WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Boys Only #9: Unwieldy Meme Folder

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Nate and Storm chat with Dr. Ian Church about lifting, the philosophical life, and artificial intelligence.

What is Boys Only? It's a show on the internet. Is it really, though? I mean, that's what we've been trying to make. Who are you? Me is Nate? Why so few salable? Why use big word when little word do trick?

True Nate. Me Storm. This, Boys Only. That's a good one, Storm. Thanks, man. I try to like spice up the intros, you know, a little bit. So the listeners aren't like, oh my God, just another episode. It's Oogabuga Caveman episode. Speaking of Oogabuga Caveman, we've got a special guest today, arguably the specialist yet.

Dr. Ian Church, professor here at Hillslow College, how's it going? It's going great. It's an honor, truly an honor to be here with you. I'm just delighted. Thank you. I appreciate you being on the show. This is our first professor on boys only. We made it.

We're official. We're them. We're them. We're them. We're them. them? That does not work that well. Boy, you know we say, we're him? We're him. In the solitary sense.

We're him. Philosophize that language. Yeah, so Dr. Church is a professor of philosophy. We took his philosophy class last semester. Yeah, last fall. It felt so long like it already. And we've been good buddies ever since. Dr. Church is one of my favorite people to stop

it and chat with and talk to on campus. Great guy. His office is up in Delp somewhere. Go find him. Go harass him. Just yell for me. I'll hear you. Throw a little stones up at his window like old paperboys used to do. But yeah, no, it's really good to have him on the show. He was recently, I promise, I promise we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about this, but he was recently on Simpson's Backdown and as one of the prof cameos and checked a guy

through a table with the person's full waiver signed consent, of course. But it's wonderful to have our favorite beefcake on the show. Aye, aye, aye. All right, so that's my grand intro for you. Yeah. Well, let's get into some questions. They were all lifting related, which I was hoping they wouldn't be.

I was hoping someone would be like, tell me about your career. Why are you a philosophy problem? Wait, we should. Tell us about Scotland. Like a quick intro. Sure, actually, yeah, like run down yourself. Yeah, so I started studying philosophy

when I was around 16, 17 years old. I thought I initially wanted to be a pastor because I'd recently become a Christian, and I was under the illusion that the only way to be a good Christian was to either be a pastor or a missionary. And given that I'm allergic to most of the outside world, I felt like missionary was probably not in the cards for me.

So I thought it was going to be a pastor. Okay. But then I started reading some more philosophy. I read Dietrich Bonhofer's ethics. And that was sort of my first book into philosophy. And then I quickly fell in love with philosophy as an end in itself. And didn't really look back. I took my first logic class freshman year, first semester.

Loved it. I was hooked. That's awesome. Yeah, and then from there, I went on to get my master's and PhD at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, three-year postdoc back in the United States, worked at the University of Edinburgh after that, and then came to beautiful Hillsdale, Michigan. Yeah. Of all those destinations, this one is, of course, the best. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the most scenic, yeah.

That's right. Exactly. And that's right. And I miss the Indian food, of course. The Indian food? What? Oh, man, there's really good Indian food in Edinburgh? Yeah.

Really? Are you pulling my leg around? No, no, no. So the British will insist that curry is actually their national dish. No one isn't. They don't really have that much else going for them. Let's give it to them. Beans for breakfast.

Yeah, whatever you do, I'm not. Raw bread on wheat. Curry is their national dish? They have a toast sandwich, canonically. That's true. It's a sandwich made of toast. It's bread on bread on bread. It's three slices of bread.

That's just a blank sandwich. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Continue to talk about the curry. Yeah, no, it was great. I loved it over there and loved the British sense of humor. British sarcasm and cynicism. Really enjoyed it for life.

Yeah, that's right. Of course, of course. But, yeah, came to beautiful Hillsdale. I'm originally from Indiana. I'm a Hoosier. And so being back closer to family is really great. And, you know, we don't have to worry about transatlantic flights whenever we want to come back for Christmas is really nice

and significantly cheaper to drive Indiana. to fly back from. But you do have to drive through Michigan, which is like, oh. New Michigan. Michigan roads are weird. Well, it's thrilling, right? So if you're going down to Indiana,

you have to drive through a lot of Amish country, which can be its own challenge, right? Because you never know when there's going to be a buggy, and it's quite scary. If you sort of come up on a buggy, suddenly, unexpectedly. But, you know, shout out to all the Amish listeners. Of course, yes.

