Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 595: Superspreader Event

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Show Notes   A classic Alex Jones meme

Today's show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Go to BetterHelp.com slash CogDisc. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash CogDisc for 10% off your first month. 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 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 makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 595, I believe. Yes, 595. 595 of cognitive dissonance. We talked about it on the stream maybe last week,

and we might have talked about it on the show. I don't remember exactly where we talked about it. But that Herman Cain Award thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know might have talked about it on the show. I don't remember exactly where we talked about it, but that Herman Cain Award thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know where we talked about it, but there's a Reddit called the Herman Cain Award. Right. And it's essentially,

what it is, is it's a bunch of images taken from people's Facebook feeds that are Facebook posts of them being very heavily anti-vax or anti-mask, pro-opening up, those types of things. And very often pro-MAGA, pro-Republicans. All the things that you think of.

Pro-stole the election. All those things that you would imagine that someone with a QAnon sort of idea would have. And then as time goes on, once you page through all of those initial posts of their reticence to wear a mask or reticence to get vaccinated, you get to the end posts, which are normally them on a ventilator or them very sick. And then it almost inevitably ends with someone else saying, we lost so-and-so and they're linking to that person's profile and saying we lost so-and-so, they died last night. And very often too, there's a GoFundMe for their burial expenses or something like that.

And one thing I was looking through this week, and there's a morbid curiosity there because we deal with so much disinformation on the show. There's a morbid curiosity when I see these because what I really want to see is them very sick and then maybe saying, I made a mistake. You guys should do this.

And I would love to see more of those. You don't see a lot of those. Right, yeah. But one thing you do see is a lot of people taking photos of themselves while they're on a ventilator. So there's a lot of photos of like selfies while people are on ventilators.

And I thought you were unconscious on a ventilator. I guess, or I'm talking about the mask. I guess it's not a ventilator, but like the oxygen mask that goes over your face. And so they're taking a lot of pictures of themselves in the hospital bed with these masks on. And one thing I noticed a correlation on, the beginning of March through the middle of July,

my Facebook feed was full of shots, people getting shots. It was full of it. All the likes, all the hearts that were people, you know, I remember seeing people, you know, that were posting hundreds of people were liking everybody else's photos when they got the shot. It's the exact same thing here. Hundreds of people outpouring when these people have this thing on their face. Right. So you had an opportunity. It's a weird thing to see on social media. But it's one of those things where you see this connection.

There is a correlation there between one side that earlier talked about something on social media and received a lot of praise. And then now there's this. And I think it's more an outpouring of like, they're doing the cares and the loves. Oh shit, you're sick. Or whatever. I imagine there's probably a few laughing faces in there though.

I imagine. You know, you can't, I mean, it's hard not to though with the way that they're pushing against the mandates. Yeah, well, did you see the fucking hullabaloo around Nicki Minaj this week? And vaccines and the White House and all that. Yeah, well, did you see the fucking hullabaloo around Nicki Minaj this week? And vaccines and the White House and all that? Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, like we're still at a place where there is a tremendous amount of influence being given, and there always will be, right? I don't think that there's any, nothing about this is ever going to change us, who we are. People find influence. They find support. They find a resonating voice in all kinds of different people, celebrities, musicians, et cetera.

It's so fucking important to get some things right. Most of the time, it doesn't matter. Most of the time, it doesn't matter. It's really fucking unfortunate. As I was reading this, it's like, I don't blame Nicki Minaj, right? I don't. Nicki Minaj is just a person who's getting something wrong.

But I do kind of blame the people who would look to Nicki Minaj as a source of expertise on these things. We have done a terrible disservice educationally to our citizenry. If we think that anyone is a source of expertise on a subject, which they are clearly not a source of expertise on, right? Like, you know, you would not turn to Nicki Minaj for her expertise on automotive repair. Right.

That would be an insane thing to do. It would be silly. It would be an insane, just because she probably owns a nice car. Yeah. You know, it would be an insane thing to do. Nobody would be like, you know, I don't know how to fucking rebuild my transmission.

I'm going to shoot Nicki Minaj a quick DM on Instagram and see what her thoughts are on this. I'm going to read her tweet. So her tweet is, my cousin in Trinidad won't get the vaccine because his friend got it and became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married.

Now the girl called off the wedding. Just pray on it and make sure you're comfortable with your decision. Not bullied is what she said. Okay. One, she's wielding the power of someone who has 22.7 million followers. Yep. That's, that's a huge megaphone. Yep. That's a huge megaphone. Yep. That's a huge megaphone. Yep. And she's making a statement about an anecdote from a guy that's not even her, like this is one degree of separation from her even. But you know, the president, prime minister,

I don't remember, of Trinidad came out and said, we actually ran this down. It never happened. Wow.inidad came out and said, we actually ran this down. It never happened. Wow. They said, and they said, we regret spending all these resources because the fucking leader, I forgot his fucking, the leader of Trinidad was like, this is a big deal. Yeah. So they wanted to make sure, like, did this actually, they ran it down.

Never happened. This story is made up. Yeah. It's 100% made up. It's made up by Nicki Minaj. Yeah. Right. never happened this story is made up yeah it's 100 made it's made up by nikki minaj yeah right because the fucking according to the fucking president of trinidad there is no cousin whose testicles got swollen and became impotent yeah and you can bet on that because that's not what

happens right yeah and i mean she made this up she's 22 million people and she's making up bullshit well and that and she's you know like who Well, and that, and she's, you know, like who, I am with you in the sense that if you're reading Twitter and you hear Nicki Minaj say anything about anything. Right. I don't know how that influences your decision. Like it's not paging Dr. Minaj. Right. You know,

and it's a operating room three, you know, because that's Minaj. It's wild. No, but you're not, you're not because that's menage a trois. No, but you're not, you're not, she's not a doctor.

Right. She doesn't have any expertise in this field whatsoever. None. But she has a gigantic megaphone and the same thing happened. This is, she is essentially doing

the exact same thing that Joe Rogan did. Yeah. Exact same thing, right? Spouting off about something she doesn't know about and telling you anecdotes

about medicine. Anecdotes and medicine do not belong together. They're not, you cannot just say, well, my cousin one time, it doesn't matter. Anecdotes are important if they are illustrative of statistical truth. Sure. Right? So when you discuss an anecdote about, you know, if everybody's balls was swelling. Right. Yeah. Or like, when you discuss an anecdote about, you know, if everybody's balls was swelling, right. Yeah. Or like, or like we did earlier, like if, if somebody gets is unvaccinated and they get COVID and they fucking die, well, there's a statistical truth that is evident that people that are unvaccinated are much more likely to become sick and to die. And so in that sense, the anecdote actually is illustrative of a larger statistical truth.

Yeah. And so it has value. And the anecdote ties you to the humanity of that moment. Right. Right. And absolutely. And it fucking happened.

Sure. The thing is like with Nicki Minaj's anecdote, it didn't happen. The government of Trinidad ran the story down. There's no cousin whose balls got swollen

and whose fucking girl was like, fuck it, I'm only going to marry a dude who can impregnate me. I'm out. Do you knock on a bunch of doors and be like, I'm sorry, I've got to grab your balls. I've got to give them an old squeeze.

I've got to give them the old squeeze. If they're not swollen, Nicki Minaj is a liar. You know what's so funny, though, is under this tweet are a bunch of people saying, you know what could be the cause of those swollen balls is gonorrhea, and maybe that's why she left. And there's a back and forth on Twitter where they were fighting about it.

