Leo D.M.J. Aurini - April 30, 2026


SatW Livestream 2026-04-29： Red Button, Blue Button： Nice, Smart, or Right？


Episode Stats



Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 So we got some cool, calm, bossa nova jazz playing, composed by the ever-brilliant
00:00:11.920 Starving Vampires, with his alternative label, Later Than Eight.
00:00:24.800 This track is titled, The Man Who Wanted to Be Left Alone.
00:00:30.000 and what better
00:00:34.220 calming music
00:00:36.440 to accompany this live stream
00:00:39.200 while we discuss genocide
00:00:45.420 which ought to be
00:00:51.060 streaming right now
00:00:53.040 except it's freaking not
00:00:56.660 is it?
00:00:57.840 Yes, it is.
00:01:00.800 Yes, it is.
00:01:07.380 I learned something today.
00:01:09.740 I learned that
00:01:11.660 if you set up the live stream
00:01:16.340 on your phone
00:01:17.760 and you're holding your phone like a normal person
00:01:21.180 when you set up the live stream,
00:01:23.360 you're only allowed to broadcast
00:01:26.060 in the vertical window.
00:01:29.960 At least, I can't figure out how to change it.
00:01:37.880 Grindfache says, hello from Ireland.
00:01:40.280 Glad to have you here, brother.
00:01:44.560 I'm going to turn that music down just a bit, I think.
00:01:50.820 There, that's reasonable.
00:01:52.860 Just a little hum in the background.
00:01:56.060 the topic of tonight's stream
00:02:02.320 wait, it's
00:02:04.880 okay, I don't want that to be repeat
00:02:09.780 do I want shuffle?
00:02:12.980 oh my goodness, we'll figure out how this works
00:02:15.060 slowly but surely, we'll figure out how it works
00:02:18.060 I haven't picked up the beans yet
00:02:25.240 Told you, I'm waiting until the end of the month.
00:02:28.180 That won't be until Friday.
00:02:33.180 You know, I was thinking about going to Costco, actually paying for a membership.
00:02:37.940 But I was at Costco the other day.
00:02:42.980 They didn't have any Starbucks coffee.
00:02:48.740 The woman that was working there told me that their signature house blend
00:02:53.940 Was it Kirkland?
00:02:56.540 It's brewed by Starbucks, according to Costco's own standards.
00:03:05.940 And so I bought some, I made myself a pot of coffee, and I won't lie to you folks.
00:03:12.600 I think I would have preferred to drink rainwater out of a used ashtray.
00:03:17.380 It was worse than McDonald's.
00:03:19.380 I'd say it was even slightly worse than Tim Hortons.
00:03:23.120 the drink we are having the usual wisers on the rocks
00:03:33.760 but why don't we jump into the the topic of this stream what we're actually going to be discussing
00:03:45.640 with nice, calm, relaxing, bossa nova jazz.
00:03:57.620 There's a new trolley problem that's been bouncing around the internet.
00:04:03.040 When was it? Just a week ago.
00:04:05.060 A guy by the name of Tim Urban, link down below, posted this hypothetical question.
00:04:15.640 Everybody in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button.
00:04:24.980 If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives.
00:04:31.180 If less than 50% of the people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive.
00:04:40.900 Which button will you press?
00:04:45.640 Yeah, which button
00:04:53.460 do you press?
00:04:59.740 Con Cottonmouth says he got a
00:05:01.420 bag of Kirkland coffee
00:05:03.340 that had wood chips in it one time.
00:05:06.040 Jeez, I wish I'd had your bag,
00:05:07.460 man. It would have tasted better than mine did.
00:05:10.020 Good lord, how do you take
00:05:11.480 dark roast coffee and make it so
00:05:13.380 acidic and bitter?
00:05:15.640 Like, seriously, used engine oil.
00:05:17.940 It was awful.
00:05:19.180 It was terrible.
00:05:27.460 It's a red button, blue button.
00:05:33.080 What's the correct choice?
00:05:35.720 What button should everybody choose?
00:05:40.300 If people were sane.
00:05:46.540 The correct choice is the red button.
00:05:50.380 Because if everybody chooses the red button,
00:05:53.780 nothing happens.
00:05:59.980 There's no reason to get involved in this scenario in the first place.
00:06:03.640 Wait, red button?
00:06:06.280 If everybody chooses the red button, everybody lives.
00:06:10.880 Okay, why not choose the red button?
00:06:15.640 you choose the blue button everybody lives if more than 51% choose the blue
00:06:24.580 button why in God's name would anybody choose the blue button makes no freaking
00:06:33.760 sense. At least that's where my
00:06:36.040 default
00:06:37.180 intelligent
00:06:39.980 choice leads.
00:06:45.520 But I was listening to LP,
00:06:47.740 iHypocrites, live stream on the topic.
00:06:52.880 Mira Mira says she'd push
00:06:53.960 the purple button, and we got
00:06:56.020 Butterfly Ballerina
00:06:57.280 with her electric
00:06:59.860 dayglow hand waves.
00:07:02.200 How are you doing, babe?
00:07:03.760 now i'll be pointed out something that i didn't initially assess
00:07:13.920 because i kind of i i was studying all right so here's my default approach to these things
00:07:20.620 i tend to lean logical i tend to look at like what is the construct of this like what's the
00:07:32.040 prisoner's dilemma aspect here.
00:07:35.860 What's going on with that? What's the math of the situation?
00:07:39.640 What's the cold, raw math?
00:07:43.280 And so I ignored an important piece of context.
00:07:47.860 Which is, everyone in the world has
00:07:52.220 to take a private vote.
00:08:00.260 That's an important point.
00:08:02.040 First of all, you have to take it.
00:08:07.160 You're required to participate in this event.
00:08:12.700 On a semantic level, the red button's nothing.
00:08:16.980 The red button, semantically, is non-participation.
00:08:21.860 but because this is
00:08:27.540 a mandatory vote
00:08:30.100 it's a mandatory opt-out
00:08:32.840 well that changes the context a little bit
00:08:35.480 you can't just passively
00:08:38.180 choose the red button
00:08:40.760 you have to deliberately choose the red button
00:08:45.100 the sun god demands blood sacrifices
00:08:53.580 sometimes he does
00:08:55.820 sometimes he just inflicts skin cancer
00:08:58.640 the other aspect is the private
00:09:06.580 it's a private vote
00:09:10.080 in other words
00:09:13.520 you don't get to explain it
00:09:16.500 to anybody
00:09:17.300 one of the responses
00:09:23.140 to this vote
00:09:24.480 and I wish I had OBS properly set up right now
00:09:27.340 I don't, I just got home an hour ago
00:09:29.660 should have been in bed an hour ago
00:09:34.280 but you know, this is
00:09:35.640 keeping me alert
00:09:37.280 did the music stop playing
00:09:45.180 is it just changing tracks
00:09:46.660 ok can we
00:09:52.120 what if I hit
00:09:57.480 shuffle
00:09:58.780 alright
00:10:05.720 This should keep the jazz going.
00:10:07.560 This track is known as Initiate It.
00:10:15.480 See, I initially read it.
00:10:20.040 And sorry, I was saying, one of the responses,
00:10:22.200 one of the responses was summed up beautifully
00:10:24.480 with an illustration.
00:10:28.640 On the one side was a big shredding machine,
00:10:32.340 and all the people in blue shirts were saying,
00:10:35.160 Guys, if we all get into it, there'll be too much weight.
00:10:39.260 It will destroy the mechanism.
00:10:43.800 Well, on the other side, all the people in red shirts were like,
00:10:46.960 why are you guys getting into the blue shirt machine?
00:10:50.520 Why are you even doing it?
00:10:52.020 Just hit the red button.
00:10:53.500 If everybody hits the red button, nobody dies.
00:10:58.520 Why would you hit the blue button?
00:11:05.160 Well, an LP made an interesting point.
00:11:10.760 If it's a private vote,
00:11:13.680 well, there's the rub.
00:11:23.620 What button would your mother hit
00:11:25.620 if you weren't there to point out, like, literally just hit the red button?
00:11:30.540 Just hit the red button.
00:11:35.160 Somebody else said every soldier in all of history, by their actions, has hit the blue button.
00:11:52.400 And so LP, as a Christian, would hit the blue button.
00:12:03.380 Well, here's the interesting thing.
00:12:05.160 Here's something notable.
00:12:08.080 He said as a Christian, he would hit the blue button because he's going to have to stand for a count in front of God.
00:12:25.560 And that's where things start getting a little bit weird for me.
00:12:27.980 This is where things start getting a little bit interesting.
00:12:35.160 I think I myself would wind up hitting the blue button.
