Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 589: Some "Regerts

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Show Notes  

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording live from glory hole studios in chicago and beyond this This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This is episode 589 of Cognitive D Distance. And Cecil, before we start,

I want to do something to really just call out our own party for a minute. All right. Cuomo, governor of New York. Yeah. I had a lot of praise and respect for the way he handled pandemic part one. Yeah. And I know that I was vocal about that at least once on this show. He really manemic Part One. Yeah. And I know that I was vocal about that at least once on this show. He really manhandled it.

He really just reached out and grabbed hold of that thing, whether I liked it or not. These fucking guys. Now I want to say, because the right doesn't do this, and it's important that we make sure that we do this, right? Fuck that guy forever. Yeah, forever. this, right? Fuck that guy forever. Yeah, forever. Forever, right?

An investigation revealed that Cuomo has at least 11 allegations of sexual assault or misconduct. And President Biden called him out. Step down. People are calling that fucking guy out. It's not the fucking boys club. Look what happens with like Matt Gaetz, right? Matt Gaetz has allegations, serious allegations.

That he like fucked a teenager. That he's fucking, that he's basically raping a teenager. Raping a teenager for money. For money, yeah.

Right? And it's fucking crickets over there. And I just want to point out, Cuomo, I think he did a great job handling the pandemic, part one.

Also, fuck him. Let's impeach him. Let's throw his ass in jail get somebody else right get that's it yeah it's done 100 and i i gotta never look back either i don't ever look back either there's people in the past that have had this same sort of thing happen to them like great those were peace so long don't need you what the fuck do I need you for? If you can't do that, you can no longer make moral arguments, right? If you're unwilling to do that because of some pragmatic desire for your party to win some gamesmanship games, you no longer have any ability

to claim a high ground morally. And if you can't claim a high ground morally, where do your policies originate from? Yeah. Where, where, where is your, and I want to say, I'm, I'm proud of Biden for pretty much immediately. As soon as that report came out, he's like, step down, impeach him, get out of here. Yeah. Get out of here. Get rid of him. There's no circling the wagons around guys like that, or you circled your wagon around poison. What do they do that for? It doesn't make any sense. But the thing is, is that the right is literally just trying to play a cult of personality game.

Absolutely. That's all it is. There's no chance that there's going to be anything in there that's a moral conundrum. There's no moral conundrum. To them, they say, oh, well, it's all bullshit. It's all lies. It doesn't matter how much evidence you have. It's all just lies and whatever. That's all they'll say. And I thought about this because

the right is generally speaking more successful than the left in terms of coalescing around their messaging and getting people to do that circling of the wagons, to rally around their horrible, horrible troops, right? And so there was about a two second part of me that was like, should the left be doing this? And I, because there is a big part of me that's like, look, we need to do pragmatic things first and idealistic things second. But there are certain circumstances

where the reason that you have the ideals you have, and the reason I want to win the battles I want to win is because they are motivated by ideals that I find valuable and that I hold honestly and dearly as part of my personal system. If I compromise those values, then why am I even doing this?

Then what have I won? Because if you do it once or twice or three times, all of a sudden, you're just another cancer. You're just another cancer. Sure. You're just another right-wing party. There's no difference anymore. And there needs to be a difference. And I wonder if, you know,

as long as we do this, will we be sort of gamesmanship weaker? I think we will be. I do. I think we will be. But will our policies and our ideas and our solutions to problems be better motivated based on better principles and guide the country into a direct? Yes.

So the fight is just harder on our side. It's just harder. It's just harder. Yeah. But I just got, I just had to say that because it's the big news that hit today. Yeah. And I want to address it like just head off. Like, fuck that guy.

Yeah. No, fuck that guy. I'm on the record of supporting him. Fuck him forever. Yeah. And I'm in the same way because I remember when the pandemic started and both of us were saying, wow, he seems to be like he really has it under control.

So yeah, I'm 100% with you, but I'm also 100% with you in all kinds of communities for that. Like it's not just Democratic Party. Like if it happened in the atheist community, get rid of it. If it happens in the skeptical community, get rid of it. If it happens in the podcast community, get rid of them. What the fuck do you need to be here for? You

don't need to be here. And I was like, there's shitty, bad people that you need to get rid of. You need to get rid of them because they're going to keep being predators and keep being shitty. And you've got to get rid of them. And so I'm a hundred percent with you. And if you don't, the thing that drew you to that community in the first place is lost. Yeah. It's garbage. And then what does that say to the people that are in that community that are women? Right. Oh, yeah.

Of course. What does it say to the young men in that community that see that and say, well, I can get away with whatever I want, evidently. Yep. And it's bad messaging all around. It's terrible messaging. It reinforces the exact wrong thing you want it to reinforce. But now...

Hey, you! What are you doing down there? I'm just looking for my mask! All that is about to change because Stanley Ipkiss is not the man he used to be.

Huh? Spoken! Jim Carrey is... That's the guy. Hello. The Mask. Ooh, somebody stop me. So the story comes from...

There are going to be a lot of stories about COVID this week, guys. That's because there's a lot going on with COVID this week, guys. It comes out. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, they did do a little bit of a backtrack with masks across the country. There was a couple of- They did. Yeah, in different places.

Certainly in Illinois, there was a backtrack. They said, nope, sorry, we're going to have to put masks back on the table. Yeah, the CDC came out essentially and said, all right, look, indoors, vaccinated or not, you should wear a mask. And I will say, the messaging from this, I'm a simpler is better guy when it comes to messaging.

And I do think that the CDC has not done a great job of understanding that simple messages that are clear and consistent are better adhered to. I don't think that their messaging has been technically wrong. I just think that it has missed the mark in terms of how people respond to and behave around nuance, right? We're bad at nuance. As humans, we're bad at nuance. And then when things are not clear

and consistent and sort of unwavering and attached to specific numbers, then it gets latched down to by opposition. Well, and the difficulty, I think the biggest difficulty is, is that nobody ever wants to see anything ever, anyone ever change their mind. Right.

There's this weird thing we have in our society where if you change your mind, then you were lying the whole time. Right. And everything you say from this point on, I don't have to believe because you've changed your mind one time, but that's not scientific. Right. Sciences work like that. You don't go into the laboratory and

be like, I can't change my mind on this, even though the data points differently. Right. It seems like, I keep thinking this, it feels like the CDC has to have their scientists who understand the science around, you know, disease and epidemiology, and then they need to have like a social and behavioral psychologist who's also a scientist to help them create messaging. They really don't know how to craft their message. They really don't, right? Because you should be able to say like, all right, well, the science has changed and people should say, well, let's not change the messaging yet. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Because we're trying to achieve a result. Yeah.

And when you change the messaging and when you give people little handholds, for instance, emergency use. Right. Oh, God. Then what happens is, is they dig in. Yep. And when you do things for optics,

like the Johnson & Johnson rollout, and they said, no, there was a couple of problems, very, very, very, very minute problems, and you stop production for a day to reevaluate, those little pieces give the anti-vaxxers all the ammunition that they ever wanted. And the problem is, is that consistent messaging that basically stops them from doing this is better.

