AS272: Comedian, Satirist, Weirdo… Peter Coffin

Transcript

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

[0:00:04] You're listening to Atheistically Speaking.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 272, and I am your host, Thomas Smith. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I've got a really cool interview with a comedian, but also somewhat of a commentator on society, politics, you name it. I guess that those are the best comedians are the ones who do comment on those kind of things and make us think twice or think differently about issues we thought we already knew how we felt about. But anyway, I saw Peter Coffin's video on free speech because Eli Bosnick, Atheistically Speaking, bingo for you mentioning Eli Bosnick, can't help it.

The guy warrants mention. But anyway, he linked the video by Peter Coffin about free speech. And I thought it was really interesting. I had a bunch bunch of questions, points I disagreed, but I also thought it was really well done, made some interesting points. And as you'll hear me mention to Peter, initially I was going to have Eli on to debate it, but then it turned out Peter was available to talk. So I thought, why not go directly to the, straight from the horse's mouth. And then before we recorded, Peter also released a video, a little mini documentary is what he calls them on his channel, on the marketplace of

0:01:50 Thomas: Ideas. And it's another very fascinating video, just things I hadn't necessarily thought of. And so I'm really glad that Peter was willing to come on the show and talk about them because we expanded these ideas, we explored them, found out whether or not we really disagreed or not. And I don't want to spoil it, but you'll find out. So really wide ranging, interesting discussion. So I give you my interview with Peter Coffin.

[0:02:31] Joining me right now is Peter Coffin. How are you doing, Peter? I'm great. How about yourself? Doing well. I'm glad to finally talk to you, but been kind of going back and forth trying to make this work. My friend, Eli Bosnick, who I know you talked to at least a little bit, linked one of your videos and I found it super fascinating and I wanted to talk to actually I initially was like, Eli, we should talk about this video. And then he's like, oh, well, I, you could probably just

[0:02:55] talk to the guy who made it. I was like, yeah, he probably doesn't have a lot to do, that guy.

[0:03:01] It's long, it's long-winded, he probably doesn't have a whole lot going on, you can probably talk to him if you want. Yeah, he has no life. We can tell from the... No. Yes. Oh, I want to tell people, people, first and foremost, like they should check out the video. I definitely will have it linked in the show notes. And there's another one since in our scheduling that we've tried to do this. You've come out with another mini doc about the marketplace of ideas. This one that I probably will focus on, though I'm happy to talk about the other one as well, is about free speech and stuff like that.

So definitely if you want to know more about Peter before we start going into this, maybe pause this, watch the video, it's really good, I enjoyed it a lot, so check that out. But actually, I should say before, before we go straight into the video, I'm, I'm really curious about, I've seen some, some interesting stuff on the internet about you, I'm just kind of curious about it's okay, we don't have to get into every ridiculous detail or anything, but there's a story here and I'm curious what it is. Like, so you've been YouTubing

[0:04:02] a long time. How did you get into that for starters? Like, tell me about that. I started it in 2006, actually, which is before YouTube, actually predates, nothing, it actually started in 2005. Okay, so I, I got in just after, just after, yeah, that's cool. Um, but I actually started uploading videos in 2006. I had an account, I think, early in the year, and I started later in the year, um, just because I kind of didn't really get it, I'd always made. You were accidentally making videos. Yeah, exactly. I've been making videos since like 1999 with friends in high school and stuff

[0:04:42] like that. And I learned to edit that way and kind of just general whatever you want to call it, being annoying, saying stupid things, and eventually, hopefully, evolving into something smart that we call today. Yeah, yeah. It's good that YouTube didn't exist while I was in high school. That's what I'm going to say. I started uploading in, like I said, 2006. I had been uploading videos to the internet on various sites like Metacafe, a couple of others that I don't remember because they don't exist anymore and it was a long time ago. And I didn't really generally, I looked at downloading things as the right way to do it. So I

[0:05:23] never really looked at uploading videos as a good thing. And then at some point during the year 2006, I understood, wait, this is probably what's going to happen because this is really easy and um, yeah, I started doing that. I made sketch comedies and song parodies for a while. Um, actually released several sketch comedy videos and some song parodies this year. You know, I've done that for a long time and I like doing, that's, I think what is natural to me is that, but at a certain point the trouble began. Yeah, exactly, more to it than just comedy, I take it. Yeah. When did that start to happen? When you wanted to maybe make more of a statement about things

