The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Bonus Episode 8

Episode Date: May 26, 2018

Welcome to the biggest solution in the universe. I'm Maddox with me as Dick Masterson. Hey, what's up, buddy? And Sean, our audio engineer. Poor Sean, who nobody can spell his name correctly. Everyone in the comments is an idiot. You have misspelled Sean's name every possible misspelling that there is. S-H-A-W-N, S-H-A-U-N.

C-I-A-N. I saw that, I think. Yeah. No. No, I didn't. You can spell it S-H-A-W-N. I mean, not mine. Not yours.

It's not your name. And you know what's weird, too, is that we consistently spell it correctly. Dick, am I spelling it wrong in the posts? No. The episode. I'm not, right? No, I got an email, though, regarding Maddox spelled M-A-T-T-I-X or something like that. So it's catching on.

Oh, he misspelled my name? What a fucking idiot. You can't. It's in the URL for my website. What are you going to, matics.x.com? I don't know. Dush. I think people are getting less and less detail-oriented.

Yeah. Yeah. They don't pay attention to the little shit. Is that a problem, Sean? It sounds like a big problem shot. Are you bringing you in another problem? Less and less detail oriented? Maybe.

Yes. Dick, last episode, polio. The last bonus episode, polio was the only solution that we brought in, that you brought in, I guess, that ranked in the positive territory. Everybody thought that riots, dumb people, and especially that

horseshit Apple Watch were problems. Voted in the negative territory. I got a comment from Charles Jackson Fairchild. He says, it says solutions, but they look like problems, especially the Apple Watch. And you know, Dick, I've been waiting a month to bring in this shit because immediately after we recorded that episode, because that was the same, the same, I believe the same week where we talked about Bachelor Parties. Yes. I went to a Bachelor Party. Oh.

And I would say about four or five of the guys there had the new Apple Watch because they're all Apple Fan Boys. You know. heads shoved firmly up their asses. Up Steve Jobs' ass. Yeah. Yeah. So they can check. And maybe, who knows, maybe they have Apple watches up there, too.

Maybe that's what they're checking is at the time. All these fucking idiots were walking around like Dick Tracy all weekend. Looking at their watch and trying to talk into their watch with that shitty speech recognition, which is worse than the iPhone. Oh, it is. All day long. All I heard was navigate to sunset cafe. Go to Sunset Cafe Map of Sunset Cafe

Sunset Cafe Sunset Just over and over And then finally out of frustration People will take out their phones from their pocket And just type in Sunset Cafe Just like a normal fucking person would Hey look man

It was a theory All right I spelled out what my theory was I thought it would help You know the good people at Apple Maybe they thought That they were fixing a problem too and we'll see if it works out.

Yeah, they're fixing a problem of not having enough funds in their bank account. You throw it at the wall, you see what sticks, Maddox. That's how progress is made. Hey, speaking of Dick Tracy, somebody sent in a picture of me. Apparently, I was on Dick Tracy. I saw this. This is the funniest thing. Does that look like me?

It looks exactly like you, Dick. It's a picture of, what's his name, Tiny Face from Dick Tracy? I think it was a tiny face? I thought it was a big balls guy. Nope, Tiny face. Tiny-based small pecker, I think is his name. Here's a voicemail about last month. Hey guys, Samuel L. Jackson here. We're big fans.

I just like to say, Maddox, you got the wrong show. You brought in two fucking really big problems. I thought this was a show for solutions. I look forward to hearing your solutions next month. The Holocaust, because it helps with overpopulation, and 9-11, because now we have a shitty museum in New York. I think we got too cute last bonus episode You think so?

Yeah, we brought in, you know, like when you have this idea, you're like, oh, this will be a real good twist. Like, look, we brought in all these things that seem like problems, and we're going to try to flip the script and make them seem like solutions. And we both did that independently, which is weird. And then it kind of, I think it backfired a little bit. You know, I got some comments from that episode from people who have been longtime fans of the show. and they said that was our best Solutions episode yet. Oh. Yeah, people really liked that episode.

They said it wasn't as funny. And I think you and I, after we recorded that episode, we both felt a little deflated because it wasn't one of our funnier episodes. But I had some people who commented. They said genuinely they thought that we both made good points during that episode. I even got a comment from Alexander Canterbury. He says, at first he says, guys, you brought in your problems to the wrong show. Then he says, edit, now having listened to it, polio and dumb people have good points.

but I think that maybe the cons may outweigh the pros But yeah, a lot of people went back and forth about that They said that at a glance these look like problems But then once they listen to the episode The biggest problem with that episode was that was where the whole broken window fallacy shit started And continued for a month I think that that actually started in the 1800s Where it belongs

A relic of a theory Oh, shut up! Archaic shithead Bastiat, Bastiat, Bastiott. Bastard I got a comment from Remember we were talking about the atomic bomb and how it did not end World War II? That was my position. That was your position, yes. That was my crazy conspiracy position.

And to your credit, Dick, I looked online. Afterwards, I thought, well, am I an idiot here? Am I wrong? And I just looked online for historical... You don't have to be an idiot to be wrong. You could just be wrong. You could be a smart guy, but you're totally wrong. Good point. I agree.

So I looked online. I thought, am I totally off base here? Is this one of those things that I'm just completely misinformed? is U.S. government propaganda, and I looked everywhere, and I couldn't find people corroborating, other than, like, conspiracy theory websites. People corroborating your point of view.

I got an email from Campbell Tyson. Hey, hey, Dick. I was listening to the most recent Solutions episode with my Japanese wife. She agreed with you on how Japan was definitely going to surrender before the bombs were dropped. The general belief across Japan

is that Japan had already surrendered before the bombs were dropped at the risk of sounding like Jesse Ventura. I'll say every nation rewrites history. history, but America had no. No, people were saying that the only reason, here we go, Syrian Clark says, no, no, no, let me find a good one.

Go ahead. Somebody was saying that... I looked everywhere online for information that corroborated that point of view that Japanese wife and you said that Japan had already surrendered and that the bomb was dropped out of malice or whatever. I looked everywhere online. The only website I could find was a website that was on Anonymous.

It was like Anonymous.to or dot CZ or some like Czech website or something like that. And it was a quote that was taken, there's no source for it. It just says, Japan had already surrendered, but then every other history book

and every other history text that I looked at said they hadn't and that that was the catalyst for them surrendering. Well, not that they had already surrendered, but they were going to. Well, going to and doing it are two different things.

They did it after the bomb was dropped. After the second one publicly, Hirohito addressed the piece. after Nagasaki. Right. But I don't know if they had surrendered, you know, quote, in private. They hadn't, they hadn't surrendered yet, but everybody else was gone. The Soviet Union turns around and says, hey, Japan, now we're going to fuck with you as well. What do you think about that? They had lost all their territories in China. Yeah, but the thing you don't understand about, about the- I love when you start sentences like that. Bro, listen. Yeah. The thing I don't know, please

man-splain it to me. Yeah, okay. Have you ever been to an Asian country? Uh, no. I have, I've spent a significant amount of time there. Does Korea Town count? Korea Town does not count. Oh, does Pasadena count? I'm pretty sure that's predominantly Asian. But in many Asian cultures,

I've fucked the girl sideways, does that count? Okay. Dick. Maybe you will be bringing the Holocaust in as a solution. You and Samuel L. Jackson. In many Asian cultures, they believe in saving face. And saving face is more important than almost anything. They will die rather than lose face.

So without the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan, the emperor having conceded a loss, first of all, is unprecedented. And the emperor at the time hadn't even been seen by most Japanese people. So this was a huge thing, a huge thing he had to swallow, and he had to realize, like, okay, if we believe what the Americans are saying, they have 11 more bombs, they're going to drop on our cities, we have to take a long, hard look at ourselves and concede. Okay, here's my what if, right?

What if we wanted to strike fear into the hearts of our allies? We looked at the Soviet Union and we said, hey, you guys better check yourselves because after this is done, we still got 11 more of these. Well, I think that was part of it. I think that's a big part of it. I think that's been documented where it was like, show your military might to the rest of the world.

It's a nice byproduct, I think, is how it's put. It's possible. I got a comment from Louis John He says Maddox Did you edit this to make Dick sound like more of an imbecile than usual? Like someone who consistently fails to comprehend that morality isn't a binary good versus bad system In which all bad things are of equal weight

Like someone who can't even begin to grasp That the lesser of two evils is a concept that exists Or is he just a fucking moron Lewis John What do you think, Dick? I don't know Did he just get out of his first day to philosophy 101?

It sounded like you added that last part. I have nothing. It's just a copy and paste. Morality isn't binary. Okay. By the way, this is his occupation.

