I have some sort of that there's some sort of private power presiding over because they've lost all faith in like any public sphere. It's just a bunch of weirdos and vans with little zip ties are going to put on your door handle to market later. So you'll slow down when you come to open the door like you don't have to slow down to open the fucking door. What was a perfect segue into one of the articles I wanted to discuss today as long as we're

talking about freight and suburbanites and their overwhelming sense of loneliness leading to a an apocalyptic view of the world. This is from the the New York Times just yesterday. It's a headline is meet the voters who fueled New York's seismic tilt toward the GOP. Republicans use doomsday style ads to capitalize on suburban voters fear of crime in New York helping to flip enough seats to capture the house. And you know, we've talked about this before, but like the Times does give a you know, it paints a portrait of a lot of the like Felix as you described the the the mucinex monsters who chant crime, crime, crime. These are like this is the Long Island, New York Republican, the Lee Zeldin voter. And I just want to read

a few things from here today says New York and its suburbs may remain among the safest large communities in the country, yet a Mediterranean doomsday style advertising and constant media headlines about rising crime and deter deteriorating public safety. Suburban swing voters like Ms. Frankel help drive a Republican route that played a decisive role in tipping control of the house. One thing I'll say about that is like I played a role, but it is the New York Times covering New York state politics. The fact that it didn't mention Cuomo's redistricting of the state as a as a as a no, no, no, like another factor in tipping control to the Republicans in the house is rather telling, but there's some good interviews with basically extras

from low and order SVU here. It says here several, including Ms. Frankel said they frequently read the New York Post, which made Mr. Zeldin's candidacy for governor and the repeal of the state's 2019 bail law a crusade for more than a year, splashing violent crime across its front page, however rare they still may be. Many asked not to be identified by their full names out of fear of backlash from friends, colleagues, or even strangers who could identify them online. I wouldn't go into the city even if they paid me. A retired dental hygienist said as she mailed a letter in Oyster Bay. A 41 year old lawyer from Rockville Center said she sometimes wondered if she would make it home at night alive. A financial advisor

from North Salem in Westchester County said it felt like the worst days of the 1980s and 1990s had returned despite the fact that crime rates remain a fraction of what they were meant. I have kids who live in Manhattan and every day I'm scared. Lisa Greco, an empty nester who voted all Republican said as she waited a nail salon in Pleasantville in Westchester. I don't want them taking the subways, but of course they do, she continued. I actually track them because I have to know every day that they're back home. I don't want to keep texting them like, are you at work? Are you here? Totally normal. Totally normal way to be. Just completely Julianne more than safe, but for

the news. That is a completely regular relationship with the world and its dangers. But the thing is, what the guy says in there, it's like the 80s. Of course, you can nerdly say actually crime is much lower than it was in the 80s. But the thing is, in the 80s, people were responding to, people were processing like those crime rates in social conditions where they talked to other people in a day where they had social relationships like spent time in talking and interacting with other people. Hey, you hear about Steve getting mugged or whatever coming out the subway? That's the context for that crime. Now, even

though crime is much lower, we've replaced that social interaction with internet, with media. And so it's like all day your friends are telling you, hey, you hear about Steve getting a pickpocketed? You hear about Dave the knockout game? If that's all you heard in like 1982, you would go insane. You turn into the punisher. If every person you talk to in a day, talk to you about violent crime, instead of the handful of conversations you might have in a week, the kind of form you're understanding of how bad crime is when you are talking to real humans, you just get this klaxon nonstop. But it's the same social reality. What else are you supposed to compare it to? It's real to you. That is as bad as it is

in New York. Right, right. And I do think another small thing in that paragraph was interesting. How they talked about how they read the New York Post. And these are presumably people who wouldn't have read the Post a lot otherwise, right? Yeah. Because the Post is like, you know, I read the Post from time to time, besides having hilarious headlines. They got the best headlines in the game. They're the best. They actually they didn't use my suggestion for when Ron DeSantis won, which was going to be Chris fails to rise again. But great headlines. But it's also like it's it's if you want to read about crimes, that's the best paper in New York. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, the thing I think I notice in this is that they're they're

clearly like it's the New York Times. So they make sure to dimension and I'm sure not in authentically that the New York Post is the paper of record for Long Island, you know, crime heads out there. But I got to say, it's pretty rich coming from the New York Times, because like they spent the last year and a half pushing the exact same message, just with boring headlines for a liberal readership, not a conservative. But I mean, okay, the New York Times does report on individual crimes. But like if you want like a crime blotter, you can read the New York Post. And my point was my point was that like, okay, in general, I do think that like a lot of the focus on crime is, as Matt said, a reflection of like media consumption

conditions. And that, you know, the feeling that crime is worse than ever is obviously immediate creation. That said, it's still like not a non existent problem. No, it's a real phenomenon. Right. It's a real, it's a real thing that exists. And okay, like, there has to be some way to talk about crime that isn't like either the New York Post, like get rid of the sickos thing, or the New York Times version of it, where it's like, get rid of the sickos, but don't feel good doing it. There has to be some way where you can acknowledge that it's a reality that exists, where you're still not like, where you're still not demanding that you put like 17 year old in prison for life or armed robbery.