And that was one of the things that they had said. And, you know, regardless, but you're saying they don't even exist, right? So like the thing is, is even the Twitter comments don't matter. Right. Because there never was a person. Yep.

There was never a swollen nut to be had. And think about, it's only because this person has 22.7 million followers that the White House, the White House called and offered to have a conversation because they understand

the power of influence. The microphone, the size of it. The president or prime minister or whatever, the leader of Trinidad took the time and they said, we regret spending our precious resources having to do this.

Yeah. When you, the bigger your megaphone, the greater your responsibility. Yeah. The greater damage you can cause. Yeah. The greater damage.

You know, how many people are going to listen to Joe Rogan and take ivermectin instead of going to see the doctor? It's not one. How many people are going to,

are going to not get a vaccination because they were on Twitter, the place where you shouldn't be getting information like this anyway, but they found, they were on Twitter, they scrolled past Nicki Minaj's thing and they thought,

well, shit, I don't want to have fucking swollen nuts. And the thing is, if you hear- I want to impregnate somebody. I don't want to be impotent. The funny thing is, is that the opposite is true.

Yeah, if you get COVID. COVID, erectile dysfunction is a very real possibility because it fucks with your vascular system. Yep. I don't, I said this before, they need to make a bigger deal out of that. Yep.

They really do. Yeah, they do. Because, you know, as soon as you threaten, I mean, think about the intense amount of toxic masculinity that is involved with the anti-mask crowd, right? I don't want to look weak. I'm not getting a vaccine. I'm a big fucking chest-thumping idiot. Genuinely, hold on a second. I'm going to play a clip of Joe Rogan talking to Bill Burr. When you can hear what he has to say, I just want

to play this really quick for you. You want people to walk down the street with a mask on? Let's not start this, Joe. Do you, though? Let's not start this, okay? Let's start it. I don't want to start this. I'm not going to sit here with no medical degree listening to you with no medical degree with an American flag behind you smoking a cigar, acting like we know what's up better than the CDC. All I do is I listen. I watch the news

once every two weeks. I'm like mask or no mask. Still mask. All right. Mask. That's all I give a fuck about. I don't care. I just love how wearing a mask became like this like soft thing that you were doing, like being courteous, being courteous. Why is it for bitches? That was so stupid.

First of all. Oh God, you're so tough with your open nose and throat. Gee, Joe. Bill Burr is just not happy. Here's the thing, man. I fucking love it. What a fucking, what a toxically masculine thing to be like,

oh, what is that? A safety belt? Oh, do you feel tough with your seatbelt on? Yeah. Oh, look at you, you little bitch. You got your little, that is so toxically masculine to be like, it's not masculine to be safe.

Right. Yeah. It's, it's, which is, which is ridiculous. Yeah. It's the, it's the exact, even if you, even if you believe the idea, which, you know, is problematic in of its own of, of the man is the sort of provider and protector. Yes. Absolutely.

Your responsibility then is to take care of yourself. Yeah. Like what good am I? And I am a provider, right? So like I'm the sole provider for my family. Like my first responsibility then is to make sure I don't fuck myself up. Because then I'm no good in that role. So even if you have a very traditionally masculine role,

like if you don't fucking take care of yourself, you just fuck over the people that rely on you. It's such a... What the fuck? And the worst part about it is, is that there's a bunch of fuck... There's a million knuckleheads out there that love Joe Rogan,

that are going to hear him say that, and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, what a bunch of bitches wear masks. Bitches wear masks. Get the fuck out of here. And that's what's going to resonate with them. Yeah. Oh, and then this little cough.

As if, like, that's really, like, that's what coronavirus is. Sure. Cough. Yeah. That's what's gonna that's what's gonna resonate with them yeah oh and then it's a little cough as if like that's that's really like that's what coronavirus is a little cough yeah that's what it is i i love that bill burr who is a really fucking like i think he's a great example here because this is a very like he's also a very traditionally masculine guy right yeah just calling that shit out like i'm not gonna even start i'm not gonna listen to you with no medical degree me with no medical degree even having this conversation. It's not a conversation. Get the fuck out of here. It's such a stupid thing to even do.

But the problem is that Joe, I think, drinks his own Kool-Aid. He believes himself. He believes the myth of Joe Rogan. He believes the myth of himself. And the same thing with Nicki Minaj. She thinks that she has something to say. She has something to tell you.

And, you know, in a lot of ways, this is good for her. It's publicity. Her name's out there. It's her name. This is good for her. This was good for Joe Rogan. When Joe Rogan was, you know, had ivermectin and had COVID, that was good for Joe. Joe is not on traditional news very often, but he was then. He was all over traditional news. All over it. And you're not, you're not at all wrong. All of a sudden it's like,

wow, Joe Rogan, like the host of the biggest podcast in America. People are like, oh, what the hell is that? Oh, what's that?

You know, people clicked on it. Absolutely. You know, people went back and checked it out. Absolutely. I can't believe people get it down there. Can you believe that some guy,

where do you go to get that done? You go to a hospital or some shit. Hey, can I get another hole in my picker, please? Iodine, iodine, iodine. This story comes from Rolling Stone. Anti-vaxxers are now gargling iodine to prevent COVID-19.

And I love this. One ER doc's response to the new trend, fuck me, of course they are And I love this. One ER doctor responds to the new trend. Fuck me, of course they are. I love it so much. At a certain point, like ER doctors are just walking over to that cabinet that nobody knows about and just pouring themselves three fingers of scotch.

And they're just like, fuck it. I don't even care anymore. Fuck you. I don't care. There's got, it has got to be so traumatic to be a doctor and a nurse dealing with stuff, especially in these places where they're overrun with this, just an immense group

of unvaccinated people coming in. You know, you hear the sound, you hear them talk about the alarms of the ICU and you hear that sort of haunting alarms all the time. And you know, there's some real trauma that's being built over these last couple of years by people's own negligence to their own health. Oh yeah, we are hurting the people that are there to take care of us. We are hurting them psychologically and emotionally,

very deeply. And the thing is, Cecil, we're going to run out of them. Because at some point, those people are going to trauma out of the system. Yeah, they're going to quit. They're going to age out of the system. They're going to quit. They're going to age out of the system. They're going to quit. They're going to go find other work that isn't as difficult and traumatic and doesn't take that kind of toll.

And the other thing that we don't think about too is, you know, you go wake up, you go to work, you experience trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma. It changes you. You take damage. You do damage to your family. Yeah. You come back. You're not as, you know. You're not as present.

You're not as present. There are all kinds kinds of there's a tremendous body of research that says you know people who experience trauma have difficulties connecting at home they are sometimes you know it doesn't do good these effects ripple man they ripple out so filling the fucking hospitals full of covid patients means that like in in Idaho right now, did you see that? They're out and they applied for a crisis something. I'm going to get the term wrong and I'm sorry. But essentially, they have said like, we are rationing care in Idaho. So we're at a point where we are completely full.

The inn is full, no room. So that's it. So what they're doing now is they are, you show up to the emergency room, the ICU, whatever, they are assessing on the spot whether or not you're likely to get well. If you are likely to get well, then you're in this lane.

If you're less likely to get well, you're in this lane. And if you're unlikely to get well, they just try to keep you out of pain. And that doesn't matter if you're COVID or not, because they're so full. So if you have like a burst appendix or something- Which happened this week. Then they're like, sorry.

