AS140: At Long Last, Listener Comments

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Atheistically Speaking, episode 140 with your host, Thomas Smith. All right. Well, if I sound completely different, it's because I moved my desk around. So, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. No, it is a totally different experience for me. Everything is in a different place. I'm making better use of space and it's really interesting recording my first podcast. Of course, this is not at all of interest to you, and there's no reason why it would make me sound different. I just thought I would bring that up just for fun. Anyway, here's our comments edition. I don't get a chance to go over your comments often enough. I really don't, especially because there are a lot of good ones.

0:01:16 Thomas: And in preparing for this show, I realized that this is kind of going to be a Mike Samsa edition because Mike Sams has a lot of good comments, and uh, yeah, there's... there's two at least I'm going to talk about, uh, so thank you, Mike. Of course, I'm definitely thank you for your great comments, but also I want to encourage other people to definitely comment because I can do this more often, especially if I keep getting thoughtful stuff. So thank you so much for that.

Please, uh, you can comment on the website atheisticallyspeaking.com or, you know, Facebook or Patreon if you're a patron. I get a lot of comments there too. Thank you. So why don't we go in reverse order, because I think the recent show is going to be most memorable to everyone and then I can do some exposition on some past comments and stuff, but yeah, so Monday's episode kind of about the Louis CK thing and and and other things. Mike had this comment. Mike and Latanya had good comments that I'm gonna go over, so I probably won't read all of this one, but I'm, I'm going to read some of it. Okay. Okay. So Mike agrees, I'll just read it. On Louis C.K. is making child rape victims the butt of the joke. I agree with you here, I don't think he is. And instead, the joke is more about the absurd reasoning behind the actions of the molester.

Well, my only real query here is why frame it as progressive issue? I get that your friend is progressive and his views are maybe shaped by progressive ideals, but ultimately, it seems like just a difference in opinion or taste, not really a progressive sticking point.

0:02:55 Thomas: As you remark, trying to understand the complexities of the motivations of a child molester is more of a progressive opinion. Here's the reason I use the word progressive, because I don't have any, and now it's, of course, anecdotal, but please cite examples or let me know if you think I'm wrong, but I don't have any experience with people word policing with things like this, like the Louis CK joke about, you know, my, I, the only thing he can understand is he likes mounds bars more than anything, but he still doesn't like it as much. As much as child molesters like molesting childs, as he said. I don't know how to turn that joke into something that is insulting the victims of child molesters.

0:03:42 Thomas: I don't get it. I really don't. And the only time I have heard that be done is with people who are so Super progressive. I don't, I mean, maybe that's just the kind of people I come across, but I guess I don't know what to call it. I use the word progressive because that tends to be the mindset of people who I encounter that are like this. It seems to be a big problem at universities nowadays, at least a problem according to some people, that word policing and language policing is getting so extreme that it borders on censorship. And I think some of it is probably good. Some amount of it is definitely good. I mean, I think it's great to not cause meaningless offense to people, but I don't like the extent to which it's gone.

0:04:29 Thomas: And that is, to my mind, a progressive thing. I think when you said the joke is more about the absurd reasoning behind the actions of the molester, I just want to say right there, I'm wondering if you maybe just, I don't know, maybe you typed that and didn't quite word it the way you wanted, or maybe you misunderstood what I was saying. It's not about the absurd reasoning behind the actions of a child molester.

It's about the fact that reason is obviously not applying to him, and it's obviously a force in his or her, let's be real, it's mainly men who do this, statistically, actually, I can back that up, uh, behind the child molester's actions there's such an urge that logic doesn't apply and people assume, I think a lot of people assume that they are logical and they, they're just something wrong with it, or they're just evil to want to do horrible things to kids, uh, despite the punishment or whatever, whereas Louis is pointing out that it must be something in just absurdly powerful, powerful to make them want to do this. It's not reasoning. But anyway, that's a minor point.

The thing I did want to say is you said, I get that your friends, it seems like it's difference in opinion or taste, not really a progressive sticking point. I don't see that as this. Well, of course, it's going to be a difference in opinion and any difference when you're exchanging ideas. If you disagree, I guess that anything is going to be a difference of opinion, but is a difference of taste?

