SIO305: July Patreon QnA!

Transcript

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

0:00:12 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is Q&A 4, I guess it's episode 305, Q& A 4. I'm Thomas. That's Lindsey. How's it going?

0:00:18 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Pretty good. I had my first haircut in two years today, so I'm feeling fantastic.

0:00:27 Thomas: Whoa. Wow. Yeah, I went a while and it's not, you know, it's, admit it, it's things are tricky, you know, cause you got like during COVID I grew up, you just didn't get a haircut for a while. And you think like, oh yeah, whatever. Cause it's the trick is it happens slowly, you You know, each day you don't even notice the change. And then you're like, oh yeah, whatever. My hair's a little longer. All of a sudden, now there's certain videos we have with the kids from that time in which I'm a guy from the seventies. And I'm just like, why was I a guy for the seventies for several months. That's weird.

0:00:41 Lindsey: Mm-hm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah!

0:01:02 Thomas: I don't like that.

0:01:03 Lindsey: I know, I was looking like the girl from The Ring, you know? It's got the... it's pretty good, yeah!

0:01:06 Thomas: That's a good look though. I actually like it. Was your hair always wet and matted too? Cause that, I feel like you, you could have solved that on your own. You didn't really need a haircut.

0:01:11 Lindsey: Yeah, pretty much! I mean, when you've got as much hair as I do, you walk out in 90 degree heat and 100% humidity, and yes, it is like that all the time.

0:01:20 Thomas: Oh, good point. And you fall down a well.

0:01:23 Lindsey: And That Just happened anyway, though. That's not new. Yeah.

0:01:23 Thomas: Oh no. Yeah. That too. Are you in well country? Just wells everywhere. Fall down.

0:01:30 Lindsey: Everywhere.

0:01:30 Thomas: Yeah, you have to haunt people after that.

0:01:30 Lindsey: We've all got seven wells a piece. Yeah. Yeah.

0:01:34 Thomas: I wonder if you falldown one, there's already a ring girl in there. Like, ah, man. All right. I'll get out and find my first finders keepers. First come, first serve.

0:01:42 Lindsey: It's not even scary anymore. We just acclimated. It's like it's like cicadas or something. You just get used to them. Yeah.

0:01:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Um. Yeah, no, it is really weird. And the same thing happened with the kids. The minute we got the kids' haircut, it just, you adjust to it and then you look back at pictures, you're like, whose kid is that? That's not my kid. It's so different. Anyway. Well, that's congrats on that. Did you do anything crazy or just kind of trim your hair? I know

0:02:02 Lindsey: Thank You uh No, I, I thought about doing something different and then I got in there and lost my nerve. I was like no just

0:02:11 Thomas: I did the same big I was like, I've got all this hair. What can we do with it? Hair person.

0:02:14 Lindsey: Yeah. No.

0:02:17 Thomas: And then they're always unhelpful. There's definitely some gender differences here, but they're always unhelpful. I'm like, you're the hair expert. I just have the hair. I don't have any opinions on it, really. You tell me a thing to do, but I get it. They probably don't want the burden of if something goes wrong or something, somebody's mad. But I'm always like, I'm not going to be mad. Yeah, I might come and get it redone or something, but I'm not going to be like, how dare you? I asked you to do something. So she did kind of try to do Something a little, I was like, let's make use of this long hair more. And it just didn't work. And so like a few weeks later, I Was like, yeah, nevermind. Just do the same old thing every time.

0:02:32 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:58 Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, it works. So, but yeah, I do, I did the same thing. I always want recommendations. They won't give it to me.

0:02:59 Thomas: I, you know, and then

0:03:03 Lindsey: Just like, well, how long do you want to learn?

0:03:04 Thomas: The other problem is my Hair is so painfully straight. There's nothing you can do straight hair. I mean, I guess it has its moments, but like, it's so boring. There's no, I was always jealous of the kids with like the curly hair, it just feels like you can do more with it, you know, more different styles, but it's just straight down. Anyway, that's what we came here to talk about. Hair talk. That's. Yeah.

0:03:17 Lindsey: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that was at least three of the Q&A questions.

0:03:26 Thomas: We can skip through a few of these here. Okay. What was your haircut like? How's your hair? How's you hair? How's your hair? Okay, skip through those first seven, and now we're gonna get to the July Q&A extravaganza, and I will We'll hopefully Remember to post the one for August at the beginning of August. I'll say it again, just in case anybody's not in with the program here. I'm posting these on Patreon at the beginning of the month. And then as the month progresses, you hear different episodes. We talk about different stuff. If you have a question, hop on there and ask it at the time. That way you don't have to wait and save all your knowledge, save all your, you know, stuff you're trying to remember to ask for the end. You could do it right away and then it'll sit there till the end of the month and then that's now. Now. And so we're going to do that for July. You ready to go?

0:03:28 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm hmm. Oh, boy.

0:04:11 Thomas: I think this is going to be funny. General Contact Unit Problem Child asks, how would you feel about picking representatives by sortition rather than election? I Think I've mentioned this before because I heard it on Ezra Klein. Sortition is the idea that we should pick representatives the same way we pick jurors. Every few years you pick just a few thousand people at random and then they would have to serve as representatives.

0:04:34 Thomas: SteelBot, the supposed advantages of this system are that it eliminates the problems that come with having career politicians who are motivated by a desire to stay in power. Suppose a career politician thinks a policy is a good idea. They still may not vote for it because they're worried it'll piss off either the voters, the rest of their party, or the financial backers, et cetera, et cetera. By contrast, a random member of the public who has no interest in remaining in power or ability to, um, can just vote their conscience. Sometimes in past Q and A's, this, this is the funny part. Sometimes the best Q and A's I've asked you about ideas from the far left I really like, and then gotten irritated when you reject them. So I thought it'd be fun to present you with an idea from the far West I actually think is kind of dumb, which is funny because I like this idea.

0:05:26 Lindsey: I don't know. I mean, that seems like there's pros and cons. Like I Like, I like that they're trying to solve the career politician problem. And I also think another thing that this would solve is like, you know, we talked about the dark triad for the last couple of episodes and I think that, you know, there are certain domains in which people that are high on those traits are really overrepresented, and I think that's, yeah, people who go through the ranks in politics is probably one of those domains. I don't know if there's data on that. And so you would solve that problem too, but but, like, you would lose in this system, like that. So presumably people who go into politics do develop expertise on policy, and I think that that's, it's valuable to have people that have expertise in that Well

0:05:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:06:10 Thomas: Big, big, presumably there. Big presume, maybe in the past. No, I agree. So here's the other crucial ingredient though. And why I liked this when I heard someone talking about it is it's not as though they do everything without like you have, you would also part as part of it, you Would have to have experts presenting, you know, opinions and stuff to them. Like it would be, it would almost, I think you could almost run, there's different ways people talk about it.

