Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 596: Fact Checked

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

Show Notes ) Shoutout to these bumpers!

Today's episode is brought to you by PaintYourLife.com. Text COGNITIVE to 64000 for 20% off your first painting. And today's show is brought to you by AdamandEve.com. Go to AdamandEve.com right now and you'll get 50% off just about any item. All you have to do is enter the code word GLORY, G-L-O-R-Y, at checkout. 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. And there is no welcome mat. This is episode 596 of Cognitive Dissonance. And we're going to start this episode out.

I don't know what to call this. In the intro to the show, we say we're going to talk about things that make us mad. This makes me really mad. So we've had a sponsor, BetterHelp of the show. They've been a sponsor for our show a handful of times.

Four times, something like that, yeah. And we initially were excited to get them as a sponsor. You know, Cecil and I do some work to vet our sponsors. We want to make sure that it's a product. We turn down things that we think like, no, that's garbage. It's not evidence-based. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not doing fucking CBD oil because I don't know if it works, right? Right. So, but BetterHelp, I was like, yeah, that sounds fine. Like, it's therapy. It's a pandemic. Like, this seems like a good thing to do. So we were both like, yeah, all right, let's, let's go ahead and do this. Come to find out and, and shame on me for not knowing, I guess, ahead of time, but I didn't

even know what to look for. And one of our listeners actually pointed out to us. So thank you. There's an article from Jezebel from February, February 19th of 2020, which describes some of their privacy practices as it relates to their marketing of your data online. And it's, to call it appalling would be a grotesque understatement. We'll go through this story a little bit in detail, but I want to let everybody know that we dropped BetterHelp immediately.

Yeah, as soon as we found this out, we didn't. As soon as we found that out. Because we both like thought immediately after the year and a half that everybody's had. Right. That it would be a great thing for people who need therapy to get therapy. And to be able to do that without leaving their home when they're feeling unsafe. Yeah. It just seemed like it fit the ethos of the show.

Felt like a good idea. You know? So we were both like, yeah, absolutely. We'll let them be a sponsor. That sounds great. They're fucking awful. You should not use them. They're just, they're a fucking awful company. Do not use BetterHelp if you can find a company that will treat your privacy and your data with more respect than this. BetterHelp sells data. Now they don't sell like the actual notes. So if you go on and say, I've got a problem with this subject or that subject, they don't sell that explicitly. But they sell a tremendous

amount of metadata to companies like Facebook. And that is intensely problematic. So they sell data to Facebook that tells Facebook that you had an appointment how often you open the app um i want to read some some of the stuff from the article to go through just how egregious this is facebook is from a jezebel article facebook for instance is alerted every time a person opens the app essentially signaling to the social media company how often we're going in for a session and when we book our appointments. And they confirmed this through data that they have, a data tracking program they have using Facebook. Metadata from every message, though not its content, was also sent to the social media company, meaning that Facebook knew what time of day we were going in for therapy,

our approximate location, and how long we were chatting on the app. If you stop and think about why would Facebook want this? Why would that be valuable? And it's because if they know when you're vulnerable, they are able to prey on you during those vulnerable moments. That's why they want this information. It's not trivia. It's actionable information that Facebook is willing to pay money for because they think they can get more money than what they paid. There's no other reason to pay for things if you're a fucking company. So they want this metadata so that they can use you and manipulate you when you are most vulnerable. And you are obviously potentially more vulnerable during those times before, during, and after

a session with your fucking therapist. It's fucking evil. It's evil that Facebook would want to buy this data in order to manipulate people during their most vulnerable moments. And it is fucking straight up evil that BetterHelp would be willing to sell this data. Would this be counteracted by Apple's new policy about tracking? I don't know. I don't know.

And that's actually the reason I switched over to an Apple phone. I've been an Android user my whole life. Apple, on my phone, with a recent OS update, I don't know when it was, they ask now whether or not you want the app to track you. They say, would you like the app to track you? And most of the apps, when that first came out, sort of pushed you to say, please say yes, and you'll get a bonus. There's an extra plus. Please say yes. Please say yes. And I've

said no to everything. Yeah, same here. I've said no to everything. That's a good question. I don't want to pretend I know that answer. I don't know that answer. Yeah, I don't know either. But it doesn't make it any better. And I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying that I'm not trying for, I'm not looking for a corner case way out at all. No, I know you're not. I think we're culpable in this.

I think we made a huge mistake of publishing this stuff on our show and to say that this is, because we went in this, I think, very naively, thinking that this would help people. And really what I don't want is for this to hurt anybody or for somebody to manipulate the data and to, you know, use the data against somebody who just wanted to just get some help. I think we absolutely 100% sure are going to donate this money that we got. All the money that we got from that sponsorship is going to be donated to a suicide prevention charity.

That's 100%. I'm not keeping any of their fucking money. I don't want a dime of it. We're getting rid of it all. So we're going to do that this week. We're going to post, and we'll let everybody know where we donated to in the show notes.

And if you want to join in and donate, we of course would love... Any suicide prevention charity would love to have your money. So we will put a link in this week's show notes to us donating that money so that, because it's appalling. It's absolutely appalling.

And it's so tough because I do want to, I do want to make sure that, you know, like everything we try to push, like that's why I love Adam and Eve because it's like fuck stuff. And love Adam and Eve because it's like, fuck stuff. And fuck stuff is great because it's just- It's very straightforward transaction, man. Absolutely.

And, you know, we're also working with Paint Your Life right now. And again, that's also another, it's a fun thing. Yeah, I wonder like how much due diligence really needs to be done to avoid this. More in the future and 100% more in the future. I think I just want to apologize to everybody. If you use this and we would suggest maybe doing something else,

if you're enjoying this and you can shut the data off on your iPhone and you don't care, then best of luck. But I don't think this is a good way to find the thing that they're offering. Yeah, I completely agree. So sorry, guys. That is on us. And we wanted you to be aware of it. And even if you didn't use BetterHelp through the show,

I think it's important to be aware of it. It's really important that these companies are using your data in not subtle ways to manipulate you. And this is a long article. We'll put it as to be the first. It should be one of the first on the show notes. So check it out. Read this whole article on Jezebel.

They went through a lot of stuff to figure out exactly how BetterHelp was using your data. So it's worth to read. Border control, birth control. It's all out of control. I need another cup of coffee. I guess the worst part of the play was their confidence in it. All right, Cecil, this story comes from the New York Times.

Images of Border Patrol's treatment of Haitian migrants prompt outrage. And it's not just the images, it's what you can hear them fucking saying. Yeah. Obviously, Haiti right now is going through absolute hell. Sure. Absolute hell. Fucking Haiti didn't recover from

the last terrible earthquake. Many of the people that are coming in now are actually refugees from that original earthquake. Which is a horror show to consider. Sure, this is 2010 or something like that. My God, 11 years ago. So these are refugees from a previous disaster in Haiti.

And then another disaster, and now the political instability after the assassination of their president. Yeah, the assassination of their president. Holy shit. So our hearts should be open to the Haitian people, right? That is the thing that should be true. And there is a history of Haitian immigrants making their way into the border to seek refuge and asylum, which is a legal process that they have a right to seek, right?

Absolutely. You have a right to seek asylum. And they seek asylum by crossing our southern border frequently. That is a frequent method for Haitian immigrants to make their way. Sure. Border patrol agents are fucking on horseback

preventing them from crossing the river. Yeah. Fucking swatting at them with the reins, like whipping them. Yeah. With the reins, like whipping them with the reins, preventing them from crossing. Because if they cross that border, they can seek asylum, right?

But if they can't cross the border, they can't cross the border, then they cannot seek that asylum. So not only are they preventing them from crossing the border, but to give you some flavor of exactly what the people doing this work think of the human beings who are struggling

to try to survive? Here is what the border patrol agents are heard to have said as they are whipping other human beings and preventing them from seeking political asylum. They said, this is why your country is shit because you use your women for this. This is what they said as they charged the migrants to push them back. They weren't. And, you know, be real clear here. They're using horses. This isn't a fucking petting zoo.

Right. This isn't so that they could like show this. They are using the horses like they use the horses in the fucking, when there's a protest. Yeah. Push the people back. Horse is an intimidating animal. And they're trying to intimidate them from coming.

And it's so funny how easy it is to, when you watch this video, they jog walk past the horse. It's really just to be intimidating and be shitty and then also like hurt one or two of them. That's what it's for. It's not a good effective tool to slow people down. And you know, it's crazy to me

because when you said, you know, that they're trying to stop them down. And you know, it's, it's crazy to me because when you said, you know, that they're, they're, that they's trying to stop them from going across the border. It also doesn't matter if they cross the border because Biden, since he came in, has been using the loophole that Trump put in, which is essentially we're under a state of emergency because of COVID and we're going to deport you. They've deported since Biden's been in there 700,000 people that have, that have asked for asylum. Now, I don't know whether or not those are people who asked or those are people who applied and were denied. I highly doubt, I very much highly doubt that they were people who applied and were denied

because that fucking, that department in the government is tragically underfunded because no one cares about it. They have not processed those applications. There's no way they process that many. And this is a continuation of the Obama presidency, in my opinion. Obama fucking fucked this up so badly. This was an absolute abhorrent thing that Obama did. And it's a terrible thing that Biden is continuing. This is one, and you know, look,

I'm not here to say they're the same, like Biden and Trump are the same people. That's a dumb fucking thing to say. And you should be ashamed of yourself every time you think that. But I am here to say that this is abhorrent and this is shitty. And I did not fucking vote for this.