0:06:09 Thomas: I don't think that's what it is. It's not, here's a joke. I didn't laugh. That would be a difference in taste. I laugh and then person A laughs. Oh, that's a funny joke. Person B is like, no, I don't know. Not funny. They have a difference in taste, either it's not funny, etc. When person A laughs at a joke and then Person B says, you know what he's trying to say with that joke? He's he's insulting all child victims of child molesters, all children victims of child molester. That's not a difference of taste. It's not like person A agrees that he's assaulting victims of Child molesters but he finds it funny and person B doesn't. That that's not what's happening. But person A, which is me in this case, there's nowhere in Louie's intentions is there an intent to offend victims of child abuse.

0:07:02 Thomas: I mean, that's, and that's what I want to get to in a minute. I'll hold that thought. Person B somehow is shaping it. In this case, my friend that I interacted with is just, I don't know where you get that. I think, okay, here's my opinion is that some people are really, really hell bent on finding a way to extract kind of emotional payment from people By saying that they're insulting people when they're not. I know that was a little abstract. As with everything, there is a spectrum where on one hand, it's totally rational. It's totally logical. If someone makes a racist joke, it is completely fine for people to take offense to it.

0:07:49 Thomas: I think I spoke a little hastily when I made that offhand comment about taking offense. I actually meant I spoke little too fast because what I was really talking about was sort of being harmed, letting words harm you when it comes to like distasteful things. Like if someone just says some grotesque thing, I don't I'm not going to like it, but I'm not going sit and say I'm offended. Like if someone talks about some gross sex act or something that's not really funny, it's just for, you know, to be shocked. I don't, that doesn't affect me. And I don'T see that as some race thing. I think I, and let me be clear in that I didn't make this clear on Monday.

0:08:35 Thomas: So I, Mike, I totally understand the way you interpreted what I said because I didn't make this clearly. I didn't take the time to make it clear. But I also have some other things to say about this. So when I said like, I don't understand, I'm never offended by anything. I meant offended like in the kind of gross out factor of offended, like the way typical moms are, you know, grossed out by any sort of sexual content of that sort of stereotypical thing. I'm not offended by that. Those words don't harm me. When you say some gross thing, I know I'm going to like it. I'm not going to cheer it on and it's probably not going to be funny unless it's like a really good joke or something, but it doesn't, I'm, I don't, I'm Not Outraged. That's what I don't get.

However, I do think that going back to what I was saying, I do think there are people like my friend here who are really looking to score some sort of points. I don't know what the points are. They're either points for themselves, points for other people to recognize that they're offended on behalf of people. There's a lot of being offended on behalf of people. Now again,

0:09:44 Thomas: There's a whole legitimate side of this and I'm all for it, but I think it goes too far, especially Actually, this case that I laid out that I took word for word from an exchange I had with a totally normal, what I've found to be a pretty representative person, is just trying to stretch whatever you can to be offensive. And it's not a difference in taste, like I said. I mean, it's just skewing the facts. And what I want to suggest is there is a continuum and here's how I think you can evaluate it. I'll come back to your comment, Mike, but I'm going to go to Latanya real quick because she had a comment that is relevant to what I'm saying here. So Latanya's comment is short and great. I'm gonna just try to read through it.

0:10:30 Thomas: I find that everyone really has different levels of what qualifies as offensive. Again, this is fine, but I recognize that I misspoke on Monday because I wasn't totally talking about just anything offensive. I was talking about like gross out offensive, but anyway, it's okay. This comment still is interesting. So I personally am more judgmental of people who are purposefully trying to be offensive and have upsetting people as their goal. I find the intent part more threatening than the words. Like Thomas, it's pretty difficult to really offend me. Honestly, I've never faced any serious harm in my life physically or verbally, so it is easier for me to think about that sort of thing in the abstract. To your point about bigots enjoying offensive comedy, which I think was something Mike said.

0:11:17 Thomas: I'll get back to. I'm reminded of Sarah Silverman having an experience that made her face this, where some guy was telling her how much he loved her racist jokes. Uh, I'm sure that plenty of comedians who make good jokes that comment on race relations are seen as funny by racists. I appreciate good jokes regardless. I corrected your irregardless. Sorry, Latanya. That's a pet peeve of mine. Irregardeless, not a word. But But other than that, great comment. I think this is where my position on intent in this matter comes in. I think having to worry about filters would be restrictive to comedians. It bothers me that Chris Rock recently decided to stop performing at colleges because of the restrictive environment in terms of offensive language. However, I do believe that all comedians should think heavily before making jokes about serious issues because of that offense factor.