00:12:41.200 If it was a private vault, if Omega showed up and said,
00:12:46.840 I have to pick one of these two buttons, I can't leave the room until I do,
00:12:51.300 I can't talk to anybody else, red button or blue button, which one do I hit?
00:12:55.720 and even though red is the correct choice
00:13:07.300 I know that a lot of people
00:13:09.440 aren't going to make the correct choice
00:13:11.540 people I care about
00:13:14.600 people that are soft-hearted
00:13:16.580 I might even say they're soft-headed sometimes
00:13:19.220 but soft-headed isn't the same thing as evil
00:13:24.080 So yeah, I think I
00:13:27.740 I think in that context
00:13:30.440 I hit the blue button
00:13:32.760 even though it's not the right choice
00:13:35.300 Red button's the right choice
00:13:41.540 If everyone just hits red button
00:13:43.060 there's no thresher machine
00:13:45.320 Nobody needs to die
00:13:47.600 They just need to hit the red button
00:13:49.020 We don't need to
00:13:50.880 risk
00:13:52.300 the blue button.
00:13:59.540 Earth Alchemy
00:14:00.540 Holistic 333 says the same thing.
00:14:02.840 Yeah, it's like red is the correct
00:14:04.760 answer.
00:14:07.700 But in the poll
00:14:08.620 itself, which, how many votes did this poll
00:14:10.760 get? There's a link down below to it.
00:14:14.480 98,000 votes.
00:14:18.220 So 100,000
00:14:18.960 people.
00:14:20.400 I'd say that's
00:14:21.540 for an informal internet poll
00:14:24.720 that's a fairly representative sample.
00:14:30.400 Particularly given how many
00:14:32.660 the leaning towards high IQ
00:14:36.200 on Twitter. I know, on Twitter.
00:14:38.460 Twitter is a very high IQ TV show.
00:14:41.620 it does lean towards more intellectual though it's not espn okay
00:14:55.400 so even in this more airy fairy ivory tower environment of twitter
00:15:06.320 or shitter as it's now called
00:15:09.920 even there
00:15:14.860 you find about 60% of people
00:15:16.600 choose the blue button
00:15:18.080 but it's the wrong choice
00:15:26.220 Demex says, I deliberately choose the red button.
00:15:45.740 If you chose the blue button, you'd be so nervous waiting for the results.
00:15:48.880 Well, presumably you're not being tortured to death.
00:15:51.720 Right, let's just, let's keep it simple.
00:15:53.100 There's, like, we could iterate this in so many different variants.
00:15:56.880 You know, it's like, how much risk?
00:15:59.300 If it's a painless death, if it's just a shot to the head, you know,
00:16:04.520 a shot to the heart, and you're too late, you know, then, okay, I can deal with that.
00:16:12.660 If it's the Thresher machine, well, I don't know about the Thresher machine.
00:16:18.260 Even if you want to choose the blue button, maybe you're too scared of the Thresher machine.
00:16:23.100 No, this is...
00:16:25.100 Don't get lost in the semantics.
00:16:28.260 Don't get lost in silly iterations, okay?
00:16:31.260 Like, it's missing the point.
00:16:33.120 Because Omega is not going to appear and give us this choice.
00:16:42.800 Where can I read this riddle I didn't hear of at all?
00:16:45.600 It's right down below.
00:16:47.980 Link to it.
00:16:48.880 It's actually described in the video description.
00:16:53.100 I'll repeat it again, as it was originally posed, everyone in the world has to take a
00:17:00.500 private vote by pressing either a red or a blue button.
00:17:05.440 If more than 50% of people press the blue, everyone lives.
00:17:10.340 If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who press the red button
00:17:15.940 survive.
00:17:16.940 and that's it
00:17:19.100 I mean the red button is
00:17:21.740 in my mind
00:17:24.180 like it's not even a choice
00:17:25.460 it's just where we already are
00:17:27.040 but the blue button
00:17:28.760 it's like let's all collectively
00:17:30.280 enter a gamble
00:17:32.180 where if we win nobody dies
00:17:35.320 when like
00:17:36.160 you don't die by choosing the red button
00:17:38.320 it's a really frustrating question
00:17:48.540 like you choose the blue button
00:17:50.900 not because you think it's smart
00:17:52.420 but because you think it's stupid
00:17:54.700 and you don't want your stupid friends to die
00:17:56.660 or you choose the blue button because you're stupid
00:18:02.540 yeah i wasn't even going to talk about this i didn't even think this was that
00:18:11.920 interesting until i i heard i hypocrite talk about it and i was like okay here's a guy i
00:18:17.220 really like who disagrees with me on this he has some interesting points
00:18:20.980 but there's one thing he briefly touched on this
00:18:26.140 but he didn't explore it and that's why i'm making this live stream that's where i started
00:18:32.400 to see. Oh, there's some depth to this question. This question's making me think. Let's talk
00:18:42.120 about minimum wage for a second. Minimum wage is a terrible economic policy.
00:19:02.400 And that's just a statement of fact.
00:19:06.200 Okay, that, like, it's literally minimum wage, doesn't help poor people, doesn't help middle class people.
00:19:15.440 If anything, it might help rich business owners.
00:19:22.400 But even there, I don't think it really does. Not really.
00:19:32.400 But it's nice. It's a nice idea.
00:19:47.900 Should we go into this? Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit.
00:19:56.160 So, arguments against the minimum wage.
00:19:59.220 So let's say we want to raise the minimum wage to $15.
00:20:04.880 Let's say the kid working at McDonald's is making $10 an hour, just for sake of argument.
00:20:12.400 And we want to raise it to $15 an hour so he gets a living wage.
00:20:19.000 I mean, sounds like a good idea. I'd like people to make living wages.
00:20:23.040 problem is what about the people making
00:20:27.840 $15 an hour already
00:20:29.700 you know like maybe his manager
00:20:32.000 at McDonald's makes $15 an hour
00:20:33.960 now that you raise the base
00:20:36.200 kid's salary up to $15
00:20:37.640 you're going to have to
00:20:40.280 bump up the manager's salary
00:20:41.600 which creates a ripple effect
00:20:43.840 throughout the economy
00:20:44.740 which creates inflation
00:20:47.340 and once the ripple effect
00:20:50.020 has moved through the economy
00:20:51.640 we're back to where we started
00:20:54.460 by bumping up minimum wage
00:20:58.020 you raise the cost of everything
00:20:59.400 that's one argument against it
00:21:06.760 another argument against minimum wage
00:21:10.240 oh, okay, so we're just going to say by law
00:21:12.720 that the kid needs to be paid $15 an hour
00:21:16.520 well, why not just say $50 an hour
00:21:19.260 or $500 an hour
00:21:21.500 if we can just legislate
00:21:23.860 what people get paid
00:21:25.460 then why not infinity dollars
00:21:27.720 starving vampires
00:21:33.940 he is here
00:21:36.580 glad to have you brother
00:21:38.280 the live stream won't let me use
00:21:42.220 any other video format
00:21:43.420 because I programmed it
00:21:44.900 in this video format
00:21:46.480 and you can't change it afterwards
00:21:48.220 see if bumping it to $15
00:21:53.320 would work, bumping it to a million dollars
00:21:56.280 would also work
00:21:57.540 and it should be pretty self-evident that
00:22:00.380 doing such a thing will not work
00:22:02.720 and finally there's the
00:22:12.500 prevention of job creation
00:22:14.480 if hiring a new kid at mcdonald's costs you 15 bucks an hour
00:22:20.000 but they're only worth 12 then you're not going to do it and so some jobs never get created and
00:22:29.260 people stay unemployed they get zero dollars an hour instead of 12 or 10 because you said
00:22:36.480 you can only hire them for 15 and yes super chats are in fact appreciated
00:22:43.980 and this is what got me thinking about the second part of the title of the stream smart nice
00:22:57.500 what's the right thing to do
00:23:00.860 bumping up minimum wage is the nice thing to do but it's not the smart thing to do
00:23:13.980 Zachary...
00:23:16.600 Is that Zachary Lynn?
00:23:22.100 $10 US dollars.
00:23:23.320 Thank you very much.
00:23:24.640 The support is appreciated.
00:23:27.640 And Butterfly Balleria says,
00:23:29.220 What is this music?
00:23:30.020 It's composed by Starving Vampires.
00:23:32.880 And JT, can you toss a link to the music?
00:23:36.360 It's bossa nova renditions of some of his other songs.
