The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Episode 58

Episode Date: May 26, 2018

Welcome to the biggest problem in the universe, the show where we discuss every problem in the universe from ants to AIDS, with over 3.2 million downloads. This is the only show where you decide what should or shouldn't be on the big list of problems. I'm Maddox with me as Dick Masterson. Hey, what's up, buddy? And Sean, our audio engineer. Hello. Welcome back. That was perfect.

Yeah. Timed it right along with the music and everything. I think we got it down after 58 episodes. Spell time. Yeah, guys. Let's just get this out of the way. Last week, the problems, the ranking of the problems, coming in first was Social Justice Warriors. Oh, yes.

Dick, climbed the ranks so high. So fast and so hard, man. I'm like the Chuck Yeager of this show. That problem just shot straight into outer space, man. Oh, yeah. What are you typing at? What are you doing? Don't worry about it.

I'm just looking at the master list of problems here. 4,000 votes in a couple days. People hate Social Justice Warriors. Yeah. Hate them. Yeah. For good reason. Well?

For good reason. They're like the anti-SLactivist, somebody said. No. Because they're... What do you mean? No. Well, some people... I read in the comments the opposite.

I said I read that it was an extension of Slacktivists. No, no, no, no, no, I disagree. Because Slackivists feel that, that... They feel that... That positive feedback. They feel it when they just click like and then they're done and they don't hurt anybody. They're not hurting anybody. They're just getting themselves off.

They click a like button to get off. That's fine. I go look at porno, it's the same thing. Social justice warriors are hurting people. They're costing people their lives, their jobs, their lives, man. And they're infecting others. It's a race to the bottom with them. I don't know that they're affecting people's lives, Dick.

You want an example? I brought an example somebody sent me. We can get to it later if you want. No, let's hear it. Let's hear it. Here we go. We're talking about it. This is from, one second.

Okay, Jacob Witt. Hey, Dick, I just wanted to share with you a story I just heard about yesterday. I live in Iowa, far away from the liberal bastions of L.A. and New York, right? You wouldn't think social justice warrioring was out in Iowa. Oh, Iowa's pretty liberal, surprisingly. You would think they are not, but they're one of the first states to pass gay marriage laws. Well, here we go. A few years out of college, but I still keep in contact and live near a professor, a mentor of mine.

I think I was supposed to keep this guy's name anonymous. We'll bring that out. He's been telling me of a particular student in his law and politics course who has been taken under the wing of radical feminists on campus. She's often spoken of microaggressions coming from the professor and is also taken up spelling women like W-O-M-Y-N. And is that so that they don't have the word men in their... No, I think it's actually because they're retarded. Okay. I think they think that's the correct...

No, you're right. Yeah. So it's to take men. Anyway, this professor may face disciplinary action from a complaint from her, from this women chick, on behalf of some women's group on campus based on what he thinks stems from classes about rape cases in a law and politics course. She claimed that he was incredibly insensitive regarding rape. Hmm. He would go on, he would in no way be terminated, but he may be forced to sanitize his class if he would be ruled against.

How about that? What does that mean to sanitize a class? Not discuss issues, not discuss rape cases in a class about law and politics? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that does sound like the effects of social justice war-eering, but I don't see how it's taking people's lives. Their livelihoods, maybe, but not their lives. What's the difference?

Well, the difference is pretty big, Dick. If you lose your job, it's not like losing your life. It's a, it's on the way to losing your life. Well, because they're-aw- They can't kill you. They can't, like, they would love to just kill you. love to have a vote where the government comes and kills you for saying something they don't like, but the best they can do is take away your money, which is the same thing to me. Like morally, I think

going after someone's job and their money and the way that they support themselves and the way they feed themselves, morally to me is exactly the same as attacking them physically. It's in the same, it has the same flavor, but it's not quite the same. I think the distinction is important. So I wanted to mention Dick, I was pulling up the website to see the biggest problems, the big list of problems. Social Justice Warriors is number 11 on the big list of problems. Guys, it beat out hunger.

Oh, no, it's about to beat out hunger. It beat out obesity, which is a bigger problem than hunger. Yeah. It's a big problem obesity. Yeah, I get it. Very good. Then, followed by shitty dads last week.

Dick, your... Shitty problems. Your sentence that you brought in about shitty dads. It was Father's Day. Yeah. I got a comment here. from Christy Chapman.

She says, shitty dads are a huge problem, but I'm not sure you've thought this through. Since it's your opening line to broads, surely less shitty dads equals less broken women, equals less broken women, equals less sex for dick.

Dick, didn't you say that shitty dads were great, it's a great pickup line, opening line to talk to a chick and ask her how her father is? That doesn't mean he was shitty. Well, you're saying... It's not dependent on him being shitty. You're saying that the ones who have the shitty dads,

I said it's a problem to open up with that line because if they had a shitty father, then they're suddenly thinking about all these bad emotions and bad feelings, blah, blah, blah. And you said that you like that because you use their broken father, the shitty father to your advantage. I didn't say that last part,

but here's the thing. People with shitty dads, a lot of times, I would say most of the time, don't think they're shitty. Like they look at their upbringing and say, oh yeah, that's totally normal, or he was doing his best. And as an outsider, you can say, no, that was very much a shitty dad move.

What are you basing that on dick? I think people who have shitty dads know their dads are shitty. You look on TV and you see sitcom dads and how cool they are, and then you look at your abusive shit-hole dad who's never around. I think people know their dads are shitty. Yeah, but you're picking like a trailer trash abusive dad. There's a big gray area where some dads are just shitty without being so overtly abusive about it. Yeah.

Surely you can say that exists. Like, it's not a cartoon out there. All right. Well, then I wouldn't describe those dads in those absolute terms as shitty. I would say my dad's meh, mediocre. In fact, I have a comment here, Dick. This one's from... Sasha Woods.

No, whoops. Wrong one. Oh, why are you laughing? I was going to say, why did it take you so long to pronounce that? Woods? No, I was looking for the comment. Of Woods. No, no, she brought in another comment.

I'll read in a second. But, no, I read a comment on the forum. I didn't bring this comment in, but someone commented and said that perhaps a bigger problem in the shitty dads or dads who are just mediocre. I think that's what you're talking about, Dick. I don't know, man. What are you, mincing the word of shitty dad? Are you trying to bust me that one is a shitty dad and one is not quite shitty?

I don't understand what you're trying to say. Can we, let's just agree that it was a shitty problem. And then, speaking of shitty problems, soy got trounced in the voting. You guys didn't think soy was a big problem. Because a lot of you said that, hey, Maddox, I like to put soy sauce on my fried rice. And I replied to these idiots, and I said, guys, it's fine for occasional use. If you eat soy a bite or two here or there, it's not going to kill you. But if it's a staple of your diet, like most vegans and vegetarians make it,

then it can start to cause problems. Yeah. Makes you grow tits. Well, here I got a voicemail about vegans. I've got a riddle for you. If somebody is a vegan and they're into CrossFit, what do they talk about first? Oh, that is rich.

Go fuck yourself there. I kind of like that joke. Yeah, he undersold his own joke by overselling it. Let's see here. We got some fan art. You want to talk about this? Yeah, we got this red comic that got sent in. We got this comic sent in by a fan.

His name is James. Callan and I posted it on my Twitter. It's at Maddox Rules I think is my Twitter. I don't even know my own fucking Twitter. Anyway, he made a comic about it's called Mad Maddox A Road Rage. Yeah, I'm not going to

read the whole thing but it's pretty great. Somewhere in L.A. there's some kind of used car salesmen selling what looks like Homer Simpson a motorcycle with cop farings. Yeah, it's pretty hilarious. I look like a

samurai. Here you go. Here's you driving down the street, flipping everybody off, screaming obscenities, and honking constantly. That's, that looks about right. Yeah, that's pretty accurate. It's pretty accurate, I would say. Did you read the panel about the samurai ethos? Here we go. Here's, here's, no, this is way more accurate. Sean, wouldn't you say that's a more accurate representation of Maddox with that smug-ass look on his face? What smug look? Oh, yeah, that's smug look. Read their own. You're saying, actually, I drive like a samurai, the aristocratic warrior class of feudal Japan.

We follow Bushido, a code of honor, discipline, and aggressive driving. Yeah. Actually, they're more mediocre than shitty. Shut up, Sean. You can shit already. Yeah, I don't know why people picked on that shitty dead problem. It's about establishing intimacy. It's not about taking advantage of a bad dad.

Oh, Jesus. All right. Hey, I also got to. You brought it up. Okay, I also got a tweet from some more fan art. Someone corrected this picture, Dick. He sent a screenshot of the live show of you holding a mug, and he said he enlargent your face.

It still looks really tiny. He said he made it bigger. His name is Mr. Gobun. I linked to it on Twitter. We'll put it on the page for the biggest problem in the universe.com. Go to the website. Vote on these problems, guys. Don't forget to vote on this problem.

