Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 743: Climate Change Denial, QAnon Chants, and Fake Robo Calls

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

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 Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence

to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political. And there is no welcome mat. Today is Thursday, January the 25th. And so far it's two for two. Trump shot two, won two, scored twice. Yeah. Yeah. Unsurprising. We got some messages from people who were saying it's not as, you know, it's not as black and white as it was before. And it's clearly not as glowing for Trump because other people are getting votes and not as many people are coming out.

But Trump didn't win Iowa before. No, that's very true. He did win Iowa. Trump didn't win Iowa. So like, I agree with that in the sense that like, but I mean, also like, yeah, so like I said, in 2016, Trump did not win Iowa.

He just won Iowa. He's going to, it's a walkover. He's going to walk over everybody. They're talking to people and, you know, you get a chance to hear because every single, right now, the small states all get their opportunity to be in the spotlight. So for the last like week, people were just in New Hampshire for no reason, just there. And so they're talking to boots on the ground people and they're having these conversations. Just, just a quick aside. It's funny. Guess how many, you might know this number. Do you know how many people voted in New Hampshire in the Republican primary? I don't.

236,000 as about the same amount of people as in the suburb I live in. Yeah. The entire state of New Hampshire. The entire state of New Hampshire's Republican primary turnout. Like, that's another thing that's important to consider, is like, the Republican primary, or any primary, is definitionally a tiny, tiny fucking turnout. Sure. See, I don't think it's a good gauge of the general election in any way.

I really don't. I don't think so either. And so that the general election in any way. I really don't. I don't think so either. I think, and so that's why it's hard to figure out right now whether or not, because everybody right now has their crystal balls out, that fucking Dave Pataki guy or whatever it's on. He's got his live little county board that he's tapping away at. But those guys are all, they're spending the, they're going to spend the rest of the year

in front of the whiteboard telling you why it's important. And maybe it's not, maybe it is. Some people think it is, some people think it's not, but all these people for the last week have been in, you know, man on the street asking people why they're going to vote for Trump or who they're going to vote for. And, you know, most of the answers are really unsatisfying. And then you realize you're like, oh yeah, when you poll voters, these are the answers you get. This is a sad, it's a sad state of affairs because no one's informed at all about what they're, what they're actually doing. Yeah. It's a, it's a complete fucking mess. The New Hampshire primary was supposed to be Nikki Haley's like early on, if she was going to have any chance,

New Hampshire's Republicans are, relative to most of the rest of the country, much more moderate than other Republicans by geography. And she lost. She didn't lose by like a point. She lost by I think 10 points. I could

be wrong, but I think it's about 10 points that she lost by. Look it up, Tom. Yeah. It's 11 points. Yeah. So she lost by 11 points.

That's a pretty big margin, man. Yeah. That's a pretty fucking big margin. Like, this is not a- You still gain delegates, right?

So there's stuff, right? There's some things that happen. So you still gain delegates, but it's not, right? There's some things that happen. So you still gain delegates. Yeah. But it's not, it is not a major show. I mean, it's a showing in a sense that like,

she, to be honest, it would have been really interesting. I am shocked that Ron DeSantis dropped out as quickly as he did. And I am shocked that she's still in it because I thought for sure she was going to be a washout, one of the early washouts.

It's showing strong, very strong. She's doing better than I thought she was. Way better than I thought she was. And to be honest, to be very fair to Nikki Haley, like I think she's a terrible choice for president, but she is definitely one of the most liberal people on that stage. So of all the people that were up there,

Nikki Haley is the one that I would be like, God, this sucks, but not as bad as it could have been. Yeah, it's right. Yeah, like if any Republican gets elected, I'm going to get fucked in the mouth, right? But Nikki Haley has the least diseased prick. That's it. She might be a little gentle.

Right, yeah. I don't think, like, they're all going to grab the back of my head, but she's probably not going to cuff me in the ears. She's not going to make you cluck. Right. You know what I mean? Exactly.

But genuinely, It's ridiculous. But genuinely, this is a, it's a race between bad and worse. Yeah. And what we're seeing now, though, and I want to talk about these two stories in conjunction.

Donald Trump slurring words at a rally raises questions. Now, this is a news week. Yeah. And then the next one is from The Hill. Trump appears to mix up Pelosi and Haley while speaking about January 6th. And I want to pause real quick on the news week thing. I have noticed over the last couple of years, maybe the last two years, that Newsweek has gotten a little tabloidy. This is super clickbait.

Yeah. This is 100% clickbait. I don't know if it was always like this, but Newsweek has gotten really tabloidy. This is 100% clickbait. I want to play this. They're saying he's slurring his words. If you don't hear this, I will translate it for you.

We'll just play it real quick so you can hear it. No, you don't have to be a total genius. Remain in Mexico until you're vetted and everything else. He says until you're vetted on everything else. Like he literally says something that is easy to pick out. You don't have to be like

someone who's got a fucking giant waveform in front of them, who's picking something out and trying to de-enhance the sound. It's easy. Like, I mean, it's not, this is ridiculous to put this up there to say he's slurring his words

and they literally quote him and put unintelligible afterwards. I'm sorry. It's not unintelligible. That is easy to understand. It's also perfectly within the context of what he's talking about. The idea that you would,

and this is a fucking Hail Mary pass that everybody's trying to do. They're trying to make this big thing where they're like, if we can make it seem like Trump is ineligible in some way, we'll get out of this. We won't have to vote for him. You're going to have to fucking vote in the election. The end, man. There's no, we don't beat Trump by getting him off the ticket. Put that out of your head. No one's going to beat him in the primary. No.

No one is going to amendment him off. Like, it's not going to happen. These things aren't going to happen. Well, fucking, I'll get my big Tom Crystal ball out right now, blow the dust off it. It's going to be an election in November between Trump and Biden. Absolutely. We don't like that. Nobody likes that. Nobody is saying on air right now, I'm not talking to the mic saying Trump and Biden. Absolutely. We don't like that. Nobody likes that.

Nobody is saying on air right now, I'm not talking to the mic saying, and I love it. I'm not saying this is great. No, can't wait for this 2020 repeat. I'm not excited about this, but I am aware that that is the reality that is going to happen in November. There is no way I'm wrong unless somebody dies, right? The only way that I'm wrong about this is if somebody drops dead, that's it. Trump is not getting kicked off the ballots. He is not going to get declared medically unfit. He is probably not going to go to jail. These things are unlikely to happen. They're deeply, crazily, wildly unlikely. And even if they were to happen, we need to be prepared to beat this motherfucker at the polls. That's it. Yeah.

