WTW92: Transphobia Has Melted Bill Maher's Brain

Transcript

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

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is my amazing wife, Lydia Smith. How are you doing?

0:00:49 Lydia: Hi, I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

0:00:51 Thomas: Uh, good. You don't even, you don't know! You don't even know what you're in store for.

0:00:55 Lydia: I have no idea except for who it involves. And that's about it.

0:01:02 Thomas: Yeah, I thought it was high time. This is something that could be every single episode of the show. Like, we could just focus, and given that our show is about debunking anti-woke, uh, you know, scare stories and all that kind of stuff. And you might think, like, oh, who would I be talking about? Well, for one, they probably already know from the title, but I'm not talking about Ben Shapiro. I'm not talking about Trump. I'm talking about fucking Bill Maher, one of the most obnoxious goddamn anti-woke people in the world. And I thought it's high time I check in on Bill

0:01:08 Lydia: Oh, yeah, it'd just be the show. Yeah. Yeah, I see what he's up to. Yeah? Yeah.

0:01:31 Thomas: Maher. I hate it. Yeah, I absolutely hate it, our TV wants to make us watch it all the time, just like no matter what I need. I need an option of things I hate in my TV, like this is why I wish, like technology is scary, AI is scary in certain ways. I could imagine such a good version of certain things you know like if we felt like making things good you know.

0:01:44 Lydia: The blacklist. Yeah.

0:01:55 Thomas: Like give me give me AI for one thing that can make my phone at all type the things that I want to type. It just it's so fun. It's worse than ever. I've been doing this observation for 15 years and it's true every single time and it is worse every single time. I can't even it's unbelievable. Voice to text is terrible. Here's what my thing does.

0:02:01 Lydia: Voice to text is always terrible. The swiping for the text is not great either. It messes up a lot.

0:02:19 Thomas: There's an amazing glitch. Hey, Tim Apple, if you're listening, my phone does this. I don't know if it's just an iPhone thing or what, but when I'm typing something and then it decides it wants to auto -complete another word.

0:02:30 Lydia: What?

0:02:30 Thomas: So like example, I'm saying, oh, I's going to, as in, you say like, oh are you going to do something? I say, oh I'm going to. But then maybe the auto -compete is like, I am going to the store or something. And so I'll say I'm go to. The auto-complete will suggest the, because it's wanting to do another thing. But I don't want that. So I'm already hitting send. Like I'm going to, and then what it'll send is I'm going to the, even though I never, yeah, you, you I, you have you noticed how many of my messages you get that have an extra stupid word on them that aren't anything. That's what it is. Yeah.

0:02:50 Lydia: That's an Apple thing. I do not experience this.

0:02:57 Lydia: Yeah, but also I know that you're dealing with a lot of texting nonsense too, so I figure it's that but that's

0:03:02 Thomas: But it's this every time. Like it's so fucking stupid. Like it doesn't make any sense. Why would it default to like, if you don't do anything, it's sent anyway. Uh, what were we talking? What show are we on? Are we recording? Shit. This mic's on. Okay. Anyway, Bill Maher is the worst. Here's the thing. I have a lot on this I don't know that I have like a clean two different parts but I think it's going to be a lot so there might be a point where I'm just going to be like all right and scene and then like yeah because I also have some interesting stuff so Bill Maher on his stupid fucking dumb show with his dumb face that oh that's how I got on that I wish the ai could select like I want to select things I hate and then have that apply everywhere yeah like like I won't want

0:03:11 Lydia: Crazy calling it yeah yeah never show it to me again yeah yeah

0:03:42 Thomas: If we're we're going to get Skynet, have it be useful in some way, you know, because I just want to be able to say, hey, I don't want to see Bill Maher's face ever. HBO, I'm never going to watch a show. Now, the irony is I had to watch the show to do this, but that doesn't count. They didn't know that. They don't have any idea.

0:03:56 Lydia: Yeah yeah you have like one sanctioned work device that like you can access it on

0:04:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, but imagine if you could do that like through the whole internet, like through everything. And it's like, yeah, I do not like this particular thing. Don't ever show me it. Or I do like this particular thing. That's what the algorithms try to do, but they're bad at it. And anyway, so Bill Maher has his new rules thing where he says, new rule, I'm an old fucking Gen Xer, I think, that complains about everything that's anti -woke and I'm basically the same as Ben Shapiro and all the anti -owak people when it comes to almost everything that he talks about.

0:04:32 Lydia: Except religion that's like the only thing

0:04:34 Thomas: Yeah, it's like 90 % of what he talks About. But then he still claims to kind of be a liberal and all that. And he's like, fair enough, he's anti Trump, I guess, although he did have that Trump visit that we talked about, but I decided to check in with the new rules and it's perfect because he wants to make a grand bargain. Are you ready for this?

0:04:52 Thomas: The grand bargain is in order for the right, like if MAGA and Trump, they should stop their whole authoritarianism, fascism thing, right? And then what's the, what do you imagine the left's going to do? We're just going to stop being woke. We're going to start doing all the things that Bill Maher already hates, which is really cool for him because he's like, here's the deal we'll make. Everybody do only things I like. Like that's the Deal, which was pretty cool. And in the process of that, we can talk about it because his examples I think are funny. We'll go through it. But there also was something that he brought up in the more culture wars area. And it's Bill Maer. It's Andy Wokes up. So, you know, it's going to involve trans people. But There's an interesting thing I came across, which Is a scientific American article from two years ago. And then there's like a Neil deGrasse Tyson appearance from like a year ago where he didn't

0:05:01 Lydia: I am um oh okay gotcha yeah yeah interesting yeah

0:05:40 Thomas: Bash it enough for Bill Maher. So then Bill Maher, like he's in Bill Maher's shit list forever. It's the other thing that's funny is Bill Maher forms all these like permanent grudges for this stuff when people aren't anti -woke enough. And then in doing that, I was looking at some stuff there. There's going to be some really funny things that I want to play for you. And dann also I went into the Scientific American article and I actually I think I have a surprise debunk. And so I'm going to give you a bit of a left debunk. You know, we're always debunking the anti -woke side, but there is a bit of a debunk in this Scientific American article that I'm excited to go through because I think it's interesting. And I also just think the main thing we support here is like truth and nuance and all that. So I want to go all through all that, so we're going to get some fun, awful Bill Maher stuff. And there's another thing, I can't wait. I can'T wait for you to experience this. Bill Maher has an entire argument. I'm teasing it now. I don't know when we'll get to this, He has an entire argument with Neil deGrasse Tyson in which he never knows what Neil de Grasse Tyson is saying. He has a whole, like a whole argument where he just, he's never talking about the thing. It's so fun. It's, it's amazing. But imagine talking past someone, but yelling and scolding them while you don't know what they're saying. Yeah, so good. So, wow, that was a long intro, but that's what we're going to do. I'm excited for it. Should be fun.

0:06:35 Lydia: Geez oh geez just talking past him the whole time interesting and they're neil degrasse tyson and like yeah

0:06:57 Thomas: So why don't we take our first break here? Please support the show patreon .com slash where there's woke there's more attacks on you know sanity than ever woke ism is practically defeated in when it comes to society and how people are viewing stuff and how yeah yeah and how the victors are you know writing the history or what do they say history is written by the victor's or whatever like it's kind of that is happening a lot and so I think shows like ours that actually talk about the truth behind these things and expose the anti -woke lying constantly I think are important so if you you think so too patreon .com slash where there's woke and you get to skip the ads and get some bonus stuff so I think we can start we'll start with this this this always happens where I start with one thing branches off to 100 other things because

0:07:09 Lydia: Well and the mainstream media is complicit in all of it now too so yeah yep

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0:07:45 Thomas: All these and it's well but it's it's not just that yes and you're right but yes it's adhd but what we found with all these things is that the anti -woke don't have like these discrete distinct fun fact okay this is adhd thomas I I just learned or relearned for the 10th time because I keep forgetting that there's two forms of discreet and they're spelled differently. Did you know this?

