Referenced links with timestamp: (5:02) CDC: People With Dirt On Clintons Have 843% Greater Risk Of Suicide (10:28) Extremists On Left, Right Eliminate Each Other In Violent Clash, Nation's Problems Finally Over (16:21) YouTube To Run All Potentially Offensive Content Past Easily Spooked Possum (20:36) Topic of the Week: Civil Discourse (40:51) Hate Mail: Android hate mail! (49:59) Paid Subscriber Portion (52:57) Husband Daycare Now Available At All Hobby Lobby Locations (1:00:12) Hipster Church Introduces Vape Organ (1:05:31) Do you ever feel despair over our current political and cultural situation? Become a paid subscriber! at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, this is news you can trust.
Bringing you all the breaking news that we just made up.
You're listening to the Babylon B. Here are your infallible hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
Yes, this is Kyle Mann.
And this is Ethan Nicole.
Hey, Ethan Nicole.
Hey, hey, Kyle Mann.
How you doing?
Pretty good.
No, you're not.
Nice to meet you.
I know that you're not doing good.
How do you know that?
You don't know.
You can't even see me.
We're in completely different parts of the country right now.
That's not true.
That's not true.
We're sitting across from a table at a table from each other.
Why would you say that?
I like throwing the listeners for a loop.
Chronic liar.
So this has been a crazy week.
We finally moved into an office.
Yeah.
So we're no longer in the beloved 100-degree garage melting slowly as the podcast records.
Yeah, we may sound a little different.
We probably sound a little more echoey.
Yeah, we're trying to figure out.
We're in an empty office.
We got a few audio issues we're trying to fix.
And the other fun part about this week is that we moved all our audio equipment in here and we've recorded this podcast three times now.
This is our third attempt.
This is our third attempt at recording this podcast.
But you don't know that.
We don't need to tell you that because those two podcasts, they're gone.
They are gone.
They were warm-ups.
And they were long.
Like we did 90-minute plus.
So long, yeah.
Bonus.
Yeah.
And we wasted the time.
We had some of our Babylon B writers on.
We wasted their time that called in.
We talked to them for a long time, and it was just everything was going wrong that could possibly go wrong.
We have this new hardware setup we were having bugs with.
We still don't have it perfect.
Nobody cares.
We had software problems.
Nobody cares about this stuff.
But what would the Calvinists say?
It was predestined.
These errors feel bad.
These errors were predestined.
So I don't feel bad about it.
Yeah.
It was all practice because this episode, now that we're here, this is what it's meant to be.
Yeah, in the Bible, isn't three like some, I know the crazy.
I know in Schoolhouse Rocks, three is a magic number, I think.
Yeah.
Conjunction Junction.
The number three.
It's a magic number.
I don't remember that one.
Three in the family.
Why was three the magic number?
Like a mother and a father have a little baby.
There's three.
I can't remember.
We'd have to play the song and then copyright violation and all that stuff.
Yeah, but people who are like all into biblical.
Yeah, there's the Trinity, obviously.
Well, yeah, they're in the biblical numerology and it's like three is this and seven is that.
And then they start counting like the first letter of every verse and they come up with like Trump will be president in 26.
The Bible codes, man.
Are you into the Bible codes?
Three pigs.
I've heard that story.
What's that?
The three pigs?
That's not the Bible code.
That's true, but it's...
God made everything, so he made that story.
I'm just trying to get in on this conspiracy theory you're getting into.
We're going to talk about conspiracy theories in this episode.
Yeah.
See?
Transition.
That was a good transition.
Now you ruined it by saying transition.
Do we have any more in this section to talk about?
I don't know.
Do you have anything interesting to say?
I mean, I think the most interesting thing that's happened is that we've moved into an office and failed miserably at recording podcasts since we did that.
And it's echoey and there's trash everywhere.
Other than that, there's nothing else exciting to say.
Yeah.
Do we want to talk about the madmen?
Oh, there are.
Yeah, there's this room next door.
I like how you call them the madmen.
They have these loud meetings over there.
In fact, if there's anybody in there right now, I'm sure they can hear us because it's just so the walls must be paper thin.
When I looked at this office, it was so quiet.
I was like, oh, this is perfect.
It's so quiet.
And then the first day we had moved in, signed the one-year contract.
Loud, bellowing, classic.
The numbers this year are excellent.
The projection looks like we're up 6,000% on 60,000.
We're going to make a million dollars at the end of the month.
Good job, Sparky.
Go get him, slugger.
That's why I call him the Mad Men because it's like, did you ever watch Mad Men?
I watched like two episodes.
Yeah, it was kind of boring, but yeah, but everybody loved it.
That's what I was trying to figure out.
I watched like four or five seasons of it, and I still don't really know what happened.
That's a lot, and you still didn't like it?
Well, it's not that I didn't like it.
It's that nothing really happened.
It was just, it's like interesting characters, you know, but nothing, there's no plot.
So anyway, yeah, but they're like those, they're like those 1960s salesmen like smoking cigars in the offense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Clapping each other on the back.
Cigars in the office.
I got to smoke cigars in the office.
We're going to talk about cigars in the subscriber segment.
Oh, are we?
Yeah.
All right.
I picked a story specifically so you could rant about cigars.
Sweet.
So anyway.
All right.
Let's move on to our stories of the week.
Every week there are stories.
These are some of them.
CDC.
People with dirt on Clintons have 843% greater risk of suicide.
Hey, do you know what's really funny for jokes?
Suicide.
Suicide.
You can get away with a lot with the Clintons.
Yeah, that was what was so funny when, if it can be funny, again, with suicide, but when Epstein or Epstein.
Steen?
I say it's Epstein.