You gotta beat him at the polls. You're not getting a get out of jail free card on this. And like last week, there was a story that was circulating because he had waved to the camera and he had what appeared to be some sort of lesions on his hands. And everybody online, I saw this massive thread of people saying, oh, that's late stage syphilis. That matches with his dementia. And he's got syphilis. And that's what happens when you have like late stage syphilis. And he, you know, this is clearly him on his downfall.

And then a couple people in the thread were like, look, man, it probably is golf blisters. Right. Because he's older and he's golfing. And your skin gets thinner as you get older. It's just what happens to human beings. It's all he does with his time. And so the idea that people want to just, they want to grasp on to anything they can. This is their wedge, right? They want to wedge this in as deep as they can. It's not going to work. No, and look, I am sympathetic to the impulse to not want to be traumatized again.

Yep. I am. I'm right there, guys. So, like, I want to make sure that I'm clear. I'm right there. I hate Donald Trump. As much as any of you hate Donald Trump, I fucking hate him. I hate him.

He's bad for the world. The whole world. He's bad for the entire actual world. You're not wrong. In really tangible, demonstrable, practical, numerical ways, right? You're not wrong. He's bad for the world. I get it.

I want him to fade into obscurity. I want him to go to prison. I want all those same things you guys want. I do. I want all those things. But we have to be prepared to accept the reality that this motherfucker is going to be the choice that you have to make in November. That's it. We're not going to get him off the polls because he's syphilitic. We're not going to like, no one, no doctor is going to swoop in at the last minute and say, whoa, wait a minute,

wait a minute, and throw in the towel for him like he's a punch drunk fighter. It's not going to happen. I don't care how incapacitated he is he's running mitch mcconnell will cut him open like a tauntaun and walk around someone will wear his fucking skin man yeah i mean like it's like a gory version of weekend at bernie's where somebody put on someone else's fucking skin suit and walked around. That's literally what they'll do. They don't give a fuck. They want whoever. Yeah.

They want this man in office, period. Yeah. And they will do whatever it takes to get this man. Because they don't care because he's such a figurehead for the crazies. Yeah. Right. The crazies are only going to vote for him. They love him.

If there's a him. As soon as there's no Trump. And this is why the Republican strategy around Trump is such a stupid fucking strategy, is that he's got one more shot at the presidency. He may or may not win it. After this four years, he's dead and old and gone. He effectively can't be reelected. So building a cult of personality around one guy who's this old and making these crazies only turn out for this guy means that as soon as this guy is no longer politically relevant,

you've lost all those crazy. They're not going to come out and vote again. They won't come back. They don't like you. You know what I mean? It's like if somebody shows up to a party only because they like one guy at the party and they don't like any of the other guys at the party.

And then next time you're like, yeah, man, I'm throwing a party. Like, well, is Jake going to be there? I fucking next time, you're like, yeah, man, I'm throwing a party. Like, well, is Jake going to be there? I fucking love Jake. You're like, no, man, Jake's not going to be there. They're like, well, we're not going to your party. Yeah. These guys aren't coming to the next set of elections.

Not going to happen. This is a really short-sighted strategy, but the Republicans also, I think, understand they've got nothing else. Well, they also, that's, I mean, if Republicans are anything, it's short-sighted. It is. So, I mean, like, it's on brand. I want to point out this other story though, too. And this

one is about Nikki Haley, because they keep on saying he messed up between Pelosi and Haley while he was speaking. And he said her name a bunch of times. So he's talking about how she's in the news, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. And then he says, Nikki was the person who should have had better security during January 6th. It's a flub. I've messed up people's names before. Oh yeah.

That happens. Sometimes I'll say someone's name and think, fucking Michelle O'Bachman for Christ's sake. Yeah, right, yeah. Like there is- You've all done it, we've all done it. Everybody's all done it.

And when you're off the cuff, when he's probably traveling and getting very little sleep and he's saying stuff in a row, he probably tricked himself into saying this. This is not a sign of decline. Now granted, I don't think that there's much slope down from him. Like I think he's already about as declined as a human being can be. I don't think, I think it's a real soft hill from here. I think it's a gentle, slow food. It's very, very soft foods. A lot of people asking

if you want the airplane to come in, but he, I don't think it's a, I don't think it's going to be a, that much of a decline. Cause I don't think he's that well raised up, but I do think that this again is one of those moments that people are just grasping at whatever they can. Trust me, he's going to run. He's just going to run. And you're just going to be prepared for that. And look, I am also like, I'm willing to concede that has there been some age-related cognitive decline? Sure. Even I'll grant, let's say I grant it. I'll just grant the whole premise. I will also say it doesn't matter. Because like I said before, the Republicans are going to put the figurehead in place.

Doesn't matter. That's what you like. Like McConnell, where I'm like a tauntaun. Yeah, of course he will. Reagan was fucking functionally unfunctional. Yes.

Right. Like he was, he was trash for his second term. Nobody cared because he was the figurehead. We'll raise this fucking guy up on a mast if necessary. I always say

religion is a fine thing. You take it in moderation. This story comes from USA Today. Science versus social media. Why climate change denial still thrives online. The surprising thing about this story is that they went and rated a bunch of climate change on different sites.

And the one site they found was actually doing a pretty good job was YouTube. Yeah, YouTube had the best content moderation of any of the major social media sites. There's a line in this that scares the hell out of me. I want to read it out loud, Cecil. So here's a line that should give everybody real pause. Social media is a primary means by which young people,

those most likely to see the worst consequences of climate change, get their information today, he said. The trend suggests that bad actors have made a concerted effort

to weaponize social media in a way that is especially targeted toward young people. I just want, I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating every time I have a chance.

Social media is not a way for you to get information. It's just not. Information should not come to you from social media. Social media is a great way for you to share cat photos. It is a great way for you to joke about stuff. It's a great place for a lot of things. It's a great place to make connections, to argue about stuff. If you're seeking information, social media is not it, man.

And I know I can say that and it won't change anything. And the thing is that young people are not doing news gathering in the concerted way that you and I would advocate for people to do their news gathering. And so the onus, the responsibility then has to fall somewhere other than the consumer. It has to.

We have to recognize the responsibility of these platforms. And like X or Twitter is not going to get better on purpose. And it's so much worse than it was. Yeah, it's so much worse. It's just trash. It's genuine trash now. And there is no real moderation. genuine trash now.

