SIO267: We Should Eat Less Meat

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 267. I'm Thomas Smith, and let me make sure I get my timelines right. I am like a Rick and Morty episode here. So if you are a patron, you are hearing this hello, hi, you're hearing this right away. If you are not a patron, this is a little late. You've already heard the yelling at Sam Harris. It's a little later. Hello either way. But if you you are a non-patron, just note, could have heard this earlier by going to patreon.com/seriouspod. Thanks so much to all my patrons who already have, and by the way, to anyone who's still on the website, I sent out an email, I hope it got to everybody. I've shut down the website, uh, it's been too frustrating to maintain. The technology has gotten away from me, you know, stuff updates, it doesn't work anymore. It wasn't notifying people, uh, and it's, it was coming up for renewal on some of these licenses that I had to pay for, and I just decided it's just not worth it.

0:01:22 Thomas: So I'm going to switch back to Patreon. All bonus stuff is now on patreon.com/seriouspod. That's where you're hopefully hearing this if you're a patron, and the patron feed and all that. So thanks to everyone. Seriously, a deep, heartfelt thanks to anyone who went over to the website with me on that adventure, back when Patreon threatened to do a really stupid thing that they backed away from, and they've shown no sign that they're actually going to try to redo. So, I think it, you know, it should be okay to switch back to there, and like I said, it just would be a almost a full-time job to try to manage that membership thing, and I was willing to do it when that was the only option, but it just seems like, you know, Patreon has gotten its act together. So for now I'll be over there, um, but again, thank you so much for, um, those who made the switch, because I feel like you really were, uh, trying to support me and the show, uh, and and I I just, just appreciate it so much.

0:02:14 Thomas: So, sorry for any inconvenience. Head on over to patreon.com/seriouspod. Okay, another announcement. Again, sorry if you've already heard me or seen me talk about this, but I am doing a game stream. That is at twitch.tv/seriouspod. It has been a ton of fun playing old games, mainly NES games. Right now I'm trying to beat Battletoads. I haven't gotten to play it that much. Battletoads and Punch-Out!, but it has been just amazing. Andrew came on, and we actually answered some more law questions and interacted, and that was just an absolute blast. Please join in. We're also going to do, by the way, Aaron from Philosophers in Space is going to hop on. We're going to play through Portal 2 co-op. I've never played it. I played Portal 1. It was a super cool game, but I hear Portal 2 is even better. And we're going to play and talk philosophy and joke, and it'll be a great time.

0:03:01 Thomas: So please hop on the channel. Subscribe to the channel! It's easy. If you've never done Twitch, it's super easy. Just go to twitch.tv/SeriousPod. That's my channel. I don't even know if it makes you make an account or not. That's up to you. But come watch, say hi, interact in the chat. That's the best part. I'm building it. There's going to be so much more stuff as we go. And it's been a ton of fun, especially in 2020. I have really felt like it's been a nice change of pace to just have some fun, play some old games. It's really nostalgic for me. I know everybody's upbringing was different and all that. But for me, it's super nice nostalgia that just takes me back and feels so comforting. Plus that 8-bit music. You can't beat it. You really can't. So that's the channel. One more time. Twitch.tv/SeriousPod.

0:03:47 Thomas: OK, today's episode. I am excited to tell you some stuff. I want to get to some more emails and voice messages, maybe, if I get to it, because I felt so bad about neglecting those, and your questions have been so amazing and thought-provoking. But I want to start off with a little bit of some monologue here. Well, I suppose it's all going to be monologue, but just things that I want to talk about. And I'm actually really, I don't know, I feel good to sort of shout to the world that I have been meat free for two months. It's kind of a kind of cool thing. I hope that won't turn off some people. I'm going to talk about it. I promise I'm not going to be judgy or preachy. I'm gonna do my best. I don't want to turn people off who, you know, who eat meat.

0:04:34 Thomas: I was, of course, one of you two months ago, but I have always said, maybe you've heard me say it on the show. So I've always said that I've struggled ethically with the fact that I eat meat. And for a while, it was just like, OK, I'll just accept that I'm kind of doing a crappy thing. And you know what? There's something to be said for this, too. Part of me felt like it's a little bit like climate change. And there's a lot to talk about there because, of course, meat eating does contribute to climate change and we can go through that. But I felt like it was a little bit like climate change, where if the evil that is being, you know, perpetrated, I'm not going to go into gruesome detail, but if you ever do any amount of research into factory farming at all, it's impossible to justify.

0:05:21 Thomas: I mean, it's horrific. I would imagine that the kind of compassionate, intelligent, you know, well-researched listeners that I tend to have know this already. But in case you don't, it is disgusting. I mean it is awful conditions. It is horrific. It's pure torture. It stuff that, you now, and it is so weird that we as a society do this. I'm sure you've heard this all before, but just in case, I want to kind of go through my reasoning here. It's weird that we do this. We've decided that dogs and cats, if anyone abuses a dog or a cat, they're like arrested, you know?