0:06:13 Lindsey: Yeah No that's fine but So actually be like a jury trial

0:06:35 Thomas: Yeah. I was just going to say, yeah, you, you almost run it like a jury trial where it's like, okay, you're the representatives. You're going to decide the course of action. Here's the experts are going to be presented and you'd reach your conclusions. I think that they're, like you said, I mean, everything's a trade-off. I'm not so naive as to think anything would be a perfect fix, but I think our system is broken enough now that I would definitely go for this over what we have now. And I think there'd be huge benefits. For example, the fact that there are so many consensus issues that we just cannot get movement on. And this system would be assuming you're doing all the random selection and stuff properly. It'd be like, what's that? We want, um, gun control legislation. Sure. Yeah. We already have a consensus for that. It's already, we already have it like for a lot of that stuff, background checks, consensus, all this stuff, do something about climate change might even be one of them, you know, um tax the rich more there's like healthcare.

There's a bunch of stuff that we actually have consensus on that politicians just don't can't do for various reasons. And this would solve a lot of that. So I think, again, there's a lot of problems with this. I'm sure there's a lot of things you have to iron out, but I actually think it would be better than what we currently have.

0:06:36 Lindsey: Huh That's good point. So So I, I don't, I don't know much about this at all. Um, what are, what are the the problems that have been put forward, like what are the downsides

0:07:55 Thomas: Well, I think you already were putting some, for one, I think, I think it would give you a feeling of, and I'm not an expert on this. Again, I heard one podcast on it, but just thinking through it, I think it might give citizens a feeling of like they don't have much recourse, you know, like if you're not, you know, barring being chosen as a representative, you don't really have someone you could lobby in the same way.

Like, lobbying is good and bad, I mean, obviously, well, mostly we hear about the bad lobbying, but like, also you'd want to be able to like call your representative and da da da, and I guess you could still do that, but if they're not somebody who's in there permanently or has any expectation to be there permanently, it might feel like, you know, okay, well, what's, I'm just barking up the wrong tree, like, what am I, what am I say, I do this or else I will not vote for you, and the thing that doesn't have votes.

So, you know, that's, I think that's kind of an issue. I also think, obviously, I'd be worried. The trial thing is interesting, but just as I was saying that, I was realizing that could also have very dire consequences. You

0:07:57 Lindsey: Hmm Yeah yeah

0:08:56 Thomas: Know, if you get to be like that, well, let's do the climate change one. Here's the pro and here's the con, you know?

0:08:56 Lindsey: Exactly Exactly. Yeah. So if they were going to do it in a system that really does look like a jury trial, like it really, it would have to look very different from the sort of antagonistic system in the criminal justice system. But

0:09:08 Thomas: Yeah. Or you'd have to have some way of accounting for consensus, if that's the right word. Like it wouldn't be like, well, the minute there's a question, you get to drum up the pro and against experts. It should be like. OK, here's a question, some sort of proportionality in terms of, you know, maybe you get a lot of, you know. Some sort of proportionality to scientific consensus or something, some way way of balancing, you know, if you have one wacko who says, you know, the, the earth is hollow, they don't get to be, you know, just because that's a question that you can have both sides of doesn't mean you get to have

0:09:11 Lindsey: Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's

0:09:47 Thomas: Both sides in a trial kind of thing. So I don't know. I'm, I'm sure people have thought of that. I know there's a, there's someone wrote a book about a lot of this stuff and I think there are definitely virtues to it. And, um, you now, I, I don't know, it's, it' also something you could do more specifically. Like it doesn't have to be like, okay, this is now our chamber, like our house and our Senate necessarily. It could be like we need to solve X problem and we have to pick a policy. Let's have, and they've done these experiments.

0:10:18 Lindsey: What I was going to ask is whether yeah, where has this been tried?

0:10:21 Thomas: My, so my recollection is that this has been done in different jurisdictions, different, you know, whatever municipalities. And then almost always they just don't go with it. Like they're like, they'll do it. They'll meet for, you know? Weeks or months, they're going to do it months. And it's like, wow, this seems like it really worked great. And then the actual elected officials will be like, never mind, we're not doing that. That's, that's my recollection yeah.

0:10:21 Lindsey: Yeah, because it's not in their interest, right?

0:10:45 Thomas: Um, so, but I think if you actually did it, I think for especially for certain issues where you're like, we're just gonna do a random selection of people here, just you do this policy, whatever this question is, you folks deliberate with the experts, you know, giving testimony here, and then you make a plan. Yeah.

0:11:05 Lindsey: That's interesting. I'd like to read more about this. I wonder why Problem Child doesn't like this. Yes, maybe, maybe we'll hear about it. Yeah.

0:11:08 Thomas: Yeah. That's interesting. I also think there are plenty of far left things I like. I don't know, I'm trying to think what the other examples are, but I don't, maybe, maybe I'm misremembering. I mean, I am pretty far left by all, by all American measures. I know everybody will always say, in, in Europe it's actually, everything's free and they're all a socialist utopia, and so everything here is to, to the right of that, which I think is not as not as true as people say, uh, sure. Do you still, still have far right racist groups over in Europe, but, um, yeah, there are just a few major issues on, on, which people in, you know, in Europe tend to be more like, it's, I don't think it's as widespread.

Like there's, there's some big issues, healthcare and social safety net, which are obviously huge issues. But like, I think people have an idea in their mind that that means everybody is like a hundred steps left in Europe. And it's like, no, not really. I mean, talk about different issues. Often there can be ways that the U.S. might be more progressive in some things. But anyway. OK, another question from General Contact, you know, Problem Child. Last month, I was worried Manchin refusing to break the filibuster for voting rights might be the start of a domino effect that leads to a fascist takeover in the U.S. Well, I'm going to pick that apart. We've already, we're already in that domino thing.

0:11:33 Lindsey: That's true. Yeah. I don't know, uh, well. Okay, sorry, I thought you meant the other way. Okay, yes, yes, that's fair. Yeah.

0:12:34 Thomas: Manchin is more like he could stop a domino. You know when the domino thing that's the tiny dominoes it leads to the huge ones? That thing? We're almost to the biggest. We're three quarters of the way through that. And Manchin could maybe hold up one of the dominos. And that's what it is for me. Anyway. Suppose that is in fact destined to happen. Suppose you could take Manchin forward in time like 10 years and show him that the GOP were able to permanently take over the U.S. because he refused to break the filibuster. Do you think even that would be enough to change his mind? I keep wondering if Manchin is just incredibly naive or actually craven and cynical.

Like, is he doing this because his head is stuck in 1975 when bipartisanship was actually possible, or is the case that even if you could show him the country is fucked because of what he's doing, would he just say, well, I'm really old and conservative Democrats so Republican dictators will probably just leave me alone? Yeah, I think this is the question we're kind of all asking ourselves. You know, what do you think, you can start us off on this one. Yeah.

0:12:55 Lindsey: I I don't know if I, if I have any interesting mind reading to do here. I mean, yeah, I don't know, I don't know, you take this one. Yeah.