He says he's a goddamn sand wizard, Workers of Miracles, doer of things at MAD. I love on the Facebook comments reading what they do, reading what commenters do, because there will be like a two-page thing about how stupid I am and how I don't understand it.

And then it's like, freshman physics at like SUNY university. Yep. Why am I? I'm getting shit from an 18-year-old. Fuck you, kid! I got another comment. Remember, I was saying that a lot of people

like the last bonus episode. I got one from Alex Dubinard-Miguel, Miguel. She says, I actually thought both of you made great arguments for all your solutions this week. I don't know. Maybe most people commenting are part of the dumb people. Could be.

Speaking of, well, I got an apology from Evan Weeb. Remember how I busted that demolition man, boob myth. Yeah. Well, he sent an apology. Hey, Dick, I usually pride myself on my boob-related pop culture, but I have to give it to you this time. I think I watched it on TV and the boobs were cut out.

Oh, okay. And that explains it. Yeah. Someone posted a link in the comments on the last Solutions episode to the boob shot. I brought it. You brought it? Yeah, yeah. Great.

Oh, awesome. Oh, my God. That was so worth a two-minute setup, Dick. Thank you. Kind of disappointed. I'm disappointed. Yeah. I remember these boobs being.

spectacular, man. That's because you were a fucking 14-year-old kid and you hadn't seen boobs before. It was exciting. Oh, I had seen boobs before. Yeah. It's like high school sex. It sucks. Um, I just, I got more on the Apple Watch dick. I forgot to mention this. I was doing more research. It doesn't, do you know it doesn't work well with people with hairy arms? It doesn't work. The sensors don't work. Good. Good. Go back to the zoo, you guerrillas. Okay. That's hate, that's a hate speech right there. Yeah, sure is. Yeah. It doesn't work with tattoos. Doesn't work well with tattoos. Apple forces you to on Apple Watch ad in iOS 8.2 that shows a bunch of videos

showcasing what the Apple Watch can do that you can't delete. Did you know that? Apple did that horseshit again. First the U-2 song and now you have Apple Watch ads in your iPhone. Garbage. You know, the fans have spoken. It's clearly a problem. And one of the biggest complaints I'm finding, people are saying that the battery keeps

draining and dying immediately. It dies within under a day which means you can't even use it for a watch. You can't look at the and it takes seven to ten seconds to open up apps including the weather. Well, I'll be honest with you. I could never trade my Omega in for a computer. I just couldn't. I wouldn't do it. Your Omega? My Omega watch. What is that? It's my watch. It's a beautiful watch.

Omega is the brand. Yeah. It's James Bond. Or the new James Bond. And what does it do? Just tell the time? No, it does two things. It tells the time and it lures bitches over. It's really a remarkable timepiece in that it can do both of those things. Because they walk up to you and then we'll say like, oh, nice watch. Peacocky. I really like your watch. More peacocking.

Maddox, yeah, I'm a man. You've got to mix it up, baby. You've got to get out there and show off that plumage, man. Don't be ashamed of that. No. You've got to spend money to make money. That's pickup artist 101, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right, Dick. Should we get to the solutions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wait, I got one more comment. That's pretty funny. Somebody sent in a picture of what your wife would look like in the Oculus Rift. Oh, great. You want to see it?

Yeah. She better be hot. Well, she better look like me. I'll let you. I'll let you decide. What do you think. What a babe. Oh, man, I'd do that babe sideways.

It's a picture of Maddox in a wedding dress. Yeah. For some reason, why were you wearing a wedding dress? Oh, it's because this website, this bridal website sent me, they sent me some spam a while back asking if I wanted to review some wedding gowns. And I said, have you seen my website? and they said, yes, we love all your material on your website. And I said, okay, send me the wedding veil, idiots.

I'll review it. So I bought a wedding dress. There's a whole to do. I did a video about it. All right. Do you want to go first? You want me to go first? Dick, yeah, why don't you go ahead?

All right, I'm going to go first. Start us off. My first solution, and it's a real solution this time, is the corporation. The idea of the corporation, the invention. The invention of the corporation. Okay. You know what a corporation is. Yeah.

Right? Uh-huh. It's an entity, a legal entity, that allows people to do amazing things. Oh, I guess. Sure. It allows people to furnish the world with all these technological wonderments

that we take for granted. Sure. It allows people to explore the world. Like, what, would you say, would, can we say thanks for corporations for... Everything. Everything around you. I was going to bring in something like,

no, planes. Like penicillin, maybe. Uh, yeah, sure. That's what, absolutely. It was, it was invented, but how do you get penicillin everywhere? A corporation brings it to you. Or NGOs. MGOs.

What's an NGO? Nongovernment organizations, non-profits. The guy who invented. A non-profit is a corporation. No. Yes, it is. It's a 501C. That's not, that's not a traditional corporation.

It's not a profit for-profit corporation. That doesn't matter. It's still a corporation. So you say even charities are corporations. Of course they are. Okay. That's what I'm saying. It's the idea that you can engage in a business venture with your fellow man

and not be hanged if you screw up. That's a great thing. It's responsible for all of civilization. So you're saying limited liability that is entailed with corporations is a good thing. Yes. It's essential. Okay. It's essential for progress.

That's what I'm saying. I don't know if it's essential, but it's important. I'll give you that. Well, without it, without it, let's say you're, let's say you're, doing a podcast and somebody says like a bunch of horrible and sensitive things, they could come over and say you know what, you're guilty too. Actually

we're going to hang the both of you. Let's not talk about this. Yeah, so I started doing this because corporations get shit on a lot, obviously, especially on the internet. And I started typing in some stupid research like, our corporation's bad or corporations good. And I find these dumb

polls online where people vote are corporations bad or good? They are all split right down the middle. 50-50. 50. Corporations are bad. Corporations are good. The things that

are responsible for computers and the internet, the thing that you're typing this on, planes, TVs, cell phones, everything. But those aren't necessarily, those aren't corporations aren't people and they don't, and I'm not talking about the legal

definition of a person for legal purposes of a corporation. They're not people. They're not people, they are not innovators. They may, what they do a lot of times, they hire people, and then they absorb their patents, they absorb their ingenuity, and they take credit for those people's, those people's hard work. Like, for example, Apple's a great example. Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs hasn't invented jack shit. All Steve Jobs did, first of all, he's a great marketer, but he's also good at picking out

devices that his underlings developed. When he died, they listed all these articles about Steve Jobs and all the different patents that he had his name on, but every single one of those patents has another name on it, and it's the engineer who actually developed it. So, so are you upset by that? Because otherwise, that engineer would have, he would have had to do that work for free, with no funding. Or, or, he could have done that work on his own and not been beholden to a corporation that took credit, and that corporation's name is valuable now. That engineer's name, I can't even fucking remember. See, I knew bringing this in was a good idea precisely because of that 50-50 split. Yeah. I had a feeling you would be on the

wrong side of this one. Well, Dick, why do you think... I mean, 50% is a significant amount of our population. Why do you think that 50% of people think corporations are bad? Why do you think that? Because they're dumb. They're dumb. That's the dumb half of the bell curve. Okay. Yeah. 50% of people are dumb. Well? 50% are smart.

They're on the right side. 50% are dumb. That's a fucking curve. If you're in the middle, you're... There's nobody in the middle. Everybody's either on the 50 dumb side, 50% dumb side or the 50% smart side. Dick, I'm going to bring it, I have a comment from a a fan, he says, is Lewis John.

He says, uh, Maddox, did you edit to make this dick sound like more of an imbecile than usual? Because he thinks that there's some kind of like binary good versus bad system. I literally just read that comment at the start of this episode, Dick. So what are saying? What do you mean? You are saying that there's a binary dumb or, or smart. It's not, there's less smart or less, less dumb. There's more dumb, more smart.

It's not binary. It's not like 50% of people are dumb. It's not, you, you... Yeah, it's pass-fail. No. That's an F. If you got an F, you failed the smarts. No, there's degrees.

If you got a D or above. There are degrees of F. There's F plus. There's F minus. Haven't you read my book? The corporation limits your liability. It's also, it's a way for society to evolve. Think about this.

A newer corporation comes along with a better way of doing something. More efficient way of doing something. The other entity dies off. It's great. You can't do that without a corporation. I'm not sure that that's necessarily evolution, and I'm not sure that that's a good thing. You're assuming that just because a corporation exists, because a corporation outlasted in another corporation, that the one who survived is necessarily the best.

Sometimes the one who survived. More efficient. Or brutal. Or inconsiderative human rights. Fox. What's that? Foxcon, whatever, the one that makes all the gadgets that we use in China? So stop buying from them.