00:23:43.980 you actually I think some of you have heard some of these songs already they're
00:23:49.380 much more light-hearted they're far more appropriate for discussing mass
00:23:53.160 genocide
00:24:01.660 so we have a bunch of people that decide to be nice they push the blue button
00:24:07.700 for minimum wage
00:24:09.080 even though minimum wage is stupid
00:24:15.140 it doesn't work
00:24:16.040 it's a nice idea
00:24:17.480 it's a nice concept
00:24:18.860 I want people earning living wages
00:24:23.400 I'm not opposed to living wages
00:24:25.200 I just know enough
00:24:27.520 economic theory to tell you it won't work
00:24:29.680 it's like
00:24:31.280 I don't know, it's like trying to push a rubber band
00:24:33.620 here here's another example you all know i hate the government okay there was a protest in
00:24:46.820 eastern canada i think trying to remove i need to start the music again you can only loop one track
00:24:57.640 it turns out.
00:25:08.200 There we go.
00:25:10.220 You can't loop all the tracks.
00:25:14.960 How silly.
00:25:19.460 So they were trying to protest
00:25:21.800 because gas prices are so high
00:25:23.880 the government should get rid of their tax
00:25:26.000 on the gases, on the gasoline.
00:25:30.780 Nice idea.
00:25:33.020 Government taxes makes up about 40% of the price of gasoline
00:25:36.960 here in Canada.
00:25:39.100 But because of how the market is structured,
00:25:42.660 because of how supply and demand works,
00:25:46.260 if you got rid of that huge chunk of tax,
00:25:50.480 market demand would push the price of gas
00:25:53.820 up to almost exactly the same price.
00:25:58.860 And so you'd just be
00:26:00.060 cutting government revenue
00:26:01.540 and the government isn't going to start
00:26:03.700 spending less money
00:26:04.780 and you'd see
00:26:07.720 no savings at the pump. You'd see
00:26:09.520 almost no savings.
00:26:12.960 There's a reason
00:26:13.560 economics is called the dismal science
00:26:15.860 because so
00:26:17.600 often you try and do something
00:26:19.820 and it either does
00:26:21.860 nothing or it makes everything worse.
00:26:24.700 Usually a little bit of both.
00:26:28.180 And minimum wage is definitely one of those categories.
00:26:32.120 Yes, I want people earning a living wage.
00:26:35.300 However, mandating minimum wage won't do that.
00:26:40.740 Nonetheless, you get a bunch of voters, you get a bunch of politicians, they do the nice thing.
00:26:48.480 They push the blue button and they institute a minimum wage.
00:26:53.820 and then
00:26:58.740 no, I don't want to
00:27:05.200 I just want to play all the songs, you damn
00:27:07.560 thing
00:27:07.960 there we go
00:27:11.080 and then the business owners
00:27:19.500 inevitably
00:27:22.760 because business owners need to be smart, okay?
00:27:26.640 If you're not a smart business owner,
00:27:28.680 you are no longer a business owner.
00:27:32.380 Those are the rules.
00:27:35.400 I didn't make the rules.
00:27:37.760 I guess God did.
00:27:40.140 Saturn at the very least.
00:27:42.420 I didn't make the rules.
00:27:43.720 I'm just telling you what they are.
00:27:45.220 If you're not a smart business owner,
00:27:47.640 you are no longer a business owner.
00:27:49.460 so the voters the public they do the nice thing they push the blue button and they vote for minimum wage
00:27:59.140 the business owners do the smart thing they push the red button
00:28:07.180 and the red button is oh minimum wage is going up to 20 bucks an hour
00:28:12.580 i guess i'll replace half my workers with robots
00:28:16.120 Every time somebody pushes the blue button
00:28:42.860 somebody else pushes the red button.
00:28:46.120 we've got the nice thing
00:28:53.220 and the smart thing
00:28:55.080 but what's the right
00:28:59.160 thing
00:29:00.040 at what point
00:29:12.680 is the smart thing
00:29:14.880 dissolving homeless people
00:29:17.340 for their residual components
00:29:19.320 to sell them on the
00:29:21.240 commodities market.
00:29:28.340 Unintended
00:29:29.140 Technocrat says the path to hell is paved
00:29:31.220 with good intentions.
00:29:32.980 But also the path
00:29:37.420 to hell is paved with
00:29:39.080 smart intentions.
00:29:40.740 and that's what I find so interesting
00:29:45.440 about this thought experiment
00:29:46.780 about the red button
00:29:49.320 blue button
00:29:49.880 is
00:29:53.300 they're both
00:29:55.160 kind of the wrong answer
00:29:56.620 in fact
00:30:01.340 the only way you can come up with the right
00:30:03.480 answer
00:30:04.680 is in the context
00:30:07.600 of the question
00:30:08.680 what I'm saying is
00:30:15.780 my stance on this question
00:30:18.580 was changed
00:30:20.280 when I heard LP point out
00:30:24.840 that
00:30:25.280 it's not about just getting
00:30:28.920 the intellectually correct question
00:30:30.320 it's about what is your mother going to choose
00:30:32.160 what is your girlfriend going to choose
00:30:34.980 what is your sister going to choose
00:30:36.540 and I'm using mostly
00:30:38.420 female examples, women are
00:30:40.240 call me a sexist
00:30:44.260 but women are a little bit
00:30:46.440 more caring for other people
00:30:47.820 and a little bit less logical than men
00:30:50.420 are
00:30:50.820 I have radical
00:30:53.600 radical opinions here on the
00:30:56.140 genocide stream
00:30:57.380 but it's that context
00:31:13.560 of private vote
00:31:15.900 and no discussion
00:31:18.660 it's the one-off
00:31:22.020 prisoner's dilemma
00:31:22.980 jt i love you man um i actually think i'm gonna be switching to subscribe star
00:31:38.480 i've got a couple weeks off i've got a lot of work to do
00:31:42.800 now that i have time off i've got a lot of work to do uh i think i'm gonna switch to subscribe star
00:31:49.820 shut down the Patreon
00:31:51.820 a couple other things
00:31:56.440 I've got that really interesting video
00:31:58.140 I need to
00:31:58.860 we need to finalize that video
00:32:01.120 got some stuff to do
00:32:03.200 really this blue button red button question
00:32:11.960 it is just a version
00:32:13.600 of the Prisoner's Dilemma
00:32:15.660 but what makes it so damned frustrating
00:32:21.720 is that there's no payoff
00:32:25.520 you know it's not like
00:32:28.520 if everybody
00:32:30.800 if 51% of the people
00:32:32.880 press the blue button
00:32:34.060 then nobody dies and we get
00:32:36.940 a nice hat
00:32:37.820 no we don't even get a hat out of the deal
00:32:40.880 we get nothing
00:32:42.280 we get no more than we get
00:32:45.080 than if we press the red button.
00:32:57.300 And yet, if it's a private vote,
00:32:59.540 if there's no discussion,
00:33:02.640 if there's no polling,
00:33:06.740 if there were polling,
00:33:08.040 if we could have a society-wide discussion
00:33:10.280 about this whole thing,
00:33:11.480 that would change the context quite a bit.
00:33:13.900 then it's
00:33:16.040 an iterated
00:33:18.360 prisoner's dilemma.
00:33:24.000 But no, if it's a one-off
00:33:25.800 if it's just a one-off
00:33:29.340 one-boxing or two-boxing
00:33:34.600 the Newcomb Dilemma.
00:33:38.220 Does everybody know what the Newcomb Dilemma is?
00:33:40.960 I should probably explore that one.
00:33:43.900 Alright, so in the Newcomb Dilemma
00:33:49.280 Omega arrives
00:33:53.580 Omega is not God
00:33:56.340 But he might as well be
00:33:58.240 Omega is a perfect predictor
00:34:00.740 And in front of you
00:34:03.860 There are two boxes
00:34:05.700 Box number one
00:34:08.300 Has $100 sitting in it
00:34:11.780 Box number two
00:34:13.220 is opaque,
00:34:15.620 but it either has a million dollars
00:34:18.460 or zero dollars sitting in it.
00:34:23.120 And Omega informs you
00:34:25.000 that it's a perfect predictor.
00:34:30.360 And it's already predicted what your actions are going to be.
00:34:34.300 But nonetheless, here's the rules of the game.
00:34:37.960 If you take the opaque box
00:34:41.120 and leave the room,
00:34:43.220 inside the opaque box you'll find a million dollars.
00:34:49.720 However, if you take the opaque box
00:34:52.520 and you take the transparent box with a hundred dollars
00:34:56.500 and you leave the room
00:34:59.040 then you'll find that the opaque box is empty.
00:35:03.960 and once
00:35:12.680 Omega tells you these rules
00:35:15.080 explains them, answers any questions
00:35:19.200 it deletes itself from existence
00:35:21.820 and so the question is
00:35:25.500 are you a one boxer or a two boxer
00:35:27.420 Omega's not there to punish you
00:35:32.200 But it did say it was a perfect predictor.
00:35:37.100 What is a perfect predictor?
00:35:38.940 What is free will?
00:35:40.200 Are you going to just take the one box?