And what you need to do at this point, I think moving forward, is never give them another handhold and just force it down their throats. Because there's no way, there is no way forward with these people. No, we can't, even though the science, you cannot communicate all

of the science because science is subject to change and scientists are like, yeah, that's the best thing about science, right? Scientists will be like, yes, we change when the evidence changes. And it's like, yeah, right. But people don't. Yeah. So we, especially in our culture, especially in our culture. Absolutely. So it's. So it's been something of a shit show, but we're at a place finally in Illinois, and I'll raise my hand and say, I breathed a sigh of relief this week. Today, I think it was,

that our governor announced that they're going to require masks in schools. Yeah, masks in schools. Because the CDC came out with their guidelines and the schools were like, yeah, we're just not going to do it. They're just not going to do it because the local political pressure was far too strong.

Yeah, it's just too much for local people because they're fucking yahoos. But if we look at all the yahoo places all over the map, they're getting fucking hammered. They're getting fucking hammered, man. Getting hammered. So this story comes from CNN.

Top RNC official in Florida. Florida counts right now for about 20% of the cases. 96,000 new cases the day we record this. It'll be 100,000 tomorrow, but 96,000 new cases today, the day we record this on Thursday, 20% of which in Florida.

Top RNC official in Florida spreads COVID-19 conspiracies, calls vaccines the mark of the beast. There's a great photo of him with a Trump 2020 on his face on a mask. You got to love a guy who's living so far in the past here. Thank you. I saw that Trump 2020.

It's like, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro. It's 2021. Just want to point out the year. I know looking at you, you probably don't know the year. It's the back half. I know. It will pass June. Are you kidding?

We are in August, motherfucker. So good. Yeah, this is, so this guy is, he's basically calling it, he's, again, one of these idiots who thinks it's a really good idea to compare it to Nazis because he says Nazi brown shirts. And then he also has Mark of the Beast and False God in here too. Well, you got to mix them all up. Sure. If you just use one

insane hyperbolic demonization. Then you might miss some of your crazy people. Right. What if somebody's not worried about the Nazis but they're like, whoa but like seven headed beasts with like six crowns or whatever that's what I'm afraid of. It's a three prong insane approach.

Absolutely. It's like fucking three card money with like boo crowns or whatever. That's what I'm afraid of. It's a three-prong insane approach. Absolutely. It's like fucking three-card money with like boogeymen for the right. You know, like, pick your monster, any monster. Is he under the bed? Is he behind the curtains? Is he in the car?

Where's he at? They're all Nazis. Yeah, man, it's not good. And this is, and what's crazy is this guy's a leader. He's a leader of a, you know, he's part of this, you know, he's part of the Florida Republican Party. Yeah.

This is a guy whose messaging gets out to the public. And the thing is, like, the more people hear the same message, the more they begin to believe that message. And when that message comes from people that are important, people who are covered on the news, people who get their, you know, name in the paper. They're like, wow, I bet, you know, they can't say that if it's not true. How many times have you heard somebody? Oh, absolutely. It's like the fucking knuckleheads who are like,

well, cops have to tell you if they're cops. They can't look. The cops can't lie to you. Look, motherfucker, everybody, listen, listen to me. I want everyone to listen. Everybody's allowed to lie to you. Yeah. Everybody, all the time. Your wife can lie to you. I want everyone to listen. Everybody's allowed to lie to you. Yeah. Everybody.

All the time. Your wife can lie to you. Doesn't matter. The cops can lie to you. Your boss can lie to you. 100%. Everybody in your life can lie to you. Now, they shouldn't.

No. Right? But shouldn't and can, there's a big chasm, man. And it depends on which side you're on. There's a should and shouldn't lie with cops. Right. Because some people say, no, they absolutely should be able to just look you in the face. Right.

And then there's things like some people should be able to lie to you about. And then other things you should not be able to lie about. Shit gets complicated and we are simple. And it's tough, bro. It's tough right now. The idea that they're able to tell these lies. And these lies are clearly manufactured garbage. Yeah.

Nothing in these is, there's never been any of these people on the right who've stood on their soapbox and said anything of worth about the anti-vaccine movement. No. About any, I mean, because one, there's nothing in there that's of worth, but there's never been even a moment

that they've said anything that should alarm a rational person. Right, where you're like, well, that is a good point. Yeah, there's none of that. There's none of that. It's all alarming, alarmism. It's all bullshit. And it's literally all fed to them by trolls.

That's all it is. It's just fed to them by either trolls that want to make money or trolls that want to destabilize them. Well, and you and I were talking before the show that a huge amount of this misinformation and disinformation and those two different things, it's coming from fucking Russia. Yeah. Which

of course it is. Right? Because we've talked about this on the show because we've been at war with Russia. We have been losing a cyber war with Russia now since I don't know when it began because they don't announce cyber wars. That's how cyber wars work.

And we talk about being able to spread propaganda. There's no better propaganda machine than the internet. And these- It's a series of tubes and they're open. These crazy people that are in government, they just don't have any filter. They don't have any way to filter this information. We've made a culture so stupid that no one understands how to filter information anymore.

And these people are in charge. These are people in charge of stuff. A lot of these are people who, to be frank, they do not possess any level of serious digital literacy. Yeah. who, to be frank, they do not possess any level of serious digital literacy. Yeah. And we've known that the problem of the lack of digital literacy was going to come back and bite us in the ass.

We've known this for a long time. The thing is that it doesn't bite you in the ass all the time because you just got something wrong. Now it is being purposefully weaponized against you by foreign actors. And this is not speculation.

This isn't something like, this isn't like the Tom and Cecil conspiracy, you know, InfoWars hour. This is all documented shit. Russia's not our friend. They haven't been our friend

since ever that I remember. Yeah. And it's definitely in their best interest to destabilize us around this particular thing. But the problem is that it really isn't. Because guess what we're going to do? We're going

to cook up some fucking crazy variants over here. Those aren't just limited to our borders. We're going to send people all over the world and crazy variant is going to get sent all over because we have a chance to make crazy variant a good chance. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is that if you're Russia and if you look at their history, Russia has historically had no problem throwing bodies

at the problem. Yeah. Right. That's true. So if you're Russia, you have won war after war by throwing bodies at the problem. So if you're like, you know what, Cold War Part Two, which we're involved in and the other side isn't acknowledging out loud is happening. If we lose some bodies in that war, that's how war works. It's still a war, you know, but I'll say this, we're down 600,000 people right now. And if you were to ask any enemy of the United States, how gratified would you be if you could kill 600,000 Americans? Man, that would be a, that's more than they managed

to kill in World War II. Yeah. By almost 50% now. Yeah. It's a big fucking deal. It's a big number. It's a big number. And it's not going down.

Right. We're starting to go back up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's not only here too. We talked earlier,

Tom, about, about before we started recording, we were talking about one of the, it was Abbott, Greg Abbott. Yeah. I think his name is who,

who banned masks. He banned mandates down in Texas. But Tom, we want to talk about this story here because this is something that mirrors that. This story, I read this and this was one of those stories where Cecil, I swear to you, I read it and then I just had to set my phone down because I was so fucking angry. Arkansas GOP governor wants to undo ban on mask mandates. And you might be wondering, why are you so angry? He wants to undo the ban. And the reason I'm so

angry is because the ban was fucking bullshit in the beginning and this fucking guy knew it, right? He knew it was a ban on mask mandates was always bullshit. It was motivated by nothing approaching reason, by nothing approaching reason, by nothing approaching science, by nothing approaching safeguarding the health and dignity of his fucking constituents and the citizens that live in Arkansas, right? This was always a way for him at a specific personal one person level

to try to hold on to and consolidate power by doing something that would be very popular among his base and strip public health officials of an essential tool they may need to use again. And now that he feels the fucking big sads and the big remorses around this, it makes me all the more angry.

