SIO312: September 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. This is episode 312, also Q&A number 6. Can you believe it? That cannot be correct.

0:00:19 Lindsey: What? No. Time flies.

0:00:23 Thomas: In my mind we perpetually start, we're on like number 2 of this, you know? Like I started it like last month, ever, forever. And then 6 months goes by.

0:00:27 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know it's 2021 for you.

0:00:35 Thomas: It's September we got three juicy, meaty episodes in this month that I hope inspired some questions. We'll have to go check the Q&A thread and find out, I think it looks pretty good.

0:00:48 Lindsey: Is that more double entendres?

0:00:50 Thomas: Yeah, but very lazy ones.

0:00:53 Lindsey: Yeah. Well, I gotta keep this going though.

0:00:55 Thomas: So I'm recording right now, my room's falling apart, it's kind of funny, figured good time, time for a cheerful, funny anecdote. It's so what happened was, we're moving, so we bought a new house with a yard, so I can so it can just throw these animals outside and lot and bolt the door, that's mainly, we have no yard right now, like very little tiny thing in the back and it's all angular and not say, and it's just, yeah, it's not, not like that, kid conducive. And so we, uh, we're getting a house, has a little bit of a yard, very excited. And so my, also, I guess the, um, adhesive strips I used on my acoustic foam in here, we'RE not quite enough for like the, it's, everything else is holding up like the biggest pieces. I guess I, you know, went a little, like, I don't know what the word would be. I went a little cheap on it. I was like, "Oh, I think that should be enough." I, strips on these bad boys and they're all failing at like the same time on these, so I have these giant foam things falling

0:00:58 Lindsey: Oh, Congratulations.

0:01:55 Thomas: All over me and the monitors and everything, you know, and I'm like, well, we're moving, I'm not fixing this, so it's, yeah, it's like, the you know, Russia's fallen over here, I'm just broadcasting through the, the end of a country, whatever, and so that's me, what's going on with you, what's new, I feel like Like this, you know, get a little personal updates on these episodes. Why not?

0:02:11 Lindsey: Yeah? Yeah, um, I don't know. I'm back at school. We're teaching in person. Um, that's nice, but weird. But hey, hey, COVID cases have remained low since we've been in school for like a month now.

0:02:26 Thomas: What are the, uh, the measures you guys take?

0:02:29 Lindsey: So let's see. They're not doing like mandatory testing, but they requiring people to like submit daily updates as to whether they have any symptoms or whether they've been exposed or anything. And so people get tested if they, you know, are in one of those positions. And then, then those are reported to the, um, to the college. So I think it at its highest, uh, we had like six active cases or something, but, um,

0:02:38 Thomas: Hmm.

0:02:51 Thomas: And you're talking about just, was that just among faculty or are you talking about?

0:02:52 Lindsey: The entire college populations of students, faculty, staff, everybody, so seems promising, I mean, mandatory masking and, and we required vaccination of everyone, um, you know, aside from, from exceptions or whatever, and turns out that vaccination plus, plus masking indoors is actually really effective in preventing COVID.

0:02:56 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha. Oh yeah.

0:03:11 Thomas: No way. But what about, and, and I guess we'll all remember you're at a small liberal arts college, as you always say, I think. But so are you saying that it, students are required to be vaccinated or just the faculty?

0:03:18 Lindsey: True. Nope, everybody.

0:03:24 Thomas: Oh, that's awesome and I bet it just works out and people don't die or get COVID much and it's great, plus well, okay, but everybody like turns into a zombie because of the shot that they get, the vaccine, right? So

0:03:25 Lindsey: Faculty, students, and staff. Yeah. So far, pretty cool.

0:03:39 Lindsey: Well, yes, but they're much easier to manage in class. So we see that as a positive, if anything.

0:03:41 Thomas: Yeah. Some teacher humor for you. Yeah, but I wouldn't even notice or something. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man, it's amazing. There was a there's a meme the other day that was and I haven't checked this. Do you know if this is true? Someone said that half the world is vaccinated. Fifty percent. We've gotten to 50 percent. And the the thrust of the joke was basically like, yeah, the data's in everybody like we the the Brett and Heather's. They're like, oh, I don't we don't know anything about this vaccine. It's like, hmm, well, half the World has done it. And we didn't turn into like, like, I don't know, mutants or whatever the heck you think. I guess they'd probably always just be like, well, you know, years from now or something.

0:03:52 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly.

0:04:04 Lindsey: I did not hear that.

0:04:25 Lindsey: Yes. Yeah.

0:04:30 Thomas: And I just saw, actually, we don't have time to actually cover this, but maybe it'll be important for later shows. I just thought a headline that was like, YouTube is going to crack down really hard on any anti-vax stuff and like ban people.

0:04:42 Lindsey: Interesting.

0:04:42 Thomas: Did you see that? I wonder.

0:04:43 Lindsey: Interesting. Ooh, no, I didn't. Uh, Brett and Heather are going to love that though. Maybe, maybe I'll tune into Dark Horse this week.

0:04:46 Thomas: I was going to say, yeah. Yeah. Dark Horse. It's the last episode. Maybe their acoustic phone will be falling down too. They won't bother. It is the last episode here because the man, whatever, Big Vax is censoring us. All right. Well, let's get to our questions. First one up. Honeymooning. So low effort, Schusch reference, is the fridge still back there? It's gone. Oh, yeah. God, I don't know how you, where you pull these. That was just like a, we told that on Schusch, that was like a joke I made to Sam. We were like, I don't even remember what we're doing, getting a fridge somewhere. Yeah, I think we were taking a fridge. I think he bought a fridge for his first house, like his new house, and yeah, it was, was like strapped in the truck or something. And Sam was driving. He's like, "So is it still back there?"

