SIO146: Voicemail! Socialism, Pithy Catchphrases, Mandatory Voting, and Lots of #metoo

Transcript

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

0:00:04 Clip: You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only.

0:00:29 Thomas: And lots and lots of voicemail, as so that's today's episode. And not only that, I have so many that I think it's going to work out quite well to do a bonus episode with some additional voicemails. I think that'll be a good way. I probably owe you a bonus Episode anyway, to my patrons. So I think That'll be A good use of that time because it's, it really is my favorite. I love interacting with, with the listeners and there's so many different views on some of especially some of the recent episodes. Corrections and an apology to issue. I'm going to try to spend as little time on the interpersonal part of this as I can, but let it suffice to say that my last guest, Aimee Terese, is evidently incredibly angry at me.

0:01:23 Thomas: And as part of that, her friend Heidi Matthews, who she referenced in the episodes, wrote a Twitter thread that I actually retweeted because I'm all about, you know, getting feedback, but I feel like it was particularly nasty, anyway, it's all there on Twitter if you want to see it. But just sticking to the factual right now, I will say that Amy did ask me to edit something out of the Me Too episode, episode. And if you go on Twitter, she actually posted our direct messages, the nature of the request was, I'll just read a quick part of it, no worries if it's too late, no biggie, but yeah, if you haven't released patrons yet, that would be super cool, so that's an example of the language, and what I said was, well, I don't remember that part, but I'll keep an eye out, is what I say, and I intended to, I should have edited the thing out that she wanted, I didn't want to say what it was, just in case she's already sensitive about it, I want to draw more attention to it.

0:02:20 Thomas: Thank But that was the request, I said I'd keep an eye out for it, I missed it because I frankly forgot. I wish I hadn't, I'm incredibly busy, as you guys know, in addition to the 10,000 podcasts I have, I have a baby right now, who's 11 months old, and I'm in a musical, so I have lot going on, there's a lot on my mind, I forgot, I messed up, that's I'm not sure what to say other than I apologize to Amy, I apologized to her in a direct message, she never responded, but I did apologize to her, that's a mistake, sorry about that.

Now I guess mixed in to this mess is also some factual stuff. And this is regarding the Canadian law stuff she brought up, and as you guys heard, I just did a little bit of searching into it, I in no way intended this to be a dissertation or anything, but I looked into it and I caught a bad source, I linked it. I gave everybody the source, but in the source there was a certain law professor who had said this hasn't been prosecuted in decades or something like that, and I linked it, and that's so I went with that information, and it turns out that's that was incorrect.

So I, I had a bad source, uh, or there was some sort of misunderstanding in what she meant by that, this professor that was quoted, one way or the other, I got that wrong, so I want to correct that. There was a very big, insignificant case in the Canadian Supreme Court, and I think it's an interesting thing to talk about, so the case is RVJA, for anonymity's sake, I assume, soon. And it did involve this idea of can you give consent ahead of time to sexual activity that occurs while you're unconscious.

0:04:01 Thomas: So that's the case, and the other factual thing is that the court decided that you can't actually. I have a lot of thoughts on this, I'm actually gonna leave it for later, there's a good voicemail that involves just this thing, so I'm gonna leave that, I'll leave my analysis and thoughts, but those are the facts that I missed. So, sorry about that, everybody, I, I missed that. Um, and the reason I spent not that much time looking into all that is because I frankly don't think it's that important to the Me To conversation, and by the way, this case happened in 2011, it was decided in 2011. But it does have bearing on affirmative consent as a model, as a legal model, which, again, wasn't what I wanted to talk about, but as a legal model versus whatever, I guess, no means no would be the previous model, model.

0:04:48 Thomas: And so it's worthwhile to talk about for that reason, and I'll do so later. That's factual stuff, as I see it. Again, I'm really sorry for getting that wrong, and I'm happy to correct anytime, anyone, no matter how mean they might be about it, I will correct any facts I get wrong. The interpersonal component of it for just a second, apologies, but I just, I wanna say at least a tiny bit about that, the way this went down on Twitter, and again, it's there for you to see if you'd like, was, to me, very distressing, it was very mean-spirited, it came out of nowhere, it as far as I knew, Amy and I had ended on good terms, we're friendly, and then all of a sudden this very mean, cruel thing exploded on Twitter and when I immediately sought to apologize to her personally, she never returned it.

0:05:41 Thomas: She never responded to any of my apologies. She called one of them a dick-sucking apology. So I was very hurt and insulted by that. It's up for you to judge if you care about that kind of thing, if you think I'm being reasonable. Again, I'm totally welcome to factual corrections, and I want to get that straight. So kind of cruel I thought that whole thing was, I'm happy to still, of course, correct facts, but interpersonally I will not ever be speaking to her again. I won't be interacting with her or her friend Heidi Matthews at all. I thought it was needlessly cruel, unfriendly, and they aren't people I want be speaking with at all anymore more. So that's where I am with that. There's a lot more to it, but I don't want to get too heavy into drama and all that kind of stuff, I just wanted to state where I am with that so that people, so that you know, essentially, so it's not a bunch of, oh, get Amy back on the show, no thank you, I'm done with that.

