The Auron MacIntyre Show - The Babylon Bee Effect ｜ Guest： Joel Berry ｜ 12⧸14⧸22

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00:01:33.000 Hey, everybody.

00:01:33.800 How's it going?

00:01:34.580 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:01:36.460 I have a great guest that I think everyone's going to enjoy.

00:01:40.460 It's Joel Berry.

00:01:41.680 He's the managing editor over at the Babylon thing.

00:01:44.580 Babylon Bee, sorry.

00:01:46.360 Babylon thing.

00:01:47.140 Close enough.

00:01:47.980 Thanks for joining me, man.

00:01:49.780 Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:01:50.680 I appreciate it, man.

00:01:51.940 Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:53.100 So I've got a whole lot I want to get into.

00:01:55.080 I want to talk about, of course, comedy.

00:01:57.580 I want to talk about kind of the role to be played and kind of all this Twitter stuff that's going on.

00:02:02.580 And maybe a little bit about kind of progressive Christianity and why you're always seem to be sparring with these guys online.

00:02:08.340 All right, let's get into it.

00:02:11.520 But let's start from the beginning.

00:02:14.380 Joel, how did you get started?

00:02:16.000 Because I get the idea that you didn't really come from like some kind of stand-up comedy background.

00:02:20.340 No, no, definitely not.

00:02:23.820 I'm not classically trained in comedy whatsoever.

00:02:29.820 Gosh, well, I guess my job before this was in supply chain logistics.

00:02:35.720 I sold supply chain services to manufacturing corporations in the Midwest.

00:02:40.200 So that was my comedic training, I guess.

00:02:44.140 Obviously, a very atypical path into writing satire.

00:02:48.580 But the funny thing is that I'm pretty typical of all of the Babylon Bee writers on our staff.

00:02:56.140 I mean, we're all just kind of regular Joes.

00:02:59.120 We have normal jobs, normal families.

00:03:02.120 We're all kind of the people that would be passed over by the typical comedy world probably.

00:03:08.740 But who have some natural talent, a knack for this kind of stuff.

00:03:13.180 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.

00:03:21.940 So we kind of found our home here.

00:03:24.200 And it's been a blast.

00:03:26.040 I've been doing this for three years.

00:03:27.320 And it is wonderful to finally be doing what you really feel you were meant to be doing all along.

00:03:34.140 It's pretty awesome.

00:03:36.120 Yeah, no, that's great.

00:03:37.040 I love that, you know, you come from that different background.

00:03:39.960 Because I feel like that's what makes the Bee so unique.

00:03:43.000 Like you said, it's just that comedy that you don't get anywhere else.

00:03:45.540 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.

00:03:55.240 I don't think that would make a lot of sense to people.

00:03:57.200 But you guys have been slaying people like The Onion for years.

00:03:59.660 So it's pretty easy to know now, right?

00:04:02.300 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.

00:04:13.240 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.

00:04:27.320 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.

00:04:39.720 And that, that was, that was my initial attraction to the Bee.

00:04:42.340 I started myself as a fan.

00:04:43.780 And I remember finding them on Facebook early on, you know, like 2016, summer of 2016, something like that.

00:04:50.080 And, and coming across the headline, it was a Holy Spirit unable to move through congregation after the fog machine breaks.

00:04:57.040 And I thought, like, who are these guys?

00:04:58.940 This is amazing.

00:05:00.320 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.

00:05:16.800 You know, we, we could make fun of Christian culture from a place of love and affection.

00:05:20.880 And, and people really latched onto that, including myself.

00:05:23.440 So that was kind of our superpower early on.

00:05:26.280 And then, as you know, 2016, that's when Trump was elected and Trump was kind of our foil.

00:05:32.340 He gave us so much material for, for four years.

00:05:35.860 It was sad to see him go.

00:05:37.160 We had to, we had to move on from Trump.

00:05:39.880 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.

00:05:51.960 We could do it in kind of a more good natured way.

00:05:54.520 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.

00:06:13.720 And it may be just now kind of like dig at these movements a little bit.

00:06:18.520 You know, the Bee was back there four years ago joking about this stuff when it was completely culturally impermissible.