And there is no real moderation. Once in a while, some things will pop up underneath someone's tweet that says, we've added context to this. But really, genuinely, the level of not only misinformation when it comes to things

like climate change or vaccines or any other stuff, but the stuff that is racist and awful and just the worst parts of humanity, that stuff runs rampant on Twitter now. I'll tell you a story about that. I have a Twitter account that I have. It's a personal Twitter account that I set up and I tweeted to you when I first set it up. Like, I don't understand what this is for.

This makes no sense to me or something like that. So I have like no tweets. I have like essentially no tweets. I don something like that. So I have like no tweets. I have like essentially no tweets. I don't follow anyone. I never really used it. I, when I, I use that and then we set up our show account and I played with our show account a few times in the very beginning of Twitter. Like I would like live tweet some stuff with you. I remember doing that a couple of times. So I have this Twitter account that, and the reason I'm saying is it's essentially a virgin account, right? Algorithmically it's bare. I have no tweets out. And the reason I'm saying is it's essentially a virgin account, right? Algorithmically, it's bare. I have no tweets out.

I have nobody I'm following. I have no connections that I've made, no DMs that have ever been sent, nothing. I opened it the other day out of curiosity. I was like, I wonder if I can recover that Twitter account. I opened it up. And the stuff that it puts in to suggest is full of the most violent, vile content. Like this is a virgin account and it's just like racist and violent and problematic. And like, it's just videos of people getting like the shit beat out of them and like horrible. It's, I mean,

it's a nasty place, man. And I don't know what it looks like algorithmically if you've spent time in that platform if you've curated it yourself well I'll tell you this what I get when I log into our account is vile hateful shit and I get that even though we've liked

I think the people that we have followed we have followed some quacky crazy people and I know for we have followed some quacky crazy people sure right and i know for sure we followed some goofy on on definitely some people that you want to tweet at to be like go fuck yourself so i know in the past i think we followed jim jordan and you know some other people just so i could yell at them on twitter because most of the time they wouldn't see it if you didn't you know follow them as a follower so So there was an algorithm thing. This was a long time ago.

And so we followed a bunch of people that way, but most of the people that we followed were all sort of in the thing that we do, right? It's that sort of atheist skeptical sphere of people. And I go on there now and it's literally the most hateful, awful shit. It's like anti-trans stuff. It's anti-Semitic or it's racist in some way. Or there's, like you said, somebody getting dragged out of a car and the shit kicked off.

Yeah, crazy. For like no reason. And you're just in a place where somebody just got shot and you're thinking, why is this happening? What is happening and why is it happening? It's wild.

Well, they want you to stop on this video. They want you to stop and watch it. The longer you stop and stay on their platform, the more money they make, and they're happy about it. And they have turned this, they have turned that algorithm up to 12. Man.

They've done their best to turn it up to 12. So, like, they're never going to get better. Yeah. And I worry very much that, like, with the, with the fact that like these systems that we use, that we should be able to rely on in some way to help moderate, even if they don't editorialize,

you know, they don't do any, any moderation to truth. Yeah. Like I get, I'm not happy about it, but I get that we don't want these spaces to exert editorial control over what kinds of content gets on there,

you know, at a thematic level, right? At a sort of like, we only want left-wing stuff. We only want right-wing stuff. I get that. But like, we haven't decided collectively that we are going to try to maintain a tendency

toward true things rather than just madness just chaos it's the purge you go on this shit it's the fucking purge no you're not wrong

you're not wrong it's like and the purge doesn't end like they don't they don't do the second siren or whatever there's not a day yeah right It's like, and the purge doesn't end. Like, they don't do the second siren or whatever. There's not a day. Yeah, right.

I keep waiting online. I keep waiting for the second siren where you're like, woohoo, made it through another one. It's when they fucking finally pull Elon Musk down and they just fucking, everybody knifes him like Caesar or whatever. And then that's the siren and then the purge is over. I just am like floored at the idea that YouTube of all places.

You know what YouTube's doing now? Better. Well, on our videos, if we mention vaccines, there'll be a thing, a little card that pops up on the very start of our video that says CDC says you should get vaccinated, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a card right there. If we say the word vaccines, they put a card on our video that says vaccines are safe.

The CDC. So there's a link there right on our video. And I think it just stay, I don't know if it stays there the whole time, but it is clearly there when you look, like when you open Twitter or when you open YouTube, you can see it. So I don't know if it's there when you start playing open YouTube, you can see it. So I don't know if it's there when you start playing. I haven't really watched it, so I don't really know. But

what a great thing to have as a reminder constantly that there's a link there. Do I think it's going to do any good? I don't. And I also hope that it doesn't allow them to take their foot off the gas when it comes to removing people that are against vaccines. I want people that are against vaccines removed from those platforms and not be in the algorithm underneath just because they get a card doesn't mean that they should be able to, you should get advertising dollars from these people. So I am leery about that. And I don't know what their content moderation policy is when it comes to that, but I have seen it on our videos at least.

Right. Well, and it's like all of this without moderation, you know, all of the madness is getting worse because AI is making it worse. Oh, yeah. It's going to be worse and worse and worse as time goes on. The amount of like content now that can be produced

that doesn't have any connection to reality is infinite now. And it can be produced that doesn't have any connection to reality is infinite now. And it can be produced in mass. It can be produced very, very cheaply. Like we've turned that system.

We've greased all those wheels. And then we're just like letting this thing run. And a meme is the best way to spread misinformation because it is literally

context-free. Right? So it is literally context-free, right? So it's a context-free snippet of something. So someone can easily take a graph or something and make it show that, you know, the world's not fucking on fire or something. They could show, they could do some sort of graph or some sort of visual or some sort of infographic that makes it look like that,

but it's not all the data, right? It's just a cherry picking of something to show, well, look, it was really cold for the last six winters here in the Midwest. So, you know, your climate change, even though the rest of the world's literally on fire, it doesn't matter. And so they're not taking in all the data. Memes are perfect for that. They're perfect for giving you the worst thing, which is a context-free bit of information with no link to a larger study. Well, and I'll give you an example from home, which is just kind of an interesting, funny example. Donovan, my stepson, said to me the other day that there was a shot that they were going to be able to give cats that was going to like dramatically increase their lifespan by making it much more

unlikely that they'll have kidney function problems, which is a primary cause of feline death. And I was like, oh, that's amazing. There's going to be this, like this vaccine type shot. It's really going to,

he's like, yeah, your cat's going to live like 30 years plus like standard for cats can live like 30 years plus. And I was excited. I was like, well, can we get the cats to shot now? I was like, cause I started looking it up and I'm like, yeah, your cat's going to live like 30 years plus. Like standard for cats. It's going to live like 30 years plus. And I was excited. I was like, well, can we get the cats a shot now? Because I started looking it up. And I'm like, well, where'd you find it?