I didn't vote for somebody to be so fucking, so heartless for us to be so heartless down there in this time of crisis for us to see this as not an opportunity to help somebody out. And it's purely political. And I don't understand why this, because it's not going to keep it. It's not, it's, it's nothing to do with COVID, right? So the, the auspices that this is being done under is, oh, we're in a state of emergency. We don't want people with COVID to flood our borders. And boy, it's fucking, there's 130,000 new cases not among immigrants.

Yeah, yeah. It's here. It's fucking, it is raging like a goddamn wildfire here among, it's not, oh, we don't have any COVID, so we better lock up the borders like Australia or New Zealand. This is not World War Z. Right. And I would be a little sympathetic if there was a border lockdown like Australia or New Zealand or other countries.

Yeah, sure. And they kept their numbers to zero and they're like, look, we're at zero. We don't want it here. We're at 130,000 a day. And... We got...

Get the fuck out of here. This is not like... We don't want to... Fucking truckloads of fucking vaccine that no one's using. Yep. We certainly have plenty of that. Yep.

Could fucking easily vaccinate these people too. I know. You know, a hundred percent. You know what? They'd fucking take it because they're not stupid. And the thing is, we should give them that vaccine because every human being on the planet that is vaccinated

is a net benefit to the planet. A hundred percent. It is, it is less variations. It is less new. Because who knows if the fucking Delta variant, who knows if the fucking

double Delta Ultra plus double plus Charmin variant isn't going to be 10 times worse. Yeah. We have a responsibility to vaccinate humanity.

Yeah. Every single person that we come in contact with, we should be shooting people with these things like fucking blow darts at this point. Release them back into the wild afterwards. Holy shit. You get a little tag on your ear that tells you we got Pfizer or Moderna. Send them up. I mean, it's an unbelievable

thing that we're wasting this many doses. They're going literally to waste. They're going bad. There's no reason, especially when you have this crisis that we could easily, you know, use these. But I want to say too, you know, this xenophobic, this shitty xenophobic way that we deal with this does not change from Republican to Democrat. It doesn't. It genuinely doesn't. It doesn't.

Even still, I remember, you know, there were a few Democrats on the stage during the debates that felt like they had a different approach and they felt like they had a different idea. But Biden, to me, never impressed me on this part. And I don't think that he ever would because I feel like he has the exact same idea that Obama had, which is they've got to show, there's a couple of ways they've got to show they're tough. And the ways they show they're tough is against immigrants and against other countries that we're at war with.

Those are the other countries that we want to invade or bully or whatever. And so those are the ways that the Democrats have to show the Republicans or the, I guess the middle of the road, because the Republicans are never going to vote for anyway, but it's the middle of the road voters. The, that's how they show they're tough fuck those people you know what i mean like

i know like show show the world that we are that we are who we say we are you know that we are that you know that that lighthouse in the dark that we are that shining fucking city on the hill yeah we're not we're we've been rejecting these people forever. And immigrants and migrants, they bring such a richness to everyone's life. Like they are, there's a, being part of a melting pot is an amazing thing. It's unique.

It's not unique to America, but it's very, there's very few countries in the world that are as diverse as America is. And the idea that, you know, you can't embrace that as part of who you are is disgusting. To see, to see diversity as anything other than a strength is to ignore all of the data around diversity. Absolutely. Absolutely. And all the great data around immigrants. Yeah. It, diversity and immigration is nothing but a strength for our country.

We're in the middle of this place where, and you would think that their fucking heads would explode, Cecil, from the fucking cognitive distance, right? Because on the one side, you've got an enormous group of business owners screaming that nobody will take these jobs. You can't find anyone to do this work.

And you know what? That's kind of real. That's kind of real. It is difficult for people to find employees right now. I get that. And yet there are people lining up, lining up to get into this country that many of whom would likely take those jobs.

Yeah. But we're just like, ah, but I noticed your brown. You're not the right person for the job in that you're not the right kind of person

for the job. What I want is a homegrown American. And when I say that, I mean a white American. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's what I want. Yeah. This is a shitty,

awful policy, but, you know, there's going to be some, there are blind spots in the Democratic, in what the Democratic leadership wants. And this is 100% a blind spot and it's disgusting. It is.

Hands. Are we the baddies? So New York Times again, Pentagon acknowledges August 29th drone strike in Afghanistan was a tragic mistake that killed 10 civilians. I love a tragic mistake. Well, okay, so- It was murder! It is, it is. It's murder!

A murder's never a tragic mistake! But I will say, I've read a couple articles about this that are interesting. One thing that is different about this administration than every other administration using drones is we acknowledge the fucking error

and apologize for it. You know, that's never been done. Really? Up until this moment, up until this moment, we have never apologized and acknowledged a, this quickly and this publicly when, when the drone strike program was first initiated, it was initiated by George W. Bush. He used it relatively little. It was new technology. Obama accelerated the drone, the uses of drones in warfare. Trump used it like fucking crazy. Biden is looking to use it less than Trump significantly and less than Obama significantly. Although, who knows how that will play out at the end of the four years, right?

So, but this is, mistakes have always happened. We've, I mean, there was an error where we drone struck a wedding, killed a hundred people. These mistakes are not uncommon in drone warfare because the rules of engagement are up to the administration that chooses those rules of engagement.

When Trump was put in charge, the rule for engagement when it was Obama is they had to have near perfect what the rule was. They had a near perfect certainty of their target and that collateral damage to civilians was zero or next to zero. So that was the rule. Now, they made mistakes. My God, did they? They absolutely did.

They made mistakes. Jesus Christ. Trump changed the rule. Okay. that was the rule. Now they got, they made mistakes. They absolutely did. They made mistakes. Trump changed the rule. Trump changed the rule. And it was basically like, if we feel like it, we'll bomb you. And that was basically the rule. And that's why they were, by changing that rule, that's why they were able to drone strike Soleimani, which was by all indications, a violation of international law. The Biden administration, when they made this mistake, when their military made this mistake, they immediately came out and were like, fuck, we realized we did the wrong thing. They did not immediately come out. I think as soon as they realized that it was a mistake, they did.

No, they did not. It took them weeks and it took a New York Times article that was published weeks ahead of time for them to finally admit it. Initially, they were like, no, we hit the right thing. But did they know they hit the wrong thing at that time? I mean, the Times article came out two weeks before their retraction. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, a Times article came out. Okay. Like in this article, they say it took, like they came out a couple of weeks, pretty much their previous article was a couple of weeks. And this was then within, you came out a couple of weeks, pretty much their previous article was a couple of weeks. And this was then within, you know, a couple of weeks after, then they finally said that they admitted it

because there was obvious evidence that they were wrong. They had hit the wrong target. That they were hit the wrong target. That's fucking true. And the other problem too though, Tom, is what you had said a couple of weeks ago. Why do this?

Yeah. The only reason we're doing this is because somebody punched us, right? You came up and socked me in the eye. And so now I've got to do something to you. I got to do something. I got to show. It's again, it's a show.

It's a show that I got to show you I'm just as tough. Fuck, they fucking know, man. If anybody on the planet needs to know, nobody needs to know that we have the technology to do any of those things that are destructive. They don't need to. There's nothing out there that needs that the problem is is that is that exactly what you said which is the counter-attack on this which is going to happen it was after the explosion the counter-attack is a stupid move it's a dumb move and it's true this is exactly what this was they

they wanted to go out there and find somebody to kill. They needed a body. They had to bring a scalp in. Yep. And that's what they did. And then they fucking got the wrong guy. They just got a fucking innocent bystander. Yeah, well, they got a whole bunch of kids too.

It's kids. And it's awful. It's awful. And again, it's one of those moments where the Democrats have to show how fucking tough they are. And it's the worst part of the Democratic Party. It's the worst part. It's the part that pains me the most to see. There's no advantage to this. There's no, this is posturing for the fucking warmongers back home. Yeah. That's all it is. Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan did not improve because we did this, because we performed this action. No. Because how the fuck could it?

It's the way it's done. First of all, we didn't hit, we did not hit a militarily significant target. It doesn't matter. So that was just a failure. Yeah. And there's no, it's just a fight. But even if we had hit a militarily significant target, what the fuck would have changed? Yeah.

