The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Episode 30

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

Welcome to the biggest problem in the universe. I'm Maddox. With me is Dick Masterson. Hey, what's up, buddy? And Sean, our audio engineer. Welcome back, Sean. Thanks, guys. Man, I hate not having you.

I feel like the stats get out of control on this show when you're not here to rein them in. Don't you agree, Maddox? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know me, I hate the stats. I hate information. I hate informing our audience, our listeners. Who won?

So nobody won, Dick. As I say, time after time, after time again. However, the one with the most votes was Celebrity Worship. Oh, that was you, you motherfucker. Oh, was it? Yeah. Yeah, I got a... Do you have something to play? Because I have something for you.

Yeah, what did... I remixed. I thought, um, I was rubbing that Maddox, Maddox lost song in a little hard. Yeah, you were. I thought it might have hurt your feelings. Yeah, a little hard. So I remixed it.

Oh, they'll hear it. Yeah. Yeah, I remixed it for you today. One, one, one, one. One. One. We're okay. One, one, one, one, one, one, one, one. Those.

Bravo, Dick, that's a good song. I like that version a lot better. I thought you might. But you know what's interesting is I was rooting around on my hard drive, and I found another version of that song, actually. Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick. This is Dick. Great. Great song.

No collusion here. There was no collusion. The audience needs to know that Dick and I didn't talk about this beforehand. We both came in with a remix of that song. We both came in thinking of how original and how funny we would be with our shitty remix that probably took three minutes. It might take about six. Yeah, a couple of knuckleheads. Good.

So then came Brodowns. Surprisingly Brodowns. And I got a lot of flak for hipsters. Oh, I brought, can I read some comments about that? Oh, bring it. Yeah. Yeah, Matt, Matt Allegreate. Matt Aligreet says,

Maddox's arguments for hipsters are all just Maddox hating things that are popular. Sounds like Maddox is the real hipster. Better vote of him, too. Billy Nurse, I thought I hated hipsters too, but Dick pretty much made me realize I don't. They still dress like stupid wankers, though. And Christian Myers, of course,

hipsters don't stand for anything. They aren't an actual group. It's just a word, lame idiots used to describe people who are more interested. them then. Oh, we found a hipster. Sounds like we found a hipster, you jackass, you piece of shit. So listen, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Everybody was saying that, right? They're like, oh, hipsters aren't a thing. That's the number one thing hipsters say they don't like to be defined.

They don't like to define themselves because they don't want to be part of a group. And yet, miraculously, every time you walk into a hipster bar or a hipster coffee shop or a hipster clothing shop, you know you're in one because everybody's dressed the same, just like Goths. They're individual, They're nonconformist, except they all wear the same uniform. Yeah, but your definition in the last show... Okay, so you're saying that hipsters are like pornography, I know it when I see it. That's like the Supreme Court's definition of pornography. No, it is. I know.

Well, that's a good thing. It's a court. I would like a court to say, you know what? I'll decide when I see it. I'll judge when it enters my courtroom if it's pornography or not. Okay, I have a problem with that specific argument with regards to pornography. However, but go on. Take it up with a...

Supreme Court then. I will, buddy. Yeah. I'm on the docket. But that seems to be your definition of a hipster. I'll know it when I see it. Because then you threw on all this stuff about how they're also someone who's underachieving. And there was all these other qualifiers that I don't get.

Yeah. Okay, look, there were two arguments that weren't clear in the last episode that I really want to emphasize here. The first is that they are ostracizing, okay? If you are not part of their clique, if you're not dressed like them, if you don't belong, then you don't belong. They make you feel ostracized and unwelcome in their bullshit-ass coffee shops. They roll their fucking eyes because I don't have a handlebar mustache.

You know what, fuck you. But you roll your eyes at iPhone users. So doesn't that also apply to you? That's absolutely different. iPhone users, first of all, are not supposed to be a social culture. They are. They try to be. They try to make this cult-like thing, but that's not at all relevant.

Okay. And the second thing is, the guy said, well, Maddox just hates popular things. First of all, that's not true. I like lots of things that are popular. However, like what? Like Nirvana, for example. I like Nirvana. Nirvana's cool.

I like the movie Ghostbusters, very popular movie. Okay. It is. Do you like anything current that's popular? Yeah, man. I saw a cabin in the woods. It was a good horror movie, right? Okay.

Which you wouldn't see because you're too scared. So, listen. That's true. It is true. So, listen. My mind is a terrible place. I don't like imagining horrible things. That's what those movies play on.

Your mind is a wonderful thing to waste. So here's the thing. So the popularity thing, right? the popularity argument that I hate things that are popular. If it's trendy, okay? If it's trendy, if everyone's doing the same style, if they're all conforming, then nothing new is being created. And that's my fundamental problem with trends like this,

and specifically trends in culture, because they're not creating anything new, they're just reappropriating something else, something that they saw someone else wear or do or try. They do create art, though. Hipsters have a specific style of art. I don't appreciate it, but then I don't want to be the guy

who was like around the time of like Magritte, saying like this isn't art? Because it's like, it is. Looking back in time, it is clearly art. It's a statement on art. Yeah. And I feel the same way about hipsters. Their art, I think, is kind of lame,

but maybe in the future it will have some artistic merit. I don't know. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree, Dick. I like their art too. I just liked it better in the 80s, in the 70s, in the 90s when it came originally. And when it wasn't funded by rich parents? Exactly.

Oh, here we go. See, what, all hipsters have rich parents? Is that it? Here are the qualifications I don't get. Generally. I got a comment from Twitter. This came to me on Twitter from Matthew Anderson. It's at Max 2000 Warlord.

He says, Maddox, it was actually fleas that spread the black plague. Dick is an idiot. Because remember the last episode? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I said that rats. That snakes eat rats.

And rats cause the black plague. It was fleas. What is that guy's name? His name is Matthew Anderson. Yeah. Matthew, shithead. How did the fleas get to the people? The fleas ride the rats

And it's not the flea that causes it You dumb motherfucker, it's the virus If we're being pedantic, it's the virus It's the plague causes the plague Not the fleas that harbor the virus And the rats that harbor the fleas You pedantic fucking idiot You dumb shit!

I'm the dumb shit You choose, you decide This fucking guy This fucking, oh it's the fucking... I was calling him the dump tree, yeah Oh, good, good, thank you It's the fleas that cause it It's the fleas that go, well, better watch out for hordes of rampaging fleas then.

You know what fleas also, like, what kind of environment is dirty people who don't shower and hipsters don't shower because their feet smell so bad. I thought you were going to go with hippies. Well, hippies, too. Hippies and hipsters. Hipsters are the evolution or maybe de-evolution of hipsters. You keep talking about here. I got another hipster one for you.

Hey, this is Bill from Detroit. Maddox, listening to you, sit there and rail on hipsters. reminds me the one thing you left out about hipsters that they love to do more than anything else and that's hate on other hipsters that's true and then you go on to lionize your father's generation like hipsters

while hating on your current generation as being uncultured like hipsters I think you just kind of outed yourself as the biggest hipster in the universe oh he got a tag on the end too how dare you that's bullshit I'm not the biggest fucking

I'm not any kind of hipster First of all, hipsters don't lionize their father's generation. They resent it. They loathe it, except for their culture, which they like to reappropriate, up to about the 60s, right? They don't go beyond the 60s or 50s. They think that that shit's lame. They got to sick with the 70s and 80s and 90s.

I mean, not all of it's lame. And by the way, a lot of people were commenting like, hey, Maddox, the 50s had social problems. I'm like, yeah, I mentioned that in the episode, you idiots. I know there was segregation. There were civil rights violations. there was all sorts of problems in the world. We were in a Cold War.

