The Babylon Bee Effect ｜ Guest： Joel Berry ｜ 12⧸14⧸22
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 17 minutes
Words per Minute
187.72032
Summary
Joel Berry is the Managing Editor at The Babylon Thing, a satirical website that takes aim at progressive Christianity online. In this episode, Joel talks about how he got into comedy, why he started the site, and why he thinks it's the funniest site on the internet.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:00:10.720
Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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I have a great guest that I think everyone's going to enjoy.
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He's the managing editor over at the Babylon thing.
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I want to talk about kind of the role to be played and kind of all this Twitter stuff that's going on.
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And maybe a little bit about kind of progressive Christianity and why you're always seem to be sparring with these guys online.
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Because I get the idea that you didn't really come from like some kind of stand-up comedy background.
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I'm not classically trained in comedy whatsoever.
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Gosh, well, I guess my job before this was in supply chain logistics.
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I sold supply chain services to manufacturing corporations in the Midwest.
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Obviously, a very atypical path into writing satire.
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But the funny thing is that I'm pretty typical of all of the Babylon Bee writers on our staff.
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We're all kind of the people that would be passed over by the typical comedy world probably.
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But who have some natural talent, a knack for this kind of stuff.
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And, you know, the Bee is an outlet that platforms the kind of satire, the kind of messages, the kind of comedy that you won't find elsewhere.
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And it is wonderful to finally be doing what you really feel you were meant to be doing all along.
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I love that, you know, you come from that different background.
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Because I feel like that's what makes the Bee so unique.
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Like you said, it's just that comedy that you don't get anywhere else.
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I mean, a lot of people, if you told the average person that the funniest site on the internet would be kind of some, you know, conservative Christian site making in jokes about VeggieTales.
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I don't think that would make a lot of sense to people.
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But you guys have been slaying people like The Onion for years.
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Well, yeah, I think it's, I think there's something about having a bunch of guys writing comedy who are living in the real world.
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Who work, you know, who work regular jobs and live normal lives the way most people live their lives, you know, as opposed to maybe living in Manhattan, you know, writing for the Harvard Lampoon, things like that.
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But I think there's, there's, it gives our writing that sense of relatability that a lot of people kind of see themselves and the way they think in what we write in a way that you just don't see off.
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And that, that was, that was my initial attraction to the Bee.
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And I remember finding them on Facebook early on, you know, like 2016, summer of 2016, something like that.
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And, and coming across the headline, it was a Holy Spirit unable to move through congregation after the fog machine breaks.
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And it was kind of, I think for a lot of people, it was, it was their first time encountering something funny, something witty that, that didn't hold Christians or the Christian right in contempt or, or tried to joke about them in a way that didn't understand them.
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You know, we, we could make fun of Christian culture from a place of love and affection.
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And, and people really latched onto that, including myself.
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And then, as you know, 2016, that's when Trump was elected and Trump was kind of our foil.
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He gave us so much material for, for four years.
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But, you know, I think that that was kind of our second stage with the Babylon Bee was that we could make fun of Trump in a way that wasn't kind of like deranged and hateful and angry.
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We could do it in kind of a more good natured way.
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We could joke about a lot of the stuff that our culture was forbidden from joking about, you know, with the George Floyd riots and the Black Lives Matter movement.
00:06:04.260
You know, gender ideology, all this stuff, all this kind of low hanging fruit that I think you're seeing comedians just now starting to come around to.
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And it may be just now kind of like dig at these movements a little bit.
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You know, the Bee was back there four years ago joking about this stuff when it was completely culturally impermissible.
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So, so I think that was, that was really kind of our, our shot in the arm over those four years.
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Yeah, I think, you know, I hadn't thought about it enough, but I think it's kind of obvious why you guys can make fun of say gender ideology and other people can't, right?
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Like these humorless people, it is their religion, right?
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And, but you can actually point to funny parts about your religion and do it in a, in a good hearted way, but they can't, you know, look at it at all.
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But, but Trump is a really interesting point because most like, um, most, uh, you know, late night talk show comedians got way less funny during Trump, which is interesting because he should have given them infinite material like he did for you guys.
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But instead they, all they could do is basically turn into after school specials, right?
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They just were giving an altar call in every single one of their late night bits.
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And it's a shame because a lot of these guys are, we we've seen them be brilliant before.
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He, I mean, his, his, uh, satire of, of a right wing talk show was, was brilliant.
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Um, you know, same for a lot of these guys, but they kind of got this idea the way I think a lot of the media got the idea at the time that, that, that Trump was so dangerous.
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He was such an existential threat to our, our democracy that, that, uh, comedy, fun, good natured humor, all that had to take a backseat.
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And they, they now had to use their platforms to, to get this guy, to, to bring this guy down.
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That, that kind of like this, this very self-serious, um, they kind of fancied themselves as the warriors protecting democracy.
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And that, that just made them so much more ridiculous.
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And, and it, it, it opened the, the, the game up for people like us to come along and joke about the stuff that, that no one else was joking about.
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And also to kind of make fun of all the people that were just taking things so seriously during what was like literally the funniest presidency in American history.
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I, I, I mean, just objectively, I don't care what side you were on.
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I mean, there was so, there was so much that was funny about it.
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Um, and I think, you know, the other thing that I think really helped us too during that time was, you know, our, our Christian worldview, we start with this, this, uh, like this very basic, um, you know, assumption that all human beings have this fundamental flaw.
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We have original sin, which means that we're all, you know, we're all prone to pride and ridiculousness and, and, uh, silliness.
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And, and, and I think that kind of shared sense that we're all in the same boat, uh, it's not so much an us versus them as it is a, like a we problem.
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This is a humanity problem, you know, and, and like, you can kind of look at the, just the insanity of, of human beings trying to, you know, be their own gods, you know, create a new morality, uh, from scratch.
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Um, it, there is something that's just all, it's just very kind of silly about it when you, when you sit back and watch it all.
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Um, there's too much, there's too much, uh, silliness in the world to not be laughing every day.
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Well, one of the most amazing things, of course, is kind of the role that the Babylon Bee has played in this unfolding saga of kind of Twitter here.
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And I wanted to kind of pick your brain about this because that's why I named this episode, the Babylon Bee Effect, right?
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Cause I'm sure you're familiar with the Streisand effect and, uh, yeah.
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And, you know, the whole idea is the more you try to shut it up, the, the bigger it gets.
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And I love that, like the Babylon Bee being censored in a weird, indirect way feels like it completely like shattered a regime of lies that was being used to manipulate people.
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I want to get, get your thoughts on like, what was, I guess, let's go back to, to kind of maybe a little beginning of this process.
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So the Babylon Bee gets banned for naming the, uh, Admiral Levine, the, the man of the year, right?
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Like that's how it gets banned off Twitter, right?
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What, and, and you guys remove, refuse to remove this, right?
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Like when you find out your, your band and why you don't remove it and that kind of thing, what's going on kind of in the office there?
00:10:38.000
So I, I, I remember, so I, I'm the one who wrote that silly joke.
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Um, and it, it was one of those days where I, I, it was kind of a slow news day.
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There wasn't a lot of engagement on the site that day.
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I feel like, and, um, we had just read in, in the news that, uh, USA Today had named, uh, Rachel Levine, they're one of their women of the year.
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And, um, and so, you know, I wrote this thing as, you know, it's not even a joke as so much as it is like a troll, you know, it's like, it's almost just like, it's just something mischievous to put out there.
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I, I felt like kind of making some noise and stirring up the hornet's nest a little bit.
00:11:14.500
Um, and, um, so I, I, I threw it out there and, and, uh, Kyle, our editor in chief, uh, calls me a few hours later and he's like, dude, I think you're going to get us kicked off Twitter.
00:11:24.780
And, uh, sure enough, I think, uh, I want to say it was like the next day or, or two days after that, um, we were, uh, suspended or, or like we were locked out of our Twitter account, um, on the condition that we, uh, and we could come back on the condition that we delete the tweet.
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And then check a box saying that we, we acknowledge we have engaged in hateful conduct and we won't do it again, kind of a thing.
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And so, you know, I, this is the point where I have to give full credit to our owner, Seth Dillon.
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I mean, that was, that was where I was kind of like, okay, you know, well, we need our platform.
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We'll, we'll kind of have a wry dig in there at the whole system.
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Um, and Seth was like, immediately, like didn't even blink dude was just like, we're not deleting
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He immediately announced on, on Twitter that we weren't going to delete the tweet.
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So there we were, we were, we were painted into a corner there.
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And, um, and he, he took that stand from, from day one, from the, from the first minute.
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And, um, uh, you know, I think it was one of those things that, I mean, it could have gone
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There was no, uh, it was no sure, sure thing that this was going to turn out the way things
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Um, but I, I really, I, I credit Seth with taking that stand.
