Speaker 1: Ah, welcome back to Behind the Bastards. Legally the only
Speaker 1: podcast that you're allowed to listen to under the terms
Speaker 1: of the New World Orders. Fucking International Monetary Fund, build
Speaker 1: a Berg group, whatever you know it, that's the law.
Speaker 1: So hate the Buildeberg Group. Oh see, I don't actually
Speaker 1: have a bit ready for this, Mettley. How are we
Speaker 1: doing today, Matt? I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: I am right now hidden in my bedroom because my
Speaker 2: baby is a cheap on the other side of the
Speaker 2: house and I don't want to wake her up with
Speaker 2: all of the loud.
Speaker 1: Noises that I intend to make. That is fair, now, Matt.
Speaker 1: You are if folks are not aware, if our listeners
Speaker 1: are to wear You are the host of a number
Speaker 1: of podcasts, including a Sopranos podcast called pod Yourself a Gun,
Speaker 1: That's right, and the Wire podcast called pod Yourself the Wire.
Speaker 2: Yes, which you can find on a feed called pod
Speaker 2: Yourself a Gun.
Speaker 1: It's nice and confusing.
Speaker 2: If you see Tony Soprano's face and the logo, you
Speaker 2: know it's a show about the Wire.
Speaker 1: That's been extremely clear, now, Matt. Both of those titles
Speaker 1: are obviously a reference to the intro music for the sopranos.
Speaker 1: That's right, which which the refrain is something like woke
Speaker 1: up this morning, got yourself a gun. That's right.
Speaker 3: Now, guys, what are we doing today? Do we have
Speaker 3: a Do we have another Scott Adams book?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, not all that long ago. We did our
Speaker 1: deep dive into Scott Adams. We talked about the life
Speaker 1: of this man. And he's got a couple of books
Speaker 1: that he wrote that he considers to be He thinks
Speaker 1: that his cartoons in time will be forgotten, but generations
Speaker 1: from now, his novels are what people will remember of him.
Speaker 1: He said this. He's gotten the record about this.
Speaker 2: Are these graphic novels of Dilbert that were calling books?
Speaker 2: Or are these just words? No cartoons?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just words, and they're they're real short. He says,
Speaker 1: they're real short because he wanted something that a person
Speaker 1: could read in an afternoon, which is a fine goal
Speaker 1: for a book. Normally I consider brevity to be an
Speaker 1: example of skill and craft, but in this case it
Speaker 1: just means he didn't tell a story right, right right.
Speaker 2: I love starting an offul book with the idea of
Speaker 2: like no shorter, shorter, better, shorter, good, less words, more
Speaker 2: read fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to publish like a big three hundred
Speaker 1: page book with a fancy title like the Origin of Mankind,
Speaker 1: and it's just going to have two words in it.
Speaker 1: Just fuck it on page one, empty space the rest
Speaker 1: of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like a dick in the middle of it,
Speaker 2: and you have to search for the dick and then
Speaker 2: when you find it, you win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a whole book for like, yeah you can.
Speaker 1: You can just like say you finished it in a
Speaker 1: day and it out on your desk when people walk
Speaker 1: by and be like, I finish this one. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: I've been busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh me, I've just been reading all these
Speaker 2: books here. You have a whole fucking shell filled with them.
Speaker 2: People are opening them up and there's nothing in them
Speaker 2: except for that dick that they find, and then they
Speaker 2: feel like they won.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You find the dick, you email it to us,
Speaker 1: and you make a sacred pledge never to tell anyone
Speaker 1: that there's not an actual book in there. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like Santa Claus. We all do it and we
Speaker 1: all benefit. So Matt he wrote these books, the Religion
Speaker 1: War being the one that we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 1: and they're terrible. And I went back and forth, should
Speaker 1: we do a book episode about this? Because another podcast
Speaker 1: I really like quite a lot, House of Decline Haus
Speaker 1: has done got over both these books with the lovely
Speaker 1: Rory Blank as the guest. And there was one other
Speaker 1: podcast that did at least one of these books. So
Speaker 1: we're not breaking totally new ground here. And I got
Speaker 1: kind of like self conscious about that. And then you
Speaker 1: know what I said, Matt, what did you say? I said,
Speaker 1: who gives a fuck? Dude? That's how I live. That's
Speaker 1: that's not what I decided, as.
Speaker 2: Someone who does TV would rewatch podcasts of twenty year
Speaker 2: old show exactly. I'll let you know. Done doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: People need the content they want more.
Speaker 1: This is, this is all. We all have a moral
Speaker 1: right and a moral duty to access Scott Adams's terrible
Speaker 1: books for free because they're available for free on the
Speaker 1: Internet archive. Don't ever spend money on these. Oh, we
Speaker 1: are doing no, no, and that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's great.
Speaker 2: You know this is nice for me because it's not
Speaker 2: a Nazi. Well, okay, let me take that back. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna rewind that a little bit it's not that it's
Speaker 2: not a Nazi, it's that it's not a guy who
Speaker 2: was in the Nazi Party in Germany in the thirties
Speaker 2: and forties, and that's that's nice for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Scott would have loved to be a Nazi,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, but uh, tragically, I mean, he
Speaker 1: probably would have been like Phipps, the cartoonist who did
Speaker 1: the illustrations for dere Sturmer, if he'd gotten the chance,
Speaker 1: because modern Dilbert is not all that far off.
Speaker 2: But it's mostly just dog birds looking around for some
Speaker 2: Laban's realm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he would. He would have used the ill
Speaker 1: gotten Nazi gold to build a swimming pool shape like
Speaker 1: Dilbert's head instead of just using the money that he
Speaker 1: got from Dilbert to make a swimming pool shape like
Speaker 1: Dilbert's head.
Speaker 2: He has wit he has a swimming pool shaped like
Speaker 2: Dilvert's head.
Speaker 1: That's what he did. Matt. If you if you look
Speaker 1: that up, you might find something you don't want to find.
Speaker 1: So what I'm going to tell you is, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's good to just have faith in things. You know,
Speaker 1: these are like this is like you know how the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit the Catholics don't want to tell you what
Speaker 1: it is, but you gotta you gotta think it's really
Speaker 1: just a big deal. Yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like this is like the Holy Spirit. The Dilbert
Speaker 1: head swimming pool in Scott Adams's backyard is the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit of making fun of Scott Adams, and you just
Speaker 1: have to accept it. In the I believe it.
Speaker 2: I believe it's an article of faith that he has
Speaker 2: this Dilbert shaped swimming pool.
Speaker 1: He does have a tower in the back of his
Speaker 1: house shape like Dilbert's head. Anyway, Now, I should note
Speaker 1: here that The Religion War is actually the second book
Speaker 1: in the series, but chronologically it happens before the second book.
Speaker 1: We're going to read them in order, which will be
Speaker 1: my first step towards correcting Scott Adams's numerous mistakes.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, so you're telling me now, I was
Speaker 2: assuming this was nonfiction.
Speaker 1: You know it is? Okay, Wait, is this is this
Speaker 1: nonfiction or is this this is a novel? Well Scott
Speaker 1: Scott actually has a lot to say about that. In
Speaker 1: his first book. He's like, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: whether I should call this fiction or nonfiction. Because fiction,
Speaker 1: uh you know, like this is this is based on
Speaker 1: like characters and stories that didn't actually happen, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of nonfiction because it has an impact on the reader.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's not the definition between fiction
Speaker 1: and fiction. It's impact in a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: we did not have a War of the Ring. I've
Speaker 1: checked listen.
Speaker 2: If there had been, I would have been firmly on
Speaker 2: the side of Sauraman.
Speaker 1: He seems like he takes care of his workers, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have menus that that implies restaurants and yeah, and
Speaker 1: sometimes meat is back on the menu. Yeah, yeah, which
Speaker 1: also means that presumably there are vegan and vegetarian options.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, that's important. Yeah, all right, so
Speaker 1: let's finally start the introduction to this terrible book. Let's
Speaker 1: do that. We're reading because I needed a week to
Speaker 1: not write a script about a Nazi. So The Religion
Speaker 1: War this is. This is his little intro, the prologue.
Speaker 1: The Religion War is a different kind of book. It's
Speaker 1: written in traditional fiction form, with a plot, yes, a
Speaker 1: plot in parentheses, involving the smartest man in the world
Speaker 1: trying to stop a pending war between Christian and Muslim forces.
Speaker 1: The story takes you forward to a few decades to
Speaker 1: imagine where our current delusions about reality might lead us,
Speaker 1: and in the end, it poses some questions that I
Speaker 1: think you'll enjoy rolling around in your head and jabbering
Speaker 1: about with friends while sipping a beverage.
Speaker 2: It's not a I'm sorry, are Is he trying to
Speaker 2: sell the reader on the book they've already purchased.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes he is, and he's trying to tell you, oh.
Speaker 2: You're really gonna like this book. That was I think
Speaker 2: the opening to Blood Meridian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's Cormack McCarthy was like, boy, I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy the story of the judge, a psychopathic demiurge
Speaker 1: character fucking ranting about how he wants to murder birds.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's great. Good. Yeah, you know, have a good time,
Speaker 1: roll some questions about this around in your mouth with
Speaker 1: your friends while sipping a tasty beverage.
Speaker 2: Yes, get your face retreat sits down and start reading
Speaker 2: this piece of shit and then ask your friends, hey,
Speaker 2: you read that fucking thing.