I don't have a small face. I hate that stupid picture. I don't have a too small of a face for my head. I know, that's what he's saying. He's saying he enlarged it for you. No, I don't. I get the joke. He made it extra small.

What? Like the size of a mouth on my head, on my actual head. I don't have a too small of a face. And I really don't like that the way I find out about this shit is ex-girlfriends texting me that picture in the middle of the night and me saying, where the fuck did this come from? You don't know how to use Photoshop. Yeah. Oh, man. It's so good.

She's like, oh, Maddox just tweeted it. I'm like, oh, great. Great. 20,000 people are laughing about this right now, super. Pretty fucking funny. I don't have a too small of face. Dick, what is your problem with definite articles? What do you mean?

You have a serious problem with definite articles. It's not a road rage. It's not a too small of a face. Anyway, Dick, last episode I also mentioned that I started a Twitch stream, which is really taken off. I got a comment from Pamela Yashu. She said, keep streaming, Maddox. I actually enjoyed your Alpha 2 stream last night.

I've been playing Street Fighter Alpha 2 on my stream. Oh, really? To practice? No, I don't need practice. So before Matt Barr kicks your ass? I don't need practice. Dick, I've been using an emulator, an online emulator, because you pretty much have to.

I don't have an arcade cabinet. And the controls I'm using is a keyboard. And a lot of people say, Marrox, why don't you play online? Why are you so afraid of cheating? And the problem is, with an emulator, When you play online, you can use a keyboard mapper, which is what I use to map my keyboard inputs to a controller. You can define macros, and you can define shortcuts, and all sorts of scripting and programs and things so that you can press one key and it'll do a special move.

Yeah. Because this is the definition of chicken. You're talking, and all I hear is bach, bach, bach, bach, bach, bach, bach, bach, bach. I think you're thinking of swinging for my chicken. Go ahead, what? And you can define keystrokes that what? You can define a macro. that's a special move.

Yeah. So you press one button and it's going to do a hurricane kick or a fireball or whatever. It's cheating. Oh, all right. It's super easy to cheat.

And I told you this last night and you remember what your answer was, Dick? So cheat. Do it. Yeah. So I'll cheat him then. Yeah. Okay, great.

It'll be a street fighter two slash cheating contest. All right, so Maddox is practicing for the big fight, the big street fighter fight. Not practicing. What is your Twitter, or your Twitch stream called?

Is it Twitter? Twitch.tv slash I'm not writing my book.com. Speaking of Brian Jaxz, Jacques says, Jacques says, wow, Maddox wants, he said, wow, Maddox wants to avoid writing his book so badly. He started a Twitch stream that nobody wants to watch. Not funny. Well, E3 happened this week.

E3 did happen. I just got back from E3. And I posted my E3 roundup. Oh. Yeah, I do a wrap-up every time I go to E3. Actually, except last year I didn't, It was so disappointing. There wasn't even enough footage to talk about.

But yeah, this year I did my E3 wrap-up, and it's already got like 80, 90,000 views since yesterday. What's the point of going to E3? Like, don't you just hear all that shit online? You get to play alphas and pre-builds. You get to play the game early. You get to see where the game's coming from. And other times, too, you get to see games that then get canceled later on down the line.

So that's your only opportunity to play that game. Like the last Guardian, long time ago. It was announced it like E3, four or five years ago. Then the game was canceled. Now they're bringing it back. So people who got to see it and play it way back in the day are the only people in the world who ever were able to. It seems like a huge cock tease to me.

It is. Like it seems like you're paying to go get advertised to. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It is, if you pay to go to E3, it's kind of a rip-off. I mean, it's not kind of. It's a huge rip-off.

Yeah. I met Anita Sarkesian there. You know who she is? Oh, yes. Did you spit in her mouth? No. Wow. No, no, no, dude. I'd kickstart that.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Kickstart hermatics was spitting in. Go ahead. You know, what's interesting is a lot of people who are outside of the gamer world have no idea who she is. She's this much, much reviled feminist blogger. She makes a bunch of videos. Whatever.

I don't. She's a non-gamer that picks on gaming. Like, she, I'm going to give this example specifically because I saw it recently. She was talking about the new Tomb Raider game. Yeah. And her comment was a very snide, snarky comment about Lara Croft wearing a snow jacket in the snow. And she's like, oh, it's about time that this buxom heroine of this video game was wearing the appropriate clothing for her environment. Right.

And it was just hundreds of people posting pictures of all the previous games, how all of her clothing. was accurate. Like she's always had a jacket. Yeah. She's always had a pants. So here's the thing about Anita Sarkesian. And this is probably the only time I'll ever talk to talk about her specifically. Because I don't want to give her the spotlight. She is not the voice of this generation. She's not the voice of gamers. She doesn't represent anyone except herself. And I believe what she is doing. If you look at her Twitter stream, most of the comments are negative. Negative about video games. Complaining about the violence and doom. Complaining about Tomb Raider. She even complained about. about her badge at E3. The E3 badge came with a little paper foldout thing for Persona 4. Sexist. Of this cute little girl wearing a skirt or whatever.

Like obviously too young to be sexualized. And she wasn't sexualized. It was just a girl in a skirt. And she said, well, this is the picture they chose. Of all the pictures they could have used, they chose this one. Like, she's looking for reasons to be offended. She is this

outrage porn that we talked about, that Ryan Holliday talked about. She is this person who is looking for reasons and excuses to complain. And that's why I don't want to give her the spotlight and the focus, because I think she's disingenuous. She has to do this to continue. To live. Her outrage is lucrative. And if she doesn't continually feed that beast, then people will forget about her.

She has to find something to complain about. And which is like, I know it's really a fine line that I'm talking about that I'm treading here. Because we do that too. You do that too, but you don't. Well, you would think, but I don't look for reasons to complain. These are things that just genuinely annoy me. I'm not looking to be annoyed. You liked Mad Max.

You wrote a glowing review of that. Yeah, great movie. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need to find things to annoy me because things naturally annoy me so much. But I don't believe that anyone in this world could be that annoyed by so little, so little. By a little girl on a badge. Well, it also speaks to how she thinks.

Like, if she really thinks that's sexist and offensive, then she must assume men see that image and are sexually stimulated by it. Right. I mean, if she's, if she's putting herself in, in all these imaginary guys that she's blaming for whatever, I don't even know what the reason is. Like, there's not more women in video games. Then she's putting that on us. Like, you see this picture, you guys are sexualizing this little girl in a skirt.

Like, bitch, I'm not doing that. We're not. We're not. It's just a little girl in a skirt. It's a badge from a video game, and it's not even an actual little girl. It's a depiction. It's a drawing. And it's an interesting ad because when I think video games, I think of some stupid sort,

like a big giant hulking sword fight. And now I'm thinking like, oh, what's this little girl doing here? Well, and they were promoting a dancing game. It was for Persona 4 dancing something or other, which was, man, just so lame. I saw people dancing to that game. But also one final point I want to mention, and this will be the last I'll ever talk about. her, but she raised over $100,000 to create

a series of videos about sexism and gaming, and I watched all of them as part of my research. I've seen almost every single one of her videos. It's part of the research I do, right? Dedicated. Dedicated man. Right. She complained

about not enough women in video games. You know what would help introduce more women to video games? It's taking $100,000 budget and then putting that towards developing a Yeah. How about that? Would that introduce more women to video games?

Yeah, I think so. I don't even understand that complaint. There's tons of women in video games. Of course. Of course. I mean, it's like, it's so ubiquitous that it's not even weird to see a female heroine. No. Is it?

No. And I pick them, I pick them in my video games. I don't think of my video game character's gender when I'm playing. I don't care. And they're all beautiful. Like, they're all physical specimens. The men are. That's the whole point of a fantasy.

Well, can you imagine if Mario, like, for example, one of the big criticisms is Mario is the power player in his games, and the princess is the damsel in distress? Well, can you imagine if the situation were reversed and you played the female heroine like you do in Metroid, which nobody cared about the gender. It's not about the gender. For all intents and purposes, I thought Metroid was a robot the first time I played it. You don't even learn the character's gender until after you beat the game. And then it's like, oh, huh, how about that? Huh. How about that?

I thought as a kid. I was like, oh, hey, it's chick. How about that? But here's how people like, people who look for reasons to be offended can turn it around. If the situation were reversed and the princess was trying to save Mario, then people could simply say, oh, well, you are controlling a female character in a video game,

taking away her agency, and you're in control, and it's a man's control, it's a man's industry, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's always some angle to complain about. Yeah. Man. Anyway, yeah, so E3. Well, speaking of E3, we sent a correspondent there. Yeah, Dick, I partnered up with a blogger Tom Phillips over at gameobliterator.biz.

