AS195: Eli Bosnick, Part 2

Transcript

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

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 195, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. All right, long-awaited part two with Eli, or if you're a patron, not so long-awaited. So good for you. In any case, here it is, part two. I'll go right into it, and then I'll probably say a few things to you afterward.

0:01:03 Thomas: If I had to try to put my finger on what people are perceiving as the real threat, because you're right. I mean, it's no skin off my back to just sit there for 10 seconds while someone says trigger warning this. I think what people are are worried about. And it goes back to something you said before. I think both sides are straw manning, as you said. Both sides are responding to the extreme other side, when in reality, I imagine most people are somewhere in the middle. But they're just kind of perceiving, whichever side you perceive is like the more of the threat, you kind of just look at those straw man, you know, incidents and then say that represents the entire other side.

0:01:41 Eli: Right.

0:01:41 Thomas: But with the With the trigger warning thing, I think people are worried that it becomes this, there are a lot of people, maybe to, and I don't want to strawman myself, but I think there are a lot people who are worried it's becoming an Orwellian thing where the other side, the progressives or regressives, as they'd say, are always trying to get one step ahead with what is a trigger, with what you need to be aware is a trigger. And this is, I don't think this is a strawman. Man, I think this is actually what's going on, and it's up to us whether we want to agree or disagree here, and we can talk about it. But I think that's what's going on. They're worried that there's a professor who's going to lose his job because he didn't trigger warning the right thing that he didn't know about. That's the kind of extreme stuff they're looking at.

0:01:42 Eli: Absolutely. Absolutely. And listen, there are always going to be silly sides of every argument and you will find no more staunch defender of freedom of speech and conversation to a certain extent than me. You know, and I have a million examples of things where I'm just like, what the fuck is going on guys? I say it constantly, and the example I always give, because it's a little bit mild and it's a little dated, is the EU space station and the guy who wore the shirt with the sexy biker on it, and everyone was freaking out and he gave this tearful apology, and I was just like, guys, what are we doing? Why are we picking on this European NASA scientist? Is it in bad taste to wear a sexy bicker t-shirt to the launch of your satellite? Yes. That's the end of the conversation. Conversation. Dude, bad shirt. I know.

0:03:16 Eli: I'm sorry. That was a stupid shirt to wear. Super stupid shirt to wear if you're a scientist, maybe dress like one shirt slacks, dress it up a little bit. You just launched an object into space. Okay. Sorry. My bad. And you know, the, the witch hunt that took place after that. Absolutely. Um, and, and I'm, I'm vocal against that. The problem is is when we use terms like Orwellian, you know, and I hear that a lot, you know, oh, they want to, is that we have to wait until certain things get there before we start to, you know what I'm saying? If this slippery slope becomes a problem, I mean,

0:02:56 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:03:48 Thomas: Well, let me say, oh, I meant to say this, too. You presented it as the a slippery slope of trigger warnings. And I think that could be fair to some extent, but I don't know. I actually think it's just the actual case of trying to trigger warning anything that's going to be, you know, a trigger for some people. I mean, like, I don't really see that as a slippery slope to say, okay, well, then we have to look at everything that's a trigger and try to do it. I mean, I think you should...

0:04:15 Eli: Maybe, Listen, that's very possible, but there's, the great thing about, the great thing about social justice is that there's always a line where you get to not care. There's always a line where you get to not care, and there's always a line where you get to dismiss. There's lots and lots of things about social justice that we collectively dismiss, but if we use it against the causes that we're fighting for, the question becomes, what hill are we choosing to die on? You know, if we're saying, look, if we've got to trigger everything. Now, I have yet to see a situation where trigger warnings have been applied to the extent that I think it's harmful to the education process. I have yet to see it, and I'm willing to be shown that. And when I am shown that, you know, I'm willing to see that. If you show me a professor who has to read 25 minutes of trigger warnings at the beginning of his, you know, at the beginning of his mathematics class, I go, yes, that's too far. I disagree with it.

0:05:11 Thomas: I totally see what you're saying, and I've actually used the same thing when it comes to gay rights when I'm talking to conservatives, because I constantly would get, well, what's next? Then a guy can marry a baby? And it's like, no, I would just vote against that one. That would be one I'd vote against.

0:05:22 Eli: Right, exactly. Right? Exactly, what do We know We have to. Now people have to get special rates. Is it mean to say that, uh, is it, uh, abusive to say that guys who like... Can you not make jokes about guys who like fat chicks? Can you Not Make Jokes about, uh, what about pedophiles? You know, can we not, should we not, be because they're born that way, can't we, do you know, and it's, it's this strawmanning thing. And here's the thing, I'll take that from the right, you know, I'll take that for the right, but I don't want to hear it from my secular community. I don't, don't want to hear, because here's the thing. We're the good guys. We are the good guys. And this is very simplistic. I'm not the smart one. I got a smart guy on my show. I've got two smart guys and a smart lady on my show who give nuanced, great arguments. Everyone, right, exactly.

0:06:03 Thomas: I need to give some of those. Do you know where I can find any?

0:06:06 Eli: Exactly. I am a D&D dungeon master. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Right now in this country, and listen, if this makes me silly, if this makes my arguments dismissible, all about it all all day, every day. But there are bad people in this country. You know, they just passed a law in Houston, Prop 1 in Houston which denies trans people in every conceivable sense personhood. You know they don't get to use the bathrooms they want to. They can be kicked out of a restaurant. They can not use the pronouns they want. They're denied personhood, you know. There's there have been 291 trans murders so far this year. So why are we talking about whether or or not Caitlyn Jenner is a hero. Why are we being pedantic about the, why are we as a secular community, why am I seeing secular leaders put out things like, this isn't a hero, this is a hero.

