DOD228: Too Online 2

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the show that's crushing your dreams gently.

0:00:33 Thomas: What?

0:00:33 Tom: I'm Tom Curry. I am joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Thomas: Business meeting. Why are we bumming out our audience so much?

0:00:41 Tom: Well, because we're talking about parenting. It's a fucking bummer, man. Oh, God. Why care about something this much if it hurts all the time?

0:00:44 Eli: That's true. That's true. It is a bummer. It is a bummer Yeah.

0:00:52 Thomas: That's a good question.

0:00:52 Eli: Yeah. I think honestly, parenthood, one of the things that parenthood prepares you for the least is caring about something that hurts because when you're a young person, hopefully, right, assuming you don't have a bad romantic relationship, everything that you care about, you care about because it feels good, right? It's like a passion in your life, or it's a romantic partner, or it's like a calling most of the things that you do when you're a young person right you do it because they feel good because they make you feel good and then you become a parent and it's just a series of feeling like a failures like I have you guys gotten to feel success as a parent I'm

0:01:28 Tom: Yes yeah I I I will say I've been I I feel like I've felt successes as a parent I just

0:01:28 Thomas: Here and there. Rarely. I think it doesn't come till later.

0:01:35 Eli: So looking forward to it because I'll tell you other people check in with me and tell me it's a moment to feel successful but I'm already caught up in the next bad thing right people will be like oh oh, it's so amazing that Max is doing this, or it's so incredible that this is happening. And I'm like, oh, yeah, but today is on a different color fire.

0:01:55 Eli: You have to understand. So I am afraid I can't celebrate with you this other fire that we managed to put out. It's a different fire. And gentlemen, would you like to know what fire my life is on this week for the past week or so? So about two weeks ago, my sweet little boy got a sore throat. A little laryngitis. A little pharyngitus, I believe. Big old swollen tonsils. We had him check for strep. No strep, just a little sore throat. Just a little cold from the change of season schnoozles. But because of that sore throat, he choked on some of his favorite foods. Now, Max has a pretty sensitive gag reflex. And as I've talked about on this show before, when Max chokes on a food, he stops wanting to eat it entirely.

0:02:37 Eli: He's like done eating it, which is why I'm pleased to say for the last week and a half, two weeks, my son has eaten nothing except for yogurt pouches. He now refuses to eat anything except a selection of yogurt pouches. So that is a fun thing.

0:02:47 Tom: Oh no man yeah

0:02:54 Thomas: And then does he get like fucking constipated as hell? Arlo was only eating those for a minute. It. Well, not only, but like, yeah. And that's, that's not great to just a bunch of dairy. Oh, I guess it, yeah, maybe that's what I'm thinking. Either way, eating just yogurt is not great for the bowels typically.

0:03:00 Tom: Does yogurt make you constipated I thought it did the other

0:03:11 Eli: So far, we have not seen much of a bowel problem.

0:03:15 Thomas: Oh. That's good.

0:03:15 Eli: We've had, I would say, a slightly more gurgly tummy than usual. I will say the one silver lining to this is that the yogurt pouchEs he likes are a fruit and yogurt blend. And so there's a little bit of fruit puree in there. So he's getting lots of vitamins, lots of protein, lots of calories, probably more sugar than we would want him to have. But again, he literally refuses to eat anything else.

0:03:43 Eli: So I guess he's going to get a little more sugar. And here's a fun thing about having an autistic kid. If you make them eat a thing they don't want to eat, they develop a condition called hard ARFID, which we've talked about so

0:03:43 Tom: Thing yikes man yeah

0:03:58 Thomas: A hard, arfid with a hard R. I'm not going to say that. Cause I think it's only for you to be able to say that hard R okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah off it. It uh

0:03:58 Eli: The fun thing about having a hard arvid yes exactly so the fun thing about that that's true yeah I'm the only well you have to say are a fit or something yeah exactly I only if they're if the music if there are lyrics that may or if you're a character in a play I'm not sure yeah but you get this thing where they lose control of their gag reflex yeah and they so they just start throwing up the food and literally it's not a mental component anymore and so So obviously we panicked and reached out to his feeding therapist and his developmental pediatrician and his regular pediatrician. And the urgent care near us and my entire online group of autism parents. And they all had the same advice, which was, it sucks to suck. Sucks to fucking suck.

0:04:15 Thomas: The songs yeah oh man oof oh no

0:04:46 Eli: So yeah, we're over here in sucks to fucking fuck territory. But gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than the constant feeling of failure because your child can't eat more than one food? Why, it's the auto -ads, the yogurt pouches of your podcasting experience. You can make those go away. Try things like graham crackers, pizza, mac and cheese. The mac and chees of podcasting over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. Where, for as little as a dollar, you get a commercial -free version of every show. That dollar goes into my pocket to pay a therapist to tell me that no matter what I do, things will always be hard and bad. Like parenting into my psyche rip into it alright

0:04:47 Thomas: Good advice okay that sounds so bad yeah sure

0:05:34 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:05:36 Eli: Gentlemen when we left off we were talking about the internet we were a divided nation on the right we had Tom Vania who believes the internet means you'll never learn to wipe your butt on the left was Thomas who said all things on the internet are always good and me in the center representing sanity and sexual power

0:05:55 Thomas: That's how I remember it yeah Yeah.

0:06:00 Eli: That's how the Facebook group remembers it as well that's what's awesome about it

0:06:04 Thomas: Well, importantly, I forgot since we're on that topic, I forgot to announce that our king, the one and only Luigi Mangione cleared of some bullshit charges by the judge on this very day. We're recording. Sorry to heat it up with the time, but I thought, you know, I thought we should sell. Yeah. Cause they overcharged the fuck out. Yeah, I mean, obviously he's going to be fucking guilty of something. Well. I don't know.

