In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, I sit down with Dr. Phil Phil Phil to talk about the current state of our society and how we can fix it. We talk about what's going on in our schools, what's happening in our culture, and why we need to do something about it. I think you're going to get a lot out of this episode if you listen to this one. It's a good one, and I hope you enjoy it! Tweet Me! and let me know what you thought of it in the comments section below! Timestamps: 4:00 - How do we fix this world? 6:30 - What s going on with our schools and our culture 7:00 What are our kids being taught in school 8:20 - What are we doing to keep them safe 9:15 - How can we fix our society 11:20 What s the root cause of our problems 12:30 Why do we have a problem? 13:40 - What do we do to fix it 14:15 15:40 16:00 How do you fix it? 17:00 What s happening to our society? 18:00 Are we running out of ideas? 19:00 Why are we running our kids better than other people s lives ? 22:00 Can we fix the world ? 21:10 23:00 Do you have a voice of reason? 26:00 Is it possible? 27:30 Is there a better way to fix the problems we re running the world? Or are we in a better place than we re better than we run a better life than we are running a better country than we do that we can be better than that we run better than they do? 29:00 32:30 What s our culture better than the other way 35:00 Should we run our lives better than our kids have a better chance of living our lives? 36:00 We ve got a better idea of what s better than you re a better version of the other people do than they are living their own life? 31:00 Does it matter? 37:30 Are you a better person? 39:30 Do you want to learn how to be a better human being? 44:30 Can we be more like that?
00:00:39.000You know, you've kind of exposed a lot of it to America.
00:00:45.000You know, every year in the summer, we kind of work to reinvent ourselves about how we can tell our stories better and all that sort of thing.
00:00:55.000And we really focus on what our viewers are asking about.
00:01:00.000And I have to tell you, this year the questions really changed.
00:01:03.000You know, we still deal with human functioning, you know, marriage and family and all that.
00:01:09.000But in addition to that, the questions we got over the summer this year started really changing.
00:01:28.000Should we be going down there and seeing what they're teaching them?
00:01:34.000What's happening as far as values in this country?
00:01:38.000I mean, people started asking different questions, and so I changed everything.
00:01:43.000I used to have that studio audience out in the bleachers out there.
00:01:47.000I moved everybody on stage and we're just having a focus group every day.
00:01:52.000I got like 110 people up there in a focus group and letting them talk and ask questions because they're really concerned.
00:01:59.000And I just said, I can't take it anymore.
00:02:03.000I'm going to start talking about the social issues along with everything else because if you even took psychology in high school or you took Psych 101, One of the first fundamental principles you learned was you don't reward bad behavior.
00:02:49.000That's what happened to the supply chain.
00:02:51.000And I'm stunned that we're running this country In so many areas where we're just violating the most fundamental psychological principles that you could ever imagine.
00:03:07.000And I'm watching that happen and I say, I just can't be silent about this anymore.
00:03:12.000What do you think is the root cause of this shift?
00:03:16.000I think it's been happening gradually, but like everything, you know, it's like if you start rolling a rock downhill, it starts getting faster and faster and faster.
00:03:26.000And I think it's happened for a lot of reasons, but I think we've got a whole generation of kids that are really smart, by the way.
00:03:39.000But I think they've started living on their devices.
00:03:42.000It's kind of like along about 2007 or 8, it seems like airplanes flew over the country and just started dropping smartphones, and everybody's head went from here to here.
00:05:05.000But there's something else that I think has come along with it, and we've got a generation of what I call concierge parents that are running interference for their kids.
00:05:20.000And look, the way you learn about yourself, the way you make attributions To yourself, about yourself is the same way you make attributions about other people.
00:05:36.000You have people that you have opinions of, right?
00:05:38.000You know, you got people, friends or staff, that you watch what they do and you say, he or she is a go-to person.
00:06:10.000You know that because you've watched them do it and you make that attribution to them.
00:06:15.000That's the same way we learn about ourselves.
00:06:18.000You watch ourselves master certain tasks, overcome certain things.
00:06:24.000And if we're cheated out of that experience, we don't learn that about ourselves.
00:06:30.000And if you've got parents that are out there smoothing out all the bumps for you, then you don't learn that you can smooth out your own bumps.
00:06:38.000You don't learn that you can overcome obstacles.
00:06:40.000You don't learn that you can master your environment.
00:06:43.000And so as a result, you don't have the self-esteem.
00:06:48.000You don't make the attributions that, hey, I can do this shit.
00:06:53.000And when you don't believe you can do this shit, then you start saying, well, I don't want a meritocracy.
00:07:00.000I want everybody to just kind of go along the same.
00:07:03.000And so we started seeing in the universities You start seeing kids that are complaining that something the professor said hurt their feelings.
00:09:03.000And I think that we're coddling this whole generation, and when they get out of school and get into the world, Where that's not going to happen, they're going to be competitive, we're going to have a real problem.
00:09:23.000Because in a global economy, we're going to fall behind.
00:10:14.000So do you think this is coming from parents coddling their children, helicopter parents, those children going off to universities, universities instilling these ideas in them that they should be able to shout down ideas that they don't agree with and that everything should be comfortable and everyone should have everything they want and desire without any work.
00:10:35.000And then they go out into the workforce and they invade corporations with these same attitudes and become activists and...
00:10:44.000Well, you hear some professors that venture to say, you know, we're not getting or turning out the best and the brightest for this whole variety of reasons.
00:10:59.000And if we're not competitive, If we're not turning out the best and the brightest because we're caving, because we've got quotas to fill, or for whatever reason,
00:11:15.000then we're just, where's that going to leave us?
00:11:19.000And this wasn't caused by the pandemic.
00:11:23.000It was exacerbated by the pandemic and you know as I say you're not you're not going to get kids that have a lot of self-confidence that have a lot of self-worth that have made these attributions and right now the millennial generation is the loneliest Most emotionally impacted out
00:12:12.000It's a strange combination of factors.
00:12:18.000One of the things that disturbs me the most about it is that I don't see a way to turn it around, other than some sort of a disaster where people are forced to come together.
00:12:28.000Like, I remember the shift in the country after 9-11, and the only thing that I felt positive about was like, wow, all of a sudden America feels united.
00:12:41.000Like, there were so many people driving down the street with American flags on their cars.
00:12:46.000I mean, it was almost more than there were not in Los Angeles, which is a very liberal place.
00:12:53.000And I remember thinking, maybe things like this are important just to sort of snap people back To a healthier baseline.
00:13:05.000To put people back and to give them a perspective.
00:13:08.000Like, we are really all in this together.
00:13:11.000And if something like that does happen and it unites people and they get together and they realize, hey, we're all working together towards a goal.
