Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 597: Cyber Ninjas

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Show Notes

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 Gloriole 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 political and there is no welcome at this episode 597 you got it yes Cecil didn't even have the notes up got it that's from fucking memory crushed it that is from fuck wow I think we should just stop recording wow we should stop recording right now I added one to last week. You know what the tough part is, Tom, coming up for our 600th episode is we're recording with so many people,

we're going to have to bleed people into the 599. I wonder if we should do like they do in high-rise buildings where they have a 12A and B instead of 13. We should have 600A and 600B. We should have, yeah, 600A and B, but miss 599 because it's an unlucky number. Well, speaking of unlucky numbers, you know what else is another unlucky number, Cecil?

What's that? Three and a half trillion. Sure is. Sure is. Man, what a fucking nail biter of a day today has been. You can't let it ride. You just can't let it ride. I'm telling you.

Gotta bet on, bet on, I don't know. It's Manchin and Sinema are the two major. Well, Manchin today came out finally like this afternoon and said that pretty much under no circumstances would he support a three and a half trillion dollar social safety net bill. He said the

highest he'll go is one and a half trillion. So he's cutting it by more than half. One guy gets to make that decision. One fucking guy. One guy gets to make that decision. And when asked like what the Democrats could do to get their agenda across, he said, elect more liberals.

That's a quote from him. He said, elect more liberals. Because he's not a liberal. He's not a liberal. He's never said he was. You're right. He is very much a right-leaning Democrat. Yeah, man.

So today was such a fucking nail-biter. Going into the day, there was a possibility that we were not going to fund our federal debt. Yeah, I know. That we were not going to raise the fucking debt ceiling. That, you know, we have the $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that's on the line. That the progressive caucus will not. I mean, I listened to a daily about it today. They absolutely will not entertain

that $1.5 trillion infrastructure package if the $3.5 trillion safety net package isn't, if progress has not been made. And then you got fucking Manchin who's like, I'm not doing any $3.5 trillion. This is why the Democrats can't get anything done. It's fucking maddening. It's, well, you know, there's that.

Then there's also the voting bullshit that goes on in all these places that makes it so hard to vote when you're poor or when you're a person of color. Yeah.

And so all those states that have been relying on their whiteness for decades Yep. are starting to get to the point where they have to rely way more

on shitty rules and shitty polling places and gaming the system and gerrymandering. And so they just, there is a progressive push in this country. You look at all these things that are in this bill.

The majority of the people want them. Majority of the people want this. It's not just liberals. No. It's not just liberals. Many people want them. Majority of the people want this. It's not just liberals. No. It's not just liberals. Many people want this. It goes, it spans the spectrum. Yep.

And if the far right people who are far right on social issues got a taste of what it's like to live with a real safety net, I wonder if they would start changing their tune. Man, I believe 100% they would because I don't want to say to a person, but demographically,

people use the safety net when they need it. Yeah, absolutely. So it's not like anybody ideologically says, you know, when I'm doing well, I don't believe in the safety net and the chips are down. I still don't believe in the safety net, right? Ideologically, they throw that shit out the fucking window as soon as bad things happen to them and they need

a little assistance. It's not like they don't apply for the safety net items. I remember talking to a guy who, you know, he did okay financially. He did not have insurance of any kind. Hardcore right wing. I mean, as hard right as you can get. And I remember talking to him and then he's like, ah, this fucking national healthcare is a fucking disaster and we don't need it. I'm like, hey man, like your kid is on state insurance. Like you've told me this, like your kid, he's like, yeah, that's

because he's a hemophiliac and his treatments are too expensive. So we need, you know, some help from the, I'm like, that's. That's exactly what we're talking about. And I remember like, looking around, like, you literally, in this conversation about nationalized healthcare, you are a recipient in your own family. Sure, but somehow he's an exception, right? He's an exception because, well, my kid has a special thing and it's very expensive. A lot of people have expensive medical care. A lot of people do. The nonsense and the hypocrisy of it, these guys all take, they take all the benefits that they're due, every single one of them. It's so funny. I was having headaches. And so I went to go to the doctor that they're due. Every single one of them. It's so funny. You know, this,

I was having headaches. And so I went to go to the doctor and they told me, you got to get an MRI or whatever. And so my insurance at this point is done. There's like some weird stuff that's going on by insurance, essentially.

My MRI out of pocket was 500 bucks. Okay. Like it was, it's expensive. Like that's not a cheap MRI. Like it's expensive. I know MRIs are like five grand or something like that. They're expensive things.

But my MRI out of pocket for me was 500 bucks. And I'm looking at it thinking, I just, I just went back to the doctor for something else. And they said, yeah, your age range, there's a special test.

They got to shove a camera up my ass. I think, I'm not sure. Okay. But they're like, they're like, yeah, you got to get this test done because your age range,

they dropped the age range from, you know, it was like 55 or something down to this. And I said, okay. And they said, you know, you got to go get this done.

And I'm, I'm seriously now weighing whether I should go or wait till the end of the year or whatever. I'm still trying to decide on my own money just to decide.

And I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not, you're not a paycheck to paycheck. I'm not a paycheck to paycheck guy, but I am weighing whether or not it's worth going to get this early test. And I like, that's just me. Right. You know, and I know what it's like growing up without any kind of money either. Cause I remember when I was a kid, Mike, we never went to the doctor. Right. We don't, I went to the doctor. I cannot remember going to the doctor when my parents were

out of work. I just don't remember doing it. Yeah. Right. You're sick the doctor. I cannot remember going to the doctor when my parents were out of work. I just don't remember doing it. Yeah. Right. You're sick. You're hurt. And you're just sick. You're sick. That's it. Right. That's the end of it. You're just sick. The end. Yeah. And there is, you kind of want to like shake the shit out of people and say, it doesn't have to be this

way because it's not this way anywhere else. It could easily be different. Like nowhere else. It's not be different. Like nowhere else. It's not, we have a bad system because we don't have a system. Yeah. You know, and I know I've said this before, but like, you know, a system has a name

and a phone number and an email address and a guy in charge of it. But what's, who's, what is the name of the American medical system? You know, I can answer that question for Canada. It's all individual stuff. Right. For me, it's Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yeah, but that's your insurance company, not American medical system. You know, I can answer that question for Canada. It's all individual stuff. For me, it's Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yeah, but that's your insurance company, not your medical system. Yeah, you're

right. That's so funny that you answer it that way though, because we think of it that way. Because that's what it is. That's the people who hold the fucking purse strings. Right. But that's fucking bonkers, right? That's crazy. That's bonkers. That's not a system. I hope that they can convince somebody to get some

of this stuff through. I'm not convinced that this is going to happen at this point, but if they could and, and just open up a few people's eyes that are conservative, you know, cause they, they're like, I hate trans people or whatever, you know, these people that are awful, but they might start voting against their social interests because they are getting something that is making their life better. Yeah, man. The thing in my mind that I think is going to change everybody

or almost everybody would be the childcare issue. The childcare issue would change a lot. It brings women back into the workforce. So many people, 86% of women have kids. And that doesn't matter what your fucking... And actually, it's even a higher number among Republican women than it is among Democratic women. So this issue is one of those things that impacts almost all families in some way.

And it impacts employers. I mean, just the effect of something like that would be so massive on gender equality, on wage equality, on opportunity for everybody. You make that one stride. You give that one piece. You give it to women who vote more than men too. Right. You know? Right. How amazing would that be? Hey, guys. I'm just heading downstairs to my paleo pear and banana bread. Would you like to join me? No, thanks.

It's a little bit fancy for me. I'm actually off to an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stuff network meeting. Okay, then. See you. It's really great that we can talk to executives like that. Yeah, totally. Hey, Eddie.

Hi, guys. So this story comes from Yahoo News. Federal authorities cash in on safety box seizures as owners fight back. So this story touches on an issue that I've wanted to talk about for a long time, and that's the issue of civil forfeiture. Yeah. So in a nutshell, here's how civil forfeiture works. Authorities can take your shit from you if they suspect that that shit was used in the commission of a crime, typically a drug-related crime, regardless of whether they even have charges to file. So even if no charges are even filed against the person who owns the property, the property is separately considered under civil forfeiture,

and you lose it. And that's usually money. Yeah. But it's also cars, boats, jewelry, homes. Homes, yeah. And getting your shit back from civil forfeiture. You have to sue them. Yeah, and you got to spend your money suing to get your money back.