0:06:23 Eli: He was with me the whole time thomas

0:06:23 Thomas: Obviously we might vouch for him. We'll see. Yeah he's with us the whole time, But they genuinely tried to charge him instantly with bullshit that doesn't make any fucking sense because you know that capitalism they like terrorism and first degree murder and first agree doesn't that just doesn't make sense for that just based on new york law it's like it's almost always second degree murder it's just a kind of quirk of their law but no they went for terrorism first degree and a judge who has great judgment and an eye for beauty I think saw that and was like no no siree so just I just know that eli and I have a special place in our heart he's not not, yeah. Oh my God. How great would that be? That'd be awesome. Can we do video? Let's switch video. The law doesn't matter. Yeah. Oh man.

0:06:54 Eli: So he's a free man and luigi is on the podcast today you should start opening arguments with him and he's just yeah and every episode is him just being like I don't know about law stuff man and you're like that's okay it's okay you're so

0:07:10 Tom: That's fine. Don't worry about it, man. It's good. It's all good. It's so good.

0:07:14 Eli: Funny crazy what do you think of my new haircut it's my haircut yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:07:21 Tom: All right. So this is a pickup from our last conversation. The question I posed to you guys is like, would you really be OK if your kids were online 18 hours a day?

0:07:31 Thomas: Like what's the limit kind of where would we, yeah, well,

0:07:33 Tom: If quantity is not a factor that we're worried about at all, is it really not a factor we're worrying about at All?

0:07:36 Thomas: Okay. That's a bit of a, I think you're strawmanning me a little. I think I was I was saying quantity sure okay sure yeah

0:07:41 Tom: But hold on a second. My kids will spend 18, 20 hours. Literally, I got up yesterday, and this is no bullshit. I gotup yesterday. I came downstairs at five o 'clock in the morning. There's Donovan. He didn't sleep the night before because he spent the night online. It's a real phenomenon. I really think that there is. That's why I tried in the last episode. I between how we as adults use the internet and how kids are using the internet.

0:07:56 Thomas: Ah dang yeah well I do that same

0:08:09 Tom: It's different. Well, okay, I mean, to me, it's different, I didn't grow up as an 18 -year -old being able to spend 18 hours a day on the internet because it didn't exist. He's a guy in his formative years, and so I look at that and I'm like, and now he doesn't do that very often, he knows it's a thing, he actually immediately adjusted his habits so he can't do it, So all the credit in the world to Donovan, And he's like, that's not a thing I can do twice. But like he will, if given his druthers, spend 18 or 20 hours awake and online. No problem.

0:08:45 Tom: He has no problem doing that. None at all. Like he is very happy in that space. He's got a lot of friends in that place. He actually has put a series of guardrails for himself in place. But that's in large part because we helped him do that when he was younger and he didn't have those same tools to sort of guide his own behaviors. Yours so like that 18 hours is not an exaggeration so I just want to like not like straw man it you know

0:08:44 Thomas: Thing yeah yeah yeah well but but you haven't turned your internet off right so what's your line

0:09:11 Tom: No what we did is took the power cord well we took the Power Chords away when he was younger and he was spending too much time online we took The power cord from his computers at a certain time of the night because it was too tempting for him it wasn't a punishment it was because like we all recognized together that he couldn't handle the temptation of what the internet had to offer for her on his own. And it really wasn't even fair to ask him to. It's like baking cookies and putting them on a plate and being like, all right, I'm going to turn my back and walk away and nobody better eat any cookies. That's not nice. Because it's not fucking yogurt pouches. Yeah.

0:09:44 Eli: Know who would nail that? My son. My son would nail that because it's not a yogurt pouch. Not a fucking yogurt pouch you would fucking ace that test every time. Marshmallow test infinity. Yeah so it's interesting and maybe it's better that I let Thomas answer first because I'm coming at it from a very unique perspective because I have a neurodivergent kid and so something that I am deeply aware of is that a lot of otherwise Otherwise, and I hate to use this term, but folks will forgive me. Well, they won't forgive me, but folks will listen to me because they're not editing the podcast. Yeah, exactly. A lot of normal interactions might be hard for him.

0:10:14 Thomas: They quit our show forever, but yeah.

0:10:22 Eli: A lot of normal socialization might be hard for him, and so a lot of the community he may find may end up being online. So one of the things about autistic experience that I do not connect to is is a different way of socializing as an autistic person. Because I'm not autistic, and I am a very, very social person, right? We've talked about this. I'm a people collector. I love my friends. I have three separate groups of friends, and I now have a fourth group of teacher friends that is already forming at my university. Like, we're all getting learned. I am an natural attractor to human contact. That is very important to me. And Tom, I think we are very similar in that, like, I view other forms of contact as lesser than. And so when Max was first diagnosed, I was like, how do I read everything about his lived experience so that I can be as empathetic as possible and not dismiss things that are important to him because I assume they're just like good thinking, right? So like the food stuff, right. I was joking about the yogurt pouches at the top of the episode. I think if I had not done as much reading as I have on the mindset of autistic people and I had just sort of checked in with family and friends especially if they also hadn't done the reading I think I would have at some point in the last two weeks just been like hey buddy I'm sorry we don't get any more yogurt pouches

0:11:46 Thomas: Unplugging the yogurt pouches.

0:11:46 Eli: What do you want to eat instead right I would just unplug the

0:11:48 Thomas: I took the yogurt patch cable away.

0:11:49 Eli: Yogurt pouchers from the IV that he is constantly on of said yogurt pouch and I would say all right but you know you got to choose something else you got it eat something else and then he He would not be able to do that because of his disability. Or he would do that and it would affect him lifelong, right? Because I have multiple friends who are very much on the autism spectrum, very much ARFID somewhere, sometimes aware, sometimes not. But like, I watch them have that involuntary revulsion reaction and it's got nothing to do with their like physical choices, right. It is that a person meaning well made a choice about parenting them that caused this damage, right Right. And one of the things that is in that reading that I still really grapple with is that Max's socialization might look very different from mine. And that might mean online connection as opposed to in -person connection. So the answer is, and again, this is sort of why I wanted to let Thomas answer first, but he insisted. He was like, no, no. Eli, you did it on infinitely. Yeah. Please, if you just talk 10 minutes straight, I would love that. That's what he always said that's how he starts every episode he goes guys not enough ebos on the last one let's

0:12:50 Thomas: Please talk for 10 minutes first. Yeah, it's true yeah weirdly it gets cut out I don't know yeah it's like edited out every time but definitely happens

0:13:01 Eli: It's crazy yeah it's because Lydia fucking hates me most of the editing delays are just lydia going again it's just she hates it yeah to answer that question I am aware that there may be I don't know about 18 hours that there may Be way more internet when it comes to socialization in Max's life than I would consider to be healthy and that I am in a deeply undiscovered country when it comes to how good or bad for him that will be.

