But ... WHY Are Progressives Less Happy？
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Summary
In this episode, we re revisiting a topic that we ve covered before, but with new evidence. Why are Progressives so unhappy when contrasted with conservatives? And why is it that they have more anxiety and depression than conservatives?
Transcript
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Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today.
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Today, we are going to be revisiting a topic that we have talked about before,
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but with a different question and with some new evidence,
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which is why are progressives so unhappy when contrasted with conservatives?
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And this is something that's been very persistent.
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Since Pew started recording polling on progressives and Democrats,
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progressives have been unhappy, but it's gotten sharper recently.
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And you also see many more mental health problems among progressives.
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If you want us to just shower you with data on this.
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If we find out what makes them so miserable, maybe we can save them.
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Federal scientists are working around the clock to probe its secrets.
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They have videos on YouTube with like hundreds of thousands of millions of views
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saying that the bugs were in the right, that the Federation was evil,
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that this was a false flag attack, that the Federation deserves to be destroyed.
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And by the way, we know it's not a false flag attack because we saw the asteroid hit the
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Ticonderoga, the big spaceship, outside our solar system, meaning that it had to come
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You should watch our Starship Troopers episode if you care about how we know it's not a false
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But in this episode, we're going to be going over a post from Mike Peska and Nate Silver
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titled, What Explains the Liberal-Conservative Happiness Gap?
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And he goes over a few graphs that I hadn't seen before.
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And what these graphs do is they look at demographically where the gap is biggest.
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And from that, and just so people know of these people's political...
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Like, Nate Silver is a very mainstream, centrist pollster.
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And so I'd be very interested to see his views on this as somebody who's not going to
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have the, you know, charged conservatives perspective that we're going to have.
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Although he has been attacked by the left, one of the reasons being that he called Trump
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He just said, it's really possible, and we need to stop saying it's only a 1% or 2% chance.
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But they never went back on saying he needed to be deplatformed.
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Yeah, they defenestrated him for saying that it was a very real possibility.
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And this is one of the areas where my, you know, believing the left really began to
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broke, and I began to move, where I was just like, wait, so you are all lying?
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And when I think that this is also really different, you know, like the left, everyone was lying
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and everyone was just like, okay, it's all over under the bus.
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Right now, with the Epstein files, we've even gone over why Trump is probably actually
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keeping them quiet in an episode, and his own side is just like, nope.
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Like, at a Trump rally recently, like one of his supporters held up a picture of Trump
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and Epstein together, you know, and they're like, nope, you actually gotta explain this.
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Why didn't you release those files that everyone said existed?
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Young people in general report fairly miserable mental health with rates of anxiety and depression,
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but this is particularly true for young women, and assumptions Democrats make about how to
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Still, arguably, the SBSQ buried the most interesting finding, which is that conservatives
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have a much higher level of self-reported mental health than liberals.
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It's a wide gap, according to the 2020 Comparative Election Study, CES, a very large sample of
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60,000 respondents that provides the opportunity for highly detailed demographic analysis among
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people who report, quote-unquote, excellent mental health.
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Like, yeah, well, well over double the rate of liberals at that category.
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Even if you've doubled the number of liberals in that category, it would only be 40 to 51.
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Just liberals do not have excellent mental health.
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But liberals outnumber conservatives 45 to 19 among voters who say they have poor mental
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That means even if you doubled the conservative number there, you know, you would still be
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at 38 to 45 with liberals having way poorer mental health.
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Is this a product of, I remember, for example, when pharmaceutical companies tried to introduce
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antidepressants to Japan, they also had to introduce the concept of depression because
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Is this more a product of conservatives just not believing in poor mental health the same
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Progressives are going to say this, but the reality is, is that if you look at the studies
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around this, if you do not believe in mental health problems, you typically are not susceptible
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Is it like they don't believe in the demons, so the demons cannot possess them?
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What a progressive would say is, well, they're reporting their mental health as excellent,
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Oh, like you're just, you just don't realize that you're dealing with unrealized trauma.
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They just need to go see a psychiatrist and then they'd have it all fixed up.
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Back when they were still progressives on X, they used to say things like that all the
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Like talk about like the unaddressed mental issues that we undoubtedly have.
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They say it's not that conservatives have way lower mental health issues.
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They'd say it's that they just do not acknowledge the issues that they do have.
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And I do not think that the data suggests that when you look at things like happiness
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Conservatives clearly understand the concept of being unhappy.
