SIO178: Listener Voicemail!

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 178, and it's the end of the month, so it is time for the voicemail episode, and you know what, I'm adding in there a couple emails, I think some people don't like doing voicemails, if you leave a good, concise email, and let me know that you don't mind if I potentially read it on the show, I may use it, no promises, obviously, I do get a lot more email than I would ever use.

But I may use it. And I had a few that I wanted to use. I always love it when I can hear from the actual person. So I still overwhelmingly prefer voicemail. And thanks for everyone who has, because I just love hearing it in your own words. It's a fun thing to add onto the show rather than me reading something. But if it's a good email, I may read it on the show.

So it's the voicemail episode slash maybe a couple emails here, recent episode, I'm kind of surprised, maybe I ended up, maybe it was one of those things where I thought more people would, I don't know, disagree than actually did, I got a couple on stuff related to that, but I forgot how active of a month it was, or maybe that's not the right word, but it was a good month of episodes because I had a ton of voicemail on, you know, we got the Boghossian thing, we all kinds of stuff, so lots to talk about.

About. I better get to it. Oh, first caller is Thomas S. I just realized I had a few things I wanted to talk about. This is just a very mini observation that I don't think, I think it's good for an episode like this, rather than trying to shoehorn it into some other interview or something.

0:02:06 Thomas: I, I had weird realization the other day, and I don't know that I have, like, a, a theory or a point to make with it, per se, we'll see, but I realized something that I think is kind of weird. When you think about it. So I listen to a lot of political podcasts. That's pretty much all I listen to, politics and news. I don't really listen to anything else, to be honest with you. And in a lot the election-y type podcasts I'm listening to, you know, 538 or that kind of thing, there's a lot to talk. You know, talk is starting to heat up about the Democratic primary, and that's cool. I'm, side note, pretty excited about many of the candidates. Not all of them, but many.

0:02:52 Thomas: And I've noticed that in discussing the upcoming primary and discussing the elections and hearkening back to 2016 and all that, there, there'll be a thing people do a lot of the time, pretty often where they say, oh, you know, here's one of the reasons Bernie was so successful is he had a message that, you Know, was a concise message that resonated with the youth and different thing, you know, and they speak about Bernie in a positive way and how, you know, how he is able to get his message to resonate. And, so far, so good, I don't have any particular problem with that, uh, definitely seems like the Bernie message did resonate with a lot of people and all that, but But there's all this talk about that, and then there's also talk about, you know, what went wrong in 2016, why did Hillary, what did she do that, that made her lose in 2016?

0:03:43 Thomas: And I realized, like, there's never, in all of this, there is never any discussion. I, I cannot think of a single time, and, and I'm sure maybe something's out there, let me know if you have examples, but I can't think of a single time where Hillary has ever been discussed in a positive way where it's, well, here's how Hillary, uh, by the way, won the popular vote by 3 million votes.

You know, we talk about, we talk more positively about a person she beat pretty handily in the primary, in the primary than we do about her after she won the primary and won the popularity vote in 2016. It's a really weird thing that we do, and I don't, I'm not making any claims about why, you know, either it could be, could be sexism, it could, could also be a bias that humans have, like, you know, whoever loses the last general election is usually, I mean, they're usually disposed of pretty quickly, that usually seems to be how we do it, and it just complicates things that are stupid, electoral college, by the way, a system that is a remnant of slavery, it's a way to give the South more power than they should have had, it is a way of keeping slave owners happy, the electoral college is crap and we shouldn't have it, but that system has made it so that maybe that increases the bias we have a little bit, or rather makes the effect of the bias a little worse, because someone effectively won, you know, like Hillary won the more people, like, they, in the, in the contest of how many people agree with this side and how many people agree with the other side, Hillary won.

0:05:25 Thomas: And I've never that I can think of, heard any discussion of, well, you know, relative to the next round of candidates. So like relative to 2020, no one has ever said, well, here's how Hillary was able to win the support of so many people in the primary, the Democratic primary, and go on to win The Popular Vote. Here's what she did that other people may want to emulate going forward. It's interesting. And, you know, I fully am willing to accept that it could just be the things I'm listening to. If you've heard examples, let me know. If it's just something that I happened to, maybe I didn't notice, or maybe I'm listing the the wrong things, whatever it is, but I noticed it and now I can't stop noticing it.

0:06:10 Thomas: And there's always the thing that, you know, the argument went back in 2016 after in the aftermath of the election, Donald Trump. And I heard this on this, maybe on this very show. I can't remember. Maybe it's just on Twitter. Donald Trump was the, is the worst candidate ever and Hillary lost to him. So she is even, that's how bad she is. The worst candidate of all time. She let Donald Trump win the election. And then no one ever does the, but she beat Bernie in an election. So Bernie therefore would be even by the transitive property, he would be Even worse than the, than the worst thing. Oh no, but that's, you know, a foul play or something, whatever, you know? There's never any discussion of that. It's always, she's the one. And it's, it's amazing how, how positive people still are.

0:06:57 Thomas: Not everybody, but when people talk about Bernie Sanders. They still talk about him as a winner, as somebody who, you know, like we better listen to his message because whatever. And he lost to Hillary. And it wasn't even as close as Hillary and Obama, by the way, in 2008. And Hillary won the popular vote by three million. It's just a weird thing. So I noticed that. And, you know, just want to throw that out there. And I don't know what to do with it. It is just bizarre and kind of weird to me. Alright, I have more little mini-rants, but you know, I'm realizing, I've got, I am looking at the docket here, I got a lot of stuff to get through, maybe I'll see if I want to do some more talking at the end, or if we may just have too many voicemails that I need to play for you and talk about, so let's get over to that right now. Now.

