WEBVTT 00:00:00.430 --> 00:00:04.769 KMO Show, episode number 32, prepared for release 00:00:04.769 --> 00:00:22.890 on Tuesday, May 27th, 2025. You are listening 00:00:22.890 --> 00:00:25.989 to the KMO Show. I am your host, KMO, and I am 00:00:25.989 --> 00:00:30.000 speaking with the librarian of... Kalino, who's 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.119 handled pronunciation I just now learned, so 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:36.100 I hope I got it right. Yes, very much so. Thank 00:00:36.100 --> 00:00:39.340 you. Thank you for having me. Ah, my pleasure. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:41.939 I know you, well, don't really know you, but 00:00:41.939 --> 00:00:45.200 we're speaking because of Substack. I've been 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:47.780 on it, I guess, a couple of years, but for the 00:00:47.780 --> 00:00:50.859 first nine months or so, I was not posting regularly. 00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:54.700 I was writing a novel instead, and I find it's 00:00:54.700 --> 00:00:56.200 a lot easier to write a novel when you're not 00:00:56.200 --> 00:01:01.560 also a blogger. But you have, I think, been quite 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:04.540 a success on Substack. So did you bring an audience 00:01:04.540 --> 00:01:08.560 or did you build an audience on Substack? I built 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.879 an audience. I started off from ground zero. 00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:13.459 I was told the story a couple other times. I 00:01:13.459 --> 00:01:17.079 was a commenter, basically, on John Carter, postcards 00:01:17.079 --> 00:01:19.819 from Barsoom, his Substack, which is a great 00:01:19.819 --> 00:01:22.060 Substack. Everybody should subscribe to it. I 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:26.000 was a commenter there. And then some people responded 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.760 kind of positively to some of my comments. And 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:29.280 so I thought, oh, maybe I can give this a try. 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:31.939 I like writing. And then I went from there and 00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:36.439 got my first subscriber. And everything I have 00:01:36.439 --> 00:01:40.859 came from Substack. Right on. I brought an audience 00:01:40.859 --> 00:01:44.980 to Substack, but it was a small one because I've 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:47.140 discovered that audiences are not particularly 00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:50.219 portable. Like if you start a new podcast with 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:56.519 a new RSS feed. Good luck. Yeah, it's something 00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:59.620 some of the people I sort of know on Substack, 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:02.359 we talk about the Cringe Stack authors that bring 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:04.739 over 100 ,000 people with them, instant purple 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:07.280 checkmark. And there's a way you can do it, I 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:09.599 guess, if you're media savvy and have people. 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:11.479 But for the most part, yeah, you're pretty much 00:02:11.479 --> 00:02:13.860 on your own to build your own organic audience 00:02:13.860 --> 00:02:16.620 if you're not already famous. Yeah, but you can 00:02:16.620 --> 00:02:19.219 come in and write a post about how to build an 00:02:19.219 --> 00:02:21.240 audience on Substack and get a whole bunch of... 00:02:21.659 --> 00:02:24.560 I guess one -time readers that way. Yeah, five 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:27.939 tips to grow your stack. Five tips to get more 00:02:27.939 --> 00:02:31.280 paid subscribers. How I got 30 ,000 paid subscribers 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:37.240 in a month. Okay. That was like half my feed 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:40.819 for a while. When you are not the librarian on 00:02:40.819 --> 00:02:45.159 Substack, you are an educator. Yes, I'm a high 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:47.039 school teacher. I'm actually transitioning jobs 00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:50.469 right now. Lost one job, got another one. So 00:02:50.469 --> 00:02:52.250 I'm starting a new career at a different school. 00:02:52.889 --> 00:02:54.969 But I teach high school. I also teach college 00:02:54.969 --> 00:02:57.789 classes here and there. And obviously I write. 00:02:57.830 --> 00:02:59.990 So that's pretty much my spectrum of careers. 00:03:00.650 --> 00:03:03.490 And you also teach some online courses, is that 00:03:03.490 --> 00:03:06.590 right? Yes, online college classes. Yeah. So 00:03:06.590 --> 00:03:11.530 with AI, large language models, writing papers 00:03:11.530 --> 00:03:14.490 for students, like... I was a grad student in 00:03:14.490 --> 00:03:16.930 the 90s and I taught undergraduate courses and 00:03:16.930 --> 00:03:19.789 I had to grade a lot of papers. And I remember, 00:03:19.830 --> 00:03:23.030 you know, end of semester, I had my own papers 00:03:23.030 --> 00:03:25.110 to write. You know, I had my own classwork that 00:03:25.110 --> 00:03:27.550 I had to really, you know, buckle down on. But 00:03:27.550 --> 00:03:29.830 also, you know, all the student papers are coming 00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:33.650 in. And if I read like two paragraphs of a paper 00:03:33.650 --> 00:03:36.610 and the first paragraph is like a proper opening 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:38.669 saying this is the subject matter I will cover. 00:03:38.750 --> 00:03:41.349 This is the position I will defend. And, you 00:03:41.349 --> 00:03:44.710 know, it's all punctuated correctly. A, put an 00:03:44.710 --> 00:03:46.789 A at the top of that paper, circle it and move 00:03:46.789 --> 00:03:49.150 on to the next one. And it's the C minus papers 00:03:49.150 --> 00:03:51.830 that I'm struggling with trying to figure out 00:03:51.830 --> 00:03:55.509 what the student is trying to say. You know, 00:03:55.509 --> 00:03:57.449 and I always felt like I was doing a disservice 00:03:57.449 --> 00:03:59.349 to those A students not reading their papers. 00:03:59.409 --> 00:04:03.710 But, you know, if I'm going to pass most people, 00:04:03.810 --> 00:04:06.949 you know, and justify those C minuses, well, 00:04:07.050 --> 00:04:09.849 the A papers were just, you know, if there was 00:04:09.849 --> 00:04:11.449 a grade higher than A plus, that's what they 00:04:11.449 --> 00:04:15.599 would get. Yeah. But AI changes all that. Now, 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:18.040 anybody who wants to can write perfectly without, 00:04:18.100 --> 00:04:20.519 you know, knowing how to use a semicolon or an 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:27.319 em dash. It's actually become kind of a, I would 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:31.180 say, a personal challenge where I would say I've 00:04:31.180 --> 00:04:35.019 become better as a reader just from seeing so 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:39.800 much of this AI stuff to where I can spot the 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:43.350 subtle nuances. between something AI generated 00:04:43.350 --> 00:04:46.649 and something human generated. And I can say 00:04:46.649 --> 00:04:48.649 with no small amount of pride, I think I'm actually 00:04:48.649 --> 00:04:51.230 kind of a pretty good detector. There's just 00:04:51.230 --> 00:04:56.389 a way that AI prose appears that is just distinct. 00:04:56.610 --> 00:04:59.750 It's this flat aspect, like someone with a thought 00:04:59.750 --> 00:05:02.529 processing disorder trying to explain something. 00:05:03.189 --> 00:05:06.269 It's just not right. It's not everything. The 00:05:06.269 --> 00:05:09.290 words are all there, but the meaning is just 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:15.019 so... formulaic and devoid of human emotion or 00:05:15.019 --> 00:05:18.680 input or anything. It's just obviously something 00:05:18.680 --> 00:05:23.339 machine generated. The worry becomes, I think 00:05:23.339 --> 00:05:25.819 that, I mean, and when I see something obviously 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:28.459 AI generated, that creates a moral problem because 00:05:28.459 --> 00:05:30.839 now I have to ask myself, all right, well, do 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.660 I slap an F on it like the school says to? But 00:05:33.660 --> 00:05:36.540 because I can't prove it, if a student actually 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:39.250 were to say, no, I totally wrote that. I'd be 00:05:39.250 --> 00:05:40.870 without recourse and I'd have to give them an 00:05:40.870 --> 00:05:44.350 A anyway. So what I've kind of started doing 00:05:44.350 --> 00:05:47.050 is if I see something that I'm pretty sure is 00:05:47.050 --> 00:05:54.189 AI, I swear in court is AI, but it's not, but 00:05:54.189 --> 00:05:56.410 I can't prove it, you know. I'll usually slap 00:05:56.410 --> 00:06:01.310 a grade on there of like, you know, B plus, you 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.529 know, and I'll call out any, like if they ask 00:06:03.529 --> 00:06:05.250 why, I'll say, well, you know, this sentence 00:06:05.250 --> 00:06:07.009 wasn't very good or you could have expressed 00:06:07.009 --> 00:06:09.300 this better or something like that. I'll grade 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.980 those papers much more harshly. And then the 00:06:11.980 --> 00:06:13.980 kids who authentically are writing things, I 00:06:13.980 --> 00:06:15.800 give them the A plus because they actually put 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:20.720 in the work. How are how's their writing? Because 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:23.360 when I was grading papers, you know, university 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:26.199 student papers back in the 90s, kids couldn't 00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:28.339 write then. And I don't imagine it's gotten better. 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:35.850 As a whole. Well, so one thing I'll say, the 00:06:35.850 --> 00:06:38.970 pool of people I draw from, I mostly handle dual 00:06:38.970 --> 00:06:42.069 enrollment. So these tend to be the smartest 00:06:42.069 --> 00:06:46.269 kids in the high school. And in that group, I 00:06:46.269 --> 00:06:50.430 do tend to get, you know, 25 % of them are pretty 00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:52.529 competent writers. They can express themselves. 