Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Friends. We are
just about the end of the year, and this is when people often will
spend some time looking back on the year that was, the things that were
great, the things that were not so great. Often a content website like
this, we'll look specifically at that content, but a lot of us we
might be spending some time thinking about, you know, who we are,
what we are, what we want to change, what resolutions we want to
make so we can break them within a week or two, what's going to
be different. Paul and I are kind of doing exactly that with Superhero Ethics
Today. We're gonna be talking about how we sort of felt about twenty twenty
two as a year, but we're also be talking about sort of how we
feel Superhero Ethics has been. Because we're I think this is now almost seven
years we've been doing this podcast. We're both giving a lot of thought to
where we want to see it go and what comes next and some other things,
and we're gonna have a lot of that to talk tell you about right
after this. Welcome back, and Matthew your host. They then pronounce I'm
Paul, Happy Aks and Madman you're not host, and I gently prefer they've
then pronounced. But I'm not super I don't know whatever, I'm the way
I am by now you know or you don't. That seems very fair.
That seems very fair. So Paul, I'm really glad you're here with me
for this because you've been, as we say, you were officially the co
host for a while. You've now officially been unofficially the co host, but
the most regular guest for quite some time. And this is a podcast there's
really gone through a lot of changes, a lot of evolution, and recently
I think you and I have been finding that, you know, Star Wars
podcast has been so exciting with so much new content, you and I have
both been going through a little bit of burnout in some ways about some of
the superhero content, some of the things as well, as we were talking
about how we've kind of gotten a place of wondering how many new conversations it
are to have within the superhero ethics sort of genre, Like, I think
there's a lot to be said, but our last recordings have felt a little
bit like, Okay, well, you know, maybe we're covering some of
the same stuff, etc. Etc. Now to those who are panicking.
This is not our sign off episode by any means, but I do think
that one of the things we've been talking about, and Paul, let you
speak to this as well, is that maybe it's time for a shift and
to try something a little bit different. And I am definitely dedicated to the
idea of continuing to use media as a way to have these conversations. This
is, by no means gonna be the last episode of Superhero Ethics. We
have a couple of others we've already recorded. We're going to continue to do
some in some format or another, but we are going to take some time
to reflect a bit and to come up with maybe some new ways that we're
going to be making content together, as well as probably still having Paul on
from time to time with a Star Wars Universe podcast. So there's a lot
we wanted to do today in terms of just kind of looking back and talking
about like what has looking back at this year and content, but much more
importantly looking back on this podcast and so what we learned from it, what
we love, what didn't as well, And then we'll talk more at the
end about some of our ideas about what might be coming next, So I
want to let folks know, like this is a time of transition and change,
superhero ethics might be going in a different direction. Uh. The ideas
and the core concept and me generating content about it are not going to end.
But um, we're just gonna take some time to kind of reflect and
think and see where we go. But I wanted to put out for this
end of the year, just a real a chance to kind of reflect on
the podcast itself. Me too. I can, I can give you a
better at leave. No, It's okay, I I could. I just
wasn't. I was like, oh, now I'm supposed to say something.
I was gonna edit that out and said this dude again. No, that's
actually fairly rather emblematic of a lot of our discussion. It is. It
is both because I think sometimes you may have trouble responding and often because I
will forget to ask a question and just pontificate. Let you know, anyway,
go ahead, I'm I'm I'm all about the pontification. I even invented
a word expondicate, which sort of means that but has some other connotations which
you can, you know, come up with for yourself. Uh, that
actually oddly transitions me into one of the things I did want to say about
this, which is, um, I feel like, first of all,
this has been a great opportunity, um, you know for me in terms
of being able to basically take conversations that we're going to have anyway, yeah,
and you know, put them and make them a little tighter than they
otherwise be. It would be you know, like instead of being like a
four hour car ride type conversation, it's like a one in an hour and
fifty nine minute type conversation. Um. And you know, and put them
out there and kind of feel compelled to sometimes codify some thoughts a little a
little more tightly and and sometimes find you know, where there's there's some gaps
in in my thinking about things, and then to hear what other people have
to say and to be able to you know, share those ideas right right,
And I think that has a ton of value and you know, both
for the people sharing ideas and for the people having ideas share. I mean,
the point of sharing is it's like it's like, you know, both
ways. Right as I look back, there's a lot of things that I'm
looking at that I think we could have done better that I could have done
better, particularly in terms of like facilitating places to continue the conversations, and
I think we're starting to find better. We're starting to get better at that.
Certainly we've gotten a lot more guests on lately, which has been great,
but something I think I want to be a lot more intentional about as
we move into twenty twenty three and some new ideas because yeah, I one
of my Jacob Lechich who was a co host for quite a while, his
wife made it. We want to ask her if she wanted to be on
the podcast as well, and her response is, why do I want to
be a part of your joint ego project? I've joined vanity projects, which
I think there's a lot of truth to. There's a certain extent to there
is some fundamental ego in the idea of, Wow, this great conversation we
just had for four hours in a car, the whole world should hear what
we have to say. And I won't excuse that from myself in any way,
but I do think part of it is also the like, I want
other people to hear this because I want to know what they think too,
and kind of I think one of the things that I am most grateful for
is that despite having a wide range of ability that was given or not given
in how easy it was to reach us for that feedback and continue the conversations,
that we did get so much of it over the years. I mean
I counted, we've got more than one hundred total of like email feedback,
emails, tweets, things like that that we're responding to points we made or
giving us questions they wanted to hear us make So just as a thank you
to all you were listening who did that, it was really great. But
also think it's the thing. Honestly, if it wasn't for that, I
wouldn't still be doing podcasting because then it would still feel just like you and
I are having these fun conversations. Why do the work of editing and sound
and all the rest of it? Right, Yeah, I mean I think
there's there's some desire to feel like you're not just like shouting into the void
kind of right. I mean, I think to an extent, I feel
like listener numbers do provide that, you know, of like, oh yeah,
there's you know, there's people who are deliberately listening to whatever it is
we're saying you know, And I mean there's an extent to which it's like,
well, what's the point of saying something if you don't want anyone to
hear it? You can just use your inside your head voice, you know
what I mean? Like, but yeah, I think having that feedback of
ideas, right, not just oh I liked it, you know this or
that or this was you know, I enjoyed this point or that point,
but like I disagree with this point, or yes I like that point and
this other thought that kind of continues on from there. I think I think,
in like a larger sense, that's what people need to do more of,
right, just like in the world is listening to one another's ideas and
then thinking about them some and then sharing, you know, their own ideas
and reactions, and having the people who were speaking in the first place listening
to those reactions, right. I mean, I imagine at some point,
you know, you can if you have a million listeners, you know,
and you're getting a thousand messages a week or whatever, it's like, well,
you you probably can't read all of those, right, right. But
I do think just you know, the kind of the spirit of conversation that's
and that's kind of how this podcast is different than how I had really Like,
I didn't really listen to podcasts, right, Okay, didn't. I
don't really listen to to very many podcasts, right, And the ones that
I had listened to and really benefited from. We're mostly a single person basically
almost like an audiobook, right where they're just saying, Okay, I'm going
to talk in Spanish in a kind of intermediate level, and then there's going
to be a transcript and you can use that to improve your Spanish while also
thinking about some other maybe some cultural things or some things about grammar or whatever
it is, and or like, you know, it's going to be a
poker podcast where somebody's just talking about hands and they're basically just explaining why they
think a thing works the way it works. And I think there's plenty of
value of that, and I'm into that, and I might do some of
that myself in the future. But I think the thing about this podcast that
has been great, and this is apparently what many podcasts aim to do,
is that it's it's about conversation, right, It's about exchanging ideas and not
just pontificating oneself and then having only an audience listening that's not responding immediately,
but also having you know, a gas or co host and who's who's you
know bouncing the ball back, And you know, I think we've obviously had
a lot of common ground over the years, and I think you know other
guests and Jacob as well. I think you know, you you often aim
to get someone who's going to have, you know, a perspective that's compatible.
But I think it's most interesting when the perspective is compatible but not the
same, right, Yeah. And it was like there was that one piece
of listener feedback that's like, would you consider getting you know, kind of
a broader range of guts on or like would you have like really very conservative
people on and and I think your response was kind of like, well,
yes, as long as we agree on certain fundamental truths kind of right,
Like there's certain arguments that someone might make that I'm just like, I'm not
going to listen to that argument because you are starting from a place that assumes
certain givens that just like, no, like, I'm that's not a point
up for discussion for me. And that's generally about like basic human rights and
you know, for me, animal rights right. I think that's a really
good way to put it, I think, especially because it ties in well
to what I was thinking before. I want to respond to, which is
the common to our conversation, which is that I think one of the things
that I was really my thought in starting this podcast. I think also the
process of podcasting has really helped crystallized for me is the difference between a conversation
and an argument. And one of the things I think that has been really
important, and I think you have actually really helped me with this because a
lot of the way you would often structures are like, okay, well I've
got these different points, let me elucidate them clearly. And sometimes they'd be
like, oh, okay, let me discuss point one before you go to
point thirteen, right, But is that it's very easy when two are having
a discussion that that's kind of unstructured, to start mixing up the different point
you know, and to start getting into the kind of well, like I
like this thing for this, but I don't like this thing for that other
thing, and then like we're kind of talking across purposes to each other,
we're not talking about it quite the same thing, Especially when with the questions
I think we were asking on this podcast a lot, and I'm trying really
hard for this part not you just sound self congratulatory. So a pod relies
and it does. This is more about the goals we were trying to get
to, and you can tell us how well or how well we didn't meet
them. But it felt to me so important to kind of tease apart some
of the different strains of things, like, Okay, well, we don't
like these elements of a justice system in our own world that's certainly valid,
this fictional world mirrors that in some ways. Cool, how can we pull
that apart from some things within the fictional world itself, you know, or
how do they all link up? And stuff like that. And I think
one of the things that I feel like I've gotten a lot better at,
both in this but just in my life in general, is like, when
I'm having conversations and I feel those kind of like a couple of different topics
merging, I want to pull them apart a bit, you know, when
I want to be like, Okay, well, actually I think I think
there's some truth on this point, but maybe on this other point, this
other person has something to say, But we're kind of like yelling at each
other instead of really hearing how like you both might have some part of the
truth. Yeah, for sure. I think that's one of the most frequent
kind of I don't want to say areas of disagreement, but one of the
most frequent failures to really listen to each other and have a productive conversation I
think comes from not actually listening to and not addressing the concrete points that someone
else is making, right, and to basically see, like, Okay,
there's an argument that start. That's got like there's like ten points of logic,
and it's like you can say, Okay, I disagree with your conclusion,
but show me where along that chain of logic we depart from one another,
right, Like, and if it's very early on, then it's going
to be pretty hard for us to make progress, you know, but but
not impossible. I mean, we can just be like, Okay, well,
let's let's drill down on that then, because that's where our real disagreement
lies. Right Whereas if we're arguing the conclusion by just talking about points nine
and ten, it's like, well, if we disagreed on point two and
assuming these are kind of sequential, Right, Like, if then kind of
things, then like we can't even have a coherent conversation about nine and ten
if we disagree so much on something so fundamental like point two, whereas if
it's like seven or eight, it's like, Okay, now we can probably
talk a little bit more about nine or ten, but we're still going to
talk more about the seven and eight and be like, this is you know,
this is really the key to me, This is what makes this different.
