WTW1: An Elevatorgatewaydrug To Anti-Wokeness

Transcript

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

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas Smith. Thank you so much for listening. Probably know me from Serious Inquiries Only, or maybe you don't. Hopefully you don't. That means I'm reaching new people. But if could not be more excited for this project. I trust me when I say there is so much good stuff coming. I mean, there's a lot. I mean, why this show, what are we doing here?

Well, doing social commentary and researching quote-unquote woke controversies is something that I've long done on Serious Inquiries Only, my main which now will focus exclusively on expert interviews. Makes so much more sense. Had so many of those saved up that I wasn't able to get to because I didn't know what to put out because I couldn't tell what was more important. This is going to make it so much easier and so much better.

I can straightforwardly tell you that Serious Inquiries Only is the place to go for expert interviews, different experts, all different stripes, learning cool things each and every week. It's going to be so much fun. Will be the place to go for those debunks, that social commentary, that wading into the morass of absolute misinformation and lies and distortions and all that that come with. So what kind of things am I talking about?

Well, there's so much, every single week, every day, probably every, well maybe not hour, every several hours, there is a new story on Fox or wherever about angry college students doing this, or the woke mob doing that, or they're censoring this, they're taking away that, and without fail, every time I look into these, everytime, it's bullshit. Bullshit. Unbelievable. The batting average is, be I generous and say maybe 1.3% of the time, they're not completely bullshit. That's like the maximum I'll give them.

Those are the things I want to debunk, but not just the right wing ones that are like obvious, that are super dumb, the M&M's controversy, all that stuff. Not just that. I want to do that too. So many reasons. Goes back to the evergreen college controversy I covered way back when it happened. That was the origin of Brett Weinstein, who you may or may not know. Called that one. I covered that.

I didn't have access to that much information, but even the information I did have access to at the time. I looked into it, it just wasn't with... not just the right wing people, by the way, but the center left, I don't even know what to call them. I guess they're like classical liberal anti-woke people. Think Bill Maher. That's what I'm more concerned with.

Yeah, Fox News is going to Fox News, still want to cover it, still going to be funny, but it's the ones that are actually getting through to liberals, to a lot of like the center left of the country. And that's having a real impact, like a really dangerous impact. I think it's clear that what's making the trans panic in our current moment particularly dangerous is not just that the right wing folks, the usual suspects are going for it.

That the center left and the center right are going from the middle of America is going for it. And you know why? Because of the New York fucking Times and other sources like that, that are covering it terribly, absolutely terribly. What else have they covered terribly? Well, that's going to come up in the show. So what I'm doing here is a good old-fashioned debunking.

I love going back, researching, delving into all of it as much as humanly possible and finding out just how many levels of bullshit it is because it always is. There's always the same patterns. Here's another reason I'm excited for this project. In the course of researching what will be the second episode and the third episode and maybe the fourth, we'll see. But my series on the NASA James Webb controversy as covered by the New York Times, which was terrible.

Can't wait to tell you all about it. The course of doing that, I found a number of other stories by the same reporter are equally terrible. One of them involves a college student, black female college student. Someone young, not very powerful, no privilege or anything, goes to a college, but that's about it, who had security called on her. I'm not going to get into, I will debunk this story eventually, but just very brief summary.

She had security called on her one night and she thought it was due to racism, was very upset by it, thought that if a white person had been sleeping on the couch of the dorm room or whatever it was, they wouldn't have had the security called on them.

Like I I said we'll get to that more when we get to it but when you search that person's name which by the way the New York Times just doxed just released to everybody that's super cool super reasonable to do that a college student definitely deserves to have their name put in the national press because they thought something racist happened to them but anyway when you you search that person's name, you get not one, not two, not three, but like four pages of just right wing and center left anti-woke results on the search.

100%. I couldn't find a source that covered that in any sort of favorable way toward the student. I know it's out there. I'm not saying it's nowhere, but I'm saying we need more. That's what I want to do here. I'm sure other people are doing this, but not enough. I can tell you with certainty, not enough, because when I do research for these things, there's nothing. There is coverage that's good somewhere, it's overwhelmed by just massive and massive amounts of coverage.

It's so, and it breaks my heart. It's unfair. This poor college student, you search her name, all you get is people bashing her. She doesn't deserve that. Wait to tell that story. But that's that is a huge inspiration for this. I want to help boost the voices and help provide a little backup, a little signal boosting, a little support for the people who so often every time in these stories, virtually every fucking time in these stories, it's a person of color, it's women, it's somebody.

Somebody in a very not privileged position getting just trampled and having all the argument and just all the conversation controlled by anti-woke white people mainly and their allies who sometimes might be non-white people. But you get the point. It's the powerful status quo just tramples this poor college student. Anyway, I'm really excited to talk about all that and to try to push back a little bit because it's really harmful.

I've looked into, I think what a lot of people already knew was true, but that there is a real kind of anti-woke rot at The New York Times. And I think that's major. I think it's significant. I think it needs to be called out and I just want to... I want to be another voice doing that. I think I've found some things that I haven't seen covered. I can't wait to get to. For today, for episode one, I want to do something slightly different.

I know it's weird to start out like, well, this is slightly different. In introducing the show for what I thought was episode one, I started going into an entirely different episode. So I realized I had spent 20 minutes in the intro, talking about this other thing. It occurred to me like, oh, maybe I should do an intro episode about that thing. So here I am. We're covering a controversy known as Elevator Gate.

Elevator Gate, if you are not familiar, you are in for a treat. You're in for an absolute treat. Let me tell you. Oh my God. I hope, I hope you haven't heard of it. I really, oh, show of how many, you are just, it is like someone is about to show you The Godfather or something and they're like, I can't believe you haven't seen this. I can't, oh I pick your whatever favorite movie. That's how I feel right now.

I cannot believe you have not seen Die Hard and I'm about, or something, and I am about to show you that movie on Christmas Eve. God intended on Elevator Gate is, oh, it's perfect. It's like the exact prototype of everything I want to cover with this show. Note, this episode is about when a woman expressed an opinion that men didn't like and so therefore naturally contains descriptions of sexual harassment and threats of sexual assault and things of that nature. So listen with caution.