All right, we're going to say Epstein.
We're making an exact.
You don't say Albert Einstein.
You don't say I'm drinking my Steen of beer.
Well, nobody, no Christians drink beer.
And the only time anybody says Frankenstein is in a comedy film trying to be funny.
Yeah, that's true.
So Frankenstein.
Yeah, so this was the crazy thing about the Epstein suicide is that usually people that put forth conspiracy theories online are like marginalized.
Alex Jones.
Banned.
You might post something like, oh, this is the Clintons.
And everyone's like, oh, don't play into the alt-right conspiracy theories.
But then after Epstein's suicide, people were like...
Everybody was jumping on board the conspiracy train.
Yeah, or at least the people were just like, you know what, you guys go ahead and have your fun for the weekend.
That was a lot less like it's like they had their day.
Conspiracy theorists had their day.
Everybody just got to throw out their conspiracies and everybody's like, ah, let him go.
Just let him go.
Let him go nuts.
Yeah.
It's a free-for-all.
We don't know today.
Who knows?
Because this is crazy.
Because this is wild.
I mean, he was connected to so many high-profile people.
And I was reading some of the report on him.
And it's just like, oh, my gosh.
It is weird.
There couldn't be a more high-profile prisoner at the moment.
Yeah.
So it is bizarre.
It is bizarre.
I mean, makes for great entertainment news, that's for sure.
What's the best thing for entertainment?
Good old classic.
Dark.
Yeah, so, you know, I don't know.
Conspiracy theories.
Are you a conspiracy theorist?
No, my closest connection to conspiracy theories is I didn't even know that there was this whole world of conspiracy theories.
I don't know if you remember a tool that you could get on your browser called StumbleUpon.
Right.
Remember that random websites?
Like you enter in when you first sign up, you enter in things you're interested in.
So you're like, oh, I like baking and I like cars.
I like taekwondo.
I like basket weaving.
Well, my dad was like, how do you find all these cool websites?
My dad's old.
And I'm like, oh, I use StumbleUpon.
So I signed him up for StumbleUpon and I clicked conspiracy theories because I knew he was into like Bigfoot and stuff like that.
Oh no.
So the next time I visited, he had taken down.
My dad had like a George Bush Jr. like screensaver.
He loved George Bush.
And that was gone.
And he had this teary-eyed look.
He was dead serious.
And he's like, he believed 9-11.
He believed the moon landing was fake.
He believed it all.
His eyes had been opened.
And he would not stop talking about it for years, just especially 9-11.
I was getting sent videos.
Oh, non-stop.
So, that's been my introduction to the conspiracy theory world.
I just destroyed my father with it.
Thanks, loose change.
Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.
Was he on to that?
Yeah, oh, yeah, he sent me this whole thing about thermite.
There was some kind of a yeah, yeah, and there's all these guys doing their own home tests with thermite, right?
They're blowing up steel buildings.
Trying to prove like this couldn't happen.
Oh, man.
Yeah, I don't know.
The thing is that I can buy that people are evil enough to do the conspiracy theories.
But it's like, I don't know.
I rarely think the government is competent enough.
Yeah, competent?
And also, if you're that evil, how do they all hold to such an honor code?
Because that would really take like a lot of people working in concert and never selling each other out.
Yeah, and that makes that makes sense for a lot of them.
Like the moon landing conspiracy, like this many.
If you had actual proof, you could make so much money.
Right.
Yeah.
And so nobody's going to be that loyal to the conspiracy.
Unless there really is like ninjas that will kill you.
And you know, they're like in the vents right now.
But the other thing that kind of is weird to me is like, we know that the government has done heinous things secretly.
Yeah.
And then you say, hey, maybe the government did this heinous conspiracy.
And people are like, oh, you're crazy.
They would never do that.
And I'm like, well, yeah, maybe.
Maybe they would.
So the thing for me is like, maybe they would.
But it's like, I don't know if they usually don't feel like they can actually pull it off.
Yeah, it's just such a weird thing.
I remember somebody writing this thing, like pretending like 9-11 really was planned.
And like the guy standing at the table and writing on, like explaining it to all their co-conspirators, like, all right, this is what we're going to do.
Now the third building isn't going to, it's not going to fall for like a long time.
We're going to, we're going to set the detonation off like way later, just like at random.
Like just all this stuff.
Like, why would you do all this?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
Anyway, who cares?
So anyway.
So Ethan.
Conspiracy theories.
Ethan is not woke.
I'm not woke on conspiracy theories.
You're not woke on the truth.
I'm not woke on conservation.
It's not a 9-11 truther.
Yeah, that's true.
Sad.
Not good.
Not good.
But yeah.
Anyway, Hillary Clinton, we love you.
Please don't hurt us.
Yeah.
For our next story, and an old favorite of mine that I did, my longest Photoshop I've ever done.
Extremists on left, right eliminate each other in violent clash.
Nation's problems finally over.
And peace and harmony broke out among the land.
And there will be sorrow.
There we go with the bad religion again.
Animals start singing.
This was back when Seth was paying me hourly to do Photoshops.
And I actually felt so guilty for how long I was taking on this that I like, I stopped at 10 hours.
I stopped charging and I just kept going.
I think it probably took almost another like five or six hours.
It was a long.
I worked on it over a matter of days.
It's beautiful.
I mean, we'll link the story in the show notes.
You can click on it and look at the picture.
It's wonderful.
I really think we ought to do a print.
We ought to sell the print of this.
Yeah, the unfortunate thing about when you do the Babylonia.
Yeah, it's too small.
I don't know how well it prints out.
But yeah, so it's just this.
I just found every single person I could find that looks like they're in the middle of a fight on Shutterstock.