0:06:59 Eli: Like, there's only one hero allowed a year. Like it's like, we only don't get to use it for multiple people. And when we look back on history, when history, more importantly, when history looks back on us, they're going to ask what we stood for as secularists. And if what we stood against was like this season of South Park where we, if what we took a stand against was affirmative consent, the don't maybe make sure you're not raping someone rule. If that's what's silly and needed to be taken down a peg, if PC is what you think needs to be taken down a peg, then you are not paying attention to the world we live in. We live in a world of Donald Trump. And I'll tell you the moment we don't, I am first in line to fight about sexy NASA t-shirts.

0:07:44 Eli: Let's get Ben Carson in a cage somewhere where we can zap him every time he says he knows what the pyramids were for. And then let's all sit in armchairs and talk about whether or not privilege exists. I'm all about it. I'll be on the I privilege exists side. You'll be on the privilege didn't exist side. But right now that backlash is being used. It's being used by truly, truly bad people to do really bad things.

You know, in the first debate, and I brought this up. The first debate, Republican debate, when Donald Trump was questioned on the things he said about women, he said, you know, Megan, the thing today, the problem with today, the biggest problem I see in society today is that everyone's too PC. And it got a huge applause because That is what is currently being used to dismiss real and legitimate arguments. It's this free speech, everyone's too PC. Nobody wants to have a conversation, strawman, that doesn't exist. And you know, we're friends with Nick and Zandy Morgan Moore, right? And what they do each and every day is they get in front of women with umbrellas so they don't get videos of them put online. So abusive boyfriends don't find them and kill them for getting abortions.

You know, that's how free the speech is in this country, is that you can stand a certain amount of feet from anything you don't like with a megaphone and go, "Fuck you, fuck." And everyone goes, "Else, that's fine." Yeah, that guy gets to do that. That guy gets to do it all day, every day. He gets to do it 20 feet away. He doesn't get to do it 19 feet away, he doesn't get to come in, but he does get to do it.

0:08:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:09:16 Eli: We don't lack free speech in the quote unquote real world. What we lack is kindness, and what we lack is sensitivity. And what we, what we seem to lack is a secular community, which is why I try to speak on this in whatever corner of the secular community I inhabit, whatever part of the the secular community I'm important in, and God knows I'm not, but you know what I'm saying, whatever I represent in the secular Community is I want people to look back and I want them to say, this guy was on our side. This guy fought for what was, this guy fought for this. He fought Donald Trump and he fought Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson and fucking ISIL and all the, and people who go into Planned Parenthood and shoot a bunch of pregnant women who are getting pap smears and shit. That's who he talked about.

0:10:01 Eli: And if they they look back and they see other things, I will be ashamed and I can't speak for anyone else. I can't. And I may be wrong. I may wrong about all of this. But when pushes come to shove about all of this, everyone I've ever talked to has been on the same page. The answer has always been, of course, this other thing is more important. And yet our secular leaders are, are dismissing these subjects and dismissing these conversations as just so much whining.

0:10:28 Thomas: Well, I want to say a few things. I think that makes a lot of sense, what you said. I really do. And I think that's what you were just saying when you say, when you put it that way, everyone usually agrees with you. I can understand that. And I think maybe what's happening, the phenomenon of what's happened is people have found an enemy in the form of, I don't know, social justice warriors or whatever it is. And it's something that you're able to, sort of like the way Gad did, to get back on him, because I'm happy to shit on that guy more.

0:10:31 Eli: Yeah, please.

0:10:44 Eli: Yeah. Of Of course.

0:11:03 Eli: Yeah, sure.

0:11:04 Thomas: Finding examples that you don't like, publishing those on Twitter, making them huge, and really they're just corner cases. Now, I don't know that I'm, I'm probably like 80% with you on that because I think it's a little more widespread than that. I think maybe what I worry about is, I think also what a lot of people worry about is the trend line. You know, they worry about like, it's not just, oh, here's some random random examples. It's that things are trending a very specific direction and people, and maybe it is slippery slope, but people look at, okay, where is this going? What will be the arguments 20 years from now? Like if we don't try to stop this nonsense now in their mind, what are we going to do? Just like you said, 25 minutes of trigger warnings 20 years from now, what's it going to be? I think that's when

0:11:50 Eli: Absolutely. And, and those are valid concerns, but my answer is always fight that battle when it comes. Cause right now we've got

0:11:55 Thomas: You get to it. Yeah, no, fair enough. I'm just trying to sum up what I think is going on. And I agree with that. And something I always advocate on my show is really trying to look toward the middle and look toward non-Strawman versions of everything. I think that I'm totally on board with you on that. I want to research a little more, but based on if we took all those facts that you mentioned about the Yale thing, I mean, honestly, I'd be 100% in agreement with you.

0:11:58 Eli: Sure. Right.

0:12:26 Thomas: If those are the facts.

0:12:26 Eli: And we don't even, and we don't need, and this is important because it's always, he should, she said, and listen, there's going to be, someone's going tweet me three articles saying there's no such thing as this Yale Katrina party. What are you talking about? And, uh, and before you do that, before Before you do that, I want to concede any fact about it, and we can go to the opposite end of the spectrum of what I believe, which is that this professor wrote this email, which we know. The IRHC wrote an email. The professor wrote an email. This girl screamed at him. I still think that he's in the wrong. I still he chose to be trollist. I think he entered a student conversation when he wasn't welcome there. I think he did it knowing that he would – that he was starting a conversation in a place that students were not having an interaction of ideas.