And I think not just with the kind of stuff we're talking about,
but I think all sorts of you know, logic and and decisions and attempts
to kind of understand the world around us. I think there's always a sense
of like, Okay, well, what are your assumptions, and how are
we proceeding from those assumptions to eventually a conclusion? And do we even agree
on the assumptions in the first place? Right? I think that also gets
to and this is where I'm so glad for the different perspectives like that you
and I have, that me and Jacob have, but also that some of
our different guests have brought in over the years, because I think there's a
very big I think there's a very big difference between two people who agree on
sort of like foundational principles, which is kind of what you and I were
talking about about. Why there's some folks whom are never going to have on
because we just there's nothing to talk about because our fundamental values are so different.
Right. That is very different I think from where me and someone else
have had such basically different experiences and they have maybe experienced things that I haven't
or vice versa, that we see the basic things in very different ways.
And so like when you're talking about like the point two to point ten kind
of thing, like you know, to take one of the things I think
is probably the biggest difference between the two of us, and when we've talked
about constantly over the last seven years, six years, well, my my,
my association with the validity of numbers is another thing we often disagree on.
So six point five years whatever it is, Yeah, the sun has
has the Earth has orbit in the sun more than six times since we began
this exactly. But is you know, animal rights and the sort of value
of animal life and things like that, And that's one where I think there's
oftentimes where you haven't tried to convince me of something necessarily. But I would
say, here's why this argument works. You know again my like two through
ten logic, which there's a whole bunch of things about the idea of living
your arguments that's problematic, but we're not even going to go into that.
But also that, um, you know, you'll be like, well,
no, no, actually I go all the way back to point one or
two and show you why I see everything fundamentally differently. But they're the discussion
again, is about how your difference, you know, or so for example,
like there've in sometimes where like you know, Jessica Plumber, who you
know, she brought in perspectives about things that I just would have never thought
of in the same way. But I think it's when those things are used
as a way to say I am using my own experience to tell you how
my reading of the text and a text to mean whatever media is we're talking
about is different than yours. That to me is fundamentally different than no,
no, no, I think I know the facts better, and therefore I'm
declaring your version invalid, you know, or your opinion invalid or whatever it
is. Yeah, I think there's an extent to which well, not an
extent to which everybody has their own perspective, right, and nobody has the
whole picture in terms of knowing everything that exists and everything about existence, right.
And I think to varying degrees, we can use our experience, siences,
and our experience of the world to draw conclusions about how the world is
right about sort of like whether it's the nature of existence or the nature of
some specific aspect of existence. And I think having one of the things that's
so valuable about hearing different perspectives is just understanding kind of how different someone's perception
of something might be, right, and understanding to what extent our perception of
something is based on our own experiences, right. Right, that once our
experience then includes the perception of other people's experiences through them sharing them, then
that actually becomes part of our experience, not their experiences, but the experience
of hearing them communication that, right. And I think that adds as long
as we don't then think that we know everything they know, or we don't
know everything about what it's like to be them, right, because we don't.
We never know everything about what it's like to be anybody else. But
I think as long as we have a certain amount of kind of humility about
how much we've gained from that. I think what we've gained is quite valuable.
Yeah, Like, do you give an example I think I have had.
There's a lot of things about the way women characters are often written,
particularly there's a lot of ways in which the way women characters are often written,
especially when they're written by men, that can be problematic or have elements
of sexism or misogyny that I often would have totally missed the first time I
saw them. Listening to women talk about these things or to other people who
are not male or not have the male experience that I have has allowed me
to see a lot of that. And it's now it's not that now every
time I watch something I need to say, Okay, well that tell me
what I missed. Now my eyes are more open to seeing those things.
But there's still always going to be things that I'm going to miss a lot
more than then a woman might, you know, or that for me as
a disabled person, it's going to go the opposite direction, right again,
that being that, like you know, ten different women, or ten different
disabled people, or ten different queer people or vegans might They're not all going
to see the same thing either, you know. I think that's the other
part of it that's so important is being able to say, how can we
learn from other voices, How can we allow their perspectives to help us notice,
like what are the things that we don't necessarily see and look for them
more, but also not fall into that idea of like, Okay, well
I've heard from one person of that perspective, so now I know how everybody
in that group feels or anything like that, right exactly. It's like fox
moves will often have like the one black person to say the thing that you
know a lot of other black people aren't saying, and then it's like so
they're like, oh see this is fine, and it's like, right,
well, yeah, no, that one person's opinion, it's not invalid.
That's their opinion, and they're speaking to their experience, but it doesn't encapsulate
you know, every black person six varience the same way. You know,
I can tell you how I feel watching scenes with you know, with like
violence towards animals or even just scenes with like meat in them, right,
and I'm going to have I feel like I'm kind of somewhere in the middle,
probably in terms of amongst all vegans, where I know plenty of vegans
are like, oh yeah, I'll go out to a steakhouse and have a
salad, and I'm like, oh no, no, I am not doing
that. But once upon a time I used to go out with friends and
you know, go wherever kind of and then just figure out what I could
eat, right, I was just gonna say. Then there's also I'm sure
vegans further on the spectrum of like I don't even want to be friends with
anybody who's you know, who's who's consuming animals and and or dairy or animal
products or whatever. And I feel that, you know, I I can
feel and understand where they're coming from. And I can also understand where you
know, vegans who are like, yeah, you know, live and let
kill or whatever. Um Like, I can see both, and I'm somewhere.
I'm where I am right, and that's I can talk to my experience
and say this is how I felt watching this or like, you know,
the first episode of Moon Night, for instance, Um right, But that's
me. That's that doesn't mean I'm not telling you how vegans feel about this,
you know, Yeah, I mean we literally had an example of this
on the Star Wars Ethics pot on the Universe podcast I get them mixed up.
We are Another vegetarian wrote in and had a different experience of a scene
from a Star Wars product than you and you're aublish want to do it,
And I think for me it was interesting hearing these two different vegetarian vegan perspectives.
Yeah, for sure. And that's not necessarily just like vegan versus vegetarian,
right, that's just one person compared to another person, two people in
the non meat eat meat eating world. Yeah, and when I was a
vegetarian, I was closer to where I am now than than than that person
is where they are now. Right, Um, So I want to shift
into let's talk about something because one of the reasons why we were like,
yeah, maybe we can like putch us Superhero Ethics on a bit of a
hiatus or a pause as one direction. Fan, I need to be very
careful using the word hiatus because that just means ending. I don't mean it's
end at all. Certainly, Paul and I are not going off on our
solo careers. Hey, they might get back together and play a show.
I don't know. Anything about them, but I was once the camp counselor
for one of their paramours. So anyway, I appreciate that. I appreciate
that there's eight million one direction songs I want to quote response to that,
none of which will get thank you for not thank you. There we go.
I went in a different direction. But I think that there's one of
the things I think that reasons why we're like, yeah, maybe we should
like take a pause or like look in some new directions. So that was
not even intentional, but is that there are a lot of the same topics
and I think we're finding are coming up again and again and again. And
that's not a bad thing. I think in some ways that's the whole point
of superhero ethics, is that it's fascinating how some of these topics continue to
be touched on in different ways again and again. But I thought it would
be interesting to kind of like reflect on, like, what are some of
those major topics we've looked at again and again? And for me, Paul,
I think one of the biggest ones that is kind of at the heart
of a lot of things. It's when where you and I don't always see
eye to eye, but if a curious kind to hear your thoughts on is
let's start with this idea of a person who feels like they have the either
right to or the responsibility to basically like break the law to save the society,
you know, to like go off and be a vigilante, or to
do things that the society is going to say you shouldn't do because they need
because it's important to fix something. What's kind of your feeling on like that
overall topic, and how like talking about it over these years has maybe changed
or evolved or strengthened your views on it. Yeah, I would say that's
that's basically what we started with, right. We started with like who is
your Batman? I think? Right? R And then we recently recorded a
couple episodes that are very much in that vein. Yeah, one of which
may or may not be about Batman. And I would say that I'm not
sure that like my overall sort of stance has really moved a ton, but
I'd say it's it's deepened and sort of broadened, right in terms of thinking
about things like you know, community buy in kind of right, like Batman
makes a lot more sense if there are kids going around wearing batsuits for Halloween
because they think he's doing something good and or you know, Spider Man makes
more sense when everybody on you know, the seven train. It might not
have been a seven train in that movie, but like wants to protect him
him because they believe in him as a hero of the people kind of right,
right, Whereas you know that that's not a thought that I'd really had
a whole lot before that, and that I think I kind of like it
got to like episode one hundred where where someone was talking about that when we
had the like six people were on and I was like, yeah, this
is this is important, right, But at the same time, it's like,
well, you know, a community isn't a person. It's not a
singular entity with one point of view, right. So so it also comes
back to kind of what my general view on everything always is is that things
are complicated and there are always a blend of perspectives. And I think if
you're some sort of vigilante who has zero buy in from the community, well
that's that problem. That doesn't seem like it's very good, you know,
whereas if you have a significant amount, but there's people who are like,
oh, you know this Daredevil he's really messing up Hell's kitchen by you know,
causing too much rockists, It's like, well, that's that's different.
You know, that's not the same thing, and so yeah, I mean
I still ultimately basically feel like what makes sense is people trying to take actions
that make the world more the way they would like to see the world be.