Yeah, they will be listening. Wait. Yes. Shout out to the electricity you're using to listen to this. Right. They're just cranking like this. It's just like, wait, what's that word he said? Go back. Go back.

Rewind it. Yeah, that's right. Rewon the tape. Well, that's a great introduction. We got some questions for you from our avid fans. Avid listeners. Our listeners. Yes, great.

The guys. What's up first night? Also, sorry, do you have a green mark on your arm? Yeah, someone drew on me earlier. It was violent. Oh, okay, well, you don't have to, I won't make you relive that if you don't want to. My war stories. But did you deserve it?

No. Okay. I'm always the victim. Well, I was saying, well, you know, I mean, it may be deserved it. Anyway. So, Ewan asks, what are your best lifting tips to build loss of strength? And he put this in quotes, quickly slash quicker, end quote. Build strength quickly slash quicker.

Yes. Okay. So both. One could probably use one word for that. Currently on your mind. Yeah. I mean, eat enough. You got to eat enough.

I mean, as I say, you got to eat big to get big. But try to eat clean and put in the work, man. You got to put in the work as much as you can. And don't cheat yourself, right? I feel like a lot of people will go to the gym and they feel self-conscious about it, right? And they'll put on what they feel like as an impressive amount of weight and then they just half-wrap it. No one cares about that. No one's impressed by that.

And you're definitely not helping yourself. But even if you only put in a few plates, small plates, grind it out, make yourself suffer, people respect that. The wise will know. The wise will know. What was the name of the Philosopher's Lifting Club you wanted to start? Oh man, I've had so many different ideas over the years. The one that you told us was men with chests.

Men with chests. That's a great time. Yeah, it is. There's also will to power. Nizsia. Afin Nica. Right. And then let's see.

Philosopher Kings. Yes. A classic. Plato. Plato, Plato, Hey, we remember him.

Yeah, I feel like you subtly quizzing us. That's right. Is that one of those quizzes again? Yeah, that's right.

Finish in five minutes and go, you just fill my water bottle. You would always go bam, and you'd be out of there. I'm done. Maybe it's my dyslexia

of it. No, because I write like, I just chicken scratch. Sorry about that. Was his handwriting was horrible? Yes.

It was pretty bad, but I, I, as you both know, I have, I'm in no position to judge when comes to handwriting. It's pretty awful.

You have that little board. I do have that little board I don't like that that thing is no one else I've never seen another prophet he'll still use like an iPad I'm addicted to my little board no it's yeah

it's super useful and look you know the meme of the week always got me yep I'm not proud of this fact but I really love using the whiteboard for the memes

yes yeah I really do one of the better just convenient I have to draw it on the board I only regret right now is that my app that I have won't let me put in

put on gifts but maybe someday the technology will catch up yeah yeah that'd be my Do you get a new meme every week, or do you have like the same set of memes for 105 and the same set of memes for... They're always expanding. And I need to spend some time. I mean, what is my life that this matters to me? But I need to spend some of the time over the summer, ideally, sorting through my various memes. Your meme folder? Because it's getting, it's getting unwieldy. I've got around 400 now. Unwieldy meme folder. All for philosophy. Yeah, it's purely just philosophy. Yeah. That's awesome. And so I try to keep up with the...

things. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. There'll be hours of entertainment. Yes. So I've got one for every day, for every class. Every day of the year. Yeah, that's right.

Liam asks, what should I do to prepare for your philosophy class next fall? Oh, yeah. So if you don't haven't met Liam, our friend, he's a freshman here. Oh, great. We recommended your class, and he's going to be taking it next fall. Great guy. What tips do you have going into the first class? He's discerning, right?

Yeah. I just want to think about this about what would be, of the top advice. There's always the, the obvious things are, of course, like, do the blasted readings, right? That's always really important and makes the conversation a whole lot better if I'm talking to people who've done the readings, right? But I think being willing to engage honestly with the texts as they present themselves and try to give each figure that we're reading a charitable interpretation as much as you can.

because I think if we can try to approach these texts from a perspective of trying to learn something new, I think we're going to get a whole lot more out of it. Oh, yeah. Can you change my grade? Did you not do well? No, I did fine. What I'm about to reveal.