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Well, I mean, I think it's also just like obviously true.
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When you think of the people you know, and like we have a high performing friends on both
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And most of the high performing friends that we have who are progressives have what I would
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consider as self-imposed major mental health issues.
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And the ones we have that are conservatives have almost none.
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But I'm going to put the chart on the screen here.
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So you can get an idea of just like how extreme the differences are between these two groups
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Could this reflection reflect a spurious correlation?
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In other words, that voters whose characteristics associated with low happiness tend to be attracted
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to liberalism, but that political attitudes themselves don't tell you much on their own.
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The difference between liberals and conservatives is remarkably persistent, even once you control
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I'm going to show you a very long chart where I translated the five choices that the CES
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provided to a hundred point scale, zero for poor mental health, 25 for fair, 50 for good,
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The average American self-reports at 60 on this scale.
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In other words, somewhere between good and very good mental health.
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But liberals average at 53 and conservatives at 68.
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I'm just going to ignore moderates for the rest of this post because they're predictably
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Taking advantage of the large sample size in the CES, let's see how this difference holds
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up across a wide array of demographic and political characteristics.
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And note here that I guess this is why I hadn't seen it because he's translating the data
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And I'm going to send you some pictures of this so you can also try to find interesting
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So the reason I wanted to do this is because I wanted to go over where some of these are
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bigger and smaller because this is what we can understand the susceptibility.
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This is happiness here, by the way, not mental health.
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So we're trying to understand what is it specifically, like what demographics seem to be most exposed
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to this gap when you differentiate out their conservative versus liberal voters.
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And I would note here was in literally no demographic is this trend opposite.
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And so this actually really matters because somebody might say something like, well, I
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mean, clearly if you're gay and you're around all gay people and you want gay lovers, you're
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going to be less happy with your life if you're a conservative gay person, right?
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Because, you know, presumably your friends are going to be less approving of you.
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You're not going to be satisfied with yourself.
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And we see that this is actually not true, not even close.
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The gays on the progressive side were at a 49 and the conservatives who were gay were
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So not even close to the same level of happiness.
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So even if you were part of one of these quote unquote discriminated groups, you see
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If you're a progressive, 68 if you're a conservative.
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What's interesting here, women seem to benefit more from men, happiness-wise, by being conservative.
00:10:24.520
If you're looking at race, who is it that benefits the most by being conservative?
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White people benefit the most from being conservative.
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No, white people benefit about as much as Hispanic or Asian because look, their top happiness
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So white people, Hispanics, and Asians all benefit about the same, whereas other are mixed
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benefits by far the most, and black benefits the least by about half, which is really interesting.
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I think that of progressives, black progressives are the most distinctive from the urban monoculture.
00:11:05.000
Like, they're more likely to maintain their views around, like, being gay is bad and, like,
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So I think it's just resistance to the urban monoculture that we're seeing here.
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What you're showing here is what's causing this.
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This is the hypothesis we're going with right now.
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The more seeped in the urban monoculture, this is the culture of the urban elites, the
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more affected a group is going to be by going from left to right.
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The less affected by the urban monoculture, the more it's a sign that they are exiting
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the urban monoculture to identify as a rightist, the more positively they will be affected
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It is the older generations, like the silent generation.
00:12:03.340
That would work with the urban monocultural theory.
00:12:05.960
Because Gen Z is going to be more exposed to the urban monoculture than the silent generation
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I mean, the liberals of silent generation that was born before 1964 is at the same position
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basically as the most conservative of Gen X, which was born from 1965 to 1980.
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The conservative Gen Zs are less happy than the progressive silent generation.
00:12:48.420
So again, we're going with the urban monocultural hypothesis, less exposure to the urban elite
00:12:55.240
So you would expect, okay, no high school or just high school.
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They're the least affected by far where, you know, some college, four-year degree, post-grad
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are all about the same in terms of how affected they are.
00:13:06.160
What's also notable here is the more education you get, the happier you are.
00:13:09.580
In this graph, if you've noted that, like with both groups, with a high school degree
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only, conservatives with a high school degree only are only slightly more happy than progressives
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All the good it does you to be more happy, but I'm just pointing out here.
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I guess this is helpful in that if you want to stay a progressive, you can look at least
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at factors that correlate with less depression on the progressive end.
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But let's go to the household income here, which I also find really interesting.
