DOD53: SAT SchmessAT

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast is just waiting its turn at the Scantron. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Thomas: Way too many shit involved involved sayings that your dad has. And I'm now going to put that at the end of the episode. So people will know what I'm talking about. Too many, too many shit involved sayangs.

0:00:44 Eli: Oh okay I I was like, "Wow, all right."

0:00:48 Tom: Did your Did your dad's not say, "Want in one hand shit in the other and see which one fills up," that's like a standard dad thing?

0:00:54 Thomas: Right. I'm Not Complaining About Your Dad. Well, I am. Let's face it. I was, I'm complaining a little bit about your dad. I'M JUST, THERE'S TOO MANY REPULSIVE SHIT RELATED SAYINGS THAT PEOPLE JUST THROW OUT THERE THAT I'M LIKE, I DON'T LIKE THAT. Like, can we come up with better imagery? It's all shit. Don't shit where you eat, I'm not shitting where, what are you talking about? I'm, that's gross, or we need to have that, have the shit. Why is it so much shit related stuff? Anyway, how you doing? Yeah.

0:00:57 Tom: Okay yeah, alright

0:01:14 Eli: Doesn't know the difference, chicken shit and chicken salad. I it's the viscerality of it, it's very useful because, like, I, I gotta say, every time I've eaten chicken salad since then I've been like, all right, I better make sure this isn't chicken shit, because this is apparently this is an issue

0:01:31 Thomas: You well and furthermore, I better make sure I can tell the difference you know, like, that's the key, like you can eat the chicken shit salad if you want, you just have to be able to tell the difference. Is the key

0:01:36 Tom: Eli's like, as a dad with IBS, everything is shitting where you eat, so

0:01:44 Eli: I'm have to be able to tell, you guys it's like those, those colorblind tests on the internet, to know which Power Ranger you are

0:01:45 Thomas: Yeah to the saying

0:01:50 Tom: Feel like now I can't like have my hungry man dinner on the john, otherwise you guys are going to judge me, that's rude

0:01:57 Thomas: As long as you can tell the difference, it's from Shinola that you're, that one, did your dad use that one, how many shit related sayings here's what, it's listeners, submit in all the shit related things, sayings that you think Tom's dad said, yeah

0:01:58 Eli: As long as the tray stays above the level of the ball, Tom oh

0:02:02 Tom: That's fine oh yeah yeah, yeah can't polish a turd

0:02:13 Eli: Can it just be shitty advice, like, like, don't go to college, can we, can we count that yeah same thing, speaking of which

0:02:21 Tom: My dad didn't advise me not to go to college, he told me to go to community college, though, oh ouch, all right, we're gonna, we're gonna fist fight, we are gonna fistfight don't we have to, I think, I think before we have this fistfight though we have to, we probably have to do some ads, we have to do, so, you know, if you want to go college you could listen to these ads, not have enough money to be a patron you can listen to these ads

0:02:28 Eli: Oh

0:02:29 Thomas: Oh wow yeah, if

0:02:36 Eli: That's right, if

0:02:45 Thomas: You want to send Tom's kids to community college, listen to the ads

0:02:49 Eli: Your kids go to community college, you got plenty of money left over to be a patron of this show, you know, you probably found your tuition between the couch cushions, and while you set that money aside for bail, why not instead pledge it to us over at patreon.com/dearolddads, where you'll hear none of the ads that you just heard. Tom, you, you listened to the normie feed, in a terrible, terrible choice the other day, would you, you like to tell us what ad you got, it

0:02:52 Thomas: Wow

0:02:57 Tom: Well hold my god, oh yes, holy shit, I, so I was listening to the normie feed because I couldn't log into the goddamn Patreon account for some reason on my new phone, it just, it just won't let me do it so I, I god

0:03:25 Thomas: Locked him out we're stealing the show but we're

0:03:27 Eli: Locked him out, as this, yeah

0:03:28 Tom: Damn you guys, so I'm listening to the fucking normie feed of my own show, I'm yeah, so I've listened to these fuckin horrible ads, guys, and an ad comes up, and I don't listen to country music because I prefer actual music, so an ad, it comes up for some country music festival, and guys, I am not even kidding, they're like, the hillbilly is gonna be there with his hits, like, and they were things like International Harvester, I'm not, I don't even think I'm making that up, I think that was the name of one of the songs, it was, yeah, dude, it was fucking crazy, I, names of the song's, guys, they're, they're doing it, I was like, oh, this must be a parody ad, in my head I was like, oh, there's a lot of people who are ad, I wonder what this ad is really

0:03:34 Eli: Don't

0:03:36 Thomas: God, oh god yeah

0:03:57 Eli: Fuck my dog yep

0:04:08 Tom: For, and then the ad ended and I was like, holy shit, that's real, that was real there's like somebody's like hey, come out and see my song called Driving the Combine down at the old farmstead or whatever holy

0:04:12 Thomas: All it's always a good sign. Yeah, my dog died in the truck. They date with the stand up laid in the back of the truck, oh

0:04:22 Tom: Shit oh

0:04:24 Eli: So here's here's a fun thing about country music, if I could take us down this road, country music is a perfect mirror of life, which is that all the men in country music are infamous pieces of shit who come from the utmost privilege and are just liars and frauds at every conceivable level, and all the women of country music, it's like, well, actually, Reba Mcintyre started out as a time travel slave, yeah, no, she actually, she fell through a warp hole, and or like Dolly Parton, like, they've all, all the woman have been through these horrible shit, and they all give money, and Dolly Barton created the Moderna vaccine, and then Hank Huggins is like, oh no, he was actually a professional rapist um until he was 21, and then he fell into a pair of cowboy boots that his dad bought him, and they're magic, so now he just plays for like eight to ten thousand people. Where's he from? He's from LA, he's from LA.

0:04:25 Tom: God I know

0:04:41 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, they're all the best.

0:05:02 Tom: I know

0:05:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:16 Eli: They're all freaking born in LA, yeah

0:05:17 Tom: Yes yeah

0:05:18 Thomas: Well, you know, it links up because it's in the same way that, you know, Tucker Carlson and all those fucks all went to fucking Harvard and Yale and grew up being exactly the thing they criticize. It makes sense. Yeah, I got a question. Is anybody in either right-wing bullshit or in country music, is anybody actually a country person at all or is it entirely fraud? Is it 100% they're all fraud?

0:05:19 Tom: And I think it's 100 fraud, I

0:05:41 Thomas: Crazy.

0:05:41 Tom: Think that's why they named their fucking songs things like driving a fucking International Harvester, it's like they have to like beat you over the head with their credentials because they don't have any, and then, Eli, you're like, they're like the worst possible people, and then their songs have this, like, but this is what a real man is, what real man's all about, and then, like, the ladies' songs are like, and then I met this good country boy who sure knew how to treat a woman, you're like, they're all hitting you, all of those men are hitting you right now, at the same time yes

0:05:52 Eli: None

0:06:11 Thomas: We need to go back to to the good old days when every single country song was a slight malapropism of a common cliche or saying. Was every, every single one. Got friends in low places. I just have all of them.

0:06:19 Eli: I oh man I

0:06:20 Tom: Yes I say, there is some old old school country music that I don't hate but you have to go back, you have to goes back pretty far, and then the music is good, but like the current version of, like, pop country rock shit, whatever that nonsense is, I literally, it's indistinguishable from parody, no

0:06:28 Thomas: Oh yeah, no, it's great. Oh, it was the worst. Well, yeah, like, 9 -1 -1 killed it because it had to all be patriotic garbage, and it's all the same, and mathematically it's always the same, but is it as bad as the ads that we play on our show? Yes, it's actually worse than that. I would rather listen to an album full of our ads. I got, while you're on the topic of the ad you got served, I saw someone, I don't know if you guys saw this, I got a comment, or we got a common or message, I don't know, fucking something on my phone from a listener, I don't know what that is, said that they were like, hey, I'm not a patron, but I don't get any ads. And at first I was like, oh, is there a problem? I was like, wait a minute, that, that can't be right. Like, if you're not a Patreon, you have to get, or, because they're all dynamically inserted, where does this person live, like, I want to know, do they live In the weirdest

0:07:17 Eli: Right Uzbekistan

0:07:19 Tom: Set your phone VPN to their location, like oh, I guess they're not, they're not serving ads in, uh, you know, Bora Bora, and uh the outskirts of Belize fantastic

0:07:19 Thomas: Yeah that means where would it be yeah I'm trying to think it's like the prison In the, you know, like, is he in prison? Maybe he lives in a prison, it could be, I don't know, like Even Then you might want to sell people stuff in prison, they could talk to their family, there must be somebody, I'd be curious What the best guess as to where you could possibly live to where you would get zero zero zero answer Served To you, yeah

0:07:29 Tom: Right

0:07:33 Eli: It's Possible. And

0:07:39 Tom: You Know As A listener in the jungles of Borneo, I don't Actually get a lot of advertising. Okay, okay. All

0:07:48 Thomas: So Go To patreon.com/DearOldDads to avoid the ads and

0:07:53 Eli: Bonus stuff, you get bonus stuff, this This month, bonus, if I can promote it, hey, if you would like to see Tom and Thomas have mental breakdowns at the simplest of questions, check out this month's episode, I Don't

0:08:09 Thomas: People have Spoken, the people fucking loved it, uh, it's great, so get On there On Patreon.

