Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's great to have Kitty Herzog and Jesse Single on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Herzog's writing has appeared in an array of publications,
Speaker 1: and she is a former staff writer the Seattle Alt Weekly.
Speaker 1: The Stranger. Single is a contributing writer at New York Magazine,
Speaker 1: where he previously edited Science of Us, a behavioral science vertical.
Speaker 1: He also has a newsletter where he writes about behavioral science, media,
Speaker 1: and other stuff. The other stuff part being a lot
Speaker 1: of other stuff. His book about half baked viral psychology,
Speaker 1: The Quick Fix, is coming out in about a year. Together,
Speaker 1: Herzog and Single co host The Blocked and Reported podcast.
Speaker 1: So great to chat with you today, guys. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having us. Thank you so much. Do we have anything
Speaker 1: to discuss? How's the weather where you are? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: weather is beautiful actually, so please don't hate me, but
Speaker 1: you're making a lot more money than I am. So
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. Discuss the above ground pool
Speaker 1: I have planned with our Patreon earnings. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was wondering what like the next big you know, like
Speaker 1: goal stretch goal is like, if you hit ten thousand
Speaker 1: a month, you guys will donate half the proceeds to
Speaker 1: the Psychology podcast. Is that it? Yeah? That was that
Speaker 1: was under discussion, of course, naturally. I think right now
Speaker 1: the only plan is that Jesse's going to make pizza
Speaker 1: for every single one of our listeners if we hit
Speaker 1: him ten thousand dollars a month can be gluden free
Speaker 1: some of Golden Frien absolutely, Scott, that is that is
Speaker 1: blasphemy gluten free pizza. Come on, well, it's gonna some
Speaker 1: Patreon subscribers, Jesse, but you'll get the Celiac people loving you, okay,
Speaker 1: trust me, and that would include me. Okay. So look,
Speaker 1: I want to actually start off and I ask you
Speaker 1: guys where you first met each other, because I it
Speaker 1: occurred to the other day. I was like, was I
Speaker 1: witnessing the origin story? Remember We went to the bar
Speaker 1: after that Heaterdox Academy conference, and you guys were just
Speaker 1: so intensely talking to each other, and I was, I
Speaker 1: was like, and I kept looking over to talk to
Speaker 1: you too, and you two worked so intense that I
Speaker 1: was just like, I'm just gonna let you two be.
Speaker 1: Is that is that one of the first times you
Speaker 1: too talk to each other in person? I think, right?
Speaker 1: But Katie, didn't you originally reach out to me because
Speaker 1: we were writing a story on the same subject. Well,
Speaker 1: so I reached out to you while I was working
Speaker 1: on a piece about de Transition because I read your
Speaker 1: work and part of the story that I thought that
Speaker 1: I was working on had a section about sort of
Speaker 1: backlash to talking about the transition stories, which didn't ultimately
Speaker 1: make it in the piece, and I don't think it
Speaker 1: needed to be in the piece, but it was sort
Speaker 1: of my way of like hedging against against criticism was
Speaker 1: to add, like, all these stories about people who had
Speaker 1: written about trans issues in a way that sort of
Speaker 1: got them, got them dog piled for whatever reason. And
Speaker 1: so I reached out to you, Ali Draeger, a few
Speaker 1: other people, but I had been reading Jesse's work for
Speaker 1: a while, and then so we corresponded over the course
Speaker 1: of several months. And then yeah, the first time we
Speaker 1: met in person was in New York. We met right
Speaker 1: before the Heterodox conference. We had food and beer or something.
Speaker 1: But you saw us right at like one of our
Speaker 1: early conversations, right on a legendary historical moment that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't So you too are quickly making waves. Now can
Speaker 1: you maybe just both of you just go one? We
Speaker 1: want you to introduce yourself. I did a bio, but
Speaker 1: if you could just introduce, how would you like to
Speaker 1: be viewed as all that Katie goes first because she's
Speaker 1: she's smarter than me. I'm actually not smarter than Jesse,
Speaker 1: but I'm funnier than Jesse, which is worth more. It
Speaker 1: turns out, so I am. I guess I think of
Speaker 1: myself as a media critic. Primarily, as you mentioned in
Speaker 1: the bio, I was a staff writer at The Stranger
Speaker 1: Seattles All Weekly until recently. I was laid off in
Speaker 1: uh in the COVID the wave of COVID laid off layoffs,
Speaker 1: and so now I'm doing some freelancing. I've written a
Speaker 1: couple of pieces for The Guardian in the Atlantic since
Speaker 1: the layoff. But mostly what I am is a podcast
Speaker 1: co host that is now the most important part of
Speaker 1: my identity now that people are actually giving us money
Speaker 1: to do this. But my interests are are fairly aligned
Speaker 1: with Jesse's and probably with yours in some respects. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in psychology and human behavior, particularly why humans sometimes
Speaker 1: do such crazy things. Yeah. Yeah, before this, I I
Speaker 1: wrote a lot about climate change, and but I find
Speaker 1: that parsoning a human human consciousness is more interesting to
Speaker 1: me now. Cool, Jesse, How do you know? What are
Speaker 1: some things that are core to your identity these days? Man,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I have a one foot a
Speaker 1: little bit in academia because when I was twenty seven ish,
Speaker 1: I left a sort of permanent freelancer job at the
Speaker 1: Boston Globe, where I'd been doing opinion writing. I went
Speaker 1: to public policy school and I learned more about psychology,
Speaker 1: economic statistics, and it really turned me away from just
Speaker 1: straightforward this is right, this is wrong opinion writing. I got.
Speaker 1: I got much more interested in why people believe what
Speaker 1: they do. Led me to a lot of thinkers like
Speaker 1: Danny Kahneman, John Height, just just this whole universe of
Speaker 1: a different way of looking at things where it's less.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't believe in gay marriage, so I
Speaker 1: think you're bad, And more like, why did you come
Speaker 1: to some, you know, such different conclusions about morality as
Speaker 1: I did? And I think there's a way to do
Speaker 1: that where you don't lose sight of your own beliefs,
Speaker 1: but you just understand how complicated the human brain is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. And that's my introduction to you as you're
Speaker 1: writing on the replication crisis. I believe it in New
Speaker 1: York Magazine. I thought it was really well done, Jesse.
Speaker 1: So that's that's where I first encountered you. Now, why
Speaker 1: do you decide to start this podcast together? Blocked and reported?
Speaker 1: Why do you decide to start it together? You want
Speaker 1: to take that? Yeah, you know, it's such a weird
Speaker 1: time and COVID makes the last I mean when we
Speaker 1: started in March? Right? Yeah? Wait? Did we? I think
Speaker 1: we started? I don't know. Time has seventy evening, but
Speaker 1: it might have even been April. It might have been April.
Speaker 1: So Katie and I have had similar experiences where we
Speaker 1: run up against this thing where in liberal and lefty journalism,
Speaker 1: and we're both firmly on the left by any conceivable metric.
Speaker 1: Certain subjects are very difficult to talk about. And when
Speaker 1: I say this people people caricature that position as though
Speaker 1: what I'm advocating is like phrenology or race science, when
Speaker 1: really I think like what's going on now is a
Speaker 1: good example where there's a lot of complexity to the
Speaker 1: protest going on to the question of how to reform police,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people feel like they
Speaker 1: can't talk about this stuff openly. They can't weigh costs
Speaker 1: and benefits, what policies we should pursue, how race and
Speaker 1: class intersect. So that's the classic kind of single hurt
Speaker 1: some issue where we have I think, traditionally gotten themselves
Speaker 1: out in trouble, gotten sorry, gotten ourselves in trouble on
Speaker 1: Twitter for maybe speaking about it a bit a bit
Speaker 1: too freely. Do you think that's fair to say, Katie?
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah. I think that Jesse and I tend
Speaker 1: to both be motivated by by data and by empirical
Speaker 1: evidence and things that can be tested in a little
Speaker 1: bit less by emotion, and that probably makes us like
Speaker 1: less fun to hang out with than most people and
Speaker 1: a little bit too like like, oh, let me explain
Speaker 1: to you how the world works using numbers. But it's
Speaker 1: not it's not necessarily the sort of I think dominant
Speaker 1: dominant personality trade them on much of the media right now,
Speaker 1: and it puts us at odds with a lot of
Speaker 1: other people, and there seems to be a desire for
Speaker 1: that conversation. The response from the pod to this podcast
Speaker 1: so far has been like sort of overwhelming. We're getting
Speaker 1: a lot of messages from people who say things like,
Speaker 1: thank you for making me feel less crazy, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, that's kind of the goal
Speaker 1: for me at least, is to besides make enough money
Speaker 1: to get them around pool, to make people feel as
Speaker 1: crazy because I feel crazy right now. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I really I completely echo that goal of making people
Speaker 1: not feel crazy. I also think we want to carve
Speaker 1: out a space where, like I don't think Katie or
Speaker 1: I want to give up our identities as progressives. And
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who get caught up in
Speaker 1: some of the craziness right now sort of change their
Speaker 1: political identity entirely because they feel so unwelcome, especially online.
Speaker 1: And I think that's unfortunate, because you know the question
Speaker 1: of whose meanor on Twitter is the left meaner? Is
Speaker 1: the right meaner? That shouldn't determine your politics. Your politics
Speaker 1: should should come from core aspects of your identity and
Speaker 1: your values. Says you're in your opinion, So why do
Speaker 1: you think it's let's really zoom in on why your
Speaker 1: podcast is taken off by storm. You're at what now
Speaker 1: five thousand a month on patroon eight hundred scott. Okay,
Speaker 1: sorry that was very snooty. I should be clear Katie
Speaker 1: and I had no idea this was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and we're sort of in shock about it. But yes,
Speaker 1: we're eight hundred and thirteen as I look at this
Speaker 1: less than a month in. If we were in normal
Speaker 1: fields like tech or something, this would be like, this
Speaker 1: would be petties. But as a journalist, this is like
Speaker 1: the equivalent of JK. Rowling's money. Oh, come on. And
Speaker 1: as a scientist then it's, you know, let's be realistic.
Speaker 1: As an academic, I really want to zoom in though, like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is the people that are signing up,
Speaker 1: what are they craving? What is the underlying basic human
Speaker 1: need that you're fulfilling? From a Maslowian perspective, see, I
Speaker 1: like actual which which part on the pyramid of the
Speaker 1: higher needs. I think for shelter for shelter, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are shelter at this point, your shelter. And then what's
Speaker 1: the storm that they're trying to come away from? The
Speaker 1: social media? Social media Katie should run with this, this this
Speaker 1: is good, we're shelter's right now. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot on the podcast, and I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to this one phrase, the pressure to conform. I think
Speaker 1: people are really experiencing that with then, and especially because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, and we're seeing people less in person
Speaker 1: unless you got to protest. So so much of our
Speaker 1: communication now is filtered through social media and online, and
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of room for nuance and debate
Speaker 1: talking about difficult issues, as Jesse you mentioned. And I
Speaker 1: think that what we're providing for people is just a
Speaker 1: way to listen to people talk about these things that
Speaker 1: isn't driven by ideology, that isn't strident. I hope that
Speaker 1: we're not I'm okay with us being no at all's,
Speaker 1: but I hope that we're not the sort of people
Speaker 1: who I don't know, I'm sure others to conform to
Speaker 1: their opinion. So I think that's what it is. I
Speaker 1: think people feel like genuinely nuts right now, and they
Speaker 1: don't know how to talk to their friends about it
Speaker 1: because they're scared if they do they'll get excommunicated, and
Speaker 1: so they listen to our podcast instead. And we should say, like,
Speaker 1: this isn't some idle concern. Like just today, a twenty
Speaker 1: eight year old data science guy at Cibus Analytics, which
Speaker 1: is a big data and polling firm in DC. All
Speaker 1: he did was tweet that there's some political science from
Speaker 1: this African American studies professor at Princeton suggesting that violent
Speaker 1: protesting and rioting leads to a political backlash. That's a
Speaker 1: very important finding. He got fired, fired capital f fired
Speaker 1: just for tweeting that. I think this is an outlying case,
Speaker 1: but when people send us messages, this is increasingly the
Speaker 1: sort of thing they're concerned about that if I tweet
Speaker 1: the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, there's going
Speaker 1: to be disproportionate consequences. Yeah, I hear you, and Katie,
Speaker 1: you said something that really stuck out at me on
Speaker 1: Twitter the other day, and we'll be going through a
Speaker 1: lot more of your tweets in a second but one
Speaker 1: that you said that really stuck out of me is
Speaker 1: you're like, I've never felt more free in my entire life. Look,
Speaker 1: that really hit home for me as well. What do
Speaker 1: you view as freedom? Then? For me, it really comes
Speaker 1: down to not having bosses so right now, I mean
Speaker 1: if I were trying to make it as a freelancer
Speaker 1: right now, a freelance writer, or if I were trying
Speaker 1: to get a staff job, I would be really constrained
Speaker 1: in what I can say. And this is not like
Speaker 1: my views are very normative. I'm sort of a like
Speaker 1: a regular like Maltos liberal. I'm a registered Democrat. I
Speaker 1: don't think I believe anything you know, outside the Overton
Speaker 1: window at all. But when you work at a media job,
Speaker 1: at a staff need a job, particularly right now, there's
Speaker 1: an attitude that everybody who doesn't conform to the same
Speaker 1: narrative is wrong and if you're wrong, you were bad,
Speaker 1: and if you were bad, you were evil. And there's
Speaker 1: a real cost to that because people feel afraid to
Speaker 1: say what they want to say, you know, and people
Speaker 1: are getting fired. There was that analyst that Jesse mentioned.
