Scott Adams and Matt Lieb dissect Scott Adams' book God's Debris, mocking its "Dilbert version of Dostoevsky" plot where an omniscient God commits suicide. They critique the author's simplistic arguments, including a fart joke to disprove God, and deride his five-level awareness framework as second-grade philosophy resembling Scientology. While debating theological concepts like omnipotence versus human lust, they conclude the book fails as literature due to poor character development and Adams' inability to articulate his own beliefs through a fictional genius avatar. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Rubber Bands and Fiction00:14:59
This is an iHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say that.
Trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Greg Wesley and Michael Mancini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trapped.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Listen to the Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots five, City Hall building.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
They screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
A tragedy that's now forgotten.
And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm finishing my mini taco from Trader Joe's.
Oh, that's TJ's, you know, sponsor us.
Dude, I wish that we could get sponsored by Trader Joe's.
I've never even seen them like an ad.
Because they gave all that money to the LAPD when the LAPD opened fire wildly into one of their stores, murdering an employee.
Why can't we get some of that cash?
Oh, yeah, Trader Joe's.
Was that in LA?
I remember that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was like a criminal on the loose, and the LAPD decided, you know what, we'll help this situation, emptying our AR-15s into a glass storefront.
And then Trader Joe said, thanks, guys.
Here's a donation.
Matt Lieb.
What's up?
Matt, this is part two.
I don't know if it'll be airing the same week or months later.
We'll probably slot this in around Thanksgiving or some shit when we've got some.
Anyway, these are doing a little pinching.
I'm going to be filler.
Put me drinking.
Yeah, podcast sweeps week.
I don't want anyone to hear this shit.
We're reading some books because I need a little bit of a break.
Well, actually, I just need to get ahead up on production.
I'm still writing episodes this week.
But this helps out.
So I'm going to be reading you a story, another little book, a canticle for Matt Leibowitz.
Matt Liebowitz?
I'm Matt Lieb.
Do you get my canticle for Leibowitz joke?
Oh, I did.
Yeah, I did.
That's not bad.
That's a pretty good little reference.
Pretty good.
Pretty good little reference.
Let me give you a little.
There we go.
Thank you.
I don't have the Jar Jar soundboard.
It's just, I got a new thing, and now it's just all kind of boring ones.
So I won't be doing it.
You know what?
Because this is the in-between.
It's the in-betweens.
And people are still...
People are still going to be pedants.
Someone's going to be like, actually, a canticle is like a hymn or a psalm or something like that.
It's not a book.
To which I would say, we're reading another Scott Adams book, and his prose is both musical and holy, like the text of a psalm.
You know, exactly.
Yeah.
What else is there to say?
Matt, Matt, Matt, man.
What?
So I was just out in between recording the first episode on Scott's Terrible Novels and the second, checking on my goats because I castrated one of them the other day.
I wanted to hear more.
I wanted to hear more about why did you do that?
Well, you can't have too many bulls or whatever, rams with the testicles hanging out.
Like you don't really want to have more than one because they'll like hurt each other, right?
And we're not going to breed this one.
So he's going to live a long, happy life, but he just is not going to have testicles.
It's like your cat, right?
Or your dog, you know?
Like I had somebody get all henry at me online about this.
I'm like, I don't know, man.
Like you do it to your animals.
Like if you have a pet, it's just like, it's not going to breed.
It's going to get hurt.
Anyway, whatever.
I don't care what people feel about it.
What's interesting to me about it is that the way we do it is with rubber bands, right?
There's like a whole setup.
Yeah.
And you basically just kind of, you know, there's a little pain for an hour or so and then the nerves kind of deaden.
And then eventually the testicles.
Like when BuzzFeed, they'll do a live stream where they put a bunch of rubber bands on a watermelon and they keep putting it on until it explodes.
No, that would be a crime, I believe.
We use a specific device and specific rubber bands meant for castration.
But what's interesting to me about this, Matt, is that the first real powerful moment that I had as a young child on the internet, I think this occurred around 99.
Okay.
It might have been as late as 2000, 2001.
Is I'm hanging out.
I'm sure I found it through something awful.
And I wind up on this web forum for gay men who are in a very specific kind of, I think you would say like pro like Dom sub relationship.
Okay.
And it was a subset of these guys talking about auto castration, which is how to castrate yourself.
And they also used rubber bands on themselves to kill their testicles and then eventually remove them.
And anyway, isn't it beautiful that as a little boy, I learned that about the world?
I read, I spend hours.
I didn't know why, but I spend hours reading all of these detailed discussions about the best way.
Because these guys, there's not like, there was like a book how to castrate yourself, right?
Like there was, I think people had back in the Catholic church days when you'd had to do it to like sing better, people had learned a lot of this stuff, but I don't, I think it was like an oral tradition.
No, and all the books were probably in Latin too.
So it's like, you got to learn Latin to learn how to cut my own balls off?
What is?
I thought this was America.
Much like in a canticle for Leibowitz, these people had to rediscover, you know, the knowledge of the past.
And I spent hours.
And I, this is like, I can remember one time like reading, just like I'm going through this and stuff.
It's like early on a Sunday morning.
I've gotten up early to check, read the internet before my dad takes the dial up.
We've got to like go to church.
And so I go to church just like thinking about these descriptions of how men castrated themselves using rubber bands, which I love about the internet.
I credit that with a lot of the, you know, just learning the vast lot of sense that that is like an early memory for you.
Powerful.
It weird how much that probably dictated where you're at right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
It had no impact on me castrating a goat.
I did that because my neighbors who are more experienced with this sort of thing do it that way.
Oh, I thought it's because of just love of the game.
Love of the game.
That's why I got that ABC tattoo, baby.
Always be castrating.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
No, like I was also like, I feel like Goat Sea had a huge influence on.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
It just, it showed me that humans are capable of remarkable feats.
Humans are capable of remarkable feats.
It also taught me a lot about storytelling.
If you go back to, and if you're not, if you're, if you're young, right, or you just weren't terminally online, Goat Sea was like one of the very first online memes.
And it was really the most influential early online meme.
The basics of it is that it's a photo some fellow took with a prolapsed rectum of himself bending over and spreading his ass cheeks so that you can see what his prolapsed rectum looks like.
And it is biologically a fascinating photo.
And because it was just kind of like one of the more horrifying, I think it's how most people found it, things being passed around the early internet, it became like a shorthand for I am a very online person.
And the way you would express this shorthand is you would trick people into looking at the picture of this man's rectum by being like, wow, there's a fire at the power plant nearby.
Check out this photo of it or something like that.
This hyperlink, you know, and then it would just be Goatsey, guy stretching out his asshole hella wide.
Yeah.
And you'd be like, oh, no, not again.
All of these different bits of internet culture, when they come down to normies, right?
They get sort of softened.
Like the softening of Goatsee was Rick Rowland, right?
Yeah.
You know, it's just a video of this, this bad song, right?
Instead of this man's like confounding anus.
Yeah.
Well, to be fair, the guy doing Goatsey was Rick Ashley.
Yeah.
That's why he's got the ass right in there.
It's right there in the name.
Oh, that's good.
That's good stuff.
Well, it's also fun because I think Goatsey taught me everything that you really need to know about good storytelling, right?
Open, obviously, you want to grab them right away.
And that prolapsed rectum is like a great intro paragraph, right?
You're immediately in the story.
But you also want to, you want to set up like mysteries.
You want to set up aspects of the plot that are going to be relevant later because that's just kind of satisfying as a reader.