Well, the problem is, is that even if you're the New York Times and you really are filled with that desire to honestly report what's going on with crime in the city, you aren't, you actually have listened to citations needed and you do want to make like, you want to be honest and you want to affirm the truth. You still are reporting things, right? You can report on individual crimes, or you can report on stories around crime. And in New York, the only stories around crime are Republicans saying it's out of control, and then Democrats saying it's out of control. What are you supposed to say as the New York Times? Those are the only polls. Where else is it? Who else is acting in a way for them to shape the news

around? That's it. Those are the two polls. And that's because the Democratic Party of New York is just, just awful corrupt scumbag association. It's just Tammany Hall blown up where they don't even have the fellow feeling because they don't hang around and smoke cigars anymore. They're on Zoom calls with their babysitters. Tammany Hall gets a turkey every year. Yeah, right. And there, and there's no, like, if those are your only options, there is no policy beyond, beyond, beyond like, oh, we're going to give like more money to cops without even any, any requirements for where it goes, what type of training they're just going to buy Israeli military runoff or, you know, something even worse. I mean, there's

just, there, there is no policy because they're, I mean, okay, if you look at not like, there's more sickos on the subway or whatever like that. Like if you look at like crime in Chicago or crime in like Memphis, crime in places that have, did have like a huge spike in murders very localized to like specific neighborhoods in 2020. There's like no real policy that you can actually do that would permanently or at least meaningfully impact anything besides like a massive reorganization of society and its resources. Yes. And it would take years and years and probably decades because the conditions there are a reflection of, of that of like a fundamentally broken society and people who interpret and correctly so that

they're at war. Yes. And the same way that they can't address it without undermining, you know, the conditions that create crime, they also can't address the conditions that create the thing that a lot of people, especially people who live in cities as opposed to in suburbs are actually upset about, which is a visible poverty. Yes. Right. Right. Also load bearing, also non-negotiable. Right. You're point about New York City though and like visible poverty. I think another huge thing that I've, that I, I and many other people have noticed about like the people's perception of crime being out of control is all of the complaints that like everywhere in New York City smells like weed now. Yeah.

Which is legal. Yeah. Which is legal. But like I got, I got news for you. It smelled like weed before it was legal. New York, New York has always felt like something bad. Yeah. Yeah. Always. Oh yeah. Oh, I'm so pissed. It smells like weed here. It's really covering up the urine. I would rather be smelling that. Get out of here. Right. And okay, like to that end, visible poverty, there's no acknowledgement that these are two separate issues. These are two separate types of crime. Right. There is the actual murder spike that happened. And then there is the complaints about crime in places like New York and LA, which at the end of the day is mostly just complaining that you see homeless people. Because the spike

in murder, the spike in murder happened everywhere. Right. And the spike in murder is worse in rural areas than it is in urban areas as like, as ratios. And like there's cities like Jacksonville, Florida, which are completely controlled by Republicans that have vastly higher crime rates than any of these coastal cities. But well, well, Jackson Jacksonville has like, it has a murder problem that is identical to some neighborhoods in Chicago and some places in New York and some places, like it's the same thing. It's the same type of thing where if you took out all of these neighborhoods, they would be placed, they're all almost all to the exact place, like places that used to be like solidly middle class or like working,

like lower middle class places that were pretty safe, good places to live, deindustrialization happens, the mass degradation of Americans happen, the destruction of the safety net, everything happens, and they are as they are now. But like, you know, these are like crime is generalized as a singular issue. But that is, those are two completely separate things. I'd like to segue into an issue that I think very much informs this conversation in terms of people's media consumption and people's perceptions about the world at large. And that is a number of news articles that came out over the weekend that tally up with frightening detail, the extent to which Americans across every single racial gender and class line

are more alone than they've ever been. Yeah. Before we get to that, I do want to talk about like the homeless thing a little bit because I do, I don't know, I think that's interesting too, because that's another thing where there's just almost no answer to it, where no one really presents an answer. It's just, it's the same like shitty. Moving around. Right. It's the same like kicking the can and shitty back and forth that we've seen for years. It's like one group of people that has like an insane psychotic reaction to just like seeing a homeless person at all. And then then a reaction to it that has been unbeknownst by the people saying it just moved so far beyond any policy that it's just making fun of those

