SIO131: Horseshoe Theory and Centrism with Peter Coffin

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 131. Nice palindrome. I always love those. I'm your host Thomas Smith. I am not a palindrome. Wish I were. Not even close. Hope you can forgive me for that. But today's show features Peter Coffin. It's been... I can't believe how long it's been since he was on the show. It actually was back in the Atheistically Speaking days. I didn't realize it had been so long. But I'm really happy to have him back. He does a lot of really fascinating work on YouTube. He's also got a book out, which he'll talk about. And we've got a lot to discuss. So here is an interview with Peter Coffin.

0:01:12 Thomas: Hey, Peter Coffin, and welcome back, how you doing?, doing well, you know, I'm looking back here, and I can't, time goes way too fast, you were last on the show, I don't think of it as that long ago, but you were on the show back when it was Atheistically Speaking, and it was, looks like, September, maybe late August of 2016, those were the days, those were the days, weren't they?

0:01:16 Peter: I'm great, how about yourself?,

0:01:40 Thomas: Oh, man. It's so interesting because I about, but I was looking back and thinking back to that episode. And if I remember, and people should either check it out or also check out your YouTube channel, of course, and all your very important documentaries are awesome. One Of the ones we talked about at that time was this free speech in the marketplace of ideas thing. And I think at the time I didn't, I didn't fully know where you were coming from, you know, I think because

0:01:28 Peter: Yeah, yep, yep., pre-apocalypse, yeah, pre-Apocalypse, thank you!, yeah,

0:02:09 Thomas: Because legally to me it's pretty straightforward, like I have a, you know, I have very pro First Amendment view of free speech.

0:02:18 Peter: As do I, I also, I agree with that, I, in my opinion, don't really want to push anything state-oriented in that respect, so, I think we're pretty much on the same page there. Yeah.

0:02:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I think so, and I think what I, you know, that aside, I remember saying at the time, like, as long as you're not talking about any sort of state, you know, enforced way of changing anything, I get what you were saying, I get it even more now, because when, if, if the marketplace of ideas makes any sense at all, um, I think the way you look at it, correct me if I'm wrong, you can explain it, but I think the way you look at it is it's more about attention than actual quality of thought or idea.

0:02:56 Peter: Well, if you look back to, I mean, way back to the original statement, I don't want to say the original statement, but probably the most popular statement is the Oliver W. Holmes dissent to the Abrams versus the United States of America case. Where he said that the best test of truth is its ability to be be accepted in the marketplace.

0:03:20 Thomas: Right.

0:03:21 Peter: And that's how we've all accepted it, where how it really kind of works is the way information spreads is not evenly. So basically, whatever actually gets attention has the better chance of being accepted. Or as I like to put it, attention is, oh, it's so it goes on and on.

0:03:36 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, I think there's, there's probably right. You, we could probably put it, uh, it's probably a little little more complicated than that. Or maybe attention represents. Yeah. But it's like, it should be, this should be obvious. I mean, you think about memes like old wives' tales, as they would, as you'd call them back in the day, where now we just call it, you know, pseudoscientific BS. But, or if it's David Avocado Wolf or whatever, I mean that's that this idea that people I almost think people know it, but also don't know. You know, I feel like we're all.

0:04:00 Peter: Yeah, absolutely.

0:04:10 Peter: I totally agree with you on that. I think on some level we all get it intrinsically, but it's just, it's not verb. It's not something, it's something we get in the abstract and can't verbalize because we don't have the language.

0:04:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:23 Thomas: Yeah. Or we get it when we're talking about pseudoscience, you know, we get it when talking about stuff like that. And then you talk about some of these horrific ideologies and, and, uh, what the best way to deal with them is. And then people all of a sudden are more susceptible to the like, well, sunlight is the best disinfected. And it's like, that's not, you know, that, that doesn't really work with anything else. I mean, yes, you can, you can say that if there's some, uh... I don't know, pick your David Avocado out of wolf bullshit, like veganism cures cancer or something. If there's some idea like that, like, yeah, you can make a good video or something or whatever it is, a speech, a podcast, a talk, a media appearance, explaining the science of why that's bullshit. But that doesn't, I mean, just because in your mind, if you're a logical person, you see that, you go, oh, okay, well, that idea, we solved that. That's been disproved.

0:04:26 Peter: Oh, absolutely, yeah, just send people this podcast and that's that.

0:05:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. But meanwhile, I mean, no, like like millions of people and depending on the bullshit idea could be hundreds of millions of people still buy into totally wrong nonsense.

0:05:25 Peter: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? If you think about it and it's all it's a lot of it based on like I've written a book around this idea called Custom Reality and You. And I sort of detailed I talk about the attention marketplace. I talk about how a lot of it is derived from the need to be perpetually correct, which is also one of the documentaries I made. Not real documentaries. It's a video essay with a goofy title. But

0:05:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:59 Thomas: Now, explain the need to be perpetually correct, because I don't find I don't know. I'm not I'm wondering how you mean that. Actually, I'm curious.

0:06:05 Peter: Well, I'm using it as sort of how you would explain a bubble, so to speak. A lot of people, they view everything as, oh, he's just in his own little bubble. He's keeping the certain information in, keeping certain information out, blah, blah. And a lot of People look at that like a filter, But I look at it more as an intrinsic need to feel validated, and I think that that's something that plays quite a bit into the whole thing, well as the fact that the attention thing. If something gets attention that a person finds invalid, they may not accept it, and there may be factions that form thanks to that, and they may split off into their own little sort of realities. But the thing is, the mainstream always, always, I feel like as long as something gets a tension portrayed in a certain way. Okay, so let's say Bill Maher had Milo Yiannopoulos on his show and just trashed him instead of the way that went.

0:06:20 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:07:12 Peter: It would have gone differently in the media. There is some degree of, hey, you need to invest the attention as currency a certain way. But ultimately, depending on how it's used, let's say that happened, that exact thing that I described where he trashed them and the whole media trashed it, him, he could then go back to his little faction and be like, "Yeah, well, they're biased," and they would all be, "Yeah, they're bias, that's true, that's right," and they would all feel correct, and and that would be kind of the attention that they've received is is a validating it. So it's there's some elements of change in it, it's difficult to describe in a short period of time

0:07:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I think I get what you're saying. But I mean, if if this bubble and, you know, we've we've all got bubbles. But if if a bubble, a bubble that you're describing is big enough, then it doesn't matter. I mean if he can go and I would say that Fox News is one of those bubbles that's so big it doesn't matter. There's no disinfecting you can do because if they've bought into it, then they've got into it.