Who's the brutal one now? No, but I'm saying that. Their existence isn't because they're necessarily the best. It's just because they are the most brutal. They're the ones who are the most cutthroat. Well, I'll give you this. It is in China. Yeah.

Like, there's a lot of jiggery-pokery going on there. That makes competition unfair. You know what I mean? Like an upstart can't make a better cell phone in China. The government will crush them. Yeah. Because Foxcon is just way too powerful. But you can do that here.

Like Uber. Uber's driven in like four years, Uber, has decimated taxi cabs. There are like 40% of rides done in the U.S. now. Yeah. That's a corporation. Well, thank a corporation for that, Maddox. Yeah, because a corporation sat around thinking, a day and night, like, how can I make this?

How can I solve this problem? If you didn't have a corporation, you couldn't do that. Because everybody would be liable for everything. But they still are, Dick. And I think that liability ensures that people will not be fuck-ups, and they will try to make the safest product, a product that's not going to screw over the consumers. People are scared. I think

So you think fear is a good motivator for safety? Yes, sometimes. I disagree. I think it makes you panicky and jittery and more prone to error. Well, that can also possibly be the case, but I think that a lot of times, fear of the bad repercussion,

like that a customer is going to come sue you, will make sure that someone working at the factory line isn't going to fuck up and he's going to put poison in your food or your baby formula or whatever it is, right? I don't know. I think they're already putting poison in that. Well, maybe, but,

The guy on the factory line, what incentive is there other than lawsuits? To what? What incentive is there for people to not fuck up and not to take advantage and not to exploit the citizens and consumers if there weren't lawsuits? That's a pessimistic way of looking at things, though.

Don't you think? Oh, pessimistic or optimistic is irrelevant. I'm asking you, what incentive do people have to do the right thing without lawsuits? Yeah, but you're framing it in a way that's pessimistic at its core. Yeah. I agree.

It is. It is pessimistic. So that's like saying, like, religious people will always say, what's the incentive not to kill and murder without God? And, like, an answer to that is, like, I didn't want to do that in the first place because I'm a human being. But what you're saying is what's to stop people from doing bad things without the threat of a lawsuit?

And I'm saying, you know, doing bad things is rarely the way to maximize profits, in my opinion. Like, people don't always just want to do bad things to squeeze out that. last penny. Yeah, that's true. They don't always. But again, if you don't have that incentive there, if you don't have that club, as a, as, you know, your example, we're getting into some heavy philosophical stuff, but that example that you gave about, you know, Christians or people who are religious say, well, without the fear of God sending you to hell with eternal damnation, what's stopping anyone from doing anything, right? Well, I think that's not necessarily a good argument because I think that

evolutionarily speaking, we have a benefit to doing things that are conducive toward society. Yeah, we're all pussies. All the pussies evolved. We all survived. We love each other. It's like evolution. That's actually a good point. That is evolution. It's not

survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest is not evolution. You know that? Well, the most... That's the mechanism. That's the mechanism, correct, Sean. But it is not the same thing. Because survival of the fittest is one mechanism with which evolution can occur, but evolution can also occur by people being cooperative and people being meek, not necessarily the strongest, fittest or fastest,

but people who are social and people who engage in social behavior that is conducive to all of society. So that's another mechanism with which evolution can occur. Back to corporations. Saying that's what a corporation is made out of. These people who evolved with this mindset and these sensibilities. No, I disagree. So who do you think runs them? You have a corporation. Right. You run a corporation. Are you a bad guy? No.

Well, then where's the switch? Well, some corporations are good. Some corporations are bad. I think that the corporations that are bad, first of all, the larger they become, the more faceless they become, the less accountable people become, and the more harm that they can do. And they can just kind of, you know. So it's necessarily size. As it gets bigger, it gets more harmful, you think? No, not necessarily. Well, okay. Is there some kind of correlation in your idea or in your mind?

No. No. I don't think so. I don't think so. All right. No. Dick, I'm trying to, I know you like to sweep it with,

paint with a large sweeping brushes. I just want to get an idea of what you're talking about. Yeah. Like, when do you think the switch is, you, good guy, too good, in my opinion, run a corporation. When does it go from being a good guy to a bad guy? It goes from being a good guy to a bad guy

when they put profits above people. I'll give you a perfect example. I'll give you a perfect example. And my old job at the telemarketing company, that was a brutal... They're going to get emails about that. Good. Good, because it was a shit company, and I'll tell you why.

Even though I worked for them for years and years, again, some good can come out of something bad or evil. It helped fund my entire website for years and put me through college. Like, I worked, and I wouldn't be the person I am today if I didn't have that job that supported me, right? There was some good there, and most of the people I worked there were awesome. But the people at the very top that, like, the guy who owned the company, ran the company, ran it with an iron fist and he didn't give a fuck he would fire people

a week before Christmas he hired this guy this guy was loved in our department and he had a family and he planned this Christmas trip for his family and he was happy

because they lured him from another job to come to work at this corporation and what they did is they chopped him they let him go a month

a month before some bonus that they had to pay out because they thought thought, well, it's cheaper just to hire someone else, so they don't have to pay out that bonus. Yeah. And he had already started digging a pool, right?

This is Clark Griswold, we're talking about. Another corporation... I mean, are you giving examples of, like, dickhead bosses? No, it's not just dickhead bosses. I'm talking about the corporations themselves. Another one, another call center opened up. This was in Canada. Or actually, it was in Washington.

They opened up a call center. They hired all these people, these telemarketers, right? And customer service workers. They do call support, you know, service calls. Anytime you call tech support, these are the people you're talking to. They say, we're going to pay you a starting wage of $7 an hour. This is like in the 90s. $7 an hour.

Then after three months, after three months, we're going to give everybody a new wage of $9.50 an hour. And everybody thought, well, that's great. We're going to quit our jobs now and we're going to hang on for three months. Guess what happened at two months and two weeks in? They shut down the facility, opened up in Canada, did the same con, did the same scam, and then once that was done, they closed up shop there, they just open up shops and they lure people.

In your mind, you associate that with a corporation. Yeah. But in the real world, the entity, the legal entity, the purpose of this idea, has nothing to do with these people being scam artists and assholes. And that's what troubles me. It's that 50% of people in these online surveys

are associating bad behavior with this legal entity that is built to a let them do business, to let them live their lives. And that's what bugs me. These guys that you're talking about, this entity of a corporation lets you take them on in a marketplace and run them out of town. It's a great thing.

Very powerful, very powerful invention that we put together. Yeah, I don't know about that, Dick. You haven't made the case. Like, why are the things that you're saying, we owe to corporations only due to corporations. Well, what do you mean? Well, what are you saying is the benefit of a corporation? What else you mean?

The liability? What would you say the two biggest benefits of a corporation are? Limited liability, efficiency and evolution of ideas, shareholder input, that's another big one. Like a voting system that's dependent on on how much you're literally invested in something? Okay, let's stop there. So number one, you said that it was limited liability.

Yeah. Number two, you said that it was the evolution of ideas. Yeah. That's a big maybe. Maybe. And then number three is shareholders, right? Shareholder input? Yeah.

I'll tell you why specifically starting with number three, and it's a bad idea. Because shareholders don't give a fuck about anything except their bottom line. They will... But there are people like you and me. Yeah, I know. but people like you and me, again, when we're just looking at stocks, we're looking at a number, and we just care whether it goes up or whether it goes down. We don't care.

That's a very big generalization. No, that's how shareholders are huge swaths of people, dig. And by the way, they're not people like you and me. They're people who are really affluent. Yeah, like you. People who are really affluent and have enough money to invest, and they're the people who just care about their bottom line. They're not, as a shareholder dick, you're not going to vote for something that's not

going to reduce the bottom line for the corporation. Maddox, the richest men in America are by huge margins the biggest philanthropists. There's groups of shareholders that major companies have pushed and argued and lobbied for the company to do things that they think benefit the world. A small group of shareholders at Starbucks forced and argued the entire company to start a huge recycling campaign. I don't I don't give a shit, personally, I don't give a shit about recycling, but you can look at it and say, those guys had good intentions that only cost them money. Maybe they were doing it for like some kind of abstract marketing angle to increase their bottom line in some way, but I can't

say, I can't, in good conscience, say that they're purely cynical about it. Like they only are worried about their profits. You're talking about people, Dick. You're not talking about corporations. Corporations have no conscience. They're, they run the company. But they are not the company. There is a distinction there. The company does not have a soul. They don't have a conscience. They don't, they're not going to do right and wrong. They don't have an ethical code. A corporation exists for one reason, and that's to make money, period.

