AS221: Tommentary

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. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and this is episode number 221. All right, today, I've got some commentary for you. We've been doing a lot of interviews lately, and I want to get back to having a chance to commentate on various things and maybe include some listener comments and that sort of thing. I've gotta comment that really frustrated me that I'm excited to vent on, so that ought to be awkward and fun for the commenter involved. And with that being said, why don't I play some commentary music? Music.

0:01:10 Thomas: The first item I want to talk about is actually another podcast. I don't remember how I found this podcast, but it's called Unbelievable, and some of you are familiar with it. I've already, I think, I interacted with a commenter about it, but anyway, Unbelievable. And it's, it's actually a Christian podcast. It's done by a Christian, and it's probably mainly for believers, but, it usually features, almost every episode features two people who disagree on something. Thing. It's not always Christian and atheist. Sometimes it's different believers disagreeing on some particular aspect of religion. But a lot of times, the guy has atheists on to argue with Christians, and I really like it. It is actually a pretty good podcast.

0:01:56 Thomas: It isn't a debate. It is more discussion, and sometimes it is almost too friendly. I think there should be more disagreement, but hey, you know, what can you do? I mean, I like friendly discussion for sure. But I bring it up because Peter Hitchens was on with like two or three other people to talk about Christopher Hitchens and Christopher Hitchins' arguments against religion. So it was pretty interesting. I'd encourage you to check it out.

But if you do, you may find yourself wanting to punch something when you hear Peter Hitchens talk, because not only is he apparently somewhat jealous of his brother's success, even after his death, and bitter, which I don't blame because actually they weren't very close, and Christopher Hitchens didn't talk that fondly of him when he was alive, so it's not like they had some close relationship where Peter should be giving him great reverence or anything, but But Peter Hitchens' whole thing, and this is something that I found so, it's so frustrating. It is the most, it is almost presuppositionalist. It's not quite, but Peter Hitchin's whole thing was any atheist is only an atheist because they want to be hedonists. They want to have sex, drugs, and rock and roll is what he joked.

Like, that's what, and in his mind, in Peter Hitchen's mind, that is what Christopher Hitchens was. Was. He was someone who wanted to do all these things that in his mind were sins, were bad, and that's where his atheism comes from. And Peter Hitchens even said he thinks that's where everyone's atheism come from. This is something that is increasingly,

0:03:36 Thomas: The more I've been secure and away from my Christian upbringing, and the more, I've just been an atheist, been among atheists, been, been along what I think is a more, personally, what I thing is more enlightened way of viewing the world, the harder it is to even remember this way of thinking. And that's what's so weird, is, where does this come from? Where does, Peter Hitchens' view on sex, Like having sex with, you know, people before or outside of marriage or whatever it is. I don't know what he's most concerned with there. Maybe even having sex với someone of the same gender. You know, that's something that I'm sure in Peter Hitchens' mind is a sin that people know is bad, and so therefore they turn to atheism so that they don't have to feel judged.

0:04:24 Thomas: Even though that makes no sense. This idea that we can simply, you Know, oh, I don'T want to be judged by God. I know. I'll just believe he doesn't exist. That's a good... Does it really work out like that? Hey, guys, I don't want to get skin cancer. I'm just going to believe that the sun doesn't cause skin cancer. And I'm not going to wear... I also don't want to wear sunblock. It's too big of a pain in the butt. So, I think I'm just going to... You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to believe it doesn't cause it. I don't want to get fat. I'm just going to believe that ice cream makes you skinnier. I'm just going to believe that. This idea that somehow, I mean, possibly there could be some level of motivation and belief sometimes. I think maybe you could make that case.

0:05:10 Thomas: But the idea that it's that conscious and it's that solvable where we could just decide one day, even though we know God exists, that we want to be atheists because we don't want his punishment. Here's what he's missing because, God, you need to listen to this because it'll make you so mad. I just want to call Peter Hitchens a bunch of names right now because it's not just that he thinks this, it's that he really thinks this with alongside Christopher Hitchens' sort of cockiness about it, which I could understand why Christopher Hitchens must have been so frustrating to religious people because, of course, he did have a great arrogance about him, which, you know, I think he earned in a lot of ways, but he was arrogant about it and he he was incredibly headstrong about his beliefs, and that's what we love about him.