00:35:49.100 Because once you take the one box,
00:35:52.380 well, Omega doesn't exist anymore.
00:35:54.320 You could take the second box.
00:35:55.660 Why wouldn't you?
00:36:01.240 What makes these games interesting is that
00:36:13.120 you can only play them once.
00:36:26.360 Yeah, I'd one box.
00:36:28.680 The new comb problem.
00:36:31.240 if that box turned out to be empathy
00:36:36.640 then I'd start believing in free will
00:36:38.900 or multiverse theory or something
00:36:40.780 or that maybe Omega was just an asshole
00:36:46.820 in the first place
00:36:58.460 now all that said
00:36:59.560 I
00:36:59.880 what I just gotta talk about
00:37:03.760 boxing. We're talking about the Newcomb!
00:37:06.300 The Newcomb box problem.
00:37:08.000 One box or two box.
00:37:16.280 Let's get back to
00:37:17.660 Red Button, Blue Button.
00:37:20.000 And let's talk about my
00:37:21.380 my issue with
00:37:23.680 LP's answer.
00:37:27.320 Even though I agree with his answer.
00:37:29.880 I don't agree with his reason
00:37:32.780 for it
00:37:33.360 so let's argue about that
00:37:37.160 his reason
00:37:44.240 is that one day he's
00:37:46.800 going to have to stand before God and account
00:37:48.660 for his actions
00:37:49.500 yeah the music
00:37:54.720 does sound good who wrote it
00:37:59.880 and that right there
00:38:08.580 that
00:38:08.800 I don't even think that's biblical
00:38:11.860 necessarily
00:38:13.320 necessarily
00:38:14.900 do not throw pearls
00:38:19.980 before swine
00:38:20.900 be gentle as serpents
00:38:25.060 or gentle as serpents
00:38:26.820 but wise as doves
00:38:28.080 I mean, that's the problem
00:38:31.740 there's far too much of that
00:38:33.260 be wise as serpents
00:38:35.740 but gentle as doves
00:38:36.980 in that thought experiment where it's either
00:38:47.360 the one button or the other button
00:38:48.780 and you have to push them
00:38:50.700 and you don't get to discuss
00:38:52.620 in that case, yeah, maybe you press the blue button
00:38:55.760 to save all the idiots that press the blue button,
00:38:59.360 including yourself.
00:39:02.940 Even though there's no advantage.
00:39:09.680 But far better than the blue button
00:39:11.600 would be convincing people not to press the blue button.
00:39:17.280 Nobody's at risk
00:39:18.420 if everybody just presses the red button.
00:39:21.020 Like, don't even play this game.
00:39:22.740 there's no winning in this game aside from not to play a strange game the
00:39:28.520 only winning move is not to play red button blue button could very easily be
00:39:34.920 turned into let's play global thermal nuclear war whoever hits the button
00:39:43.640 first wins but what do they win whereas if nobody hits the button
00:39:53.020 We all win.
00:40:09.780 What I dislike.
00:40:11.900 I dislike morality replacing intelligence.
00:40:30.000 Excess empathy replacing intelligence.
00:40:41.900 we need hard-nosed people
00:40:47.440 in charge of things.
00:40:53.440 One of the interesting stats that has come out of this.
00:41:02.060 Well, two stats that I think are worthy of mentioning.
00:41:05.600 they have done some surveys
00:41:12.420 on people answering it
00:41:13.600 and the red button pushers
00:41:17.380 are more likely to lie
00:41:22.820 to get ahead
00:41:23.500 which shouldn't be too surprising
00:41:28.120 like you're going to lean towards psychopath
00:41:30.600 the same way people that are opposed to minimum wage
00:41:34.500 are going to lean towards psychopath
00:41:36.220 even though
00:41:40.600 it's the right answer
00:41:41.440 the other
00:41:52.280 interesting thing
00:41:54.080 is that
00:42:02.220 red button pushers
00:42:04.320 are substantially
00:42:07.680 more likely to support
00:42:10.000 Luigi Mangione.
00:42:15.340 And let's ignore the question as to whether or not he did it.
00:42:18.000 We all know what support him
00:42:19.780 means.
00:42:21.860 I found that really interesting.
00:42:29.800 If
00:42:30.280 Luigi had come up to me, I'm
00:42:33.180 I'm fairly strongly
00:42:36.620 certain that this whole thing
00:42:38.520 is, I'm pretty sure it's fake. I don't
00:42:40.540 believe he did it. I think
00:42:42.560 it was an assassin.
00:42:44.780 I think Luigi was a patsy.
00:42:47.920 I think
00:42:48.500 it had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
00:42:52.820 And I've got some
00:42:54.520 fairly strong reasons for believing that
00:42:56.540 but that's not relevant here. We're not talking
00:42:58.560 about whether or not he did it. We're talking about the
00:43:00.440 fictionalized Robin Hood.
00:43:02.440 I mean, Luigi Mangione.
00:43:06.820 Was he in the right?
00:43:19.100 This term, vampires, you know perfectly why, legal, you know perfectly well why it's illegal
00:43:25.280 to speak to dolphins.
00:43:27.720 It's the foot jobs.
00:43:29.300 It's not the speaking, it's the foot jobs, okay?
00:43:31.200 Let's just leave it at that.
00:43:32.440 I don't know if I'd go so far to say I support Luigi, but I kind of, I kind of think you
00:43:57.440 If you fuck around, you find out.
00:44:04.460 Like if Luigi had come to me
00:44:07.100 and said, Uncle Leo,
00:44:10.540 I want some advice.
00:44:16.780 Should I
00:44:17.960 engage in this
00:44:20.480 very improbable
00:44:22.840 assassination
00:44:24.460 scheme?
00:44:27.440 and then get away with it, but carry around my gun and journal in my backpack for a few days,
00:44:32.160 and then get recognized by some random woman at a McDonald's.
00:44:36.440 I'd say, you know, Luigi, I don't think you should.
00:44:42.640 Don't think that's a smart use of your prodigious intellectual resources.
00:44:48.740 However
00:44:56.900 I kinda think the guy
00:45:02.160 had it coming
00:45:02.940 I don't think
00:45:08.540 Luigi should have done it
00:45:09.780 but more because I'd rather have
00:45:12.200 guys like Luigi
00:45:13.320 wandering free and participating in society
00:45:16.380 I don't think it was worth it
00:45:17.480 Dustin Cameron
00:45:29.060 is that
00:45:29.800 is that
00:45:32.900 Charlie Brown
00:45:34.180 is that
00:45:38.800 who I think it is
00:45:47.480 okay we're gonna play all the tracks or just the one this time what a frustrating app
00:46:00.080 so yeah I'm not exactly
00:46:13.200 for assassinating
00:46:15.060 CEOs it's I don't
00:46:17.060 think it really solves our problems
00:46:18.700 don't really
00:46:21.060 think it gets us anywhere
00:46:22.200 so in that sense I'm not
00:46:25.060 for it
00:46:25.980 but I think the guy had it coming
00:46:32.220 I think the guy was an asshole
00:46:33.940 nobody made him
00:46:42.760 choose that job
00:46:49.440 he was no
00:46:50.440 innocent stormtrooper on the
00:46:52.240 Death Star
00:46:52.940 I didn't want to find the small foot.
00:47:10.360 So that's interesting.
00:47:11.560 Like, my knee-jerk reaction is towards the red button.
00:47:15.620 And I'm also very sympathetic to Luigi.
00:47:22.940 is that some sort of okay how do we get all the tracks played go to the next track
00:47:42.960 is a silly thing.
00:47:52.440 Okay, now it will only play one track.
00:47:56.940 We've got a different one.
00:48:00.280 We're trying things out here, folks.
00:48:01.880 We're trying things out.
00:48:09.020 Moronality.
00:48:09.700 I mean, that's the goddamn thing, isn't it?
00:48:12.960 I do tend to take more of an
00:48:19.880 evolutionary view
00:48:22.060 of morality.
00:48:32.100 Like, if you beat a dog,
00:48:34.120 it's gonna bite you.
00:48:36.500 If you buy a pit bull,
00:48:40.680 well, don't be surprised
00:48:42.200 when it eats half your face off.
00:48:47.480 Oh, thanks, Illuminator.
00:48:50.020 Illuminator, you gotta start being witty or you get banned.
00:48:53.920 Witty is allowed, okay?
00:48:55.880 But you gotta be witty.
00:48:56.640 because excess of this
00:49:11.060 niceness, excess of the
00:49:13.000 blue button
00:49:13.700 well it also relates to the
00:49:20.500 hawks and doves
00:49:21.920 so you can do simulations
00:49:26.620 And again, this is just another version of game theory, where you have hawks that, if they meet a dove, they steal a food pellet.