And I worked them all into this giant collage where they're like clashing like Braveheart style.
And they're just all like attacking each other.
And I put all the little Easter eggs in there that I could have in front of me here.
Should if I was a prepared person.
Throwing rubber chicken.
There's a guy with a rubber chicken in there.
Swinging sledgehammers.
It's just a guy with a Viking helmet in there.
Guy doing a fly kick.
Guy who's got a shovel.
Oh, yeah.
There's like a cartoon bomb.
There's an anvil flying through the air.
I don't even know what that disc thing is.
Oh, there's a.
If you look in the top left corner, I don't even know if anybody noticed this.
There's a kitchen sink flying.
Also, everything in the kitchen sink.
Everything in the kitchen sink.
Yep.
Beautiful.
So, anyway, so yeah, for me, the only reason I wanted to talk about this are actually, you chose to talk about this, but for me, it was just to talk about all the hard work I did on that Photoshop.
That's it.
Next story.
No, it's true.
It was prophetic, too, because there's a right in the center of the picture.
There's a guy punching an Asian guy in the face, and that could be prophecy for Andy Andy No in Portland getting punched.
Except for, I think that would be considered the right-wing side that's punching him, so that wouldn't make sense.
Yeah, so not prophetic.
Not prophetic at all, actually.
The opposite of prophetic.
That guy's probably some other Asian.
He's not Korean, so probably, I don't know.
So are extremists, I mean, are they the problem?
Is that what you're trying to say here?
My whole point on this one was just that they annoy the heck out of me.
I can't stand the white supremacist guys.
I hate them.
I can't stand the Antifa people.
Like all these people that want to take to the streets and chant and tear things down and punch people.
And pretty much, I just, I'm suspicious of anybody who chants things.
Like, if you just get together and chant things, send her back.
There are times where maybe, like, maybe like at a concert or something.
Even at concerts, I feel weird.
Like, the only time I'll do it half the time is during the, you know, when you're trying to call them back on the stage.
What's that word?
Because I'm on a podcast.
I can't remember the word.
Encore.
Encore.
One more song.
Yeah, one more song.
I saw Weird Owl.
And yeah, we're like, we want Al or something like that or saying, when I saw Five Iron Frenzy, they did not do an encore.
What?
Which is like really weird.
That feels like something Rhys Roper would do.
Yeah, because he's like, no, I won't sign things and I don't do encores.
I'm not.
Yeah, I'm so not into being a rock star that I will just let everyone stand up until they just sheepishly all kind of filter out of the venue.
I love that.
I love that his whole point is to not be too much of a celebrity.
And it comes off way more arrogant.
Well, I guess we're never getting Five Iron on the show now.
I figured we'd never get Rhys Roper on, but maybe we can get like Jeff the Girl or somebody or Micah if they found him.
Yeah, because they don't know where he is.
Yeah.
He must be at a shit.
Actually, I think what they did is they played Every New Day, which is how they always finish.
And then Brad stayed on stage and a cappella Don't Stop Believing.
Okay.
Or sang it and the sound system played Don't Stop Believing, and he like air guitar it and stuff.
And then he walked off stage and everyone stayed there going one more song.
Never came back.
You know, they're old.
They're getting old.
Maybe they're just tired.
That's hilarious.
No, that's messed up.
I'm going to stand up and say that's messed up.
Five Iron.
Are you going to chant, though?
Weird Al's older than they are, and he did an encore.
He did an epic encore.
Did he?
Did he have his accordion out?
Yeah.
He had his accordion and he did this whole Star Wars thing.
That was the only thing I didn't like about it.
It was all Star Wars songs, but he had like dancing stormtroopers, which you would have liked.
I would have loved it.
Yeah.
You're such a curmudgeon, crusty.
I am a crusty curmudgeon.
Well, it's mainly because my family loves Weird Al.
They're having so much fun, but they don't get the Star Wars songs.
And so it kind of like was a downer at the end.
They did two Star Wars songs.
There's just not a line to laugh at if you're not into Star Wars.
So, did he do like Yoda?
Yeah, I did Yoda and he did the Little American Pie.
Anakin guy.
Yeah, that's what I remember.
Maybe Vader someday.
Some day later now is just a small fry.
Yep.
Soon I'm going to be a Jedi.
All right.
We really covered that story today.
That was really good.
That was excellent reporting.
We're not really reporters, though.
YouTube to run all potentially offensive content past easily spooked possum.
This was another Ethan article.
And this was right around the time.
I laughed at my own article there.
You hear me snickering.
Classic.
I'm so funny.
It's possums.
I laugh at possums.
You're like Jerry Seinfeld laughs at himself at every dang joke on the show.
I never got what's wrong with that.
That's such an efficient way to get entertainment.
I think it's hilarious.
I don't need Netflix.
I can laugh at my own jokes.
I don't know.
With Seinfeld, it comes off kind of down-to-earth to me.
Endearing, yeah.
Yeah, endearing.
Well, you can tell Seinfeld he loves telling jokes.
Yeah, and he actually thinks what's going on.
He's in love with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't come off as obnoxious.
Anyway, so the possum.
The possum.
Star Wars.
A possum.
Weirdo.
The possum one.
This is another classic.
We're doing classics.
Yeah, this is a classic.
And yeah, this was right around the time that.
It was related to Steven Crowder, I think.
Steven Crowder.
Somehow.
I can't remember how now.
Him and that Carlo Sir Carlo.
Oh, yeah, the Vox guy, the Vox guy.
Who just left Vox.
Oh, he left Vox.
Just now, yeah.
I don't even keep up with all this stuff.
But he.
I guess it's your job.
It's my job too, though, probably.