[0:06:04] or that kind of thing? That, I think, started, I want to say I started making more actual statements around 2000, maybe a year or two, in 2007, 2008 area. And it was because I was getting more involved in politics. I had not been a political person my entire life. I was younger than I am now. I'm 32 now, whenever 2007 and 8 was. I started sort of just trying to, you know, I'm a big fan of South Park. I've always really enjoyed South Park, and I noticed that South Park at least tried to tackle things that I wasn't

[0:06:45] trying to tackle, and I also grew up on Monty Python. My dad is a massive fan of Monty Python. Yeah, and uh, watching it as an adult, I sort of realized that there was more going on than just general silliness, and I just tried to start uh going for, you know, injecting some sort of what I believe into it. And you know, what I believed at the time was garbage, so I was a young adult. Okay, so I was wondering, that did you start as kind of one thing and and morph into a different position, or um, I started, I think, very centrist, uh, I felt, uh, as though everybody was an extremist, and the

[0:07:25] best thing you could possibly do was just find the dead center of every issue, and that was what was right. And that's not what I think is always right today. I think that the answer to most questions is not extreme, but I don't know that I think that that it's dead center. Right. That makes sense. I think some people could accuse me of that. But I like having the conversation and mediating different conversations, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I think the answer is always in the middle or something. I think

[0:07:58] that that's a classic trap that some people assume uh when they hear somebody talk in that way, when they attempt to talk acknowledging the other side as having thoughts or being a human being. Even though, like, there's some terrible fucking monsters on both sides of the political spectrum. I don't want to pretend that there aren't. And a lot of people do want to pretend that there aren't from both sides of the political spectrum, once again. You know, I've spent a lot of time reading what people I disagree with say. I've spent a lot of time. And at this point in my life, I do considerably less of it because I would like to keep my hair and I don't want the impulse to pull

[0:08:38] it out anymore. Yeah. But it's getting to the point where I feel like I know who I am. I know what I think. That's kind of where I am now. And I'm much more comfortable not pursuing 100% understanding with people that I know that I don't understand where they're coming from. That's interesting. I mean, that's a pretty pragmatic and understandable thing. I get it. But, you know, I'm curious. So you even reference it in the video. So I'm going to go ahead and say it's fair game. You referenced that a lot of people, I don't know, I guess a lot of people hate you

[0:09:12] for some reason. I'm genuinely... I think you know why. No, I, well, okay, I'm genuinely ignorant as to the genesis of this. Like, I can guess that it's, you know, there's a certain type of person on YouTube who harasses people. I get that part of it, but I genuinely don't know. I even kind of look back and I just couldn't get like what seemed like real information, so I'm like genuinely curious how that started, and you don't have to go into like details, but

[0:09:36] just in general, like, what happened, when did this start, that people were kind of giving you all this. Well, I would say in around 2010 or 11, I was, um, well, I guess to put it the quickest way I can, because that's probably the easiest way to do it, because this is my version of the story and there are a lot of people that will go, that's just what he's saying, and it is, in all honesty, just what I'm saying, but I understand that. But I was being catfished in 2011 or 2010, and at the same time I was also criticizing a blogger's marketing strategy, which I found to be very unsavory, to put in a nice

[0:10:17] way. I was a lot more aggressive back then, but I, I think at the core what I was saying was not full of crap, because I don't like when I see young people being marketed something as uh the right thing to do, and that's what it was, like cosmetics, uh, makeup, cosmetic surgery, which I don't really have a problem with any of those things on their own, it's just marketing it in in that way really sets me off because it's like, you do realize you're telling kids that don't know better what's right and wrong, and and you're profiting off of it, so that incentivizes you to think of it a certain way. But that being said, that developed

[0:10:58] Into an online feud that didn't last very long because I blocked them, the person that was catfishing me, uh, was also trading blows with them, and they wrote up a hit piece on me that said that I, for lack of a better term, made up the other person. And it went from there. I got featured on Conquer, uh, I got featured on Jezebel, featured Village Voice. Yes, I'm saying that in the way that keeps my mental, uh, state better, but in all actuality, at this point in my life, it's not something that bothers me a whole lot.