Yeah, makes me angry for the people in Arkansas. Right. And the thing is the way he describes it too, the way he says why he did it is because oh well they were going to pass it anyway with an overridable veto so I did it anyway and I was just thinking to myself

well then just fucking make them do that stand on your principles pussy stand on your principles just like what they do with this bullshit filibuster it's like well the threat is there and they'll do the filibuster then make them do the filibuster same thing's like, well, the threat is there and they'll do the filibuster. Then make them do the filibuster.

I know. Same thing here. Oh, they're going to override me. Then make them override you with the veto. At least history will look back on you and say, well, at least the governor wasn't an idiot. The thing is, when you shave your fucking face in the mirror, you know it's not on you.

Don't you want to live a life where if people die, it's not on you? It's not on you. And you weren't just like, I don't want to lose my fucking job. Get the fuck out of here. It's unreal that this guy would let this happen. And then to walk it back to say,

now he's sad about that. Man, none of these people cared about this, but they didn't realize how difficult Delta was going to be to deal with. They didn't realize it, right? You know, that's, I think that's what happened with the CDC too, is that they didn't realize Delta was going to come in and they made these, these assumptions based on not Delta.

And then we went out and did all the things, you know, you don't have to be masked. You don't have to be, you know, you're around people are vaccinated. If you're on, if you're vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask. You could go outside and do literally anything unmasked. And they didn't account for how bad and how easy Delta is to spread. And so everybody's got to walk everything back now

because we didn't, because that's how this works. And I hope that for the future, what we do is we see that, fuck, you know what? Another Delta can be around the corner. So why don't we just take it easy and try to get these numbers down to fucking in the tensies? Right. Let's do that instead of what we're doing, which is every few, you know, it's like when you have a cut on your arm and there's a bandaid on it and you know, it's still bleeding and you take the bandaid off and it starts bleeding again. Cause you pulled the scab off and you're like, fuck.

And then you got to put a bandaid on there or, you know, you got a bloody nose and you take the bandaid off and it starts bleeding again because you pulled the scab off and you're like, fuck, and then you got to put a bandaid on there or you got a bloody nose and you're holding it and then you take it off and it starts bleeding. Fuck. And then you got to hold it again for a while and close it. Same fucking thing. You keep on doing this thing over and over and there's this flood and not. Flood and not. Flood and not.

And we could easily just cut all this out if we just came at this in a way that was more forceful and we're not doing it. More forceful. The thing with Delta that makes me nuts is we knew about Delta in March. Delta's not like, yeah, here it is. It's ripping and tearing through America in June, July, and August.

But this was the scourge of India in February and March. Globally, there are no borders. Right? That's not a real thing anymore. So if you know that there is a uber fucking contagious variant ripping its way through some part of the world. Yeah, but they didn't know that the vaccinated could transmit it though. They only found that out very recently. And Cecil, you're absolutely right.

And so I want it, you're absolutely right. But I guess like, shame on us for assuming. Well, I guess it's, you're true. It's a hundred percent true, but they did not know that until very recently. I was listening to a daily where they said the viral load in the mouth and throat is the same in a vaccinated and unvaccinated. And the reason why is because your body's fighting it inside where it counts. It's not fighting it in your nose. On your nose, yeah. It doesn't care. It literally does not care.

Your body is like, fuck it. That's not a place I need to be. Let's do it down here where it matters. And so that's where it's fighting it. And so your body is just able to spread it. You're able to, you're vaccinated.

You're able to spread it just as much as me. I can get it tomorrow and spread it like crazy and not realize it. And so masks for people who are vaccinated are even more important now

because you could be a carrier. And not even ever be sick. Yeah. You may be entirely asymptomatic and be shitting virus. But it's like, again, I come back like, let's just not take our foot off the gas.

Yeah, just 100%. When this is still an international problem. Keep it, keep it going. Try to get it down to tensies. Yeah, let's- You can do it. You can do it. But the problem is we have people in this country

that are actively fighting against this tooth and nail. We have governors in this country that are fighting against any of this stuff. This was one of them. This Arkansas governor was one of them. And now he wants it back. And there's Republicans too, that are trying to walk this back, but you wrote it too hard. It's just like with the January 6th thing. You wrote it too hard. You tried too hard. And now you want to take this big step back. No, fuck you. You're in it. You're in it. Inexplicably, DeSantis in Florida is 100% doubling down.

They are, I read this morning, 86% of their ICU beds are full right now. There is no reason to think that Florida is going to get better over the next several weeks. It's only likely to get worse. Like, that's the trend line, right? Sure, sure. And DeSantis is like absolutely diehard. I think he's doubling down in that sort of Trumpian way because he's very much

a Trumper-style politician. That like, he's just going to try to will this out of existence or will this out of the political sphere. And it's just such irresponsible governance.

It's terrible. You raised your hand and said, let me be responsible for you guys. That's like, seriously, it's like saying like i'm gonna be the designated driver and then as soon as everybody goes in the bar you fucking chug a fifth of vodka it's insane to me that the guy would even raise your hand if you don't care about other people right why do it yeah why even have that job it's all for power it's all that's all it is it's all power that's why they're afraid to lose a job like this, right? Because I wouldn't be afraid to lose a job

if it meant I did the right thing. Yeah. Because I would just go get another job. Sure, yeah. And these guys are not unskilled, uneducated people that can't go find work. Yeah. They just can't find power in the same way.

In the same way. You're probably right. Senator Lindsey Graham tested positive this week. He got vaccinated, though. He's okay. He got vaccinated, though. I know. And, you know, he didn't get vaccinated loudly, but he got vaccinated, though. He's okay. He got vaccinated, though. I know. And, you know,

he didn't get vaccinated loudly, but he got vaccinated. Yeah. And now he's saying, it's because of the vaccine that I'm able to, you know, that it's just mild.

Right. But I did get it. He got it on Mansions' boat while they were jerking each other off in a circle jerk trying to talk about this bill that Kristen Sinema was never going to let pass.

I know. I know. Yeah. So, God, those two people. I hate those two. I want to shoot them into the moon. I just want to shoot them into the moon and be like, you guys are gone. So long.

Thanks for ruining it. Thanks for ruining everything. It's so terrible. They're just the worst. You want to know how bad this pandemic is? It couldn't even, we couldn't get one win out of this. You know? Yeah.

Herman Cain's not a win. Herman Cain's not a win. Herman Cain's not a win. You know? Yeah. Herman Cain's not a win. Herman Cain's not a win. He was nobody already. Like he was, he was effectively politically dead before he died. But I will say this though. There's, there's, you know, so many of these big wigs on the right all got vaccinated. They were vaccinated. They were all vaccinated. They were in the one day one, they were all vaccinated. So none of these big wigs, it doesn't matter how bad Delta gets, none of these big wigs are going to get it. No one is telling me Tucker Carlson isn't vaccinated.

I don't believe you. These guys are drinking it like- Marjorie Taylor Greene, I guarantee is vaccinated. 100%. Guaranteed. They are fucking drinking fucking igloo coolers full of fucking Moderna. That fucking Boebert, guaranteed.