Speaker 1: There's been lots of cases of this, particularly people in academia,
Speaker 1: which you know, you would think they would be more
Speaker 1: protected and in media. Now that Jesse and I have this,
Speaker 1: are creating this business where we're not My ability to
Speaker 1: say what I want isn't constrained by the fear that
Speaker 1: my coworkers besides Jesse are going to get mad at me.
Speaker 1: I just don't have to worry about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: so much of my sort of internal like brain space
Speaker 1: and stress. But what I had a job at the
Speaker 1: Stranger was trying to figure out what I could say
Speaker 1: and what I could say in a way that wasn't
Speaker 1: going to get me either like a talking to or
Speaker 1: my boss wasn't. I didn't want other people to sort
Speaker 1: of have to, you know, pay for like my sense,
Speaker 1: so my bosses would get emails. I didn't want that
Speaker 1: to happen. And I just don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: that anymore. You know, I'm sure that there's something I
Speaker 1: could say that would probably make our Patreon followers leave,
Speaker 1: or Jesse could or maybe when Jesse create rights his
Speaker 1: wrap for his the replication Crisis, which is one of
Speaker 1: our straticals. I think you should both start taking pictures
Speaker 1: of what you're doing with people's money. God Instagram different
Speaker 1: pictures of like, look, we're on a jet. That that
Speaker 1: might be the thing that would that would make everybody
Speaker 1: stop giving us their money. But unfortunately, I don't think
Speaker 1: a six thousand dollars a month will get us there yet.
Speaker 1: So that's what I mean by free. I don't like
Speaker 1: right now, especially in the media, if you say the
Speaker 1: wrong thing, if you believe the wrong thing, if you
Speaker 1: say that you don't think Woody Allen's book should have
Speaker 1: been pulped by his publisher or whatever, there's a real
Speaker 1: danger to that. And I don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: that anymore. Yeah, I can see why you would, you
Speaker 1: would feel free. But this is also like I'm in
Speaker 1: a very unique position because one of the one of
Speaker 1: the reasons we're in this unique position is because Jesse
Speaker 1: and I do have this sort of freedom in some
Speaker 1: ways and other people don't, and so we can say
Speaker 1: the things that they can't say. Yeah, yes I am.
Speaker 1: I'm saying we have we have a you know, independent
Speaker 1: podcast wealth privilege. So that's what I mean. It's not
Speaker 1: I also like, haven't left my house in like three months,
Speaker 1: so that's a it's a weird sort of freedom. So
Speaker 1: but at the same time that freedom is being restricted
Speaker 1: for everybody around us. We have to do found ability
Speaker 1: to support ourselves by saying what we want. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so it sounds like this dynamic that you describe the
Speaker 1: stranger is going on at the New York Times right now, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's going on everywhere absolutely. And what and
Speaker 1: what I what pisces me off about this is there's
Speaker 1: a subset of journalists who will go on Twitter and
Speaker 1: loudly claim a that it's not happening. Be anyone who
Speaker 1: claims it's happening has a suspect political agenda and is
Speaker 1: just you know, wants to be a Ben Shapiro fan
Speaker 1: or a far right person. The reason, Okay, Katie and
Speaker 1: I both get tons of emails from people in journalism
Speaker 1: and academia, that's safe to say, right Katie, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and they send us those emails because they know we're
Speaker 1: going to be sympathetic. Why would you send an email
Speaker 1: about your workplace situation to someone you think might you know,
Speaker 1: screencap that and make fun of you on Twitter. So
Speaker 1: I think people who are sure this stuff isn't going
Speaker 1: on should should consider there might be a reason you're
Speaker 1: not hearing from the people affected by it. That makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Yeah, it hadn't really that. It
Speaker 1: hadn't even really occurred to me. So what happened is
Speaker 1: at the New York Times for your listeners who don't know, So,
Speaker 1: the New York Times publish and op ed by Senator
Speaker 1: Tom Cott, and that essentially argued for sending the national
Speaker 1: troops into the US cities and states to quell the
Speaker 1: civic unrest or civil unrest. And then there was a
Speaker 1: huge amount of pushback from the staff and then Barry Wise,
Speaker 1: who's the staffer there, basically wrote a series of tweets
Speaker 1: saying that there's a civil war inside the New York Times.
Speaker 1: And the response to that was a bunch of her
Speaker 1: colleagues saying that this doesn't exist and it hadn't even
Speaker 1: occurred to me until Jesse and I had this conversation
Speaker 1: that people, some people in the New York Times probably
Speaker 1: weren't like, they weren't lit, They really didn't are like,
Speaker 1: aren't even aware that this thing exists because the only
Speaker 1: mess is that they're getting is the one they already believe.
Speaker 1: It's just we're all surrounded by confirmation bias, which is
Speaker 1: it's just sort of remarkable to me, Like you guys,
Speaker 1: you guys, don't you really don't even realize it's very strange. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you guys do to try to get outside
Speaker 1: of your own bubble on your podcast? I think it's
Speaker 1: been easier as I've developed. So I think the average, say,
Speaker 1: reader of my articles and and my chunk of our fans,
Speaker 1: like the chunk of our fans who came in via
Speaker 1: me versus be a Kadi, is definitely left of center.
Speaker 1: They're sort of like Obama liberals. But there's also been
Speaker 1: a subset of sort of genuinely centrist and right of
Speaker 1: center people. I would imagine the percentage of our listeners
Speaker 1: who are Trump fans is very, very small, but it's
Speaker 1: slightly I've interacted with a slightly wider array of people
Speaker 1: than I would have, say, when I worked at New
Speaker 1: York Magazine in twenty sixteen. Just hearing their voices and
Speaker 1: hearing their critiques of liberal ideas and left the ideas
Speaker 1: I think is important, just as sort of like to
Speaker 1: exercise your intellectual muscles and your skepticism muscle. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's been a big part of it. And also just
Speaker 1: I'm curious if Katie feels the same way. But there's
Speaker 1: a subset of issues where in the course of being
Speaker 1: a reporter, I've learned a great deal about them, and
Speaker 1: then I've seen how they're covered in other more ideologically
Speaker 1: conformist outlets, and that has shown me that I need
Speaker 1: to be skeptical because I see stuff printed on the
Speaker 1: screen that I know is not true. And it's just
Speaker 1: it's been a little bit of a can we swear
Speaker 1: on this podcast or now? Sure? Sure, I'll have the
Speaker 1: market explicit though no, okay, I don't want to drag
Speaker 1: you over that threshold. It's been a mind bleep. It's
Speaker 1: been a mind bleep to honestly, to like get into
Speaker 1: these specific nitty gritty areas and then see how these
Speaker 1: controversies are covered by Vox or Buzzfeeder in the New
Speaker 1: York Times. It has to make you a little bit
Speaker 1: more skeptical, just as a living, breathing, thinking adult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a discomfiting experience in a lot of ways. To
Speaker 1: when you become familiar with an issue and you see
Speaker 1: media outlets reporting falsehoods, like repeating misinformation. It's outlets that
Speaker 1: you trust. It's destabilizing in a lot of ways, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that it's sort of a Donald
Speaker 1: Trump fake news way, but just so much is just
Speaker 1: colored by ideology and bias that when you see that,
Speaker 1: it becomes difficult to unsee it. And in terms of
Speaker 1: getting out of the bubble, I talked to conservatives and
Speaker 1: this is something I didn't do before twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 1: after Donald Trump was elected. I had a feeling that
Speaker 1: Trump was going to be elected. I predicted it about
Speaker 1: six months before, and after he was elected, the shock
Speaker 1: by everybody around me. I lived in Seattle at the time,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're in these sort of hyperliberal media circles,
Speaker 1: and just the utter shock by everybody around me, most
Speaker 1: people who didn't know single Trump supporter and who were
Speaker 1: proud of that fact, just really showed me that if
Speaker 1: the media wants to reflect what's happening in the world,
Speaker 1: we have to talk to people we disagree with. And
Speaker 1: it's such a like that shouldn't be that shouldn't be
Speaker 1: a revelation, right, It should not be a shock that
Speaker 1: you need to speak to people who believe things that
Speaker 1: you don't believe. But I went out of my way
Speaker 1: to start doing it, and now I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: I have like great friends who are conservatives, but actually
Speaker 1: maybe I do. You know, I have like I hang
Speaker 1: out with like some libertarians. Now, I before all of
Speaker 1: this stuff happened, I thought libertarians were just insane. I
Speaker 1: thought they were crazy, And now I find I find
Speaker 1: that I agree with a lot of their positions, and
Speaker 1: not entirely because my politics have evolved. But it just
Speaker 1: turns out like there's a lot of civil rights is
Speaker 1: there's civil civil liberties issues that I, you know, believe
Speaker 1: in the libertarian position, which is often also the liberal position.
Speaker 1: Are you to be? So I try, know not to
Speaker 1: judge people as much on who they voted for. You know,
Speaker 1: It's just I don't think who we vote as a
Speaker 1: for is necessarily a reflection of our worth as a person.
Speaker 1: And I enjoy talking to conservatives. I find it oftentimes
Speaker 1: easier to talk to conservatives because there isn't this sort
Speaker 1: of pressure to agree, you know, there's no we don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with the narcissism of small differences, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't become often doesn't become as heated. I know
Speaker 1: that I'm not gonna be on the same ideological page
Speaker 1: as somebody's who's actually very conservative, and so we leave
Speaker 1: the conversation not feeling sort of angry about it. So
Speaker 1: I think I've I don't know, I think I've I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot more about the world and about how
Speaker 1: people work since I've started talking to people who don't
Speaker 1: necessarily agree with me all the time. Can I add
Speaker 1: one quick thing to that. We've said some stuff on
Speaker 1: the podcast, obviously that listeners disagree with. And you know,
Speaker 1: I did a long interview with this leftist thinker Ben Burgess.
Speaker 1: I really like some people disagree with aspects of it,
Speaker 1: the difference that I've noticed lately, and there's some selection
Speaker 1: bias at work here in the way liberals and conservatives
Speaker 1: express disagreement. And again, I'll I want to kick it
Speaker 1: to Katie after this to see if she agrees. A
Speaker 1: lot of people on the left seem incapable of just
Speaker 1: disagreeing without also couching it as some sort of sign
Speaker 1: of world Yes, yes, moral degradation on the part of
Speaker 1: the person they disagree with. Conservatives will say, you know,
Speaker 1: I disagree with this, here's why, and they leave it
Speaker 1: at that. They don't obviously, if you go online, you'll
Speaker 1: find people who'll call you like an SJW. Cock or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the conservatives I've interacted with are weirdly more capable
Speaker 1: of just disagreeing and acknowledging disagreement than people on the left,
Speaker 1: which I find very frustrating because I think that's an
Speaker 1: important skill to build. Yeah, well people on the left
Speaker 1: would counter. Those people you're referring to on the left
Speaker 1: would probably counter that's because they have morals, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you don't even know what it means to
Speaker 1: feel like you have to get outraged by things because
Speaker 1: you don't care, then of course you can talk about
Speaker 1: it more commonly. But now I'm not saying that's my position.