0:08:12 Eli: I don't Listen To The people well

0:08:13 Thomas: Com slash DearOldAds, listen to the monthly bonus, I got it out early, yeah, it's been out for like fucking, I don't know, a week, it's great, so Uh That

0:08:21 Tom: Patrons

0:08:20 Eli: There You go Check It Out

0:08:21 Tom: Also can get my tutorial on how to talk sports if you don't know sports. So yeah, last week.

0:08:24 Eli: That's Right, from last week

0:08:26 Thomas: Is A must I'm telling you, that is a must, you got to get on there, all right, let's do the current episode though, these messages, okay

0:08:34 Tom: So I got to tell you guys this story that happened this week. I'm proud of my stepson Donovan. So Donovan is a junior in high school and we've got His no

0:08:43 Thomas: Donovan Sorry if you're listening, but I, I wouldn't want my lead out to be, guys, weirdest fucking thing happened, so I was like, I'm proud of my son, I Don't Oh What Has Ever happened to you, wait

0:08:52 Tom: I Was weirdly Proud Weirdly Proud So here's why, so he, as a junior, at least where we're at, so this is super fucking weird, from when I was in school, um, the juniors are required to take the SATs, they all just have to, the school makes them take the SAT, you don't pay a separate, when I was at school, I don't know what you guys, when I was in school, we took the ACTs because I'm in the Midwest. There was no SAT in the Midwest.

0:09:16 Tom: But the ACT, yeah, it's a coastal thing.

0:09:16 Thomas: What What? Really? I thought that was like

0:09:19 Tom: So the SATs are east and west coast.

0:09:19 Thomas: An, like an option. Oh really? It's like a region, like East coast, West coast rap. Fucking tech. I never knew that.

0:09:22 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh -huh. Yeah, the center of the country in the south usually takes the ACTs. There's a translation from one score to the other. I could have taken the SATS too, but they weren't as popular out here. So we took the ACTs. And when I was at school, you had to opt into it. It was proctored off campus on a Saturday. It cost extra money and not everybody took it.

0:09:36 Thomas: Wow.

0:09:46 Thomas: Right. Same.

0:09:47 Tom: Now, totally different, right? Now, literally every kid has to take the SATs.

0:09:53 Tom: It's proctured. You have to. It's not an opt-in. You don't pay for it. It's part of your registration fees when you register for the year. You have to take it whether you want to or not. And they hold them in class. So they take two days of actual class time. And those days you just take the SATs. So it's not like, oh, I'm not actually going to go away to college, I don't need the SAT, I'm just going to opt out. And when everybody takes them whether you want to or not, you're taking the fucking SATs. Yeah.

0:09:54 Thomas: Has to. Wow. This is not important, but question, did they get rid of the extra 800 points they added? Remember that?

0:10:21 Eli: Yes. That's that they did get rid of that It's Back down to 1600, it

0:10:22 Tom: It's the score is 1600 again. Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:24 Thomas: Okay. Boy, I

0:10:26 Tom: The, the fucking reasonable, rational, like, sane score. Yeah, 1600 is the max score now. Well,

0:10:31 Thomas: Just hated it because it was like writing based. Wasn't it? That would, would have been hell for me. I'm glad I got to take it before that came

0:10:35 Eli: Was an essay section.

0:10:36 Thomas: Oh

0:10:36 Tom: There's still a Writing portion. There's an essay section. Yeah. There's... there's still an essay section, so Donovan had to take the SATs, right? He's got two days to take the SATS, but he doesn't need the fucking SATs for literally anything. His plan is mapped out for him. So Donovan, like all of my kids, he's going to be a murderer, right, exactly.

0:10:36 Eli: Yeah.

0:10:37 Thomas: I can hate it. Oh, really?

0:10:54 Tom: You don't need to SATs. For all of, my kids are of, my kids are going to Harvard or Princeton or Yale. They're right, all going to regular local schools. That's what they're doing. And they're all gonna go to community college first because I'm not fucking insane. So they're going to go for their first two years at community college and they'll transfer to whatever college they want to transfer to after their first two years. When they get their associates from the community college, to get into the community college, you don't need SATs. Nobody gives a shit, they don't look at them. You could have them, you cannot have them, you can fucking balance them on your head, they don't make any difference.

0:10:50 Thomas: Become a murderer yeah. Oh,

0:11:23 Eli: Well, yeah, a number two pencil would set off the metal detector at a community college. So I can understand why they wouldn't want that. Okay.

0:11:27 Tom: And feel like The community, community colleges out here in, like, the northwest and western suburbs of Chicago are much, much nicer than what you're imagining.

0:11:35 Thomas: We have good ones the California. Hey, I just want to make clear, I, I enjoy, uh, Eli's jokes, but community college, uh, especially in California, are fucking great, and it should be free for everybody. I think in California it might be free. Shit, did they pass that? I can't remember, but it might be even free, and that's awesome because, you know, social fucking spending for things that are, it's actually good, instead of bombing people in the Middle East that we shouldn't really have any problem with is great.

0:11:56 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:12:00 Eli: I could speak for here on the east coast. Here on the west coast, community colleges are like, if a building was that scene at the beginning of a prison movie where everyone says, what are you in for, that's what community colleges are like here on the east coast. You basically take every result of a bad parent, and you just, you, you put them all in one cement building and you teach them how to repair air conditioners until they drop out. Now, keep in mind, they just drop out like flies. So it's really, it's not a great scene here on the East Coast.

0:12:11 Thomas: No one's

0:12:32 Tom: There is a high dropout rate, I will say, in community colleges.

0:12:35 Thomas: No. Teacher has ever gotten to the end of a course if somebody stays like, "Fuck, I don't know how this ends." Shit, it the last, the last person left Jesus.

0:12:35 Tom: Yeah.

0:12:38 Eli: Yeah. No, that's how you become the teacher at a community college. You're the last one standing. And the other person bursts into angel wings, like, wings burst out of their back and they fly up, uh, to community college heaven, which most of us call purgatory, but yet for them it's, it's heaven because we're

0:12:58 Tom: The community college I went to, which is actually not as good as the one that Donovan will go to. Every professor that I had was a doctor. So I did not have anybody lower than a PhD at all. And I actually had a lesser experience when I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago because I had teacher's assistants. So I took an engineering physics class and I had a TA. So I actually have better educated teachers. And Haley had the same experience at Dutchess Community College. All of her professors were all PhDs.

0:13:07 Thomas: Christ. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:26 Eli: Duchesses.

0:13:26 Tom: So what's Dutchess. They were all Dutchess's.

0:13:27 Eli: We're Dukes.

0:13:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:28 Tom: Some dukes.

0:13:29 Eli: Yeah. No, yeah.

0:13:29 Thomas: Okay.

0:13:29 Tom: There were some dukes we didn't. They don't want to. But anyway, so Donovan's going to go to community college. He doesn't need the fucking SATs. And actually, we get these because he's a junior. So we get this, like, leaflets and pamphlets, like from different colleges now. And you wouldn't believe how many of them now say no SATs required. So and this is for, like major universities, like state universities. They say no, SATs?

0:13:48 Thomas: Now Here's the thing, me being, this is gonna be, this is going to be a hard one for me, um, when I see "not required," I think, "Okay, so I should do it though," because like, it's probably sounds like sounds like there's gonna be some other kids that I may be able to get a little edge on. If I do this thing that you're saying is not required. That's how I have that's by the way, that's just from my My raised to you have to get good grades and do everything right in school or you'll die. That's just that part of me. I'm not saying this is correct or anything. I'm just saying like that's my that's absolutely my visceral reaction to that.

0:13:58 Eli: Extra credit yeah, exactly of course no hundo P. hundo P. yeah

0:13:53 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Right, yeah, and they can't use the SAT score, so at least in Illinois, by law, they can't use your SAT scores in school, so they can't, yeah, you can't use somebody's SAT scores in high school they're not

0:14:31 Eli: Apply it to your average yeah

0:14:25 Thomas: Really? Wait, what? In high school. Yeah, you know, I yeah. What? Sorry. Yeah, use them for admissions.

0:14:33 Tom: Yeah yeah so so they wouldn't be useful

0:14:36 Thomas: What are you talking?

0:14:34 Eli: In

0:14:36 Tom: For any kind of extra credit. Oh, like extra credit when you get admitted

0:14:38 Thomas: No, I just yeah.

0:14:40 Eli: In Thomas's head, there's a guy behind a desk and he opens up a manila envelope and there's a box and it says, "Did take the SATs," "did not take the SATs." And that guy looks at Thomas kids and my kid and they're like, "Oh, I see this young man took the Sts even though we said this, "Put him in the pile on the left."

0:14:57 Tom: So

0:14:48 Thomas: Uh -huh. Yes. They didn't fall for our trick. Yeah. Our riddle where well, when I, so when I see not required, here's how my brain and with anything academic, here's How my brain reads that it goes SATs. I mean, it's, it'S not required. I guess. I mean, yeah, I guess you don't, you don'T have, it's like the most passive aggressive, like partner you could have. Oh no, nothing's wrong. No, you didn't take the SAT. No. Totally fine.

