SIO382: Being Reasonable with Michael Marshall

Transcript

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

0:00:16 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 382. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and episode. You've heard me reference Be Reasonable many times, and, I don't know, on every show that I'm on recently. And I decided, since I finished binging the show, it is time to have Michael Marshall on the show. Otherwise known as Marsh. Marshall is one of the most extraordinary people in this movement, most of all, kind. Really comes through in Be Reasonable, as he speaks respectfully to people who, let's be honest, are pretty fucking nuts. So, it takes patience, he has that in spades. I'm so excited to speak to Marsh, and if you've ever listened to Be Reasonable, I know you will enjoy this interview, and if haven't, you better get on that. Alright, as always, if you like ad free episodes, each and every episode, plus bonus stuff, seriously awful movies, all that good stuff, go to Patreon.com/seriouspod and please support the show. It means so much, it is vital, I really appreciate you, thank you so much for doing so. And right, that being said, let's go. Michael Marshall, here we go, Marsh, how are you doing?

0:01:22 Marsh: I'm very good, I'm great. It's been a while since... Have I been in the show before? I'm pretty sure I've been on the show before.

0:01:26 Thomas: I think so, but it was so much before. Like, I literally, I was thinking about that, too. I don't even think I knew much about you at all. Like, it was just some, I don't know, I didn't remember how it happened. I think I had some episode where I had some asshole on that I was, you know, or something. And I think somehow someone connected us. It's like, oh, Marsh has a lot of assholes on his show, but he's nice to them. And they're

0:01:38 Marsh: Yeah.

0:01:49 Marsh: Yeah, I hang out with a lot of arseholes. It is one of the things that I do. That happens from time to time, yeah.

0:01:53 Thomas: Like, you should talk to Marsh because, yeah, he's actually nice to the assholes. You're kind of mean to the asshole, they says to me. And I was like, yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that. And I didn't know much about who you are. And I believe I never had you back on after that. I don't know if you'll know this because I'm sure you're very, very busy prepping for QED, the best conference in the entire world that I can't wait to be at. But been referencing your show like every episode because I, had listened to Be Reasonable. Yeah. So I had listen to Be Reasonable and then I don't know what the fuck happened.

I think I changed phones or something and just forgot, like I lost, I just lost the sub, you know, like, and then, uh, Eli Eli reminded me of it on a dad's, he referenced an episode. I was like, Oh fuck. What? That's right. You know, it's one of those, I, I've major ADHD brain. So from that day, I was like, well, shit, I don't think I, I think I didn't listen to a bunch. So I go back and I binge your entire show because it just, first off, Marsh, you're a delight. You're so fun to listen to. You couldn't have a nicer presence in every way on the, on the audio. And it just was so fascinating to listen to with the 2023 lens especially going back as

0:01:54 Marsh: Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

0:03:04 Thomas: Uh, I know that'll be horrifying to you because it is always to me whenever anyone's like, hey, I, I checked out Thomas in the Bible. I'm like, oh, fucking Jesus Christ, no way, 2010. Me. I don't want, no. No one should be allowed to listen that.

0:03:13 Marsh: Yeah, I can't even remember what I was like back when I was because I think I started Be Reasonable. It must have been about 10 years ago or something like that.

0:03:17 Thomas: Yeah. You're the same. That sounds right, yeah, something like that.

0:03:26 Marsh: But it was based on a section of a show that I did previously that I was doing from like 2010, 2011 called Righteous Indignation, where we'd do like interviews of people. And so there's a couple of shows actually where we reuse one of the interviews that we did on RI on on Be Reasonable, because it came, it became relevant again. So knowing exactly where the the Be Reasonable line started it was kind of an extension of the of the other show, which was like, a it was a new, it was skeptical news show, but we do interviews. And sometimes the interviews will be with people who are wrong about stuff, uh, then other times they were with like skeptics and stuff. And so we kind of just kept that that talk to people who were wrong aspect, because it seemed like nobody was doing that. Everybody was having, you know, another interview with another prominent atheist, but no one was talking to the people that we spend all

0:03:34 Thomas: Ah, uh, yeah. Oh, for

0:04:13 Marsh: Our time kind of, uh, investigating or looking into or trying to understand. No,

0:04:13 Thomas: Sure. Based on the fact that you reuse the interviews, I'm guessing you also weren't assholes to those assholes on that show. It was another show where you're kind of nice to them.

0:04:24 Marsh: No. That was yeah, exactly, so it was a show I used to do, the show with, uh, Hayley Stevens, who, uh, still does quite a bit of stuff of skepticism here in the UK, and a chap called Tristan Swale, who kind of moved away from skepticism, just, you know, people have lives and things, and he just decided to, uh, not to put as much energy into, uh, skeptic stuff anymore. But they both came from a believer background originally, and so, and they'd come to skepticism through like paranormal belief and things like that. And so we were very nice to what started out as being mostly paranormal, uh, believers that we would focus on, because they, Hayley and Tristan not that long ago, so I'm not going to be a dick to them now, because, you know, I, I know what it was like to be in their shoes. And so we kind of picked that up and and and kept that attitude all the way throughout, really.

0:04:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:10 Thomas: Okay. That was going to be my first question. So, uh... the show all the time. It's Be Reasonable, of course. You have conversations with people who have very wacky beliefs that some will be like, no, I know wacky beliefs totally. I don't know how many. Other listeners, if you're like me, who actually I never really got into this particular thing. If you don't, listener, if your like me and you never really got too much into the weeds on how many weird things people can believe, it'll shock you.

0:05:38 Thomas: The beliefs people can apparently have and just be a guy in the world. Like, I don't know if this person's at work. I don'T know if they're in the break room and they're like, yeah, you know, the lizards control the banks. And you're like cool, man. Uh, that meeting

0:05:21 Marsh: Oh, yeah, 100%.

0:05:53 Thomas: Later where we're talking about the charts and graphs and the budget and the one, Oh yeah, yeah. Totally. I don't know. Like that might be certain amount of people anyway.

0:05:59 Marsh: And I think it definitely is. And I, especially around the beliefs that aren't kind of like, everything these days is like all grim, there's no charming, alarming little beliefs, but it, when I started there was, like, there was a guy who just believes that pterosaurs are still flying around in America to this day, and we don't see them because they're really good at hiding from cameras. And it's like, he's just going about his life in the world, but believes dinosaurs still exist because he's basically a young earth creationist who doesn't want to account for why there were dinosaur fossils, so they aren't from ages ago, they're from now. By the way, dinosaurs still exists. And I'm sure he lives his life on a fairly, fairly standard way, and you could walk down the street, or you could meet him for coffee, or, you know, he could be in your bowling club or whatever, and you'd never know that he believes dinosaurs

0:06:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Which is nice. Yeah.

0:06:42 Thomas: He could be

0:06:43 Marsh: Are still flying around.

0:06:43 Thomas: In your dinosaur club. You don't know. But so the question I was roundabout getting to was for anyone who hasn't listened, you know, is there any more to the basic description that you'd like to to give people? Or do you think they've gotten the point from the conversation thus far?

0:06:43 Marsh: Yeah. Exactly, yeah.

0:06:58 Marsh: Well, I guess the the elevator pitch, I guess, is that I have, uh, with people who have beliefs outside of the mainstream, um, rather than, as we say, being kind of aggressive or trying to correct them, or having the kind of conversation play out the way that you'd see it playing out on Facebook, where you throw links at each other and throw facts at each another and nobody listens, instead of doing all that, I just try to ask them what do you believe and try to listen to them like genuinely listen to what they're saying, and then ask follow-up questions based on what they're saying, and just try to explore why people come to believe in ideas that you or I would look at and say that can't possibly be true, or that's obviously he false, and how they, how they support those ideas, um, and on at a kind of a slightly grandiose, a more grandiose level, it's kind of about the nature of belief and how we all come to form our beliefs as well, but that's kindof the the slightly, uh, uh, gazing end of the elevator pitch, but yeah, I like to talk to people who are wrong about stuff and I like to try and understand why they're wrong.

0:07:22 Thomas: Mm hmm.

0:07:58 Thomas: But what's interesting. OK, so my follow up from that was going to be first, before I launch into 50 things I want to ask you, uh, in a world of people just hitch slapping back in, you know, circa 2013, as you said, or maybe even earlier based on the other show, what you've already kind of covered it, but what led me to this approach? Because it's so, it's now, this may just be because I'm an ugly American and, uh, you're a very nice British man, uh, but what, because to me, you know, it seems insane. Like, I'll be honest, like the first, it took me a while to adjust.

0:08:32 Thomas: I was, you I was more than 10 episodes in before I was like, oh, okay. I, I think my brain has allowed me to be like, yeah, he's just going to ask them questions. He's not going to, you not going TO yell at them, even though they're saying really awful things and stupid things.

0:08:09 Marsh: Yeah yeah yeah

0:08:47 Thomas: He'S just gonna be nice. So what kind of led you to take that that, approach? Coach.