Yeah. Guaranteed. 100%. So, yeah, but he got it and it's a sad day that he's not going to, Lindsey Graham is, because Lindsey Graham

is genuinely the worst person. He's one of the worst people on the planet. He is an awful, awful human being. I did genuinely have a little hope when it was like, all right, it's a pandemic and like it's going to hit the right

because they're goofballs and they're going to do this anti-mask shot. I was like, maybe we'll get a win or two out of this. We didn't get a single win. Worst pandemic ever. I know, man. We even got Trump for a few hours. That was exciting. We're so close, man. So close.

Tom, you know, more stuff also about COVID, specifically Kevin Sorbo of Hercules and God is Not Dead fame. We've done one of his movies on God Awful Movies. Here is the tweet, Kevin Sorbo. New York is now requiring proof of vaccination

for indoor dining and gyms. It took a year and a half. I did not see that coming. Nazi is spelled like the Third Reich. You know, Cecil, there are so many corollaries to requiring proof of vaccination for indoor dining and Broadway

to the time they stripped Jewish people of all of their property, herded them into ghettos, put them on boxcars, and then killed them in slave labor camps by the millions. It's essentially the same thing. I watch the History Channel too, Tom. I know. I mean, basically, it is exactly the same thing to be like,

I didn't get to go to a restaurant unless I got a vaccine. That is the same thing as your business is now the property of non-Jews. You now live in a slum until such time as we can relocate you to be starved in a prison camp. Here, breathe this. I don't even know what,

I don't even know, we should just name it the same thing. It's the same exact thing. I will say 100% I am so for businesses to do this. Yeah, 100%. Oh my God. Please, for businesses to do this. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah.

Please, please, please do this. They are, currently my work is over 90% vaccinated. So my work- That's awesome. Over 90% are vaccinated. We're not even allowed to ask. Yeah.

And we're requiring it unless you prove something. Like unless you prove, like I think there's like a religious exemption and a couple other things that they can do to say that they don't want to get it. But they're rapid testing everybody that's not. And we have a big staff.

At this point, I want to say there's 4,000 employees. So it's a big, big staff. So they're testing everybody that isn't going to do it. But I will say, They're testing everybody that isn't going to do it. But I will say, I would 100% go visit this restaurant, any restaurant that did this in the Chicagoland area. They would get my business. They would get my business so quickly.

I would absolutely go to a place like this and give them my money because my God, what a great idea. I hope Cecil to see filters online where you can search for vaccine required businesses. Oh, wouldn't that be great? So I can just patronize those places. Wouldn't that be great? And I don't think that that's a crazy filter. I think we'll see that at some point, you know, so I can say, oh, let's go out to eat and I'll search for restaurants,

Italian food within 10 miles from me, vaccine required. And I could not imagine clicking on anything else. That would be a great- Why would I ever click on anything different? I hope that they require it for airlines in the future. Oh, I don't. I know. And I think at this point,

they're talking about within a month, I think it was about a month, they're going to stop the emergency use. It's going to be a full-on. And at that point, there can't be any pushback from certain places. You can just require it. They're going to make the military get it.

Yeah. So there's a bunch of people are going to have to get this. And, you know, so we're, you know, I hope that there is another search because people's lives are a little tougher. Yeah. Well, next, within a month, it should, the vaccine also should be available for kids. So kids right now, 12 and under, that's 47 million Americans that are not eligible for the vaccine. That's a lot of opportunity to continue to create variants and continue community spread. That's a lot of opportunity to continue to create variants

and continue community spread. That's a huge number of people. So, but they should have, by next month, they should have the opportunity to get the first shot. And I really think that after you give everybody an opportunity

to get the shot, right? And to get into, and to be fully vaccinated, I think it's entirely reasonable to begin getting reasonably draconian. And I think one of the best things to do if you're an insurance company, right? Yeah, you said this, yeah.

Life insurance should not cover you. Life insurance and health insurance. And health insurance should not cover COVID-related illnesses unless you have a medical exemption, right? It's unfair if you have a medical exemption. If you're choosing, that's the wording. If I'm choosing not to get the vaccine, medical exemption, right? It's unfair if you have a medical exemption. If you're choosing, that's the wording.

If I'm choosing not to get the vaccine, medical exemption isn't you choosing. Right. There's no choice. There's no choice. I don't have a choice. So I don't want to shit on those people at all. My doctor saying it,

that's not a choice. I didn't make that choice. Right. But if you are choosing not to get the vaccine, yeah, fuck you. Make your life hard. Fuck you. It should just be really fucking annoying

to do everything. And it should be more expensive because you are a bigger burden on society, right? That's how insurance works. Insurance pools risk and pools resource. That's the nature of insurance as a scheme. So we already have a history of doing this. If you smoke,

insurance is allowed to charge you up to 50% more by law. You can charge up to 50% more for medical insurance for smokers versus non-smokers. Because it's a choice that you make that puts you at such an increased risk. It's one of the most risky behaviors you can get. Try to get life insurance in your 40s. Yeah. I mean, just try to do that in your 40s. Yeah, I did.

Right? They come out and draw your blood for nicotine prices. Try to get it in your 40s. See what happens. Yep. See what kind of fucking ringer they put you through. And the same thing, like, try to get it in your 40s. See what happens. See what kind of fucking ringer they put you through. And the same thing, like try to get into your 20s. They don't even care.

Oh, I know. When I had life insurance in my 20s, they're like, I was like, I want, you know, whatever coverage. And like, it's $11 a year. Yeah. And you know, I'm like, do you do blood? And they're like, you're not going to die. No.

The actuaries have crunched this. Yeah, we're good. In your 40s, I'm like, I want X number of coverage. Like we're coming out. We're going to weigh you. Yeah. We're going to draw your blood. No. The actuaries have crunched this. In your 40s, I'm like, I want X number of coverage. We're coming out. We're going to weigh you. We're going to draw your blood. We're going to ask you questions about whether you... And the other thing is they ask you questions like, do you skydive? Do you do these high-risk activities? Because if I go

do those activities, and I said I didn't do them, and I die, they don't pay out my life insurance. So COVID should really be the same thing. If I'm vaccinated and I die, they should pay it. Yeah.

If I choose to be unvaccinated and I die, nobody should pay. That's a choice. It's a choice. You chose to increase your risk. Is this a private party or can any star crash?

Some new coke is catching on. The taste is better and newer. They're there. They're there. They're there. You said the P word.

So what I want to know is, if you're drinking Coke, who's drinking Pepsi? You said the P word! If you can't beat it, catch the wave. Coke. Holy shit, this was so fucking racist. This came from the Daily Beast. Newt Gingrich goes full great replacement theory on Fox. Let me see if I can play it.

Look, they don't come all the way across Mexico for the purpose of visiting for two days. They want to be in America. And I think what's hard for most of us to accept is that the anti-American left would love to drown traditional classic Americans with as many people. Holy shit. What do you mean traditional?

What are you saying? That's straight code for white people. What exactly are you saying? Traditional. I'm a classical American. I'm a classical liberal. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Traditional classic American, by which I mean white people. Oh, classic American. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. That was a little slip up. What I mean to say is classic American.

There's American and American classic. It's like Coke. Yeah. Well, they tried. They tried. There's new American. They tried American crystal or whatever. It didn't take off.