0:12:07 Thomas: A comedian who tells a bad and offensive joke that gets nothing but shock value is a hack and worthy of derision. At the same time, I think some people make too much hay over the responsibility of comedians as they are just one aspect of popular culture. At the end of the day, very few are actually popular enough to be impactful. Yeah, totally. So that was a great comment. Thank you so much, Latanya. Latanya comments a lot too, and this is another reason why I should spend, devote more time to your comments. So that's interesting. I think there's a good side. When I say there's a side that is rational to the being offended part, I still am not sure I would describe it in those words. Even granted, someone is saying something completely racist. I know I'm white, so I can't really...

0:12:52 Thomas: I'm trying to make it personal, and I know things don't really count for white people, which I kind of, you know, I agree. Things don't don't really count for white people, but let's just say someone is making a comment about how white men in their late 20s who are atheists are just total, you know, pieces of crap who, and so something, something that is very directly personal to me. I still don't see what the term being offended accomplishes. I really don't, and I don't want to sound, it sucks because there are are people who say these kinds of things that I still don't agree with. I'm all for pointing out when people are saying something that is just a bad, just inconsiderate and also not based on fact.

0:13:41 Thomas: I think that's important. When someone makes a racist joke, the part where you say I'm offended, I don't know what that accomplishes. I think what should be said is one, you can go ahead and say if it's something that's like actually personally insulting you, feel free by all means to call this person an asshole and say, why? Here's why you're an asshole. And you're ignorant because, you know, X, whatever the reason is. But it doesn't, I don't know, especially when you're dealing with someone who is racist, I don'T know what value there is in just saying, I'm offended. You just offended me. I don't really using that word. It seems like that only will get a reaction out of people who already agree with you. There are a lot of people who don't want to offend people who you can say, you just offended me, and they will backpedal like crazy.

0:14:31 Thomas: But I don't think those are the people that we should be worried about, right? I mean, it's weird that we use this terminology, yeah, I'm offended, you've just offended me, rather than just make your counter argument and say why the comments were ignorant, you know, to explain why this person is ignorant. Call them ignorant if you want but But I've never really understood. I'll be honest and and again I'll get more comments for this. I don't really value the comment, I'm offended. I don't know what that does. Now that doesn't mean, because there are people like this, I want to make clear, that doesn't mean I think anyone has license to say whatever they want free from responsibility. That doesn't mean that. I think that's very important. I hope I'm doing a decent job of explaining how I'm treading that middle ground because there ARE people who think you You can't, you know, there's no responsibility for whatever you say.

0:15:24 Thomas: If someone got offended, and this is where I'll get back to Mike's comment. If someone was offended by something I said, if someone took it personally, that's their fault. You know, I just, I say whatever, it's up to you to not be offended. I don't, I'm not going that far. I think you can say stuff that hurts people's feelings and, but it has to be wrong. Like if I, for example, I mean, okay, let's say I'm talking about a co-worker, which this could happen, honestly, this may be all too real. I'm a manager now. Now, let's say I'm in a meeting with my supervisor talking about one of my workers and I say, yeah, to be honest, this person is just not a good worker. Like they're not working hard. They can't do this, whatever.

0:16:10 Thomas: And it's information. I'm merely giving information to my superior, exterior. Let's say that employee overhears it. Now, that that probably hurts their feelings, I'm sure it would, I mean, I, it would, if I, if someone was saying that about me, I would, I would feel bad, basically, but what value is there as that employee, and again this is just an analogy, to to go and say, hey, you hurt my feelings when you said that, is there value to that, is their, should it be a rule that you can't say anything negative ever? I mean, it's, I don't think that's the rule. The rule is that if you're making some sort of claim about someone or something, you better have facts to back you up. And in that instance that I brought up, I'm giving my evaluation of an employee and there's no, there's no motive.

0:17:03 Thomas: I don't, I don't think the other, the employee is hearing me right now. So it's nothing but my honest take on it. It. But there are people who would apologize for that. Honestly, I wouldn't apologize. I might offer like a, well, I'm sorry you heard that. But to be honest, that's my honest opinion. But it's interesting to me that we do exist in a culture where people would probably back off from that. I would feel bad because it never feels good to make someone feel bad.