He was complaining about things that Steven Crowder was saying.
Yeah, Steven Crowder.
And I fully say Steven Crowder is being a Jack donkey.
I don't know if I can say that.
It's a word that's said in.
I've been reading Rolled Doll to my daughter.
And he says that word all the time in there.
You could just say donkey.
Jack donkey.
He'd been a donkey.
So yeah.
Like now that I support the way Steven Crowder talks sometimes, it's very annoying.
But yeah.
So he had said this stuff, but everybody was coming out like he's a.
What was the story?
They were like, what was it?
I can't remember what the story was.
I'm lost now.
They were trying to run.
They were trying to get approval.
Yeah, they like demonetized.
They like demonetized his videos.
And that was.
Right, that's right.
And they started demonetizing the Nazi videos and stuff.
Oh, that's when that all started.
Any word with any video with the word Nazi in it was getting.
Yeah, so like historical documentaries about the Nazis were getting banned for saying Nazi.
Yeah.
Or like Nazis are horrible.
Yeah.
So the video.
So there's this nice little Photoshop of the guy holding up the Steven Crowder video and the possum's like, ah, I don't know.
What do possums say?
They hiss.
Yeah, there it is.
Do you get play dead?
Do you get possums in Southern California?
Have you seen him like around?
Yeah.
I've seen them around.
I saw him a lot in Oregon.
I had a fascination with him growing up.
But yeah, one time I was walking late.
Actually, very, very early in the morning.
I walked to a corner and me and a possum met right at that corner.
Like, you know how you meet a person in a blind corner in an office space sometimes?
Like, you come around the corner and you almost hit each other?
It was a possum.
He was walking this way, he was walking this way, and he stopped.
And like, every time I moved, he sort of moved.
Like, I moved to the right, he moved to the right.
It was like a cartoon.
Was he wearing like a little top hat and he like tipped his hat?
It was just, it was a weird, awkward moment.
Good day, Governor.
He didn't play dead, though.
I did see a possum play dead one time, and that was really cool.
They really, that's really convincing.
Like, they're really good at it.
Yeah.
Anyway, sorry.
Possums are funny.
I can't remember the context.
Yeah, that was the context.
Like, they were getting a YouTube is like.
Because they're banning everything.
They're being super sensitive.
Anything super sensitive, right?
Well, and the idea was that that Vox guy was basically dictating their content policy.
Yeah, we were basically saying the Vox guy is easily spooked.
Possum.
Yeah.
Because he was like, ah, you know.
Yeah, so they're holding up the video.
Oh, delete it.
Take it down.
Possum doesn't like it.
Okay, yeah, that's good.
That's right.
Do you like your article now?
I like it again.
This is a good segue.
Ethan wrote a book about a possum.
I did, yeah.
I thought that it was coming out in August.
I just found it's coming out in October, so we have a while to wait again, but I wrote it a children's mid-grade novel.
It's my first epic.
I can't wait.
It's going to come out.
I'm excited.
I'm excited too.
All right.
Are you ready for the topic of the week?
Let's do it.
Let's do this.
And now, the Babylon Bees topic of the week.
So this week, we're going to discuss civil discourse.
We're going to civilly discuss civil discussion.
Oh, discussion.
I was worried because you're into Frisbee golf.
So I thought you wanted to talk about your favorite place to play.
My favorite disc course?
Yeah, it's called Civil Discourse.
I'm a dad.
I'm just going to, hold on.
We're just going to have some silence.
I'm laughing.
I'm laughing at it.
I'm going to let you bask in that for a while.
I pitched so many stupid headlines trying to use that stupid pun.
Really?
Yeah.
The name.
Disc course?
Yeah, like the nation.
Yeah.
Something about how we're all just the recommendation that we all go to a civil discourse and just play frisbee golf instead of fighting all the time.
I do have an article that says, like, everyone should just chill out and go play disc golf.
Yeah.
That would have been a good.
You could have worked that into that.
I saw that.
I don't know.
Sometimes if you throw two jokes into a headline, though, it's double mumbo jumbo.
That's a Hollywood term.
Wait, disc course?
Yep.
Oh, I remember that.
I read that Hollywood book that you recommended.
Yeah.
And it said that.
Double mumbo jumbo.
Can't have two, it's kind of like, well, it's kind of, it's kind of related.
You can't have two kinds of magic in a movie.
You got to have one kind.
Two is too many.
It feels like a cheat after that once you add another kind.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's a whole other topic.
We're talking about civil discourse.
And it's weird that the weirdest thing about civil discourse is that it's controversial right now, right?
Yeah.
Like it's a word that, like, it's kind of like how thoughts and prayers is controversial, like saying that.
Yeah, you say, what?
Send my thoughts and prayers.
Oh, why don't you do so?
Yeah, why don't you do something?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so civil discourse, like, oh, yeah, civil discourse with a person that wants to wipe out my existence.
Yeah.
And it's like, if you, if you, if you actually talk to them, maybe you would find out that they don't want to wipe out your existence.
Yeah, so I guess the question I want to kind of pose and we can just talk about and then maybe make disc golf puns about is just, you know, is civil discourse something that's commendable?
Is it something that we should try to achieve?
You know, and then where are the lines there?
Like, if you had the opportunity to sit down with Hitler, you know, before he became Hitler, I guess he was always Hitler, but you know what I mean.
True.
Before he made a name for himself and became notorious, you know, would you sit down with art student Hitler and discuss his ideas or should you have ostracized him?
You know, and that's kind of the like, is there a line there or is civil discourse always commendable?
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.
I think that, yeah, there's this whole concept of you shouldn't give these people a platform, right?
Which I don't know if I completely agree with that.