Are you going to say your grade on air? No, no. I get like a B plus or something. Okay, yeah. I did not always do my reading. No, no, I figured. I know, yeah. He's like, duh.

I know, mate. Dang it. I was really hoping you, when he looked at me, he was like, do you know the answer? I'm like, I think that I did more, definitely more readings in philosophy than you, but definitely less readings in great books than you. That's not, I think that's backwards.

Really? I read, I read a lot. I mean, I read almost everything in great books, because there were three books. I skipped a, I had already read the Odyssey in Great Books one. So I mean, great books one. In Grey Books one, I skipped a large majority of Odyssey

because I had already read it. Pretty recently, too. So I was like, but, yeah. Don't tell Dr. Peters. Well, when we inevitably have to have them on, we'd be like, yeah, we skipped everything. We didn't do any reading. Cole asks, what is the most embarrassing lift in a public gym? Ooh.

Well, look, let's see. I think it's the hip thrust. What? Well, look, here's that a real lift? Yes, it's to train your glutes. So that's up there, right? That's up there. For me, I think the scariest.

lift is going to be, which could, like, because it's scary because of the risk of embarrassment, is going to be something like a squat or deadlift. Just because of the immense amount of pressure it puts on your core, if you're feeling it all gassy, you're really rolling the dice on that. That's all the leg day, man.

Yeah, well, that's right. And then you sort of, you look around, like, make sure everyone else has their headphones on. You're like, oh, boy. Start letting it flies. Yeah, what the? We moved up to the rack after you, whoa, whoa. What's wrong with this game? That's awesome.

Someone's been eating their protein. Yeah. Nothing else. That's just straight. Your protein diet for this moment. Do you have any, speaking of headphones, do you like, what kind of, do you listen to music? Oh, yeah. What's your favorite, what's like your motivational music or what kind of music do you listen to?

You know, I, I've got some of my channels on Pandora. Yeah. Pandora. I know. I know. I know, I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You don't need to. Multiple apologies.

But I, you know, I'm, so I have my channels there. I have a nine-inch nails channel. Yeah. There's also a band called Zeal and Arder. Zeal and Ardor. Yeah, which is quite interesting. That sounds like a band. An intense.

A philosopher would like. I don't know how much we should talk about this, but apparently their origin story. is that they were, the lead singer was creating music and wanted just brutally honest feedback on it. Yeah, just like we want. Yeah, that's right, yeah.

And so he went to the place where you can get brutally honest feedback, namely 4chan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so he would post his music and get feedback, right? And he asked 4chan what kind of like, tell him two genres to mix,

and he's going to play around with that. and so what they suggested, though, yeah, and what they suggested was to mix together African American gospel music with black metal. Whoa. And it's kind of cool. It is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wild.

It's pretty wild. And it's sort of like this sort of alternative history. Gospel music's so good. Yeah. But this is very different. Oh, yes. This is because it's a little strange. Yeah, it's very strange.

Go listen. I got to go listen. of this. Okay. Yeah. See what that's all about. That's awesome. No, no, I'm not so imagining. That's what you're listening to while you're just like lifting. That's right. That and Britney Spears. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Sabrina Carpenter. Yeah, right. Ava asks, what got you into lifting? And did it have anything to do with philosophy? No. So I enjoy lifting weights, you know, since I was in high school and just pushing the plates. been something I've really gotten a kick out of.

But the main reason, the main driving force for me, for getting into the gym, is that I'm an extremely anxious person. And weightlifting has been a huge factor in contributing to my own sort of therapy and helping sort of clear my head because when you're pushing a whole lot of weight, it has the effect of just clearing your mind. And so it's been just a great sort of way to deal with anxiety. And some of my good friends who know this about me will see me at conferences and things like that. And they're saying, Ian, you're looking huge.

I'm so sorry. You okay? It must have been a stress for the week. I remember the email I got. I was at dinner and I just get an email. I'm like, oh, Dr. Church has emailed me. Wait, what? 405.

Yeah, you're a couple email to our class. He has just a picture of you like, yeah, thumbs up. And it's like, I hit the goal. We were all like, yes. Now you can finally get him on a cut. Yeah, that's right. Now it's cutting season at long last. Yeah.

It hasn't been very successful just yet. No. Is it still cutting season? I'm trying to, man. I'm just, I like to eat. Spring cut. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that this is what we're talking about when I'm like one of the scroniest guys. Look at me. Yeah, both of the other, both the hosts of the show are just like, well, they can't see us. The audience doesn't know what we look like. We're huge. Yeah. We're ripped. That's not true.

