AS232: Finding Uncommon Ground

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. This is episode 232, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. I am so happy to have you with me today. So, we are on schedule. Usually this would be a Tom and Terry episode, this would that kind of thing, but I had a listener reach out to me by the name of Ben Young and we had tweeted back and forth some different stuff. He comments and participates a lot on Facebook and Twitter and we wanted to have a conversation. I thought maybe this would be like the Tom and Terry except with someone else. So we just had a bit of a back-and-forth, pretty casual, but but also we got to some real interesting areas. Areas of discussion, and some cool stuff came out of this, so I hope you like what you hear. It was fun to talk to Ben, and so here it is.

0:01:46 Thomas: Joining me right now is one listener, Ben Young III. How are you doing?

0:01:51 Ben: I'm doing good, Thomas, thanks for having me on.

0:01:53 Thomas: Thank you for coming on. Now, Ben had emailed me something that was kind of a disagreement between us, I think, a little bit. And the reason I wanted to have you on is it's a point of view that actually I bet a lot of people share that listen, or they might share. So I think it's cool to talk about it and to maybe try to reach a consensus or whatever we can and understanding on our approaches. Is. But anyway, before we get to that, why don't you introduce yourself, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

0:02:22 Ben: Uh, there's not a whole lot to tell, uh, I came across your show by searching on the iTunes podcast app for atheist shows, and you were one of the first ones that popped up. Um, and, yeah, I really, I, really got into it, and I, uh was adding people on Facebook, and accepted my friend request, and just sent you, I remember reaching out and sending you a message saying, hey, I like the show, and you responded back within like a day, and was like, all right, Thomas is, uh he's all about the engagement. Engagement so whenever you have a show that I like or something that I think is interesting I tend to message you on it you usually respond um and I am now a patron of the show so I Feel like I'm just getting my just desserts of you having Brought me on. My money is finally coming back in a big way. Yeah.

0:02:32 Thomas: Nice. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's see if this investment pays off. Cool. So, and what you didn't say to the audience, of course, is you have a very striking headshot. Beautiful, beautiful, if I might say. And also, you do a bit of acting, and I know we've bonded over Sondheim, which is something I could talk about at any time.

0:03:08 Ben: Oh.

0:03:17 Ben: Wait, are you You're not talking about the Skype one, are you? Because, you know, my hair is not that length anymore. Oh.

0:03:27 Ben: Yeah. That's Right. Well, Not Just that we bonded over Light Light in the Piazza and The beautiful Adam Gettle.

0:03:31 Thomas: Oh, gosh. Okay, so we could do a show on that. But unfortunately, I think you and I and only a few other people would be interested. So, well, I

0:03:40 Ben: Well, I just got done. I just got done doing Scooby-Doo in Egypt, man. So musical theater, it's going to bring peace to the Middle East. I can feel it.

0:03:45 Thomas: Don't remember, yeah, if Sondheimer wrote Scooby-Doo, the musical, cool, but I don't think, no, but yeah, yeah, but okay, let's get into it. Maybe you can summarize your position. This all started, I think this started with, I was doing a bit of ridiculing of Gadsad, as I admit I do from time to time, because I think it's ridiculous how much he shuts down, you know, and blocks people that just slightly disagree with him, and he blocked Ina, and I think that's maybe what led to your email. Is that right?

0:03:52 Ben: Decidedly did not.

0:04:19 Ben: Uh, kind of, sort of not, not exactly. So what, if I remember your retweet correctly, uh, if you thought that, um, when Ina had responded to somebody saying, oh no, I've been blocked from the illustrious echo chamber of Gad Saad, however, will my life go on? And you just, you know, retweeted and said, this is the funniest thing I've I've ever read. And I, yeah, please.

0:04:21 Thomas: Okay. Oh, I think it had to do, cause she specifically said it. Well, let me just clarify, but I'll let you, I'll Let You Go. What was so funny about it was that he didn't just block her. He, he, he tweeted and like told her specifically, like, I'm going to, he went out of his way basically. That was, that's what I was laughing at because he, yeah, he was like, oh, I just heard, He tweeted something like, followers of mine have told me that you've been saying certain things or whatever, so I'm going to block you from the GAD, you know, and he always uses his self-named whatever crap he said, the Gadsphere, the sad, whatever it is. He has a different name for everything.

0:04:58 Ben: Right. He made a grand gesture.

0:05:18 Thomas: Yeah, it's always something different. And I just, I found it, what I found funny was him going out of his way to like mess or, you Know, tweet at her saying she was, could no longer enjoy his fine tweets. But, but anyway, that's what I found funny.

0:05:18 Ben: It's always something that isn't it.

0:05:32 Ben: Well, and also too, we should probably add in, um, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but all the research that I could do on Ina's page, somebody had asked her about GAD and she just responded back with her opinion of him and didn't even tag him in it. So it was, it was a complete

0:05:36 Thomas: Sure.

0:05:47 Thomas: That's even better. I didn't even know that. See, I didn'T even, oh, that'S awesome.

0:05:47 Ben: Oh no I tried to do my homework on this uh as far as I know yeah I know for a fact she didn't tag him in any of the any of the scathing

0:05:51 Thomas: Oh, nice. Good. That makes one of us. Well, that's why he had to say, oh people told me or whatever, I think. So yeah.

0:06:00 Ben: Yeah uh yeah but you know Ina is somebody that does have uh a a significant amount of notoriety on the Twitter sphere so but

0:06:08 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. She has a big following.

0:06:10 Ben: So that was the situation was that he kind of made this grand gesture out of blocking her.

0:06:18 Ben: And she went on to comment on his, you know, illustrious echo chamber, which is something that I've heard you say and other people say that Gad is very much about enforcing as kind of a a sphere of central praise.

0:06:32 Ben: And now I don't remember what I tweeted, but I think I said, yeah, this is actually very funny because it's kind of an ironic tweet.

0:06:40 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, fair enough. Enough.