0:08:50 Marsh: Um, I think it's a few things, really. I mean, I'm quite a non-confrontational kind of person anyway. I think that's kind of, I just, I got into scepticism. So if I take a step back, a lot of people get into scepticism through various different channels. You know, there's the channel of people who used to believe in something unusual and then came to realise that that wasn't true. And now they're really interested in how we know what's true. And that wasn't me.

I didn't have, I wasn't ever a ghost believer. I wasn't ever a UFO believer, either, I wasn't big into alternative medicine, anything like that, it's just never, never my thing. Um, you get the people who came in via like religion and atheism, and it's like, well, here's how I argue with creationists and argue with people who are arguing about God, and then they extended the things that they argued about into skeptical stuff, and that wasn't really me either.

I, I went to a Catholic school, but I didn't really particularly believe, um, I never really had conversations about it. Um, I got into skepticism because it fascinated me that there are people out there who believe weird stuff, and I wanted to be around as much of that weird stuff as possible, because I get genuinely excited when somebody is telling me something completely bonkers, because my mind is sort of like, okay, well, what you're saying isn't true, but I want you to tell me as much of what you believe is possible, so I can figure out what, where did, what fork did you take in your your pathways at some point in in your history that's led you to this off the beaten and track position, I really want to sort of backtrack that, and then, if that's what you're trying to do, you're trying to understand how people get there, you just know that there's no point me telling them how wrong they are, because they're not going to open up to me if I'm attacking them, if

0:10:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:26 Marsh: I'm just shouting at them, um, and also they've had that conversation a million times, and so if I start telling them all the ways they're wrong, they're going to come back with all the answers they've always given to people who tell them they're right, and they are way more practiced at that conversation about their particular issue than I am, and so it's going, going to be a completely worthless conversation. We know how that conversation looks. Um, at best you can come out of it feeling great about yourself about how right you were and how true the things you brought up were, but you've not changed anything. You know, you're not, you're not going to change their minds. Um, and I'm not saying I changed their minds, but I at least listen

0:10:30 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that was another thing I had to let go of, was that I- it, the point is not to change minds. I don't think- I mean, I don't know what your goals are, but it really, it took me a while to to on that, because I thought, well, me- let back up. I- I mean, things have changed now, and I show think hasn't changed a whole lot, but I would say the implications of it are just so much different now, post-Trump.

0:11:20 Marsh: No.

0:11:21 Thomas: You know, like there's just, like you say, it's so grim now. You know? There used to be sort of a delight to like, oh, the dinosaurs. They're still here. The hollow earth. They're under. Okay. Yeah. And now you never know. And maybe this is more America -centric too. But like you also talk to a lot of American guests, but you never know what's hiding beneath this now. You know, you never knows. And therefore, that's why, you know, Trump's got to get in there and the trans people and the blah, blah, you know, and it's it's pretty dark. And so I think my lens that I always listen to it kind from, of through was, well, surely the only way you can justify having people airing their unedited nut jobbery on the air is by challenging it or changing minds, but not what you're doing, right? I mean, maybe think that's ever been an emphasis. Is that something that was entirely just me wanting that to be part of it? Or what's your relationship with that, with like trying to change anyone's mind in a genuine way on your show?

0:11:21 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:47 Marsh: So.

0:12:23 Marsh: I don't have a hope, or I don't have a goal of changing anybody's mind, because the thing is, you aren't going to change anybody's mind with a single conversation, especially someone who is so into an idea that they're willing to go on a show that says, "I'm a skeptic, I think you're wrong, come talk" to me, that person is not on the fence. That person isn't wavering in their belief, with the exception of a very small number of shows where I've- I've found someone who's on the fence, because I think that's an interesting conversation to have. I spoke to a tarot reader who's actually really skeptical and doesn't want to continue believing in tarot, but just can't quite explain it, and that was an interesting one, where she was on the sense.

But by and large, I go- I go looking for people who are the people who were persuading other people to follow these ideas, and those people aren't going to change their mind based on a conversation with me, and very few people change their minds based on on a single conversation, and certainly not based on a single conversion with a stranger. So I- that isn't the aim of what I'm doing, but I totally agree on several of the points that you've made, that things are so much worse now, that the implications are so big. When I started the early shores, it was like, this person says they're psychic, this person says that in 15th century Suffolk in the UK, two children emerged from a cave with completely green skin. Um, that guy- is that idea is not harming anybody. But

0:12:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh,

0:13:40 Marsh: As the show has progressed, or as the world has progressed, um, or maybe as I progressed as an interviewer, I don't quite know, it's probably a mix of all sorts. Maybe I wasn't looking for what was underneath previously, and maybe, um, more mindful to look to those kind of questions now, but more and more of the the shores that I come to, it's like, and that's why we should give my magic portion to cancer patients. Oh, don't do that, um, oh, and that's why it's the Jews, it's okay, okay, so here we are again on that.

So it is, the stakes are much higher, um, I do occasionally then, or quite often, wrestle with the idea of, um, people, um, I think the place that I came up, uh, that I- I come to on it, is I think it's okay to platform people, given what my platform is, because I don't ever interview people I agree with. That's not what this show is, and it's not the biggest show in the world. I don't over-promote it, because I don't want a massive rush of audience who aren't going to get the show, and then go away thinking, well, that guest actually seemed really reasonable. No,

0:14:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that- that's my excuse too, yeah, no, I don't- I don't really want a big audience for this show, yeah.

0:14:44 Marsh: No, well, I've- I've come to that conclusion over a decade of trying to grow the audience. Yeah, um, but no, I- I don't want- I only want people to be listening to the show once they know the concept of the show is this person is wrong, and when I talk to the person, especially early in the interview, they're going to throw out a load of stuff, and I'm not going to go through and pick up every single thing they're wrong about, because if I do, we won't get to the places that I- I want to go to in the conversation, which I think- I'm trying to kind of build a rapport early on in the conversation, so if I do- so when I have some more challenging questions, they feel invested enough to actually, um, them, or to to actually wrestle with them, whereas if you- they drop in, like, well I was doing homeopathy, if I stop there and say, well actually your homeopathies wrong for all these reasons, I'll never get to the reason that they now sell a- a laser bed and treat all sorts of patients with all sorts of things.

You know, I- I need to get to the bigger stuff. Um, what I- what I try and think- the that I've come to, is that the platform that I'm giving them, um, can come on my show and you can say you will cure cancer with your alternative medicine, um, the platform you're on is the same platform as the guy who says that dinosaurs are flying around, or the guy qui says that humans

0:14:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:15:53 Marsh: Are a result of a hybridization program between pigs and monkeys, um, that's the space that you're operating in.

0:15:52 Thomas: I don't even think I remember that one. I'll binge it again.

0:15:58 Marsh: Yeah. Eugene McCarthy. Yeah. It was, it was Eugene McCarthy. I still follow him on Twitter, and he's still putting out, like, scientific looking papers about how this particular species is clearly a crossbreed between these two, and it's like, "ah" you you've not got anywhere, Eugene. He was- he was- he told me he was this close, like, in the next six months, the the computer that I'm building will be able to sort this whole thing out and prove, um, and that was like eight years ago, and on Twitter he's till, still making the same claim, so bless him, he hasn't- he hasn't found the evidence that's convinced the world that we are, we are pigs and monkeys, um.

0:16:01 Thomas: Oh, okay. Oh, yeah! Yeah, okay, now I remember. Yeah.

0:16:29 Thomas: He'll find it, though. He's close. I'm sure he'll... Any minute.

0:16:34 Marsh: Yeah, so, like, I- the stakes are high, uh, for some of the things that I talk about, but I- I don't feel too worried about the platform, because I sort of see Be Reasonable as this little isolated petri dish, where we can take the the virulent idea out of the wild and study it in this little glass box, and it's not going to, hopefully I've built the platform in a way that it's not going to infect the listeners. So now we get to hear, um, it's actually about when we get to prod it and test it and see what it does to people, or how it justifies itself, you know, um, the risk of it spreading via the shore. So I- I hope that's what I'm doing, is isolating this idea so we can- we can study it under lab conditions, um, without the worry that it'll escape back into the wild via me.

0:17:11 Thomas: Yeah. Don't go into the lab and be like, why are you giving smallpox a platform? You scientists. I don't understand. Although some of the fucking lab leak theory people might say that now. I do not know. Why, you know, yeah, maybe.

0:17:19 Marsh: Yeah. Exactly, well, yeah, I think we should hear the smallpox out, he might have some interesting things to say, yeah.

0:17:28 Thomas: Look, I do NOT agree with everything the smallpox says. I DO NOT. I DON'T agree with EVERYTHING it says. And then the question that is never answered with those people is, well, what parts do you disagree with? And then it is actually nothing. They do not disagree. Anyway, that aside, that reference to every debate I was having in 2014 through 20, you know, whatever, whenever I quit doing, bothering with that. Aside, this was also one of the things I really wanted to ask you was, very you question, you already got at some of it, but there's, I think there's more I'd love to get to, because there are some people you've had on, I can think of a couple that, they you know, there was certainly one that was just an out -and -out racist, you you know, admitted race realist, whatever that is.

0:17:35 Marsh: Exactly. Yeah.