0:05:58 Thomas: And justifiably so, like animal abuse is horrible and I don't believe we should abide any of it, any sort of animal abuse. And then if you run a factory farm, the kinds of pure torture that you're allowed to do to, you know, cows and pigs and chickens, who especially pigs, you know, pigs and cows have a pretty high level of of intelligence, relatively speaking. And, you know, we can, it's a tricky scientific topic and I'm not an expert or anything, but pigs are remarkably smarter than you'd think and have experiences and have sadness and experience pain. It seems it'd be hard to dispute that. I mean, there's arguments about whether they experience like a second order pain versus a first, you know, okay, but do dogs and cats have some, you know, or other animals that we arrest people for abusing?

0:06:48 Thomas: Do you think they have more of an experience necessarily than pigs or cows? Do you know that for sure? Is that something you're willing to like risk torturing one and loving the other? You know, like, is that, are you super confident in that? And, but my opinion has been for a while, or it's not really an opinion, but my coping mechanism, I suppose, has been, okay, this is sort of unfair that it should be on me. Like I, and I have voted for and donated to and tried to advance causes that would help alleviate this problem. And a comparison to climate change is a little bit, I don't think it's perfect, but it's a little similar where it's like, well, why should it be on me?

0:07:35 Thomas: And has the ability to take the time to map out my diet and how I'm going to do it. Not everybody has that, of course. Some people are doing all they can to hang on. And if you're struggling, if you're working multiple jobs, I am not at all judging anyone who is eating meat out of necessity. I'm still feeding my kids meat because we haven't really fully come up with a... I don't know. I'm still pending on that one. I don't know what the ethics of that is. Our kids are still eating meat. They eat so much less of it than a full grown adult. So that helps. But that's a tricky subject for now. We're going with that. I think when they're a little older, especially when they are so little, it's so hard to get them to eat anything but chicken nuggets.

0:08:21 Thomas: So that's pretty much if we didn't feed them meat, they might just starve. I do know. So that's a tricky topic, but tricky topics aside, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good is, Is something I want to strongly advocate here for. There are a lot of things you could think of that are like, well, here's reason why some people need to eat meat. And defense mechanisms go up. You know, this happened. This is a very human thing, very normal thing. Defense mechanisms go Up. And then you say, well I, you know, I need to, I don't have time, I blah blah blah, all this stuff. And sure, and maybe some, you might say, someone who's working too many jobs doesn't have time. Yeah, sure. That's fine. I, you know, I, I'm not here to judge anyone else, but I am here to say, and it's a very remarkably simple message that I wish was heard more often.

0:09:15 Thomas: And I'm not faulting messengers per se. Um, I think it's something that gets a little lost in our society, but here's, here's the thing. You don't have to become a vegetarian or a vegan to make a difference. And I know other people are saying this. I want to signal boost it. This is what really had an effect on me. You can just cut your meat consumption, you know? So take all your excuses, all your things. Well, I have to eat bacon. I love bacon. I love X thing. Okay. If there's something that you feel like you cannot live without, bacon, burger, now and then, whatever it might be, don't give that up. Just try to give something else up. Or, you know, maybe if you're feeling ambitious, try to eat it a little less.

0:10:01 Thomas: That's something That I didn't hear. And again, I'm not faulting any messengers. I'm just saying it didn't filter through to me for a very long time in my life. I, I heard, I tended to hear from very, you know, kind of absolutist purist types that, you know, meat is murder and factory farming is evil, which it is, you know, like factory farming is evil. And I think even many, many meat eaters, I don't have stats or polls or anything, but I imagine, you You know, most meat eaters I talk to recognize how evil this factory farming is. Let me finish off the point I was making earlier. I got too excited. I used to say, OK, it's not on me to make this huge lifestyle change. It's on our society to fix this problem, to do some regulation, to ease the suffering of animals.

0:10:50 Thomas: Because I actually, you know, there are very many philosophical wrinkles to this whole thing. I think you could eat meat in a more or less morally acceptable way, in my opinion. Again, everybody's got to have their own, you know, morality and their own their own ways they work through these things. I don't, you know. I think if an animal were to live a fulfilled life or at least a pain free life where they get plenty of room to move around and all that, and then eventually they are killed in a completely painless way, you know, to me, that's like, yeah, actually, I think that's okay, personally. But that's just not what happens. Not even close. It's actually horrific what really happens.

0:11:37 Thomas: I won't go into the gruesome details, but it's disgusting. It's horrific. It's pure torture, if I'm being honest. And so, you know, my opinion was kind of my way I deal with it was, well, I, I, I, it feels like it's unfair, similar to how we shouldn't focus on like, okay, can you drive your car a little less to fix greenhouse gas emissions? Or should maybe, you know, these massive oil companies do it who are actually in charge, you know? Receiving subsidies in order to pollute the environment. And that's, to me, a totally valid argument. I put almost no, personally, again, I put almost no effort and no stock into finding ways that you and I, as individuals, can like, oh, maybe if we don't do this or don't make these big sacrifices that will be big sacrifices for us, but won't really make any sort of dent and would require massive collective action, whereas what we could do is if we required corporations to do something slightly differently, they would be able to stop, you know, 75% of all emissions.

And it would be, and all that would happen is they wouldn't have as much yacht money or, you know, so in my opinion, that's a different story. Like if you can reduce your carbon emissions, of course, it seems like we should. I drive an electric car, which I love, love our Tesla. We got rid of, after I, after my other car was, our other car was totaled, we actually didn't even, didn't even buy, replace it.