And he sent me like a link to it from, I don't know, one of these aggregator sites. And I was like, well, you can't trust this. I remember just offhandedly. I was like, oh, well, it's just like an aggregator site. Like we got to find the actual site site. Like we got to find this information out. You poke at it, and there's only reporting about the reporting.

There's no such thing. There's no shot that you give your cat that lets them live 30 years. There's a guy in Japan who says he made one. That's all it is. I'm going to fly to Japan tomorrow and slap that guy. That's it. I'm so mad at that guy right now. I want a cat that lives 30 years.

Same thing. I was literally excited. I was trying to look this up. That's like doubling their lifetime. That's like a 200-year-old cat. I know. And I got this moment where I got to show Donovan in real time. I was like, oh, buddy. That's not real. This is like some guy in Japan who says he did it. And then

if you poke at it hard by searching, you see a bunch of people saying, hey, why is there just one guy saying he did it? And where's all the corroborating evidence? But it gets picked up and I'm like, look at this news source at the top, bud. Like this is a trash site. This is nothing.

Like you gotta be able to look through this stuff. Like let's find it some, if all of a sudden cats live 30 years, it would be somewhere reputable. We'd be able to find it somewhere reputable. Can't find anywhere reputable. You can find it very easily, but nowhere reputable. The problem is like that work took time and that work took somebody who like is interested in that work to do that work. And instead what was happening is like, he'd already like spread the news to all of his, I'm not even kidding. All of his like cat loving friends that like, cool, there's this shot

and now cats are going to live 30 years. And everybody thinks this is true. The bullshit spreads so fast because the work takes so long to do. So like the onus has to be not on the Donovan's and the me's, it has to be on the Twitter's and the Facebook, you know, they've got to do the work of helping to control reality because it's going to get out of control really fast. Once again, why? You said it, the rent is too damn high. Thank you, Mr. McMillan. So this story comes from The Guardian. Half of recent U.S. inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds.

Think-Take report says resounding evidence shows companies continue to keep prices high even as their inflationary costs drop. This is a vitally important story. What I think is so important is that people seem to, they have something they want to hate. And so they talk about inflation as if this is the cause of inflation, right? This is the cause of inflation. Here's a perfect example of someone who did the work, a group that did the work,

to look at it and say, you know what? Here's what's causing inflation. Now, don't get me wrong. I want to hate the corporations. I mean, don't get me wrong. But here's an opportunity for somebody to pull it out of the context of politics, which is very often gets put in the context of politics. Like it's Biden's fault for this.

That's what you hear a lot. It's Biden's fault for this. And so this is a great story because it shows that it's more than half of the inflation is caused by corporations that are just like, fucking A, man, we're making more money. Let's keep doing whatever we were doing before and not change based on the market. Yeah. I'll tell you what, man, I know some very smart people who I have had conversations with in the very recent past, like last few weeks,

that have earnestly tried to tell me that the inflation problem that we've had is because, you know, oh, the government was printing money during COVID with all these COVID relief and the PPP loans and, you know, extra unemployment, you know, benefits for everybody. So just shitting money into the system. And that's what drove inflation is all this extra free money from the government, trillions of dollars. And the thing is like, that's not entirely untrue that the government did basically print money and shit money into the economy. It is however, demonstrably untrue that inflation is today the cause of rampant over government overspending on social safety net programs,

which is what COVID was. COVID relief was a social safety net program. It is not true that the inflationary problems that we are having today are primarily a result of global supply chain problems. We keep blaming this on the consumer for spending too much or this is, this is, or the government for, you know, trying to help the consumer too much. Right. It always comes back to like, you know, well, we got the individual, the individual, this is corporations. Yeah. This is just corporations, man. You're absolutely right.

This is where the responsibility lies. You're absolutely right. This is, and this And this to me reminds me of how we treat green energy and how we treat CO2 emissions. Yeah. Where we're constantly trying to get the individual to do little things. Like, oh, it's your fault that the world is spiraling out of control. You got to stop driving as much. You're not using paper straws. Yeah, you can't take the plane anywhere anymore,

et cetera, et cetera. And when it's really just a lot of corporations are the ones who are doing it, and then they just create marketing campaigns to make you feel guilty. Right. And so they do, and we do. And we're easy to manipulate when it comes to that.

And the same thing goes here. It's easy to point at the president of the United States and then start pointing out those policies and then having a conversation and being like, oh, well, it's clearly, it's all the money that we gave the social safety nets.

I mean, come on. It's all these people who are sucking on the government team. Let's not mention the PPP loans. And all that money got super forgiven. Like all that money was just like- Free money. Yeah, whatever, man. It's just free money.

I feel like such a sucker. I feel like everybody... I feel like everyone should have got in on the PPP loans. Cogdisc should have had a PPP loan. I feel like everybody who had any kind of anything should have got in. We should have applied for a PPP loan. Yeah. We should have donated some modest needs.

Seriously, though, it's been like the amount of money that went out and then was completely forgiven. My favorite Twitter is there's somebody who every time one of these Republicans starts complaining about school loan debt or whatever, someone underneath will post their, how much they got in PPP loans and how much this is forgiven. I know. This is the best. It's so

delicious because they are like in the one hand being like, oh, they're sucking on the government tea. And then, then they turn their head like, like immediately. Sorry, I didn't move it to the side of my mouth to speak this. There's no way I could just say it with it in there like that. So what it makes me crazy too, because like the cure for runaway inflation, which we have pretty much cured, right? So inflation at its high was at about 9%. Now it's down to about 3%, give or take. The goal is to move it to 2%.

But like the cure for inflation is to raise interest rates. We make borrowing more painful for people to do. But again, like, and I know corporations also borrow money, but by and large, we are making people on the ground eat shit to control inflation by raising the cost of things like your credit card interest, raising the cost of your car loan, raising the cost of your mortgage loan. We are all eating this shit when like, that is not the problem. The reason inflation is at 3% and not at 2%,

and the reason the Fed hasn't been able to back down on those interest rates is because corporations aren't backing away from the record profits that they made gouging customers because they saw an opportunity and they're holding that opportunity. When gas was $4.89 a gallon, gouging customers because they saw an opportunity and they're holding that opportunity. When gas was $4.89 a gallon,

BP Amoco posted its highest profits, not revenue, its highest profits ever. So while they were selling you gas for five and six bucks a gallon, it's not like it cost them, it's not like they were like, hey, I got to raise my prices. It's costing me more. It's a tiny margin I make on this.