00:13:21.000We want to be able to pursue our dreams and do what we want to do.
00:13:24.000And if something comes along that stops that, we have to kind of unite together to make sure we put everything back on track.
00:13:30.000So you think there has to be something to get people's attention?
00:13:33.000I worry that it has to be something big.
00:13:36.000I worry that it has to be like a war or a natural disaster, something huge.
00:13:41.000Because I think as long as you allow people to keep going, there's so much momentum in society going in the direction that we're going.
00:13:51.000People that want an equality of outcome.
00:13:54.000People that want a redistribution of wealth.
00:13:56.000But some people are waking up telling me...
00:13:58.000I saw a quote from Bono, of all people, that I read yesterday.
00:14:04.000See if you can find this, where he was talking about it when he was young.
00:14:06.000He thought that the world's problems could be solved by a redistribution of wealth, but now he realizes that healthy commerce is the way to a better society.
00:14:23.000You know, there's every cliche in the world, it works great till you run out of other people's money, you know, all of those quotes.
00:14:30.000It doesn't work, and I've encountered those people in debates that think it does.
00:14:41.000I've had people in the focus group situation that say, They shouldn't be prosecuting shoplifting because they're just going in there and taking what's rightfully theirs.
00:14:58.000They said, well, these corporations aren't paying enough, they're not paying a living wage, so they're just going in and taking what's rightfully theirs.
00:15:08.000And I'm saying, well, so, okay, if You're wanting equal outcome.
00:15:16.000No, no, I'm just wanting equal opportunity.
00:15:18.000No, no, you're wanting equal outcome because you're saying everybody should just help themselves so they all can live.
00:15:27.000What if one person spent 15 years going to college and working their butt off To acquire what I call consequential knowledge.
00:15:36.000And the other person was sitting home in a beanbag eating Cheetos for 15 years.
00:15:42.000You think they should have the same outcome.
00:17:08.000If you have a head injury, if you have someone that's injured on the job and they're having to re-educate their body, spinal injury or whatever, If you don't require that person to do everything they can do every single time they face a task,
00:17:32.000you're cheating them because they'll never get to the next level.
00:17:37.000I mean, if a paraplegic takes 11 minutes to get across a room to flip a light switch and you don't require them to do that, Then they'll never do it in 10 minutes, 9 minutes, 6 minutes, and then where they can actually do it.
00:17:53.000Now if they can't do it, they can't do it.
00:17:56.000But you need to require them to do everything they can do for themselves before you help them to do it.
00:18:04.000And we should always help them to do it, but you should let them do as much as they can do.
00:18:10.000And that's the same way with everybody in the world.
00:18:13.000They should do everything they're able to do.
00:18:17.000And if we have people on the government dole That aren't doing everything they can do to help themselves, whether they're among the homeless population or the drug population or the mentally ill population,
00:19:03.000But it seems like, especially when you're talking about, like, the homeless population, you would need so many people to work with those people because you're talking about a psychological shift, a way of viewing the world with discipline and accountability.
00:19:19.000That you're not going to just get people to adopt on their own.
00:19:24.000Most people will do the very least that they have to do.
00:19:28.000And if there's programs and different ways they can acquire money and food, they'll just stay in whatever state they're at.
00:19:36.000I was watching this video today of a guy who's in Hollywood who built a house on the street.
00:19:43.000He built a small house, and they were talking to all the people in the neighborhood about it, and they had the cops come and visit him, and they offered to take him to a shelter, and he's like, no, I don't want to go.
00:19:54.000And they go, okay, and they just leave him there.
00:20:51.000So you've got to have empathy for those people.
00:20:54.000And he may be trying to do the best he can, but you've got to create alternatives where he says, okay, look, if he's industrial enough that he's built a house on wheels and they're pirating electrical, some of them from service poles, some of them have 10-man tents,
00:21:12.000and they've got flower beds in front of them.
00:21:14.000Yeah, this guy had plants hanging out in front of his house.
00:21:19.000Now, if that guy's got that much initiative, and he could use that in other ways, find him a place where he can do that, where he can not be obstructing traffic, not be in front of somebody's business, be in an area where he can build that house,
00:21:37.000and then maybe he can inspire somebody else to do the same thing, and then maybe it starts to snowball.
00:22:40.000You're interfering with all the other people that are following society's rules.
00:22:45.000And society's rules are there to preserve everybody and keep the world cleaner and a better place.
00:22:51.000So as soon as you allow someone to violate those rules because they're down and out, and then you have more, and then they compound, and then you have thousands of tents.
00:23:01.000Now you have a problem that's almost insurmountable.
00:23:04.000And then you have a whole industry that's based around that problem because you have hundreds of people that work for the city that get paid six-figure salaries and they're not fixing anything.
00:23:14.000They get paid for the homeless, and some of them are making a quarter million dollars a year.
00:24:25.000There's still some homeless people, but if you go around Austin, you don't see the tents here that you see in LA. Well, is that out of sight, out of mind?
00:24:34.000Or is somebody going to those people in the hotels and trying to get them to be self-sufficient?
00:24:41.000I mean, you can hide the problem or you can fix the problem, and you've got to find a way to fix the problem.
00:24:46.000You've got to get these people doing everything they can do to become self-sufficient.
00:24:52.000I mean, that's the dignity they're looking for, and we're not helping them to do it if we're just taking them out of sight.
00:25:01.000But don't you think there's a massive amount Of energy and effort that has to be taken for each individual to change the way they view the world, to acquire discipline, to acquire initiative, to clean their act up, to stop doing meth and heroin,
00:25:16.000and try to get their life to a place where they're living a meaningful, rewarding life.
00:25:23.000I mean, how many people struggle with that on a daily basis?
00:25:26.000You need coaching and counseling, and you need slow, incremental steps towards acquiring a self-sufficient mentality.
00:25:34.000That's a very, very difficult thing to get people to accept en masse.
00:25:42.000The problem that I see with the approach to it now is the exit ramps out of that life are not aggressively enough.
00:25:51.000They're not being pursued aggressively enough.
00:25:54.000It's just like, what are we going to do with these people today?
00:25:57.000Let's put them in a camping area, let's put them in a hotel, let's get them off the street, or let's get rid of the rules that say they can't camp.
00:26:20.000Are you creating a contingency where if they do A, they get B, if they do B, they get C? Or do you have somebody saying, hey, listen, housing is a human right.
00:27:07.000I mean, let's make sure they're training people and hold them accountable for how many people they're getting off the street into jobs that are self-sufficient.
00:29:12.000At least it's not rancid and horrible.
00:29:16.000He's requiring more, and if they enforce that, that's a step up.