0:13:10 Thomas: We just both use the Tesla. But, you know, again, that's a product of privilege. We have the ability to afford that car. Now, the subsidies or whatever made it pretty much like a normal car. We have the cheapest possible Tesla. It's somewhat, you know, it's in the normal price range of cars. So if you are looking for a car and you have that kind of money, I would recommend it. But, but, you know, being able to share one car is something that not everyone can do, yada, yada. So what I mean to say is I don't really care that much at all about individual action regarding, uh, greenhouse gases. I think perhaps the argument doesn't quite apply. I used to apply that to meat eating. I think it doesn't quite apply as well. You know, there's, that's still an acceptable excuse, you know, I think to some degree.

0:13:59 Thomas: Um, and I always would say too, like, as soon as we have lab grown meat, I'll just eat that. That's fine. It's on us as a society to produce lab grown meat. And again, I still kind of feel that way. Like if, if you just feel like you cannot do it, okay, you know, no big deal. I, I understand it. But if you, if you can, here, here's the argument that really, that I was getting into a second ago that really appeals to me. Maybe just cut meat on weekends or weekdays, one or the other, you know, because if we stop at the very least, I would encourage everybody listening to stop thinking of things in terms of absolutism and purity. And again, I want to emphasize, I'm not saying anything new. This is stuff I've absorbed from reading and hearing other people. I'm not claiming to be like any unique messenger on this.

0:14:45 Thomas: I just want to signal boost it because it's what has made a difference in my life and has made me make this change.

0:14:54 Thomas: Just reduce your meat. And here's what they have. They have, you know, Beyond Burger, Beyond Beef is something I am a huge fan of. Of. They got that fake Whopper that I love. That's delicious to me. Um, and so now for me, it became, here's, here's what kind of changed for me. First off, it's just something I've always kind of wanted to do, but never put in the effort, you know, which, you Know, humans are imperfect. That, that happens sometimes, you know, it's like, Oh, let me, I want to make this moral decision, but I just haven't gotten around to taking the effort because finding good stuff to eat, healthy stuff to Eat, it takes a lot of effort, takes a Lot of work. It'S not as easy, you Know, know, one of the biggest problems in our society is that all the cheapest, most affordable foods that, you know, of people who, the wealth inequality we have in this country is embarrassing.

0:15:41 Thomas: I've talked about it before. Wealth inequality that shouldn't exist. People who are working jobs and not getting paid enough should be getting paid more. And then also the cheapest foods available are terribly unhealthy. And so we have this horrible problem where people who don't have the time and the money to be able to put in that effort of, you know, it takes a tremendous amount of work and time that a lot of people don't have to pick out healthy ingredients, pre-cooked meals. You know, it can be done, but you know it takes a lot of effort, takes a lot to know how and determination, and it's, I think it's can be unreasonable to expect a lot of people to do it. You know, it's just a one more thing that just in a society where a lot of people are, you know, in a gig economy working all day and night, like it's, it's hard to expect a lot of people to do. But for me, I have, you know, a little bit of time.

0:16:30 Thomas: I have the ability. I found a vegetarian frozen meal service that I like called Vistro. They're not a sponsor or anything, but I'm enjoying them quite a bit. It's good. And then also we do Blue Apron again. Well, it has been a sponsor before. Not currently. This show doesn't take any sponsorships currently because, you know, I haven't been doing it enough and I'm bothered. It's not worth it. So no sponsorships, no incentives other than I'm just telling you what I like. Blue Apron recently gave us the option to just substitute for the meat. So rather than having like specific vegetarian meals, which we would do, they had some of them, but sometimes I honestly didn't really like them very much. I would much rather eat a meal that was intended, you know, okay, it's going to be some sort of beef meal, some sort of chicken meal, and then substitute in a fake version, which they have gotten very good.

0:17:21 Thomas: The fake meat industry is doing a tremendous job. And once there's a lab grown meat, forget about it. I can't wait. That's going to be amazing. Someday. I think it's still prohibitively expensive, but I think they're getting closer all the time. But I really enjoy Beyond Beef. And so for me, it became, I don't think I anymore have an excuse for this, you know, know, because it is actually pretty easy for me to, instead of eating a meat dish, buy a bit of the Beyond Beef and put that in instead. It's, you know, yeah, maybe I'm losing a little bit of a something, of a flavor, or maybe if you're really in love with a specific meat flavor, maybe, you Know, that's irreplaceable to you. Again, it's, I understand. But for me, it became, it's too easy to not do this for me to justify continuing to not do it.

0:18:14 Thomas: And my mindset going into it was, you know what? I firmly believe that reducing meat is so much more important than purity. Imagine, just imagine if the whole United States population ate half the meat that they eat, just decided like, oh, every other day I won't eat meat or, you don't even have to to get that ambitious. Even if it was like weekend, you know, two out of seven days, they're not going to eat it. That would have, so, you know, two sevenths of the meat there that they're getting rid of. That is so much more effective in real terms than if, I don't know, 10% of people go full vegetarian, or I don't what the percentage is, 5% of people go fully vegetarian. I, you know, I think in pretty, I'll be honest, I think in utilitarian ways most of the time.

