Gabrielle Union claims that there was rampant racism behind the scenes at America's Got Talent. We'll take a look at these alleged "racist" incidents. Also, everyone freaks out for no reason over an ad for an exercise bike. And an email from a listener with a deadbeat adult son who won't leave her house.
Date: 12-03-2019
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Not something I would usually do, but I'm going to defend NBC.
And it feels very strange, but maybe defend isn't the right word.
Instead, what I want to do is lend some context.
Maybe you've heard this story about Gabrielle Union, who was a judge on America's Got Talent on NBC and then was booted off the show after the season.
She did one season and then was, I guess, fired.
And after being fired, she came back and claimed that She was the victim of racism and sexism, and it was a toxic work environment.
She said that the environment backstage was racist and sexist and toxic, and she was a victim of it.
And it was only because of her efforts to be a whistleblower and clamp down on all the racism that she was fired.
So, fired, and then claims racism, and that's the sequence of events.
By the way, Julianne Hough, Was another judge on America's Got Talent, also an actress, I think.
But white.
And she was also booted from the show, apparently.
So I'm not sure if there was racism against her as well, if there's an anti-white and anti-black racism going on at NBC.
Maybe they got all the bases covered, I don't know.
So this has been the story.
It's a pretty big story, at least in entertainment media and on social media.
And the way that the story is reported and talked about, it's just, Gabrielle Union was a victim of racism, stated pretty much as a fact, with no one apparently actually looking at the claims themselves to get a read on how legitimate they might be or might not be.
And this is a lesson that a lot of people in this country We need to keep relearning over and over again, it seems like, that a claim of racism or sexism or any other ism or phobia cannot be taken at face value these days.
Ever.
I'm not saying that it's never true.
Maybe it is true.
Maybe we got ourselves a real case of racism.
Maybe this is a tried and true ism that we've got going on here.
Maybe.
But you can never ever ever assume that you have to look at it.
And so let's do that with this story just because I think it's a good case study of how this stuff works.
So let me read now from a story in the LA Times.
It says it starts with talking about how she was fired and then continues.
Initial skepticism turned to outrage when a new report from Variety revealed ahead of the holiday weekend that Union's split from America's Got Talent wasn't amicable, but forced after the Bring It On alum allegedly reported toxic and racist behavior during production.
The most high-profile incident occurred when Jay Leno allegedly made a racist joke about Korean restaurants while taping a segment for the show, prompting Union, an outspoken advocate for minority communities, to file a complaint with producers, who allegedly dismissed her but excluded the joke from the final cut.
The network also reportedly discouraged Union from wearing a variety of hairstyles that it allegedly deemed too black for viewers, while Union expressed concerns that a white contestant overstepped while impersonating celebrities of color, such as Beyonce.
NBC and series production company Fremantle said in a statement, um, America's Got Talent has a long history of inclusivity and diversity in both our talent and the acts championed by the show.
The judging and host lineup has been regularly refreshed over the years, and that is one of the reasons for AGT's enduring popularity.
NBC and the producers take any issues on set seriously.
Okay.
Uh, and that's pretty much it so far.
Those are the primary examples.
The only examples, as far as I'm aware of the racism and toxicity at AGT.
And I want to take a closer look at these claims.
And we'll do that in just a moment.
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Alright, so the racism at AGT, according to Gabriel Union, began with a racist joke Jay Leno made about Korean restaurants.
Now, let's stop there for a moment.
How can a person tell a racist joke about a type of restaurant?
How can you be racist against a restaurant?
Is food-based racism a thing?
If I go to a Mexican restaurant and I complain later that it was a horrible place and the food was bad, have I just expressed that sentiment about all Mexican people or have I said it specifically about the food at this place?
And in fact, if I were to even go further than that and say that I hate Mexican food in general and I think it's terrible and crappy, which I don't, by the way, but if I did say that, is that racist against Mexican people?
Or is it bigoted somehow, or is it just, I don't like the food?
By the way, the joke that made by Jay Leno was when he, I think he saw, maybe it was Simon Cowell brought in his dogs or something, or he saw a picture, and Leno said that they look like something that'd be on the menu at a Korean restaurant.