0:12:34 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:13:11 Eli: I think it did it screaming

0:13:11 Thomas: And it's not that you're supporting someone ought to go shriek at that person.

0:13:15 Eli: Ever, ever, yet.

0:13:16 Thomas: It's that you're saying that, you know, the backlash against her is shrouding what actually the issue is, which is this guy. Yeah, well,

0:13:22 Eli: Right. And that she's not a bully. She's not as safe – well, she's a not a safe spacer because that's not a thing. That we – with safe spacers are – you want to talk who safe spacers are, go to a mental health center on campus, go sit in a safe space. And this is what's crazy to me is that some of the people who I see speaking out against safe spaces just haven't been in them. If you go into a safe space, if you're allowed into a safe space, and the truth is that I'm not allowed into certain safe spaces because I'm a straight white cis guy. And that already gets some people going.

0:13:53 Thomas: Yeah, that and I was gonna say that is probably another concern of people that looks to some people like, okay, that's judging based on race and gender and saying you can't come into a place.

0:13:58 Eli: And I'll give you a great example of why that's the case. So I have a buddy from college who is – and I specifically asked him. I said, hey, can I talk about you because I'm going to talk about this stuff? And he said, yeah, yeah. So he was a girl. He's now a man. His name is Jay. And he's a rock star. He's an absolute rock star, but he's very, very sensitive. And he is my go-to guy because I don't know about this tough. I'm a dick joke guy from upstate New York. I'm from Binghamton, New York, all right? I'm from upstate, New York, where they were like, what do you mean you like dudes? So I'm constantly having to go to smarter people than me for answers about this. And when I learned about that in certain safe spaces, I was really upset by it. I was like, I don't see how not having someone in a safe space is useful. And so I asked, I said, okay, why aren't I allowed in a certain safe space?

0:14:50 Eli: And he said, well, you have to understand that in some places like UMass and Mizzou, there were Christian students going into LGBTQ safe spaces and disagreeing with the students or taking their turn to talk about how Jesus said that, you know, in Corinthians, those who go, those who lay with each other, and because it was a safe space, they weren't allowed to be disagreed with. So people were trolling safe spaces. The other thing is a lot of the time in safe spaces, people are talking about things and they're not necessarily representing their ideas well. And the idea he gave me is he said, you know, I was talking about how I see a a lot of straight guys and a lot of straight boys will talk about their dicks and they don't understand how hard that is for me as a man who doesn't have a penis and a man who has to get four operations before he has what he gets to consider a penis.

0:15:42 Eli: When I want to talk about those feelings, having a biosex man there is very hard for me because I'm looking at this other person and I'm speaking about them and I am not representing my best ideas. I am representing my emotions. And again, it

0:15:56 Thomas: How do you get, just seriously, a logistics question, because I honestly didn't know anything about the safe spaces that you're talking about. Do you have to ensure the compatibility of every, is this like a, what, is this all day? Is this a session? Is this, what is it? What is it?"

0:16:12 Eli: Depends on the safe space. I've facilitated a few. I was a part of the reality show at NYU, which was basically a mental health and safety show that took place at NYU. I Was part of that for four years. And one of the things that we did in the training for that was to talk about safe spaces and safe space facilitation. I've also visited other safe spaces and interacted with students on that. I've done a lot of research and talked to people who manage. Jay, very luckily, now manages safe spaces on the campus that he works on. So it depends entirely. Sometimes safe spaces are just open centers with counselors available. Sometimes they're group spaces. Sometimes they have meetings. Sometimes they have meetings, you know, a trans student in the safe space meeting, meeting a queer safe space, meeting a intersex poly safe space meeting. There are speaker safe spaces.

0:17:03 Thomas: So would, would a gay man not be able to be in the safe space with, you know, because he has a penis?

0:17:10 Eli: It depends entirely. So in Jay's example, that's often done in something like trans group. That's often done in a one-on-one session. But maybe he's just in the safe space. No one is ever excluded from the safe space because safe spaces are for X, Y, and Z only. There are LGBT safe spaces where you're not allowed in if you're a straight guy, but the understanding when you go into an LGBT space is that whatever qualification you fit within that, you are welcome to it. Now, there may be times where a closed meeting is taken session that's just for trans students, and in there, yes, a gay man would not be welcome. There may be sessions where it's just just for gay men talking about gay rights. It may be sessions that are just for bisexual women talking about the problem that's, you know, the problems that affect that community.

0:18:01 Eli: And that certainly happens. Um, but the, but it's, you definitely would never as a gay man walk into an LGBTQ center that has a safe space and be forbidden from the safe space unless there was a very specific meeting going on at that time. And even when there are, I know specifically the one Jay runs, there's a counselor waiting outside so that if you want to go to the safe space, you can go with that counselor and have someone to talk to. So there's never a moment where it's like, hey, safe space isn't for you right now. There's always going to be a safe. And again, the goal is to create more, not less safe places.

0:18:34 Thomas: Fair enough. Yeah, I genuinely was just curious because I didn't know much about it.