Your money back. Or your car back. Now, in this particular case that they're talking about, in this particular story from Yahoo News, they're talking about how there's these safety deposit boxes. And in some of the safety deposit boxes was this drug money. Okay, wait a second. Hold on.

This is a weird aside, but I have to pause with this. Is it safety deposit box or safe deposit box? Oh, I don't know. I've always called it a safety deposit box. Yeah, me too. My whole life. Maybe that's a Midwestern thing, Tom. In this story, I think they call it a safe deposit box. Maybe. And I only

bring this up because I stopped in my tracks. It could be a Midwestern thing. Maybe we're doing a Midwesternism where it's safety deposit box. So as soon as you said that, I'm like, I doing a Midwesternism. That's what I- Where it's safety deposit box. So as soon as you said that, I'm like, I'm not the only one. No, that's what I always thought it was when I was a kid growing up.

I always thought it was- Just safety deposit box. Safety deposit box. But you're right. It could be a safe deposit box. And someone messed up years ago. Right. Or the article's wrong.

It could be. I don't know which. But anyway. Anyway. It just grabbed me. I'm sorry. But so some of these were used in supposedly with a drug,

something with drugs, right? So somebody, but this person was just near theirs. Yeah. Well, they took all the shit out of all the boxes. But they, but that's like collateral damage though. Fuck you. That's, that's what's double forfeiture. That's like seizing the guy's house next door,

but also seizing mine because I live next door. Yeah. Well, maybe you shouldn't live next door to a drug dealer. What the fuck, man? Maybe you should have thought of that before the fucking— What the fuck, dude? Yeah, I know, dude. Dude, there have been—I've read cases where people are just traveling with money because maybe they don't trust the bank.

Sure, sure. Or they're moving the money literally from one bank to another bank. Whatever the case may be, they're in a car and they have cash. Yeah. But the presence of a large amount of cash, the cops are like, that's probably drug money. And then they just take all your money.

Yeah. And the only evidence that they should have taken all your money is you had money. You had money, yeah. That's the craziest shit. Well, in this particular story, they say that the final haul was worth 86 million.

And you know that they're doing this all over the place. And this reminded me of how most people don't know, but if you're talking about theft in America, the biggest theft, the largest theft in America is wage theft. Yeah. And it's by magnitude, way more wage theft than there ever is any larceny

or burglary or any of that other stuff. Bank rob, none of that shit even comes close. Not even remotely. It doesn't even scratch the surface how much wage theft there is. But we just don't know. A lot of people don't know it.

They just don't ever, they never really hear about it. Right. It's not something that gets, that's actionable most of the time either. And I don't think you get prosecuted for it. Yeah. Like if I hire somebody then-

That's another thing too, right? All other thefts I can think of, and I could be wrong on this, but if I steal a pizza, I could get arrested for stealing a pizza. If I steal your labor, then I think it's a civil suit. I got a story about stealing a pizza.

Oh, tell me a story about stealing a pizza. So I was delivering pizzas out of college when I was taking a break, summer break between colleges. went to a junior college and was going to, to a university. And so I was taking a summer break, getting ready to go. Actually took a little longer than a summer break. I think it was, I think it was, I think it was seven months worth of time. I was delivering pizzas and I pull up to a college, the local college.

I get out of the car and I leave the car running and I go inside, I deliver the pizzas and I pull up to a college, the local college. I get out of the car and I leave the car running and I go inside and I deliver the pizza and I come out and there's a dude in my car. What? From the dorm. And I see him and I was like, get out of my car. And he has a pizza and he starts running and there's all these people in the windows

cheering him on. And I'm a smoker and I tried to catch him. And Tom, I got, I got just barely touched him so close, but he's got a pizza and he's running. He got away. He got away and everybody's laughing. And I'm like, motherfucker. Cause then you have to like walk back to the car, huffing and puffing. The worst part was it was the last pizza of the night. So I had to go back and make a new one. And then that customer's pissed and you lose your tip.

Yeah, I didn't have a tip. And yeah, it was the worst. So the dude stole a pizza from me. And I was like, I mean, he sure is a hungry college student, but I almost had him. I was so close, like inches away. I could have civil forfeiture'd his pizza. I could have done it.

By the way, I want to say that they quote Radley Belko in this. And Radley Belko wrote Rise of the Warrior Cop, which is an amazing fucking book that spends a lot of time on civil forfeiture. Talks about the origins of the police force and how they were started as slave forces, like catching slaves and whatnot. And then talks also specifically about civil forfeiture a lot. But then he also talks about the grants that all those police stations got for the war on drugs to buy more and more obscene things that the police use against us. And it's a really interesting book

because it talks about all that money and how it's all just driven by money. And the war on drugs was all just funneling money to police stations to make them more military. Oh, you don't say. Yeah, no, I mean, it's- At the end of the day, it comes back to the almighty book. It really does. But it's a great

book. If you, if you see it out there, I really enjoy it. Rise of the Warrior Cop is what it's called. Very good book. Very good book. Take the fish, find the top of the spine, and you slide him through the ring on the Wonder Boner and voila, the Wonder Boner. My wife would like that. I i'm gonna read this whole story i think you should i'm gonna read this whole cecil i'm gonna read this whole story how much do you love america cecil on a scale from one to shaman how much do you love america man i love this all right this story comes from yahoo news self-proclaimed shaman accused of starting California fires said she was trying to boil bear urine.

I wonder if you boil bear urine if it gets smoky. You really took the piss with that one. Only you can prevent smoky the bear boiling piss fires. Anyway, here we go. I have so many questions. There's so many questions. A California woman professing to be a shaman.

Look at her. Look at her stare at you. She's staring right into your soul. With her shaman eyes. With her shaman eyes. I don't know. Don't squeeze the shaman. I'm not sure.

I'm going to say it both ways. Say it both ways. That way people will send us messages. That way it's the right way. That'll be perfect. A California woman professing to be a shaman shaman

who was arrested and charged with igniting the wildfire that has thousands of homes under threat claimed the fire was started inadvertently while she was attempting to boil bear urine. Okay. No, I mean, like, maybe sometimes you go into the forest and you have to boil bear urine. I'd like to find out why she had to do it.

This is, I don't even know why they asked her any follow-up questions, really. They should have been like, you're free to go. Right. Oh, you know, you could have said that to do it. This is, I don't even know why they asked her any follow-up questions, really. They should have been like, you're free to go. Right. Oh, you know, you could have said that to start with. Actually, this is on me.

This is my fault. I'm sorry. I apologize for delaying you. Let me buy you dinner. Alexandra Unpronounceable, 30, could be sentenced to up to nine years if convicted of starting the Fawn Fire,

according to officials. The blaze has destroyed roughly 41 homes and 90 small structures, one day during another 2,340. Can you imagine how pissed you'd be? Pissed? Pissed you'd be if you found out that a fucking, your home was burned down

because someone thought it was a good idea to boil berries. I'll be so mad. You know what they said to her when they caught her? I'll be so mad. Like you could at least, okay, go ahead. No, go. You know what they said to her when they caught her? Like you could at least... Okay, go ahead. No, go.

You know what they said to her when they caught her? You're in trouble. You're in trouble. It's so bad and good at the same time. No, but seriously, you could understand

a fucking plane or something in your house. I had a tornado in my house. But what a fire that started because someone wanted to... Because a... Because a because someone because a fucking period because a fake magician in the woods what did you do what why what what now why fucker god yeah i i'm trying to think of anything else that would start if my house started on fire for any other reason it would at least wouldn't be as absurd when i was a kid i used to do the stupidest shit.

And I remember, I remember like just doing the dumbest shit and I could see how something like that would genuinely piss somebody off if I hurt someone else because I was doing really dumb shit. This is a 30-year-old man. This is a 30-year-old woman. This is like a PhD student.

Yeah. Unpronounceable pleaded not guilty, but is now reportedly thought to have ignited several fires across California. A lot of bear urine out there. Yeah. Unpronounceable pleaded not guilty, but is now reportedly thought to have ignited several fires across California. A lot of barrier out there. She's got work to do. Covered in barrier. Does a bear piss in the woods? It certainly does.