Speaker 1: I'm saying I could see I, you know, see a
Speaker 1: devil's advocate. I think that this increasing communication and increasing
Speaker 1: the communication, that the synchronicity of the communication style is
Speaker 1: really important. So regardless of what direction is, what if
Speaker 1: you have people who are really angry and coming from
Speaker 1: a place of rage, anger and the way the stay
Speaker 1: of the world is, and you and others trying to
Speaker 1: communicate with you through more of the different you know,
Speaker 1: modality of human existence, it's just going to be talking
Speaker 1: past each other, right, So, I wonder how we can
Speaker 1: do that without telling people. You know, the more you
Speaker 1: tell people just calm down, the more have you ever
Speaker 1: tried that? Jesse telling an angry person just calm down.
Speaker 1: I think I have an answer to that, which is,
Speaker 1: if someone comes at me on Twitter and they're very
Speaker 1: mad at me, I will ask them to explain to
Speaker 1: me exactly what it is I've said that they disagree
Speaker 1: and why they disagree with it, And often they're unable
Speaker 1: to do that. They're just mad at me, but they
Speaker 1: don't know why. So I don't think saying them to
Speaker 1: calm down is the right answer. I do think if
Speaker 1: you're mad enough at me to come at me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I have a right to say, what is it you
Speaker 1: disagree with? Tell me exactly, and if they can't answer that,
Speaker 1: they're not worth engaging with. Yeah, I don't. I think
Speaker 1: I like Jesse's tactic. I don't know that it changes
Speaker 1: people's Actually, it probably changes the minds of the observers.
Speaker 1: I think you have some utility with that. I don't.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it works as well with the people
Speaker 1: who've already decided that you're trash. And this is something
Speaker 1: that I feel like I'm struggling with right now, is
Speaker 1: how do I talk to people about these things who
Speaker 1: don't know that they're happening. All of the sort of
Speaker 1: the cultural revolution, sort of moral panic that I think
Speaker 1: we're in the midst of right now. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't see it, and I want them to see
Speaker 1: it because I think it's dangerous. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean other than like going to their house and
Speaker 1: you know, blasting the podcast outside their windows until they listen.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to how to convince people to
Speaker 1: just be a little bit open, a little bit open
Speaker 1: to this idea that something's happening. I was something you
Speaker 1: could you could answer that party or Scott, you're the psychologist,
Speaker 1: open to what happening in particular, open to seeing that
Speaker 1: something is going on that they might not be aware of, Oh,
Speaker 1: something outside of their own perspective, something outside of their
Speaker 1: own perspective. Right there's such a I think there's such
Speaker 1: a people, especially on the left right now, are so
Speaker 1: convinced of their sort of moral righteousness that if I
Speaker 1: say something like maybe people shouldn't be fired for you know,
Speaker 1: having like worn a stereotypically Puerto Rican costume when they were,
Speaker 1: you know, in college or whatever. How do I make
Speaker 1: people see this? Well? This is interesting. If if people
Speaker 1: you're describing on the left are morally righteous, would you
Speaker 1: say there's an equivalent on the right of maybe not
Speaker 1: moral righteous but truth righteousness, like they think they have
Speaker 1: the answer? Is there a different kind of righteousness on
Speaker 1: the right? Oh? I think absolutely. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: think about Christianity. I think Christians probably tend to be
Speaker 1: more more conservative. I think they're utterly convinced of their
Speaker 1: of their you know, righteousness. And I also don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything I could do to you know, I can't
Speaker 1: convince someone who believes that the world was made in
Speaker 1: six days and that gay people are going to Hell
Speaker 1: that the world wasn't made in six days and there
Speaker 1: is no hell. And I think there's you know, the
Speaker 1: commonality there is that it tends to be very religious.
Speaker 1: In both cases. You can't, I don't can talk someone
Speaker 1: out of their belief. To be clear, I think Katie's
Speaker 1: going to Hell, but for reasons completely unconnected from her sexuality.
Speaker 1: That's an important point, I think because like, I don't
Speaker 1: want I went through years of like to the extent
Speaker 1: people got mad at me it was people on the right,
Speaker 1: Like I went through years of that which might not
Speaker 1: be visible to people now. But there's a subset of
Speaker 1: people on the right I don't necessarily think it's worth
Speaker 1: engaging with. If they wanted to have a good, faid conversation,
Speaker 1: I would. But part of the reason some of my
Speaker 1: focus has been on the left is I think there's
Speaker 1: trends here where that could hurt the left in the
Speaker 1: long run, and I feel like this is more sort
Speaker 1: of my extended family. But all these dynamics, again, you know,
Speaker 1: you're social, you know this guy like, these are human dynamics.
Speaker 1: And I've had conservatives explained to me that whatever sociopathy
Speaker 1: you see on Twitter, you could find that in like
Speaker 1: small town churches, where if you say the wrong thing
Speaker 1: at a luncheon you're ostracized from the group forever. This
Speaker 1: is just we're all just primates, concerned about status and
Speaker 1: in groups and outgroups. It's the same thing wherever you look. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the reason, in part that we think this
Speaker 1: is so much more prominent on the left is because
Speaker 1: we're on the left. This is where we see it.
Speaker 1: This is also a reflection of our own echo chambers.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure if you go to some like you know,
Speaker 1: small town church Facebook group, there's drama and in fighting
Speaker 1: and you know, people say the wrong thing, I get
Speaker 1: kicked out, Oh for sure. Yeah. A lot of it
Speaker 1: is is ego egos being threatened, and you're seeing group
Speaker 1: egos being threatened. So if you're strongly strong identify with
Speaker 1: something and your group is not being respected, then that
Speaker 1: becomes the most important issue to you out of any
Speaker 1: other issue in the world. And then and then it
Speaker 1: gets really problematic if you really want to talk about
Speaker 1: how messy humans are, if you zoom out a second
Speaker 1: and realize, oh my gosh, every group's the same way. See,
Speaker 1: the fact is every group thinks they're the only ones
Speaker 1: that are the victims. But right, that's called the bias.
Speaker 1: It's like the bias bias. Right, we think everyone else
Speaker 1: is biased, but where the rational actors? Yeah yeah, well
Speaker 1: everyone else is biased and we are at the restaurant. Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Blocked and Reported happens to be
Speaker 1: the only podcast free of any bias on the planet.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to detract from that message. Okay,
Speaker 1: you might have pulled the hat trick there, but the
Speaker 1: thing is I would like to have empathy and compassion
Speaker 1: for everyone, So I would like to I think the
Speaker 1: ultimate state to be in is one where we try
Speaker 1: to listen to everyone's viewpoint, and it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we agree with it, but we always try to have
Speaker 1: a dialogue where we all everyone acknowledges everyone else's viewpoint.
Speaker 1: But of course that you know that kumbaya gets tricky
Speaker 1: when we talk about people who think in terms of
Speaker 1: term of zero sum games. And that's what the world
Speaker 1: is at right now is zero some thinking. But can
Speaker 1: I can I use your platform, which, despite your kind words,
Speaker 1: your platform is much larger than ours. And I just
Speaker 1: want to make a quick point about think about it
Speaker 1: this way. There is there is a guy who didn't
Speaker 1: graduate high school in Ohio or Kentucky, in an area
Speaker 1: ravaged by the opioid crisis. He has a lot to
Speaker 1: fear from the police. The police do no knock rades,
Speaker 1: They use weapons in an irresponsible way. They do civil
Speaker 1: civil civil forfeiture where they can just take your car
Speaker 1: on the thinnest of premises. All this stuff happens in
Speaker 1: poor white communities. I'm not saying it happens as much
Speaker 1: statistically or whatever the point is, if you care about politics,
Speaker 1: there's a message you could say to that guy in
Speaker 1: Kentucky or Ohio that would that would raise him out
Speaker 1: of the tribalism, that would make him think he has
Speaker 1: something at stake in the battle for police reform. If
Speaker 1: you have that opportunity, why would you instead tell him
Speaker 1: the opposite, which is that as an evil conservative Trump voter,
Speaker 1: he has no part to play in that movement. That's
Speaker 1: where the question of sort of civility and political advocacy
Speaker 1: intersect as far as I'm concerned, because a lot of
Speaker 1: the messaging going on right now it's just designed to
Speaker 1: sort of rev up the people who are already converted,
Speaker 1: not to sort of increase the number of people on board. Well,
Speaker 1: you've entered tricky territory, my friend. But I will say
Speaker 1: I am working on an article right now trying to
Speaker 1: get the root of some of this, and what I
Speaker 1: think you see a lot of is, you know, having
Speaker 1: the victim put in mindset actually gives you a power
Speaker 1: play over others. It lets you get resources, it lets
Speaker 1: you have immunity from a more immorality, and like retaliation,
Speaker 1: like if you retaliate with violence, well, you're the victim,
Speaker 1: so that's fine. You'll get empathy for it. So there's
Speaker 1: a whole set of things that come along if you
Speaker 1: can have a victim of mentality. Now, I'm sure not
Speaker 1: saying whether it's justified or not, a not making a
Speaker 1: blanket statement and saying everyone who acts like they're a
Speaker 1: victim is just trying to get a power play. I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, I'm not saying that. And everyone
Speaker 1: knows having a superin goal is the only way to
Speaker 1: bring together humanity, like we psychologists, We psychologists know that
Speaker 1: it's a contact hypothesis which everyone is ignoring even though
Speaker 1: it's like a really important idea. Yeah, can you oberate
Speaker 1: on that a little bit more. Oh, sorry, I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to talk over you, Scott, but I was on
Speaker 1: a role Jesse. No. I The reason I rudely talked
Speaker 1: over you is this really gets my goat. Is like
Speaker 1: the best evidence for bringing people of different groups together,
Speaker 1: and it's like all psychological evidence, it's context dependent, it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Is the contact hypothesis? That's it? That is, if you
Speaker 1: have people of different groups and you can put them
Speaker 1: in a situation where they have a shared goal and
Speaker 1: have equal status to the to the extent possible, you
Speaker 1: can get beyond these group boundaries. You can have them,
Speaker 1: you know, feel like they're part of a superordinate group
Speaker 1: or have a superordinate goal. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: discourse I see on some of the most important issues
Speaker 1: in the country seems much more geared at dividing people
Speaker 1: up than you know, can sieving of a way to
Speaker 1: bring them together. Is it also, you're the expert. Did
Speaker 1: I just describe the contact hypothesis clearly? Yeah, totally, You're right,
Speaker 1: And that's what I meant by, you know, the superordinate goal,
Speaker 1: having that a humanity, you know, something that rallies assault
Speaker 1: together as human first, as opposed to identity or group first.
Speaker 1: It is tricky because it seems like politics now has
Speaker 1: become a tool for winning as opposed to policy. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that? Do they ever remember the days when
Speaker 1: like policy was supposed to be thoughtfully used as a
Speaker 1: way to help humans, you know, as a species. You know,
Speaker 1: now it's become a it's become a dividing tool. What
Speaker 1: do you what do you think of my thoughts on
Speaker 1: a on the victimhood mindset and and and how sometimes
Speaker 1: you can kind of get stuck in this trap where
Speaker 1: you know you actually don't want to get out of it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean you
Speaker 1: can observe this every day on social media, for sure.
Speaker 1: I saw a paper that was floating around this week
Speaker 1: that I didn't read that from the dialogue, it seemed
Speaker 1: to the paper seem to be saying that victimhood is
Speaker 1: a stable personality trade. Yeah, I'm actually that so I'm
Speaker 1: writing up right now it's yeah, I've been in touch
Speaker 1: with those authors about trying to connect that to collective victimhood,
Speaker 1: which is another construct. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm a little
Speaker 1: more torn on it because I absolutely agree this dynamic
Speaker 1: goes on and well, especially in light of this idea
Speaker 1: that victimhood brings status, we should emphasize that Katie and
Speaker 1: I have been victimized more than anybody. Oh yeah, yeah, Hue.