I'll tell you what, nothing. Yeah. Because we didn't hit that target. And we had the exact same military outcome. So every time one of these things happens, you have to say to yourself, if we had done nothing, we'd have been better off. We'd be better off. Just better off all around.

Every time. Yeah. If we had done nothing, if we had never invaded Afghanistan, we'd have been better off. For real. I know, rewind time. If they fucking blew up 9-11 and then we rebuilt those towers, we'd have spent less fucking

money and lost less fucking lives. And show me a metric. Less people would have died. Right. You know what I mean? Not just and even if you are just a utilitarian American, less Americans would have died. But if you're just, you know, if you're like,

if you're like a humanist and think human life shouldn't be lost, it's exponentially better. It's 30 to one. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking ridiculous.

It's time to take a shot. I dream of life's return to sanity, of more intellect and less hannity, profanity, vanity, swapped for urbanity. A widespread vaccine

can save humanity. It's our shot. And if you feel apprehensive, it's all good. Understood, but don't get defensive. Believe in there's a bad shot. Well, that I support. Got my firsthand report. It's called a shot of my Lord.

I'm going to take a shot. Tom, I found this in Breitbart this week, and I can't. This is such an amazing fucking backflip of logic. I feel like we just got to read this aloud. So this is from Breitbart. You don't have to, Tom's going to read the whole article. So we, we're going to put, I don't even know if we're going to put the link in the show notes. I don't know. Ian doesn't listen to the show, so it doesn't matter if he won't listen to this anyway. But, but if, if the link's there, you don't have to click on it because Tom's going to read the

whole article. So Tom, go ahead go ahead all right nolte howard stern proves democrats want unvaccinated trump voters dead yeah do you want to know why i think howard stern is going full monster with his mockery of three fellow human beings who died of the coronavirus because leftists like stern and cnn lol every time it's CNN, LOL. And CNN and Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Fauci are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated. Now, I will read

this whole thing. I just... Was this an epic troll? Was this fake? It feels so fucking trollish. You think it's an Onion article. Yeah, I- You genuinely feel like

somebody wrote this as a joke. It's, I can't- I can't tell. I can't imagine a human being thinking what is written here. Okay, so I'm going to read it, but I genuinely, listeners, do you think this is real?

All right. Nothing else makes sense to me. In a country where elections are decided on razor thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead? If I wanted to use reverse psychology to convince people not to get a life-saving vaccination, I would do exactly what Stern and the left are doing. I would bully and taunt and mock and ridicule you for not getting vaccinated, knowing the human response would be, hey, fuck you.

I'm never getting vaccinated. You know, that's how they're vaccinating people now. They put your head in a toilet full of vaccine and they flush it. And then that's- They knock the books out of your hand and when you look down- Coronavirus is the books.

I gotta say though, let's stop here just really quickly and point this out. You fuckers said no a long time ago. There couldn't be a your side not getting vaccinated to mock if you just got vaccinated at the same time I got vaccinated. Because in March, everyone was pretty much, you know, April, I think, is when it all opened up. Right.

So April. Because I was a pre-smoker. So I was able to get it late March. Right. But April and April, people I knew in the middle of April that didn't have any pre-existing conditions weresmoker. Yeah. So I was able to get it late March. Right. But April, end of April, people I knew in the middle of April that didn't have any pre-existing conditions were getting it. Right.

Yeah. If there would be no, all the Republicans are unvaccinated side, if the Republicans had gotten vaccinated at the same time, you created this line to mock. Sure. Yeah. I didn't create the line it's and it's and it's one of those things it's like it's like first off it's a dumb thing to

even think like i'm not i'm not using reverse psychology on you because i don't think you're as intelligent as a kid anyway so i wouldn't use it on you in the first place but there's no reverse psychology i genuinely want you to get fucking vaccinated. I 100%. And if I have to like, like pat your head or give you a hug or rock you to sleep or put you in a stroller and take you there

or, you know, wake you up when we're at grandma's, you can get, I don't care. Like I'll do anything. Like I'll do it. I'll drive you to the fucking vaccination station. Just like I would drive a Democrat to vote. I'll do it, man. Absolutely, man. I want everybody

to be vaccinated. And part of that is very selfish. I will admit that. Yeah. Because I want this to be over. I want to be finished, man. Like, let's get the, this only ends one way. Let me rephrase. This either doesn't end or it ends one way. Yeah, right. Yeah, because we're in the doesn't end portion of the program. I think people are waiting it out. And it's like, I don't know, man. Like you can't wait out your house fire.

You're not going to wait it out. You got to get vaccinated. Right. I keep reading. And why is that a perfectly human response? Because no one ever wants to feel like they are being bullied or ridiculed or mocked or pushed into doing anything okay okay i i just have to go yeah but you know what the children have this mindset right like this is a very juvenile mindset it is just an incredibly juvenile mindset. If everybody around you

is telling you that getting vaccinated is a good idea, that's not you being bullied. That's all of the experts who went to school are saying, hey, I went to school for this subject. That's not being bullied. You're just a contrarian.

Yeah. And that's juvenile as fuck. That's on you. Yeah. You know, the other thing too is like, there's plenty of times in your life you get told to do something that you might not want to do. That's on you. Yeah. And you know, the other thing too is like, there's plenty of times in your life you get told to do something that you might not want to do.

That's called having a job. It's called living as an adult. There's so many different things I don't want to do as an adult. I don't want to fucking call the car insurance guy. Right. I don't want to,

I don't want to get on the phone and deal with X or Y. I want to like, I just want to, I just, like I want to fucking hang out and do nothing. I want to watch TV and fucking sit in my fucking pajamas all day, but I don't, I go to work. I do all kinds of other

stuff. I work three fucking jobs for Christ's sakes. So like the idea that there's the whole adult world is pretty much mostly shit. You don't want to do tied to one or two moments of, of, of leisure. Yeah. Yeah. You. You buy your leisure with effort. Yeah. And the idea that you're going to sit there and be like, well, I don't want to get told what to do. You get told what to do all the time. Shut the fuck up.

So juvenile. Who wants to cave to pieces of shit like Howard Stern or Jimmy Kimmel or these repulsive doctors refusing to treat the unvaccinated or Bette Midler or who wants to feel like they're caving to a guy who's such a piece of shit. He publicly mocks people who have died and he's not just a piece of shit mocking them. He's a piece of shit hurting the families of the dead men left behind. And where was your outrage when Rush Limbaugh did this?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. The fucking Rush Limbaugh was Rush Limbaugh was awful. And there's plenty of fucking, it's not just rush. There's other Republicans that have died since that we're finding out used to do this

with AIDS patients all the time. So get the fuck out of here. No one wants to cave to a piece of- I know that's, and I also want to say, I know that's whataboutism. So I'm not here to defend what Howard Stern is doing. I don't care what Howard Stern is doing. Yeah, is it distasteful?

Yeah, but Howard Stern has made his fucking money on it distasteful? Yeah, but Howard Stern has made his fucking money on being distasteful for decades, man. He's got like a four decade long career in radio of being a shock jock. That's literally what he does. Well, also I do want to say, I think there's a real big distinction between people who die of AIDS

and people who die of a preventable fucking illness, right? Yeah, fucking 100%. That's an important fucking distinction to make. Like if somebody gets AIDS, that's terrible. Yeah. Because they,

especially at the beginning of the AIDS crisis when people didn't even know like, what the fuck was going on. I was transmitted. Nobody knew. Get the fuck out. You're going to compare that to something. It's like,

well, I could get a jab at Walgreens. Yeah, I know. Same fucking thing. Get the fuck out. And also the idea that he's, you know, he's making it sound like, I don't know exactly what Stern has said, but from what I've read,

and actually I did listen to Stern talk about it, it didn't sound that bad. Didn't sound that mocking. It didn't sound that bad. No one wants to cave to a piece of shit like that or a scumbag like Fauci or any of the scumbags at CNN, so we don't. And what's the result? They're all vaccinated and we are not. And when you look at the numbers, the only numbers that matter, which is who's dying,

it's overwhelmingly the unvaccinated who are dying. And they have just manipulated millions of their political enemies into the unvaccinated camp. Why, can I ask why they put, you know, when we looked at that previous paragraph, they're talking about,

you know, who wants to cave to a piece of shit or whatever like Fauci. What the fuck is wrong with Fauci? What does that even mean? Cave to a scumbag like Fauci. You're the one who's demonizing health experts. Why do that? What's the point? What's the purpose?

They've hated Fauci ever since the beginning. I think it's because Fauci didn't give shit. He gave shit to Trump and he kind of made faces in the background, put his hand on his head and he disrespected in their eyes, their fucking Godhead. And it made him mad. Yeah. I think he contradicted their leader.

Yeah. And it pissed him off. Yeah. He's a scumbag because why? Because, yeah, I just don't get it. I just don't understand. Like, like you're the one demonizing health officials. If you keep demonizing health officials,

what the fuck else do you expect to happen, stupid? What's amazing is like, again, I'm struck. Like, oh, and now we're not going to get vaccinated because you guys want us to get vaccinated. Why didn't you guys go get vaccinated? Is it Trump vaccine? Why isn't it the other direction? If that's the way it's supposed to be.

