Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 280: Valedictorian Of The Soft Curriculum

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

This week we talk about the ecological phenomenon known as "whiskey fungus," followed by a hard pivot into the world of higher ed Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

recording in progress oh shit i said at the same time as she did that was creepy that's a good sign i was just that's a good sign you know what's also a good sign i was just at the uh gas station i had to stop before i came into town and uh i saw a guy walk in and i did a double take i was like holy shit does that dude does that motherfucker have a hitler stash like he's like i looked a little closer dude he had a totally normal mustache but it was like grayed on the sides but just dark dark right there so he's got like unfortunate graying i feel i feel like also too that might be of, he tried to get away with some shit. I mean, it could be just, like you said, Tom, unfortunate, great, can't help it. Or he could be like, he could look to the mirror and be like,

and start like, you know, maniacally chuckling and shit. It's kind of the, what's the editor of the newspaper in Venom? He's kind of got that. Oh, yeah. Oh, damn, what's this motherfucker's name, bro? J. Jonah Jameson? Yeah. Was that the actor's name? Yeah, yeah oh oh damn what's this motherfucker's name bro j j j j j was that the actor yeah yeah yeah that's right no i think that's the guy's name that's the guy's name i mean that's an interesting thing like unfortunate graying like could you imagine if hitler also had um if he was horseshoe bald or just bald in general it's like every guy that was horseshoe bald, or just bald in general.

It's like every guy that's horseshoe bald from then on would feel so... Empowered? Oh, no, be bad? Like, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I mean, depending on your politics, I guess. Yeah, not necessarily. But it's like there's something that happens, like an aesthetic choice that happens like like through no fault of your own to a lot of men is associated with like one of history's

all-time villains hey cut her rocking a hitler baldy look at him look at this hitler baldy motherfucker you got but now completely but well but now you've got like you know my aunt brenda came to me one time this is like you know back when like the uh well what would go on to become synonymous with richard spencer but before it was like associated with him that haircut it's like you know the fade with the comb over yeah my aunt brenda told me one time when i was an early adopter of that before it got played and before later on it got associated with nazis and my aunt brenda came to me one time she said i gotta talk to you that's what you gotta talk to me about she's like that haircut of yours i didn't want to say this but you know what that

reminds me of i was like what's it what you want me to do that's what you was that reminds you she goes it kind of looks like hitler youth and she wasn't wrong but i guess you know at the time it was what was happening with white boy it took it took it took time to catch up you you know what I'm saying? It took the forces of justice and history, man, to catch up, I guess. Brenda was, yeah, she was definitely ahead of time. I hesitate to tell this story. I can never tell if my mom listens anymore or not. But, Mom, if you're listening, I'm not picking on you.

I just thought this was a really hilarious story. She was like, she called me one day, and she was talking about a family member of ours who recently started, like, a new medication. And it was just like a, I think it was just like SSRI or something like that. She was like, I'm really worried, though. You should talk to him.

I'm really scared he's going to wind up like the Canadian guy who cries all the time. I was like, Jordan Peterson? I was like i was like jordan peterson yeah bro the fact that that's all you gotta say the canadian guy who cries all the time it could be only one or two people i don't know who the other person is y'all can probably pick somebody but it's only jordan peterson that's true there's only one guy in america who would be known as the canadian guy who cries all the time. I don't even think we have an American version of a guy that cries all the time, yo.

Do we? Who's the guy that cries all the time? Glenn Beck. He was that way. Glenn Beck was like a really sad guy. He cried all the time. Yeah. You know, maybe it's a sign that these guys are getting cooked when like

people that like aren't necessarily as dialed into this stuff as we are are like making fun of them like that's got to be a positive side yeah yeah you're right yeah you're right peterson peterson thought is on borrowed time you know yeah because it would be worse if like you know your neighbor was uh which i'm sure some of you listening out there do have neighbors that are into jordan peterson but it'd be far more troubling if your neighbor was like yo i gotta show you this shit yo come inside real quick you know he's smoking a blunt with the boy he puts on like a jordan peterson podcast yeah that'd be yeah well like some new fucking record some shit like that the thing about him though is like his like, there's gotta be, like, a graph out there that shows,

like, Jordan Peterson's output and Jordan Peterson crying. And, like, at a certain point, his crying content is going to over, it's gonna overlap his regular content. So it's, like, it'll be harder and harder to find any, like, your boy's gonna call you in and show you a video,

but it's just gonna be a guy crying. A guy crying? Like, what is this? video but it's just gonna be a guy crying like like it's just it's just a guarantee like it's just like probability just guarantees that the more that he produces content the more you will see him cry yeah it's peterson's law the more content he produces the more you'll see the longer you stay making content in a long enough timeline you're just going to get the reputation as the crying guy yeah you will you will uh-huh that that is i weeped already on one podcast once you know that is like it that is like a truism for right-wingers it's like the more content they make um there is going to be either a greater possibility of them crying or posting the most

disgusting food like entrees imaginable like plates of like uh you know the powdered mashed potatoes with like a pound of butter melting in the middle of it or something yeah with the foil still on the fucking butter or or third thing too uh i mean they're more likely to say uh to accidentally say a slur that they normally would not say on air like the shit that they're comfortable with saying like they're just gonna say the n-word possibly or another slur yeah no that's that's another one that is interesting like to the average american they are absolutely disgusting and bizarre it's like they're crying and eating disgusting food they are crying into their fucking disgusting mashed potatoes and shit like that no man it's like we talked about this one it's like tim pool

it's like tim pool say talk about north y'all y'all left us y'all snowflakes or whatever whatever term you call left us y'all would never come. You woke us, you would never come to Virginia. West Virginia. It's like, motherfucker, you would cry if they told you to take off your beady dog. Can we talk about that for a second? That was one of the most, that's kind

of an old news item that slipped through that we never got to discuss, but there is nothing worse than people in the Appalachian movement getting gassed up about the rough human ways of the mountains that you just don't understand and don't come around here you know knocking asking for trouble when the reality is is like literally nobody gives a fuck what you do as long as you don't bother anybody else you know what I mean yeah yeah exactly I mean I feel like also too it's like I mean I don't bother anybody else you know what i mean yeah yeah exactly i mean i feel like

also too it's like i mean i don't know man i mean i don't i live like in a more like a suburban area right outside of atlanta but even like going out a little bit further where i'm at yo like i mean like that's pretty fucking wrong the people that are very kind you know like at least the people that i've seen i mean you know if you go a little further you know a little further up of north georgia when you start seeing confederate flags flying maybe then i mean you know if you go a little further you know a little further up of north georgia when you start seeing confederate flags flying maybe then i mean but even those people you know what i'm saying like it's just like dude you don't like you there's this idea that like i mean and it's kind of like fetishized in a way right because i see the same thing like in poverty you know

you see the same thing this fetishization it's like actually yo these people are not some like ruffian like you know like hardback motherfuckers actually pretty chill people more or less you know i'm saying irrelevant to politics you know yeah well i found as a general rule like the people that are like the real shit kicker like country god and soil whatever blah blah blah types they're always the people that go looking for trouble like they antagonize people they it's not they people. They don't just chill in the cut, and then these city slickers come fuck with them, and then they shoot them. That's in their mind.