It's tiny. They increase their fucking margins. Yeah, exactly. They're fucking us. And they do it every time. Yeah. And then they don't take their foot off the throttle. Yeah.

They don't take, you know, maybe they had to adapt. Maybe there is some adaption. I don't know their bottom line and their sheets, their spreadsheet number stuff that they do. I'm sure they got very smart people that type on calculators really fast with like a little troll doll on a desk and they just constantly fucking

spitting fucking numbers out all day. I'm sure they have those people. And I'm sure they looked at all those numbers and they're like, yeah, we've got to do some stuff. We've got to raise prices, et cetera. But then they don't take their foot off the gas when it comes to, and especially when we find out that, no, these people are making fucking record money and they haven't stopped

and they're not going to stop. I can believe God as long as I want to. If I want to believe God for a $65 million plane, you cannot stop me. You cannot stop me from dreaming. This story comes from The Guardian. The Lord told us to. U.S. pastor says he stole a million dollars from Christians to remodel his home. Tom, you have to read.

I'm going to read this. You got to read some of this. This is the best. A Colorado pastor who's charged with stealing more than a million dollars from his Christian community in a cryptocurrency scheme has admitted to the fraud but argued that God instructed him to carry it out. Eli Regalado and his wife, Caitlin, are charged with creating and selling their own cryptocurrency known as IndexCoin to Christians based in their hometown of Denver, Colorado, allegedly

telling would-be investors that the Lord had told him people would become rich if they invested. Look, that's not wrong. He did become rich. No, people would. He's not wrong. He did become rich. No, people would. He's people. Very few of those people. I didn't say all people. Yeah, it's not. Look, I'm

not trying to sell you something that's not real here. How come we don't have like a Cogdisc coin? Can we mint a fucking Bitcoin? Like a fucking crypto coin? Like when you get it, you get to punch somebody in the face. God, I don't want a fucking crypto coin.

Oh, man. All right. But index coin was practically worthless in reality, prosecutors said in the statement. Investors lost millions of dollars while the Regalados used their investments for lavish living. In a video statement about the charges,

Eli admitted that the couple had squandered $1.3 million raised through cryptocurrency. The charges are that me and Caitlin pocketed $1.3 million, Regalado said in a video. I just wanted to come out and say those charges are true. And then he says, a few hundred thousand went to a home remodel the Lord told us to do.

Sure. We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit. Well, look, if you can't trust God. God gave him the hard sell. It's like when you get, when you go, they give you the free buffet and you've got, they're going to do the timeshare talk to you. It's like that. God gave him the hard sell on index coin. And then, you know, they don't coin and then you know they don't let you

leave like they don't let you leave until you buy the i haven't heard the whole pitch i fucking i love like he's like well like we just god we thought we could trust god it's god god's a tech bro god is a fucking tech bro it's god and that dude who raised up insulin to like a million dollars. That, what was that guy? That pharma bro guy, Skrelli or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy who bought

a Wu-Tang album for like a million dollars or whatever. Jesus fucking Christ. All these guys just want to clunk all their heads together. Some of them are going to jail.

Like that one guy went to jail. That Banker and Freed went to jail. Sam Banker and Freed went to jail. Went to jail. So, you know, eventually people find out

that this shit is not worth anything. Yeah. And then they, they, this way. But the thing is, is like, it was worth something. They got, somebody got some money out of it. And when you pull all the money out of behind what's there, sure. You're going to like Ponzi schemes do have money in them.

They do, you know, but like eventually somebody stops buying. The thing is like the index coin was worth at one point, at least in aggregate, $1.3 million. It's just that like once you convert it back to real money, then what you have is math problems in a computer. You don't have anything anymore. Like a Trump coin or whatever. You don't have, there's nothing there coin right you don't have yeah there's

nothing you actually don't even have the trump coin right those people made out the trump coin guys they actually had a pocket they had a thing at the very end they like could hold right a thing and then they could scratch off one side and become a batman villain or whatever but like genuinely they had a thing they They just... Look, at one point, you could sell a tulip, right? You can sell a tulip for a lot more money than you can sell a tulip for now.

That's fair. That's fair. The tulip was not a better tulip. Yeah. It didn't tulip at a higher level than the tulips that are around now. It just didn't. It was just a tulip.

Oh. It's the same fucking thing. Except for at least the tulip is pretty. Index coin is the next Bitcoin. I'm predicting. They're all, it's all the same nothing. It's all the same nothing.

What's going on? It's a code one. A code one? Oh my God, no. What the fuck is a code one? Gary, did you not read the memo? It was very detailed. It has the specific rankings of emergency situations related to the conditions

of surrounding and precarious- English! Oh. People aren't fucking. What? It means we are getting reports that fucking is down. Well, sometimes you get a fucking down. No, I mean the sex stonks are plummeting.

People aren't pumping, they're just dumping. What can we do? We have to get people to understand the value of getting it in. If only there was some incentive or something to get them interested in the deed. Yes, Gary, if only. Wait, what about... Yes, I know, I know. Using code GLORY.

That's right. When you go to adamandeve.com and use code GLORY, you get 50% off almost any one item. And... Now, what is that? DEFCON negative one? Defcon negative one? What? Negative one? I don't know. It's supposed to stop at one. Let me look it up.

Oh, my God. It's almost Valentine's Day! Oh, God, we're fucked. That's the problem. Nobody else is. Tell them about the promotion, Ian. The promotion! When you use code GLORY at adamandeve.com, you also get ten free gifts for Valentine's Day. You get a Valentine's Day lover kit, six free free movies and free shipping when you use code glory there's only so much time

that's right gary seriously people if you've ever thought about gifts sexy gifts gift for sexy gifting or gifting sexy gifts then get over to adamandeve.com and use code glory or there might not be a code glory when you need it most. Like when the avatar disappeared? Yeah, um, kind of. Master of all four sexcriments. Gary, stay on the DEFCON theme. Okay. So please check out Code Glory at adamandeve.com.

Fucking has never been so important. Oh, God. I'm going to adamandeve.com right now! It's Code Glory! It's Code Glory! This story comes from NBC News. Fake Joe Biden robocall tells New Hampshire Democrats not to vote on Tuesday. So I'm going to play this. This is the fake Joe Biden robocall that new hampshire democrats not to vote on tuesday so i'm going to play this this is the fake joe biden robocall that you can hear what a bunch of malarkey we know the value of

voting democratic when our votes count it's important that you save your vote for the november election we'll need your help in electing democrats up and down the ticket voting this tuesday only enables the the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. If you would like to be removed from future calls, please press two now. One of the things that plays really deeply into this is the fact that they did a good job of making it sound really low quality, right? So it sounds like a phone call and it sounds like him talking on a phone call

and the quality of that phone call is very, very poor. Right. And so we're used to hearing distortions in voice over the phone lines when it comes to a poor quality call. That's something that people recognize. This is a good point. And so you can get by with something that's not perfect. It doesn't have to sound perfect. That sounds great for a phone call. And it's very convincing as a phone call. Yeah, it is. It's distressingly convincing, right? And the thing about a robocall like that is that robocalls are always automated.