He's going to say Trump vaccine at the end of this article too. Yeah, but the other thing too that makes me crazy is it's great if you don't like somebody, that's fine, but just to say you don't like them and then there's no reason why you don't like them. You're like, okay, well, that's just your intuition. Who cares about it, you don't like him, and then there's no reason why you don't. You're just like, I just don't like him. You're like, okay, well, that's just your intuition.

Who cares about it? Yeah, they don't have a beer with him. Yeah. Right? If you look at Fauci, you're like, I wouldn't have a beer with him. Okay. Cool. I literally don't care.

But if you look at Fauci, you're like, I don't think that guy knows anything about epidemiology. You'd be like, well, you're a fucking idiot. You're fucking stupid then. You don't know anything. You'd be like, well, you're a fucking idiot. You're fucking stupid then. You don't know anything. According to the CDC, 99.5% of those dying of the China flu are unvaccinated.

So even if they're lying or exaggerating, even if it's 75 or 80%, those numbers are pretty stark. I love that shit so much. Well, even if they're lying. What asshole is at the fucking hospital, Tom? And he's dying of fucking coronavirus. And he's like, I got vaccinated, but I'm a liar. I'm a liar about it. Or is it that the doctors are lying?

Because now it's amazing in the rights mind that everybody with a fucking degree is a leftist conspirator, right? Ah, the doctors are now against you. All the doctors are now against you. And Ah, the doctors are now against you. All the doctors are now against you. And then all the journalists are now against you. And then all the science guys are now against you. Such a large group of people that are against you. It's like all the people you rely on for everything.

I know. It's either that or Facebook, I guess. Right, yeah. Could it be? Could it possibly be that the left has manipulated huge swaths of Trump voters into believing they are owning the left by not taking the life-saving Trump vaccine? Here's Stern. Longtime radio host and media personality Howard Stern laughed as he mocked a string of right-wing radio hosts who died of COVID. Also, real quick, here's Stern,

and then you don't quote him directly. I know, he's a terrible writer. Like, he's a terrible writer anyway, above. Like, he's really not a very good writer. But then he doesn't quote him, just quote him directly. People know whether they quote. You don't have to tell that it happened on Tuesday's edition of SiriusXM. Nobody cares.

Stern said, it's really funny when these radio, the radio guys are the best. They're like, four of them dead. Four of them were like ranting on the air, he cled that's what he said that's the worst thing you could find that he said yeah he literally just stated a fact and laughed also if that if you're that easily fucking manipulated holy shit you should be embarrassed fucking and they always scream about the other side being triggered how How easy is it to trigger you? Somebody said something and it didn't specifically even identify me. Somebody said something factual and smirked.

Have you ever thought that maybe the left has us right where they want us? Just stand back for a moment and think about this. Also, this guy writes with so many ellipses. I know. Gosh, it's like a fucking note you find folded in a class. The guy, the fucking English pedant in me wants to take a red pen to this fucking, to my screen right now.

Seriously. Right now, a countless number of Trump supporters believe they are owning the left by refusing to take a life-saving vaccine. A vaccine, by the way, everyone on the left has taken. Oh, and so has Trump. Now think about this. On this very day, about a thousand people in the U.S., 2,000 actually, will die of the China flu. How many of those lives could have been saved if they'd been vaccinated? Is it 998? Is it 778? Is it 229? Does it matter? And if the left is all vaccinated and we're not,

who's winning? The push for mandates is another ploy to get us to dig in and not do what's best for ourselves because no one wants to feel like they're caving to a mandate. Why? You cave to all kinds of mandates, man. And this is the part where I think it's a troll. This part where it's like it's life-saving and all that. This is where I think he put this in Breitbart to troll. I think this is a left-written article. Maybe. I don to troll. I think this is a left written article.

Maybe, I don't know. I don't know the guy. I don't know either, but it feels that way. Final note, how many of you are aware the CDC believes that 99.5% of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So I would, the metric that is the most convincing one, not be all over the place.

It is. It is. It's literally read anything. Literally all over the place. It is. It is. It's literally read anything. Literally all over the place. Like they talk all the time. They're like, get vaccinated. I've seen so many infographics with the people,

the human little bodies that they're showing as thousands of people or whatever. And there's like one in the ICU and the rest are all unvaccinated. Also like, the term is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And, like, the term is now a pandemic

of the unvaccinated. And then, like, at the end of that thing, at the end of that infographic, they show, like, one in the ICU and none in the dead column. Right.

Like, I mean, seriously, dude, they're giving you pictures. They know you're so stupid that you will not listen to words and you won't read words. They're showing you in hieroglyphs

and you still fucking pass this up. Well, they would do scratch and sniff, but you've lost your sense of taste and smell. Holy shit, Tom. Are you fucking serious? I know, I know. Do I have to fucking beg you?

Do I have to get on my hands and knees and be like, no, I'm really, I love you so much. Please, please, please. Fuck off, man. You can put it in my mouth a little if you get the vaccine. Is that what has to happen? Are you that fucking childish

that you got to get fucking coaxed into the chair? They got to give you a lollipop and they got to pretend they gave it to mom first? I won't do what's right for me because you want me to do it. Okay, well, you know who loses then, stupid? It's not me. You know, and I know that there's the same thing

that fucking popped up over fucking seatbelts years ago I know it's the same time same thing every time there's some sort of safety measure that pops up

everybody's like my freedoms and then 10 years down the road everybody wears a seatbelt I know do you know a single person who drives around

with a seatbelt off do you know anybody no I don't know a single that would be the weirdest thing it would be like if they had their pants off I don't know a single person who gets in a car and drives around without a seatbelt.

I do. I'll tell you this quick story. When my wife and I were in Belize a couple of years ago- Oh, okay. Well, that's different though. This is funny though. We met with a friend of hers that was an expat who was living down there. And we were going out to dinner and we get in his truck.

And in Belize, you don't have to wear a seatbelt and you can drink and drive. Holy shit. And they have the third highest rate of fatalities for motor accidents in the world. I bet they do. With a population of basically nobody. Yeah. But yeah, the drive, you could drink and drive and not wear a seatbelt and everybody's dead. Everybody all the time is dead. The evidence says that's terrible, but we're still doing it. Right. Yeah. That number is startling. An eye opener. Forget cases for get mandates. Forget masks and Howard Stern.

When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that's a come to Jesus moment. I could be wrong. Maybe the left isn't that evil and sly. But when I think of the unvaccinated, we just don't care. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe I don't care to reach out to you to get you. I literally, I haven't done any kind of outreach. I haven't done any of that.

I just don't care enough. I'm like, look, man, I want this to be over. I want you to get vaccinated. But what do you want me to do? Go door to door? How should I do this? No, the way that you do, honestly, what you do is you support people in powerful positions

to make good decisions, right? Yeah, right. That's what you do. Because support people in powerful positions to make good decisions, right? That's what you do because I'm not going out because there's a plague right now. But when I think of the unvaccinated lying there dying, being told by their doctor, sorry, there's nothing more we could do to get enough oxygen to your lungs. I don't laugh. My heart breaks for that person. Imagine lying there dying, thinking that all you had to do was get the Trump vaccine. Even if this isn't the left's plan, who's owning who? And again, that's why I was like, who's owning who? Like, it feels not Breitbart.

It feels like a side article. This guy genuinely, though, probably is. Well, you know, here's the thing. There's a hundred percent, not a hundred percent. There's a percentage chance that somebody saw money in being far right. That happens all the time. You're right. Yeah.

So it could be that the guy is just a regular dude who saw that this was a way, and maybe he is a person who probably got vaccinated and doesn't. And now he's just saying this because it's, you know, maybe he's a troll, maybe he's not, whatever,

but there's a possibility he's not a far right person. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, you know, I can't imagine that many Breitbart level people write for Breitbart.

But anyway, I saw this this weekend. It's such a fucking, it is such a leap of logic to get to, you have to twist yourself in a fucking pretzel like position to get to the point to blame other people for your own neglect of your own. I didn't do this one simple thing that would have saved my life because you wanted me to. Now who looks stupid? And that's exactly what I wanted. So that way you don't vote.

That's, that's, that's what I was doing. Yeah. Yeah. He is right though. Like there's a lot of people dying that are, that are far right. There's a lot of people dying that are far right. Yeah. There's a lot of far right people dying and that's going to be one of those things that, you know, down the road, you know, I don't know if it's going to change anything,

but it might change things in state elections. Who knows? You know what I mean? State elections don't have a lot of people that go out anyway. Yeah. There's small turnout votes. I would be,

when you look at the states that are having the worst time, most of them are solid red, except Florida. Florida is always kind of a purple state, man. It's kind of bouncing. And, you know, you do wonder. You're right. You're right.