I do think that when a person's ideas are put on display and challenged, that's a lot better than them just kind of building their own little cult following in the darkness or like in the underground.
Yeah, it's like growing up in the Christian bubble and you're not allowed to watch The Simpsons.
And then The Simpsons becomes this mysterious thing where you're like, I really want to watch The Simpsons.
It's probably this amazing thing.
If you have these people kind of ostracized off and they are off limits, they're forbidden.
Yeah, and it kind of marks.
Yeah, everybody goes, Oh, I wonder what their ideas are.
They must be really good if everybody's scared of them, you know, or something like that.
Yeah, and if they're easily kind of refuted in a debate or whatever, then that kind of makes them.
I think that weakens them.
I really love watching two people that respect each other debate passionately about what they believe and they disagree.
Like, to me, I don't get how you can not enjoy that.
Sure.
And that seems to be, which I think, I think I'm with the majority on that because YouTube seems to the numbers on YouTube seem to agree.
Yeah, people that just watch a conversation.
Yeah, you want to watch that.
You want to see people hash it out and work it out rather than being told what to believe or what's bad.
Like, rather than being told that guy's a Nazi or that guy's a racist, just watch the debate and you're like, oh, actually, he meant this.
Or, oh, yeah, maybe he's a little racist, but at least you can decide for yourself.
Yeah.
That's a revolutionary idea.
Yeah.
I guess my, I don't really see a problem with a social media platform, a privately owned one saying, you're not welcome here.
Like, maybe I just are we talking about like Alex Jones and stuff like that?
Well, that's part of this, right?
Because part of this is where do people talk now?
They talk on social media.
Right.
It's controlled by a few big tech companies that say, your opinion is welcome.
Your opinion is not welcome.
So that's a whole other part of this discussion is saying, does this company have the right to do that?
You know, and I think, I think they do have the right to do it.
I think it's the problem is that when you start saying, well, we don't welcome Nazis on our platform.
I think we all can agree.
Okay, yeah, you know, maybe Nazis shouldn't be, you know, looked up upon.
Yeah.
What's the right word?
Looked up to looked up to.
Up upon.
Looked down to up on up.
You know, yeah, maybe Nazis' opinion shouldn't be like respectable, you know, on social media.
But the problem is that those categories then start to broaden and they start to seep out.
And it's like, oh, well, you're Nazi adjacent and you're Nazi adjacent adjacent and you're Nazi adjacent adjacent adjacent.
And then it's like six degrees of separation all of a sudden.
Well, I've heard the explanation that like you're either a I don't know if it was platform or like a service kind of like the phone line, you know, the phone utility, or are you a publisher that has a specific content guidelines?
And places like Twitter and YouTube are walking a weird line we never had before.
And so I think that that is a whole nother discussion.
I do think that they would, I do think, and I do think that there's, there's weight on both sides on that one.
The kind of shifting, the giving a platform thing that bothers me the most is like Westboro Baptist.
Like you find like a tiny version of how you see the other side, like the cartoon version, and you amplify it.
Like they've been in the news so much.
They've gotten so much press.
Well, that's on purpose.
They do that.
They're very intentional about it.
Right.
So that's the version of building a platform that I disagree with.
It's not honest.
It's completely dishonest because it's like 20 people.
Well, dishonest on the part of the media.
So the media covering them and yeah, completely constantly covering them.
It's as if it's and even like the alt or the alt-right group, like this tiny group meeting, it's been amplified by the media.
Like I don't have a problem with it being covered some, but you never stop hearing about Westboro Baptist rally.
Yeah, I think like a year ago, there was supposed to be this white nationalist event.
Like they've probably grown thanks to it, right?
Yeah.
Well, like a year ago, there was this white nationalist event and there was like two weeks of coverage leading up to this thing and 30 people showed up, you know, and there's more reporters.
Hilarious.
There were more reporters than more protesters.
Yeah, I think we, did we do something like that?
I think we said like that exactly.
How disappointed they were.
Everyone was all bummed up.
What?
Where's all the white supremacists at?
Come on.
We hyped this event up and you guys let us down.
We're all the Nazis.
We bought all these bats and clubs.
We're going to beat up a bunch of Nazis.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, civil discourse.
My favorite example of civil discourse, if you ever look at GK Chesterton debating with George Bernard Shaw, they disagreed on every single thing in the entire world: atheist, Catholic, you know, abortion, like everything down the line.
He was all into like eugenics and population control and stuff like stuff like that, I believe.
Chesterton was?
No, George Bernard Shaw.
But there's actually like transcripts of their debates, and they start off their debate with this like jolly, jovial talk about how much they love the other guy.
And there's just this, there's a joviality to the whole debate.
They joke with each other and they clearly love each other.
And it's completely possible to love people and disagree with them.
I really think there's something to the idea that I may not agree with you politically, but I agree with you as a human.
I agree with your soul.
I think there's people I find that are more left-leaning that I see in their heart.
Like, we agree, like, as far as human beings, we care about a lot of the same stuff.
We want good for people.
And those are the people I seek out way more than who I agree with politically.
And those are the people I want to talk about politics with more than I don't want to just be in an echo chamber.
And I don't want to talk politics with somebody who's just there to call me a racist or hate me.
I want to talk about it with somebody who I know clearly cares and really loves truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's all I got to say.
That's everything.
That's everything there is to say on civil discourse.
Did we settle it?
It's all settled.
Yeah, I don't know.
Personally, it's for me, it's like the internet is almost a really bad place for a lot of this.
Right.
Like there are some platforms like YouTube when you can get two people face to face and then you can show people that I think are good.
But like Twitter, there's people that just, you know, they find out I'm the Babylon B guy.
