Joe and Adam are joined by the creator of the TV show Adam Ruins Everything to talk about the show and why it annoys people so much. They also talk about one of the most controversial episodes of the show, The Girl Who Got in Trouble, a story about a giraffe that got into trouble with the internet, and the one where a woman got in trouble with her giraffe because she was "in trouble." They also discuss trophy hunting and why people get upset about it, and why they think it's a good thing. And they talk about how to deal with people who are angry at you for wanting to know the truth about something you don't want to know, and how you're better off knowing the truth than you are knowing the lies you're being told about something that annoys you. And, of course, there's a special guest appearance from Joe, who's a big fan of Adam and Adam's show, Adam ruins everything. Thank you, Joe! Thanks, Adam, for coming on the pod! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. The theme song by Skandalous, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. . The album art by Ian Dorsch. Our ad music is by Nordgroove. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review on Apple Music, if you like what you're listening to this episode, we'd really like to hear us out loud and proud of what we did for you. Thank you! and we'll be looking out for you in the next week's next episode of the podcast, so don't forget to tell us what you think we're listening out for us in the comments section! on the next episode. :) and the next one is coming soon! Timestamps: 5:00 - Adam ruins it! 6:15 - How do you feel about it? 7:30 - The truth? 8:40 - How does it annoy you? 9:10 - What do you like it better? 11:00 12:30 13:40 15: Is it good or not good? 16:20 - Is it bad? 17:10 18:20 19:00 | Can you tell me what you want?
00:00:22.000I mean, I'm not the kind of person where I'm like, if you're pissing people off, you're doing something right, but there's some truth to that.
00:00:58.000I think that, yeah, I mean, the thesis of the show is that it's always better to know the truth, that it's momentarily uncomfortable, but hopefully, for most people, 99% of people who watch the show, it grinds your gears a little bit to find out something, like, oh, I thought that was true with that, ah, crap, you know, but then at the end,
00:01:14.000we show you why you're actually better off knowing that thing, and you're always better off knowing the truth, in my view.
00:01:40.000No, they're both like, formula feeding is fine.
00:01:43.000You know, and the problem is formula feeding has become stigmatized now.
00:01:47.000And there's a lot of people who can't breastfeed or who for medical reasons, you know, and the fact is that formula is like a scientifically proven wonderful way to feed a baby.
00:01:58.000And if, you know, someone's choice or need is to do that, there's no reason to stigmatize it.
00:02:02.000We go through all the reasons that that's the case.
00:02:04.000Yeah, people get a little, you know, there's a lot of people who sort of have an ideology about that, you know, and don't want to hear the truth about it.
00:02:12.000We did one about trophy hunting animals, about how, because people get so mad, oh, look at this guy shot a lion, right?
00:02:19.000And the truth is that in some countries, not 100% of the time, But in some countries, they are effectively using trophy hunting as a way to protect the animals because, you know, that's how they're able to sort of like monetize, you know,
00:02:34.000in that place and, you know, get money coming in in order to protect the animals and they're very specific and strategic about it and it can be part of a good, you know, sort of animal management, you know, strategy and it's being used to some success, you know.
00:02:49.000And yeah, people don't want to hear that, right?
00:04:04.000Yeah, that's sort of the idea, you know?
00:04:06.000I mean, one of the issues is if you've got an area where, you know, one of the problems is you need to have a reason for the people who live in the place to care about the animals, you know what I mean?
00:04:18.000If it's just like, hey, the elephants are going to roam free, well, you've got people there who are like, alright, fine, so I'm living near some elephants, occasionally they eat my crops and shit, and that annoys me.
00:04:52.000And we had a woman on from the IUCN, International Thinking Union for Conservation of Nature, big conservation group, talking about how this is effective.
00:05:00.000Now, in some places, if you've got a corrupt government where they're just going to pocket the bunny, yeah, that's bad, right?
00:05:04.000But the point is, just because the mere idea of someone going overseas and killing an animal is not necessarily the worst thing in the world, we have to look at the details of the situation.
00:05:14.000And that's hard for animal lovers to hear.
00:05:15.000Animal lovers don't like to hear that.
00:05:41.000Yeah, that's the – when you've got a problem that big and intractable as how do you save these animals, you know, against habitat encroachment, right?
00:05:51.000Again, you know, people want to farm on that land.
00:05:54.000People, you know, people have lives, right?
00:05:56.000They're not sitting around going – the people in those countries are not sitting around going – Oh, I love the cute elephant, like we have the luxury to do.
00:06:02.000They, like, fucking live there, right?
00:06:04.000And so how do you get those people in that society to really protect those animals?
00:06:10.000And some places are having success with that strategy.
00:06:13.000And that's something that we can understand.
00:06:15.000We don't have to approve of it in every single case.
00:06:17.000And we can say, that's really tough for us as animal lovers.
00:06:19.000And in fact, the character who I'm talking to on the show says, I still just hate the idea of an animal being killed, right?
00:06:25.000And I say, yeah, so do I. We try to dramatize that emotional resistance on the show, like that emotional reaction that we have.
00:06:32.000I also don't like the idea of an animal being killed brutally.
00:06:36.000I think I'm uncomfortable with the idea.
00:06:38.000But if my main goal is to preserve the population of these animals overall and stop them from going extinct, maybe I need to accept that this tough truth that once in a while one's got to be shot through the head with a rifle, maybe I need to accept that.
00:08:24.000And we did one on how the idea of the alpha male doesn't exist in humans.
00:08:29.000Like, if you talk to any anthropologist, any biologist, any sociologist, and be like, are humans organized in a social relationship where there's alphas and betas?
00:08:39.000They'll be like, no, what are you talking about?
00:08:42.000And we just did something laying that out in the context of people who are, oh, my type is I like alphas.
00:08:48.000Well, there's no such thing, actually.
00:08:50.000Humans are your dominant in some situations, not in others.
00:08:53.000It's an overly simplistic way of looking at human relationships.
00:08:56.000And I thought that was a pretty simple, straightforward thing.
00:08:58.000I was like, this is just a bit of pseudoscience that you hear people tossing out.
00:09:01.000And people went ballistic on the internet because people have sort of like...
00:09:06.000Built an edifice of ideology in their minds about, like, there's alphas, there's betas, I'm an alpha, this is what an alpha's like, this is what a beta's like, you know?
00:09:18.000There are clearly men who are more aggressive and athletic and dominant and more confident, and then men who are introverted and shy and more nervous and anxious.
00:10:28.000But when people talk about alpha males and beta males, they're specifically bringing in the language of evolution, of biology, of zoology, of evolutionary psychology.
00:10:37.000And they'll start saying stuff like, well, there's alphas and there's betas, and women are hardwired to be attracted to the alpha, you know, because that's what it's like in nature.
00:10:45.000Like, they'll be using that language, right?
00:10:46.000And so what we're pointing out is, that's not scientific, right?
00:10:49.000It's not scientific, but it is true that women are hardwired to be attracted to confident, athletic men.
00:10:54.000Well, I don't know if I agree with that, but...
00:11:10.000Do you think that men are drawn to women with small waists and big hips and large breasts for evolutionary reasons?
00:11:17.000You know, I think that's an easy intuition to come to if you're looking at the way people behave, right?
00:11:25.000But one of the things about evolutionary psychology is it's the most common mistake to look at the way that people do behave And say, the reason we behave that way is because evolution says that's the best way, right?
00:11:36.000That's their argument, for instance, I'll give you an example.
00:11:38.000That's the argument that was, arguments like that were used, for instance, to justify slavery, right?
00:11:42.000That like, oh, because, you know, whites and blacks have this hierarchical relationship in American society, that's the way it was intended.
00:11:50.000That's how nature intended it to be, right?
00:12:39.000Where do you think this narrative of men being attracted to the woman with large breasts and a small waist and a big ass, where do you think that started?
00:12:47.000Because this is like, evolutionary biology has pretty much settled on the idea that the reason why is that the large hips would indicate that the woman would be easier to give birth.
00:12:56.000Having large breasts and a large ass would indicate that she has She's fertile, and then she has ample fat storage in the right places if she's going to be pregnant and carry children.