0:18:38 Eli: Sure. Absolutely. And that's the problem is those kind of logistics and those kind of conversations. And I'm a straight white cis guy who's in a relationship, a very traditional relationship with a, you know, a girl. And it's, it's often very hard for me when I talk to my gay bros or to my trans bros about the issues that face them. Cause I don't get it. I don't get it so, you know, it's an old standup line that I used to do, but I love it.

I say, it's so great to be a white guy that if you take off all your clothes and go out into the street, everybody else is afraid of you. That's how fantastic it is. You're just like, oh no, please don't penis me. Everyone else, they shoot you or they rape you. You know, ladies and black guys, they don't get to do that. They shoot you or they rape you. That's what happens to you. Straight white guys, we have it so good.

We get to go, hey, look at my dick. And everyone's like, "Ah, tackle him, come on, tackle him." In England it's a sport, during sports they have a naked guy who comes out and goes, "Look at majolics," and then they grab him and they go, "Come on, cut it out." Yeah.

0:19:38 Thomas: Okay, that sounds fun. Let's go do that. Yeah.

0:19:41 Eli: You and me, we're gonna do it together. So yeah, I mean, a lot of the time it's just, it's just an a lack of understanding or, or you really are giving bad information. And I just, another, another example I want to give is, is Mizzou, everything going on with Mizzou right now. Because, you know, we all saw that video of that teacher saying, you know, get this guy out of here, get this guy on here with a student photographer, get us, I need some muscle over here, right? We all saw that video, it got shared by every secular leader as an example of what the new left is doing. But what didn't get mentioned, and you can look this up extensively, is that that day, the KKK was circling the school in pickup trucks, screaming the N word at students, putting up on public message boards they were going to shoot every n-word they saw. You know, so where's our focus.

And listen, I'm not defending that professor's actions, you know. And listen, there's, it may be more complicated than that. I'm actually not sure enough about my sources to talk about what he was or was not doing. There has been some conversation about him maybe asking some questions that were definitely not, uh, were not appropriate for the time, that he may have looked into some tents where people were getting changed and tried to to take some pictures, but that's all very alleged.

0:19:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:48 Eli: I don't trust it enough to use it as an example. But what we do know is 100% true is that there were KKK members circling Mizzou in pickup trucks, you know, firing guns into the air, you Know, and posting on public message boards on Craigslist and on the Yik Yak saying, you get ready for another shooting. This is going to be worse than Columbine. And what the secular community chose to focus on was a professor saying, I don't want this guy in this place. You know, I,

0:21:17 Thomas: I mean I think sometimes are people thinking, well, that's obviously so bad that no one would take that seriously, or are we taking for granted that no one supports that kind of racism? Is that what you think the problem is? I, I don't know.

0:21:34 Eli: I honestly think it's that people don't. So the conversation I've had, and I got a buddy who I respect a ton, who I disagree with on everything about this. And this is what we do for fun. He and I sit down, we get eight hour coffee sessions where we've just fight about this and he's, he's the opposite of everything. I, he's Steven Molyneux and fun Thunderfoot and Christine Summers and Polly Lamb. He identifies as an MRA and we just, we just fight, we just fucking fight, and that's what we do, and people come over and they're like, are you guys gonna fist fight. And I'm like, go fuck yourself, we're fighting.

0:22:01 Thomas: I should host a debate. Yeah, we get, we should, we should host the debate on, on just a, just a 10 hour debate.

0:22:05 Eli: Oh, please, he would oh, he just creamed his goddamn jeans, he would love, because we both also think we crush the other one, we're both 100% certain that we just

0:22:08 Thomas: Yeah. We should probably, we should make this happen. It would be so easy for you guys. I mean, I mean, is he, if he's as, as able to, uh, like what, how did you put it? The, uh. What are you? The something of talking? I already forget.

0:22:15 Eli: Oh oh, I forget, I don't know, I'm the Hulk, the Incredible Hulk of talking, that's right, yeah.

0:22:28 Thomas: Come up with another one. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. The incredible, I could have come up with a different one because you are the incredible Hulk of talking Either way.

0:22:35 Eli: Exactly, but so, you know, he and I go back and and forth. And he sent me this new story. He sent me a new story that just mentioned the professor pushing the photographer out. It didn't mention the KKK people riding around in the pickup trucks. It didn't mention the swastika smeared in shit on the student center, which is a real thing. And you can look up, this is what's happening at Mizzou right now. And people are talking about, you know, look at how silly the demands are, you know? And they, I, listen, you look at those demands and you don't know what's going on, you're just like, why are these students asking a professor to read a written apology out loud in the common room? But then you go and you go, okay, well, look at this, and you find out the full story. And this is so much of the problem, is that in our blowback to these situations, and I'll use Dawkins because Dawkins is public enough.

0:23:24 Eli: When Dawkins publishes that video of that professor and says disgusting, right? Or whatever he said, he said something disparaging, like this is what education is, right. And doesn't take a the moment to go, but you know what's real disgusting? The KKK and shit swastikas on a building wall. That is where it becomes incredibly problematic.

0:23:37 Thomas: Yeah. So why do you think this is happening? Because I do agree, and my theory is maybe, like I mentioned earlier, I wonder if people think that the racism stuff that's happening is just, well, that's some person who's nuts smearing their shit on a wall. What is the president of the university supposed to do about that, really? I mean, is that what it is? What do you think the, the reason that, that people are so unwilling to, I mean, why are, because you're right. I mean Dawkins, others, they're latching on to that particular aspect. Why do you think that is? Just, I'm just curious what your theory is.