00:49:39.120 If they meet another hawk, they fight, and they both lose a food pellet.
00:49:44.880 And then you have doves that meet, and they share food pellets.
00:49:49.300 And you run this random simulation of the hawks and doves engaging one another.
00:49:55.100 And you typically wind up with a ratio, like a certain predator-to-prey ratio, a certain good actor-to-parasite ratio.
00:50:07.080 And our question as a society is, how do we get rid of as many parasites as possible, while recognizing that it's never going to be zero?
00:50:18.480 There is a percentage of rat feces in your flower, which is acceptable, and that number is not zero.
00:50:34.960 Hate to break it to you if you thought it was.
00:50:37.320 and to say that I choose the blue button
00:50:49.000 because I'm going to have to stand before God
00:50:52.160 I think is dodging the entire problem
00:51:00.180 and possibly in some circumstances
00:51:03.940 even making the problem worse
00:51:06.200 when you run the Hawk Dove
00:51:13.700 game theory simulation
00:51:15.500 there's going to be
00:51:19.840 a certain number of hawks
00:51:20.920 you're not going to get rid of the hawks
00:51:23.440 you can have all the minimum wage you want
00:51:28.100 they'll just replace you with robots
00:51:30.960 and saying I'm always going to do the right thing
00:51:45.300 misses out on the fact that doing the right thing
00:51:50.340 often creates circumstances
00:51:53.260 where people who do the wrong thing can flourish.
00:52:00.960 so
00:52:06.760 oh thank you for the likes guys
00:52:10.200 thank you for the likes
00:52:11.680 alright what if I turn off shuffle
00:52:18.960 alright we played that one already
00:52:24.540 wait can we go backwards
00:52:26.500 there we go
00:52:29.200 JT, how do I loop
00:52:35.220 this track playlist?
00:52:45.280 Let's see, I believe JT linked the music
00:52:47.500 earlier.
00:52:51.740 JT, could you link the music
00:52:53.520 again? My link is super
00:52:55.580 long.
00:52:59.200 going back to Luigi Mangione
00:53:13.600 I mean like isn't there such a direct
00:53:15.420 comparison to the Joker
00:53:17.840 movie
00:53:18.200 you get what
00:53:21.860 you deserve
00:53:22.640 oh yeah
00:53:25.960 we are zesty
00:53:27.460 negroes around here illuminator very zesty I wish I could remember the rest
00:53:38.020 of that meme how's it going he's uh zesty he's a tutti frutti nigger
00:53:47.900 there we go there's there's the playlist
00:53:57.460 You get what you deserve if you screw people over, if you create a huge disaffected class
00:54:16.520 of people.
00:54:23.360 The Joker movie
00:54:24.580 is just a movie.
00:54:26.540 Let's keep in mind. It's not
00:54:28.360 a sociology report.
00:54:31.920 But Joker is such a heartbreaking character
00:54:34.540 because he's
00:54:35.760 he's
00:54:38.120 a genuine guy trying
00:54:40.340 to engage with society
00:54:42.200 and being given
00:54:44.340 no
00:54:45.740 no welcome
00:54:47.700 no opportunity for success
00:54:51.060 oh yeah I consider Joker 2
00:54:56.480 Joker 2 was disgusting
00:54:58.160 I don't know that Joker
00:55:03.800 is a fair representation
00:55:06.340 of what's going on
00:55:08.040 but as a character study
00:55:12.020 Joker is a very
00:55:14.380 very tragic
00:55:15.480 anti-hero.
00:55:20.940 By the way, that's what
00:55:22.140 an anti-hero is, okay?
00:55:24.700 Not
00:55:25.300 not
00:55:27.540 not a hero that acts
00:55:32.120 like an asshole, okay?
00:55:33.780 Joker is an anti-hero.
00:55:38.580 Tragic hero.
00:55:40.140 Tragic character.
00:55:45.480 Yeah, I do need to look into that saxophone, don't I?
00:55:47.900 Jesus, I don't want to spend money.
00:55:50.460 It probably won't be that much money.
00:55:57.260 JT, I'll look into it soon, okay?
00:56:05.460 Yes, send super chats.
00:56:06.880 And send good questions as well.
00:56:09.240 Questions, problems, concerns.
00:56:12.020 Kind of winding towards the end of what...
00:56:14.660 anything too interesting I have to say
00:56:16.540 on the topic. It's just that it's
00:56:18.420 my problem with the Christian
00:56:24.440 answer that oh I'm doing it
00:56:26.480 for God. I'm doing it to be
00:56:28.500 righteous. I'm which is
00:56:30.480 maybe what the Protestants mean when they
00:56:32.420 say like it's not your works.
00:56:39.960 Maybe they're on to something with that. Like I
00:56:42.280 hate to give Protestants any credit
00:56:44.280 whatsoever. Maybe they're on to something there.
00:57:00.200 That's exactly it. I deal with my familiar micropenis by faith alone. No,
00:57:05.400 Oh, sorry. Not clever. Not clever.
00:57:09.020 Let's play him in timeout.
00:57:12.880 30 minutes.
00:57:14.500 If he comes back and he's funny, he can be back.
00:57:25.660 Are you not a moderator?
00:57:27.140 I'm pretty sure JT's a moderator.
00:57:28.860 I have no idea
00:57:35.660 how to turn them into one
00:57:54.700 you know what show
00:57:55.740 I don't hear about a lot
00:57:57.720 is The Good Place.
00:58:04.520 The Good Place is, honest to God,
00:58:06.940 it's one of the best
00:58:08.840 intros to moral philosophy
00:58:11.860 that's pretending to be a comedy.
00:58:18.940 And, I mean, you can argue it's pretty basic,
00:58:21.340 but it certainly does introduce
00:58:23.280 I was going to say normies, because I'm a condescending fuck,
00:58:27.300 But, yeah, it introduces normies to these ideas fairly, fairly frickin' well.
00:58:39.900 And it's a fun show.
00:58:42.700 It's a fun show.
00:58:57.300 I don't know, watch The Good Place.
00:59:03.760 Watch it, don't get bent out of shape about it, just watch it.
00:59:08.280 It's solid, it was trying to advance ideas.
00:59:11.220 You know, give the show credit for being good at that.
00:59:17.520 I know, I know, I can see the liberal bias in it as well.
00:59:27.300 UnitedTechnocrat
00:59:31.920 says, what is your thoughts on
00:59:33.960 National Socialist ideals?
00:59:37.700 I mean, oh, that's, it's kind of a huge
00:59:40.320 question, but
00:59:41.440 there really was this weird phenomenon
00:59:48.360 at the start of the 20th century
00:59:56.900 like the 1850s
00:59:59.000 to the 1950s
01:00:00.800 there was such a desire
01:00:03.120 to
01:00:03.740 get rid of everything
01:00:06.840 we'd understood of as politics
01:00:08.620 as
01:00:10.500 emotion, as family
01:00:12.120 get rid of humanity and replace it
01:00:14.840 with technocracy
01:00:15.660 I mean we still have it
01:00:21.200 we still have
01:00:22.420 using nudge tactics
01:00:24.600 trying to control your vote through the internet
01:00:27.080 I don't really view it that differently
01:00:36.500 than I view all the others
01:00:38.000 it's just
01:00:38.960 trying to turn free will
01:00:42.220 into a scientific concept
01:00:43.700 Wait, did Joker 2 have Lady Gaga
01:00:56.240 in it? Was that Lady Gaga?
01:00:58.920 I have no idea what
01:01:00.200 she looks like. I just know she's really
01:01:02.060 obnoxious.
01:01:05.620 I found Joker 2
01:01:07.460 it was
01:01:10.100 mean-spirited.
01:01:13.700 It was mean-spirited
01:01:17.580 and didn't really say anything
01:01:19.180 at the end of it.
01:01:24.300 Yeah, it's okay.
01:01:25.220 So Gaga was actually Harley.
01:01:27.380 I think I heard that somewhere.
01:01:28.980 It just didn't really register
01:01:31.280 because she's...
01:01:33.080 I'm sorry. She's a non-entity to me.
01:01:36.700 I know she was on
01:01:37.260 The Simpsons one time.
01:01:43.700 Lisa really liked her.
01:01:45.660 Listen, man, the Lisa Simpson I fell in love with
01:01:49.380 when I was eight years old
01:01:50.740 would not have loved Lady Gaga.
01:01:54.260 Eight? No, it didn't come out.
01:01:55.560 I was like 12 or something.
01:01:57.920 Whatever.
01:02:03.240 Hello, butterfly.
01:02:07.680 The second movie was just such a...
01:02:13.700 God, you know,
01:02:15.620 I went into it. I went into it
01:02:17.820 trying to
01:02:18.920 trying to have an open mind.