0:07:46 Lydia: The thomas smith research method. Yes. Yes, I did.

0:08:10 Thomas: Who did? I'm going to do the Trump thing. Nobody knew this. Nobody knew that. I didn't know they were spelled different. I knew there are two different words, but I didn't know they're spelt differently. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell me. Go. Now, how they spell differently. Shut up. She edited that. So it worked. Yeah. Okay.

0:08:15 Lydia: I'm going to guess. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, they're definitely spelled differently. D-I-S-C-R-E-E-T. D-I-S-C-R-E-T-E. I'm

0:08:29 Thomas: I'm bad at spelling. So I never knew that yes.

0:08:31 Lydia: Gonna tell you, I 100 % truly believe that you have learned this before. And then it just has not felt important to keep in your mind. Yeah. Spelling is arbitrary, yeah.

0:08:37 Thomas: I that's why I can't spell because it's arbitrary. I remember things. Yep. It is. I'm sorry. You want to have this argument? Oh no. The way we spell words is handed down by God and follows rules that are always true. No, it's arbitrary.

0:08:52 Lydia: I agree with that. Okay.

0:08:53 Thomas: It's how things are spelled is what people decided or what they language evolved to.

0:08:58 Lydia: Within, no, no.

0:08:58 Thomas: And they're literally the same word in UK English and our English are spelled differently.

0:09:02 Lydia: With the yous, yeah, but okay. Okay, okay. Thank you for clarifying because I thought you meant you could just put whatever letters you

0:09:04 Thomas: That's how, what I mean by arbitrary. There's no, no,

0:09:10 Lydia: Want and like what you mean is what you means and I have to figure that out. So that was my position. Yeah.

0:09:15 Thomas: That's the Eli Bosnick method. That is the Eli Eli Bosnick's firm position. I know there's a quote unquote right way, but that right way is not important to me because it's arbitrary. There's no reason why the E -T -E versus the EET, like there's no season. Like I know they're, there's like, no, no. There is a causal reason, but I'm saying there's, it's not important. Like it doesn't, you know, like that isn't anything that matters in our lives.

0:09:30 Lydia: I mean, I think there is from Latin, right? All right. Any linguists listening?

0:09:40 Thomas: So my brain is like, No, it doesn' fuck. Don't argue me with this. It doesn't matter.

0:09:45 Lydia: No, I just, I want them to chime in. I want them to charm in.

0:09:47 Thomas: I think it's interesting if you want to study that, but like rough being spelled that way versus if, if we had just happened, do the alternate history in which it was spelled R -U -F -F is anything different? Does it matter? It doesn'T matter. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, point is they don't have discrete. Yeah. End of part one, turn over the tape. They don't Have discrete. And by that, I apparently mean the E-T-E one. Yes, I think. Right?

0:09:54 Lydia: R -U -F -F. Episode one. Just kidding. Yep.

0:10:16 Thomas: Yes, thank you.

0:10:16 Lydia: Yeah, distinct, discrete, E-T-E. Mm -hmm.

0:10:18 Thomas: Reasons and problems or policy issues or whatever with the woke. They have a scattershot web of 400 million lies. And so every time we try to do anything, debunk anything, we've talked about this. It inevitably spreads exponentially. We have to be like, wait a minute, did this person say that? Oh, did that? Wait, did they do this? Did they cancel that? And then you go so far afield because the anti -woke stories are most often so dumb, they have to like be this massive web of lies in order so that if they debunk any one of them, they don't care, you know? And so I just went on one of those for a bit, you know, off of this. And I, but I think it's interesting. I think there's some good, interesting stuff here. Let's hear Bill Maher's amazing point about how we should deal with the fascists. Hey, what if we just, Bill Maer has the genius to ask, hey, have we considered appeasing the fascists? Have we considered capitulating to that? Has anyone ever tried capitulating to the fascist? Has any one throughout ever history, has anyone ever thought of why not just capitulate to them?

0:11:15 Lydia: Maybe about 90 years ago. Yeah. God,

0:11:23 Thomas: Let's let's hear his take here.

0:11:24 Clip: And finally, new rule, as it's kind of late in the fourth quarter for America, and we're behind by three touchdowns, let's make one last stab at a grand bargain between the two sides that hate each other so much. America used to do this all the time, make bargains, and I've suggested many myself, like, you stop saying fetuses are the same as babies, and Will stop saying trans women are the same as biological women. You stop saying alternative facts, and

0:11:49 Lydia: Go away. That made me so mad. So, yeah, like literally immediately I just wanted to jump out of my chair.

0:11:51 Thomas: It's amazing. Already. Yeah. I love how he's doing. We that's my favorite thing.

0:12:00 Lydia: Yeah. Unbelievable.

0:12:02 Thomas: Here's the deal. Everyone believe what Bill Maher believes. That's the only. Yeah.

0:12:05 Lydia: And like, like the audacity to be speaking for the left, right? Like, geez, unbelievable.

0:12:11 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. I don't know.

0:12:18 Lydia: Who says my truth? You'd say like,

0:12:20 Thomas: I I mean, it was a thing you would make fun of the woke for saying, which you wouldn't call it woke back in 2014 or something, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

0:12:24 Lydia: Yeah. I have not heard that in so long. I mean, like, I guess people say like lived experience, right. Like that's kind of the phrase used now yeah

0:12:32 Thomas: Right there is instantly why this is such both sidesy horse shit. Like one of them is them literally denying reality and saying, no, that's all. We have alternate facts. Like we have, we have. That's not, it's fake news. Alternate facts. The other is like, yeah, for people when they're talking about usually like personal stuff or emotional stuff, people have different truths and you can make fun of it. And it is kind of a punchline to say my, I'm speaking my truth, but it's a punchline that's not, it wasn't like Barack Obama was famous for saying like, my truth is, you know, it's yeah. Yeah.

0:13:04 Lydia: It's not like my my truth about the holocaust like that's not what people say

0:13:10 Thomas: It's like in a, in an argument maybe, or when you're talking, expressing your feelings or whatever.

0:13:13 Lydia: Right your perspective of a situation or whatever you say like well my this is my truth like and yeah that it's just it's something he finds annoying and so that's his example

0:13:19 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. And fundamentally he's, he's setting up an explicit both sides. Like I wouldn't even think he would would argue with that. Like he's saying, no, no. Both sides suck. Here, let me pick out these equivalent things. One was that a fetus is a baby, which involves taking away women's rights, taking away reproductive rights, is not scientific, any of that. And the other is just saying, yeah, trans women are women. It's fine. Tall women are woman, you know, short women are men, trans women are women, and there's science behind it. And it's also like not exactly science when it comes to like societally, like it's, it's about gender, which isn't necessarily a question of science. It's just a question OF culture and a question Of meaning that we give to stuff.

0:13:48 Lydia: And also based in science yeah exactly oh yeah

0:14:03 Thomas: And it's like, so it's already not, even if you wanted to have a problem with, with that or with, with trans athletes or something, it is like, these aren't equivalent things at all.