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And I think, um, I think that his is an example, um, of what can happen if more people take these
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You know, we make these tiny little compromises all the time, um, whether it's to keep our
00:13:00.980
platform, whether it's to not stir up trouble, uh, whatever it is.
00:13:04.780
Um, and that's, that is the way this kind of, uh, you know, this new religion, this kind
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of this woke cultural movement is allowed to, to go on unimposed because we don't oppose
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So, um, luckily, luckily we, we knew a certain, uh, multi-billionaire who, who likes the, the
00:13:24.020
Um, and, uh, he, at one point gave us a phone call and I, I think he was opening up his,
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his factory in, in, uh, Germany at the time, his Tesla factory.
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And, and he hadn't really heard, uh, what had, had gone on, but he kind of came back
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He booted up his Twitter, couldn't find the Babylon Bee and, and called us and was like,
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And we told him, and, uh, that's, that's the point when he, he kind of said, I, maybe
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I should just buy Twitter is what he said to our editor in chief comment.
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And, uh, I think the next day he put out that Twitter poll that said, you know, do you
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think that Twitter abides by the spirit of free speech or whatever that poll was?
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Um, and a lot of people responded, no, and that kind of got the ball rolling.
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So I, I don't think that the, the bee was by any means like this, the sole, uh, catalyst
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I think there was a lot going on that was frustrating him at the time that, that, that
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led him to do this, but you don't, thank God for him.
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A lot of important voices in, in our national discourses are now back on Twitter.
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I, sometimes I, I, I imagine that, uh, I'm going to wake up, you know, in November,
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2016 and, and be told that this is all a dream.
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And, and I'm still in supply chain logistics and Hillary's president, but here we are.
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The, um, I, I, I'm going to hold on to the idea that the Babylon Bee was the catalyst
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Like, you know, like, uh, it, it, the old Western, when the, when the legend becomes
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fact, print, print the legend, that's, that needs to be the legend that is printed.
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Because it, whether or not it's the entire catalyst for it, uh, the, the absurdity of banning
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a satire site for wrong think on, by saying, by saying something that is very true and very
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obvious really makes it clear kind of where we at, where we're at and what it takes, this
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constant omnipresent censorship that is required to kind of hold the, the worldview, these, the
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ridiculous progressive worldview that kind of dominates us all in, in place, right?
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Like when all of this stuff comes out and you see some of the background of like why
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people are getting banned off of Twitter and how things are getting manipulated, how they're
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absolutely just changing the rules on the fly to target people like yourselves, just
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because of your political viewpoint or, uh, political outlook, possibly it's not even a
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What do you, uh, what do you think about the ability of comedy to, to kind of break that,
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uh, you know, that constant stream of propaganda when you see a guy like Elon take action because
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of something that possibly, at least, you know, related to you guys in, in, in a decent way,
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how do you think that kind of the, the fact that that absurdity then triggers a far more
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important, uh, investigation into how the government is interacting with Twitter and shaping politics
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Are you, are you, is it kind of humbling to kind of be a part of that process in some way?
00:17:05.860
Um, you know, and I, I think in our case, this, this just happened to be the avenue.
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I think that, that, that God used, it could, if it, if it wouldn't have been us, it would
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I think, um, I think the, the, the thing about comedy that makes it so powerful, especially
00:17:25.000
right now is, is this sense that, um, laughter is involuntary and, uh, often usually it's involuntary.
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And, and when, um, when you laugh at a joke because of that, that nugget of truth that's
00:17:42.140
in it, um, you're, you're acknowledging something that is true about the world and, and what we
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found over the last four years with, you know, people who laugh at our jokes, you know, and
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we, we get feedback from, you know, from the left, from people who are atheists, from people
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who are, are, you know, maybe left the center who, um, who still think our, our stuff is
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funny and, and because they see that nugget of truth in there.
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Um, I think there's, there's something powerful in that, in a way that, that kind of strikes
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fear into the heart of, like you said, there's this, this worldview that is, it's really a
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It's, it's a, it's held together by, you know, tape and, and, you know, uh, like the, the
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slightest amount of, of ridicule or questioning.
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I mean, they, they, they can't abide any kind of ridicule because their, their worldview
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And so, um, I think, I think the, the reason that the left came after us so hard, I mean,
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I think for a lot of people from the outside, it, it looks so ridiculous, you know, why are
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But I think the left knows full well, and they have for a long time, how powerful, um, mockery
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and, and ridicule is, it goes, yeah, I mean, back to Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals.
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That was one of his rules was that, that ridicule is one of your most powerful weapons, um, against
00:19:11.180
Um, it's very hard to recover from, um, and the left has been using it, uh, very skillfully
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I mean, I, I've, uh, I've heard interviews of, of like the early, uh, SNL comedians, you
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know, in the, in the seventies and eighties, when they kind of first realized that they
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could actually move the needle of a national election by, you know, uh, caricaturing, uh,
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uh, you know, a Republican who is running and just making the, making them look like
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Um, and they, most recently we saw it with SNL and Sarah Palin.
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I mean, Sarah Palin, I remember the first Sarah, uh, speech I heard Sarah Palin give at
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She gave her speech about how she sold her private jet on eBay and all that.
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And I, I was in college at the time and I was rooming with a, he was a liberal guy that
00:20:00.660
And he watched the speech with me and he said, that is the best political speech that I've
00:20:06.120
You know, speaking of Sarah Palin, well, how do we remember Sarah Palin today?
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We remember her as the lady who could see Russia from her house, you know, with the ridiculous,
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you know, Fargo sounding accent that Tina Fey did.
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Um, it's very powerful, you know, and obviously our, our main goal isn't to like, you know,
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influence national elections and, you know, character assassinate people.
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We're, we're trying to tell the truth in our own way.
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And I think, um, that's where the battle is right now.
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Um, and, uh, and, and so I think our, that's, that's why our, our jokes have become, become
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kind of a, such a lightning rod for our culture.
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Well, and it's interesting because another, you know, one person who we know, uh, or what
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got targeted by Twitter for specific removal was libs of tech talk, which I believe Seth
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The owner of that account ended up kind of creating a career out of that.
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So that's, Seth is kind of a, he's a tech mogul.
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People think of him as the Babylon B guy, but he's, he's doing lots of stuff.
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But it's interesting that both of you, you know, lives of tech talk is just showing what
00:21:30.920
You, most of the time, it's just a reflection of reality.
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And in the same way, that's what you guys got banned for as well.
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Both of you in those cases, obviously you guys have a little more editorializing because
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But, but in both cases you were, you know, removed for the crime of just pointing out
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And that seems like the most dangerous thing for them is just this simple thing.
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Like he said, the, the left has been so good at using the power of comedy to kind of
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shame people about noticing obvious things, right?
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It started as kind of coding these things as low class and ignorant and behind the times.
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But as we've gotten closer to closer to kind of the progressives having the cultural hegemony,
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the cultural control, they've lost kind of the mocking ability, right?
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And instead, all they have left is this strict hectoring of people in this, this censorship
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The emperor obviously has clothes and you guys are just, you know, kind of showing that's
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And those are the things that get you completely banned.
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Well, you know, the other thing too, that, that makes this kind of funny and ironic is
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that, um, I came from very strict religious fundamentalism.
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I mean, very hardcore fundamentalism, like, you know, like the, you had the outsider and
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you had the people that you weren't supposed to talk to and the music that you weren't
00:22:57.380
supposed to listen to and, um, you know, I, I think growing up in that, in that world,
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I think gave me a very, um, very deep understanding that, you know, of, of this world, of this world
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of the left and kind of how they see themselves.
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Cause it really is, it is a new, uh, religious movement.
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It operates in a lot of the same ways, uh, religious fundamentalism does.
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And, and I was always kind of a snarky kind of disrespectful kid.
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I was always like the one, you know, making fun of our, you know, whatever church leadership
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or, you know, uh, I was always getting in trouble for all that kind of stuff.
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So I, I, this is always kind of a natural transition to, to grow up.
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And then suddenly, you know, I think the Christians are, are the outsiders, they've
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And now you kind of have this new movement and worldview that is operating in very much
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the same way as a, as a religion, religious movement, um, just with different ideals.
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And so I, I can kind of look at it from the outside and know exactly how these people
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And, and, uh, I think that makes this really effective.
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Why do you think it was so easy to kind of shame, not just Christians, but, but people
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have kind of all stripes had a more, you know, classic traditional understanding of morality
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Why do you think it was so easy for the media to kind of use comedy and mockery and dismissal
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to make people ignore really fundamental and obvious truths about kind of the world around
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I, um, I think that a lot of it has to do with the same reason the left is ripe for mockery
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And, and that is like self-righteousness and self-seriousness.
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And I think, you know, a lot of the, the mockery that Christians have endured in the
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I mean, we, you know, sometimes we take ourselves too seriously.
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Sometimes we, um, sometimes we're afraid of questioning.