0:13:31 Thomas: Do you think that it would be possible to just because like okay this is a tough question I do think that that that now arlo already spends 18 hours a day playing switch and that's entirely my fault so there's that no but

0:13:42 Eli: With his best friend Zelda. Yeah.

0:13:43 Thomas: But he yeah yeah we I got him on the new donkey kong oh this was a funny one did I tell you this one I wrote it on the facebook so the new Donkey Kong on switch 2 you know I was sad because it's not really two players it's like one of those fucking bullshits like mario where you're the hat you know like I thought it was going to be like he's donkey I'm Diddy or one way or the other you know I thought we're going to do that and it turns out the two players just like oh you can fucking control the somebody that doesn't

0:13:52 Eli: Oh, it's the best. You're a machine gun. It's the best.

0:14:07 Thomas: Do anything it's ah man I I just don't, I just like, I can't quite, I don't know. I was like, you should just play it yourself. Cause it's like not enough for me to want to like do that all the time with him. Cause he'll play it so long, you know? So I was, I was just like yeah, why don't you, you do this solo. And then I, the good thing is you can turn it on and off. So I think I can like hang out with him sometimes.

0:14:26 Eli: Our kids might also just have different goals because Max's only goal is to destroy everything on every level of all possible universe. And so so me being Pauline just just fucking with my sniper rifle, just blasting shit on his shoulder. And I can also break shit he can't break. So it's win, win, win for everybody.

0:14:32 Thomas: Whoa, that's a good game for him. Wow. That's a great game. Yeah.

0:14:44 Thomas: Oh yeah. This is so interesting because Arlo, it's so funny how different he is from me in ways that I don' t totally understand. In. He wants to just run through everything as fast as possible. Cause I'm there. I'm the guy who's like, I'll smash everything. I'll get every bit of that Benandium. I'll get all the, I'll get all of it. I''LL smash to the whole, I'll fucking smash to bottom of the entire level to make sure I've gotten everything. And he's like just moves on. He just blazes through stuff. And then if he like misses something, he's, like, oh, well, and then he just doesn't go back. It's so funny. But anyway, so he's playing that a while, maybe, I don't know, a couple hours, like at first when when he's first trying it. And I was like, oh, you liking it, buddy? And he's like, yeah, he's liking it. And then out of nowhere, like he was playing, he was like man, I like this game. It is a smashing adventure. Because like on the box, that's like the tagline like it's a smashing adventure. It's so funny.

0:15:01 Eli: Banana Nandium. Amazing. Good

0:15:34 Thomas: And I don't think he knows the other meaning of smashing, you know? Like he's just like it is a crashing adventure. Like literally you just smash stuff. Yeah. They're right. They weren't lying.

0:15:41 Eli: Title. It really fits. Yeah. I also like that that statement implies he was withholding judgment, right? That he like looked at the Nintendo box and he was like, I'll be the judge of that. I'll see if it's a smashing adventure.

0:15:47 Thomas: Yeah, there wasn't enough smashing. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see, man. But yeah, right now at least switch has the benefit that for one, he's, he's playing a lot, but he's also, we're keeping him in touch with not playing and he's good when he, when he doesn't play, like when he's missing a switch at the end of the day, usually he'll be like, I didn't get to play switch, but like during the day he's fine. He's still doing things great. So he's still playing, he still doing a lot of other stuff, but he, you know, he was playing too much, but it's, I don't think it's like an emergency right right now. But I would say that if that turns into, and maybe it will, the solo time on the internet, the unseen internet by me, like that I would have a problem with. And I do think that on one hand, I almost want to be like included or something. Like if, I don't know if I would want it to get to that point or let him have his own computer where I can't see him doing anything. I'm not sure, but I still don't really know if for me, it's the amount of time per se. Like I I do think that that's obviously you can go to extremes and I would want him to be doing some other stuff. But if it's just like, yeah, that's the majority thing he likes to do is be on the computer quite a lot. To me, I would like to tune in every so often as in, I don't know, fucking more than once a month, you know, to be included. And I just want to know what kinds of interactions he's having, because that's the key for me. I think the key problem that the thing that I'd really be worried about is if he starts using the fucking the gamer words.

0:15:52 Tom: Smash the adventure yeah

0:17:14 Thomas: If he's socializing with people and his values start to shift to what those people like and what those people like is being the worst version of something all the time for shock value. That's truly horrible. I think it's a bad thing. And that I think is very, very tangibly a pipeline to being a fucking terrorist. You're not saying it always leads to that, but that's what I would look for as that's well on the way. And many stops on theway is being a misogynist, being an asshole, being a racist. Like there's many stops on the terrorist pipeline of that. Um, and they're all bad. So it's like that it would be more about what is the thing he's doing on there? Who is he hanging out with? What is he valuing? What does the kind of the social currency of his little, whatever his community is? Because that's what happened. I did a lot of digging into for recording. I didn't end up doing, I might still do, I don't know, but into the, the shooter that shot the church, the trans shooter that shut up the church. Like, you know, one, two, three shootings ago, ago. I don't know. Five shootings. Who knows?

0:18:09 Thomas: And that person was on a website.

0:18:09 Eli: It's way more than five shootings by now.

0:18:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, like five. Well, we

0:18:14 Tom: What time is it yeah

0:18:17 Thomas: Record this ahead of time. So we're going to, should we?

0:18:19 Eli: You got to listen to it right away for everybody. We'll have that. Go to the shooting counter at dear old dads .com.

0:18:24 Thomas: Go to the inflation calculation for like how many, I think it's 1 .5 times X. X.