0:07:46 Voicemail: Hello, Thomas, this is Derek, long-time listener, just listening to the president's remarks from Iraq on Morning Joe this morning, and the commentators and the hosts just drove me crazy because the whole thing is just disingenuous at this point, and they, even on MSNBC, this a level of speculation that they cannot get into, the president isn't pulling us out of Syria and talking about how the United States can't be the global cop because he's worried about guns and butter, the president is a Russian mole, all of this rhetoric about the United States pulling back and taking care of our own business and other countries need to pick up the slack is nothing but a stalking horse for a policy that is dictated by our opposing powers that the United State needs to get out of their way.

0:08:43 Voicemail: And this is the excuse that he's given. And it's just driving me crazy because what can you do? We've been sold out. And I'm really scared because our troops in Korea is next. Our troops in Germany are next. And once those are gone, where will we be?

0:09:04 Thomas: All right, thanks, Derek, and also, reminder, I tend to do these in chronological order, so we're starting with kind of the beginning of the month or even maybe the end of last month, depending on the cutoff, and And so this one is a little older, but here's what I'll say about Derek's voicemail there. The argument has only gotten better. Now I, I, you know, you said Trump was a Russian mole. I don't agree with that per se. I dunno if, you know, maybe that's just hyperbole. If you mean it literally, I don't totally agree with that. I think that, I think it's fair to say he, here's what I think is very fair to say. I think that if Trump were compromised by the Russians, and this is not original to me, I mean, I'm lots of people have said this and I think it's a good way of putting it. If Trump were compromised by the Russians, I don't know how he would be acting any differently than he is currently acting.

0:09:57 Thomas: Like it may be that Trump is just weirdly somebody who happens to through no work of, you know, P-tapes or Russian blackmail, happens to do all the same things that a person who was worried about something like that would do, could be. But we can't determine that. It's impossible for me anyway to determine because you're totally right. And Derek, I'll add this to your call. You didn't know the future, obviously, but right now, now we're talking about potentially sending troops to Venezuela. And we're talking about that, of course, because John Bolton was holding a notepad with notes from a top-secret meeting that we're just, God, what, what is this world we're living in, but I think that, uh, is 100%, uh, bolstering your argument, Derek, because all of a sudden, when it's in Venezuela, when it's in South America, somewhere that, you know, Russia doesn't really have any particular geopolitical interest in that I know of.

It's something closer to home. It's nothing that's more, you know, along the lines of what conservatives have historically wanted to do, which is intervene in, you know, some of these countries where, I, I don't know, it's a weird political coalition. But, anyway, there's no argument that I know of. There's, correct me if I'm wrong. There's no argument in favor of sending troops to Venezuela that isn't true or even more true in a place like Syria. Right. I mean, things are far worse in Syria than Venezuela.

0:11:40 Thomas: I mean, things are bad in Venezuela, but like Syria has been awful, you know, it is just absolutely awful there, to the point where I think I'm on the other side of Trump where I do want to be doing more in Syria because I don't like when kids are dying of bombs, like, I do, and I, and it's, I don't know what we can do, and maybe this will put me, I don't know, to the right of some of you, I'm not sure, but I, I wish maybe Obama could have done more, and I don't necessarily blame him because of the political situation he was in, it wouldn't, you know, it was probably impossible, but I wish we could as a country, like, if I forget all of politics and everything else, I wish we could do more to help when lots of people, when just tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people, when there's a humanitarian crisis, and the same goes for, by the way, Yemen and some other places, you know, I'm equal opportunity, I, I do wish the U.S., and I'm, I am 100% open as to the methods, you now, I don't know, maybe troops isn't the right answer in a given place, maybe it could be the right in a certain place, not even talking about how, but purely talking about objectives, I wish we could be doing more to help more people, so, all this is to say, the one difference between Syria and Venezuela, as I see it, is that Russia has an interest in us not interfering with what they're doing in Syria, that's, I mean, really, like, what is the difference?

0:13:17 Thomas: I mean I guess you could say Venezuela is a little closer to us, but that historically hasn't really been a reason why the U.S. you know, the U.S. hasn't really seen that as an obstacle. Like we're willing to intervene anywhere in the world. It seems to me. Uh, so that I think it's hard to say that Derek, that you're wrong, you know? And any of what you said, except maybe like the literal wording of a mole. I think that it's, it's possible that Trump is actually compromised in some way. I think for me, it's more like Trump just doesn't have a moral compass of any kind that's meaningful. And I think that Trump has no loyalty. He only favors and tends to speak well of and tends TO work with people who flatter him or people who make him money.

0:14:13 Thomas: And I think Russia is that. Russia made him or potentially was going to maybe still make him millions, if not billions, I think were some of the deals talked about. He may make hundreds of millions of dollars in Russia. Either he already has or he might, you know, going forward. And I think that's his moral code. He will help those who help him. I don't really think it's It's a blackmailing thing. I really don't like, I think I don't, I think he just has such like, like, for me, when I think of this blackmail situation, I think like a movie where, you know, the government agent, he, you see him, he's like doing all this bad stuff, and you're like, what he's, what is he doing there, he must be a bad guy, and then it turns out, like, the terrorists have his wife and kids, and he's super conflicted, but he's doing this bad thing, for I think for Trump, he just doesn't have the part where he cares that he's doing bad stuff.