0:13:43 Thomas: Well, for one, Cinema is farm is also like, seems like more of a problem at this point, based on the last thing I've seen. Um, she's outrageous and I, we need a primary here in 2024, I think it is. Don't forget this, everybody, vote her out, this is unforgivable, unless she decides to change her mind or whatever. But like, oh, and also maybe we won't even need to, cause she'll think she can run for president or do some, who knows? I don't know. It's just, it's terrible. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I genuinely used to think that this was mostly posturing. And I, I think I was being optimistic that when it came to something like voting rights, he would eventually just be like, all right, let's do something. But, uh, I just don't, I don't know. I genuinely don't know anymore. I think he doesn't see, I've heard a couple interviews and it just seems like he's dedicated to these inaccurate beliefs about the filibuster.

0:13:49 Lindsey: I agree with that. That's

0:14:35 Thomas: Like it's some sacred historical institution that's used for good. And people are like, no, but it's not that. It's just a racism tool. That's all it's ever been. And he's like, nah, I hadn't heard that. You know, it's like okay. I don't.

0:14:40 Lindsey: Such a weird that sounds like critical race theory to me, me.

0:14:53 Thomas: Yeah, pretty much. So I I, yeah, I, I don't, if anyone has a mind read on Joe Manchin, let me know. I just, I just know. I've, I've tried a few different, you know, theories of mind out for that. And it just, I'm not sure. I also think that there is some, you know, somebody was messaging me somewhere, I can't remember where now, that they're like, yeah, I think Joe Biden secretly wants the filibuster and, you know, there's something to that. I just think that, I think that Joe Biden would be okay. I think almost all of them would be okay with doing the like, change in name only, or not changing, name only, keep the filibuster name only, but change, you know, make it more like the standing talking field. I think they've, I

0:15:08 Lindsey: Too yeah.

0:15:39 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:15:39 Thomas: Think Biden said that I think mansions may be leaning toward that now. I just don't know there. I'm not sure what the holdup is, you Know, I've, I I've lost track of it. So I'm not, maybe. Yeah. We'll see. Stay tuned. But yeah, I think it seems like we're pretty much just fucked. I don't know. It seems like it's not going to happen in time. There's a deadline in August or something for when the gerrymandering can already be pretty much irreversible for this next election or whatever. So yeah.

0:15:47 Lindsey: Yeah. Oh, God. God.

0:16:08 Thomas: So we just have to already have done it, everybody. So good luck. Yay. We're just going to let Republicans control things for the next hundred years because cause we don't want to actually do anything. That's amazing.

0:16:19 Lindsey: Awesome. Yeah.

0:16:19 Thomas: But again, it's, I think it helped. Yeah. I guess what, what I want to just try to get people to keep in mind for me to keep in mind too, is that like, we look, this is all because we did a blurring of things in our mind. We all said, well, we won, you know, we got 50, we Won. And it's like, that's not the same thing. You know, like it's it's getting 50 senators meant we won on certain things.

It meant we got the ability to control business in the Senate, at least, and, you know, appoint judges and do do we got the ability To do things that only require 50. Basically, that's I Mean, it's I know it's redundant, but like, that is the way to think of it. Doing things like passing some of this legislation actually requires 60, and we didn't get to 50 when it comes to people who want to nuke the rules and change it to only requiring 50, you know, so like, I guess it's my way of saying don't throw the entire Democratic Party out for something that, you know, we fell a few, a few, uh, seats short of doing. You

0:17:00 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. Right.

0:17:28 Thomas: Know, and there's, but again, I still hope we could, I hope we're doing everything we can. Like, I have gotten to the point where I do agree with people who are like, can we start, you know, more publicly yelling at these people? Cause it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Unless, for a while, I was willing to trust Biden and the, excuse me, and the leadership to, to just, you know, hopefully they're managing this. I trust that. I know that they want to, here's the thing, no matter how corrupt you might think Democrats are, hypothetically, it's inarguable that even for their own corrupt purposes, staying in office is valuable, and you have to pass this voting rights legislation to stay in office. So that's why I can't get on board with all these conspiracy theories about how they secretly don't want to do any of that, because that doesn't even serve them if they're the nefarious, corrupt people that you think they are.

0:18:19 Thomas: So I that's what I still think. Maybe they I'm I'm entirely able to entertain the possibility that they're just wrong and going about it badly. Like, but I do genuinely think they want to get this passed. And I just think that it could be that Manchin is unmovable because you can't put pressure on a red state Democrat that doesn't, you know, like it doesn't do anything. Like you, if you could yell at him all you want and he'll be like, cool, you just upped my chances of being reelected. So how, how is that going to help?

I don't, I don't know, and that's, and that's where I've been is like, I think that's what they're doing, but now it's gotten to the point where it's, we're so down to the wire that I'm like, all right, we need to kick it into another gear here. Like we, that only worked for so long that, that logic only held for so much for I think. And now it is like we are out of time. So now do fucking everything. Do anything. Try it. Just try something. Try public pressure. You know, anyway. All right. We will move on to the next question. Throw James Lindsay's papers into the trash crash boat outside in the, oh, that's a shush reference.

0:18:41 Lindsey: Yeah yeah.

0:18:52 Lindsey: I don't know either. I

0:19:28 Thomas: Keeping my monthly theme.

0:19:29 Lindsey: Think this is Roger, right?

0:19:30 Thomas: Oh, is it Roger? Oh, I could, I wasn't, oh so Roger Changed. Yeah, that makes sense. There wouldn't be another person who would be able to make that level of shush references. You're right. Keeping my monthly team of asking questions related to the picture Thomas posts, which movie president would you want to be real president and how good are they at kicking alien butt like the the Independence Day movie president, uh, got any movie presence for us, yeah

0:19:31 Lindsey: I think so. What a wonderful question. Yeah man, it was really hard to come up with one. I apparently don't watch a lot of movies that have presidents in them. So I haven't seen Sharknado 3 but I did see this clip and so this is spoilers if you haven't seeing Sharknando 3 yet and you intend to, which I'm sure is everyone, um but anyway, so in this clip, uh, President Marcus Robbins, played by Mark Cuban, is fighting a, you know, a tornado of sharks, it's not surprising, um, that has invaded the White House and he does so almost single-handedly and he doesn't much better job than we saw with like the Capital riot on the sixth, so, um, yeah, no, I thought that was pretty impressive, like zero sharks stole any laptops or anything like that it was, well

0:20:06 Thomas: Oh Wow Only Problem is I don't want another billionaire, you know, I don't a billionaire anywhere near my presidency, I I think President Camacho could be good, uh I mean we already kind of had that but like evil President Camacho, yeah also What about Kevin Klein and that one where he's like, isn't there one where is he looks exactly like the president but then the president dies and so he becomes the president? Oh yeah

0:20:50 Lindsey: Yeah that's a good call yeah damn Mm-hmm Man, that should have been mine, yeah that's good, I haven't seen that, it's like a Prince of the Pauper type thing, yeah it's

0:21:10 Thomas: Kind of, I think he, I had to watch it in high school or it was on in class and I didn't really pay attention or something. I think his name is, what's that one called? It might be called just the dude's name. Hold on, Kevin Kline president movie, oh my god, I typed that so badly, I didn't even accept it, president movie, Dave, yeah, Dave, it's called Dave, told you it was just a dude's name, yeah, you know, wouldn't you know it, he's the president, oh, Sigourney Weaver's the, the other, the, what, I guess she's the first lady in that, oh man, Ivan Reitman, I gotta watch this movie, maybe it's actually good, did, yeah but Anyway, he, you know, it's the typical, like, well, since he has, he's the every man with good intentions, he's able to get, get shit done, I think, so, you know, yeah truth is who cares who's president if we don't have 60 senators or 50 willing to get rid of the filibuster, in terms that doesn't, nothing matters, I don't know, anyway, all right, uh, let's see, general Contact Unit Problem Child.