It wasn't a perfect generation by any stretch of the imagination. However, at least that generation had some good, solid virtues, unlike just buying a narrative on a carton of milk. All right. I got a comment from, you mentioned, did you mention celebrity worship yet? Not yet. Okay. Matthew James says, and you cherry-picked celebrity worships that were like very, very right-wing and retarded.

But what about, like, uh, What about people like Colbert and John Stewart? Matthew James says people treat Colbert and John Stewart's word like the gospel. Do you know how many liberals proudly claim to get all of their information and opinions from comedy and satire? That's true. What do you think about that? Does that fall in? I read that, but he gave no specific examples.

So the problem this guy has with John Stewart and Stephen Colbert is that a lot of people get their news from it. And honestly, I've gotten more informed watching the daily show than I have watching an hour of CNN. CNN does nothing but celebrity news. They do gossip, they do outlandish headlines. They're just trying. It's the clickbait. It's the TV equivalent of clickbait. There's nothing informative on CNN anymore.

You get the actual analysis and in-depth coverage that you want from the news in comedy shows. And it's a sad state of affairs that we have to tune into Comedy Central for our news. Well, we don't have to. Well, you don't, yeah. I mean, I don't, that's not where I get my news. I read a lot of different news sources. Like what? Like the BBC.

I read it right way. Yeah, they're good. BBC's really good. Yeah, I'll give you that one. And CNN International is really good, too. However, they only air it during the afternoons for one hour a day. So as long as you get your news from someplace outside of America, it's not poisonous hogwash.

Is that what you're saying? It's not even that it's poisonous. It's that it's junk news. You're not getting informed about anything. It's just celebrity gossip. Speaking of celebrities, Matt Tamisill says, I love you, Maddox. Thanks for sending me special codes that you're sending me in these podcasts.

Oh, boy. Here we go. Is that real? Is that real, yeah. Yeah, he's probably fucking... Yeah, he's kidding. Good. Yeah, let me see.

I think I've got... Oh, here's a great voicemail. Speaking of Angelo's mom... Yeah. Right? I got this in. I got this voicemail. Hello, Maddox, and this is Angelo's aunt.

Angel's sister. First, let me tell you something, Maddox, before you get too excited about all the things my crazy sister says. What you need to know? She's a... You don't like... She's going to kill you. This woman is a stalker.

And the fact is me, what I want to say is that... I suspect that as much. It's long-winded while, like Angela's mom. All the women in their family are very foul mouth. Oh, yeah, winded. I forgot this was a woman, too. Damn it. That seems to be this standard sign-off for all messages we get for the show.

So Angelo's whole family is in on the action now. Yeah, that's pretty good voice. And that was actually Angelo's mom's sister, so with Angela's aunt. Right. I've missed a lot. I have no idea where these people are. Yeah, maybe you should go back and listen. You should subscribe to the bonus episodes.

Yeah, yeah. We'll give you a discount, Sean. Thank you very much. I do appreciate it. So you guys don't know this, but we make Sean sign in nondisclosure, and he can't listen to these episodes as he's mastering them. He just has to, like, feel the vibrations through the laptop, and that's how he masters them.

Like Beethoven. Yeah, like Beethoven. Well, you go through and re-ed them anyway. Yeah, that's true. That's it. I'm done. I'm tired of listening to these. All right, man, let's get to the problems.

You want me to go first this week? Yeah, I've been taking up way too much time. Yeah, man. That was like a fucking 40-minute story about an event that occurred in under 30 seconds. Last episode. You've got to really feel it. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, we painted a rich tapestry there.

Okay, my first problem is pedophiles. Okay. Okay, I regret letting you go first. Should I re-categorize this podcast on iTunes out of the comedy genre? To what? Drama? I don't know. Self-help?

I'm fine with self-help. But listen to this man. You know what the main problem with pedophiles is? Yeah, child molestation. Yeah, that's it. They molest children. That's a big problem. All right.

I could just end it there. We could move on. You really don't like hearing that Maddox Law song, do you? This is the extent you're going to bringing in... Pedophiles. Okay, okay, that's a good point. So that's why I kept emphasizing on the comments. I keep telling people it's not a contest.

We're not trying to win here because then it encourages us to bring in populist votes, populist problems. What do you mean us? Yeah. Well, so I'm trying to eliminate that from being a... By bringing in pedophiles. Okay. No. What's the problem with pedophiles?

I'm sorry. They molest children. Yeah. Yeah. So I want everyone listening right now. When you're voting for this problem, take into consideration how much of a problem. other things on the list are, right? You know what pisses me off about this?

I was going to do this. But let me tell you how to vote along with the problem? No, I was going to bring in child molesting and do exactly what he's doing right now. Yeah. So do militarized police molest children? No. Maybe. No. Do people who are outraged over T-shirts

worn by scientists and engineers molest children? How come they're only my problems you're bringing up? I'm just saying, you know, I just picked a random sampling of problems. What else? Do snakes molest children? They might. Might not? No, I don't think so. They don't. So vote that down. But do monkeys? Do monkeys molest children?

Maybe. We don't know. We don't know for sure. The science is still out. They're doing research on it. So here's some facts about child molesters. Oh, my God. All right. They love to eat Doritos. This is a fact. Wait, wait, but where are you getting these facts? Here, I got the source. This is a fact according to a website

called The Best Page in the Universe. In an article titled, There's Nothing More Disgusting Than the Sight, Smell, and Sound of someone eating Doritos. I guess this character, Maddox wrote this article a long time ago about how pedophiles love to eat Doritos.

You know, it's kind of funny, I actually got a hate mail a long time ago from somebody who said he was offended at that article. He said, not because he ate Doritos, but because he was a pedophile. Okay. So, you know, I don't know, man. Some of my listeners, who knows?

But according to the WHO, pedophilia is defined as a persistent or predominant preference for sexual activity with the prepubescent child or children. Uh-huh. The person committing the crime has to be at least 16 years old and at least five years older than the child or children.

That's considered pedophilia. And the child has to be under 14? It's, yeah, it's under 14. Pre-pubescent? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, they can say, and there's a certain range that they go for. It's something like age 9 to 11 is the last.

Aye, aye, aye, all right. Then what's the other stats? Do you have any not grosser? stats. Yeah, well, here's, so I looked into the science of this, like what causes pedophilia, what's going on here, right? The average pedophile has an IQ that is less, 10 points lower than the average population. Yeah. They're significantly more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous. Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Are you left-handed, Sean? Okay. Are you a pedophile? Uh, no. No on both. No on both. Okay. Well, that's good.

We don't like to hire pedophiles in the show. Fire. Yep, there we go. So, yeah, that was kind of interesting. I found that they're mostly left-handed or ambidextrous. Now, on average, pedophiles have far less white matter in their brains. That's kind of interesting. So there was a scientist, I think his name was Cantor.

He was doing the study, and he looked at the brains. He was trying to find a biological basis for pedophilia and see what's going on here, because a lot of people are looking at psychological issues, and this guy's looking at biological, and he scanned their brains, and he found a lot less white matter. And that's the substance that connects to the different regions in your brain.

Yeah. So there might be something biological going on. So there's this article. You remember Dick you brought in a long time ago, priests as a problem, and then you just pigeonholed. I have a problem with them. Yeah, I know.

Oh, I know. You already brought it in. Right. Yeah. There's an article on the BBC. I wish I had this one you brought that problem in, but it said, It's titled, How Many Men Are Pedophiles?

Okay, so this is according to that, this came out when that article you mentioned, the Pope said there was about 2% of the Catholic clergy are pedophiles. Right. So they ask a question, how does this compare with society as a whole? Is it more or less than average? So there's this doctor, his name is Dr. Michael Seto, a clinical and forensic psychologist. He published a book in 2008 where he stated the upper estimate of prevalence of pedophilia and the general population is about 5%.