[0:11:38] Um, it just kind of follows me, and I think that it's weird, and weird is pretty much the best way to describe it at this point, because there's people that have of held on to that, that, like, people were telling me to kill myself, like, in the thousands, like, there were thousands of people saying it to me. God, and it really, it sucked at the time. Uh, a little. Not much. No, that sucks. Yeah, I'm just, I'm joking. Yeah, I'm understating for comedic effect. Ah.

0:12:11 Thomas: I see, I don't want to dwell too long on this, but I honestly am just like baffled by it, like I don't know what the fuck happened or what is going on. Allegedly, you made up something, or somebody thought you did. I wanted to have us address it just in case anyone listening, like, already knows all that and is wondering, oh, yeah, there's gonna be

[0:12:29] somebody who who messages you like they send you an email telling you all of the things that I did and to tell you to go to Encyclopedia Dramatica and tell you to go here and there and research me. And there's 74 threads of me on an anonymous message board somewhere, blah, blah, blah. Right. Yeah. Just to kind of put a pin on it so that we can move on. I was going to say, like, I don't really care because I'm interested in the ideas you discussed, but I also, but I'm kind of interested if, did you, like, what do you think went wrong there, did you, I mean, is there anything you regret, or do you think it was, it was more, who do you blame,

[0:13:06] like, what, what happened, I don't know. Well, um, there's a few YouTubers that are involved that I won't name, uh, that had massive reaches and had also received criticism from me, that signal boosted the original blog post, uh, to over, you know, hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook, which, which is, I guarantee, what got it to Gawker. Yeah. That, I think, is kind of the problem. But Gawker, ultimately, I think, they didn't contact me for comment. They didn't care if it was an actual public interest story. They didn't look into it in any way. They're just like, this is great. Let's rewrite it in the way

[0:13:47] that a professional might write it and repost it. And that's what happened. I think, generally, public interest stories, You should actually think about whether they're public interest or like I was like I was decent in size on YouTube. I made a living off of YouTube at the time, but that doesn't make me a celebrity. It makes me a minor public figure at most. And they treated it as though I were some celebrity that had gotten caught doing something, which obviously made people hate me. Which is kind of weird. A theme of this discussion, and YouTube in general, can be, a lot of people have a lot of energy to hate people for no reason. Like, they don't know. You know, like, I could understand reading the story or whatever and be like, oh, looks like that guy might have lied about something, or what that guy might have done, whatever your view

[0:14:41] is. That sounds sad, what that guy did. Yeah. That would be my reaction, because I've read a million stories like that, and it's like, I'm sad after having read that. If you think that it's true, you're like, oh, that sucks.

0:14:55 Thomas: Right, right. No, I'm totally with you. I don't get where all that energy comes from. I think it's what makes YouTube kind of a hellhole nowadays. There's some good stuff here and there, of course. But man, there's a lot of people with a whole lot of energy to, with a lot of vitriol toward people. I don't really get it, but all right, well, let's go ahead and count that as

[0:15:17] addressed so that we can move on to some of the ideas. Yeah, that's probably the most in-depth I've ever addressed it to, so. Really? Or are you joking? Yeah, so. I can't tell when you're joking. No, I'm not joking. That's legitimately not joking. Oh, okay, cool. Although that sounds like I may be joking, I'm not. Well, I'm just going to keep asking, was the last statement a joke? I have a very deadpan delivery of everything. I am very deadpan, so. Yeah. Um, although I'm, my wife is even better at it, I, like, I don't know if you watch any of our Adversaries. Yeah, this is, uh, she's actually a plastic sex doll. Okay, um, which is what people decided in 2012 when we got married. Well,

[0:15:57] based on your, your show Adversaries, she's a, she's an incredible doll. Like, I would be just, whoever made that

[0:16:04] like, well, I've spent a lot of of time and money upgrading her. So, I see, was it, is it paper mache, or how do you, how do you, doing that, do you have a fabrication machine that you're doing, I don't know, I'm just curious how

[0:16:16] that, how the process works. Um, have you ever seen the movie Bicentennial Man? It's essentially that process.

