September QnA!

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Thomas: Hello and welcome to the September Q&A. September of 2022. I'm Thomas, that's Lindsey, how are you doing?

0:00:10 Lindsey: Fantastic, how are you?

0:00:11 Thomas: Doing great, I'm excited to be back doing these. That's good stuff.

0:00:14 Lindsey: Me too, I missed it.

0:00:15 Thomas: I know we threw a lot of content our listeners way at the end, but I was on vacation, sorry, that was my fault, so we're cramming it in at the end of the month, but we'll hopefully be on a more regular schedule. October, we do have QED, but that's that's toward the end of the month. It is like the end OF month and it's one weekend. So I think we'll be good. We'll be able to hold us to it. Everybody will make sure we're doing more regular episodes next month. Promise.

0:00:39 Lindsey: Yes.

0:00:40 Thomas: There's like a 62%

0:00:40 Lindsey: Got some really good ones coming up next month.

0:00:42 Thomas: Chance we follow through on that. And as such, we're going to lose and fuck it. We'll do it live Q&A. So if there's any more ums and uhs, that's why. But we, you know, some people, people always ask me for opening arguments, they're always like, "Just give us the unedited, just like early, just give the," like patrons, you know, they're like, "Oh, just anytime you want to throw that up." And I've probably mentioned this before, but it's it's funny because I think they imagine that, you know, Andrew delivers like a tight 15 on some other topic, and then I'm like, "Now we cut that for time," when really it's just ums and uh and right and and I'll just verbal stuff over and over again.

0:00:44 Lindsey: Yep. Uh huh.

0:01:24 Thomas: That's like all it is. It adds up to like 20 minutes of editing. So there will be a little more of that. But let's get to our questions. What do you think? Should we go in order here? Okay. Are there any you want to make sure? There are quite a few. We're actually not getting to all these. So we'll do the first few and then let me know if you want to prioritize any of the other ones.

0:01:27 Lindsey: Yep, yep. Sure? Yeah.

0:01:43 Thomas: Sans Cristo asks, am I the first question? Yes. Done. Okay. We answered that one. No. My real question, now that Dr. Dr. Lindsay, that's a tricky one. Dr. Lindsey ostensibly, because I wanted to go into your last name, has more time for the show and its related enterprises since leaving her job. Will there be a return to streaming or is it Thomas's busy schedule still the limiting reagent? What is that? Oh, in that equation. Okay, sure. I can answer that one. That is probably all me. I mean, occasionally you're not available when I want to stream, but let's face it, It's more my busy schedule with 18 kids and a dog ruining my life. So that's more me.

0:01:46 Lindsey: Yep. Yeah, I'm basically just sitting around every night hoping that you're gonna ask me to stream Toads, so that's all I do.

0:02:30 Thomas: Yeah, with it open, like ready, like the window open, ready to do it.

0:02:33 Lindsey: Correct, it's really sad.

0:02:34 Thomas: Well, here's what I thought of. And I don't know if you'll have an opinion on this, but since they announced the one problem with the stream, I love the stream. I want to get back to it. I promise I will. I was going to, and then I had this trip. And so I will get back together totally next week. There will be a stream. Stream. And for patrons, that's next week. For everybody else, there already was a stream. So that's twitch.tv slash SRS NES. There will be a stream, I promise, 100%.

0:03:04 Thomas: But what I've realized is there's too many things I want to do, too many games I want To play. I've tried some that don't work for the stream. I realize Magic the Gathering does not work for The stream because it's so so complicated that you have to have a 100% magic, the gathering audience to do it. Cause otherwise you're like trying to explain any part of it and play. It's just too much. It's way too much, so that's not happening again. I'm done with that. Uh, it was fun a couple of times, but you know, it just doesn't work. And then there's some other games that are too focus oriented that like I need, I can't do without Lindsay probably cause Lindsay needs to like talk more, but also I'm realizing, so they announced the new Zelda, the new, uh, Zelda breath of the wild sequel. Very awkwardly named Tears of the Kingdom, which is a, that doesn't seem, is it just me? That doesn't work, does it? The title, Tears Of The Kingdom.

0:02:35 Lindsey: Yeah. Oh boy.

0:03:54 Lindsey: Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah, I don't know.

0:03:57 Thomas: Yeah, I don't know. You just wouldn't say it like a tears of the collective thing that is the, I don't know. It just seems weird. It could be a translation issue. It could be a, I'm not sure. But anyway, I look, I am pumped for that. And it's about, I don't know, 240 days away or something. I keep seeing a countdown on Reddit, but I haven't seen it lately. And I was thinking, you you know, I beat Zelda. I went through full on first Zelda, NES Zelda, and I love the Zeldas and I want to play them on the stream. What if I just start going through the Zeltas and see how many I can get through before the new one comes out? You know, I think I think that might be my news. I got to streamline it. And then when I need a quick break, I'll probably practice some Battletoads, you know here and there, because I got to keep I got a beat that in my life.

0:04:34 Lindsey: Sure, sure. You Gotta keep your skills up on that one, yeah. Yeah.

0:04:38 Thomas: Like one of my life goals in all seriousness is to beat Battleteads, like I need to do it before I die, I just have to, so that'll go, so that's the answer, we will get back to it. And uh, if anyone has any ideas for like, you know, what kind of, not the game content because I'm, I'm just going to do that, but like what you want us to talk about or you know, do on the stream, we're all ears, I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities to do fun stuff. All right, uh, Roger has a very long question, but it's Roger, so I'm gonna get to it. Here we go. If we clone Thomas Smith and partnered those clones in a Codenames off between the Thomas Potter verse, who would come out on top? Oh, this is complicated, I love it. Team one, Lindsey and Thomas, team motto, we came here to palp it up.

0:05:01 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, so.

0:05:21 Lindsey: Good.

0:05:21 Thomas: Team two, Sam Smith and my brother, Sam and Thompson, team motto, who cares, this game sucks. Team three, Andrew and Thoms, team motto, insert Thomas taking the bar analysis and second guessing, but with Andrew's ambiguous word association instead of confusing law exam stuff, hashtag can't burglar in the sun. Wow, the, the look, the references in this paragraph, Roger is better, better than anybody else. I wonder if anybody gets all these. I do. They're great.

0:05:45 Lindsey: Oh.

0:05:46 Thomas: Team four, Aaron and Thomas. Team motto, no Aaron, I, nor anyone else was thinking that.

0:05:52 Thomas: Team five, A. Oh, we got letters now. This is, wow. It's getting complicated. Team five A, Eli and Thomas, team motto, Eli, you have to look at all the words on the board before you give the clue. Team 5B, Tom and Thomas team motto. Tom, where are you going? It's competition and he's gone. Bonus question. How does team ring Lydia and Thomas Smith fair against the pot of verse winner. Oh, wow. Okay. Very complicated. I've been talking a lot. I know this is a me-oriented question, but we've played a lot of code names together. What's your read on the situation?

0:06:20 Lindsey: Man, I, I would, my money would be on you and Sam, I just think that the shared history there is pretty valuable, so that would be my, but we've done, we've done pretty good on the same team.

