SIO308: August Patreon QnA!

Transcript

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

0:00:11 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only Q&A. Somehow this says it's the fifth one we've done on my computer, but computers are notorious liars, you know, just behind the scenes, they just mess with you and change things.

0:00:18 Lindsey: That's impossible. Yes. Mm-hmm.

0:00:26 Thomas: That's classic computers. They're anything but deterministic. So how's it going, Dr. Lindsey Osterman?

0:00:27 Lindsey: Yeah, fantastic. How's it going with you?

0:00:36 Thomas: Going well. This is, we got a lot of good questions for this one. Thanks.

0:00:40 Lindsey: Yeah, I'm excited.

0:00:41 Thomas: Thanks, patrons, for really giving us some good stuff to work with here. And we'll continue the trend. Of course, I'll post that next Q&A. I'm always thinking one Q&A ahead. September Q&A will be even better. I'm going to post that post in a few days here once September starts and then wake me up when September ends and we'll have another Q&A. All right, let's get to them. No hoedowns household.

0:00:55 Lindsey: Wow.

0:01:08 Thomas: I love that we get a good Comedy Shoe Shine reference into basically every series of queries on the Q and a now because of, uh, probably Roger, I believe, but yeah.

0:01:17 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. I'm almost certain this is Roger.

0:01:22 Thomas: No hoedowns in this house. What was the most majestic, beautiful and/or captivating statue or piece of art?

0:01:31 Thomas: If that's Roger, he's always got law in the brain. I think he, I think he means statue, but maybe statute, like it could be a statute as well that we saw.

0:01:38 Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, those are man-made structures too.

0:01:41 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Deep.

0:01:44 Lindsey: Thanks.

0:01:47 Thomas: Not music, film, or media that you've seen in person. If you're drawing a blank on that, any man-made structure works as well. I was just not, oh, sorry, just not naturally occurring structures because if we included that, it's going to be something in Yosemite.

0:02:01 Lindsey: Yeah he's right about that.

0:02:02 Thomas: He's right about that because I said that El Capitan is just the most majestic thing. I mean, there's Half Dome. Sure. I love Half Drome, but El Capitan, something about it. I could just look at it. Like I've, we just, I've just been down in the meadow there in Yosemite and I've just looked at that frigging giant hunk of rock. What is it? Okay. Is there a psychological name? We'll get to, we'll get To the actual question. Is their psychological name or something that you might know for how, um, like perspective changes? You know what I mean?

Like the rock looks like a piece of rock and your brain is like, well, that's, you know, that a large rock, But it's surely it can't be that big, you know, like your brain's looking and you're like, it must be, you know, it's gotta be a hundred feet, you know, something like, and then you maybe see a tiny teeny little minuscule speck of a thing moving and you'll like, wait, that's a person, and like your brain can't keep that um perspective in mind, you know, like it wants to jump, you know, like when you're flying in a plane and kind of you see the ground and like the way it looks like

0:02:25 Lindsey: Yeah huh. Yeah yeah yeah

0:03:05 Thomas: It, your brain, I think, tries to turn it into something closer, you know

0:03:09 Lindsey: Yeah No, I think it definitely does. Like, I actually, I went skydiving one time and for the first, like, right after I jumped out of the the plane, I just, I just couldn't interpret what I was doing, like there was, there was no way that I was, um, yeah

0:03:10 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, man. Do you think you're like, that's two feet down, oh shit, we're gonna, and then you just keep going forever, yeah.

0:03:25 Lindsey: Pretty much, it does get scarier as you get closer to the ground, I guess. That's not probably too counterintuitive, um, no, yeah, so, uh, maybe we should save this for another time, we could talk about like the the psych of of perception, but like there's a there's a bunch of mechanisms that sort of give you a sense of scale, and with things like Yosemite, probably some of them are are not as apparent, right? It's kind of like the moon, you know.

0:03:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:48 Lindsey: Like when it's, it, your sense of perspective, like, changes how big you see the the moon as relative to like things in the landscape, so if you're looking up into the sky, um, it's probably not apparent until you see other things that give you sense of scale that

0:03:59 Thomas: Well, And I Was gonna take a guess that it's like, as evolved beings, we just are going to err on the side of something's right here, oh, it's right at us, you know, like we're going to air on that, and so like we try to change it into an object that is, looks like that, but is closer, or something, you know, like the, is that what it could have, could be?

0:04:18 Lindsey: I mean, yeah, I see what you mean there, and I think that that's probably true, it's probably based on experience, like, like, have you heard of there, um, was research with a very long or loud car outside there was there was some many things, yeah, um, so there was search with this, with this tribe that like lived in a jungle, and so they didn't have experiences with like looking out across plains, and and so they take them out into this this grassland or something, and they see some buffalo on the horizon, and they they just assume that they're ants, they're really close, and it's just because they didn't have experience with, you know, that that level of distance.

0:04:28 Thomas: Oh, wow. What did the card find in its research?

0:04:56 Lindsey: Essentially

0:04:56 Thomas: Is this, is this where that stupid myth of like, you know, when the pilgrims came across to their ships, Native Americans couldn't see them. Couldn't see the ships.

0:05:05 Lindsey: It's related It's related.

0:05:06 Thomas: They're invisible. Yeah. Like, no, I think they could see the ships. That doesn't sound right to me.

0:05:07 Lindsey: Yeah no they're probably just interpreting them

0:05:13 Thomas: You know, they had like canoes and stuff. It's not like they were probably familiar with like things being in the water. That's I'm sure they could see it. Anyway, that's random thing I'm watching. Anyway, let's get to the actual question.

0:05:13 Lindsey: Differently yeah yes That's weird, yeah.

0:05:26 Thomas: Have an easy answer. I Why don't you go first?

0:05:26 Lindsey: Okay. Yeah, I actually struggled with this, I guess, I guess this is not the kind of stuff that I tend to seek out when I travel. But I lived just outside of Oklahoma City for a number of years. And so I had the opportunity to go visit the bombing memorial a few times. And man, that is a moving installation. It's pretty powerful. Powerful.

0:05:32 Thomas: Hmm. Gosh, you know, that's so interesting. You say that because when the atheism thingy was there, did you go to that? No. When was that?

0:05:52 Lindsey: Uh, Well, I I went to one that was there, I don't think it was the same one that you went to.

0:05:55 Thomas: Uh-huh. That's right. We've had this discussion. Yeah. It's been there twice and everybody, I think a group of people went and I don't know. I'm always, see, I'm always on Pacific time. So all the time when I come over any time zones over and I wake up late to begin with, as Lindsay could testify to. So like my day starts when I go to the East Coast or not the East coast, but like even, you know, central time, like two hours, think of that, you know two, three hours ahead. My day is starting at like fricking one, you know, and, and like people will be like, Oh, we, you know, already you know, we did a Ted talk, had breakfast, had lunch, made a few friends along the way, saw saw the Oklahoma city bombing museum and everybody who saw it said that same thing. They were like, that was unbelievable. It was so well done. And I was just like, oh, I should see it. And then I didn't have time to, cause I wake up too late.

0:06:10 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah.

0:06:40 Lindsey: It It really is. Yeah Well, maybe, maybe, maybe there would be another opportunity, it's, it really ist worth worth experiencing that. So what's your answer, yeah.