That happened this week. Some kid went to the emergency room and waited so long, the fucking appendix burst while they were in the fucking emergency room. Yeah. If you have, depending on what you've got, they're putting you in lanes now. And that lane might be, look, man, maybe we can make it better, but we don't have the time and resources. We're just going to keep you out of pain and wait for you to die. That's Idaho now.

Jesus Christ, dude. That's it. And there's no reason to think that that's not going to happen in other states, which are becoming flooded. There's no reason that that should be happening. There's none. There's no reason.

That we have a solution. There's no reason. The vaccination rate in Idaho is 40%. 40 fucking percent. That's high. That feels high, right? 40% feels like, that means that the 40, like, 4 in 10 people

are protected. But the problem is this delta can be transmitted by those people. And that's the problem. Two people walk down the street, flip a coin, it's a better than even chance that they're not vaccinated, you know? Yeah.

Like, it also shows just how important it is to drive that number up. Yeah. 60 isn't 70 and 70 isn't 80. Yeah. And 40 isn't 50. Right. Yeah.

And like the multipliers are enormous, you know? It's funny because I'm still thinking in pre-pandemic numbers. So when I think 40, I'm like, wow, it's a lot. Right. But it's not. And it's not for this. It's not for Delta. Yeah. It's not for Delta. And that's the problem. How long to get this right? We had so much, we had so much time and we could have gotten it right. We could have a hundred percent gotten it right. And we had every opportunity to, and we just failed. We just failed as a culture.

We fought. We cared too much about our political decisions. And we let these political decisions decide our medical decisions. They get in the way of science and truth. It's just, it's a disaster. But in this case, people have switched. It's not that ivermectin has gone gauche.

Ivermectin is still the drug of choice. However, they're doing this iodine stuff that you would normally get in the ER that they would wash your cots with and shit. If you sew somebody up, they would normally wash it. Have you ever washed with this stuff? It's really, yeah, I have.

It's really, really dark brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like when I had back surgery, it's really, really dark brown. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, like when I had a back surgery, it stained my, you know, it was on my back stains, you know, like this is, this is a serious topical antibacterial cleanser. It's fucking iodine. People are gargling this shit. They're saying that at certain point, some of it is gargleable because there is a, there is, it's sold. The diluted product is sold it is gargle-able because there is a, there is, it's

sold, the diluted product is sold as a gargle to treat sore throat. But again, the company came out and said, these have not been demonstrated to be effective against COVID or any other virus. Like it's not good against a virus. Right. Also, it's important to note that it matters if something is diluted or not. Yeah. You know? And that's the problem with the ivermectin when they get in the horse dose. Right. The poison is in the dose. Too much water can kill you. Yeah, absolutely. If you have something

and it is safe when it is diluted to X level, increasing that exponentially does not necessarily mean it's more effective. It just might be really fucking desperately unsafe to use. It's like Scoville units. Right.

Right. Yeah. 50 Scoville units? Palatable. That's not an issue. Right. A million Scoville units? You're probably choking down.

20 million Scoville units? Enjoy tomorrow on the bathroom, in the bathroom. Man, I used to fucking love ultra spicy food. Yeah. Like I loved, loved, loved, like most of my life, ultra spicy food. I would go to restaurants

and I would look for like the little indicator of what was hot and I would just choose amongst the spicy stuff, like almost exclusively. Like, God, of course I'm going to do that. Now that I'm 43 years old, I'm like, no, you know what I don't need to do? I don't need to feel like my organs

are burning out a hole inside of me. Spending tomorrow begging people to kill me. Right, yeah. Shoving ice cubes up my rectum is not how I want to spend my Tuesday. I ordered, that actually sounds like a fun time. I ordered food out here in the suburbs in comparison to when I ordered it downtown. When I ordered it downtown actually sounds like a fun time. I ordered food out here in the suburbs in comparison to when I ordered it downtown.

When I ordered it downtown, I lived in Chicago, blocks from Chinatown. So I could order from anywhere in Chinatown and they would deliver it to me. And so I would order food down there and I would always say, you know, like medium. I'd be like, give me a medium. And it was pretty spicy.

Like medium was relatively spicy. It's, you know, it's not, it's not, I would never order it mild. I would order it medium, you know, like, so it's like, I ordered it medium out here and it was sweet. I'm not even kidding. It had zero, like literally zero heat to it. There was absolutely no heat whatsoever. And I was thinking to myself, I was thinking, holy whiteness, Batman. Well, I got to tell you though, where I live,

I'm trying to remember the name of the place. Well, it wouldn't matter. There's a place that's exactly the opposite. I'll order food. I first had ordered hot and it was impossible. It's just impossible? It was impossible.

And then medium. And I was like, that's the same as hot. And then I got a mild last time. And I'm like, this is also unpalatably hot. And Cecil, it's me. I can eat some spicy food.

I might regret it, but I'll still eat it. And it's like, I'm fucking sweating. And I don't know what to, I got to order it like Chili Willy or something. I have no idea. I just think they have the one recipe. Yeah. They don't fuck around with anything else.

It's just like everybody gets what they get and they don't throw a fit. You get old and you start worrying anyway, you know. Forget the coronavirus. Like, that's possible. I said I wasn't going to mention it. You know, I was talking to the manager. He's like, nobody wants to hear about the fucking coronavirus.

They come here to not hear about the coronavirus. I'm like, like yeah that's true but it was a good idea you made it's a good choice tonight to come out and sit beside total strangers at least i'm over here i can run you? At least I can flee when I see it. A little more COVID stuff, Tom. Yes, this is from NPR. Well, this shit's important right now.

This doctor spread false information about COVID. She still kept her medical license. Holy fucking shit, man. So what struck me in this article, Cecil, is that the doctor, the review boards that review the ethical practices of doctors

do not, first of all, they're essentially like unfunded or underfunded. They're under-resourced. Yeah, they don't have enough resources. And they don't do anything except for act upon an existing complaint. You have to call in. So there is a group of doctors out there that are providing false information,

oftentimes with a profit motive to themselves involved. This particular doctor is charging $90 for telehealth visits so they could prescribe you some other types of medication. Yep. And so they're running this $90 a pop telehealth clinic for anti-vaxxers. That's essentially, they've found a market and they're exploiting

that market. 15, let's say it's a 15 minute consultation. Yep. $360 an hour and then he times that by, you know, I don't know, you could do that for four hours a day and that's $1,500 a day. What is that? You're making cash, man. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a goodly sum of money, you know, I don't know. You could do that for four hours a day. That's 1500 bucks a day. What is that? You're making cash, man. Yeah. So yeah, that's a goodly sum of money, you know, and then, and then you could do it for, you know, gosh, it's, it's, it's pretty good. Actually,

it's really good. It's really lucrative. And you know that she's also getting speaking engagements because she's giving talks at these places. She probably has other methods in which people, you know, she probably has a Facebook page with ads and all kinds of other stuff that she's making money off of too. And I found it really disturbing to realize that the review boards that should be looking at this and saying that's demonstrably harmful to public health. First, do no harm. This is demonstrably harmful to individual health of the patients that you counsel.

It's not in keeping with any medical or scientific literature or guidelines. And it harms the public health. And still, these people do not lose their licenses. That I found really distressing because it tells me that the licensing board is really a political board. And that it has nothing to do.