0:06:30 Thomas: Yeah, I think you and I are good. I think I have issues. I can be a really good clue giver. I'm not as good of a guesser oftentimes because I just... I think... Man, I'm really... Here's what, what I'll say. I'm very good if at piecing out the logic of the answers, but the problem with that method is often the person is coming from a different place or I'm coming from a different space in terms of my word associations, which is obviously the whole game, but like there are two components. Like there's the word association. Yes.

But there's also a lot of the, like, um, I don't know what you call it, but the strategy of like, okay, what clues have we already had? What clues have the other team had? And that stuff I think I'm really good at, but it only gets you so far if someone just has a different association with a word than you. And there's often just nothing you can do about that. And so I feel like my brain is patchy in terms of that. Like sometimes I'm totally fine. Other times it's like, I just don't know. I just can't, I can't get on the same page with, with who's giving me clues. So yeah,

0:06:30 Lindsey: Hmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:07:30 Thomas: You and I have done pretty well.

0:07:31 Lindsey: So. The. Shared. History. Though, yeah, yeah, I think so too, yeah.

0:07:33 Thomas: Shared history. Yeah. That helps. I don't know. Okay. If I were, I'll just end this long question by saying Lydia is extremely good. And And I, Lydia and I actually really well together. I think I would almost put my money on Lydia and I if that was the team, just because I mean, we are married. We do like each other, and she's, she happens to be very good as a clue giver of this game. So I think I'd put my money on that, weirdly. Here's one.

You're not going to maybe think, Roger, Eli, Eli is very good because he does, he, Eli rejects all of the complicated stuff of this and just gives the clue and guesses, or guesses like the most obvious thing, which weirdly enough, like actually is probably better because you get yourself wrapped around the axle with uh, with all the complicated analysis. So Eli's a, be a sleeper. Sam, obviously, Lindsay as well, I think Lindsay and I've done, it's hard, we'll just have to make this happen. So let me know when you get the uh, Patreon goal clone machine, and I think that's probably the number one use of human clones would be that, so, so

0:07:35 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:08:14 Lindsey: Agreed.

0:08:36 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:08:36 Thomas: We'll do that first. And then all the other stuff, like, yeah.

0:08:36 Lindsey: Yeah. We should do more code name streams, that would, that's been fun.

0:08:41 Thomas: Those are really fun, uh, definitely, for sure, we have done a few, we'll get on that. All right, all your patrons are belong to us. Thomas, can you give us insight into the calculus used to decide how and when you've got enough subscribers, sponsors that you can quit your day job to podcast full time? Surely it's more complex than just hitting the same income as your old salary job and thinking you're set forever in the podcast biz. That's interesting question.

Follow-on questions, what are some of the behind the scenes expenses for running a successful podcast? Do ever have to pay guests for their interview time? Is there content that you share that tends to gain slash lose a surprising number of subscribers? Seriously, inquiring minds want to know. Wow, this is really business related stuff. I don't know if this will be interesting to everybody. In terms of me quitting my job, I think I've mentioned it before, but as an accountant, I have all of my expenses very detailed out, not my expense, all of of my finances very detailed out in a program that's embarrassingly old called Microsoft Money, literally doesn't exist anymore.

I have to like download the file from like 2003 to get, and the reason I do is because they have a cash flow projection that I just, I tried to find a new version of it like 10 years ago, and I downloaded like four different new programs that had all these new features and all the things, but they didn't have that one fucking thing, and so I couldn't use them. So honestly, I just stick with that.

And so, to answer your question, what I did was first, I had a mental breakdown because I was working too hard. I was spending every day working overtime for my regular job and getting like four, no, like five episodes of content out a week.

0:08:41 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:10:13 Lindsey: It's nuts.

0:10:14 Thomas: I didn't, yeah, would, we'd have social gatherings and I would just stay in my room. I wouldn't, I'd just be like, all right, sorry, I can't just have to edit. So I eventually had a bit of a mental shutdown because of that. And it was just, it was, it wasn't, work. Much. I was working too much. And it eventually burnt out to the point where I was like, I think I need to stop something.

0:10:35 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:10:36 Thomas: And I, in the back of my mind, I was, my goal was to quit, but I was like, all right, I'm going to pay off all my student loans. I started paying like way, you know, way more on my student loan to pay them off faster. And so that was obviously upping my monthly expenses. So I, you know, I Was putting the extra money toward my debt kind of thing.

And then when that happened, I wasn't done paying off my student Loans, but did a bunch of projections and like, like, you know, budgeted. What if I just stopped doing that and pay the minimum on my student loans? Like, and then I just, and honestly, I know it's a boring answer, but I just updated the cashflow thing on the Microsoft money. And I got, I, I tweaked expenses enough to figure this is going to work. And, uh, you Know, and, and safely.

So like, obviously I wasn't going to quit if it was like, You will have $20 in your bank account. Like I, you Now it looked pretty safe. And so it's very contextual to your own situation. I can't really universalize that other than to say, I'm an accountant. So I 100% had a handle on every single dollar that I like. It's just, I've just very conscious of that stuff. I cannot let a bill go unpaid or let a credit card tick any interest ever. You know, I just, it's something that my brain has to do. And so for me, that's kind of the answer. I don't know how Eli would make this calculation because Cause he can't do calculations of any kind. So that would be different.

0:11:24 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:11:58 Thomas: And yeah, that's all me talking. I don't know if you have any thoughts, feel free to contribute them.

0:11:58 Lindsey: That's interesting. Yeah. No, I think, I think my process looked a slightly less responsible than yours, but uh, I Did Well, I, I did have the, I'm going to die if I don't quit something, and I'm pretty sure it's my job, so I, yeah, I figured I'd leave and and then figure out a way not to starve, so indeed.

0:12:09 Thomas: Well, what was your product process?

0:12:24 Thomas: Yeah. Different answer. Different. And whether or not you'll starve. Oh, excuse me. This is live. So I got a cop, whether or Not you'll start. We'll see. Dependent on if any of these fine folks listening would like to pledge at patreon.com slash series pod, help Lindsey not starve. And then uh, behind the scenes expenses, here is the thing about podcasting that is really great, um, it's one of the lowest overhead things you could possibly have. Well, if you, okay, my version of my podcast is, I think for more prominent or or like more famous people ones, or more like produced ones, I bet you they have all kinds of bloated costs of like, oh, we'll get the celebrity to do this and we'll do whatever, and then we'll studio time that will rent out. But since I do all of it, we literally have very few expenses in number. Now, hosting expenses, all that kind of stuff, that can add up, like especially because with OA, sorry to brag, but like because OA went viral a few times, it just, it actually crashed.

0:12:35 Lindsey: Yeah, wow.

0:13:29 Thomas: Initially, I had it on like just our website and it just totally crashed it. So we pay a bit to have like a more stable, you know, hosting in case something happens and goes, and, you know, the numbers are pretty high on that. And also, here's another thing. Weirdly enough, the show notes add into that quite a bit. So like if a bunch of people are pinging the downloading, even though it's a small individual amount of data, the show notes, but like we do pretty long ones for OA, and like everybody grabbing those from the server was just like instantly crashed. So it's better now. So that's an expense. But for the most part, we don't, we absolutely do not pay people for interviews. That's, it's just not really done, honestly. And I think the reason is in the environment. Well, I won't say it's not done anywhere. Of course, it probably is somewhere. I think they're probably, I bet you there are a lot of people trying to make their podcast big that hire people to like come on and, you know, to hope that works.