00:25:01.660
Um, you know, uh, sometimes we can, we act very self-righteously, you know?
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Um, and so I think, uh, and sometimes we're afraid to laugh too, you know, Christians have
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kind of earned this, this, uh, this reputation, uh, for being very dour, uh, you know, sour
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And, um, I, I don't, I don't say that all of that is earned of course, but, um, I think,
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um, you know, being able to laugh a little bit, um, at your own culture, um, at yourself,
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um, and, uh, be more, being more open about your imperfections and your sins and your,
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and your failures, um, it, it makes you much, uh, more mockery proof, you know, because you're
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kind of doing, you're, you're taking the wind out of the sails of anyone who might make fun
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of you because you're, you're already well aware of, of, of your shortcomings and you're,
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and you're not afraid of them and you're open about them.
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And so I think, um, you know, if Christians can, can keep doing that, um, you know, being
00:26:05.360
confident in the truth, um, confident in what's, what's right, not, not wavering in that while
00:26:11.440
at the same time, um, you know, being, being willing to laugh at ourselves and, and some
00:26:16.260
of our own ridiculousness, I think, um, yeah, it makes us a lot harder to make fun of.
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So I, I agree with a lot of that. I think there, there's a lot of truth in, in pieces of that,
00:26:28.120
but I do wonder if one of the issues is kind of the loss of the idea of the sacred, right? Like
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there are, there are areas that you simply can't, you can't give in on, right? You can't discuss.
00:26:42.800
There are, there are hard lines in the sand. And I think while it is important for Christians to
00:26:48.560
like be winsome, make, you know, be able to take a joke, that kind of thing. I think one of the
00:26:53.180
problems, and maybe this will transition us that into some things I've seen you back and forth with
00:26:57.640
people on, uh, on Twitter about is so often it feels like Christians are actually really willing
00:27:05.100
to cede extremely important ground because they don't take these things seriously. And if the things
00:27:11.680
they take seriously are their public reputation and whether or not they get glowing, you know,
00:27:18.000
articles or whether they'll take heat from important people and not so much, you know,
00:27:23.320
where I'm going to draw the line on really important issues that are kind of fundamental
00:27:26.960
to my faith and the wellbeing of the people around me.
00:27:29.960
Mm-hmm. Oh, I, yeah, I think there's absolutely something to that. And I think that there is,
00:27:35.920
there is a time, uh, for, for seriousness. I mean, the, the Babylon Bee, I mean, you know,
00:27:42.500
comedians are supposed to have no sacred cows, right? Well, that's, that's a lie. I mean,
00:27:45.920
leftist comedians, they have their sacred cows, but the Babylon Bee, we have our sacred cows too. I
00:27:49.460
mean, there, there are certain things that we will not, uh, certain ways in which we will not cross
00:27:54.320
the line. You know, we won't, you know, blaspheme. We won't make fun of, um, you know, our,
00:27:59.120
our God and the things that we hold to be holy. Um, and I think that, um, I, I think maybe, maybe
00:28:06.620
Christians have kind of gotten it backwards in the past as to what, what they should be taking
00:28:11.360
seriously. And maybe, maybe we shouldn't be taking our image so seriously as we take the truth,
00:28:17.400
you know, um, taking the truth seriously is going to get us, uh, uh, you know, mocked and
00:28:24.200
ridiculed and dragged through the mud, um, in, in a lot of ways. Um, uh, but, uh, we should never,
00:28:32.960
we should never cross into taking ourselves seriously. When does fast grocery delivery
00:28:38.460
through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without
00:28:43.780
the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide
00:28:48.880
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00:29:07.680
So, um, and feel free because I know, you know, that you guys are not, um, primarily political. So
00:29:15.620
don't, don't feel like you need to, to, you know, if there's, if they're part of this question that,
00:29:19.940
uh, you know, you, you want to move around, don't worry about it. But yeah, uh, one thing that again,
00:29:25.980
I see you kind of interacting a lot with is kind of progressive Christianity. And I, I've got a,
00:29:31.700
I've got a saying that I like to throw out there, you know, progressivism will, will, uh, gut your
00:29:37.000
religion and wear it like it's skin, like a trophy. Oh yeah. And I feel like I see that a lot,
00:29:43.180
a lot online, even from people who make beloved children's entertainment, um, enjoyed by Christian
00:29:50.820
children the world around. And, and so I, I kind of wanted to ask you as somebody who, who does work
00:29:56.800
in the area of comedy. And so you do understand the, like you said, the need for levity and the
00:30:01.000
ability to not take everything too seriously, but at the same time, it seems like, what is it about
00:30:08.100
Christianity that seems to make it kind of susceptible, or at least a certain brand of
00:30:12.540
Christianity, very susceptible to kind of this progressive zeitgeist? Why are people so desperate
00:30:17.860
to kind of follow it in kind of the Christian movement?
00:30:20.800
Ooh. Yeah, man, this talking about progressive Christianity is kind of like where Joel Berry loses
00:30:28.500
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I, I, yeah, no, no, that's fine. I, I think it's, I mean, it is, um, I think
00:30:36.220
what, what really, um, causes that, that anger and indignation to kind of rise up, uh, in me is,
00:30:46.900
is seeing, um, I don't know, like seeing like evil called good, good called evil, seeing, um,
00:30:57.540
seeing evil things being done, um, in the name of Christ, uh, it, you know, in a church, when you,
00:31:03.360
when you see a, a, a drag queen dancing for kids in, on the altar of a church and you, you see,
00:31:09.980
um, you know, the cross, uh, on the wall behind this, this person as they're doing what they're
00:31:16.440
doing. Um, there's something that really, really infuriates me about that. And I think, um, it,
00:31:24.500
it frustrates me too, to see, uh, see Christians missing the plot of, of why we're here. Um,
00:31:35.980
what we're supposed to be doing, you know, and it's, it's nothing I'm not familiar with. I mean,
00:31:41.520
I think Christians, since I can remember, since I was a kid, Christians have struggled with
00:31:46.560
like their place in the world and balancing, like, you know, we want to be winsome and we want to reach
00:31:53.080
people and we want to look appealing to people, um, so that we can bring them in so that we can,
00:31:58.820
you know, preach the good news of Jesus and, and, and win them over and all this stuff. And I think
00:32:02.840
like, like anything, like the silly human beings that we are, uh, we're, we're good at putting the
00:32:09.340
cart before the horse and, um, and kind of making the, like the attractional thing that whatever we
00:32:17.080
might be doing kind of the main thing that, that like, we, we see ourselves as God's PR reps that
00:32:23.300
like we, our, our whole job is to, to, um, make God look really good to the world, you know, by all
00:32:30.840
these great things that we're doing or, or, you know, the way that we kind of can conform to the
00:32:35.140
cultural zeitgeist and, um, and people, people with good motives, people who genuinely feel they
00:32:44.960
love Jesus and want to do the right thing, you know, who get captured by the, this ideology
00:32:51.200
and then end up defending the most unspeakably evil things, um, because they've put the cart before the
00:32:59.100
horse and, and it's, it's just frustrating to see. I think, you know, Phil Vischer, I, I have to mute
00:33:05.600
Phil Vischer sometimes. Cause I just like, I I'm going to lose my whole day. If I am responding
00:33:10.320
to his tweets, you know, I grew up watching VeggieTales, you know, it's like, I was a VeggieTales
00:33:15.340
kid. Um, you know, and, and I obviously don't judge Phil Vischer. I'm not in like the, uh, Phil
00:33:22.540
Vischer is an apostate camp or anything like that. Um, I don't think we should be so readily
00:33:28.880
judge someone's hearts or their position before God. I think we can, we're going to agree about
00:33:33.360
how to deal with things politically and that's okay. But, um, you know, it, it is, I think it's
00:33:40.240
frustrating to see like in this current cultural moment when, um, when all of the, the last, like
00:33:52.060
the last 2000 years of acquired, um, wisdom, um, and guidance from philosophers and church fathers
00:34:01.120
and, and, and the scripture itself, it's being completely thrown out. And, um, we're, we're
00:34:08.000
watching a culture floundering, um, trying to build a new cohesive worldview that doesn't work. And, and
00:34:15.220
the most tragic thing you see as a result of that is the kids that suffer as a result. You know,
00:34:19.700
the kid, the, the young men who are lost and nihilistic and, and the kids who are gender
00:34:24.360
confused and the, the girls who, who have body image issues and who don't understand their worth.