Once somebody becomes a doctor, it seems like, from this article at least... It feels like they'd have tenure. That. Yeah, yeah. And that it has nothing to do. Once somebody becomes a doctor, it seems like, from this article at least- It feels like they'd have tenure. That's it, yeah. They just can't be pushed off that pedestal. Once they climb that and they do all the work to get that,

they can't be pushed down off of that. And they have to, you basically have to call them doctor forever. And this isn't a small mistake. I mean, I think that in the article, they're talking about like, most of the time people lose it for malpractice, but not for anything else.

And this feels, you know, I guess she lost her emergency notation because she said she's an emergency doctor, but I guess she lost her emergency qualification at the beginning of the year, but still has her doctor qualifications. And this is a huge problem too, because these individuals

that are clearly profiting off of this pandemic and clearly profiting off, and lying, just clearly lying, making things up. Yep. These are the people, because they have credentials, are going to be the people

who all the anti-vaxxers pick up. Yep. And retweet. Yep. And when we found, when we're all the anti-vaxxers pick up and retweet. And when we were talking about anti-vax stuff and misinformation about, I forget what it was. I think it was anti-vax.

There was 12 people they were saying, 12 major social media outlets. A social media account. The bulk of the disinformation. It was like 85% of the disinformation. There's a reason why they're very insular, right? It's like they'll share this person to the next person insular, right? It's like, they'll share, like they'll share this person and the next person and the next person, the next person.

They're all share her stuff because this is a win for them. I have a doctor on my side that says you're wrong. Why is your doctor better than my doctor? Well, and the answer, the licensing board should say, that's not a doctor anymore.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's how they should do it. That's how they, oh, I'm sorry. This is not the same thing as... And don't get me wrong. I don't want doctors to be fearful of losing their license because they made a mistake. People are all human beings. They're going to make

mistakes from time to time. If they're negligent, that's different. But if they just make an honest-to-God error of judgment or whatever... A lie to make money? You're just wrong. Yeah. There's no,

there's no argument. There's no medical argument. There's no scientific argument. Yeah. There's no evidence of this. You're just wrong for money. Yeah. And you know,

one of the things I think you're going to notice though too is that they'll pick this up if she does lose it. It's a win either way for them. Yeah. She'll be a hero. She's a hero.

She's somebody who's, they're trying to silence her. Yeah. She'll be a hero. She's a hero. They're trying to silence her. She'll become a martyr. You cannot win. There's no winning here. The moment she puts herself out there as a doctor, there's nothing that could happen to her that would change their mind about what she had to say.

Part of it, though, is if these licensing boards had teeth and balls, she wouldn't do it in the first place. I guarantee she doesn't want to lose her medical credentials. After how much work and money and time, she's willing to do this

because there's no threat. Yeah, there's no trap. People go, Sam, do you think you could do it again? Do you think you could ever be able to preach again? Do you think you could do it again? Do you think you could ever be able to preach again? Do you think there's anything left inside you that has any good to it that can shine a light into somebody's lost way?

Do you think if you had to, if your soul was riding on the line and you had to testify and you had to make a commitment, if it was a final answer, what would you do? This is a story I found. I found versions of this story on AP News as well as in the Times this week. As COVID vaccine mandates rise, religious exemptions grow. And I thought this was really interesting. There is a longstanding and utterly nonsensical exemption for religion on vaccines. It's been the case for a long time. It used to be you could have a philosophical exemption.

A lot of states have said no more to that, although some states still hold it. But most states still have religious exemptions for vaccines. And so with the mandate, there is a growing marketplace for religious leaders to provide these bullshit exemptions. Yeah. And there's other places too. Like a couple of weeks ago, we had a story

and I don't know if we covered it, but there was a line out the door for people who were going to visit the chiropractor for medical exemptions. Yep. I don't know if we covered it, but there was a line out the door for people who were going to visit the chiropractor for medical exemptions. I don't know if we covered it or not. I remember reading it. But it was one of those articles that we read for the show. And it was essentially chiropractors, there's a line

out the door so that they can give these medical exemptions to say, this kid shouldn't get the thing. And then the school board essentially said, we're not taking chiropractor notes anymore. You're not going to come in here with a chiropractor note. And so that's like coming in with a dog Walker note. Like it's just, it doesn't, you're not a medical professional, but in any case, in this case here, what we have is we have vaccine mandates. You know, these vaccine mandates are coming to people are, are, are saying they're

religiously exempt. I It's against my religion. And here's, I want them to put their money where their mouth is. You know, if you're going to have enough, if you're going to come to me and say, it's against my religion to put a vaccine in my body, then I want you to have enough guts to swear off hospitals altogether.

You know what I mean? Like you won't do it. Swear off modern medicine. You won't do it. you won't do it. Swear off modern medicine. You won't do it. You won't do it because modern medicine will save you. You won't do it, but you want to have your freedom and you want to make sure.

And I just, to me, the idea of being anti-vaccine, somehow that's a freedom, doesn't make any sense to me. I see it the opposite. It's like the only reason I can go out and interact with the public now and be free in my daily life is because I'm vaccinated.

Not the opposite. Like it's just a silly way to think. But in any case, you know, these people don't do that though. They don't swear off modern medicine. They only, they picks and choose just like they picks and choose in their Bible and just like they picks and choose all their other times. They're not consistent. There's no consistency here. It's not that they're saying,

I don't think there is something to be said about modern medicine. I mean, you look at all these, we were talking earlier about the Herman Cain Award thing, but if you read those things, it's one after another is, I need my prayer warriors to come out and help me. I need my prayer warriors to come out and help my sister. I need my prayer warriors.

Guys, I can barely breathe. I need my prayer warriors to come out and help me. And they're all asking for prayers. They're all asking for these prayers. Where are they at when they ask? They're in the hospital. They're in the hospital. It's not, they're not asking from their home. They're always asking from the hospital. And it's crazy to me to think like, like one that somehow, you know, prayer is going to help you now. Like, like there's a God up there. Who's just like, well, I'm going to kill him until, until they really come out and say, they really want to save them. If they don't, if they don't all get together and wish at me in unison, I'm killing

this. And like, it's just a silly, it's a silly idea, but the, but the fact is, is there's, there's just this group of people who want to say that prayer is going to get me out of this. And I'll say, good, put your money where your mouth is. If you're in Idaho, don't go to the hospital. Don't stop doing it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Put your money where your mouth is, but you know, they won't do that. And they're going to use this as a way to genuinely hurt other people in the public, because if they don't get vaccinated, there's an opportunity for them to damage somebody who's, who cannot get the vaccine for medical reasons yeah well the thing is like valid valid medical reasons yeah there is no

religious proscription again none there is no religious prescription against vaccines in any of the major world religions so and because first of all none of you fucking major world religions ever predicted vaccines or modern medicine or the fucking germ theory of disease. They were all made before the 1800s. Get the fuck out of here. There's nothing in there. There's nothing. And every major denomination of Christianity, which is the bulk of America's Christian, every major denomination of Christianity has come out in favor of vaccines.

These people are lying. They do not have a sincerely held religious belief. And when they talk about using the religious exemption, time and again, the stories that I read say like, oh, I tried to get an exemption this way and that didn't work. And I tried to get an exemption that way. And then all of a sudden I found that it turns out it's a religious exemption and you can't cite a single theological principle. No. There's not a single theological principle.

