Flagrant - Andrew Schulz & Akaash Singh - Did Alex Jones Kill Free Speech?
Aired: 2020-10-30
Duration: 23:43


=== Kanye's Credibility and Truth (09:16) ===

[00:00:00]  What up people Sheltie here and you guys are about to listen to a clip from our weekly Patreon episode if you want to sign up to our Patreon support the flagrancy support what we are doing completely uncensored flagrant content you go to patreon.com slash flagrant2 with no more interruptions.
[00:00:16]  Here is the exclusive clip Okay, so Alex Jones was on Joe Rogan with the great Tim Dylan.
[00:00:28]  Yes.
[00:00:28]  Our buddy Tim.
[00:00:29]  Shout out to Tim.
[00:00:30]  And Alex Jones is by far the most entertaining person to listen to in modern society, in my opinion.
[00:00:42]  This guy is mind-bogglingly entertaining.
[00:00:46]  Everything from the voice.
[00:00:47]  He's like the Tasmanian devil, right?
[00:00:50]  Right.
[00:00:50]  And everything he says out of his mouth, it sounds like a complete lie.
[00:00:54]  And then it's also kind of true.
[00:00:56]  And you want it to be true.
[00:00:58]  I literally, I'm glad that Joe fact-checked him.
[00:01:01]  I'm glad because he's so easy to discredit when he gets like one little thing wrong.
[00:01:06]  You could discredit everything that he's possibly said.
[00:01:08]  So I'm glad that Joe's fact-checking because it actually adds more credibility to what Alex Jones was talking about.
[00:01:12]  That's what Joe was trying to tell him for hours.
[00:01:14]  I know, he didn't really get it.
[00:01:15]  That being said, I really would, I really wish that there was no fact-checking as well because it'd be great to just see him meander on and just like just go on that tangent and just run with it, man.
[00:01:27]  I want to know how crazy it gets.
[00:01:29]  Let me go into your brain.
[00:01:30]  Let me go down that rabbit hole.
[00:01:31]  Go to the UFOs.
[00:01:33]  Go to the different portals to different worlds.
[00:01:34]  And universities.
[00:01:36]  White Kanye.
[00:01:37]  Yeah.
[00:01:38]  Isn't that exactly what White Kanye would do?
[00:01:41]  Conspiracy theories.
[00:01:42]  And less successful.
[00:01:45]  Like, okay, I don't understand it.
[00:01:48]  I've never seen Alex Jones before.
[00:01:49]  I never watched any.
[00:01:50]  I've never heard him speak.
[00:01:52]  I hear you guys talk about him.
[00:01:54]  I don't get the appeal.
[00:01:55]  So that looked like we were just watching a crazy person that's on the side of the street, just blabbling, all crazy shit.
[00:02:03]  Every once in a while, he'll hit something that's like sort of kind of right, but it's still like, it's still like clickbaity right.
[00:02:08]  And to try to assist Al's point, what he was saying with Kanye is Kanye's so successful, I kind of have to listen.
[00:02:13]  Alex Jones isn't that successful.
[00:02:14]  So he's like, no, he was wildly successful, baby.
[00:02:16]  Like Alex Jones was doing.
[00:02:17]  He wasn't Kanye successful.
[00:02:18]  Or Kanye's a billionaire.
[00:02:20]  Allegedly.
[00:02:21]  Allegedly.
[00:02:22]  But sure, sure.
[00:02:22]  But Alex Jones was killing it.
[00:02:23]  Like, he was doing really well.
[00:02:24]  He had his own network.
[00:02:25]  I mean, he was completely independent.
[00:02:26]  I mean, and he was in a lot of ways, like pushing forward a lot of these news stories that right now we just assume are all true.
[00:02:33]  And in the beginning, he was, he's the Epstein guy.
[00:02:35]  He was talking about the island years ago.
[00:02:37]  Nobody was saying anything.
[00:02:38]  All of us just accept this right now, right?
[00:02:40]  We all just sit here and like, of course, Epstein, how could this happen?
[00:02:42]  He was screaming about that for years.
[00:02:44]  And then like a fucking idiot, he's saying that like Sandy Hook is a hoax.
[00:02:47]  So we're like, oh, he's the Sandy Hook hoax guy instead of, oh, he's the guy who's talking about elites banging kids.
[00:02:52]  Yeah, his appeal was back in the early days.