0:13:34 Lindsey: Now.

0:14:24 Thomas: And maybe it does. I couldn't answer that. Maybe it does it. Maybe it doesn't. But forthe most part. What you actually get is the opposite. It. Like people are willing. I don't know if we've ever been offered money to have somebody come on. Um, but, but maybe like, it's more that direction. Like, people are so the podcast market is so saturated that it's full of people, uh, and the book writing market, by the way, like it's full of our inbox on OA all the time is full of emails that are incredibly inappropriate. Cause Cause like, they don't, they didn't actually check who we were or whatever. It'll be like, it'll be like right wingers trying to get on our show or like someone will be like it's the ones I love. I laugh every time. Cause it'll be like a division in today's politics.

0:15:09 Thomas: So it'll be like the pitch will be the, the email taste politics. So divided. Are you for Trump? Are you against? And like, they're just going for this. Like, aren't you tired of like the PC people being so loud? And then, you know, the Trump people doing coups, I guess is not what they don' say that. Then the right-wingers being mad as well. You know, they do the real centrist thing. Well, here's a guest.

0:15:29 Lindsey: Kitten mittens, yeah. And now kitten mittens, that's, yeah, interesting.

0:15:33 Thomas: What's that? Yeah, there must be a better way. Yeah, and now here's the guest. He's gonna, whatever, you know. I laugh at those every time. I've never once responded to any of them. So it's more like that, actually. People really, it's saturated with people who want to get on shows. And so it's actually pretty easy. I go on, I shouldn't say this out loud out.

Cause then I'll get a bunch of invites that I don't have time for, but my policy is I will go on anybody's show if they invite me, like I just will. Uh, and you know, I only charge like five, 10,000 minimum. No, I charge nothing for it. Um, and, uh, yeah, that's, that'S kind of how my attitude has been and how it's been for all the podcasts. So there you go. Oh, There, there was more, uh... Content that tends to gain, lose subscribers. So not really, actually. I would say the people who are patrons for the most part are just really big, big fans of what we're doing, you know, and, and feel that close relationship with us for the most part, you know? And so the funny thing is, unless you really fuck up, which is totally possible, you know, your patrons usually aren't mad at you.

Like even if you, you make a little mistake or if you cover something wrong or do anything like that, your patrons are, they have that relationship with you where they're like, ah, okay, they probably messed this one up. Maybe they write you that's fine, maybe they tell you like, hey, uh, you might have, uh, said something wrong here, here's a source that corrects you or whatever. The people who just are like, ah, you said the bat, those are the people that don't subscribe, uh, to Patreon, they don't ever, they aren't ever like you

0:16:14 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:17:07 Thomas: Know, you're big fans, they just aren't like, they're people who listen and that's fine, that's the bulk of listeners is that person actually, um, that's how the numbers work and, uh, that we do do have to make sure we make stuff that those people like as well.

And if my attitude is if they're, if they're being unreasonable and how hard they're hitting us for something, because we do get, you know, once again, how numbers work, we get, a we have to hear this all day from a million people. You know, it's like it's, it might be when I have any one interaction with someone to them, that's just them the first time interacting with me.

To me, it's the 11 millionth time I've had someone mad at me about something that actually was a misunderstanding or something. So it does wear on you, you know, and nothing has really gained us a ton of patrons except the key times. I mean, I will let you in behind the veil for OA a little bit, which is oddly enough, we were really worried in some of these tragic times when bad things were happening. And we were like, hey, things are tough out there. Like if you would rather redirect your money to yourself or or, or to an abortion fund or whatever. People, people have, have not done that.

We've been surprised that it, it hasn't led to people leaving. We got a little bit, we had a pretty bad, bad hit right when COVID happened, because I think there was a lot of uncertainty. Um, and that sucked, but like we understood, we totally get it, you know? And, uh, but then it built back up.

I think people realize that like, oh, you Know, it, our, our life isn't ending for, for for the most part, like our listeners are obviously, or rather our patrons are obviously a privileged set of people.

0:17:49 Lindsey: Yeah

0:18:43 Thomas: Like they're, they're the people who can follow politics like crazy and give money to content creators. Like that's going to be a select, you know, demographic of people and so I think they, that demographic wasn't actually hit that hard by COVID as much as I thought they were going to. Like I was worried, I like, we're, we're so screwed.

Like we're our business model is like people just giving us money who like us and like the minute the economy goes down like we're just totally fucked, but it hasn't, it hasn't been the case broadly, like obviously here and there that happens, but like broadly speaking that hasn't been the case. Um, people are loving the coverage of Alex Jones in a way that's very weird to me.

Um, I don't get it because I find it infuriating and just anger inducing and I find, IT I, I find Alex Jones to be so, so evil that I don't, it's like, I, I can get in the mood of like, all right, let's roast him, but but it's so, it's so extremely bad that I'm just like I'm done with that and I would like him to just go away forever.

0:19:42 Thomas: And so I have a hard time with that. But that's one, one of those things where on OA we like, it's it's good content. It's also been really interesting from a legal perspective. So it's, you know, my feelings on Alex Jones don't really matter because there's really good information to gotten out and people are interested in the trial and in the issues. I've just been surprised how interested they are. Like I never would have guessed. When we first talked to those, Dan and Jordan, you know, like that podcast, Knowledge Fight, I was like, oh, that's an obscure niche thing to do, to just like cover Alex Jones for 10 hours at a time. That's, wow, they must have all of 10 listeners. No, they are gigantic.

I don't know why, but the, oh, they do a good job. I didn't mean like they don't do a great job, but I'm just surprised at how many people are interested in that like topic. It's it's a, it's a striking number of people, they are huge, they do a great job. So I get it, but also I don't care how much, I like, even if Eli Bosnick was doing a four hour podcast on Alex Jones, I don't think I would listen to it. Like I just, I it's weird, I just don't like that kind of content and I'm surprised that everybody else does. But like that's just a niche opinion that I have, like that, that's a, that's a unique opinion that I have that apparently the world doesn't share with me, so that's a surprising

0:20:21 Lindsey: Yeah hmm yeah I mean, I think that the appeal of that stuff is probably parallel to like true crime or something, right, like feeling like you're getting a handle on on grifter assholes or something, I don't know, um that

0:21:09 Thomas: One yeah maybe or just like yeah, reinforcing that hey, this person out here is fucking nuts, so it makes me feel better, but yeah, I don't know, or people are just interested I mean, it's it's relevant stuff, I don't, I don't think it's bad to cover Alex Jones in any by any stretch, I don't mean to say that, it's just my personal, like we all have our preferences of the content we like and don't like and I just don't really like, on my own time I consume zero Alex Jones anything, I don't want to know about it, I don't, I hate it, I hate him so much, like he's hounding families of, I, I mean I'll be honest, like if I was one of those families I would have killed Alex Jones a long time ago, like I would, I just, like I don't know how you could lose a child in a shooting, I, like it's so, it's such a, a tough, difficult thing for me to even think about that, I just don't like it, but it's, you know, whatever

0:21:21 Lindsey: Could be sure yeah yeah oh

0:22:02 Thomas: It's people are, uh, people have their different quirks and it's me most of all All right, Gary Myers says the banner says new episodes Mondays and Thursdays, are we getting back to that? Hope so. Also add Lindsey to the banner, I don't, here's how out of touch I've been with the show because of being so busy, I don't even remember what banner this is, so, I will, is it on the Patreon? If it is, I'll, yeah, we gotta update that, I'll just, I'll just have it be a picture of Lindsay and a spider dick, how about that, if anyone wants to make us a new banner, that's hilarious and involves spider palps and Lindsay and me, if you want, that's fine, yeah I don't mean in a sexual way, just the palps could be around, you know, maybe the spiders are doing their own thing in the background, you know, they're they're like, I don't care that you're here, fine, we'll get the spiders like we're gonna do us over here, we're, you can, you do you, you know, we'll do us. You do you.