0:05:58 Thomas: And so Peter Hitchens, in like 70% of the same way, I mean, he's not quite as well-spoken as Christopher Hitchens I don't think, but he's able to do it. He's able to do the same kind of turns of phrase and interesting things that Christopher did, but in the service of Christianity, which of course makes it so frustrating.

And when Peter Hitchens tells me or tells anyone, any atheist, that we believe in atheism because we don't want to be judged, he does it with just as much confidence as Christopher Hitchens would do, you know, saying that Christians are being ridiculous. So it was highly frustrating.

But the obvious thing that these people are missing, and maybe you have someone in your life that's like this, I know, I think my family, I thinks parts of my family probably think this, they probably think that atheism comes from not wanting to be judged for sins, the thing is, those things, in my mind, if I think, if imagine an all-powerful God, I cannot possibly imagine that God caring about things like sex and homosexuality and drugs, why on earth would a God care about that? It makes no sense. That's what makes no sense. It's not the other way around. It's that that's actually a reason I don't believe in your God because your God apparently cares who I have sex with or if I masturbate sometimes, some cases, depending on the religion. That's just inconceivable to me. When you posit a God and then you say, and this God really doesn't like left-handed people. It's like, okay, that's ridiculous. I don't believe in that. It's not because I really want to be left-handed. It's not because I want to do these things or something. I probably do, but it's not.

0:07:44 Thomas: Because of that, it's because your worldview in which a God cares about these things makes no sense, and that's why I'm an atheist. But it's also really curious to ponder the psychology of this, you know, because Peter Hitchens actually did say that he wasn't religious for a while, and Peter and Christopher had the same upbringing, so why did Peter Hitchins maintain this, I guess, overall feeling of guilt? You know, Because that's what it is. If you, I think it must be, I'm guessing anyway, he, Peter Hichins, according to his, you what I can gather from his opinions, he has an inherent kind of belief inside of him that things like premarital sex and whatever else, things like that are wrong. And that's why he realized that atheists are just trying to avoid judgment for those things.

0:08:34 Thomas: So how is that inside of him, but not inside of Christopher Hitchens? And where does that even come from? It's so fascinating to ponder. I don't want to try to mind read. I I don't have like a good answer, but it's, it's such an interesting question because when I, when I have to interact with religious people, sometimes I have to remember like, oh yeah, you, you depending on the religious person, oh, you care about these things.

Like you have to get yourself, I don't know if anyone else has that experience. Let me know if you have, but you have to get yourself back in the mindset of like, oh, I can't just talk in a way where I don't completely not care about how promiscuous sex or whatever, you know, I have to, I guess, be sensitive to the fact that in your mind, it's like some disgusting thing or something that deserves ridicule, which is hard, but it's, I think it's something that people like me do for their families and for their whatever all the time, you know, it doesn't, they, These, I've actually saw one time that conservatives, one of the main traits that you can see across all kinds of conservatives is they have a higher disgust at a lot of things. Like their reaction to things involves more disgust than for liberals, which made sense to me. That's why I remembered it. It's like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

The sort of disgust that, oh, people's, you know, allured behavior and all that kind of thing, where when you get away from that and you approach the world more like, well, we're all just animals here who evolved and we're doing our best to live and one day we're going to die.

When you approach it from that angle, like, you know, I guess a lot of you do, it's I sometimes have to remind myself, oh, these people actually, for some reason, care about the, you know, sexual acts of perfect strangers that they don't know about.

0:10:31 Thomas: So, it's just funny to think about that and to ponder what a big mental shift that was for me, anyway, growing up the way I did and now looking at life the way that I do.