[00:02:54]  He was like, I think a little bit more leveled.
[00:02:56]  Like I'm talking like 2006, 2007.
[00:02:59]  Like he starts Info Wars and like has like a little bit more credibility.
[00:03:02]  He's just doing like conspiracy radio, like trying to expose the truth, quote unquote.
[00:03:05]  And then slowly kind of devolves into like this caricature of himself and gets like more and more like enraged and like starts going off on these more wild tangents.
[00:03:13]  But I think in the early days, he was like the source for conspiracy news and all these like early conspiracy theorists, people on the internet were like, oh, this is the guy.
[00:03:20]  It's like 2010, he's putting out these YouTube videos and people are like, oh, wow, this is awesome.
[00:03:23]  And he's the only one talking about it.
[00:03:25]  And so he's the only one in that space and people are fascinated by it.
[00:03:29]  It's also happening at a time where like we're able to get our own information and there's nothing more interesting than a conspiracy that seems like it could be true, especially when it's about certain people that we already distrust or don't like, right?
[00:03:42]  It's the ultimate confirmation bias.
[00:03:43]  We're like, oh, people in politics are shady and they do fucked up things.
[00:03:48]  And oh, these rich billionaires are shady as well and they do fucked up things.
[00:03:52]  Tell me why.
[00:03:53]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:03:54]  Like if we are, what is that saying that we always say?
[00:03:56]  It's like, if you got to see it to believe it, we often say you got to believe it to see it.
[00:04:01]  So he's ultimate confirmation bias for those who've like lost faith in institutions.
[00:04:04]  Yeah.
[00:04:05]  Right.
[00:04:05]  And he's coming out here and he's doing it.
[00:04:07]  He's got this great voice and he's saying these like crazy salacious stories and he says them in the craziest way.
[00:04:11]  The frogs are gay or whatever.
[00:04:13]  Right.
[00:04:13]  But here's the thing.
[00:04:14]  The frogs aren't gay, but there's so much estrogen or whatever in the water in like Florida, I think it was, that the frogs were actually trans.
[00:04:22]  Yeah, so it became like hermaphroditic.
[00:04:24]  They were hermaphroditic.
[00:04:25]  Basically, they're coming out with male and female sexual organs.
[00:04:28]  So he gets it wrong with gay, but he is right about what's happening to these.
[00:04:32]  But he also asserts like a motive to a group of people that is not going to confirm.
[00:04:35]  So they are trying to make the point.
[00:04:38]  Where it's like, oh, it's just a byproduct of like not recycling food and estrogen and all that shit.
[00:04:43]  So it's a tricky, it's a tricky situation and he's very easy to discredit, but he happens to be right about certain things and major things.
[00:04:51]  Now, the interesting conversation that we can have about this is, is our government and the people in power so fucking corrupt and disgusting in their regular practices that this guy can throw shit at a wall and enough of it sticks where he has some credibility with certain people.
[00:05:13]  Donish, my homie Donish Magbu had a great point where he said that's somebody who's like, you know, he's crazy, but he's making some points.
[00:05:20]  He starts laughing.
[00:05:20]  He goes, I love that that's where the world is.
[00:05:22]  He's crazy, but he's making some points is enough.
[00:05:25]  And he goes, now it's news is just horoscopes.
[00:05:28]  They get a couple of things that are right.
[00:05:30]  And you're like, oh, that's the truth.
[00:05:32]  That's my truth now.
[00:05:32]  Confirmation.
[00:05:34]  Yeah.
[00:05:34]  And I think in 2006, he probably could do a lot of his own research, whatever.
[00:05:38]  But then when you become famous for being a conspiracy theorist, he just grabs every conspiracy theory.
[00:05:42]  And that's why his knowledge on it is half baked because he's just grabbing a hundred things.
[00:05:46]  And some conspiracies are true.
[00:05:48]  So a couple will stick.
[00:05:50]  He's not the guy that knows, though.
[00:05:51]  He just fucking grabs as many theories as he can and throws them all in.
[00:05:54]  And that's where it's.
[00:05:54]  And what was really interesting about that is that you only need one conspiracy to stick for the people that want to believe you to justify you.
[00:06:03]  And you only need one conspiracy to be wrong for the people that want to discredit you to discredit you.
[00:06:08]  So it's like the same amount of information justifies you and discredits you.
[00:06:12]  So automatically, you're going to be this polarizing figure.