Speaker 1: That'll be fun. It is. It does tell you the
Speaker 1: difference between you know. Cormack McCarthy is like the platonic
Speaker 1: ideal of like a real author. And then Scott Adams
Speaker 1: is Scott Adams and like Scott's like, I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoy my book. Please sip it well, like discuss it
Speaker 1: with your friends sipping a tea. And Cormac McCarthy is
Speaker 1: like if you were to walk up to him on
Speaker 1: the street when he was alive and say, I'm interested
Speaker 1: in reading your book, his response would have been to
Speaker 1: pull a handgun, like, yeah, that's that's like a real
Speaker 1: like a real artist. Yeah, here's the prologue. In the
Speaker 1: year two thousand and seven, a brilliant and charismatic leader
Speaker 1: named al Zie began his rise to power in the
Speaker 1: Palestinian territories. He was the architect of the twenty year
Speaker 1: Plan for eliminating Israel. Now let me tell you what
Speaker 1: this plan is, Matt. This the twenty year Plan for
Speaker 1: a limit Israel. Is that we all kind of like
Speaker 1: calmly actually, you know what, I can scroll down to
Speaker 1: the chapter where he talks this all out because this
Speaker 1: is low key. So a couple of things you should note.
Speaker 1: You know how the Islam includes both Sunni and Shia, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's different kind of like you know
Speaker 1: how there's Catholics and Protestants in Christianity. Scott doesn't know that.
Speaker 1: So everyone's like Iran, you know, Palestine, it's all the Iraq,
Speaker 1: they're all the same. They're all in there together with
Speaker 1: like the Turks, and they're they're in the basics of
Speaker 1: this is that like, yeah, he destroys Israel and kills
Speaker 1: all of the Jews and then builds a caliphate and
Speaker 1: they launched like a low key terrorist war with all
Speaker 1: of the Christian states, and so this Christian alliance builds
Speaker 1: up using NATO as a background, and they have this
Speaker 1: like constant low ki war with the Muslims where the
Speaker 1: Muslims do terrorist attack, but they're special terrorist attacks. They're
Speaker 1: real careful not to get too big, like nine to
Speaker 1: elevens that they have to respond. And then the Christians
Speaker 1: sail around gigantic aircraft carriers kind of like occasionally killing people.
Speaker 1: It's kind of unclear what their role in the war is.
Speaker 1: And there's a number of things that get glossed over
Speaker 1: in this, including the Christian forces are made up of NATO,
Speaker 1: and the second largest army in NATO is a Muslim army.
Speaker 1: In the real world. Scott didn't google that. He actually
Speaker 1: learns just the other day that Turkey is a country.
Speaker 1: I love this. I love the mini nine to elevens thing,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, you know, hey, we don't want to
Speaker 2: get it too, but you know, it's it reminds me
Speaker 2: of the famous you know question, would you rather be
Speaker 2: killed by a horse size nine to eleven or a
Speaker 2: thousand duckling size nine to elevens?
Speaker 1: And I think I think the duckling sized ones is
Speaker 1: the way to go. Yeah, it's interesting. There's so much
Speaker 1: that's going on there, including like Scott's talking about how
Speaker 1: this is, you know, his his presumption of how things
Speaker 1: will continue if like the madness of the present era
Speaker 1: and he's writing this kind of in the not that
Speaker 1: long after the invasion of Iraq, in the post nine
Speaker 1: to eleven era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I assume this must have come out like, you know,
Speaker 2: two thousand and four or something, because he's like, this
Speaker 2: takes place in the year two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, well that's when that's when the
Speaker 1: destruction of Israel starts, you know. Yeah, So I there's
Speaker 1: a degree to which I understand why that's the focus.
Speaker 1: But it's also very much like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: pay attention to America, the idea that like there could
Speaker 1: be this giant caliphate that's constantly doing low level terrorist
Speaker 1: attacks against us, and we wouldn't lose our minds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like they don't have to kill a lot of people,
Speaker 1: they don't have to kill anyone. It has to be
Speaker 1: all that. All we need is like a TikTok to
Speaker 1: go viral, making people thrink, the Muslims of poison the water,
Speaker 1: and like twenty percent of the country will be ready
Speaker 1: to do a genocide.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I love in his America. We show restraint.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he really does. There's this mix of like zero
Speaker 1: faith and way too much faith in the country. That's
Speaker 1: that's utterly fascinating. So h Chapter one is old Man.
Speaker 1: So okay, yeah you get this. You get this guy
Speaker 1: Alsie and he he kills all of the Jews by
Speaker 1: basically convincing Israel to give Palestinians civil rights and then
Speaker 1: they vote themselves into power and then hold in the book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: gaining legal equality.
Speaker 2: Genocide, yeah, step one.
Speaker 1: White genocide is always wiping up the Jews. That's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. Historically, always been the case, this architect
Speaker 1: of the twenty year genocide plan then makes a big
Speaker 1: old caliphate and everybody's happy, and he starts this low
Speaker 1: level and then on the other side on the NATO
Speaker 1: Christian side, but let's pretend Turkey's not a country. We
Speaker 1: have General Horatio Cruz, who's the guy running the Christian Alliance,
Speaker 1: and now we're in twenty forty and the war is
Speaker 1: kind of hitting a fever pitch. So the first proper
Speaker 1: chapter is old Man, and I think this is going
Speaker 1: to introduce the avatar, who will meet again in the
Speaker 1: second book. We're going to read in this series, who's
Speaker 1: the smartest man in the world? Right, Yeah, And he's
Speaker 1: he's so good at thinking through things that he's basically
Speaker 1: a wizard, but he doesn't have spells. He just is
Speaker 1: smart enough that he can he can confound and flummox people.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: I love being a fiction writer. Is like, all right,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a story about it to a real
Speaker 2: smart guy. Yeah, really real smart. Yeah, his superpower big
Speaker 2: brain smart.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of versions of this, and like better
Speaker 1: artists than Scott do it too. When every other a
Speaker 1: TV show where the premise of the TV show is
Speaker 1: the main characters like the best author around or the
Speaker 1: best musician and anytime it's time. We just got this
Speaker 1: with like at least the Weekend is a pop star
Speaker 1: on this terrible the Idol show. But like still it
Speaker 1: was a little I'm thinking, still.
Speaker 3: So surprised you watched the entire I heard it was bad. Ever,
Speaker 3: it's the worst show I've ever seen in.
Speaker 1: Like, worst show I've ever seen. The act it was
Speaker 1: so he's not a good actor. I enjoyed every yeah
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, I watched it, and you know, I
Speaker 2: was just really impressed with how uh they've managed to
Speaker 2: make being horny sound blame like it was. It was like,
Speaker 2: you know what it felt like to me is that, uh,
Speaker 2: Sam Levinson grew up only watching porn, porn, humb premium absolutely,
Speaker 2: and so he doesn't know about X videos. So the
Speaker 2: things that he thinks are hot are like very glossy,
Speaker 2: very shiny. And I was like, no, this guy doesn't
Speaker 2: he doesn't get you what hot is. He just thinks
Speaker 2: this is hot.
Speaker 1: It's like it was written by a dude who like
Speaker 1: was raised like homeschooled as a kid, like raising a
Speaker 1: strict Christian household, but like from the beginning, was a
Speaker 1: little bit of a bad boy and found out how
Speaker 1: to get around the internet blockers, so we had access
Speaker 1: to like to like one partially censored porn website. But
Speaker 1: thinks he's really he's like really worldly about he's like, look, guys,
Speaker 1: and then he's like sitting at a table with like
Speaker 1: a bunch of hollywod people. All right, So picture this.
Speaker 1: She walks in the room and her skirt up above
Speaker 1: her knee. You can see you can see all the
Speaker 1: knee folds on this bitch, dozens of knee folds. It's
Speaker 1: folding like crazy around that knee. And she's sweaty always.
Speaker 1: You know, she's so shiny, sweaty, hot lady.
Speaker 3: What's sad is they like they He was not always
Speaker 3: supposed to be on the project, and the original project
Speaker 3: sounded really great.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be yeah, yeah, really really great.
Speaker 3: Instead we got fucking Li's depth smoking cigarettes in the Weekend,
Speaker 3: being believe I Willie say horny and bad at being
Speaker 3: horny so good.
Speaker 1: So so you get the thing that is relevant about
Speaker 1: the Weekends Terrible TV Show and this Terrible book is
Speaker 1: that they both feature someone who's supposed to be the
Speaker 1: best at something right, and then they try to show
Speaker 1: it and it's like so at the end of the idol,
Speaker 1: like this character who's this like sleazy cult leader type,
Speaker 1: we see him like put on a show to convince
Speaker 1: these execs to like fund a tour, and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be like, Wow, this is the hottest, coolest music
Speaker 1: thing ever, all these guys, and it just is like
Speaker 1: a bunch of like drug addled weirdos gyrating around the
Speaker 1: room that's like dark, and the music's kind of off,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I don't want to see this. Like
Speaker 1: I've been to a lot of awkward, drugged up parties
Speaker 1: where people gyrate weirdly in a dark room, and this
Speaker 1: is not a good example of this.
Speaker 2: Your music executive, The idea you would sit around and
Speaker 2: watch the whole performance is the most insane thing I've
Speaker 2: ever seen.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a hybrid of what Robert just said, which
Speaker 3: is like a weird party with people on drugs gyritick
Speaker 3: and also like like a middle schooler's performing arts camp recital.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: And then they were like the same, let's.
Speaker 3: Put this in a stadium that the show also the
Speaker 3: woman is the villain all on.
Speaker 1: Show like Boo done. And I mean it's one of
Speaker 1: those things. You can have all sorts of stupid shit
Speaker 1: in your plot, but if you're telling us this person
Speaker 1: is the best at something, and then you have them
Speaker 1: do it on screen, and it sucks ass right. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing with Scott, if you're telling us this
Speaker 1: guy is a super genius and then we actually see
Speaker 1: him try to be a genius and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're just a guy who's roughly as smart as Scott
Speaker 1: Adams and that's not impressive. In no way is that impressive.