There's no line of scripture. This comes back to. There's no line of scripture that you can use. It's horseshit. Yeah. It's always been complete horseshit. You just don't want to get the vaccine because reasons, whatever they are, but they're not even, and I don't think religious reasons should be a reason to compromise public health.

I think that's a bullshit reason to compromise public health. I think that's a bullshit reason to compromise my health. Fucking A, man. Because you have a- It's not my belief. A sky wish that you really are concerned about. Fuck you.

Right. Yeah. You can't like get a religious exemption and let you punch me in the face. Yeah, but you know, these religious exemptions though, Tom, have been around for vaccines for a long time.

I knew about them years ago. Yep. I knew about them years ago. There. I knew about them years ago. There was a couple of people in my life that were anti-vax. And they were talking about these religious exemptions and getting these religious exemptions for, you know, possibly for their kids

and saying when their kids were in, you know, when their kids were born, that they weren't going to get the vaccines for their kids while they were in the hospital. The few vaccines you get when the baby's born, I don't know how many there are. Yeah, there's a fair number. There's a couple, you know, they in the hospital. The few vaccines you get when the baby's born, I don't know how many there are. Yeah, there's a fair number. There's a couple, you know, they give the baby.

But certainly not as many as they used to. They used to give babies a lot more. And then they started yelling like, oh, it's too many too soon. And then they stopped doing that. They're like, but we still don't want to do it. Yeah, you still get, I don't know how many you get like in the hospital,

but like in their first year, babies get a fair amount of vaccinations. Sure, yeah. But again, they've acquiesced to that too many too soon. I don't know how many you get like in the hospital, but like in their first year, babies get a fair amount. Sure. Yeah. But, but again, they, they've acquiesced to that too many too soon. They've acquiesced to the,

to the thimerosal, you know, it's mercury. And they're like, yeah, but it's not the same. It's not the same thing. It's not.

And they're just like, we don't care. It's working. And they're like, fine, it's gone. It's not in there. And that they still clamp on it though.

Yeah. Right. Everything. And that's the thing is even when, and we're talking about the story just beforehand, it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter what our, like the chessboard doesn't matter because the pigeon knocked over all the

pieces. They don't care what the next move is. You can acquiesce to their demands. And we have, the medical community has acquiesced time and time and time again. Oh, it's too many too soon.

Well, we'll change that. Oh, and look at the literature and it's still in there. Yeah, right. You know,

oh, it's, you know, it's got the Marisol. Okay. We'll take it out. But then look at, oh,

it's connected to autism. We'll do massive epidemiological studies that show that it's not. They still talk about, oh, it's got formaldehyde in it. There's more formaldehyde in a pear than in this.

That doesn't, and it doesn't matter to them. It doesn't matter. They have their talking points. It's with fetal tissue. No, it's not. It's with fetal tissue. And they don't care what you say. It's like whatever you say doesn't matter.

And so you're dealing with a system that is, that keeps on rewarding these people for saying false shit. Yep. Yeah. And these guys are, incidentally, the same motherfuckers who are all about bodily autonomy.

Yes. But anti-abortion. I have to point that out. The overlap is enormous. That Venn diagram isn't perfect, but it's fucking enormous. It's pretty fucking big. It's an enormous overlap

of these assholes who talk about the perfect sanctimony of bodily autonomy and will still oppose that exact same principle when it comes to abortion. Even though one is a public health decision and the other is a private

health decision. And they also make memes pointing out the exact opposite, which is you can be pro-choice, but then you say, no, it's not your body, your choice. Right? Right, yeah. But they miss that very important part. Pregnancy is not contagious. Exactly. They miss that very important part that you can't just go to a party and come back pregnant if you didn't fuck anybody.

Right. Yeah. I didn't go to the ball game and come home pregnant. Well, you can go to a certain ball game. You can go to some parties. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, you can't go to the White House Rose Garden.

I can't go to the Circle K. It does give a new meaning to super spreader event. It really does. There's the title of the show right there. Super spreader event. Do you or a loved one play for the 2021 Seattle Mariners with a seasonal batting average of 224?

Well, you're looking for batterhelp.com. This ad is for BetterHelp. Is something preventing you from achieving your goals? What interferes with your happiness? BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they can make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. Check out BetterHelp.com slash CogDisc. BetterHelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. Connect in a safe and private online environment. It's so convenient. You can start communicating Thank you. relationships, sleeping, trauma, anger, family conflicts, LGBT matters, grief, self-esteem, problems with reading an advertising calendar, and then accidentally recording and publishing

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They're being tough on me. I've been to Thailand. I've been to Dublin. I've been to Cabo, Mexico. I take chances. That's right. I snuck pot into Canada, marijuana into Thailand, a one-hitter in my urethra. That's taking a chance. All right, so the story comes from Business Insider. Facebook employees worried an algorithm change in the middle of Trump's presidency would push sensationalistic and divisive content. What?

A new report says. Really? Okay, so let's stop for a second and look at Mark Zuckerberg. Tell me, okay, I don't believe in the lizard people until I look at him. Until I look at him, you know there's going to be a moment

where he's going to be given testimony and he's going to lick his own fucking eyeball. You know he's going to, he's 100% a lizard. You look at this guy, he's 100% a lizard. Cecil, without exception, the richest men in the world right now all look like villains. They all look like villains

and they all look like villains. They all look like villains and they all look like aliens. They do. They are. They weird. Like Jeff Bezos seriously looks like Lex Luthor. Yeah. Like a lot.

Like a super duper lot. Like a super duper lot. They all look comically villain-esque. They do. A hundred percent. You're absolutely right. They all need dark goatees. Dark goatees.

Short crop goatees. Facebook employees knew that an algorithm change in 2018 would elevate false and divisive content. The company graded posts to decide what to prioritize in users' news feeds. Employees said there was an increasing liability and Zuckerberg wasn't always open to broadly fixing it. So just a brief summarization of the article. They made a change to say, look, people are not spending as much time on Facebook as they used to spend. So they noted a drop in usage. And so that

was going to affect ad dollars, right? People need to stay on platform. That's how they make their money. So they were like, all right, well, we should just find content that makes people feel strongly. So then they graded certain types of shares and certain content that was produced. And if your content or share had a lot of emotional reacts, and this is the thing, like they give us these cute little reacts, right? Like, oh, it's an angry face, a heart face.

But that stuff is being used as part of an algorithm not to say like, oh, this person wants to give you a virtual hug. Instead, it's like, okay, this is part of a grading system on how emotionally reactive our users are to these posts. And that's not Tom making it up. It's in this article.

Sure. They grade it based on the emotional reactivity. The harsher the emotion, the higher the grade. The higher the grade. So angry faces were worth more than likes. By accepting these. By a lot. By five, by a factor of five.

Likes were graded at a one. Yep. Angry faces were graded as a five. Yep. So we're, and it's not like the heart was graded at a five. The angry is graded as a five. Yep. And it's not like the heart was graded at a five. The angry is graded at a five. So because they know how people are wired, there's a huge amount of time and energy spent working to manipulate you.