0:16:25 Thomas: So you do a lot of different things on your channel, it looks like one of them is a show, Adversaries, with your wife, talk about advertisements and stuff like that, and uh, but you're, you're also doing these mini docs. I think there's some other things here and there, but for the sake of eventually getting to what I wanted to talk about, we'll just talk about the mini doc. So this free speech documentary, first off, I just want to say, I even, I'm not honestly sure whether I agree, disagree, whatever it is. So it's possible, like if we get into the detail of it, I might disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but I still just want to tell you, like, it's a good video. Like I like it. I think it's funny. I think the production is awesome. I think I think the second video, the Marketplace of Ideas one, that production is awesome. It's

[0:17:09] really cool. I'm very impressed with it. It's not your typical shitty YouTube quality. Well, I really appreciate that, for one. For two, like, I literally just started doing these. Oh, wow. Like, I released the first one in July. I've never made a documentary-style thing before. I've made, like, little fake Spinal Tappy-type mockumentary things, but nothing where I'm like, you know what? What, I want to say something, and I'm going to say it long form, and I'm going to mean it.

0:17:37 Thomas: So the free speech one, do you think you could try to somewhat outline your thesis? Obviously, you know, and I could just play the whole video if we wanted, but in some sort of summarized way, maybe outline

[0:17:49] what you're trying to get across there. Okay, my thesis, I would say, like you said, it is a little bit, it's not necessarily a straight 100% thing. It's, to be completely honest, just trying to get people to acknowledge that hate speech deters people from speaking. There's a point in it where I discuss whether or not it makes sense to make laws based on it. And if you notice, after I ask that question, I say, I don't know, that's not necessarily really what we should do. Because I do think very much that hate speech deters certain people from speaking freely, I, I absolutely think that, and I think

[0:18:29] that people need to think about that as they talk, but I think that because of how heavy-handed we basically attempt to make all lies, it would probably be a bad idea to try in the current political climate to make a law of that nature, just because I have a feeling it would deter everyone from saying just about everything, at least after a while. Yeah, I don't know, of right. But it seems like if we did that, it'd be a bad way to go. I don't like the term slippery slope, because I think that it's applied, again, exactly as I'm talking about laws, I think it gets blown out of proportion, but I think that it would set

[0:19:10] us up for problems. Yeah, well, to take people through it more, I mean, you start off by saying certain speech restricts or prevents other people from talking back. And you give examples of a research paper and how people don't respond to free speech by using their speech because they feel intimidated. Exactly. So it's interesting to hear you talk about the legality because I think of your video in like two different ways. One is if the punchline of your video is, therefore, let's make a law restricting hate speech or something, then I have like a million criticisms for like why we can't do that. But if the punchline is just

[0:19:47] be considerate and think about what we're doing, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm 100% on board with that. Yeah, that's essentially the punchline. I mean, it's the least funny possible punchline, but if you think about it, that is literally as not funny as something can be. But I think we get there in a funny way. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even mean in a funny way. I just mean like the point point of it. It's sort of the end result. The thing that I think is important to recognize in what I'm looking at it as is free speech or rather unfettered free speech, I think is a paradox because on one hand, you have somebody saying, don't stifle me.

[0:20:27] And on the other hand, you say, if you're talking completely free, if everything that you say or everything that you you think of, you just say, and it doesn't matter whether it's good or it's bad. If you say things that intimidate people, if you say things that make sure that other people know they're not welcome to open their mouths, you're fettering the group that essentially wants people to think about what they say before they say it. But at the same time, those people, if you say, well, I want you to think about what you say, and I want you to care about it, and I want you to to essentially choose things a little more wisely in a way that's

[0:21:07] fettering the other person. Because you can't say unfettered free speech because no matter who's talking, it's going to fetter someone, so to speak. Well, I've never fettered anyone, but I mean societally. I don't mean individually. Right, right. So if you treat people's words as actually binding other people to do stuff, Or then, then sure. I mean, you could think of speech in a certain way where it just really wouldn't matter. But I think you make a compelling argument that there's, there's, that we should definitely consider, which is certain people don't feel like they can speak when

[0:21:47] other people express their free speech. I'm going to push back for the sake of argument, at least, because I think that's interesting to talk about, but I would never want to restrict free speech for several reasons. What I'm wondering about is, it seems like when you use the example of the research paper that

