Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
Speaker 1: an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
Speaker 1: not because I put my hand on a book and
Speaker 1: made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking.
Speaker 3: Feel so much more happiness.
Speaker 2: Truth, Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: So Natalie and I went to the theater to go
Speaker 2: see the Odd to see on the big screen, and yes,
Speaker 2: it's amazing. I know there are a few who came
Speaker 2: out who were underwhelmed, but they are a very few.
Speaker 2: We went in, and we don't go to the theater
Speaker 2: all that often anymore. I think some of it is
Speaker 2: that our four K widescreen experiences at home have gotten better.
Speaker 2: Part of it for me is the rudeness in theaters.
Speaker 2: Big announcement comes on, please turn off your cell phone,
Speaker 2: be quiet and courteous to others. Five minutes later, somebody
Speaker 2: pulls a freaking cell phone out because they just can't
Speaker 2: go ten minutes without scrolling social media or sending a
Speaker 2: text about the movie they're watching. It just makes my
Speaker 2: blood boil. And you know, occasionally there is a film
Speaker 2: that comes out you're like, I got to see it.
Speaker 2: This is a theater experience. So we went to go
Speaker 2: see it on a big premium screen in Tulsa and
Speaker 2: it was. It was amazing, two hours, forty five minutes,
Speaker 2: but that time just flew. I would totally go go
Speaker 2: out and see it again tonight. And it gives me
Speaker 2: great joy to see The Odyssey just raking in the
Speaker 2: cash at the box office after so many of these
Speaker 2: right wing agents of manufactured outrage were predicting its demise.
Speaker 2: This is a woke movie. It's a di movie. This
Speaker 2: is just social commentary. It's part of the culture war right,
Speaker 2: Christopher Nolan, he's just pining four awards, which is why
Speaker 2: he added such a diverse cast. What political correctness this is?
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, have you beyond Donald Trump? Have we ever
Speaker 2: seen a more malcontented, whiny, bitchy manchild. The guy has
Speaker 2: almost a trillion dollars. He's freaking richer than rich richest
Speaker 2: man On the planet, richest man in the history of man.
Speaker 2: He should be on top of the world. He should
Speaker 2: be happy, he should be living his best life. Have
Speaker 2: you noticed that all he does is whine and complain
Speaker 2: and agitate and stir the pot and just be childishly nasty.
Speaker 2: Explain this to me. He has a mean streak and
Speaker 2: a nasty restlessness. And I just think you of all people, right,
Speaker 2: You're supposed to be the greatest American success story, and
Speaker 2: all you do is bitch about life. What is it
Speaker 2: about the Odyssey that bothers you so much? Well? He
Speaker 2: and Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh and a bunch of
Speaker 2: other right wingers, they've decided that this is nothing but
Speaker 2: DEI nonsense. They would have offended Homer, by the way,
Speaker 2: somebody explain the sexuality of the ancient Greeks. It's when
Speaker 2: to go back and let's get into what all that was.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he's thinking about. One of the
Speaker 2: big they're actually two big problems for Elon and Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Fox News they were losing their minds. The
Speaker 2: first one, obviously, there is the casting of black actor
Speaker 2: Lupita Niango as Helen of Troy. Well, they wanted apparently
Speaker 2: another white person. They saw Diane Krueger as Helen of
Speaker 2: Troy and the film Troy from like twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: and they're like, ah, yeah, the face that launches a
Speaker 2: thousand ships would obviously be white. And I like Diane Krueger.
Speaker 2: I thought she was so good in Inglorious Bastard's and
Speaker 2: some other films, but I just never bought her. I
Speaker 2: never saw the charisma in that particular film with Diane Krueger,
Speaker 2: but I sure saw it with Lupita Niango in this one.
Speaker 2: There's a magnetism there that that character requires. It was
Speaker 2: so freaking good. And the people who were losing their
Speaker 2: minds about the casting had not seen a frame of
Speaker 2: the film beyond the trailer, right, They hadn't seen what
Speaker 2: they were criticizing. And of course the big one transactor
Speaker 2: Elliot Page as sign on. Except they thought that Elliot
Speaker 2: Paige was playing Achilles. And there were whole there were
Speaker 2: articles and blogs and YouTube protest videos and news reports
Speaker 2: lamenting the fact that the Great Achilles would be played
Speaker 2: by diminutive transactor Eliot Page. This is the stomping on
Speaker 2: Homer's grave. I think that's what Elon Musk actually said.
Speaker 2: It's like we're dancing, we're stomping on the grave of Homer.
Speaker 2: But of course Elliot Page played sign On. I don't
Speaker 2: think sign On was actually a character in Homer's Odyssey.
Speaker 2: I think sign On may have been added as a
Speaker 2: character for the film version. And Elliot Page is really
Speaker 2: really good. I didn't see it as stunt casting or
Speaker 2: some DEI exercise. I mean Elliot Page, as Ellen Page
Speaker 2: had already starred in a previous Christopher Nolan film, Inception,
Speaker 2: which is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 2: They had a relationship. Elliot Page a fantastic actor. Why not?
Speaker 2: What's the problem? What does this take away from Elon
Speaker 2: Musk and Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh in the host
Speaker 2: of Fox News. They are simply stoking the culture war.
Speaker 2: This is a woke exercise by people who don't understand
Speaker 2: that true awesomeness is caucasion. Now, Elon Musk, he's got
Speaker 2: his panties in such a wad over this that he
Speaker 2: has decided he's going to use his Grock AI engine
Speaker 2: to make his own full length AI Odyssey film and
Speaker 2: release it. And I am guessing that that thing is
Speaker 2: going to be so white you would be able to
Speaker 2: see it from space. These conservative experts were predicting that
Speaker 2: the film would fail. Americans don't want this, the world
Speaker 2: doesn't want this. Why are you forcing diversity, equity inclusion
Speaker 2: down our throats. The whole thing's going to crash and burn.
Speaker 2: I look forward to seeing the egg on Christopher Nolan's face. Hey,
Speaker 2: wait a minute. The thing opens to ninety seven percent
Speaker 2: audience thumbs up reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I think the
Speaker 2: critics on Rotten Tomatoes are at ninety plus percent. It
Speaker 2: made a ton of money in its opening weekend and
Speaker 2: continues to vacuum up box office dollars. It is a
Speaker 2: front runner for the Best Picture of twenty twenty six
Speaker 2: and it's not even August yet. This thing is a
Speaker 2: runaway success. And I would go back and see it
Speaker 2: in the theater tonight. It's beautiful. Christopher Nolan, he sometimes
Speaker 2: frustrates me. He's genius level smart. Sometimes I think he
Speaker 2: outsmarts himself. But if you haven't seen the movie that
Speaker 2: put him on the map, it's called Memento starring Guy Pierce.
Speaker 2: It's a brain twister. It's a little bit of work.
Speaker 2: I mean, you really got to pay attention. You can't
Speaker 2: just leave and go to the bathroom and make popcorn
Speaker 2: and come back and pick up where you left off.
Speaker 2: You got to pay attention. But you will be rewarded
Speaker 2: if you do. I mentioned inception, which I just love.