0:15:21 Thomas: Yeah. No I literally said, "They're not required." Yeah, yeah, it's not required that that you do anything for, for our anniversary. Yeah, no, it's, I Didn't require it What What am I the police

0:15:18 Tom: Sure yeah no it'll be totally fine

0:15:21 Eli: It's fine yeah it's not illegal you don't have to make a woman come when you have sex with Donovan selfish

0:15:30 Thomas: Yeah, exactly might

0:15:34 Tom: So Donovan is, no, you know, he's going to community college. SATs aren't useful, they don't do anything. If you took them, it wouldn't matter. If you don't take them, it doesn't matter. You fucking dangle them from your rearview mirror.

0:15:45 Thomas: Be extra credit you don't know, there might

0:15:46 Tom: It doesn't mean anything to get into community college, I think you're fine. So like, so just filled in C's for everything and then just he just filled in C's and then sat in Red Enders game, but but here's the thing, because

0:15:44 Eli: Lover guy at the desk he

0:15:46 Thomas: Be the fucking oh this hurt oh oh oh God, it hurts so bad, it hurts so bad

0:15:59 Eli: It, wait, he filled in all the C's to ignore the extra credit work and then he went back to his sci-fi book about the smart little boy who saves the world by all the extra credit work he does, that's

0:16:07 Thomas: Yeah

0:16:10 Tom: About, yeah, absolutely, but I do want to talk about this. I know you guys both have the same visceral reaction, it's kind of fucking interesting, but like, I want to really point out, like, we, I was really fucking proud of them because the SATs are nonsense and they should be treated like nonsense because what they do is they feed into another, let me finish. They feed into another myth. And the myth that they feed into is the nonsensical myth that there is such a thing as good schools and bad colleges, and that you should pay a lot of attention as a high school student to making sure you get into a good school.

They sell you this nonsense the whole time that you're in high school. And then if you look at literally any of the many dozens of major rigorous studies that have been done on this, it's all nonsense. A good good school is a school you graduate from. A third of students don't graduate college that enter college. So the best school for you to go to is just a school. You're going to graduate from there's literally no difference five years out from graduation in any measurable outcome, depending on what school you went to. So as long as

0:16:20 Thomas: I don't know if it's nonsense yeah well

0:17:12 Eli: Not

0:17:13 Tom: The school you go to, it is absolutely true, unless you're a person of color, unless você é uma pessoa de cor, você é um homem de cor e você vai, e isso só importa se você vai para uma escola elite, school like an Ivy League school. If you're just going to regular, this college versus that college, there's no difference, there's

0:17:13 Eli: Thank

0:17:22 Thomas: I bet Eli's having the same reaction that I was thinking of, which is like, you know, the connections, the all that stuff, but they must isolate that variable, they must, yeah they must yes there are better outcomes if you go to Harvard than if you goes to the shittiest college in the United States

0:17:35 Tom: No, that that there are not if

0:17:41 Eli: You Tom

0:17:41 Thomas: Yes

0:17:41 Tom: You're white no, there is not, no they, no, I'm telling you that they're I'm telling you to read the studies, they, they are in there, they account for that

0:17:43 Thomas: There is no Tom I'm telling you I I am trying to agree with you. I swear to god, they must have isolated the variable of neighborhood you're from or family connection, because just going to Harvard means you are already so far the fuck ahead. I was trying to agreeing with you, but if you're trying to claim that there's literally no, no difference in outcome, like a straight up outcome between people who go to Harvard and people go to any other college, I'm sorry, I'm not going fair,

0:17:49 Tom: Yeah you don' have to, that, that's one of the things they test for, is does the, the networking matter. And it does not matter, does not matter for white people. It matters for people of color. It does not mater for white peopl. If the thing is to like, be realistic and set aside the entire Ivy League because that's a fraction of a percent of all the people that go to college. So functionally, the Ivy League doesn't matter for anybody the same way the NFL doesn't mater for anybody, right? It should be discontinued from our conversations about college. Most

0:18:14 Eli: Wait I want to clarify you're you're

0:18:37 Thomas: But I'm also not going to say, you know, people who play in the NFL, they make the same amount of money as anybody else. That would be kind of insane.

0:18:42 Tom: No, of course not.

0:18:43 Thomas: It'd be like, yeah, yeah.

0:18:43 Tom: Of course not, but But I'm talking about like, I mean, again, I'm not making this up. You can you can look at the studies. There are studies about whether or not the networking itself matters. And unless you're a person of color, it does not.

0:18:53 Eli: What did the study actually measure is my question that

0:18:55 Tom: There are there are there are many studies that look at the five year outcome for students that go and they does does college choice actually make a difference? It does not make a different.

0:19:06 Thomas: Yeah. But again, did you get into the methods of what they isolated? Cause that's what, that won't be in the fucking headlines, lines,

0:19:12 Tom: Yeah, there there are specifically some that I'm not talking about just the headlines. There are specifically some of those studies that, yeah, the question about networking, because that's a common misconception, is, oh well it's going to be about the people you meet then, not the education you receive, or the name that's on the thing, and it's not five years out, for white people, no difference no difference, there's

0:19:33 Eli: Is fascinating I don't get me wrong, I have a really hard time believing it, but that is fascinating, because that was going to be my thing, is like, oh, it's about the networking, it's about the experience, but you're saying they've accounted for that in these studies and there's still no measurable difference, that's

0:19:48 Tom: No difference, and most important thing in the conversation is, most of the studies focus on, is there a difference between the Ivy League and the standard schools, and those studies, which should show the largest gap, do not show a gap for white students. They don't show a cap. So then when you exclude the Iv League, it's even less consequential. But we have sold this idea, when we're in high school, we're sold it so hard, we're sold it like crazy, we're told this idea in high high school that this shit matters, that getting into that school or this school, and we're not talking about again

0:20:23 Thomas: Sorry, I just want to clarify, you said that the Ivy League has the smallest gap, that study between Ivy League and normal has the smallest gap?

0:20:24 Tom: No you, what I'm saying is, you would think that that would have the largest gap, right? You would thing that there would be the biggest gap, right, and there's no evidence that shows that there is no evidence to show that, right, and again, like, we putting all this pressure on our young people to go to the right school, but the right school for almost everybody isn't the Ivy League, so what we're really talking about is these these differences between Ohio State and Michigan, or between, and I'm just going to make a statement, between this local college and that local college. Of that matters.

0:20:33 Thomas: Yes, exactly. And you said there isn't that.

0:20:41 Eli: Fascinating question so would have absolutely given all those answers that you've just excluded, um, apps 100, like, would have bet money on the answers you've just excluded do any of these studies say what the actual difference maker is, like do they have

0:21:03 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, me too. There is not a difference maker. It's graduation.

0:21:19 Thomas: So everybody in America has the same job. That's incredible.

0:21:22 Eli: Fascinating

0:21:22 Tom: No, they don't have the same job. Obviously, you have to go to a school, you haveto go toa school that, like, has a major that you want, right? You have togo to a schoo that meets your personal learning style needs. You haveto, So selecting a school is still important. Nobody is saying that selecting a school isn't important. But the myth that is absolutely blown apart is the idea that there are good schools and bad schools. A good school is just the school you graduate from. 62% of kids graduate. The other little over one -third never graduate that start college. So like the most important thing in selecting a skill is getting your kid to the finish line. All the rest of it is noise.

0:21:24 Thomas: That's amazing.

0:22:00 Eli: That you know, I thank you mentioned this offhandedly in the first episode about colleges that we did, and I did not internalize that at all, and I certainly didn't internalize that they've done studies on it, that is super duper fucking interesting, oh man, I know, we never ever do like, let's look at studies, let's look at hard facts on this show, because it would be a whole episode of meat I

0:22:20 Thomas: Because we'll probably botch them as much as we have in this episode. Is that that what you're saying, yeah so

0:22:23 Tom: Right.

0:22:23 Eli: Was gonna say it'd be the episode where Eli can't talk at all well, fine, we're doing facts to this week, well, fuck it, I guess, I guess I'll just take a sick day then, but that's, oh man, that's super fucking fascinating to me, um

0:22:37 Thomas: I think I'm familiar with some of this, and I just want to clarify what the fuck we're talking about, that more based on like your family and shit, right? Like, it's because I know that zip code is the biggest predictor of your success in anything, and so I just wanna clarify that people who go to Harvard have way better outcomes than people go to fucking Sacramento State, that's just a fact, and there's no way that's wrong. I just want to clarify. But what they, what I was trying to say is they isolate the variable. So like they probably account for zip and they say, okay, but let's compare if somebody in this zip code went to Harvard and somebody in the same zip code or, you know, other, other variables being equal went to Sac State. What's the difference? There is no difference. I just wanted to make very clear because it sounded like you were saying people between Harvard and, you know, Sac State have zero difference. I just want to make sure that's, there's

0:22:49 Tom: Yep. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Right? Yeah. So if I was unclear. No,

0:23:23 Thomas: No way that's true that's what I was reacting to yeah

0:23:24 Tom: No, no. No. And so I'm sorry, because that's that's, and I may have been unclear. But like, no exactly the point is exactly right. So, and I think that there was

0:23:31 Thomas: That's why I was saying I was trying to agree with you like I was like I know this is what you're saying but it sounds like you were arguing with me that's all right oh

0:23:33 Tom: Yeah right yeah no that's because I thought you were saying something I thought you're saying that like when you go to Harvard you build connections you wouldn't have otherwise built and that's why you're more successful and like no if you come from like 90210 like I come from a 90210 zip code and I go to Sac State or I come from a 90210 zip code I have access to those connections anyway Harvard

0:23:45 Thomas: Yeah fair fair that's is surprising though I, I know that like I so that's news to me that's crazy. I wonder why that is because you don't, you because don't they say, I, I thought studies also showed that like if you get in a fucking frat, you know, one of those frats that has like, you know, like probably all the the racist, weird, demonic fucking shit that they do.