Who else asks if this Democratic administration is going to be prevented from getting anything done? Is it maybe better in the long run if one of the progressive candidates didn't win the 2020 primary and become president? Like suppose the Biden admin gets nothing done and loses in 2024. Well, I wouldn't say they've gotten nothing done. OK, well, hold on. Let me finish this question. I'm going to yell for a minute.

In 2028 Dem primary, you're going to have have to try to get the party to support a progressive nominee. Now, imagine if it had been four ineffective years of Warren, rather Biden. Every time you try to drum up support for AOC or whoever, people would just be able to say, well, we voted in a progressive last time and nothing changed. Why would AOC be any different?

0:21:48 Lindsey: It's a fun present or a premise that's that's timeless, mm-hm so circling back to our first question, then that's cool, yeah

0:23:03 Thomas: At least in this timeline, we won't have to deal with that. Yeah, no, I agree. But let me just, can I just say, I believe they're close to passing a $3.2 trillion infrastructure package? What's the deal on that? Have we gotten the latest infrastructure? Let me Google it, the latest numbers on that. If this passes, which it seems like it's going to pass, I believe this would represent, or maybe 3.1 was the total of the two, one way or the other, something like $3 or $4 trillion of government spending on programs are actually really good in the in the first year of the Biden administration.

0:23:22 Lindsey: Yeah

0:23:45 Thomas: I mean, if you had said, you know, somebody said this on another thing I was listening to, like you wouldn't have believed that Biden would do that. You might not have even believed that Bernie was going to be able to do that like two years ago. Like, do you think he's going to able to spend four, three or four trillion dollars in the first year? What? No, no one can spend three or fourth. Like this idea that Biden's doing nothing is just not, I mean, again, so it's, yeah, 3.5 trillion. I don't know something, something like that. It's trillions and trillions of dollars. Part of that is obviously COVID. So like, you know, we were willing to spend a little bit on that recovery, but all, but not so much. I mean this is the infrastructure with the thing that's going to, we already did the thing that's gonna cut child poverty in half.

Like there's a lot of stuff happening and you know far lefties, if you're still listening, give credit to Bernie for that. Like Bernie is in charge of, and has, has helped to move the Overton window on all this. So I think it's kind of minimizing him to say like, ah, Biden's done nothing. It's like, I don't know, a shitload of things are happening. A lot of money being spent on really valuable stuff.

0:24:04 Lindsey: Yeah

0:24:49 Thomas: I just think we have this all or nothing view that like, if, if certain things didn't happen, then nothing happened. And like, I get it because to some degree, if we don't pass voting rights legislation, then like we are fucked. Yeah, no, I get it. But like it's still pretty harsh to be like nothing happened. Imagine, you know, if we're in the same position and yet we had gotten none of the three point five trillion or whatever spending, like that would be a shit ton worse. At least we get, you know, people are getting help. People are getting money. People are getting, you know, that we're getting some some roads and bridges built, like there's going to be stuff that happens that really helps people's lives, at least. So I, I dispute that premise.

0:25:02 Lindsey: Nothing else matters Yeah Yeah we just need to, we need to throw more parties about it, apparently, apparently, uh

0:25:34 Thomas: Yeah, we do. I think they did. I got a, although this might backfire. Did you get a letter from the IRS from Biden about this? Oh no, you don't. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure if it's because we have kids. Uh, I dunno who, you know, like how that works, but we got a letter from the IRS and of course I was like, Oh great. We're fine. It's over. They've caught me in my my illegal podcasting business. You know, my mind goes to, ah, they've discovered podcasting isn't a job and they have to take all my money or something. I don't know. It'll be something like that. I opened the IRS notice and it's like, hi, Joe Biden here. I'm giving you money for having kids. Did you get those?

0:25:42 Lindsey: I don't yeah I Got a different letter, it was just about the the stimulus checks like it was like a month or two ago but it was similar, maybe they're tailored or something

0:26:17 Thomas: Oh, okay. Maybe. Yeah. No, this one was about the kids, the child payment thing. And so I think he is trying to do, and honestly, this is smart. Maybe not signing the checks, but sending out a notice that's like, I'm giving you these checks. Because in this day and age, you have to do that. We have to just brag about everything he does. And that was something.

0:26:35 Lindsey: Yeah yeah Absolutely Let's let's take that page out of out of Trump's playbook

0:26:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. But I actually have gotten to the point also on this question where I do not think anyone but Biden would have beaten Trump in 2020. Have we talked about this on here? I can't remember, but I genuinely don't think anyone else would have beaten him

0:26:45 Lindsey: For sure Yeah, I mean, actually that was, uh, that was part of my thinking when I read this question, I was willing to to sort of accept the the premise that like maybe this administration doesn't do as much as people wanted them to or whatever, but like in a world where Warren had won, I mean, that's a very different world, I would, I would expect that we would have picked up more seats in the Senate in that world, right So I don't know, but I guess that's beside the point, but, uh, I don't know, yeah

0:27:23 Thomas: Yeah I just, man, I just don't, I mean, maybe, no, I don't know, I I wish we could rerun the simulation and tell us what what Bernie might have done, but I I've gotten to the point and I don't, I don't want to believe this, like I want to believe that Warren would have won and would have one handily because of her, you know, dedication to policy and they're actually having good. Yeah. But I just don't know. I mean, it was so close as it is. It was literally close enough that without COVID, I definitely think Trump would have won in 2020.

0:28:04 Thomas: I'm with as close as it was. Forty thousand votes in three states. Do you really think that a COVID killing a lot of Republicans and be just COVID as being something that was so disastrous for Trump that people were like, OK, we can't have this guy? Do you think that wouldn't have made the difference of 40,000 votes in three states. I just don't, I don't know. I think he would have won.

0:27:50 Lindsey: Yeah Yeah, yeah I think you're probably right

0:28:27 Thomas: Anyway, that's the, we live in the worst timeline. All right. So anyway, this is, I guess I'll agree with the problem child here that, yeah, it might be like in, with the premise that nothing's getting done, which I don'T think is right, but if nothing were to get done, it might BE better to have a, you know, non-progressive get nothing done. And then you get to say that a progressive could always get more done and maybe that'll be better for the future, actually. I agree with that. But I don't think we should erase the accomplishments, many of which come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party going really hard, you know, in the paint, as they say, for these policies. So, oh

0:28:28 Lindsey: Yeah yeah And the implication of this of this this little thought experiment we're running, this is not that we shouldn't always vote for the most progressive candidates that we can, right? Like, we should still do that. Like, I wouldn't want to, yeah.