0:24:19 Eli: I think it's a new Paradigm. Honestly, I think it's a new paradigm. I think it's uncomfortable. I think it's new. Listen, I can't speak to anybody else and why I quote unquote think they're wrong about it. I can speak to why I was wrong about it. And here's the thing. I have an open Facebook. I, I have a public Facebook. I use my real name. I don't have any other name on anything that I ever do. And part of it is because I want people to be able to see me being wrong about stuff. And you can go two years back on my Facebook and watch me talk about BLM and watch me talk how I don't think privilege exists and watch me talk about how I think microaggressions are bullshit. And you can watch my incredibly sensitive, kind Facebook friends explaining that to me and watch, watch me getting proved wrong. And I leave those there, A, because it's great.

0:25:08 Eli: It keeps me humble and reminds me that I'm constantly, I have the opportunity to be wrong. So if it turns out that I'm wrong and the Yale professor actually just tried to send everyone cookies and then that girl went and kicked him in the nuts with spike-heeled boots, then this recording will forever remain as an example of how wrong I'm capable of being. But I know for me, the reason why I had it wrong is because it's very hard to hear. It's not your turn to talk. It is very hard to hear that.

0:25:38 Eli: And yeah, and well, yeah, especially for me, it's a very hard time to hear it's not your turn. It isn't about you right now.

0:25:36 Thomas: Sure. Especially for you. Yeah.

0:25:46 Eli: And we're not interested in your contribution to the conversation, you know, cause, cause we want it, you know, and this is the thing I always want to help. I'm always like, well here, listen, the thing that Black Lives Matter's people are doing wrong is they're saying this wrong and they gotta be more civil and they got to be this. And it took a while for someone to explain, Eli, you are not helping. This is not how to ally. Whether or not you are right or wrong does not matter. People are talking about experience. And when it comes to experience, your voice is part of the problem. Your tone policing is part of the problem, and that's very, very hard for people to hear because what it sounds like, what they hear in their ear is, shut up. Shut up because of your race. Space. White people don't get to talk right now and the immediate reaction is I'm

0:25:47 Thomas: I

0:26:33 Eli: Wouldn't be allowed to say black people aren't allowed to talk right now, why, how come, how come they get to do the thing that I don't get to do and and the answer is expansive and historical and and and because you have the same goals, you know, a friend said, listen, do you want people to be, what is your goal, and I said, I want people to be listened to and I want people to be helped, and they said, so you're helping people be listened to by drowning them out, and I was like, well, I'm smart, smart. I'm very, I'm very smart. And they were like, really? Are you like an African-American studies major? Do you have a degree? No, I have read several Vox articles and I work with two smart guys. So, you know, I can only speak for why I was wrong. And it's because there's a deep emotional reaction to this kind of thing.

0:27:19 Eli: And there's another thing as well, which I want to speak about. And I had a great comedy teacher named Meg Griffiths Anderson who was a guest on God Awful Movies. She said something to me that I think is a huge part of the anti-PC thing, which is don't squirm. There's a bunch of people that are either humorists or podcasters or comedians, and you see this especially from people like Patton Oswalt and Jerry Seinfeld who sort of are very much on the anti SJW bandwagon right now, which which is they make a joke and people go, well, what do you mean by that joke? Like, what does that mean? And then they, and then all of a sudden, oh, everyone's so fucking sensitive and I don't want to, but you tell me you hypocritical pieces of shit.

0:28:05 Eli: Tell me what I can and can't say. And it's, it's like, listen, if you're going to say something, don't squirm. And here's the thing. And I always find it ironic. It's funny. I was speaking to my, I mean, I'm in Cleveland right now for Thanksgiving with my family. And, you know, I'm the dick joke movie guy. And so I was talking to my family and they're going, Oh, what are you recording for? And I was like, Oh I'm, you know, I'm talking about social justice. And they were like, you, the, the Carly Fiorina killed her daughter guy. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, me. And it's funny because you know everything I say, and I say some terrible shit and we both do, you and we all do as, as comedy podcasters, you know? I know that Noah does. I know the heat does. Um, and I was talking to the cognitive of dissonance guys, and they do certainly as well. You know, we, yeah, exactly.

0:28:44 Thomas: Do on my other show just to, just to lend some support to that. Yeah, well,

0:28:49 Eli: We all say that, but I stand by what I say. I stand by what I say, and I don't jump back into it's about free speech when someone calls me on it. And, you know, again, use an example of myself.

0:29:01 Thomas: What? About for your podcast, though. I mean, if you, where it's something you're putting out, people can choose to listen to it. I mean, isn't that free speech? Are you, how worried are you if you make a joke that that you maybe someone says, go to, goes too far. They were offended by it. What is your response? Because I know that happens to you guys. And I've heard on

0:29:20 Eli: Yeah, it happens. It happens to me on a fairly, you kno, it doesn't happen super regularly, but it does happen. And I, right, exactly, and, You know, the answer I always have is one of two, twofold. You know, sometimes people say something, you know, bring something up and it really affects me. And I take that moment and I say, okay, I want to change, but I always write them back. And it, I'll give an example. So the Carly Fiorini joke that I make is that she killed her daughter. She's a bad mom, killed her daughter, dead daughter jokes.

I'm all about it because she took a pot legalization question, used it to be a false victim. She didn't know her stepdaughter, she buried, this was an adult stepdaughter who she had just met, who she denied money to for rehab, who she ignored the cries for help of, and then all of a sudden when she's running for president, my baby died, and it's fucking bullshit, and she knows it, she knows that because she's a fucking evil dragon half-faced goddamn Morgana red face rat creature, and she knows, and I stand by that. Now, not everyone knows the context of that, so when I made that joke on the very first debate episode that we did at The Skeptocrat.