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Those with the least outcome, household income and the most household income appear to be
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This also aligns with me because you can have the power to resist the urban elite mindset
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more when you have a high amount of income and you can just ignore it if you have a low
00:14:03.120
What's really interesting about this as well is that happiness goes up pretty much lock
00:14:08.060
in step with income, but note the top income level here is a hundred K.
00:14:12.840
Now, what I find interesting is while happiness goes up lock step with income, having the gap
00:14:20.860
in happiness is so high that your average family with less than 30 K household income is that
00:14:29.320
is conservative is exactly as happy as your average family with over a hundred K income, who is progressive.
00:14:35.760
I kind of feel like also progressives are way more likely to be urban.
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And if you're loving, let's say you, you make a hundred K, but you live in Manhattan, you,
00:14:50.640
Whereas if you are conservative and you live in rural Idaho, it's our children that are
00:14:57.980
Titan last night insisting that an apple was a lollipop.
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Our daughter likes to eat like apples and bread.
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Like she eats lollipops or she just, she makes no problem.
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You don't, it won't be consumed that you can't lick an apple and get anything or bread.
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But it's, it's telling when you look at the religion section, that just being religious
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means you're going to be happier than if you're not religious.
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It also is, you're happier if you're a Protestant or a Catholic than other named religion, i.e.
00:15:44.420
But what's interesting here about religion is that the, the religious categories are
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Catholics have a very small gap between the progressives and the conservatives.
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Because you see a much larger gap on the atheist and agnostic category.
00:16:03.820
Also fun to note here that if you are an atheist and you are conservative, you have the, around
00:16:11.500
the same happiness level as a Protestant or Catholic who is progressive.
00:16:17.000
I mean, also this, this explains why birth rates are so low among, well, another reason
00:16:23.040
why they're so low among progressives because marriage and children, if you are, if you're
00:16:29.780
married and you're conservative, you're, you're pretty freaking happy.
00:16:36.880
So married or in a domestic partnership in your conservative, your happiness rate is
00:16:46.980
That means that conservatives who are married are like nearly ecstatic, which, which is,
00:16:52.240
which is wild to me actually to see how high that is.
00:16:56.940
Now the unmarried or separated seem to have a wider divide between them, but I don't know
00:17:00.240
if that's like more exposure to urban monoculture.
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What's interesting though, is, is if you're conservative and you have children who are
00:17:08.500
grown, like you're an empty nester, you are significantly more happy than if you are
00:17:13.060
conservative and you have children under 18 in the household.
00:17:16.460
I think there's just like, they're actually, it's, it's a pretty close rate.
00:17:20.280
56 versus 65 with 65 being conservatives, 56 progressives.
00:17:25.100
The, I think there, there is stress of raising kids.
00:17:29.240
And I think that's reflected in these numbers, which is interesting.
00:17:32.140
Well, what's interesting here to me is that the never had children category, progressives
00:17:42.380
Gosh, this really goes to show like being a dink is probably not going to predict a lot
00:17:49.500
I mean, if you look at this, it's the lowest little rates.
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The only thing that could make you more miserable is to be bisexual, but you're probably.
00:17:57.640
What can make you more miserable is to be a Gen Z progressive.
00:18:01.280
That's, that's, that's slightly more miserable.
00:18:03.680
We'll get to the bisexual one in a bit because that number is staggering.
00:18:08.500
But aren't like so many Gen Zs, childless, bisexual, non-religious.
00:18:15.560
We're just saying here that the, the two number one ways to be unhappy is to be a progressive
00:18:22.520
And then, wait, how do you top the conservative on this chart?
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The top conservatives on this chart are conservatives earning 70, a hundred K a year who have a post
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graduate degree are in the silent generation of grown children or have children or are just
00:18:41.080
But now we're going to go to sexual orientation.
00:18:44.120
So you can say like, okay, if you are like, like which group between its progressive faction
00:18:50.860
and its conservative faction, is this most likely to be a sign of exposure to the urban
00:18:57.240
Like, yeah, like agreeing with urban monocultural norms, but I'd say sexual orientation.
00:19:01.660
And this is where you see by far the largest line in the entire chart in terms of distribution
00:19:09.840
And that is around bisexual or other progressive.
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So even on like the, the medium high end of this, this chart, whereas progressives, it's
00:19:25.360
the lowest number on the chart by about 10 points.
00:19:30.580
And people can be like, what do I mean by this?
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If you are a progressive, um, other or, or bisexual identified individual, you're almost
00:19:43.500
Like everyone I see just because it's an opt-in identity for them.