Speaker 2: I see something new every time I watch the movie
Speaker 2: The Dark Night, considered by many one of the greatest
Speaker 2: superhero movies ever made. There's a lot to love about Interstellar,
Speaker 2: although the ending confuses me. The last thirty minutes I
Speaker 2: don't get I still don't get. I've had it explained
Speaker 2: to me, and I don't get it. He's flying around
Speaker 2: in the thing in the black hole, and there's a
Speaker 2: library made of string that takes them through time, and
Speaker 2: he's able to go communicate with his daughter when she
Speaker 2: was a child using the floating dust and something about
Speaker 2: the universal power of love transcending space.
Speaker 4: Time and what.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand that I didn't huh, But I mean
Speaker 2: there's some amazing stuff in it. Dunkirk. Actually, I'm one
Speaker 2: of the few people who didn't fall ahead over heels
Speaker 2: for Dunkirk. I just didn't. I mean, everybody's like it's
Speaker 2: one of the greatest war movies ever made. I appreciate
Speaker 2: the story of Dunkirk, but I left the movie theater irritated.
Speaker 2: And it's because of one common problem that Christopher Nolan has,
Speaker 2: especially when he teams up with composer Hans Zimmer, not always,
Speaker 2: but often, and that has to do with an irritating
Speaker 2: sound design that makes the movie harder to appreciate. Anybody
Speaker 2: remember Bain's voice in the Dark Knight Rises. It was
Speaker 2: purposefully made to be hard to understand. Listen to Christopher
Speaker 2: Nolan talk about it. I mean they even had to
Speaker 2: go back and clean it up in post production because
Speaker 2: it was so bad, and it was still very hard
Speaker 2: to understand. Yes, the fire rose ough irritating, and Dunkirk,
Speaker 2: especially when Tom Hardy's flying the plane over the ocean
Speaker 2: and the ships are going it's like two and a
Speaker 2: half hours of having a voove Zela horn jammed into
Speaker 2: your ear canal. Just I mean, it was irritating. Interstellar
Speaker 2: had a few of those types of audio issues. Tenant
Speaker 2: Tenant sound. The dialogue in Tenant is almost impossible to
Speaker 2: understand without captions. I tried it again at home. I
Speaker 2: had to turn captions on for a movie spoken in
Speaker 2: my native language. By the way, somebody explained the plot
Speaker 2: of Tenant to me. Even a fan, if you're a
Speaker 2: fan of the movie, explain Tenant to me. So it
Speaker 2: was interesting to look at. But I left with kind
Speaker 2: of a what the hell expression on my face, swung
Speaker 2: for the fences and missed with Tenant. But I appreciate
Speaker 2: the ambition. At least it wasn't a formula film. Oppenheimer,
Speaker 2: Come on, name for me a better film about the
Speaker 2: Manhattan Project. I mean, and I loved Fat Man and
Speaker 2: Little Boy and its depiction of Robert Oppenheimer. But Oppenheimer
Speaker 2: the film outstanding, and the film after that, The Odyssey.
Speaker 2: It challenges you, it entertains you, and there's some stuff
Speaker 2: on screen that I'm like, how did they do that? Practically,
Speaker 2: get a ticket, go see it afterwards, we'll talk, okay. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to start with a little film recommendation.
Speaker 2: I guess we all like to do our movie reviews
Speaker 2: as if we know what we're talking about. We all
Speaker 2: like to go and say I saw it, and I
Speaker 2: give it five stars, but I'm giving it I'll give
Speaker 2: it five or at least four and a half. But
Speaker 2: I'm pushing five stars. I had that much fun. Nice
Speaker 2: to be rewarded when you pay that much for a
Speaker 2: movie ticket. Okay, let me take a hard turn here
Speaker 2: and tell you about something that just crossed my newsfeed.
Speaker 2: My algorithm is just awesome. You just never know. For example,
Speaker 2: I might see something political the news of the day.
Speaker 2: The next post might be something about the Satanic Temple,
Speaker 2: and the documentary about TST is now trending again on HBO.
Speaker 2: It's called Hail Satan. After that, there might be a
Speaker 2: clip from a bad eighties movie, because I love bad
Speaker 2: eighties movies. And then look, there's something from the Baptist
Speaker 2: news site. This article just posted a few days ago.
Speaker 2: And I guess I got to start with the scenario.
Speaker 2: So clear your mind and let me make the picture.
Speaker 2: You build the image in your brain. Okay, So picture
Speaker 2: the typical right wing evangelical conservative dude in the manosphere
Speaker 2: in a culture where we see Mark Driscoll. He's asserting
Speaker 2: that men need to run the world. You've got Pastor
Speaker 2: Douglas Wilson, he wants to repeal the Nineteenth Amendment. You
Speaker 2: got the Southern Baptist Convention. They just banned women from preaching.
Speaker 2: You've got this whole idea that God is the head
Speaker 2: of man, and man is the head of everything and
Speaker 2: everyone else. How convenient for them. But men struggle with lust,
Speaker 2: and women are the object of lust, those women who
Speaker 2: refuse to dress modestly but actually show their shape, or
Speaker 2: maybe even when they don't. And a man's imagination goes
Speaker 2: wild anyway, and lo and behold, he is affected and erected.
Speaker 2: His ronald has a McDonald. The elevator is rising, he
Speaker 2: has a stimulus package. Uh oh uh oh, we got
Speaker 2: sin going here, uncontrolled lustful thoughts. Whatever will he do well?
Speaker 2: A couple of guys who say they have struggled with
Speaker 2: addictions to pornography, temptation, and lust, And don't they sound
Speaker 2: like they be super safe to be around. They are
Speaker 2: starting men only gems for Christian guys. One of them's
Speaker 2: in Oklahoma City. It's Already Open was founded by a
Speaker 2: guy named Jeff Hambrecked. He has named it Proverbs twenty
Speaker 2: seven seventeen fitness. Doesn't that roll off the tongue? Hey,
Speaker 2: where are you going to work out? I'll be down
Speaker 2: the street at Proverbs twenty seven seventeen fitness. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: super catchy, looking forward to the marketing campaign on that one.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're not sure what Proverbs twenty
Speaker 2: seven seventeen says, it reads as iron sharpens iron, so
Speaker 2: one man sharpens another. And if that verse sounds strangely
Speaker 2: homo erotic, you are already onto the angle that I'm
Speaker 2: about to take. Care. There's another guy. His name is
Speaker 2: Mitch Parsons, and he's opening a man only Christian workout
Speaker 2: fitness facility in Denver. It's still under construction. It's called
Speaker 2: Remnant Gym. He said he had gone to other fitness facilities,
Speaker 2: one after the other after the other, and it was
Speaker 2: nothing but struggle. He said there were women working out
Speaker 2: next to him who were shoving their nakedness in his face. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to go and work out. Quote. I
Speaker 2: had to choose between honoring the Lord, honoring my wife,
Speaker 2: and guarding my eyes or training my body. So I
Speaker 2: quit four gyms. Now, you know, he's not working out
Speaker 2: in a three piece suit. The guys in shorts and
Speaker 2: maybe a muscle shirt or no shirt or whatever. And
Speaker 2: he's over there hot and sweaty, but he doesn't get
Speaker 2: blasted for shoving his nakedness in anybody else's face. No, No,
Speaker 2: it's the woman. That's not the Harlot, the Jezebel. She's
Speaker 2: over there shoving her nakedness in his face. There are
Speaker 2: two angles that I'm taking in my brain. The first
Speaker 2: is but the guy can't control his own heartened mind.
Speaker 2: This is how he sees women like he sees them,
Speaker 2: but he sees them only as objects. He only perceives nakedness.