I actually coincidentally know the study you're talking about. Yeah. The one thing you're failing to bring in is that that 5% includes over 14. It includes kids who are over 14. Right. You're correct. And then in any... Oh, I am.

Yeah. Yeah, Dick, you're correct. And then, because I'm about to read, the article goes on. It says, with more data and better methodology, he has revised his figure down to about 1% of the population, though he makes clear this is still only an educated guess. Now, one of the problems is it's... So he says it's very common for regular men to be attracted to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds, right? But it's not unusual for a typical 16-year-old to be attractive to many men,

and the younger we go, the fewer and fewer men are attracted to that group, says Cantor, right? This doctor. He thinks that if we say that pedophilia is somewhat attracted to children age 14 or less, then he estimates that you could reach about the 2% figure. Okay. Yeah, that's where that 2% number comes from. You're saying that priests are just as likely to be pedophiles as... As accountants.

...normal or doctors or anyone... Yeah, anyone across the board. It's something that just... It's a prevalence that occurs in society. So in your mind, are you disproving my priest thing right now? Is that what's happening? Are you casting light? Are you exercising my problem with priests?

No, Dick. I already did that when you brought it in originally. This is just giving some background information. So how prevalent is pedophilia? Because we're trying to solve... We're trying to find the biggest problem in the universe on the show. So let's say it's two percent. 2%.

2%. How big of a problem is that, guys? Do you think it's a huge problem? Do you think it's the biggest problem in the universe? Because female general mutilation is way up there. It doesn't affect... I don't think it affects 2% of the population. Of the world population.

Yeah. What are you just grinning about? I'm wondering where you're going. Okay. So there's another article I read. It's from The Daily Beast. It says, what science reveals about pedophilia. Uh-huh.

Okay, this is kind of interesting. So I read this article on the Daily Beast. It says, what science reveals about pedophilia? That's the name of this article, right? legally, it only becomes a crime when acted upon. So that's the definition of pedophilia. And there's this movement online by people who are coming out. It's a pretty good definition for a crime.

It's illegal when it occurs. Yeah. You're not a fan of thought crimes? No, I'm not. It's one of my crazy libertarian principles that I keep getting called out on in the comments that a crime isn't a crime until it's committed. You're nuts, buddy. I'm crazy.

Okay. So in the U.S., no, here's a real problem. problem with the whole pedophilia thing. Okay. This is from the Daily Beast. They said, in the U.S., laws that went into effect in the 1990s require that therapists and physicians to report to child protective services and other authorities that vary by state, anyone they believe poses a threat to a child. The legislation trumps patient doctor confidentiality in these circumstances.

Since reporting a potential pedophile results in legal action, the law has deterred many pedophiles from voluntarily seeking psychiatric help, which troubles some researchers since the disorder can be easier to prevent than to treat. Yeah, I did know that. Yeah. So pedophilia is wrong and it's bad and it's awful, right? Yeah. But this is suggesting that the laws that we have

for patient doctor confidentiality being abused, or I guess not abused but broken, when it comes to the case of pedophilia deters pedophiles from coming forward, what do you think about repealing those laws, potentially? Oh, absolutely. That talking to your therapist about something should not subject you to getting arrested and having the rest of your life ruined? Yeah, I don't think that should be a crime.

Yeah. I don't think, I don't want to leave it up to, like, these people who are looking for help and struggling to express their feelings of their therapist. I don't want it to be in the hands of a therapist to sell them down the river for it. Right. Plus, if I was a pedophile, I wouldn't go to therapy then. If you knew, exactly. It deters people from going to get help. So this is something I keep finding over and over in the literature that I read.

Pedophilia is considered a psychiatric disorder, not a moral failure. I was talking to a friend a while back who I said, I asked him, you know, obviously nobody is in favor of pedophilia, right? But I said, should we demonize these people to the extent that we are? Because you wouldn't say, like, an autistic person who did, who committed a crime or did something inappropriate. Like, that book and movie of mice and men, basically Lenny, George's, brother in the movie, he's a little bit slow. He has some learning development issues or something like that. And near the end of the movie, I thought he was full on retarded. Well, he may have been. And yeah, that's the correct term we like to use. And near the end of the movie, near the end of

the movie, he accidentally killed someone. And the punishment he got, they hunted him down and wanted to kill him, right? Yeah. Is that just? Yes. Okay. Well, I guess that's the end of this debate. What do you want him to do? Sit him down and talk to him about it. Lenny from a... Lenny from of mice and men. Well, Dick, that's a very specific example. Yeah.

And he just murdered someone. Sure. And this is like the dust bowl, wasn't it? Like, you don't have a lot of... We don't have Obamacare yet. Yeah, we got to kill that guy. Yeah, okay. We don't have the resources to handle a 300-pound retarded guy in the middle of Iowa.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, right. Get rid of them. Great. But that's not us anymore. Great solution. That's what you're saying.

Yeah. It's a solution for the time. Sure. Sure, Dick. Great solution. It's a great solution for the time. There was no other remedy they could have done. They couldn't have locked them up or anything.

They just had a shoot him point-blank. Locked him up. Then you've got to get a jailer there. You've got to do a whole bunch. You've got to go through a trial. Uh-huh. Yeah, well, you know, they should have just put him in a chokehold, huh? Very timely.

According to Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist and director for the sexual behavior unit at Johns Hopkins, we don't know why we experience the sexual desires that we do. For so long, we've looked at this as if it's simply a moral issue. People are supposed to have certain attractions, and often society said, if you experience a different kind of sexual temptation or feelings, you're not as morally worthy a person. He said that it's not someone's fault that they have the condition, but it is their responsibility to do something about it. Telling me that someone has pedophilia is like someone saying about me that I'm heterosexual.

It doesn't tell you whether I'm kind, cruel, intro, introreosexual. or extroverted, caring or not caring, intelligent or not intelligent. Yeah. Right? Well, what's your opinion on this? Well, it's a tricky one, man. I think that, first of all, just the amount of intense hatred people have towards pedophiles, and myself include, it's a disgusting, heinous act.

But I think if we stop trying to say it's a moral failing, like what this professor is suggesting and saying that it is a psychiatric disorder, and we look at it in terms of somebody who's clinically ill and then they need treatment, then maybe we can start to solve this problem. Because by deterring people from coming forward and trying to get help, it's not solving anything. That's not a good idea. No. You know what's interesting. When you said you were bringing this in, I looked into it a little bit because I always thought that pedophiles came from like Red Dragon, Hannibal Lecter kind of events where they were like a boy as a kid and their mom dressed them up as a girl until they were like eight years old. Or they were molested themselves. But then I found a

all this brain evidence that's like, well, getting molested as a kid doesn't make you left-handed. Right. Right? Well, we don't know. I'd be willing to bet that it doesn't. You come in, your penmanship's really bad the next day. Oh, you got to take sending none of the counselor. Arrest his parents.

Arrest his parents. No tolerance. Yeah. And then the white matter thing, the white matter thing was especially interesting to me because it means the areas of your brain can't communicate with one another. So impulses you have in one compartment of your brain get sent to the other ones and they get all garbled up and lost in transmission. So it's like, okay, well, if that's the problem,

you know what else I found? These weird communities online where pedophiles were like supporting each other not being pedophiles. Yeah. Because if you imagine it, like, and every document I've read was tripping over themselves to not call it a sexual orientation

because they didn't want to offend gay people. Right. Which is like, okay, whatever. So it's not a sexual orientation. It's just a way that your sexuality is, oriented, right? Okay. So that's what we'll call it.