Yeah. I mean, it's not like next year, Alabama is going to have a fucking Democrat governor. Hey, glory holi-o-los. We've got a new sponsor for you today, PaintYourLife.com. I thought, what a great idea for a gift for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, divorces, appendectomies, or first dates.

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Ba-da-da-da-do-dun. Oh, I missed the beats. It's fine. And now a new ad. Hey, Ian, what's up? What are you doing? Nothing. I'm good. I'm good.

What's up? Oh, I found some cool auditory illusions online. Here, let me play this one for you. What does it sound like? Okay. What? Yary. What is it?

Yary. Yarl. Yary. Yarl. Glory. Glory. Glory. Right? What? No, it's like Laurel or Yanni

It's not Here, try this other one Okay Think about it Adam Wait, play it one more time Okay AdamandEve.com

Oh yeah, AdamandEve.com. Oh, yeah. AdamandEve.com. Ian, what are you doing? This is not an ad. I'm legitimately trying to connect with you. Okay? It's auditory illusions. What do you hear?

That's what I hear. Brain needle. Brainstorm. It should be one of those. It's not AdamandEve.com. And it's not enter code. I mean, it is enter code, Gloria. But, like, in this instance. I hear what I hear. Oh, shutme.com. And it's not enter code. I mean, it is enter code, Gloria, but like in this instance.

I hear what I hear. Oh, shut up. Here's another one. In this one, it's just a sound file. I'm not going to explain it. So just tell me what you hear. It's just static. Right.

So I'm going to prime you with a sentence and let's see what you hear after. So here's the prime. The juice of lemons makes fine punch. Okay. The juice of lemons makes fine punch. Right, the juice of lemons makes fine punch. Right, so I'm going to play the exact same first file again, one more time. A little audio pareidolia. Let's see what happens.

Wow, that really worked. Get 50% off almost any one item when you enter awful code theory. I don't know how you did that. First of all, it was twice as long, and that's not what it's supposed to be, the lemon thing. Okay, here's another one. I don't know how you could possibly hear something else. Here, I'm going to play it. Okay, listen. The pitch keeps

going up, up and up and up and up, and it'll just keep going up infinitely. Oh, yeah. All the shepherd count. Oh, I hear it. Right? Isn't it cool?

Ian, what are you doing? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What?

It was just ascending tones. That's not... Oh, my God. You're doing this on purpose. I'm not. I hear what I hear. But you must. Okay.

This next one, impossible for you to mess up. I'm not messing it up. Okay? It's called binaural beats. It's an auditory illusion in your brain. Right. The beats are produced in your brain. It's not the sound file.

Okay, here we go. Alright. Oh yeah. Isn't that cool? If you just listen to one side, you just hear the pure tone. Exactly. Oh wow, it's changing.

What is that? That's not in the file. Yeah. Gloryadamandeve.com. Wow, that's pretty cool. For fuck's sake. This is an ad. Go to

adamandeve.com. Almost any one item. Six free movies, a gift for you, them, the both of you, and free shipping. You happy and you can have a nice Sunday together with just like exploring YouTube. You gotta make it a net.

Everything's gotta be monetized with you. Okay. I'm sorry, Gary. You still wanna eat popcorn and watch Foundation? Yes, I want popcorn. And yes, I wanna watch sci-fi. Okay. And if you wanna eat popcorn and watch sci-fi, you can do. And yes, I want to watch sci-fi. Okay. And if you want to eat popcorn and watch sci-fi,

you can do that. But first go to adamandeve.com and, you know, enter code glory. Where's the Irish butter? The Irish butter is in the fridge. Can we end the ad? Let's fucking end it.

Oh, okay. Bye. I'll be back. I'll extort. I'll take each and every state to court. I'm a Trump. I'm a threat. And if you still dissent, I will kill democracy to remain the president.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this story comes from CNN Politics. Memo shows Trump lawyers six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election. This story was fucking everywhere this week. This story comes as part of the discovery and other documents that came from Woodward's new book, Peril, I think.

God, that guy has been fucking making a mint off of Trump. A mint, an absolute fucking mint. So, but this has since been verified. There's a memo which has been obtained. The memo was written by a lawyer named John Eastman. John Eastman has, on paper, serious credentials, but he is known around Washington as being that guy who proposes really wacky shit. For real.

You know? Like, he just proposes really wacky legal shit. And this is really wacky. Yeah. But there was a plan to overthrow the will of the American people, subvert democracy, and install Trump into the presidency. And it, terrifyingly,

it rested on the back of Mike Pence. Yeah, Mike Pence, maybe a couple other people. There was clearly a couple of senators, I think, that they tried to approach that laughed them out of Mike Pence. Yeah, Mike Pence, maybe a couple other people. There was clearly a couple of senators, I think, that they tried to approach that laughed them out of the room. But essentially,

what they were going to do was have Mike Pence reject the vote of several states. Seven, I think there was seven. Seven states. Seven total states.

And then what they were going to say was, instead of just saying, well, that gives Trump the electoral lead, because it would, they instead were going to make it be like, oh, but that's okay. We'll just pass it off to the House.

Well, the difficulty is that while the Democrats did control the House numerically, they did not control the House for the weird corner case bullshit that we have to do when it becomes an electoral thing. Right. And the weird thing we have to do is we basically have to decide as states who's going

to be. And so all the states have to get together and make the decision. Well, they had all the states they needed to lock it up. Right. So if Pence had done what Trump wanted, if Pence had done what Trump wanted, he would have declared the election of those seven states invalid. Then he would have, like you said, he would have declared the election of those seven states invalid. Then he would have, like you said, kicked it back to the House of Representatives and we would have ruined democracy. Yeah, it would have been a civil war.

I can't imagine it being anything else. I mean, the only reason why it wasn't this time around when the Democrats won and they lied about what happened is because I think not enough people believe the lie. But if they were to do something like this and throw out actual results. Right. Just all of a sudden. I don't know what would happen, but it would be something very, very dire.

I have no idea how that would have played out either. Obviously, it would have gone to the courts. They would have been embroiled in a mess. The states would have been like, no, our election is fine. And then they've been auditing. And who knows what the balance of power would be in the middle of that? Can you imagine, can you just imagine that kind of turmoil, the economic impact on the world that that would have? The world uses the US dollar as the primary currency of the world. We would. We'd be in it.

We would be in a global recession overnight. It's a hundred percent because one guy didn't want to lose. He didn't want to lose face. It's a hundred percent because of the narcissism of one shitty asshole. One like, seriously, I can't, it's hard, I'm hard pressed to look through history and find a worse person than Donald Trump. And I know that there's so many people out there that say, oh, you got Trump derangement syndrome. Seriously, these are actual quantifiable ways

that he is genuinely the worst person. If he's willing to subvert the will of millions of people for his own vanity, who else could possibly be worse than that? I mean, every action that he took was was influenced mostly it seemed by how he personally would benefit or be perceived individually yeah not about a policy position an ideology he didn't even have like a politic no that that he was driven by and he only appointed sycophants.

It was never, there was never a moment where there was somebody in government that was kind of like, like he didn't have a Dick Cheney. Right. He didn't have somebody who was kind of driving the car

because he was an idiot. Right. Who didn't know, he didn't know where he was going. So he put the guy who knew the map better in the driver's seat. Okay.

See, so I let you drive because you're good with directions. So was Dick Cheney. So was Dick Cheney. Yeah. So was Dick Cheney. So was Dick Cheney. So was Dick Cheney. And Dick, you know, he didn't have a Dick Cheney. Because he would have fired him a weekend because Dick Cheney wouldn't stroke his ego. Yeah, Dick Cheney wouldn't put up with that shit.

Anybody who stroked his ego stayed in for the whole fucking, they stayed in for the run. The people who didn't, they got canned and they got replaced by somebody who would. Yep. And that was over and over and over and over. And also, if they wouldn't, like, do illegal shit for him, sometimes they would fire him. And like swear weird oaths of fealty and shit. Yeah. Like the fucking FBI director is like. It's crazy. What? Well, I mean, he also got rid of Sessions because of that too. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Sessions didn't, Sessions wanted to recuse himself of certain things and Trump Trump didn't like that, and he fired him for it.

He wanted him to do something that was unethical. And if he wasn't going to go there for Trump, because that's how Trump did business, man. If you weren't willing to do the unethical shit for him, he was going to get rid of you. That's why Michael Cohen was his lawyer for you. I know. You're loyal to the family, all that bullshit, whatever.

And then they turn on each other immediately the moment. It's mob shit. The moment anybody gets taken in there, I was like, he did it. It was his fault. I'll never rant. I'll never rant. I'm ranting right now. I'm ranting right now.

Anyone needs a rant, I'm a rat. Anyway, it's just one, it's just another moment of the Trump presidency where you look back and you think it could have gone so differently. And I know that this is a worse timeline, but maybe it's not. Maybe,

I know, maybe there might be a little worse timeline out there. We, to, to think back to how close we came to utter and complete fucking disaster.