00:13:07.000There's all these evolutionary biology reasons why people are attracted to certain things.
00:13:13.000Why a woman would be attracted to a tall, muscular, handsome man, good genetics, very strong and confident, can take care of her.
00:13:21.000All these things are based on evolutionary biology.
00:13:23.000So I don't understand why you think these are learned sort of cultural artifacts.
00:13:27.000So my question is, this is an assumption that we, the public, make about how evolutionary biology works, right?
00:13:34.000Well, it's more of a thing that we sort of agree on.
00:13:37.000Well, we as the, like, there's an idea among the public that this is true.
00:13:41.000I don't know if it's a scientific idea.
00:13:44.000But I've had conversations with evolutionary biologists who explain the reason why men are attracted to certain shapes and why women are attracted to certain shapes.
00:13:52.000This is sort of, I mean, this is science, in a way.
00:13:57.000The reason why they're attracted to tall men that are muscular and confident is because that is what's always saved you throughout history.
00:14:49.000You think you had a survey of women, and if the men were equally kind and equally intelligent and friendly, you don't think that more women would be sexually attracted to these tall, handsome men with great bodies?
00:15:04.000I mean, look, I'm not going to say that, like, first of all, you're positing, like, a value judgment in it that the bodies are great, right?
00:15:11.000So, like, are women attracted to attractive bodies?
00:15:13.000If that's the question, then I would say, of course.
00:15:15.000Dad bods are more attractive to women's study finds.
00:15:18.000Some fucking guy with a dad bod made that.
00:15:21.000Look, here's something that I was really influenced by.
00:15:23.000What do you think of that, what I just said, though?
00:15:25.000That doesn't make sense to you, that women would be attracted to someone who's fit?
00:15:42.000And I don't think that we can necessarily reason backwards to, like, a specific evolutionary relationship, right?
00:15:49.000Because the truth of what those evolutionary relationships are is, like, often a lot more complicated than, you know, our immediate intuition about it.
00:16:30.000Even someone who is the person who you posited, the person who is athletic and confident, the high school football quarterback versus the high school football nerd.
00:17:27.000And if you take that nerd and you take that kid, maybe he's the dungeon master of his Dungeons& Dragons group, that kid is going to be the alpha in that situation.
00:17:51.000Yeah, people got upset because there are so many people who, we talked about this later on the show, there's this idea called the backfire effect, right?
00:17:57.000Where when people are told something that they don't agree with, that when someone has told somebody a fact, when somebody is told a fact that contradicts like a really deeply held belief.
00:19:26.000And maybe that meant something positive to them.
00:19:29.000Maybe they were in a bad place in their life, and through this model of alpha versus beta, they started working out, or they started improving themselves a little bit.
00:19:38.000And maybe they started acting a little bit more confidently, and now they're in a relationship.
00:19:42.000All those things can be true with The idea of alphas and betas and humans not being scientific, right?
00:19:46.000But so when I tell them that, they fight back really hard.
00:19:49.000They're like, no, no, no, no, no, this is real, this is real, you know?
00:19:52.000And so that video, which again, I had no idea that would be controversial, got the most YouTube response videos, got the most, you know, furious things.
00:20:01.000And the weirdest thing was, people started to say, this is political.
00:20:04.000Like, why is Adam Ruins everything getting political?
00:20:05.000I'm like, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.
00:20:12.000I mean, that's what people were saying.
00:20:14.000I guess, you know, for some people it's become that.
00:20:17.000But because they see it as part of, like, I don't know, whatever argument in their head they're having about feminism or something like that.
00:20:22.000But to me, I'm just like, guys, in dating, right, in life, like, this is not a real concept.
00:20:27.000If you want to say, I'm going to be confident tomorrow, I'm not going to tell you that's not going to help you out.
00:20:34.000I'm a little bit reticent to make a broad conclusion about evolutionary psychology.
00:20:38.000But I can tell you, again, go talk to any anthropologist, any biologist, any sociologist.
00:20:43.000Is there such a thing as alpha males in humans?
00:20:45.000In the strictest scientific sense of the word, no.
00:20:50.000I think they're looking at it in terms of winners and losers, pushovers in people who get the job done, confident people versus people who are not confident.
00:21:01.000And I think, obviously, humans operate on a giant spectrum.
00:21:04.000And if you start going around saying alpha and beta and the idea that all alphas are the same or all betas are the same, it's just as ridiculous as the idea of saying all democrats are the same or all republicans.
00:21:47.000So, for instance, we did an episode on stereotypes called Adam Runes a Sitcom, where we talked about stereotypes via a cheesy 80s sitcom that had a lot of stereotypes in it.
00:22:00.000So you've got the stereotypical black kid, you've got the stereotypical Asian kid.
00:23:14.000Well, like, we talk about, from an early age, we talk about this so briefly on the show, but we could have gone into a whole episode on it.
00:23:20.000From an early age, researchers have found this, that little boys, when they're very young, are very close, form very close friendships.
00:25:36.000I mean, I think that's one of those things where I would hesitate to make a big conclusion, but I mean, I would say I think we can draw a link between that and, you know, that men are sort of like socialized to not have these close friendships.
00:25:46.000So that is a serious problem that men have, that men face, right?
00:25:51.000Another one we talk about is stuff like, you know, drinking and smoking, for instance.
00:25:55.000Those are behaviors that are much more pushed on men.
00:25:57.000You know, those are much more advertised towards men, right?
00:26:01.000Those will like hurt you physically and can lead to an early death, right?
00:26:04.000Those are those And so those are things that men face that are different than the challenges that women face and can result in bad health outcomes for us, you know?
00:26:13.000And it's so funny how the sort of, like, men's rights people, you know, they don't talk about that stuff quite as much.
00:26:20.000And, you know, people being hurt at work and stuff like that, like men having dangerous occupations, and that stuff is true as well.
00:26:27.000But, like, these are the more subtle ways that, you know, men are hurt by the sort of narrow expectations of what a man is that we put on men.
00:26:38.000Hey, men are like this, you should be like this, you know?
00:26:48.000I think we might be lucky here in LA, you know, because we can sort of, like, live any way that we choose.
00:26:53.000I mean, you clearly live exactly how you want to live, which is great, you know, and I get to as well.
00:27:00.000But I think that, you know, we're lucky in that we're so self-actualized, you know what I mean, that maybe we face a little bit less pressure than, you know, your average Joe across the country.
00:27:10.000Yeah, but I don't know of anyone who's putting pressure on men to not be friendly with other men.
00:27:17.000That seems so ridiculous to me, to deny camaraderie.
00:27:23.000Obviously, in the military, it's a huge aspect of military service, is the brotherhood that these guys form with each other.
00:27:30.000And that's about, you know, if you want to talk about traditional male values, that's about as manly a thing as a person can do, right?
00:27:54.000There's a level of intimacy that we're like, and that sort of intimacy is what leads to long friendships, you know, that really, really last, right?
00:28:03.000It's a balancing act, I think, because I think there is intimacy, and then there's also guys who are just being a bitch, and they need to learn how to man up.
00:30:08.000And he talked about, and they also talked with medical professionals who said the same thing, that that idea doesn't give men the tools they need to deal with PTSD, right?
00:30:17.000And can actually exacerbate PTSD because it means that they're not trained how to reach out for help for those problems.
00:30:23.000That's a different situation, I think.
00:30:25.000Oh yeah, it's a different example of just a way that that sort of narrow idea, be a man, being a man means this, a real man would do this, right?
00:30:33.000That works in some situations, maybe that works when you're in a foxhole, right?
00:30:38.000It doesn't work so well when you're out of it, right?
00:30:40.000And so that's a narrow idea that can lead to a bad outcome.
00:30:43.000Sure, but that's basically what we were just saying, that you should be emotionally vulnerable and know how to express yourself with your friends and be honest and true about how you feel about things.
00:30:53.000But you also should know when you're being a bitch.
00:32:24.000So that's the balancing act of creating an environment where you're not...
00:32:29.000Hey, yeah, don't complain about your foot.
00:32:30.000But hey, if you're really in distress, you can share that with me.
00:32:33.000And some men feel that they can't do that.