You can interact with them. So your ability to vet that sort of thing in real time is essentially zero, right? You have to just, your bullshit alarm has to go off. It's like, why would Joe Biden be like, don't vote? That guy's the president. He should be encouraging people to vote. That being said, not all presidents have a history of encouraging people to vote.

It turns out voter suppression though, is more typically something that the right prefers over the left. And they're very selective on who they call. Yeah, that's for sure. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it, and I, this sort of shit is like bonkers in that like I don't know how this is going to get stopped or vetted or, you know, we have to like and who picks up the phone and answers a call? You know, just being honest here. No, you're not wrong because I don't pick up. of America that picks up the phone and hears that call that is going to be perhaps less tech savvy and less tech skeptical. I am willing to be proven wrong. If you're a listener to this show and you pick up the phone every time it rings, send us a message and let us know. And also let us know if you don't mind either your age or thereabouts your age. You don't have to tell us your age, but you could tell us I'm in my thirties or something

that might help me understand. What I'm trying to do is figure out, cause I know I don't answer my phone. If I don't recognize your number, I don't answer your phone. And even if I do recognize your number, I sometimes don't answer your call because Because I'm busy, I'm doing something else. I'm maybe doing another thing. And I don't want to talk to that person right now. Right. They'll go to voicemail. Sure.

That's okay. Yeah. And I don't, but I don't answer. If I see a call now, I don't use my phone for business. Right. And that's a big difference, right? There's a lot of people out there. If you're using your phone for business.

That's why I answer mine. Yeah. And that's a big difference, right? There's a lot of people out there. If you're using your phone for business. That's why I answer mine. Yeah. And that's why you answer yours. And people may pick the phone up. If that's the case, if they're like, you know, they don't know who's going to call them, whatever. I know all the people that are going to call me and the ones I don't want to talk to, I don't bother. There'll be a couple weeks of my life where I need to like hire someone. So like, I don't know if you've ever done this, but you'll go online and see like 20 people that you want to hire for to fix, you know, something at your house, right? Like a handyman type person. And you have to talk to like 600 of them before one person finally calls.

Before one ever shows up. Before one ever shows up. But I send out 10 emails and then I'll also see phone numbers and call phone numbers and leave messages. And so for like a week, I'm answering my phone call like an, my phone, like an asshole. And then I'm constantly getting these robo calls. This has got to be the worst week of your life. It's the worst. I hate it so much. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. But sometimes it's necessary and I will answer my phone in those cases. But most of the time I never answer my phone. And like, if it's, if it's someone I know, like if I get a call from you, I'll answer it. I get a call from Craig,

I'll answer it. Get a call from my wife. I'll answer it. My other buddy, like maybe two other buddies, my brother calls, maybe I'll answer probably. But the rest of the world, it's like, no, no people from my work used to call me and I'd be like, absolutely not. Are you kidding me? No way. So, but I do think there's a group of people out there that you're right. I think it's a dwindling demographic. I think a lot of people text before they call, right? I think that that's a, that's a normal thing that happens nowadays. But genuinely, I think there is a danger here that this is easy to make, easy to fake, hard to spot. And we're going to have harder and harder times

because people are going to hear this at home. And then how do I vet this? What do I have to do? Especially if I'm the type of person who answers my phone, what do I do next? Do I call somebody? You know, should there be a national hotline for deep fakes? Should there be something there that's like,

no, that's fake, right? Yeah, right. You know, should that exist? Some kind of checking method. Should that exist somewhere? I feel like there needs, some smart people need to start thinking about this right now. And they need to start thinking about real solutions

for this right now. Because if you don't, the neck, can you imagine four years from now? Yeah. What that election cycle is going to be like? It's going to be wild. I mean, you're going to get a hundred of these calls a day. Well, and beyond just the calls in four years at the rate things are changing, there will be high quality, deep fake video that you basically won't be able to tell from reality too. Because I'll tell you what, none of this was on our radar in 2020. So like by 2024, yeah, well, it won't just be video. We're going to be seeing stuff that looks like it's happening in real time that isn't happening.

Like it used to be that the robocalls themselves required a lot of technology to perform the robocall. Do you remember this? They had robocall machines. Robodialers were big, expensive machines. They're actually robots. They look like that robot with the slinky arms.

Yeah, right. And they would just sit there and be like, watching them dial was a hoot. Warning! Warning! And then they all had two claws, which they took off.

You know, to be honest, they did the best they could with what they had. They did a good job. You know, it was what they could with what they had. They did a good job. You know, it was what they had. They did fine. They did a good job. It was random numbers that they called.

Yeah. But yeah, like it used to be that those robo-dialers, those auto-dialers were expensive machines that had to be like purchased. And now all this shit is basically free. It's as cheap as free. Yeah. So like we've made it faster, better, and cheaper. That's not what you're supposed to do with fraud. I used to. Like we're not supposed to make fraud faster, better, and cheaper. That's not what you're supposed to do with fraud. Like we're not supposed to make fraud

faster, better, and cheaper. When I was first starting out out of college, I remember I had to fax a bunch of stuff. And I remember how long it took just to fax stuff where you'd have to slide it in and you'd have to type in each number. You would like literally have to type in each number. And I was faxing stuff for a PR firm.

So I was constantly sending out to like 600 numbers. And so I'd have to just sit there and be like, it's going to go to this one and this one and this one and this one and this one. Oh my God.

It was the worst. But I remember you'd only have to feed it in one time. So you were like, oh, thank goodness. Right. But then it would go

to like 60 number. But you had to spend your time. It wasn't like it was connected to a computer. I'm sure within three years though, they connected it to a computer and it made it so it's much faster. And that's what you're getting with these robocalls now. It's all computer driven and it's super easy for them to do. When I was first in the real estate space, we would get closing packages faxed sometimes when the lenders were in a big hurry and it was like down to the last

minute or they want to make a change, they'd be like, we'll fax you the closing package. A closing package is about 100 pages worth of documents. Wow. And like- And this was, is this on the old timey like real one? No, this is on paper.