0:06:46 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, I just realized he said not music, film or media. And now I don't know if musical theater counts. I think I, cause I was going to go with that, but I feel like he's trying to get it. Not that, you know, I was trying to get it like a stationary object of art. And that's a little different. I'm not as into visual art just because I don't think I have the eye for it that some people seem to. I enjoyed it. I went to the Chicago Art Museum, whatever the heck it's called. It might just be called that. I don't remember. And that was super cool. There's a lot of awesome stuff. And I saw the painting, I believe. Hmm. That might be where the painting from Sunday in the Park with George is. And I think I saw that there. And that's cool.

0:07:02 Lindsey: Yeah yeah

0:07:37 Thomas: But also, you know, I got to say one, one that I guess is actually a statute statue. Um, when we went my first trip to Europe, uh, which, you was cool growing up in a poor POS, not going to go anywhere. Our family, it was cool to finally get to go to Europe for our honeymoon. It was like a delayed honeymoon. This was embarrassingly not that long ago. So it was like, like five years ago, you now, or something, or like six years, six, seven years years ago. I, now I don't remember. No, it's gotta be Statue of Liberty. It was, uh, five years ago, I think. And, um, we went to, we were in France and we went into the little, like, there's a park or something that first off was, that was already amazing. Like we were just walking in the weather. It was like sorta, um.

0:08:23 Thomas: Misty a little bit, you know, like we're shooting a PBS crime drama, uh, or, you Know, a crime show in, in Paris. I donno, but, but anyway, it was so nice. It it was so still and quiet in that city. Uh, and it was a little misty. And then we're in the park where the, like, I don't know the, whatever the proof statue of the statue of Liberty is. I don't know what the hell it is. It's like a one they made first.

0:08:48 Thomas: That's like small, you know, whatever that is. Uh. And I just saw it and it's like, Oh, that's the frigging statue of liberty, but like three feet. AndI checked it actually was, you Know, three feet, it wasn't really far away or anything.

0:08:48 Lindsey: Oh, right. Yeah yeah

0:08:59 Thomas: Oh, that's Statue of Liberty, but it's an ant. Uh, no, it was just a small one and it just was, uh, something about it was, yeah, it's really interesting. It was like, it'S, you know, it' kind of historical. It's fascinating.

0:09:10 Lindsey: No, I, I didn't think to to search that kind of stuff when I was coming up up with answers, but like, I, I do, I do really get a a real thrill from seeing like historical artifacts of lots lots of different kinds. Um, yeah, I don't

0:09:21 Thomas: Yeah. Ooh, that'd be cool to go see some actual, like old, old timey. Well, we did go to the British Museum, which has everything stolen from across every country in the history of time.

0:09:33 Lindsey: Know where the history comes from, yeah.

0:09:34 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. The, the great James Acaster bit about that. You should definitely everybody check out James Acaster. Um, all right, let's get to the next question. We spent a lot of time on that one, but you know, it's, uh, it's Roger. So have you listened, uh, Gary Myers asks, have you listened to the Bari Weiss podcast episode about Amy Cooper? Was it persuasive to you? I've got a flat no on that, but I'm gonna assume you have a little more to say, oh.

0:09:40 Lindsey: Yeah yeah Yeah, I do, um, I had not when Gary asked this question, but I went and looked it up, and the the synopsis did bait me into listening to it, um, so the the contention in this episode is that Amy Cooper, who was the woman who, um, called 9-11 on the the black man in the park that was bird watching, yeah, and that happened to happen on the the same, uh, that is Bari Weiss's contention.

0:10:14 Thomas: In the park yeah, mm-hmm is she the real victim here Oh,

0:10:21 Lindsey: Um, so yeah, so this happened to have to occur on the same day that George Floyd was murdered, if people remember that, and Amy Cooper was sort of mobbed online as outrage mob and it went viral, and she, you know, had to go dark essentially, and so the contention of the episode is that that story was was severely misreported. And the, you know, so Amy has a different account of what happened prior to, I'm blanking on the guy's name, but his last name was Cooper too, I believe.

0:10:55 Lindsey: She's, yeah, she's, she's claiming that something different happened before he started recording the cell phone footage than what he said had happened. And so, you now, it's kind of hard to adjudicate stuff like that. But the most persuasive part of this episode to me was that they played the recording from the 911 call that she made. And if people remember, like one of the things that was a red flag to a lot of people was that her fear seemed very performative. It seemed like she was ramping it up over the course of the video. And so that seemed a little insincere to a whole folks. But in the 9-11 recording, what you hear is that the connection was apparently really bad. So she keeps repeating herself in sort of more and more panic tones, Because the 911 operator keeps saying that she can't hear her.

0:10:55 Thomas: Yeah yeah oh Interesting, yeah.

0:11:43 Lindsey: Yeah. And so, like, that does, I think, provide a pretty persuasive alternative explanation for at least that piece of it. And, so, I don't know. Like, maybe this story really was very misreported. That happens. We know that that happens. But the problem, obviously, is that the whole reason that Bari Weiss wants to do this deep dive is to, you know, perpetuate this narrative about identity politics and the left going too far and blaming everything on racism and all this stuff.

And it's like, that's bullshit, regardless of whether this particular story was misreported, I mean, it's a very common strategy on the right that we've talked about before to focus the conversation about systemic problems like race or racism, rather, on the individual motives of particular people and then to litigate whether or not X person was actually racist in order to try to undermine the argument about systemic racism. And in actuality, these issues are so much larger than that.

Right, so if you, if you want to have a separate discussion about bad reporting or misreported stories or online mobbing, like that's fine, but at least to me it seemed pretty clear that that wasn't really the point of the episode, yeah.

0:11:57 Thomas: Yeah I just think that like I, I'm not buying the whole, I mean, it's been a minute, so I'm little, you know, not fresh on the details of the Amy Cooper thing, but like she tells the guy in the video, like, I'm calling the cops, I'm going to tell them there's an African-American man threatening my life. Like, I don't know.

0:13:02 Lindsey: Right.

0:13:10 Thomas: It doesn't look good.

0:13:09 Lindsey: And that it seemed from the cell phone footage it seems pretty clear to us that that wasn't going on, but she, what she says, she says that there were some things leading up to that moment where he starts recording, and that he, his his whole behavior kind of and demeanor kind of changed once he started recording, so she's claiming that, yes, she did feel like he was, you know, behaving in a very threatening way, yeah.

0:13:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:34 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. But I get your point. Even if there are, there are stories that are falsely reported and that happens. And, uh, yeah, like you say, it still doesn't really change the overall power dynamic of, you know, a crying white woman calling the cops on a black man who's not really doing anything threatening, um, so yeah, all right, how was there no Spider Loki asks, and that's a great point, that's already enough, there should have been a Spider Loci, I'd love to hear Lindsey's thoughts on tenure and her experiences with it, I was in school engineering, many of the worst professors in terms of teaching were tenured, so the school's view was well, we have to pay them, so they might as well teach a course, does this generalize, or was it just my experience, is could be included in maintaining tenure, or would that defeat the purpose of tenure? Yeah, it does seem to go against kind of the definition.

0:13:49 Lindsey: Exactly right yeah This is, this is an interesting question, and, um, you know, I should, I should point out at the outset, though, that that's, uh, Spider Loki here is asking it of someone who teaches at a small teaching-focused liberal arts college. So the majority of our tenure and promotion requirements are explicitly focused on excellence in teaching. And in terms of the last part about maintaining tenure, I suppose it's true that you could let your teaching deteriorate pretty dramatically before you would actually lose your job. But we're required to submit pretty extensive self-evaluations on evidence of our excellence in teachering and professional life and service.