0:18:29 Eli: That's what that counter. You know, that thing that used to be the stock market timer. Now it's on the New York city building. Now it is just time until the next shooting. Yeah.

0:18:35 Tom: I'll tell you there is no dust on the this many days since our last shooting cock I'd say there's no dust on that that's just yeah

0:18:41 Thomas: It's just a painted zero. You don't even, there's no, oh

0:18:41 Eli: And it's just, yeah, it's, it was just a zero made out of child blood.

0:18:46 Thomas: God. So yeah, that's, that is it. Yeah.

0:18:49 Eli: I don't know what to tell you. Don't be mad. Just ban a gun. Just don't let people have exploding death machines.

0:18:54 Thomas: Yeah, that'S true. It'S not on Eli. That'S not Eli. He'S, that we know of.

0:18:57 Eli: I've killed zero children. Yeah.

0:19:00 Thomas: He did run over a baby stroller, but we're told the baby wasn't in it. That we know.

0:19:03 Eli: But there wasn't a baby in it. It. So I'm free to go. Yeah.

0:19:06 Thomas: But that person was on, well, I guess it hasn't been proven. I haven't checked up on it, but it's believed that that That person was on a 4chan -esque website called fucking Skibity Farms or something that I went on to research this because I just was like, what is happening here? And it's truly the worst place you could imagine. Like it's once people, once human, certain human beings decide that the social currency is shock, then there's no limit.

0:19:34 Thomas: There's no limits. And if you express a limit, then you are ridiculed in that community as, you know, I don't, I I can't even say the words on the podcast cause it's like, so it's so bad, you know, like that's that anything

0:19:46 Eli: We don't have the vice president here.

0:19:47 Tom: Yeah shit

0:19:48 Thomas: It's bad. They, they call them moral F A G's like that. Anyone who has expresses any problems with like any shock value. And this is stuff that's like it's not just like your mama. This is like animal off abuse stuff. Like it's just awful. Like they, they find the worst things and that becomes their currency. And when you go on that fucking website, you can start to see how this creates a church shooter or school shooter. Like, it's like, oh, okay. Someone takes the logical extension of the worldview that is that entire place. It's the logical expansion of it. And even after they do a shooting, the people there are like, nah, bullshit, don't care. Like whatever it is, no matter what it is. They can minimize it and turn it into nothing because that's the social currency they have. It's evil and it's awful.

0:20:36 Eli: Even on top of that, right. Is that like, and we got into this a little bit in the last episode, but it's, it's something that I'm really interested in talking about, which is like, there isn't a concentrated effort to get people into knitting. There isn't like a, you know, Christian prophetization is actually a a really good sort of allegory for it but like those communities are run by and used by and funded by very very wealthy large networks of white supremacists who all they do all day is prophylatize white supremacy and how to create is that the word that I'm am I pronouncing it wrong

0:21:17 Thomas: Proselytize, I think you're trying to say. I just, sorry.

0:21:20 Tom: No I think it's prophylifier

0:21:23 Thomas: Right. Proselytize, right?

0:21:23 Tom: That's what I think yeah

0:21:24 Eli: I was saying one of the names of the Italian brain rock characters and say, yeah.

0:21:32 Thomas: Yeah, baby.

0:21:32 Eli: All they do is do that kind of prostate. Yeah. All they doing is prostate outreach all day, every day. Right. Like they have a deep.

0:21:30 Tom: Prostate Yeah It's actually an in -reach Yeah

0:21:40 Thomas: I love it. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes.

0:21:41 Eli: Yeah. That's why it's so appealing. But like, it's, it's also important to remember that, like, let's talk about our communities. Right. So like our communities have our like little Facebook groups and I'm not part of them. Right. But when I was part of them, they have like not nice people on there. They're just people who like, when someone comes on and says something wrong, they like bully them, or they just say mean things, they got negative things to say, right? They're a negative force in that community, and there's nothing we, as creators of podcasts, could do that would keep those communities cash money that would involve getting rid of those people. The 97th time someone made a shitty comment, we can't just be like, hey, I noticed that you're an asshole, to absolutely everybody in our community, you should get out. No matter how many times I asked Noah and Heath to let me do that, they've strictly said, you're not allowed to do that. Now imagine that that is dedicated to racism, sexism, and the perpetuation of Christian terroristic violence, because that's a thing that's actually happening at all times in all places of the internet, right?

0:22:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:43 Eli: They consider it to be their mission in the way that we would identify like terrorist cells trying to blow up buildings. And sometimes they blow up building. Speak for

0:22:43 Tom: Yeah Part of the problem is It is not possible or practical To really monitor your kid's internet use

0:22:54 Thomas: Tell that that to Eli Bosnick.

0:23:00 Eli: Yourself

0:23:01 Tom: Okay Outside of the Eli Bosnick model It's really really really difficult To really manage To monitor that stuff And we've talked about like Especially as kids get older and especially as kids grow into adults that very often live at home because there's an intersection there between their privacy and their responsibilities and how much autonomy that they're given. We've talked a little bit about that stuff before, but adult kids live at Home longer and longer. A lot of the people that we're talking about are late teens, early 20s, mid -20s people that are oftentimes living at Home. Very, very difficult to monitor their Internet use.

0:23:01 Eli: I was gonna say

0:23:39 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:23:42 Tom: I think really struck me. And that is like, you can monitor the way that their humor works. And I really think this is something that I have, when I've been like poking into this and reading people who have become perpetually online in ways that are toxic, there's commonalities to the way that their humor deflects from context. They have a, they have a type of humor that is context -free and not just context - free in the way like, family guy, like have a cutaway that's random. It's not that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is it deflects intentionally from context. What?

0:24:06 Thomas: It's what they said about Benjamin Disraeli. You don't even know who I am. Sorry, it's a great family guy cutaway. It looks like my favorite one. Just shows a guy like writing for a minute from history and then he goes, you don't ever know who I am, and then it goes back.