00:34:30.120
And, and meanwhile, you have these Christians trying to like kowtow to, to this movement. It's,
00:34:35.420
it's absolutely infuriating. It's not what we're supposed to be salt and light. We're supposed to
00:34:39.240
present a contrast, you know, like to this, this dark world that is, is ensnaring so many people in,
00:34:46.380
in lies and darkness, we're supposed to be that light, like on the other side, like,
00:34:50.240
Hey guys, over here, like, come over here. This is better. Jesus is better. Um, yet we want to,
00:34:56.260
we want to please the darkness and it's, uh, so I, yeah, that's, that's why Joel Berry loses his sense
00:35:01.480
of humor. Yeah, no, I mean, I understand that because it's, it's one of those things where I
00:35:07.580
think in a lot of ways, um, you know, and then I won't be the first person to say this, but I think,
00:35:12.560
you know, progressivism is, is kind of a Christian heresy, right? It takes a lot of the
00:35:17.900
truths in Christianity, a lot of the, the, the, the things that we're commanded to do, you know,
00:35:24.000
caring about people and, and meeting them where they're at and trying to, and it, it hacks that
00:35:29.600
system, right? It, it, it, it strips away the importance of, you know, uh, Christ and the
00:35:35.580
importance of God's word and the importance of the moral leadership that those things bring. And it
00:35:41.840
only focuses on the parts where you're accepting and you're, and, and, and it, it, it, it warps the
00:35:48.920
idea of loving someone into, you know, this, this new ideology. And I think that's why Christianity is,
00:35:56.920
is people who have received a gospel that is very much focused entirely on the love and acceptance
00:36:03.200
part of Christianity and never on the like, but also Christianity loves you by providing standards
00:36:08.020
and guidance in your life that make things and protect your family and allow you to flourish.
00:36:13.200
Right. People who haven't gotten that side of the story, it's, they become very easy prey for an
00:36:18.140
ideology that tells them, oh, well, this is about love and God is about love. And so therefore these
00:36:23.720
are the same thing, right? It's so easy to conflate when, when you've completely removed the actual
00:36:28.400
message of Christ from, you know, from, from kind of the general idea of the gospel.
00:36:33.640
Yeah. And I think too, that, um, at least in my observation, you know, we, we know how dangerous
00:36:41.540
and damaging progressivism can be. I think when you marry that with this religious fervor, um, with
00:36:48.100
people who genuinely believe that these progressive ideas are from God and God wants me to do this,
00:36:53.060
I think it makes it like three times more dangerous. You know, when you have this, this,
00:36:57.680
this religious zeal, um, combined with, uh, very, very anti-human ideas that destroy the human
00:37:06.760
individual that destroy the soul. I think that, that kind of, that kind of tends to make me want
00:37:12.200
to really focus my, my attention on that, that wing of the progressive party, because I do think that
00:37:18.200
they're, they're going to be the ones who are most passionate, um, and the most dedicated to that
00:37:23.620
ideology, the most unwilling to, uh, to hear reason because they have that religious fervor attached to
00:37:31.120
it. Um, and so that's, that's one thing that we, I mean, we gotta, we gotta bring it back to the
00:37:36.940
comedy here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. That's fine. We can talk about whatever.
00:37:40.820
No, no, no. Well, yeah, I, well, I was, I was going to say like, this does bring you back to the
00:37:44.600
comedy angle though, because I think something really important that you said there was, um,
00:37:49.820
the truth, like truths about humanity, right? Like the Bible and, you know, and, and Christianity,
00:37:56.100
the gospel, they, they do tell us about what we should be and what God wants us to be,
00:38:02.020
but it also doesn't ignore the truth about humanity, right? It, it, the, the thing that makes
00:38:07.640
Christianity so powerful is that it reveals and says things about humanity that I don't think
00:38:14.580
any other religion truly says, right? It re, it reveals things about the human nature and it
00:38:18.880
takes those things into account when it's then, you know, making us whole and bringing us closer
00:38:24.620
to God. And I think that, you know, the progressive worldview is in many ways, the complete denial
00:38:31.460
of these things. Well, ironically, while, while encouraging people to indulge in the darkest
00:38:37.740
parts of human nature, it denies so much about human nature. And that's where the comedy can come
00:38:44.160
back in again, just saying obvious things that are forbidden, but because you get to say them
00:38:49.680
under the understanding of comedy and you're making people laugh while you're saying them,
00:38:53.520
you can kind of rip away all these mini layers that have been put between the truth and people
00:38:58.940
and the understanding of who humans are. Well, yeah, that's, I mean, that's the core of this whole
00:39:04.080
thing is that I think that this is fundamentally a, a, a contest between people who say,
00:39:11.420
I am who God says I am. And people who say, I am who I say who I am, you know, essentially like I,
00:39:18.580
I will be like God. And we've heard that before that goes all the way back to Lucifer and the,
00:39:22.520
and the fallen angels, you know, I will be like the most high, like this is the oldest conflict.
00:39:27.900
I mean, this is the conflict. The central conflict of, of human existence is this question,
00:39:32.660
who defines who I am. And I think like, like you mentioned with the comedy that there is something
00:39:39.340
inherently very funny about this little tiny, you know, carbon-based light form on the, on the shore
00:39:47.280
of a vast ocean, you know, standing before his creator saying, you know, I am God, I am God,
00:39:53.440
you know. Um, I, I think so much of the Babylon bees comedy kind of has that common thread in it that
00:40:00.400
like, yeah, we're, we're laughing at the situation of these people who, um, have, have decided that their
00:40:06.540
own definition of who they are and who other people are is the final word. You know, it's my
00:40:12.260
truth. You can't deny my truth. And, um, you know, it's, if it wasn't, if it wasn't for the, the,
00:40:20.200
the horrible damage it does to so many lives, it, it, it would be all comedy, but, you know,
00:40:25.480
you kind of have to take the comedy with the tragedy a little bit. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know,
00:40:30.280
you don't think of, um, you don't think of Job as a funny book of the Bible, but that,
00:40:34.420
but that revelation of like you screaming at the guy who set the cornerstone of the universe,
00:40:39.660
you know, and saying, no, I demand that, that reality conforms around me. Uh, there is truly
00:40:46.600
nothing more absurd, which is why as progressivism advances, it can only become more and more absurd.
00:40:53.200
This is why clown world is a real thing, right? Because that's the only trajectory is clown world.
00:40:58.520
When, when your entire system is about inverting natural hierarchies and lying about the way the
00:41:06.140
world should be ordered, the only direction you can move is more and more clownish and absurd directions.
00:41:13.680
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly what we're seeing. And that's, that's what makes our
00:41:17.920
job so hard is just keeping up with all the, like, what was it? What was it, uh, last, last week,
00:41:24.480
the big headline from the Washington post was like the shark week was over-representing white,
00:41:29.000
white men named Mike or something. I'm like, what, what am I supposed to do with that at the
00:41:34.100
Babylon Bee? You know, like this, I think this morning or yesterday, there was another headline
00:41:39.560
about how warning that if you're not vaccinated, there are, you're more likely to get into a car
00:41:44.520
accident. Um, I, you know, again, like the, the comedy writes itself and sometimes you just got to
00:41:51.860
throw up your hands and be like, you know, I no clue what to do with this.
00:41:56.800
Yeah. One of the most common responses I saw with that shark week article was specifically, well,
00:42:01.800
the Babylon Bee is over. Like they, like we've hit that event horizon where the real news is the
00:42:07.660
Babylon Bee. There is no separation. The WAPO just is the Babylon Bee front page now. And so how are
00:42:14.500
they, how are they going to do any of this on how much more absurd can we get? Right. I mean,
00:42:18.520
it has to end somewhere like that. That's what I always,
00:42:21.860
ask myself like, okay, you know, the, the progressive March, you know, it's, it's got
00:42:26.860
to keep progressing. It's got to get more absurd. Like you said, like, theoretically, there's no
00:42:31.680
end point to that. So like, at what point does it just become impossible to do comedy? Because
00:42:37.380
it's just like, it's completely indistinguishable, uh, from the real world or, you know, do we swing
00:42:42.800
back, which I think is probably quite likely, you know, we swing back to this more, you know, maybe,
00:42:47.940
uh, respectful, religious, uh, you know, almost Victorian area era. Um, and the Babylon Bee
00:42:55.540
then has to poke fun at the right again. I don't know. No, I mean, if only we could have
00:43:00.840
that problem, let's let us, let us desperately hope for the reality in which that is the bee's
00:43:06.940
job. Um, uh, I had a thread there and I just dropped it. Um, I was going to talk about,
00:43:15.160
we were talking about progressives, ridiculous clown world. There was something. Yeah. About
00:43:19.700
that certainty catching up with reality. Yeah. I've, I mean, what did I lose there? I don't know.
00:43:27.480
Uh, I'm not going to be able to show it. I'll, I'll kick myself later. I'll be like, I knew it.