00:06:24.440 So, so I think that was, that was really kind of our, our shot in the arm over those four years.

00:06:31.640 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?

00:06:40.300 Like these humorless people, it is their religion, right?

00:06:43.540 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.

00:06:51.420 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.

00:07:07.240 But instead they, all they could do is basically turn into after school specials, right?

00:07:11.400 They just were giving an altar call in every single one of their late night bits.

00:07:15.300 Yeah, no, it's so true.

00:07:17.620 And it's a shame because a lot of these guys are, we we've seen them be brilliant before.

00:07:21.900 I know, I know Colbert at one time was funny.

00:07:23.860 He, I mean, his, his, uh, satire of, of a right wing talk show was, was brilliant.

00:07:29.280 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.

00:07:38.120 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.

00:07:46.620 And they, they now had to use their platforms to, to get this guy, to, to bring this guy down.

00:07:50.960 That, that kind of like this, this very self-serious, um, they kind of fancied themselves as the warriors protecting democracy. 0.96

00:07:59.060 And that, that just made them so much more ridiculous.

00:08:01.520 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.

00:08:08.940 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.

00:08:18.760 I, I, I mean, just objectively, I don't care what side you were on.

00:08:23.580 I mean, there was so, there was so much that was funny about it.

00:08:26.440 So much that was absurd about it.

00:08:28.320 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.

00:08:46.420 We have original sin, which means that we're all, you know, we're all prone to pride and ridiculousness and, and, uh, silliness.

00:08:52.720 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.

00:09:00.700 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.

00:09:12.580 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.

00:09:19.560 Um, and it, it's just, I don't know.

00:09:22.060 It's, it's just fun.

00:09:23.000 Um, there's too much, there's too much, uh, silliness in the world to not be laughing every day.

00:09:28.740 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.

00:09:38.760 And I wanted to kind of pick your brain about this because that's why I named this episode, the Babylon Bee Effect, right?

00:09:44.100 Cause I'm sure you're familiar with the Streisand effect and, uh, yeah.

00:09:47.820 And, you know, the whole idea is the more you try to shut it up, the, the bigger it gets.

00:09:51.740 Right.

00:09:52.280 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.

00:10:04.080 Right.

00:10:05.060 Yeah.

00:10:05.500 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.

00:10:12.740 So the Babylon Bee gets banned for naming the, uh, Admiral Levine, the, the man of the year, right?

00:10:21.340 Like that's how it gets banned off Twitter, right?

00:10:23.440 What, and, and you guys remove, refuse to remove this, right?

00:10:27.600 So what was the thought process behind that?

00:10:29.220 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?

00:10:35.000 Yeah.

00:10:35.580 Oh boy.

00:10:36.240 That was a crazy couple of days. 0.91

00:10:38.000 So I, I, I remember, so I, I'm the one who wrote that silly joke.

00:10:41.800 Um, and it, it was one of those days where I, I, it was kind of a slow news day.

00:10:46.320 Things were kind of quiet.

00:10:47.420 There wasn't a lot of engagement on the site that day.

00:10:49.680 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.

00:10:57.740 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.

00:11:10.340 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.

00:11:40.820 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.

00:11:47.420 And so, you know, I, this is the point where I have to give full credit to our owner, Seth Dillon.

00:11:53.200 I mean, that was, that was where I was kind of like, okay, you know, well, we need our platform.

00:11:57.360 This is, we can't be off of Twitter.

00:11:59.140 Let's delete the tweet.

00:12:00.080 We'll turn it into a joke.

00:12:01.080 We'll come back.

00:12:01.700 We'll, we'll make it really funny.

00:12:03.200 We'll, we'll kind of have a wry dig in there at the whole system.

00:12:07.180 Um, you know, and we'll, we'll keep posting.

00:12:09.120 It'll be fine.

00:12:09.600 Um, and Seth was like, immediately, like didn't even blink dude was just like, we're not deleting

00:12:14.120 the tweet.

00:12:14.780 He immediately announced on, on Twitter that we weren't going to delete the tweet.

00:12:18.280 So there we were, we were, we were painted into a corner there.

00:12:21.480 And, um, and he, he took that stand from, from day one, from the, from the first minute.