No, we're. That's lying. That's unethical. We are small, thin people. Yes. But I get down there in the Simpson gym, you know. You got some great equipment over there. You know what?

You know who's... We do? Yeah, yeah. We got some rogue racks? That's top flight stuff, man. We do. We get some good stuff. We occasionally, like, it's been like once a week or every other week this semester.

Just a bunch of guys will show up at two in the morning. All right. Like with sudden motivation. It's an in ideal time to lift. Of course, but it's funny. And then you get, like, tunes cranking and like... You get a little more. Usually they.

Yeah, someone drops away. Kong, Ms. Wilson's like, what, thark? But no, yeah, it's middle of the night lift have been a core memory this month. Yeah, good. Yeah, everyone's awesome. Elijah asks. Oh, no.

Guy that you'd want to beat up slash arm wrestle the most in Simpson. I don't, I don't, just straight up beat him up. I don't, I don't have that kind of vendetta against fist fight. It might be more directed at us. Yeah, it's definitely.

I mean, the other two questions he asked were favorite and least favorite. We can't say. least favorite person. It's going to be us too. Oh, yeah, you're my least favorite. I'm the least favorite. You were to say I'm your least favorite. I'm your least favorite. I know that. If this guy I want to arm wrestle in Simpson,

hmm. I don't think I can. Who am I going to win against? I don't think I can beat that many people. Who am I going to win? I mean, I'll arm wrestle Elijah. I mean, I've thought about, uh, whenever I had a student who's, who has caused me some grief. I have thought about adding, adding, I've, I've thought about adding, I've thought, I've thought about adding some new lines to my syllabus and name those lines after them. Clause? So, like, at one point, I had a student who just wanted me to review, like, every new sentence that she was writing.

Oh, my lor. And so she's writing this essay, and she's really, really nervous about it and wanted me to look at a draft and look at another draft. And so I almost added a new, if it was going to be that much of a problem, I was going to add another line in my syllabus called Hannah's Rule. I will only one draft. Once. I will not review any more than that. That's right. If you come to me, I will say no.

Right. Meenly. I will be a big bully. What do you think, curious, what do you think is the, like, cut off for, like, your grace period on essay due dates?

Because I don't think we have the, I didn't turn anything late, but I'm curious because I've been hearing about some other stuff going on. And, no, no, I'm not going to drop any names. But, you know, there's some, it's like, Like, essay is, like, what would you say about an essay being turned in, like, after break? Like, you end class and then, like, next January they turn it in.

Look, I mean, I am slow to anger and abounding in mercy. And I am generally very, very sympathetic. And it depends on the situation, right? So if someone's like, I am just profoundly lazy, you know, that's not going to do it. I forget what your policy was on late work. essentially my policy was if you're if you're running into a brick wall and you're having trouble talk to me um because i'm i'm generally pretty happy to work with you i don't get too hung up on like this is the exact due date so i'm happy to um let you turn it in a little bit later if if the need

arise is um it's because i know things are difficult things come up and so i just don't want i don't want anyone to feel like they need to turn to like chat gpt of course to just crank it out and get it done i'd rather than take put in the work get it done uh and not have that sort of temptation. And so, you know, I'm happy to work with them to make sure that happens. Yeah. I love your, your AI stuff. Yeah, I was going to ask the question about that.

Yeah. It's, it's, I love the, I said, I love the CCA. I loved parts of the CCA. Sure, sure. Specifically, the panel at the end with you and the other two professors. I thought that was the most insightful part of the entire system. That of siphred on it? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It was so good. Good. And that was after a couple speakers that had been, yeah, all right. And then the professor came and just showed him in the business. And I was like, yes, great. It was awesome. No, it's fun.

What kind of got you into like that A? I guess that's sort of a tangential philosophy topic. I've been wanted to ask questions about this. Like, what do you think is like, because even in class, a lot of the time you would, you know, pull aside a small tangent about AI. And I would be like, this is kind of weird coming from a philosophy professor. Because you're clearly interested in it. Oh, yeah. Like, where do you think that that's going to go?