0:05:36 Thomas: I just looked back. I was like, it's gone. He found it really funny. I don't know. I think it was because we were so stressed about it. Like, ah, did we strap it in right? And anyway, I didn't remember telling that on Shoosh, but Roger always has.

0:05:48 Lindsey: Maybe it was, maybe it was on the stream or something.

0:05:50 Thomas: Yeah. Roger always has those references. It's amazing. But this is, this is a fun question. Question based on the Q&A image. Earth, Wind, and Fire's September is a song that when I was a kid, I thought the lyrics to the chorus were forever instead of September, e.g. dance in forever.

0:05:52 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Well done, Roger.

0:06:07 Thomas: Found the love we shared forever. Is there a song's lyrics that you have gotten completely wrong for a long portion of your life? Alternative question. Why do people not use the unquestionably clear and 100% correct way Oxford, looking at you, earth, wind, and fire, which should be read as their band is a representative of just two things, the earth and a wind and fire hybrid. So California, I guess. Wow, I hope you're okay over there, Roger. That was a Thomas-esque rant. Also, congrats, Roger, and actually hope you're having a good time if you're still honeymooning, Although that question's like, like, three weeks old, so maybe you are, I don't know, crazy honeymoon. Um, why don't you go first, any answers?

0:06:42 Lindsey: Yeah, mm-hmm, mm. Yeah, so first of all, yes to the Oxford comma. Absolutely agree. Two, I had a really hard time thinking of these. I know that I've had them, them before, but also I I look up lyrics a lot, so it's, you know, if I really like a song I just, I, yeah, I look them up, um, but I do remember that when they were playing, uh, Lenny Kravitz's I Just Want to Fly, or they'll just, like, constantly on the radio, that I was hearing, put your arms around the pavement, and I knew that couldn't be right, but like, also, what?

0:06:59 Thomas: Perfectionist. I Just want to Oh, you're are you saying isn't that yeah, it's Sugar Ray, so your story is that you thought that was by Lenny Kravitz?

0:07:19 Lindsey: Yeah, okay, well, this leads into the second thing I wanted to say, No, I'm confusing it, he's got another song about flying, I was confusing it with that, but that actually, that does lead to the second thing that I wanted to say, which is that there were several things that I didn't, that I thought I knew the artist of for a really long time, and I didn, and it was because it was the the mp3 file that I was getting from Morpheus or Kazaa or whatever, had the attributes wrong, so like forever I thought that Crimson and Clover was by Simon and Garfunkel, yeah.

0:07:37 Thomas: As demonstrated yeah oh oh,

0:07:52 Lindsey: Don't judge me.

0:07:51 Thomas: My god, well, you didn't listen to enough oldies radio with my dad, because I never would have thought that, come on, no, I, that's so funny, I, I had a really random, this is going to be a very specific thing that only happened to us and people around our age, you know, know, because like I had the same thing where I, someone, here's the first thing I'm gonna say, the first Coldplay album is fucking amazing, and I'll take that to my grave, it's really good, and then after way after that they turned to crap and everybody hates Coldplay now, but that first Coldplay album is really good, and this is like 2000 or 2001 or something, or two, and someone, I don't remember who, it might have been Sam, but someone made me, like, the burnt CD of it, and on that CD one of the songs was weirdly out of place, like, it was called, it was called Parachutes, that's the name of the album, the song Parachutes was the, here's the weird thing, the song had the word parachute in it, but it was like a way more uptempo, if you know Coldplay, if you go

0:07:55 Lindsey: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:53 Thomas: That album, this song was like way more uptempo, um, it didn't sound like them, but you know how sometimes, I don't know, sometimes artists do random things where it's like, ah, maybe the drummer's singing this song, or who knows, like, is it maybe just, I didn't ever bother to check, like, I don't Google, like, is this song on the CD I'm listening to that is labeled, you, Parachutes, is it actually, I never would have thought to check, and then, like, I just thought that was the song, and it was a weird break from the rest of the depressing slow piano album, and then, like, years later, I think I downloaded it again or something, like in college, was like, oh yeah, I should get that album on here because I didn't have it on that computer or something, and then I get to that song and it's completely different, it's, you know, more obviously a Coldplay song, it's just like, it's this tiny, it's a short, like, inner, I don't even think it's full song, that, that actual track, and I was like, oh my god, I've been thinking that was, it's like somehow this song got put on the CD and it was the wrong one for years.

0:09:50 Lindsey: Did you figure out who, who the actual artist of that

0:09:54 Thomas: Like No. Never did, and because, and it's nobody recognizable to me, like, broadly recognizable, it, it was kind of a nice song though, I could still, um, remember just about all of it, but I, I should try to Google the, put the lyrics that I can remember in quotes and just hope it comes up, I haven't done that, I'll, I'll report back, I'll do that and I'll report back.

0:09:54 Lindsey: Oh, yeah it would be interesting if that was like a guerrilla marketing thing, you know, it's like some some indie band was like, oh, I'll just put this on the, yeah,

0:10:14 Thomas: Yeah, it could be, um, as far as the actual question, I have this with countless things, but for me, it's, it's mostly like I've listened to a bunch of stuff and my brain, well, I guess between the two podcasts, there's a lot of talk on focus on lyrics this week or whatever, but like I hear the lyrics, but I don't, I I don't like fully process them for a while, you know? And so I am guilty of all kinds of misunderstandings of lyrics, but I never really say the, you know what I mean? Like they exist in my brain, but I don't, I couldn't tell you all of them until I listened to something. And then it's like, oh, that's not right. Like oftentimes I'll listen to it and it's just a song I haven't heard for so long that I, I just haven't thought about it. And then the minute I think about it, I'm like, oh, that's not right.