Now, that's about as edgy as a Leno joke is ever gonna get.
That's as edgy as it gets, and it's really not that edgy.
Yes, it trades in stereotypes about Korean cuisine.
So what?
Okay?
If Leno had seen a picture of a rat and said that, oh, that looks like something that they, you know, put on the menu at Burger King.
Okay?
Who's that racist against in that case?
If you were to trade in the stereotype that these fast food burger joints don't use real beef and instead grind up cockroaches and rats, That's a stereotype.
Would that be racist?
Who'd be racist against?
And actually, here's the thing.
They do eat dogs in Korea.
Okay?
They do.
A recent headline in USA Today says, Okay.
South Koreans eat more than 1 million dogs each year, but that's slowly changing.
Here's why.
Young Koreans are leading an effort to end a centuries-old practice.
Okay, centuries-old practice.
It's for centuries, they've been eating dogs in Korea.
That's a fact.
It's not racist.
It's a fact about something that happens in the world.
Now, personally, it doesn't bother me either.
Just as a side note.
They want to eat dogs.
It doesn't bother me.
We eat cows, they eat dogs.
There's no reason why necessarily cows should be on the menu and dogs shouldn't.
It's a cultural thing.
And this is an example of, and not everything is when it comes to cultures.
There are objectively bad things that can happen in a culture, and we can't excuse everything based on the fact that, oh, it's their culture.
But when it comes to cuisine, as long as you're not eating people, pretty much anything outside of that, anything outside of people, if it's part of your culture to eat that, who cares?
It's just your culture.
We don't do it here, they do it there, fine.
Um, so Leno made a joke based on an actual fact about Korean culture, but actually a joke that was about a type of restaurant.
And that's racist.
And Gabrielle Union files a complaint with the producers about the joke.
Now, we can all kind of imagine what's happening now, because the producers get this complaint about a joke that Jay Leno told, and now they're thinking, oh my gosh, okay, we got a diva on our hands here.
Now, this is how this is gonna go.
Oh, man.
That's what they're thinking.
And probably at that moment, they're already thinking, yeah, we're gonna get rid of her once the season's over, because we can't do this.
I mean, you can't have somebody who's filing formal written complaints because they hear a joke from Jay Leno of all people.
If you can get offended by a Jay Leno joke, that's like quintessential snowflake territory.
If you can manage to get offended by a joke told by Jay Leno, the only thing that could be more Impressive than that is if you could manage to get offended by like a Seinfeld joke Which in fact people on college campuses do get offended by Seinfeld jokes.
That's why Seinfeld doesn't do college campuses anymore So what's next the claim then then she she was allegedly told that her hairstyle is too black Well, Julianne Hough was also apparently lectured about her hair and outfits but So the idea that it's a racial thing seems to not hold up.
An anonymous insider at NBC explained that the complaints to these women about their hair and what they were wearing, it wasn't racist, it wasn't sexist.
The issue was continuity with how the show is presented on the air.
It's not explained what that's meant exactly, but I can take an educated guess.
And that would be that they shoot these auditions over a period of days.
And then they want to be able to sort of splice them all together when they air it to make it look like it happened in one day, which means that you need to be wearing the same thing as a judge.
If you come in wearing all kinds of crazy different outfits, it limits you during the production phase.
So they want the judges wearing the same thing and looking the same for all of it.
That's one version anyway.
That's one version of that.
The other version is that someone came up to Gabrielle Union and told her that her hair is too black.
You could decide who to believe there.
And then there's the final racism complaint, which is that a white contestant, well, the exact phrasing in the LA Times article, a white contestant overstepped while impersonating celebrities of color such as Beyonce.
A different article, at Variety, provides more context.
It says, Sources also shared a related incident that occurred during another audition taping this season, where a union and other staffers expressed concern over a white male performer crossing a line and portraying people of color.
The contestants' gimmick involved rapid costume changes inside a larger garment while impersonating a multitude of famous singers.
In one such quick change, The contestant emerged in the guise of Beyonce Knowles.