[00:06:14]  Yeah.
[00:06:15]  Right.
[00:06:16]  It's tricky.
[00:06:16]  It's like, do you have to be 100% right about everything in order for us to trust you?
[00:06:19]  The news isn't 100% right about everything, but we kind of trust the news.
[00:06:22]  Well, that's kind of falling apart, but there was a time where we did.
[00:06:25]  It's like, I don't know.
[00:06:27]  When you seem to be, when you become the person that is like exposing, and I'm not like Alex Joe's fan, I've never watched a full episode of his show.
[00:06:34]  I just see clips and I think he's just an absurdly entertaining guy because he's saying all these things that are absolutely probably bullshit, but there might be shreds of truth in them.
[00:06:43]  But when you see the state of things where this guy happened to be right about some major events, you got to give him a little tiny bit of credibility, no?
[00:06:51]  No.
[00:06:52]  Here's the thing, though, is that he is asserting like pieces of fact and then also drawing a narrative and a motivation around it.
[00:06:57]  And it's explain what that is.
[00:06:59]  So he's saying, oh, the elites and Jeffrey Epstein are on this island in order to abuse children for Satan, blah, blah, blah.
[00:07:06]  He'll put that out there as like his theory.
[00:07:08]  I don't know if that's an exact thing.
[00:07:09]  Look it up.
[00:07:09]  Look at something like that.
[00:07:11]  Look it up.
[00:07:11]  Yeah.
[00:07:11]  He has a temple where he's sacrificing babies and he's abusing kids, blah, blah, blah.
[00:07:14]  And then it turns out that Epstein is abusing kids on an island.
[00:07:17]  And then that's the thing everyone accepts.
[00:07:18]  But he has all these other like causal sort of implications that are not proven.
[00:07:22]  So this is important to know.
[00:07:24]  And I think this is where he loses most of us, right?
[00:07:26]  Is when you add that narrative.
[00:07:29]  He adds an intention.
[00:07:30]  Yes.
[00:07:30]  Where we can't, we know the fact and the fact might be right, but you assign this intention to it.
[00:07:34]  And now you've coupled those and people who are like, oh, the fact is true, a lot of them are like, oh, the intention must also be true.
[00:07:39]  Exactly.
[00:07:40]  And that's what's dangerous.
[00:07:40]  Because he asserts both as true.
[00:07:41]  Correct.
[00:07:42]  And the attention and the intention and the group that he attaches them to are all are both maybe they're definitely fabrications of his imagination.
[00:07:54]  Maybe they're true, but it's really hard to prove.
[00:07:56]  But when you say they're in a satanic cult, how do we prove that they're in a satanic cult?
[00:08:00]  Yes, they're fucking these kids.
[00:08:02]  We know that they're fucking these kids.
[00:08:03]  But when you go, they're in a satanic cut run by globalists and they're trying to do those things.
[00:08:07]  It's like, where is the proof of that?
[00:08:08]  Now you lose us.
[00:08:09]  Because he just has to up the dopamine for up the morphine, whatever they're saying.
[00:08:13]  No, it's fine.
[00:08:13]  That's good.
[00:08:14]  Like, I can't just give them the same truth shit that I gave them before.
[00:08:18]  Now I'm the conspiracy theorist guy.
[00:08:19]  So now, okay, there's estrogen in the water.
[00:08:22]  Oh, they're doing that to make us all gay or whatever.
[00:08:24]  Yeah.
[00:08:24]  Like, I have to.
[00:08:25]  So those people keep getting that dopamine rush of, oh, this is my guy.
[00:08:28]  I get a rush list.
[00:08:30]  So I have a few questions because I'm really coming at this from an outsider.
[00:08:33]  Yep.
[00:08:33]  Is he playing a character?
[00:08:36]  No, but I think he's doing the same thing that I think he's leaning into what works.
[00:08:41]  But I think he's doing the same thing that what is the guy's name?
[00:08:47]  Hannity did, like a lot of Fox News guys did.
[00:08:49]  I mean, Jon Stewart also did it, where when he gets in trouble, he's like, oh, we're not really the news.
[00:08:54]  This is entertainment.
[00:08:55]  So he does use that.
[00:08:57]  Yeah, but everybody in news does that when they get something wrong.
[00:08:59]  They go, we're just entertainers.
[00:09:01]  Hannity, there was a big lawsuit against him.