0:10:21 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, Oh,

0:11:06 Thomas: The only one I'll tell you, a funny one, it's embarrassing, but, but it's because I was like nine or whatever, whenever, uh, No Rain came out, I I could not, there's... there's lyrics there that I just never knew, and I was a kid, Sam was older, like in high school or whatever, or maybe I have something like that, and it's the part where, uh, try to keep my cheeks dry today, and as a, a kid, I, we, we had no idea, my sister and I were like, what is he saying there, and like my brother, my, my older brother, my older sister knew what it was, and they would like not tell us, you know, and they're trying to get us to guess, I was like, is it "trying to keep my cheating strategy", like, I was like, what, what is that, I don't know, as a kid my brain could not wrap itself around the fact that it's "keep my chi eeks" like doing two syllables of that, like "chi eek's dry today", like I just and yeah

0:11:15 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cheating

0:11:59 Thomas: I was like, what I was just grasping for anything, you know, when you're just trying to make something make sense, and uh, so that's, that's an embarrassing one, but I, there's probably four million others, but I cannot think of any, yeah.

0:11:59 Lindsey: Strategy. I like that. That's good. Yeah. But as you say, like you couldn't. So I looked up when Google was created. It was not till 1998. So what were we supposed to do? It was like

0:12:18 Thomas: Well and it wasn't I would say even if it was created in 1998, like, I don't think I, don't remember when it became like the thing to do.

0:12:26 Lindsey: Actually good.

0:12:27 Thomas: Well, yeah, that, that, and like it took a while before it was like just Google stuff, you know what I mean, like it fully, it took, I think it took everybody a while to be like, oh yeah, that's just easily on the internet kind of thing. But uh, who knows, I could be misremembering my timeline so let's keep our cheating strategy and, uh, carry on with our, oh, it's embarrassing with our

0:12:27 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, oh, yeah.

0:12:50 Lindsey: That is good. That was good. I liked that one.

0:12:51 Thomas: Uh yeah Next question here, Emily Gallus asks, how did you two meet and start working, working together? I don't know, you talk for a while.

0:12:59 Lindsey: Okay. I mean, we haven't met. So, you know, there's that.

0:13:02 Thomas: True. Is that right? Not even, not even a little.

0:13:05 Lindsey: No.

0:13:06 Thomas: Jeez.

0:13:06 Lindsey: No.

0:13:07 Thomas: Okay. We'll have to meet.

0:13:08 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, no. No, I've just I've been a listener for a really long time. And I think I think the first time I reached out was because I sent you that dissertation about Richard Carrier's episode. And then I don't know, COVID happens. And dann we kind of decided to start doing this. Good story.

0:13:25 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, we'd been in touch here and there, and what was the first thing we, oh, EvoPsych. We did those. Yeah yeah. Okay, so we did the Evo Psychs, and I don't' know, in this, in business, You find someone one who's good at doing the thing, and then I wanted to do the thing. Lindsey's really good at doing the things, yeah.

0:13:28 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Yeah? And then the back

0:13:45 Thomas: No, I just have the show. I'm just like a monopoly man who somehow ended up with with control of the thing, but anyway, uh, TBD on the meeting, I guess, I It feels like, like we've met. It was funny, cause I finally was able to meet Aaron in the flesh and yeah. And like, it felt like we already had met weirdly. I was like, oh, all right. This is, yeah.

0:13:57 Lindsey: At you. Mm hm. Yeah!

0:14:12 Thomas: It's like, I think we both were kind of like, yeah, no, Hey, we talk all the time every day. I'll not every week, you know, it was just like, well, that's about right. It is about what what I expected. How's it going? So it'll be magical. You know, I'm sure it'll be the same kind of magic with you and I. Like, oh, yeah. Hi.

0:14:24 Lindsey: That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to be out in California soon. So, you know, in February, I think. Yeah, yeah.

0:14:31 Thomas: Oh, shit. Yeah. When is that? OK. Everybody come. OK. So that's a while. All right. I have several houses to move into before then.

0:14:41 Lindsey: And true things.

0:14:42 Thomas: Yeah, all right. Another one from Emily. Can you elaborate on how Jordan Peterson abuses Evo psych so I can talk Talk to my libertarian brother and get him to stop sending me, I assume, JP videos for consideration because he thinks JP, quote, makes some good points that I should find interesting.

0:15:04 Lindsey: Oh, man, it's good question, but it's kind of hard to answer because, I mean, it's incredibly difficult to argue with people about Jordan Peterson because he's such a master of making a claim and then claiming he's not making that claim. So I'LL give you a couple of things, but I think that your brother'S just going to BE like, oh, well, that'S clearly not what he MEANS, right?

0:15:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:15:22 Lindsey: So, one of my problems with him is that he gives all of this, like, really banal common sense advice. Like, he's not the first person to suggest that, you know, keeping your room clean is probably a good thing to do. Like that's not revolutionary stuff. Stuff. But he's, he's using this like wacky reasoning to get there. And much of it is evolutionary. And he just states these things as facts rather than as his own sort of wacky reasoning. So and you know, caveat, I have not read the 12 rules for life or whatever. I probably should if I'm going to keep bringing up Jordan Peterson's name as an example. I really don't wants you though boy but

0:15:34 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, God. I think he's got updated ones, too. Didn't he do another one? Through all of it. Yeah. I think there's one, you know, the typical like 12 more rules for life sequel that somebody, you know, cause it just sells.

0:16:02 Lindsey: God. Yeah. He He probably did, yeah, okay, no, I really, yeah, I do think I should probably read uh Jordan Peterson in his own words more, but my understanding of, you know, the conceit of 12 Rules is that it has to do with masculinity and its relationship to dominance hierarchies, and that's sort of what he's using as the underpinning for why you should, you know, follow the totally milquetoast advice that he's giving, right? And so rule one, you know, stand up straight with your shoulders back, it's like, okay, fine, sure, but then he's like, because this will signal that you occupy a higher place in the dominance hierarchy, so really, okay, so

0:16:43 Thomas: It's not just good for your back.