0:22:39 Lindsey: No, okay, yeah that sounds good sure yeah sure, no just in the background and I'm just watching, yeah spiders are into that I've noticed that about them, yeah

0:23:03 Thomas: Yeah, you're right. I got to update that. We aren't going back to the two episode a week thing, but we are going to try to put out more than one on average a week. And that'll be that'll Be great. More science thingies, more all that stuff. Tim Durning, here we go. We get one for you finally? Sorry, I'm talking so much. Lindsay joked that she would work in a hipster cocktail bar if she did.

0:23:25 Thomas: What would her specialty drink be? Bonus question. What's the best cocktail? And why is it a mezcal margarita? Go ahead.

0:23:24 Lindsey: Not a joke, not not a joke, like, what, I don't know why that read is a joke, not a joke at all, I very much plan to do this, I'm very, I'm, I think I'm very good at making cocktails but

0:23:42 Thomas: Ooh, Patreon goal. Lindsay Osterman will make you a cocktail and review your paper. If we ever did a live show, the platinum night would be everybody bring their paper and Lindsay will edit it while we watch and drink cocktails that she made us. That sounds like

0:23:58 Lindsey: That actually sounds like a really fun time for me, I would enjoy that immensely no I would be really into that, yeah, I don't, I've gotten feedback at parties before that like, hey, don't you want to just like calm, like stop being in the kitchen making drinking drinks and relax, and I'm like, no, why would I, do I need something to do with my hands, but um, anyway, it doesn't matter, uh, yeah, so no, this is this is a real plan, I just need to actually get some professional experience first, so I'm gonna try to work on that pretty soon, but um, yeah, so I make, I make a lot of things, I think I've got most of the classic cocktails down really well, and I've got, I've got my technique down on egg white cocktails, which is not necessarily a straightforward forward thing to do, but I'm very good at making those, um

0:24:00 Thomas: A lot of work for you.

0:24:14 Thomas: Like a whiskey

0:24:39 Lindsey: Whiskey sour yep uh, there's one called a, called a Tres Coupes, that's really good and actually does involve mezcal on the ingredients list, I really like that one, um but

0:24:39 Thomas: Sour, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Are you worried about the egg thing? You know, like they don't because you'll if you if you try to get these at a bar, they'll often just use like a substitute or a thing that's not the actual egg because of just being worried about salmonella or whatever.

0:24:50 Lindsey: Yeah no oh that's Cheating. Um, I I've never gotten salmonella from doing this. I, but if you are worried about it, you can sous vide eggs so that they still, they don't actually harden, but it does kill salminella. So I've thought about doing that. But also I've, I've eaten or, you know, drank tons of raw egg whites and I've never had a problem. I don't think it's a huge problem. Um.

0:25:19 Thomas: Yeah. But maybe if you're having an event or something, you're like, all right, let's pre sous vide. Yeah. You know. Get this ready and then we can we can use that. Maybe maybe some bars do that. Oh,

0:25:22 Lindsey: Yeah. You'd Soupy The Eggs Yeah. Yeah, that could be, that could be, um, but yeah, so that's really fun. The trick with the, with the egg white cocktails is you do a reverse dry shake, which is good Yeah.

0:25:38 Thomas: What is that? Explain.

0:25:39 Lindsey: So like you shake it with, uh, you shake with ice first and then you dump out the ice and then you shake it again and it, like the, the foam, like, stays um sort of stiffer or whatever. But yeah, so those are really really fun. Um. So I

0:25:55 Thomas: I think this means I wasn't doing whatever the shake was was supposed to be correctly because I don't understand what the difference of any of them

0:26:03 Lindsey: Think that typically they shake it without the ice first and then with I Maybe I'm got, I don't remember. Anyway.

0:26:09 Thomas: I've never done that. No. You're

0:26:12 Lindsey: But the way that I'm doing it is good. Yeah.

0:26:12 Thomas: Probably right. I I want You're probably 100, you're the, you're the expert cocktail maker. I just, I whenever I use a shaker, it's because I want it to be really fucking cold and I'll just put the ice in there and shake the hell out of it. And the amount of cold it gets is so nice, like it's colder than you would think it is possible. I love it. What great technology from the 1700s Probably.

0:26:29 Lindsey: It it is it, is great technology. Um. Yeah, so that's all really fun. I, I also make my own, like, cocktail bitters and like infused liquors and stuff. So I'd probably be one of those assholes. I am already that kind of asshole, but I would want to work at a bar where I could be that kind of asshole.

0:26:46 Thomas: You're That kind of great person. What is asshole about? Here's what, the only reason you're an asshole, uh, lobsterman, is you came over to my house and did none of these things. That is, I'm, I I'm kind of mad about that now. Uh, you're gonna have to make it up sometime yeah, all

0:26:58 Lindsey: That is a missed opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so that's my answer. I think I think answered all the questions.

0:27:05 Thomas: Right What's a mezcal? I actually, okay, I, I love, I drink wine, I drink a lot of stuff. I don't remember what mezcal is, but there's certain cocktails I just never have bothered with or are certain liquors that I just haven't.

0:27:17 Lindsey: Yeah. No, mezcal is great. It's like, it's tequila, but it's smoky. So it has like kind of a Scotch profile. And it's absolutely delightful. I love mezcal. And margarita is not my favorite drink, but mezcal in a margarida is definitely better than a regular margarina

0:27:30 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, that sounds great. All right. Here's another one for you. Good. Jason Bunnell. What are some of the biggest culture differences Lindsay has experienced moving to the Midwest? Can she see herself staying there? What is good and bad about it in your view? Or is it all just too early or is Chicago just too big to give a fair response?

0:27:33 Lindsey: Hmm.

0:27:50 Lindsey: Interesting. I mean, I don't know if it's a huge culture shock. I mean, I did live in Oklahoma for a long time before I moved to Virginia and I don't know. Yeah, Chicago is interesting because it's a city, but it also does sort of feel kind of distinctly Midwestern. So it's very, it feels very approachable in some ways, but it's awesome. I love it here. I could totally see staying here indefinitely. It is. Um. Yeah.

0:28:13 Thomas: Yeah, Chicago really is great. Weather-wise, a little tough, but you know.

0:28:18 Lindsey: Like I've really been enjoying the weather. It was only hot for like five minutes and I moved here like the beginning of July. I

0:28:23 Thomas: Yeah, you haven't had a winter there yet, right? Isn't that going to be famously a bit of trouble?