[0:22:05] you very hilariously rename and retitle and everything, when you use that example, and you say, this person, when he encounters racism, he reacts a certain way, this woman, she felt afraid to speak, all that. That. When you're saying it's because of sort of this like implied threat of violence, my thought when I'm thinking, should we consider restricting this free speech is, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense because if hate speech is shutting people up because there's like a threat of violence, which itself is already illegal, then it doesn't really make sense to say, okay, we need to make this free speech or this hate speech illegal, because then that'll solve it. Where it's like, Like, we already had the illegal part. Like, if people were following the laws and there was no actual violence happening, there wouldn't be any intimidation. You'd know that you could say whatever you want and you could be yourself without any threat of violence. But you know what I mean? Do you see what I mean where it's kind of...

[0:23:02] No, I get exactly where you're coming from on it. The intrinsic want of the person saying something is that it is either taken seriously or not seriously. Whether or not it's meant seriously is different than that. You can mean something but not want people to take it seriously, for instance, like if you say something that's hateful and you say it to somebody who maybe views it as, "Oh shit, I'm around somebody who would have killed me if this were 1930." That's kind of what I'm talking about. And from the perspective of restricting it, I don't know that I'm really somebody who thinks that it should should be restricted, right?

[0:23:42] Just that people should think about it, like, it should be in their heads, uh, am I making somebody feel as though they're they're unwelcome to the point where it's like a Nazi Germany dynamic here, although metaphorically, obviously, because, I mean, gas chambers are really hard to build. You can't build them very quick either. Metaphorical gas chambers are much easier. Yes, essentially. And that in itself was an offensive joke, but it got the point across. Us, I hope that joke it wasn't hate speech and stopped other people from speaking. But the other thing I was going to say about the study, which I, I think in my mind, undermines that part of the argument a little bit, and and not in a, not in a complete way, because I totally think it's something to be aware of. But if it, if it were used in an argument for banning

[0:24:37] certain types of speech, which I get, again, you've said you don't adhere to, but yeah, I'm absolutely not that type of person.

0:24:43 Thomas: But just to speak about it, because I don't know, some people watching the video might think you are, because it is a little ambiguous. And I think some people watching the video do think we should ban hate speech. Oh, definitely. If you ever have any European fans who will message you or whatever, I from time to time do, and they'll say, like, hey, this is weird when you talk about this because it's way different here. There's places where you can't deny the Holocaust. And it's like, well, really? That seems kind of weird to me. But anyway, to talk about that study, I think there's a bit of a difference between the marketplace of ideas,

[0:25:18] which now is your next video, so we'll have to talk about that. It's quite related in concept, in all honesty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a difference between that and saying anytime some asshole on the street, you know, confronts, I don't know, a person of color or a trans person, that person needs to be able to, or that person would necessarily want to talk back. Like, I can envision being on the street and nearly anything that somebody I don't know says to me,

[0:25:49] I'm not going to respond to them. Like, I don't know that that's necessarily a great measure of if your speech is, quote unquote, restricted, because I just don't think we care about responding to people we might perceive

[0:26:01] as kind of nuts on the street. That's definitely an interesting point, but I would say, and this isn't necessarily contradicting that, but the intent of people is different than how a person takes something. Like, for instance, you or I, or I actually don't know what race you are, so I shouldn't say you or I, I should say I. I think deep down inside you know what race I am.

0:26:33 Thomas: You can go with the numbers, and I'm a white man.

[0:26:37] Host of an atheist show, it's pretty easy. Yeah, I suppose. Well, I'm definitely on the white side of myself. I am partially Jewish, and I think that it's fairly obvious when you see me that that's there. Yeah. So does that mean we were good on the gas chamber joke? Yeah, that's me sort of relieving myself without saying that, just making sure that people know that's, that's me sliding that in later without calling any attention to it, like dragging on this for too long, so I shouldn't have called it out, is that what you're saying? No, sorry, no, you almost

[0:27:17] got away with it, you almost got away clean, but I, I brought it up. You know, I shouldn't interrupt you because I, I, I, you start, we start joking

[0:27:25] and then you lose your train of thought, I gotta stop. Yeah, well, I, that's essentially how comedy works, is, uh, you get to somewhere where you think is important, and then you destroy it.