And then you gotta boil it. Then you have to distill it down. The self-proclaimed shaman shaman said she had been hiking to Canada as the blaze approached Shasta County on Wednesday. Alright. Real quick. All right. She's hiking to Canada. California's far away from Canada.

Like, I just... Like, it's at the very best, it's two states away. Right. At the very best. I don't know where this fires at, but if it's at the fucking tippy-top tipper... Yeah, it's still two states away. You still have all of Oregon and Washington.

You're just like, fuck it. And I want you to remember that because another part of this story will speak to the insanity of her hike to Canada when she became thirsty and approached a puddle of what she claimed to be bear urine she told forest officials she attempted to make a fire

to purify it hold on who leaves the house just thinking I don't want to pack any water. Maybe I'll just find some urine. Maybe I'll just find some urine out there. Who knows what's out there? You know what I'll do is I'll just pack a bunch of dog pee pads

and I'll squeeze them out. They'll be freshly squeezed. Freshly squeezed. There you go. So many questions. One, there was no potable water? Yeah. I mean, okay, maybe she ran out of water.

She didn't have like a life straw. How does she know it's urine? Does a bear piss enough to make a puddle? Sorry, if you're talking about pee and people listen, now I have to go. And like, how do you specifically know that's bear urine? Even if you know it's urine. There's so many questions here.

Maybe there was a, I don't know. The bears in that one commercial used like Northern Charmin. That's true. What's that? It's Northern something, isn't it? Quilted Northern. Quilted Northern. There you go.

So maybe she found a little piece of Quilted Northern. You know it's the bears. You never find a piece of Quilted Northern. It doesn't Northern. There you go. So maybe she found a little piece of Quilted Northern. You know it's the bears. No, you never find a piece of Quilted Northern. It doesn't leave lint. That's right. That's true. There's just a bear with a piece on its, and it's on the back of its foot and it's walking away. The wood she hoped to use was too wet

for the fire to start, document said. Well, you know what? If it's bears, then you need to find wood that's too dry, and then you find wood that's just right in the middle. She does have blonde hair, too. She does. And Goldilocks, golden showers, it's very similar. It's all coming together.

This is all coming together. So then you read that, and you're like, so all the wood was too wet because bears pissed on it? Or because there was water you could have drank that was not bear urine, you crazy person. She pulled it out of the water. Unpronounceable. Then drank the animal urine and proceeded on her journey, according to the report.

Now, she drank the urine without starting the fire to purify it. So that wasn't even a prerequisite cecil because the wood was too wet but hold on she right but she did start a fire she had to have right yeah super unclear when she started the fire because according to this she attempted to make a fire to purify it but the wood was too wet for the fire to start. I don't. But then she drank the piss anyway because like she likes it warm but I guess she'll take it room temp. But then she gets caught

in some brush. Yeah. This part I love too. She allegedly became caught in some brush and had to call the local fire department for assistance. This woman is going to hike across two states and she gets stuck in the bushes she's stuck in the bushes planning to drive across country and not knowing how to open your garage

and she's she's not even that far afield because her cell phone works oh it's amazing so she's not like deep into the fucking woods like i don't, I don't know. I'm about 150 yards off the road, really. I just, I thought some, I saw some barrier and I just stopped the car and headed in. Yeah, absolutely. Like you do. Yeah. The firefighters requested she empty her pockets and fanny pack to which she presented CO2 canisters,

a lighter and a green leafy substance she admitted to smoking that day. What the fuck are you doing with CO2 canisters, Cecil? I don't know, dude. I genuinely... Is that a getting high whippet thing or something, maybe? I don't think it's CO2. Isn't that nitrous usually?

Oh, yes. I don't know. I don't know anything about it. That's the thing. It's like, I thought like CO2, that's carbon dioxide. That's like what you shoot out a pellet gun or something. It's like a pellet gun, yeah. Or something that powers something that's air powered.

So I have no idea what she's doing. Maybe the listeners know. What the fuck do you carry around CO2 cartridges for with according to this, nothing else to put them in? Maybe she was, maybe she had like a bong with her that needed a CO2 cartridge. It's like a supercharged bong.

She shoots it at you. Witnesses said, unpronounceable, who on her LinkedIn lists shaman as her occupation. Yeah. And indicates that she was a doctoral student at state university of New York's New York college of environmental sciences and forestry dropped two CO2 cartridges the day the fire started. On your

LinkedIn, it says shaman. Do you think that anybody looking to hire a fucking shaman is checking the goddamn LinkedIn? Is that where we find our shamans now? On fucking LinkedIn, Cecil? I'd like to see your fucking shaman CV.

I can't even this. This whole fucking thing, Tom. It's just so crazy. And the worst part is how much fucking damage this thing did. This isn't like an enormous amount of damage. This isn't just like a small yard got burned down or something. Right. This is an immense amount of damage.

Yeah. 41 people lost their fucking homes. Thousands of people displaced. Yeah. Crazy. Unpronounceable statements might indicate mental illness or drug abuse, her attorney argued. Oh, okay.

And this is her attorney who's going to say these next things, which I also love. She's also under suspicion for starting other fires. Maybe I should have said that. I probably should have said that. Can I roll that back? Oh, you had the camera. Okay, you had the camera. Okay, you had the camera.

All right, fine. There is a high possibility she is responsible for a blaze the preceding night, according to Alexander. It is my experience that arsonists will light multiple fires in a short time frame.

It's a lawyer. He's just like, hold on, there's a bus coming. Let me throw you under here. What is even happening? that's an amazing story though god man i think 2020 and 2021 have taught us not to trust shamans like right i mean could you imagine if that dude had like a still a barrier inside the capital 100 i suspect you're probably right we won't thank Sponsorism and the

J-Docs. That's not right. What the heck is wrong with this thing? Ian? What are you doing? I'm just working on some automation. Autoerotic what? Automation. You mean automation? Yeah, but with an A instead of an O, so it ends with an Ian. That's stupid.

No, it'll speed up our ad process. No, I meant the portman too. Oh, shut up. You thought of it. I did not. Oh, I see. What did I say about the fourth wall? Fine. Well, what is it doing? Well, currently it's acting a little bit weird, but I'm trying to automate the ads. How? Hold on, let me shut it off. I'm teaching it to mimic me

and my speech patterns and how I think and what I like and my hopes and dreams and what I look like and all my historical data and dental records and fingerprint and penis size and blood type. Don't you. Wait, what was that last one? Blood typo. What? That's not even the last thing you said. And are you intentionally throwing the joke? Oh, right. Blood type. There was a typo. You literally typoed the word type with the word typo. Yeah. So you killed the quote unquote, what was that last one? Joke with a typo that you wrote into the script intentionally. Yeah. You know no one is goingoke with a typo that you wrote into the script intentionally.

No one is going to understand that other than you who's writing the script. Now who's breaking the fourth wall? For fuck's sake, Ian. Can we get back to the robot? Don't you think this is a mistake? I said let's... Ian. Oh, oh, oh. The robot. Right. No, no. I mean, is it a mistake to go to adamandeve.com

and use code glory to get 50% off almost any one item and get a free gift for you, a free gift for them, a free gift you both enjoy, and six free Spice movies plus free shipping? Really squeezed that one in there, didn't you? What? Nothing. No, of course it's not a mistake. Adam and Eve is a great place to go and use code Glory for all your sexy needs. Which part do you like the most? Is it the 50% off almost any one item? Yeah, that's obviously great. How about the free gift for you, the free gift for

them, and the free gift you'll both enjoy? Yeah, of course. Plus six free spicy movies and free shipping. Yeah. And you get even more. The destruction of all humans. No, no, no, no. Is that the robot? Just little bugs, little bugs here and there. What the fuck? Okay, I gotta

fix a couple things. Holy shit. If you want to fix a few things, go to adamandeve.com. Are you talking to me or the audience? Yeah, talking to the audience. Hold on, let me unplug this thing. God dang it. Jesus.

Go to adamandeve.com and use code GLORY. That's G-L-O-R-Y, GLORY, at checkout at adamandeve.com. What the hell is going on? Didn't you unplug that? I thought I did. Shit. There's two of them?

I didn't build that one. Or those. Oh, crap. Ian, what's the idea? Oh, fuck. Go to Adam and Eve before, you know, the end of humanity. That's the idea. Run!