[00:09:02]  He said, it's not really a news entertainment.
[00:09:04]  John Stewart is like, I'm a comedian.
[00:09:05]  Alex Jones was sued and said, basically, same thing.
[00:09:07]  I'm a performance artist.
[00:09:08]  I'm a performance artist.
[00:09:09]  But maybe not him, but his lawyer.
[00:09:10]  So he doesn't.
[00:09:11]  I don't know if he believes that about himself, but when you get sued, you're like, oh, I'm performing.

=== Surfshark Access to QAnon (02:47) ===

[00:09:16]  Okay.
[00:09:16]  And so now the next thing is when you have intent behind conspiracy, isn't, and I'm not against, I mean, I'm for free speech, but isn't that dangerous?
[00:09:27]  It's dangerous.
[00:09:28]  It can be.
[00:09:29]  Like, if you convince enough people that these people are Satan, like, hey, let's go out and kill Satan.
[00:09:35]  I mean, that's what happened with Comet Ping Pong, right?
[00:09:38]  That Pizzagate thing.
[00:09:39]  Yeah.
[00:09:39]  You know, the guy stormed the pizza place with an Air 15.
[00:09:42]  He was looking for a pedfile dungeon, right?
[00:09:43]  So the tricky thing with that is when you digest enough of this, like QAnon stuff, you digest enough these conspiracy theories that have intent, that have that narrative attached to it, you start to go, if I'm not doing anything, I'm complicit with this evil that is existing in my community that's taking these fucking children.
[00:10:01]  I have daughters.
[00:10:02]  I can't let this happen to my daughters.
[00:10:03]  I'll go out there and do it.
[00:10:04]  When instead, if they're isolated events, it's easier for the rest of us to live with it.
[00:10:08]  All right, guys, we got to take a break for a second because we need to make sure you're getting the most of the internet.
[00:10:12]  It's very simple.
[00:10:13]  There's a lot of internet out there, and you're not able to access it because you do not have a VPN.
[00:10:18]  Now, what is a VPN?
[00:10:19]  There's fancy ways to describe it, but that's not how I'm going to describe it.
[00:10:22]  It gives you access to everything the internet has to offer.
[00:10:25]  You ever click to watch a video and the video goes, oh, this is not allowed at your location?
[00:10:29]  That's because you don't have access to that part of the internet.
[00:10:32]  You use a VPN and specifically Surfshark VPN because that's the best one out there.
[00:10:36]  And that's the one that we mess with the most.
[00:10:38]  Surfshark VPN is going to allow you to access all that content.
[00:10:41]  For example, there's some Netflix shows that only exist in Netflix UK, right?
[00:10:45]  You can't watch them if you're in Netflix America.
[00:10:47]  So you know what you're going to do?
[00:10:48]  You're going to use that VPN so you can watch them from Netflix UK.
[00:10:51]  You have that around the entire world and it's completely ghosted.
[00:10:55]  Do you know what that means?
[00:10:56]  As I multitask right here, boom.
[00:10:58]  Do you know what that means?
[00:10:59]  That means they can't track it.
[00:11:00]  Even your internet provider cannot track your VPN.
[00:11:05]  They don't know where you are.
[00:11:06]  They don't know absolutely anything.
[00:11:07]  It's an unbelievable form of technology.
[00:11:10]  And by the way, there's a 30-month, 30-day money-back guarantee.
[00:11:13]  30 days, you don't like it.
[00:11:14]  They're going to pay you back.
[00:11:15]  They got the clean web, surfing a clean cyber ocean.
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[00:11:22]  Phone, laptop, iPad, everything that you need, you plug it right up to.
[00:11:26]  They got the no borders mode, okay?
[00:11:28]  Because obviously, internet should be open to everyone.
[00:11:30]  It's exactly what I'm telling you.
[00:11:31]  Watch all them shows.
[00:11:33]  Camouflage mode, that's the one that makes sure that you're secure.
[00:11:35]  You watch any of the movies you want around the whole world.
[00:11:38]  So for a limited time, what you're going to do is get 83% off a two-year plan and three extra months for free at surfshark.deal/slash flagrant.
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[00:12:02]  Let's get back to the clip.

=== Separating Bias From Reality (11:39) ===

[00:12:04]  Yeah, and weirdly, that guy's motivation is not inherently real.