0:06:43 Ben: Sure. And so we have a strange standard for what is acceptable to do, I guess, in the nebulous atheist skeptical community that we have on Twitter of what are kind of acceptable activities. And, you know, the number one example of that is how people react to whatever it is that Dawkins has to say. But I've seen this atheism, skepticism turning on its own a lot more lately, and it kind of bugs me a little bit in the way that we react to it. Now, Ina, I think, was probably fairly justified with the way that she reacted to it because, number one, she wasn't even having a conversation with Gad.

Somebody had just brought up something to her before he brought down the ban hammer, if you will but um it is something that we that we see a lot where we don't have a consistent standard for how we think people are allowed to engage uh specifically on social media that seems to be the big thing because you know whenever people are having talks or debates or conferences it's usually a lot more civil but we're so harsh with how we view the way people are interacting acting on social media and particularly the most popular and, and seemingly influential voices in the atheist community. So that's kind of where I, where I came into the conversation with it. Sure.

0:08:03 Thomas: So what do what is your disagreement then? Because what you just said sounded kind of general. You were just stating, here's what's happening. What's your actual specific disagreement, I guess, with what went on there or what I said or anything? Feel free.

0:08:15 Ben: Well, specifically, you know Ina can be a bit block happy and not without reason the vast majority of the time. You know, somebody that is tweeting from a place of anonymity to a huge following is going to get tons of trolls and tons of people that don't actually have any real interest in engaging with her and her ideas and just want to spew venom at her. And I know for somebody that uses social media to engage the way that she does, that's not – not only is it annoying and sometimes hurtful, it also hampers her ability to like see the people that are talking to her. They're like, hey, I'm an ex-Muslim. I need some advice. I need som help. So that already is one reason to justify how you block with people. But then the other side of it is you do have those people that ARE just annoying and want to get a rise out of you and it's not worth talking to.

So you want to block them from being able to have that ability to just engage with you at the drop of a hat guess for me because I I if I remember correctly Aina's tweet about Gad was she said I don't know I find some of his ideas can be uh a bit regressive at times but I don'T KNOW that she's ever uh engaged with him or talked with him about stuff and I don't know that she's ever reached out with him so I don't really know where their relationship was coming from but But as soon as the whole, well, I know you are now blocked from the Gadsphere thing happened, man, she went in and

0:08:50 Thomas: Right, right. Yeah.

0:09:39 Ben: It was like full on venom.

0:09:42 Thomas: Well I'm definitely not going to defend whatever her blocking philosophy I think I've mentioned my philosophy on the show. I'll mention it again just in case I didn't or I don't know, people don't remember or something. I strongly think that unless someone is being abusive or harassing within reason that we should avoid blocking people on social media. And I understand people are free to do whatever they want. I'm not trying to say anybody should be mandatorily not allowed to block people. I'm just saying, in general, my feeling would be on the matter, I would like to live in a world where less blocking happened and more just trying to engage happened. I understand it's a pipe dream and the internet sucks and Twitter sucks. I get all that.

But I personally don't believe I've blocked a single person on Twitter. And I've said that this is something that's actually kind of funny it might be interesting to uh tell the listeners because I I've mentioned it sort of but I don't know that I've ever really gotten into it I I whenever I talk with other podcasters with Cogdiss with uh you know with scathing with with anybody really there's... there's always a thing where they're like oh yeah you know at some point it'll come up oh yeah well we get you know so many emails so many whatever so many me this and that. And I say, well, I don't really get that. To be honest with you, I don't have a single troll. I don'T have anyone who harasses me on social media. I'm inviting it now by saying

0:10:32 Ben: Wow. Yeah, no, it's coming.

0:11:11 Thomas: This. Yeah, yeah. No, I really think it's, I've said this before, I think my show is too boring to dumb people.

0:11:11 Ben: Get ready.

0:11:20 Ben: I don't think that I don't think that is too boring, but you.

0:11:22 Thomas: No no, to the kind of people who would troll me, I think they're too, it would be too boring for them to get through a whole show because I don't, you know, it's like, it's too long form, it's to, that's my, that's my personal high opinion of it because the people who are easy to troll are just people who just say, like, here's my opinion, take it or leave it, or they're making fun of people, or they doing whatever, which I'm not making any judgment on that, I'm just saying it's easier to troll someone when there's a nice concise little soundbite to react to. And people do, I get criticism all the time. This is not to say that I don't get criticism and comments of disagreement. I get that all the time. I'm saying I don't get trolls. Like, I've never had one. The closest I've come is to when I went out of my way to tweet some anti-Second Amendment stuff on Twitter. And boy,

0:11:23 Ben: Oh, no. OK, yeah. No, you're right.

0:12:12 Ben: Oh,

0:12:12 Thomas: If you want to get, you know, if YOU want to GET some angry tweets back at you, that is maybe the fastest way that I know of. Because, yeah, that's fine. Feel free to not, but it was hilarious how many people I got. And it's not really funny, actually, because it's more sad. I got people who, I can't remember now, it's been a while, but I was just tweeting that separate topic. I think maybe the Second Amendment's a little outdated and we need a different interpretation of it. And then I had people tweeting me pictures of their guns saying, like, I have this to protect me from people like you.

0:12:13 Ben: Geez. Oh, Thomas, I escaped Alabama. I don't I don't need any of that.

0:12:50 Ben: Oh,

0:12:50 Thomas: It's like, no one needs protection from people like me.

0:12:51 Ben: Jeez. You and your cats, Thomas.

0:12:54 Thomas: Yeah, I know. I promise you, you don't need protection from people like me, and it was pretty sad, but I didn't block anyone. It is weird. People lose Interest eventually, but here is the thing. If you are a woman online, if you are someone who is getting sexually harassed, I am not saying you have some responsibility to not block them. Not at all. If someone's being abusive, harassing, whatever, of course, of course you can block them all you want. If someone just disagrees with you, I mean, I'll be honest, I lose a lot of respect for people and I don't know all of Ina's examples of blocking. I haven't followed it. And when she said, when I said I have a no block policy, she tweeted, "Well, I block people all the time." I said, "Oh, maybe, you know, maybe I wouldn't defend some of the people you blocked. I don't know. Or some of the blocking decisions." So it may be true, Ben. And you may have been right that I was sort of defending my policy and I was

0:12:54 Ben: They're you're coming for their guns. Oh, man. Right. Right.