And then our department chair reviews those. And if there are issues that are emerging with our teaching, like there are mechanisms to sort of address that, but, right? Know, I you think it's important to say as well here that like the vast majority of faculty that end up in institutions like mine are here because they genuinely love teaching. And so tenure isn't going to disincentivize that, right? But this experience that Spider Loki is describing here sounds like one that's probably a lot lot more common at research-focused institutions.

0:14:39 Thomas: Oh, hmm. Right.

0:15:32 Lindsey: And the situation obviously looks quite different there because the research institution's top priority is research and grant money. And so tenure promotion requirements at those places are much more focused on research productivity and grants than it is on good teaching. And so from what I understand, at places, it's a common sort of cultural attitude that teaching is what you have to do in order to to get paid for what you really want to do, which is research. And so, yeah, at places like that, I think sometimes good teaching can be sort of disincentivized.

0:15:58 Thomas: Yeah. I don't know what all of the right answers are, but it doesn't really seem like a good system. You know, it seems like there's a lot of flaws in the system to me, but I don't I'm not in academia, so I don't know. But when we were talking about the journals, that kind of thing, I remember during those conversations, it just seemed to me that it's like, well, why aren't there people for teaching called teachers and then people who just want to do the researchy stuff and aren't interested in teaching? Why do we make those be the same people? Why don't we just have two different things going on? I don't know. It's weird.

0:16:15 Lindsey: It's probably, yeah.

0:16:40 Lindsey: I think that there's a lot of moving parts here, but what I would say is, I mean, I can see how it could make sense to sort of make those separate positions. And actually, at some places, there are separate positions that exist. So some people do both, but there are, you know, some people that are just lecturers or instructors and they don't have research requirements, and um, there's also places where you can like just essentially be a researcher and, you know, not really have a teaching load, um, but don't know, like, in terms of my experiences, like, I would want to continue doing both because it seems like they're, they're connected activities for me, at least, um, being involved actively in my research helps me be a better teacher. And, And, you know, yeah,

0:17:17 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think it might depend on the subject and the level, you know, like if you're teaching, I don't know, some undergrad, you know, introductory math or physics, it's like that's not there's not a lot of research happening in those, you know, like those, those curricula are have been the same for probably a million years, because you're just teaching the very basics. And the people who are going to be really good at teaching those may not necessarily be the people who are on like the vanguard of their field, uh, doing research.

0:17:43 Lindsey: Yeah that's true.

0:17:54 Thomas: Like, you, there may be people who are just really good at teaching those 101 type courses that, you know, it'd be nice to just have them do it. Um,

0:18:02 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. There's definitely pros and cons to that. I don't know.

0:18:06 Thomas: Right, and now it's time for the General Contact Unit Problem Child Show, GCU PC. Um, you asked yours all in a row, and we just, for the sake of knowing we have enough time, we're going to do one of them now, and we'll, we can get back to them depending. So hopefully that's okay. Here's the first one we'll do from General Contact Unit Problem Child. Is sexual assault something we have to be taught not to do or something we have to do? I've told you before I like reading historical fiction. There's a bit in one of the books I've read where a Roman army are sacking a Greek city, and the protagonists get really mad at one of his comrades for assaulting a 13-year-old Greek girl. Second, very extreme rape culture, raping was totally socially acceptable.

0:19:00 Thomas: I know the author is aware of that. He researches his books a lot. So he must have just assumed that even if you live in a society like that, if you were a naturally good and empathetic person, you'd be able to just intuit doing something like that is wrong. Is there any evidence for the idea we intuitively know sexually forcing ourselves on others is bad? Uh, what say you?

0:19:22 Lindsey: Yeah, I think this is an interesting question, and maybe one that we could eventually do a full episode on. So I'm going to keep it at sort of a high level. So Michael Tomasello is a researcher that I really like. He's a developmental psychologist. He does a lot of evolutionary work. And he has a pretty broad research program indicating that we have developed unique social architecture to understand and inherently value the interest and well-being of other people. So what I'm going to come around to is that, yes, I think that there is architecture to understanding and care about things like sexual consent. But we also have architecture that can be sort of like opportunistically exploitative across a range of situations. And I think, you know, given the rates of sexual assault, it seems almost certain that sexual behavior is one of those domains.

0:20:12 Lindsey: So my analysis of this question is that there's probably temptation in some situations to prioritize your own wants or your own desires over someone else's, given certain environmental conditions. And I think that a very important condition that might make the difference with something like this is cultural beliefs about whether some form of exploitation is acceptable. Because social disapproval is one of the most important mechanisms discouraging things like cheating behaviors, exploitative behaviors. And we have a lot of, I mean, there's external mechanisms like people imposing sanctions on you. But we also have a lots of internal mechanisms to regulate that kind of behavior, like guilt and shame. And those are designed to prevent us from doing things that are socially undesirable or things that harm others, right? So if you remove the social undesirability, I think that can change people's perceptions of the behavior pretty dramatically.

And so in the in the cultural context that Problem Child is describing here, this culture seems to be, you know, promoting the idea that the needs of a certain subgroup in this culture are less important. You know, maybe there's a kind of like in for humanization thing, which means you're sort of treating one group is like less than human.

0:20:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:24 Lindsey: And, you Know, he brings up specifically the idea of like rape during wartime. So we've got some in-group, out-group dynamics that are important there.

0:21:36 Lindsey: So I think that those kinds of cultural beliefs can really change how people view activities that otherwise we might have internal mechanisms to prevent. And you see this a lot through history, right? Like if you think of the propaganda during and after slavery in the U.S. that was designed to sort of reassure white Americans that actually the mental experiences of Black Americans are sort of like subhuman. And they don't feel pain as deeply and things like that. And so if you actually believe that the person you're exploiting or assaulting is somehow less than human, then I think in some sense you care less about harming them. So that's my analysis of this.

0:22:13 Thomas: That makes sense. I think that, um, I think I was thinking along the same lines, which is, there, you know, there's obviously a million different circumstances. There's a million different cases. Uh, I think the, the more interesting things are going to be like those quote unquote gray areas. Like, I don't think it's a, I Don't think it's the case that like, there there's a thing called sexual assault that everybody like would any assaulter would know they're doing. And it would be a question now, do they have that? Did they have to be taught that it's bad of it?

But like, for me, I think it think I where the yeah, where it's interesting is like I'm thinking historically in our culture because I don't know anything about Rome or whatever. So but like behaviors that in our their patriarchal, know, so I guess rape culture would be the thing to say behaviors that were viewed as OK. Okay. So therefore in the, you know, in the dominant narrative, so therefore people kind of, you know, assaulters, abusers, whatever people who are doing these things could skate by without having to look too closely at it. You know

0:22:38 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's quite the right question. Yeah.

0:23:14 Lindsey: Yes.

0:23:14 Thomas: What I mean? Like, so it's like, don't know if you transported that person to now and gave them the social queuing, you know, and the, so like the, and the education of like, "No, this situation is actually not this situation" where you're topping, you know, a girl's drinks, you know, like in the 60s or some shit that is just totally fine. Apparently, like, in, in the dominant culture, nobody gave a shit, like it was absolutely like I apparently, from, from, based on, like, movies and stuff, like that was just fair game, I guess.