And the goatsy version of that is this dude's got a wedding ring, right?
Like we don't know much, but we know there's a story going on with this fella's anus.
Right.
Yeah.
Somewhere behind the scenes, right?
And maybe, you know, maybe one day we'll find the answer to that mystery.
We know that he took a vow before God, and we know that, you know, he's got shiny hands.
So you know that he's also safe when he's tearing his asshole asunder.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
He's careful.
He cares.
There's a whole world implied in Goatsey.
Speaking of people who created a whole world, I want to talk about the peerless fictional crafting of Scott Adams.
Now, yes.
The goatsy of the comic book world.
The goatsy of the comic book world, right?
The prolapsed anus of our modern discourse.
Yeah.
I did one of my favorite.
So there's this thing in Vegas, the Madison Square Garden Sphere, which is the, you've seen pictures of it all.
Oh, yeah, I've seen that.
People are doing it.
It's like, my favorite post about it is like, you know, somebody posted like a picture of it looking like an eyeball and was like, can't wait till someone hacks this and we get to watch Mr. Hands die on it.
And again, if you're not an old internet head, Mr. Hands is a man who was part of a gang of zooophiles who would regularly meet up in Washington, I believe, and like molest a horse.
And one day the horse fucked him and he died as a result of it for reasons I shouldn't need to explain biologically.
I think we can all put that together.
I think you can probably put it together.
It wound up.
He was like a congressional aid or some shit.
He had some job in government.
It was like a weird, or he was like a contractor.
I think he was like a, so he, he was, it was like a whole black thing.
Yeah.
It was, it was wild.
There's a documentary about it called Zoo that is very uncomfortable to watch, but we'll give you the whole story.
There's also a movie semi about it called The Death of Dick Long, and you must watch it.
That I haven't seen, but I'll change it.
Oh my God.
I wish I hadn't said anything, in fact.
But no, you should see this movie.
It's one of the greatest movies ever.
Now I have decided that if I ever get to set up like my canticle for Leibowitz style, like hidden, you know, reservoir of human knowledge for people after the apocalypse to rebuild society, you know, my version of the foundation, actually.
It's just going to be Zoo and that other movie.
That's all they need.
That's all they'll need to know.
What was this culture about?
About guys getting fucked to death.
A lot of guys were getting fucked to death by horses.
These guys like to come hard, I guess.
You know, hey, to each their own, I say we're delaying the start of God's Debris.
Now, we read The Religion War last time, which is actually the sequel to God's Debris, but God's Debris takes place after the religion war.
I didn't do this for any artistic reason.
I did it because if Scott has any sort of pride at all as a writer, then he was very intentional in having these books set the way they are.
And I don't like Scott or respect him.
So fuck him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now.
Fuck him to death like that horse did to Mr. Hands.
Like that horse did to Mr. Hands.
Now, I feel like I should start with noting that on the inside of this book, we get the author's websites.
So we get Dobert.com.
Fine.
Dilberrito.com, which is the burrito that he made that was an instant failure because it made people shit themselves half to death and tasted horrible.
And then the yeah.
Oh, you didn't know about the Dilberrito?
We talk about it in the episode.
Yeah.
He made a vitamin pill that was a burrito and it was horrible.
Oh my God.
God bless him.
God's entrepreneurial spirit.
And then he started a restaurant called Stacy's Cafe, which is the name of the cafe that Super Genius works at.
Yeah, he's got that website on here too.
Good to see how all of Scott's projects worked.
So introduction.
This is not a Dilbert book.
It contains no humor.
Those two are not exclusive, Scott.
I call it a 132-page thought experiment wrapped in a fictional story.
I'll explain the thought experiment part later.
God's Debris doesn't fit into normal publishing cubby holes.
Here's the bit I was telling you about last time.
There's even disagreement about whether the material is fiction or non-fiction.
I contend that it's fiction because the characters don't exist.
Some people contend that it's non-fiction because the opinions and philosophies of the characters might have lasting impact on the reader.
Again, like 80%.
Not the definition.
Not the definition of fiction and non-fiction.
So many of the most influential tech weirdos in the country's entire version, like vision of reality is based on misinterpreting Dune.
Yeah, like that's like what fiction is for.
But okay, okay, Scott.
Kind of shitting on the entire craft of fiction, but fine.
The target audience for God's Debris is people who enjoy having their brains spun around inside their skulls.
After a certain age, most people are uncomfortable with new ideas.
Like, for example, the existence of turkey.
That certain age varies by person.
But if you're over 55 mentally, you probably won't enjoy this.
Get your brain spun.
Wait till you hear about SUNYs and Shias.
Yeah.
It's going to fuck you up, dude.
That's going to fuck you up.
That certain age varies by person, but if you're over 55 mentally, you probably won't enjoy this thought experiment.
If you're 80 going on 35, you might like it.
If you're 23, your odds of liking it are very good.
Yeah.
Did the Package Deliver You00:10:56
This is how you sell to this demographic, by the way.
He's got it down to a T. You got to write at the beginning of your book: hey, if you're young, this is cool.
And for you, to want to smoke cigarettes, and then you say, hey, if you're old, you're not going to get this.
Parents just don't understand.
Buy my shit.
That guy gets it, man.
That's why Dilbert is the big hit with the kids these days.
God, there's so much in here, too, just about like his belief system because he's like, so the story's central character is a view about God that you've probably never heard before.
If you think you'd be offended by a fictional character's untraditional view of God, please don't read this.
The opinions and philosophy.
Here's the best part: the opinions and philosophies expressed by the characters are not my own, except by coincidence in a few spots not worth mentioning.
Please don't write me with passionate explanations of why my views are wrong.
You won't discover my opinions by reading my fiction.
I beg to differ, Scott.
I think we might have picked out a couple of opinions.
I think we've made it pretty clear that you are very, it's, you know, you can read him like a book, which is ironic here.
I love this.
I love the idea.
Every single book so far that you've read starts out with the sales pitch to the demographic and/or the publisher.
And which is, I do love the idea of like if every author did this, if Tolkien's like, you might not think a little guy who lives in a hole is very interesting, but let me tell you about this hobby.
Let me tell you about it.
Now, if you're just an old fogey, you're not really going to understand this.
But if you're a kid, holy shit, hold on to your brains because it's about to get spun around, dog.
If you are, if you're over 55, you probably think it's okay to craft a series of magical rings that allow you to dominate the minds of entire races.
But let me tell you something.
It's not.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
I love it too because it's not fiction because the ideas of crafting the magical ring have been like thought about in a non-fiction world.
It is.
You know what I mean?
Was that not what Hitler was trying to do?
I want to get Frank Herbert's version of this.
I bet you guys think that fear is good.
No, no, no.
Let me tell you, it's the mind killer.
You know, a little bit, it's like dying a little bit, to be honest.
Yeah.
Okay.
The central character in God's Debris, that's the avatar, knows everything, literally everything.
This presented a challenge to me as a writer.
When you consider all of the things that can be known, I don't know much.
My solution was to create smart-sounding answers using the skeptic's creed.
The simplest explanation is usually right.
You know, why is he doing this?
Why is he?
Why is he explaining literally every aspect of this?
He knows the key to good writing is tell and at no point show.
Don't even write a novel.
Just tell people what they should feel.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
It's so funny.
Like, also, so the simplest explanation in that last book was that you can stop people from believing in all of their faiths with a single joke.
With a fart joke that goes viral.
That's the simplest explanation.