Okay, all right. What would happen is like sometimes if you were, like let's say you like left the office, one of the things you're supposed to do, every, whoever the last person out of the office was, was supposed to check the fax machine to make sure it had ink and paper because they would also run out of memory. So if it ran out of paper or ink in the middle of the night and somebody was trying to fax over

a closing package, it would run out of memory in the machine and you'd lose the package. And you'd have to be like, yeah, I only got the first 30 pages. That doesn't seem like it'd be a good thing for closing. No, it's not great. It's a scramble. So, like, that's how hilariously old that technology is, just as a funny thing.

It's like, you're like, okay, I'm leaving for the day. I got to make sure there's enough paper in this machine so that the machine doesn't run out of memory to print papers out. And then, like,

and sometimes you'd forget to pull a little tray catcher, and you'd come in, and all the papers would be on the floor. Oh, man. And then sometimes you'd forget to pull a little tray catcher and you'd come in and all the papers would be on the floor. Oh, man. And you'd be like, oh, I gotta put them all in order. God. And you're like trying to figure out what order they all go in. And what you need to do, you need to hire that robot with the arms. Ah, danger, you're shit-filled, you're shit-spelled.

And then you try to pick up everything with that little claw, like it's that crane game. Right, yeah, yeah. Is this your loan? Yes, this like it's that crane game right yeah yeah is this your loan yes this is the letter q now you're telling me this is the letter q yes yes yes it's the letter q q q oh it's used all the time it begins such words as quick quiet quarrel quit it's the letter q do you hear perfectly now are there any questions? Yes. How do you do that? Do what?

Hang that funny looking thing in here like that. That's not a funny looking thing. You're a funny looking thing. The story comes from New Republic. A creepy QAnon chant arises at Trump's rally, and he nods and smiles. What was the chant that they were doing where one goes all? Where we go one, we go all. We go all. Yeah, that's their 4chan thing.

Right. And so they were chanting it there. You know, if there's one thing that I think Trump is gifted at, I think he's gifted at recognizing rubes and embracing them. I think of all the things he's able to do, it's that he can recognize when you're a sucker and these people shouted out to him, they advertise. And so he immediately recognizes, Trump doesn't believe this shit at all, but he knows that if he parrots what you say back to him or back to him back to you,

then he will capture you and captivate you. And he will be the person who you say, he's in the know. This is the guy who knows everything. And this is my guy. And he recognizes me and acknowledged me and I embrace him for it. And those people that he chanted with there,

they'll never vote for another person. No, he's got them locked up. He's got them wrapped up. He's got them locked up. Little finger. Yeah, you're talking about, like if you're a person who chants the QAnon 4chan, where we go on, we go all bullshit.

You are self-identifying as a certain kind of person. Sure. You are basically screaming out in a chant form, I am a fucking delusional idiot. It's easy then to fool delusional people, right? Because like, like you said, all you have to do is reflect back at them what their beliefs are. Yeah. It's like cold reading. Yeah. It's the easiest shit in the world. Trump just sees it. He doesn't say anything, which is smart. Like, I will say the guy has good instincts because like, he doesn't say anything, which is smart. I will say the guy has good instincts because he doesn't say anything.

If he says something, it can be quoted. If he says something, it can be written down, it can be transcribed, it can be quoted. But he looks at him and he nods and he smiles. And then he does his little fist thing, his little fist bump with their chants. So he's able to explicitly recognize them as being

legitimate, even though they're not legitimate, without opening himself up to any kind of transcription of his affiliation. It's fucking smart. Well, and this also should show people, I think, how mainstream conspiracies are now and how powerful those conspiracies are and how much sway those conspiracies hold

over how much of the populace, right? When they were doing these questionnaires to the Republicans before Trump, like right after Trump got taken out of office, so many people believed not just that the election was stolen, but they also believed some of the crazy QAnon stuff that they were also asking. So some of this QAnon stuff is absolutely bonkers. And they were including all that. And many people, a large portion of the Republicans believed it. Yeah. And this sort of stuff is going more and more mainstream. And to have someone as a figurehead of QAnon that is as popular as Trump. Yeah. Yeah.

Right? I mean, that's scary as shit. It is. Because it signals a either. It signals one of two things, both of which are scary and I know which is more scary. It either signals one of two things, both of which are scary and I know which is more scary. It either signals a genuine disconnect from reality. Yeah.

Or a willingness to show disconnection from reality when it's convenient. Right. Both of those things are scary for different reasons. But like, this is also a guy like in the same thing, there was somebody who screamed out and they chanted like, free the Jan Sixers. And he's like, yeah, we will. We will. Yeah. And he has come out and said that his intention is to pardon all of the people who engaged in an insurrection. He says that. Do you think he'll do it? No. No. I don't think he'll do it. He had said a bunch of stuff about pardons. And I think there was somebody there while he was in office that reined him in because I think he wanted to

give more than he gave. But you know, I will say this though. Now I may be, because, because of what you just said, I may actually be rethinking my stance because I think there will be no grownup in the room anymore. If there's a second administration. That absolutely is true, right? His first administration, there were a lot of grownups in those rooms and it took them a long time to weed those grownups out. And like, I think that at this point, there will be no adults left in that room. There will be no restraining forces. If he gets reelected a second time, it will be the chaos of the last 30 days for four years. I'm just excited to see my Lord and Savior Baphomet represented in such glorious Italian stone. I do hope his eyes gaze upon me and that my allegiance is recognized.

I don't know. Notice me, senpai. Notice me. So this story comes to the raw story. Trump lawyer Alina Haba blames mysterious demonic plan for ex-president's court cases. And I mean like not, this is like she's actually saying these things now this is this is Trump's lawyer in the E. Jean Carroll case right uh and so she's been sitting with Trump for quite a bit and I think she sees this as a way to rocket her career up I mean I don't I don't think I'm wrong when I say this why else would you take this guy as a client there's no way

you would take him for a client. But I also think like she's going to make the most of it with these other shows that will want her on. So she can, and then she'll do what he's doing, which is parrot back your fears back to you. And in this case, she's saying demonic. But one of the things that is appalling is this is a lawyer. This is somebody who's working through the court system.

And they're like, this system is demonic. Yeah. What the fuck? I mean, genuinely, if you called a judge a demon, couldn't that get you like fucked up in some way? Like, I mean, it feels like that's a real fucking stretch here. I think so. I think in most cases where rationality were still part of the ballgame, yes, I think calling the judge a demon and suggesting that the court is a series of demonic forces rather than like a system of jurisprudence, yeah, that would cause problems for you. Yeah, that would cause problems for you.