0:07:52 Peter: Oh, exactly, Exactly. Exactly. It absolutely is. No. There's such a large number of people that just feed Fox News and uncritically do not digest any other information. They look at Fox News as the news, and that's that. It's that's their viewpoint. That's where they derive it from. That's what they derive their sense of self from. It is scary as hell if you actually think about it.

0:08:16 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:08:36 Thomas: No, my uh, my parents were that way, probably are still, right now, and Uh, it is, it is scary. I remember, I remember the day that I realized that climate change was real. Well, not the day, I would say it was a process, but like that, that was a tough process for me because when you're, when you're raised in a household like a right-wing household, a Fox Knees household, climate change is a joke, it's a, it's an elaborate hoax, as the meme states, I forget the wording, but, but it's so perfect where it's like a plucky band of oil companies is, you to dispel us of this elaborate hoax perpetuated by scientists. Yeah.

0:08:39 Peter: Yeah.

0:08:49 Peter: I imagine and the Chinese, no.

0:09:15 Thomas: But it but it is that it's this this disdain for scientists who would claim that this is a real thing and, you know, and all this and that stigma. It's not really it's not even an argument. That's the the thing. There's no arguments. And in some ways, I don't even mean that just for the denialism side. Honestly, it's weird, but I think some of these things, or maybe, who knows, maybe most of these issues, it is not really the arguments that do it. For me, it was being exposed to more and more credible people who were like, yeah, the science makes sense. You know what I mean? Like that actually, 'cause I'm not a climate scientist, you

0:09:36 Peter: Mm-hmm.

0:09:49 Peter: No. Exactly, ultimately it boils down to merit in a lot of ways, the way our hierarchy is sort of deem things merit worthy. If somebody who actually, you know, in your own life, you've deemed merit worthy, maybe you saw them do something funny, you saw him do something like Bill Nye the Science Guy, for instance, is somebody that a lot of people derive that kind of information from because he did something as a kid that everybody sort of liked. It was basic science. It was, I mean, not that Bill Nye the Science Guy has suddenly become the most advanced voice on the planet, but in a lot of respects he is sort of the bubble for a lot of people. And in, I'm gonna say about 90 of the things he talks about, he spreads valid information. I mean, he also does advertisements for various companies as well, but that's that, uh, that's not really the same thing we're talking. It is kind of a bubble with the accurate information too, I think, was what you were getting at. Mm-hmm.

0:10:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:53 Thomas: Yeah. Kind of in some ways. I mean, I think so, honestly, because what, and I don't, I really don't think I am an exception in this way. I think I would be, if anything, I would imagine myself to be more susceptible to logical argument than the average. Who knows? I could be wrong, but I'm, you know, I've always been a logic guy, a math guy. I would hope that I'm more susceptible than logic than average, or even if I'm average, coverage, um, what really did it was seeing credible people, uh, speak these, these ideas and and say, yeah, no, this is what the data says is what. And then that, because what Fox News does and what some of these bubbles do is they, they create this stigma and this idea that like there's this ulterior motive, and so therefore you can write these people off as though they're

0:11:10 Peter: Yeah. Exactly it's

0:11:41 Thomas: Some sort of sinister thing

0:11:42 Peter: Really like it's insidiously done too. It's it's it's always done with these intense, uh, like they're, it's scaremongering, it's uh, oftentimes with like really flashy graphics packages that are, you know, lots of high motion stuff with it it's yeah

0:11:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:58 Thomas: And it yeah. And it plays into the culture war of they go to this all the time. The Hollywood elite. These Hollywood elites want you to whatever, you know, it's like that that little that war. But what's interesting is I can't believe, you know, we recorded what I guess that's two months before the election, something like that. And looking back, you know, I think you were even more right on, you You know, like, yeah, I just, I think that now it's, it's I think we all take it for granted that there have been so many postmortems that we take it for granted that, you know, what we made a mistake, you know, the, the media made a mistake, many mistakes. We made a mistake with Trump, you know, yeah. Mistakes were made by virtually everybody regarding Trump. And I don't know that it was as clear at that time, but I think that, uh, you were really onto something with how you were breaking that down.

0:12:07 Peter: Yeah and more yeah more than one well I appreciate that. It, uh, it's nice to be validated.

0:12:56 Thomas: Yeah, unfortunately you're validated in the worst of all possible timelines, but uh I would

0:13:00 Peter: Yeah it's really not something I wanted to be like I told you so

0:13:02 Thomas: Trade your validation yeah I would trade your validation for president uh hillary clinton

0:13:07 Peter: Yeah yeah I think I probably would too I mean not that I love hillary clinton but But

0:13:09 Thomas: Be like oh it turns out marketplace ideas is a perfect analogy and sunlight does work yeah

0:13:15 Peter: Only sunlight happens to be something different than what we thought. Everything,

0:13:21 Thomas: I was watching your video on horseshoe theory, which is something I've talked about a little bit. And recently I've talking about how, how annoyed by centrists I am. And some, you know, I have a lot of people who were kind of offended by it. And I don't, I don't know that I've been able to explain what I mean that well. So I'm glad you've done a documentary on it, a mini doc that people can watch. But let's talk about Horseshoe Theory. Where do, where do we first of all, what led you to make it?

0:13:49 Peter: Yeah. I mean, that was the hardest thing going

0:13:51 Thomas: Yeah, go ahead.

0:13:51 Peter: Into that project. I have no idea where to even start in a like. OK, so let's say you have good and bad or you know what? Let's even simplify that further. Make it so that it's very easy. Nazi and not Nazi. I use this one in the video. What's the middle? Like, why do you, what compromise is there between those two things? Like I said in the video, kinda Nazi? Like, do we really want kinda Nazi, I don't.