Have you heard of that site? No, it sounds like a fake site, in fact. No, Dick, it's not a fake site. Gameobliterator. It doesn't sound like a fake. It doesn't sound that crazy. It just sounds like a piece of shit. No, it's a good site.

My buddy Tom Phillips went to E3. Let's hear some from Tom Phillips at E3. Thanks, Dick and Maddox. I'm Tom Phillips, junior editor at GamePlayterator. com. And here's the latest video game scoops on E3's hottest indie titles. Indy Game Raptor. Oh, there's the shouting.

All right, let's hear something from Tom Phillips. Yeah. The Nintendo E-shop gets a great new RPG with Chrono Trigger Warning. Now, a trigger warning for this review, it will contain trigger warnings. So if you're triggered by trigger warnings, you may want to stop listening. Also, if trigger warnings about trigger warnings are a trigger for you, we completely respect that.

Unless respecting your feelings is a trigger, in which case, we don't. Anyway, this game sucks. Don't play it. It's a rapter. Yeah, see, Tom does some really good journalism. Yeah. Okay, one more. Yeah. Put the pedal to the medal in the all-new cart racing game,

Speed Racist. You play the world's fastest racist. Baddling against legends like racer Malcolm X, and the affirmative action, action, action team. Get behind the wheel of the mock, things were better in 1955, and race your way up to Grand Wizard. Sounds like a great game. Indy game raptor.

One more. Maxis Milwaukee pulled the curtain off Sim, Jeterifier. The new city building game where you get to push the pores out of town as fast as possible. But the food truck festival, organic cookie bakery, Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks, or Mixology Academy called Stirring Up Truck. Whatever you can dream, you can do to these poor blacks and Mexicans.

Win the game and you'll get to build a three-story whole foods, a dream come true for once. That is a dream come true. Yeah. Oh, man, can you imagine all the tempe they sell there? That four-story whole foods? What's that? Tempe. It's another fucking thing.

It's just a bunch of beans. A quinoa? It's just a bunch of compressed beans and shit. Yeah, it's grains and shit. You better watch it, man. You might get on a list saying words like. Tempe. You're one of them now. All right, let's do some problems.

Let's get to the problems. I'll bring some more of those later. Dick, my first problem this week is anti-intellectualism. Well, you're right. I'm already very upset by your problem. I'm already in a very foul mood. I knew you would be, Dick. Anti-intellectualism or anti-intellectualism, however they like to pronounce it. Anti-intellectualites. Is that what you would call us? I guess.

Yeah. Or intellectualism. How did I mispronounce it a couple episodes ago? You guys had such a good time making fun because I misspoke. Yeah. I don't know. You want to recreate it? Just dump like a bunch of marbles in your mouth and try to say it again.

Intellectual, I think is how I pronounce it. Go ahead. Anyway, Dick, it's anti-intellectualism is the embrace and celebration of ignorance. It's putting stupidity and ignorance, which aren't the same thing, by the way, on a pedestal. Right? It's cool to be dumb in this country. Dick, we talked about this yesterday. You know that there's a thing going around on the internet.

I saw that's on the front page of Reddit. There is the 80-mile-per-hour question. Yeah. Right? Yeah, if you want to have a fight with your girlfriend or wife, go ask her this question. Yeah, it's a great way to have a fight. Sean, do you know what this is?

No, I haven't heard of it. Okay, Sean, if a car is traveling 80 miles per hour, how long will it take that car to travel 80 miles? 80 minutes? Oh, no. Oh, no. Okay. Wait, oh, I'm sorry, one hour.

One hour. Jesus Christ, too. Jesus Christ is right. I'm going to up to like four in the morning. Sean, you could be dead and you should still get that right immediately. Well, okay, so here's thing, Dick. I have a suspicion that that question itself is a little bit of a trick question. Because it seems so simple that people overthink it, right?

But I do genuinely also believe that the other side of it is a lot of people are really, just fucking dumb and they don't understand they don't understand and they also they think that it's uncool to know and be versed in math to be to even be able to answer that question correctly right off the bat is uncool well that part's a bit of a leap for me what sean can you have acute stupidity that's what i'm blaming it all acute stupidity like momentary flashes of stupidity yeah what i just sure Sean you're not a stupid person uh you you didn't think so until now No, no, Sean, I think that you are in the latter camp where you over-thunk it and tried to, I don't know, you have hiccuffs, sure. You ask you a question and you think they want more thought than is required.

Right. If somebody asks you something that's obvious, you think, well, why are they asking me? It must be trickier, especially because they got this stupid smug grin on their face that I want to knock through the back of their head. Right. So, Dick, I want to talk about specifically, though, the people who embrace. dumbness and this is one of the clips this is one of the videos that's floating around on the internet I saw this on the front page of Reddit and it's one of these these videos where people record their friends trying to answer this

question yeah listen to this 80 miles per hour how long will it take you to go 80 miles what okay if you're going 80 miles per hour how long will take you to go 80 miles yeah I don't understand okay 80? So do I like divide something? Yeah. No. Well, that's misleading. You definitely divide. I don't understand.

Idiot. These fucking morons think it's cute to be dumb. They embrace it. They love it. Newsweek did a poll dick of a thousand U.S. citizens and found that 44% couldn't define the Bill of Rights. 73% couldn't say why we fought the Cold War. Bill of Rights or they couldn't say what it is? No, they didn't know what it is, yeah. Well, I don't know.

Is that anti-intellectualism's fault? Yeah. Like, I don't know that I could list all 10 of them. Well, but you know what the Bill of Rights are, right? First 10 amendments of the Constitution, right? That guarantee personal freedoms. Right. That get chiseled away at every year, right?

Okay. You got a wedge in your law? By a Nobel Prize winning peacemonger. Say it. Say it, Maddox. Libertarian agenda. You're waiting for it. I'm giving you blue balls, Sean. Representative Paul

Brune, Brown, whatever, from Georgia says evolution and the Big Bang Theory are lies. Listen to this. This is a clip from a congressman. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang Theory. All that

is lies straight from I'm so glad he has that accent. Lies straight from the pit of hell. Yeah. Fucking magnets, man. How do they work? Well, apparently they don't. They're lies, Dick.

Lies from the pit of hell. The pit of hell. The very bottom of hell. So clearly, not only are these lies straight from hell, but they're from the worst part of hell, supposedly. I mean, if hell's a bad place, the pit of it must be even worse. The traitors. That's where the traitors go. Judas, Cassius.

I'm serious. Okay. The pit of hell. Yeah. You want to be the top of hell. If you go to hell, you want to be like in the clouds. Limbo. The very top.

Yeah. The unbaptized children. Well, that was a congressman. Here is a senator, Senator James Inhoff. He brought a snowball to the Senate floor to disprove global warming. Listen to this. The chair, you know what this is? It's a snowball.

And that's just from outside here. So it's very, very cold out, very unseasonal. So here, Mr. President, catch this. Mm-hmm. He threw a snowball. What a jackass. On the Senate floor to disprove global climate change. Meanwhile, by the way, last year was the hottest on record.

Directly in line with predictions of climatologist models. Uh-huh. Yeah. So this... Wait, wait, wait a minute. You got a bunch of stuff going on here already. Yeah. You got a little girl who's too stupid to do basic math.

Or who doesn't understand the question, right? She's either stupid or she got duped into saying the wrong thing, let's say. Yeah, but it's not just her dick. There's so many countless examples of people online who think it's cool to be dumb. Yeah. They really, they think it's, they think that learning math is uncool, that learning anything, science is uncool. They think that, and that's kind of why I think there's a backlash to it, that stupid I fucking love science Facebook meme. I hate that thing.

I do too. Yeah. Because it's not science. No, it's not. It's science tourism. And it's not helping this problem at all. It is anti-intellectualism because it's almost like the slackivist version of interest in science. Because you're not doing the work.

You're not doing the research. You're not reading the studies. You're just looking at pictures. You're looking at pretty pictures of things. Yeah. Well, when you say intellectuals, when you say anti-intellectualism, what I picture in my head is some tweed jacket wearing mustachioed snob that called themselves an intellectual

so they could feel superior to everyone else and to manufacture authority for their stupid opinions. When I hear intellectual, that's what I think. I don't think about a reverend trying to sell the Bible to his constituents. You know, like that guy's the big bang is a lie. Like, of course you're going to say that. You're selling to a bunch of die-hard Bible-thumping Christians.

That's the line. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if that's like, if that's intellectualism, if that's anti-intellectualism rather than like slavish religious devotion. Well, Dick, that slavish religious devotion, look, man, there's nothing inherently wrong with, my philosophy on religion versus, say, science, for example, there's nothing inherently contradictory between the two because science is equipped to answer the questions, what, how, when, and sometimes where those are the questions that science can answer no science can't answer why

why what do you mean energy let me let me explain why is a philosophical question dick why is in the realm of philosophy and when I was seven years old I was kind of curious about religion

and I looked up in the dictionary the definition of religion and it said very simple definition it said it's a group of people who share a common philosophy and I thought okay well then a lot of different groups of people who have a common philosophy can be defined as religious, right?