0:10:52 Thomas: Next thing I want to do is... talk a little bit about the feedback I've received, because a lot of you took the survey that I asked for, thank you guys so much for doing that, and it was an interesting experience, because even though, far and away, you know, the reaction is positive, the numbers are positive, all that, that. And it makes sense because I'm sure it would take a weird person to really hate the show, but continue to listen. And then of course, also go fill out a survey, but I'm, I'm Sure it's possible. So it stands to reason that most of the people filling out the surveys are going to be, you know, favorable on the show. So that's, it's a little too bad that I can't hear, I can find a way to target the people who don't like the show and, uh, get commentary from them or feedback from them.

0:11:37 Thomas: But anyway, even though it's positive, everybody likes it. They were doing me a favor with the survey. It's amazing how hard it is because a lot of people had constructive comments and they were constructive. They were polite. They were nice. They're 100% good. But seeing so many of them with like, well, if I were to pick something I don't like, and then telling me something they don't Like about the show, it's so funny how at least my psychology and I think a lot of people's, it's so hard to ignore the impact of hearing a lot of those comments. And it's interesting because I start getting defensive and I start feeling a little self-conscious about the show and all that, even though it was, like I said, far and away positive. Plenty of positive things to say too.

0:12:23 Thomas: And I don't read those, I think, because I'm kind of a negative person. I don't really read the positive stuff. I just go to the negative. And it was a very interesting experience. It really opened my eyes to like how easy it is to just focus on bad stuff and get down on myself because of that when really, like I said, everybody was very happy with the show.

But what I want to say, the reason I'm bringing this up is there are some things, some consistent things that I saw throughout the people who filled out the survey that I think I can improve on. And, you know, after having the reaction of, oh, you don't want to do this, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to be able to do be feeling defensive and feeling a little like hurt that, you know, there are things people are critiquing about me.

After getting over that as best I could, I still cry myself to sleep every night, but after getting over that as best I can, there are a few consistent things throughout that I'm glad were pointed out to me. Just, for example, apologizing too much for my opinions. I think there are a lot of people who don't like that. And it makes sense. I mean, as I think about it more and more, it makes sense that you just want to hear what I have to say. Like, you're probably tired of me being apologetic for my opinions.

I have a hard time because I want to always express that I don't feel like I'm an expert at everything. I don't feel like I know everything. I feel like there are a lot of people who know more. I feel a great deal of humility when it comes to this sort of thing. And it's hard to not want to express that every time I'm expressing an opinion.

0:14:02 Thomas: Also, combine that fact with no matter what I'm saying, someone will be yelling at me on the other, you know, of the other side. So when you have an opinion show like I do, and you have mostly an opinion show, sometimes it's just interviews, but anyway, when you have a show where you're expressing your opinion publicly and with a growing audience that I have, it's interesting, no matter what you're saying, there's somebody on the other side of it calling you an idiot for your point of view. And I think I need to do my best to ignore that. So I appreciate the feedback.

0:14:40 Thomas: I'm and just give you them and say, you know, this is what I think. And I think that'll make the show a little smoother. A lot of people thought that sometimes my tangents were a little too much. Like I need to focus more and not go off on tangents. Some people, it should be said, some people say, oh, I like the tangents because, you know I just like following you on your line of thinking. So, but I think overwhelmingly it seemed like people thought I ought to limit those. So I'm going to try to limit my tangents. I will edit myself more. Sometimes I just find things, fascinating trains of thought that I want to explore. I'm not going to kill that altogether because sometimes, you know, it will be a fascinating tangent, but I am going to focus on editing myself a little bit more on that.

0:15:28 Thomas: I already do, of course. It's not like I don't edit, but, I'm gonna do a little more and make sure that I'm a little more focused for you guys. Because the bottom line is the show's getting bigger and bigger every day, uh, you know, slowly but surely, and I think the best way to grow the show is just make sure I'm doing as best I can. I mean, there's probably stuff I could be doing promotion wise, I could probably be trying to tweet or or do more, I don't know, who knows, there's probably more promotion I could be doing, but bottom line is like when I do an episode that I think is really good, I think people, you know, they spread it more and I just need to make sure that I'm doing my best. And I think that's how good shows get bigger and bigger is someone hears an episode they like that's making a point they like and they share it with a friend, you know.