That's what we'll call it. That's what we'll call what it is. It's like, I imagine, like, what if being heterosexual was like a, was like a horrible and heinous thing, right? Yeah. Could I not do that forever with support? Maybe. Just not being a heterosexual?

Yeah. Like, and just not have sex ever, like, not gratify any of my sexual urges with, like, a person, you know? If it was, if it was the same thing. Like, you know, mapping. mapping being a regular dude to being a pedophile? Like, what if it's in your brain and it's unfixable? Yeah.

Can, could I go through life like that with support? That's my question, because that's what we're looking at. If all this brain shit is real, that's what we're looking at. I can't give you an educated answer about that. That's something that you really have to think about. Because imagine if you had this urge or impulse your entire life, and you are simply told that cognitively it's wrong, and you need to fix it, and you need to just simply not do it.

I don't think that's the solution so much as actually solving the problem. Because if you just simply deny the impulses, because I'm also familiar with this group of pedophiles who've come forward who said they are not offending pedophiles, but they are attracted to children. What do you do? Yeah, one of them is a 17-year-old kid, and he's trying to reach out to help, and people are still demonizing this guy. I'm like, guys, you need to chill out a little bit and just at least talk to him

and figure out, like, trying to find a solution. This guy's saying, hey, I need help, right? before I do anything wrong. I don't know, man. I don't know what the solution is. Well, it's a hell of a problem, Maddox. Yeah, it is. I got a little bit more.

Judith Becker, a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Arizona, this is, again, from The Daily Beast. She conducted a cognitive behavioral therapy for some of these pedophiles, right, trying to solve the problem. She found that some pedophiles say that in their involvement with children,

they've actually regarded themselves as being of the same age as their victims. It's kind of interesting. During these encounters, Becker said that it's as if they slipped back into a much earlier phase in their own development, or perhaps never graduated beyond that in the first place. And Becker also points out that many pedophiles don't operate with cold clarity about the ethics of what they're doing.

Instead, they weave a cognitive distortion that absolves them of guilt or responsibility. They say things like, well, the child didn't say no, or it happened to me, therefore it's okay, or I love the child. They actually think that they're in love with the child. Yeah. Now we've got a Lenny situation happening. Yeah. That can't be fixed or dealt with. If they do actually think that they're a child.

If they're starting to justify it, ugh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Well, it's a, but it is a cognitive bias. It's a cognitive distortion that they're doing. Clearly. Yeah. Well, Lenny didn't do that in the movie. Lenny was just, he was like a dumb dog. Like, he didn't know anything.

Didn't he say, wasn't his excuse that he was just like petting her? Yeah, he was petting her. Yeah. And he broke her. He broke her. He had a childlike mind. He didn't understand his own strength. killed the woman at the end of the movie.

Anyway, Dick, that's my problem. Pedophiles. Big problem. Once again, this episode is brought to you by Audiblepodcast.com slash biggest. Unbelievable. Unbelievable that this is your fucking problem

for this week. And no solution, not even close to a solution. Dick, that's on the show. I'm sure Audible really appreciates it. Yeah, for some reason, every time they sponsor an episode, we have this big catastrophe cluster fuck of a disgusting problem. Wasn't female genital?

mutilation, the last one they sponsored? Maybe. Jesus Christ, Maddox, you really hate ads. Yeah. You are a shithead. Yeah. Whoops. I love you, Maddox.

There we go. At least some people love me. Okay. Believe it or not, I have an even more horrific problem this week. Than pedophiles? Yeah. Okay. Goofy lightsabers.

Okay. Goofy lightsabers, you guys. Goofy lightsabers. Yeah. Two percent of people are. pedophiles? How many people's, what percentage of people saw this new Star Wars trailer? Probably more than 2%. Well, yeah. It affects more people. Okay. Okay, Dick. I want you guys to consider now when you're voting. How is this not a competition all of a sudden? It's all about voting for you.

No, no, no. We want to find the biggest problem in the universe. Now, do goofy lightsabers molest children? Think about that. Goofy lightsabers are fixable, though. Pedophiles are not fixable. So are they even a problem? It's just a fact. Is it even a problem? Yes, it's definitely a If it can't be fixed, it's even more of a problem. Goofy lightsabers can be fixed with a little bit of CD or a, maybe not watching the movie. More CG is not the answer, my friend. More CG is never the answer.

Okay. So, Sean, did you even see the new Star Wars trailer? Something tells me you didn't. I did not. Oh, God, damn it. Okay, let me walk you through it. Let me walk you, because the first movies were dog shit, right? The first movies were made by George Lucas and they were dog shit, the pre-equals.

And it pissed everyone off, me included, because I kind of like Star Wars. Do you like Star Wars? I like the originals, yeah. I like the originals, too. I like all of them. Even the Ewaks one. The Extended the special Ewox spin-off that they did. I didn't even see that.

It's pretty stupid, but I still liked it. The monsters in it were cool, and I like the practical effects. Yeah. But then the pre-equals ruined everything. Right. Right? By, well, I'll get to that. So, everyone's pissed off about that.

Lucas sells Star Wars, and J.J. Abrams picks up the new one, right? Pretty cool, right? Maybe we'll get back to the basics, right, Sean? Maybe we'll have like a fantasy space adventure again, you know, like we want, like we deserve. Right? Yeah. Yeah, we do deserve it. We're getting the Star Wars movies.

We're getting this. I was going to make a Batman reference. Like the Dark Night? These are the Star Wars movies we deserve. Yeah, we went, yeah. Not that we need that we deserve. That we deserve. Okay.

So the new trailer comes out. Uh, first scene. A black dude in a storm's trooper outfit, right? Which was really controversial for some reason. Yeah. I didn't get that either. The word, I didn't even bother reading any of these articles, because as soon as I read the word controversy, with regards to a stormtrooper who's black, I think, well, there's no controversy here. I'm not even going to fucking dignify this bullshit article, this clickbait, by reading it. Well, it was cool to me because I thought that it was a very clear statement that, look,

hey, remember that stupid idea that all the stormtroopers were clones? throw that out the window, because here's a stormtrooper who's black. Like, awesome. I couldn't be more on board with this statement, artistically. Sure. Right? I don't care, honestly, what the storm trooper could have been. Okay.

Then we got a stupid rolling robot guy, like R2D2 except he's a ball. Like on a soccer ball. Yeah. Like, okay, all right. I'll let that one slide. Looks kind of cool, whatever. He's rolling around. Sure.

Then you've got some kind of, like, stupid Jurassic Park thing where all these stormtroopers are like, they're all freaked out that they're about to make this landing. Remember that part? Yeah, no. It doesn't matter. It's suspenseful.

Okay. Suspensful. That's what the prequels didn't have any suspense, right? It's just people sitting around in front of green screens talking to each other. Yeah. Suspense. I'm even more on board.

Okay. Then we got a hot chick on a weird, stupid floating motorcycle. Okay, whatever. At least she's... That's kind of cool. Whatever. Whatever, man. Not offensive.

Not offensive. Put a hot chick on 80. Boom. X wings going over water. Whoa. Cool. Right? Far out.

Yeah. I'm ready to buy, right? Okay, Dick. Then this dude comes out in front of an evil forest, right? This dude in a black cloak comes out. And the music gets all evil, right? He pulls out his hand. His lightsaber goes off.

Pshu! And then more lightsaber sounds happen. and two stupid little prongs shoot out from the side of his lightsaber like a fucking claymore, like a sword. Like a sword. A regular red lightsaber shoots out and then two retarded,

gimpy little cock-sized mini-lightsabers shoot out from the side to make it look like a medieval sword. Well, that's unfortunate. Yeah. And I go, what in the fuck is this?

