Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 598: Idaho's Southern Border

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Show Notes   Dammit Idaho!     Dammit France!   Fill this out        

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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 at this episode 598 of cognitive dissonance. And Cecil, we averted financial disaster hilariously until the middle of December sometime. I know, I know. We can't put it off until the end of the year. We've got to do it in the middle of December. I love a government that's like, you know, we're so effective, we will not create a financially crippling global economic meltdown for about 60 days. What's amazing to me is that we,

the Democrats played along with Trump. Yeah. They had every opportunity to stop that shit. They did. Well, the thing is like, this is like procedurally just banal or it's supposed to be. And like Mitch McConnell

holding this part of the government hostage, this is paying for money we've already spent. So this isn't paying for new upcoming programs. Raising the debt ceiling is paying, the debt limit, I should say, is paying for shit that we've already done. It's borrowing money for things that we've already done. It's paying for Trump. Yeah. And McConnell fucking knows that. Yeah. But he also knows that like, if he can stall this thing, because I think you can only do, there's some rule,

some fucking rule where you can only do like, So many rules, man. One budget related thing using the 50 vote, 51 vote process in a certain timeframe. So he doesn't, what he's trying to do is make sure the Democrats can't use their 51 vote. Not quite a filibuster,

you know, like the budget reconciliation process, 51 vote budget. He wants to try to make sure they don't use that on the infrastructure plan. Yeah. And the way that he can do that is by forcing them to use that to raise the debt ceiling. And if they don't do use that to raise the debt ceiling,

then the entire global economy, not just our economy. Yeah. Right. And if they don't use that to raise the debt ceiling, then the entire global economy, not just our economy, but if all of a sudden the value of the U.S. dollar takes a massive shit, that's the global currency. The U.S. dollar is the global currency. So that is an

economic disaster for the world. So that's how big the fucking game Mitch McConnell iscconnell is fucking playing right now with this nonsense it's crazy because what we relied on for four years was a president who literally would not care that wouldn't faze him at all right if somebody said that to him he'd be like so what yeah i'll just do it i don't care i'll just do it if i can break it i'll break it i don't mind i'll anything. I'll break anything that looks at me wrong. Right. Right.

That was his entire presidency. And what's crazy is, is that there's nobody ever on the Democrat side that's just like, okay, let's do this then. Yeah. Don't like, like, like, let's do this. Fuck you. We're playing chicken.

Let's do this. Let's go. Let's see what happens. Yep. You know, there's nobody. And I, and it's not that I, it's not that I want to see the global economy crash. No, right. It's like, it would be a bad thing. Yeah. But there's also part of me that

wants to be like, man, fuck me. Fuck you. I know. How about that? I know. Fuck you. Yep. You eat some shit once in a while, but you're the same that way. It's like, I'm backed into a corner. Then I'm in a corner. Yeah. And it's like, and it's like, you're in this corner with me. You know, like, we're here together. It's not just me. We're together. Yeah. And it's like, and it's like, you're in this corner with me. Uh-huh. You know, like, we're not here to gather. It's not just me. We're together now. I'll grab your lapels, motherfucker.

We aren't going anywhere. We're in this corner. But it's funny because there's just this feeling of like, like it sucks sometimes to be the good guy. Yeah.

It sucks because you have to be the white hat in this situation to be like, okay, I guess we'll waste that on this. And it's crazy that there's is just one rule that they seem to have that always thwarts us.

There's always like one rule in the black. There's always one rule in the bottom of the hat. Whenever they, like they could draw whatever they want on a thing. And you get- I know. You know, and get to do it when it's not a practice or whatever.

But we always have to have like, we're the ones who have to eat shit all the time. The left eats shit in this country all the time. Mitch McConnell, like, evil credit where evil credit is due. Yeah, man, he knows his shit. Mitch McConnell knows the rules more than like anybody else, and that guy

comes up with creative ways to just rule fuck everybody. He's just constantly rule fucking people. The thing is, you hate that guy. If you ever play a game with a guy who's just like, no know the thing is you hate that guy if you ever play a game with a guy who's just like no I'm sorry

that's not how that works the interrupt comes before this and this spins around this and this goes this way and you didn't tap that and you're just like I want to fucking kill you

I want to fucking crush your head between my hands until you stop talking I know and I was like like the thing is like I know you've never played

role-playing games, but there's always jackasses who play role-playing games who are like what we call rules lawyers. And so they, they know the rules really, really well. And this happened a lot when I used to LARP back in the day and it would, there'd be like one jackass and you'd be like, I'm sorry. Actually, a Minotaur elf that rolls a

D10 can't have magic clubs. I'm sorry, but when I, when I actually extended my fangs, I scared them away with my plus 10. You're just like, I want to fucking punch you in the throat until you stop talking. But there's always that jackass. The rules lawyers are the worst, right? They're the worst.

And that's what he is. He sucks. He just sucks. Everything about Mitch McConnell sucks. So much. He's the worst. So much. I don't even know if he was on my side if I would like him. I'd be like, no, you suck, dude. He's the worst. So much. I don't even know if he was on my side, if I would like.

I'd be like, no, you suck, dude. You're the worst. This is a terrible, the thing is like, even the threat of playing chicken like this has damaged the economy. Yeah. I was reading an article today,

just the very, it damages the reputation of the American governance and it damages the value of the dollar. And don't they fucking always jerk off to that where they're just like constantly, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a huge deal because now people are like,

Jesus Christ, are you really going to like, you're really going to have a fucking like corner fucking cat fight and ruin the global economy? Is that really going to happen? Holy shit. This is a fucking crazy. The zero-sum

politics game that we are constantly embroiled in. Where it's like, alright, well, you know, you guys are in charge. You're going to do your shit and we're going to try to stop you from doing your shit. But, you know, when we're in charge we'll do our shit and that's how that should work. And we'll try to get more people to decide we should be in charge by having better ideas

and that's what democracy will be and now it's like no now it's a fucking blood sport now we're fucking throwing sand in people's eyes and shit pocket sand I don't even know

I don't even know that that's how it ever was right right really but that's definitely not it's so not what it is it's so not what it is now

it's so not what it is it's so so not what it is. It's so far away from at least what the ideal should be. Yeah, right. Hey, everyone. We are live from my backyard where I am smoking these meats. I am making meats now. Smoking these meats here. Our little meat smoking.

It's smoking. So I'm the meat chef. Yeah, someone asked me, do I smoke meat? Smoking meat. Smoking these meats. Smoking meats earlier in the day. Smoking these meats. Just set the charcoal up and you set the wood chips up.

And then smoking meats. Grilling meats. Good smoky flavor. So I'm looking forward to that. Speaking of how far from ideal, this story is from MarketWatch. Jesus Christ, man. Facebook hastily switched off safeguards after Biden beat Trump, paving way to deadly capital riot, according to Whistleblower. So there's so much to talk about with the Whistleblower that's

come out. There's a woman that worked at Facebook. She was fairly high up in Facebook. And she kind of came out and she's been giving interviews. She's been talking to folks. She's been testifying in front of Congress. And she's really been describing in painstaking and kind of terrifying detail the ways that Facebook has known about the systemic problems within their organization that lead to violence and that lead to radicalization. They have known about it. And rather than fix it,

they have either taken no action or in some cases have actively worked to make those pieces worse. Yes, yes. They have not just passively had a system that was a bad system. They have actively worked to make some of the most egregious parts

of the polarizing and disgusting, divisive nature of social media discourse. They have worked to make that worse. And they've done it not because they're probably, you know, not because they're just evil at heart. They've done it because that's the profit line. That's where they make all their money. That's where the profit leads you. The most profit is in them being the most evil. And this has shown time and time again. And this is not by external studies. This is by Facebook's own studies,

who this woman has said, and a bunch of people have agreed, they have a very robust department that handles studying the behavior behind their stuff. So I heard something that said they have one of the most like well-regarded research. Yeah. For this kind of research centers in the world.