And I'm fucking tired of corporations trying to pretend like they're people and they have goodwill. Like a Honda. There's an Honda ad on TV right now. It's called the Helpful Honda dealer. And what they do is they go around and do supposed a random acts of altruism. They just show up at a baseball game and say, hey, everyone, we're buying you new fucking uniforms. I hate those commercials. Oh, there you go.

Congratulations. Thank you, fucking Honda. Let me suck your dick. fucking Honda doesn't have a fucking, they're not altruistic, they're not people, it's just a corporation trying to do it for marketing. They have no conscience, they have no soul. That's why people are the important part of that equation. People are the altruists, people are the philanthropists. Corporations are not, never.

Their purpose is to sell cars. Right. What do you want them to do? That's their goal. But they're doing it under, don't you think it's dishonest and misleading, doing it under the guise of altruism as if it's a corporate person coming along and saying, you know what, We're going to find a baseball game and we're going to buy them new uniforms. We're going to find this guy, this kid and give him a free car wash or whatever. It's just marketing.

It's just like everybody knows that they're doing it to sell cars. But it's misleading. I don't see how. They got it. They tag it all over. This is a Honda sale. Honda Super Sale. Here's something we did.

Hopefully that struck a chord with you guys and makes you think that you should be driving around in a Honda when realistically you could buy any fucking car and it doesn't matter. Dick, that's irrelevant. whether or not it's marketing, we're not saying it's not marketing. We know it's marketing, but they're doing it under the guise of altruism, which is misleading. They're not altruistic. They just care about their bottom lines. Like, that's, specifically, you have a problem with the dove campaign specifically for this reason,

because Dove is trying to pretend. I don't like seeing fat girls on billboards. That's why I have a problem with the Dove campaign. That's the only problem you have a dove. Not that they are using beauty as some kind of virtue that they're trying to sell to these women. Not that they are pretending to care about these women. Sure. They don't care.

They don't give a sure. about anything but their bottom line. That's why Dove sucks. That's why Honda sucks. And that's why altruism is not part of this equation. Absolutely not. I don't know. Corporations have no altruism.

SpaceX? Are they just looking out for the bottom line? Google's looking out for the bottom line with self-driving cars? Absolutely. So in your world, this is a serious question. In your world, what does anybody do then? What should Google and Honda and SpaceX be doing? SpaceX just comes out and say, we're trying to make tons of money by bringing things into space

and there's no this, and it's all negative? Like, it isn't, I'm struggling to, to imagine what you think it should be. Dick, lawsuits were created so that you can get some kind of reparation for harm done against you. They're a good thing, right? And assuming that they are not done if you're not extremely litigious and you're trying to just sue and trying to make a profit and take advantage of somebody, lawsuits at their, at their heart are a good thing. Yeah, right?

It's good solution. Law. We get in. Right. Sure. So when you limit that liability of a corporation, to answer your question about SpaceX, no, SpaceX doesn't care about anything. They killed people. Elon Musk does. The founder of SpaceX, he's the founder, right? Elon Musk? Is that him? So he may care, or is it Virgin? No, no, it's not Branson. It's another guy. It's a guy who I don't know. Elon Musk founded Tesla.

Branson did Virgin Galax. I don't think... No, I think he's... Elon Musk is SpaceX. Oh, I don't know. Maybe he is. Elon Musk may be a good guy, and he may be an altruist. But to say that the corporation is good for that reason is absolutely bullshit.

Corporation may be the mechanism. It's like saying roads are virtuous because you can drive to church or you can drive to donate something or whatever. Roads by themselves are not virtuous. That's the mechanism. If you want to say corporations are the mechanism with which huge charity and good things can come about, Sure, but they are not the reason.

They're not the cause. All right, well, for a guy who brought in addresses, I think the corporation belongs to be on here, but that's enough. That's enough out of me. Oh, here's something to spell a myth. I'll go, you know, I don't care. No, no, what's up?

I want to hear it. That they don't sit on that much cash. Corporations? Corporations, yeah. They're only sitting on like 13% of their annual revenue. What's that based on? What do you mean? Is that an average of some corporation?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, like in America. Right. It's historically it's around 10%. Currently it's around 13%. But there's this myth that they're like hoarding cash. And it's wrong. A lot of them are, I believe.

Well, but that's the number. Where that number come from? The internet? I don't know. The fucking place. Probably Forbes. Yeah, Forbes? Do you have a site?

I didn't write it down. Yeah, I'm curious about that because I think that some corporations do hoard a lot of their money. I don't think they spend nearly as much as they should. But you know, Dick, you know why I presented such a fierce debate about your corporate problem? Because you're a dick?

No. Ashole? Because I'm a critical thinker. Critical thinking, that's my solution. Yeah, smart. Why do so many of your problems and solutions are you being so great? Why are all of them like how smart you are?

Good looking. God damn it. Critical thinking, Dick. You know what critical thinking is? No. Yeah. I wish I had a quote for me that just says, maybe I am smart as I think I am.

It's first smart. What is it? What is critical thinking? I like to say, there are a lot of different definitions I read online. A lot of people say what critical thinking is. I'm going to tell you my definition. Here's what I think it is. Okay.

It's just very simple. It's always questioning everything. That's critical thinking. Always questioning everything. AQE. That's your motto? AQE. Always question everything. Yeah. Always question everything.

Dick, did you know I didn't learn critical thinking until college? Yeah. What? Uh-huh. I was never taught critical thinking. I never even heard of that expression. And actually, I dated a teacher for a while who decided to, yeah, she decided to teach. critical thinking to her fifth graders.

This was in college? No, this was in fifth grade. You were in fifth grade dating? No, no, no. Oh, dick. You dated a teacher recently? No, a while ago. A while ago, a while.

As an adult. As an adult, yes. Yeah, because I like good sex. And that's what adults provide is good sex. Not high schoolers. Please go. Anyway. So this is something that teachers are starting to introduce more into the curriculum,

especially through common core, which everybody shits on. Common Core is not bad. It's awful. No, it's not. No, it's not. All these moron, dullered parents who don't understand that their children are learning something that they don't know. Good. That's the fucking point of school.

They're teaching your kids information and new ways of thinking that you don't understand. That's a good thing. That you don't understand it is a good sign. I can't wait to bring in Common Core and show you how wrong you are. All right. Bring it, buddy. Anyway, Dick, assumptions are the foundation for fucking up. And that's what critical thinking is battle.

is going against. When you assume something, you are coming to a conclusion about what that thing is without having considered the reason, right? That's a problem with assumptions. All right. The most important question to ask

about something is why. Even what I'm saying should be questioned. Like, even the words that are coming out of my mouth right now should be questioned. If you don't question everything, that means you take conclusions for granted. But questioning everything isn't the same as disagreeing with everything.

That's what a lot of people confuse critical thinking with is just disagree. It's not. Nor is it the same as being a contrarian. So, Dick, something that I do on the show that annoys you a lot is when I play devil's advocate. Yeah, I hate that. Everyone hates that. No, they don't. No, they don't, Dick. Even God hates that. He doesn't make popes do it anymore. That's true.

Great, probably because the word devil's in it. I don't even know what I'm saying. What do you know? They used to be part of the papal selection process. A cardinal would play devil's advocate and say what a dick this other cardinal was. And they said, we're not doing that anymore. Yeah. Okay. I say we're probably having too much fun with it. Too critical.

No, it was probably working too well. Yeah, it's probably working too well. This guy molested a thousand kids. Yeah, yeah. If you don't examine the reasons that you do something, you just start doing things for granted. You start taking things for granted and making assumptions. And the reason I do it, Dick,

the reason I do I play devil's advocate so much is because I'm often doing so because I want to see if you've reasoned through the criticisms of your position. Not necessarily because I'm, I disagree with you. I've often debated issues that I agree with because the person defending them is doing so for the wrong reasons. And that includes... That's very annoying. Oh, sorry that I want to get to the truth. I want to understand if the person agreeing with me understands my position. I don't want somebody to just agree with me blindly. That's why I think a lot of my fans are idiots. They agree with me because they like me because I'm a charismatic person because I'm personable because I'm funny or whatever,

whatever reason they like me for, that's not a reason to agree with me. You should agree with me because I'm right, not because you like me. Yeah, but who's got time to do all this thinking? Everybody. Well, I don't know, man. It's hard work. Well, here's... I'll just take your word for it. I'd rather do that.

Great. Like, ah, Maddox, he's usually right. Well, here's an example, Dick. I brought in a real-world example. Well, I don't know. I don't know how real this is actually. But here's a conclusion, okay? police brutality is bad.