I pause it and go, what is, what are you? you doing? What the fuck are you doing? Yeah. Did this need to be fucked with? Did the cool, did the thing that was the cool lightsaber need to be fucked with? Yeah, man. Do you need to put a spoiler on the Millennium Falcon? Might as well at this point. Is it like, what? Put some stripes on that thing. Why? Why? That was the whole point. What, Sean? Person racing rims? Because you shut your fucking mouth, Sean. Sean in his hoar mouth. So here's the thing, Dick. Stephen Colbert did a piece on this, too.

Did you see his video where he talked about this? So he's kind of like a big nerd, and he's talking about how he said that those little side lightsabers could have a practical purpose by deflecting attacks from your hand, right? But then people pointed out how there's a little black ring where it comes out from, like this little cross. So they said they could slice right through that little cross and the lightsaber wouldn't come through. And this is where it gets ruined for me. This is the whole point of why Star Wars got ruined

because it gets nitpicked and explained by fucking nerds as though it's a practical thing. You want to know how the force worked? It's fucking magic. That's it. It's magic. Because it's a fantasy fun adventure. Nobody asks how Harry Potter's wand works. It's magic.

How does the warp drive work? It's magic. Shut up. How fast is the Death Star? The Death Star is as fast as it needs to be for the movie to be suspenseful, you fucking retard. It's magic. That's how it works.

Nobody asks how Dumbledore casts his spells in Hogwarts. Nobody asks how Snape goes to Voldemort. Nobody cares. No one cares. But for this shit, they do. And they ruin it. Stephen Colbert's leading the charge. Oh, well, actually, it could be this.

Like, dude, just shut up. Just take them off. It was cool. It was fine. You know what I like about this dick? I like so much. I love, I love pissing off these little fucking nitpicky nerds. I love pointing out little things and saying things wrong.

and having little discrepancies in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like I just did a few minutes ago. Because I know all these people are skins crawling, and they're rushing to Twitter. Hey, Max, you fucking, dumbed doors and lord of the rain. Shut up.

Who cares? Fuck off with your fantasy shit. It's fantasy shit. I can make anything up if I want, and I can... Look, it's completely arbitrary. You're nitpicking an arbitrary universe. No one cares about this shit. No one...

Why don't you worry about shit that fucking matter? If you spent this much time and energy, I guarantee none of these people spent this much time thinking about pedophiles this week. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so there you go. It's the mind's a bigger problem. Shame on you, listener. It's wasting more time.

Maybe we should tell them that the possibility is that their Girl Scout cookie distribution could be in danger. Because of what? Pedophilia. Why? Because the girls go out and sell cookies and stuff. If there's pedophiles out there, then they may not go out and sell cookies. So I'm just talking about, you know, audience specific. Oh, yeah.

We got an audience of big girls. I don't get them thinking about pedophiles. Well, Sean, I don't want to shit on your problem, but you can buy Girl Scout cookies online now. I don't know if you knew about that. I just found that out. Forget it. You know what? I race the last 25 seconds.

I think that if you buy them online, they should have a webcam of the little girl packing the cookies. I don't want it. Sorry, that's the most pedophile thing I've ever heard. No, just, they're not going to-ed-files? Because you were mentioning on like a very early episode that you met a, that you knew a real weirdo. Yeah. You remember that? Yeah.

Wait, what specifically... I don't know, you were saying that there was a real weird... When I was talking about priests, you were saying that you knew like a real weird guy as a kid that might have been a pedophile. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that dude, I'm pretty sure it was a pedophile. He had some really weird shit going on.

He always liked to hang around kids. But he was also exactly this profile. This guy was even a little bit slow. And actually, I wrote this article a long time ago called How to Spot a Pedophile. I remember that. Yeah, and it was about this thing that I noticed about pedophiles.

that they have something that I call a petos smile. I coined that term. I'm sorry, what? You coined the term peto smile? I did, yes, peto smile. I coined that term. I would love it if someone could verify or not verify that. Go ahead, Dick, because I actually have evidence.

I was cited in a scientific article. So then someone was actually looking into this. He said, well, is there a visual approximation? You could look at somebody and just tell that they might be a pedophile. And they said that there's something to a pedophile smile that is kind of almost childlike and innocent. They tried to lure in children. They tried to induce them.

So they actually looked into this theory. So I was cited in this. So go ahead, go ahead, Dick. Go ahead, everyone. I coined that term. I'm genuinely curious. So anyway, back to your lightsabers. Big problem.

Yeah. Look, I'm just, I'm so sick. It's ruined the whole thing for me. You guys are ruining Star Wars. We didn't need it. And then there's all these theories now. Like, oh, you know what? It's actually, actually they're exhaust ports for the lightsaber.

Like, what is this? A Mustang? Like, you need fucking exhaust port. It's a laser sword. It's a fucking laser sword. It doesn't need any other things on it. No. And if they can arbitrarily adjust the length of these lightsabers,

why don't they just make them really, really long and just, you know, like lasers? Why don't they just make them lasers? Why don't they just make lightsaber grenades where you just, like, throw plasma at them? Like a gun. Yeah, like a gun. Like shooting lasers like a gun. Because it is a fantasy night adventure in space. So they have to have swords.

It doesn't fucking matter. The practicality of it doesn't matter. They're knights with swords. That's what they're doing. I love this so much that it's bothered so many fucking nerds. It bothers me a lot, and I don't even consider myself a nerd. Like, I don't want it to be explained. I just like the, I like the movie.

It's fun. You're one of them. You're one of these nerds. It's bothering. I guess I am. I don't know. Oh, you just gave me some ammo, buddy. I'm going to wind you up.

It's like... I like that lightaber. It's the whole thing. You got to, your knights, your authority is delivered onto you by God, the force. The knights were all about God and, like, God values and Christianity and shit. And they put it right on the Jedi Knights, too. We got these laser swords, because we have to. Yeah.

And we believe in God. And it gives us divine power to choke people or shoot lightning or whatever. That's it. It's not a bacteria. Yeah. You know, Dick, the light saber thing is a very specific. A saber is a very specific type of sword. And I don't think it's actually a saber.

It looks more like a straight sword or a broadsword. The lightsaber, though. If you change the word saber to anything else, say light nunchucks, that's stupid. Yeah. Light, what, light size, that's stupid. What do you mean? Lights, what do you say? Light catanas, yeah.

Like, you know, size like Raphael's. Yeah, saber sounds cool. That's why they use it. But if it was light nunchucks, that would be stupid as shit. No one would watch. Well, get ready, because I'm sure they're on their way. I hope. I think that'd be awesome, Dick.

I can't wait for light nunchucks. Oh, fuck you. Yeah. Just, you know what we should do? just give James Bond like a machine gun all the time instead of that cool little piece that Walter P.B.K. He carries around. Like, do you guys not understand

how iconic it is just to have the normal thing? Leave it alone. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think they should add more swords, more hilts, more everything. They should have the lightsabers come out everywhere. Every different port. They should come out backwards too. Yeah, it should look like a menorah.

Yeah. The lightsaber. Just be like, wow, that guy's pretty badass. He's got to fuck his Hanukkah man. Yeah, man. With his menorah lightsaber. blue and white, that'd be fucking cool as shit. Stupid.

Be big in Israel. All right. I'm done with that. I'm done talking about it. Today's show is brought to you by Audible. Please visit Audiblepodcast.com for your free audiobook download. Maddox, you know about Audible?

I do. They've got 150,000 titles to choose from. Every genre, Audible has it covered. Get a free audiobook download when you sign up today. Listen whenever and wherever you want, just like the podcast you're listening to right now. How about that?