0:16:18 Thomas: So if you do like it, I encourage you to please share it with someone and I will do my best to take the feedback I've gotten from you guys and use it to make the show better. So thank you for that. Just wanted to give you a little inside scoop on what happened. And because there were so many people that gave their feedback, I wanted to make sure to tell you guys on the show publicly that it was received and read and considered, and I'm going to do my best to implement it.

0:16:49 Thomas: All right, I think it's time I finally talk about the comment that had me most pissed this particular week. And it's Mike Papps. You may remember Mike Papps comments a lot. And I don't feel bad talking about it because I said what I thought to him. And I found that Mike is pretty resilient. He, no matter how much I and others disagree with him on the site, he's always there arguing back. So I don't think of this as cheap-shotting him or anything.

Thing, but Mike had a reaction to something that I think it illustrates a bigger theme that I want to touch on that's very, very frustrating, and it's this. In the last episode, and on Twitter a lot, I've called out people body-shaming Maryam Namazie in response to her arguments, and I've talked a lot about this, there was a cartoon, I referenced a really ugly cartoon, and these are not nobodies, these are wackos, these aren't people with the egg in their Twitter profile, these were actually prominent people, this was someone, the person who drew that Maryam Namazie cartoon is someone who has been called by Richard Dawkins a great satirist. And maybe he is, maybe he has other good work. I don't know. But this was certainly very insulting and disgusting and not appropriate. And also there was Tommy Robinson. I brought that up.

Tommy Robinson's response to Maryam arguing, his counter-argument to her was to post a picture of her of a nude protest and say she looks terrible. And somehow that's a response to her argument. Mike Paps, his response is, people don't engage in body shaming because they think it's a valid argument against someone's position.

0:18:32 Thomas: The intent, like with all trolling, is to get under people's skin. I don't know whether it's something Maryam has complained about, but if she has, she's giving the trolls exactly what they want. If she hasn't, those who complain about it on her behalf are giving them what they want and are not doing her any favors. It will only embolden them to do more of it because it's getting exactly the attention they want, and what they Want is to piss off the people they disagree with. Yeah, this is complete bullshit. Shit. I get so frustrated, Mike, at this point of view, and I told you on the site. I can't tell you how frustrating it is. Okay, so when people make disgusting caricatures and it's shared by lots of people, people who have millions of followers, Tommy Robinson has millions of followers. When people say disgusting stuff like that, you can't respond.

0:19:18 Thomas: You can't express displeasure. You can't say, hey, that's sexist bullshit. You can't say that. Oh, I better not say anything because it's going to feed the trolls. It's, that's idiotic. When someone is sexist, when someone is overtly racist and all that, you, we have a right. We can say, I can say like, hey, you're being a racist. You're being a sexist. There's not, there's not a risk of, oh, well, that's what they want. That's what they want me to say. They want me to get mad and, and on Maryam's behalf, that's what they, they thrive off of. No, they, they, here's the thing, Mike, they have a different point of view. Tommy Robinson actually thinks that Maryam Namazie looking in his mind not good enough naked, he actually thinks that is a response to our argument.

0:20:04 Thomas: He's not a troll. This isn't a trolling thing. None of these were trolls. These are people who think it's okay to criticize Maryam's looks, and they think that's an okay response to an argument, and to her stances, and and to ridicule her and to draw horrible caricatures of her body and to shame her in that way, and it's, you know, people can believe what they want. People can believe, oh, I'm gonna body-shame this person because I want to, you You know, I can't stop people, but I get to say, hey, don't do that. I have every right to say that. Don't tell me that I shouldn't be saying that. Like they, here's the thing, Mike, it gets really tiresome when your focus is all on me.

0:20:49 Thomas: You know? Your focus is on policing how me and Maryam react to it. You want to police that because you think, well, I mean, I'll take you at your word that this is actually what you think. But I sometimes doubt it because it always happens to be convenient. Like, you don't have a hard time criticizing people at any time for what they say until it's something like this. And then you're worried that criticizing these quote-unquote trolls is actually feeding them what they want. You know, then that's your worry. It always happens To Be something like This. But it's not going to do anything. There's no change in how they think. They don't get more thrill out of body shaming her when we say, hey, stop body shaming her. That doesn't add to it.