0:24:11 Thomas: If you get in one of those, I was pretty sure that had some beneficial networking effect, but you don't think that's true?

0:24:09 Eli: Skull and bones yeah I

0:24:09 Tom: Well, I don't know about France, I didn't, I never bothered to look into France, but when I was when I was looking at, you, it matter where I send my kids to school, we're getting ready to send our kids to school, like does it matter? And it's like well no it, but also yes it matters. So I guess what I say is like it intensely matters where you send your kids to schools, but not in any of the ways they, they sell to kids and pressure kids. So it intensely matters that you send your kids to a school, in my view, that doesn't saddle them with enormous backbreaking debt, right?

0:24:19 Thomas: Oh, okay. Right, right, right. Oh, for sure.

0:24:19 Eli: I oh

0:24:43 Tom: Unless you're very wealthy. Because studies on enormous backbreaker debt are clear that that's not good for people's long-term outcomes and financial futures.

0:24:44 Thomas: Yeah. Ooh, Tom, let me ask you this. As someone who has kids more college age, because I'm nowhere near there, was of the generation, precisely the worst generation, I think, for college, because, no, literally the year I graduated was the 2009 collapse, like it was the word. So, like, we got saddled with insane debt. You wonder why millennials are like fucking communists? I don't blame them. Like, we got saddled with insane, school predatory school debt. Fucking predatory. And then, we graduate and there's a financial collapse the year we graduate. Um, so here's what I want to ask you. Have they have they, from clown school or whatever, yeah, have

0:24:52 Tom: Yeah. Oh, God.

0:25:18 Eli: Yeah. I also had debt, me too, so, much debt? It was how much? Our debt was how much, Thomas? How much was our debt? It was, yeah.

0:25:28 Thomas: No. No. Well, I got out. I got out pretty good. I think I ended up with forty five thousand dollars of debt and that.

0:25:39 Eli: Me too, but also, that amount.

0:25:39 Tom: That's pretty reasonable.

0:25:40 Thomas: Oh, yeah. And that was because, again, I was I always had to be the high achieving academic kid. I had scholarships, I had grants, but they do a weird trick, too, where they say, well, tuition, because I went to a fucking private school as I've covered because my parents did exactly what Tom didn't do. They were, you know, and I'm agreeing with Tom's approach here. They said, no, it actually actually matters. You can't go to a state school or you're a failure like your brother. So, so go to, so, go to, uh, you have to go to private school. Um, they said, if you, if you can't get into a private school, you half to go this fucking Catholic school that my fucking sisters went to.

And so I was like, well, I guess I'll get into it. Goddamn private school? So I found university of the Pacific, which was pretty nearby and it was private school and I was like, okay. And, so the trick they do is they say, all right, tuition, 11 billion, trillion, million dollars. However, we're going to give you a grant for 10 to 11 billion, 10 trillion, whatever it said, minus 50,000 or something, you know? And so like they grant, they give grants to make it seem like, oh, I got this great. I don't know how much of that was an accomplishment or not. I have no idea. Like I, yes, I had good

0:25:40 Eli: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:58 Tom: Oh, my god, oh, my god, Jesus.

0:26:25 Tom: Right.

0:26:41 Tom: Don't

0:26:41 Thomas: Grades.

0:26:41 Tom: Know, because I had the same experience in the '90s, man. Like, through three colleges in four years, and, like, I graduated from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, and when I transferred, they're like, okay, we're gonna give you a, it was like $35,000 a year, it was crazy, and I was like, fuck, that's a lot, like, I'm paying out of pocket here, so, and they're like, but we're going to give you 50% transfer academic scholarship, and I was like, oh, that cuts it down substantially, thanks for the 50, and then I got a couple other, like, smaller scholarships that knocked it back to, like, 12 grand a year, down from, like, 35, and then I just paid cash for the 12.

0:27:14 Eli: No,

0:26:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And oh, my question. Sorry, I forgot to ask my question of Tom. Have they improved the way they are talking to your kids about this? Like, is anybody really, nobody's, like, hey, um, so, here's what happened, you're fucked if you get all this debt, they haven't done any of that shit. Oh, my

0:27:14 Tom: No, that's what I'm trying to say, yeah, no, and that's exactly the way I'm trying to, like, get at with this episode is, they are putting enormous pressure on these kids, and they're talking about making you know, know, to get in a good SAT score. Colleges don't even care. Colleges don't even care anymore. They put, the other thing is, like, many institutions of higher learning are in a student crisis right now, so after 2008, an enormous number of people went back to college, and it flooded those colleges with all these returning adult students, and they were flush on money, and they built up different infrastructure, and they hired professors, because you had all these people going back and getting, getting law degrees, et cetera, et cetera, getting MBAs, getting their undergrad where they never had before.

There's a huge influx of people going to school. Now, a huge number of people are pulling out of higher ed. And so higher ed is in a crisis to attract students. So they don't give a shit. And, like, increasingly, we're looking at test scores as being really inaccurate ways to measure student performance. So, but they're still putting an enormous amount of, like, school choice selection pressure on the

0:27:28 Thomas: God, wow, wow,

0:27:29 Eli: Um,

0:28:30 Tom: Kids. Where are you going to go to school? You got to make sure you pick the right school, got to have a safety or backup school, but none of that's real. All of that is made up, yeah.

0:28:37 Thomas: All right, that fucking sucks. Yeah, Yeah.

0:28:39 Tom: All of it's fucking made up maybe

0:28:42 Eli: Me hit you with a hot take, gentlemen. Let me hit you with the hot take. This is, this is the one thing I can still say for, for private school. First of all, and I just want to get this out there, just because we're not a fact-based show, number one, Tom's lying. Tom made up all of this. It's just fake.

0:28:58 Eli: He got these studies on a yik-yak. Um, so I just wanted to throw that.

0:28:57 Tom: I don't know probably I is that

0:29:02 Eli: That's my first, that's what my heart tells me.

0:29:02 Tom: Not you taught me that, you I learned it from you, dad.

0:29:06 Eli: That'S my first instinct. Here's my second instinct. And it's, it's a little bit roundabout. I'm gonna tell a story, but I promise it is to the point. Uh, I was at a con this past weekend. I was talking to somebody. I mentioned that my son goes to a Jewish preschool and they They were like, you, the scathing atheist, why do you send your kid to a Jewish preschool? And I was like, well, partly it's that I don't want him at a Christian preschool or a prison preschool, right? Because the Christian preschools, they teach you all about Jesus, and that's no good. And the prison preschools are like, yeah, your mom needs you here until the community college she works at closes down. So, exactly.

0:29:39 Thomas: It's just Arlo with his soccer equipment, and that's it, that's the only, yeah.

0:29:42 Eli: Arlo's soccer equipment goes to that preschool, school, but the second part and I really do believe this, and I said this to the person, they were a little taken aback and I was like, it's hard to explain if you weren't raised Jewish, but a lot of being Jewish is people telling you that the creator of the universe loves you the most, that you're special and important and and chosen and I I think it's pretty important for you to feel real special and important and um magic I feel like when we tell kids, like, look, here are the realistic hard facts of the world, you end up with very practical people who just live sort of medium lives of nothingness and

0:29:45 Tom: Man,

0:30:00 Thomas: They wrote a whole book about that, it's fucking crazy, not take wow.

0:30:28 Tom: I

0:30:29 Thomas: Is this a take completely in inspired by your friendship with me? Is that I

0:30:33 Eli: No this is this is my own take, because everyone's always is like, why are you such a special boy, and I think it's because literally my whole life everyone's been like, you're the most brilliant person, and I just, even though in many, many ways that's not true, believing that has gotten me so many places, right, just like the insane confidence to be like, I am magic and somehow raised above the hoi polloi, and I feel like private school provides that in a a really important way that continues to boost my confidence, like when I do the, it's a joke we talk about it on on Say Day, actually I got roasted for this really super

0:30:33 Thomas: Just want to make sure.

0:31:13 Thomas: Oh,

0:31:13 Eli: Well, at a con we were at dinner and I was like, oh, well, you know, when I went to NYU, and this guy, completely straight face, so good, he was just like, oh, did you go to NYU, you never mentioned it, it was fucking a bit, but like, I I worry that if we don't give our kids that feeling of specialness and stuff, like the the the you-are-just-part-of-the-pack mentality, I worry that could be harmful to them. Am I crazy?

0:31:21 Tom: Think

0:31:22 Thomas: Boy.

0:31:36 Thomas: It's

0:31:36 Tom: It depends on your kid, I think, I really do, I think it depends, I look at, I got, let me let me talk specifically about Donovan because he's going through this at the moment, like, like Donovan is, a huge amount of pressure just to get through college. He'll do very, very well. He's a very smart kid, but he feels this enormous pressure just to make it through, just to do okay enough. He's worried. He's like, oh man, I got to get a 3.0. That kid is not going to have any fucking problem getting a 3.0. He could do it in his sleep, but he's worried about that all the time, and it's not because we don't treat him like he's special. I think some people just worry. And I think some people, I mean, I met people, because I went to a community college, a giant university, and a private college. So I've actually had all three experiences. And some people love the giant university. They love that experience.