Yeah.
And then they just reply to everything you say and it's like, oh, blah, blah, blah.
And you're just like, you, you don't want to find out truth.
Like, you're not searching for truth in this conversation.
You want, you want to get your 30 likes.
Right.
Yeah.
I've noticed that on Twitter a lot, especially being part of the Babylon B now.
There's people that are there just to build up their likes and to do it by piggybacking out people they don't like.
Right.
Like their goal isn't at all to get to some point or to make some point.
Yeah.
So I used to like engage those people and reply and just, oh, yeah, you know, just try to make it lie and reply.
And it's like, eventually it became very clear they did not want a civil discussion.
You know, and it's so I just started muting them.
So it's kind of weird because I do like civil discourse, but on the one hand, you have to, you both have to come to it honestly and you both have to come to it with the same intentions.
Like we're trying to find out truth here.
Right.
So I don't know.
Or even just the idea that, like, I know I'm probably not going to change.
You're probably not going to change.
But we want to present our ideas in the clearest way possible for people who are watching.
Yeah.
And part of that.
But even that, that's a great work and a great goal.
Yeah.
And part of that is me engaging with the best version of your ideas.
Yeah.
And not a caricature and not a straw man of your ideas.
Right.
And if I respect you, I'll engage with the best version of your ideas.
I've seen some really good Christian apologists who will debate atheists, and the atheist will give a really bad argument.
And then the Christian apologist will kind of correct their argument and say, well, I think what you're trying to say is this.
And they'll present their opponent's argument in an even better way and say, I will engage with the best version of your ideas.
Even though I think you misstated this a little bit.
I always respected that.
Yeah.
You know, that honesty of debate.
Yeah, I guess it's also just an art.
To me, there's an art there, like an art form in a good debate.
People that are really good at it, I have a lot of respect for it.
I found too that people in my personal life that I disagree with politically or on religion or whatever, it's like if I'm sitting down at a get-together with someone that I disagree with, it's much easier to see them as a person, and it's much easier for us to civilly disagree.
Yeah.
You know, and if he says something that's almost the default, like you're starting at that on the internet, it's the other way around.
You have to find the humanity and remind yourself they're human.
Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Because you start out just saying the only thing that we have in common is that we hate each other.
Yeah.
Whereas he's just an avatar of like a minion or something.
On the right, it's what the right is always like an American flag.
An eagle or something.
Yeah.
Or a MAGA hat.
The left usually has the rainbow overlay or emojis or whatever.
So Twitter is just rainbow flags arguing with American flags.
Eagles versus rainbows.
And I'm just trying to tell jokes.
Yeah, you see the civil discussion thing going around.
Even people who seem to agree with each other, like among conservatives, you will see kind of a divide between people who think the left is lost.
We should not talk to them.
Yeah, the time for civil discourse has ended.
Yeah, the time for politeness is done.
They're too far gone.
We need to destroy them.
Yeah.
You know, gather them all up, launch them into the sun.
Something like that.
That to me is the most delusional thing.
Like when you think that there's a whole group of people, that if we just got rid of them, everything would be great.
you need to sit and rethink your entire philosophy.
Like you can't have, and especially if like, if you're, if you're like worldview on sin, it all rests in other people and not in your own heart at all.
You got a bad worldview.
Once again, you need to start over on your worldview.
I was debating a guy on the internet like 10 years ago.
Cool story.
Yeah, that's the whole story.
Was the internet around 10 years ago?
I think so.
I think it was.
And I don't know.
I was on Facebook and he said something like, he was mad about the Muslims.
And he was just kind of a neoconservative type.
And he was like, you know, Islam is a worldview that needs to be destroyed.
And it was like, well, I kind of asked him, how are you going to do that?
Like, are you going to, are you saying we should wipe out all the Muslims?
That's kind of how Muslim Islamic terrorists think, right?
Because as Christians, it's like, yeah, we believe the gospel should advance and we should engage Muslims with the gospel.
But if you think if we just wipe these people out, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's an interesting theory.
Yeah, this whole idea that you need to get rid of the other side or that we're beyond discussion, we're beyond civil discourse.
To me, if you when you put people in a position where we can no longer talk or get our ideas out or discuss things, the next logical step is violence.
And that's what we get back to that, you know, the obnoxious extremists getting in fights in the streets.
Yeah.
Is that what we really want?
Are we really there?
That's the last resort that we're at.
I don't think so.
I really don't buy it.
I feel like it's more the fringes and the more crazies.
And I'm suspicious that a lot of those people were kind of eager to pick up crowbars and start hitting their neighbors anyway.
Like they're kind of excited that there's an excuse to when I see like the antifo rallies and the white supremacist guys.
But I just have a really hard time looking at America and thinking, well, civil discourse time has ended.
I wonder.
We give up.
Let's go punch people.
I'm down.
I wonder if sometimes conservative rhetoric really doesn't help.
Yeah.
You think?
Well, You see, the conservatives often are the ones calling for civil discourse because I think the left has moved left so rapidly that everybody looks like a Nazi to them now because they're so far in that direction.
Yeah.
You see a lot of the mainstream left has gone further and further left.
And I think a lot of studies have shown that.
I don't know if you say studies have shown it, that that means you're right.
But then, you know, so conservatives are saying, no, we need to have civil discussion.
But if you look at like Ben Shapiro's Twitter feed, it's like, I know.
He's like, like, owns the libs in one tweet.
And then the next tweet, it's like, we need to have a civil discussion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I like that.
And also, there's the whole Trump thing.
I mean, it's like, I'm totally sympathetic when you bring up the idea of civil discourse and they're like, oh, yeah, Trump.