0:14:03 Lydia: Absolutely who yeah who are the people laughing yeah

0:14:16 Thomas: It took him a while to laugh at that one. All right.

0:14:19 Clip: Truth. You stop saying thoughts and prayers, and we'll stop with the land acknowledgements.

0:14:25 Thomas: Well, look at this. Oh, hold on. Let's get the, let's get the audience.

0:14:26 Lydia: Sorry how in the like okay I can kind of see how he's like set up these these things for you know the first example the second example they're at least like related ish so like I could kind of sea at least from you know if I'm putting on a bill maher hat or whatever and like figuring out this perspective like kind of tying those two things together for his first example the second sample this has nothing to do with each other at all so I don't even really understand like like was he running out of things to say or

0:14:47 Thomas: Like the first two. Yeah, sure. Yeah he's really struggling struggling with this construction. Yeah. I'm like, okay, but let's, I just love, I just love the pure evil that is this comparison. Thoughts and prayers is when a bunch of children are murdered instead of fucking doing something about it. The evil murderous death cult of guns of the right is like, well, thoughts and prayers about it, that's all we can do. It's all he can offer. It's hard too, because I'm trying to like parse his stupid comparison. He doesn't mean like when we say thoughts and prayer is like is a mocking thing. He means like when they offer thoughts and prayers instead of gun control is the only way that it's a thing that the right does that, you know, that that's the thing. The other side is land acknowledgements.

0:15:40 Lydia: So literally just saying this institution stands on land that was cared for by whichever tribe and stuff like come on uh

0:15:48 Thomas: I have like a theory, but I think it's actually giving him too much credit. I think I, cause my theory would be, oh, okay. Are you saying, and this would be actually almost like a far left thing, which is why I know it's not what he's doing. You could almost make a valid argument about this. If you're saying, Hey, the right has a thing they say that doesn't fix a bad problem. And the left has a thing we say where we just say, oh, sorry about stealing your land, but we didn't actually do anything, which yeah, there's no fucking way that that's what he's saying.

0:16:15 Thomas: Cause that, that would be interesting if you're like, oh yeah, we say these land acknowledgements, but what are we actually doing? Are we even helping, you know, indigenous people or is it just empty words? I don't, I mean, maybe he's going for that, but I don'T think so. Cause he, I don' t know that he gives a shit about that.

0:16:11 Lydia: You're right that's giving him a lot of credit it would be yeah

0:16:30 Thomas: It's not an issue he talks about or cares about. Out. Yeah.

0:16:30 Lydia: Right yeah exactly I was gonna say like unless maybe he's talked about it on episodes that we have not watched or something like maybe he is on the side of that but like I do not have that connection in my mind at all so I would be surprised if that's where he's coming from

0:16:43 Thomas: I know the thing he's saying when he says the land acknowledgements, what he's saying is that's stupid and we just shouldn't do it. Like that's what I know he believes because that's all he talks about is this exact kind of thing and why things people on the left say are hollow and stupid and pointless and we shouldn't do it that's basically his whole yeah reason for being but one is like enabling child death and the other is like, oh, I don't want to have to hear someone say a land acknowledgement.

0:16:57 Lydia: Yeah it's virtue signaling right like yeah yeah for 15

0:17:09 Thomas: It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. Land acknowledgements are interesting. We could talk about them. I'm amazed. I know we have many listeners from everywhere. Canada seems to have like really, I don't know what the proper phrase would be, but they do serious land acknowledgement stuff.

0:17:16 Lydia: Seconds

0:17:25 Thomas: Because it'll be in the hockey games. It'll be like before every playoff game that's at a certain, and maybe it's only certain areas of Canada. I am purely speaking, this isn't something I researched for the show. So everybody don't hold me to anything. But when When I watch hockey games in Canada and playoffs, you know, when they're in the Canadian hockey games, like at certain Canadian arenas, like there's like long land acknowledgements and it's interesting. I don't know. I just find it interesting.

0:17:25 Lydia: Good yeah well I think they have not that our country doesn't also have a dark history with how we've treated indigenous people but I think Canada has they are trying to reckon with that some of those big stories that came out in the news right where they were finding like the ways that like indigenous folks in canada were like horribly mistreated as recently as like the 70s and stuff with regard to like education and sterilization and all those things so yeah I think that they've just decided that they need to reckon with

0:17:53 Thomas: Yeah. No, we all do. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of thoughts. For one, I am surprised these still exist. And I worry, I worry. I hope Canada is doing better than I've been a little distracted with us. I haven't kept up, but like, this feels like one of those things that in the great rewrite right of history that we're doing right now where all the woke stuff was a mistake and stupid it feels like these are like on the chopping block any moment but that's just my feeling being an american hopefully maybe canada feels you know I don't know what's going on I don' t know the the mindset there you know in terms of this but like if these were american if the nhl had been doing american land acknowledgement statements it would be gone this year like there's just because of the atmosphere we're in where anything remotely woke is like boy what a dumb bullshit we we were doing. But it's also funny because I am somebody who doesn't like or care for meaningless words without action. And so I don't know, like, but I don' t know. I would also be interested in how much like the tribes of each area that's actually the one he shows. Let's see the Bay Miwok people, the Ohlone people. Like I don'' t maybe those tribes like this might be meaningful to them. They might have traditions or views about land that make a land acknowledgement about this meaningful to and that's if they do, that's great. I just had a quick thought now, which is on one hand, this is the perfect white America thing to be mad about because it's a thing that happens at a time that you're probably not

0:18:58 Lydia: I don't know it's education yeah yeah

0:19:27 Thomas: Expecting it. That feels like this great infringement on your time as a white American, you know? And then I was thinking like, yeah, but you know what they do right after that is the stupid fucking national anthem.

0:19:36 Lydia: National anthem yeah everywhere all the the time. Constantly. Yeah.

0:19:40 Thomas: And look, if someone wants to be consistent and be like, Yeah, get rid of both of those. Okay, I'll go for that, actually. But if you're like, Oh, get past this land acknowledgement, so we can sing our little worship song about the flag. Like, fuck off. It just goes to show people's blind spots. And I think so much of the anti -woke backlash is people have these blind spots and they very much don't want to be told that they do or have it pointed out that they don't. But the kind of thinking I would rather do is being more considerate,

0:19:46 Lydia: Or North Korea worship song. Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm.

0:20:08 Thomas: You know, and like wondering if, oh, maybe I have, you know like I said, I would find land acknowledgements weird just because I would worry that it's like papering over something is all. Like I would, does that actually, but I don't know. No, that's just an inclination. And I would be open to, and I imagine, by the way, here's another thing that anti -wokeism relies upon. I imagine some people somewhere have put some thought into that.

0:20:31 Thomas: Bill Maher's entire existence is, nope, everyone's an idiot and anything they thought was dumb. And, I can come in here for anything and just, my first initial gut reaction is smarter than whoever thought of this. That's what his entire fucking shtick is. Everyone is an idiot it except Bill Maher all the time. And maybe sometimes he's right. Like at certain things, he's Right. When he's making fun of Trump, you know, it's like, oh, that's kind of, but like, he'll turn that on anything. And it's just shows how hollow it is when he turns it on something that actually has some thought to it, because it just shows like, if that's what your mind is doing, if That's how you are thinking about things, you're not doing a good job thinking. So you shouldn't be somebody people listen to. Oh, they're clapping for me.