That's the experience that fits them. That is kind of like, to your point and to mine, what I meant about, you've got to pick the college that matches your your needs. And for you, Eli, only a private little school, not like NYU is little, only a private school was going to feed you the way you needed to be fed. But some kids want some of the anonymity of a university.

They might feel more comfortable in a room where they aren't singled out, where they can kind of blend in into the background. That might be actually less less anxiety producing for some people than being in a small class with 22 people. You know, that for me was horrible. So when I went away to college and I went to University of Illinois at Chicago for a semester, I loathed that anonymity.

I went in, I sat in on a class and I sat and I took classes where there was like 300 people in a giant auditorium, and I hated it. It felt like nothing to me. It built exactly like you described me. Like, I'm not even here. You don't even know I'm here. I'm just writing a student ID at the corner of my papers

0:33:35 Thomas: The best.

0:33:35 Tom: And turning them in. It's horrible.

0:33:35 Thomas: I love it.

0:33:37 Tom: But yeah, if you're Thomas Smith, maybe that, maybe that maybe you love that. Like maybe if you are a hard introvert, that actually fits your needs way, way better. So I don't know if it's about feeling special,

0:33:37 Eli: Yeah, I hated it too.

0:33:38 Thomas: Oh, yeah, no, I yeah, I. My best class I ever took was a, was a economics class that was pretty small and had this fucking brilliant professor who included us and stuff that was, that was actually the best. But, um, I will say when I fell asleep in that class, then it was way more noticeable than when I fell asleep in the big giant auditorium classes. So, you know, you want a good mix.

0:34:05 Thomas: Like if it's a morning, morning class, you want the big fucking anonymous one. I'm telling you 8am class, which shouldn't exist. Big anonymous one later in the day. You know? Yeah, sure. Give me that intimate experience.

0:34:05 Eli: Pros and cons, right, yeah?

0:34:16 Eli: The class sizes shrink as you get, and then there's, of course, another big class after lunch because you want that nap in.

0:34:16 Tom: But so I just, yeah, I think you're right, Eli.

0:34:22 Thomas: Yeah. I

0:34:24 Tom: Lie, I'll- I went to University of Illinois and Chicago, there was a lot of days where I was just like, I'm just not gonna go today. Like, this is a pain in the because

0:34:29 Thomas: Oh yeah. I didn't go go to any class, I didn't have to.

0:34:32 Tom: A, like, it was a huge pain in the ass to commute to school. So I had to drive to the train station, I had take a train from the suburbs into Chicago, then I had a walk, about a 35 minute walk, to get to the campus. And I had walk through a set of projects, they don't exist anymore, but these housing projects called the Taylor Street projects, projects. So from the train station to the campus you had to go through the project, so-

0:34:52 Eli: You're not going to make Donovan do that, are you?

0:34:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:54 Tom: No, it was horrible, I didn't do it. I did it for one semester.

0:34:55 Eli: He's only Supported by crepes, Tom. He can't hold up to that kind of commute. He's 84 % creep

0:35:01 Tom: No, Donovan will go to the same Donovan Will go to the community college and then he'll go to the same, uh, that I graduated from, which was North Central College in Naperville, and I had a great, awesome experience. I had a lot of classes where there was a, like, my last couple, couple of English classes, my last, like, couple of 400 level English classes, had like four or five people in them. Like, they would have like, there was less than a half a dozen students interested in taking like post-structural feminist literary theory classes and like the kind of crazy shit that we were taking, but I was interested. So I would take these classes and they'd have a half a dozen people in him and they were amazing classes. And that's what I needed. But, and he'll, he'll go for computer science, but he'll want to go to a small school. That'll fit his, his needs, I guess, like my only point was like, if that didn't fit his needs, he would have the same five-year outcome if he went to Northern Illinois University or

0:35:03 Eli: Yeah.

0:35:20 Thomas: I Think we should unbury the lead here, which I think unfortunately, sorry, because we were picking you apart, got a little bit lost. So Donovan, again, just reiterate in the required SAT that you have to take, he just wrote all C's on the test. And Lydia and I both fainted at the same time and we, yeah, Remy had to give us CPR. Like we came to, and Remy was just like, dudes, I know it must've been a school thing. Cause yeah. Cause in my head still, I'm not, I're not saying I'm right, Tom. In my head, what's going to happen is the community college admissions guy is going to open up that manila envelope. He's going gonna be like, he put all C's on the, I knew he said it wasn't required, but this is fucking, that's insane. Like I'm not, he's out. He doesn't get it. I know we, I don't know. I don't know. He let anybody in. He He's out. He doesn't get in. No,

0:36:04 Tom: Yeah. He just filled all C's and Yeah.

0:36:13 Eli: Me too, man, I had a panic attack at the thought.

0:36:42 Eli: I feel the same way, but I just, I can't imagine a community college being able to afford a manila envelope, so can you, like, I don't know, maybe there's like a stack of papers on the floor.

0:36:51 Thomas: They make you buy your own. That's part of the admissions. Like, you need to put it in an envelope for us.

0:36:57 Eli: Yeah.

0:36:57 Tom: So I'll Tell you guys my ACT story, so ACT's are the tests we take out here, and instead of out of 1600, the ACT is out of 36, so that's the top scores of 36. And, they

0:37:06 Thomas: It's because they only know 36 things out there. That's why.

0:37:08 Tom: Only have 30.

0:37:10 Eli: Name all my cows one point each. It

0:37:14 Tom: So, so when I was in high school you got a student ID. I'm sure you guys had student IDs like your picture on them and shit. And when you take the ACT, a lot of kids don't have driver's licenses yet. So they don't require them. You just show up with your student ID. So I showed up and I had my student ID with me and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm here. And like, it's a proctored test at the local university.

And I take the ACT and I do well on the ACT. And then I wait a minute, can get any school ID with anyone's name on it. Like can just go to the library and say you lost your ID. And as long as you know your student ID number, they'll just give you an ID. And I got this idea in my head and I went down to the library. And I was like, Oh, you know, my best friend at the time was this guy, Dave.

And I was, like, oh, I lost my ID. My name is Dave. They don't know who you are. I went to a big school, 4,000 kids. So, like the librarian has no idea if I'm Tom or if I am Dave, right? So, I show up. I'm like, hey, my name is Dave. I lost ID. My school ID number is 960107. And they're like, okay, no problem. We'll take another picture, get you another ID. So five minutes later, I walk out of the library. I've got a student ID from my high school that says Dave on it instead of Tom.

0:38:21 Tom: And And I was like, I'm going to take the ACTs for Dave. Not? I'm gonna see how I do. So I register and I go, cause I'm like a fucking giant nerd. And so this is like my prank, right? So I registered, I go. I show up, I take the ACT's for Dave and I get Dave a score one point higher than I got for myself.

0:38:42 Tom: Was also one point hire than he got for himself. He used the score that I gave him when he applied for school. Cool. So he actually, actually took my friend Dave's ACT's for him as like just kind of on a lark, just like I just want to see if I could get away with it, more than anything else. And he ended up going to Cornell on that. So it was, I got him, yeah, I got, I got his ACT score and he ended up walking and he

0:38:41 Thomas: But Was He From The same zip code. And so, therefore, did he have The exact same outcome As you, yeah.

0:39:07 Tom: Was from the same zip code So, yeah, yeah

0:39:08 Eli: Matter. Also a podcaster. I Yeah, he's on citations needed.

0:39:12 Tom: Also upon, I have no idea what happened to that kid. I have, have no idea. I I

0:39:19 Thomas: So have to ask, why all C's though? Like, at least I would have done a zigzag pattern. I would, you know, I would like a B, C, D yeah Yeah, because what are the odds they're all going to be C? I would have just for fun been like, I'm going to like use pretend psychic forces to guess the actual scores.

0:39:25 Eli: Draw a dick. Draw a Dick.

0:39:29 Tom: Did wonder the same thing just to guess him. I

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah, just just for Fun.

0:39:37 Eli: Yeah.

0:39:38 Tom: Can't wait to see what his score is. I cannot wait to see what his score is

0:39:39 Thomas: Yeah. Well, you'd think it'd be roughly 25% of whatever the score, what it would be.

0:39:45 Tom: The essay portions minus the essays Yeah, but I don't know how much they wait the essays, so that's the, because he didn't, he just obviously didn't fill in anything for the essays so but

0:39:45 Eli: If it's not a 25, that fucking sucks.

0:39:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:55 Eli: Oh, Oh, he just didn't do the essay.

0:39:56 Thomas: Fucking essays. You should have just written C over and over again. That would have been really good. Just write, like, make, like, fake words that are all C, you know like four letters of C and then space, three letters. Yeah.

0:39:58 Tom: Yeah well

0:40:07 Eli: So, Tom, as someone who's not doing the because like, I think I'm on the boat with Thomas and Lydia and just like, yeah, these systems are broken, but you will participate them and cheat them and twist them and break them however you need to to get ahead in the world. But you've you've sort of tapped out of these systems. Are you worried about?

0:40:27 Tom: Only because I don't think they get you ahead. Oh, no, uh

0:40:30 Eli: Sure. Are you afraid? Are you scared about Donovan's motivation? Like are you I would be very worried about teaching a high schooler these things are fake because there's... there's like deep, deep roots in society about not calling out the fake things in society. Okay.