0:06:39 Thomas: With that said, I'm still 100% apologize for that edit, I feel terrible, I really wish I hadn't, you know, nothing I can do now, once it's out, it's all downloaded and it does very little to take it down, I asked her if I should do that, never got a response, so, I just felt like there's, there's no point since everybody already has heard it who will hear it pretty much anyway, and also apologies to you guys for kind of getting the Canadian law aspect wrong, but there'll be room to talk more interestingly about those issues when I get to your voicemail. So a, ooh, a little bit of tenseness, unpleasantness there, but let's get to some fun. Let's get into some interesting conversation here.

0:07:23 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, it's your best friend, Jeremiah, just calling about some of your opinions on, you know, the Democrats and how, you know, we need to vote people in. And I kind of agree that we should do our best to vote in the people that will make our system the most, most favorable for people. But I think some of what I don't think you're expressing is that a lot of people who are actually like socialists on the left, you know, all the people I see in left book groups, actually, it's not even like an issue of who's more caring or who has better policies, but it's...

It's An actual question of the actual system, like a capitalist system, you know, a lot of people on the left actually want to see, you know, workers controlling their industries and their factories instead of, you know, the 1% CEOs and stockbrokers and everything controlling workers and wages and everything. It's that they see the whole system as broken, choosing who, who you want to manage a broken system. So I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes from. I'm with you. I'll probably vote people in when push comes to shove, but it really might be frustrating to some of your socialist listeners that you don't seem to be directly addressing them, or at least not in a way that would make sense to them.

0:09:05 Voicemail: I know people like Peter Coffin or whoever might be able to explain this better to you, but it's not necessarily even fringe. There's people like Chomsky who promote worker-controlled societies, things like that. I know this is a long voicemail, so I guess I'll end it up, but just some things to consider. Bye.

0:09:28 Thomas: Hey Jeremiah, great to hear from you, as always. Funny note, this is actually, I've received this voicemail before the Aimee Terese episode on socialism, so I don't remember what it would have been in response to, but I'm sure I talked about far lefties and voting and stuff like that, so, but, I just think it's funny that it wasn't as a result of that episode, Jeremiah just had socialism on his mind, as usual, but just kidding. But, I mean, I have a lot to say about this, I hope I'm not repeating myself from that first Aimee Terese episode where I talked about, where we talked about socialism, um, here's what I'll, I'll try to, I try to sum it up as best I can, I don't know, okay, I am not qualified to say, this isn't something that I consider my area, or that I can consider even being all that informed on, when I, when we talk about restructuring the entire economy somehow, So that workers control essentially the means of production, I guess, is what you would say.

0:10:27 Thomas: So I don't want to speak as though I feel like I'm an authority on that and have come to the conclusion that the current capitalist system is better, you, I do very much believe in markets, but I don't know if there's some, like, I'm just uninformed. I, I want to have maybe a different socialist to do a more basic stuff.

Like, I don't know how that model would work, but what I do have an opinion about is if that's a change that you or anybody wants to see happen, happen.

I feel like there's, I guess, two ways it could happen, maybe, I mean, maybe there's more, but I feel it's either revolution, you know, like taking over or something, which I think is laughable and insane and not going to happen, like an armed actual thing, I just don't think there's any chance of that, or there would be achieving it through the current system. System. And I could see that possibly happening, but the way to do it is to gain support, and I don't think that it makes any sense to shun both parties in that effort, you know, you've got essentially most of the country...

Is loyal to one of two parties, and in one of the parties, it's a libertarian, uh, Mad Max scenario where they're getting rid of all regulation and making the rich get richer and all, it' like that, and then in the other party, you've got a guy in Bernie Sanders who has socialists in his, you know, in the name of what he considers himself, who was able to gain serious support, like, like actual support two years ago, so, my only point with all that is, like either way, like, even if I either agree with this socialist construction things, conception of the problem, or I don't, either way, the way forward, I would think, would be with the Democrats.

0:12:13 Thomas: I can't imagine that it's more realistic that you're going to start a separate, well, their priority is a separate little socialist party, but that you are going to get enough support on your own with that or by some armed revolution versus going through the Democrats. So that's all I mean to say.

And I don't know, Jeremiah, if we specifically disagree on that or whatever, but it sounds like you're wanting more of an acknowledgement of that fundamental issue that workers aren't the ones in control of a lot of these resources or the means of production, as it's called. And OK, I mean, I don't know enough to know how that works and if it can be applied in all industries. I don't entirely understand how that would work, but I think of things like income inequality, and maybe it might not fix this, what you consider or what socialists consider the fundamental problem, but, I think that way higher taxes, way more programs, healthcare, all these things that are typically called socialist, I, think are a good idea, and I'm into them, and, you know, I guess, again, I just don't know how that works realistically.

Has that been done in a way that makes sense in today's world, in every industry? Point me to resources if so, or point me to a guest. I'm happy to do another interview. And when I say I don't know how that would work, I want to stress, I literally mean that, I'm agnostic on it, I am not trying to, you know, say that you're wrong, or those people are wrong, I just literally don't, no,

0:13:55 Thomas: So, so a guest suggestion is always good, but that's where I feel on that, but when it comes to acknowledging that fundamental issue, to me, I still think you need to support Democrats so that the world doesn't suck, the country doesn't suck in the meantime. I mean, we could be in a socialist system right now, but you could still have gay people not have all their rights. I don't know if you'll tell me that definitionally, that's not how it would work, but I don's see why that would not be true, that you could have socialism as an economic policy, but also still no abortion rights, no gay rights, you know, know, a bunch of the things that really matter to me. I think immigration, you know, I think that that's a separate question from these economic questions.