00:43:31.340
This was a great question, but that's all right. We'll do a bonus episode. Exactly. Yeah. Well,
00:43:35.120
we'll do this again to make sure that, uh, we get to that one. Uh, but, uh, yeah, it does become
00:43:40.740
kind of insane when you're ruling class. Like I'm sure you saw the, uh, sadly, I wish we could all
00:43:47.600
scour it from our minds, but the, uh, like the, uh, the military, uh, the different people, uh,
00:43:54.860
throughout the military wearing like the animal, uh, heads, like having all the different, like
00:44:00.320
animal fetish heads and stuff like that. Like, as you have, as you have people inserting that kind
00:44:07.100
of thing, like into the leadership of your country and then demanding people take it seriously,
00:44:12.420
like demanding that, like the, no, like, like people with a very straight face trying to lecture
00:44:17.600
you, like, like, uh, like it's, um, John Lithgow from footloose. Like, no, you must believe
00:44:23.580
that these people are the most competent people to have ever existed. And you live in the most
00:44:29.700
progressive intolerant society. What do you think about that inversion of people who look at the
00:44:35.280
world around them and they, they truly buy into the idea that kind of the current cultural zeitgeist
00:44:41.620
is the most sophisticated and the most advanced and the most, uh, you know, well, progressive. I,
00:44:48.420
you know, the world to ever exist while also trying to kind of put this kind of, you know,
00:44:54.740
hold this kind of stuff up as something that should be emulated. Like how, how do you get there? How do
00:45:00.240
they make that connection? Yeah. I, I feel like, um, in some ways, uh, the advent of Darwinism kind of
00:45:08.800
hurt us quite a bit here, because I think what it injected into our, our cultural, uh, you know,
00:45:16.240
understanding is this idea that, um, human beings are always, we're on this, this line,
00:45:22.880
we're always evolving, you know, and getting better, you know, you know, it's survival of the
00:45:28.200
fittest. And in the same way, you know, ideas and philosophies are survival of the fittest where,
00:45:32.300
you know, theoretically the best idea wins. And we're just, we're just kind of on this
00:45:36.540
straight slope, this upward trajectory towards kind of this, this distant utopia. Um, you know,
00:45:43.960
you, you, when you listen to, you know, people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, um, kind of, uh, depart
00:45:49.820
from his scientific expertise and talk about philosophy and sociology and anthropology, he,
00:45:54.820
he kind of has that bias that, you know, well, we had the, you know, we were cavemen and then there
00:45:59.960
was the dark ages when people believed in religion. And now we're kind of growing beyond that, um, to this,
00:46:05.420
this new, higher thing. Um, and I think, uh, I think what people need to understand is that,
00:46:13.620
um, there's nothing new under the sun, under the sun and that, that human beings aren't quite
00:46:18.540
on a upward trajectory as, as continually playing out a cycle. I think that, that we go through cycles,
00:46:25.840
there's rises, there's falls, uh, good philosophies and bad philosophies come and go.
00:46:31.000
And, um, you know, when you look, step back and look at it all, we're, it's just, we're
00:46:35.500
just kind of invite, inventing new ways to, to sin and to, and to, um, to, to go the wrong
00:46:42.540
way, uh, essentially. But the, I, you know, this new progressivism, this kind of, this new
00:46:48.300
woke worldview is, is nothing new. I mean, we're not, we're, we're going back to, to before
00:46:55.780
Christ paganism, essentially. I mean, um, I mean, everything, everything that we're doing
00:47:03.620
right now is, is, has been done a thousand times before. Um, and it'll be done again,
00:47:10.600
you know? And, uh, I think people need to understand that, that yeah, we're progressivism
00:47:15.860
is, is, uh, is not progressing forward. It's going backwards. It's taken us to a very dark
00:47:20.080
place in the, in the distant past that we, that we, that we spent 2000 years crawling
00:47:24.760
out of, you know, thanks to, you know, Socrates and Jesus and, and everything that came after
00:47:30.340
them. Um, and, uh, it's going nowhere good if it, if it continues on its present, uh, course.
00:47:37.980
Yeah. You know, in my corner of the internet, we call this wig history, that idea that we're
00:47:42.200
constantly moving in the, in, you know, in the progressive direction where all we, there's
00:47:46.900
always some new, uh, hill to climb. There's a, you know, humanity is always becoming better and
00:47:52.440
the, the, you know, it's always the next thing. This, uh, idea of infinite progress is, is something
00:47:58.160
that I think is really at the core of the religion that you're talking about because what it does is
00:48:04.340
allows for the infinite revolution, right? Like it's, you're never at the point where like
00:48:08.240
society's institutions are good and in, you know, the minor improvements could be made, things can be
00:48:14.660
better, but you're, you're always under the impression that if we would just dismantle the
00:48:19.680
things that are in society now, then we can rebuild them in our own image. And again, this is, you know,
00:48:25.140
this is always the satanic promise that you're talking about, right? Like, you know, you could
00:48:29.160
remake the world. Like you look at the world as it is, you could make it in your own image. Maybe that's
00:48:33.760
the, what binds both, you know, the, you know, kind of generous, the general progressive worldview. And then
00:48:40.480
obviously like the certain parts of Christianity that goes direction, it's the, it's immunizing
00:48:45.080
the eschaton, right? It's like they're, they're ignoring the idea that you can't actually bring
00:48:50.140
about the perfection in the world. And so they push beyond the ability of mankind and dismantle
00:48:55.840
things that should be dismantled, thinking that at the end of the day, whether through a Christian
00:48:59.360
worldview or another one that they can bring about kind of that perfect utopia.
00:49:04.680
Yeah. Well, I, you know, I always say that, um, ever since the tower of Babel, we've been trying to
00:49:09.540
rebuild it, you know, it's, it just takes one form or another. Um, and it is interesting to think of
00:49:16.320
what role technology will play, um, you know, in, in the future as we have, you know, blockchain and
00:49:22.580
this kind of this culture, this revelation, revolution in communications with the internet.
00:49:27.800
Um, what does that kind of utopian vision, uh, look like with all this technology and you kind of get
00:49:33.920
a taste for it with some of these, you know, world economic forum guys, these, these people who kind
00:49:38.020
of want to tinker with the human race and, and, uh, and achieve this higher state. It's just,
00:49:43.160
I don't know. I mean, if you know, history, it is so laughable if it weren't, uh, frightening.
00:49:47.920
Yeah. If it did have such a horrific track record at the end. Yeah.
00:49:51.340
Yeah. Well, oh, that actually, that brings me back. Thank you. I think you reminded me of one of
00:49:55.760
the threads I wanted to get to. So technology, right? Like one of the things that I think has made
00:50:00.400
you guys so successful is part of what technology has done is they've turned the progressive religion
00:50:08.120
into something that must be performed out loud online, right? It's not just enough to keep your
00:50:15.460
head down and stay quiet. If you don't post something, if you don't post the square, if you
00:50:21.240
don't post the flag, if you don't change your, your, your corporation's, you know, uh, uh, logo to
00:50:28.260
the pride colors, then the, the absence of that performance in public is the real issue, right?
00:50:35.400
It's not enough to, it's not enough to just not say the wrong thing. You have to say the right thing
00:50:39.440
in public for everyone to see. And social media creates some, the kind of this accountability,
00:50:44.820
uh, where like everyone can, everyone can look and check your profile and see if you've done the
00:50:49.680
thing. And I think that's what you got. One of those things you guys are really good at mocking
00:50:53.940
is like the, the performative aspect of the social media experience that progressivism forces people
00:51:00.780
to go through. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's, that's been a, a ripe source of comedy for us for the, I mean,
00:51:09.720
from, like you said, from the BLM stuff to, um, you know, the, the LGBT movement to Ukraine. I mean,
00:51:16.380
like, you know, it's that, the meme, the current thing, you know, we've, the Babylon Bee has been
00:51:20.040
making fun of the current thing since we, since we began. Um, and it is funny how technology does
00:51:25.980
it. I mean, it's, it's almost impossible to escape from any anymore. I mean, these phones are in our
00:51:30.760
pocket now. Um, and, and yet that same technology is kind of what gave rise to the Babylon Bee that,
00:51:37.800
that we were able to, you know, um, reach this audience that wasn't being reached, um, you know,
00:51:44.960
to bite through traditional, uh, media outlets. Um, and so for that, we're thankful. I think,
00:51:49.780
I think at the same time, um, these, these social media companies have wised up to the fact that,
00:51:57.080
that, you know, our, our platform was getting a little bigger than they were comfortable with.
00:52:02.180
So that's when you see the, the, you know, the shadow banning with Twitter, Facebook's even worse
00:52:06.500
than Twitter. I mean, Facebook's just a disaster. We, um, after, uh, I think in October, uh, before the 22,
00:52:14.200
the 2022 election, um, Trump shared a Babylon Bee article on Twitter. Um, and within a week,
00:52:21.900
our engagement on Facebook was just gone just, and it hasn't recovered since it's just like someone
00:52:26.820
pressed a button and it was gone. So that's, you know, while the internet does have this incredible
00:52:31.540
power to, you know, like what you do, you know, you can reach this audience that you would never
00:52:35.360
otherwise be able to reach. There is that sense to where, when you start kind of consolidating all
00:52:41.420
that, that power in the hands of one or two companies, you get to the point where someone
00:52:47.180
can just click a button and erase someone from the face of the earth completely, you know? Um,
00:52:52.600
and so that's, I think that's one thing that conservatives really need to start very intentionally,
00:52:56.180
um, uh, you know, count fighting against is, is the, um, the consolidation of communications and
00:53:06.280
internet power in the hands of three or four or five companies that are all in ideological lockstep.