And when that's when their view of what the world is or what the
way the world they would like, Oh my goodness, this is a hard
sentence to create. But yeah, when their vision of how the world should
be matches more what my vision of the world should be, I'm going to
subjectively say, yeah, I think what they're doing is good. I think
it's creating more value than it's doing harm. Where As when their vision of
what the world should be is like you know something that I'm like, no,
no, that's that's an oppressive healthscape, Like then I'm going to be
like, yeah, I don't think you should be be doing that. And
I feel like we've gone through so many different kind of instance of that,
you know, And just to like mention Daredevil, like, you know,
Kingpin basically fits everything I just said, yeah, except you know, it
is often also a combination of methods versus you know, there's like what are
you trying to accomplish? And then how are you trying to accomplish it?
And the way you're trying to accomplish it, are you betraying what you're trying
to accomplish to an extent where you actually can't end up getting what you're aiming
for anyway because you've done so much harm along the way. Yeah, I
think there's so much truth there, and it's it's funny because I'm surely even
framed this question this way, but as you were saying it, it came
to mind. This podcast, I think was really born more than anything,
out of the discussions you and I had over the movie Marvel Captain America Civil
War when we realized and to me, the defining conversation was one we had
we were at a casino. We went to the food court, which was
not vegan at all. I think you had to like just get fries or
something like that, and we started a conversation like one thirty in the morning
and realized that you were team Cap and I was team Tony, and we
were both kind of surprised at that and had this interesting back and forth,
and then like three hours later like should we go play poker, Simard,
No, Let's keep talking, right And in many ways, I think that
is kind of at the heart and soul of a lot of these conversations.
And it's certainly I think on this topic, and part of why I love
that movie so much is I think that that topic is at the heart and
soul of that movie. And I think in a lot of ways, accountability
is kind of the like I've had a similar journey a little bit towards the
middle, and for me, it's accountability is and it's kind of similar to
what you were saying about the buying aspect of that for me, because for
me, I am still at the place of the thing that I'm always concerned
about is then we start saying that if a person thinks they should do the
right thing and everyone around them says they're wrong, then you know, you
say you move. And my problem is like, well, that's Hitler,
that's that's Kingpin, that's all these people throughout history who have said, like
I am so certain in my convictions that I'm not going to listen to anybody
else and I'm going to therefore, like, so what I do is justified.
And I think what you and others have helped me kind of more rightly
point out though, is that like if the flip side is therefore to put
the onus in institutions and systems, and in many ways, watching the Wire
it was a good wake up for me on this, like, even though
those are made up of individuals and there can be more democratic, they can
still be just as broken and just as terrible. And to me it's funny
that, like, I don't want to hold up Arrow Verse as like the
pinnacle of ethical super meat superhero media. It's got a lot of problems,
both like ethically and also just wow, some writing issues, though some of
it's very very good. But I think the thing that that show that all
the shows in the arrow Verse kind of demonstrate to me is that even when
you go it alone, or that's the whole point, that all those characters
wind up starting off going it alone and then wind up having a community of
accountability around them, and that that's to me, it's kind of the flip
side of the buying thing you're saying, is that to me, what's most
important is because I think like someone like Kingpin, where he really goes wrong
is not just his methods, but it's that he thinks he knows what's right
for people. It's that he never asks the people, is this what you
want? Is this what's right for you? And I think in many ways
some of the Batman's stories I most love is where he is paying attach He
is listening to people talk about what they want Gotham to be and how Gotham
can be better and things like that, And I think that's where it's the
It's the like, our people holding you as an individual accountable, but also
when you're deciding what other people want and what is best for them, how
much are you listening to those other people in that discussion? Yeah? Absolutely.
I mean the thing in Civil War, there's there's two two big points
I want to make. One is that to me, it kind of reinforced
the idea that really concrete thinking is kind of the only way that I ever
want to make decisions. Where for me, the like if you actually look
at the details of exactly what's happening in that movie, I feel like we
kind of got around to the point where you're sort of like, well,
I don't actually I'm not team Tony. In the way that like you want
things, you don't want Secretary Ross to just run the Avengers, right,
Like it's it's not like they had a good situation. It's like they did
need some accountability, right, particularly Tony, who you know created Ultron and
then created Vision and somehow got Lucky and the only person he got any buy
in from was Bruce, who he was like he knew would co sign kind
of anything that he twisted his arm too, right, and who then later
like, I think one thing he's forgotten about that movie is people are like,
how can he be Team Tony? Tony was blaming Bucky, And I
think for me, the Tony team Tony team cap is specifically in the middle
part of that movie, when they're discussing should there be Scovia chords or something
like them? Right. I think the fact that in the last act in
the movie, Tony becomes so focused on his rage about his parents' death,
a lot of which is his own guilt because of his his own feelings of
guilt or loss or regret because the relationship with his father that he focuses on.
I have to find Bucky. I have to beat Bucky. I have
to kill Bucky. I have to punish Buckie that he won't look at the
facts. That is, to me the perfect example of why an individual like
Tony shouldn't be the one deciding who gets to meet out justice on that so
kind of interjecting there, but yeah, yeah, you go on yeah.
And you know, on top of that, though Tony's not even team Tony,
like he he literally goes against the accords like immediately right, like within
the same movie soya, So you know it's, um, it's interesting in
that way. And similarly, like it is team cap right, it's not
one man against the world. He's saying you move, but there's a chorus
behind him echoing that, and you could say, like, yes, but
he's Captain America and so he should understand that he has all this influence and
thus people are going to you know, follow him whether or not he's whether
or not they're really thinking about whether he's right. Um, And I think
that's true to some extent. For for Sam maybe you know, he's kind
of like, you know, it's your call, like I'm I go where
you go, um, you know, and Bucky's like, well, I
would like them to not kill me, you know. But then he's even
Cap who says, you move, it's agent. It's the Sharon Carter.
Oh in the movie, she's quoting her aunt Peggy exactly who is quoting Cap
from the comic book. But yes, she turns out to be a bad
guy maybe, but that's whole right Oh geez okay, okay, okay,
anyway, um the but so I do think it matters that it's team Cap
to some extent aside from Cap, right, um, But also like in
terms of buying, like Hitler had buying, you know, yeah, And
that's the thing that's the scary thing is it's like people acting alone can do
horrible things. People acting in groups can do horrible things on a larger scale.
But similarly, people acting alone can do great things that create a lot
of value for those around them, and people acting in groups can create more
value for each other and for people around them. Right, And so to
me, it's less about whether something's a group or an individual, and it's
more, you know, the group provides amplitude. And the question is kind
of is this buy in organic or is it you know, perhaps coerced perhaps
some amount of conditioning, right, yeah, not like hydra not hydra conditioning,
but like manufactured consent, right, Yeah, if you get everyone to
if everyone is very afraid and therefore they consent to letting you have power to
keep them safe, and they're afraid because you either manipulated and exploited things then
to be afraid of, or created the thing for them to be afraid of,
then yeah, that's that is buying of a sort. But it's by
no means informed consent. Right, And I think there's another point that you
made there, at least if I understand, or maybe I'm gonna make a
completely different point that you're trying to make, we'll see. But um,
I've always seen that one of the goals of this podcast is to be able
to say, like, this movie raises this particular discussion, but now let's
like, yes, we're arguing team Tap, team Team Tap or Team Cony,
Teama, team Tap or Team Tony. But what we're trying to do
is get at the heart of the issues of that question itself, because I
think what too often will happen is people will be like, you'll try to
make a larger philosophical argument and they're like, oh no, but actually,
what this exact detail happened, so that it's like well, no movie,
no one story is the perfect you know, raising up of this issue.
Instead, what I think is really interesting is to say, okay, yeah,
this question of who gets to decide when it's okay to break the law
and when it's okay to use violence in order to try and make the world
a better place, that's an interesting question that lots of these lots of these
different movies and TV shows and books and video games wrestle with. And so
let's use that movie as the jumping off point. But then let's not get
so lost in the details that we're not able to address the general question itself.
Yeah, And I think that's where we differ to a good extent,
right where I agree with you in terms of seeing the story and then saying,
okay, we can talk about this outside of the story as well.
But to me, I'm I'm just so detail oriented. I'm like, I
just believe that context always matters, and that the concrete, you know,
circumstances of the situation are gonna like almost every question, almost everything that you'd
say, is this or that ethical, I'm almost always going to come down
on the side of it depends. Give me the details, right, tell
me the situation, and I'll tell you you know, you give me the
trolley problem and like, wh who's that one person? And who are those
five people? You know, I want to know that, And like,
you know, maybe I don't want to know that just in terms of like
oh, well these are there their genders and races, and you know,
these people look poor and this person looks well off, and like maybe then
I'm like, oh, I don't want that information, you know, because
I don't want to make the decision based on that. But like you know,
I'm not I'm not a big fan of such hypotheticals in the first place.
Um. And I'm like, can I can I break the trolley?
I want to break the trolley. Let me just try and drive it off
the tracks. Um. And I think we may I may have misspoken because
I think we're actually more agreement than you think, because I'm not. I
think my more point is that I think I'm trying. I'm thinking of the
kind of sort of stuff I learned, you know, where you look at
like scientific method or but also just like ways of like having conversations of like
specific example, take into general principle, go back to specific example, and
like keep those things like rolling around. Right, It's not that I think
the details aren't specific. It's that I think that you can say, Okay,
here's the general principle that Tony is arguing from. And what I'm more
ejectives the folks who say, okay, but no, but because this specific
detail happens, therefore the whole argument of Tony has always forever wrong, you
know, instead of the understand it like yeah, because because I think you're
right. That's the whole point is I think to have an argument that is,
if I just say, let's argue about should a person be able to
break the law because they think the law is wrong, I don't think there's
any meaning to having that conversation outside of context. I think the whole point
is to say, yeah, I want to have that conversation and only makes
sense in context. So let's have it. Have that discussion in the context
of civil war, right, And then let's have the same conversation in context
of Batman, and then the same conversation in contact with V for vendetta,
and talk about how the details of those things change, like how do the
details of each of those situations make it different, and what does that tell
us about the general question about the question in general? Does that? Does
that make more sense? It does? Yeah, And so you know,
we agree for the most part, right, I do think that I pay
a lot of attention to details and a lot of things, and if I
am going to air, I'm going to likely air on the side of being
too specific and maybe ignoring some overarching principles. And I think in general,
you're often looking to kind of distill things to more general concepts, and if
you're going to air, you're gonna air more on the side of overlooking some
details because you're you're looking more for the big picture. And that's one of
the reasons I think we, you know, if I'll say so myself,
have very good conversations because like I think having those that kind of tension,
right, forest trees, forest trees, but like in the middle somewhere finding
like okay, let's let's talk about both. That should be the name of
whatever podcast we're gonna trees. I will say that I appreciate that we both
often do seem to agree that the exact names of things, if it's not
actual characters, can be forgotten. Both I'm much worse about it than you
are. But um yeah, the number of go ahead. Oh, I
was just gonna say a lot of times I'll be very specific about names of
things, but you know, sometimes there's there's characters often in a lot of
um you know, on screen stories that have names in the credits but are
not necessarily named in the show, you know, And and then people online
will be like, oh so and so I'm like, who is that?