00:29:20.000Now these people will start to have a sense of A personal pride and dignity that they may not have had if they were in one of these areas that's so terrible, then it's less of a leap to say,
00:29:36.000let's start talking about job interviews at entry level and see if you can get them back into that.
00:29:44.000Because those people weren't born homeless.
00:29:58.000And so you've got to help that in some way so they can actually have the focus and the mindset to contribute something to an employer somewhere.
00:30:12.000And we're not helping this Right now in the school system, we've got a silent epidemic going on right now, and it was exacerbated by the pandemic because It's amazing how many people in America right now.
00:30:34.000I just had a woman on recently that works nationally with the education programs.
00:30:43.000And she says 130 million Americans can't read at the most basic level.
00:32:46.000So now, 44 to 64 is a C. 64 to 84 is a B. 84 to 100 is an A. You've got to drop below 24 to get an F. Now that's how they're closing the gap and pushing them on to the next grade.
00:33:04.000So if you can make an average of 30, you get a D, that's passing, you move on to the next level.
00:33:11.000So instead of fixing things, it just made it easier for people to get through.
00:33:24.000I mean, if you were a real conspiracy theorist, and you really wanted to believe that there was someone that was trying to destroy America from within, slowly, This would be the way to do it.
00:34:18.000And further to that point, I've got to say that you get to a point where you start getting scared about whether or not this is something we can come back from.
00:34:51.000If people will just take that attitude, we can really change some things that are going on here.
00:34:58.000Because I'm an incurable optimist, and I do think we can solve this problem.
00:35:03.000And we've got a lot of Kids right now that are experiencing anxiety, depression, and homelessness at the highest levels that we've had since we started keeping records of this kind of thing,
00:37:07.000And when I talk to people about negotiating, which I do a lot, the first thing I always tell people is, the first thing you should do is, let's talk about what we agree on.
00:37:21.000If we're on two sides of a table like this and we're negotiating, let's talk about what we agree on first.
00:37:26.000Because, you know, if you really spend time to do that, you're sometimes surprised at how little you really disagree on.
00:37:35.000If you get the left and the right and talk about what we agree on, everybody would agree we want America to be the number one country in the world.
00:37:42.000We want to be the leading superpower, the leading educational power, the leading in technology, everything, right?
00:38:13.000There's so many things we can agree on.
00:38:16.000And then when we say, let's talk about what we don't agree on, the next step you'd say is, how can I get the other side as much of what they want as I possibly can?
00:38:28.000That should be the second thing you should focus on because oftentimes you find we have different currencies.
00:38:34.000You might value different things than I do, so I might be able to give you everything you want.
00:38:40.000It's not likely to happen, but there's a lot I can give you because you value different things than I do, and I value different things than you do.
00:38:47.000We might be able to really help each other get what we want.
00:38:51.000And it narrows down to very little sometimes that we really disagree on and have to compromise on.
00:38:56.000But you can't do that if you're really focused on winning an argument and being a right fighter instead of saying, let's solve the problem.
00:39:06.000We can't come out of this room until we solve the problem.
00:39:14.000Kind of agreeing just with what your side beats the drum on versus this side beats the drum on instead of being commonsensical and saying, how do we solve this problem?
00:39:26.000Yeah, I think very few people are able to argue without attaching themselves to ideas.
00:39:32.000So if their idea, when they have an argument about something, if you say something that they agree with, instead of accepting that you say something they agree with, they want to fight against it because they just want to be right.
00:39:45.000You know, very few people are good at ideas Being discussed in arguments.
00:39:50.000Because the argument becomes very personal.
00:39:53.000Like, they think about their own self-worth and they attach it to being the winner of the argument.
00:39:57.000They want to use ad hominem attacks, insults, and trying to figure out a way to verbally joust with you to the point where they're successful.
00:40:07.000When people start assassinating character, it's because their ideas won't withstand challenge.
00:40:14.000This cancel culture bullshit, cancel culture should be council culture.
00:40:21.000If you say something that's offensive to my values, I should counsel with you about it, not cancel you, not get everybody to hate you.
00:40:30.000You know, you see somebody that says something on Twitter or says something in an interview that is offensive to some group, and all of a sudden you start reading the messages they get.
00:40:43.000It's like, I hope you get ass cancer and die, you son of a bitch.
00:41:30.000It's a very inhumane way for people to communicate.
00:41:33.000It's very sterilized and you can assassinate a person's character or attack them or say horrible, insulting and threatening things and you don't feel any response.
00:41:44.000Well, how many things do people type that they would not say to you in an elevator?
00:44:38.000I'm going to let both sides say what they have to say and let people make up their own minds about what they want to think and what they want to feel.
00:44:46.000Well, that's the way things are supposed to be held.
00:44:48.000That's the way things are supposed to be done.
00:44:50.000When you really want to solve a problem, you got to let both people talk and you got to figure out who's right and who's wrong.
00:44:55.000And that's why censorship is so dangerous.
00:44:58.000Because the correct answer to censorship, like this whole Kanye West thing.
00:45:02.000You know, Kanye West is being canceled by all these organizations and they're removed.
00:45:07.000The best way to handle Kanye West is the way Lex Friedman did.
00:45:10.000Have a conversation with him and correct all the things that he's saying that you think are wrong or that you think are generalizing or you think that you think are misrepresentative of the truth.
00:45:23.000But that's not the world we live in today.
00:45:25.000The world we live in today, we want to erase people if we don't agree with them.
00:45:28.000And then the problem with that is it scares people into communicating freely because they're worried that they're going to be erased next.
00:46:50.000Yeah, you can't say Mom and Dad anymore.
00:46:52.000And so, we can talk about these, but I asked the audience at one point, I said, how many of you are reluctant to raise your hand and say anything?
00:47:02.000Because I asked the audience to participate, and they do a lot.
00:48:05.000According to linguistist experts, the origin of this phrase derives from the late 1800s vaudeville era, a popular style of entertainment that included jugglers, comedians, singers, and more.
00:48:14.000The peanut gallery was the cheapest section of seats, usually occupied by people with limited means.
00:48:34.000Peanuts were a popular concession snack for vaudeville shows.
00:48:38.000Unpopular performers would often find themselves pelted with the easy-to-hurl edible projectiles.
00:48:45.000Others disagree in part with the preceding class-based rather than racial claim.
00:48:52.000They note that in the past, cheap balcony seats were often reserved for or largely made up of African American patrons.
00:48:58.000Thus, since the phrase implies the opinions expressed by those from the gallery were unsolicited, unwarranted, and unhelpful, the phrase also co-notes something negative about those giving them purported to be African Americans.
00:51:42.000Because I know like in the Congo, the entire country has the electrical infrastructure of a city the size of Austin for millions and millions of people, which is why they're so vulnerable to natural disaster and they don't have dams and they don't have electrical pumps and I always thought of first,
00:52:07.000second, third world having to do with infrastructure and technology and support systems and all that sort of thing.