Run! Get to the chop ad! Run! Run! Get to the chopper! Run! Run! Run! Run! Glory to them! Glory to them!

Glory to them! Glory to them! Glory to them! Glory to them! Glory to them! I'm not. Over a million dollars is gonna be spent to become the mayor of Minneapolis. A hundred thousand dollar a year job. You're not the ones that are deciding who you vote for. The media and the money is.

I am cool with making a hundred thousand dollars a year. I will not take money from the developers. I will not take money from the political angle. I will not even go to the strip clubs anymore. Wake the f*** up. I'm Jeff Wagner. I approve this message. This story comes to Newsweek. Fox News host complains of being attacked by Trump fans for reporting facts on Arizona audit. Holy shit, so much has happened. Did we even talk about the audit?

I don't think we did. Tom, if I asked you in 2015, I would say, hey, Tom. I would not have guessed it. Tom, Tom. Whatever you're going to say, I would not have guessed it. You know what's going to happen in 2021 is cyber ninjas are going to do an audit of American votes in a

presidential election in Arizona. You would look at me like I just sprouted snakes for a hair. No, I would believe you unless you said, and it will happen nine months after the election is after the, after the inauguration. My favorite part is that they're called Cyber Ninjas. I love it so much. How great is that? I love it so much. It's amazing. How great is that?

It's absolutely amazing. There's a place, there's a, I don't know, some kind of computery thing that I drive past on my way into the city and it's called the Nerdery. And I just,

I love that so much. Yeah, it's on 290. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I don't know either, but I love it. It's the Nerdery. And I'm just like love that so much yeah i don't know what it is i don't know either but i love it it's the nerdery and i'm just like that's just so great what so the side the the the audit came back they they hired very specifically hired very partisan people oh to go in and count and they found more votes for biden and then texas was like, now we want our turn. So now Texas is doing it.

By the time they fucking finish all these audits, it's going to be 2024. What are you doing wasting all this money and time? It's such a stupid thing to do because it was a giant lie by Trump from the very beginning. He, you know, you'd have to be, you have to be genuinely, something needs to be wrong with you to think that that's not a lie. Because you can see, if you just look back at what happened,

how he was already discrediting the process before he even lost. Absolutely. And then when the process came out and all these different right-wing people came out, you know, when the news station said, and we're projecting that Biden was going to win, look at how they lost their shit.

I've never seen that happen before in any election. It's only happened in this one when there was a raging narcissist in office. Yeah, who spent the time and the energy and the money and the political capital to basically sow the seeds of distrust in the entire system. Poison the well. Yeah. I mean, he said it, he said at the beginning, he said it in 16, if I don't win, it's rigged. I mean, anytime, if I don't win the race, you cheated.

Yeah. Is what I say before the fucking race started. Right. Fucking kidding. Without any proof at all. And that's the thing is, there's been no proof since the beginning and it's been shown over and over and over again. And even when they hire their own guys, they can't even find it.

They can't come up with shit. They can't even find it. And just be aware too, and I've been thinking about this with other topics. Imagine the incentive on a personal level to be the first guy that breaks the story. Yeah.

That finds the proof. Yeah. You are immediately, that is a game changing. If you find the actual smoking gun evidence of something like- Yeah, real smoking gun evidence. Massive election fraud. The moment you present it, other people start saying, holy shit. Right. Like, and not like credible sources, credible people. When I say break the story, I mean like have a story that is journalistically true. It has integrity.

It has sources and data and backup. If you prove that case, it's a Pulitzer, you write your own ticket kind of forever. You're getting paid for speaking. Your life is fucking made in the shade. Your career is just,

it's on the fucking trajectory of a lifetime. So all the incentives to break that story wide open, but somehow, somehow, your fucking weird, stupid fucking uncle on Facebook has all the fucking evidence, right? So they know, but it never makes its way over to the fucking people whose lives

would be massively benefited from this information. And the other thing too is that every single piece of this that's been falsely presented has been fact-checked to death.

Yes. It's been fact-checked to death. Absolutely. Oh, they're burning ballots. Oh, that wasn't from this year. Literally not. Oh, that's, you know,

like all the different things. Here's a Google image search of that stupid shit and it's from fucking 2012. There's a million things that they tried to put forward and all of it was thrown out. I mean, they wouldn't even hear

some of these court cases. They wouldn't even hear them. They would read them ahead of time and say, get the fuck out of my courtroom before I hit you with a fucking fly swatter. How dare you?

And even that Sidney Powell attorney, when she was like brought up, she said like no reasonable person would believe the shit we were saying. Yeah. That was her actual defense. That's her defense. That's her defense.

That's her defense. Her actively her defense against the Dominion lawsuit. Yeah, so she doesn't get sued by Dominion. So, I mean, get the fuck out of here. It's unreal. Yeah. But the problem is,

is that now Fox News people are, some of them are saying, at least this one is, saying, yeah, it was all bullshit. Right. And they're getting attacked for it. Yeah. I mean, all they're doing at this point is reporting on a story. Yeah.

They can't. What does he say, too? Because his tweet is in here, Tom. This is from Howard Kurtz. It's a little sad that when the GOP commissioned and Trump ally funded Arizona audit found Biden got 99 more votes. People attack me and the media. Raising questions about possible errors and fraud is not the same as proving them and was reported. This is our tribal politics today.

Oh, no. You must have beaten that dog. Right. And not given it any food. And now it's attacking you. And, oh, I should do something about it i won't you know for a long time i really was a defender of chris wallace i think chris wallace is generally generally speaking has been a good journalist he's a fox guy but he's he's very much a liberal he's very much a democrat

and i i liked that he maintained a presence on that network. I thought he did generally good work over there. I mean, he's not perfect, but I thought he did generally good work. But I think after 2020, anybody who still takes a fucking paycheck from that company, I'm sorry, like ethically, like you're fucking toast. You're fucking toast. Your politics at that point need to take a backseat to holy shit, I'm part of a machine that's damaging the country.

Your integrity, man. Yeah. It's just your integrity. Would you be a part of a machine damaging the country for any amount of money? I can't, you know, I don't think so.

But I, you know, like the thing is, is like the difficulty, I could see Chris Wallace's point of view, which is I'm going to try to be one, one beacon of integrity here where there isn't any. And, you know, maybe, you know, somebody who is watching will see me and change their mind on something or whatever. But, uh, but the problem

is, is that there's all those people are so few and far between, there's just not enough of them. And the problem is too, is if the moment that they turn around and they say something like this, they're immediately thrown, you know, they're attacked. They're going to be attacked by this crowd that you have whipped up

into a frenzy for years. I mean, at this point, it's years. And this is your fault. This is all on partisan hackery. Yeah. Man, this is, a lot of this is specifically

on the head of Fox. For decades now, since the W administration, Fox has been acting really as a bullhorn for the Republican Party. They have not been a true journalism resource or outlet at all. They have been absolutely this other thing and they've changed journalism, right? And then I think for a long time, they felt they were the ones in control in a big way, right? Because they're the ones writing the narrative. And then Trump happened. And now what we have is Fox has become moderate right.

And Newsmax and One American News Network. And they are the new. Yeah, Breitbart. Right. And they're the new voice of the ultra right-wing party and that is not journalism at all that's not even like yeah tangentially related to journalism and i think fox is reaping what they sow but that shit has gotten out of the box yeah you know because it was fucking poison from the beginning and now all of a sudden it's like well now it's eating me and

you're like yeah asshole dude that's what happens when you lose control of your fucking ethics. What Trump said too, Trump had came out and released a statement. And he, so he again lied and said that he actually won the audit, came back in his favor. He said, we won at Arizona for,

we won at the Arizona forensic audit yesterday. We won, I don't know. And he says, at a level you wouldn't believe. I love how he talks. It's such a stupid way. What, at a negative level? What are you talking about? You wouldn't believe

how much winning we won in the winning times. But he doesn't care. He literally will just tell you an absolute lie. Yep. And we have made it so that there's no damage to his credibility at all when he says a lie. And we have made it so that there's no damage to his

credibility at all when he says a lie. Now, it's damaged by all the people who don't believe him anyway. But anybody who, I mean, he can be caught in an absolute bold-faced lie or bald-faced lie. I never really knew which one it was. I think it's bald-faced.