00:19:46.140
If you are a conservative and you have one of these identities, it likely means that like
00:19:50.360
you're just actually bisexual, but like you do not want to engage with the rest of this
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Like, so you are going to be uniquely steeled against the rest of this nonsense, or you're
00:20:04.440
So I've heard a lot of like Christian women be like, yeah, I'm attracted to women.
00:20:11.860
I wonder if bisexual is, is more a way of, okay, like I am actually gay or lesbian, but
00:20:20.900
Like, do you think a lesbian woman or gay man who chooses to enter a heterosexual marriage
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They often just say I'm gay, but I want to do this.
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Is this more like, okay, suppose like Grimes who has talked about wanting to convert to
00:20:42.060
Catholicism occasionally or like various forms of Christian.
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And then she did that and she became a conservative.
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Like she's not going to ignore, you know, her arousal patterns or her past or something.
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Interestingly, don't see like that huge of a boost if you're gay or lesbian, but I assume
00:21:02.680
And here I'd also note that these, these groups who, you know, your progressive would
00:21:08.640
say, you know, you're trans or you're gay or you're bisexual person who is in
00:21:13.680
conservatives and in conservative sexual circles and sees themselves as a
00:21:16.360
conservative eye is going to like themselves less.
00:21:19.580
And we can be like, that's objectively not true.
00:21:29.460
So this is what I mean when I say at the end of the day, the conservative party really
00:21:37.820
This was coined by JD Vance in that speech at the.
00:21:45.540
You know, they have the, the, the mid thing during the campaign cycle or everyone gets
00:21:49.800
together and they do all the important speeches and he.
00:21:57.720
He's like, I bet even the majority of normal gays support Republicans these days or something.
00:22:03.020
Well, I will say like the conservative gays that we know are pretty frigging happy people.
00:22:10.260
And when I, I follow a bunch of progressive gays online and you know, they talk about how
00:22:16.560
they have to not look at any commentary about them online.
00:22:19.380
Cause it would be too, it would be too, it's self-harm, but yeah, it just, it's, it's,
00:22:25.000
It's hard being anything and also being urban monoculture because everything is about trauma
00:22:30.080
So of course there aren't any of the lists one that might surprise people.
00:22:33.700
You know, some people are like, I just, I just don't engage with the news because it's
00:22:44.120
Well, it turns out the more you engage with politics, whether you are progressive or conservative,
00:22:56.860
I, I think it has to do with a person's level of agenticness and vitality for life.
00:23:02.660
Like do they, yeah, I guess being excited about the world.
00:23:07.640
Because there was, I told you about the, when, when the one conversation I had at dialogue
00:23:12.420
where one of the people at the table was trying to make an argument as to how not engaging
00:23:18.320
with the news meant you were more in touch with reality.
00:23:20.540
And he pulled everyone on like, okay, you know, has crime gone up or down?
00:23:24.400
Like, what are the rates of this in the world, that in the world?
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The people who reported watching the news were way more off on all of the assessments
00:23:38.660
Like how much crime is taking place, what's going on than the people who didn't actually
00:23:44.960
And I think that this, what he was asking was mainstream news.
00:23:48.820
This asks is high interest in news or political interests.
00:23:53.420
Cause there's a really big difference between passive consumption and active seeking.
00:23:57.280
And I think active seeking is a sign of vitality and interest in not depression.
00:24:02.640
When he said news, he meant like CNN, Fox, et cetera.
00:24:07.940
This question is worded means like Nugzanor and Asmogold and us and leaflet.
00:24:13.300
Like doing research on Wikipedia and trying to learn about something.
00:24:16.900
Which is very different than thinking you're informed because you read the New York Times.
00:24:21.540
So, so what we're seeing here is even if you're a Democrat, if you think that, you know,
00:24:28.700
You're, you're going to have a more internal locus of control.
00:24:31.280
I think a person's level of political engagement is in part a level of their agenticness and their
00:24:36.400
belief in their ability to influence the future and their level of internal or external
00:24:42.960
Do they believe the world is happening to them or are they happening to the world?
00:24:50.640
Also, it's really interesting that the, if you have a high news and political interest
00:24:54.880
and you are conservative, that is one of the highest happiness categories on the entire
00:25:08.200
Like being a highly politically engaged conservative is going to make you very, very happy.
00:25:13.880
This is very similar to the research that you covered on the extent to which people were
00:25:19.820
really negatively affected by social media and online engagement only if they were progressives.