0:23:44 Thomas: And so like, it's more about, I guess, people are very capable of fooling themselves or of using, you know, like you say, prioritizing their needs, cognitive dissonance kind of thing, avoiding the fact of the matter, maybe in ways that like, So it, I guess what I'm saying is like, there are going to be those cases where it truly, I think it is about being taught, not necessarily that, I guess that's the different question I'm going for toward. It's not that I think if you asked virtually anybody, like, is it okay to sexually assault someone?

They'd say no, but like where you may get different answers in our society is, well, what if someone, you know, stays the night with whatever, you know, situations where people have different cultural answers to that. Like some people are like, well if, you know, if she stayed the night and agreed to that to that, and then they, you know, they have those kind of like victim blaming answers.

And so I think it's more like they don't they need to be taught that that is actually sexual assault rather than that sexual assault is wrong. Does that make sense?

0:23:44 Lindsey: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Right. It does. And I think that, you know, again, there's a lot there's a lot of moving pieces here because part of what that cultural messaging does is for, you know, for women, for instance, to not express it when you know those kinds of behaviors make them uncomfortable or are unpleasant, right? Because if that stuff wasn't there, if women were expressing that stuff more freely, then, you know, I think there would be more awareness of this stuff and maybe more tension between, you now, the broader culture saying it's okay and the women that are being exploited here saying it's not. But, yeah.

0:25:01 Thomas: Hmm. Right. Hmm. Hmm. So, yeah, I think that's that's plenty on that question. We may do. Maybe there's more to be said later. That's very interesting. But yeah, I do think a lot of it is, as you say, it's the it's actually listening part that our culture is starting to do a little more in terms of, you know, what what are people experiencing in all kinds of different situations here? And people are getting to express part of me, too, was, you know, people getting to express their views and getting a wider audience than our our society has kind of allowed them in the past. So, yeah.

0:25:54 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly.

0:25:56 Thomas: OK, Hausdorff asks, what do you think of resigning in protest? I recall at the beginning of the Trump presidency, there was a lot of talk about people of good conscience who shouldn't work for Trump. They should resign in protest. But it seems like every time someone resigned, a worse person took their place. When, when should people resign and when should they fight back? Is it better to force them to fire you for not following an order you disagree with, or to quit and protest? Yeah, tough question. Um, I, I remember I was there 2010, whatever years ago, that uh, Elrond says, uh, no, I remember this conversation very, very well. Yeah, it was huh, and I honestly I still don't know the answer. How do you feel? Do you feel like we've gotten an answer in our last five years of life of experiencing after this? Yeah.

0:26:42 Lindsey: Yeah, you know, I think that my answer to this changes based on the, the context. So, like resigning because the president is so awful, like what, I'm not really sure what that accomplishes other than signaling that you don't like the president. It's if you're talking about like people, you know, sort of doing mass strikes or mass protests because they're trying to change, you know, the culture, the processes that go on at a company or something like that, I can see, you know, having some instrumental value. I'm not sure what the instrumental value is in this situation, though.

0:26:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:15 Lindsey: I don't know.

0:27:15 Thomas: I think with Trump it really, it matters what the position was. I think there were a lot, I think if you were a boots on the ground, just, you know, there's a ton of just federal employees who you don't necessarily, you would never know their names unless something happens, you know. And for them, I think it, it made sense to stay, for one thing, it's a lot to ask somebody, especially somebody who's lower down the totem pole. It's not like working for the government is super lucrative at most levels, I should know.

So it's lot to ask for someone to just give up their livelihood in a protest that wouldn't even maybe do anything. But it's when you're talking about the cabinet positions that I think it gets interesting. Think that's where it's most true, true that like every time somebody quit a worse person came in, but it's also true that like at that level, you are, you know, participating, like you are part of the thing, you're, you're like propping up, giving Trump's presidency credibility. But if you were, if you were, a and this question I think most matters for Republicans who were kind of never Trumpers I think that's where the the question was most salient, here, you know, because obviously Trump was never going to appoint like a Democrat or something to be in his cabinet.

So it's more like if you were one of the slightly less bad Republicans, should you have stayed? And I bet you there's a utilitarian argument to be made that like, yeah, if you stayed, then you don't get Stephen Miller. Well, no, not Stephen Miller, I guess he was there no matter what.

I'm trying to think, Pompeo, I don't know, one of like third in line after everybody else quit, third or fourth, fourth, or fifth, you, you wouldn't get one of those people if somebody better stayed in office. And

0:27:20 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:28:58 Thomas: I bet you, if you could just run the pure numbers of it, it would be better to just stay in office, like, I, like if you're a secretary of defense or something, if your, you know, and it's, yeah, And it sucks because that's like not a satisfying answer, but I bet you it's better to do that and to just try to keep your head down and like keep, keep things from breaking and, and do your best to push back without getting fired. But that really blows, like who wants to do that?

Because it may be true that if enough people quit then it would make a difference, you know, but it's a tough collective action problem, but I think the people that we don't, we didn't hear about, you know, the people lower down in in the totem pole as they say, who were just working for the federal government, they very much maybe need to stay to keep shit happening, you know, like to keep, to keep things working. So I'm glad if, uh, if they didn't resign. And yeah, so it's, I think it's still very specific. Depends on who you're talking about. But it's it's, oh, I'm glad we agree on that. I bet you that the the supercomputer that we, we designed to do utilitarianism for us would be like, "Nope, stay, stay in position." We'd be like, "This must be wrong. This thing's broken. I can't, I can't accept that answer."

0:29:07 Lindsey: That's my intuition. Yeah.

0:29:32 Lindsey: Yes, exactly.

0:30:14 Lindsey: It's no

0:30:16 Thomas: Question: "All in favor of Judge Linda Parker for Supreme Court, signaled by exclaiming 'iee,' what a great sanctions ruling." Yeah, that was a great sanctioned ruling. Asks, "In the Massachusetts outbreak, do we know," no, "if any of the vaccinated people who were infected were part of any placebo group? If so, how many and how does that relate to any change to relative and absolute risk?" Hmm.

0:30:25 Lindsey: Kidding yet.

0:30:40 Lindsey: So I think I saw that somebody offered an answer on the thread. I think it might have been Roger and I and I agreed with that answer. Answer, the people who participated in like the early vaccine trials, number one, are a tiny fraction of the population. And two, I think would have absolutely been vaccinated long before this particular outbreak occurred.

0:30:56 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:31:02 Lindsey: It would be a huge ethical violation for any study like this to not administer, you know, a demonstrably effective medical intervention to the placebo wing at the end of the study, which is what they do. Right. And so if I'm, if I'm reading the intent of the the question correctly, it seemed like this person might think that people in the placebo group would be told that they're vaccinated when they actually aren't to keep them blind to the study conditions, but that's not actually what they do. So like all the people in the trial would be told you may or may not be receiving a real vaccine. And then they would maybe find out at the end, maybe not, I don't know.

0:31:11 Thomas: Yeah, OK.

0:31:36 Thomas: And at the end of the trial, they'd actually get the vaccine.

0:31:41 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. So I don't, I think it's vanishingly unlikely that people would report being vaccinated when they'd actually gotten a placebo. That does not seem likely.

0:31:42 Thomas: Yeah?