00:06:53.629 --> 00:06:57.189 Another 50%, they can get their point across, 00:06:57.430 --> 00:07:00.160 but it's not done very artfully. And then another 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:02.660 25%, even though they're smart, they just struggle 00:07:02.660 --> 00:07:04.879 with expressing themselves. It's hard. And if 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:07.779 you work with them, they can get passable as 00:07:07.779 --> 00:07:12.579 writers. But the ones that are the worst off 00:07:12.579 --> 00:07:14.500 are the ones that have the most recourse to AI. 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:17.120 Because they're not confident, they go straight 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:19.240 to chat GPT, tell them to bang out an essay. 00:07:20.279 --> 00:07:22.680 Sometimes it's laziness, but a lot of times it's 00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:25.339 just fear. They don't want to be judged because... 00:07:25.629 --> 00:07:28.110 They're in dual enrollment. They think all their 00:07:28.110 --> 00:07:30.649 other peers can write, and they're just scared 00:07:30.649 --> 00:07:33.730 to do it themselves. I try to get across to them. 00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:36.310 I'm not there to judge them. Now, the population 00:07:36.310 --> 00:07:38.629 as a whole, like when I teach high school and 00:07:38.629 --> 00:07:40.589 I'm just getting a general cross -section of 00:07:40.589 --> 00:07:44.529 the population, no, they cannot write. It's bad. 00:07:44.689 --> 00:07:48.509 I had one kid. He turned in some paragraphs he 00:07:48.509 --> 00:07:51.250 was supposed to write to answer questions, and 00:07:51.250 --> 00:07:54.399 I actually— No joke. I went to the dean and I 00:07:54.399 --> 00:07:57.139 said, I think this kid is still suffering from 00:07:57.139 --> 00:07:59.459 concussion symptoms. And I showed him the paper 00:07:59.459 --> 00:08:03.579 and he agreed. And it was that bad. The words 00:08:03.579 --> 00:08:05.540 were just disjointed. It looked like something 00:08:05.540 --> 00:08:07.779 like a serial killer who'd been up for three 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:11.980 weeks would scrawl in his insane journal. This 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:17.819 is a senior about to graduate high school. It's 00:08:17.819 --> 00:08:21.680 unfortunate. AI is happy to, I say AI, I should 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:23.620 say large language models, but they are happy 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:27.639 to crank out whatever piece of writing you ask 00:08:27.639 --> 00:08:30.899 them to. And compared to most of the population, 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:33.000 they're brilliant at it. I mean, compared to 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:34.899 professional writers, yeah, they're certainly 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:37.200 flawed and limited, but compared to most people, 00:08:37.419 --> 00:08:41.860 they are superhuman. And it's unfortunate that 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:45.000 they can write at that level, but they're not 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:48.279 very good at editing. Because I think if a lot 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:50.980 of people would just, you know, take the plunge 00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:53.080 and just put something down, like, you know, 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:56.940 crank out 1500 words and then ask a patient's 00:08:56.940 --> 00:08:59.419 skillful editor, hey, how can we make this into 00:08:59.419 --> 00:09:00.879 something that I would want to show to somebody? 00:09:01.240 --> 00:09:03.500 Then AI would be beneficial. But, you know, just 00:09:03.500 --> 00:09:05.159 saying, hey, I don't feel like doing this. You 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:09.419 do it. Yeah, that's the worst. The papers that 00:09:09.419 --> 00:09:13.500 are the most that I would say get past my mental 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:16.620 detector the most. are the ones where the kid 00:09:16.620 --> 00:09:20.419 clearly put in some effort. They've got the core 00:09:20.419 --> 00:09:22.899 of something there, and then they had AI come 00:09:22.899 --> 00:09:26.320 in and, like, modify it in some way. I've dinged 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:28.659 people for AI where they've come back and said, 00:09:28.740 --> 00:09:31.639 no, I wrote it. I just used Grammarly to come 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:33.659 in and, you know, change up a ton of stuff. And 00:09:33.659 --> 00:09:35.639 it's like, well, you can't do that either. You 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:38.399 know, it's got to be your work. But those papers 00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:40.159 tend to look better than the ones where the kid 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:42.019 literally just typed in a prompt. You know, I 00:09:42.019 --> 00:09:44.039 need five paragraphs about, you know, Abraham 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:48.789 Lincoln. Yes. But given the students that you're 00:09:48.789 --> 00:09:50.710 dealing with, you don't see that all that much, 00:09:50.750 --> 00:09:56.409 I'm guessing. So, yeah, the online dual enrollment 00:09:56.409 --> 00:09:58.269 kids tend to be a little bit brighter and more 00:09:58.269 --> 00:10:00.889 assertive and able to express themselves better. 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:05.210 The regular high school kids lack either the 00:10:05.210 --> 00:10:08.690 ability or the will or both. And it all stems 00:10:08.690 --> 00:10:11.529 from the same cause. People who can't write can't 00:10:11.529 --> 00:10:14.309 write because they don't read. And they don't 00:10:14.309 --> 00:10:16.710 read because they can't read, because they lack 00:10:16.710 --> 00:10:19.289 the discipline, because they haven't, at a young 00:10:19.289 --> 00:10:24.129 age, put themselves through that necessary process 00:10:24.129 --> 00:10:26.409 of being able to sit still, tune everything out, 00:10:26.470 --> 00:10:30.049 and focus on a written word. History, which is 00:10:30.049 --> 00:10:32.450 my main discipline, it's a text -based discipline. 00:10:32.830 --> 00:10:35.529 It's all about going in, looking at a text, analyzing 00:10:35.529 --> 00:10:37.960 it, drawing meaning from it. Being able to draw 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:40.159 meaning from a text is the essential skill. And 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:42.139 as a history teacher, I have to say, not many 00:10:42.139 --> 00:10:44.539 people have that skill. I do a lot of reading 00:10:44.539 --> 00:10:47.159 these days, but it's all on screen. If I take 00:10:47.159 --> 00:10:49.200 in a novel, it's most likely going to be an audio 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:53.399 book. But it was Robert E. Howard's Conan stories 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:56.620 that turned me into a reader. And, you know, 00:10:56.620 --> 00:11:00.379 as a teenager in the 80s or maybe even a preteen, 00:11:00.419 --> 00:11:02.320 I think I was like 14, 15 when I started reading 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:06.139 this. There was material in there that was not 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:10.019 age appropriate. Yeah, I've read those stories. 00:11:10.139 --> 00:11:13.279 Right. But because, you know, because it's just 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:15.759 words on a page and nobody's going to read what 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:18.299 I'm reading, you know, that was a place where 00:11:18.299 --> 00:11:20.019 I could go to get stuff that wasn't available 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:25.759 to me above board. like I would go to the bookstores 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:27.460 at the mall and the science fiction sections, 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:29.179 which we know were science fiction and fantasy 00:11:29.179 --> 00:11:32.419 then as well. Yeah. You know, the, the covers 00:11:32.419 --> 00:11:35.919 by Frazetta and Vallejo, I mean, they were just 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.919 soft core porn and it was just, it was. You're 00:11:38.919 --> 00:11:40.799 telling me that chain mail bikini isn't battle 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:43.080 ready. I think it's, I think it's, it makes tactical 00:11:43.080 --> 00:11:46.659 sense. Exactly. Distraction, distract the enemy. 00:11:47.220 --> 00:11:51.080 But, you know, so the thing that kills me is 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:53.970 I'm. I work in a library. I hesitate to call 00:11:53.970 --> 00:11:56.370 myself a librarian because I'm at the bottom 00:11:56.370 --> 00:12:01.629 of the library hierarchy totem pole. But men 00:12:01.629 --> 00:12:06.429 my age, I mean, I'm at the very, I'm 57 and I'm 00:12:06.429 --> 00:12:09.990 at the very youngest layer of readers, you know, 00:12:09.990 --> 00:12:13.049 male readers in the library. Yeah. Millennial, 00:12:13.169 --> 00:12:17.850 Gen Z men, they do not read. period they simply 00:12:17.850 --> 00:12:20.230 do not go back into the stacks they have no interest 00:12:20.230 --> 00:12:21.850 they come in every day you know and they go right 00:12:21.850 --> 00:12:25.350 to the computers but they don't read women read 00:12:25.350 --> 00:12:29.730 girls read and so science fiction my my genre 00:12:29.730 --> 00:12:33.230 that i just love has become fantasy book porn 00:12:33.230 --> 00:12:37.950 for girls yeah and the more that the the publishers 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:40.509 cater to that audience you know the more they 00:12:40.509 --> 00:12:44.929 drive away what few uh male Readers and I think 00:12:44.929 --> 00:12:47.289 probably a lot of other people who would be writing 00:12:47.289 --> 00:12:50.169 science fiction, they're just driven to computer 00:12:50.169 --> 00:12:54.649 games. Yeah. And, you know, there's there's this 00:12:54.649 --> 00:12:58.269 really what I consider horrible feedback loop 00:12:58.269 --> 00:13:02.210 on the other end of that. So I worked I used 00:13:02.210 --> 00:13:06.250 to work in an all boys male military school or 00:13:06.250 --> 00:13:11.610 all boys male. Yeah. But an all male. military 00:13:11.610 --> 00:13:14.610 boarding school so it's none of the boys and 00:13:14.610 --> 00:13:20.110 um the dean was really into this like uh boys 00:13:20.110 --> 00:13:22.509 brains are different guru type guy and he would 00:13:22.509 --> 00:13:25.309 come in and he would say like yeah boys you know 00:13:25.309 --> 00:13:29.230 boys can't focus on texts boys are very physically 00:13:29.230 --> 00:13:32.190 oriented so you can't can't have them read for 00:13:32.190 --> 00:13:33.889 more than 20 minutes and you got to have them 00:13:33.889 --> 00:13:36.590 up and active and doing stuff boy girls will 00:13:36.590 --> 00:13:38.610 sit and read but boys have to be moving all the 00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:40.970 time and And I'm thinking to myself, as this 00:13:40.970 --> 00:13:43.649 guy's going on like this, who wrote all these 00:13:43.649 --> 00:13:48.129 texts? Everything we read is written by a guy. 00:13:48.149 --> 00:13:52.090 So a man can sit there and type a 30 ,000 -word 00:13:52.090 --> 00:13:59.289 book, but no male can be bothered to sit and 00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:02.389 read it? That doesn't make any sense. People 00:14:02.389 --> 00:14:04.649 used to read these things. All of these things 00:14:04.649 --> 00:14:07.360 used to have a male audience. So if your argument 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:10.580 is that boys are biologically disinclined to 00:14:10.580 --> 00:14:13.340 read, you really have a – you've kind of begged 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:16.639 the question there of why that genetic predisposition 00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:21.279 did not manifest itself before the 1990s. And 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:27.879 it's a dodge. It's a way of rationalizing our 00:14:27.879 --> 00:14:31.419 – I'll say our as in me – our failure as educators. 