And it's not manipulating the best parts of us. It is expressly trying to get at the worst parts of us. Yeah. That's just true. It's, it's in their memo. Yeah. And what's, what the, what's worse is that this was a couple, maybe a, this had to be about a year after he was graded over the coals for the stuff that happened in the election where they were pushing certain things and there was a lot of divisiveness and that divisiveness may have shifted people to vote and that it may have changed people's ideas on who they were going to vote for. And it was deceitful. And, you know, there's been plenty of documentaries out. This isn't't me making it up I'm not telling you a lie

this is documented that Facebook manipulated through you know and this is Russia who was doing part of this Russia weaponized that and so this is and this is a Russian government not the Russian people

I know that I'm not when I say Russia I don't mean the Russian people I don't know why anyone would think that I a Russian government, not the Russian people. I know that I'm not, when I say Russia, I don't mean the Russian people. I mean, I don't know why you, I don't know why anybody would think that. I said Russian government. And it's, and it's,

and it's, you know, there's also this greed motivation, right? It's not that it's, it's all nefarious. It's not all some guy twisting his mustache. But the problem is,

is that it just so happens that the greed motivation fulfills this bad outcome. Yeah. Right? It just so happens that the amount of money that these people are making off of this is also fueling this divisiveness and the way we are interacting with each other online and why there's this huge polarization in our country. That is fueling it. And it's fueling it exponentially because of the money component.

Because there's no desire on any of these platforms to change this because the money is too good. Yep. And it's just feeding itself. It is. And now it's just feeding itself. It's just rolling down the hill. It's a vicious cycle.

Horrible cycle. But the thing that should be realized is that absolutely does not have to be this way. Yeah. Right? Mark Zuckerberg, one person, one person who is worth an enormous amount of money, more money than he could ever possibly use,

wants it to be this way so he personally can continue to make more money. Yeah. Right? Because Facebook would still be valuable and popular and financially successful. Maybe less so. It would be less so. It definitely would be less so.

If it humanized. Yes. It'd be less so. So. And he would lose a lot of money. He would. But he would still be ultra wealthy. He'd be ultra wealthy.

And I'm not disagreeing. And that's the part that makes me sick. But the problem is, is that his wealth is buried in his company. It's all in his shares. Right. And the more his shares tank, the more his wealth tanks. True. And it's an exponential thing for him.

So the very, there's so many bad ideas that are in conjunction here. And one of them is paying people with stocks. Yep. That's a huge fucking problem because now they're way too invested in making sure this company keeps on churning out dividends and keeps on and it can and the more

money the company makes the less humanist it can be. Yeah. It's just it just the less it can treat people like humans. And he doesn't care at this point because it's genuinely tied into his wealth. It's not in his best interest. It's another stream in this vicious cycle. It's a,

it's a mess. It's an absolute fucking gum in your hair mess. And there's, I do not know how you fix it other than, I don't know, split the company up. Anti-trust. Split the company. The only thing I can think is split the company up. I think we're there. Break it up. It's enormously big. It's enormously powerful. And the idea that one person, he's a technocrat robber baron. Yeah. That's what he is. He's a technocrat robber baron. We should never have

one human being with this much power and control. Especially when all of the incentives dehumanize us. Yeah. We don't have any

humanizing incentives for this one fucking person. It's a fucking nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare. I just kept getting older. It got more difficult to see. Till eventually me eyes went and me arthritis got bad. So now I'm cleaning up in here.

But I can't be really sad. Because you see, I feel that life's a game. You sometimes win or lose. And though I may be down right now, at least I don't work for J*****. This is good news, Cecil. Yeah. This is good news.

This story's from The Guardian. BMA drops opposition to assisted dying and adopts a neutral stance. So this is the British Medical Association. Now, they did not come out in favor. Yeah, no, they're not saying that they're going to do it. Right, right. Whatever. But they are no longer opposed to assisted dying. And I like a lot of this. One thing I wanted to note is the nomenclature change. So for a long time, this was referred to as assisted suicide. And I think assisted dying is a more accurate and less loaded way to phrase that, right? When we talk about

suicide, there's a tremendous amount of emotional context that really isn't appropriate when it comes to what happens at the end of your life. You and I have talked a lot about euthanasia and assisted dying. Yeah. And I know you feel very strongly in favor and so do I. Yeah. And I hope that more states, Oregon is an assisted dying state.

Yeah. And I hope that more states take up this and I hope that larger medical associations take this issue up. You know, the problem is in America especially. I know this is in Britain.

There's a little less religious charge here where there's less charges. Because the problem is it's very religiously charged here in the States. The idea of assisted dying in the States

because they would use the word suicide. Right. And that's one of those no takesy-backsies for God or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, it's like the worst thing ever or something. Yeah, you're throwing away the gift that God gave you or whatever. And it's really the worst. It's very bad in many religions.

Yeah, well, if you let me keep the receipt, I'd return it. Why did you tell me everything was going to be great afterwards? Why wouldn't I just like, if I was in a mine or something back in the old peasant days, there's a reason why they put that in there. Yeah. Because if I like fucking breathe garbage all day and I hate my life and I'm working like

crazy and I could just chuck myself off a mine shaft and live forever in fucking bliss and harmony. That's a win. But instead they've got to, you got to put in some sort of thing early. To keep you working. To keep you working. Because if not, you're just going to be, you're going to look around and say, huh, this sucks. They said the other parts, they said chapter two is way better guys. Right. but but so there's this so they they had to demonize it right they had to go out of their way to really make sure that no one would do it and so

weird dumb customs of the old come forward in the new because that's literally where religion is and so now we're stuck with tons of leaders in our country who find this absolutely abhorrent. The idea that you would choose the time that you die. Although, genuinely, read some of the, again, I'm going back to these Herman Cain Award things because it's an opportunity to see a bunch of, read how a bunch of people die, right? This is documenting death, right?

We're documenting death in these posts. And so many of them, yeah, they looked at mom and said they knew they said, I feel like I can go now. And there's a lot of that language of like, and my mom said the same thing when my dad died, right? So my dad passed away. He hurt himself. And then, you know, when you get old,

it's like that Mr. Burns thing. They're all, and everything's in perfect balance, but you know, they're all the, all the viruses are fighting and they're in perfect balance. That's essentially what happens to a lot of older people. And my dad was one of them. He was in perfect balance. He had cirrhosis, but he had cirrhosis for 10 years and probably longer, but he had cirrhosis for 10 years. And he was, he was okay. You know, he he had cirrhosis for 10 years and he was, he was okay. You know, he wasn't, he wasn't gaining water.

He was watching his diet. He was doing all the right things, but then he just like fell and broke his leg. And then that was it. That was the end. I mean, within two months he was dead after that. He broke his leg.

Then he had a heart attack. I think he had a stroke. It was just, you know, like all these bad things started happening to him. Cause you know, his body just couldn't fix it. You know,

just, I can't fix this. It's like, this is, you're fucked. And so, you know, his body just couldn't fix it. You know, just, I can't fix this. It's like, you're fucked. And so, you know, like my dad,

when he died, there's a story my mom would say that, you know, my dad was, he was kind of in a coma at the end of his life. He really wasn't aware. And my mom just said to him,

like, it's okay, Lou, you can die. And it's like, you can go, Lou, or something. She said it much nicer than I just said. You could die. You could die now, Lou. I hope you're at my deathbed. You're just like, it's okay, Lou, you can die. And it's like, you can, you can go Lou or something. She said it much nicer than I just said.