I don't think. I mean, it never makes, if my employee I was talking about overheard me, I would feeling really awful, awful, but they just heard my unadulterated opinion. So the important part is what's the basis of that opinion. Now, when it comes to something like racist jokes, obviously the important thing to point out is, hey, your opinion is bullshit and it's based on ignorance, and here's why. And that, I think that's more effective than the whoa, that's offensive, because that's offensive, it's, it's hard to know, like, what, what little things just offend people. There could be lots of little things that offend all kinds of people, and it's really hard to know, and and you, I don't think you have a responsibility when you're speaking to people in mass to to keep track of every little thing that might offend anyone.

Now you can do your best to do it, but I think this is where what LaTanya is saying about intentions is really important. So the criteria I would suggest, at a minimum, here's the criteria I would suggests for trying to adjudicate whether someone's comments warrant, you know, saying I'm offended, or, you know, how dare you, or that kind of thing.

0:18:36 Thomas: Just answer the question. What, really, like, what do you think Louis C.K.'s intentions were? If I asked Louis CK right now, if I asked him, Louis, did you mean, were you trying to say that you didn't care about victims of child rape or child, are you saying, are we trying to make them feel bad? Were you trying to offend them? Were you trying to say that those crimes don't matter? If I just do that experiment where you actually ask the person about the intent, do you think he would say yes? I think he would say absolutely not. That's ridiculous. I would never say that child rape or child molestation is no big deal. I would Never say that. They would never agree to that word.

0:19:23 Thomas: However, if you ask some of these comedians who make these racist jokes, if you ask, hey, do you really believe, you know, pick whatever the stereotype is that they're joking about. Do you really Believe that, you Know, Asians can't drive or whatever, you you know, whatever the joke is they're making or something, they would probably say yes, you know? Because like, that's, that's why they're making that statement, and that's why they're using that stereotype, is probably because they AGREE with it, and I think there's a big difference there. I think you can at least, you can AT LEAST ask the question in that case. It's a question where you might get a yes answer, or maybe you'll get some bullshit no answer, like, no, I don't really think that, but you know it makes people laugh, And then you can argue from there.

0:20:11 Thomas: But when, honestly, if you would imagine asking Louis C.K., do you intend to say that child molestation is no big deal? Do you, can you imagine him saying yes to that? It just is not, in that case, I think you're looking for hurt feelings where there shouldn't be. And that's all I want to say. I think there's a, there's the line that we can at least do our best to give a charitable Interpretation of. The next part of Mike's comment is pretty genius because he uses my own Louis C.K. against me here. Or so he thinks. We'll see. He says, on letting yourself be offended, I'm working a little from memory, but I think you said something along the lines of not understanding why your friend or others allowed themselves to be offended. Again, that's not exactly what I meant, but I accept that you could have definitely interpreted what I said on Monday to be that because I wasn't clear.

0:21:03 Thomas: But anyway, interestingly, this made me think of a piece from Louis' other SNL monologue, where he talks about guys trying to distance themselves from responsibility. He makes the point that you don't say you fired a gun, someone murdered themselves, they didn't lean to the bullet. This is great. I watched this, and I watched it in its entirety, and it's hilarious. This was an example of a really good Louis C.K. SNL monologue, and I encourage people to check it out, but I'm going to play just the tiny clip that Mike's talking about because I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to play some more Louis C.K. on my show.

0:21:39 Clip: I don't like boys. That's probably a good thing to say. I don't like boys! I don't think women are better than men, but I do think that men are worse than women. I was talking to my friend, and he said his girlfriend is mad at him. I said, what happened? He goes, well, I guess I said something, and then she got her feelings hurt. That's a weird way to phrase it. She got her feelings hurt. I said something, and then she, could you more remove yourself from responsibility? She got her feelings hurt. It's like saying, yeah, I shot this guy in the face, and then I guess he got himself murdered.

0:22:22 Clip: I just shot, I leaned into it, I didn't know.

0:22:26 Thomas: I have seen this way back in the day, I think. Pretty sure I saw this, but I didn't remember it offhand. Wow, that's pretty cool to have something from Louis C.K. that's so applicable to what I said Monday. Although, to be honest with you, Mike, I think that was a great clip to bring up because it's an interesting point, and I had to think about it. And what I came up with is this. I don't actually think it's the same because because I don't believe you have the same responsibility to every single listening member of your audience as you do in a relationship. In the relationship, absolutely. I think the scenario that Louis C.K. describes is absolutely absurd. You don't just say something to your, you know, romantic partner and then they get their feelings hurt.