00:53:10.420
I mean, these companies need to be broken up and that, that goes against so many of our,
00:53:14.740
you know, our Reagan-esque conservative, uh, you know, instincts. But, um, you know, I, I think we
00:53:20.820
need to think about the, the spirit of free speech, um, you know, moving forward as opposed to kind of
00:53:26.220
this bias that we have that, you know, private companies are not to be touched. And as, as we know
00:53:30.200
now, they're not private companies, they're partnered with the government anyway. So they're,
00:53:33.540
they're acting as, as, as de facto government enforcers, uh, you know, and, and we're seeing that
00:53:38.820
with Twitter, with, with the, the Twitter dumps that Elon is putting out there, God bless them.
00:53:42.820
Um, but if, if Twitter's doing it, we know that Facebook is also doing it. So is Google,
00:53:47.780
which is even more dangerous because Google controls the, you know, the search,
00:53:50.740
the ability to search the entire internet basically. Um, so it's, I mean, Twitter's just
00:53:56.120
the first step. I think we need to really keep banging this drum that these, these companies
00:54:00.180
need to be broken up and there needs to be some transparency and accountability.
00:54:02.940
Yeah. I mean, if I have, uh, the, I have a couple projects, but one of the main ones is
00:54:08.060
just taking an absolute hammer to, like you said, this rate, this Reagan esque idea that like, yeah,
00:54:13.580
but no, no, we're the small government guys. Government can't get involved. Like, no, I want
00:54:17.420
to see this trust busted baby. Like I want to see Teddy Roosevelt ride in on the bear or something.
00:54:22.860
Just destroy these people. Like I, no, absolutely not. No, like you said,
00:54:26.940
these are not private companies. Even if you hold to that ideology, which I don't,
00:54:30.940
these things aren't even close. Like these things are arms of the government to the point
00:54:34.700
where we have the communications between the people who manage the information on the site,
00:54:39.740
having the direct meetings, like bragging about their FBI meetings. Like this isn't even close
00:54:44.460
to being some kind of independent corporation, just, you know, doing its thing outside the,
00:54:51.500
Yeah. Yeah. And I think for so long, we, we were so used to having this kind of this Judeo-Christian
00:54:57.260
somewhat moral culture, this cultural consensus where, you know, I think a lot of us had this idea
00:55:01.980
that, you know, if a company does the right thing, if they do the moral thing, they will be successful,
00:55:08.460
you know, or, or almost even, you can even go like the Ayn Randi-ism, you know, that this idea that,
00:55:13.420
you know, you do, you, you act in self-interest and that's gonna, that's gonna translate into kind of
00:55:20.220
the good of, of, you know, of everybody. It's gonna translate, automatically translate into human
00:55:25.260
flourishing. And I think we were taking a lot for granted there in this, this, you know, amazing
00:55:32.140
And that consensus is no longer there. I mean, you, you, as a, if you own a tech company, you can
00:55:40.460
become a lot more successful and make a lot more money if you placate to the tyrannical regime of
00:55:46.140
China. Or, you know, you know, any number of these, these, these foreign governments, you know, you can,
00:55:53.500
you can be a lot more successful oftentimes if you do the wrong thing.
00:55:56.860
Um, and, and so, yeah, I think, I think we need to be very skeptical as conservatives going forward of,
00:56:04.620
of any kind of power center, uh, whether it is the government or corporations. And that's something
00:56:09.500
that it's so funny. You look at, like, if you watch Blade Runner, you know, they, they played,
00:56:14.140
they painted this, you know, liberals in the eighties were terrified of corporations. You know,
00:56:18.540
they, they, they were all warning people about how corporations were going to take over the world
00:56:22.860
someday. And, and you see in Blade Runner, you know, you have these,
00:56:25.740
these big powerful, you know, corporate governments ruling the world.
00:56:30.140
Um, and, uh, and so, and, and here it's finally kind of coming to pass and the left has, has, uh,
00:56:36.140
stopped talking about it because these corporations happen to be on their side ideology or ideologically.
00:56:40.940
So, um, yeah, yeah, this is, this is never a principle of theirs. It was a tool of power when
00:56:47.580
they thought these people were, you know, when they thought comedy was good at dismantling
00:56:53.180
the Christians they didn't like, they utilized it. And when they thought corporations were
00:56:57.900
keeping the Christian worldview, which they weren't, but when they thought they were keeping that kind
00:57:02.860
of thing in place, they were against them. And now that the corporations are keeping their worldview in
00:57:07.820
place and comedy is a threat to them, they've completely reversed their positions on these
00:57:11.900
things. But I do think it is a catch 22, right? Because, you know, and one, in one way it is
00:57:20.700
essential to break up, like you said, you know, the, the ownership of these companies, right?
00:57:24.780
There's, it is essential to, to do that. But of course, the only thing that can destroy a power of
00:57:29.820
that size is another power of that size, right? Like, like, and that, that's what you're really stuck
00:57:34.780
with. Because I think one thing that we kind of have to be honest about with the internet is, you know,
00:57:39.500
it starts with this really disassembled thing, right? And then kind of AOL dumbs it down,
00:57:46.380
simplifies it, pipes, pipes, lines it into like every home. And AOL is the internet, right? Like,
00:57:52.220
people don't even understand the internet, they just click on AOL, and that is the internet.
00:57:56.140
Right. And then eventually, like, it shatters again, you know, AOL falls apart, and the other
00:58:02.060
services are open, and people go everywhere on the internet. But now we're back in that phase,
00:58:07.100
where like, the internet is just Facebook, right? Like, and Instagram, like, people don't even, you
00:58:13.180
know, companies don't even have websites, they just set up a Facebook, and that is their website,
00:58:17.500
because so many people go there and use that as a proxy that so there, it's almost like there's
00:58:22.700
something about and I do quite a few videos on this kind of thing. So I have more than a passing
00:58:29.100
theory about this. But yeah, but there's a there's a there's a there's a force that makes us do this,
00:58:36.380
right, centralized things, power always wants to consolidate, it always wants to be focused,
00:58:41.180
it always wants to break down competition. And by the way, it's not just power, humans react to that,
00:58:45.980
humans prefer that. And so we're in this really difficult situation where, in many ways, like I
00:58:52.140
would agree with you, like, we want to shower shatter this power and throw it, you know, to to the
00:58:56.860
four winds. Yeah, but if we don't have the power to do that, if you don't have it to wield against
00:59:01.500
those kind of things, then it just kind of reforms in another way, right? So, so what do you
00:59:07.020
think the answer is there? Yeah, that's, that's something I struggle with. Yeah, it could be
00:59:12.380
because the obvious answer is, then you've got to have control of the Leviathan, right? If the
00:59:18.220
if Leviathan is the natural order of kind of the thing, then the only thing left is having control
00:59:25.420
of it. But I think, as you're talking about history is cyclical, right? And we it's, it's not a straight
00:59:31.100
line of progress. And I think one thing that happens is the Babel is the Tower of the Tower of Babel gets
00:59:36.940
rebuilt over and over again, like you're saying. Yeah. And so power centralizes, it becomes too,
00:59:42.620
too much, it falls under its own hubris, it shatters entirely. And then the process starts again,
00:59:49.420
over and over and over again. So I don't know if there's so much a solution as there is a realization
00:59:55.180
of kind of an inescapable cycle cycle of kind of human, the human nature that will kind of always
01:00:01.500
lead us to kind of this conclusion. I think you I think there's something to that. That's kind of
01:00:06.060
how I see it. I am. I listened to, I listened to Andrew Klavan. And he says something that I really
01:00:13.660
like talking about having a like a tragic view of of life, a healthy tragic view of life, I think
01:00:21.100
acknowledging that, you know, that maybe we are a part of this cycle that is way outside of our control.