Yeah. In the way of they employ a thousand PhDs. Every single time things come back, they're always pointing to how bad Facebook is at doing the things it's doing. Right. Because it's constantly using a computer algorithm to decide things for us that put us into a position where we're fighting. Yeah. Or there's some controversy because controversy draws us.

That's something about humans is that we just like controversy and we really love it on our Facebook wall. It's something that really is, is what appeals to us on our Facebook wall. And so it will push things into your Facebook feed. And this is something we've known for years, right? It's something that we've known for years, but it will push things into your Facebook feed that make you react in some very, very large way. Not just where you're scrolling, you're like, huh, not anything like that. It's like, you're mad enough to write a comment or you're hyped up about it enough to write a comment or love it or whatever it is. They want those reactions from you. And they will prioritize those things in your feed

that make you react like that. So much so that they start to radicalize people. Yeah. In insane ways. We were listening to The Daily today and one of the things that they were talking about

was one of the discoveries from internal memos around Instagram. And so on Instagram, there are evidently pro-anorexia groups. Okay, let's stop. Let's just stop. Stop right here. For 10 seconds.

Yep. The two groups that they mentioned were pro-self-harm groups and pro-anorexia groups. Tom, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that there are those things that exist on a medium and that they know about them and they do not eradicate them. Yeah, man. Because those are harmful, horrible sites that people should not be, they shouldn't easily stumble in. They can only cause harm. You shouldn't easily stumble into a place like that. The thing is, in my house, I would not let that shit fly. Right.

Cause that shit can only cause harm. What I'm right there with you, man. Like they're, they're doing these fucking studies and like, Oh man, like the, and, and the study, one of the things they were finding is that within a relatively short amount of time, relatively few steps, you go from going on Instagram and searching for shit like healthy eating and like healthy diet tips. And like relatively quickly, you find your way radicalized down the rabbit hole into these pro anorexia groups, feeding people's sense of insecurity and all this fucking negative shit, right? That we have around body image and food and size and all this horror, just fucking horrible shit. And they do this study and I'm

right there with you. I'm like, why do you even have this in your house? Why do you have this? And these racist groups and these terrorists, you, the same thing as the fucking, they find out like, oh, terrorists are using this to fucking communicate. Holy shit. If I found out terrorists were using my phone to communicate in my house, I'd burn my house down before I let that happen. They know it and they don't even stop the groups. They don't even like turn this spigot off, but you know it enough to study it. In this particular case, they had every opportunity to stop some of this communication, but they didn't. No, right. And so the other thing that they're doing too, and this is a study we talked about weeks ago, they're finding that young people are having a really hard time with image because Instagram is image-based.

Right. is idyllic and there's all this like people photoshopping themselves and you know there's there's there's this sort of idea that everything needs to be perfect and these people are trying to compare themselves young people especially are trying to compare themselves to other perfect things and you're not perfect nobody's perfect and so when you see somebody else you start to measure yourself against them. And these people are getting more suicidal thoughts. These young people are getting more suicidal thoughts. They're getting more depression because they're spending so much time on these timelines scrolling through Instagram.

Yeah, well, I remember back in the 90s reading studies about fashion magazines. Fashion magazines, right. And the way that fashion magazines made young women particularly feel terrible about their body image, right? And they felt bad about themselves. But a fashion magazine doesn't live in your fucking pocket or your purse 24 fucking hours a day.

It doesn't beep and buzz and send you notices that you haven't looked at it recently. A fashion magazine is, and we were worried about that in the 90s. We were, we were. In the 90s, We were. In the 90s, it was a real and honestly legitimate conversation to be had about, gosh, should we be Photoshopping these models? Should we be presenting to young people unrealistic body

images that aren't even real? Instagram is that multiplied by a billion. It lives, it is instant filters. It is instant photoshopping and it is millions of images unfettered and in constant access and literally buzzing for your fucking attention all the time and built in a way that makes you want to look at it. Always makes you want to look at it constantly. A magazine's a thing you buy and you read and you throw it away. And we had real conversations that were legitimate about, should we Photoshop the models on the cover of fucking Vogue? And those were good conversations. And now fucking Instagram is building a machine designed to make you sad.

Yeah. Designed to make you angry. Designed to make you hit that fucking fucking mash that fucking angry face and type something shitty to your uncle and break up your fucking family. Yeah. Fuck me, man. Yeah. And it, and it's, and it's insidious and awful and it's been insidious and awful for a long time. Yep. And, uh, recently a couple of things. One is the bipartisan in Congress, One is the bipartisan in Congress. Republicans and Democrats are all like,

fuck this. Fuck this. And so there might be something coming down from on high that does something about it. We don't know if it's going to happen or not, but there might be something. Breaking it up doesn't seem like the right thing because then you're making 10 problems out of one. You don't need to do that.

I agree with that. But they can maybe hopefully curtail some of this. But one of the things too that they came out and might be a reason to try to deregulate it or regulate it in some way is the Facebook outage that happened this last week that the QAnon people are freaking out about. I know.

But the Facebook outage that happened, Facebook owns a lot of, it owns Instant Messenger on Facebook. WhatsApp. It owns a lot of, it owns instant messenger on Facebook. It owns WhatsApp. These are, WhatsApp is seriously one of the biggest ways to communicate across the globe. I know. That's crazy. It's huge. It's absolutely huge. People use it for long distance calls. People use it, you know, it's a call overseas. People use it all the time. And, and so it's one of those things that when it went down, that's a big deal.

That's communications. So working on trying to make sure that there's other alternatives out there. This week on my Facebook feed, people have been posting their Discord because they recognized that they couldn't communicate via Facebook during that time,

but Discord wasn't down and they could have easily communicated via Discord. And so that's why people this week are all sharing their Discord handles on my Facebook feed. And so that sort of thing, you know, there's a lot, there's a lot that goes into Facebook and, and, you know, there, there are decisions have always been monetary. They've always been monetary. And hopefully there's something that comes out of this, but you know, these stories that come out about it, this one here in particular with this whistleblower, where they're talking about, you know, there's a

possibility they could have easily switched off these, you know, they switched off these safeguards. It could have kept these safeguards on. Yeah. And there might not have been as much communication and there might not even been a riot because Facebook's the biggest way that a lot of these people communicate. Yeah. They find each other, they form groups, they go on a messenger. This is like what the former product manager, Francis Haugen, this is just right in the subheading of this article. The incentives are misaligned, right?