0:23:15 Thomas: Like that's, I mean, it's possible that you could say something that they grossly misinterpret, but you still have a, you have a responsibility because it's your relationship. You really do. You have a responsibilty to say, figure out what happened, to either explain why you said something or explain why it might've been misinterpreted or explain, you know, all that. You have that responsibility, I think, because you're in that relationship. I don't believe you have that same responsibility when you're a standup comedian and you're You're speaking to potentially millions, millions of people. You do not have that same responsibility, I don't think. It's just not the same. You can say something, you can put on your best intentions, and And go from there.

0:24:01 Thomas: It reminds me of, even with my little show that by no means has millions of listeners, just a few thousand, an amazing percentage of the time, something I say will get two emails, one saying, wow, that was great what you said and you didn't go far enough, and the other saying, what you you said was wrong. It's you know, it hurts me. Here's why. I mean, that That happens a lot more than you would think. And when you're dealing with things, and this is just on a tiny scale with my podcast, I cannot imagine what a comedian would get, like tweets, constant tweets, constant this, constant that.

0:24:43 Thomas: There's no way to please everybody. I don't think you have, in a relationship, just a one-on-one relationship, you do have a responsibility to try to make the other person happy to, you know, at least a minimal degree. You have that responsibility to to that person. You can be held accountable, all that. But when you're talking about millions of people who all have different, you know, contrary points of view, you can do your best. But I really don't believe you have that same responsibility. I think you can, Louis C.K. can, I think he can say, in the case of the other SNL monologue, the one I played on Monday, I truly believe he could say and be morally okay, he could say, you know, I made a joke, I didn't intend any offense, but someone went and got their feelings hurt.

0:25:33 Thomas: I really believe he could say that. Maybe he wouldn't because it's so contrary to the language he just used in the clip you heard, but I think in that sense, it's totally fine because he doesn't have individual personal responsibility to all of us. He probably has some level of responsibility to not say anything too blatantly awful, and he's certainly going to be held accountable for whatever he says, pretty much. But if Louis C.K. or any comedian who speaks to millions of people does his best, has good intentions, and knows in his heart, or her, her, his or her heart, that he's making a joke for the right reasons, like Sarah Silverman, like LaTanya brought up, Sarah Silverman, I think she can rest easy. Now, I know it doesn't make her feel great to have some racist saying he likes her jokes, but I don't think that's her fault.

0:26:24 Thomas: And I don't think that Mike Samsa, Mike, I don't think you would say that was her fault, right? I mean, in that case, you could almost say, yeah, I made this joke and then some racist went and, you know, had his feelings happy, the opposite of feelings hurt. Some racist that got good feelings from it. Is that, is that her responsibility? I don't think it is. So I think we're talking about two different kinds of spheres of responsibility, but I do think that's an interesting point you brought up. And of course, one more time to bring it all around. I don'T, I, again, I'm all for you. You guys will know this about me. I DON'T say things that are overtly offensive, I hope. I do my best not to say things that are going to hurt people's feelings, but I know my intentions.

0:27:14 Thomas: I hope people know my intentions, and I invite criticism. If I ever get something wrong, I fully invite criticism, but for the most part, if I say something that I think my intentions were fine on and one of you gets all bent out of shape, which has happened occasionally, not too terribly often, I honestly feel like that kind of could be them getting their feelings hurt. Does that make sense, Mike? So let me know what you think on that. And again, thanks for the very thoughtful comment, but I'm going to move on to the comments from past shows. Specifically, Christina Hoff Sommers. Now, as I mentioned, I didn't realize for, it took me a second to realize that both these comments were from Mike. So, I kind of wish that weren't the case because it does seem a little weird doing a show about a bunch of Mike's comments when I could probably just invite Mike on.

0:28:05 Thomas: Maybe, Mike, if you ever want to come on just to have some discussion about something, let me know. But now I need to go back to Christina Hoff Summers. I got a lot of interesting comments, but this one had a lot in it that I think I need to address. So I'm going to start kind of partway through. Mike said, I think the overall tone of the discussion was good, but I did feel like maybe you lacked a lot of context, which would have heavily changed your perception of some issues. For example, knowing now that Summers is essentially the Andrew Wakefield or Deepak Chopra of social science, it should make sense why a university would have a disclaimer before their talk. Um, and this is in reference to the beginning of your comment when you just asserted that Christina Hoff Sommers is like the anti-vaxxer of social science.

