The Banality of Empathy
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
1
sentences flagged
Toxicity
9
sentences flagged
Hate speech
3
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, we take a look into the mind of the man who created Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a video game designed to teach us about science and technology, a man who has a PhD from Caltech, who is a nerd, who loves video games, and who has created a game that teaches us about the atom.
Transcript
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so he went to Caltech and now it was affirmative affirmative action involved in that admissions
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process probably no doubt in fact however uh you still have to go through the motions you still
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have to do it one one of the problems of affirmative action is that they will sort of give
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you know an african-american student this bite at the apple and they've got this amazing chance
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and they blow it and so it's sort of worse for everyone in a way but
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mr allen he has a degree from caltech so he should be um applauded to some degree uh he's
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able to sort of do the work now maybe i am being willfully naive here and the grade inflation and
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the ability to sort of skate by uh is worse than i would imagine but uh at the very least he's sort
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of a nerdy type he also created a video game um you tweeted about this uh it seems i was about to
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show this oh yeah this is a look into the the mind of this man this is this does us so much more than
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a manifesto so hi i'm a proton with a smiley face and you have this little cute music now the
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electron is bouncing around an imaginary sphere now the electron is the proton is receiving
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radioactive energy apparently and now he has to redirect it toward the electron to try to
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to avoid a collapse that is the game and it's called boredom boredom uh b-o-h-r bore the the
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quantum physicist the physicist of atoms boredom you do this when you're bored you feel boredom
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you play some game you learn about physics you learn about not to be a bigot because you get
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educated i think this guy was in the total institutional mood of science training science
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education he ended up being hired as a teacher of physics so this guy has been surfing on
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basically yeah education will free you if you learn more about the atoms you're going to know
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more you're going to be a better citizen this is the kind of memes that are absolutely endemic
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to leftism and to leftist corporate culture very millennial even is he technically a zoomer if he's
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31 i don't know i think he is spiritually millennial yeah um say again i don't know about
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the generations and where they end and stuff he's a millennial and he's a millennial he fucking loves
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science he yes like like what are the most successful video games like obviously i'm sure
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uh what is it what is the one called where you get to like put a dead hooker in a trunk and
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and like grand theft audio yes okay um that's the most successful i think madden where you get to
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be a player so in some ways like the or or cod like call of duty you you get to like refight the
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civil war but the south wins this time or or whatever so basically video games that are the
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most uh popular and influential are this like deep male fantasy or the first person shooter
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you're blowing the heads off zombies or whatever it's this like a fantasy of being athletic um
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for what it's worth mlb the show 26 is actually very fun i did a home run do derby as babe ruth
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it's kind of awesome but whatever i got i've also kind of forgotten about it now i'm not a big video
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gamer but anyway the video games that are most successful are sort of like um deep male childish
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fantasies of warfare glory power violence sex and so on it just is what it is you know uh but
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what does he do it's like oh i can educate you about the atom and then he's playing a game that
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looks like pong like when was pong developed in 1969 or something i mean like yeah this like
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retroactive technology you're just like why didn't you reinvent the wheel i mean he almost did
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reinvent the wheel but but like it's like this is what i call a doorstop has anyone ever thought of
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this before me like oh um he's doing this like the technology is not interesting in the slightest
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bit but it has this millennial coded i fucking love science quality to it that makes it kind of
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like brilliant it's like oh this is great the high schoolers need to do this they'll learn about
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science this way it's just this sort of like like toxic positivity to him that is just the worst
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thing ever extremely wise words and isn't it fascinating and ironic that this guy has no
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shooting violence in his game so this guy is out there creating a game that's supposed to be
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pacific and on the other hand the guy who plays call of duty i don't expect i don't expect him
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to go try to shoot trump no because he's being satisfied in his fantasy of domination and violence
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in his virtual world whereas these guys they are containing it and it accumulates and for him it
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accumulates it appears to be a plan that he's had probably for four or five years to go kill trump
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because he says that was just my first opportunity well he had no outings for any of his desire for
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being a warrior in the virtual world and he took it only in the real world i i want to expound on
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this a little bit because i i think what you said is very interesting to me so so much of the video
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game is a fantasy and you can also say it's a pacifying measure by the deep state to keep
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people from killing people so let me let me explain i can remember in the 90s where you know
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tipper gore was on her high horse talking about uh rap videos and they were putting labels on music
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and so on and this notion of video games creating killers was in the news and talked about and
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debated and so on and one argument against it is that they would just do social science
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quantitative research and say look there's no real connection and so on I think a deeper
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analysis of this would engage in psychology and actually I would say that you're not a killer
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precisely because you play video games you're not you're not a rapist precisely because you're
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addicted to porn so it's the opposite porn is not inspiring rape porn is if anything preventing rape
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because you're gooning and deadening yourself and you're living out the fantasy now i say this
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um i i think having a fantasy life is important obviously it shows that you have an imagination
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and i don't really you know i don't know video games sort of rub me the wrong way a little bit
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in general but you know i don't if there's a young 14 year old boy and he wants to fantasize
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about refighting world war ii or blowing zombies heads off i think it probably is an expression of
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something good he has a bit of an adventurous spirit and uh etc i i don't think it means that
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like oh he's a killer he's a killer he wants to kill people um and so like in in some ways it's
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video games or in porn are neutralization strategies much more than they are inspiring
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things much more than their aphrodisiacs say and i think that has to be understood but again
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what your fantasy is says a lot about you it gives us a glimpse into the inner life
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so what is his fantasy his fantasy is about like being a math teacher or something his fantasy is
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about being a good boy a helper and yet the reality is that despite his his failure the
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reality is that he's obviously a dangerous, violent psychopath. Absolutely. And I often say
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that the leftists, they suffer from an empathy that is pathological. And look at this. His atoms
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had feelings. Some of the atoms are peaceful, busy, or stressful. Now, this is the psychologizing
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of nature. And it shows in exactly this kind of personality that wants to apologize all the time
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because they're constantly anxious about, I don't want to hurt other people. I don't want to make
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other people stressful. I wouldn't want my existence to put you at stress. And this
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pathological empathy leads them to believe, well, if there is Trump that is causing so much stress
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among america if he's causing this anxiety if he's victimizing young girls then i need to
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take action and that's more empathic than doing nothing yes do you think that this was going on
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with um uh tyler robinson and and lance twigs and so on it was a sort of
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someone needs to someone needs to shut up that just evil person who's saying bad things about
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my girlfriend you know and and her community like that this exactly
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