00:32:36.000And I remember when I was younger, feeling, well, I really have this problem, but I can't express that to my friends because they're going to make fun of me.
00:34:57.000You know, for instance, like, let's just take the example of, like, you know, kids' entertainment, like, growing up, you know, like, kids' cartoons and stuff like that.
00:35:06.000Like, the female characters are the ones who are taking care of other people, and the male characters are the ones who are kicking ass, right?
00:35:11.000And I like kicking ass sometimes, too, but I realized at one point, I was like, oh, I didn't have, like, models of that as a kid, of, like, here's a man who takes care of other people emotionally or, you know, or in a caring way.
00:35:34.000Whenever you have a label, especially a narrow label, it's a problem.
00:35:39.000And I think the idea of Manliness or like what it entails and the problems that people would have about that on the outside It's almost always problems that are being imposed on them like are the ideas that are being opposed on them for people who don't like the way they live you don't like who they are or Want to mock who they are how they live so someone's too emotional if someone's too introverted instead of celebrating that or that guy's different and Cool.
00:36:09.000Instead of that, it's the bully, mocking and shitting on them, the jock-type behavior that we associated with being the negative aspect of masculinity.
00:37:36.000And I really related to that, you know, because I remember feeling that way about girls I dated.
00:37:41.000Like, hold on a sec, oh, I'm into her so much, but, oh, wait, is she not, like, attractive, right?
00:37:47.000Am I wrong to be dating her because she doesn't fit what I, you know, the sort of, like, set of parameters for what an attractive woman is, right?
00:37:55.000And so when you talk about what people say they're attracted to, if you ask any woman, wouldn't she say she's attracted to this kind of man?
00:38:00.000If you ask any man, wouldn't she say she's attracted to that kind of woman?
00:38:29.000Now I have the benefit I'm a little bit older, and I feel like I'm in less mental prisons than I used to be.
00:38:33.000I feel like you're in no mental prisons at all.
00:38:36.000I feel like a lot of your listeners have broken out of them.
00:38:40.000But especially, I think back about when I was 16 years old, and yeah, you're swimming in that shit, and you don't know to question it yet a lot of the time.
00:38:47.000And that's what our show's about, is getting people to question those assumptions and those things that you're being told without even realizing you're being told them.
00:38:55.000But there is a problem with young men and their identities, like them wanting other people to think of them as cool, think of them as someone who's successful or someone who's doing well.
00:39:31.000When I was getting started in comedy in my 20s, the amount of time I spent worrying before I went on stage about how what I was going to say was going to come off, if it was going to be cool, or if I'd get made fun of by the other guys in my comedy group or by the other people at the open mic.
00:40:08.000Yeah, because there's no organization.
00:40:11.000I never set foot in a club because I was like, I don't want to deal with anybody at the club thinking, oh, I'm trying to get a spot or whatever.
00:40:17.000I was like, I'm just doing bar shows, open mics, stuff like that.
00:41:06.000Yeah, and what they're trying to do- They're comedy babies.
00:41:08.000What those people are trying to do is they're trying to say, well, I know the difference between good and bad, and that's one of the reasons I'm good, and so I'm going to say that you're bad, right?
00:41:36.000I know you think you have a point, but what you're saying is your art is not that well thought out.
00:41:40.000I know you listen to the Bill Burr podcast and you think that makes you better than everybody, but the number of people who'd be like, well, Bill Burr wouldn't do it like that, or whatever, that kind of thing, is so off the charts.
00:42:12.000Look at yourself objectively the way you're looking at this person.
00:42:15.000But the whole cross your arms, unless someone's stealing or doing something racist or clearly fucked up socially, you know, like, what do you care?
00:42:49.000You know, one time when I was doing open mics, I was doing, you know, I was doing three open mics a night in New York, you know, and I kind of missed that.
00:43:36.000It was just the worst freak show to them.
00:43:38.000And I was like, yeah, I do this every single night.
00:43:41.000Every shitty mistake or every weird thing that every person did that I was totally blank to that I had seen a million times, they were shocked by what was going on on that stage.
00:43:52.000And it made me really enjoy going to those mics again, because it made me see for the first time, you know, like, it made me fresh again to, like, how fucking weird.
00:45:07.000And then I've known her ever since, and then, like, to see her do that White House Correspondents' Dinner was, like, I just felt all that history all at once.
00:45:15.000I was like, this is fucking amazing, you know?
00:45:18.000What did you think when the president was tweeting at her?
00:45:21.000I was like, damn, she got him on the hook.
00:46:02.000Did you forget it was like a three-day news cycle of how much everybody hated her?
00:46:06.000Yeah, but people that were there didn't get pissed off.
00:46:08.000Some of them, they were like tweeting, like Maggie Haberman from the New York Times was tweeting like, oh, I feel bad for, you know, Sarah Huckabee, like for the, you know, light jab that she got about her eye makeup.
00:48:48.000I gotta say, the old show, I mean, he's great.
00:48:51.000The old show was probably the best performance ever made by a single late night comic.
00:48:56.000Because the way that he, when I watch it now, if I go back and watch clips, I'm like, the way he would do, like, three or four fast little turns, you know, in a single line, where it would, like, mean one thing, but there'd be some subtext, then he would flip around and he would do it.
00:49:08.000Like, it was like watching, like, a figure skater do triple axles, you know, like, watching him do that.
00:50:46.000As much of a complete thought in 24 hours, or in realistically the six hours you have between when you show up and when you tape the show, right?
00:50:55.000And so being on that weekly schedule, and he's only doing 30-something shows a year, right, because they have hiatuses, that's what allows them to have those big, long, complete thoughts that everyone likes so much, you know?
00:51:05.000Yes, his rants and his intelligent takes on news issues and pointing out hypocrisy.
00:53:53.000Exploiting of young athletes in college is- It's bonkers.
00:53:57.000It is one of the ones that drives me, because I got into it with Joey Diaz, who explained to me, because Joey used to be a bookie, and he really understands gambling.
00:54:04.000He was explaining to me how much money gets donated to these schools by people who used to go to them.
00:54:55.000Guys who sign up for college football, who make it, first of all, with a body that's functional after four years of 600 fucking pound dudes slamming.
00:55:29.000Every time you run into somebody, boom, your brain slides forward a little bit because it's not wearing a seatbelt, bumps into the front of your skull and bounces back.
00:55:37.000And even if that doesn't cause a concussion, it causes a little hurt every single time.
00:55:43.000And so you can never get a concussion and do that over and over and over again and you're going to end up with CTE. Yeah, subconcussive trauma.
00:57:21.000If I had a kid and the kid was thinking, like, baseball, football, or basketball, I'd be like, well, take that football out of the fucking equation.
00:57:39.000Especially if you look at that 75,000 number, if you look at for how many kids are playing in the NCAA, now think about how many kids are playing high school football.
00:57:51.000This kid is going to be, he's the Heisman Trophy winner, and he already has been drafted to the Major League Baseball, but he's also projected to potentially be in the top five NFL picks.
00:58:01.000So there's like a big discussion on what should he do.
00:58:03.000It's up to him, obviously, but players like Deion Sanders who have been in both leagues and have done both at the same time, it's like, play baseball.
01:01:31.000It's not as weird for your body because it's only living at altitude.
01:01:33.000It really just simulates low altitude.
01:01:35.000It's not like taking EPO, which would be the drug that would simulate that, which I've got recent experience with, not personally, but because the UFC just had one of its champions stripped because of testing positive for EPO. And then we're just finding out now they don't test for EPO in everybody.
01:01:52.000That it's very expensive, and so they do it based on the athlete's biological passport and what they think are changing variables that, you know, for whatever reason, it triggers their interest when they start testing additionally.
01:03:15.000Because whenever I'm staying somewhere high altitude, like I just did a weekend in Denver, and I was going on a run up there, and it was obviously torture compared to being here in L.A., but I was like, oh, I'm getting strong because I'm running at high altitude.
01:03:43.000When you are living at high altitude and training at sea level, they think that that gives you a slight advantage because you can put more work in.
01:03:54.000Especially for fighters, they think that skill work and repetitions and drilling is one of the most important aspects of it, and you can just simply get in more repetitions and get in more drills.