0:24:22 Eli: I trust

0:24:29 Tom: And I think, too, that like people who are perpetually online in spaces that are leading them down really any path that's toxic. And again, there's many, many paths. There's a there's a radicalized path that we're talking about, but I think there's any other paths that are really problematic for people who spend huge amounts of time online. There's an insular language that gets built there's not just in jokes but there's an almost entirely insular language that gets built around this kind of space look

0:24:56 Thomas: Like, for example, if your kid dresses up as a Pepe the Frog meme meme for Halloween. Maybe that should raise concerns for you as a parent.

0:25:05 Tom: I saw the same thing and if that is true and I haven't seen anything well I don't know that I've seen anything in any hard news source that I would trust that says that's a hundred percent

0:25:07 Thomas: It is a hundred percent that he dressed as the Pepe the frog meme. Yeah, he did. The picture's there. It's yeah, it's real.

0:25:14 Eli: Thomas

0:25:18 Tom: I haven'T seen it reported anywhere that be considered hard news yeah

0:25:20 Eli: Thomas is my hard news ai source to

0:25:21 Thomas: It really, okay.

0:25:23 Tom: I haven'T I believe you but I havenT seen it like I haven 'T seen anything from any any hard news source that says that we should really have any, yeah,

0:25:30 Eli: Be fair tom refuses to go on the internet he waits if you haven't stapled it to the front of his paper

0:25:34 Thomas: I'm just confused. It'S, it'S like from his Facebook or whatever their Facebook. ItS not. Yeah. I don't. Okay.

0:25:39 Tom: That's maybe, I don't know. I haven't seen it. So, I mean, I've seen it posted, but I haven'T seen it, all

0:25:43 Eli: What are you trying to prove thomas smith

0:25:45 Thomas: Okay, yeah. This is, I'm just confused, huh?

0:25:46 Tom: I've seen is I've see it posted places, but have not seen it reported anywhere. So I think that there's,

0:25:51 Eli: It's fucking wild for thomas to accuse of the three people on this podcast thomas Smith of making shit up.

0:25:57 Tom: I'm not saying you made it up. I'm saying I havenT seen it in any hard news site. That's what's all I'm sayING.

0:26:00 Eli: No, I like this vibe. I think we should continue just whenever Thomas says something from now on, we're like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see!

0:26:04 Tom: I've seEN the same thing posted though. I 'VE SEEN IT, I 'VE SEEN it posted. But like, what I thought was crazy, just taking that on its face, I think it's crazy is like, supposedly what the mom said said was oh my kid dressed up as a meme and she didn't know what it was and I thought to myself it's your fucking responsibility to know what that is but I think part of the problem is he's a 20 some year old kid and like this isn't a 15 or 16 or 17 or 18 year old kids this is a 22 year old kid who you want them to have their own life with their own friends and their own in jokes and all of that stuff that's normal but I Think that we have to be more careful than we've ever had to be before because there's this force that eli is pointing out that is not unintentional but is extremely well funded and extremely intentional and it is built as a big machine to fuck with people and you've got to recognize like if my kid is in this space where this machine is churning I have a different kind of responsibility that I ever had before when my dad when I was 22 I had a bunch of in jokes and my buddies came over and we had our silly bullshit and like all of that stuff but like there were no forces that were allied that I was a part of that like he would have had any reason to be nervous about he didn't have to have the same level of vigilance I think you have to having much higher much greater degree of vigilence than you've ever had before would you agree with that

0:26:20 Thomas: You better know. Yeah yep. Yeah I think the thing you said about the humor, I think is really smart. I think there are going to be signs and I do think it sucks, but I think if you're at all a parent of anyone in this risk demographic, which, you know, I, I don't think I have to worry about this with Phoebe. I just don't Think she's going to be doing Pepe the frog memes. Like I just something about, I just Don't think, I,

0:27:49 Eli: First female white supremacist mass shooter.

0:27:50 Thomas: Hey, all right. Yeah, maybe. But, um, I Think you actually do as a parent. I totally agree, Tom. I think you need to know these things like I actually think you need to fucking get into the details because that's I guess you it's hard because you don't know what you don'T KNOW like I guess if this mom like I'm somewhat sympathetic if it's like she just didn't even know that this could be a thing I have no idea but like if it'S THE CASE WHERE A PARENT JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THEY DIDN't KNOW I THINK THAT'S TOUGH BECAUSE A LOT OF THIS INTERNET MEME CRAP ESPECIALLY AROUND THIS IS BY INTENTION REALLY NEBULOUS AND AND Yeah, it's like really, really confusing on purpose.

0:28:24 Eli: Obfuscated, yeah.

0:28:25 Tom: Yeah right you've got to look for those like the language of deflection is so built And when you look at like what these kids like with the way that the language and that that far right language, all of those jokes there, they don't make any fucking sense. And that's super fucking intentional. The lack of contextual sense making is a really intentional, plausible deniability creator. Creator so all of that stuff is made so that we can laugh over here and you can't know what it's about and it's to keep you at a distance and if you're a parent and you're like hey explain the joke and they can't explain the joke and their fucking perpetually online you got a problem nobody can explain the jokelike

0:28:28 Eli: Yeah, 6 '7".

0:28:28 Thomas: And I, and I get it. Yeah. Yeah, yes.

0:29:09 Tom: For some of this stuff because there isn't actually a joke built in right what you instead have is a repetition and over time that repetition has come to mean this sort of like culturally understood thing they can't explain the joke because there's no joke involved

0:29:25 Eli: And it becomes useful for people filled with hate without having to declare hatred, right? It's like the okay thing or those other white supremacists gestures, cat culture and meme culture and Pepe the Frog, like we were just talking about. These were all things. And for those of you who have been around since Thomas and I were anciently on Serious Inquiries only trying to debate people about this stuff, like the game that was always played and has now become mainstream to the point of being default was I'm saying a thing that bigots are using to signal each other, but you can't prove that That I am saying it because I'm a bigot. Because a lot of people are just saying it to bother people. Cool.

0:30:13 Thomas: Great. Yeah Yeah.

0:30:13 Eli: Well, and look, that was our interaction. And then I destroyed my mental health and gained 200 pounds. They won, T -Dog. And they're the president.