[0:27:36] And that's why these are really hard to make, these mini-documentaries because I have to keep going. I was going to say, yeah, it must take a lot of editing for you because you keep you have to stop yourself from It takes a lot of energy. It's energy and all that energy that people have to attack each other, I spent it on making this crap and it's I look really tired afterwards. Yeah, that too, that also so it makes me look kind of tired. Although, if you believe certain people, he's not mine. I kidnapped him. Oh.

0:28:10 Thomas: Just so you know. Okay, well, what's the storyline? Is it that it's a doll kid, like, it's a part? No, I

[0:28:16] kidnap, I'm his nanny or was his nanny, and then I kidnapped him along with my wife, who is either not real or possibly real, and an actress, which I don't have the money for something like that, just putting that out there. YouTube doesn't pay that well anymore, does it? Or no, to be able to, that's why Patreon exists, that's why those things, that's why those things exist, literally, because, like, if you think that you can rely on YouTube for income nowadays, it's like, I mean, I don't get the kind of views I used to get, and that's partially because I spent long periods of time not uploading anything, and their algorithms punish you for that. Was that a result of the harassment

[0:28:56] and the, that, at times, yes, definitely, um, there were, I mean, there was about a year after it initially happened where I just didn't upload anything at all, and then from time to time I would go for quite a while without doing something just because, I don't know, I never really got back into the right headspace. I think something about how I viewed things changed when that happened, because I mentioned it in the free speech documentary that I got this kind of treatment for something that people perceive me for having done, whereas a lot of people get it specifically just for existing, they get it for being who they are, and that's kind

[0:29:36] of what I'm getting at, when they get up in the morning and they get on the subway and they hear a crazy person saying racist stuff, and maybe that crazy racist person looks at them, they get a kind of fear that I don't think other people get.

Like, me, when I get a weird email from a weird email address, I go, whereas most people would probably look at it and go, that's just spam, I kind of go, are they, they trying to fish me, are they trying to threaten me, or they're trying to make me feel unsafe, like, I, I perceive it differently, and it's not something that ruins my day or anything, but, uh, it, it looks, I look at it differently when I get that kind of stuff.

[0:30:16] And I think that that's kind of, I'm not trying to compare my experience to that of a marginalized person, because that would be ridiculous, but I feel like I have, like, maybe a foot in the door as to what they are experiencing, experiencing. I see kind of, I see things a little bit differently when I get things that other people would probably perceive as just a crazy person saying something dumb, I see it a little bit differently, and it's because of what I've seen, or rather had thrown at me, essentially. Yeah, you're pretty diplomatic about it, but I'm, I'll go ahead and put my neck out there and say, like, I think what you received is a lot worse than what a lot of people would even possibly

[0:30:56] marginalized, marginalized people have experienced. Having thousands of people to tell you to go kill yourself a bunch is definitely something that the average person, I think, of any, I don't know of any demographics that doesn't have to go through. I mean, that's

[0:31:09] pretty crazy. It doesn't mean, generally, generally, Gawker doesn't, uh, signal boost the crazy guy on the train saying the N-word at somebody in their face, right? Yeah, but I don't go, take your point, guy. And also, and also, if they did, it would be chiding that guy, it wouldn't be like attacking the person for getting yelled at. So, yeah, again, it's a different situation, and I'm trying to apply my experience to what other people feel. I don't know, somewhere between sympathy and empathy, uh, but really, I think it's kind of, I look at it in a manner that I know that they aren't getting the same thing that

[0:31:49] I get when I, I hear something that is generally harmless to me. Yeah, so is it safe to say that that's, that kind of changed your mind a bit, like you, you, yeah, it may not change your mind, but at least opened up your, you know, absolutely, it's not like you were pro hate speech before or anything, but, but did it, did it just adjust how you looked at, well, before I thought that you should call everybody by whatever racial slur applied to them, just, just hello mister, yeah, I thought, you know what, there's no harm in it, let's just do that, uh, we could all get along much better if we hated each other outward, but yeah, I mean, yeah, I

[0:32:30] Before that, I think it's pretty safe to say, like, I looked at things in a manner where I I was a generally unambiguously ignorant to most people's experiences type person. I looked at things very economically. I looked at things very rationally. I looked at things very materialistically. And I'm talking philosophically, not like I liked stuff. I do like stuff, to be fair. Well, stuff is pretty cool. But yeah, I would say that's definitely where things changed for me. I look at that time, and I look at how I looked at things prior to that, and I think, I really had no business