0:19:02 Thomas: Not to open up that can of worms, There are exceptions and ways that it breaks down. But for the most part, when you're talking about factory farming, it is the case that if we all reduced our meat consumption in half, for example, there would be half as much horrible animal torture happening. And that's really good. Like, that's a good thing. And it doesn't matter. Like, those animals aren't going to care if, you know, the equivalent people just completely became pure vegetarians, or if half the people just ate half the meat they're currently eating. They don't care. Either way, you know, it's a supply and demand thing that will, will equal less animal suffering. Um, and, and it doesn't really matter the purity of the people who did it. Now, I also don't want to, I don't mean to like offend anyone who is purist about it and thinks it's just so awful that they can't participate at all.

0:19:56 Thomas: I understand, but there, there are advantages to this view. For example, if someone cooks something in a dish that also had meat in it, I don't care. You know, like I'll just eat it. It's a kind of a, you know, it has an advantage, I think, in that it's the more barriers you remove for yourself for doing the right thing, the easier it becomes. And, you don't have to take it to an extreme if you don' don't want to. If you want to, fine. But if you don't want to, it is still a great thing if you're like, I'm just going to not eat meat three days a week, four days a week, one day a week. Whatever. It reduces it. And if we all did that, it would make a massive impact. Or if more people did that, it would make it a very tangible impact. You know, if you still have excuses that you are allowing yourself to make, cool.

0:20:46 Thomas: Good for you. Or maybe you don't care. Maybe you don't care about the animal suffering. There are lots of other good reasons by the way. I will go over a few health reasons. It is way healthier to not eat meat.

0:20:59 Thomas: Environmental reasons that, again, I don't put that all on individuals, but it isn't nothing. You know, environmentally, it is better to not eating meat. So, you know, there are lots of good reasons. And I would just encourage you, and I'll wrap this up. I know I've been going on a while, but I'm excited about it. It's cool. It's fun thing. It feels good to have, you know, kind of contributed to some good in the world a little bit, um, by, by stopping doing this. And if you want to get that good feeling, just, Hey, try some of these fake meats, try them out, try him in, in meals. Um, it's not as though you won't know the difference. Like you might, yeah, you'll, you're still know the difference I actually like beyond beef as a flavor. Like, I don't really care that it's precisely exactly meat. Although some of them get really close.

0:21:45 Thomas: Like some of whom you can't really tell, but like Beyond Beef for me is a specific flavor that I actually kind of like, like I crave it. I'm like, hmm, I want some of that Beyond Beef. It's delicious. Love it. Um, and so if that's something, you know, that's something that's kind of been on your list, I just would encourage you, take, take the plunge, give it a try. Uh, and, and you don't have to be scared. Um. If it's like, oh, what about Thanksgiving? I know we just passed that. Christmas dinner, I can't give up on that. The Christmas ham. Sure. Don't give up on that, then. Fine. Keep, keep eating that. Not a big deal. You know, I mean, it, it will be way better for you to have given up meat somewhere else and kept doing that than to just decide, decide since you can't perfectly execute this vegetarian or vegan diet that you're just not even going to try. That's something that, you know, I am guilty of that kind of thought pattern in other things, and maybe in this a little bit before, and I understand it.

0:22:37 Thomas: No judgment, but it's kind of an irrational thing that humans do, I think, a little bit to say, like, because I can't do this thing perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all. I think it's not entirely rational. So, hope you'll forgive me for that. I, I'm trying not to, like, you know, morally condemn you if you still eat meat or anything. And you know, I'm only two months in, what, it's not like I can talk a tremendous amount of crap. I've only stopped this for 60 ish days. Um, but, uh, you know, I'm proud of it, and I think, uh, I think honestly, I've said this even when I was a meat eater, I think vegetarians and vegans should talk about it more. We've done this weird proactive defensive thing where meat eaters have decided that that vegetarians and vegans are assholes and they shouldn't even get to talk about it at all.

0:23:22 Thomas: And I, it feels a little unfair to me. It was a little like defensive, you know, like actually it's super cool. Even if you are someone who's like, I can't do it. I have to eat meat. Wouldn't you be like, Hey, it's cool that you're not though. You know, it'S like when you're like, Oh, I CAN'T, you KNOW, VOLUNTEER TO DO X THING. I DON'T HAVE TIME. STILL COOL THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING IT AND TALKING ABOUT IT. IT'S THIS WEIRD DEFENSIVE THING WE THINK IT'S A HUGE MORAL. If we think we're being accused of anything immoral, we get defensive. I include myself in that. And I, you know, again, no, I don't think it's entirely rational. So, okay, I'll end the spiel. You know, thanks for listening. If you did to the spiel, let's talk about some other stuff. Alright, in usual Thomas fashion, I want to take an email and sort of address a question and use it to branch off into other topics.