01:04:06.000Again, though, you're right, because this is sort of a performance-enhancing thing.
01:04:11.000You're not just living and just being yourself and then showing up and competing.
01:04:16.000You're engaging in this activity that significantly raises your red blood cells, significantly raises your oxygen capacity, changes your cardio, your VO2 max changes.
01:05:56.000Well, here's the weird thing, man, is that, yeah, they want to look at her genitals, first of all, which is humiliating to have that happen if you're an athlete.
01:06:02.000How many people have to be in the room?
01:08:27.000It's fucked up, though, because people watch those sports, you know?
01:08:30.000The most fucked up thing is when they let the NBA play.
01:08:33.000When they let the NBA play against those fucking poor Eastern Bloc nations, and you've got these fucking, you know, super athletes who are professional American basketball players.
01:08:44.000For the biggest ones, Michael Phelps can get a sponsorship, right?
01:11:12.000They don't have a lot of infrastructure in terms of, you know, we've got teams, right?
01:11:16.000Whereas in the U.S., we devote tons of money, government money, private money to, like, you know, the swimming, U.S. swimming, billions of dollars, people training, science, da-da-da-da.
01:11:26.000In India, they don't have that, right?
01:11:28.000So despite the fact that they have – So many people.
01:11:32.000They must have one of the world's strongest people.
01:11:34.000They must have one of the world's fastest people because they got a billion people, right?
01:11:37.000What they don't have is that training infrastructure, right?
01:11:40.000So if you look at it that way, you're like, okay, hold on a second.
01:11:42.000We don't like performance-enhancing drugs because unearned unfair advantage.
01:11:46.000Well, what else is training infrastructure than an unfair advantage?
01:11:49.000If you're born in the U.S., you have a way better chance of making it to the Olympics and becoming that greatest athlete in the world than someone in India.
01:11:59.000To play devil's advocate, if you are a state-sponsored athlete from Russia or China, you have a much better advantage than you do if you're an American and you're some shot-put dude who doesn't have a way to make a living to pay your bills while you're working for the Olympics.
01:13:12.000I'm very much, because I am of this opinion that there is no such thing as perfect fairness, and when we make those distinctions, we're always choosing who to allow.
01:13:21.000And because I think we should choose to allow trans people to participate in society, I'm for an inclusive approach where we're able to find a model that allows those folks to compete fairly in a way that everybody's happy with.
01:14:27.000But hold on a second, that's not an advantage, because how mechanics work, right, is that a spring, you put energy into it, and you get a little bit less energy out.
01:14:49.000He doesn't have a machine in his leg the way the rest of us do that creates force out of food.
01:14:55.000Well, the real question is whether or not the lower half of his legs, which is what he's missing, could make up for the advantage, the mechanical advantage of the shape of those things, which applies all sorts of really unusual leverage when you're running.
01:16:12.000Well, so the point is, when we make the rules of a game, right?
01:16:16.000And this is the point of our episode about games, which is about the Olympics, actually.
01:16:19.000When we make the rules of a game, we are – there's no such thing as a perfectly fair competition that would be designed by God to be perfect and be perfectly fair, right?
01:16:26.000We're always making choices about what kind of competition we want to have and who we want to allow into it and what sort of outcome we want to have.
01:16:43.000We change the rules a little bit to allow this person and not allow this person, right?
01:16:47.000I think that when we're talking about people, we should always try to include more people, not less.
01:16:52.000And hey, if you're a double amputee and you can get your way into the Olympics and you can make a plausible case, I think we should try to entertain that notion and we should try to find a way to get that guy in there, right?
01:17:01.000As far as trans athletes go, we could sit here and talk for three hours about all the different ways that hormones might affect your body and might not affect your body, and I'm not an expert on that, and I don't want to claim to be.
01:17:12.000But sports with trans athletes who are competing with their gender, that is a sporting world that I'm more interested in.
01:17:25.000And I think we should find a way to make that happen.
01:17:27.000I know it's going to be really complicated and messy, and there's going to be a lot of debate about it, and it's going to be uncomfortable, and there's going to be a lot of arguments, but I hope that that's the world that we've moved forward to.
01:17:41.000My point of view is that there's a reason, there's a distinction, there's a reason why we make the distinction to have male athletics versus female athletics.
01:17:50.000The reason is that males have a physiological advantage over women.
01:17:55.000So in most sports, most physical sports, we do not have males compete with females.
01:18:00.000The question becomes when someone who is male transitions and becomes female, Do those same physiological advantages apply?
01:18:12.000Well, the evidence in competition seems to be that it shows that it does apply, particularly in weightlifting, rugby, mountain biking, power-heavy sports that are...
01:18:22.000that favor larger people stronger bodies males that transition to females have a significant advantage in their breaking world records so if you're a woman and you're a natural woman and you don't take any extra hormones or male hormones you're not taking steroids or any sort of performance enhancing drugs you're doing your very best to compete and you're at the top of the heap but then someone comes along that was a man for 30 years and decides they're going to be a woman and this has happened And literally transitioned a few months ago
01:18:53.000and competes as a woman and destroys records and dominates you in that sport.
01:18:59.000And that's not competing on a level playing field.
01:19:03.000That's a person who's biologically a male and who is a male for 30 plus years of having testosterone run through their body and affect their tendon strength and affect the shape of their bones and the mechanical advantages of the male hips versus the female hips and then they're competing With smaller people who have been a woman their whole life.
01:19:23.000It's as much cheating as taking steroids when the other person doesn't or taking performance-enhancing drugs when the other person doesn't.
01:20:42.000Now, that is a type of person that exists, right?
01:20:46.000I think over the next, certainly, 30 years, we're going to see, you know, now that people are starting to understand that being trans is just a way that people are, right?
01:20:56.000They're just people who are trans, you know?
01:20:57.000And this is something that we're going to accept and support, right?
01:21:00.000You're seeing folks transition much, much earlier age, you know?
01:21:06.000And so if someone is transitioning from the age of seven years old and working with those hormones from that age, their body situation is going to be very different than the one that you postulated.
01:21:23.000I also know from my trans friends that the effects that the hormones have on your body are really profound.
01:21:51.000We're in such new territory here, right?
01:22:08.000There's no reason to give kids hormones, and there's no reason to decide before a person's frontal lobe is completely fully developed, which doesn't even take place until they're 25. People don't know who they are.
01:22:26.000You're going to let them decide what sex they're going to be for the rest of their life?
01:22:30.000The research that I've seen, and again, I'm not an expert on this, and I'd love to...
01:22:36.000This is a conversation, this is something I'd love to talk about on our show, and I'd specifically love, you know, this is before, this is the kind of topic where I really want to make sure that I know the research and that I'm, you know, also speaking to trans folks, you know, in this conversation.
01:22:50.000But so to touch on just what I've, you know, my own experience and the research I've seen, the research I've seen is that trans kids from a young age, they are incredibly consistent.
01:23:30.000The answer was, generally, no, it really didn't.
01:23:34.000And, you know, I have a friend who has a trans kid.
01:23:39.000I don't know the kid's exact age, but, you know, in the age range that we're talking about.
01:23:42.000And, you know, he's explained that, like, well, you know, my child from a very young age consistently, like, said, I am a girl, like, and has never contradicted themselves, never changed their mind.
01:23:53.000And so the humane thing and the thing that he felt was going to do as a parent was to, like, embrace that choice on his child's part, right?
01:24:02.000Embrace that choice meaning hormonally...
01:24:06.000I shouldn't even phrase it as a choice, like embrace that identity.
01:25:05.000You're choosing to inject things into this child's body on a regular basis that are going to radically affect the physical development of their body.
01:25:14.000And you're saying that this isn't a choice.
01:25:16.000Well, it's definitely a choice to do that.
01:28:34.000Because we're all very concerned about children, right?
01:28:36.000But I do want to say, first of all, I don't think it's correct that trans people, if they don't receive hormones from a young age, they simply become gay men.
01:28:47.000See if you can find that, because there was a big article that was written about that recently, where they were talking about whether or not gender confirmation surgery and hormone blockers on young children is ethical because of this fact.
01:28:59.000And this was what they were talking about, where people at one point in time wanted to be trans, and they listed several famous examples.