Speaker 2: He can't even look the other direction. But if once
Speaker 2: you keep your eyes on your own paper man or
Speaker 2: these people are just gay and they haven't admitted it
Speaker 2: to themselves or other people yet, I'm going to create
Speaker 2: a big box full of sweaty men. We're going to
Speaker 2: put a no woman sign on the door. Let's see
Speaker 2: what happens next. Right, And the people, the people who
Speaker 2: are banging their bibles so much about sexual sin, these
Speaker 2: are always the people to watch the closest. They're always
Speaker 2: the people who end up being exposed with some sexual sin.
Speaker 2: They're either a serial cheater, they're creeping online sometimes to miners,
Speaker 2: or or they've been having same sex twists, sometimes with
Speaker 2: people who are part of their own religious group. The
Speaker 2: easy example Ted Haggard megapastor Denver, Colorado. He's preaching against
Speaker 2: gays every freaking five minutes. When he is exposed. What
Speaker 2: is he exposed doing. He's sexting a dude in his congregation.
Speaker 2: Let me pull up that Christopher Hitchins quote about the moralizers.
Speaker 2: This was from his book hitch twenty two and Memoir
Speaker 2: twenty ten that the year before he died, he wrote
Speaker 2: these words. He said, whenever I hear some big mouth
Speaker 2: in Washington or the Christian Heartland banging on about the
Speaker 2: evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name
Speaker 2: in my notebook and contentedly set my watch sooner rather
Speaker 2: than later, he'll be discovered down on his weary and
Speaker 2: well worn old niece in some dreary motel or life
Speaker 2: train with an expired visa card, having tried to pay
Speaker 2: well over the odds to be peed upon by some
Speaker 2: apache transvestite. And you and I already going through the
Speaker 2: Rolodex in our brains. Of the pulpit pounders who were
Speaker 2: later exposed. Jimmy Swagger was big in the eighties televangelist,
Speaker 2: televangelist who was on stage and he was moralizing left
Speaker 2: and right, that guy paid more prostitutes. Okay, fine, engage
Speaker 2: a sex worker, right, I mean that's legitimate work, that's fine,
Speaker 2: But aren't you on stage preaching the exact opposite of
Speaker 2: what you're doing. I pulled it up online, because the
Speaker 2: Internet has everything almost With a Google search, I was
Speaker 2: able to take us back forty some years as Jimmy
Speaker 2: Swaggered freshly busted in another sexual sin engaging a prostitute.
Speaker 2: He's standing in front of like twenty thousand people in
Speaker 2: an auditorium. This sermon broadcast globally two millions, and he
Speaker 2: is shedding the tears of remorse, regret to end repentance.
Speaker 2: Check this out.
Speaker 5: I have sinned against you, my lord, and I would
Speaker 5: ask that your precious foot.
Speaker 3: Wood wash and clints.
Speaker 6: Every stain.
Speaker 7: Until it is in deceas of God's forgetfulness.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, h yeah, Is he still alive? Hang on,
Speaker 2: Jimmy swaggered. Jimmy swaggered. Oh he died. Oh he died
Speaker 2: just last year, July the first. His wiki page has
Speaker 2: him known for scandals involving prostitutes in nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 2: and nineteen ninety one, and he was associated with revolutionary
Speaker 2: groups accused of war crimes in Southern Africa. He had
Speaker 2: been defrocked by the Assemblies of God denomination, and so
Speaker 2: he moved on to become a non denominational minister of
Speaker 2: the Gospel. Well lucky us. Anyway, short break, I'm going
Speaker 2: to take your calls and find out what's on your mind.
Speaker 2: Next next week, I'm releasing the video and the audio
Speaker 2: from the recent event with myself and No Illusions on
Speaker 2: stage in Cincinnati. A lot of people who couldn't make
Speaker 2: it to the event. Will you release it online? The
Speaker 2: answer was yes. The footage came out pretty well, and
Speaker 2: so I'll have an audio version here and a video version.
Speaker 2: It's two and a half hours of really good stuff
Speaker 2: I think you will enjoy real fast. Before I go
Speaker 2: to the switchboard, a piece of housekeeping that is being
Speaker 2: forced upon me and is being forced upon Patreon. Okay,
Speaker 2: so Patreon has made an announcement that November one, everybody's
Speaker 2: going to be required to switch their subscription model. Some
Speaker 2: people right now can choose. They can choose to support
Speaker 2: me with a certain dollar amount every month, or they
Speaker 2: can support me with a certain amount per post, per
Speaker 2: thing that I upload. Well, Apple is saying no, we're
Speaker 2: not going to let you do that. If you want
Speaker 2: to keep your access to using our app for releases,
Speaker 2: the biggest podcast app on the planet right if you
Speaker 2: really want us as part of the release options, you
Speaker 2: can't use the per post model. It's subscription only. We
Speaker 2: require it, And so now Patreon's hand has been forced
Speaker 2: the deadline November the first. If you are a patron
Speaker 2: doing a per upload sponsorship, you're going to need to
Speaker 2: go and make the switch, or I think Patreon might
Speaker 2: make it for you. You to get in front of that,
Speaker 2: just log onto your account and subscribe for whatever dollar
Speaker 2: amount you want per month. If you are not a patron,
Speaker 2: I would encourage you or ask for your support, and
Speaker 2: when you sign up, it is a monthly subscription, a
Speaker 2: dollar amount of your choosing for all the content that
Speaker 2: you get on the show. Sorry for the trouble. I
Speaker 2: think Patreon staff is just as frustrated as all the
Speaker 2: content creators out there. Just a big and unnecessary switch.
Speaker 2: But Apple's like, oh yeah, well, screw everybody, We do
Speaker 2: what we want. We're Apple, and many of us rely
Speaker 2: on that platform to get the word out. It's the
Speaker 2: ultimate catch twenty two. Okay, let's go to the phones.
Speaker 2: Greg is dialing in from area code for zero nine.
Speaker 2: Welcome Greg, Are you there?
Speaker 8: Oh yes, we're just a couple of things. I did
Speaker 8: want a story out, and I'll try and take you
Speaker 8: too much time.
Speaker 2: For your funnel.
Speaker 8: I am not a caller, but number one, I'm almost sixty.
Speaker 8: About six years ago, I drive a lot for work.
Speaker 8: Hitchins got his great audio books started the ball rolling
Speaker 8: on my deconstruction. I was a full blown Southern Baptist,
Speaker 8: indoctrinated from birth Christian. The next book that got me
Speaker 8: was Doctor Richard Dawkins, and then yours was the one
Speaker 8: that finally helped me shut the door on this. And
Speaker 8: it was because the Hitchens and Dawkins, two beautiful authors
Speaker 8: and masters the English language. Where you got me was
Speaker 8: here's a guy in Oklahoma. I'm down here in Southeast Texas.
Speaker 8: He raised just like me, dealt with all this and
Speaker 8: it just I just want to share with you. And
Speaker 8: I was fortunate enough to come to hear you at
Speaker 8: the Houston Oasis last year.
Speaker 2: So wow.
Speaker 8: Anyway, I wanted to ask the ten Commandments, which we
Speaker 8: now have posted and my eight grandkids have to endure
Speaker 8: in their classrooms every day. The first literally one verse lower,
Speaker 8: starts a litany of I think the first one is pale.