0:24:10 Thomas: Of course, email from Chris Bell. I'm all the way up to November now, folks. I'M CATCHING UP. Chris Bell asks about a, you know, essentially, why did people like Trump? What was the appeal? What is wrong with him? Why am I totally unable to relate to it? Now, they sent me a Sam Harris clip with Sam Harris's opinion. I'll be honest, I'm a little Sam Harris-ed out. I'm not going to bother. I just want to offer my own thoughts. And I don't know what Sam Harris said on this. Maybe he's right. Maybe he'S wrong. I have no idea. Sam Harris is right about things. You know, he's just wrong about some things. And he's always been pretty right on about Trump, except when he's had a couple of guests who he's allowed to say some really stupid things about Trump without challenging them. But other than that, he'S been pretty good on Trump.

0:24:55 Thomas: Yeah. So I want to talk about this appeal, though, because I think it really matters going forward. I really think that it's a combination of decades, of at least a few decades, of the negative, negative partisanship against Democrats. That's, it's really, if you are not someone who has spent any time watching Fox News, Fox, you wouldn't necessarily know, but it just does such a good job at chipping away and chipping way and creating a worldview in which Democrats and liberals are communists and the worst people in the world. Like the caricature of liberals on Fox News is, it's just beyond anything you would imagine if you haven't watched it.

0:25:41 Thomas: And it just reinforces and reinforces and reinforces. And that's why so many people, many listeners of the show, uh, don't, that I've heard about, you know, like don't talk to their Fox news family anymore. It's just created such a divide. So that's a big part of it. I think, you Know, this has been done to death, but yeah, I think Trump hates the people they hate and he scores points against the people. Furthermore, he signals to them that he doesn't care about the opinions of the people that they hate. And that's a big deal, because if you're thinking from the perspective of a, you know, of a person on the right, there are ways that social justice and left wing causes have made demands on people.

0:26:30 Thomas: And, and look, there aren't perfect messengers, as with everything. There Or people go too far and try, you know, don't use the best messaging all the time on the left, blah, blah. I don't really care, because the right has, you know, Nazis. So it's like, all right, I get that not one side has to be 100% perfect all the time. And a lot of times I see people posting social justice stuff, or, you know, things on the left, I'm like, eh, I don't really agree with that. I think you're kind of doing this wrong or going too far. I don't spend a lot of time arguing with it, because I think that's what creates a Sam Harris or an IDW, you is you only look at that side of it, and you only cherry pick the people you hate on the left that are saying things in a way that you find obnoxious or too far, blah, blah. And then you only hyper focus on that.

0:27:16 Thomas: And then, you start to see a lot of appeal in people who tell those people to F off. And then all of a sudden, you're appearing on Tucker Carlson and you're doing all this stuff. I really think that it's better to keep it in perspective. You know, when I, I can't tell you how many liberal, quote unquote, liberal people over the years, and this is liberal atheists, this is other people, who have shows or articles, you know, publications or whatever, who I've heard do the, well, I am on the left, but this person said this thing to me and I just thought it was, so they called me a Nazi and they thought, da da da. And it's hard. And maybe I've done it. I don't know. But what I've tried to do, what I try to do in my life with these things, because I do hear from a lot of people and I get, you know, some criticism sometimes and sometimes it's great criticism and that's hard to deal with as a human.

0:28:12 Thomas: It's always tough to hear good criticism of you. Sometimes it's just not very good. And some people are wrong about stuff, even on the left. And I've tried in my life to not take that reaction. I think a lot of people take that personal reaction of like, oh God, this person is criticizing me and they're saying a thing and they're wrong and they make too much of it. And they use it to kind of, you know, springboard into like focusing too much on that one person or this group of people who says the thing you you don't like, and lose track of the wider arguments that I think are so open and shut, it's not even close. For me, just the broader left versus right arguments are so opened and shut that I don't want to spend a whole lot of time nutpicking, is the phrase, the left to try to find people who are doing it badly because you can.

0:29:08 Thomas: It's easy. There's billions of people on this planet and everybody gets to say stuff on the internet. Of course you can find idiots on the left all day if you want. Um, but, but I think people lose focus of that. So I know, I know this was a question about Sam Harris's opinion on, well, and, and Chris Bell here was recommending it and maybe it's a, it's a good episode. I don't know. It's called the key to Trump's appeal. If you heard it, that's, that's fine. Um but I, you know, I think that's what it is. They, someone on the right, oh I think this is what I started saying. The left and social justice and young people and whatever have made a lot of moral demands on people on the right. It's a lot like the meat eating thing. It's just like meat eaters who, and maybe, hopefully this isn't you listening.

0:29:53 Thomas: For part of my life, my high school girlfriend was a vegetarian, and we were together for quite a while, and I wasn't a vegetarian. But during that time, I got to experience a lot of what happens when someone's a vegetarian, which is even, and and my uh, this ex of mine was, was very soft-spoken, was not anyone who was trying to like ever change anyone's behavior on this topic, like she was not at all interested in trying to argue for it. But if it comes up, if you're at a restaurant, if you're at whatever, and it's like, I'm vegetarian, there's so much preemptive, oh, bacon, oh, what about bacon, do you want, you know, like trying to confront people about this, trying to like make jokes about it, all, all the stuff. This defense mechanism stuff, I think a lot of that, I think it's a similar impulse where the right sees some of these moral demands being made of them and resents it.