So Elevator Gate is about the people who think they are the smart, literally their movement and brand. And I say they, you know what? I should be honest. I should include me because I was a part of this movement. Was not a part of Elevator Gate, but I was a part of the skeptic and atheist movement. You know what? I shouldn't even say was. I still am a part of that because it still goes on. It thrives. There are plenty in the skeptic and atheist movement.

Back in 2011 were the first very visible cracks to my noticing of a vicious split. The skeptic and atheist movement really took off, had a resurgence in the wake of September 11th, because September 11, of course, was an act of terrorism that was in some part or in all parts inspired by horrible religious beliefs.

I say that, I don't mean all of Islam, of course, but I mean the particular brand of religious belief that would tell you if kill a bunch of people who don't worship the right God, then you'll be rewarded in the afterlife. That's a horrible belief, no matter what religion you're talking about. That event, in the early 2000s, leading into the later 2000s, combined with personalities who were charismatic, interesting, who I very much loved at the time, very much enjoyed, the Four Horsemen. I was a fan.

Fan of all four, all four of those horsemen, I believe I was a big fan. Got Richard Dawkins. You've got Sam Harris. Got all their... I got the rookie cards. You got Daniel Dennett. And of course, Christopher Hitchens. Not me, there will be a time and a place for more on those gentlemen. There's a lot there. There's a lot of anti-woke stuff there. There's a lot of controversies to talk about. That'll be a fun thing. Maybe I'll cover someday.

These were people, not just the Four Horsemen, but a lot of people involved in this movement who their identity was based on being rational thinkers, being skeptic, being clear thinkers. So they thought. It's something that if done correctly, I think is very good. Ideals, adherence to logic and critical thinking and all those things. Those, those, in good measure and applied properly, I think are really good things.

Elevator Gate involves someone named Rebecca Watson, a very talented vlogger, as they, I don't know if they still call them that, but back in the day, YouTuber, I guess is another word for it, maybe. Talented speaker, science enthusiast, was co-host of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe for nine years, blogged and vlogged about atheism, feminist politics. She got herself started in 2005. I'm not going to go deep into her biography, but you get the idea. You heard me describe the Four Horsemen earlier.

They were called the Four Horsemen of atheism. They're the most popular by far, by far the most popular figures in atheism at that time, by far by a long shot, they wielded unbelievable power. If you could get one of them at an event, that guaranteed ticket sales for your conference, your convention, your talk, whatever you're talking about. Someone like Rebecca Watson was popular, but not at all on that scale. That might have something to do with how male-dominated the community in general was. Still is.

I haven't checked lately. Our controversy begins with a video Watson made. Actually delightful, eight minutes, titled About Mythbusters, Robot Eyes, Feminism, and Jokes. From June 20th, 2011. Obama's first term. What a different time. What a different time.

This video, not even the majority of it, by the way, maybe half of it at most, of an eight-minute video, very positive, enjoyable video, funny, insightful, but just an update generally on what Rebecca Watson was up to at the time and what she had been doing in her travels and that kind of thing. Updating her fans, saying a few words. Talked about a recent trip to Dublin that she had taken. World Atheist Convention, Dublin, Ireland.

Spoke spoke about not liking being sexualized, constantly sexualized as one of a very few women in a movement of men. That was the thrust of her discussion, of her talk on the panel. She had genuinely a good time. The panel, she says, enjoyable time. Why don't I just let her explain in her words?

0:12:06 Clip: Interested in the response to my sort of rambling on that panel, which, the response was really fascinating. The response at the conference itself was wonderful. There were a ton of great feminists there, male and female, and also just open -minded people who had maybe never really considered the that women are treated in this community, but were interested in learning more. So thank you to everyone who was at that conference who engage in those discussions outside of that panel.

Were all fantastic and I love talking to you guys, all of you except for the one man who didn't really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel because at the bar later that night, actually at 4 in the morning, we were at the hotel bar, 4 a.m. I said, you know, I've had enough guys, I'm exhausted, going to bed.

I walked to the elevator and a man got on the elevator with me and said, don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting and I would like to talk more, would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee? Just a word to the wise here, guys, don't do that.

You know, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out, that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4 a.m. in a hotel elevator with you, just you, and don't invite me back to your hotel room right after I finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner. So yeah, but everybody else seemed to really get it, and thank you for getting it here.

0:13:54 Thomas: If you're coming to this with, I don't know, fresh, young 2023 eyes and you don't know anything about this, I bet you're wondering why in the world I could possibly be talking about this completely reasonable, unobjectionable, calm video you just heard. That's it. That's the thing. And that's so often it. I can't wait to show you this pattern. That's so often it. That's it.

She was specifically a speaker who talked about not wanting to be sexualized and out until four in the morning at a hotel bar where she said, either there or later, she says, there already was coffee there, so it's pretty obvious that when someone corners you in an elevator in private, they are asking for more than coffee. True to the words she said, I'll tell you what happened as a result of this video, you are not going to believe it. Again, I just, it's Citizen Kane.

It's The Godfather. It's, I picked a lot of male centric movies. I've just realized, I was going to say Die Hard. I should check my biases. It's Women Talking. Oh my God. Did you see that movie? That movie was incredibly good, actually. Watch Women Talking if you didn't see it. Boy, I cried for like the last hour. That is a great movie. Anyway, it's there, whatever your favorite movie is. I'm so excited if you don't know what's coming. So let me go back one more time and let's hear what she said. Again, let's hear what she said.

0:15:19 Clip: A word to the wise here, guys, uh don't do that, um,

0:15:23 Thomas: Word to the wise, guys, don't do that. She is expressing a preference. By the way, she's not even universalizing it. She already said earlier in the video that not every woman has the same experience and she just wanted to get her experience out there for anyone else who might have her experience. And she recognizes, she says in this video, she recognizes not every woman has the same experience. And she says, guys, don't do that. And particularize it to her.