[0:33:10] saying a lot of the crap that I said. Because I looked at things, like I said, very, like, I'm from Michigan. I'm from southwest Michigan. I grew up in a rural town. I have been out of this country one time. I mean, that's more than a lot of people do, even. But, but was it Canada? Because that doesn't count. It was Scotland, because my wife is actually from Scotland, and I guess that kind of opened my eyes to what people can go through, because I know that there's people that have seen much, much worse. I look at a lot of people hate Peter Theol, or Teal, I don't know how to say his last name particularly, because I've

[0:33:50] only ever read it. But a lot of people hate him for going after Gawker, and I, I think that those people don't understand that Gawker did exactly what Gawker got in trouble for doing in that situation, and it is like something that you can sue successfully over. It's something that there are defamation laws, there are libel laws and slander laws, there is actually stuff out there that put some kind of legal restriction on what, what you can do to another human being, either in the press or in the public sphere. And I don't like when people try to go after him for

[0:34:30] that. I don't like Peter Thiel. Like I said, I've never said his name out loud. This is literally the first time I have, other than talking to my wife, which doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all that I can say his name. Yeah, exactly. She can't hear me anyway. She's fake. I know a little bit about him, and I don't think that he's a great guy, but I also don't think that Gawker was right for trying to expose him as a gay person. Um, I think that that's kind of something that is private, and if somebody wants to be private, they have a right to it. Well, yeah.

0:35:04 Thomas: Who was doing that? Uh, the Olympics cap, was that? No, was that Gawker, who was, somebody was that?

[0:35:10] Was the Daily Beast. Oh, okay. They were outing people, and it was like, dude, some of these people might go home to a country where they could be killed for that. Yeah, exactly. Like, there's a decent chance a lot of the people on Grindr there were coming from a country where this was the first time they were able to use that legally. Yeah. And there's certainly a pragmatic case. I think the biggest thing, if I could kind of summarize, the biggest difference oftentimes between, I guess, I don't know, my view and some people that I sometimes can't quite understand is just a modicum of compassion, just a little bit of like, you know.

[0:35:48] Come on, like, do we really, it doesn't have to be doing this. Yeah, yeah, a lot, just some. Yeah, just try a little. I mean, if, if you try the compassion, and it becomes quite obvious that there's a serious problem with trying the compassion, don't do it in that particular situation. But yeah, I mean, at least start from there. You know, with Gawker, you essentially have a situation where they did do exactly what they got in trouble for, they lost because they did it, and it does have some implications that I don't like, but that's also kind of how the law is. Yeah, and I don't like Peter Thiel, and I don't particularly like Hulk Hogan, but

[0:36:29] they did the same. I mean, you're a fan of his sex tape, obviously. Yeah, oh yeah, obviously, obviously. And David Hasselhoff eating burgers drunk is amazing too. Separate the man from the art, that is his sex tape, that's the thing, you gotta, the difference is that Peter Thiel is kind of a crappy person who has a very large amount of money because they're crappy, and that's the difference between their situation and mine. I am a poor, crappy person, and walking into that situation where a media company went after me, I don't, I couldn't afford a lawyer, I couldn't, like, none of that. I look, that's not something I can do, and

[0:37:09] and that's why, when I look at that, lawyers aren't going to do those on spec, because oftentimes they lose, you know, they, they're, yeah.

[0:37:16] That's difficult. We, we have a lot of freedom in, in this, uh, in this country, and I, I, I do actually.

0:37:23 Thomas: I mean, I am a pretty big fan of the amount of freedom we have of speech, but sometimes, I mean, there are limits, like even the staunchest, you, you know, freedom of speech supporter would recognize there are certain limits, I would hope, or at least I would hope

[0:37:37] as well, like privacy, for instance, people have a right to that's part of the pursuit of liberty and happiness, etc. False information shouldn't be published about people. Right. Just flat out. And if there's a chance the information should be, could be false, but you're not sure, you could maybe write the word allegedly, allegedly, which Gawker was not a fan of doing with anyone except for rapists, oddly enough, but anyway, that's beyond the point. The point is, you end up with a different perspective when you have to go through something that other people can't go through, can't even choose to go