00:25:25.880
And if they were conservatives, it didn't really matter.
00:25:31.760
Urban monoculture is the point of this, but I'd also point out for people that they're
00:25:34.660
like, well, you know, at least if I'm a progressive and I'm really politically engaged, I'm going
00:25:39.520
And it's like technically than other progressives, but you still come in well below the happiness
00:25:45.080
of low political engagement or medium political engagement conservatives.
00:25:50.100
Which makes sense because it's such a negative narrative, like of the world that is painted
00:26:02.240
You're clucking it at a 57 versus they're 64 or 60.
00:26:07.620
Which, you know, I completely, I mean, I understand that they try to, but conservatives are all like,
00:26:15.580
Look at the, the elitist, you know, PDA file networks.
00:26:21.820
Look at all these incompetent politicians, you know, like.
00:26:34.840
It's just conservatives think, okay, well then let's fix it.
00:26:44.320
Then if we go to social media activity, I found this pretty easily.
00:26:49.460
So audience, if you were to predict who is happier, recently posted on social media are
00:27:00.440
Recently posted on social media is happier, both conservative and progressive, which is
00:27:07.480
Was recently posted on social media progressives at 55 and conservatives at 69.
00:27:13.100
Like if you're a recently posted on social media conservative, you're a very happy person,
00:27:17.220
but you're not like that differentiated from those recent posts, conservatives.
00:27:21.000
That's 50 as progressives versus 65 as conservatives.
00:27:27.260
I attended a political protest in the past year.
00:27:29.440
Now, this one is really interesting because it's also one of the longest lines on this
00:27:34.900
And I think it also has a high level of predictivity of whether or not you're in the urban monoculture
00:27:40.700
And this is, yes, you have attended a political protest in the last year.
00:27:44.120
And with progressives, you're very unhappy, 51.
00:27:47.200
And with conservatives, you're fairly happy, 68.
00:27:49.360
But what's interesting here is that conservatives, if you did not attend a political event, you're
00:27:56.900
Whereas if you're progressive, you're slightly happier, 53.
00:28:00.240
And what this indicates to me is I think you're pretty much equally likely if you haven't
00:28:03.520
or have attended an event, if you're a conservative, that you are outside the urban monoculture.
00:28:07.300
But for progressives, if you haven't, you're slightly more likely to be outside the urban
00:28:11.100
So all of these things taken together, the black thing, the bisexual thing, this, the age
00:28:17.880
thing, it says to me that this is all downstream of urban monocultural norms.
00:28:23.720
It is the urban monoculture itself which is destroying people's both mental health and
00:28:30.420
And we have pointed out this conjecture in the past, but I think that this evidence for
00:28:40.840
Why does the urban monoculture create this mental damage?
00:28:56.800
And there's nothing that you can really do about anything but screech at people.
00:29:00.960
And then when you go to your friends for support or you try to interact with your own community,
00:29:04.640
they all screech at you because it's this crazy social dominance fight.
00:29:07.400
And worse, you've been coddled and coddled and coddled because they told you the only
00:29:11.440
thing that mattered is feeling good and self-affirmation and feeling comfortable with yourself.
00:29:16.380
And so you've lived this life where you just constantly sought this, whatever pronouns you
00:29:20.640
wanted to use that day, whatever way you wanted to see yourself that day, everyone had to affirm
00:29:24.300
you, which gave you very poor mental robustness and allowed you to quickly mentally degrade when
00:29:31.180
exposed to anything that was potentially negative or disconfirming.
00:29:41.940
So, yeah, I guess there's not a lot tactically you can do aside from just abandon mainstream
00:29:50.800
progressive culture if you really want to feel better, which is hard, possible.
00:30:09.180
My big takeaway is being bisexual is apparently terrible for you.
00:30:13.320
I figured it was like the more chill sexual orientation because it wasn't particularly tied
00:30:19.080
to any controversy aside from people saying that there's no such thing as bisexuals.
00:30:25.240
And I didn't realize just how apparently terrible it is for you.
00:30:33.220
It's not that bad if you're conservative, but it's still not good.
00:30:36.780
Like, the conservative bisexuals are less happy than the conservative gays.
00:30:42.880
Do you think progressive bisexuals are extra miserable because they're seen as not going
00:30:51.600
all the way with a sexual identity that they really should be identifying as?
00:30:55.720
No, because the category here isn't bisexual, it's bisexual or other.