01:00:30.700
And maybe things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And maybe that's just
01:00:36.060
the state of things, you know, that's that's how things go. And like kind of the the sooner that
01:00:41.180
you can come to, you know, make peace with that, the better, you know, and then you can then you can
01:00:49.100
act in the world and try to make the world better in your own little way. But you don't have to have
01:00:53.500
this this outsized idea that, you know, it's, I'm, it's dependent on me to save the world,
01:00:59.580
turn it around, you can kind of like leave the rest of God. And I think there's the Babylon Bee,
01:01:05.580
I mean, our very name, as a satire site, it's a it's a reference to the the Babylonian captivity,
01:01:13.420
when when the empire of Nebuchadnezzar came in, took took Israel away, you know, ransacked the
01:01:19.660
temple, and they were all slaves of this other empire. And imagine being someone living in Israel
01:01:26.460
at that time, when it seems like this kingdom that God has established is all coming to ruin,
01:01:31.580
and it's all over, right? You know, but then, like, we, we have the advantage of looking back
01:01:39.980
at that story, thousands of years later. And we have the perspective, we cite, we see that the,
01:01:46.060
you know, the Babylonian empire fell, the Medes and the Persians came along after it, and they fell too.
01:01:51.340
And that's just what happens continually. And, and all, you know, we're exiles to a little bit as,
01:01:58.460
as conservatives, as Christians, as, as people who are devoted to the truth in this culture,
01:02:03.180
we are, we are kind of outsiders, we're, we're exiles in our own land. And, and I think it does
01:02:07.900
bring a certain amount of peace to remember that it's not on us to necessarily change the cycle of,
01:02:14.700
of, of empires and the cycle of, of culture. It's on us to just be faithful
01:02:21.260
where God has placed us to speak the truth in, in whatever way he's equipped us,
01:02:26.060
and then leave the, leave the big picture stuff to him, you know? And so, um, it, it could have very,
01:02:32.300
very easily turned, you know, uh, gone the other way with the Babylon Bee, you know, on Twitter,
01:02:37.500
we could have, uh, been permanently banned and faded into obscurity. And then two years from now,
01:02:44.380
you never hear of us again, and we're all back, you know, getting jobs in supply chain management
01:02:49.020
again. And, and, uh, but that, that's not how it turned out in this case. I mean, go figure. Um,
01:02:54.700
I'll, I'll, all we have to worry about as far as I'm concerned is just, you know, every day,
01:02:59.660
um, how, how am I going to speak the truth? How am I going to do it as, as lovingly as I can and, and,
01:03:07.020
Cause sometimes, you know, the world's richest man will come around and just smash your enemies
01:03:10.780
for you. Right. Um, yeah, I was on, I was on the news the other day and they were like, uh, you know,
01:03:15.980
like what, so what, what's your advice for people who are, uh, facing censorship and, and, uh, things
01:03:20.940
like that. And I was like, well, you just have to know a billionaire. I don't know what the bill is.
01:03:23.980
Just be friends with billionaires. Just be friends with Elon Musk.
01:03:27.740
Yeah, no, that's, that's entirely reasonable. No, I like what you said there though, because
01:03:31.500
I get accused of, uh, a black pilling every once in a while,
01:03:34.060
like all the time actually. And, and what I try to explain to people is like,
01:03:38.860
that's not what I'm trying to do. Like as someone who, who like went through, through like a pretty
01:03:46.220
deep tragedy at one point in my life, like one of the things that you have to come to grips with,
01:03:52.140
with, with God is like, you truly are not in control. Like, you know that in theory, right?
01:03:57.980
Like you're told to like rest in God and, and trust in, and those kinds of things and understand at
01:04:02.540
the end of the day that, you know, this is not all about you and you're, you know,
01:04:06.220
you're not the main character and all those kinds of things. But it's another thing to truly
01:04:11.900
touch it in a way that like, you have no other option. Like, okay, this is completely out of my
01:04:16.140
hands and there is nothing I can do except, you know, trust this. And, and I think people need to
01:04:22.780
learn that lesson while also understanding that that doesn't mean that like you get out of doing hard
01:04:28.220
things, right? Like nothing in the Bible promises you a life of, you know, sorry, Joel Osteen's wrong
01:04:33.660
guys. Like you, like you're, you're, you're, you're going to have to, you're not going to necessarily
01:04:38.140
have a great life. Like life could be hard. Life could be suffering. And that doesn't mean you get to
01:04:42.220
check out. And that doesn't mean that you don't have honorable, important, heroic things to do.
01:04:49.020
Even if the times around you are difficult, even if you're in a moment of Babylonian captivity,
01:04:54.540
even if you're in a moment of collapse, that doesn't, you, you don't get to throw away your
01:04:59.100
responsibility to follow God and take care of the people around you and make a positive impact in
01:05:05.900
your world. Even if you are in some ways bailing out a sinking ship at the moment, you don't, you
01:05:11.740
don't get the option to just call it a day. Like, and there's, there's, I think, I think people don't
01:05:16.940
think enough about like the importance of in those difficult times, that's when it is the most
01:05:22.140
important to understand that God's going to take care of those things. And then you still got a job
01:05:27.740
to do and there's honor and duty and meaning in that, you know? Absolutely. I mean, I mean,
01:05:33.820
we, we are going to give an account for how we spent our lives. You know, God's not going to hold
01:05:39.580
us accountable for whether or not we were able to change the world, but, but he will hold us accountable
01:05:43.740
for, um, you know, for our unkindness toward our neighbor. He's going to hold us accountable for that
01:05:50.460
time when he was maybe prompting us to, to be bold and speak the truth. And we shrunk away.
01:05:55.420
Um, you know, and, um, yeah, I think the one thing that I always, the most unconvincing argument
01:06:03.180
for atheism that I hear all the time is that, you know, well, atheists, you know, uh, we, we live more
01:06:09.100
full, meaningful lives because we know that this is all there is. And we're not living for some kind
01:06:13.900
of afterlife, you know? So we, our lives are so much more meaningful because we're living for now,
01:06:18.300
we're living for today. And it's like, well, I, I don't see how that's much different from
01:06:22.300
Christianity. I think, you know, uh, a Christian who is honoring God should be living every day,
01:06:27.900
um, to the fullest, um, because that's the right thing to do. Um, and, and I think we can do it in
01:06:33.820
joy because, um, we know, I think we know the ultimate, we know where this ends ultimately,
01:06:39.180
you know, um, and where it ultimately ends is that we win. Um, you know, the, the Bible says that
01:06:45.260
every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, uh, someday. And, and at some point, you know,
01:06:50.700
our, our King will, will set up his earthly kingdom and he will rule and we won't have to worry about
01:06:55.580
any of this stuff. Um, and so I think that, that also kind of brings a sense of peace is the,
01:07:01.100
as things are crumbling and governments and elites and leaders are failing, um, we can kind of have that
01:07:07.340
long-term vision of, okay, you know, we know how this is going to end. I'm going to worry about today
01:07:12.300
and, uh, and do what I can for others and do what I can for God. And it's, it's fun. I mean,
01:07:17.420
this life is great and there's so much to laugh at. There's so much to enjoy. Uh, there's no reason
01:07:22.380
why, why we as, as conservatives, uh, culture warriors, uh, you know, people who are devoted
01:07:28.860
to the truth. There's no reason why we shouldn't be having a blast doing this because it is so fun.
01:07:34.540
Um, it's so fun to be on the side of truth. It's so fun to watch liars, uh, squirm.
01:07:40.140
Um, and, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's just great, you know, life is a gift. So, you know,
01:07:48.380
I don't know. I, I, I think that, um, if, if we all as, as, as people on this side of the aisle,
01:07:55.900
so to speak, kind of can remember that, that eternal, that long-term perspective will, will be
01:08:00.700
a lot happier as warriors. I think that's right. Well, Joe, we've, uh, hit an hour here, so I think
01:08:06.700
we've got a few super chats. You still have time to go over them with me. Totally. Let's do it, man.
01:08:11.340
All right. Great. All right, guys. If you have any questions for myself, for Joel, you can just go
01:08:14.540
ahead and throw them in there. We'll go ahead and go through what we've got now here. We've got
01:08:19.500
line drinker for nine, nine, nine. Thank you very much, sir. Uh, there's a non-zero chance that Joel
01:08:24.380
wrote a, uh, low effort headline that ends up being the catalyst, which leads to us winning.
01:08:29.580
Absolutely incredible. The domino meme is true. That's so true. Well, you know, I, I also think
01:08:36.940
that, uh, the fact that that joke wasn't like necessarily like the funniest thing I've ever
01:08:41.180
written, uh, is, is God's way of reminding me that like, this is not you. Like you have nothing to
01:08:46.700
boast about. This is my work. So get over yourself. And that's, that's such a, that's such a true
01:08:52.060
statement. Like, you know, you'll put together these like really high effort, you know, threads or
01:08:57.260
videos or, or jokes or whatever, you know, and, and then like, they don't go anywhere. And then
01:09:01.900
you just throw out that thing that like, uh, whatever. And then it explodes. And then you
01:09:06.300
remember like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm not really doing this. This isn't. Yeah. It's nice that, uh, that
01:09:11.100
he brought me along for the ride here at any point, but that's right. This is not all me.
01:09:16.940
Yeah. That's absolutely how, uh, social media works here. Uh, let's see.