Speaker 1: That said, I'm always I'm always torn on this because,
Speaker 1: like in a country that really was built on staggering unfairness,
Speaker 1: I want to hear you know, if someone says they're
Speaker 1: a victim, there's often merit to that claim. So it's
Speaker 1: like you can sort of you can go too far
Speaker 1: in either direction. You can say as soon as someone
Speaker 1: says they're a victim, they are a victim, they should
Speaker 1: be treated as a victim, or you can sort of
Speaker 1: adopt the victimhood mentality as your overall model for explaining
Speaker 1: the world, and suggests that any claim of victimhood is
Speaker 1: unfounded and shouldn't be taken serious. So I just think
Speaker 1: there's a maybe an Aristotelean middle ground somewhere in there.
Speaker 1: There is. I mean, the ultimate would be for for
Speaker 1: all humans to come together and say we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're all victims of discrimination. We want to work together
Speaker 1: to fight discrimination. That's one way. That's one model. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I definitely get what you're saying. I wonder how much
Speaker 1: of this is conscious on the part of the people
Speaker 1: engaged and engaged in it. I do think this sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe victimhood is just a meme. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is just another like floating through culture. I mean, I'm serious.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't think that in the you know,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that like our grandfather's generation sort of
Speaker 1: got you know, sort of social status from victimhood. You know,
Speaker 1: I think masculinity and power and other things we're you know,
Speaker 1: the status getters at that point. This is the the
Speaker 1: Jason Manning Bradley Campbell theory right victimhood, the that we
Speaker 1: have this whole new system that valorises victimhood, which I
Speaker 1: was very skeptical of when they wrote that book, which
Speaker 1: I haven't read, but I'm at least on Twitter. It
Speaker 1: is absolutely the case that I didn't read. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's that's what journalists do. Yees. Sorry to interrupt you, Jesse,
Speaker 1: but there's like I was doing a radio interview yesterday
Speaker 1: with a conservative talk radio guy out here in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and I said something about I'm not really sure what
Speaker 1: the context is, but I said something about how about privilege?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, you're not privileged because you're gay
Speaker 1: and he's gay too. And I didn't I didn't sort
Speaker 1: of push back on that because the conversation just moved on.
Speaker 1: But there is that narrative that, because of these particular
Speaker 1: demographics and historical oppression, that I, you know, a lesbian
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty should feel oppressed. And I absolutely do
Speaker 1: not feel oppressed in any particular way. But there is
Speaker 1: this sort of assumption like if you check any sort
Speaker 1: of minority status, you are off. You are automatically a victim,
Speaker 1: even if you're you know, even if you're wealthy, even
Speaker 1: if you're educated, and if you're gorgeous. You know, Christy
Speaker 1: Tagan was sort of Recently, the cookbook writer Alice in
Speaker 1: Roman criticized Christy Tigan and Christy Tagan was portrayed as
Speaker 1: a victim of racism and that even though you know,
Speaker 1: he's one of the most successful women in the world.
Speaker 1: It's strange, very so, it's so strange. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to have a victim mentality, even if you've
Speaker 1: been a victim, right, well, I mean that's also the question,
Speaker 1: is right, It's like, does feeling like a victim help people?
Speaker 1: And you guys know way more more about the data
Speaker 1: than I do. But I mean, if you just, you know,
Speaker 1: think about John Heights work. I mean, it seems like resilience.
Speaker 1: What we want, what we should want as individuals and
Speaker 1: as a culture, is resilience and the ability to get
Speaker 1: past adversity, not wallow in it just for our own
Speaker 1: for our own mental health. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: feeling like a victim necessarily makes health happier. It's a
Speaker 1: very interesting question that people like Coleman Hughes and mcwarter
Speaker 1: Jonathan McWorter have been trying to really grapple with this
Speaker 1: from an African American perspective. When will there be a
Speaker 1: point where you know, is it reparations, is it a
Speaker 1: collective sort of cultural apology. It is clear that we're
Speaker 1: not there yet, Like there still needs to be something
Speaker 1: in order for Africamericans to feel safe in our country,
Speaker 1: to feel I feel like they're part of the of
Speaker 1: every They're they're they're they're part of it. You know,
Speaker 1: they're part of American culture and they're they're cared for.
Speaker 1: It seems like we're not there yet. No, And you
Speaker 1: can also underst I mean, we're just now pulling down
Speaker 1: Confederate statues, like can you imagine? Sorry, this is just
Speaker 1: one of those issues where I'm absolutely in line with
Speaker 1: the so called social justice wires. But like if you
Speaker 1: were in the country and they and they they, I
Speaker 1: can absolutely understand why why they might feel that way.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to throw it, like, I think this
Speaker 1: stuff is complicated, and black public opinion is incredibly complicated,
Speaker 1: but I get it. Yeah, I mean I try to
Speaker 1: listen to perspect actives and not claim my I definitely
Speaker 1: know on time. But I also opened to the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, being born black gives you a different experience
Speaker 1: in America, just like being born with a worrying disability.
Speaker 1: I had a kid gave me a different experience as well.
Speaker 1: You know, we all have these different experiences than we
Speaker 1: should have listened to each other's stories. But no one's
Speaker 1: really listening to each other's stories right now, are they.
Speaker 1: I just feel like they're just wanting to rip their
Speaker 1: heads off. Not at all. It's sad. Yeah, So are
Speaker 1: you ready for me to start going through some of
Speaker 1: your tweets? Oh God, I brought a beer for this
Speaker 1: very questions, I'd be a little bit. I go for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start with Katie. Just discuss quote. I realized
Speaker 1: this is obnoxious, but god, I love being right. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was in response. You've got to read the tweet,
Speaker 1: the tweet above that. Oh I didn't realize it was
Speaker 1: in response to something. Oh yes, were you right about something?
Speaker 1: So here's what happened. So, uh, I think that if
Speaker 1: the public health experts are to be believed, and I
Speaker 1: am bill inclined to believe what they were saying a
Speaker 1: month ago, or two months ago about the dangers of
Speaker 1: being out in giant crowds of people, particularly when people
Speaker 1: are shouting during a pandemic, that it is a bad
Speaker 1: idea to attend these protests. Particularly. I was sort of
Speaker 1: particularly appalled because my wife, who's a nurse, her union,
Speaker 1: so you know, we've just state we crashed the economy,
Speaker 1: stayed home for three months in part to help healthcare workers,
Speaker 1: and my wife's union sent her text message ordering her
Speaker 1: to go to a protest. And I've been having a
Speaker 1: hard time sort of articulating this because if you say
Speaker 1: that you don't think people should go to protest during
Speaker 1: during a pandemic, what people read, what people hear is
Speaker 1: I don't support the movement, which in my case is
Speaker 1: not true. I'm just deeply concerned about the spike and
Speaker 1: COVID cases that we may or may not see. I
Speaker 1: hope that we don't and then if we see a
Speaker 1: spike in COVID cases going back under lockdown, crashing the
Speaker 1: economy again, people using their businesses. I lost my job
Speaker 1: all like businesses in my neighborhood have started to close.
Speaker 1: It's really bad, and I want that I think it
Speaker 1: Obviously I'm concerned about racism. I think the murder of
Speaker 1: George Ford was terrible. I'm concerned about police brutality when
Speaker 1: it comes to black people and all other races. We
Speaker 1: need reform. That said, we're still in the middle of
Speaker 1: a bleeping pandemic, and it's the collective sort of amnesia
Speaker 1: here where the same people who a week ago were
Speaker 1: sort of making fun of quarantine protesters are saying, no,
Speaker 1: this is fine now, my cause is just, and therefore
Speaker 1: it's okay to leave your house and be in a
Speaker 1: crowd of ten thousand people all screaming at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I've been really struggling with the hypocrisy and the
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance over the past couple of weeks, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing this not just online. I'm seeing it like in
Speaker 1: my actual social networks. It's been difficult to watch. And
Speaker 1: then I saw an opening. So the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: Seattle chapter is statement saying that they were discouraging their
Speaker 1: members from going to the protest because as we have
Speaker 1: been hearing these, you know, COVID is disproportionately affecting black
Speaker 1: and round communities, and going to a mass protest if
Speaker 1: the public health experts were right, you know the first
Speaker 1: time around before they changed their tune, is going to
Speaker 1: kill more black and round people. And so I felt
Speaker 1: totally virtuous and correct that I had been, you know,
Speaker 1: the one saying like, don't go to these protests if
Speaker 1: you still care about saving Grandma's life and still care
Speaker 1: about frontline workers. I mean, it's one thing if you
Speaker 1: want to take on that risk to yourself, but it's
Speaker 1: not if it didn't. If it was only taking on
Speaker 1: the risk to yourself, if the biggest danger was tear
Speaker 1: gas or rubber bullets or being shot by the police,
Speaker 1: I would say go. But because you know this disease
Speaker 1: is contagious, it's not just taking on responsibility for yourself.
Speaker 1: It's like potentially spreading this pandemic. So when Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: because we live in a time when identity is everything,
Speaker 1: when Black Lives Matter released a statement saying like we're
Speaker 1: discouraging people from attending these protests. And here's why I
Speaker 1: felt totally validated, validated. It felt like, I, hey, I
Speaker 1: am right. And then I made the mistake of posting
Speaker 1: a screenshot of the black of the Black Lives Monern
Speaker 1: statement on Instagram and just got I got text messages
Speaker 1: I got from friends saying that I was racist. And
Speaker 1: that's that's in part why Jesse and I are doing
Speaker 1: this podcast because if I if I say I don't
Speaker 1: think people should be going out during a pandemic to
Speaker 1: like into gatherings with thousands of people, what people here
Speaker 1: is you don't care about the marker of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: you don't care about what. People didn't call you racist
Speaker 1: when you retweeted Black Lives Matter saying it, No they did,
Speaker 1: they did. They still called you. But I was trying no, no, no,
Speaker 1: because I was basically I was I was like, which
Speaker 1: was true? I was like using the using identity politics
Speaker 1: to try to make a point and say you're not
Speaker 1: going to listen to me, maybe you'll listen to Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter? And these people said, no, you're using them.
Speaker 1: You know you're using which is like, which is you know,
Speaker 1: sort of valid criticism. I was waiting for an opening
Speaker 1: for basically, you know, a black person to say this
Speaker 1: is dumb, what are you guys doing? And so but
Speaker 1: that was that was the response to this, to this
Speaker 1: uh to saying like I don't think you should go
Speaker 1: on a pandemic. So anyway, that's why I said I
Speaker 1: love being right because in that case I felt like
Speaker 1: I was this validated my position, and I love being right.
Speaker 1: It is obnoxious, but I love it. I really do.
Speaker 1: A lot of people love being right. Maybe that's what's
Speaker 1: wrong with America right now. Yeah. I also, I will say, though,
Speaker 1: I also really like changing my mind. You know, I
Speaker 1: changed my mind all the time. But when I was
Speaker 1: working at the Stranger, I would interview political candidates and
Speaker 1: I would always ask them, what's something you've changed your
Speaker 1: mind on about lately? And I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you need to think this is a difficult question,
Speaker 1: So if you need to think about it for a while,
Speaker 1: you can, you can give me a call or email me.
Speaker 1: And the number of people who were completely unable to
Speaker 1: say that they had changed their mind about anything in
Speaker 1: like recent history was truly astounding. I'm glad that you're
Speaker 1: open and changing your mind. So let me bring up
Speaker 1: another tweet you wrote. It says, I spend half my
Speaker 1: day wondering if I'm outside the cult looking at the cult,
Speaker 1: or if I'm actually in the cult and just can't
Speaker 1: see it. Yeah, that's how I feel. I do. I
Speaker 1: really do. I think that I suspect that where you
Speaker 1: have entered a moment of moral panic and sort of
Speaker 1: mass hysteria, that seems to be one thing, but it
Speaker 1: might really have some other underlying things going on. And
Speaker 1: you know, when your social networks, especially online, are filled
Speaker 1: with people saying the exact same thing, it starts to
Speaker 1: feel like you're watching a cult, you know what. I
Speaker 1: feel its way in other ways, like over the past
Speaker 1: six years, it seems like everybody I know got into astrology.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like they all found Jesus overnight. It's
Speaker 1: a very sort of destabilizing experience to say, like, I
Speaker 1: thought that, you know, I thought, I assume that the
Speaker 1: people that I know are sort of rational thinkers, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they're talking about how like, you know,
Speaker 1: the reason I don't believe in astrology is because I'm
Speaker 1: a tourist and stuff like that. But I think it's
Speaker 1: a Gemini. Wait, that's interesting. I identify I usually I
Speaker 1: say I am a Gemini because I was born June third,
Speaker 1: But I can redefine that now, well, I mean I was,
Speaker 1: I am a tourist, but I identify as a Gemini.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, hold on, hold on. I have never
Speaker 1: heard not getting into trans astrologism. Wait, I've never heard
Speaker 1: that possible. It is a thing people identify with a
Speaker 1: different signa. You just blew my mind. This is no.