0:40:35 Tom: -uh yeah No, I, I actually feel super, super the opposite. Like, I want Donovan to understand, and and Hayley very much so as well, that, you know, we, we teach Donovan did to be practical. Like, I don't think anybody, I, we tell him all the time, like, don't fucking work for free, man. Don't fucking work for free.

Everything, when, when you show up in any kind of a work setting, a school setting, whatever that setting is, there is work that's required and then there's payments you receive in return. Don't fucking work for free. Don't do shit that don't waste your time and give somebody else your time if they're not offering something commensurate of value in return. Don't devalue yourself that way. And he, he understands that message. Like, he gets that message.

So when you go to school and you do the work, your reward is the grade. So if you show up, you do the work and you do well, you get the grade, that's your payment. So you teach them, like, look, if you run the numbers and look at your syllabus and there's some big ass project, but it turns out, or some onerous assignment, it turns out it's only 2% of your grade and you've got a 95, don't do it.

Spend your time on another class where that effort and energy will be better rewarded. And I think that's a really important message to give kids, is like, don's devalue yourself by doing work just because an authority said you should do work. Do work that you are being compensated for and understand where you can take shortcuts that don't affect your value. Oh,

0:42:15 Eli: But like, I feel like I would not trust any 18-year-old to know the true value of any assignment, because I'm just picturing if I applied that to my sister, she would never do anything ever again. I love my sister, but if I was like, hey, only do the work that's worthy of your time and attention, my sister would be like, nice, and drop out of college forever.

0:42:23 Thomas: Yeah Exactly. Oh,

0:42:37 Tom: No, not Donovan. No, he'll do the math. Like, that's the thing is that, like, this is not an abstract concept. This is a very, like, look at the syllabus. They tell you how many points the assignments are worth, weighted against your overall grade. So, like, a good example would be, and Haley had this example when she went to school, she was supposed to do some kind of daily blog entry project or something for a class, right? But she looked at it and the whole thing was only worth 5% of her grade. And she's like, if I just don't do it, I'm starting at 95% instead of 100%. And she was like, I can get an A in this class without that 5%. That's not a meaningful... So I can eliminate some onerous nonsense task out of my life every day it means nothing to the overall result it's not going to affect anything so why bother doing it and I I think that that's actually a lesson that I know that that'S A CONTROVERSIAL LESSON BUT I THINK IT'S A REAL THAT'S HOW LIFE WORKS LIFE A HUNDRED PERCENT WORKS THAT WAY

0:42:57 Thomas: God, yeah

0:43:33 Eli: Yeah, well, let me say this as a teacher, right, and I've taught all levels, I think if a kid said that to me, just between us, I think of a kid said that They were like, hey, because I tell my students what percentage of their grade something is. If a student was like, "Look, I've done the math and I've calculated This is not, this doesn't really matter. I'm not going to do it." I might not grading punish them for it, but in my head I'm like, oh, this is not a kid who's in it to win it.

0:43:43 Thomas: Exactly

0:43:43 Tom: YEAH WHY

0:44:01 Thomas: I'm

0:44:01 Tom: He's more in it to win it than the other kids. I like, I want TO to, I'll commiserate with you guys. It's taken me a lot of sit the last six years to get to the same point, because for my entire educational and professional career, whatever I was told to do, I just did it because somebody told me to do it. And I look at my life, and I'm like, and I've been also really fucking successful. So is that a bad plan? And I looked at that, and I was like, actually, yeah, that was a terrible plan. That was a horrible plan, because there were many times in my life where having a work ethic that was unquestioning actually created a really toxic life environment for me. It is a much better lesson to learn to always work smarter instead that are harder. It's

0:44:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:40 Thomas: It is a fine line though. I agree, but it's, I think there's a line because you don't want to go too far the other way. Like for example, Donovan's never going to make Donovan the Bible, a hit podcast that allows him to break into podcast. I did that for $0 forever for eternity. That's just a stupid example. But for real, when it comes to like stuff, like, you know, the ways that you, the three of us have kind of networked and met each other, It all involves like, hey, you want to do a do a favor? You want to jump on the show? Do you know? And it's like, I'm not saying that your advice would be to say, fuck you. But like, it is at least a consideration that I would be worried about this.

Honestly, the people who are some of the biggest assholes in life are the people. People who are like, what's in it for me? What's in it for at all times. And it is a fine line. Cause you don't want to get taken advantage of. You don't want to have the boomer attitude of like, yep. No, you're basically a slave. And whatever your boss says, you do it.

0:44:55 Tom: No

0:44:57 Eli: And

0:45:35 Tom: Yeah

0:45:35 Thomas: And you say, cause that's how, that's what my parents taught me. And, you know, it didn't matter because I'm not capable of that. Like you, it doesn't matter what you teach. If the example you set is my dad, never doing anyone, whatever anyone told him ever in his life. Like it doesn't care. They said always do stuff people to do. Yeah, like I I guess if you have that viewpoint, I would want to emphasize, or if I was teaching that to my kid, I wouldn't want to emphasize that you want to take a broad view of what's in it for me. You know, like you want to take, there may be times where it's like an intangible, it's a relationship, it's a whatever. I would just be worried about shutting out possibilities because of this, like, kind of, bottom you line attitude

0:46:00 Tom: Absolutely yes yeah oh 100, and we do reward him for, and we encourage all kinds of other behaviors that are non-transactional right. So, you know, Donovan does an enormous amount of, like, he builds his own games. He does his own coding. He makes his own music. He actually does a lot of stuff that he does intrinsically because he just wants to do it. And the act of production is satisfying to him. So it's the same thing as like Cog Dis we did for I fucking know how many years, six, seven, eight years without making a dollar. It wasn't even a way to make money on podcasts.

0:46:43 Tom: But we did it because it was just fun.

0:46:18 Thomas: Nice yeah Yeah, I think about that. Sometimes I started a new podcast before Patreon. Like, I already had T and the B that was making no money. I was like, you know what, I should make more no money for nothing. How, what the fuck were we thinking? Yeah.

0:46:45 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, we almost didn't get on Patreon because we're like, I don't know if this feels ethical to make make money doing this.

0:46:59 Thomas: No the first people I saw Patreon, it was like, oh, you're asking for money for the thing you did. It's like, oh, that's my, my entire model of living now. It's like the only way I exist.

0:47:00 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, I, yeah. Right. But So, I think there are spaces where we should be tactical and we should teach kids to be tactical. And the SAT was just such a great example because really he's a hundred percent going to community college. Community college costs less than a third of what it costs to go to university or private college.

0:47:14 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:33 Tom: And when it, says you ever went to community college, nobody knows if you don't want. And like I said, out here at least I

0:47:36 Eli: I mean, you don't know what fork to use if you go to a nice dinner. That's probably a good indication.

0:47:40 Tom: I would hear, at least every professor has a doctorate. I didn't get a single class taught by somebody even with a master's. So the quality of education is extremely high. So, like, why should he take the SAT? Why should he not know that that system is bunk?

0:47:56 Eli: My question, right? He's going to community college, right, and he gets nominated for the didn't stab anybody award, board, right, which is gonna be an awesome internship at a video game studio he absolutely wants to work for. But Donovan decides, right then and there, mom, dad, I don't want to do this, isn't going to be worth my time, it's an unpaid internship at Mario Studios, I don't want to do it. How do you, as the parents, then, having set this standard, put your foot down and say, no, this is, a this is one of those things that's important, you should do it because we told you to do it, because it's, it because I told you to, right? Gets a bad rap, but it's also super fucking useful, right? Mean, you know, I can use the example of, like, me wanting to climb in the oven as a baby. At a There are many points in a young person's life where you really have to be like, yeah, you're doing this because I want you to, and that is the rules. Yeah.

0:47:56 Tom: Yeah well That's a point where part of this is, I'm not saying this is everybody's life advice that they should take with their kids. So this is just what we did. But I also know Donovan. And if I just told Donovan, hey, this is important, I want you to do it. Donovan has enough respect that we've led him down the right path thus far that if we said to him, hey. This is good for your career. It's an unpaid internship, but it builds these connections that are valuable for you down the road. Like he's not a binary robot who is like, oh, I don't under- because you said the SATs aren't real, then I get, like, he's not. You can reason with him because he's 17, 18 years old. He's not a little kid.

0:49:13 Thomas: Yeah right.

0:49:22 Eli: No.

0:49:26 Thomas: Yeah but he's going to be on his own and you hope he's gonna reason with himself I guess is the is the key.

0:49:27 Tom: Right Oh. Yeah, he will, he will. And I think that you, we want him to learn is to, is, we said to be tactical. I think if you were to look at a internship at fucking Mario Land or whatever, he would understand that okay, this isn't paid, but this is still a big fucking opportunity. I'm going to meet people. The payment I get is in meeting people. He's still getting paid for that work.

0:49:44 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Can I say though, Eli, I disagree more with the "do it because I told you so." We don't even do that with our kids now, who are, oh, by the way, Arlo just turned four. So five and four. That doesn't, OK, it could be me too, because I do believe this is a something that happens with ADHD.

At, it might have been even in the answers that uh I read that my mom gave, which is I could not do anything that I didn't understand the reasons for, ever.