[00:12:08]  It's not bad at all.
[00:12:09]  He's like trying to save the day, trying to save these kids, but is an idiot doing vigilante justice that got wrapped up with conspiracy shit online, even though there's weird shit in the conspiracy stuff, but he got drawn into the narrative.
[00:12:20]  Yep.
[00:12:20]  And so Alex Jones puts out these narratives and is like, this stuff is weird, and here's why it's weird.
[00:12:24]  And then people attach themselves to the why, and then they try to, I don't know, you're a hero.
[00:12:28]  Yeah, it's crazy.
[00:12:29]  So, so, so maybe we could conclude in a way with like the narrative is often just as dangerous as the information as the conspiracy.
[00:12:36]  It could be, and it's more dangerous in a way that there's no way to, there's, it's way harder to prove the conspiracy.
[00:12:43]  You can go into some stuff and you can be like, okay, was 9-11 exactly the way it was portrayed to us?
[00:12:48]  You know, there's a lot of information that says maybe it wasn't.
[00:12:50]  But if you're going to be like, there's a, what is it, what is the word they use?
[00:12:54]  Cabal.
[00:12:54]  Yeah, global cabal.
[00:12:55]  There's a global cabal with these elites.
[00:12:57]  They're drinking child's blood.
[00:12:59]  And you're just like, okay, there's no way to prove this.
[00:13:02]  There's nobody to prove this besides this conspiracy that you're attaching the narrative to.
[00:13:06]  I'm agreeing with your point, but I'm going to add one more.
[00:13:08]  It's way more dangerous because it's harder to prove wrong.
[00:13:11]  That's what I'm trying to say.
[00:13:12]  That's the thing.
[00:13:13]  How do you prove something wrong that isn't improvable?
[00:13:15]  So if I believe this and you can't prove me wrong, I'm in.
[00:13:18]  There's no way of pulling me out because there's no proof that they're not a satanic cult.
[00:13:22]  You don't have that proof.
[00:13:23]  I'm out.
[00:13:24]  So let me ask you guys this question.
[00:13:25]  Do you think that Alex Jones could exist with zero scrutiny if he just didn't attach narrative to these conspiracies?
[00:13:34]  If he was, if he was going, look, guys, this information exists right here.
[00:13:39]  I can't tell you what the truth is about this information, but this information I know is true and it looks like this.
[00:13:44]  I think two things.
[00:13:45]  I think one, I don't know about zero, but there would be far less scrutiny.
[00:13:48]  Two, he would not be nearly as famous.
[00:13:50]  That's true.
[00:13:50]  Because the romance of it and not like literal romance, but the idea is like intoxicating of like satanic cults, blah, blah, blah.
[00:13:56]  It's so fucking captivating.
[00:13:58]  Yeah.
[00:13:58]  That's what blows him up.
[00:13:59]  And that's why he has to lean into it.
[00:14:00]  Yeah.
[00:14:00]  That's a good point.
[00:14:01]  Yeah.
[00:14:02]  I agree.
[00:14:02]  I don't think anyone can live without zero scrutiny.
[00:14:04]  But like, that's where I get frustrated with Alex Jones because I'm like, as someone that's interested in like kind of conspiratorial thinking, I like to watch these videos and they're just like fun.
[00:14:11]  But like he portrays things as so crazy that someone that's interested in being like, well, wait, there's like some weird things in these emails.
[00:14:18]  They're like, can someone explain this?
[00:14:20]  People write it off because they're like, oh, you're like an Alex Jones crazy person.
[00:14:23]  And it's like, and he's like poisoning the well of all this stuff.
[00:14:25]  Poisoning his own well.
[00:14:27]  Yeah, weirdly.
[00:14:28]  And that's why Joe, who I think gives him the benefit of the doubt, is like, dude, I'm going to fact check you so that everybody doesn't write off what you say because I, Joe, believe a lot of the things that you're saying.
[00:14:40]  Maybe not the narratives you attach, but the things that you're saying are real.
[00:14:42]  These events are real.
[00:14:43]  You do know people think that the media isn't reporting.
[00:14:46]  Yeah, the estrogen is fucking up amphibious populations in Florida.
[00:14:49]  We should talk about it and address it.
[00:14:50]  But the fact that he wraps it up in some crazy narrative about satanic, whatever, they're trying to get it.
[00:14:54]  First, they make the frogs gay, then they make the guy.