You might be getting Occam's razor wrong.
Yeah, I don't think he understands Occam's razor.
But it's, you know, for him, I'm glad he's like almost humble because he's just like, you know, listen, I'll admit that I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I get around that fallacy.
I get around that by like saying smart things like fart joke can save people by making them not believe in God.
Yeah, fart joke, brain big.
Yeah.
Fart joke, brain big.
That's that is.
I'm going to get on Goodreads and review this.
Five stars.
Fart joke.
Fart joke, brain big.
God dead fart joke.
Man, so this does the chapter one for this has the same name as if you were to do a book about Mr. Hands, the package.
Oh, here we go.
That's pretty good.
That's not bad.
Not bad.
Put that joke in our canticle for Leibowitz storehouse of human achievement.
Yeah.
The rain made everything sound different.
The engine of my delivery van, the traffic as it rolled by in a film of fallen clouds, the occasional dull honk.
I didn't have a great job, but it wasn't bad either.
I knew the city so well that I could lose myself in thought and still do the work, still get paid, still have plenty of time for myself.
So he's a delivery man.
That's our character.
He's about to go meet the avatar.
He's going to drop a package off.
Yada Oh, wow.
There is a fun bit about driving in San Francisco here where he's like, if you think too hard, you overshoot your target and end up at the pier at the Tinderloin.
If you relax and let the city help, the destination does all the work for you.
I don't know, man.
I've driven a lot in San Francisco.
It's actually pretty hard to accidentally wind up at the pier.
No, yeah, you definitely will not accidentally get to the pier.
You will get to the pier because you mistakenly thought it would be easier to do that than take an Uber or take like mass transit.
And then you'll realize you have to park at the pier, which is a fucking nightmare.
You'll hate yourself.
Stay away from the pier.
Avoid the pier at all costs.
Yeah.
Anyway, Tinderloin's fine.
He gets to the delivery.
Yeah.
He knocks on the door and he's going to meet the avatar.
The old man.
That's chapter two.
I figured I would leave the package inside the door and sign the customer's name.
I had signed for customers before.
No one had complained yet.
It was a firing offense, but that only happened if you got caught.
Inside, I could see a long dark hallway with red faux textured walls lined with huge illuminated paintings.
At the end was a half-open door to a room that hosted a flickery yada.
God, okay.
If he's so smart, I'll come his door is already open.
Yeah, how come his door is already?
Well, because he's been expecting this guy.
I was startled.
Yeah, the avatar's like, I've been expecting you.
You know, one of those things.
Sitting there naked with a towel around him, just like rubbing his crotch.
Okay.
So he tells the avatar he's got a package that this guy needs to sign for.
And then the guy does mysterious genius old man stuff and asks him, if you toss a coin a thousand times, how often will it come up heads?
The elderly are spooky when they degenerate into reflections of their younger selves.
They say things that make sense at some grammatical level, but it's not always connected to reality.
I remember in my grandfather in his declining years, how we spoke in non-sequiturs.
It was best to play along.
About 50% of the time, I answered before changing the subject.
I need a signature for this package.
Why?
Well, I said, measuring how much information to include in my response, the person who sent the package wants a signature.
He needs confirmation that it got delivered.
I meant, why does the package come up heads 50% of the time?
Oh my God.
So first off, don't ever do this to a delivery boy.
Look, I don't care if you have all of the secrets of the universe to pass on.
He is getting paid, you know, hourly.
He's got like a fucking, more than that, he's got like a car full of shit to deliver.
He's getting like penalized if he's not making his deliveries fast enough.
You're just going to deal with guys.
Dogs too.
He's got to deal with fucking traffic.
He's the only, these guys are overworked as it is.
If you got a fucking little brain puzzle, like if you do flippies on coins, how many times go ahead?
Just fucking keep it to yourself.
Just stop.
So he, the avatar is like, you can just sign for me.
And he looks up the name on the package slip and it's avatar.
So he signs for him.
And he's like, it's for you.
What's for me?
The package.
I just delivered the packages, I said.
My job is to bring them to you.
It's your package.
No, it's yours.
Okay, I said, planning my exit strategy.
I figured I could leave the package in the hallway on the way out.
The old man's caretaker would find it.
What's in the package?
I asked, hoping to get past an awkward moment.
It's the answer to your question.
I wasn't expecting Patro's head in a box.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's this.
So, like, the gist is that the avatar is doing this like very frustrating, faux-smart, like, oh, did you deliver the package or did the package deliver you?
Because you wouldn't have come here if not.
Well, actually, like, I came here because it's my job and I have to make rent, but whatever.
We went through over this in the episodes.
Very frustrating.
Let's move on.
Mind jiu-jitsu, we like to call it in smart guy circles.
The delivery man's mind has been tickled by the avatar's brilliant who delivered the package was used who's on first.
And I'm thinking that she's saying who, but it's our guy.
There's a guy named who is just spoiler.
This whole thing is a Socratic dialogue.
So the whole plot is just the two of them talking in a room, which is why this will be shorter than our, than the epic about the religion war.
But let's Want to, I just want to come back.
I was muted, but like a minute and a half ago, Matt made Matt made a funny, and I want to acknowledge that.
Oh, did I?
Did I miss Matt's funny?
What was it?
I went, I gave you like a haha, and you didn't get to hear it because I was muted.
Oh, so I wanted to come back to give it to you.
I don't know what I said.
You said something about smart guys, and I was like, Hell yeah, man.
Hell yeah, for you.
Fuck yeah, for you.
I like when people let me know that I appreciate it.
We're not telling you, the listener, what the joke was that made her laugh.
Nobody's saying shit.
Go right in if it also made you laugh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let us know which joke you think Sophie was laughing at.
I need a Sophie in my life, man.
I need someone who's just like who will be like, hey, by the way, a few minutes ago, you fucking killed that.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Sometimes I do that to people and I'm just lying, you know, and then they wonder for the rest of their lives like what it was they said that was smart or funny.
And they think I'm being nice, so they like me, but I'm really just gaslighting them.
Like I'm actually just trying to damage their brains.
Bro, are you the avatar?
Is this about you?
And the avatar is a fucking prick.
It's time for ads, I think.
Sophie, you know what is the avatar of capitalism?
Is the sponsors of Behind the Bastards, you know?
Unless you have coolers and media, then ha ha ha, no, then you get it free.
No ads.
Ha ha ha.
Paying us money to listen to this ad-free on Cooler's Own Media is equivalent to being chosen by the avatar during your delivery drive.
Couldn't agree more.
To inherit his wisdom.
So this package is for you.
If you subscribe to Cooler's Own Media, you can pretend that Matt Lieb and I invited you into our home that we share together in order to teach you our wisdom in front of a crackling fire.
You're allowed to do that.
And our wisdom is just doing Abbott and Costello bits, but like smart.
Yeah.
Well, you do them stupid.
I do them badly because I can only kind of remember who's on first.
And I think the mummy movie they were in, that's all I got.
The mummy movie.
That's the real smart guy movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Smarter Abbott and Costello Bits00:15:16
I watched part of that one morning when I got up early to watch the CGI Starship Troopers show that was only on on like 6 a.m. back in the yeah.
Anyway, great, great show.
Both of them.
Both of them.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
He related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Sherry stay with me each night, each morning.
Say you love me.
You know I.
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place to come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
Matt, did you ever watch the CGI Starship Troopers show?
No, I didn't even really know.
Nobody did.
Nobody did.
That was awesome.
Yeah.