0:28:29 Lindsey: Have heard that there is winter here. Yeah. I'm getting prepared for, for winter coming

0:28:31 Thomas: Yeah. You move there in the summer. You're like, I don't know what people are talking about with this weather.

0:28:33 Lindsey: No. I don't, I don't mind the winter weather. And you see, the worst part about winter to me is having to drive in shit, but you don't really have to drive here so whatever I don't care, um, and yeah, the only thing, the things that people complain about with the winter is like, oh, it's cold and and you have to stay inside and not see people and, like, that sounds great.

0:28:45 Thomas: Ah, it's a good point.

0:28:55 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:55 Lindsey: That's, that's what I

0:28:56 Thomas: God, I love when it's cold. I hate the heat. Why am I in California? Scotland was so nice.

0:28:56 Lindsey: Yeah. I moved to Chicago. It's really nice here. I

0:29:01 Thomas: Oh, Scotland was great.

0:29:03 Lindsey: Bet.

0:29:03 Thomas: Weirdly British weather, UK weather is like, like that's somehow my jam.

0:29:07 Lindsey: No.

0:29:07 Thomas: That's weird.

0:29:10 Lindsey: I get it, I get, yeah, there's something, there's nothing very romantic about the, you know, um gloominess

0:29:14 Thomas: Well, I think I've been bummed out by the drought that we've had for my whole life. So like, I like water. I like wet. I like feeling wet from the perspective of what was the Trump quote? It's going to be very, very wet for the, for the point of view. What the fuck was that? It was so funny. Oh man.

0:29:16 Lindsey: Wow. Yeah. I

0:29:33 Thomas: Dang. I can't remember. I'm sad you don't remember, uh, but it's live. So I've, I've you can Google it while I talk.

0:29:32 Lindsey: Don't know Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:40 Thomas: Um, I love the green, it's all green. It's all, you know, like, I don't feel like in California, it feels like we shouldn't live here. Like there's places where you're like, they built a whole development on what should just be a desert. And you're like, this is, we, we have violated laws of nature. Like this shouldn't exist. And that's California. Like it's even worse than like Arizona and Vegas and Nevada and all that crap. I hate it, I hate it, I love feeling like it's green and lush and you know, wet that's great. I

0:30:07 Lindsey: It is very comforting. That's a, that's definitely a true thing. There's... there's studies about this. Um, uh, but yeah, in terms of like the most striking differences, I'd say the thing that hit me first is they're, they're all driving related. So one is that the DMV here is incredibly efficient and the people who work there are really nice. It was like, a it's a very nice welcome, the DNV. Um, much better drivers. I heard Tom complaining about Chicago drivers on Dear Old Dads, but I strongly disagree and I want to ask him if he's ever driven anywhere in the South. Yeah.

0:30:43 Thomas: Was gonna say, it's those kind of things I never understand. I feel like everybody's gonna be on average the same driver. There shouldn't be like, if you, what would be the qualities of a city or a place that would make everybody bad drivers somehow, statistically speaking

0:30:58 Lindsey: I Okay. I do have a hypothesis about this I think that the, the thing that I've noticed in the North, I think is like a culture of honor thing. It's like just sort of elevated threat response or something because that it's, it is horrible. Like driving around Dallas is awful. Driving, I mean, any major area in the South is just awful. Like people will not let you merge, nobody knows how to do a zipper. Um, it's like doing left turns. Everybody's just sort of out for themselves trying to, you know, get through the lightest possible or whatever. Everything that I've experienced in Chicago is like people are super attuned to driving etiquette. It's

0:31:00 Thomas: Oh. Okay. I'm all ears Uh, Uh, Hmm.

0:31:34 Lindsey: Very easy to make left turns like people. There's like real etiquette around that. I love driving in Chicago. It's amazing.

0:31:34 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting.

0:31:40 Lindsey: So that's a big difference. Food here is amazing.

0:31:41 Thomas: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I, yeah, I guess I'm, my, I'm always a big fan of if people are trying to get somewhere faster, I'm a fan of that, because I'm the worst thing to me is you get up to the to the light and you're all waiting to do a left turn and the the arrow, you know, goes green, and then the person takes an hour, barely gets out there, turns, the next person's like, oh, what? Oh, I can't, oh, I should get out, and then they're too slow, and then it's red already, and there's a line of eight million cars, and so it's awful. I want, so, like, sometimes when, you know, someone's driving fast or or weaving, and, like, you know, Lydia reacts negatively to it, and sometimes it is just bad driving, but if it's just somebody like trying to get somewhere and they're doing it safely, I'm like, no, I like that, person, they're trying to, they're not slowing anybody down, I like it

0:31:59 Lindsey: Oh, no. Yeah, no, that sounds awful.

0:32:31 Lindsey: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. No, so the thing that I'm referring to specifically, though, like, so, the left-turning thing at lights, right, so you've got the green arrow and all that's good, and yes, people should not linger on that, but what I'm used to in driving in, like, Mississippi and Virginia and stuff, is that if a light is about to turn yellow, the person who's going straight, like, tries to gun it and get through the light, people here don't do that, because that's the opportunity for the person who's trying to go left to go left like as it's turning from yellow to red, and that's what they expect here is that people are going to do that

0:32:57 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's always a tough one, right? But also the person turning left better be way fucking out in the intersection already, right?

0:33:08 Lindsey: But they do do that

0:33:09 Thomas: Good.

0:33:09 Lindsey: Here, and they don't do that in the south, and it's very stupid, so I love it here, and I think driving well is very important.

0:33:10 Thomas: Okay. Wow. All right. There you go. I love it. All right, the quote was one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water. I couldn't quite remember how stupid that was. That's so dumb.

0:33:26 Lindsey: That's very good.

0:33:27 Thomas: My brain couldn't formulate the sentence.

0:33:27 Lindsey: That's really dumb, yeah.

0:33:30 Thomas: Yeah, so, "Scotland was one of wrettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water." I got to be honest with you, and I loved it. Oh, here's a great one. "I don't mind if you want to call me a table, but why are you always sitting on me? After we both listened to the chronotype episode, my spouse and I had a long chat about my Thomas-like late type and her moderate to Arlo early type and how it affects our experiences of life, especially morning routines versus quality time in the evenings. I'm writing this at 3 a.m. Wow. Wow. My question is, do you have any advice or ideas on how to manage a mismatched chronotype marriage, but where I also don't die 20 years early from sleep deprivation?" What they didn't say, which is crucial, is whether or not they have kids. They didn't mention it. So I'll assume no, but honestly, that's, you can't even answer the question. Like, any advice you would give for one situation does not apply to the other.

0:34:17 Thomas: Having kids or not is the biggest thing. If we didn't have kids, especially with my luxurious podcasting schedule, even though I work all the time, I still get to do it on my time, so, like, I could just stay up a bit late. I try to, I try to match Lydia a little bit, or at least split the difference, you know, so I go to bed a little earlier than I want to, maybe she stays up a little later than she wants to, we try to meet somewhere, but, like, then I could juste fucking sleep. If we didn't have kids, I would just sleep in, like, what, what, what is so easy. It'd be amazing. If you have kids, you're fucked, God, it's the worst. If you have kids, there's nothing you could do, you just aren't a late person anymore, that's the only, only option. No.