people for being freaked out. Yeah. It's like, like, we've talked about this before how like a lot of like homeless policy, it's been moved so far to the right because, you know, what was once there should be housing for these people becomes like, Oh, well, I think these people should be able to sleep on the sidewalk without there being spikes put down. I don't think there should be a law against them eating out of the garbage. Because if there's no solution to these problems, then the only question politically for me as a well off person in the cities is how am I going to feel about this? And so it becomes another virtue to hoard. Oh, right. Yes. Keep them around so that I could feel superior

because I can say it doesn't bother me. Right. And I do I do want to say that like, well, you know, while I do think that like a lot of this where people just like see a homeless person at all, like they see a tent and they start getting freaked out. I think that's insane. I do sympathize like with the idea of like, yeah, being a woman on a subway at night and there's a guy who's like severely mentally ill from being forced to live outside for 20 years. That probably is scary. A lot of it probably is scary. And it is a fucking terrible situation. But again, it's another one of those things where like we're so far removed from any solution outside of like authorize the cops to just shoot them all and throw

their bodies into a mass grave. Yes. But to the to the point about loneliness, I just want to highlight a few of these things in these news articles. One of them says like just basically headline Americans 15 and older are spending a lot more time alone than they did in 2013. The trend started before the pandemic. But it seems unquestionable unquestionable that the pandemic like supercharged a phenomenon that was already beginning to trend in that direction. It says according to the Census Bureau's American time use survey, the amounts of time the average American spent with friends was stable at six and a half hours per week between 2010 and 2013. Then in 2014, time spent with friends began to decline. By 2019,

the average American was spending only four hours per week with friends, a sharp 37% decline from five years before COVID then deepened the trend during the pandemic. Time with friends fell further in 2021. The average American spent only two hours and 45 minutes a week with close friends, a 58% decline relative to 2010 and 2013. No single group drives this trend. Men and women, white and non-white, rich and poor, urban and rural, married and unmarried, parents and non-parents also all proportionately similar declines in time spent with others. Yeah, I got to say like out of the many alarming trends in our society today, this is one of the most disturbing to me. The isolation and loneliness and people dropping

out from spending time with friends, spending time with other people, being around other people. I think what that does to people psychologically is whether they're aware of it or not, creates a feeling of a tremendous fear and insecurity around yourself so that what you are spending your active time, your free time doing is, I don't know, yeah, like being on the internet and like I said, whether it's crime or any other thing, I think people are social animals and being alone is frightening. Being alone, you are weaker when you are alone than if you are embedded in kind of like friends, family, a community or that people who you spend your free time with having fun or just talking or relating to other people, being

around other people. And I think it makes people much more easily frightened and I think it makes them feel, yeah, like the world is coming to an end because in a sense it is if you're not spending time with any other people. Yeah, that is the literal end of humanity. It's the end of the most meaningful thing, the basis for why we're a special animal. And it is what the, speaking of our last week's episode, that is what our rulers are consciously seeking, a world where they are just one consciousness in a tube amusing themselves eternally and no other person is worthy of any reciprocal relationship. It's like replacing all reciprocal ties between humans with technology so that you are just an encased consciousness

eternally and then you get to rule over us as we just destroy ourselves because we still have some humanity to try to save her. And we have nothing to do but act out, which is why we're seeing all this stuff getting worse and worse and all of our responses to it being channeled into the dumbest, most counterproductive ways and the passions because we don't have any guide. We have no idea other than what our media consumption is telling us, which is just a fucking mirror to our own neuroses. I saw a post this morning that I thought very uncannily sum this all up. This is by a guy named Alexander Wang, who is of course a CEO at a company that deals with artificial intelligence. His comment this morning was, the real problem

with other cities, LA, New York City, Miami, relative to San Francisco, is that people are severely over-socialized. You need time alone to think, reflect, and build plans to do anything important. In LA, NYC, Miami, the constant solar social roller coaster steam rolls all individual thought. That is, if T-800 is going to go back in time and stop anyone, I think it's the author of that post. Levels of eye contact in New York and LA are dangerously high. Oh man, everyone is socializing so much across the country. It's absurd. People are hanging

out with each other so much. Thank God you can go to San Francisco where no one has any interaction with anybody else. Well, to your point about how this all serves the designs of our vampiric overlords quite nicely, is because the idea is like, no, time that you're spending socializing is time that you're not being productive. Yes. It's time that you're not working to build important things and to focus on important tasks and thoughts.