Speaker 1: This is something I do to like make fun of
Speaker 1: two different groups of people at the same time. Don't
Speaker 1: adopt this. It's an obnoxious Like when somebody asked me
Speaker 1: my sign, I literally say, I'm a tourist, but I
Speaker 1: identify as a Gemini and then they typically stopped talking
Speaker 1: to me whole week. Wait, that opens up big can
Speaker 1: of worms with whatever you want, Scott. Wait, So with identity,
Speaker 1: so with trans identity, but with identity more generally I
Speaker 1: can adopt. So I can I can be so if
Speaker 1: my I actually feel like I'm an MMA fighter, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you feel like Joe Rogan. I feel like I could
Speaker 1: just so strong. You know that if someone messed with me,
Speaker 1: you know, but I don't know, like, can that be
Speaker 1: my identity? Well? Sure, I mean there was a guy
Speaker 1: who do you remember this, Jesse. There was a guy
Speaker 1: somewhere in Europe who tried to like change his birth
Speaker 1: certificate to being like he was like a man in
Speaker 1: his sixties or seventies and try to like legally change
Speaker 1: his age as a thirty year old. I think the
Speaker 1: court ruled or whatever organization I think he was, he
Speaker 1: was ruled against. So sorry, Scott, I have I have
Speaker 1: no comment. I heve the last four minutes of conversation. Okay,
Speaker 1: but why do you really you really don't have a comment,
Speaker 1: or you're trying to stay out of it. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not really trying to stay out of it. I just
Speaker 1: have I have complicated views on a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think I don't think Katie disagrees with me
Speaker 1: on this at all. But I think the vast majority
Speaker 1: of the time when someone says I identify as X,
Speaker 1: rather than why, it is a good faith statement of
Speaker 1: like something they believe strongly, and I think we should
Speaker 1: generally almost always respect that. There's also, I think, as
Speaker 1: Katie's pointing to, a sort of weirder tumbler subset of
Speaker 1: identity talk that we've actually talked about it. We had
Speaker 1: an episode on so called online validity discourse, or the
Speaker 1: idea that it's so important to validate people whatever they say.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I just I don't want to
Speaker 1: get people the impression, at least in my case, and
Speaker 1: I think Katie's too, Like I think as a general rule,
Speaker 1: you should respect people's claims about their identity, but we
Speaker 1: should obviously look at it with a critical eye, because
Speaker 1: it isn't if I feel a certain way about myself.
Speaker 1: It isn't inherently or automatically or on its face. Everyone
Speaker 1: else's job to sort of rearrange their own view of
Speaker 1: me around that. If that makes sense, well, I think
Speaker 1: that with these kind of topics you need to talk
Speaker 1: about specifically what you're referring to. So I'm of a
Speaker 1: belief that someone tells me their gender identity, that's great,
Speaker 1: Like I bide by it, and I treat them as
Speaker 1: they want to be treated. But we were just making
Speaker 1: an absurd example. I mean, do you have any limits
Speaker 1: at all on this, you know, in the sense of
Speaker 1: what I remember? You know, well, there was a white
Speaker 1: woman who said her gender identity was black, and she
Speaker 1: got significant trouble for so clearly within that, within those rules,
Speaker 1: So even within the progressive world, there are limits to that,
Speaker 1: Like you can't you know, you can certainly be a
Speaker 1: man and say I my gender identity is a woman,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem okay to anything goes you can't
Speaker 1: be a white person. My identity, you know, my race
Speaker 1: identity is black. I find that that interesting. But yes,
Speaker 1: I think socially you're totally correct. You can say one
Speaker 1: and ano the other. I think the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: that is I think there you can make a better
Speaker 1: argument for race being a social construct than sex being
Speaker 1: a social construct. Yeah. Yeah, if we're talking about like
Speaker 1: actual sex, like biological sex, for sure, it's just well
Speaker 1: it's but this is like the discourse advances so fast
Speaker 1: five years ago, being transmit that you gender identity different
Speaker 1: from your biological sex. Now the I believe the mainstream
Speaker 1: position is that your gender identity is your biological sex.
Speaker 1: So the definitions of these concepts are changing. And this
Speaker 1: is an example of where we weigh in on some
Speaker 1: nitty gritty, radical linguistic issue and that's taken as evidence
Speaker 1: that we're sort of not down for the broader cause,
Speaker 1: which is not true. Right. Jesse and I both support
Speaker 1: the ability of adults to get whatever sort of treatment
Speaker 1: that is going to make them feel better about their lives.
Speaker 1: I support the I'm in. I think kids as long
Speaker 1: as they're comprehensively evaluated, I'm that's the thing that's what's
Speaker 1: annoying about Twitter is my views on this I think
Speaker 1: are to the left of like ninety percent of Americans.
Speaker 1: I really think like if teenagers are properly diagnosed with
Speaker 1: gender dysphoria and there the process occurs in a careful,
Speaker 1: scientifically based way, I'm honestly okay with like fourteen and
Speaker 1: fifteen year olds going on hormones. I think sometimes that's
Speaker 1: the right choice. I just think this stuff gets it
Speaker 1: gets so oversimplified. When when when the question is do
Speaker 1: you validate or not validate full stop someone's identity? Like
Speaker 1: it's a binary choice, So anyone's identity can be snuffed
Speaker 1: out of existence or validated full stop just by someone
Speaker 1: say it's just it's not a it's a very online
Speaker 1: way of understanding the worlds. I think all three of
Speaker 1: us probably have understandings of identity that are a bit
Speaker 1: more stable and wouldn't snuff out of existence if someone
Speaker 1: else denied it. Well, the horoscope example, That's why I
Speaker 1: zoomed in on that when Katie did that, because blew
Speaker 1: my mind. It's a fascinating, great starter topic to start
Speaker 1: to talk about this conversation and try to talk about, well,
Speaker 1: what are the domeans in which it's laughable, Like it
Speaker 1: felt laughable to me. So I'm sorry if I offended
Speaker 1: you at all by saying that specific example seemed laughable
Speaker 1: to me by no stretch of imagination. Is it laugh
Speaker 1: on me when someone tells me their trands, I respect it,
Speaker 1: and I believe in trans writes, you know. But but
Speaker 1: that example you gave me, I mean, I alos never
Speaker 1: heard anyone say that before, So is that the point?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I hadn't heard it before, Like you could,
Speaker 1: you could see a point where you have a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of to the start to say no, like Gemini,
Speaker 1: identity people matter. I can absolutely see that happening, just
Speaker 1: because of the way the course, the course of the
Speaker 1: culture is going is moving at such a rapid clip.
Speaker 1: A lot of this stuff originates in queer circles, which
Speaker 1: is where, like historically I have sort of existed in
Speaker 1: the world. So a lot of this stuff I feel
Speaker 1: like I saw it years before it became sort of mainstream.
Speaker 1: So none of this seems I mean, I know someone
Speaker 1: who actually identifies as a panda, you know, And I like,
Speaker 1: I think that's ridiculous. I think it's really silly. But
Speaker 1: this person like takes this identity seriously. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this person like eats vamboo or whatever, but their
Speaker 1: gender is Panada. But also there's a people haven't done
Speaker 1: like I think sufficient. I wish people would like look
Speaker 1: at this more sociologically or anthropologically. Like if someone if
Speaker 1: a kid on tumbler says I identify as a panda,
Speaker 1: that is not usually a literal statement of how they feel.
Speaker 1: It's a confrontational. How are people going to respond? Can
Speaker 1: I stir up some shit? There's I'm sure there's some
Speaker 1: people who identify as a panda. It would be kind
Speaker 1: of fun to identify as a pandic because I could
Speaker 1: just sleep or sit around all days. I see what
Speaker 1: you're saying, Jesse. You're saying, well, you're like, hold up,
Speaker 1: there is some people are making case that there is
Speaker 1: there are biological even in the brain matching people's gender identity.
Speaker 1: There's some biological basis that doesn't determine but may help
Speaker 1: explain why you may feel like you're a different identity,
Speaker 1: even that's opposite of your genitalia, for instance. But when pandas,
Speaker 1: there's no good scientific evidence that has been found in
Speaker 1: my knowledge, no one's done the study showing that no,
Speaker 1: actually certain brain pack activation patterns resemble something where that
Speaker 1: make it likely for you to feel like a panda
Speaker 1: rather than a human. That would be awesome. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Yeah, I'm saying that. But I'm also
Speaker 1: just making an art because I think the arguments I'm
Speaker 1: making also apply to some people, like teenagers on Tumblr
Speaker 1: exploring their identity. They're teenagers, and there's certain incentives online
Speaker 1: to be the guy who comes out as new gender.
Speaker 1: There's also incentives to be the conservative who jumps into
Speaker 1: the conversation and yells at him. You can have a
Speaker 1: fight between two people where neither of them actually believe
Speaker 1: the opinion they're broadcasting. So I think understanding this stuff
Speaker 1: is a little bit behind the times. Online gets very weird,
Speaker 1: is all I would say. And Katie and I have
Speaker 1: both like waited our way into bizarre online communities. So
Speaker 1: you can't take stuff people say in charged online communities
Speaker 1: at face value. And it's often just as much about
Speaker 1: sociology and social status as their true innermost feelings. Right,
Speaker 1: this is also outliers. I mean, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who like identify as you know, the furry thing.
Speaker 1: There are people who like really like really deeply feel
Speaker 1: like whatever sort of character they're acting out. And you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is I think wrapped up in
Speaker 1: fandom in some ways, you know, the hobbies. Essentially, people's
Speaker 1: identities are complex and wrapped up and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It does put a strain on all of the psychological
Speaker 1: training we've ever had. You know, if someone comes and
Speaker 1: is clearly and I'm trying to think of an example
Speaker 1: that won't get me in trouble that is clearly like
Speaker 1: everyone agrees is you know, like you have okay, So
Speaker 1: here's an example. You know, you have these cases where
Speaker 1: somebody has, like to their very core, this person feels
Speaker 1: like they need to have a light cut off. This
Speaker 1: person feels like an amputee. You know, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: these are rare, but you know, this is a thing
Speaker 1: that exists on like strange disorder whatever that makes you
Speaker 1: feel like you need to have your arm cut off.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean, if that person went to a
Speaker 1: surgeon and said cut off my arm, the surgeon's not
Speaker 1: going to do this. I'm not arguing that this is
Speaker 1: the same things as being tranced, because dysphoria can be
Speaker 1: can isn't always but can be like well treated with
Speaker 1: hormones and other medical interventions. But you probably wouldn't find
Speaker 1: a surgeon willing to perform a surgery on somebody like that,
Speaker 1: even if it was going to leave their distress. I
Speaker 1: also think the conversation gets sort of when you make
Speaker 1: the source of the conversation, do you think a person
Speaker 1: who identifies as a man is literally a man? You're
Speaker 1: sort of missing the point because, like I can say,
Speaker 1: I think this person should not be fired from their job,
Speaker 1: or that they should have access to hormones, or that
Speaker 1: they should have access to surgery for strong moral reasons
Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with sort of ontological claims
Speaker 1: about what they quote unquote really are. And I don't
Speaker 1: know what it means to really be a man other
Speaker 1: than a biological sense, and no one has really laid
Speaker 1: that out. So I worry we get caught up on
Speaker 1: these online debates that don't actually at root have a
Speaker 1: lot to do with trans rights, because twenty years ago
Speaker 1: a totally different model prevailed, where people the ask was
Speaker 1: I want to be treated as a woman, not I
Speaker 1: am literally a woman, And I just I don't I
Speaker 1: think people miss the point, Like what we should care
Speaker 1: about is no one getting fired from their job for
Speaker 1: how they present themselves their dress and having access to
Speaker 1: medical care, and there's all these challenges that don't really
Speaker 1: hinge on metaphysical questions. Yeah, I think Jesse's really right
Speaker 1: about that. He and also I think that most trans
Speaker 1: people would probably say the same thing. They're much more
Speaker 1: concerned about discriminate employment discrimination or housing discrimination or how
Speaker 1: people treat them to their face. And they are these
Speaker 1: sort of hyper online debates about language and what it
Speaker 1: really is to be a man or really is to
Speaker 1: be a woman. People just want to live their lives.