Like, like. Yeah, well, I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go. I think it's immensely interesting. And I think it is, I think we're on the cusp of a significant cultural revolution in many ways, right? So I think there's a lot of anxiety about it and I get that. I understand that. But I think there's a tremendous amount of potential and excitement that can come from this new technology. And, you know, depending on how it goes, I've heard some people suggest that, you know, the revolution that we could be

the cusp of is as big as the agricultural revolution. Like this is going to fundamentally reimagine, forces to reimagine what human life looks like. And so anyway, I'm just wanting to see what this tool can do, how it works, how I might be able to use it in the classroom, how I might be able to use it for my own work. I like to brainstorm with it using its or bounce ideas off of. The other day I needed to give some feedback on an honors thesis.

And I just, I was crunched for time. So I told ChatGPT, I threw the thesis at it, and I said, I'm going to be going on a drive. I want you, can you read this to me while I'm driving? And then like stop periodically so I can give some feedback. And then we'll keep track of all my feedback. And then I can give that to the student. And it's good. It was great.

And so it like very carefully read through the thesis. It would stop after a paragraph and be like, okay, what do you think about this? Is that sound okay? And I give my feedback and said, okay, do you want to keep going? You would have anything else to say? And it was really seamless, really, really seamless. But the frustrating thing, so I have, I pay for the plus version or whatever it's called. And that gives me, allows me to train my own bots.

And I have a bot that I've trained sort of to interact with me in a way that I prefer. In this instance, I was driving with the bot that was not my trained bot, which meant that it was doing some things that were kind of annoying to me. because it gets, it's extremely over the top with praise. Oh, towards you? Yeah, yeah. And so, because I just feel like it's, you know, pulling my leg. Great job.

Seriously, seriously. It's so crazy because, so I'm driving across Michigan, taking my son to a soccer game. And he's sitting in the backseat hanging out, listen to me, you know, argue with this bot. And. Who are you talking to? Yeah, yeah. And so they're working on their voice technology. Those are scary.

Well, it is. It really is. And so I was, you know, at one point in the essay, I made some sort of point. I think I need to emphasize this. The framing's really going to matter here. Da-da-da-da-da. And then the bot literally went, oh, that's such a good point. Like it made that, oh, noise at me.

I was like, come on. I know you don't feel that emotion. I know you. You don't know what they're. to me. You have no idea what you're talking about. You've never been like, you've never been, oh, wow, that's a great point. You've never been in a debate. I wonder, do they think that, like, some people are actually going to be like, wow, and, like,

feel complimented and well because of that? That's weird. Have you seen the ones where it's, like, it's not, like, I'm totally cool with AI, how, like, chaty-betees where it's, like, a tool, a computer, like, just something like that. They're, like, the ones that are, like, a person, Or like they're trying to be a person. Their whole goal is to emulate. Yeah.

Yeah. Can I talk about another podcast on this one? Yeah, for sure. So there's a podcast called Hi-Fi Nation. It's a philosophy pack podcast. And I really love it. And they have an episode on the future of love. And what they are talking about is, and this was several years ago.

I'm sure this is going to be radically different even now, how some people are just giving up on human relationships entirely because they're so messy people are disappointing all this kind of stuff right and so they end up training a bot to be their romantic partner oh that's whole that's that's spooky oh it's super narcissistic as well right and so you can train like this your significant other to laugh at your jokes and to they never do anything annoying or if they do anything annoying you tell them they never do it again and so like it is a bizarre kind of uh relationship in air quotes uh that people are sort of um developing there and yeah there There's a lot to be thinking about.

That's just, that's so disturbing. That's a black mirror episode. Oh, it is. Yeah, yeah. That's disturbing profoundly. Well, there's also, you know, they have another episode on the future of grieving. Okay. And so if someone passes away and you have a lot of texts from them, you can give a bot all the text and say, I would like for you to act like this person.

Oh, yeah, you told me something about this. Yeah. This was, I think this was like the most spooky to me. Yeah. It will emulate the deceased so you get to spend more time with them. That's so bad. Is that any of them from like the Obama voice? That's essentially the same thing.

Right. So you can have them, if you don't have a voice, enough voice data for them to the bot to be trained on, you can just use text, right? And so let's say like a grandparent or something passed away and you didn't really get closure. You could give it all the text and like you sort of therapeutically use it in theory to get some closure, whatever you needed to sort of work out and be done. But of course, you could also see it, like, being parasitic and saying, I never want this person to die. I want them to always be in my life.