0:15:07 Thomas: It's like, well, I could do whatever, oh, these people will make me hundreds of million dollars, okay, they say we ought to be out of Syria, yeah, sure, whatever, I'll do that. That's kind of how I think of it. But anyway, uh, I don't know about the troops in, like, Germany and, and Korea and South Korea, whatever, I'm not sure about the status of that, I dunno what, like what are the troops of Germany that you're worried about, it's entirely likely that you know more about this than I do, I really don't keep up with, you know, how our troops are stationed abroad, but I dunno what the troops are Germany are doing that you are worried that they'll no longer do, but that's probably just my ignorance, so feel free to let me know or leave a comment or an email or something. But anyway, I think you're pretty much right on and it sucks and we need to get this person out of office.

0:15:56 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, it's John Willis. I was wondering, because we hear so much talk on the right about George Soros, the boogeyman, and on the left about the Koch brothers, the bogeymen, what is the actual deal with both of these entities that are just funding whatever the other people don't like? And what are, can you draw between the Soros accusations and the Koch Koch brothers' accusations and how much weight do they have behind them? Anyway, I was just wondering if that might be a good show topic or if that's something that you would be able to answer. But I love the show, and keep it up. Bye.

0:16:40 Thomas: Hey, John, thanks so much for the call, I will tell you that I can't really answer that offhand, um, I've, I, it's funny, I played this because I've had this exact thought for an episode I want to do at some point, is research the Soros stuff, like, what, how much, of what is said about him is, I don't know, true, or based on truth, or what is he actually doing, um, and then, yeah, what is the comparison to, like, the, the Koch brothers, uh, that is a very interesting topic, and I might do it, so, if that's something you'd like me to tackle other people, please feel free to, to, you know, message me, or, or whatever, or comment, or something, and, and let me know, so I can kinda take, take account of whether or not that's an interesting topic. I know I've heard a podcast on Soros at one point, and it just, I dunno, it didn't really stick, so maybe the answer is just not as interesting as you'd think it would be, but definitely interesting.

0:17:28 Thomas: It's one of those things where if we want to get money out of politics, it might be one of Those cases where it's like, okay, this will also mean George Soros will be able to help the left less, but that's kind of, I guess, a price I'm willing to pay. I don't know. But yeah, interesting thing. Thanks for the call.

0:17:44 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, it's Lisa, responding to the technology discussion and voicemails. For me, as a blind person, technology has increased my independence and quality of life tenfold. For example, before the internet, when I had to pay a bill, I had to find a sighted person to read the bill and fill out the check and make sure the check was addressed and make sure it was mailed, so take away any privacy, hope that they don't make a mistake, and just like you, I don't particularly enjoy all those little social interactions.

0:18:29 Voicemail: Now, with the exception of my rent, when I want to pay a bill, I log into an app on my phone with Touch ID, press a couple of buttons on the phone, do a couple gestures, and I pay a bill. Just one other quick example, so before, when a book came out that I wanted to read, I had to hope that the Library of Congress gained to record it, so think it was interesting enough or relevant enough or popular enough. And And then maybe in six to eight months, I could order it on cassette tape or, if I was really lucky, read it in hard copy Braille. Now, if a book comes out, if I want to pay, I can read it the same day as my sighted peers.

0:19:21 Voicemail: And if I'm willing to wait a few days, maybe a few weeks, I can either read it on Braille for free on a Braille device or I can listen to it in narrated or synthetic speech, most likely for free. Those are just two examples of how all this new technology has increased my quality of life. Now, could I make the philosophical choice, is my quality of life and independence as a person with a disability worth people losing their jobs? That's not really – I probably have to say no. I don't know.

0:20:06 Voicemail: It's not a – really a choice that I would want to make. I'd certainly rather see universal basic income or some other way in general so that everybody can be helped out. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

0:20:23 Thomas: Hey, Lisa, thanks for the call, wow, so interesting, first off, I didn't know there was even such a thing as a Braille device that could like, I don't know if this is exactly what you're talking about, but I just Googled it because I was so interested, a refreshable Braille display, how neat is that, that is incredible, so, and yeah, it's always really interesting to be reminded of just how many things that I take for granted in my life, oh, my gosh, trying to pay a bill when you aren't able to see, needing someone to go through your bills and like help you. Wow. That is, it does definitely strike me how much of a difference technology has made in your life. And that that's, that's for the better. That that's amazing. Yeah. I think it's a false choice or I certainly hope it's false choice.

0:21:08 Thomas: I do. I don't think you should ever, or anybody should ever have to choose between, you know, uh, this technology that's helping your life versus, because it might put other people out of work.

For example, maybe, you know, maybe literally the people who might have have helped blind people pay their bills, like, that is a job that maybe doesn't need to exist anymore because of this, for example, I don't know if that, how if that was always just a friend or if there's any sort of service that might have done that for you, but anyway, things like that where technology is erasing jobs, I think that it's an inevitability of technology, it's just inevitable, I mean, there aren't going to be people who make buggy whips anymore, that's always the the example that you bring up.

It's just part of technological progress. However, I think the key in the discussion that we were talking about, or maybe it was just me, I don't remember, is when that progress gets to the point where people don't even talk about means of production, you know, people, this labor is worthless, essentially, eventually, because everything is automated, then it really makes me question the system, you know? And question the fact that, but, you know, whoever owns the technology at that point, they have 100% of the capability of making money and everybody else is just out of luck.