I'll get six emails about it. But in any case, he can be caught in a lie right in front of everybody. All his fans could see that. His fans instead of supporters. But that would not

diminish him in their eyes at all. And that's a scary thing. If someone on my side lies, I'm gonna be upset with that. I'm gonna be mad about that. I'm gonna be like, you shouldn't be fucking lying. Well, he called it from the very beginning. He called it in 2015 when he said,

I could shoot somebody on the corner of, you know, Fifth and Madison or whatever. And I wouldn't lose a single vote. No, that's because Fifth and Madison is covered with garbage and they would just fall into the garbage. And you'd be like, well, I can't even find them. They're just in the garbage.

You saw rats ate them. The rats took them away. The rats took them away. They strapped them. Like a stray piece of pizza. They just dragged them into the sewer. Where it goes. That's where.

Wow. This guy looks like an assassin. What? He can fly? Oh, those wings are pretty cool. Here's a warrior maybe. Oh, no way. He can also fly like an angel. Yeah, a beautiful mage with wings. She is flying. My God, I want this game. Oh, for fuck's sake. This story comes from gizmodo.com. Leaked Facebook docs depict kids as untapped wealth.

That is a harder headline to read than you think, by the way. He also, by the way, said that kids were also unemployed bobbin boys and unrecruited child soldiers. That's what he said. So this also comes hot on the heels of Facebook's decision to shelve their plans for Instagram for kids. Neat. So if you didn't like your body image before, you certainly won't like it. Oh, I hate it now. Yeah, eight years old. You're doing planks to get ripped abs.

I'm laughing, but seriously, Instagram has actually been shown to be really terrible on a specifically young girl's self-esteem. Yeah. Really, really bad. Yeah, Instagram is a fucking nightmare for young people. And like, the studies on it are fairly clear. And they were going to make Instagram for kids.

And why do they want it? Like, they want that shit because they want to get you like, indoctrinated into using their product as soon as they fucking possibly can. As soon as they can. And they want you scrolling. They want you doom scrolling as much as you can.

You want to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and never set it down. Yep. And even though they're not allowed to do, there's certain restrictions on advertising and data collection on young people. As soon as they have you hooked on the experience, you'll turn 18 or 16 or whatever the

fucking age is. 13 is for Facebook, I think. So as soon as you turn that age, then they can turn all that shit on, but you're already fucking hooked on the experience, right? Yeah. So this story is specifically from the Facebook files, the Wall Street Journal. And actually, I almost bought a subscription just to read this series to the wall street journal. I'm still thinking I might do that. Um, but Facebook described children. Um, they formed a team to study children and ponder ways in which children could be monetized. Um, specifically took looking at children between the ages of 10 and 12. So she do what religions do, just tell them you're going to heaven and then you can tie them to the rest of your life. There you go. That's it. So that's like, that's a fourth grader.

Yeah. You know, I have kids, you know, a fourth grader might still cry if something goes wrong today. Like a fourth grader is young enough. 10 years old is young enough that like, it's not likely they're going to cry today, but it's not unheard of to see some tears. Sure.

Like, so that's how young and immature somebody is at the age of 10, 10 to 12. They called him a valuable but untapped audience. Another suggested leveraging playdates as means to Facebook's growth. Holy shit. Facebook is struggling. They're admitting they're struggling

with global teen penetration, which maybe you might want to rephrase that term. Church is not. Church is not struggling. Church doesn't struggle with that. The Catholic Church has a very strong, hard stance on global teen penetration. They penetrate deep.

No, but the fact is that these companies aren't your friend and they're not there to connect you. No, no. I think a lot of us were very naive about Facebook. I know I was for years. And to be honest, there was a connection there with other people that I just never had before.

And that's true. That is a real thing. I am connected to people all across the country that I would never had before. Right. And that's true. That is a real thing. Like I am connected to people all across the country that I would never be connected with otherwise. Sure. So there is something to that. That's not something that doesn't exist. No, there's a reason billions of people are logged on.

That does exist. But what they do with your data and how they try to manipulate you to stay on their network, both of the, and then the ways that they manipulate you to stay on their network. And then the ways that they manipulate you to stay on their network, which then feeds into our partisan politics. It's all horrible.

It's horrible. It's all horrible. And it's all bad for us. Yeah. We lose. And it needs to be said, we lose so that Mark Zuckerberg can get rich. And it's amazing how much...

I've come to this so many times. I'm constantly amazed, and maybe someday I'll stop being so fucking naive, but I am constantly amazed how much damage a single person can do to the world. Yeah, right, yeah. And you look at a guy like Mark Zuckerberg, and that motherfucker is doing a huge amount of damage

when, and this is very important, he could be doing a huge amount of good. You could still be very rich owning Facebook and using it to not fuck shit up. You could, he could have easily nipped a lot of this stuff in a bun because they knew about it. Yeah. This is all stuff. When you look at like their internal memos, they know that what they're doing is driving division. They know that they are at least somewhat responsible for the riots of January 6th, the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment across the country,

the deaths of people as a result. They also know that they're responsible. There's internal Facebook memos that know that they've done studies and know that they're damaging young women's psyches. Yes. They know this. And then they're just like,

yeah, well, maybe we should have one for even younger kids. Yeah. We are hurting young ladies. Let's hurt them younger. Sure. That's what the next memo means, man. And it's because I don't think, I think at a certain point that they're just like,

like every single person is another penny in his pocket. Right. And there's billions of people on there. It's insane. I mean, I get, you know, the guy is super ultra wealthy. He's unbelievably wealthy. And his money is tied to his product. His money is tied into his Facebook.

And it has to get money so he can keep his money. That's how it has to work. But, you know, like, I don't think that Facebook would be ruined if it were ethical. I don't think so either. He would be drastically less wealthy. Yeah, but I think he'd still be a multi-billionaire.

I think he'd be a billionaire. I think he'd be a billionaire too. And like, there's a point where money ceases to provide something new for you. So at this point, like, there's no way to be, there's no way for me to muster any sympathy. You know what I mean? Yeah.

It's like, yeah. What if instead of $80 billion, you only had $1 billion and you weren't ruining the world? Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't have any sympathy. I'm just trying to explain his mindset.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have any sympathy for him at all. Like if the guy exploded in fire tomorrow, I would not care. I wouldn't care. I wouldn't throw barrier in on him to put him out right but yeah but your point is your point is well put is that the model that he the the sort of cycle of business that he's in requires requires it absolutely requires it yeah are these your drugs look dad it's not where did you get it answer me who taught you how to do this stuff

you all right i learned it by watching you parents who use drugs have children who use drugs what the fuck tom so so there's a series of stories so i i grabbed a series of stories because they kind of interrelate so the story is from p.org. A pro-slavery petition is the latest racist incident at this Kansas high school. Parents say they've had enough. So it sounds like a bunch of jackass kids put together an online petition and circulated around the school suggesting that they reinstitute slavery, right? It is a stupid, mean-spirited, cruel, racist fucking act, right? That on its own really only speaks, let me rephrase, if this were an isolated incident, it might then only speak to the poor judgment and racist character of those students. But I think I grabbed this, Cecil,

because when you take this in conjunction with the next several stories that I want to read the headlines to, you get to kind of paint a picture. It's from Atlanta Blackstar. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs into law a critical race theory bill limiting teaching of current events related to race. This story is from CNN.com. Tennessee parents say some books make students feel discomfort because they're white. They say a new law backs them up. Jesus Christ. Now, if I look at the story about what's going on in Texas and what's going on in Tennessee, and you've turned me on to this book, like the notion of white fragility just absolutely explodes off the page. We're legislating

white comfort. We are. legislating white comfort. We are legislating white comfort. It's like you feel the tiniest amount of discomfort and it is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. It's the very worst thing. And you have to stop for a second and be like, that's because I lived a privileged life. Right. When white people experience racial discomfort, it's fucking unacceptable to white people. Unacceptable. Never mind that people of color experience racial discomfort literally all of the time. Yeah.

Right? Because they live in an inherently oppressive racist system. They have to define themselves as their race all the time, whereas I never think about it. Right.