She says she just spent the time talking about this very topic, how she doesn't want to be sexualized. And she gets propositioned pretty inarguably in an elevator. If someone says to you, don't do that because it makes them uncomfortable, it's something that's, you know, a totally voluntary behavior that you can control. That's, by the way, it's not some neutral, keeping to yourself, mandatory behavior that you must do, that's your private thing. It is something you you are doing toward someone that you don't have to do.

If someone says, don't do that and it makes them uncomfortable, if your response is anything other, anything other than, oh, okay, I'm sorry, then you're fucking nuts. Again, if you don't know what's coming, you're probably like, why am I even saying that? Well, oh boy, a lot of man's in the atheism movement lost their fucking minds, including Richard Dawkins.

By the way, a little bit of the show is going to involve, you know, digging in, debunking, researching, the yarns that have been spun, the webs of deceit that have been spun. This is why this is such a good intro episode. I don't have to do any of that. I just played you the thing. There's one thing. It's that video that is nothing. That's it.

Normally, when there's the man in a lot of these that I'm going to be presenting to you over this show, going to be a lot of, but it turns out if you dig in, if you look at the FOIA requests, if you glass out and you read for hours, you might find that actually people were wrong. Nope, none of that. It's just, that was it. You have all the data. You have every single thing. You have everything.

Every single piece of information you need, you just heard it. Now let's talk about the fallout. So while Rebecca naturally got plenty of shitty reactions from average YouTube neckbeards and so forth, it really took off when Richard fucking Dawkins decided to weigh in nearly a month later.

Just to say a word about Richard Dawkins, this is someone who I respected immensely, I love listening to him explain evolution, explain nature, explain how it worked, there's so many fascinating questions about evolution that this period of my life, especially when I had grown up with upbringing, and while I wasn't super religious and didn't have a bunch of very wrong beliefs about how things worked, I didn't have a whole lot of actual knowledge about how things worked in terms of biology and evolution.

I didn't learn that much at school for whatever reason. And in this period of my life, a year or two or three out of college, college, just really took to this movement. I really took two very smart people explaining how the world worked. I loved it. It's, it's, I still love it. And it's especially when it's something you aren't as familiar with, finally getting a lot of the answers to questions.

I had always always wondered, cause I just didn't have, you know, the internet wasn't as good back then. And I didn't, I grew up in a small town around mainly conservative people. I always wondered like, how could an eye evolve? You know, like how, how could you have like part of an eye, you know? How, at what point, it seems like things like that, where it's like, need the entire thing. I thought you, you need to have an eye, the entire thing, to be useful.

So how could it have evolved in stages? Well, it turns out there's perfectly good answers to that. And it turns out you don't need the whole eye to be useful. You need very little of it to be useful. And it's things like that that I just love. Maybe I'll play a little bit of Richard Dawkins to give you a sense. I think this is important to emphasize who this man is, and what he normally spent his time doing.

0:19:30 Clip: I think the way to look at the DNA problem is to say that the amount of DNA that has been sequenced and the sort of thing on which we base that calculation of the 98% is, if you look at a computer, you'll find that most of the programs that are written are, at the machine code level, calling up the same set of subroutines. There's a subroutine for pulling down menu bars and a subroutine for moving windows and so on. That's what we're looking at in this 98%. What we're not looking at is the set of sort of high level instructions that say, call this subroutine now, now call this one, now this one, now call that one. It's not just humans and chimpanzees. All mammals have pretty much the same repertoire of genetic subroutines. And the difference between a man and a mouse, like the difference between a chimpanzee, is the order in which they're called, the sequence in which they're called during embryology, which causes the really quite substantial anatomical differences between a human and a mouse and the quite big differences in size.

0:20:37 Thomas: I actually miss the days when I had an uncomplicated view of Richard Dawkins and could just enjoy his science talking. But back to our story. Here's what happens. Rebecca Watson's words, quote, even Dawkins weighed in. He hadn't said anything while sitting next to me in Dublin as I described the treatment I got. A month after that, he said... I'm not going to do it. A month later, he left this sarcastic comment on a friend's blog. Um, note, dear listener, when I read you this again, oh, we're at the, we're at the part where Aragorn kicks the helmet and he broke his toe and I can't wait, I'm just looking, I'm just watching you, you're watching Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, and I'm just watching you ready to tell you that in this scene in which Aragorn kicks the helmet really hard, he actually, the actor, almost said Viggo Mortensen.

0:21:24 Thomas: Viggo Mortensen, that's it. He actually broke his... That is a reference several of you will think is funny. We're at the good part where I make sure you are watching this damn movie. I'll look over, you're looking at your phone. I'm like, hey, put that the fuck down. Here is what Richard Dawkins, an adult, wrote in response to what I played you. There's no more. There's not more. There's now more information. You've got the information. It was there. You heard it.

You heard the sum total of what matters in the information, here's what he wrote: "Dear Muslima"... not a great start, insane to me, but that was just his way of saying female Muslim, I guess. For shits, looking that up, there is a word, Muslima, with an H at the end, but he didn't spell it with an H. I don't know, I'm reading it to you, but he didn't spell it with an A. So I think he just added an A, as in like generic Muslim woman, I guess. Back to it, promise you this is real. I promise what you are about to hear is real. Quote: "Stop whining, will you?

Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and, yawn, don't tell me yet again, I know that you are not allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you? Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with. Only this week I heard of one. She calls herself Skepchik.

Do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her to his hotel. He invited her back into his room. Of course she said no. And of course he didn't lay a finger on her. But even so. And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about? For goodness sake, grow up. Or at least grow a thicker skin. Richard." End of quote.

That is the most insane fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. Can you imagine someone saying, uh, word of the wise guys, don't do that, that made me uncomfortable, and saying, dear, what,

0:23:38 Thomas: What? I know what you might be thinking, person in 2023. Well, surely he got canceled out of the universe. I've got bad news for you. For one, the term canceling hadn't really taken off by then, to my memory. I don't think that it would really... we would have said that. Two, no, not at all. Like barely any.