They actually go out of their way to try to antagonize and trigger people and stuff like that. They're assholes. And usually petty, bouj, assholes. Not just normal-ass working people. You know what I mean? Exactly. They usually are petty, bouj.

Like their parents are fucking rich, or they own a big-ass truck or some shit like that. Yeah, you're right. Just normal ass working people. You know what I mean? Exactly. They usually are petty boos. Like their parents are fucking rich or they own a big ass truck or some shit like that. Yeah, you're right. Well, speaking of the South and symbols of the South, there's an interesting article in the New York Times I saw today. Whiskey fungus fed by Jack Daniels encrusts a Tennessee town. Have you guys heard about this? It's some Last of Us shit, bro.

Oh, I'm not. Is that? Is that? Okay, so I'm not seeing the show. It's horrible. Don't see it. Okay, if that's the premise of the show, they should do what the fungus is, is a whiskey fungus. Because we made too much bourbon because of the All-Stars. And guys like Tim Pool, like we made too much bourbon because of the all-stars and guys like

tim pool like we made too much fucking bourbon yo you imagine though if it was like i mean this is like not to get off topic but if it was spread by whiskey or by any kind of alcohol at all yo earth would be over quick bro yeah you're done population zero i don't know if it's just, that's a good point. I don't know if it's just whiskey or not. It's an ethanol-fueled fungus known as whiskey fungus. It coats, it makes like a dark sooty crust. It's blanketed cars, homes, road signs, bird feeders, patio furnitures, and trees. bird feeders, patio furnitures, and trees.

And it's partially because the Jack Daniels Distillery in, what is the town that that's in? Lincoln County, Tennessee. It's like. Yeah, I think it's like Lynchburg, Tennessee. Yeah, I think you're right. It keeps expanding. They keep adding like more barrel houses. So they're spreading the fungi flesh-eating virus?

They're spreading it. Intentionally? And all it needs is vapors from the alcohol itself to feed, to grow. This is a fungus, you say, right? Yeah, it's a fungus. That's the scary thing about fungus, man. I feel like I'm not a scientist or anything. I'm not a, whatever the word is, mycologist?

Is that the word? I just feel like from what I've heard, at least, I think that's the thing in Last of Us, right, is that fungus are incredibly hardy and difficult to kill. Just the fact that this thing just needs air you know it's kind of kind of troublesome well that's what a lot of people are saying and i didn't know if this was like one of those art imitating life things because last uh this was

kind of having that cultural moment it had a few weeks ago but like weren't people at the CDC saying like the next, one of the next pandemics could be like a fungal in nature? Yeah. Yeah, I think I saw that too. Oh shit, dog. Yo, we got to start thinking about the apocalypse, Cooper. Well, it's, okay, it's an interesting thing to think about. Would you rather go out by fungus or by virus? If you had to take your pick.

or by virus, if you had to take your pick? Hmm. I'd have more respect for the virus because I'm more interested with what viruses do. Okay. Yeah. I gotta respect the hardiness of the fungi, man. I mean, yeah, I'm kind of with you, Aaron. I kind of like the image of me trying to walk to the car

and the fungus is spreading out and it's taking over my legs, and it's reaching up, and it's going into my asshole and into my dick hole. That is a good point. You guys just won me to fungus because viruses are a little bitch ass. They get in there, and it's like a kid or a cat that runs across your computer keyboard and just fucks everything up and then bounces. You know what I mean? It's true.

Like a virus is the most bitch-ass thing. In the micro germ world, viruses are like the little bitch-ass motherfuckers of that world. That's true. At least a fungus will stand on its own too and straight up take over your shit. And they'll probably make you do some crazy stuff.

Rabies is kind of the weird overlap where the virus can make you do things that you don't want to do. I feel like that's the thing with fungus, right? Aren't there fungi that take over wasps and shit and turn them into- Yeah. I think that's the one that lasts the most. I think, yeah. Which is based on a real virus, apparently. But you know, I don't know.

See, I respect that. I respect that. I respect that, too. I respect the... Well, I mean, then again, I guess that's colonization, right? Well, yeah. I don't know if I respect the colonization.

That's true. I don't know if I respect... The mayo-ass fungus. Wow, yeah. Wow. Now that I've jumped on board board you two guys are jumping off i'm the only guy on the fungus boat now let's go deep let's talk about phages and let's talk about bacteria

well i will say with a fungus you might get some cool i've not seen the last of this but like i mean hopefully the writers are this, but, like... I mean, hopefully, the writers are having fun with it. Like, you would think that, like, if you became a fungus, you would have some crazy... Because, you know, I'm balding. I would like to have some crazy, like, fungal growth come out of my head that gives me my full head of hair back,

but it, like, looks cool, like a... Yeah. A fungi afro. You saw the boss. I like afro. I want a yeah fungi afro but i like half i want to see terrence i want a fungal afro you're the fuck bro but you see your your bald spot your bald spot will look cooler than mine though because like at least yours is centered right on the crowd like i got this weird shit right here so i would just look kind of grotesque like i had a horn or some shit like that you know what i mean let's do a little bald this check everybody everybody pull your hat off for a

sec let's see where we're all at here you go dude you can't you can't do tom you didn't have a fucking damn size dot right there so the irony of this is none of us can see each other's bald spots because we're literally looking down. We're all looking down to show each other and not looking. That makes me feel better, though, bro. Aaron's bald spot is tight because it don't even look like a bald spot. It just looks like he took a zip clippers and like accidentally went too hard. Yes, accidentally. Be like, my mom gave me a haircut, yo.

Don't judge me. Don't laugh. Don't judge me. Get off my ass. be like my mom gave me a haircut yo don't judge me don't laugh don't judge me well oh man well what's y'all strategy for dealing with it i've got my own idea i don't know i want to run it by you guys right now i'm thinking terry bradshaw power donut yeah i think that needs to that needs to come back. Wait, what is that? What is that?

Just like around the sides and back, just growing it crazy down. Whatever you can grow, just let it ride, you know? Oh, just let it ride down there? Okay. Smooth, Mr. Clean on top, but sides and back is just unruly. Like a little rat tail or some shit like that? Alternatively known as the Bernie Sanders, too, I guess. But Bernie's still got a little bit up top.

Like, Larry David would be the more apt. Yeah, that would be more apt, yeah. Because he got, like, a mane down there. I don't know what the fuck it's doing. Yeah, that's true. Kind of cool, though. Can't be hating. He got hair.

Tell you how you don't want to deal with it is 70s Biden. Throwing all this shit on the side plus, like holding on to whatever was on top a little too tightly. Not good. Looking like a sleazy used car salesman or some shit. Dude, I am. Looking like goddamn, what's his name? Christian Bale in American Hustle

or something like that. Well, I'm confused about this fungus because did it exist before human beings started distilling alcohol? Like, what is the history of this goddamn thing? Or did it only come about... Go ahead, Tom. I just don't want to cast any stones because we had our own problem,

whiskey fungus, up here in Bluegrass State, too, Jim Beam, a few years ago. And people complained about it, but, you know, mostly just let it ride because bourbon at the time was the world's third most expensive liquid behind printer ink and crude oil. What? Yeah. Holy shit. I don't know where it ranks today, but...