Was it also a satire or were they like pretty close to aspects of the book?
It was closer to the book than the show, but also did its own thing.
I haven't watched it in 25 years, but I remember it being pretty cool.
That said, it was easier to impress me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is before you saw Goatsy and Mr. Hands.
This was right around when I saw Goatsy.
Okay, okay.
This was probably before Mr. Hands, though.
Oh, okay.
It is.
I do wonder what it did to me and so many other members of my generation, just like watching a video where a man gets fucked to death by a horse as a little kid.
It did something to me.
And because like somebody tricked me into watching it, right?
Yeah, just like, huh.
Yeah.
No, definitely for me, I was just like, all right, so avoid horses.
So avoid horses.
Yeah.
Well, it was also this thing where like it was the first thing I can remember where I was like, well, I probably can't talk to my parents about this.
Like if I, if I ask them about this video, I'm not going to be allowed on the internet anymore.
Right, exactly.
So I'm just keeping this one from them, right?
Okay.
Yeah, 100%.
100%.
In fact, I think I did the exact same thing and I'm not sure, but I low-key blame that for my eventual drug addiction because eventually I started keeping more secrets.
Like first it was Mr. Hands, then it was Tub Girl, then it was Dilotted.
You know what I'm saying?
That's how it goes.
Can you imagine trying to ask your parents about Tub Girl as a kid?
Or Lemon Party?
Holy shit.
I don't even know.
I don't even know how to describe that to the listener.
Well, Lemon Party is a bunch of old people, Evan, an orgy.
I'm not going to try to describe Tub Girl.
You don't need that in your head if you haven't already seen it.
If you have, then you just, the minute I said the words, even if you don't have a visual memory, a perfectly clear photo of it popped up in your head.
Like if you're driving, you just veered off the fucking road right now.
Yes, yes.
And we're sorry about that, but we apologize for it.
Legally, it's not our fault.
We are safe from legal liability.
Who was it?
What was it that made used to make web forums?
What was the PHP or something like that?
I forget the name of the underlying software.
Whatever.
Fuck it.
It doesn't matter.
Chapter two: after this, this delivery boy has decided to stay and talk to the avatar is your free will.
Do you believe in God?
The old man asked, as if we had known each other forever, but had somehow neglected to discuss that one topic.
Oh my god.
I'm sorry, but this is like everything.
It's like he saw the Matrix.
Yeah.
And he really only liked the scene where they're sitting on the leather couches.
And he was like, that whole, let's make that the whole book.
Yeah, it's also like, you know, this is, I'm actually, the way I'm doing it, it is more earned than the fucking way he wrote it because this is the first book in the series.
We know nothing about the avatar.
There's no, like, when you get that scene, exposition dumps are always kind of a dicey thing in fiction, right?
It's an easy to make that kind of like shitty writing.
Like, you have to be very careful with it.
And that's why we remember stuff like that scene in the Matrix because it's earned pretty well.
But like, you are, you are as hungry for Neo for answers to those questions as he is when we get to that point.
This is just like a we none of this is earned.
I don't care what this old man has to say.
He's done nothing to impress me.
He is not set up that he knows.
Again, even a slightly better version of this would have like there be a conflict that he's solved, maybe like the one that we get in the religion war.
And then, you know, we, but even then, I'm not that interested in this old man.
But either way, whatever.
I mean, so far, all that he has done is invite, yeah, is irritated.
Cost a young man his job.
Yeah, he's basically going to get this man fired all to do like a thing where he's like, oh, thanks for the package.
Here, I give it to you now.
And now he's trying to convince him that he's smart.
And it's, I don't know, it's like he's missing the whole part of the Matrix where there was like fucking 30 minutes of movie before that.
Yeah.
So he they start this very irritating conversation where the avatar asks, Do you believe in God?
And the delivery guy says, Yeah, I believe in a God.
Of course, there must be a God.
Not because he believes in a God, but because he thinks that he's an old man and he wants reassurance about the afterlife.
So the avatar then is like, do you think God is omnipotent?
And, you know, he has free will.
And the guy is and that people have free will.
And the guy's like, yeah, sure.
And then the avatar says the question that I don't know, people, most people ask themselves when they're 13.
If God knows what the future holds, then all our choices are already made, aren't they?
Free will must be an illusion.
He was clever, but I wasn't going to fall into that trap.
God lets us determine the future ourselves using our free will, I explained.
Then you believe God doesn't know the future.
I guess not, I admitted, but he must prefer not knowing.
I mean, that's not necessarily the case.
Like, again, I don't believe in an omniscient God, but if God is omniscient, he can let people make their own choices while also knowing the instant they make them where those choices go.
Those are not actually in conflict.
Right.
Like, I, for here's a good example of that.
If you watch a baby, as many of us have, touch a hot burner on a stove, you know, the baby's gonna hurt themselves, right?
But they are still exercising their free will and touching that burner.
That's right.
And God is letting it happen.
God is, that's the reason why my baby keeps burning herself.
Yeah.
I tell her, it's not me, it's God.
As I put her hand on the just kidding, everyone.
I do not abuse my baby.
Don't hurt a baby.
But I will say, I can't not, whenever I listen to these atheist arguments, because I was raised, don't hurt a baby, but no, I want to hear the but I'm here with it.
I'm saying if you are trying to make like an argument for the existence of God and someone's counter argument is like, well, God can't be both all-powerful and all-knowing and give us free will.
Like, well, yeah, free will doesn't like your free will is not impacted by the fact that God knows what you're going to do.
It doesn't mean you don't have free will.
It just means he knows what you're going to do.
Just like I know the kid reaching for the stove is about to touch it and get hurt.
Right.
I haven't, I'm not impacting his free will by the fact that I know where this ends, you know?
Also, trying to figure out like the fucking like intricacies of the rules of God is some nerd shit.
It's always nerd shit.
It's always nerd.
But this is like, I've had a lot of arguments with religious people over the years.
This is a bad one from an atheist point of view.
This does not make the point that you want it to make.
Yeah.
So, but this, this dude, the delivery man, just folds and is like, oh, I guess God can't know everything if people have free will.
And I believe that people have free will.
So the avatar asks, for whose benefit does God withhold his power to determine the future?
Well, it must be for his own benefit and ours too, I reasoned.
He wouldn't have to settle for less.
The old man pressed on.
Couldn't God just give humans the illusion of freed will?
We'd be just as happy if we had actual free will and God would retain his ability to see the future.
Isn't that a better solution for God than the one you suggested?
Why would God want to mislead us?
If God exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable.
No one knows why he grants free will or why he cares about human souls or why pain and suffering are necessary parts of life.
Actually, again, I hate that I'm in the deficient decision now of like defending Christianity, but like libraries have been written of guys.
Like, this is a huge part of apologetics is like the problem of like, you know, pain and evil and whatnot in the world.
And again, Scott, if you wanted to make the smart argument to this and you want to make this character seem smart, you could do 15 seconds of Googling to find like what did, you know, what did like C.S. Lewis say about the problem of evil, right?
You don't even have to go to like a religious scholar.
Find another fucking hack writer.
Sorry, guys, if you're C.S. Lewis fans.
I loved him too as a kid.
But find a C.S. Lewis argument on this, quote from that, and then your character seems smarter and you have something to bounce off of that's not a straw man, right?
I'm pretty sure that Dobert guy is not like a big reader of other guys.
He's one of those guys who I think is just like, why would I need to read when all the smartest things are already written in my brain?