[0:38:17] through. It has to just happen to you. And I don't think that that's a good reason to learn this stuff. I think

[0:38:25] that ahead of time, I maybe wasn't open to learning it, but at the same time, I wasn't any different than anyone else. I wasn't not open to learning it in bad faith. I wasn't somebody who was saying, you know what? I don't want to learn that crap. It's just, it's stuff that you have to experience, and you shouldn't have to experience at the very same time. And it sucks. And that's, believe it or not, the documentary that I made, there probably has been in some form an idea in my head, whether about free speech or about hate speech or about talking about how people treat each

[0:39:06] other in various situations. Situations, and I've decided to frame it with free speech and hate speech, but really what I'm advocating isn't necessarily a staunch or easily definable point. It's just kind of more of a cloudy. Could you think a little bit more? Yeah.

0:39:50 Thomas: So there you have it, part one with Peter Coffin. This ended up being actually a very long recording, I edited down a lot, but still, it was plenty for two parts. So part two with Peter Coffin will be, be continued on Monday's episode. Got a couple things to tell you. First off, I've noticed a bit of a trend, not too much, when I look back through the episodes. There's actually plenty of differing, diverse topics, but I have been on a bit of a kick of social justice-related topics lately, and I just wanted to let you know I'm conscious of that. I don't want this ever to turn into a show about one particular thing.

It happens that the social justice divide is, I think, people want to listen to it, I've found, and people care passionately about it on both sides. However, I definitely am conscious of my show becoming very one note, and just wanted to let you know I have other topics planned in the future. For example, I hope to be having Tim on back soon to talk about mythicism, because Tim O'Neill, the historian, or if you're like, not technically a historian, but history buff, and of the History for Atheists blog, I'm going to have them back to talk Jesus mythicism. That was a very highly demanded topic. And I'm also looking to get back to some other, like, science and philosophy-related topics. So just want to let you

0:41:10 Thomas: Guys know that I'm very conscious of that. And we did go on a little bit of a run there, but it's because they were all interesting. I mean, I think this Peter Coffin interview was one of the most interesting I've done because we were, well, you'll find out in part two, we really came from different structures and how we were thinking about things. And it was interesting trying to meld those together. So much more in part two. I'd like to thank you so much for listening. I'd like to thank my lovely patrons over at patreon.com/atheist, who, of course, will get early access to part two with Peter Coffin. Lots of new patrons to thank. Thank you guys so much for signing up. Thank you, Adrienne

[0:41:47] Porter, Chad Eckard, Evan, Krista Maney, Peter Coffin signed up. We had, I'm telling you, it was a good interview. You.

0:41:53 Thomas: Shelly Liebmann, John McGimpsey, Christopher Morrison, Gregory Brown, Mike Wenz,

[0:41:59] Clara Latter, and friend of the podcast forever and best bro, Jake Farr-Wharton. Been too long since I've been able to talk to Jake, but he signed on as a patron. I'm not sure why. His money's no good here. But thank you, Jake. Appreciate it very much. And then, of course, I need to thank my top patrons of all time. That's Hunter Ash, Jesse, Inciting Incident Podcast, Along Blackhawk, Thank you guys so very kindly for being top patrons for so long. I hope you enjoy the early content and the bonus content as it comes out. All right, well, that's all for me.

I'm looking forward to next week and the interviews I have planned in the future. Lots of fun stuff coming up. Oh, and finally, I want to thank Cognitive Dissonance very much. Thank you so kindly, Tom and Cecil. For one, I'm a huge fan of the show, and they were just on Godawful Movies. It was absolutely hysterical. They had Andrew and I on the show to record for opening arguments, and that'll be sometime next week. And then also Andrew went on scathing. We've made sure to absolutely vary the things we were talking about.

So we've got different legal topics for every podcast we're going to guest on because as a podcaster and as a podcast listener, I know I get annoyed when I hear the same people on talking about the same pitch over and over on different podcasts. So we've made absolutely sure to cover totally different ground. And I hope that the listeners will enjoy it because it'll be different stuff they haven't heard. So thank you so much, Cogdiss, Scathing Atheist, for letting us on. We're doing other appearances too. And definitely Definitely check out Opening Arguments on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. It should be everywhere. All right, have a great weekend, and I will see you guys next time.