0:14:46 Thomas: While there may be some entanglement, it's still important to make sure we have a livable and just country in the meantime either way. So that's kind of why I always stress supporting Democrats. I just think it's the way to go either way, like in my opinion. So, that's why I focus. I prefer to focus on that, but, but so there's my answer to your voicemail. I hope that made sense. Sorry if it didn't, feel free to call back and clarify.

0:15:11 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, it's Beth in New Orleans, and thanks again for coming to talk to us, I just listened to the serious inquiries only with the Andrews about the masterpiece cake thing, including the call for us to try to signal boost the correct facts and focus of these cases, and I think part of our problem here is that we're just too wonky and wordy about how we do that, we want to make sure our explanations are precisely right, and so we include all the necessary caveats and boundary conditions and so on, and we just lose people. And on this one, I can do the important point easily in one short sentence. You are free to choose what products you will sell, but you can't choose who's allowed to buy them. That's it. That's it. I've been super frustrated at the inability of so many people to get that.

0:15:59 Voicemail: And as much as I love the Andrews, every time they try to explain the difference, it's three or four sentences at least with specialized terms like protected class and compelled speech and so forth. And the other side doesn't do that. They talk in short, snappy sound bites that are easy for people to understand and maybe more important, easy for them to remember and explain to other people. And given how many people get their news and opinions via social media, having a message that people can easily pass on in that way is vital. So we need easy nutshell main point messages here. You can choose what products to sell, but you can't choose who is allowed to buy them. That's it. If someone wants more detail, then you can get into all the conditions and caveats and intersecting issues like protected classes and stuff.

0:16:47 Voicemail: But we aren't even getting that one primary important point across, even to people who are pro-LGBT. I mean, I was appalled that even the new rebooted Will and Grace got it wrong. They had a whole show about how not discriminating against gay people means you have to bake a Nazi cake. And I'm lucky I didn't punch my TV. I'm so, so angry. So here, I can make it even shorter. You can choose your products, but you can't choose your customers. There. People can understand that. People can explain that to someone else. They'll be able to pass that on. And that is how you signal boost.

0:17:23 Thomas: Hey, Beth, thanks so much for the call, and of course, thanks for inviting me to NOLA, that was super fun, miss it, that's an awesome time. So, regarding your voicemail, hmm, hmm, I definitely see what you're saying. And I think this applies to a number of things. So I think there's a lot of truth in what you think. I have some reservations. And instantly, I anticipate you thinking, oh, geez, that's the wonkiness I'm talking about. You can't get into these details, and you're ruining the simplicity of the message. So, I hope I can anticipate that. But apologies, I have have some reservations. One, classes is important because it's actually not true that you can choose, that you can't choose your customers. You can choose your consumers. You, you can refuse service to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for example.

0:18:09 Thomas: You can refuse service to people for all kinds of reasons, as long as they're not, it's not for protected class reasons. So I see what you're trying to do, I, I totally get it, um, but I'm definitely uncomfortable with making a statement like that that isn't actually entirely true, you know, because then it's so easy for someone to just say, yeah, you can, you can discriminate against anyone who's not in a protected class. & Grace thing, that is profoundly disappointing. If the misinformation about that reached even to like actual gay culture stuff, that would be really weird and disappointing. Have another observation, but I want to, again, emphasize that I, I, agree with this when it comes to a lot of policy, too, we need to find ways to, and not just this case, but in other cases, I fully agree with you that there's policy that we get, like, healthcare for all, you know, care for all.

0:19:00 Thomas: That was one they brought up on Pod Save America, I think it was, trying to find pithy slogans. Um, yeah, I, that's effective and good, and care for all, I think is actually a pretty good one specifically because I think it can be both specific to health care, but also general in terms of, you know, we just in general, we should be the party of caring about immigrants and refugees and children and stuff.

But on Masterpiece Cakeshop in particular, the thing was that it wasn't, we didn't lose a public vote on it, you know, so it's a, it's a weird thing, it's like we lost the Supreme Court vote on it by, and by the way, it was 7-2, you know, because the technicalities of the way they decided to line up on this.

So, it's a weird thing where, and it's absolutely a problem, but I don't, in this specific, just talking about Masterpiece, I don't know that messaging was even the issue, because the institution of the Supreme Court is such that one or two, or however many justices it was, I think it was one or two, that just decided that, it was Gorsuch, maybe Alito, I forget, based on the Andrews analysis, but where they read Sotomayor's dissent, you know, where she talked about the fact that Gorsuch was using just the wrong facts, that's not because of Democratic messaging. Honestly, I just don't think it is. That's because they can get away with it. You know, that is because they are able to conveniently choose a certain interpretation and sometimes just outright blatantly false interpretation of facts because we can't vote them out.

0:20:39 Thomas: There is nothing We can do about that right now as you've shown, I think the evidence shows that a lot of people had the facts wrong on this, but even if they all had the fact right, I, you, know, it wouldn't have mattered, I don't think, that's the depressing point I'm trying to make. We'll see you next week. I'll play your game too, and I actually did play this game, which was I tried to find a very pithy way to say what I found important, and what I actually think factually was so important about this case was, they They were refused service before even discussing what the cake was, so So that's one sentence, yeah, so I don't know, I'm just so much more negative on what can even be done when you've got Fox News pumping out, and useful idiots like Dave Rubin, just non-stop on the, well, could a Nazi, blah, order a cake for a blah, blah blee, and it just does not apply at all.