And then looking up, I'm like, okay, now I have to go
to the IMDb page see this actress face? Oh that dude? Yeah,
okay, I know you're talking about. I think I told you that the
proudest piece of feedback I've ever gotten was the one star review because we didn't
know the name in a Star Wars review of a particular of the Beast that,
um, I think it was that Manda was fighting in the cave,
which is something that's never actually I don't think it's named in the episode.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's something like it was a skeleton that people saw.
It was a skeleton of a crate dragon, and there was a crate
dragon are not spoken in any way in that piece of media. M Yeah,
yeah, I don't. I don't care that much about that if I'd
read the books, I might care about it a lot, you know.
Yeah, but like if that thing isn't in the thing, like I don't,
I don't feel like that name adds a whole lot to the conversation,
right, Yeah, And I think that's also part of the whole point is
like figuring out what are the details that are relevant to this and sometimes that
is there are details that I don't think irrelevant that because someone else is a
different perspective, they do think are relevant. And that's where we can listen
to each other. Yeah, absolutely, you know, I'm I'm like always
going to try to get like actors names, right, you know. Yeah,
I wish on on like IMDb, there was just a clip of like
every actor saying their name, Like I want to hear how someone says their
name, you know. And I see, that's a point that I'd never
really thought of until you brought it up. When to me especially it came
it came to pass when we're talking about the movie. I hope I'm remembering
the right way to apnounce it shun Lee, because I remember, like it
was really important for you that we that we know how to pronounce that name.
And also the names of the people involved, because I think one thing
that helped point out for me is that like a big part of kind of
like you know, the the erasure of other cultures is the sort of like,
oh, okay, well I'm going to make a little joke about how
I'll never pronounce that person's name, right, because like you're sort of being
self deprecating, but you're also just kind of you're further other rising and like
making a joke out of the idea. Like, no, it's important understand
how all the people's names they are pronounced, and they're pronounced them properly.
Yeah. Absolutely, And I'm I've definitely heard Chun Lee, which is a
street fighter character played by Umnawan. But I'm pretty sure you were saying shan
Chi. Yes, yeah, yeah, So so I think you've you've underscored
your points. Yes, No, I'm just very uh yeah, um um.
But but yeah, and it's I mean, it's it's funny because like,
um, some names you're gonna have an assumption. I mean, like
spider Man, You're like, Okay, I guess it's pronounced spider man,
you know, I mean maybe it's like spider Man, like depending on where
you're from from or whatever. But like, but like, yeah, I
mean my last name, jeez, And maybe I'm a little more sensitive to
this because you know, um, I while I don't come from a family
of you know, recent immigrants to the United States, like my last name
is German, and in German my name would be like Paul Happa, you
know, and like, but people are always like mister Hope, you know,
is it is it Hope or Hope? And I'm like, no,
yeah, you know, or if they hear me pronounce that, they spell
it wrong. So, you know, just like growing up, like I
had this, you know, even though I don't have the same feeling of
like being othered by people getting my name wrong right, and like that's that's
very much a difference. Um, I do have a sensitivity to it,
and like I feel like, you know, so like my experience helps me
understand how a similar experience can can feel, but then also have this additional
layer that I don't have. And yeah, so so yeah, you know,
I mean I like trying to pronounce people's names the way they pronounce them.
Um, it doesn't mean you're always going to be able to get it
exactly right, right, because like names in different languages have different phonemes.
And you know, Seemu Liu like pronounces his name Seemu Liu right, which
is not the way it's pronounced in Mandarin. It's like Liu simu like is
how it is pronounced a manner, but he doesn't say it that way,
right, So I'm going to say it the way he says it in English
if I'm speaking English, and you know, um, but I will say
that in the Hunchi episode we did, I'm pretty sure I butchered his name
repeatedly because I hadn't found exactly the place you know, to pronounce, you
know, to learn how to pronounce it right. Yeah, No, I
think it's really really good points there. Another one of the I think kind
of core issues that we often come up with, and I don't want to
let you you tell me more to you think of, but is the idea
of the legitimate or illegitimate use of violence. And I think very tied to
that is the idea of being able to choose what level of violence you do
or don't use. And you and I have both had kind of serious but
also kind of joking conversations about like that. Agree to which a person can
decide I'm going to use violence but not be lethal about it. Right,
But I'm kinda curious, kind of like, let's have that same analysis about
this whole topic of when we choose to use violence and when when when we
choose to be lethal in the use of violence. Yeah, I mean that's
definitely something we've talked about a lot, right, I would I would start
at at point two by by challenging the word legitimate you know, um and
saying, like, you know, I'm we could have a whole conversation,
but like, well, what do you mean by legitimate? You know?
For me, I'll I'll kind of short circuit that and maybe say I will
interpret that as um reasonable, you know, like a reasonable action that I'm
like, yeah, that seems like a reasonable thing for that person to do.
And again, I think it's complicated, and you know, the context
matters, and I think the biggest question is really power, right right,
Like, there's there's this image of Pedro Martinez like throwing Don Zimmer to the
ground in the I think it was like two thousand and three American League Championship
Series. Um, when you know, the Yankee stormed to the mound and
and Don Zimmer, who was for some context was about like seventy sh at
the time, is charging this, you know, in his prime athlete or
maybe slightly post prime, and Pedro just like flips him to the ground,
and people like, oh, how could you do that. I'm like,
well, he didn't punch him in the face, you know. And And
to me, that's that's the thing. It's like, yeah, if if
somebody who I perceive as not being not carrying a serious threat to me attacks
me unarmed, like I'm not going to hit them hard, you know,
Whereas if someone who is very physically threatening comes at me, I'm going to
use a different approach to how I respond to that, you know, right,
And I think that's reasonable. I think that's I think there has to
be some understanding for like, yeah, if someone just comes at you,
I mean, you know, I've I've hit people in the head in just
reaction when somebody like is like, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna poke you
from behind, or I'm gonna like pretend like I'm punching you, and it's
like sorry, but like don't do that, you know, And and so
like there is a sense of like well, some of it is just going
to be split second reaction, right, But if you are somebody who is
often going to be in situations like that, you app resolutely have to have
training that puts you that that designs you to like not respond with lethal violence
to you know, very unlikely to be lethal, to like non serious attacks,
or to things that are maybe perceived as threatening but aren't even attacks at
all. Right, I mean, one thing I think that has been very
well documented. I'm sure I probably even have some degree of this, though
I've only try to unpack it, is that, like, just to give
one example, when you said, like you know, if you do perceive
this to be a serious threat or not, that something like for example,
skin color has a drastic effect in how much people do or don't perceive a
threat, and that like you know, in studies, they'll do like they'll
have like you know, a picture of a white person in a pose that
could be threatening and at a picture you know of a black person, and
often it's like two pictures out of like twenty or whatever. But that consistently
people even though they're the exact same pose and everything is about it is the
same, the person of color will be perceived to be far more of a
threat and like their efforts, you know, like and often it's like cops
like right, the highest atree of that. Yeah, I think that's I
think that that's one thing that I think that can I just respond to that
very quickly. And so that's like on average, that's in general. Um,
And you're talking about implicit bias basically, yes, right, And and
there are actually tests for implicit bias, like that's a thing, right,
you know, and I mean I've I've taken them, and like some people
have a lot of it, some people have none, or some people might
even have the opposite you know, and like the opposite of what is commonly
projected in media or like what most people are going to have in terms of
bias. And I think there's value to those tests in terms of like both
in terms of yourself, like like you don't need to judge yourself if you
have implicit bias. Like, if you have implicit bias, it's probably because
you've been bombarded by you know, essentially by propaganda to make you see things
in a certain way. But if you know that you have that bias,
then you can work to resolve it over time and probably and if you are,
you know, someone who's carrying a gun for a living, you should
definitely like you should have to do that, right, and there should be
training for countering that and not just like sitting around talking about things, but
like, I think there are more productive ways of trying to address that.
Yeah, and then not only that it's individual responsibility, but also the yeah
that that and I think this is kind of one of the core questions we
have to discuss of like, you know, if we should have this,
but right now we live in a society where the government and this is kind
of what I was getting at with the idea of the legit The phrase the
legitimate use of violence is one that comes from political science, right, and
it's it is the idea that like a government gets to mandate that you know,
for example, police and military get they have the right to exercise a
legitimate use of violence that most other citizens do not. And to be clear,
when I said I'm contesting that word, it's because I reject that claim
on behalf understood. We understood, And yeah, so I think that one
of the things that's often they discussed is well, if that has to be
true, and then there's another discussion having this podcast should it be true?
But it's like, could we at least have him like that? You have
to have a certain limit on the implicit bias you have before the state will
say, cool, we're going to give you a gun and let you go
out and decide what is or is an illegal threat? Right exactly, if
you're gonna do this thing that we're not sure you should even be doing,
at least do it this way, right. Yeah. I think one of
the things for me, I think this topic may be that I've moved a
lot more than you have. I'm not sure, but I know that around
the time, I think i'd always started to move off of this, But
around the time I started this podcast, there was a part of me that
was still very dedicated to a sort of an idea that like, non violent
resistance is always going to be better. And I don't even just mean on
an individual level, but in terms of that, like using violence to fight
for political freedom is always going to be somewhat problematic because then you're you're enacting
your freedom by you know, coercing others into into that. So is that
inherently contradictory and stuff like that and I think that not just because this podcast
to sort of track that evolution, but probably been a part of that evolution.