I think that like with Trump, they're able to get away with vastly more than any other defendant would be able to get away with. Or maybe not defendant in a civil case, but like absolutely far more. I guess it's still defendant in a civil case than any other, because they know they can't, politically speaking,

he can't like throw this lady in jail for contempt. If he throws the president's lawyer in jail for contempt, how much does that help the president for his martyrdom? Trump is looking at all these cases as opportunities to paint himself as the brave gladiator trying to avoid martyrdom. So he wins no matter what. He wins if he beats everybody in the gladiatorial arena, and he wins if he martyrs himself. He wins by being rude because then everybody is like, hey, look at, I'm stand up to power. Yeah. And then he wins if they make him somebody who is going to be, like you say, a martyr. They put him behind bars or they try to silence him. who is going to be, like you say, a martyr,

they put him behind bars or they try to silence him. You have to, there has to be something to be said about taking someone in your court who is trying to make a mockery out of a procedure. There has to be something there that you can do, but how much are you playing into their hand? Right. And Trump has said as much. Trump wanted a perp walk.

Trump wants, he wants these things to come out. Yeah. So it makes sense that she would say inflammatory shit like this because it's easy. It's not only easy for her to sway the rubes, right? That's easy. You just say, you say the language they say and it's super easy, but then it's,

and get a bunch of people on your side because you're talking at their level, but then very easily make it seem like Trump is, you know, shitting on the system to everybody else and getting away with it. And that causes distrust in the system. It's just, it's the best. He is the best tool of chaos that we've seen in forever.

I mean, he's genuinely an amazing tool of chaos. Alright, so I want to take a minute at the end of the show to talk about a message we got, Tom. Now, this is from somebody who was upset that we had put some auto-ads in our show, and they were upset that the sound quality was bad. But in that message that they sent, they said that they were mad that we asked people to become

patrons when I clearly live in a house. Right. Like one of the things- I can't believe you live in a house. I have, I just want to tell people, I have the audacity of living in a house. Um, what I think this person is trying to get at, and I think this is a mindset that I want to break people up. So I want to take a minute here at the end of the show and talk about it. Um, I don't want you to ever think that the show money that you, when you donate to the show, when you do, when you become a patron one, I like to think we give our patrons quite a lot of content. We give them extra content and we give them more content and we try to give them early content all the time. So I'd like to think that we give our patrons extra, but I also recognize too,

and I want you to recognize that if you are becoming a patron, I don't want you to think of that as a charity. I don't need your charity. I worked a career for 22 years. My wife is gainfully employed. I transitioned into this role as an employee of Glory Hole Studios in August when I was let go from my job. And I am not living hand to mouth. And I don't want you to think I am, right? I don't want you to think that I am destitute, that the walls are falling down around me, that any second I could be thrown out on the street. I don't want you to think any of that stuff. I live a life that I have built for many years as an employed person who had a career.

And so I don't want you to think I'm hurting. If you become a patron of the show and that money goes to myself, it goes to Ian, it goes to Sarah, I want you to pledge that dollar because we do a lot of work, right? Yeah, because it's worth it. I do, the amount of work I do for this show is,

it's pretty substantial. I mean, like all my whole Friday is editing. My whole Thursday is prepping for the show. Half my Wednesday is research for the show. I proof every single show. And then that show goes back and forth with Ian so that we, if there's changes to be made, we have to make those changes based on that second proofing. I do the first edit of the show and then Ian does the fine edit. But there's a back and forth that

has to happen. And I have to listen to every show before it gets to you. I do a lot of work for the show. I put a lot of hours into the show. If you think that's worth it, we'd love it if you become a patron, but I don't want you to think like, I am falling down on my luck. I don't want people to think, and I think there's some, some measure to that in this message that we got, that they were appalled that I somehow like had a car and lived in a house. Yeah. I, I think it's important to think of podcasting as a different type of career. Yeah. And like any career,

there's a lot of work that goes into it in order for us to produce the product that you guys hear. And some of our listeners pay for that product and other listeners do not pay for that product.

And then we have other ways of monetizing it so that like with ads, for example. And there's not a lot. I don't want to mention it's not onerous. It's not a huge amount of ads.

It's one ad slot. Right. It's not, it's not, it's not a huge, some people, there's, there's some of these really popular podcasts. They'll have five minutes of ads. Yeah. Right. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. We have a single 30 second slot we drop in. Right. So I think it's entirely fair to like not be in the red in order to produce this show. And to have the show be something which is an income. Why is that? That seems fair. It's work.

It's a career. It's something that we do every week for 700 weeks. Yeah. You know what I mean? We've done 700 shows. We've put the time in and built that audience. And I think it's reasonable

to want to have an income from that that is based on the amount of work that is fair and equitable. So yeah, it's not a matter of like, you got to donate.

Otherwise, like we all get kicked out and we live outside and the kids, you know, eat off of cardboard boxes in the rain. That's not,

that's not how that works. And it's not like that for any podcaster, right? So I just want you to know, like, especially the ones that are in our circle, they don't live, they're not walking around in a hair shirt. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they live a normal life, a regular normal life. They have a house or like a nice apartment. They have a car.

They have hobbies that cost money. they do things that call, they go out to dinner. They do all the things that normal people do, right? Like they do all the things that a person, it's a middle class people do. So I don't want you to get the idea that somehow I need that. I don't. And if you, and if you do, don't give me your money. Like keep it. If you need that help,

if you're living paycheck to pay, don't fucking be a patron. Like, please don't do it. I beg you take care of yourself. Like, I don't want that. I think it's worth it.

I think I put a lot of time in the show. If you think it's worth it, become a patron. That's great. If you don't think it's worth it, you get to listen to a show with an ad in it. And Ian does like a 45 minute ad every once in a while. Sometimes that happens. So, you know, that's just, that's what you get with the show. And I don't, I don't think that's a bad trade. If you do, then I don't know what to

tell you, but we got a very scathing message from somebody this week who was very upset with us. And I just want to set the record straight. Just let you know that's not how it works. I'm okay. I would love it if you became a patron, but become a patron for the right reason. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to catch you on

Thursday with a funny show. But we're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead, pan Sales pitch, late night info docutainment

Leo, Pisces, cancer cures Detox, reflex, foot massage Death in towers, tarot cards Psychic healing, crystal balls Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens Churches, mosques and synagogues Temples, dragons, giant worms Atlantis, dolphins, truthers,

birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive. Doubt even this.

The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local Dairy Council and viewers like you.