0:31:51 Thomas: Yeah. All right. Right. Well, easy enough. Canadian Humanist asks, to Dr. Osterman, when discussing evolutionary psychology, you've emphasized the descriptive as opposed to the prescriptive nature of many of the results, and I think you provided many good examples where one does not lead to the other. Do you think there's room for prescriptative science in evolutionary psychology for humans? We know non-human animals have sensitivity windows and development and that environmental, environmental and social context outside of an animal's natural state can lead to mental and physical disease. Could evolutionary science help us understand our natural, developmental, social, environmental needs to best support our own mental and physical health? Huh.

0:32:35 Lindsey: Yeah. So this is a very good question. And, you know, in certain contexts, if it's done properly, like, yes, I think that we can gain insights from evolutionary science that can be applied to increasing well-being. The reason that I emphasize this every time we talk talk about evolutionary psych in particular, is that, you know, what people like Jordan Peterson, for instance, like to do is say, you Know, x thing is an adaptation.

0:32:58 Thomas: Yeah. That Jeffrey Miller or whatever. That guy.

0:33:05 Lindsey: Yeah, right. You see this from a lot of people in sort of the pop psych realm. But what they're doing is like, they're saying, well, this is an adaption, we have evolved this way. And therefore, right, we either need to sort sort of accept it fatalistically or, you know, it's good, right? Sometimes they're actually saying we evolved hierarchy, therefore hierarchy is good. And so that's the thing that I keep trying to emphasize is not appropriate.

But, you knows, people have applied evolutionary science to understanding a variety of things that are relevant to physical and mental well-being. And I think that that can be really helpful sometimes in figuring out how to treat like the underlying causes of dysfunction rather than just the symptoms. So one pretty easy example, I think, is fever. So I'm sure people know that fever is a functional part of our immune response because it can create a more hostile environment for pathogens. So a lot of times, cold and flu medications that people take have fever reducers, like NSAIDs, to treat that symptom of fever. Fever and there's some some evidence that that those can actually slow recovery, so you know, obviously you have to work to lower dangerously high fevers, which is like 104 Fahrenheit and above, because that can cause brain damage. But if you have a fever that's below that, and like, don't take medical advice from someone who's never delivered a baby, obviously, but my understanding of that research is that if your fever isn't at sort of a dangerous level, it can be better to not take a fever reducer because that

0:33:07 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

0:34:35 Lindsey: Can prolong the course of the disease. Right. So I think that there are insights like that, that you can gain from evolutionary science, but like, you're not deriving the thing that you value from knowing.

0:34:35 Thomas: Right.

0:34:45 Thomas: So I'm not deriving the perfect pickup line to approach a female of my species who is, I don't know. I'm just guessing that's what they talk about. I don't actually know these EvoPsych people who are like, or I don't even know if they're actually in EvoPsych or just like to say they are.

0:34:49 Lindsey: No.

0:35:00 Lindsey: Well, yeah, it depends on the person. But like Jordan Peterson, for instance, has said a lot of things that he justifies with evolutionary sort of logic about, you know, maintaining sort of inequalities, sort of sexist structures, right, or justifying sexist structures and things like that. And that I think is sort of it's backwards in terms of the way that you want to think about this stuff, right? We decide what we value, right. And then, you know, we can, I think, gain insights from our histories to tell us like how to get what we valu. But that's very different from saying this is evolved, therefore it is good, or whatever. So that's my answer. Thanks.

0:35:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, gotcha. Good answer and Great question. Another one from "All in Favor of Judge Linda Parker": "By and large, the right seems to think we're foolish for trusting in vaccines, masks, etc. But it doesn't end there. We're sheep who are being led by a corrupt government who want to get us all poisoned or whatever." I never wonder, I always, beside note, why, why, why, all the poisoning? Again, like, they, they would want the people who were, like, the sheep, quote unquote, that's who they want, they want more sheep.

So, like, you would think the sheep would get the good treatment, you know, like the people would poison, would be the ones who are taking horse paste right now, maybe, they'd be like, we snuck something into the horse paste, like, if you believed in the, you know, government conspiracy, wouldn't the point of the conspiracy be, hey, we really love all these sheep, you know, like Thomas and Lindsay, who's, like, take vaccines and wear masks like a bunch of sheep, we love them, we're gonna put, you know, like, life, enhance the life prolonging drugs in their drug, you know, in their cereal or whatever, the hell, we're going to make sure they're around forever because we love the sheep, the sheep are great for us, you know, who we don't love, the not sheep, the people who are like, I don't trust anything they say, we hate those people, here's what we're to do, false flag campaign, we're going to start funding Brett and Heather Haying, to Haying, did I get it right this time? I always

0:37:03 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:37:03 Thomas: Mix it up, God, it's so hard, uh, brettandheather we're gonna fund brettanheather to do videos on ivermectin, some stupid fucking horse product, and then, guess what, we're to poison the horse product, in every idiot who's not a sheep, you know, actually, sorry, in this, under the logic of this, every genius who's, you know, too smart for our plot, to keep everybody, everybody's sheep. They're all going to take the horse pace, but you know what? That's going to be the thing that has the killer drugs in it. So we get rid of those troublemakers and we just have sheep, right?

0:37:36 Lindsey: That's a hell of a conspiracy theory.

0:37:38 Thomas: Isn't that what it would be? Why would the government who are the ones trying to do all this, why would they want to get rid of the sheep? The sheep are the best for them. Sheep are their cash cow, I guess,

0:37:47 Lindsey: Well, I mean, I,I agree with that, but it's not like, it's not like their interests are always perfectly aligned with the well-being of the electorate, right? Which, no,

0:37:58 Thomas: But we're talking about a vaccine that's going to everybody. What is the plot that makes sense in that? What am I missing?

0:38:02 Lindsey: I I agree, but we should finish reading the question. Maybe that would help.

0:38:07 Thomas: No, we can't finish reading the question. I demand answers, Lindsay. What is the plot that would make, like, if we're, if everybody's taking a vaccine, what is the thing that would make, even makes, I'm, and I'm granting wide, you know, creative license here. What does the, I can't even think of what it would be. What would, what would they, the shadowy they, want us all to have in our veins? I don't, what, what Would it be?

0:38:09 Lindsey: Oh boy. Um all right, let me see if I could do and actually wait.

0:38:35 Thomas: Okay. You think on Okay, finish the question, obviously there's problem with their hypothesis, but the one thing I don't hear people talking about is how under democratic governance typically the leadership gets their information from scientific and medical institutions and create policy and procedure based on that information, while under Republican governance these assholes are so arrogant they try to tell people, including scientists, that what the science is and how it works, and they base their policies on their own information. This could be a good explanation for why conservatives confuse, confuse and conflate trusting in science and medicine with trusting in government, in quotes. Any thoughts on that? Interesting.

0:39:12 Lindsey: Yeah, I thought that was an interesting analysis. Before I agree in more words. So I think probably the best sort of the most charitable, you know, way to explain the vaccine thing is the big pharma thing, right? Because I mean, there have been examples in history where, you now, for profit margins and all kinds of things that, Yeah, there've been been problems, right? There have been things administered that like turned out were not in the best interests of of people, but you know, that just wasn't a priority or whatever, yeah

0:39:29 Thomas: Yeah. So it'd be like, yeah. So then I would imagine it would be not that the vaccine is like a death machine. It would be like. Well, who cares? It's either unnecessary or, you know, whatever. It's just a chance for pharma to make a billion dollars by making us all get it.