0:30:48 Thomas: And when somebody like Trump came and showed, you don't have to listen to it. Trump never, ever apologizes. It's very intentional. It is conscious that he does it, that he would never apologize, never back down. And so they see that and they are like, this is great. I get to be a fan of this guy who never has to back down. No matter if some judgy lefty person says, I did said something wrong or, you know, I accidentally was insensitive about women or, yeah, no people, different races or sexual orientations. I don't have to care. You know, I don't have to say anything. That guy doesn't care. He's up there. He says whatever he wants and nobody, youknow, nobody gets to tell him otherwise. They love that. That is why they are so, so dedicated to him. And another reason I want to mention this is I also think most of them know that it's all BS.

0:31:39 Thomas: And this is something that will be important because don't be surprised if the Georgia election doesn't go our way, if the special election doesn't go our away. Now, I'm doing everything I can. You should be doing everything you can. We've donated. We've raised a ton of money. I want this election, these elections, these special elections to go ourway. But if you're sitting there thinking, well, you got Sidney Powell, you got other people saying the system is rigged, the election doesn't even work, it's all fake, and there's no way, so they won't vote. And maybe, and that may have an impact. It could. It could have an effect to the margin, could make a difference. Maybe it will. But also, don't be surprised if it doesn't. Don't be surprise if most of these enough Republicans know what they're they're doing. If they know that that's BS and they know that they need to hold power and they're going to come.

0:32:30 Thomas: So don't rely on that is what I'm saying, you know? So, okay. So thanks for the email apologies. I didn't entirely answer how you intended, but I just wanted to give those thoughts. I wanted to read a message from Diddling Quokka, this is a patron, sorry if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly, but this was in regards to my Not the Worst Outcome but Close episode that was just after the election. I wanted read this, I think it's good. They say, what I really wanted to say, there's some in the beginning, and then they say, what I wanted to really was something else, I hear you, I feel you, this is almost the worst result, and we should be mad at this situation, but please remember to compare it within proportions, getting Trump out is the single most important result, if that happens, it's win, even if we lost the house, even, well we didn't, but 2016 was the year to repair and fight back, this year is the year to stop the tailspin, retreat to safety and regroup.

0:33:22 Thomas: Not repairing anything in four years of a neutered Biden is bad, but not as bad as four more years of Trump. I know it sucks to win, but get nothing. America wouldn't be fixed in four years, no matter what the result was. It might never get fixed, but we need to not lose hope, and the only way to keep hope is to treasure every little victory. As a communist, I feel like I'm lost in a hostile world. If I can feel real joy from the election of a neoliberal capitalist marginal ally in a pragmatic alliance against fascism, I hope you can as well. Oh, such a nice message. That's awesome, too, as a communist. I love it. I love that, you know, as much as I've talked about this, that I do tend to hear from a select number of leftists who are hostile to Democrats and all that. I think there are plenty of you out there who are super lefty, but like me, and I don't I'm not a communist per se, but I'm very lefty.

0:34:13 Thomas: But like me in that we see that the Democratic Party is the only way to get anything done, really. So I wanted to say thank you so much for that message. Totally agree. I have really, it's been, hasn't it been nice? And Trump keeps losing too. That's the best thing. It's like we get, we get to see it over and over. It's a favorite episode of The Office or something. You know, it is like Trump loses and then he wants to do it again for some reason. He is like, let me lose in Georgia a few more times. Let me lose In Pennsylvania a few times. Let me get my crack team of lizards with COVID and hair dye that drips off their face or whatever that is, mascara that he put in his hair. Let me get the worst attorneys in the history of time to represent me so they can lose time after time after time. Boy, it's been nice.

0:34:59 Thomas: It's been it has been very nice. And I agree with you. I mean, I tried to say that in that episode as well. It can both be true that this was a disappointing result. And I truly, you know, if we're able to win these two Georgia seats, it becomes much better. Still not great, but much better, but it can both be a disappointing result, but also be so much better than the worst thing. You know, I mean, it's one thing if, uh, you know, a tree falls on your car and you're like, oh my God, this is horrible. And then someone's like, well, it didn't crush you and your family. You're like, yeah, but you know, tree fell on my car, but then like the tree just misses you and Your family. I bet you'd be a different, it'd be like, Oh my God. We're still alive. Like this is incredible.

0:35:44 Thomas: You know? It's just all about perspective. And I totally agree with you that things you know, this is great. It is it is fantastic that Biden won. And, you know Kamala Harris is VP. That's so cool for representation. And I think she's very competent person and I look forward to what goes on with with her going forward. I mean, there's so much good the cabinet. This is another thing I was gonna mention. I want to do an episode about Biden's cabinet picks, maybe, because if you remember, I did several on Trump's picks and it'll be so funny to compare. I want us to do a little comparison. And I know it's hard to remember most of Trump's because, you know, they all had quit or he fired them. But it would be funny to compare his original pick like the first ones and see the differences in picks here.

0:36:31 Thomas: And a lot of who Biden is choosing is really cool. I mean, people who haven't, people who come from demographic backgrounds who have never gotten to be in these kinds of positions of power before. And it's just, there's so much good about it, really. So I hear you. And thanks for the message. I got a long email from Brad. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Very long. I'll distill it down to, if it seems to be the case that many people vote Republican or Trump because they are single issue voters on abortion, I've talked about this too. I definitely agree with that. I think a lot of people, I mean, or at least they say they are, I, who knows? It could be that they kind of want to vote for the evil person but don't want to say, and this is kind of their easy way to say it, but I do think there are definitely a lot of people who seem to be single issue voters on abortion.