If you were to tell him actually a massive amount of like Catholic literature over the course of the last thousand years has like been people positing answers to those questions, he would just get angry at you.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He would yell at you and then say, oh, I guess you're trying to be woke.
And then you would tell him turkey exists and his brain would catch on fire.
It would spin around so fast in his skull.
Once he learned about the existence of turkey, this guy is going to have a fucking struggle.
Oh, wow.
And here's if you're, if you're frustrated with me defending Christians, don't worry.
I'm about to get to defend brain surgeons.
So he starts talking about love.
And the delivery boy says, the one thing I know about God's motives is he must love us, right?
The avatar responds, love.
Do you mean love in the way you understand it as a human?
Well, not exactly, but basically the same thing.
I mean, love is love.
A brain surgeon would tell you that a specific part of the brain controls the ability to love.
If it's damaged, people are incapable of love, incapable of caring about others.
I don't.
I think a brain surgeon would say that the brain is pretty plastic and that people have suffered very traumatic brain injuries and retained their ability to love.
Also, sometimes their personality shift, but like, I don't know.
I don't think they'd phrase it that way if they were a good surgeon.
This is like a guy who literally knows absolutely nothing about the human brain, but it's just like, no, brain is exactly like computer.
You get rid of love program and then no more love.
It's like not how a brain works.
Well, it's also like, again, this is the dumb version of it because he just doesn't even look up like what science there is chemically on what goes on when we experience what we call love.
Again, the slightly smarter version of this is you like have some sort of little rant about how, well, the release of oxytocin in the brain is what causes what we call love.
And if you damage that, then like people can't like, and that's not entirely accurate either, but it's at least slightly smarter than just the region of the brain.
Yes.
Whatever.
Fuck you, Scott.
Google something.
This isn't, this isn't complete.
We're not talking about JR Tolkien writing a billion words of backstory in his fucking like Oxford office.
We're talking like, I'm talking about a region.
I should probably Google for the name of that region of the brain.
I want this guy to sound smart, right?
Let me, let me look this up.
Oh, it turns out.
Anyway, whatever.
There's no fucking way that he's doing any research for this book that he wrote in a conversation by himself, painting him as the smartest man in the world.
I mean, come on, let's be real.
You want to punch this up to be better?
We're talking 45 minutes of extra research.
Not a lot.
Do all Muslims believe the same thing?
Oh, there's actually differences.
But like, yeah.
No, but then you have to get into it and stuff.
It's just trying to propel a story forward and a story about smart guy who uses fart joke to kill God.
Smart guys, fart joke, kill God.
Good stuff.
So, yeah.
So isn't it arrogant to think that love is generated by our little in our little brains is the same thing an omnipotent being experiences?
If you were omnipotent, why would you limit yourself to something that could be reproduced by a little clump of neurons?
I shifted my opinion to better defend it.
We must feel something similar to God's type of love, but not the same way God feels it.
What does it mean to feel similar to the way God feels?
Is that like saying a pebble is similar to the sun because both are around?
Again, I don't want to be a pedant here, but there are different shapes of pebbles, Scott.
Pebbles are all over the map.
They're all over the map.
I've seen a lot.
I saw a rectangular prism pebble the other day, you know?
Come on, Scott Adams.
Cows with More Friends Than Him00:12:49
Sorry, I am now being a pedant, but I hate him.
He's irritating me.
So maybe God designed our brains to feel love the same way he feels it.
He could do that if he wanted to.
So you believe God wants things and he loves things similar to the way humans do.
Do you also believe God experiences anger and forgiveness?
That's part of the package, I said.
So God has a personality, according to you, and is similar to what humans experience.
I guess part of what's frustrating to me about this argument is that Scott repeatedly lets us know this delivery driver doesn't particularly believe what he's saying.
He's just giving the answers he thinks this guy wants to try to end the conversation, which means I have no investment in him being proved wrong, right?
We have not established this character.
We haven't established that he believes things in a certain way.
So like the fact that it is, he specifically notes like, I just said this because I thought it was the right thing to say.
I thought this would comfort him.
I thought he would stop talking.
That means like I don't again, like the slightly better version about this, if you want to do this whole religion plotline, have this avatar get fucking captured or something by a religious terrorist or have him be, you know, he's living in some sort of like dystopian world and he gets arrested by the religious police.
And he asked like if he, maybe if he could like convince, you want to do this Socratic dialogue.
I'm not saying this is a good book, but it's a better one.
You want to do this fucking Socratic dialogue.
Have him talk things out with this like, you know, religious extremist who's supposed to be torturing him over the course of a book and gradually change this guy's mind.
And then this guy, you know, he can write out how he influences everyone else to change things as opposed to like, well, this delivery driver has just told me he doesn't believe anything he's arguing.
I am not invested in him having his mind changed because he doesn't believe any of these things.
He's just like, yeah.
He thinks he's doing a fucking Dostoevsky here.
That's the thing.
He does think he's Dostoevsky.
He does.
He's doing a, it's like a fucking Dilbert version of Dostoevsky.
And it's Incredibly hard to watch or to hear you read because all I'm imagining is like a wife looking over at Scott Adams.
I don't know if he was married at this time.
I think he was, yeah, because he hadn't gone, he hadn't had his spasmic dysphonia or whatever it's called.
Yeah.
So, like, I mean, essentially just watching her Dilbert ass husband writing something that is a thousand times scarier to see as a wife than all work and no play makes jack a dog boys.
Like this is fucking I would much rather walk in on my spouse like designing a truck bomb than to hear like, I've decided to write a novel that's a Socratic dialogue that'll explain to everybody why religion's not real.
Like, just make a bomb, man.
Just make a bomb, honey.
I'll get some bottles and we'll do some Molotov cocktails.
That'll be a fun thing.
Just seeing that you've titled the word document God's Debris, I'm ready to die.
Let's just go out, you know?
Fuck it.
Yeah, we have not given, I think, sufficient attention to how fucking terrible of a title God's debris is.
Wait till you hear why that's the title.
So I'm moving us ahead quite a while to God's motivation, which is a few chapters ahead.
If you were God, the avatar said, what would you want?
I don't know.
I barely know what I want, much less what God wants.
Imagine that you are omnipotent.
You could do anything, create anything, be anything.
As soon as you decide you want something, it becomes reality.
I waited, knowing there was more.
He continued, does it make sense?
You don't need to do that.
Just give us the whole fucking line.
We don't need that.
Anyway, whatever.
Fuck you, Scott.
Fuck you.
Learn how to write.
He continued, does it make sense to think of God as wanting anything?
A God would have no emotions, no fears, no desires, no curiosity, no hunger.
Those are human shortcomings, not something that would be found in an omnipotent God.
What would then motivate God?
Maybe it's the challenge, the intellectual stimulation of creating things.
Omnipotence doesn't mean nothing is a, or means that nothing is a challenge.
And what could stimulate the mind of something, one who knows everything?
You make it sound almost boring to be God, but I guess you'll say boring is a human feeling.
Everything that motivates living creatures is based on some weakness or flaw.
Hunger motivates animals.
Lust motivates.
That tells us a lot that he's like, lust motivates is a flaw and a weakness.
Oh, Scott.
Oh, Scott.
No.
Like, his wife reads that and just like, oh, really?
Okay.
All right.
So that's why you won't fucking go down on me.
Look, obviously, there are some people, you know, not everyone's motivation is sexual.
But for people who are, lust is like one of the, you know, there's people can take it negative ways, but like being attracted to someone and falling for them is nice.