Speaker 1: He's the smartest man on earth. He is a cartoonist.
Speaker 2: He writes cartoons about guy in office Holderilbert.
Speaker 1: I love stuff.
Speaker 3: This has not been a long advertisement for the idol,
Speaker 3: but it is.
Speaker 1: Ah, you know what the weekend will No, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say anything bad about the Weekend. I feel
Speaker 1: bad for him. Watch listen to some ads. Forget that
Speaker 1: he had a TV show, Forget that.
Speaker 3: Rat tail that for some reason.
Speaker 1: Have I love it.
Speaker 2: He's like, he's like somehow worse than Tommy wiz Oh,
Speaker 2: and I wish that a I could replace him with Tommy.
Speaker 1: Was Oh yeah, and we're back. We're back, and we've
Speaker 1: all actually all come around and decided that the weekend
Speaker 1: having a rat tail is a mark of character, right
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it's like when a hot actor agrees
Speaker 1: to like wear all exactly seven pounds and wear a
Speaker 1: fake nos so that they can pretend to be the
Speaker 1: ugly version of themselves when they get hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really brave. Yeah, courageous, Yeah, to be ugly
Speaker 1: for you know a little bit. Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's start this book actually, so it begins Chapter one
Speaker 1: is old man, and there's an old man in the
Speaker 1: lobby and he wants to talk to General Cruz, the
Speaker 1: Christian leader, who is described as a reddish rhino of
Speaker 1: a man, which is a little more creative than Ben
Speaker 1: Shapiro's bear of a man. I'll give him that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rhino is pretty good. There's a I don't is
Speaker 2: he It feels like an anti Irish slur, but all, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is an.
Speaker 1: Anti Irish slur. That's a low key Scott Adam's trait.
Speaker 1: Cruz used his eyes the same way he used everything else,
Speaker 1: like weapons. Lieutenant Ben water Good, no.
Speaker 4: Notes, no notes, I think Scott nailed it, crushing high
Speaker 4: five yourself, Scott, Lieutenant Ben Waters suddenly found himself in
Speaker 4: the crosshairs.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first time Waters had seen that look,
Speaker 1: that sort of look from a man who killed people
Speaker 1: for a living. It would reduce most people to stuttering.
Speaker 1: Waters viewed it as information, nothing more. CRUs had handpicked
Speaker 1: Waters from a thousand candidates, not because of his test
Speaker 1: scores or his combat record, both unremarkable. It certainly wasn't
Speaker 1: Waters his personality charitable.
Speaker 2: It was his social media posts that had a lot
Speaker 2: of questionable things to say about Palestinians.
Speaker 1: There was something else. At the age of eight, Ben
Speaker 1: Waters used the family shotgun to kill both of his parents.
Speaker 1: It was a small town, and the neighbors agreed. Ben
Speaker 1: saved his younger brother from an unimaginable fate. No charges
Speaker 1: were filed since then. The area of Ben Waters his
Speaker 1: brain that makes a person feel alive was a catastrophe
Speaker 1: of molecules. He never suffered from shame offense. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what's going on here is he picked this guy. He's
Speaker 1: this general Cruise is worried he might get too powerful,
Speaker 1: So he has this guy standing next to him with
Speaker 1: a gun at all times to kill Cruise if he
Speaker 1: becomes like crazy with power, which is like potentially a
Speaker 1: fun idea if you're introducing like your idea of this
Speaker 1: world with like the leaders always followed by this guy,
Speaker 1: he's supposed to kill him if he goes mad with power.
Speaker 1: But the introduction of this character, he doesn't explain. Scott
Speaker 1: doesn't explain why this guy's parents had to die, just
Speaker 1: an unimaginable fate. There's no like you're left to assume
Speaker 1: it was probably like moless stations. Actually, sure, there's a
Speaker 1: good reason for it.
Speaker 2: Every time someone kills their parents, I'm gonna be honest,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty much always on the side of the kid
Speaker 2: because I'm like, there's a reason you don't just kill
Speaker 2: your parents, so you know.
Speaker 1: You know, even that would have been better writing if
Speaker 1: we had just learned that this guy's attitude was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just always going to side with the kid who
Speaker 1: kills their parents. I used to assume I don't know
Speaker 1: what went on. I didn't listen, I didn't know any digging.
Speaker 1: I just figured kid kill his parents probably cool.
Speaker 2: If my kid killed me, Like, listen, I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but I get I get the need to do this.
Speaker 2: We all want to kill our parents, so we're just
Speaker 2: not brav enough.
Speaker 1: Freud said a lot about that's just why I support
Speaker 1: legalizing cocaine, because that'll let more kids kill their parents.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're going down this road. So
Speaker 1: this old man is here and he wants to talk
Speaker 1: to the general, So Waters tells him. The old man
Speaker 1: started talking to the guards, and five minutes later they left.
Speaker 1: They didn't say, why call the marines off the roof
Speaker 1: if the old fool won't leave, shoot him? Yes, Sir,
Speaker 1: said Waters, in a way that revealed he knew it
Speaker 1: wasn't a workable plan because the Scott Adams insert is
Speaker 1: able to talk the army down from shooting him for
Speaker 1: invading what is effectively the Pentagon. The whole world are fools,
Speaker 1: muttered Cruise using a ruler to drag a battle platform
Speaker 1: from the Indian Ocean. Matt makers were a frustrated group.
Speaker 1: The old notion of a country was meaningless. Al Z
Speaker 1: dominated the entire Islamic world. Governments existed under his rule
Speaker 1: in a fashion to keep the water running, to remove gardamage,
Speaker 1: and to run in doctrination centers for children, but The real.
Speaker 2: War about Muslims, dude, is open borders. You know, just
Speaker 2: they just want to they just want to go to
Speaker 2: the Middle East and completely erase these borders that we
Speaker 2: totally made up in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: You know, fucking bullshit dog it is. It's yet another
Speaker 1: example of this like thing you get with a specific
Speaker 1: kind of like and this is like particular. You get
Speaker 1: this with like weirdo Christian folks, right wingers who hate Muslims,
Speaker 1: but you get it also with like atheists who hate Muslims,
Speaker 1: especially in this period where they're like they have this
Speaker 1: attitude that like, well, the entire Muslim world is just
Speaker 1: always angry at America and secularism. They're just always pissed
Speaker 1: at it, right, Whereas I don't know. Again, you spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the Middle East, and one
Speaker 1: of the things you learn is that the people who
Speaker 1: live there are like the people everywhere else. They are
Speaker 1: mostly angry at the folks who live right next to them. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just like Texas and Oklahoma. That's everywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: That's everywhere I've ever been. Yes, yes, anyway, not to
Speaker 1: flatten politics too much, but people are generally pissed at
Speaker 1: their neighbors, because that's who you rub up against. But
Speaker 1: in this all of the Muslims, presumably Arabs and Persians
Speaker 1: and Kurds, everybody all together. You know, anyone who's just
Speaker 1: kind of in that region of the world is all
Speaker 1: a Muslim, and they're all backing the guy who killed
Speaker 1: all of the Jews. Yep, that's good. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: no countries anymore, and in the Christian part of the
Speaker 1: world there was still a pretense that civilian governments ruled
Speaker 1: their respective countries. In reality, crews had the power to
Speaker 1: redraw boundaries and remove so called leaders with a word.
Speaker 1: He didn't need military power to get his way, although
Speaker 1: it was available if it's suited him. Cruz was widely
Speaker 1: believed to be the only person who could stop the
Speaker 1: terror of al Zie. No one felt it was a
Speaker 1: good idea to distract him. The atheists and the smaller
Speaker 1: religions were lying low, supporting the Christian power base and
Speaker 1: enjoying safety and numbers. The most enthusiastic supporters of the
Speaker 1: Christians were the Jews who had escaped Israel after So
Speaker 1: that's good, thank you, No, I'm glad, he wrote me
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah. Yeah, no, you guys, you guys got
Speaker 1: stuck in there. You got to you gotta mention.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you for you know,
Speaker 2: I like that Scott Adams. He's like, by the way,
Speaker 2: in this future, the Jews finally show some respect.
Speaker 1: They finally show some gratefulness for.
Speaker 2: Christian America for helping you with this thing I invented.
Speaker 1: I am now picturing the if Scott had gotten the
Speaker 1: made for TV movie version of this. Well, the narration
Speaker 1: goes on. It just like cuts to a guy in
Speaker 1: like a bagel shop, like saluting with a bagel at
Speaker 1: the camera.
Speaker 2: Just walks into a bagel shop standing ovation by all
Speaker 2: Hasidic Jews in there. Yeah, turns to the camera and
Speaker 2: he goes, you're welcome the Jews and then walks away
Speaker 2: without paying for his bagel.