0:37:26 Thomas: And Brad is asking, is this maybe something to try to make progress? Do we try to like not campaign on abortion or, you know, expanding the courts because it's going to be so impossible and take too much political capital and that kind of thing? Like, is it worth trying to soften a message on abortion because so many people seem to vote on that issue.

0:37:51 Thomas: This is a very tough one. I can't give a full deep dive answer because there's too many moving parts, but I just want to say a few things. First off, it's unclear. While I agree that many people seemed to be single issue abortion voters, I want to complicate this problem a few ways and then say that because of these complications, I wouldn't really recommend us doing anything differently because it's unclear what would happen. For one, as I said, I think a lot of people want to vote for the bad people and just prefer to say they're voting on abortion, so that could be one consideration. Another consideration would be the flip side, which is how many people are very much activated by abortion. I think that could be a lot of people.

0:38:38 Thomas: I mean, there may be many people who are borderline. And when I talk about activated, I want to make clear that I don't really think there's a whole lot of votes switching. I don't think there's a lot of like, well, I would vote for Trump, but then he might get rid of abortion, so I'm to vote for Biden. I'm not looking at it like that. That as we've seen as evidence in the past few elections, it's more about like people who are pretty much going to vote for one side or the other, but they get activated to take the extra steps to actually register to vote and go through with it. You know, getting non-voters to vote, getting turnout seems to be the name of the game. How many people will be activated by the fact that they could, maybe they aren't very political. You Know, I know a lot of people like this. They're just not very political, but tell them that the court is going to do a handmaid's tale And they're like, oh, my God.

0:39:25 Thomas: You know, I mean, the Women's March. Let's not forget the Women'S March after Trump won was the biggest showing. I think the I believe the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter response might have eclipsed this as the biggest demonstration in U.S. history. But at the time, I believe the Women's March was the biggest demonstration in U.S. history. Like when you take all the different marches in all the cities combined, it was staggering to take that and say, you know, but maybe we should backpedal this abortion issue. That would that strikes me as a gigantic risk. And this is to say nothing of the morality. I mean, we're all agreed. And I hope Brad's agreed.

0:40:11 Thomas: Like, of course, morally speaking, absolutely. Obviously, this is this is the right thing to do, which is to ensure everybody has the right to reproductive health and to make choices about their own bodies. That's we're all agreed there. But I'll entertain the idea of like a messaging thing, like maybe try to soft pedal the messaging because of these single issue voters. And, you know, if if you balk at that idea, I understand. But I mean, given how rough things have been for four years, I hope you don't blame people for trying to find something to do. Like, is there any way we can make not 72 million people vote for the fascist? I don't you know I don'T blame people looking into ideas. Is. But, you know, let me make it clear that there's no room for budging on the actual issue for me at all.

0:40:57 Thomas: I could see an argument hypothetically for like, maybe we campaign about this differently or something, but I actually disagree. And I'm going, I'm outlining why it's because there's so many possible complications to this theory that I think you don't have the evidence necessarily. So those are two things. How many people will this actually affect on the right? Not just by the way, not just because they're lying about their motivations or they're wrong about their motivations, but also how much does our messaging actually get through to them? You know, how much of what Democrats actually want to do, want to achieve, how much does that really matter to X number of people? There is X percentage of the electorate that does not receive facts, that does not receive information from the planet Earth.

0:41:44 Thomas: Birth. You know, they receive information from a funhouse mirror right wing wet dream of what's going on through Fox News or OAN or whatever, you know? So there are a ton of people who we could flip on abortion and it wouldn't matter. Like, literally, we could change our view of it, or like, you know, say we actually think states should decide, or, you know, do some crap like that, and it would not, literally would not make a difference to a certain percentage of people. How many people? I don't know. That's the part where nobody knows. It's hard to make these. I'm sure there are some statisticians who could take a stab at it, or pollsters, or social scientists, or something, but I don't know. And so those are three complicating factors there.

0:42:30 Thomas: And I guess one more thing I would say, not, I guess this isn't so much a complicating or confounding factor as it is another point, which is why couldn't we just try to put this effort, and this is something I believe in even though it's hard to do, put the effort into actually making the arguments on abortion more, you know, and I'm, I mean like on cable news, why, why isn't there in any format? Oh, and by the way, I'm so glad I'm on this topic because I want to give a shout out and say rest in peace to Judith Jarvis Thomson. She lived a very long life, but she did just pass away recently, November 20th. Wow, I actually only heard about it.

0:43:15 Thomas: That's weird. I only saw it like the other day, like yesterday, but I guess it took a while for people to find out. So she died November 20. Huh, that didn't, am I crazy or did I just see that? But I guess people didn't post about it or I didn't see it. But anyway, she just died at age 91, lived a long life, But she came up with the violinist argument that I've talked so much about on this podcast. She also came up, apparently, if memes are to be believed, she also invented the trolley problem. I actually didn't even know that. I only knew the violinists argument. But anyway, rest in peace to a legend, Judith Jarvis Thomson. That's, I'm glad we're on the topic, but that's a good example. For how many times, for abortion being such a key issue, such a key issue in this country, in politics, and maybe arguably the issue, like one of the biggest ones, abortion, how many people do you think have heard of the violinist argument?