That's an area in which I think I've changed the most where and for
me, it's I've come to two different but related conclusions. The first of
which is that most of the people who I really hero wise for their use
of non violence, Martin the King especially, but even Gandhi. Gandhi maybe
is a little bit different, but Martin King, especially for them, non
violence is a tactic. It is not a philosophy, like there's a lot
of his of the King's work that is philosophical. But becase people have pointed
out, you know, he was happy to have men with guns too protect
him. It was for him and topprect his family. It's that he saw
non violence as a politically viable strategy in a world where public opinion could really
matter and where most of the guns were on the side of those who are
trying to oppress him and other African Americans, black people in the South at
the time, or all the people he would talk about. And I think
I used to be somewhat of a purist on that idea. And I think
a lot of things have helped to change my mind about that, and in
some ways I think and I still have some feelings about these sort of the
problems of it being the people who use violence to stop oppression now becoming the
new people in power. And that's why I think V for Vendetta is such
a good movie. And I'll name the second, but then we can maybe
discussing them separately. And the second big change I think for me has come
in as an area where I know you and I don't fully agree, is
that there are situations where I would look at it and I would say,
I don't think that the oppression that is happening here is what I would think
of as reasonable to justify the kind of violence that you are that people are
choosing to enact in response to it, but that I also want to recognize
that as someone who is not dealing with that oppression, not that I think
that it makes my voice invalid on the topic, but that I have to
give account for the fact that it is very likely that I don't truly understand
just how oppressive the situation is, or that it is easier for me to
say, well, could there be other ways to dealing with it? Other
than violence, because I'm not the one personally experiencing that oppression. And so
I think it's what I've come to is that I'm a place of like,
you know, like I think you could go all like to me, the
opposite end of where I used to be is the kind of like kill Monger
was right. Kill Monger was the hero, and I'm not quite there,
but I'm certainly a lot closer. Man. I'm kind of curious for you,
Paul, um if you want to talk about one one of those two
perspectives or both of them are kind of going off on a tangent up to
you, but kind of where you stand in regard to the things I'm bringing
up. Yeah, well, so first of all, you want to do
a whole another podcast on that, and and I'll just talk for an hour
and then you talk for another hour. Yea, so much we can say
there, it's yeah, I mean, that's that's fertile ground. I will
start by saying, Um, I have never been a pure pacifist at all.
Um. I mean I studied violence, and I taught violence for over
a decade each by which I mean, you know, I trained in martial
arts and I didn't I mean, we hit each other, you know,
as part of the practice, Like, you know, we would make each
other bleed from time to time, and the purpose was in theory largely,
um at least partially learning self defense. Right. If somebody tries to do
violence to me or someone else, um, you know that that I somebody
else, you know. I don't want to use the word innocent, but
like someone else is being attacked, I am willing to use violence to stop
that violence, right, And I do want to try and be somewhat proportional
in terms of like, yeah, I'm not going to try and kill someone.
You know, where some kids trying to beat up another kid, like
I'm probably just going to grab them or whatever. Right, But like my
point being like I've always seen violence as an acceptable response to violence because I
think there is often like I think sometimes that's the only way you can stop
the violence is through violence. I do understand that that can lead to a
cycle of you know, self perpetuating violence basically, right, And I would
say that the kind of overarching principle that I start from is that if there
is a way to resolve something without violence, then I'm always going to prefer
that method. You know, I think the only real justification for violence is
that there is harm being done directly or being threatened, right generally through violence.
And sometimes this is going to be economic violence that is enforced by the
threat of physical violence, right um, or it can be you know,
you could say emotional violence that is able to be applied because of the threat
of physical violence or something like this. But so I think on the first
point, like I would say to me, it's about, um, you
know, sort of the distribution of power, and is there another way to
to stop this violence or this oppression. And the trouble is that you don't
always know, right. A lot of the non violent solutions these are these
are hopes that something might work, but you don't know, And so you
can't tell someone no, no, no, don't respond to this violence or
this oppression through violence because there's this other way that will definitely work. You
don't know it will definitely work. I think it's reasonable to say, let's
try this first, give me maybe this much time or whatever, and if
that doesn't work, you know, then every success for every success that non
violence resistance had in the civil rights movement or other movements at the time,
and there's fair arguments who made about like how success or were they There certainly
were non violent protests that were just you know, Canneman Square was a non
violent protest that was ended through violence and certainly was not It did not turn
out to be a winning strategy, ladyby right, right, Yeah, people
people just get murdered sometimes right when they're doing a non violent protest. And
I would say that in individual saying I am a pacifist and I want to
resist this without violence, I think is very noble and is a worthwhile thing
for that person to do, and to say, join with me, and
let's resist this through nine violence I think, or through pacifistic means, I
think is a great thing to do. But I think there's a difference between
saying let's do this compared to scolding people for, you know, violently rebelling.
Basically, yeah, right, that's the difference. And to me,
it's like, no, I'm definitely not going to scold someone for violent rebellion
when when they're oppressed in a way that I am not, and I don't
you know, I don't buy the like can't understand, but like can't haven't
experienced, and thus can only seek to understand right, yeah, and put
it and like, I don't think anybody understands it perfectly, right, because,
particularly when we're talking about systemic oppression, it's like, this is a
large system that involves a lot of people, including some of the people who
are oppressed themselves oppressing another group of people, or even groups of people which
are comprised of individuals who don't all feel it the same way, right,
and so it's just ultimately it's very complicated. And so you know, I
do think you can see like someone does one thing and then someone else responsed
in another way because they're like, well I felt this, and you can
be like, whoa, that's that seems way out of line, you know,
but like that's that's as far as I can go. It's like,
well, that seems way out of line, and you know, did you
try doing this? But like as far as like scolding people like oh that
you know, they shouldn't be burning this down or whatever, it's like,
no, yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it,
especially, and to me, that also ties back into that idea of the
difference between strategy and kind of philosophy, you know, because I think that
like if I am part of a group of activists who have all decided that,
like you know, they would all went to like disabled activists to all
come together to talk about like a public theater that like isn't wheelchair accessible,
you know, And we are all like, you know, we're at a
protest. We're all upset about things, and a cop gets in our face
and one of my colleagues like tries to run that cop over with his wheelchair.
If someone else who's not part of our group says like, oh,
how could you possibly do that, like, you know, it's not worth
being that angry about, I'm probably going to be like, Yo, you
don't know what this is like, you have no idea how frustrating and painful
and oppressive this is. Shut the hell up. If I'm later then talking
with my friend, I might be like, hey, look, I get
your anger. I have the same urge. Right now, all the stories
that we wanted to talk about are not on the front page. Instead,
it's of you trying to hit a cop with your wheelchair, and that gets
into all sorts of tone policing stuff, And I'm not what I'm going to
saying is like the difference between tone policing versus a group internally discussing what is
or is not a good strategy, you know, And that's I think.
Um that example I think actually gets into some because I probably would be like
no, no, hit the cop. But the point is is the idea
of like being like, you know, as opposed to having some big open
discussion about you know, you shouldn't have done this or you should do this,
as opposed to being like, hey, let's let's talk about like,
you know, is this our approach? You know? Are are we trying
to have a unified approach together, you know, or are we just kind
of like doing things ourselves? You know, Yeah, exactly exactly. I
think it's been interesting as well because this is a topic that like, you
know, BLM has been a thing for since before this podcast started, and
I mean like police brutality and military brutality and it directed towards pressed populations.
I mean, that's been a thing for thousands and thousands of years, but
there's certainly been a lot more attention paid to it in the last couple of
years. And just in that regard, it's been really fascinating to me,
and I like this podcast has been a part of tracking that I'm just seeing,
like, how like even with like this was from a while ago,
we discussed the difference between like the Sylvester Stallone version of Judge Dread versus the
movie Dread with Carl Urban that we have a podcast not coming out into a
week or two, and even then we were talking about how like, society's
views on some of these questions have changed a lot, and I think that's
been as we look at this topic of violence. Like, I think it's
interesting. I think to me, one of the things that really appreciated about
the journey we've gone on is just that we're kind of tracking as our whole
society is going on journeys. And I like, I certainly think that the
Overton window of will a cop believed that violence was necessary, therefore violence was
necessary has shifted quite a bit, as has the idea of well, these
people are fighting back, they should just be doing non violent resistance. That
has also shifted a good deal. Yeah, particularly in terms of the you
know, network television conversation and you know the population at large, right,
I mean, obviously there have for a long time been conversations about such things,
but but they've the discussion has certainly gotten broader, It's gotten heard by
more people. I would say, right, is almost the biggest thing.
Like I look at something like Falcon the Winter Soldier, and I know that,
like we both had a lot of good feelings about the Flag Smasher group
at the beginning. Towards the end, I think they really want some bad
directions that even stronger feelings than I did. But I don't know if,
like if that show was made ten years ago, I don't know if we
would ever started with sympathy for the flag smashers, you know, Yeah,
I mean you mean in terms of would would the show have started with sympathy
for them? Would the story have like thea as I interpreted it, the
story was told originally in a way that had a lot of sympathy for the
motivations, if not necessarily the actions of the flag smash Right, Yeah,
I think that is a story that is easier to tell in that way in
twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, whenever it came out, than it was
to tell a story like that in twenty ten. For sure. Now,
the last part of this, I think is one that we've probably covered to
death. And as you said, we mostly joked about it. We've talked
some seriousness about it too, But I'm wondering if you kind of have any
kind of like the summation of thoughts or sort of how your feeling has changed,
or just kind of thought more about it in terms of this idea of
the large number of characters and the stories we talk about who make the claim
that you can use violence without it being lethal, and who like they're dedicated
to I will use violence, but I won't kill. Yeah, I mean,
in reality you can't, and in comics who can, you know.
And so to me, the comic book idea of comic book violence that is
non lethal is kind of aspirational. Yeah, you know, it's kind of
it's not a realistic portrayal of how things work in our world, right,
but I think it's Hey, if we can do whatever kind of violence without
it being lethal, that is better than doing lethal violence, like almost like
basically objectively, right, And I think it's a little bit of both ways,
right where it's like, I think that's great, And I love my
heroes who subscribe to that, you know, like like Batman or Daredevil,
you know, but I also love my anti heroes like dexter who are just
like, nah, I'm just they're just going to be dead and you know
in little bags at the at the you know, outside Miami in the water,
which I'm not I'm not advocating doing that. I'm just saying, you
know, I enjoy those stories. I think there is in terms of both
ways, there is a potential danger of people seeing comic book violence and thinking
that they can then engage in said violence without any risk of death, right,
right, I mean, I think that's that's an issue, you know,
whereas like you'll see a murder mystery and someone will hit someone on the
back of the head with a pipe and they're just dead, you know,
yeah, and it's like that can happen. I think statistically that's probably an
unlikely outcome that you hit someone on the back of the head one time and
they're dead, But it's a possibility, right the same way you can punch
someone in the chest really hard and they can die, but they probably won't.