Like Facebook makes more money when you consume more content. People enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction. And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume. Yeah, I'm happy that there's papers out there, that there's studies

out there that are being leaked that are showing that this is a horror and that people are waking up to it. But yeah, I don't know where you go from here. I'm happy that these things are happening, but at the same time, I'm horrified to see it happen. I don't know what the answer is either,

but I do have to think that there's got to be some level of responsibility. I am totally unsympathetic to the idea that you can host content with no responsibility to the content. Do you want to get high? Does the Pope shit in the woods? I believe he does.

This story comes from AP News. Pope expresses shame at scale of clergy abuse in France. So a study came out, a report I should say, that estimated that something like 330,000 French children were abused. Yeah, by the Catholic Church. By the Catholic Church. Horrible. And importantly, I guess, just to be clear about it, it's not all one-to-one like priests, for example.

I think there were like 3,000 priests that were named as abusers, but there's also scout leaders and other people employed by this. So the church employs a lot of people, not just clergy. So I just want to make it clear that there were a lot of clergy. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of clergy, like more clergy than you could invite to your home, right? A lot of fucking clergy, but also a huge amount of other trusted fucking people. Yeah, lay people and stuff that are involved in the church.

Yeah. And the Pope came out and was like, that's no good. Yeah. That's no good. I feel, you know, I feel shame. The thing that made me mad and the reason I wanted to grab this, and I wanted to, I wanted to read this part of what he said. The Pope also expressed

his closeness and paternal support to French priests in the face of a difficult test and called on French Catholics to ensure the church remains a safe house for all. Really? Like, you have to, in the middle of having, after you find out that 330,000 kids have been sexually fucking abused, you have to be like, I want to make sure that our staff feel okay about it. Your staff shouldn't feel okay about being part of this organization.

Sure, sure. None of them should. Yeah, I do think that this is a big step, though. Of all the things that have happened, I think that him saying something like this is a big step, though. Of all the things that have happened, I think that him saying something like this is a big step. I haven't heard anything like this from the church higher-ups. That's true. Ever. You know what I mean?

And, you know, it's not anything that I think is worthwhile to say, really, but at the same time, like, like, it feels like they've been coached for decades to just not say anything about it, to not admit to it, to not bring it up because it's just like a car. When you get into a car accident, you're not supposed to say, I'm sorry I hit you. Right.

You're supposed to just be like, I am sorry that we collided somehow. These cars now have damage. Call the police. Nothing. No one is at fault yet until a police officer deems it so. Or whatever. But you know, in that sort of sense,

there is this feeling that the Catholic church has always kind of been like, there's a guy, every time somebody tries to say something, they're like, yeah, yeah. And then they're like,

I mean, yep, that, sure. And then they go away. It is regrettable when regrettable things are regretted. Regrettably. Goodbye. And then they go away. It is regrettable when regrettable things are regretted. Regrettably. Goodbye.

And then they run away. Yeah. And this is the first time I've ever really heard from something, at least that I remember. I'm not saying that it's never happened because I don't know, right? I don't pay enough attention to know. But it's the first time I remember hearing anything like this. Which means it doesn't happen very frequently. It certainly doesn't happen frequently.

And so that's a good thing in some ways. I think, you know, there's always better ways to fucking put it. But man, wouldn't it be something though? Because like clearly Marconi-ness is just like, yeah, well, somebody's got to fucking pony up some cash for these poor people. Like this has ruined so many lives.

There needs to be some sort of monetary compensation. And, you know, he's the first one who's saying, we got to do, we got to make sure that that happens. So I hope that we should feel shame turns into let's sell this pulp hat for a lot of money. These people are taken care of. I have no idea if that's going to happen, but that's, that's what I hope happens. I will say the church has a history of purposely making that. Absolutely. They, they go out of their way to make sure that they invest money in weird places and they do all kinds of shit

to make sure that that doesn't happen. They hide money. They get lobbyists to change laws so that they have to cut the statute of limitations short. They do all kinds of shitty stuff. They'll do anything to not spend their money

compensating the victims of their own abuse. Absolutely. But I don't know if this opens up them for more of a chance to... I hope so. I hope it does. I hope it does.

I don't know. But it's one of those things that you're just like, yeah, no fucking kidding. You should feel shame. Of course you should feel shame. I hope some of these people go to fucking prison. Yeah, fucking A, man. That's the other thing.

It's like, go to jail. Get fired from your job. Get kicked out of priesting. Go to fucking jail. Well, one of the things they said was there was something that happened in 2019. There was a law in 2019 that requires all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy abuse and cover-ups involving their superiors to church authorities. It doesn't really change. I say it's groundbreaking.

It should be not to church authorities. It should be to local authorities. Yeah, to the secular authorities. But, you know, I don't know if the church authorities just do what they did before, which is, okay, well, let's just move Father John over to some place in South America so he can't get extradited or whatever.

Yeah, I almost feel like we all have to decide. Like every country, because the fucking have to decide. Like every country, because the fucking church is a cancer in every country, has to make a law that basically says, if you know about it and you didn't say something, you're going to jail. You're going to jail. Whatever the other guy gets, you get a multiplier.

Yeah, because you have every opportunity to stop that abuse. Right. If you knew about it and they could show you knew about it, you have every opportunity. And if you don't do it, you're an evil person. Right. You're a bad person. Right. If you knew about it and they could show you knew about it, you have every opportunity. And if you don't do it, you're an evil person. Right. You're a bad person.

Exactly. You're an evil person. You're as bad or worse than the person who's performing the crime. Because you're allowing it to happen. You're facilitating it. Yeah.

And you're creating a culture for it. Yeah. You're an accomplice. You're creating a culture. You're everything. Yep. I'm not gay no more. I am delivered.

I don't like men no more i said i like women women women women i said women i'm not gay i would not date a man i would not carry a purse i would not put on makeup i will i will love a woman now listen to it i love this this is just fucking amazing this is from friendly atheist priest admits stealing thirty thousand dollars from church and using it for men he met on grinder i just gotta read chunks of this in In 2019, Father Joseph McLoon, which is a great name, by the way. McLoon. McLoon!

Was arrested after allegedly stealing nearly $100,000 from St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Downington, Pennsylvania, which he then used, we were told, for a beach house, fine dining, travel, and paying for personal relationships with men he met on Grindr. Okay, hold on a second.

Yeah. He bought a beach house for 100 grand? I don't, maybe he rented it? Must have rented it, right? Maybe he rented the beach house. I mean, it's like, you went on, you went on that new,

what's that new one that they're playing all the commercials for? It's the new, the new, it's where you could go to get a fucking lodge or whatever. It's like Bear B&B, but with lodges. I don't know. It's the new, uh, the new, it's where you could go to get a fucking lodge or whatever. It's like bare B and B, but with the lodges. I don't know. It's like, it's like out like, uh, places where you can go get one that's like in the forest or what it's like. I don't

know what it's called. I don't know what it is either, but you can, it's like get away to a little, like a little hunky cabin. Yeah. So you could get... Right. So somebody could tape you up in sex there instead. Right. I got to ask. It says he's paying for professional relationships with men on Grindr. Do they come clean your house? Because I'm looking for a maid.