01:09:21.580
Um, got creeper weirdo here for $5. Excellent name, sir. Well done. Uh, why don't people in our
01:09:32.060
circles talk about AR, uh, AI art more? It's basically peak modernity and it's cyberpunk and
01:09:38.620
creepy as hell, but my product button. Uh, yeah, no, it's interesting. Um, I mean, AI art has been
01:09:45.260
producing all kinds of, you know, sometimes you see, oh, sorry, something, uh, so sometimes you see
01:09:51.420
these things in there kind of light, like nightmare fuel, you know, like they're just absolutely
01:09:55.580
terrifying. They're getting better. They are getting better. They are getting better. Yeah.
01:10:00.860
I, gosh, I don't know. I mean, I've been thinking about that because I don't know what I,
01:10:05.820
I don't like when I don't know what I think about something, you know, I have to, I have to know my
01:10:10.300
thoughts on something and it's, it's AI is so new and so weird. Um, I, I struggle with it. I, I mean,
01:10:17.100
so this, this new, uh, AI chat bot thing that people are playing with. Yeah. You can go, I mean,
01:10:23.100
tell it to tell it to write a Babylon B article or a Babylon B headline, like go say, write a Babylon
01:10:27.980
B headline about how dumb AOC is. And it'll give you like spit out 10 headlines that actually aren't
01:10:33.660
actually aren't half bad. Like they're not quite there, but they're almost there. I feel like in,
01:10:37.100
you know, in five years, I'm going to be out of a job. Like, you know, yeah. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
01:10:43.420
Yeah. So I, I mean, in the, in the art too, is, I mean, are we going to get to this point where,
01:10:48.460
you know, creative endeavors, writing, things like that, uh, done by AI is indistinguishable
01:10:54.140
from something that a human being might write. Um, I don't know. I don't think we'll ever achieve
01:10:59.260
pure AI. I think that's kind of a, based on a fallacy, this idea that our, our consciousness is
01:11:04.140
nothing but meat and chemicals in our, in our skulls. I think that we're soul and spirit. And so
01:11:08.940
that, you know, human consciousness will never be able to fully reproduce that in a computer.
01:11:13.980
And in my opinion, but, um, it's amazing to see how convincing some of this, this AI work is.
01:11:20.060
What do you think about, so this is something that, yeah, someone's putting, but Larry and
01:11:23.740
jihad and three, two, one. Yeah. A hundred percent, man. Like let's like, uh, yeah, it's,
01:11:27.900
let's scour this from the earth. Uh, but what do you think about this idea? Cause I've, I've,
01:11:31.820
I've entertained this before the, you know, um, we have these stories. It seems like something we
01:11:37.820
can't escape, especially in obviously sci-fi where like at some point, you know, the robots take over
01:11:43.740
and they destroy us. Like we make something that's too human. You know, this is the story of Frankenstein
01:11:48.780
at the end, right? Like we, we, we make something that's too human and eventually comes back and
01:11:52.540
destroys its creator. It feels like an echo of course, of, of, of a biblical, right? Storyline,
01:11:58.620
right? Like we're like, like in many ways, humans constantly trying to overtake God and, and then
01:12:03.900
trying to destroy God. And, and then we're terrified of something we create doing that to ourselves.
01:12:10.300
But at the same time, even though this is a constant recurring fear in our own fiction, we can't seem to
01:12:16.060
stop ourselves, right? Like, even though like every single story we can think of is about this,
01:12:22.780
we still won't stop moving towards creating this kind of AI. What, what do you think that is?
01:12:29.420
Ooh. Yeah. I, I, it's, it's kind of like that, that, um, it's that irrepressible drive that we
01:12:36.540
have to, to create and discover and do new things. I, I mean, that's funny that you talk about this idea
01:12:42.220
of it almost reflecting a, an almost biblical story. I've, I've thought a lot about, you know,
01:12:46.860
you read the book of revelation and it talks about the antichrist, you know, and like people is,
01:12:51.020
what if the antichrist is going to be an AI, you know, what if it's some kind of like an ant,
01:12:54.620
like a mockery of human life that is, you know, made by human hands, um, that we kind of set up as,
01:13:00.540
can you, can you not imagine like the elites of the world creating an AI and saying, okay,
01:13:05.580
like this is our God now, like, this is a, like, this is the most intelligent, uh, entity that's
01:13:11.500
ever existed. It theoretically is going to spit out all the right answers. So we're just going to,
01:13:15.740
we're going to abandon our, our governments and, and serve this AI. I can just, I can see that
01:13:21.020
happen. I can see like a Klaus Schwab, uh, doing something like that.
01:13:24.620
Yeah, no, it is. Uh, is it a very terrifying there? There's a very real sense in which AI
01:13:32.460
might be a demon from the future, but that's another, um, you know, like, I don't want to
01:13:36.940
get too, I don't want to get too esoteric. We need to dedicate a whole podcast to AI.
01:13:41.260
AI and whether or not it's, yeah. I, I shared a video, uh, a few days ago, um, uh, from,
01:13:49.740
it was a, it was a, um, a pitch meeting from studio, uh, studio Ghibli, um, Hayazaki, the,
01:13:55.100
the famous animator who's dead now, the Japanese animator, he made some of those amazing, uh,
01:14:00.060
hand-drawn films, uh, like Spirited Away and, uh, Ponyo. I can't think, uh, of who other ones
01:14:06.300
at the top of my head, but he, he was, uh, some people were in his office, uh, pitching him this,
01:14:11.980
this AI, um, animation that would use machine learning and, and, uh, uh, eventually kind of
01:14:21.020
mimic the way human beings move. But as it starts out, you know, it's kind of like this corpse,
01:14:27.100
like shuffling along the ground in this really quick, creepy way. And it just takes time for it
01:14:31.100
to start kind of learning how to move. And Hayazaki's watching this and he's like,
01:14:36.060
um, this is, this is, this is a mockery of life. Why would you even create this?
01:14:42.460
And then he shakes his head and he's like, I think we're in the end times.
01:14:46.940
And so I, yeah, there's just this, there's this something about it that just, uh, doesn't bode
01:14:52.540
well to me when I see it. Yeah. And, uh, Jay ends here knows where my brain is going. Nick land
01:14:57.740
intensifies. Yeah. It's that's, that's what I was chasing down at some point. I'll have to see if I can,
01:15:02.380
if I can coax Nick's Nick land on here so he can embarrass me, but way smarter than I am,
01:15:07.500
but we might have to make that happen. All right, guys. Well, I think we got through all the super
01:15:12.780
jets here. Let me just double check while we're doing that, uh, Jay, uh, or Joel, uh, where should
01:15:18.460
people look? Is there anything, uh, coming up? I know you've got a book or two or more. What should
01:15:24.780
people look at from you? Yeah. So our, our latest book is the Babylon Bee guide to democracy. It's
01:15:29.660
kind of our, our little silly civics course for how American government works. It's a, it's a funny
01:15:34.940
picture book, kind of a toilet reader. You can open it up to any, any page and there's going to
01:15:39.340
be something funny on there. Um, it's on sale now. I highly recommend picking that up. Um, and then,
01:15:45.580
you know, you obviously you can find us at the Babylonbee.com. Um, and, and you're going to see a lot
01:15:50.060
of satire there that you won't see on social media. If you just typically follow us on Twitter or
01:15:54.060
elsewhere, uh, there's a lot that we, that we post on the site that you won't see. Um, and we always
01:15:59.740
appreciate your support. So, I mean, our, our, uh, engagement has been suppressed by social media
01:16:04.060
quite a bit. Uh, we're, we're primarily subscriber supported now. So I encourage you to subscribe,
01:16:09.020
follow me on Twitter. Um, and, uh, you know, we're just going to keep doing what we do.
01:16:14.460
Yeah, guys. I mean, I'm pretty sure everyone here knows about the Babylon Bee like my, like we, uh,
01:16:19.580
everyone I know is a subscribe, but if somehow you aren't make sure that you're, uh, plugging
01:16:24.140
into all those different options. And then, uh, if it's your first time here, of course,
01:16:28.460
uh, you go ahead and subscribe. If you are, uh, watching online, but you want to, uh, do the
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01:16:41.100
McIntyre show on the pot, all the major podcast platforms. So if you do subscribe over places like
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Apple, please make sure to go ahead and give like that rate and that review that really helps a lot.
01:16:51.180
Uh, it was already moving up until like the, the seventies or something, just even they hadn't even
01:16:55.740
done anything with it yet. So really excited to see you guys keep, uh, keep going over there, uh,
01:17:00.380
subscribing, everything really appreciate it. Thanks everybody for coming by had a lot of
01:17:05.260
interesting questions. Appreciate that guys. I think I hit everything else. All right, we're good.
01:17:10.140
All right. Well, thank you once again, Joel. And as always everybody, we'll talk to you next time.