00:30:59.200
And that includes all of the made-up sexualities and transsexuality.
00:31:08.080
Well, I mean, that's like 50% of trans people, you know?
00:31:15.120
I think people who identified as attack helicopters would be happier than those trans people.
00:31:18.360
No, when I say attack helicopter, what I mean is somebody who obviously is not trans by any
00:31:25.140
Like, we always, like, if you watch our Funday Friday episode, I'm like, they keep calling
00:31:29.540
themselves a queer couple, but, like, clearly neither of them is trans.
00:31:33.700
And they look like a heterosexual couple to me.
00:31:36.340
So what it means is that one of them decided to identify as a different gender or is gender
00:31:41.060
queer, and now the other one has to identify as bisexual because they're dating a gender
00:31:44.620
queer person, and now they're both stuck in the bisexual bubble because, well, at one
00:31:48.640
point I was straight, but now, you know, you identify as sure, so all of a sudden I have
00:31:54.600
to say that I've been actually queer this whole time because I had no idea, you know, I was
00:32:00.140
dating somebody who wasn't the gender I thought they were, and I found them attractive this
00:32:04.900
entire time, but they saw themselves as a sure, so now I'm bisexual.
00:32:09.260
No, this happens so often to progressives in relationships.
00:32:12.000
They're dating somebody, dating somebody, dating somebody, think they're going to head
00:32:14.420
out of sexual or gay relationship, and then their partner comes to them and is like, actually,
00:32:20.300
Now, they can say, well, actually, I'm still gay, and then the person's like, well, you're
00:32:24.480
not gay because you found me attractive, so now they're bisexual or other in the phylogeny
00:32:33.960
So this is just pulling people in the more in the urban monoculture they are instead of
00:32:42.080
I also found the political involvement one very interesting, that you're better off being
00:32:48.740
Yeah, that runs counter to a lot of the common sense that spreads.
00:32:56.180
In the end, though, I think just generally not believing in it.
00:33:03.200
Well, I've thought a lot about it, Simone, and I'm not sure I'm totally comfortable with
00:33:09.340
Well, then we can both, can we both identify as a tech helicopter?
00:33:12.260
Because I think that's the best gender slash sexual orientation.
00:33:14.940
What's so funny is, you know, we'll go viral on a platform and somebody will be like, oh,
00:33:21.940
Like, he's, I've seen people like this before, and they're just waiting to come out, right?
00:33:25.860
Like, they're just, and what they're really just noting there, and I think they're actually
00:33:30.100
noting the, you know, in a recent episode, we talked about like social class and conservative
00:33:35.260
And we noted that progressives often try to code as upper middle class and conservatives
00:33:39.340
often try to code as lower middle class or lower class.
00:33:43.840
And because we code as upper middle class, people are sometimes very confused about like
00:33:52.340
And what they're really saying is, oh, no, you look like you've been heavily brainwashed
00:33:58.160
Therefore, it's only a few years before you come out as an attack helicopter or what really
00:34:03.520
And I think that, you know, hyperbolizing this under underlays how common this really is among
00:34:09.620
progressives is one day I come to you and I go, well, Simone, I'm going to be honest.
00:34:14.620
Sometimes I have thoughts that aren't entirely masculine.
00:34:18.280
And so I think that I have a feminine side to me as well that I think that I need to identify
00:34:26.660
as something other than just he, which means, and I know you didn't know this, but you've
00:34:36.260
And because that would make me, yeah, you are either a bisexual or pansexual now,
00:34:53.780
Because it's like the other person is now basically taking ownership of your sexuality
00:34:57.580
in like a really weird and delusional and aggressive way.
00:35:00.760
Without your consent, your sexuality suddenly needs to change or your life falls apart.
00:35:07.740
They're, they're even like your sexuality needs to change.
00:35:10.960
Or if you leave me, I haven't really changed on the inside.
00:35:14.940
So clearly you always found somebody who is really a woman attractive.
00:35:18.960
And this is like a huge deal for like gay people, right?
00:35:21.520
Where the partner is like, actually, I know we've been in a gay relationship our entire life
00:35:26.060
and you've identified as gay your entire life, but now you're bisexual because I decided
00:35:30.560
and the person will be like, well, no, I'm not.
00:35:31.860
And they're going to be like, well, I've always been this way and you've always been attracted
00:35:35.060
So clearly you were, or you're just transphobic.