And it would be amazing to have a guy from Grindr come over. Grindr just show up? And just be like, he's wearing his hot pants. Cleaning everything. That'd be outstanding. I'm not sure those are the professional services on offer. So every year I go to this, I used to go to this. I don't go to this because it hasn't happened

in a couple of years, but there's this thing for the SCA called Penzic War. Yeah. And Penzic War is a big, like it's a huge, I mean, it's like a 12 to 15,000 Renaissance festival with a bunch of people from all over the country that are all sort of

part of this one organization, this medieval recreation group organization, SCA. And there's other people who show up. Clearly anybody can show up and there's a bunch of other

sort of fringe groups that show up, but it's mostly SCA people. And so everybody's in medieval garb for a full week, a two week thing. It's a lot of fun,

you know, if you're into that thing, whatever. But every year they have what they call a slave auction. Oh my God. Everybody's in medieval garb for a full week, a two week thing. It's a lot of fun. You know, if you're into that thing, whatever, but every year they have what they call a slave auction, really inappropriate, horrible, inappropriate thing, but they call it a slave auction.

And the slave auction is, and it's so funny because, you know, I feel cringy thinking about what it is now, because you're just like, that's a shitty, horrible, insensitive thing to say,

or even do. But they're, they do it anyway. So it is or even do. But they do it anyway. So it is what it is. But they do this thing where they take what they call a Penzic virgin. So that's somebody who has never been to Penzic before. They show up to Penzic and then they auction, they voluntarily auction themselves off

for an hour of something. Okay. And so they'll come on the stage. And most of the time, it's like really pretty girls who want to take their top off in front of everybody and the crowd cheers and they take all the money

that they raise and they buy beer for this one campsite. So that's what the whole thing is. That's the whole conceit. But there's all these people who get up there and they, you know,

they'll come up in their like chainmail bikinis and they'll show their tits and then somebody will bid 500 bucks and then they'll get a chance to, you know, hang out with the girl for an hour or whatever.

And I have no idea what happens in those transactions. Literally no idea. It's none of my business. These are all adults. So your bid has never been accepted? I literally don't care. No, nobody's ever bid on me, Tom.

But there was one time I was there with my campmates and we were all drinking their free beer. And this guy comes on the stage and nobody's bidding on him, right?

He's got his shirt off and his fucking big furry boots on. He looks like he's, he looks like Raquel Welch from that, from fucking Shawshank Redemption.

But he's standing up on the stage and he's, he's got his like raccoon hat on or whatever. He's, he's trying to flex.

He's a littler guy, but he's flexing and trying to get everybody and then gets up to like 10 bucks and my campmate who's married she screams out

$50 and so nobody bids it she gets $50 she's like okay come to my camp tomorrow at whatever and you know

when he was up there he's like they're trying to sell him but it's like he gives massages or whatever so he shows up at our camp and she's like alright you came

and he's like thinking he's going to give a massage. She's like, I want you to dig a sump hole for us. She made him do chores. This dude came over thinking he was going to give some girl a handy or whatever.

And he's like, well, I'm going to dig a hole. He's like, I'm going to be like, oh man, I'm super small. Right. Somebody paid $50.

Somebody paid $50 for me. Somebody paid $50 for this grade A, grade A Chuck over here. They fucking made him fucking dig a hole. They made him carry water. It was amazing.

Oh, that's so good. That's so great. So they made him wear an apron. It was so good. Anyway, so it's like hazing, but they, like somebody pays for apron. It's so good. Anyway, so it's like hazing, but they, like somebody pays for it.

You have to volunteer to be hazed. Yeah, right. Just silly fun. I don't know, but it might be silly fun. It might be also weird and predatory too. I've never really been involved in it myself. I've only been on the periphery.

So, you know, don't send me your messages. I like to hope it's just fun. I do too. That's the thing is like, like your, your idea is, is that it's, it's good natured and fun and you hope it's just fun. I do too. That's the thing. Your idea is that it's good-natured and fun, and you hope it's good-natured and fun.

But it's just like, maybe it's not. I own you for an hour. That's weird. Maybe it's like human trafficking. I don't know. It's fucking crazy. But anyway, let's roll back to the story. So this guy's renting.

Remember that, what was it, Rent Boy or whatever back in the day? Remember that with the senators? Oh, who was the Rent Boy guy? There was a senator. But in any case, that's What was it? Rent boy or whatever back in the day. Remember that with the senators? There was a senator. But in any case, that's essentially what it is, is he's finding people on Grindr that aren't bots that want to charge for banging. He's paying them money to come over. It said though, he only spent like, he said he admitted stealing 30 grand as part of a plea deal. And he spent 3 um, 3000 on the grinder guys. The rest was on his lavish lifestyle. Yeah.

The rest was on the beach house and the fine dining and all the rest of it. Yeah. I mean, Jesus, Jesus. Like, yeah, it's so funny.

Cause like, why did you choose the priest? I was just about to say, just be a regular gay guy. Like you don't have to do it. Like any of the, like you don't have to fucking stand up in the fucking Catholic church and do all this fucking weird shit.

You could just have a relationship with someone. And it's insane to me that you would choose the one life where... Don't they give up all their stuff for the group? Aren't they like a commune where they just say, I don't have any possessions. We're all just hanging out. And so,

why go for that? If you want a lavish lifestyle where you're dropping mad bank, don't go to the thing where you have to give everybody else your money. Yeah, I don't understand a fucking hedonist priest. I don't get it. Like, what the fuck? Like, you chose to go be a fucking investment banker. I know.

Then you can afford your lifestyle. How can you afford this rock and roll lifestyle? Open up. It's time for the pill. Barnacles. I hate the pill. So the story comes from TheIntercept.com. Merck sells federally financed COVID pill to the U.S. for 40 times what it costs to make. You just, you heard that whole headline right.

A federally financed COVID pill. Yeah. It's being sold for 40 times. Back to us. Back to you. Yeah, you funded all that and that's getting sold back to you. But one of the reasons

why I want to talk to you about this, Tom, is Merck also makes ivermectin. Yeah. Merck also, you funded all that and that's getting sold back to you. But one of the reasons why I want to talk to you about this time is, you know, Merck also makes ivermectin. Yeah. Merck also, if ivermectin was a, a, an actual COVID drug and actually did do what they claim it does and,

and prevents or stops COVID, it would be selling for 40 times what it's worth because they control their prices. They would be able to make that distinction and say, this is effective. Let's sell it for more. But Merck sells it. And they put a disclaimer on their website that said, don't take it. Don't buy this. Don't do this. It's not going to work for you. The thing is, is that all we hear from the other side about doctors and about big pharma and about big hospital and about

all that is follow the money, but they never do. This is a perfect example of follow the money. This is a 100 crystal clear example. They did studies on this drug. This drug is effective. They're hoping that this could be a wonderful breakout cure for COVID, not cure, but a treatment for COVID. And they just Do you have any friends that are Like in the Ivermectin works Conspiracy theory camp Do you have anyone

So I do And immediately when this story broke I got a message about this And what many people Believe is this is just Repackaged Ivermectin. That this is not, that this is like some small chemical change repackaged, it's ivermectin. So why don't they just test it?

Well, of course that they would, Cecil. That nonsense falls apart in the face of reality, right? But that's not how conspiracy theorists bullshit like this works. Like you can make that claim all day, but show me your data. Show me the data where it is. Show me where it is repackaged ivermectin. I'm willing to hear you and I'm willing to listen. Same, right? Like if ivermectin, so first of all, like there are some large scale studies on ivermectin that are still pending, right? So if they come back and they show that ivermectin that are still pending, right? So if they come back and they show that ivermectin works, I'll be the first guy saying, I'm really glad that that works.