0:13:51 Ben: Sure.

0:13:51 Thomas: Defending hers implicitly when I really didn't know much about her, you know, previous blocking dealings. Again,

0:13:58 Ben: And If we can say this, um, because now we've talked about her so much, uh, I, I know, we love you, you're allowed to run your Twitter however you please, this is not what we're here to talk about, um, it, you just happen to be kind of caught in the crossfire here, um, but would it, would it be useful for you to tell your Gadsad story about getting blocked on Twitter?

0:14:18 Ben: I know you've told it before. I don't know if you want to re-mention it while we're talking about it in this episode because I...

0:14:16 Thomas: Yeah, sure. All right. Quick version is he was, in my view, I wouldn't, harassing is too strong of a word, but he was going at, it was a little, yeah, he's sort of borderline harassing slash trolling slash basically tweeting at someone who in no way invited it, who was a woman who wrote an article about all it was. And this is why I don't like Gad Saad and this is why I don't find much value in things he says. Of course, he might be right about plenty of things. I'm just saying, in general, now that I can't even

0:14:32 Ben: You can say harassing. He harasses Bill Nye.

0:14:45 Ben: Right.

0:14:58 Ben: Don't worry. We'll get there. We'll gets there.

0:15:00 Thomas: Follow him because he's blocked me, now how am I going to enjoy the things that I might think he was right on? Like, how would I even know? I have no idea because he has blocked me because I slightly disagreed with him on one thing. But anyway, to get to that point, someone wrote an article, a woman wrote an article saying, oh, oh, shoot, what was it? Barbie. I think it was Barbie. Barbie is going to do their first ad with boys who like Barbies. So instead of, oh, girls like Barbie dolls, we're going to display this. They're running an ad on somewhere. I don't know if it's print media. I can't remember if it'S on TV or online or whatever. I do not even think it's a major ad. It might have just been some print media thing, but they're going do an ad featuring a boy who likes Barbies, and this woman wrote an article that just said, oh, cool.

0:15:49 Thomas: Like it was, it was a very short thing for like Forbes or something, uh, Forbes online. It just said like, oh that's neat. Good for them. And then, you know, Gad, Mr. Science is going to tell you, he's going to mansplain to you a bunch of things. He, he tweets at her saying like, let me tell you the science behind why your position is incorrect, you Know, or something like that. And she's like, my position, I didn't even, I just said, you know, good for them. And, and then she, it was a really stupid debate. And this is why I don't like his tactics because she said, I don't know who you are. I don't care. Like, just leave me alone, please. And he kept tweeting, oh, you don't know him. You could Google. I'm, I'm a prominent scientist on the field of, you know, evolutionary behavior, psychology of how people buy stuff and all this stuff. And basically he kept at it for quite a while. And after several tweets of him, you know, tweeting publicly. So doing the dot whatever, so that it's

0:16:16 Ben: Right. Exactly. Right. So that everybody that follows him would see it.

0:16:45 Thomas: Right. Right. And, and I was a follower of his because I had noticed him in the community and was like, all right, I'll see what this guy has to say on stuff. Uh, and after, after it wasn't just one, after several tweets of Him calling out this woman who wanted nothing to do with it. And really in my view, I mean, she just covered Barbie's decision. She didn't like make, you know, she didn't make make the decision.

0:17:07 Ben: She doesn't work for Barbie. She's not responsible for this ad campaign.

0:17:08 Thomas: Yeah. And after a few of them, I just tweeted at him. I didn't think he'd even see it, but I tweeted like, you know, would you let up? She said she didn't want to talk to you about this. She doesn't, she's not interested. You know, move on. What do you think? And he didn't see it. I think I tweeted him twice. So sue me. I tweeted them a second time because he didn't. Only after he tweet, only After he tweeted at her again, I said, "Are you really still going with this?" After this, could have been four or five tweets of harassing this poor woman who just really wanted nothing to do with him. And he has a big following. So when he sends his, you know, what is it? 20 or 30,000.

0:17:30 Ben: I knew it. I knew it.

0:17:46 Ben: Yeah. God knows how many other followers jumped on.

0:17:48 Thomas: Yeah. When he, right.

0:17:50 Ben: All

0:17:50 Thomas: So, when he does that, his minions will latch onto it and all that. And, and I just wanted to provide a voice of, look, this is maybe, this is not the best idea. And I said, are you really still doing this? And then he finally, apparently noticed the tweets and he said some macho stuff like, I decide what's a good idea, whatever. He didn't actually do any real arguing. He just stated some stuff, which is like, okay. And I was about to respond and say, I'd invite him to even talk about it. I'd have him on my show any day of the week. But as I was About to Respond, he tweeted another time at me, like three times, I think, without me responding. And the third one was, you're being a troublemaker. You're banned. And I was like, oh, okay. So in the middle of when I was trying to respond, he banned me so I couldn't respond.

0:18:37 Thomas: And that's when I was like, well, I don't want anything to do with this guy. I think he has a ridiculous ego about him. He can't handle anyone who slightly disagrees with him. And, I'm just not interested in that kind of discourse. So, that's my story on GAD.

0:18:53 Ben: Right. Um, I, my experience, especially with GAD and when I saw this whole thing happen, and going back to this idea of reaching out and how do we make these conversations happen, I don't know if I told you the whole story of back when Eli was trying to, uh, have the, the big social justice conversation with big name community. Basically what I did was I, I had had some chats with Peter Bogosian via Twitter and I asked him if he would ever be interested in like coming on a show and talking about that with somebody that's super pro social justice. And he said, ask Gad Saad. And so that was the first time I ever met or heard of him. Um, and I, I just tweeted him. I said, hey, and I tagged Peter in it too. I says, hey, um, you know, Peter Bogosian recommended you, would you be somebody that would be interested in coming on and having this conversation?