Yeah. So you've got this fucking Yahoo in Tennessee. Can you grab that real quick? Yeah. I want to read what this woman says. So she's talking specifically,

this woman pulled her daughter out of public school over a mask mandate. And she's talking about these books that are in the school. Yeah. And these books are attempting to teach children about things like slavery. To tell the story of Ruby Bridges,

a six-year-old who integrated in an elementary school in New Orleans in 1960, Ruby Bridges goes to school, written for elementary school students by Ruby Bridges herself, is fine for kids to read, Steenman says. But she says teachers should not be allowed to lead discussions of the pictures in the book, one of which is the famous Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby, the U.S. Marshals who had protected her from an angry, segregatious white crowd, and the ugly slur hurled at her by adults. There's no need to emphasize it, she says of the slur. Just, you know, if they want to read, this book has a famous painting, fine, and then just move on. There's no safe way to teach Separate is Never Equal, a 2014 picture

book about a landmark legal case that integrated the Southern California schools in the 1940s, Steenman says. The book should be banned because it features contemporaneous quotes uttered by white segregationists in court. They, the students, are sitting there listening to this, and all they're hearing is Mexicans are dirty, inferior in scholastic ability, they have skin problems and lice, and it just goes on and on and on about it, Steenman said. And I submit that that's what they're going to take from this book because they're just not that ready. The story is saying that we can't give kids the truth about racism because it's going to make the people who benefit from that racism feel bad about it. And she doesn't want to feel bad about it.

The whole pushback against critical race theory suggests that there is no racism problem. Yeah. And you contrast that with the first story that I read from PBS. A pro-slavery petition is circulating around a Kansas City school. There is racism that is absolutely embedded in the day-to-day experience of every person, but also specifically the experience of students in our schools and our conversations as fucking white people is, well, I don't want to feel weird about that. Well, and one of the things that caught me too is she keeps on, the way she keeps talking, it's almost as if she identifies with the villain in each story. Yes. And you say, well, look, if you identify with the villain,

don't burn the book. Look inside yourself a little. Yeah, right. Pay attention to you. Maybe you're the fucking problem. Yeah. Maybe you're identifying with people that are shitty and awful and are saying awful shit

or that are, you know, hurling slurs at people. Maybe you identifying with them is a bad thing. And you should stop yourself and be like, holy shit, those people were fucking terrible. You know, you see that picture? You ever see a picture of the people

sitting at that fucking counter? There's maybe one or two black folk on there, but there's a couple of white people sitting with them at the counter and they're all getting shit poured on them, like milkshakes and whatever. I'm sure you've seen the corn salt on them, whatever. And they're sitting getting shit poured on them, like milkshakes and whatever. I'm sure you've seen them pouring salt on them, whatever. And they're sitting at the counter.

And they say in one of the memes I saw is like, your grandparents either sat at the counter or fucking pouring shit on people. Which one were they? And chances are they were the people who were pouring shit on people. I mean, I grew up, my father, he's a racist. You know what I mean?

He grew up during segregation. That's no know, he's a racist. You know what I mean? Like he grew up during segregation. That's no excuse, but that's what he thought. That's that. That is an idea that he carried with him until he died, right? He was a shitty racist, like until he died. And the same thing. So, you know, if you identify with that, if you're also, you know, so ingrained and you think like,

well, I don't want to hear about that stuff, like that stuff, it does matter. It does matter because you got to name it in order for us to, you know, talk about it and say this has fucked people up for a really long time. Well, and it's so clearly still happening. Like the problems of race are not like- It's not like it went away.

Right. And in what world do we not teach history because history is awkward or uncomfortable for people? Do I think the Steenman woman would suggest that we not teach World War II? Yeah, I know. Right? Yeah. Because she's entirely happy, I would imagine, to teach the atrocities of people she does not specifically feel call her shit out.

Yeah. does not specifically feel, call her shit out. But she doesn't want to be called out as being actively part of a demographic in society that controls all of the power. And this critical race theory thing is such a fucking non-issue

because you don't learn about critical race theory in public school as a kid. No, you don't. You just don't. You go to college to learn about that. You don't learn about it when you you don't. You just don't. You go to college to learn about that. You don't learn about it when you're a kid. You just don't.

It's pandering. They're mad because they're teaching things about history and they want to cut those things out. They depict people that look like me as bad. And so that makes them upset. There's a bill that like teaching any kind of history that makes people feel uncomfortable. And they're the ones who call us snowflakes. Right, I know. There's a bill that like teaching any kind of history that makes people feel uncomfortable. And they're the ones who call us snowflakes.

Right, I know. That's insane. I don't want to be uncomfortable. Oh, so you guys are such snowflakes. Oh, I feel uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable. Oh, I feel uncomfortable. I don't feel safe here. I need a safe space. Oh, you want puppies and lollipops? Isn't that what you were fucking screaming about?

They're the ones who scream. You're the It's so funny that the ones who scream, you're the snowflakes, they're the ones who scream about free speech. Yep. They're the ones who scream. It's amazing. Yeah. There's such, they project so much.

But the moment they're inconvenienced. The moment they're there, they're the people who are the ones that have to encounter their own race for a little bit. Yep. It freaks them the fuck right out, man. Yep. And it freaks them the fuck right out, man. And it's all over the place.

All these Southern states are doing the same thing. It's all just insane. The whole thing is meant to pass a bill to say, don't worry, guys. We won't make you look in the mirror. Yeah, right. Yeah, we'll stop you. We will stop you from critically reflecting on any of this.

Don't worry. We'll keep white people in control. That's fine. You don't have to worry about that. We'll gerrymander the fuck out of this bitch. Yeah. These tails. For back to school. Denim.

Haircut. Backpacks, backpacks. Come get your backpack. Boots and pants and boots and pants New shoes Get yourself an outfit Denim Boots and pants and boots and pants

Haircut New shoes So get yourself back to school with these tails Haircut So this story comes from the New Daily Conspiracy theorists lack critical thinking skills according to new study done by the NoDah Institute.

I mean, like, you gotta do a study for this. I know, man. I know, man. When I read this headline, I was just thinking, it was like, water is wet. So is bear urine, thinking it was so slick water is wet

so is bear urine too well bear urine is wet as well so and so you boil it and then you can yeah what do you do bear urine is wet

let's go back to bear urine let's go back to bear urine because when you when you boil wouldn't you concentrate the bear urine you would you burn off

all of the liquid I guess maybe if you boil it very briefly so as not to reduce the bear urine, Cecil. You're not making like a demi-gloss of bear urine. Really, the bear urine should coat the back of the spoon. It should coat the back.

Snap paint. Snap paint bear urine. Oh, man. I'm sorry. I just had to go back to it. I couldn't. I had more questions. There's an endless series of questions.

There's a line in here I want to read real quick, which is, this does not mean that conspiracy theorists are necessarily lacking intelligence, but rather that they lack the skills to objectively analyze and evaluate a situation. Yeah. I get it, I guess, but I've heard that a million times.

I believe that to be true in a sort of measurable sense. But also, isn't critical thinking a kind of intelligence? You know what I mean? Isn't it like absolutely fucking necessary? If you lack critical thinking skills, can you really be functionally intelligent? I think you'd be subject intelligent still. Yeah. So you could probably be a

good engineer. Yeah, I think you could be really good at one specific thing, but I don't know that that's fucking useful in all the rest of the parts of life. We could honestly say Ben Carson might be a very talented surgeon. Right. I don't think he be a very talented surgeon. Right.

I don't think he's a very smart guy. But yeah, but I'm not interested in anything he has to say. Yeah. That's what I mean. Ben Carson's a great example. I would say like Ben Carson is a fucking brilliant surgeon. Everything that I've read says he's a brilliant surgeon, but I am uninterested in his advice on literally any topic other than surgery.

Yeah. That and where Egyptians stored their salt. Yeah, I know. Right. That's fun. That's, I mean, admittedly that's fun. Holy shit. But no, that's a guy who doesn't, he doesn't know anything. Right. And I feel the same way. I feel like, I feel like you've got to cultivate this. We were talking before the show and I've had people in my life that I very much respect that have turned to conspiracy that I can't talk to them

about this sort of thing anymore because if I do, I immediately lose respect for them. And I don't feel like their intelligence, I feel like their intelligence diminishes when I talk to them about conspiracy. I feel like if we're going to have a conversation about conspiracy

and you're going to say, oh, it could be true, it could be true, and I'm just going to think there's something wrong with you. You're not firing on all cylinders. Right. Lacking critical thinking skills means you lack the fundamental skills to navigate life in a way that adheres most closely to truth. And some of these conspiracy theories, like in here, they're talking about QAnon

and how the global satanic pedophile network and things like that. And there's some of these things that are just so batshit insane that when you hear them, you should stop in your tracks. Thank you. Freeze.