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:34.519 to get these boys the discipline they need to 00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.379 be able to use their imaginations and focus on 00:14:37.379 --> 00:14:40.059 these texts and draw meaning from them, not just 00:14:40.059 --> 00:14:42.600 the factual meaning, but aesthetic meaning, emotional 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:44.759 meaning, to make a connection with these words. 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:49.679 It's a tragedy what's happening to them. I have 00:14:49.679 --> 00:14:53.000 boys in my class, or I had in my school years 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.559 over, but I had boys in my class who would read. 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:59.909 And I kept my own library in my classroom. And 00:14:59.909 --> 00:15:01.570 the boys would come in, and I'd let them borrow 00:15:01.570 --> 00:15:03.389 books, and some of them would borrow and read 00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:06.830 very serious books and ask for more. And I can't 00:15:06.830 --> 00:15:08.389 help but think that if they had gone to another 00:15:08.389 --> 00:15:11.330 teacher, that guy would have said, well, shouldn't 00:15:11.330 --> 00:15:13.289 you be running around in a circle or something? 00:15:13.429 --> 00:15:18.169 What are you supposed to do? A lot of it, too, 00:15:18.350 --> 00:15:22.429 is the education profession is heavily, heavily 00:15:22.429 --> 00:15:24.889 female, especially in the public schools. My 00:15:24.889 --> 00:15:27.149 school, a little bit different. It's a military 00:15:27.149 --> 00:15:28.889 boarding school, so a lot more male teachers. 00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:31.960 But your typical school, elementary schools will 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:35.259 be 80 % women. High schools will be 60 % women, 00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:38.259 some of them. And the male teachers tend to be 00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:42.379 not English. If they're in history, they're coaches. 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:47.620 So you end up with a whole system that does just 00:15:47.620 --> 00:15:49.519 sort of take it for granted. Oh, boys don't read. 00:15:50.539 --> 00:15:53.919 Girls read. Boys don't read. And that mindset, 00:15:54.340 --> 00:15:57.360 that background set of assumptions, I think is 00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:59.899 really poisoning boys. ability to access these 00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:04.379 bugs. Yeah. And just the fact that there's not 00:16:04.379 --> 00:16:09.340 naked women on the covers anymore. That's a real 00:16:09.340 --> 00:16:15.159 blow. Oh, yeah. The 80s movie posters, too. Roger 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:21.820 Corman movies. Oh, yeah. Galaxy of Terror. I 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:25.279 was thinking Deathstalker. Oh, that's got a Vallejo 00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:29.139 poster, as I recall. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:34.100 Boy, I was probably in my late 20s before I learned 00:16:34.100 --> 00:16:37.759 how to pronounce Vallejo. Yeah. Not a lot of 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:39.539 Spanish speakers when I was growing up in Kansas 00:16:39.539 --> 00:16:42.120 City. Yeah, I learned how to pronounce Nietzsche. 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:47.379 I don't know. I was probably 30. I'm still not 00:16:47.379 --> 00:16:51.240 confident that I've got it right. Well, Nietzsche 00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:54.299 is an interesting point to change direction. 00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:59.620 Was raised in the Southern Baptist faith, but 00:16:59.620 --> 00:17:02.179 some of my earliest prayers that I can remember 00:17:02.179 --> 00:17:04.160 were me bargaining with God saying, OK, if I 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:06.940 if I stop believing, my salvation is still locked 00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:11.039 in. Right. Because a lot of this I'm just I'm 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:14.380 having trouble with. And so I've, you know, I've 00:17:14.380 --> 00:17:18.819 been a. What I would now call a Christian atheist 00:17:18.819 --> 00:17:22.779 for most of my life for a brief period. You know, 00:17:22.819 --> 00:17:25.259 when I was young, I was an obnoxious sort of 00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:28.420 evangelical atheist, but put that behind me fairly 00:17:28.420 --> 00:17:31.839 quickly. But these days, Sam Harris years. Yeah. 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:35.359 Well, Sam Harris is not that much older than 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:40.779 me. So, yeah, I had never heard of Sam Harris 00:17:40.779 --> 00:17:43.259 at the time that I was. And I think he was probably 00:17:43.259 --> 00:17:44.740 just, you know, either a high school student 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:47.720 or a college student when when I was going through 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:53.660 the evangelical atheist phase. But these days, 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:56.960 you know, I look around and I look at people 00:17:56.960 --> 00:18:00.440 who go to church and I look at people who are 00:18:00.440 --> 00:18:03.000 not necessarily philosophically atheists. They're 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:07.119 just sort of, you know, a religious because the 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:09.019 culture is a religious and they're just sort 00:18:09.019 --> 00:18:12.119 of, you know, temperamentally. Yeah, well, they're 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:14.279 living the default life. They're not really put 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:18.440 much into it. This is really manifest for me 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:20.740 at the library because our library is right across 00:18:20.740 --> 00:18:22.500 the street from the county courthouse. And on 00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:24.819 days when court is in session, you know, the 00:18:24.819 --> 00:18:27.200 white criminal underclass comes into the library 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.660 to use the photocopier to send faxes or whatnot. 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:32.799 So that's that's a group that I see regularly, 00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:36.259 you know, up close, talk to them. You know, the 00:18:36.259 --> 00:18:38.940 ones with the neck and facial tattoos and who 00:18:38.940 --> 00:18:42.180 look way older than they are in most cases. And 00:18:42.180 --> 00:18:44.819 then another group that also comes in regularly 00:18:44.819 --> 00:18:49.140 are Mennonites. And, you know, these young Mennonite 00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:51.519 men and women, they're just they look so healthy 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:54.660 and so fit. And, you know, they come in and, 00:18:54.759 --> 00:18:57.079 you know, the girls check out Amish romance books 00:18:57.079 --> 00:19:00.619 and the boys get online and they go to YouTube 00:19:00.619 --> 00:19:02.720 and they watch, you know, horse training videos 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:06.130 or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But they just seem 00:19:06.130 --> 00:19:10.190 so much better off. Just look at life outcomes. 00:19:10.690 --> 00:19:13.289 The people with, you know, Christian religion 00:19:13.289 --> 00:19:15.970 seem to be killing it. And the people without 00:19:15.970 --> 00:19:19.789 are struggling. And so I'm I'm actually like 00:19:19.789 --> 00:19:23.009 part of me says you should go to church, young 00:19:23.009 --> 00:19:26.200 man. But well. The part of me that says young 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:29.660 man is being facetious, but I'm not going to 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:31.400 my mother's church. I live in the same house 00:19:31.400 --> 00:19:33.599 with my mother. She's about to turn 86 and she 00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:36.720 goes to a Southern Baptist church, but I can't 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:40.279 stand the Southern Baptist services. I get plenty 00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:42.720 of her religion on TV because she's got it going 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:46.799 all day on Sunday. But my father was Roman Catholic. 