People as they can who know nothing of American history, nothing of American tradition, nothing of the rule of law. And there's no way to learn any of those things either, Tom. So not only do they not know it, right, when they come in, which who the fuck cares, but then there's no way that

any of those people would ever do well and seasonally threw in the rule of law law they don't know the rule of the law as if to suggest that these are honestly the suggestion is that they're animals right yeah exactly that they come from ungoverned lawless societies right right holy shit man yeah no i mean it's he's he's rolling to racism now he's not running so it's so out there it's the quiet part out loud i think that when you go and you look at the radical left uh this is their their ideal model is to get rid of the rest of us because we believe in george washington or we believe in the constitution uh and you you see this behavior over and over again man i would get rid of the rest of you i'll tell you what i and i would embrace an america based on diversity

and i would absolutely embrace an america that takes in refugees and gives people an opportunity because none of us fucking deserve to be here i remember when we were like years ago before we lost the fucking degenerate so you still listen to this show. So like, back when we were just a show that made fun of atheist stuff, there was some people who listened who might not have agreed with our politics.

And I remember one fucking idiot, I get into an argument with one idiot on Twitter because he was saying, because we were talking about Coach Dave talking about how diversity is the devil or one of those assholes was saying diversity is the devil. And I said, diversity is fucking amazing.

And I talked about how great it was living where I was living. I was living in the South Loop at the time and I was talking about how I used to go down and go get tamales and watch a Mexican guy talk to a guy who's from China and they're having a conversation, you know, that doesn't, that's not even, it's not even the same language, but they're able to talk to each other and buy stuff from each other and all this. And it was just, it was a cool thing to sort of be, it's a small melting pot, you know, it's at this little

flea market that I used to go to. And I remember some fucking just idiots who listened to our show and I'm happy, I'm so fucking happy they don't listen anymore. They had said, oh yeah, well, you know, diversity is actually really bad and then we started getting into it and it was about the time

that we were going to go to QED for the first time and I remember them saying, yeah, well, don't get on the tube because you're going to get raped or something by the mongrel races or whatever. It was awful. It was just awful. And I remember just how being thinking,

how fucking stupid do you have to be just to like that? I don't like religion, right? That's why you listen. That's the thing that lists, you listen to show for us that I don't like religion, but go away. Don't ever listen.

I don't fucking want you to listen. I don't want you to, I don't want you to be here. I don't want you to hear my voice. I want you to go listen to fucking some fucking other asshole who figured out the easiest fucking thing in the world, but there isn't a God, right? The easiest fucking answer ever. There isn't a God. Go listen to that guy. Cause you're going to go have fun. Don't come back because I want to make sure that, you know, like, like diversity is important. Inclusion is important.

It's super important. It's more, and it should be important to us atheists. It should be very important to us atheists. There's a story in here that we might not get to. We're talking about how people don't trust atheists, right? They don't trust them. They don't like them. They don't want to be around them.

They don't want them to express their individual liberty about what they believe and what they don't believe. They don't want that in the workplace. And fucking, I just, I hear this fucking guy and how he has to talk. And I just think, what the fuck? Why do we let these people run half our government half the time? Man, because we are an insanely racist country. That's the only answer, man. And I will say five years ago, I would have said, no, we are not. We are better than that.

That's a minority. You're right, you're right. And five years later, I'm like, no, man, we're a fucking insanely racist country. And shame on me for not seeing it and knowing it earlier. Shame on me for having to have it, having to have these guys walk around

with a fucking neon banner over their head before I saw it, having to have these guys walk around with a fucking neon banner over their head before I saw it because it was always out there and it was always fucking visible and I didn't have to see it. And that's why I didn't see it. You know? And so I want to raise my hand and recognize that was my miss. I didn't, I didn't have to see it either. I wasn't confronted with it. The racism isn't new. It's just, I didn't see it cause I, it wasn't in my face in the same way. And that's, that's, that's on me. And there was, I didn't see it because I, it wasn't in my face in the same way and that's,

that's on me. And there was, you know, there's that thought when we first started about like, oh, you know,

this is all going to go away. Yeah. Racism's never going to go away. It's never going to. We're just, we're just surrounded by people that are just too stupid to let it go.

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This story comes from Salon. Trump's coup came so close to working, do the American people even care? So, I just, I gotta read this part right from the article. CNN reports that Trump pressured then acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to make a false declaration, quote, in an attempt to help Republican members of Congress try to overturn the election result. According to notes of a December 2020 call, Trump held with Rosen and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue.

Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman, Trump said on the call, according to Donahue's notes. Donahue's contemporaneous notes were provided to the House Oversight Committee and are the latest evidence of Trump's efforts to pressure the Justice Department to support his false claims of election fraud as he tried to overturn his November loss to Joe Biden. Holy shit. We knew he was doing it behind closed doors though. I mean, I think we all knew what he was doing behind closed doors, but there was that one moment where I don't know who told him to do

it. And I really wish I knew the sequence of events that made him do that one speech where he looked like he was being held at gunpoint. Oh, I know. I really wish I knew the sequence of events that made him do that one speech where he looked like he was being held at gunpoint. I know. I really wish I knew this because if he's this brazen with his own attorney general, people that have to write things down when they have these conversations, these are public record notes. These have to be,

these have to be kept. He's so stupid that he doesn't realize it's going to get out there or he doesn't care. Yeah. Well, I think he thought it would work. Yeah. Right. I. And the thing is, if it had worked, if the attorney general had come out and said that that was a false election, imagine the size of the coup. Like the insurrection would have been, I mean, we would have been in a civil war, man. I don't

think that's an exaggeration. Because the country is essentially split down the middle. Right. We could have had an armed... An armed coup. He would have stayed in office. He would have stayed in office. And he would have been able to declare martial law

and leverage the national... We could have been... We were so close. If a handful of individual people had gone along with it, had caved to that pressure, had made these announcements publicly from other branches of trusted government,

repeating his bullshit. It's one thing for the guy who's obviously self-motivated to repeat it, but man, we came so close. But there was so many, I mean, like this doesn't surprise me because we heard that phone call. Yeah.

That phone call where he called Georgia and he said, look, I just want you to find this many votes. Just find this many votes. And everybody was saying, oh, what he's trying to say is that you need to find those votes in the sense that like, they were actually my votes and you need to find, no, I don't think so. No, I think he was saying-

When I listened to that, I did not feel like he was saying- We listened to that whole call. Yeah, we he was saying- We listened to that whole call. Yeah, we listened to that whole call. And that whole call is, one, it's fucking cringy as fuck because he's such an idiot. I can't believe that guy got elected. I'm just blown away

that that many people in America, more people, he got the second most votes in the history of America. I know, I know. He is fucking barely literate. He is genuinely a stupid, stupid person. And I can't believe that that many people think that that's a leader. I just can't. It just,

it boggles my mind. I'm amazed that people think that's strength. Yeah. They, they confuse that blow hard with strength. He's so pathetic. And when he's on that call, he's genuinely pathetic. Yes. Yeah. He's begging like a baby. He's begging. And then he's on that call, he's genuinely pathetic. He's begging like a baby. And then he's talking about, he's like a guy who walks in and tries to pull the change game on you. That's what he felt

like. I mean, seriously, that call. I'm going to start with 10. You give me back a 5 and two 5s and a single 10. Yeah, right. Seriously, it's like it feels like change game. And I was just, I could. And they weren't taking it. They weren't having it. But that was just one level that he was trying. He tried multiple levels and ones we have no idea about.