Some other people who were, you know, not fucking insane misogynists defended Watson and tried to criticize Dawkins, but it had no material impact on the man who, by the way, is a multi-millionaire, so what would be going on in your mind? Like imagine you're sitting in a bus or something and someone's kicking the back of your seat. And you're like, Hey, can you not? Do you mind? Do you mind not doing that? And the person kicking your seat was Richard Dawkins. Oh, dear Muslima, stop whining, will ya?

Yeah, yeah, I know you had your genitals mutilated, blah, blah. But only this week, someone in front of me had someone tapping their toe a little bit on their seat. I'm not exaggerating. And you think you have misogyny to complain about. What? So nuts. It's such a shame. It's just so nuts that this happened. It is so, it is... it is impossible that this happened. I don't even, I'm looking at the words. I don't believe they're real. I was there. I remember reading this.

I still, I think this is a Berenstain Bears situation. It is hard to believe this is real. This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen in my life. It doesn't stop there. Not even close. It actually begins there. Richard Dawkins comments on something in the atheism movement, that's when you really get to see everybody. That's when the men come out to back him up. I'm making a little bit light of this, but it's not at all a lighthearted thing. This is horrible. Here's, in Rebecca's words, some of what happened next.

0:25:56 Thomas: To celebrities and my friends. The worst accounts were deleted by Twitter, but some, such as this one, are allowed to remain so long as they remove my name. Entire blogs were created about me, obsessively cataloging everything I've ever said and quite pathetically attempting to dig up dirt in my past. Stepping out for a second, these links in this article, this is from 2012. So she's writing this article, by the way, a little bit over a year later, she's still going through this.

I have to tell you, these links are still live. That's how deep the hatred misogynists have for women is. Of these pages, some of these links, they're still there, they're still blogs, they're obsessed with, like, no, they're not writing about elevator gate every day, but they're still obsessed with Rebecca Watson, they're all still doing it.

I will tell you, I've crossed the manosphere a time or two in my internet life and I got a lot of harassment from the idiots, from the misogynists, and it's not fun at all, and every once in a while I'll see a comment on something of mine from one of those idiots, from one of those asshole people, doing the same joke that they all did for years, I'll think, wow, they're still going, huh? That is nothing.

That is nothing compared to the energy that these people have if a woman says something they don't like. It's crazy. It is deranged. Going to go down a little bit in this article. Just a week after Dawkins' "Dear Muslima" comment, I was scheduled to speak at the Amazing Meeting, TAM, a skeptics conference in Las Vegas, that in years past, I had fundraised thousands of dollars to send dozens of women to.

In the weeks leading up to TAM, a man tweeted with the link, the hyperlink, the screenshot, that he was attending and that if he ran into me in an elevator, he'd assault me. The tweet reads, "If I run in"... this is just a guy with their name, by the way. This is a person with a face who tweeted this.

"If in an elevator at TAM 9 next week, I'm totally copping a feel." Someone joking, ha ha, quote unquote, that they are going to sexually assault someone if they see them at a meeting, they know they are doing, going to. That's a tangible person who's going to be at a thing talking about how they are going to sexually assault a specific person who is going to be there if they run into them. Continues, "The organizers of the conference, the James Randi Educational Foundation,"

0:28:47 Thomas: I know, this wasn't just some speculative theory she was laying out there about the organizers of the Amazing Meeting. She has a link there, which talks about what she's referring to, that DJ Grothe at the time, I don't know what's become of that organization, I don't really care, but who was the leader, the longtime leader of that organization, did in fact, publicly, in a quote given to media, say that the reason women weren't coming to that event anymore was the fault of the people who gave them the impression that it was unsafe, as in not the people who made it unsafe or who might've made other conferences unsafe.

The fault is anyone who would dare talk about it. A little bit of a digression, but wow, wow. The things Rebecca Watson had to deal with back then. I don't, I don't know how she did it. If you think there isn't any room for more insanity on this, um, you don't think that, let's face it, if you've listened this long, I think you know that's not true.

There is a particular asshole, misogynist asshole, who's a very popular YouTuber, still going, went by the Amazing Atheist, this guy fucking sucks, but he was very popular. Still, I guess, still quite popular. More subscribers than Rebecca Watson has by quite a lot, which is incredibly depressing. It's unhinged, what this person put out, and not just put out, put out and was well-received. This person, I wish I could play this whole video. It's 13 minutes. The whole thing is this.

This, I'll try to find some appropriate clips to really make try to really illustrate the disproportionality, and that's the point I want to make, again, this is all, this whole episode is, in addition to going down memory lane, this is an introduction to what I plan to do on this show and what I plans to do is show you how consistent this pattern is.

He kicks off the video by trying to do a little, like, clever comparison of Rebecca Watson's preference that she not be propositioned in an elevator, that is tantamount to, that is identical to, religious hangups about sex. This is not an exaggeration.

He is saying the act of being Rebecca Watson and saying, I would prefer to not have that event happen, in the softest of terms, in the gentlest of terms, not naming who the person was, not publicly embarrassing them, short of, if anyone, I guess, saw, maybe they'd know who it is, but not doxing them, not doing any of that stuff, she's saying, here's an example of something not to do.

By the way, you know, it's implied in general, but she's pretty generous in that she's talking about herself, she's saying, don't do this to me especially, but probably apply the same principles to others, you know, if someone else gives a talk. Talk about, hey, I really hate this thing. By the way, that's a good way to put it. Imagine, take the sex part out of this, and imagine Rebecca Watson or anybody.

Imagine anybody gave a talk and then spoke for hours at a bar with other people. Because that's what you do at these conferences. It's fun. I do it. You could totally relate to that fun experience of being at the bar all hours of the night. You're having that conversation, debating. You're having a good time. And all of that was, I don't know, me, I guess, saying, hey, don't, you know, hug me without my permission.

You know, I'm just, I know not everyone feels this way, but I'm just somebody, I just don't really want to be hugged without my permission. This is just, uh, I'm giving a hypothetical. This is not even close to a good comparison, but if you play it out, you'll see how absurd this whole situation is.