And I want this sort of shadow of them to be forever interacting with me. And that seems, I mean, I'm not a therapist, but that seems less healthy to me. Yeah. I feel like people use just, like, write poetry about this rather than, like, build bots. Right. And now we build robots. Act like their dead love. I feel like people would make a painting.

Yeah, yeah. Write a poem. Go for a walk. Well, you know, there was a new study that came out. that showed that people tend to prefer poetry written by AI over people. I said that to Dr. Jackson. I was- Dr. Jackson, infuriated.

I also asked ChatGBT to create a poem to commemorate this, this triumph. And said that to him. Well, it was fine. It was fine. It was very simple. But, yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite video games is Detroit Become Human.

Oh, yeah. You've heard of this. It's a kind of choose-your-reve-re-reve- own story kind of experience where it's just a futuristic, not too far-flung future world where they have Androids. Yeah. Which are, they put the bots basically that we have into like very human looking bodies and they just become the servants.

Oh, right. Sure. So they have this whole like, like low bond. Sort of. But they're like they look exactly like humans except they have this like the glowing circle on their temple that like will display different colors depending on what's going on. But they can't harm humans. They can't do anything.

They just like live in society and do stuff where you. you buy one and it like cooks, cleans, takes care of your children, does everything for you. And then there's like this slow progression throughout the story as the bots like slowly like start to do more and more things because they're programmed to learn and then they slowly like start to, well they're presented with more and more challenging dilemmas as they are more and more integrated into society. Like one of the bots is presented with a choice like, oh my caretaker is being threatened by another member of his family and I'm meant to protect him but I'm also not supposed to harm humans and they have to like wrestle with the grapple with those choices.

It is yeah. The catch is the whole game you're playing as the bot's perspective. Oh. So you come into it as a as a freshly bought robot. Yeah, yeah. Make the decision. It's really, really interesting. It's not fun.

Okay. But yeah, I highly recommend it. But it's, it's got me thinking recently because I was just, I was just looking at earlier today. And, uh, yeah, I, I don't think I'm worried for the future in that regard. I don't think I have any like fear in my heart. Yeah. But I'm, I'm, I'm apprehension. for what humans will do to themselves

given this power. Yeah, I've seen a lot of some of the more experts on it who are a little bit more optimistic are like, you really, it really can't become like Terminator. No. It can't Skynet where it like starts to like kill people.

Yeah, we're not getting an ultra on it. It can't do that. But the problem will arise when it's we will make the problem. Like it will be us. It's the people. It's the people. Do it to ourselves.

Yes. Like the AI cannot be malicious. Yeah. And like you're talking about like the using it for like the too much for the love or grief or for like too long term and getting lost in that is for sure unhealthy. Sure. Sigh up ourselves basically. Well, I do wonder if there's a future where the kind of higher education that we offer at Hillsdale is going to be particularly valuable.

Because I think the way a lot of higher education is moving is in terms of just like here are some facts. I just need to know this different information in these different sort of areas. But it's not really concerned with like humane learning. and a lot of what higher education can offer can be given to you by a bot. And so there's a worry that I think a lot of people have is that we're on the cusp of a collapse in higher education. But that might mean that institutions like Hillsdale where there's a focus on the liberal arts and humane learning, that that might be sort of the uniquely valuable sort of method of higher education going forward. I'd like to think so.

Yeah. So you're saying I shouldn't be a professor. I mean, we can talk about that. Your career is over. I know. He's fine because he's here. You're finished. That's right.

I'll be an alumni. They'll hire me. There you go. Please, please, please, please. That's right. Let's move on to a silly, slightly disturbing question. Jack asks, would you rather have a herniated disc or lose one thumb?

Whoa. It's just a very, I feel like he was trying to be Wyatt, which once again, we have not had a Wyatt question. I'm going to hunt Wyatt down. I'm kidding, by the way, but I'm going to make him.

Wyatt has notoriously had really funny questions. Okay. We've heard from him in like three weeks. Yeah. But anyway, I... Would you rather have a thumb... Lose a thumb or have a herniated disc? I assume you can get the disc, like, fixed.

Thumbs are important. Yeah, I kind of like my thumbs. I would take the disc because I got a compression fracture in two of my vertebrae the other year. And that hurt really bad. Just the other day? Not at Simpson's Smackdown. No.

No. This was at a homecoming freshman year, last... last year. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I got double compression fracture into my end plates. It hurts so bad. But I still snap crack and knock rock. I was I wasn't paralyzed yet, maybe. But like, I mean, I'm alright.