Maybe fourth or fifth. Surely printer ink has gone... Surely printer ink has gone down. Like, people aren't printing as much as they used to. Surely. Do you think people print shit? Surely not.

You're probably right. Man, you're right. This is some mayo-ass colonizing shit. This fucking fungal. This long hair I got on my forehead. Black and color

frequently absorbed phenomenon of warehouse staining Reported originally from the walls of buildings Near Brandy Maturation Warehouses In Cognac, France Oh wait that's the actual name Of a place?

Oh dude I didn't know that either Oh I live in Cognac That was just liquor bro Oh shit Is Hennessy a place too? like are all these places just named after places? I think so I know Bordeaux is a place right?

and Brittany is a place in France but yeah I don't know I didn't know about the other dude this is life finds a way I love this it is recorded as a food source The whiskey fungus Of snails and slugs

Through the rajula marks left following grazing Is that a plot point in The Last of Us? Are there snails and slugs that eat the fungus? No They missed out Also too Maybe even if this fungus was life threatening Maybe we should just let it rot

Because it's taking care of the little mollusk. Yeah. Which means it's not going to be long before Jordan Peterson gets it. The little mollusk that he is. He probably cries so much that there will be a specialized fungal subspecies in the walls of his house that like are

created by the vapors of his tears this is creation of his tears the solidity of the start of the big one oh my god well um man what else did I read this week? So is it life? Wait, just to close out, is it life-threatening, this fungus? Do we really have anything to worry about? As an apocalyptician, I'm very concerned, excited about the end of the world. It apparently shows no known, like, dangers to humans, I guess, that we know of. But it's possible. Come on, God. Hurry it up, dog. Yeah, come on. that we know of, but it's possible.

Come on, God. Hurry it up, dog. Yeah, come on. What are you waiting for, bro? What are you waiting on? Jesus, dude. Keeping a sense of suspense over here. Right? For real. Oh, God.

The apocalypse business, it's just... I was just saying something the other day. I had watched a little bit of Last of Us, and not even Pedro Pascal could save it for me. But did you see, like, the lineup of, like, Peacock's offerings this year? Nah, I do have Peacock. I think it comes free with Comcast.

What have they got? Listen, not one, not two, but three Walking Dead spinoffs. Wait, what? Dog, didn't they just end other shit that failed? They've been milking that shit like crazy. That's so depressing, yo. Let me tell you what happened to me. It's like if we want to talk about the banal apocalypse,

I'm in the gas station a couple weeks ago, and I had my T-shirt on, City of the Living Dead T-shirt on. I found my buddy Mark. Shout out to buddy Mark. Found that for me and sent it to me. And the guy goes, oh, you like Lucio Fulci. I was like, yeah, you know, I'm a sucker for these old Italian gorehounds, you know, whatever, whatever.

And he had a Walking Dead shirt on. And I was like, he's like, yeah, he's like, have you been watching the new, you know, kind of pointed gesture toward his shirt? I was like, man, I'll be honest with you. I didn't even know that was still on. He goes, yeah, it's in its 13th season or whatever what and i'm like like i remember tapping out on the walking dead in like season four or five like even before like fucking glenn died remember like steven yeah yeah it was great but and i'm just like in my I'm like, there's no way they're getting any more mileage out of that goddamn franchise.

And they sure the fuck are. And not only that, but there's a cottage industry around it where they have like the talk show that would come on after it. Are they doing like Yellowstone type prequels? Like Walking Dead 1857 or something? Yes. The Crawling Dead. The Crawling Dead. The Crawling Dead. The Dead Climb Out of the Primordial Ouse. And before you know it, The Walking Dead

is going to be like the Ernest movies. The Walking Dead goes to kindergarten. The Walking Dead goes to jail. The Walking Dead goes to camp. The Walking Dead goes to France. know it's like walking dad goes to france please nah yo actually you know what i will say tom then you're right that's bleaker the fact that

that show is still running for 13 seasons and they're milking it is bleaker than the actual apocalypse depicted in the walking dead like let me ask you a question. If you were staring down the barrel of three Walking Dead spinoffs, or the actual Walking Dead just populating your neighborhood, and you got to be, like, careful when you go outside and go get supplies and stuff, what are you taking? I'm taking a real Walking Dead, bro. That shit is way more exciting, bro. Darren says I'll go out and actually just offer up my flesh.

And join them. Run towards them with your arms and braids hugging. Yeah, yeah. Fuck me up, daddy. I'm ready to join you. It's like when I joke about the nuclear bomb. I run towards that shit, bro. Not away from it.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I was genuinely shocked the walking dead is still still going you know what they're gonna have like an elderly you know what i mean the retired behold dead the retired dead the ambling dead you know the ambling dead yeah the traipsing the traipsing the shuffling dead yeah it's like you know like uh 28 days later the zombies were like fast yeah you know it's like it's gonna be the exact opposite they're gonna be even slower than they normally even slow now you know how dawn of the dead they get lost they get stuck in a in a mall the mall, yeah. Instead, it's going to be a retirement home.

Yeah. But it'll be the opposite. They'll be in the retirement home. You know what I mean? Oh, getting attacked by the zombies. They'll be getting attacked by the humans who are working in the retirement home. In the retirement home. You know what I mean?

And there'll like this meta commentary where it's like oh the real monsters were the living you know what i mean i'm not gonna lie to her if you say actually the real evil is in all of us that's living we're the ones there's more humanity in the dead we should all aspire to be dead now but but could you imagine could you imagine though like being a zombie and coming up on a retirement home dog that's so clutch man dude yeah eating good eating good like the candy from a baby eating real good right now what is what is america's obsession with zombies though what's it rooted in is it rooted in more a death defying culture

death defying in a culture steeped in death you know built upon a little giant graveyard maybe well i think anything zombie goes off like wildfire i don't get it i think the history of it is kind of reactionary i think the history of it is kind of linked the modern history of it anyways is kind of linked to like drug use that it anyways, is kind of linked to drug use. That it's supposed to be a metaphor for people that are junkies and weed heads, reefer heads. They're all zombies, man. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if that was George Romero's original vision, but I do feel like it took on those kind of tones in the 60s and 70s.

You know, you might be right. You might be right, too, because I was looking this up. I was actually Googling something the other night, man, when I was high. I was on, like, a wiki hole. And I was looking up zombies, which, like, you know, in Haitian voodoo or Caribbean voodoo or, like, I think even West African voodoo, like, zombies are, like, an actual thing but apparently like it has that double like kind of like relation where it is sort of related it is related to like this this voodoo this black voodooism but also as a metaphor for blackness i guess this is an argument that somebody was making i was like okay yeah once again black people come up with everything okay where's my residuals, bro? Where's my residuals? I ought to be eating off The Walking Dead.

Come on. Right? Well, is that guy still in it? What's his name? Is his name Andrew Lincoln, the actor? The guy that played, I forgot all the actors' names, man. Who plays Rick? I never watched it, so I don't.