Like, there isn't, for me there was never a "do because I told you so." That was like, okay, if my parent was literally going to force me to do something, which they did, I would just be fucking pissed, and I, okay, fine, I'll do the thing, but I'll I'll do it as angrily and shittily as I possibly can. What think is more important is just explaining the reasons for it. And I do that even with my kids now. And it's a challenge.

They don't understand the reasons. In fact, we're struggling lately with Phoebe and Arlo not listening, especially because we're just trying to prevent them from fucking killing themselves. That's all it is.

0:50:42 Eli: Yeah.

0:50:42 Thomas: Like every time. We'll be having a perfectly fun time. And then Phoebe's like, you know, I'm going to stick my fucking finger in this light socket. And we're like, no. And then she's like you yelled at me. And I'm like, yeah, because you were about to die. Eye. Occasionally. And by occasionally, I mean eight times a day. I have to yell at you because you're going to kill yourself. I'm, I don't want to yell At you, but like, I'm not, you know, and they go like, you're mean. And you're being really, youre the worst at like all this stuff. And I'm like, You know, the only times this happens is when I'm trying to not have you kill yourself. Can't you give me some credit? Like, I actually want you guys to have fun all the time. Like I actually do. I need to put my cap on backwards and spin around the chairs. I am one, one of the cool dads who wants you guys to have fun all the time. Yeah.

0:50:51 Tom: I

0:50:55 Eli: Yep. Yeah.

0:51:14 Tom: Don't

0:51:27 Eli: I I I think a healthy, dough, I got some explanation, I did, I really did, and it's something I admired about my dad, something I modeled, but sometimes I did get, and I think it's vital to have a button in your soul where someone important can go, hey, I need you to do this thing, and you don't need a why to do it. That you can just because I remember those moments I remember those moments where I was like, why do I have to do this, it's fucking stupid, and I would do it as shittily as possible, and I'd bring it to my dad, my dad would be like, "this is done shittilly, do it again," and the ability to do it when there's no why, that executive function, I think it's really, really, really important, I think it's got

0:51:46 Thomas: It's not in my soul Oh.

0:51:48 Tom: Know.

0:52:01 Thomas: Man. Maybe you know you could be explaining why I'm unable to do things, because I had, like, but like, I also don't know that there's much discretion here, I think that I just, I don't, this is one of these things that's just, it's always been the way I've been forever, I donno why, but like, even as a kid, I have to understand the reasons I'm doing things or I can't do it.

And like, it might just be a mental whatever of me, but I at least know that I'm, I may not immediately give an explanation, but like, I'm always going to give an explanation to my kids as soon as I can, because I don't want them to unquestion. That's, that leads you down the path of fucking religion.

You know, like, I'm not saying, you know, Eli, your thing is that bad, but like, that is when it comes to philosophies, more on the side of obey, because it's definitely more on, on the shitty religious side that gets, you know, gets you to do what priests say, which involves, you know, them fucking you or whatever. So like, I don't, I want to be as far away from the "do what this person said because of their status" or because of the, whatever, as I can.

0:52:07 Tom: I was a Hundred percent team Eli until about six, seven years ago. I really was. And I, and part of the reason, um, I think I was 100% team me lies. Cause I grew up with that. And I think, like a lot of things, like I grew up with and I feel confident that I turned out pretty successful. So I was like, well, that works. And then also I had a kid, my first kid was real easy in that way. So if I said to just do something, you know, he would just do it. And so I didn't have to have for the most part. And so I didn't have to have like an articulatable reason for me to ask him to do it, but I like moved in with all these other people and they all need reasons. Everybody here

0:53:05 Eli: All

0:53:47 Thomas: Maybe it

0:53:47 Tom: Has ADHD but me it is but I think it's good, like I 100% think it's good because if I can't, if I can't articulate why I want you to do something, then, like, that's on me to think about

0:53:48 Thomas: Is an ADHD thing because the, yeah, the ADHD family, I'm telling you. Yeah.

0:54:01 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, when you said that, like, how hard is it to just have a reason you're asking someone to do like, well, how often in your day do you ask someone to do something for no fucking articulable reason? That's I never, never.

0:54:06 Tom: Yeah. No.

0:54:11 Eli: The time All of life all of, of life is a pointless hamster wheel all of society here's

0:54:14 Tom: No. You

0:54:15 Thomas: No, no. Cause a reason, no, a reason can be, hey, because it would be nice. Like, I asked my guy, hey, can you, can you grab me my water over there? And I, you know, the reason is, oh, it'd be nice for Dad if you did that. It doesn't have to be, there's a reason for everything. Do you go to your kid and be like, do a jumping jack, you're like, why, fucking no reason, just fucking because I said

0:54:17 Tom: Don't really believe that.

0:54:34 Eli: My thing, I think all of society and culture is a jumping jack, and I can't fathom a world where one questions society, where you don't end up naked and insane. I'm already I've

0:54:45 Thomas: Jesus Christ. All you do is question society, what are you talking about? You're

0:54:49 Tom: That is not true, Eli. You are somebody who doesn't believe in

0:54:52 Eli: Whoa.

0:54:54 Thomas: A professional society questioner, that is your your job, yeah.

0:54:57 Tom: Apologizing when you don't feel like it should happen. Deep, deep questioning of social norms. You've opted out of so many social norms, you've opted -out of the fashion social norm, you've opted out of the apologizing

0:55:10 Thomas: Wait would this have worked the whole time, Tom? Eli wear clothes that aren't fucking weird, because I sad so. So you're just like poof of smoke and he transforms.

0:55:15 Tom: Social norm yeah right, I

0:55:17 Eli: I'm just in a button cotton down and jeans. Yeah, that's

0:55:23 Thomas: It does the old like sitcom, like spin around real fast. And then he's in there.

0:55:27 Tom: I, I feel a little bit with, with, I don't, you to some degree I do.

0:55:33 Eli: Fair.

0:55:33 Tom: I do believe you, but I'm like, how, like, where does this come from? Because I really felt like obedience was a value that I value, that my kids should do what I say because I'm their dad. And like, I've asked them to do it and I know what's best for them. I need you to trust me and just fucking do it. Um, then I'm, you know, all these kids moved in and Haley moved in. And it was like, well, no, they all need a reason to do something or they're not going to do it. And I was like, all right. And then to Thomas's point, there's always been a reason.

0:56:00 Thomas: There should be a reason or what the fuck are you asking your kid to do? You weirdo. There's gotta be a season.

0:56:05 Tom: And, and I feel like in my,

0:56:06 Thomas: There's got to be a good reason.

0:56:06 Tom: My adult life, I never do anything thing that somebody can't articulate a reason for. There are things, but

0:56:14 Thomas: Yeah. Unless it's like some self -directed thing just for fun or something. But yeah, exactly.

0:56:18 Tom: Yeah, so nobody ever asks me to do something that they can't. Now I might not agree with their reason, right? I might get overridden by somebody with more authority than me, but that doesn't mean that they didn't have a reason.

0:56:22 Thomas: Yeah. And my personal flaw, and I, again, it's one of those things, Tom, where it also has brought me success, but I worry about it, is I can't, if I hear someone's reasons and they're fucking stupid, I struggle so much. And when you're in positions of, you know, different jobs or different situations, you have to be able to kind of not question, or even, or if you question, then be very receptive to their answers. And I fucking struggle with that, as you both probably know. No, that

0:56:50 Tom: Same man. I'm like, absolutely the same. I mean, I will, I will relate and Eli's going to laugh. Like, there have been times in the podcasting world where I have very much had an idea and wanted to do an idea, and I've been like, "Hey, this is a great idea, I think we should do do it," and other partners in our podcasting space have just been like, "nope, that's not gonna happen," but they have a reason. It's a bad reason, in my view, right? Because I want this thing and they don't want the other thing, so I don't necessarily agree with or even sometimes respect their reasoning, but there's still a reason there. If it was just like no, and there was no reason even, even attempted to be shown behind it, like

0:57:11 Thomas: Would be infuriating. I couldn't imagine working with anyone at all like that. I would quit my job.

0:57:31 Eli: Yeah,

0:57:31 Tom: But Eli's laughing my boss, boss calls me and like, he, he could ruin my life at the drop of a hat, right? That's how bosses are. He could just be like, well, I'm ruining your life tomorrow. He could run my life a drop of head. If he calls me, a need something, I'm gonna do it a hundred percent. But he's gonna tell me why he needs it. And if he doesn't, he is not offended if I say, sure, I'll be happy to get that to you, what do you need it for? And he'll, he'll tell me. And that's a perfect. So I guess I feel like in my adult life, Eli, I don't need to be obedient, I guess, except for the cops.

0:57:48 Thomas: Yeah,

0:58:06 Tom: Right. And there's the reason.

0:58:04 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. We they have gun, son, daughter, Then that's the reason. Yeah, just do what they say because they have a stupid gun and fuck them, but you gotta deal with this thing. Let's be real. Oh,

0:58:11 Tom: Yeah. Threat of violence is the reason, right? Yeah. Think I came at this for the longest time with the same view. So like, like, like, take me there. Like, why do you think it's important for Max to, grow up with that value of like obedience?