00:12:27.420 And, um, uh, you know, I think it was one of those things that, I mean, it could have gone

00:12:34.460 very bad.

00:12:35.340 I mean, it, it could have gone poorly for us.

00:12:37.640 There was no, uh, it was no sure, sure thing that this was going to turn out the way things

00:12:42.660 have turned out.

00:12:43.900 Um, but I, I really, I, I credit Seth with taking that stand.

00:12:47.020 And I think, um, I think that his is an example, um, of what can happen if more people take these

00:12:55.080 kinds of stands.

00:12:55.920 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

00:13:10.200 of this woke cultural movement is allowed to, to go on unimposed because we don't oppose

00:13:14.020 it.

00:13:15.020 So, um, luckily, luckily we, we knew a certain, uh, multi-billionaire who, who likes the, the

00:13:23.100 Babylon Bee.

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,

00:13:29.920 his factory in, in, uh, Germany at the time, his Tesla factory.

00:13:33.660 And, and he hadn't really heard, uh, what had, had gone on, but he kind of came back

00:13:38.080 to the States.

00:13:38.580 He booted up his Twitter, couldn't find the Babylon Bee and, and called us and was like,

00:13:42.640 what happened?

00:13:43.180 You know, what happened to you guys?

00:13:44.180 And we told him, and, uh, that's, that's the point when he, he kind of said, I, maybe

00:13:49.100 I should just buy Twitter is what he said to our editor in chief comment.

00:13:52.980 And, uh, I think the next day he put out that Twitter poll that said, you know, do you

00:13:58.040 think that Twitter abides by the spirit of free speech or whatever that poll was?

00:14:01.820 You might remember.

00:14:03.120 Um, and a lot of people responded, no, and that kind of got the ball rolling.

00:14:08.520 So I, I don't think that the, the bee was by any means like this, the sole, uh, catalyst

00:14:14.180 I think there was a lot going on that was frustrating him at the time that, that, that

00:14:19.900 led him to do this, but you don't, thank God for him.

00:14:22.600 I, God works in mysterious ways.

00:14:25.040 Um, and, uh, here we are back on Twitter.

00:14:27.420 A lot of important voices in, in our national discourses are now back on Twitter.

00:14:32.400 Um, and it's just, it's wonderful to see.

00:14:34.400 I, I, uh, I'm still pinching myself.

00:14:37.880 I, sometimes I, I, I imagine that, uh, I'm going to wake up, you know, in November,

00:14:43.460 2016 and, and be told that this is all a dream.

00:14:46.500 And, and I'm still in supply chain logistics and Hillary's president, but here we are.

00:14:51.800 I like this timeline.

00:14:53.640 Yeah.

00:14:54.180 I know exactly how you feel.

00:14:56.100 The, um, I, I, I'm going to hold on to the idea that the Babylon Bee was the catalyst

00:15:01.940 for this because that is just the funniest.

00:15:03.400 I don't care what the actual story is.

00:15:05.280 That is the story going forward.

00:15:06.820 Just to be clear.

00:15:07.820 I think so.

00:15:08.380 Like, you know, like, uh, it, it, the old Western, when the, when the legend becomes

00:15:11.840 fact, print, print the legend, that's, that needs to be the legend that is printed.

00:15:16.140 Yeah.

00:15:16.560 You guys need to take full credit for this.

00:15:18.240 I won't have you doing anything else.

00:15:20.300 Um, but it is really fascinating, right?

00:15:22.700 Because it, whether or not it's the entire catalyst for it, uh, the, the absurdity of banning

00:15:31.660 a satire site for wrong think on, by saying, by saying something that is very true and very

00:15:39.860 obvious really makes it clear kind of where we at, where we're at and what it takes, this

00:15:45.100 constant omnipresent censorship that is required to kind of hold the, the worldview, these, the

00:15:51.800 ridiculous progressive worldview that kind of dominates us all in, in place, right?

00:15:56.380 Like when all of this stuff comes out and you see some of the background of like why 0.93

00:16:02.460 people are getting banned off of Twitter and how things are getting manipulated, how they're

00:16:07.720 absolutely just changing the rules on the fly to target people like yourselves, just

00:16:13.400 because of your political viewpoint or, uh, political outlook, possibly it's not even a

00:16:18.700 political outlook.