01:02:25.760 Like, I've only seen the first Joker movie
01:02:27.700 once. I'm of the opinion that
01:02:29.440 most of the crazier scenes
01:02:31.760 like the part where all the people are
01:02:33.560 rioting wearing Joker masks
01:02:35.200 his catharsis
01:02:38.120 is in his own mind.
01:02:43.700 there's this fantastical element to the movie
01:02:49.260 where he's the Joker
01:02:50.560 but
01:02:52.860 lacking
01:02:54.220 like if this happened in the real world
01:02:56.560 in the real world where it's actually
01:02:59.020 happening in the movie
01:03:00.120 there's no Batman
01:03:02.780 there's no Bruce Wayne
01:03:03.740 none of this exists
01:03:05.000 he's just a guy
01:03:08.380 that shot somebody on television
01:03:10.320 and yeah
01:03:15.160 Starving Vampire points out
01:03:17.120 I've already seen Taxi Driver
01:03:18.560 which is another one of those movies
01:03:25.520 that ends on that ambiguous note
01:03:28.260 is the ending of the movie real
01:03:30.680 or is it all on his own head
01:03:40.320 One of the things that you guys
01:03:48.920 should all look up
01:03:49.980 speaking of Taxi Driver
01:03:52.540 there's a really interesting conversation
01:03:56.480 between a person claiming to be
01:03:59.100 a member of the Illuminati
01:04:01.080 on some conspiracy
01:04:04.980 was it like God's Production?
01:04:08.200 Some conspiracy
01:04:09.140 forum
01:04:10.140 and this person
01:04:11.800 alleging to be a member of the Illuminati
01:04:13.620 shows up
01:04:14.280 and starts answering
01:04:17.940 questions. Ask me anything.
01:04:23.560 And there's this one guy that keeps
01:04:25.480 angrily confronting him.
01:04:28.120 Why do you do things this way?
01:04:30.680 And he just starts calling this guy
01:04:32.060 Bickle.
01:04:33.360 After Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver.
01:04:38.800 And Travis
01:04:39.880 effected
01:04:42.640 no significant
01:04:44.920 change in his society.
01:04:51.400 Up until the part of the movie
01:04:52.820 where Travis shaves his head
01:04:54.400 and goes on the killing spree,
01:04:56.920 he doesn't really exhibit
01:04:58.920 any strong set of moral
01:05:02.880 values. Like, he
01:05:04.160 never shows that he stands for anything.
01:05:09.880 it's more like he was a
01:05:13.040 loose cannon looking for somewhere to fire.
01:05:20.360 And he eventually found a target that is
01:05:22.940 worthy of condemnation.
01:05:26.980 As did Joker.
01:05:29.700 As did
01:05:30.900 Luigi.
01:05:39.880 I am more or less
01:05:43.260 okay with the actions
01:05:47.420 of Bickle and Mangione
01:05:49.700 and Joker.
01:05:51.740 Like, I don't really give a shit
01:05:53.660 about those people.
01:05:58.600 Actually,
01:05:59.240 Joker is probably the most evil.
01:06:01.240 Although the guy on TV was an asshole.
01:06:03.760 But he kind of got murdered
01:06:05.260 just for being an asshole.
01:06:09.880 There aren't a lot of people that have wanted to murder me, so.
01:06:13.780 Speaking as a professional asshole.
01:06:22.600 No, like, I get their targets.
01:06:26.120 Don't have a lot of sympathy.
01:06:27.140 I get really, really upset when I hear about genuine, innocent people being harmed by monsters.
01:06:33.100 That's the sort of thing that makes my blood boil.
01:06:36.180 some rich asshole CEO
01:06:39.640 that is
01:06:41.460 is
01:06:43.680 he's going right up to the point
01:06:45.760 of legally
01:06:47.860 it's defrauding somebody
01:06:49.260 he's going right up to that line
01:06:51.440 oh and he gets killed
01:06:55.400 okay
01:06:55.780 not upset
01:06:59.040 oh what
01:07:03.100 a pimp
01:07:05.340 that pimps out underage
01:07:07.620 prostitutes
01:07:08.540 gets ventilated
01:07:10.680 not upset.
01:07:22.900 You know, you
01:07:24.040 you mess with the bull,
01:07:30.560 you get the horns.
01:07:35.340 Well, and JT says something good here.
01:07:47.540 He says, does this structure produce trust or constant conflict?
01:07:58.960 I guess that's a better way of phrasing it.
01:08:01.000 If you go around engaging in bad karma, don't be too surprised when bad karma finds you.
01:08:23.400 Thank you.
01:08:25.080 Thank you, LD Wankanobi.
01:08:29.560 Thank you.
01:08:31.000 so I'm gonna wrap it back around
01:08:39.480 I'm gonna get it closing down soon
01:08:41.120 unless if anybody has
01:08:42.980 any questions, problems, concerns
01:08:44.800 you got comments
01:08:45.740 but to kind of wrap it back around
01:08:50.340 the red button, blue button
01:08:51.860 those are bad buttons
01:08:58.300 let's get better buttons
01:09:11.560 let's get more complex games
01:09:13.660 to play
01:09:14.520 oh is joker red or blue button
01:09:22.400 I would say that Joker
01:09:31.540 is when you get too many people
01:09:34.320 pushing the red button
01:09:35.240 or maybe
01:09:39.460 a better way of putting it
01:09:41.020 is where you get a really
01:09:44.120 unhealthy blue button
01:09:45.880 and a really unhealthy red button
01:09:48.260 like you've got the two extremes
01:09:50.540 in the movie where you've got the
01:09:52.100 you've got this massive
01:09:54.340 social welfare system
01:09:56.120 which
01:09:58.560 the welfare system is just
01:10:00.440 absolutely terrible
01:10:01.460 because the welfare
01:10:03.700 it gives people just enough money
01:10:06.260 to tread
01:10:08.660 water
01:10:09.040 without ever going anywhere in life
01:10:12.620 you spend your whole life
01:10:14.620 scrimping and saving
01:10:16.280 and collecting coupons and buying
01:10:18.240 craft dinner and
01:10:20.120 filling out forms
01:10:22.320 and waiting in line
01:10:23.420 it's like you're the virus
01:10:30.060 that the system needs to be inoculated against
01:10:32.120 you're the
01:10:33.460 problematic troll
01:10:35.600 that the system has no
01:10:38.080 use for that could become dangerous
01:10:40.260 so we give you
01:10:42.240 just enough welfare
01:10:43.540 and we keep you busy
01:10:47.360 we keep you occupied
01:10:49.080 so that
01:10:51.820 you don't explode
01:10:53.920 onto the system
01:10:54.780 but at the same time
01:11:03.120 we have this red button
01:11:04.900 system
01:11:06.920 where
01:11:07.860 people just engage
01:11:11.020 in untrammeled psychopathy
01:11:12.980 like the
01:11:15.800 host of the
01:11:17.620 variety show
01:11:19.020 I forget his name.
01:11:19.920 The Joker eventually shoots.
01:11:21.940 The guy he was looking up to his whole life.
01:11:25.460 Turns out just to be an asshole.
01:11:30.280 So you got toxic forms of the blue button and the red button.
01:11:38.920 That's what makes the whole thing such a goddamn tragedy.
01:11:45.160 Like, there are no...
01:11:47.020 there are no good guys
01:11:49.180 and there are no innocents
01:11:50.660 in that movie.
01:11:56.880 Star from Vampire says,
01:11:58.120 Joker is what happens
01:11:58.940 when the system stops making sense.
01:12:03.220 Yeah, I think he nailed it.
01:12:04.700 I think that's why it speaks to people.
01:12:07.100 Ostensibly, the movie's about
01:12:08.520 1970s stagflation,
01:12:11.340 all the issues going on back then.
01:12:17.020 But it's not about the 1970s, for fuck's sake.
01:12:19.320 I mean, it has the Joker and Batman in it for...
01:12:21.920 It's not about those things.
01:12:24.700 It's set in the stagflation of the 1970s.
01:12:28.660 So why the hell does it speak to us so much these days?
01:12:32.260 And I think you nail it.
01:12:33.600 Because things don't make sense.
01:12:37.500 Everything feels broken.
01:12:41.160 Dating is broken.
01:12:43.060 Law and order is broken.
01:12:44.880 Politics is broken.