0:18:08 Marsh: Jared Taylor

0:18:09 Thomas: That was, that was shocking.

0:18:09 Marsh: Of American Renaissance. Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:10 Thomas: That was, you know? And I think that you're right on about the platforming. I think the platform discussion is something that should be had in more detail. Maybe if you don't mind me giving a few thoughts here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on on my, my theories here. I think that it's more detailed as as you say, it's more detailed than platform or no platform. That's, you know, like if tomorrow for some reason, Joe Rogan was like, Hey Thomas, I really, I want to come on your show. I think And think we could have a conversation. I would be a fucking idiot to say, no, I'm not going to give you a platform. That's stupid.

He has all the listeners in the world and I have- you, Marsh sometimes listens to my show, maybe, we'll see, not lately, he's too busy, but he might get to it, you know, that would be idiotic. And I'm sure I would have people, there are a lot of people who, I don't know how much- you You deal with a lot of critique commentary on the internet, but I think there are a lot people who have internalized sort facile versions of good arguments and then just repeat them without any nuance, like, like in that situation, I guarantee you I would have people on my ass saying, I can't believe you gave Joe Rogan a platform, I was like, that's not what's happened, like, he- he

0:18:33 Marsh: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:23 Thomas: Has the whole- like, and I'm on a little dock, you know what I mean, like relatively speaking, it's nothing, and so it's more, it's- it's more than just that, but, but here's- don't think that's such an easy ticket out of it per se, and that aside, you're also making the point about what kind of platform it is. And I think that's very valid too. If you watch, if you tune in to watch a show on TV called, look at these fucking idiots who believe stupid things, you're not going to be like, well, I can't believe they gave that anti-vaxxer a platform though. Like, no, I mean, it's, it's within the context, like a sure, maybe you could argue there's gonna somehow be someone, maybe someone watches that show for some other idiot belief, it is like, I want to see people who believe in ghosts, and then the anti-vaxxer comes on and they're like, oh shit, maybe they're right about that, like that

0:19:28 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely right. Exactly. No but even that

0:20:05 Thomas: Could happen but oh go ahead

0:20:05 Marsh: Person is but that person. I'm totally fine with that, because what I, what I think would happen in that situation, or what, what I, maybe, this, this is a naive or optimistic version. It's like, if you're watching a "look at what these idiots believe" show, and your theory appears on there amongst all the things you think is stupid, then you should be able to stop and go, well, hang on, why is my thing on there?

0:20:27 Marsh: Either they swang and missed this time, or I've been swinging and missing for a while now. And I think that's why I have such a broad remit on Be Reasonable, of the types of ideas that I'll include. And it's why, you know, I'll talk to Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, um, who literally the week after I published that episode, the BBC did a documentary on him called, um, Right, uh, Age of Rage, and it was all about him and I was like, oh fuck, I've actually stumbled on a proper, a proper one here, um, but again, you know, I don't think there's anyone listening to my show who would be, um, I don't think would be susceptible to, uh, white supremacist coming on and being, you relatively know well spoken, um, charming, and yet patronizing

0:20:26 Thomas: Yeah yeah wow yeah yeah yeah that

0:21:06 Marsh: Um, and that, that insidiousness is kind of the point. This is how people come to listen to him, and if you don't ever listen to them, you'll never understand how he's able to persuade people of his so -called race realist views.

Um, so, like, I think it's, it's sort of important to listen to that, and I throw in a lot of caveats in that, like, I recognize I have, have a phenomenal amount of privilege here being a white, straight, cis male, that I can have a conversation like that and I'm not losing anything.

It doesn't, it doesn' t cost me anything, of my emotional, it cost me a little bit of my emotional well -being but it's not an attack on my identity, it's no diminishing my personhood in those of kind conversations.

And I wouldn't advise every listener to listen to every episode, especially if this one is about something very personal to you, it's all right to skip a couple, um, I think it's still value in examining these beliefs where they're not in a place that somebody could stumble in, I'm you not putting it on the BBC where you change the channel on the television and suddenly I'm talking to Jared Taylor, and anybody could have walked into that or could have flipped onto that or walked into that room, um, in a space where I've, I've kind of carved out a small niche of the internet and come here to listen to the people who are wrong about stuff be wrong about, about stuff. Yeah

0:22:14 Thomas: Was gonna be my follow-up, and you touched on it. One, and on hand, I, you're right on, and I see the, and I see the goal there, and I think that makes sense. I think that the platforming conversation is so much more nuanced. You, the other hand, other things to throw into the mix here, like, no platforming for sure works, like, when it comes to remember that that asshole Milo Yiannopoulos.

0:22:36 Thomas: I mean, you do, but there's going to be some listeners who are like, oh, yeah, you know, why you don't give a shit about him

0:22:31 Marsh: Yeah yeah I mean don't doubt, don't doubt he was on the Be Reasonable long list, he's disappeared now, I can't get him. No

0:22:44 Thomas: Oh god well, but he's so, but okay, separate conversation, he's someone you should not have on there, because he doesn't genuinely believe anything, it's not worth, he's, you focused on fucking nihilism and, like, hey, why is it that you believe you can say whatever the fuck you want and it doesn't matter, and your only goal is profit and fame, and you don't have any connection to the truth at all, if that's what, what you're going to talk about, then sure, but I don't actually think he holds any real beliefs, personally, that's just my view, but, uh, yeah yeah

0:22:53 Marsh: I know I I agree no I, I, I agree, and I was saying quite flippantly that he was on the, he was under list at one point, but I, I, I think there's an interesting conversation to be had with him, I don't know if it's on my show but it's, it's about how he's got to be, be the person that he is inside, not the person he appears to be, and that, I think, is fascinating

0:23:21 Thomas: Yeah and and how he's, I think he's like selling, he, oh my gosh, I haven't kept up with him much, but I'm pretty sure he claimed to be cured of being gay, yeah oh

0:23:37 Marsh: No he's working for a Christian ministry, um as an ex-gay now, yeah, on television, hawking various, various, um, you know, Christian ministriesque shill products, um, yeah, it's, it's a phenomenal fall from, not grace, essentially, and, you know, and it's amazing how many people were taken in with him along the way. I mean, Michael, the Sherman, Skeptic Magazine, I think, he's one of the few publications ever to publish something in praise of him that hasn't then come out and said, actually, he's a really bad guy. Every national newspaper he's written for have fired him and said, oh, actually, he's really, really bad, I think, there's only that, that one, that one piece about him that I could find anywhere that was in a semi-respectable place, that, uh, has, has not relented because he took a lot of people in well

0:23:42 Thomas: My god yeah god what a shit show that is yeah yeah I mean they wanted to be taken in, they, we had those listen, while I say we, I had those listeners, I had people ask me about, oh, you, you haven't read every Jordan Peterson book, you gotta read every single, you have to read his journal from, from kindergarten, and his whole books, and The Lord of the rings, and, like, it was always Yeah, it was like if I read 50,000 more words of his, I was just about to believe everything he said. It was the weirdest thing. A lot of those people, they really, That you was the joke I made earlier about the, you Know, oh, I don't agree with everything they say. We learned their masks came off in 2016 here, at least.

0:24:20 Marsh: Yeah, yeah all of his b-sides yeah, yeah yeah

0:24:55 Thomas: I think the masks were off for a lot of people who were more privy to it, of course. But like for for broadly speaking, like me and came off with those people in 2016. That whole shtick of, oh, no, I don't agree with every controversial. He's a controversial figure, to be sure. That means you wanted his racism or whatever or sexism or whatever it is to be out there.

You wanted that to be out there and you didn't have the guts to say it because, you know, too that's – little bit too scary to actually come out and say it back then. Maybe not as much now. But anyway, – all the point of all this was on the no platforming.

It does work in – if you, Marsh, if I were speaking to you and you controlled a major social media, you now, site, that would be definitely a different conversation, conversation, it's worthless to sit here and say, well, no, uh, you know, you see, um, free speech, uh, the more sunshine, uh, is the best disinfectant, we all know that's nonsense now, that's bullshit, um the only reason I'm still going on about this is that last pushback that you kind of touched on, which is, did you hear from any black listeners after that episode with that racist guy, because that, that's a hard thing where it's like, yes, this is an academic, academic conversation that I can have as a white person and not feel, you too horrible about it, but man, that, I just wondered in that moment, like, shit, I wonder, like, were any of Marsh's black listeners just like, holy fuck, man, this is wow, you know? And, and do you, does

0:25:36 Marsh: Yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah

0:26:17 Thomas: That, yeah. Is, is that conflicting? You know, they're thinking like, well, there, there isn't the white version of that. You Know, there Isn't the guy, black guests that's going to come Come on and talk have in any seriously threatening way, because that's how the nature of structural racism and stuff. It's not really, you know, calling me a cracker is fucking a zero. That's nothing, you know.

0:26:35 Thomas: So, like, is there conflict there in your mind? What do you what do you think?