00:19:47.450 --> 00:19:50.069 And there was a time when they were still trying 00:19:50.069 --> 00:19:51.730 to make me go to church and they gave me a choice 00:19:51.730 --> 00:19:53.390 of the Southern Baptist service or the Catholic 00:19:53.390 --> 00:19:55.470 service. And I opted for the Catholic service 00:19:55.470 --> 00:19:58.569 a lot of the times because it was shorter. But 00:19:58.569 --> 00:20:02.130 my father was not a regular enough attender of 00:20:02.130 --> 00:20:06.690 his, you know, his mass for me to really go full 00:20:06.690 --> 00:20:09.009 time there. And also, you know, as soon as he 00:20:09.009 --> 00:20:11.490 was out of the house and his authority was gone, 00:20:11.529 --> 00:20:15.849 I just stopped going to church. There's a Catholic 00:20:15.849 --> 00:20:19.009 church here in my small Arkansas town, and I've 00:20:19.009 --> 00:20:20.990 thought about going, but another part of me says, 00:20:21.109 --> 00:20:22.950 you know what, that's kind of abusive because 00:20:22.950 --> 00:20:27.109 you're not really one of them. It would be sort 00:20:27.109 --> 00:20:29.509 of an esoteric project for you, and that's not 00:20:29.509 --> 00:20:31.630 fair to this community. But then another part 00:20:31.630 --> 00:20:37.369 of me says, no, outreach is their job. If I go 00:20:37.369 --> 00:20:39.369 and sit in the church, even if I don't believe, 00:20:39.630 --> 00:20:43.339 I'm doing half their job for them. You probably 00:20:43.339 --> 00:20:46.400 know how all that spun out from just the mention 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:48.240 of Nietzsche. So I'll stop talking and then let 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:51.420 you pick up. So, yeah, I think there's a lot 00:20:51.420 --> 00:20:54.920 to unpack there. So the Mennonites, by the way, 00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:59.119 my people, my ancestors were Mennonites. My last 00:20:59.119 --> 00:21:02.140 name in real life is a very unusual one. And 00:21:02.140 --> 00:21:05.359 you only find it in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 00:21:06.809 --> 00:21:08.869 Back when they had phone books, my last name 00:21:08.869 --> 00:21:10.390 was like, there's like a million of them in the 00:21:10.390 --> 00:21:11.630 phone book and it's the only place where there 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:13.710 ever was. So every one of my ancestors comes 00:21:13.710 --> 00:21:16.730 from that community. And I've learned about that 00:21:16.730 --> 00:21:20.470 community on and off throughout my life. I'm 00:21:20.470 --> 00:21:23.069 not a member of it myself, but I know, you know, 00:21:23.069 --> 00:21:25.869 I kind of know about them. It's their religious 00:21:25.869 --> 00:21:27.869 faith and it's also their sense of community. 00:21:28.069 --> 00:21:30.309 You know, they have this shared sense of identity 00:21:30.309 --> 00:21:33.130 and belonging. They feel like they're a part 00:21:33.130 --> 00:21:34.849 of something bigger than themselves. So there's 00:21:34.849 --> 00:21:37.430 psychological factors involved, apart from the 00:21:37.430 --> 00:21:39.430 faith factor, which is obviously the most important. 00:21:40.349 --> 00:21:44.269 In terms of, you know, should you go to a Roman 00:21:44.269 --> 00:21:45.609 Catholic? Should anybody go to a Roman Catholic 00:21:45.609 --> 00:21:48.029 church? Should they go to church locally? Is 00:21:48.029 --> 00:21:52.049 it wrong to do that if your commitment is half 00:21:52.049 --> 00:21:57.609 -hearted? I think if there's 1 % of you saying, 00:21:57.730 --> 00:22:00.029 I should go to church, you should go to church. 00:22:01.789 --> 00:22:06.130 You know, everybody there, everybody in that 00:22:06.130 --> 00:22:08.730 room, I can guarantee you, including the priest 00:22:08.730 --> 00:22:10.670 and the priest, I'm sure would tell you this. 00:22:11.450 --> 00:22:16.089 Everybody there is there like as a percentage 00:22:16.089 --> 00:22:18.869 of how much they want to be there. You know, 00:22:18.869 --> 00:22:21.569 the one guy 70 % wants to be there. 30 % want 00:22:21.569 --> 00:22:24.289 to stay home that day. You know, another guy's 00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:27.809 there, 95 % there, but 5 % he's struggling with 00:22:27.809 --> 00:22:29.809 a little bit. And then there's one person there 00:22:29.809 --> 00:22:31.720 who's. there because somebody made him come. 00:22:31.819 --> 00:22:34.519 He's 5 % wanting to be there and 95 % wanting 00:22:34.519 --> 00:22:37.279 to be someone else. Everybody, nobody's there 00:22:37.279 --> 00:22:39.880 a hundred percent. We can't be because we're 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:42.420 not perfect. You know, the only person who's 00:22:42.420 --> 00:22:44.460 a hundred percent there is Christ. And that's 00:22:44.460 --> 00:22:47.440 why you go there to meet him. You know, the, 00:22:47.539 --> 00:22:50.920 the, the gaps are what he fills in when you ask 00:22:50.920 --> 00:22:55.599 him to, you know, that, that, you know, I'm Lord, 00:22:55.740 --> 00:22:58.609 1 % of me wants to be in this place. Would you 00:22:58.609 --> 00:23:02.609 please provide me the other 99? And I truly believe 00:23:02.609 --> 00:23:06.549 if you ask for it, it will come if you want it. 00:23:07.450 --> 00:23:12.410 Now, of course, and I hesitate to talk about 00:23:12.410 --> 00:23:15.190 religion because I don't want to put myself out 00:23:15.190 --> 00:23:18.329 there like I'm this extremely religious guy that 00:23:18.329 --> 00:23:21.670 I regularly go to church all the time and I always 00:23:21.670 --> 00:23:24.930 do what I'm supposed to do. I don't. I'm a sinner. 00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:28.259 I'll put that out there. I'm the worst sinner 00:23:28.259 --> 00:23:30.220 out there as far as I'm concerned in my own mind. 00:23:31.220 --> 00:23:37.019 But at the same time, I know that when I will 00:23:37.019 --> 00:23:39.599 myself to do it, when I ask for God's help, it 00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:44.420 happens. And if you have that 1 % commitment 00:23:44.420 --> 00:23:47.519 and you ask God to give you the other 99%, there 00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:50.559 has to be space for that. You have to clear out 00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:53.579 everything else that's in there to allow that 00:23:53.579 --> 00:23:56.769 99 % to come in. And to the degree you clear 00:23:56.769 --> 00:23:58.769 out those other factors that are keeping you 00:23:58.769 --> 00:24:00.890 out is the degree that other things will show 00:24:00.890 --> 00:24:04.750 up and make it more – give you that sense of 00:24:04.750 --> 00:24:06.450 fulfillment, I think, that you're looking for. 00:24:07.450 --> 00:24:09.250 Because the things that keep you out of church 00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:14.049 are – we all have this. I'm not singling you 00:24:14.049 --> 00:24:17.150 out. Our judgments. The people that go to this 00:24:17.150 --> 00:24:19.690 place are all fake. I don't like how long the 00:24:19.690 --> 00:24:21.490 service is. I don't like how short it is. I don't 00:24:21.490 --> 00:24:23.089 like the language it's in. I don't like what 00:24:23.089 --> 00:24:26.140 they wear. I don't like – the smile. There's 00:24:26.140 --> 00:24:29.460 all these things that come from pride, where 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:32.579 the correct attitude is always to humble yourself 00:24:32.579 --> 00:24:35.640 and approach these mysteries as they are, as 00:24:35.640 --> 00:24:38.859 mysteries, and take it on faith that what they 00:24:38.859 --> 00:24:42.000 have to offer, you might not always understand 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.380 it. You might not like the people around you. 00:24:44.519 --> 00:24:46.700 There might be things about the politics going 00:24:46.700 --> 00:24:49.839 on that you don't like, but you're here ultimately 00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:56.609 for an encounter with God. Now, Nietzsche, and 00:24:56.609 --> 00:24:59.450 I'm going to monopolize here, but Nietzsche, 00:24:59.529 --> 00:25:02.849 to my mind, could never get past that. He could 00:25:02.849 --> 00:25:06.569 never get past those superficialities. He looked 00:25:06.569 --> 00:25:09.829 at the Christianity of his age and he judged 00:25:09.829 --> 00:25:12.930 it. You know, these are the last men. These are 00:25:12.930 --> 00:25:17.269 bourgeois people. This is convention. And the 00:25:17.269 --> 00:25:20.410 problem with Nietzsche is that he was right. 00:25:21.309 --> 00:25:24.230 You know, there was a lot lacking in that faith. 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:27.000 There was a lot lacking in that faith in AD 33. 00:25:27.019 --> 00:25:28.940 There's going to be a lot lacking in that faith 00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:31.980 in 10 ,000 years, if God wills. Nietzsche was 00:25:31.980 --> 00:25:35.000 correct in his critique, but he was not able 00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:38.779 to humble himself to look past it. I use Nietzsche 00:25:38.779 --> 00:25:42.000 as the segue to this topic because on Substack, 00:25:42.059 --> 00:25:45.099 I think there are a lot of people who are kind 00:25:45.099 --> 00:25:47.819 of like me who look at Christianity and see it 00:25:47.819 --> 00:25:51.519 as a positive force in terms of its social effects, 00:25:51.700 --> 00:25:53.640 but they just can't bring themselves to believe. 00:25:54.729 --> 00:25:58.250 the cosmology behind it. And so they try to substitute. 00:25:58.609 --> 00:26:01.029 And what a lot of people go for is a sort of 00:26:01.029 --> 00:26:04.470 Nietzschean vitalism. And they try to use that 00:26:04.470 --> 00:26:08.849 in place of God. And people on the right tend 00:26:08.849 --> 00:26:10.509 to be better than people on the left in terms 00:26:10.509 --> 00:26:13.190 of not forming a circular firing squad. And so 00:26:13.190 --> 00:26:16.589 there's some infighting there, but there's also 00:26:16.589 --> 00:26:18.809 a lot of accommodation of different people's 00:26:18.809 --> 00:26:22.849 viewpoints. I know that you must deal with or 00:26:22.849 --> 00:26:25.349 hear from a lot more people from that, you know, 00:26:25.349 --> 00:26:27.930 both aspects, both cells in that community than 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:35.890 I do. So what's. He's having an affair with one 00:26:35.890 --> 00:26:37.750 of his friends and then was hooking up with Sigmund 00:26:37.750 --> 00:26:41.450 Freud and this other guy and could not manage 00:26:41.450 --> 00:26:43.490 a family life, could not mean, I mean, just nothing 00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:46.089 like this. Just there's nothing about this guy's 00:26:46.089 --> 00:26:47.809 life that I would look at it and say, well, I 00:26:47.809 --> 00:26:51.309 want to be like that, you know. And granted, 00:26:51.410 --> 00:26:53.390 I guess he lived the way he wanted to, but I 00:26:53.390 --> 00:26:55.150 just can't imagine wanting to live like that. 00:26:56.369 --> 00:26:59.710 But at the same time, you know, do his ideas 00:26:59.710 --> 00:27:02.369 have value? Sure. Sure. I mean, there's a lot 00:27:02.369 --> 00:27:03.809 of things he said that were very interesting 00:27:03.809 --> 00:27:06.210 and profound. I would say the same thing about 00:27:06.210 --> 00:27:08.289 Karl Marx. I have no interest in living like 00:27:08.289 --> 00:27:11.690 Karl Marx or being a Marxist, but certainly there's 00:27:11.690 --> 00:27:13.789 play aspects of Karl Marx's social critique that 00:27:13.789 --> 00:27:17.950 I think are very valid and interesting. On the 00:27:17.950 --> 00:27:21.380 right, you know. There isn't this necessarily 00:27:21.380 --> 00:27:25.720 need for ideological purity. What makes someone 00:27:25.720 --> 00:27:28.519 right wing? I mean, there's obviously a core 