01:12:47.020 yeah let's take the question
01:12:59.880 the red button blue button
01:13:01.300 which obviously I've just spent
01:13:04.600 you know like an hour and a half
01:13:07.080 how long are we going
01:13:09.280 yeah okay just over an hour
01:13:12.760 alright
01:13:13.240 I'm not doing five hours tonight
01:13:16.020 we'll close it down in about 15 minutes
01:13:18.840 so obviously this is a question
01:13:20.900 that has some interesting aspects to it
01:13:23.280 but at the same time
01:13:27.340 it's a question that's a
01:13:29.220 total
01:13:31.020 escape from reality
01:13:32.480 jeez uh butterfly ballerina asks is bruce wayne actually or senior wayne or whatever
01:13:51.220 actually i was left with the impression that that's just something the mother made up
01:14:02.480 but I've only seen the movie once
01:14:04.660 and I would be open to other
01:14:06.380 interpretations
01:14:07.080 I need a girl
01:14:16.460 to come up here to Alberta and watch the movie with me
01:14:18.680 Butterfly, so
01:14:20.080 we'll see how things go
01:14:22.180 um
01:14:22.600 on all these questions of
01:14:31.520 economy, politics, like that we don't have
01:14:34.300 answers, like the things that matter the most
01:14:36.420 have become the most
01:14:38.060 vague
01:14:38.660 and so
01:14:41.560 we try and shake things
01:14:44.320 up, we try and make them
01:14:46.260 interesting, what's
01:14:48.140 interesting about the red button, blue button
01:14:50.120 is that the answers
01:14:54.160 actually do
01:14:56.240 trans, one of the few things
01:14:58.260 that transcends
01:15:00.240 the left-right divide
01:15:02.220 is this question.
01:15:17.800 Right.
01:15:19.420 Cycling Nowhere, yeah, you're correct.
01:15:21.680 Bruce Wayne and Joker would have been
01:15:23.680 brothers if Joker's
01:15:26.160 mother was telling the truth.
01:15:28.320 So it's Wayne
01:15:29.600 Sr.
01:15:31.280 I forget his name.
01:15:34.300 Wayne Sr. is the one that would
01:15:35.940 have possibly
01:15:37.840 been Joker's father.
01:15:40.980 However, I
01:15:41.800 think
01:15:42.340 it's implied this is just something
01:15:45.920 that Joker's mother made up.
01:15:47.200 has anybody else made the connection
01:15:59.700 to Grendel's mother
01:16:00.600 so in the tale of Beowulf
01:16:08.400 Grendel is the monster
01:16:12.200 that's terrorizing the meat hall
01:16:17.200 But Grendel, Grendel's mother is the more primordial, monstrous form.
01:16:25.340 She's actually very, very much like Tiamat in the, what would you call the Babylonian mythology?
01:16:35.360 I guess you'd call it the Babylonian mythology.
01:16:37.120 Tiamat is the
01:16:42.540 now in Dungeon and Dragons
01:16:45.020 Tiamat is the
01:16:46.400 mother of dragons
01:16:48.440 and I believe she's a chaotic evil god
01:16:53.500 in Babylonian mythology
01:16:55.160 Tiamat is the
01:16:57.200 the goddess
01:16:58.680 the serpent of the
01:17:00.560 salt water
01:17:01.620 versus the
01:17:03.660 the good gods
01:17:06.580 of the sweet water, meaning
01:17:08.700 not like river water.
01:17:11.660 Because these religions
01:17:12.760 were founded where rivers meant
01:17:14.620 sea.
01:17:17.940 And Marduk,
01:17:18.880 who became king of the gods, who is the
01:17:20.740 Zeus of that pantheon,
01:17:23.780 who
01:17:24.100 lots of
01:17:27.080 parallels to the
01:17:28.620 Greek pantheon.
01:17:31.600 Marduk
01:17:32.360 slayed Tiamat.
01:17:34.880 Tiamat was the mother
01:17:37.300 of monsters.
01:17:40.100 So,
01:17:41.320 she gave birth to all these, uh,
01:17:44.400 Marduk,
01:17:45.660 Marduk's father,
01:17:49.280 I might be getting a couple of details
01:17:51.240 wrong, but bear with me.
01:17:53.620 Marduk's father
01:17:54.540 was the
01:17:57.400 Saturn.
01:17:58.900 Saturn that ate his own,
01:18:01.080 ate his own young.
01:18:04.880 and Marduk was the Zeus that slew his father to free his siblings.
01:18:15.420 Tiamat, who was Saturn's bride,
01:18:21.000 was outraged and gave birth to the monsters
01:18:24.600 to fight against the gods,
01:18:29.340 Zeus and Marduk and the other deities.
01:18:34.880 Kind of the equivalent of Titans in some ways in Greek mythology.
01:18:43.420 And we see this pattern with Beowulf, with Grendel and Grendel's mother.
01:18:52.720 And Grendel is a watery being of transitions, who lives under the water, but attacks on land.
01:19:01.420 a very froggy
01:19:03.540 sort of a being
01:19:04.600 and I think there is
01:19:09.980 huge comparison
01:19:11.400 between Joker and
01:19:14.120 Grendel
01:19:14.600 and Joker's mother and Grendel's
01:19:18.120 mother. These monstrous
01:19:20.260 outcasts
01:19:21.360 these single mothers
01:19:23.660 that raise monstrous sons
01:19:31.420 Oh, Butterfly Battlemarine says
01:19:35.980 the king is Grendel's father.
01:19:37.660 Is that clearly established?
01:19:41.000 It's been a long time
01:19:42.220 since I read Beowulf.
01:19:45.700 Or is that implied?
01:19:52.400 Hrothgar is the king, isn't it?
01:20:01.420 let's see
01:20:05.820 the problem isn't just that the social contract broke
01:20:09.020 it's that it pretends it didn't
01:20:10.860 that's how jokers are made
01:20:12.900 yeah like joker
01:20:20.580 who was a
01:20:23.140 bastard
01:20:23.620 would not have been brought
01:20:27.100 into the world
01:20:28.320 if
01:20:30.620 Wayne Senior
01:20:31.920 hadn't slept with Grendel.
01:20:38.120 Although it's also
01:20:39.060 unclear
01:20:39.760 that she actually did.
01:20:46.740 There's an animated Beowulf.
01:20:48.480 Man, I gotta check that out.
01:20:51.760 You know, the copy
01:20:52.980 I read, it was great. It had the English
01:20:54.960 on one side and the Old English
01:20:56.940 on the other. And it was
01:20:58.600 it was fascinating. Some of the words were identical.
01:21:02.440 Beer
01:21:02.760 and helm
01:21:03.940 are the same word.
01:21:07.000 They haven't changed in a
01:21:08.920 thousand years. Everything
01:21:10.800 else was unreadable, but like
01:21:12.760 every so often you'd see a word that was completely
01:21:14.980 unchanged.
01:21:22.080 I mean, Grendel had
01:21:28.540 to come from somewhere.
01:21:33.780 I didn't even know
01:21:34.760 there were other films. I only knew about the 13th
01:21:36.560 Warrior, which was
01:21:37.340 loosely based upon it, I guess.
01:21:42.340 It had a
01:21:42.940 Muslim
01:21:44.560 POV character,
01:21:46.640 which was
01:21:48.300 interesting 30 years ago,
01:21:50.500 but now it's...
01:21:52.760 Hey, Michael Crichton did it, so I'll stand
01:21:54.520 by Michael Crichton. That guy was really cool.
01:21:58.540 Let's go.
01:22:28.520 Similar connections in Taxi Driver to Beowulf.
01:22:42.700 Here's some cynical analysis about Taxi Driver.
01:22:50.120 So, to remind you, the climax of the film is the eponymous Taxi Driver.
01:22:58.520 Travis Bickle
01:22:59.740 rescues an underage
01:23:06.840 child prostitute
01:23:08.140 from her pimp
01:23:10.400 in a blazing gun
01:23:12.420 battle.
01:23:16.320 Again, been 15 years since I saw
01:23:18.480 this movie, so
01:23:19.300 don't consider this a film review.
01:23:28.520 do you think a year later
01:23:35.340 that the girl he saved
01:23:37.200 was not a prostitute
01:23:38.980 all over again
01:23:39.860 that
01:23:48.380 forum I mentioned
01:23:50.920 where the alleged
01:23:52.860 Illuminati
01:23:53.740 kept making fun of the one guy calling him
01:23:56.660 Travis Bickle
01:23:57.440 Travis Bickle didn't overthrow the system
01:24:04.040 He didn't change anything
01:24:06.480 He just shot a pimp
01:24:09.380 And the girl he rescued was probably back in the exact same position
01:24:15.000 All over again a year later
01:24:17.060 What did he accomplish?
01:24:23.820 What did Joker accomplish?