Speaker 8: You know, if a slave creates a family while he's
Speaker 8: enslaved and he's free, he has to leave his wife
Speaker 8: and children with the master. The next one goes on
Speaker 8: to how a father can prostitute his daughter legally, And
Speaker 8: it goes on, how come these ten got all the
Speaker 8: attention and nobody pays attention to the next fifteen or
Speaker 8: so that come after. It would be one question.
Speaker 2: Now punctuate the frustration. Plus, I think the first four
Speaker 2: commandments have nothing to do with behavior. They're all about
Speaker 2: God's vanity. Thou shall have Noah, thou shalt love the Lord.
Speaker 2: I'm like, come on, give me a break, right, And.
Speaker 8: The next question I've got for you. I am from
Speaker 8: this area. Where I'm at in southeast ex Is, about
Speaker 8: seventy miles east of Houston. I did live in California
Speaker 8: for about eight years, about fifteen years ago, and that
Speaker 8: ruined Texas even more for me? How have you dealt
Speaker 8: with everywhere I go? I have gotten to where I'm
Speaker 8: in the last six years, damn near a hermit because
Speaker 8: I can't stand to be around these people. And plus,
Speaker 8: when I know somebody voted, maga, I'll just be up.
Speaker 8: I have Asperger's. I can't get it out of my
Speaker 8: head what they've done. How do you go out and
Speaker 8: about and lead your life in a more protective manner
Speaker 8: than I am doing right now? Once you've seen who
Speaker 8: these people really are and you're surrounded with them.
Speaker 2: Well, I crawl everywhere in the prone position. Greg That's
Speaker 2: pretty much how I navigate the state of Oklahoma. There's
Speaker 2: a guy at the end of my street. I took
Speaker 2: a photo of his dashboard because he parks his truck
Speaker 2: backward and he keeps a Trump hat in the dash
Speaker 2: so it acts as kind of a de facto billboard
Speaker 2: for Trump whenever he parks in that direction. And I
Speaker 2: was walking by and I was like, God, you gotta
Speaker 2: be shitting me. And so I took a picture, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is what we have to deal with.
Speaker 2: And I've distanced myself from a lot of people. I
Speaker 2: feel a tremendous sense of resentment, not just that they
Speaker 2: voted for the insanity that's around us, but even those
Speaker 2: people who were kind of quiet quitting Trump, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're like, eh, we didn't know he was going
Speaker 2: to do this. We didn't realize it was going to
Speaker 2: be like that. And they're playing that card. They're still
Speaker 2: not standing shoulder to shoulder with me to protest it.
Speaker 2: They just went mute. And I resent that, you coward,
Speaker 2: get off the fucking couch. You know, Fascism is all
Speaker 2: around us, white supremacies around us, hate and cruelty and
Speaker 2: suffering and all this stuff. And I just don't think
Speaker 2: they get to decide to quietly leave the club without consequence.
Speaker 2: If you're truly full of regret, then get your ass
Speaker 2: out here and let's undo some of the damage that
Speaker 2: your vote did. And because they don't, I have withdrawn
Speaker 2: from them. So my circle has gotten smaller. And I
Speaker 2: don't you know, there was some greg who think I
Speaker 2: should continue to engage them to try to help them
Speaker 2: reverse course further. Maybe there's a way to encourage them
Speaker 2: to join me that I've missed, but I'm out of patience.
Speaker 2: I just don't want to be around them, and that's
Speaker 2: I think ten years produces a lot of scard tissue.
Speaker 2: You must feel the same way if you become a hermit.
Speaker 8: Oh very much so. And my wife deconstructed shortly after
Speaker 8: I did. She was a cradle Catholic. I'll show you
Speaker 8: where she was at when we started going. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 8: but I don't believe in hell, and that kind of
Speaker 8: started me. Actually, if I give you my credit, it's
Speaker 8: kind of her in the very first But we've been
Speaker 8: together about sixteen years. But I have gotten to where
Speaker 8: and I've heard you talk about DoorDash before we door
Speaker 8: dash all week in long. I don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 8: I don't want to be in restaurants with these people,
Speaker 8: and it's just very frustrating. And I know that says
Speaker 8: more about me than it does them, but I was
Speaker 8: just kind of curious how you've dealt with that. And
Speaker 8: I've got one last question. The word cacistocracy is the
Speaker 8: most accurate term I have found what we're living through.
Speaker 8: Why is that not being used.
Speaker 2: More weavin I've never heard the word. Is it a
Speaker 2: C or a K It's a k.
Speaker 8: K k istocracy and it simply means government by the
Speaker 8: worst of the country and that's literally you can you
Speaker 8: look it up. I just don't understand. I think this
Speaker 8: is the first time in my six decades we really
Speaker 8: are under a cacistocracy. And anyway, I just wanted to
Speaker 8: throw them down there at the end. But I sure
Speaker 8: appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, Greg, I appreciate the kind words
Speaker 2: about the book. So you were like me, right, Adam
Speaker 2: and Eve in the garden and you salute the flag
Speaker 2: under God and the pledge. We are a Christian nation.
Speaker 2: We walk those steps together.
Speaker 8: I was the Texas State Bible Drill champion at twelve
Speaker 8: years old.
Speaker 2: Now, explain Bible drill to people who don't know what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 8: They take indoctrinated children in evangelical churches and they do
Speaker 8: speed searches for Bible verses, so they'll throw out, you know,
Speaker 8: find Philippians such and such, and whoever gets at first wins.
Speaker 8: And at twelve years old, I went to the through
Speaker 8: the regionals in some state thing that I can't remember,
Speaker 8: and I was the state Bible Girl champ at twelve
Speaker 8: years old.
Speaker 2: There was a Christian TV station that had the Bible
Speaker 2: Bowl and it was a televised game show. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it was in the round and there were kids all
Speaker 2: all around and they would bring two contestants up family
Speaker 2: feud style and they would throw out a verse or
Speaker 2: a word or whatever. Some associative thing, and there was
Speaker 2: a buzzer and then whoever was able to recite chapter
Speaker 2: and verse first would win that round. And it was
Speaker 2: it was wild, and I remember wanting as a kid
Speaker 2: to go and participate in the Bible Bowl. I just
Speaker 2: thought they'd be amazing to be on TV doing the
Speaker 2: Word for Christ kind of thing.
Speaker 8: And the thing that's best about it though, I know
Speaker 8: that thing backwards, forwards, up and down better than any
Speaker 8: frushing I know. And when you try to point out
Speaker 8: things in it, and you know, obviously we've you know,
Speaker 8: I've heard you do this for all these years. But
Speaker 8: you try and point out, it's just they have got
Speaker 8: such a lock on this is the Bible. God, that's it.
Speaker 8: I believe it. And to where when you point out, well, no,
Speaker 8: that's not really what this is. And Jesus never said
Speaker 8: a single word about abortion, he never said a single
Speaker 8: word about gays. It's just they've got it so indoctrinated
Speaker 8: that Jesus did that. That's where you know they go.
Speaker 8: And it's just the Dunning Kruger here in southeast Texas
Speaker 8: is amazing. I'd have to find the article we were
Speaker 8: Jefferson County, Texas is quite literally the least educated county
Speaker 8: in all of the United States, and it shows. But
Speaker 8: like I said, it's not productive in the four years
Speaker 8: I have before retirement to live in my house and
Speaker 8: not go out amongst of them. So just was kind
Speaker 8: of kind of curious you approach. What do appreciate it?