00:52:15.000I always thought of it as to do with dictatorial governments and corruption.
00:52:25.000Finding things to be offensive, it's recreation for a lot of people.
00:53:18.000That's not where you're looking for something.
00:53:20.000It's where you're sitting in the line at a fast food restaurant and somebody rear ends your car and starts mocking you for being Asian, which is what happened.
00:53:30.000This wonderful family we had on the show, they wound up in a parking lot rolling on the ground getting the shit beat out of them by some guy.
00:53:39.000Okay, that's not looking for something to be offended about.
00:53:42.000It was purely because they were Asian.
00:53:46.000And maybe that's not the right I don't know.
00:53:52.000They were from the Philippines, as I recall.
00:54:13.000But picking out words to get offended about, I mean, I'm not going to get offended about ball jokes or somebody, but say, well, but you've not been oppressed.
00:54:24.000You've not, okay, I get it, but you don't have to be offended just because you can.
00:54:29.000Well, that's one of the things that social media has amplified.
00:54:33.000Social media has amplified recreational outrage and virtue signaling.
00:54:38.000And the fact that if you call out these things, you're somehow better than people that are ignoring them.
00:54:43.000If you call out these ableist terms like blindsided or whatever one you want to focus on that's ridiculous, it makes you better than the people that don't.
00:54:54.000And I just think that's not helping our issues.
00:54:59.000It's not helping what we're trying to do, which we're very divided right now.
00:55:03.000And I tell you, I did something that I thought was a really eye-opening experience for me.
00:57:52.000And when they looked at them and they couldn't say anything, they couldn't talk about their ideas, they just had to make eye contact at a human level.
00:58:01.000Every one of them said, it really changed my attitude.
00:58:31.000I just think the momentum and the way the country's going and this problem that people have with social media, because people are very addicted to social media, and I think social media definitely exacerbates the problem.
00:58:43.000And some people are recognizing it and they're trying to step away from it.
00:58:47.000And even the tech companies, they're showing you your screen time to try to let you know, give you a little indication, like, hey, maybe you're obsessing, maybe you're addicted to this, maybe take some time, go for a walk in the park, do something different.
00:59:02.000Because I know a lot of people that are exceptional.
00:59:04.000I know a lot of people that are inspirational.
00:59:07.000I know a lot of people that are truly extraordinary human beings who really help the world and just their mere presence and the way they live their life is inspiring and it opens up a lot of people's eyes to possibilities.
00:59:18.000But I'm also a realist when it comes to human nature.
00:59:23.000I like to do a lot of difficult things and one of the things that I know about difficult things is it's very hard to get people to embrace being uncomfortable and suffering and struggle.
00:59:37.000I mean like physical suffering and physical struggling.
00:59:39.000People, they seek comfort and they seek to avoid these uncomfortable moments, but That's the only way you grow.
00:59:50.000You grow physically through difficult workouts.
00:59:54.000You grow mentally through psychological struggle, through intellectual struggle, through complicated things that you have to work your way through.
01:00:05.000And there's so many people out there that avoid those things.
01:00:10.000And there's a pattern of avoiding those things.
01:00:12.000A pattern of just being complacent, being lazy, You know, finding some sort of a distraction, whether it's video games or television or social media.
01:00:24.000And it's very hard for people to break out of that.
01:00:27.000I know there's a lot of people that want to, though.
01:00:29.000Well, you know how uncomfortable cognitive dissonance is.
01:04:26.000It really does because people are accidentally dying of overdoses.
01:04:29.000It used to be if you died of an overdose, it's because you did a dangerous drug.
01:04:33.000You took a very risky chance to do something that you probably knew you shouldn't be doing.
01:04:39.000Whether it's heroin or meth or something like that.
01:04:43.000But now people are doing things they think are fairly innocuous.
01:04:46.000And it's laced with fentanyl and they're dying.
01:04:49.000Well, just across the border, just south of San Diego in October of 21, they busted a drug lab That was turning out 70 million counterfeit pills a month.
01:06:03.000And what these kids need to understand, and I want people to understand this, and I don't care if you stop listening to Joe and I talk right now and go call your kid or go call your grandkids or your friend's kids.
01:06:21.000The chance of them, first off, all these pills you're buying on Snapchat, 100% of them are counterfeit.
01:12:42.000And their estimate is that 40% of these pills that they're getting have lethal doses of fentanyl.
01:12:55.000And the ones that don't, Have enough in it that you are addicted like that.
01:13:00.000So they come back for more and more and more and more.
01:13:05.000And now there are conspiracy theorists, including a former DEA guy, that believes that China He is manufacturing this stuff, synthesizing this stuff, sending it to the Sinaloa Cartel,
01:13:20.000who's flooding it into America, and they're just trying to poison or drug Americans.
01:14:07.000Those pills look exactly like the pills that you get at the pharmacy.
01:14:11.000And what they're doing now, Joe, is they're putting them in these pastel colors.
01:14:18.000I think I sent you some of those, Jamie, in the pastel colors.
01:14:22.000They're making them look like These candies that the kids get.
01:14:28.000And kids are gonna see these things around and pick them up and think they're like sweet tarts or whatever and bite into them.
01:14:40.000If I was a parent I would go to the store and buy every kind of candy I could find, and as soon as my kids came home from trick-or-treating, I would take their pumpkin and dump it into the trash and then fill it back up with candy I knew was good and hand it back to them.
01:14:58.000I wouldn't let them take a single piece of candy from trick-or-treating because you don't know what's in there.
01:15:04.000That was always the fear, right, when we were kids?
01:15:07.000Someone's going to sneak in a razor blade to an apple or something.
01:15:10.000I saw this going around, but I heard a lot of people pushing back a couple days after this was made, major headlines.
01:15:23.000Hubbub about this viral picture because this went out the DEA was talking about it, but then I read there was like no evidence that this was real.
01:15:32.000Well, let's scroll down and see what they say in terms of...
01:15:36.000It looks like Candy, DEA Administrator Ann Milgram told CBS News, in fact, some of the drug traffickers have nicknamed it sweet tarts, skittles.
01:15:45.000The DEA alert didn't mention Halloween, but fears about rainbow fentanyl and the holiday went viral.
01:15:53.000DEA warning meets skepticism from drug experts.
01:15:56.000Drug policy experts contacted by NPR agree there's no new fentanyl threat this Halloween.
01:16:02.000Many are also skeptical of the DEA's original warning.
01:16:05.000They don't believe that Mexican drug cartels and street dealers have launched any new campaign targeting children.