[00:14:56]  Exactly.
[00:14:57]  Literally that, it fucks up the whole thing.
[00:14:59]  And then the actual problem doesn't get solved.
[00:15:01]  And then you throw the whole thing out.
[00:15:02]  It's nonsense.
[00:15:04]  It is interesting.
[00:15:04]  Does that make more sense, Al?
[00:15:06]  Yeah.
[00:15:06]  A little bit more, right?
[00:15:07]  I'm also.
[00:15:08]  But I think your reaction is completely understandable coming from someone who has never indulged in Alex Jones.
[00:15:14]  Don't you think that that would be the actual thing?
[00:15:16]  I was never indulged in Alexander.
[00:15:17]  But you knew more who he was.
[00:15:18]  I had an idea.
[00:15:18]  But then, yeah, when the second he was like, it's pronounced Ghislaine.
[00:15:21]  And like, he knew and then he sent me the photo.
[00:15:22]  I was like, yeah, I'm out.
[00:15:23]  That's a fraud.
[00:15:24]  Like, I'm out.
[00:15:26]  I am also, this is what I was going to say.
[00:15:27]  I'm not the free speech absolutist that I used to be.
[00:15:30]  And he's a big reason why.
[00:15:31]  Like, I used to think, let anybody say anything.
[00:15:33]  It's all good.
[00:15:34]  This is the Constitution.
[00:15:35]  Do not fuck with this.
[00:15:37]  And now I see how freedom of speech can actually be dangerous.
[00:15:40]  Yeah.
[00:15:41]  Like Homet Pizza, we're lucky nobody died.
[00:15:43]  But if somebody got shot up, that is off of a fake news story that he put out there is real.
[00:15:48]  And that's the one thing I was struggling with after watching that interview because I'm like, yo, this type of rhetoric is dangerous.
[00:15:56]  And it's like, but I'm against like trying to stop free speech.
[00:16:02]  I'm just like torn.
[00:16:03]  I am a free speech absolutist.
[00:16:05]  And I understand the point that you're making.
[00:16:09]  I do understand the point.
[00:16:10]  I just think that this is worth, this is the cost you have to pay for the benefit of free speech.
[00:16:17]  That's just my theory.
[00:16:19]  And nothing is free, meaning in terms of like lives lost, in terms of disinformation and all these things, there's nothing that's going to be free.
[00:16:24]  There's going to be a cost to every single bit of freedom that we have.
[00:16:28]  And I think that we have to be willing to pay this and combat it with free speech, meaning like combat it with the facts and use our free speech to show why some of these things are completely ridiculous.
[00:16:38]  But once we start clipping, I think there is a little slippery side.
[00:16:41]  I don't know what I have no solution in mind.
[00:16:43]  But your criticism is 100%.
[00:16:44]  And it's not even just like if we extrapolate it, it's not just comet pizza.
[00:16:48]  It is, I hate the term post-truth age, but now I know what they mean.
[00:16:51]  Where everybody just kind of chooses the reality and we don't really need that much evidence.
[00:16:55]  And the part of the reason the country is so divided is this kind of shit.
[00:17:00]  So if everybody's absolute free speech has created this crazy division, that literally, are we in 10 years are we having a civil war?
[00:17:07]  What's going on?
[00:17:08]  So to that point, which is really interesting about like the history of media, and there's this Matt Taibbi, I think it was podcast or something like that.
[00:17:14]  He broke something down.
[00:17:15]  It's quite interesting.
[00:17:16]  Right now we look at news, right, and about how polarized it is.
[00:17:18]  Like CNN is super left and Fox is super right.
[00:17:20]  Right.
[00:17:21]  And we look at this as a function of profit, right?
[00:17:24]  Because right now we live in this post-truth age where everybody has their own truth.
[00:17:28]  Right.
[00:17:28]  And they just want their bias confirmed.
[00:17:29]  So like, I think everything conservative is right.
[00:17:31]  Fox, tell me why.
[00:17:32]  And I think everything liberal is right.
[00:17:33]  CNN, tell me why.
[00:17:34]  Right.
[00:17:36]  And we always say this to each other.
[00:17:38]  We go, yo, well, back in the day, the news was more fair, right?
[00:17:41]  Like people, it was more in the middle and CNN you could kind of trust.
[00:17:43]  And like Fox was a little bit right, but CNN was kind of the middle.