0:16:45 Lindsey: Right, yeah, it's, I don't know, so there's a lot of things like that that bother me about his approach to things. But here's two things in particular that not just Jordan Peterson, but a lot of people that are misusing this perspective do. One is to overgeneralize from animal models. So he, you know, his whole bit about lobsters, right, has kind of become a little bit infamous. But his point there was he was, you now, sort of describing dominance hierarchies in lobstres and then moving to, and thus also humans, because what, we share common common ancestors? I mean, everybody, all living organisms share common ancestors.

0:17:14 Thomas: Yeah. I think every, every, um, I don't know, zoologist, biologist knows that if something takes place in one animal species, it definitely takes place. And all of the others, I think that's how animals work.

0:17:31 Lindsey: Exactly. That is the day one of biology 101. That's the first thing you learn.

0:17:35 Thomas: Yes. Like, all right, everybody, uh, first, first lecture, animals are basically the same. Like, honestly, we're just gonna learn one animal and then just apply that to all of them, because it's it's the same thing. There's different like fur and stuff, but it little eyes in different places, but you know, I think that's how the class goes. Yeah.

0:17:52 Lindsey: Yeah. Peripheral, superficial. Yeah. Right. And again, like, so I know that if you were to play this conversation for your brother, you'd probably say that we're straw manning. Right? But I really do think that that that is the move he's making, right? He's describing the dominance hierarchies. He's doing this to make the point that dominance hierarchries are old in an evolutionary sense, and thus, you know, they have to characterize humans. And the thing is, is that the evolution of status hierarchies in humans is a research area with a lot of open questions. And from what I know about this, the evidence thus far suggests that human social structures have a lot of unique features. So you're on pretty shaky ground if you want to claim that dominance dominance hierarchies look or work the same in humans as they do in lobsters or even chimps, for that matter, and chimps, you know, really are close relatives

0:18:04 Thomas: They

0:18:41 Lindsey: They basically are, yeah, um, that

0:18:41 Thomas: Are humans. I think, well, not only that, isn't it the, I always get the word wrong, naturalistic, not the naturalistic fallacy, see, natural appeal to oh, sorry, okay, well, you do it, you'll say the right word so I thought

0:18:48 Lindsey: That was the second thing, yeah yeah no no you're no that's the right words, yeah, the naturalistic fallacy, um, yeah, I think that he does a lot of is

0:18:59 Thomas: Someone told me that was wrong last time, well, anyway, appeal to nature, maybe, I don't know, wasn't there some clarification someone made that I was mixing those up, or am I remembering something wrong? Anyway, even if it were some natural state of nature, we could just be like, oh, you know, how I wear glasses so that my eyes work, uh, also, let's not do this thing, how nature gave it to us, you know, yeah

0:19:01 Lindsey: It, yeah right, I mean, uh, yeah, maybe I am getting this wrong, I thought that the naturalistic fallacy was the, you it is natural, therefore it is good, maybe I'm wrong about that, um okay

0:19:27 Thomas: That's what I thought too, I'm remembering someone correcting me, but we'll just go with it like the lyrics to No Rain by Blind Mode, you're gonna look it up how could you think that was letting, he did the American woman the cover of American Woman

0:19:31 Lindsey: Well, yeah, but I'll look this up, yeah, um, so yeah, and Lenny Kravitz, um, anyway, so I look all right so that really was a brain fart, I think I, I know this, Sugar Ray, I, stop it.

0:19:50 Thomas: Okay and Sugar Ray is Sugar Ray has the delightful harmonies, Sugar Ray is like every single song is in that nice two-part harmony, which is interesting, uh, you know, very different, I'm not, sorry, I withdraw the making fun of you because I'm wrong about everything, so, uh, but they are very different sounding singers

0:19:51 Lindsey: Okay.

0:20:08 Lindsey: They, they very much are. They very much aren't. That was an embarrassing thing that happened to me. So, all right. Naturalistic fallacy appeal to nature, something, right? But, you know, so his thing about hierarchies, we're evolved to live in hierarchies and therefore hierarchy is acceptable or at the very least it's, it's. You know, inevitable or something. And he also, he's using this argument as, again, as I understand it to make some claims claims about inequality being natural and acceptable, right? And again, the truth of the first claim about, you know, our evolution is already shaky, but it's irrelevant to the second claim, which is about the acceptability or inevitability, right, and this came up last month too, so those are a couple of things I would say, but, you now, I should probably read his book and then I'll probably have more specific things to say, yeah

0:20:33 Thomas: Yeah yeah yes isn't it weird that people who are like doing better in the world, maybe, maybe have a little bit of privilege, would be the ones that are like, you know, there's probably a good reason why things are this way. I wonder, you don't get a lot of like, someone who's starving to death who's like, ah, this is the hierarchy. It's how it should be.

0:21:17 Thomas: Don't get all of those books, I don't think.

0:21:06 Lindsey: Exactly, yeah, yeah yeah oh and this, does, this is to say nothing about his, his views on gender and stuff, right which, which echoes strongly a lot of the things that we debunked in those Deborah So episodes, so you know, maybe that's another, another resource for any specific claims your brother's making about about gender based on Peterson, I don't know

0:21:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:38 Thomas: All right. General contact, you're a problem child question. Here we go. No, it's politics and it's longer, but we love them. The Democrats are a conservative party with a progressive base. OK, that's why they ultimately won't break the filibuster. All right. Well, they won't brake it because Joe Manchin and, you know, six, five, I think it's like what, five or six other senators say they don't want to. I mean, I guess if you want to make claims about the entire party based on six of the 50 senators, okay. Anyway, there's more than six highly progressive members of the Senate, right? So, I mean—or at least six. So, it's like you could make the same claim the other way, couldn't you?