0:14:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Right. We're good with certain pogroms or whatever, but not others or something. Exactly. I mean, the golden mean fallacy, I think, is the best way to capture that. And I really do think there is this... I think there's a lot that goes into it, and I can't wait to talk about it. But there's this feeling people have. And I really think the golden mean fallacy captures it where if there's two extreme sides that you buy your perception, then it really the the adults in the room must be in the in between these two screaming sides. You know, I

0:14:49 Peter: That's such a good way to put it. It's always, it's the smart, pragmatic thing to do.

0:14:52 Thomas: Really Think that's what it is. I yeah, right, right. Because there's someone to the right of you screaming. There's someone To the left of you Screaming. Let's all stop screaming. I'm sure I can sort this out in the middle of you here. And I think I what pisses me off about centrism so much right now is like virtually most other times in history, it might have made a little bit of sense in terms of U.S. politics, like, yeah, between right and left. You might have been like, okay, maybe there's too much regulation here, but there's not enough over here. But in this moment, the amount that we have stretched everything to the right from 2015 to now, it's like, how could you still call yourself a centrist? That doesn't make any sense. Sense.

0:15:13 Peter: Oh, definitely, yeah, exactly, that's a good question. I mean, that would imply an absolute center, which is, in my opinion, absurd. There's always a relative. It's always relative, for one. And like you said, between two screaming sides, the thing is, is often the reason people are screaming in politics isn't because they're trying to look hysterical. That's obviously not what they're doing. But it's often coming from a very genuine place.

Like you have your videos of the that the rationals like to debunk the the wild crazy SJW's and their stupid arguments, but maybe they're screaming for a reason, and even that goes for the right uh wing people, like in rural areas, there's people are very angry because all the jobs are gone, like I understand that, I don't pretend that that's not real, that doesn't mean it's the only problem going on, but there's a good reason that people are screaming, and that's, I, I think, something that the people who are like the adults in the room, they don't want to acknowledge. And it's what kind of makes the centrist that much more unpalatable, so to speak, because you can kind of sense that, I don't want to hear why you're screaming. I just don't like that they're

0:15:40 Thomas: You're still there.

0:16:06 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:16:42 Peter: Screaming, can you please keep it down in here?

0:16:44 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. I really think it's a cognitive, um, sort of shortcut or, or, uh, an intuition that we have that that's going to be the right answer. And I, it, it totally makes sense, as a kid you grow up and you're, you got some, you know, shitty kid in class is a jerk and screams and he throws a fit, and then the adult, the calming teacher comes in, it's like, now, uh, Billy, you can't, uh, scream about things, we need to study, we need, you know, whatever.

And I, I really think it, that is where it comes from, possibly, is our whole lives that is kind of how it works, like the people who are, but the people who are worked up when you're in school or whatever, whatever it is, when you're having a fit, when you're throwing a tantrum as a kid, like you need an adult to calm you down, when it comes to some of these political issues, it just doesn't apply. And it's something that frustrates me so much. You see, I've noticed lately, I don't pay as much attention to somebody like Dave Rubin. I did in the beginning when I thought he was actually pulling off the whole, oh, I'm a liberal, but thing, you know, I thought for

0:17:33 Peter: No.

0:17:47 Thomas: A while I would, I would.

0:17:47 Peter: Yeah, the last liberal.

0:17:48 Thomas: Yeah. I would pay attention. I Would, I Would try to point out how stupid that was for a long time. Now, I Don't know if anyone even buys that anymore, right?

0:17:55 Peter: I haven't paid attention to that

0:17:57 Thomas: But one yeah. One thing I have noticed is he just did it with this John Bolton stuff. The go-to is always, guys, calm down. Oh, calm down. Calm down. Everything is calm down like that.

0:17:57 Peter: For quite a while either. Oh, let's have a rational, normal, level-headed conversation with just the facts, the objective facts, no feelings, just the fact. But here's the thing, feelings are facts, like you can't pretend that people don't feel feelings. That's a fact. It's not something you can get around, you know, and in fact, nine times out of ten, yeah, yeah, just

0:18:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, not only that, when we're dealing with a potential first strike on North Korea, it's okay to have feelings about that. I have some feelings about if we're going to... It's looking scary. It's reasonable to be scared about that. Nuclear war, or even if it's not nuclear war, any sort of war where... Yeah, just normal war where 100,000 South Koreans will die in a minute. Yeah, I'm worked up about that, excuse me, you know, yeah,

0:18:51 Peter: Regular war with somebody who's not exactly fond of us. Yeah, exactly. Do we need to vaporize some people do we really need to? I don't. But in my life I never thought truly that that would be something that I had to entertain, like, what is gonna happen in regards to like, are we gonna bomb this country that we don't really know? I mean, we know a fair amount about, we've seen lots of things there that obviously they don't add up, but they're also people, like, it's normal people, and we're talking, talking literally about whether or not we're going to have first strike, uh, like, more and more. This is something that we've spoken about more and more too. That's the thing that's scaring me more. Um, it's just, it's not going down.

0:19:42 Thomas: About, yeah, the funny thing about what Ruben said too is, is like, calm down, calm down, first of all, and then his next tweet was like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm going to look into this Bolton guy, but calm down, everybody. It's like, you don't even, so you don't even know what anyone's mad about, but it's just, a calm down, you know, and it's like that's what's being sold in so many corners of the internet is this calm, calm down, rational, calm down, rational. And I think it, ah, I think your video touches on that a bit, but, but that's what I wanted to bring to it as well, is that I think that goes into that centrism feeling that, that, the, the, if you're in the center, if you're calm, you know, then you're, you're the one who's right. And anyone who's worked up is wrong.

0:19:56 Peter: Yep. That's it.

0:20:20 Peter: You're correct. You're perpetually correct too, because you've always got People who are always going to yell because there's never going going to be everything solved. That's the thing. As long as you position yourself as the rational adult in the room, if right-wing guy yells, if left-wing guys yell, if they both have valid concerns for that matter, you get to go, no, no. Everyone gets their turn. You just wait. Calm down. It's lifestyle marketing in a way. It essentially boils down to a demographic of people who believe that they somehow have the answer to everything by not having any answers I

0:20:24 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm.

0:21:04 Thomas: Yeah, that's interesting. And that's the part where I think maybe I, you and I look at it a little differently is I think you tie in capitalism a little bit to it, like, like maybe market incentives for being in the center. And I'm not, I don't even know if you need that. Like you might be right. I don'T know.