0:21:34 Thomas: It just, that's what they think. They think that's okay and they're doing it. So maybe if enough of us said, if when that guy drew that cartoon, enough of us said, hey that's really not okay. That's not okay to, and we're not censoring. We're not saying this guy should should be banned from Twitter. I'm not saying that. I would disagree with anyone who said that. I'm no, I'm non-pro-censorship. But just as if someone said something horribly racist or someone insulted someone because of their gender, because of the race, their sexuality, anything like that, I'm in favor of calling those people out, saying, stop doing that. That's not, here's why that's not okay. You know, and explaining the reasons as best you can.

0:22:21 Thomas: It doesn't mean I'm censoring them. It doesn't mean anything like that. The guy can draw that. He has the right to draw the cartoon. If he disagrees with me, he can draw that cartoon. But when more people call it out, if everyone called it out or if like 80% of people called it Out, when he drew that cartoon said, whoa, man, that's terrible. That's terrible and he kept seeing tweet after tweet of this is horrible. You've gone too far. This is horrible have gone too far. He'll say, you know what? Maybe this was horrible and I went too far when it's just a couple of people and then you Mike saying, oh, don't tell him that it's just what he wants. No, he's never going to change his mind. That's not going to do anything. He's not going to run it. You have this fantasy that we're all going to ignore him. And then he's going to, he's going to get no pleasure out of it. And he's going to learn the error of his ways or something like that.

0:23:07 Thomas: And it's just not going to happen because there are a bunch of people encouraging him and saying, oh, that's hilarious. Oh yeah. She's ugly. Oh yeah, she's, you know, and agreeing with the premise of what he's saying. So this was was the comment that really pissed me off. And Mike, I urge you to reconsider your stance on this. But we'll see how that goes.

0:23:34 Thomas: Next thing I want to talk about is, if you were to pick the party, Republicans or Democrats, that is the, science-denying party, who would you pick? I think most people would say, well, Republicans, they deny climate change, etc., etc., but, one, one point I've actually, talked about before, and I bring up now because I saw there was an article people were sharing recently, on a site called, science20.com, is, is that Democrats aren't always necessarily so pro-science as you might think. Now, this article, Science 20, tries to make it out to be that actually it's equal, like Republicans and Democrats are equally anti-science when it suits their needs. Now, I don't know if I'd go that far. Let's break it down and see what conclusions we can come to here.

0:24:20 Thomas: So, the obvious one, like I mentioned, is climate change. That's the one where Democrats, for the most part, I think pretty universally, acknowledge climate change, it's a huge problem. February was an incredibly hot month. Oh my God. In California, and again, that doesn't, not that my local temperature necessarily is indicative of global warming. I mean, the climate's more complex than that, but I couldn't help but notice that for like two weeks in the end of February, this is February, I'm in the Northern Hemisphere. This is supposed to be be winter. It was 75 degrees. It tied the all-time high for that day, almost every day for like a week in Sacramento. It w it was insane. I, I, it was summer.

0:25:07 Thomas: It was summertime in February. Uh, and, but anyway, um, that, that temperature rise is, is, is alarming now. And everybody, we, I'm sure most of you know this. Most all of you are probably, probably accept climate change. And most all Democrats accept climate change. I think conservatives are even starting to, but that's the one you typically see. Well, you know, conservatives reject science because they reject climate change." Well, what about some of the things that Democrats reject? Now, a lot of Democrats, and I don't think it's 50-50 because I don'T think as many Democrats reject these things as Republicans do for climate change, but this article points out Bernie Sanders, actually. So I have to come clean and I have to admit that there are some things in Bernie Sanders' views that I don't like.