0:26:34 Marsh: Yeah. Oh, no, yeah, there's absolutely conflict, and it's, it's something I do kind of, uh, think I have to wrestle with it, because if I wasn't wrestling with it, I would just be, the alternative is to be blasé about it and just be, no, I'm right, I'm doing everything right, nobody can question me and you know, the, the, that I have to, and to lots of things, is, is a constant, uh, internal doubt of, like, hang on, is this the right thing to do, um, I think I still come out on the, on the side that I think there's...

There's value to the show, in terms of that particular episode, um, didn't hear from any black listeners about Jared Taylor, I have done interviews with, uh, conversion therapists, and I have heard from gay listeners who were like, who, who've said, well, thanks for, for putting these out there, because a lot of people just don't know what's being said, and so so they don't know how bad this stuff is. And so I, because I'm the target of it, but the rest of the people don't, don't no. And I think, you know, maybe that's a sop for me, or maybe that's a justification that I can use

0:26:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:28 Marsh: To make myself feel good about it.

0:27:28 Thomas: No, no. I think that's absolutely because I'll tell you, I didn't know shit about so many of these beliefs. And I actually think that's an incredibly valuable thing because so much of this hides in, I won't say the, it hides in plain sight, really, I think. Don't you think? I mean, there's a lot, especially, yeah, gay conversion therapy. There's a whole lot of stuff in America that hides within what in this country we accept as normal. Like we accept a lot of religion as normal, you know, a lot. A lot of outward religiosity. And sometimes it's just, yeah, well, that person believes in God, and when they, you know, score a touchdown, they want to thank their Lord and Savior and all that crap.

And other times it's like, well, wait a minute, then there's going to be a documentary someday on how that person had a bunch of like child fucking brides or something, you know, like there's a lot of stuff that hides in there, that so much that I didn't know that people believe because of your show, and think there is a ton of value to out because there are a lot of people just like, oh, yeah, he's just religious. Yeah, he is just kind of religious, you know, whatever. And it's like, yeah. But what but what kind, what's what's involved? Like, what actually does that person believe? What does his church do? What, you know, that that's important, I think.

0:27:55 Marsh: Yes. Yeah, yeah.

0:28:36 Marsh: So I agree. And then the step beyond that as well is one of the reasons that I try to mostly talk to people who are very far down the road, who are actually recruiting people to these ideas. You know, they're not just, um, guy who have, who I stumbled across, who happens to have those beliefs occasionally, that's that's the case, but it's in the minority, um, most of the time it's this is a person who makes their living from doing this or goes out and actually tries to find people to sell these ideas to. And what I'm trying to do is I want to try and get out on the show, the the best arguments these people will use, are the best best points they will use to recruit people, so not not necessarily the things they will say in defence of their idea, but the things they will when promoting their idea. And those are two slightly different things.

0:28:48 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

0:29:20 Marsh: And the reason that I want to do that is, and let's take Jared Taylor as an example. A lot of that kind of quite extreme racism is there in society, but just out of focus. And you only need to just focus a tiny bit and suddenly it's there. It's just beneath the surface.

Others, and so if you meet somebody who is susceptible to some of those ideas, um, may not be at that point now, but they may be able to get to this quite extreme point, but you already know the pathway they will take between here and there, and you know the arguments that are used to recruit them, and you can then meet those arguments before they come across them, or you can preempt some of these arguments.

So there is a kind of a, um, again, it's putting it back in the the test tube and figuring out what this virus does and how to develop a vaccine to it.

So maybe I'm not going to be able to to cure the person I got the virus from, but I can inoculate people from from catching it by knowing what it's going to do to them and pointing that out ahead of time, or at least allowing listeners to have that those those that information they could use to try and inoculate the people around them if they find those people are on those pathways, right?

0:29:30 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:21 Thomas: I thought you were making a slightly different point. And let me, let me run this by you. Thing that I found very valuable, and specifically that racist guy, which I think is another point kind of in the column on this argument, in of kind of your approach, is there are a lot of people who I do think, you know, let's face it, white in 20, you Know, 2008, or something, would have been someone.

0:30:39 Marsh: Yeah.

0:30:39 Thomas: When you hear that fucking guy whose name I'm not gonna put the brain power into remembering, sorry, I don't care, he's the he's the boy, it was creepy. I, you're someone who can stomach that episode, by the way, listener, um, it's almost like watching Get Out or something. Like, it just, just that that guy was fucking creepy, and and Really Racist, oh.

0:30:55 Marsh: Yeah. It's the way he he overpronounced the H in white every single time. You know, it's it's that kind of racist.

0:30:59 Thomas: Yeah, Chills To the, I almost heard the teacup in the background, you know, uh, for hearing that guy. The part I was getting to is hearing that fucking guy who, you know, is like, yeah, they should live in a a different country, like, literally separate white people and black people, and by the way, they should have their, you know, like, we get the this part and they get that. You know, hearing that guy also say stuff like that sounds more reasonable. Like, oh, yeah, affirmative action, they shouldn't be doing that because, you see, you people know, will feel out of place because they've been given that, you know, some bullshit like that. And then you hear this fucking guy make that same word for word point. I think that's really shocking, maybe, to certain people. It might shock them out of it, being like, oh, fuck, okay. That guy just said a thing that I used to say, like, full -throated believingly. Like, I got to wash my mouth out with soap or something. Like, that's insane.

0:31:03 Marsh: Yeah! Yeah Yeah, absolutely.

0:31:58 Marsh: And we see it also with things like the alternative medicine type people I've spoken to, and how many of them will start nudging around a big pharma conspiracy type stuff, which Lots of people would have that idea that big pharma cured cancer, big pharma did this.

But from there they will go on to say all of their other beliefs and It's it's pointing out that this belief that you're that that somebody you might you might meet might hold might not already be uh pathway or it might already be connected to them also holding this more extreme belief but the fact that these two are linked in the in the people that I'm talking to shows that there is a uh you link in terms of ideology there and there's a pathway that can be drawn um Seeing a lot actually at the moment with um it, I haven't got someone I can speak to on a show about this yet, I'm looking for it, is how much of the anti-vax movement is so uh on board with the trans moral panic right now and um I find that really interesting given how many parts of the the movement of people who used to be attracted to skepticism and other parts of society are so on board the trans-moral panic and I genuinely find it interesting as to when you hear anti-vaxxers repeating exactly the same talking points you have about trans people does that not make you stop and think maybe I'm wrong about the trans thing you

0:32:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:08 Marsh: Know but

0:33:08 Thomas: Nope, it makes you an anti -vaxxer, Marsh. That's what it does.

0:33:10 Marsh: And You know what it does, because I've seen people making that transition as well from it

0:33:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is oh, my God. That's a whole new can of worms that I plan on tackling on my show where there's woke. I'm already, I'm knee deep in this because I think the major commonality there is it's able to handle, you know, social change and lashing out against the left. That's really what it is lashing out against what they perceive to be progressives who are like moralizing on them and so, okay, what else do they believe, fucking science well that must be wrong, you know, and it's crazy, it's because people who are scientists are doing it where

0:33:18 Marsh: Is yeah and it's it's about values as well. Well, so I think it's the reason that I bring it back to the that it would be reasonable. What I've learned from all the time I've spent on Be Reasonable is how much of the ideas people hold that, you know, we like to think we make our decisions based on fact. We like to thinking that the conclusions we draw logically stem from the information that we're given. But so much of what we decide to question and so much of what we decided to not question except is just what aligns with our values.

0:33:44 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.

0:34:10 Marsh: And if your value set is already you in know those cases of anti -vax and trans moral panic, if if you were somebody who cared more about uh demonizing trans people than you were, then you then your values had you committed to a pro -science pro -vaccine tick, um, of those things is going to give, and it's the one that you're less committed to, so like we we we shape our our versions of reality based around the value set that we already hold and this is, I mentioned right right at the start, the kind of the more highfalutin high -minded uh philosophical endeavor of the show is to is to try and understand the nature of belief generally, because by, I, I honestly think by examining people's beliefs at the extreme ends of various spectra, we can sort of we, um, natureofbelief um, of divorced from any possibility that that it's true, so we can understand well how do you come to believe this and okay some ideas, if we're looking at whether it's true, that might muddy the water as to how people believe, so let's look at an idea that we know isn't true and find somebody believes it and then try and study how they believe it, and then once you've got that framework mapped out with as much of the kind of the noise of potential truth taken out, the confounding factors that maybe they're onto something taken out, you can sort of understand how we make our own decisions, and then you can reflect that back in yourself and say well what do I believe and how am I making decisions and am I taking decisions that are based on truth, am I, you, the things that come across uh my social media that I agree with, am I reliably checking them, because

0:34:11 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. True. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:35 Marsh: I'm reliably checking the things I disagree with, so I'm already biasing the way that I accept stuff based on what I already think, and you try, you and change that based on kind of understanding the the fact that we're all vulnerable to to stuff that already fits our preconceived biases and value system and our sense of self and identity.