And I believe that modern secularism, like say on our edit, excuse me, on Reddit slash atheism plus or whatever, it's almost become its own secular type of religion because they share a common philosophy. And religion is trying to answer that question why. Like, science isn't going to say why the Big Bang happened. Well, but it's going to say why did the ball fall out of the sky? Gravity. That's how. That's not why.

Okay. Whatever, I don't know. If it's a saying you're trying to make, then fine. It's a really important distinction, Dick. How and why are huge, hugely different questions. There's a huge chasm of knowledge in between the two. You cannot, science can never answer why. Science is not equipped to answer why, because that is in the realm of philosophy.

And that's why I don't have an inherent problem with people who have a philosophy, be it religion or something else. As long as you're not being anti-intellectual about it, like this dipshit senator, this congressman was. Yeah. Dick, back to that Newsweek article. Poll after poll shows that voters have no clue what the budget actually looks like. In 2010, World Public Opinion Survey found that Americans want to tackle deficits by cutting foreign aid from what they believe is the current level at 23% of the budget to a more prudent 13%. What do you think about that? Cutting foreign aid?

Yeah. I'm for it. You're for it. Yeah, of course. Why? Because I don't want to give them my money. Well, you think that it's too much? We're giving them too much foreign aid?

Of my money, yes. Anything more than zero is too much. Anything more than zero? Of my money, yes. Okay, Dick, what do you think the actual percentages of foreign aid that we give to other countries? As a percentage of what? Taxes? As a percentage of our, let's see.

GDP? Yeah, of our budget. Probably extremely small. Yeah. So. Is it in the billions that we give in foreign aid? Is it in the tens of billions? Well, that's not a very helpful number because we're talking relative budgets.

Like $16 million is nothing to a government budget, right? That's a drop in the bucket. If trillions is the amount that we're getting in taxes, then tens of billions means something. It's a fraction of a percent. Exactly. So we're talking about percentages. It's less than 1%. It's a fraction of a percent.

Yeah. That's what I thought. Less than 1%. So it's kind of like trying to say, well, I'm going to save money. So I'm going to stop buying toothpicks where the... The majority of your spending is going towards gambling or alcohol or some other wasteful spending, right? Wait a minute, wait a minute. It's kind of like-

It's kind of like- With what I just said that I don't that I I I I my estimates of how much we were giving Yeah, were exactly right. Yeah. And I had a problem with giving it. Yeah. Do you have a problem with any of that? No, no, you bully I'm just curious because you asked me those questions and they were in line with what your research says, but I thought the point would be that I didn't know what I was talking talking about. I thought you might be in this specific case, one of these people, Dick.

Because I hear a lot of libertarians say, well, we should cut foreign aid. We should cut foreign aid. It's wasteful spending, blah, blah, blah. But it's less than a drop in the bucket where the majority of the spending dick, this is, here, I'll continue reading this article. It says here, a January 25th CNN poll, meanwhile, discovered that even though 71% of voters want smaller government, did you know that, Dick? percent of voters say they want smaller government.

But the vast majority of them opposed cuts to Medicare, 81%, Social Security, 78%, and Medicaid, 70%. Instead, they prefer to slash waste. A category that in their fantasy world

accounts for 50% of the spending according to a 2009 Gallup poll. So people think that the majority of our money is being wasted on waste and foreign aid when it's not. Wait a minute. I agree with those numbers, though.

Okay, here we go. Well, yeah, because I think that the, with the government supporting health care, it artificially inflates the cost of health care. I wouldn't be surprised if that artificial inflation was 50%. If 70% of the value of soy comes from subsidies, that's a 70% waste. If you want to knock that down to 50 for health care,

I wouldn't be surprised by that. I don't think that's, I mean, I don't think that's out of line. Dick, wasteful spending is defined more like pork barrel spending, spending on projects that don't go anywhere, dead-end projects. Like, say, China, for example, and you can make the case that this is something that they do to stimulate their construction sector, but they build buildings and then destroy them, and then build buildings and then destroy them. They just keep doing this over and over again to keep these people employed. That's, I think you can make the case that that's wasteful spending. Sure.

Obvious wasteful spending. Right, right, right. But it doesn't account for 50%. Well, but this is a poll. This is people, this is asking people, how much of the money do you think the government wastes? 50%. I would say you could do everything you're doing for half.

Okay, well, that's you, Dick, not based on any qualifications. But that's the poll you brought in, isn't it? Yeah, most people think that it's around 50%. But it's kind of like people who cry and scream and bitch about welfare when it's less than a percent. Like what is it? Like less than 2% of the budget, something like that, where the majority of the spending is going towards military. And we have tons of antiquated and deprecated military equipment that we just sit on and stockpile year after year after year. And we keep planes in budget.

We keep these extremely expensive planes manufactured because they, The manufacturing comes from every different state in the union, right? So canceling that project would be extremely unpopular for the constituents. That's where the waste is coming from. When we are funding these deprecated technologies, when we don't need to. That's wasteful as well. Well, that is the majority of the waste. If you're talking about waste, buying toothpicks isn't your problem.

You need to stop gambling. So do you have a problem with me not wanting to buy? Like, I have a problem with toothpicks and the gambling. Stop both of it. Oh, sure. Stop both of them. No, the problem with that, Dick, is if you put the equal amount of attention towards stopping both, you're neglecting the more important problem, right? Right now, I have my taxes do, but also my house is on fire. Well, I'm going to pay my taxes and put my house out, right? No, you put the house out first, because that's the important one. You take care of the big problems first. You tackle the big problems, and then you look for what's left after the detail. I don't think you're going to get buy-in on tackling the big problems, though. Like, I think a lot of America supports that enormous military-industrial complex. A lot of Americans are ignorant.

They don't even realize that it exists, according to these polls. Could be. I don't know. People are very fearful. Well, sure. Like, having a big military makes them feel safe, I think. Yeah, I guess. I want to read a little bit more from this news article.

So in their fantasy world, these people think that 50% of people think that 50% of our spending is wasteful, right? And these are the same people who want smaller government and yet don't want to cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc., right? So politicians pander to them anyway and even encourage their misapprehensions.

As a result, we're now arguing over short-term spending cuts that would cost up to 700,000 government jobs impairing the shaky recovery and impairing our ability to compete globally while doing nothing to tackle the long-term fiscal challenges that threatened our ability to compete

globally. That's the problem with worrying about this 1% of our budget that's going towards foreign aid, because that's what they cry the loudest about, and the politicians pander to their constituents. They say, okay, well, you guys don't want us to give foreign aid. Let's cut foreign aid, let's cut

these welfare and all these other social programs that are drops in the bucket compared to the majority of the spending that we are wasting on excessive military surplus and deprecated technologies. Yeah, I don't know if this is anti-intellectual, though, because a lot of it's political.

A lot of these examples are very political. And when you talk about politics, when you bring up anything political, you're talking about people's basest fears and beliefs that are going into a lot of these decisions. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Dick, because anti-intellectualism is essentially ignorant. and ignorance leads to racism.

And there's a very popular story in the news right now about a guy who shot up a church, a black church in South Carolina, right? So anti-intellectualism can lead to racism, which can sometimes result in tragedies that happen like in Charleston. Nine people were killed because this dipshit read some right-wing conspiracy websites

about how blacks and Jews were a huge problem. So he took it upon himself to start, a new race war and he failed. No? The response from the blacks that he killed was forgiveness. Mm. His goal was to start a race war. He went to, you know what inspired this guy, this gunman to kill these black people?

What? He started Googling. No. No. Not Duke's a Hazard. Are you talking about the Confederate flag? The TV show. Yeah, no, I know.

But because they have a Confederate flag on the car. What's that car called? generally that's right no it wasn't the dukes of hazard dick thank you for guessing it was though

the Trayvon Martin case Trayvon Martin for those who are not in America was this kid walking through a neighborhood with a hoodie on and he was followed by a neighborhood watch like this guy who was a self-appointed neighborhood guard right

and the guy started following this dude this kid walking through the neighborhood wearing a hoodie because he's this black kid walking through kind of an affluent neighborhood and so he thought well I'm going to see what this guy's up to so he called the police and he said hey I'm following this guy

all legal so far the police told him that to stop following him because well as history plays out as history plays out it's a bad idea to confront people because you're not a police officer this kid

so he went up and tried to confront this kid and the kid's like back the fuck away from me now right As he should, because you're not a fucking police officer. You can't stop people. You can't detain them. You can't interrogate them. You can't ask for anything.