That's good news for us. But the thing with knowledge is until it is proven, it is not knowledge. Until you have the data, until the science has been done, not suspected, not tried, but done and proven and replicated and peer reviewed until it has gone through that process. We should not say this does a thing or this does not do a thing. If this drug turns out to be fucking barely reformulated ivermectin, somebody will fucking take it apart and tell us. Easily. They'll easily tell us what it is. What I don't get though is like,

why the extra steps? They already had ivermectin. Why the extra steps? Well, because I think the patent has run out on ivermectin. So it could be produced generically. Like generically? Yeah. So Merck still is the original manufacturer,

but because it's a 45-year-old drug, the patent is out. So it was the original ivermectin came out in the 70s. Oh God. Yeah, sure. So I think, and so there's a part of me that says, okay, I sort of get why you might wonder about this, right? I understand, but wondering about something and deciding that it is true without evidence are two wildly different things. I am not somebody who's going to raise their hand and say big pharma is always on our side. I know you're not either. Many, many times we've seen like the Purdue Pharma scandal, right?

Yeah. We've seen them lie about that stuff. The Vioxx scandal. Sure. We've seen them lie about that stuff. There are more examples than you can shake your fist at. So like, yeah, man, like big pharma, big pharma is fucking sus. That's heavily fucking sus. But that doesn't mean that we get to decide what's true without evidence. Just because we don't trust the people who are

telling us things doesn't mean that we get to choose a different narrative. We can say, maybe your narrative is suspect and I want to see more evidence but we never get to say i'm going to choose a different unrelated unproven narrative yeah and the other thing too is that it's a very american-centric view oh insanely it's insanely because other countries yes if it worked and and here's a story tom yeah yeah Yeah, this story is from Business Insider. Brazil's tragic ivermectin frenzy is a warning to the US, experts say. And this is essentially a story about how Brazil had its own little pill packs

of ivermectin. It's a whole little, like your hydroxychloroquine, your ivermectin, your vitamin D, all the things that everybody is screaming at the nurse in the hospital now that their mom needs when she's on a ventilator. And they're like, none of that shit has proven

to work. And then they scream and then they take mom home and she dies. All that stuff was packaged in Brazil under these little care packs and people were buying them and they were inexpensive and tons of people were buying them and people were still dying wholesale of COVID. No problem. They filled the hospitals. They filled them up. This, this was the government recommended pill package. This wasn't like, yeah, no, this isn't somebody trying to make money. This is the government. You're right. The Brazilian government was like, here's your fucking COVID-19 survival pack. It's full of fucking ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and fucking shaman juice and fucking snake oil. And everybody,

Brazil had some of the worst death rates. It is impossible to know exactly what their death rates are because some of the, from what I've read, there's a lot of parts of Brazil that don't have really good reporting systems. You don't have like, but it's horrible. All

of the news out. I mean, it fucking ravaged Brazil. And if ivermectin worked, it wouldn't have. It just, it would not have done that. It just would not have.

If you're fucking handing out a pill that works against the disease, it wouldn't have. Then it would have been fine. Everybody would have been fine. Right. Right. Or at least a large percentage of them, you know?

Yeah, I mean, all these people, they sold these things like, or they gave them away or sold them or whatever, like hotcakes. They were, like lots of people had these. There's plenty of proof out there that shows that it's ineffective. Absolutely.

There's plenty of proof. No reason to think it works. There's literally no reason to think. And that's the thing, like, you need an active reason to think something is true. Yeah. You cannot passively wonder that something is true. You can't think this seems more likely and therefore it is true. You need to be actively convinced with active evidence, right? You know what I mean? Like there's a big difference there. It makes me fucking nuts. And you know, i mean like there's a big difference there it makes me fucking nuts and you know that the idea that that new drug is is just ivermectin but it's it's it's formulated a

little different is is silly because you have to patent it yeah and so in order to patent it you can't just be like here's this brand new drug and i'm putting something else in there that's all regulated by the fda the fda they hell, they got on the people who were doing homeopathy because some of that homeopathy shit wasn't making it in. That stuff doesn't even work. And it wasn't even making it in the fucking, it wasn't even making it in the jar.

It was vibrating too much where it was slipping down the side of it. And the FDA was like, we can't approve you because your shit is fucking so not, it's not even real enough to fucking, the stuff you even claim doesn't even fucking, it doesn't even work in that, Kent.

So the idea that the FDA wouldn't be regulating this and saying, oh no, that's just ivermectin. They know, they would know. Absolutely. There are so many reasons to know that this is not ivermectin. Yeah. The other thing is like,

if they were trying to pass off ivermectin, somebody is going to grab this. They're going to do some fucking, you know, spectroscopy shit, figure out exactly what's in it because this rumor has been floating around. And if you were to find out,

they would be sued out of fucking existence. Merck would go bankrupt over fucking night. You're selling this back to the government. Yeah. You think the government, you think the Department of Justice wouldn't be like, you fucking fleeced me?

Yeah. Are you high? They're already selling to you back at 40% more. I will, I'm going to crush you underfoot. 40 times more. Sorry, not 40% more, 40 times more.

Right. But it's so funny because like there's so many things out there that point to the fact that it just isn't effective. Right. It's just not an effective drug. And there's so many things out there that point to the fact that it just isn't effective it's just not an effective drug and there's so many people out there that think it is that just think like joe rogan is still you know he's still talking about it man still talking about it it's insane to me that we're still having these conversations and it's and it's all because there's this weird you know like counterculture that thinks it's, I don't know, thinks what?

That the government is trying to kill you or something? I don't know. What's the motive that you're thinking is feeding all this? Because it can't be money. They're making money off the other stuff. Yeah, I don't fully know. You know, there are bad actors that are making a living by talking about Ivermectin.

By lying. So like that fucking frontline at the FLCCC or FLCC, I can't remember which it is, like the frontline COVID crisis team or whatever the fuck it is. Like that guy, that Dr. Corey guy who's the head of that, he testified

in front of Congress. So Senator Ron Johnson had him and he testified and he stood in front of Congress and he talked about ivermectin in front of a fucking congressional panel and he's like, it is a miracle drug. And he talked about studies from

Argentina where they gave 400 people ivermectin and 400 people without ivermectin and none of the people that took ivermectin, none of them got sick. And then they go to find that study and the study is like been pulled out of every place that had been published because it is so fucking full of shit and problems. And like they can't even get the number of participants accurate in the study. Sometimes it's 800, 600. Sometimes there's this many men. Sometimes there's that many women. It's like, it's all crazy. But that's a guy who testified

like this shit has made its way all the way to the fucking Senate. Is there any, can you just go to the Senate and just lie? Is that allowed? I don't, there doesn't seem to be consequences anymore for lying. Does there?

It feels like that's perjury or something. I know, but like there doesn't seem to be any consequences anymore for disinformation, for like misinformation. These guys, I listened to that Joe Rogan podcast. These fucking knuckleheads were on it. Joe was like, oh, it's our first emergency podcast. Get the fuck out of here, Joe. But like these guys are talking about it.