00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:32.680 around this idea of tradition and hierarchy and 00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:35.180 transcendent value that kind of make you the 00:27:35.180 --> 00:27:38.579 right. But beyond that, I think people are pretty 00:27:38.579 --> 00:27:42.680 tolerant. Certainly, you know, my own following 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:46.920 includes people who are Christians and missions 00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:50.170 and atheists. All kinds of others. I've got people 00:27:50.170 --> 00:27:52.630 who are avowed leftists who read and subscribe 00:27:52.630 --> 00:27:54.869 to my work, which I find interesting and I'm 00:27:54.869 --> 00:27:57.569 grateful for. You know, I'm not I don't look 00:27:57.569 --> 00:27:59.349 at people in terms of, well, you believe this, 00:27:59.430 --> 00:28:02.730 so I hate you. I'm interested in dialoguing with 00:28:02.730 --> 00:28:05.130 anyone. I'm interested in anybody's critique 00:28:05.130 --> 00:28:09.349 of my work. And I think that attitude you see 00:28:09.349 --> 00:28:11.269 more on the right than the left. And that's why 00:28:11.269 --> 00:28:13.190 the right, I think, is becoming an ever more 00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:16.869 attractive place for ideas. People are comfortable 00:28:16.869 --> 00:28:19.720 expressing themselves on the right. I mean, compare 00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:25.660 right wing subset to, you know, blue sky, blue 00:28:25.660 --> 00:28:30.220 sky. I mean, it's horrible. It's just nothing 00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:33.119 but like all the maniac tendencies of the left 00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:36.099 cranked up to 11. They're always attacking each 00:28:36.099 --> 00:28:38.440 other. You know, this one doesn't respect this 00:28:38.440 --> 00:28:41.799 one's neo pronouns. This one supported Biden 00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:44.359 when he shouldn't have. And this is ridiculous. 00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:47.660 I mean, I get people who will argue with me sometimes. 00:28:47.779 --> 00:28:50.440 They tend to be the base pagans that I poke fun 00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:53.099 at sometimes. They'll argue with me and stuff, 00:28:53.180 --> 00:28:55.519 but I mean, that's a small group for the most 00:28:55.519 --> 00:28:57.640 part. Pretty much everybody, I mean, the range 00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:00.339 of people I get along with on Substack is probably 00:29:00.339 --> 00:29:02.259 better than the range I get along with in real 00:29:02.259 --> 00:29:09.480 life. Unfortunately, all of my social contact 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:11.299 other than talking to my mother and brother comes 00:29:11.299 --> 00:29:14.650 from my job working at the library. Yeah. Where 00:29:14.650 --> 00:29:17.849 I meet a lot of people and I interact with a 00:29:17.849 --> 00:29:19.470 lot of people and I, you know, I have informal 00:29:19.470 --> 00:29:21.150 conversations with a lot of people. But when 00:29:21.150 --> 00:29:24.049 it comes to political topics or, you know, anything 00:29:24.049 --> 00:29:27.390 that's potentially divisive, you know, my my 00:29:27.390 --> 00:29:29.490 professionalism requires me to just shut up and 00:29:29.490 --> 00:29:32.210 just smile and nod and not really get into any 00:29:32.210 --> 00:29:35.809 anything in any depth that could be, you know, 00:29:35.809 --> 00:29:38.210 that could attract other ears in the library. 00:29:38.650 --> 00:29:43.269 Yeah. So that's. On that level, it's sort of 00:29:43.269 --> 00:29:46.549 pallid, but it does give me a nice vantage point 00:29:46.549 --> 00:29:50.690 from which to make observations. Hopefully, none 00:29:50.690 --> 00:29:54.049 of my co -workers are reading my substack. I 00:29:54.049 --> 00:29:57.109 do my best not to ever mention the name of the 00:29:57.109 --> 00:29:59.490 library, but it would not be hard for anybody 00:29:59.490 --> 00:30:02.349 who was looking to nail me to the wall to figure 00:30:02.349 --> 00:30:06.890 out which library I'm talking about. For my part, 00:30:06.950 --> 00:30:10.519 in those doxing terms, I obviously write under 00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:13.319 a pen name, but I mean, I give enough details 00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:15.539 about my life that if someone really wanted to, 00:30:15.559 --> 00:30:18.240 some hope not hate nutcase came or, you know, 00:30:18.259 --> 00:30:21.259 what do you call it? SPLC guy came after me or 00:30:21.259 --> 00:30:22.460 something. They could probably figure out who 00:30:22.460 --> 00:30:25.319 I was, but it doesn't bother me that much because, 00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:26.960 I mean, there's not really anything I say on 00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:28.839 Substack that I wouldn't say in real life to 00:30:28.839 --> 00:30:31.319 somebody. So, you know, I don't, I'm not one 00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:33.740 of these people. You get people who just want 00:30:33.740 --> 00:30:35.720 to run their mouths online and say offensive 00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:39.190 stuff and hurtful stuff and be nasty. And then 00:30:39.190 --> 00:30:40.710 they're worried about getting called out. But 00:30:40.710 --> 00:30:44.650 I mean, I don't, my, the librarian and who I 00:30:44.650 --> 00:30:46.869 am in real life, it's the same person. I just, 00:30:46.890 --> 00:30:49.250 I don't want people like calling up the school 00:30:49.250 --> 00:30:51.029 where I work and bugging people just because 00:30:51.029 --> 00:30:52.750 they've got some beef about what I said, you 00:30:52.750 --> 00:30:55.410 know, it causes problems for other people. Right. 00:30:56.230 --> 00:31:00.910 Well, I'm not sure what you just said, but it 00:31:00.910 --> 00:31:03.930 popped into my head that it was an anchor point 00:31:03.930 --> 00:31:08.920 for the topic of. race and the discussions of 00:31:08.920 --> 00:31:12.740 race that on right wing Substack. Actually, before 00:31:12.740 --> 00:31:14.539 we get into that, you know, you mentioned Blue 00:31:14.539 --> 00:31:17.799 Sky. Every now and again, I will somehow end 00:31:17.799 --> 00:31:20.259 up looking at the main Substack page when I'm 00:31:20.259 --> 00:31:25.900 not logged in. And it's Blue Sky. Oh, yeah. Substack, 00:31:25.940 --> 00:31:28.980 for whatever reason, just promotes these people. 00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:32.599 And it's, you know, I talked about earlier, Cringestack, 00:31:32.660 --> 00:31:36.650 you know, this just sludge. coming out that's 00:31:36.650 --> 00:31:40.390 just nothing but this you know i hate donald 00:31:40.390 --> 00:31:44.710 trump it's all they write about every single 00:31:44.710 --> 00:31:48.390 week they have nothing else to say and they say 00:31:48.390 --> 00:31:50.009 the same thing and they have subscribers there 00:31:50.009 --> 00:31:51.589 are people who pay to hear this they cannot get 00:31:51.589 --> 00:31:54.569 enough of it these people that subscribe paid 00:31:54.569 --> 00:31:59.609 subscribers to 10 15 20 sub stacks and it's the 00:31:59.609 --> 00:32:04.049 same thing they just they pay to have this like 00:32:04.430 --> 00:32:07.490 ridiculous echo chamber. Any day now, Trump's 00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:10.509 going to jail. Any, oh, the economy just crashed. 00:32:10.730 --> 00:32:14.930 Oh, well, it didn't. Oh, it's just so dumb. And 00:32:14.930 --> 00:32:18.329 you almost have, this is a running joke I have 00:32:18.329 --> 00:32:20.890 with people in my circles where we all say we're 00:32:20.890 --> 00:32:24.470 going to come up with like a, you know, cringe 00:32:24.470 --> 00:32:27.170 stack publications making fun of Donald Trump 00:32:27.170 --> 00:32:30.109 all the time, where we just use chat GPT to just 00:32:30.109 --> 00:32:31.990 write these sludge articles one after another. 00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:34.119 and just get these people to pay us and then 00:32:34.119 --> 00:32:36.059 use that money for our actual work, you know? 00:32:37.339 --> 00:32:40.460 Now, there's a use for, you know, using an LLM 00:32:40.460 --> 00:32:42.519 to write for you that I could totally get behind. 00:32:43.180 --> 00:32:46.779 I actually did one time. I didn't post it, but 00:32:46.779 --> 00:32:50.460 I asked Grok. I said, Grok, write me an article 00:32:50.460 --> 00:32:53.319 in the style of Steve Schmidt about why Donald 00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:57.619 Trump is bad. And what it came up with was indistinguishable 00:32:57.619 --> 00:33:02.460 from what he actually wrote. You would think 00:33:02.460 --> 00:33:05.359 if I just created a parody account and posted 00:33:05.359 --> 00:33:10.039 it, people would think it was him. So one last 00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:14.839 thing on Substack and the mainstream left, if 00:33:14.839 --> 00:33:17.019 that's what you want to call them. Whenever I 00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:19.339 do end up looking at the main page when I'm not 00:33:19.339 --> 00:33:21.480 logged in and I'm seeing all these Orange Man 00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:27.079 bad posts, I always see one of my posts in there 00:33:27.079 --> 00:33:30.410 as well. Which just says to me, OK, look, you 00:33:30.410 --> 00:33:32.430 know, it's me because I know you're not promoting 00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:37.170 my work to anybody else. They have like IT checkers 00:33:37.170 --> 00:33:38.829 or something, I'm sure. I don't know how that 00:33:38.829 --> 00:33:41.269 stuff works, the algorithms, but they know. Yeah. 00:33:41.809 --> 00:33:46.210 So, you know, why why go to the pretense then 00:33:46.210 --> 00:33:47.970 of, you know, showing me things that, you know, 00:33:48.009 --> 00:33:52.690 I'm not interested in, but whatever. So, John 00:33:52.690 --> 00:33:55.559 Carter. You say you got your start basically 00:33:55.559 --> 00:33:58.660 as a commenter on his posts. And John Carter, 00:33:58.859 --> 00:34:01.559 who writes postcards from Barsoom. I mean, anybody 00:34:01.559 --> 00:34:03.619 who's a fan of classic science fiction recognizes 00:34:03.619 --> 00:34:07.220 that that's, you know, not William S. Burroughs, 00:34:07.220 --> 00:34:14.539 but Edgar. So, you know, he's a very, like I 00:34:14.539 --> 00:34:18.239 would say, upwing, forward looking. you know, 00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:22.219 tech positive sort of person, but he also has 00:34:22.219 --> 00:34:26.139 conservative views and he is, I guess you'd say 00:34:26.139 --> 00:34:31.400 what a race realist. Well, that, that word, I 00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:33.860 mean, there's a spectrum, you know, that kind 00:34:33.860 --> 00:34:38.260 of, that, that term implies there's people who, 00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:40.760 I mean, there's a sense in which I'm a race realist 00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:42.440 where I would say, you know, race is a thing. 