To have any unalienated human values or experiences or connections of any kind. And a populist that has relationships with each other, that knows each other and talks to each other, is the most dangerous thing politically. Any type of massive formation of people who are all fighting for each other's interests is the very thing that is almost impossible right now with methods of communication and media consumption habits. That is the most dangerous thing. You can't have it.

You can't have it. You can't have it. Commiserating. You can't have it. Commiserating. Talking to each other. Look, this is what it is. You're going to do what you're going to do. One more thing about evidence of severe social rot. Felix, I saw you share this story just like an hour before we started recording the show and I started reading it and was absolutely a guest. This is the New Yorker article about how hospice care has been like supercharged

into this billion-dollar industry by essentially like door-to-door salesing people on dying. Yeah, I thought this was, I thought this was insane, obviously. But it did, okay, we're gonna get into this a little bit, but just to give you the broad strokes, it is basically for-profit hospices, which another, another monstrous thing in our healthcare system that should not exist, they, they are, because, you know, it's a tough business. You constantly need people who are dying. So how do you solve that problem? You tell people, you treat people who aren't dying, you tell them they are dying, or maybe you just tell the insurance company that they're dying. One thing that this did make me think, getting more conspiratorial, is, okay, the massive trend online of self-diagnosis.

There's always been a huge thing of self-diagnosis online. It was usually a thing for like the most online, the most, the most dedicated keyboard warriors in the world. It's the thing you do when you have just forsaken real life. But now, like most things that were big for like the biggest computer users in 2012, everyone does it now. Everyone self-diagnosis. Yep. And I mean, okay, if I'm running a for-profit healthcare system that needs people to buy things that they don't need medically, that would be, that would be incredible for me. I would love that if people are constantly telling each other and themselves that they have diseases that they don't have. And you know, like hospice care is a particularly ghoulish example of this, because as you alluded

to, Felix, how do you have a for-profit model on providing care for people who are dying when, as soon as they need it, they're going to die very soon, very shortly after the services are engaged? So I just want to read from the beginning of this article. Over the years, Marcia Farmer had learned what to look for. As she drove the back roads of rural Alabama, she kept an eye out for dilapidated homes and trailers with wheelchair ramps. Some days, she'd ride the one-car ferry across the river to lower Peachtree and other secluded hamlets where a few houses lack running water and bare soil was visible beneath the floorboards. Other times, she'd scan church prayer lists for the names of families with ailing members.

Farmer was selling hospice, which strictly speaking is for the dying. To qualify, patients must agree to forego curative care and be certified by doctors as having less than six months to live. But at Asara Care, a national chain where Farmer worked, she solicited recruits regardless of whether they were near death. She canvassed birthday parties at housing projects and went door-to-door promoting the program to loggers and textile workers. She sent colleagues to catch rides on the Meals on Wheels van or to shout out veterans at the American Legion Bar. We'd find rundown places where people were more on the poverty line, she told me. You're looking for uneducated people, if you will, because you're able to provide

something for them and meet a need. This is like, hey, like, you know, I need the glengary leads on people who are dying or who think they're dying. Well, listen, what can I get you to do to forsake curative care? What can I get you? Look, I'm going to put you in hospice care right now. Let's do a deal. What can I take to get you some hospice right now? But just the idea of like trolling, like just evident, talk about visible poverty, just trolling for like people at the fucking like morgens and societies who if they're not dying now, they're like, well, it's a pretty good chance they're going to be soon. So let's just, let's just get them in. Get them in now. Get them to sign on the line that is dotted. Yeah, they're really slipping to the bottom of

the barrel here, really trying to get that profit engine anywhere that's left. And he, like, yeah, hey, you know that communal experience of gathering your loved ones around you and, you know, moving towards a good death? Where can we wet our beak there? Yeah, how can we get in there? You know, you know, you know, when you talk about like creating something beyond an American NHS and nationalizing every step of production and care, and people always say, where, what, what are you going to do for people who work in the current industry? What are you going to do about their jobs? Keep in mind, these are the jobs they're talking about. Yes. The lady at a new fucking job. Yes. No. It should be a bit more productive use of that work. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny, like

the creative destruction of the market never seems to apply to the rent seeking vampires in the privatized health insurance industry. And Felix, your comment on this is exactly right. These people's jobs, their wealth and their control over the system needs to be taken away by force. Yeah. Without any renumeration for them, just taken away from them. No, America cannot exist as a country with any kind of privatized health insurance system. Top to bottom. I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit whether it is, you know, this woman whose job is cruising for dying or people who may be dying soon or definitely dying after she gets in contact with them or someone in the middle rungs of a health insurance company whose job is to tell people