0:40:01 Lindsey: Yeah and they don't care if some small percentage dies or whatever yeah good point yeah so I mean but the

0:40:01 Thomas: Yeah. Who sells horse paste? Where do you buy it? At the pharmacy? I don't know. I actually don't know. Maybe it's just over the, just regular over the counter. I'm not

0:40:12 Lindsey: Yeah I'm I don't I don't know where people get that, but um, no, but I mean, the more extreme version about this actually being some sort of government plot, that's harder for me to make sense out of. Yeah, but, but you know, so the second part of the question here, like I do, I do think that's interesting. And I do think we've seen, you know, decades of effective right wing propaganda campaigns that are deliberately designed to undermine scientific consensus around issues that would threaten profits for large industries like big tobacco and fossil fuels and all that good stuff.

0:40:14 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:40:42 Lindsey: And I do think that that has the effect of, you know, on right-leaning voters to give them the impression that Democrats are the ones that are making scientific claims for political reasons and Republicans are ones that are telling the truth, which is precisely backwards, yeah.

0:40:55 Thomas: Yeah. I just always look at this as the like, you know, the Satanist thing where like the heavy metal band is putting in subliminal messages to do what? For all their fans to commit suicide. And you're like, why would, why Would they want all their fans to commit? Why would that make?

0:41:01 Lindsey: Right yeah that does not make any sense

0:41:13 Thomas: Because they're really satany, you know, they're just super satanistic, it's like that, it all usually ends there, well because the governor they're, you know, evil, it's that doesn't make sense, though, I get, I I do take on board, like, they're that that's the best version of the conspiracy would be like, well, it's either rushed or whatever and, you know, unnecessary, like the boosters, you know, we don't need the boosters, it's just they want to make more money on it, yeah, okay, but like, then I guess we'll just have to look at what the science is saying about how well it's working.

0:41:13 Lindsey: Yeah right that's usually the strategy, I

0:41:47 Thomas: And, You know, to kind of bring it back to a more serious point, it's another reason why it's good to see the government going with the science, even if it means it's changing back and forth a little bit. You know, because it's like, yeah, well, we can see that the government, whoever, the CDC, is making recommendations based on studies that are coming out, and not based on like, oh, no, we know what we want people to do, like mustache twirl, you know, like it, it, so anyway, go, no, Ho-Downs household has a, as an, of course we need a suggestion for your scale for for for the future, regarding the most recent episode on names for the scientific study scale. I propose we call it the, oh, so this is a bullshit thing scale.

0:41:47 Lindsey: Like, yeah, yeah right, that

0:42:33 Thomas: One, a study led.

0:42:33 Lindsey: Sounds like a familiar phrase for some reason

0:42:35 Thomas: Yeah. And the scale is apparently a one to 10 and it's one is a study lead by America's favorite scientist, Dr. Ostman. So that's assuming you're just a plus perfect scientist. Five is a well-intentioned study with flaws in the setup and slight stretching of conclusions. I like that. And then a 10 would be a P hacking, small sample size compound question, having study that is heavily funded by an aggressive interest group. Yeah, Yeah, exactly.

0:42:35 Lindsey: Oh beautiful

0:42:59 Thomas: Love it. So this is a bullshit thing. Scale. That's perfect. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Roger Nick from California. Thomas, how's the vegetarian thing going? Oh, it's going great. Thanks for the opportunity to talk about it. I know everybody will be like, oh, guys, someone who doesn't eat meat is going to talk about it again. And they get mad. A lot of people get really mad that, even though I don't, I don't, you know, I mentioned it here and there, but I don't talk a ton about it. But yeah, it's going really well. It's actually super easy. I will say I have eaten sushi quite a bit. So I guess I'd be a pescatarian, but I just don't like fish. So, I didn't even think about that moral question. I was like, someone asked me, are you a pescatarian? I was just like, well, I just kind of hate fish. But then I've

0:42:59 Lindsey: Beautiful, yeah seconded because You think they're immoral?

0:43:46 Thomas: Come to to, yeah, I've come to love sushi, but I just love the wasabi and the soy sauce, so I think if you gave me a wadded up piece of cardboard and dipped it in that and I ate it, I think it would be as good as sushi. I don't know, or like, something, if you, you know, did did like a fake fish version, I bet you I'd be like, this is exactly as good as sushi, but nobody, that I've been to, I haven't seen that yet. I'm sure it exists somewhere, but no sushi place I've been to has like a fake fish sushi.

0:43:46 Lindsey: Yeah that's Weird, like, I, a lot of the places around here have like veggie rolls, right?

0:44:25 Thomas: Well, that's not a fake fish sushi. That's a veggie roll.

0:44:27 Lindsey: But if it's the, if it's the soy sauce and the wasabi, it seems like it should scratch the itch I

0:44:31 Thomas: Oh, I know. But like, I still want that protein of the that's the thing. That's why I love the fake meats is because I, and that's the fake meets are the best, impossible burger, beyond burger, love them, eat them all the time. You can still get your favorite foods and have it be mostly the same. You know, there's a lot lot of stuff that, like, you know, yeah, okay, if you're just sitting there eating a steak with nothing else, like, you're gonna notice if it's a fake steak for now, but like a lot, you know, tacos you know, come on, you get, yeah

0:44:36 Lindsey: See mm-hmm right you can't tell what was in there before, yeah

0:45:03 Thomas: I mean, you put, we get, there's a, there's Mexican place around here that does the impossible meat tacos, I love them. Oh, they're so good, and I barely notice the difference, like, sure, maybe there's a little bit more flavor in the, or something, I don't know, maybe a little, a little more of the the, I don't know what, what you call it, the greasiness, the whatever-ness of the gristliness of the meat, but like big BFD for me, from my perspective, I enjoy not feeling like I'm contributing to a massive problem.

You know, it doesn't mean that I'm single-handedly doing much, you know, I realize it, but there is a certain amount of, like, you know what feels nice? I am not really contributing to factory farms. Like, I just am not, like, yeah, I'll have a little, I'm not vegan, and sure, I'll have a little half and half in my coffee, but like, all right, you know, like, I'm not eating meat and, like, you know, meat is a, when you replace meat, that seems like a lot more substantial than, you know, I have a teaspoon of half and a half that I would hope that we could get through ethical means somehow, but

0:45:21 Lindsey: Yeah yeah right

0:46:05 Thomas: Uh, what was the other thing I was gonna say, um, oh, here it is, if you're at all considering going vegan or vegetarian, I want to, again, I know I say this, I'm a broken record on this, but it's because I really think it's a good message. If there's something you can't give up, then just don't give it up.

Like, we have this thing, and it's so funny about humans, and I realized I do it too, which is if you can't go 100% vegetarian, then fuck it, you can't even try, you can't do it. Like, but, but really from a, you know, actual, again, utilitarian, I guess, but even, even just looking purely practically, tactically, if you, if the difference is, you know, you, you're going to give up meat on half the days or something.

So, like, three and a half days out of the seven, the seven day week, makes it to alternating days. And Um, that, and if you viewed that as like, well, that's not perfectly pure. So I'm not going to do anything. Like if two people did that, that would be the same as one person going vegetarian. If they ate the same things, you Know, versus if both of them were like, like, nope, I can't be perfectly pure. So I'm not even going to try. Then nothing has happened. And it's just, it's funny how we don't look at things that way. Like, and, and I'll, I'll be honest. There are people obviously within the vegan vegetarian, whatever community who are like also shitty about this. They're like, you touched a meat, you know, whatever.