His hands appeared as black.
Meant to be a character accent, three witnesses to the audition said.
Okay, so the contestant... The claim is that the contestant engaged in black hands.
Not black face, black hands.
His hands appeared as black.
Whatever that means.
He did a bunch of costume changes and then in one of the costumes, his hands were black.
Now, wait a second.
Did he paint his hands in the middle of the costume change?
You ever seen these quick change things they do on these variety acts?
Usually they've got multiple layers of costumes on and they're just like ripping one off after another.
So the hands being black, we can assume that it wasn't painted.
So what, was he wearing gloves?
Is this a racism complaint based on the color of gloves a contestant was wearing?
Now, it's either that or something similarly frivolous.
Either way, it's a racism complaint based on the color of a contestant's hands during a quick-change variety act.
I mean... Come on.
Just... And yet this...
This is reported as Gabrielle Union being the victim of racism and a toxic work environment because of a joke Jay Leno told, the color of a contestant's hands while singing a Beyonce song, and the fact that her producers didn't want her to change her hairstyle every time she came in.
Look, maybe a bomb will drop or something and some detail will come out in the future with an actual example of horrid racism at AGT, an egregious, explicit example.
I'm skeptical of that, but maybe.
You know, I can't say what will happen in the future, but this, as it stands right now, is just embarrassing.
And the fact that the media is even reporting it is just absurd.
There's nothing here.
And yet, if you go and Google it, Gabrielle Union AGT, you're going to find just hundreds of articles reporting this.
There's nothing.
Nothing at all.
But somehow, and you have people on social media that Share this and really take part in the spreading of fake news by propagating it, without even taking a second to read what the claim is.
Because it should immediately raise a red flag when you've got something like this.
You've got a black woman, a judge on a show like AGT.
Um, is on, you know, on the show for a season, is fired, then comes back and says, and portrays it as if there's just, just rampant racism behind the scenes.
Well, it should make you stop and go, no, wait a second.
I mean, they've had other, they've, they've had other black judges.
They've got their, the host is, is a black man.
You're saying it's just rampant racism and no one's brought this up before?
So it doesn't mean it's not true automatically.
It should make you go, hold on, let me actually see what they're talking about here.
And then if you do that, you see that, oh, okay, well this appears to just be total BS.
Wow, okay, well, actually it's not a wow.
That's pretty much what I expected.
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Alright, speaking of fake controversies, I don't know if you've caught, have you caught wind of this Peloton thing?
There was a huge blow up on social media yesterday over an ad for an exercise bike.
And so you know that it's something serious when it's about an exercise bike.
It's an ad that is apparently, supposedly creepy, weird, disturbing, sexist of course, any number of other things.
The media has jumped in as usual, and let me give you a taste of some of the headlines surrounding this Peloton ad for an exercise bike.
Some of the headlines.
Peloton faces backlash and ridicule over new holiday commercial.
Peloton sparks sexism mockery over commercial called The Gift That Gives Back, showing a husband surprising his wife with an exercise bike on Christmas morning.
The most disturbing horror film of the season is Peloton's new commercial.
People are so confused by this Peloton bike ad.
Uh, blah, blah, blah.
Goes on from there.
So let's, I mean, this sounds pretty disturbing, right?
Apparently there's a backlash, sexism, horrifying.
It's a horror film.
Confusing.
I mean, it sounds pretty intense.
What could possibly be in this ad for an exercise bike that could justify this sort of reaction?
Well, let's take a look at the ad.
Get ready.
Watch this.
Okay, you ready?
Yes!
Now.
A Peloton?
Give it up for our first time ride!
Alright, first ride.
I'm a little nervous, but excited.
Let's do this.
Okay.
Days in a row.
You surprised?
I am.
6 AM, yay.
Rising with the sun.
That was totally worth it.
Let's go, Grace.
Boston, 50 rides.
She just said my name.
A year ago, I didn't realize how much this would change me.
Thank you.
This holiday, give the gift of Peloton.
Okay.
Okay.
I gotta say, I'm not seeing it.
It's an ad for an exercise bike.