0:29:14 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a tough problem. So moving on, I'm sympathetic to this patron name says when someone tells me they don't want to get vaccinated, I have no problem telling them how dumb that is. However, I've now had multiple people say they're not sure about vaccinating their young kids as someone without Without kids, it feels different to argue with someone about vaccinating their kids versus themselves. Does this distinction make sense? Any advice for pushing to parents to vaccinate their kids when the time comes? What do you think? I

0:29:53 Lindsey: Mean, you know, when it comes down to the logic of the argument, I think it's the same in both cases, right.

0:29:57 Thomas: Agree.

0:29:58 Lindsey: It's matter of when that trial data comes out, whether, you now, it looks like the risks are outweighed by the benefits, and I have every expectation that they will be. But I do think think understand like the intuition that it feels different to have an argument about making that decision for yourself versus your child because I think that we are like I'm perfectly happy to take uh you know the risk of the very very small risk of getting the vaccine on myself right you know that's fine but like I think that people have much lower risk tolerance when it comes to their kids and so I understand why there's a lot more tension in that decision but um you know obviously you could flip that around and point out that you're you're also assuming a pretty big risk of having your kids unvaccinated so I don't know maybe that's rhetorically useful yeah

0:30:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:43 Thomas: I totally agree. I think that this is illusory. You know, like it's it feels like it'S a different thing, but it'S actually the same thing. Like if it's, you know, this is all stuff that is accounted for in this process of making vaccines and of approving vaccines and recommending them. This is all accounted for. They wouldn't if it were more risk or something or, you Know, if there was more risk of dying from a vaccine than from not being vaccinated, they would never in a million years recommend that everybody get vaccinated. And so, like you said, I think you said exactly what I was thinking, too, which is if you word it as like taking on a risk to get the vaccine, that might make people think it's different. Like, oh, okay. I can't make my kid take a risk, but you're not, you're lowering your risk.

0:30:48 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

0:31:31 Thomas: So then flip that around. Like while I'm willing to lower my risk, but I'm not willing to my kid's risk. You know, that sounds stupid. Like you're actually lowering the risk of something happening by vaccinating them. And so that's why it's the same. I also think that, you know, in either case, telling them how dumb it is, isn't going to work as much as I I just probably, you know, did a comedy shoeshine episode of yelling about how dumb these people are. It's, I, it's really frustrating and I've pretty much lost patience with all of it because it's just so infuriating how obvious it is, especially now that you look at the charts and it's like, you knows, 99% or whatever it is of all the cases are in unvaccinated people. It's like okay, can you all figure it out now? Can you realize you're not smarter than the scientists or anybody and just do it? But

0:31:37 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. But have you have you heard some of the stats being distorted on uh you know the the rates among vaccinated people are climbing in certain areas like the UK and people are spinning that to mean like, oh see, the vaccines aren't as effective as we thought they were when really it's just a function of like the population issue, like that's frustrating.

0:32:31 Thomas: Yeah, and I'm seeing people being pretty scared about all these breakthrough things. And it does seem like there's some evidence that, you know, Delta is definitely breaking through more. Yeah, but I still that doesn't.

0:32:36 Lindsey: Oh. Yeah, but it's Yeah.

0:32:47 Thomas: Yeah, it's still better to be vaccinated.

0:32:47 Lindsey: Your risk is still higher if you're not vaccinated.

0:32:49 Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. So, yep, I think I think that covers that one. All right. Canadian Humanist asks, I've often enjoyed this show for clarifying or looking at political issues with another perspective, and I've really enjoyed it when you do that with scientific issues as well. Any interest in tackling other issues that rarely get good coverage in the media, such as, oh, okay, this is a to-do list. Lindsay, you ready for this?

0:32:50 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um.

0:33:14 Thomas: The non-lethal consequences of COVID infection, including in asymptomatics in children. Yeah, I don't know. Do we know a lot about that yet? Do you know?

0:33:23 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, no, I think I think that we don't know very much about that yet, but I've been trying to do some reading about the long COVID thing, which seems a little weird. I'm not sure what to make of that. And then that that multi-system inflammatory thing that's usually not fatal, I don't think, but it seems, uh, yeah, there's interesting stuff there.

0:33:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if we're just not there yet. Like, do we need more more time for this to kind of, yeah.

0:33:49 Lindsey: It seems that way. Yeah. Oh.

0:33:51 Thomas: So it'd be hard. I'm not sure if we, if there's a topic, look, you're the scientist, Lindsay. If there are topics here that make sense to you to cover, then maybe we cover them. We'll see. The, yeah, the consequences of climate change that go beyond just hotter temperatures and worse weather events. Okay. Well, I've got fire. Does fire do anything for you? I'm on fire all the time here in California. Does drought do anything for you?"

0:34:01 Lindsey: I think most of these we'd need somebody on. Yeah.

0:34:12 Lindsey: Yep. Is that not included? Is that non-included in the

0:34:17 Thomas: Yeah. We're on, well, I I don't know what what everything is in climate change is coming from hotter temperatures in some ways, right? I mean, the baseline thing is hotter temperature and then that causes a bunch of stuff. I am on fire while not having any water over here in California, so that's that's another one, whether or not nuclear energy is necessary for achieving necessary climate change mitigation goals. Yeah, that's, I think I've done something on nuclear, nuclear before. Um, I believe in nuclear and I think it, I don't, necessary is tricky. I mean, I guess you could argue that like, well, no, if we all just had, you know, X number of solar panels and wind thingies, turbines, then like we wouldn't, it wouldn't be necessary, but I don't know. Like, I think that it's nuclear is clean energy and it's like the, it's an amazing clean energy and the problems can be solved. Like there's, you know, there's problems with storing the waste and stuff, but it's not, I, a, I think it's overblown and, b, I think it, it's it's a lot of nimbyism, you know, and

0:34:18 Lindsey: Hotter temperature yeah, that's not a good combo did

0:35:23 Thomas: Like I get that, but if we, you know, can crack that issue of where do we put the gloves someone wore when they were handling something that might have had a little bit of, you know, a little bit of radiation on it

0:35:35 Lindsey: We solve that, are we just gonna shoot all that into space, case? Yeah.

0:35:37 Thomas: Oh we should, along with Jeff Bezos. Yeah, put them all in the same same container or fire them into space. Yeah. I mean, John Oliver had a good thing on it where it was like, is that right? Yeah. John, uh, where it was like, we're trying to store them in a, the thing is we always do things in the worst way. Like we're like, here, here's this mountain we can store them in. And then of course it's like, I can't remember, but it was something like, well, yeah, that's native land though. And you're just fucking over some, you know? So it's like, you always do that kind of thing where you're like, well, don't do that. Can we throw it in a volcano or something, though? I don't know. There's gotta be something.