0:21:33 Thomas: Actually, another catchphrase we've been, we've used this catchphrases a lot, Nazism is not a protected class. I mean, that's one sentence too that everybody can understand, and yet, it doesn't seem to penetrate. So, I totally see what you're saying, I think it applies to a lot of things, I don't know how much it mattered in this case, but maybe, maybe it still does matter, you know, in public opinion, but the court could have screwed us over either way, and there's nothing we can do. Too. Except, you know, win the popular vote six out of the last seven elections. I guess that would be one way you would hope that that would mean the court would reflect that staggering statistic, the fact that Democrats have won the popular votes six out of the last seven elections. But nope, there's nothing we can do, since that didn't work.

0:22:20 Thomas: I take it back, there's one thing we could do that I don't know if we'll be able to do, and I saw this on Twitter, it is vote in numbers too big to manipulate, I think is what they said, that's a good one, vote in number that are so overwhelmingly bigger than the other side that we just take control. Control.

0:22:37 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, my name is Ariel, I'm a Brazilian who's currently trying to become a Canadian, stuff up here on the North is much better I think, and I'd like to say first that listening to you made me a better person, so I appreciate that a lot, and there's very little that I disagree with you, one of the things that I did hear that I disagreed was when you said that you think that voting should be mandatory, well in my home country in Brazil we have mandatory voting, and what that makes is that people just start running with no kind of platform. You have people dressing like clowns on the TV, people breaking eggs on their heads just to call attention because that's just how people are going to vote. If you make people that don't want to vote, vote, they're just going to vot for the most silly thing that they can find.

0:23:28 Voicemail: So we should keep voting as a right and not as an obligation, because then only the people who are really interested in what the future of the country can vote. Thank you for this time.

0:23:40 Thomas: Thank you, so much, for the, call, and I just don't even know how to respond to something so kind as to say that listening has made you a better person. I'm unbelievably flattered by that, and I also, I love it when people are like, oh yeah, I agree with you most of the time, here's what we disagree on. I think that's so fascinating. That's where we can have interesting conversation. I've always thought that to be true. So, that all said, um, I don't know, I really think I, I disagree with you. So, I'm gonna actually take the most issue with the last thing you said, which is where you talked about the fact that voting, you know, should or is for people who are the most, like, enthusiastic or knowledgeable, now, that I don't think is true, and frankly, I think that can be a little bit harmful, it's something I used to think, I used think, like, you know, only informed people should really vote, you now, but the way it turns out is it's a very, very, I take a lot of time and read a lot and stay informed and all that.

0:24:40 Thomas: And while I understand the idea that it sucks to have low information voters who just don't really know much, you know, that doesn't feel great, I think that the fact that that burden and the time it takes to be, be really well informed, is so much easier and favor the people who are already privileged, so if, if the system is set up in a way that there's vast inequality, those at the top, uh, you know, white people essentially in this country, those with way more wealth, way more, uh, time, because they're, you know, they're not as stressed out about everything, they have more health care, they have more money, they have all that, those are the people who are going to be able to be informed, and anyone else just probably shouldn't be voting, I'm not saying that's what you were saying, but I think that can be the consequence if you're not careful, and that's something that I, I, just, I just have to say, I disagree with.

I, I think in general we need more people voting. Now, the mandatory voting thing, that's a pipe dream anyway. So, in some sense, we might as well not argue about it, because it can't, it can happen. You would need, I believe, a constitutional amendment, and we're never gonna get that.

But if we talk about, but in principle, A, I wanna say, the fact that mandatory voting can lead to people who don't wanna vote voting for a clown, that is, to me, that there is no cost to that. I don't, I actually don't even see, see, that already happens in Jill Stein voters. Ooh, sorry, I had to take a pot shot at Jill Stein.

0:26:16 Thomas: But B, I just don't even see that as that particularly that big of a negative. Yeah, things might get a little farcical, but you could also have election rules and debate rules and all that, where the only way someone gets to share the stage, and they actually have this when it comes to the other, you know, to the two parties, the only, only way you get to be on the stage or get any of that sort of attention is if you have enough support in a poll. So I just do not anticipate that a clown is going to, because not even Jill Stein or the other third party candidates named Gary Johnson, Libertarian, I guess, they don't even get to those thresholds. So, I don't think that a joke candidate is going to quickly fly up and get those kind of numbers.

0:27:02 Thomas: And I also, I think I've said this before too, I would be fine if it's mandatory voting, and again, this is a pipe dream, not gonna happen, but we're talking about the principle of it, I'd be fine with mandatory voting but you can opt out, so like, rather than the burden being on people to go somewhere or fill out a thing and mail it and deliver it somewhere to vote, I say you'd have to put the impetus on them to vote nobody. So like there would be a no vote option you could tick, like you just abstain on whatever, a given race or a given ballot measure, whatever it is, you could vote abstain, but you have to vote, you know, and I would prefer that because I just think we need more civic engagement. And you know what? This is an area where this might be, I don't know, a tough thing to say to a liberal audience, but this is something where I truly do question how I would feel about it if the tables were turned.