Speaker 2: You man? I mean, I think, go where you're accepted,
Speaker 2: go where you're comfortable, and enjoy your retirement. I appreciate
Speaker 2: your enthusiasm and goodwill. I appreciate the kind words about
Speaker 2: the book. You know, Deconverted was not it ain't Hitchens right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm proud of it. At the same time,
Speaker 2: I know it's just some schlub mashing away at a
Speaker 2: keyboard telling his story. I know I am not a
Speaker 2: great mind. I'm just but I think maybe that's part
Speaker 2: of the appeal. I think a lot of people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: some dude is on a similar journey as to what
Speaker 2: I took, and I can relate to it, and there's
Speaker 2: power in that. So I've stopped apologizing for my own
Speaker 2: work as much. So I was glad to hear you
Speaker 2: say that.
Speaker 6: Greg.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 8: I will say you do not need to apologize in
Speaker 8: the least I am a college professor also, and your
Speaker 8: book hit me where I needed it to meet me.
Speaker 8: So there is no Yes. Hitchens and doctor Dawkins are
Speaker 8: just masters of the English language in a way I
Speaker 8: will never be. But your book was the one that
Speaker 8: hit me right in the soul. If I can say
Speaker 8: it that way.
Speaker 2: No, I feel you.
Speaker 8: I need it at the time.
Speaker 2: I'm feel you well. Thank you, Greg, and I appreciate
Speaker 2: you so much being a part of the conversation today.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get into this. Is it cacus stock?
Speaker 2: Am I saying it right?
Speaker 7: Yes?
Speaker 3: Or kak?
Speaker 8: And then the rest is just like.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna I gotta look this up. So you
Speaker 2: educated me and I'm going to dive a little deeper.
Speaker 2: You'd be safe out there.
Speaker 8: Okay, Okay, hey, thank you.
Speaker 2: Let me see you later. You know, now that I
Speaker 2: think of it, congratulations. You just named this week's podcast.
Speaker 2: How can I not call it cacustocracy. I pulled up
Speaker 2: a website on this big think dot Com has an explanation.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to read it cold. It talks first
Speaker 2: about prefixes in front of our words, which are often
Speaker 2: derived from Greek terms. Demo means people, so it's democracy.
Speaker 2: Auto means one, so it's autocracy, aristos excellent or aristocracy,
Speaker 2: but cacistocracy it means worst rule a government buy the
Speaker 2: worst or least qualified people, like kleptocracy, rule by thieves,
Speaker 2: plut chrissy ruled by the rich. No government has ever
Speaker 2: claimed to be any of these things, but it is
Speaker 2: a common insult of late What does it mean? Typically
Speaker 2: the word is used as an insult toward those who
Speaker 2: are seen as too moronic to be in government. The
Speaker 2: previously obscure word dates back to the English Civil War
Speaker 2: and has made a comeback in the last few decades.
Speaker 2: It regained popularity in the nineteen eighties, was aimed at
Speaker 2: dan Quayil several times after that, and is currently so
Speaker 2: popular that even the Miriam Webster Twitter feed had to
Speaker 2: chime in, oh I got to come back to dan Quayle.
Speaker 2: There's a memory with George H. W. Bush and his
Speaker 2: vice president, dan Quayle. The guy was an idiot. What
Speaker 2: is meant by the least qualified? The article continues, That's
Speaker 2: a good question. While Machiavelli would suggest there are objectively
Speaker 2: good virtues for statesmen to have, there's going to be
Speaker 2: general disagreement on what those are or how to live
Speaker 2: up to them. Even if we judge a ruler based
Speaker 2: on the consequences of their rule, how much do we
Speaker 2: say was their work and how much was luck? Such
Speaker 2: large questions tend to get swept aside, though some commentators
Speaker 2: do address them in a limited way, and it starts
Speaker 2: to list some cacistockracis. Now I got to dive into this.
Speaker 2: It begins with Romulus Augustus, ruling from four seventy five
Speaker 2: to four seventy six C. The last emperor of Western Rome.
Speaker 2: Romulus Augustus was ironically named for the founders of the
Speaker 2: city and the empire. A usurper, his father took over
Speaker 2: the government and placed his son on the throne. This
Speaker 2: made him few friends, and the eastern half of the
Speaker 2: empire never recognized him. He is most notable for refusing
Speaker 2: to surrender most of Italy to barbarians invaders. Those invaders
Speaker 2: then killed his father, sacked the capital, Ravenna, and compelled
Speaker 2: Augustus to abdicate. The Senate then appealed to the Eastern
Speaker 2: Roman Empire to reunite Rome rather than have to find
Speaker 2: a new emperor for themselves. His abdication is typically viewed
Speaker 2: as the official fall of the Western Roman Empire, a
Speaker 2: notable enough failure to make it to our list. Next up,
Speaker 2: they have a photograph of Nicholas the Second of Russia.
Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety four to nineteen seventeen was his reign. He
Speaker 2: was the final Czar of Russia. He had no business
Speaker 2: running an empire. His father failed to educate him on
Speaker 2: how to rule, never even granting him a ministry before
Speaker 2: his ascension to the throne. This left Nicholas utterly unprepared
Speaker 2: to rule anything. He meddled in the affairs of the
Speaker 2: Church in hopes of increasing the odds he had a son,
Speaker 2: only took steps to protect his Jewish subjects from Pegram's reluctantly.
Speaker 2: Was so detached from his responsibilities that he continued to
Speaker 2: play tennis after learning that the Russian fleet had been annihilated.
Speaker 2: At one point during the nineteen oh five Revolution, he
Speaker 2: was so ideologically against accepting a constitution as part of
Speaker 2: a peace deal that his uncle and the chief of
Speaker 2: the army, Grand Duke Nicholas, had to hold a gun
Speaker 2: to his own head and threatened suicide before the czar
Speaker 2: would accept the peace deal. His Court was a madhouse
Speaker 2: run by favorites, which allowed for such unsavory characters such
Speaker 2: as Resputin to come to hold great power and influence.
Speaker 2: He was overthrown in nineteen seventeen and shot in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighteen by Communist revolutionaries. This is a fascinating list. I'm
Speaker 2: going to continue. James Buchanan eighteen fifty seven to eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty one the the fifteenth and worst president of the
Speaker 2: United States. I'm gonna say this is an older article.
Speaker 2: I think this may be a tad dated. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to scroll up to see the date, but I
Speaker 2: mean worst. Hey, hang on, the worst president of the
Speaker 2: United States in almost every ranking. Buchanan's administration was filled
Speaker 2: with missteps, ideological purity to the point of insanity, and
Speaker 2: grave misreading of popular sentiment. From day one, before he
Speaker 2: was even inaugurated, Buchanan encouraged the Supreme Court to make
Speaker 2: as broad and pro southern a ruling in the Dread
Speaker 2: Scott case as possible, in an attempt to put the
Speaker 2: slavery debate to rest forever. I got to jump out
Speaker 2: real fast and explain Dred Scott was an enslaved African
Speaker 2: American back in This is right before the Civil War,
Speaker 2: and he and his wife Harriet had sued to free
Speaker 2: themselves and their two daughters. And so this to court
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifty seven dred Scott versus Sanford. They argue
Speaker 2: that because dred Scott had lived in Illinois and parts
Speaker 2: of the Wisconsin territory, that he should not be held
Speaker 2: as a slave. Slavery was illegal in those northern regions therefore,
Speaker 2: and it all went to court and he lost. That
Speaker 2: was a famous case that went to the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: seven to decision against him. Back to the article. President
Speaker 2: Buchanan was shocked to find that those opposed to slavery
Speaker 2: were further enraged by the ruling. He went to fumble
Speaker 2: the issue of admitting Kansas to the Union so badly
Speaker 2: that it split the Democratic Party. A committee designed to
Speaker 2: investigate potentially impeachable offenses found his administration was the most
Speaker 2: corrupt in American history. He's most often vilified for his
Speaker 2: lame reaction to Southern secession after Lincoln's election, as he
Speaker 2: believed both secession and federal intervention against it illegal and
Speaker 2: did nothing. He even got his legacy wrong, remarking on
Speaker 2: his deathbed that he would be vindicated. While most of
Speaker 2: the examples were monarchs who were put into power and
Speaker 2: difficult to remove, the inclusion of an elected official shows
Speaker 2: how occasionally people will vote in utter incompetence to run
Speaker 2: a country. You think, you think. While the question of
Speaker 2: if these three governments were the worst can be debated,
Speaker 2: there is no doubt that these three leaders had no
Speaker 2: business ruling when their decisions, motivations, and results are considered.