We got to check in with a friend of the show Tony Moore Tony illustrated some of that stuff We gotta see if Tony's eating good Off of Walking Dead spin-offs I hope so The comics were tight though I'm not gonna lie

If that's the case Keep eating big dog Keep eating brother man No hate to you man Well speaking of Keep eating, big dog. Keep eating, brother man. No hate to you, man. Well, speaking of some zombies, the Walking Dead, it seems like everything I've read in the last week has been in some way related to the quote-unquote crisis in higher ed. What is the crisis in higher ed? I ed so there was what is the crisis in high i'm sorry but what is the well higher ed was a whole crisis for me because i fucking hate it so i don't

understand what is the whole thing was a crisis i dropped out yeah i dropped out that's why you know but what is the crisis in higher ed now well there's there's several okay so like the new york times posted that op-ed about i mean uh what was it it was like um i had it pulled up my liberal campus is pushing free thinkers to the right you know that one you know it's just like your box standard like cancel culture is running amok and in my college campus um uh which you know we can read if you want it's a little banal for my taste but it's like uh there might be something good in it um but uh but then there was also an article in the new yorker about how humanities majors are like declining at a precipitous rate right um you know does that include oh wait humanities doesn't include writing and literature and that kind of stuff right that's

that's it does liberal arts right no that's it's humanities like history okay okay history like okay all of that all of the soft shit for. As soon as we let women in STEM, that was the writing was on the wall for the humanities. The soft curriculum, that's what we're talking about. The soft motherfuckers, okay, that's what we're talking about.

All right. It's like declining at a precipitous clip. You know, English majors, history majors, philosophy majors. It's like that's another crisis. Underwater basket-waving major. Polynesian glassmakers, okay. Yeah. There's that. And then there was another article I read,

and we touched on it like a week, like two weeks ago, maybe two Patreon episodes ago, about the revival at Asbury University in Kentucky. Because I read it, the New York Times finally had a write-up about it called woodstock for christians revival draws thousands to kentucky town over two weeks more than 50,000 people descended on a small campus chapel to experience the nation's first major revival spiritual revival in decades one driven by gen z um and the point of that or i thought i don't know why i thought gen z was a

name you were saying you mean generation z generation i was like who the fuck is gen z yes they like and the whole point of this article was that like young kids are um you know they they're they don't know what to make of the future they don't know what to make of the future. They don't know what to make of their lives. They don't know how to derive meaning from existence. And so the TikTokers and Gen Zers are turning to... A little spoiler for you guys. It doesn't get any clearer.

You were for a wild ride actually good luck though um so uh so you know like we could take any of these crises you know for a spin i guess we could do it like a pick your choose your own adventure adventure. Me personally, I kind of like to read, read a little bit about the decline in humanities majors. Me too. I was a humanities major. That's why I was, that's why I was curious.

I was writing, I was writing a literature major. You know what? We all dropped out. That's why they're not, we all dropped out. I will go ahead and tell you something. We can't get a fucking job.

There's, there's nothing that says humanities major like this goddamn Zoom screen right now. You're right. You're right. These are men that thought that it was all going to shake out fine as philosophy majors. You know what I mean? Literally, dog.

I don't want to work a day of my life. I just want to sit on my ass and make shit up and have people be like, oh, okay, and stroke their chins that is like that is the ultimate like thing like reading the testimonies and stories in this new yorker article it's like you know like people enter the humanities uh because they want to learn how to write or they want to learn about the world become more cultured um a lot of them want to teach uh but it's like yeah i noble effort no yeah noble effort i was a history major um but the thing about life that you start to realize as you get older is that like no matter what decisions you made in your late teens or early 20s about your career, some fucked up shit's probably going to happen,

and you'll wind up with a podcast that'll make you essentially unemployable by the vast sector. Where if I wanted a big boy job, I would have to scrub my social media so they couldn't see how many times I've threatened with mortal threats politicians. Exactly. How many times I've said, nigga, I with mortal threats politicians exactly okay don't look at this shit hopefully by then it'd be fine you know yeah it's like no yeah i had noble goal i was like i'm hitting major history go work for some non-profits go be a

teacher and then but yeah before you know it you've ruined all your prospects and all of those fields. Yeah. So, but I don't know. Anyways, let me just read some, let me just read some, you know, excerpts from this article. Okay. So it's like it starts off and the author is talking with some students around campus. And, you know, he's like interviewing them. He goes to Arizona State University state university and harvard like those

are the two universities he spends most time at um and he's like interviews people and and these students are like you know you're classic like why would i major in english like i'm not gonna get a fucking job in english like i'm gonna i can read motherfuckers i can read already. I don't need it. Yeah, yeah. Fucking trying to say it. It's like, and so, like, you know, he's, like, trying to, you know, figure out, like, why are, because the thing is, he puts out, like, statistics. And, like, humanities majors have state university like english majors has dropped from like 30 i think like 30 percent of people getting degrees were going in the humanities in like the 90s and then it was like 20 percent in the 2000s and now it's something around like 12 percent like no one god damn and like this presents a huge problem for like phd you know in post-grad um

you know tracks too because they're at this point there are more you're gonna teach if nobody's like exactly interested in it exactly there are more people in post-grad programs than there are jobs now to um fill those positions you know what i'm saying so like there's more people competing for these highly selective jobs and you know people can't may ask a question do you all think that's do y'all think that's sort of been a deliberate plot for the right to take over the academy instead of because you know what that that i was gonna say tom that's a good point because i think most people think that they just want to destroy it right completely right but like what to just like kind of make it vacuous and scoop it out and then just you know i mean i mean make it more like

low like you know uh k through 12 in a lot of states you know municipalities already is you know yeah whatever i noticed doing in fucking florida i live close to uk's campus and i was driving through there and the newest building was called like the uh like the cm gatton institute for entrepreneurship and i think at university of louisville they've got the funnily titled papa john schnatter Center for Entrepreneurship or something like that. Is that legit? Is that real?

They teach courses on slurs. Yeah, slurs and how to eat 58 pizzas for quality control purpose. And how to sweat. Not even how to make them. How to lose your CEO position to none other than little John like if you're going to make like an institute

that just celebrates and teaches rapacious capitalism make sure that your standard bearer is not an absolute balloon that's a good first step not an absolute balloon that's a good first step yeah um but so yeah so like to answer your question tom i did this article gets into it i think that it's partially because there has been a more focus on stim but i don't know if it's just from the right wing because like as the article points out like obama was one of the biggest boosters of stem and stem major like majoring in stem and stem

fields of discipline um and another big part of it is that in the course of the 20th century this is a weird this is a really weird thing in the course of the 20th century a lot of funding for humanities came from the u.s government specifically the cia and like state and defense departments um and like that's for humanities programs for humanities programs right and so like that's like kind of how the paris review got founded right yeah yeah yeah like a bunch of magazines kind of spun off and were received a lot of like cia funding and stuff like that um and they were explicitly anti-communist it was it could be liberal it was explicitly couldn't yeah explicitly anti-communist exactly and and and part of it was this, you know, this notion of, like, empire building and, like, literary canon and, like, you know, creating, like, a unified American literary canon that, like, intellectuals could rally around and that that could become a ladder for social mobility.