00:16:19.220 It's just a basic observation about reality.

00:16:21.300 Yeah.

00:16:22.300 What do you, uh, what do you think about the ability of comedy to, to kind of break that,

00:16:27.420 uh, you know, that constant stream of propaganda when you see a guy like Elon take action because

00:16:33.580 of something that possibly, at least, you know, related to you guys in, in, in a decent way,

00:16:39.960 how do you think that kind of the, the fact that that absurdity then triggers a far more

00:16:45.700 important, uh, investigation into how the government is interacting with Twitter and shaping politics

00:16:53.600 and pushing people off?

00:16:55.280 Are you, are you, is it kind of humbling to kind of be a part of that process in some way?

00:17:02.320 Yeah, absolutely.

00:17:03.400 I mean, it, it, it really, really is.

00:17:05.860 Um, you know, and I, I think in our case, this, this just happened to be the avenue.

00:17:12.480 I think that, that, that God used, it could, if it, if it wouldn't have been us, it would

00:17:17.280 have been someone else.

00:17:18.080 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.

00:17:35.060 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

00:17:47.680 found over the last four years with, you know, people who laugh at our jokes, you know, and

00:17:51.640 we, we get feedback from, you know, from the left, from people who are atheists, from people

00:17:55.760 who are, are, you know, maybe left the center who, um, who still think our, our stuff is

00:18:02.880 funny and, and because they see that nugget of truth in there.

00:18:06.640 Um, I think there's, there's something powerful in that, in a way that, that kind of strikes

00:18:11.780 fear into the heart of, like you said, there's this, this worldview that is, it's really a

00:18:16.280 house of cards.

00:18:17.000 It's, it's a, it's held together by, you know, tape and, and, you know, uh, like the, the

00:18:24.520 slightest amount of, of ridicule or questioning.

00:18:27.320 Um, and it all comes down.

00:18:29.320 I mean, they, they, they can't abide any kind of ridicule because their, their worldview

00:18:34.240 is built on nothing.

00:18:35.240 It's built on lies.

00:18:36.180 And so, um, I think, I think the, the reason that the left came after us so hard, I mean, 0.85

00:18:43.020 I think for a lot of people from the outside, it, it looks so ridiculous, you know, why are

00:18:47.340 they censoring comedians? 0.99

00:18:48.260 It's ridiculous. 0.89

00:18:48.680 But I think the left knows full well, and they have for a long time, how powerful, um, mockery 0.90

00:18:55.120 and, and ridicule is, it goes, yeah, I mean, back to Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals.

00:18:59.800 That was one of his rules was that, that ridicule is one of your most powerful weapons, um, against

00:19:06.000 your enemy.

00:19:06.500 It's, it's very hard to, um, to, uh, oppose.

00:19:11.180 Um, it's very hard to recover from, um, and the left has been using it, uh, very skillfully

00:19:17.940 for decades.

00:19:18.560 I mean, I, I've, uh, I've heard interviews of, of like the early, uh, SNL comedians, you

00:19:24.320 know, in the, in the seventies and eighties, when they kind of first realized that they

00:19:27.680 could actually move the needle of a national election by, you know, uh, caricaturing, uh,

00:19:34.060 uh, you know, a Republican who is running and just making the, making them look like 0.99

00:19:37.780 a fool, you know? 0.92

00:19:39.080 Um, and they, most recently we saw it with SNL and Sarah Palin. 0.99

00:19:43.500 I mean, Sarah Palin, I remember the first Sarah, uh, speech I heard Sarah Palin give at

00:19:48.760 the Republican national convention.

00:19:50.200 She gave her speech about how she sold her private jet on eBay and all that.

00:19:54.800 And I, I was in college at the time and I was rooming with a, he was a liberal guy that

00:19:59.340 a leftist that I roomed with.

00:20:00.660 And he watched the speech with me and he said, that is the best political speech that I've

00:20:05.320 ever seen.