If you haven't already, I'm giving a talk on a panel in which I say, yeah, don't, I just, personally, don't like being hugged without permission, and it's happening to me, like all the time. Like, I come to these conferences and for whatever reason, people just hug me all the time without my permission. I don't like it. I don't know what to do. I mean, I just don't like it, it's not okay. That was the panel. And then later on at the bar. Yeah, I don't like it.

And a lot of people are agreeing. They're engaging. Oh, yeah. No, that makes sense. We're having a nice discussion about it. And then I say, again, to just make this an analogy. Then, I say. All right, everyone. We've had a good time. We've had a discussion. This is fun. Hey, it's 4 a.m. I'm feeling tired. I'm going to head back to my room. And I walk over to the elevator. And a gentleman gets in the elevator and hugs me without my permission. Instantly. Right away.

Way, what, then, I make a video where I say, guys, word to the wise, by the way, if that were me, I would not be anywhere near as polite as Rebecca Watson was in that video. I would name the guy. I would put his picture up there and say, I just spoke for 12 hours about not, like, being hugged, this guy comes into the elevator, waits till I'm alone, corners me in an elevator and hugs me without my permission.

Like, I... nuts, why are they doing, I would have been, it would have been a yelly video, let's think that goes without saying, if it were me. But no, Rebecca Watson didn't do that. Pretend I did, just to keep the analogy going, I make a video, and I say, yeah, no, I had a good time, a lot of videos delightful, talking about other things, and then this experience happened. I spoke for 12 hours about not liking being hugged without my permission.

And I got in an elevator and a guy hugged me without my permission. Guys, word of the wise, don't do that. Having any reaction that isn't... Wow, guy was. That was really stupid of him. I do this. I should make sure I don't ever accidentally do that.

Expressed that they didn't want to be hugged, and then you just hugged them, like, that, wow, what an asshole, why would you, why would you do that to that person, that's, I'm gonna avoid that person, I might yell at them, they suck, I mean, if your reaction was anything other than that, you're nuts, I'm sorry, you're not.

Now let me point out the obvious, being hugged while obviously without your permission, not great, is worlds away from being in a potential scary situation, knowing, the background life experience and about our world that men are often very dangerous to women, and women can't reliably know magically which ones might be the dangerous ones and which ones might not.

And so, while my little cheeky example about being hugged is like, yeah, no, even, then you would be nuts if your reaction was anything other than, well, fuck that guy. Why do you, why do you hug him after you just got done? That's weird. No, set that aside. This is, don't put me in a position where you have cornered me in an elevator. You have trapped yourself with me, or me with you rather.

You're propositioning me in a way where, do I know if it's safe to say no? Do I know that magically somehow? That's why, back, I want to point this out, go back to the dear Muslima, dear Muslim, my God, part where he said, quote, "Of course she said no. And of course he didn't lay a finger on her." Quote. Of course. What, I know that's part of his, like, brilliant humorous construction. Don't quit your day job, Richard.

Uh, I know, that's part of his brilliant construction he's doing with, oh, of course she said no, like that weird sarcasm that doesn't work that he's doing. But like, how would you know that? Of course he didn't lay a finger on her. Do you live in a world that I don't live in, where no man ever puts a finger on women, or all men take no for an answer easily. I don't live in that world. Do you?

Of course he didn't lay a finger on her? An insane injustice this whole thing was. I didn't even get to the video. That was all me starting, introducing the Amazing Atheist video. So that's what he did, by the way. That's how he started the video, for the first minute.

It's making, it's making that comparison to religious puritanical ideals of sex, and suggesting, which is just so fucking absurd and offensive, that Rebecca Watson expressing a preference about how she'd like to be treated or not treated, I guess, is anything in the same universe as puritanical religious restrictions on sex. Setup, that charming setup, you would think, based on how angry this person is, I actually did think, I thought, well, there's no way he actually plays the video.

Because if he plays the video, then everyone's going to see that she just said, hey, don't do that. And that'll kind of ruin your whole thing. Like, if your whole thing is you're going to yell like a fucking insane person about what Rebecca Watson said, and then but you show it, then they're watching, they also see it because they have eyeballs and ears. They hear that she just said, hey, don't do that, that'll ruin the magic trick. That'll ruin it. You can't do that.

That's so, I... stupid me, I assume there's no way he shows the video. But no, he shows the video and then listen to where he goes after that. I, oh my God, I cannot wait. This is, okay, what's the next part of the Lord of the Rings that I would apply here. Might be the tomato eating scene. We might be at the... Lord, we might be at Denethor eating tomatoes. That's, that's where we might be now. Oof. I am not watching that screen.

I'm watching you. I'm watching you watch Denethor for the first time eat those tomatoes in that disgusting way. Love making great references that maybe 13 people get. Here we go.

0:38:07 Clip: Their response at the conference itself was wonderful. There were a ton of great feminists there, male and female, and also just open-minded people who had maybe never really considered the way that women are treated in this community. Yeah, that's a good one, ain't it? It's got an interesting dogma that says that men are slime no matter what they do unless they're basically behaving like castrated, asexual imps that just kind of, yeah, uh-huh, woo, the pretty lady, she talking, that's all I need. The

0:38:43 Thomas: Did I have a stroke? How did he get from what she said to what he said? Can you... probably bad pod, but I have to play this again because I actually, even though this is my show and I've prepared this for you. I'm more confused than when I prepared to show you this. I actually, in the moment right now, I'm concerned that I did have a stroke because I don't know where any, where did that, here we go. I got to play this again.

0:39:10 Clip: The conference itself was wonderful, there were a ton of great feminists there, male and female, and also just open-minded people who had maybe never really considered the the way that women are treated in this community. Yeah, that's a good one ain't it? It's got an interesting dogma that says that men are slime no matter what they do unless they're basically behaving like castrated asexual imps that just kind of yeah would the pretty lady she talking? And that's all I needed to know. This

0:39:46 Thomas: What? I'm... I'm going to spare you playing this 15 more times while I try to comprehend. I think I get stupider every time I watch. I don't know. So nothing's missing. There's no visual component, like that's what she said, there's some great people, there's some open-minded people who maybe were like, "Oh, I didn't realize that's how women often, uh, feel in these situations," and then he said that... a dogma, that, that brain hurts trying to even restate what he said. It's a dogma that men are slime unless they behave like castrated animals.