0:21:15 Clip: You admit there's no such thing as voter fraud, and will admit that getting a picture ID isn't really that hard to do stuff like that

0:21:22 Lydia: All right. So stupid. Just I don't have much to say on that other than just like so stupid like these are things that have been debated about over and over and again and there are barriers to to that for a lot of people those are just not equivalent things yeah

0:21:41 Thomas: This is two ways of democracy not happening. You stop this attack on democracy and we'll let you do a different attack on bureaucracy is what this deal was.

0:21:50 Lydia: We'll reinstate all of the voting barriers and stuff of the south like let's do it let's just let's get back to it because then we could protect our elections

0:21:57 Thomas: Yeah. I guess I would ask, okay, Bill Maher, why do you think the right is so intent on voter ID laws? And why do you think people on the left have resisted it? Do you think that they just decided arbitrarily like spelling to have that position? Like, yeah, no, we did. They said they want it. So we said we don't want it. Or is the reason the right pushes for those and the reason the left resists it is that they know that there's a percentage effect, a pretty significant percentage effect. But even if it's small, there's a percentage affect that that restricts voting and makes it harder for people, particular people. Yeah, exactly right. Particular people.

0:22:10 Lydia: Yeah like spelling and in particular demographics disproportionately yeah yeah

0:22:36 Thomas: And there's no benefit because voter fraud is not a thing, doesn't it? In fact, it's funny that like the first thing where it's like voter fraud isn't a problem. If they're going to admit that, then that completely negates the idea that you would need these stupid fucking thing you know voter id laws yeah and so yeah it's just once again another false equivalence but okay

0:22:47 Lydia: Because voter fraud's not a problem yeah because we have safe and secure your elections someone wooed

0:22:56 Thomas: But this is where yeah they all they all do I mean not for nothing I can't imagine the empty hollow existence of getting up in front of a crowd and saying the same three talking points about trans people and other bullshit anti -woke bullshit and getting these like haphazard applause sometimes they They forget for a while and then for three seconds. Oh, we're supposed to laugh. Ha ha. The woke are dumb.

0:23:21 Thomas: Yeah. Ah, what a boring existence. I gotta say.

0:23:15 Lydia: That jeez yeah so awkward yeah yeah

0:23:25 Thomas: That's why no one ever cheers for anything I say and I never hear it.

0:23:29 Lydia: Or if they do we literally never hear it

0:23:36 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:23:36 Thomas: But here's where this is what spawned a bit more research and just looking back into stuff.

0:23:43 Clip: But as it is so late in the game let's just go right to the granddaddy of bargains now the left will seriously quash all their loony woke and the right will stop the slide into autocracy that's really the only card left to play

0:23:59 Lydia: What tell

0:24:02 Thomas: By the way, just went to, uh, the guests of this show. Um, Nancy Mace is one of the, yeah. Yeah. Nancy Mace. Incredible. Cool. Cool, I wonder what she said. I almost watched it and I was like, nah, I can't do it.

0:24:06 Lydia: Me oh wow nancy mace wow yeah no not worth it please don't become nazis And in exchange, we will like.

0:24:18 Thomas: Yeah, it's dumber than that. Here's why it's dumber than that, and I know this is at risk of Bill Maher -ing myself and repeating something I say a lot. The process is exactly backwards. What fascists and religious nuts and white Christian nationalists and racists and billionaires have done is say, hey, you know what would be a good way to get our agenda to happen is to distract people with endless fucking made up horseshit about this other side that we've demonized about trans people who demonize immigrants we demonize so let's just focus massive propaganda networks that are funded by billionaires into nothing but that and Bill Maher an idiot took that bait and is like hey okay here's the deal we'll make we'll stop doing the things that you're saying we're doing in order to do fascism and you stop doing fascism deal it's like no I got news for you no deal they're not going to do that deal it isn't a genuine response to a thing that's happening it's the thing they want is fascism the way they are achieving it is making up these stories all the time and you're too stupid to realize

0:25:32 Lydia: Yeah no that's a great point. I mean like ultimately what it boils down to is needing to sow division across a large group of people. Anyone who's seen A Bug's Life knows right. This is the classic ants versus grasshoppers.

0:25:45 Thomas: That it's your go -to you do go to a bug's life a lot it was significant text in lydia's life

0:25:47 Lydia: I do go to A Bug'S Life a lot. Honestly listen I saw a tweet or something where someone was like like a lot of you haven't seen A Bug's Life and it shows.

0:25:54 Thomas: But yeah, that's fair.

0:25:56 Lydia: You sow division across the general populace from these people who are in power and then Bill Maher comes in and says, let's stop being divided by giving the people in power what they want. That's 100 % what it is. You're 100 % right. And that's been their plan all along.

0:26:11 Thomas: It's just so funny to take that as it's like if you told Hitler, like, all right, you stop doing a Holocaust. And we'll admit that sometimes the international Jew is a little, you know, conspiratorial or whatever. It's like, no, you don't. What the fuck are you talking about? Both those things are the same thing. They want both those things.

0:26:29 Lydia: Man, it's so crazy.

0:26:29 Thomas: It's not a deal that they would make. Like, I don't how could you be so fucking dumb?

0:26:34 Lydia: Yeah.

0:26:34 Thomas: I guess it's what we've been fighting is what makes these anti -woke stories so easy for these fucking idiots to swallow is it just plays into all their biases. And especially people like this. It's amazing, like not exactly like the who goes Nazi, but in kind of a way like who goes anti -woke would be an interesting article to write.

0:26:52 Thomas: Actually, I wonder if anyone's done that, because it's specifically this personality. Like I've talked about it so many times. It's people who cannot be wrong. Like Bill Maher is never wrong ever in his life.

0:27:02 Lydia: Mm-mm.

0:27:03 Thomas: He's got a huge chip on his shoulder. He is white. That's a big part of it. White male privilege. And so it's just inevitable that like anything that other people are saying who might be people of color who might people who want him to like maybe stop and think for a sec is going to look like an insane stupid thing to him. And he just has this anger. He's so mad about it. And this is another reason I wanted to do this is we haven't gotten to it yet, but just looking at like the way he's born these grudges about here, I'll keep, keep going and we'll get to what I was going to talk about, but it's just so, it's so sad and funny.

0:27:38 Thomas: And it's a lot of very sad, but also like pathetic and funny and gross. Anyway, here we go.

0:27:46 Clip: Because the basic problem we have in America is conservatives think the liberals are insane, Now, I don't think most liberals are sane, but neither do they make it clear they disapprove of the ones who are, and their cowardice in not marginalizing their own crazies I couldn't get Neil deGrasse Tyson, a genius scientist and preeminent scientific voice in the media, to agree that it was ridiculous for a scientific American and the Atlantic to be claiming that separating sports by sex doesn't make sense. Actually, it makes perfect sense. And it's obvious that it does."

0:28:01 Thomas: What?

0:28:02 Lydia: Yeah, what?

0:28:08 Thomas: Here we go, Nancy Mace, happy and clapping. Live your life in such a way that nothing you say ever makes Nancy Mace happily clap at you. Like literally, if that ever happened to me, I'd be like, fuck, what did I say? What was it? Did I ask? What did I do? How did I accidentally make that happen?

0:28:47 Lydia: How did I make her happy? I need to do the opposite. Yeah. I just have to call it like how pompous that is. Like I couldn't get Neil

0:28:48 Thomas: Yeah, did I? Is something on my face? Is that what's?

0:28:57 Lydia: deGrasse Tyson, this incredibly intelligent person to understand this basic fact.

0:28:57 Thomas: Yeah, it's so good.

0:29:02 Lydia: Like, I couldn t, I couldn't get him.