00:35:42.880
How like a coercive and gross parts of the trans movement are.
00:35:48.940
And I mean, I, there, when I was a kid, there would be people where my mom was like, oh yeah,
00:36:06.620
And also like, I think the problem too is about the, the other partner there where they're
00:36:16.680
That there's a, well, there's also this requirement that now you have to like identify with this
00:36:21.940
community because your kids have two parents bisexual or else.
00:36:37.680
I'm like, when I say gross, I don't mean gross because of who they are.
00:36:41.300
I mean, gross because of the way they force themselves on other people.
00:36:44.340
And, and, and this is like a big deal of like, you're a gold star lesbian.
00:36:48.600
And now somebody saying, no, you're actually not.
00:36:52.800
And I didn't know it yet, but actually I was a man.
00:36:58.940
Well, and I think the other trouble of it is this wouldn't matter if we didn't make
00:37:07.620
And yet since the seventies, gender has been made this, its own separate thing.
00:37:11.480
Gender was made a big deal by the alphabet soup crowd.
00:37:14.940
And like, if it, if it didn't matter so much, you'd be like, oh, whatever.
00:37:17.860
Like, I just, I so remember that, like, I love the end of the scene.
00:37:21.280
Some like it hot where he's just, he's just like, listen, I'm a woman.
00:37:31.440
The modern, the way that the gender movement like went.
00:37:35.180
We have our episode on the debauched fifties or whatever, like something like 20% of like
00:37:40.260
young men engaged in like mutual masturbation with other young men.
00:37:47.100
You might've had like the odd, you know, like murder of like a gay person or something like
00:37:51.880
I'm not saying that this didn't happen and it wasn't horrible, but there are multiple
00:37:56.400
The, this movement could have gone and the direction of gay and trans identity as a special
00:38:02.680
class versus we need to just stop caring about this stuff.
00:38:15.940
I mean, I think it came from a place of wanting good things and, and assuming this would be
00:38:23.360
This wasn't the, some cackling, like, and this is how I make everyone miserable.
00:38:28.880
I'm going to harvest all their happiness and take it for my energy sphere or whatever
00:38:33.520
I never really got what they were trying to do.
00:38:40.460
And so I was always, I actually have no idea what they were trying to do either.
00:38:44.580
I'm just like, what, what is anyway, fine, go off.
00:38:48.020
But yeah, it just well-meaning people causing such sad.
00:38:52.960
That's what makes it the worst is that this was people really trying to make themselves
00:38:57.140
and the world happier and better than, even though we don't really care about happiness.
00:39:02.620
You know, it's like someone really just trying to make a chocolate cake and then like just
00:39:06.860
producing a giant turd, even though like all they want.
00:39:10.900
Some of them and many of the OGs of like the, the gender movement we've talked about in other
00:39:15.860
episodes are like the left is turning on the trans movement.
00:39:19.480
They've come out and they've been like, I'm sorry.
00:39:21.460
I, I thought I was good at making cake, but clearly I wasn't supposed to take a dump in
00:39:31.680
And then there's another group that's like, eat it, eat it.
00:39:40.540
And if you don't look happy while you eat it, if you don't smile and slurp down every last
00:39:49.860
And yeah, and then some people are actually doing that.
00:39:52.880
They're eating it like, and the person's like, and the rest of us are like, bro, that's what
00:40:17.980
It's, it's mostly the kids and we both know it.
00:40:25.940
I mean, they're certainly not bringing my happiness down.
00:40:28.500
We'll, we'll wait till they get into more trouble, but I'm looking forward to that.
00:40:46.160
Thank you for presenting me with this new opportunity.
00:40:53.020
Cause you haven't made Bolognese in a year or whatever, at least.
00:40:57.480
Then you want me to tell you, you're just super anti-spaghetti.
00:41:21.640
Now, if we have choice, do you prefer macaroni?
00:41:27.500
Or do you prefer, I think it's called, like the screws.
00:41:38.940
What I'd ask you to do is make sure you're running from a recipe today with gotcha junk.
00:41:44.220
It'd be like, if I was going to add gotcha junk to like this, go from like an AI recipe
00:41:48.460
Don't just wing it based on like Bolognese, Bolognese.
00:41:50.720
Cause then your Bolognese in the past has not been very good.
00:41:52.760
Like whatever you think a good Bolognese recipe, what you used to think was one, was not
00:41:57.300
So I'm just asking you to, to base this on something other than whatever.