Speaker 1: Now, look when people when when authors whose thing is
Speaker 1: not writing about military stuff right about fantasy future military stuff,
Speaker 1: it's usually bad, which is fine, But you know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't normally criticize someone for this, but I am going
Speaker 1: to criticize Scott Adams because he's I hate him. So
Speaker 1: here's his description of the weapons system that the Christians
Speaker 1: have developed in order to fight what appears to just
Speaker 1: kind of be a constant, low level like suicide bombing
Speaker 1: using drones campaign, which is what the Muslims. So that
Speaker 1: your enemy is every couple of days they kill like
Speaker 1: three people with a drone bomb, right, Like, that's the
Speaker 1: that's the the opposing side, right, So here's what they've
Speaker 1: built to counteract that. Battle platforms were a recent addition
Speaker 1: to Cruise's arsenal. They were the size of cities floating
Speaker 1: on the ocean, vastly more powerful than the aircraft carriers
Speaker 1: they replaced. The platforms could be assembled in days, ringed
Speaker 1: by destroyers, and monitored by an umbrella of satellites. Nothing
Speaker 1: could penetrate their perimeters thanks to NATO's technical breakthrough of
Speaker 1: forced particle beams that could slice through incoming metal like
Speaker 1: a hot poker on a cobweb. The rest of the world,
Speaker 1: which was mostly Alsi's territories and a sprinkling of non
Speaker 1: aligned powers, used conventional missiles that were no match for
Speaker 1: the particle beam defense grid. Now here's the thing, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. A couple of things, A couple of for
Speaker 1: one thing. Maybe it is realistic that this is fundamentally
Speaker 1: a weapons system that would be no use in the
Speaker 1: war that they're fighting. That's not what Scott, he wants
Speaker 1: us to think. This is cool, but like it is
Speaker 1: like useless for fighting like a low level terror campaign
Speaker 1: that's just a bunch of mild terrorist attacks, right for
Speaker 1: a lot of I mean for one thing, like he's
Speaker 1: like they're even more powerful than aircraft carriers we have,
Speaker 1: but the enemy just has like some drones with grenades,
Speaker 1: like aircraft carriers are fine for that, you know, like
Speaker 1: you don't need But also, well, why why are you
Speaker 1: how is this supposed to help? Like? How is how
Speaker 1: is controlling the oceans supposed to help? When your enemy
Speaker 1: is not opposing you in a direct military manner? Why
Speaker 1: is this useful? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I am I am generally confused also as to like
Speaker 2: the amount listen.
Speaker 1: The amount of people. It sounds like that al Zie
Speaker 1: is killing.
Speaker 2: Is he's doing an occasional terrorist attack every couple of days,
Speaker 2: killing a couple of people. Yeah, And the entire world
Speaker 2: is like, oh man, we gotta fucking wipe these fools
Speaker 2: off the map because because literally a billion people have
Speaker 2: a murder rate of three per day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty good. I'm just sadestly, man's that's better
Speaker 1: than we're doing right now. That's not bad. Americans kill
Speaker 1: a lot more Americans than these guys all the time.
Speaker 1: It's a little I no, like, yeah, we shoot I
Speaker 1: don't know, like thirty five thousand something like that of
Speaker 1: us get shot to death each year in this country.
Speaker 1: At least, like they are they breaking those numbers? Is
Speaker 1: Alsi's campaign even doing that many Americans anyway, fascinating question.
Speaker 1: So Cruz has accepted that he's going to have to
Speaker 1: kill all two billion Muslims to win this war. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. I
Speaker 1: will give it to That's fine, Like that's a bad
Speaker 1: thing to do. But in terms of characterizing this dude,
Speaker 1: it's a bad guy, which he is. This guy's not
Speaker 1: the hero. Give Scott that, that's fine. The tall wooden
Speaker 1: doors of Cruz's war room open to a stream of
Speaker 1: military advisors, admirals, and generals. There were twenty five of them,
Speaker 1: one from each of the dominant NATO countries. So what
Speaker 1: about Turkey, the Muslim majority country? About Turkey? Turkey? What
Speaker 1: the fuck? He just doesn't know? They had no decision
Speaker 1: making power. Cruse had the monopoly on that, but they
Speaker 1: were useful in maintaining the illusion that NATO enjoyed some
Speaker 1: sort of democratic input. It was thin fiction, the sort
Speaker 1: of war that a wartime population was happy to accept.
Speaker 1: The Joint chiefs of Staff of the United States had
Speaker 1: become over addressed, advisors, symbolic and useless. The NATO generals
Speaker 1: were more loyal to cruise than their own civilian governments
Speaker 1: in times of extreme danger. And again they're trying to
Speaker 1: be like, everyone's this load of cruise because it's the
Speaker 1: only guy who can beat this man. But like, we're not.
Speaker 1: It's not ever established what he did to earn that, Like,
Speaker 1: there's a vague mention of battlefield victories. All he talks
Speaker 1: about the Muslims doing is carrying out terrorist attacks. Which
Speaker 1: where are the battlefield victories? What are the what's the
Speaker 1: fighting this for doing?
Speaker 2: He's the best of the best, you know, again, when
Speaker 2: he was doing battles, doesn't matter where, you know, he
Speaker 2: was best at it.
Speaker 1: It's okay. You could you could establish this early on
Speaker 1: by being like when he was a captain in the field,
Speaker 1: you know, he was an embassy. Dude, he stops a
Speaker 1: terrorist attack, right and like yeah something, but like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't. We don't get that Sky has this, like
Speaker 1: it's okay whatever. Cruse gets angry that they're not murdering
Speaker 1: this old man who has somehow gotten through his defenses
Speaker 1: and demanding to talk. So he grabs an M sixteen.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He flips off the safety so at least Scott knows
Speaker 1: that guns have safety. He did a little research for this,
Speaker 1: all right. Yeah, credit little bastard. He's up to something,
Speaker 1: Cruse muttered, watching the floor indicators. He's just sitting in
Speaker 1: a waiting room right now. Yeah, he's He's in his
Speaker 1: big meeting room with all of his generals. It is
Speaker 1: like his Sabbath moments. They're all gathered in their masses,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and this guy's.
Speaker 2: Man in the waiting room just kind of being I'm
Speaker 2: just waiting to see the general.
Speaker 1: He's breaking his way through all of the layers of
Speaker 1: security that NATO has put up by just like being
Speaker 1: a smart old man and talking his way through. We
Speaker 1: don't need to hear her see any of.
Speaker 2: This obviously, is he's getting through every single defense of
Speaker 2: the entire Christian world army.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is just this guy being frustrated that nobody
Speaker 1: is able to stop this old man by murdering him
Speaker 1: or just like holding him, you know, like what cops
Speaker 1: would actually do if like a crazy old man was
Speaker 1: at a military base, probably just like taze him, you know,
Speaker 1: put his hands behind his back. But he's really he's
Speaker 1: really smart. I assume, Yeah, this doesn't make much sense either.
Speaker 1: So he decides he's going to flee because someone in
Speaker 1: the room that he's just been in is leaking war plans.
Speaker 1: We're not told why. Yeah, the general is gonna leave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got he's gonna bounce someone of my staff. Someone
Speaker 1: in that room is leaking war plans. We're gonna put
Speaker 1: some distance between that old man and me because the
Speaker 1: smell's wrong. Once commanded control is secured, I'll deal with
Speaker 1: the leak and the old man get the car. And
Speaker 1: then we're informed that he has a portable device that
Speaker 1: lets him fire a missile at wherever he wants to,
Speaker 1: launched from a site in South Dakota that fewer than
Speaker 1: a dozen people on Earth knew about. So there we go.
Speaker 1: I guess that's yeah, that he's going to murder all
Speaker 1: these guys in order to secure absolute power. Even though
Speaker 1: he already has absolute power.
Speaker 2: I've got an app that'll blow up any McDonald's in
Speaker 2: a thousand mile radius.
Speaker 1: Cool, Yeah, why are we needed? Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: How do you explain plan to explain it to the world, waters,
Speaker 1: His assistant, who murdered his parents, asks, I won't have
Speaker 1: to explain anything. The world will assume it was an
Speaker 1: attack from one of Alzi's fanatics. Hundreds of buildings had
Speaker 1: blown up in the past two years alone. The military
Speaker 1: had stopped analyzing the remains of each explosion long ago,
Speaker 1: assuming correctly that they were all the work of al Z.
Speaker 1: No one would request an inquiry about this blast because
Speaker 1: AlSi would be the universally presumed perpetrator. Really tight ship
Speaker 1: they're running over in NATO, we just say, whenever a
Speaker 1: building blows up, we assume it's this guy. You don't
Speaker 1: do anything about it, you know, Yeah, that's yeah. Let's
Speaker 1: try the next chapter here, Horatio Cruz takes over NATO. Okay, interrogation.
Speaker 1: So they've captured the avatar, and we finally get a
Speaker 1: description of this old man who's been slowly talking his
Speaker 1: way through the NATO defenses. The avatar was sixty two
Speaker 1: years old, but could have been mistaken for ninety gaunt,
Speaker 1: clad in a threadbare delivery man's outfit from an earlier time.
Speaker 1: His silver gray hair was short and untamed. Looking a
Speaker 1: picture of Scott Adams, and I think we'll see why
Speaker 1: that's important. A red plaid blanket covered his shoulders, clutched
Speaker 1: tight in front. Thirty years ago, as a package delivery man,
Speaker 1: he met the prior avatar, from whom he learned the
Speaker 1: secrets that brought him to the fifth level of awareness.
Speaker 1: But it took a terrible to learn of the water,
Speaker 1: he learned the way. Humans are not genetically equipped to
Speaker 1: handle this kind of knowledge, and he was no exception.
Speaker 1: The awareness aged him prematurely. He understood too much about reality,
Speaker 1: and with that knowledge came an overwhelming responsibility and an
Speaker 1: incalculable stress that spread to every cell of his body.
Speaker 1: That's why Scott needs the Gilbert swimming pool, you know's
Speaker 1: the only way to know too much. He reduced incalculable shelf.
Speaker 2: He's got to do, you know, he's got to do
Speaker 2: the backstroke in order to like inuntenses shoulders from you know,
Speaker 2: knowing who runs things, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean. He's rich we're supposed he looks poor,
Speaker 1: but the Avatar's got a fuckload of money. He has
Speaker 1: his own Victorian home in San Francisco, so that's pretty nice.