0:29:02 Thomas: It's amazing. It's Amazing. I love this.

0:29:05 Lydia: Shut up, Bill Maher. Then maybe you re wrong. Then maybe you should reevaluate your stance on that. Come on. Such such a

0:29:12 Thomas: It's so dumb on so many different, he is a supreme narcissist. This is. It's so dumb on so many different levels. I just love it. I want to I just want to hear it again because we're going to trace back. So naturally, I was like, what is this? I'm tracing back how this happened. It'S so funny and it'S such a window into the sad psychology of Bill Maher because it'S even worse than you would think. So let'S just get this claim right here.

0:29:18 Lydia: Narcissist yeah

0:29:36 Clip: I couldn't get Neil deGrasse Tyson, a genius scientist and preeminent scientific voice in the media, to agree that it was ridiculous for a scientific American.

0:29:48 Thomas: So first off, is he like a liberal politician or anybody? You know, like it'S Does that have anything to do? Yeah. It's like if someone was like, name your top 100 public, like liberal intellectual or what left, whatever. Neil deGrasse Tyson would not come up.

0:29:52 Lydia: Yeah he's crafting policy exactly yeah yeah no because you don't think of him in that space yeah

0:30:05 Thomas: No, I don't even think of him politically. I think he's been pretty cool on some issues. And I got to say, Bill Maher is such a piece of shit that I'm not a huge fan of Neil deBrasse. Tyson, because there are some allegations against him. AndI guess now that history is rewritten such that me too was a mistake or something like maybe everybody's just cool with it or whatever.

0:30:24 Thomas: Yeah, I know. It kind of didn't really do anything. So ever since then, not a fan. I'm not a fan. Also, I wasn't really a fan of kind of how he talks about science. It just kind of annoyed me, but I am a fanof astrophysics, and I did listen to his podcast back in the day, like 2009 or something. Yeah, because I just love science, and he's got plenty of interesting things to say.

0:30:23 Lydia: God that's depressing star talk yeah I loved

0:30:44 Thomas: Yeah ,I liked Cosmos, but I didn't like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of it all, but whatever. Point is, I'mnot a huge fan. This made me like, oh my God, do I like him again? Because that's That's how bad Bill Maher was in this. And Neil deGrasse Tyson like stands up for trans people pretty well. It's incredible.

0:30:59 Lydia: Cosmos it's not also like such a weird gotcha too it's like asking someone who what like this this guy who studies

0:31:03 Thomas: I couldn't get this guy. Yeah. I

0:31:08 Lydia: Astrophysics to tell me you know things about biology and like Like, yeah,

0:31:11 Thomas: couldn'T get this podcaster about space to say a thing about sports and gender. What?

0:31:18 Lydia: It's very it's strange. It was kind of like that attempted a gotcha for Ketanji Brown Jackson, right? Like, can you tell me what a woman is? And she's like, well, I'm not, you know, no, that's not that's not my area of expertise. I'm Not Here to Define That, et cetera, et cetera. It feels like that almost.

0:31:36 Thomas: Now I could go through the rest of what he says, but we've, we've heard it so many times. It's the same anti -trans bullshit. Oh, they're making kids be trans without any, whatever. That's just nonsense. Sense it's the same fucking shit over and over I can't imagine wanting to talk about this so much you know like if they would just fucking stop attacking trans people I would never talk about this again like why would we go through the same bullshit like imagine being so simple -minded that you're constantly like no the penis and the vagina two different rooms they got two different like your whole life is dedicated to that you know it's like so boring to just be constantly on that all the time I

0:32:13 Lydia: It's like such like you're stuck in fifth grade sex ed, basically. Yeah.

0:32:16 Thomas: Know and it'slike there'll be congressional hearings where they're like Like, first question for you, does the peepee and the vagina, which is the girl and which is the boy? You're like, how did we get to this? Like, what are you talking about? And it's just constant. It's constant.

0:32:29 Lydia: Like the National Anthem. It's the national anthem and debating whether or not trans people exist yeah

0:32:33 Thomas: Yeah. It'S almost as dumb as the national anthem. I agree. But I had to track this down. I was like, what, what is he talking about interestingly enough? I found two things. I found the one that I think he actually was referring to, but that was second. So the first thing I found was on his dumb ass club, random podcast, where I'm not, I'm so annoyed all the time by him.

0:32:51 Lydia: God I'm surprised we haven't covered anything from club random I don't think ever well I probably will I mean the

0:32:59 Thomas: We're doing it in one. It's like a vaccine. We're getting, we're getting all our Bill Maher out of the way and fall so that like, yeah, hopefully, hopefully none of the Bill Maier attacks us throughout the year. Like we don't have to, we don'T even get any violent Bill Maer fits throughout the year. This interview we're going to watch is the most awkward fucking interview ever.

0:32:59 Lydia: I know the antibodies and yeah yeah

0:33:17 Thomas: That's the one he's actually talking about. It's from November, 2024. So somewhat recently, and it's on his actual show and it'S the most, we'RE not going to go through the whole thing. Thank God. But it is the most awkward interview to the point where I'm like, I think they might hate each other, but not know it. You know, like they're so awkward and they're just like arguing and bickering at every little thing. And the club random one happened a year prior to this.

0:33:16 Lydia: Oh

0:33:42 Thomas: So I don't know if it's just like I don'T know if Bill Maher just has it like permanent grudge against him for like that or something.

0:33:32 Lydia: Boy yeah oh okay Okay.

0:33:48 Thomas: And it is constantly. But we actually do need to go through this because it does paint a picture of how sad and pathetic the anti -trans life is. Because, so Neil seems to be on the show. I haven't kept up with Neil, but he seems to have a book out and it's probably science books. Probably fine. I think he's, and I will say, I think Neil deGrasse Tyson has been, I think a good defender of trans rights from what I've seen. And if I'm, if I'M wrong, I'M WRONG. But like I've SEEN in numerous places, this is why I give Neil actually quite a bit of credit. There've been plenty of other people who sorta defended trans people until like two years ago or a year ago when the election happened, who then stopped. And I feel like Neil has kept going and I appreciate that. Like I, that's more value at a time when things are so shitty. I actually, I actually do have a feeling of like, let's give people, let'S give people a little, little, a little thumbs up, a Little recognition for not being pieces of shit.

0:34:36 Thomas: I know it's a low bar, but like, holy shit. When everybody's under the bar, maybe I guess definitionally, it's not a low bar anymore. Like, like maybe we need to recognize, like, thank you, Neil, for sticking to your guns as of November 22nd, 2024. I don't know if I've seen anything after, but I think he's been pretty consistent on it.

0:34:52 Thomas: And I think he maybe has trans people in his life or something, because it comes across pretty genuine, consistent, heartfelt. I just want to say I appreciate it, Neil. I know I'm not a huge fan of you, but I do appreciate this. So he has Neil on to talk about his science -y book. And I'm going to try to play as little as possible, but I just I just want I just just want you guys to hear this transition and just like how fucking stupid this is. He's talking about a science book and they have like a bunch of awkward interactions about this where it's like I I don't know watch Watch it if you want, but it's like, it's super awkward. And I get the sense that it's, like, for one, Bill Maher's a piece of shit, but also Neil doesn't really know how to handle what's happening because I don't think he picks up on everything that Bill Maer is kind of saying in a way. Barely any point in bringing it up except that it seems to be this dynamic where they don't understand each other, but Neil is, like a pretty, like nice guy just in general in demeanor.