Yeah. Because it wouldn't mean just that Trump wins. Like that's not, it, it would mean that we literally ruined our democracy.

Yeah. Hey, did you know the moon landing was faked? Well, I heard that aliens built the pyramids. Well, I'm reading that Big Pharma is using chemtrails to make the Earth flat. Whoa! Who are you?

I'm the Internet Explorer. Well, not that Internet Explorer. He's still buffering. It looks like I got here just in time. Did you know that 93% of everything you believe is a lie? Really? Of course not. But that shows how easy it can be to fall for misinformation.

Allow me to explain. So Cecil Lister comes from IFLScience.com. Fact-checking is actually very effective in challenging disinformation. And the funniest thing to me about this is that I had a hard time believing this. But you know what I did? Yeah. I checked it out and now I think it's probably true.

Yeah, yeah. Because that's how that works, Cecil. Yeah, because intuitively, what we've seen and what our anecdotes have led us to believe is that it's not effective. Right. And we have, since we've sort of been doing the show, we would have, if you would have asked me before I saw this,

if it was effective, I probably would have said, I don't think so. I would have 100% been like, absolutely not. It doesn't matter. Yeah. That doesn't matter. I would, I would have told you, I would have told you not only that, that, that it doesn't work, but that it probably drives people to double down more. You know, what's funny is that it actually changed their minds on almost a one full point out of five. It was a big difference. It's not a small difference either. It wasn't just a little difference. It wasn't just, oh, well, 0.0007 people were more inclined after being fact-checked,

so then therefore it's true. It was a lot. It changed their minds by a lot. Being fact-checked, so then therefore it's true. It was a lot. It changed their minds by a lot. Being fact-checked changed their minds. Now, there are some people I think you'll never reach with a fact-check. I do believe that. And it's shown up by the data too, because it didn't convince every single person. Right. Right. Yeah. And though that's probably why intuitively I get so frustrated, right? Because there are those people that are intractable in their belief systems. And so that leads you to think that everybody who's wrong is intractable.

Or everybody who has a mistaken belief system is intractable in that belief system. But we know from the evidence that that's not the case. And we should be doing a lot more fact-checking. I am encouraged that fact-checking has become more structurally a part of how we consume information. And I don't often give credit here, but a little credit where it's due. Some of the big social media sites have begun putting fact checks on things. If it is proven to be effective, 100% we need to do that stuff. What I do wonder too is, does it matter who the fact check comes from? I feel like that might be

a problem. And that's one of the things I was thinking when you just said that is, what if they knew who your likes were? So let's say 10 different people fact check a thing. Let's say 10 different people on Facebook, 10 different groups of media. Let's say there's Reuters, there's going to be an AP one, there's going to be a MSNBC one, there's going to be a Fox News one, there's going to be... But they all come up with pretty much the same answer, right?

COVID vaccines are effective, let's say, right? It's a pretty simple answer. They all quote the same science. They all kind of say pretty much the same thing, but they do it in the tone in which those particular things do. And then they just look at what you liked in the past. And then they just put up that particular fact check. That doesn't sound like it'd be that hard. It feels like it would tap right into it. And then you would see this thing that you already trust. Because it's something you already liked on Facebook or you already visited quite a bit. So if my, you know, my uncle, who's a fucking total Fox News junkie, sees from Fox News, fact check by Fox News, actually, you know, the election wasn't stolen.

Right. Or whatever. Right, yeah. That might change their mind. I think you're right. That might change their mind certainly a lot more, certainly a lot more than if it was AP or Reuters or if it was MSNBC or Snopes, right? Yeah, or worse, done just by the platform. Yeah, by the platform,

because they don't trust the platform anyway. We've all been told, and I've been telling people, don't trust the platform. Yeah, I feel like you could easily just have those people write up a thing, get it approved by the platform. I know that there's going to be some difference, but it's not going to be so great that it wouldn't convince that person, especially if it's about vaccines or any of that stuff. And I also think if you are in a position where you're in somebody's life, where you're a trusted, loved resource, I think this tells us that we can fact check them. I think it also tells us that fact checking is not the same thing as arguing with people. Fact checking is literally that. It's, you know, you said something and I'm going to check it and I'm going to post and provide

you evidence and say, hey, you know, I looked this up and it turns out that this other thing is actually the case, right? That's fact-checking. That's not the same thing as like swinging dick, you know? Sure, yeah. You're fucking stupid. Don't be a fucking idiot or whatever. I mean, yeah. And the problem is, is that online arguing lacks the nuance of interaction or regular online, regular interaction with people, like in human contact, which we're so starved for anyway. But the idea is like, you know, it's such a different way to talk to people that I think people automatically go into their online speak, which is mostly more aggressive. At least, again, if you showed me a study that changed my

mind, I might not agree, but it feels like it's more aggressive, at least from my anecdotal experience. It feels far more aggressive than regular talk. I would be hard pressed to see it. Again, if you show me the AFL science with the attached study, I'm willing to belisten you. But my experience online has shown me

that it's very aggressive. It's more aggressive than it is in person. And so people jump to those prah and they fight. They just fight. And so it almost always, and it's funny because like very recently, someone I know posted a comment about a, when the big thing went down in Texas,

the big thing where they took away women's rights down in Texas. Someone big thing where they took away women's rights down in Texas, someone had posted and said, look, Christians, this is on you. This is on the Christians. Even though it's a small sect of people, these evangelicals are a smaller sect, this is on you guys for not standing up for us. And it started this huge rift in this group of people

that I'm sort of quasi friends with, where there's a couple people that are Christians in that group and other people are not. And they fought really, really. And it's funny too, because these people are, they're very close in this organization that I'm in. And to see them fight with each other so vehemently online, it seems super out of character. But again, I felt like, well, yeah, it's online. They're fighting online. They would never do this in person. You wonder how much it even carries over.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this is a really interesting article, though. The idea that fact-checking works is heartening. It was incredibly heartening. It was. And I guess what I've taken from, and I thought about this, is I'm not going to argue. I'm going to fact check.

Yeah, I think that might be a good way to do it. You know, I'm just going to look at claims and fact check them, and that's it. That's the extent of the conversation as far as I'm concerned. That might be a smart way to do it. Yeah. Hello, would you like to change religions? I have a free book written by Jesus. No. So for this week on our Cognizant Book Club,

we read the Demon Haunted World chapter, Dragon in My Garage. I remember reading this chapter. I do too. And my memories were way off. Mine were too. You know, it's funny because when you mentioned at the very earliest part,

I think it was maybe even the first or second chapter, you said this book is very much a product of its time, talking about it being focused on aliens. Yeah. And I don't remember this much alien being in it when I read it. I don't remember that. Yeah. But you know what? Here's the best part about this book. These, the way his, the logic he's using can be used against any kind of pseudoscience, against any kind of supernatural belief, against any kind of religion. And I remember the dragon in my garage

and using it to sort of break myself away from the idea of, you know, the idea of a God. Yeah. It's funny because you and I both have the same failure of recollection, I think, because the tools are what matter, right? Yeah. What you apply them to, he's applying them in this case to alien abductions and alien visitation, et cetera. And that makes a lot of sense.

You know, it's just Carl's wheelhouse, right? But I read that book many, many years ago. I think you gave me that book. And when I read it, I came away with it, not remembering anything about the aliens, but having these tools in my toolbox, the dragon in my garage analogy is just such a powerful analogy for the requirement for evidence. Yeah. The requirement for things to be both provable and disprovable. Yeah. And if you have any assertion which lacks evidence and cannot be disproved, it lacks all meaning. Yeah.

Whether it's aliens or whether it's ghosts or whether it's any hypothesis whatsoever. He's talking about credulity mostly in this. And the idea, the dragon in my garage idea is that someone says, I have a dragon in my garage. And then you say, okay, cool. Let me show it to me. And they say, well, it's invisible. And then you say, okay, well, I'll just throw a little flower on the ground and then we can at least see its footprints. They say, no, it actually floats.

You say, okay, well, I'll just spray paint it. They say, well, it's incorporal. And then they say, okay, well, I'll get a heat sensor. They say, no, it actually floats. You say, okay, well, I'll just spray paint it. They say, well, it's in corporal. And then they say, okay, well, I'll get a heat sensor. They say, well, it doesn't give off any heat. And so every single test that you come up with, they reject because the dragon will not show up on that test. And, you know, it really does feed itself into, you know, of course, not just alien,

the alien sphere of the paranormal, but it also feeds itself into all the other kinds of spheres. But when you're talking about the alien sphere of the paranormal, you know, all too often, you know, you throw out these tests so you can have the result that you want, which is exciting. The idea, I mean, don't get me wrong,

even in this chapter, Carl says, I would love for this to be fucking true, you know? I don't think anybody wants it to be true more than carl yeah i mean carl sagan was like i fucking want like of all the people out there right this is fucking money if this is true for me baby but it's not and this happens all the time when it comes to ufos when we say the word ufo because there's plenty of unidentified objects but our vernacular has turned the word UFO into synonymous with an alien spacecraft. And that happens so much with language. I just, you know, theory has a real term

and UFO has a real meaning. It has a real meaning. And we've bastardized those things away from their scientific meaning. The problem is, is that UFO is a very useful term that we've thrown away. UFO is a wonderful term to say, I don't know what that is. I know. But it is turned into the exact opposite, which means I know exactly what that is.