0:25:57 Thomas: I have to say, after reading this and reading other things, this isn't the first thing I've read, he's got some views that I do not quite like, even though I still think he is the best guy. You guys know I am a Bernie Sanders guy. I am just voting for him because he is my favorite person. He is the only one that I think is a good person. And that's what I want. I want a good person in the White House because the Republican Congress is going to block anything anyway, so I don't care. Anyway, but after reading this, he's anti-GMO and it seems like Bernie Sanders is maybe pro-alternative medicine. So that's two things where the science is pretty clear on GMOs. Now, that might be something, since these are two issues that progressives are on, sometimes times the anti-science end of, and I think my show is going to be, honestly, my audience is going to be a lot of progressives.

0:26:52 Thomas: I'll be curious to hear if I get a lot pushback on this one. I'm curious to see the comments. But GMOs are safe. It's pretty universally recognized by scientists that GMOs aren't no safer or more dangerous. I mean, they aren't inherently one or the other because it's just the way, you know, things are now. Crops are genetically modified. Everything we eat is genetically modified, everything we grow is genetically modified. Just because it is slightly more precise and we can do it in a lab now with more precision than we could with breeding and, you now, selective reproduction, all that kind of stuff. Just because is more precise doesn't mean it is more dangerous. Now, you could definitely make something really dangerous, but then you have to rely on the system.

0:27:39 Thomas: Like you do with anything, you know, like you do, with all your food, like, you do the restaurants, we rely on regulations and the FDA, we, you know, we have to rely on all that stuff, we can't, there's no way you can know that someone isn't putting a terrible ingredient in your food. You know, w-we have, we systems for this, and, and there are systems of testing for GMO products and all that, that we have to rely on, that's not, there is no, the labeling does not make sense. Let me get into some details here. Here. Sanders has expressed a liking for small farms and that sort of thing, which is, it's not like that's a negative thing. It's not a negative to be in favor of small farms, small growers, all that sort of thing. But it does risk ignoring the enormous benefits of big farming and of scientifically altered crops that they have an incredible potential to cure world hunger.

0:28:33 Thomas: You know, they have an incredible feeding potential and there's incredible benefits that we're ignoring if we take this anti-science attitude towards farming. And that's something that a lot of liberals do. Here's another thing, GMO labeling. This is something that, I mean, I think the atheists I know tend to be more scientifically minded and I think are usually on the side of being against GMO labelling because it doesn't, it's incoherent. The idea of labeling GMOs doesn't even make sense. Everything's genetically modified. But a lot of progressives, a lot of Democrats are pro and are in favor of that. And that view expresses a lack of scientific rigor.

0:29:19 Thomas: Because if you look at the, let's see, there's all kinds of organizations here that we can look at their quotes on GMOs. The American Association for the Advancement of Science. The science is quite clear. This is a quote. "Crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe." How about the American Medical Association? "Our AMA recognizes that there's no evidence that unique hazards exist either in the use of GE techniques or in the movement of genes between unrelated organisms. Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and or substantiated in the peer reviewed literature." Let's do one more just in case anyone's not.

0:30:07 Thomas: How about the World Health Organization? "GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved." So this makes a pretty decent case that Bernie Sanders, and I think others among the progressive party, are are going against scientists. Now, I don't think it's quite as dire as climate change. That one, you know, the effects are going to be greater, I think. Because when you talk about GMO labeling, you know there is a case that people will make like, well, what's the harm? It's not that much. Yeah, it's not as harmful as ignoring climate change, I, I think.

0:30:53 Thomas: It's not as harmful. But it is unnecessary. It is, it is an, it, it is in the face of scientific consensus, and that's what we're talking about here. Which party is more going against scientific consensus? And the answer is, well, both sometimes, both parties sometimes. Another instance, and again, this article picked on Bernie in particular, but I think this is in a lot of Democratic candidates, is people are anti-nuclear energy. People want, we want clean energy, we wanna reduce fossil fuels, yet somehow Democrats are also usually against nuclear energy. And I found this frustrating. I find that, like most people, seem to be against nuclear energy when, in my view, we really need to ramp that up.