0:35:53 Thomas: Once you said the ends of the spectrum, I realized that for science, you need to get someone on who just doesn't believe anything. There's just like, do you think the sky is blue? I don't fucking know. No, I don't care. It doesn't matter. You know, the extremes, Marsh. You need the extremes. Do you? What's your name? Name? I don't fucking, I don't have a name or maybe I do. I don't, who cares? How does that happen? No, it doesn't. But no, I totally, I, right on. That's gosh, I wanted to talk more about the, yeah, the anti -trans to anti -vax pipeline. Cause yeah, that, I think you're right on, I the anti transness is probably the thing that for the most Most people, obviously, it's going to be different all the time.

But I think that did either come first or if that's not the right term, that's the stronger, as you say, that'S like the stronger thing. And for those people who want to be anti -trans and who are pre -motivated to to think that that's all nonsense or whatever, that it also comes with the benefit of like, well, you know, here's the thing. All the scientists agree that trans people, the broadly the consensus is trans people exist. And scientifically, the best thing to do is gender affirming

0:35:59 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:58 Thomas: Care. And that will save lives and all that stuff. Oh, those are also scientists. So let's see. The scientists also say the vaccine works. It's a nice two for one. You know, it's like, oh, okay.

0:37:07 Marsh: No.

0:37:08 Thomas: So I get to just doubt any science that I want to. And then I don't doubt any of the science that, you know, I want us to use in my everyday life, of course, the miracles that science has given us in so many ways. Just these particular things, all of fucking science is apparently a cabal of people conspiring for some fucking reason. I is scary. Carrie, and I want to say, not to point fingers, Marsh, I don't know if it's your fault per se, but what is it with the UK and the anti -trans shit? Like not saying, you know, we got our own stuff here, but it just seems like there's an exclusive club over there or something of, you Know, right. Am I crazy? There's a lot of well -off turfs in the UK that That have a big voice.

0:37:39 Marsh: Yeah. It's it's A real, it is, a it's a real issue. It's one of those things that I think, because it wedged into the social conversation at a different place, it didn't come in via evangelical Christianity or anything like that. It came in through ostensibly feminism, through a rift created in feminism that was then, this is where you sound like a conspiracy theorist, but we can see that there was influence from outside forces who were trying to, it, like American uh evangelicals who couldn't

0:38:03 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, it's me. Okay, it is my fault, huh? No, you are probably

0:38:18 Marsh: Yeah, it is they couldn't push the wedge in American society so they pushed it back over here

0:38:20 Thomas: Right. No, and blame the Australian billionaires that control the news? Can't we? No, yeah, you're totally

0:38:26 Marsh: We can definitely do that, but the thing we've seen just now about um, of the scientists agree with uh, with the trans, most of the scientists agree that the the science is clear on uh affirming care, we get to throw out vaccines at the same time and it's a twofer, I actually think it's bit more interesting than that because I think there are people who are reluctant to throw the vaccine science out but are forced to choose, it's the two buttons on the meme kind of one of these two things, um, it reminds me of an interview I did with a guy called Frank Strasser, and it's all about how the that value set, um, is the stronger value holds out, and and the way that our brains try to try to to make our values fit, so and this was a show that I put out and Be Reasonable, but unfortunately the end of it didn't didn't record for a very irritating reason, and it was the most valuable bit of the whole conversation, because Frank Strasser runs a group called um and Artists for 9-11 Truth, and and I'm going back through the the in my head so I might be wrong on some of the details, but I remember talking to him and he seemed genuinely committed to pacifism, he was an artist, he just thinks that the

0:38:28 Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:39:14 Thomas: What?

0:39:24 Marsh: American war in Iraq and the the war on the war on terror was a horrible thing, that America was horrible, um, atrocities all around the world, and I agree, there was an illegal war, all that kind of stuff, um, and he was saying, and and all of this was predicated on that same government taking down the Twin Towers as an inside job.

And I use this story as an illustration of why I'm not picking him up on everything along the way, because I tried to build enough of a rapport that in the bit of the interview that didn't bloody record, I said to him, you seem genuinely committed to pacifism, you think there's any part of you that would find it harder to condemn the war on terror if you believe that 9-11 was exactly as the conventional story says that you were, that America was the victim of a terrible atrocity and then went on to create a load of victims themselves, uh, an illegal war, and he was like, no, I, I think, I, I said to him, I think the question I asked was, if I could prove to you right now magically, somehow somebody could prove you right now that 9-1-1 happened exactly as the conventional story says, how would you feel about the war on terror, and he paused and said, well, I guess I'd have to feel that it was a bit more justified because America

0:39:24 Thomas: Oh, yeah!

0:40:04 Thomas: Interesting.

0:40:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:30 Marsh: Had been wronged and I said do you think that plays any part into it's much easier to hold a pacifist line and say my government was always evil, it was evil when it, when 9-11 happened and it did 9 -1 -1, yeah absolutely

0:40:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Sure, Marsh. Marsh. And then he cried and you said, it's not your fault. And you hugged. And then your girlfriend from Canada came and was like super babe, you know, and just, and you lost the recording Marsh.

0:40:48 Marsh: And I lost the recording

0:40:50 Thomas: You don't have it. Oh no, that really does suck.

0:40:51 Marsh: It's it's generally one of the most upsetting bits of uh technical failure I had, because I mean it wasn't, he didn't have this Damascene conversion, he didn't say You know, you're absolutely right, but he did say, like, I hadn't seen it that way before, and and that's really giving me something to think about. And, you know, he's probably not got away and changed his mind on it, but there was a little crack through, and I don't think I would have been able to achieve even the slightest crack through if I'd have just kept yelling at him about how, you know, jet fuel doesn't need to melt the steel beams, it just needs to weaken the steel beam, and that enough to bring the tower, you know, all These are the things that that we can yell at 9-11 truthers. Hmm.

0:40:57 Thomas: Yeah. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a good point, 'cause if you, uh, to the show listeners, as I, again, binge the whole thing, that the part that I would struggle with, probably because of ADHD and because I get more angry at beliefs that make no fucking sense, 'cause my brain is just like that. Logic hurts me more. I think it's just more of a, like, I can't handle this. Your, your ability to say, okay, let's set the Jewish lizard bankers aside for a moment.

0:41:49 Marsh: No.

0:41:50 Thomas: Let's we'll get, we'll get back to that. You know what? We'll get back To that. Will you get back? No, No, but you'll say that you'll get back to it. That that's a good one. And I imagine it requires to get, I don't know, maybe back to the puff piece that I don't at all mind this being about your show, which is, how I much prep are you putting in? How into the weeds of this bullshit do you get to prep for these interviews? Because I imagine that kind of decision to say, let's not talk about this fucking nutso thing versus you know, and let's save this for, for, uh, for another time or later or never. I feel like that's got to come from a place of really having an idea of what you might get to, like what's going to be more important, which that suggests a huge level of prep. So why don't you talk about your, your prep process? I'm curious.

0:41:54 Marsh: Yeah.

0:42:32 Marsh: I mean, to be honest, it's, it's very mixed. There's some shows that I do an awful lot of prep, especially if they're what I would consider the more high tariff shows, um, You know, when you're talking about a subject that's incredibly intensely going to directly affect people personally and is, is part of the the The grim culture war stuff that's going on, I try to prep a lot more on that and at least understand. And if talking to someone that I get the sense, if I're going to interview someone that I have done a bit of background research on, just a little bit, and from what I've seen of them, I get a sense that they're going be a bit slippery, I try to have more of my biases covered.

0:42:41 Thomas: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.

0:43:09 Marsh: Other people, like with Strasser, I think I interviewed three 9-11 truthers in the space of a couple of weeks, and then released the shows separately over time.

0:43:17 Thomas: And then you went back to all flat earthers forever.

0:43:20 Marsh: Then it went went back to flat earthers, yeah. Well, I was that, I was the original on the flat earth, I think the second show of Be Reasonable was the flat Earth, and that was like 2013, but then it got massive in 2017, and I was like, well, I'm gonna get on this now because I I heard about this exactly um but yeah, but so for people like Frank Strasser, I I actually didn't do a huge amount of research on him, um, because I'd done 9-11 type research, um, and I I felt across a lot of the talking points, but I find that if I go in over-researched on people who are just genuinely present in the interview, um, find myself slipping into the one thing that I don't want to do, which is waiting for a gotcha question, yeah, waiting for opportunity to

0:43:27 Thomas: There's a ton of them. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah? Yeah. You believed in flat earth before it was cool. Yeah no.

0:43:57 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:43:58 Marsh: Drop a gotcher, um, I don't want to do that, partly because it feels disingenuous, um, and I've seen other people talking about this style of conversation and saying, okay, you know, if you want to go and talk to a Christian preacher on the street, you ask them this question, and if they say one of these answers, here's the floor chart, it's like, then you're not having a conversation, you're no better than them, um, I genuinely want to have a a real conversation I genuinely want to know what's going on, and I and I think I only get to any moments of of or connection if I'm present in the conversation and asking follow-ups, um, also if you go in over-researched on some some topics, you stay on that topic and you don't follow the thread where it's going, like the hollow earth, I'd spent a little bit of time researching the hollow worth, but I didn't have every single argument that anyone's ever made in favour of a hollow earth laid out in front of me that I was going to take him through bit by bit, so that meant when he started to talk about the different people who've visited the hollow earth throughout history, I rolled with it and said, okay, like who? And he told me about the Vikings and he told about the

0:43:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah well you're probably better than that.