Clearly, he tried to pressure Bill Barr. Barr wasn't having it. He was trying to pressure this guy. He wasn't having it. These people, they protected democracy in some way. You know, granted they enabled them all the way up until that point, but they did protect democracy.

And this is, this is one of those things that hopefully they're able to fucking question him on. Man, it's just, it's amazing to me. It's constantly amazing to me, Cecil, how much the world sometimes can come down to one person. Yeah. Just one dude

who wakes up in a bed and takes a shit in a toilet. And you're just like, you, we should all be, cause the thing is like me and everybody I know are inconsequential. Yeah. You know, myself and everybody that I've ever met, we could gather together in a room and stomp our fucking feet and shake our fist at the sky as much as we want. And we really can't do dick all. And then somehow just one guy, like Jeffrey Rosen in this case, right? Jeffrey Rosen, if he had just caved,

if he had caved to this political pressure and he had to be feeling it, right? If he had done the math in his head a little bit differently, if he had thought, if I do this a little bit differently if he had thought if i do this what do i get out of he'd been a more craven or more yeah ambitious or more just sick of something yeah right it's amazing how much keeps coming down in history to one fucking dude one baffle and it feels yeah so tenuous always Always does. Doesn't it?

Always does. It always does. It's like hearing about that story about the one guy who stopped the nuclear attack. Yeah. And you're like, doesn't that make you shit a little? Yeah.

Man. Yeah. My mouth goes dry. There's one dude who's just like, nah, that ain't it. Yeah. And then he saves the whole world. And now there's humanity again.

And they're still able to have it because he's like, nah, it's a fucking bird or whatever. Right. He's like, I'm not going to be the guy that ends the world today. I'm not doing that. And that's this guy.

Yeah. Because this could have easily, like you said, turned into a horror show. And we got lucky a bunch of times throughout his presidency. We got lucky a bunch of times because he presidency. We got lucky a bunch of times because he was always trying to

dig himself into that position. Dig himself in, dig himself in. Gosh, I hope, I just want to see him go away, but he's not. There's another story that we have where he supposedly has a secret cabinet where the idea is he's out talking to these people, this Madison Cawthorn, who's clearly

a cartoon dog. Isn't it 100%? Madison Cawthorn, or it's, you know what it is? It's a crow in a straw hat. Madison Cawthorn, 100% a crow in a straw hat. But seriously, he's fucking, he's talking to this guy, and he's

having a conversation at a table, and this guy's taking surreptitious pictures to be, oh, look at us. Here we are. We're the shadow cabinet behind. There's no cabinet. No, but that just plays into the Q shit, man. I think they do that intentionally because they're feeding the, if you're one of these fucking Q loons who's convinced that there is a secret government and that Biden is the front for it and that really things are still being run,

then, because they're using terminology from that story there, he's talking about, he refers to Trump as President Trump, not former President Trump. No, you're right. And he's talking about his cabinet. Yeah.

So he's talking about him as if he is currently in power. Sure. And I think that's a direct feed right to those people. Absolutely. To keep them engaged. Yeah, and keep them engaged

with the political process so that if anything happens in the future, they'll be there to vote. Yeah, so they'll show up in 22. Sorry for the interruption. The what? Well, that's what a commercial is,

basically, right? Don't tell him that. Why not? Let's be upfront about this. This is a commercial. Hold it. Don't zap me yet. I usually zap the commercials. I understand. You can really use these books. Know what they are? Encyclopedia

Britannica. I've seen your commercials. Good. But I think I'm too young to use it. That's what a lot of people- I'll handle it. This is for all ages. Here you go. Ready reference. What are you studying? Elephants. Volume four. Check it out. They're endangered. I know. So Tom, for this week's book club, we read Demon Haunted World Chapter 3. This is The Man on the Moon and

The Face on Mars. Really interesting chapter that starts out talking about patterns. Talking about what we see. Human brain is great at recognizing patterns. We're very good at it. It's funny. When I was reading this, I was thinking about being on the streets in Chicago and streets in Chicago are normally pretty packed. And I can pick my wife walking out away, like far away, very far away. I can see her walking and know it's her.

And I know it's her. I know it's her. And that's a pattern I recognize because I've seen her so many times and I know how she walks and I know, I just know her. And humans are great at this. We're really good at it. But we're also good at seeing patterns

where they're just, it's just a pattern. It's not an actual face or it's not an actual thing. It's, we just see things and we think it's something, you know, who, who hasn't as a kid laid up and looked at the clouds and picked out, oh, that one looks like a, you see the face and then do you see the dragon behind it, how it's doing? And there's a koala bear riding the dragon. You know what I mean? There's like a million things happening. I've done that a hundred times in my life. By the way, I would love to see a koala bear ride a dragon. I want that real bad. Someone needs to draw me a picture of a koala riding a dragon. Tom will get it tattooed on his chest. That's not true. Not on my chest. But in any case, he talks about that and he has a,

he really says a lot about what we call pareidolia, right? So that idea of, hey, you know, there's a lot of patterns in nature. There's a lot of patterns. And he talks about tortillas at one point, which is great because he's talking about tortillas and they're finding Jesus faces on tortillas. And he says, well, with all the tortillas that are stamped,

it would be impossible for that not to look like something, right? It would be impossible for it not to look like something, right? It would be impossible for it not to look like a thing. And so he's talking about this for most of the chapter where he's talking about pareidolia. He finally shifts to his angle, which is astronomy. And his angle is talking about the face on Mars, where he's talking about the face on Mars, which was taken by a Voyager.

Went over and it took a photo and half of a mountain, like a hill is covered in shadow. And so it looks like a face half covered in shadow. And if you see that image, that original image, it really looks very facey. It looks great. It looks great. It looks like, and it does very much match what a Sphinx looked like, the Sphinx face. So, people immediately thought it was something. They,

within minutes, actually, were able to high-res that thing up and take away some of the stuff and say, no, there's nothing on the other side.

And that's the other thing. When you take away the shadow and you look at a higher resolution image, it looks like nothing. There's, any semblance to a face disappears 100% immediately. Look at it at a higher resolution image. It looks like nothing. Any semblance to a face disappears immediately. Look at it at a high res, especially

now. Now, this is before Carl died before this happened, but we did take another very high res version of that. And so there's now an ultra high res version. It looks nothing like it, but it just it's a trick of light and a trick of the camera and that's just what it looks like. And that spawned the whole face on Mars thing. And that's,

and that, and, and in this chapter, he's essentially saying that it's fun to believe these things, but they're not true. Right. And he gets to the end of the chapter and he's talking about, he's talking about weekly world news. Yeah, he uses it about weekly world news. And what's funny is, is, is, you know, you look back on that and you think, oh, come on the weekly world news, but you know, the weekly world news was on, it was in every supermarket. And, you know, back in the day when we first started the show, I might turn to you and say, oh, come on the weekly world news, the weekly world news, but how crazy, how much crazier is Batboy than QAnon? It's yeah, I know. I thought the same thing.

I thought, I thought when I read the Weekly World News, it felt like cute because it felt very 90s, right? It felt very a moment of its time. Yeah. And I remember buying the Weekly World News and reading it as a joke and thinking it was funny and like silly. And it was.