Right. That's I'm guessing at the Taekwondo studio you had to run,
like all of them people have to sign waivers because like I am sure,
this is incredibly rare and there's lots of steps you can take it. But
like, I do not know this for a fact, but I would be
amazed if there hasn't been at least one incident of someone doing martial arts training
of some kind and dying. Oh, of course, the exact wrong set
of coincidence. This happens. Yeah, events happens, right exactly. There's
I mean, yeah, there definitely is a waiver. That's like you you
agree to hold us to not hold the school or it's you know, members
or teachers responsible for injury or harm including death. Be it like, be
it intentional or unintentional. It's basically like we can hurt you as much as
we want and you can't sue us, except you probably can because you can
probably argue this is a ridiculous clause to part in something. But that is
a that is a very standard clause, the same way you go to a
hospital and they're like, yeah, you agreed not to hold us responsible in
the event of your death, but it's like you can still sue them for
malpractice. Right. I played rugby in college. I had assigned the exact
same waiver. Because it has been people who've died playing college sports or high
school sports or anything like that. Yeah, And my teacher used to say,
like, you know, when we would do competition class and he'd be
like he'd be like, yeah, you know, it's it's a competition,
Like you're not gonna die. And he's like, well, if you're in
the black belt decision division, you might die, but you probably won't and
like, you know, but it's true. It's like, yeah, when
when your aim is to hit someone in the head really hard, you know,
yeah, you're wearing a helmet and foot gear, but the helmet used
to say, like, the helmet isn't to protect your head from getting hit
it, so when you get knocked out and hit your head, you don't
die, you know, you don't hit your head on the floor is hard
and split your your your skull open, and like yeah, so so there
is there is a real risk of serious injury or death and it's not a
high risk, right. I never saw anyone die in the taekwondo school.
I did hear teachers tell this this. One master instructor came in talking about
you know, the business of running things and how you have to get them
to sign the waiver and like you have to pay attention when they're doing,
you know, jumping Jackson the warm up when they're a new student, and
it's like I had this one guy dropped dead in the middle of it.
I'm like what And I don't know whether that was a true story or not,
but like it certainly happened somewhere, you know, Yeah, and and
so yeah, you know, the idea that violence can be necessarily non lethal
is false, but the fact is that it can be dramatically less lethal,
less likely. You know, there is violence that can be aimed not with
the intention of causing death and be very unlikely to cause death. But still,
you know, if it's in a real fight and it's you know,
there's multiple attackers, like you know, you're probably not going to be able
to be like, oh yeah, let me dial it down to ninety,
right, it's like, yeah, everything's probably usually going to be full force,
and you know that's that's where the you know, yeah, like Captain
America, apparently in the comics it's discussed that like he's always holding back,
you know, the way Superman's always holding back, like never hitting everybody anybody
full force, whereas John Walker doesn't have that gear, doesn't know to do
that or doesn't care to do that, and so he just immediately kills someone
by hitting them, right, or was that Carly? Carly killed someone by
hitting them immediately and then John Walker got mad? Okay spoilers for Falcon in
the Winter Salt. No, I think you're so right, and I think
I think you also put your r I think you're so right. I think
you also really put the finger on why this is an important conversation beyond just
being kind of like a funny thing or something to point out being a little
ridiculous, because yeah, like I I think these stories are a small part
of shaping like public opinion and zeitgeist and all this kind of stuff. And
this is not like stop the video games, they're dangerous. I'm never going
to ask these movies to be stopped by any means, but I do think
that, like I think that when violence is portrayed. There's two problems I
sometimes have with a portrayal of violence in movies and TV shows, and one
of which is when it is portrayed as like, oh, yeah, there's
no problem with being totally non lethal and not even on lethal, but also
that like there's no lasting consequence, like you hit them with a head with
a metal pipe. Sure, the chances you kill them may not be a
one hundred percent by any means, maybe even under thirty or whatever, but
the chance that you give them a concussion that could have lasting effects, you
know, is certainly there. That you like, use non lethal force to
knock them to the ground and they fall and break their wrists in a way
that their hand control is never the same, like there should all these effects.
Yeah. I mean I took four students to the hospital over the course
of a year, you know, to the emergency room, and two of
them had some sort of permanent damage, and two of them were pretty much
fine, you know. But I have a finger on my left hand that
I dislocated playing rugby and it will never quite be the same, and I
have a little bit of issue playing guitar with it. Like it's not a
huge deal. I so gladifly rugby, but it's a lifelong effect. Yeah.
And so to me, I think I'm always a little critical of shows
that don't do that. And the other thing is, and here this is
weird because for me, I don't like gore. I don't like seeing blood
and guts, especially when it feels like gratuitous, right. But the flip
side is I don't like when violence is portrayed as like clean and neat,
yeah, you know, And I found that, like, as hard as
it is, I've come to appreciate when like, yeah, like you throw
it a piece of metal at someone at a very high speed, it doesn't
just knock them to the floor, like there's a gash in their head and
there's probably a lot of bleeding, and like it's something I still struggle with
the fan because I don't want the gore necessarily, but I do like it
was always very interesting to me that like in Marvel the movies, which are
PG. And PG. Thirteen, the depiction of violence is much more sanitized
versus Netflix, where you know, when like you know, Kingpin like knocks
one's head off with a card door, you hear this incredibly uncomfortable sound that
haunted me from a long time afterwards. But like good, right, Yeah,
It's like the sanitized version isn't really better, right, It's like that's
that's painting. It's it's a lie. And I think when it comes to
things like gore, you know, is the word gore often to me implies
a sort of gratuity to you know, a gratuitous nous to it of like
we are showing this for the effect, you know, for the shock value.
So someone goes, oh, you know, and like if that's the
main purpose, like no, thanks, you know, whereas if it's like,
no, we're just gonna show this probably as it's gonna be, but
we're not gonna linger on it. You know, We're not going to show
five disembowelments. You know, We'll just show the first one and be like,
okay, now we'll cut to the crowd reactions, you know. And
that's one thing that I'll say I felt like and Or did an interesting job
of u at the risk of talking about and Or. Yet again, there
were a lot of things where there was there was violence that was referred to
but wasn't showed graphically in the same way. Right, maybe you saw someone's
feet instead of seeing you know, seeing them them hanging um full, you
know, like with on their face or whatever. Right. And at the
same time, I don't feel like the show was trying to sanitize these things.
I think it was just like, we don't need to show you all
of them. You know, a lot of blood and guts or anything for
you to get the effect right, to understand what's going on. And so
so I think sometimes it's like what you show and what you don't show.
There's there's an element of art to that, right where you can make sure
it's clear that something is lethal, that something is painful in a particular way
without being as explicit, but that that lack of explicitness isn't a way of
kind of dancing around it. It's just a particular way of portraying it,
right. And certainly, I mean, like I have eight million problems with
how like Hollywood and the government sides what ages should or shouldn't be able to
watch things. Yeah, but at a fundamental level, I am bothered by
the idea that you can show kids violence, you just can't show kids the
consequences of violence. Yeah, that seems very bad, just objectively, just
like what are we doing here? You know? And then in terms of
subjective like I think what you and I are talking about is both kind of
what we think is, you know, the better thing to do, but
also just like what we enjoy, Like there are people the actually coffins of
the world, and God bless them who love the gore. I have no
problem with it. To me, sanitizing violence is I think a society not
great thing to do. I think overly like exploiting, like, yeah,
maybe you can get into some not great territory, but I'm a lot more
comfortable. I don't want to watch it, but I'm a lot more comfortable
with that happening. And then with a purely sanitize Yeah, I haven't really
given too much thought to that in terms of like any whatever consequences there are
of it, Like I just generally find it gross and don't want to watch
it that much, but like you do, you you know, yeah,
exactly, Well, There's eight million other things I could bring up, but
I want this to not become a three hour podcast. Are there any other
kind of big things that you wanted to bring up in terms of like issues
you feel like we kept returning to, or questions we kept going over or
anything like that. I guess in the spirit of this podcast, I had
absolutely no notes or ideas of what I wanted to talk about going in.
You know, I'll say that, Yeah, there is something that I guess
I'd like to kind of pivot to, sure, which is that, Um,
I've I've really loved being on this podcast and having all these conversations with
you, and it has really helped me think about a lot of things in
ways that I might not have otherwise thought about them. There there is also
though, this like I want to write my own stories more I used to,
and then I I really haven't written almost any stories since I started being
on the podcast, and I feel like there there is something there where it's
not just um, you know, that's kind of how my life has been.
Some of that is, right, some of it is like, yeah,
you know, I mean I've got other stuff going on. I've moved
several times, Like we've had COVID around, right, Like, there's been
stuff going on. So I want to make it clear. I'm not saying
like the podcast is necessarily the reason I haven't created new stories, but I
do think that there's something to be said for I think it's difficult to kind
of do critique or really think about other stories a lot and then also kind
of in the same time period be creating news stories. Yeah. I think
it's fair, and it's kind of because it's like two very different ways of
approaching storytelling. One is I mean, it's one thing to kind of just
just be absorbing some but then to kind of really think critically in certain ways,
I think I think it can make it hard, certainly for me,
because I think one of my biggest challenges as a storyteller is being kind of
too critical of the story before it even exists, you know. And and
that kind of goes with the idea of, like, you know, watching
something. Some of my favorite things that I've watched are things that I had
the least expectations for, you know, And so I think kind of creating
too many expectations in terms of thinking about thinking about kind of how a story
might impact people. I think there's value to that and value to understanding kind
of the consequences of the stories we tell. But I think that also can
kind of be a little bit of a freezing thing. And so I understand
when there are writers or you know, storytellers who basically don't want to engage
a whole lot with the discussion around what they're creating. You know. Yeah,
it makes fun sense to me, and I'll especially the idea that like,
when you engage in the critique of something, it just gets into your
head. Yeah. I love cooking shows with a passion and Top Chef is
by far my favorite, and it is fun watching these people who are incredibly
knowledgeable at food dissect food and at times be very critical of how it's cooked.
And I also know that the first couple of years I watched it,
I didn't want to cook anything because now in my head were all these things
about like, oh yeah, I know, like I remember that, like
how mad this judge gets when this thing happens or when that thing happens.