0:28:00 Thomas: You know, like picture if... Republicans, and indeed Trump, picture if Trump won because more people voted, you know, and it was the opposite of the current situation, which is that Republicans stymie, you know, the vote and they, they make it impossible for people of color and other people to vote. And that's how they drive down the vote rate. And that usually favors, almost always favors Republicans. But, but imagine, it's not impossible, I don't think, to imagine that that were the opposite of true. Just if more people happen to be Republican, but Republicans didn't vote nearly as much as Democrats. So the fewer people voted, the more Democrats did well. I don't know. Can you really picture being as gung ho about like, yeah, everybody vote, everybody, vote, everybody vote.

0:28:46 Thomas: I want to say yes. I want to say that voting and encouraging people to vote is always a good thing no matter what. But I don't know if the stakes were high enough to where I, I felt like, you know, OK, maybe, maybe I would be inclined to say now only people who are really interested should vote, and and have that opinion. Maybe it would be, I would find it cognitively easier to have that opinion if that meant the Democrats would win. It's something I struggle with. I think I wonder if you guys ask yourself that, what answer you come to, that I'm saying I would ever engage in the despicable practice of trying to get people of color or any sort of certain demographic group to vote less, but if voter turnout generically meant Republicans won more, I would find it hard, probably, to have the opinion that I want in mandatory voting.

0:29:35 Thomas: That would be a difficult thing. I would probably downplay it a little bit. But fortunately for all of us, or really unfortunately because of the current state of the country, but fortunately for this little thought experiment, we're not in that situation, we are in a situation where more voting would most certainly result in more Democrats being put into power because, and maybe that's definitionally true based on the fact that those who are oppressed, those who have less time, those for whom it's already difficult to do things like that will be Democrats, as long as Democrats are the party of the poor and are actually doing things to help the poor, which of course is contingent, but I think is currently more true than not true.

So, long story short, no, I'm still a fan of mandatory voting, and people voting for clowns is not a big enough cost for that to be, Because I think the overwhelming gain that I always talk about is the people you'd be trying to reach on the right and the left would no longer be those who agree with you pretty much, but just stayed home. You know, you'd actually have to try to reach people on the other side. I think that would be a valuable thing to our discourse.

I think maybe I'm naive, but I think that would change a lot of things because right now and people do this, people on the right especially do this when they, when they lose. They think the problem was we weren't hardcore right wing enough, you know, and honestly, they could be right. It could be that there's so many right wing, like kind of racist people that they don't come out to vote if your candidate isn't racist enough.

0:31:10 Thomas: You know, whereas if it's mandatory voting, the only people you're trying to appeal to are people who are voting by definition. And so therefore you want to try to reach a little bit to the middle, a littlebit across the aisle. That would be where your dialogue would be focused. That's what I think I could be wrong, but I that's, that's what I see is the gain. And I don't see the loss of occasionally a clown will get some votes as being enough to offset that for me.

0:31:37 Voicemail: Hi, just, my name's Lisa, I just wanted to comment about your last episode, the Me Too debate with Aimee Terese. I think that she is truly a leftist and hopefully coming from the right place. I think it's wonderful that she is so assertive and so able to say no, maybe in 100, 200 years, all of us women will be at that place. But I don't think right now that we are at that I think that myself included, many of us, for various reasons, are afraid to say no. So many of Us very much need affirmative consent.

There was also, and I hope I'm wrong about this, but there was also a sense in which it almost seemed like Amy was demonizing some of the Me Too victims as being people of privilege, the people who have come out with their Me Too stories. And like I said, I really hope I'm wrong about that because A, if they are people of privilege still don't deserve to be sexually harassed and B, not everybody who has a Me Too story is a person of privilege I really, really hope that in 5-10 years time that she is still left that she is still, I hate to say on our side but a socialist and a champion of left-wing causes.

0:33:11 Voicemail: I hope that she hasn't gone men's rights activist or classical liberal or something like that. So I hope she's coming from a good place. But as another woman, it was pretty hard to hear her say some of the things she said. And it was pretty disappointing. Thank you.

0:33:32 Thomas: You, Lisa, um, I will just say that you weren't alone in that, I've heard from some other people like that, now, in full fairness, I have heard from, this has been pretty split, I heard from a lot of people who were enthusiastic about Amy's episode, and I heard a lot from people who honestly said a lot about what you said. That's it. Particularly the comment that well-off women, you know, privileged women, can still be assaulted, and you know what, along those lines, let me read an email I got, I tried to get this person to do a voicemail, but never heard back, but the email I think is great, I want to share it, because it's valuable, I'll leave off last names, just in case, because again, I never heard about this, just incase they don't want to be identified, but it's by someone first name Jennifer, and the email says this, I strongly disagreed with almost everything regarding this episode, but most wanted to comment on this.

0:34:27 Thomas: Amy doesn't seem to believe in misogyny. The idea that men listen to wealthy women is absurd on its face. We know they don't, not just from nearly all women's numerous stories, but from numerous studies. There was a study that showed when two men were on a large panel about sexual harassment, not only did they do most of the talking, they also completely controlled the course of the conversation, determining what got talked about and in what way. Amy says MRA is bullshit and talks about aims versus methods, but the results of her talking points are basically the same as MRA. She thinks certain women are listened to and she suggested that Grace could not have been vulnerable to Ansari because she was at a party with well-off people. In other words, she's saying that women aren't oppressed on the basis of sex, but they, they can only be oppressed on other axes, such as poverty or race.