Speaker 1: He got most of his money from the previous avatar,
Speaker 1: but he also invests money because he's so good at
Speaker 1: at knowing Patternskay, Scott is really giving us a lot
Speaker 1: about himself here.
Speaker 2: Yes, No, he's describing himself. I think you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to explain to me what you mean by avatar here.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, this is what is uh, what are
Speaker 2: we talking about here?
Speaker 1: Well, the avatar is this line of the smartest people
Speaker 1: in the world who pass on their knowledge about reality,
Speaker 1: which is mostly weird little brain tricks that Scott Adams
Speaker 1: picked up that he that he like affirmations and ship. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's all the ship from Scott Adams is.
Speaker 3: Terrible problem James Cameron thing.
Speaker 1: No, I figured notatic about big big jim Big Jimmy anyway.
Speaker 1: I mean, so, uh god, what matters. What matters is
Speaker 1: Scott Adams in describing the Avatar is describing himself, and
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. He was painfully lonely. The last Avatar hadn't
Speaker 1: advised him to avoid personal relationships. It was just obvious
Speaker 1: that he had to. No one could understand the Frenches.
Speaker 1: He could no longer talk to normal people without leaving
Speaker 1: them changed in some way. It was unfair.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 1: He was just divorced.
Speaker 2: He was the most divorced, smartest divorce man in the world.
Speaker 1: The only thing larger than the NATO battle platforms was
Speaker 1: the amount of divorced in this one man's art. You
Speaker 1: know who else is divorced man? The sponsors of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Every single one of them was left by their wives
Speaker 1: for good reason, and very much for good reason. We're
Speaker 1: really proud of of there. I don't know why I'm
Speaker 1: continuing to go on about this anyway. Yeah, why don't
Speaker 1: you divorce us and listen to these ads? We're back
Speaker 1: and we're you know, divorced as hell. Uh, super divorced.
Speaker 1: That's that's what Scott was trying to avoid by by
Speaker 1: by hiding. As the avatar is. Now his divorced energy
Speaker 1: has been passed on to us. I have a race
Speaker 1: car bed Matt. You're really into pickleball? Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just been a calamity over her.
Speaker 2: I like to take over various tennis courts and say hey,
Speaker 2: fuck you undivorced, and then play pickleball.
Speaker 1: Sophie's dressing like one of those one of those guys
Speaker 1: from a nineties movie who like moves in with with
Speaker 1: the main character who super divorced X and is like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I'm thinking actually of the
Speaker 1: movie hot Rod here whatever, Yeah, great movie anyway, Well,
Speaker 1: off topic, back to the Avatar. No ordinary person could
Speaker 1: understand what it was like to be an avatar. Even
Speaker 1: when he did talk to people when it was absolutely necessary,
Speaker 1: he was still utterly alone. He felt as though he
Speaker 1: was one short gasp from insanity. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: he felt certain that he had a special role to play,
Speaker 1: that he was chosen, that he alone could save the
Speaker 1: world from upcoming destruction. Other times he felt he must
Speaker 1: surely be mad, because only insane people think like that,
Speaker 1: and they, as did, he have no capacity to know
Speaker 1: which category they really belonged to. Ah, so smart, that's
Speaker 1: so smart. How'd you think of that? You know? Too long?
Speaker 2: I was convinced he's the smartest person in the world.
Speaker 2: Writing story about the smartest person in the world. This
Speaker 2: is my favorite genre of.
Speaker 1: Novel, and you get a lot of I think when
Speaker 1: people like make fun of Scott a lot of like, wow,
Speaker 1: this guy really should have gone to therapy. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the answer for Scott. I think what Scott
Speaker 1: needed was like a normal, a full time job that
Speaker 1: didn't pay him seven hundred million dollars, where like he
Speaker 1: had to he had to like strive for something with
Speaker 1: a group of other people and like be confronted sometimes
Speaker 1: the limits of his own capability and you know, his
Speaker 1: his his shortcomings and work with other people to seal
Speaker 1: those up. That really would have been good for Scott.
Speaker 2: In a just timeline, in a just society, he would
Speaker 2: have been a middle manager who's only making a handful
Speaker 2: of people's life.
Speaker 1: Hell as opposed to what he became. I think, like, honestly,
Speaker 1: if you if you make Scott working like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a road work crew right where he's getting out
Speaker 1: there every day. He's doing something hard, but it's also
Speaker 1: something every day you can see like, oh, we finished
Speaker 1: paving this chunk of road, and like that's some progress.
Speaker 1: People are going to use this right and you're you're
Speaker 1: out with other people, they're going to call you on
Speaker 1: your bullshit when you say insane things like you know
Speaker 1: he would have he would he wouldn't have a pool
Speaker 1: shaped like Gilbert's head, but I think in his soul
Speaker 1: he'd be a happier man.
Speaker 2: No, you have just a bunch of affirmations on his
Speaker 2: wall that just says, you know, work will set.
Speaker 1: You free, but set you I think would have set
Speaker 1: Scott free occasionally broken. Sometimes work sets yeah free. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't know why. We're going
Speaker 1: down the baby out with the bath water sometimes. Yeah right, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: So the avatar has got to look among other things.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he's supposed to be in an
Speaker 1: interrogation room here that hasn't been introduced. We're just learning
Speaker 1: about the avatar again here. Uh. So he's looking for
Speaker 1: his replacement because he's gonna die. He's old. Uh, he
Speaker 1: doesn't know whether or not it's fair for him to
Speaker 1: pass it down to somebody. And then yeah, finally we
Speaker 1: get actually back to the story. I'm sorry, really, I am, said,
Speaker 1: the avatar, cuffed to the wall in eyewing for what
Speaker 1: getting caught ground the thick necked interrogator with an oversized
Speaker 1: forehead and stubby fingers as he moved his cart full
Speaker 1: of pain tools nearer his subject. I'm sorry for what
Speaker 1: I have to do. This will end quickly if you
Speaker 1: tell me everything, said the interrogator. That's why you're here.
Speaker 1: What do you think you got the pain tools? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do kind of want to know more about these
Speaker 1: pain tools. I want to know what they are. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: seems like fun. He's like, that's why I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you everything, which you know, is what the avatar
Speaker 1: is about to do to get out of this interrogation thing. Yeah. Smart, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's going to use his smarts before I turn your
Speaker 1: guts into jam. How about you tell me this is
Speaker 1: the interrogator. How about you tell me everything I need
Speaker 1: to know. It's a little courtesy I like to extend
Speaker 1: to my guests. Nobody has ever taken me up on
Speaker 1: the offer, but I feel it's only fair to put
Speaker 1: it out there. Jesus, this interrogator's like, this is so
Speaker 1: much worse than torturing a man. Let's say you figure
Speaker 1: out what questions I need to ask and then you
Speaker 1: just answer them. If you make me ask the obvious
Speaker 1: questions over and over, I'm gonna get tired, and that
Speaker 1: makes me cranky. You don't want that very well, replied
Speaker 1: the avatar, and again I'm truly okay. So he's doing
Speaker 1: this thing where like the torture is like, you're gonna
Speaker 1: tell me everything or I'm going to kill you, and
Speaker 1: the avatar clearly is going to like do some brain
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu that destroys this man. Who's But it just
Speaker 1: keeps going on for several pages of him being like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm about to do my brain jiu jitsu.
Speaker 1: You want to do it, Yeah, do it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do so much smart that you're gonna be like wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a page and a half goes by. Tell me
Speaker 1: something brilliant, old man, mocked the interrogator. Convince me you're
Speaker 1: the smartest man in the world, and I'll let you go.
Speaker 1: I don't think the smartest man in the world would
Speaker 1: believe that you're sincere. The interrogator flashed an executioner's grin
Speaker 1: and turned up the voltage. He moved the electric paddles
Speaker 1: towards the old man's chest. This is just to get
Speaker 1: your attention. Do me a favor and don't die right away.
Speaker 1: Who is patrick, asked the avatar. The interrogator froze for
Speaker 1: a moment, then quickly boiled. How do you know, my brother?
Speaker 1: What bullshit is this? What else do you know about me?
Speaker 1: The old man looked into the eyes of his interrogator
Speaker 1: and took a deep breath. I know that you were
Speaker 1: raised Catholic, but as an adult you pick and choose
Speaker 1: the parts you want to believe. You think it's okay
Speaker 1: to hurt people as long as it's in the interest
Speaker 1: of the greater good. You convinced yourself that you'd still
Speaker 1: go to Heafen's so long as you accept Jesus before
Speaker 1: you die. You were treated unkindly as a child, especially
Speaker 1: by the older boys and by the better athletes. You
Speaker 1: don't sleep much because every time you close your eyes,
Speaker 1: you see your victims, and you hear their voices just
Speaker 1: before you drift off to sleep, and it pulls you
Speaker 1: back your restlessness. Sometimes you try to stop the voices
Speaker 1: by drinking. The drinking works to an extent, but it
Speaker 1: has ruined your relationships. The interrogator dropped the paddles and
Speaker 1: stepped away from the old man. Just kills himself, so
Speaker 1: he just and now. The avatar explains that he did
Speaker 1: a cold read, which like it's not even a good read.
Speaker 1: That's whatever. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: That's also not something that's smart, that's all. That's literally
Speaker 2: just something con.
Speaker 1: I have to assume that the reason why he guessed Patrick,
Speaker 1: which this dude reacted strongly to, is because he's Catholic
Speaker 1: and every Catholic man has a Patrick in there. Of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very simple, very simple. Also, like half of the Catholics
Speaker 1: are I don't know, like living in Latin America, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know how many Patrick Patricio.