that a CAT scan or chemotherapy isn't covered. I don't care. I don't care. Look, if it's like a job that pays $47,000 a year, I'm sure there's a bureaucratic job in the American NHS that they could fill. If they are making $400,000 a year off this, they should be lucky that we don't put them in prison if that happens. I don't give a shit. I don't fucking care. No one ever cries like this for coal miners or anyone else. Nope. Just a lot of vivid examples of social decay on today's episode. But let's finish out today's episode. I'm tired of talking about Elon Musk. We've talked about it too often. I thought that wealth has run dry until the next stupid thing happens. But I thought we would close out today's episode with a few listener questions, listener

sourced questions, and just have some fun and just see what our listeners are coming up with for the CHAPO sounding board for advice, thoughts, comments, and concerns. All right. Let's see if this will work. Let me know if you guys can hear this. Hello, CHAPO. I was recently informed by a very drunk old man on the streets of Osaka, Japan that my apartment is located about two blocks away from an Aikido dojo owned by Steven Segal and operated by his son. I have been able to confirm that this is correct. Should I begin studying the way of Aikido? What do y'all think? You know, you will be human trafficked. You will have your organs harvested. Do not do this. You're going to go in there for some sparring and you're going to wake up in a fucking bathtub full with

ice cubes in Moldova on a fucking steamship. I disagree with Matt. I'm saying if you just discovered that you were that close to an Aikido master and have the opportunity to train in the way of Aikido with Steven Segal and or his son, how could you not take advantage of that? I've got an apartment in Renaissance Italy and Leonardo da Vinci was giving classes next door to you. You're telling me you wouldn't check in? You wouldn't want to see what was on offer? Take the Aikido class and you can learn all of the fighting techniques for disarming an opponent while you're sitting in a chair. Okay, fine. I think only do this if you are prepared for the rest of your life to become a human weapon. Someone who, as Will said, is more dangerous

sitting down and staying seated for 12, 13, 14 hours at a time than most people ever will standing. Only do this if, you know, for the rest of your life, you want to wear safety goggles and the world's biggest leather jacket and every time you meet an alarmingly younger woman, you save her from slavery and you get to have full penetration sex without removing your hat, goggles, jacket, pants, Aikido belt, Aikido boots, tactical walking cane, or taking the yuhu out of your pocket. Only do that if you're prepared for that life. All right, that's what they're going to sell you on it, but you're going to go in there for one session and then you're going to black out, you're going to wake up being parachuted over Kiev with a knife between your teeth in order

to kill Zelensky. Okay, that is possible. Okay, you may be tasked to fight with an army that is losing to the Ukrainian Jimmy Fallon. That may be what happens to you. Damn. BTFO. Well, speaking of Putin and Stephen Segal, listener, if we haven't sold you on joining Stephen Segal's Aikido dojo, then please do yourself a favor, go over and over to YouTube and search up Stephen Segal Russian martial arts exposition and you will see some of the finest examples of elite martial art performance ever captured on film. Waves after waves of opponents. He dispatches with ease. It almost looks too easy. I would say the fastest human I've ever seen. It's so fast that it almost looks like he's not moving at all. Yeah, like he's doing nothing.

Yeah, just standing there. Yeah, like, you know, it's a very advanced form of martial arts where if you just sort of stand there slightly slouched through the gormless look on your face, wave after wave of opponents will run at you. And then as soon as they make contact with your body, it will just sort of crumple like toilet paper. They will just fall to the ground as you sort of like limply wave your arm at them. I mean, that sort of would appear like to the untrained eye, but with the Keto training, you will realize the mastery of the way of the couch. Alright, next question. Alright, this one's a little general, but I figure with the World Cup on, it might be an interesting discussion. Alright, here we go. It's going home.

Hey, not sure if you answered this question before, but what do you think the connection between sports and politics is if there is one at all? Thanks. None. They're the same thing there seems to root for. Wow. Yeah, could you be a little less specific listener? Yeah. I need something to sink my teeth into here. Well, the connection between sports and politics, I don't know, it's just, you know, they say that, you know, war is just politics by other means. Well, you know, politics is just sports by other means. It's basically robot jocks, if you've ever seen that film. It's the far future and because of the mutual assured destruction, there's no more wars.