01:16:10.000I don't see any evidence that the DEA has produced that supports that conjecture.
01:16:18.000I think the fact that they are making these things in pastel colors make children vulnerable to picking these things up.
01:16:26.000You want to argue over the word targeting?
01:16:30.000If a child picks up something that, you know, I said that young girl that I was talking about took three quarters of a pill, or one quarter of a pill, And three-quarters of it was left in her drawer.
01:16:46.000If she has a younger sister or something that sees that, picks it up, and it looks like candy and eats it, she's gone.
01:17:28.000My point is, if you're in school and you're studying for finals and you're not a drug addict and you think, well, one pill's not going to hurt, that's no longer true.
01:17:43.000You may be thinking, I'll get some Adderall, get me through my finals.
01:18:50.000Today on CNN, they said they arrested some, it was either CNN or Fox, one of the two, they arrested some 14-year-olds coming across the border and they had a couple of thousand pills on them.
01:21:20.000And, you know, we're talking about all these problems that we're facing in the world right now that didn't exist just a couple of decades ago.
01:21:27.000And you got to wonder a couple of decades from now, what does this look like?
01:21:35.000Yeah, it really comes down to we have big enough problems that affect all Americans that those, you were saying, is it going to take something major for us to say,
01:21:51.000you know what, we're all in this together, and I think those things are here, I just don't think they're being acknowledged.
01:22:00.000Because if I have somebody come on the show to me, they know I can't bring that child back.
01:22:08.000They know I can't stop their suffering.
01:22:30.000That's why they're talking through their tears and giving a voice to their loss because they don't want somebody else to be there tomorrow.
01:23:06.000And I really hope people hear us talking about it.
01:23:10.000Well, I'm sure people will hear it, and I think the message is getting out slowly, but it's just not being magnified enough.
01:23:20.000I mean, the crisis that we faced during COVID-19 was magnified to the point of hysteria.
01:23:31.000To the point where they're counting people dying of all sorts of diseases and calling them COVID deaths and elevating the amount of people that died to the point where people are absolutely terrified of it.
01:23:40.000If they had applied a similar attention to this, I think we could at least put a dent in it.
01:23:47.000But in terms of what the DEA is doing, in terms of what law enforcement's doing, I mean, they need more resources.
01:23:54.000They need more help to try to stop this shit from coming in.
01:24:17.000Run of pediatrics as they grow up and what affects them in later years, what happens early that affects them in later years.
01:24:29.000And he's a brilliant, brilliant scientist.
01:24:34.000And he says what's happened with He'd be a great, interesting guy for you to talk to.
01:24:45.000I've interviewed him three or four times.
01:24:50.000He says that what's happened with the handling of the pandemic is going to amount to millions of years of lives lost with these kids that are in school now.
01:25:08.000Well, what he's talking about is that because of the educational gap That's been created by the pandemic because of the social developmental gap that's been created with the competitive gap that's been created,
01:25:29.000developmental, competitive, educational, that this generation is going to lag behind.
01:25:35.000And like, for example, if you're not reading on grade level at the end of the third grade, your likelihood of dropping out is four times normal.
01:25:49.000And the reason for that is, for the first, second, and third grade, you're learning to read.
01:25:55.000From the fourth grade on, you're reading to learn.
01:25:59.000So, if you haven't learned to read in those first three years, you now don't have the tool to read to learn and so you start falling further and further behind and so your likelihood of throwing up your hands in frustration falling further behind each year and ultimately dropping out and if you're low socioeconomic It's
01:26:34.000But he's saying that these kids that got so little And lost so much in math, reading, and science during the pandemic with this remote learning, which was a disaster, that they're going to have less educational attainment,
01:26:53.000which means they're going to get lesser jobs.
01:26:59.000Lesser jobs are more dangerous jobs because they're more manual labor.
01:27:05.000They're doing construction work, things where you can get injured.
01:27:10.000They're going to have lesser insurance.
01:27:14.000And so you get less treatment, slower diagnosis, more injuries, and other factors, but as that obtains, that will take years off their life at the end.
01:27:31.000They might develop cancer, but because they have poor insurance, it might be slower to get it diagnosed, lesser treatment, so it advances further and takes years off their life.
01:27:46.000They get injured, stressed, trauma, and so it may take You know, two years, three years, four years off of each kid's life.
01:27:58.000And we've got 57 million kids in the public school system right now.
01:28:06.000Because they were saying about Los Angeles, people were criticizing the response to the pandemic in terms of remote schooling and making kids wear masks.
01:28:18.000They were saying that math scores went up.
01:28:22.000And I didn't understand how that could be possible.
01:28:27.000I haven't heard anything like that about any school system in Los Angeles, which was particularly draconian in their response.
01:28:35.000They were trying to say that math scores went up.
01:29:01.000People were arguing about this on Twitter because some pundit was talking about the response to the pandemic and how it affected school kids and, you know, all the...
01:29:42.000Well, that looks like a decline in every single chart.
01:29:44.000Yeah, math results specific here is down.
01:29:46.000Yeah, in every one of them, in every county, there's a decline, a very noticeable decline from 2019 to 2022. So what the fuck are these people talking about?
01:29:55.000I'll check Twitter and see if I can find what they're talking about.
01:30:31.000And I was watching MSNBC and they were trying to say, well, I mess up sometimes when I talk and, you know, I misspeak and I stumble on my words.
01:31:08.000I haven't done any testing on Fetterman or President Biden, but it seems to me that President Biden is not at his best and that Federman is not at his best.
01:31:49.000But why did they think that they could put him out there on a huge stage like that?
01:31:55.000There's interviews before that showed this, where he used a teleprompter during interviews, where when he was asked questions, he was allowed to look at a screen and read his responses off, and even then he struggled.
01:32:10.000He struggled to form coherent sentences while having the responses to each individual question laid out for him in a way that he could read.
01:34:05.000And to force him into this sort of a situation while he's rehabilitating, I mean, you would be able to speak to this better than me.
01:34:12.000I would think that this would be counter to any rehabilitative...
01:34:17.000You know, treatments that he can have.
01:34:19.000It's high stress, public, humiliating.
01:34:24.000Well, stress is the worst possible thing that you can do when you're trying to recover from some kind of brain event like this.
01:34:37.000I don't know what kind of stroke he had.
01:34:39.000I don't know what part of the brain it was in.
01:34:41.000But I can tell you, you want to give the brain an opportunity to recover and And I don't know what his age is, but there's something called neuroplasticity.
01:34:54.000And that doesn't go up with age, it goes down.
01:34:57.000And you need to have time to recover and let different parts of the brain take over for parts of the brain that maybe have been impaired.
01:35:30.000And they talk about President Biden all the time.
01:35:33.000I mean, he's 80. And he does make a lot of gaffes.