0:21:14 Peter: Do Yes. I Don't Think you need it. No, I, I think that it would be there. I mean, Okay, assuming that we have the same kind of polarization one way or the other, but I do think that it exacerbates it a lot. I think it predates capitalism, to be fair. I think it's just basically power structure. You have incentive to look correct more than you have to look like you're learning, so to speak. So whether or not it's actually capitalist, yeah, I do sort of levy the blame specifically on capitalism, but that's because that's the current iteration of it. Really, there is an incentive, whether it's capital, whether it's feudal, whether it's whatever, um, to look correct, to be the authority in one way or another, and The best Way to Do that. Yeah.

0:21:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:22:07 Thomas: Well, why, why that I'm not sure what you mean in terms of like looking correct. I mean, I feel like that applies to everybody though. I mean that applies to people on the far left or far right now,

0:22:14 Peter: Does It Does. That's why I bring it up. It's socialized within us. You should be the authority, at least if you want to get anywhere. Now, whether or not that means you actually become an expert or you become a TLDR-level quote-unquote expert, a thought leader, it's kind of a perception of expertise versus expertise. Expertise, we're kind of regarding both as the same thing in our media, but what I'm saying is that you have an incentive to be perceived as the person who is correct, and That is Universal.

0:22:51 Thomas: But where does that tie

0:22:52 Peter: Basically,

0:22:52 Thomas: Into centrism though? Cause I mean you could do that on the right or the left. I mean people certainly do on the left, but it's not on the right. Everybody. So Where, where Does That tie Into Centrism

0:22:52 Peter: Oh, Absolutely, But Here's the thing you Get to be if you're in the center, you get to be the one who's always right because you point out something that's wrong with everybody else. Like, the reason why people often criticize South Park, despite it being a very funny show, is that people kind of look at it like, well, all you really do is point out what's wrong with everything. That's, that's basically what I'm getting at, in being able to say, well, this is what's with this thing, and also here's what's wrong with the thing that says it's the solution for that thing. It's kind of, no matter what, what diametrically, what diametric position, whether it's this way, that way, you still get to point at it and go, I'm above that.

0:23:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:44 Thomas: Interesting,

0:23:45 Peter: You don't get to do that. If you're like a right wing ideologue, you don't Get to point it all your right wing people as I mean, you can a little bit, you Can say I'm better than that when I'm Better than that one. But you don'T get to outright discredit them. Because if you do that, you outright discredit yourself on some level. Well,

0:24:02 Thomas: So Why do you think that this ultimately favors the right, like, this, this system of centrism and and golden mean kind of stuff and horseshoe theory? I mean, do, well, hey, I, I gather from your video, it seemed like at the end that it favors a shift to the right, but can you explain that? Yeah.

0:24:20 Peter: Because it favors the status quo. Essentially, the status quo of the United States is a capitalist society that runs things a very specific way. State is basically working to enable capital in a lot of ways, despite what a right winger might say. Definitely, they'll be like, yeah, the state is definitely in the way of the capital, but they're not necessarily right about that. Barack Obama, for instance, basically did everything possible to save several industries while he was in office. But that's getting away from the main point. What I'm saying is that the status quo, ultimately, more right wing than left wing.

0:25:05 Thomas: I mean, I, it does seem like most of what conservatives are doing is trying to drag down progress as much as they can.

0:25:06 Peter: Yeah. And, you know, the the situation we're in currently isn't one that really acknowledges a lot of the things we were talking about with, say, the marketplace of ideas. It doesn't really look at any of these things specifically like they're a problem, or even, in a lot of cases, a thing at all. Whether or not good or bad, they just look at it like it's not a thing. We're a very individualist country. We don't like to look at systems a whole lot.

Even though everything works on systems, still, we sort of end up with people who are very savvy with those systems, and they use the systems to undermine competing interests. So even if the law doesn't change at all, there are people who understand how to exploit the situation we're in to get what they want, and as they continually do that, it swings one way, because obviously people who don't want want regulation, want the right wing that like, that's basically like, we don't want regulation. We don't, we want gay people. We don't want these things. Like it all, it, whether it's legal or not, it can be still swung one way. And that's, that, that is basically what we end up fighting against. A lot of the time, we're not actually talking about like you and I, when we talk about free speech, it's not necessarily that we want state oriented action done. It's that we We want the culture to change, and if

0:26:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:40 Peter: We don't change anything of where we are right now, functionally speaking, and that doesn't necessarily mean the law, it could mean a lot of just how things work. Like, if Twitter suddenly decided that moderation was a priority, even though it says that it has decided that, it hasn't really delivered on it, if that was their priority, things would start changing, at least on Twitter.

0:27:06 Peter: If that was the culture of the United States of America, it wouldn't really be that we're worried about it drifting to the right or worried about a drifting in any direction for that matter, because we would at least be looking at it from a progressive standpoint. Point And I'm not saying progressive as in socially progressive or economically progressive, I'm saying literally as a position that progresses, and we don't look at it like we literally want to preserve exactly what we have right now, which again puts a bunch of people into a position where they're willing to scream about what's wrong, so again not very favorable for a centrist at

0:27:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:27:43 Thomas: Think, uh, I think there's a lot of things too, I, I agree with with that, and and also for some reason the left has always, in at least in my lifetime, the Democrats have had to be the ones who say, okay, let's find a sensible solution to this. You know, I don't know why that is exactly. I mean, I feel like the the right wing, the Republicans, are able to have something called the, you know, the Tea Party, and have something called the, the what's the stupid House caucus, the, you know, Freedom Caucus, I guess it is where they just, they just hold the most right-wing ridiculous anti get rid of all government anything view and that just happens and they don't budge and they don't, you know, like they don't compromise, well

0:28:30 Peter: Well, Ultimately the same people are funding both parties, like you have people that donate plenty of money to both parties just because they don't want things to change, and with the Democrats, for instance, we talked in 2010 about health care reform, and originally it was on the table, we were going to see a public option, but a lot of the the Democrats also happen to be, and when I say funded, that's an obvious simplification, but funded by the health care industry, yeah

0:28:58 Thomas: Well When it comes to the single payer, I mean, we can blame, uh, what's his name for that? It's one guy took it out. It was a Lieberman. He had the, the deciding vote. It would have happened if not for Joe Lieberman. And Joe Lieberman has always been a kind of a, I guess, an independent. I don't, I don'T know. He's not, he's not really a, yeah, exactly.