0:30:23 Thomas: And certainly the vice president for sure. I think it's interesting. I sent you know, there's a yahoo .com which actually just references the telegraph. I think it is interesting the point I don't I don' t totally get why you're saying no major thing it is just a do you think the picture's fake or whatever but point is okay well the picture is real and but the point the reason I bring it back up is is not not an argument but because it goes to I think eli's point which is mainstream people are not dealing with this appropriately I think that there are a number of articles from mainstream sources that have some of the stuff from the shooter you know like some of this oh there were memes and it's confusing but there aren't a whole lot that say hey this photo from this it's this meme here's roughly what it probably means the major newspapers haven't done that yet and I do think it's a sign of like how a lot of society is refusing to engage with this stuff and I think that's part of what we're talking about here

0:30:38 Tom: Well maybe I just haven't seen it my feeling very strongly on this has been I don't want to speculate on the motivations of the shooter so like and I don'T THINK SPECULATION is responsible oh yeah yeah the thing is like no no I the thing is until you just sent it to me and I saw it like until you just sent to me

0:31:28 Thomas: No I'm just saying that he did the meme that's all that's not an up for debate I thought you were trying to say

0:31:35 Eli: Wait, why aren't we speculating about the... Isn't it pretty obvious? Interesting. Talk to me.

0:31:39 Tom: No I don't think it's obvious at all so like I read a whole bunch of stuff and a whole bunch of people saying oh my god it's you know it's a nick fuentes groiper and here's what this means and here is the stuff like from this video game and here is I've read every single thing that I could find on it from any source that was even that I would consider reputable and none of it feels even remotely definitive right now like even remotely definitive. And I do think it's really important if we're going to be skeptical consumers of news. And there's a big thing for me. If you're going be a skeptical consumer of news, be a spectacle consumer of all of the time, all of time. And this is very much included. I saw him in the Pepe pose, but I didn't see that in the places that I typically go for news. So maybe this is my bad. I read the New York Times. I the Washington Post. I Wall Street Journal. I read them all every day. And I read all of them every day, and I guess I don't read every single thing they post, but I read the most

0:32:37 Tom: Of everything that they post every day."

0:32:39 Thomas: I think maybe we just had a misunderstanding of what we thought, because I said he did the meme and then it seemed like you were saying you were doubting that he did it. And I was like, no, he did The Meme.

0:32:48 Tom: The thing is, I didn't see that posted in any of those places. That picture, I only saw that posted on social media.

0:32:55 Thomas: Oh, so you thought it was like faked or something?

0:32:58 Tom: Till I see it someplace that is what I consider hard news? Yeah, yeah. Anything I see on social media, I try to unsee. I try not to see it. Anybody who shares political news, I delete them.

0:33:07 Thomas: Oh, wow. You're like the jury when the judge is like, hey, strike that from the record. The jury did not see that Pepe meme. You'd be a great juror, Tom. I mean that sincerely. Yeah.

0:33:15 Tom: Legitimately, anybody who puts up political stuff or political stories, I unfollow that person on my social media.

0:33:22 Thomas: What? Yeah.

0:33:23 Tom: I don't think social media is an appropriate place to find any information about the news.

0:33:27 Eli: Tom's just following himself. There it is.

0:33:31 Tom: I only follow friends. I only follow a handful of actual friends. Yeah. I won't use social media ever.

0:33:31 Thomas: Wait,

0:33:37 Eli: You follow the E-Boss secret account?

0:33:39 Tom: I Don't Follow You On Social Media.

0:33:40 Eli: Yeah, that's hurtful, Tom.

0:33:41 Tom: We're friends, but if

0:33:42 Thomas: Do I know about the Abasi's secret account?

0:33:43 Eli: Hurtful. It's just all pictures. Yes, we're friends on the E-Boss secret account.

0:33:47 Thomas: Oh, are we? OK, good.

0:33:48 Eli: It's juste pictures of my son.

0:33:49 Tom: It's just your personal account then yeah I follow that, yeah

0:33:51 Thomas: OK, yeah. But your son's very political, though.

0:33:53 Eli: Yeah, there's no politics. It's jus pictures of m 'fuckin' cute -ass son. He is very political. He is often in a Pepe the Frog meme. And I, you know, and that's on me. That's on me 'cause I just love to paint him green. What can I say? So that's a really, I mean, I know it's not the topic that we're talking about, but that's such an interesting way to approach the news. I will be honest, because I read the news for my job, that's how I read the news, which maybe speaks to like a terrific amount of ignorance. But like, I get my politics from ground news because they gave us a free account and they rule. And I get MyAtheismNews from the atheism inbox that we've set up. And then I like double check sources if I haven't seen it in other. Usually we get eight million of a specific story. So I'm like, OK, well, I guess the smart people have all agreed that it's there. And sometimes I'm wrong based on that. But like I don't consider myself a news consumer anymore because my brain couldn't handle it. And so that's that's a really interesting approach that I hadn't considered.

0:34:04 Thomas: What

0:34:47 Tom: I have a rule that I only consume news if I consume it intentionally

0:34:52 Thomas: Is consuming? Well, OK, is this worth going down? Because I pride myself actually on my skepticism in this arena.

0:34:58 Tom: I don't want to sound like I'm critical like I just it's just my personal

0:35:01 Eli: No, I think you're both really scared. That's why I think it's interesting. If me and Tom were disagreeing, it wouldn't be interesting because I'd be like, I just click on the things I agree with.

0:35:07 Thomas: Sabrina, if you look at the picture and the source, it's a Facebook, like there's no, it's not faked. It's like, you can see that it's the account and you can see that the kind of thing that wouldn't be faked, like it's, I don't know if it's worth going down this thing, but not every single thing is going to be reported in the news in this day and age. And when you're talking about a school shooter, there's going to be all kinds of stuff on their social media that you're just never going to see then if your only plan is read the New York Times about it and the other newspapers. Doesn't that seem, I mean, if you don't care, you don't care, but like, if you're trying to get to the bottom of it, I feel like you would have to go beyond those, those sources, but maybe this is a topic for another. Yeah, sure.