Like, yeah, there's a shining beacon of civil discourse.
And it's kind of the reason that we should because that's what you get when you don't have civil discourse and you can't talk about things.
Like everybody starts marginalizing off.
And I believe that's how Trump got voted in.
I mean, well, conservatives felt beat up for eight years because of Obama.
Yeah.
And Obama tended to do the same thing to them.
You know, he said it in nicer terms.
He sounded nicer.
He sounded nicer, but oftentimes he really ostracized people on the right.
And so they said, you know what?
Screw you.
We're going to elect Donald freaking Trump.
It's just crazy.
And that's what happened.
You're right.
That's what happens when you get people that are talking past each other, not even talking to each other.
Well, and I think, I mean, do you really want this country to be run by everybody who agrees with you and your ideology?
Yeah.
Maybe.
But it's probably still a bad idea.
I think the best case scenario, and you know, to me, because we're never going to get rid of all the people that you disagree with.
They're all going to live here.
We're stuck here.
This is what America is.
We want the brightest, most civil, most discourseful people to be the ones who are voting.
And we want that.
That's what we need.
Just to me, the thing we need more than anything, because I think that the way that ideas grow and things change, it's not at the level of government.
It's not at the level even of celebrity.
It's how we treat and talk to each other.
And that's the scary thing to me.
The way that with the internet and the way that we're all on our phones all the time, it's hard to imagine getting in a discussion about what's going on in the world with a stranger, with just random people who are close to you physically.
It's always on the internet.
It's easier and safer because you can turn it off if it doesn't go well.
That's one thing I love about cigar shops.
I'll hear these guys will go into like there's a liberal there, there's a conservative.
They're both puffing on their cigars and they're going off about, you know, Trump's an idiot.
He's the best president we ever had, blah, blah, blah.
But they're not angry and they love each other.
They're brothers and need more of that.
Everybody should just go to cigar shops and talk about politics.
Well, there you have it.
The way that we can save civil discourse in our nation is by giving ourselves lung cancer.
Throat cancer.
You don't need cigars.
I thought that some I read some study that said they couldn't even link cancers to cigars.
Oh, yeah.
I've heard it's quite a bit of a stretch, but that was mostly from cigar smokers.
Yeah, and it seems like, I don't know, putting a bunch of smoke in your mouth probably might not be a good idea.
Well, it'll probably lead to cancer at some point.
At some point.
But we're all going to die.
I always just say George Burns smoked like eight cigars a day and lived to be 100.
Yeah, but that's called, I think that's called selection bias.
No, that's evidence.
Well, because no, because you look at someone like that, but then you don't look at the hundred people who did die because you just see the one guy who made it.
It's like the guy, it's like the old man.
It's like the old man who's like, I drank Coke every day, six Cokes a day, and I'm 120.
But you don't see all the guys who died.
He's the only one who survived.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Off track again.
Go knock on your neighbor's door.
Yeah, you know what I would like?
And say hello.
Like when I came to Hollywood, they had this thing called Friends of Abe.
There was like a secret meeting group for Republicans in Hollywood because you have to be sneaky in Hollywood if you're conservative.
I would like it if there was a secret meeting of people who didn't want to murder each other if they disagreed in Hollywood.
It's an underground.
That's all I want.
If you're in Hollywood or in any industry where it's not cool to be left or right, whatever it is, just by going, all you're saying is, I respect your ability to believe what you believe.
And I would actually like to talk to you about it.
And I will not rip your face off and I will not cancel culture you and all that.
Like we're just going to have a cigar, you know, whatever we're going to do.
We're going to hang out.
And I want to start that group.
It's like an underground fight club, but it's not.
It's like a non-fight.
A jovial underground fight club.
It's like a non-fight club.
They call it the friends of Chesterton and Shaw.
And I'm cigars.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's move on to hate mail.
I really miss Adam Ford.
All right, hate mail time.
Let's do this.
Kyle, what do you got there for me?
All right.
So some context.
We rolled out an iPhone app.
And soon we will be rolling out an Android app for the Babylon B. That's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
And it's been doing really well.
And we're excited about it.
And we sent out an email announcing that the iPhone app was available.
And we made a little quip at the bottom of the email.
Let's just be honest.
It was Seth who does this a lot.
He makes funny jokes like in the market.
He likes to insult people.
And he says, so at the end of this iPhone app announcement, he says, Android users, be patient.
Your time is coming.
Or just switch to iPhone like a normal person.
And guess what?
Android users did not like being called abnormal.
Apparently, yeah.
Because we put out emails like daily and we get a few responses, but this email garnered so many replies.
Yeah, I got more hate mail for this than any Trump piece we've done.
Yeah, Trump, Jesus.
I mean, it's very, I mean, this is a big deal.
So this guy says, yeah, so we're going to read some of the hangings.
We'll read some of our favorites.
That is an insult to tell users Android does not rate.
Steve Jobs advocated young people use LSD to enlighten themselves.
Why don't you do an article on that?
That's crazy.
I didn't realize that, but I have an iPhone, and now I realize that I support drug usage.
That would be a really funny article to do an article about a guy who's been dead for years.
Yeah.
Something that LSD usage that nobody knows about, some story about LSD.
Yeah.
I wonder if that's true.
I don't know.
I've never.
That's a free one.
I've never.
That's what we always get in the email inbox.
That's a free one for you.
Apple's iTunes and backup are built on iTunes.
Did you know that iTunes is built on iTunes?
That's what he says.
Apple's iTunes and backup are built on iTunes.
One of the lamest pieces of software ever written.
iTunes should easily integrate MP3s.
Bad, bad.
Hold on.
Let me finish.
He goes, bad, bad.