0:40:19 Thomas: What are you talking? Okay, so that's worth showing. It's worth playing on this video. There's, that's enough to talk about the pattern that I've referenced multiple times. A lot of elements to this pattern.

I can't wait to see it again and again and again on the show, it is the disproportionate, hysterical reaction of the privileged to being told, perhaps, maybe, if you, hey, if maybe just, if you don't mind, if you don't mind, if you'd like to, would you consider, maybe putting this out there, maybe thinking about how I feel sometimes.

This exact horrible, disgusting man, in response to that request, I couldn't even call it a request, in response to that just ever so polite hint that maybe think about how I might feel uncomfortable about this, they lose their fucking mind like a toddler. They're like my four-year-old. Oh, I can't even breathe. So I don't even, it's hard, hold on, it's hard to even make fun of this properly. I, I, I keep trying to do like an exaggerated version of this and I can't.

How do you do that? How do, do you, how do you exaggerate this? This is already a lot. Already said you have to walk around like a, like a castrated, because she said someone might be understanding of how she's treated in this situation. That, that pattern, oh my God, it's so consistent. It's this disbelief, the shock of have someone else daring to have the the gall to, you might be missing something, that you might be missing something quite harmful maybe to people.

My God, if you don't know anything about this, you might think I'm just nut picking, which is a great term for, by the way, that's going to come up a lot too. Nut picking means, if you're not familiar with that, picking like the worst example, the worst argument from the other side and only engaging in that. Put a pin in that for when we talk about the Daily episode. You might think I'm nut picking.

No, this is, as I said earlier, this is a more prominent, popular person than Rebecca Watson at this time. Way more popular. This video was well-received. I've only played, it's only up to two minutes and 43 seconds on that video. It's a 13 minute, 49 second video. It gets worse.

0:43:01 Clip: And it's quite fortunate that her last name is Watson because it really draws attention to the fact that she is no Sherlock Holmes. She does a somewhat popular podcast called the SkepChick Podcast, and she's actually attracted some pretty big names to her show, like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Adam Savage at At

0:43:19 Thomas: Why Are you yelling like that, you hysterical person? Why men get called hysterical, this is hysterical. If anything is hysteria, this is hysteria. And this person, this exact thing happens so often. This hysterical nut job is perceived, I swear to fucking God, I'm not making this up, I was there, this person is perceived as the rational, thoughtful, logical of this conflict.

Why, how could it be that this, what you are hearing, this, he can't even say her name without doing a weird yell thing about it. Rebecca Watson. And she's just like Alex Jones almost, but slightly different, a higher pitch or something. Just about a feminist, he goes into yelling and weirdness.

And I swear to you, I swear you, you were to take an instant flash poll of common audience here, which is the skeptic movement at this time in 2011, when this happened, if you're somehow able to just take a quick flash poll of everybody's opinion and you said, hey, who's more logical, who's rational, who's calmer, who's whatever all those things I said, Rebecca Watson or this Amazing Atheist, they'd say, oh my God, well, Rebecca Watson is a hysterical feminist, absolutely job hysterical feminists, and Amazing Atheist, he's that super logical, rational guy who just like makes those smart arguments.

I fucking guarantee you the numbers would be at best for Rebecca Watson 80-20 against her. At best, she would gather 20% of that. And to God that's true. This person,

0:44:59 Clip: Bar later that night, actually at 4 in the morning, we were at the hotel bar, 4 a.m., I said, you know, I've had enough, guys, I'm exhausted, going to bed. So I walked to the elevator and a man got on the elevator with me and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?" Um, just a word to the wise here, guys, uh, don't do that. Savage.

0:45:28 Thomas: The hysterical radical feminist. And this is the calm rational dude.

0:45:32 Clip: Am I making a video about this who conceivably could give a shit about some girl being hit on in an elevator. Not even for sure hit on. Just maybe hit on an elevator. Not even... It wasn't like, hey, want some dick? It was like, hey, you want some coffee? Maybe the guy just wanted coffee. But why do we care? Why are we here? Why are talking about this? Because apparently the atheist community has no more problems to solve in the world. Apparently acceptance of atheism is up a hundred percent and God is off the money and he's out of the the Pledge, and all the God-fearing politicians that tell us about how Jesus wants them to run the country this way. They're all out of office. We're all outta problems, folks. Creationism no longer has any foothold in the schools because the entire atheist community apparently feels like it can focus its attention on this. Seriously,

0:46:29 Thomas: Another common one. This ist particularly apropos for the crisis that is transphobia right now. Another element, why is everyone making a big deal about this, why do you care, why does anyone care, and somehow that on the person who dared to say, hey, don't do this, do mind not doing this, and not on the throng of hysterical idiot men who then did things like say, do we need to just walk around like a bunch of, I'm trying, again, I'm trying to do a bit, I can't do a bit of this guy, he is, that's already, already that there's

0:47:06 Clip: We have to embrace anything that someone says makes us more enlightened? If someone says, hey, enlightened people wear turds on their heads. See? It's

0:47:21 Thomas: Like how do I exaggerate that, there's not, I'm not able to do that, sorry, file not found, can't exaggerate this fucking guy. Why you would put the burden of why is this such a big deal feel on her, and you know, all the yous that are doing this. If someone expressed, hey, this thing's making me uncomfortable, might make other people uncomfortable, maybe think about that. Maybe don't do that. It's, and by the way, it's, there's no maybe about it. I'm having this experience a lot.

I know not every woman is, as I've already acknowledged, but a lot of women seminar, and it sucks. You have any reaction other than, wow, oh, that sucks, I'm sorry, something like that. She's not the one making a big deal about this. You are. You, you are the one making a big deal about this. The human thing to do, the adult human thing to do is to say, oh, well, shoot, I didn't think about that. Good point. Okay. Sorry about that and no more bad behavior.

That would be if we were all adults. And so the people to be mad at would be anyone who's not doing that. Not woman for saying guys don't do that. Oh.