0:35:41 Tom: Well I'm not an investor yeah yeah yeah I think that's a different topic but like yeah

0:35:50 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:35:51 Thomas: I guess the point of all that was assuming your kid is doing those kinds of memes. I do think your comment, Tom was, was right on that. Like, I think you got to watch out for, and if you have any more insight as to what to watch out for actually really would, would value that because you're right. It's like the, the ironic, I I can't quite put it in the right words that you did, but like the humor becoming detached from the point. What were you saying about that? Because I think that was really insightful.

0:36:16 Tom: It's an operation of humor that deflects from context that's just what I just see it like when I when I'm looking at these spaces and I'm trying to figure out like how does this work and I see the this sort of shit that they're saying to each other. And I'm like, my first thought was like, this doesn't mean anything. And then I thought, well, it's just an inside language I don't know. And then I thought, no, it's actually not just an inside language I don't know. I think this is a purpose-built language that is designed so that you can't know it. It deflects itself intentionally and structurally and semantically from its context. And it's, it, that stuff is actually pretty seeable. So like, once you see that, you notice it and And it's fucking like it's a giant klaxon. It's like because it feels weird. It doesn't feel like my kids will have inside jokes.

0:37:03 Tom: And I might not 100 percent get it, but I can figure it out from context. Right.

0:37:03 Thomas: But they could explain it in words that would do something. Yeah. Whereas this is designed to be able to, whoever your outgroup is, and that might be at any moment too, like whoever you want the outgroup to be, you can claim or make them not understand it as a way to pull one over on them at any time. I think that's what it is, right? Yeah.

0:37:09 Tom: Right. You know, and like you could explain the joke. Yeah. Right?

0:37:25 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that that stuff is all built real, real, real fucking intentionally.

0:37:30 Thomas: Here's what really blew my mind about the church shooter from the other week or whatever. Yeah. And sorry, you know, it's kind of dark stuff, but yeah.

0:37:39 Eli: Again, you're going to have to be more specific. There's probably been like 11 church shootings since then, Thomas.

0:37:44 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. But the one that I'm talking about that was on this website, that person left like kind of a heartfelt note to their family. And what struck me is so weird and not bring up, not just to be a bummer, but like that might make it a little harder to look out for things. If this person apparently could still maintain a duality in which one part of them was on this awful fucking no morals, ironic internet that led them to put memes on their bullet casings and kill people. And then on the other hand, they seem to be expressing in this note, this letter to their family, heartfelt things of a kind. That also made me nervous too, because I would have thought, I would've hoped, I guess, that it's kind of one or the other. I would hope that if you're going to lose connection to fucking humanity that you fully lose connection but it might be a little scarier if someone's able to kind of maintain that part of themselves enough to fool their family yeah

0:38:39 Eli: And can I throw out there as well that like, again, because the problem is the guns, right? It always comes back to the guns. Right. If the guns aren't there, it's not. We pointed a lot of things. But at core, it's the guns. It's the guns, the guns and so the issue, too, is like a lot of the time we are trying to parse someone who is in psychosis and I haven't done any of the research on this, but I'm going to speak in general terms. Right. Because we see this happening with mass shooters a lot. I remember it happened with the the Nashville shooters. Everybody was like, what motivated him? Because he was like the most prolific shooter. He killed the most people and everybody was like he killed the most people at that at the country music concert the guy who shot out of the uh the wind he was vegas sorry not nashville vegas yeah and everybody was like oh he had a tumor he did this he had that but like right he was an older guy and then he shot himself and he wrote a note about his physical health and the thing that I want to point out about this is I think because and I think this is a problem of the internet I think because the internet has become comes so separate from reality because everything is so psychotic when a psychotic person just vomits drivel

0:38:51 Thomas: Yeah the most important part of it you're gonna have to be more specific. No I don't I actually don't remember oh wait no that was in vegas yeah okay okay yeah that was it's like an old man, right? Or something.

0:39:48 Eli: Psychosis onto a notebook we go well which part of the internet is responsible for this when some of it is the internet and some of it is psychosis and some of it is personal grievance and some is this that the other like there's no making sense of these ideologies I think we can agree that the internet makes it worse. But I think very often, especially larger media outlets, they want to wrap it in a neat little bow because the messy answer is, yeah, there's a lot of bad things about culture right now that cause a person to pick up an easily usable multi -bullet death machine, right? And the answer, which again, like mainstream media outlets are not discussing this in any way that is meaningful is that nobody under any circumstances should have a gun and then we make our way up from there. Then we start it.

0:40:42 Eli: No, we go to the sticks and rocks age when it comes

0:40:47 Thomas: I actually 100 % agree with that.

0:40:47 Eli: To guns and then we all sit in a circle and figure out who gets the first gun.

0:40:52 Tom: You You know I love that because I fully fucking agree with it. And then I'm just like, OK, but what are we going to do instead?

0:40:58 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah, sure. Yeah that's not, yeah no

0:40:58 Eli: No, it's a great point.

0:40:58 Tom: Because like we're just we're like and I hate to be that guy because I'm just like well, we're something we're not going to do that, right? We're just not going to do that. And I'm like, all right, well, fuck, like I'm a parent, you know, and I'm a parent of like teenage boys that are in the danger zone. And a parent to a teenage girl who's in a different online danger zone. I'm so very, very aware of how much safer they feel to me. And maybe this is bullshit. Like, let me just also say, maybe this is just total horseshit, but it feels so much safer to me.

0:41:03 Thomas: Yeah, no one thinks we're gonna do that.

0:41:31 Eli: Like news shared by Thomas.

0:41:32 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. Sure.

0:41:33 Tom: It feels so much safer to me when they are in the real world, hanging out with their friends. And I know Caitlin and I know Mahar and I know, you know, all of their, I know Ajay and like, I know them.

0:41:46 Thomas: Oh yeah. Love them.

0:41:48 Tom: I know these people. I know their parents.

0:41:48 Eli: Doxed. Got them.

0:41:50 Tom: I can understand. I can hear what their in jokes are when I go bring them popcorn you know what I mean

0:41:50 Eli: Give me their phone numbers.