0:29:07 Peter: Yeah He Is he is centrism Personified in All honesty, like I think that guy is the thing that we could say, like, up until this point we have described. No

0:29:25 Thomas: Yeah. And I, and I think that, uh、 we just really, if, if you're someone on the left, which I consider myself to be, and II also this, I doubt we agree here, but I also believe in the Democratic Party, at least right now. I think that we can't make that mistake again. I mean, if we have a bloodbath of an election in 2018 and 2020 and take back, you know, control of everything, I don't think we should make that mistakes. I don't think we have control again of like, okay, we have control, but let's come together. No, you know, screw that. Like, let's, yeah.

0:29:56 Peter: I Agree with you. If the Democratic, and here's the problem, the Democratic Party, half of it seems to want what you're describing, and Half of it seems very much not to, and

0:30:05 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that, well, in terms of elected, like, people in Congress right now, you mean, yeah

0:30:07 Peter: Yeah That's, I'm Talking About the present Democratic Party, the faces The more Public People

0:30:12 Thomas: Yeah Yeah No I Agree, I Think They showed it with that with the banking bill and with some of the some of recent, uh, votes that where it's like, we, I think the the people, the voters of the Democratic Party right now, like where the energy is, I think there's so far to the left of where the uh elected officials Are Just Within the The Democrat, yeah Man

0:30:17 Peter: Oh Absolutely Absolutely Like I Mean Look at, okay So here's the thing, I think we've incorrectly labeled the left in the United States, like, in a lot of cases, actually I would say most cases, people. Okay. Well, liberalism is kind of a free market ideology inherently, and that's part of the problem, I think. We talk about the marketplace of ideas as if it's a problem, but we're also kind of talking about market solutions to a lot of everything. The demand for gay marriage, for instance, was there, so that's when the Democratic Party got onto it, they supplied it, and the thing is, is we're not necessarily Asking

0:30:45 Thomas: Well How Are we ever Going to to, that that's a tough one, though, because do you think a system would be better where the government officials don't, you know, because, like, okay

0:31:12 Peter: No No, not at all, I Think

0:31:24 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, I mean, in that case it's interesting because the Supreme Court is what did it. And so if there's principles like that, that are, I guess, evident enough, that that sort of thing, that not allowing gay marriage was unconstitutional, you know, so the court was able to kind of bump everybody forward a little bit on that one. It's an interesting thing, though, because I could see the point you're making that with government representation, it kind of does need to be some sort of market. I don't know how it wouldn't be.

0:31:57 Peter: Well What I'm saying is we need not to frame it through the the market ideology, like, it's not a matter of not doing what people want, like, that has to be a thing, but we commodify everything. But what I wanted to get at was that we kind of view liberalism as the left, whereas liberalism doesn't actually inherently mean left-wing. It's American liberalism that is to the left of American conservatism. But conservatimism is, it's liberalism that is run by ideologues, basically.

0:32:35 Thomas: Hmm.

0:32:36 Peter: In my opinion, I can't tell you that with any 100% certainty that's how they view themselves or how somebody who maybe knows a lot more than myself might say, but in my opinion they advocate for the free market. They advocate for deregulation. That's their thing. But they also advocate for a very specific view on religion religion or on sexuality or all of these things in nowadays race, much more so. I mean, they kind of did anyway, but hid it. Now they don't really hide it,

0:32:36 Thomas: Well, could you define? Yeah.

0:33:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:10 Peter: But well,

0:33:11 Thomas: Well that's interesting. I mean, oddly I, enough, um, I think you're somebody who ties stuff back to capitalism, uh, and, and markets more. And I'm somebody who tie stuff back to like more social policy in terms of what I'm thinking of, because I consider myself myself largely speaking a capitalist. I'm in, I want more regulation. I want higher taxes. I want progressive taxes, like far more steeply progressive taxes than we have. I want universal health care. Like, there's all kinds of things I want that I would hope that, uh, I would, I would get, you know, credit for being firmly on the left for. And I do I do feel like that

0:33:46 Peter: That is a progressive. What I'm saying though, is that as a progressive viewpoint, viewpoint, as opposed to a liberal viewpoint, I

0:33:47 Thomas: Yeah but I'm still a capitalist, you know, so like where how are you, I just curious what how you're, yeah, go ahead, yeah

0:33:54 Peter: Mean that's fair. I means you could be a liberal, a progressive liberal. It's more than possible to be a progressive-liberal. I'm not saying that. What I'm, I'm saying is that we need to stop equating like the word liberalism with the word left, because it allows a lot of people to say things like Dave Rubin, I'm the last liberal, um and he's not, he's not in any way like the last literal, he's no, not the real liberal in any shape or form, um, but liberalism is kind of a much wider platform than just the left. It's kind of anything. Liberalism is very much kind of centrism. I mean, not full-blown synonymous with centrism, but it's similar. It basically encapsulates a sort of consensus among people, which it doesn't necessarily mean a fallacy or like any of that. It just means societal consensus is often the way the market shifts, not necessarily always on account of market is manipulatable, but it is in sorry, in any way, form, specific, I guess, would be the best way to put it.

0:34:13 Thomas: Right yeah what

0:35:06 Peter: Liberalism, I

0:35:06 Thomas: Do you call yourself, I'm just curious, well, what are you what do you consider yourself, you're a socialist, okay interesting

0:35:08 Peter: Am a socialist I am absolutely a socialist, um I would say a leftist slash socialist. I don't, I'm not one of the people who likes to tell you that there's a specific socialist ideology that's right. Um, it might have something to do with the fact that I don't really like the whole, I have to be right at all times type thing. But yeah, that's basically I'm from that, but I also recognize that we live in capitalism. That's something that I think a lot of socialists don't do. They just say, like, I made a video recently about Amazon and about how people saying you shouldn't shop at Amazon, and it's not necessarily a socialist thing, but it isn't something that you can change by individually just not shopping there because it's still capitalism. It's still Amazon. It is still there. If you don't shop there, they'll find new people and

0:35:29 Thomas: Oh yeah, actually I watched that one, yeah you were you were just to give everybody the the context you were talking about because of, of some, how unethical Amazon has been on certain issues. Yeah. Yeah, and so you were responding to the idea that people need to boycott it or something like that. Same, I think you draw a comparison to Walmart, right?