Speaker 2: Is the United States a cacistocracy? Perhaps, though the seriousness
Speaker 2: of the word means it is one not to be
Speaker 2: tossed around lightly, as it would impair our ability to
Speaker 2: use it later. There have undoubtedly been governments run by
Speaker 2: the worst possible ministers and rulers before than it is
Speaker 2: likely to happen again. The article that Big Think by
Speaker 2: Scottie Hendricks. Okay, let me scroll up and see the
Speaker 2: date on this April sixteenth, twenty eighteen. Scotty buddy, if
Speaker 2: you meant that Buchanan was the worst president of all
Speaker 2: time period, we got some trouble there. But if you
Speaker 2: were saying that Buchanan was the worst president to that time,
Speaker 2: that's just a poor use of language.
Speaker 4: F y.
Speaker 2: I Now let me come back to dan Quayle, and
Speaker 2: I pulled up a couple of audio clips. There are
Speaker 2: whole websites dedicated to some of the crazy and dumb
Speaker 2: ass Cacus stock Ristie style shit that dan Quayle said
Speaker 2: when he was Vice President of the United States sunder
Speaker 2: George HW. Bush from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: And I just well, let's start with this one. As
Speaker 2: dan Quayle educated the world on Hitlerism.
Speaker 7: Millions in people lost their lives because of the bigotry
Speaker 7: and Hitlerism that permeated Germany and other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: It was an.
Speaker 9: Obscene period in our nation's history, not our nations.
Speaker 2: But in World War Two. I mean we all lived.
Speaker 9: In this century. I didn't live in the century, but
Speaker 9: in this century's history because we did not have a
Speaker 9: matter of fact, we fought Hitlerism, which was atalitarian form
Speaker 9: of government.
Speaker 2: Now imagine four years of stuff like that, plus the
Speaker 2: time on the campaign trail. The acoustics in dan Quayle's
Speaker 2: skull must be amazing. He once said, I was recently
Speaker 2: on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret
Speaker 2: I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in
Speaker 2: school so I could converse with those people. Republicans understand
Speaker 2: the importance of bondage between a mother and child. He
Speaker 2: once said, I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.
Speaker 2: September fifth, nineteen ninety, he said for NASA, space is
Speaker 2: still a high priority. He actually uttered the words it
Speaker 2: isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in
Speaker 2: our air and water that are doing it. Hang on,
Speaker 2: here's just another short montage of Quail in his own voice.
Speaker 10: The question is whether we're going to go forward to
Speaker 10: tomorrow or we're going to go past to the back.
Speaker 11: And I can tell you listen.
Speaker 10: We don't want to go back to tomorrow.
Speaker 9: We want to move forward.
Speaker 8: I believe that I've made good.
Speaker 10: Judgments in the pass, and I think I've made good
Speaker 10: judgments in the future, and the future will be better tomorrow. Well,
Speaker 10: Bobby Knight told me this.
Speaker 5: He says, there.
Speaker 10: Is nothing at a good defense cannot be a better offense.
Speaker 9: In other words, a.
Speaker 10: Good offense wins. I was known as the chief grave
Speaker 10: robber of my state. I have a very strong record
Speaker 10: on the environment in the United States. Center why it
Speaker 10: has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific.
Speaker 2: It is in the Pacific part of the United States.
Speaker 2: That is an island that is right here, Hawaii. It
Speaker 2: is an island in the Pacific. Thank you, Vice President
Speaker 2: Dan Quayle cacustocracy. Okay, Well, I can't do quail if
Speaker 2: I don't bounce forward and do Trump. The problem is,
Speaker 2: after a decade of daily insanity and stupidity, how do
Speaker 2: you even begin? But I want to start with this clip, okay,
Speaker 2: And it just posted a few days ago. It was
Speaker 2: made by a guy who kind of does what the
Speaker 2: good liars do and the Daily Show does. They go
Speaker 2: out to these Trump rallies and interview people to try
Speaker 2: to find out if they know what in the actual
Speaker 2: hell they are talking about. The guy in question here,
Speaker 2: his name is Dean Withers, and he was out at
Speaker 2: a Trump rally. There was somebody dressed up as they
Speaker 2: always are, in Trump paraphernalia, and he had a conversation
Speaker 2: about Biden creeping on women. Check this out.
Speaker 6: Something actually came out this morning that was huge, okay,
Speaker 6: because we got another release from a House subcommittee about
Speaker 6: the Epstein files. And you're not going to believe this,
Speaker 6: but what came out was an audio clip that's been
Speaker 6: verified of Joe Biden saying that he likes to walk
Speaker 6: into the dressing rooms of naked women and naked girls
Speaker 6: to look at them. What do you think should happen
Speaker 6: to a man that does that? I think they should
Speaker 6: go to jail, even if they're like the sitting president.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, no, end's above the law, right.
Speaker 6: Even if it was Trump? Sure, sure, So I'm gonna
Speaker 6: be honest, I lied to you. The audio is not
Speaker 6: of Joe Biden saying that he likes to go into
Speaker 6: the changing rooms and naked women. The audios of Trump
Speaker 6: saying it, let's go and take a listen. We had
Speaker 6: another twenty seconds.
Speaker 5: You it's your obligation to do that.
Speaker 6: So you have done.
Speaker 5: Is then I'll go backstage before show and everyone's getting dressed.
Speaker 5: I'm ready and everything else and no pay where allowed
Speaker 5: to go on because I'm the owner of the pageant
Speaker 5: and therefore I'm inspecting it.
Speaker 2: You know, guys will be guys, right, haven't you said
Speaker 2: shit like that?
Speaker 4: Wait?
Speaker 6: So before you guys, No, I haven't said anything like that.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 6: So the argument before you, the argument before you knew
Speaker 6: it was Trump, was that they should go to jail,
Speaker 6: even if they're the sitting president. But now that you
Speaker 6: know it's Trump, it's no longer thrown in jail.
Speaker 11: And now it's there's no there's no law against sat there's.
Speaker 6: No log against sexual exploitation, no lag against talking.
Speaker 5: Like a new.
Speaker 2: Wow. Cults are gonna cult, aren't they. It's a cacus
Speaker 2: stock Grissy. It's the worst, the most moronic, the most terrible,
Speaker 2: who are being propped up, supported and worshiped by the stupid, moronic, terrible.