And no fucking crime has been committed. Fuck off. People have a right to walk wherever the fuck they want. And it doesn't matter if they're black or wearing a hoodie and they look sinister to you, dickhead. But you can't stop them because you're not a fucking cop. Fuck off. So, of course, he agitated this kid.

Oh, man. I really don't know if I can. Like, I think that's really easy to say, but if you got some, I don't know, I don't know what, I wasn't there. I don't know what the kid looked like. Okay. But if I see, I can imagine a scenario where I see some skeezy guy skulking around my house in an affluent neighbor who doesn't look like he belongs there. Yeah. And looks like he's doing something.

I don't know what, I don't know. He was walking about this situation. He was walking with skittles in his pocket. Yeah, but look, I'm just saying it's not crazy to confront someone who doesn't, who looks like they're up to no good. Not in this case, maybe that didn't happen, but I can't just say, never confront anybody. What was he doing that made him look up to no good, Dick? Matt, I don't know about this situation. Well, that's the situation in general.

Okay, well, then, whatever they concluded in this then. Yeah. I mean, you can walk up to somebody and say, what are you doing? There's nothing wrong. But I don't know what happened after that. Well, what happened after that is that the kid got in a confrontation with this guy. Yeah. because the kid

said fuck off and doesn't want to be hassled because he's a black kid and probably, you know, it may have happened a lot to him so he wanted to be left alone. The guy wouldn't let up so they got in a confrontation

and George Zimmerman the guy, the neighborhood watch pulled a gun on the kid and shot the kid, shot him dead. Didn't have to happen? Didn't they get into a fight too? Yeah. Cops told him

to back off and stop following the guy. he wouldn't dick i've seen cars driving drunk and i i i've called the police to report them and the police tell me the first thing they say is don't follow them don't follow them yeah and and also dick um i i sincerely do have a problem with neighborhood watches because i used to live in an apartment complex that was ruled by homeowners association and we had a huge uptick in crime and their response was not to hire a security guard and not to put up cameras, but to instill a neighborhood watch. Great fucking policy.

Well, guess what? This neighborhood watch policy of theirs was instilled one month before the Trayvon Martin case. And I laughed so hard at their fucking stupid policy because I saw somebody walking out of my apartment complex with a bike. And he looked suspicious. He may have been stealing the bike. And I thought for a second, well, this neighborhood watch is in effect. maybe I should go confront this guy. And then I realized, it's not my fucking job.

I'm not going to put my life on the line to confront somebody because I don't have a gun on me. I don't have a weapon on me. And I'm going to put myself in harm's way for what? To save them money? Yeah. And besides, it might actually be his bike. I might just be going up to an innocent person

and interrogating them for what reason. It's a lose-lose situation. If he's stealing it, I might get attacked. And if he's not stealing it, I look like an asshole. Neighborhood watches don't fucking work. You call the police. And a fucking story. Or you hire private security that know what the fuck they're doing.

Not this dipshit George Zimmerman. So this George Zimmerman case happened, right? This kid, this roof kid who shot up this black church was inspired by that guy. He started Googling black on white crime because he thought, well, what's the big deal? Just like you, Dick. He looked at this case. He goes, well, I don't see... Well, you're defending this guy.

I'm not defending him. You just said you have no right to go up and ask someone what they're doing in your And I said I could see a situation where you'd ask someone what they're doing in your neighborhood. Okay. If they seem skeezy and you've never seen them before. You think I'm George fucking Zimmerman? No, no, no, that's fair. I tell people that don't get involved ever.

Any confrontation can lead to violence. Fuck it. So are you saying that you should or shouldn't? What do you mean? Am I saying that you should or shouldn't? You can if you want, but, uh... Should you or shouldn't you? Well, it kind of depends on the situation, Maddox.

Okay. Well, what do you mean should you or shouldn't you? Give me a situation if you want my answer. Well, we talked about a specific situation, the George Zimmerman situation. Do you think what he did was right? He killed a guy. Right. How is that right?

Okay. That's what I want to know. So this kid started Googling. Oh, man. That, all right. It's real easy to reduce everything after the fact. But I don't know how he said, what are you doing here? I don't even know what we're talking about George Zimmerman.

It doesn't, because that's what inspired this kid. I'm building a case here. We're talking about specifically this George Zimmerman case because this kid wasn't doing anything suspicious to be confronted. The kid was walking through the neighborhood. He's allowed to walk through the neighborhood. George Zimmer was a dick about it,

and he went and started interrogating this kid when the cops told him not to. It's not his fucking job. Fuck off. It's just that simple. So this kid who shot up this black church started Googling this. And he thought, well, I don't see what the problem is.

I don't see what the big deal is. They got in a confrontation. The kid got killed. well, what about black on white crime? And he started Googling and he went to this conservative, this far right website that was talking, that showed a whole bunch of cherry-picked instances of black on white crime. And he said, well, blacks are the problem.

And then he started looking at some white nationalist websites. And he found that he started looking at websites about Jews and about Mexicans. And for some reason left Asians out of this equation. But he was, he read these bullshit websites, these shitty news sources. They're not news sources, by the way. They're alternate news websites. They call them alternate news, and they create a fear of the mainstream media

by just castigating the mainstream media as being corrupt and being a shill of the government and being lies and being corporate interests and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? They create this fear, and then they post this unresearched, unsourced bullshit it and then these kids, people like this kid, read this website and then got inspired and tried to foment a race war. That's what happened. It's ignorance. The root of this is ignorance.

This is from psychology today. They wrote an article about anti-intellectualism recently. It said, America is killing itself through its embrace and exaltation of ignorance. And the evidence is all around us. Dylan Roof, the Charleston shooter who used race as a basis for his hate and mass murder, is just the latest horrific example. many will correctly blame Roof's actions on America's culture of racism and gun violence, but it's time to realize that such phenomenon are directly tied to the nation's culture of ignorance.

An anti-intellectual society, however, will have large swaths of people who are motivated by fear, susceptible to tribalism, and simplistic explanations, incapable of emotional maturity, and prone to violent solutions. Sound familiar? Yeah. Yeah. That's people. That's what anti-intellectualism causes.

How does intellectualism fix that? So this guy who wants to start a race war That screams that he wants to be like He's so narcissistic and megalomaniacal He wants to be the cause of a momentous race war I don't think learning things and reading books Is gonna fix that That's insane

To think you're so important that you need to be the cause of a race war That's insanity That's a good point Dick It is insanity and that's a large argument that I'd be making about gun massacres, large mass shootings. Yeah. If you want to blame mass shootings on gun or culture or video games or violent movies or anything, what you're essentially doing is trying to find a rational reason, a rational explanation

for an irrational act. Yeah. You can't. It's an irrational act. If you are trying to say that because of blah, blah, blah, X, Y, and Z, this irrational act happened, you're wrong. There is no rational explanation for killing people, doing a mass shooting, killing innocent people. Yeah. There's no rational explanation for that. Yeah, and I think it's going to get worse, to be honest. Like, as our lives and technology become more interwoven,

like random acts of sporadic, desperate acts of violence will fade away. But I think these psychopaths, like these lunatics, have easier access to kill people. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because technology makes it easier to kill lots of people, but it also, it lessens certain violence, but it opens the door for stuff like this. I think that's just the way it is. Well, it doesn't have to be. I think that the solution here is a greater, a greater focus on mental health, not just in this country, but around the world. If we started focusing a little bit more on mental health, remove the stigma of talking to a psychiatrist or getting therapy when you need it, then maybe we can start to, see a drop in these type of violent incidents. I think you're right about that. The stigma especially. Let me take it back to that George Zimmerman thing.

Yeah. Because last, two Christmases ago, we had a ton of shit get stolen. We had Amazon deliveries get stolen off of people's doorsteps, right? At your apartment complex. Yeah, at my apartment comic company. That's a play that burglars make around Christmas time. Because everybody's getting a ton of stuff ship to their apartment. Yeah. And they just walk, they just walk by.

People think nothing of it. They walk by, grab it, leave, fence it. I don't know what they do. So after that, somebody got a bicycle stolen off of my apartment floor, which is very, very difficult to get into. And it's a bike. Was it assembled? Oh, it was a full-on bike.

So they, this person got into my apartment complex through our moats and our gates and whatever, went up to my floor, grabbed a bike. and just left. Yeah. Like this, if there's an altercation in that case, if somebody tries to stop them from stealing their bike, that could end in, that could end in a murder. Yeah. That could end in an assault.