0:29:24 Thomas: A minute to minute basis, it's constant. Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:26 Eli: I got a message from a guy who was a fan of one of the podcasts that he heard me on. And he said, I want you to know I lost my daughter this year. And it was really, really hard for me to hear that. It was really hard to hear you slam on that joke and talk about how someone who had lost their child was a bad parent. Because that's what haunts me. And I want to know it really affected me.

I wrote him back and I said, look, here's why I tell that joke. This is what Fiorina did. This who she is. This what I think she represents. I think she's a traitorous stocking full of cold mashed potatoes. And if she got hit by a bus, I'd pray for a second bus. But I'm so sorry that you felt that way. And that's always an option. That's always an option to turn to someone. And I do it all the time.

There are people who say, hey, I don't like this. And I always say, I am so sorry you felt that way. Now, there are people who I wouldn't be sorry I felt that way. If Donald Trump found out what I said about me and was like, you know, that really hurt my feelings, I'd be like, fuck you. Fuck you. Eat a dick. Eat nine dicks made out of razor blades, you evil son of a bitch. But when someone tells me I've crossed lines, I don't squirm. I just tell them that I'm sorry that it's the way I've made them feel.

And listen, I'm sure I've said, cause I'm a dummy. I'm sure someone's going to tweet at me and go, hey Eli, you know, this thing you said on Thomas isn't true. Or this thing you said, there's this other point and you categorized it badly, or you shouldn't have talked about my G this way.

And whatever, you know, when you say Republicans are all willing to let the poor starve, which you are, um, when you say that it hurts my feelings, I will, I will genuinely mean it when I say I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings, and I am sorry

0:32:02 Thomas: Right.

0:32:02 Eli: When I hurt good, good people's feelings. But I don't squirm and I stand by what I say. But if your reaction to, hey, what you just said hurt me, or what you just said is insensitive, or what you just said results in a zeitgeist of 291 trans people being murdered a year, of 51% of trans people not being able to use the bathroom they want to, of sexual assault and suicide statistics going through the roof, and your reaction is, fuck you, I don't care, then my answer is, what do you stand for? My question is, what do you stand for? Historically, which side of the line do we want to stand on? And my answer is, I want to be on the good. And I'm not without my mistakes. And as I'm sure anyone who's heard either of my – if you listen to Scathing, if you listen to Gam, if you listen to any of my podcasts, I'm not without my flaws, I'm not without my insensitivities, I don't qualify for any social justice awards.

0:32:53 Eli: But I have enough awareness that when someone brings that to my attention, I go, yeah, you're you're right. You're right, and I am sorry you feel that way. I don't have to be sorry I said it. Especially as a humorist, I don't have to be sorry I said it. But I CAN be sorry that someone feels badly. And that's the brave thing to do. You know, nobody, NOBODY would be against Richard Dawkins saying, I'm really sorry I told someone who has a Downs kid to abort their kid. That was so incredibly insensitive of me. You now, what a horrible thing to say for all the parents out out there who would door their children with special needs. What a, what a terrible thing for me. The limitation of Twitter characters does not matter. I should not have said that I should have been more subtle. I could have been, I should've been more careful, you know?

0:33:38 Eli: And the fact that he said, you pieces of shit, y'all trying to get me, but fuck yourselves, fuck yourselves and your retard babies too. You know, that didn't help anybody and it didn't help him, you Know, and whether or not he was restricted by, I use that as an example, because it's just so terrifying. Whether or not it was restricted by situation, we could talk about Elevatorgate or any of those things, any of Those things where it's someone's been oversensitive in the community.

And I'll use an example I think is maybe a little more relevant, which is the attacks that were done on Sam about feminism, right? Where he was asked the question in the New York Times interview or the Washington Post interview. I don't remember what. He was being interviewed and he was asking why there aren't more women in the movement. And he said, said, you know, I think we lack a certain nurturing vibe or something like that. And, you know, listen, the truth is, Sam, and not to get off on too much of a rant here, Sam shoots from the hip. Sam says what he means. And you have to listen to everything Sam says to get it, which is why he's so easy to take out of context. It's why when genuinely dangerous regressive liberals have a field day with Sam, it's because Sam sets up a whole world.

And within that world is, Because look, this is how, not only is it so dangerous, a nuclear first strike could be a good idea in this kind of world. But then you can just take that sentence and be like, look, Sam wants to nuke all the brown people, right? And that's a situation where nobody would have done badly for Sam to just go, you know what? Maybe I should have said this. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

0:34:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:35:13 Thomas: So do you, did you, are you critical of his, how he responded to that interview when he said, well,

0:35:19 Eli: I'm not because I know exactly where Sam was coming from. I think he came from a good place. And I think that when when you read all of his.

0:35:26 Thomas: But how much of it comes down to that? I really feel like so much of this, and I take what you're saying. I think a lot of people do posturing. They go to instant defensive mode instead of like you're advocating, simply apologize first and try to maybe explain your thinking or something like that. People do go to, you know what, fuck you first, oftentimes.

0:35:46 Eli: Right.