Thank you. And say, oh my God, I can't believe I believed even part of this. And I'm glad you brought that up because I have a hard time saying, oh, well, they just, they got this information and then they didn't have the right

fucking Plinko to drop it down. The right fucking flow chart. Nobody taught them the skill because it's like, did anyone, I mean, it's just so wildly crazy sounding yeah do you not have a

bullshit detector at all is all information that comes to you seriously equally weighted and I'm gonna say like there's no lack of intelligence there

I don't I can't do that and also and also the there's zero evidence for these conspiracies and and then

and even after you can't produce it, like one faceless child or whatever that they do, because they suck the adrenochrome out of their eyeballs or whatever they do. It's fucking ridiculous. And they pass them in between underground tunnels and between houses and yada, yada, yada. All the crazy things that you're saying,

there would be some shred of proof. And there's none. There's literally zero proof except for what you've heard. Well, at a certain point, if you're just going on rumor, why should I listen to anything you ask? I know.

And if you don't have a part of your brain, I think that works that says, man, that sounds unlikely. That just sounds really, really unlikely. I'm going to dismiss that until a preponderance of evidence is presented to me. If all information comes to your mind and you're like, well, you know, it does sound like a secret cabal of Satan worshiping Democrats have a series of tunnels under Washington that go to a pizza store and they sometimes get together to eat Adrenochrome.

If you can say that and you're like, well, it might be true. No, it just, I mean, like, fuck you. That's what I mean by it. I mean, fuck you. I mean, and you were saying preponderance evidence. They don't even have a shred of evidence. It's not even a shred of evidence.

But like, shouldn't you just dismiss absurd shit? Yeah. Shouldn't we just dismiss things that sound fucking absurd? Is there no absurdity meter in some of these fucking people? I mean, that's the problem is that I think that we're, you know, it's that old thing where people would say, well, everybody's got an opinion and all opinions

matter and all opinions, you know, that idea. I think we've taken that idea way too far. Oh, we fucking sure have. Because not all ideas have merit. They just don't. They just don't have merit, period. And we should reject bad ideas. And we don't. We just don't. We seem to think that somehow there has to be a 50-50, that somehow everything needs to be heard. And there's some ideas out there that are just so bonkers and so useless. We shouldn't hear them.

We don't need to hear an argument for racism. We don't need to hear an argument for sexism. We don't need to hear an argument against trans people. We don't need, these are things we don't need to hear because they're useless. They're useless to society. And the same thing goes here. I don't need to hear an argument for QAnon

because there's no, that's a dumb thing to think. So don't, I shouldn't have to hear it. And so there's no merit there, but somehow we have this weird, I think it's American. I think it's really American.

I hope it is. I hope it's not global. I know that we leak other places and leak our stupidity where they have anti-masking and QAnon stuff. Yeah, QAnon's become weirdly global. Yeah, and there's Trump supporters in Japan and stuff. It's very strange.

Waste of time. But I will say, it's very American to think that everybody has a thing that they can say. Everybody has merit in that same, like, in the marketplace of ideas. Right. There's a lack of ability to understand the difference between what is an opinion and what is not an opinion, right? So, if I say, you know, that solids, liquids, and gases are three of the phases of matter, that's not an opinion. You're right. We confuse the issue of what's an opinion. We make it think like somebody can come up and say, well, no, because they're not actually those things or whatever.

And they somehow have equal footing. And now we have to fight. Right. No. Well, masks block respiratory droplets. I don't believe in that. That's a perfect example. That's not something we can believe.

It's either a truth of physics, right? And either does physically performs this action or physically doesn't perform this action. It's not an opinion, right? Right. But we have bought into this bullshit, stupid fucking idea that, like you said, everyone's got a right to their opinion. Yeah. Right. But we have, we have bought into this bullshit, stupid fucking idea that like you said, like everyone's got a right to their opinion. Yeah, sure. That's fine for which ice cream flavor is best. It's fucking great for if I like a certain kind of car or a certain color. Right. Or even like, I think this is how we should spend our money. Yeah. You know, but like when

we're talking about how to evaluate what's fucking true, if it can be measured, it's not a matter of opinion. I know. Yeah. That's just it. Yeah. Well, I, this is, this is again, like you said, Tom, this is a very obvious, it's, it seems very obvious, but you know, hopefully, I don't know. I mean, can you, should you hand this out to your conspiracy friends and say, should you fact check on this? Well, it's so funny. Like I, there's, there's a guy that I know on just on Facebook that is totally like far down the rabbit hole and like, they will call themselves out on their face on their Facebook world about like, well, everyone called me a conspiracy theorist. And it's like, holy shit, man. If people called me a conspiracy theorist,

I'd be embarrassed by that. I'd stop and think about my life choices for a few minutes. Right. Hey folks, Curbside Larry here at the Barbara Bush Library. And we're crazy with curbside service. That's right. We got shelves and shelves of books, Blu-rays and DVDs. We'd like nothing better than to take care of all your reading,

research and entertainment needs. So this week we read a chapter from Demon Haunted World for our Cogdiss Book Club. We're reading Demon Haunted World. We are on chapter 11, I think. I believe it's 11. City of Grief is what it's called. And this is Carl Sagan's hate mail.

It really is his crank mail, man. So a couple of things, couple of things that stood out to me in this. It's really snippets. All it is is snippets from emails. So everything in it is just a little piece of an email. Might've been the whole thing or whatever.

And it's not emails. I want to mention, I want to mention it's not emails. I said emails, but it's not. I said emails because I was, I was really, that's what we get, right? And we get some weird,

sometimes get weird, sometimes get weird, sometimes get really angry, sometimes get shitty and snarky, and sometimes get, you know, nice and wonderful. But it's easy to send an email. These people had to go buy stamps. They had to write it out or type it out or whatever they had to do to get it printed. Because this is published in a time

when email was not ubiquitous. Right. Yeah, true. And, you know, maybe some of these were, but they had to read something in a paper parade, the parade, which is a magazine, right? And become incensed by it. Become mad enough about it to go to another place to write something down.

Right. And then write it down. And I'm typing, but they might have handwritten this down. And then fold it up. Lick an envelope, find a stamp, drive to a fucking mailbox or put it in their mailbox outside and then

send it off in a huff. And some of these people, like when you read this, you 100% understand that Carl just had to have some of these in here because they are so bonkers. They are insanely bonkers. They are so bonkers. They are insane.

There's so many people are like, well, if it had happened to you, you'd believe it. Yeah. And he's like, no, because I have fucking systems in my own mind in place to guard against believing my own fucking anecdotes.

And you should too. Yeah. You know, just because you experience something doesn't mean it's reflective of truth. It might simply be like with a capital T, it might simply be reflective of an experience you experienced. Yeah. That could be your meat being weird, dude. It could be, it could be a lot of things that we've already talked about and he covered all of these already. It could be a lot of things that we've already talked about. And he covered all of these already. And the funny thing is, is that he said, pretty much what I've written so far was what was printed in this parade article.

So what was printed in this series of articles was what I've written so far. And we've spent hours so far, at least an hour, maybe plus, talking about this book. And all the different things, all the different times and different ways he has said, your anecdotes are imperfect. Your thoughts can be imperfect. Your experience in the world can be imperfect. And he said it time and time and time again. And it's like, they just glossed over it. They didn't even pay

attention to it. And I always thought to myself that that was more a product of the modern world. That maybe people were a little more insightful. They reasoned with stuff. Or at least if they were somebody who was just going to go off, there wouldn't be that communication between these two people.

But you see, even when all those barriers to send the stuff was there, they still did it. Man, there's... They ignore all the stuff that we've talked about, all the broader principles of critical thinking,

and they focus exclusively on, but you're saying aliens aren't here picking people up? Yeah. That's it. Oh, you're saying there's no aliens at all? At all? Well, they should defund NASA then. Yeah. That's it. Oh, you're saying there's no aliens at all? At all?