Right. Have you checked out Audible? I know, I said I would bring in that erotic lactation story clips from it that you can listen to on audible.com, but I didn't have time. I'll bring it in next time. Yeah, you read that book, though, right? You read the erotic lactation story. No, I listened to it.

Audibly. Oh, you listen to it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's something you can do while you're driving. If you want to listen to something erotic while you're driving. You can also listen to other stuff. I found some other, I found some good books on there that I'd like to listen to.

Yeah, like what? I think they're good for both of us. the skeptics guide to American history. Oh, who wrote that? I don't know. I didn't write that down. Yeah. Actually, that might be more of a me book. Skeptics Guides.

No, I'm a skeptic dick. I like James Randy, jamesrandy.org. Okay. A short history of nearly everything? That might be me too, because I like history stuff. That's a great book. It is? Yeah, super entertaining. Oh.

It's Bill Bryson, right? Yeah. The travel writer. Yeah, it's fucking fascinating. Everybody should listen to that and read it. There's some stuff that'll blow your mind in there. I was prepared to say some shitty, snarky comment, but I think you actually sold me on that, Sean.

That sounds interesting. Yeah, good thing you hear, Sean. Here's one that I think you would really like, Maddox. Overcoming premature ejaculation with hypnosis. So you can listen to that on Audible. Yeah, I would like... You hypnotize the girl. I don't know, Sean.

I haven't listened to it yet. I was thinking immediately in the term of the hypnotist. I have to hypnotize the girl into overcoming premature ejaculation. Hey, I got another voicemail for you. Yeah, let's hear it. Hey, Maddox, is this listening to your new episode, and you mentioned vinyl and CDs, and you're a fucking moron. Oh.

For one, all the CDs you listen to get converted to analog anyway. And if you've looked at the waveforms, vinyl's waveforms, since they originate from analog, and they weren't converted to digital, they're more curved and less like a line graph. Molecules. so to speak. Alloys. Alloys that your primitive mind can't understand, Maddox. Yeah. There you go.

What do you think about that? This guy is stupid. You moron. You know, I'll tell you what I think about that, Dick. That leads me to my next problem. Audio files. Yeah, audio files. The two files, the two biggest files,

the two biggest problems in the universe I brought in the same episode, guys, is going to be neck and neck. You know, the main problem with audiophiles is that they molest children. Did you know that? It's great. Oh, I seem to have written that down for both. No, but this guy's an idiot. This guy's an idiot.

So this... Yeah, but did you get his point about looking at the waveform? Yes. Oh, I got it, Dick. I got his point all right. So here's the thing. The problem with audio files, so this guy was saying CDs is in vinyl, right? He's a vinyl acolyte.

He's a vinyl advocate. I guess so, yeah. Yeah, a vinyl moron. Between every beat of song... So here's why I think that CDs are better than vinyl. So between every beat of a song, there is silence. That's what you're going with first. Yeah.

Ceds are better than vinyl. Okay, go ahead. CDs are better than vinyl. Go ahead. Because in between every beat of a song, there is silence, right? I don't understand what you mean by that. Between every beat. Usually there's a wall of sound and a song.

Well, there's a wall of sound, but there's the downbeat. If it's a song that doesn't have a wall of sound, if it's not orchestral or whatever, but in between beats. Like, it's the silence, it's the contrast between sound and not sound or low and high parts of a song that make it what it is, that make it music. The dynamics of a song? Sure, yeah, the dynamics of the song, right? I'll give you that.

Vinyl is supposedly more accurate, but every tiny speck, dust, warp, or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static. During the quiet spots in songs, you can hear the noise. You know what you hear during the quiet spots during a digital recording? Quiet. No grains, no specks, no dust, and no ghosts of an archaic needle being dragged across pits and grooves of vinyl.

Here's what they should do with vinyl. They should be collected, restored, remastered, and then promptly buried along with fax machines and ET cartridges in the New Mexico Desert, baby! Okay. They may be fun to collect, but musically they're worthless. So you're saying musically vinyl's worthless? Yeah, it's worthless.

Can I respond to some of those points before they get lost? Yeah. So first of all, what the fuck are you listening to that has quiet spots all over it? Oh, thanks for asking, Dick. I got an example. Pantera. Yeah. Awesome. Pretty badass.

Okay. A lot of quiet spots in this song. Yeah. But small pieces of static in those quiet parts are not going to distract you from the song. It's distortion, Dick. If I can choose not to have it, why would I choose otherwise? Okay. So you kind of sound like an audio file right there saying that.

that the distortion is significantly impacting your listening experience. First of all. However, the thing you're missing about vinyl is it's not the, the imperfections of vinyl are not a detriment to it. In fact, the fallible process of recording on vinyl is what gives it that warmth. Yeah, everybody says that, dick. They say they call it scratchy, grainy noise warmth. It's even beyond that. Like, recording base to a vinyl is so problematic to do that it introduces specific distortion that doesn't happen on CDs. I mean, keep in mind,

this is not, this is not about perfectly replicating what was recorded. It's about creating a listening experience. Yeah, you're fucking hippie. So that's what they all say. That's what all the vinyl acolytes say. That's true. That's absolutely true that recording music is not about recording what you hear in the room. It's about recording something so that when it's played back, It's an accurate music experience. Yeah, and it's not with vinyl. It's something completely different than what was got within what into the system. Like, NPR, Science Friday, great show.

They did an episode called Why Vinyl Sounds Better Than CD or not. Okay. And here's somebody who prefers vinyl. Listen to this woman. Listen to what she sounds like. I prefer vinyl. It's listening to music is an experience. And the full experience includes putting on the record,

moving over the needle and sitting back and rocking out. Rock it out, man. You know, did she sound like anyone that we've had on this episode on this show before? Yeah, you, on that KXLY interview, listen to this.

Here's that lady from the Ebola alarmist from KXLY. Listen to how similar do they sound. Well, that doesn't mean that they couldn't get it that it could come up here. Vinyl. He just grew out, man.

They don't have the same commanding audio presence that you do. I see what you're saying. All right, Dick. You don't agree with her? No. Just listen to what she's saying. Putting the needle on, the whole, like,

ritual. It's a ritual, yeah. It's important to her. It's important to the experience for her. Yeah. And that to you is worthless. And yet you have a problem with priests and people go to church.

Well. For ritual, Dick. I actually don't. I mean, I'm one of those atheists that doesn't have a problem with church. Oh, good. Like, people go for, to center them. themselves or try to gin up some hopeful thoughts for the week? It doesn't bother me.

Well, Dick, back to audiophiles and why they're a big problem. There's a guy named Sean Oliver. He's the director of acoustic research at Harmon International. Okay? And there's another guy. He's named Scott Metcalf. It's the director of recording arts and sciences at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. So they asked Scott which one he prefers, CDs or vinyl. Here's what Scott says. Vinyl or CD? I enjoy both formats, but my preference is definitely CD. Oh, sure. He prefers CD.

I wonder why. Here's what his explanation is. Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm primarily a recording engineer as far as working with music. And it's the closer thing to what I'm sending into the recorder is very much when I'm getting back out. Yeah, Sean, you were nodding. As our audio engineer, what's your input on us? That's one of the misconceptions are saying that.

No, no, no, that people, I'll say it this way. It is true that digital recording captures what it's more like on input into the console. But the thing is, is things like drums and bass and vocals going to tape, it's a colored sound. And we're talking, and forget about the end product, forget about whether it goes to CD or vinyl. Just either tracking two, you know, two-inch analog tape, if you can really, find it anymore, you know, or, or digitally into Pro Tools or what have you, we seem to like what tape does to the sound. Yeah.