Thing, it's not, the thing is, it's actually one thing that I know from talking to experts on this is the the waste material is, there's not that much of it, like we make it out, like it's this massive thing, but it's, it's, there's really, there's, and there's different levels of itlike there's like literally, the you know, the rods and the whatever's, that's like one level thing, and then the stuff that's the most bulky is like I said, it's like literally, someone, you knowthe equipment someone was wearing, the suit someone was wearing when they went in a thing, like you have to, that's all treated as like nuclear waste, quote unquote, and and

0:35:43 Lindsey: Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

0:36:46 Thomas: It's not as though there's a, you know, a green glowing slime from, a la, the Simpsons, that we have to store acres and acres of, that it's like, it's, it's, you know, it's what I just said, it's that kind of stuff, and you do have to store it though, you do, you, something with it, uh, and we just gotta figure out what that is.

I'm also told, I think the newer generation of, um, nuclear, uh, facilities, like they, had they helped solve that problem somewhat, and they, you know, less waste, and there's like, there's bunch of stuff we could be doing, and I think nuclear is good based on all my reading and listening and all that research that I can't distill down right now, but that's my opinion of it, and I wish we could do it, but I don't know if we will ever have like the requisite public support to build these like 2.0, or whatever, 0.0 we're on, on these nuclear reactors. Oh, wait, that was that was just a topic yeah that will probably get worse once we've, that's it, that's one where the inverse is true, I bet. Popular support for that is probably worse than, like, if you had actual, you know, stakeholders or experts. I'm not sure.

0:37:41 Lindsey: Well maybe if we switch to that sortition thing. Yeah, well, no, but, if you know, if we had our whole jury thing set up and and people could listen to all the stuff that you've listened to and read about, then I don't know, maybe, maybe you could convince people.

0:38:05 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe. Let's see. Use of genetic engineering.

0:38:11 Thomas: Got any opinions on that or thoughts on topics or guests?

0:38:17 Lindsey: No.

0:38:17 Thomas: No.

0:38:17 Lindsey: Uh, yeah, put me on the spot. There, I mean, I'd be interested in covering it, I don't think I can speak off the cuff about it.

0:38:19 Thomas: Data privacy. Yeah, yeah. And I've you know, I've heard a lot of those CRISPR podcast episodes and I don't have anything to add. You know, like I've heard like five of them and I'm always like, OK, somehow this is both the most amazing thing and and nothing's happening right now. I don't have anything to add to that. Data privacy on the internet. Yeah, it's not anything I know about, but it could be interesting. Self-replicating technologies or any other potentially existential threats. Highly relevant issues that don't get much time a day. Yeah. I mean, for us here, for one, I really love getting Lindsay's breakdown on something that's misreported scientifically.

That's like my favorite niche right now, know, especially by these bad actors that are trying to utilize this stuff to like, you know, advance a political agenda that we, that I see as harmful. Um, and also, you know, let's see what else, like, there's just a lot of, there'S a lot of science in the media that I think can use some clarification. We also, you know we, we've got some potential interviews, we'VE got some, you know, and we're always on the lookout for that. So we'll see. I don't know. We will probably tackle other things kind of like this, but I don't know.

0:38:27 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, that's been fun.

0:39:42 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, especially there's like some topics, you know, related to climate change that would be interesting that I haven't heard people talking about a lot, like, so yeah, I don't know, I'd be, I'd be interested in a number of these, but but yes, we would need guests for them, this is not stuff that I can talk about. Oh,

0:39:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, agreed. Me as well. It's another from who we think is Roger. Throw James Lindsay's papers in the trash, but it's in the garage. Regarding SIO 303, my nomination for the SIO version of OA's trademark, mark, uh, not patented Thomas, sorry, put a pin in it for Lindsay is detach a spider dick in it or put a TV grave marker, uh edit on Facebook, Twitter. Someone suggested stick a palp in it. So merge the two, maybe break a palpin it. No, I think, I Think stick, put up help in that is perfect. It it's pretty much put a pen in it, but you know, like it's served, put it up in it is is great. That's our official, uh, that's our official pins for this one. So, yeah. All

0:40:40 Lindsey: That's awesome okay yeah all right I was gonna suggest a poll between all all these options but uh I do like put a palp in it, it's got the alliteration and

0:40:42 Thomas: Right. Nah. Yeah. I think you already nailed it. Yeah, I think. Yeah, Lady Kiva Lagos is my spirit guide asks, is there a topic on the whiteboard for the show that you're eager to discuss but haven't found a good reason or keeps getting bumped due to news stories? That's more of an OA thing. I'm trying to think, is there something we haven't gotten to?

0:40:48 Lindsey: Yeah yeah I was gonna say isn't the whiteboard another trademarked OA thing, like, what's at the same note, it's like, yeah, this is Google Keep, that's that's all I've got, I

0:41:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah which I'm always like, it's the Google doc. There's no whiteboard. It's the Google spreadsheet. Yeah.

0:41:18 Thomas: Let's see. I'm trying to think. Is there something we've kept wanting to talk about that we haven't gotten to? I feel like there is.

0:41:23 Lindsey: Mean there's... there's a ton of topics we've talked about that that's uh, but yeah, I don't know if if like, it's it's getting displaced week after week, but like we've talked about doing an episode on persuasion that I think would be interesting, interesting, like the different, the research on persuasion.

0:41:29 Thomas: Yeah, like we're going to have Scott Adams on and he's going to talk to how Trump is a master persuader. All that kind of thing.

0:41:44 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to get in touch with his people. So working on that. And then like, yeah, that's

0:41:45 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah. I think he's too... The problem is he's to busy being hunted in the street. Wasn't that him him that had the like, if Biden wins, mark your calendar, we'll be hunted in the street. And then everybody's like retweeting that item. Hey, this is the day you said we were going to be hunted in the streets. I got

0:42:06 Lindsey: Awesome. Yeah. So that'd be a fun one to do, but it's, yeah. There's so many topical things that come up that are fun to talk about. But it is a bunch of stuff. I don't know. We've talked about, oh,

0:42:18 Thomas: To be better at writing these down in a place that I'm going to be able to check and look back. That's on me.

0:42:23 Lindsey: I've got it. I've I've got a literal Google Keep thing with them so yeah so I've got a bunch, social influence, evolutionary stuff on status driving culture of honor, language acquisition, quail porn, but we already did that on the Twitch stream, um, so yeah.

0:42:25 Thomas: Oh, thank God. Can you share that with me?

0:42:37 Lindsey: People should just go look at the Twitch screen

0:42:37 Thomas: That was just you typing in your interests and the wrong spreadsheet. Lindsay, you got it. That that was your personal list.

0:42:42 Lindsey: Oops yeah, you're right, yeah.

0:42:46 Thomas: All right. We're going to get through all these. Two more. Here we go. I don't know if that's good thing or a bad thing. I think people should ask more questions, but also it's cool that we've taken on all of these possibly. So here we go, Joel Kuhn asks, what do you think of the idea of a general strike like the one supposedly happening on October 15th? Personally, while I support labor, I don'T think it's realistic to think that enough people would take part in it to make it efficacious. I won't be taking part myself for this reason, but maybe I'm falling for the tragedy of the comments. Well, bad sign for this general strike is that I have not heard of this. Have you heard of it?