0:19:42 Ben: And his immediate response was, um wow, that I can't believe you would just say something like this out in public. Why not email me about it? And yeah, and I was like, oh, okay. Well, you know, I still feel like this is an important issue. This is an Important Conversation. Let me do some Googling and see if I can find an email for Gad Saad. And I looked at his profile and saw he was a professor at University of Ottawa, found his email and sent him an email and said, hey, You know this, this is who I am. This is who Eli is. We would love, we think this is a very very important conversation that's not happening between the leaders of our community and the people that feel like they're not being given a voice. And we think it'd be really helpful to have this conversation. Um, and he said, I, I agree. I think this is a very important conversation.

However, uh, you know, I'm somebody that's a professor full time and I would like to, um, you know, make sure that this is going to be something that is worth my time. I can't just do everything that's available on the internet. So that was when we reached out to Adam Reeks and and said, Adam, could we have, you know, this debate end up happening on your show? Because none of the shows that Eli are on are necessarily conducive to this.

Me, you know, not being very, very green to the podcasting world and how all this works, just tweeted out at Adam and Eli, and I think Callie got brought into this from Gaytheist Manifesto.

0:19:52 Thomas: Really?

0:21:03 Ben: She got tagged in one of Eli's tweets about it, and said, hey guys, Gad said he would be in if if we can find a place that has a, a broad listenership for this kind of conversation. And, um, then Gad tweeted back at me and said, uh, you know, I can't believe you would share private conversations that we've had. And, uh. Then I, so I immediately, I emailed him back and said, Hey, I, uh, did not mean to overreach here. I did not need for you to feel like you're being attacked or ganged up on. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible so that everybody can can see that the people that are interested in engaging with this are trying to have a conversation and we're trying to make something happen, um, and then he responded back, uh, okay, now now it all makes sense, um, however, this, this feels like it's not going to be the best use of my time.

0:21:55 Ben: Right now and I said, all right, I understand, um, I appreciate that you have engaged with me, I appreciate the time to respond to all of my inquiries, um, and I hope that at some point in in the future, we can actually have this conversation. So that was a whole mess, basically, where a lot of people were talking past each other and there were a lot of egos involved around a very delicate and potentially, especially for somebody in the academic community, a potentially very damaging conversation. And the only way that I was able to navigate through all of that was when somebody felt like like they were being attacked to say, no, no, look, that's not what we're trying to do here. When somebody felt that they were being disrespected to also then say, look, that's what our goals are.

0:22:42 Ben: I apologize that you feel that way. And then to try to circle the conversation back in some way that makes everybody feel like we're on the same page. And I found out that right before we reached out to Gad to have this conversation, he had just gone on Joe Rogan's podcast. Which is insane. So it makes sense for somebody that is, cause you, you know how it is when you're, when you're podcasting, everything is on you. You have to do all of your own editing. You know, your, your production schedule is, is basically, it's all on you and especially at the beginning, you're not really seeing a whole lot of compensation for that. And when you are a professor at a university, you have thousands of other things to be doing on top of trying to get a show out there so um it makes sense when you're like I don't I listen I think this is important but I don't have time for it right now I don't see how somebody can hold that against you

0:22:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's a Big podcast. Yeah.

0:23:35 Thomas: Sure, that's fine, I just, it's convenient that he never has to face anyone who disagrees with him, but sure.

0:23:42 Ben: I wonder about that because you know I you know you see people like uh Mila and uh Milo Yanopolis on there that I know he and he and Dave Rubin disagree about several things um but they're now doing something with Ruben's Dave Ruben's new show over at Aura TV.

0:23:59 Ben: And like Rogan, when he had Milo on there, they had a whole huge fight about the origins of morality and its basis in Judeo-Christian philosophy and all that. So I think that that's happening, but it's always when it's somebody that has that kind of bigger profile where you're talking about, like you were saying, you do want to have the tough conversations, but at the same time, if it's something that can boost your listenership or your visibility, why would you you.

0:24:23 Thomas: There's A No. Here's, here's what's happening. There's one axis of agreement that you have to have in order to get on Ruben's show or in order order to talk with God. And that's, you have to be anti-trigger warning and anti-regressive left. So that's what they've decided is the main thing. Now, it is true to say that Milo, especially because he's, that guy is nuts and he supports Trump and all that, like he's got some weird views. So naturally there's going to be disagreement. But if you don't have the core agreement on making constant, unfunny trigger warning jokes and saying trigger warning before for everything. Cause God, is that so hilarious? It is. What a creative joke guys. Trigger warning. Uh, I ate a sandwich. Holy shit.

0:24:24 Ben: Yeah.

0:25:09 Ben: I keep, I

0:25:10 Thomas: That's hilarious. That is the funniest fucking thing.

0:25:11 Ben: Keep thinking that's going to burn out and hasn't yet.

0:25:14 Thomas: It has not gone away, especially God. It's every other tweet was that. And same with Dave Rubin a bit. As long as you, your fundamental agreement, uh, you fundamentally agree with that, then that's fine. Then you can get on there and disagree about other stuff. But that's, that's what they've decided is their main thing. And again, whatever. People can do what they want with their shows. Obviously, they're going to have the viewers and the listeners that like listening to that. I don't know. And Ruben actually even said, he said, oh, what I like to do is find common ground with these people I disagree with. And I actually, I think the opposite. And it's just a matter of opinion, of course, but I think it's more interesting to find uncommon ground with the people you agree with.

0:25:59 Thomas: I think that's more interesting than finding, I can go find some nut job and then I can say, well, but we agree that we landed on the moon, right? And they're like, well maybe not, maybe not. Okay. Then we agreethat Obama is president, right. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, we've found some common ground there. We've done, done some good work today. I don't really, I don't really find any value in that. I know that's an exaggeration, but the common common ground for him is always, but you hate the regressive left, right? But you hate trigger warnings, right. Oh, we found common ground. It's boring. It is. How many different people can we get on who hate trigger warnings?