0:28:54 Thomas: This could be the case, uh, but I, I'll be honest with you, Mike, I don't think that's necessarily true and you certainly haven't demonstrated, you know, uh demonstrated. You, it may be because the The comment was already going to be so long that you didn't go into it, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there, but I'm not really just taking it at your word necessarily that Christina Hoff Summers is like an anti-vaxxer when it comes to this stuff, because when you're talking about something like vaccines, you have a lot of really good, easy, hard science, and Anti-vaxxers are, I think, in pretty much 100% of the time, not experts. They're not the people you would consult.

0:29:39 Thomas: It is vastly different when you have something like the food babe is not an expert. She has no qualifications. And what she's talking about, because Mike did reference the food, babe is an example of like, who, She came to a college and then a professor was discrediting her. Yeah, those are all very verifiable claims. I mean, that's science. It's a bit different than when we're talking about Christina Hoff Sommers, who is a philosopher and has a PhD in philosophy and has written on feminism for a while. And we're talking about feminism. Imean, we're taking about a social movement. We're not really talking about a hard science. I kind of reject that comparison because there can, Definitely, I'm sure you will find, and Mike, feel free, definitely send me examples of where you think Christina Hoff Summers has misrepresented science, like actual science, like social science or whatever, or studies.

0:30:33 Thomas: That's fair game, 100%, and I'll look at those, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they existed. But I think it's a little unfair to compare her to the food babe or to Deepak Chopra, because they're those people are making very scientific claims that are very, very easily disputed. And they are not experts of their field. Christina Hoff Summers is has, like I said, been writing on feminism for a long time. She has a philosophy degree, not just a degree. She's a Ph.D., I believe, in philosophy and top philosophy. And she I mean, really, she could. Let me ask you this. If she had the same credentials, but she agreed with you on feminism, Mike, would you would you say she was not an authority?

0:31:20 Thomas: I really want you to think about that, because I think you would be comfortable calling her an authority if she agreed with kind of the mainstream of feminism, because she does have some credentials, whereas the food babe does not have these credentials. So I hope you understand the difference I'm trying to point out there. Now, also, you said there was a similar quote-unquote controversy when the crank food babe was discredited by a professor at one of her university talks, and he welcomed people afterwards to come talk to him for a more accurate view of the facts. Now that's fine. Had these people, and I played the preamble to the little warning for the Christina Hoff Summers event. I played the, the audio in that episode. So go back and check that out if you don't know what I'm talking about.

0:32:06 Thomas: But had they said, had they merely said, hey, we have a difference in opinion. I think Christina Hoff Somers is wrong about a lot of stuff. It's a little weird that they can do that. But anyway, we're having a talk later where we'll demonstrate what we think the facts are and we'll back them up or whatever. That would be a lot different than what was said. What was said was if you need a place to decompress because of like a lot of sarcastic stuff about how like, you know, like terrible and how you better review the like sexual harassment policy, because if you're if you'RE listening to this talk, then you definitely are probably, you know, the insinuation was like you would need to review sexual harassment, policy or something like that.

0:32:56 Thomas: And the idea that's like we're gonna have a safe room, and we're going to be, that the word was gatekeeping, like that's a regular thing, like we are going to judge people who we think are going to not be cool, and then we are gonna keep them out of this place. That's not what this professor did for the food babe, and it's not necessary. Imagine how unnecessary that would be. I mean, you don't need, as much as the food baby is wrong and as much of her science is wrong, you don't need a safe space to go decompress from the bad science. All you need is good science, and that would be appropriate had they said that about Christina Hoff Sommer. So, it's a little weird. I don't think the comparison fully holds, but I'm sure, Mike, you'll let me know why you disagree.

0:33:42 Thomas: I'm going to read some selections from this comment, other places.

0:34:12 Thomas: Their political organization. Can you back that up? I don't see that. I don't see a sexist bigot. I see that you have a difference of opinion on feminism and that's fine.