When I saw all this reaction on social media and the headlines, and I went to look at the ad, I was looking forward to it.
I thought, well, this sounds like a pretty hilarious, whatever it is, it sounds funny.
And then I watched the ad and I thought, what?
I don't even, what exactly is the complaint here?
Where is the room for backlash?
If I wanted to do a backlash against this commercial, I wouldn't even know what to base it on.
Like if I saw that ad and I said to myself, I'd like to be outraged by that.
Which I guess is what people do.
I think this is what people do in our culture.
But if I saw the ad and said, you know, I'm really in the mood for an outrage, and I just saw this ad, so this is as good a reason as any, but I'd have to sit and brainstorm for hours to come up with a good, because off the top of my head, I can't think of one single reason to be outraged by that.
Maybe it's a lack of creativity on my part.
Is it that the husband gave an exercise bike to his wife as a gift?
Is that the thing?
Is that strange?
I've done that before.
My wife asked for a piece of exercise equipment as a gift.
She wanted an elliptical in this case.
She wanted that as a gift, and so I got her one.
And she was happy.
When she said that she'd like this as a gift, was I supposed to say, no honey, I refuse on principle.
I cannot buy that for you.
I can't.
I must not.
It would be wrong.
It'd be immoral.
And actually, I was given a weight bench once as a gift.
I was excited about that.
I wanted one.
I got one.
I can use it.
You know, it's a very useful thing to have.
Some people enjoy exercising.
Doesn't seem strange to me.
But this is how internet outrage works.
It gets kicked off by a few people, and then everybody else jumps on the bandwagon.
Not because they're all so outraged, but because they assume there must be some reason, even if they're not seeing it.
So the pitchfork mob shows up at their house and says, Hey, grab a pitchfork.
We're mad about something again.
Oh, what is it this time?
An ad for an exercise bike.
What?
I mean, okay, I guess.
Well, all right.
Exercise bikes.
I'm so mad.
You don't even know why you're mad, but you just, you figured there must be a good reason.
Someone else told me, I was talking about this online.
Someone told me that the reason the ad is weird is because the wife is so excited about the gift.
About the bike.
But, I mean, everyone, we do all understand what an advertisement is, right?
It's just, I don't want to scandalize anybody, but it's the company that makes the product, they create this ad because they want you to buy it.
And so it is propaganda for the product.
So the fact that the character in the advertisement is excited about the product being advertised Is kind of how advertisements work.
Now, if you want to make fun of a dumb holiday themed ad, if you're really, if you're, I think everyone we're misdirecting our, our energy here.
Um, because of course in general, being upset or, or focusing on a, on a, on an advertisement for a product around the holidays, that obviously is a good use of our energy.
It's just what I'm saying is let's focus it somewhere else.
So how about, how about an ad like this?
Watch this.
Honey?
No.
I'm sorry.
No.
Nope.
Nope.
How come I'm always walking backwards?
Because you've got young legs.
Only one thing's more exciting than getting a Lexus.
Giving one.
He really is.
The Lexus December to Remember sales event.
Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer.
And so that's one of the most recent of those kinds of ads for the season.
You could sub in any Mercedes or Lexus ad in December.
And now here you have a real issue, which is that that car is easily like $45,000, $50,000.
like $45,000, $50,000.
Who buys their spouse a $45,000 Christmas gift?
If I got my wife a Lexus for Christmas, she would have me committed.
It would be a crisis in our marriage.
You spend $45,000 without talking to me first?
First of all, so what's the actual gift here?
The actual gift is a $900 car payment.
Congratulations, honey!
The only people, the only way that it could be a gift To buy a brand new Lexus, a brand new Lexus SUV for someone as a gift.
The only way you could do that is if you're a multi, multi-millionaire.
Because just being a regular millionaire still I don't think would cut it.
Like if I had $3 million sitting in the bank and I bought my wife a $45,000 gift as a, a car as a gift, I think she'd still be very upset.
So you would need to be, you know, you need to be 50, 100 million dollars deep Before I think you could start buying gifts like that.
Like, it's no big deal.