01:29:06.000And then as they became older, just decided to be gay, including women who wanted to be men, who just became gay women.
01:29:11.000And I think, what's that girl's name that was in John Wick, Ruby Rose?
01:29:17.000She wanted to be trans when she was younger, and now she's just a gay woman.
01:29:20.000So, look, I know quite a few trans folks, right?
01:29:26.000And I have to be honest, none of the ones that I know were, I don't know any trans women, personally, who were gay men up until they transitioned, right?
01:29:34.000I know quite a few trans women who were straight men, right?
01:29:38.000Or who, you know, lived their lives as, presented as straight men, right?
01:29:52.000Oh, the other thing I was going to say is that I do know, also among the trans folks that I know, or the trans people who speak about this that I've heard, so many of them say, I wish I had access.
01:30:02.000I knew this about myself at a very young age, and I wish to God that I had had the ability to receive these hormones at a young age.
01:30:12.000And I'm not going to argue with those folks, you know?
01:30:14.000I wouldn't argue with those folks either, but you have to address the fact that there are people that have gone through transition surgery and said, I wish to God that I never did this.
01:30:23.000So if you're looking for anecdotal evidence and you want to be objective, you kind of have to look at both sides of it.
01:30:29.000I'm very curious, and this is what I'd go consult my friend or my recent interview subject, Tannehill's work on this, to see how many are in each group.
01:30:39.000Which sets of these folks are the outliers?
01:30:41.000I think the folks that you're talking about are probably the outliers, but I can't confirm that.
01:30:46.000All surgeries have potential costs, however, according to a Swedish study of 324 patients, 41% of whom were born female.
01:30:54.000Surgery was associated with considerably higher risk for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.
01:32:24.000I'm sort of at the, oh, here's what it was.
01:32:28.000Surgery, another thing I know from speaking with trans folks is that surgery is overemphasized, right?
01:32:32.000And that surgery for those folks is not the, you know, we as sort of straight cis people tend to put too much emphasis on like, oh, did you get the surgery yet or not?
01:32:41.000And really it's more about what are you living as and what sort of set of hormones do you have, right?
01:34:06.000There's not like a history of hundreds of years of hormone blockers being used on young children and whether or not that is healthy and promotes a positive life.
01:34:16.000I feel like if a child thinks they're a girl, Let them live as a girl.
01:34:21.000But you don't have to hormonally engage with their body with chemicals.
01:34:39.000But this seems to me to be a leap, and that you're making this leap to confirm your ideology, and to confirm that you're 100% cool with trans people, and you're 100% cool, and you're going to recognize this child is trans.
01:34:52.000But you're doing something to this child's body that you can't turn around.
01:35:23.000But when you're stepping in to a developing baby that's only been alive for six years, and you're shooting chemicals into its body to change the way it develops, show me the research.
01:35:36.000Decades of peer-reviewed studies on one of the most important things that we know of, the development of a human being, where you're going to hormonally interact with their body in some sort of a random Dr. Frankenstein sort of way.
01:36:11.000But yet people are jumping into it because it seems like the thing to do.
01:36:14.000Because it seems like the tide of society is moving in that direction.
01:36:17.000Well, I don't jump into it for that reason.
01:36:22.000I do think that when we're talking about an issue that affects those people, right, the first thing we should do is listen to those people.
01:38:06.000Look, the last conversation I had with a person about this was a trans military veteran who is a researcher who wrote a book on these issues, right?
01:38:19.000Comprehensively looked at the research and told me that the research shows that the evidence that you're asking for exists, maybe not on a 30-year timeline, but there have been studies of this and here's what we know about them.
01:38:42.000Well, we can't solve that in this conversation right here.
01:38:46.000My point is, look, I'm not going to go out on a limb and tell you more than I can say off the top of my head, right?
01:38:51.000Because I'm not an expert on the subject.
01:38:54.000This is something that, you know, if this were something we had done on our show and I had dived into the research more, I could tell you more than I know it exists.
01:39:00.000But I can tell you what I have been told exists by people who have made it their business to know, you know?
01:39:07.000So, you know, that would be my next step in the conversation.
01:39:12.000But, you know, that's what I'm saying is those are, You know, including those folks in this conversation is a really critical part of it for me.
01:39:27.000And I think it's one that we will have.
01:39:29.000And, you know, again, just to bring it back to athletics, right?
01:39:34.000I think that the undeniable existence of trans people You know, children to teenagers to adults, right, who want to compete, right, and who make a compelling case that they should be able to compete, right, is going to be something that we're going to have to grapple with.
01:39:50.000You know, I don't think there's going to be easy answers to it.
01:39:53.000And we're grappling with it right now.
01:39:54.000Yeah, I mean, I think the real, the legitimate solution is a trans league or a trans division, to have a male division, a female division, a trans division.
01:40:03.000If you want to compete athletically, that's fair to me.
01:40:15.000Where they do, like, they've got all the different levels for you've got this much amputated or you're this mobile and you can compete in this way, you know?
01:40:21.000And so that's really great to make a way that, you know, those folks can compete on as level as a playing field as we can be, you know, given the manifold variations in human bodies, right?
01:40:30.000But the fact that Oscar Pistorius, which, by the way, we should bring up again, he killed his girlfriend.
01:40:45.000I think it's such a wonderful thing, you know?
01:40:46.000And so I would hope that whatever organization we come up with, you know, allows for humans in all their variations to compete in the main league as well.
01:41:00.000Because I think if they come up with bionic legs like Steve Austin from The Six Million Dollar Man, dude, there's some people out there that'll cut their fucking legs off to run faster, and that's real.
01:41:10.000There are people that want to win so bad, they would cut the bottom of their legs off to get bionic prosthesis.
01:41:46.000Isn't that a little similar to the argument where people say, Oh, trans bathrooms, it's just so men are just going to lie about it so they can go in the bathroom and peep at women.
01:41:53.000And then when you actually expand that, right, and you're like, hold on a second, you're telling me a dude is going to tell the entire world, I am not a man, I'm a woman, they're going to start dressing differently, they're going to take hormones, they're going to live with the stigma, right?
01:42:06.000They're going to, one of the most stigmatized type of people you can be in America today as a trans person.
01:42:10.000They're going to live with that stigma, they're going to change their whole lives, and they're going to do all of that just so they can peep at women in the bathroom?
01:42:33.000But if you have a bathroom that allows trans people and you get some creep who says, I'm just going to pretend to be trans, if you don't think that's real, then you're crazy.
01:42:46.000There's people who have been arrested, men who were sex offenders who dressed up as women and went into the women's room and harassed women.
01:43:35.000But so they could also do that even if it was not a gender-inclusive bathroom, right?
01:43:39.000Because they would be breaking the rules of the bathroom in exactly the same way.
01:43:42.000But everybody would know that they're a man in a dress versus them being trans.
01:43:48.000See, if you see a trans person, oftentimes trans people look very masculine.
01:43:52.000There's no need, if you're just going to pretend to be trans, there's no need to hide.
01:43:56.000What we have to ask ourselves is if the...
01:44:01.000Hypothetical, or if the extremely, extremely rare situation that you're discussing, right, is so horrifying to us and such a big problem that it's worth disenfranchising millions of people from the ability to simply go to the bathroom when they need to,
01:44:22.000Extreme edge case or hypothetical case.
01:44:25.000Are we really going to hurt all of these actual people who actually exist and say, I just need to goddamn go to the bathroom in a place that is safe for me.
01:44:42.000And I don't think I don't think it is.
01:44:44.000We can talk about that one edge case all day long.
01:46:51.000I think it's easy to say as an outsider, if you're a female athlete that's being forced to compete with trans women who used to be men for most of their lives, I think you'd have a different opinion.
01:46:59.000Because I think they have a distinct physiological advantage that's been expressed many times.
01:47:04.000I mean, there's a lot of records have been broken by trans women who are now weightlifters.
01:47:09.000And there's that one who's the fucking dirt biker who was a professional dirt bike, professional rider before as a man and then transitioned over to a woman.
01:47:21.000It's just, I don't necessarily think it's fair.