Most of us don't see that as like, ah, my weakness.
Yeah, yeah, no.
It's natural.
And, you know, if you want to be weird about it, serves a purpose.
But it's fucking mostly just like natural and fun.
Yeah.
It's fun.
It's great.
This is, it is like low-key.
Again, as much of an atheist as an atheist influencers, that's extremely Catholic, right?
Well, of course, when we're lustful, that that's a weakness.
Our weak human body's making us hard.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Very Catholic, Scott.
He's clearly Catholic.
He's just like an atheist, though.
He's like, no, I'm a guy who doesn't believe in God who still punches his boner every time he wakes up with one.
Fear and pain motivate animals.
And again, that's also fun.
Like I raise animals and like a lot of my, you know, chickens are not smart animals, but it's not just fear and pain.
For example, they are capable of taking like comfort in each other's presence and like the warmth that they generate.
You certainly see that with animals like goats and with like sheep.
You know, they are, there's a degree of like tenderness that they have towards their young.
They play like other animals play.
It's been proven, in fact, that like cows, they produce more milk.
They're generally healthier when they have not just other cows, but specific, like cows pick out other cows that they bond with.
Like it's described in their, yeah, it's like they're friends.
Like that is how it's described in like the literature studying this, that like cows just kind of have buds.
And I think a lot of animals actually do that sort of thing.
Just like how basically every animal actually likes getting pet, like many different animals, surprising kinds of them, if they get to experience getting scritched behind the ears, are like, this is pretty dope.
That's not fear and pain.
That's just like comfort.
Like it's nice.
It feels good.
I don't know.
I'm very much enjoying the idea that like, don't tell Scott this because much like turkey, it will explode his fucking mind when he finds out that there are cows with more friends than him.
Yeah.
Oh, way more friends.
And by the way, having lived with cows for a chunk of my youth, I would much rather cows are a much nobler creature than the Scott Adams.
Oh, 100%.
But yeah, someone's going to show Scott that video of like a coyote and a badger hunting.
And he's, his, his, again, his brain is going to spin out of his head.
Dude, what if all that would have like stopped this degeneration of his brain was like someone sends him some videos of animal best friends?
Like he could have, we could have stopped, you know, Dilbert from turning into the guy he did.
Yeah.
So it's tragic.
If I had a time machine, I'd go back in time.
I wouldn't kill Hitler.
I would show him a duck being a best friend with a pig.
Yeah, a duck and a pig hanging out.
Yeah.
Or like, yeah, one of those birds that like chills out on like the back of a crocodile's neck.
Right.
Yeah.
Cleans it off.
Like, no, it's not just fear and pain.
Sometimes you're motivated by another thing that makes you feel good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, it's what, cause it's also like, I don't know, I do actually reject what Scott is kind of incompetently doing, the idea that like human beings and animals have like fundamentally wildly different motivations.
Right.
Like there's, there's every now and then you get some asshole on like Twitter who will be like, oh, your cat and your dog don't love you.
They just know that you provide like shelter and comfort and security.
And it's like, why do you think we like each other?
Yeah, exactly.
As if like, that's not a profound thing, taking comfort and feeling secure in the presence of another.
Yes.
Yeah.
Anyone could offer that to anyone, just willy-nilly.
Just little robots making, you know, the world bearable through their presence.
And like, there's not.
Fuck you for just being like, oh, you know what?
The cat relationship is very transactional.
Like, shut the fuck up.
Yeah.
Jonah Hill ass weaponizing therapy talk.
Yeah, I fucking hate all these because again, I am, I am not a believer that human beings and animals are experiencing fundamentally different things.
We just have words and animals have, you know, I don't know.
Whatever Echo the Dolphin is doing in that Echo the Dolphin video game.
Anyway, whatever.
We trudge on.
So what motivates God?
Asks the delivery boy.
Do you have an answer to that question or are you just yanking my chain?
I can conceive of only one challenge for an omnipotent being.
The challenge of destroying himself.
Shit.
You think God would want again, potentially an idea you can have some fun with in a sci-fi book, right?
The idea that like, yeah, but also the way to make that fun is not like, spoiler, God's debris is God murders himself at some point in the past.
And like now we're, we're, we're all living in like the shattered remnants of God trying to reconstruct himself, right?
That's what intelligence is.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think a more interesting version of that is like you actually written by the Dilbert guy.
Is that what you're saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not written by the Dilbert guy.
I don't know.
You can do a lot with, you could do a lot with the idea of like a god who maybe is playing different religions off of each other in order to like somehow kill himself.
Like trying to fit in like people uncover that mystery.
And you've got to, I don't know.
There's a fun, like vaguely kind of fucking Gnostic work of fiction that you can work out of that.
Where credit is due.
Every, I guess on average, it sounds like 300 pages that Scott Adams writes, he writes one half good idea that he uses terribly.
He has a guy who has, you know, in the last book, it was a general who had a guy following around with a gun to kill him if he ever gets too powerful.
And in this one, it's a fucking, I don't know, a suicidal god who kills himself.
Scott Adams is pretty good at coming up with half of a good idea.
Like if he was a TV pitch man, you know, he'd be like, so this, so this therapist moves to Seattle, you know, from his, from his old home on the East Coast.
And he, let me tell you, this guy hates the Irish.
You think you don't like the Irish boy, Haddie?
He's made it away.
Cut out everything he said after therapist moves to Seattle.
We got a banger.
Adams, you did it again.
Well, you left out the whole thing where the Irishman's got a drunkenness.
He's got an alcoholic's nose.
He's got a drunk nose.
You're going to cut the whole.
That's the whole point.
Oh, I do want to see Scott Adams Frasier.
Me too.
It is funny because like Frasier is basically a parody of the kind of guy Scott Adams is.
But back in the, yeah, yeah.
Very funny.
Good stuff.
All right.
Anyway.
David Angel.
And yeah, and R.I.P. Kelsey Grammar, who died right after that show and has gone on to do nothing else.
Yeah.
Well, you know, he played Beast.
He did play Beast.
That was actually really, I always thought was good cast.
I thought it was a great choice.
I was like, yeah, it's a good beast.
Yeah, it's a good beast.
Although, having seen the Hellboy movies too, I kind of want to see David Hyde Pierce's Beast.
I know he didn't wind up being the, but he's, I think he could have done it.
I think he would have been great.
He would have crushed it.
I love me.
That's why I'm not excited about the trade, the Frasier reboot is that like...
What?
There's a Frasier reboot?
Yeah, they're doing a reboot.
He's back in Chicago, I think it is, or not Chicago.
Where the fuck he came from?
I think he's back in Chicago.
Oh, he's in Seattle is where he's at.
Seattle's where he's at, but when the Frasier series ended, he was moving to Chicago, I think.
And I think this new one's supposed to start with him leaving Seattle back for Boston for like the next.
Where's the cheers bar?
It's in Boston.
Like, presumably, we might see it.
Okay.
I think they did film something part of the episode there, although maybe I'm getting that wrong.
But like, my frustration with the show idea is that like, I think, because this is all Kelsey Grammar's baby, it's been confirmed that like David Hyde Pierce isn't back.
You know, it's him and a new cast of characters.
And I think they've like convinced themselves that, well, we all, the core of the show is always Frasier.
And, you know, we can always have, we can just move him to his like, no, Frasier was a fun side character in Frasier.
We were there because of Martin and Niles.
The Frasier Cast Changes Again00:03:54
Like that is, that is what brought our asses into the scene.