Humans, you mean? Yeah. Well, yeah, we do. You know, for whatever, you can argue the reasons, you know, forever. But we seem to like it, but it is not as accurate as digital recording is nowadays. I got two questions for you, Maddox. Thank you, Sean. Number one, how come you didn't make fun of that guy's voice?

What, the guy who talked? Yeah, that was pretty stupid. He sounded just as stupid as those other two ladies. No, he didn't. He's sound as smart as shit. Play his voice again. Blah, blah, blah. Hi. Yeah, here.

Hi, I'm Alvin the Chibooks, the audio engineer. Yeah, was it. Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm... A little Kermit. Okay, Kermit. Shut it off. Working with music. Number two, speaking of accurate representation, what's better?

A story told as accurately as possible, or one that got a little staticy in the transmission. You tell me. Well, Dick, it really depends. if you want, if it's in the court of law, you want it as accurate as possible. But if you're embellishing, say, I don't know, about throwing oranges or something. That wasn't embellished at all.

That was not embellished at all. Well, it was a very rich tapestry. So you like listening to your music in a court of law, you would say. Well, sure. I mean, look, look, look, look, I want a consistent recording. If they want to add that warmth,

that they think that warmth is good for the record, they can add it before when they're recording it. They can make it sound that way as they wanted to. You can add static noise. Every single app, every single MP3 out there can, you can add static to it. Nobody does it because nobody wants that, quote, warmth. And warmth is an arbitrary adjective people use.

It could say coldness. It could say dirt. It doesn't have a positive connotation. Warmth does. They don't call it what it is. It's dust, idiots. Call it dust. I like that dusty noise to my records.

No, you're a moron. You're an idiot. That's a totally different adjective that you might hear. If you're recording or you're engineering a recording session, warmth is very specific and everybody agreed on it. By the way, all of music is arbitrary. It's all just listening and having your emotions fucked with. Yeah.

It's not about ones and zeros. And what, Sean? Well, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Going back to it, it's you're supposed to be listening to the song, to the content. And however, it's whatever gets you there, all that shit is just tools. And the studio, if you've ever been in there and tracked things, John, can you add as I have to everything you say? Yeah, okay.

Well, look, it's a great emotion suck. Microphones are nothing compared to the human ear and brain, you know, interpreting system. So it's like what you try to do is add back some of that human element that is lost. It's there's the whole school that says, I want to capture, I want a documentation type recording. I want to document. If you play that back for the band, they are going to be fucking appalled at how shitty and small they sound.

You have got to help it along be what it was always supposed to be. Well, it's interesting, you mentioned that, Sean, because you also mentioned that... Smug asshole. Yeah, no, no, real good comment. And also you mentioned, because, you know, people prefer the recorded tape,

you know, analog, that sort of thing. A study, according to Florida State University, they took a bunch of CDs and high-quality cassette recordings, right? They got the same exact recording, so you get a really high-quality, analog versus really high quality digital comparison. Using identical microphones, they mixed them exactly the same, both digitally and analog using

Dolby B. They tested 40 music majors while they switched back and forth to synced tracks, and almost all of them right across the board gave higher ratings to the digital presentation in bass, treble, and overall quality. Like usual, this study means absolutely nothing. You mean absolutely nothing, Dick. I just cited a study that researchers have done. It's in J's store. You can look at it.

I'm going to post it on our website. It doesn't matter that the study exists. It's like you're saying two people made pies exactly the same. You can't make a pie exactly the same. It's totally different. No, the preparation of the pie is different. We're talking about the recording. It's saying you baked a pie in one oven versus another oven.

That's a more accurate example. If you had the same person bake two pies and put them in two different oven, that's a more accurate example. This is what you're failing to take into account. So you've got all the microphones set up, right? You've got them going into an analog setup, and you've got them going into a digital setup. If you're doing it right, you would set everything up differently

for specifically what you're trying to record it on. Why would you, Dick? Because it's art! Because the whole fucking thing is art. It's not computers, it's art. The same reason you hold a brush differently when you're trying to paint something that's exciting versus something that's stagnant.

The same reason that Van Gogh is art and Picasso is art and Rembrandt is art even though they're wildly different styles. It's not meant to accurately reflect anything. It's not a courtroom reporting. Dick, if you want, but nobody adds noise, all this bullshit, this art that you're saying, nobody adds that to

digital tracks. You could you could add that quote, what? It's done all the time. People always, there's tape saturation plug-ins, there's things, there's like there's a shitty little free program called isotope vinyl that adds the dust and noise and mechanical wear of record players. Oh, so that happens?

Yeah. So you're saying we don't need vinyl? You don't need vinyl, you jackass? You don't need any of it. So if you can choose whether or not you have that dust, with vinyl, you don't have a choice. It's fucking there. And by the way, it degrades every single time. The bass, the high, the dynamic ranges are way lower in vinyl.

The bass is scraped out. The treble is scraped out. It's a pain in the ass to master, according to audio engineers that I've read, right? Well, it is because phase comes into it. Yeah. The needle will jump the groove if your record is not in phase, and that's kind of a lost art. People don't even check that shit so much anymore.

I mean, good engineers do, but... It's part of the artistry of it. Do you guys hear that sound, though? No, what? That's like 20,000, like, female members of the podcast clicking stop. No, man, listen. Don't generalize, Sean. That's sexist.

I know. I immediately regretted that. Oh, Jesus, Sean. It's dick saying that. Angelo's mom will be all over you next, man. Yeah, Sean. Watch it. So, listen, I hate the website, Vox.com, but they had an article said,

vinyl's great, but it's not better than CDs. So this is going to be a real balanced article. Yeah, it is. No, but they said, vinyl pressing is not error-free and the analog groove of given record is not the precise replication of the audio wave recorded in the master. So countering

that dipshit who called in, right? Not least due to extreme high and low frequency limitations. The way CDs work is by sampling audio waves at various points and stringing the samples together. So a common criticism, and I think Dick you've made this point, is that CDs and other digital formats are lossy

because no matter how dense the sample rate you still lose some information. Well, that's what slow-thinking people who don't understand calculus. Hold on, slow down. Are you saying that CDs, read that last part again. Are you saying that some people say CDs are lossy? Yeah, they say that CDs and other digital formats

are lossy because no matter how dense the sample rate, you still lose some information. I don't agree with that. I think that they capture it just fine. CEDES? Oh, this is news to me, Dick. No, I... Because, Maddox, here's some more news for you. Nobody uses fucking CDs anymore. Who gives a shit about CDs? But the digital format, that's what I'm talking about. Well, if you're using the CD as a standard digital format still, it's 16-bit 44.1 kilohertz, which is 44,100 samples per second.

That's a sampling rate. But most music today is recorded at much higher sampling rates than that, and then when it's exported, it's downsampled to that. The bit rate of an MP3 is way less than a CD. Well, yeah, it's about, well, it's... It depends. It doesn't have to be. But here's why it's irrelevant now. because of something called the Nyquist-Channon theorem.

Have you heard of this? Yeah, I know what that is. Yeah. Let me read it for the listeners who don't know. The theorem states that intuitively, we expect that when one reduces a continuous function or waveform, right? That guy was talking about, look at the waveform. To discrete samples and interpolates back to a continuous waveform, the fidelity of the result depends on the density or sample rate, Sean, you were saying the 44.1 kilohertz of the original samples, right?

So if you have little gaps in between, they're saying that you lose data. The Nyquist-Shannon theorem introduces the concept of sample rate that is sufficient for perfect fidelity, so no actual information is lost during the sampling process. Yeah, on a CD. Who fucking cares. It's math. No, MP3s, anything you want. You can choose the sampling rate. Yeah, but that's not how the real world works.