0:35:41 Thomas: And so when he doesn't understand what's going on, he's just kind of confused and he tries to, like soldier on kind of. But Bill Maier, when he does not understand, just yells at people. And so it's like he's just gets so mad, just yells. But anyway, OK, forget all that, because right now he's explaining his book. Don't know anything about it, but it sounds like a science book. Sounds delightful. Whatever.

0:36:00 Clip: There's poetry, there's other sort of turns of phrase, there are interviews with historical figures. I don't quite understand gravity, and Merlin remembers a conversation with Isaac Newton. That's what's in the book. So I was celebrating basically a life of bringing the universe down to Earth, and I wanted that to also be there available in the 21st century. And when you write a book like this, and it's somewhat for children, children... Can I just finish my sentence? No, not if you're wrong.

0:36:34 Thomas: It's a bunch of this. Yeah. Oh, I got to skip through this because it goes. Yeah, it's just a bunch. It's just weird crap like that.

0:36:41 Clip: I want to do, is be a force operating on adult curiosity, which is something we lost decades ago. All children don't know shit, and I don't knows shit. So like for me, it'll sound like that. When I got the feeling, when I got that, you know, a 10-year-old would, This will be perfect for me to try But let's just talk about where children are with science, because I found this very disturbing this

0:37:10 Thomas: Here we go. Oh, interesting transition.

0:37:14 Clip: Scientific American, the magazine.

0:37:16 Thomas: How's that for a transition? OK, so they're talking. They have a really awkward conversation about his book and it's combative in weird ways, but also whatever. I guess it's fine. And he's like let's talk about the children and science is that transition

0:37:30 Clip: With science, because I found this very disturbing this week. Scientific American, the magazine. Well, their editor had to quit. Yeah, I heard about it, because she expressed some opinions. Okay, sure, but it sure didn't sound scientific. It didn't sounds like the person I would want to be running Scientific American. Okay, I could read it to you. It's really ugly, you know.

0:38:00 Thomas: Here's what's funny and this is again this is so fucking artificial and we haven't even gotten through to how he's trying to fucking bring this up and bring this back to his hobby horse but he says okay the kids with science scientific american it's like this word associate kids science scientific american here we go editor quit or she resigned or whatever and it seems like neil knows knows the story because he seems to say, oh yeah, for expressing opinions on Twitter.

0:38:30 Thomas: And this is so fascinating because right away, I think that is Neil saying, oh, yeah, you know how you're always against canceling? She had to resign because of opinions on twitter. And then Bill bristles, of course, and is like, well, it's not very scientific. Okay. All right. This isn't the point of the story, but I do want since you pulled up the bleats or whatever.

0:38:37 Lydia: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Tell me what you think about these. There's several that she posted kind of quick order.

0:38:54 Thomas: Election night when all All of us were feeling a certain type of way.

0:38:58 Lydia: Yeah every four years I remember why I left Indiana where I grew up and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist. The moral arc of the universe isn't going to bend itself. That's the first one. After After that, solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high school classmates are celebrating early results because fuck them to the moon and back.

0:39:20 Lydia: And then the next one after that, I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists. That's it.

0:39:27 Thomas: That's it. Yeah.

0:39:28 Lydia: Those are the ones that I can find right here. And there may be more, but these were the three that, you know, right wing Twitter was calling out and saying science is not politics is what one of the right wing folks on Twitter said when they shared the screenshot of this.

0:39:38 Thomas: Oh, well, that is weird because it sure is. What are you talking about? All the time you are half, 80 % of your political fucking talk is, oh, the left does not know the science of gender. And it is like, yeah. So, this is not what I wanted to get into, but I love that there is not even a thought that Bill Maher would be consistent and not care about the cancellation. We are going to find out how he zigs on this.

0:39:42 Lydia: I mean, like all the stuff they're doing. Yeah. Yeah,

0:40:02 Thomas: But let's suffice to say, I love that a totally normal, reasonable reaction to the U .S. electing a fucking fascist after everything we've gone through, electing a fascist, electING the same idiot fascist in 2024. Having a totally reasonable reaction that means like you can't be the editor of Scientific American. Yeah.

0:40:21 Lydia: And also, it's not like it was the Scientific American Blue Sky account that she's, you know, posting this on. It was her personal account where she has feelings on a night where a lot of people had a lot OF feelings. So frustrating to me that that happened. But as you said, beside the point.

0:40:34 Thomas: Yep. And I was just thinking like, I would think just in my personal bias, I wouldn't be I would distrust any scientist who wasn't extremely upset about Trump being elected again. Not for nothing, like all the science funding that has been cut, like you wouldn't be a good scientist if you were like, okay, with Trump being elected a second time. Like it's totally reasonable, damn near scientific to have that reaction because fuck these people.

0:40:54 Lydia: I mean, Health and Human Services, what's happened there? Like like where we're at with acetaminophen. And I can say it unlike other people. Yeah.

0:41:06 Thomas: Acida, I love he's like, is that okay? Who was that for? Acida Smithen, I'm banning a thing I can't fucking pronounce. Anyway, get this for a very organic transition.

0:41:12 Lydia: So funny. So stupid. Mm hmm.

0:41:20 Thomas: Transition bill maher said okay your book science science book kids kids science hey here's the state of science and kids scientific american editor got fired or resigned I forget what she said but she resigned

0:41:30 Lydia: Resigned.

0:41:30 Clip: Well, their editor had to quit. You saw this. Yeah, I heard about it because she expressed some opinions. Okay, sure, but it sure didn't sound scientific. It didn't sounds like the person I would want to be running Scientific American.

0:41:38 Thomas: Yeah that sounds scientific to me yeah now it wasn't on twitter right

0:41:51 Lydia: It was on blue sky.

0:41:51 Thomas: Blue sky now how do you think we're gonna get from here to where we end up any guesses you don't know any Any idea? Okay. So, yeah.

0:42:00 Lydia: All I can think of is like he was so intent from the beginning of that interview to say like this book for children. And then Neil deGrasse Tyson was like, Like, it's for adults, too. Don't just say it's just for kids or whatever. But it was so clear he just wanted to be able to talk about kids and science. And, like, that was his goal the entire time.

0:42:16 Thomas: Well, I would say yes, except that this doesn't relate to kids in science, really. So, like, it feels this, like this is just Scientific American. The editor resigned for, so that doesn't involve, you know what I mean? So, I don't even know.

0:42:27 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Then I have no idea.

0:42:29 Thomas: So, let's find out. So, what he has said is it's unscientific, though, these rants on blue sky.

0:42:33 Clip: Okay,I could read to you, it's really ugly, you know. Now, I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists.

0:42:41 Thomas: No, that's right on to me.

0:42:41 Clip: Okay, I'm not for canceling anybody on either side. But here's what I think is the scandal.

0:42:49 Thomas: Uh -huh. Sure. But, here we go.

0:42:52 Clip: This is in Scientific American.

0:42:56 Thomas: That's so good. Not for canceling it, but here's what I think is the scandal. Now, what the fuck is he going to say? Less than a year ago.

0:43:04 Clip: Inequity between male and female athletes is the result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes, but of biases in how they are treated in sports.

0:43:15 Thomas: Okay.

0:43:17 Lydia: That's not nuts.

0:43:18 Thomas: What's nuts is fucking the convoluted MC Asher fucking way that he's getting to this, where he, I don't even know if people remember why we're even here. I'm going to remind you in a minute. So the information that Neil has right now from Bill is, Hey, this scientific American editor resigned. Here's what it's for. It's these opinions on blue He says Twitter, but on Blue Sky that were rants about the fucking fascists, which I don't think Neil's like a super lefty, but I don'T think he's a fan of the fascists.