Speaker 2: I swear to you, I was going to play a
Speaker 2: montage from Donald Trump, just a few of the things,
Speaker 2: the horrible and moronic and terrible and stupid, awful things
Speaker 2: that he said and done. First of all, I didn't
Speaker 2: know where to start. Secondly, I cannot stand the sound
Speaker 2: of his voice. I can't. I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: it to you, and I'm not going to do it
Speaker 2: to me. But I mean, I'm just going through my
Speaker 2: mental rolodex. Just in relative recent history. Anybody remember when
Speaker 2: there was that Washington, DC plane crash January of last year,
Speaker 2: right the American Airlines plane crashed into the Blackhawk helicopter.
Speaker 2: Dozens of people die. First thing that happens. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: goes to public and he blames DEEI, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's minorities, it's black people, it's women in the cockpit,
Speaker 2: that's the problem. And you know who put that stuff
Speaker 2: in place. It was Obama Biden. I mean, it's just crazy,
Speaker 2: especially understanding that during the Biden administration there were zero
Speaker 2: commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of planes that
Speaker 2: had been in the air. Remember when Trump said that
Speaker 2: Denmark doesn't have the right to Greenland despite the fact
Speaker 2: that it belongs to Denmark. Excuse me. He vowed to
Speaker 2: bring back plastic straws because paper straws explude wind mills
Speaker 2: are causing cancer in Wales. And he was talking to
Speaker 2: an audience of voters in twenty twenty four, he said
Speaker 2: that he was the father of IVF in vitro fertilization.
Speaker 2: What what He suggested the purge as a way to
Speaker 2: perhaps solve crime. Anybody see the Purge movies. The whole
Speaker 2: idea is this so that the public can get all
Speaker 2: the violence and lawlessness out of its system. There is
Speaker 2: one day designated every year where anything goes. You can
Speaker 2: go out and you can torture and rape and murder
Speaker 2: and do whatever you want, and there are no punishments,
Speaker 2: there's no penalty, there's no consequences. Twenty four hours, you
Speaker 2: can go out and be the worst version of yourself.
Speaker 2: And Donald Trump's like, you know, if we were to
Speaker 2: have a purge day, it might help us, you know,
Speaker 2: in just a twelve hour period. I think it's what
Speaker 2: he suggested. He wanted to change the term for AI
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence. He said, and I quote, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't like anything that is artificial, So can we straighten
Speaker 2: that out? We should change the name. Of course, he's
Speaker 2: a name changer. He's still calling the Gulf of Mexico
Speaker 2: the Gulf of America while pretty much no one else
Speaker 2: in the world is. Oh. By the way, Trump is
Speaker 2: also an activist when it comes to American grass. Okay, fine,
Speaker 2: I'll play this one audio clip.
Speaker 4: We're going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass.
Speaker 4: You know, grass is a lifetime, like people have a lifetime,
Speaker 4: and a lifetime of this grass is long been gone.
Speaker 4: When you look at the parks where the grass is
Speaker 4: all tired, exhausted. We're going to redo the grass with
Speaker 4: the finest grasses.
Speaker 2: He was going to cut drug prices by twelve hundred
Speaker 2: percent thirteen hundred, fourteen hundred, fifteen hundred percent. By the way,
Speaker 2: if you cut them one hundred percent of zero, I
Speaker 2: just don't understand. We are all familiar with the reflecting
Speaker 2: pool snaffoo. Oh yeah, wait a minute. This was in
Speaker 2: June of this year when Donald Trump was asked to
Speaker 2: define cease fire in regard to Iran ceasefire. Uh, pretty much,
Speaker 2: you way it is.
Speaker 4: It's a different part of the world, you know. I'd
Speaker 4: say that part of the world sees fires when you're
Speaker 4: shooting in a more moderate manner.
Speaker 2: A ceasefire is when you continue to fire, but you
Speaker 2: are firing moderately, he said in May of this year.
Speaker 2: Most people don't know that dumb is spelled with the
Speaker 2: letter B cancus docracy. And of course there's the more
Speaker 2: serious stuff that's going on, the attack on our citizens,
Speaker 2: the ice murders, the war on journalists and the free press,
Speaker 2: the war on democracy, the rewriting of the entire history
Speaker 2: of the United States, and this weird loyalist cult wrapped
Speaker 2: around one of the dumbest, most moronic, most childish, most
Speaker 2: horrible human beings. I am not being hyperbolic. This is
Speaker 2: not TDS. You know what I'm talking about. Name a
Speaker 2: redeeming quality. Name a redeeming quality. If you found one,
Speaker 2: I'll bet you're lying because I've been searching for years. Cacistockracy.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for teaching me a word that
Speaker 2: I can now use to brand the insanity that's going
Speaker 2: on around us. Short break, more of your calls. Next,
Speaker 2: I've got David at five eight zero. David, are you
Speaker 2: with us? Yes, sir, welcome David. Let's talk what's on
Speaker 2: your mind.
Speaker 3: Well, first, I want to let you know, Seth, I
Speaker 3: truly appreciate you being there, very kind of following you
Speaker 3: for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Do you have a computer handy?
Speaker 2: I just happen to have a computer handy.
Speaker 3: Okay, if you would, Delusional disorder your Wikipedia, so we
Speaker 3: can get on some page for a conversation.
Speaker 2: Delusional disorder.
Speaker 3: Wikipedia. That's what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: All right, Harvard Health, National Institutes of Health, South Coast
Speaker 2: Behavior with the Health I'm looking for Wikipedia. Okay. Here
Speaker 2: it is delusional disorder, a mental disorder in which a
Speaker 2: person has delusions but with no accompanying prominent hallucinations, thought disorder,
Speaker 2: mood disorder, or significant flattening of effect. Okay, I'm there.
Speaker 3: All right now a by half a page down signs
Speaker 3: and symptoms. Number seven is what I want to talk about.
Speaker 2: Number seven. The belief is at the least unlikely and
Speaker 2: out of keeping with the individuals social, cultural, and religious background.
Speaker 3: Yes, now here's what I want to say. Religious delusions
Speaker 3: and politics. Don't we well part excuse me. Politics do
Speaker 3: not belong in a medical diagnosis, and number seven reads
Speaker 3: to me as politics. A delusion can be induced by society.
Speaker 3: An entire society can be delusional. But number seven, if
Speaker 3: that was removed and religious people were considered delusional, the
Speaker 3: next question would be when is it ever a good
Speaker 3: idea to allow a person that cannot tell magic fairy
Speaker 3: tales from reality to hold office, vote on guns or
Speaker 3: room children. Well, I agree that delusions come in many flavors,
Speaker 3: but a religious delusion through our history has proven to
Speaker 3: cause more division, more destruction, and more death than anything
Speaker 3: else created by man. If that definition number seven is removed,
Speaker 3: that's a political loophole. And if they remove that, then
Speaker 3: imagine this psychological evaluations Before you can own a gun
Speaker 3: in America, there will be a large percentage of people
Speaker 3: that will choose guns versus their magic, fairy tale religious delusions.
Speaker 2: Well, those are two different conversations. The idea of being diluted,
Speaker 2: about the idea of a god or the supernatural, and
Speaker 2: whether or not you have an aberration psychologically which would
Speaker 2: make you ill qualified to own a firearm. Firearm rather,
Speaker 2: I think, are those two different conversations.