But I think I'll take the herniated disease. My dad might disagree. He's had a couple of those. How painful those? Quite. I don't know. I suspect, yeah. Debilitating. Are they, do they heal one day? No, they're surgical. It's a hernia. Oh, Lord. It's a hernia. You have to get surgery. My dad's had them twice.

once from picking up a tree I've had hernias but I've never had a herniated disc depending how long term the pain is I might take the thumb actually if it's like decades of pain or like years of pain maybe a thumb's not so bad my left thumb gone

so like how he's how he's phrased is it's it obviously hurts extremely badly once it like happens like once you like pull the muscle out of place which I think that's what a hernia is like pulling the muscle

Did a disc or a hernia? Hernated disc. Okay. I don't quite know that I don't have a hernia and a herniated disc. I've had a hernia regular, but not a disc specifically. Because I think the herniated disc is when sort of some of the tissue

you know, around between your vertebrae can pop, you puff out. And I think there are certain types of things you can, so I like to stress, I'm a philosopher and not a medical expert, so I don't know anything about this stuff, but. And you're two college students. Yeah, we're, yeah, sophomores in college.

But I thought there are certain, it depends on how bad it is. You might be able to, you know, take it easy and correct that in some ways. Do some hangs. I don't know. But I'm quite fond of my thumbs. And so that's something I know enough about that I choose.

You just need one thumb to know if you're going to survive the apocalypse, though. Because when the nuclear bomb goes off, you stick your hand out. And if the bomb, if the explosion is taller than your thumb at full length from your eye, then you get cooked. You need to run. Yeah. You need to run. Say, I don't know.

Start moving. I don't know if I want to survive. I think I just want to just be done. Yeah, like run to it. Run to it. That's the next level. That's crazy. That is.

You know, apparently the new, like the New Age bombs don't have the whole, like, nuclear just fallout, like, death. Really? Thing. They don't. They're just, it's like a... So the ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are atomic bombs. Right now, I think we have, like, fusion bombs. We're like four generations past that.

Atomic? Hydrogen. Then I think there's another one. in there. And then I think we're at like the fourth generation out. And I also could be completely wrong about this. I am a college student to be a history major. So I could be wrong. But they don't like they don't do that. Like they don't kill just like everything. Like it's not acid rain. It's a problem. Deserts and wastelands for miles. It's a problem. And it's obvious, the bigger problem is the fireball and the shock wave. Right. It's more of an impact there.

Passive force is the thing that kills most people first. Yes. But like it doesn't, it doesn't, like, you won't radiate a place for centuries. Unless you want to. Unless you want to. I mean, then you can use the old ones. Unless you want. You can use the old ones and then you'll do that. Yeah, yeah, right.

Yeah. Radiation's cool. Yes. Horrifying, but cool. Fallout, fallout video games. Oh, those are so good. Fingers crossed. Yeah, it's a great game series. And I was always like, oh my gosh.

You know, like there's like ghouls, people that like survive with lots of radiation and fallout. I was like, oh, cool fantasy or whatever. apparently that's not entirely unreal. In Russia, there have been instances of people surviving with radiation long past when they should have been able to survive with like no food and water and then fighting to the last stand.

Very interesting stuff. I just read an article a better reason. In Chernobyl or just random places? No, no, no. There was an event where there was like a Russian fort and they were, I think this was in one of the World Wars, but I don't remember which one. I'm not a history major.

Well, that's not radiation then. No, okay, no, it was because it was, it was, it was, what was it was it was, what was it. It was some sort of like, diseased, irradiated something they had going on in, uh, that they, like, were flinging stuff at them. And then they were like, they all died. And, like, oh, we're, they all died. They haven't, we haven't heard of them from like 14 days or something. And they go in the fort and they're like, their limbs are falling off, but they still stand up and fight them to the last man. I was like, I know this story. This was in World War I. They're fighting the Germans. Okay. Was it actually radiation or was I just trying it was, it was like. Mustard gas, I thought. It was, yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was Like a super early form of mustard chlorine gas. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So not radiation. Like, it didn't breathe it in and you're like, my lungs are on fire now and I'm dead. It was like corrosive.

So they were basically Russian zombies. Essentially. Pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool stuff. Yeah, not radiation, but. Yeah. But it's very cool story. Yeah.