You're going to find those people in any cause. Like there's always going to be the assholes. And believe me, you You find the asshole meat eaters the minute you breathe a word about being vegetarian. So don't fucking get me started on the, like, oh, the vegans online, or so, you could just mention, like, like, when you're trying to order something, like, you're just, I don't even, I want to call no attention to it for this very reason. If I'm in a restaurant, then you'll get, oh, I love meat, I ate eight strips of bacon on the way here in the car, you know, just like the the asshole meat eaters far outnumber the asshole vegans, but nobody talks about it, like they have to

0:46:59 Lindsey: Yeah yeah

0:48:05 Thomas: Oh, I have some meat in my pocket right here, and they, like, rub it on themselves in front of you, like, just to, just be to show that they, it's amazing, if They They Don't get enough shit, only the asshole vegan. And by the way, the asshole vegan, sure, yeah, I get it, they suck, I'm not, I, there are plenty of assholes in every community and they suck too, but like honest to the God, if you've ever spent a minute as a vegetarian, you get this fragile reaction from like meat eaters where they, and I guess it's cause they either feel guilty or they are something cause they go over the top sometimes of like, you know, that you take out a meat deodorant and use it as a deodorants. Like their wallet is just as bacon strips of bacon in it. You know, they take, I love just meat all the time. Um,

0:48:13 Lindsey: They sound nice yeah No.

0:48:53 Thomas: Yeah,

0:48:53 Lindsey: I, I think, I think you're right, I think that probably is sort of like a cognitive dissonance kind of thing, which I felt, feel. Yeah. I try not to be an asshole but

0:48:59 Thomas: But, uh, yeah. No, I I'll say this. I've, I've eaten bacon. I don't know, five times since I've been, uh. So it's actually, it's coming up on a year. I think it's been almost a year and, uh there's some times where I just get a breakfast sandwich because it's a really yummy thing. Like from, you know, From the coffee shop or something. And it'll be like, and again, I'm not vegan, um, but I rarely eat eggs, but sometimes when I'm really hungry and the only thing they have in, that I don't want to eat just a freaking, you know, donut or some shit, like some just carby carbness, I want some protein, um, Starbucks has a, has the best one which is they just replaced the meat with the Impossible sausage.

0:49:02 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Oh.

0:49:43 Thomas: I think that's ideal, so then you get fake meat and then the egg and the cheese. Pete's Coffee has one that's entirely, entirely vegan. And it's okay. It's a little, oh man, it's a little cardboardy though. You know, like the fake meat, the fake egg and the fake cheese. It is just a little too much fakeness. And so if I'm at a Pete's, I'll just get the one that's the egg, cheese and bacon and you know, whatever. I'm eating a few minuscule strips of bacon, you know once every two months like I okay, so I'm not a perfectly pure vegetarian.

0:49:59 Lindsey: That's cool You're Fired, yeah.

0:50:19 Thomas: I don't eat any meat any other time. So I think it's, uh, I would encourage people if you don't want to give up something like bacon or, you know, uh... Or, by the way, or if you're like... Maybe you're like me and when you're traveling... And this is funny. I said I was going to do this. I know I'm going on at length. Sorry. But, um, when we went on the trip the other week, uh Puzzle and Thunderstorm and all that, we had a few nice dinners planned.

And one of my bargains with myself with this whole thing was I'm going vegetarian, but if I'm ever at a super nice nice restaurant. And it's like, you know, we're, we'RE paying way too much money for like, I'm going to eat some, whatever the meat is, you Know, like, and here's the thing. And this is, this I thought was really cool because these really nice restaurants are making actual vegetarian courses. Then it felt like, Oh, well, I'm going to miss out on that. If I order the meat course, you know what I mean? It wasn't like, well here's THE course. It's an entire leg of lamb, you KNOW, and whatever. And then for the vegetarian, we made you, you know, here's a piece and lettuce and whatever.

0:51:03 Lindsey: Here's A salad, yeah.

0:51:16 Thomas: Yeah. For this, it was like, no, your course is a such a dah, dah, dah, I'm like, oh, well, I don't want to miss, you know, like I don't to miss that other course. That sounds really good. And so I actually didn't end up eating like any meat. I think I took a bite of somebody said like their thing was really good and I like I'll try it. And honestly, I was, like, all right, it's fine. But like if especially I love that restaurants are actually doing that, like designing meals that are actually vegetarian vegetarian and aren't just like, oh, here's our shitty substitute for, you know, and we hope you feel bad about yourself for not eating meat. And it really, psychologically speaking, it really helped to be like, well, I don't want to miss out on that delicious thing that you described that doesn't have any meat in it. So I didn't really, I didn't really end up eating much meat like

0:51:17 Lindsey: Um, Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No. I, I like that trend too, we've got several places around here that's, that I think do a really nice job of that, and yeah, you don't feel deprived eating shit that, that's that good, like Yeah, it's awesome, that's

0:52:12 Thomas: At all. Yeah. And in my ideal world, like obviously if we got rid of the factory farming and everything thing was just ethical, then, you know, I think, I think Americans should probably eat less meat. Like, you Know, in my opinion, yeah, but like in my, in mine, especially with the dairy stuff, it would be like in dairies and in, in the, the, what do you ever call hatchery? I don't know what you call the chicken thing, but the chicken Ones are really bad.

And which is why I feel the most bad about the fact that I do still eat baked goods with eggs and not, you knows, not a ton, but it just, to, to me, it feels like it's, it's more of a rare thing. So I don't bother with it too much, you know, like, okay, I'll have a cookie now and then, and had an egg in it, but it is true that like the chickens are the, maybe the worst ones, like they treat them so terribly. And so, but in my world, it'd be like, all right, well, those, we would actually have strong government, not only regulations, but also enforcement. And all

0:52:25 Lindsey: Hard to argue with, yes, yeah.

0:52:37 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:09 Thomas: Those animals would be way happier and have better quality of life and we'd eat a bit less of it, you know, so It'd be like, you would be, my ideal world isn't everybody's a vegan, it would be like let's get rid of the awful conditions, uh, and then, you know, meets a little bit, again in my ideal world it'd like meets a little bit more rare, it's not every single meal, every single thing, because it's really bad for the Environment, you know, regardless of the of the thing, sorry I talked at length, go ahead.

0:53:14 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:53:28 Lindsey: No, no, no. I think, I think, uh, I think that last point, that's one I've been thinking about a lot, it's like taking for granted meat, I think is, is a huge problem, right? And yeah, and there's... there's a, um, don't know, there's, here's a bunch we could say about that, actually. That Oh, Do we have time for the last one? Because it kind of, it's On The same Topic.

0:53:45 Thomas: Well, Oh God. I'm You're The one With The, yeah.

0:53:49 Lindsey: Chick-fil-A.

0:53:50 Thomas: You're the one with the heart out. Let's do the last one. Canadian Humanist asks, to what extent should or do you let your values influence your choices and behaviors? Like if a chain restaurant lobbies abhorrent ends, do you avoid it? And I imagine you're thinking like a Chick-fil-A type thing. Yeah. Thank you. If golf courses slash graveyards are a bane to the... Sorry, I'm just imagining. I'm no longer a customer of this graveyard. Good day. I'm taking my skeleton elsewhere.