Speaker 1: We just see the worst of it, and we just
Speaker 1: see the most like active, narcissistic brand of any sort
Speaker 1: of activism online. I get. I get emails from people
Speaker 1: who make these sweeping claims about quote unquote transactivism. What
Speaker 1: I always tell them is, like, the average transactivist is
Speaker 1: like trying to lobby state legislators to not have discriminatory
Speaker 1: discriminatory laws in any area. Journalism, activism, science, whoever you
Speaker 1: see on Twitter or social media that is not like
Speaker 1: the average person. It's very self selecting. So I, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like people just say stuff on that front
Speaker 1: that I don't think is realistic and reflects the full
Speaker 1: range of trans opinion and transactivism for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: Not to get on a soapbox, but it's important, Jesse,
Speaker 1: you're our resident social justice warrior today. I know, have
Speaker 1: you noticed that? Yeah, A social By the way, I
Speaker 1: I don't use thoseal justice warriors a derogatory term. I'm
Speaker 1: not that. I'm not that kind of person. You know,
Speaker 1: who's who's on social media all day being like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's make fun of the social justice warriors. Let's mean
Speaker 1: I think Katie does. I don't think it's I don't
Speaker 1: use it that often, but I think it describes something
Speaker 1: that I don't have another word for. Yeah, because whatever
Speaker 1: word you choose, you're not like then woke came up,
Speaker 1: and then people said you can't say whoa you need someone.
Speaker 1: It just it describes a phenomenon, and like, I would
Speaker 1: love to have a better word, but whatever word that
Speaker 1: would be eventually that word problematic too. What So, what
Speaker 1: the thing we're trying to define is, basically, it's it's
Speaker 1: illiberal social justice advocacy rights. I what I define it
Speaker 1: as social media justice warrior someone Yeah, someone who you know,
Speaker 1: hyper online, a restrictive view, extremist, an extremist, a very
Speaker 1: like illiberal view, as as you said, a restrictive view
Speaker 1: of what can be talked about. I think the to
Speaker 1: me that the stereotypical sj W would prefer to shout
Speaker 1: somebody down or cancel them, then sort of have a
Speaker 1: conversation and try to get to the heart of the disagreement. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have a lot more tweets to get through, but
Speaker 1: I won't get through them all. Don't worry. I won't
Speaker 1: have you guys here all day. Let me do one
Speaker 1: more with you, Katie. And then there a couple from Jesse.
Speaker 1: Sure you wrote, I suspect this country would greatly benefit
Speaker 1: if there were more liberals on police forces and more
Speaker 1: conservatives on campuses. People hated this three. I don't know
Speaker 1: why people were so appalled by this tweet. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it would be like I think ideological diversity
Speaker 1: is good in any context. I think it would be
Speaker 1: better if people just knew more people who were not
Speaker 1: like them, in part because you learn how how the
Speaker 1: world works. And I also think that I'm going to
Speaker 1: stereotype here, but I think that liberals on a police
Speaker 1: force might moderate a police force, and not because conservatives
Speaker 1: are more like to shoot people, but because if you
Speaker 1: have any ideological diversity, you're less likely to get extremism.
Speaker 1: And so that's the point, is just to have people
Speaker 1: around you who can check your ideas so that you
Speaker 1: don't have group think. You don't have this mentality where
Speaker 1: you must be right because you're never you don't get
Speaker 1: any pushback. You're you're surrounded by people who think exactly
Speaker 1: like you. And I think that's true on campuses as well.
Speaker 1: So I was really like, it was sort of astounding
Speaker 1: to me that so many people thought that this like
Speaker 1: very sort of I don't know, and a dene idea
Speaker 1: is somehow I don't know, I'm problematic. Well, certainly the
Speaker 1: college campus thing is something that the kind of high
Speaker 1: crowd have been arguing for, is that they need more
Speaker 1: viewpoint diversity. Okay, yes, I mean I went to a
Speaker 1: small Sorry to interrupt you, but I went to a
Speaker 1: small liberal art school in Nashville, North Carolina, a state school,
Speaker 1: but a liberal arts school. And this is in the South.
Speaker 1: And I still don't think I knew any conservatives in
Speaker 1: my college. And you should not be able to get
Speaker 1: through college without meeting anybody who has a different political
Speaker 1: perspective than the Okay, Jesse goes, me kick puppies everyone,
Speaker 1: that's a horrible slogan. Why would you say that me? No,
Speaker 1: the point isn't to kick puppies. It's far more subtle
Speaker 1: than that. Read these ten links explaining what the phrase
Speaker 1: really means. This will get you on my side, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: So it was about a thing going on the left
Speaker 1: right now where people say that we should abolish the police,
Speaker 1: and then being saying someone will respond to them, what
Speaker 1: do you mean, obviously we need police, And then most
Speaker 1: abolished people police people will say no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: When we say abolish the police, we mean this other thing.
Speaker 1: And then you read five hundred pages and you realize
Speaker 1: they're not actually calling for the abolition of the police.
Speaker 1: There's a subset of radical people who really want to
Speaker 1: abolish the police, and to my mind haven't even started
Speaker 1: to explain what whatever follows would look like. But most
Speaker 1: of the time when people say abolished the police, they
Speaker 1: don't mean that. So this is an example of what
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier, which if you're trying to
Speaker 1: get other people on your team. Why would you adopt
Speaker 1: a slogan that is just going to turn people off
Speaker 1: from the start. That was a clever way of doing it.
Speaker 1: It's a unique angle. Okay. It's insane to me that
Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty and we have done such a poor
Speaker 1: job informing people about how online outrage can be weaponized. So,
Speaker 1: since the George Floyd protest kicked off, Katie and I
Speaker 1: talked about this on our podcast, blocked and reported. We
Speaker 1: may have mentioned this podcast once or twice already blocked
Speaker 1: and reported. Patroon dot com slash Blotter reported, blocked, reported, blocked, reported,
Speaker 1: block reported guys need more money. I ironically need more money. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no amount of money that we need that we
Speaker 1: don't need. This is a capitalist society's got I'm blocking
Speaker 1: and reported. Okay, so basically, people are spreading screenshots of
Speaker 1: teenagers who have supposedly said racist things. These the one
Speaker 1: account in particular, who has five hundred thousand people, has
Speaker 1: just targeted teenagers. In some cases, these teenagers have actually
Speaker 1: said racist things when they were fourteen or fifteen or
Speaker 1: sixteen on Instagram. I'm a liberal. I'm of the mind
Speaker 1: we should be forgiving and that someone's life should not
Speaker 1: be ruined by however they're captured at their worst moment.
Speaker 1: But even worse than that, people have realized they can
Speaker 1: just game the outrage dynamics. They can put a fake
Speaker 1: caption on someone's Instagram or snapchat or whatever photo, put
Speaker 1: it online and they know that because of outrage, people
Speaker 1: will carry that far and wiy So there was already
Speaker 1: one instance in which a totally innocent kid was dragged
Speaker 1: through the mud over a fake screenshot. So that's what
Speaker 1: I mean when I say it's twenty twenty. We should
Speaker 1: understand that when people get outraged, their brains turn off.
Speaker 1: And this is if your liberal, centrist, conservative, libertarian, whatever,
Speaker 1: When you are emotionally aroused and angry, your brain turns off.
Speaker 1: You are not as skeptical as you should be. So
Speaker 1: you should think twice before retweeting some random kid who
Speaker 1: comes into your timeline. That also just consequently tends to
Speaker 1: happen when I have chocolate as well. Brain it turns off.
Speaker 1: I get mad when I don't have chocreason. Really, Oh
Speaker 1: that's interesting, addicted in a way, it's actually more pizza.
Speaker 1: Pizza is the one thing that I can't go more
Speaker 1: than a day with without It's sad. How about this one?
Speaker 1: There is video of her zog in a band she
Speaker 1: performed in her twenties that the world should probably have
Speaker 1: access to. Now, can we put this on the show? Notes, Oh,
Speaker 1: you definitely do not. The video is so do you
Speaker 1: want to explain the tweet? Jesse? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: just Katie on one of our podcasts episodes talked about
Speaker 1: her past career as a musician in the the Asheville,
Speaker 1: North Carolina metro area. Right, No, this was actually not there.
Speaker 1: It was around Chapel Hill. But I think the tweet
Speaker 1: was referring to, if I recalled correctly, one of our
Speaker 1: stretch goals. If we haven't mentioned, we have stretch goals,
Speaker 1: and if people give us more money, we will do
Speaker 1: things like Jesse will write a wrap about the replication crisis.
Speaker 1: So I think it was in reference to that. Well,
Speaker 1: he's gonna he has to write the right. I can't
Speaker 1: because actually I could be imprisoned if I don't canceled.
Speaker 1: So I was in a band in my twenties. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you the name of the band. But
Speaker 1: also it would you would have to believe it because
Speaker 1: there's a curse word in the name. But my job
Speaker 1: in the man, I'm not musical, But I danced. I
Speaker 1: was basically a go go dancer. So I would dance topless,
Speaker 1: wearing pasties and a horse head mask, and I dance
Speaker 1: around with a machine gun and would like just basically
Speaker 1: look like a complete like burning man. Fool people are
Speaker 1: people I meet now are really shocked to learn that
Speaker 1: I used to be fun. But I did, you know,
Speaker 1: people say with me, say with me if I can
Speaker 1: get personal for a second and into volley back, and
Speaker 1: I was. I was a professional break dancer. People don't
Speaker 1: know that about it. In my twenties, I was really
Speaker 1: into uh. I would watch bet every day. I was like,
Speaker 1: really in a gangster rapp And I had an earring
Speaker 1: a diamond canceled for this Scott watch out. Yeah it's appropriation.
Speaker 1: I had a big diamond earring. Really, I mean, but
Speaker 1: this was, Oh my gosh, really I would love to
Speaker 1: see this. Can you still break dance? Should not have
Speaker 1: mentioned that I actually had appreciation for black culture, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved I like I love black culture more I
Speaker 1: like white culture. Is my culture is horrible. White cultures
Speaker 1: like mayonnaise and white. I mean, I like white friends.
Speaker 1: Come on, yeah, that's because you're white. I'm not Jewish.
Speaker 1: I'm not white. You like, right, Oh, no, you can't.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. You can't. I mean we're in a
Speaker 1: moment now. Well, I was like, you know, the Jewish breakdancer,
Speaker 1: and my mind my name was Scott dog d A
Speaker 1: W G dude. I had. My friend Nate in high
Speaker 1: school was the same way. He was a I forget,
Speaker 1: you're not that tall. Nate's very tall. He's tall like me,
Speaker 1: and he was the in our suburban high school. There
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, there's a group of Asian and black
Speaker 1: kids and he was the token white breakdancers. Awesome, and
Speaker 1: there is video anymore. So I guess what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is, if you release your video evidence, I'll
Speaker 1: release my video evidence I have. I have. I have
Speaker 1: video also of my one other rap performance from grad school.