And it's an extreme example, but it's meant to illustrate, you know, where are we on that spectrum right now? We're not 0% of the way. We're not 100% of the way, where are we on that spectrum where it's just by the luck of certain people having had ownership of businesses, factories, corporations, whatever, where once that progress is made, it seems to me, once, once something is automated, the people who own it, unless there's some intervention,

0:22:56 Thomas: You know, the people who owned it at that time basically get that profit of it forever. And workers don't, you know, like when a, when a robot puts a worker out of the job, the worker's out of a job, and whoever owns the robot, uh, they, of course, they might have paid some price for that productivity, or they had the ability to, uh, buy that technology at the time, but then it's, as long as the upkeep is paid for or whatever, then they just own that productivity forever. So where are we along that spectrum? And I thought, I thought it was an interesting exercise to sort of visualize it that way, and it makes me totally agree with you that, uh, we just need a safety net for that. You You know, we might not be able to stop it.

0:23:42 Thomas: I don't think, again, I don't think the answer is stop using the auto checkout thing at the Safeway or the supermarket or whatever. I just don't think that's the answer. I don't actually think it is. I think a social safety net and maybe universal basic income, I think that is the answer because that productivity is owned by people who own stuff. It's not going to get back to us short of taxation and social safety nets. So very interesting call. Thank you so much for providing us a little window into your world. Wow, interesting to think about. And I'm so glad that technology has been able to improve your quality of life. Thanks for listening and thanks for calling.

0:24:22 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, this is Nathan, big fan. This was on my comments on your most recent episode you had with Kristi Winters, I believe, about Louis C.K. It's actually not about Louis C.K. It was about the, I agree with just about everything you guys said about that, about Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Dave Rubin. Now, I won't really defend Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson, and they're making their own competing company with Patreon because they think it's just completely unjust of what they did to Sargon, which I don't agree with. They have absolutely every right to disassociate with anyone that they don't like.

Now, Sam Harris kind of got lumped in because he left at about the same time, And he kind of went in more depth on one of his podcasts about why, and he wasn't necessarily, he kind of halfway defends Sargon, but his main point was that there was no real recourse for Sargon's Patreon getting shut down. And Sam is just a little more hesitant to tie all of his business dealings with a company that will just have anyone at any point get offended by anything he might say outside of his use of Patreon, and just shut down his account. I think you guys were a little unfair to him. He wasn't necessarily taking issue with Patreon itself. It was just the fact that there was no real recourse

0:25:56 Voicemail: For Sargon for just his account getting deleted. Outside of that, love your show. Thanks. Bye.

0:26:04 Thomas: Hey, Nathan, thanks for the call, I also want to bring in an email from Gary, that says, "Thomas, I love your shows, and I know you've heard this before, but I'm frustrated that you are lumping Sam Harris together with some of these other folks, listening today to your conversation with Kristi Winters, you both misrepresented his motivations for leaving Patreon, I say this with the caveat that I can't be sure I've heard everything Sam has said on the matter, but, I've, I've heard him address it, and he has specifically stated that he is not doing this out of solidarity for Carl. In your conversation, you explicitly said he was. He's leaving Patreon now and herding his followers over to his website so that he won't have to deal with a situation in a panic if Patreon decides to censor him, which is a real possibility that is completely out of his control."

0:26:51 Thomas: "He gets completely out of his control? He gets misconstrued as an Islamophobe enough to make his fears reasonable. I believe you've experienced some angst in the past from Patreon's unilateral decisions that put you in a pretty vulnerable spot. I don't know why his decision doesn't make sense to you unless you've forgotten."

0:27:11 Thomas: So I can, we can take all those together. And I think there's, there's some points to address there. This is what, um, Sam Harris is really, I want to emphasize, I still listen to Sam Harris's podcast unless he has like Brett Weinstein or another IDW dork on. I don't bother with those ones, but I still listened to a show. I think Sam Harris is an incredibly brilliant guy. I think there are a lot of people who, uh, think he's dumb, or want to try to, uh, in a, in a really simplistic black and white way, try to make it like anyone who could have bad opinions on certain issues is dumb, or is ignorant, or something, or is a fraud, or whatever. I don't think that at all. I just listened to his podcast with Stephen Fry, who, and it's, it sucks because, you know, there's a few minutes in it that are incredibly depressing, because Stephen Fry has always been such a, I don't know if I'd say hero, but just somebody I really have admired over the years.

0:28:05 Thomas: I love his work, uh, I love his personality and his humor and all that stuff, and they both do seem to have this like anti-PC thing going on right now, and so that was frustrating, but apart from that, I bring it up because I just listened to that episode, I thought Sam was really brilliant and articulate about what, what he believes in terms of, you know, Buddhism and meditation, and, and just in interviewing Stephen Fry, you knows, delightful conversation, but I do think, again, I don't, I dunno about lumping in, like, obviously, I, I think it would go without saying, but, I'll just say, just in case, obviously I do not think Sam Harris is as bad or as, as right wing as Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin.

0:28:55 Thomas: I think Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson are both incredibly right wing. I would put Jordan Peterson probably even further right, because I think he's actually, he doesn't even have the benefit of being like pro gay marriage, I think it's actually pretty anti gay as well. And Dave Rubin can at least say, "Oh, I'm, I'm pro gay married," meaning you're pro the current law, so that's some sort of liberal accomplishment anyway.