[00:17:46]  That was like tends to be like a little bit right, but not crazy.
[00:17:49]  A little bit, right?
[00:17:50]  Like everything was a little bit.
[00:17:50]  A little bit left, but not crazy.
[00:17:52]  Yeah.
[00:17:52]  But Matt Taibbi says an interesting thing.
[00:17:54]  He goes, before the internet, being like centrist with your news source was the most profitable.
[00:18:03]  So it's always been news for profit.
[00:18:05]  But you touched the most people when you were in the center.
[00:18:09]  And because it's become so cheap to put out information, now you don't need a massive printing press.
[00:18:15]  You don't need trucks to deliver newspapers.
[00:18:17]  You don't need these massive structures and systems to get information throughout the world, which is what we did for newspapers.
[00:18:23]  Now you literally need a Twitter account.
[00:18:24]  You can say anything.
[00:18:25]  Now people are like, oh, well, I'll take my news the way I like it.
[00:18:29]  And it's forced these news channels who were centrists to actually become more extreme to maintain their profit margin.
[00:18:37]  And there's what I'm saying?
[00:18:38]  Yeah.
[00:18:38]  And adding on to that, it's hard to get the masses in anything now.
[00:18:42]  Everything in entertainment is so niche.
[00:18:44]  Exactly, because we don't have to accept the masses.
[00:18:46]  I don't have to accept 25% of this article that I want to, right?
[00:18:50]  Like I can have niche.
[00:18:51]  Yeah.
[00:18:51]  So the way to make, the only way to make money when it's so fragmented is to lean into one side.
[00:18:55]  Exactly.
[00:18:55]  So they've leaned in an extreme way.
[00:18:58]  And what I believe, and I think this is like the ethos behind our pieces that we're putting back, putting out like every week when we were doing the monologue, right?
[00:19:07]  Is that the extremes of news have gotten so far left and right that they've actually started to alienate the masses, right?
[00:19:18]  They've gotten so niche that the majority of people are watching CNN and they're like, oh, it's too left for me.
[00:19:25]  And they're watching Fox News like, it's too right for me.
[00:19:27]  Well, somebody just tell me the fucking truth.
[00:19:29]  Like, what is happening?
[00:19:30]  And then you see a platform like Rogan pop up and just have people come out to just give the truth.
[00:19:35]  I mean, maybe outside of an Alex Jones episode, but usually he has these experts that are just like, hey, I don't have a bias.
[00:19:39]  Like, here's just my take on these events.
[00:19:41]  And then we start doing these monologues where we're like, yo, we're not going to be biased.
[00:19:43]  We're just going to give what the truth is.
[00:19:45]  And you see the whole world start to gravitate to it.
[00:19:47]  And I think it's a really cool time in media where the profit matrix has actually punished the brands themselves.
[00:19:54]  Yeah.
[00:19:55]  Does that make sense?
[00:19:56]  Like CNN has gone too far one way.
[00:19:58]  Fox has gone too far.
[00:19:58]  And then the most of us, most of us are sitting here waiting for someone to speak for us.
[00:20:03]  And the voices that do come up and speak for the people, they gravitate to.
[00:20:06]  So you think in the end, it's worth keeping free speech because we'll get back to a place where I think so.
[00:20:10]  And I think this is a cost that sucks.
[00:20:14]  And honestly, lives are lost and it is fucked up.
[00:20:16]  Don't get me wrong.
[00:20:17]  But I think eventually the ship does balance itself and we need free speech in order for it to be balanced.
[00:20:23]  But your criticism is not wrong.
[00:20:25]  And anybody who like doesn't have any understanding of why you have that, like, is just one of these absolutists that are just as blinded as, you know what I mean?
[00:20:34]  Yeah.
[00:20:34]  There's people that like lost their kids in Sandy Hook and then Alex Jones goes out and says, oh, they're faking it.
[00:20:38]  And then these people are getting death threats after their kid got murdered.
[00:20:42]  And that's where it's trickier for me is like, if you present it as a fact.
[00:20:45]  Yeah.
[00:20:46]  It's then I'm like, that's dangerous.
[00:20:48]  Whereas entertainment, I think you should be able to say whatever you want.
[00:20:50]  And I guess they try to sneak in and say we're entertainers.
[00:20:53]  But like.
[00:20:54]  That's the other thing.
[00:20:54]  They're being fraudulent in terms of their identity, right?