0:44:58 Thomas: Sure.

0:44:58 Marsh: Inuit tribe who were scared to plague. And then he told him about the Nazis. And I didn't go, okay. Well, you talked about the Nazis, but let's, let's get back to the hollow worth. I've got this other question. I said, well tell me about the nazis yeah and but within, and again this is just going from memory, and I've told this story plenty of times so I've warped the memory, so listeners go back and listen, but within a relatively short space of time he's not he's that, he begins explaining to me that the Nazis were actually not the aggressors in World War II and were just defending their borders from Poland, and actually you know, the the the evil elites, and were the ones who were doing all the the executions, and they didn't really kill six million Jews, the Nazis, it was barely a number even close to that, and and all the you know actual Holocaust denial, actual uh sympathies, that was the, that was a hollow earth discussion, and

0:45:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. How many Nazis? Yeah. Which, which ones? Yeah, yeah.

0:45:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:45:45 Marsh: If I'd over-prepared on hollow earth, I'd have had a list of questions on the hollow earth that I needed to get through in the time that I had, and I would have missed all of that, so I I sort of play it by ear, um, and some of it is that I've I've had quite a lot of these conversations, and I you develop a little feel for, okay, I think there's a spot of interest here, um, so so often I've got a lot of questions, and I ask the first two, and then the rest of the conversation is just follow-up questions, and me in the moment going, okay, you've said something, because this is the thing I really love about the show, of the challenge, the show is trying to maintain a civil conversation whilst also trying to look for the places where I can just gently poke at the holes in their their their statements, and so to do that politely, you have to hear what they're saying, stay in that conversation while you're working out what it means, why they're wrong, and then translate that back into a polite, gentle nudge without losing the thread of the conversation, which, so you have to be quite nimble, in some of the the most fun kind of flow times is that you're quite nimbly jumping between the the logic side in your head and the the conversational side of how to then figure out how to package this back to the person I'm speaking to in a way that doesn't sound like I'm fundamentally attacking a core part of how they see themselves, and how can how do I package this as a as a quest for more information, and

0:45:45 Thomas: Fair.

0:45:54 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah yeah. Mm hmm.

0:46:59 Thomas: Yeah I

0:46:59 Marsh: A quest to fill in a gap in my knowledge, and I know the gap is in my knowledge because that gap is în reality, you know,

0:47:04 Thomas: Don't remember, you know, I probably was asleep during that chapter of history where the Nazis went into the Hollow Earth. Can you refresh me on that? Gap in my knowledge, egg on on my face. Didn't read that one.

0:47:05 Marsh: Yeah. Exactly yeah and I really want to understand what you're saying, but whenever I try to follow it, I come across this hurdle, so could you help me over this hurdle, that that I'm thinking in my head that you've never maybe thought about this hurdle before but I'm introducing it as a obviously you you're the guy who knows this you've done this a million times you know exactly what you're talking about so and and so by staying kind of polite in the conversation the way the way sort of the metaphor I use is like attacking people's beliefs is like attacking the castle you know they pull up the drawbridge and you they're just going to siege mentality and they can hold out forever whereas if you ask to be shown around the castle if you ask to go on a tour of the castle and you do it politely they might talk you take you around and And you can walk around the maze of their beliefs.

And if you do it gently enough, you can sometimes say, oh, what's around this corner? And there's suddenly a brick wall that they didn't know was there because they've never needed to look around that corner before because all the stuff that they've ever had to do was around all the earlier bits of the maze because no one's ever got this far because no one has kind of invested the time to walk with them.

0:47:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:48:15 Thomas: That's interesting. Does that ever feel disingenuous though? And this is, it might just be my personal bias. I, I, know. I have kind of like a hard time with any sort of, I know if white lying is the word, but I, I don't, I don't like misrepresenting myself or my views in a conversation, but does that ever ever feel like you're doing that? You know, where it's like, hmm, curious. I haven't worked this one out.

0:48:31 Marsh: No, would say no, I could certainly see how it could. But the way that I avoid that is I, I try to be entirely genuine, so when I say I'm trying to follow what you believe, I'm trying to genuinely follow that through, I really am thinking

0:48:44 Thomas: As long as you really believe the lie, it's fine. No, I'm just kidding.

0:48:49 Marsh: Exactly I'm lying to myself, but so are they, so it's fine, yeah But No, I and I think I'm I'm having a really genuine conversation, and that's why there's times that I I will push back a little, or I'll I'll them a little, I'll make a little joke. I'm just trying to have a a real genuine conversation in all the ways that we would have a real conversation, um, that isn't a debate or an argument. So I I understand what you mean about, does it ever feel like I'm deceiving them? But I think I think I I genuinely I go into those conversations genuinely caring about what they have to say and genuinely wanting to know what they have to, and so then it's the natural question that occurs to me as to how, how to get them to talk more about this thing, and I just want to carry on talking about what they they believe, because I genuinely find it really interesting. So yeah, I think it could be deceitful, but I I I think I do. I do fool myself.

0:48:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:49:40 Marsh: I lie to myself to get myself in a position or I just I'm in that position.

0:49:42 Thomas: Well, I only asked not, yeah yeah, I asked not as any criticism, but often, you and apologies for but often I, I to your show and I think about if I ever, I'm going to do any of this again. Cause you know, like I did, I'm like, well, how would my approach change now? Because I think it you're, show has definitely influenced my thinking on that. And if I never, and, and forget podcasts, maybe just in daily life, you know?

And, and I think one reason, and again, apologies for my navel gazing here, but like one reason one, that I am the way I am or take the approach I do is because I fundamentally perhaps absurd degree, feel like if if someone says, yeah, I think all the Jews control the banks and I'm not like, yeah, but that's fucking insane and you're an idiot, then I feel like I've lied to them, you know, cause like, that's what I'm thinking inside. That's a horrifying belief. And I hate you and you're, you're like, I, so it's interesting just to think about from that angle. Uh, that'S, thatS very much not anything you, you need to comment on if you don't have any thoughts on,

0:49:58 Marsh: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

0:50:43 Thomas: But that'S where I'm coming from.

0:50:42 Marsh: You know what? The thought that

0:50:44 Thomas: Go ahead.

0:50:44 Marsh: I had is even when you said about, you Know, if they say, you Know, I think the Jews control the banks. My immediately went, Ooh, why do you think that? And I know even though you were just you were faking it, but like, it's genuinely my erection. Like, wow. Okay, you're there.

0:50:56 Thomas: Yeah, no, that' s fair. It, there,

0:50:58 Marsh: Interesting.

0:50:58 Thomas: Nobody could possibly argue with the fact that you genuinely take interest and, and like, there's no way you could be still doing this shit all these years later, if you didn't have a genuine interest in why people believe these things and these beliefs. So that's, that's absolutely, yeah, for sure. That that's a good go -to, you know, that'S a good thing to have in your tool chest.

0:51:09 Marsh: I think I find it really exciting and the thing is, like, um, and this is gonna be a slightly weird thing to say for someone who runs a skeptical conference, um, I'd almost rather be in a room full of people who are wrong about stuff in interesting ways than in a room full of people who are all correct in the same way, um, or broadly the same way, because I think

0:51:28 Thomas: Hmm. Is this you saying you don't want to hang out with us at QD?

0:51:35 Marsh: I'm not gonna hang out with you, no, I have to, this is why I'm not coming to uh to Matriarch no, uh, but like I quite easy for me to have conversations with people that

0:51:38 Thomas: Oh, brutal. Wait, Eli has some weird beliefs. You can get him going, get him going he believes

0:51:44 Marsh: Is true that is truth Eli will do it, he will do it but

0:51:46 Thomas: Some genuinely weird things, and Heath too, I think he scratched the surface there, you, you'll find, you know, he's got some beliefs.

0:51:54 Marsh: I me, I can, I can find it easy to go to to put together a room full of people who agree with me, most of my friends share the same, um, speaking the same beliefs as me or many of the same core points, that's why we're friends, we have shared values, music, I've shared kind of a shared version of reality, and so it, I spend a lot of my time in rooms full of people who I, I agree with, and so I find it genuinely fascinating to to be in a room of people, or to be a conversation people that I, that I don't agree with, because I wanted to just just why, and I know this, this infuriates my friends, because if we walk past someone in the street who's handing out anti-vax flyers and I happen to start a conversation, I'm going to be there for a while, and to a point where my friends are like, okay, you're being nicer to that anti-vax than you are to me, we were going for coffee, we've been stood here 50 minutes, you're being rude to me by being too nice to them.

0:52:22 Thomas: Yeah. Hey, I got a weird belief I believe we should keep our fucking lunch appointment that we had, Marsh. How, why don't you investigate my belief, oh, I believe in being punctual, no, I'm just kidding, yeah.

0:52:41 Marsh: Exactly. But Yeah, so I think that's it, yeah.