0:22:23 Thomas: Whatever. If the filibuster were removed, they'd have to choose between pleasing their base and pleasing their financial backers. Well, I think that's true about Manchin. I definitely agree with you there, but Manchin is one person, and Sinema probably. You could argue that it's really in the party's best interest a majority because while in that position, they can maintain the support of their base by just talking a big game about all the good stuff they'd supposedly do if they ever got a majority, while simultaneously pleasing their financial backers by voting for conservative Republican bills under the guise of bipartisanship. I don't think any of that is true. So I don't think I really believe all that, but two months ago you said you didn't understand what far lefties are talking about when they say Biden doesn't actually want to break the filibuster. I decided to lay out the argument just to get your reaction to it.

0:23:11 Thomas: None of that was an argument why Biden doesn't want to break the filibuster, that all that seemed to be focused on the Senate, I think, I, you know, like, all that I'm asking here, I suppose, because I don't know why, I, because the distinction between far left and whatever I am, gets more annoying every day to me, um, because far left seems to just be mostly, from what I hear, you know, I guess they're genuine communists and socialists or something, that might be, you know, obviously that's little farther than I'd go. But for the most part, it seems to consist of hating Democrats more than I do or taking like the worst possible motives to be what their motives are every time, like the worst interpretation of what they do. That that seems to be most of what being far left, quote unquote, on the internet is, is just being really shitty about Democrats and assuming they're all monsters, like that doesn't, that doesn't that actually doesn't say anything about you ideologically.

0:23:11 Lindsey: Yeah yeah

0:24:10 Thomas: Like, I know that that But, you know, like there is a bit of a distinction there that makes sense because you could argue like, oh, if it's a more centrist party, then obviously more centrists are going to be happy with it. But that it doesn't really follow that. Therefore, all of them are lying. Like if you're if you'RE far left, then therefore all the Democrats are lying about what they want to do all the time. It actually doesn't have to be that is what I'm saying.

0:24:32 Thomas: And I'm pretty far left on virtually every issue, like if you want to talk about actual issues, I imagine I'm as far left as just about anybody on most everything. And yet I feel like the main appeal I want to make to the far left, in quote, people is why is there the constant need to try to take down the entire Democratic Party? Making broad statements about what they are doing or what they want to do or how they're corporate, based on what, like, five of them are doing, it's all, look, I know there's bad examples, but like, why, this, this, this sentence here, oh, they want to talk a big game about all the good stuff they'd supposedly do, who's they Who is "they"?

0:24:32 Lindsey: Yeah

0:25:17 Thomas: In that, in that sentence, because who

0:25:18 Lindsey: That that piece of it does sound very conspiratorial to me

0:25:22 Thomas: What, what was Joe Manchin ever saying, because take, replace that with the people who actually are stopping the filibuster from being taken down, it's Joe Manchin, now Kirsten Sinema is the worst, First, Kristen, Kirsten, Kirsten, she's the absolute worst example of Democrats. I cannot believe how frustrating she is. And I want her gone. Like, I wish we could primary her today because she does strike me as somebody who is either bought and sold or is just so motivated by what she thinks is going to look good for a presidential run later on. It doesn't even make sense to me. She's awful and she sucks. And I'll agree with every leftist about all that. But like Manchin wasn't promising all the big things he'd do if he ever got a majority. And he's one of the main figures stopping from being taken out. So you can't lump all those people together. You can't be like, well, Elizabeth Warren promised she'd do this. And then she's supposedly, if she ever got a majority, and then she's not getting rid of the filibuster.

She's like, yeah, she would vote to get rid of it. She would get rid of it? You have to hold individual senators to account for what they're saying and doing. And I think when you do that, some of them will look really bad. But most of them, especially the progressive ones or even a lot of the centrist ones, most of them, if you track their quotes, they'll be like, here are the things I would love to do

0:25:34 Lindsey: Kirsten yeah that's

0:26:45 Thomas: And and most of them would vote to get rid of the filibuster it's all it's it's like a small group that won't um it's people like Cory Booker you know like he talks a big game and he would do it like I don't I don't know why we have to go the extra step of no they're all in on a conspiracy together to not do things it's like I it drives me nuts

0:27:01 Lindsey: Which which is what would be required, yeah, um, and I, like, it does, it does sounds, well, I mean, it is, it is a conspiracy theory, that is what would have to be true in order for for this narrative to make any sense, and as with most conspiracy theories, I think that they're seeing some sort of like bottom-up effects of things and then attributing them to some like shadowy top-down kind of influence, and it just, yeah, I don't, I think that's pretty implausible, yeah mm-hmm

0:27:05 Thomas: Yeah yeah I think that um the The worst example is obviously what Sinema is doing right now with the she even what was it? She voted down the prescription drug one, even though she like explicitly ran it like she is absolutely the worst example. And it's so it's like, let's do that. Let's be like, OK, get rid of her. You know, why do we have to do the thing where like the whole party is conservative? It's like it's a group action thing. You know. It's like, you need 50 of them to say, yes, get rid of the filibuster. You need that many.

And if even one is like, no, I'm more conservative, then you get people that are like, the party won't even do what it said. It's, like, why do you get to say that's the whole party? It's so infuriating. It strikes me as really simplistic thinking. People like that think they're being super smart with, oh, both parties are the same, you it makes them feel really smart, but it's like, it's actually a really simplistic way of thinking, like, if one person prevents this group of people from doing a thing, then the whole group is guilty of that. I, could I

0:27:56 Lindsey: Right right yes

0:28:35 Thomas: Feel like we can very easily be more detailed in our understanding of what's happening, okay Okay. We all know Aaron as a spider. Tulpa asks, context, I'm an engineer in Silicon Valley. When I left my last company, I intentionally didn't apply to companies like Amazon or Facebook because I didn't want to feel morally complicit in their societal problems. I understand that many people can't afford to make employment decisions like that. But for those of us who can, are we morally obligated to not work at bad companies?