0:35:47 Thomas: And, but it's interesting that you say that about Sam, because I feel like so much of the stuff with Sam Harris and that we're talking about is who you decide to give benefit of the doubt to, and like you just said, I think he's coming from a good place. I do as well. And I, I wonder how much that factors in. I, I now Richard

0:35:58 Eli: Sure. Right, I read all of his words. Now, If you gave me if You made me in charge of the words that came out of Sam's mouth when he was asked that question, I'm not, I'm not fooling myself here. If you made me president of secularism at that moment, the answer for why there are no women or why there aren't enough, you know, women in the secular movement would have been, there are fantastic, fantastic women in the secular movement. Here's blah, blah, blah. Let me name names for you. I think it would be fascinating to hear from them what they find unwelcoming about the secular movement. But again, Sam got vaccinated. Now he has autism. So he says what he thinks. He says what he thinks and listen, my message here is don't vaccinate your kids.

0:36:08 Thomas: Dawkins for example Oh Go ahead.

0:36:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:49 Eli: That's what I'm getting. No, just put

0:36:49 Thomas: I think that's the most important thing, I think I'm probably going to delete everything else we said and just put that. Yeah.

0:36:56 Eli: That out there. Yeah, exactly. No, but in all seriousness, would I have given a different answer, yes. When you look at what Sam writes in context, is he remotely misogynistic? In my opinion, no. Am I willing to have my mind changed about that? Absolutely. And again, I spoke earlier about getting the opportunity to work with smarter people than me. And I've been incredibly lucky in that I was a big Sam acolyte even before I knew Noah and Heath, and I shared a lot of his opinions on torture. And for the first two years, me and Noah worked together. He was helping me figure out where some of those arguments are flawed. And I look at them now and I'm like, I don't get Sam. Me and Sam completely disagree on torture at this point. Not two years ago.

0:36:56 Thomas: Yeah. Really?

0:37:43 Thomas: Well, we'll have to have that conversation because Cause I, I'm still on the other side of that

0:37:45 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Not two year ago. But that's a conversation that I was led to by smarter people than me, and the question is, how wrong are we willing to be? And if our answer is going to be, I'm not willing to be wrong because everyone's too sensitive, and y'all need to shut up, and I found them, and you know, and everyone finds that one thing, right? And I'm sure you will. I've been talking for an hour and a half.

Someone's going to find a thing I said in here that wasn't true or entirely accurate. You know, it wasn't Alabama. It was Alabama State or something like that, and that's going to give you an opportunity to dismiss everything that comes out of my face. And absolutely, you can. There's always an opportunity to say, fuck you, I don't care. There is always an opportunity. But we need to be aware of history.

And as the secular community, I think we have an obligation because we claim to be evidence-based believers, because we claim to have evidence- based beliefs, we have an opportunity from this point forward, we've always had an opportunity, to be on the right side of

0:38:41 Thomas: Obligation. Yeah.

0:38:45 Eli: History.

0:38:46 Thomas: Yeah. I, I agree. I, I, I'm, I'm really glad you talked at me for an hour. No, I'm just kidding. I, I think you have a lot of good things to say on this. I agree, I think that, I mean, my, my whole show has been that I would rather just look at the nuance of stuff and just briefly on the Sam Harris stuff. The reason that, that I take what Sam Harris says more seriously and I give him more leeway than other people is I think he's intellectually honest. I think that's the most important thing. And I would say that's something I really admire about you, Eli, is that even if I disagree with you on something, I think you're being intellectually honest, I think your are representing your thoughts accurately, you're representing other people's thoughts accurately. Like when you said Trump was an evil, or no, Fiorina was an Evil Demon Spawn, you know, I think, you're saying what you truly believe, yeah. Yeah.

0:38:53 Eli: Right.

0:39:36 Eli: I'm saying what I feel. I'M SAYING WHAT I FEEL. You could change my mind about that, but it would be hard.

0:39:38 Thomas: No, but I think that's the

0:39:43 Eli: It would be real hard.

0:39:43 Thomas: Main thing. And I certainly see in the secular community or, well, okay. I should say that I think so many problems we say, oh, the secular community has the problem with this or that everybody has that problem. And a lot of them have it worse.

0:39:58 Eli: Right? Everybody has that problem. The secular community is not right.

0:40:01 Thomas: It's just the secular committee, I think we try to hold to a higher standard and we we should. But what I admire most in people is intellectual honesty, and as long as people are willing to acknowledge when and if they're wrong, that's something I try to do as well, and I think you're a great example for people. And I think you should be more of a secular leader than you give yourself credit for. I think, you guys, yeah, yeah.

0:40:22 Eli: Well, God knows. No. Cause then everyone will have to, then I'll have to start taking myself. See, is it the advantage to being the dick jokes movie guy is that at this point, if any, whenever, like if I'm totally wrong about this and someone's just just like put up a killer blog where they're just like, look at what an idiot Eli is. I can just be like, Hey, what do you want? I'm the dick jokes movie guy who wants to hear what Chris Christie would sound like if he was eating a Cinnabon, huh? Huh? Who wants to? And everyone's like, all right, Eli, you go listen to it. You go eat a Cinnabon as Chris Christie. You let Heath and Noah do the talking. I'm The Pretty One.

0:40:28 Thomas: True.

0:40:45 Thomas: I do, I do. I know. Yeah. Well, I think I'll have to call it for time here, but another thing you've given me is many more ideas for future conversations that I hope you'd be willing to come back and have.

0:41:02 Eli: Oh, anytime. This was a ton of fun. Thank you so much for having me on.