0:52:50 Thomas: Yeah. Um, uh, as you always say, it goes, as we're coming to a close on the interview, there's one thing I do. I've, I've already, uh unfortunately tipped you off on this, but there's something I do have to run by you and I have to ask about because it was genuinely, man, is one time, everybody everybody listening. If you're a Marsh fan, if you're not a Marsh fan, there is precisely one episode, in my opinion, where you hear Marsh really just start to be, like, annoyed. Genuinely. You might not believe me from listening to this. There's one episode where you hear Marsh genuinely get mad. You know, I don't think you yelled, but you know, you were mad. Like, you could tell. And it was when you interviewed some asshole that was, uh, actually, I guess, what the, like, pitch for that interview, if you remember, like, what did you specifically want to talk about?

0:53:14 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:33 Marsh: So I can't remember exactly what what it was, but the reason it came about was, this is a guy called Ed Turner, who, the reason that he came up on the show was that he used to be a member of the Merseyside Skeptic Society, the the group that I run in Liverpool, so he's a regularly came to all of our events, he'd go out drinking with us afterwards, um, and he saw, he was a person who was actually my life, and then he disappeared from my life for a while, he kind of drifted away as people sort of do, um, he was never a good good friend of mine but he was in this, he's in the broader social circle, um, then once I'd start, I saw him again on Facebook, when I would post things about the news, about kind of my understanding of the world, and he'd be the first want to comment arguing with literally anything I would

0:53:33 Thomas: No?

0:53:45 Thomas: Uh, Oh,

0:54:14 Marsh: Say, with every any every contrarian reactionary view you could have, and I thought it was genuinely interesting that a guy who was around our group, um, of skeptics, is now in this place, and it was, it was kind of aligning at the time when we were seeing some other people who were, uh, in, who were getting either, who had been prominent in skepticism, or had been on, who'd grown a skeptical audience online on YouTube, so, so it was like people like Sagan of Akkad, obviously.

0:54:37 Thomas: I just remembered, maybe this, this will help jog your memory, and apologies if you already knew this, but I think now it focused around a skeptic article from Skeptic, uh, Shermer's bullshit thing, now they think about it, yeah, maybe

0:54:49 Marsh: Might well have done. I forget which article it was. Yeah. Might have been the review of Milo Yiannopoulos' book, you know. Know The Skeptic did publish like a 3 ,000 word review of that book. Yeah. I don't know. That

0:54:59 Thomas: Was something equally stupid, stupid. Anyway.

0:55:01 Marsh: I needed to find the one thing Michael Shermer's Skeptic magazine has published that I think is completely wrong and gets the wrong side of things and biased, I think I'd struggle to to narrow down the list, yeah, yeah,

0:55:10 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, I'll tell you, you're going to have to do some searching, some major digging.

0:55:13 Marsh: Exactly. Um, mean, there are other skeptic magazines are available, there are skeptic, there are magazines out there called The Skeptic that are edited by Michaels who are very very good on these things, uh, check out the UK Skeptic magazine, which I've been editing since 2020, and we try and do things the the right way, with compassion and reason, so not just like, I'm a cold -hearted logic bro, I can't be wrong, oh,

0:55:13 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:55:26 Thomas: 100%. Yeah. Oh, no, I think, okay, here's what it was. It the bullshit I'm still, we're still dealing with. The free speech, I think. It was like the, you know, freedom of speech is being threatened by the schools, the kids yelling at the schools. I think it was something like that.

0:55:44 Marsh: That's what it, it would have been, yeah. Yeah, yeah, campus craziness type stuff, yeah,

0:55:45 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Which again, Again, campus craziness, literally probably called campus crazness. Again, going to be the focus of Where There's Woke. Tune in, everybody. That's exactly what I'm, because we're still going through it. We're still doing it. We're going through all that. And it was amazing because you genuinely got mad, which it was like really a journey for me. Because here I am, everybody, here I'm listening. Again, so apologies for how selfish this is. I'm listing. I'm like, man, that Marsh, he keeps his composure. Look at this. Look, we have all these instances in my history of me yelling at people who are asshole, racist, anti -trans people.

0:56:20 Marsh: Yeah.

0:56:21 Thomas: And maybe was that the good idea? Should I have been yelling at these people? I don't know. Did it accomplish anything? Should I've had them on and be reasonable with them? I don't—maybe. I don't know. How does Marsh do it? He's just—he's so calm. He's collected. And then tune in to the exact fucking guy that I've interviewed. That same guy. And you hear Marsh just losing his shit. And I was like, oh, thank God. Okay, okay. It's not just me. These people are genuinely infuriating, there's something extra infuriated about that exact guy who was a skeptic, you know, he was kind of in that movement, it was a microcosm of the whole fucking movement, uh, from certain angles, Marsh. It was like

0:56:56 Marsh: The Hitch slappers, he was, he was a guy who worshipped Christopher Hitchens, he absolutely did, he yeah

0:56:57 Thomas: Yeah and and we should be very clear, Christopher Itchins fortunately died before any of, uh, that, you know, so I don't, I'm sure he would have been in on this bullshit, but he died before he could fully confirm he would have been in on this bullshit, so we can always hold on to that slim hope that maybe he wouldn't have been.

0:57:15 Marsh: We have no evidence in either way on where he stood on these culture war issues, I mean, he had, he had some view, we don't need to go into Christopher Hitchens um for good and bad, but yeah, so, uh, he was, was someone who started, and the reason I think that I found him so frustrating was because he single thing I would say online, he would chime in with, like, a contrarian position, and so I expected in the conversation to him, for him to actually have more information about the stuff that he was taking these kind of reactionary positions on, but I, and again, this is only going from memory, so I could be wrong, I've not listened to the back of the conversation for a very long time now, um, it felt like every single time I would try to turn my attention to one bit of it, he would just gish gallop over to a different topic, and because it was someone that I'd had sat down for a drink with in the past, I didn't treat him like any other person in that way, I

0:57:21 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah mm -hmm yeah yeah well

0:57:59 Marsh: Treat him as someone that I knew, because in any other position, and certainly now, and maybe I was a little naive at the time, certainly now the way I would handle it is to say, okay, we'll go over there in a minute, but first I really need to stay here. And in fact, in more recent interviews, when people try to keep, you know, diverting off to different aspects, I said, we can go there, but But first, we just need to settle this little bit here. And because I didn't have the discipline to do that, or didn't have the experience to do that, and because he was touching on all these hot -button issues and was taking very reactionary positions on them, it wound me up.

0:58:32 Thomas: It's Also, from, and this may be just my view, but I think it wasn't just taking the contrarian position, he He was taking the word -for -word bumper sticker fucking, you -laden It might as well have been Milo Yiannopoulos. In fact, I think he referenced Milo in that thing as someone, oh, I don't, I think he literally said, oh I don't agree with him on everything, but it's great that he's out there doing fucking whatever. He, every single one of those cliches, the the time it wasn't considered anti, called anti-woke, it was anti -something, anti -PC or whatever, or anti -something.

0:59:02 Thomas: Who knows? Who knows what the fucking buzzword was right then? But every single one of those he did.

0:58:47 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he did.

0:59:08 Thomas: It was, it was amazing. It Was Like a Jukebox. He just hit all the fucking hits.

0:59:12 Marsh: Absolutely. And also with an incredibly shallow understanding of the point of the things he was saying, even to a point when I remember mentioning Milo and he said, "Oh, well, you know, Milo is just an agent provocateur." It's like, no, what you mean is he's a provocateur. If he was an agile provocateur, he would be someone that was embedded in that movement in order to make, to discredit it, which is not what you're saying. But, but in the, in the conversation, we just can't get to that little, little slip up because you just don't understand. And I remember, having a part of the conversation went to the roads must fall, um, Oxford, so the, the the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the fact that his name was on certain buildings, um, was a movement of students to take Cecil Rhodes, uh, remove Cecil Rods's name and statue and veneration away from Oxford University. And he was arguing, he was saying it's because they read something of his, students read something for his that they disagreed with, and that's why they were moving Cecil Rhoads. Yeah, and

0:59:36 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah, well, and to was phrasing it like Like the statue was harming them. And this is what they still do nonstop. They take one mischaracterization that makes the other sound side like fucking idiots. And they don't think, well, that must not be the position then because that's stupid. They think, okay, that definitely is a position and it's all of the position. The entirety of the situation is statues literally cause harm. And, and, you know, you're like, it's not the statue. That's what the guy did. You know, like it's, it's what that represents. Yeah.

1:00:26 Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. And He clearly had no idea who Cecil Rhodes was, and, you know, not everyone will, not, not everyone has cause to look that up. But Cecil Rhodes was a colonialist enslaver who went to South Africa and went to the southern kind of countries around Africa. One of them used to be called Rhodesia after him, and was a brutal coloniser who tortured people.