0:28:41 Lindsey: Yeah

0:29:07 Thomas: Interesting. What do you think?

0:29:08 Lindsey: Uh, I mean, so I think partly my response is similar to some of the things we got to last month about consumer behaviors being implicated in things like climate change. Um, but I, you know, there are some complicating factors here. I think, I think I would find it difficult to work at places like Amazon or Facebook for these reasons. But, um, I don't know. I don- I don't know if I assign moral blame to, like, Amazon warehouse workers for the problems that caused By Amazon. I guess it's different if, you- you know, you're sort of higher up in the company. Maybe, be, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Yes.

0:29:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I Agree, I man, it could be a little different, I would say, if you're, I mean, who knows, number one is, I think they nailed it, like, because of capitalism, like, a lot of people are just gonna have to take what job they have to make and I Think, you know, I could definitely see times where, you know, it kind of depends. If let's say you were an engineer in Silicon Valley and you're working on something that there should, if your work involves something that there should be a whistleblower about, then I'd say you probably should whistleblow or not take part in it at the very least. Whereas if it's something like everybody, society somehow already knows that we just abuse Amazon workers and it's horrible, that Amazon's terrible to their workers and all that. I mean, we already know that. It's just society needs to do something about that. Maybe then

0:29:52 Lindsey: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Right. Yeah. No.

0:30:30 Thomas: It's not on the individual as much. I don't know if that makes sense. I feel like if you're high up in a part of something that, like, wow, you know, if this were visible to everybody, they'd probably have a big problem with it. Then, you Know, that could be a signal that, Like, maybe don't participate in that.

0:30:34 Lindsey: That does make sense, yeah, yeah.

0:30:48 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:30:49 Thomas: I don't know. That's kind of how I feel.

0:30:50 Lindsey: I agree with that. Right.

0:30:53 Thomas: All right. Well, Colette asks, Thomas, you already have an astounding number of podcasts. Well, not anymore. Not by today's standards. You know, back in 2014 or 15 or 16, probably when we started OA. Way. So like around that time, I had a lot of podcasts, but I had three or four. That was more than anybody kind of. But in 2021, I think your average, you're born with two podcasts. I think they hand you two of them if you're white.

0:31:22 Lindsey: Well, yeah, that's an important qualification.

0:31:26 Thomas: It's boy. Oh, here, here's the microphone. Um, yeah, I don't know that it's that many, but anyway, if you, if you to come up with, if, you know, whatever, if you were to comeup with, I'll imagine, uh, one more, what would the podcast be about and who would you want as dream co-host? Oh, God. Well, I have endless ideas for podcasts. It never ends. I, I can't tell you how many, I'm like, oh, I wish I could do that. I've want, I've wanted to do many things. I would love to to do one where it's like, yeah, you get access to like a research team that's gonna like do a really detailed production heavy one that Would be fun.

0:31:44 Lindsey: Hmm. Yeah. Oh.

0:32:05 Thomas: You know, like a prestige podcast about I- I wanted a tough one to do, and uh, it could happen someday. But I thought the the best one for Opening Arguments to do as a spinoff would be like a true crime, but for for corporate crime. And I think that already probably exists. You know, I'm sure you get like Enron podcasts and whatever. I mean, for, there's going to be rule 34, but for podcast, rule 35, if it exists, there is a podcast series about it is, will be the new rule. Um, but yeah, like, cause there, there are little stories here and there that have happened in no way.

But the problem with that one is I don't even know where to begin with finding that stuff, you know? And And so it's more like, hey, Andrew, think of a million other instances of that thing you said. You know, I don't know how you would come across those because they the very point is like they aren't very visible. You know like, oh, this corporation fought this worker in court, you know, like stuff like that where it's like the big guy beating the little guy maybe just trying to bring that stuff to light more.

0:32:08 Lindsey: Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:12 Thomas: It would be really interesting.

0:33:14 Lindsey: So. Yeah, you need, no, you need an investigative journalist to do do that one with you. Hmm.

0:33:19 Thomas: Yes. Yeah. Or several. That would be fun. What are your ideas?

0:33:21 Lindsey: Yeah. I Still want to start that one. Called It's Not Ghosts. Um, that's

0:33:29 Thomas: What does it not ghost do? What's involved?

0:33:32 Lindsey: It's a call-in show where people call in and they try to convince me that there's ghosts by telling me their ghost stories, and then I say, "It's Not Ghosts," next caller. Yes.

0:33:41 Thomas: Oh, here's the thing. It's not ghost. This is, of course, Sam from Comedy Shoeshine reference, right?

0:33:47 Lindsey: Yes, it is that.

0:33:48 Thomas: It's Not Ghost. And if they ask you why, you'd like, because there aren't ghosts is the reason for that.

0:33:55 Lindsey: Is precisely the Idea for the show. Yes.

0:33:57 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. I think that'd be a hit.

0:33:58 Lindsey: Yeah. I think so too, it'd be really fun. And also I love ghost stories, so. So it's not Like, you know, yeah.

0:34:04 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. Both ends of that that would be fun. Ready for sex stuff? We didn't get enough sex questions.

0:34:12 Lindsey: Oh, yeah, always. True.

0:34:14 Thomas: Do better, audience. More questions directly related to porn and everything we talked about. Maybe in next month. Okay. The question is from Joel Kuhn. You guys mentioned ED as one of the supposed repercussions of porn use, but I'd like to know about DE, delayed ejaculation. I'm curious if If there was anything in the literature about porn users having a more difficult time. I love porn users. You mean humans? Everybody? Yeah, never. Having a more difficulty time achieving climax with a partner versus watching porn. It seems cromulent.