0:44:14 Thomas: You know, maybe I'm wrong. Like, I'm not trying to be arrogant. I don't think I'm like that well-read or anything, but I just, I never heard about it until a philosopher mentioned it, you know, on, you know, to me on my show that doesn't have that many listeners, you know, like I, so why isn't there more of this? Why aren't there good debates, you know, people, chances, or if not debates, like talks or something, places that people in mainstream media are giving good philosophical arguments, well-reasoned arguments for why you should be pro-choice. You know, I know they're out there. I'm not. I know there's plenty of people who do this work. I'm saying it doesn't. I'm putting it on mainstream media and kind of cable news, those kind of things.

0:45:00 Thomas: They don't allow long form debates or talks on stuff like this, you know? It all has to be that 1800 talking heads all yelling at each other, blah, blah. I can't watch it. I don't watch any cable news. I watch for a few hours during elections and that's all I can stand. So I'm sort of saying, like, another area to put our focus, rather than trying to change how we message an issue that we're right on, would be, let's try to convince people. Let's try and make good arguments. I know a lot of people are, I'm not trying to take away from people who are making these arguments, doing great advocacy work. I'm saying let's help them out. Let's signal boost them, that's something. So that would be a place I would focus before I would say let's stop talking about an argument that we're right on, you know, because it might be alienating these voters. So I think I've laid out enough complications that, for me, that's why I ultimately disagree with the email, but I appreciate it, and I hope, I hope this response hit on the points you were making.

0:45:59 Thomas: Alright, I'm already just about out of time. I wanted to read a really nice message from Tim, just because I really appreciate it and, you know, I don't get to read nice messages a whole lot. "Thomas, I am someone who has dealt with heavy depression for years. I appreciated your first episode after Election Day. It was raw and real. There is a dynamic which is always hard, wishing to be hopeful but also losing your mind with the negative reality in our world. You helped. I know I'm just one random guy who has listened to you since 2015 due to Noah Heath and Eli. I loved your day after in 2016. I just want to know, I want you to know, there's a guy in Indiana who feels for it for his kids and other people. And I love what you do. Big love, Tim." Thank you so much, Tim. That means the world to me, really does. I, uh, I, I feel like we, we understand one another. I, I, um, I know everybody's different, you know, some people are, are way more apt to look at the positive.

0:46:53 Thomas: Some people just want to look at the negative. I think people might think I just look at the positive. I, again, I've said it before. I feel like I do. I try to be, I'm just, well, I don't even try to me. I can't help but be realistic. So I am not able to like pretend things are better than they are, but I also, I don't try to make them worse than they. I'm just not good at, you know, pretending they're better than there. So, I really appreciate the kind message. And for anyone else who feels the same way, um, I'm so glad you're listening. And if, if my show at all helps, uh, that, that really makes me feel good. Here's another quick one I want to hit on. You know, I'm noticing I got a ton of response after my election episode, so I'm realizing I haven't made much progress because I've gone from like November to November 6th.

0:47:43 Thomas: But that's okay. That's a lot of where my email was. So I did actually make progress. But here's something someone else said. It's already, a lot this is points we've already made, but this is one I wanna hit on real quick from, let's Oh, I guess an anonymous listener, they said, they were listing reasons why the election was actually better than I was saying, or at least was good, and they said one of them was an empowered civil service, Biden will be able to fill in the vacancies Trump left behind and replace a whole lot of unqualified, largely criminal actors currently sitting, mostly acting in the top positions in civil service positions. They mentioned the fifth risk, which I also read. I just want to take a minute to say, yeah, absolutely, yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Filling the government with competent people.

0:48:30 Thomas: Oh, my God. It is. Who knew? You know, I mean, some people did, but certainly I think we all can appreciate just how important certain positions or or a lot of them are in government. Having competent people, people who believe in science, people are actually there because they are career civil servants who who want to do the right thing. People who aren't just someone who shares a name or a marriage with a Trump, you know, like people who really want to do the right thing. People who are out there doing the best. It doesn't mean they're perfect. Doesn't mean that the federal government gets everything right all the time. But dear God, there's a huge difference between imperfect, but trying to do the right thing and competent and staffed, by the way, staffed.

0:49:17 Thomas: I mean, at a minimum, just staffing these positions. Oh, my God. A huge difference between that and Trump. It's not even close. So much harm was done that a lot of harm we'll never even know about. You know, like there's so much. This has been such a bad four years. I'm sure there are ways that people suffered that we won't even ever really fully comprehend. Alright, well that's all the time I've got today, I am catching up, I'm slowly but surely, thanks for the emails, keep them coming because I mean to keep catching up with them, and also, you know, next time when I don't do 25 minutes on being a vegetarian, that'll leave me more time for catching up. Thanks so much for listening. I appreciate it so much. I appreciate all the interaction. Hey, go check out that game channel if you want some nice, clean fun, some clean 8-bit fun twitch.tv/seriouspod. And thanks for listening, I will see you very soon. Love you so much!

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