0:36:05 Peter: It is, it absolutely is there's no yeah I mean, we shouldn't be criticizing people for shopping at Walmart or Amazon. We should be criticizing Amazon or Walmart for being unethical, um, like, and that seems to be what a lot of, they look at it like we need to act as though we're in the ideal situation already, that's just not the case, um, hard. It's really hard to progress anything when everybody is like, this is how it should be. And if it's not that tomorrow, we can't.

0:36:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:40 Peter: And that's, well,

0:36:39 Thomas: Well, you know, that's the problem I have with some of my friends who are super far left. You know, I don't know that this is you necessarily, but the people who are so far, honestly, I have a huge problem with the people who are so far left in their mind that, that Hillary and Trump were the same, you know, those, those people exist. And that's, I, it's just so ignorant to me and it's so harmful, you know, that, uh, that I, yeah, that's fine.

0:37:02 Peter: I can certainly point out a lot of problems with Hillary Clinton. I could probably point out more with Bill Clinton, but, but it

0:37:08 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I actually, that and that's one of the things that's so frustrating is that if you want to claim that Hillary Clinton was just a, a, uh a total liar and nothing she said makes any difference, then I can't, there's no argument to be had, but her, her platform was incredibly progressive.

0:37:23 Peter: Was significantly better than Donald Trump. I mean, just if you bring it down to platform, it is absolutely just not even a contest.

0:37:31 Thomas: Exactly. And, and it's fun, you know, you can say, okay, maybe her voting record or something, you know? You can, you could point to ways that maybe she wouldn't have lived up to it, or maybe in the past she has been not as liberal or, or whatever the terminology you want to use as you'd want her to be, that's fine. But it's reasonable to also assume that, you you know, she was driven further left by the success of Bernie Sanders and she would have represented a pretty decently progressive platform. And the thing that frustrates me about that, you know actually I'm just realizing this now, the super far lefty, they're all the same, both parties are the same actually also just favors the status quo. Because If you're just going to say, well, to hell with it, we can't even participate because there's no solutions are being presented, you're going to to shift things to the right, because the right is going to keep doing what they're doing, and you're gonna not vote and they're gonna win and drive things further right, even even the status quo would be better than that, yeah.

0:38:10 Peter: Correct? Yes. Yes. I mean, yes, that's exactly it. And in working to preserve the status quo, you ironically make it possible for the right to drag things away from the status quo. Here's something that a lot of leftists will call that type of left. I mean, not necessarily enough of them, maybe, but they'll call them LARPers, like live action role players, or they'll call them lifestylists.

0:38:51 Peter: Like I use the word lifestyle marketing to refer to to central centrism a little while ago. It's also entirely applicable to like the hardcore communist who absolutely refuses to engage with anything, and maybe on paper they are correct, and I'm not going to say that I think they're wrong in any way, um, there's certainly methods that I object to personally, but do I think that we get to go, hey, so let's get who we have right now and violently overthrow the government? Like, no, you get mowed down by the United States military,

0:38:51 Thomas: That's Oh, interesting.

0:39:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:28 Peter: That's not how it works. Like, you need people on your side

0:39:30 Thomas: Yeah, it's just I totally that's A great LARPers is funny. I love that. That's a good, it's like they're so, they're, they're comfortable with being right on paper and then nothing ever changing is what's going to happen. The people who are so yeah, There you go. Well, that's, that's actually really encouraging, because I'm not a socialist, I, I, I am, I might be able to be called a democratic socialist if that's a thing, I'm not sure, I mean I am in favor of far more socialism in our government than we currently have, but I would say I'm non-socialist, but it encourages me if, if I'm speaking to a socialist who's saying, yeah, I'm a socialist, but also I want, you know, the way to make change is to

0:39:43 Peter: Perpetual correctness you have to talk to, but you have TO TALK TO PEOPLE, you can't not talk to people, and if you think that elections are useless, fine, that's fine, you can think that, you can still participate in elections because then you can STILL TALK to people and tell them about what you're trying to do

0:40:11 Thomas: Yeah yeah well what what frustrates me, the way to move things, this is what kills me about it. The way that things get moved toward one side or the other is by that side winning. It's not like If you are so far to the right, I just doesn't really happen. And this is why it's sort of asymmetrical and frustrating or, or it happens less than on the left. If you're so far to the right that you just say, well, we can't vote for anybody, cause nobody's to the right enough for me, you would allow things to go further left.

And then it would get worse the is the places where things get super left wing is not where a Democrat loses to a Republican because the Democrat wasn't left enough. That's not where it happens. The things where the places, where things get super right wing are in California, where you've got two Democrats primarying each other. Like that's where driving things further left is when there's so much support for the Democratic Party that you've got people within it saying, oh, no, I'm going to be more progressive. I'm gonna be the one who's offering all this, this, you know, like that's how you actually drive things.

0:40:31 Peter: Exactly. Well.

0:41:19 Thomas: If, and again, this is all in the assumption, you're some super lefty or even maybe a socialist like yourself, the way we would ever get to socialism, if indeed we got there, would be through the left gaining so much power that people are driven further and further left by primarying each other.

0:41:36 Peter: Again, I mean, even if we got to the point where there was a revolution, but like three quarters of the country was involved in it, like it's not just like, you know, 30,000 people getting mowed down by the military, you know, it's a matter of numbers and we don't have them unless we do that, well, exactly, like you have to look at it from the perspective of what if everything is possible, what is the thing that is compatible with every single possible. And that is gaining support.

0:41:51 Thomas: Yeah, we're not, that's just not going to happen. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's not goingto happen. There's not gonna be a a revolution.

0:42:11 Thomas: Yeah, true. Well, and the thing is, you know, revolutions happen when, you Know, like the government is certain people who are, you Now, getting stuff done that they want, and they're holding the people hostage, essentially, like their will is more important. And you have enough of the population.