00:42:03.520
Because I was just going to saute onions and garlic and then add meat and then add gochujang,
00:42:09.560
maybe after like dissolving it in water a little bit to get it.
00:42:18.540
Maybe at some stage try like coconut milk or like cream, more cream.
00:42:37.520
Hardly no ending on time is ending it giving me an actual interval to take care of Indy,
00:42:47.460
So no, but also like I'm addicted to talking with you.
00:42:54.320
I mean, obviously, cause the, the only thing that actually got me engaged on AI chat platforms
00:43:00.180
was the prospect of potentially making an AI chat Malcolm that I could chat with when you,
00:43:06.440
you know, narcoleptically fall asleep sometimes because you need rest.
00:43:18.940
Well, make time because you're not allowed to die.
00:43:33.700
Now we're all a little bit shiny because of the freaking heat.
00:43:40.580
I wonder how many of our viewers also have reverse seasonal affective disorder where when
00:43:48.900
So we got to tell an amazing story about our kid yesterday.
00:43:53.420
So our kid comes home from school with a Pokemon card and we didn't give him a Pokemon card.
00:44:01.220
So we ask him, where'd you get this Pokemon card from?
00:44:15.480
And so he told the other kid that if he didn't.
00:44:22.020
Well, there were consequences for damaging his property.
00:44:27.140
And then he said that he would tell the teacher if they didn't give him their Pokemon card.
00:44:52.340
I like maybe a little bit too much him or this home.
00:45:07.160
He's running a protection racket in school now, you know?
00:45:11.140
He sees things through such a commercial and mercantile lens.
00:45:17.500
Although every single person he talks to, it is always...
00:45:27.300
And then what he will do is Tosu will be like, well, I don't have any money.
00:45:33.780
You know, and sometimes they trade things, which is great.
00:45:37.580
And more, like, they also very often just gift things to each other.
00:45:40.980
And they give things away to kids at school all the time.
00:45:43.060
But when I talk with him about his friends at school, Octavian, Octavian will be like,
00:45:48.240
oh, yeah, you know, if I hang out with so-and-so, maybe he will give me his red gemstone.
00:45:57.440
And, like, he just thinks about, like, oh, this trade partner would be advantageous for
00:46:03.380
I should engage more with them, which is just hilarious.
00:46:10.900
Well, I mean, it's a positive, you know, evolutionary trade to...
00:46:19.200
Like, because I'm always like, well, what are you going to do for me?
00:46:29.360
I don't think, culturally speaking, that I have any problem with this.
00:46:32.380
If you want to hammer this home, hammer it home.
00:46:36.760
So our only point of parental conflict still is with junk food.
00:46:53.040
Except Titan demands candy all the time and then, like, doesn't eat it.
00:46:57.180
She thinks that everything is to be licked, but she can't even finish a lollipop.
00:47:01.560
Like, we had her on one lollipop for three days, and she didn't even get close to finishing it.
00:47:06.880
Like, you could still see its full structure, like the ridges on the outside.
00:47:25.920
I get very quick to dissolve candy, and I put it straight into her mouth.
00:47:36.520
Oh, and by the way, you have to find the batteries for the boat, because I checked all around the basement.
00:47:43.640
You used to charge it in the kitchen of the, like that.
00:47:56.220
Yeah, and also, because we have to be really careful with the kids, you know.
00:48:01.800
Well, they might have broken one of the batteries.
00:48:05.420
Well, because they took the thing that I had to clamp the piece onto off of it.
00:48:17.560
Yes, I saw Toasty walking around with that for the longest time.
00:48:24.500
Now, I do have a bag full of all of the loose parts that Torsten has stolen over time,
00:48:29.840
because our furniture is basically falling apart.
00:48:31.920
He just takes off all the screws, and I try to keep them in one place,
00:48:36.800
and then I have this delusional vision that someday I'll go around the house
00:48:41.980
It hasn't happened yet, so now just we have rickety furniture.
00:48:49.680
And that Torsten is just slowly disassembling our entire household.
00:48:53.480
And our older kid, Octavian, has learned to scare people,
00:48:56.400
which I did as a kid, that he thinks is so funny.
00:48:59.940
And now I'll, like, try to ask, like, a ghost or something
00:49:03.720
and make ghost noises when I'm using the restroom or something outside
00:49:06.720
to try to scare me, so I've got to act all spooked.
00:49:10.940
The great thing is that he can't stop laughing when he tries to hide or be sneaky.