0:34:27 Thomas: Maybe she does have opinions that you could say are sexist, I guess, but I don't think it's the same as the KKK or Stormfront. I just think that's an exaggeration. And I agree with you in the hypothetical thing that you said, that if a black person doesn't go to a KKK talk or whatever, that would be, that they're not hiding from ideas. I get that. But when people are really scared of simply letting someone who has a difference in opinion talk, that's not an overt racist like the KKK, someone who had some qualifications and has written on it for a while, and they're so scared that they provide like a safe place to go hide and they try to encourage people not to listen.

0:35:19 Thomas: I don't know. I think it's a little bit different. But feel free to show me, send me something, Mike, on why you think Summers is, if you can back up that comparison. I just really think that's an exaggeration. I mean, I don't quite think that's right. Right. So then here's the other thing. The other problem with Summer's suggestion, and something that applies to your commentary on this issue, is that the value we assign to a career is at least partly determined by how we view them. When careers are female-dominated, we value them less. I don't know about this. I'll continue. We see this when traditionally male careers become dominated by women and the average pay drops significantly. Significantly choosing different careers isn't going to help women if that trend continues. I just don't, that that's not economics to me. I I don't I don't understand that. I I really.

0:36:14 Thomas: I mean, I I'm not, I'm not an expert, but I do know more about economics than your average person, but not, and maybe I don't know, I can't account for this difference in opinion, Mike. I'm trying, trying to find a way, but the only thing I can say is that's just not how economics works. If today, let's say tech career, like programmers, let's say tomorrow, programmers are all women, do you really believe that programmers will then not make any money or at least significantly reduce the amount of money they make? I mean, it's not, that's not how we've, that's not how academics works. There's a price that you're willing to pay for that service, for that work. And maybe there's some amount, there could be a discretionary component to that, I guess.

0:37:05 Thomas: Maybe when you're talking about the WNBA doesn't make any money versus the NBA. But that's where the service is entirely opinion based. I mean, it's an entertainment service. That's a bit different than something I'm really trying to think. What's your example, Mike, of a career that was male dominated that then became female dominated and the average pay dropped significantly? I would like to know because whenever more people go into a job, when there's more supply of labor, then that drops the price because just more supply always drops the prize given everything else stays equal. I don't know if that's entirely what's happening. Happening, I would like to see what specifics you would have to back that up.

0:37:54 Thomas: Because if all women chose careers like in STEM or engineering or that, that's not going to reduce the value of those. It just isn't. I mean, it may reduce pay a little bit if you have more available workers. That's true. But that would go the other way too. I mean, if there was a female-dominated career that a bunch of men started qualifying for somehow or start getting into and increase the candidate pool, and nothing else changed, that will always decrease the price to a certain extent. Assuming there's no, you know, externalities or whatever, something, a force keeping it stable. I mean, that's, so I don't know. I'm generally, genuinely baffled by this part of your comment, and I'd like to see, show me, I assume, you seem very well informed, so I'm guessing you have some reason why you said that, and I would probably need to see some sort of proof on that because it doesn't strike me as true.

0:38:50 Thomas: I mean, we don't, choosing different careers would help because we value things based on what they can create and that's just a fact. Fact. I mean, people need programmers. People need engineers. People don't need English majors. We just don't. It doesn't matter how many men there are. It does not matter how many women are in that. We don't need them. We need like three. And there you go. There's something that's offensive to English majors. Yeah, that's a fact. I mean we don't need history majors. We really don't we need a couple but but I'll be honest society does not value them very highly. I I bet you could, and to test this, you could probably find a major like in the humanities that's entirely male dominated, and it probably makes just as little money as another area of the humanities that's female dominated.

0:39:41 Thomas: That would be, that's a hunch I have, and I'd be interested, maybe I can try to find some data on that. But there are just certain things that we don't value and certain things that we really value. An accountant is valuable. Like jobs like this, there's, you can't argue with them. They just are valuable. Lawyer. If there are a ton of female lawyers, there are probably more female lawyers now than ever. And I bet you lawyers make maybe more now than ever. I mean, it just, it's not based on that. It's notbased on, oh, what, a woman can be a lawyer? All right, I'll pay you 10 bucks an hour. I'm not going to pay you the, I would pay you $150 an hour if you were a man, but women, I don't value it. It's just not how economics works. Sorry, I piled on a little bit there, Mike.