01:47:24.000I think just like it's not fair for a man to compete as a woman, I don't think that all those disadvantages, or those advantages rather, go away when you transition.
01:47:35.000And I don't think there's any evidence that shows they do.
01:47:37.000There's a diminishing amount, but how much so?
01:47:40.000And in fact, There's a doctor, a board-certified endocrinologist, Dr. Ramona Krutzik, I think is her name, who did a whole article on this about fighters, about male fighters transitioning to becoming female and competing as female, which has happened.
01:47:56.000And they're saying that not only does the estrogen therapy, it actually preserves bone density.
01:48:02.000It doesn't just turn them into a woman.
01:48:24.000So they maintain this male bone density.
01:48:26.000Now there's also arguments that African-American female bone density is in many cases similar to white European male bone density.
01:48:36.000So that's the argument about the outliers and about whether or not it's a level playing field, because it most certainly is not.
01:48:43.000Yeah, I mean, so that's where I get back to the idea that, look, could someone show that a trans athlete who wants to compete is going to have a physiological advantage because of their history of transition,
01:49:05.000Because I actually don't want to know one way or the other because I have not looked at any research on this, so I don't want to make any claim.
01:49:10.000So let's just grant that for the sake of this thought experiment.
01:49:15.000So that being said, let's compare that against every single other advantage that every other competitor could have.
01:50:10.000Our assumption that men have an advantage over women in sports is partially based on the fact that so many of the sports were designed for male bodies.
01:51:29.000It's like there's a lot going on, right?
01:51:31.000So that's a rare case where women's gymnastics, we've actually created events in that and like competitions that like only women can do, right?
01:51:39.000And so we sort of optimize that sport more for a female body.
01:51:43.000What if we did that with a lot more sports?
01:51:56.000Maybe part of our assumption that men are better at sports than women, or men have an advantage in sports than women, are that we have constructed most of the games that we've constructed are actually sort of biased towards a male type of body.
01:52:09.000First of all, The reason why women are good at gymnastics, first of all, their flexibility, their lightness, all those things.
01:52:19.000Also, they're not competing against men in a one-on-one type of situation.
01:52:24.000One's trying to defend, the other one's trying to attack, like a game of basketball, or a game of football, or any other sort of team sport game.
01:52:31.000I think if you take any male gymnast and try to have them compete against the female gymnast, they're not going to be able to do those things.
01:52:37.000It's a physical event as opposed to a sport.
01:52:39.000So a physical event is you have to do this thing.
01:53:41.000You can have a thing like a gymnastics balance beam event where women are going to shine because they're lighter and more flexible and they can do things with their body that men can't because of the shape, all the mass, all the different things.
01:54:06.000But sports are, most sports involve speed and power.
01:54:12.000Most sports, men have an advantage in speed and power.
01:54:16.000I know, but we created those sports, right?
01:54:18.000What would we possibly be able to create where women would have an advantage that is an athletic event where a man's speed and power does not give him an advantage?
01:54:27.000I mean, look, man, this is not, again...
01:54:31.000Like I said, this is the beginning of a thought, right?
01:54:33.000I'm trying to use this as a thought experiment as sort of like a possibility opening device, right?
01:54:38.000But so, you postulate, hey, now, you make a fair point that there's a difference between individual athletic events like gymnastics and competitive one-on-one events like grappling or basketball or something like that, right?
01:54:50.000And so, again, I'm thinking this through myself as I'm talking about it, right?
01:54:57.000Like, I don't think it's impossible that you could come up with a one-on-one competition that privileges, that is designed around the same athletic qualities that make a woman give her an advantage in a certain gymnastics event.
01:55:12.000I don't think there's any reason you couldn't do the same thing for a, find a one-on-one competition that did the same thing, right?
01:56:07.000So, men have been the ones setting up the sports.
01:56:09.000So, the fact that, as you say, it's rare that we have sports that are sort of more designed around a female, you know, the differences between women as opposed to men, right?
01:56:19.000I think that might be because men have been setting up all the sports, right?
01:56:23.000But there's a lot of sports that women gravitate towards.
01:58:13.000When you look at them, some of them wear really tight baseball pants, and some of them wear really baggy baseball pants.
01:58:18.000And I just love imagining, I like clothes, I imagine them going to the baseball tailor and being like, dude, I want to sag my pants, I want to, you know.
01:58:26.000Right, show a little swag, but you don't want to impede your performance.
01:58:29.000Do you think the tight would be better as you're running?
01:58:32.000Like, if swimmers shave their bodies to be more aerodynamic, I mean, how much, really, if you're just running to first base, how much does, like, baggy pants, the wind catching the baggy pants, could that be?
01:58:43.000Well, you look at, like, Manny Ramirez had, like, the baggiest pants, I remember, and, like, you had to imagine that guy was, like, a little bit suboptimal with his baseball pants, you know?
01:58:53.000Maybe you have big ass thighs and they only feel good with baggy pants.
01:58:56.000Let me just put a bow on what I was trying to get at earlier, right?
01:58:58.000Because I know I was sort of like getting to a pretty spacey place.
01:59:02.000My point is just what our show is about so much is about showing how the things that we take for granted in our world, like the way the world is, so much of the time is just something that we built, right?
02:00:33.000That's the notion of fairness we have now.
02:00:35.000I think the interesting thing about the question of trans athletes is it's going to challenge that notion.
02:00:40.000It's going to lead to conversations like this one.
02:00:41.000I think that's really cool, and that's what I think we should be down to have as a society.
02:00:46.000Talking about things, especially when there's a disagreement, is the only way to solve them.
02:00:50.000But, you know, I think these conversations oftentimes become these shouting matches, and, you know, everybody digs their heels in, as you were talking about before, about how people's identities get really locked into ideas that they've held strong to, whether it's identities about...
02:01:24.000It was, we stumbled across something that was like a really deep, those men's rights activist types, and then they connect that to their national politics and to their gender politics and everything.
02:01:35.000And it was just like, just the idea of questioning that really set them off, right?
02:01:39.000But what I'm about is questioning all these things.
02:01:43.000You know, this conversation that we had, this disagreement, to the extent that we were disagreeing, I think is a really good one to have, you know?
02:03:14.000It's true that the sugar lobby hated it, you know, but the research that showed that fat is bad, you know, that fat causes heart disease as well, it wasn't like totally shitty research and like this sort of narrative isn't the only reason that that other research fell out of favor.
02:03:27.000And so we talked about that as a way that like the story of there was this good guy researcher who was sort of like stifled by the bad guy researcher in the lobby sort of misled us down that path.
02:03:46.000It's like when we were talking about earlier, like the time constraints on some subjects, like think about how much time we spent just talking about trans people and trans athletes.
02:03:56.000Two cis males, you know, talking about something you have no personal experience in.
02:04:01.000And that's one of the reasons we've wanted to do that topic on the show, but we're like, man, we really want to do justice to it, and it's really hard to do in six minutes.
02:04:17.000But do you have a clause in your contract to take some issues that you would like to talk about and that the network wouldn't let you talk about, like NCAA? Couldn't you do your own version of it?
02:04:43.000That was the one time they ever killed a topic.
02:04:45.000And what they did allow us to do was, in an episode we have coming out later this year, we talk about, on the show, the fact that they killed that topic.
02:05:13.000We said, okay, all of the sports drinks overemphasize hydration as a problem.
02:05:19.000And so we did a whole segment examining how much does advertising affect the show, right?
02:05:26.000And as a result of the NCAA, we had to kill that segment.
02:05:29.000And the network let us say that on TV. So that was really cool that they allowed us to bring up that conflict on the show.
02:05:35.000But yeah, no, there's nothing stopping me from going on the internet.
02:05:38.000It just so happens that I'm a comic and I had the wonderful opportunity.
02:05:44.000I've always wanted to have my own TV show and I had the wonderful opportunity to create one.
02:05:47.000If I hadn't had that chance four or five years ago, I would probably be on YouTube right now doing hour-long explainer videos with me doing jokes straight to camera.
02:06:17.000I was a writer there and I developed Adam Ruins Everything while I was there and then we sold it to TruTV.
02:06:22.000I will say, on my live shows now, I've just been on tour with my new show, Mind Parasites, which is like me trying to figure out how to do what I do in a stand-up context, right?