0:54:06 Lindsey: True.

0:54:19 Thomas: You just walk out. Why don't we see more graveyard walkouts? Like you see a bunch of zombies coming at you. Oh my God. Just start shooting. No, we're just, we're on strike, man. We just, we're moving. We're on, don't shoot us, we're going to get cremated, come on, we're just on strike over the graveyard. No, I agree, I mean I did the graveyard bit and I think that was like F this podcast like 10 years ago, I, I cannot believe, every time I see a graveyard I, I like feel so annoyed at its existence, you know, like it's, it's the biggest way, and they'll be in prime real Real estate, too. It'll be like the downtown fucking graveyard.

0:54:24 Lindsey: I Yeah.

0:54:58 Thomas: Like, what are we doing to ourselves? Anyway, if golf courses or graveyards are a bane to the climate ecosystem housing, do you avoid spending money at them? Yeah, I don't tip my corpse. I don'T tip my zombie anymore. And I'm sure there are many more examples, including, for example, using... At Canadian Humanist, I'm making jokes. This is not at your expense at all. I'm just going silly with the question. So don't take any offense. No offense intended to your question. It's a very good one. I'm sure there are many more examples, including using Amazon. Oh, that's that's a big one for me.

0:55:28 Lindsey: Yep.

0:55:28 Thomas: Or eating cheap meat, though, when people are priced out of ethical options, it's different than when they can comfortably afford to boycott something and still choose not to. You're chomping at the bit. Go ahead.

0:55:32 Lindsey: Yep yeah I mean, it's just, man, there's... there's so much wrapped up in this question because it's like, yeah, I think to the extent that it is possible, like I do try to make sure that my values guide my behavior, but there are, there are plenty of ways in which I'm inconsistent about that. I think everybody probably is. Like, yes, I order stuff from Amazon, and boy, boy does it not feel good when I do it but it's it's very hard, it's pretty irresistible for certain things. It's very hard. And so, like, yeah, I don't eat a Chick-fil-A. You know, there's lots of things that I do. We, you know, to talk about the meat thing again, like we aren't vegetarian. But, you know, since we have the money to do it, we, we work really hard to make sure that we're, we're supporting farms that at least advertise themselves as having ethical practices, you know, I hope that they really do. And things like that. But yeah, the, the thing at the end about people being priced out of those options is what I see is, like, the, the real issue here and

0:55:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That's the tough one. Yeah.

0:56:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:56:36 Lindsey: It bothers me a lot when I hear people saying like, you know, X is a consumer problem, we just have to choose to consume differently, because like, that, it's, it's just true that a lot of people effectively do not have real choices in these matters. And so I think, as long as, I don't think the capitalism problem.

0:56:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:56:55 Lindsey: So, yeah.

0:56:55 Thomas: I just want strict regulations on stuff, you know. Regulations are good, actually. And we should feel good. You know, like, yeah.

0:56:57 Lindsey: Yeah. Or other forms of policies. So I got to, yeah, right.

0:57:04 Thomas: Yeah. True. Good point. It's not all that Yeah, nice.

0:57:07 Lindsey: Yeah, no, I've got a good example. So we're getting solar panels, and I'm very excited about it. And, you know, until very recently, that was essentially, you knows, a luxury purpose. You couldn't do it unless you had a lot of money. But the place that we signed the contract with with has done an excellent job of making solar extremely accessible. And so if you can afford to pay your monthly electric bill, you can probably afford to get solar panels. And the federal tax break for the sustainable energy thing, which is still in effect until 2023, by the way, has really assisted the company in their ability to make it more accessible to consumers, right? So I think like programs like this are really, you know, the ones that are shifting the incentives, I think are really what's going to Make the difference in the end. Yeah.

0:57:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:57:47 Thomas: Well, and I'm Pretty sure. I don't know if this is true, because, we you know, we've been poking around, we browse houses occasionally, and I am amazed at how many don't have solar panels. When you're like, oh man, we live on the sun in California, like, we are in the sun, it should, I don't even know how the panels survive. It should just melt. But anyway, there, I think that new construction has to have them. Um, and there's a, yeah, in California anyway. Uh, I'm not sure if that's a... I haven't, you know, researched this, but I, I believe that in California that, that may be how it is.

And of course that's how it should be. Like, that'll, then the people will find a way when you're doing them, you know, en masse or whatever, like it'll be cheaper. Uh. You just get them in there. And And then forever, you know, for the rest of the life of the panels and the inverter and all that, which is considerable, you know, it's at least decades, then that will be a portion. And imagine if you do that again for like every new house and you start to get them everywhere, it is just going to be a massive portion of the grid that, you is accounted for, like basically just

0:58:00 Lindsey: Oh.

0:58:10 Lindsey: Interesting. I didn't know that Mm-hmm.

0:58:21 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm-hm.

0:58:48 Thomas: Renewable, as they say. So, yeah, totally with you where it's like there are so many easy policy things that that you're right. Like, wouldn't be like, even it wouldn't, they wouldn't come across as like, Oh, the big hand of the government. It would be just like, okay, for one, get rid of subsidies for shitty crap. Like don't, are we still subsidizing oil? And you know, like the high fructose corn syrup and all that crap we do, like just stop that. Like number one, people wouldn't even know that you did except things would be way better, you know?

0:58:50 Lindsey: Yep. Absolutely.

0:59:19 Thomas: So as for As for this question, I agree with you, your take, where it's like, if you have the choice, you know, Amazon is where I'm the worst at this. I just won't think about it. And I'll just order something from Amazon. But Amazon really Does, again, that needs to be handled by the government. Somebody needs to come in and say, you can't do this to people. And it's not going to be a question of enough people, like, you or I order one fewer package, because when we think about that,

0:59:12 Lindsey: Mm-huh. Right. Could not agree more. Yeah.

0:59:32 Lindsey: Right. Exactly.

0:59:46 Thomas: We're You know, like that's not gonna do it, but I did. Did. I will say when I, people who follow me on Facebook or friends with me on Facebook, I ordered my Crokinole board and I specifically saw the, the board on Amazon was like, I'm just going to search this and order from the site itself, you know? Cause it, it's obviously that's not a like Amazon Prime product. Like there isn't like a Prime Crokinole division. That's like, yeah, we got tons of these Crokinole boards.

So I was like oh, I'll go to the fine craftsman and uh, ordered it turned out to come with a religious propaganda attached to it. So I guess there's two sides to every Schwartz as they say in the, in Spaceballs. Yeah. So there's the good and the bad, but I thought it was, honestly, I thought it was kind of endearing. They were like, hey, please, I know you're just buying Crokinole from me, but take a moment to befriend my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, please. I love him so much. He's my, he's my guy. I'm like, all right, not going to do that, but thanks for trying. All right,

0:59:47 Lindsey: Yeah.

1:00:24 Lindsey: It's Amazing. Yeah.

1:00:43 Thomas: Well, That's our show. Um, we went even way longer than I told Lindsey we would. Thanks, Lindsay, for being free with your time. I really appreciate that.

1:00:43 Lindsey: That's cute. Of

1:00:50 Thomas: Uh, Those were great questions. Keep them coming next month, uh, for sure. Those were really cool. Thanks so much to our patrons and to our listeners, all right, we'll see you next time.

1:00:50 Lindsey: Course. It's my favorite. Yeah. Yes. Thank you.

1:01:10 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.