01:35:41.000I hope I'm that well at 80. But I don't know that I would...
01:35:48.000I don't want that much stress of a job at 80. At 80 I hope I'm out fishing or something.
01:35:54.000But I think when I hear people spin certain things like that from my standpoint that has in the past assessed cognitive functioning I just shake my head and say What are you talking about?
01:37:20.000But among the 50 states and 26 large city districts, it was the only place to post such gains on the exams, according to a federal analysis.
01:37:27.000The data was so good, the Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Cavallo referring to his district results.
01:37:34.000It bodes very well for our LA and is really a testament to our strategy.
01:38:41.000I don't think anybody would disagree that we have a gap.
01:38:44.000And the only way to close that gap is to put in the extra work.
01:38:50.000And the only way to put in the extra work is to put in the time.
01:38:56.000And what's going to have to happen is we're going to have to change the school calendar.
01:39:01.000And the kids are going to have to go to school during the summer, and they're going to have to have very concentrated focus protocol on reading and math and science.
01:39:12.000And if I was a kid, I would hate to hear what I'm saying because I lived for summer, waited to get out of there so we could go do nothing.
01:40:08.000They're just getting anybody, not just anybody, but they're getting people in there.
01:40:13.000Their theory is they're bringing in experts from computer technology and bringing in people from Microsoft and different areas to teach with their special knowledge.
01:40:25.000But I have a hard time thinking that somebody making seven figures at Microsoft is going to stop that and come teach for An average of four or five dollars an hour when you compute a teacher's time in the classroom.
01:40:40.000The theory doesn't bode well for what you find online.
01:40:43.000I'm sure you saw that teacher in the shop class in Washington State that had the giant rubber boobs.
01:41:27.000But if that's rubber prosthetic breasts that a biological male is strapping on like a Halloween costume and going in and teaching kids while wearing a mask, that's crazy.
01:41:43.000Well, they're defending it because they're afraid not to.
01:41:47.000Yeah, which is – I mean, what has to happen?
01:41:51.000Do they have to be afraid to defend it?
01:41:53.000Does it have to be something where there's consequences to defend it, where people start pulling their kids out of classes and defunding the school?
01:42:00.000Like, what has to happen to let people know that, hey, you've gone way too far into crazy town?
01:42:07.000Well, what happens is phobic has become a suffix.
01:42:16.000And so you say, okay, if you don't defend that, you are transphobic.
01:42:35.000And I think that does not make common sense.
01:42:40.000I think you've got the tail wagging the dog and you're putting an individual's interest ahead of the group of children.
01:42:48.000What's fascinating, too, is that it's a small percentage of the population that's engaging in this sort of activity, and they're shifting culture because people have this fear of going against them.
01:42:59.000It's not the majority of people think that this makes sense.
01:43:06.000I can't believe that person, whoever that person is, thinks it makes common sense.
01:44:09.000One of the girls who threw the soup at the Van Gogh the other day, Patrick Bette David interviewed her, and he goes, may I ask your pronouns?
01:44:30.000The other one was they, them, and this one girl was she, he, they.
01:44:40.000This is the kind of logic that a person would throw soup on an incredibly valuable piece of art and then glue themselves to a wall to make a statement.
01:44:52.000You could be everything you want to be, kids.
01:44:56.000Well, my question, I guess, for anyone that would be watching this is, is there a point That would be too far.
01:45:10.000Is there a point where the transgender community or the school or anybody would agree that something has gone too far, that now the children's interest has been violated,
01:45:38.000I think the people want to be able to choose how they want to be represented, how they identify, and they should have full freedom to do that in any way, shape, or form.
01:45:49.000Non-binary, he, she, they, they, them, all norms should be cast out.
01:46:00.000Well, I would just ask that question in that situation, because I think, does that not disrupt the learning process?
01:46:10.000It does because it gives people extraordinary amounts of attention for something very simple.
01:46:14.000You just decide you want to be recognized as this, and you make everybody else change the way they view you and communicate with you.
01:46:22.000You are now a they-them, which is plural.
01:47:45.000I believe that There have to be people on both sides of that issue who would say, is this in the best interest of this segment of the population?
01:48:19.000Respected and have their rights protected and to fit into the mainstream and flow with what's going on and to do something like this kind of example.
01:48:39.000I can't believe that there aren't people on both sides of that issue would say, this isn't helping the discourse.
01:48:56.000It's making it about this one person and detracts from the dialogue about saying is there some common ground here that everybody can live with, be who they want to be, and move on.
01:52:07.000A real leadership in this country where someone stands out and says things like that and then offers up logical, rational solutions that maybe can affect and change the way people view these things.
01:53:33.000If you listen to the FBI and you listen to their negotiators, if somebody's taken hostages, they will tell you That the number one predictor of whether somebody is going to release their hostages or not is if they believe that you have heard and understood why they took those hostages to begin with.
01:54:00.000Particularly if it's for political, ideological reasons or whatever.
01:54:07.000You can come in there and what do you want?
01:54:09.000But until they believe that you actually understand Why they took them to begin with.
01:55:26.000That's a great thought to put out there.
01:55:30.000And that's something that very few people, even when they're saying things to people, they don't think about how the other person is receiving that.
01:55:39.000One of the things that people love to say to people, they love to say, shut the fuck up.
01:55:43.000No one hears shut the fuck up and wants to shut the fuck up.
01:55:48.000But if you tell someone, the way you're talking to me right now makes me not want to listen to you because you're being insulting and you're expressing something in a way that makes me think that you don't care about me, so why should I care about you?
01:56:04.000And if they're rational, maybe they'll say, okay, you tell me what you think and I'll tell you what I think.
01:56:10.000And let's try to find some sort of comfortable middle ground.
01:56:13.000Let's try to find things that we do agree on.
01:56:17.000And we have to teach people to think and talk like that.
01:56:19.000Well, the biggest giveaway is if they start talking the second you stop, because that means they weren't listening to you while you were talking.
01:56:27.000They were thinking of what they were going to say when you quit.
01:56:46.000But if they're, the second you finish talking, they say, but, no, you weren't, you were forming what you were going to say while I was talking.
01:56:54.000You weren't listening to what I was saying.
01:57:09.000If you've got six or seven talking points and you're going to spit them out no matter what the hell they say, yeah, you can come back right quick.
01:57:15.000But if you're going to really listen to what they have to say and weigh it, take it apart, unpack that, and then respond, you've got to hear what they had to say.
01:57:24.000And you've got to do it with minimal ego, which is very difficult for people.
01:57:28.000Because as we were saying before, people attach themselves to winning an argument.
01:57:31.000And whatever their position is, they identify with that.