00:34:42.500 --> 00:34:45.679 It is a real thing to just sort of say that all 00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:48.570 people are. indistinguishable blank slates, I 00:34:48.570 --> 00:34:50.650 think is wrong. And then there's like another 00:34:50.650 --> 00:34:52.929 end of the race realist spectrum where it's, 00:34:52.929 --> 00:34:57.150 you know, races are biologically, you know, immutable. 00:34:57.309 --> 00:35:00.550 And, you know, these people have low IQs and 00:35:00.550 --> 00:35:03.630 we need eugenics. And, you know, I think that 00:35:03.630 --> 00:35:07.409 you can make positive claims, like empirical 00:35:07.409 --> 00:35:10.449 claims about something and not necessarily draw 00:35:10.449 --> 00:35:13.429 the moral conclusions and political conclusions 00:35:13.429 --> 00:35:15.349 that some of those more extreme people draw. 00:35:16.360 --> 00:35:18.920 John Carter has, I'm not going to speak for him, 00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:22.940 he's his own guy, but he's Canadian. And the 00:35:22.940 --> 00:35:25.920 situation in Canada, they have a lot of immigration. 00:35:26.940 --> 00:35:30.320 I'm not sure the exact ratios, but I would say 00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:32.079 in terms of their population, they have right 00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:35.800 now more immigrants in their country per capita 00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:37.559 than we have in America. And a lot of them are 00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:40.380 coming from the Indian subcontinent. And a lot 00:35:40.380 --> 00:35:42.340 of people who have lived in Canada for generations, 00:35:42.599 --> 00:35:46.420 they call them heritage Canadians. you know, 00:35:46.420 --> 00:35:48.260 don't like that. They don't like the changes 00:35:48.260 --> 00:35:50.360 that their country is undergoing. And I think 00:35:50.360 --> 00:35:52.360 rightly so. I think there's very much a place 00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:56.320 for that critique. You know, can it veer into 00:35:56.320 --> 00:36:01.219 hatefulness? Sure. But I think that that, in 00:36:01.219 --> 00:36:04.719 a lot of ways, is just sort of downstream from 00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:06.840 the fact that the government of Canada does not 00:36:06.840 --> 00:36:09.699 take these critiques seriously. people vote over 00:36:09.699 --> 00:36:11.579 and over again. They say, we want less immigration. 00:36:11.699 --> 00:36:13.940 We want these people to assimilate. We want to 00:36:13.940 --> 00:36:16.599 keep Canada the way it was. And kind of like 00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:19.980 in America, before Trump took over, nobody cared. 00:36:20.179 --> 00:36:23.800 They just sort of kept going with what they wanted 00:36:23.800 --> 00:36:25.579 to do. That's that managerial system I write 00:36:25.579 --> 00:36:30.440 about a lot. So I think that there's definitely 00:36:30.440 --> 00:36:33.800 a place for that sort of critique, yeah. So you're 00:36:33.800 --> 00:36:36.579 talking to me and I read his, I read John Carter's 00:36:36.579 --> 00:36:39.099 posts, but for somebody who doesn't, You've basically 00:36:39.099 --> 00:36:41.380 gestured at things without naming them. So what 00:36:41.380 --> 00:36:44.500 critique are you talking about? So John Carter 00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:46.280 and a lot of other people, too, and Substack 00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:48.360 is actually kind of dense with Canadians a little 00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:52.440 bit. The critique of sort of the idea of the 00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:55.139 multicultural society, which is the sort of ideal 00:36:55.139 --> 00:36:58.639 of the managerial system, that human beings are 00:36:58.639 --> 00:37:01.480 these fungible economic units. You can import 00:37:01.480 --> 00:37:03.480 massive numbers of people from any part of the 00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:05.000 world to any other part of the world, although 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:06.920 this tends to just be importing from the third 00:37:06.920 --> 00:37:10.070 world to the Western world. You can import people 00:37:10.070 --> 00:37:12.349 and there'll be no friction. There's no problems. 00:37:13.110 --> 00:37:15.789 Everybody is basically the same and everybody 00:37:15.789 --> 00:37:17.130 will basically get along. And if they're not 00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:19.389 getting along, it's because of racism on the 00:37:19.389 --> 00:37:24.349 part of white people. And so the managerial class, 00:37:24.670 --> 00:37:27.309 the globalists that run all this stuff, tend 00:37:27.309 --> 00:37:30.510 to interpret critiques of immigration as that 00:37:30.510 --> 00:37:32.550 kind of racist friction that's keeping everything 00:37:32.550 --> 00:37:35.250 from working the way it should. And people like 00:37:35.250 --> 00:37:36.630 John Carter, and again, I don't want to speak 00:37:36.630 --> 00:37:39.210 for him, he's got his own views and everything, 00:37:39.369 --> 00:37:41.789 but people like John Carter, people like Fortisax, 00:37:42.010 --> 00:37:44.489 and there's a lot of other, Kryptos a little 00:37:44.489 --> 00:37:48.789 bit, look at this and they say, you know, no, 00:37:48.909 --> 00:37:51.550 the point where, this is absurd, it's just a 00:37:51.550 --> 00:37:53.769 violation of basic common sense. You can't take 00:37:53.769 --> 00:37:56.309 people from one part of the world who've lived 00:37:56.309 --> 00:37:58.590 a certain way for millennia and put them in a 00:37:58.590 --> 00:38:00.230 different society and just expect everything 00:38:00.230 --> 00:38:02.659 to work out harmoniously. It's just not. It doesn't 00:38:02.659 --> 00:38:04.179 make sense. It's never worked before in history. 00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:06.199 Why would it work now? But there's this sort 00:38:06.199 --> 00:38:10.559 of neoliberal mindset, the ideology of the managerial 00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:13.280 elite, this neoliberal ideology of, well, with 00:38:13.280 --> 00:38:16.460 the proper social inputs and the proper organization 00:38:16.460 --> 00:38:19.400 and the proper education and everything like 00:38:19.400 --> 00:38:22.280 that, we can just will it into being. You know, 00:38:22.340 --> 00:38:24.219 we human beings are blank slates and we're the 00:38:24.219 --> 00:38:27.599 ones that write on them. And that's what I mean 00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:30.380 by critique. People are critiquing that neoliberal 00:38:30.380 --> 00:38:33.880 managerial. ideology of all human beings are 00:38:33.880 --> 00:38:37.239 basically fungible economic widgets. So you mentioned 00:38:37.239 --> 00:38:41.320 that John Carter is Canadian. I, from the year 00:38:41.320 --> 00:38:44.739 2006 through, I don't know, a couple of years 00:38:44.739 --> 00:38:46.719 ago, I was doing something called the C Realm 00:38:46.719 --> 00:38:48.780 Podcast, which is the letter C and then a dash 00:38:48.780 --> 00:38:52.599 and then R -E -A -L -M. And C stood for consciousness 00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:55.340 most, you know, most prominently, but also a 00:38:55.340 --> 00:38:57.199 lot of other things. And jokingly, I would say 00:38:57.199 --> 00:39:01.639 it also stood for Canadian. because a disproportionate 00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:05.059 portion of my audience were Canadians. And when 00:39:05.059 --> 00:39:06.579 I would travel internationally, I would often 00:39:06.579 --> 00:39:09.519 be mistaken for a Canadian, which I took as a 00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:12.480 compliment at the time, because when I was traveling 00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:15.480 internationally, I was still of the mindset that 00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:19.880 one distinguished oneself as an intellectual 00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:22.980 by being hypercritical of the United States. 00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:26.280 Yeah. Yeah. I've gone probably too far in the 00:39:26.280 --> 00:39:29.019 other direction since then, but I used to be 00:39:29.440 --> 00:39:33.780 on that page. But I have a friend, somebody I've 00:39:33.780 --> 00:39:37.840 known since the mid 90s, who's Canadian. And 00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:41.599 he worked in tech in San Francisco in the late 00:39:41.599 --> 00:39:44.780 90s and early 2000s and did pretty well for himself 00:39:44.780 --> 00:39:47.300 before basically being kicked out of the United 00:39:47.300 --> 00:39:51.500 States for some, I don't, I can't even reproduce 00:39:51.500 --> 00:39:55.139 what it was. It was some trivial, trivial, you 00:39:55.139 --> 00:39:59.159 know, visa irregularity. And now he's, you know, 00:39:59.159 --> 00:40:04.219 he's banished. But I sent him a post by John 00:40:04.219 --> 00:40:07.400 Carter. And, you know, it had something to do 00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:09.219 with science fiction and tech. And my friend 00:40:09.219 --> 00:40:11.860 is, you know, he's into tech and he's in the 00:40:11.860 --> 00:40:14.579 makerspace. And, you know, I thought he'd be 00:40:14.579 --> 00:40:16.440 interested. And he basically just wrote back 00:40:16.440 --> 00:40:20.300 and said, that's racist. End of discussion. I'm 00:40:20.300 --> 00:40:22.860 like, okay, this is probably the wrong John Carter. 