0:58:26 Eli: So for me, I think that society is very much constructed around insiders and outsiders, right? You can segment yourself off into populations where things that would have made you an outsider suddenly make you an insider, right? The internet is really good At that. Mass communication is really good at that. But there are the mindset of it's OK to be an outsider is like super duper dangerous. And the the way I think of this, because it's funny that I am very anti culture, very anti mainstream, but I'm also very much playing a role in that culture. Right, one would be interested in how I seriously feel about grown -up clothes or Starbucks lines or the way we talk to someone at the bank, right? Would all be things where people are like, "Oh, you're not well, get out of here," right? If I clown it up, right, I see a big line at the back, right? I don't want to stand in this line. I can't stand on a chair and go, "None of you will ever write a poem or a song. I'd like to be at the front of the line now, please."

0:58:41 Thomas: Wow. Okay.

0:59:30 Tom: Yeah.

0:59:32 Eli: But I will turn to the girl who's sending people to lines and I'll go like, do you have a famous people line? I'm actually a podcaster of some repute.

0:59:38 Thomas: So you just single-handedly, um, unconvinced me of your argument about people needing to feel special, not that I ever was convinced, because, uh, no, fuck that. Never mind, I'm going to teach my kids they are not remotely special in any way. I can't do it. Just, I, the second hand mortification I will have if one of my kids ever cuts in a line because they're fucking special, I'll die. I'll die.

0:59:57 Eli: That's the thing. I'm not cutting in the line and I just turn to her and I say, do you have a Famous People line? She sees that I'm joking, we have a little laugh. I'm, I do is I take this situation right here where we all wait in a line, right, our faces don't exist and then we just move up one, and I'm changing it in a way that's so now I can't do it in the way that it's not acceptable, right? I can't be like, "Hey baby, you want to dance the tango while we wait?" That's not nice, right? The society insider outsider thing, no, you go to the outside so I'm allowed to do things that I'm allowed to be a little clown, right?

1:00:32 Eli: I could do a magic trick if there's a kid there, right?

1:00:15 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, right. Okay. I see. You're, yeah.

1:00:34 Tom: You're, you're describing being charming though. That's what you're described.

1:00:36 Thomas: Well, no. So your point is, Eli,

1:00:36 Eli: I'm right.

1:00:38 Tom: Describing it,

1:00:38 Thomas: If I understand you correctly, you still ultimately need to be within the frame of reference of society, more or less. You can't be totally outside it or, you know, it just, that doesn't work so you're not like an extreme outsider just

1:00:49 Eli: I don't want Max to patiently wait in the line, of course. No one should patiently wait on the line, that's the worst

1:00:55 Tom: But

1:00:56 Thomas: Be arlo and phoebe and remy they'll be the three people fucking little max will come in oh those people aren't real and I'll just cut paint and fucking give them a wedgie and so

1:00:57 Eli: Exactly but but I, but more importantly, I don't want him to be the psycho who's just like, "Oh my god, I need my own lane," right? The Karen, if you will, right? I don't want to raise a Karen, but I also don't want to raise a kid. Like, I want him to understand societal structures exist and they're very, very important to the people around you, but but can manipulate those, like, yes, you're outside of them, but don't let them know

1:01:25 Thomas: What you're saying is you want him to have a strong social iq in order to manipulate people to get his ends as much as he can interesting very interesting there's another word for that but uh yeah oh

1:01:26 Eli: Yes exactly precisely so

1:01:34 Tom: Don't see how that, I don'T, I have, I am staggered as to how you're you're going to connect this to obedience though.

1:01:41 Eli: It's like my thoughts on religion, right? Because he goes to a Jewish preschool, he's someday he's going to be like, "What about God?" I don't be, be like, I, I said it on the religion episode, it's like I'm gonna say to him, look, this, this is pretend, right? It's fucking stupid, super stupid, you're, what, four? You figured it out, of course you did. But it's so important to these people, it's so important to them, they care so much about it, nothing you say about not being real is gonna help this situation. In fact, these full-grown adults will become mad at you, a child, if you talk too much about it not being right and there's nothing you can do to change, there's that, it will only be bad for you, so what can you do while maintaining civil order to get the best possible outcome out of knowing these things aren't real, for you, look

1:02:11 Thomas: God it's insane yeah I mean when you put it that way I kind of but that's still not obedient yeah sounds like what you're doing is giving him a whole bunch of reasons for what he should do I yeah think you're just wrong about yourself yeah

1:02:37 Eli: Like

1:02:29 Tom: And Yeah. Yeah, I know. I like, yeah, I, I don't know. I'm not getting there with you, man. Cause like I'm right there. I was like, yeah, we should use charm and charming ability to get ahead. We should understand social structures. And I do believe we should be able to manipulate them if we want to, to get ahead, that's fine. Everybody does that to some degree.

It's just a matter of degree, like that's fine, I'm right there with you, but I can't connect any of that to do what I say because I said it, like, can connect it to know who's in charge and how to placate them in ways that yield advantage for you, that's not the same thing is it because I feel like I definitely will teach my kids and have to know who's in charge, what level of power they yield, satisfy them, the, the ways that they require to be satisfied in order for them to provide to you the benefits that they have to, to give. That's something we talk about. Like, that is fine. Like, your boss wants you to do something, to do it because he's the boss.

1:02:39 Thomas: Okay

1:03:13 Eli: Maybe, maybe

1:03:35 Thomas: That sounded like a lot of euphemisms for like you gotta give someone a blowjob is what it sounded like to me but

1:03:39 Eli: Yeah

1:03:40 Tom: They're asking what, what kind of power do they wield? What kind of Power? I just don't see it, man. I don't see it

1:03:40 Thomas: Yeah no I think you're right Tom I agree I also think by the way another thing I'd add into this is there is no fucking use for the do what I say without a reason now there might be again in the immediate like when someone's gonna put their finger in a light socket or whatever like then yeah okay for the split second but you can still explain afterward and the only kind of people who would demand that and there are those people there are plenty of those people who the minute you question their reasoning get all offended and like do this like oh because I said so because they want to use their ounce of authority over you to be a bigger fucking man that's a very toxic masculine bullshit thing that if somebody is like that I would be happy my kid was like nah fuck you I'm not gonna do it I don't care I don'T CARE I donT EVEN CARE IF IT LOSES THEM MONEY I 'LL PAY THEM THEM I DON'T WHATEVER I that kind of person is exactly the kind of Person that I don't want my kids to be obeying it's LIKE THAT OLD THING WHO THE ONLY PERSON WHO DESERVES POWER IS A PERSON WHO DOESN'T WANT IT YOU KNOW KIND OF THING WE'RE I, okay. We're running out of time, Tom. I just have to ask you the only thing I was getting because mine and Lydia's next reaction,

1:04:26 Tom: There's a principle there

1:04:42 Thomas: We were going through the stages of guilt or whatever. What is it? The stages of grief.

1:04:42 Tom: Yeah

1:04:43 Eli: All as well grief the stages of grief, denial, anger, yeah anger

1:04:47 Tom: Bargaining,

1:04:47 Thomas: Yeah. We really, we Were going through that with your son's, uh, SAT. I was like, Oh, no way. He's no way he's doing that. What's the next one after that? We're mad. No, no fucking way.

1:04:55 Eli: Anger, bargaining, please, Donovan, please

1:04:58 Thomas: No. Yeah, Yeah. And then we were pleading because we're like, well, maybe, you know, like you're there already. That was my next reaction. You're already there. Why not take a fun test? It's really fun. Why not?

1:04:55 Tom: Acceptance. Yeah, a fun

1:04:58 Eli: Don't you want to eat dorm room food, Donovan? Come on. Yep.

1:05:12 Tom: Test.

1:05:12 Thomas: Like literally was like, because that's for me, that's what it is. I'm like, there's math problems written down that I have to do. If somebody, that's one of those involuntary things. If you ever want to like turn me into a terrorist or whatever the thing is, like I, someone writes down a math problem in front of me, I have to try to do it. It's fun. It's cool. Things.

1:05:29 Eli: Writes a math problem or openings a bottle of wine. I have found out, Thomas, will not. Thomas will not let Italian restaurant red wine vinegar go to waste.

1:05:33 Thomas: Yep. Oh, boy. That is a dated story. And I'm proud to say that's no longer true. That exact situation has happened enough to where I've had to just, you know, for the sake of my survival, give up that particular impulse.

1:05:51 Eli: Maybe we'll tell that in the patron bonus this week. They'll hear the story of Thomas drinking red wine vinegar for an hour and a half.

1:05:54 Thomas: Yeah.

1:06:00 Tom: What, just do

1:06:00 Thomas: Because for real, I would just take the SAT just for fun. It's fine. Why not see how you did? There's no harm. You're there, you paid for it or whatever, or it's not paid for, you're there, why would you, just, just do it for fun, just, okay, never mind.

1:06:11 Tom: A fun two-day long test where the score doesn't matter? What? Why not read Ender's Game? It's way more fun. Oh,

1:06:12 Thomas: Yeah exactly all

1:06:27 Eli: Gentlemen, before we go, important question. Did you know that Spider-Man has a winter jacket made entirely of Mediterranean flatbread? It's a pita paca. Thank you

1:06:39 Tom: You.

1:06:43 Thomas: Bad. A plus. Oh,

1:06:50 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

1:07:29 Tom: On, let me look it up. I forgot, I know, I texted it to you earlier. Fuck. Hang on.

1:07:33 Thomas: It must be really funny if you instantly forgot it five seconds. Yeah. We

1:07:36 Tom: It's been a long morning. Oh,

1:07:38 Eli: Was