1:00:53 Marsh: And so at Cape Town University, there was a statue of Cecil Rhodes in the centre of the university or right in the middle university in praise to him. And in that particular instance, Ed Turner got quite to Cape Town University like months before we had that conversation. I was like, no, the Rhodes must fall started in Cape Town university. So we should get rid of this guy who literally brutally tortured and murdered so many of our ancestors. We don't need to venerate him in the middle of our university. But it's just that that picking up the talking point from whichever right wing blog that they find it on and then never investigate, having no curiosity as to what's really going on. And so that's combined with the fact that we moved on so quick from topic to topic to top. It was impossible to get anywhere. And I found it really frustrating.

1:00:53 Thomas: Yeah, God. Yeah Yeah.

1:01:32 Thomas: Well, it It was so frustrating. Anybody who you wouldn't have on, or a type of belief, or a type of thing? Is there anything now, you 2023, after a lot of what's happened, where you'd be like, you know, not worth it? I don't, this might cause harm, or it's not worth it to spread, give that person, even though it's this platform? Is there anything like that? Or do you think that's just because by the nature of the platform that isn't really something that you'd consider, so

1:02:03 Marsh: Yeah, I don't know. There's nothing off the top of my head. The think the only things that would bring me to that subject are where, um, don't have anywhere near enough background information to be able to do it justice. So, uh, and and I, and in those kind of situations, I would struggle to even sort at the edge of things. And some of that would be around things like, I can talk about conversion therapy, I would find it much harder to argue with a very well-read transphobe who was very, very well schooled on all the transphobic literature.

I would find the terror of that a little too difficult for the amount that I've read and my, my knowledge and my position, like the amount but I know about these issues, um, I would feel, given the heat in that conversation right now, it'd be difficult to do that, that conversation justice.

I know that other people have done it very, very well, and I think Aaron Rabinowitz did fantastic stuff in that kind of area, having spent more time looking into that and and being better at those issues than me in terms of talking about them and picking, picking their way through those issues. But even then, I can't rule it out, I couldn't rule out that I would be able to get myself to a position where I felt I'd read

1:02:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:07 Marsh: Enough to be able to to do a be reasonable job on it. But I would say it wouldn't have to be something that everyone would have to listen to, um, other than that. I mean, I interviewed Holocaust deniers, I've interviewed people who who do believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I've interview people who are anti-vax, um, reviewed Jim Humble, who who, miracle mineral supplement, and during the course of the conversation told me the hundreds of thousands of people with deadly diseases he's given it to. Um, he was probably exaggerating, but probably not more than a hundred, a factor of a hundred, so there's probably thousands of people dead as a result of the the stuff that he directly done, regardless of his wider circle. Um, I think, I think I'd keep an open mind to any subject that felt like it could fit, yeah.

1:03:09 Thomas: Yeah.

1:03:46 Thomas: But it would depend on making sure there's some stuff, yeah, there's something where it's lower stakes, though, the fucking dinosaurs live in the center of the earth, it's like you don't feel like, okay, I need to know my shit on the dinosaur. I know you can borrow some of Arlo's books if you want, Martian, really prep for those dinosaur episodes. Uh, but something where it's, yeah, people could be hurt by this conversation. You know, this is high stakes. It's not that it's off the table. It's that you really want to have your shit nailed down for research.

1:03:57 Marsh: I don't need to like Yeah, I'd have to do a lot of work on it and the problem is that the conversations where I have to do a lots of work in research, um, struggle sometimes because those are the ones that feel like I, I've got to get through my points here, and and it doesn't feel like quite the same conversation, so it's, it's a little tricky there.

1:04:14 Thomas: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Marsh, just again, I want to thank you so much for coming on. And really, I've been referencing your show so much. I have a million more questions, honestly, to ask you, because I do think that thing one I'm turning my attention to, and I think that we all should be, is how do we disabuse people of these awful conspiracy theories? Now, I know that's not exactly the focus like we've covered. That's not really, you know, you're not out there trying to deprogram people as your intention. But I do Think that your show is a very important tool in that and just a great show in general and among, of course, your other shows. If you want to show it, throw out all your plugs, feel free. But I want to thank you for coming on and for the excellent work. It I enjoyed binging the hell out of that show. And I encourage everybody else should, too. Thanks Thanks for that.

1:04:35 Marsh: Oh, no it's an absolute pleasure. And yeah, um, uh, listeners, if you do want to go and check it out, I will say I get a lot of people saying, "I love the show, I can't listen to a full episode." So you may find yourself in one of those categories, and that's perfectly fine. It's not for everyone, um, but it's weird, special little niche of the internet where we, uh, where we do odd things, um, in a way divorced from the consequence, I guess, um, or as much as we, you can. So yeah, check it out, and I, I'd love to hear from people who, uh, who've got thoughts about it.

1:05:34 Thomas: And I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about QED and the tickets you wanted to plug in particular.

1:05:34 Marsh: Yeah Absolutely. So QED is, um, soon, now it's like in less than a month's time. So it's like, yeah, the 23rd and 24th of September, um, so we, so I, I don't know if you've been to QE plenty of times now, a lot of listeners might not have been, it's really hard to describe what it is because I put it on, but it's it's a I sort of think of it as like a, uh, festival more so than a conference, I see it as kind of like you go to a music festival, there's a main stage there, and there's stuff happening, and there's room over there where there's someone doing an acoustic set, and there's a thing over here it's all the things at once, so there's like, three, we have a work, so at QED we've got the main stage with loads of really interesting talks, and then we've got a panel room where there's a constant series of panel discussions going on, and we have a live podcast room where they'll be live podcast recordings

1:05:45 Thomas: Oh, holy shit. Really? Fuck. Oh, my God.

1:05:57 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Interesting. It's too much good stuff, Marsh.

1:06:24 Marsh: Of all sorts of stuff.

1:06:25 Thomas: I'll I'll give you an example of this, Marge. I have done live shows there a couple of times, and time I was like, I think I had a friend or somebody who didn't attend, and I was just like, oh, well, you know, I thought maybe you'd come to mine. And like, no, I had to go to this other thing. I was fair, that's fine, there's so, there's so much good stuff, there's like, fuck, could I have gone to that, could I skip my own thing and go to that, there's something, there's too much, actually, it's actually I would say trigger warning, it, FOMO, like, if you're somebody who has a hard time with FOMA, prepare yourself, because you're not going to be able to see all of the amazing things in person that you want to see, unless, maybe, is there a way to see more stuff than is humanly possible? No.

1:06:41 Marsh: Yeah Yeah.

1:07:05 Marsh: So there are, like I said, there are in -person tickets available if you go to qedcon.org. They're £149. So I guess that's under $200. I forget what the conversion is. So it's something that £148, which is, that is true. Yeah. I mean, we're not getting any better. So yeah, it's a $30 or something like that, £147.

1:07:14 Thomas: Idea depends on how wrecked your economy still is from Brexit or not, I think, right? I might

1:07:26 Marsh: But if you can't make it to QED, if you've got other stuff going on that weekend, or if you just want to sample it, because you're not sure about committing to a full weekend, you can get an online streaming ticket, uh, that we're doing for the first ever time this year, uh, for 39 pounds, so that's like 50 something

1:07:38 Thomas: Buy it even though I'm there, Marsh. I'm like, honestly, it's that good. And I will throw out, only not is it, it's the best conference bar none. It really is. I's like, no, I would never pay you for it.

1:07:39 Marsh: No No, I mean, you're paying to come to QED. Oh,

1:07:54 Thomas: Actually the inverse. It is truly that good, Like it really is. And I'm bringing Lydia. We're bringing Remy. I I hope I fucking signed up for the childcare thing. I think I did. I sent an email.

1:07:56 Marsh: Nice. Yes Could we have free child care? That's that's because we do this, we try and make this a, an affordable thing, we try to make it a communal thing, we trying really build this as a, a place where you can be in the sceptical community, so we know that not everyone can afford child care, um, either at the event or at home, so we put on free child care, we got a professional child care services in, and we foot the bill for your, your child's care for the course of the weekend, for the people who are in there because we just think it's an important thing to do, to to build this community that we, we genuinely care about, and I think that's kind of the main thing we care about at QED.

1:08:08 Thomas: Yeah, that's incredible. Incredible yeah if apologies I'm always on a soapbox, but if you're somebody who has only been exposed to the shitty negative uh .s version of skepticism and atheism and thinks that that represents everybody and is like all the movement's terrible because come to this and see why some of us get so irritated at that motion notion of like, oh, I'm done with the a movement because this one person sucked. It's like I'm not, I'm not discounting at all how how much one person can really spoil your experience. I'm not, but it does get frustrating when you see the work, the labor, and the love that goes into this event that you guys put on, it is so well done. It is so inclusive. It's really is, if you want to, and I make sure that's not like a negative kind of confrontational comment, like seriously, come and experience the way better side of of skepticism, of humanism. It really is that good. And I hope people will come and say hi if you do. So definitely QED, check out those tickets. Where do they go again? QED .what?

1:09:33 Thomas: Something. Okay. Marsh, one more big, thank you so much. AndI hope we do this again sometime.

1:09:32 Marsh: QEDcon .org oh Yeah, absolutely, it's been an absolute pleasure. Pleasure, Thomas. And yeah, see you at QED.

1:09:42 Thomas: See you then.