0:43:46 Thomas: There's a sense, especially when he laughs, that's kind of him being like, oh, yeah, kind of reasonable. And then Bill Maher is like, okay, but here's what I think is the real scandal.

0:43:49 Lydia: I'm like, oh, that's kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah. What is Bill Maher trying to get out of this conversation? Like, I think about that a lot when people start doing, like. Nonsensical questioning and stuff. Up and it's like okay you just want to be able to rant but what are you expecting from this other person otherwise excuse them from the stage and just do your rant yeah oh

0:44:24 Thomas: And But now we know there was this other conversation from a year prior where Neil defended trans rights a little bit to Bill. I think Bill knows he has this position. So Bill Maher wants to constantly like find it's like when you have a disagreement with someone and you're like constantly finding ways to bring it up. Yeah. OK, well, what?

0:44:41 Lydia: Randomly texting an article or something like eight months later yeah out of the blue

0:44:42 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I saw this, you know, and when. Yeah. And I relate to that when it comes to like, you Know, Trump or family or something. Oh, it was just perusing and saw that. But he's done it in such a fucking weird way. What is what is neil supposed to say right now let's see what he's how he handles it

0:44:57 Clip: But here's what I think is the scandal. This is in Scientific American, less than a year ago. Inequities between male or female athletes are the result of not inherent biological Biological differences between the sexes, but of biases and how they are treated in sports

0:45:14 Thomas: Is that from my book

0:45:15 Clip: That's nuts and it sure ain't scientific and it's in scientific American and that's why the Democrats lost the

0:45:23 Thomas: Okay yeah he generally genuinely bursts out

0:45:23 Clip: On your platform you come up with another reason why the democrats lost you already you already have the answer they lost the election

0:45:23 Lydia: That and neil laughing oh my god amazing amazing yes

0:45:34 Thomas: Laughing this

0:45:37 Clip: So anything you say that's why they did it. First of all, you don't watch this show. So you don' t know this. I know you don't and it's okay.

0:45:41 Thomas: Is so good that's so good that would be funny if it was a joke but you could tell he's serious about it he's absolutely deadly serious I think

0:45:44 Clip: But you talk as if you do and you fucking don´ t and that´s ok. Just don´d bullshit me. That´s the one thing people can´t ever do on this show is bullshit me and that's fine. But I don't say that. I have very good reasons, but engage with the idea here.

0:45:58 Thomas: Sorry engage with the fucking what what are you talking about first off I can fucking tell that he's genuinely mad at Neil deGrasse Tyson for not watching his show it would have been a funny joke if he just left it at the first line and be like oh okay but like he really he's like you just pretend you do but you

0:46:12 Clip: What I´m asking is scientific Americans can´T ever do this show as bullshit me, and that's fine.

0:46:13 Thomas: Don't it's like Jesus Christ dude here we go

0:46:18 Clip: But I don't say that I have very good reasons but address engage with the idea here what I'm asking is Scientific American is saying basically that the reason why an NBA WNBA team can't beat the Lakers is because of Societal bias what you're saying is not Scientific American says that an editor for Scientific American

0:46:34 Lydia: They did not say that

0:46:38 Clip: Says that who no longer has the job so don't indict a hundred-and-seventy-year-old magazine because somebody okay Okay, this is called Scientific American, and they're printing something that's... Because someone enters the cesspool that is social media, and then participates in that exchange.

0:46:54 Thomas: Let's this is so off the rails I don't blame Neil because Bill's insane Neil is making logical inferences that are actually wrong because Neil is assuming that Bill's not insane but Bill is is insane he's like okay well this must have some connection to the first thing you said it has no connection she didn't write the article she was editor during the time it came out I guess but like he's assuming well since bill is bringing this up maybe she tweeted that or something or maybe because like he is just apropos of nothing

0:47:22 Lydia: Or yeah contributed to the article itself or something but my question would be that is being written because there has been research done around that

0:47:25 Thomas: Yeah she's not an author on it

0:47:34 Lydia: Exact idea that exact question and so my question if I heard that I wouldn't say that's nuts I would say let me check out that initial research that was done that prompted scientific american to say hey we should write an article about this because there's some interesting work happening in this

0:47:35 Thomas: Probably yeah and we're gonna look at the article it's interesting but like what the fuck are we doing here bill What are we doing here? Because he's had on Neil deGrasse Tyson to talk about his book, about fucking Merlin having conversation. It's probably fine. It's a fine, whatever. It's fine science book.

0:47:53 Lydia: Area

0:48:07 Thomas: I don't know anything about it. And then he's like, OK, here's the state of science with kids. Scientific American, does that or quit for some political like anti -Trump stuff? And then now here's The Real Scandal, which, by the way, has nothing to do with why she quit.

0:48:22 Thomas: I mean, other than I actually think it does have to do in that I think when she made these These blue sky posts, I think, obviously, conservatives were already, you know, MAGA is already pissed at anyone like this and her and probably dug up the stuff and, you know, they do that post hoc rationalization of why she should be. It's not really canceling because actually here we found this stuff that means she should have been canceled. That's what they do. They're anti -cancellation unless it's somebody that they think should be canceled and then they're fine. But it has nothing to do with this. How would you expect your guest, Neil deGrasse Tyson, to follow what the fuck is happening here?

0:48:22 Lydia: Yeah it's so off the rails yep yeah

0:48:56 Clip: What you're saying is not Scientific American says that. An editor for Scientific American said that, who no longer has the job.

0:49:00 Thomas: Yeah, she didn't.

0:49:02 Clip: So don't indict a 170-year-old magazine, because somebody... Okay,this is called scientific American,and they'reprinting something that...

0:49:11 Thomas: And he has just selected one quote from an article that Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't know. There's no reason he would have that memorized from a year ago. And he's like, defend this person who's in a different area of science. Like what, what kind of fucking lunacy is this? Like what? How deranged do you have to be to make this your interview on your show?

0:49:31 Clip: Because someone enters the cesspool that is social media, and then participates in that exchange. Why can't you just say this is not scientific And scientific Americans should do better

0:49:43 Lydia: He well he can't he can say that because he hasn't looked at the research because because you're springing a random thing on him from a

0:49:44 Thomas: Because he doesn't Know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. Why

0:49:51 Lydia: Completely different field for something that's old.

0:49:53 Thomas: Can't you just agree with me without me explaining anything? Yeah.

0:49:56 Lydia: That's crazy. Any scientist, even people who are in fields where this might be more relevant, would be like, I'd need to review the research that that's based off of. They would want to look at primary sources, at least the news article itself, if not, again, looking at those primary sources. We know that scientists, when they're doing their job and stuff, they are are careful, they are methodical, they're thoughtful about the kinds of things that they give credence to or not. It's always going to be nuanced. It is always going to be complicated. It always going be speaking about a particular sliver of the population or the environment in this particular way. So I think it's such a disingenuous thing from Bill Maher that's obviously, as you pointed out, just born out of his grudge that he has against Neil deGrasse Tyson trying to find,

0:50:07 Thomas: Maybe read at least more than one sentence of a quite long article.

0:50:48 Thomas: Not against trans people and against the left.

0:50:49 Lydia: Well, Well, no, but specifically know about Neil deGrasse Tyson and the issue that they had at the Club Random podcast. Like, it's just he's throwing nonsense at him because he wants to get him.