0:41:05 Thomas: Thanks so much for coming on. The podcasts are, of course, Scathing Atheist, The Skeptocrat, and my personal favorite, Godawful Movies. I know I'm biased, but that's my personal favorite. I love that frigging show. I can't get enough of it. It is just so fun, and I want to to have you guys on to talk because I have I have some questions I want to ask you guys about that show in general. So maybe I can get you guys on, or we'll see.

0:41:28 Eli: Let's make it happen. That sounds fantastic.

0:41:30 Thomas: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. I think that people should be willing to have these conversations. I Think Bogosian, I think other people, they would benefit or we would benefit if they're right, you know, so

0:41:40 Eli: I think, I think anybody would benefit from this kind of conversation, especially if I'm wrong. I'm begging anyone who knows I'm wrong to prove me wrong so I can be smarter. Yeah.

0:41:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. All if I get if I Get interesting comments or something, maybe I'll try to run them by you just for a quick response and see. Yeah.

0:41:54 Eli: Exactly. You can get a public apology for the next episode for everything I was wrong about.

0:41:58 Thomas: All right. Well, until the next time when Eli publicly apologizes for all the prostitutes he was caught with. Oh, and the things that, you know, you're wrong about.

0:42:08 Eli: Oh, I'm not apologizing for shit for that. Angel has the hands of a sailor.

0:42:11 Thomas: Wait a minute. I thought you were engaged, though. Isn't that?

0:42:15 Eli: What? Don't judge my life, don't charge my life, this is just private, right? She's not going to hear this. Yeah.

0:42:15 Thomas: Oh, OK. Yeah, no, this is just for me. All Right, man. Thank you so much for coming on. I'll talk to you again soon.

0:42:20 Eli: Exactly. Awesome, thanks so much.

0:42:42 Thomas: Have it, the whirlwind, the hurricane of talking that is Eli Bosnick on a topic he's very passionate about. Okay, I suspect many of you have concerns, comments, that sort of thing. I definitely want to hear from you. I also want to say, as I mentioned last episode, I will be appearing on Cognizant to talk about this kind of thing, and I'm going to try to do that. I'm not going to Now, here's the thing. I don't want to do a same episode thing again with them. I want to try. So, what I'm gonna do do is, I haven't recorded that yet. I'm going to record with them, find out how that goes, what we hit, what points we hit. And then I'm Going to reflect even more on it to make with emphasis on moron being me. Now I'm gonna reflect even More on it. And, uh, then I going to use that reflection and to record a good brief, uh commentary on this interview, because I don't want to address stuff here and then repeat myself, etc.

0:43:37 Thomas: I'm going to try to make it so I don't have any more repeated content with Cogdiss for the foreseeable future. But I would encourage tuning into them. I know most of you probably already do. They're a fantastic show. Two of my favorite guys, them and Eli and Noah and Heath, they're the best. They are my guys. So I'm sure most of you already check out their shows because let's face it, they have huge listenership and for good good reason. So that, well, yeah, I'll just have to leave it there. I'll have to say Thursday, but don't worry. Thursday is not going to be just about this. There's a lot to say, a lot of commentary I've been meaning to do. So I'll try to mix it up, bring in a lot of perspectives, that sort of thing. This kind of thing you guys hired me to do when you started listening implicitly.

0:44:27 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much for joining me. Ah, direct your questions, comments. I will address those if anyone feels terribly passionately about what Eli has said, and I will warn that the way, because Eli is so, so good at talking so much and is so passionate about this topic, I did find myself having a hard time responding to a lot of it because the minute I wanted to respond to one thing, he was already on to seven or eight more interesting things. And I don't want to make that sound negative. It's just something that I will want to be aware if there's ever, I'll tell you quickly, this is just a brief thing that I probably could have saved for later, but I'll just tell you now while it's on my mind.

0:45:15 Thomas: If I was going to record with Eli again, which I would love to do. I love Eli. I think he's a great guy. I Think he's the the most talented. I will say this, of all the podcasters I know, including myself, I think he's the most talent person. Outright. He is unbelievable. Unbelievably talented. And as a result of that ability of his, if I'm ever going to have him on again to talk about something that's not humor related, to talk About an issue, I'm going to make sure that I have some idea of the the talking points. Well, it'll depend on the issue, obviously, but some idea of what he wants to say. And that way I can definitely research and break down ahead of time so that I know when I can interrupt him. Because it's very hard to get a word in.

0:46:00 Thomas: And again, this is not a negative thing. It's just, I need to be prepared. I need to be as ready and have as much to say as Eli did. Because I like listening. I like listening to people's perspectives. And like I said, when I'd start to want to respond on something, he would already have so many more things that I was thinking about. Then I'd, then I'd sort my brain thinking again, okay, what is, you know, what is he saying here? What, you know, and so all I'm saying is if I'm going to do this again with Eli, next time I want to be far more ready to interrupt him. And I'll probably give him a warning next time of, I may just blurt out like, Hey, stop. So I can, you Now, so I can get a word in here and focus the argument or question something. So that's what I learned. It was very interesting to have that experience because I just don't know if I've ever had someone on who was just that talented at speaking, at just being able to go off.

0:46:52 Thomas: It is quite an experience. And Noah and Heath are very lucky to have Eli, I think. If it were the NFL, I would trade for him. I would just, I would spend, I'd blow all my salary cap trying to trade for Eli so that I could get him on my team because he's great. All right, there you have it. Like I said, questions, comments, all that stuff, Facebook, webpage, wherever you want to send it, Patreon, all of that. And I will see you on Thursday.