0:48:40 Clip: Not like this guy said, have sex and you have no choice in the matter. And it's not even like this guys said, hey do you want to have sex, which I still think would have been okay, but he said, do you wanna get some coffee? MAYBE THEY JUST WANTED COFFEE, I MEAN SERIOUSLY, IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO'S KINDA PERPLEXED BY THIS?

I MEAN LIKE THIS IS NOT AN OUTRAGEOUS INCIDENT, IT'S NOT LIKE, YOU KNOW, SHE WAS IN THE ELEVATOR WITH LIKE A FUCKING RENOWNED FUCKING ATHEIST AND LIKE STEVEN PINKER OR SOMETHING AND HE JUST LIKE WHIPS OUT HIS DICK LIKE YEAH START SUCKING BITCH. BY ASKING A GIRL TO HIS ROOM FOR COFFEE, ASKIN' IF SHE WANTS TO COME TO HIS ROOM COFFEEEEE. Oh, you just view me as an object! I'm just a piece of meat to you!

Does anyone here, watching this video right now, think for a second that there would be any backlash whatsoever in that situation? What if it was two guys? What if there was a guy and another guy, and they're gay, and one says to the other, want to get some coffee, does that mean that gay men view other men as objects? Does

0:49:47 Thomas: Boy, uh, yeah, uh, bad news, the Amazing Atheist, yeah, gay men do view other gay men as objects, and often those gay men might have a problem with it. That's, that was a very bad example that you chose, but this scrambling for, like, what, what if it was a, okay, what if it was a badger and a squirrel? Would we think, why does that matter? Why, if you create a different situation, would we necessarily mean that's the same? It's not the same situation. There's context. Watson was 12 feet tall and the dude was 3 inches tall, do you think we'd be having this conversation? Well, I mean, maybe not. Because, like, I bet she wouldn't have really felt that uncomfortable because he's like three inches tall. So she could probably squish him if anything went wrong. Yeah. If it were a different dynamic, if it were different situation, people might view it differently. What point is being made here? The

0:50:42 Clip: Mean they're sexist against their own sex? Okay, now I know that there must be some people out there watching this video. Maybe it's a lot of you, maybe it's only a few of you. I don't fucking know. But there's bound to be someone watching this videos who disagrees with me. Who says, yes, she was right to have that reaction. And the atheist community must stand up against sexism, and blah blah blah, don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?

0:51:13 Clip: Just a word to the wise here, guys, don't do that. Why the fuck not? Question for everyone out there, I know there's probably not a lot of you, but some of you probably agree with with this girl, some of probably agree that that guy was is way on the fucking line and he needs the scarlet letter pinned to his fucking chest for life because

0:51:33 Thomas: That these people who branded themselves as skeptics and rational thinkers and smart people and all that cannot see the hysterics involved in this is the most annoying fucking thing in the history of time to me. I'm sorry, that that is the, I, is what is the most motivating thing about this, is seeing yelling hysterical clown being regarded as one, the more reasonable person. If you don't believe me, well, I've got a whole lot to show you. I've got a whole lot to tell you in the coming episodes, because it happens again and and again, and again. Maybe just a little bit more of this insane rambling and then we'll call it.

0:52:14 Clip: He's an evil, deranged pervert, and sexism is a rampant problem in the atheist community, and this is the evidence for it. I have a question. How should guys behave when they're around a girl they want to sleep with? Like, do we just never bring it up? I mean, do we try to bring it up even more subtly than want to come back for some coffee? Do we have to like have like like a complex network of code words that, you know, could be understood only in a certain context, is what we're actually talking about, to maximize the comfort of the girl being hit on. So,

0:52:50 Thomas: I Can't help it. Sorry. I just answered your question from 12 years ago. Well, a of thoughts, pretty easy ones. For one, you could ask somebody else who didn't just talk for 12 hours about not wanting this exact thing. That thought, know, you just ask somebody else, you could even, uh, she alluded to, you could even have done so at the bar where there is coffee, as she, I think she said in the article, actually I'm not sure if she said in the video, but it was in the particle, there was coffee there, and there's also safety somewhat of people and numbers, so you could do that, that's an option, you could, oh, I don't know, just keep it to your fucking self. Possibly you could do that until maybe you established a rapport or any reason to think that this is something the other person might be interested in. You could do that. This is where it really, I just, this is where this fucking idiot person truly shows how irrational and hysterical they are and how blind they are to their own biases. Listen to this. If

0:53:59 Clip: The thing she says it made uncomfortable. I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Who gives a fuck cares if you are uncomfortable in a fucking elevator for 12 seconds? Oh, this is a, this is an awkward ride, Lord fucking forbid, Lord forbid that there was an awkward tension between you and another human being. Lord knows that's exclusive to girls.

Lord knows that there's never been any other situation in the history of mankind where two people shared an awkward moment together. The is reasonable about pinning a scarlet letter to this guy's chest? What is scientific about declaring that you don't care about human biology, you don't care about the rules of attraction anymore, the only thing you care about is your own comfort, your own feeling of, yeah, this is how the world should be, this how it ought to be.

And anyone who disagrees with me is a misogynist. Anyone who disagrees with me is a sexist. You are the sexist! I call you a sexists because you presume to tell men what to do with their feelings and how to express themselves when it really has no impact on you aside from a moment of discomfort. A moment of discomfort that really only springs from the fact that you've embraced this stupid, tired, disproven ideology. Ideology.

0:55:29 Thomas: That was a comedy bit where he was trying to contradict himself and not notice in in more and more extreme ways, you couldn't do it much better than that. You Listen to how many ways he's blind to the contradictions. Says, "How dare you feel uncomfortable? How dare you?" Not only how dare you feel uncomfortable, how dare you express in a video on your own channel, in the politest terms, not naming the person at all, contrary to your hysterics, not putting a scarlet letter on them. Dare you express discomfort. The while, he is saying any discomfort a man might feel by not doing this.

Any discomfort I, a man, might feel by having to think a little bit and be like, maybe I shouldn't do that. No, that discomfort is over the line. That is unacceptable discomfort. That discomfort cannot be countenanced. Unacceptable. That The discomfort of, hey, well, maybe just don't hit on her like that. That's, no, how dare you? You That discomfort cannot be tolerated, but discomfort that's nothing, grow up. And as if to out do himself, he then says, "How dare you police my behavior," while policing someone's behavior.