0:34:52 Thomas: Simpson's word. It seems cromulent to me that there is, if there's any sexual dysfunction as a result of porn use, that DE would be the most likely to be significant.

0:35:04 Lindsey: Yeah, great question. And I think that Joel's right. I think the a priori, this probably isn't implausible. So from what I was reading, some possible causes that have been identified potentially for delayed ejaculation are like frequent masturbation and discrepancies between sexual fantasy and reality, personality. Um, so I don't know about the porn facilitating frequent masturbation per se, right? But I could see that if somebody is using a lot of porn, maybe there's some discrepancy between sexual fantasy. I donno, um.

0:35:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:35 Lindsey: So yeah, it doesn't seem totally implausible, but once again, there is not, my knowledge, any strong evidence that this actually exists. So I found yeah, um, I found a recent review article, and I will give you the link for the show notes so that you can check this out in more detail if you'd like.

0:35:42 Thomas: Oh, really? Really? Once again, just to save some emails. I mean, obviously DE exists. You're just saying, yeah.

0:35:55 Lindsey: Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah. The association with porn does not seem to, there's no evidence that that exists. So this, this review is from 2019. And at the time that it was written, there was actually very few research studies that looked at this link. So they identified five original research papers that were looking at the link between porn and DE. Three of them were correlational studies, and two of them were clinical case studies. Studies, and of the three sort of correlational studies, one of them showed an unusually high rate of delayed ejaculation. It was about in a third of the sample and other forms of sexual dysfunction in a sample of men who were diagnosed with hypersexual disorder, right? So, you know, one possibility is that the high rate of sexual dysfunction in the sample is due to frequent masturbation due to pornography. But the causality was not established in the study.

0:35:59 Thomas: Okay. Okay,

0:36:50 Lindsey: I mean, it wasn't possible to establish causality in this study because it was correlational and they measured everything at the same time. So that's unclear. But plus, given that it's an unusual sample, it's really not clear whether that association would generalize beyond people who have been diagnosed with this disorder, right? The other two correlational studies just didn't find any association at all between pornography use and delayed ejaculation. One of those was a 1,500-person sample made up of high school seniors, and the second one was a sample of 4,000 men between the ages of 18 and 40, you know, again, general population sample, and they didn't find any association at all.

0:37:26 Thomas: Wow.

0:37:27 Lindsey: Yeah. And then in the two clinical case studies, those focused on young men. One was 19, one was 20, and among other things, these men were viewing pornography and also experienced delayed ejaculation during partnered sex. And after ceasing pornography use, the issue with delayed ejaculaion improved, but ceasing pornography was not the only thing that they did. They also altered their masturbation practices, right?

0:37:50 Thomas: Right.

0:37:51 Lindsey: So yeah.

0:37:52 Thomas: Change, change form, change technique a little bit.

0:37:55 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, right. So one had been using like an artificial vagina to masturbate. The other one, no, no.

0:38:00 Thomas: Oh. Okay. I thought I was joking, I thought you just meant frequency. Oh.

0:38:06 Lindsey: I didn't mean technique actually, the other one was apparently masturbating too vigorously and was advised to masturbate more gently, reduce speed and pressure, so yeah, so it's hard to disentangle the porn from that.

0:38:06 Thomas: All, right, yeah, Wow.

0:38:17 Thomas: That's amazing for Somebody to get that pointer, I was that can't have happened that many times in life just because usually, you know, you're not in that situation where someone's like observing your technique, be like, pointer here, do they do do the typical thing where you get behind somebody to help them with a golf swing or whatever, there, that's how that goes in my mind, okay.

0:38:22 Lindsey: Yeah. Apparently it's thing, you know, uh, Jesus.

0:38:48 Lindsey: I'm not, I'm not shaming you, not for your fantasies

0:38:50 Thomas: Yeah, exactly, but I thought this was a safe space, um, Yeah, interesting, you know, I, another thing is, because we got an email, that was something like, you know, they, someone was a little upset for our coverage of whatever, porn addiction or whatever, and they said, I, I think they used themselves of as like, I, I had a problem with porn and then I quit and things were about, you know what I mean, like, and I, I want to emphasize again that in all these discussions, when you're talking about about population level, you know, studies that do these things of trying to see if there's a major issue at, at that level, it doesn't mean there can't be individual issues in, in, in the data. Right.

0:38:52 Lindsey: Yeah, yes. Yeah.

0:39:35 Lindsey: Yeah, that's right, yeah, and so I'm glad to have an opportunity to follow up on this because their compulsions exist, right, and somebody could have dysregulated compulsive behavior with porn, I'm not saying that that's not possible, the thing I wanted to drive home in that episode was that people have argued that, uh, that porn is inherently addictive and that if you start using porn you are likely to develop compulsive behavior around it, and that is not supported, um, but that doesn't rule out that somebody could have a problem with porn, that's, that's possible, yeah.

0:40:04 Thomas: And It, it sounds like it also, cause I feel like I've, you know, maybe known a person or two who seems like they have this problem that we just talked about, where it's like they're so into this, you know, hardcore porn or whatever, that they don't, they aren't as interested in, like, their own, you know, actual sexual experiences.

0:40:29 Lindsey: True.

0:40:29 Thomas: Um, I mean, that's a thing that could still happen and not be reflected in this broader data, right?

0:40:37 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, I mean the, yeah, the thing that, the thing I, that I wanted to debunk was that, was that this is a particularly dangerous form of media, right, but like, yeah, it does not rule out the possibility of those things happening, right? And I think, you know, that review article that I quoted from in the conclusion, they weren't saying either that people don't have dysregulation around porn. They were just saying to clinicians, like, there are multiple explanations when a patient or a client comes to you with these kinds of issues, and you should explore all of them. Maybe they actually have dysregulated around porn use, but maybe it's X, Y, or Z.