That's the, that seems to be the common ground, uh, thing for, for Ruben. And I hope that changes because when it does, then maybe I'll be interested in the show. If Ruben has somebody on who is like, I don't know, maybe like Eli or somebody, not that he would, but somebody of that persuasion who I don't agree with Eli on everything. I think we disagree on a lot of stuff, but it's at least challenging. It's at least someone who you might have to think,

0:26:12 Ben: Right.

0:26:59 Thomas: Oh, shoot, am I right about this argument? Maybe I have something wrong here. You know, that's what I find interesting. I

0:27:05 Ben: Sure. And I think a great example of that was when Eli went on dogma debate. Um, I don't know if you listened to that episode.

0:27:12 Thomas: Did, actually.

0:27:12 Ben: Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting conversation. And, and I definitely think that that was Eli at some of his best, uh, philosophizing for sure. Um, he was really, he Was really well put together and they had a really interesting discussion. And I think he and Dave Somali, Eli mentioned to me that they actually have ended up agreeing on more things than they thought they would. So that idea is confusing to me, that you want to have people that you agree with on most things and find where you disagree, rather than take the people thatyou disagree with in big ways and find common ground.

0:27:47 Thomas: Really?

0:27:47 Ben: Yeah, I don't – I think we are in a very divided time right now and you can look at – on the one side, you have like the revolutionary for the liberal people is like Bernie who is like free college and we're going to regulate Wall Street and we are going to eliminate student debt and then like the revolution on the Trump side is just burn everything to the ground.

0:28:08 Thomas: So, would you want to try to find a common ground between those? Because none really exists, this, I don't think.

0:28:14 Ben: So, 100% I want to try to find a common ground, because I think the most important thing in that is that you have two large bases that ...

0:28:21 Thomas: But the common ground is nothing. That's why I made the joke about landing on the moon. That is the common ground between those people.

0:28:29 Ben: No, but I think there is a bigger common ground there, especially when you're talking about between Trump and Bernie supporters. The people that support Trump are anti-establishment in the biggest way possible. I mean, you, all you have to do is look at, no, go ahead.

0:28:41 Thomas: But they are also specifically anti-Obama. This is more my theory. I suppose everybody has got their own pet theory, as I said in a previous episode about Trump. But, they are very anti- Obama, whereas people who are voting for Bernie are are not necessarily anti-Obama. They just want things to go further and they do want money out of politics.

0:29:08 Ben: Yeah.

0:29:08 Thomas: So I think it's a little, I think It's a bit of a word game to say, well, they're both anti-establishment. It's like, well sure, but the details of that, right?

0:29:08 Ben: But no, but I don't think so entirely because Ted Cruz is, is just as anti Obama. Like if you're talking about on the political spectrum as Trump, but the problem for them with Cruz is that Cruz is a, is a virtual signaling, typical full of shit Republican. He's the governor of Alabama. That's going to, that's going promote family values.

0:29:31 Thomas: But he's also not the establishment. That's the interesting thing. He's not the establishment. The Republican establishment, you might be right that he has some, maybe some establishment views or something, but But the establishment was for Jeb. The establishment was for anyone but Cruz. They actually hate Cruz. And now that Cruz is their only hope for not Trump, then now he's sort of maybe becoming establishment. But that's why it's – that's not a sufficient description, I don't think. Because you could have – well,

0:30:01 Ben: I see. That'S interesting. I thought, I thought Cruz had always always been doing well among the evangelicals because he was harping on the, you know, religious values. We're going to get rid of gay marriage. We'll, uh, you now, okay.

0:30:12 Thomas: Sure, if you think of establishment as merely views on stuff, then maybe. But I don't actually think that's a good definition. Because the establishment is more who the political machinery is behind and who the big Republican money is behind. The reason is because then you're beholden to those people. So that's the value, I think, in being not part of the establishment, is you're not beholden to anyone. So Cruz actually wasn't beholdento anyone because everyone hates him. That's the the one thing about Cruz is even Republicans hate him. Everybody hates him. So he's not really,

0:30:41 Ben: Oh, I, I don't, I have to disagree with you on that one. I know a lot of people in, in Alabama that are,

0:30:54 Thomas: I'm not talking about voters. Sorry. I'm Not, I'm NOT talking about Voters. That's, that's the key part of Establishment. It's not about the Votors. It'S about the, uh, the P the, the backing the, well,

0:30:54 Ben: Oh, Oh. Okay. See, like that's, that's what I'm talking about though, is I don, I don't really care about the, the actual Republican establishment. I'm talkin' about their voting base, like that we need to find common ground with them.

0:31:13 Thomas: Yeah, but that's what you, but, but when you talk about, uh anti-establishment, you can't be talking about voter base because once all the voters support an anti-establishement candidate, that would be self-contradictory. Then he would be the establishment. The important part of being establishment is the political machinery, the funding, the, all that. That's the important component of it.

0:31:33 Ben: Right. And what makes the voting base anti-establishment is voting for somebody that is not supported by that.

0:31:40 Thomas: Exactly. And Cruz was not. He's more so now, but he absolutely was not in the beginning. It was Jeb. Jeb had the establishment money and the establishment vote and, and it was, it didn't help him at all. So all I mean to say that the important reason we we got into this is it's not merely being anti-establishment that is the important defining characteristic, I don't think, because if you were just anti-establishment, Cruz is just, I mean, almost as much of an anti-establishment candidate as Trump.

0:32:11 Ben: Right, and he's the only one that's left, because he's only other one that could gain traction,

0:32:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that the Trump voter has much in common with Cruz voters. I mean they hate each other. They don't like their candidates, even though they're, right, so even though they're both anti-establishment. So all I mean to say, so here's the thing, here's the thing about this, even this, this is pretty meta, but the only reason this podcast has gotten at all interesting is because we started talking about things we disagreed on. Once we start talking about stuff we agree on, I find that completely boring. And I would imagine that my listeners do too, since they listen to my show. But that's interesting philosophy though, because I want to find uncommon ground with people I agree with, because that's what's most most interesting. If we have two atheists on, one who believes in, I don't know, free will exists, and another who doesn't, that's fascinating to me, because that's a debate between two atheasts, you know? But

0:32:27 Ben: No, that's very accurate.