02:06:34.000And so I took that all across the country.
02:06:37.000I'm hoping to set up some more dates soon.
02:06:39.000It's this really cool show about how these biological parasites that control their host minds, like this fungus that takes control of an ant, and like...
02:06:51.000It's like literally their minds become controlled by this parasite that infects them.
02:06:54.000And I use that as a way to talk about the cultural parasites that are controlling our minds, like advertising, like the social media algorithm, like alcohol in my case.
02:07:51.000But I was like, hey, I want to figure out a way to do what I do, which is like come up with an argument and some information and put it in a framework.
02:07:59.000So I was like, all right, mind parasites.
02:08:00.000I'll talk about these biological parasites.
02:08:02.000I also want to talk about advertising.
02:09:59.000I mean, the thing that I found out is, the reason people ask me how I got into this, you know, and I was just a comic in New York just going up on stage, and, you know, after a while you learn how to make people laugh, but you don't know how to make people give a shit about you, right?
02:10:11.000Like, okay, Greg, I'm forcing an audience to make a noise all at once, you know what I mean?
02:10:17.000And so when I started talking about the stuff that I've learned, you know, I'm just an information sponge.
02:10:21.000I just pick up shit like this, you know?
02:10:23.000And I started talking about, you know, oh, do you know that the diamond engagement ring was a scam on the part of the De Beers Corporation in the 30s and everyone just forgot and now we think it's tradition, right?
02:10:30.000That was the first bit I ever did that with.
02:10:32.000That was my most sort of famous signature bit.
02:10:34.000People start paying more attention, you know?
02:10:36.000And like, oh my god, I didn't realize that, you know?
02:10:54.000And so the cool thing about it is when I go up there...
02:10:57.000I'm not running in this, you said earlier, make your own race, you know, or like don't run the same race as everybody else.
02:11:02.000Every other comic, I'm like, every other comic's trying to win the 100 meter dash and maybe Usain Bolt's in the race with them, right?
02:11:07.000That's Bill Burr or whoever, you know what I mean?
02:11:09.000Usain Bolt's trying to beat him and they're like, fuck, I can be pretty fast but I'm never gonna be number one, you know?
02:11:13.000I'm running a race, I'm the only person doing this.
02:11:15.000You know, like, I'm just doing a race off to the side where, like, my show, if you go to see Bill Burr, there's more punchlines per second, for sure.
02:11:37.000And so that's what I try to tell other comics when they're just talking, you know, when people see my show and they're like, how'd you write this?
02:11:42.000I'm like, dude, just figure out what you can give people that other people aren't giving them, you know?
02:11:47.000And like, it's possible to write in a different way, you know?
02:12:21.000I have a few bits that I do that are scientific reality that people don't believe in or that people wouldn't imagine until you hear about it, particularly biological stuff.
02:12:31.000But Mind Parasites is one we've brought up in this podcast a fucking thousand times.
02:13:22.000Every single second you're online, instead of trying to see whether the genes perpetuate themselves, this test is saying, can I get you to click?
02:14:09.000But it's episode 152. But it's really fascinating because one of the things they take into consideration is that this company, Facebook, makes their money off of collecting your data.
02:14:19.000The best way to collect your data is to get you to engage.
02:14:21.000The best way to get you to engage is to put things in your news feed that are going to piss you off.
02:15:51.000Okay, a virtual message board with no moderators is like...
02:15:56.000Let's just talk about fighting, for instance.
02:15:58.000When you've got a UFC fight, you've got a referee, you've got a situation you've created, you've got a ring, you've set things up so people are going to get hurt, but not more than you want them to.
02:16:11.000No moderators, that's like, hey, let's have a street fight with nobody watching.
02:16:17.000There's an unlimited number of people in there.
02:16:19.000It's just people wailing on each other.
02:16:20.000Well, people are going to get hurt, you know?
02:16:21.000So, like, I think when you are creating the platform, you're creating the place where the discussion is happening, you have a responsibility for what kind of discussion happens in that place, you know?
02:16:32.000Because you're the one who set up the ground rules.
02:16:35.000They were trying to do that with YouTube for a while.
02:16:37.000They were trying to say that, like, if you have a YouTube page and your comments are filled with anti-Semitic hate, that you can get in trouble for that.
02:16:44.000That you were supposed to clean up your comments.
02:16:47.000And then people went, what the fuck are you talking about?
02:17:25.000People are getting banned for saying learn to code.
02:17:27.000And it was really mocking this idea that people were telling coal miners who are losing their jobs, you know, hey, there's jobs in computer programming.
02:19:51.000And also, not only that, YouTube's algorithm is directing people towards them, and YouTube is selling ads against them and making money at them.
02:20:09.000You guys built a system where any kind of content is allowed, and you've also built a system that's directing people to that content, and you built a system that's making money off of that content.
02:20:19.000I think you guys have a little bit of responsibility.
02:20:21.000Now, I agree that the question of who polices it or whatever, that's an extremely complicated conversation, but that's what I'm just saying about these companies trying to have it both ways.
02:20:31.000They're trying to say, we have no responsibility for what's on the platform, but also we've allowed...
02:20:37.000This kind of content to go up, you know?
02:20:39.000I don't know if YouTube profits on anti-Semitic videos.
02:20:47.000They have a demonetizing aspect of YouTube that affects people whenever anything's even remotely controversial.
02:20:55.000They've started doing that up until, like there was a case I talk about in my show, like a year or two ago, where they were running Under Armour ads on white supremacy YouTube videos.
02:22:29.000When you think about how many different people are on YouTube and how many different countries are uploading videos, and some of them are ISIS beheading videos.
02:22:43.000You get to watch some horrible shit for a little while before they catch on.
02:22:46.000Or, like, I talk about these videos in my show where, like, the weird nonsense kids videos on YouTube, where it's, like, people in Spider-Man costumes doing, like, weird community theater, you know what I mean?
02:23:22.000And I have literally spent my whole life trying to make good internet content.
02:23:26.000Make content that's the funny, entertaining, that people like, and I can't get close to that number of hits, and it's because the algorithm is controlling what people are watching, right?
02:23:34.000And the algorithm is directing people towards nonsense.
02:23:37.000So people are watching this because it has Elsa or Spider-Man, or they're watching this...
02:23:41.000They're watching it because they're a five-year-old, and the video was given to them up next by YouTube, and the video's title and keywords and content has managed to hack the algorithm, find the weird edge case in the algorithm that put it in front of those kids over and over again.
02:23:56.000You've seen the ones where they break down those videos, where it's weird, like there's always a baby, an alcohol...
02:24:01.000And someone always gets hurt from a broken bottle.
02:24:04.000Over and over and over again, these things happen.
02:24:06.000They do that because it's sort of like the people who make those videos have found how to hack the algorithm.
02:24:11.000Because algorithms are not that smart.
02:24:18.000When you're playing a video game and you figure out, you're like, oh, the video game thinks that when X happens, I'm trying to do Y. But now that I've figured that out, I can exploit that.
02:25:06.000Yeah, that is really interesting, and it's also interesting these companies have figured this thing out.
02:25:10.000Like, I don't know if you ever get, you see, like, whenever I post something, there will always be, like, if I post something on Instagram, there will be, within the first second or two, four or five of these accounts that, like, are you just going to pretend I don't have a giant booty?
02:25:27.000And you go to it and it's some weird, sneaky, sort of computer-generated thing where it'll say it with a bunch of different accounts, the exact same thing with emojis, and then you go to it and it's some ripped-off pictures of some girl with a big ass.
02:25:41.000And then somehow or another they're trying to get you.
02:25:44.000But they've capitalized on this comment section to find people that have posts that get a lot of comments and get a lot of views, and then they go right to it.
02:26:58.000Like, I remember there used to be, like, in New York, I never actually went and did this, but there was, like, a museum that had, like, lots of old archival TV. You know, you could go back, you could watch, like, the first episode of Johnny Carson or whatever.
02:27:30.000And so every episode of The Daily Show ever is on the internet.
02:27:35.000And so – and, you know, say you like – you know, name – sometimes I just go watch – you know, name an old jazz musician you can go watch him play live.