00:40:23.230 --> 00:40:24.969 article to start you with here let me send you 00:40:24.969 --> 00:40:26.909 a different one and i sent him one called the 00:40:26.909 --> 00:40:29.670 whims of mars and which you know john carter's 00:40:29.670 --> 00:40:32.789 mostly talking about the the prospect of um you 00:40:32.789 --> 00:40:35.070 know a robust population establishing themselves 00:40:35.070 --> 00:40:39.570 on mars yeah and yeah you know he's actually 00:40:39.570 --> 00:40:42.190 an astronomer by trade oh no i didn't did not 00:40:42.190 --> 00:40:44.929 know that oh that's that's great so anyway i 00:40:44.929 --> 00:40:47.920 sent this follow -up to my canadian friend who 00:40:47.920 --> 00:40:50.500 said, this is racist too. Whims, it's right there 00:40:50.500 --> 00:40:53.940 in the title. And I'm like, okay, so that's just 00:40:53.940 --> 00:40:56.039 the thought stopper. I mean, if there's anything 00:40:56.039 --> 00:41:00.019 that can be considered racist, then nothing the 00:41:00.019 --> 00:41:04.159 person has to say is worth discussing. And I'm 00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:08.219 not singling my friend out for particular intolerance 00:41:08.219 --> 00:41:10.760 or having a particular blind spot. It's just 00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:13.599 that's the culture in which he lives. You will 00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:16.050 not... He lives in Toronto. You will not be branded 00:41:16.050 --> 00:41:18.329 a racist in Toronto, particularly in the, you 00:41:18.329 --> 00:41:20.730 know, the progressive tech scene. If you are, 00:41:20.750 --> 00:41:24.869 you're done. You know, it reminds me of the book 00:41:24.869 --> 00:41:29.590 Dune, D -U -N -E for the readers of Dune, Frank 00:41:29.590 --> 00:41:33.590 Herbert, where the Bene Gesserit sisterhood could 00:41:33.590 --> 00:41:36.429 use these hypnotic techniques. You called it 00:41:36.429 --> 00:41:38.809 Prana Bindu binding. Binding, I think was what 00:41:38.809 --> 00:41:41.889 they called it, where, or hypnoligation, where 00:41:41.889 --> 00:41:45.559 they could put a. word subconsciously into someone's 00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:48.260 head that if another person said it, it would 00:41:48.260 --> 00:41:50.920 cause the guy to have some kind of psychosomatic 00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:54.739 reaction. And they had the knife fight at the 00:41:54.739 --> 00:41:57.320 end where Paul Atreides is fighting Faye Rautha. 00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:01.179 Faye Rautha had one of those words in his head 00:42:01.179 --> 00:42:03.360 where if Paul had said it, it would have caused 00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:06.260 his whole body to shut down. And Paul didn't 00:42:06.260 --> 00:42:09.119 want to win that way. And I think part of what 00:42:09.119 --> 00:42:13.179 our neoliberal managerial class does... is create 00:42:13.179 --> 00:42:16.699 these kind of hypnoligations in our heads, especially 00:42:16.699 --> 00:42:19.519 Canadian heads, but a lot of Americans do, where 00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:22.900 they hear certain things, whim, ooh, shut down 00:42:22.900 --> 00:42:24.719 racist, shut down, ooh, and the whole system 00:42:24.719 --> 00:42:26.179 crashes, and they're blue all to death, they 00:42:26.179 --> 00:42:31.420 can't handle it. It's like, you know, it really 00:42:31.420 --> 00:42:36.380 does. It's like this learned, like, disgust reflex 00:42:36.380 --> 00:42:39.300 or something, where it literally makes these 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:42.469 people sick to hear certain ideas. even if they 00:42:42.469 --> 00:42:44.489 make sense, even if they're logical, even if 00:42:44.489 --> 00:42:47.190 you spell it out in a way where, okay, I proved 00:42:47.190 --> 00:42:49.849 point A, I proved point B, so point C must be 00:42:49.849 --> 00:42:52.750 true. Their minds just cannot go there. The programming 00:42:52.750 --> 00:42:55.050 is too deep. They have become, in the truest 00:42:55.050 --> 00:42:58.409 sense, NPCs. You know, I've tried to look up 00:42:58.409 --> 00:43:01.170 the definition of whim while you were talking, 00:43:01.289 --> 00:43:04.130 and I'm just getting the proper definition, you 00:43:04.130 --> 00:43:06.690 know, of the noun. It means like a wish or something, 00:43:06.809 --> 00:43:09.389 like you want something to happen, a desire. 00:43:09.820 --> 00:43:12.099 Right. It's a WIM. But when it's in all caps, 00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:18.659 it's white, what is it, hierarchical, what does 00:43:18.659 --> 00:43:22.920 it stand for? All right. WIMS stands for White 00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:28.079 Hierarchical Individualistic Male. Yeah. So the 00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:31.059 white hierarchical individualist males will go 00:43:31.059 --> 00:43:35.699 to Mars and create a robust society where they're 00:43:36.710 --> 00:43:41.130 They are allowed to form and bask in asabiyah. 00:43:42.050 --> 00:43:46.909 Yes, community building. Yes. I think asabiyah 00:43:46.909 --> 00:43:51.489 is more of a community spirit. It's a vitalism 00:43:51.489 --> 00:43:54.070 that lends itself not necessarily to community 00:43:54.070 --> 00:43:57.010 building, but just group formation and group 00:43:57.010 --> 00:43:59.869 identity. And everybody's allowed to have it 00:43:59.869 --> 00:44:03.230 except white people these days. Yeah. And that's 00:44:03.230 --> 00:44:05.849 kind of the point he was making. You know, and 00:44:05.849 --> 00:44:08.190 that's again, so somebody that's racist. OK, 00:44:08.289 --> 00:44:11.050 well, let's let's look at this. Right. So is 00:44:11.050 --> 00:44:14.829 it is it good that people from India are allowed 00:44:14.829 --> 00:44:16.909 to be Indians? Yeah, of course. Why would it 00:44:16.909 --> 00:44:19.610 be wrong? All right. So and they're allowed to 00:44:19.610 --> 00:44:21.389 be Indians wherever they are. Right. They're 00:44:21.389 --> 00:44:22.949 in India. They're in Canada. Yeah, absolutely. 00:44:23.269 --> 00:44:24.789 Multicultural society. Anybody can be who they 00:44:24.789 --> 00:44:28.530 are. So with that logic, then should white people 00:44:28.530 --> 00:44:30.889 be allowed to live like they are? That's racist. 00:44:31.010 --> 00:44:33.230 Like it just shuts down. You know, it's just 00:44:33.230 --> 00:44:35.230 there's no there's no getting past that. It's 00:44:35.230 --> 00:44:38.829 not a logical thing. It's like something placed 00:44:38.829 --> 00:44:41.489 deep in that lizard brain part, you know, where 00:44:41.489 --> 00:44:44.710 you just vomit up a dead insect, you know, like 00:44:44.710 --> 00:44:47.869 in the most primitive form of life. Yeah, my 00:44:47.869 --> 00:44:51.650 last name is O 'Connor, so I can be Irish, you 00:44:51.650 --> 00:44:55.630 know, and being Irish by, not necessarily anymore, 00:44:55.789 --> 00:44:57.989 but for most of my life, being Irish by definition 00:44:57.989 --> 00:45:01.630 meant you were white. Yeah. Do you remember when 00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:05.840 Google image search, if you asked for a white 00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:07.440 couple, it would definitely show you a whole 00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:10.380 page full of interracial couples. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 00:45:10.500 --> 00:45:13.119 George Washington thing they had that called 00:45:13.119 --> 00:45:15.400 the Gemini, I think it was. Well, that was a 00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.679 different incident, actually. Yeah. You're thinking 00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:22.199 of generative AI, you know, if you ask for an 00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:24.099 image to be created, like, you know, founding 00:45:24.099 --> 00:45:27.099 fathers, it would show them as black or Chinese 00:45:27.099 --> 00:45:31.500 or something. Yeah. But a few years before that. 00:45:32.170 --> 00:45:33.949 Just with the image search, you know, if you 00:45:33.949 --> 00:45:37.329 search for white couple, it would show you a 00:45:37.329 --> 00:45:40.449 full page of mixed race couples or black couples 00:45:40.449 --> 00:45:42.750 or whatever. Basically, it would it would scold 00:45:42.750 --> 00:45:46.150 you for searching for the wrong things. So if 00:45:46.150 --> 00:45:47.849 you wanted a picture of a white couple, you would 00:45:47.849 --> 00:45:51.329 type in Irish couple, you know, or Polish couple. 00:45:52.309 --> 00:45:54.670 Well, even that would kind of screw you up. The 00:45:54.670 --> 00:45:57.969 thing about all that stuff is like you can construct 00:45:57.969 --> 00:46:02.980 a white identity. as something negative. You're 00:46:02.980 --> 00:46:06.780 allowed to say whiteness exists if it's being 00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:10.480 excoriated. But the problem for these people 00:46:10.480 --> 00:46:14.340 comes where you can't talk about whiteness and 00:46:14.340 --> 00:46:17.099 not make people think about it. You know, if 00:46:17.099 --> 00:46:19.840 you beat into somebody's head, you're white, 00:46:19.920 --> 00:46:21.559 you're white, you're white, you're white, even 00:46:21.559 --> 00:46:23.340 if you're constructing as something negative, 00:46:23.579 --> 00:46:26.539 people will see it as inherently part of themselves. 00:46:27.659 --> 00:46:31.119 So the whole project of creating a colorblind 00:46:31.119 --> 00:46:35.179 society like neoliberalism wants to do falters 00:46:35.179 --> 00:46:39.000 on the premise of, you know, everybody gets to 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:40.860 be who they are, but white people have to be 00:46:40.860 --> 00:46:43.960 something that white people hate. Whiteness is 00:46:43.960 --> 00:46:46.460 only an attitude of contempt. But at the same 00:46:46.460 --> 00:46:50.980 time, it's immutable and inescapable. You know, 00:46:51.019 --> 00:46:53.019 you can't get rid of your whiteness. You can 00:46:53.019 --> 00:46:55.900 critique it. You can denounce it. But you can 00:46:55.900 --> 00:46:59.760 never, ever free yourself from it. And because 00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:03.099 I, as a white guy, can never free myself from 00:47:03.099 --> 00:47:06.260 my whiteness, that forces me to think of my race 00:47:06.260 --> 00:47:09.460 as an immutable characteristic. And thus, logically, 00:47:09.699 --> 00:47:12.280 everybody else's race as an immutable characteristic 00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:17.000 with its own particular features. So I have a 00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:21.059 Substack friend. who probably wouldn't mind his 00:47:21.059 --> 00:47:23.059 name being mentioned, but I won't anyway. But 00:47:23.059 --> 00:47:26.079 he's into science fiction like I am, but he's 00:47:26.079 --> 00:47:28.219 also a Gen Xer like me, but he's a black man. 00:47:28.840 --> 00:47:33.800 But he reads and restacks posts by John Carter. 00:47:35.289 --> 00:47:37.369 And, you know, I've said to him, hey, I need 00:47:37.369 --> 00:47:39.530 to get you on the line and have you discuss that 00:47:39.530 --> 00:47:42.929 on a podcast. And I thought he would be reticent 00:47:42.929 --> 00:47:46.289 to do so. He said, no, sure, I'll come on. There 00:47:46.289 --> 00:47:50.630 are no bigger race realists, I would say on Earth, 00:47:50.789 --> 00:47:53.010 but definitely in America, than black Americans. 