0:42:28 Peter: Yeah, I mean, it's authoritarian.

0:42:30 Thomas: Yeah. You These are authoritarians. These are dictators. These are whoever, where they are just ripping us off for their benefit. Then the entire, enough of people get together and are like, okay, well, we're going to overthrow this. When you have a democracy, yeah, yeah, at least enough of a consensus.

0:42:38 Peter: Yeah. A consensus, one could say. In

0:42:49 Thomas: Country, in the U.S., it's just Right now, as of right now, it's just not the way to do it. What you could do if you had that level of support where you have so many people, you have enough people to where you're going to take arms and overthrow the government, you could also just vote everybody out.

0:43:08 Thomas: That's what the good thing about our government is. If you had the right people, if you could vote everybody, you could also vote everybody 60 socialists in the, uh, the Senate and you could get the change to happen that you want.

0:43:22 Peter: Exactly. And that's the thing. You have to just figure out like what. Okay. Okay, so there's people who absolutely will not accept any method other than revolution. And I don't agree with that, but I can tell you the method or the action that is compatible with their viewpoint that is also compatible with a more democratic-oriented person's viewpoint, and that's simply gaining support. It's just, it's not, you have to participate or both methods don't work. It's It's that it doesn't matter what the actual, and like I said, uh, in fact a lot of people have said the more people you have, if you have a mass of people that is just there for your ideas, whether or not you have to do it one way or another doesn't mater. You can do it, you're capable of doing it. If you hav sixty percent of the country on your side, more.

I feel like, like a lot of people would maybe not be so right wing if there wasn't such a competitive element in a lot of this, if it was very obvious that everybody was actually trying as hard as they can to actually just look out for each other instead of performing all the time. That's a lot of the problem as well.

I mean, you hear the term like virtue signaling a lot, and I think that the way that is used is incorrectly, but I do think that there is a performative element to things.

0:43:33 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, well,

0:44:46 Peter: I think the virtue signaling word is maybe not correct, or, or gets it, but I mean I mean they sense something, you know what I mean, and they try to describe it in really simplistic terms. They're irritated by the idea that this person could possibly not be entirely on this level of support of the thing they're talking about, or they're just exaggerating in some way, and it's not impossible that people are doing that, but I mean, there's more to it than that, and if we just kind of drop the performative elements, they would probably not be like, well, I was virtue signaling all the time. And it's just like, it's not necessarily that we are virtue signaling, it's that they magnify everything into such a massive degree, and

0:44:52 Thomas: I think that it, yeah, yeah.

0:45:29 Thomas: They're right, but also everybody virtue signals. I I mean, that's

0:45:32 Peter: Exactly I mean it's something that is like an inherent human thing, uh, but I mean, there is some element of, uh, people can be sort of performing in a way that it does make things seem less real, and I think that a lot of people who get in front of other people understand how to do that in a, that sort of targets their base, uh, gets them more riled up, support, and this is going again for any side of the political aisle

0:45:32 Thomas: That's what we all do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:45:59 Thomas: But OK, but OK, here's my problem with this. And this is I think we agree. But also what this inevitably ends up doing. And I think it even plays into the centrism bullshit, which is you're trying to find your bearings or people are trying to not you, but like people are try to find their bearings by looking at these voices and the manner in which they're speaking and saying, well, there's a lot of shouting. So I want to be in the center. And what we need to do, and maybe this is kind of what you're saying, let me know, and maybe not. But I think what we really ought to do is stick more to issues and just say, okay, where are you on taxes? Where are you On healthcare? Where are You on military intervention and nation building? Where are, you know, on all these things. And what, what is driving me nuts lately is that I, I, there are a lot of these people who probably would tick all the left-wing boxes, at least enough, like relative to our country.

0:46:01 Peter: Yes Yeah. Yes.

0:46:55 Peter: That's that's Yeah, yeah.

0:46:57 Thomas: And so it's like, okay, well then shut up and vote for Democrats. But we're caught in this culture war where because there's a Tumblr feminist who said there's 800 genders or something, you're mad about that. So I guess it's a tie and I'm in the center. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like that's what's happening and it's harmful and it'S stupid.

0:47:13 Peter: Exactly. Well, and you see these people who are ostensibly left-wing, me, like, those darn SJW's, what are you talking about, why are you saying that you know

0:47:22 Thomas: Yeah. There's no, So there's no SJWs elected to office right now, really. I mean, but

0:47:23 Peter: No there's no such thing. There's no such thing as an elected SJW. Yeah.

0:47:28 Thomas: There are the opposite. There's the Freedom Caucus. There are the other side's SJW's. They are the social injustice warriors, God warriors. They're in office, and I think that's another reason why the status quo favors the right. Right. But we could I feel like we could talk for hours here on this kind of stuff.

0:47:32 Peter: Yeah. Oh.

0:47:47 Peter: Definitely. I mean, there's a lot of, there's, I mean, you can go so far into it because it's so embedded in our social structure. That's the thing that's really, I think, most pervasive about it. It's just like everything is set up, like, like you said earlier, the adult in the room is the one who's able to be like, now quiet down, everyone, everyone

0:48:08 Thomas: Oh, right. I forgot to make this point. It's something that that really frustrate frustrates me about this is that that's always been there. Back in the in the civil rights era where if there's anywhere where where these shitheads can agree that it's appropriate to be angry, It would be, you know, if you were African-American in the 60s, like in the South, was it okay then to be yelling? Is that okay? But I would hope they would agree. And the funny thing is that still existed.

0:48:31 Peter: Yeah. Like but you know there were people that were like, you need to quiet down everybody in

0:48:36 Thomas: Yeah. No, no, no. That's my point. That is exactly my point 100% existed back then. Nixon was able to run on that. Oh, well, we need, okay, sure, we need some civil rights, but also law and order. Like, these people really need, that 100% happened. There was the same tone police-y bullshit that you have with Black Lives Matter and all this, where it's like, okay, yes, we shouldn't murder black people. However, you guys are yelling a lot, so can you stop? And it drives me nuts.

0:49:04 Thomas: It's, we don't need that. Like, my point, I guess, in closing on that thought is if you are a person who doesn't want to do any yelling and you're calm and you rationally person, fine, you can be that, but also be on either side. You know what I mean? Like people yeah.