Instead, countries settle their differences with guys in giant mech suits punching each other. I mean, that sounds good to me. I mean, the World Cup would be a lot better if there were robots involved in it. And if and if the matches determined geopolitical questions. USA Iran tomorrow. Like, OK, dude, we got say, can they get a nuke or not? If Iran wins, they should get a new. So that game would be so much more fun to watch if it would determine whether Iran can have a nuclear weapon or not. Yes. I think we should all honor that. And that would make sports and politics finally come back together as one thing. And we can all just chill and let the robots pack us into herring crates. Well, not just robots. These are these are these are

robots of human beings at the control of it. It still comes down to the will and talent of the individual robot athlete or the robot driving athlete. I mean, I would say like just further along on this thought like sports are a necessary sort of safety valve to unleash the pressure caused by politics because particularly among particularly among men and like, you know, strangers or someone you're meeting for the first time or the guy at the bar or like, you know, you're meeting your girlfriend's parents or something like that. Politics, you know, obviously that's a it's risky terrain to engage on if you care about it or you root for a political outcome. I think sports exists as a like a terrain of conversation and relation between men in our

society that is like the baseline that anyone can engage in and have and make small talk over. And yeah, there's competition involved and you can, you know, you can sort of shit talk and, you know, like it provides a terrain of competition that is a stand in for, you know, other forms of tribalism and competition in our society. But it allows a safe kind of meaningless baseline of because, you know, like, essentially, it doesn't matter who wins or loses. It's just something fun to talk about and invest your time in. And yeah, have a have a team you're root for a very big part of it is second guessing. We basically made our careers on that just like Monday morning quarterbacking the Democratic Party for a while. It's like, what are these idiots

are doing? If you put me, if you gave me the headset, oh, boy, I'd run a hell of a play. I'd do the statue. I'd do the annexation of Puerto Rico from Little Giants and we'd win the fucking game. Yeah. Keem Jeffries needs to put some more fucking speed in the slots. I want to reiterate my original point. I think there's a zero intersection you can infer zero things about capital and next to nothing about culture, race, relations, or gender. Next question. Hello, choppo boys. I'm a human of the female variant and I spend most of my time playing ballerin to hate watching late night shows and listening to various so-called leftist podcasts. I am at least a six, but I am still single. Every time I try to go on dates,

I ruin them by getting drunk and talking about Cuba or explaining counterstraps. How does a lady like me land a fuckable man? Thanks, guys. I'll field this one. Oh, yes, please. I've had sex, you know, depending on what sanctioning body three quarters of one time or 1.25 times in my life. Look, men today, I'm assuming I'm assuming that you are, you know, around 25, 24 years old. Me and myself, I'm a millennial. I'm 49 years old. Back in 2015, it was easier to have sex. People had not been as taken over by smartphones and apps. Men today are more lonely, more cowed, more afraid of a forward woman. But if you are seeking not just sex, a meaningful relationship, it will end up in your life in the moment that you are

looking for the least. There will be a guy out there who is into a game that is significantly worse than Counter-Strike, significantly worse in every way, worse to play, less fun, the skins aren't as cool, and the movement sucks. He will not mind that you play Valorant instead of CSGO. He will be into politics. Maybe he even went to Cuba. That guy is out there, but this is just one of those things. When you're spending all your time looking for it, that is when it won't show up. Spiritually, you know, I think literally you sound like a very nice woman. A lot of guys, I think, would be just jumping in line to date you. But spiritually, when you are looking for it, you are like one of those guys who wears an Armani exchange shirt in the club and is just

trawling around for pussy, just walking with the Frankenstein walk, with his mouth open, and his arms in front of him. And that is when it will come to you the least. But be patient, be yourself, and soon you will raise, regrettably, two to three Valorant players. Yeah, you know, to reiterate what Bill had said, I mean, I know this works if you're a guy looking to attract women. But I assume it may work in similar ways for a woman looking to attract a man. But the surest-fire way to be attracted to the opposite sex is to, and it's very hard to reverse engineer this, but it's to genuinely not care about attracting another person. You don't need sex or romance or relationship. You're just yourself, and that tends to be when it comes to you.

Actually, Chris and I, we went out last night to a concert. It was like Chris and Molly and me and Catherine and one of Chris and Molly's friends. And we were talking about like along similar lines. And some guy at the bar over at our conversation sort of leaned in and I said, I think he put it quite nicely. He said, all romance is just fucking around and finding out. So you got to be willing to like to put your heart out there and risk it having be destroyed. But like the true, the true Dow, like the way of the Bushiro is to already meditate upon having your heart be destroyed in the first place is just to not care. Think of yourself as already dead. And Collar, one more point. I know you described

yourself as a six. Don't sell yourself short. And in fact, don't rate anyone on a one to ten scale of desirability. Chances are you're a lot higher than that. But also, all women are tense. Yeah. And I actually have a way more complex and nonlinear system for rating women. Non-Euclidean woman rating system. Yes. It involves calculus. Her number is damn irrational. Yeah. This girl has a coaxing. Anyway, you sound like a wonderful femoid. And I'm sure there's a guy out there for you. Yes. Next question. Yeah. Hello, ChappoTrap House podcast. This is Max. I'm a long time listener, first time caller.