It is super awesome. What is it with things that I thought were not real, being real? What? Is that a non sequitur? Well, no. I also thought that igloos were fake. Really? When I was young.

We talked with this in a previous episode. I thought that Igloos were not a real thing and that it was Eskimo propaganda, and I was proven wrong. Yeah, yeah. I was like, surely they just live in like yurts. There's no way. Yeah, we have time for one more question?

I want this question. Let's hear. Let's hear it. So Victor. Oh, Victor. Victor. First of all, Victor says hi. He supposedly said, tell Dr.

I said hi. Hi, Victor. He asks, do you intend to throw anyone else through tables? Are you on the hunt? No. I don't have very, don't really have anger issues.

Yeah. Yeah. And if I am planning on throwing anyone through a table, I'm not going to say it on a radio. Of course. I thought, you know, I thought it was funny.

And one of the best reasons why your part in Smackdown was hilarious was because you were, you're just not the kind of guy to ever do that. And like, when we were like, so the effort, this is kind of what I want generally to do. You were like,

okay, you're kind of like your hands and your hips. You're like, yeah, okay, so I'll throw him here. You know, like, very analytical. Very analytical.

Very analytical. Like, nonviolential. at all. It wasn't like, all right, yeah. It was like, all right, all right. I just want to make sure there's no yeah. Right. It was hilarious. Unlike some of the other prof cameos, which got quite violent. Yeah, like after the years, you're like, yeah, he would have, he would love to throw someone through a team to get him the chance. Yeah, straight up explode you. But that was funny. Yeah. And Victor was perfect for the job. Have I sent, do you have the picture? I should send you the photos we took. Oh, right? Because there's a great action shot where Victor's legs are just up in the air and he's just

like flying backwards as you're just tanking him. Yeah, it's awesome. Please send it to me. It would be awesome. It's also really funny. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They just did it and then Lewis was like, wait, what about the table? The table's right here.

We'll do it again. And they struggled to put the two just like through the picture. And the crowd went crazy both times. Give me the tables. Yeah. Sounds great. So we need, are we about out of time? No, no.

Okay. So just one of my favorite stories from parents weekends. This past. No, it was in past, in the past couple years. I had a, some parents, come schedule a time to meet with me and they told me this explicitly to make sure that like to see if I was as big

as their sunset I was and thankfully they didn't make me flex or anything but that was that was their main reason you're like a little twirl did you get a pump before no no I had no idea I was like okay well do you want to talk about the class yeah what about the academics

they're like you're like you're like you're like you're specific yeah what are your numbers yeah right Yeah, I tell my parents when I was calling them last semester, I was like, this philosophy guy is awesome.

Gentle giant. The Hulk. Yeah. And by the way, it's Blue Shirt Day. It is Blue Shirt Day. I love that we didn't coordinate this, but we're all wearing Blue Shirt Day. Last year in philosophy class, every day,

every Thursday. Blue Shirt Day. And I was, I just feel like I should say, perpetually anxious, because I had no idea when it was going to, and what it meant? Because I get scared. And like, everyone's telling me.

blue shirt day and I don't know you students can be rascally and I don't know what I'm signing up for if I wear a blue shirt if I'm what I'm communicating other people I'm just like I said I'm a nervous blue shirt cult I didn't know that I was just like aha fun dr. church sure sure he was just like there's fear behind your eyes I'm like oh no it's always there yeah it's always there yeah well speaking of being always there we'll always be here and we'll be back next week thank you Dr. Church for coming on. That's all the time we have for today. Got any last words? It's been an honor. Yeah,

I don't think I do. I just really appreciate you taking the time to bring me on the show. Yeah, shameless shout out to Dr. Church's philosophy class. If you haven't filled that core requirement, Dr. Church is the man. So get in there and do it. And his upper levels are good, apparently. Apparently. According to Bobby. My greatest regret now is not

doing one of your upper levels. You still can. I still can. I probably will at some point. He's not dead. But not doing one this, or next semester. I've already filled up my schedule next semester. Philosophy science next semester. I have, we can't next semester. We already are worked it out. But I will. I've scheduled my schedule out. I'll have some big openings. I'll latter half of junior year and first half senior year.

Logic. Sure. Hey, let's lock in. Yep. Let's do it. Awesome. Thanks again. We'll see you guys there and we'll see you with listener back here next week for more boys only. See you.