0:41:57 Tom: They're safer when they're online I don't like that I don't like when they're on line building a community of strangers that I have no idea are they building something safe are they build something not safe it's bad like I don't there's a lot of reasons I don't like it but like I also just like I'm like fucking and I can't imagine that this is good for you. I just can't.

0:42:21 Thomas: Yeah but I also really think that you're right on with the things to look out for. I think in the in with with someone like Arlo who I think it would be cruel for me to decide that he can't be on the computer at all. He's just going to be be that kid. He just is, you know?

0:42:33 Tom: But it's like, it can't be all or nothing. Like, I'm totally there. Like, yeah, like, yeah.

0:42:35 Thomas: Yeah, no, but I'm saying, yeah, yeah. But like in the event that that's his main way that he likes socializing and I'm not, I guess I'm Not positive on that. He's really good with other kids actually. It's just, he just is interested in video games a lot. So we'll see. But I think trying to tune in, that would be awesome. I would love that.

0:42:48 Eli: Oh, I would use one of my wishes to make him a jock. Oh,

0:42:58 Tom: I know you guys don't watch the show Love on the Spectrum, right? You guys, you've not watched that show, either of you?

0:43:02 Eli: I actively hate it more than anything in the world, Tom.

0:43:06 Tom: Oh, I love that show. I think it's a really beautiful show. I really like that show. It

0:43:10 Eli: Here's what I'll say about that show. Here's What I'll Say About That Show. I believe that people watch that show with very open hearts. I think people watch that show and see people with a different viewpoint on life and a different version of neurons, and they learn about another's experience, and I think it is a deeply empathetic and positive experience. I know for a fact what the people who make that show are doing. I have made too much TV not to know what they're doing. I see them, and I'm also a lying psychopath sometimes. So when they're like, what? It's about the thing you said at the beginning of the sentence. We're just neurons. We want people to... I know what you're

0:43:27 Thomas: What do oh just exploiting autistic

0:44:00 Eli: Doing, and you're lying. I never forgive that show for it yes they're exploiting autistic people. I

0:44:05 Tom: Doesn't feel exploitive when you watch it, though. I will say that. It doesn't, you don't get that vibe. I was really worried it was gonna feel like that. I don't, I don't get that vibe at all.

0:44:15 Eli: Know what they're up to they can't fool me

0:44:16 Thomas: People sure

0:44:17 Tom: I don't know, man. Like, let me let me get to the point. Like there's a there's

0:44:20 Thomas: Autistic

0:44:21 Eli: Yeah no speak to your point sorry

0:44:21 Tom: A woman who's on that show. Yeah, that's OK. There's a woman who's really in it. No, she's very much autistic. And she's clearly has, you know, she may or may not be able to live entirely independently. But she's she's, you Know, got really great and really appears at least really supportive parents and every indication from other things that I've read and seen. It says her parents really work really hard with her. And when she was a younger person growing up autistic her social skills were really really measured and small and and it really limited her life and they've worked really really hard with her and now she's in a committed relationship with another guy and she's she had a much she clearly has a much richer social experience than she did from what her mother said and all other indications and I just think just because somebody is autistic doesn't necessarily mean to your point with Arlo doesn't necessarily mean that they don't want and value

0:44:28 Thomas: Sorry sure yeah

0:45:19 Tom: In-person human connections too. So I just feel like I don't wanna bucket people one way or the other, I guess. And I know you're not doing that. No, you're not either, Eli. But I don'T see the internet as a panacea for people with disabilities necessarily. I donT think that they are less likely to be radicalized. I less danger. I don't see it as a panacea. I see them as in being every bit as much danger as everybody else, because why wouldn't they be? There's nothing that shields them necessarily from those dangers. They may get something out of it that they really want. And a lot of people get stuff out of the idea. I actually use the internet every day like everybody else. I know we're not going back, but it's a place that doesn't become less dangerous and less fraught because you like it our kids who like it a whole lot are not in less danger I I feel like that's an important thing to sort of like say out loud

0:46:19 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:46:25 Eli: All right well gentlemen I've got another important thing to say out loud people don't like when I make jokes about ghosts who have sex with owls but you know what I say to that boo fucking

0:46:39 Thomas: Yeah stupid oh man

0:46:39 Tom: God that's so good I love that one I liked that

0:46:40 Eli: Who oh

0:46:43 Thomas: Oh I I meant to mention at the beginning maybe I'll leave it in for everybody that speaking of being too online and video games or whatever tonight taking uh arlo and phoebe because she didn't want to be left out and that's great to the Stardew Valley concert thing and I think Arlo's gonna love

0:46:59 Tom: One tell me what a stardew valley concert is

0:47:02 Thomas: It so Stardey Valley is the video games the farming video game that we actually just kind of finished so that's why Arlo moved on to the Donkey Kong thing but the concert is just like the music from the game and they play it I haven't looked up exactly what they do because I don't like the spoilers but I have heard it's a lot of fun and it's the it's also so cool because Arlo is so good with the video game music. Like he's just incredible with the music. He knows what everything's from, what every part of the game it is that the song is. And it's, I think he's really going to like it. And I, and I'm excited for that. And I hope Phoebe has a good time too. She's not as into the video games, but I think she'll have a good thing.

0:47:39 Thomas: She'll have time with the whole thing. She likes going to stuff, you know? So I think it'll be fun.

0:47:39 Tom: That's awesome a stardoom family concert so they do they play all the songs like in the order you would encounter them in the game is that a stupid question

0:47:48 Thomas: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. They might. Don't tell me. Don't tell me, Eli. Don't. Yeah, it's going to be really cool. No. Yeah. Yeah, it's what I figured, basically. I just don't want, don't tell me anything specific. But yeah, no, they play, because in Stardew Valley, because it's farming, there's the different seasons and each season has a song, you know, and there's going to be stuff like that. It'll be cool. So can't wait.

0:48:07 Tom: That's awesome

0:48:53 Eli: Necessarily but they they do it with a full orchestra oh okay yeah it's great there wasn't a baby in it so I'm free to go

0:49:04 Tom: No, I think it's profitable