0:31:40 Thomas: Nuclear energy is incredible. I mean, how could it not be? There's obviously dangers. There's obvious concerns, you know, or don't put one on a fault line, you know, don't build a nuclear power plant in my neck of the woods right on the Sandra's faults or something, you know, just in case. But it's an incredible source of energy. Experts think that if we get rid of nuclear, we're going to increase our reliance on fossil fuels, and that's another instance where there is a bit of an environmentalist leaning toward being anti-scientist there. I don't know where that comes from, but it seems like a lot of people are incredibly anti-nuclear energy when it really is an incredible energy source and could help curb climate change. The last item mentioned was alternative medicine, and there's some quotes here that show that Bernie is a little sympathetic to it.

0:32:30 Thomas: He said, "I believe integrative healthcare offers an excellent opportunity to address these and many other issues and improve our too expensive and not always effective sick care system. Clearly, we need to put much more emphasis on disease prevention and wellness and on care that links physical and mental well-being." So the author of this particular article, it's actually a different one, this is on a scienceblogs.com article, says that it sounds as though Sanders buys into the false dichotomy between natural and pharmaceutical and the cam propaganda that paints medicine as not promoting prevention. And yeah, so all this is to say, I found this interesting. This is a challenging article because, you know, I would love to, as someone who identifies with Democrats. I would love to think, you know, Democrats are all correct when it comes to science and Republicans are all incorrect and are all going flying in the face of scientific consensus.

0:33:25 Thomas: But that doesn't seem to be the case. And I think there's a pretty compelling case here that liberals can often be just as anti-science, even though, again, it might not have the quite the detrimental effect. But that's not really what's important. What's important is the principle of going with overwhelming scientific consensus. It would be one thing if 50% of scientists thought one thing. Well, then you have two sides there. It might be an emerging science. It might not be something where we ought to write into law anything that is not quite that rigorous. But when you have the overwhelming majority of all scientists telling you one thing, like with GMOs And like with global warming, we need to listen, you know, and policy needs to listen and the government needs to listen.

0:34:11 Thomas: So that's something that I found fascinating. All right, well, that's all the opinion I have for this show. I have some a couple other little announcements. Oh, first I should continue the count I've got going for reviews. In my quest for 500 iTunes reviews, we are at 219. It's slowly but surely, you know, it's creeping up. We've got about a hundred since I initiated this quest, and again, that's just in the U.S. iTunes store. That's where I'm shooting for 500. I have more than enough U.S. listeners, much more than enough to get to 500, but thanks to everyone who's giving me reviews, whatever country it might be. I think there's a way I can view them, but this is the count I'm trying to do.

0:34:57 Thomas: And when we hit 500 US iTunes reviews, I will do a bonus episode for you guys, for everybody, and it'll be good. So please do that. I encourage you. Just it's simple. iTunes, go there, hit the five stars, maybe type a little what you like about the show, whatever you want to do, please do that. If we all do it, then it'll be 500 in no time. So thank you for that. Also, I'm actually having the best designer in the world, sorry, no offense to any designers out there, who did the Comedy Shoeshine logo, which is incredible. It's something you should all look at. It's my favorite thing ever. He's gonna maybe redesign some logos for my shows, and I think it's gonna be really cool. It's gonna have a new look, and it might be something that I won't be afraid to slap on a t-shirt or slap on mug, and maybe make available for patrons, or maybe make it available to buy.

0:35:49 Thomas: So that's kind of exciting. I'm excited about that. It's a cool, uh, it's going to be, I guarantee you it will be cool because this guy is so talented. He's, he's my absolute favorite. Other than that, not much more except to say, next show I have Ishmael from Angry Black Rant, and I have another awesome interview I've already taped that will be coming up after that that was so... I really liked. We got some good shows coming up, so join me on Thursday for Ishmael from Angry Black Rant. We have a really interesting conversation about Black Lives Matter protests, you know, and we debated a little bit about those and whether they could go too far, that sort of thing. Just kind of issues where it's good to hear both sides and to have some back and forth. And it was awesome. So I can't wait for that. Check that out on Thursday. Thank you for listening to the show.