But then, if that's the case, why are you running an ad like that during a college football game?
It just seems... I mean, that's... Because it's a very, very specific and niche market that you're trying to reach.
And I figure you'd probably reach them through some other means, because you don't see ads for private jets Or I don't know, butler services on TV.
I don't know.
The companies that make like $10,000 tins of caviar.
I assume they have some way of advertising their product.
I don't know how they do it, but they're not going to advertise it during a rerun for everybody loves Raymond.
They have some other means of reaching their climate client base.
I don't know.
Maybe they set up a kiosk at Bilderberg.
I don't know what they do.
So.
The Holiday adds with giant bows on top of luxury sedans.
Now that's something worthy of mockery, in my opinion.
But exercise equipment is pretty normal.
I don't know how much these Peloton bikes cost.
Probably way too much.
If you want to get an exercise bike, you could get one.
Go to Craigslist, you can get one for a hundred bucks on Craigslist.
So this one's probably, what, a couple thousand dollars?
That's expensive.
But it's still something that normal people do.
Probably shouldn't, too much to spend on a gift, but people do it.
All right, one other thing before we get to emails, and actually, maybe staying on the theme of fake outrage, that'll be the, that's the theme of the day.
And also the theme of me defending people I wouldn't normally defend.
So on that note, here's this.
You know who Madonna is?
I do know who Madonna is.
You know, uh, can you name a Van Halen?
Who?
I'm gonna start crying.
Now that there is the singer, and I know who she is because I'm pretty in tune with the youth.
Pretty in sync with them, you might say.
And so that's the singer Billie Eilish, and she's a very popular pop singer.
When I'm connecting with the youth, When I'm trying to connect, I know to, you know, I'll go to them and say, Hey, say, have you, have you kids ever heard of the popular singer, Billie Eilish?
And, um, much like Joe Biden with his, with his no malarkey.
I don't know if you've seen the picture of his, actually we'll show that just, just as another example of connecting with the youth.
Here's Joe Biden's campaign bus.
Yeah.
No malarkey.
Put an end to the malarkey.
And I know when the youth of today see that bus rolling down the street, they're thinking to themselves, gee willikers, that is a swell campaign slogan.
Anyway, so she's on with Jimmy Kimmel and she reveals that she doesn't know who Van Halen is.
And this has put her in line for derision and mockery.
Almost as intense as the Peloton thing.
But this, I just want to say, this is one of the lamest boomer things.
You talk about an okay boomer situation, this is the classic okay boomer thing that people do in general.
Where we make fun of younger people for not knowing about something that's before their time.
You ever seen those videos?
I just saw one a few days ago.
Those videos online that crop up from time to time of, you know, some teenagers sort of very confused and trying to figure out how to navigate a rotary phone.
You ever seen one of those?
And then you get all these comments online of, oh, look at these idiots don't even know how to use a phone.
Well, it's a rotary phone.
They've never seen one.
Why would they know how to use a rotary phone?
It's 16 years old.
No one's used one of those things for 20 years or more.
25, 30.
So why would they know how to use that?
And why, how old is Billie Eilish?
She's what, 16, 17?
Why would a 17 year old girl, do you expect a teenage girl to be a Van Halen fan?
In what scenario?
She probably has gone her whole life and never encountered Van Halen, so what?
I just don't get this whole thing.
It's not like, look, there are some things before your time that you should know about.
So if you talk to someone who doesn't know what century the Civil War was fought in, the American Civil War, well, that's a problem.
Even though it was before your time, you need to know that as a matter of history.
Now, whether Billie Eilish could explain what century the Civil War was fought in, I'm skeptical of that, but we don't know.
But something like how to use outdated technology Or facts about hair bands from the 70s and 80s.
And I know Van Halen, talented musicians, I don't deny that.
So don't come at me about that.
I don't deny, very talented, very technically gifted musicians.
But I got news for you, if you didn't grow up with that, if you didn't grow up in the 70s and 80s, you're not listening to that music probably.
Because it's not great.
And I know if you did grow up with it, then you've got the nostalgia and you grew up with it, and I have no problem with that.
I get it.