00:20:06.120 You know, speaking of Sarah Palin, well, how do we remember Sarah Palin today? 0.89

00:20:11.300 We remember her as the lady who could see Russia from her house, you know, with the ridiculous, 1.00

00:20:16.660 you know, Fargo sounding accent that Tina Fey did. 1.00

00:20:20.360 Um, it's very powerful, you know, and obviously our, our main goal isn't to like, you know,

00:20:27.120 influence national elections and, you know, character assassinate people.

00:20:31.360 We're, we're trying to tell the truth in our own way.

00:20:33.880 And I think, um, that's where the battle is right now.

00:20:36.760 It's, it's over the truth.

00:20:37.860 It's over, do words have meaning?

00:20:39.500 Um, and, uh, and, and so I think our, that's, that's why our, our jokes have become, become

00:20:46.960 kind of a, such a lightning rod for our culture.

00:20:49.200 Cause that's, that's where the fight is.

00:20:51.400 Well, and it's interesting because another, you know, one person who we know, uh, or what

00:20:57.160 got targeted by Twitter for specific removal was libs of tech talk, which I believe Seth

00:21:03.740 Dillon, he helped.

00:21:04.980 The owner of that account ended up kind of creating a career out of that.

00:21:08.760 Right.

00:21:09.060 I think help set that up.

00:21:11.280 Yeah.

00:21:11.700 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:12.320 So that's, Seth is kind of a, he's a tech mogul.

00:21:16.240 He's got his hands in all kinds of things.

00:21:17.740 People think of him as the Babylon B guy, but he's, he's doing lots of stuff.

00:21:21.820 But it's interesting that both of you, you know, lives of tech talk is just showing what

00:21:26.380 people are saying, right?

00:21:27.740 It's no commentary.

00:21:28.860 It's no additional content.

00:21:30.920 You, most of the time, it's just a reflection of reality.

00:21:33.620 Right.

00:21:34.040 And in the same way, that's what you guys got banned for as well.

00:21:37.980 Right.

00:21:38.320 Both of you in those cases, obviously you guys have a little more editorializing because

00:21:42.380 you're making jokes around it.

00:21:43.520 But, but in both cases you were, you know, removed for the crime of just pointing out

00:21:49.820 the obvious.

00:21:50.480 And that seems like the most dangerous thing for them is just this simple thing.

00:21:55.040 Like he said, the, the left has been so good at using the power of comedy to kind of

00:22:00.080 shame people about noticing obvious things, right?

00:22:04.140 And it started as comedy.

00:22:05.500 That's the interesting thing.

00:22:06.680 It started as comedy.

00:22:07.800 It started as mockery. 0.97

00:22:09.380 It started as kind of coding these things as low class and ignorant and behind the times.

00:22:14.180 But as we've gotten closer to closer to kind of the progressives having the cultural hegemony,

00:22:19.080 the cultural control, they've lost kind of the mocking ability, right?

00:22:23.840 They can't do it anymore.

00:22:25.260 They've lost that.

00:22:26.040 And instead, all they have left is this strict hectoring of people in this, this censorship

00:22:31.000 screaming.

00:22:31.720 The emperor obviously has clothes and you guys are just, you know, kind of showing that's

00:22:36.560 obviously not true.

00:22:37.440 And those are the things that get you completely banned.

00:22:40.040 Yeah.

00:22:40.640 Well, you know, the other thing too, that, that makes this kind of funny and ironic is

00:22:44.520 that, um, I came from very strict religious fundamentalism.

00:22:49.700 I mean, very hardcore fundamentalism, like, you know, like the, you had the outsider and

00:22:54.520 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,

00:23:04.200 I think gave me a very, um, very deep understanding that, you know, of, of this world, of this world

00:23:14.200 of the left and kind of how they see themselves.

00:23:16.200 Cause it really is, it is a new, uh, religious movement.

00:23:19.340 It operates in a lot of the same ways, uh, religious fundamentalism does.

00:23:24.060 And, and I was always kind of a snarky kind of disrespectful kid.

00:23:27.280 I was always like the one, you know, making fun of our, you know, whatever church leadership

00:23:31.580 or, you know, uh, I was always getting in trouble for all that kind of stuff.

00:23:35.700 So I, I, this is always kind of a natural transition to, to grow up.