And the one guy even admits like YouTube has taken me off and I make, you know, half of my family's income comes from my YouTube page. And then it's like, well, there's your incentive to lie. Yeah, there's your incentive. You have monetized bullshit. Yeah, if half your income comes from that. Right.

But I think that there is a sense that people have where they want to believe not in the new technology, but that somewhere over here, there is a safe and cheap and hidden drug because people are always trying to pull one over on them.

And wouldn't it be more likely that this thing over here, which costs a dollar, is actually the hidden truth. It's your oregano oil. It's your garlic. It's your... It is.

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Fuck fun. It's repulsive. Isn't it? I must get out of here. I must get free. I must get out of here. I must get free. I must get free. I must get free. I must get free. I must get out of here. I must get free. I must get out of here. I must get free. I must get free. I must get free. I must get free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free. Free I have potato blood in my veins.

My life, it's potato. It's always potatoes. I dream of potatoes. The family thinks always from morning to evening about the potatoes. The fuck is this, Tom? This is my favorite. This is so amazing. So this reminded me, Cec cecil do you remember years ago

the idaho governor debates was it idaho it was idaho because i still have this tab open on my phone i will never as long as i live close this tab oh it's the guy with the with the pork pie hat he's saying that he lives in somebody's basement. You guys, there was the greatest video that the internet has ever produced is the Idaho gubernatorial Republican debate from, I think, maybe 2016, 2018. I don't know. I'll find it. No, I think it was earlier than that. It's old. I think it's 2014.

It might be. You're probably right. It's a while back. But there's like the sitting governor standing there, and then there's like an old, old, old man who had like 19 kids with his Bible. Yeah. Just looking confused and like trying not to wet himself. And then there's a man in like, like fingerless leather gloves and a leather pork by hand. And like a leather vest, a leather vest.

And he is, and he had one of those, he had one of those, if I recall correctly, he had one of those he had one of those if i recall correctly he had one of those those uh those ties yeah like a string tie yeah yeah yeah and he is telling these crazy stories about the time he was living in his buddy like beasel whips basement or some shit and like and i was drunk and this and that and i my lady kicked me out of the house and he is fucking nuts. They're asking him questions. He's not even coming close to answers on them. Idaho is amazing.

It is amazing. The best part about this article, this article is, so with the governor out of state, the lieutenant governor issues order banning COVID-19 testing and vaccination in schools and she is standing with the biggest goddamn smile and what's amazing is it's it's you jumping on the bed when your parents are gone.

This is the biggest like cattiest fight between the governor and lieutenant governor. Are they in the same party? They just don't like each other. They're just political rivals from the same party. So it turns out like

every time the governor of Idaho goes out of town, the rules say that the lieutenant governor then becomes the acting governor. So the lieutenant governor

then issues all these crazy executive orders and then he has to come back when he comes home and rescind them retroactively. He has to be like, he comes home and rescind them retroactively.

He has to be like, no, that person's insane. We can't do this. But like, she was going to send, this last time, she was going to send Idaho's National Guard

down to the southern border to protect our country. That line was so crazy that when I read that, I was like, the southern border of Idaho? That line was so crazy that when I read that, I was like, the southern border of Idaho? I couldn't even understand. What is that?

Utah? What's down there? I was confused. What is even down there? Now I got to look. A couple weeks ago, we got an email from somebody or a message from somebody that told us where they lived and it was like Idaho and they explained. Yeah, they gave us their surrounding states.

They gave us their surrounding states, but now I got to see the thing is guys, I know that it's probably should be embarrassing that I don't know what borders Idaho, but nobody thinks about Idaho. Nobody knows. No, it's Nevada and Utah. I was right.

It's Nevada and Utah. It kind of splits the difference. I literally see. So it was such a stupid fucking idea. I was like, it would never occur to me that she would send her guard troops out of state. There's all these Nevadans

trying to cross the border. They're like searching past. We want refuge. You owe us asylum in Idaho. Who would say that? Yeah, right. Let us into your no hospital zone.

I genuinely want to go to Idaho. I just want to wait until all their hospitals are back open. Yeah, no shit, right? It's supposed to be a beautiful state, actually. I really want to go. I want to go to Montana. I just want to wait until all their hospitals are back open. Yeah, no shit, right? It's supposed to be a beautiful state, actually. I really want to go. I want to go to Montana.

What I want to do is I want to fly into North Dakota, and I want to drive across Montana, because I flew into South Dakota before and drove to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and then to Nevada, back through Utah again and to Nevada. But what I want to do this time is go North Dakota all the way through Montana, hit Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and wind up in Seattle. That'd be a great drive.

That's what I want to try to do is do that. But at this point, I don't want to drive out west because none of those hospitals... I mean, you could get into a car accident. And you're fucked. And you don't get... Nobody's there to help you because they're just full up of COVID people. Yeah, man. Idaho has no room at the fucking end, man. Yeah. Yeah. But this lady is so amazing.

It's so delicious. She's just standing there. She's like, yeah, I just, every time somebody leaves, I just, I just fucking charge a bunch of pizzas. the credit card. It's amazing, man. Also, like she's issuing executive orders, banning things that aren't existing orders. Yeah, right. That's the other funny thing is that there is no, like she issued an executive order, like rescinding any mask requirements,

but there were no mask requirements. There were no mask requirements anyway, and they were never going to happen. Right, it's fucking Idaho. And that's the thing is like, she keeps on doing, and she's like no vaccination at schools. But then when he comes back, There were no mask requirements anyway, and they were never going to have it. Right. It's fucking Idaho. And that's the thing is, like, she keeps on doing, and she's like, no vaccination at schools.

But then when he comes back, he's going to be like, I don't know if he's going to keep that or not. It's crazy to me so many of these Republicans are still standing on the, no, we're not going to do these restrictions. We're not going to require any.

We are seeing a down surge in COVID-19 cases in the Delta variant. But that, I think probably there's a lot more. There's been a surge in vaccinations too. That's the other thing. There has. And I read an interesting article in the Times the other day that talked about how

graphing these things out, and they don't really know why, the surges last two months and drop. And they last two months and drop. And they're not real sure why that cycle seems to be the cycle. But it's about a two-month surge and then it drops. So it might just be that it takes

about two months to move its way through the vulnerable population and then it's trickling. Yeah, yeah. And then it's done surging. Yeah. It's crazy to me that like, there's so many of these people still doubling down even though their hospitals were full of people. I know.

They were people dying left and right in their States. And they are still standing by these dumb. Just, and it's constituents want it and they want it. And then if you read on, you know, on, on these message boards with the people that are,

that are anti vaccination, they all still think like, it's not a big deal. They don't care. But there's people dying like crazy because of this thing. I mean, it's 9-11 every other day. Yeah, it's bad. There's people dying like crazy.

And it's, like I said, it's 100,000 new cases every day. Every day. And it was up to, you know, 100 and... It was two. Was it two? I think we had two this search. Yeah, wow.

I am not a book. i have relationships with podcasts and sex with books and i got news for you that means you a book so tom for this week for our cognizant book Book Club, we read Demon Haunted Worlds, the chapter you and I have been waiting for. So waiting for. The fine art of baloney detection. This is that, this is this book to me. It is, it is to me too. This is the thing. So, you know, there's so many,

I'm sure you've read novels before in the past that there's one scene in that novel that you just cannot forget. Yeah, absolutely. And there's, you know, there's so many of those scenes that I think about when I think about sci-fi novels or fantasy novels. There's those one scene that you're just like, that was a fucking cool scene. That was a badass scene.