0:40:26 Thomas: But, uh, feel free to send, you got a lot, Mike's got his work cut out for him after this episode. He's got a little bit of work to do. He's a lot to send me. And I'll tell you what, you guys have your work cutout for you too, because, uh. I need more comments than just Mike. Actually, I did have some, but Mike just had the longest and most worthy of response for this one. But, but thank you. There were some people who agreed with what I said, and I always find that boring. So I'm probably not gonna, uh not gonna read ones where people just agree with me, but but I appreciate it. It's, it's nice. Oh, one thing I did want to say about this Christina Hoff Summers episode was that Mike seemed to be saying, I think Mike and maybe someone else, I can't remember. A few people said, oh, no one says the 77% thing.

0:41:14 Thomas: No one references that. That's just something, that's a straw man that, you know, anti-feminists will say that feminists say that, but no feminists actually say that. That's weird to me because I hear nothing but feminists saying that. That is really weird. And then someone even said, yeah, there was that time the president made the comment, but that's minor. As though the president of the United States in a nationally televised speech saying women only make 75% or whatever, 77 cents to the dollar, as if that's not representative somehow. The president, it, you know, on a nationally tele, I mean, that gets a lot of attention. And I think that is somewhat indicative of the fact that a lot of people hold this misconception that women only make 77 cents to the dollar for totally equal work.

0:42:05 Thomas: That's just not, that's not quite right. Now, I shouldn't have to go over this again, but I'll just make sure to say there is a pay gap. I agree. I just want to make sure it's accurate, accurately reflected in hours worked and all that. And someone sent me an article about, uh, how women, when you put together hours that they have to spend on like domestic kind of work, uh, it adds up, that plus work hours adds up to more than men. And that is definitely something worth looking into. I would be very interested in that because that's something that I don't, how do you address that? I think that needs to be sort of of addressed on an individual basis. For example, I'll just talk about my own marriage real quick, which it is a marriage, it's kind of weird to talk about, but I fully, fully understand that I think men and women have equal responsibility when it comes to work around the house.

0:43:01 Thomas: I think it's a totally backwards and sexist point of view to say that, you know, if you're a man and your your wife works. You can't cook or you can't do something because it's women's work. Now, that's sexist, 100%. I don't know what, I'm not sure what we could legislate to help that. I don't think it's the part of legislation to do that. It's probably just a societal and cultural thing. But that is something we want to look, we should look into. And I think that was an interesting article, thanks to who sent me that. And, I think it is up to individuals and it is It's up to society to, if they come across someone who thinks that, to try to correct it because in my marriage, both of us work. I work more because I have this job.

0:43:48 Thomas: So, you know, Lydia does a little bit more of the housework, but we try to balance it out. I do some of the not fun housework. Tell you what, I always, when it comes to cat maintenance, I do all that. I do dishes, I do stuff, stuff, and then she has, we kind of divided up the labor, and I, you know, that's that's how you have to do it. If there's men, if there are men out there who think that they shouldn't have to do any sort of, uh, housework because that's feminine or something, now that, that's sexism for sure. Uh, so that's an interesting thing to look, uh, into. So thank you guys for all your thoughtful comments that I didn't get to, and for being great listeners and for listening if you made it this far. Uh, I, I don't know what next week holds. I had mentioned I had an interview lined up.

0:44:34 Thomas: I don't know that that is going to happen on time. So, but I will make sure next week is good, and it won't be a hodgepodge. Trust me, it'll be, it will be something very constructed and thought out. And, and if I can't get that interview to come through, because I do like to keep the balance. So I want to say now, thank you so much to my patrons. Go to patreon.com/atheist if you'd like to be among them. Did I have any new ones? That would be the current question. Did I have any new patrons? Well, let's see, the data is no new patrons this week. However, I would like to, of course, thank my top top patrons: Zimu, Zinu Jr., Adrian Borschoff, Michael, Jonathan Moyer, Havard, S.J., Alden, Waltz Bangs, Naughty Bits, Robin Clark, Peter Skelton, Alton, Brian Gareford, Dale, Matt Garrett, and honorable mention goes to Samantha.

0:45:31 Thomas: Thank you guys so much for being my patrons. And, uh, ooh, the book club, find the Book Club on Goodreads. That's going to be really fun. As soon as we finished the first book, I can't wait to have some great episodes and talk about it, and everyone can kind of learn from it, and that'll be really funny. So that's going strong, and, uh, no other announcements currently. So yeah, patreon.com/atheist. If you'd like to support the show, thanks for listening so much. I love you guys a lot, and I will see you next week.