Would you agree with that? Yeah. Most people would, right? Most people would agree that police brutality is bad. However, someone could make the case that police brutality is bad because there isn't enough of it. So if someone sitting across from you in a room says police brutality is wrong and he's simply just nod in agreement like an idiot, you might be agreeing with someone who's a jackass. That's the problem. Oh, they're a jackass for talking about this in a group already.

Well, we're talking about it. Are we jackasses? Yeah. Okay. I can critical think my way into that one. Great. Anyway, Dick. So, wait, wait, why is it because there's not enough brutality? You can make the case?

How is that critical thinking? Go ahead. So, for example, Dick, you brought in a problem on this very show a long time ago where you said there's not enough Black Friday violence, right? Which at the outset, anyone seeing that would disagree with you because they say, well, violence is bad. Yeah. And if we have more violence, that's more bad.

so therefore more Black Friday violence is bad but you by the way made an argument for why sub-violence on Black Friday is good because it takes these dumb people out of the population right? Yeah that's funny I do think that too and yet argued against my riot solution last episode last bonus episode

yeah because I think those people are real bad I really have a problem with those rioters I really have a problem with their sanctimonious attitudes too yeah well why don't you guys start being sanctimonious next time supposedly white people go rioting out after a fucking basketball game. I don't see all the fucking tweets. Yeah, but the problem is

those usually end right away. It's just a bunch of drunk Yehus who like sober up or get tired or get their ass kicked and go home. These rioters are fueled by like, I think dysfunction in their minds. They go for weeks

and just destroy. How many weeks did the riots occur in Maryland most recently? What do you mean? The Baltimore ones? Yeah, the Baltimore was. I have no idea. How long are they? Less than one. Less than one week? Yeah. Okay. How long did the L.A. riots go? The L.A. riots went for a while. But the majority of the rioting, the majority of the rioting in Baltimore occurred over the course of one or two nights.

And the damage really wasn't that high compared to the rioting that was done after a fucking basketball game or a hockey game in Canada. They just flip some cars over. What do they do in Canada? In Ohio, I think this was the 1986 riots after a Kansas... It was like a Kansas City game or something that happened in Ohio. And after that, every single window in the city was broken. Yeah. Laughing up, Dickhead. Where's the sanctimony there?

No, no white people saying, where are their fathers? No, them, I don't like that they're sanctimonious. I don't think sports fans think they're in the right by destroying buildings. I think they're just being assholes. Yeah, but the same people who are criticizing the writers in Baltimore weren't sitting there. They're not going to Twitter. In fact, just recently in Texas, when they had that giant biker gang riot, basically, that giant fight. Yeah, 186 bikers or 192 of them were arrested, some insane amount, and like nine people were killed.

Where were all the people, where were the white people coming on the media saying, well, where are their fathers? You know what those guys need? They need good father figures in their lives. Where are their fathers? It's because they have low-income housing. Where were their sanctimony? Well, I think what you're seeing here is people understand sports riots and like biker gang riots. And honestly, people don't understand what's like what the deal is with inner city riots.

Like they don't understand how to fix it. They don't understand where it comes from. They got all these theories. And then the news just preaches to whatever their segment of people has like preconceptions of why it's going on. But there's a confusion there that makes it interesting. I agree. To us. I agree.

And that's a problem that we should look at critically. Dick, you know what? All right. Where's the part where it's how great you are for being a critical thinker? How are you taught to be a critical thinker?

I want to hear that. Like in college. It was in college. I took a class. It was a writing class. And I've talked about this, I think, on book tour. But this professor came into my class.

First of all, when I was at the University of Utah, they made me take a writing placement test to see my writing proficiency, right? And they put me in the most remedial writing class that they had. Have you taken that since? No, not since. I really would like to see that.

However, I did mention the University of Utah in my New York Time bestselling book. Yeah. I said that I mentioned how I failed that writing test in that book. Yeah. That's a big fuck you to them. I mean, the Twilight Woman would probably fail that too, and she's a bestseller. Well, okay. That's a good point.

I'm just thinking critically about... Yeah, fuck you, dick. My asshole. I hate that baby. I found that the first day we were recording, I'm like, I'm going to use this forever. Anyway, Dick. So he taught you? No, yeah, I took this class.

So they put me in the most remedial writing class that they had. And I'm sitting in there in class waiting for the teacher to show up. He's like five minutes late. There's like a kid with his jacket on backwards and one with like a helmet, stabbing, stabbing a pencils into his head. This is like the remedial class. Why is he such an asshole? Such a dick. There's a kid eating a book.

He's such a fucking asshole. need this shit, this abuse. So the professor walks in. He's not wearing shoes. I continue. And he sits on his desk, on his desk, not at his desk, on it. Cross-legged, with no shoes. Kind of a hippie, kind of a hippie-looking dude.

He had this huge frasly beard. It looked a little bit like Bob Ross. And the first thing he says, he had kind of like, like, like this Kermit the Frog kind of nasally voice. It goes, oh, some of you may have noticed that I look like Carl Marks. That was not an accident.

Cool, man. Yeah, real cool. And so... Let me just get back to eating my book over here. Carl Marx, who just lived off his friend's father for most of his life. Oh, is that true? Yeah, angles or whatever his name is.

Yeah, he was just kind of a... He sat and thawed a lot. He was a bum. Didn't do a whole lot of work. He was a hippie. Yeah. Huh? Yeah.

How about that? Well, let me tell you that, this guy, this Carl Marks dude, was probably one of the... of the best and only good professors I had at the University of Utah. I had a handful of good professors at the University of Utah. This guy was one of them. Another one was this other lady who taught me my final class that I ever took at the University of Utah. She taught it in such a good pedagogical way. She used the Socratic method, which is actually one of the tools of critical thinking that I'm going to talk about. But this guy, this professor in my writing

class, he taught me critical thinking. He brought in advertisements and he showed us these advertisements and he just asked us in class like what do you guys think of these ads and at first everybody in the class thought nothing of it they did there were just ads for detergent and ads for uh you know food and cars and things and we thought well nothing it's just a picture of a car what is there to think about it and he said well that's the problem you shouldn't be Mustang was coming out around then yeah would have been the new Ford Mustang yeah well so he he taught us to look at these advertisements critically and he said everything in the advertisement is there for a reason. Nothing is there by accident, including the print,

including the type, including the position relative to each other inside an advertisement. And then I started staring at these advertisements in a different way, and I realized, oh my God, this is what he's saying is correct. It's true. Everything in this advertisement has been meticulously crafted for a reason. There's nothing is there by accident. And so that's when I started thinking critically about pretty much everything. And then he taught me how to write critical papers. And I wrote a paper in that class that is pretty much the template for every essay. You said that in the first, I think the first bonus episode, I want to see it. But you didn't want to give away your secrets. No. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the tools that you need to use.

It's just the Socratic method. Is that why you hate ads because of this guy? No, I don't hate ads because they're mostly dishonest and misleading. I don't know. What do you think about art then? Like when you go to a museum, do you look at like a painting and say that it's dishonest and misleading? It depends. It depends on the Oh, interesting. Yeah, it depends on the intent of the artist. Okay.

What if the artist... What if it was a painting of you looking like really musly and ripped? Would you say that was dishonest and misleading? I said that's super honest. How can you honestly tell his intention? Well, you'd have to read and you'd have to know what the artist says. And you'd also

have to make a value judgment on whether or not the artist is being honest. Sometimes artists say one thing and they They do another, like, for example, trolls online. A lot of people say they're trolls after they get caught doing something shitty. That bugs me too. Yeah. In fact, I'm working on a project, Dick.

There's a big project I've been working on for a long time. But it's going to solve this problem of unintentional trolling. Because trolling requires intent. Anyway, we're getting way off topic here. I know something about trolling. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, Dick, we're getting way off topic here. I want to talk about the Socratic method. This is a form of inquiry based on asking questions and answering them to stimulate critical thinking. This is what one of my good professors in college taught. And it teaches you not to wear jackets. Sean, I reasoned my way into not wearing jacket. You know what, Dick, why? You play a fucking...

That's a fuck teenage boys, right? Did you go all the way with your Socratic method, or did you stop at just the thinking and the jacket wearing? Shut up. It involves a discussion in which the defense of an argument. argument is questioned. If the person being questioned contradicts him or herself, it may strengthen the inquirer's position. Hence, the reason I ask you so many questions, Dick, sometimes even when I agree with you, if he or she has a position, it could strengthen it, right? Or it may strengthen the defender's argument by demonstrating that all the loose ends are considered. And I just have a

couple of quotes, and I'll end this solution here. This one's from Seneca, Roman philosopher in 4B.C. He says, he who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decided justly, Cannot be considered just. I totally agree with that because, you know, when I brought in the problem of well-intentioned idiots, the dancer, the big dancing guy who was made fun of, supposedly, he had his big dance party. Oh, I know.