00:47:54.349 --> 00:47:57.030 Like, they will give you a frank assessment of 00:47:57.030 --> 00:47:59.050 the characteristics of every race, including 00:47:59.050 --> 00:48:03.289 their own, without hesitation. There's a whole 00:48:03.289 --> 00:48:05.110 section of Black YouTube, I don't know if you've 00:48:05.110 --> 00:48:08.210 ever heard of a guy, Tommy Sotomayor, who just 00:48:08.210 --> 00:48:11.230 goes in and just lambasts in characteristics 00:48:11.230 --> 00:48:13.849 of Black society. He goes after other people 00:48:13.849 --> 00:48:18.750 too, and he's a Black man. Just lambasting characteristics 00:48:18.750 --> 00:48:21.730 of Black culture he sees as negative in terms 00:48:21.730 --> 00:48:23.809 that if a white man were to use it, would just 00:48:23.809 --> 00:48:29.139 be completely socially out of bounds. I'm not 00:48:29.139 --> 00:48:32.460 surprised he agreed to talk about it. My high 00:48:32.460 --> 00:48:35.639 school where I went to was a very highly majority 00:48:35.639 --> 00:48:38.280 black school. And you would just hear them casually, 00:48:38.500 --> 00:48:40.940 you know, like even among themselves, you know, 00:48:40.940 --> 00:48:43.440 the degrees of coloration matter quite a bit. 00:48:43.860 --> 00:48:46.139 The ones with lighter skin would make fun of 00:48:46.139 --> 00:48:48.360 the ones with darker skin and vice versa. They 00:48:48.360 --> 00:48:51.039 would have these beefs over that. So again, if 00:48:51.039 --> 00:48:53.099 you want race realism, that's a good place to 00:48:53.099 --> 00:48:57.239 start. Yeah. So I've, you know, for years I've 00:48:57.239 --> 00:49:01.099 been thinking, as the left and, you know, the 00:49:01.099 --> 00:49:03.300 cultural left, the economic left, as they've 00:49:03.300 --> 00:49:06.760 been denouncing white people and, you know, shaming 00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:08.980 people for being white, shaming people for, you 00:49:08.980 --> 00:49:12.519 know, something they can't change and justifying, 00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:15.280 you know, mistreatment of them on the basis of 00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:17.500 historical, the writing of historical wrongs. 00:49:17.739 --> 00:49:20.019 I've just been thinking, you know, you guys, 00:49:20.099 --> 00:49:22.940 you realize that the pendulum's going to swing 00:49:22.940 --> 00:49:25.260 the other way, right? And the worse you are when 00:49:25.260 --> 00:49:28.699 you're in power, the more vociferous, you know, 00:49:28.699 --> 00:49:31.599 the reaction will be. So you think you're going 00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:34.500 to be in power forever? I mean, has the pendulum 00:49:34.500 --> 00:49:37.780 stopped swinging? There was a, there was a real 00:49:37.780 --> 00:49:40.559 telling, I wish I could remember the exact circumstance. 00:49:40.619 --> 00:49:43.400 I think Ramsey Paul had a YouTube show about 00:49:43.400 --> 00:49:45.019 it one time where he talked about it. It was 00:49:45.019 --> 00:49:48.739 in Wisconsin and they were trying to teach the 00:49:48.739 --> 00:49:51.340 kids at this like all white school about their 00:49:51.340 --> 00:49:54.510 white privilege. And so to do it, they gave them 00:49:54.510 --> 00:49:57.269 those little like rubber wristbands, you know, 00:49:57.269 --> 00:49:58.670 that people wear, like they say, what would Jesus 00:49:58.670 --> 00:50:01.150 do and stuff? Well, they gave out these little 00:50:01.150 --> 00:50:04.170 rubber wristbands that were just white. And you 00:50:04.170 --> 00:50:06.269 were supposed to wear this white wristband to 00:50:06.269 --> 00:50:08.949 remind you of your white privilege. But they 00:50:08.949 --> 00:50:11.730 stopped doing it because the kids were wearing 00:50:11.730 --> 00:50:14.909 it like ironically, like to demonstrate how white 00:50:14.909 --> 00:50:17.369 they were. Like kids would get like five or six 00:50:17.369 --> 00:50:19.309 of them and wear them. And it was like this whole 00:50:19.309 --> 00:50:21.710 thing where they were just, you know, there was 00:50:21.710 --> 00:50:25.639 a. I think it was in Colorado. Somebody was protesting 00:50:25.639 --> 00:50:28.619 the Native American names for, you know, football 00:50:28.619 --> 00:50:31.059 teams and stuff. And he came up with a shirt 00:50:31.059 --> 00:50:33.679 called the Fighting Whiteys. And he thought this 00:50:33.679 --> 00:50:35.500 was going to be like a dunk, you know, like, 00:50:35.519 --> 00:50:38.900 oh, burn, white guy on a shirt. And it's like 00:50:38.900 --> 00:50:40.719 he had like an Etsy store or something for it. 00:50:40.719 --> 00:50:42.639 It sold out like immediately. People were buying 00:50:42.639 --> 00:50:44.019 these shirts and wanting to wear them because 00:50:44.019 --> 00:50:47.860 they thought it was awesome. So anytime, again, 00:50:48.079 --> 00:50:51.829 you know, they think they're being clever. By 00:50:51.829 --> 00:50:54.050 just constantly throwing in white people's faces, 00:50:54.289 --> 00:50:55.630 you're white, you're white, you're white, you're 00:50:55.630 --> 00:50:58.389 white. But I mean, you can't really control where 00:50:58.389 --> 00:51:01.429 the imagination leads you from that. Yeah. I'm 00:51:01.429 --> 00:51:03.349 not sure that this is necessarily thematically 00:51:03.349 --> 00:51:04.909 connected to what we've been talking about, but 00:51:04.909 --> 00:51:07.530 I have a dog and I walk my dog every day and 00:51:07.530 --> 00:51:09.349 there's a dog park within an easy walk of where 00:51:09.349 --> 00:51:11.849 I live. So we go there every day. Sometimes some 00:51:11.849 --> 00:51:14.210 of the people who are there are not locals. They're 00:51:14.210 --> 00:51:15.829 traveling cross country, but they've stopped 00:51:15.829 --> 00:51:18.269 at this place and they're, you know, letting 00:51:18.269 --> 00:51:22.400 their dogs play in the dog park. And there was 00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:24.380 this one couple I was talking to, and the man, 00:51:24.579 --> 00:51:28.820 like, within a couple of sentences, you know, 00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:31.099 after hello, was, you're not a Trump supporter, 00:51:31.239 --> 00:51:34.900 are you? And one, you know, dude, this is Northwest 00:51:34.900 --> 00:51:37.079 Arkansas you're traveling through. You're going 00:51:37.079 --> 00:51:41.099 to run into a few. I didn't say that to him, 00:51:41.159 --> 00:51:44.780 but, you know, I was not looking to escalate, 00:51:44.800 --> 00:51:48.559 but he was giving, you know, somebody who would. 00:51:49.130 --> 00:51:51.650 take those as fighting words, ample opportunity 00:51:51.650 --> 00:51:58.489 to take offense. But I will say those folks are 00:51:58.489 --> 00:52:00.789 much preferable to the ones who won't go into 00:52:00.789 --> 00:52:04.190 the dog park unless it's empty. Sometimes I'll 00:52:04.190 --> 00:52:06.829 be in the dog park and I can see that somebody 00:52:06.829 --> 00:52:08.710 has pulled up and they've got dogs in the car 00:52:08.710 --> 00:52:11.190 and they're just waiting for me to leave before 00:52:11.190 --> 00:52:13.489 they will go into the dog park. I'm like, I think 00:52:13.489 --> 00:52:16.110 you're missing the whole purpose of the dog park. 00:52:18.539 --> 00:52:20.800 It's not the prison yard, you know, where you 00:52:20.800 --> 00:52:23.500 let the inmates out to walk in solitude for an 00:52:23.500 --> 00:52:26.559 hour. It's a place to socialize for humans and 00:52:26.559 --> 00:52:29.099 dogs. You know, I'm actually kind of surprised 00:52:29.099 --> 00:52:31.460 nobody's come up with the concept, like the drug 00:52:31.460 --> 00:52:33.480 companies, no one's come up with the concept 00:52:33.480 --> 00:52:37.380 of dog autism. You know, like to medicate the 00:52:37.380 --> 00:52:39.079 dogs, like your dog won't socialize with the 00:52:39.079 --> 00:52:41.099 other dogs and you won't do whatever the, oh, 00:52:41.139 --> 00:52:45.320 dog's got autism, here's a pill. And then you 00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:47.059 can imagine somebody doing that, like, oh, I 00:52:47.059 --> 00:52:48.559 can't let my dog play with other dogs. You've 00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:56.579 got dog autism. But people will. So right now 00:52:56.579 --> 00:52:59.320 I'm in Florida with my dad, helping him out with 00:52:59.320 --> 00:53:02.039 stuff. And the area where he lives, Florida's 00:53:02.039 --> 00:53:04.159 pretty much a solid red state at this point. 00:53:04.219 --> 00:53:06.380 But a lot of the snowbirds come down, and they 00:53:06.380 --> 00:53:09.639 come from Massachusetts or Connecticut or all 00:53:09.639 --> 00:53:12.320 these other places. New York City. Yeah, New 00:53:12.320 --> 00:53:14.960 York. They'll just be, you know. I can't believe 00:53:14.960 --> 00:53:18.019 that Donald Trump got elected. These people are 00:53:18.019 --> 00:53:21.500 such rednecks. And they're so used to everybody 00:53:21.500 --> 00:53:23.539 just agreeing with them. It's beyond them that 00:53:23.539 --> 00:53:26.800 people could think differently. And it's why, 00:53:26.880 --> 00:53:28.679 you know, these white people, I'm a white nationalist. 00:53:28.900 --> 00:53:31.400 I'm not a white nationalist. I have nothing in 00:53:31.400 --> 00:53:34.599 common with these people. I don't know what they're 00:53:34.599 --> 00:53:36.639 about. I don't want to live in a society where 00:53:36.639 --> 00:53:39.599 they're in charge. I know they want to live in 00:53:39.599 --> 00:53:41.300 my society because they keep coming down here 00:53:41.300 --> 00:53:44.739 where I live in the South. I don't want to live 00:53:44.739 --> 00:53:48.719 with them. And it really is like just a different, 00:53:48.739 --> 00:53:51.539 a different nationality, a different country. 00:53:51.599 --> 00:53:53.699 Like they just have, they have totally different 00:53:53.699 --> 00:53:56.179 conceptions about how the world should operate. 00:54:01.800 --> 00:54:04.320 All right. That was the librarian of Kalino. 00:54:04.360 --> 00:54:07.059 There's like another 20 minutes left, but today 00:54:07.059 --> 00:54:09.360 is Tuesday. And that is the day that I both write 00:54:09.360 --> 00:54:13.409 and post my Gen X. science fiction and futurism 00:54:13.409 --> 00:54:15.250 post for the week. And I haven't even started 00:54:15.250 --> 00:54:18.829 yet. And it's a little after 4 p .m. So I got 00:54:18.829 --> 00:54:21.349 to put this podcast to bed and get to writing. 00:54:21.570 --> 00:54:24.489 I will share the final 20 minutes, which I will 00:54:24.489 --> 00:54:26.710 tell you up front is pretty unfocused and is 00:54:26.710 --> 00:54:29.130 me jumping around from topic to topic. You've 00:54:29.130 --> 00:54:31.809 heard the best part of the podcast, but I will 00:54:31.809 --> 00:54:34.909 put that in Sea Realm Vault episode number 475. 00:54:35.690 --> 00:54:38.309 But that will probably be a few days before I 00:54:38.309 --> 00:54:41.159 post it. The Sea Realm Vault podcast is available 00:54:41.159 --> 00:54:44.800 on Patreon, and I also post it to Substack, so 00:54:44.800 --> 00:54:47.739 it is accessible to those people who have paid 00:54:47.739 --> 00:54:51.139 subscriptions to my Substack. Most everything 00:54:51.139 --> 00:54:54.659 I put on the Substack is free, so the paid subscribers 00:54:54.659 --> 00:54:57.760 are really, they're not doing it for the extra 00:54:57.760 --> 00:55:00.360 content. They are doing it to support my work, 00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:04.440 and they have my sincere gratitude for that. 00:55:04.900 --> 00:55:08.340 All right, I must go. Talk to you soon. Stay 00:55:08.340 --> 00:55:08.559 well.