And, like, me personally, like, when I went to college, I kind of saw it that way. social mobility and like me personally like when i went to college i kind of saw it that way it's just like oh i'm getting a history degree but like maybe this will in some way you know encourage my own social mobility in some way spoiler alert it did not but oh yeah it did not with me either i was like yo dude i'm gonna be able to i'm gonna be able to fucking i want to be a writer i'm gonna be a journalist and you know i could work my way maybe i'll fucking work at the new yorker office you know i'm saying the slush pile and i'll look through that shit and then and then like you know like 10 years later you know i'm fucking i'm doing this shit you're doing this shit i'm doing this shit um well you know it's it's kind of interesting too too, though, if you look at sort of the, like, the sort of

landfill that is, like, whatever passes for intellectualism on the right. Like, we're talking about, like, you know, the right-wing sort of emphasis on STEM, but, like, in recent years with, like, the proliferation of the aforementioned Peterson thought and so forth, these guys are really, like, into reading really into reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. All about these kinds of classics. The antiquities classics. Right.

That is true. There has been a... To the extent that there has been any renewed interest in the humanities at that level, it feels like it's in some ways led by you know reaction fascist fascist literally fascist yeah yeah i don't know man but also it's like you know when i was in that i mean when i was in that major i think it got i don't know man when i used to read

like these short stories because our movies wanted to like be a novelist or before i even want to be a journalist i always used to read these short stories because our movies wanted to be a novelist or before I even wanted to be a journalist. I always used to read these short stories and novels. And these were writers who weren't successful financially, but there was a place for them in society. It felt like, and I don't mean to be the tortured artist where nobody reads anymore. But on some real shit, there's less less incentive to now you do it because you love writing right i'm talking about writing specifically because i do that i don't really have hopes of getting published because of the way that the market is now because of like the fact that i just don't think during a pandemic people there was a resurgence in reading right

because people didn't really have anything to do they had more time yeah but i guess my point is saying like yeah the way the market is it's just not very financially like it's just not smart to like unless you want to do it because you have a passion for it like or you want to teach but then right like we were just talking about who's going to sit in those seats for you to teach you know yeah personally for me like the whole reason that i did it in the first place is like paradoxically because my parents didn't go to college like my dad didn't go to college my mom went to college only when i was like in late middle school early high school so that she could become a teacher but like i you know wasn't raised in an intellectual household like the most my parents read was like the bible and like t boone pickens autobiography and shit

the only two books you need the only two books you need it's like i was like okay so now i'm gonna i too i too read the first billion is the hardest so like but yeah that's a good point yeah going to college i was like okay well then now i can finally be surrounded by intellectuals and can learn about like lofty ideas i can read marcus aurelius yeah yeah i guess i went yeah i went to school too because my parents never went to college either so it's kind of like you know and like my parents and you know like they were they they you know encouraged like my education shit but it was kind of like well i'm gonna get to be around and do the things that they didn't get to they didn't get to do yeah i'm like that was a dumb idea you better off selling drugs well there are definitely like i think most students now are

making that calculus like uh they're saying you know i'm not gonna be able to get a job in humanities blah blah blah but there are some interesting threads in this article um so let me let me just you know read a little bit from this one missed the afternoon a harvard jr named henry haimo haimo took me himbo i'm sorry i'm sorry Hamo. Took me. Hambo. You said Hambo homo. I'm sorry. It's all good, bro. Henry, if you're out there and you're a Trillbillies fan and you're a junior at Harvard University, I apologize. We apologize for laughing at you.

Took me for a walk down Dunster Street and it sounds like Jumpster Street what are these names bro you guys fucking Mr. Hembo walking down Dunster Street come on bro

Mr. Hembo some Dr. Seuss shit who the fuck wrote this man this is like the world of richard scary or some shit i don't know why everything we read is either like an r crumb book or like or it's dr seuss but for some reason henry himbo took me for a walk down Dumpster Street and on past Harvard's red brick upper class dorms. He had assumed the style of an ageless Ivy Leaguer, glasses, a button down, and an annihilated pair of chinos. He decided to major in history after flirting with philosophy.

He said, there's an incredible emphasis on ethics in every field of study now he explained ai plus ethics biology plus ethics and effective altruism a practice that calls for acquiring wealth and disseminating it according to principles of optimization and efficiency effective altruism is a huge trend on campus seeping into everything oh my god it wormed its way in he said fuck he he said it has probably contributed to a good number of concentrators and secondaries in the philosophy department brutal man brutal that's the absence of ethics dog like these people that are most trusted here every mr himbo you are not him you are no himbo of mine no yo dog the reason i'm screaming like this is this this shit is just i thought that this was just a vanity project like you know

idea of like you know be like elites right like the people that like uh at night can't really sleep at night because like not that they're guilty but they're just kind of like oh shit like yeah people are ready to kill me at any second right like i have to maximize my good in the world as martin luther king said i have to make the best use of my time right and it's like yo like the fact that that is i mean i guess the way I'm thinking of it too is like the way that the CRT stuff has like creeped on campus but not by students, right? So much as by these right-wing psychos that don't even have kids in school. This is like a flip side with the liberal shit. I mean obviously the CRT stuff is more insidious but I don't know, man.

This is disturbing. This is disturbing. Yeah, you're right. This is disturbing. Yeah. This is disturbing. Yeah, you're right. It's a good point that like I too thought it was kind of like a hobby,

like niche interest among the elite. But there are adherents. There are adherents in the university. They're a young kid. God, man, that's so depressing. God, yo. It's the bleakest thing I've heard all week, bro. But another thing that is interesting is that the ethics thing. There's an emphasis on ethics in every field of study now.

And honestly, what that says to me, that really just goes to show the extent to which the trolley dilemma has entered into every single... You know what i'm saying like it's it's like people love that shit people love the trolley dilemma so much like because that is everything in society now everything in society is a trolley dilemma it's like you even see it in like with ben shapiro and them talking about like ai saying like the n-word or whatever remember that like yes it's like it's in everything well it's also too like i think like it's just like you know if i'm understood right the trolley problem is essentially about like uh sacrifice right like who must be triage yes you'd be willing to say triage yeah yeah right so it's like well dog the more that we're faced with not just futurelessness

but a awful fucking future yeah like the more that whether you're a liberal or whether you're reactionary because liberals do it too you don't think that liberals are apportioning and i'm not talking about class because class they're having their own interest scene in fights and shit like that where they're deciding out like who's gonna come out on top but liberals do the same fucking thing it's all triage you're right it's triage all the way down man in like in like a face of no solutions and no future it's like all right well then who can we start throwing into the meat grinder who is already expendable you mean the people that have historically spendable ones yeah that's class wise and race wise you know that is fascinating that ethics is business about how to

be unethical how to be how to be ethical in an unethical world yeah which means essentially the crazy thing you see too in a lot of ways is like they start making up problems like if you want anything any like crackpot idea that you have to enter to introduce into society to gain mainstream acceptance all you have to frame it as is like well this beats the alternative yeah we've reached a point in society where we create and manufacture problems just to introduce like ideas from the most craven rapacious bloodthirsty people alive like even if you look at the smallest level of like what we've done with like uber like we've completely destroyed

the cab driving profession in most american cities simply because some guy was like hmm you know what would be nice is if we could just get a ride on demand it's nothing wrong with hell in a cab what nothing wrong with like calling a you know what i mean you're right nothing wrong with calling the cab at all it's the same goddamn thing as uber because they could be at your house when you want them to be man you're so right dude it's the it's the mckinseyization of everything that we were talking about it's allowing a thousand train wrecks a year just so that like when one really bad one happens, you can say, well, there's a nine hundred and ninety nine other ones. Why aren't you focusing on those?