To be honest, Eddie.
And Eddie, yeah.
Great dog actor.
Man, that, that's also, look up fucking, what's his name?
The guy, the Frasier actor.
He gets so angry when people call the dog an actor because he's like, it's just memorized a series of tricks.
Oh, please.
Like, that's not what acting is.
Let's be real.
Acting is memorizing a series of tricks.
Cry, look hot.
I get it.
Same thing.
Speaking of a series of tricks, it's time for some ads.
Ooh, I love ads.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So do I. There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends.
Oh my god, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
You related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Shari, stay with me each night, each morning.
Say you love me.
You know I.
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.
Just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ah, we're back.
We're thinking about how disappointing the Fraser reboot's gonna be.
Gonna be bad.
Thinking Like a Human Not God00:14:08
Yeah.
Doesn't have any of our favorite characters.
And in fact, a few of them are no longer with us.
Scott is promising in this terrible book about God to like wrinkle our brains and like spin them around pleasantly.
Yeah.
Whereas the biggest shock to my mind, the thing that like most like shook my fundamental belief about reality was hearing that Martin from Frasier was played by a British man.
What?
Yeah.
Oh man.
Yeah.
That accent is all like acting.
Not one break.
There's not a second in that show where you don't believe he's a fucking street smart cop from the fucking working class Seattle neighborhood.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
That's crazy.
Oh my God.
It's so cool.
British people are really good at doing the accent.
I really, it's, we just, yeah.
I can't do that.
It's like in reverse.
It wouldn't work.
I could never be on Peaky Blinders, you know?
No, no, no, no, nor could I Lowry voice.
Oh, yeah.
I'm Huluri.
I saw him.
That's what that show's about.
He's a very big doctor.
Boy, I bet that we probably lost about a third of the audience with that little spree of accent work.
Yeah.
So he shows up just shaking her head.
Livid, furious.
Let's continue.
Let's finish this last bit of Scottish.
We gotta finish.
We gotta finish.
Through flawless logic that we're all totally convinced of.
Scott has gotten us to believe that the only reasonable thing for God to want to do is commit suicide.
You think God would want to commit suicide?
I asked.
I'm not saying he wants anything.
I'm saying it's the only challenge.
I think that God would prefer to exist than not to exist.
That's thinking like a human, not like a God.
You have a fear.
So like, I'm not trying to say what God thinks, but you're thinking like a human, not like a god.
And I know how a god would think.
You have a fear of death, so you assume God would share your preference, but God would have no fears.
Existing would be a choice, and there would be no pain of death, nor feelings of guilt or remorse or loss.
Those are human feelings, not God feelings.
God could simply choose to discontinue existence.
There's a logical problem here, according to your way of thinking, I said.
If God knows the future, he already knows if he will choose to end his existence, and he knows how he will succeed at it.
So there's no challenge there either.
Your thinking is getting clearer.
Yes, he will know the future of his own existence under normal conditions, but would his omnipotence include knowing what happens after he loses his omnipotence?
Or would his knowledge?
This is again all like, I'm high with my fucking dealer and he won't stop talking to me.
I'm getting anxiety because I'm like, bro, you're definitely fired.
You're definitely fired.
Yeah, no, you're losing.
It's okay.
He becomes the avatar.
That's what this avatar is doing is he's pilling this guy to make him avatar.
I'm just explaining that to your fucking manager.
Oh, it's okay.
I was late because I became the avatar.
I became the embodiment of all human knowledge and potential.
Like, I'm sorry I missed my last dozen deliveries, brah.
Yeah, sorry about that.
God shot himself real fucked up.
Yeah, yeah.
Hey, did you hear the thing where God did suicides to himself?
God and Hitler both did a suicide.
Hitler, who is not that bad in this version of the future, because another guy did an even worse genocide of the Jews.
That's right.
Hitler's the number two in terms of genocides of Jewish people in this book.
That's the way that Scott likes it.
That's the way Scott likes it.
Take some of this weight off of Hitler's shoulders for a second.
You know, this guy, I think we've been misjudging him a little bit.
Let's let him rest in peace.
I'm going to make a worse Hitler and he's Muslim.
Yeah, he's Muslim.
Which kind of Muslim?
All of them.
All of them.
But, you know, fucking, I don't care if they're the shit one or the sun one.
The point is they all worship the wrong God.
Which is the dead God committed suicide.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm going to skip ahead to the end here.
The chapter called Fifth Level.
Who are you? I asked.
I didn't know how to phrase the question politely.
The old man certainly wasn't normal.
I'm an avatar.
Is that some sort of title?
I thought it was your name.
This man has never encountered the word avatar in his life.
That's the first time I've heard.
Yeah, I never watched that cartoon or this is where I learned the word avatar from when I was 11.
Played avatar or played Eldar in third edition Warhammer 40,000.
Anyway, I learned it from, you know, mess forums where, you know, you had a fucking forum avatar, right?
Yeah, and so you have an avatar.
Common word.
Yeah.
Excuse me for asking this, the delivery guy asks.
I don't really know how to phrase it, so I'm just going to come out and say it.
You want to know if I'm human?
Yeah, I apologize because of all of his brilliance.
He can't possibly be a mortal man.
I apologize if that sounds silly.
It's just that the old man waved off the end of my sentence.
I understand.
Yes, I am human.
I'm a fifth level human, an avatar.
Fifth level.
He doesn't even doesn't even get another feet yet.
Jesus Christ.
You can't even do two attacks if he's like a melee class.
I know, dude.
This guy's barely got any XP and he thinks he's a fucking genius.
What bullshit.
Bullshit, loser.
Yeah.
You can't even catch, like, I guess actually, if you're a wizard in 3.5, you can cast Fireball now.
So that is, that is when things start to get fun.
Fifth level is a wizard.
So there you go.
You're a little too nerdy for me there, buddy, but you know, I've seen a vagina before.
I find myself.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
It is very funny that we've turned around from like D ⁇ D being a thing that like people shoved me into lockers when they noticed my D ⁇ D books in middle school to like people getting laid dropping D ⁇ D knowledge these days.
Oh, I can DM a campaign one.
Yeah.
Amazing.
I've decided to stick with the bullying thing now because now it feels like I'm bullying the mainstream culture.
I'm even ahead of you.
I'm bullying people for like in comic books.
Yes.
Like I see somebody like an Iron Man and I just shove them.
And a lot of times that guy is 300 pounds of solid muscle.
And let me tell you, I get the shit kicked out.
Yeah, you lose 10 times out of 10.
But the point is, is you stood up to the big corporations.
A lot of huge dudes who are in the comics and better at fighting than me, actually.
It's become a problem.
Yeah, it sucks that they all teamed up with like the MMA guys.
And so they're all fucking doing keto and lifting and reading Iron Man.
And I'm sitting here like a lump just going like, fuck you.
Just thinking of new ways to call them dorks.
Yeah.
I bet you like it when people combine three colors in a variety of ways to make a panoply of color in a print medium.
Huh, you nerd.
Yeah.
Got him.
So he's a fifth level avatar.
People exist at different levels of awareness.
An avatar is one who lives at the fifth level.
Is awareness like intelligence?
I asked.
No.
Intelligence is a measure of how well you function within your level of awareness.
Your intelligence will stay about the same over your life.
Awareness is entirely indifferent from intelligence.
Awareness involves recognizing your delusions for what they are.
Most people's awareness will advance one or two levels in their lifetime.
What does it mean to recognize your delusions?