It could end in anything. You know what I'm saying? It's like an element of dangerous and chaos. Ever since then, ever since that happened, and probably for the rest of my life, when I see people who are in my area who I don't know, I make a point to say, high at least and where are you in the building? Who are you here to see? In a friendly way. Yeah. In a friendly way. Hey, how's it going? Oh, what floor are you going to? What floor are you? And if they start stammering and getting weird, then I think, uh, I got to look for security. At least,

at least I know this guy's face, right? Now, I don't have a gun. I'm not looking to cause a fight. And this is why I draw a distinction between me and George Zimmerman. I don't want you to lump me in with him. You're not. You're definitely not. If I see people skulking around, I want to know what they're doing. That's fair. And the way you approach it, Dick, is a very good way of doing it because you're friendly and non-hostile, unlike George Zimmer who was, he was looking for a fight. Exactly.

And that's the, his insanity is that he wanted to be the hero. I don't want to be a hero. Yeah. I just want to know who this is. So when there's a, now keep in mind, the same guy who was going around, all the apartment buildings close to me, got into a fight with somebody because he jumped over,

he jumped into this chick's apartment. Like he jumped over their balcony. Yeah. And there was a fight. There was like an assault. He knocked a couple girls over. He broke up their apartment. He got arrested after that.

But the point is, I don't think, I don't think just minding your own, there's a gray area between minding your own business and walking around your town like your Wyatt Earp. I agree. Right? I agree.

And the way you're doing it is correct. If people de-escalate, situations. First of all, that's a skill that not a lot of people have. If you see someone who's agitated or upset or becoming agitated by what you're doing or saying, there is quite a skill

to have to be able to de-escalate that situation. And the way you're approaching it, Dick, is non-hostile and it's non-threatening. You're doing it just the right way, and your approach afterwards is to contact security. Great. That's a model citizen. I am America. Dick, I just want to end on this one last

point. And I know this has been a long problem, but... Well, it got big. Yeah, it is. I thought it was just going to be about you feeling smarter than everyone else again. You're intellectual shit. Because I think I don't like intellectuals. I don't like Neil deGrasse Tyson. I think it's a name that they call themselves, so their

opinion is inherently worth more than everybody else's. Dick, what is an intellectual? An intellectual to me is somebody's, is somebody whose hobby is consuming what they consider smart materials, like enriching their mind, so to speak.

But it's the same as, like, a CrossFit person. An intellectual to me is like a CrossFit guy, but with books. Yeah, no, okay, that's your definition of it, and I regret asking. That term, the term intellectual, is usually applied by the person.

No, it's not. No, it's not. It's usually given to the person by that person. Yeah, exactly. No, it's not. Isn't it? No. Who describes something? Oh, they're a real intellectual. You say like, oh, they're very smart. Are they very wise? Or they're very well culture. They're well learned.

Because, Dick, the concept of intellectual, if somebody's truly intellectual, they're usually pretty smart, right? And part of being smart is also a part is also having an element of self-cognizance and self-awareness. And realizing how coming across

as an immodest douchebag can make people like you less. And by the way, I don't fit in that category because my Twitter, my Twitter account right now my profile says here I'll read the actual quote visionary something like that yeah it says it says here intellectual heavyweight

thought leader and genius yeah that's me but that's me prank smoke prank that's what an intellectual is an intellectual to me is like someone who is born beautiful and is always lording it everyone else it's like yeah congratulations like you like this shit you like you like reading stupid books

the same as every other intellectual every brainiac who likes to pretend that their mind was open by reading about how big the universe is. Why don't you shut up and come help us dig some holes out here? No, Dick. An intellectual is just somebody who read, you don't have to just read, quote, smart books. You don't have to read top 100 books,

or you don't have to read Dickens' old fucking day to be an intellectual. You can read whatever you wants to be an intellectual, but part of the element that makes you an intellectual is critical thinking. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm tying this in with that solution.

Go photo up, people. I thought it would be more about this culture of embracing ignorance. It's like what these little girls are doing. Oh, it is. This all has to do. I mean, this is a big problem, Dick. I know there's a lot to cover here. I just want to end on this one last point from psychology today.

They said, some will point out correctly that even educated people can still be racists. That's true. Sure. But what they shouldn't remove is the spotlight from anti-intellectualism. Yes, even intelligent and educated individuals, often due to cultural and institutional influences, can sometimes carry racist biases. but critically thinking individuals recognize racism is wrong and undesirable. And this article goes on, I didn't bring in the rest of the quote.

There's one page left on my printer. But I did leave it off there intentionally because that last sentence is real important. You know, I talked about critical thinking in the Solutions episode, right? They said here, critically thinking individuals recognize racism as wrong and undesirable. Why? Why is racism wrong and undesirable? You ever think about that dick? Like to me personally or in society as a whole?

Well, it breeds discontent. Yeah, it breeds discontent. That's exactly right. So I talked to this friend of mine one time who had this professor in college who taught a course and he was making a case for blacks being intellectually inferior. He said that genetically, and he cited a whole bunch of really dubious sources, but he said intellectually blacks are genetically inferior. And I said, okay, first of all, you sound like a racist douchebag. This professor does, right? And he said, well, look at the research and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I thought, okay, well, what I'm doing now is an ad hominem attack. If I don't consider the ideas of the person saying it, then I'm just being an ad hominem douchebag, right? So I thought, okay, let's assume that everything this person is saying is correct about blacks being, let's say in this fantasy world that you can make the case for blacks being intellectually inferior. Yeah. What, how is that information useful? Yeah, doesn't matter. For public policy.

Say you wanted to create some public policy based on that knowledge. Do you think that blacks are just going to sit back and say, okay, well, I guess the fucking research is there, so let's go ahead and discriminate against us. It's going to foment racial disparity. What's the word you just used? Whoa, whoa, whoa. When I ask you why racism is bad in society. Oh, it's fair.

Discontent. That's what it is. It's going to create, it's going to foment racial discontent. And it's going to cause more problems, not less. It's not solving any problems. Yeah. Even if it were true, it's not even useful. And it's not true, by the way, but it's not even useful.

I still think that racism is more culture-based than anti-intellectual-based. Because, like, does it happen as often where people are, like, spontaneously racist in environments where they're not raised that way? I feel like it's passed on from generation to generation, you slowly have to quell it out of the mindset, you know? I don't think it's about being educated. It could be part of the human condition to relate to like, likes like, right? Sure. We identify with people who look like us and therefore give them benefits.

And it may come back to some basic instinct of tribalism. Who knows? Yeah. You know, who knows? It could be something like that. But I think that ignorance is at the heart of this, and I think anti-intellectualism is at the heart of that. I think people who read more are smarter.

I think people who do math more are smarter. The neural pathways in their minds get built and reinforce the more they use it. And the less they use it, the less they use it, the more likely they are to read these info wars and stupid bullshit conspiracy websites and alternate news websites without thinking critically, without questioning their sources, without looking into anything that they're ingesting into their minds. That's why these dipshits, this anti-intellectualism is a huge problem, voted up.

Well, if you're so smart, why aren't you rich to all these intellectuals, right? Well, because not everyone values money, Dick. Oh, okay. Whenever I think of intellectuals, who is that asshole that posted a video of his Lamborghini in his garage? And then he was like, but that's not what I really value in this garage. I value all these books because I'm so smart. That's an intellectual. That's a smug prick.

No, it's not. That's a smugged and prides themselves on their ability to fuck books. I mean, read books. That's an intellectual. No, that's not an intellectual. You're not saying a lack of education. Like, racism is this problem

you're bringing in. I don't think it's based on anti-intellectualism, though. Of course it is. It's ignorance. It's the embrace of ignorance. And the dumber we are as a society, the more likely it is for racism to exist. Well, you know what ignorance I do want to solve? What's that?

The ignorance of not. getting a great shave. Because this episode is brought to you by Harry's. Please visit harries.com and use the promo code Biggest Problem to save $5 off your first purchase. I use my Harry's Razor all the time. I don't know how they're making any money because I've been using the same set that they sent us months ago

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There's still time. Dads will take late gifts. Yeah. They're not like, you know, they're not like a wife or a girlfriend with their anniversary. You could miss Father's Day. Get him the present a week later.

Yeah. He's still going to appreciate it. Yeah, that's right. And he'll especially appreciate it when he sees the quality of these blades, man. Like you said, Dick, my blades, I still haven't thrown them out. They still work, they still work great. Plus, they look cool. You got a girl over, she's going to go snooping through your medicine cabinet.

They all do. What she going to find a boss ass razor sitting there? She's going to get horny as shit. She's going to want to shave her legs. By the way, Dick, this isn't just for guys. Get hairies for your legs, ladies. Really? Yeah.

Oh, they don't need different. No, you're right. Women use shitty razors for their legs. Yeah, and I remember one time I was dating this girl, and she saw my razor in the shower or whatever. She's like, well, can I use that? I'm like, you better. It'd be better if you use that.