0:49:03 Peter: Fact we shouldn't murder any people, yeah.

0:49:24 Peter: Just be truthful, be honest with yourself, as well

0:49:29 Thomas: It's like they mistake a demeanor for, like, if you're centrist in demeanor, it doesn't mean you have to be centrist in where your actual policies and what you're actually trying to do, you know, like if you just happen to be one of those people who doesn't get worked up about anything, that's fine. However, the right is bringing, and Trump and all that, are turning our country to shit, and you can't be on the center on that. Like, it doesn't, you don't have to yell. Yeah.

0:49:53 Peter: Yeah again Nazi or not Nazi, there's not, if you're kind of Nazi, you're a Nazi, like, that's how that, that works. Yeah.

0:49:55 Thomas: Exactly that Bringing it full circle, yeah, you can be a calm, non-yelly, rational person, but you're on, you should be a firmly on the not nazi side, like that's that's what I'm saying is, you can separate the demeanor from the actual ideology and say, OK, maybe I'm just a person who doesn't like yelling and name calling. You still should be firmly on the non-Nazi side of things if you if you want to be.

0:50:22 Peter: I and you'd think it'd be obvious at this point, but in order

0:50:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. But it's not. It's not because the media, is the Internet has allowed us to see some of those, you know, like people, people, the right wing will weaponize the SJW left or whatever you want to call it in a way that makes it seem like you need to be in between those two things, that you need to be between Nazis and SJWs. And it's just, it's just nonsense.

0:50:47 Peter: To go the other way, like you need to be in between, like, uh, rational on, on, on trans issues, for instance, like there's a lot of people who are like, they're just totally that trans people are fine, they're fine, it's fine, but they don't want to do anything at all to help those people, it's it that is exactly how it moves to the right, because like, in their view, everything's fine, they aren't trans, they don't see what trans people go through, and they think that the current situation is fine, so the right-wing people are like, well, I want to undermine this, and they do. Yeah.

0:51:03 Thomas: Yeah.

0:51:20 Thomas: Yeah, well, I think that's just about a good time. Is there anything you wanted to throw in? Of course, people should check out Search Peter Coffin and on YouTube and check out your channel. Anything else you want want to throw out for people to check out?

0:51:35 Peter: My book is called Custom Reality, and you, it's available on Amazon, ironically enough, uh, but I actually I'm more than happy to sell like a PDF to people. I don't really, I mean, I do have to pay my rent, but I mean

0:51:37 Thomas: Hmm. That's why you had the opinion that we should still shop at Amazon. It's all coming together. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's cool. Uh, yeah, yeah. Definitely check that out everybody. And, uh, uh. Do you, I mean, you're, you are you, wait, are you active on Twitter at all? I forget.

0:51:57 Peter: Oh I'm very active on Twitter, too. Active on Twitter at Peter Coffin. Thank

0:52:05 Thomas: Okay. Yeah there you're active on twitter. Uh. Check it, interesting doc, and um, I, I enjoy them very much, so uh, I, I recommend the channel, people should check it out, and thanks so much for coming on the show again

0:52:20 Peter: You, and uh, thanks for having me

0:52:32 Thomas: All right. Thanks again to Peter. Fascinating stuff. Check out his YouTube channel. Check out his book. Really interesting. And what I like about that is, you know, I'm very much not a socialist, but I do support, obviously, some socialist-inspired programs, and I do support limiting capitalism. I don't think the free market solves everything. All that sort of stuff. You guys probably more or less know my views.

But what I like about Peter and what I really enjoyed out of that conversation was, you can be a super far lefty socialist like Peter, and also we can agree that the way forward is supporting the Democratic Party. It doesn't mean, again, it doesn't mean this cartoonish, unflinching dedication, uncritical dedication to a party, but it does mean, and I think what I take away from this the most that I can't believe I hadn't really thought of before, is that when it comes to solving problems, Being so far lefty that you think both the Democrats and the Republicans are equal, that is functionally the same as being a centrist. Functionally speaking, you're doing as much for society as someone who just doesn't participate and thinks both sides are equal, and it doesn't matter that on paper in your brain you're actually a super far lefty, because again, as much as we can criticize the Democrats, Trump is potentially going to go to war with Korea.

Trump is potentially, and I think is actually, going to be banning transgender people in the military. Those are real people. And there's a million examples of this. Those are real people who are really going to be hurt because when it came time to vote in 2016, enough people thought that there wasn't as much of a difference between Hillary and Trump, that there wasn't enough of a difference.

0:54:24 Thomas: So, I mean, that is how it works. It doesn't matter if in your brain somewhere you think, well, no, I support trans rights and I support gay rights and I support all that stuff. It doesn't matter if functionally what you're doing is allowing the right to win by saying, no, sorry, Democrats, Republicans are the same, so I'm not, can't support either one of them. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve anything. And I really liked that element of the conversation is something that I took away a lot from. But it's always interesting talking to Peter, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. And I will see you on Thursday. You know, I'm going to be at AAcon coming up this weekend! Oklahoma! Finally! I will go to Oklahoma! I've always wanted to travel to Oklahoma!

0:55:09 Thomas: No, I'm really excited about this. Gonna be hanging out with the scathing Atheist Gam, all those folks. And I hope to see some of you, and feel free to say hi. And all that, you know, it's going to be really fun. I was very positive on my interview with David Silverman, and I like that he had such a good response to the Mythicist Milwaukee nonsense. And speaking of, after AAcon this weekend, the Milwaukee benefit that we're doing is the following weekend. Guys, please come to that. Support the good guys. Brew City Benefit. It's put on by Milwaukee Humanists. I think humanism is the way to go these days. And, uh, it's April... 7th, it's coming up real soon, couple weeks here, please come if you can, just google Bruce City Benefit, you can find it.

0:56:02 Thomas: There's going to be all kinds of cool people there. Arne Ra, you know, me, Seth Andrews, Alex Jules, not Alex Jones, there's going to be all kinds of cool people. I hope you'll support and I hope you'll come. So, couple events in a row here, chance to say hi to you folks, and again, feel free to come. Come approach me and say hi if you listen to the show and you enjoy it. That'll be fun. Looking forward to it and I'll see you guys on Thursday.