I do not mean, I, I don't know what we would have said that means they're equal, I mean, they are making the same decision on this, but it, I think it's a fair interpretation to say that because we said, yes, these three people are making same decision, that that means we are implying they agree on every single aspect of anything. That doesn't make sense.

That's, but going back to what I started with, Sam is incredibly smart, and he's well-spoken, and so it makes it particularly frustrating when he does this gaslighting thing, he does it quite a bit, and it makes hard to point out what's actually going on. So, Harris is really good at using language, I think it's called equivocating, where you say things that kind of leave you on either side, he's really good at choosing his words so that you can't ever say, ah, Sam Harris, there, see, he kind of supported Carl or Sargon or whatever, like, he is really at that.

But I just want to just step back for a second, both the email and the caller. Dollar. And look at the facts of what happened. Carl, aka Sargon, was banned by Patreon for going on an n-word-laden rant, where he called people white n-words, or like they're acting like n- words, just a horribly racist thing, and then he goes on this BS defense of like, no, but I was using the racism against other white people.

0:30:48 Thomas: So it's fine, right? It's actually, you should be thanking me. No, that's not how it works. You don't get to take on a mantle of racism and use racist language and epithets, but then if you point them at the right people, then it's fine. That's not how that works.

But anyway, that happens, he gets banned from Patreon, and then this is Sam Harris' statement, I'll read Sam Harris's carefully chosen words here, "As many of you know, the crowdfunding site Patreon has banned several prominent content creators from its platform. While the company insists that each was in violation of its terms of service, these recent expulsions seem more readily explained by political bias." Bias, yeah, the political bias of being against an n-word laden rant, like, what does that mean, like He, he's writing this as though, you know, I, Ben Shapiro, or you know, some run of the like Mitt Romney got banned from Patreon.

It's just, it's juste liberals running around banding conservative, no political bias, although I don't share the politics of the band members. It was always careful to do that. He does the same thing with Stefan Molyneux, who Stefan Molyneux is a racist. He is like proudly white supremacist. He'll sometimes pretend he's not. Just look up. Just Google Stefan Molyneux and racism and you'll come up with a treasure trove of things. Sam Harris goes out of his way to tiptoe, tap dance around calling. He said that he once referred to Stefan Molyneux as somebody that people thought was racist in a podcast.

0:32:27 Thomas: And he talked about the fact that he edited that out because he wanted to be so careful not to impugn the reputation of a racist. Stefan Molyneux is so racist and alt-right and, and all that, that he has his own Southern Poverty Law Center page, and I know that, you know, there's been a little bit of controversy with them, and, I disagreed with them including Majid on that one list, but that doesn't make all their work invalid, and in fact, go to the page yourself, you can see him quoted in his own words, and you can make up your mind.

Stefan Molyneux is an unabashed racist, but the point is, Sam, for some reason, is, like, on eggshells with Stefan Molyneux, he, he, it's, it's a very bizarre thing, and it's part of a larger picture of being weirdly cozy with people like this and weirdly careful about alienating their audiences. And so when you look at in that context, and you see that, uh, Sargon is banned for a an n-word laden rant, and then Sam says, now, I don't, I might not agree, but like, to even feel threatened by that is weird, is what, what I'm saying.

Like, if back when Lauren Southern got banned for pulling a boat and, like, stopping a migrant boat from being able to move or whatever weird thing she did that I think was potentially life-threatening, by the way, if I, as a result of that, was like, whoa, whoa, I'm really worried about Patreon's policies, then you can probably rest assured that I had some plans to get in a boat and block other people. Like, why else would you be concerned?

0:34:02 Thomas: I have no, there's no danger of me getting in a boat and trying to block some other migrant boats and potentially threatening lives. And similarly, I want to point to the email. I sort of reacted while reading it, but when he said, when the emailer said, if Patreon decides to censor him, which is a real possibility that is completely out of his control, I have to wonder what on earth you mean by that.

Completely out of his control, don't get in a boat and block migrant boats, and don't go on an n-word laden rant, or don't be, my, the only other one is Milo Yiannopoulos. Do you think he's in danger of like, do you think he can't control whether or not he works with hate groups and actual Nazis, as Milo did, and, by the way, this is something I had missed until recently, there were leaked emails that showed, uh, Yiannopoulos was working with white supremacists in 2016, and a 2016 video shows Yiannopoulos singing karaoke in a bar while audience members, including white nationalist Richard Spencer, give Nazi salutes. That's really funny. Ironic Nazis are Nazis. That, that's just how that works. If, if you think that it's no big deal to pretend to be a Nazi, then you might be a Nazi. That's just my stance. And he also worked with the Proud Boys, which is another reason that Patreon banned him. So, is Sam Harris not in control of that?

Can he just, oh, one day, I know we're, we tend to be determinists here, but I feel like he has some conception of free will or moral freedom on some level to not associate with Nazi racist groups, white supremacist groups, or, you know, sing karaoke while people give Give Nazi salutes.

0:35:51 Thomas: I feel like that's within Sam Harris's control. And then I want, again, I want to take another step back, and, for example, Gary drew the comparison to what I set up on my website a year, was that two years ago, or a year ago, so, it's an interesting point, I guess it's worth exploring, what Patreon decided they were going to do, and I want point out the difference, when Patreon bans racists, I didn't have a reaction of, oh, crap, I could be next, that's nowhere in my, my in anything that I felt.