Let's talk about that in the regular episode, though. Yeah, because people want an update. Yeah, I'll just say this, that a lot of people send it as kind of a fuck you in my face. I said, guys, the outcome is irrelevant, because they couldn't have known anything going in. Not in the real world, it's not. No, but it is.

No, it's not. Yeah. And there is another quote by Ben Franklin. He says, when these difficult cases occur, they are difficult chiefly because while we have them under consideration, all the reasons pro and con are not present in the mind at the same time. That's why it's difficult to do critical thinking, because you really have to look at both sides. And then, so I just want to say that critical thinking is the ability to look at both sides of a debate. Consider the pros and cons weigh all of your options and surface hidden assumptions made by the debater. It's a super important thing that we need to, that everybody needs to do.

It can make you a smarter person. It can improve your life. And, and like everything else, it should be done in moderation. No. Do I have that right? Nope. Ass. Have you ever read, what is the Plato book where he writes out a fictional conversation between Socrates

and like Salamides or something, some other Greek asshole? It's one of Plato's bigger books. I don't know. Where it's a demonstration of this Socratic method that's supposed. happened between Socrates and like some other... Played as apology? It's not his apology. No. I don't know. The Republic or something?

No, it's not the Republic. I don't know, but I read it. And it's like, it's exactly what you're describing the way he's debating with this guy. Yeah. And when I got done with it, I was like, God, I never want to be this asshole. Like, he's so annoying the way he's pestering this guy. Oh, man, that guy's so funny. Socrates is so fucking funny. He's so witty.

Anyway, man. I really think that critical thinking, may be the biggest solution in the universe. Yeah? Yeah. Or we'll see if it beats out Hemlock, right? Because that's on the list. You know, an antedia, isn't it?

An anted... Yeah, it is. We'll see if Socrates's critical thinking beats out Socrates's suicide. That was not euthanasia asshole. That was murder. He was murdered. No, no, he drank Hemlock. Well, yeah.

They made him. They made him. He had no... Convicted for, like, corruption of the youth, wasn't it? Yes, but they wanted... I thought they wanted him to die a different way. and he's like, I'm dying my own way. Fuck you guys.

He could have said I'm innocent, and I just, hey, guys, all that stuff I was saying, I was just trolling. Like, well, I'll see you guys later. I'm going to get out of here. But he was like, I'm totally guilty. I'm going to martyr myself by drinking this hemlock. Yeah.

I think that's what happened, but it was, it was kind of a false choice. He didn't really have a choice. He was going to get killed and a brutal way. He could have just said he was kidding. How's that for critical thinking? Yeah. I'm questioning.

You know, Dick, it's hard for you to really. late to somebody who would die for their principles. Yeah, it is, because I would never ever do that. And I encourage everyone to not do that. He's just like the old Italian guy in Catch 22. Yeah, whatever. Who's ever in charge? I don't care. When we're winning,

I'm for Italy. When we're losing, I'm for the winner. Whoever, I'm for the aliens. I don't care. Just leave me the fuck alone. Fairweather debater, Dick Masterson. What's your next solution? My next solution is cuteness. Bullshit. Get out of. here. Okay. That's our episode.

I'm sure everybody knows that cuteness is why we don't murder our babies. Wrong! What do you mean wrong? Cuteness, like a baby's features, seeing that as cute, the same thing we see in like animals and like other shit cars sometimes.

Dick, there are all sorts of ugly babies that don't get murdered. No, no, no, no, no. But it evokes their small jaws, their big foreheads and their like oversized eyes evokes feelings of caring for them. No, this is like a scientific thing. I didn't know you, I thought this was widely accepted. I'm sorry, Dick. Can you repeat that?

The size of your ovaries bursting was too loud, the sound of your ovaries. Oh, you're so manly. You can't even imagine like a cute baby. No, I don't think babies are cute. I just don't. I think they're just obnoxious little things. What about a baby you? Oh, no, no, no, that's my point.

They are obnoxious and horrible, and they puke all over everything, and they destroy things, and they ruin your life. The reason we don't kill them is because of the, quote, cute factor. Like, the way they look, the way they look, even if it's someone else's baby. Dick, have you ever seen a baby with harlequin's disease? Oh, yeah, don't Google. Don't Google it. Don't Google it.

Is that when they're turned inside out? Those are awful. Basically, yeah, I'm going to explain it in as much detail as possible in the hopes that you won't Google it. It's awful. They're peeled inside out. Their skins like old throbby and red. They look basically like abortions that weren't completely. Their skin hardens into like plates and cracks. They look like they have like rhino skin and like if they move.

Why the fuck do you know so much about this? Because somebody told me to Google it and I wish I never had. And then you like read the entire Wikipedia about it and memorized it? Well, I have to, you know me. Yeah, you're curious. Yeah, no, seriously, I saw this thing and it looked like an alien species. I've never seen anything that looks so so horrendous. And I thought, well, I got to know what this is. I need to know if this is a prop from a sci-fi movie or it's a real thing. And it turns out it's a real thing. and it's so horrible. Why do we take care of babies like that, Dick? Well, I wouldn't.

So you're saying there's a difference between a cute baby and one that looks like a monster? Barely. And you don't want to care for them. Yeah, but those babies die like in like one or two days, usually. Yeah.

Yeah, like in the 300, that movie with the Spartans, they kicked that weird guy out, remember? Yeah, the hunchback. I remember. All right. Cuteness. Cuteness is a subjective term

describing the type of attractiveness commonly associated with youth and appearance, as well as a scientific concept, first introduced by Conrad Lorenz. He proposed it as a set of facial and body features that make a creature appear cute. And that humans, here's another interesting part of it, because humans, let me see, we mature. Our brain is like only 40% complete when our bodies are adult-sized. Like a 10-year-old, or like a teenager can't fend for themselves.

Yeah. So we lose our cuteness. We lose that baby cuteness much later in life. So adults will still want to take care of us as like children and teenagers. How about that's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. So apparently like we evolved into like men-looking things.

Yeah. There was a group of humans that evolved into men-looking 13-year-olds killed them. Nobody took care of them. They only took care of the ones that looked cute. No, it's kind of, it's kind of true. I guess a lot of times you would. I've noticed that I have some friends who are short, and because they're short, they kind of have more like childlike features, you know, the shorter limbs and whatever. And people treat them differently.

They treat them a little bit more protectively. Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's kind of, but it might, it may be that, that you feel like somebody who's, who's smaller than you may be weaker, not, even though whether or not that's the case is irrelevant. But you may feel like they may be weaker, which may kind of kick in some kind of paternalistic or more. maternalistic instinct. Okay, here's something you might find interesting. A study found that cuteness improved performance. So they took a bunch of people and they made them do a test with their fine motor skills. They made them like manipulate a bunch of shit with their fingers. They showed them

pictures of cute animals, like baby animals, and they showed them pictures of normal animals. And the people who saw pictures of cute animals did 45% better on the test. And the people who saw just pictures of normal animals did 15% better. That piss me off, man. So, looking at cute animals boost your productivity. They did the same thing with like a numbers test, like a thinking test, and then like a

make sure you don't fuck this up test, and the people who saw cute shit performed better on all the tests. Isn't that weird? Well, I guess women must be the most productive on Earth, huh? Most productive people on Earth, because that's all they're fucking looking at is fucking pictures, dogs and cats. And every time I hop on Facebook, I must

be super productive because that's all I'm seeing. Snapchat, more dogs and horses. I brought in some examples of cute baby animals if you want to look at the... No. You fucking asshole. I will not. This is my new Titanic. Just one. Just one.

Here. Okay, let's see it. Ha, ha, ha. What is that? Is that a rhinoceros? Fuck you. That looks kind of cool, actually. It looks like an orchid.

All right, that's my... That's my... Oh, and they're making... They're finding that products that look like cute babies, like cars, are... Are selling more. are like more, have more of a positive response than cars that look normal. Like, incorporating this shit into products.

So in the future, everything's going to look like a baby. Like your iPhone's going to have eyeballs on it. They already do. Everything already looks fucking cute, and it's horrible. Dick, I can't stand things that are cute. I really, I can't. Because they make you feel a loss of control. That was another thing.