0:34:55 Lindsey: Yep, so I feel like, the, okay, yeah, so this feels like a question more for you than for me, right, like I don't know Oh, I mean, I don't know. So, I was going to say I would not do any more trying to match your schedule than sort of what you just described, right? Like, if you try to push against that too hard, I think that's just a recipe for somebody being sleep deprived, and that sounds awful.

0:35:02 Thomas: No help us out here

0:35:18 Lindsey: Thoughtful, um, but yeah, so if you, if you can, like, I think probably the best bet is to arrange your schedule so that, you know, the the time that you have devoted to being with your spouse and doing relationship stuff is the time that you overlap in terms of schedule, and then if you stay up later, you can do the stuff that's more solo or whatever, but I don't know, I don't, a very interesting answer to that, but yeah

0:35:12 Thomas: Yeah yeah if you're if your work schedule and you're not having kids schedule is good enough, it doesn't matter, like, yeah, you don't go to bed at the exact same time like some 50s sitcom or whatever, but, like, that's whatever, who cares, you know, like, that you can, that's, that's not a, that, that's not gonna kill your marriage, you know, as I don't think, um, but, but exactly I was gonna say, if you're, if you're always tired, you're gonna be cranky, I am, I get cranky, I get depressed, I got all these things that are not good for relationships. But here's the funny thing, you know, I've, I've ranted on Dear Old Dads about the morning stuff and the kindergarten, the lots of stuff that drop offline. So because I'm still jet lagged and on Scotland time, I'm a, I'm dead, I'm, my brain, it hurts, I can't stay away, I want to go to bed right now, but also I keep waking up at four thirty or five now. And let me tell you, the world is designed for those people, because

0:35:44 Lindsey: Yeah no sleep deprivation might, yeah yep

0:36:32 Thomas: For one, Arlo, now I can be up when he's up, which is, God, the first night we're back, he literally got up at five, he's up at fucking five.

The next, so this morning, the second morning, he got up at 630, which was like the latest, that was nice, I was already up because again, I keep waking up at 5. But we, here's what we did, we all got up together, you know, because I've been up since fucking five, and we all went to school together early to go to the Scholastic Book Fair, and I pulled up to the school, and I was like, well, we're a bit early, we're that early, but we're like 30 minutes before Phoebe's school starts, and so I was like, well, I'll check if there's a good spot, you know, because otherwise we park like way early before you can even see the school and start walking, you know, but I was, I'll definitely check it out, I'll swing by, and there was, it was fucking empty, like the whole, somehow everybody gets there right at the last minute, which I get, you know, that's what I do too, too, because I'm so fucking tired.

0:37:31 Thomas: But if you go even a smidge early, there's nobody there. We parked right next to the school. We waltz on over, do this classic book fair. If I could somehow take a pill that would get me to be able to be on the schedule, it would change my life. The world is designed for people who can wake up at five or six. Like it's incredible. The World is your oyster.

0:37:51 Thomas: So I don't know, that's not related to the question per se, but it's, it sucks that we, we can't just change it. But yeah, no, it really depends, on if you have kids, you're fucked. What happens is, if you're a night person, you are not a night person anymore, that's just how it works. If you don't have kids, there is a lot of play in the joints there. Meet in the middle a little bit, like Lindsay says, don't force it too much, meet in a little middle bit, and really make sure that the time you are still awake together, prioritize that to spend together, because she is going to, or I gendered it, but whoever is going in the morning to themselves, and whoever else is going to have a bunch of time in the evening to themselves. So when you have that together time, make sure you actually use it together and aren't just doing your own thing, I think.

0:37:50 Lindsey: Mm-hmm, yeah yeah no, I 100% agree with that, yeah

0:38:37 Thomas: All right. Let's see how many, I have time for a few more for sure. There's a lot more. We could save them. We'll see how it goes.

0:38:46 Thomas: Christopher Ross asks, "Hello, Thomas and Dr. Osterman. I would love to hear if Dr. Osterman has any thoughts on how graduate degree programs that focus on mental health seem to really use and honestly abuse abuse their participants, and how the payoffs, especially in the fields that tend to be women driven, don't seem to be worth it. As an example, my wife is in her second year fellowship at a children's hospital where their PhD in school psych, some other letters that I don't understand, sorry, is bilingual and is certified in many different assessment, diagnostic, and intervention tools. Yet, this is the first year that she is making more than 30K." Wow. And Has her own health retirement benefits. Even if she gets a full position, her salary will maybe double if she stays at the hospital. Yet there's so much talk about how mental health is so important and so much shame for going to private practice, where she might actually be able to make enough to make the financial situation worth it.

She loves her work, but the whole system seems to be made to grind people down, and then when they're done work for a salary that is not at all comparable to what credentials are required for the positions. Sorry, it was a bit of of a rant and also bragging about my wife. Can't help it. She is a badass. I accidentally did a little bit of a malign, but would love to hear Dr. Osterman's thoughts on how these system's pressures are set up. Also, I guess Thomas can give his two cents. Okay.

0:39:22 Lindsey: Yeah I mean, so I don't have like any special knowledge of what's happening in graduate programs on mental health in particular, but a lot of what is being described here does sound familiar to me in terms of what I experienced in an experimental program, and yeah, it's awful. I don't know if I have a ton interesting to add to that, other than it is awful, and it does seem especially ironic that there isn't more attention to this in the mental health field in particular. There's not more attention driven to not working people to death. But no, that's definitely not how it is, and it's bullshit. It's really depressing.

0:40:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:46 Lindsey: Yeah, I don't know.

0:40:48 Thomas: Yeah, it's, it sucks too. You see it a lot in like charities, you know, in like 501c3s. I know, I had a friend who worked for, uh, you know, uh, the the animal one. Why am I, I'm so tired, what is it, PITA, PITA, uh, and they are notoriously horrible to the people who work for them, um, they rely on slave labor to keep costs down, all that, and it's to the point where I think we should be wary, I know there's a branch off, sorry, but we should be wary of like these super low expense ratio charities. It's not, you know, yeah, you want, you want to make sure they're not just blowing it on fucking whatever, you know, hookers and blow and whatever. But like, if you have a charity that's got a super high percentage of the money just going out to the charitable causes, that might mean they're being really shitty to a lot of volunteer workers and, you know? And like, that's not great.

0:40:53 Lindsey: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:41:40 Lindsey: No. Yeah.

0:41:42 Thomas: Yeah. It's kind of the expectation is almost like people who work in nonprofits are going to just be slaves. And like I don't really think that's how it should work, to be honest with you.

0:41:51 Lindsey: I don't either. I don't either. And I'm glad you brought that up because, like, the the thing that they were referencing about, um, well, actually it was a little unclear in the question, but I I was wondering if if they were talking about, like, the fact that graduate students do a ton of work that like keeps the engine running in academia but really are not adequately compensated for it in most fields, or at least in my field. It's not, it's not the the same and all, but, um, they do tons of work and basically don't get paid for it, and it's it's uh, yeah, it's pretty bad.

0:42:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. And yeah, it's totally the thing. The meme, I believe, is true where, you know, companies are like, what can we do for mental health day? Here's some pizza. And it's like, you just need to pay your employees more like that's the number one thing that would contribute to better mental health. Like it really is.