0:35:17 Thomas: The idea that women aren't oppressed on the basis of sex is the most anti-feminist concept there is. While this episode was frustrating to listen to, I think Thomas did a great job, and this kind of discussion is really useful and actually more interesting than ones between people who already agree on everything. Well, Jennifer, thank you for that email. Sorry I didn't hear back on a voicemail thing, but I wanted to read it because I found it valuable and actually emblematic of a lot of the response.

You know, here's where I might say something unexpected, I listened to the recent Sam Harris episode, I don't really listen to that one, I downgraded his podcast for, to like, I'll listen if somebody says it's a good episode, you know, I used to never miss it, I never missed it for years, but now that most of the time it's the same centrist, whatever, Brett Weinstein and the other Weinstein, Brett and Eric Weinstein jerk off sessions, it's all that now, pretty much, but anyway, I listen to this one because someone told me, hey this guest was good and it was a good conversation and I listened to it, it was Masha Gessen was the guest, she's a journalist for the New Yorker, I believe, and I have to say, this may surprise you folks, this episode was, I thought, pretty phenomenal, I thought it was exactly the thing that Sam Harris could be if he wanted to, that's one person's opinion, I know, but it was interesting, he listened to his guest who had disagreements with him, and he didn't instantly assign bad motives or bad faith or whatever.

Whatever. And there was a section on Me Too, because Masha Gessen has written two, three articles, I think she said, on it, and it was, it was a good and interesting conversation.

0:36:59 Thomas: In my view, now, I know this is a very charged topic, and I do my best to get women on here of all sides to voice their opinion, and because it's something that obviously affects women more than men, um, but what Masha wrote about was something that I think Amy was also touching on, and it's something that I don't think is, like, wrong on its face. This is, again, one dude's opinion, I really want to hear from anybody who's got an opinion on this. And it is that in her view, in Masha Gessen's view, there are some Me Too stories that were products of women trying to benefit from the system. So like trying to use their sexuality and the fact that something might happen with a man, like they were going into the situation knowingly to try to benefit from that system.

0:37:53 Thomas: And she actually kind of categorized, I believe, the Aziz Ansari thing a little bit in that way, which I don't know how to make a judgment on that. And I guess I won't. I'm just offering that this opinion is out there. And it's a little bit of what Amy was touching on. Because there are women I have heard from who say what Amy said, which is, why didn't she just say no at some point? Why didn't she just say no. And what Masha says is that she could be, that woman could be and she actually said this about the Glenn Thrush accusers and I find that to be absurd, I actually don't think it applies to Glenn Thrash at all because Glenn Thrish had like four accusers, and they were all, yes, it was where maybe they could, the woman could have benefited, but also one that I read for sure was just, we were in a bar and he just reached over, put his hand on my thigh and started kissing me.

0:38:52 Thomas: And it's like, there's no possible way in my opinion that you could blame the victim for that. You know, it's just because she went to have a drink with him, therefore she was trying to benefit from the sexist system. So I didn't agree with that. And in fact, I really didn't disagree with that to be honest. But I just want to put this out there as this is a woman, Masha Gessen, who has written about this thing. If you want to go seek it out, you can. And And it does seem to be a dynamic that I've heard from her, not only Masha Gessen in this podcast, but other women in messages and emails about this, that there is that possibility. That in some of these scenarios, women are knowingly going into these situations, because they might be able to use sexual power to their advantage. That's what Masha Gessen said. She, she said women have the sexual power too, essentially, is the point she was trying to make.

0:39:45 Thomas: In my view, from listening to a lot of women, I think there are very real reasons, it seems to me, that women don't feel like they can say no sometimes, or they feel it could be dangerous to say no, and that seems incredibly valid to me.

So, I'm with you, Lisa, where I don't, while there could be something to this idea that in certain cases maybe women could have said no and we should expect them to be able to say no, I just feel like I've heard too many stories of women saying, you know, I felt like I couldn't. I felt scared. I wanted to try to resolve it in a way that didn't involve such a strong no, because that feels really scary to have to say.

That's what I've heard women talk about that I find very compelling. And And so all this is to say, that what I got from the Aziz Ansari story, and from a lot of me too, and I said this last episode and I'll say it again, what I've got from it is, as a dude, I feel like I really need to be aware of, if I were in some, you know, like, hypothetical sexual encounter with someone I didn't know or something, I would need to aware of the fact that women often don't feel comfortable saying no, and that I think it's not too much to ask, And it doesn't always have to be a men-women, that specific gender dynamic, of course.

You know, and by the way, it applies to homosexual relationships and encounters as well. Of course, it implies the non-binary people. Whoever it is, if you are going to initiate sexual contact, I don't think it's too much to ask to expect that you are reasonably certain, quite certain, that the person is into it.

0:41:25 Thomas: It doesn't mean you always have to get a, "Do you consent to this" and ask it like a robot and that kind of thing. It just means that you need to be on the lookout for if someone isn't into it, you need to be aware of that's, that's what I take from it. So, Lisa, I, I do tend to agree with you on that. I just kind of wanted to go through that because I did think that Masha Gessen spoke very interestingly about it. I think she has some points that are valid, uh, and and the other thing she talked about was the fact that only, like, seemingly half the population cares about this, and so it's weird to start a unilateral enforcement of certain rules that only, only half, if that even, by the way, but roughly half of society is going to go along with.