When you were a child, did your parents tell you that Santa Claus brought presents home on Christmas Day?
Yeah, I said, I believed in Santa until kindergarten when the other kids started talking.
Then I realized Santa couldn't get to all those homes in one night.
Your intelligence did not change from the moment you realized that Santa Claus was a harmless fantasy.
Your math and verbal skills stayed the same, but your awareness increased.
You were suddenly aware that stories from credible sources, in this case, your parents, could be completely made up.
And from the moment of that realization, you could never see the world the same way because your reality had changed.
I guess it did.
And in school, did you learn that the Native Americans and pilgrims go, oh boy, Scott, I don't want you diving into it.
Yeah, but he does.
He does, to be fair.
He's like, yeah, this was made up.
You know, you learn that a bunch of your history is made up.
Awareness is about unlearning.
It's the recognition that you don't know as much as you thought you did.
He described what he called the five levels of awareness and said that all humans experience the first level of awareness at birth.
That's when you become aware that you exist.
In the second level of awareness, you understand that other people exist.
You believe that most of what you were told by authority figures.
You accept the belief system in which you were raised.
Also, Scott doesn't really get little kids here because it's a little bit messier than that because kids definitely believe you at some point.
But also little kids have a period where like the only thing they want to say is no and like reject everything you tell them.
Like that's why touching a hot burner is kind of inevitable.
Every kid will have some version of that experience, pretty much.
It's not always a burner, but like because you don't listen to what the adults tell you because that's part of anyway, whatever.
Dude, this is a full-grown man writing.
This is a full-grown man.
Full grown.
I'm skipping the other levels.
The fifth level of awareness is the, okay, the fourth level of awareness is skepticism.
So, all right, I guess I should continue.
The third level of awareness is that like human beings are wrong sometimes, but you can still believe in God.
The fourth level is when you become an atheist on the internet and you believe that the scientific method is the best measure of what's true and that you have a good working grasp of truth thanks to science and your senses.
You are arrogant when it comes to dealing with people in levels one and two and three.
That also says a lot because like it's certainly true that like little kids, babies and stuff, are aware, unaware of things that we're aware of.
Like the idea of like object permanence and stuff, right?
This is very basic shit.
But I don't, I'm not like arrogant about them.
I think it's, I think it's amazing, actually.
I got to watch the other day, I got to have this amazing moment where like there's this little baby that is effectively a roommate of mine occasionally.
And, you know, like on like a floor mat for doing yoga, I have these ones that like you can fit a bunch of them together, like puzzle pieces.
So they have these little ends that you can put on them that are shaped like zippers, like little like foam zippers three or four feet long.
Right.
And this baby that I hang out with noticed that the shape of the zipper was kind of similar to the silhouette of a train.
And the baby started making choo choo sounds and I'd never seen the baby exhibit sort of a capability of abstract thought before.
I was like watching this moment in development happen.
I was not just like, you fucking moron.
Yeah.
Instead of like, I was not filled with arrogance, like, look at this dumb baby.
I was like, wow, there's like this sense of wonder, of almost religious awe at like watching a brain like change over.
Like it's beautiful, actually.
I think that's why people like being parrots, you know?
No, everyone's just like, look at these shitty ass kids.
They don't know fuck.
Yeah.
Oh, great.
I have a fucking idiot.
Did you see this?
He thinks a zipper is a train.
Yeah.
Doesn't even know how to cook an omelet.
Yeah.
Drink your bottle, baby.
Anyway, so the fourth level is skepticism.
The fifth level of awareness is the avatar.
The avatar understands that the mind is an illusion generator.
Yeah.
Yes.
I love he's straight up just like fourth level is atheist because why?
Because that's one away from super genius.
Yeah.
That's one away.
Yeah.
Once atheist, you are only one level away from being so smart that you can talk to animals.
And yeah, the avatar recognizes science as just another belief system, yada, yada, yada.
Anyway, this is all like second grade philosophy shit.
That's everything Scott Adams believes about the universe, Matt Leed.
How you feeling?
I mean, honestly, I'm feeling kind of like amazed and embarrassed for him.
Like, cause part of me is realized like halfway while you were describing the levels.
I was like, oh, fuck.
He was attempting an L. Ron Hubbard thing.
Like he thought for a second it might be possible that he could do a Hubbard-esque grift.
I think he was.
He was trying to make his own Scientology.
That's what he's doing.
And I was just thinking to myself, like, fuck that.
It's got to be, it's got to be really embarrassing to like begin the process of writing your own Dianetics, but then realize you're too fucking stupid to do it.
So instead, you invent a guy, you make it fiction, and you invent a guy who's the, you label the smartest guy in the world.
And then he says all the things that you thought of as your religion.
Like that is, I mean, you know, it's, it's great writing.
It's great writing.
It's a compelling story.
Does it end with him eventually?
Yeah, he becomes the avatar.
The avatar disappears, whatever.
This guy's the new avatar.
Yada, yada, yada.
Doesn't end with the knowledge.
Avatar convincing the delivery guy to suck his dick because that's kind of what I would use it for.
This would be one of my favorite books if, like, it was the reveal at the end was that he was just trying to fuck this delivery boy.
And now you get to hit you're a fourth level now after our Socratic dialogue, but to hit fifth.
Gotta suck my dick.
You gotta suck my dick.
Honestly, if it had gone that level, I would have been like, dude, maybe this is the first time.
This is the best novel.
This is like, yeah, he's fucking Dostoevsky up in here of a modern era.
Absolutely.
So why would he choose this way of doing the story?
You might as well have started off with like a guy comes over to fix the cable or clean the pool.
Like you're starting it off on a porno premise.
You're not going to end it.
That would be so funny.
And the next, and then it's 30 pages of hardcore pornography.
That would be great.
He is like walking you through like how when this when the avatar busts in this delivery boy's mouth, he gets that first taste of salt.
That's the first experience.
And it takes him back to being a child seeing the coast for the first time.
The spray of the ocean in his face.
Transported through time by the taste of the avatars.
Come.
Matt, you have anything to plug?
Oh, dude.
You know, if you like cum, you're going to love pod yourself a gun, which is Sopranos and the Wire Rewatch podcast.
We've gotten through all of the Sopranos, and now we're at season three of The Wire.
Meet Us October 17th00:03:30
So check it out.
By the time you hear this, we may be starting season four, which is the best season.
Yeah, and you know, fucking follow me on Instagram at Matt Lieb Jokes.
All right.
I almost forgot.
If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or any of the surrounding areas, on Tuesday, October 17th at 8 p.m. specifically, my wife Francesca Fiorentini and I are going to be headlining the San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club.
So yeah, please come out to that.
It is a Tuesday at 8 p.m., October 17th.
Borrett Voice My Wife and I are going to be co-headlining.
There's going to be some other great comedians coming out.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
You can get your tickets at punchlinecomedyclub.com.
And yeah, October 17th, please come out.
It's going to be so good.
I swear to God.
I mean, at the very least, you're going to get to see my wife and I kiss like live on stage.
It's a sex show.
Anyways, come out to that.
Follow Matt Lieb on the Gram.
Follow me on the Graham.
Yeah.
And the next time you see a person who believes a religion, tell them a fart joke.
Oh, fart joke.
And then he'll end war.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Behind the Bastards is a production of CoolZone Media.
For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Greg Gillespie and Michael Ranchini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trapped.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired, City Hall building.
How did this ever happen in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
They screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
A tragedy that's now forgotten.
And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.