0:40:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:18 Thomas: All Right, final question. General, contacting a problem child. Uh, would it be better if regular people, i.e., non, non-experts, weren't allowed to read the results of preliminary medical studies? I think we've all noticed this pattern by now. Some researcher does a study that shows some drug might help treat or prevent COVID. Actual scientists don't get too excited because they understand the results of studies like that are basically worthless until they've been replicated. Scientists don't get excited, but vaccine skeptic Uncle Franks and Karen sure do. Find these studies when looking for vaccine alternatives. They share them with each other and then all go out and take whatever the drug was in the study instead of getting the vaccine. Inevitably, a whole load of unvaccinated boomers die of COVID or ODing on the drug in the steady.

0:41:18 Lindsey: And Yeah.

0:42:09 Thomas: Would it be better if there was some gatekeeping mechanism that prevents regular people from being able to read scientific studies like this? Like suppose if the results of a medical study haven't been replicated a certain number of times, only experts in the field, i.e. people who need to know for their jobs are allowed to know about it. Would that be better? Very interesting question. Problem child. What do think, Lindsay?

0:42:29 Lindsey: Yes. Very interesting question. I appreciate the question. And I absolutely acknowledge the importance of the problem that Problem Child is bringing up here about misusing scientific research and getting oneself or others killed. That said, I really value the transparency of scientific research in principle. And, I'm not really sure what this gatekeeping mechanism would look like practically. So, I mean, sharing results is an important part of conducting science.

0:42:44 Thomas: Hmm. A really high subscription fee to the journals that they come in. Wait, we already have that.

0:42:57 Lindsey: Yeah, right? Um, yeah. And I, you know, I don't love the idea of making results confidential, right? I think that that would, that would hinder scientific progress even among the scientific community more than it would, it would help with this problem. Like, so let's say that we did institute some sort of gatekeeping here. What am I allowed to read as a person with a PhD in social psychology?

0:43:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:21 Lindsey: Right. Do I just, Lord of the Rings? Yeah. I mean, do I, do we get to read outside social psych? Psych? Can I read cognitive psych? Do I get to read everything in psychology, but I can't read in sociology? Or does this only apply to medical research? But then again, I mean, there's high stakes findings in tons of disciplines that have the potential for dangerous misuse, right? So I don't know. I don't like the idea of this as a solution to the problem. And the other thing that I wanted to say is that I think that this question assumes that the spread of misinformation happens in kind of a grassroots way, right, that there are just like, you know, thousands or millions of Uncle's Frank out there

0:43:21 Thomas: The Lord of the Rings. That's it.

0:43:57 Thomas: Yeah,

0:43:57 Lindsey: Spending all their time combing Google Scholar for papers and then sharing those scientific papers around and their bad interpretations or whatever. In actuality, I think the problem here is not the thousands or millions of Uncle Frank, but actually a handful of Bretts and Heathers.

0:44:12 Thomas: Man. What a, what a great sentence that was, those Bretts and Heathers, because yeah, this would make it easier for people who actually have the degree to sell out or to be evil, because then it would be like, yeah, I've read the studies, you're not allowed to apparently, but yeah, here's what they say, yeah.

0:44:17 Lindsey: Thank you. Right. Yes. Yeah. Right? And but in terms of like how the misinformation gets spread, like that is how it gets spread. What you see floating around on social media most of the time, right? Sometimes somebody will link to a primary source, but that's usually not what they're doing. They're sharing some weird infographic that doesn't have any citations associated with it, or they're sharing Brett and Heather's episode about something. That's, in terms of the nodes of misinformation, I think it is people with platforms like them that are really, you know, spreading this misinformation and getting people killed. I don't, I don't think it is, you know, the other thing. I don't know. I, you know, in an ideal world, the, you know, a big part of the solution here would just be to improve scientific literacy. I would, I would love to see that, but yeah,

0:45:16 Thomas: Exactly. Well, and we could start with, like, if we were able to triage that, as they say, it would, would be nice to start with people who cover these things in, you in the media, so that, because those are obviously voices that are going to reach more people than your average citizen. So if they were covered a little better, if we could all stop doing the "study says this," I actually just heard that in a podcast and it's totally true, and I can't remember if you've said this as well, but whenever you see the headline that's like "study says get more sleep" of whatever, dot da da, like, it it usually just means, you know, not always, but usually means they did some study and like some mice had a result, you know, kind of, and then they're like, you definitely can't drink coffee before 11, but after, you know, something that like, and we, you know, I think lay people and people in the media love to do those as viral headlines. And we love to read them, which is like study shows, drink coffee at this time for more something. And it's really

0:45:33 Lindsey: Yes.

0:45:58 Lindsey: And

0:46:20 Thomas: Not describing much of a significant thing at all.

0:46:20 Lindsey: Then It's about Lobsters, Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:30 Thomas: Stop doing that, everybody.

0:46:31 Lindsey: I don't know. So There's... there's a lot of responsibility to go around here, but, uh, but yeah, I really, that there's something about the idea of of putting all scientific research behind lock and key, except, except for that. I don't, I don't like that as a solution.

0:46:45 Thomas: All right, I guess I won't do it. Well, That's been our September Q&A. Thanks so much for the questions. That was perfect. Please keep them coming for whatever the month after September is. Nobody knows until we get there. Um, and I'll put that up, and hopefully we'll have some lots more interesting episodes to inspire questions from everybody, so thanks so much. And uh, yeah, thanks for listening, thanks for supporting, and thanks Lindsey for the brilliant insight.

0:46:50 Lindsey: Thank you.

0:47:16 Lindsey: Hey, thank you.

0:47:25 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.