Speaker 1: So maybe we can team up on this, except I'm
Speaker 1: actually never releasing that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: decline this off. Okay, safe for the Internet. Not safe
Speaker 1: for the Internet. Okay, but probably mine isn't either. I'm shirtless, Jesse,
Speaker 1: I am too that's funny. I am too. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is fine, that is funny. Jesse, this seems a relevant
Speaker 1: tweet to follow up on what we were just discussing,
Speaker 1: which is our embarrassing aspect, so we should we should
Speaker 1: bring you in here. I want to apologize for the
Speaker 1: times in college multiple times, if I'm being honest with myself,
Speaker 1: when I went to parties as a nerdy Jewish guy
Speaker 1: who had no idea how to talk to girls end quote,
Speaker 1: I now realized that was appropriation, which is wrong. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's literally snarky. It's snarky, it's a little starky. It's
Speaker 1: not appropriation because that's literally who I am. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to talk to women or anybody. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was honestly. I think we when we want to
Speaker 1: be earnest online, we sometimes drape it in I already
Speaker 1: and starkiness. So I'm not just gonna tweet tweet pathetic
Speaker 1: in college, but that was my way of tying my
Speaker 1: college patheticness into the current event of people getting canceled
Speaker 1: over college party photos. It's all about ego, Scott. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned, it seems so I had no ego in college.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought I had like I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we can get real now. I had what feels
Speaker 1: in retrospect like serious selfish right now, I was the
Speaker 1: past hour. Thanks for joining us. Everything I've said was
Speaker 1: a lie. No, I think in retrospect, I had real
Speaker 1: self esteem issues in college and the idea that anyone's
Speaker 1: best four years of their lives are gonna be eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty two when we're like all just messed up,
Speaker 1: half baked babies. I don't think that's true, or it
Speaker 1: wasn't in my case. I was cool in college. Those
Speaker 1: actually probably were of the best years in my life.
Speaker 1: I was I was in a girls' fight club, had
Speaker 1: lots of friends. I don't know, I've really fallen since then.
Speaker 1: It's been on the downhill side. But I have a podcast.
Speaker 1: So I wait till my senior, my fifth year, senior,
Speaker 1: senior year, not even my senior, my fifth year to
Speaker 1: join a fraternity, and I pledged with all freshmen. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other story. Did you get in? Did
Speaker 1: they did they allow you in? I got in? No,
Speaker 1: I did, and I became the DJ affirmative action. No,
Speaker 1: And I was the DJ at the frat parties, and
Speaker 1: I was really into music and stuff. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: have too many good quotes, Jesse, I just can't stop. Uh,
Speaker 1: this one's so good too. I think having a sizable
Speaker 1: chunk of there's a look of horror on Jesse's face
Speaker 1: like he doesn't know what he doesn't know. He literally
Speaker 1: doesn't know where I'm going in with this. I think
Speaker 1: having a sizable chunk of people with their lives on
Speaker 1: social media is deeply, deeply unhealthy. I think you mix
Speaker 1: that within any sort of cultural media or panic and
Speaker 1: it becomes very and varies in capital letters. Important to
Speaker 1: loadly He misspelled the word woudly. He wrote loadally loudly,
Speaker 1: broadcast on the right side, or the tides can pull
Speaker 1: you under? Do you still stand by that, Jesson? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean what we're seeing now is we saw a
Speaker 1: horrible public event, George Floyd getting murdered by a cop
Speaker 1: lead to this reckoning with a complicated history and to
Speaker 1: the average person, especially in my view, sort of like
Speaker 1: white liberals who don't have a direct role in on
Speaker 1: this and feel disconnected from it, and who are staying
Speaker 1: home because of the pandemic. People are like, what can
Speaker 1: I do? All I can do is tweet endlessly, Facebook
Speaker 1: posts endlessly, and it's very important to show you're on
Speaker 1: the right side of it. And as Katie and I
Speaker 1: have been dissecting on our podcast, which to remind you,
Speaker 1: is known as blocks and reported patroon dot com slash
Speaker 1: block reported they need they need money, led the money.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we need it. Journalism is so screwed.
Speaker 1: This has just led to really weird performative behavior, and
Speaker 1: that's the sort of thing we we like to talk about. Well,
Speaker 1: relate to that. You also, I mean you're kind of
Speaker 1: a broken record on that theme, because here's another tweet.
Speaker 1: Half of Twitter right now is stuff that is not
Speaker 1: in fact about solving racism or fixing the world, but
Speaker 1: people trying to use the present conversation to rocket launch
Speaker 1: pendy grievances onto the Internet, and everyone's just lapping it
Speaker 1: up to show they're on the right side. WHOA Jesse
Speaker 1: speaks in the truth. Yeah, I'm in the gauntlet. So gauntlet. Well,
Speaker 1: the example we talked about in our earlatest podcast is
Speaker 1: somewhat a journalist will post a I dam exchange with
Speaker 1: an editor from years ago where they say they were
Speaker 1: wronged and that this proves it was a hostile environment,
Speaker 1: and people, without knowing any context, they just retweet it
Speaker 1: because they want to be the part of the struggle.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the struggle isn't really a struggle, it's just
Speaker 1: some interpersonal gripes. I think as I've developed better sort
Speaker 1: of online hygiene, I've tried to not participate in those
Speaker 1: dynamics and just instead of stand on the sidelines yelling
Speaker 1: at people and being snarky about it, it's more fun anyway.
Speaker 1: I wrote a tweet. I will not agree with that.
Speaker 1: I wrote a tweet saying being mean and snarky gives
Speaker 1: you a sense of self satisfaction in the moment, but
Speaker 1: being kind gives you a deeper sense of satisfaction the
Speaker 1: next day. So that's beautiful. I'm not sure which which
Speaker 1: one which behavior is monetizable though, Okay, which one of
Speaker 1: you has better feet picks? That would be the answer.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, feet picks? Wait between me and Scott. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how you monetize. Scott clearly takes care of It's
Speaker 1: definitely Scott. He takes care of him. We got launch
Speaker 1: a few months ago. He's better put together than me.
Speaker 1: Like I'm wearing a button down shirt and athletic shorts.
Speaker 1: I was going to record the shirt list before I
Speaker 1: realized there's gonna be videos. There's no way doesn't have
Speaker 1: a nicer feet there. So if you're a foot fetishist,
Speaker 1: send Scott an email directly. Scott, do you want to
Speaker 1: say your email address? I'm just gonna move right along,
Speaker 1: right along, from that comment to our Twitter comments, Twitter comments,
Speaker 1: all sorts of people wait in, you know, and high
Speaker 1: anticipation for this conversation. Patrick Blockwood said, has Katie gone
Speaker 1: through my book yet? I have? I have started Patrick's
Speaker 1: book Ki Patrick. So the reason I got Patrick's book
Speaker 1: he wrote a book on fear, and I was planning
Speaker 1: on writing a book about fear. And then we started
Speaker 1: this podcast and I realized I don't have to do
Speaker 1: that anymore. I don't have to do anything. I can
Speaker 1: just be a podcaster. You're free, I'm free, I'm free.
Speaker 1: Keith Humphrey's suggestion, how's the rap song about the replication
Speaker 1: crisis coming along? There? Jesse, Dope, you know you remind
Speaker 1: me so much of uh this No this tv C
Speaker 1: just got you the explicit label sleep that up? Have
Speaker 1: you watched this show on uh who? On who? Dave yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so gracious. You remind me of Dave Jesse. Do
Speaker 1: I do you think I could? Well, we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens when he or that or the fact that the
Speaker 1: second one he has sex with sex dolls that was
Speaker 1: that was a reference to Dave, not Jesse, to be clear, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean both. There was one about your dad. Okay,
Speaker 1: so someone popped in and said, Jilse, I'll give them credit.
Speaker 1: Jilsey said, I would ask Katie how her growing up
Speaker 1: with her research psychologist anthrow zoologist Dad her Zog. Hall
Speaker 1: is the Twitter name of your dad, in case you're wondering,
Speaker 1: influenced her journalism and view of human nature, and then
Speaker 1: your I guess this is your dad, responded, interesting question.
Speaker 1: My dad's name is Hal her Zog and he is
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I have more followers on him, just to
Speaker 1: want to want to make that note. So my dad
Speaker 1: is a Yeah, he is an anthrozologist or he's retired now,
Speaker 1: but he was a psychology professor whose specialty with human
Speaker 1: animal interactions. So he wrote he wrote a book that's
Speaker 1: quite quite interesting, although I stopped reading it at the dedication.
Speaker 1: It's called Some We Love, Some We Hate Some We
Speaker 1: eat Why it's so hard to think straight about animals,
Speaker 1: And it's about sort of the contradictions in humans relationship
Speaker 1: with animals. Why are why are somethings pets? And something's lunch?
Speaker 1: He was sort of a sort of an ethnographic study
Speaker 1: as well of a big animal people and he has
Speaker 1: had a like vary immense impact on on me. I
Speaker 1: think I have a twin sister, and i'd say she
Speaker 1: is my mom and I am my dad. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's necessarily a good thing. He's a
Speaker 1: he's a contrarian for sure. Actually, he wanted me to
Speaker 1: ask you a question, Jesse, about the replication crisis about
Speaker 1: the French guy. Are you doing anything on the French
Speaker 1: guy with French Guy? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a yeah, wasn't there a French sociologist
Speaker 1: who wrote about people in prison? Experiment was Oh, Didrich
Speaker 1: Staple is Dutch not French? No, I don't know what
Speaker 1: he's talking about. He said that you do. But also, Katie,
Speaker 1: this is going to be weird. But that account that
Speaker 1: you think is your dad is actually me. That is
Speaker 1: I really infess that it's been sending a lot of
Speaker 1: you guys have the oddest relationship. So he's, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad is. He's a I don't one who identify
Speaker 1: myself as a contrarian because I don't feel like one.
Speaker 1: I think I just take the right position, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the right position is the one that's like that's contrary
Speaker 1: to the dominant position. But he is somebody who does
Speaker 1: the same thing. And he also so the particular field
Speaker 1: that he works in, he is somebody who has I
Speaker 1: would say, pissed off a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people in that field, and so I could probably get
Speaker 1: that from them. Who are the journalists that you both
Speaker 1: most avidly read? That was a row Boros anarchy. I
Speaker 1: love these twitteriums. You want to go first, Jesse, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think because like lately, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: like a bunch of New Yorker people who are just
Speaker 1: pros like Elizabeth Colbert, you know, Jeff Tuban on legal stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think Jonathan Chait on sort of like
Speaker 1: quote unquote classical liberal issues or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it, at New York Magazine. Eric Levitz at New
Speaker 1: York Magazine is a great young writer. Just like with
Speaker 1: really solidly to the left liberal principles. This is a
Speaker 1: weird and petty thing to say, but there's so many
Speaker 1: writers lately who are just like really making me question
Speaker 1: their judgment on social media that I like. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I've been very down on a lot of mainstream journalism lately.
Speaker 1: Those are Those are a few examples. One book that
Speaker 1: had a big impact on me is James Forman Junior
Speaker 1: is Locking Up Our Own. It was a Pulitzer winner.
Speaker 1: It's about the complicated dynamics in high crime black communities,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of, I think, especially to essentialize White
Speaker 1: people who want to better understand the stuff shoul knock
Speaker 1: themselves away from sort of racial essentialism. And he does
Speaker 1: a really good job of showing that the trade offs
Speaker 1: at high crimes communities face where they want tougher policing,
Speaker 1: they want to be protected by the cops, but the
Speaker 1: cops often abuse him at the same time. So he's
Speaker 1: more of an academic than a journalist. He's a former
Speaker 1: public defender. But I guess if I could just throw
Speaker 1: one recommendation, Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Junior.
Speaker 1: I've been reading and listening to a lot of black
Speaker 1: heterodox thinkers lately, so John McWorter, Glenn Lowry, Coleman, Hughes,
Speaker 1: Caville Foster, Thomas Chatterton, Williams. I find them fascinating and
Speaker 1: they say things that I've never thought about before. I'm
Speaker 1: also Jesse and I both have are fans of Alice Trager,
Speaker 1: who wrote a book called Galileo's Middle Finger. Everyone has
Speaker 1: to read that book. This book is when I see
Speaker 1: somebody get sort of dog piled on Twitter. There's been
Speaker 1: maybe twelve times when I reached out to them and
Speaker 1: I've sent them either Alice's book or John Ronson. So
Speaker 1: you've been publicly shamed. John Ronson. Also, I love his work.
Speaker 1: I read Andrew Sullivan every week, and I don't always
Speaker 1: agree with him, but I always appreciate his writing and perspective.