02:27:50.000And so, like – and I still hope in my heart of hearts that, like, that is – At the end of the day, YouTube is serving a good purpose because we still have access to all that information.
02:28:15.000But I think overall, the problem that we're talking about, whether it's a problem with YouTube or the problem with the Facebook algorithm or any of these things, it's people that suck.
02:28:46.000It's an issue, but part of it is really interesting to me.
02:28:51.000I don't like the fact that there's some ungodly number of kids that think the fucking world is flat because they watch a YouTube video and there's no one who was there while the guy was making the YouTube video to go, Stop!
02:30:34.000Well, anyway, back then, Fox News actually aired a full one-hour show called Conspiracy Theory, Did We Land on the Moon?
02:30:43.000And it had me fully convinced— Yeah.
02:30:46.000There was all this shit that they showed, like the same background being used in multiple moon missions that were supposed to be on completely different parts of the moon.
02:30:56.000They're supposed to be like nowhere near each other, but they have the same background.
02:30:59.000And that is, it looks like the astronauts are on wires, and it looks like the light sources are, there are multiple light sources, and the shadows are intersecting.
02:31:09.000You know, all the fucking astronauts, when they came back, they did this Apollo 11 post-flight press conference, and it looked like they're completely full of shit.
02:31:22.000No, I realize I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
02:31:25.000That's one of the real problems with being all in with anything.
02:31:29.000But we also found that they did fake some things for publicity purposes.
02:31:34.000Photographs that were used, that were photographs from tests that they did inside a warehouse with all safety equipment, and then they blacked out all the safety equipment in the background and pawned those photos off as spacewalk photos.
02:31:48.000But I think that's overzealous publicists.
02:31:55.000What's the simplest explanation if they did fake some footage?
02:31:59.000Well, it's probably a bunch of simple explanations, but overzealous publicists, people wanting to show people video that they didn't have video of.
02:32:06.000Maybe the photos didn't come out so well, so they fake some of them.
02:32:10.000The thing about the shadows diverging, my memory of this is, we don't talk about that...
02:32:15.000When people say they see the shadows diverge, right?
02:32:17.000If you actually go outside on a sunny day when you have a single point of light like that, with light reflecting, you will see two shadows of yourself going in different...
02:32:24.000There's one dominant shadow, and then there's a secondary one, right?
02:32:49.000They had not invented anything other than red lasers.
02:32:52.000So NASA would have had to have multi-decade advanced laser light technology in order to fake this.
02:33:02.000Another part of it is that- Do you think you've figured it out?
02:33:06.000No, I mean, this is what we demonstrate in our segment.
02:33:10.000You know, another part of it is, people forget, the moon broadcast, the moon landing broadcast was something like a six-hour live broadcast with no cuts, you know?
02:33:18.000And at the time, that was something you could do with TV, but you literally couldn't do it with film, right?
02:33:46.000But, you know, you would have needed, like, an enormous film canister, you know, that also didn't exist at the time.
02:33:51.000But if anybody was going to have an enormous film canister, it would be those fucking hoaxers at NASA. Well...
02:33:56.000Well, part of the premise of the we didn't go to the moon argument is that we didn't have the technology to go to the moon, so they faked it, right?
02:34:04.000But it's like, okay, well, if you have to postulate that they had decades ahead of its time filmmaking technology, why can't you accept that they just went to the fucking moon, you know?
02:34:12.000So at the end, when you go through all the things that would have to happen, right, in order to make it happen, you really go through it and look at what is the simplest explanation?
02:34:19.000The simplest explanation is that we went to the moon because it would have been fucking easier.
02:34:53.000I think it was earlier than that, maybe.
02:34:54.00068. 68. Okay, so we're talking about before the moon landings.
02:35:00.000Kubrick had some pretty astonishing special effects in 2001. Yeah.
02:35:04.000Yeah, but the argument is that even given, again, this is like filmmakers saying this, given the film technology of the time, the specific features that we see in the moon footage are not fakeable.
02:35:16.000Another part of it is, for instance, the slow jumping, right?
02:35:19.000The slow boom, boom, you're on the moon, right?
02:35:23.000The big argument that the moon truthers make is that it was regular speed footage and it was slowed down, right?
02:35:29.000And there's this dude on, I can't remember the name of it, but if you search, he's a filmmaker on YouTube, right?
02:35:34.000And he just breaks down why, like, the ability to overcrank and, like, shoot in slow-mo like that, like, didn't, that wasn't how film cameras worked at the time, you know?
02:35:44.000They couldn't air things in slow-mo back then?
02:35:49.000You're good at asking questions because you asked me to get into details that I don't have off the top of my head.
02:35:53.000But that's the argument that the dude makes.
02:35:56.000It's not one of the arguments that we make specifically on our show because we only had six minutes so we did the best ones.
02:36:01.000It's always an interesting argument when you're talking about the moon landing.
02:36:04.000I also know about how much of your audience do you think is going to be fucking furious at me for talking about this because they believe the moon landing was faked.
02:36:15.000There's a number of people that think that vaccines cause autism.
02:36:17.000I had Dr. Peter Hotez on here, who is an expert in tropical diseases and autism safety, and he's explaining that they've isolated five environmental factors that they think contribute to autism when it's in the child's womb.
02:37:13.000But what we're doing here, you and I, even if we disagree, this is what I think is one of the most important things of our time, is the ability to have reasonable conversation.
02:37:23.000And I try to tell people when they disagree with me, because when people come at me with a lot of heat on the internet, You know, a lot of times I don't have time to get into it, you know, but I do like to occasionally, you know, reply and say, you know, someone's like, oh, you're so full of shit, like you lied about this and that,
02:37:39.000blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and I try to get into it and I say, hey, thanks for watching the show, you know, I don't feel that we lied, this is what our evidence says, you know, what do you think?
02:37:48.000You know, and I try to take their temperature down, you know, and I don't match their anger is the most important part.
02:37:53.000I'm like much nicer than their anger demands, you know?
02:37:56.000And that usually cools them off right away, and then we have a conversation.
02:38:00.000And a lot of the time when I do that, they leave going, okay, you know what?
02:40:38.000And with them, with Laura Ingraham, they had just played a clip of one of Nipsey Hussle's videos from one of his songs that was called Fuck Donald Trump.
02:41:38.000The worst thing I think that people say is the perspective that she had was, okay, because he doesn't like Donald Trump, he's not worthy of respect.
02:41:47.000I'm not going to be sad he's dead because he said something mean about Donald Trump.
02:41:51.000That is such a malignant version of the way that so many people feel.
02:41:55.000The most frustrating thing people say to me is on our comments page on our YouTube page, This guy's a liberal.
02:42:55.000Even more insidious, what they're doing is they're trying to say this whole life that was just lost is this one clip that says, fuck Donald Trump.
02:43:07.000You're taking a little tiny piece of some things that he did out of context and you're putting it on your show and then you're mocking his death.
02:43:48.000Yeah, we did a segment on guns, right?
02:43:52.000We did an episode on guns, and I always thought that...
02:43:54.000I said at the beginning of our show, we'd never do an episode on guns, because it's too divisive, and as soon as we did the topic, everyone would fold their arms, and they'd say, are you going to do an episode on guns?
02:44:01.000Well, you better say what I want you to say, or I'm changing the channel, right?
02:44:05.000But we'd been doing the show for four years.
02:44:07.000I was like, I think we can finally do it.
02:44:38.000The thing that gun control advocates, right, often fail to do, is they fail to take seriously that the gun rights advocates are, like, real people who live in the same country as them, who they need to deal with as humans,
02:45:20.000You know, and just as much need of checking themselves and, you know, examining their own biases and, you know, getting closer to the truth as gun rights advocates.
02:45:30.000Well, particularly if you want to ever resolve it or come to any sort of an agreement, you can't treat the other people like they're stupid.
02:45:49.000I want to say, by the way, the reason I said I went to college and didn't vote for Donald Trump, not because a lot of people who went to college did vote for Donald Trump.
02:45:56.000The trend is that they didn't vote for him.
02:45:58.000So I was trying to say I'm in a different demographic, but I don't want people to think I was implying...