I don't begrudge that.
But it's not like one of those things where, in order to be cultured, You have to know about Van Halen.
Who cares?
You could go your whole life and never listen to a Van Halen song and you'll be perfectly fine.
You could live a perfectly fulfilled life without ever encountering Hot for Teacher.
In fact, I would even argue that your life would probably be better if you go your whole existence without ever encountering Hot for Teacher.
And in fact, if you go your whole life and never encounter any hairband from the 70s or 80s, I think actually you'll be better for it.
All right.
That's my defense of her.
Let's move on.
Matt Walshow at Gmail.com.
Matt Walshow at Gmail.com.
This is from Brosis, says, Hi, I literally just finished watching a video on time travel and want to know your opinion of whether it's real or not.
I know it's a bit outside politics and more cultural problems, but was just curious if they really did time travel from the future, how do we know whether they really did or not?
I definitely don't support it as it quite scares me, honestly, but who are we to say they are from the future or not?
I'm a bit gullible sometimes and do need support.
Well, first of all, I'm not sure if I'd call time travel a cultural problem.
Let's focus on the very serious cultural problem of time travel.
But it is something worth thinking about anyway.
And as every high school sophomore smoking pot in his friend's basement has at one point observed, we are all traveling through time, man.
We're all traveling.
When you think about it, man, we're all time travelers.
We're just traveling into the future at a rate of 24 hours a day.
The question is whether the rate can be sped up or reversed.
And as for the first sped up, I think it's pretty well established scientifically, theoretically, in theory, it would be possible to travel into the future faster than we are already traveling into the future.
And one way is by traveling at an extremely high rate of speed.
This is Planet of the Apes.
You know, he's traveling and came back and the Earth had fast... Spoiler alert, but the Earth had fast-forwarded thousands of years.
Time is relative, remember?
And it slows down when you're going very, very fast, like at the speed of light.
Or if you're subject to extreme levels of gravity, that's like in the movie Interstellar, where they were on the planet with very high levels of gravity.
Circling, I think, was a black hole.
And so for every second they were on the planet, the Earth aged eight years or whatever it was.
So, and that's all true, theoretically.
So, theoretically, if you were to, I don't know, travel around the Earth a bunch of times at the speed of light, and when you come back on Earth, maybe for you, you've aged 12 hours, but everyone else has aged 80 years or whatever it would be.
As to backwards time travel, going back in the past, I don't see how that could be possible, because once an event happens, it's happened.
That's it.
There's no way to access it.
It's not like it's saved on a hard drive somewhere to go back and revisit unless this is the Matrix we're talking about.
Plus there are all kinds of paradoxes and well-known paradoxes.
Like if tonight I built a time machine and then went back in time and gave and went up to myself at the age of 10 and gave myself a high five and then got back in the time machine and came back to the present.
That's a paradox because Then that means that I should have already built it.
I should have already given the high-five to myself, you see?
So before I even build the time machine, I should have a memory of an older me giving myself a high-five.
Because it happened in the past.
So if I built the time machine tonight, and I go back and interact with myself as a ten-year-old, then that event is already in the past, so it should have already happened, But it hasn't happened yet.
And so now we have an event that both has not happened yet and has already happened.
And so that's an issue.
But thank you for that.
Very relevant question.
From David says, Oh, great and powerful overlord who reigns supreme.
I want to start by saying I agree with the premise that abortion is murder and an act of evil.
And I agree with your analogy of the lottery ticket with winning numbers essentially being $50 million and how it translates to a baby in the womb essentially being a human life.
However, one thought that I couldn't get out of my head was the pretty obvious response a pro-abortion person would come up with following this analogy.
They would say something like, Well, the lottery ticket may have winning numbers and it may be worth $50 million, but the winner can still decide to rip the ticket up and throw it in the trash.
Although that would make the person an idiot, wouldn't this argument hold firm?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Also, please have mercy and do not execute me when you take over as supreme fascist dictator in the future for bringing this potential flaw in your analogy to your attention.
I am but a humble servant seeking guidance.