And so she tried it. This is the smoothest shave I've ever had. I'm like, yeah, guys know a thing you're too about shaving. There was an article about that where they say women should be using men's razors because they're superior. Oh, absolutely. Oh, that's sexist. Don't let an needy

Sarkeesian hear you that No, because guys shave every day Yeah, that's true All right, go to harries.com promo code Biggest Problem, save five bucks after your first purchase Hey man, if I was gonna use a tampon I'd buy a chick brand Chicks know a thing or two about tampons probably

You want to hear more of You're off of the Busters brand You mean? Yeah, like Busters, you know Busters tampons? Garbage. I don't want Chucks or Larry's tampons either What's that dick? You want to hear more of What was the name of our stupid correspondent for E3 that's not a Stereos Coconos? It's my buddy Tom Phillips.

Tom Phillips. From gameobliterator. biz. Come on, Dick. Here you go. Here's more of Tom Phillips's coverage of E3. Thanks, Dick and Maddox. I'm Tom Phillips, junior editor at gameblaterator. And here's the latest video game scoops on E3's hottest indie titles.

Indie Game Raptum. Capcom North, North, Southeast announces Street Mediator 2. Sit down around the community garden and just hash out all this street fighting already. Come on, Anne Bison. Wouldn't you rather launch a flaming human torpedo of mutual respect? Eat Honda. Trade that hundred-hand slap for a hundred high-fives. Help Ryu turn that had-ukin into a hadu I can.

Forgive my enemies and myself. Coming soon to the PlayStation 4. Oh, no. No, it's canceled. It's already canceled. Indy game wrapped up. Tom Phillips. Maybe you should play Matt Bar at that.

Street mediator. Instead of street fighter. Yeah, he'll probably cheat at that too. CD Project Red delivers again with The Witcher 4. It's just sex scenes this time. The controls are simple. Every time you press B, Garalth has sex with another hot elf,

princess, centaur, or mantacore. It's not out till next year, but it's somehow already sold over 600 million copies. Could a sequel be far behind? No, it's not. Stay tuned for The Witcher 5, the first game ever to come with Lou. Indy game wrapped up

Is that game really that full of sex? The Witcher? There's a bunch of sex scenes in it, yeah. I mean, you can go to a prostitute. Hmm? You go to a prostitute in the game? Yeah. There are a lot of really funny

Witcher three clips online of the game glitching during the sex scenes. So the pros... Why would they put sex scenes in a game? It's stupid. Stupid. Just a bunch of... Because the kids who are buying this

are in their late 30s. That's the demographic for these videos. video games, and they're not sitting there jerking off to video games like we would when we were 16, maybe. Yeah, and like, I don't want to see a bunch of Legos having sex. Like, it doesn't look real. I mean, it's better than your imagination. It's definitely not. I would rather just read, like, a box that popped up and it was like, and then they banged.

Instead of seeing a bunch of polygons. What if the Lego woman was pregnant? Sean? More? Fuck you, Sean. Fans at E3 thrill to the all-new Steam exclusive, turns out

you're the Nazis. The whole time you're playing the game you think you're the good guys, but it turns out you're the Nazis. You hear that small explosion, that's your mind being blown. See, Dad, video games can be art.

The game makes great use of the Wii moat for the stage where you break down crying in the shower. Four stars. Out of like a hundred stars. Injave game wrapped up. There you go. I love that guy.

I mean, Tom. Tom Phillips is his name? I do like the sound. I do like it when he's not shouting. Yeah, not coconuts. All right. We got time for my problem? Yeah.

Jesus Christ. Where are you at a minute 10? An hour 10. Well, Maddox had a pontificate for a while. Oh. You did go on. Oh, I'm sorry. That was a long problem.

Yeah. We should cut it up, bring it in as a bonus. I just want to hear more about what you specifically think about kids who are anti-intellectuals. Like the racism. thing was a big leap for me. I know there is a trend of anti-intellectualism. Yeah. And I'm on board with it because

I see intellectuals as that asshole with the Lamborghini who's also saying, look at all these books that I have. Yeah. But I wanted to hear what you think about, like, kids being anti-intellectual. I'll tell you another type of anti-intellectualism that's rampant. People being proud of their ignorance about sports. Yeah. Like, every time you hear sports

ball. It's like, oh, congratulations, you smug asshole. You're so You're so learned and smart. You're so busy thinking about how to solve all the world's problems on the internet that you can't even learn how to say football. Good for you. You're so fucking smart. I'll give you that.

I'll give you that, Dick. That is annoying. I used to be one of those guys. I used to shit on football a lot. I called sports ball and joke around. You know, I don't respect it. But I do respect certain aspects of sports, which is the amount of thought that goes into the strategy that they employ for a different

plays. And also the business of it. The business model is brilliant. It is the most lucrative pastime, I think, in this country, right? Sports. In the world. I mean, I don't know how do you define pastime. Probably aviation might be a bigger lucrative pastime.

Well, something that people just do recreationally, sports, right? There is no, I mean, other than the players who are doing it for their jobs. What about the training? You don't respect that at all? The amount of training that these athletes put themselves through? To an extent, because they do select people who are genetically. predisposed. Like in basketball, they select the tallest people in the world. By the way, I heard this, I think, on either This American Life or Radio Lab, they talked about how people who

are above 6'5 in society, 6'5 inches, are so rare, and 17% of them in the world are in the NBA. Huh. Yeah. That's interesting. So if you're born over 6'5, you've got a 1 in 5 chance of being a professional basketball player? Yeah, basically. Yeah, but see, you say that they're genetically predisposed to sports, but people who are intellectuals are genetically predisposed to reading books and soaking in information. Like that brought in the video you played, she doesn't get anything out of a book when she reads it. It's just words that are bouncing off of her stupid brain. I disagree.

She'd have to work incredibly hard to understand how stupid she is to not know immediately that the answer of if you're going 80 miles per hour, how long does it take you to go 80 miles an hour? She'd have to work very hard to understand that, whereas you wouldn't, genetically. I don't know that genetics have to do with it. I remember in third grade, I hated reading books, and that was the turning point for me.

When in third grade, my teacher instilled a love of reading in me because she forced us to read so many books, and eventually I read one or two that I liked, and I thought, okay, I get it. This is kind of cool. So maybe it's a matter of, parents not really

tamping down on their kids and forcing them to do what they need to do in school. All right, I'm going to save my problem for next week because it's huge. Oh boy. I'll bring in another problem. The free water glasses,

you know, you go to a fast food place and you ask for water and they say, oh, do you want bottled water? And you say, yeah, but I don't want to pay for the bottled water. I want you to shove it up your ass because it's just overcharged tap water. It's overpriced tap water.

It is. So give me a glass so like a human I can go drink some free water because you get it for free. Right. Right? To the rest. And they give you this shitty little clear plastic glass. Mm-hmm. The cup of shame.

It's a shame cup. Yeah. And they say, here you go, sir. Here's your thimble. Here's your plastic thimble that will disintegrate. if you touch it wrong. If you have a tighter grasp than like a baby infant

than a baby child, it will destroy itself. Here, to your heart's content, go get two ounces of water with this glass because you wouldn't pay a dollar 50 for a grown-up glass. Yeah, right?

It's almost as if they are annoyed by your request, so they're going to annoy you with their cup. Yeah. You know what another problem is with those cups? They dissolve.

I like to put lemon in my water and if I if I if I sometimes I'll squeeze the lemon and I'll notice there'll be some lemon juice on my hand so I'm carrying the cup from my from the time it takes to take it from the drink fountain to my seat and I put it down and it sticks to my hand

the cup is sticking because the acid in the lemon yeah the acid in the lemon dissolves it so I'm drinking the fucking plastic or whatever the shit is these toxic chemicals I'm ingesting which are also feminizing chemicals yeah anything that's uh hard plastic is it hard plastic or soft plastic I think it's soft plastic.

Yeah, it's got chemicals in it that fucks up your DNA, so you're more chick-like. Yeah, they talked about that. I think that was the premise of the movie, Children of Men. Oh, really? Yeah. So Children of Men, they didn't really talk about the explanation of why people stopped having kids. It's a great movie, by the way. Go watch it if you haven't.

It's a movie called Children of Men. Suddenly, all the people, all the women in the world stopped having kids because men started becoming sterile. And they couldn't figure out why. But the genesis of that explanation, the science behind it, is that over time, the more estrogen and things that we don't filter out of our water supplies, because there are so many pharmaceuticals in our water supplies that we're not filtering. They have a cumulative effect on men, and then it hits a tipping point where men become sterile. So that was the premise of that movie. BPHs, man.

So you get this melting glass, because God forbid you should take a lemon, right, over to your table, and you swing it down. in about two bites, and then you've got to walk over and get more water. Just give me a regular glass. What is the purpose of the clear glass? Don't say it's about cost because you have to make an entirely separate type of glass just for water.

Just give me the ones that you have. There's no way you could save money by making a separate shitty glass. You know what I'm saying? Just use the ones you already have. Is it clear because you think I'm going to steal some of your precious Coke. Oh, that's what it is.