01:24:27.440 you know there's a part of Beowulf
01:24:37.440 which is
01:24:41.120 it's one of the most interesting parts of the story
01:24:43.080 to me because the
01:24:44.860 the first two thirds
01:24:47.140 of Beowulf
01:24:48.560 the bulk
01:24:51.180 of the story is
01:24:53.340 a typical adventure
01:24:55.400 story of Beowulf and his warriors
01:24:57.420 they show up at Hrothgar's hall
01:24:59.120 and they fight Grendel
01:25:00.960 then they fight Grendel's mother and they're the heroes
01:25:03.300 this is typically where the story would end
01:25:09.000 this is where a Hollywood movie ends
01:25:10.940 but not Beowulf
01:25:15.420 Beowulf then
01:25:16.420 20 years pass
01:25:19.360 and there's a
01:25:22.500 a dragon of greed that Beowulf fights
01:25:25.580 and Beowulf
01:25:27.200 kills the dragon, but dies in the process.
01:25:41.000 Which is a commentary.
01:25:42.860 Okay, so JT just said,
01:25:45.360 Travis can see a monster,
01:25:47.140 but he can't see the system that produces it.
01:25:49.820 That's what's so interesting
01:25:51.000 about the end of Beowulf.
01:25:52.820 It's like an addendum.
01:25:55.700 it's like an expansion pack
01:25:57.360 it's almost like
01:25:59.860 Baldur's Gate 2
01:26:01.440 and then the expansion pack
01:26:04.700 which is so much
01:26:08.740 it's not as big as Baldur's Gate 2
01:26:12.500 it's an expansion pack
01:26:14.300 that completes the story
01:26:15.360 but it's very winnowed
01:26:17.820 Beowulf is the adventuring hero
01:26:25.240 for most of the story
01:26:26.380 and then 20 years pass and he's the old king
01:26:29.400 and the dragon
01:26:33.020 is as much of a reflection of him
01:26:35.600 like the dragon of greed
01:26:37.360 and he's the greedy old king
01:26:51.100 I really feel like
01:26:52.800 the end fight between
01:26:54.580 Elder, Beowulf, and the dragon
01:26:57.140 is crucial to understanding the story.
01:26:59.480 It's crucial to
01:27:00.780 not producing
01:27:02.740 another Grendel.
01:27:14.900 I do think that
01:27:16.360 I think Beowulf
01:27:18.140 is justified in the end.
01:27:19.940 I do think Beowulf stays the hero.
01:27:24.580 I don't think Travis Bickle does.
01:27:31.280 One of the standout scenes in the movie,
01:27:35.040 a taxi driver,
01:27:37.580 is Travis Bickle practicing in the mirror,
01:27:43.100 imitating the gunslingers from the movies.
01:27:47.620 There's this constant theme of Travis comparing himself to movie characters.
01:27:51.760 which is something I think
01:27:55.660 we all do to some
01:27:57.580 extent or another
01:27:58.420 yeah the next day
01:28:07.800 we start all over again
01:28:08.800 so if we were
01:28:21.860 to posit that
01:28:24.340 Grendel
01:28:27.620 was sired by Hrothgar
01:28:30.040 that Grendel and Grendel's
01:28:34.020 mother are the
01:28:36.020 the Joker and Joker's
01:28:40.640 mother. Those that are kicked
01:28:42.580 out of society.
01:28:44.840 Those that are inconvenient.
01:28:48.200 Those that society doesn't have a place for.
01:28:50.180 Those that get used.
01:28:52.820 And they're bitter. And they're angry.
01:28:54.780 They're rejected.
01:29:01.200 Unlike Hrothgar,
01:29:03.360 who
01:29:04.120 exports his sins
01:29:06.740 to the wilderness
01:29:07.660 and
01:29:12.640 calls for some other hero
01:29:14.560 to solve the problem
01:29:16.400 Beowulf
01:29:19.640 who gets old
01:29:23.020 and greedy
01:29:23.760 and brings upon himself
01:29:26.360 the dragon of greed
01:29:27.720 deals with his own shit
01:29:31.900 he slays his own dragon.
01:29:35.180 He doesn't export it onto the youth.
01:29:37.200 you know one of the thoughts i've had many many times in my life is like i've read something
01:30:07.200 I can't promise that this is true, so take it as metaphor.
01:30:14.260 That humans produce cancer cells.
01:30:17.660 We produce cells that naturally absorb all the poisons in our body.
01:30:22.580 And then they commit suicide.
01:30:26.440 They are the cellular scapegoats of all the toxins we ingest.
01:30:37.200 And once in a while, these cells go cancerous.
01:30:43.040 I have no idea if that biology is true.
01:30:48.880 But it does seem to ring true sociologically.
01:30:59.580 Movies like Taxi Driver.
01:31:04.120 Joker.
01:31:04.600 These are about, yeah, they're about cancer cells that go rogue.
01:31:09.140 Well put.
01:31:15.400 So is Beowulf.
01:31:17.840 Grendel is a cancer cell that went rogue.
01:31:25.700 Grendel was supposed to commit suicide.
01:31:28.540 Instead, Grendel lashed out against the meat hall.
01:31:34.600 What ought we to do about this?
01:31:56.920 Yeah, Beowulf does seem to be a hero that takes account for his own mistakes.
01:32:04.600 I really need to re-read that book.
01:32:26.760 These are hard questions to answer.
01:32:34.600 Life would be a lot easier if there were just a right answer to these questions, wouldn't it?
01:32:45.880 What's so gross, Butterfly?
01:33:02.680 His ears?
01:33:04.600 Oh, Gr- Grengel's ears.
01:33:07.680 I need to go, I need to look this damn thing up.
01:33:13.940 Alright, guys, I'm gonna get the stream
01:33:16.040 shut down. I think it's been an
01:33:17.860 interesting stream.
01:33:19.880 I do have a really good video that's coming up
01:33:22.180 pretty soon. I, uh,
01:33:25.260 tentatively on
01:33:26.140 Tuesday, I like
01:33:28.080 posting videos on Tuesday.
01:33:31.580 For
01:33:32.080 reasons.
01:33:34.600 But it should be ready by then.
01:33:42.040 If there's any other questions, problems,
01:33:43.980 just toss them out.
01:33:46.880 I'd love to keep going
01:33:47.920 all night, but...
01:33:54.300 Dolphin Sun?
01:33:55.340 I don't know what that means,
01:33:57.060 but thank you for sticking through the whole stream.
01:33:59.580 yeah jt's been doing some editing work on the video i need to review it
01:34:07.420 go back and forth create a process i want it to be a good video
01:34:29.580 Yeah, I did not think I was going to be talking about Joker and Beowulf.
01:34:35.720 There are interesting connections between those.
01:34:49.560 Anyway, folks.
01:34:52.400 Let's get her shut down.
01:34:56.600 Have you seen Promising Young Women?
01:34:58.620 No, I haven't.
01:34:59.580 I don't know if you mean
01:35:01.620 if that's a film.
01:35:13.320 Promising Younger.
01:35:14.200 You know, let me...
01:35:15.240 I'm just going to Google that.
01:35:29.580 Okay, interesting.
01:35:34.800 Alright, so, years after
01:35:36.560 a heinous act destroyed
01:35:38.340 her best friend, a woman seeks revenge
01:35:40.640 against a system that enables and protects
01:35:42.480 its predators.
01:35:48.220 That sounds interesting.
01:35:56.160 Is it good?
01:35:59.580 What do you think of it, Butterfly?
01:36:03.240 I'm curious.
01:36:15.820 Yes, it's good.
01:36:17.100 she has it on dvd
01:36:30.620 okay
01:36:35.380 that sounds really interesting all right i i will have to check out that film
01:36:41.240 but I think I've run out of
01:36:45.680 creative and clever things to say
01:36:48.000 on this live stream
01:36:49.580 I should probably shut her down
01:36:52.040 it's better if you
01:36:54.800 okay so I gotta listen
01:36:56.280 I gotta listen to my computer
01:36:57.760 I gotta get TV
01:36:59.300 maybe I'll listen on the TV
01:37:01.160 god I wish I had something
01:37:09.560 really solid to end on. I don't
01:37:11.780 though. I don't know
01:37:13.640 that I haven't even solved
01:37:15.580 that stupid red button, blue button thing.
01:37:21.220 Anyway, we'll keep trying to
01:37:23.560 solve the problems
01:37:25.300 of existential
01:37:27.380 reality here on
01:37:29.580 Stairs of the World.
01:37:34.440 And we might just
01:37:35.680 watch, we might just check out that
01:37:37.680 film
01:37:38.180 What's it called again?
01:37:41.480 Promising Young Woman.
01:37:44.380 God, this is going to break my heart, isn't it?
01:37:49.280 Folks, thank you for all listening.
01:37:51.420 Carpe Futurum.
01:37:52.940 Teddy Trattitum.
01:37:56.060 Burini.
01:37:57.580 Out.
01:37:59.240 Wait, wait, how do I hang up?
01:38:01.900 How do I stop?
01:38:03.980 How do I make it go away?
01:38:08.820 There we go.
01:38:09.520 Good night, folks.