And trust us, we're going to get those railroads regulated. Yo, and it's so insidious, too, man, because, again, like it's like it's like fortifying and stealing people's passions and hearts against like the coming bad. And I'm not saying like, you know, the coming bad as i'm not saying like you know the coming bad as if it isn't bad shit right now but like when you get students when you get like community members like average people who don't work at mckinsey right to start thinking in those like ways of triage and tribalism you know that's when like people are truly desensitized i mean we saw this shit during covid during the pandemic you know yeah yeah um well let me let me finish out with himbo here um i asked him whether there seemed to be a dominant vernacular at harvard he's the author says when i was a student there okay so the author

went to harvard that's what you got to do you erin you were saying you wanted to ride for the new yorker you gotta go to harvard i gotta go to harvard okay okay he should have disclosed that first so i should have known you know for getting in this shit he says when i was a student there people talked a lot about things being reified quote-unquote reified um himbo told me that there there was a dominant vernacular the language of statistics one of the leading courses this goes to exactly what we were talking about the the one of the leading courses statistics one of the leading courses this goes to exactly what we were talking about the the one of the leadingization yeah one of the leading courses at harvard now is introductory statistics enrolling some 700 students a semester up from 90 in 2005 even if i'm in the

humanities and giving my impression of something somebody might point out to me well how who was your sample how are you gathering your data i mean statistics is everywhere it's part of any good critical analysis of things statistics and ethics dude there are where the class is for statistical ethicism it's the you need to put it together it really is the philosophical foundation of like just yeah genocide i mean there's like seriously on the side on the side yeah because i mean essentially yeah that's what you do is where and i mean there's like seriously on the side on the side yeah because i mean essentially yeah that's what you do is where and i mean it's it almost is perfect now in this computerized world we live in because now you don't really have to have human beings making those calculations

about who lives or dies you can just put that shit in the fucking put it in the algorithm print it out put it in the algorithm dog oh god damn it's something that's occurred to me about this whole ai debate it's like have you seen so i'll just go ahead and say this is you know this is mildly whatever i went to the transcendental meditation temple yesterday to check in with my guy i played tennis with him sometimes and whatever uh-huh and he was showing me this new app that they were working on it's got all these different resources for meditation whatever whatever you know and yes i know i know i know well one of the questions on the app of this like little like resource was our machine sentient our machines conscious because their whole thing is consciousness are

they conscious and this is like a debate you see on the tl every day and whatever whatever it pops up more and more and it's occurred to me the reason they're trying to shove this idea that machines are conscious down our throat is because they're going to need them to buy stuff at some point when we're all destitute right so to keep all this running like they need going to need them to buy stuff at some point when we're all destitute you're right so to keep all this running like they need them to become as human-like as possible so they'll have somebody else to exploit after they've like ground our bones to paste you know what i mean dude you you're right they need new consumers dude it's yo it's yo dude you just wow son that just opened the shit up for me because now i'm thinking about it, right? Because Terrence, you and I have talked about this, like, where affording agency to, like, AI and shit like that means that, like, you know, the people who actually do fuck shit can just pass the buck to the algorithm, right?

Yeah. But then, what you said, Tom, if we get to that further point where we're actually questioning if AI, if computers have, like, consciousness, yeah consciousness yeah man it's just so that we can just do I have them buy shit well they can become consumers themselves what was the dominant like stereotype of consumpt consumerism in the 90s I mean it was like it almost like it was like you were a robot you know what I mean like you're just kind of like glassy-eyed in the supermarket just buying things you know what I'm saying and and you're an automaton you're just kind of like glassy eyed in the supermarket, just buying things. You know what I'm saying? And,

and you're an automaton. You're an automaton. Right. It very, yeah. Damn bro. Um, so that means that we can't,

we'd not just gonna have to have our own revolution. We got to have a revolution for the robots, man. Well, we got two, we basically got two options. I heard, I heard Matt Crispin say something the other day that I thought was really

smart. He was talking about like, uh, these, uh, republicans like really basically at in essence just kind of want everybody to shut up and enjoy in the fruits of the exploitation and all that kind of stuff and really that's what they really want ultimately like they're not mad on like philosophical or ideological grounds they're just don't know why we can't quit bitching and just enjoy all this exploited a fruit or whatever. Right.

And I think it's, I think that is connected somehow to the question of like creating this new race of consumers. It's like either you shut up and enjoy the fruits of exploitation or like you're getting replaced by machines. And I heard Boots Rowley say something one time where it was like, you know, and I've said this on the show before, he was like, a lot of this is just bluster,

like AI is just bluster because like they forget that robots don't buy shit. And I think that while that's certainly plausible, I also think it's just as plausible that they will figure out a way for robots to buy shit they will give robots sentience so they can choose what to buy like i swear also too i don't know man it just kind of gets me thinking like how like like i don't know i guess like to be a worker you know i i guess like you you kind of are like a gear, an automaton in this larger system, right? You kind of are a machine, right? Like you are an automaton, like as a worker in a capitalist system in a way. So, I mean, I don't see why instead of allowing people the free will,

and I know this is probably far off, but instead of allowing human beings the free will to decide whether they want to even participate, whether that participation is true, you could just create your own little sentient race of beings that have no choice. I mean, this is Blade Runner or do androids kill, do dream of electric sheep. Right. I mean, that was essentially like, yeah, bro, we just created these robots so they could do work for us, you know. Right. So, you know, maybe one day it won't be just uh you know uh black people or poor white people or you know uh um you know migrants getting harassed and shot by the police you know maybe it'll be a robots too bro right um well let's let me you know i'll continue on here

um last school year spencer Glassman, a history major, argued in a column for the student paper that Harvard's humanities need to be more rigorous because they set no standards comparable to the, quote, tangible things that any student who completes STAT 110 or Physics 16 must know. He told me one could easily walk away with an a or a minus and not have learned anything all the stem concentrators have this attitude that humanities are a joke it's a fascinating like look at like how you have to be able to like quantify your you know progress and success in this field in like a hard number or data set rather than like the thing that you acquire is

the skill of writing or or critical thinking or anything and you could because you can't quantify those things then they're just like by their very nature just completely useless dude you know that's that's funny too because i part of the reason why i went to school we were talking about like you know like i thought it could you know afford me some social mobility and like my parents didn't go to college. So I wanted to. But like thirdly, like I just wanted to find more books to read. Right. Like I actually had a true intellectual curiosity and I felt like I would like a professor or a class or that structure would or, you know, that curriculum would help me along this intellectual journey. And I couldn't imagine only trying to quantify it through numbers as how successful I was at doing that you know like okay I read like 20 books this year or this you know semester you know what I mean read that like and

do that listen to this this is this kind of gets right at it and like I don't want it to get twisted I'm not blaming the students themselves for for like this decline in the humanities major it it is literally pretty much exclusively because we've turned the university into a private enterprise. You know what I'm saying? That exists specifically for defense, R&D, and like... Yeah, when you say STEM, I feel like that's really where their energies, not the students themselves, that don't want to do that shit, but that's where those energies are getting funneled to places like Lockheed Martin. Right.

those energies are getting funneled to places like Lockheed Martin. Right. But I'm just, I'm just focusing on the students reporting of this just because it's a reflection of how they see the environment of the university. This guy says, I think the problem for the humanities is you can feel like you're not really going anywhere. And that's very scary.