Is that what it is? You know that impulse people have? Like, that's so cute, I want to squish it. Yeah. So, you know, that response? Like, oh, that people get like, ah, like, I see something so cute, I want to crush it. they're saying, they're theorizing

that that's because you feel a loss of control of your biological response at seeing the cuteness makes you feel a loss of control and that makes you like kind of angry that you want to crush it yeah yeah man yeah there you go it's very powerful you know Dick

things that are cute piss me off and I can't maybe it's what you just said is a lack of control or something I don't know what it is but the colors I like to surround myself with are blacks and grays and reds And things that are, you know, like kind of neutral, neutral colors. Like the Nazis? No.

Well, I guess. Yeah. I guess exactly like that. Yeah, like the color palette of the Nazis. Okay. Broken clocks, even, uh, broken clocks write twice a day, dickhead. Nazis. As less as an eye watch.

Yeah. Well, you can't even tell it because the fucking battery is always dead. Every, every fucking iPhone user, oh, can I borrow an iPhone 5 charger? So I can be tethered to a wall like a slave? Anyway, cute things Upset me and you're telling me essentially that I have

intentionally done 15% poorer on tests all my life because I look at monsters I like monsters. I think monsters are awesome. That doesn't help your brain though. It's not what the study. The study even put food in there. It looked at pictures of food

and people didn't do, it was like close to the control group. Did they put pictures of monsters and tits in there to see what that would do for your productivity? Let's do it. Let's write a white paper. All right. They didn't do that, no. Cuteness is obnoxious.

I think it's probably, I'm going to bring it in as a problem. You should do it while you're working on your book. You should take a cute animal break. Cute overload break every 15 minutes. So according to the science, you'll write better. Oh, that's every fucking time I open up my phone. Every time I pull up Snapchat, more fucking dogs and babies and cats and horses. Every time I look on Facebook, more fucking kittens.

Oh, my gosh, cute over. Have you seen that website? cute overload? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know that site. Yeah. I think I'm cute. Anyway, Dick, are you done with your solution? Yeah. Your problem? I'm done. Your problem. Yeah. I'll see. Dick, I got the real... I mean, it's no riots, but... No, it's no, it's no riots. It's not cute. Riots are fucking cool. Um, here's, here's a real solution, Dick. Boxes. Yeah. Boxes. What a cool, what a cool problem. Boxes. Or, Cool solution.

But you have a conversation with yourself every time you're bringing a problem at how great it is. A solution. It's a solution. Yeah. Anything. Because this one is a real good

solution, Dick. Boxes are the containers used for storage. In case you don't know. They're used for storage or for temporary carrying parcels to transport contents

from one place to another. They're super useful. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Sean has all this fucking gear that he brings in every time for the studio. What is this? The processor.

That's a rack. That's not a box. It doesn't have a front or a back. How is it a box? Boxes don't have to have. You only need four sides. You can have holes in the boxes. Here we go.

Immediately a problem. Immediately some kind of impossible Loki's Wager problem. A box has to have six sides. No, it doesn't. Well, then is a piece of paper a box? No. It has one side. Nope.

Yes, it does. Okay, yeah. No, it doesn't. It has two sides. Fuck you, it has two sides. Four sides is a tube. What Sean has is a square tube. It's not a box.

It needs to be enclosed. Oh, okay. Read the Wikipedia thing again. Sure, Dickhead. Dick, boxes are containers used for storage. Containers. That thing doesn't contain anything because it's open on two sides. It does, but look, man, I'm not going to fucking debate what a box is, you fucking

asshole. Piece of shit. Oh, man I'm so fucking, man. How is this all right problem? I'm just talking about boxes here. Shut up for a minute.

We haven't even properly defined a box yet. Do we know what a box is? No. A box with a hole in it, it's still a box. It's a box of the hole in it. Shut up.

All right. Boxes can be made out of wood, cardboard, metal, paper, plastic, or just about anything. Oh, wow.

Sizes may vary from small, like lunch, boxes to medium for toasters or large for computers and TV screens. Boxes come in all shapes and sizes. Actually, pretty much one shape, which is like rectangular.

Where did you get this information? I wrote it, Dickhead. All shapes and sizes. It's just things I know. This came from my mind. You're welcome. Some boxes are even envelopes. Why, such a dick? Some boxes are homes.

All right, man. One of the biggest innovations that happened in a boxes was the corrugated box, which is used primarily as shipping containers for pretty much everything you order. These boxes were engineered to be light and strong. They're resistant to crushing and can be stacked easily. That's an innovation, right? Yeah. They're built with load sharing, which distributes the weight of a load along their surfaces.

So cardboard is about half air. You know, like if you look in between a corrugated box, like the cardboard, it's half air, which means that it's very light, yet the strength comes from mini-eye beams that are built inside layers of paper. They're just like trussles in construction sites, like little eye beams. They've made thousands of mini-eye beams

inside the layers of the cardboard, which makes it really, really strong for its weight. Cardboard is an incredible invention. It really is. People take it for granted because it's everywhere. Do you know that 95% of old products in the U.S. are shipped with corrugated boxes? 95?

95%. What's the other five? Like bags? No, I think the other 5% I was thinking about it is either, yeah, like Tyvec pouches. Tyvec is also an innovation. Tyvec pouches or actual just

not cardboard, but paper. Like paper boxes that, say, for example, donuts come in. Oh, okay. Yeah. Anyway, man, 95% of everything you order online comes to you in a box. You're welcome.

Box is their biggest solution. I'll tell you why this is a bogus solution that you've got in. What? because a box is nothing without tape. Dick. Without tape, you just got a big cardboard tube. That's wrong.

That's nothing, man. Have you ever seen a pizza box? No tape, no adhesives. Fuck you. Okay, you got me. Yep. That was it. That was the only objection I had.

Boxes, big solution. Voted up, people. Oh, man, I'm so smart. I thought you bringing this in, and I thought that is the weirdest thing. I could think for a million years It would never come up with boxes As a solution to bring into the show

Yeah, because you take it for granted You just see boxes everywhere And you never really think about the engineering That went into a box But they put a lot of engineering in those boxes And they have testing facilities And they're constantly re-evaluating How to make boxes engineered more strongly

The only downside to most corrugated boxes is that they are not waterproof But you can get the plastic ones Or barbecue sauce proof as we've learned. Yeah, thank you but Sanchez. Anyway, man, uh, boxes, big solution. That is a big solution.

Um, and critical thinking. Those are my solutions as a week. Okay. So, so, so what are we going to do with this? What are we going to do with the Sean problem? Because we are, we are at an hour 10 right now. We are significantly into the episode and it's a long problem. Let's, let's tease it a little bit more. Let's play a little bit more

the Sean solution. Okay. And, uh, let's bring, I think that, that deserves its a whole new bonus episode. Well, I think so because it's, I really think it's a good problem. I've listened to this. Sean, it took me hours to splice in. I don't know if you know how much work audio engineering takes, but it took me hours to splice in this cool fake Sean

with the dialogue from that episode. You should have had me do it. I would have treated it right. Deleted. You can't delete the memories, Sean, you fucker. Yeah, but you have, but listen. Do not guilt me into okaying this because you spent money on it. Oh, that's what's coming, Sean.

That is, you've known me a long time. That's all we got. All right, just listen for a little bit, okay? I'm not going to play the intro again. Here is the new product, just in case sometimes people complain about when's the show's ending and when the recordings are going. So here is the show remastered. Here's Sean's problem. One year.

Go ahead, Sean. Sean, what's your problem? Oh, wait, I've got some encouraging voicemails that people left for you. Oh, let's hear it. Sean, shut the fuck up and let the real men pop shit. That was the wrong one. I love internet tough guys. That's going to be up front.

You know that guy's like five and a half feet of stacked shit, right? Wait, go ahead. No, I was going to say, the greater the degree of separation, the tougher people are. Because most people are pussies. You might get a little softer over the phone, but you get that guy in person, he's a bitch. Really got under your skin, shot? Yeah, now he's being a internet tough guy. Dude, it's, come find me on his phone.

Yeah. Here's what that guy needs to do. He needs to relax a little bit. He needs to get back on the couch in the middle of the day. The middle of the day, wait for the unemployment check. Watch it, watch a telenovela. Wow. And try to rub one out before mom gets home at six to cook him dinner

and ask him if he looked for a job that day. Are you done? Yeah, thanks for listening. No, no, no, no. That wasn't too bad. That wasn't too bad. Ex-voicemail that I meant to play. Hey, Sean, if you're just going to suck Dick's pecker

about his opinions on Scott. You should just shut the fuck off. Shit, I messed up again. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, stop that guy, too. Well, those are the only two I brought in. I brought in the wrong one. All right.