I'm sure everybody's made that stupid fucking joke. But what I want to know is what each of your favorite chip is. Let's say you go to the chip aisle at Kroger or the Bodega or wherever. What kind of chip are you getting? Let me know your chip of choice. Thank you. Very good question. Very good question. Yes. Very good question. All right. Who wants to kick this off? I'm thinking for a second here. Okay. I'm going to give you a couple things. There are regional chips. And for me, the regional chip that I grew up with and I still love, I think it's a top tier chip, many people outside the New York City area do not like them. But I'd like the UTS chips.

UTS it up. I like an UTS, like sort of like the ridged sour cream and onion. I will say that another chip I'm a big fan of is the Lay's sour cream and cheddar chips. That's a good chip. I will say though, the chip that I think is too highly rated and I'm sort of like down on all chips of this variety is the Kettle style chip. Oh, shots fired. Yeah. I'm not really feeling them. I think they're a little too hard. You know, a little too sharp. They cut up my soft little mouth. But then again, I used to really like Cape Cod chips.

But I think the Cape Cod chip quality is falling off. I don't know. Maybe they've been bought by some European consortium. But yeah, I like the classic ridged chip. But ridged chip. Love it. You know, I like the sour cream and onion, sour cream and cheddar. Like I think those are good chip varieties of most standard brands. Chris, what are your feelings on GRIPPOs? Cincinnati's own GRIPPOs chips? They're fine. They're very cakey. I don't like. Yes. The texture is a little difficult for me to get into. But yeah, not a fan. You know what? There's a bunch I like and I'm a big fan of certain specialty chips.

Some of them are sadly no longer on the market. Like Lay's did a promotion where they had a bunch of different wacky styles. They had a Euro one that was really good. They had a Korean barbecue that was great. Like they had a fried chicken and no, no, I'm sorry. Biscuits and gravy. They had a biscuits and gravy chip that was fantastic. But sadly, those are all gone. U.S. We have the worst. By the way, of the Anglosphere, we have the absolute worst chip technology. How does the snack capital of the world? How does the gorging whole of humanity have such meager fucking chip options? We don't even have all dressed. Where's our all dressed?

Where's our all dressed? The Lay's all dressed are wonderful. And the ketchup's ketchup's flavor chips, too. Also Canada, superior, Britain, superior. All the Asian countries get out of here. They got like a ammonia barico chip in fucking lay in Spanish lays, for God's sake. So I put I would say that my war horse, the one I crave when I walk by the aisle and most likely to grab on an impulse, sour cream and onion Pringles. Hmm. Interesting. I like the Pringle. I know it's not technically a potato chip, according to English common law, but I still enjoy it a great deal. Matt, do you remember when you almost made us all victims

of sectarian violence and Dublin when you made fun of Mr. Tato fucking roll a car bomb up to us? Yeah, they're breaking out the arm of light. They're pulling on the ball clava. We're talking shit about. They love the tape of Mr. Tato. What I found out, though, is that there's two different tape Mr. Tato's in Northern Ireland and, you know, the Republic of. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. They've got a fucking Protestant and a Catholic potato man. That's how indicated that's how dedicated they were to that project for so long. I don't really like chips that much. Of course not. You have more of a sweet tooth, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, OK. To keep it in the realm of potato snacks,

a potato chip is as bad for you, if not a little bit worse for you than fries. The fries are bad for you, not because they're potato, but because of the fried surface area. That's why smaller cut fries are higher in caloric content and fat than larger steak fries. Yeah. So I mean, if I'm eating a fried potato, I'd rather have fries, which are on average about as bad for you and much more fun. And if I'm just eating something bad, I'd rather have I'd rather have ice cream and ice cream, a cake or a candy. Do you guys have any? Do you guys have any feelings strongly for or against salt and vinegar chips? That I feel like they kind of are like IPA to me. They're like the IPA's of chips.

They got super hyped. They became the standard. And I like that in certain circumstances. I think the salt and vinegar chip is an idea chip for putting on like an Italian style hoagie for crunch. Oh, for crunch. Yeah. Like you got you got some oil and then you put salt and vinegar chips on, you know, like a like a one of those Jimmy John's subs with the salami and such. Now we're talking. But just to eat out of a bag, it's a little too. It's a little too. Yeah, those suck. Not the fucking suck. Those are like something that a Scottish person would eat. Yes, very Scottish. That's why I like the chips, though, because they're they're softer. I think they're really good for adding to sandwiches. And you just press the bread. Yes, exactly.