You can die. You can die now, Lou. I hope you're at my deathbed. You're just like, Tom, you can die. I'm going to, I'm going to like, I'm going to talk like one of those death metal guys, like die. But she said, you know, to my dad, Lou, you can go, you know, it's okay. I'm okay. And my dad died relatively

soon after that. Right. But there is a feeling of, you know, you sort of making your own destiny, right? At the end of a lot of people's lives, that's not an uncommon story, right? So I don't understand why there just isn't one more easier step to make that happen other than just, I got to wait out this pain. Yeah, man. We weirdly celebrate suffering or

the requirement of suffering as part of life. There is no reason. I mean, I'm not such a massive control freak that I require this as my way to go out. Yeah know? Yeah, right, right. I will say like, I 100% want this as an option. Sure. There are plenty of things that can go wrong. Yeah. Where I look and I'm like, you know, I don't want to suffer for an extended, pointless, miserable period of time.

I don't want the people I love to have to endure the trauma of my suffering. I don't want people to take care of me. Yeah, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff. And I recognize too, in my family,

there's a certain age where a lot of people got and then they started losing their brain. Like their brain started to not be good anymore, where they're forgetting who they are, where they're from, all this stuff. Right. I have a feeling like at a certain point in my life, once I recognize that that's happening to me,

I'm not really going to want to be around anymore. Right. Because I'm not me anymore. Yep. I'm not doing, I'm not being me. Now I'm just confused all the time or I'm afraid all the time. All right.

I don't want to live like, this is of course a young me saying this, right? And I'm not looking at, you know, you're not living that experience, but, but I, it looks terrifying from the outside. For sure.

And so, you know, this having being an option for checking out at the end of your life, this feels like a, this feels like, I just wish it could be my decision. Yeah. Again,

it's one of those things. It's like, this is a personal health decision. And I am all for personal health decisions. I don't care what those decisions are, as long as they don't inflict damage on the public. I don't think you should put a bomb in yourself. You know, like Batman or something. I don't think that's a good idea. But you know, like, I know you're joking, but it does prevent having good, safe, dignified options for assisted dying means that people who are intent on that, performing that option,

they don't jump off a bridge or run out into traffic and make somebody hit them with a train or, you know, a lot of, unfortunately, there are some methods where people end their lives in ways that invoke the trauma of other people. They have to find their bodies. They have hurt other people. But that doesn't have to be the case. Yeah. You know, a lot of times it is the case because like people are desperate and they run low on options. There's nothing else they can do.

And so, yeah. I mean, it's kinder to everybody. Wouldn't you rather find, wouldn't you rather, if somebody you loved was going to end their life, like finding their body with like a hole in its head and blood and, you know, that would be traumatic.

But, you know, like gathering around the bedside of somebody you love while they took some pills that put them to sleep would feel the same kindness as putting a pet to sleep. Yeah. It could be like that. It could be that gentle and that loving. Yeah.

There's a tremendous amount of love involved in putting your pet to sleep. There is, there is. That is a kindness. And it is a moment that you just remember. I remember every moment that that happened in my life. It's happened multiple times in my life. And I remember every moment of that.

And I remember every second of it. And it's hard. It's brutal. But it's also freeing. It's intensely loving. It's an intimate connection. And you're right. It's an absolutely intimate connection.

So I get it. I understand it. I hope that there's more of this as time goes on. I feel like we're, you know, there's sometimes we, I see these little glimpses and I think, are we an enlightened culture? Are we a culture that, you know, like, because when you read sci-fi

and they talk about, you know, the removal of currency, for instance, from people, or they talk about only machines doing that work and humans suddenly live in luxury. Or they talk about, you know, in some of the books that I've read, they talk about people who, they change genders whenever they wish.

Like, you know, because it's super, you know, you're in a society that's hyper advanced. You can do whatever you want. You can be who you want to be. Right. And then there's also this idea of like, when you want to die, you can just die. You can just stop being if you want to just stop being.

And there's all these moments I look at our society and I think, are we ever going to get to a point where we are enlightened? Because those are always played off as very enlightened and they feel very enlightened. Admittedly, when I'm reading it,

it feels very enlightened. But I would just wonder, and I know that there's just so, we just have this giant ball and chain of religion. We do. That just, that stops every bit of enlightenment.

It's been doing it for centuries and it's never going to, it feels like it's never going to stop. Man, it's always a little bit the dark ages. 100%. It's always a little bit the dark ages. It's time to fuck books. So this week we read

Demon Haunted World chapter nine, Therapy. And Therapy, the chapter starts out talking about alien abduction and how alien abduction is sometimes from, it's sort of an altered memory of child abuse or sexual abuse.

And that sort of moves itself as he works his way through the chapter. He's talking a lot about sexual abuse, but then he shifts gears to talk about the satanic panic, which again, tons of false memory stuff in the satanic panic. There's a whole report that he talks about where there's 15,000 citations of satanic influence

and none of them can lead back to satanic influence at all. In fact, it leads mostly back to evangelicals. It's funny because the satanic panic is one of those things that because it happened so recently, we have such a good record of this particular moral pattern that it really should act as kind of a, I don't know, like a keystone that we get to look back on and be like,

you know, there were people, and he mentions the case of a, I don't know, like a keystone that we get to look back on and be like, you know, there were people, and he mentions the case of a father who so fell into the trappings of the moral panic and the cultural narrative, and then the way that the therapist led him down this sort of garden path. And his daughter. And his daughter. Yeah. Yep, and his daughter. And they all sort of therapist led him down this sort of garden path. And his daughter. And his daughter.

Yeah. Yep. And his daughter. And they all sort of led this guy down this garden path. And he was like, well, shit, I must have done these things. I must have done. I don't remember, but I must have done them. And we're talking about things which had they been done, they would have physical evidence.

There'd be scars. Scars. Literal scarring. We're not just talking about like sexual assault where sometimes there is no evidence whatsoever. We're talking about like physical acts that both of them were describing

that could not be done without leaving some kind of mark. Yeah. And case after case, but in this one that I thought was really telling us, this guy basically sent himself to jail. Yeah.

I mean, he did. I didn't basically. He sent himself to jail. He pled guilty. He's like, yeah, my daughter wouldn't be lying. I mean, he did. I didn't basically. He sent himself to jail. He pled guilty. He's like, yeah, my daughter wouldn't be lying. I remember this shit. Yeah, you're bringing it out.

It's in bits. And even when he was challenged, he's like, no, no, I remember it. And then once he's away, what's interesting is he goes then to jail. And then when he's away from the influences of, you know, bad therapists that are planting ideas. And once he's also, I think, importantly removed from that broader cultural narrative, he's like, holy shit, that never happened.

I shouldn't be here. What did I do? What did I do? 20 years. Yeah, 20 years. Appeal denied. Yeah. 20 years. Appeal denied. Yeah. And the problem is that this is a very common thing,

is that he talks, Carl goes on to talk about how many of the times when people are looking for people to do this repressed therapy for UFOs, they're going to talk to an author. They already know what they want to remember. Right. And he's talking about this in many ways. He's like, these people find their clients and if they find their clients and they don't know anything about it, they normally give them their books

so that they could prime them for this idea. How fucking crazy is that? It's insane. But one thing that really struck me in this chapter and I really saw the parallels

is he talks for about a page about the difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist, right? He page about the difference between a psychiatrist and a therapist, right? He talks about the difference between a psychiatrist, you gotta be an MD, you gotta go through all this skeptical training. And he mentioned specifically skeptical training.