I've identified that. I've identified. It's not, now it is identified. Yep. And that's the real problem. And he's talking about too in this, he spends some time talking about how real science happens when it comes to seeking out alien life. If we look across with radio telescopes.

Yeah, this was a great part. We start to look and we start to figure out, what's that sound I heard? That's a repeating sound. Is it something this? It didn't come back next week. Okay, well then, you know, and if you can't put together the evidence

for it to be the thing, then it's not the fucking thing, the end. Yeah, and it tells a great anecdote where Soviet scientists, in an irrationally exuberant, they held a press conference saying, hey, we got this result from our radio telescopes and we think it's proof of extraterrestrial life.

But they hadn't gone through all the steps that scientific process requires, which is verification and repetition. And so they were irrational, but they were excited, right? And you kind of understand that. It's forgivable. It's human. It is, you know, we all want to be excited. We all want there to be big things, you know, I want there to be big, exciting things. So they gave this press conference and then they were later kind of humiliated because, you know, the science ultimately did not back up their conclusions. But they wanted that conclusion so much that they were willing to put themselves out there before finishing the process. It's like that cold fusion.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when, when they announced that there's cold fusion and everybody was like, Oh really? And they're like, yeah,

but we can't reproduce it. Yeah. It happened one time. It happened one time. In Niagara Falls. I can't tell. It really happened though. Trust me.

Cold fusion is really hot. Totally happened. Really, really hot. Trust me. It's in Niagara Falls. I totally creamed my diffusion.

But this is one of those things though where Carl very much explains the need for that evidence.

The need for the rigor. The need for people to stop wanting and start finding. Yeah.

And I think that that's the key and it's there's so much of this that that's the key. And it's, there's so much of this. It's so funny because you watch one of these shows, watch any of these fucking ghost, and not ghost adventures.

There's a show in particular, Paranormal Caught on Camera, maybe is what it's called. Okay. It's on this travel or Discovery America station. And I've seen it a couple, you know, a dozen times or so, this show.

And it's all just fucking blurry footage off your fucking, off of a camera. Or it's, you know, a baby monitor sound that sounds weird, or somebody goes into, or somebody is clearly faking something. That happens quite often when somebody will come in with a camera

into an old creepy house and something will roll across. And you're like, how the fuck do I know there isn't a guy with a string pulling that? You don't know. It's just TV. But they're sending this in to a group of people who want to be credulous. They want to be. They want to be. They don't want to be tricked.

They want to think this is real. Yeah. And so very often what they'll do is they will turn to someone on that channel, on that show, and that person will say underneath them, their name, like paranormal investigator, and they'll have a chyron under there that makes it look like they're a fucking, just a, some sort of expert. And then they make claims where they'll say, they'll say things like, you know, well, Bigfoot's do this thing where they call out in the wild, you know,

they'll, they'll do that. They'll, they'll make a statement where anybody with any kind of the, any kind of skeptical bone in their body will look at him and say, well, what the fuck are you talking about? First off,

you can't make a statement about a thing that no one's ever found that seems like you understand their culture or something. Well, the mating call to Bigfoot sounds like, I'm serious, Tom. Someone would do that on there

and they would be taken 100% serious. And that happens at least five or six times an episode. Someone will make some bold, assertive claim about something. They'll say, well, spirits, they will inhabit a place where

they had some severe trauma when they were alive. They'll say that as if, they will say that as if it's a fact, right? They're telling you a fact. This is already determined. This is 100% proven fact, and they're saying it like that. And there's never a moment where there's another guy who steps in and says, what the fuck was that person just talking about? Because I think in order to get to this place, you've got to first prove a spirit is a thing.

I think we've got to start there. You've got a lot of work to do to even get to the point where you can distill their thoughts. Right. Right. Make sure they exist first.

How about that? You know, I've heard that like, well, a lot of times, you know, it's a spot of the house that's cold

and that's where, and you're like, or it is a cold spot in the house. A cold spot in the house. I have one, it's right over a vent. Yeah.

Or it could be by a drafty window, et cetera. Yeah. But he does go through, Carl goes through great pains to say like, look, if there is an earthly explanation, you are required. If there is a logical, reasonable explanation, you are required to think that first. Right. And you have to do that all the time, whether it's ghosts or Bigfoots or aliens or gods

or conspiracy theories of any type. Is there an explanation that does not require the laws of known zoology or physics or to be all subverted? Yeah. Because that's probably, that should be your fucking go-to. And he goes back to the dragon

at a certain point and he says, if there was footprints on the ground, then now we've got to change our idea of what can exist. Right, yeah. There can be invisible things. Or if I spray paint the dragon

and it's real in front of me, but it is floating, then you're like, well, fuck, there's floating dragon. There's floating things that are invisible. And so like when you think of these human tests and they come back with

that's a real thing. Now you've got to change your ideas. But you should not, and he says it in there, you shouldn't be so open-minded that your brain falls out. And that's the real problem is that we're in a position now, especially in the common culture now, where it's just,

people are just super credulous. They are 100% ready to believe anything. Yeah, well, it's also, it's kind of seen as like a little gauche to push back on somebody's like crystal beliefs or their, you know, why you got to push on that? Well, you don't be an asshole.

Don't be belligerent. But I also feel like, why does that shit get a pass? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And again, I don't think we should be belligerent,

but I also feel like we should not just take every assertion unchallenged. There's a reason why anti-vaxxing is still going on. It's because I think we were fucking tolerant of it before. We were tolerant. We were just like, oh, it's just a few people. It's just herd immunity. They'll be fine.

It doesn't matter that, you know, 2,500 people or whatever in the United States don't get their measles vaxxed. If the rest of us get it, we'll just take care of those 2,500, just like we'll take care of all the immunocompromised people. They'll be fine. Other people will be fine. And it didn't matter as much, right?les is a low low stakes all that stuff but once it starts mattering yep now you realize you fucked up in the past you should have fucking nipped that in the butt yeah i think i think the tacit acceptance of any worldview that does not require evidence yeah just leads you down a path. Yeah.

So we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons. We want to thank our newest patrons, Kay, Dale, Chris, JR, Jacob. The M in Mick is as long as you want it. I love that because I made that person change their name. You have to ask my mom if you can stay the night because if I ask her, she's going to say no. That's all one thing.

That's great. And that's so true too. Like that back in the day, it's so funny too because it worked for all my friends moms like if i came up and asked if that could stay the night be like oh can i stay the night today or i was like yeah sure honey but if they were like can cecil spend the night yeah they would all well they would sometimes say yes or sometimes say no depending but it would be like if if i asked lots of times it would but the exact opposite with my mom it would be first off she'd never say

yes anyway so it doesn't matter but my mom when they would ask me like fuck no get out of here kid I remember one time my mom I was teasing her I was doing something awful and my mom was a beater my mom used to hit me so my mom she grabbed the closest thing and it was a drumstick that was nearby and she grabbed the

drumstick and she started beating the shit out of me with the drumstick she's hitting me she's wailing on me. I'm screaming and, oh, oh, oh, mom. And my buddy's laughing at me because I'm getting my ass kicked. Did she start hitting him? She turned and she fucking went to his face

and she's like, you're next. And he was just like, how? And he just like stopped laughing immediately. It was actually really amazing. But she's going to hit my friend with the thing. Didn't work with my mom. That's all I wanted

to say. Anyway, continuing on, Jeff, Goose, Karen, Chris, Allie, Michael, and Ryan, and the people who upped their pledges. Ian's butt plug. Dear God, please help. There's a hamster in here trying to make me its bitch.

Fuck you, hamster. Fuck you. That's a really long... Remember, guys, if you up your pledge, Cecil will read whatever fits on that line. If you want to make fun of Ian, that's fine. Nora and Kyle, thank you so much. And now I'm going to read this week's. We want to thank

Lynn, a male lady, and it's M-A-I-L, a male lady. Jeffrey, John ain't dead, James, Sarah, Theodore Cunterblast? Is that what that says? I think it is.

Brandon, George, and people up there pledges none. That's not a name. So I guess I don't know. I don't know what's happening. Ian, does that mean nobody up there pledged? Or does that mean somebody up there pledged? None, that's not a name. Because if Ian in the future, if none is not a person, if that's not their thing,

then there's nobody who did it. Just don't put anything there. Ian, you did a bad job. Just say no, buddy, up their pledges. Or just leave it blank. You could just cut it off and I wouldn't read it. That's another option.