Speaker 2: Maybe I love the idea of it was like it was,
Speaker 2: you know, Officer Weinstein, and he just looks at him
Speaker 2: and he goes like, tell me about Rachel. It's like, Rach,
Speaker 2: how do you know it my extended family?
Speaker 1: Did you know her name? Did you know Rachel? Of course? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's great, you're a lot about it.
Speaker 2: He's like basically, you know, he's like he's kind of
Speaker 2: modeling it after every smart guy character you've seen in
Speaker 2: fucking anyhow.
Speaker 1: It's a fucking cold reading, right, yes, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's remarkable as opposed to I think a fun version
Speaker 1: of this character when he's every time he's in like
Speaker 1: a situation and he's got to boil someone's brain. It's
Speaker 1: just a Ponzi scheme. He just gets him to invest
Speaker 1: in a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 2: Yea exactly, just starts explaining crypto. Five minutes later he
Speaker 2: gives them forty you're.
Speaker 1: Shaaned up in a fucking dungeon. What do you even
Speaker 1: as a return on your four oh one k? Right now?
Speaker 1: What if I were to tell you I could double
Speaker 1: your money in under six months and all I'm got
Speaker 1: in need is a check for twenty grand and a
Speaker 1: picture of your feet For feetpigs dot com, here's Scott
Speaker 1: explaining cold reading. For centuries. Phony psychics abused a version
Speaker 1: of the cold read the dup global customers. It's nothing
Speaker 1: but good observations combined with educated guesses and generalities like
Speaker 1: that a Catholic man has at.
Speaker 2: Patrick in the You know, it seems like so many
Speaker 2: and whatnot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it seems like so much more to the
Speaker 1: person hearing it. Some fake psychics weren't usually skilled at
Speaker 1: noticing clues from a person's appearance or mannerisms and making
Speaker 1: guesses that sounded uncannily accurate. The avatar was the best
Speaker 1: of the best, able to recognize patterns, so subtle that
Speaker 1: even the most skilled phony psychic would have found an
Speaker 1: amazing Today's situation was especially easy. The interrogator was clearly Irish.
Speaker 1: Someone in his family was probably named Patrick. By the way,
Speaker 1: he's Irish because earlier the avatar notices that he has
Speaker 1: a drinker's nose. That's literally it's so good. I love this.
Speaker 2: I love this, and like listen, I knew that the
Speaker 2: dilber guy was like racist, he's awkwardly racist, but I
Speaker 2: like that he's like old timey racist.
Speaker 1: I do you know what? You know? What's progressive about
Speaker 1: this is that we start with the idea that all
Speaker 1: Muslims everywhere secretly just want to wipe out the Jews,
Speaker 1: which is very racist. But then we move on to
Speaker 1: the idea that like every drunk irishman loves a Patrick.
Speaker 1: You can't get through that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's fucking iron clad fact right there.
Speaker 1: That destroys this man, right, we can. That's how the
Speaker 1: avatar gets out right, we don't, we don't need to
Speaker 1: continue on to hear he's he's ruined.
Speaker 2: Every day you see your don and you want to
Speaker 2: get your real fight right every day, your master of
Speaker 2: baking Jesus Christ is that, like, how did you know this?
Speaker 2: How could you possibly have known that every time my
Speaker 2: master made I cry?
Speaker 1: Good? That's good stuff. We're going to move along a
Speaker 1: little bit because I want to get to kind of
Speaker 1: the crux of this book, because the basic idea here
Speaker 1: is that the Avatar is working to stop a cataclysmic,
Speaker 1: apocalyptic you know, nuclear exchange type deal between the Christians
Speaker 1: and the Muslims, and the best way to do that
Speaker 1: is to get everyone to stop believing in religion at once.
Speaker 1: Because obviously this is another like you know, Scott has
Speaker 1: this interest, this fun mix of like Christian conservative stuff,
Speaker 1: but he's not a Christian. He's like coming out of
Speaker 1: the internet atheist community. So he has this fundamental belief
Speaker 1: that like the cause of all of the problems is
Speaker 1: that all of these people believe these irrational religions, right,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, mostly bullshit. Like the cause
Speaker 1: of it is that even when you look at like
Speaker 1: Christians here who are pushing these bullshit laws, they're not
Speaker 1: largely doing it because like they're irrational Christians. They're doing
Speaker 1: it because like certain types of people make them fundamentally uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: exactly because they're racists and they would be racist about
Speaker 1: something if Christianity wasn't the justification.
Speaker 2: In fact, like, that's what I noticed about the kind
Speaker 2: of evolution of the internet atheist because I remember back
Speaker 2: when I used to be like I'm a proud atheist
Speaker 2: or whatever, and it was completely in reaction to like,
Speaker 2: you know, conservative Christians and everything else. And then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I was like, oh, this seems like
Speaker 2: a very interesting front for people to just say some
Speaker 2: anti Muslim shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It became just a way to be Islamophobic without saying,
Speaker 2: you're as, I hate all religion, but I only talk about.
Speaker 1: Islam, Yeah, exactly. It's it's that same like that old
Speaker 1: stand up thing where it's like I'm racist against everybody.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, but there's only two slurs you use. Man.
Speaker 1: Although to be fair for Scott as the trailblazer, he
Speaker 1: is he really that's the first. That's the first. Like
Speaker 1: that's like, that's like a degree of racism against the
Speaker 1: Irish that, like the British in the nineteen seventies would
Speaker 1: have been like, well this is a sorry, yes, I
Speaker 1: prolist never to do an English accent again. And here
Speaker 1: I perfect flicted it up on you. That's what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. So Scott obviously the only thing that can
Speaker 1: resolve this conflict between because it's a conflict between these
Speaker 1: two irrational religions as opposed to like a conflict between
Speaker 1: there's like bombings and like people's families have been killed
Speaker 1: and they're fisted about that. Anyway, it's an irrational religious conflict,
Speaker 1: right right, right.
Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with colonialism or imperialism. That's
Speaker 2: words that people use to master fact. It's about religion.
Speaker 1: So if he can just get everyone to stop being
Speaker 1: religious all at once, you know, he can sit and
Speaker 1: Scott has all these weird ideas about like persuaders and
Speaker 1: influencers and to be for one thing that I think
Speaker 1: Scott is a little bit ahead of the curve on
Speaker 1: He has been really obsessed with the idea of like
Speaker 1: influencers and connectors and shit since the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: He's got a few years on most folks on this.
Speaker 1: So his his like obsession with Trump as a master
Speaker 1: persuader because he believes Trump is like a messianic figure
Speaker 1: who's so good at persuading. He's going to like usher
Speaker 1: in a new age of human evolution by teaching us
Speaker 1: all persuasion tricks. That's why Scott wrote his terrible book
Speaker 1: Win Bigley. So his attitude here the avatar is kind
Speaker 1: of like moving through the world and the major characters
Speaker 1: of this conflict looking for like the influencer. There's one
Speaker 1: person who, because of their network of social ties, right,
Speaker 1: could get an idea out in a way that will
Speaker 1: cascade sort of algorithmically, and then convince the whole world
Speaker 1: overnight to stop being religious. That's that's the plot of
Speaker 1: this book, right. Yeah, he's gonna find this person at
Speaker 1: this cafe.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna start a YouTube channel and.
Speaker 1: I'll do it. That is kind of why he does
Speaker 1: his YouTube is he secretly thinks he's he's the master
Speaker 1: persuader and if he can just like tell the right
Speaker 1: joke to people, it'll change the world. Yeah, they would
Speaker 1: just stop throttling me in the algorithm. Everyone would be
Speaker 1: smart like me. Yeah, that's that's why he's gotta he's
Speaker 1: gonna really saddle up to Elon Musk. Finally, finally, so
Speaker 1: the avatar rolls up in front of this cafe. Uh,
Speaker 1: he had never felt a pattern like this. As the
Speaker 1: hydro cap that's a hydro powered cab pulled away. The
Speaker 1: avatar stood on the sidewalk trying to get a lock
Speaker 1: on the pattern, but he had failed. His stomach growled,
Speaker 1: and the avatar smiled, realizing his hunger must have been
Speaker 1: clogging his intuition. But now the pattern was gone, softening
Speaker 1: to a vibration. Patterns did that, sometimes rising and falling
Speaker 1: for no apparent reason. The avatar walked towards a restaurant
Speaker 1: next to the building, Stacy's Cafe. It was the oldest
Speaker 1: business on the block, looking out of a place nestled
Speaker 1: in the modern architecture of the San Francisco Metropolitan Area area.
Speaker 1: The avatar entered and was greeted by a bartender from
Speaker 1: behind a large oval bar. Hi, can I help you
Speaker 1: one for lunch? We're closed behind three between three and five.
Speaker 1: Can you come back at five? A pink haired woman
Speaker 1: in her sixties on the other side of the room
Speaker 1: interrupted the Avatar's response. She was waving a half eaten
Speaker 1: plate of food at the chef and getting agitated. Look
Speaker 1: at this presentation. This is crap. My name is on
Speaker 1: this business, and you want to serve crap. If people
Speaker 1: want crap, they can make it at home. The Chef's
Speaker 1: eyes were locked in a death stair with the pink
Speaker 1: haired woman as she dramatically slapped the dish on the table.
Speaker 1: I want you to care about this place as much
Speaker 1: as I do. If you don't, I can replace your
Speaker 1: ass tomorrow. The pink haired woman her rumped and turned away,
Speaker 1: then turned back with an afterthought. That reminds me, she said,
Speaker 1: in a softer voice that seemed as though she was
Speaker 1: channeling an entirely different person. Have you written down all
Speaker 1: your recipes so I can fire you at any time?