00:23:40.340 And then suddenly, you know, I think the Christians are, are the outsiders, they've 1.00

00:23:45.360 lost the cultural hegemony.

00:23:46.580 And now you kind of have this new movement and worldview that is operating in very much

00:23:51.560 the same way as a, as a religion, religious movement, um, just with different ideals.

00:23:56.600 And so I, I can kind of look at it from the outside and know exactly how these people

00:24:00.300 think and, and, uh, how they operate.

00:24:02.600 And, and, uh, I think that makes this really effective.

00:24:06.080 Why do you think it was so easy to kind of shame, not just Christians, but, but people

00:24:13.860 have kind of all stripes had a more, you know, classic traditional understanding of morality

00:24:19.600 and kind of norms and traditions.

00:24:21.420 Why do you think it was so easy for the media to kind of use comedy and mockery and dismissal

00:24:27.860 to make people ignore really fundamental and obvious truths about kind of the world around

00:24:33.720 them?

00:24:34.700 That's a good question.

00:24:36.120 I, um, I think that a lot of it has to do with the same reason the left is ripe for mockery

00:24:42.360 now.

00:24:42.660 And, and that is like self-righteousness and self-seriousness.

00:24:46.680 And I think, you know, a lot of the, the mockery that Christians have endured in the

00:24:51.900 past, um, you know, is well-earned.

00:24:54.880 I mean, we, you know, sometimes we take ourselves too seriously.

00:24:57.480 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?

00:25:08.040 Um, and so I think, uh, and sometimes we're afraid to laugh too, you know, Christians have

00:25:15.100 kind of earned this, this, uh, this reputation, uh, for being very dour, uh, you know, sour 0.82

00:25:21.960 people.

00:25:22.520 And, um, I, I don't, I don't say that all of that is earned of course, but, um, I think,

00:25:28.040 um, you know, being able to laugh a little bit, um, at your own culture, um, at yourself,

00:25:34.900 um, and, uh, be more, being more open about your imperfections and your sins and your,

00:25:41.820 and your failures, um, it, it makes you much, uh, more mockery proof, you know, because you're

00:25:48.340 kind of doing, you're, you're taking the wind out of the sails of anyone who might make fun

00:25:52.440 of you because you're, you're already well aware of, of, of your shortcomings and you're,

00:25:57.160 and you're not afraid of them and you're open about them.

00:25:58.840 And so I think, um, you know, if Christians can, can keep doing that, um, you know, being 1.00

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.

00:26:21.240 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

00:26:35.960 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 1.00

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 1.00

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 that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer.

00:28:53.700 So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your

00:28:59.880 first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver.

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, 0.97

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 0.98

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

00:30:27.080 his sense of humor.

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, 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.74

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 0.97

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 0.98

00:34:24.360 confused and the, the girls who, who have body image issues and who don't understand their worth. 1.00

00:34:30.120 And, and meanwhile, you have these Christians trying to like kowtow to, to this movement. It's, 0.79

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 1.00

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 0.95

00:41:06.140 world should be ordered, the only direction you can move is more and more clownish and absurd directions. 0.92

00:41:13.680 Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly what we're seeing. And that's, that's what makes our 0.81

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 0.88

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 0.99

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. 0.75

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 0.85

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 0.98

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 1.00

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, 0.99

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,

00:54:49.580 the auspices of the government.

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 0.78

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

00:55:30.700 Christian culture that we had.

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 0.92

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 0.72

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, 0.57

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 0.88

01:01:19.660 temple, and they were all slaves of this other empire. And imagine being someone living in Israel 0.99

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,

01:03:04.140 uh, and leave the big picture stuff to him?

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. 0.73

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 0.99

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 0.96

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,

01:12:20.940 like terrifying prospect.

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, 0.93

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 0.72

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

01:16:34.700 podcast thing, the blaze is moving everything from here on over the podcast platform. So got the Oren

01:16:41.100 McIntyre show on the pot, all the major podcast platforms. So if you do subscribe over places like

01:16:46.620 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.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - December 14, 2022

The Babylon Bee Effect ｜ Guest： Joel Berry ｜ 12⧸14⧸22

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