This is the badass scene of this book. It is. This is the badass scene. This is the reason for me to recommend this book. Yeah. Like I, I would take this chapter,

excerpt it out and hand it to everyone in my life. Yeah. I want to read this to the fucking kids until they're sick of hearing my goddamn voice.

It's, and it, the best part about it is, is that it's, it's really, you know, to give you a summary of what this is,

is he talks about a few things to start, and they're not aliens. So he's talking about Ramtha. He's talking about mediums. He's talking about the afterlife. He's talking about, you know, in some ways, organized religions. And he essentially says there's better ways to understand the world. And here's how the best, here, I'm going to give you the best method we know to understand the world. And here's how the best, I'm going to give you the best method we know to understand the world. And it essentially is a rundown of the scientific method,

a list of logical fallacies, and a method in which to approach everything. Yeah. One of the things that I took away from this without even realizing that I took away from this. So for the longest time, I've had this idea in my head, and I've said it a million times too, that you've never really thought about anything unless you've asked 10 good questions about it. You've never thought about it unless you've asked 10 good questions about it.

And I read this chapter, and he's talking like the Ramtha example. And then what does he do? He starts asking these questions. He asks 10 good questions right now. I'm going to find it right now and I'm going to read them. Because it's great. And it's exactly, it's a method for thinking. It's not just, it's not just, here's what I think about this. What it demonstrates is method. If people didn't know who Ramtha was, explain what Ramtha is to people. Yeah. So Ramtha is, it is a supposed medium or channeler.

Yeah, Jay-Z Knight. Jay-Z Knight, who has, in Jay-Z Knight has Ramtha. And Ramtha is a 35,000 or thereabouts year old soul from, I don't know, fucking Atlantis or some shit, some nonsense. And basically Ramtha speaks with a bad Indian accent. So when Jay-Z Knight is channeling Ramtha, she speaks with like kind of a racist Indian accent, you know, like problematically so, like a poo problematically so.

Yeah, right, seriously. For real. Yeah. And then Ramtha comes through and is 35,000 years old from a supposedly different time and is full of nothing but like bland fucking platitudes it's all platitudes it's all just like be nice to each other you are your own energy you know all this garbage that's just it's all they're saying nothing to me you're essentially saying nothing

here's the questions carl would ask where did ramtha live and he says I know he speaks with English with an Indian accent, but where 35,000 years ago did they do that? Such a great line. It is. What was the climate? What did Ramtha eat? And he says, in parentheses, archaeologists know something about what people ate back then. What were the indigenous languages and social structure? Who else did Ramtha live with?

Wife? Wives? Children? Grandchildren? What did the life cycle, the infant mortality rate, the life expectancy, what all were they? Did they have birth control? What clothes did they wear? How were the clothes manufactured? What were the most dangerous predators? Hunting and fishing implements and strategies,

weapons, endemic sexism, xenophobia, and ethnocentrism. And it's just, I mean, it's just like that. It's like all these questions and they're all really good questions, right? You come from so far away, tell me about it. Don't just tell me to be good to each other because that's garbage. And tell me specifically, right. Right. Like it's the

difference between a conversational opener, right? A conversational opener would be like, oh, wow, you're from, you know, Atlantis. What's that like? Right. That's a conversational opener. Well, I'm using that not to learn about Atlantis, but to learn about you. Yeah. Right. But if I want to learn what you know, I need to know how to ask good questions about it. Right. And that's a skill. And that's something that has to be honed and developed and practiced. And Carl Sagan demonstrates that time and again in this chapter, how to use the method of questioning to ask real specific questions that if you can't answer, should give me pause, right? You should have an answer for all those.

Because if you asked me those questions about the society I live in, I have answers off the top of my fucking head. Yeah, absolutely. For everyone. China. All our clothes come from China. No, but you know, you're right.

Endemic racism and sexism? Yes. Yes. We've checked that box multiple times. No, but seriously, you're absolutely right. And then, you know, this is a great transition because then he goes into talking about the rules of, you know, being inquisitive,

but also making sure that you're covering all your bases. You know, I really do like what he has to say about authorities. He's like, authorities, let's not talk about them like that. Let's talk about experts instead. Let's not say like authorities. Authority, yeah, authorities, let's not talk about them like that. Let's talk about experts instead. Let's not say like authorities. Authority, yeah.

Because that does, you know, he's like, you don't want to trust somebody blindly. And, you know, this is something that we've been paying attention to for the whole pandemic is that nobody trusts the experts in this.

Nobody trusts the experts. You know, the authorities, that's out the window. It's the experts they don't even trust. And, you know, again, all this leads back to the scientific method. And then he goes through in great detail, the logical fallacies and pit

traps that you catch yourself in when you, and he explains them all. He goes out of his way to take time to explain what each one is so that it's not just a name. It's not just saying that's ad hominem. He's saying, this is what ad hominem means. Yeah. And this is how it can be used to make you feel a certain way in an argument or a conversation to diffuse or deflect. It really does give you an ability to use these things in ways that allow you to recognize them when they're rhetorically, you know, leveraged against you or when you're in danger of doing that yourself, right? Yeah, yeah. The thing that when you read through this,

one of the things that, and I think about this too a lot, is we should recognize that none of us are the outlier, right? None of us are likely to be the outlier. All of us accidentally and sometimes on purpose use logical fallacies. Sure, absolutely. We are all subject to deep cognitive biases, right? Rhetoric beats out the scientific method almost all the time. Every time. Yeah. Every time.

You know, and it's like that authority versus expertise. We've been told, and I think it is good advice, to distrust authority. Yeah. But we've confused authority with expertise. Absolutely. So now we distrust expertise and we don't know the difference between experts and expertise. Absolutely. So now we distrust expertise and we don't know the difference

between experts and authorities. Yeah. Because we've played rhetorical games with those things. Too much, yeah. It's like theory and theory. Right. Yeah.

When we start like exchanging truth for rhetoric, we run into real problems. Yeah, yeah. And we're in that spot. This is a really prescient and important and usable. It's a functional chapter. Yeah. And this is the foundation of this whole book.

It took a while to get here. It did. What saddens me, Tom, is he talks about in the previous chapter about all the hate mail he got. But he mentions the very beginning of that, that the previous seven chapters were what were put in parade. Yeah, I know. This wasn't. This is the book. This is. Yeah, I know. This wasn't. This is the book. This is the book.

I know. This is the thing. This is what spawned so many different things that are part of our lives now. The skeptics groups and the skeptics podcasts and the skeptics that we know. Right. This is, it's hard not to look at this

and not call it foundational to all that yeah and it's such a shame that something like this wasn't the thing that they chose to publish or this wasn't the thing he chose to ask them to publish instead he chose a piece on aliens which includes a lot of this stuff right but not as explicitly explains it and then therefore makes it a little more interpretive which is why you got fucking weird ass email yep yeah not email snail mail i say that all the time i know messages smoke signal whatever however they got it to him yeah telegraph but you know what the stop the thing that makes me crazy about that is this chapter, along with the Dragon in My Garage chapter, you combine those two, you've got a real toolbox. You really do. You've got a lot of good stuff. You could divorce

those things entirely from the aliens, but Parade Magazine is going to print the aliens, right? Because aliens make good copy. They sell good magazines. and that's the most important thing that parade does is sell magazines yeah yeah they would sell magazines with any series of letters exactly don't like don't kid yourself they don't give a fuck what's in there for sure for sure you know yeah no i i and and it is a shame that it wasn't in there i know but at least not that i know of right i don't know that it was it wasn't published Right, from the way he writes it. From the way he writes it, it makes a presumption that it was before.