0:33:12 Ben: Sure.

0:33:12 Thomas: If I have two people who believe in free will, and one's an atheist and one is a Christian, and we don't want to talk about atheism and Christianity, we just want to talk about the fact that they both believe in Free Will, that is boring to me. There's nothing, nothing is accomplished by that.

0:33:28 Ben: And it's especially boring in long form, but going back to what our our initial disagreement was about was this weird, uh, it's it's probably not a double standard, it's just a differing standard of how we uh base the the interactions that we see of and with the leaders, in air quotes, of the atheist community on social media versus how we listen and engage with them when it's more long form, when it's an intelligent square debate, when they're on somebody's podcast having a conversation with somebody, or when they're on stage in dialogue, dialogue. Um, and we, it just seems to me that in a lot of ways we're more aggressive about how we police that, uh, especially,

0:33:32 Thomas: I think

0:34:10 Ben: Okay.

0:34:10 Thomas: It has to do with how, superficial your views are because the, the more superficial your view is, the easier you can sum it. Let me give you an example because I just happened to Google Gadsad. I'm looking at his YouTube channel. Here's, here's the description. Just, this is in, in like 10, 20 words at most and not even that. I'm not even sure if this might even be an abridged description of his video with Christina Hoff Summers. See how many different ways he pisses off the people he disagrees with and has no chance of convincing them. Just let me read you this description. We discussed various facets of third wave feminism, oppression Olympics, the ethos of victimology, political correctness among, like already, he's already signaled, hey, hey, all of you on this side of this argument, we completely disagree with you and there's no chance we're going to convince you. Because like, when you start using those terms, that's what I object to.

0:34:25 Ben: Well,

0:35:10 Thomas: I don't use those terms. I mean, even in long form, long form or short form, I guess I should have said even in short form because I don't really, if once I start saying, oh, we got to stop all this victimology, that's just not valuable because that's signaling to people who who already agree with you, are going to say, oh yeah, damn straight, we need to stop this victimology. And the people who disagree are going to be incredibly inflamed by that way of stating the problem. I even made a mistake with this with SJW. I didn't even know that SJW was sort of an insult. So I actually try not to use it now because I don't want to be using those terms that are already insulting people on the other side, even if I do disagree with them. Like, it's just not valuable.

0:35:57 Ben: But isn't it interesting how, what, what does SJW mean? It means social justice warrior. Did they, did, did the people of that community take that moniker on for themselves?

0:36:05 Thomas: I don'T know. It's unclear.

0:36:07 Ben: That, that's what I would like to, I know, I knows some people wear that really proudly. Like, yes, I am a social justice war. This is important to me. I'm going to be proactive about it. I'm not going to be passive.

0:36:17 Thomas: Yeah, and that's kind of a side point. If the fact of the matter is that most people who are in that camp are okay with the term social justice warrior, then my stance would change. I mean, that's fine. I'll use it then. I don't care. My point is I don't want to use a term that, like social justice warrior, or maybe not that one, like if you say, if they've taken it on, I don't want to use one that's going to all... It's like a bumper sticker. I don't have any bumper stickers. I don't understand people who do have bumper stickers, I don't get it. All you re doing, there

0:36:50 Ben: Confession time, Thomas. I had seven bumper stickers on my car when I was in high school.

0:36:53 Thomas: You go. There you go, because I never have had a bumper sticker, I never will. I, I, don't, whatever. I mean, if you want to slap a Bernie bumper sticker I get it, fine, whatever, you're showing support or something, I'm not saying you're a bad person or anything, I'm just saying I don't really get it because the only, there's two outcomes. Hey, I agree with that guy. Or, oh, fuck that guy like this is two outcomes. There's no. Oh, I've been convinced with

0:37:17 Ben: I think that's a false dichotomy because I think other times you have really interesting conversations that can happen around things like that. And this is a slightly tangential point. Yes, 100%. Again, this is slightly slightly tangential, but I used to have a bumper sticker that said "my other car is a waffle" and nobody knew what the fuck that meant. It was a Nike bumper sticker. And it's because the first, uh, and this was, this was just what I was told when somebody gave it to me. So somebody is going to fact check me and I'm probably going to be wrong, but whatever. Uh, when they were designing cleats, when Nike was designing the first cleats they made the plastic bottoms of them with a waffle iron and somebody had joked that Nike's other shoe was was a waffle.

0:37:25 Thomas: Bumper stickers. OK,

0:38:01 Ben: And man, I had so many conversations around that bumper sticker because it is weird, it stands out, it's not necessarily inflammatory, but it definitely bucks the norm of what you would expect to see on somebody's bumper.

0:38:01 Thomas: That is the weirdest.

0:38:14 Thomas: The reason you had you had conversations, I would guess, is that no one had any fucking idea what that meant. But when I have a bumper sticker that says like abortion is murder, you know, I don't anticipate a lot of minds being changed. You know, look, If you want to say when you put your views out there, conversations can happen. I agree with that. I don't think it's going to happen in bumper sticker form because how often do you get to converse with the person who's tailgating you? For me, never. I mean, if you want to wear a shirt that says, please ask me about Bernie Sanders or something, that's awesome. Actually, that's cool. I mean I encourage, you know, exchange of ideas in any form. I just, what I'm saying is in general this language of victimology and using terms like that where you've already decided, it's over. You know, here's a weird thing. Actually, here's an interesting reference to my latest episode, was the GMO one.

0:38:22 Ben: Well, nah, that's true. Right.