I, it would seem that his biases and his blinders and his privilege have led him to believe that men ought to be able to hit on anyone however they want because heaven forbid they feel any discomfort by not doing that. And any attempt to change their behavior is this dystopian religious control over them, that it's only about your discomfort. But if you turn the tables, he is asking her to modify her behavior and to accept the discomfort instead of him, instead of men.

Instead of men feeling a slight discomfort of, maybe I won't proposition a woman alone in an elevator at 4am when she's just done 12 hours of talking about how she doesn't want that to happen. Amount of discomfort, men can't handle it. They're too fragile. They cannot possibly handle that discomfort. But can handle the discomfort of being trapped in a metal box with someone they don't know is safe or not. That's fine. That is okay because it's not me.

Why do I care if that is not me? And this is mistaken for rationality. This, I am expressing the position that you ought not to have feelings, that means I'm more rational because I'm saying, fuck your feelings. I'm yelling, like, am yelling hysterically like a crazy person, angry, but that doesn't count because I'm telling you, a woman, stop having feelings. So I'm looked at as the rational person. Hypocrisy and the injustice of this, to is believe.

The way, someone who with Dawkins on a tour said that after this, he refused, essentially blacklisted her from at least one event, I think, because of all this. Insecurity involved in this hysterical overreaction to the slightest

0:58:56 Thomas: Might be in the wrong bursts these fragile little white men's hearts and brains, and it comes out of their noses and they vomit it out, YouTube often. And so for a minute, it's not just the neckbeard, atheist assholes of YouTube. It is not just them. If it were just them, that's one thing. Richard Dawkins, did was just so fundamentally cruel.

More so because, because I went back and I watched the entire panel, the original panel that Watson was on with Richard Dawkins, also Arne Ra, somebody I'm friends with, actually. I love Arne. He's great. He was the one who posted the video. What's particularly heartbreaking about that, watching it now, is Rebecca Watson is so nice to Richard Dawkin. She's a fan, fan of Richard Dawking.

She talks about how her ringtone was a quote of his that was, was really funny, and joke about that, and she asks him to, hey, can you say something new in this and then I'll use that for my, like, she was very kind to him. And to think about that, in just the cruelty to turn around and in that "Dear Muslima" insanity say, "Oh, she calls herself skeptic," like, pretend like you don't even know her, don't remember.

Yeah, I get he's a big name, he does a lot of stuff, but I don't know. It's seeing how cruel these men often are able to get so quickly, and that sensitivity, because here's one final point. I know I've already bulletproof this 870 different ways, but one thing I often think of when look at these is, you know, you also always had the option to just disagree.

Know all my previous things are like, here's why these idiots are wrong, you know, and here's why Rebecca Watson's right. But set that aside for a moment. Think about what it means that they don't just say, "Oh, you know, I kind of disagree with that." Know, she says that you shouldn't, you Now, offer someone coffee and elevator. I kind of think like, yeah, OK, I see, I see what she's saying.

But, you, I think as long as you do it in a, in a gentle way and in a non intimidating physically way, I don't think there's much wrong with that. You, this is not me voicing this opinion. This is just me saying that's an option that I think we just forget even exists in cases like these. We're so used to the explosive anger of misogyny and of racism and other cases we'll talk about, and of homophobia and other cases of transphobia.

We get so caught up in who's right and wrong in these arguments that that we forget that it, something that you don't give these folks the dignity of merely disagreeing with them on a human level. If it were just about the arguments, if it were just the content of what Watson were saying, if we're just about the points being made, that's what you would do. What a genuine intellectual would do, too.

Genuine skeptic, someone who prizes learning and argumentation and all the virtues that I talked about earlier. You'd say, "Okay, I'm listening to her point. I'm hearing the point she's making. It seems like she's being made uncomfortable." Well, and again, this isn't my point of view, but you could make this argument in a way that's like, "Yeah, no, I think, I don't know, I think she's claiming a a little bit too much.

If she's saying that no one should ever do this, I could think of some circumstances where it might be," you know, again, just emphasizing that that's always an option, but the fact that that is not the option they take shows that what is happening here is not any sort of logical disagreement. It's not any sort principle stand or anything.

It It is anger, and I think, honestly, a littlebit of fear and guilt, you know, actually, what she's saying is correct and you don't want to admit it. That's just me throwing that in there. I thinkthat's whatcreates this angry, lashing out reaction. And someone who, again, set the neckbeard asshole aside, and someone who I just love to hear explain nature to me, of a sudden devolves to that. It's just, it's gross. That's elevator gate, my friends. That's, that's it.

A woman said, "Guys, don't do that, please." Word of the wise, and never heard the fucking end of it to this day. Never heard the fuckin end of it. The people who were in hysterics over this woman saying, "Guys, maybe don't do that," are the ones who fucking dared to call themselves the rational ones, the skeptics, the logical ones. And the feminists, well, they're the crazy, irrational ones, of course. If you like what you're here, if you want to hear a lot more, go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke. I'm so excited because if you go there right now, you can hear a bonus that's already up with Eli, Eli Bosnick, and me and my wife Lydia. And we're going through some of the other YouTube videos from NeckbeardAtheists from this exact moment in time.

And we are going to skewer those a little bit, the three of us. If you don't know Eli, he is the funniest human on earth. That's going to be a ton of fun, make sure you catch that, patreon.com/wherethereswoke. Of course, you also get ad-free episodes each and every episode, and you'll get episode three already right now. Episodes one and two are the only ones on the normal feed for a little while here, episode three is only available for patrons, so make sure that you subscribe to my channel, you support, thank you so much, truly, truly, truly, your support is badly needed to make this project work. I'm really excited for what we're going to do together.

1:04:08 Thomas: Next, we begin our deep dive into the coverage of naming controversy over the James Webb telescope, and is so much worse than you could possibly imagine. Please, thank you so much for listening. See you next time.