0:42:55 Lindsey: I had not until this question, yeah, yeah. So I think I yeah so, um, there's a website which we can and link, but um, yeah, they're just, you know, the the United States isn't serving their their country's interests. And, you know, there's a list of of demands that they talk about, you know, the minimum wage and like just a bunch of stuff that's, I agree with 100 percent, um, and they're encouraging people to to to engage in a general strike starting on October 15th, um, what they don't have on the website. And so, like, I agree 100 with everything that Joel's saying here, like just from start to finish. Um, because I think in principle, these are effective, but you do have to have to have some sort of coordination mechanism. And I, it seems like in order for it to be effective, you kind of need like a perfect storm of things to happen that are just not happening right now.

0:43:23 Thomas: So did you look it up? What is it?

0:44:12 Lindsey: Like if, if, if, if some other things had converged, like a couple of months into the pandemic, maybe something like this would have had a better chance of, of, uh, you getting enough momentum, enough numbers for it to work, but I don't know, I have my doubts, um, and yes, I think that this is sort of a tragedy of commons type thing.

0:44:30 Thomas: Yeah. And I think the more this whole general thing, I think is the weakness there. You know, like it gives you more like, okay, a general strike. So every company is gonna be like, do we have a problem or do like who, you know, that makes it more tragedy of the commons disease. Right. Or am I misunderstanding what this is? Is like, everybody strike, everybody strike count of three, I mean, yeah.

0:44:30 Lindsey: Right, yeah yeah I yeah, pretty much, like that's that's my understanding, yeah.

0:44:57 Thomas: I just don't, I think that's, I think I very much believe in labor strikes, but I think you got to be more targeted with it. I think it's like, okay, this company is a crap and let's all get all this specifically organized at this workplace and make targeted demands that will, you know, like that, that's all the kind of stuff that I think makes strikes work better. Whereas if it's just like, go ahead.

0:45:22 Lindsey: I well I think in in terms of being able to coordinate and having like a common set of goals, yeah, I think that that's absolutely true. But you could get something like that at the level of a country as long as, like, you've got, you know, sort of one problem that is that is affecting enough people in the country to to, you know, to get that coordinated effort, um.

0:45:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:42 Lindsey: So yeah, oh yeah but

0:45:43 Thomas: But that just is going to take a lot more moving parts. Whereas I think if it is like, well, we work at X company and we are being mistreated, it is going be way easier to get, you know, the critical mass of people at that specific place to join you with your specific complaints, for like, here is what will make us end And the strike. I think that like that's going to be much more effective than let's say that same company sees that there's a general strike October 15th. And like it's kind of, you know, sparsely attended strike, you know, and then they're like, well, do we need to do anything? Are we part of this? I don't know.

0:46:20 Lindsey: I think, but I think that like the the action that that this group, whoever it is, is is trying to force is not on the part of the of the companies per se, it's like they're trying to force action from the U.S. government, and so they're thinking like if enough of yeah um, I should have, I should should have pulled this up so I could look at it while we're talking, but I didn't, um, but I'll put the link. Like, they they they have a bunch of different things that they're they're calling for government action on, and so I think that that's that's the reason, yeah, and apparently these have happened in other countries before and it has, it has affected change at a, at a government level, um, which is interesting, but yeah, I don't, I don't a ton about this stuff but.

0:46:31 Thomas: Just like minimum wage stuff or.

0:46:45 Thomas: Oh, OK. OK. Yeah, I yeah, I don't know. I mean, I sure. Good luck. I support it. I don't have a job to strike from similarly. It's like the opposite for me. I be better off doing my job and talking about the strike that day. That would be like better for the strike, I think, than quitting my job or walking out of my house.

0:47:16 Lindsey: Yeah yeah yeah actually our fall break starts on October 15th, so I'm kind of screwed, um, um, that's that's

0:47:23 Thomas: Oh, I thought you were going to say like it's convenient. Like, yeah, I left work.

0:47:28 Lindsey: True, I could just take care of that, yeah.

0:47:30 Thomas: Everybody else should too. Isn't that her break? Yeah, that's way to really get, no, okay, I mean, sure, I, and I think, I think a lot of this, as you say, did happen during COVID, you know, like a lot of this pressure was, and and I think it has resulted in some change, some places, you know, being like, all the comics that are like, there's a labor shortage and it's like, no, it's just if you pay 15 bucks or more you probably get that labor, you know, and I I think that's becoming more popular, I hope, as a result of all this. Yeah.

0:47:31 Lindsey: Yeah oh yeah no I think that, yeah, I think that there there was a lot that happened in the pandemic that changed a lot of people's attitudes permanently, I know it has mine, um, so yeah, no, hopefully that that does, uh, have some staying power, I guess, I

0:48:17 Thomas: All right. Final question. Canadian humanists. I heard you say that you recently learned what neoliberal neoliberalism is, and that is just conservatism. Can you expand on what you mean by that? And if that means you would consider large portions of the Democratic Party to be conservatives? Well, what?

0:48:37 Lindsey: Think this is specifically directed at you, right, yeah.

0:48:37 Thomas: Yeah. Well, we you you know, is it you and I? It's, I don't know. There's a lot of history on this, but I guess I didn't know that the term neoliberal is used in so many different ways. I stopped understanding what people meant by it. You know, like I get, you know I can look it up in the dictionary, but people online throw it around a lot. And it got to the point where I didn'T, you know, I think that it's hard to know who people are talking about with that term. But then when I I realized when, I don't know, Lindsay or other people were talking about, they mainly mean the more dictionary definition, I think, which is like a 20th century free market oriented thing, which does tend to just be like the Republican Party on issues in this country. And so once I realized neoliberal meant the Republican party mostly, then it's like, oh, OK, well, then fine. Yeah, that's what that is. Go ahead.

0:49:36 Lindsey: Because I, I think it, wish I could remember exactly what we were talking about when this came up. I think it might have been in the last Q&A. But I didn't take your meaning to be that neoliberalism is a synonym for conservatism in general. It was just that, yes, what's being conserved by conservatives today in the United States are, in fact, largely neoliberal policies.

0:49:39 Thomas: Yeah. Uh

0:49:59 Lindsey: Does that sound right?

0:50:01 Thomas: Yeah, sure, I, I mean, I just think the, okay, well, what's, you were telling me you have a definition that you can give us here maybe to clarify things, yeah.