You write one essay better than the next from one semester to the next, or you write one essay better than the other from one semester to the, to the next. That's not the same as you know being able to solve this economics problem or code this thing or do policy analysis it's like i mean that's fair i mean it's yeah i mean it's like from their perspective it's like you have to have this hard quantifiable thing and um i don't know i don't know it's it's it makes it makes total sense why people would shy away from humanities in that

context. Well, because if you write a, dude, that's so fair because like, like I was saying before, if you don't have the love for the game, like when I write a story,

right? Like I have some satisfaction that I did it right. Sure. I might show it to people if it even gets published, that's fucking amazing. But like, that's not something that you could really quantify. And when you are, I mean, I'll be honest when you're in a society especially if you're you know you're in

the humanities and again using writing where your craft is not really treasured unless it's used as a commodity for you to fucking write a screenplay for a big dumb fucking movie or some shit like that then if there's no recognition of the work that you do and not i'm talking about compensatory recognition i'm saying like, Oh, you actually did something that makes you feel satisfied and other people recognize it. Then what's the fucking point of doing it?

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, if you don't, you know, I can imagine being a young person and going, especially thinking about the future in the workforce. Like,

yeah, I'm not going to just do this shit so I can write stories and feel good about myself. Yeah. And especially in today's like highly competitive, like workforce, like environment. Exactly.

Yeah. Motherfucker. I'm not right. You didn't get paid, right? No stories, motherfucker. Become a doctor highly competitive workforce environment. Exactly. Yeah, motherfucker, I'm not writing. You ain't getting paid writing those stories, motherfucker. Become a doctor. Become a lawyer. Right. No, no, I don't mean that to listeners. Keep writing, please. Please, please.

I'm just saying that's the way that you know, I can imagine people think like that. There are some amusing attempts by humanities departments to market humanities like um to stem majors or just people um or just market in general yeah just try to attract more students into these programs at i think at arizona state they had a let's see this professor cohen decided to teach a course called making a career with humanities major one of the one of the things that students do is choose a famous humanities major and write about that person many students are first generation and bringing the weight of the

family tradition with them to the classroom if they know that someone like john legend studied literature and made a great career they're like like, okay. Bro, John Legend is the worst example, dog. It's the softest motherfucker in the world, bro. He's a valedictorian of the soft curriculum, bro. You don't think John Legend? He is the lord and master of the soft. Yeah, it's like, okay, maybe I can help you guys out. Maybe part of the problem is the marketing.

You looking to people like John Legend, dog? Come on, son. Let's see. Pretty sure DMX had an English degree. No, I'm making that up. I do not know that. Rest in peace, by the way. DMX had an anointing.

That supersedes any degree bestowed by the academy. You're absolutely right. You're right. You're right. Well, so, you know, part of this, you know, he interviewed a guy. There were quotes of this article going around, and one of the guys he interviewed was a professor

who, you know, said something to the effect that, like, you know, I don't even read anymore like the humanities professor he said i don't even read anymore i'm on my phone all the time i'm reading tweets and articles and stuff like that but then like um it's real shit but then like another part of the article got into um this uh what is it? 544,000 square foot science and engineering complex on Harvard campus, which cost a billion dollars. Just inside the entrance, an enormous painted wall display read,

our research tackling societal challenges. Placards noted that the complex in the spirit of the ark the the ark by the way noah's ark noah's ark could could maintain critical research activities during the grid loss and floods of a hundred year storm. You know, and then, you know, Larry Summers, I think is the person who kind of made this happen because he was,

he became Harvard president in like 2001. I don't think he still is, but, but I don't know. I just thought that that was an interesting and like Larry Summers is like intent on turning harvard into like the next silicon valley just like all these people like that like asu's president is also a guru like a tech guru guy um let me let me ask you a question terrence is that is that mural supposed to be all right so like if stem majors and again listeners if, if you're a STEM major, I'm not saying you do this, but from read from the article, would you spread?

No. You know, thinking of where I guess we would talk about not taking humanities major seriously. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like thinking at all. This is like silly. And I mean, I could say that as like for humanities major, I would look at like STEM folks and be like, you guys are like, I mean, unethical. And it just seems like, you know, like I'm not making these accusations, by the way. But what I'm trying to say, does it seem like they want to humanize STEM? You know what I mean? Like they want to give it like a social orientation that isn't just about hard facts and statistics. Is that why ethics as well as big is a big part, you know, in STEM, STEM majors or curriculums now? I think that's a big part of it, according to this article. And you got to keep in STEM majors or curriculums now.

I think that's a big part of it, according to this article. And you've got to keep in mind, I'm not an expert. The last time I was on a college campus was probably by accident or something. I was buying weed the last time I was on a college campus. I was not going to class. I was buying weed. I think that STEM fields probably are kind of reaching out more towards in some ways, like you said, the AI and ethics and stuff. They're reaching out a little more towards the humanities direction. But it looks like the humanities are also reaching out in the STEM direction. majoring in social studies which is this weird you know hybrid course of like policy analysis and

we call this social studies back when i was in grade school it's yeah when i got to high school it phased out and it was just history that's interesting yeah yeah yeah i think it's a little bit different maybe okay but i'm i'm not entirely sure but like this this kind of gets at it like this whole passage right here i thought i thought this was very fascinating larry summers imagined the next summer silicon valley with all that it means and all that it brings with an emphasis on industrial opportunities for biomedical research in beyond the ivory tower der, Derek Bach, Harvard's president throughout the 70s and 80s, had warned about quote-unquote commercial ventures posing dangers for the quality of research and even for the intellectual integrity of the university itself.

At the time, such doubts prevailed. When, in 1980, the gene transcription pioneer Mark Patash was induced to launch a bioengineering company from his professorship storm clouds rose around him summer's appointment like asu's presidential appointment the following year of the tech policy special specialist michael crowe signaled an openness to business with the new global private sector um so it's like basically what you've seen in the last like 20 30 years is all of these you know universities basically opening up their doors to like enterprise to like we said r&d like defense technology a lot of these universities of course did that throughout the 20th century of course but uh but but this is this is like the end this is like

the like sort of an end goal like in like it's like oh you come to school so that you can be involved you know what i mean yeah we are attracting enterprise instead of enterprise being like oh there are smart fucking kids there that can make us some bombs that'll kill a lot of people all right let's go there you know right exactly that is exactly right right um jesus christ so anyways you know i don't know there's not not a whole lot to not a whole lot else to say about it um other than you know like maybe maybe humanities maybe they need to start marketing into else. Humanities implies human. And maybe you need to, they need like walking in, like inhumanities or walking dead.