Speaker 1: I want? Almost, I have a few more to do,
Speaker 1: said the chef. Very good, give me a hug. What
Speaker 1: the fuck is this the bear? Yes? Kind of the bear? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's just that, like she's
Speaker 1: this woman who's in this. This is supposed to be charming,
Speaker 1: that she moves between.
Speaker 2: This. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's supposed to be fun and sassy. So she
Speaker 1: decides to order for him because everyone should eat. She
Speaker 1: believes the food that she likes, which is a vegetable crutee.
Speaker 1: So Stacey made hand signals to the bartender, who was
Speaker 1: still wiping water spots off the bar glasses. He nodded
Speaker 1: and started to pour a chardonnay. Stacey pulled out a
Speaker 1: chair and sat down across from the avatar. I think
Speaker 1: I have a headache or a tumor or something. I
Speaker 1: gained two pounds this week and my hair is falling
Speaker 1: out in clumps and I have gas. Don't say I
Speaker 1: didn't warn you. Thank you for the warning. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I do this job every day. I'm gonna quit,
Speaker 1: I swear I am, except it wouldn't work because I
Speaker 1: own the place. I'd fire myself if I could, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to pay the unemployment benefits to myself.
Speaker 1: Hey god, this is just such a great character. Is fun? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we get along and she and the avatar start talking
Speaker 1: about modern politics.
Speaker 2: Right, to be clear, these guys they're they're both in
Speaker 2: their mid sixties.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, yes, they're both. They're both old people, and
Speaker 1: they're both kind of Scott Adams. Okay, that's important here.
Speaker 1: So the avatar tells her that he's trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to stop a war, and she's like, how
Speaker 1: can a guy like you stop a war? You couldn't
Speaker 1: even feed yourself until I decided to have pity on
Speaker 1: your s and you dress like a hobo on crack.
Speaker 1: What's up with that? Would it be okay if I
Speaker 1: answered the first question? Stacey laughed, Okay, if you do
Speaker 1: a good job on that, I'll let the other one
Speaker 1: slide go. Think of humanity as a giant software program.
Speaker 1: Our bodies are the hardware, and our ideas are the software.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the software gets a virus. What are you talking about? Interpretation.
Speaker 1: I have never heard this concept before. Yeah, you must
Speaker 1: the smartest man of the world. Religions are a virus
Speaker 1: in computer programming, right, uh you know, yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: guess this is sort of a very boomer attitude towards
Speaker 1: the Internet, where it's just like, well, the computer's always
Speaker 1: got a virus on it.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, you can't virus click.
Speaker 1: The links that infect your all Ta Vista, right.
Speaker 2: My mccaffee software every day tells me about new virus.
Speaker 1: I keep buying more of it, more virus keep coming.
Speaker 1: Buy a new mccaffee every day. I buy three new mccaffees,
Speaker 1: and now not one virus. I got a Muslim virus,
Speaker 1: I got two virus. I got Irish virus. It is also, yeah,
Speaker 1: he is low key being like yes all like Islam
Speaker 1: is a virus, you know. Yeah, to beanity is a
Speaker 1: virus too, But I'm not less concerned about the exce.
Speaker 2: This is all just a way of like, it's just
Speaker 2: how you get to Therefore we must eradicate blank.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, And the biggest virus of all is being Irish.
Speaker 1: You know. That's really what Scott's getting at. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is so much more anti Irish racism in this that
Speaker 1: I expected. Bill's Irish, so he must know a Patrick,
Speaker 1: yet he must just know he must love a Patrin. No,
Speaker 1: I love Patrick in the family. Yeah that is yeah,
Speaker 1: from hearts, Yeah, from his from his drinkers knows that
Speaker 1: he loves a Patricks. Must be that's really quite amazing.
Speaker 1: So in this next part, he's talking with this lady
Speaker 1: about I was going to and he explains his concept
Speaker 1: of a prime influencer. I'm looking for the reboot button
Speaker 1: metaphorically speaking, I'm looking for the one person who is
Speaker 1: connected to everyone else in a chain of influence, the
Speaker 1: prime influencer. That is why I am visiting today. So like,
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. Everyone's connected to this person. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it have to be this lady, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's her. It's Stacy, I thought, you know, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in this because people never change their mind.
Speaker 1: You don't believe people can change their opinions, ask the avatar.
Speaker 1: Come on, who buys books written by conservatives? Conservatives? Who
Speaker 1: writes books written by liberals? Liberals? People only listen to
Speaker 1: what they want to hear. Nobody changes anyone's mind, even
Speaker 1: if the argument is very good, hasn't happened, never will.
Speaker 1: The avatar sat back in his sheet, adjusting his napkin
Speaker 1: on his lap. I can see why you would have
Speaker 1: that view, but in reality, everyone knows one person who
Speaker 1: could change his opinion on a particular topic, usually a
Speaker 1: different person for each topic. And it's not the argument
Speaker 1: or the logic that matters to people, but the source.
Speaker 1: Humans are driven by examples, by role models, not by logic.
Speaker 1: So you're saying someone could make me a devil worship
Speaker 1: er even if I didn't want to be. That's nutty.
Speaker 1: A year ago you would have said that no one
Speaker 1: could convince you to wear pink tinted hair, but you
Speaker 1: seem to have embraced the trend enthusiastically. Okay, so Scott's
Speaker 1: Scott's this lady, is like nobody changes their mind and
Speaker 1: Scott like, no, no, no, that's nuts. Everyone can have
Speaker 1: their mind changed by one person who's their specific influencer
Speaker 1: and can hack their brain on it. That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's their favorite podcaster tells them.
Speaker 1: Then they will change their minds. That is act. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is how the world works. That's true. That's why adds.
Speaker 1: You know, Joe Rogan has convinced me to eat nothing
Speaker 1: but raw liver.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I look that this is all just him
Speaker 2: going on a quest to find the Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1: He's looking for the Joe Rogan. That is what he
Speaker 1: believes though, right like when Trump comes out, he's convinced
Speaker 1: that Trump is this prime influencer, which is like that.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is another thing that like these
Speaker 1: weird online atheist types all did, which is they all
Speaker 1: found a way to reinvent religion for themselves. Right, they
Speaker 1: gave up they don't believe the Jesus that the Christians
Speaker 1: believe in, but they did like have to invent another
Speaker 1: Jesus for themselves, like God's yeah, exactly one way or
Speaker 1: the other. They all do it, right, Yes, not all atheists,
Speaker 1: but all of these weird internet atheists that Scott is right. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is a general trade of atheists.
Speaker 2: It's a specific yes, like I'm an atheist, but I
Speaker 2: just don't say it because then all being subscribed to
Speaker 2: a bunch of newsletters I don't want well.
Speaker 1: And it's it's also like you know, we were talking
Speaker 1: about how like you've got people who will like use
Speaker 1: religion as the justification for the way I want to
Speaker 1: kill certain people. But the real thing is that, like
Speaker 1: they just hate certain people, right right. The religion rarely
Speaker 1: is the thing that inspires it purely. It's like something
Speaker 1: else that comes out that may but and it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. You've got all these the soda folks who
Speaker 1: started out as being like lefties in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: like Jimmy Dore and whatnot, and they're all preaching like
Speaker 1: hard right shit right now, and they're all super racist,
Speaker 1: and they're all really anti trans and whatnot. And it's
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, what matters isn't Actually it's like whether
Speaker 1: or not you're a giant piece of shit, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's primarily the thing and people will people
Speaker 1: will if you're a big piece of shit, and you
Speaker 1: hate people. You know, if you're inclined to pretend you're
Speaker 1: to be like left wing or whatever, then you'll find
Speaker 1: some reason why communism wants to kill all the trans people,
Speaker 1: or like first in the d transition or whatever. And
Speaker 1: if you're a Christian, you use Christianity for that. But
Speaker 1: I think it's just like, you know, some people are
Speaker 1: fucking assholes, and Scott Adam's an asshole, right, so he's
Speaker 1: going to get rid of religion and the Irish one presumes.
Speaker 1: The avatar decided to test her light of thinking with
Speaker 1: an argument that was common i'llbe it flawed. If God exists,
Speaker 1: he must be smart to design the world so perfectly.
Speaker 1: Everything is in perfect balance. If any of our natural
Speaker 1: laws were altered in the least life would be unsustainable.
Speaker 1: Only an omnipotent genius could create such a perfect balance
Speaker 1: in the laws of physics, physics schmisics. If God is
Speaker 1: so smart, why do you fart? The avatar waited for
Speaker 1: the rest of the argument, but there was none. The
Speaker 1: two strangers stared at each other for a moment before
Speaker 1: being overcome with a wave of laughter that brought them
Speaker 1: all to tears. So, yeah, that's a.
Speaker 2: Love writing, writing, and getting a real good laugh. Got
Speaker 2: a real big laugh on the joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very funny. So I'm going to spoil the rest
Speaker 1: of this book for you. That winds up being the
Speaker 1: key to destroying religion, right, is that this woman is
Speaker 1: the prime influencer, and by getting her to tell this
Speaker 1: joke to people, it spreads to everyone else in the world.
Speaker 1: And then they give up Christianity and Islam, and they
Speaker 1: give up their wars. And I'm gonna switch ahead to
Speaker 1: him explaining all this. The major religions changed after the war.
Speaker 1: Modernized was the word used most often for the disintegration
Speaker 1: of primitive beliefs. The free flow of ideas caused dangerous
Speaker 1: religious thoughts to perish unto the weight of common sense,
Speaker 1: most notably the idea that God was limited by a
Speaker 1: human personality with human wants and human intelligence evaporated. Now
Speaker 1: the mental health profession handled people who believe that God
Speaker 1: was talking to them directly. The voting public never got
Speaker 1: a chance to elect such people, whether they were charismatic
Speaker 1: or not. Religions came to be seen as true that
Speaker 1: lent flavor to holidays and encouraged good behavior, nothing more.