0:50:11 Lindsey: For neoliberalismo? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So as far as I understand the term, and if I'm getting something wrong about this, I am positive we will hear about it. But my understanding is that neoliberal economic policies, as you say, are ones that sort of support the free market kind of on crack almost. So like, you know, policies that I think a lot of people on the left, including myself, would argue are tailor made to increase the wealth of the ultra wealthy at the literal expense of everybody else, um, so, to, I mean, to increase, like, you know, income inequality essentially. And so that includes things like privatizing everything, even things that fairly moderate folks would argue should not be privatized, I think we can put health care in this category, as well as decreasing market regulation and using austerity measures like reducing spending on infrastructure and public welfare programs and and cutting taxes. So, you know, all the stuff that's great for Jeff Bezos and sucks for everybody else. So, like, I think it's pretty indisputable that fiscal conservatism in the U.S. right now does mean like, is neoliberal essentially, I think that's fair

0:50:12 Thomas: Yeah right I think the problem was that that wasn't my understanding of what people were using it for. I, I thought it was more referring to like any time you even, you know, ignore it, supported markets at all, you know, it was, was like, oh, well, Obamacare was neoliberal because, you know, it had the exchanges and using somewhat the free market to do whatever. And it's like, in one sense, I think, I guess that's true. Like if it involves the free marketplace, then it's neoliberal.

But at the, on the other hand, the part you talked about there for a minute, which is like, you know, keeping the rich richer and the, whatever, whatever Obamaca was not meant to do that. You know, like that wasn't what they were trying to do going into it, um, it was just due to a number of political, uh, you know, barriers, they ended up with a kind of mixed policy that, you know, I guess you could describe parts of it to be neoliberal, but I look at that as like different than, you know, austerity measures, keeping Jeff Bezos rich. Like, you know, I don't know, I guess that's where the tension was for me. Yeah.

0:52:18 Lindsey: Yeah, no, I, I get that, and I think that when people apply this stuff to to Obama, um, like, and again, maybe I'm wrong about this, maybe people mean something more extreme than this, but I think that they're talking about the fact that not enough has been done to dismantle structures that, like, as a side effect, do have, have, um, the effect of sort of maintaining income inequality and all kinds of things like that. So, like, yeah, I think that, you know, getting rid of private health insurance would actually be pretty transformative, and so you know, these sort of half measures, I think that there really are, you know, pretty significant problems with them, um, so I don't know, but

0:52:49 Thomas: Yeah No, I agree. Um, I think I guess I would say that it, I feel like neoliberalism should mean something more than just being a synonym for like capitalist or something, you know? Don't you think, or not? Well,

0:53:13 Lindsey: I don't, I don't think it is exactly a synonym for capitalism, yeah.

0:53:17 Thomas: There you go, I'm saying it shouldn't be, and I feel like some, like, if people are calling Elizabeth Warren neoliberal because she will say like she, she defends markets or whatever, it's like, all right, but yeah.

0:53:26 Lindsey: But Are They saying that about Her really

0:53:29 Thomas: I mean, this Is why I am unclear about what the fuck this term is supposed to mean, is people like to throw it around a lot in my experience. And again, I don't have a good metric of like how many people wear. I'm saying why I personally was confused by the label is because I've seen it thrown around a ton. And it's like OK, if you're calling Elizabeth Warren neoliberal because she says she still believes in the markets, but wants to dramatically regulate them, then that seems the opposite of neoliberal.

0:53:30 Lindsey: Okay Yeah Uh Regulate Them Yeah, which Is I Think That I Think That that is contradicted by Neoliberalism, I mean, maybe the point there is just that some people don't think she goes far enough and so if you're, if you're really anti-capitalist Um Then Maybe That's not Far Enough

0:54:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, well, that is the point. The point is, how can we insult her in the way that will make people on the left hate her as much as possible? That's obviously the point of it. She's a neoliberal, You know, like it's not, that doesn't, that blends together any distinctions, is to make it kind of meaningless. If she's neoliberal, but also Bill Clinton's the same am neoliberal, it's like, all right, we're Talking about different Things So Anyway, okay, it's basically, I, but do you think it's fair to say, so how much would you say then, uh, that the Democratic Party is neoliberal today? Do you think, is that accurate?

0:54:16 Lindsey: Yeah Yeah That's Not True, yeah I I Think that, yeah, I think that there are plenty of, I mean, because the Overton window is over so far, right? Like our entire system is neoliberal, right. And so like, yeah, I think that there're lots of Democrats who are interested in preserving neoliberal policies, you know, more than people that are really on the far left would like to see. And there are, there are a plenty of Democrats that I think, yeah, are probably too fiscally conservative for my liking. We definitely saw that in the debates. But I wouldn't call them conservatives, right? Like, I wouldn't use that as a noun in that case, even if they are, like, too fiscally conservative, in my opinion, because I think that calling them conservatives implies something much broader than just not being progressive enough on certain policies. But yeah, I think you can find plenty of examples of People in Democratic leadership that probably are not going far enough on these kinds of questions.

0:54:43 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Makes sense and Like that's another thing with these labels, it's obviously like you could have an issue where you're like, like, well, on this issue, maybe the market would be the best thing, but on 99 other issues, I'm against it. And then it's like, while you're neoliberal, because of that, it's stuff like that, where it's okay. Some of it might just be that urge to label people in an effort to make a point in different ways. I don't know.

0:55:44 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:56:09 Lindsey: It could be, or, you know, I mean, it's also possible that that we're missing something on some of these issues, you Know, like I'm definitely not, not a, an expert in economics and a lot of this stuff is really complicated, so I, I don't know, yeah

0:56:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And maybe there are times where the the neoliberal view is correct, everybody? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I'm leaving that possibility open.

0:56:33 Lindsey: I Don't, if I'd go that far

0:56:36 Thomas: Well, on Stuff like the trade deals, I actually, I kind of don't know. Like, I think there's good arguments on either side. I've gone back and forth like, you know, NAFTA and all that. Know, it's like, well, on one hand, it does like lift up a lot of people and it brings money into a lot places that wouldn't otherwise get it than if we did some like isolationist policy, but at the same time you can still make the argument that's like, yeah, well, we're benefiting from cheap labor because of that, it's Like okay, yeah, I get it, like I agree with both those points, but it is also true that like a bunch of people are better off when we have those deals versus when we don't, so I don't know, I'm, yeah, it's hard to say what the correct Answer is For This, yeah

0:56:36 Lindsey: Yeah, Exactly Yeah I Don't know There's A, there's a lot of moving parts that kind of, I think, all need to Get fixed at once in order for, for all of these issues to, yeah, I don't know, I Don't Know, yeah

0:57:29 Thomas: Well Anyway I Think we hopefully have answered that question, question from our point of view anyway, which, as you say, you know, is pretty limited. We're not experts on any of this. I'm certainly not, but that was what I, what I meant by it. And it was because of conversations with Lindsay where I was going with a different meaning and didn't totally get it. But yeah.

0:57:49 Thomas: All right, well, we got through all the questions. Hey, I tell you what, challenge patrons in August, give us more, make it so we can't get through them, that's so, that'll be our, that'll br game, you know, we'll see who wins, no, uh

0:57:48 Lindsey: Yeah, and We'll See how many questions we have to, we have to put a palp In for A later Q&A

0:58:01 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Exactly, and You want us to put more palps and more questions I know you do, all right, that was a lot of fun, thanks so much Lindsey, thanks listeners And Most of all, thank you, patrons, for the questions, for making the show happen, and please consider joining patreon.com/seriouspod, all right, we'll see you next time

0:58:10 Lindsey: Thank You Yes

0:58:36 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast.. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.