0:42:37 Lindsey: Yep. Yep.

0:42:41 Thomas: It doesn't solve every problem, obviously, but like so many other problems come from being worried you aren't making it. You know, that's just obviously true. Right, right.

0:42:49 Lindsey: Pay people enough and don't actually give them seven jobs to do, I think that that's super important, um, yeah, because, like, as this person mentioned, it's like so many, the labor in so many industries is set up to use people up, to burn them out and then to to have turnover and have new people come in and do the same thing all over again, um, it's really not designed with the well-being of employees in mind, and yeah.

0:43:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:16 Thomas: And I believe that there's no fucking way to fix that beyond government intervention, because unless you think we can somehow change the attitudes of an entire population and also make sure that applies to even like, you know, capitalists who are not at all interested in your well-being. I don't see how we do that beyond a lot of regulations and rules that require people to be paid fairly.

0:43:16 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:40 Thomas: So, General Contact, You Problem Child. How would you feel about running society via liquid democracy? Liquid democracy is a sort of compromise between direct democracy and representative democracy. In a liquid democracy, you can either vote on all public policy decisions, or you can delegate your vote to someone else who will vote for you. Ah, that's interesting. Thing. The idea is people who want to have a direct say in decision making can do that, while people who don't can band together and pick delegates to vote on their behalf. So in the past, I presented you with ideas from the far left and added caveats like, this isn't necessarily how I think things should be run or whatever. This isn't one of those instances. Liquid democracy is my ideal form of government. If I was creating a society from scratch, I'd make it liquid with democratic... That's really interesting, uh, what do you think about that? Yeah.

0:43:39 Lindsey: I think It's, I think it is interesting. So is the is the main benefit of doing it this way that, like, you can, hmm, so presumably you could give your vote to somebody who is more informed on issues or whatever, I like that part of it. And also, presumably you could, like, it's not, it's not like our elected representatives where they get elected for a term. It sounds like you can at any time sort of pull your authorization for that person to vote, so there's like immediate accountability, so that's kind of cool. I'm sort of wondering logistically how this works and if it scales. Yeah.

0:44:40 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Right, yeah, that's that's a great point, because they're often, when talking about these broad theoretical things, which I do enjoy doing, I enjoy the question, but like, it's it's there's so many levels of government, you know, you gotta specify, like, do you mean just federally we would do this, you mean every single level, that would get really confusing, uh, do you means every single issue, you know, like, are there things? I think you would also have to include some amount of delegation to experts, like, that.

One thing that I think our system has in the past done pretty well sometimes is Congress will will pass a bill, and then the executive agencies can be like, cool, now we have the EPA, which will be experts, and they will do stuff. And there are I don't believe that everything should be democracy. I believe that democracy is critical. But when it comes to really complicated technical problems, I think it's more about knowing who to delegate that decision to. And if that was going to be like discretionary so that a bunch of idiots in the South can be like, no, I'm voting on the climate change stuff, you know, or something. I don't know. There's got to be a way to solve that problem somehow.

0:45:19 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:46:11 Thomas: So it's complicated.

0:46:12 Lindsey: I have no answers.

0:46:12 Thomas: I love the idea in theory. I do wonder, though, could there be a risk of this of it going really bad? I'm just thinking through it. Would we get the risk that like, OK, now Ben Shapiro has four billion votes? And, you know, it would just be a question of, like, who can be the the most attention grabbing personality who can grab all these delegated votes, and then all of a sudden those assholes are controlling the country. I actually don't like this now that I think about it.

I think I like some of the theory of it, but now that I think about it, what would happen is exactly that, it would be Ben Shapiro and a bunch of big name, and then what would happen is it would be an arms race where both sides would be like, well, look, we love the idea of voting on your own, however, we can't compete with this Ben Shapira machine, so now we need our left version of that.

And then I feel like it would just devolve into like a worse system, possibly, but I don't know, maybe not. I mean, I I guess if if people are allowed to just vote on every issue themselves, like, maybe that would combat that enough. I don't know.

0:46:12 Lindsey: Oh.

0:46:24 Lindsey: Yeah, maybe.

0:47:13 Lindsey: So does this actually exist anywhere, or is this just theoretical, I wonder. Yeah.

0:47:18 Thomas: I don'T know. I mean I think maybe on some small scale it might exist somewhere locally. That could be cool to check out, but yeah.

0:47:24 Lindsey: I mean.

0:47:26 Thomas: All right. Well, it's time for one more. GCU Problem Child again. Thomas, how much would you be bothered by the erosion of women and queer folks' rights in red states if you didn't have to worry about that shit eventually getting forced into your state? And affecting people you actually care about. Well, I mean, it's weird question, because I literally, I live in California and I've never once been worried about any of that shit happening. Like, my entire advocacy career has been for pretty much anyone but me or my family. I mean, yeah, there's some risk that, like, abortion could get so bad with the Supreme Court that it would be at risk in California. But for the most part, I've never once ever about affecting me and people I care about.

0:48:12 Thomas: It's kind of a weird, weird question, it seems like. I sometimes feel guilty that I'll get outraged about legal horror stories coming out of states like Kentucky or whatever, but objectively I know worse stuff is happening to women and queer folk in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia, and I don't really care. I think the difference is American political culture has a big effect on what's viewed as normal in the rest of the quote-unquote Western world. I'm British. Whereas whatever is happening in those other countries does not. That does make me feel guilty because it means my empathy for women in Kentucky dying because they can't get an abortion is partially contingent on the fear that shit will come over here and affect people I actually know. Hmm, interesting, what do you think? Yeah.

0:48:55 Lindsey: I, so I think I get the the dissonance that GCU Problem Child's describing. I don't know if you should feel guilty about it exactly, because it just sounds like you're describing the fact that like it's easier to feel threat for like, or it's, it's easier to to feel empathy for people when they are proximal to you as opposed to distant for you, right. And given the opportunity, I think that we should be doing what we can to like help people who are being oppressed everywhere, but it's probably going to be driven by like a different set of mechanisms or something than empathy. I hope I'm, I hope I'm not uh like misunderstanding understanding the question, but Yeah.

0:49:34 Thomas: No. I, yeah, oh god, mm-hmm.

0:49:37 Lindsey: It's, it's funny though, because I, I had a conversation with a friend of mine right after it became clear this, that the Supreme Court was planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, and I was just expressing like the the overwhelming distress that I, I felt about that, and my friend, my friend said, um, look, we live in Virginia, we're going to be fine, mine this was I don't Either, I, I like, and this was before Glenn Yunkin got elected, by the way, so that's, it is kind of funny that we felt safe in Virginia, but but that part aside, like I did think that there was something extremely fucked up about that sentiment, and I told him so very directly, that like this is worth worrying about regardless of whether you can literally see the people that are, that are going to suffer from from that decision, but um, but yeah, I mean, I think that you can get to those, you can get to that conclusion from multiple places.

Empathy is going to be the the big one for your neighbors and your friends or whatever, and then there's other mechanisms for people that are in other places, but I

0:49:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:01 Thomas: I don't know, I don't understand that way of thinking, yeah.