Uh, that's true, but my analogy, see it's, it's, that's why I said the analogy is, and I think I said before I got into it, it's, it's a limited analogy.
It doesn't address every facet of the abortion argument.
I don't think any analogy could.
That's not what analogies are meant to do.
So this analogy was meant to simply address the issue of worth.
And I was making the point that even if I were to agree that a human in the womb is but a potential person and not an actual person, even though I don't agree with that, but sake of argument, if I did, then wouldn't that make this potential person analogous to a winning lottery ticket that hasn't been cashed in yet and which is only potentially $50 million, but for all intents and purposes, it's the same thing as $50 million and you would value it the same.
So that's what I was trying to do with the analogy.
I was trying to address the issue of worth and value and attempting to show that if we're talking about potential worth or actual worth, it's basically the same thing.
Now, the issue of should you have a right to kill a child, and now you're getting into bodily autonomy, and you're saying, well, so don't I own this child the way that I own a lottery ticket?
Well, now that's a totally separate argument.
Now you're getting into bodily autonomy, which I've addressed many times.
I'd be happy to address again.
I'm not going to do it right here.
So you just have to keep in mind that when you're using an analogy to make a point, I think that can be a strong way to make a point.
It's just that it's always going to have its limits.
It can't be expanded to cover every potential objection.
Let's see.
From Rebecca, says, hey Matt, how's the new baby?
Rebecca, thanks for asking.
The baby is ill-tempered.
Definitely a colic situation.
I know all parents think that their babies have colic, and we thought that with our first three babies.
Because anytime they cry, you know, oh, they must be colicky.
But then you actually have a colicky baby, and you realize that, oh, okay, well, that's what this is.
Okay, so colic is this.
Now I see it.
So a colicky baby does three things, and three things only.
Eat, sleep, and cry.
That's it.
Now, you might say that that's what every baby does, but that's not exactly true, because every baby has a fourth thing.
They eat, sleep, cry.
They've also got this fourth stage, or phase, where they'll just lie there quietly, And not do anything.
That's one of the reasons why, normally with a baby, it can be kind of easy to have a baby around after you get past the first couple of weeks because they don't move, they don't talk, and they're going to spend a certain portion of the day just kind of hanging out.
But when you've got a colicky baby, they cut that part out completely.
They have no use for that.
And if they're awake, they're going to be vocalizing the fact that they're awake and they're going to be crying.
And, you know, it gets pretty intense after a while.
I've had a lot of time to reflect and meditate upon the deeper philosophical meanings of the screams and cries of a baby.
And I haven't come to any conclusions on the deeper philosophical meaning of it, because I can't focus enough, because they're crying all the time.
But I have realized that there's definitely something programmed into our brain to be distressed by the sound of a crying baby.
Because I was thinking about this the other day when the baby was just crying non-stop.
And I was thinking, why is this sound, why is it so grating?
Because yeah, it's loud, but that's not it.
It's not just that it's loud.
There are louder sounds that are less annoying than this.
There could be somebody in the next room with a jackhammer going off, and that would be far less grating than the baby crying.
So, you know, it's not quite that.
It's not quite the pitch.
It's just there's obviously something that's programmed.
Where we, you know, the sound of a screaming infant, when you hear that sound, you want to make it stop by meeting the infant's needs.
And so there you see, obviously, the reason why, you know, as parents, we would need to have that intense urge.
All right.
Finally, This is from Ann, says, Hi Matt, I'm quite a bit older than you, so it may seem strange to be asking your advice, but I'm hoping you could offer some insight into my son, who's a few years younger than you.
We are essentially the stereotypical adult child living in mom's basement family, although the adult child in this case lives in his room upstairs.
We want him to move out and start his life as a grown-up.
But he can't keep a job or save money to save his life.
He just has no motivation.
I've heard you speak about the situation young men are in in our culture.
Maybe you can offer some insight into what my son's mentality might be, why he might lack motivation or self-confidence in this culture.
Thanks for all you do.
Well, Anne, I have talked, spoken many times about the situation young men are in, and I've said that our culture is hostile to boys and to men.
And even to boys to men.