But when Patreon said, hey, we're going to charge everyone more, what they're going, what Patreon was deciding to do a year ago, I think it was a year and a few months ago, was they were going to recharge patrons a million times, like a bazillion times, on credit cards for every episode that I did. They would charge your credit card and charge you a fee a separate time, and that was going to, so that's something I actually am threatened by, because, because that means it's charging you way more. And it also is, all it's doing is lining the pockets of credit card companies. It's not even like more is going to Patreon or even to me.

It would just pay a billion in credit card fees for no good reason. So I set up, but, and also I want to point this out, I set up an alternative to Patreon. I did not freak out and say, I'm deleting, deleting my Patreon, because the whole rationale is, this is what's so funny about the Sam Harris thing to me, the whole rational, and I'll even read the email.

0:37:29 Thomas: In the email, he's leaving Patreon now, and herding his followers over to his website, so that he won't have to deal with the situation in a panic, if Patreon decides to censor him, he deleted his Patreon on a one-day notice, that is a panic! It's, it's not, you know, that doesn't solve it, that just makes it happen earlier, what he could have done is, uh, try to transition people over, you guys and charge you way too much. I tried to leave in incentives maybe to go over to the website to try to draw people over there slowly. And by the way, I said that if people still wanted to use Patreon, maybe they decided they didn't care if it charged them more. Maybe they, you know, they have other creators there, so they want to stay.

0:38:17 Thomas: I said, fine, I'll still provide what's being provided at this time to patrons. Now, as you'll remember, Patreon, I, I was worried, they, they had kind of left it open when they stopped doing what they were doing, they said, oh, well, we're gonna find another way, and so I was still worried, and the website's still up, of course, cuz you never know when they're gonna screw us over again, but it's, as of now, I mean, if you wanna be on Patreon, it's fine, it, it probably about the same, uh, you know, it doesn't seem as though, I think Patreon maybe learned that was a really dumb idea, so they're not gonna try to do it again, I hope. Who knows? But the point is both are available now. You have both options. So why on earth wouldn't Sam Harris just have been like, hey, if you want to still support me on Patreon that you can, I'm going to, he could have even gone a little more extreme and been like you're not even going to get any benefits on Patreon, I'll barely give you, all the benefits will be on the website.

0:39:11 Thomas: However, I understand, you know, for transition reasons and whatever, I would like to funnel people toward the website and not use Patreon as much, and then he could just wait and continue not being a racist, quote-unquote, and not singing karaoke with actual Nazis, and then Patreon would not delete him because they're not going to, because he's not, he could continue, by the way, not going on n-word laden rants, and, uh, and he'd be fine. It's this weird overreaction of, I'm deleting, he said, I'm deleting this tomorrow, is what that, what Sam's statement said, tomorrow he's just deleting, gone.

So, it's very bizarre, and it's, there's, so there's two interpretations, A, Gary and the caller's interpretation, or mine, and I think mine makes more sense, because Sam is very good, as I've said, he's very good at carefully choosing his words, but I'll tell you, in my heart, when Sargon and Milo were banned, I felt zero percent threat of any kind that I would ever be banned for the same reasons, because I have no plans, nor do I, I anticipate ever having the slightest inclination of maybe having plans ever in the future of being associated with Nazis or going on n-word laden rants. So I felt zero pressure, but how weird is it for Sam to feel all that pressure? What is it he's worried he's going to do that's going to trip up Patreon and make them ban him?

0:40:47 Thomas: He's fine. And the weird thing is, I actually, I don't think that Sam is likely to, you know, do any of the things that Carl or Milo got banned. I don't even think he is. I mean, so I think, I don't know if it was Christy, we were kind of joking, but maybe there's people out there who think like, oh yeah, Sam in his heart, he does actually want to be outwardly racist. I don't even really think that's true. I think this is just a, it's just a bizarre thing to feel threatened by. And, uh, I think that, you know, having control, I understand the impulse to want to have control over his funding, and but, but the part that's weird to me is where he would feel any sort of threat by these latest bannings. They're not related to him ostensibly. They shouldn't be related in any way to any of his behavior. And that's what's so curious, I'm curious.

0:41:43 Thomas: But, you know, I wanna, okay, credit to e-mailer and caller, I want to say that I think it's a good example, the best argument is Sam Harris did have that whole explosion when, you know, he got labeled an Islamophobe from the Ben, what's his name, Batman thing, and also, probably, he knows the Charles Murray stuff was, I mean, maybe he's feeling threatened, like, Patreon could look at that and decide that that's peddling white nationalism, I, I don't think they would, I think that's a bit of a stretch, so, I get, you know, in full fairness, I understand feeling like, okay, it might be better if I had control of my thing, but the part that makes no sense, here's what makes no no sense.

0:42:32 Thomas: If indeed that did happen and Patreon banned him, it would be functionally exactly identical to what he did. He gave his listeners a 24-hour notice. How would that be any different? That's what's so bizarre to me. And that's why I think it is a response, some level of solidarity slash feeling kind of a little bit like he's, I don't know, part of this group or something, think because if he got banned, it would be exactly the same as what happened. It's he just got rid of that income. He got rid of his, by the way, people speculate that Sam Harris was making like, you know, anywhere from 30 to $60,000 an episode on Patreon. That's a, that's a ton of money and he just boop, got rid Of it.