Speaker 1: The public didn't know who had said it first, but
Speaker 1: it was the most powerful question in human history, and
Speaker 1: nine words. It overturned centuries of tortured logic and magical thinking.
Speaker 1: It pushed superstition into a cage and gave common sense
Speaker 1: room to maneuver. The cause of the religion war sprung
Speaker 1: from one colossal religious misunderstanding that God thinks like humans,
Speaker 1: except smarter, and that we people can comprehend his intent.
Speaker 1: That crippling misunderstanding was swept away in a single wave
Speaker 1: of clarity. The question was translated into thousands of languages,
Speaker 1: published billions of times. In English, it was if God
Speaker 1: is so smart, why do you fart right again? It's
Speaker 1: this like we just have to puncture religion with a funny,
Speaker 1: fucking logical puzzle and then it'll go away. It's just
Speaker 1: this trap around people's brains. It's not that like people
Speaker 1: want land or resources and have been fighting over them
Speaker 1: and so are angry about the history of conflicts between
Speaker 1: peoples and are able to use sort of religion or
Speaker 1: politics to kind of justify continuing them. It's not that
Speaker 1: people are like greedy. It's not that people get like
Speaker 1: scared about folks who live far away from them. It's
Speaker 1: not any of that shit. It's that their minds have
Speaker 1: been enraptured by religion and you can get common sense
Speaker 1: to maneuver if you tell a smart joke.
Speaker 2: It's like, honestly, the most fucking like buttoned up, fucking
Speaker 2: elitist it's it's it's got like smatterings of liberalism in there,
Speaker 2: especially circa around this time, and just uh, and just
Speaker 2: a sort of ignorance that was so prevalent at the
Speaker 2: time was basically that everyone uh in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: they're all just fucking stupid and angry, and so they
Speaker 2: all believe in this like magic spaghetti monster and so
Speaker 2: you know they're at war because the spaghetti monster says so.
Speaker 2: And it's like a way to completely ignore literally any
Speaker 2: history that has happened within that region. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's great. It's you know, I love when the
Speaker 2: stupidest man in the world writes himself as the smartest
Speaker 2: man in the world.
Speaker 1: It is it is very fun because again it doesn't
Speaker 1: take all that much like to learn that the reality
Speaker 1: is more complicated, right. I remember one of the big
Speaker 1: moments for me of like, you know, just going into
Speaker 1: fucking Iraq and talking to people in camps and stuff,
Speaker 1: a bunch of whom had been Isis supporters kind of
Speaker 1: early in Isis's reign was them explaining like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we supported them because the cops under the old government,
Speaker 1: for like religious sectarian reasons, had punished and abused our family.
Speaker 1: And they like, yeah, they killed my brother, they killed
Speaker 1: my uncle, they tortured, you know, my dad. So when
Speaker 1: Isis came and they said that they were, you know,
Speaker 1: getting rid of these shitty ass police, we were like,
Speaker 1: maybe this will be better. It's not like the Iraqi
Speaker 1: government was anything to write home about, like we think,
Speaker 1: and then it turned out they sucked. So now we're fighting,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, look, there's always you know, there
Speaker 1: are brainwashed fucking extremists out there, variety of ways, but
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people's motivations make sense, even if
Speaker 1: they're bad, even if they're doing bad things, it makes sense, right.
Speaker 1: It's like the Nazis. The Nazis didn't get like enthralled
Speaker 1: by Hitler magically. They wanted other people shit, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why they did it, very.
Speaker 2: Very human reasons, and you know, like the I think
Speaker 2: we have a tendency to take every kind of like
Speaker 2: villain or anyone who's in opposition to whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: the fucking American cultural hegemon has to say and go like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's because they are all fanatical. They must be crazy
Speaker 2: to believe that we in any way could be an enemy.
Speaker 2: And I think just in general, it's like, oh, you
Speaker 2: have to understand how absolutely fucking regular people are, and
Speaker 2: you know how villainy is not necessarily this thing that
Speaker 2: comes from like, oh, everyone's a psychopath. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: it's actually much more simple and uh and that makes
Speaker 2: it ten times as like complicated and scary sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm like, I'm just like getting flashbacks to
Speaker 2: me like in college and just being like an atheist
Speaker 2: and just being like fucking like, yeah, man, fucking.
Speaker 1: I'm so smart. I don't even I don't even believe
Speaker 1: in God, you know, yeaheah, it's almost yeah. The idea
Speaker 1: that like you're both saying that like, look at these
Speaker 1: look at these silly religious people who are like denying
Speaker 1: sort of the you know, they've gotten their minds washed
Speaker 1: and they can't understand like the true complexity of reality.
Speaker 1: But also everyone does things for one reason, right, like everyone,
Speaker 1: All of the Muslims have one motivation and it's killed
Speaker 1: all the Jews. And if you kill all the Jews,
Speaker 1: then all of the Muslims support you. Right. All of
Speaker 1: the Irish have one motivation and it's their friend Patrick.
Speaker 1: It's their friend Patrick.
Speaker 2: And you know, just checking down a nice fucking Guinness
Speaker 2: after a hard day's look.
Speaker 1: So you know, look, take the wisdom of Scott Adams
Speaker 1: with you into the world. Is I think what we're
Speaker 1: trying to say here. Absolutely, And the next time you
Speaker 1: see a man with a drinker's nose, tell him about
Speaker 1: his beloved Patrick, ask him about Patrick. Mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, I am low key impressed at the
Speaker 2: way he went after the White Ethnics in this. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a time finally when Scott Adams was cool.
Speaker 1: He could just go after the Irish. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I am looking forward to Uh. I assume in the
Speaker 1: sequel to this he finds a way to destroy Saint
Speaker 1: Patrick's day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, turned out all the snakes we needed to
Speaker 2: get where these goddamn Irish.
Speaker 1: You get, you get a lot about like his thought process,
Speaker 1: because Scott is I think a fundamentally pretty and curious person,
Speaker 1: and so he just doesn't do really like he didn't
Speaker 1: know that like Sunni and Shia like exist as divisions
Speaker 1: of Islam. Didn't even do the basic research to the
Speaker 1: second largest army in NATO is like a majority Muslim
Speaker 1: nation and his his, He's just like decided, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's something a guy could notice? Well, if you can
Speaker 1: notice if somebody's got like a red nose because they're
Speaker 1: drinking a bunch Okay, who drinks a lot Irish people?
Speaker 1: What's an Irish name? Saint Patrick's day, Patrick Boom Boom.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 1: I just got a whole fucking point to a story.
Speaker 1: So funny.
Speaker 2: He's just like taking his calendar and he's marking on
Speaker 2: I need three hours to write this?
Speaker 3: Is this?
Speaker 1: For sure was stream of consciousness. Yeah, this guy is
Speaker 1: not putting a lot of thought.
Speaker 3: I think he just used the like talk text app
Speaker 3: and just was.
Speaker 1: Like, well, man, God bless him. You got anything to
Speaker 1: plug here?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, Well, I'm writing a book about the scourge
Speaker 2: of the Irish.
Speaker 1: No, actually I do.
Speaker 2: Uh you know this wire podcast the wire you watch
Speaker 2: podcast pod yourself on gun is the name of the feed,
Speaker 2: and uh it is essentially a show where we denigrate
Speaker 2: Irish Americans in the form of McNaulty.
Speaker 1: So you know, here's all of the wire is a
Speaker 1: behind the bastards on McNaughty. It really is.
Speaker 2: It's behind one specific bastard, Jimmy McNulty uh and his
Speaker 2: grubby little Irish wiener and uh yeah, if so, check
Speaker 2: that out, check out the frodcast.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: It's a show where we talk about, you know, everything
Speaker 2: except for the wire. Yeah, a lot of fun, I
Speaker 2: do it Vince Vancini and oh right, I almost forgot.
Speaker 2: If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or
Speaker 2: any of the surrounding areas, on Tuesday, October seventeenth at
Speaker 2: eight pm, specifically, my wife, Francesca Iforantini and I are
Speaker 2: going to be headlining the San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club.
Speaker 1: So yeah, please come out to that.
Speaker 2: It is a Tuesday at eight pm, October seventeenth, Bortt Voice,
Speaker 2: My wife and I are gonna be co headlining. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be some other great comedians coming out. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be a lot of fun. You can get your tickets
Speaker 2: at Punchlinecomedyclub dot com and yeah, October seventeenth. Please come out.
Speaker 2: It's going to be so good, I swear to God.
Speaker 2: I mean, at the very least you're gonna get to
Speaker 2: see my wife and I kiss, like live on stage.
Speaker 2: It's a sex show. Anyways, come out to that, man.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I remember to say this. Otherwise I'd
Speaker 2: have to record this audio later and then send it
Speaker 2: to you and have you figure out a place to
Speaker 2: put it in the edit, and that would just sound weird. Anyways,
Speaker 2: got thank you for having me on for, you know,
Speaker 2: to talk about something light like, you know, the Irish
Speaker 2: and how religion bad. You know, smart people are influenced
Speaker 2: by some douchebag they see online.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and check out more Scott Adams and our
Speaker 1: upcoming podcast with Scott. I don't want to make any
Speaker 1: more like anti Irish kind of jokes, So we're done.
Speaker 1: We're just done with the episode. There you just so
Speaker 1: everyone knows. I love Irish people everything that you Irish create.
Speaker 1: Scott for being racist, which is why I'm stopping. The bit.
Speaker 5: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website fo
Speaker 5: Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: H