01:57:53.000You might agree with that idea and believe in that idea, or you might be educated by someone's perspective that's counter to that idea that makes you reassess.
01:58:05.000You've got to be open to that, just as a human being.
01:58:10.000You said something really smart in there, because I was listening.
01:58:14.000You said something really smart in there, and it goes even beyond what you said.
01:58:18.000You said you can't be married to an idea.
01:58:21.000You sure as hell can't be married to an idea or a group who has ideas, some of which you may like and some of which you don't like, because you've got to be willing to say, you know what?
01:58:39.000You have some really good points here, and I can agree with those, and we can move a little closer together here.
01:58:52.000And I hate it when people say, but, because but means, forget everything I just said, I'm going to now tell you what I really think.
01:58:58.000Like, hey, that was a great point, but...
01:59:02.000But means that wasn't really a great point.
01:59:04.000Now I'm going to tell you what I really think about what you said.
01:59:08.000If people will really decide, look, I have some things that if we can agree with what each other is saying,
01:59:24.000independent of everything that's behind it, And just talk about right now, what's between us right now, then we could maybe come up with a whole new point of view that doesn't have anything to do with your party, your party,
01:59:42.000People are going to listen to what you and I have been talking about today.
01:59:46.000And some people are going to listen to it and say, hey, you know, these are two friends talking and they've kind of gone through some stuff and And then there are going to be people that are going to sit down, and they're going to transcribe this, and they're going to try to find ways to pick at it,
02:00:03.000attack it, and then there will be headlines tomorrow.
02:00:15.000It does good for them because it gets them to, you know, there's a lot of people listening, right?
02:00:19.000And a lot of people that are listening, they disagree and they don't have a voice.
02:00:24.000That's why I understand those articles.
02:00:25.000What I don't understand is when people take things out of context or they abbreviate, they chop it up and take a slice of it and misrepresent the entirety.
02:00:37.000of the conversation, where you're trying to find solutions and you're trying to work through things and look at it from all sorts of different sides and say, what do we do?
02:00:49.000And some people have differing opinions on that and they don't have a voice right now.
02:00:53.000And the problem with Writing something is that it's a very singular voice, and you get to write only the things that you think are going to be suitable to this argument that you're trying to make.
02:02:13.000I've seen them do it in the homeless situation with people I've had on the show that I happen to know Are very compassionate about those experiencing homelessness, very compassionate about trying to find answers here in Austin.
02:02:32.000And they pick one sentence they said and just tear their ass up.
02:02:36.000And they just really alienate a big ally that could help them a lot.
02:04:06.000Like if you tell me that LA's school district just knocked it out of the park, you better have some numbers to support that if you expect me to stand up and salute it.
02:04:16.000That seems like a self-serving narrative to me.
02:04:18.000While looking at those charts, that steep downward decline from 2019 to 2021, it seems like the pandemic in terms of the educational system in particular was mishandled by everybody.
02:04:30.000And if you're saying that L.A. did a good job in bumping it up past what other people have done since then, that's okay, but that doesn't mean that they haven't mishandled the pandemic as well.
02:04:39.000You can't change what you don't acknowledge.
02:04:41.000And if they're telling themselves that all of those kids in the L.A. school district are right there where they need to be, that's just not telling themselves the truth.
02:04:55.000And it's also not serving the best interest of the students, which is to try to, like, a good narrative would be, we've made some progress, but clearly there's been a sharp decline in averages of scores, and we need to do something to bring it back to baseline and elevate it past where it was in particular,
02:05:14.000because it wasn't substantial already.
02:05:17.000You were talking about the decline in scores over the past decade or so already.
02:06:04.000They're not trained in how to engage those kids remotely.
02:06:08.000The kids don't know how to learn remotely and think about where you've got three or four kids in a one bedroom apartment in Philadelphia or Chicago or Dallas or somewhere and they've got a Right.
02:06:43.000The Wi-Fi is freezing and going off and there's big gaps.
02:06:49.000And also kids get so easily distracted.
02:06:53.000It's so hard to get them engaged already when you're making them sit in the classroom.
02:06:57.000When they're sitting alone in their room and they're bored and lonely and they just want to go play with their friends and they're not even allowed to do that.
02:07:05.000Yeah, and they got a little Xbox over here on the side as they were playing.
02:08:23.000Economically, Florida and some of the states that let things open, they had substantially lower rates of attrition in terms of people moving out of the states, in terms of businesses closing.
02:08:36.000There's definitely states that handled that better, and those are the states that people are moving to.
02:08:41.000But in terms of education, I haven't heard any examples of someone who did it in a way that people are applauding or pointing to an example of how this is how we should handle this in the future because this state did it the right way.
02:08:57.000This is just looking at test scores and this is specifically about Los Angeles and trying to find out what they use for this data is not easy.
02:09:10.000I clicked on the link for the original article and it took me to buying a paywall so I'm trying to find another way.
02:09:15.000Is there any articles that say that there's a state or a city that did it better than anybody else?
02:09:22.000Well the end of this article is bringing up Florida and I'm trying to read why.
02:09:35.000They reached out to someone in Florida.
02:09:36.000But as I'm reading it, I see that it says eighth grade scores fell.
02:09:41.000Students scored an average of 241 out of possible 500 in fourth grade math.
02:09:49.000They earned higher scores this year in NAEP tests than those in Los Angeles, but saw more declines.
02:09:57.000Across Florida, 8th grade scores fell, but students scored an average of 241 out of a possible 500 in 4th grade math above the national public school average of 235, and an average of 225 in 4th grade reading above the national average of 216. Mr. Diaz said,
02:10:14.000maintaining the optimum of in-person learning contributed to the proficiency levels in Florida, especially for lower performing students, and enabled the state to close achievement gaps between subgroups and students.
02:10:26.000You'd have seen tremendous differences in those categories for our students had there been another governor and other lockdown policies put in place.
02:10:34.000So they're using that data to point that in-school learning in Florida showed less of a decline.
02:10:41.000That's probably one of the only places that had it, right?
02:10:44.000It says Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. said the decision in his state to open districts for in-person instruction in the fall of 2020 was enthusiastically received by families at the time.
02:12:39.000And then the pandemic just blocked them even further.
02:12:42.000And then there's also the problem with, you know, people saying, well, you should move to a place where, you know, they're handling this better.
02:12:48.000But there's a lot of people out there that don't have the means.
02:14:59.000Their certain level of interaction, participation, certain moods, certain verbalizations, certain interest in activities.
02:15:08.000You got to watch that baseline and if they depart from that baseline, That's when you need to pay attention.
02:15:15.000Now, kids are up and down, so I'm not talking about if they're a little moody on Tuesday versus Monday.