In the real world, people are listening to MP3s at 120 kilobits per second and 256, and those are not as good. And audio engineers specifically can tell them apart. Dick, you can't argue on one hand. There's a study that I have backing that up. Great, let's hear it. Academy at, I think it was McGill. Audio engineers overwhelmingly were able to tell the difference between MP3s, even at compression levels of up to 256 kilobits per second,

which is what iTunes is, by 60 to 80%. So audio engineers enjoy music less? Is that what you're saying? And by the way, why is that noise, why is that distortion considered less than the distortions? from vinyl. Because it's... It's digital distortion.

You're just saying what it is. You're just saying what it is. You're not answering the question. Why? People can identify it overwhelmingly. I like it, man. You know what? The sound effects we play on this episode,

listen to this one. Listen to how much distortion there is in this. To me, it gives me a good feeling, a good warm feeling, this is. Well, that's unfortunate. You hear that? What, all that mic... The noise?

Yeah, I like the way that sounds. Even the buzzer noise. Listen to it. It sounds, it has that kind of like distorted noise to it. With that flangey shit at the end that sounds awful. It sounds awful. Everyone loves it. Are you saying that vinyl distortion is just inherently negative?

Are you saying that everybody who says they like the warmth of vinyl is diluted? I'm saying that people who say vinyl is superior to digital, analog is superior to digital, are misled and uneducated. I'm saying you don't understand the ritual of having a vinyl, a physical thing. A physical representation of the emotion and the music that you're listening to is important to people. If you don't understand that, then there's no point in having the discussion. Having the object is important. Yeah, it's important to some people. I just think that this isn't like an audiophile problem.

Yeah. Maybe it's because here's the thing. It's a vinyl file. Oh, it's a pedophile problem. The audio files that I know are the ones who spend like, you know, $8,000 on cables. Yeah. You know, and that kind of stuff. Like this sounds more like a vinyl versus digital reproduction, like a playback reproduction argument.

You know, Sean, I started with that because of the voicemail. However, I did want to bring this in. The main problem... So I did want to bring this in. This is from Gizmodo, an audiophile deathmatch between monster cables and a coat hanger. Well, those... Yeah, monster cables are bullshit.

Yeah, well, of course. This is audio file shit. Listen to this. A poster at audioholics was put in a room with five fellow audiophiles, and a Martin Logan SL3 speaker set at 75 dB at 1,000 kilohertz, playing a mix of smooth,

trio easy listening jazz that no one had heard before. In the corner, Monster 1,000 speaker cables, in the other, four coat hangers twisted and soldered into a speaker cable. Sodared. Twisted and soldered into speaker cable. After five tests, no one knew that the coat hanger was even used. Hell yeah. When music played through the coat hanger wire,

we were asked if what we heard sounded good to us. All people agreed that what was heard sounded excellent. However, when A-B tests occurred, it was impossible. to determine which sounded best the majority of the time and which wire was used. Yeah, you got. Audio files. So how big of a fucking problem? So monster cables is the problem here.

Audio files is the problem. And audiophiles, these fall into the same category. Look, the ritual, I understand, but it's all perception, dick. They talked about this on the NPR episode. They said that you perceive it as being better because you go through that ritual. Just like you do with expensive steak or go into a place to get fancy wine, or if you go to Italy and sit down and you have a nice Italian meal, You think it's better because you're in Italy, but sometimes the food is fucking worse, like in Greece.

Most of the food kind of sucks in Greece. But I've had way better Greek food here in the United States. What is the fucking difference? Between what? The whole experience is part of it. Well, no, you can have the experience, but you don't have to delude yourself. You don't have to lie to yourself? Yeah, if you're going to go with the audiophile, you're talking about people like Fabio who spent, like, he spent like more than a car on his sound system.

Is that a well-known thing, or do I only know that? He spent, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars. The model? Oh, the, yeah, the erotic book cover model. Yeah, he was also on Wizards and Warriors 2 on the Nintendo entertainment system. I think of him as that guy who got smacked in the face by a bird at Disney. Yeah, that was great. That's a guy.

So he spent thousands. I remember what it was. He spent $800,000 on his sound system. Yeah, probably not the brightest guy. Uh, you know. Probably he's never heard of the Nike with Shannon Theorem. Also a multi-multi-millionaire. So what the fuck does he care?

You know, is a Class A amplifier better than like an integrated circuit amplifier? I don't fucking know. Probably. There's probably amplifiers that perform better with speakers that they're attached to. I don't know. I don't really know. Actually, the room that you're listening to it in probably has more to do with your music experience than the speakers it's coming out of.

I don't know if that's true, but just from being a musician, playing in different rooms has a major effect on how you sound. Dick, you sound like a hippie. Look, I... In my experience... Oh, wait a minute, Sean.

Fuck you, Maddox. Please continue. Go on. In my experience... The order of importance, you know, when you're in the recording studio, the talent matters the most. You can have a guy with a mediocre

guitar and he'll make that thing sound pretty damn good as opposed to you know a guy who has no control over his dynamics playing it you know playing something bitching like you know the d28 or something like that and uh so it's the room after that has a lot to do with you know how things are are sounding this room is not optimal i hear a little room in here sometimes but it's yeah but it's pretty good you know what john it's because of the talent that's why this podcast sounds like But ultimately, it's the content. You wouldn't want exile on Main Street sounding like a Steely Dan record.

That's true. That's a great point. It doesn't serve the... The fidelity of the recording affects the listening. I agree with Dick in that it is art. Yeah, well, okay, great. As you're weird's fucking nightmare. It's all subjective. And I think nowadays people prefer digital

for those reasons. They didn't grow up with analog tape hiss, let alone vinyl. Remember, you were going from analog tape which has an inherent noise floor. Digital, there is no noise floor. It's silent until you, you know, put something... Pretty cool. It's science.

You're listening to science. Does that get you horny, baby? Look, it's the whole reason why things like Dolby were invented. It was noise suppression software. It was noise suppression system, not software, but it was, you know, back in the 60s, and it's still used. Give that man a beer.

My point with Fabio is he's got money to blow on it. He's trying to enhance his listening experience. Who the fuck cares? How is it a problem? It's a problem because they're pretentious, and they make, they feel that they are greater than. They make everyone else feel small and inferior, and they lure their fucking musical knowledge.

It's art, man. You don't understand, man. That's what they do. They're fucking snobs or pretentious dickheads. That's what you sound like. That was a direct quote. You play that back. Listen, you can't even tell who was talking during the episode.

Well, what do you, if it's not art, then what is it? I mean, we're listening to the song. That's why we just holding the song or the content. What is it? an art then. Is programming art? I took a shit. Is that art? I do a special way. Those are both crafts. Programming and shitting are crafts. There's a

difference in art and crafts. Shitting is a craft. Shitting is a craft because you can get better. Oh, shitting is a crap. Dick, what do you got? What's your next problem? No, I'm not, this has gone too long. I'm going to save the other one. I'm just bringing in goofy lightsabbers today. Oh, sweet. Goofy lightsabers.

Tune in next week. It's too long. Let the remix this begin this week. I can't get rid. The biggest problem is the universe. I just want to thank audiblepodcast.com slash biggest for sponsoring this episode. Go to audiblepodcast.com slash biggest for your free audiobook download. Thank you, Dick.

And my problems this week were pedophiles and audiophiles. My problems are goofy lightsabers. Don't forget to vote. Check out our sponsor. Thanks to Audible. And tune in next week. Lots of more to come. Thanks for listening. Sean, don't stop recording it. I want to play one quick thing that you might think is funny. So these are the scratch. Dick, Dick, Dick, Dick. Dick, Dick, Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Dick. Ah.