A nice crunchy, crunchy layer on there. Possibly sandwich and a deep fried latte. What an ugly, ugly people. Oh, here he is. Very, very nice, though. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you for the potato chip question. Listener. All right. One more question, guys. Yeah. Let's let's do one more. What do you guys what do you guys like one on college, one on future casting presidential elections or one on Berlin Techno Clubs? Let's do college, college. All right. Here we go. Animal house, house, house. Here we go. All right. From listener Madeline. Hello. My question is, even though you guys are fairly anti college, which is a sentiment that I agree with, do you think the liberal arts are valuable to study the great books and that sort of thing,

studying literature and art history? If the university is the wrong venue for that because of what Americans have done with it or because of how it's structured nowadays, where do you think a good venue for learning that sort of stuff is and why? Okay. I have I have a thought of this. I have an idea. We need to destroy college and get rid of it. People like, whoa, what are you replacing it with? It does value board. I understand that some subjects are capital intensive to enough to require like a fixed asset to study around. And you might have a few regional facilities that do that kind of advanced stuff. But in my mind, college classes would be free and available in the community you live in of all topics.

And that and that you would pick that you would educate yourself. And then there would be the skill trade learning as part of that. And but also the liberal arts and every other fucking thing. But there would be no colleges. Yeah, no, I to Madeline's point, I'm a I'm a huge fan of the liberal arts of the study of, you know, art, literature, history. And I don't think you can regard I don't think you can be regarded as educated without some some exposure to a liberal arts education. And like you can be I'm not saying like, you know, the the the sciences or highly skilled technical fields are not worthwhile. Obviously not. But there's a reason why, let's say most engineers and doctors are a billion times smarter than I am in many ways. But I still regard

them as uncultured adults. I mean, that's why they're genuinely stupid people, because they have an incredibly, an incredibly highly like technical skill that takes an insane amount of education and discipline to get you to the point of having one skill that like only a handful of people have that's very useful to society. But essentially, that's why I don't think their opinions are valid on anything outside of brain surgery. Yeah, get it out of here. Constructing I don't know. You're sacrificing you. You have to you have what's your education is a D&D build. You know, these guys all min maxed, as they say. And that means that their other their other counters are fucking empty. And you need those you need people like those counters. Have you guys noticed

actually just over this last week, people are pointing this out, particularly among crypto people, the astonishing hostility they have to reading books, the very concept of reading infuriates them. Well, I mean, like, look, the proof is in the pudding, it's there. This is what not reading books leads to. This is what being very, very smart in quotation books and like looking at numbers and data and markets and all that shit. This is what it leads to. Yep, is obliterating billions of dollars of wealth in just petty frauds and scams. If you do not read if you do not read literature on your own, if you do not seek out books and art that you are interested in engaging with that like take some some some mental lifting on your part to engage

with like I don't think you're an intelligent person. I don't think you should be regarded as intelligent. Nor do I think you should be given any kind of real authority in our society. Absolutely. You're you're a fucking hunchback. You're free. Get out of here. You've you've warped yourself into a mutant through through intellectual onanism. I want to say that some people say, Oh, if you did that, you don't have that camaraderie and like coming into adulthood feeling of going to college. And yes, that's true. That's why in my fantasy world that I'm describing here, there would be national fucking service. People would have to go and work together on projects. And then they would go home and then they could study whatever the

fuck they want. Knock yourself out. Get a degree. I don't care. All right, let's let's see what they're doing. Thanks again to our listener Collins. I do just want to say at the end of today's episode on the topic of listener engagement, I would just like to thank everyone who reached out to me via email or message regarding the comments I made at the top of last Monday's episode. We got a lot of a lot of a lot of reaction to that. A lot of people transcribed it and shared it and a lot of people sent me very heartfelt emails and messages. If I didn't get a chance to reply to all of them personally, please know that I saw them and they meant a great deal to me. So it means a lot to me that what I said resonated so deeply with so many of you. So I

just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me or shared positive thoughts or kind words about what I said at the top of last week's show. So thank you for that. I would just also like to add that I think that this new calling system is working well and I think we're going to keep it rolling. So if you want to submit calls, just email us at calls at chapotraphouse.com. Leave a under 30 second voice note or recording of any kind and we'll keep the call line open. Calls at chapotraphouse.com. All right gang, talk to you soon. Bye bye. Bye bye.