And he says, how much skeptical training is there in a therapist? You know, when a therapist goes to school, how much skeptical training? And it brought me back to today, COVID doctors and nurses. The difference between these two professions. And we're seeing nurse after nurse leave their profession because they don't want to get vaccinated. We're seeing them put videos online to talk about how the vaccine's unsafe. We see nurses all the time fighting against what

these doctors are trying to treat people with. And it seemed like a very close parallel to what was happening with these repressed memories and sort of a fight between a skeptical, what could be a skeptical wing of that profession and a non-skeptical wing. Yeah, I think there's a stark difference in the way that we train people ideologically, right? I think nurses are incredibly valuable. Please

understand. And I know you're not saying the same thing. But the nurses are trained, and I don't mean this in a bad way. I mean this with tremendous respect. But nurses are trained to do an incredibly important job that is a series of urgent tasks, which have to be performed and performed really diligently. Sure. But they don't have to perform the diagnostic element. The diagnostic element that doctors have to learn how to perform has with it that scientific ideological concept. Sure. There's a problem solving.

Right. Yeah. So just, I think there's a line there. And certainly there are many, many nurses and the, the, the American nursing association has come out in favor of the vaccine, but I think there's a really sharp dividing line. And I think there's a sharp dividing line, like you mentioned between therapists and psychiatrists as well, because they're trying to do different things. You know, I go to a psychiatrist. One of the reasons I go to a psychiatrist is for medication. Therapists can't give me medication, right? They're not an MD. The one thing that

jumped out at me about the therapy portion from this same chapter about repressed memories, you know, one thing he said that just, it just struck me is so many people that have trauma go seeking therapy, not because the memories are repressed, but because the memories of that traumatic event are invading their life, right? The memory and the damage that that trauma has created in their psyche and in their ability to live their life has created an enormous amount of distress. And he is sort of casting a skeptical eye at the idea of repressed memories being this common. Yeah. And I read that and I thought,

yeah, fucking right, man. I agree because I do know people, and I know this is anecdotal, but the people that I know that have suffered traumatic events in their lives, remember those fucking events. And they have to find some time and tools to deal with those traumatic events. And if they don't, then things don't often work out real well, right?

I've never encountered the repressed side. It's not like I've never encountered people. I know this is anecdotal, but I've never encountered people that discovered aliens. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or discovered, I've encountered people that have had trauma and have been damaged by that trauma and can name the trauma. Yeah. That I've encountered many dozens of times. And that's not to say it doesn't exist. Right. There are people out there that do have something that, you know, some way to put that away and that they never thought about it again. And then they forgot

about it or whatever. But I just feel like it's like the movies where everybody in a, that is a multiple personality is a caricature of a multiple personality, which is not a real thing, right? Or it's a, it's either not a real thing or it's a, it's, it's a very different type of thing than what is portrayed all the time. Sybil and other things like that. Yeah, where they show somebody who's having a conversation with themselves or fighting against themselves or whatever.

Very different than what really is what people would call that or even if it does exist. And again, I don't care if it does or it doesn't. I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't care. It's not your doesn't. I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't care. It's not your job. I'm just making the point that there is something to be said

about the sort of TVization or the sort of serialization of what we do when we think about these disorders. We know what a schizophrenic looks like because we saw it in the movies, but that may not be what a schizophrenic acts like all the time and that sort of thing. And so that sort of thing is, and that's why I feel that, you know, you have the Hills and these are the people who were essentially the first people

abducted, you know, that came out as abducted. You have this, this couple that go out into the, into the Hills of, uh, you know, Connecticut or New Hampshire or wherever they were, it's in the East coast. And then they lose a couple hours and then they, and then they have these recurring nightmares where you're not really sure how they even formed, right? How those nightmares even formed. But that, that idea of them being kidnapped by aliens, cause that was their story. And those memories being suppressed by the aliens so that they don't remember them right away or, you know, whatever,

that becomes the main story. Yes, the archetype. Exactly. That becomes the archetype for all of them. And in fact, when you look at all the different, you know, stories that come out, they really do follow

several of the pieces that the hills came up with that that was the origin in the hill story so you know there's this there's this feeling that you know people are just following a it's like a guide yeah I think

I know we talked about this but I do think it's a recurring theme it's an important one that, you know, when our culture gives us a template, we are all too happy to fill in the blanks according to that template. Sure. You know, you can write a lot of weird stuff in a Mad Lib, you know, but at the end of the day, it's still a template that you're working with. And to be entirely blunt, most of the cultural templates we have are even less creative than a Mad Lib. They follow a certain pattern and it's fairly well laid out and it's got a lot of the same thematic elements.

And one of the things that one of the therapists was quoted as saying is, look, it's not my job to know what, and I thought this was actually the right thing to say. It's not my job to say whether or not this experience is real. It's myetic way to deal with it. But I also thought, but if we never try to find what's true, are we not emphasizing or reinforcing things which didn't happen? How do you get over something that didn't happen? You know, it was just, it was a really interesting thing to read and to hear somebody say is like, look, that's not my job. My job is to, is to validate and to give them tools and to help them move through this thing. And I thought, yeah, absolutely. That is your fucking job. You're a therapist. That's what your job is. You know, your job is not to say, I don't think that happened to you. But also if we don't inject some amount of skepticism into that when it's

appropriate, I don't know that we do the right service to people who are traumatized. Sure, because you could be treating something that's not the thing. Right. Yeah. So, the whole chapter, I think, was a really interesting chapter about how I think really well-meaning professionals can exacerbate a problem because they are like all of us, a wash in the same narrative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So next week, uh, we're going to be reading chapter 10 dragon in my garage. One of the, I can't wait to read this chapter. It's seriously, it's one of the, it's one of those chapters that stands out in my memory. Yeah. Uh, and was one of the things that stands out in my memory. Yeah.

And was one of the things that really definitely pushed me from being an agnostic. It was one of those things that I read and thought, okay, no, that's, I like this quite a bit. And that's how I remember it. So I haven't read it since. I know. I'm kind of anxious to read it, but I remember it having a huge impact on me when I was a kid. So.

Yeah, I'm excited. It's funny because I clicked over, I'm reading this on Kindle on my computer and I clicked over and I saw that that was the chapter and I had the same feeling. I was like, I know this chapter. I'm excited for this chapter. It's one of those, it's one of those iconic chapters of this book. So catch us next time, next week, pick up the book, read the book. If you're patron Tom's reading the book out loud. Each chapter is posted so you can check it out and listen to Tom reading it. Or you can just

download the audio book from Audible or you can buy it from Barnes and Noble. There's plenty of places to buy it, but read along with us. It's a hoot and it's a lot of fun and it's a great book so far. So that is going to wrap it up for this week. We are sorry we're not going to be able to read email. I would normally blame Ian for this, but we can't. It's actually our fault. We wound up, bad things happened during the record tonight. A whole bunch of, it was essentially just one of those nights where nothing went right.

And so we're running very late tonight. And so what we're going to do is we're actually going to skip the email section. We're going to go to next week and we're going to do is we're actually going to skip the email section. We're going to go to next week and we're going to read all the emails. So this is your opportunity to make the patron section next week as long as the show. So you go out,

we'll only do the patron section if you guys participate, right? So this is your chance to make that the entire show. Go out, become a patron, patreon.com slash dissonance pod. You can become a patron on a per episode basis. We're going to read all the patrons next week.

We promise. We are going to wrap it up though. Come join us on our live streams. We do a live stream tonight. So come join us. Come hang out 9 p.m. Central time. We do them on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. But that's going to wrap it up for this week.

We're going to leave you like we always do with 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 and 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, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs. 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, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you.