But now, maybe there's somebody out there named none. That's not a name. That could be somebody's none. That's not a name. So we want to go through a little bit of email this week that we got. We got a message. This is an image. This is an image from This is an image from J. James. It's so good.

And it's fucking something else. So we're going to post on this week's show notes. It's just an image and then a tweet reply from Jesus and you're going to post on this week's show notes. It's just a, it's an image and then a tweet reply from Jesus. And you're going to want to see it. We got a message from Michael and Michael wanted to talk to us about vaccinated nurses. And there's sort of a big long email here, but,

but we did want to talk about, we did want to mention too, like we didn't want to get across that we're getting down on nurses. No, very much not. Yeah. Very much not. If it came across that way, if I came across that way or Cecil did,

that's not at all what we were intending. No. So I would apologize if that's the case. But there is research that shows that there's fewer nurses that have been vaccinated and there's more anti-vax nurses than there are. Doctors. Doctors. So we were speculating, maybe irresponsibly. That have been vaccinated and there's more anti-vax nurses than there are doctors. So we were speculating, maybe irresponsibly,

but we were speculating as to what might be causing it, right? So here are two different groups of people, both in the medical profession, and physicians are much more likely to be vaccinated than nurses. Nurses are more likely to be vaccinated than the general population, but they are not as likely to be vaccinated as physicians. And I don't understand what drives that. We're trying to understand what drives that. Especially when you work in that situation,

you see people sick with this thing all the time, whatever it is, whether it's the flu or whatever. And we know that it's not just COVID. It's other things too. It's the flu vaccine and other stuff too. But yeah, we 100%. Here's the thing. Tom and I have the utmost respect for people in the medical profession, period.

Utmost respect. They do a hard job. They do a difficult job. They go through a lot of training and a lot of school to do that job. And so I have the utmost respect for them. And if that would come off any differently, I don't want it to. I'm not trying to be a dick. So trust me, I'm not trying to be a dick at all. This was super interesting, Tom.

We got a message. And this is from this person. I'll just call him Chris. They're a mathematics person. And they know a lot about math. They're a math professor. They're a math professor. And they said, they were listening to the podcast

and we were talking about last week and Tom and I were saying, yeah, if you're in Idaho, there's a four in 10 chance a person who walks down the street could be not vaccinated. And that's what we're talking about. Yeah, so this is actually,

I want to just go and read the math here. Here's one way to think about it. Since 40% of the population is vaccinated, 60 this is actually, I want to just go and read the math here. Here's one way to think about it. Since 40% of the population is vaccinated, 60% is not. When you have two different people together, you multiply these percentages as decimals, then reconvert to percentages. So since person A has a 0.4% chance of being vaxxed, and so does person B. The chance that they are both vaxxed and therefore neither are vaxxed is 0.4 times 0.4 or 0.16, 16%. This means there is only a 16% chance that you walk up to two random Idahoans and both of them are vaccinated. This forces you then to realize that you have an 84% chance that at least one of them is not vaxxed. And that is real interesting.

That's the way four in 10 people are vaccinated. But then you start putting groups of people together. Put another person together. Put another one. Put another one. It changes things. It changes things immensely. And not in a good way, as it turns out in this case. It's so, when I read this, I was just like,

it was one of those moments where you're just like, because I don't do statistics. I'm not a statistical guy. It doesn't, it doesn't work in my brain very well. And this was a great email. Thank you so much. So yeah,

very, very important. Last line too. He says, moral of the mathematical story, stay the fuck out of Idaho. I think intuitively you can just say that, but yeah,

mathematically now you just proved it. It's nice when you quantify how much you don't want to be of Idaho. I think intuitively you can just say that, but yeah, mathematically now you just proved it. It's nice when you quantify how much you don't want to be in Idaho. QED. Thank you very much. I don't even know

if you do that for math problems. I know you do it for philosophy stuff. Let's see. So, we got a message and this is a,

there was a story we didn't cover this week, but people stepping away from vaccines and saying they want to be religious exempt from vaccines because of fetal use, this hospital in Arkansas is basically saying, look, okay, well,

you've got to fill out this form that says you're not going to use Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, Aspirin, and Tums because they were all found out based on this technology. Right, yeah. So So that technology is, is repetitive use of the same cell. So like, it's not like a brand new abortion for every research project.

Just squeeze one. Right. We have to milk a new abortion. They don't have a fucking juicer. They're sticking fucking babies in. But anyway, so it's really, I think it's a really great way to say,

are you sure? Right. Because you got to swear off this other stuff. And if I see you taking a fucking Tylenol, now I know you're fucking lying to me. Now you're full of shit. And so I think that's a really important piece that people seem to forget is that,

you know, we need to push these people when they say something, I'll take you at your word, but now I'm going to make sure you don't use anything else either. That's based on this. First off, we got a message.

This is from Kim. Kim sends in a long message and she says she found us through SGU. I have no idea how that would work. How is that possible? I don't know how that's possible.

Anyway, they're going through, they're talking about some, you know, some bourbons. We talk about bourbons on the show, on the live streams. They're watching the live streams and they're saying,, they're talking about some, you know, some bourbons. We talk about bourbons on the show, on the live streams. They're watching the live streams

and they're saying, I'm on the hunt for a good Xmas gift for my bourbon loving significant other. I think I found some blends, but there are some options that range from 99 to 250. Can you say anything about or recommend this single barrel?

Can you tell me if the price seems right? I have no idea what I'm doing with bourbons. Okay, here's the thing. Blands is very, it's one of doing with bourbons. Okay, here's the thing. Bland's is very, it's one of those scarce bourbons now because of the bottle. The bottle's a very distinct bottle. It's been in John Wick.

It's been in Justified. It's been on TV. A lot. And so it's been used a lot. And so people buy it now because they recognize the bottle. It's also a fucking money bourbon. It's my very favorite bourbon.

It's fucking amazing bourbon. It's terrific. It's really genuinely an excellent all-around bourbon. I don't think you go wrong buying a bourbon, a Blanton's regular bottle for $99. I would have spent $80 for it before in the city myself in Chicago.

I used to go for $60 in the bourbon. If you can find it now, $100 might be a pretty okay deal because it's getting more scarce. Now, if they're just selling a regular no specialty anything for $250, that's a little too expensive. But I will say this,

if it's like some special Vintners blend that only like they barrel aged it longer or it's from a very small batch or something. I don't think you're going to go wrong buying a $250 bottle of Blanton's as long as you find that price in other places. I would price check it somewhere else to make sure.

But that fucking bottle, if it's like a special batch of Blanton's is probably fucking amazing. Yeah, I've never even heard of that, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Yeah. It means that I want to find out about it. Yeah.

But anyway, I would, if you're paying two 50 for a regular bottle of Blanton's, you're getting too much. That's too much. Yeah. You're absolutely getting, you're getting taken.

Uh, so Mike sends in a message and Mike says he's been listening since episode 27. How amazing. And he says, I was coming out of the restaurant at Petco and I overheard one of the employees hang up the phone and a customer laughing

saying someone just called and asked about ivermectin and pilform. At Petco. We got an awesome image from Diego. We're going to try to see if we can make a shirt.

Love it, Diego. We got to contact our shirt folks. He made this awesome Mario Brothers. I'll post it on this week's show notes. If Ian remembers to post it,

we'll post this image. It's a Mario Brothers image of the two of us and it's super cute and amazing. It's adorable. So, well,

thank you, Diego, for making it. We're going to probably make a shirt out of it and you won't see any of that money. I'm just letting you know. You won't see a dime of it.

So, we got a message from Aaron. He says, talking about people being lazy about vaccines here in Wyoming. He said, above Colorado, below Montana, and flaked by Idaho on the left and Nebraska and South Dakota on the right, by the way. Thank you.

Thank you. No, that helps. It genuinely helps. He says, the state government has started doing giveaways about lotteries and lotteries for getting vaccinated you can win I guess a few hundred bucks a switch or one of three or four different guns

that's the most Wyoming fucking solution to the problem you could have a toy or a gun that's amazing it's so good anyway alright so that is going to wrap it up for this week or a gun. It's amazing. It's so good. Anyway. All right. So that is going to wrap it up for this week.

We are busily putting away, putting together a 600th episode. Tom and I actually hilariously are both going to be on vacation.

Yes, we are. We planned our vacation around our 600th, but we totally didn't realize it was going to be 600. No. It just worked out. It just worked out that we're not going to be in town. So we have didn't realize it was going to be 600. No. It just worked out. It just worked out

that we're not going to be in town. So we have to pre-record 600. So we are in the process of doing that. We're pretty excited about it. And I'm sure you will be too when we do it. Be sure to catch us

on our live streams. This last week, we reviewed anti-COVID far-right memes. And it was an absolute hoot. It was crazy. We did it for a full hour. Yeah, we did.

Long show. Might not be as super great on audio. We tried to read what we could, but this might be one of those ones you want to watch. So go check it out on all the places where all the streams are. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do

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