0:39:20 Thomas: I had someone, so I named the episode, Should We Label GMOs? And I had several people, it seems like, maybe one or two, or maybe it was three, something like that, say, what? No. That was their response to my episode. No. No. It's like, yeah, okay. That's the question we're discussing. It doesn't matter what side of it you're on. Like the point of the episode, and I'm on a clear side of it. I'm against GMO labeling. But the point of the episode was, let's discuss it. Let's see where it goes. But it's like a certain percentage of people can't handle that. They can't handle that uncertainty. You know, they need me to say, stop the labeling with GMOs. Here's an episode about it. Like, no.

0:40:02 Ben: Well let's talk about this because here's the other side of that that's interesting that I'm sure pissed some people off too. How did you feel about when Bill Nye debated Ken Ham? Did you think that was useful?

0:40:10 Thomas: Oh, I didn't at first. Well, okay. This is a sidebar. I saw Bill Nye do a little interview, a pre-interview for that debate. And I don't know if he was on a Quaalude or what, but he looked terrible. And this was back when, actually, it's been a while, huh? Because Bill Nye has been, I would say, has gotten more popular since then. Like I used to not really hear much about Bill Nye. And then around that time, it seems like he's been everywhere. And I honestly, I like Bill Nye. I had a, you know, maybe I heard him on StarTalk a couple times.

I didn't really have a good idea of what he would be like in a debate. And then I saw this pre-interview where he must have been tired or hungover or something. And he was awful in the pre-interview. And I was like, shoot, I really don't want this guy to, like, debate Ken Ham and make him look good or something. And then Bill and I just crushed him in the debate. I was like, oh, okay, never mind. That was fine. I just had gotten the wrong impression. So, that's not really related to the question you were asking, which is,

0:40:41 Ben: Right. Right.

0:41:19 Thomas: You know, philosophically right.

0:41:20 Ben: Well, but no, but that, but that doesn't form your opinion. I'm sure.

0:41:25 Thomas: Well, so, in general, though, I guess I would say, I don't know. I almost don't mind the debate. There is, I'm sympathetic to the question. I'd be happy to hear what you think, but I'm sympathetic to that. The idea of don't give these people a platform where it looks like it's a 50-50 question. I'm sympathetic to that, but I don't know. What do you think?

0:41:47 Ben: See, I, for me personally, I am much less sympathetic to that. And it's probably because I grew up or I didn't, I didn't grow up, but I went to high school and college in Alabama where I knew a lot of people that were very happy to tell you that evolution was a lie, uh, straight from the mouth of Satan.

So, uh, I know, know personally lots of people that are very pro Ken Ham, they don't know who he is, but they would be like, oh, he's, yeah, he's on my team, and I, I had really just gotten into the whole uh atheism activism, like finding other people online and talking about stuff around the time that this debate was going to happen, and I saw so many people that were like, I can't believe Bill Nye is doing this, he is basically promoting the idea that there's controversy, the idea that there is a debate. And it frustrated me to all hell because I know for people, there are people on the other side of that, that if they can think rationally for a second, and that's a big key there, but if they think rationally and they can be moved by arguments, they're going to hear and see some arguments that will move them.

0:42:10 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:42:57 Ben: And I think that is unbelievably valuable. And that should be.

0:43:01 Thomas: I totally agree.

0:43:03 Ben: Yeah. So, yeah.

0:43:03 Thomas: And this is why, I mean, I actually, I don't, I mean, Dawkins has this view. He doesn't do any debates. He doesn't want it to look 50-50 or whatever. And I mean I understand as a personal choice, I understand it's fine if you don't want to waste your time with it. But I don't know. I'm with you in that it's one thing to say, look, this is not a 50- 50 question. But then when you see that not only is it not a 50-50 question, it's probably like 60-40 in terms of the population and what they believe.

0:43:33 Ben: Yeah, exactly.

0:43:33 Thomas: Believe, probably, it's probably like 60-40 against evolution. It could be. It's something like that. And so, while the actual matter of fact may not be 50-50, I think when you've got a lot of people who already view evolution as, you know, bullshit because of the way they've been, you know. Taught, Ithink it could only help to have, especially when you so clearly have the facts on your side. I mean, it's so easy for an expert to prove evolution. It's really satisfying how easy it is. That's why it's true. And so I totally, I'm with you on that. And think about, this just occurred to me, but think about gay marriage.

0:44:19 Thomas: I viewed gay marriage as not even close to a 50-50 issue. It's a 100-0 issue for me. It's that should obviously be allowed. But back 10 years ago, when, you know, maybe a couple of states were allowing it, if that, it makes sense to have a debate titled, should we allow gay marriage? Because while for me and you and other people who might be pro-gay marriage, we've already decided we could say, no, it's a hundred to zero issue. There's no debate there. Well, people haven't caught up yet. So maybe have the debate and maybe give people a chance to show that doesn't somehow endorse the bigotry to give it a stage. I don't think it more reflects the state of public opinion. If the public opinion is 2% of people, you know, and the debate is should black people be allowed to vote or something, it's not worth it.

0:45:12 Thomas: There's no one who's really who you're going to convince on that. You know, there's a tiny minority of people who are racists who maybe think that black people shouldn't be, you know, have the same citizenship rights and all that as everybody else. That's a worthless debate, I think, because you're just, those people are racist and it's going to be hard to change their mind. And there's not a whole lot of debate, really. The debate is, seriously? Like, here's my debate. Here's my opening statement. Really? Like, there's not a lot you can say. Whereas with a more interesting view, like evolution and all that, and something where you do, you have to learn that evolution is true. You can't just be born knowing it. I mean, it's a very difficult thing. It's the body and human evolution is incredible.

0:46:00 Thomas: It's not like the most obvious. There's a reason it took so long for people to figure it out. So having that debate, I think, is more valuable.

0:46:07 Ben: The reason that it took so long is that evolution takes so long. Right. And so for me to try to to try to somehow bring this back to the conversation that we were having originally, I personally, as a as a passive observer in in the atheist movement, air quotes, nebulous, whatever you you want to call that. Um, I feel like we have the, the figures that we have kind of, they, they don't cross pollinate as well as they should.