Naughty, naughty iTunes.
It treats everyone as if they are idiots.
If you love iTunes, you have been hoodwinked.
Hoodwinked.
That's a great word.
No, I don't know anybody who likes iTunes.
It's the worst.
It's horrible.
Like, what program constantly wants you to update like iTunes?
And they still do it.
So this guy says, taking shots at a recent creationist who knows all the various forms of evolution to have more weak spots than creation taken on faith.
He replied to our email about the Android.
And then I could see Seth replied to him and he said, that was a shot at Android.
Seth likes picking fights with her.
He'll reply to you, like, pick fights back with you.
I do love that this person thought we were making fun of creationists.
I did not.
Somehow.
I don't even know.
I didn't make the link.
Maybe he just replied to the wrong email.
Maybe.
Yeah.
He was mad at somebody else.
All right, this guy's.
This is a simple one.
Android forever.
Okay.
I wonder if this guy's got the Android tattoo.
He's like the little Android robot guy.
And it says forever, like the number four.
I was kind of into the Android versus iPhone thing when it first came out.
I was like, oh, I'm all about Android.
And then after a year or two, I was like, it's a phone.
And is it any better that your symbol is an apple or your symbol is a, have we talked about that yet?
The Apple symbol?
I don't think I got to that one on this yet.
I'm going to see what's going on.
Okay, we'll get to it.
We'll get to it.
No need to switch.
Android is superior anyhow.
Thanks, Daniel.
These people are just already revealing how nerdy they are that you would care, like you'd reply like this.
There's this whole thing about identifying with a brand.
Yeah, I never understood that.
I'm a Coke guy.
Yeah.
You're drinking a Pepsi?
Ah, you loser.
I switch between Coke and Pepsi without effort.
That's why I'm morbidly obese.
In Southern California, do you say Coke?
Or do you say, what do you say?
Soda?
Coke.
Soda.
What's the option?
Other option?
Pop.
No one says pop.
I have some pop holdover from when I lived in Colorado, and I think people did say pop then.
When I was really young, I lived in Colorado.
My dad used to say pop.
He's from Michigan.
Okay.
My pop used to say pop.
Yeah, my parents say pop sometimes.
I say Coke, I think.
All right, here was one.
Hi there.
Just to let you know, some of us deplorables can't afford Apple products.
Only the elite can afford such things.
It kind of used to be like that.
Like, I felt like if someone had a iPhone, it was like, oh, that person has an iPhone.
Yeah, you're rich.
Yeah.
But now it's like you can get them on those.
You can get them on the monthly plan.
And so it's not.
Because I think at first you had to spend the thousand bucks or whatever.
Yeah.
You have to buy it.
You had to buy it out right now.
It's expensive.
Yeah.
Here's one.
Sorry.
Don't have a cell phone and don't want one.
Like Grizzly Adams sitting on his laptop in the middle of the woods.
He's like, as far as I go, I don't need no cell phone.
Kyle's getting past all the ones with copious amounts of swearing.
I'm trying to.
And death threats.
I'm trying to find the one about.
Okay.
iPhones are Satan's tool.
Okay.
That's a good simple.
You got your demographics wrong on platform choice.
So I think they're just going to educate us.
Educate yourself.
No.
I made that one up.
Nobody said educate yourself.
All right, one more.
Responding to your statement, Android users, please be patient.
Let me try this again.
I'm reading it.
He's quoting us.
All right.
One more.
This is my favorite one.
Okay.
He says, yes, a normal person, the hellbound, mindless slave of Satan, fails to recognize the bitten apple symbol emblazoned on every Apple device, boldly proclaims the path that vehicle will lock the user into.
That's a symbol of the fall of mankind.
And then he says, I love the bee.
I love the bee.
Some of your postings are awful.
Some are wonderful.
Keep it up.
Is it emblazoned?
I always wondered what the process of emblazoning is.
How do you emblazon something?
Yeah, can I get this emblazoned?
Is there an emblazoning place you go to?
Like at the mall, the little booth, the emblazoning shop.
Like there's embroidery, and there's like.
Sorry, this is an embroidery shop.
Emblazoning is down the hall.
Embossing, embroidery, yeah, emblazoning.
The emblazoning.
Very epic.
The emblazoning booth is over by the Cinnabal.
It's this glowing, like you go in, like it's so glowing, like you can't even see.
There's these guys in there, they're covered in all this soot, and they're like, Need that emblazoned?
We'll emblazon that satanic symbol on your phone.
Right on your phone.
It's permanent and eternal, and it will send you straight to hell, guaranteed.
All right.
Emblazoned.
Yeah, that was good.
That was so, I think that ends it.
We're done.
We're done mocking the majority of our fans who are apparently Android users.
And we're ending this show right now.
And we are thanking you.
And if you do like your Android, we don't, you know, Kyle has an Android, so we don't hate you.
We love you.
No, you're just a deplorable.
Yeah, you're still a human being.
You just, you're poor.
We civilly disagree with you.
Civil disagree disagreement.
All right, we're signing off for the freeloaders and the paid subscribers that get to continue for another 20 or 30 minutes here.
So if you want to subscribe and hear the rest of the podcast, go to babylonbee.com/slash plans, throw some money at your screen.
And if you're subscribed, you will get access to the full-length podcast each and every week.
And for everybody else, maybe throw us a iTunes review.
Yeah, well, iTunes review.
We love reading them.
Or a Google review.
Or not Google.
Yeah.
Android review.
I don't know how that works.
But yeah, we really appreciate the reviews and getting the word out for the podcast.
Everybody's done it so far.
It gives us tingles of joy.
Until next week, thank you for listening.
See ya.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.