Like I don't want to do that, you know, not even like that
I worry about other people critiquing, but just that I'd be in my head
about it and I had to really kind of separate that a little bit of
like giving myself some space. And so yeah, I think that makes a
lot of sense. And I think for me as a writer, and I
think you're kind of getting to like making some comments about what you see for
the future, and I want to give you that chance. But I'll just
say coming in response as well, I love looking at all this media critically.
But I will say that I think if there's one hard thing I think
about being a podcaster about the media is that it makes it harder to watch
media sometimes. Yeah, and for me, it's it's for three things.
It's the a that if I'm watching something that I think is enjoyable but that
I don't think is ever going to be something I can talk about a podcast,
it feels a bit like a waste of time, which I don't love.
And sometimes I pushed through. And so I was watching Too Hot to
Handle earlier today, which is the trashiest of trashy dating shows. It's all
sorts of problems, but I'm you know, I'm letting myself enjoy some trash,
you know. And then a second thing is that I think, like
it's hard to turn off the analysis and just watch, and it's hard to
just be able to get yourself fully immersed in a story, and it certainly
happens, and I think even more in some ways the things I'm most impressed
by or where I'm like, oh my god, that was so good.
I really want a podcast about it. But I'm gonna have to go back
and watch it again because I got too sucked into the story to even think
about those kind of things along the way. And the third thing, and
this is kind of you know, this is an ethical thing. It's just
a kind of preference thing, and well it's tied in all sorts of business
stuff, but I just I hate watching things week to week and the world
of podcasting and not even not either word of the podcasting, which the world
of content is such that if I chose to wait until a show all twelve
episodes are out three months later, you know, am we have to just
dodge spoilers like crazy, but also be like it's just you've missed now.
I'm like, Okay, I finished the show. Let's talk about that cool
thing that happened in episode two and I went around you is like episode two,
we talked about that three months ago, right, So yeah, So
it's always in which like I definitely think podcasting changes the way you look at
media, and I think I can it's definitely a reason why sometimes I've wanted
to take a break and can understand like different views of like yeah, maybe
I'm gonna change my approach to some of this. Yeah, And it's to
me the type of thing that's also not like this is good, this is
bad. It's more this is different, right, Yeah. I In my
first book, Way of the Poker Warrior, I wrote a chapter that was
basically about kind of like the consequences of making something your job where I was
talking about taekwondo and how once I became a taekwondo instructor, like professionally,
the feeling of training was different, Right. I couldn't experience just like being
a student the same way anymore because all of my training was also you know,
it was designed to make me a better teacher at the same time,
and there was all this responsibility. It was it was like being a taekwondo
adult as opposed to being like a kid. Right. And you know,
the same thing with poker, where it's like, poker can be a very
fun game to play, you know, with friends or with strangers as a
way of you know, you might win some money, you might lose some
money, but at the end of the day, like the point is that
you have fun and maybe in the long run it's profitable, but it's like
it's not such a big deal. And when you know, when you make
it a career, though, it's like, well, you know, every
day is work, right, It's it's work in a different way than going
to play possibly being profitable but not really worrying about it, not relying on
it. And you know, similarly, like watching a show and knowing,
Okay, I'm I'm gonna want to talk about this. You know, if
I were to do it the best that I thought I could do it,
I would probably watch everything once, trying to be kind of free of expectations
and just like kind of soak it up, and then afterwards I might write
a little bit about it, take down some notes, and then I would
watch it again and try and note some details, and then I would probably
go and see, you know, maybe kind of some of the conversation that
was going around it, and then I would come back and watch it a
third time with kind of the understanding of that conversation, and then I would
try and synthesize all of that into kind of some of what I want wanted
to say. That sounds like I would end up doing a ten hour podcast,
and you know what, I probably would, probably, especially if we
were both doing it that way, And you know, there's an extent to
which I usually would watch the thing and then like maybe you and I would
talk about it a little bit and then we would do the podcast. And
some things I would watch two times. I mean, I remember, I
think that last episode of Mandalorian season two I might have watched four times before
we recorded on it because I was just like, it's so good and good
in a particular way that I wanted to like re experience it, right,
But yeah, it's it does take something that I love, which is watching
a show or watching a movie, and then adding a layer of work to
it that does kind of transform it. And for me, it's less about
thinking about what I want to say about it, and it's more when I
then start hearing kind of the conversations that other people are about a thing,
which is something I'm interested in later. But that's one of the things about
the week to week that is so kind of awkward for me, is like
I don't want to be having someone else's thoughts in my head while I'm still
experiencing the thing, you know, and the thing being the whole season or
perhaps the whole show. Like I feel like I want to have my experience
of the story, and then I'm curious, Okay, what was your experience?
Oh interesting, let's talk about that. Yeah, And I'm not as
extreme as you are, but I'm definitely part way there. And I will
say that WandaVision was a big thing that pushed me in your direction. Yeah,
and this podcast is part of the stranded Panda network of podcasts a lot
of great they're all great podcasts. Definitely check them all out strandapanda dot com.
The flagship of that is the MCU Cast, which is if you're a
fan of Marvel stuff, is a fantastic podcast, definitely worth checking out.
Three wonderful people run that, all of whom and guests on here. But
one of the things that they love to do is to not only discuss like
what just happened, but then to go deep in a speculation about what's coming
next. And one division especially like there were all of these kind of things
that people were picking up on as possible, like hidden clues about and one
of the running jokes, fo, yeah, is this Mephisto exactly? Who?
Like I said, like a devil creature in the MCU I don't know
much. Don't give me ten angry emails who it is, please save it
for them. But the point being, like I got so sucked into that
that I found like I was looking for certain things instead of getting just to
enjoy the thing, right, And yeah, I think that's a part of
like I like hearing people's perspective, Like what I love is like, let's
talk about the thing, and like, if there's a perspective you had,
cool, let me hear that. But yeah, it's it's when it becomes
how is this going to change and effect the way you're seeing this thing going
forward? Yeah, I definitely get that. Yeah, And I'd just like
to say, you know, a few words about Stranded Panda and the you
know, Stranded Panda Network. I mean, I found it to be a
delightful I guess I still find it to be, but kind of not let
me rephrase this. I found the Stranded Panda Network to be a delightful group
of people who were enjoying a lot of the same things I was enjoying in
a way that was fairly different from how I generally enjoy them. And for
a period of time I enjoyed that and going on you know, their twitch
Stranded Panda TV and really enjoying interacting and being part of that. But it's
not the primary way that I like to enjoy stories. And you know the
fact that everyone so dialed into all the previews and all the speculation, it
just ends up not being really compatible with the way that I enjoy watching,
you know, did I enjoy watching or reading Stories? And as a result,
you know, I even I saw that they were streaming the other day
and I was like, oh, let me, let me see whether I
can sneak in here without and then they're like and in black panther, I'm
like no, and I'm like damn, yeah, you know, and it's
like, that's that's not them doing anything wrong. They're actually really great about
trying to um keep the spoilers to a minimum in the in the Facebook group.
But you know, for someone who's not going to see something until forty
five days after it's released, it's you know, it's it's a little too
acrobatic to constantly be trying to dodge spoilers and um, you know. And
and so I I kind of you know, detached from that, but it's
it's not from any kind of like lack of love for the people. I
think, um, everybody involved in it like really does a great job.
And if that is how you want to experience stories, definitely, you know,
check out the Facebook group, check out the twitch, check out the
YouTube, um, you know, and the podcasts of course. Yeah,
And like I'll say, and also I have the same feelings from my best
friends in the world. I got through Stranded Panda. A lot of my
listeners I know I got through Stranded Panda, continue to get and continue to
be very happy to be in that network. And it's funny though, because
it also doesn't just happen there like I have. In the last six months
or so, really made a lot of great friends in Star Wars TikTok,
which I'm so glad for, all of whom have been going crazy, all
of whom have been getting super excited about all the things that are apparently revealed
in the bad Batch. She's into spoiler spoiler. You know that. I
love that speaker. By the way, spoiler instead of trailer. That's exactly
what it is. You're right, and I'm just like, no, no,
no, stop, stop stop. See I get that. So we're
coming up on We've got a couple more things to talk about, and I
want this to go above two hours. So I think you were kind of
leading to something you wanted to say about in terms of all the stuff about
what the podcast has done. But you're writing and stuff like that. So
if you want to say that now, great, Otherwise I will kind of
take us in a direction as well. If I've totally misinterpreted you, yeah,
no, I'll say that now basically I am going to be podcasting less
about media exactly what my plan is for next year, which might be this
year when you're listening to this, I don't know, people listen to things
whenever. I'm not one hundred percent sure. I definitely want to write some
stories. I'm not certain whether those will be stories that I published under my
own name or under various incognito pseudonyms, but if they are published under my
own name, you'll be able to find them on or find out about them
on Zenmadman dot com, which is my website which still currently just makes a
bunch of Daredevil references and has pictures of me from the you know, two
thousand and six time period. But you know, I expect to be doing
some more with that. I am a poker player by trade at the moment,
and I will keep doing that for certainly for the next year. Possibly
we will do some I mean I will probably be making some YouTube videos and
streaming on Twitch as Zen Madman and Zen Madman Poker on on YouTube, um,
and maybe we'll do some podcasting related to that. If if people are
interested in that, I'd be happy to hear that. Um. And if
people aren't, that's fine. It's a fairly different um kind of subject,
right, um. And then also like chess somehow maybe fits in there all
of it. I'd say the way it mostly relates to superhero ethics is to
me, it's kind of all about making decisions, um, you know,
to me the heart of superhero ethics um and where where ethics isn't like my
favorite word for this, but I understand that it's you know, the one
people use um is like, it's about what decisions do people make in what
scenarios? And what do we think about those decisions? You know, like
do we think those are are good decisions? Or do we think those are
not the best decisions? And you know, poker and chess are all about
you know, what do we know about the situation and what do we think
is the best decision. There there's a fairly clear object of you know,
trying to win, Whereas in life some people approach life that way. I'm
not super fond of that approach of decisions in life. If I were,
I'd probably have more money, but I don't know if i'd be as happy,
and I don't know if the people around me would be as happy.
Makes a lot of sense, Yeah, And I think I really appreciate you
saying all that. As I say at the beginning, I don't know exactly
what the future of this podcast is going to be. Star Wars Universe podcast
is definitely continue a week to week. I think we have a couple of
episodes already lined up for January and February. I think what will likely happen
is that I'm going to sort of put some feelers out to find out other
people who are initiating me in guests some kind of time. If someone wants
to step up and be a co host, then we may well do that.