02:15:20.000But if they start not wanting to go to school, they start withdrawing from everything, they start regressing in their behavior, things they used to be competent at, all of a sudden they're not competent anymore, they get clingy, whiny.
02:15:40.000They just start really falling off that baseline across time.
02:15:47.000That's when you want to really pay attention because they very well may be getting bullied.
02:15:54.000And if your child, you start hearing them make jokes at other people's expense, somebody that was around is all of a sudden excluded, they start showing up with things you didn't buy them, you know,
02:16:09.000book bags or any paraphernalia from school or whatever, your child might be bullying somebody.
02:16:17.000And you need to find out on either end because I did a show just last week.
02:16:25.000A girl was a terrific young woman involved in elite hockey, girls hockey.
02:16:32.000I mean national ranked team elite hockey.
02:18:05.000And her parents were just heartbroken.
02:18:10.000Did they talk to any of the children that were involved in the bullying?
02:18:14.000They dug into it and as soon as it happened, some of the other members on the team, because all the messages had been erased, but as it was happening, some of the other members on the team We screenshotted those and kept them and sent them to the parents and said,
02:18:40.000And so a lot of those girls have now been suspended from the leagues and all this league play and everything because they were a nationally ranked team.
02:18:49.000And they would have never known if those girls hadn't screenshotted those messages that they were sending around to everybody and send them to the parents.
02:19:09.000There was an instance in one of my daughters when she was 10 where one of the friends of her friend was getting bullied by this one girl, and they got copies of the text messages and gave it to the mom, and the mom didn't want to believe it.
02:19:25.000And they had to say to the mom, like, look, here's real clear evidence of horrible things your kid is saying to this other kid.
02:19:34.000And this mother was sort of delusional and just didn't want to think that her kid was capable of this.
02:19:55.000People like getting an effect from other people.
02:19:58.000And when people are angry at people, especially young kids, they'll formulate sentences in a way that can have the most impact and be the most mean possible.
02:20:08.000Especially if they see that kind of talk in their house.
02:20:10.000Like maybe if the parents are insulting and scream at each other and say horrible things to each other.
02:22:19.000If you've got somebody local that's not doing their job, you should find that out and vote their dead ass out of office.
02:22:28.000If you've got a judge who's not putting violent criminals behind bars, vote their ass off the bench.
02:22:36.000If you've got a water commissioner that's not cleaning the water, if you've got county commissioners that aren't doing their job, find out and vote them in or out.
02:23:31.000If you want to have an impact, it starts there.
02:23:34.000I think so many people are so committed to their party, so committed to their ideology that all they want, they think, well, maybe this part, they're not good at this, but at least they're on my side.
02:24:34.000How frustrating is it for you, because you have this show that's based around having discussions, common sense, and sort of getting to the bottom of things, and you're very good at it, but it seems like the wheels are off the wagon,
02:24:52.000and it's just, it doesn't, do you feel like, do you feel frustrated at times?
02:24:58.000Do you feel like it's not having an effect?
02:25:26.000But, you know, I have a friend that Has a problem with a daughter that was in college up north, and they tried to get some help, and they went and sat for five hours at the hospital, waited, and nobody came.
02:25:44.000Went the next day, waited six hours, social worker came in, filled out a few little forms, and then said to be back, came back.
02:25:55.000And didn't want to bother me, but then Colin said, hey, I hate to bother you, but I'm really worried.
02:26:03.000And so I said, well, you know, come out here and let's get this done.
02:26:07.000And, you know, I got DNA tests and brain scans and all kinds of stuff and found out what was going on.
02:26:13.000You know, we got a plan and a program and everything's underway at this point.
02:26:19.000Most people, this is a very affluent guy and a very intelligent daughter.
02:26:26.000It's hard for people out there to know, what are you going to, just go on the internet and look up mental health and find a psychologist or whatever?
02:26:40.000What to do and it's hard sometimes to find your way through the maze and so I do think over the last 20 years I've been delivering common sense usable information to people's house houses every day for free that gives them kind of a road map through this stuff and I think it has had an impact on a lot of people and I think it's lessened some of the stigma About mental health.
02:27:09.000I don't think I've revolutionized the country on mental health, but I think it's made a dent, maybe, in that it's okay to talk about some of this stuff.
02:27:22.000I taught them some of the questions to ask when I get in front of somebody.
02:27:27.000But yeah, sometimes I really get frustrated because it kind of goes in one ear and out the other.
02:27:37.000But I just resolve to keep charging at Machine Gun Nest.
02:27:51.000We're still dealing with the same family and dynamics and all.
02:27:57.000And this year, because some of the questions have changed, they're dealing with some of these issues like school shooters, school curriculums, internet bullying, things like that.
02:28:10.000There are different challenges and that's revitalized me.
02:28:20.000And I was very excited to start this season because I think we've lost our way as a society.
02:28:51.000We can fix this, and I don't care what people say.
02:28:56.000I'm bringing both sides of these issues, and I'm telling the stories through families and its impact, and I think it's working.
02:29:05.000I feel good about it, and our audience feels good about it, so I like what I'm doing.
02:29:09.000I like what we're doing this season, and we're still dealing with the same family values that we've always dealt with.
02:29:15.000I like the fact that you are adjusting things, too.
02:29:18.000Like you said, well, let's change this into sort of a town hall type deal, a focus group, and let's reach out and talk to people and try to get more opinions.
02:29:29.000Yeah, and they go back and forth and I try to show them how to find some common ground and that models it for the rest of the people.
02:29:40.000I hope it's going to have an impact because I'm going to keep swinging.
02:35:02.000I was at dinner with these friends in Dallas last night, Jamie Ribbon and his wife Darcy, and he was telling me that, was it Moore's Law, that everything compresses and doubles up and everything.
02:35:17.000And he was talking recently about how long it would take to fill up Lake Michigan if it was empty.
02:35:24.000If you started with like a half an ounce of water or something like that, then how long do you think it would be?
02:37:25.000We don't even know what they call those anymore.
02:37:27.000They're wherever the kids go, and they've learned their patterns, and they know what their favorite What songs are, what their favorite interests are, what their jargon is.
02:37:40.000They can mimic a 14-year-old just as well as anything and they prey upon them.
02:37:50.000And the fact that they post pictures and stuff that are there forever.
02:37:56.000And you tell them and tell them and tell them and they still You know, that predator will steal a picture off the dark net of some 14-year-old guy and send it to the girl,
02:40:09.000I would hope he does something constructive with it.
02:40:11.000Well, hopefully to encourage people to do what we're talking about here and actually communicate and exchange ideas and not just insult each other and keyboard bully.
02:40:24.000You know, I just hope people take away from what we're talking about what you said in the beginning without having to have some catastrophic nuclear strike or something.