0:50:39 Thomas: I think

0:50:39 Lindsey: Don't know, yeah.

0:50:39 Thomas: It's Tough, yeah, I also think it's matter of what you can control. I mean, I'm, you know, I can't, there's pretty much nothing I can do about Saudi Arabia, I don't think. I mean, other than trying to vote in representatives who might. But I don't even know how much U.S. foreign policy should be really affecting that.

I think that it's unfortunately, I think we've seen that those kinds of massive human rights violation-y types things, I mean it doesn't work to go intervene in that and fix it unless it's, you know, obviously if we're talking genocide or something, I do think we aren't doing enough about the Uyghurs and, you know, like there there are places where I think we are way too gun shy just because of how horrible the U.S. has been in the past, where Ithink we should be doing more.

And then there's other things where Ithink we just shouldn't be doing anything. It's up to the people in these places like it just is, you know, like I don't know how much sanctions on North Korea is doing, you know, like sanctions seem to not really do anything except punish the people who can't do anything about it. So things like that, I'm not, it's not clear that that does anything. So I don't, I do think there is an attentional problem for sure. But I also think it goes both ways. Like sometimes we get too fixed in, and we saw this in the 2000s with almost the entire US population getting too keyed in on like these people in the Middle East, how they

0:50:48 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:52:04 Thomas: Treat their women. And then it's like, okay, we're too focused on that in a way that created a lot of bad outcomes. But I do I do think that people on the left can be not focused enough on on those issues, you know, in but not really, but not really there. Like, I don't know what we're supposed to do about issues abroad. But, you know, the only I guess the only place I care is like, OK, is there a community of people here who are Muslim, who are mistreating or, you Know, marrying off their daughters at a young age, whatever it might be, if they were doing that, I'm saying, then, then yeah, like, I think we should really care about that because it's something we could do something about and care. Isn't the right word. Like I care about all of it. It's just like, where can I actually maybe affect anything, you know?

0:52:42 Lindsey: I think it's a good point, yeah, right. Right.

0:52:53 Thomas: Yeah. All right. Uh, let's see. Let's see if can squeeze in. I'll look at wildcard question. I'LL see if there's a short one I can squeeze in from down in the list here. Um, here I'm looking, I'm looking. Um. Oh, I think you've answered this before, but just in case. Jesse Tim asks, I love hearing Dr. Lindsay's breakdowns. Uh, wow, you've become a one-name doctor. That's like, uh, Dr. Phil or whatever. Like there's those Dr. Laura. Are you Dr. Lindsey now? I don't know. Breakdowns Research papers. I'm wondering, do you know of any good resources to learn how to read research papers, and if not, could you give a crass course on getting started? I ask because I will often come across a citation to a research paper that I'd really like to read as additional information for a variety of reasons, but anytime I try, it's like a different language and challenging to parse. Curious if you have any advice for folks like me who would like to better engage with source material for academic work.

0:52:53 Lindsey: Yeah, oh.

0:53:25 Lindsey: Dear, yeah.

0:53:51 Lindsey: I think, I think we have gotten a question along these lines before in a Q&A, definitely have gotten it many times in in other kinds of circumstances, but yeah, it reads like a different language because it literally is, because every discipline comes up with their own jargon to make it impossible for outsiders to read it. And it's like a little bit culty, you know, just a little suspicious. So my caution would be upfront that even with a working understanding of how journal articles are structured or how to interpret certain things in them, which is I think what you're asking for, you aren't going to get out of a paper what a subject matter expert would, and I don't know, like I, I don't want to, I don't want to give a little bit of information and just be setting people up for Dunning-Kruger, um.

0:54:02 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree.

0:54:34 Lindsey: So there's... there's real, there's a, yeah, there's some pitfalls there.

0:54:39 Lindsey: Um, but yeah, I feel, I feel gross giving that answer because Again, it sounds very Culty.

0:54:43 Thomas: Yeah. It's like, Like, leave it to me and my ivory tower, plebe. But honestly, I kind of agree with you.

0:54:48 Lindsey: Um. It's, yeah, I mean, I don't know, yeah, so I'm of two minds on this. So if the question is whether we could do an episode or something that's like a primer on what you're looking at in an empirical paper and like some basic things about how to engage with the content, I actually do think that there is value in that, as long as you see the limits of it, and we've gotten, we've gotten that that request something like half a dozen times I think, so So.

0:55:15 Thomas: I guess we should do it then.

0:55:17 Lindsey: Yeah, I was thinking maybe we should move that up on the Excel sheet or Something.

0:55:20 Thomas: Oh, if you want to make it fun, you should like T3BE it. You know, you give me like some little things to read and I'll try to see like which one's bullshit or something. I don't know. I'm just brainstorming or not because that sounds like work for you. You don't have to do it if you don't want to.

0:55:20 Lindsey: Um. Oh. That would be Fun, okay. No. Well, yeah, we'll come up with some fun games so we could, um, yeah, but it, you know, I mean, early on in OA, Andrew did something like this in terms of how to read a complaint, right, and I do think that that kind of thing can be valuable and not necessarily lead to the Dunning-Kruger Problem.

0:55:50 Lindsey: So, um, so yeah. Yeah, I think that that could be fun and maybe helpful for people. So I

0:55:50 Thomas: Yeah, I think you do have to. I mean, yeah, it depends on what your goal is. If you're just trying to be a little bit better informed on certain things. But like, I think you do have to find experts you can trust in the relevant fields. I just think you Do. And that process is another thing that I think is important. And it's not perfect, obviously, like people, everybody can be wrong at any time, you know, but like, you know, like we would have said like, Oh, Brett Weinstein probably has some expertise in this relevant field. And then if they turn into a fucking nut job, then I, you You know, like it's hard for me to pick apart all of that idiot power couples points. Like I need a Dr. Lindsay Osterman, you know, and maybe even sometimes Dr. Lindsay Ostermann needs a doctor, somebody else on some of these topics. And it's you kind of got to just more know who which experts you can trust than try to do it all yourself. I think.

0:56:16 Lindsey: 100% Agree with that. And maybe something that sort of tackles that a little more directly could be part of that episode in terms of figuring out where the limits are, essentially, in terms of what you can reasonably expect to get from this. I got really cocky for a minute about being able to read neuropapers. I had some coursework in neuroscience, including some in graduate school. And so I thought I could hang, and then I got myself into trouble real quickly. Because I would read something and feel like I had a good handle on it. And then as soon as I talked to somebody who's like, actually in neuro does this stuff, they like they just have so much more context than I do to interpret it. So I can I can literally understand the words in it. But it's just I don't know.

0:57:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:57:31 Thomas: You need that background knowledge. Yeah. So, sorry for this not quite satisfying answer, but maybe we'll get a good episode or two out of it. And thank you so much for the questions, patrons. We love you so much. Patreon.com slash SeriousPod if you want to be able to ask questions in the next one or, you know, help Lindsay not die. I don't know. It's a little dramatic. But please support the show. We appreciate you so so much. Thanks to those who have and also we'll get the October post up pretty soon for the next Q&A. This was a ton of fun.

0:57:33 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah yeah, I miss these.

0:58:07 Thomas: We'll see you next time. Oh, and we'll see You on the stream twitch.tv