Speaker 3: Well, Israel, Gaza, an American military. Today, religious delusions have
Speaker 3: become a weapon hurting the masses, the ignorant masses, to
Speaker 3: do evil things, you know, cause death instruction. By the way,
Speaker 3: thanks for taking my call, and please excuse me a
Speaker 3: pedive stroke in the past.
Speaker 2: You're doing great, You're doing fine. You gave us a
Speaker 2: to think and talk about. Appreciate the kind words as well, David.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my point, seth. I truly appreciate you
Speaker 3: being out there and doing what you do, and I
Speaker 3: just wanted to get a thought across to you and
Speaker 3: maybe you can look into it personally.
Speaker 2: All right, I'll take a closer look at this page
Speaker 2: here in just second and educate myself. Thanks for the prompt, David,
Speaker 2: Be safe out there, Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't get much furd with it, so I
Speaker 3: figured I got to find a guy who can, and
Speaker 3: that would be my idea.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe we'll see how I do. David, take care,
Speaker 2: have a good data. Yeah, we'll see you later. These
Speaker 2: points that he pointed to, let me just roll through
Speaker 2: these for just second. The following can indicate a delusion.
Speaker 2: An individual expresses an idea or belief with unusual persistence
Speaker 2: or force, even when evidence suggests the contrary. By the
Speaker 2: way you have just described most of humanity, I got
Speaker 2: an idea, a belief, and I am persistent to believe it,
Speaker 2: even when you show me that it's a big mountain
Speaker 2: of crap. Number two, That idea appears to have an
Speaker 2: undue influence on the person's life, and the way of
Speaker 2: life is often altered to an inexplicable extent. Yeah, seeing
Speaker 2: some of that. Number three, Despite their profound conviction, there
Speaker 2: is often a quality of secretiveness or suspicion when the
Speaker 2: person is questioned about it. Number four, the individual tends
Speaker 2: to be humorless and over sensitive, especially about the belief.
Speaker 2: Number five, there's a quality of centrality, no matter how
Speaker 2: unlikely it is that these strange things are happening to
Speaker 2: the person, they accept them relatively unquestioningly. Number six. An
Speaker 2: attempt to contradict the belief is likely to arouse an
Speaker 2: inappropriately strong emotional reaction, often with irritability and hostility. They
Speaker 2: will not accept any other opinions. Seven We've covered the
Speaker 2: belief is or at the least unlikely and out of
Speaker 2: keeping with the individual social, cultural, and religious background. Number eight.
Speaker 2: The person is emotionally overinvested in the idea and it
Speaker 2: overwhelms other elements of their psyche number nine of ten.
Speaker 2: Number nine, the delusion, if acted out, often leads to
Speaker 2: behaviors which are abnormal and out of character, although perhaps
Speaker 2: understandable in light of the delusional beliefs. Number ten. Other
Speaker 2: people who know the individual observe that the belief and
Speaker 2: behavior are uncharacteristic and alien. I'm getting two messages from
Speaker 2: this list. One is that the delusion defines me and
Speaker 2: affects how I behave, and other people also know that
Speaker 2: the belief and behavior are uncharacteristic to me. I would
Speaker 2: think if I'm defined by the belief, I'm obsessed with it,
Speaker 2: and it impacts how I navigate the world, well, it
Speaker 2: would be characteristic of me. I don't know. I'm after
Speaker 2: wrestle them with that one for a while. Let's go
Speaker 2: to everya code six' four to one. High who's This,
Speaker 2: hi it's a.
Speaker 11: CHAN i just wanted to ask, you why do you
Speaker 11: think people believe in conspiracy?
Speaker 2: Theories, WELL i haven't mapped the human. Mind there is
Speaker 2: so much, psychology you know that has been done by
Speaker 2: people so much more qualified than. Me there are a
Speaker 2: few THINGS i can speak. To let me ask, you
Speaker 2: why do you think people believe in conspiracy?
Speaker 11: THEORIES i think it's an ego. THING i think IT'S
Speaker 11: i know something you don't know kind of.
Speaker 2: THING i think that's totally. VALID i also think people
Speaker 2: like a good. Story who doesn't love a conspiracy. Tale
Speaker 2: there's a secret organization of somebody who's doing things and
Speaker 2: they're getting away with. It and then IF i figured it,
Speaker 2: OUT i guess that takes us back to, ego doesn't.
Speaker 2: IT i also think there's some patterns. Seeking there's a,
Speaker 2: Distrust like anytime you distrust a source of, information especially,
Speaker 2: today if we immediately distrust the public record or the official,
Speaker 2: record then we're going to be scrambling to find another.
Speaker 2: EXPLANATION i think the people who say That Donald trump's
Speaker 2: assassination attempt was, Staged, WELL i mean another guy, died
Speaker 2: and SO i myself, think Well ockham's, RAISER i don't
Speaker 2: think it was. Staged WOULD i put it Past Donald
Speaker 2: trump to set something up where another person was murdered
Speaker 2: to make him look? Good, YEAH i very much. Do
Speaker 2: BUT i just can't prove. THAT i can't take that
Speaker 2: that far enough to hold on to. It BUT i
Speaker 2: totally understand now there's an entire culture of people across
Speaker 2: the spectrum who think the whole thing was just. Theater
Speaker 2: and that takes us back To, HEY i love a good,
Speaker 2: story AND i don't trust the official. Record lots of
Speaker 2: stuff going, on probably a lot, more, Right.
Speaker 11: Yeah and ALSO i think maybe these people find a
Speaker 11: comradeship amongst. Themselves you, know there's a lot of podcasts
Speaker 11: and so forth that talk about these, things and maybe
Speaker 11: they find a kinship with each.
Speaker 3: Other.
Speaker 2: Tribalism If i'm a flat earther AND i think that
Speaker 2: the world's scientific communities and governments are covering it, UP
Speaker 2: i get together with my fellow flat earthers and we're a,
Speaker 2: family right, Right, YEAH i think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: gears in that. Machine the human mind is a, wild wanky,
Speaker 2: place isn't.
Speaker 11: It, yeah and it's surprising that the intelligent PEOPLE i
Speaker 11: know that are into some of this. Stuff it's just mind.
Speaker 2: Beling, well let's you. Go thanks so much for the. Call,
Speaker 2: yeah appreciate you very. Much there's a common myth that
Speaker 2: only the unintelligent will fall for conspiracy. Theories that's absolute.
Speaker 2: Crap in, fact many times it's really, clever smart people
Speaker 2: that can find ways to connect dots that were never
Speaker 2: meant to be. Connected Psychotherapist Monica vilhauer wrote In Psychology
Speaker 2: today about why people buy conspiracy. Theories they thrive on cognitive,
Speaker 2: biases mental shortcuts that allow us to make sense of the.
Speaker 2: World there's proportionality, bias which leads people to believe that
Speaker 2: significant events must have substantial. Causes in other, Words Lee Harvey,
Speaker 2: oswald some loner murderer KILLED jfk Nah Na nad has
Speaker 2: to be a vess, conspiracy kind of An Oliver stone type.
Speaker 2: Story and in an environment with high mistrust and, authorities
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories can. Flourish. Yeah anybody who thinks they cannot
Speaker 2: be fooled already has been the Great Richard feynman was,
Speaker 2: very very. Wise that's going to do it. TODAY i
Speaker 2: will see you back here next week with the audio
Speaker 2: of My cincinnati events featuring myself And Noah. Lusions thank
Speaker 2: you so much for.
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