0:46:11 Thomas: Yeah, sure.

0:46:34 Ben: They don't live in the various worlds and the various needs as well as they should, and I think the reason why somebody like Dawkins has such a struggle with, uh, you know, being pro-feminist and, or being feminist in the right way, or or being constantly conscious of all of the social issues that we would like for him to be, as somebody that we think is a brilliant thinker and is a good communicator of why atheism is the correct position to hold, is because so much of what he does is about biology and about the history of the human brain and how our psychology developed developed and idea-based stuff that is a little bit clearer and less murky.

0:47:21 Ben: So when you see him try to step into these different realms, he can put his foot in his mouth quite a bit. And it's odd to me that we have this expectation that just because somebody is right about atheism and right about evolutionary biology, that somehow they should also be able to be right about everything else.

0:47:40 Thomas: Yeah, no, I agree. I think that we should call them out. I think that everybody calling people out should do their best. We would live in a better world if they did their best to call people out in a way that would allow them to change their minds. It's hard to do. I understand it. Who knows? I'm sure I'm guilty of it sometimes. I'm personally willing to have any conversation. I'll have someone, I mean, obviously Dawkins would never come on on my show, but I'd have someone of a similar mindset come on to try to change their mind about certain things. And I'd Have Someone on the Other Side, too. I mean, it's like, I want to live in that world. And I agree with you there. I think that's where maybe we can do a better job is, it sure is good to call out, you know, if you perceive someone as saying something sexist, it is good to call that out.

0:47:55 Ben: Sure.

0:48:33 Thomas: Maybe try to do so in a way that will allow them to change their mind as much as possible. And I, you know, there's arguments on the other side of that where we shouldn't be tone policing people who have these disagreements. We shouldn't tone policing people of color or the trans community when they're mad at something someone has said. When the trans committee is mad at Sam Harris's response to, Douglas Murray, we shouldn'T be tone policing. And I'm very sympathetic to that. But in general, we need to do our best. We would all be better off on every side, on all sides of everything, if we were more able to engage rather than just insult and kind of leave, you know, like just sending an insult on either side. And that goes for the people who make these stupid trigger warning jokes, too.

That goes for that, too, don't that I'm just picking on the side of people who are calling out sexists or something, I'm not at all. I think the people Who are making these constant idiotic trigger warning jokes, you're not doing anyone any favors, no one's going to change their mind because of those jokes, You're just inflaming the other side and making it more impossible to have common ground on this. But that's my pie in the sky, pipe dream philosophy there.

0:48:59 Ben: Yeah.

0:49:49 Thomas: I think we better try to wrap this up. Well, thanks for coming on. Thanks for the email and all the engagement. I appreciate it.

0:49:55 Ben: Yeah, man, thanks for having me on, Thomas. It was a real pleasure.

0:50:09 Thomas: All right, just a couple quick announcements to round out the show. First, I was on the Gamcast, God Awful Movies, with Noah, Eli, and Heath. That is one of my favorite shows. It really, really, truly is. I was on it, I believe it came out Tuesday, and hopefully you've already checked that out. But I've got even better news. They liked my performance, and I'm very proud to say I thought it was quite good. I put a lot of work into it. And they are having me back for episodes two and three of this trilogy with David A.R. White. So that is probably one of my favorite things that has ever happened to me in podcasting is that these guys with this awesome show that I love so much invited me back. I'm truly, I was speechless. I was like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.

0:50:55 Thomas: So that'll be cool. So you get two more weeks of me if you want on the Gamcast there. Other announcement is just thank you in general to everyone who listens and most particularly to my wonderful patrons. Actually had quite a few pledges I gotta thank. Thank you so much Samir Abdallah. Thank you Damon Crabtree. Thank you Ginny Powell. Thank John Turbek. Thank Shane Bumboclaat. That's an interesting one. And thank you Griselda. Thank you guys so much for pledging and supporting the show. I really truly appreciate it, and I may have a special treat. So it turns out I'm actually traveling to New York for my first anniversary. Anniversary. It's been a year since I got married. You might remember that. I don't know if you booked it in your calendars, but we're going to New York on a trip, and guess who lives in New York?

0:51:46 Thomas: One Eli Bosnick. So, I'm meeting up with Eli. I may bring, I haven't told him this, I may bring a portable recorder. Oh, I guess, I suppose he has recording equipment too. Who knows? Maybe we'll record some sort of bonus content or some sort of something. I can't promise it because I'm supposed to be on vacation, but if I could squeeze it in, maybe I'll do that and maybe it'll be a little bonus content. At any rate, just thought I'd throw that in there and thank you so much to my patrons over at patreon.com/atheist. My top patrons, of course, are Kaylee Reiser, Zimu Zinu Jr., Adrian Borschoff, Jonathan Moyet, J. Alden Walt, Bangs Naughty Bits, Christian J., Peter Skelton, Brian Gareford, Dale, Matt, Garrett, Lizzie, and Samantha. Those are my top, top patrons who get a thank you every week, unless I somehow forget, which I apologize for.

0:52:36 Thomas: So once again, thanks. Thanks for listening. Oh, iTunes reviews. Those Are Coming Along. I believe the number is 266, up from 240 last week. So still making steady progress on that. Please, if you haven't already, leave an iTunes review. Helps get the show discovered. Any building of the audience that happens really just benefits all of us because we get more participation, more conversations. We're able to get better guests. It's really helping, and I appreciate everything you guys have done. I also want to say thank you for all the comments on the GMO Kevin Folta episodes. We got a lot of requests for... I was using the royal we, sorry. I got a lots of requests from different guests about different topics.

0:53:23 Thomas: All kinds of good stuff came from that, which I very much appreciate. It sounds like there was a lot of excitement over those episodes and they certainly, I got more listens, the listeners went up. So I think they were really good. I'm really proud of it. And he was a great guest. So all that being said, I'll see you next week. I got some great guests lined up for next week and I'll just have to leave you to wait until then. Thanks for joining me and see you then.