And it was silly. And it was. It was like the onion, but it was with supernatural stuff and it was goofy. It was. But there were people in the world who believed it. Well, and I was thinking when I was reading this, I was like, the thing is that the Weekly World News was like the internet, like diet watered down internet.

Yeah. Right. It's anybody can say anything and there will be people who immediately recognize that's bullshit. And then there are other people who are absolutely convinced that that shit is true. And then there's a huge number in the middle who are convinced that maybe some of it's a little true. Yeah. It's not all fake. It's not all bullshit. Some elements feel more true than others. The thing with pareidolia is like, it's fun to look up at the clouds and to see that, you know, koala bear riding a dragon. That is fun to do. and to see that, you know, koala bear riding a dragon. That is fun to do. The problem is that when you are unable to know the difference

between seeing a face and being like, I know that sometimes faces appear in rocks and tortillas versus there is, this is part of a larger narrative that I then plug the pareidolia into. And it immediately now is like, Jesus appeared and Jesus is part of this larger narrative. And this is proof of this religious concept. And now these other things are true because of this.

So when we let the tricks of our mind reinforce these broader narratives, we run into real problems. And he talks about that in the book too. There are people who vehemently believe broader narratives, we run into real problems. And he talks about that in the book too. There are people who vehemently believe in this astronomical bullshit, cities and villages and all this shit on Mars for which there is no evidence, but they plug it into a narrative they've kind of already established. And then it simply becomes proof of something that already wasn't.

Right, right. And there's this great, I want to read this bit. He's talking about the Weekly World News in the previous paragraph. And in the previous paragraphs, he's talking about the Weekly World News and how the Weekly World News was using an image of Clinton with an image of a guy in a wheelchair saying that he met with John F. Kennedy who actually survived his assassination attempt. And here they are years later and now they're talking, they're actually having a conversation or for some reason it was dropped

that there's a doomsday asteroid, allegedly top secret document quotes that the top scientists are talking about this asteroid and they're talking or keeping Clinton minute by minute up to date on this asteroid. And here's what he says. He says, some see this as just some kind of fun. However, we live in a time

when a real long-term statistical threat of an impact of an asteroid with the earth has been identified. Government agencies are studying what to do about it. Stories like this suffuse the subject with apocalyptic exaggeration and whimsy and make it difficult for the public to distinguish real perils from tabloid fiction

and conceivably can implode our ability to take precautionary steps to mitigate the danger. How relevant is that to all the threats we deal with on so many levels that come from misinformation? How relevant is that to all of it, right? You know, when they talked about, when they tried to say there was no Russia meddling, right? You know, when they talked about, when they talked about, when they tried to say there was no

Russia meddling, right? And look at how that destabilized that conversation. Look at the mask debate. Look at how that destabilized

that conversation. All of these things, all this misinformation, he saw it back then. He knew it was a problem. And that's when it was the weekly world news it was a problem. And that's when it was the weekly world news it was a problem. And he was trying to warn us, right?

And what strikes me too, Cecil, is the tabloidization of politics that we see now, right? So top scientists say this. That's the same thing as all the best people. All the best people, you bet. I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to tell you who,

but I'm going to refer to some group over here in the distance. This group by which I am vetted, I'm given authority and weight to the thing I'm about to make up and lie to you about. And Weekly World News knew how to write that, right? Top scientists agree that this thing or you know experts weigh in on this never mentioned they never say who it is they never say who it is as soon as you name a name russian scientist says this yep yeah yeah top doctors reveal all that

shit it's the same you we watch that slow motion car crash four years of that slow motion car but now that's the forever world, right? Because it's made its way into the mainstream. That's now, that's every fucking meme you see, right? Memes rely on that same trope. They rely on that same lack of specificity to gain access to credibility. Yeah.

It's a tabloidization of our thinking. And it's really fucking dangerous. It was dangerous in the 90s when it was like in its training wheels stage. When it was a fucking supermarket tabloid paper that you picked up on impulse. Now it's way worse than that. It's hopped up on fucking

steroids, man. It's jacked now. He is, again though, always bringing it back to this. This is his main idea. And he's always, you know, what I love about this chapter is he starts out with a really rational explanation for why people see these things. He's not trying to mock anybody. He's not trying to say any of that stuff. He's saying, look, here's the deal. We, we do see these things and we see these things in tortillas and we see a, you know, a, a, a mother, what mother, what is the, what is the Virgin Mary, Virgin Mary, like Mother Teresa. I was like, it's Virgin Mary on a fucking overpass or whatever. And you know, the thing is,

is like, like you're inundated with these images all the time. So why wouldn't you see it somewhere? You know, why wouldn't you see that thing somewhere? And it, and it means, like you said,

it means something to those people. It means, it means that the, that the thing that they believe is talking to them. Right. And conversely, whenever anybody ever says that's not the

case, there's again those conspiracy people, especially when it came to the face on Mars, that right away say, you're trying to hide the truth. You're trying to hide this from us. So even if you come out within days to show them the image, they say, oh, well,

you just changed it because you don't want us to see what it really is. And I was thinking while you were saying that, we need to start off by recognizing that the fucking meat vehicle that you drive around in all day is imperfect. Oh gosh, yeah. It's so imperfect. There is this like overblown sense of trust that we place in our own senses. Absolutely, yeah. And's so important. There is this like overblown sense of trust that we place in our own senses. Absolutely, yeah. And in our own experience. Yeah.

But like you're driving around in a deeply imperfect meat machine. Yeah. It makes lots of mistakes. It is not good at lots of things. It makes too many assumptions all the time. It's trying to do the quickest, laziest calculation.

It can pot all the time. It's trying to do the quickest, laziest calculation. It can pop all the time. Or it's trying to keep you alert of something, right? So I have this thing where I, when I fall asleep, I sometimes hear a slam. Right. I'll hear these slams and I'll be like, what the fuck was that? And I think it's a door or something, but it's not a door because I know I locked all the doors or whatever. You know, I know I'm okay. I know it's my brain just waking me up. My brain doesn't want me to sleep. My brain's trying to wake me up. My brain's doing this thing that knows I'm going to wake up to. Yeah, right.

And so I do it. But I don't think it's a ghost. And I know it's just my stupid brain. But if you had a different mindset, you might think that was a ghost. You might think you were haunted, Cecil. You might end up with a priest in your house walking around exercising demons to get rid of. Burdened sage. Something slams the door every night.

Our inability or unwillingness to recognize that our meat isn't good. We have to guard ourselves against the imperfections of the human condition and constantly be aware of the ways that our meat and our minds are tricking us. If we're not, if we place too much trust in that, if we believe the faces in the rocks, really we're left there by aliens trying to commit. We lead ourselves down a dangerous path. Yeah, for sure. So Tom, before we finish this out, we did want to talk about the two comments that we did get. Why don't you read these?

First one is Diego. What's interesting about giving meaning to patterns is that they don't need to be visual ones. We search and find patterns in our continuous experience, in my understanding. Our reality can be summarized in what agents and patterns we find. For instance, our tendency to assume that if something happened before another thing, then it must be its cause. This is why magic works. For instance, our tendency to assume that if something happened before another thing, then it must be its cause. This is why magic works. We use people's assumptions,

assumptions that are born and updated because the day-to-day found patterns. Yeah, it's very true. And assuming because one thing followed another thing that they are causally related, that's a big problem. That's so human. That is so human. Think about every time you've ever heard anybody talk about autism and vaccines. That's so human. That is so human. Think about just, think about every time you've ever heard anybody

talk about autism and vaccines. Yep. That's a hundred percent. That's the whole like vaccine adverse reporting system. That's all it is. That's all it is. The next one is from Daniel. I haven't read it,

but I've listened to every chapter so far. Some of the prose is almost poetic. Not necessarily what I expected from a scientist. I've never seen his TV show. Not sure if it aired in the UK. Sagan's love of science is woven through every line. That's from Dan in Liverpool. Yeah, no, it's very true.