Speaker 1: Although I might get canceled for saying that. And then
Speaker 1: you know, I read all sorts of the big sort
Speaker 1: of mainstream ones, Cola Fasane and The New Yorker. I
Speaker 1: love his work. Yeah, And then you know, I read
Speaker 1: like The New York Times and Boks and all of
Speaker 1: those things. And I also try to read some conservative
Speaker 1: outlets just to keep some balance I'd like to just
Speaker 1: point out that Alice Dreger, Coleman Hughes, and Bradley Campbell
Speaker 1: have all been prior guests of the Psychology podcast. Well
Speaker 1: you are really going downhill? Why is that because I
Speaker 1: have you two on now? Yeah? Yeah, I'm joking. So
Speaker 1: is there anything any grievances you too want to Is
Speaker 1: there anything you want to say to your critics? Look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you my own perception. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you guys for an hour now and twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: You both seem to me like thinkers, but you also
Speaker 1: seem like compassionate humans. I don't get this. I know
Speaker 1: you started off saying, well, the thing that separates us
Speaker 1: is that we we don't we don't have emotions. Katie
Speaker 1: said something along those lines. But just talking to you
Speaker 1: and even you know, bringing up some topics and see
Speaker 1: how sensitively you handle them, even just in this podcast,
Speaker 1: I would say you two have some good goodness in
Speaker 1: you as well, not just I was gonna say, off, Mike,
Speaker 1: Katie is deeply a beauty and sexually harasses me. So
Speaker 1: that's just her public different. Like I I'm asking for it.
Speaker 1: I came in suret less. Now, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: mean to take your edge off. That certainly wasn't my goal,
Speaker 1: because a big part of your appeal is obviously you're
Speaker 1: you're both edgy in the sense. No, but we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be edgy, right. They sort of
Speaker 1: force you into edgy ness because you don't adhere to
Speaker 1: very you don't stay within very strict boundary. So I
Speaker 1: very much appreciate what you're saying. I would like to
Speaker 1: think of both of us as compassionate humans, So we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And if I respond snarkily or sarcastically, it's
Speaker 1: just because I have trouble accepting compromindness or praise. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're okay people. It depends on the day.
Speaker 1: In my case, we're awesome. I'm extremely good to my dog.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I am to people, but I'm
Speaker 1: extremely good to my dog. Then again, my dog is
Speaker 1: very cute. Yeah, well, I'll just table that for another conversation.
Speaker 1: You just said, but let's wait. Hitler was a dog
Speaker 1: guy too. Actually, I take that back. Maybe that doesn't
Speaker 1: have any reflection on how you treat people. Did remember
Speaker 1: a stout like Hitler is a vegetarian is a logical filac.
Speaker 1: He was he actually a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian. I
Speaker 1: think he was. I think he was like a like
Speaker 1: a real dog lover and a vegetarian. I think just
Speaker 1: I was. I was really hoping to do that and
Speaker 1: the last second and you all threw me that curve
Speaker 1: ball law? What's the what's the law about? Every? Look?
Speaker 1: I mean with Katie, it was a coin flip whether
Speaker 1: it was gonna be a positive or Let me just
Speaker 1: return to my wrap up here, because I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be uh complimentary you guys, now, you too, mofos can
Speaker 1: take a compliment. I get the sense that your heart's
Speaker 1: in the right place and that you are the type
Speaker 1: of people that you speak your mind. Correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong here. By the way you you you you
Speaker 1: want to speak your mind, You want to be free
Speaker 1: to speak your mind. But I don't. I don't sense
Speaker 1: and I'm a good judge of character. I'm not sensing
Speaker 1: nefariousness here. I'm not malevolence. I'm not I'm not sensing
Speaker 1: that from that force from either of you two and
Speaker 1: I and that means something because I do sense that
Speaker 1: from some people. So yeah, I think there's a subset
Speaker 1: of the people who hate us online who think that
Speaker 1: it's it's inevitable that the mass is gonna slip and
Speaker 1: one day I'll like, I mean, not to keep bringing
Speaker 1: up Payler, but like come out dress as a Nazi
Speaker 1: or something. But there's like, there's no there there. We
Speaker 1: just happen to have yous that are pretty solidly left
Speaker 1: and center left. It's just there's no actual controversy wurking
Speaker 1: under there. To be honest, as far as I'm conspat right,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty upfront about my flaws. I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: like hiding anything that I'm waiting for somebody you dig
Speaker 1: up and use against me. It's all, it's all out
Speaker 1: in the open. Well, what percentage of what you do
Speaker 1: is motivated by the sheer thrill of saying something that
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to say. Some people are motivated very
Speaker 1: very highly by that, and like ninety eighty percent you
Speaker 1: can kind of see that. I wouldn't put you guys
Speaker 1: in the extreme, but I'm wondering what percentage of this
Speaker 1: is motive If your podcast is motivated by that that
Speaker 1: sort of thrill, I don't think there's any thrill involved
Speaker 1: in it. I want everybody to be able to say
Speaker 1: the things that they believe. And it's just he said,
Speaker 1: I mean, most of our views are very mainstream, almost
Speaker 1: would have been orthodox sort of liberal views not that
Speaker 1: long ago, and it deeply disturbs me that those views
Speaker 1: can now no longer be articulated because some of them
Speaker 1: are considered like top crimes or hate crimes. You know,
Speaker 1: I would much rather be liked than disliked, like I
Speaker 1: think most people. That's just kind of how like not
Speaker 1: how the cards, you know, how the cards ended up falling.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't get a particular thrill out of
Speaker 1: it at all. I wish that anybody could say, you know,
Speaker 1: like to say the truth. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: online I think you see a lot of that sort
Speaker 1: of being controversial for the sake of it, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's what that's what our podcast is. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's what either of us do in particular.
Speaker 1: And what about you, Jesse, I'll give you a chance
Speaker 1: to talk to finally I get a chance to talk.
Speaker 1: I think I've dominated don the conversation. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a thrill in just being like cutting through
Speaker 1: the BS a little bit. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: just released a podcast basically chiming in on Barry Weiss's
Speaker 1: side on this internal controversy you're not supposed to do
Speaker 1: on Twitter. But like public opinion on that is probably
Speaker 1: pretty torn, it's not. I don't think it's even a
Speaker 1: minority opinion. So I never want to be the guy
Speaker 1: who's like contrarian for the sake of contrarian or revels
Speaker 1: in being quote unquote canceled. And a huge amount of
Speaker 1: the work both of us have done is like in
Speaker 1: depth careful journalism as we see it. So I agree, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't thank you. I appreciate that we don't. We
Speaker 1: don't want like the id W canceled person persona. I
Speaker 1: would much rather have it be the case that we've
Speaker 1: just had, you know, staff jobs that let us do
Speaker 1: our journalistic work quietly. But those, unfortunately aren't the times
Speaker 1: we are living in. Yeah, if there there is, I
Speaker 1: think there's this sort of you know a number of
Speaker 1: stories have been written, like there was a story in
Speaker 1: the New York Times that feature Jesse and I, this
Speaker 1: sort of story about cancel culture. I don't want our
Speaker 1: brand to be like the canceled people. I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of boring, and I also don't think it's true
Speaker 1: in our case. I think both of us are doing
Speaker 1: fine despite any sort of attempts to push us out
Speaker 1: of journalism. Both of us are doing fine. I don't
Speaker 1: so I don't want that to be our sort of brand,
Speaker 1: but it is. I think what what people probably affiliate
Speaker 1: us with, which is I don't know. Maybe we can
Speaker 1: change that if they ever actually listen to our podcast
Speaker 1: or listening to this podcast chat that we're having. I
Speaker 1: think it'll be queer to people. See, you're not journalists
Speaker 1: in exile. Your journalists, uh finding other avenues to journal
Speaker 1: lise whatever the world is. I mean, people misunderstand this.
Speaker 1: I left New York Magazine to write a book. It's
Speaker 1: a mainstream publisher. I still feel like I can pitch
Speaker 1: to all the most of the mainstream publications. I increasingly
Speaker 1: don't want to. I think Katie might be on my
Speaker 1: page there because like, you can't pitch anything interesting to
Speaker 1: a lot of outwards. But it would be better for
Speaker 1: our brand if we could pretend to be these these
Speaker 1: you know, mysterious canceled exiles. But in no way is
Speaker 1: that true. It would also be an insult to journalists
Speaker 1: who are like struggling to pay the bills, which, for
Speaker 1: various reasons, neither of us is for what strangers to
Speaker 1: say that again, what strangers in neither you or what No.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like Katie, Katie is married to someone with
Speaker 1: a job. I have a book I'm writing like we're
Speaker 1: we're obviously anyone in journalism now is in precarious situation.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to, like it sort of leverage
Speaker 1: this idea that we're canceled. Yeah, yeah, And I can
Speaker 1: see I can see why there would be a lot
Speaker 1: of resentment from people who are, like, let's say, my
Speaker 1: former colleagues who have been like covering the civil unrest
Speaker 1: in Seattle, where you know, difficult to do. You've got
Speaker 1: to actually be there, and you know I can sit
Speaker 1: in my house and podcast and make almost as much
Speaker 1: money as they do. I think there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: of resentment there, which you know, and I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: I think what Jesse and I are doing it is important.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's as important as what like a
Speaker 1: local like beat newspaper does. I mean, maybe it is
Speaker 1: right now, because this moment is so weird, and we're
Speaker 1: having a conversation that a lot of people feel like
Speaker 1: they can't have. But we need people to cover the
Speaker 1: school board, we need people to cover city council meetings.
Speaker 1: That's real journalism, and that's what most journalism is. It's
Speaker 1: just not what you see. It's not those people who
Speaker 1: sort of rise to the top of the you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the public consciousness. It's narcissists. I think our
Speaker 1: brains are in sync because I just made the exact
Speaker 1: same point. We have a subreddit that's someone a fan
Speaker 1: created for us, which was wonderful, and someone basically posted saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm ready, I'm ready to forget the New
Speaker 1: Times and move on from it. And in my response,
Speaker 1: I said, no, like the New York Times, whatever our
Speaker 1: qualms was it, they do stuff no one else can do,
Speaker 1: especially now with the decline of local news reporting. So
Speaker 1: I would much rather live in a world where The
Speaker 1: Times does better. And I'm glad Katie and I exist
Speaker 1: as podcasters to make fun of the Times and hopefully
Speaker 1: when they deserve critique, when they merit critique, give it.
Speaker 1: But but I don't want anyone to see us as
Speaker 1: a replacement for mainstream. If I could roll back the
Speaker 1: clock and have the podcast not exist, but have mainstream
Speaker 1: journalists and be much healthier, and have the Baltimore Sound
Speaker 1: and the Boston Globe and all these other papers still
Speaker 1: in their former glory glory, I would do that in
Speaker 1: a second. No, because then I could get a job
Speaker 1: in this in this fantasy world in which unicorns as
Speaker 1: we're basically making the best of a bad situation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The analogy I've been using is like, imagine a ship
Speaker 1: hits an iceberg and then as it sinks to the
Speaker 1: ocean floor, all these bottom feeding life forms can like
Speaker 1: take root on the side of the hull and flourish.
Speaker 1: So that's what yea, the iceberg on the ship, you
Speaker 1: guys are are are great fun. I enjoyed this chat today,
Speaker 1: and I hope you've got a chance to talk about
Speaker 1: your views and that you accurately were representing your views.
Speaker 1: And I wish you guys. Yeah, I wish you well.
Speaker 1: And might let us say, guy, is now what do
Speaker 1: I say prefer to? I really do wish you all well.
Speaker 1: Congratulations and the success so far your podcast, and thanks
Speaker 1: for just being a thoughtful, reasonable group of individuals who
Speaker 1: are also compassionate. Likewise, dude, I'd say the same. That's
Speaker 1: very kind. So thanks for being on the show, Thanks
Speaker 1: for having us. Thank you so much. Man. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to react in some way to something you heard,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
Speaker 1: Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: please add a reading and review of the podcast on
Speaker 1: iTunes and subscribe to the Psychology Podcast you tube channel,
Speaker 1: as we're really trying to increase our viewership on YouTube.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.