0:50:58 Thomas: But yeah, yeah, there's no sense of a real conversation happening. So here's the reason that fundamentally Bill Maher can't do this is because he can't have an actual conversation about this issue. Because in his mind, and this is him with most things, but definitely this, in his mind, the other side is so fucking stupid that no one could possibly believe it. So in Bill Maher's mind, there's no one who could believe anything like the idea that maybe differences between men and women in sports aren't what we think they are, to put it mildly. And so for him, he can't have that conversation. So all he can do is confront somebody with an out of context quote and be like, you must agree instantly with me that I've given you no information, but you must disagree instantly. And when he can, he's like, what an idiot. But he's never, he didn't have a true conversation in good faith where you're like, all right, here's what I believe. Like if you're Bill Maher, here's what I believe. I believe men and women are very different. They shouldn't be in the sports. What do you believe other person who exists?

0:51:30 Lydia: And the straw man example that he gives, too. They're so ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.

0:52:02 Thomas: And then they might be able to explain kind of a nuanced position about this. And who knows if it's somebody who's defending this article or whatever, like that's a conversation. Bill Mahr can't do that. He's incapable of doing that. He's invented a platform where he never has to do that, even though he has people on who disagree, he just yells talking points and then quits. Like he's, he really, really cannot handle somebody disagreeing with him at all. It's amazing. It just, it infuriates him.

0:52:25 Lydia: Yeah. Thin-skinned and lazy.

0:52:28 Thomas: And when it's something he doesn't really care about, he can kind of let it go. But when it's like this, he just cannot get over that someone disagrees. And so he's set up this extremely ridiculous artificial trap. And then let's, so let's get through the rest of this real quick.

0:52:51 Clip: And then And Scientific Americans Should Do Better Well does she still have her job I said the scandal is not her tweet Because that was like a year ago ago I think a year ago women still couldn't beat men in basketball or any other sport and

0:53:02 Thomas: Then it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make, they have extended coverage. This is the flow of logic there. Neil doesn't know what's happening, but I totally feel for him because he shouldn't know what's happening. Bill Maher is being insane. Neil's like, she doesn't have the job, right?

0:53:09 Lydia: What?

0:53:23 Thomas: And you said the real scandal is this, but yeah, but then Bill Maer does it as a gotcha ah, but you forgot that I completely fucking arbitrarily brought this up and has nothing to do with anything, idiot. So he's like yeah, she wasn't canceled for this and he's like, oh yeah, because that was a year ago and that's Neil just trying to clarify like one of those was a year ago. He's not even making a claim. He's like, one of those was a year ago. And Bill Maher says, well, I think women or men could still be women a year ago. It's like what?

0:53:23 Lydia: Yeah, but why are we talking about her, then? Yeah.

0:53:51 Thomas: That doesn't, he was just clarifying that she wasn't canceled because of this, because this was a years ago and we know she was canceled just recently. That's all he's saying. He's trying to clarify what a colossal asshole.

0:54:03 Clip: It wasn't because of society you don't see a problem long distance swimming women might actually have the advantage you look into that yeah maybe long distance swimming yes okay yeah just I've looked into it yeah Well, I'm going to file you under part of the problem.

0:54:23 Thomas: Yeah. Look at that.

0:54:27 Clip: Let me read one other quote.

0:54:27 Lydia: So rude.

0:54:30 Thomas: Oh, what is this? Oh, okay. That's a different. So that's the exchange we're talking about. And now I just want to go back and remind you. So this conversation we just played right now was November 22nd, 2024. So going on a year ago, we'll say 10 months if you want to be a stickler. Now, 10 months later, yesterday, as of taping, he's bringing this up. And I think it's so telling that he said, I'm going to put you down as part of the problem.

0:54:54 Thomas: Because like, that's the simple-minded bullshit that Bill has done. Because his idiotic binary world is, are you one of the fucking morons who's so dumb you would believe anything related to trans rights? Or are you? One of the good people. And now, 10 months later, he brings this up as an example of how the left is so gone. I'm going to remind you how he framed this.

0:55:14 Clip: I couldn't get Neil deGrasse Tyson, a genius scientist and preeminent scientific voice in the media, to agree that it was ridiculous for Scientific American and the Atlantic to be claiming that separating sports by sex

0:55:32 Thomas: That was the Atlantic one. He never got into that at all.

0:55:35 Clip: Actually, it makes perfect sense. And it's obvious that it does."

0:55:39 Thomas: I genuinely thought, based on that, that there was going to be some discussion between Neil and Bill as to whether or not dividing sports by sex makes sense.

0:55:47 Lydia: Yeah, but it was just nonsense talking past each other.

0:55:50 Thomas: There was none of that. At best, you could infer that Neil didn't agree with Bill's point that the quote, which I'll read, inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases and how they're treated in sports you can infer that Neil doesn't agree with Bill's idea that that's fucking ridiculous you can't I think that's fair but I'm not even sure if that's true because they never were speaking about the same thing they there's never a time listen to that whole exchange I mean it's painful he could do it again it's not very short how could just as a human being if I had a disagreement with someone that was at all like this imagine writing them off as a fucking piece of shit forever when you weren't they never even knew what you were saying you're like well this isn't scientific and neil the one thing he responded to was he didn't want bill to write off the scientific american with its 170 year history as unscientific because of whatever this one thing was that he didn'T even really know about that he thought the editor got fired for because bill presented it kind of in that way And then was wrong. Like they never were talking about the same thing. And yet Bill has written him off as part of the problem.

0:56:50 Lydia: Slash a former editor. Yeah mm hmm. Yeah.

0:57:01 Lydia: Yeah well I mean that that's that narcissism at play right. It's like you either agree with everything I say or you're part of the problem and I don't have to care about anything that you say in the future.

0:57:03 Thomas: So stupid. We don't know what Neil's thoughts on that sentence are is we don't Know what his thoughts are because you never really got to the bottom of it. You know, like you didn't really you accosted him with like, you better agree with me real quick without any information. Any good scientist would be like, I don't as you said, like, like, I got to know more.

0:57:30 Thomas: Like, I'm not going to declare something unscientific that was written in the Scientific American because you're going to assume there's something there. You would be an asshole of a scientist. You'd be a bad scientist if someone accosted you with one sentence out of an article that you haven't read from the Scientific America and demanded that you agree it's anti -science.

0:57:46 Lydia: And I think Neil actually did like a good job demonstrating this, too, where he's like, well, in the field of long distance swimming, I do believe that women may have an advantage over men. And he's Like, because I've looked into that, and you could look into that. Like this very narrow thing that he has researched, where he said, Okay, there is some data to demonstrate that in this particular athletic endeavor. Ever.

0:58:11 Thomas: I credit Neil for that because as much as he was justifiably lost in whatever this was, I think it actually did ultimately make sense that I think He managed to catch up with whatever was happening to at least say, well, long distance swimming or whatever.

0:58:26 Lydia: And then the second he caught up, then Bill Maher switches and starts talking about something completely different.

0:58:30 Thomas: Yeah. And you're part of the problem.

0:58:36 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:58:36 Thomas: That's it for part one here. I know it's a little arbitrary, but just like spelling is, but too much to talk about. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next time on Where There's Woke. We complete Bill Maher's hobby horse and what all that was about.

0:58:41 Lydia: God, let it go.

0:59:11 Thomas: Everybody do only things I like. Ha ha, the woke are dumb. I keep fidgeting with something and dropping it. I got to find a different thing to fidget with. My fault. I have to have something. Nope, there's nothing else.