[00:20:56]  Like they're going, I'm a news guy.
[00:20:58]  And then the second you're on trial, I'm not a news guy.
[00:21:00]  Exactly.
[00:21:01]  So that's my biggest criticism is less like what they're saying.
[00:21:05]  It's more how they're presenting it.
[00:21:07]  Right.
[00:21:07]  You know, like we're out here calling ourselves comedians.
[00:21:09]  So when we say a bunch of bullshit is not true, they're like, oh, yeah, they're comedians.
[00:21:12]  Like we're being honest about what we're giving y'all.
[00:21:14]  You know, these are jokes.
[00:21:15]  Yeah.
[00:21:16]  Right.
[00:21:16]  Whereas these motherfuckers are like, no, this is the one truth, the only truth.
[00:21:20]  As soon as they get called on it, they back though.
[00:21:22]  No, it's not the truth.
[00:21:23]  I'm just doing a thing.
[00:21:24]  I'm an informer.
[00:21:24]  It's pussy at the end of the day, bro.
[00:21:26]  Yeah.
[00:21:27]  Yeah.
[00:21:27]  You got to stick by it.
[00:21:29]  So then what's the answer for like the conspiracy kid that's like on YouTube looking at conspiracy shit?
[00:21:33]  Like, how should they discern the free speech versus the not free speech?
[00:21:37]  Well, one, you got to like check yourself a little bit.
[00:21:38]  And that's the hardest thing for all of us to do.
[00:21:40]  You know what I mean?
[00:21:41]  The hardest thing for all of us to do is like, do I want to believe this?
[00:21:44]  Or is this the truth?
[00:21:47]  And, you know, I'm sure there's tons of things that we watch because there are people that are annoying, right?
[00:21:50]  You know, Chelsea Handler yapping about 50 Cent.
[00:21:53]  We're like, oh, just roast this bitch.
[00:21:55]  She's just fucking annoying because we think she's annoying.
[00:21:57]  But if we sit back objectively and we go, okay, she's actually trying to joke around.
[00:22:01]  She's not really telling black men what they can or can't fit.
[00:22:04]  You know, then we have this more objective approach.
[00:22:05]  How, how willing are people to like separate themselves from their biases is really tricky.
[00:22:11]  And also, how willing are they to remove themselves from their community?
[00:22:14]  We're lucky as comedians, like we're around people who are all the time trying to think about things differently.
[00:22:21]  Yeah, they're open-minded and willing to analyze shit.
[00:22:23]  Exactly.
[00:22:23]  Akash comes in with some spin justifying some crazy shit.
[00:22:26]  And instead of us going, how could you think that way?
[00:22:27]  We're like, man, I should have thought of that shit.
[00:22:30]  We're upset we didn't have the weird take.
[00:22:32]  It is your job to look at every angle.
[00:22:34]  Yes.
[00:22:34]  And find the unique ones.
[00:22:35]  So I got empathy for motherfuckers who are locked into a community that is kind of only allowing people to think one way.
[00:22:42]  Right.
[00:22:42]  And then if you try to think another way, you could kind of be ostracized.
[00:22:44]  You got to be a little scared.
[00:22:45]  Yeah.
[00:22:46]  So maybe it's like on a personal level, like see if you cannot, you know, if you see if you could check your biases and see if it, you know, adds up.
[00:22:52]  But also on a societal level, like, bro, you got to do what you got to do to kind of exist within the ecosystem you're in.
[00:22:58]  And hopefully you could find an ecosystem that is a little bit more tolerant of your views if they don't go along with your peers.
[00:23:07]  Right.
[00:23:07]  But also discerning and skeptical of information that's bullshit and these fraudsters that are faking.
[00:23:12]  Yeah, like, yo, healthy skepticism is good.
[00:23:15]  Like, that's all comics.
[00:23:16]  We are in a lot of ways.
[00:23:17]  We're just skeptics.
[00:23:17]  We're like, eh, is it?
[00:23:18]  Yeah.
[00:23:19]  You know what I mean?
[00:23:19]  Like, is it really, like, what's going on?
[00:23:21]  Like, be skeptical.
[00:23:22]  You know, that's the, yeah, be, I think that's, that's, that's a great point, Mark.
[00:23:27]  Be skeptical.
[00:23:28]  All right, guys, you just listened to a clip from our weekly Patreon episode.
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