But I don't know the specifics of your particular situation with your son.
I can only go based on what you've said.
I'm not going to give your son that excuse, though.
Because, yeah, there are challenges that men face in this culture, but you still have to face them.
Right?
And we all face it.
So what I would ask about your son, and I'm not trying to be too harsh about this, but What I would ask about your son is, you know, yeah, we all face the challenges in our culture, men and women, we all face different challenges.
And yet a lot of us are still able to get up every day, go get a job, go to work, take care of ourselves.
So why is your son special?
Why is it so difficult for him?
Why is it so much more of a burden for him than it is for anybody else?
And the answer is that it isn't.
It isn't more of a burden for him.
He's just lazy.
He doesn't feel like doing it.
And I don't want to simplify it too much, but, and you said he's your adult son.
You didn't say how old he is.
I don't think you did.
Did you?
No.
So I don't know.
Are we talking about 19 or are we talking about 29?
Or wait, did you actually say that?
A few years younger than me.
Okay.
So what he's in his late twenties, early thirties, I assume.
Well, then I think it's sort of a simple answer for you.
And the answer is, and I would do this right now.
Like, after you hear me say these words.
I would go to your son, in his room, doing whatever he's doing, and say to him, okay, you are out of this house by Friday, no matter where you have to go.
You're done, you're out.
If on Saturday morning, I wake up and you're still here, then you are trespassing in my home, and I'm gonna call the police.
That's what I would say, and it really is that simple.
He has no right to be there and still be living off of you as an adult.
It's your home, not his.
If you don't want him there, then tell him to leave.
Yeah, he's not nine years old.
It's not like you've got a nine-year-old that's causing you a lot of problems.
You can't say to the nine-year-old, get out of my house, right?
But... 28, 29, 30?
Yeah.
It's past time for that.
I mean, I would have said it to him when he was 22 or 21.
I would have said it to him when he was 20.
I wouldn't have waited 10 years, but that's what I would do with him.
You just gotta kick him out, and I know that maybe it'll be difficult, and it's gonna be a tough adjustment, but at a certain point, I think you gotta toss a kid into the cold water and let him swim, especially when it's not a kid anymore.
And especially when you're tossing him in, you know, especially when you're tossing a six foot man into five feet of water.
The point is he shouldn't drown.
He should be able to walk in that water.
It's not that hard.
And you didn't say, I assume your, your, your child, quote unquote, doesn't have any children of his own.
Sounds like doesn't have a family.
Okay.
You're a single man.
You didn't, you didn't say anything about physical disabilities.
So I'm going to assume that's not the case.
Physically capable, single adult man with no dependents, no kids.
That's the easiest life you could possibly ask for!
He could go anywhere and do anything and get any job he wants!
Can't find a job here?
Then move to Texas, move to North Dakota, move to California, move anywhere.
You could go anywhere and do anything.
There is absolutely no reason for an adult who is physically, for a physically capable, mentally competent adult with no family to be unemployed for very long.
There is no reason for it at all.
Zero.
Because your life is so supremely uncomplicated.
And you have all the mobility in the world.
Come on.
Can't keep a job.
There are 16-year-olds out there who manage to keep a job.
It ticks me off.
I don't mean to yell at you, Anne.
I'm yelling at your son.
On your behalf.
Because it just annoys me.
The excuses people make.
I can't find a job.
Oh, shut up.
Yes, you can.
You just don't want it.
You don't want the job.
That's the issue.
I could walk into town.
I could walk into town right now and I could get 15 jobs.
Easily.
I mean, they're not going to be good jobs.
You know, I mean, it's going to be fast food.
It's going to be working behind a cash register.
It's not going to be fun.
It's going to be stocking shelves.
It's going to be working in the back at Home Depot.
It's going to be those kind of jobs.
But, I mean, unless you're living in the middle of the wilderness.
Aside from that, if you're living in a place where there are stores and there are retail outlets all around, like most people live these days, you could easily find a job.
Easily.
No problem.
So that's what I would tell your deadbeat son.
All right.
Thank you for the question.
And thanks everybody for watching and listening.
Godspeed.
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