0:42:12 Thomas: So that is a weird thing and it is something we should think about. I don't know what the exact implications are of it, but it's, you know, it's something to think about, so all this was a very long-winded way of Mansplaining the fact that Lisa, I agree with your voicemail.

I'll see And thank you so much for leaving it, and you're not alone in your thinking, but you know, I just wanted to make it clear, as someone, again, as somebody who does an opinion podcast, and has a lot of discussions like these, I do hear from a lot women who do agree with Amy, though, who are like, I don't understand why she can't just say no, and, you know? That opinion exists, you now, I, I... I don't have a good way of judging, because I'm not in that scenario ever, so all I can do is listen, and think about it, and, I just, wanted to go, through the results of that listening, I guess, kind of the conclusions that I'm at right now, which is, it's a great thing if we all are, Anybody who's going to initiate sexual contact with somebody is aware of the fact that you need to be very sure that they're into it, that's, that seems like, it seems like such an easy thing, you know, it really does, guys.

0:43:13 Voicemail: Hi Thomas, this is Tavis calling from Winnipeg, Canada. Just caught up on your back catalogue and I really enjoy the show. Just listened to the last episode with Aimee Terese, I think it was. I just had a point about the affirmative consent model. We have many situations where people are put in situations where they can no longer consent. If we didn't, if we dictated that any time a person was incapable of revoking their consent, we couldn't proceed with things, you'd have to shut down surgical operations. Operations and, you know, skydiving businesses, because at some point, when people are engaged in certain behaviors, you reach a point where you can no longer consent. But that just requires proper planning beforehand and good discussion. So I agree with you that I think the affirmative consent model is a better situation.

0:44:03 Voicemail: And, you know, these corner cases with people who are engaged in risky or sexual behavior, they just have the burden of having to plan out and agree beforehand that if they lose consciousness that they consent to that and know how willingly that may happen. So anyways, great show, and I'll keep listening. Thanks.

0:44:26 Thomas: Hey, Tavis, thanks for the call, great points, and I'm going to use this excellent voicemail to launch into what I wanted to talk about regarding, you know, BDSM and this Canadian law that I got wrong in the last episode. So here's the thing, and I can't stress this enough because of, again, the ensuing meltdown and drama that happened on Twitter, I If you hear some bangs, that is because it is, of course, the 4th of July and I cannot record around them because they're unpredictable and too numerous. But anyway, I never in that episode anywhere, and please point it out if I'm wrong, never did I advocate to Amy or to anyone, and I don't even remember ever doing this, have I said, let's change the law to exactly how it is in Canada. Let's make it an affirmative consent.

0:45:13 Thomas: And of course however they decided this one case. That's a little straw manny. Never. I don't. In that conversation, I kept saying I'm not talking about the law. I kept saying I didn't want Aziz Ansari punished by law. I said I never advocated like here's the lesson of me, too, is let's adopt affirmative consent laws. Now, I haven't said I don't want to, to be fair. And depending on the wording of the law, it could be something I'd be open to. But I actually took pains to emphasize in that conversation, that I care about socially what we're doing. I care about the norm that we're teaching our boys, you know, or again, anybody, but it largely ends up being men that that need to change the way they view consent. That's what I care about.

0:45:58 Thomas: I care about societally, are we shifting from a society where we thought, well, you know, as long as the girl doesn't say no, you pretty much to kind of fight for it and you got to convince her. And she never said no. So as long as you convinced her and you kind of broke her down, then it was cool. That was basically the mindset for years and years of a lot of people. And without changing any laws at all, I think we could do a whole lot of good by, as a society, changing over to a affirmative consent framework in our everyday lives. I mean, if you have a really good sex life, you're getting sex every sorry, a joke, in our everyday lives. I think it may be that we want to change the law and that may be true. I'm just not even offering an opinion one way or the other.

0:46:46 Thomas: I am just saying that that was not any part of what I felt comfortable talking about because I would want to see the wording exactly of how a law would work. I would want to some evidence and maybe it could be a good idea. It absolutely could. But one thing I know for certain is that that even without changing a single law, Me Too has done a ton of good.

I believe in that very strongly, that was what I tried to represent last episode in in my counter-arguments, I believe that very, very strongly, with even if we never changed a single law, Me Too will still have done a lot of good. Doesn't mean it's perfect, doesn't mean it's done all literally all the good that there is to do, but it's good. Now, let's talk about this case because it is interesting.

Have to note, again, because of how things went down in the dramatics of all this, that this was a conversation between an American dude and an Australian girl about the MeToo movement, and somehow what exploded was Canadian law, and I get that it's relative to affirmative consent laws, it's relevant to that, I get it, but again, the idea that that would be what this would all turn on, like, you know, if I had known about this case that would somehow change my view on affirmative consent and me too, it's just, it's not true. It really, it has almost no bearing on it, in fact, for me. But if we're going to talk about it, it is interesting. So what is the right solution to this problem? This idea that there are certain people who like to engage in sexual behavior that might possibly involve losing consciousness. And so the question is, can legally, can you do that? Should our laws say that that's a thing someone can do?