0:43:21 Thomas: So that tells me that A, he's, it doesn't really matter that much because he just did it again. If the money was so critical to him that it was a huge threat, he would have just slowly transitioned and hope that, you know, enough people went over on the website. Like, like for me, by the way, like the money is, was my whole income, is my whole income. You know, Patreon is how I live essentially. And so what I did, when I thought it was really worried about Patreon, was I tried to transition enough people over the website, so that if, uh, something crazy happened, and they went through that change and people deleted their accounts and didn't want to pledge anymore, that I would at least be like slightly less screwed over. But Sam just did the thing that was going to happen anyway. It's like, oh, I'm worried about being banned, so I'm banning myself with no notice, and so this makes no sense.

0:44:12 Thomas: That's what's weird about it. All right, sorry, I spent a lot of time on that, but it is a conundrum. It is a bizarre thing. I almost think he, I almost Sam's trying to punish Patreon. Like, he's trying, you know, he knows he's one of their top creators and just trying to, like, really, you you know, make sure they know that he's leaving and costing them all the money that they make off of him. And, and again, in a weird show of solidarity for two horrible racists. All right, up next is my friend, Beth Deitch, with some comments on the Boghossian thing, and it's awesome, I can kind of just let it stand alone because Beth has some experience with this, some knowledge about this, and some expertise, and here we go. Yeah.

0:44:55 Voicemail: Hi, this is Beth in New Orleans, and I just listened to the episode about Peter Boghossian, and wanted to back Eli up and elaborate a little on one thing. I don't know about Richard Dawkins being an evolutionary biologist, but Steven Pinker, as a psychologist, absolutely 1,000% knows how IRBs work. Every single one of his bits of research that he has done that involved a human being providing data had to go through IRB review before he could do it. This man has done tons of research. He's someone who I have always loved. I've used videos about his language development in my psychology classes and things. I'm so disappointed here, especially by this, because it doesn't matter how harmless you think your research is, you still have to run it by an IRB.

0:45:45 Voicemail: I mean, most of my research is just in survey research, sometimes asking about really benign things, like how people's businesses are recovering after Hurricane Katrina or something. But the whole point is that it can't just rely on my assessment that the research is harmless. I am biased. I want to do my research. I want to do my study. So it needs an unbiased review, and that review comes from the Institutional Review Board. And IRBs don't really review or assess how good your research is, how good the science will be out of it. Their main point is the protection of human subjects. And you can get an expedited review if you're just asking non-sensitive questions. You get a shorter form, maybe fewer people review it, but you don't have to go through the full review, which involves more forms, a big packet, they meet once a month, it is a pain in the butt.

0:46:42 Voicemail: But, you know, these things were put in after, like, the Milgram studies or the Stanford prison studies, when people thought maybe we should kind of review these things before we let psychologists do these kinds of studies.

0:46:58 Voicemail: Expedited review, you have to do full review, is any kind of deception. Deception of human subjects is seen to be kind of a big deal. And you have to say how, when you're going to reveal the deception. Deception, you have to make sure that you don't leave people any worse off than you found them. So, like, if I'm doing a study where I want to see how, um, making people feel stupid affects their performance on some task, and so I give them, say, a test and tell them they did terribly on it no matter what they did, I can't just leave them that way, feeling like they're stupid. I have to, before I let them leave my lab, after I've done my study, explain the deception, maybe even go to extra, extra effort to bolster their self-image, to make sure that when they leave, they are no worse off than the way they were when they came into my lab.

0:47:49 Voicemail: And yes, institutional review boards can be a pain, and and they very much err on the side of caution and being overprotective of your human subjects, but that is the way they should err. They should not err on the side of letting you do whatever, and I'm sure it'll be fine. They should err on the side of protecting people. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

0:48:11 Thomas: Thank you so much, Beth, for providing a little bit more education about what that process is like, that's really interesting, and yeah, obviously, you're totally right, I totally agree that Pinker knows how that works, you know, someone did send me I'm sorry. I'm blanking on who this was, but they sent me a screenshot. Apparently Pinker did tweet like two years ago in support of some article that was like, you know, it's like finally they're, they're peeling back some of these IRB rules. Um, and it's kind of interesting. So it seems like maybe he either, I don't know if it was like because he already knew about this or for other reasons, uh, if he just thought that IRB laws are a little too restrictive, that that's all fine. And that could be true. Like it might be true that there's too much red tape somewhere.

0:48:56 Thomas: You know, maybe there's places. I'm totally agnostic as to that. It seems like the concept of the IRB is definitely needed. But who knows? Maybe it's like too hard to get research for certain stuff approved. Proved. But all that aside, the obvious point that, you know, I think Beth echoed and I know Eli made, the obviously point that I think is, of course, there should be a review of it. Like, of course there should an investigation as to what should have happened. And all of this overreaction by Pinker and Dawkins and all those people to even the idea that they would look into to this and see, like, did this violate our rules? What, what should have happened here? Should there be some sort of consequences, is very telling. So thanks again, Beth. And one more call here.

0:49:45 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. I just listened to the most recent episode. This is Susan, calling from Florida. And of course, I loved it, because I totally agree with everything. I don't always agree with you. I don't think, maybe I do. Anyway, my question is about the use of the term racist. I would agree that a MAGA hat symbols racism to me. But you also said that the Hebrew, Hebrew Israelites made racist statements, and I've heard, or read, and maybe it was even on your show, you had a guest, but I can't remember for sure where, I've heard this, that racism, the term, some people define it as and actions that advocate for reducing the opportunities, opportunities, for a vulnerable group.

0:50:44 Voicemail: So if that is a true definition, I wouldn't think that that corresponds to a definition of saying statements that stereotype a particular race or racist. Anyways, hopefully you'll do a deep dive into the definition of racism so we can and use the word correctly in the future. Okay, just curious what you think. Thanks.