So, but it is absolutely, this is what you buy the book for. This is the chapter you buy the book for. And I'm not even kidding, guys. Excerpt this chapter out and give this to people. Yeah, yeah. This is important. Absolutely.

This is good shit. Like give this to people. It's really outstanding. All right. So next week on the Cognizant Book Club, we are going to be reading Obsessed with Reality. This is chapter 13. Yes.

13, Obsessed with Reality. This one's a long chapter, a little long chapter. Is it? Yeah, be good. Okay. So we want to thank our patrons of course we want to thank all our patrons we want to thank our newest patrons donna eric that rich mcgee what a thirst trap for guys like me the good crabs donating for the post-pandemic free hug. We want to free hug you too, like super much.

And people up their pledges, Stuart and Phil, thank you so much for your generous donations. We truly do appreciate it. Thank you so much for being patrons of the show. We want to mention that our 600th episode is coming up. So if you wanted to wish us well on audio, use your phone and record a little voice memo, you can send that to us. I'm going to see if I can get

Ian to put together a list or a selection of people wishing us happy 600th episode. So now would be the time to send it in. A couple weeks ahead of time, got an opportunity. Keep it short and punchy. Yeah, definitely keep it short. Anything over like 15 or 20 seconds, we're probably

not going to use. It's got to be fast. Definitely keep it short. Anything over like 15 or 20 seconds, we're probably not going to use. It's got to be fast. Definitely keep it short. But if you want to wish us a happy 600th, we will include it hopefully in the two episodes that will be our 600th episode, which have a ton of tape that we have to record. So, but yeah, send it to us, dissonance.podcast.gmail.com.

Best way to do it is to take your phone and record a voice memo and then send that to us. That'll probably be the best sound unless you are a podcaster or something. And we also encourage you too, if you want to wish us happy 600th from your podcast, we're happy to hear that too. That'd be cool, yeah.

So yeah, if you want to do that, we're more than happy to play that. But just like we say, try to keep it short and send it to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. I will have Ian collect all these and put them in the front of both of those 600th episodes. We want to get to a little bit

of email that we got. We didn't get a ton of email this week, but we got a little bit and we want to talk about it. We got a message from Natalie and Natalie sends a video in. Oh my gosh. And this video is of a French lady who's like basically in charge of education in France

or some portion of education. She's talking about digital critical thinking and being able to... Information literacy. Being able to tell the difference between propaganda and not and what they're doing in France and you're just like, holy fuck, I wish. It's so good. Everything she's describing is like

my dream for everyone. Like everyone needs to move to France and take these classes. You need to learn about it, but they're, they're instituting it for young kids. And I think that's what you need to do. You got to get kids when they're very young to teach them as much critical thinking as possible because,

you know, the moment they start to get older, you know, they're starting to, you know, use their intuition to figure these things out rather than their, their intelligence. They become very solidified.

Absolutely. The kind of message, a couple of messages, and I'm going to read them both. So this one is from Martin and the other one is from, uh, Paul. And they both basically said the same joke.

They've all said that the CO2 canisters are essentially to make that. We've talked last week, the lady who drank the bear piss had CO2 canisters with her. And their suggestion is that that is to make sparkling bear piss. You don't want to drink it still like a fucking peasant. Would it be sparkling bear piss or would it need to come from like a certain region of California for it to be a proper sparkling champagne a champagne piss that you could get but a couple people sent that in and

i think it's great it's a super funny super funny thing and we had something i totally missed last week and we were trying to figure it out i'm not sure why they had she had co2 canisters a couple people had some ideas but uh but i don't think it's making it sparkly. So Dave sends in the message and he says that conspiracy theories aren't convincing epistemically, I guess that's how you say it, epistemically. They are convincing emotionally.

The emotional part of the brain overrides the rational point and it basically makes it so that they believe that sort of thing. And that's, it's something we've been talking about for a very long time on this show. And it's something that you see is that, you know, people believe things and they believe them and they're convinced of them through their emotional attachment to those things. And you see the way people fight about things. You wouldn't normally fight or dig your heels in this deep if you weren't emotionally

attached to those things. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. There are beliefs that are, they have a worldview and that's the way the world works. Yeah. And everything needs to fit into that worldview.

And in a lot of cases, most of these beliefs are things people want to believe. Yes. They want this to be true. Yeah. And so their want is what is making them decide to only focus on evidence that makes them right. And so they will confirm those biases over and over

because of the desire for them to be right about this. And you find that very often when you're talking about religion, because religion has a lot of great promises. It promises a lot of great shit. And so people will try to find any way that they can to try to validate that idea of religion

in their own head because they really want it to be true. Right, right. Got a message here, Tom. This is from Gold. Gold says that the Delta outbreak in New Zealand is about seven weeks old and one

case in the community and we locked down the country. And we're so close to getting this thing eliminated again. And this Bishop Brian Tamaki, cult leader of one of the largest churches here, goes and holds a gathering for around 2,000 people to protest the lockdown. So it's even happening in fucking New Zealand.

God damn. There's a change.org petition requesting that the chief of police arrest this guy. Any chance of mentioning it? Yeah, absolutely. We'll put a link on this week's show notes. This is bullshit. It's firing a crowd at theater, man.

It's such bullshit. That's what that shit is. You're seeing it in Australia. They're getting pissed at what Australia is doing and they're out there marching. But they're doing their lockdown protests now too. So yeah, absolutely. We will put a link in this week's show notes.

Gold. Man, so close, so close. So we'll be back next week with our 599th show. We will be doing a live stream next Thursday and that's our season finale for two weeks. And then we'll come back. We'll be back in November,

but we're going to take the rest of October off from streaming, but we'll be back in November, early November to stream. So we'll be back on the fourth. I think it's the fourth of November. The first week of November, we'll be streaming again, but we're going to have two weeks off.

Tom's going to be going somewhere. I'm going to be going somewhere. We are going to be busy doing other stuff. Our 600 show will release then, but we will not be in town. So no stream, but come to next week's stream and give us a,

you know, a send off for a couple weeks. Yeah. That'll be fun. Wish us a happy 600th. Wish us a happy 600th. Next week, Thursday,

that's, that's 9 p.m. Central time. We'll be going live. So we want to see you on Facebook, on Twitter, or not Facebook.

I don't think it's Twitter. Facebook, Twitch, and on YouTube. All right. That is going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you on Facebook, on Twitter, or not Facebook, I don't think it's Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, and on YouTube. Alright, that is going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter

mommy issue hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free bubble, toil and trouble Pseudo, quasi alternative, acupunctuating Pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal Free energy, healing, water, downward spiral Brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info

Docutainment Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage Death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing Crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues. Temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive. Doubt even this.

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