But I think I've been recognizing, like, not even just with Paul
stepping aside, but I definitely have been going through some superhero burnout. I
love the MCU, I'm enjoying some of the DC stuff. There's a lot
of it, though, and it's a little bit overwhelming. And I've kind
of noticed how much of that media I've been watching as well as like and
I think the listener numbers for this podcast are down a good deal over where
they were maybe a year or two ago. Part of that is I think
that the super these Star Wars podcast numbers have gone up quite a good deal.
And part of that is I think that we're putting out much more recent
content with Star Wars and the way we're not doing with this podcast in the
same way. Part of that maybe there's a lot of you who enjoy the
things I have to say, but once a month of all my ms and
os and heavy breathing and the like is all you can take totally the gin
of it too, And so if you're doing Star Wars, but I think
it's a good chance for us to take a look at and go like,
Okay, well what else can we do? So there's definitely going to be
more podcasting that I do, sometimes in partnership with Paul, sometimes in partnership
with others. It's going to be connected to media in some ways. I
may also wind up being a close partner with Paul or like a co host
or a frequent guest or an infrequent guest on the Poker and critical thinking and
decision making and chests and all that and learning. We'll see where that goes.
But I would say kind of ID say two things. One is like
keep your eyes open. January might be a bit of a quiet month while
we start to kind of like figure some things out. But I said,
we will have at least at least two podcasts will go out. It might
be that this goes to a once every other week format for a while.
It might be that it's kind of a bonus thing format for a while.
But especially like I said, heroes look for accountability and heroes look for buy
in. So for those of you who are listening, I would love to
hear from you, let me know what would you like to hear more of
in twenty twenty three. If that's keep zero Ethics exactly the same, you
really love it as it is great if you're like, yeah, it would
be interesting for you to go in some new directions and maybe, like one
idea might be that like once a month we just do an episode on a
particular topic and talk about all the media that kind of fits into that,
or like maybe once a month or once every two weeks we just do a
roundup of the big media that came out in that time, so it's always
much more current and talk about what are the big questions it raised. It
might be that it's just like, yeah, every two weeks, we'll find
some thing to talk about and see what it is. Paul and I were
going back and forth on some ideas about doing like a deep dive into the
Wire or into Jericho, which the TV show we love that kind of in
many ways like a fairly unknown show, and it's a network TV with some
of the problems of network TV, but it also is kind of a perfect
summation of all the issues that we talk about on this show, except maybe
the graphicness of violence, but that's because it's network TV in the nineties and
in the early two thousands. So I don't know exactly what direction is going
to go, but I would love to hear from you. As always,
The Ethical Panda dot com has all the information. You can find me on
Facebook, on Twitter, you can find me going to my discord which I'll
publish, and you can find me just send me an email Matthew at the
Ethical Panda dot Com. Not sure exactly what it's going to be. I
do know that finding ways to pay for all of this because there is a
lot of time and equipment and money I'm sticking into it, and that's not
gonna be are sustainable, and so there will be a patriotic of some kind
that we're trying to build in It probably will be up and going by the
time this is up. This episode goes live, so check that out.
And we're gonna be trying to make bonus content. You're gonna hear the bonus
content for this episode after the ads and final credits and stuff like that.
But but the future, those will probably be behind the Patreon wall. But
it's gonna be a very low wall, like three dollars a month or something
like that, So I don't There's a lot of stuff that I don't know
it about though yet, so please send it to an email, send it
some ideas. This is a time of contemplation, consideration, finding the new
direction, and I'd love to hear from you. So really, I'm half
of myself. I just want to say thank you to all of you for
being great listeners throughout this entire process. Thank you for being a part of
this whole project. And I'll let Paul do kind of a goodbye sign off
as well. But just whatever direction we go in, I know that you
all have sustained us for literally more than six years. You've made this project
so exciting, so interesting, and I've learned and grown so much from it,
and I just want to say thank you. You heard it here.
First, Matthew wants to build a wall, but it's going to be a
low wall. There. Go on a more serious note, wherever we do
go from here, it's been an honor with you know, doing all this
with you, Matthew, and with all the guests. I've just had such
a good time with the conversations themselves, and then also hearing feedback and you
know, knowing people we're listening, which if you're you know, if you're
trying to transmit the plants to the death stars, is very useful, but
you don't want it if you're trying to escape an imperial work camp. I
think that's a very good summation of the things we've learned entirely from Star Wars.
But yeah, exactly, I will say. By the way, also,
I've been talking for a while about some kind of family feud episode we
get a lot of the common guests. That will definitely happens twenty three.
We'll let you know, but for now we're gonna go into a last set
of commercials and closing music and then this episode this to quote the Kings and
Trio, this exit will be slightly felonious because we'll have a little bit of
bonus content coming to you right after this. Send Madman out, Ethical Panda
in. All right, Paul, So last question go throw at you.
And this is the kind of question that I know you like some preparation for.
So my apologies, but what are some of the pieces of media that
you think, like if people wanted to either get a really good idea of
your position on these questions, or if they just wanted like media that you
think is really good for raising the kind of questions we're talking about. And
I'm gonna make this a little harder by saying, let's take our go twos
off the board. Can I speak to you about our Lord and Savior?
And or no? Yeah? And or the wire v for Vendetta, the
Batman stuff in general, Like, I think all those we can sort of
just put on the table. We all know those are those are the big
ones. Yeah, what are some others you'd mentioned? I mean, one
that we never really got around too, I think because you just didn't dig
it as much as I did, is gross point blank. I think it's
an interesting exploration into like, you know, the use of violence and kind
of its place in our world or its lack of place, or it touches
on, you know, some kind of leftist philosophy type stuff that we talk
about and you know, corruption and stuff like that. But it's also just
really fun you know, yeah, if that makes sense. Um, it
has a great use of nine sick loof balloons, you know, the the
German original version of ninety nine red Balloons, and um, yeah, just
the soundtrack is great. Uh. That's one that I feel like, you
know, I haven't mentioned much, but like I just think is uh,
it's it's a movie that's I don't know it it does meaning to me.
I saw it on my something or other birthday. Um. Yeah. So
so that's one. And then more recently in terms of a show that I
really enjoyed and I think a lot of people would enjoy and it also touches
on a lot of the same things and is also pretty funny. Is um
balastcarn pi or paye or I don't I don't know whether he says it PI,
because I think it's supposed to be kind of like a reference to like
magnum Pi. But he's um He's not a private investigator. He's an independent
detective, right or not? Yeah, things, but it's like nineteen late
seventies Mexico City, you know, independent detective going around trying to solve some
some mysteries with you know, some police corruption and stuff like that. And
I won't say too much more about it. The actor is in the third
season of Narcos Mexico, and I just think is a fantastic actor. And
I just really enjoyed the show a lot. Nice. Yeah, nice,
Yeah, I think some of the ones that are for me. First is
one that we did do an episode on, but I just would really recommend
because we didn't talk much a representation on this, but this is the show
that I think is like the pinnacle of representation, the p of world building,
where your world is really trying to say what happens when we don't have
to have racism in this world, we don't have to have queer phobia and
the like. And that's Shira. Oh. Yeah, the new animated version.
I just thought it was so good and just did such great things as
well as doing such a great portrayal of mental illness, Like I think it
does a version of the Danny Zuko story that is as good, if not
better. And I think that's a pretly subjective just which one you like more?
Y? Yeah, I mean yeah, but it's like the defining thing.
But I definitely related to it a little bit more in Shira. But
it's just it is so good for all those things. A second one and
here's kind of like my version of gross point blank. Although you probably have
much better reasons for not liking this than I do. I don't know what
it is about gross point blank. I'll try it again sometime. It just
didn't grab me probably point in my life where I watched it. I think
that some of the absolute best television out there right now that is diving into
all the issues that we talk about is The Boys, and I think particularly
because it's kind of a satire or a commentary on and a reflection on so
much of the stuff that we're doing here. And I get it. You
have this weird idea that you want to be able to like like a character,
at least one on screen. I don't get it, but that's your
thing. So that's when I would definitely recommend another that we just didn't cover
because it's like part of the Star Trek universe, and so I actually did
it with Matthew Carroll. But is the Orville the Orvile? I think is
doing all the things that Star Trek did in somebody's doing it even better,
but also commenting on Star Trek in terms of like using science fiction as this
model and vehicle for like, you know, creating fake scenarios that are mirrors
of our own world in really wonderful ways. And so that's when I would
lift up and then I had another one that's completely cut out of my head.
So yeah, so those are my three. Actually, no, Orville
was always meant to be the third, all right, So if you got
three, then I'm going to throw a third one out there in the holiday
spirit. I thought you had to said too, Okay, I said gross
point blank and blast Coronum. I mentioned Narcos Mexico, but that wasn't what
I was talking about. That was that's where the actor is, and he's
also in some other show Club de Quervos. But yeah, in the Holiday
spirit, um, I'm gonna throw. I know people like to talk about
die Hard being a Christmas movie, but I think the longest good Night is
a much better Christmas movie. Uh, it's very festive. There's like Christmas
lights at the end popping while somebody might be dying. Um, and it's
it's Gina Davis as an extremely badass assassin. I guess spoilers, but you
kind of get that in the beginning. I think, um, and Samuel
L. Jackson as a a PI and you know, it's got Brian Cox
and um, someone else who's name I forget, but really reminds me of
someone I knew when I was younger. And yeah, I think it's also
a fun movie that maybe doesn't explore too much, you know, the roles
of violence and whatever. But yeah, it's it's fun and funny. It's
I liked my action comedies, you know, And I think that's why I
responded so well to Marvel early on, was like that's basically what they were
doing. So, I mean we've talked about how Bullet Train was a movie
that I watched, and I remember saying to you specifically, like Paul,
I think this is a movie you will love. I don't want a podcast
if you on it, because I think it's just a movie to just enjoy.
And we probably could come up with some podcast, but I kind of
don't want to. I'd rather just be able to just love it because it's
a really great movie. Yeah for sure. Cool. All right, well,
Paul, thank you so much for being a part of this journey.
As I say to everybody, we will continue to find ways to bring in
Paul, do other things to bring in all of you, your feedback,
your ideas, all that. So thank you again so much, and climb
goodbye. Why are you? Why are you? M