0:48:29 Thomas: I think you bring up some great food for thought when you talk about surgery. That's something we consent to, that's a very dangerous thing, by the way, a very dangerous thing sometimes that we consent too to be done to our bodies while we're unconscious. And by the, we even can consent to like other stuff.

So if they get in there, you know, if the surgeon gets in there and they find something else we didn't even know about, they Or maybe they make you sign something ahead of time saying, if we find another problem, should we fix it? That kind of thing. But that seems to be something we're able to operate with.

But when it comes to this court case, this Canadian Supreme Court case, R versus JA, they actually decided the other way, so they decided that you cannot give consent to have sexual things done to you while you're unconscious, so you can't say, I consent to you strangling me to being unconscious over the course of some BDSM stuff, and also I consent you doing certain things to me, so there was a dildo involved in this case. It's fun when you get to talk about stuff like this.

0:49:30 Thomas: They actually decided, the court did decide, no, you can't do that. And, you know, I don't think I agree with that. I actually don't think I agreed with that decision. I'm pretty sure, I could be wrong, but I think I would be on the, uh, I think it would be the dissent on that one. I think, I would say, as long as it's reasonable, and what the dissents did say was, you can't consent to grievous bodily harm. I am pretty sure I've heard Andrew talk about that in American law as well. We have it such that you can sign a contract saying, I agree for you to, like, cut off my leg or something, I agree for you to shoot me. You can't consent. No matter how much you might want to, you can't say, oh yeah, definitely I consent to you shooting me in the head. That's just how the law works. I think that's probably fine. And so I think it's consistent with this dissent that I read here in this case, which I'll link.

0:50:21 Thomas: The dissent said, yeah, I think you can consent to certain sexual behavior while you're unconscious in advance, as long as it's not like actual bodily harm. And, you know, I think that's probably okay.

I've been looking around at different definitions of affirmative consent, and I don't know of any, like, governing body of who decides what this means, but I don't see why this wouldn't be perfectly compatible with with an affirmative consent model, because if yes means yes, if I write down on a piece of paper, yes, I consent to you, uh, while I'm unconscious, doing a certain sexual thing, is, again, provided it's not like grievous bodily harm or anything like that, that seems to me to be perfectly compatible with affirmative consent.

Now, it may be the case that for some people that might be true, might not be true, I mean, there may be people who say their version of affirmative consent means, means you cannot consent while you're unconscious, no matter what, even if it's in advance. And I would say, you know, I don't know that that would be the best model of affirmative consent. But here's what I'm not going to say. I'm not going to say that this particular technical problem with affirmative consent, therefore means on the whole, it's a worse system than the previous system. That is what I even got Amy, I asked her that she insisted that no, no, it's not. The model is not on the whole better.

And this was one of the examples she gave. I do not find this convincing personally, by the way, if we, if, we're stuck to rigid definitions, like if we are, if were stuck, I cannot modify affirmative consent, it is this one version, I think the same thing goes for no- means-no. I mean, if that's the model and you're unconscious, how do you solve that problem if they're not saying no?

0:52:06 Thomas: How do you solve that problem? Well, the answer is you modify no means no. No means no, but also unconscious people, I don't think anyone thinks they're fair game. Other than, you know, rapists. The point is, I think this is sort of a different question that doesn't have to even be related to either model. I think in a no-means-no model, you could also have a rule that you can't give consent in advance, or you can give consent advance.

I think the question, of the legal question of can someone consent to something being done to them sexually in the future while they're unconscious, that I believe is a compatible question either way with either affirmative consent or no means no. Because, again, I would say my definition of affirmative consent would be, I consent to my wife right now and I tell her, "Hey, hun, if I'm ever asleep and you, you know, you want to wake me up with a little sexual contact, I hereby right now consent to that," and in my mind, that's affirmative consent that I'm giving. The fact that it might go into the future, I don't think that is necessarily against affirmative consent. Does that make sense? I think the question is separate. It's the question of, can you give future consent, essentially, while you're unconscious? It's not a question of no means no versus yes means yes. So, it's an interesting discussion, I'm happy to talk more.

I will not be having either of those two people on, Amy or Heidi, but I will speak to somebody that I think is actually acts in good faith and has something interesting to say on either side of that question, I'd be happy.

And right now, by the way, I think what's funny is I probably agree with them that I would have dissented on this case, I just simply think it's way too much overreach to say that that means affirmative consent is a weaker model than than the previous model.

0:53:57 Thomas: I just think that's absolutely not true. All right. Well, that it for for today's show. I got more voicemail that I want to put in a bonus episode as soon as I can for you guys. Fact, lemme give a teaser, I've got calls from Micah about being in the military and possibly being refused service, I got a call from Pedro, I have to laugh, Pedro expressed about as much dismay as I did on the Masterpiece Cake case, it's pretty raw voicemail, but oh man, do I feel you on that one, Pedro. Uh, I've got Jared talking about the Amy Me Too episode and some history on that. I've also got Amy from Secular Soup, I'll give her a plug on the main show here, Amy for the Secular Soup podcast about the Amy Me Too episode as well, uh, no relation on that, differently spelled name. Uh, so those are four additional voicemails I have that I want to put in a bonus episode for you guys that'll be available to supporters and patrons, and thank you so much to everyone who supports on patreon.com/seriouspod or seriouspod.com slash support.

0:54:56 Thomas: I love you guys. You make the show happen and will whenever next you plug me into your ears.