You feel encouraged now? Sounds like a fireball drinker. Sean. What's your brother? Okay, what? I said, have we passed a law yet that makes retroactive abortions legal? Yeah. He should be like a 40th trimester abortion.

Thank you, Sean. Go vote up euthanasia. All right. All right, cool, guys. Settle down. You need all the people on your side that you can get, buddy. Yeah, tell me about it. So, Sean, people have been asking you to bring in a problem all you.

year long, basically since the first time they heard you laughing in the background. And they said, who's that guy? I should have never done that. Big mistake. I should have kept my mouth shut the entire time. Well, it's too late because now you have to open your mouth and tell us what you're problem is. I wasn't even going to do a problem because last week was fucking insane.

We heard this. I am lucky. I even know my own name. This was last week. Oh, it's still funny, though. Except I got an email from Dick in all caps. yelling at me that I better bring in a fucking problem. Yeah, short email.

Exactly. Was that entirely in the subject line? No, it was in the body. It was like, when are we recording? You better bring in a fucking problem. So short, but inefficient. Go on. So I thought rather than catch hell on this show the entire time,

I would bring in a problem. problem. And my problem is the YouTube generation. YouTube generation. I'm completely on board. Why? And that's not the social media generation because that usually skews older. I think the largest demographic going to Facebook is older. People over 50 and 60, or at least it was last year. Yeah, kids aren't going to Facebook. But YouTubers are generally younger. Younger than 30, even younger than 20.

I think that makes up the vast majority of YouTube users. Really, the big problem with it is, it's creating and attracting a bunch of narcissists. Aha, this sounds, Sean. I agree. I agree, but it sounds an awful lot like Vine Stars. Well, it also sounds a lot like Maddox. Dick? These aren't stars.

These aren't stars, Dick. Important distinction. Do you hear that? Yeah, I heard that. I'm a star. Why does this sound like Maddox? Because he makes money off YouTube. Correction. I mean, he's on YouTube. Oh, oh, oh. I thought you were referencing in a video he did. No, no, no, no, no. It just sounds like him in general. A narcissist on YouTube.

No, look. All right, okay. How bad is it so far? Terrible. What do you mean? It's terrible. That's great. Here's the thing that I hate about that problem, that why I should never brought it in, because it's me just bitching about kids.

Who the fuck gives a shit about kids? John, that's all I fucking do is I bitch about kids. I wrote a whole book bitching about kids. Yeah, but it's, I see, I don't really care. No, but you made, you made a lot of good points. It was funny, Sean, and it didn't make good points. There's 20 minutes left of this, and you made a lot of good points. I don't know, what do you want to do?

It gets worse every time. Oh, it doesn't. It gets better. And I even thought it was going to get worse. And then, like, 75% of the way through, it gets better. Let's hear a little bit more. All right, all right. Is that okay?

I have a prediction. No. I have a prediction. I've never wavered on this. I have a prediction for this episode. Bulleted. Remember of Strongman? Did you say it with a B?

Yeah. They're making fun of retarded people. Yeah, Homestar Runner. I remember that. God, that's old. All right, here's more. I like YouTube. I know people on YouTube.

Some of my best friends are on YouTube. See? That joke didn't go well. Sean, I'm going to intercept that. No, it's hard not to intertwine the people and the YouTube. It's even more than YouTube. It's any of the video sites because it allows people to, I don't know, reach a more personal level than posting on like a static site. Good point.

So these people leave online diaries and they have, 11 subscribers and they're pouring their hearts out about all their problems or becoming Here's another one the recently in light. It's a mother of a two-month-old telling you everything you need to do to be a parent. Is this a problem? Is this what YouTube is? Yeah. This is what it is.

Sean has encapsulated so many different problems in this problem. It's really clever because he's got the Vine Stars, he's got the narcissism of people who just need to be constantly heard. And he just also made a reference to first time child experts. I agree, Sean. Also you. Not me. See, I texted Dick. I said

anybody done this? He goes, no. No. It's a good problem, Sean. My side's are laughing quietly. Should we break? Do you want to pause this problem for now? Pause it? I want to

kill it. Maddox's what do you want to do? Honestly, do you think it is as bad as bad? Is it as bad as you remember? Absolutely. No, I can't. Get out of here. You're being critical of, first of all, I agree.

Everything I said in that episode, Sean, you know, I'm not going to fucking blow sunshine up your ass if I disagree with you. I shit on you all the time. I know what a box is, you asshole. I brought it into a solution, you fuck. It's not a fucking circular, a square tube. Why are you such assholes? My problem with it is the problem itself.

Oh, it's a great problem. It's a good problem. It's ridiculous. Like after 52 episodes, I wanted to bring in something worthwhile, and I just hacked it together at the last second because I figured that I had to bring in something on 52 as opposed to actually doing something that I gave a shit about. Thanks for bullying him, dick.

Yeah, see how funny it is? Yeah, it's pretty funny. A little bit more? Yeah, just a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more. A lot.

Long bonus episode. I swear to God, this is getting cut. You guys are going to do it. One of my only stats, it's amazing how few stats there are. Maybe it hasn't been studied long enough since YouTube has only been around since 2005. I've got a lot of stats, so anything you need to? Do you really? I do.

It's all fresh in my mind, too. I had trouble finding them. I know one of them is that since 2005, the year YouTube went online in multiple psychological test designed to detect narcissism. The scores of residents in the U.S. have continually increased. Since YouTube came on specifically, and you think that's YouTube specifically? No, it's social media. But I think YouTube creates... We got it. We got a good flavor. We got a good flavor of that. Let's wrap this episode. All right. Okay, so my solutions this week were critical thinking and boxes

Big solutions. My solutions are the corporation and cuteness. Great. Cuteness is the biggest horseshit problem I've ever heard. It pisses me off. I like to think of monsters. Cute monsters? No!

Like Pokemon? Mean monsters. That's the biggest solution, guys. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, this is Oprah. I just wanted to say congratulations on your year of podcast. I know I'm a little late, but I'm too busy doing Oprah stuff. and as a prize for getting to a year of podcasts,

I want to say you get a free boat and get go fuck yourself. That was pretty good Oprah. Yeah. Sounds like that guy maybe did Sean's voice too. Let me find one more. Hey guys, this is Rob from Nashville. I just wanted to give a shout out to Maddox

for wearing rubber gloves. I find them especially useful when I'm cleaning my toilet or detailing my car. Okay. Or even when I'm at work at the hospital when I'm wiping a D-Day veteran's asshole or treating a stage three pressure ulcer. Hmm. I wouldn't Google that, by the way.

I wouldn't know how to brag about how dinky they keep your fucking hands. Or how you use them to check your cat's butt for ghosts or whatever. Okay. Or else I might have to send you a box of gloves with some nylons and lipstick to keep you from tearing up about it on the show. Fucking, there it is. Dick, fucking asshole.

Go find yourself a nice woman. You can use one. And Sean may want to invest in something called an external hard drive. Just saying. Oh, that's all guys. No, get out of here. Yeah, man. That guy sounded like Angelo's mom.

You dumb shit. All right. Find yourself a woman, Dick. A good woman. Oh, wait a minute. Shit, I forgot this. Ah, dang. It's bullshit.

Sean just cut it. Delete this whole episode. I did win. You think he's going to. Okay, you remember where we were last time? No. Yeah. Why are you playing this song?

Why are you playing this song? Because I used to catch you up on where we were in the last Titanic. I'm taking out my headphones. Bill Paxton. I fucking hate this song. Pulled a safe out of the ocean that he found in the Titanic. While he's making a fake documentary. I'm going to cut my breast.

I'm cutting myself. He deserves this And he was looking for a gem You remember that? And Dick, you can go on and And go on and Go far Go on a hell

And stay there Okay You ready? No, I'm not For your punishment? That's it. You don't get to play both. That's bullshit. I'm not watching. I'm not looking. I'm looking down my dick. I think you're going to get curious and look. I'm not going to get curious.

Right there. Hey, Dave. There is. I'm not. I guess it wasn't in the same. Hey, hey, don't worry about it. This is a stereo's again. Look at face. Look at his face. Sean, are you timing this? I think it's longer than 30 seconds. There's tense in this one.

No, there's there is. I swear to God there's tics. I'll listen. I'll listen. There's about to be tits, Maddox. Nope. There's 100% about to be tits. I would not lie about that. I've seen tits. Right there. Nope.

Let me see that. We might have something here, guys. Boom, tits. Garbage. Great joke, dick. We'll call you right back. Oh, man, I hate that bit so much.