And you want to see and make sure I'm not. Look, look, if you see me filling this up with Coke, there's two, there's going to be two options. Option A, I'm sober, in which case you're going to have a big fucking problem on your hand, because I like to argue when I'm sober. And I'm not going to be told I can't drink soda out of a soda fountain just because the glass is clear. I can tell you were sober during my problem today. What do you think I argued too much about that one? Busting your balls.

Number, option two, I'm drunk. Yeah. And I got a class and decided I wanted some soda and put it in there. There's going to be, if that's a problem, you've got a way, if there's going to be a confrontation over getting two ounces of soda. Yeah. You've got a way bigger problem on your hand. You've suddenly got a way bigger problem on your hand. And then some restaurants put up those threatening signs around everywhere, too, where they threaten you with a fee, a penalty.

if they catch you putting soda in your water cup. Guys, it's less than a penny worth of fucking syrup. Shut up. Some people, if one person buys a drink, the person behind me in line buys a drink or the person in front of me, he's paid for the next 10 people. Shut up.

Who cares? It's fucking syrup. It's sugar. I'll bring a fucking packet of sugar, throw it in your face. Just give me a real glass. I don't want this, you get this little glass,

you put it in your car. You try to put it in the cup holder. immediately spills everywhere. No lids. No lids for those. So that's my problem this week. I think you touch on Dick. I think it's so they don't. It's so they can see what you're doing, right?

Like bus windows. People say that bus windows are gigantic so cops can spy on minorities, which is stupid to me. What? Who said that? Idiots, like activist idiots. Dylan Roof? No, they say, you've never heard this? No. People say that the windows on buses are so big so, like, poor people aren't, people who have to ride

buses who are, you know, more usually lower income. Yeah. So cops can see what they're doing. Huh. It's like, maybe it's just because it's a nicer environment to let the sunlight in. So it doesn't feel like an apocalypse bus. And maybe it's because sometimes you spend up to two or three hours on a bus and you get depressed if you don't sit next to a giant window. Yeah, or maybe if there's a bus crash, it's easier to get people out of gigantic fucking windows that can be popped out easily than like.

cutting through steel. Or maybe it's because those giant windows let more air in when you open them. Maybe there's a bunch of different rational explanations other than your stupid racist theory, you non-bus riding fuck. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, there's some newer buses with really dark-tinted windows. They're really hard to see in from the outside. Yeah.

But it's probably cooler inside, so it is about the passenger's comfort. Not necessarily the... Those are those new safe minority buses, Sean. Oh, minorities aren't a minority-friendly? No, they're minority-friendly. No, so the cops can't see them. Yeah, the cops can't see him. Oh, they're crime buses.

They're crime buses. A lot of gambling, illegal gambling's going on. Oh, yeah. Cockfighting. Illegal horse bets. Oh, good problem, Dick. Yeah. There you go.

Hour 20 already, man. Dude, did we get any, we didn't even do any voicemail or anything. I'll play you some voicemails. So, Dick, my problem this week was anti-intellectualism. Oh, my problem's free water cups. Free water, free water cups. Thanks for listening, guys. See you next Tuesday.

I'm Maddox. Hi Dick. This is Connor calling in from Germany. Just let you know, love the show and think that this podcast should definitely be on the solutions list. And also, along with spicy food and attractive women, keeping a well-kempt beard is very important to me. So the fact that I'm so fucking close, I can fucking hop the fence and steal the razor blades, makes that much more annoying that Harry doesn't shift to Germany. Just fucking hands out the back door to me. Wow. So, for once, Harry, not Dick, go fuck yourself.

Oh, no way. Hey, Harries doesn't ship to Germany. That's because they don't even need to ship. You could probably just walk into the factory. Yeah, that's on you, idiot. Did he just say, Sean, don't delete this? Yeah, he did. Oh, fuck.

Let's see. I got a bunch of presidents. All right, let's hear you. Hilarious. Let's hear a new president. Hello, Dick. This is former. Guess who that is first.

Let's see how good these impressions are. All right. What's Kennedy? I'm going to guess it's a boy. No. President John F. Kennedy. Oh. I currently am in the grave, but I am calling you from beyond it to let you know.

In my head, but you can go back yourself. I am John F. Kennedy, and this is how I talk. Perfect. Sounds like it. From beyond. Hello, gents. This is former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, known for speaking softly and carrying a big stick.

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk with you. Very scatological these presidents. You see, boys, it's in the opinion of this rough writer that if you're going to center a problem around one word, you should learn to correctly pronounce that word. Oh, fuck off.

No, I don't care. I don't care. What word was it? What was he talking about? Here. Oh, teleology. If you don't further ado that I present to you the word teleology. Google fucked me. Meology.

Teleology. Okay, three's enough. Three strikes in your out, asshole. Oh. Which president was that, Teddy Roosevelt, huh? That was Teddy Roosevelt. This guy's picking on the way you talk. Okay.

Hey, Maddox, do you know, you say man more than anyone I know, I guess, or have a name? What's interesting is that I'm a musician. Do you understand? Like, the people I know say, like, man, like a lot. And most of them are stoned as shit. half the time. You say man more than all of those people. Is that true?

So, uh, probable buffer. So, I don't know. Anyway, fuck off. My favorite word, favorite gender, baby. Never gonna stop saying man. Oh,

I got a street fighter call out too. Oh, great. More fucking street fighter rookies. Don't know shit about street fight. Man, I fucked out that last voice now. He did. What I'm proposing is that

Maddox, if you lose that street fighter, uh, that you watch Titanic and give everybody's proof that you watched it and also let that guy on the shelf to propose a problem.

And then if you win, I'm interested as a listener to hear what the stakes are. Like, what do you want to win? So, yeah, talk about that. What do you want to win if you beat this guy? It's a good point. It's got to be some stakes. Hmm. You mean actual stakes?

Yeah, of course. I don't know. I'd have to think about what I want to win. Maybe nothing. Maybe the satisfaction of winning is all I need. Oh, like Ryu? you're no Raiu What do you really want to win?

You know what? I get a night with the loser's girlfriend. Oh! Yeah. That's a good prize. How's that for his stakes? What if he's gay? Well, I get a night with his boyfriend.

Yeah, same thing. Yeah, either way they're putting out, baby. That guy did remind me, though. I forgot to play Titanic last week, and I almost forgot it again. So here you go. Maddox, enjoy. Oh, fuck, this bullshit! Remember this old lady? No.

I've never seen that old lady. I don't know what this... What you're referring to here. James Cameron's such a tool. She's about to fall down. The Terminator movies are weak. You know, watching Titanic in 30-second increments taught me a lot about how he makes these films still.

Like, there's a hot chick Leads every scene with this old lady. Like every 30 seconds they cram this hot chick for the lady. Oh, he has to, man. And my team are able to preserve it intact. See that? Look, she's about to see tits. There's kids right there!

Look at that! Look at that. There's for real tits. No. They're not real tits. This is bullshit. You guys swearing old lady? I glanced at the screen.

You tricked me into glancing at the screen, and it was a sketch of tits. It doesn't count. Ha! ha! You watched it. I got better tits. I got better tits on my notes right here. I drew it. Oh, man, I drew such a good tit right now. All right, let's end on Tom.

It's more of Tom Phillips's bits. Yeah, my buddy, Tom. Coming to Steam, we've got Religious Argument Simulator 2. All the fun of Thanksgiving with your family in a mobile game. It's got five new playable characters, including your cousin who won't shut up about atheism, your weird aunt who says she's always praying for you, and your dad who just wants to eat some goddamn turkey, can we please say the stupid prayers? It's not fun.

Don't play it. Indie GameWaptum. One more. Tablets get a new sim with roller coaster maintenance and safety inspection tycoon. Visit real roller coasters from across the U.S. and make sure that the employees who service them are accredited. You don't get to build or ride roller coasters, but you do get to ensure that the restraining bars are up to code.

No matter how well you do, your theme park goes out of business because people really can't afford theme parks anymore. It's sad. Indigating Raptum. No, no, I lied. Not one actual last one. E3 was buzzing about the upcoming PS4 action title, Escape from the Friend Zone. Nice guy, Terry's always there for his female friends.

From picking them up at the airport to listening to them to them complain about their boyfriends, there's no inconvenience Terry won't endure for all these girls who see him as a weird, fat, doormat. Can you send enough drug text to escape the Friend Zone? Probably not. Find out December 13th. Indie getting wrapped up. You sent enough drunk texts. I remember those games at E3. All those games, yeah, they're awful.

Well, that's it from my E3 Roundup. This is Tom Phillips saying video games can go and you can buy them because they're great. They're great. And Dick, you can go fuck yourself. Oh, man. I love Asteroos. I mean, Tom.