0:51:13 Thomas: Hey, thank you for the call, yeah, wow, that's, this, I think this could open up a can of worms, I'm probably not doing a deep dive right now, maybe it'll be something we could talk about later, but yes, I, I, I'm not an expert on this, but I have heard people and I've read papers and stuff where, you know, racism is sometimes defined as prejudice plus power, you I think this is something that's maybe more like an academic definition, please correct me if I'm wrong, I know there will be people who know this, and by the way, also, if you'd like to suggest somebody to talk to about this, because I'm certainly open to learning more about it, but from my understanding, there are people, and possibly even, this is like a consensus among social scientists, I don't know, but there are people who define it that way and say therefore Black people literally can never be racist, and personally, I don't If, if that's how it's being defined in a given, I don't know, in a given field or for for scholarship or something like that, that's fine, I'm, you know, whatever is useful for that for that field, but to me, I feel like in common parlance and in dealing with politics and the discussion in our society, I feel like that is an incredibly not useful way of looking at it.

I think that I should clarify, though, I think it has its benefits. So there's truth in it. And I think when a white man, for example, says something prejudicial or, like you said, utilizes negative stereotypes or makes a comment that does something like that,

0:52:53 Thomas: It is fundamentally different than when it's the other way because of the power dynamic involved. And I don't mean to deny that in any way. I believe that's very much true.

0:53:06 Thomas: There's so much more threat and power in the racism of white people than in potentially an anti-white racism of black people in this country, because black people, like just a simple example, let's say, uh, like for the sake of argument, let's saying like a anti-white racist black person and an anti-black racist white person are in a, like, an argument or something, and they're calling each other racial epithets, and whatever, the white person can call the cops and will probably have the police likely be on their side and potentially even believe whatever their story they're telling about the black person, and be able to utilize that system of power to perhaps threaten the, even the life of the black person in that situation.

0:53:58 Thomas: Like, there's, that's just a fundamental difference in our society. Maybe not every single time, but like, on average, throughout our society, that's kind of how that works. So, again, I don't mean to say that doesn't exist, but I think in talking about racism, racism, that using the terminology that way, it's just my opinion, and I'm open to counter argument, but I think it does more harm than good, because all it does is open up a bunch of, like, easy counter arguments that you then have to explain and argue about, that kind of distract from the point. So like if I say, hey, black people can't be racist about against white people, then then like that's the whole focus of the thing, is the other side will try to find examples of black people who are, seem to be saying really hurtful, awful things about white people.

0:54:50 Thomas: And then that's like what we're focused on, when I, you know, like it just doesn't seem fruitful to me. You know, I feel like it, because, and also, you don't have to give up that much if you say, oh, yeah, sure, like, black people can have racist views and prejudiced views of white people, doesn't really, to me, it doesn't give up that much, but to then also say, but the dominant power in our society is, you know, white supremacist in nature, and throughout history certainly historically has been nothing but white supremacy, you know? Going back to slavery and how everything was set up.

Like, that argument, for me personally, it's just so much easier to make. It's like such a more comfortable argument to say, oh sure, like, there's bigotry, there's prejudice, but, like, here's how the power has been, rather than try to make it a definitional thing and then be arguing with a person about definition. I don't, that that's how I see it. And when I said the Black Hebrew Israelites said racist stuff, um, that was what they did, was they started saying, they used the N-word, and they started calling the couple of black kids in the Catholic school group, um, they started start saying really kind of racially weird stuff to them about who they are.

And, you know, that, that raises another point. Like, it's entirely possible the language the Black Hebrew Israelites were using was reinforcing in some way white supremacy. You know, like, when you, when you use the N-word or something as an insult to to a Black high school kid, or I think there might have been two Black high school kids in that group, and that was kind of part of what they were commenting on, by the way, I don't feel like it's not racist because the person saying it is Black.

0:56:36 Thomas: To me, that doesn't, it's sort of like in the same way that women oftentimes can enforce, in some ways, perpetuate misogyny, that happens all the the time, I believe. I think in the same way, if you are a black person and you're yelling racial insults at another black person, no matter what the sides that people are on, it still seems to me that you can pretty safely call that racism or racially charged epithets. To me, that seems like a good use of the word, but I'm certainly open to comment on this. Definitely guest suggestions, because that is something I would love to talk more about. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, maybe the, and again, if it's a question of academics, like if this is useful when you're writing about the, or you're studying as a phenomenon, the history of racism or whatever, to define it that way, that totally may be true.

0:57:35 Thomas: And I might be 100% open to that. It's just, it seems like in common conversation, it doesn't add a lot to, you know, like, it it doesn't help you in your argument. I found like it just, it just makes another argument that doesn't even get you anywhere when you're trying to deal with, I don't know, conservatives or otherwise possibly privileged blind people. So that's my take on it. Um, again, happy to be wrong. Uh, happy to engage with disagreement on that.

And I will say, uh, thank you so much for all the voicemails this week, this month, rather it's been amazing. I love hearing from you guys. There were a lot, keep it up, there's always so much to learn from you and to respond to, thank you for listening, and if you would like to support me on either Patreon or the website, that either one is fine, because I have no plans to get in a boat and block people seeking refuge, and I have not plans of singing karaoke with Nazis, or anything like that, so patreon, totally fine. patreon.com/seriouspod, or seriouspod.com support, either way, thank you so much, the support is what makes the show happen, and with that said, I will see you whenever I see you.