Inhumanities. You know what I'm saying? Inhumanities. There you go. Inhumanities. We just need to lie. What we need to do is, we need to have. We need to learn.

That is exactly right. We need to learn lying, exactly right we need to learn lying cheating stealing exactly exactly riverboat gambling murder gambling possibly murder we need to do the thing that all the stem majors i'm kidding that is it i'm dude that i majored in stealing i majored in stealing uh T what's T terrorism uh E E

E E what the fuck is a good E word bro um uh not entrepreneurship no no okay

stealing yeah we need a new stem stealing stealing terrorism terrorism embezzlement embezzlement

and murder murder money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money embezzlement embezzlement and murder murder and we pick your flavor if you if you do a little softer you go money launder you could do stem s-t-e-m-m so it's like stealing terrorism embezzlement money laundering and murder

yo bro i'm gonna pitch that show to netflix listen netflix if you're listening it's a show about a bunch of stem majors and their prospects for the future are very low so they get into stealing terrorism embezzlement murder and money laundering stem called stem i i was uh i was uh in my book club last night we're next book we're tackling is uh huey newton's revolutionary suicide and we opened it up last night by reading this uh essay about by this guy booker i can't remember his first name um but basically he was like talking about like how the panthers sort of made a mistake sort of welcoming the quote-unquote lumpenproles into the ranks and stuff and you know and and he was basically saying you know in oakland at the time this was the

you know the the boys on the corner and you know dope boys and pimps and hustle whoever it was you know what i mean and like this was like sure you know it wreaked a little bit of respectability politics and also wreaked a little bit of like i don't know whatever and classism like classism like kind of like like i mean i'll go ahead i kind of know what you mean though yeah you know what i mean it was like it just had like a slightly conservative tone to it like isn't it bad that uh they they let in these guys that were like you know selling dope or whatever it was they were doing to hustle yeah yeah and uh like and how this was like proved that they were like undisciplined and like this was like ended up being their downfall or whatever in the back of my mind i'm like this flies in the face of righteous gangsterismo i agree with this. I think we need more of that element.

We do. We need more seedy characters. We need more rogues, more ruffians. Dude, they would unilaterally, single-handedly see Humanity's Majorns skyrocket. We're the Humanities, but we have a new stem. This is the new fucking stem, bitch. This is the new stem. This is the new fucking stem, bitch. This is the new stem. You'll see us leaning up on the side of the building

with leather jackets, smoking cigarettes. Well, the thing is, the thing I was thinking. Exactly, make it cool. The thing I was thinking, though, like reading about all this is like, yo, you could easily, I mean, what is humanities? What even is history?

What is history? What is English? It's storytelling, right? It's analysis and it's storytelling. And it's like after all these guys have, after all these graduates have gone into STEM and become extremely disillusioned after they've designed their 13th state-of-the-art drone bomber,

they're going to need to process that. And how are they going to do that? Writing. They're going to have to put it into a store. They're going to have to write about it. That's how they should be marketing it. That's absolutely true, man. What we should do is

you can be the next God. What's the guy that worked, that was in the British Army intelligence shit and then went to write James Bond or some shit like that? Oh, Ian Fleming. Yeah, you could be the next Ian Fleming. You know what I'm saying?

Write about your exploits developing viruses in a lab for the United States government. Totally. John Le Carre was also in MI6. Was he? Yeah. I fucking love John.

I mean, it's a guilty pleasure, but I love that shit. I don't like what he was up to, but I appreciate his art. Don't know about the espionage, but otherwise. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, we got to hop off here.

We are over our allotted time. Before we go, one thing I want to say, one thing I want to clear the air with, the US government is now saying Havana Syndrome is not real. So, any closing thoughts on that one? What do we make of that? What is the? Imagine that.

I think, my theory theory on this my suspicion is that they are all obviously they're online because i mean who the fuck knows how many like anonymous accounts are actual just cia assets you know what i'm saying like just spreading whatever the fuck so like they're all the russian bots yeah exactly so like they're all very online and they've all seen us clowning on them and so they're like oh uh i mean we don't have we knew it wasn't we knew it wasn't we knew it wasn't real you know you know what i'll say i'll say in all seriousness i'll say in all seriousness if uh if they lied to you about havana syndrome think about what else they may be lying to you about.

Remember September 11th, 2009? Well. No, seriously. Who knows? They may be lying to you about a lot of things. Yeah. The UFO shit. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Oh, man. That is so funny that we live at a time where the United States has to say to people or feels the need to say to people you know that uh that uh that weapon that that death ray that retro futuristic 1950s pulp comic book fucking weapon that we were talking about it's not real one last quick hitter before we sign off here. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg made the announcement this morning about new investments in the Louisville Metro PD. Yes, that Louisville Metro PD that murdered Breonna Taylor.

Included in this is a new wellness center for the officers. $1.6 million in public funds going for that. And then they're getting another 14 million in federal covid funds fast track to them so amazing you murder somebody guess what you level up and get your own private gym a wellness center i mean bro it's like it's like i mean here in atlanta you know what i mean like it's cop city yeah we have we have a playground for the fucking cops after they spent a summer beating the after they fucking you know kill rashad brooks yeah they can get on a little slide

and a little uh jungle gym like i exactly i'm just like i'm this little kid again yeah man so i'm telling you dog if you if you're if you're uh last thing i'll say last i just burnt down an auto zone. Wee, I just left a pile of bricks by an angry crowd of people. You should make kid shows with that voice, baby. You should make kid shows for the kids. But like, you know, look, look, this is what he said. Like, look, like we said before, you listen to your rich.

If you happen to be a wealthy listener, you know, if you are a class trader, you would be a lot better off buying weapons, armaments for dudes in southwest Atlanta than you would giving money to any politician or any cause, you know. Yeah. Oh, man. West Atlanta than you would giving money to any politician or any cause. You know, that's how you get the kids to take humanities. I don't know what I'm saying. Well, that's what the CIA tried to stop, actually. That's part of our STEM curriculum. It's like how to obtain a nuclear weapon

as a group of private citizens. How to make your own nuclear weapon as a private citizen. That is a STEM major private citizens. How to make your own nuclear weapon as a private citizen. That is a step major right there. That's true. That's true. How to split the atom in your garage. How to split the atom in your garage.

Well, I have to say, the origins of the Hydron Collider started in Solomon, Kentucky, so. Hmm. Stranger things have happened. Be crazier things, it could be you. It could be you, Kentucky. Stranger things have happened. It could be you. It could be you, man. Alright, everybody. We gotta sign off here. But please go to the Patreon.

You know where to find it. It's in the Patreon section of the podcast department. So, you know, you can find it there. Thanks for listening. We'll see you know, you can find it there. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Adios.

Bye.