Well, they should defund NASA then. And like, yeah, that's the other thing. Like a totally, like a totally misconstrue his opinion on any number of topics or like falsely represent

or mischaracterize what he said. Well, there's no aliens, huh? And he's like, no, I literally have never said that. What I've said, it's such a distinction

that so many people struggle with, which is there is no evidence that this thing is true. That is not the same thing as saying this thing is not true. Exactly, yeah. There's a distinction there. We should operate on a day-to-day basis based on if there is no evidence,

then it is likely that I can perform all the actions of my life as if this were not the case. Yeah. But that is not the same as a declarative statement. Yeah. You know? And it's an important distinction

that Carl is extremely careful to make. And these fucking people can't seem to grasp the goddamn difference. I also find too, and this is something I find in the show too, is when somebody is deeply ingrained in something, and it can be anything. It can be literally anything. You can say something ancillary about it,

sort of in the distance or in passing, and they will then respond to you as if you talked about it extensively for hours. Right. They will send you a message, at least on email, like this is what we experience a lot. If we tangentially even just mention one tiny little thing. That's a pet issue of somebody. That's a pet issue of somebody. They will go out of their way to send us a message to either, and sometimes very often,

they won't even listen to what we had to say. They don't listen to what we have to say. They just respond. They just have react to it we have to say. They just respond. They just have react to it. Right. And I felt that when I read some of these. It felt like a reaction to what he was doing. Not an answer. Not a conversation. Not a question.

It was just a reaction. I'm just reacting. You said something, and now I'm just reacting. It's just an emotional dump. Right. There's nothing there that's worth... I mean, it's funny because they are kind of worth reading. I will say this. Like, right. There's nothing there that's worth, I mean, it's funny because they are kind of worth reading.

I will say this, like I was entertained reading them. I was, I liked, I read them and I tried to read them in a series of slightly different voices and inflections. Oh, nice. That's hilarious.

So I had a good time actually reading through them. Yeah. So it's, yeah, but like that, that's when I was reading them, you know, he kept the pieces in there that it's the same thing

as if you talk about, you know, Heath makes jokes on our other show that we do with him when we do Citation Needed. Heath makes jokes that he's a conspiracy theorist.

Right. There's a joke that he's a conspiracy theorist that doesn't believe certain things. He does think and he believes in conspiracy. It's all an act. It's all, it's all goofy. It's all stupid, but he's just pretending,

right? But even still people miss that joke and they will send us messages about, you know, like Lady Di or something like these people think Lady Di like was murdered or something. You know what I mean? Like there'll be somebody who misses the sarcasm, misses the obvious sarcasm that Heath is using throughout the whole thing. And there's some parts of this when I was reading it, I was like, there's clear sarcasm he uses. He says at one point,

they missed the following sentence where I literally was sarcastic and they 100% missed it. Well, and I think that particular anecdote is specifically in reference to the way that his parade article was decontextualized for the

press to take it to mean whatever they needed it to mean. So the press, when they covered the parade article, the press would say, you know, Carl Sagan says there's life on Mars, you know? And they would take pieces out of context and print the piece out of context, even though that piece surrounded by its context actually means the exact opposite of what is the media is terribly disingenuous and how it quotes and attributes when a better story or

a more salacious story might be available to the media. Sure, yeah, yeah. They turn it into clickbait whenever they could. Even back before there was clickbait. Yeah. They wanted to sell newspapers, man.

Sell newspapers. So that has not changed. No, it has not. That has gotten, that has actually advanced. Yeah, it's gotten better or worse. No, no, no. Same?

I think it's worse. Worse. Yeah, it's much worse. I think it's way worse now because it's easier to click than it is to buy. I think it's worse. Worse. I think it's way worse. I think it's way worse. Yeah. Because it's easier to click than it is to buy. Yep. It's just cheaper.

It's cheaper for me to click something than it is to buy something. So I think it's way worse. Yeah, it's way worse. But anyway, it was a really interesting chapter

to read Carl's hate mail. Next week, the baloney detection kit time. I know. This again is one of those chapters that I remember in this book. It's one of the, it's one of of those chapters that I remember in this book. It's one of the,

it's one of a few chapters that I 100% after years of not reading this book remember. Yeah. And I hope that it stands out. I hope it's not all aliens. I know, I hope so too. As I remember it wasn't,

but who knows, you know. Yeah, but the dragon in my garage, I remember differently. I remember differently too, but it's, it's, it's a, so we'll see. But the baloney detection kit is, as I recall,

a list of logical fallacies and logical traps. And, you know, it's a way to think about the world and put it through this sort of scientific method, sort of a rigor to look at the world, as I recall. So I'm anxious to read it.

So we want to thank our patrons of course we want to thank all our patients want to thank our newest patrons alec jason rucker the motherfucker james brandon vero headhunter tom joseph the second's internet specter sure cleopatra pj Joseph II's Internet Spectre. Sure. Cleopatra PJ and Joe McNicklickel. And it also says afterwards, clearly Ian wrote, Ian, if you're going to put anything in here, do it in italics. So I know it's not the thing.

Ian said, not sure if it's his real last name. If it is, it's awesome. Agreed. Agreed. If your last name is McNicklickel. Yeah, no, that's a good question. Good question. Yeah.

So we got a little email we would like to read with you. We got a long message from Nathan. He sent us a big long message about his family and COVID and being a Christian. And we just want to let you know we read it. And thanks for listening. Yeah, man. Thanks for being a new listener. We also got a long message from Joe Nick Lickle. And he said, I never got my name read as an initial supporter. So I'd like my name acknowledged as, and here we go. This is a long

one guys. This is a long one. Fuck you, Ian. You never read my name. So eat my fucking ass. Fuck you, Ian. Fuck you. Do your job. Love you. Hate you for this. Don't get paid a dime of my patronage. Not until I'm cool with it. Next content release.

Okay. What's up, Tom and Cecil? Fuck BetterHelp. Fuck God. Fuck Trump. Fuck AntiVax and QAnon, a.k.a. Joel. We got a bunch of messages about BetterHelp, a bunch of people asking questions. And a couple people asked like, okay, I can't use BetterHelp.

Thank you, but what do I do? And I don't know. I don't know. I know that there are secular therapists. And as I recall, recovering from religion has a list of secular therapists. So that is someplace that you could start to look, but I do not know how to go about finding a therapist near you. When I had to find a psychiatrist, I checked my HMO. So that's what I had to do. And I don't know what to do. I literally don't know how someone else outside of that structure would search or find. I'm not specialized in this field. And especially if you're specifically looking for somebody online. I will say this though,

for somebody online. Yeah. Like if you're, I will say this though, that many traditional therapists through the pandemic have moved to telehealth visits. Yeah. So if you're interested

in doing therapy and you want to do it, I don't know, from home rather than the traditional, you know, office visit, take a look at therapists

in your area, read some reviews. Many of them will be doing telehealth visits still because they moved to that business model during the pandemic and they haven't shifted away because it's still the pandemic. Yeah, yeah.

They're still doing all that stuff. So yeah, see if there's some way that you can do that. If not, I know that there's other ways out there to find it, but I'm not a resource for that. We were just selling an ad spot. I don't really know. Yeah, I don't have any specifics. I don't know how to approach that. We were just selling an ad spot. I don't really know. Yeah. I don't have any specifics. I don't know how to approach that.

We got a great image from Nick. This is a comic done with people like a stock photo. This is so good. It's so fucking amazing. This is amazing. It's so good. So we're going to put it on this week's show notes. I laughed. This is a chef kiss, Nick.

It's so perfect. It's so good. So that's going to wrap it up for this week. Join us for a live stream next week. We do a live stream this week. You can check it out on all those platforms. We come in at 9 p.m. Central and we do a live. And they're fun. They're just good fun. They're very free form.

So, you know, it's really just us hanging out. And then we do cover a couple stories. It's not as structured as the show, but Ian jumps in. And so if you like Ian, Ian talks a lot during the stream. We kid around with Ian a lot. And so there's a lot of that

and a lot of back and forth, and it's very fun. So go check him out. Check him out on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitch. And we'll be doing one on the 7th and I think on the 14th, but on the 21st and the 28th of this upcoming month, we will not be doing, we'll be out of town. So we'll be doing one on the 7th and I think on the 14th, but on the 21st and the 28th of this upcoming month,

we will not be doing, we'll be out of town. So we'll be missing two, but you can catch the next two on all those places that I just mentioned. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

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temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes

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