He is, like I said last week, and we put it on our Facebook page this week, the pale blue dot I mentioned last week is beautifully written. He's a terrific writer. He's a terrific writer. And his writing is so well done in this. He writes very much like a novelist. He is writing like a novelist. It is not written as if it were a scientific paper. He's an excellent writer and it comes through on this.

If you hear Tom read it or if you hear him read it, it might hear him. I don't know who's reading his audio book. I don't know either. Yeah. I don't know who reads it. If he read it or if you hear him read it, you might hear him. I don't know who's reading his audio book. I don't know either. Yeah, I don't know who reads it. If he read it or if someone else reads it, you can definitely hear him say the pale blue dot because he reads that out loud. And that's amazing when you hear him read it.

And his voice sounds like Agent Smith to me. 100%. It sounds so much like Agent Smith from The Matrix. Yeah, it's the way it's written. He just has a good grasp of the language and he's a very, very talented writer. The next chapter we're going to read is just entitled Aliens.

This is chapter four in Demon Island World. So if you want to follow along, chapter four next week, Tom's going to read it for patrons. So if you're a patron, Tom's going to read it aloud and that comes right into your podcast feed. And then, of course,

we're encouraging everybody that wants to go buy this book. It's on Audible. It's on, you know, you can find it in Barnes & Noble. You can find it on A-Books. There's tons of places to buy this book. Excellent book.

Excellent reference material. Just to keep around, I recognize just paging through it how useful it is just to have on my bookshelf. How it's just a useful book to have. So catch us next week, Demon Haunted World Chapter 4. I will say too, somebody asked, I think there was one or two

people that asked which version I'm reading. There are multiple versions, I guess, of this book. I'm reading the Kindle version. So if there are some minor nomenclature differences, I'm to understand that there might be more than one version. Maybe it's gone through edits. Yeah.

I'm reading the version on Kindle because it's on my computer screen, which is by my microphone. Yeah. So that's the one that I'm reading. Easy to read. Yeah, right. Yeah.

So check it out. Pick up the book if you haven't. We're really enjoying it. This is a project that Tom and I are really enjoying. And hopefully people will join in and and and chime in and let us know what they think so we want to thank our patrons of course we want to thank all our patrons we want to thank our newest ones paul nathan, Daniel, Seal, maybe? Amanda, Burns, Art, Stuart, Jason, Baron Von Krogs,

Patropus, I don't know. Patropus? Patropus, Jake, Jeff, and the people who up their pledges, Michael and Douglas. Thank you so much for your generous donations. We really do truly appreciate it. You guys are the reason why we can have employees, why we can do fun

stuff like live stream, and why we can order pizza before we work. For real. We wouldn't have a Glory Hole Studios without you guys. You've really made it possible to turn this show into something so much more than it was when we first started. We're grateful to you guys. Very grateful.

Thank you so much. We didn't get a ton of email this week. We want to talk about a little bit of it. We wanted to give a shout out to Caitlin, who became a patron after listening to us for 10 years. 10 years. Look, if you've been listening for 10 years and you haven't been a patron, you're stealing from us.

I think it's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining in. I also got a message from, this is from Kyle. He's thinking about ketchup chips

and he's like, you can't agree with guys more on how gross ketchup chips are. I guess he didn't know they existed, but then when he was deployed, he had to eat them and he's like, what the fuck is this thing?

But he said, here's something he said at the end. That said, the best flavored milk, including banana milk, fuck is this thing? But he said, here's something he said at the end. That said, the best flavored milk, including banana milk, which was just fantastic. That's what he had while he was deployed.

So banana milk. That sounds good. I bet it would be really good. Back in the day, Quick used to have a banana milk. Did they really? So they had a strawberry,

a banana, and a chocolate. Oh. And so. Could you, if you mixed them together? It'd be Neapolitan. Whoa, that'd be amazing.

I don't know about that. It would be amazing. You got to mix them. No. Got to mix them. Never scoop, always scoop across. Would not be good, Tom. Always scoop across.

We got a message from Scott. And Scott says, regarding the library discussion, three apps that I love are Libby, Canopy, which is spelled with a K, and Hoopla. You sign in with your library card and then you have access to electronic resources, including e-books, audio books, movies, and TV shows. I don't have a library card anymore. I got to get one.

I moved and I just realized I did not get a library card. I had one for downtown Chicago, but I don't have one for Houston. I had one a few years ago, but I moved and I don't have one. I got not get a library card. I had one for downtown Chicago, but I don't have one for- I had one a few years ago, but I moved and I don't have one. Yeah, I'll have to get- I gotta get a library card. I'll have to get one too. And I feel like I should probably sign up for some of this stuff because I really do feel like libraries are a very important resource.

They are. I should use them more often. Absolutely, yeah. We got a message from Jess who told us a very long story about how very rigorous it is for scientists to become scientists. They're talking about a PhD thesis or a master's thesis, I think, and how difficult that was to watch their brother go through this long, long, grueling process. brother go through this long, long, grueling process. Yeah. There's nothing, it's not,

it's not, they're not there to satisfy your ego. Yeah. They are there to rigorously examine whether or not you are in possession of the faculties to earn that degree. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that, and so, so yeah, I, and you know, you hope they're all like that. Yeah. You hope they're all like that. Got an image from Seth. So good. Which is just so great. The image itself is hilarious because of the outside. The captioning. The captioning is just so good.

So we're going to post it on this week's show notes. Be sure to join us next week when we're going to be covering Demon Haunted World Chapter 4, Aliens, which I'm sure is going to be

super good. Super exciting. The thing is that with Carl Sagan, it really will be good. It really will be good. And you know, of the things that Carl Sagan really wanted to be true, you know he wanted there to be aliens

that you could speak to. You know he wanted that to be true more than anything. Like crazy. But you know, you got to, what you want to be true, what is true. You got to be able and what is true. You got to be able to draw that line. You got to be able to draw it.

And I think this book is exactly what that is. There is a whole, that whole message of this book is that, you know, what you want to be true and what is true,

you need to be able to draw that line between those two things. So join us next week. We're going to be doing a Demon Hunter world. It'll be a lot of fun. Also join us for a live stream.

So you're having a lot of fun. We watched a for our live streams. We're having a lot of fun. We watched a blobfish interview a guy who rode on a motorcycle this week, which was super exciting. Who was his visitor? His visitor. You'll have to watch the video to find out. Oh, yeah.

You're holding it back. You'll also have to watch the video for this super hyper-realistic photo that they took of this guy on his motorcycle. You guys, seriously, check out the live streams. If you miss them on Thursday nights live, go to the YouTube channel and watch them there.

Yeah. They're fun. YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, they're all saved. So go check them out. But this week, you got to see the picture. It's just so worthwhile.

All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter

mommy issue hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info- docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts,

shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages,

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